Literary #agents Reinventing Themselves

With so many (inexpensive) options available to authors who are not traditionally published (and even those who are), literary agents are having to reinvent themselves. An interesting post from The Passive Voice.

Book Reviewers Sought: Los Angeles Review literary journal

The Los Angeles Review literary journal is looking for three to five book reviewers. These reviewers will primarily be responsible for our new online review section, which includes reviews of self-published books. Some reviews may also be published in the print journal. Fiction, poetry and nonfiction reviewers are all welcome to apply. Online reviews are 200 to 500 words in length. Print reviews are 200 to 300 words.

Applicants should have some experience reviewing books, preferably for a literary journal. This is a volunteer position at this time; a stipend may be added in the future.

To apply, please send an email to the Book Review Editor, at LAReview.bookreviews(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @) in sending email). A resume/CV and links to published reviews are appreciated. To find out more about us, please visit our web site at
http://losangelesreview.org/
.

Courtesy: the crwropps-b yahoo group

Ebook Millionaires: How Are Paperback Sales?

Everyone knows that John Locke sold a million copies of his 99cent ebooks. Based on this, he signed a pretty lucrative deal Simon & Schuster. But his paperbacks haven’t been doing quite as well.

Amanda Hocking, on the other hand, who signed with St. Martin’s Press, is selling very well.

More on this story here.

Autographing ebooks

With the rise in popularity of ebooks comes the need for electronic autographs. Kindlegraph’s been around for a bit, but only now do I see enough people using it. For a primer on Kindlegraph, click here.

Penguin Cites Piracy Concerns in Pulling ebooks Out of Lending Library

Like previous news from Penguin about its subsidy press ‘Book Country’ wasn’t bad enough (see my previous posts), now comes news that Penguin is refusing to participate in ebook lending citing priracy concerns. For more details, refer to this story in mashable.com.

Not a good week for Penguin publicity-wise.

Amazon Launches ebook Lending Library

Amazon has launched a digital book lending library which,  as you might imagine, isn’t making the big 6 NY book publishers too happy. The program is called Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. None of the big 6 is participating because they fear a loss in sales, especially from their back lists (ie.e older titles). Only 5000 titles are available at this time, and only to the subscribers of the Amazon Prime program who are also Kindle owners.

Wonder what this’ll mean for indie publishers and the self-published.

Before You Sign That (Book Publishing) Contract

It is really hard for first time authors to get a foot in the publishing door, which can make them really desperate to be published. I should know. I almost got conned into signing away all my rights. Luckily, I backed off at the last moment.

When you’re ready to sign a contract (and this is especially true if you’re dealing directly with the publisher), don’t sign away all rights. For example, if you wish to give only print rights to the publisher, specify just that. Never sign away all rights. After all, five years ago who’d have thought to keep electronic rights for ebooks?

Royalties is another area writers need to watch out for. Click here for a great article by Patricia  in epublishabook.com.

BTW, if you like this site, please consider clicking on the ‘Like’ button on your right. I need at least 25 likes before I can get a vanity author page (i.e. http://www.facebook.com/pages/AuthorRasana-Atreya instead of http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rasana-Atreya/134736126622525). It’ll help when I finally get my book out. Thanks!

Don’t Write Obit for Paperbooks As Yet, Article Says

Just when we were planning out the obituary of paper/physical books, comes the news that this might not be the case. According to an article in The Guardian, this year’s chosen 6, the Booker prize contenders, have already sold a combined 37,500 books in hardback, up 127% from last year’s contenders. Click here for the article.

Update: Cutting Out Middlemen in ebook Sales

There’s been a lot of head scratching on the LinkedIn threads I frequent about  how exactly Konrath’s new deal is doing what he says it is doing – cutting out the middleman between the author and the reader (see my post from yesterday).

He’s signed up with a new service for an unspecified three figure amount, and will be selling through this service.

Since his blog is high traffic, no one is able to figure out how he benefits by not selling to his readers directly (and instead paying someone to sell it). If someone has knowledge about this, I would love to know.

Cutting Out Middlemen in ebook Sales

When it comes to ebooks and sales, Joe Konrath is up there with Amanda Hocking and John Locke. Now comes the news that he’s found a new way to cut out the middleman between the author and the reader. Click here for advice from the man himself.