C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

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03/18/2011 • 4:04 AM 10

Sell your books. For a long time.

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Movies focus on the opening weekend. Books have a month to hit big or get returned. At least, that’s the way it was for all books. That’s changing in a big way.

Recently I read an agent talking about how digital books extend the life of sales of paper books. Essentially, the message was very much “the status quo is still the status quo” and “E-books are an add-on. Publishing hasn’t substantially changed.”

I don’t agree. First, the extent to which traditional publishing isn’t changing is part of its problem, not its solution. True, many people prefer paper books to e-books, but that’s changing, especially since there are far fewer places to shelve paper books. Bookstores are closing up. It’s not happening overnight. It won’t happen to all bookstores. But e-books are where to place your bets for the future and the future’s coming faster than any of the experts predicted. (Of course, it’s all so new, I’m not sure if anyone really is an “expert.” Maybe that’s a title for someone to claim years later, not in the middle of a history change.)

The agent asserted that most people by far don’t even own e-readers. Yes, and a lot of people still don’t own telephones. That doesn’t mean utility stocks, like Ma Bell, are a bad bet. A lot of people will never own e-readers, but that won’t matter to the book industry because most of those people aren’t big readers anyway. Power users (power readers) are responsible for buying a lot of books—power users, like me. For instance, I bought The 4 Hour Body electronically. Then I decided I wanted to own it in paper as well because it’s a reference book. Then I kept downloading.

The agent’s point about e-books extending sales really stuck with me. The game has changed with e-books. Distribution is cheap and easy. It’s so easy, authors can sell their books themselves through distributors and their own websites. Authors know that their books are not stale to new readers. Every book is new to anyone who hasn’t yet read it.

This is the “long tail” of sales. And now it’s for everybody. The game has changed. What’s weird is that not everybody sees it yet.

Paper book nostalgia (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Bookstores: How sick are they? (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Writers: TOP 10 Objections to Self-Publishing (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
The Expensive e-Book: The Illogical Reasons Why Paper Books Can Sell for Less (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org)
How I went from traditional to ebook publishing (and started selling again) (teleread.com)

Filed under: publishing, Writers, writing tips, 4-Hour Body, Amazon Kindle, book, Bookselling, E-book, Publish, Sales, Shopping

01/21/2011 • 7:01 AM 0

Writers: Get your book done! Hack your life and crush your enemies.

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Zip over here as quick as you can to check your keyboarding velocity.

You can write.

Are you also a fast typist?

Next question:

Does it matter?

I’m currently sucking down a great book: Timothy Ferriss‘s 4-Hour Body.* In it, he mentions how short-term goals, tiny achievable targets, can help you get huge projects done. Don’t have time to write a weighty tome? That’s okay. How about committing to a page a day? Half a page? A few sentences?

If you can do that much, you can get your book written this year. You know why?

Because most days you won’t just write a few sentences. Once you’re over that intimidating hump of “WRITING A WHOLE BOOK” (DUH-duh-DUUUUH!) you’ll sit down. You type a few sentences. Then you’ll already be over the worst of the procrastination speed bump. Chances are, you’ll get to writing much more most of the time.

And you’ll be on your way.

How fast you type won’t matter all that much really.

What matters is that you consistently write.

Consistency is what crushes.

*Once you have your body in shape with Timothy Ferriss’s health hacks, read The 4-Hour Work Week. It is doubly awesome in giving you strategies to make your work life rule (without ruling you.) Read 4-Hour Body and you’ll live longer. Do 4-Hour Work Week and you’ll live so much better.

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