Me? Falling For the E-Book?

I don't remember the class, the instructor, or the subject matter, but I heard once that a 10% return is a reasonable expectation when marketing a product. If you made 100 cold calls, 10 would bite...or something like that.

I've been investigating the idea of marketing my books online only, cut out queries and pitches, submissions and reading fees. The DIY of publishing. I had long abandoned this idea, preferring traditional publishing, until I read some recent stories in the New York Times and Salon.com. Of course few in the world of writing haven't heard about the 'million' made by selling a million e-books. But I also read about bookstores now charging admission to book signings and author meet and greets, because business is so bad and they need the money. They blame this, for the most part, on the e-book.

I'm rethinking everything.

There are on average 62.4 million avid book readers in the United States. Mind you, e-books can be purchased from anywhere in the world, with one click, but I'm thinking small. Let's cut that in half to be even more modest. Then taking my ten percent, since the other ninety may have no interest in my genre, style or story... 3.12 million dollars, if I sold an e-book for a buck.

Coming soon, to a Kindle near you....

Abusing Books & Writing In Bed

This morning I lay in my bed, pondering life's losses, thinking I needed to be writing. I've been trying to write for a greeting card company and they recommend speaking from the heart, as if you were writing to someone you cared about. Something came to me, and as usual I had too much written in my head when it occurred to me I would never remember it all. I rolled over to my nightstand, where there is a cup of pens, but no paper. What kind of writer am I? No paper? The kind with a laptop downstairs I suppose, but there was a reason I was still in bed and I wasn't ready to abandon it. Next to the pens and picture frame and nail polish, was the book I was reading before bed; Trading Up, by Candace Bushnell. Yes, I do dream of Central Park and the MOMA, who doesn't?

Anyway, I thought of writing my mind's scribbles in those two or three blank pages that every book has and immediately remembered one of my closest friends critiquing a book of mine a long time ago. Maybe it was Two Sides of Wilde? The character, Amelia Hiller, (yes, it was Wilde)who owned a bookstore, had folded over the corner in a page of her book, to mark it, as she got up to do something or other. My friend, a writer, had scolded me, insisting "no true book lover would ever dog ear a page like that." It made me sad as I considered myself a 'true' book lover and I dog ear all the time, or at least I did. My shame has since caused me to collect bookmarks.

I always thought the more rough a book looked, the more loved it had been. I mean what are headers and margins for anyway? I imagined dog ears and notes in the margins and God forbid coffee stained pages! That's a book that's been around, shared...read. I know, a first edition of Wuthering Heights is a different story, but we live in the day of mass publication and paperback.

So I did it. I wrote my greeting card snippet before the title page of Trading Up. I wonder if my friend, or Candace, or Carrie would approve? :)


p.s.

I wrote half of this blog in my phone, before finally rummaging around the room to find a tiny notebook. At least I didn't have to go downstairs. When I write with one ear on the mattress, I can hear my penstrokes and nothing else.

Ugh.

I'm blogging about blogger, because I'm grumpy.

When I find a blog on blogger that I like, via google or some other miracle, I am just a nameless shmo and the 'sign in' button laughs at me. The 'follow' button is AWOL. Once I sign in, that blog I wanted to follow, is gone.

I also cannot search for blogs, by topic, author, or any other logical means. If I click 'next blog' for fun, I find a blog in Japanese on how to raise goats. Clearly not a TIVO.

If I go back, I am again in stranger status, I log in, the blog is gone. Ugh.

Did I mention I am grumpy?

I know... how is it that I DO have blogs that I am currently following? Well sometimes it works better. Sometimes? No. Computers and internet are absolutes. There are no emotions, there are not supposed to be maybes. Black and white!!! If I wanted maybe and sometimes I would go stand in front of the refrigerator.