Very well said, and excellent points. Really enlightening. I never looked at it through the perspective of making a name for yourself being the biggest obstacle to overcome, but you're absolutely correct.

Hey Alex,

Even if you get a book into the bookstore, what sells books? Mostly its word of mouth unless you're lucky enough to get picked up by Oprah or some other type of recommendation engine.

But even Oprah's book club is a type of word of mouth. She's the hub of the wheel for a certain group who trust her to make recommendations.

Indeed. I can say that out of the last fifty books I've bought, nearly all have been from recommendation. And even the ones that weren't had some sort of guarantee on them, be it #1 NY Times Bestseller or a plug from another well-known writer.

I'm still unfamiliar with the business though, and I have to wonder: how do books such as Eragon, written by a fledgling author get the kind of buzz they do? Have you come across any good books on the subject? I mean there you have a first book that erupted to blinding success, even spawning a movie. The kid has written two books, and I enjoyed them, but even so.

If the content is there, does it really matter what medium you push yourself through?

Ben,
I actually just read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle this weekend that addresses a different aspect of this topic. It talks about authors who have built a following posting their books for free as podcasts on iTunes.

There are also some quotes from publishers about how this is such an attractive proposition for them because they are signing an author who has already accumulated a fan base. For the author it works because, just like web publishing for you, it is a low cost method for getting their name out there.

Here's the link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/05/DDS7VUH5M.DTL&hw=podcast+publishing&sn=002&sc=302

(I had to post this from my Treo, so if the link doesn't work, let me know and I will try again)

Um, excuse me, my book has spent *12* months on the NY Times Best Seller List.

Alex --

I'm not familiar with Eragon so I can't really speak to what happened there. Maybe his publisher handled the release of his book well, got him coverage in the right places and it allowed his book to take off. But that's just speculation. I'm not saying that publishers blow it every time but I don't want to put myself in the position where they could blow it.

Bryan --

Thanks for the article. I guess I don't have a lot of faith in the publishing industry but it looks like they're starting to learn how to use the internet as a promotional tool.

It seems that putting free content on the internet is an excellent way to put your name out there. It also helps to be part of a site like Rudius. I've always enjoyed Tucker's writing because, well, it's hilarious, and now it's helped me discover several very interesting writer's (you, devilmonkey, philalawyer etc.)on a multitude of topics. Anyhow, now that I've rambled on, I must thank you for the entertaining reading. Keep up the good work, Ben (and all the other writers on here). Cheers.

What's better than an author creating value and offering it free of charge to the public? A multitude of great authors creating polished products and offering it to the public.

Maybe part of the problem with old model book publishing, besides corrupt DNA in light of the emerging electronic era, is that the old systems focus too heavily on short term strategies. As has been stated, Tucker's book is STILL selling slow and steady. In the traditional industry, if a book doesn't sell X amount of copies in the first weeks, it loses front placement at Chapters and fails, not (always) based upon the merit of its content, but because it wasn't given an opportunity.

Making your work available to the public is a long term strategy. Watching your traffic and readership is a constant measure of success for this long-term strategy, and it affords you the possibility to tweak as you progress. If you've got a whole bunch of cows in your pasture, then more people will show up because there's so much free milk to go around. Therefore if Judd the cow stops creating milk -- milk that I enjoyed very much -- and I delete that cow from my grocery list (RSS Feed), I will still continue to drink milk from the other producing cows, and every once in a while, since I can see Judd the cow standing right over there, I'll go check in and see if maybe he's got some milk to offer finally.

Nonetheless, I've got the REAL strategy. I'm going to fuck Oprah. She's going to pimp my book and I'll sell millions. THEN, I'm going to write a book about fucking Oprah and our controversial but passionate interracial love affair, and sell billions. BILLIONS. (Idea copyright Gris 2008).

Gris --

I'd argue that being focused on short term profits is exactly what's wrong with the publishing industry's DNA.

It seems like the publishing industry has no faith in what they put out. If they had faith in the book, why pull it after one week? And if they don't have faith, why put it out in the first place?

You're in publishing right? I've always wondered how many sales an average book will do. I'm not sure if you'd know that.

Average Sales?

Hmmmmm. I don't know what the figure would be for average book sales across all publishers. But to give you some perspective, the publishing company I work for has a very small fiction imprint -- hardly a blip on the publishing map. For us, a HUGE book sells 10000 copies. Those are what we call our "A Books" and "A authors." Once that status is achieved those authors get our full commitment of resources for future books.

A good book sells 2000 copies, which means it covers the expenditures it cost to produce the book and creates a small profit. Of course, half the books we publish sell in the 1500-2000 book range. Some sell maybe 60 copies a year, and since our initial print run is at least 1000 copies, the remaining copies die a slow death on bookstore shelves or are donated to Africa for free (or mashed back into pulp).

Judging from the publishing conference I attended, I think a Top 10 (Random House, Simon Schuster, Penguin, etc.) Publisher book (which I think account for over 95% of "Best sellers") would need to sell a minimum of 10000 to even be considered a moderate success. The trend in traditional book publishing these days among the big houses is to sign the young up-and-comers based upon their multi-project potential. I'm sure you've come across this at some point, but a key to big name publisher success is to submit your manuscript, and somehow indicate that you have three great ideas for books instead of one. Or, better yet, start sending out query letters upon completion of your second novel, and with a rough draft for your third. The reasoning is that the publishers figure it's a less risky investment to put money into marketing because it will pay dividends with each new project.

I know one lady that's a published author with a Top 10 publisher, and she got her royalty statement for a book published in 2004 this year, and it sold 2 copies. That was pretty funny.

Based upon what I know, I bet that the average book in a big American national publishing house with a standard marketing blitz behind it would sell 10000 copies. The labor and production costs of making a book aren't all that much to a large companies, but it's the marketing and advertising that drives costs through the roof.

Actually, I just wikipedia'd "Best Seller" and there is a hilarious story at the bottom of the entry about how a company put a coupon good for free cash in a "Bestseller" book, and not a single person cashed it in.

Links, Gris. These tubes run on links. This is the anecdote if anyone else is interested.

I actually didn't know that publishing was moving more towards multi-project deals. For someone with my job, I know embarrassingly little about the traditional publishing industry. I've never written a cover letter, never cold called an agent.

This is partly because I didn't really start taking my writing seriously until after I was involved with Rudius and partly because with everything changing so rapidly, I just don't care. I'm much more interested in how everything shakes out five years from now than I am with how publishing operates today.

Of course, I get to stay blissfully ignorant because of the position I'm in, so take that for what it's worth. I'm sure if I didn't have my job I'd be sweating agents and publishers, trying to break into the old system but maybe not. Looking at everything that's happening in music and hollywood I'd like to think I'm smart enough to realize the fundamental shift that's going on and that I'd work towards being on the forefront of the new wave and not the tail end of the old on. But that's all hypothetical at this point.