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Welcome
to the Vol. 9, No. 8 August 2011Index (scroll down for stories)
1. His financial ‘how-to’ books mostly failures, but he keeps on writing 1. His financial ‘how-to’ books mostly failures, but he keeps on writing
Hedge fund promoter James Altucher began writing books on how to invest when he got into big financial trouble. According to his blog, in 2001 he had two kids, a loft right next to “Ground Zero” in New York that he couldn’t sell, he was almost broke and his monthly burn was $40,000. He had almost nothing in the bank.
For 12 months in a row beginning in late 2001, with the market going straight down (Enron imploding, Worldcom imploding, Tyco imploding), he used software he had written with a partner to buy stocks and for a time made his monthly $40,000. On days when he lost money he would cry. He saw his bank account going to zero. He tried to figure out ways he could kill himself where nobody would know it was a suicide. He had a $4 million life insurance policy that would take care of his family if suicide wasn’t proven.
Then he was able to sell his loft. He became a living exile for a few years and
worked on a recovery. He started trading
Then he wrote a book. In mid-2004 it came out. Trade Like a Hedge Fund was edited by Pamela van Giessen at Wiley. She told him to write about all his techniques that work. So he did.
He got an advance of $5,000.
The book was controversial and became his best-selling book. It sold 14,074
copies. He made about $25,000 t
He and his editor Pamela at Wiley decided to work on his next book. He wanted to do something on Warren Buffett. “Do Trade Like Warren Buffet,” she said. So he did. His advance: $7,500. The book came out six years ago. It was a failure. In total, 6,552 copies were sold, far less than his first book.
So he did another book. He wrote Supercash about hedge fund strategies. This time, he got an agent. His advance was $30,000. It sold 1,565 copies.
So h
The book was set for publication in December 2008. Along came the recession. He begged Penguin to wait. Nobody was going to buy a book about stocks called The Forever Portfolio in one of the worst bear markets in history. The stock market was going down 300 points a day. But Penguin went ahead.
So the book flopped. The publisher would barely return his calls. In total it sold 1,598 copies. All his other books had been priced from $40-70, but this was priced around $20. It still flopped. People were worried whether or not they were going to survive, not what stocks they should buy for “forever.”
Altucher, now desperate to show his books were worth buying, went around to every bookstore in New York. “I would write notes on the inside of every copy of my latest book and then put them back on the bookshelf,” he says “Things like, ‘If you buy this book you will make a billion dollars.’ Or, ‘You are the smartest person in the world for buying this book.’”
One time, at a random mega book store in the city, with his daughter Mollie looking on, he wrote, “I LOVE YOU” in the inside of the book. “Daddy!” she said, “what the heck are you doing?” But still the book flopped. Nobody loved him back.
A friend of Altucher went to his publisher to pitch a completely different book of her own. While there, she asked, “what did you do to market James Altucher’s book?” They said, “We got him a review in the Financial Times, an excerpt published in thestreet.com, and we got him on CNBC.” She called Altucher afterward and told him this and they both laughed. Altucher had written his own review in the Financial Times. He was at thestreet.com and got the excerpt there. And he had been doing a weekly spot on CNBC for years and talked up his own book on it.
A glutton for punishment, he still wanted to write another book, even though he’d hated the process of writing every single previous book. His agent called Penguin. They didn’t want it. Altucher then told his agent who he wanted to do the book.
His agent sent the 60-page book proposal (it was the first time Altucher ever had to write an actual proposal) to 20 editors including the one Altucher specifically wanted to work with, Hollis Heimbouch at Harper Collins. He was writing for the Wall Street Journal then, doing other work for News Corp., and he thought it would be a perfect fit for her given the books that she had edited. Other writers had told him she was great to work with. He had done his research. All 20 editors who got the proposal, including Heimbouch, rejected the book.
Altucher called his agent and said, “This is a mistake. This book is perfect for her. Please do this: call her and take her out to lunch. Find out why she rejected it. Explain why it would be a good book with Harper Collins.”
Altucher was convinced not only that it was a good idea but a GREAT idea. He kept saying to his agent, “call back that one editor and take her to lunch or dinner. You need to wine and dine people. You need to at least find out why they are rejecting the book. That’s what sales is. It’s information, it’s friendship, it’s relationships.”
The agent called him back one time. “We had known each other forever but had never had an issue where someone didn’t want one of my books,” Altucher said. “So now I saw what happened when someone didn’t want one of my books.”
“If you are going to tell me how to do my job,” his agent said, “this relationship is over.”
Altucher mumbled an apology and the agent hung up.
So Altucher wrote an email to Hollis Heimbouch at Harper Collins and explained why the book would be good for her. She agreed to meet him. She said, “this proposal seems like it was written by wikipedia. You need to give us a real methodology for what to do when the end of the world hits.”
Altucher went back home and wrote another book proposal. Heimbouch still didn’t
like it. The ideas we
Then the Wall Street Journal, in the form of Roe D’Angelo, who runs their books department, stepped in. She thought it was a great idea for a book and the WSJ bought it, Heimbouch at Harper agreed to edit it, and Roe found an excellent co-author, Doug Sease, “who had been at the newspaper for about 800 years and was now fishing off the coast of Florida,” says Altucher. “He’s the most relaxed guy I ever met. We got the deal with Hollis (Heimbouch) and split the advance that the WSJ gave us. I can’t say what it is because I want to respect Doug’s privacy. He would write the intros to each chapter. I would write the ideas, etc, and he would sew it all up. The book came out (in February).” It’s The Wall Street Journal Guide to Investing for the Apocalypse.
Altucher says “I’ve made no money ever from books (if you factor in time spent on them) and now I’ve written five. I made money trading. And from Stockpickr.com, from angel investing, from my first business in the 90s, and from the occasional deal. But net-net I’ve lost money and time from books.
But there’s a happy ending to his story. In May 2009, Altucher, divorced now, had just started dating someone. It was his fourth date with her, and she was going to meet him at the Penn Station book store and then they would take a train to her house and she was going to cook dinner.
While she was waiting for him, she saw his book, The Forever Portfolio, for sale. She opened it. It was the same unsold book where three months earlier he had written “I LOVE YOU” on the inside.
2. What’s the secret? Unreleased John Green novel No. 1 on Amazon
John Green's next novel, The Fault in Our Stars, is already a runaway success - even though the book is still unfinished and almost a year from release (tentatively May 2012).
Nevertheless, the book on July 1, 2011, was the single best-selling book on Amazon.com and No. 2 on BarnesandNoble.com.
Green, 33 years old, lives in Indianapolis, Ind. He is a New York Times best-selling author who has received numerous awards, including both the Printz Medal and a Printz Honor. He is the co-creator, with his brother, Hank, of the popular video blog Brotherhood 2.0, which has been watched more than 30 million times by Nerdfighter fans all over the globe.
Green’s unusual pre-publishing success is being attributed to his savvy use of social media to promote the still unwritten book. He has 1.1 million followers on Twitter, 560,000 subscribers on YouTube and hundreds of thousands more on Tumblr, Facebook and a forum called YourPants.org.
Green has been aggressively advertising the $9.89 proto-book, offering every pre-release buyer a signed copy. He has read the first chapter of the book live over the Web, encouraged his followers to try their hand at designing a cover for the book and even asked them to vote on the color of Sharpie pen he should use to do the wrist-cripplingly huge numbers of signings.
3. ‘A Stolen Life,’ ‘Dance with Dragons’ are summer’s blockbusters
Leading the summer best-seller list in July were Jaycee Lee Dugard's memoir A Stolen Life and George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons. Orders for new copies of Dugard’s book from Amazon.com are taking up to two months to fill. If that wait is too long, resellers at the website will sell you a used copy of the tell-all for nearly twice the price of a new copy. A Stolen Life" sold 175,000 copies its first day out, while also setting a company record for one-day e-book sales. Martin's latest entry in the Game of Thrones series sold 280,000 copies on its first day on July 12… The manuscript for BackStage Pass VIP, a new Mick Jagger biography being shopped around for a publisher, exposes the Rolling Stones lead singer as a closet conservative who brought his parents flowers during dinner visits and begged his ex-wife, Bianca, to wear a bra under her see-through shirt during a surprise visit from his mother. " Bianca refused, stormed out and Jagger was left to nervously fix a tray of tea and spread a bunch of pastries on a doily to cater to his mum," writes Debra Sharon Davis, the author. Davis, who traveled with the Rolling Stones to Europe in the 1980s, interviewed everyone from fans to culture commentators to Jagger's bandmates. Her manuscript includes many never-before-heard stories of icons, from John Lennon to Janis Joplin." Jagger was like the young private equity moguls of this era, the money guys," Davis said in a press release. "He supervised the Rolling Stones organization - the toughest CEO, except he trusted no one and was not a delegator. He questioned every purchase. He even concerned himself with the price of pencil sharpeners in the Stones' office. Whatever the price, he thought it was too high. He was obsessed with profits." And profits he made. The group garnered nearly $600 million in touring and record sales alone. Davis, currently in the market for publishers, originally shelved the ms. In the 1980s. She revisited the project at the encouragement of publishing veteran and literary agent Robert G. Diforio. A possible 2012 release would also mark the Stones' 50th anniversary. … Publishers are shortening the interval between publishing of the hardback edition of a book and the paperback version. The interval used to be about a year. Now it’s closer to seven months.
4. After movies and weather, books are most searched topic by surfers
Books, it turns out, are the third most searched category online (after movies and weather).
How can publishers improve the experience for book searchers?
Liz Scheier, editorial director of digital content at Barnes & Noble, said at BookExpo America 2011 that BN.com has identified three distinct groups of customers who search for books: the mainstream buyer who wants the latest thing, buys it and leaves the Web site; the engaged readers who uses the site exploring titles they may not have surfed there to buy; and the value customers who are seeking out $0.99 bargains. The engaged readers spend the most, generate the most profit and are influenced by various online discovery programs.
5. BISG/AAP BookStats survey finds growth in publishing industry
Preliminary results from an in-depth survey of the publishing industry unveiled at BookExpo America 2011 found growth in both revenues and units sold across the contemporary book publishing landscape.
"From these 1,100 source pubs we see units from last three years are up, and we
also see, more importantly, that dollars are up," said Kelly Gallagher , vice
president of publishing services at RR Bowker. "Year over year we have positive
percentage gains for our industry in these two areas Growth was seen for
publishers of all sizes with medium- and small-sized publishers leading the way.
Over 50 percent of the publishers surveyed were enjoying growth, Gallagher said.
6. Glenn Beck and S&S expand partnership, add imprint
Former Fox News host Glenn Beck, now primarily a radio network mogul and publisher, is continuing his longstanding relationship with Simon & Schuster and expanding it, thanks to a new co-publishing venture with his production company Mercury Radio Arts.
Mercury Ink will launch this August as an imprint that aims "to discover, publish and promote books and authors that Beck is passionate about across a variety of genres," co-publishing with Simon & Schuster.
Beck said in the announcement, "While I have a million book ideas of my own, there are still countless subjects that I know my audience would love to read about but that I just don't have the ability or expertise to write.”
Mercury Radio Arts' Senior Vice President of Publishing Kevin Balfe will acquire and edit titles for the line, which will launch in August with Richard Paul Evans' first young adult title Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25.
Beck will continue to publish his own books through S&S's Threshold imprint, which will publish The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, and his novel The Snow Angel in October.
Kevin Balfe, who is also Beck's co-author on previous books, will continue to oversee the partnership on behalf of Mercury Radio Arts. Liz Perl will act as a "strategic coordinator for the Glenn Beck publishing program" across Simon & Schuster's divisions. George Hiltzik of N.S. Bienstock represented Beck in the negotiations.
7. Book club members increasingly using e-readers
Some 21 percent of reading group members are now reading all or most of their
selections on e-readers, up from 11 percent in 2009, according to a Reading
Group Choices survey. Groups representing more than 200,000 members were
surveyed online and via a traditional mailing in the first three months of the
year.
8. How bad is it? Books-a-Million blames e-books for sales decline
Sales for Books-A-Million's first quarter dropped 11 percent to $104 million, with store comps falling 13.2 percent from last year, when the company reported a 3.6 percent drop from 2009. The bookseller lost $3.5 million, compared to $2 million in profits at this time last year. CEO Clyde Anderson blamed "the growing effect of e-book penetration" and "the effects of the devastating tornado outbreak" that hit the Midwest and southeast region in the early part of 2011. …Barnes & Noble laid off an unspecified number of employees at its distribution warehouse in Monroe, N.J., in late June. In addition, the Social Security Administration is looking into possible discrepancies in employment information at the center, although a BN spokeswoman said "the reduction in workforce ... has nothing to do with the Social Security inquiry," and declined to say how many employees were being questioned in the matter. … One bright spot: representing just six percent of the total trade book market, the science fiction/fantasy segment will grow 3.4 percent in 2011, reaching $578.6 million, despite the overall market's expected 5.2 percent decline. According to a report published by media and publishing forecast firm Simba Information, the science fiction and fantasy categories experienced double-digit increases in title output, along with stronger ratings on the consolidated bestseller list in 2010. According to the report, the science fiction/fantasy segment is gaining market share, adding half a percent in 2011 compared to 2010, as it more than triples its one percent growth rate from the past two years.
9. Publishing revolution: Amazon says 950,000 Kindle titles available
Net sales of books in the U.S. during May 2011 fell 7.9 percent to $662.1 million, as reported by 93 publishers to the Association of American Publishers. E-books continued to grow - up 146.9 percent in the month from the same month in 2010, to $73.4 million, representing 11.1 percent of all books sold on a dollar basis. In 2010, with sales of $29.7 million, e-books accounted for only 4.1 percent of May sales. This May, the core parts of traditional publishing declined in most categories, and particularly mass market, down 39.4 percent, and adult hardcover, off 38.2 percent. … In its second quarter report, Amazon.com said it has more than 950,000 books available for Kindle owners in the U.S., 800,000 of which are priced at $9.99 or less. The company also offers millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books. Sales worldwide of media, which includes books, rose 27 percent to $3.7 billion.
10. E-singles another hot new market for digital material
E-singles are bite-sized e-books priced to sell.
Because they’re easy to publish quickly, e-singles could become a popular way for authors, magazines and newspapers to bypass traditional publishers.
So far, Amazon is dominating the e-singles space. Amazon launched its Kindle Singles program in January, publishing original pieces on “compelling ideas expressed at their natural length,” usually around 5,000 to 30,000 words, and priced between $0.99 and $4.99. The Singles are shorter than a full-length book but longer than what you’d find in a magazine. Books normally run 80,000 words on up.
When this article was written, there were only some 80 Kindle Singles for sale. Amazon spokeswoman Sarah Gelman said about three more are added each week.
Right now, most e-singles are nonfiction. Most cover newsy topics like scandals and celebrities; there’s also lots of humor, essays and memoir. But there are also some fiction Kindle Singles - a 15-page short story by David Baldacci and a collection of three short pieces by Jodi Picoult.
Kindle Singles have their own editor - David Blum, who provides editorial feedback on the titles. E-singles have their own section of the Kindle Store, with a separate bestseller list and categories. The titles are heavily promoted on Amazon’s site, and tend to be the first choice of authors and publishers looking to publish an e-single.
Kindle Singles aren’t required to be exclusive to Amazon, but most of them are.
Content (if to be sold rather than given away) has to be “original and unique” - not previously published - to sell it as a Kindle Single.
11. Google’s Story HD e-book reading device now available
D.B. Henson is among the growing list of successful self-published authors who
have used self-publishing to break through the
Henson, who lives in Nashville, worked as a real estate agent for 10 years and as the director of marketing for a construction company for seven years.
She self-published her debut mystery Deed to Death as an e-book in spring 2010 and sold more than 100,000 copies. Word-of-mouth helped spread the word about the novel, which was named a Best of 2010 Kindle Customer Favorite.
Today the book is available as a paperback from Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
Henson wrote about a world she knows in Deed to Death. In it, real estate agent Toni Matthews' fiance, architect Scott Chadwick, falls to his death at one of his construction sites. Toni buries him on what was to be their wedding day. Scott's death is ruled a suicide but Toni isn't buying it. She sets out to discover the truth about Scott's death and soon finds herself a target for murder.
13. Apple cracks down on e-book sellers
Kobo customers are among those no longer able to buy e-books through the company's iPhone/iPad app.
Kobo has fallen in line with Apple's new rule that prohibits apps from offering direct sales of media content unless Apple can take a 30 percent share of those sales.
The policy, announced earlier this year, has affected Google Books, too, according to the Wall Street Journal, which added that the newspaper itself no longer sells subscriptions on its Apple app.
On its blog, Kobo reassured customers that the change affects purchasing only, which will now have to be done at Kobo.com. "Your books are safe!" Kobo wrote, noting that users "can continue to use the Kobo app to read them.”
Kobo's announcement was just the beginning of the end for integrated e-bookstores as Apple finally brought the hammer down on e-reader apps, enforcing its new in-app subscription rules that require app developers to strip out any links to external mechanisms for purchasing digital books or subscriptions," CNet added.
Amazon and Barnes & Noble also "updated their iOS e-reader apps" so customers will have to purchase e-books on the companies' websites, then sync their libraries via the apps.
B&N, Amazon, and Google Books have all taken pains to make it abundantly clear that you can only buy their e-books from the e-store 'through the Safari browser on their device or any computer' and have removed direct links to those stores from their Nook apps.
14. For a price, NetGalley distributes digital ARCs to reviewers
Publishers who traditionally promoted new title releases by sending out paper advance copies - called galleys or advance review copies (ARCs) - to reviewers, bloggers, booksellers, and libraries can now send them as digital e-book files through the NetGalley service.
“There’s a whole new social-media aspect of marketing books,’’ said Fran Toolan, president and founder of the publishing software company Firebrand Technologies, which owns NetGalley.
About 27,000 “professional readers’’ are registered at netgalley.com, more than four times than there were a year ago. Just over 100 publishers use the service, from big publishers like Random House Inc., HarperCollins Publishers, and Penguin Group to small indie houses, including a few that publish only e-books.
15. Seth Godin’s Amazon imprint bundles e-book with 200 free songs
Marketing guru Seth Godin created a new imprint, The Domino Project, in partnership with Amazon as a vehicle to experiment with pricing, promotion and other aspects of publishing.
The Domino Project’s latest title, Anything You Want by CD Baby founder Derek Sivers, aims to hook consumers with 200 free MP3s when they buy the book.
The book on July 1 was #28 on the paid Kindle bestseller list.
The Domino Project focuses on “manifestos” - “designed to be short and approachable by the majority of the population that doesn’t ordinarily seek out books as a source for information.” Anything You Want, a business/self-help book, is 88 pages long.
Domino Project e-books are available exclusively through the Amazon Kindle store. Amazon also distributes print versions of the books into bookstores, and sells them as digital audiobooks on Audible and as regular audiobooks. One of the Domino Project’s goals is to experiment with pricing. The hardcover edition of Anything You Want is also available as a five-pack “for sharing” ($39.99) and 52-pack for organizations and events ($349.99). One hundred copies of the book were also available as a “very limited edition collectible,” and they’ve all sold out, Seth Godin told me.
Anyone who buys the book gets a free download code for over 200 songs from indie artists, selected by Sivers and available through his website. Sivers is also creating 10 animated videos to accompany the chapters of the book, and they’ll be available through his website for the next two weeks.
Of the four Domino Project titles released to date, Godin said, “every one made the Top 10 list …We have many more titles in the works and have no precise plans for how long the process goes on. Each time, we’re going to try to push one boundary or another. The main goal is to experiment in a way that will give the publishing industry confidence to start shifting and testing and getting books into the hands of people who want to read them.”
16. California State University opts for $49 e-book over biology textbook
Nature Publis
College textbooks are some of the most expensive pieces of disposable literature around. A book that a student uses for approximately four and a half months can cost as much as $200, and every semester, Cal State students spend upwards of $1,000 just on the textbooks.
According to a 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office of California,
the average cost of a college textbook was rising six percent a year, or double
the national rate of inflation.
Congress passed a law in 2008 (Public Law No: 110-315) that required textbook publishers to unbundle supplementary content (audio, DVD, software) from textbooks, and disclose the textbook pricing to school faculty, as well as describe what changes took place from edition to edition, so the faculty could effectively decide if the university bookstore had to buy a whole new series of books to sell to students each year.
The law forces a situation that made the use of e-textbooks the perfect solution. Technically they are 100 percent interactive content, so no unbundling is necessary, and there's no material cost for their annual revision.
The first e-textbook in the program will be Principles of Biology and will be used in the Introductory Biology class at CSU Los Angeles, Northridge, and Chico campuses beginning in September 2011. Each school will be testing a different licensing and access model. It will only cost $49 per student, and will include 175 interactive lessons.
Principles of Biology will be released to the general public on Sept. 1, 2011. (Source: Tim Conneally, BetaNews.com, May 24, 2011)
17. Books in bad taste: Kwame Kilpatrick book called ‘a pile of woo’
Convicted felon and former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick- who owes $860,000 in outstanding restitution debt - is attempting a dodge to channel royalties to his sister.
The day before he was to be re-incarcerated, he signed a contract that directed
all proceeds from book sales to his sister and the publisher, Aktion En
The next day, Kilpatrick was sentenced to 18 months to five years in prison for hiding assets that could have been used to help pay $1 million in restitution he owed the City of Detroit as part of a plea deal to end the 2008 text message scandal. He still owes about $860,000.
Judge David Groner had warned Kilpatrick to have his affairs in order before returning to his courtroom for sentencing on May 25, 2010.
Hajji told the Detroit Free Press the contract was "absolutely not" an attempt to avoid paying restitution. (Source: July 1, Detroit Free Press)
18. Marketing books: Authors and publishers turn to publicity stunts
For some authors and publishers, the answer has lately come from attention
grabbing stunts,
such as novelist Jennifer Belle's hiring of several dozen female actresses to
ride the subways of New York and laugh uproariously while reading her book. The
stunt got a lot of press, with ample coverage in New York media including the
New York Times and New York Post, according to Publishing
perspectives editor Ed Nawotka. A stunt by German publisher Eichborn had
promotional banners tied to flies (the living, buzzing kind), which were
released at the Frankfurt Book Fair. American author Brad Meltzer put together
a funny YouTube video mostly featuring members of his own family giving his
books poor reviews - including a small child's comment: "Interesting premise if
you don't think about it too much."
George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons, book five in his epic "A Song
of Ice and Fire' series, had the highest single and fi
20. BEA 2011 attendance nearly flat with 2010, authors attending decline
BEA has released preliminary attendance figures for this year's show. The total was 21,664 people, almost even with last year's final tally of 21,919 people.
The falloff was slightly higher among "attendees" (as distinguished from exhibitors), who numbered 13,028 - a decline of six percent, or 844 people, from a year ago. The organizers say over 500 fewer authors were enrolled as attendees, accounting for much of that decline.
This year's total provides a slightly mismatched comparison to last year, when the convention was reduced to two days of exhibits rather than three. Last year BEA gave up their dual counting system, in which they noted both total registrations and the number of people they could "verify" as actual attendees, in favor of a single tally of those who showed up.
Show organizers have also worked to focus on a smaller pool of the kind of attendees exhibitors are interested in addressing (primarily booksellers and librarians, along with true industry professionals). BEA stopped breaking out the total number of "book buyers" in 2010.
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The
Southern Review is edited by Noel Griese. The author of 17 books and
numerous articles on various subjects, he has been a newspaper reporter
and editor and has taught English and journalism at the Universities of
Wisconsin and Georgia. Elected to both Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi,
he holds three degrees in English and journalism.
hing
Group and California State University (CSU) have announced a three-year
partnership that will eliminate paper textbooks from certain classes, and
replace them with interactive e-books instead.
