Great Article on The State of Publishing Industry

Thursday, August 16, 2012

... The publishing industry and it is a business first and foremost...

reat article in Forbes about the current state of publishing and the digital revolution by David Vinjamuri.

Must read article that covers the state of publishing and does so with precision.

Some added thoughts.

Brad Thor thinks if you’re good enough, you’ll find an agent and a publisher. He fails to take into consideration the “luck” factor, as well as the benefits of self-publishing for niche markets or mid-list type authors. His mindset is NYT bestseller list and it shows.

As Vinjamuri writes, “most new authors who make it through the arduous process of finding both an agent and a publisher are surprised to learn that it is the author who is responsible for marketing and promoting his or her own work.”

Until, and if, you break out, you’re on your own. So why go with a traditional publisher?

He’s correct when he says the amazon rating system has become useless. It’s impossible to trust them. There are too many faked reviews. People who give five star ratings when they never read the book or only do so to curry favours. There are also the vindictive reviews meant to sabotage the competition.

Read the article here.

Posted 2012/08/16 at 12h19ET in Publishing.

Comments

Please, Please, Please, No More

Saturday, October 8, 2011 ... what is the best way to start your novel ... C ount them. One. Two. I downloaded two thriller e-books from amazon.com, both published by the author, and they both started the same way: the character waking up and going about some morning ritual. Both books were in the top 100 bestsellers of Mystery & Thrillers Fiction. Both had many positive reviews. Those facts seemed encouraging, but once I read the opening scene, I stopped. I did not continue. But James that seems harsh? Perhaps, yes, but the writer is sending a signal with such an opening. It says, I have more to learn about writing thrillers for today’s audience. Why do I say that? Because a waking-up scene is mundane. It’s ordinary. It happens to us everyday. We don’t read thrillers for the mundane and ordinary. We read them for the extraordinary. We read them to live vicariously through the characters. We read them to be entertained. There is nothing in those waking-up scenes th...

Analysis of Amazon E-book Fiction Bestsellers (Week #1)

Sunday, October 30, 2011 ... trying to make sense of the amazon bestsellers and pricing for e-books ... E ach hour Amazon updates its bestsellers lists. I have taken a daily snapshot of the top 20 bestsellers in the e-book fiction list for the past week. See here . What can be learnt from these data? 1. 4 out 5 of the bestsellers are from print or traditional authors. Most are brand-named authors who dominate the print bestsellers. 2. Almost all of the authors have multiple titles to their credit. The author of The Help is a notable exception. 3. The e-book prices of indie authors are substantially lower than print authors. For the most part, their titles are priced at $0.99. 4. The books on the list fall into four categories: (i) pre-release from brand-named authors, (ii) new or recently released titles (iii) long-term bestsellers (greater than one year), (iv) backlist titles. Indie authors fall into (ii) and (iv). 5. The indie authors includes authors who ...

Checked Off

Sunday, April 11, 2010 ... one To Do is off the list ... I recently completed a task that was completely irrational. It was a fixture on my To-Do list because I always put it off. This week I decided to change that. I dug through my files of sketches and drawings and scanned them into my computer. A simple concept, sure, but tedious and time consuming. I suggest wearing latex gloves or buying hand lotion, but maybe that's a personal choice...Anyway, I now have a folder with 1.2 GBs of JPEG and PSD files. Here's an example from 1992. Right, where's that To-Do list? I want to sketch a line on it. Posted 2010/04/11 at 13h54ET in JamesPiper.com.

James Piper, Author

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