Ronald E. Yates's Blog, page 98

Book Signing April 22 @ Barnes & Noble

I will be doing a book signing of the first two books of my award-winning Finding Billy Battles trilogy from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 22 at Barnes & Noble in Temecula, Ca (adjacent to the Promenade Mall). I invite all who enjoy reading to drop by to say hello or simply browse the amazing selection of books the store offers. Hope to see you there!

The Awful English Language

Let’s face it, Americans are notoriously inept when it comes to learning other languages. Unlike Europe, where many people speak several languages because dozens of nations with distinct tongues adjoin one another, the United States only has Canada to the North and Mexico to the South.

Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the United States. So you would think it would make sense for us to learn Spanish. But how many of us have taken Spanish classes in high school (or even college) and can manage only such phrases as “Una Cerveza mas por favor” (one more beer, please) or “¿Como te llamas?” (What’s your name?)?

Then there is Canada—an English speaking country, except for those French-speaking diehard traditionalists in places like Montreal. Okay, some Americans may argue that Canadians speak English weirdly, as in aboot rather than about and uutside rather than outside.

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Nonetheless, Americans can travel to Canada and get along just fine without worrying about a significant language barrier. Cultural barriers are another matter, but I won’t go into those here.

Centuries ago, I took high school French, and I think the only phrase I still recall is: “Comment allez-vous aujourd’hui?” (How are you today?).

Later in life, I learned German, but only because I was based for almost three years in a small Bavarian town in a signals intelligence detachment, married a German woman, and minored in German at the University of Kansas. Later, I learned Japanese while living there almost ten years as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.

And that brings me to the purpose of this post. When I was teaching journalism as a professor at the University of Illinois, I used to spend part of a class talking about what I called “The Awful English Language.”

We Americans complain about learning other languages because we say they are hard to learn. But think about the non-English speaker who has to traverse the illogical and contradictory muddle that the English language is.

It is filled with homographs—words of like spelling that have more than one meaning. Then there are heterodoxies. That’s a homograph that is also pronounced differently.

Also, English tends to be a combination of prefixes, suffixes and borrowed words from several other languages. As a result, we end up with endless combinations of words with unpredictable, sometimes contradictory, meanings.

While some parts of the English language are relatively straightforward, such as the fact that nouns only have a single gender, it is the spelling and phonetics that often boggle the mind. There are so many silent letters – knock, knee, knight – and plurals that just don’t make sense.

The plural of ‘box’ is ‘boxes,’ yet the plural of ‘ox’ is ‘oxen,’ not ‘oxes.’ We see these arbitrary formations happen all the time in the English language, as well as words that sound similar yet are spelled differently, or sound the same but are used in different contexts.

Now for a brief homily about the English language and how it got so damned complicated. Ahem, bear with me, please.

The English language belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages but has been influenced over the centuries by many different languages. English is considered to be a “borrowing” language, and that is why it developed the complexity that non-English speakers and even we native speakers find frustrating today.

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English can be categorized into three groups: Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Middle English and Modern English.

The invasion of the three Germanic tribes (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes) who came to the British Isles in the fifth century A.D from places now known as Northwest Germany and the Netherlands significantly impacted the English language. Their dialects mixed with English throughout the years.

Danes and Norsemen, also called Vikings, later invaded the country. Hence, Old Norse and Latin words are also found in the English language. The Anglo-Norman French of the dominant class also heavily influenced vocabulary after the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Hence, we have a mongrel language blended from dozens of tongues, dialects, and idioms.

There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

Now, take a look at these gems and maybe then you will begin to pity the non-English speaker who must learn English.

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections, my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Why do our noses run but our feet smell?
I did not object to the object.
Freddie filled in his form by filling it out.
Why do performers recite a play, yet play at a recital?

Had enough? No? Then think about these conundrums of the English language.

If lawyers are disbarred, and clergymen defrocked, does it not follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, or drycleaners depressed?

Laundry workers could decrease, eventually becoming depressed and depleted.

Even more, bed makers could be debunked, baseball players debased, landscapers deflowered, software engineers detested, underwear manufacturers debriefed, and even musical composers will eventually decompose.

On a different note, though, perhaps we can hope that some politicians will be devoted.

[image error]               Pete Seeger

 

Yes, English is a crazy language. In fact, that was the title of a song that Pete Seeger used to sing years ago. Here are a few excerpts:

“English is the most widely spoken language in the history of the planet.

One out of every seven human beings can speak or read it.

Half the world’s books, 3/4 of the international mail are in English.

It has the largest vocabulary, perhaps two million words,

And a noble body of literature. But face it:

English is cuh-ray-zee!

There’s no egg in eggplant, no pine or apple in pineapple.

Quicksand works slowly; boxing rings are square.

A writer writes, but do fingers fing?

Hammers don’t ham, grocers don’t groce. Haberdashers don’t haberdash.

English is cuh-ray-zee!

If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?

It’s one goose, two geese. Why not one moose, two meese?

If it’s one index, two indices; why not one Kleenex, two Kleenices?

English is cuh-ray-zee!

You can comb through the annals of history, but not just one annal.

You can make amends, but not just one amend.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one, is it an odd or an end?

If the teacher taught, why isn’t it true that a preacher praught?

If you wrote a letter, did you also bote your tongue?

And if a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

English is cuh-ray-zee!

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?

Why is it that night falls but never breaks and day breaks but never falls?

In what other language do people drive on the parkway and park on the driveway?

Ship by truck but send cargo by ship? Recite at a play but play at a recital?

Have noses that run and feet that smell?

English is cuh-ray-zee!

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same

When a wise man and a wise guy are very different?

To overlook something and to oversee something are very different,

But quite a lot and quite a few are the same.

How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?

English is cuh-ray-zee!”

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Of course English is a creation of humanity, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

There are also dozens of illogical idioms we hear every day. Such as:

“Head over heels” (in love, for example). Surely the phrase should be “heels over head.”

“Meteoric rise” (to fame, for example). Meteors don’t rise. They fall.

“Quantum Leap” (meaning a big change). A quantum leap is a very small change, but at least it is large on the scale of atoms.

“To leapfrog” over something. Surely it should be “frog leap” over.

He “turned up dead.” That’s used mainly in the US. Turning up, even when you are dead, takes real determination.

“Back-to-back” meaning consecutive, e.g., back-to-back wins. It should be “back-to-front,” I think. The end of one thing is followed by the start of the next thing and not the end of it. Unfortunately, “back-to-front” already has a different meaning.

Finally, there are these ten meaningless and irritating English clichés and expressions that should be banned forever. I cringe whenever I hear them, which is everyday—especially by news readers and political pundits on television.

At the end of the day
At this moment in time
The bottom line
I personally
With all due respect
It’s a nightmare
Fairly unique
Shouldn’t of (ouch!)
24/7
It’s not rocket science-

PS: Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’?

 

 

Interview re Historical Fiction on the New Books Network

The link below will take you to a podcast/radio interview I did with C. P. Lesley of the New Books Network about writing historical fiction. Ms. Lesley is herself the author of six historical fiction novels set in 16th Century Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.

The interview focuses on the first two books in Finding Billy Battles Trilogy (Finding Billy Battles & The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles) and the challenges of recreating the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[image error]

Here is a part of Ms. Lesley’s introduction:

Journalism, history, biography, memoirs and historical fiction overlap to some degree. The first two focus on provable facts, but the facts must be arranged to form a coherent story, and that requires an element of interpretation, especially in history. Biography and memoirs demand even more of a story arc, although still devoted to a specific person who once lived or still lives.

And historical fiction, although it departs from that fundamental reliance on what can be documented or evidenced by creating imaginary characters or putting words into the heads and mouths of real people, nonetheless relies on creating a “you are there” sense of authenticity that cannot exist without considerable research into how people in a given time and place dressed, talked, ate, traveled, and socialized.

Finding Billy Battles and its sequels, The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles and the forthcoming The Lost Years of Billy Battles occupy this space between journalism and fiction.

To read more and to listen to the interview, click on the link below to go to New Books Network and the podcast.

I hope you will enjoy the discussion.

http://newbooksnetwork.com/ronald-e-yates-the-improbable-journeys-of-billy-battles-xlibris-2016/

The top 15 ebook stores in 5 countries

Today, I am reprinting a new report by Author Earnings on how Ebooks are doing in five English-speaking countries compared with print books. Author Earnings is a website for authors, by authors. It’s purpose is to gather and share information so that writers can make informed decisions. Its secondary mission is to call for change within the publishing community for better pay and fairer terms in all contracts. I think authors and others will find the information eye-opening and useful. Ron Yates

Print bookselling remains artificially silo’d by country even today, for variety of legacy historical and logistical reasons. But by contrast, the global ebook marketplace is a seamlessly international one.

For authors, selling an ebook to a reader in a different country is just as easy as selling to a reader in your home country. Barriers to reaching an international audience no longer exist.

Today, with the click of a button, any author can start selling any title they wish simultaneously in 12 country-specific Amazon stores, 36 country-specific Kobo ebook stores, and over 40 country-specific Apple ebook stores.

As of yet, most of these non-English-language ebook markets are still fairly early-stage. But that’s not true of the four other major English-language markets outside the US. In those markets, too, as we’ll see, a substantial share of all new-book purchases has already gone digital. And, as we’ll also see, untracked, non-traditional suppliers make up a high percentage of ebook sales in those countries as well. Which means that these other digital markets have also been consistently underestimated and under-reported by traditional publishing-industry statistics.

Back in November 2015, we did a deep dive into Amazon UK. In examining how sales in the world’s second-largest English-language market broke down by publisher type, we saw firsthand the large nontraditional share of that market. And in October 2015, when we looked beyond Amazon.com to characterize US ebook sales at Apple, Barnes&Noble, Kobo, and Google, too, our “wide” report validated that indie self-publishing wasn’t just a massive market sector at only one ebook retailer, but rather represented an industry-wide trend.

However, both of those reports are already more than a year old. Since then, we’ve substantially overhauled and refined our AuthorEarnings methodology. We can now measure each retailer’s total sales in each country with far more precision.

So this time, we rolled up our sleeves and basically went for the whole enchilada:

• The top five English-language countries

• The fifteen largest ebook stores

• 750,000 top-selling ebook titles, in all genres and categories.

• All of it calibrated against 700,000 points of raw, unfiltered daily sales data, from over 20,000 distinct ebook titles across all 15 stores.

When we were done, we were looking at the most comprehensive international picture of English-language ebook sales available anywhere. And now, we’re excited to share it with authors everywhere around the world.

Total Ebook Sales by Country (Top 5 English-Language Markets)

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Of particularly interest is how each country’s ebook sales are divided up among the different retail channels.

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• Unsurprisingly, Amazon is the majority retailer in just about every market.

• But in Canada and Australia, Amazon is a lot less dominant than in the US and the UK.

• Taken all together, Amazon accounts for more than 80% of English-language ebook purchases, Apple another 10%, Kobo 2% and Nook 3%

• The remaining 3%–ascribed to GooglePlay and all remaining channels–is most likely overly optimistic. Their true share might well be even lower.

(If you’re comparing retailer breakdowns for the US against our October 2015 “wide” report, note that that report mistakenly used global Kobo sales totals instead of US-only totals. We’ve rectified that here. We hope that no one making the comparison will misinterpret it as a drop in Kobo’s actual market size or share. If anything, we think Kobo has actually grown some since then.)

Total Ebook Consumer $ Dollar Sales by Country and Retail Channel

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In total consumer $ dollar spending terms, Amazon’s ebook dominance is slightly less pronounced than it is in unit terms. But we were still surprised to see that nearly 80% of consumer dollars spent on ebooks in the US now go through Amazon.

Our focus, however, is always take-home author earnings, rather than gross consumer dollars. And authors choosing different publishing paths are banking a very different share of the gross dollars consumers are spending on their titles–ranging from 17.5% to 70%–depending on how they chose to publish. So, naturally, we’re most interested in how ebook sales in each country, and at each retailer, break down by publisher type:

Ebook Unit Sales in Each Country Broken Down by Publisher Type

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As always,

• blue bands (at the bottom of each bar) represent ebook sales in each market by Self-Published Indie Authors

• red bands represent ebook sales by Small/Medium Traditional Publishers: i.e. the combined sales of all traditional publishers other than the “Big Five”

• green bands represent ebook sales by Amazon Imprints: Montlake, Thomas & Mercer, Skyscape, Little A, AmazonCrossing, etc.

• purple bands represent ebook sales by imprints of the Big Five Trade Publishers: PenguinRandomHouse, HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon&Schuster, and Macmillan.

• cyan bands (at the top of each bar) represent Uncategorized Single-Author Imprints: the vast majority of which are also self-published indie authors creating their own imprint names, but we haven’t taken the time to verify each individually as a self-publisher.

Our main takeaways from the above chart:

• Self-published indie authors are verifiably capturing at least 24% – 34% of all ebook sales in each of the five English-language markets; it’s not just a US-only phenomenon. When you also include the uncategorized authors, the vast majority of whom are also self-published, the true indie share in each market lies somewhere between 30% – 40%.

• Indies are competing particularly well in the Canadian and Australian ebook markets, nearly approaching the level of dominance they currently hold in the US.

• The Big Five, on the other hand, are letting themselves progressively get squeezed out of nearly every English-Language ebook market. They make up only 38% of Canadian ebook purchases, and that’s the country where they are holding their ground best; in the US, the Big Five now account for barely 26% of all ebook sales.

• Amazon Imprints have made the most market headway in the US. Despite being single-retailer exclusive to Amazon Kindle, the dozen or so Amazon “house” publishing imprints between them account for 14% of all US ebook sales, 10% of all UK ebook sales, and 8% of Australian ebook sales. In Canada, the Amazon Imprint footprint is a much more modest 3% of all ebook sales, largely due to the substantial shares of the overall Candian ebook market held by Kobo (25%) and Apple (14%).

Ebook Unit Sales at Each Retailer Broken Down by Publisher Type

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Our main takeaways from the above chart:

• Self-published indie authors are verifiably capturing at least 20% – 35% of all multi-country ebook sales at each retailer. When you also include the uncategorized authors, each retailer’s true multi-country indie share lies somewhere between 25% – 42%, with Amazon staking out the high end at 42% and B&N and Apple holding the low end at 25%.

• The Big Five have managed to hang on to more than half of all ebook sales at Apple and Barnes & Noble Nook. At B&N, in particular, their share tops 61%, but that merely makes them the largest fish in a rapidly-shrinking pond. (B&N’s overall ebook sales have contracted dramatically over the past few years, to where they are now make up less than 4% of the US total (or 3% of the five-country total)).

*As a side note, in comparing these new US retailer market-share breakdowns to our data from October 2015, indie market share has grown a little since then at Apple, Kobo, and Amazon (even after Amazon’s sharp 2016 May-Oct indie drop). At B&N, However, indie share has actually contracted (leaving indies there with a reduced slice of the now much-smaller B&N pie).

One fascinating consequence of all of the above is how differently each type of publisher sees their own ebook sales “pie” split across the various retailer channels:

Ebook Unit Sales by Publisher Type, Broken Down by Retail Channel

(The relative size of each pie reflects the total ebook sales volume for that publisher category)

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(The relative size of each pie reflects the total ebook sales volume for that publisher category)

• Due to the Big Five’s disproportionately small share of Amazon’s ebook sales, only 70% of Big Five sales are through Amazon, while 30% of Big Five sales come through the other retailers, which together comprise less than 20% of the broader ebook market.

• On the other hand, indie self-published sales go disproportionately through Amazon, with that retailer making up 91% of all self-published ebook sales.

However, that 91% for indie self-published sales is somewhat misleading, as it lumps together the sales of Amazon-exclusive indie titles in “Kindle Select” with the sales of indie titles that are available “wide” at all retailers.

To provide greater insight, let’s separate the sales of Amazon-exclusive indie titles from those of “wide” indie titles, proportionately dividing the blue indie pie at the left of the chart into the two pies below:

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(Again, the relative size of each pie reflects the total ebook sales volume for that publisher category)

Should Indies Go “Wide” or Amazon-Exclusive?

Indie authors often struggle with the choice of whether to make a particular title a KindleUnlimited-enrolled Amazon-exclusive or to sell it at all retailers. For those authors, the breakdown of indie sales on the left side of the above chart is a particularly interesting one. But it’s worth keeping in mind that around half of the “Kindle Select” indie sales are actually full-read-equivalent KindleUnlimited payments to indies, rather than straight retail purchases.

So let’s now break those KU full-read equivalents out separately, as shown as yellow pie-wedges in the two charts below:

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So what do the above graphs tell us about KindleUnlimited and indie author earnings?

The breakdown of indie dollar author earnings looks nearly identical to the unit-sales splits shown above. KindleUnlimited indie page reads (at a current run rate of $180M+/yr) are now paying Amazon-exclusive indie authors far more total dollars than “wide” indie authors are earning from their sales at all non-Amazon ebook retailers combined (a total run rate of roughly $50M/yr in non-Amazon indie author earnings).

But at the same time, limiting a given title to Amazon exclusivity will:

• reduce the impact of external marketing and promotion efforts for that title

• make it harder to secure BookBub ads and the like

• reduce the virality of reader word-of-mouth referrals

• mean giving up 5x as many parallel opportunities for retailer promotional featuring and acceptance into retailer outreach programs, any one of which can give a title a substantial visibility or sales boost.

• if a title appeals to Canadian or Australian audiences, it will be unavailable in the retailer channels where almost half of those countries’ ebook purchases occur.

“Wide” authors who are able to effectively take advantage of promotional opportunities at other retailers often see far more than the a quarter of their sales coming through non-Amazon channels; some high profile indies are doing so well at other retailers that Amazon now represents less than half of their sales.

It’s also worth considering what happened sometime between May 2016 and October 2016, when indies experienced a sharp quarter-to-quarter downturn in KindleUnlimited page reads and an overall drop in retail sales for Amazon indie authors. After growing consistently every quarter for nearly 3 years, we saw indie market share at Amazon US suddenly plunge from 44% to 36% of Amazon’s total unit sales. While things appear to have stabilized now, and indie market share is once again growing–but more slowly now–at Amazon, relying upon a single retailer for 100% of one’s sales means an author is far more likely to see sudden, dramatic shifts and reversals in their own individual fortunes.

So for indies contemplating whether to go “wide” with a title or enroll it in Kindle Select as an Amazon exclusive, there’s still no easy answer. (Sorry.)

Putting all one’s eggs in the same basket, even if it is a big basket, carries unique risks. There is a strong case to be made for diversification of an author’s sales across different retail channels for that reason alone.

At the same time, KindleUnlimited has grown into a Top-3 ebook retail channel in its own right; KU is now paying indie authors twice as many dollars as Barnes&Noble’s Nook is paying to all publishers combined. To completely ignore a retail channel of that size makes zero sense.

The best strategy for an indie author seems to be to keep some of their titles in wide release, have some in KindleUnlimited, and experiment with what combination works best and generates the most income. Luckily, the exclusivity decision for each title can be revisited every 3 months, allowing indie authors to be reactive when their sales to take off at a particular “wide” retailer.

Conclusions

Our look at the wider world of ebook retailers tells us that the rise of ebook sales in general, and indie publishing in particular, are not limited to the US nor to a single retailer (Amazon); they are international, industry-wide phenomena. The US currently leads the world in both ebook penetration rate and the indie share of that market, but other ebook markets are starting to catch up: particularly the other 4 major English-language ones. Taken together, ebook sales in these 4 additional markets add a combined 25% to the US-only total.

And, somewhat counter-intuitively, self-published indie authors are proving to be far more capable of taking advantage of their global digital reach to achieving commensurate international sales than traditionally published authors are.

Back in our October 2015 UK report, we made the then-surprising (to us) discovery that best-selling indie authors in the US were far more likely to also be best sellers in the UK than their best-selling traditionally published US counterparts. The same held true in the opposite direction as well, with best selling UK indies outperforming best selling traditionally published UK authors when it comes to their cross-Atlantic sales in the US market.

In the comments on that report, noted author and author-advocate Harry Bingham explained the reasons behind this apparent discrepancy far better than we could. Here’s what he said:

1) Writers will be published by different publishers in either territory.(or, even if part of the same corporate machine, one that operates with effective independence from its sister companies.)

2) In both cases, sales strategies will be print-led in the first instance, and most examples of Big 5 e-successes will be very largely reflecting an original success in print (and the media opportunities which are so often exclusive to print successes.)

3) Publishers fail to meet budgetary expectations with most trade fiction – let’s say, 7 in 10. They only have a real success with maybe 1 in 10.

4) Those things can’t be – and aren’t – predictable in advance. They may be dependent on such things as cover design, the choices made by key retail buyers (who won’t in most cases have read the book in question, &c). In other words, there’s a high degree of chance – as well as author quality – in what determines a print success. Given that print-retail slots are scarce and book shelf lives are small, you just can’t rely on quality alone to get you through.

5) So what your data shows is exactly what we’d expect. Publishers spin the wheel in both territories. If they get lucky in one territory, that luck doesn’t translate particularly well to others. So you’re seeing a reversion to the mean effect – a print success (and hence e-success) in the UK just doesn’t affect the US odds very much and vice versa.

6) Indie-authors aren’t ruled by the gods of the print world, so there’s less random chance involved The bookshelves are infinite, books are forever, quality (in design, marketing as well as writing) had a much higher chance of determining outcomes.

As he explains it, the seeming oddity now makes perfect sense.

In practice, it’s true that the very topmost handful of decades-old traditionally published mega brand names do indeed see their titles launched internationally to great effect across all markets. These long-established megasellers such as Patterson, Roberts, King, Baldacci, and Rowling (who, incidentally, held on to her digital rights and self-published her ebooks and audiobooks through her own Pottermore imprint) are truly international best sellers in every book format. But below that top fraction of 1% who receive coordinated international releases and global marketing campaigns for their titles, most traditionally published authors are lucky to become best sellers in a single market only, if ever at all. And this goes doubly for authors of genre fiction, where the overwhelming majority of all consumer purchases–over 70%–are now in ebook format.

The larger the proportion of sales in an author’s genre that are now digital, the more of a disadvantage being traditionally published seems to impose upon authors hoping to also achieve significant ebook sales outside one’s home country.

One of the other interesting implications of this is that authors in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have the most to gain by indie-publishing their digital editions. For them, the overwhelmingly largest market for their books lies overseas–and it’s one where they absolutely cannot afford to be handicapped by a traditional publisher’s local-market-oriented, print-first focus.

And Finally… a Brief Look At How Amazon US Ebook Sales are Trending in Early 2017

Pulling together data for this 5-country, 15-retailer report meant collecting and incorporating a early-2017 dataset from Amazon.com US: the largest ebook retailer of them all. Amazon US alone comprised 65% of all unit sales and 64% of all consumer dollars in our entire 5-country, 15-retailer dataset. A deep dive into just the 2017 Amazon US data is something we’ll save for another day.

But we’ll share the following updated trend graph:

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And we’ll tease a few interesting findings:

• Between early 2016 and early 2017, overall Amazon US ebook sales grew another 4%

While that’s not the kind of double-digit (or triple-digit) growth we had seen in the earlier days of the ebook era, it’s still more than enough to offset the ongoing shrinkage at Barnes&Noble’s Nook. In other words, albeit slowly now, the overall US ebook market is still growing.

• Indie ebook market share, after the sudden sharp drop that we reported in October 2016, seems to have bounced back a little in early 2017.

It’s too early to conclude whether this is simply a plateau or the beginnings of a new phase in indie market share growth. We’ll be curious to see which direction things head as we move deeper into 2017.

• Amazon Imprints’ market share continues its steady climb.

Amazon Publishing’s growing share of all Amazon ebook sales is a fascinating, and somewhat unsettling, trend to watch.

• Big Five ebook market share, on the other hand, after a brief flirtation with recovery in October 2016, has fallen precipitously once again in early 2017, to just 20.8%.

As of February, titles published by the Big Five made up just 20.8%–or barely one fifth–of all Amazon US consumer ebook purchases.

And finally:

• “Small/Medium Traditional Publishers,” as a cohort, have continued their slow, steady climb in unit market share, but their share of total consumer $ dollars spent on ebooks is rising far faster.

In fact, per the below trend graph charting the shift in consumer $ spending, we can see that for the first time “Small/Medium Traditional Publishers” are capturing more total consumer dollars than the Big Five.

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That represents a wildly dramatic shift in fortune for non-Big Five traditional publishers; three years ago, their combined $ ebook sales were less than half of what the Big Five’s were.

But keep in mind that our “Small/Medium Traditional Publisher” category lumps together many disparate types of publisher, from the smallest micropresses to the non-Big Five traditional giants like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Scholastic, from traditional university and academic presses to newer, digital-first publishers like Open Road Media. Not all of these different types of publishers that make up our “Small/Medium Traditional Publisher” category are seeing this rapid sales growth; in fact, quite the contrary.

We’ll save a more detailed breakdown of the Small/Medium Publisher category for a future report, but we’ll say this:

Almost all of the recent “Small/Medium Publisher” gains appear to be driven exclusively by one particular narrow subcategory of publishers, which is now seeing explosive growth in their ebook sales.

Hint: it’s not whom you think…

Announcing the re-launch of My GRL

Today I am pleased to provide a platform for the re-launch of fellow author John W. Howell’s My GRL, the first book in the John J. Cannon thriller series. Following the re-launch information, there is a fascinating interview with the author. Take a look. Ron Yates

The cover is new, and the book is edited once again to enhance the reading experience. What is nice is the price. It has been cut for the re-launch. You can buy the Kindle version for a special introductory price of:

$0.99

Synopsis of My GRL

John J. Cannon, a successful San Francisco lawyer, takes a well-deserved leave of absence from the firm and buys a boat he names My GRL. He is unaware that his newly purchased boat had already been targeted by a terrorist group. John’s first inkling of a problem is when he wakes up in the hospital where he learns he was found unconscious next to the dead body of the young woman who sold him the boat in the first place. John now stands between the terrorists and the success of their mission.

Here is the link to Amazon for the Kindle version

Here is the link to Amazon for the Paper version

Check them out and read the first few pages on Amazon.

Also, you can check out John Cannon’s other two adventures, as well as, the new My GRL at John W. Howell’s Author Page

 

 John W. Howell

 Author Bio

John W. Howell began writing full-time after an extensive business career. His specialty is thriller fiction novels, but John also writes poetry and short stories.  His first book, My GRL, introduces the exciting adventures of the book’s central character, John J. Cannon. The second Cannon novel, His Revenge, continues the adventure, while the final book in the trilogy, Our Justice, launched in September 2016.  All books are available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

John lives in Port Aransas, Texas with his wife and their spoiled rescue pets.

Author Interview: John W. Howell

Tell us a little about yourself. How do your days begin, what do you enjoy doing (besides writing)?

My day starts in the morning with a big cup of coffee and a few e-mails. Then it is off to the beach with the two boxers and my wife. Depending on the day of the week, next, it is either an eight-mile bike ride or 1000 words on my WIP. Then the rest of the day includes writing and an occasional chore until it is time to walk the dogs before their dinner. I love to cook and usually prepare the people dinner. After serving up my latest creation and a glass of wine, my wife and I watch an hour of television. We record our shows and skip the commercials. This recording schedule leaves time for 15 minutes of news. Free time is at a premium. When I can find time away from writing, I enjoy walking on the beach and some beach activities up to and including a frosty IPA. I read in my spare time, so the beach affords some opportunity to kill two items at a time. I also cook as I mentioned and love to do home repairs and yard work. As you can see I’m a full-time writer and have been since 2012 when I escaped from being held captive of organized commerce.

Now, tell us about your writing.  At what age did you begin writing?

I was a pretty old guy when I started writing back in 1993. I decided to write a book after hours as I was working full time. It took me until 2003 to finish what is now holding my laundry door open. I decided I had to either devote full time to writing or give it up. I finally began in earnest in 2012 when I retired from a business career.

How did you know you wanted to be a writer?

That is hard to answer. I just knew it. I would tinker with stories just for the fun of it and even wrote a screenplay. None of these things were published, and I didn’t care. It was the love of putting words together that gave me enjoyment.

What was your favorite book as a child?

I read some adult books when I was only ten years old. I also read the classics, and I think my favorite child’s story was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fynn. I think the adventures of Tom and Huck were those that a young boy living in Detroit could build dreams around and escape what was a challenging environment.

Favorite book as an adult?

I still come back to On the Beach by Neville Shute. This was a book that did not even pretend to craft a happy ending but kept pursuing a theme of life for life’s sake. I was mesmerized by the characters and the story. I was also a child of “duck and cover” exercises in school, so the premise of nuclear devastation was a very real concept.

Tell us a bit about My GRL? How did you come up with the idea?

My sister and I were touring the aircraft carrier Lexington to see where our naval aviator father served during World War II. While on the massive flight deck it occurred to me that this symbol of American victory was venerable to an attack by terrorists since it was not guarded and devoid of any weapons. On the way home I thought about how I would attack the Lexington and then how to defend her. My GRL is not about the Lexington, but the story grew from the experience.

Tell us about John Cannon? Is he based on anyone you know?

John Cannon is a combination of the personality that I have always wanted to have plus some traits of various men I have known in my life. He is not based on anyone I knew when I started writing the stories about him. He is now someone I would like to have as a friend.

How did you come up with John’s story?

John is a San Francisco attorney. He is specifically a litigation attorney. The reason I chose that specialty is I could see myself practicing law as that kind of lawyer. The idea of being the victor in a case of one individual seeking justice against a predator is very appealing to me. The protagonist in the John Cannon trilogy is a predator, and it gave me pleasure to see John prevail in a case against him. John’s story is a matter of being a regular guy caught up in abnormal circumstances. I think we all see ourselves as normal and some of the bad stuff that happens to us as abnormal. I wanted John’s story to represent the ability of the average person to overcome the challenges of life. I picked San Francisco since I love the city and used to live in the area.

Have you always wanted to write contemporary thrillers?

I guess I have. When I started My GRL, I didn’t give the genre a thought. I just finished the manuscript and then had to figure out where it fit. I loved the idea of twists in the story and wanted the reader to come along on the adventure. I guess early on I ruled out the mystery as my cup of tea because quite honestly I couldn’t keep secrets that well. What I mean is every good mystery has a moment where everything comes together, and the case is resolved. Usually, in a thriller, the reader knows right away who done it, and the idea is to see what is going to happen next. This is the kind of story I like to write.

What is your writing process?

I write at least 1000 words a day. I don’t leave the computer until I have done that. The 1000 words are dedicated to my current novel and do not include words written for my blog, short stories or social media. Once I finish the 1000 words, I am free to do other things for the day.

How long did it take you to write My GRL?

I began the first draft on April 1st of 2012. I was finished with the first draft by August 8th, 2012. So I would say 120 days.

Now, onto book two – His Revenge. Tell us a bit about it?

The characters from My GRL continue to His Revenge and on to Our Justice. In his Revenge, John seeks to atone the killing of Gerry Starnes, the woman who sold him My GRL. The action moves from Port Aransas to California and on to Ecuador. His enemy, Matt Jacobs, has a twisted idea that John would make an excellent spokesperson for the terrorist group. He figures out a way to get John to cooperate on a plan that is designed to embarrass the President and wreak havoc on the oil industry. John must pretend to go along, hoping he can create a way to get revenge. The question remains who will get the revenge?

And book three – Our Justice. Recently released, tell us a bit about that?

Our Justice is the final story in the trilogy. John has been keen on bringing Matt Jacobs to justice. Matt has been keen on getting John to help him in a plot to assassinate the President. He plans to use John’s hero status to get close to the President to do his duty work. Both Matt and John feel their cause is right and both want justice extracted in their favor. We have to see who in fact achieves Justice, Matt, John or neither.

Is there a book four coming?

There won’t be another John Cannon book, but there is a fourth book titled Circumstances of Childhood which is s scheduled for the fall of 2017. Here is a blurb: A full ride to college on an athletic scholarship leads to a pro career for Greg Petros. He and his best friend Keith had planned this since high school, but Keith fell short. After football, Greg goes on to a sports broadcasting career and an equity fund on Wall Street. Greg’s life is content and prosperous until someone hacks into the firm through his personal account and helps themselves to twenty million dollars. The amount of money is not significant, but the fact that an audit uncovered the break-in raises questions at the Justice Department. Although not guilty, all evidence indicates Greg misused shareholder funds and is facing mounting Federal charges. Greg needs the help of his old friend Keith to try and establish his innocence. Keith holds the key that could save Greg from twenty years in prison. Will Keith be able to help his friend or will his current situation prohibit intervention?

Finally, what advice would you give to someone wanting to write a book?

My advice is twofold. 1. Write the damn book and don’t stop. Don’t edit, don’t second guess what you are doing. Finish the manuscript, and then you can toy with it all you want. 2. Don’t show anyone the document or parts of it until the whole thing is finished. A writer does not need anyone to approve the work or to give feedback on the quality. In fact, writer confidence tends to shrink in the face of feedback. I have seen many promising writers give up because someone they value decided the work was not good enough. A writer must write for the readers and themselves. No one else can help that process. Once the manuscript is finished, you can show it to anyone you wish and get the feedback needed.

Thank you, John, it has been good to talking with you.

You can find John at any of the following:   And hey…There is a sale going on at the moment – Jump in and buy My GRL while it’s just $0.99!

Blog Fiction Favorites, http://johnwhowell.com/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/john.howell.98229241

Twitter –https://www.twitter.com/HowellWave

Authors db –http://www.authorsdb.com/authors-directory/6604-john-w-howell

LinkedIn –http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-w-howell/48/b59/462/

Google +https://plus.google.com/+JohnHowellAuthor/

Goodreads –https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7751796.John_W_Howell

Amazon Author’s page –https://www.amazon.com/author/johnwhowell

 

Political Correctness and America’s Sports Teams

Below is an e-mail apparently sent to Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune after a column he wrote concerning a name change for the Washington Redskins. Clarence is a former colleague at the Tribune. In fact, we were hired at the same time. If I were Clarence, I would run this as a response to his column, but I suspect the Political Correctness Police would sentence him to mandatory thought adjustment and modification if he did.

In any case, the author, whoever he or she is, makes a compelling case for just how ludicrously far afield P.C. has spread in a hyper-sensitive society of the relentlessly offended.

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How far afield? Someone recently demanded that the “Cracker Barrel” chain of restaurants and stores change its name to “Caucasian Barrel” because it uses an offensive slur that is deeply offensive to European-Americans.

Okay, it was a facetious suggestion, but it articulates just how preposterous and bizarre our P.C. society has become.

Fortunately, we now have an administration in Washington that disdains political correctness for what it is: a crusade to muzzle the candid expression of ideas that the P.C. Police disagree with.

P.C. is nothing less than an ominous assault on the First Amendment that should not and cannot be tolerated in a free society that was founded on the idea that free speech is a right and not a privilege.

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Here is the letter:

Dear Mr. Page:

I agree with our Native American population.  I am highly insulted by the racially charged name of the Washington Redskins.  One might argue that to name a professional football team after Native Americans would exalt them as fine warriors, but nay, nay.  We must be careful not to offend, and in the spirit of political correctness and courtesy, we must move forward.

Let’s ditch the Kansas City Chiefs, the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians.  If your shorts are in a wad because of the reference the name Redskins makes to skin color, then we need to get rid of the Cleveland Browns.

The Carolina Panthers obviously were named to keep the memory of militant Blacks from the 60’s alive.  Gone.  It’s offensive to us white folk.

The New York Yankees offend the Southern population.  Do you see a team named for the Confederacy?  No!  There is no room for any reference to that tragic war that cost this country so many young men’s lives.

I am also offended by the blatant inappropriate references to Catholics among our sports team names. Totally inappropriate to have the New Orleans Saints, the Los Angeles Angels or the San Diego Padres.

Then there are the team names that glorify criminals who raped and pillaged.  We are talking about the horrible Oakland Raiders, the Minnesota Vikings, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Pittsburgh Pirates!

Now, let us address those teams that clearly send the wrong message to our children.  The San Diego Chargers promote irresponsible fighting or even spending habits.  Wrong message to our children.

The New York Giants and the San Francisco Giants promote obesity, a growing childhood epidemic.  Wrong message to our children.

The Cincinnati Reds promote downers/barbiturates.  Wrong message to our children.

The Milwaukee Brewers.  Well that goes without saying.  Wrong message to our children.

[image error]

 

So, there you go.  We need to support any legislation that is put forward to rectify this travesty, because the federal government will likely become involved with this issue, as it should.  Just the kind of thing the do-nothing Congress loves.

As a diehard Oregon State fan, my wife and I, with all of this in mind, suggest it might also make some sense to change the name of the Oregon State women’s athletic teams to something other than “the Beavers (especially when they play Southern California.  Do we really want the Trojans sticking it to the Beavers???

I always love your articles and I generally agree with them.  As for the Redskins name I would suggest they change the name to the “Foreskins” to better represent their community, paying tribute to the dick heads in Congress.

What do you think of this post? I welcome all comments. Let me know what you think below.

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