Category: Publishing

Have you heard about Blooks? If not, check this out.

Book blogging -- writing books using the blogging process -- is starting to show promise. Note these blog efforts that are making it into print:

Julie Powell's "Julie & Julia" is the season's most unusual memoir -- a writer's efforts to master the recipes of Julia Child -- and a possible breakthrough for bloggers. Based on postings from Powell's blog, the book will be published by Little, Brown and Co. (a division of Time Warner, as is CNN) and stores expect strong interest.

Other bloggers with recent deals include Stephanie Klein, who calls her very personal blog, "Greek Tragedy," and Dana Vachon, an investment banker known as "d-nasty."

Doctorow E.L. Doctorow's "The March" is considered a possible breakout novel. "The criteria signing 'Julie and Julia' were very similar to what we would use for any book proposal: There was a strong voice, there was a freshness, and a novelty to what she was doing," says Little, Brown's Shandler. "This isn't just a blog that has been printed out into a book. People aren't interested in that because they read blogs every day. They need to see if the blog can be transformed. You could say that a great blogger is like an excellent guitar player, but the book is like playing piano. Bloggers have a head start because they know music, but they still have to make the adjustment."

Read more at CNN.com

This definitely bears watching: 

On-line book store Amazon.com,, in what could be a literary equivalent of snacking, is now selling short stories, and even alternate chapters or single scenes from novels, for 49 cents each.

Read more at Reuters.com

A very nice article just posted by J. Mark Bertrand that gives five excellent steps every serious writer should consider to improve their craft. My favorite:

Start reading books the way an architect looks at buildings

Read full article: The Master's Artist

Here's an interesting factoid from the Hollywood scene that gives insight to the rise of CBA fiction:

Of the twenty top-grossing films of all time, not a single one is rated R. Of the top fifty films, only five are rated R. Clearly, Americans want family fare they can take the kids to. And yet, as Anschutz noted in a recent speech, since the year 2000, Hollywood has “turned out more than five times as many R-rated films as it has films rated G or PG or soft PG-13. . . . Don’t these figures make you wonder what’s wrong with Hollywood just from a business point of view?” (from "Lighting a Hollywood Candle")

Hollywood is bent on pushing rated R media down the throats of consumers, even if it goes against the grain of business sense to do so. And to a degree, mass-market (non-CBA) fiction is following a similar trend.

Why is CBA fiction's popularity rising so quickly? In part it's because there is no rating system on secular books. You pick up a random fiction novel at Barnes and Noble and you are quite possibly going to have the literary equivalent of an R-rated film in your hands.

Buy CBA fiction and you have something that is more G or PG oriented.

A nice quote from Terry Whalin's blog:

Publishers are looking for authors who take a proactive role in the marketing of their books. These types of authors understand that publishing is a business and the role of the author goes far beyond simply writing a manuscript, giving it to the publisher and counting on them to sell the book. It takes your effort and the publisher effort to give the book the best possible launch into the marketplace.

Read more here: The Writing Life: Five Star Reviews

The New Trend

Some CBA publishers have dabbled in the YA marketplace, and not done well economically. When you sell a book for only $4.99 it’s a challenge to make money from it.

More recently books geared for older youths are selling in trade format in the $12 range. They run 300 pages or more, and cater to the same kids who gobbled up Harry Potter and Tolkien. Witness the success of Bryan Davis’ Dragons In Our Midst series, and Donita K. Paul’s Dragonspell series, both of which launched in the CBA market, but have now crossed over to selling on the shelves of Wal*Mart.

Some have called these types of fiction crossover fiction in that the fiction transcends the YA audience to appeal to older youth and adults alike.

If you’re writing to sell, take note of this trend!

The Economics of Trade vs. MM Formats

Consider the economics of book publishing, particularly in the CBA (Christian Booksellers) marketplace.

Fiction books are typically published in either hardback, trade paperback (5"x8" to 6”x9”) or mass-market paperback (4"x7") formats. When was the last time you saw a CBA fiction book in a mass-market paperback format? [Tip: some refer to these formats with the abbreviations ‘HC’ (hard cover), ‘Trade’ (trade paperback), and ‘MM’ (mass-market paperback)].

Why do CBA publishing houses avoid this size?

Economics. The CBA marketplace is a bit different than the books you see at the grocery store or other market outlets. CBA booksellers cater to a niche market, and customers will buy a trade paperback as readily as a mass-market paperback. The trade paperback may command $12 while a mass-market paperback sells for no more than $8.

Do the math. You can see which will make the publisher more money.

Young Adult (YA) novels don’t look like YA books anymore. Walk into any bookstore and you’ll see the books becoming bigger, thicker, and with beautiful covers.

The marketplace for Young Adult books is changing. Two reasons:

1) Harry Potter & Tolkien Books
2) The Economics of Trade vs. MM Formats

Harry Potter & Tolkien Books

First let’s think about the Harry Potter effect. Prior to H.K. Rowling’s blockbuster success with the Harry Potter series, conventional wisdom was that young adults wouldn’t read books over 200 pages. Harry Potter books are thick, almost Bible-like in size.

Now things have changed. Youngsters have voted with their pocketbooks to purchase books in the 300 to 400 page range. The Lord Of The Rings movies then rode on the coattails of Harry Potter to sell 400-500 pages books to a YA audience.

To be fair, this is really a change in the older YA marketplace. The 10 to 15 year old crowd has blossomed into a distinct buying group whose demand publishers are now rushing to fill.

Tomorrow we'll talk about the way economics is shaping the market.

Author Mark Jeffrey is using a free, fully-produced MP3 audiobook performance online to promote book sales. The Pocket and the Pendant is read by the author and accompanied by soundtrack music by composer Bjorn Lynne (www.lynnemusic.com).

Mark Jeffrey, together with scifi/fantasy website DragonPage.com, has so far released five chapters of his book, with nine more to go. The free podcast is available from DragonPage.com, PodcastAlley.com, and the book’s website at PocketandPendant.com.

Podcasting is a new technology, similar to blogging three years ago. Here is an overview of podcasting: www.dragonpage.com/podcast.html.

Says Jeffrey:

There really aren’t a lot of free MP3 audiobooks out there, which really surprises me. It’s a great way to promote paperback and hardback novels, as well as give your existing audience a new way to experience the book.

Asked if he thought he was cannibalizing sales, Jeffrey said:

Absolutely not. We’re already seeing thousands of downloads each week, and new listeners are emailing me that they are purchasing paperback copies on Amazon as a direct result of listening to the podcasts.

DragonPage.com is currently featuring three free podcast audiobooks, or ‘podiobooks’: "Morevi" by Tee Morris, "Earthcore" by Scott Sigler and "The Pocket and the Pendant" by Mark Jeffrey. New episodes for each – usually a chapter or two – are released each week. Subscribers use popular ‘podcatchers’ such as iPodder or other applications to get the new audio content delivered to them automatically.

Jeffrey says:

Podcasting is an amazing thing. It’s like TiVo for audio.