Read The Future of Publishing? by Dan AllossoDan Allosso (History4Today.com)
I got a note from the senior executive editor at Yale, who has been my main contact throughout the process of getting my book published. Peppermint Kings has not been flying out of the warehouse so…
Sorry to hear this Dan, but I might be able to help in terms of providing some perspective for moving forward.

These days the idea of bestseller means selling in the range of 10,000 books. The average book released these days sells only 250 copies, so if you’re over that, you’re doing well.

It’s also incredibly uncommon for any publishers to put any serious money behind promoting their titles unless PR opportunities are falling off the trees for them. (This means that unless you’ve been selling a million copies of everything you write, they probably don’t care.) Many publishers will assign you a pro-forma publicist to help when they can, but don’t expect much from them. Most publishers will tell you to hire your own book publicist (usually for about $1,500-3,000 a month).

My guess is that the first run of your book was probably 1,000 to 2,000 books, which will bring the cost of raw printing down to $2 a copy. If you need copies of your book and they’re remaindering them, you might offer the publisher $1-2 a copy plus shipping to get 50 or 100 copies for yourself for hand sales over the next decade (for speaking engagements, etc.) or selling a few copies from your own stash on platforms like Amazon, Abebooks, Alibris, etc. The cost of keeping a book in print these days is usually around $12 a year and then they print them on demand.

Some of the methods you mentioned, talks, online readings, etc. can be useful marketing for both you and your book(s). Look around your local community/state for book events, fairs, bookstores that invite authors, etc to supplement this.

Depending on your next title, it might be worth hiring a publicist if you’re going the route of a text accessible to a broader public.Often this can be a reasonable risk but getting copies into reviewers’ hands can be helpful, as can radio or print appearances. Another option is to pay for adds in appropriate print magazine outlets related to your material.

It’s an uphill slog, but getting a publisher to take most of the risk and offering you all the free amenities of editing, proofreading, typesetting and distribution can be worth it in the end to get your material out.

When choosing your next publisher/editor, have a bit of this conversation with them at the outset to see what expectations they have for themselves. Don’t tip your hand though by letting them know prior sales numbers.

Since you’ve got your own website/newsletter/social media presence, you should also look into affiliate accounts with the bigger online platforms. Chances are you’re actually selling most of your own copies, you may as well get a 4% or larger cut of the referrals you’re giving. Your link on this page alone could give you a reasonable little return on top of the boilerplate 7% you’re probably getting from the publisher.

Read Wix and Their Dirty Tricks by Matt Mullenweg (Matt Mullenweg)
Wix, the website builder company you may remember from stealing WordPress code and lying about it, has now decided the best way to gain relevance is attacking the open source WordPress community in a bizarre set of ads. They can’t even come up with original concepts for attack ads, and have tried ...
I’ve never been able to recommend people to use Wix simply for the export issue. This should have been one of their first features. Matt does a good job of indicating other reasons not to support them.

I was also a bit surprised to see him actively recommending other projects and platforms. 🙂

Read Marketers are Addicted to Bad Data by Jacques Corby-TuechJacques Corby-Tuech (jacquescorbytuech.com)

Modern marketing is all about data and however hard you might try, you can't spend any time around marketers online without being subjected to endless think pieces, how-to guides, ebooks or other dreck about how we need to track and measure and count every little thing.

We've got click rates, impressions, conversion rates, open rates, ROAS, pageviews, bounces rates, ROI, CPM, CPC, impression share, average position, sessions, channels, landing pages, KPI after never ending KPI.

That'd be fine if all this shit meant something and we knew how to interpret it. But it doesn't and we don't.

Read Standards Watch: Introduction (Backpacking Light)
Intro to a monthly column that explains important backpacking product standards, interviews key people, and analyzes industry standards.
This is an interesting area and highlights the fact that marketing and standards can sometimes subsume the actual facts and make it that much harder for people to make informed choices. This sort of investigative work and comparison becomes important to help level the playing field, but then again, finding sources like this is yet another task in itself.
Read Move Over Influencers, Here Come Curators by Ana AndjelicAna Andjelic (andjelicaaa.substack.com)
Curation is the fuel of the modern aspiration economy
There’s a bookstore in Ginza that sells only one book. “A single room with a single book” is its tagline. Every week, the owner chooses the book, presents it in the center of the shop, and curates an exhibition with artworks, photographs, or related items around its subject matter

Tantek Çelik IndieWeb #chat channel ()
Bookmarked on March 03, 2020 at 05:04PM

Watched Top 10 Worst Weirdest Fan Giveaways in Sports - EVER! from YouTube

Ninh explains the Top 10 Worst Fan Giveaways in Sports. Sometimes sports teams give things away as incentives for fans to come back to the games. But some teams shouldn’t bother because some of these gifts are outright garbage. What’s the worst or weirdest giveaways in sports?

Would you like a free bag of soil? How about 10c beers? Or a free funeral? Bubble wrap? School folders? You name it, it’s in this video!

Can you tell that I’m working at tweaking the workflow for watch posts? I’m trying to watch short pieces as tests, but I’m not always finding the most highbrow content for tests. Clickbait warning!

👓 How The "Lit Shot" Became The Trend For Authors To Announce Book Deals On Twitter | BuzzFeed News

Read How The "Lit Shot" Became The Trend For Authors To Announce Book Deals On Twitter (BuzzFeed News)
Hard-to-read screenshots of paywalled book industry websites dominate Literary Twitter.

📺 Content Calendars and Synergy – Planning Ahead is the Only Way to Cultivate a Cohesive Brand | WordCamp Orange County 2019

Watched Content Calendars and Synergy – Planning Ahead is the Only Way to Cultivate a Cohesive Brand by Wrigley GannawayWrigley Gannaway from WordCamp Orange County 2019

In my session I will be exploring several ways to create a cohesive branding strategy, by delving into posting schedules, content strategies, relevant social media (what you actually need), and more. By the end we will all have (hopefully) learned something about what the current web users consider important, and what actually attracts your targeted audience.

👓 Facebook perfects the art of the news dump | CNN

Read Facebook perfects the art of the news dump (CNN)
On the Thursday before a major holiday weekend, and an hour before the much-anticipated Mueller report was released to the public, Facebook updated a month-old blog post titled "Keeping Passwords Secure" with a few lines of italicized text.

👓 Maxwell House Brings You Midge’s Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Haggadah | Amazon

Read Maxwell House Brings You Midge's Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Haggadah (Amazon.com)
Midge's limited edition Haggadah is free with any purchase of participating Maxwell House Coffee products.
I’ve seen some old Haggadahs like this in the past from Maxwell House, but this is an awesome crossover promotion with Passover coming up.

👓 Yep. The Correspondent screwed up in its communications with members. Here’s how. | PressThink

Read Yep. The Correspondent screwed up in its communications with members. Here's how. by Jay Rosen (PressThink)
A decision not to have its headquarters in New York or the US, and to base the English-language site in Amsterdam, has drawn criticism from supporters.
A half mea-culpa of sorts for some poor marketing and crowdfunding.