Category: Publishing Industry and Business of Writing

I notice a trend in these covers. Do you?

It’s unfortunate that Patreon doesn’t work better at connecting potential patrons with creators (which it notoriously doesn’t). I’ve thought about starting a Patreon-funded short story magazine, but realistically I know that I’d spend a lot of time just building up the audience, with no guarantee that I’d ever reach a useful level.

Originally shared by Walter Roberson

Robin Sloan used to work for Twitter, but is better known for writing Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, which is a novel about, among many other things, Google. Here, he talks to an interviewer about how digital tools can be married to a different sensibility from the usual instant/huge/shallow/short-term approach that we tend to associate with them, and how the slower, more thorough process of, for example, traditional publishing has something to be said for it. 

Walter Jon Williams demonstrates why people buy from Amazon more than they do from iBooks. 

The latest Author Earnings report from Hugh Howey and Data Guy refines the methodology of earlier reports, using better data, and finds that the previous figures were actually pretty accurate. 

Indie growth continues in ebook sales, as expected, but also in print and audio. And ebook sales overall continue to grow, now to over $2 billion a year from Amazon alone (almost half of which isn’t accounted for by the sources that traditional publishers, and most journalists, use, because of books that don’t have ISBNs). 

Howey’s argument is that the reason the formerly dominant players in publishing are in trouble is that they don’t provide service to authors or readers commensurate with their costs. He makes a strong case.

Originally shared by C. M. Skiera

Considering the recent “indie-shaming” tactics by the New York Times that were brought to light by author Autumn Kalquist, the latest blog post by Hugh Howey is timely and spot-on relevant, as well as a fascinating read.

(And this is a link to Autumn Kalquist’s blog, if you’re interested http://www.autumnkalquist.com/20k/#comment-5067)