For Writers
-
The Big Bad Discovery Problem: How Is Anyone Going to Find Your Book?
At #FutureBook16, a conference based in London, authors, agents, publishers, and others converged to discuss the future of the book. Or, really, the future of publishing. Spoiler: the industry doesn’t think it’s that bright. In his keynote, Tim Healy Hutchinson Hachette UK said that the book market is in “secular decline.” The entire industry is…
-
Yes, The Goldfinch is Overrated… But Why?
I’m not really qualified to decide what does and doesn’t deserve a Pulitzer. But I’m of the somewhat strong opinion that “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt shouldn’t have made the cut. Let me break down this epic journey in rambling, poorly plotted, erratically written, Pulitzer-worthy material. And then let me explain why it spells trouble…
-
Hachette v. Amazon: Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?
If you’ve paid any attention to the book industry, you’ll know by now that Hachette and Amazon are locked in some kind of pricing battle. The details aren’t that well known, but the strategy is: Amazon disabled the pre-order option for Hachette books, discounts have vanished and some authors have gone completely unlisted. Meanwhile, Hachette…
-
3 Ways to Measure Your Book’s Online Marketing Campaign
When it comes to online marketing, independent authors like to think they’re ahead of the curve. Social savvy, internet savvy, and savvy in other miscellaneous ways. But just because you made a Facebook Page and have a Twitter account doesn’t mean that they’re helping sell your eBook. Online marketing is a mysterious mix of luck…
-
Innovation & Stagnation in the Traditonal Publishing Industry
The Tribune Company did something that surprised me the other day: it released a new product. An app, to be specific. Newsbeat converts newspapers into audio, so people can listen to them in the car, on their iPhone and in various other Mobile scenarios. Aside from Tribune newspapers like The Los Angeles Times, Newsbeat will…
-
How to Use a Blog to Sell Your Book
The government shutdown is over. For now. After so much productive and rigorous hashtagging on Twitter, complaints on Facebook, and half-plagiarised news articles looking for traffic, our representatives had no choice but to start funding things again. And agree to fund the things they passed this year already. During that time – while I was…
-
Is Writing & Music & Art Getting Specialized to Death?
I just watched “Dear Mr. Watterson,” a light-hearted documentary about the impact that Bill Watterson’s ever-famous, ever-persistent comic strip, Calvin & Hobbes, has had on people over the years. The part that gripped me most was when several prominent cartoonists spoke in extremely gloomy terms about new media. Berkeley Breathed, the cartoonist behind Opus, Bloom County, and Outland,…
-
Fitzgerald & Hemmingway Were Bloggers, Too
Sometimes, I feel guilty about blogging. It’s a little pinching sensation, probably a sensation most writers are familiar with – the feeling that you’re wasting time you should be using to work on your novel. That’s why I was reassured when I read a recent interview with a professor about “the Lost Generation” and found…
-
A Fictional Serial Killer Starts a Blog… Then What?
I forget what I was Googling, but I found a very unique press release that caught my eye: “Serial Killer Starts Blog Ahead of 2MCH4YA Book Completion.” Yes, a serial killer featured in the upcoming novel, “taRNished,” now has a blog. The blog is an example of what I’ve been thinking about a lot when it comes to…
blaiselucey.com 