Posted on 12/09/2011 6:08:05 AM PST by Dysart
This summer, Darcie Chan's debut novel became an unexpected hit. It has sold more than 400,000 copies and landed on the best-seller lists alongside brand-name authors like Michael Connelly, James Patterson and Kathryn Stockett.
It's been a success by any measure, save one. Ms. Chan still hasn't found a publisher.
Five years ago, Ms. Chan's novel, "The Mill River Recluse," which tells the story of a wealthy Vermont widow who bestows her fortune on town residents who barely knew her, would have languished in a drawer. A dozen publishers and more than 100 literary agents rejected it.
"Nobody was willing to take a chance," says Ms. Chan, a 37-year-old lawyer who drafts environmental legislation for the U.S. Senate. "It was too much of a publishing risk."
This past May, Ms. Chan decided to digitally publish it herself, hoping to gain a few readers and some feedback. She bought some ads on Web sites targeting e-book readers, paid for a review from Kirkus Reviews, and strategically priced her book at 99 cents to encourage readers to try it. She's now attracting bids from foreign imprints, movie studios and audio-book publishers, without selling a single copy in print.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Back on topic: I've purchased several good digital books from Amazon on par with many books from major publishing houses.
"Killer" comes to mind from Stephen Carpenter, I downloaded for $2.99, and well worth it and them some. He has been a screenwriter for years and has worked on the "Grim" series on NBC, I think.
Just like music.....there’s a ton of excellent music being produced out of home recording studios now but a lot of it doesn’t make it to “major” labels so musicians are using distribution services that publish to iTunes, Amazon MP3 and etc...
It’s pretty cool not having your music dictated to you by some group of boneheads at Sony or Thorn EMI.
It was an ok story......a bit trite and predictably gooey, but good for a day brightener. There are parts to the story that could benefit from the author going back and developing further.
Maybe she would sell more books if she quit drafting the enviro-nazi legislation that unemploys so many people.
Perfect parallel. I’ve grown so tired of the same old songs and the new crap foisted on us today (it’s mainly targeted at adolescents). I’m always seeking out new and substantive music but you have to hunt for it! Discovering a great new artist is like finding a Benjamin squirreled away in an old drawer. And worth almost as much...
I hope a good way to sort the decent from the terrible self published novels comes along soon. Right now I still only buy ebooks from known publishers, because there is so much terrible stuff out there. But I’ve been watching the success of independent web cartoonists for the last decade, and that model has some clear standout successes, so it’s only a matter of time before books go the same way.
I think this is a very positive change. For many, many years publishers of printed books have been like the NEWS media of newspaper and photo-journalism, that is they have acted as “gatekeepers” they were the ones who decided what would get published and what would not.
With self-publishing in the digital media it comes right back to the purchaser and their own tastes and discrimination’s when deciding to make that purchase. Some self-published books will be great, some will be crap most will be good to mediocre. But the best part is that the “gate keeping” publishers will be like the mainstream media. That is the will have to adapt or see their business models die.
Self publishing as an e-book is the biggest step forward since Gutenberg in terms of getting more published fare out for consumption.
I think what most liberals fail to see is that their control actions upon the big box book stores is falling faster than a 300’ redwood.
The chain stores are closing all across the country, the monopoly of certain bestsellers will change, the emergence of new talent especially conservative authors that challenge gay agenda, Marxist governments and a police state are not being hidden behind the big name authors anymore,not when anyone can get a Kindle and search for talent across the whole field instead of being hostage to the front row rack of whats most popular.
Gone will be the prophetic Fahrenheit 451 future with devices like the Kindle. history can be stored, accessed and protected now, if anything it will be impossible to fabricate from cut and paste an internet Marxist President in the future because now people can get public records and they can store them on personal storage devices now.
While people now are crying for Obamas microfiche birth records in the future such records will be impossible to hide.
DIY, baby. Who the HELL needs a publisher these days?
Yes, and also really cool going into debt to make your own recording - instead of getting $50,000 to $100,000 as a recording fund from Sony et al, incredibly cool to pay to put your music onto itunes, where it can sit in the sludge of hundreds of no-talent amateurs who have dumped their music there, it’s just great to not receive tour support to take your band all over the country so people can hear the music and buy the album....yes, it’s really a blast to go from earning $75,000 a year to $1,500. I hope it happens to you.
If I were to look for such music what are the common terms to search for? ‘no label music’, ‘indy music?’
Its books like this that the liberals won’t allow easy access to be printed, to be in schools, to be on the shelves in the big box stores. the socialistic brainwashing can be fought with technology, we just have to handle it somewhat more expertly.
In some respects the socialists within America can be viewed such as invading aliens with more advanced weapons such as in Independence Day, we just have to work around it.
If we could we should start a top 100 list of the best motivational conservative authors available and their books and if any are digital.
I nominate Matthew Bracken, AKA FR member Travis McGee.
I personally vote him as high as I can.
Here's a downloadable podcast for anyone who is interested to download. Schweizer Interview
It will definitely make any conservative's blood boil just to listen to it.
Care to give us all the odds of a musician landing a contract with a label?
Yup, I hear you; choosing self-published books can reap some malodorous stinkers, but I’ve purchased more than a few traditional print books in my time that greatly disappointed with a prose that screamed just-let-me plug-in-this-tired formula-and-advance-relentlessly-the-same-tired-inevitable-conclusion. *Just like my last bestseller!*
Trudging through that well-worn path is similarly unrewarding.
I read the reviews with some skepticism, seeking out the most objective and thoughtful when selecting. Goodreads website is helpful.
Thanks for the Schweizer link. I look forward to it!
ping
ping
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