Newsletter 27 September 2023: Publishers’ promotional prejudices; women’s advances retreat; Amazon’s crap limit
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Newsletter 27 September 2023: Publishers’ promotional prejudices; women’s advances retreat; Amazon’s crap limit

Week 11: publishers vs. authors on marketing; book advance gender differences; Scribe rises from the dead; plus 3 people to follow, 3 books to read, and the bullplug. Your publisher focuses on bookstore marketing. That’s not what you need. I’ve worked with dozens of traditionally published authors. Nearly all were disappointed in the work of…

Social media doesn’t sell books. It lights sparks.

Social media doesn’t sell books. It lights sparks.

When it comes to book sales, does a social media following guarantee sales? Of course not. That’s what’s behind the New York Times piece, “Millions of Followers? For Book Sales, ‘It’s Unreliable.’ ,” a naive and oversimplified take on what it takes to sell books. How books sell In the olden days — before COVID…

How to sell 10,000 copies of your book — or decide you don’t need to

How to sell 10,000 copies of your book — or decide you don’t need to

It’s a publishing truism that your book must sell 10,000 copies to be successful. It’s wrong. And it’s also very hard. So let’s take a look at whether you need to sell 10,000 copies, and what it would take to do that. Can you succeed without selling 10,000 copies? The analysis I’m going to share…

17 crucial tasks for the run-up to your book’s publication date

17 crucial tasks for the run-up to your book’s publication date

You’ve completed and turned in your manuscript to the publisher. Congratulations. Time to have a well-earned break, right? Well, maybe for a day or two. There’s typically at least a 5-month gap between when the manuscript is done and your publication date. (That can be shorter if you’re self-publishing, but there’s still a gap.) What…

Be an author, not a sucker:  What services should non-fiction authors buy?

Be an author, not a sucker: What services should non-fiction authors buy?

Face it: if you’re prospective non-fiction author, you may as well have “sucker” written on your forehead. Everyone knows you yearn to be a bestseller and they’re quite happy to take your money to feed that need. Much of what they’re offering is waste. A lot of it is worthwhile. But it could cost you…