Andrew McEwan's Blog: Words Are the Gravy On the Mashed Potato of Life - Posts Tagged "underpants"
The Roast Chicken Test
What makes a book a success? Great writing? Sparkling originality? Or how many copies it shifts? The latter as far as mainstream publishing is concerned. Clearly a beef of mine, granted, but in the spirit of smug fuckyouality I have designed a clever flow chart to demonstrate 'publisher thinking'. If I was truly clever of course I could somehow magic this up here by means of HTML. Maybe. As I'm not I shall leave it to your own devices - pen, paper, or your imagination. Anyway, the chart flows like this.
How Publishers Think or The Roast Chicken Test.
|
Is it roast chicken?
| |
YES NO
| |
We can publish it. We can't publish it.
Everyone likes roast chicken, right?
Okay, moving on. I recently noticed a bump in my Smashwords revenue. Currently it stands at a little over $30. This is actual income. From sales of books. I dug into my sales & revenue report and yes indeed, folk out there are buying copies of Warm Refrigerator from Barnes & Noble online, mostly in the States. It can be no coincidence that this is my one title that features a detective. Detective fiction is gravy it seems. Not your usual detective novel, unsurpringly, but a tale of a man lost in Purgatory that would (nudge, hint) make a great movie. Go on, purchase it. There are ditties.
Barnes & Noble source ebooks from Smashwords. Hurray for Smashwords, I say. Unfortunately Waterstone's don't provide their users with a similar service in the UK. Which is a shame. And damn lazy if you ask me. Thus this past few days I've been having the odd dig at Waterstone's on Twitter. Hey, you don't want to be on my Shit List. An author spurned and all that. Then again I'm not one to hold a grudge...
This coming Weds I'm off for a Direct Access Gastroscopy. Not worried by this, but I'm no great lover of hospitals. Indeed I once threw up at reception in a A&E. Such experiences are meat and drink to the bard, naturally. And one should embrace all aspects of the human condition. Worst case scenario is I am a condenmed man. Far more likely, however, that I will get to trudge on indefinitely in the service of words.
Veg with that?
How Publishers Think or The Roast Chicken Test.
|
Is it roast chicken?
| |
YES NO
| |
We can publish it. We can't publish it.
Everyone likes roast chicken, right?
Okay, moving on. I recently noticed a bump in my Smashwords revenue. Currently it stands at a little over $30. This is actual income. From sales of books. I dug into my sales & revenue report and yes indeed, folk out there are buying copies of Warm Refrigerator from Barnes & Noble online, mostly in the States. It can be no coincidence that this is my one title that features a detective. Detective fiction is gravy it seems. Not your usual detective novel, unsurpringly, but a tale of a man lost in Purgatory that would (nudge, hint) make a great movie. Go on, purchase it. There are ditties.
Barnes & Noble source ebooks from Smashwords. Hurray for Smashwords, I say. Unfortunately Waterstone's don't provide their users with a similar service in the UK. Which is a shame. And damn lazy if you ask me. Thus this past few days I've been having the odd dig at Waterstone's on Twitter. Hey, you don't want to be on my Shit List. An author spurned and all that. Then again I'm not one to hold a grudge...
This coming Weds I'm off for a Direct Access Gastroscopy. Not worried by this, but I'm no great lover of hospitals. Indeed I once threw up at reception in a A&E. Such experiences are meat and drink to the bard, naturally. And one should embrace all aspects of the human condition. Worst case scenario is I am a condenmed man. Far more likely, however, that I will get to trudge on indefinitely in the service of words.
Veg with that?
Words Are the Gravy On the Mashed Potato of Life
...there may be lumps in either or both.
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