A couple of weeks ago an editor asked on Twitter what people wanted to find when they visited publishers’ websites. You can guess what I said: my books, in prime position. But that was no help to the editor concerned who has more to consider than my ego, like attracting new customers, selling more books,…
Category Archives: book selling
Amazon Gives Authors Access To Nielsen BookScan
Yesterday it was announced that Amazon is going to provide access to Nielsen BookScan to all authors who have signed up to its Author Central service. By the magic of the internet, writers will now be able to see their sales mapped out in Amazon-blue and white. I suspect this will only work for US…
Talli Roland Takes On Amazon!
I first met Talli Rowland on Twitter, and then at a couple of the RNA parties I’ve been to since. She’s a gorgeous woman, a fabulous writer and a lovely friend to have. Today, Talli is taking on Amazon, hoping to push her debut novel The Hating Game up the best seller lists, and here’s…
Stealing Is Not Acceptable No Matter What You Call It
On Friday, while I was in the middle of the whirl of posts that so many of you lovely people wrote about copyright, two things jumped up and waved at me. First I received a Google alert which showed that someone had copied seven posts from my blog and pasted them into his without permission…
Lost Book Sales
Here’s an interesting new blog: it asks readers to send in their stories of the books they tried to buy but couldn’t, and to explain why. It’s a sobering read, and for every lost sale which is reported to the site there must be many, many more out there in the wild. I’m not entirely…
On Selling Books To Readers
Here’s an interesting blog post from writer and bookseller, Sara Crowley, in which she discusses bookselling, short stories, jacket designs and what makes books get chosen. She’s promised a follow-up post soon, and I’m looking forward to it. The rest of her blog is worth reading, too.
Mainstream Publishing Is Not Scared of Self-Publishing
(Not even when it jumps out from behind the literary sofa and shouts BOO!) A couple of weeks ago on the social whirl that is Twitter, someone suggested to me that the reason that commercial publishers are so dismissive of self- and vanity-publishers is that they are either scared of them, or in denial over…
They Had It Coming Indeed: Part IV
This is the fourth blog post in a shortish series in which I analyse an article written by David Rozansky, publisher of Flying Pen Press (discussed here at AbsoluteWrite), regarding literary agent Andrew Wylie’s decision to set up his own publishing house, and license e-book rights to some of his clients’ works exclusively to Amazon….
They Had It Coming Indeed: Part III
This blog post is the third in a series in which I analyse an article written by David Rozansky, publisher of Flying Pen Press, regarding the recent decision by literary agent Andrew Wylie to set up his own publishing imprint and license e-book rights to some of his clients’ works exclusively to Amazon. You can…
They Had It Coming Indeed: Part II
This blog post is the second in a series in which I analyse an article written by David Rozansky, publisher of Flying Pen Press, regarding the recent decision by literary agent Andrew Wylie to set up his own publishing house and license e-book rights to some of his clients’ works exclusively to Amazon. You can…
The Writing Business: Part III
This is the final part of the talk I gave at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. You can read part I here, and part II here. The Writing Business 44) So, once you’re sure your writing is as good as it can be, you have to work out where to submit it. How can…
The Writing Business: Part II
This is part two of the talk I gave at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this week. You can read the first part here, and the final part will appear tomorrow. The Writing Business 25) How hard is it to get an agent? Let’s look at some statistics. 26) At her talk at the Romantic…
The Writing Business: Part I
Two days ago I spoke at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (get me!), on the subject of The Writing Business. I’d never done anything like this before, so I was very lucky to share the stage with Keith Charters of Strident Publishing and to have the event chaired by the writer Eric Swanepoel, who was…
Distributor Or Wholesaler? Writer Beware Explains!
If you’re considering submitting to a smaller publisher, one of the things you should investigate before you send your work out is what sort of distribution deal that publisher has. Because if it doesn’t have a proper distribution deal in place, its books (for which you can read your books) just aren’t going to sell….
Self-Publishing Sales Statistics Clarified
When I appeared on The Write Lines last week I mentioned that the average self-published book sells between forty and two hundred copies, depending on which set of figures you consult. Compared to mainstream publishing, where sales of three thousand copies for commercial fiction are considered by some to be disappointing, these figures are terribly…
Trios: The Einstein Girl, by Philip Sington: Selling Literary Fiction
Samantha Fanaken works as part of Random House’s sales team as a Senior Key Account Manager, and here she discusses selling literary fiction into bookshops. One of the most enjoyable parts of working for a literary publisher like CCV is reading large piles of paper that will one day turn into books. Reading a book…
Trios: The Einstein Girl, by Philip Sington: Waterstone’s Perspective
Last time The Einstein Girl appeared here, we learned how its cover was created; today, Rodney Troubridge (the Fiction Marketing Planner at Waterstone’s) reveals how he makes his decisions; and next time, a key account manager at Random House will discuss selling this sort of literary fiction to booksellers. As a lucky retailer who gets…
How Writers Can Save Publishing, One Book At A Time
When I visited Aberystwyth a couple of weeks ago, I did my usual thing: I left my husband on the beach to supervise our children, and I went for a walk around the town. I’ve known Aberystwyth all my life: I have a lot of family there, and it’s familiar to me in an infrequent,…
Selling Books To Book Shops (Part I)
The following article first appeared on my blog in October 2008, but thanks to my technical ineptitude it disappeared from view a couple of months ago. Here it is again. I hope it stays here this time! Mainstream publishing houses employ sales representatives who work all over the country, visiting all the book shops they…