BANNER ADS FOR INDEPENDENT AUTHORS ARE "Set Your Own Price".
ALL OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES, please contact click.for.email for information.
I’ve got to make some decisions about this enterprise soon. I’ve got to decide if I really want to continue pouring time, effort, and money into continuing to promote books, especially since nobody seems much interested in helping, not the authors, not the publishers, not the audience. Speaking of audience, we’ve got a pretty good [...]
Why should someone consider reading your novel?–that’s the question you as an author need to answer when soliciting an agent, a publisher, a reading audience…or me. Instead of “check out my book,” do tell me why you think your book stands out as a book I really, really should want to read.
When you, author, ask [...]
There’s one major publisher who, lately, I’m purposely featuring their book catalog. That publisher is Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. What I find so very encouraging about their present catalog is that I have yet to find one book that isn’t worth a good, solid look and, usually, is definitely worth buying and reading, cover-to-cover, too. Their [...]
REPRINT FROM MY FACEBOOK POST:
VERY interesting article for everyone on any side of the table–authors, publishers, readers, booksellers. I love this: ‘“The sense of entitlement of the American consumer is absolutely astonishing,” said Douglas Preston.’ I have to agree. As to going elsewhere, that’s true ANYWAY. But readers love to read. There’s no other experience quite like absorbing and living the written word. TV/movies don’t do it. Video games don’t either. And if you decide not to buy, but get it from the library, that’s just fine.
The article I’m referring to is this one: E-Book Price Increase May Stir Readers’ Passions (Opens in new tab)
I have much more to say about this, but not now. Right now I have to get a brochure done.
Book authors, PLEASE, before you publish, do:
- Get expert help critiquing, editing, and proofing your book
- Get expert help critiquing and proofing your cover, back cover, spine, and flaps
It’s too late once it’s gone to print.
Make it the best it can be.
Finding good books and their authors is always a pleasure. It is delightful to discover some previously unknown (by me) book that is well-written, well-presented, and well worth the effort it takes to build a feature article about it. Of course, each featured book takes at least an hour to prepare (maybe I’m just slow), running down and, in many cases, preparing the cover image, the excerpt, and the author’s bio- and mug shot. Then, of course, there’s finding the reviews, the book’s promotional blurb and buy link, plus the author’s website, if any. It’s often somewhat like a treasure hunt, because independent authors especially lack the knowledge and wherewithal to properly present their works.
I’d like to change that. I’d like authors to understand all the benefits of providing the materials needed so that we can properly vet their books and, if worthy, feature them, but all in good time. Meanwhile, I’m thrilled with the quality of work I’m able to dig up, even if it is sometimes extremely difficult to get all the elements of the presentation pulled together.
Continue reading about Good Books & Authors are Always a Pleasure
Here’s the upside of POD…and self-publishing, too. The books can, until the death of the author, and even beyond, always be available. That’s a good thing for readers, especially readers like me who like to return to reread books they’ve read a long time ago. With books which I unthinkingly gave away when my bookshelves threatened to take the house down and with books published by the major publishers going out of print faster and faster, POD and self-publishing offer an excellent way for books to stay in print forever. The reader wins.
How many of you get tired of being bombarded by emails, tweats, and messages asking you to pay attention to the latest, greatest “whatsit” from “whosit”? I know I do. I know that the more often that someone insists that I look at something, the more likely I am to ban the source of those persistent announcements. It’s one of the reasons why TV is gone from our home–the saturation of commercial content. (The other was, of course, lousy programs.) It’s one of the reasons I cherish our server razor, my junkmail application, and my delete/remove buttons on various Net applications.
Getting attention for one’s product, service, or event is getting tougher and tougher these days simply because we’re all overwhelmed by the volume of publicity announcements delivered to us–the “look-at-this/look-at-me” missives. So we “turn off,” which means we dump messages, emails, and add the persistent sources of these pesky requests for attention to our ignore/block/ban lists. What’s sad is that many of these requests come from sources who are worthy of our attention. Their problem? They’re too insistent. Once is enough, thank you.
I’m going to pick on a literary magazine as an example. Narrative Magazine flooded me with almost daily emails, begging my attention to their every feature, from cartoons (I like them.) to their brain teasers (*Yawn.*) to their poetry (I don’t like most of it.) to their stories (Saturated angst with a distasteful self-indulgent style and predictable perspective–nothing original there, thanks.) Almost daily. I put up with it for awhile, because I thought that what they were doing for literature, despite it not being literature that was quite “my cup of tea,” was good.
The first year wasn’t too bad. I would get occasional emails and sometimes I even clicked. They had good interviews with agents and editors behind the scenes and, once or twice, a story I actually enjoyed. Then they began getting desperate, I guess. Their emails came in too often, sometimes three and four times a week. And that’s when I turned them off…as I’m sure others have, too. The more someone insists that I pay attention, flooding me with daily or even every other day notices that demand I pay attention, the more inclined I am to ignore them completely, even ban them from my life. In busy lives, no one needs a pest who persistently demands one’s attention.
Which gets me to the point of this post–passive versus invasive advertising of products, services, and events. Whether you’re a radio personality, a writer with a new release, a company with a product or service, folks don’t need you hammering them with your message. The best advertising is designed so that, yes, people become aware of your existence, but, otherwise, only find you when they need or want you and yours. You really do yourself and what you produce a disservice when you pound folks over the head with constant demands for their attention.
There’s a lot of discussion across the Net, in periodicals, in conferences about “the future of publishing.” I read and listen to these varying opinions and projections, from agents to readers, from CEOs to writers seeking publication, with keen interest. What I glean from them all is that everybody sits on one of two fences–fear and loathing to hope and optimism.
What I think:
- Brick and mortar stores devoted to books alone will become completely extinct.
- Book machines capable of reproducing any book and periodical in print and out-of-print will become a common feature in most big retail stores, including supermarkets.
- Online (e)book buying will be the norm, purchases locally from retail outlets sporting book machines limited to instances where a buyer wants a hard copy and has to have it now (for a gift, because they forgot to order it, or simply on impulse).
- Local libraries will vanish. Online libraries will flourish, controlled by a few major enterprises and accessible for free or for a minimal fee. These online libraries will offer eBooks, not bound volumes.
- Text books for students will be in e-format only.
- Major publishing will survive, but might become a subsidiary of companies like Wal-Mart. Its focus will remain and even accelerate toward publishing non-fiction informational, political, and self-help as well as books by and about celebrities and the notorious, be they the famous or the infamous. Fiction will become a smaller fraction of big publishers’ catalogs, limited to those works which prove a solid public entertainment draw and can attract the attention of major movie interests.
- Within two to five years, eBooks will become the prevalent book format, hard copy, though available (again, through book machines) a rare commodity (which is good for trees, of course
). - Small presses and publishers will retain their own level of market share, increasing it or decreasing it based upon their luck as well as their skill in attracting both quality authors and the attention of consumers.
- Independent authors will remain marginalized. Those independents which gain a significant following will be offered contracts by mainstream publishers directly related to their popularity.
- Most people will “write a book,” but fewer than ever will make a living doing it. Books will be “a dime a dozen,” quite literally, and “author” will become synonymous with “everybody.”
- In the future, fiction-based books and movies will “star” the reader’s choice as the protagonist(s)/antagonist(s), produced that way using computers which instantly insert reader choices into the product–virtual participation taken to its next level.
- Ultimately, reading will be a pursuit of few, book machines and e-readers disappearing as books and ebooks become extinct as a profitable commodity, completely usurped by a virtual reality, vicarious immersion experience.
Why do I think this? The economic benefits of stimulating increased consumer gratification coupled with saving resources (space, raw materials, time, and money).
