That headline shouldn’t be such a big deal, but if you knew my dad, it would be – and the fact that he self-published is a serious sign of the times. Though he’s been totally supportive of my own self-publishing ventures, the idea was anathema to him for his own books until this point. He was just too much of an old-schooler. And this shows the revolution that Amanda Hocking has unleashed. Not showing to the world that you can make a million dollars self-publishing, because most people realize that’s an aberration, but definitely making it seem like an everyday […]
Henry Baum2011-10-09T20:53:00+02:00April 26th, 2011|Categories: Features|
By “controversial” I mean, “books I can’t imagine traditional publishers taking a risk on in this dicey economy.”
Waiting for Karl Rove is one of those books. It’s irreverent satire, chock full of politically incorrect content, and the “characters” (aside from ourselves) are public figures, mainly in the political arena. Not to mention that it’s kind of a lampoon against the publishing industry, as a whole. So, yeah, risky.
We did get some good feedback from a few agents and small publishers, who chuckled at the cheeky query letter, and wished us good luck, Godspeed, and many happy returns (probably […]
This is a story about book returns. It’s also a story about the bookstore system and what’s not working. You’ll also hear how success can crush the self-publisher.
It’s not my story. I didn’t go bankrupt—but I could have. What I aim to do here is tell you my experience of publishing well-reviewed books and what you might do in this ever-changing publishing world to get ahead.
Here I can’t get into is how to write a really great book. Let’s assume you know what you’re doing, and once you write the great book, you hire a professional editor and […]
No, I am NOT referring to the “fool” part of the title.
I’m no more a fool than anyone pursuing a vocation.
I’m a Fool is a 38-minute film made n 1976 as part of the PBS American Short Story Collection. It dramatizes a short story by Sherwood Anderson. It stars Ron Howard (yes, that Ron Howard) and Amy Irving, and was directed by Noel Black.
Traveling from town to town during the summer of 1919, young Andy (Ron Howard) has left his Ohio home in search of adventure and romance as a horse trainer on the country
The New York Times recently calculated that the environmental impact of a single e-reader—factoring in the use of minerals, water, and fossil fuels along the manufacturing process—is roughly the same as fifty books. At first that sounds encouraging; after all, even the smallest personal library contains fifty volumes. But the real problems come in lifespan. At present, the average e-reader is used less than two years before it is replaced. That means that the nearly ten million e-readers expected to be in use by next
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Henry Baum2011-04-11T21:19:10+02:00April 11th, 2011|Categories: Features|
There are a lot of writers who attempt to produce “art.” It is polished. Loved. Studied in-depth and then gently caressed into the beautiful flower the author has nurtured in their heart.
But as any good gardener knows, you can’t pop a hot-house orchid outside on the first night of spring. You have to harden it. Put it out a little at a time. Get it ready to face the grim realities of wind and weather. Granted you don’t do so with orchids, but you get the […]
Dan Holloway wrote a very interesting piece questioning the ‘success’ of indie authors. I have a lot of respect and affection for Dan’s work, but he left me scratching my head at one point. For a start, I’m not really sure what ‘indie’ writer means. Nor am I convinced by his distinction between ‘mainstream’ and ‘edgy’.
The concepts of ‘underground’ or ‘counter culture’ or even ‘alternative’ don’t really apply today – there are just various levels of distribution. To quote from Mark Fisher – ‘alternative and ‘independent’ don’t designate something outside mainstream culture; rather they are styles, in fact […]
One of the great opportunities ahead for ebook authors is the wave of new readers entering the digital book world. These gadget centric-readers are kids and young adults. You know the ones that don’t shy away from a computer screen or the digital world. With their cell phone or ipad in hand, they are going to drive the ebook industry to new heights in the near future.
This wave of new readers is going to create a new wave of authors. These writers are going to write directly to the ebook platform, bypassing the current paper to digital conversion process. […]
