From Our Windsor.ca: In 2010 or so I bought my first e-reader. A Kobo. I was intrigued by the idea of an e-reader; I thought it might be convenient. But I equivocated — should I buy a Kobo? Or a Kindle? Kindle was associated with the growing bookseller Amazon, the Kobo with the Canadian company … Read more
From The Illusion of More: YouTubers call it the adpocalypse. It’s a word is used to describe the steady erosion of YouTube’s support for small and independent creators by demoting or demonetizing their channels in favor of more traditional, mainstream material. Julia Alexander at the The Verge wrote in April of this year … “Between 2011 and 2015, YouTube was a … Read more
From The Book Designer: I continue our saga about a new upload of a self-pub book to the standard folks. What if you haven’t done this in the last couple of years? What’s new? I discussed the Amazon Kindle print book/ebook in some detail in my last post, which was Publishing Your Book is Changing on … Read more
From The Verge: The platform was built on the backs of independent creators, but now YouTube is abandoning them for more traditional content. . . . . Aanny Philippou is mad. He’s practically standing on top of his chair as his twin brother and fellow YouTube creator Michael stares on in amusement. Logan Paul, perhaps … Read more
From The New Yorker: Late last month, the author Kosoko Jackson withdrew the publication of his début young-adult novel, “A Place for Wolves,” which had been slated for a March 26th release. The book, which follows two American boys as they fall in love against the backdrop of the Kosovo War, had garnered advance praise(“a … Read more
From Vox: Book publishing has a fact-checking problem, and that problem might have just caught up with former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson. Abramson’s highly anticipated new book, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts, is scheduled to publish at the beginning of February, but advance copies have begun to … Read more
From Kristine Kathryn Rusch: For years now, I’ve done a year-end review, examining what happened and where the industry stands. . . . . I wrote down lists and links and reviewed notes and thought long and hard about things…and still couldn’t figure out how to wrap my arms around what I wanted to talk … Read more
From Medium: I’m trying to remember when it was last this crazy at work. Before we spent a month fighting poor planning and terrible execution on the publication of our new book It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy At Work. Was it when we got DDoS’ed over two days and were fighting to keep Basecamp on the … Read more
From Kristine Kathryn Rusch: One of the comments I heard the most at this year’s Business Master Class was a bit wistful. And the comment usually came in a discussion about something else. I sure would like to get to the place where I can do what you folks do: where I can write what I … Read more
When the web started, I used to get really grumpy with people because they put my poems up. They put my stories up. They put my stuff up on the web. I had this belief, which was completely erroneous, that if people put your stuff up on the web and you didn’t tell them to … Read more
From The Book Designer: Are you curious about all of the changes going on at CreateSpace and seeing new offerings being announced at Kindle Direct Publishing? I have been, too. I will admit that I have not paid as much attention to KDP Print as I should have. I have been happy with CreateSpace for … Read more
From The New York Times: Barnes & Noble is in trouble. You hear that, in worried tones, when you talk to people in the book business. You feel it when you walk into one of the chain’s stores, a cluttered mix of gifts, games, DVDs (DVDs?) and books. And you really see the problems if … Read more
From Digital Book World: The news of Apple rebranding the iBooks Store to Apple Books, and preparing a fresh new entry in the digital publishing landscape, is welcome. Apple’s bookstore, much like many other parts of the company these days, has suffered from neglect. The store, as it is currently, evokes a vision of tumbleweed … Read more
From Kristine Kathryn Rusch: I’ve been trying to get my arms around what’s going on with traditional publishing for about a week and a half. I have varied reports from other writers, still working traditionally. I have been perusing back issues of Publishers Weekly, looking at other news sources, and reading some of my list serves. … Read more
From The New Yorker: In Webster County, Nebraska, the prairie rolls in waves, following the contours of a tableland gouged by rivers and creeks. At the southern edge of the county, a few hundred feet north of the Nebraska-Kansas border, is a six-hundred-acre parcel of land called the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie. Cather spent much of her … Read more
From Dean Wesley Smith: Well, I spent the last two nights going back and trying to update and then even fisk my own post from five years ago about pricing. What a fool’s errand. The post was so out of date, I just kept shaking my head in amazement and wondering who wrote it. I … Read more
From Medium: I would like to tell you about the biggest lie in book publishing. It appears in the biographies and social media profiles of almost every working “author” today. It’s the word “best seller.” This isn’t about how The New York Times list is biased (though it is). This isn’t about how authors buy … Read more
From Kristine Kathryn Rusch: As I write this in early January, fourth quarter numbers for all big businesses are just starting to trickle in. The whining about 2016 has commenced, some of it justified, some of it not. The numbers aren’t just in for the major publishers; the numbers are in for indie writers as … Read more
Thoughts from an agent. A literary agent. Not a travel agent. We already know what happened to those. Excerpts: Literary agents stand at a crossroads, and the vista in every direction is cloudy. On the one hand, publishers – the buyers – are fewer and more selective. On the other, many authors – the sellers … Read more