On Writing and Publishing

A New York publisher this week filed lawsuits against several prominent writers who failed to deliver books for which they received hefty contractual advances, records show. The Penguin Group’s New York State Supreme Court breach of contract/unjust enrichment complaints include copies of book contracts signed by the respective defendants. The publisher is seeking repayments from: * “Prozac Nation” author Elizabeth Wurtzel, who signed a $100,000 deal in 2003 to write “a book for teenagers to help them cope with depression.” Penguin wants Wurtzel, seen at right, to return her $33,000 advance (and at least $7500 in interest). * Blogger Ana Marie Cox, who signed in 2006 to author a “humorous examination of the next generation of political activists,” is being dunned for her $81,250 advance (and at least $50,000 in interest). Her Penguin contract totaled $325,000. * Rebecca Mead, a staff writer at The New Yorker, owes $20,000 (and at . . .

The New York Times on Wednesday, September 19, 2012, published an article that says Scott Rudin, the film and theater producer, and Barry Diller, the chairmen of IAC/InterActiveCorp, have formed a partnership and with publishing executive, Frances Coady, and will publish e-books under a new venture called Brightline. According to the article in the NYTIMES (written by David Carr) E-books now account for more than 15 percent of publishers’ revenue, and Carr writes, “posing a challenge to the dominance of print in the long run and leaving the future of brick-and-mortar bookstores in doubt.” Fiction it seems sells best, and major publishers are saying that e-book copies sell more than print copies. The hope of all these partners in Brightline is that the new enterprise, without the legal coy costs and practices of traditional publishing , can find traction. Rudin, in the article states that he he often heard from authors . . .

Poet Julie Dargis (Morocco 1984-87) is the founder of Indie House Press. This non-profit site is working to support independent writers by connecting them to independent publishing platforms, editors, designers, branding specialists, and independent booksellers. Rather than creating a list, like many traditional publishers, she is creating a network. If you are an independent writer, and you would like to list your work on her site, contact Julie at julie.dargis@gmail.com.  Julie lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has worked for international organizations in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia, primarily with populations affected by conflict and natural disaster for twenty-five years. Her first book, Seven Sonnets, was published in June on CreateSpace.com. Her second book, a memoir including sonnets and verse depicting her life and work in eight countries will be out in November 2012. She began writing sonnets when she was a PCV in Morocco. Her website is www.IndieHousePress.org.

Here is a writer who have solved the marketing problem of her first novel. I have been reading about Kathleen Grissom’s novel, The Kitchen House. It is about life on a Southern plantation and was published by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in February 2010. The first run was 11,500 copies, which is a lot for a first novel, but, of course, that didn’t attract much attention. While most of us focus on the Internet and creating buzz, it was the old-fashioned book-club-word-of mouth that made the difference for The Kitchen House. Today, the book is in its 21st printing, with 254,000 copies in print and another 152,000 e-books sold. It is now being carried at Target and Costco. Grissom received a good advance of $35,000 from Touchstone and now has had several more royalty checks for $100,000 plus. How’s that for a first time novelist! How did . . .

With some success for my last book, I used RTIR (Radio-TV Interview Report) to sell my book. As we know, the easy part is writing the book. What is hard is finding an audience for your book. How do you sell it? This outfit will cost you $$$, but not a lot. They also have ‘deals’ so you might be able to get one of those (I did) and spend some money for a limited amount of time and sell your book. What is Radio-TV Interview Report (RTIR)? Radio-TV Interview Report: The Magazine Producers Read to Find Guests (RTIR) is a trade publication that goes to over 4,000 radio/TV producers across the United States and Canada. RTIR is published twice a month, and each issue lists 100-150 authors and other spokespeople available for live and in-studio interviews. Each guest’s ad includes a contact person and phone number so interested radio/TV . . .

Last week Penguin Group took over Authors Solutions, one of the biggest print-on-demand publishers, with imprints iUniverse and AuthorHouse. This is the first time a traditional book company (now increasing referred to as a legacy publisher) has purchased a self-publishing company. According to an article on Friday, July 20, 2012, in The Wall Street Journal, the deal is worth $116 million and the self-publishing company will be folded into Penguin and operate as a separate unit. The article quotes Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of Idea Logical Co. a New York-based publishing consultancy, as saying this “constitutes tacit recognition that the legacy publishing model is severely challenged and may not work sometimes in the foreseeable future.” The article in WSJ goes onto point out that publishing houses once had limited access to their customers’ buying and reading habits. But e-book sales have created a trove of data that-if harvested well-can show . . .

Reading a recent article by Chuck Martin, author of The Third Screen: Marketing to Your Customers in a World Gone Mobile (he is the Director of the Center for Media Research at MediaPost Communications) I was struck at what he had to say about the future of books in a  world gone mobile. The focus of his short piece was the recent (a few weeks ago)  BookExpo America (BEA), which is, I think, the largest book industry event in North America and one of the largest gatherings of publishers in the world. It was held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York. At the same time, and on another floor of the Center, was the BlogWorld and New Media Expo, which promotes itself as the largest conference in the world geared to bloggers, podcasters, Web TV content creators, social media enthusiasts and new media content creators. Over 3,000 attending the . . .

I picked up this piece of news off my favorite publishing site, GalleyCat as reported by Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000-02) Net sales revenue from eBooks have surpassed hardcover books in the first quarter of 2012 according to the March Association of American Publishers (AAP) net sales revenue report (collecting data from 1,189 publishers), adult eBook sales were $282.3 million while adult hardcover sales counted $229.6 million during the first quarter of 2012. During the same period last year, hardcover accounted for $335 million in sales while eBooks logged $220.4 million. The report also say, “In Q1 2012, net sales revenue for eBooks was higher than that for Hardcover; this represents a switch of positions in the category vs Q1 2011. In both quarters, however, Trade Paperback remained a clear #1 in net sales revenue despite some erosion. While eBooks continue to show growth, downloaded audiobooks also keep accelerating vs last . . .

Here’s an interesting piece in of literary trivia that was in the Authors Guild Bulletin (Spring 2012). Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, an English professor at the University of Maryland, gave a lecture recently at the New York Public entitled, “Stephen King’s Wang.” King’s first computer was a Wang. Kirschendaum collects old computers and hopes to discover “Who was the first novelist to use a word processor?” Mark Twain was the first to use a typewriter, for Life on the Mississippi, and The New York Times quotes Nietzsche, who typed, “Our writing tools are also working on our thoughts.” One of the earliest bestsellers written on a computer was Tom Clancy’s 1984 The Hunt for Red October. Frank Herbert’s Dune may have been submitted to his publisher in the late 1970s on 8-inch floppy disks, according to Kirschendaum. Kirschenbaum’s Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing is due for publication in . . .

Titles with dirty words in them often wind up on bestseller lists according to a short item in the Authors Guild Bulletin, Spring 2012. In 2005, there was On Bullshit. Then followed Shit My Dad Says. In 2010 there was Assholes and in November Tucker Max wrote a sequel, Assholes Finish First. It made the trade paperback bestseller list, but not in the No. 1 slot.

[Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000-02) had an article this week in GalleyCat site on website where you can –for free–promote your ebook.] Jason Writes: Are you struggling to promote your self-published digital book? Thanks to the Kindle Boards, we discovered a long list of places where self-published authors can promote their eBook for free. We’ve collected more information about the sites in a simple directory below, linking to the submission pages for these eBook sites. If you are an avid eBook reader, these sites are great for finding new books to read as well…. Free Sites for eBook Promotion Addicted to eBooks: “This website is perfect for readers like me, who want to watch their book budget. This website also allows the author to rate some of the content of their book. I want to know before I buy if a book the level of profanity, violence or sex in a . . .

Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975-77) author of Peace Corps Experience: Write and Publish Your Memoir recently gave a talk on how to self-publish your Peace Corps story at a local California library. Here is what he had to say. • To paraphrase Mark Twain, I’ve been a writer for half my life and a jack ass my entire life. What I’ve learned is that we all have important stories to share and maybe it was when we reach down to lift our own child or maybe our grandchild that we are inspired. You may flinch at the idea of writing a book. Don’t. First of all, many famous American writers did not even graduate from a university. Second, do you have any idea how many silly books are published each year? Your story is worth 1,000 diet books and 10,000 romance novels. Third, it is not as difficult as it . . .

[Our own Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000-02) had an article yesterday in his wonderful GalleyCat site on selling in bookstores. It comes from the American Bookseller Association. I’m reprinting it here.] The American Booksellers Association has posted a very useful article explaining how self-published authors can sell their books at a few independent bookstores around the country. We’ve posted links to those helpful resources below, but you should read the whole article. If your bookstore has an option for self-published authors, share a link in the comments section-we will update our article with more resources. Watermark Books and Cafe owner Sarah Bagby explained how self-published writers can add books at her Wichita, Kansas bookstore. “No questions asked, we’ll take five copies of a book on consignment,” said Bagby. The terms are 60/40, and the store keeps the books on the shelves for 90 days. “If they sell, we’ll get back to the author . . .

A dear friend, Carol Senese, emailed me a few months ago to say she was going to Cuba and would be visiting Finca Vigia, Hemingway’s home.  She also volunteered to send me some photos. We had been discussing Paul Hendrickson’s recent book Hemingway’s Boat, 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for biography as well as a New York Times best-seller. Hendrickson, like Carol and myself, had been students at St. Louis University. Carol decided she had to see Cuba after taking a class last winter in Naples, Florida on Cuban art and, as she wrote me, “became hooked.” This was not Carol’s first “art trip” overseas. Since 1995, she has been going with an art history professor from a college near where she lives in Louisville;  this time she convinced the professor and other students to go to Cuba, not for the fishing, but the art. They made arrangements with Carol Damien of Florida . . .

[Adrienne deWolfe is a journalist, award-winning novelist, book writing coach, and a national conference speaker. She came across our website and offered to write a short piece for us about how to write your story. Her website, WritingNovelsThatSell.com, features writing resources, characterization worksheets, online fiction writing courses, and the ongoing blog series, How to Write a Novel: Tips & Best Practices.  Follow Adrienne deWolfe on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ , or subscribe to her newsletter. So, here is what Adrienne has to say to all the writers working on books!] • Write Your Story with Feeling to Make it Memorable By Adrienne deWolfe Whether you are planning to write your personal story as a memoir, or to write a novel based upon your life’s experience, you must find ways to connect with the emotions of your reader if you want your story to be remembered. New writers are often transported by . . .