Author:
Knowing some of you use Amazon for your stories, this might be of interest. Popped up on my Tweet page.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/giveaway/home/ref=tsm_1_tw_s_giv_mktAF
I'm not a fan of Amazon for authors as I feel they take too big of a bite out of the financials, and their regulations are too strict for being nothing more than a place mat for one's efforts. Reminds me of the bulletin board at the laundry or in the College Union. Only difference is they (Amazon) charge for posting. Any sales are going to happen by the author acting as the agent, distributor, publisher, author, and advertising agency pushing his or her books. Amazon will happily download your efforts to readers and collect fees.
The only upside I see to Amazon is it allows a lot of authors who would never get published has that opportunity. It isn't up to some publisher to anoint their chosen author to be the next Steven King. In that respect, I applaud Amazon for giving virtually everyone the chance to be the next J. K. Rowling.
Comments
The link takes me to the
The link takes me to the "Amazon Giveaway" page.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Yep, Amazon Give Away
The idea is one pays for an item on Amazon, promote it as a "prize" for whatever. Such as customer purchases your one thousandth ebook? They win a prize. I guess it can be worked to one's advantage but be aware it is simply an Amazon gimmick to sell more of their stuff.
Their Amazon give away comes out of your pocketbook. Kinda feels like the gov with their hands in my pockets.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Reality
Every publishing option costs money, even if you do all the work yourself. The fact is that most authors *can't* do all the work, and need assistance to put out a book that people will actually *pay* for.
I've published through traditional print publishers and they're no fun either. They're demanding, annoying, and they take a huge chunk of the sales *before* the author gets paid *anything* beyond the advance, the money the publisher has wagered on the success of your book. Sometimes, quite often, the publisher has the wrong end of the bet, and that's how everyone learns whether any particular author has the moxie to produce serious work on schedule and of good quality. For my own contracts, I was expected to produce somewhere between fifty and a hundred thousand words per month in a highly technical field. In some cases, I was brought in to finish works that other authors had started and failed at. It happens. It could happen to you.
In one case, I had a catastrophic failure of my computer, with loss of an entire month's work (my fault -- I wasn't backing up as often as I should have, and *should* have had a backup computer as well) and I wound up paying for an author hired by my publisher to finish "my" book on time. Between the two of us, neither wound up happy. Them's the breaks in the real world. It's a dicey business, and there are always authors who are willing to try doing *exactly* what you're doing for less money.
Amazon is very forgiving, since they do almost exactly *none* of the work that traditional publishers do. The writer produces all the words. The writer (if they're smart) hires their own editor and proofreader(s) and HTML coders (if necessary), or Microsoft Word experts (which "standard" Amazon accepts in any old jumble, but not many publishers do) to make the finished work meet the very low standards that Amazon demands. Real publishers make the author conform exactly to their own internal standards of Microsoftism, and ding you with costs if you fail to please them.
The price one really pays, though, as a writer, is that no arbiter of quality stands in between you and the public, who are very unforgiving. Ask anyone who's seen what reviewers can do to sales, and Amazon makes it *very* easy for your readers to tell everyone who's likely to buy your book *exactly* what they think of it.
There are many very good writers who suck at editing, proofreading, and book design. If they're smart, they hire someone to do those tasks for them, just as they'd hire a plumber or a carpenter to fix their house. You know what they say about Jacks (or Jills) of all trades; they're usually masters of none.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I can give away hundred dollar bills with no takers
Writers are like like movie stars. For every movie star up on the big screen there are thousands who didn't make it. There are thousands who write stories a whole lot better than what the mainstream publishers put out. I've read better quality writing in stories on BC than what I've found in many published novels.
Whether we understand or not, it isn't the best who always get on the big screen or get published. It is as much a roll of the dice as anything else no matter how good one is or how hard they try. You doubt? Think of me as the "average writer". I have a best seller beyond question. Everyone who has read it says it is the best story they have ever read. Thus I push it to publishers. Every single one turns it down. I read up and decide I need an agent. I push to the agents. Those that take the time to reply turn it down, most don't reply.
Now what? Did everyone who read the story lie or is writing like the movies?
I have a plan. I mortgage my house put the kids in bondage raise enough money to go to a vanity publisher and have ten thousand books printed. And..., long road trips hitting the book stores, giving away books to get them on the shelf and nothing happens. I need a gimmick. I offer to give away a hundred dollar bill to every one who buys my book. I set up my booth out in the pasture and at the end of the day nothing.
So many errors on my part. First I'm not a publisher so I don't know the system. I'm not a distributor so I made all the mistakes. I'm not a salesman so I failed moving any books. I do have a garage full of books and an enormous debt. And sadly this is the typical story of many wannabe writers. I've heard it and read it enough times to know it is what most writers did to get their story out to the public.
Sure I knock Amazon but the publishers who anoint their chosen writers are in a way just as bad. Writing is a bloody heart rending business shredding people's lives. Sites like BC give those writers a chance to share their talent without asking for blood donations. And some of those writers take their stories to Amazon and find a reward for their talents. Maybe in time a few of them will be noticed by the Dead Tree Publishers?
Writing is a crap shoot as much or more than having talent. Roll the dice. Someone has to be the next J.K. Rowling.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Harry Potter
It took seven years for J K Rowling to finish and sell the first Harry Potter book, during which she suffered a longish period of desperate poverty, entirely supported on public benefits, which are a *lot* better in the UK than they are in the USA. Along the way, she and her then husband divorced, which may (or may not) have something to do with her being an author. Writing is so demanding that *many* writers mange to trash their relationships, or perhaps they write because their real lives are falling apart. Quite frankly, many writers are self-centred jerks, although I'm sure that there are many who live saintly lives, beloved by all of those lucky enough to know them.
You're absolutely correct in saying that success at writing is dependent on luck at least as much (perhaps more than) as it is on talent. Whoever would have guessed that L. Ron Hubbard could possibly have written a best-seller? Back when I first encountered him, I thought he was a hack, not to mention a jerk, but there you go. I *think* I was right, but many disagree.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Hubbard as Bestseller
When you basically have founded a religion with hundreds of churches and perhaps millions of members, it is not at all hard to get on the bestseller list. Repeatedly. Hubbard was a competent hack writer all his life but his imagination sparked something a lot bigger than a book.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
“You don't get rich writing
“You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.”
From:Goodreads
He had the imagination of a con artist.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Legendary
Well, there is the story of the meeting of four or five SF writers and editors in a Kansas City BBQ joint. Supposedly, that is where Hubbard, Heinlein, and two to four others firmed up ideas for future works in what must have been a heck of a conversation. :)
Another legendary meeting involved Heinlein, Hubbard, Asimov and deCamp in someone's living room. Still more meetings happened (really did happen, documented) in wartime Philadelphia where Heinlein, deCamp, Hubbard and Clarke(?) (and later Asimov along with others) were members of a military thinktank designing aircraft canopies and brainstorming ideas in their off hours with even more SF authors and fans. Hubbard was sort of the clown of the group, telling jokes, playing the guitar and daring people to turn ideas into stories or projects. This is supposedly the kernel of truth in the tale that he made a bet he could get rich inventing a religion.
Pohl, Kornbluth, Van Vogt, Sturgeon, Merwin, Campbell, Herbert and Moskowitz have all been reported as having been at the beer and BBQ fest in Kansas City. Ellison claimed to have been there but he would have been no more than fifteen at the time. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.