MSI Press Blog

  (photo by Frank Perez) It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic continues the discussion from last week about that lure for every first-time author: the  New York Times  Bestseller List. Last week, we talked about the need to sell 5000-10000 books each and every week you want your book to appear on the list, with the understanding that this is not a count of total books sold but an algorithmic approach, using sampling from stores that NYT considers representative of the whole (right or wrong) and might require the number of books sold as a whole to be greater in order to have enough hit the right sampling venues. The traditional and honest way

Photo by Frank Perez It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic continues the discussion from the last two weeks about that lure for every first-time author: the  New York Times  Bestseller List. We talked about the need to sell 5000-10000 books each and every week you want your book to appear on the list, with the understanding that this is not a count of total books sold but an algorithmic approach, using sampling from stores that NYT considers representative of the whole (right or wrong) and might require the number of books sold as a whole to be greater in order to have enough hit the right sampling venues. We talked about the difficulty of doi

  (photo by Frank Perez) It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic is about that lure for every first-time author: the New York Times Bestseller List. Every author wants to know how to make it there. Plotting a place on the list is a complicated matter. To wit, Your book needs to sell 5,000-10,000 copies a week to make the list. Some considerations include  Not every book sale counts, so you would need to exceed that number. A calculation is made by surveying selected bookstores, with an emphasis on independent bookstores, and extrapolating overall sales for that. As such, Tucker Max considers every bestseller list a lie . Large sales through onl

  It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic addresses book sales that are not meeting an author's hopes. Why are my books not selling? That is the typical question at such times. Perhaps the first question should be, "Why did you write the book?" That will help you answer the question about sales and how you should react to the level of sales in a more helpful way. Let's look at some possible reasons: Self-esteem  You wanted your five minutes of fame and thought you could get it with a book; this is not a negative thing -- it can be a very good thing. Even if your sales are low, you can still have your fame. Your book itself is n

  It is Tuesday. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic addresses the value of books that fit clear niches and platforms that are conduits to those niches. I am always a bit saddened and frustrated when authors of a pretty good book state in their proposal that no way is their book a niche book, that it will be of interest to everyone in the world, or millions of people, or every woman, etc., referring to a huge population base. Reaching a base that large, unless one has immense amounts of money (tens of thousands, if not more) to invest, is quite unrealistic -- and then there is the issue of creating your audience, i.e. interesting people who are not actively searching for your

  What do politicians and authors have in common? They each have to reach zillions of people and get them to want their product (the politician himself/herself together with an ideology and the author a book). Here is an interesting insight from a long-term, experienced political pundit, Thom Harmann, that popped up in the scores of articles on the US 2022 midterms, this one from Raw Story , October 25, 2022. It applies to authors just as much as it does to the politicians for which it was written. "While creativity and 'production values' in advertising are important, they’re both subordinate to frequency when it comes to producing results. Even a poorly crafted message for a mediocre product will convince people to act the way you want them to if it’s repeated frequently enough." He goes on to cite supporting evidence accumulated over the past 12 years since the Supreme Court opened the door to dark money and unlimited spending. All the statistics point to his concl

    It is Tuesday. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic asks how content/topic affects book sales. Quite a bit, actually, is the answer. Consider the following: The best-written, most award-winning book cannot become a NYT bestseller with a topic that is not of wide, general interest. Most memoirs fall into that category; so do books that are rather off the beaten path.  If you are not hearing about your topic right now on all the talk shows, news outlets, and social media venues, chances are readers are not searching out your book; they are searching for a book about the latest hot topic. That is why books go through cycles of good and not-so-good and even no sales: life chanc

It is Tuesday. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side.  Today's topic takes a look (again) at book sales. Unfortunately, get accurate accountings of book sales across the book industry is very difficult. Book Scan is not accurate. Amazon bestselling rankings have quirks. Publishers do not like to share their sales figures with other publishers, let alone authors. The range that can be found online is wild.  When reading sales figures, it is critical to read them with a jaundiced eye because often these "statistics" come from author groups with great hopes for best sellers among their members. Generally, in my experience, the reports of sales are vastly exaggerated, often because of