Day 101 - News of the Writing World - Week Ending August 19, 2011 ~ Matthew Tandy

1) What does $49 get you these days? A scam, a lawsuit, and possible injury to JK Rowling from a book being thrown at her.

If you missed this item this week, you missed a doozy! PublishAmerica.com, a non-traditional "publisher"who has frequently been embattled in legal cases for misrepresentation and is generally hated in the publishing world, had an offer on their website: For $49, "We will ask the world’s very bestselling author to look at all of your books next week. We will bring your book to the attention of Harry Potter’s author next week while our delegation is in her hometown, and ask her to read it and to tell us and you what she thinks. Tell her what you think: in the Ordering Instructions box write your own note for JK Rowling, max. 50-100 words. We will include your note in our presentation for her!"

I kid you not, they said this. I was hoping it would still be up for you to see first hand, but since the story broke this week, they have removed it from their website. Formerly it was found at http://www.publishamerica.net/JKRowling.html. Fortunately... there's a cached version! Check it out here! Also, go to The Guardian to catch the amazing excuse Publish America used when confronted with a lawsuit threat!

2) Twitter Only Bookstore Opens.. and will soon die

There was some small buzz at the discovery that sometime in the last month or so a "Twitter Only" bookstore opened. You can make requests for them to find certain used books for you, and they post some good finds too. You order via email and they are based out of Canada. However, clicking over to view their feed, you see that book activity has been low while today especially has been a bunch of hippie and college humor and insults. I don't see it lasting long. The concept however as a niche jumping off point to bigger things is intriguing, and had they been more disciplined and professional they probably could have spread to other social media and eventually to an internet and possible indie/used brick and mortar bookstore.

3) Two more inducted into Kindle Million Club

Janet Evanovich and Kathryn Stockett just became part of the exclusive club of authors to have sold over 1 million paid copies of their books via the Amazon Kindle store. Amazon made the announcement in a press release August 16th. Evanovish is an established author who has been writing prolifically and building towards this milestone, whereas Stockett's novel "The Help" was her debut novel. The milestone was pushed along by the release of the favorably reviewed film adaptation on August 10th. Congratulations to yet another two eBook success stories!

4) Behind the Scenes of Creating a Dust Jacket

Henry Sene Yee works in editorial design and has designed many dust coverbook jackets. Most recently, he worked on Brad Thor's novel cover for "Full Black", now a New York Time's Bestseller (like all of Brad's books...). He was kind enough to post quite a few of the 60+ versions he went through with the publisher, as well as why it changed so much (and also the info that big books often go through 100's of book cover revisions...). I recommend everyone getting ready to publish and pondering their cover to look at Henry Sene Yee's website and blog for lots of ideas. He is probably out of a lot of our price range right now, but it shows you that it's not as simple as simply tossing out a picture with some words on it. A book cover must be carefully designed and sends a specific message. In case you are wondering, here is the final image they chose and used:

5) Forbes Releases the Estimated Income of the 2010 Top Earning Authors

The title says it all... it's the who's who of the author world! This is not the same as who has sold the most, but who makes the most money. The deals involved, as well as any upcoming movies affects the grand total. Totals are for income earned this year, not total career. James Patterson tops the group at $84,000,000. The list seems incomplete in the news story, as in it highlights a few key categories, but we don't get the full list. I've searched, but can't find it. Either way, it's a good read and I learned that Patterson works with a team of co-writers and produced over ten books this last year alone.