In the past few weeks, Rick Santorum has chalked up some huge victories (MN, MO and CO) with virtually no money or resources. All he had was a tailored message. The parallels to successful self-publishing became obvious. [more...]
Really, eBook Deniers. Really?
While I was at Digital Book World this week, an paidContent.org put out an article titled, E-Book Bummer: Growth Slower Than Thought—‘Incremental, Not Exponential. Of course Twitter blew up with authors and publishers retweeting it. If you read the numbers in any reasonable way, you’ll see that the headline is totally misleading.
In 2011, the number of book buyers who also purchased an e-book rose increased by 17% compared to 9% in 2010. Because some unnamed (or made up) generic industry people hoped for an increase of 25%-30% , this growth suddenly becomes incremental? If the U.S. economy grew at this rate, we’d be enjoying the boom of all booms.
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Tweet Pollution
Like most people, I follow people / companies on Twitter so that I can get interesting links and learn relevant tidbits about topics I enjoy. However, I’m so over following those who want to blow up my Twitter feed with [...]
Another Indie Author Featured in New York Times
Congratulations to Jeffery Sharlach, author of the soon-to-be-released novel, Running in Bed. He’s featured in today’s New York Times. The full [more...]
I Love Me Some Fiction
That’s what the American public said in 2011. Fiction (novels, to be exact) has climbed from 67% of the titles in USA TODAY’s weekly top 150 in 2007 to 78% in 2011. The USA TODAY weekly top 150 list lists the 150 best-selling books every week in the U.S.
The #1 reason I love that is because my company owns Fiction.com and we’re launching a site in late 2012 that will hopefully push that percentage up even more. Details soon. To really be in the now, just go to Fiction.com and enter your [more...]
The Argument for An SEO Website Part Deux
Having a search engine optimized (SEO) website should be a cornerstone for any author’s online media strategy. I’ve already posted something very similar to this back in August 2011. So, why am I preaching to you again five months later? [...]
William Morrow Scolds Bloggers
The bigger a company is the more arrogant it becomes. And, the idiot-to-intelligent-person ratio spreads like lice at a nursery school. Everything about William Morrow (including the name) screams elitist jerk. If I was a book blogger, which I’m not (I’m barely a blogger at all), I would tell William Morrow to suck it. [more...]
Yes Virginia, There is Santa Claus for Books
Forget about whether you’ve been naughty or nice. As long as you have an ebook version of your book, Santa has a gift for you. It’s called “people LOVE ereaders.” The cheaper they become, the more people want them. The [...]
Occupy Amazon?
Watching the Occupy Insert-Big-City-Name-Here protests, got me thinking: “What if all of the angry, independent authors out there started an Occupy Amazon movement?” It’s now trendy to make a homemade sign, throw on some dirty clothes, rumble run down to wherever protestors congest traffic in your town, and fight “The Man.”
Amazon.com is the Bank of America of book selling. Unlike choosing another bank, independent authors don’t have many viable options for distribution to the masses. Yes, in theory, authors can sell books and ebooks on a number of sites like BN.com, etc. But, at the end of the day, there’s Amazon and there’s everyone else. If your book isn’t on Amazon, in many ways it doesn’t really exist.
Banks have smartly made switching to another bank a huge pain in the ass. I think my bank sucks, but I don’t think it sucks enough to upload all of my automatic bill pay information to another bank. Amazon has made it nearly impossible to not have your book for sale on its site. Until Amazon gets hit [more...]
Saddest Author Meeting Ever
The head of the sales department for our self-publishing division, Michelle Brown, had a potential author meeting today in our conference room. Halfway through her meeting, Michelle came into my office and asked for help, like a cop calling in for backup. We had a Publishing Code Red: an author who had a terrible experience with another self-publishing company, and who was using the meeting mostly to vent at someone.
A few minutes later, I came into the conference room and introduced myself to the 70+ year old man called Jim (not his real name). He had published his novel in 2009 with a company that I consider one of the worst publishers in the universe (let’s call them Bullshit Press). Bullshit Press didn’t do anything that probably crossed any legal boundaries. What they did do was convince Jim that for
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