My blog posts about Twitter are now best covered in the ebook, Tweet Right.
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I have removed the content of this blog post because the free sample of Tweet Right covers the ground. Download it here.
Senin, 23 Agustus 2010
Minggu, 22 Agustus 2010
NETWORKING / PLATFORMS FOR AUTHORS
To all those who came to my networking/blogging/Twitter workshop/talk at the Edinburgh Book Festival today, and to those who couldn't get tickets - I plan to blog coherently and properly about each of the aspects of the topic over the next couple of weeks. It was impossible to cover everything in the time, and I'm sure lots of you went away wanting to know more about how to apply what I said to
Jumat, 20 Agustus 2010
TOP TIP 2: PAGE-TURNABILITY
It's the new mantra. Of course, lots of readers have very understandably looked for page-turnability ever since pages existed. Now, it's virtually essential if you want your book published. There are two reasons for its new necessity. The first reason may be spurious. The second is not.
Nowadays, we are told, readers don't have time to hang around.
Publishers demand page-turnability because
Nowadays, we are told, readers don't have time to hang around.
Publishers demand page-turnability because
Rabu, 18 Agustus 2010
The Changing Face of Publishing
Things seem to be happening quickly in the publishing world. Quickly and, unfortunately, not optimistically.
I'm currently in Florida, having just spoken at a mystery writer convention. They flew me here to talk about ebooks. And people were excited to hear what I had to say, both newbie authors, and professionals.
It seems like a lot of people are being dropped by their publishers. In the past week, I've personally spoken to six authors this has happened to.
I've also spoken to three authors whose publishers are releasing "enriched" ebooks of their upcoming work, involving video, interviews, and extras.
I'm sensing a shift. And this shift will likely prove fatal for many of the parties involved.
If, as I suspect, publishers are going to print fewer books, that will result in a death spiral. Fewer books printed means fewer sold in bookstores, who will no longer be able to stay open. Without bookstore orders, publishers will print even fewer books. And so on.
Publishers might be looking at enriched or enhanced ebooks as their new big-ticket items to replace hardcovers. But the major ebook retailer, Amazon, isn't set up for video. Kindle isn't even able to do color yet. That leaves Apple, and according to my numbers Apple is a very small part of the ebook market. I sell 200 ebooks a day on Kindle. On iPad, I sell 100 a month.
Enriched ebooks seem expensive, and I don't see the money pouring in yet.
But if print goes the way of the dodo, publishers will have to rely on ebooks. Plain old non-enriched ebooks. And if they keep offering authors 17.5% royalty on the cover price, they soon won't have any authors to publish. After all, authors can get 70% on their own. And it doesn't take 18 months to release it. Plus the author gets to pick the price, cover, and title.
I know an author whose book debuted on the extended NYT bestseller list, who was told that more than half of her sales were Kindle sales. If this author had self-published the title and sold it at a reasonable price (other than $9.99 set by the publisher) I bet the ebook sales would have been quadruple.
My friend Henry Perez currently has the #1 ebook on Amazon, Mourn the Living. His publisher was savvy enough to give it away for free. As a result, his first thriller, Killing Red, is selling very well, and broke the top 100 Kindle downloads. The novella we wrote together, Floaters, is also selling better than it ever has in the past 18 months.
Update: The freebie promotion for Mourn the Living has ended, and Henry is currently the #1 overall paid Kindle Bestseller. Take that, Stieg Larsson.
And yet, even though Henry kicking ebook ass, this success doesn't appear to translate to his paperback sales--they're both ranked in the 200,000s and 400,000s.
We might be looking at the beginning of the end of print.
Naturally, people are bemoaning this. Here are some of the things I've heard so often, they're becoming cliches:
A growing ebook market means a shrinking print market. Those who want print to stay had better start buying more books.
Writers also seem to be defending the status quo. Very few believe, or want to believe, that the old gatekeeping system is crumbling down. They insist that publishers will somehow adapt.
Maybe publishers will adapt. Maybe bookstores will survive. Maybe print will persevere.
But it's important to look at this coldly.
It doesn't matter what writers, publishers, readers, and bookstores say they want.
It matters what they're doing.
Right now, readers are voting with their wallets. They're making the ebook market grow at an incredible rate; up 6% in just 12 months. That's over a 200% sales increase in ebooks.
Publishers are publishing fewer books, dropping authors, and seem to be pushing forward with ebooks with no real business plan. They price their ebooks too high, give authors too small a royalty, and are adding movies that can only be played on devices that people aren't using to read on, like the iPad.
Bookstores are selling fewer and fewer books, and are trying to get into the ebook market to save themselves.
And writers, brainwashed through years of Stockholm Syndrome, continue to have faith in a broken system that seems ill-equipped to weather the oncoming tsunami.
Everyone may want things to stay the same.
But you can't always get what you want.
I'm currently in Florida, having just spoken at a mystery writer convention. They flew me here to talk about ebooks. And people were excited to hear what I had to say, both newbie authors, and professionals.
It seems like a lot of people are being dropped by their publishers. In the past week, I've personally spoken to six authors this has happened to.
I've also spoken to three authors whose publishers are releasing "enriched" ebooks of their upcoming work, involving video, interviews, and extras.
I'm sensing a shift. And this shift will likely prove fatal for many of the parties involved.
If, as I suspect, publishers are going to print fewer books, that will result in a death spiral. Fewer books printed means fewer sold in bookstores, who will no longer be able to stay open. Without bookstore orders, publishers will print even fewer books. And so on.
Publishers might be looking at enriched or enhanced ebooks as their new big-ticket items to replace hardcovers. But the major ebook retailer, Amazon, isn't set up for video. Kindle isn't even able to do color yet. That leaves Apple, and according to my numbers Apple is a very small part of the ebook market. I sell 200 ebooks a day on Kindle. On iPad, I sell 100 a month.
Enriched ebooks seem expensive, and I don't see the money pouring in yet.
But if print goes the way of the dodo, publishers will have to rely on ebooks. Plain old non-enriched ebooks. And if they keep offering authors 17.5% royalty on the cover price, they soon won't have any authors to publish. After all, authors can get 70% on their own. And it doesn't take 18 months to release it. Plus the author gets to pick the price, cover, and title.
I know an author whose book debuted on the extended NYT bestseller list, who was told that more than half of her sales were Kindle sales. If this author had self-published the title and sold it at a reasonable price (other than $9.99 set by the publisher) I bet the ebook sales would have been quadruple.
My friend Henry Perez currently has the #1 ebook on Amazon, Mourn the Living. His publisher was savvy enough to give it away for free. As a result, his first thriller, Killing Red, is selling very well, and broke the top 100 Kindle downloads. The novella we wrote together, Floaters, is also selling better than it ever has in the past 18 months.Update: The freebie promotion for Mourn the Living has ended, and Henry is currently the #1 overall paid Kindle Bestseller. Take that, Stieg Larsson.
And yet, even though Henry kicking ebook ass, this success doesn't appear to translate to his paperback sales--they're both ranked in the 200,000s and 400,000s.
We might be looking at the beginning of the end of print.
Naturally, people are bemoaning this. Here are some of the things I've heard so often, they're becoming cliches:
- I love print books
- I'll never get rid of my book collection
- I enjoy seeing a book on the shelf
- I like the tactile experience of paper
- Print books don't run out of batteries
- Ebooks hurt my eyes
- Ereaders are fragile and too expensive
- I love the smell of paper books
A growing ebook market means a shrinking print market. Those who want print to stay had better start buying more books.
Writers also seem to be defending the status quo. Very few believe, or want to believe, that the old gatekeeping system is crumbling down. They insist that publishers will somehow adapt.
Maybe publishers will adapt. Maybe bookstores will survive. Maybe print will persevere.
But it's important to look at this coldly.
It doesn't matter what writers, publishers, readers, and bookstores say they want.
It matters what they're doing.
Right now, readers are voting with their wallets. They're making the ebook market grow at an incredible rate; up 6% in just 12 months. That's over a 200% sales increase in ebooks.
Publishers are publishing fewer books, dropping authors, and seem to be pushing forward with ebooks with no real business plan. They price their ebooks too high, give authors too small a royalty, and are adding movies that can only be played on devices that people aren't using to read on, like the iPad.
Bookstores are selling fewer and fewer books, and are trying to get into the ebook market to save themselves.
And writers, brainwashed through years of Stockholm Syndrome, continue to have faith in a broken system that seems ill-equipped to weather the oncoming tsunami.
Everyone may want things to stay the same.
But you can't always get what you want.
Selasa, 17 Agustus 2010
YOUR WRITING BUSINESS - ADRIAN MEAD ADVISES
More and more, writers must be professional. Not just in terms of handing in our work to deadline and without coffee stains, but also in terms of organising and managing the various areas of our working lives. We must be business-people if we want to make a business - a living - out of writing. Are you turning away in disgust? I sympathise. Most of us became or wanted to be writers because we
Senin, 16 Agustus 2010
INTERVIEW WITH A FAB BLOGGER - TALLI ROLAND
As you may know, on August 22nd, I am doing an event at the Edinburgh Book Festival on internet presences for authors. I'm not plugging this, since it's fully booked, but I thought I'd share some of the research with you.
When I was planning the talk, I contacted several bloggers and Facebookers that I know amongst authors and asked for their experiences. When I asked Marsha Moore / Talli Roland
When I was planning the talk, I contacted several bloggers and Facebookers that I know amongst authors and asked for their experiences. When I asked Marsha Moore / Talli Roland
Selasa, 10 Agustus 2010
SYNOPSIS SPOTLIGHT - Dan Holloway
When blogging about synopses recently, I offered to post here for public comment any synopses you wanted help with. So, here is the first one. The brave writer is regular blog-reader, Dan Holloway.
I'm going to kick off by putting my own comments here first. Mainly because I'm colossally under pressure with deadlines at the moment so I may not manage to comment again in the next couple of days.
I'm going to kick off by putting my own comments here first. Mainly because I'm colossally under pressure with deadlines at the moment so I may not manage to comment again in the next couple of days.
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