Miscellaneous Business

MISCELLANEOUS BUSINESS I are likely to shy away from weblog posts like this, but generally I just have a bunch of stuff to say or do, and this is one of those times. On to the random business, in no particular order: WEBINAR My Writers Digest University webinar “How to Sell Your Science Fiction and Fantasy to Editor and Agents” went extremely nicely. We had 43 individuals enroll, and they had good, insightful questions for me. WDU will be following up this week with these PDFs I promised, as well as written answers to all of the questions. This was my first webinar, and it was quite an uncommon expertise. I’ve been doing convention seminars on this subject and others for a decade and a half, so it wasn’t my first flip around the dance floor, however doing it on-line undoubtedly presented some new challenges. When you’re in front of a stay audience, you possibly can gauge the viewers’s reactions as you go. Are they laughing at my jokes? Do they look bored? Has the same man been holding his hand up for the last twenty minutes? But on this webinar, I might neither see nor hear anybody. I saw questions come by way of in text type and had a chat box open with the WDU people, so there was just that little bit of suggestions. Otherwise, it was simply me speaking into my telephone for a little over an hour and a half. A very weird experience, really, but I’d do it again. TWITTER CONTEST Are you following me on Twitter? If not, now’s the time to start out. I’m working another Twitter contest, and this is a massive one: When I hit a thousand followers (as I write this I’m at 737) I will ship one random follower a signed copy of every single considered one of my printed booksâ€"that’s eleven in all. Find me at @PhilAthans at present! NÉMOPOLIS I’ve been sending out press releases to announce that my consulting firm, Athans & Associates Creative Consulting is now representing French video game studio Némopolis. Here’s the press launch: Athans & Associates to convey Nà ©mopolis Games and Books to America Seattle, Washington, July 18, 2011â€"Athans & Associates Creative Consulting has signed an settlement to represent French online game studio Némopolis in the English language book trade. Némopolis has developed a range of video games for the PC and Nintendo DS that deliver French and American history to life in engaging mysteries for kids. As agent in the United States and UK/Commonwealth territories, Athans & Associates will be concentrating on distribution of Némopolis products in e-book retail, and establishing strategic partnerships with licensee publishers for a collection of children’s books based mostly on these outstanding games. “American households are enjoying increasingly video games collectively,” Philip Athans, founding partner of Athans & Associates Creative Consulting stated, “and Némopolis is ready to fill the rising need for parent- and educator-friendly video games that mix fun sport play with a robust and interestin g curriculum.” For sale in France for six years, games like Marie-Antoinette and the Independence War: The Brotherhood of the Wolf take kids ages eight-12 on a journey into the shared experience of French and American revolutionaries. Athans & Associates Creative Consulting works with inventive mental property studios to bring publishing to their suite of products. Founding partner Philip Athans is a 25-yr veteran of the book enterprise, and himself a New York Times best-selling author. Némopolis is the leader in historical journey video games. The “Travels in Time” assortment has entertained more than 55,000 households by allowing them to expertise key moments in European and American historical past. # # # Children’s book editors, be prepared to hear from me very quickly. HELP ME WITH RESEARCH I’m at present putting together notes for a few articles that can appear here or elsewhere. If you have a powerful opinion and direct expertise in these topics, go away a comment right here. Subject #1: Self-printed e-books are losing readers as a result of dangerous enhancing. Yes? No? Solutions to this problem? Subject #2: The “e-e-book revolution” is making a wealth of recent small press/niche publishers. True? False? If so, who and the place are they? Are they doing properly? What’s it like on the market? Subject #three: Let’s come together on a normal, lastly. Is it: e-e-book, e book, eBook, E-guide, or Ebook? I tend to make use of e-guide, but have seen it each which method. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Who of the Where?? Hmm. I surprise if this is some new writing project I’ve undertaken with my pal Mel Odom? Could that be it? There’s almost no way to make sure. . . . NATIONAL BUY A BOOK DAY FOUNDATION Last week I mailed within the paperwork that will start the prolonged course of of establishing a 501(c)three non-profit group called The National Buy a Book Day Foundation. The basis will encourage everyone to put aside September 7th of every year to go buy a e-book, any e-book. This started final yr as an off-the-top-of-my-head plea for an increased consciousness of the struggling bookselling business, and within the last year that’s solely turn into extra poignant. I’m hoping that the foundation and website, and so on. might be up and working by this September seventh, but that may not be possible. If not, buy a guide on September 7th anyway, and donate a couple dollars subsequent yr! FAREWELL, BORDERS, WE HARDLY KNEW YE This deserves a bigger, longer, extra heartfelt publish and that may occur within the weeks forward as we watch a once-great bookstore chain wither to mud before our very eyes. I shop on the Borders in Redmond Town Center in Redmond, Washington on an virtually weekly basis and have for years. I’ve purchased a lot of books, magazines, comic books, CDs, DVDs, clean journals, espresso, and snacks there through the years, and can’t help feeling some twinge of private responsibility, as if I didn’t pur chase enough. When I pretty much stopped buying DVDs completely in favor of On Demand and other sources, went principally one hundred% iTunes and stopped buying CDs . . . was that it? Did that do it? It might have been. Me, and everyone else, anyway. I WILL NOT END WITH A DOWNER The publishing business itself, regardless of what’s happening on the retail entrance, continues to grow at a really healthy tempo, with triple-digit growth in e-guide gross sales bringing new readers and new cash into the enterprise. The e-book is, actually, the best thing to happen to publishing in a really, very, long timeâ€"maybe centuries. It’s a win-win proposition for everyone except three groups: e-book collectors, brick-and-mortar bookstores, and print shops. Everybody else is doing the identical thing we always haveâ€"as writers, we are content providers, remember thatâ€"simply now we get to actually make a profit doing it. People are reading! â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans I don’t think Amazon is losing e book readers. Badly edited books nonetheless sell like loopy. And Amazon sells extra ebooks than print books. I don’t assume badly edited books make a distinction to many readers, as a result of it seems that many non-author readers both don’t perceive or don’t care concerning the guidelines of grammar and punctuation. I can’t work out if this is a good situation or not. That stated, it makes a distinction to ME and I’ll drop a book in a heartbeat if it’s filled with typos and recurring errors. To me, and (in concept) to most different writers, who well a book is edited makes a huge distinction. But I suspect those of us who care about such issues are in a minority once we’re speaking concerning the millions upon hundreds of thousands who purchase ebooks. The resolution? I can’t think of one apart from an independent proofreading physique with the authority to approve or decline your book as self-publishable… and who the heck desir es THAT? The world would come to a grinding halt! But, perhaps an independent proofreading physique that assigns star rankings or seals of approval to appropriately edited books? A service that authors will pay for â€" and let’s face it, solely severe authors would pay for such a factor, so the seal of approval would work nice. Oh, and I just go along with “e book” as opposed to the other variations. Same with “email” and “web site” and so on. I go for simplicity. Educating potential e-book authors on the impact dangerous enhancing has on their capability to promote books primarily based on reader evaluations may have an effect. I learn e-e-book evaluations on a regular basis, and modifying is frequently introduced up. I’ve learn loads of poorly edited stories that had been in any other case 4 or five star books, and both couldn’t bring myself to rate them poorly based mostly on modifying so skipped writing the review in any respect, or deducted a star primarily ba sed solely on modifying. When sufficient reviewers rate a e-book based mostly on its modifying, the probability of the books success goes down. Another chance could be to place pressure on e-e-book retailers to expand their score system. Amazon, for example, lets you rate a book as an entire, why the book was rated in a particular style is left for the reviewer to elucidate in the evaluation. If the score technique was expanded to include different aspects of the e-book, or even when only a second rating category on editing could be made, it will push aspiring and present indie guide authors and publishers to take enhancing more significantly or risk having their books dismissed as infantile scribble from the get go. Fill in your details under or click on an icon to log in: You are commenting utilizing your WordPress.com account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting using your Google account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting utilizing your Twitter account. 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