Kristine Kathryn Rusch » Business Rusch
The Business Rusch: Readers
The Business Rusch: Readers Kristine Kathryn Rusch As we came into the new year, I evaluated—as I always do—the things I do as part of my business. My business, for those of you who don’t know, is writing. I have been a published writer since I was sixteen years old. I have made a living at writing since I was in my early twenties, first with nonfiction and then with fiction. Along the way, I’ve also owned two publishing companies, been an advisor to several more, and worked for half a dozen of them in some non-writing capacity. That doesn’t count the hundreds of publishing companies I have worked with as a writer. My writing is my career. I have made the majority of my living in traditional publishing. But I have also seen … Read entire article »
Filed under: Business Rusch, featured, free nonfiction, On Writing
The Business Rusch: Writers: Will Work For Cheap
The Business Rusch: Writers: Will Work For Cheap Kristine Kathryn Rusch Here’s something that has nagged at me since the start of the indie publishing revolution: writers—published writers—dismissing money as a factor in publishing their work. The argument goes like this: Traditionally Published Writer A says she’ll never self-publish. When told that her $5000 advance is the only money she’ll make on that book, she shrugs and says, “I’ll sell more copies if I go traditional,” as if that’s a fact rather than a supposition. And even if she does sell more copies of the book through her traditional publisher than she would in the same period of time if she published the same book herself, the traditional publisher will take the book out of print after a year or two. The indie … Read entire article »
Filed under: Business Rusch, featured, free nonfiction, On Writing
The Business Rusch: The Halo Effect
The Business Rusch: The Halo Effect Kristine Kathryn Rusch In October, my novel Wickedly Charming had a one-week e-book promotion. The book was free to e-book buyers on the big sites (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore) for one week only. This promotion wasn’t my idea. Instead, my publisher Sourcebooks set up the promotion with the e-stores. I only found out about it because my short story e-book, The Charming Way, sold dozens of copies in one day. Before that, The Charming Way sold maybe a dozen copies in one month. WMG Publishing published The Charming Way, and all of the Grayson backlist that I control. (Kensington still won’t release the rights on two out-of-print books.) And because I’m working closely with WMG, I get to see their numbers in real time. I confess, I’m … Read entire article »
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The Business Rusch: Traditional Publishing and Its Suppliers
The Business Rusch: Traditional Publishing & Its Suppliers Kristine Kathryn Rusch My posts over the past few weeks have elicited quite a few comments, in person, in e-mail and in the comments section, that go like this: “How can traditional publishers treat writers like that? This is clearly a sign of a decaying business.” Naw. It’s a sign that writers still don’t understand how they fit in the traditional publishing model. In a post two weeks ago, I talked about the ways that writers’ books get mishandled. I mentioned the American publication of my novel Hitler’s Angel (for the full sad story, click here), and I mentioned several other missteps. Since I wrote that piece, I read an excellent article in the October 2011 issue of Vanity Fair by Keith Gessen, the founder of n … Read entire article »
Filed under: Business Rusch, featured, free nonfiction, On Writing
