Hugh Howey

This one’s for high school students. With a bit of planning, you can reap enormous rewards in mental well-being that will reverberate for decades. The steps are simple:

1. Purchase a pair of jeans that are three to four sizes too large.
2. Wear said jeans around school for a few weeks (suspenders may be required).
3. Upon graduation, pack away said jeans with other mementos (yearbooks, diploma).
4. Twenty years later — on the verge of turning 40 — rediscover said jeans, try them on, and marvel at the fit!
5. Brag to spouse.

You’re welcome.

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Just a week after the New York Times called for more balanced coverage of Amazon’s book business, the call seems to have been taken up by those across the media. One piece from Slate hits some great points on why Amazon is actually a force for good. The piece begins by making light of predictions about what Amazon will do with its market dominance at some point down the road. On what Amazon decides to do with its vast earnings, you have this:

Instead of rigging the retail business in its favor by fattening its margins and exploiting its dominant position in a handful of niches, it is so cutthroat that it sometimes appears to be cutting its own throat, as evidenced by the fact that the company loses a boatload of money.

 

Bezos is, for whatever reason, less interested in goosing Amazon’s stock price than in building new fulfillment centers, investing in new technologies, and doing all kinds of other things that involve more actual engineering than financial engineering.

I love that last bit (emphasis mine). Continue Reading →

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Someone explain this to me:

It’s 1 time out of 100 that I write in public (usually by necessity, not by choice).

It’s 1 time out of 100 that I write a scene that makes me cry (again, no stopping it).

It’s 100 out of 100 times that these two overlap. Why the hell?

I’ve had stewardesses (twice) ask me if I’m okay. Another time in an airport waiting at the gate. And this morning at breakfast (a really nice guy this time, who seemed willing to discuss my problems or give me a lift or whatever I needed).

What’s weird is that I never tell these nice people what I’m doing. People have real problems to cry about, and all I could possibly say is: “Don’t worry. I’m just writing.”

Have you had this experience? I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

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This is some seriously awesome news. Bigger than a print-only publishing deal if you ask me. Barbara Freethy, who is likely the top-selling modern self-published author around, is working with Ingram to have her books distributed to major retailers.

She retains the rights. Ingram makes their wholesale fee. Barbara keeps the rest. Bookstores get more great content. Readers have access to one of today’s hottest selling authors. Everyone wins.

Kudos to Ingram for putting this together. This removes one of the last few barriers for self-published authors, and that’s print distribution to brick and mortar stores. For other bestselling self-published authors, it’ll mean another option other than selling off all rights to a work, since publishers have been loathe to sign more print-only deals. And it should help bookstores, who didn’t have access to some of the bestselling works around (Barbara has written 19 New York Times bestsellers, including titles that hit #1 on the list!)

Congratulations, Barbara! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer or more hardworking person. Check out Barbara’s website here to learn more about her works.

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You want to see progress? Take note that the regular attackers of self-publishing as a career choice have altered their aim and are now just going after those who dare to voice their support of self-publishing. Amazon is their number one target, of course, as the top supporter of the self-publishing path. And anyone who defends Amazon—or who argues that self-publishing is just as viable as (if not superior to) traditional publishing—is also a target.

What you don’t see anymore is anyone daring to argue against the substance of pro self-publishing points. Remember the old attacks and stigmas? They used to be:

1) No one sells books by self-publishing. (Often stated as: The average self-published author only sells X books in their lifetime.)

This is rarely trotted out now that dozens of authors have sold millions of titles, hundreds have sold hundreds of thousands of titles, and thousands of authors have sold many thousands of titles. Do all self-published authors have wild success? Of course not. But only 1% of those who submit to agents get published at all. This is finally sinking in, and enough self-published authors have had enough success to put an end to this canard. Continue Reading →

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A year ago, I wrote a short blog post called It’s the Reader, Stupid, inspired by James Carville’s advice during the 1992 Presidential campaign, when he coined the term “It’s the economy, stupid.” The post was meant to be a reminder to publishers and bookstores that their customer is the reader, not each other.

I think it bears reminding to all of us just who should be in charge of the publishing industry, and that’s the customer.

What got me thinking about this today was a discussion on KBoards about how Amazon’s algorithms and also-boughts work, what gets promoted and what doesn’t, and all the ways that entrepreneurial writers attempt to figure out the market they’re writing for. Here’s my reminder: It’s all about the reader. Continue Reading →

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Bestselling author Paulo Coelho, who has seen how lower prices on his own ebooks have led to higher sales and greater profits, cautioned publishers from Frankfurt this weekend not to be greedy.

He also suggests that lower prices for digital books are good for the industry, that change is inevitable, and a lot else that made a shocking amount of sense.

Bravo, Paulo. Bravo.

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“What is DBW,” you ask?

Digital Book World is an online news source for digital publishing developments. They also put on an annual conference in New York City. For the past couple of years, they have been the go-to source for all your Amazon-bashing needs. Their coverage has been so stilted, that when I noticed a change this week, I had to reach out to a friend and see if someone had called in sick. Indeed, there has been a change at the helm.

This is a most welcome development. Already, the coverage lacks the one-sidedness that plagued DBW in the past. Instead of tuning in every morning to hear what the Amazon Derangement Syndrome crowd thinks, I’m now watching fair and positive coverage of the digital publishing world. It’s a breath of fresh air.

I point this out because I’m not alone in my assessment. Today, I saw comments on a post at The Digital Reader that starts: “Pretty much anything from DBW can be safely ignored.” A reply from Nate, who runs The Digital Reader goes: “No argument here. I was initially going to be much more snarky when commenting on DBW, but then I toned it down.” Comments like these are rife across the publishing landscape. The previous editor had an agenda, and we should celebrate his departure. Continue Reading →

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It’s being reported that Amazon is opening a physical store in Manhattan in time for the holiday season. The company hasn’t confirmed this, but the move has been a long time coming. Once Amazon started paying sales tax in many states, the main disadvantage of a physical store was removed (the physical space would have nulled sales tax exemptions).

I’ve blogged in the past about how physical spaces could benefit the company, from providing an outlet for same-day deliveries to showcasing their electronic devices. It’ll be interesting to see how they treat physical books, if they also highlight the works they publish in-house and maybe even a sampling of print-on-demand titles.

If the store is a success, one imagines it’ll be replicated elsewhere. Any city big enough to warrant an Apple or Microsoft store could use an Amazon store. If the newest Kindle is as sexy as it’s reported to be, the chance to go hands-on could be good for device sales (and then e-book sales). It’s fascinating to me that the same year publishers are making moves to have their own digital storefronts, Amazon might be making its first foray into physical storefronts. Continue Reading →

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Amber and I are in Annapolis looking at sailboats. When we met nearly 13 years ago, I was living and working on boats. She domesticated me under the condition that we would get back on a boat one day and sail around the world. We’re still years away from departure, but perhaps only two or three years from selling the house and moving onto a boat.

I fell in love with sailing when I was very young. The beach house we went to every year had a small sunfish sailboat. Really just a dinghy with a triangle of fabric. But the thing would scoot, and at ten years old, it was like having your own car. The sensation of freedom, quietude, awareness, and constant striving were intense.

In college, I bought a 27′ Watkins to live on. It saved me a lot of money and filled my weekends with mini-adventures. After my junior year, I sailed south with plans to see how far I could make it. Not far, it turns out. The Bahamas were too nice; I was having too much fun; and then a couple hurricanes wiped me out. Continue Reading →

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Thank you, Margaret Sullivan, for renewing my faith in my favorite newspaper.

With a statement that admits its coverage has not been entirely fair, Margaret Sullivan calls for more balanced reporting on the Amazon Hachette negotiations. This is great news. From Margaret’s piece:

I would like to see more unemotional exploration of the economic issues; more critical questioning of the statements of big-name publishing players; and greater representation of those who think Amazon may be a boon to a book-loving culture, not its killer.

Update: Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler make good cases for why this public rebuke of David Streitfeld perhaps doesn’t go far enough.

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Two forces tug legacy industries from opposite directions. On the one side, you have customer demand. On the other side you have a mix of fear and laziness. In-between is where corporations and industries find themselves, and they face a choice. Sadly, in most cases, the fear and laziness win out. It’s left to radical new upstarts to provide customers with what they actually want.

The examples are numerous. Look at Tesla, a company that builds all-electric cars and wants to sell them direct to the consumer in order to keep the price down. These cars are sexy, great for the environment, and becoming more and more affordable. What’s the response from the competition? An appeal to the courts to block the skirting of dealership laws. An appeal to an old and wasteful system that means higher prices to the consumer and lined pockets for the middlemen. Check out what the New York Times had to say about these attempts:

Car dealers in New York, New Jersey and several other states are waging legal, legislative and regulatory campaigns to stop Tesla, the fast-growing electric-car company, from selling its vehicles directly to consumers. These moves are little more than attempts to protect an old retail model by limiting consumer choices.

How about Uber and Lyft? Having used these services, and having gotten around dozens of cities by cab, the most amazing shock to me is that taxis weren’t the ones who innovated here. With every potential customer holding a networked computer in the palm of their hand, the increased efficiency made possible by an app that handled dispatching, routing, and payment is a no-brainer. But fear and laziness win out, and now taxis are appealing to the courts to keep a system that is less efficient (which means worse for traffic and worse for the environment) and provides less customer satisfaction.

What does the New York Times have to say about this innovation and Uber’s pricing strategy with UberX?

The key to understanding Uber’s strategy is the concept of “elasticity of demand,” which is how people will react to a lower price. If consumers’ demand is highly elastic, it means that a slightly lower price will lead to people taking a lot more UberX rides.

Price elasticity. Lower prices will result in widespread adoption and greater profits. Interesting.

How about that great disrupter, Netflix? Having put video rental chains out of business and then proving that dropping an entire season of TV all at once can be a good thing, Netflix is now arguing that the classic program of “windowing” is not good for the film industry. Netflix wants to release the sequel to 2000’s smash hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on Netflix as well as in theaters, all on the same day. The theaters (which are predominantly three companies) refused. Netflix appealed to the Imax chain, but Imax waived control of their screens to the same three aforementioned companies, who host their installations. Again, the companies refused. And again, the New York Times had fair coverage of the event, saying:

Theater chains in the United States have rallied against attempts to change the traditional model for releasing films, worried that movie fans might stay at home rather than pay for movie tickets. The theaters now typically play movies for three months without competition.

…

Netflix, Imax and the Weinstein Company, which is producing “Crouching Tiger,” said that movie fans were asking for new ways to watch films. “Going out to the movies is a very different experience than staying in,” said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at Netflix. “Withholding access only invites piracy.”

Continue Reading →

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