Those of us shopping for self-published e-books have very little to go on. Short synopses and sample chapters lie all too often. There isn’t even a proper book jacket to tempt you. So how do you make the decision to buy? We’ve come to rely on reviews. And reviews make bestsellers. 2 websites seem to have…
Bestseller Trends Part 3: Woman, Know Thy Place
In a previous post I mentioned how, in 2011 and 2012, female authors topped the bestseller lists by writing the books everyone wanted to read. In comparison to ten years earlier, they were not only far more prominent on the list, but outselling male authors for the first time. It was all very promising. However,…
Print Vs E-Books…. FIGHT!!!! Part 2
In Part 1 we covered the smell of fiction; book exchanges in Asia; finding that important passage you didn’t notice was important at the time, and reading whilst asleep. But that only covers the obvious stuff. The fiction fracas continues. 5. Sun Factor Paper doesn’t care if that really annoying kid dive-bombing the swimming pool…
Print Vs E-Books… FIGHT!!
It’s the Smackdown we’ve all been waiting for! But who will win the battle of the fiction ferriers? Part 1 today. Part 2 later. Part 3 if the comments get nasty. 1. Smell Everyone always goes on about the smell of bookshops, or of new books. I’m not so sure it applies – to fiction, at least. The only…
2012 Bestselling Book Data. Visualised
Or, as we in the business like to call it, “A Load of Charts”. It’s great seeing all the data like this. I could extract meaning from it all day and still not get bored. Bet you wish you were me. We are now, as promised, going to look at sales volumes, to see what they tell…
5 Reasons why Self-Published Authors should be whipped for not using Editors
Have you ever written anything which, once proudly presented to someone else, turns out to be a total turkey which is either illegible or incredible? What often sets bestsellers apart from books which “just do okay” is polish, and by polish, I mean editing. I wish I had a percentage for all the self-published works out there…
Naughtie Book Sales (and no. It’s not what you’re thinking)
Want naughty book sales? Have a look at 2012. This, however, is all about the Noughtie/Naughties: those transformational years in terms of self-publishing and e-publishing, from 2000-2009. In previous posts about book sales in the 1980s and 1990s, we saw that very few authors actually made it to #1 on the New York Times Bestseller…
5 Old Bookselling Rules which No Longer Apply
…and, from the emerging author’s perspective, are they a Woo-Hoo, or a Boo Hoo? 1. Back Catalogues Sell Slowly, Or Not At All Back in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, when a reader stumbled across a new author, their latest book was often the only one available. If the author were really successful, the bookshop might stock…
And the Blockbusting Author of the 1990s was…. an emerging writer!
We move from the 1980s to the 1990s, when it was a little easier to sell your books… but only marginally. “Where’s John Grisham?” was one comment I got regarding my post on how few authors reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list in the 1980s. The answer? Lying in the long grass, waiting to own the…
Bestseller Trends Part 2: Fantasy Vs Misery
This is not news to most people, but I’m going to tell you anyway. As readers, we generally want to read something which is far removed from our experience, and possibly at the extreme other end of the spectrum. In good times we sink our teeth into tragedy. In bad times we want comedy. Perhaps it was the…
Tara Sparling writes 