Who Has Time For Publishing’s 'Long Tail'?

‘Sales Are Down For Most Authors’ Sales are down for most authors. You don’t see blog posts about it or tweets, but it’s a reality. And the reason is simple: there’s more content out there than ever before. That’s the self-publishing  author-turned-publisher Bob Mayer in a blog post at Digital Book World (DBW), The Content… Read More

UK author income survey: Another publishing bombshell

The topic of our Friday #FutureChat this week, 11 July, will be the ALCS survey news. Join us live on Twitter at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, 8 a.m. Los Angeles, 5 p.m. Berlin, 3 p.m. GMT. Brace for impact The key survey revelations commissioned by the UK’s Authors’ Licensing & Collection… Read More

That Tug Of War Over Your Book Fetish

Did we throw over email and go back to envelopes and stamps? No. And we’re not going to see ebooks go into “a decline.” eReading is not just a silly fad that will fall apart and leave us grasping for “good old books.” eBooks and other electronic, networked book-forms eventually will come into their own and will finally be the standard. Read More

When They Talk About You at #DBW14: You're Branded

This is why Hugh Howey talks of self-publishing authors being “maniacally focused” on their readers. Those writers are doing it without even the apparatus and muscle of publishing houses. They’re conquering that fan-fulfillment challenge one reader at a time—a reader earned must be a reader retained. Read More

#DBW14 – The Biz of Books

As Digital Book World has moved to capitalize on its survivor status since O’Reilly Media closed TOC, one of the first headliners announced was Tim O’Reilly, himself, who’ll be onstage on Tuesday morning (10:40 a.m. ET) with a presentation titled “The Real Book Revolution is Just Beginning.” Read More

Do All Conference Roads Lead to Writers Now?

By Porter Ander­son | @Porter_Anderson Ether for Authors: Do All Conference Roads Lead to Writers Now? [dropcap style=”flat” size=”5″]T[/dropcap]he centricity of the entrepreneurial writer in publishing circles still comes and goes as a focus these days. We’re in the early days, yes. But Jon Fine’s line about starting with the author as customer and working backward… Read More

Conference Connoisseurship

Writing on the Ether is a collection of news and perspectives on publishing. It is written by journalist and critic Porter Anderson for Jane Friedman and it appears at JaneFriedman.com each Thursday. Sponsorship opportunities are available and offer generous promotion. Join us on Tuesdays at Ed Nawotka’s and Frankfurt Book Fair’s Publishing Perspectives for the new Ether for Authors column. Read More

Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com

It’s springtime for Amazon, and there’s more than one evolving new slant on the massive retailer in play at the moment. Between the monkey chatter and the growls of slow-moving traditionalists, hear it? A skip in the usual drumbeats. A new syncopation in the publishing jungle. Read More

Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com

In a week of sometimes rancorous debate about the actions of the U.S. Department of Justice and the responses from sued publishers, an initially zany-disaster mode has darkened into a more serious tone. It’s a time when no one seems able to just be quiet. Read More