MSI Press Blog

    1.       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 shares information about tracking book sales. In complete frankness, it is a repeat of an explanation I provided to MSI Press LLC authors in one of our monthly newsletters.  An author recently asked (and others have previously asked) how to tell if a particular action results in a specific number of sales. Alas, we have no way to tell unless we are in direct contact with a bookstore making a large order. Book reports from Ingram (distributor) come as total sales. I wish there were a way to tell sources. It would make marketing and promotion a science instead of an art.  Our distributor will

  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

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 the anatomy of a successful book. We are talking here about books by small presses, micro presses, and self-published authors. Large presses have a different sales volume and a different approach to marketing and sales not typically available to those without their big pockets. The image of a successful book is a high volume of sales from the get-go (and maybe even from pre-orders) that either steadily builds or starts big and stays there on a flat trajectory. Conversely, if a book starts slowly, stumbles, and has a long spell of poor sales, one often assumes that the book is and always will be a poor s

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 (and answers) I question I see underlying a number of authors' organizations posts on the Internet that do a great disservice to authors. The question: Do publishers cheat authors out of royalties? The short is that traditional publishers are honest; there is no reason not to be. Scammers are everywhere, and many would-be published authors get sucked in by being told how wonderful there book is when a traditional publisher will not take it (because it is not wonderful). Let's look first at why traditional publishers have to be honest, and then let's look at why authors question their royalties. (To set the st

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 the path of book sales from launch to later one. The question that comes up again and again is why do book sales decrease, rather than increase, after the heady days of the book launch are past? While one might think and hope that a launch is just that--a platform for moving forward, too often the book launch brings the highest levels of sales with a modest or rapid dropoff thereafter. So, what gives? Sometimes, the author has put all his/her money and efforts in one basket of eggs: the launch. Once the launch is past, so are the set-aside money, energy, interest, and plans. What now? is a frequent que

  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 suggests building sales on the basis of sales. In other words, don't let a sale go to waste; don't let a sale be a single event. Here are some ways to use sales to bolster sales. Add fuel at the right times.  If social media of any form is part or all of your platform, you should always be consistent at posting – the same day(s) each week.       You can also get good effect on sales if you add posts, tweets, etc. at the right moments. If you notice that your sales rank just dropped, you can assume the book has sold (though there may be no other evidence yet of it having done so.) Grab the opportunity to tweet, post,

  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. (Much also applies to traditionally published authors whose books have not been on a perfect glide path upward to success.) Today's topic reflects a reality experienced by all but a very few authors who have recognized names, expansive contacts, big pockets (or big publishers with deep pockets), or, for one reason or another luckily found a sweet spot (typically after years of being in bitter places). Most books do not start out as NYT bestsellers and remain there for life. They either start well and fall off (usually quickly), start slowly and remain with slow and then almost no sales, or start very poorly and then ta