To start off the new year, I’m officially announcing the launch of my second publishing company, Endless Sky Books. Whereas my first publishing company, Shadowpaw Press, is and always will be a traditional publishing company, …
For the first time, you can now buy the entire Shards of Excalibur series in a single omnibus ebook! Just released by Shadowpaw Press, this includes the latest editions of the books, and costs only half …
The Tangled Stars, my far-future humorous space opera from DAW Books, is now available everywhere in ebook and audiobook (narrated by Wayne Mitchell). For an introduction to the main characters, check out “Thibauld’s Tale” in …
Shapers of Worlds Volume III, the third anthology I’ve Kickstarted that features science fiction and fantasy by authors who were guests on my Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers, has now officially been released upon the …
This is the latest in my occasional column about writing science fiction and fantasy that appears in the Saskatchewan Writers Guild magazine Freelance. Authors who are regularly interviewed often profess to hate one particular question, …
At When Words Collide 2022, one of the panels I led featured a handful of the many authors whose stories have appeared in the Shapers of Worlds anthologies I Kickstarted (and who have also, of …
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Words of wisdom concerning bloggers-turned-book-authors:
Successful-author-and-blogger John Scalzi hits the nail on the head in explaining why publishers are nuts to hand huge advances for books to bloggers on the basis of their having a successful blog:
“Being a blogger is a bit like being that lady in the supermarket who hands out free samples. You see her, you stop and have the tiny piece of sausage she’s got speared on a toothpick, you might chat for a second, and then you move on. You like the sample lady — she’s giving you free sausage! — and you may even seek her out (‘I could use some free tiny sausage right about now’). But no matter how much you or anyone else likes the sample lady and are glad to see her and her tiny sausage chunks, the number of people who actually reach behind the sample lady to buy the product she’s offering you a taste of is a pretty low percentage.”
Which is not to say that I don’t want each and every person who reads this post–all five or six of them!–to buy a copy of Lost in Translation when the paperback hits bookstores next week!
Have I mentioned they make great Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s/Valentine’s Day gifts?
Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2006/09/words-of-wisdom-concerning-bloggers-turned-book-authors/