Timewaster's Guide Archive

And the biggest thing I'd say is to figure out the industry. This is a business, and you are a professional within the business. No editor wants to work with a writer who isn't a professional.

 

And there is the crux of the matter.  I don't know if I want to pursue a career in this field.  My interests lie elsewhere.  I've always loved writing, and I will always write, but I don't know if I will get around to another book or not.  I'm pursuing a doctorate, I have a couple of projects I'm working on, I've got four boys that need attention, and other things are taking up my time; other things that I'm passionate about.  I have always wanted to be a published author, but now that I've done it I don't know if I have the desire to do it again.   Not because it was a bad experience, it was a great experience.  I just don't know if I care to do it all over.

If I do write another book, or rather tell another story, I think it will be in a different medium.

Yeah, they had about 30 copies of my book.  I sat next to Jennie Hansen who has written 15 books now.  She reviewed my book on Meridian and was very nice to promote my book to others stopping by the table.  I sold 6-8 copies, and probably 7 of those were because people stopped by to buy Jennie's book.

You may be right.  But you may be wrong.  There are several fiction writers (science fiction writers actually) who have made their books available for free on the internet, but also have their books printed and sold in the stores.  At least one of those authors is convinced that his books have sold better because it's available for free...

Again, for me the desired result is not a lot of sales, rather for anybody who wants to read it to have a chance.  It may be the  best way to do that is to publish it and have Seagull market it in their stores.  But it may reach more people if I make it free on the web.  I've released one book through Covenant.  I'm going to release the second one on the web.  Hopefully Covenant will still be interested in the publishing rights and release it in their stores.   If not, I'll look elsewhere.  

Anyway, this is the link to the articles about the 2 science fiction writers  - http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/236203&tid=214&tid=95

And this is a link to an article written by one of the authors  giving his reasons why he gives his books away - http://craphound.com/someone/000363.html

And quoted from that article - I've given away more than half a million digital copies of my award-winning first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and that sucker has blown through five print editions... so I'm not worried that giving away books is hurting my sales.

And again from the article...

In the words of Woody Guthrie:

   "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

It would be nice if my book sells, but I'd much rather have people just read it.

The more I think about it, the more tempted I am to go with a CC licence for my second book.  I don't know how that will all shake out, but it might be interesting.

I will just miss you.  I'm there signing books at 2:00-4:00...

So, I got a royalty check in the mail from Covenant today. I finally got learned how many copies of my book have been purchased...

It's kind of an eye opener. Covenant initially published 5000 books, and have sold over 3000 of the first printing.

I came into this whole book publishing thing pretty naive to the whole process. It's actually been quite the education. One of the most interesting things I have found has been how my book has sold in Deseret Book, verses Seagull Book and Tape.

I have been tracking DB sales and to date, the entire chain has sold 225 books. I don't know what is normal, but I was pretty sure that those numbers were pretty pathetic. However, as I did book signings at the Seagull stores, I found that they were selling quite a bit better. Now that I've got the 'official number' it's clear that Deseret Book has sold less than 10 percent of the total number.

Why the difference? Isn't it true that if you write a good book people will buy it? Ha ha, that is what I thought. What it actually comes down to is how you sell it. DB takes my book and puts in on the shelf, spine out. SB takes my book and makes a pretty display, right up front. They have me come in and sign copies. Covenant sends 'demo' copies to the Seagull employees so that they read the book before it hits the shelves, then they can tell customers about it.

So in other words, SB has been pushing my book, and DB hasn't.

The long and short of it is that I still don't know if I wrote a good book or not. It sells well, but only when people in the stores are saying, "pssst, buddie. Wanna buy a book?" Who knows what will happen when SB moves my book to the back shelf to make room for other new books.

There are two ways for me to sell more books. One is that I can take copies of my book and start pushing them on people. I can hold little Amway meetings at my house, call my friends and family, push, push, push...

That's not going to happen.

The second way is for me to write a sequel. Then I 'earn' a right to have another book put out on the front display. Customers will come in, see the book, maybe recognize the name, and ask the clerk about it. The clerks will then say, "Oh, this is a sequel, it's very good (they will have to say that because they are pushing it, and there is a display), and over here we have the first book in the series..."

I'd like that to happen, but I have writers block like you wouldn't believe (especially if you've made it this far into this long post). Who knows if the second book will ever see the light of day?

So, it has been a fun little ride, and it may keep going. The highlight for me is when I think that 3000 people have picked up a copy of my book, read a bit about my life, and maybe even chuckled over it.

How fast can you find out what is unusual about this paragraph? It looks so ordinary that you would think that nothing was wrong with it at all and, in fact, nothing is. But it is unusual. Why? If you study it and think about it you may find out, but I am not going to assist you in any way. You must do it without coaching. No doubt, if you work at it for long, it will dawn on you. Who knows? Go to work and try your skill. Par is about half an hour.