Best Seller Authors

Book Marketing, Publishing, Author Resources

Book Sales Drop Up To 54.3%

From Publishers Weekly

Publishers WeeklyE-book sales doubled in September, to $80.3 million, at the publishers that report results to the AAP. Sales in the print segments had a mixed performance with children’s/YA hardcover sales up 2.1% at reporting publishers, although children’s/YA paperback sales fell 14.6%. Sales of mass market paperback plunged in September, falling 54.3% at reporting houses. Trade paperback did much better with sales flat at reporting houses, while hardcover sales fell 18.1%. Sales from religious publishers (all formats), fell 6.3% at reporting publishers.

For the first nine months of 2011, e-book sales were up 137.9% at reporting publishers, to $727.7 million. Sales at all print trade segments were down in the nine months, though sales of religion products rose 6.6%.

If you are thinking the book business will every go back dominance, it’s time to rethink your business.

What are you doing to get on this trend?

The Illusion of Patronage

The following is an excerpt from Seth Godin’s The Domino Project If you are not subscribed, I suggest you do so right away. This is the future of publishing.

Here, Seth answers the question of what a publisher will do to help you

Many successful, serious authors are in love with the notion that they get to be serious and successful merely by writing.

There was a brief interlude, perhaps 50 years in all post-Gutenberg, in which it was possible for a talented writer to be chosen, anointed, edited, promoted and paid for her work. Where the ‘work’ refers to the writing.

This idea that JD Salinger could hide out in his cabin, write, and periodically cash royalty checks is now dying.

Authors of the future are small enterprises, just one person or perhaps two or three. But they include fan engagement specialists, licensors, new media development managers, public speakers, endorsement and biz dev VPs, and more.

No one has your back.

Sad but true. The author of today (and tomorrow) is either going to build and maintain and work with his tribe or someone is going to take it away.

Seth Godin is the founder of The Domino Project and has written twelve books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.

Amazon will publish 122 books this fall

Read the full story at the New York Times

Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both physical and e-book form. It is a striking acceleration of the retailer’s fledging publishing program that will place Amazon squarely in competition with the New York houses that are also its most prominent suppliers.

It has set up a flagship line run by a publishing veteran, Laurence Kirshbaum, to bring out brand-name fiction and nonfiction. It signed its first deal with the self-help author Tim Ferriss. Last week it announced a memoir by the actress and director Penny Marshall, for which it paid $800,000, a person with direct knowledge of the deal said.

Publishers say Amazon is aggressively wooing some of their top authors. And the company is gnawing away at the services that publishers, critics and agents used to provide.

Several large publishers declined to speak on the record about Amazon’s efforts. “Publishers are terrified and don’t know what to do,” said Dennis Loy Johnson of Melville House, who is known for speaking his mind.

“Everyone’s afraid of Amazon,” said Richard Curtis, a longtime agent who is also an e-book publisher. “If you’re a bookstore, Amazon has been in competition with you for some time. If you’re a publisher, one day you wake up and Amazon is competing with you too. And if you’re an agent, Amazon may be stealing your lunch because it is offering authors the opportunity to publish directly and cut you out.

Your Readers Demand a Kindle Version of Your Book

I’ve been telling you that you MUST have your book available in Kindle format for years. It was only a matter of time till this report for the Wall Street Journal

The online retailing giant says that for the first time, it has sold more electronic copies of books than actual print editions. Since April 1, Amazon has sold 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books sold. The company has sold more than three times as many Kindle books so far this year as it did at the same time a year ago.

And that’s just Amazon and the Kindle version!