This post began being written a couple of weeks ago when I recalled some specific misplaced expectations I had for the self-publishing revolution and started to ponder why things happened the way they did in recent years. It turns out a big part of the answer I was looking for provides clarity that extends far […]
eBook pricing resembles three dimensional chess
The current round of reporting from major publishers contains some danger signs. Their ebook sales are declining (in dollars and even more dramatically in units) in an ebook market that is probably not declining. The “good” news for the publishers is that print sales are pretty much holding their own, or even growing. And profits […]
Big data matters but textual analysis really does not
I was honored today with a lengthy response to a recent Shatzkin Files post on the Digital Book World blog from Neil Balthasar, who apparently uses techniques similar to those in a forthcoming book “The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of a Blockbuster Novel”. My post had been a response to a PW article announcing the upcoming […]
Full text examination by computer is very unlikely to predict bestsellers
PW currently has a story on a forthcoming St. Martin’s book called “The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of The Blockbuster Novel” in which authors Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers “claim they created an algorithm that identifies the literary elements that guarantee a book a spot on the bestseller lists.” As readers of The Shatzkin Files know, […]
In an indie-dominant world, what happens to the high-cost non-fiction?
I first learned and wrote about Hugh Howey about four years ago. At the time, he was one of the first real breakthrough successes as an indie author, making tens of thousands of dollars a month exclusively through Amazon for his self-published futurist novel, “Wool”. As soon as I could track him down, I invited […]
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