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One of the major laments that comes up whenever the discussion about the transition from the traditional publishing model to the new digital publishing model commences, goes like this: “It’s all well and good for you to advocate going direct, but you’re an established author. Of course this will work for you! What about me? […]

I want to take one more stab at explaining how the publishing business works, primarily because an insight came to me this morning. In the past I’ve pointed out that because publishers had the means of creating product at a reasonable price (economy of scale in printing) and they had the distribution network (that allowed […]

I just released the most recent issue of my newsletter, The Secrets. This issue is titled Serendipity. In it I go through the thought processes that shaped my recent story Chance Corrigan and The Tick-tock King of the Nile. (It will be coming out some time this year from DAW—I’ll post on its availability when […]

It has been suggested that the battle between publishers and Amazon over ebook pricing actually had two motives. The first was to prevent Amazon from establishing a “monopoly” over ebook sales. The second was to create a “sustainable price model.” I’ve suggested a third motive: greed. Monopoly: Amazon never had a monopoly, wasn’t going to […]

An excellent post by April Hamilton over at Publetariat.com got me looking at the actual numbers on the money paid to authors under the old system for the Kindle, and the new Agency Model. Under the old model, ebook royalties were still connected to the cover price of a physical book. Under the agency model, […]

One of the things that keeps being said about self-published ebooks is that they lack professional book design. This is short for “they look like crap.” As you are aware, I have two ebook readers, and I’ve purchased commercially available ebooks from traditional publishers. Those designers are no great shakes, for reasons I can’t fathom. […]

It strikes me that in long essays, certain facts get lost. I wish to break them out here. 1) The purpose of writing for commercial distribution (electronic or print) is to make a profit. This means you have more money coming to you than you have flowing away from you. As with any business, you […]