Wednesday, February 9, 2011

NOTEBOOK: Self-publish, traditional publisher, amazon.com, Usher

BY NO MEANS AM I AN EXPERT ON THIS TOPIC. (opinions of a college kid) 


Yeah yeah, I heart you too Usher. But will you publish my book?

When I think about publishing my own work I have a more naive idealistic attitude about it. CREATE and SHARE. When it comes down to it I wish the point of art was to merely have people experience it. If I put on my hippie thinking cap I think wouldn't it be nice if the reason people wrote books was merely for the fact that they wanted people to read them?

Enter the NoteSlate! I need one SO BAD. I learnt about it from Book Madam and from NoteSlate's website where it explains the device as the following..



"It's low cost tablet device with true one colour display, real paper look design, long life battery (180h !), together with very handy usage and very simple and helpful interface for pen and paper. This easy, compact and portable gadget is used anywhere you want to make any notes, drafts, sketches, any ideas for future reference. Paper for everyone! Write a note and check it later, save it, or delete it. Maybe send it after. Just one colour is enough to express the basics. Keep your life simple. You will love it. For $99."

Book Madam simly put it: "A tablet that let's you read and create with it. And share with it."

That's simple and wonderful.
BUT PEOPLE NEED MONEY RIGHT? And I'm not a hippie and money is dope.

So then we encounter this problem....

"I read that some of these e-retailers are not so secretly encouraging writers to “cut out the publisher” and split royalties 50-50 with them. 50% royalties. That’s five times what the traditional means offers you. (writer receive 10% royalities from publishers) Five times the money off your book. Imagine.
And now Amazon are offering writers a 70-30 split in their favour." 
-Chad Pelley (off of Book Madam)


Pelley added, "No matter how great the book, an author is not going to get very far if their book isn’t in stores, getting reviewed, eligible for awards, and getting promoted amply by their very own publicist. No one buys a book they haven’t heard of." 

I agree with that last statement. I don't agree with that last statement. I think the world has really opened up to being self published, self-promoted, SELF-SELF-SELF. I do believe that a writer could be successful without actually having books in store. And I do think that promotion and the sale of the big idea of a book is possible without a publisher, depending on the content of the book and the audience. Social media really changes the game and any writer could create a whole online campaign for their book. But then I start thinking sometimes that this can only go so far... What is the writers' reach VS the publishers' reach?

CASE STUDY: JUSTIN BIEBER.
Think about... Justin Bieber. He was a little Canadian baby posting videos of himself singing on youtube. He gained extreme success off his youtube channel. He was cute, adorable, talented and not yet a teenaged asshole. SOUNDS GREAT! BUT this only went so far... In the end (the end of his self-promotion) Usher found baby biebs and signed him to his label (ie. equivalant to publisher in the book world) and now Justin Bieber is
THE JUSTIN BIEBER.

Now authors are different. Can't a good book just be a good book because it's written well? Do we need a publisher to tell us it's a good book or do we just need word of mouth? We hear the word of mouth then us tech savvy people go online and buy the book from Amazon; which results in our favourite writers receiving 70%. Everyone will be happy. Art will be read. Mean publisher who only dish out 10% percent will be sad. And the world will go on. Or NO?

Do authors need their own Usher? Who would Justin Bieber be without Usher?


Justin Bieber has a book.