Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Must reading for self-publishing authors

If you are an independently publishing author, you'd have to be living under a rock if you haven't heard of the stunning success of thriller writer John Locke. Locke has propelled his self-published "Donovan Creed" series into the stratosphere of sales on Amazon's Kindle, becoming the first indie author to achieve the staggering total of 1 million ebook sales.

Now, Locke -- an entertaining-enough author, but a genius at marketing -- has shared his secrets of ebook promotion in a brief how-to guide, How I Sold 1 Million Ebooks in 5 Months. It's a book aimed squarely at writers like...well, like me. As you know, I just launched my own ebook fiction series two weeks ago with HUNTER: A Thriller. And despite all the great reviews it's getting, I was poised to waste a lot of promotional and marketing time pursuing dead ends.

Until I made the great decision to download Locke's manual.

I'm not going to deny Mr. Locke any justly deserved sales for the book by providing any details here. Just take my word for it: This guy must have studied and absorbed all the classic marketing books, including those by Al Ries and Jack Trout, such as Positioning. He's drawn all those principles together and created an outline that will allow the self-publishing indie to take on the giants of the publishing industry and succeed.

And he did it just in time for me to apply to my own thriller. THANK YOU, Mr. Locke.

And now watch your rear-view mirror....

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Authors: Do NOT miss this vital article

What in hell is happening to the book business?

If you are an author, or a wannabe author, you simply MUST read this incredible but link-laden blog by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. What she describes will make you believe that Kafka has been put in charge of the publishing industry.

It will tell you why you'd be a fool to seek an agent and traditional publisher these days. Read the post, and you'll understand why I've gone the "indie" route.

Friday, July 01, 2011

What new and prospective self-publishing writers need to know

Bob Mayer sold 347 ebooks during January 2011. Now, just six months later, he's selling 1,400 ebooks per day.

If you're an author, prospective author, especially a self-publishing author, then you'll want to read his blog about what made the difference for him.

I'm on Twitter

It's: @RobertBidinotto.

Just FYI.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

"HUNTER" is now a "Hot New Release in Romantic Suspense" on Amazon

I couldn't believe it when somebody on Kindleboards called my attention to the fact yesterday that Amazon had listed my novel HUNTER: A Thriller on its list of "Hot New Releases in Romantic Suspense." In fact, she reported it as #30 on the list.

When I checked, sure enough, it was on the list at #36. Since then, I've seen it as low as #24. Currently, as I write, it's #25. Which blows me away, of course.

And the reviews on Amazon have been amazing: No less than a dozen 5-star reviews as of this writing, with only one other review listed -- at 4 stars -- that reads as if it were a 5-star rave!

Same thing over at the book's page on Barnes & Noble, where there are three 5-star reviews, and nothing less.

Until the paperback is available, those without Kindles or Nooks have several options:

* Smashwords has the ebook available in multiple formats for downloading to pretty much any other ereader (Sony Reader, Kobo, etc.) or to any device that can double as an ereader.

* Amazon offers FREE Kindle reading "apps" that allow you to download an ebook like HUNTER to your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android, or Windows 7 phone.

If you're not sure you'll like the book, you can also download a free sample of several chapters from the book's sales pages on Amazon (Kindle), on B&N (Nook), and on Smashwords (everything else).

And if you wonder whether to buy, despite the glowing reviews, the $3.99 price shouldn't pose much of an obstacle.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

How we'll save the print-book industry

Many readers are lamenting the disappearance of bookstores and dire predictions of the collapse of the print book.

But those of you who love the feel and smell and look of print books on your bookshelves: take heart. The print book has a future.

The solution is already at hand: print-on-demand books (POD). It is a publishing model that can keep the print-book industry alive, but which completely undercuts the current book industry model, which is:

* From your expensive Manhattan offices, try to guess which manuscript, among all those sent to you by hordes of agents, will have a chance to return your investment;

* decide to print only those books, and reject the rest (even including great books that you guess "won't sell");

* offer the author an advance against sales -- then hope the book will sell enough to recoup what you paid him;

* invest gadzillions of dollars into a substantial print run on that book;

* send out a hired sales force to approach all the bookstores and retail outlets to carry it;

* ship the book to distributors like Ingram and Baker & Taylor, and to the big chain warehouses, where the copies are stocked;

* wait for the chains to send them to all their stores, guessing how many copies each might need;

* advertise heavily and expensively for those titles you think have the best shot, while ignoring the rest (and hoping that one or two of them "break out" and become surprise bestsellers);

* wait a month or six weeks to see how well it sells in the stores;

* if it doesn't sell, watch as the bookstores then ship all the unsold copies back to the publisher, and/or...

* stick the unsold copies on "remainder" tables, coast to coast, where they are sold at a fraction of retail to bargain-hunters.

This is an incredibly slow, cumbersome, and wasteful process in the digital age. It rejects, up front, a lot of books of merit because publishers think they won't be profitable, while accepting a lot of books that prove not to be profitable, anyway. It requires huge investments in resources, throughout the enormously expensive book pipeline, costs that jack up the price of books to the point where print-book sales are falling off a cliff, now (see the preceding link). It requires the customer to leave his comfortable home, burn ever-more-expensive gasoline, fight traffic, and to drive to some store, perhaps many miles away; then find parking in some mall lot; then wander the aisles looking for it...often only to find that the store may not carry the title, or may have run out. Then drive home.

In contrast, here's the POD (print on demand) model, used by Amazon's "Createspace" program and others:

* Accept pretty much any book manuscript, letting customers -- not the book industry, the reviewers, and the bookstore owners -- decide whether there's a market for it.

* Have the author send in his manuscript and book cover formatted digitally, so that you can then file it on your big computer.

* Wait for customer orders to come in.

* When they do, push a button, and a fully bound book pops out of a fancy machine, looking every bit as good as anything produced in NYC.

* Mail the book to the customer.

* Offer the author all rights to his work, and much higher royalties to participate than NY publishers do, because this process is so comparatively inexpensive that you can afford to.

Now, consider how many steps, how much time, and how many resources this model saves.

POD will be the salvation of the print-book industry, in my humble opinion. As bookstores close, the current publishing industry model, described above -- which depends entirely on bookstore outlets to hawk their wares -- will collapse, too. It's simply too cumbersome and inefficient in the digital age.

And for those of you who lament the disappearance of bookstores, you know what? POD will offer you more books than ever: not just new titles, but also backlist titles. If you're a thriller fan, like me, you can take heart in knowing that Alistair MacLean and Mickey Spillane will never go "out of print," because they'll live on a computer, waiting for their fans to order them. FOREVER.

When the big, traditional publishers wise up, they'll realize that they can monetize their backlist and out-of-print titles this way, and make untold millions. They are sitting on goldmines of past inventory, which they can't afford to market under the current business model -- but which are easy to release and market as ebooks and POD books.

Oh yes: Everything I just said goes double for ebooks. Which is why Amazon is killing the competition with its Kindle Direct Publishing, and why even J.K. Rowling has made the jump to ebook self-publishing.

THAT is the future of publishing, friends. Yes, books, whether ebooks or "pbooks," have a great future -- and so do authors like me.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

The face of the Self-Publishing Revolution: mine

On June 22, I joined the Self-Publishing Revolution by "indie" publishing my novel HUNTER: A Thriller. I'm just one of the latest authors to do this. And this trend is changing the face of publishing.

Never before have authors had so many options: traditional publishing, small-press publishing, "indie" (self) publishing, print publishing, audio publishing, ebook publishing, and who knows what else. New technology and free markets are creating a competitive landscape that is putting writers in the driver's seat, perhaps for the first time in history. Big publishers are being compelled to offer better deals, or else they'll lose big-name authors like J.K. Rowling.

Here's the face of the Self-Publishing Revolution:

I wrote my novel on a brilliant creative writing software package, WriteItNow, which cost me a grand total of $59. I finished up on Word, which I've had for years from an old job, and cost me nothing.

Today I filed my Avenger Books paperwork with the state. From a home computer. I have the necessary business account, post office box, (home) office. Paperwork cost: $25.

I contracted out for a first-rate book cover, done for just $250 bucks by a kid out of state. He did a blog header for me, just as cool, for another $250. And a great business logo for just $40.

My ebook and print-book formatting and layout were done by a guy in Britain, who turned around the entire job in 36 hours -- for a total of less than $150.

ISBN numbers were free from Smashwords and Amazon.

My photographer accepted a nice dinner in payment.

My web guy is building a new blog for my fiction...for free, as a showcase of his wares.

Cost of blog hosting: $48 per year.

Cost of domain name for a year: $9.

Cost of ebook uploading to Amazon: $0.

Amazon marketing cost of ebooks: 30%, leaving me 70% royalties.

Up-front cost of Amazon producing my print books: $0.

Distribution cost of print books: $39, for Amazon's enhanced distribution to the book trade, so that people can order the book at their local bookstores.

P.O. Box rental: about $45 for six months.

Ebook distribution costs: $0.

Online marketing costs: Just my time.

Print book costs (if books are bought and shipped by me): several dollars less than the total revenues on sales (i.e., I make a profit).

Bottom line: I've put out a good novel, in formats of a quality comparable to that of most publishers, AND I've launched a self-publishing business -- all for about $1000. I did it years faster than if I had gone through the mainstream publishing "query-go-round." And, if I had not bothered setting up the Avenger Books business imprint and customized blog, or insisted on as good a book cover, etc., I could've gotten away with publishing the ebook and p-book for probably $200-$300.

This is what is threatening the established book industry right now: Their fixed costs are gargantuan, and their business model outmoded. Big publishing houses, book agents, and brick-and-mortar bookstores are rapidly are becoming exorbitantly expensive middle men whose only real services are printing, distribution, and marketing -- middle men that many authors no longer need and whose services they can easily replace with low-cost contract labor.

Which is why print book sales and chain bookstores continue to circle the drain. Now is the time for authors and would-be authors to join the revolution.

I'm THRILLED....

Absolutely stellar reviews from early readers for HUNTER: A Thriller, up on Amazon (click the link to read them).

I could not be more pleased with the early reception. Many people are phoning and emailing me saying that the book has kept them up until 3-5 a.m. -- that they can't put it down. Others are making comparisons to books and authors that I admire hugely.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. Honestly. Somebody pinch me.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

You don't need a Kindle or Nook to buy & read ebooks

YOU DON'T HAVE TO OWN A KINDLE OR NOOK to download and read an ebook like HUNTER on virtually any device: PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, etc. Just go to this link and get a free "Kindle app," which will let you buy and read it on your iPhone, Blackberry, Android, or whatever.

Hey, the ebook's only $3.99, and the "app" is free. What do you have to lose (except your past respect for me as a writer)?

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

HUNTER is now available for sale online

HUNTER: A Thriller is now alive and ready for downloading on Amazon.com, as a Kindle ebook. It is also available in a trade paperback edition at Amazon.com.

Also, for those without a Kindle (and who don't want to download free Kindle apps, to read it on other devices), you can purchase the book at Smashwords. Smashwords supplies the iPad, iPhone, Sony Reader, Kobo, and many more outlets and devices.


Also, the Nook version is now available at the Barnes & Noble online store. The print edition will be available in less than two weeks.

Thanks, everyone, for your encouragement and support.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Who knew that I wrote "Atlas Shrugged"????

Hahahaha.

I just set up my "Author's Page" on Amazon.com, and by accident they listed "Atlas Shrugged" as one of MY books! Needless to say, I've notified them and I hope that is corrected right away!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

My new publishing imprint

Welcome to Avenger Books:



This imprint will publish my future works of fiction. Address all written inquiries about my books to:

Avenger Books
P.O. Box 555
Chester, MD 21619

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Wonderful advance reader responses for "Hunter"

I'm back from a week's vacation with The Wife in North Carolina, during which time my "beta readers" have been sharing their feedback with me on the manuscript for Hunter.

I'm tremendously encouraged by their enthusiastic responses, and humbled by their detailed critiques and suggestions. The published book will be much improved, thanks to their invaluable input and insights.

This week, I'll be racing to incorporate corrections and tweaks, kick development of a new "fiction" blog into gear; finalize my marketing plan; and prepare the manuscript for ebook and print-book publication. There are many things to do, so my posts will be limited here. But I hope that the book -- which should be available by the end of June in ebook editions, and early July in print -- will be more than a worthy substitute for blog posts.

Friday, June 03, 2011

Finishing my first novel on June 4th

I've just finished the climactic chapter of my novel, HUNTER: A Thriller.

I can't begin to tell you how I feel about it. Let's just say that I've poured wine and am toasting myself.

I'll finish the final "tying up loose ends" chapter tomorrow, and then my first novel is DONE.

The day before my 62nd birthday. As I promised myself.

The book will be available as an ebook by month's end, and almost immediately thereafter as a trade paperback. Details to come.

Thanks to all of you who have either encouraged or endured me during this process.

UPDATE -- C'est fini...just an hour or so before my birthday. Can't tell you how great it feels.

Monday, May 30, 2011

How the Ruling Class manages America's collapse

The inimitable Mark Steyn, in his inimitable style, connects a few dots from the news in order to sketch a telling portrait of America's decline. This time he provides both a macro- and micro-view of the workings, and staggering costs, of our Regulatory State -- designed and managed by Ruling Class grandees and bureaucratic caliphs. Sample:
Plucked at random from the ObamaCare bill:

"The Secretary shall develop oral healthcare components that shall include tooth-level surveillance."

"Tooth-level surveillance"? Has that phrase ever been used before in the entirety of human history? Say what you like about George III but the redcoats never attempted surveillance of Gen. Washington's dentures. Why not just call it "gum control"?

The hyper-regulatory state is unrepublican. It strikes at one of the most basic pillars of free society: equality before the law. When you replace "law" with "regulation," equality before it is one of the first casualties. In such a world, there is no law, only a hierarchy of privilege more suited to a sultan's court than a self-governing republic. If you don't want to be subject to "tooth-level surveillance," you better know who to call in Washington. Teamsters Local 522 did, and the United Federation of Teachers, and the Chicago Plastering Institute. And as a result they've all been "granted" ObamaCare "waivers." Rule, Obama! Obama, waive the rules! If only for his cronies. Americans are being transferred remorselessly from the rule of law to rule by an unaccountable bureaucracy of micro-regulatory preferences, subsidies, entitlements and incentives that determine which of the multiple categories of Unequal-Before-The-Law Second-Class (or Third-Class, or Fourth-Class) Citizenship you happen to fall into.

And yet Americans put up with it. According to the Small Business Administration, the cost to the economy of government regulation is about $1.75 trillion per annum. You and your fellow citizens pay for that – and it's about twice as much as you pay in income tax. Or, to put it another way, the regulatory state sucks up about a quarter-trillion dollars more than the entire GDP of India. As fast as India's growing its economy, we're growing our regulations faster. Oh, well, you shrug, it would be unreasonable to expect the bloated, somnolent hyperpower to match those wiry little fellows back at the call center in Bangalore. Okay. It's also about a quarter-trillion dollars more than the GDP of Canada. Every year we're dumping the equivalent of a G7 economy into ever more ludicrous and wasteful regulation.
As ever, read it all.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Amazon moves into big-time publishing

Robin Sullivan, who is attending BookExpo America (aka "BEA"), reports that the really big buzz so far is that Amazon is moving into publishing, big time.

In contrast to the legacy publishers, Amazon has demonstrated that it knows exactly what it's doing, which is how it has come to dominate, first, online book marketing, then the ereader market, and then the ebook self-publishing market. Now it is diving into print publishing, too -- first with "CreateSpace" for self-publishing authors, and now with a number of genre imprints for select titles.

As I've noted before, Amazon clearly has the goal of achieving complete "vertical integration" in the book business: from attracting authors and their manuscripts, to publishing (Kindle Direct Publishing, CreateSpace, and a host of print imprints), to creating great sales platforms (online and the Kindle).

Amazon has allowed authors to bypass the need to hire agents before getting published; they have allowed authors to avoid getting trapped in the endless "query go 'round" with traditional publishers, hawking their manuscripts for months or years and waiting desperately for acceptance; they have let authors bypass the need to have agents or lawyers parse the fine print of book contracts (by offering a single, simple deal to all); and they've allowed authors to bypass bookstores and still be able to generate big sales.

Amazon also has dramatically accelerated the process of book publishing (from edited manuscript to publication within weeks, instead of a year or more), of paying author royalties (monthly, with just a 60-day lag, instead of semi-annually or even annually), and of generating marketing attention (through online linking, reviewing, and recommendations). In short, they've made the process of book publishing completely painless and author-friendly.

Now, they're taking those same practices into the print business and are planning to seduce bestselling authors away from the legacy presses with better deals. To head up this operation, they've hired the former CEO of Time-Warner Publishing. How good will their contracts be for authors? Well, even Joe Konrath and Blake Crouch, two hugely successful self-publishers, have been offered a contract attractive enough that they've agreed to let Amazon publish a print version of their new collaborative novel, Stirred -- an inaugural title for Thomas & Mercer, Amazon's new mystery and thriller imprint. Amazon also has launched Montlake Romance, its imprint brand for the romance genre, and is about to unveil a sci-fi/fantasy imprint, too. These are added to Amazon's existing imprints: AmazonEncore (the company's flagship general imprint), AmazonCrossing (dedicated to literature in translation), Kindle Direct Publishing (for self-pubbed ebooks), and CreateSpace (for print-book self-publishing).

As a measure of how much Amazon is disrupting the book industry -- from publishers to agents to bookstores -- check out this piece in Publishers Weekly, commenting about the launch of Amazon's Montlake Romance imprint. You don't have to read between the lines to see how worried they are.

UPDATE The NYT reports on BookExpo America, saying, "There is a Wild West quality to the book business these days":
E-books have exploded, surpassing print sales for some new releases. The struggles for many brick-and-mortar bookstores have deepened as their customers began downloading books onto their e-readers from home rather than heading to stores.

Easily eliciting the most chatter was Amazon’s announcement on Sunday that it had hired one of the industry’s best-known veterans, the publisher turned agent Laurence J. Kirshbaum, to head a new imprint for Amazon that will publish general-interest titles. On Wednesday Amazon said it had acquired a book by the thriller writer Barry Eisler, who had announced this year, with much fanfare, that he was abandoning a six-figure contract with his publisher out of dissatisfaction with the traditional book industry.
But offering more probing and prescient observations, this guy calls the BEA shindig "industry dinosaurs on parade":
The New York Times claimed that “e-business is the buzz” at BEA. Not a chance. Read between the lines of the action on the floor, listen to the people in the trenches of publishing and selling books, and you see an industry that still hasn’t begun to comprehend the e-media revolution that is rapidly engulfing it. The industry is a mass of silent film stars telling each other that the talkies are no threat.

I attended BEA on Tuesday and found that, overall, interest in technology is superficial at best. In the eyes of the industry — that is, as one person put it, the old white men in their 60s and 70s who run the big publishers –- e-books and what they represent are a curiosity and maybe potential opportunity. But they aren’t vital to to the industry because its captains think they have all the time in the world to understand and exploit it.

Their focus is still on paper, on cutting deals and cutting costs, on keeping business, as much as possible, as it always has been. And, understandably, you can’t walk easily walk away from the bulk of your business. However, the publishers have fought progress rather than embraced it. Collectively, publishing decided to stick its big toe into the ocean just as a series of 8-foot waves are about to hit the shore. The result will be ugly.
That's how I see it, too.

UPDATE #2 -- Author Michael A. Stackpole explains why traditional publishers are going the way of the Dodo bird, and author & publisher Dean Wesley Smith adds his thoughts in a blog post and some appended comments.

Meanwhile, Publishers Lunch -- a quasi-official daily e-letter covering the industry from the vantage point of legacy publishers -- reports in its 5/26/11 issue the following:
Eisler's Next John Rain Novel to Amazon's Thomas & Mercer

At our Publishers Launch Conference Wednesday afternoon [at BookExpo America], [best-selling thriller author] Barry Eisler announced that, rather than self-publishing, his next John Rain novel THE DETACHMENT will be published by Amazon's new mystery/thriller imprint Thomas & Mercer in both digital and print formats. "What Amazon has offered is everything that was so great to me about self publishing on the one hand, but everything you want from traditional publishing," including marketing and distribution. "I get the best of both worlds," he added.

Amazon is also paying Eisler an advance, one "that was comparable to what St, Martin's was offering in the deal I ultimately decided didn't make sense." They [have] also given him "control over the packaging and consultation over the pricing of the book," with a royalty he called "much more favorable" than a traditional deal. (It's for world rights, and includes audio as well.)

The royalties offered for the print edition are also "comparable" to the St. Martin's deal, and Eisler suggested that "paper has become a subsidiary right" with "independent advertising value"....

When an audience member asked about the nature of Amazon's contract, Eisler (who is trained as an attorney) said "I've never seen a better publishing agreement than what Amazon presented me. It's readable, it's understandable, and it's transparent."
Eisler went on to explain that the ebook deal from Amazon was so sweet that he was willing to take more modest royalties on his print edition, so that the book would do well in bookstores and generate lots of attention for the ebook. This pricing strategy infuriated traditional booksellers at BEA:
In the following panel, however, ABA [American Booksellers Association] COO Len Vlahos took issue strongly with Eisler's contention that booksellers should be happy to sell low-priced print versions of books which Amazon publishes digitally. "Organizationally we could not disagree with Barry Eisler more." Vlahos objected to having "one entity [Amazon] basically use [print] books as a loss leader and devalue books.... I applaud his innovation, but I think it's grossly misguided. If you do the math on what he is talking about, Amazon is going to lose a lot of money on their contract with him, and you have to wonder about that."
To which I say: Ha! Amazon has demonstrated that it's anything but stupid. What really frosts the legacy press is the fact that Amazon is starting to woo away their bestselling authors with far better deals; that it will no doubt cut the cover prices of print books; and that it will still make money -- which they can't.

Major publishing executives confirm their utter incompetence

Executives representing traditional publishing companies, on an industry panel this week at BookExpo America, demonstrate their utter cluelessness about how to address the ebook revolution. Here's a sample, to give you a clear grasp of their self-admitted incompetence:
Though none of the panelists, publishers all, were ready to say they don’t care about consumers—Random House Digital President Amanda Close immediately responded that “we have always cared deeply about our consumers”—they admitted that they’re facing stiff challenges in getting readers to discover new e-books. “Publishers do not know how to market e-books yet,” said Evan Schnittman, Managing Director of Group Sales and Marketing at Bloomsbury. Or, rather, they know how to market the new titles that they’re simultaneously marketing in stores, but the older titles that publishers are converting into e-books present more of a challenge. “Let’s be honest with ourselves, we’ve never marketed backlist before,” Schnittman said.
"Backlist" refers to older titles, the ones that the publishers no longer push. The way the industry has worked to date, they throw out a book for a few weeks, wait for the sales (and unsold returns) from bookstores, then forget about it (and its author) and move on to the next book, hoping for a bestseller. For authors, this means that their books have little chance of being discovered by readers before their publishers abandon efforts to sell them, and they become "backlist titles" -- which one exec admits "we've never marketed."

The ebook revolution has allowed authors to (sometimes) reclaim from publishers the rights to these older titles, then self-publish them. Books that are years old are now discovering new readers as ebooks, and some are selling hugely. But traditional publishers are sitting on vast archives of these works, and haven't a clue what to do with them.

Here's another report about the same panel. Skim it, then try to answer two questions: (1) What the hell are these self-important idiots saying? and (2) What author in his right mind would entrust his work and career to this collection of lame-brains?

Monday, May 23, 2011

How independent bookstores might survive

A couple of posts down, I took note of the spiteful boycott by independent booksellers against "indie" authors Joe Konrath and Blake Crouch, because of their decision to publish a book with Amazon. Many independent bookstores regard Amazon as the Great Satan of the book business, the "enemy" who is putting them out of business.

This is stupid. It isn't Amazon that's putting them out of business; it's their customers. Customers want maximum choices and convenience, minimum prices and wasted time. Right now, Amazon does a much better job of giving them those things than do bookstores, including "indie" bookstores.

So, is there anything that independent bookstores can do to save themselves, in an era when so many of their customers are taking their physical book purchases online to sources such as Amazon, or to ereaders such as the Kindle, Nook, and iPad?

Maybe. But to survive, they'll have to get out of the way of the customer-driven bandwagon, and instead leap on board. If indie bookstores want to survive, then -- in addition to those suggestions offered by Konrath and Crouch at the linked blog post -- here are a few more things I would do if I owned an independent bookstore:

1. Turn your physical location into an advantage, rather than a liability. Change from being just another warehouse for books, into becoming a constant meeting place for authors and their fans.

This expands on a point made by Konrath and Crouch. There is a BIG niche market of fans who want to meet their favorite authors -- including local authors. I know fans (self included) who would drive many miles to spend time with their favorite writers.

So, transform your store into a literary meeting place -- not just in the evenings, but all day -- where authors meet with their fans. It benefits authors by cementing their bond with readers and peddling their wares. It obviously benefits readers. And, if the stores charged a small cover fee ($5?) for the event, as well as sell the author's books (including POD books on consignment), that would keep the lights on and pay the hired help.

Authors can also be invited to hold workshops about writing, self-publishing, etc. The authors could charge a fee, and the bookstore could take a cut.

2. Embrace indie/self-published titles, rather than banishing them. Many readers love novelty in novels (and nonfiction). They can buy Big6 bestsellers everywhere. But where can they get edgy, unusual, provocative, or unsung titles? Not in Barnes & Noble. And who there would know much about them?

So, become known as THE place that stocks and advises readers about indie titles.

3. Embrace ebooks. Hold classes for potential buyers to explain and demonstrate the various differences among various ereader gadgets, and how to use each device most effectively. Run hand-holding sessions for the technologically timid to introduce them to the Brave New World of ebooks and ereaders. Then stock and sell ereaders to your customers. Or rent them, by the day.

4. Partner. If all indie stores in a region worked together, they could coordinate their calendars of events so that they could run "tours" of authors among the various member stores in nearby towns. "Meet Author X at 10 a.m. in Store A." "Meet Author X at 1 p.m. in Store B." "Meet Author X at 7 p.m. in Store C." Advantage for the author: He can sell lots of books and meet lots of fans in a given region during a short period of time. Advantage for stores: a constant flow of interesting authors.


Will ideas like this save indie stores? I don't know. But it's clear their current business model won't work much longer. Either they transform themselves to embrace the current customer-driven changes, or they won't survive. That's the message they need to confront. Throwing temper tantrums against indie authors such as Joe Konrath is just trying to kill the messenger.

UPDATE -- Dean Wesley Smith really knows how to think outside the cliche -- and he has an absolutely fabulous idea. So good, in fact, that I think you'll soon see this one at stores everywhere: books in the form of GIFT CARDS.

UPDATE #2 -- News for chain bookstores on May 25 isn't great.

From Books-a-Million: Sales for Books-A-Million's first quarter dropped 11 percent to $104 million, with store comps falling 13.2 percent from last year (when the company reported a 3.6 percent drop from 2009.) The bookseller lost $3.5 million, compared to $2 million in profits at this time last year. Clyde Anderson, CEO, blamed "the growing effect of e-book penetration" and "the effects of the devastating tornado outbreak" that hit the Midwest and Southeast region in the early part of 2011. Yeah -- blame the weather.

Meanwhile, from Barnes & Noble comes news of an unspecified number of layoffs, including executives, at a New Jersey distribution center.