Sunday, July 1, 2012

Surprise!

 

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Happy July 4th and the rest of the month to everyone!

Publishing news has been mighty interesting lately. Here are just a few items with my .02:

Amazon Makes A Bid For Dorchester This could be great news for authors who were burned. Amazon is contacting authors now. To have that kind of muscle on their side? OMG x ten.

State Funding to Louisiana Libraries Eliminated  This is the trend all over the country. Bad news for readers and writers. In our state, libraries used state funds to buy new books. Libraries have traditionally bought a lot of books. Our books. Yeah. Let that sink in for a minute.

eBook Retailers Keep An Eye on Customers – This has a creep factor to it, that they’re keeping tabs on us (cue Sting singing I’ll Be Watching You). Still this is something writers for the big publishers have been saying for a long time. The publishers know very little about the end users of their product, readers. Publishers are used to thinking of bookstores as their customers, and mostly the big chain bricks & mortar stores. This is how Amazon ate their lunch, and they didn’t even see it coming. Barnes and Noble’s Pubit is playing catch-up, because they’ve got to get out of the old way; thinking like a physical retailer instead of an e-tailer.

News Corp. Will Split Off the Publishing Biz  Some articles said News Corp. wants to separate the “less profitable” publishing division from the entertainment side. Because I had six books published by HarperCollins I found this interesting.

Authors Guild Is Hating on the DoJ Deal – Okay, so maybe I’m missing something, but this got me so ticked I didn’t renew membership in the AG. Plus their elitist attitude toward genre authors has rubbed me the wrong way for a long time. Amazon is not the enemy. They just out played the players. Like I said, Amazon figured out fast that knowing what people wanted and giving it to them is gold. Where books are concerned, at first it was readers. Then with KDP it was writers. Big publishing treated authors badly for the most part, and ignored readers. Amazon isn’t the black hat in this scenario. The AG is run by old school authors who benefited from traditional publishing, so yeah, they don’t want things to change. I remember back in the 90s, older writers going on and on about computers taking the joy and humanity out of writing. Oh. Give. Me. A. Break.

Finally, my news. I have the publishing rights back to four more books. I have one of those on sale already. I’m working on covers and formatting for the other three. To learn more visit my website www.lynnemery.com. Come hang out with me on Facebook www.facebook.com/lynn.emery.author

I highly recommend indie authors get an author page at Amazon via Author Central. I confess to not spending much time on Facebook. In the last week I spruced up my author page and was quite surprised how many folks dropped by. Like it or not (I haven’t been a FB fan), a lot of people are on FB. Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y have really taken to FB. And they look for news from authors.

Share your news and views, as a reader and writer!

8 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Our educated governor has done a number on education and intellectual pursuits in Louisiana. The LIbrary thing is just another example.

Lynn Emery said...

Please don't get me started on Louisiana's current governor. It's Sunday, and I don't want to even think bad language LOL

Liane Spicer said...

Happy July 4 to you too, Lynn! Huge congrats on the reversions. Yesss!

Thanks for the links. Never a dull moment in this business - or did I just enter it at an 'interesting' time? :D (Remember that old Chinese curse...)

I haven't been a huge fan of FB either. Or any of the social media, actually. Except blogging. That I enjoy.

My news? Lots of heart-racing this week with the Amazon/Dorchester deal breaking AT LAST. (We were told it was a big publisher and we figured it was Amazon, but it was great to know for sure.) I just spent 6 months fighting Dorch for my reversion - which they refused to grant - and now Amazon wants their active backlist. Something good just might arise from the ashes after all. Interestinger and interestinger.

PS: Will respond to your e-mail tomorrow.

Jewel Amethyst said...

The Amazon/Dorch connection of great interest to me since I'm a Dorch author. Let's hope that this is indeed the good news we think it is.

Lynn Emery said...

Liane and Amethyst, I've heard only good things from authors who have contracts with Amazon so it might turn out to be a very good thing.

Facebook - for a long time I disliked FB intensely. I had trouble figuring out how it worked. By the time I'm almost get it, FB would change and I'd be back at square one.

Also, the TMI posts are a huge turn-off! LOL The creation of "pages" versus the profile pages makes a big difference. I've separated personal use from private use.

Hmm, maybe my next post will be on my experience with Facebook from the POV of someone who is a FB dummy! :-)

William Doonan said...

Yeah, the library thing sucks. I went to the local branch of our library here. On the New Releases MYSTERY shelf I found 'The Maltese Falcon.'

Lynn Emery said...

Hi William. Oh that is just sad! Let's hope we can help turn things around, and either put the state funding back or help libraries find other revenue streams.

Ellis Vidler said...

Lynn, our state, South Carolina, has a similar Philistine governor. They refuse to believe that easy access to the arts encourages businesses and families to come here.

I also wanted to say that your cover for Between Dusk and Dawn is beautiful and intriguing. I put the book on my list.