I used to be quite dismissive of the usefulness of the 20Booksto50K conference. Pre-pandemic, 20Books was all about Amazon, Kindle, Kindle Select, and making money on page reads. Great money, for a few folks who learned to manipulate Amazon’s algorithms. Good money, for some who went exclusive to Amazon and manipulated the algorithms. Okay money, […]
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A Short Series Introduction For years now, I’ve done a year-end review, examining what happened and where the industry stands. I’ve been having a heck of a time starting this year’s series. At first, I thought it was because I had had such a difficult and disruptive year. But, with the help of my […]
Continue ReadingWhile I was digging deep into the ugliness that traditional publishing contracts have devolved into, the indie publishing world has grown and changed and become even more positive. More than a light at the end of the tunnel, the indie world has become a haven to those of us willing to work hard and to […]
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A while back, I promised I would look at the new report from Author Earnings. I needed time to assess the data for the purposes of this blog. For those of you who don’t know, Author Earnings is a website started by Hugh Howey and a man known only as Data Guy. The site takes […]
Continue ReadingI’d love to say nothing, but that’s not true—if we’re discussing indie writers who have remained in the business for several years. There will always be new indie writers who know very little, and there will always be those with “experience” who turn a year or two worth of sales into a know-it-all platform. However, […]
Continue ReadingAs I started this post on a Monday night over two weeks ago, my Kris DeLake novel, A Spy To Die For, ranked #1 on two Amazon bestseller lists. Both are subgenre lists: 1. Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Science Fiction 2. Books > Romance > Science Fiction And #6 in another: […]
Continue ReadingI just heard from Audible.com that they’ve decided to put several of my audiobooks on a great special. If you have already bought the Kindle edition of the books listed below, then you can get the audiobook for 99 cents. That’s right: If you bought the Kindle edition, you can get the audio edition for less than […]
Continue ReadingThis morning, on my Twitter feed, a kind gentleman tweeted me with the news that he had just bought the first volume of Fiction River on Smashwords. Then he thanked me for “having good sense to make it easy not to steal.” I know what he meant, even though the tweet was oddly phrased: WMG […]
Continue ReadingProbably the most popular blog post I’ve written in the Business Rusch series appeared in May, 2011. Geared toward traditionally published writers and new writers coming in, “Writing Like It’s 1999” explains how the many truths of publishing from the last century are no longer truths, but myths. The post gets reprinted often. It’s part […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: The Changing Definition of Publishing Kristine Kathryn Rusch This week, the announcements for the Pulitzer Prize shocked the publishing world because, for some reason, the Pulitzer board declined to chose a winner from the three fiction nominees. Lost in the controversy (besides the hurt feelings of the fiction nominees and the fact […]
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