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 hones...

  (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 on...

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 do...

  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 is a never-ending one: how to market books, especially if you are a small press or a self-publishing author. The simple answer to that question is any way and every way you can, in small numbers and in larger quantities, over and over (keeping in mind the magic number of 22 ). Here are some ideas that have worked for MSI Press authors. Larry MacDonald, author of RV Oopsies , sells books nearly every day. He has a niche (travel humor), and nearly every day, his book turns up in the top 100 list of books of travel humor. What is he doing right? He built a following with his "dumb things RVers do" annual competition ...

  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -22-   Stay in the present moment. That’s where you’ll find life’s magic… Sometimes to stay in the present we need to visit the past, to clear out an old feeling, to heal an old, limiting belief. But that visit can be brief. And sometimes we need to think about the future- to make commitments, to plan, to envision where we want to go. But to linger there can cause unrest. It can spoil the moment we’re in now.   Melody Beattie   It is honorable and often spiritually enriching to be in the present moment, but this is balanced by compelling reasons to visit the past or envision the future. Recently, I enjoyed a lovely evening bike ride along the Rillito River next to our seasonal home in Tucson. For people who haven’t lived in the desert southwest, “river” means a dry wash that occasionally has flowing water if there...