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“I’m a reader, I have identified a book that I would like to read, and I want it now.”

Throughout most of the centuries that manuscripts have been set in type and bound into books, the sequence of thoughts expressed above would have framed an immense impossibility. Books were far away and difficult to find. In the twentieth-century, the spread of libraries and corner book stores brought books closer to us, and by the 1940s drugstores and groceries began to offer racks of paperbacks. The system worked best in cities and towns, not so well in isolated rural communities. Even […]

There’s an interesting comment by Nathan Bransford at the end of the epic On Agents and Editors thread.  He says,

I think what you mean is that authors and publishers should take a chance on writers they believe in and hope the public gradually catches on over the course of many books. I agree with that, and sometimes this works out. But you can blame (in part) bookstore chains for this disappearance. With few exceptions they base their orders strictly on what the last book sold. It’s incredibly hard to get them to stock and promote an author whose first

I’m gearing up to finish and release my novel.  Note: anyone waiting for reviews, sorry for the extra delay, as I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, revising my novel and putting it together.  I’m still reading and reviewing, just not as quickly.

My cover designer has come up with two different covers.  I’m not going to give a synopsis because I’m curious what people think on a basic browsing-on-the-internet level.  Please vote below.

The interview with Nathan Bransford @ Alan Rinzler’s blog has a couple of very fascinating comments. The first is a comment from someone who goes by AE, without a link to a homepage:

The statement about agents becoming the tastemakers is hopeful, at best, and obviously smeared in self interest. No agent wants to accept their demise. What is more likely is that editors will simply band together and form a brand of their own and through this brand the electronic works will be siphoned and accordingly, stamped with approval.

This is inevitable because the publishing houses will disappear as

Fact: It’s incredibly hard to sell a self-published book, especially self-published fiction.  Opinion: this doesn’t matter.

There’s a post on Janet Reid’s blog today calling out writers who mention they’ve been published by AuthorHouse, iUniverse, etc. because this implies that they haven’t sold a lot of books.  The point I make there in the comments section is that sales figures shouldn’t be the main determining factor in taking on a writer, but unfortunately it is.  As I write about in this blog post, a self-published writer shouldn’t be judged on the ability to sell 5000 books via Lulu.  The […]

If you haven’t been following this story, there’s been a minor dust up at South by Southwest in a panel about publishing.  The basic gist: publishers are holding onto the past model of publishing, while there are new ways to determine if a writer will find a readership.  William Aicher, a self-published writer, has one of the best posts and discussions on the topic.

The  ultimate “New Think” for the publishing industry that I’ve been pushing both in book publishing, as well as in the music publishing industry is to change the mindset that publishers are in charge and

In March 2008, I delivered a lecture on Print on Demand publication to a creative writing class at the University of Newcastle in Australia. Adjusting for scale and for regional habits of reading and writing, much of what I said applies to the United States, England, and others of the more literate and technologically-advanced countries of the world. Here, updated, is that lecture.

The Declining Value of the Traditional Book

In June, 2007, my wife and I spent a day in the New York offices of McGraw-Hill, the publisher of a university textbook that we have edited for thirty-five years. […]