I’ve chatted before about how I see some parallels with self publishing e-books and self published comic books from the mid 90s. And I still wonder if it’s possible for an unknown writer of literary or upmarket fiction to find the same kind of success as some unknown genre self publishers. (There’s a great article about reasons not to self publish, here — with some great discussion in the comments.)

But what I’m most interested in today is what people think about Amazon acting as a publisher.

We Knew It Would Happen

From the moment Amazon mentioned that it was going to allow people to self publish their own e-books, it seemed only a matter of time before they sought out authors and let the world know, “We are now a publisher!”

Lee Goldberg

I’ve followed Lee Goldberg’s blog for awhile. His “The Mail I Get” entries are a riot, and I’ve loved reading about his adventures in ebook self publishing. (The quick version: Goldberg had a pile of out-of-print books his publisher felt couldn’t make money. Goldberg got the rights back and released them as e-books, and now makes $70,000/year off of the books publishers said wouldn’t make money. That experiment was all he needed to convince him self publish e-books. He even stepped away from writing Monk novels.)

Recently, Golberg announced that he accepted a deal with Amazon to relaunch the Dead Man series he started with William Rabkin. Goldberg’s gone from self publishing his out-of-print books on Amazon to striking a deal that has Amazon acting as publisher.

And he’s not alone.

Barry Eisler, Publish It Forward Lecture Part 1 from Grub Street on Vimeo.

Barry Eisler, Publish It Forward Part 2 (Q&A) from Grub Street on Vimeo.

Barry Eisler, Publish It Forward Part 3 (Q&A) from Grub Street on Vimeo.

Do We Need Gatekeepers?

One of the rallying cries about the e-book self publishing revolution is that the gatekeepers no longer matter. Gone are the days of querying agents, waiting for them to reply (if they reply at all), and then hoping for representation and a deal that takes a long time to get your book on a shelf (where it most likely won’t sell). And there’s some truth to it. (Although I still think the traditional route — at least right now — is the best bet for upmarket and literary authors.)

A friend [somewhat] recently sent this article to me. There are some interesting comments about the article — pro and con for self publishing e-books. Some replies are mellow…some not so much.

What I found interesting are replies like this one. There seems to be no loss of people out there who believe that publishing needs barriers. I’ve seen a bestselling writer I follow online talk about how there needs to be even more restrictions on who’s published so those who are published can make a decent living, instead of having so much out there that the market is watered down. (I heard the same thing about comic books — even experienced it myself, but so what?)

A Little Soapbox-y

I get where these people are coming from. It’s human nature to be a little pissy when you’ve put years into something and along comes somebody who hasn’t put in the time — “paid their dues.” These new writers, some feel, not only have the same opportunities (and shouldn’t, the feeling goes), but even — in cases — sell more with a thrown-together e-book full of typos than the book that took them such a long time to write.

My thoughts: people have a right to publish…even if what they publish is absolute shit. And if what they put out isn’t crap, all the better. I can’t imagine an America where those who came before me (e.g. American revolutionaries, Frederick Douglass, and many others who self published), had been barred from publishing…not that I’m saying that “yet another YA fantasy story” is on par with the writing that led to American freedom, but still.

I’ll be a little snobbish:

• John Irving is a better writer than Stephanie Meyers, and Meyers is better than many self-published e-book authors out there.
• Jacob Sharp (NSFW: language) is a better juggler than the party clown that can eat an apple while juggling and do little more.
• A beautiful, handmade piece of furniture is better than something purchased at a big box store.

But…more power to Stephanie Meyers and people who take their time to write a self-published e-book…even if it’s rushed and not-so-good.

I’ve only liked a few clowns in my time, but hey — I can’t knock a party clown making a living doing what they do while most of us have jobs we do out of necessity, not love.

And while my wife and I have some nice furniture, the desk I’m writing this on was purchased at Office Depot years ago and has served me well.

The Thing about Literary Fiction

If I’m going to pitch a fit about some genuine hack writer cranking out 12 shoddy e-books and making more money than me — going as far as saying it’s not their right and that it signals the fall of civilization — I’m not doing myself any favors.

As much as fans of literary fiction talk about what a shame it is that many literary masters can’t make a living writing books, if those same writers went mainstream, I have to think many of their fans wouldn’t like it. Part of the appeal of literary fiction — even though many won’t admit it — is its exclusivity…that ability to say, “I have more taste than that person over there reading a Twilight novel.”

I understand the reaction to feeling like gatekeepers are needed, but I have much bigger concerns as a writer: putting my all into the best book I can write and being happy that people can read it — whether it’s a physical book picked up in a store, or an e-book I published online.

How ‘Bout You?

What do you think about self publishing e-books and Amazon acting as a publisher? Good, bad, indifferent?

Do you think people like Gary Vaynerchuk below are being over the top when they say traditional publishing is on its knees and about to die, or is he onto something?

One thing’s certain: wherever you stand on the issue, people are buying more e-book readers than ever and open to reading e-books.

Anything that keeps people reading is good for us all.

Yesterday, Chuck Wendig shared the cover of his upcoming novel, Blackbirds, on his blog. (Go here to see the whole thing in all its stunning glory; it’s mighty impressive stuff! And if you’re curious what Wendig’s writing is like, I can think of a pile of worse things you can do today than dropping $2.99 on his short story collection ebook,  Irregular Creatures. Affiliate link.)

A couple days ago, another cool writer people should follow online, John Green, released the cover for his upcoming book, The Fault in Our Stars, in this Vlogbrothers’ YouTube video. (He mentions the cover 30 seconds in. Also, if you preorder The Fault in Our Stars (affiliate link), you’ll get a signed copy…John Green is signing the entire first print run of 150,000 copies.)

Judging a Book By Its Cover

I’ve always heard people say, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” but I’ve always had good luck when I have.

I found my favorite book, A Trail of Heart’s Blood Wherever We Go: A Novel (affiliate link), based on the cover over there on the left. (Sorry it’s such a small image — I no longer have this edition, and all I could find was a thumbnail.)

While browsing the long gone Dallas/Ft. Worth bookseller, Taylor’s Books one night, I stumbled upon it. Something about the color and cover art appealed to me, and I picked up a wonderful book I may not have picked up had it not been for that cover.

The Power of a Good Cover

I met John Picacio at a comic book convention in 1992. He made the move from comic book art to book covers and hasn’t looked back.

Anyone with a sense of design can put together a cover based on stock photography and typography, but it takes something more to create a cover like the World’s End (Age of Misrule, Book 1)(affiliate link), cover to the right, and the covers above.

John doesn’t just read the copy that goes on the back of the book or the copy on the inner jacket and throw together a cover; he reads the book and puts a lot of thought and effort into creating an image he (and the writer) feel sums up the book.

That’s a heavy responsibility and no easy task.

A Reason for Covers

We can all say we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but there’s a reason so much goes into cover design: next to a known name, a strong cover can get a book into a potential reader’s hands, where the copy hopefully does the rest.

John Picacio’s one of those artists who can get a store to stock a book facing out and get readers to pick up books they may have never known existed.

A Sense of What’s Inside

Another favorite book is Jim Lynch’s, The Highest Tide: A Novel (affiliate link).

It’s a case of a good photo and a simple design.

The thing that struck me reading the book was how colorful Lynch paints the night. Some of my favorite writing in the book takes place at night, and Lynch’s prose oozes with a color that’s hard to describe.

It’s easy to see the night as just this dark thing with no depth, but Lynch’s writing is summed up by the cover of the hardback version of The Highest Tide.

Seriously; it’s that soothing and natural.

E-Book Covers

I’ve written about ebooks quite a bit. I’m a fan of ebooks. But if there’s one thing I don’t like about them, it’s that many lack great covers.

Some ebooks come with only text covers. (Call me a traditionalist, but even at $.99, I feel cheated without cover art.)

Other ebooks have covers that look great on an iPad, but they lose something when reduced to a thumbnail on an online bookseller’s site, or on a smaller device. It’s kind of like the jump from album cover art to CD art, and then thumbnails online.

While I like being able to release some of my writing as ebooks, I miss out on the excitement of seeing what an artist comes up with. I don’t see their interpretation of what I wrote.

For many readers, ebook cover art doesn’t matter. And while I like that readers are going for a story, there’s a little bit of me that hates that some great artists are already considering other options for their art after years of designing book covers.

How About You

Do you judge a book by its cover?

What are some of your favorite book covers?

If any of the covers below appeal to you, go here to check them out.

A BSA Gold Star leaning into a turn.

My father had a thing for British motorcycles — particularly Triumphs.

In the 70s, he had a Bonneville and a custom Trident. He loved stripping down a factory bike and turning it into a cafe racer. (Okay, so the Trident eventually became a drag bike.)

There was always something neat to me about British bikes. The more riders removed parts to lighten the load, the faster and more practical the bikes became. Not something you’d take on a cross country trek, perhaps, but they definitely served their purpose.

Stripped Down Writing

One of the things I love about ebooks is they make the novella a viable medium once again.

Once common in magazines, novellas became those things only established writers like Stephen King had the pleasure of writing in recent decades. Oh, sure, you could write a novella, but with very few exceptions, you’d have a hard time selling it. Now, though, writers and readers are flying through 25,000 – 50,000-word stories.

Stripped down and serving a purpose, ebooks have made the literary equivalent of a cafe racer appealing again.

Stripping Glimpses

Image by SiGMan (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sigman/)

Last week, I almost shelved my second novel, Glimpses, forever. I almost did a U-turn from the writing plan I recently mentioned and rushed straight to my next novel.

Rereading Glimpses during vacation, there was so much I wanted to strip from its frame. All the extra bits weighed things down, like saddle bags, extra chrome, and accessories can weigh down a motorcycle. But beneath all the extraneous prose written 6 or 7 years ago on lunch breaks is the literary equivalent of a Norton Featherbed frame and a Triumph parallel twin engine.

Looking at Glimpses, all it needed to get me excited was to strip things down light and fast and realize there’s a place, now, for a 50K story: ebooks!

Now, instead of fretting over the scenes that don’t totally work for me, I’m cutting things out. If I question the purpose of something, it’s gone! Hell, Glimpses may come in at 40K – 45K words by the time I’m done.

It may not be the kind of ride you’d want for the long haul like my latest novel, but Glimpses will definitely be a lot more fun in the turns.

While it’s been in the 100s all week, summer has officially arrived in Texas (and the rest of the northern hemisphere). In honor of the start of summer road trip season, I’m releasing the first novel I ever wrote, Hell Comes With Wood Paneled Doors, as an ebook.

Right now, it’s available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

If you haven’t heard me talk about Hell Comes With Wood Paneled Doors and you wonder what it’s about…it’s a humorous coming-of-age story about a family traveling cross country in a possessed station wagon. You can learn more about the book here.

So head over to Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com and take a summer road trip for less than the cost of one gallon of gasoline!

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal had a piece about cheap e-books.

I’ve heard more than a few people bemoan the race toward the bottom when it comes to pricing stories on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other sites selling e-books.

While I understand where these people are coming from (it can be hard to stomach that something you may spend years writing is seen as overpriced if you charge more than $2.99 for it), it doesn’t surprise me.

Factory Life

I’ve worked in manufacturing, making automobile air conditioner compressors, printing T-shirts, and even making the body parts of collectible dolls. (Yes, you read that last one right–body parts for collectible dolls!)

In every case, the goal was to make piles of stock as cheaply as possible.

The competition, after all, was out to offer the same thing for less, so it was important to beat them. In many cases, that meant the quality of what we created wasn’t the best. We shot for good enough.

Eventually, with the exception of the collectible doll parts, other companies were able to produce what we did for less. And after gaining a reputation for being affordable, we could no longer say we were the best quality out there because we engaged in the wrong race.

When racing toward the bottom, you can rarely beat what can be made in another country for next to nothing.

When you race toward being the cheapest, if you lose, you’re usually screwed.

Writing Is a Little Different

I know many people have complained that even an e-book full of typos should be worth more than $.99. After all, it’s not a product–it’s a person’s passion!

Publishers don’t like hearing there are legions of fans out there who see anything priced more than $2.99 for an e-book–even from a lone author working a full time job to make ends meet–akin to robbery.

But like it or not, that’s the way it is.

Maybe you get mad at the thought; maybe you realize that you’re not as special as you thought you were when anybody with the wherewithal to put their butt in a chair and produce a novel can sell it as an e-book.

An industry that’s been slow to adapt–one that even scoffed at the thought of e-books and, especially, at self publishing–now scrambles to catch up.

But there’s a difference between e-books and manufacturing: with e-books, a single writer can be in control of their success.

Maybe your writing isn’t on par with a literary master, but there are people out there just wanting a fun story, and maybe you can provide it.

It’s not a factory with three shifts and thousands of employees, it’s you and a lot of hard work.

You at least get a chance.

I’m Babbling

Okay, so this isn’t the most cohesive thing I’ve written on The Juggling Writer, but let’s get back to some of the crappy jobs I’ve had.

The compressors I used to make? They started making custom parts and came up with technology that improved efficiency. They survived by realizing being the cheapest wasn’t the best bet.

…but they got known by one time taking shortcuts and being an affordable part.

The T-shirts I used to print? Realizing that they couldn’t beat larger printers in the race for the cheapest shirts (and definitely couldn’t beat shirts printed in China), they specialized. They started working hard to get licensing deals and putting a little more time into the runs to make as quality a T-shirt that you can produce.

…but they got known by one time doing cheap runs that weren’t the best quality you could buy.

The collectible dolls? Okay, they were always expensive, even though some of the parts were cast using the most affordable resins that were good enough.

I guess sometimes you really can dress something up and make hundreds–even thousands–for something costing mere dollars to produce.

My Point?

I’m not entirely sure what my point is, other than I’ve worked in factories and warehouses where I’ve seen cheap being beat overseas, forcing the companies to go back to quality. I saw an operation so proud of what they produced that the price they commanded became what people paid, even if the parts cost pennies or dollars to produce.

I know it hurts for publishers and some writers to think of selling an e-book for next to nothing, especially when years might go into a great book and a small army of people are behind everything, including the covers.

But that’s the way it is.

One thing’s certain: new writers are being discovered, writers who–like some of the factories and warehouses I’ve worked in–caught the eye of consumers with an affordable product.

Maybe we’ll see a pull back the other way sometime in the not-too-distant future. Perhaps a million-selling e-book author will produce a run of 250 special addition print books worthy of charging $125 a piece for. Maybe somebody discovered by selling e-books for $.99 – $2.99 becomes so popular that they decide to treat writing like some artists treat original paintings–selling single stories for thousands of dollars to collectors eager to be the only person (other than the author and maybe an editor) to read the work.

Like I said–I’m babbling. But in all the strange things going on in publishing, I have to think we’re about to see even more interesting things in the next handful of years.

Granted, most of what we see will probably be gimmicks, but I like to think that somewhere out there somebody’s creating something really special and will share it in ways that leave us thinking, “Why didn’t I think of that?!”

Your Turn

What do you think about cheap e-books and the future of publishing?

Chime in, and don’t worry if you babble a bit!

For awhile, now, I’ve chatted with the guys in my writing group about releasing some things for the Kindle and other devices.

I’ve messed with the .epub format here and here, but I’ve never tried publishing anything for the Kindle and Kindle apps. (I use the Kindle iPhone app for most of my e-book reading.)

I had some time to experiment this week and have a few things on Amazon, now.

The Process

Amazon really does make it easy to publish your own stories and e-books for the Kindle.

My coding skills don’t go much beyond basic HTML and CSS, and that was more than enough to get things on Amazon’s site.

The one thing I haven’t figured out yet is how to offer a story for free. Other than that, everything was very simple, and the wait time to get things up on the site isn’t bad at all. (Although I’m still waiting to correct a couple typos in the description of one of the stories.)

If anybody’s interested, I can put together a walk through showing the process I used.

Other Devices

I’ve created .epub files, which covers Apple’s iBook store, but I haven’t even looked into the process for offering stories and e-books for the Nook.

Already, I’ve had Nook users say, “Hey, what about us?!” So I need to figure that out.

Has anybody tinkered with that? I’m assuming it’s not too difficult a process.

The Future

I liked the ease of getting things up on Amazon, and I plan to release a collection of short stories soon. I also plan to offer an e-book for the novel I’m currently podcasting for free.

I’m still hoping for the traditional route with the novel I finished last summer, but it’s nice having options to get things out there.

I hope everybody has a great weekend full of writing!

On Wednesday, I wrote about Snooki’s new book and the reaction it’s caused.

Snooki’s deal has bothered more than a few people out there. (I can sympathize; I just don’t think it’s worth the effort to go on and on about it because it’s not going to stop cut-rate celebrities from getting book deals…or stop me from writing.)

I had a great reply to the entry that resulting in my longest, most babbling reply on The Juggling Writer yet! I walked away from the reply thinking about how yes — in many ways it doesn’t seem fair that Snooki “wrote” a book on a whim, while the rest of us toil away.

But it’s not my place to say whether or not Snooki has the right to work with a ghostwriter to crank out what I’m assuming is a crappy book (I haven’t read it, so I can’t say with certainty that it sucks). I tried reading Twilight and thought it was cringeably bad, but others enjoyed it.

But here’s the thing: accounting for taste, or not — if people write something others like to read (or have a ghostwriter write a book based on your loose ideas), haven’t you done your job as a writer?

Literary criticism aside (because with Twilight and A Shore Thing, we’re not talking literary fiction), isn’t the goal of some books to simply entertain?

I loved all the Harry Potter books, but I don’t think they’re particularly well written. Still, I had a blast reading the seven books. I’ve read piles of books that weren’t literary masterpieces, and they’re up on the shelf with what I consider actual literary masterpieces.

The whole Snooki thing got me thinking about what we as writers owe an audience.

Is Anything Owed?

Do we, as writers, owe anything to an audience?

If we must write something for ourselves, we should write it with no care about anything beyond what’s needed by the act. (If writing for yourself is your thing.)

If we’re writing for money, though, do owe an audience something? Do we need to consider the person on the other end as we work through our drafts?

I think we do; maybe you don’t. (I’d love to hear why you don’t.) At the very least, we owe it to the audience to write the best book we can write in the time we’re given to write it.

But “best” is a subjective thing. My best may be a pile of crap to you…even though it’s loved by others.

Still, I think there’s something writers owe readers.

What Is Owed?

Unless you write for yourself and only yourself, you owe at least something to your audience — even if the audience is one other person.

The moment we decide, “I want others to read this,” we at least owe those others a story with them in mind.

Perhaps we don’t owe them what they hope we’ll give them; I’m a fan of writers who try new things, even if they sometimes don’t work for me as much as with other books they’ve written. Perhaps the best we can do as writers is write the book we want and find the people who will like it — not considering the audience at all as we write.

But in general, I think it’s best to write books with an audience in mind.

Why Consider An Audience?

When we consider an audience, we often consider every little aspect of what we write, knowing that no matter how much we strive for perfection, there will be those who tear apart what we do. But barring the people who will always see the bad, even in the things they love, I know when I write with the hope that others will read my stories, I’m more likely to care about all the elements in that story.

I care about the characters even more…

I care about the setting and time even more…

I care about the plot even more…

Knowing that somebody else will be reading what I write, I owe it to those people to make sure there are no plot holes in my story. I owe it to an audience to be entertaining if that’s what I know they are expecting. I’m asking a person to take time out in a hurried society and ignore all other distractions for hours and hours. If I’m writing something literary, I owe it to those readers to elevate my words beyond those in your average thriller. And if I’m writing an average thriller, I owe my audience a book that will keep them turning the pages long after they vowed to go to sleep at night.

Simply put: if I’m writing with an audience in mind — if I’ve chosen to make money with my art — [on some level] I owe it to that audience to deliver what they expect.

What Does Snooki Owe?

Which brings us back to Snooki and why I care less that she got a book deal.

From what I’ve gathered from what little exposure I’ve had to Snooki, she’s not very bright, but she seems sweet enough. Tacky and gruff, she seems to have a decent-enough side, too. And I think that’s partially why some people like her: they revel  in drama, too, but have a decent-enough side and feel there’s somebody who represents them.

If Snooki has fans who want to buy her perfumes, jewelry, or whatever she’s hawking (again, assumptions on my part, but  flash-in-the-pan celebrities seem to like milking the cash with their own lines of clothing, scents, and jewelry), she’s giving them what they want. And…if they are willing to buy a book based on ideas from the pouf-head, why let it bother us?

When I was younger, I loved that I could buy Star Wars figures; George Lucas gave me what I wanted. The comic books I read delivered on their promises of super-powered action, and later — on pushing the boundaries of what I thought the medium was all about. Punk bands gave me energy, but still never moved me like Haydn’s string quartets.

Snooki’s book will either tank, do all right, or sell. No matter what happens, I don’t care because it’s not my thing.

But if it’s her audience’s thing, she’s given them what they want, and I don’t see anything wrong with that — tacky as the book may be.

What Do You Think?

Do we owe audiences anything as writers, or should we write whatever the hell we want and expect the masses to read it?

Does Snooki’s book portend the end of publishing as we know it, or is it just another book in a long line of soon-forgotten celebrity books?

What do we owe our audience…if we owe them anything at all?

We’ve all heard people touting the importance of that ever-present writing buzzword: platform.

We’ve all heard that without a platform, you may as well give up writing, no matter how good you are.

We’ve all heard about how writers need a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a Foursquare account, a Gowalla account, a YouTube account, a Tumblr account, a Goodreads account, a blog on Amazon.com, a– well…you get the picture.

Without all these things, a writer stands no chance, right?

*          *          *

I recently attended the Writers’ League of Texas Agents Conference.

I attended sessions with agents, many of whom have sold books for bestselling writers and work for agencies representing some of the biggest names in fiction out there.

And what did all these agents say about a writer’s platform?

We really don’t care. If a writer has a blog or Twitter following–fine, but a great debut novel from somebody with no online presence is easier to sell than just a good debut novel from a writer with a strong platform.

Granted, I didn’t hear every agent in attendance talk about how they view a writer’s platform, but all the sessions I attended featured agents, and this feeling about a writer’s online presence was unanimous.

This differed greatly from the general consensus at sessions focusing on social networking, where the feelings about a writer’s platform ran along the lines of this:

Without a Twitter account, you’re as good as dead!

(Disclosure: I’m basing this off of recaps I read and what I heard from people who attended sessions focusing on social networking–none of which featured agents.)

So who’s right?

I’m going to lean more toward the agents, since they are the people representing writers and selling their work.

Several agents said they encourage their writers to blog, but said if the writers didn’t, that it was no big deal. The only instance in which agents said a writer must have a platform is for those writing non-fiction. But if you’re writing fiction, the best thing you can do is just write a great book.

If you do that, it doesn’t matter if you blog, tweet, or let the world know you’re the Mayor of Taco Bell…

I recently watched Richard Nash’s talk about the future of books and publishing. (I found it here, on Booklife.)

There are some great points made in the presentation, but there were two that really stuck out:

1. The reminder that the long form narrative is a feature, not a bug.
2. Most writers — whether they know it or not — want a connection.

Feature, Not a Bug

Some writers and publishers are thinking short and gimmicky these days.

They see a report saying books sales are a little down and they think people don’t have time to read, so they must go with shorter content, or make enhanced e-books that can compete with video games and the Web. (At the same time, many people miss the line in that linked report stating that adult long form fiction saw an almost 7% increase in sales in 2009.)

Nash talks about the strength of the long form narrative, how the medium is a feature, not a bug.

I’ve seen a lot of buzz about this video for an enhanced e-book version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the past couple weeks. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know I’m in favor of e-books. But this enhanced e-book demo leaves me flat. There’s nothing I see in the demo that enhances the reading experience. It looks very distracting and gimmicky.

More than that, it seems to treat the long form narrative as a bug — not a feature, like something in need of repair.

There’s strength in the time it takes to read a book.

Nash talks about this and the importance of connections for writers and readers.

The Connection

Nash has seen many writers who thought being published would make them happy. He’s seen writers who seemed let down when they finally got a book on the shelves and was left with a feeling of is that all there is?

More than being published, Nash speculates, most writers really want a connection.

Nash talks about the investment of time, and what readers and writers get from the time it takes to read a book. (By treating the long form narrative as a feature, not a bug.)

Nash talks about how when you buy a book the author is “…inside a person’s head for 15 hours and you own that proxy object, that cultural proxy object that connects two people to one another in a deeper, deeper way than any other medium.”

Books connect people.

Deeply.

When I’ve heard people talk about TV shows at jobs, the talk is rarely deep. But when I’ve heard people talk about novels, there’s a much deeper connection. They don’t just talk about what happened like TV talkers — they talk about how what happened affects the world around us. They often talk about symbolism and social issues, not just who kissed whom in a grab for TV ratings.

The writer, Seth Godin, is big on Tribes. He sees importance in being the person who connects people to other people, even if that connection doesn’t directly benefit you as the leader of a group. It’s about sharing and connecting people; it’s about being altruistic and hopeful.

Writers have the ability to connect people like this in big ways.

Even if you never hear from the fans reading your writing, if you have a following that’s stuck around or grown, it’s a safe bet that it’s at least in large part because you connect people.

Readers invest more hours with one story or idea than any other medium out there. To stick with it, whether they contact the author or not, the author’s made a connection with the reader. And when a reader has invested so much time in something and they find somebody else who invested that much time, they connect and talk, sharing the experience and the ideas that came with the experience.

The act of writing is the act of creating tribes.

If you’re looking forward to having time away from your day job this weekend to write, think about how readers will connect with you and how you will connect readers when you sit down to write.

Writing can be a very powerful thing.

*          *          *

If you have some time to kill, here’s Richard Nash’s presentation:

Recently, on a friend’s Facebook page, the subject of e-book pricing came up.

Right now, it seems many people think e-books are priced too high. When people hear about publishers going from the $9.99 Amazon standard for an e-book up to $14.95, they say, “That’s ridiculous!”

One can definitely make that argument; after all, the cost of editing and many other larger costs publishers bear is covered in the creation of the printed book. Theoretically, the only additional cost for creating an e-book is coding it for publication and proofing the flow in e-readers.

What many people don’t seem to understand, though, is the cost of printing and shipping a book is still just a small percentage of the overall budget of a book.

As e-books become more accepted (if they become the norm), all the effort that goes into print books (with the exception of printing, shipping and returns), will still be necessary. At that point, pricing e-books at $14.99 will be necessary for publishers to not just make money, but to make sure that the e-books they release are quality books. (Granted, we can argue what quality means when it comes to certain authors, but I’m talking about a book that is free of typos and other issues.)

I know many people are on Amazon’s side when it comes to pricing; people naturally seek out the best prices–it’s why Wal Mart is in business. But while somebody might buy a T-shirt and shorts at Wal Mart, I don’t know anybody who’d go there for a bespoke suit or an evening gown.

T-shirts and shorts are something that can be made by unskilled [and often, abused] workers for next to nothing. A bespoke suit or evening gown takes more skill to make, so it costs considerably more than clothing that will eventually be donated to a charity, or turned into rags.

Writers and artists striving for more than mediocre; agents recognizing that talent; editors and art directors shaping that talent; and publicists spreading the word involves skill and money. While there are many books published that I think are cruddy, even the cruddy books are professionally created, free of writing errors and physical errors that I’ve seen in every self-produced e-book I’ve checked out. (“‘Which is why I have yet to make it through a self-produced e-book,’ he retorted snidely while smirking fiendishly and chuckling to himself regarding his sinister sense of humor.” Yes, I’ve seen writing that bad — even worse — in self-produced e-books).

Creating 55,000 – 100,000+ words free of errors takes skill, time, and money.

The cost of printing and shipping factored into releasing books accounts for a smaller percentage of the budget than many people realize.

While I know people love cheaper, if they also want quality, they’re going to still have to pay…even for digital titles.