MSI Press Blog

  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 slow-selling books . Books that look like tortoises. They do not take off upon release. In some cases, you could say that they fail to launch. Generally, in my experience, tortoise books fall into two categories: late discoveries and slow crawlers. Late discoveries are books that sell few, if any books, at launch. Even some years later, they are not selling in any quantity. Authors are likely to move on at this point, defeated. If they persevere, however, sometimes little miracles happen over time.  Our bestselling book of all time, laid low, napping, for TEN years; then it was discovered by an Influencer an...

  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...

  There’s a strange disconnect in publishing right now. Industry headlines keep celebrating “growth” — more bookstores opening, online sales climbing, the market expanding. And all of that is technically true. But here’s the part no one says out loud: Those gains are not evenly distributed. They’re driven by big-name authors, celebrity memoirs, BookTok darlings, and the handful of titles that already had momentum. For the new author — the debut novelist, the hybrid author with a modest platform, the memoirist writing from lived experience — those rosy numbers don’t translate into visibility. In fact, they often mask the opposite reality. Because while bookstore sales are up, the number of books published each year has exploded . More titles, more noise, more competition for the same shelf space and the same algorithmic scraps. Which brings us to the real conversation: Direct sales aren’t a trend. They’re a survival strategy. Why Every Author Should Be Building Direct Sal...

  There’s a strange disconnect in publishing right now. Industry headlines keep celebrating “growth” — more bookstores opening, online sales climbing, the market expanding. And all of that is technically true. But here’s the part no one says out loud: Those gains are not evenly distributed. They’re driven by big-name authors, celebrity memoirs, BookTok darlings, and the handful of titles that already had momentum. For the  new  author — the debut novelist, the hybrid author with a modest platform, the memoirist writing from lived experience — those rosy numbers don’t translate into visibility. In fact, they often mask the opposite reality. Because while bookstore sales are up,  the number of books published each year has exploded . More titles, more noise, more competition for the same shelf space and the same algorithmic scraps. Which brings us to the real conversation: Direct sales aren’t a trend. They’re a survival strategy. Why Every Author Should Be Building Dir...