The WELL: inkwell.vue.108: Two Sides of M.J. Rose

#77: M. J. Rose (anewanais) Sat 5 May 01 05:48

Sat, 05 May 2001 05:48:00 PDT

I just reread that and wanted to make one more comment... I don't think that giving out a thousand copies of your book to readers who love books is in any way getting the general public used to things being free ie the Village Voice or the Internet.

I think of these books as a gift. Personally, I did get PocketBooks to give about 100 books away to 100 of my fans - people who wrote me letters saying how much they loved my first novel. I wrote them back and asked them if they'd like a copy of the second. Most said yes. They got a free book.

If I could have convinced Pocket to do it with a thousand I would have. If I could have afforded to buy them myself and give them away I would have. [Read entire topic]

#76: M. J. Rose (anewanais) Sat 5 May 01 05:42

Sat, 05 May 2001 05:42:00 PDT

Thanks all... I loved being here.

One thing Mark - I don't mean to give the books away for free for ever.

Just for a very limited time - say for two weeks or a month... and a few hundred - or maybe a thousand. It should be something special to get the book for free - not what people come to excpect. [Read entire topic]

#75: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Fri 4 May 01 16:43

Fri, 04 May 2001 16:43:00 PDT

I'll chime in with my thanks to MJ, too. Both for agreeing to be a guest in inkwell.vue and for writing such an entertaining book as "In Fidelity." I look forward to your next novel, Melisse. Good luck to you! [Read entire topic]

#74: Mark Binder (realfun) Fri 4 May 01 06:51

Fri, 04 May 2001 06:51:00 PDT

I'm still chewing on M.J.'s last remark -- that the best way for an author to get her work into the hands of readers is to pass out books for free and then trust the word of mouth... On one level, it makes sense, especially if your livelihood isn't dependent on book sales. On another level, there's a real problem.

Look at the Free Internet and Free Newspaper syndrome. I used to work for the Providence Phoenix, which was a free newspaper because it was a free newspaper. Now the Village Voice is a free newspaper. And the Internet has tons of free stuff. Now publishers and magazines and newspapers try to pay me the same amount they paid me 10 years ago for the same work. Now others try to get that work for free.

My point is that, on the one hand one influential reader can bring in a dozen more paying customers. But what if they don't. What if they become accustomed to getting it for free? Or for cheap?

The digital/online revolution offers the hope that writers will receive a slice of the pie because we can publish ourselves. The problem is that we're writers and (M.J. excepted) lousy marketers. The people who can market -- book publishers -- have less of a stake in our work. One publisher I'm talking with wants ALL rights for a pittance. I may sign the contract because I need the money. Still, it rankles. I'll be giving them my words.

Yes, this is my particular rant. We're operating under the laws of supply and demand. 1) There's a huge supply of writers. 2) The demand has been diminished somewhat by the free nature of much material, and the overload of other information. 3) People like Stephen King, who fund the publishing industry, command whatever they like.

I'm going to post this, and leave the discussion open.

I want to thank M.J. for her contribution both as a writer, and as one of the leaders in the online publishing revolution.

I think the challenge for all of us will be to find the new model that is beginning to emerge, and ride it to the kind of success that M.J. has begun.

Peace. [Read entire topic]

#73: M. J. Rose (anewanais) Fri 27 Apr 01 04:35

Fri, 27 Apr 2001 04:35:00 PDT

Thanks Jane! [Read entire topic]

#72: jane hirshfield (jh) Thu 26 Apr 01 16:32

Thu, 26 Apr 2001 16:32:00 PDT

What a great answer! [Read entire topic]

#71: M. J. Rose (anewanais) Thu 26 Apr 01 04:06

Thu, 26 Apr 2001 04:06:00 PDT

To tell you the truth - getting arrested doesn't seem half bad. That's how tired I am of the promotion thing these days. Its party cause I'm winding down four months of promotion for In Fidelity and really looking foward to taking off the next eight to write. And then write some more.

But my favorite technique? Ah... its the simplest and the hardest - getting books into the hands of readers. If I could give away a thousand or two thousand copies of my books to the right readers that would be my ideal promotional effort becuase no one and nothing sells books like people who love them. [Read entire topic]

#70: Mark Binder (realfun) Wed 25 Apr 01 06:26

Wed, 25 Apr 2001 06:26:00 PDT

Isn't that the truth!

One longs for the days when writers could establish themselves and then coast on the reputation of one book for the rest of their lives. Of course those days there were fewer writers and fewer published writers.

Do you always see yourself on the self-promotional treadmill?

I've been considering how to get exposure and publicity -- getting arrested always seems like a good thing, but there's a certain amount of risk involved in that. Doing something controvertial or pseudo controvertial (like the Go-Gos dressing up as the Virgin Mary for their new album) is another route.

What kinds of alternative promotional techniques do you recommend? I know there's a list of them in your book, but what are your favorites? [Read entire topic]

#69: M. J. Rose (anewanais) Tue 24 Apr 01 16:16

Tue, 24 Apr 2001 16:16:00 PDT

As to the money/ebook/digital revolution etc issue... I just don't know what is going to happen and I don't even feel comforatable makeing a guess.

All I know is I'm a writer and want to make a good living being a writer. Whether or not I can do that remains to be seen.

And as to the order of the novels... well... three is written. And about to go into production. Four is in a first draft stage and I want to get to the second draft more than I want to take five which is just an outline and work on that. And six... well six is two pieces of paper right now.

So I think I'll get to these in order. What happens after four though is still left to be seen... just like the money issue. (sigh) [Read entire topic]

#68: Richard Evans (rje) Sun 22 Apr 01 18:06

Sun, 22 Apr 2001 18:06:00 PDT

The whole publication thing presents more than a few interesting dilemas Mark, though changes to print technology may mean a decrease in gratuitious tree destruction- print on demand is something that has the potential to reduce the fiscal burden aspect of publishing works that may do the unit shift in best-seller type quantities.

And with genres like poetry I think far too much attention is placed on the idea of print cost and not enough on the profit margin aspect- I suspect publisher's reluctance is not so much based on the production cost per se but the comparatively small profit margins: it is not so much a case of poetry being too expensive to produce, but of not yeilding *enough* profits.

And while there can often be an all too thin line between small profit and no profit, the value of such an enterprise also depends on why one is in publishing (or writing) in the first place: to make money or to express and share some creative thing. Which is not to propogate some ideal notion of the artist as a creature above money or anything like that, but rather to suggest that current mainstream publishing houses are pushed by the proverbial profit motive to an exent that borders on the ridiculous in terms of who is published and why and when and what kind of publicity they are given and so on and so forth.

In this context I think that Melisse is right: e-books (and web-publishing) can constitute an easy way for computer people to encounter and read for free or minimal cost all kinds of words that they may not otherwise encounter with more than a few such readers converting word interest into a paperbook purchase in precisely the same way that one may first hear a song on the radio or at a friend's house or movie theatre or cafe or somewhere not dissimilar and then go and purchase a CD featuring that song.

And how many novels and other fictoinal word ideas have you currently got in the percolating planning stage Melisse- and is the writing order liable to change-with projected novel 6 becoming actual novel number 4- or do you stick to your mapped out writing future? [Read entire topic]