There’s a fascinating article in Business Week on Amazon’s venture into publishing. And the stark terror that’s gripping publishers as an result.

Sadly, it’s hard to argue that the blame for that lies anywhere than at the feet of the publishers themselves. As the article, Amazon’s Hit Man – BusinessWeek, says:

“Book publishing, an inefficient industry if there ever was one, seems ripe for reimagining. According to a recent report by the Association of American Publishers, sales of adult paperbacks and hardcovers fell 18 percent between 2010 and 2011. “

Publishers have leeched off writers for years.

Way back in 2000 I was an occasional reader of a writers’ forum. The forum was focused on book marketing.

Of course, publishers refused to create marketing campaigns for any writers unless the writer was a bestseller, and the house had committed millions in a book advance. They were protecting the money they’d invested.

I was shocked to my core when writer after writer said that they’d organized their own publicity for a book launch, spending not only their entire advance against royalties, but also their own savings (which some could ill afford.)

At first I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Why on earth were these writers bothering?

Since so many writers told the same tale, I assumed that writers were being told to do this by publishers — spend their advance on their own promotions. I thought that was unconscionable then, and I think the same now.

If ever an industry needed a good swift kick in the rear, it’s publishing. There are many wonderful people in publishing. The industry however, in its present state, deserves to die.

Back in the 1990s I interviewed the CEO of a major publishing house for an article. He was congratulating himself on a couple of takeovers. I thought then that publishing was in a death spiral — the entire industry was all about dollars, only. Not that I have anything against people making money. However, sooner or later, the money has to come from something REAL — not about smarties finding clever ways to make a buck. (See Wall St. for the smarties who will kill capitalism if they can.)

It’s time for people who read and and who love books to take over publishing. Whatever form the industry takes in the future, these people will create it.

Kindle Publishing Is Hot: Want to generate cash from your kitchen table and quit your day job?

Others are making money from Kindle publishing. The lucky few are making millions. Some are making great money — and that money increases each month.

What about you?

Imagine generating cash from your kitchen table. You can let Amazon do all the heavy lifting. Amazon’s got a proven publishing system, after all — discover Fast and Easy Kindle Publisher: Turn Free Stuff Into Kindle Cash, and discover four different ways to turn free stuff into Kindle cash.

Want an agent? If you do, try not to shoot yourself in the foot.

This post gives you great advice — things you shouldn’t say in your agent query letter. Glass Cases: Stop Helping Yourself. I liked this one:

““My manuscript has been professionally edited.”
The first question that always comes to mind is “by whom?” Your friend who works at the local newspaper? A college writing professor? Your aunt who reads a lot? There are plenty of freelance editors out there whose opinions are professional and whose judgment I would respect as an agent. However, even if you used professional services, there is no reason to say that in your query. It tells me nothing about the quality of your writing or whether I’d be interested in your book. “

Here’s a tip: forget getting an agent until you have an offer from a publisher.

New writers, and professional writers who should know better, think that all you need is an agent, and fame and money await. That’s rarely the case, and in the early stages of your career, an agent can do you more harm than good.

You’re writing ebooks, but you have an agenda. You don’t just want to sell copies, you also want to build your platform. Your hope is that a major publisher will see your sales, and will take you on board.

The major publishers, the “Big Six”, are all about the numbers and whether they can make money publishing you. This makes the price of the ebooks you’re selling all-important.

Therefore, you may want to forget offering your ebooks for free, or charging 99 cants. You’re going to have to charge more.

If you’ve been keeping your eye on ebook prices at the Kindle store, for example, you’ll see that Big Six ebooks are often between $8 and $10, sometimes much more. Publishers are experimenting with prices, and I’ve seen backlist titles set at an eye-watering $17 and over.

You have to wonder what these people are smoking. I won’t say who the publisher was, but one test ran the $17 price point for at least a four weeks that I’m aware of, before the price of the ebooks (we’re talking books first published in the 1980s), dropped to $7.50 on average.

To reiterate, big publishing is all about the numbers, so a 99 price, even if you’re selling lots of copies, is too low.

This article, How Low is Too Low? | AARdvark, reports:

“Anecdotally, I’ve heard that $3.99 is the breaking point; that if a book can sell a solid number of copies or become a bestseller while priced at $3.99 or higher, mainstream publishers become interested.  Below that point, they don’t care too much. ”

So there’s your challenge, if you want big-publisher attention, your price point needs to be tasty enough to interest them, and of course, you need to have the numbers.

Kindle Publishing Is Hot: Want to generate cash from your kitchen table and quit your day job?

Others are making money from Kindle publishing. The lucky few are making millions. Some are making great money — and that money increases each month.

What about you?

Imagine generating cash from your kitchen table. You can let Amazon do all the heavy lifting. Amazon’s got a proven publishing system, after all — discover Fast and Easy Kindle Publisher: Turn Free Stuff Into Kindle Cash, and discover four different ways to turn free stuff into Kindle cash.

I’m not a fan of Stieg Larsson books, but many people are.

This article, ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ Sells More Than 1 Million Digital Copies – NYTimes.com, reports:

“In what is believed to be a first for an e-book, ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,’ by the Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson, has sold more than a million copies in its digital format, Knopf said on Thursday. “

The article also reports that: “The “Millennium” trilogy has sold nearly 17 million copies in the United States.”

Publishers are always complaining that digital editions will cannibalize their print sales, and this could well be evidence that they’re wrong.

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I asked whether you should publish your book on your blog, yes or no? It’s definitely a viable option, if you want to get known quickly.

Now here’s someone who’s taken online publication about as far as it can go.

In Tweeting an Ebook: “Take Control of Your Paperless Office” , Joe Kissell describes publishing an entire ebook on Twitter, tweet by tweet:

“But how do you shred an ebook? It’s easy: rip it into 140-character strips and feed it to Twitter! “

I can’t imagine doing that manually (or even at all); he’s using a script.

It’s a fascinating experiment. You may not want to go to such an extreme, but you certainly could post excerpts of your book to Twitter to build your readership.