Kristine Kathryn Rusch » 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 »
Filed under: Business Rusch, Current News, featured, free nonfiction, On Writing
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
The Business Rusch: How To Make Traditional Publishing Writer Friendly
The Business Rusch: How To Make Traditional Publishing Writer-Friendly Kristine Kathryn Rusch A few weeks ago, Sebastian Marshall raised eyebrows throughout the writing community by writing an open letter to Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster. Marshall identifies himself on his blog as a former entrepreneur who wants to become “the most skilled strategist of our era.” He freelances, and sold S&S his first book in December of 2010 for a $65,000 advance. The book—which is a business book—had a due date of July 1, 2011. The contract called for payments in three increments. A third on signing, a third on acceptance, a third on publication, but no later than a year after acceptance. Standard stuff. For those of you who aren’t familiar with publishing, this isn’t a large advance, especially considering the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Business Rusch, featured, free nonfiction, Freelancer's Survival Guide, On Writing
The Business Rusch: The Writer’s Guide To Evaluating A Traditional Publishing Company
The Business Rusch: The Writer’s Guide To Evaluating A Traditional Publishing Company Kristine Kathryn Rusch About once a week, I get an e-mail from someone asking me to recommend a traditional publisher for them. I can’t, not because I don’t believe in traditional publishing, but because I have no idea what that person wants in a publisher, what that person is currently writing, and what’s going on within all the different traditional publishing houses. That ain’t my job. My job is to manage my own career, and to know the things relevant to the writer that I am. Nothing more. I also get letters asking me about my experiences with the various traditional publishers. Sometimes I can answer those letters. Sometimes I can’t, usually because my experiences are more than two years old, and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Business Rusch, featured, free nonfiction, Freelancer's Survival Guide, On Writing
Recommended Reading List: September 2011
I got back to reading in September, but bumped along on my choices. I had trouble concentrating in the first part of the month, since so much was going on in my life. I read a celebrity memoir and enjoyed it, but don’t feel it was good enough to recommend. Then I read two other series novels, neither of which were the best of the series (and one probably put me off that series for good because of an incest scene with the hero & his sister (!)), and a couple of romance novels that were so unmemorable that I couldn’t remember the character names or plot when I went back to the book every evening. I think the only reason I kept reading was inertia, which really isn’t like … Read entire article »
Filed under: featured, On Writing, Recommended Reading
The Business Rusch: How Traditional Publishers Are Making Money
The Business Rusch: How Traditional Publishers Are Making Money Kristine Kathryn Rusch Of course, this past week has been just as busy in publishing as the last several weeks. The changes are amazing, especially considering how stable the industry used to be. Third quarter earnings have come in, and the publicly traded publishing companies must report them. (Or, at least, their parent companies must.) For those of you who blithely predict that traditional publishers will go away, I suggest you click on over to the links below and look, actually look, at those earning statements. For the rest of you, here are the headlines: Pearson, which bills itself as “the world’s largest learning company,” reported increased sales (6%) and operating profit (13%) in the first 9 months of 2011. But the interesting part of its … Read entire article »
Filed under: Business Rusch, featured, free nonfiction, On Writing
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