What standard of achievement in terms of self-published book sales is the threshold for impressing pros in the traditional publishing world? Major book agent Mollie Glick. provides the answer: The Book Doctors: What is the threshold for sales of a self-published book that make you go, “Wow!”? And in what time frame are you looking for with these numbers? Mollie … Read More
Inkling Habitat Enables Teams to Collaborate on Rich-Media Non-fiction eBooks
If you are involved in non-fiction books, Inkling Habitat is a major innovation that can change the way you work. It enables teams to collaborate to produce eBooks that contain text, video, images, etc. When the book is complete, it can be output to epub and epub3 for use on all major e-reading platforms (Kindle, iPad, etc.) Pages resize the … Read More
The Harry Potter Books are Getting Brand New Covers. See the First One Here.
Scholastic Reveals New Book Cover For ‘Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone’. Today, Scholastic revealed the first of seven new book covers for the Harry Potter series. The new trade paperback editions will come out in September, to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the U.S. publication of the series. The cover artist for the books is Kazu Kibuishi, who … Read More
Hilarious Reasons Publishers Rejected Harry Potter and Other Classic Best-Sellers
via Cracked.com. And did you know this? Author J.K. Rowling might have approximately all of the money now, but things didn’t start out that way. Once upon a time, Rowling was living off of government assistance, retyping complete copies of the manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to send out to publishers because she was too broke to … Read More
Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari, Chooses to Self-Publish His New Book on Steve Jobs
via Nolan Bushnell could easily have gone with a Big 6 publisher, but he preferred to self-publish. Here’s why: But when he tried to find an outlet for the book, How to Find the Next Steve Jobs, Bushnell got frustrated with the traditional publishing houses. It would take up to four years to edit it and publish it, they said. … Read More
Why Amazon’s Patent to Sell Used eBooks May be Totally Cool
What would happen to writers if their books are sold without any potential for them to make a living from it? I was originally very concerned when I heard reports stating that Amazon had a new plan to enable people to sell their “used” ebooks. The reports make no mention of the original author being involved in the transaction. It’s hard … Read More
Multi-Billion $ eBooks Market is Growing at 70% a Year
via VentureBeat: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos largely credited the strong earnings increase to ebooks, which he said is now a multi-billion dollar category for Amazon — and growing at 70 percent annually. Physical books, in contrast, are slowing. While still growing, Bezos said the growth rate is down to 5 percent, which Bezos said is the lowest growth rate in … Read More
The Kill Zone: But I Want Success Now!
I find this encouraging: Everyone knows mega-selling author Dean Koontz. He’s been producing work for so long that it’s hard to remember a time when he wasn’t on the bestseller lists, but many don’t realize the dues he paid to get there. Before he published Whispers, his big breakout hit, he wrote thirty-eight novels in twelve years. During that time … Read More
With New E-bookstore, Read First, Pay Later
via Mashable-bookstore: One-Liner Pitch: An e-bookstore and e-reading platform that lets you pay only for what you read. Why It’s Taking Off: Total Boox lets you sample e-books, and take in single pages or chapters, without forking over the full purchase price.
Guy Kawasaki to Traditional Publishers: Your Days are Numbered – Forbes
via Forbes: The process takes twelve to eighteen months to publish a book—Apple introduces new models of iPhones faster than that,” Kawasaki explains. In my interview with him, Kawasaki acknowledged that traditional publishers are behind, even detrimental to authors in some circumstances: “The issue is that they <publishers> are limited to the traditional way of making money: selling books printed on … Read More