http://www.cinemablend.com/new/See-JK-Rowling-s-Harry-Potter-Thought-Process-On-Paper-21100.html

http://dosomedamage.blogspot.com/2010/08/readers-and-reading-part-one.html

Other than improper use of grammar, mistakes regarding guns, and swearing, nothing seems to bother the legion of readers snapping up these Kindle books for $.99 with awful writing, poorly developed characters, and stories that just generally drip crap out of every electronic orifice.

And I’m not talking Dan Brown or James Patterson type bad. Those guys are All Stars compared to these amateurs. But it doesn’t seem to bother readers. Sure, they’ll comment on it in an Amazon review or whatever, but then mention that they still loved the story and will buy the next book by the author.

But my biggest insult comes from the fact that they don’t seem to distinguish AT ALL the difference between an author who has slaved and sacrificed and put in the hard work to make their book the best they can be then run the gauntlet of gatekeepers, rules, traditions, whims, luck, and corporate landmines that hold together the publishing industry or the author who gave up on the traditional route and slapped up a rough draft with some zippy copy and a garish self-designed cover with some blurbs from their mom and their old aunts writing group. It’s hard some days when the writing isn’t coming or the rejections are coming too fast and I want to give up. But I’ve known all along that I don’t just want to be published, I want to be published right. Call me elitist, call me traditional or stuffy or whatever, but that’s what I signed on for and that’s what I’m working toward.

King of Kindle

It so unfair he can sing and write. And be funny.

I *heart* Parnell Hall.

May 25, 2010|By Garrison Keillor

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-05-25/news/bs-ed-keillor-writing-20100525_1_mary-pope-osborne-magic-tree-house-books-read/2

And if you want to write, you just write and publish yourself. No need to ask permission, just open a website. And if you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you’ve got yourself an e-book. No problem. And that is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75.

Back in the day, we became writers through the laying on of hands. Some teacher who we worshipped touched our shoulder, and this benediction saw us through a hundred defeats. And then an editor smiled on us and wrote us a check, and our babies got shoes. But in the New Era, writers will be self-anointed. No passing of the torch. Just sit down and write the book. And The New York Times, the great brand name of publishing, whose imprimatur you covet for your book (“brilliantly lyrical, edgy, suffused with light” — NY Times) will vanish (Poof!). And editors will vanish.

The upside of self-publishing is that you can write whatever you wish, utter freedom, and that also is the downside. You can write whatever you wish, and everyone in the world can exercise their right to read the first three sentences and delete the rest.

Children, I am an author who used to type a book manuscript on a manual typewriter. Yes, I did. And mailed it to a New York publisher in a big manila envelope with actual postage stamps on it. And kept a carbon copy for myself. I waited for a month or so and then got an acceptance letter in the mail. It was typed on paper. They offered to pay me a large sum of money. I read it over and over and ran up and down the rows of corn whooping. It was beautiful, the Old Era. I’m sorry you missed it.

Garrison Keillor’s column appears regularly in The Baltimore Sun. His e-mail is old scout@prairiehome.org.

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How To Price An Ebook

I’m trying to decide if I should sell my ebook for $.99 or $2.99. Actually, I think the ideal price would be $1.99. My reason is wordcount.

Let’s say that I want to earn $1 per 20,000 words. A short story (like Amazon Shorts) of 10,000 words or less would be 50 cents, a novelette of 20,000 words would be $1, and my anthology, which is 47,000 words would be about $2.40. But it is an anthology, which is less popular than a novel. The problem is that at anything less than $2.99, Amazon will only give me 30% of the price rather than 70%. So there is a huge difference to me in how much I make on $2.40 book vs a $2.99 book. If I go down to .99 cents the difference is even more drastic.

There is also the issue of loss leading. In a sense the purpose of the anthology is to drum up interest in my novels, when they appear on the scene. However, I would like the book to pay for itself, which means making a minimum of $1000. (If I can’t sell more than 30 copies, as I anticipate, this might be a problem.)

At the $2.99, I need to sell 500 copies to break even. At .99, I need to sell 3000. That’s quite a difference. Will .99 attract 2,500 more buyers than $2.99? That’s the question.