David Gaughran's Blog, page 29
June 25, 2011
JK Rowling Really Is Self-Publishing: A Closer Look
Now that the dust has settled a little, I would like to take some time today to examine aspects of JK Rowling's move into self-publishing.
As soon as the announcement was made, various people were tying themselves into knots to describe this as anything other than self-publishing.
"Although some are likely to see Rowling's decision to be her own publisher for her e-books as a significant one for the industry at large, Potter is a unique franchise."
That was from Publisher's Weekly. Aside from...
June 24, 2011
Print Continues Its Death Spiral
JK Rowling's announcement that she is self-publishing the Harry Potter e-books pretty much drowned everything else out yesterday, but there was some other news that should be highlighted.
The American Association of Publishers (AAP) released figures for April 2011. Adult Hardback was in first position again this month, with $111.4m in sales (a sharp drop of over 20% from $142.9m in April 2010).
Adult trade paperback was in second position again this month with $95.9m (down from $128.2m or a...
June 23, 2011
JK Rowling To Self-Publish Harry Potter E-Books
In April, I predicted that a major international bestseller – a household name – would self-publish by the end of the summer.
It looks like we won't have to wait that long.
JK Rowling announced the launch of Pottermore.com – which will be the exclusive vendor for the Harry Potter series in digital and audio formats.
The e-books (and audiobooks) will be available – for the first time – from October, in a selection of languages.
In addition, on YouTube, Rowling said the website would be host to...
June 22, 2011
Interview with Digital Poet & Fantasy Novelist Stephen R. Drennon
One of the many things that fascinate me about digital publishing are the new possibilities afforded to writers. Traditionally, publishing has been wary of all sorts of stuff – short novels, short stories, longer novels, novellas, and poetry.
In fact, for a first time author, an agent would rarely look at an adult novel unless it fell exactly between 80,000 to 100,000 words. They had all sorts of good reasons for this, the main being that this was the sweet spot, the intersection between...
June 21, 2011
John Locke Sells A Million Books, Then Tells The World How He Did It
John Locke made history (again) yesterday when he was announced as the first indie writer to sell 1 million Kindle Books. In case you are wondering about Amanda Hocking – who broke a million a while back – that was for e-books in all formats through all retailers.
On the same day, John Locke released his how-to book, How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! which broke into the Top 100 items in the Kindle Store at some point yesterday evening. It's now at #54.
Pretty impressive for a...
June 20, 2011
You Never Know When Your Promo Seeds Will Blossom
I am in a wistful mood this morning. Perhaps it's the soft summer rain. Maybe its the Joe Dassin tune on my record player. Most likely it's last tentacles of the wine I drank last night still wrapped lovingly around my frontal lobe.
Whatever the cause, I'm going to take advantage of this faux-nostalgia and peer back through the mists of time, all the way to April 2011. If you keep with me until the end, there may even be a moral to the story.
At the start of April, the only people who had read ...
June 18, 2011
Self-Publishing Myth #1: You Will Never Make Any Money
There are a lot of myths surrounding self-publishing, and part of the mission of this blog is to try and dispel them.
One of the most common myths is that if you self-publish you will never make any money.
The usual reasoning is that most self-published work is crap and readers know it is crap, and they avoid it like the plague. Self-published work is poorly formatted, has a terrible cover, no editing, and – worst of all – it's not ready for public consumption.
And, even if you manage to avoid a...
June 17, 2011
A Journey of a Million Steps – Guest Post by Margo Lerwill, Author of "Dis"
Today we have an extra-special guest post from blogger extraordinaire Margo Lerwill – one of the brains behind Wicked & Tricksy, and author of the feisty, Norse-themed urban fantasy short Dis. While she's here, I'll be over there. Take it away Margo…
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All writers, regardless of genre, fiction or non-fiction, planning for self-publication or seeking a traditional contract, will smack up against the same questions sooner or later: Am I ready?
There are a lot of answers out there, a lot of...
June 16, 2011
Indie Writers Making History In The UK
Indie authors Mark Edwards and Louise Voss are making history in the UK.
Their second book Catch Your Death has been at the top of the Kindle charts (for all books) for over a week. To top it all off, their first novel Killing Cupid - which has been slowly creeping up behind – is now at #3!
Congratulations to Mark and Louise on a stunning achievement.
For those unaware of their background, neither of them have a history in trade publishing (like many indie authors, they couldn't crack the...
June 15, 2011
Exploding Myths & Destroying Minds
Dean Wesley Smith is updating his infamous blog series Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing. I remember my first reaction when I stumbled across his blog: this guy is going to make enemies!
He takes on every myth in the business from "you must rewrite something to make it good" to "an agent always acts in a writer's best interests". When I discovered his blog around Christmas 2009, I thought it was explosive stuff.
I agreed with a lot of what he was saying, but I was completely invested in...
