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The New World of Publishing: A Return to the Past
A Look Back at January 11, 2011 That’s right, I wrote the following post on January 11, 2011, talking some about the coming war between writers and the problems with the future of agents. I was looking back at some old posts to clean them out and stumbled on this and was stunned. I remember warning people of the coming war between writers and getting laughed at. Not sure anyone is laughing anymore, sadly. Take a look back at 2011. Anything I put in (Bold Italics is a comment I have added tonight.) ———— Okay, time to talk about agents and their future in this changing world. Mary Kole, who…
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Year End Summary of Writing in Public: Year One
Year End Summary of this Writing in Public challenge. Not even sure where to begin this summary to be honest. I’ve post all the different categories I count and monthly and yearly totals below, but those numbers only tell a part of the story. But let me start with the numbers first and go from there. I did (not counting comments on web sites) 1,281,675 original words in the last twelve months. 745,175 words of that was original fiction. 51,700 words of that was nonfiction. (So just under 800,000 words of fiction and nonfiction combined. More than I thought, actually.) That ended up being twelve novels and over thirty short stories…
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Writing in Public: Summary of Month 12
Month #12 Summary of this Writing in Public challenge. July 2014 I will do a year-end summary after this. So check that out. This post is only about July. Once again, as with last month, this was a pretty solid month, all things considered. Smith’s Monthly is going right along. #10 is done and will be shipping to subscribers as soon as the fine folks at WMG Publishing get back next week. And #11 will be back from the proofreader this week as well and will be out by the end of August. I finished two novels this month, including Avalanche Creek, the 12th novel of the year. So that felt great. As I…
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Think Like a Publisher: 2015… Chapter 5: Return on Investment
Chapter Five: Return on Investment As a professional writer, when I am asked by another writer what they would be better off writing, my standard and correct answer is “Anything you are passionate about. Any story that motivates you. Any topic that scares hell out of you or excites you.” And when asked “What’s the best length in this new world?” my answer has been “Whatever length the story demands.” Those are my writer-to-writer answers and they are correct. No second thoughts at all. Those answers come from the art of writing. Those answers come into play for all writers and should be followed where possible by all writers. Those…
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What About Those Numbers?
What About Those Numbers? Over at Author Earnings, Hugh Howey and Data Guy released the July sampling and talked about it. Worth the read, folks. http://authorearnings.com/july-2014-author-earnings-report/ The rest of this post is an expanded response to a question on my daily blog about what I thought about those numbers. It’s hard to argue with numbers like that, even though they are taken from only one bookstore. Yanking a sampling like that only once is an interesting thing, but having the numbers remain consistent over three samples spread six months apart is stunning and is giving the data more credibility. The idea that traditional publishing is the “only way” to publishing…
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Think Like a Publisher: 2015… Chapter Four: Production and Scheduling
Chapter 4 Production and Scheduling The first three posts in this series were designed to be a unit and help you get set up as an indie publisher. You should have a business name picked out with a web site domain reserved, understand your upfront costs and have made decisions on how to deal with those costs. Then you should have done a rough guess on income and when each project might break even. If I had to summarize those first three chapters, I would say this: “Be prepared, set up correctly, keep your costs down, and understand the possible cash flow.” So the next logical step is the…
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Think Like a Publisher: 2015… Projected Income
Chapter Three Projected Income To actually get a profit-and-loss calculation for a book project, you must now make some pricing decisions and projections of income. Yeah, I know. I know. This is all so new, how can anyone predict how much money they will make on any project? Well, you can’t. Not really. But you can try. And you want to know a dirty little secret. New York traditional publishing can’t predict how much they will make on any book either. But they try. And that’s the key. To really act like a publisher, you need to understand what you are trying to gain. You need to know how many…
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Think Like a Publisher 2015: Chapter Two… Expected Costs
Chapter Two: Expected Costs The first chapter was “The Early Decisions” which included picking a business name, setting up checking accounts, and so on. There were no real costs at all in those early steps unless your state had a small fee for registering a business name. Checking accounts are free, so are PayPal accounts, and so on. So, the question on this second basic business-planning chapter is: “What are your expected costs?” For those of you with a basic understanding of business, you can now see the structure of how I am setting up these chapters. Before starting into a business, there are certain things that need to be…
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Think Like a Publisher 2015: Chapter One… The Early Decisions
Here we go again. It’s been over four years since I wrote the first version of Think Like a Publisher. And over a year since I updated it into a 2013 edition. Stunning how time goes by. Since those first words all those years ago, the indie publishing world has gotten by the early years of the “gold rush” thinking and has now settled into a new normal that should last for years, if not decades. 2013 was the first year of that new normal. Yes, things are still changing, but massive changes are now going to take place on the traditional side as major publishers scramble for their lives. Also,…
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The New World of Publishing: A Metaphor for Publishing
A Metaphor for Publishing Here in the United States, July 4th is a major holiday. And I live on the Oregon Coast, which is a major tourist area and Highway 101 is the major highway out here that runs along the Pacific Ocean and right through the center of our little town. In fact, over July 4th (and the weekend closest to it) our little 7,000 person full-time population town swells to well over 100,000 people. It is a zoo. Locals, if not working out in the zoo, buy food ahead and go home and stay out of the way. And for some reason people think it’s cool to come here…