A Guest Blog from Penny Sansevieri: 10 Mistakes Authors Make that Can Cost them a Fortune (and how to avoid them)

We’ve been watching Penny Sansevieri (and subscribing to her excellent newsletter) for several years now. Penny was a bright  young woman with energy and ideas in those days. Today she’s a publishing-industry guru. Just take a look at this article on mistakes that authors make to get an idea of why she’s been so successful. If we’re lucky we’ll be hearing from Penny here from time to time.

10 Mistakes Authors Make that Can Cost them a Fortune (and how to avoid them)

When it comes to books, promotion, and book production I know that it can sometimes feel like a minefield of choices. And while I can’t address each of these in minutia, there are a number of areas that are keenly tied to a books success (or lack thereof). Here are ten for you to consider:

1)      Not understanding the importance of a book cover

I always find it interesting that an author will sometimes spend years writing their book and then leave the cover design to someone who either isn’t a designer, doesn’t have a working knowledge of book design or the publishing industry. Or, worse, they create a design without having done the proper market research. Consider these facts for a minute: shoppers in a bookstore spend on average of 8 seconds looking at the front cover of a book and 15 seconds looking at the back before deciding whether to buy it. Further, a survey of booksellers showed that 75% of them found the book cover to be the most important element of the book. Also, sales teams at book distribution often only take the book cover with them when they shop titles into stores. And finally please don’t attempt do design your own book cover. Much like cutting your own hair this is never a good idea.

Predictions for 2011 from Smashwords Founder, Mark Coker

This Galley Cat blog from Mediabistro.com (look left) is a fresh discovery for us. The following article by Jeff Rivera on December 28, 2010 3:53 PM is the classical expert’s end-of-year predictions for next year. But this time it’s on our favorite subject, and by one of the savviest guys in the business, Smashwords founder, Mark Coker

If 2010 was the year eBooks went mainstream, 2011 will be the year indie eBook authors go mainstream.

According to Smashwords founder Mark Coker, indie eBook authors are becoming more professional and sophisticated, and they’re starting to climb the best-seller charts without the assistance of a publisher. 2011 will be the first year traditional publishers feel the need to compete against the indie ebook alternative. Here are Coker’s predictions for the new year:

1.Ebook sales rise, unit consumption surprises – Ebooks sales will approach 20% of trade book revenues on a monthly basis by the end of 2011 in the US, yet the bigger surprise is that ebooks will account for one third or more of unit consumption. Why? Ebooks cost less and early ebook adopters read more.

Read the whole story on the Galley Cat blog.

Ebook sales headed for $1 billion

Reported in Carolyn Kellog’s Los Angeles Times “Jacket Copy” column, November 9, 2010:

“A report by Forrester Research predicts that ebook sales will total $966 million in 2010. In 2011, the $1 billion line for total ebooks sales will be crossed. In 2009, ebook sales were $169.5 million — not a big portion of the $35 billion publishing industry — but the rate of increase was an impressive 176%. That’s because people who get the hang of reading ebooks, the Forrester report says, shift their book-buying from hardcover or paperback to ebooks.”

As usual, the most interesting line in the story is near the bottom: “If people who have the paperback edition of “The Da Vinci Code” buy it again as an ebook, publishing will profit. But if they skip it, and instead choose to buy Dan Brown’s next novel as an ebook instead of getting the hardcover, the bottom line gets less rosy.”

“Less rosy” for whom? For old-time tree-killer publishing companies maybe, but certainly not for new-generation indy self publishers!

More bibliophiles get on the same page with digital readers

This is an article by  Bob Minzesheimer in USA TODAY. Though it’s something of an ad for the Kindle, it’s also a genre we want to see more of: ebook promotion to the masses.

Jamie Groves has doubled his reading — up to more than 40 books a year — since he began downloading e-books on his Kindle. Sandra Hines calls her Nook her “best Mother’s Day present ever,” after initially worrying, “It wouldn’t feel like I was reading a real book.” Liz Jones used to buy a book every few months until she began reading on her iPod Touch. Now she’s downloading a book a week. All are converts to e-books — books read on handheld devices. Still a minority, their ranks are growing and transforming the definition of reading and books.

See the full story on USA Today.com.

Putting the Page 99 test to the, er, test

Read page 99 of a new book and, according to Ford Madox Ford, you’ll know whether you want to read the whole thing. A new website plans to let us all try this out

This story by Lucy Mangan ran this morning in The Guardian. It may be pseudo-science, but it’s charming. And we do love to be charmed. 

Arthur Sulzberger: “We Will Stop Printing the NY Times Sometime in the Future

Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.,  publisher of the New York Times, announced his conviction at a London media event last Wednesday that: “We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future.”

This is common sense, given the crisis in which the entire paper-publishing sector is submerged, and the meteoric rise of digital media.  But it also represents a milestone in publishing history that the boss of the newspapers of record’s newspaper of record should acknowledge that sooner or later that his paper will be going entirely digital.

It makes one suspect that those of us who have already placed our bets on the ebook are doing something right.

Read the full NY Times out-of-print story on the Huffington Post

Giz Explains: How You’re Gonna Get Screwed By Ebook Formats

I believe the title is explicit enough. Here’s the link.