David Gaughran's Blog, page 17

How To Increase Piracy

I’m working on the 2nd edition of Let’s Get Digital this month and I thought it might be fun to share some of the ideas I’m sketching out. The following excerpt is part of the chapter on piracy (about a third of it, if you’re counting).

There’s more details on Digital 2 (and other releases) at the end of this post, but let me open with a disclaimer: authors are entitled to take whatever approach they like to piracy. It’s their stuff.

That said, I’d like to see if I can convince some of you to a...

A Writer’s Guide To Hustlers, Harlots and Heroes

Oneof themost popular postsherein 2012 was from author Krista D. Ball who had just released What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank.

It was a brilliant book – a writers’ guide, a cookbook, and a history of food all rolled into one. Anyone who read it will be delighted to hear that Krista is back with the follow-up Hustlers, Harlots, and Heroes: A Regency and Steampunk Field Guide.

It’s another treasure trove of useful information and fascinating stories (for readers and writers alike).

Chapters like Wh...

Thinking Inside The Box: Building Audience With Bundles

After my marketing post last month, I promised afollow up on box sets.In fact, I’ve gone onebetter and invited Phoenix Sullivan to do a guest post on the topic.

Today is perfect timing actually because we have just launched SINS OF THE PAST: 5 Historical Novels of Mystery, War and Adventure – just 99c at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo (Apple soon!):

For those that don’t know Phoenix, she’s a self-published author who also runs her own publishing company – Steel Magnolia Press – together with r...

15 Ways To Improve KDP – Progress Report

The London Book Fair is underway again which makes it a perfect time to review the list of suggestions I presented to KDP last year.

As regular readers will know, I crowd-sourced a list of feature requests, bug fixes, and common problems via my blog and the most popular self-publisher hangout, Kboards.

The KDP reps at the Fair spent a great deal of time going through your list of suggestions. They asked for clarification at various points and I was able to follow up with them by email afterward...

The Great E-book Pricing Question

There’s more guff written about pricing than almost anything else, resulting in an extremely confusing situation for new self-publishers. I often see them pricing too low or too high, and the decision is rarely made the right way, i.e. ascertaining their goals and pricing accordingly.

Price/value confusion

Before we get to the nuts-and-bolts, it’s time to slay a zombie meme. Much of the noise on this issue springs from conflating two concepts, namely price and value.

Authors often say something...

Publishers Weekly Ignores The Real Scandal At LA Times Festival of Books

Publishers Weekly whipped up a storm on Wednesday with news of a deal between Amazon and the LA Times Festival of Books, resulting in calls for the publishing community to boycott the event. But Publishers Weekly is ignoring the real scandal.

Amazon isn’t listed as a sponsor or scheduled to appear. The “deal” in question pertains to the LA Times Festival of Books signing up as an Amazon affiliate so they can earn a percentage from sales made through their website. Mary Williams, of Skylight Bo...

IndieReCon – Free Online Conference Starts Next Week

There’s a free, online self-publishing conference taking place next week.

It’s the second year of IndieReCon, and they have an action-packed schedule filled with all sorts of great stuff – a mixture of posts, vlogs, webinars, as well as the opportunity to drill deeper into the various topics with a series of online and Twitter chats.

The fun kicks off next Tuesday, Feb 25 at 10:00 (EST) and runs until Thursday, Feb 27 at 22:00 (EST).

I have all the details below from one of the co-founders, SR (...

A Victory Against Author Solutions

It should be clear to everyone now that Penguin Random House has no intention of cleaning up Author Solutions.

The only development since Penguin purchased the company for $116m back in July 2012 is that Author Solutions has aggressively expanded operations (see here, here, here, here and here).

I’ve been covering the Author Solutions story for a while now – particularly since the Penguin purchase, which was met with disbelief in the author community. It’s a frustrating beat, especially when f...

Fake Controversy Alert: Hitler’s Mein Kampf Was Not A Digital Bestseller

A juicy story broke last week, the kind that makes savvy sub-editors salivate over potential Twitter-bait headlines.

It had been discovered that Hitler’s pre-war memoir Mein Kampfwas a digital bestseller, leading to a global bout of media hand-wringing and pontificating. One excitable commentator even suggested it was a sign the second Holocaust was imminent.

The only problem with this story is that it’s not true. At all.

Hitler’s “bestselling” performance was first reported by Chris Faraone at...

Astroturfing: The Source of Zombie Memes in Publishing?

Why are there so many zombie memes in publishing? Why is there so much groupthink? It might be because the industry isn’t particularly diverse. Or it could be that book-lovers are nostalgic types who are automatically wary of change.

But I suspect it’s astroturfingby the publishing establishment, a practice admitted to last month by YS Chi, chairman of Elsevier and president of the International Publishers Association, in paragraph six of this article.

For the click-lazy, here’s the money quote...