Sinking Into The Pubslush Years into publishing’s encounter with the digital dynamic, it’s not as if anything is holding still, is it? A kind of heaving grace is about the best you can find on some days in this deeply shaken, tech-swept industry. Every other week, my colleague Jane Friedman and I find ourselves looking… Read More
#MusicForWriters: Jodie Landau In Iceland, Romancing ‘You’
you of all things by Jodie Landau and wild Up ‘You’re The Choice I Make’ Let me offer you some artful goosebumps. This is a man at 23 speaking to you about what happens when he sings his music: All of my pieces are from the “I” perspective sung to “you.” And while it is… Read More
Nielsen's #KidsBookSummit: Nobody Said YA Books Aren’t For Teens
When The Medium’s Message Gets Rough It was an odd turnabout in the annual Nielsen Children’s Conference. Led by Kristen McLean—among the most respected people in the business of quantifying and evaluating the young person’s reading scene—the conference was a crackling success. Smartly produced at New York’s pristine Convene Center in Lower Manhattan on a… Read More
Age, Surveys, And Income: The Authors Guild’s View
‘Only One Piece Of The Puzzle’ Subsequent to our report on the Authors Guild’s release of results from its 2015 Member Survey, I’ve invited the Guild to provide some interpretation of how it sees the release of its “The Wages of Writing” survey results. In response, I have this explanation of the survey exercise, and I want to… Read More
The Authors Guild Survey’s Self-Selected Sample: More Fuel On The Fire?
First, The Bad News While some parts of the Authors Guild’s survey of writers’ income had been released earlier, the writer-advocacy organization has now produced its full report. The news, while not shocking to anyone near the publishing business, is nevertheless troubling. Some initial results, and then a bit of discussion follows. Writing-related income of… Read More
AuthorEarnings: Brought To You By Us, Your Breathless Media
My Hype Is Better Than Your Hype Sometimes it seems that almost no one in the publishing industry can deliver a message without a sticky gloss of agenda-laden hype on it. The latest AuthorEarnings report, prepared by the author Hugh Howey and his technologist colleague known as “Data Guy,” is a good case in point. Rather than opening… Read More
This Week’s Nielsen’s Children’s Book Summit: Research Over Guesswork
When Your Reader Is Not Your Customer Most kids aren’t choosing and buying their own books. Parents are the ones at the cash register, right? Of course right. But think about the marketing challenge: are you trying to reach the kid? Or the parent? Don’t be too quick to think you know the answer. As publishing… Read More
Crowdfunding As An Antidote To Vanity Publishing: Colborne and Pubslush Join Forces
‘All The Backend Experience’ “The conversation was along the lines of ‘Pubslush has the marketing smarts that Colborne needs, and Colborne has all the backend experience that Pubslush is short on.’” Toronto’s Greg Ioannou was one of the very few people not surprised last week, as news got around that his company and author-crowdfunder Pubslush… Read More
Could Amazon Exclusivity Be Good For The Future Of eBooks?
‘The Absolute Best Experience For Readers’ Here’s an argument we don’t hear frequently for the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select programs. I’m ensuring the best possible reader experience with ebooks. This is the soon-to-be-seafaring author Hugh Howey, who says that there’s something more important than the doubling of his overall income since Amazon instituted per-page payouts… Read More
Reader Analytics: Not All Authors Want To Know
Your Soul Vs. Data? When Jellybooks’ Andrew Rhomberg wrote at Digital Book World recently about publishers having a Fear of Data in an age of digital metrics, I thought that taking that issue to authors would be a worthwhile exercise. And I tried it out on some trusted colleagues by making it the “Provocations in… Read More