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Does it pay to own a small bookstore?
A student asked this question. My answer: …it’s a bit like asking if it pays to be a poet. The answer is, “it depends.” It certainly doesn’t pay to be a poet who only makes money from a few journals...
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The secret to designing a cover (Building a Book III)
Most books are self-published. Perhaps half are non-fiction. And the number of self-publishers who miss this secret is astonishing. Here you go: The purpose of a book cover is to remind you of a book...
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The power of bulk sales (Building a Book IV)
A few years ago, I self-published What To Do When It’s Your Turn. We now have more than 150,000 copies in print. That’s amazing for a book that lists for $32, is in color and is hardly a traditional...
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The shift is real and it’s forever (books by the numbers)
Books (and bookstores) have been around for 500 years, and one thing the industry has improved is data gathering. By store, by genre, by format, by author. The data is there… authors can ignore it in...
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Too much static
The 500-year-old publishing model is based on two fundamental needs: printing a lot of books at once is much cheaper than printing a few at a time. bookstores are the backbone of the industry, and all...
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Stolen ideas
The paradox of non-fiction book publishing (and I’d stretch it to include popular fiction as well) has two components: Authors steal to write. And the writing they do gets stolen. It’s easy to get up...
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Honest signals
Today’s publication day for Cat Hoke’s new book, A Second Chance. It’s been a long journey, more than a year in the making, and all of us want it to do well. Tomorrow, when I write about her book on my...
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Two reasons book covers matter
Yes, in fact, people do judge a book by the title and the cover. I think there are two reasons, not completely related: Most people don’t read, not even the books they actually buy. As a result, the...
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The apples and oranges problem
Books are books. They’re made in the same factories, sold in the same stores, usually by the same publishers. Which is absurd. Because the relevant and interesting insight gets lost if you look at...
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That wasn’t expected
Sorry about the post in German this morning. We’ve identified the problem and while I wish it was a great story about Joseph Beuys and the Fluxus movement, it’s far more benign than that. I don’t...
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