Paper Books are Alive and Well!

I was looking at my recent book sales and saw that a vast majority of them were e-books. Was the oft predicted demise of traditional books upon us?  Luckily, I keep good records of my book sales and noticed January had traditionally been a poor month for printed book sales. January had also been a blockbuster month for e-books. I surmise that it's all the fault of Christmas. Many avid readers of printed books received over a month's supply of the old fashioned variety on Christmas and were not yet in the market to buy new reading material. On the other hand, e-reader enthusiasts got new devices and gift cards for Christmas, so they went on a buying spree.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Here's a popular television ad that kinda backs me up that paper will be around for a while longer.



 The ad reminds me of the old joke that the paperless office will arrive just after the paperless bathroom.

How to Sell a Half Million Books—After You’ve Been Dead 100 Years

Dead people publish new books all the time. Some of these books are unfinished manuscripts. Others are ghostwritten from scratch to take advantage of a famous name like Robert Ludlum. But there is one book composed by the actual author that was purposely withheld from the market for one hundred years, and after release, sold over a half million copies. Now that’s quite a feat.

Click to buy at Amazon

The author, of course, is Mark Twain, and the book is his autobiography … Volume 1. (The New Yorker has a fine article about Twain’s autobiography.) The second volume has just been released and is also projected to sell well. 

Twain specified in his will that his autobiography could not be published until 100 years after his death. He claimed that time would heal the wounded egos of those he assaulted. There is a lot of vitriol aimed at long forgotten people, but the only controversial aspect of his own life is an atheism well known by his contemporaries. In typical Twain humor, he wrote, “I have thought of fifteen hundred or two thousand incidents in my life which I am ashamed of, but I have not gotten one of them to consent to go on paper yet.”

The delayed publication was a grand publicity stunt by one of our nation’s foremost self-promoters. Twain believed, no, he knew that the great great grandchildren of his current readers would be interested in his life. He expected immortality of an earthly variety … and he was right.

The meandering style of the book has not garnered good reviews. Twain wrote that other autobiographies “patiently and dutifully follow a planned and undivergent course.” His own, by contrast, is “a pleasure excursion.” It “sidetracks itself anywhere that there is a circus, or a fresh excitement of any kind, and seldom waits until the show is over, but packs up and goes on again as soon as a fresher one is advertised.”

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Center Point Will Publish The Latest Steve Dancy Tale

I returned from my trip to Nebraska to find a publishing contract from Center Point for The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale. They’re a great group of people, so I signed and posted the contract immediately. My understanding is that Center Point has the large print version of The Return slotted for the first quarter of 2014. (Trade paperback and ebook formats will be available this summer.)

I’m thrilled that Center Point will have published all four of the Steve Dancy novels. It also pleases me that the first three books have earned past their advances. That probably explains why Center Point bought the large print rights to The Return sight unseen. That’s a compliment I feel really good about.

Related Post:

The Future of Large Print

Mistakes Aplenty

Hi, I'm looking for a Bible for my mother but I'm not quite sure who the author is

Here are three sites that allow us to laugh at other people's mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. I know I've made more than a few. Although it's great therapy to be reminded that other witless people abound, I fear one day I'll open an article to find my own mistakes broadcast to amuse the world. So far, I've escaped this humiliation but it remains a fearsome nightmare.

Witless Questions Customers Ask in Bookshops 
(The comments outdo the article examples)

Query Letters From Hell

What NOT to Do When Beginning Your Novel

Get a Spine!

The spine is the most undervalued aspect of book design. This is especially true today, when so many indie-books only publish electronically. Writers are doing themselves a disservice by restricting the market for their books. Granted, the majority of my sales are eBooks, but I also sell a respectable number of print books. I do well with libraries, and despite not pursuing bookstores, I've found my novels carried in the big chains and independent stores. Additionally, some readers who prefer electronic books still look to see if there is a print version to strengthen their purchase decision. My recommendation is that authors insist on a printed version. 

If a print format is produced, then a book becomes a three-dimensional object and must have a back cover and spine. The spine is the most important.

Unless you’re a bestselling author, your books will not be stacked on tables at the front of the store, so only the spine will be seen when your book is on a shelf. The same is true for a library. If you want to sell your next book to a library, people must find and check-out your previous books. So pay attention to the spine. Getting sales is tough enough without your book disappearing in a maze of other books screaming for attention.

The Shopkeeper—Featured Book

The Shopkeeper, A Steve Dancy Tale is a featured book today on “Kindle Books and Tips” and “Bargain Booksy.” For a short period, the Kindle version of The Shopkeeper is priced at $3.99, instead of $5.99.  The first in the Steve Dancy series now has 110 Amazon reviews for 4.4 stars and 215 Goodreads ratings for 3.7 stars.

If you haven't started the series, this is a great opportunity to see why the Steve Dancy Tales have developed such a strong following.

"I just finished reading this book and I have to say its one of the best western books I’ve read in a long time.  The characters, the plot, everything seem so real. You’ll find yourself lost in the book—the fast pace keeps it interesting." — Maritza Barone, Woman'sDay

"The James Best books...are about the best new Western series to come along since Larry McMurtry" Larry Winget, True West Magazine, March, 2012

Will Libraries End up as Museums?

Are books becoming obsolete? Is a library the only place we’ll be able to see these odd antiquities? Will librarians admonish us “don’t touch,” instead of shushing chatterboxes? Are we entering a binary world where everything is decomposed into a series of ones and zeros to be instantly reassembled on a hand-held device?

My Dream Library - A Great Place to Read

Libraries may one day become faux ambiance designed for reading books on an electronic device. I've had a library built in my last three homes. Now, I’m moving once again and my biggest task is going through thousands of books to decide which ones I really want to keep. I'll build a formal library in my new house, but it will certainly not be as large as my current one.

I've had friends tell me they prefer a real book because they like the scent and feel and the genuine article. Then someone gives them an e-reader. Soon, they discover that the medium doesn't matter; they still get lost in the words. By the third novel, they’re converts.

There might be some truth in the demise of the book … at least as a commodity. But it will not happen as quickly as pundits predict and some form of books will always be with us. 

Books started as art, and I suspect they will return to art. Nobody will miss the mass paperback, or even cheaply printed and bound hardcovers. Books will once again become beautiful … but I still won’t need a big library because they’ll also become much more expensive.

Word-of-Mouth is Still King

Goodreads has completed a survey of their members about how they discovered books. They published the results at the link below.

Goodreads Survey





How do people discover what book to read? Unsurprisingly, word-of-mouth is still king. A recommendation from a trusted friend is the top answer, with "Everyone talking about it" in second place. The third most frequent answer: a book club recommendation. Since book clubs are made up of trusted fellow readers, I would add this answer to the word-of-mouth category. These three answers put together dwarf all of the other responses.

What does this mean for an aspiring author? One thing, and one thing only: write a good book. There are many out there who believe the trick is to jump on the next e-book marketing gimmick. That works ... but only for a brief period. People don't recommend or talk about shoddy books. If word-of-mouth is the #1, #2, and #3 best way to sell books, then authors need to write books that people want to share with friends. As Goodreads says, the survey pointed out "one powerful need: wanting to be connected with our 'tribe' through stories." 

So if you want to be an author instead of a digital huckster, write a good story, polish it to perfection, have it professionally edited and proofread, and then do it all again.