I should never read the comments on other people’s writing information blogs. The comments discourage me, generally for one of two reasons. If the blog is about traditional publishing, and the authors are traditionally published only with no desire to change, I get discouraged at the amount of misinformation. If the blog is about indie […]
Continue ReadingThis week came the news that Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program will offer its content providers a 70% royalty on all sales made in India—provided the content providers go with Kindle Select only. For those of you who don’t know, Kindle Select requires exclusivity from anyone who joins it. You can’t market your work on […]
Continue ReadingIf you read mainstream publishing news, like I do, occasionally your head will explode. Or you’ll run around in a panic, turning into one of those long-haired barefoot New Yorker cartoon characters, carrying a sign saying that the world is about to end. For many in traditional publishing, the world is ending. Their clout is […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Writers and The DOJ Lawsuit Kristine Kathryn Rusch This week, the Department of Justice filed its lawsuit against Apple and five publishers. Three publishers settled immediately with two, as of this writing, going forward—Penguin and MacMillan. I am not a lawyer, so I cannot comment on the filing. A few have, including […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Quality Kristine Kathryn Rusch Last week, I finally figured out how to describe the changes going on in the publishing industry. My post, “Scarcity and Abundance,” went viral. If you haven’t read it, please do so, just so that I don’t have to redefine my terms again. As usual with a viral post, […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Scarcity and Abundance Kristine Kathryn Rusch For nearly two years now, I’ve been trying to find a succinct way to express how publishing is changing. So imagine my pleasure when I found the exact analogy that I wanted in John Seabrook’s New Yorker article, “Streaming Dreams,” about YouTube. A few years […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Kristine Kathryn Rusch The quote in my title comes from Mark Twain’s autobiography. Twain said: “Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: “There are three kinds […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: The Book Trade Kristine Kathryn Rusch It’s amazing how hindsight makes things clearer. Actually, the changes in publishing have brought a lot of things into focus for me. Then I think about those things, and remember conversations or moments when I felt simply astounded at something, but let it pass, not […]
Continue ReadingWell, since everyone’s talking about this already, I may as well come clean. I have a new pen name, Kris DeLake, and the first book is out in March. This is romance and space opera combined. I like to say that the spaceships go “whoosh!” as they travel through space, which is why I didn’t […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Bestseller Lists and Other Thoughts Kristine Kathryn Rusch On Tuesday, in my morning business reading, I came across a rather startling statistic: the claim that it only took 20,000 sales of paper books to hit the paper bestseller lists. I’m also assuming the statistic means paper; it might mean that it takes […]
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