This is as much a thought piece and a kickoff for discussion as a fully fleshed-out article, but it goes like this: Is the end of the golden age of self-publishing already in sight? Part of the reasoning behind this comes from the dawn of the dot-com era just over a decade ago, when Internet companies were racing to build their public profile prior to going public. I used to do a lot of this stuff in Hong Kong, back in the day when page views rather than "friends" or retweets were the key metric; and with the prospect of high-rolling...

Two great reads came into my inbox this morning, one via Book Riot and one via email, from a blog called Picky Girl, which I have not read. The subject? Reader responsibility. Do they have any? Does being a 'reader' obligate one to perform certain tasks on behalf of the author? It was an interesting dialogue. Picky Girl (aka Jenn) began with an author tweet that read 'I am VERY happy you found my novel at the library, dear reader ... but do realize that if only libraries buy books, authors don't eat.' [caption id="attachment_82572" align="alignright" width="246"] THIS IS HORSESHIT[/caption] After her initial irk...

"The new BlackBerry Z10 is designed to keep you moving," reads the copy on the website of a new promotional campaign for the recently-launched smartphone. "So we've given it to three people who never stop. These incredibly talented and ambitious people are always looking for the next exciting challenge." Yeah, that's pretty corny. But I was certainly surprised to learn that one of the three people involved in the Z10 campaign was the author (and longtime TeleRead favorite) Neil Gaiman. (The campaign's other two artists are the singer-songwriter Alicia Keys, and the filmmaker Robert Rodriquez.) But here's the interesting bit: As the promotion's website explains,...

We've been writing quite a bit lately about book publicity tactics, which is probably why a recent tweet about a Pan Macmillan promo caught my eye this morning. The promotion couldn't be easier: You post a pre-written tweet about a new Richard House series called The Kills, and then the first book of the series (there will eventually be four, and the first is titled Sutler) is automatically downloaded onto your computer, tablet or smartphone. (I just gave the promo a test run myself, and was surprised when I was offered my choice of a Mobi or EPUB file.) The Kills, as the book's...

Thanks to Nate over at The Digital Reader for alerting me to this great blog post by author Lindsay Buroker. Buroker runs through a number of Amazon 'tricks' which, for various reasons, are losing steam as powerhouse author tools. Some tools, such as tagging and keyword manipulation, never worked that well anyway because people don't tend to search for books using those methods. Others, such as freebie promotions, are less potent than they used to be because of Amazon's restrictions on these practices. So, what was Buroker's perhaps surprising conclusion? She points out that authors should not lose heart when these things...

“Showrooming.” While I can’t say I’d heard the specific term before, it’s easy to understand what it’s talking about—the practice of using a physical store as a “showroom” where you can examine something and then go buy it online. This is one of the trends many pro-agency pricing comment submitters noted in their comments to the DoJ, though in the DoJ’s response it was largely referred to as “free-riding.” As I mentioned the other day, a lot of people do “showrooming” in bookstores with their Kindles. However, it’s also long been a popular activity on smartphones for general-purpose...

I had never heard of this Ewan Morrison person before blogging that story quoting him the other day, but all of a sudden it seems like he’s coming out of the woodwork everywhere. I saw a mention on the E-Book Community Mailing List of a column by him on The Guardian. It says it’s third in a series, but I’m not sure what the other two are because there aren’t any links to them there. In this column, Morrison basically pooh-poohs the idea of social networking to sell self-published books, pointing out that if you’re spending 80% of...

When author Penelope Trunk wanted to publish a book about the American Dream, she writes in her blog that she was blown away by how inept her traditional publisher was when it came to marketing it. (She does not name the publisher, but says it’s a major household name.) This publisher had already paid her an advance, and as the time approached when the book itself would be published, she was stunned when her publisher originally suggested marketing through “newsgroups”, and then through a LinkedIn fan page. When she took a meeting with them to discuss the issue, she...

Seems like everybody’s Kickstarting these days. paidContent has a story on a Kickstarter Seth Godin launched for his latest book, with a goal of $40,000 that it blew past in 3.5 hours. Just goes to show you why Godin is one of the gurus of modern marketing, I suppose. It’s already over $150,000 when I checked it just now, and has 28 days to go. It’ll almost certainly have broken six figures by then. One thing I will point out, though, is that the only e-book edition of the book included is a “digital preview” at the $4 level that you...

HarperCollins recently announced a program to make all English-language e-book titles available around the world (and it’s about time, too!), but that’s not the only new initiative it’s launched lately. Another one is called “Epic Reads”, and is a digital community site aimed at getting teenagers connected with HarperTeen authors and books. Apart from the main “Epic Reads” site, there are also subsites focused on dystopian and paranormal fiction, or romance, realistic, and contemporary fiction. The sites feature integration with social networks, homepages for authors, and forums. The site is a bit bare-bones at this point, but HarperCollins has...

Self-published writer Adam Croft has a guest post on Joanna Penn’s writing blog, The Creative Penn, discussing how he has sold 130,000 copies of his e-books without any marketing budget or the services of a publisher. His advice is much the same sort that self-publishing author Michael Stackpole gives at his seminars, but it’s definitely good advice. Croft urges that writers should know their audience, and write the sort of thing that audience wants to read. He says that writers should not set unrealistic goals, but rather set goals that they know they can attain so that they can...

On TechCrunch, James Altucher writes that “every entrepreneur should self-publish a book”. He runs through the usual benefits of self-publishing—declining publisher advances, rapidity of going from manuscript to sale, better ability to market, higher royalty rate, and more control over how the book turns out—then gets to why entrepreneurs should do it. Altucher sees self-publishing as a way that entrepreneurs can publicize their business in a way that stands out better than a business card or website. And entrepreneurs who blog will already have a collection of material that, properly edited and curated, can easily be turned into a...