Tangible is only a state of mind
Today's achievements: Wrote a new product page for my website, fiddled about with Wordpress and PHP to get a funky little feature working, wrote seven or eight articles for backlinks.
It sort of feels like a lot, but that's only because I'm so prone to slacking. The PHP stuff took longer than I was expecting, but other than that it was definitely less than an hour's work. I woke up around noon so I've had a good four or five hours to do work in. So not a great ratio, really.
I've been reading a great deal about self-publishing over the past couple of days. Mostly stuff from JA Konrath (I'm pretty sure Liz's flatmate was reading one of his books the last time I was round there, which is a groovy coincidence), Barry Eisler, and John Locke (who is neither the enlightenment philosopher nor the guy from Lost, unfortunately). Three people whose work I've never read, but whose perspectives on self-publishing are extremely interesting.
Self-publishing used to be the second-rate option. If you couldn't find a real publisher then you might - just might - resort to publishing it yourself. You wouldn't make much money but you might make a bit, and at least your book was out there in the world. Things have changed. Earlier this year Barry Eisler turned down a $500,000 advance from his publisher in order to self-publish. Half a million dollars. Turned down. "No, thank you, I don't want your half a million dollars."
Why did he turn it down? Because he can do better by himself.
The times they have a changed. And changed fast. In March last year Konrath said on his blog that "Print is still the way to make the most money and reach the most readers." In April this year he basically said that any writer planning on the traditional publisher route is an idiot (Are You Dense?).
Konrath sells around 800 ebooks a day. At $2.99 a book, with 70% royalty, he makes over $1,600 each day. Granted, he's an outlier (although by no means the only one), and for most people it's hard to make decent money self-publishing. But, as he says, "It's even harder to make decent money by legacy publishing."
I have a few hundred books. Maybe a thousand. As much as I love them, they're a pain in the arse to lug around the country every time I move. Given that ebooks are the future, why do I hold on to them? Is it anything more than inertia?"I want a tangible product.
Me too. I have over five thousand books. I love owning them. I love how they look on the shelf. I love perusing my library.
But I'll be honest here. I used to have over a thousand cassette tapes. I loved owning them. I loved how they looked on the shelf. I loved perusing my music library.
Then CDs came along, and I repeated the love affair.
Eventually I got my first iPod.
I don't even own a CD or cassette player anymore.
I still love to own. But now I own digital files. I still love to persuse my music library. Except now I do it on iTunes.
Tangible is only a state of mind..."
~JA Konrath
It sort of feels like a lot, but that's only because I'm so prone to slacking. The PHP stuff took longer than I was expecting, but other than that it was definitely less than an hour's work. I woke up around noon so I've had a good four or five hours to do work in. So not a great ratio, really.
I've been reading a great deal about self-publishing over the past couple of days. Mostly stuff from JA Konrath (I'm pretty sure Liz's flatmate was reading one of his books the last time I was round there, which is a groovy coincidence), Barry Eisler, and John Locke (who is neither the enlightenment philosopher nor the guy from Lost, unfortunately). Three people whose work I've never read, but whose perspectives on self-publishing are extremely interesting.
Self-publishing used to be the second-rate option. If you couldn't find a real publisher then you might - just might - resort to publishing it yourself. You wouldn't make much money but you might make a bit, and at least your book was out there in the world. Things have changed. Earlier this year Barry Eisler turned down a $500,000 advance from his publisher in order to self-publish. Half a million dollars. Turned down. "No, thank you, I don't want your half a million dollars."
Why did he turn it down? Because he can do better by himself.
The times they have a changed. And changed fast. In March last year Konrath said on his blog that "Print is still the way to make the most money and reach the most readers." In April this year he basically said that any writer planning on the traditional publisher route is an idiot (Are You Dense?).
Konrath sells around 800 ebooks a day. At $2.99 a book, with 70% royalty, he makes over $1,600 each day. Granted, he's an outlier (although by no means the only one), and for most people it's hard to make decent money self-publishing. But, as he says, "It's even harder to make decent money by legacy publishing."
I have a few hundred books. Maybe a thousand. As much as I love them, they're a pain in the arse to lug around the country every time I move. Given that ebooks are the future, why do I hold on to them? Is it anything more than inertia?"I want a tangible product.
Me too. I have over five thousand books. I love owning them. I love how they look on the shelf. I love perusing my library.
But I'll be honest here. I used to have over a thousand cassette tapes. I loved owning them. I loved how they looked on the shelf. I loved perusing my music library.
Then CDs came along, and I repeated the love affair.
Eventually I got my first iPod.
I don't even own a CD or cassette player anymore.
I still love to own. But now I own digital files. I still love to persuse my music library. Except now I do it on iTunes.
Tangible is only a state of mind..."
~JA Konrath