-
What a Number… Shocking
WHY WOULD ANY AUTHOR GO TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED?? In the trial going on between the publishers and the government to stop the merger of two of the big five publishers, this information came out, reported on the Hot Sheet. Let me quote this exactly… “During the trial, a couple of depressing statistics were shared: of the 58,000 trade titles published per year, fully half of those titles “sell fewer than one dozen books.” (Not a typo, that’s one dozen.) More broadly, 90 percent of titles sell fewer than 2,000 units. Even a small advance of a few thousand dollars would not earn out at standard royalty rates.” Seriously?? I knew it…
-
The Buffet Challenge
Going To Be Fun and Take Time A while back I talked about trying to visit every buffet in Las Vegas and start or write a short story in each one. And also talk about the buffet in articles and blogs and put all the stories and articles together in different books. I said books (plural) for a reason. Wow, just wow are there a lot of buffets in Las Vegas. From high-end to just regular ones. I have started the research and just making a list of them seems overwhelming. Numbers of top-ten lists, but that mostly just focuses on the really high-end ones. I got a new iPad…
-
Something Really Crazy and Innovative
In Indie Book Selling I am not suggesting that anyone try this. Nope. But it was certainly fascinating to see. Started this afternoon when I drove Kris to an eye appointment that was beside a large mall here in Vegas. So I set off walking in the mall to get my 5 miles. (Yes, streak is still intact at 12 days in a row at five miles.) I was coming up a ramp in the mall and there in front of me was a small kiosk covered in books of all kinds. Nonfiction, poetry, some fiction, some coloring books, some political books, and on the lower shelf were a bunch…
-
Redoing the Post From Saturday
Figured A Lot of You Don’t Check In Here Over the Weekend… So here is Saturday’s post again about all the new stuff available and the half-price sale going on right now. Everything on WMG Teachable 50% Off! That’s right, everything. And a bunch of new stuff since the last sale. I’ll go over some of it. Go to WMG Teachable. To get the 50% off price, just hit purchase on what you would like to take, then on the next page put in the code: AugustRegularSale And hit apply and it will be 50% off. This sale lasts exactly one week. It does not include the in-person workshops, only…
-
August Regular Workshop Sale Starting!
Everything on WMG Teachable 50% Off! That’s right, everything. And a bunch of new stuff since the last sale. I’ll go over some of it. Go to WMG Teachable. To get the 50% off price, just hit purchase on what you would like to take, then on the next page put in the code: AugustRegularSale And hit apply and it will be 50% off. This sale lasts exactly one week. It does not include the in-person workshops, only everything on Teachable. New Stuff Included in the Sale! 9 Different Study-Along classes. (Also the Lifetime Subscription to Study Along Classes which is a fantastic deal even at full price. It includes…
-
Pulp Speed in Indie Publishing
Indie vs Traditional Publishing and Speed… There are still writers working today who hit Pulp Speed, or very close to it in traditional publishing. You have to be a master of the business, have an ability to write anything, and the skills to work for many publishing houses to publish that much in traditional publishing. Just do the math. Pulp Speed is about a million consumable words per year. Say you do 300,000 words in blogs, short stories, and other misc stuff, that would leave 700,000 words for traditionally published novels. That’s ten 70,000 word novels per year. I did that for about a decade during the 1990s and there…
-
September Workshops Now Available
Including new Applied Depth Workshop Yes, Applied Depth as been added to the Lifetime Workshop Subscription. And yes, just sign up for any of them on Teachable. Depth in Writing workshop is required to take the Applied Depth, plus it is suggested to take the Advanced Depth workshop before as well. Applied Depth Workshop takes the concepts of Basic Depth and then applies those concepts to all the major genres. Openings of stories and novels are different from genre to genre. And yes, basic depth tends to work, but there are techniques for each genre, reader expectations of opening for each genre, that will help you get readers of a…
-
Interesting Reaction…
…To the Free Promotions Post Last Night. Writers will pay more thousands of dollars than I want to think about to take a class on how to do paid ads on Amazon and other places from writers who have been around a year or so and have a “system.” And then spend more thousands on the ads. And then spend even more to fly to 20 to 50 Conference to learn even more methods, secrets, and systems of how to promote and make money without doing the work. Yet Amazon and the other places have free tutorials on how to do ads that work on their own site. Tutorials are…
-
Free Advertising For Writers
There Is A Lot of It… I know that so much attention is paid to the young writers who spend all the money advertising to drive a lot of buyers and all that. And they are constantly telling other young writers that is the ONLY WAY TO DO IT!! And some of them, for a time, make a lot of money if they hit the right moment with the right combination of things. And they spend a lot as well. But honestly, I hear far, far more stories of writers who try it, spend a lot, and make no sales in those gimmick ways. While a lot of us just…
-
Workshop Sale’s Last Few Hours
I’m Writing This Sunday Afternoon… Workshop half-price sale of everything on WMG Teachable is about over. It is supposed to end late tonight, but I had two people write me who said they were traveling and could I hold it open until they got back to their computers Monday morning early. I said yes, so I am telling everyone. So instead of ending tonight late it will go through noon Monday. To get the half price on anything, simply hit purchase on what you want, then on the next page put in the code: JulyRegularSale Then hit apply and you should have it half off. See yesterday’s post for the…