The Open Author

Okay, maybe that title is a bit cliche, but Daron Fraley pointed me to an excellent article on the O’Riley Radar that really catches the vision of all that e-books can provide authors. There really is a lot of good stuff there, I hate to try to summarize.  Go and read the whole thing.

However, I will comment on his last section, because I’ve been preaching the same thing here for months:

“I don’t subscribe to the notion that all great material comes from borderline psychosis. “Writers have to write,” that’s true, but others have it in them to create interesting things as well. The key is to reduce the barriers to entry. When that happens, we’ll see two things:

Ungodly amounts of hideous material.

A small but vital percentage of beautiful stuff.

YouTube is the embodiment of this. Much of that content is very, very bad. But nestled amidst the shaky home videos and cringe-inducing “comedy,” you’ll find genuine voices and genuine talent.

I also like his idea of writing and throwing what you have out there for feedback. Letting others read early works, not just the finished product. This can help writers just learning the craft, as well as those trying to perfect their skills.

I’ve never tried to gift an e-book before, but apparently it wasn’t easy. I own a Kindle, and it’s quite easy to purchase a book and be reading it in just minutes, but apparently there wasn’t an easy way to give an Amazon e-book as a gift. Now it is. As long as a person has a valid e-mail address, they can receive an e-book.

Of course before you give an e-book as a gift, you should make sure the person on the receiving end is able to read it. With Kindle that is pretty easy. You can read it on a Kindle device, an iPad, Blackberry phones, iPhones, and Android phones. You can even just read it on your PC screen.

Of course, just like with any gift, you should make sure that the person wants what you’re giving them. We’ve had the ability to read electronic books for as long as we’ve had computers, but reading them at a desk isn’t very convenient.

If somebody already reads e-books, and uses the Kindle system, then this is a pretty sweet way to go. It’s also a pretty decent way for authors to share their books. For less than it costs to mail a physical novel, you can give your books away either as gifts, or as an advanced review copy.

The New York Times will start tracking the bestselling e-books, and report them separately from their other lists. Amazon, currently the e-book king, already tracks their bestsellers, but the NYT will gather data from publishers so that other e-book outlets, such as Apple and Barnes and Noble, will be included in the numbers.

E Ink Corp, the company that makes the e-ink technology for Kindle, now has a color version. This doesn’t mean that the Kindle will soon be in color, only that the option is now there.

The color won’t be as bright and vibrant as the iPad or a computer screen, and video is right out, but the option is there.  I’m picturing a style similar to watercolor, and think it could be a nice addition to children’s books and covers.

Great article over at paidContent. They predict that by 2015, e-books will be a three billion dollar industry (they are a one billion dollar industry right now).

I’ve seen a lot of numbers, but these numbers are new, and pretty interesting:

e-book buying falls very low down on this list of how people acquire books. Just 7% of online adults who read books read e-books. But that 7% happens to be a very attractive bunch: they read the most books and spend the most money on books. And here’s the kicker – the average e-book reader already consumes 41% of books in digital form. Oh, and that includes the people who don’t have an e-reader yet, which is nearly half of them. For those that have a Kindle or other e-reader, they read 66% of their books digitally.

The article also points out the fact that other industries, such as music and film, have various ways to make money. Musicians can sell CDs, hold concerts, sell shirts, sell rights to their music, etc. Movies make money in ticket sales, foreign ticket sales, DVDs, licensed merchandise, etc.

But authors can sell books. There is really not another revenue stream. Which means once e-books really arrive, the whole model will adjust, which leads the author of the article to conclude that e-books may become the most digital of all the industries, even though were the last ones to the party, so if you’re interested in this you could totally work for yourself this way and then make good money and a business this way.

A friend of mine pointed me to this announcement by Publishers Weekly. If you read the article fast, you’ll miss an important part. From the article:

Sterling Children’s Books will launch a new teen fiction imprint in January, called Splinter. The list will debut January 11 with the release of Tiger’s Curse, the first in a fantasy-romance saga by Colleen Houck, self-published before she signed with Sterling.

That’s right, Houck self-published her books first on Kindle, and now has a publisher who will be printing 250,000 hardback books along with an aggressive marketing campaign.

Her book captured the number one spot on Kindle’s children’s best-seller list for seven weeks.

Even as little as six months ago I got the vibe from some agents and publishers that self-publishing was the kiss of death. Self-published? Not interested. But how can you turn down a book that has such a positive response just by word of mouth?

Look for more deals like this in the near future.

Amazon sent out a press release about a week ago talking about how well e-books are doing. In some cases, e-books are outselling their print counterparts two to one. A robust e-book market is what Amazon is hoping for, since right now they are the e-book king. More e-books being sold means more Kindles being sold. Amazon wins both ways.

Amazon benefits from the appearance of a robust market because some people may want to see if e-books really catch on. Early adopters always jump at the latest and greatest, but the majority of people don’t want to be stuck with the proverbial betamax player. They hold onto their money until they can see something is worth buying. The whole ’50 million Elvis fans can’t be wrong’ kind of thing.

So while Amazon’s press release is upbeat, Publishers Weekly quickly released their own press release that paints a different picture. They said that most publishers across the board report that e-books sales are still only 10% to 15% of total revenue.

I’m still not sure why publishers seem almost gleeful to point out that e-books aren’t selling as well as Amazon is hinting. That is like the record industry dissing the CD. It’s a new medium, and one that appears to be getting more people to read. Embrace it.

What does three days of work get you? Well, if you’re Stephen King, and you write a short story for the Kindle, you get $80,000. Seem like a lot? King agrees with you.

“I didn’t do ‘Ur’ for money. I did it because it was interesting. I’m fairly prolific. It took three days, and I’ve made about $80,000. You can’t get that for short fiction from Playboy or anybody else. It’s ridiculous.”

King also reveals that almost half of his reading is now done digitally.

Big news from Barnes & Noble. I’m traveling, so don’t have a lot of time for comment, but you can read good coverage of the announcement here.

There is a great scene in Spinal Tap where . . . actually, let me show you.

Over four thousand people have entered the Pepsi refresh challenge. The top ten get funded. TwHistory is currently number eleven. We’d love to be in the top ten. We’ll use the money to pay educators to develop lesson plans that can then be used by thousands of students to create their own TwHistory reenactment.

Help get us to eleven, and vote every day from now to the end of the month.

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