by Charlene Teglia | Oct 9, 2010 | Uncategorized
This has been an eye-opening time for industry news, much of which reminds me of what it was like to work for Hewlett Packard when the big shift from wholesale/reseller distribution to direct sales began.
There was a time when a job at HP meant a life career. They’d never had lay-offs. Benefits were stellar. This was before the shift.
There was a time when a sale to a big NY publisher meant a decent-sized print run, distribution in all major bookstores, possibly co-op placement (that thing that gets your new book on the front table in the stores).
But advances are dropping. Distribution is dropping. Even a lead title isn’t guaranteed to be carried by the two big national bookstore chains.
I can’t help noticing all the similarities as industries shift from the wholesale model that used to be the norm to direct sales, online.
What does it mean? For starters, a shift means it’s not temporary and it’s not going back. The good news is that it’s actually possibly for authors to get decent online distribution and to reach readers on their own. Even five years ago this wasn’t really true. The ereaders who were buying went to the top ebook publisher sites. But Kindle has been a game-changer. A huge percentage of ebook sales happens at the Kindle store, and putting a book there allows authors to reach a large readership. For midlist authors, this is going to be more and more attractive.
It might even become non-optional in the not very distant future, because things are changing very, very fast.
by Charlene Teglia | Oct 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
I haven’t posted since Thursday, really? This is what happens when you’re waiting for a backup brain while watching people pedal a Cat Bus.
The Cat Bus won the Mediocrity Award for finishing in the middle in this year’s Kinetic Sculpture Race. Wildly fun event. I think my creativity rose 50 points just from watching. Sometimes I forget, in all the business aspects, how FUN creativity can be. If you get a chance to see a Kinetic Sculpture Race, go. Or come to Port Townsend and watch this one, which is apparently one of the only left that isn’t corporate-run.
My new brain AKA Mac Mini arrived yesterday and spent the day getting the contents of the old brain transferred to it via some Mac magic. And then I did updates and tested things out, and behold, the new desktop is a thing of joy. I think I have now replaced/repaired/upgraded everything and it had all better work into 2012.
It may not be the fun part of creativity, but there’s a lot of behind the scenes support stuff that has to happen. Having a working office is one of them. Then there’s identifying time/energy issues. I realized there are areas where I’m putting out fires and thus, this week things are getting tweaked to make life run better.
The not-exciting-like-a-Cat-Bus-or-new-desktop things:
1. The kids were not following their routines, so we made them another visual schedule with a whiteboard, and set up a page on the fridge where each child gets a sticker for successfully following each part of their daily routine. 10 stickers = a trip to get ice cream.
2. School is mostly going smoothly, but setting up for each kids’ daily lessons while kids are underfoot and interrupting was stressful and led to mistakes. So now I am setting up for the day sans kids and interruptions. (Calvert mostly does all the thinking for you, but you still have to set up each lesson for each kid daily.)
3. Breakfast and lunch are no-brainers because they tend to be the same with minor variations. Dinner is where things get complicated and the right thing wasn’t defrosted or the pizza dough wasn’t started on time or some ingredient is missing, etc. The solution: a menu posted on the fridge so I know each morning what needs to be done for dinner and so shopping takes needed ingredients into account in advance.
Schedules and whiteboards and sticker charts are alternative ways to have a backup brain. These move items out of short-term memory, thus freeing up the human equivalent of RAM so that creative thought can take place. My brain needs to be plotting, not trying to remember if I have everything I need to make dinner, and if not, what I can do instead. Not glamorous, but organization gives creativity room to happen.
Although there’s still a lot to be said for the pure awesomeness of seeing a Cat Bus.
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