WILL THE NEW YEAR BURST THE BUBBLE OF ePUBLISHING?

 

 

Amazon won't be hurting, of course.

I. When we hear about the 366% growth in ebook sales )

     A.) What we're not hearing are the stats on who is making the money and how much.

     B.) A 366% increase in profits could be a result of those 1.1 million new authors
           selling only a handful of copies of their own ebooks each.

     C.) According to a study in Publishing Perspectives,
           only 70 self-epublished authors in the world in 2011 were selling more
           than 800 ebooks a month.

     D.) epublishing is inextricably tied to the structures of social media marketing
           and the myth that social media functions as a way of selling products.

     E.) If social media marketing collapses it will destroy the platform
           that the dream of a self-epublishing industry was based upon.

II. THE 20% AUTHOR:

     A.) Self-styled eSpecialists say as an author
            you should spend 20% of your time writing
            and 80% of your time networking through social media.

     B.) When tweeting and Facebooking you should spend "80% of your time posting
            about things other than your book, and 20% selling.

     C.) That's like mumbling about your book in-between cheeky tweets and very rarely
           WRITING your book.

     D.) How much time does this leave for actually writing?
           i.)  Most self-epublished authors hold down a day job, so let's give them three hours a day,     after work, for author activities.
 
           ii.) That's 1,095 hours a year.

           iii.) Reduce this to 20% (since you have to spend 80% of your time
                 covertly self-promoting online),

           iv.) And you get 219 writing hours a year,
                 which works out as 18 12-hour days to write a book.

III. MY REALITY CHECK JUST BOUNCED

     A.) Why aren't you sweeping ahead as a new author in the social media revolution?

     B.) You came in too late.

           i.) If you didn't start doing this when social media began
               then you're already years behind the pioneers:

          ii.) everyone else and their drooling nephew is now trying these very strategies,

          iii.) precisely because the pioneers are now selling courses and books
                on how to be as successful as they are

          iv.) (if they're so successful, why do they have to do all this consultancy work?)

          v.) And, anyway, how can you compete with
               the 1.1 million new writers who have downloaded their ebooks on to Amazon?
       
          vi,) Is there any space left for you on this platform?
                Does the platform even exist, or is it a vast collective delusion of wishful
                thinking?

     C.) Wait for the howls of outrage next year when Amazon announces that they’re
           dumping every self-pubbed title that hasn’t sold in two years.
           Server space is not free.

     D,) In publishing terms it has recently been revealed that 10% of all self-epublishers
           make 75% of all the money;
           that 50% of self-published ebooks make less than $500 a year.

     E.)   The ebook market now looks a lot like the old mainstream print model.
             A small number of writers make a lot
             and everyone else wallows in the doldrums of minuscule sales.

IV.) NATHAN BRANSFORD DOESN'T THINK ePUBLISHING IS A BUBBLE

     A.) He doesn't exactly overload you with facts why it will not burst:
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2012/03/is-there-self-publishing-bubble.html

     B.) As a literary agent, he garnered an enormous audience, so of course his social media
           platform is high and made of marble.

     C.) But you and me are just folks.

     D.) Lifeshare frowns on me surfing the net on the interstate.  I would end up needing the
           blood I am carrying if I did that!


V. THE DEVIL IS IN THE DIGITAL DETAILS

     A.) Write because you love it but

          i.) Live life OUTSIDE the computer screen

          ii.) Enjoy LIFE, your FRIENDS, your LOVED ONES.

           iii.) Don't sacrifice any of the above for a will o wisp of a dream.

     B.) SUCCESSES DO HAPPEN:
http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/d-d-scotts-2012-epublishing-predictions-nailed-or-failed-and-epublishing-predictions-for-2013

           Do not read the above if you have a gas oven.
           Sticking your head in an electric oven will only make you look silly, but you'll be alive!

VI. IF THE BUBBLE BURSTS ...

     A.) There will be something else, someplace else you can take your dreams.
     B.) As long as you have breath in your body, a dream in your heart, and friends beside you --
           you will find your path to laughter and love.

VII. DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST ...
     It has been a month and my contest is gathering cyber-cobwebs.  I have more prizes than entrants.
     So I am re-grouping and re-evaluating. 

     My contest days may be over.  Pity.  They were good prizes and only 3 entrants.

     So like with eBay's RESERVE NOT MET, my contest is in limbo for the moment.

FREE!  How can you turn this down?
Midnight is embracing the carnival of the damned, and 13 year old Victor Standish meets its mysterious owner and his dreaded "clean-up" crew. What's a street orphan to do?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/118116097/Love-in-the-Time-of-the-Undead-chapter-Six