Unplugged and Internet-free. Sounds like heaven to me. Why am I posting on this? Well, someone in the last post commented and asked me to blog on how to sell books without the Internet or social media. If it was even possible.

#ChallengeAccepted

Is it even possible to sell books unplugged? Good food for thought. Of course, my first thought was, ‘Is it even possible to get unplugged in the first place?’

Funny to think that it wasn’t too long ago that a half-baked plot with a terrible love story captured our hearts. A horrible movie (by all accounts) made us all misty-eyed, because of these three words…

You’ve Got Mail...

I remember the giddy feeling whenever I’d hear that ping. Someone sent me an EMAIL. OMG!

I’ve got…MAIL!

Now? I’ve got mail.

*weeps and drinks straight from the Hershey’s syrup squeeze bottle*

I remember loving email.

Hell, I remember LOVING the movie The Matrix. You wanna know WHY I loved The Matrix? Because I wasn’t LIVING IN IT.

I miss being unavailable. My Yahoo email went feral about four years ago. It pees on the carpet and bites people, so we leave it alone.

Same with my Gmail. No matter how many systems and filters…the spammers find me.

There is no way I’ve found to remain unplugged…even a little.

Now? My business email is close to joining the Yahoo and Gmail. If I am not on my cell phone deleting spam messages like Satan’s version of Space Invaders?

I lose stuff.

No joke. I had to create another business email (which, of course, I forget to check). It’s a never ending game of Hell’s Whack-A-Mole.

Oh, and I recently got sick, and couldn’t cull the endless author newsletters I was force-added to against my will because so many @$$hat branding gurus swear by newsletters as the key to wealth and fame to the point they are SELLING email lists to total strangers.

People like me who want some unknown author’s free book about as much as I want a free upper G.I.

Kill. Me. Now.

#IWillNeverEscape

Unplugged Life

I’m a Gen Xer. We’re the sarcastic middle child who trusts nothing and no one, crushed and forgotten between the Baby Boomers and Millennials.

We’re young enough that we were a major force that set off the digital revolution. Yet, we’re also old enough to remember what life was like before computers.

Which is why we drink heavily or want to.

We remember what it was like to have to walk over to someone’s house, knock on a door and ASK IN PERSON if they wanted to hang out. Or, to CALL. And if the person wasn’t there, to have to…wait for it…call back LATER.

There weren’t even answering machines.

Hell, there wasn’t even ‘call waiting.’ You got a busy tone. Oh, the things my son (Spawn) won’t ever experience.

We lived our lives unplugged, not even knowing we were ‘unplugged.’

Now we track everything from packages to exes. These days, I can’t even have a conversation in the car that suddenly there aren’t ads popping up in my feed for something I was just talking about.

#CreepyAsHell

There was a time I TRIED to remain unplugged. I refused to use email and wanted all my bills on paper. I’d reset all the settings on my phone and clear browser histories, and… *taps out*

Problem is, everything is optional…until it isn’t.

Want to get really freaked out? Go read Fahrenheit 451. These days, I’m too old to mess with it and as a writer, I find great entertainment researching murder and poisons on-line just to see what sort of ads pop up on Facebook.

Apparently a LOT of ads for pre-paid legal, therapy, and hardware stores. I wish I were making this up.

Can We Even Live Unplugged?

Not to freak y’all out, but before we even posit the question if it’s possible to sell books off-line, we need to ask the critical question. Who’s even living off-line? Because if Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) is our target market?

Then there ya go!

But, even Ted communicated using the newspaper, which was the equivalent of the Internet during his day. He put out personal ads searching for a wife who wanted to live off the land, cut off from the world.

Wonder how many of us might take him up on that these days?

Considering that most of today’s population is glued to their phones, addicted to Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs to the degree that specialists are treating new never-seen-before joint, back, eye, and psychiatric disorders….

Whether we like it or not, folks these days aren’t sharing word of mouth in person as much as they’re sharing among peers their on-line social circles.

***To be clear, this doesn’t mean they’re NOT sharing in person, just proportionally they’re sharing more on-line.

Additionally, people are shopping more on-line than in stores.

It’s why Cyber Monday has been beating out Black Friday by increasingly larger margins every year.

Not only are the deals better, but there’s also the added convenience. I’m just as guilty. For instance, Spawn’s birthday is RIGHT near Thanksgiving.

I didn’t have time to cook, work, write, clean, and shop for birthday gifts. So, I hopped on Amazon and ordered the game he wanted…which was delivered to my front door while I frosted his birthday cakes.

In sales, we had a saying, ‘Fish where the fish are.’ Safe bet the fish are schooling on-line.

Bookstores & Location

Though, for NOW, I think it will be tough to sell books unplugged, that trend should shift. The reason? Borders and Barnes & Noble decimated the indie and mom-and-pop bookstores.

Granted, CBS recently reported some good news (which I also predicted on this blog a few years ago *gets cramp patting self on back*).

The small bookstores are booming after being nearly wiped out, which is fabulous.

The problem is that the big box chains all but annihilated these small stores, and there is a LONG road back from the edge of extinction.

Consumers will eventually shop at bookstores, but, as the founder of Barnes & Noble realized only after it was far too late, shoppers tend to gravitate to the store that is closest and most convenient.

In the October 21, 2016 article in The New Yorker, What Barnes & Noble Doesn’t Get About Bookstores, Leonard Riggio, the man who bought Barnes & Noble forty-five years ago and turned it into a giant finally conceded this mistake:

The No. 1 consideration of where someone will shop is how close it is to where they are. It has nothing to do with pedigree or branding. If there’s no bookstore close to them, they’re more likely to buy online. If there’s one close, they’re more likely to buy if it’s a block away.

While we await the recovery of the local ‘Shop Around the Corner,’ odds are folks will mostly buy on-line. That’s business reality.

The Centrifugal Bumble-Brand

There are all sorts of gurus who’ll sell authors (or anyone) snake oil a sure-fire get-rich-quick scheme for using social media to make the big lists, sell so many books, etc. etc.

Mailing lists, pay-to-promote, ads, marketing campaigns, on and on!

I’ve never done any of this, and my blog gets well over a million unique visits a month, which is pretty good for a blog with such niche content for a niche audience.

My book and classes are fun and never go out of style because the focus is on people, not technology.

What captures people’s attention? How do we make them care? If we have to use social media, then how can we find our tribe? And have FUN and time to write books?

What can we do to attract those people who like what we like and are most likely to enjoy our content and probably enjoy our stories, too?

CLUE: How about post stuff they WANT to see and SHARE? Imagine that!

Technology changes, people don’t.

Whether we are plugged in or unplugged, how we interact with people is roughly the same if we want to be successful.

Even before social media, we didn’t like people who only talked to us when they wanted something.

We were NOT fans of people who were constant sources of drama, negativity, self-centered, manipulative, the list goes on.

We enjoyed people who made us laugh, who noticed US, who were genuine, who asked us about our day and our life (without an agenda) and who listened, instead of everything being about them.

Even before computers, we liked people who made us smile, who made our day better just being around them.

We ran from people who drained our energy, who took more than they gave. People hung out with people who shared at least some common interests, with just enough variety to add something new and exciting.

This has nothing to do with SEO.

Well, not directly. Humans are the same on-line as unplugged. They don’t want someone trying to sell them something all the time, etc. etc.

#Duh

Relax on social media. It’s really what we used to do off-line only on-line. Yes, we have to filter it, but we had to filter it at parties if we wanted to be invited back, right?

Remember, we aren’t trying to make EVERYONE happy. We CAN’T.

For instance, if you don’t have a dark sense of humor, you’re probably not going to enjoy my books either. I can’t please everyone. But when I please the right people—MY audience—they do the heavy lifting.

Like here…

Almost a thousand shares and I didn’t have to pay Facebook a dime. Here’s the thing. My goal is not to sell this blog or my classes or my books to EVERYONE. I can’t please EVERYONE, so I don’t try.

But I CAN please YOU….

And probably even you…

And you…over there.

Yes, I have seven cats. Actually six. My *whispers* dog, Pippa, thinks she is a cat. Don’t tell her.

Anyway, what were we talking about before all the funny cats?

Oh yeah…no social media.

How would we share cat memes?

That and right now I started a pretty hysterical (and morbid) thread on Facebook that might earn us all an FBI van for Christmas….

*tugs collar*

But the comments are too funny! See? No marketing gimmick, just people having some seriously dark and disturbing fun.

I write mystery, suspense and thriller so those are the sort of people who are my audience. Many of the people in the thread having a good time, I KNOW FOR A FACT are not writers. They are READERS (or potential readers).

Which means these are the folks who DO go over and like my fan page and who DO subscribe to my blog here.

#TrueCrime

Oops, I meant #TrueStory.

Anyway….

Storytelling Unplugged

I know I’ve danced around the question, though I’ve not meant to. Can we sell books without social media or the Internet? Sure.

But for most writers who break out in hives at the mention of sales, the idea of setting up a table in some store and hawking a book with a PayPal card reader pales in comparison to building a social platform.

Thus, the only remaining way to sell books off the Internet (unplugged) is through the quality of the story.

We must write something SO spectacular, so singularly unique and well-crafted that it stands out like the Hope Diamond perched, glinting in the sunlight, on a pile of rubbish.

It must be so brilliantly crafted that it generates a tidal wave of buzz among readers, and then eventually the booksellers in the emerging small bookstores. Stories that booksellers will not only stock, but will go out of their way to recommend to the browsing shopper.

Writing Unplugged

This said, judging from most of what I see? The future is not looking too bright for most writers.

With the rise of self-publishing, it’s been too easy to skip the hard parts….like learning how to write well.

When I began as an editor almost twenty years ago, the samples I received were trying to pass a NY gatekeeper. Now? Most wouldn’t pass 7th grade English.

It’s downright depressing.

I encounter far too many ‘authors’ who know more about advertising and marketing than they know about story structure, POV, pacing, scene and sequel, etc.

Instead of reading, taking classes, applying what is learned to writing and then rewriting and practicing, too many authors are fixating on-line.

They’re more concerned about building numbers on their mailing list, their book covers matching their Facebook headers than whether or not the ‘books’ they’ve already produced are even readable.

They spend more time worrying if they should shift to Instagram than trying to understand why no one’s buying their existing books.

The hard truth is great writers do what anyone who’s a master at anything does. They make writing appear easy just like an Olympic gymnast makes the parallel bars seem easy.

Writing a novel is anything BUT easy. This is a skill that takes time, training, blood, sweat, tears, mentorship, and probably part of your soul to even become moderately good.

When we skip steps—either out of pride or impatience—there are consequences.

The most common consequence is our book will die a lonely death in obscurity. What is ignored offline will likely never thrive online. So YES…

Book Sales Unplugged

The technically correct answer is that we’ve long passed the event horizon that any sale happens off-line…technically. We’re living in a world that, short of a zombie apocalypse or a. nuclear war, the Internet will be a factor in the sale somewhere.

BUT…before the Internet ever gets a vote. Before Insta-Snap-Chat-Face-Twit is ever part of the equation, a story starts with us. The author.

Every sale happens offline when we write the book. Then, when the reader reads or listens to our story and our story makes their heart beat faster, keeps them up all night and generates so much excitement they cannot WAIT to tell someone?

That is the books sale unplugged. We have to get booksellers excited enough to be a street team without us even having to ask or offer an incentive.

They’ll VOLUNTEER. The best sales are always a passion project anyway.

In the meantime, READ, READ, READ. WRITE, WRITE, WRITE. READ, WRITE, FAIL, REPEAT!

And know I’ll never fuss at y’all without offering help .

Go to THIS BLOG where I have a long list of resources—who aren’t necessarily me—to help make y’all better legendary authors (blogs, books, classes, etc).

Give yourself some goodies for Christmas.

I also have some treats, like a BRAND NEW class I’ve never taught before, and it turned out FANTASTIC. ON DEMAND Dark Arts: HOLIDAY SPECIAL Building Your Villain is usually $55 and for the next few days is only $25. Three hours of psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, pathology and how that applies to writing.

It is like the Behavioral Analysis Unit for Authors. Tres FUN! Villains are some of the most enduring characters in literature. Why not add your own legends to the list?

I’m also offering ON DEMAND! Holiday Sale! Story Master: From Dream to DONE. This class is to train you how to plot whether you’re a plotter, a pantser or a mix of both. It’s also a crash course in creating dimensional characters.

I love hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of NOVEMBER, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages (5K words) of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or fewer). 

October’s Winner is Charlotte French.

November’s Winner is rachelwordsmith and thanks for the blog idea, too!

FYI, one page is 250 words. Calculate accordingly, please. Send your WORD doc double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 point font, one-inch margins to kristen at wana intl dot com. If I fail to respond within ten business days after sending, please know I am VERY human and send a follow up message. I may have lost your email or accidentally nuked it in my Hell’s Space Invader’s game.

In the meantime, PLEASE treat yourself to a class! We have a TON of classes that we will be deleting or putting into cold storage come January and will no longer be available. So STOCK UP while you can.

The BIG SPECIALS (other than what I mentioned above)

On Demand: Beyond Bulletproof HOLIDAY Barbie

Usually $55 and now only $25.

This is a THREE-HOUR class on guns, knives, weapons, fighting, law enforcement (from local cops to international espionage) and more. Everything you need to build a bad@$$—male OR female—and get the details CORRECT.

Spilling the HOLIDAY Tea: On Demand Blogging for Authors

Usually $75 and now only $40.

Get prepped and ready for the new year, new you, new blog.

New Classes

Tick Tock: How to Plot Mystery Suspense Series

Thursday, December 12th, 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST (NYC TIME). Use New20 for $20 off.

Can You Hear Me Now? Developing Character Voice

Friday, December 13th, 7:00-9:00 P.M. EST. Use New10 for $10 off.

NEW ON DEMAND CLASSES

Bite-Sized Fiction: How to Plot the Novella

Use New20 for $20 off

Why Are We HERE? Scenes That HOOK

Use New20 for $20 off

Popular On Demand Classes

The Art of Character: Writing Characters for a SERIES ON DEMAND

Use Binge10 for $10 off.

How do we create characters that readers will fall in love with, characters strong enough to go the distance? Find out in this THREE-HOUR class that also comes with detailed notes and a character-building template. 

This class dovetails with my previous class:

Bring on the Binge: How to Plot and Write a Series (ON DEMAND). Use Binge10 for $10 off.

Need some help with platform and branding?

Branding: WHEN YOUR NAME ALONE Can Sell (ON DEMAND)

Use brand10 for $10 off.

For the complete list, go to the OnDemand Section.

The post Unplugged Book Sales: Is It Possible to Sell Books Off-Line? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

My last post, Barnes & Noble SOLD: Goliath Has Fallen & What This Means for Writers, was a long and detailed journey explicating precisely how we’ve all ended up at this spot in history—writers, readers, bookstores, booksellers, publishers, investors, etc.

The big-box bookstores are dead for good until some @$$hat forgets what a bad idea they were and resurrects them again.

In the meantime…

Now that Borders is a distant memory and Barnes & Noble a recent casualty, many of us find ourselves balancing, terrified, on the precipice of the unknown.

This time of transition possesses a particularly acute terror reserved for pre-published and published authors.

Yet, in light of all this upheaval, I challenge authors to learn from New York Publishing’s—‘The Big Six’s’ mistakes.

One mistake in particular.

Authors are NOT Bookstores

New York failed to remember its identity, and that was the critical node that set off the cascading system failures.

Legacy publishing (namely the multi-national media conglomerates calling the shots) forgot that publishers were in the STORY and INFORMATION business.

As mentioned in my previous blog, legacy publishers were NOT in the ‘protect the paper industry’ or the ‘prop up incompetent book retailer’ business. This mission drift was a fatal one that steered them straight into the metaphorical rocks.

Publishers forgot they existed as edification and entertainment dealers. They had a simple three-part mission:

I. Explore, unearth and expand any and all forms of potentially valuable content.

II. Connect that content to any media distribution channels with potential for profit.

III. Nurture profitable avenues and locate any stagnant business tributaries. If these sluggish channels couldn’t be revived expeditiously, eliminate them before they festered.

PRIME DIRECTIVE: Publishers existed solely as gatekeepers, winnowers, distributors, and cultivators. They were there to PROTECT their RESOURCE (the authors), so as to best SERVE the CONSUMERS (audiences).

That was IT. Yet, they forgot their purpose and it cost them dearly.

Storytellers, Educators & Entertainers, Lend Me Your Ears….

Now, talking to my fellow creatives and content creators. I’ll simply use the term AUTHORS from this point on for the sake of simplicity.

Authors do love bookstores, but we are not in the bookstore business.

Yes, this is actually vastly important to remember.

Bookstores exist because of us and not the other way around. Authors existed long before bookstores and we’ll be here long after bookstores.

To reiterate. Authors are in the content creation business. Distribution is a whole other matter.

I know a lot of commenters expressed feelings of depression, dismay, discouragement after reading my last post. Today, I want to remind you who you are.

Authors, this is not our first rodeo…personal extinction.

My POV? Storytellers are actually the oldest profession. Or how else could the other alleged ‘oldest profession’ get enough business to brag about being the OLDEST profession?

But I digress….

Authors didn’t start out with large publishing houses that possessed a global distribution network to disseminate our work printed in fancy paper books to stores.

We evolved from bards, crones and sages who passed on stories and knowledge orally, namely through song (e.g. Psalms) then later via theatrical performance (e.g. the Greek tragedies).

In other parts of the world, some clever folks invented pictograms and ‘authors’ adapted. We either learned how to draw or made fast friends with someone talented enough to tell our stories using pictures of CATS.

Pyramids? Talk about EXPOSURE.

Later, Western civilization adopted this thing called ‘an alphabet’ from the Phoenicians.

***This alphabet gave authors the unique ability to point out how dismally ironic it is that the word ‘phonetic’ is in NO WAY spelled phonetically.

#HukdOnFonixWurkdForMe

With symbols, authors crafted the epic poems like Beowulf:

Authors have evolved from stories held only in memory to capturing them in pictures, to finally adopting abstract symbols that represent words and concepts.

Yes, it’s witchcraft. Can’t have spelling without a SPELL.

Think of it. To this day, authors create people, places, events, universes, empires, and religions that have never existed before we thought them up.

We do ALL this using various combinations of twenty-six letters.

More like twenty-three letters because Z, X, and Q are next to useless. Q always needing to borrow U to get anything done.

***rolling eyes***

The plain fact is that authors have ALWAYS had to find new ways to sing for their supper. In the beginning? We LITERALLY did this.

As time went on, we learned to attract patrons then publishers and producers who would financially support our art.

Suffice to say, we’ve had our world shift plenty of times and we’re still here and always will be (for those strong enough to survive the transition).

Bookstores & the Death of a Dream

A major reason Barnes & Noble’s fall has hit many so hard it is represents another dead dream. We’re grieving. It’s hard enough to do what we do without also fretting over the business side of the business (especially when they can’t seem to get their act together).

I think it’s fair to claim most authors have been in a perpetual state of terror (peppered with brief windows of hope) for far too long.

If you’re like me, maybe your sparkle’s been dimming and it’s taken everything not to give up.

Was writing even worth it anymore?

The big-box bookstores that were supposed to be so wonderful, only managed to crush our childhood dreams.

We mourned as we bade farewell to the bookstores that kindled our earliest desires to write. After the long good-byes, we moved on to a new normal.

I know I spent hours wandering the aisles of Barnes & Noble reconceptualizing what ‘making it’ looked like. Okay, so I’d never see my books in B. Dalton’s or Taylor’s or any of the small mom-and-pop bookstores from my youth, but that was life.

Fair was a weather condition.

I don’t know about y’all, but I imagined book signings, launch parties, my novels on pretty displays in actual bookstores. Yes, even Borders or Barnes & Noble.

Then Web 2.0 and the digital revolution arrived. NY and the big-box stores had every opportunity to maintain dominance. Instead, they rearranged deck chairs on the Titanic and pretended everything was jolly.

The Band Played On…

Like most pre-published authors, I fantasized about real author events, the ones where I’d read aloud to devoted fans from my latest book. I’d hug, shake hands and answer questions as I signed beautiful copies of my work fresh out of the box.

Those were the dreams that kept me going in my darkest hours when it made no sense to keep on writing. When everyone called me foolish and told me to get ‘a real job.’

I don’t think a single one of us daydreamed about favorable algorithms, a massive email newsletter list with a solid open rate, or a depressing spot for ten copies of our book on a Costco bargain table.

And I sure as hell never dreamed of working like an organ-grinding spider monkey for fractions of KU pennies.

None of us did.

This was why I wanted to point out how LONG ‘authors’ been around. We’ve been through major changes.

We took our lumps, hunkered down and waited it out as we learned how to thrive in a world with new rules. Every time our world has been turned on its ear, we survived and thrived…because we ADAPTED.

***For some eye-opening history of our industry, I recommend my posts ‘Real’ Writers Don’t Self-Publish and ‘Real’ Writers Don’t Self-Publish Part Two.

Change is Scary but Necessary

Publishers have faced similar apocalypses as well. Just think of all those monks who had to start hipster microbreweries once Gutenberg came on the scene.

Thanks a lot, Johannes. Now EVERYONE can be published.

***throws up quill and inkwell***

That, or they had to go to Vatican night school and learn how to type set.

While it’s impossible to wholly ignore the recent thanatoid shroud that’s settled over our industry, keep in mind that endings aren’t always a bad thing. Authors, of all people, should appreciate this.

Without endings, there can be no beginnings.

Any system that grows unchecked is wide open for disease, decline, and death. This is true in nature, in business, and even with bookstores.

Personally, I am GLAD Barnes & Noble finally bit it. They’ve been ‘dying’ for a like a friggin’ decade…so fair to say I’m way past over it.

Yes, it’s the end of an era—blah, blah, blah—but now we can finally move on!

The System is SICK

I’ve already relayed the long list of chronic ‘illnesses’ that plagued NY and spelled the decline if not death of The Big Six.

***Which originally was comprised of Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins and Hachette and other large traditional publishers, for those who don’t know.

I think the only issue I didn’t explore in any depth was in regards to the negative impact of so much talent pool inbreeding. Sure, being a blue blood has plenty of perks, but plenty more perils to go with them.

By publishers and elite lists propping up The Author Aristocracy decade after decade, there weren’t any new authors being folded in for younger generations to fall in love with.

I believe this is why we saw such an explosion in the Chick Lit and YA (Young Adult) categories that neatly paralleled the overall decline in numbers of readers.

Younger people didn’t want to read the same authors their parents loved. They couldn’t relate to the worlds, characters, and story problems in a Danielle Steele romance or a Clive Cussler techno-thriller the same way previous generations had.

There’s a fascinating article, Bias, She Wrote: The Gender Balance of The New York Times Best Seller List.

Take a look at The New York Times top authors by decade from the 1980s to present day. You’ll see the same names over and over, the list shrinking and almost no new talent and NO young talent making it to the top.

Seriously

Obviously, this puzzled me, so I asked my super smart friend Cindy Dees who’s a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fifty suspense and thriller novels (and a hybrid author) about J.K. Rowling and why she didn’t appear in these metrics.

Cindy’s answer?

‘J.K. Rowling blew up the NYTBS list so hard in 2001, they created an entirely new category for her to pry her out of the #1 spot.‘

A Tale of Brick-and-Mortar Bookstores & Bias

We already know that the big-box chains pre-negotiated which authors and what books would be allowed in the stores.

Yet, even as they were dying, Barnes & Noble continued to largely discriminate against indie authors and their books…even those that were selling better than their traditionally published counterparts.

My early social media books We Are Not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer were top performers.

Yet, I can’t tell you how many times I received frustrated emails from fans who’d gone into their local B&N to order a paper copy and were sent away (even though my books were listed with Ingram and had the appropriate ISBNs).

My perennial branding guide for authors, Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World has never graced a B&N shelf even though it’s earned almost a hundred and eighty positive (4 and 5 star) reviews.

I’ve actually keynoted at large events where the on-site B&N bookstores refused to order my books.

…which is kinda weird when you’re the one people have paid to see.

I know I’m not the only successful indie author who’s faced this challenge with brick-and-mortar stores (even ones that weren’t Borders/Barnes & Noble).

Brick-and-mortar stores are going to have to be open to selling good books, and stocking authors readers love and want regardless of pedigree.

First, we need fresh blood in the literary gene pool if people are going to ever get excited about reading again. That and our profession is about to marry a cousin and start playing banjo.

Secondly, consumers are searching for something fresh. What are the really getting? This meme says it best….

Digital Disease

Traditional publishing isn’t the only entity that’s created a mess. Sure, legacy publishers bred a certain kind of author to the point that, while they’re super pretty, they’re also prone to hip-dysplasia, neuroses, and they bite.

JOKING!

…mostly.

In the digital realm?

Amazon and other digital outlets have allowed untrained, unvetted, unteachable wanna-be writers to breed book titles faster than bunnies on fertility drugs.

In permitting this, they’ve dumped ‘History’s Largest Slush Pile’ into the readers’ laps.

The past several years have marked a time of unparalleled fraud where one’s ability to game algorithms and probe for cheats in the system for profit has trumped learning craft.

There are too many ‘writers’ more interested in mastering advertising and marketing instead of buckling down and learning about story-craft. They churn out ‘book’ after ‘book’ and can’t understand why readers aren’t lining up to throw money at unreadable junk.

An author’s job is to inspire, enlighten and entertain. We serve the reader (audience), not the other way around.

Audiences are under zero obligation to financially support poorly written, unedited wish-fulfillment fraudulently packaged as a novel.

The reason most ‘books’ aren’t selling has less to do with any lack in marketing or advertising budget, and a hell of a lot more to do with these so-called ‘books’ being an affront to the English language (and possibly other languages as well).

Spray paint a dog turd gold and all you have is a golden turd. The book industry stinks because we’re all up to our chins in literary turds hiding under fancy covers.

We all long to discover a new book, not step in one and have to scrape it off our Kindles.

Invasion of the Professional Amateur

This is a message for creators as well as publishers and bookstores.

Consumers will not tolerate a marketplace with such poor self-governance much longer.

Not when Netflix exists.

Amazon (and other digital outlets) need to get their act together and put in some sort of EFFECTIVE gatekeeping to restore faith with consumers.

As far as I can tell, the desire to offer some semblance of quality control was (is) a major force behind Amazon’s push to open brick-and-mortar stores.

The objective is to smart-stock stores regionally. Stock local authors and titles that sell well in that region regardless of pedigree.

Even Barnes & Noble 3.0 is looking to employ similar tactics in the near future. Waterfords’ C.E.O. James Daunt managed to resurrect the dying U.K. giant by changing how they did business.

He ditched the cookie-cutter standardization and let the managers of each store run their location almost like the owner of an independent bookstore.

According to a recent article on Inc. Hedge Fund Buys Barnes & Noble. It Could Be Very Good News for Customers by@MindaZetlin:

It (Waterstones) also pays close attention to what customers want in different locations—including a Russian language bookstore within its Piccadilly store, staffed entirely with Russian speakers.

Daunt plans to do the same with Barnes & Noble 3.0.

Wow! Who would have thought? A Barnes & Noble with books translated into Spanish staffed with Spanish-speaking employees in El Paso, TX?

***clutches pearls***

Meanwhile, Control What We Can Control

Yes, the publishing industry is a complete mess, but this mess is temporary.

A lot of the chaos today was the inevitable consequence from decades of bad business decisions (as well as the largest shift in communication since the invention of the Gutenberg press).

For generations, authors didn’t have a voice in the business of our business.

Now, we do.

I’ve been preaching since 2008 that WE ARE THE BRAND. Our brand—comprised of name, reputation and products (books)—is our most valuable asset. When our name alone can sell books, we don’t care who’s in charge because readers will come to US.

Does anyone really believe Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Nora Roberts, George R.R. Martin or Debbie Macomber will suddenly have their careers capsize because Barnes & Noble isn’t what it used to be?

Of course not.

Fans will simply search out bookstores and sellers who carry their favorite author brands.

Guess What? Writing is a JOB

Authors are in the entertainment business. Note the second half of that word is business. The new bookstores want to stock great stories/books readers want.

Our job?

Write the great stories/books readers want and build an online brand that cultivates a following and makes us easy (for bookstores) to find.

Brands are VITAL, especially in an age of a billion options. A brand is a promise. It guarantees a certain level of quality without the consumer (readers or bookstores) having to do a ton of research or thinking.

A good brand saves TIME.

In a world with limitless choices, we default to who we know and who we like.

Consumers look to Maserati, Honda, Ralph Lauren, Spalding, Harley Davidson, Levis, Hellman’s, MAC, Bulgari, Rolex, Apple, etc, etc. because they trust the name says it all. The name implies a certain level of implicit quality.

Case in point: Bergdorf’s versus Walmart.

Brands allow time-starved consumers to quickly locate what they want/need. Most of us are willing to spend the extra dollar or two on Heinz 57 ketchup instead of trying the cheaper catsup.

We don’t want to risk being disappointed.

The beauty of a brand is that we (authors) no longer have to compete solely on PRICE. Our names become valuable, so we can avoid the race to the bottom of who can give away the most for free or nearly free.

We DO OUR JOB & Help Bookstores Do Theirs

If we want to be a successful (or at least respected) author, it’s incumbent upon us to learn the nuts and bolts of our profession.

I can’t count how many ‘published books’ I’ve seen that wouldn’t pass high school English, let alone a NY gatekeeper.

Serious authors learn grammar and how to spell (or hire those who can correct it for them).

I get there are those who are hopelessly dyslexic or who simply never mastered spelling or grammar. But, professionals are aware these are weaknesses and plan accordingly.

They don’t use ‘I’m a terrible speller’ or ‘I don’t understand grammar’ as a pass to publish books that give readers a brain bleed.

Serious authors embrace education and training.

There’s that old saying, ‘What do you call a writer who never gives up? Author.’

Great quote but VASTLY outdated. It’s from a time there were gatekeepers to pop bad writers on the snoot until they either gave up or got better.

These days, practice is essential but we need training, too. Practice is not enough.

If I go hit ten thousand golf balls without any training on how to swing a club, it doesn’t make me Tiger Woods. It makes me an idiot who likely needs a good back surgeon.

And before anyone shouts me down, if you were accused of murder would you hire a person who never attended law school to represent you?

How about hiring a mechanic who’d never successfully changed oil to repair your transmission?

But he’s seen every single Fast & Furious movie twenty times! Why so judgmental?

And yet, there are writers who brag about never reading fiction (even their own genre) and gloat about how they’ve never read a craft book or taken a class.

Too often these same ‘writers’ are mystified why their books are not selling.

Must be the marketing plan. Not a big enough budget.

Anyway, once we learn how to write, and create a superlative product(s), we then have to cultivate the platform and create the brand.

Though hopefully you’re doing all this simultaneously.

Trust me, you do NOT want to have a book ready for sale and no platform and no brand. What is a brand?

A brand is when a name alone has the power to drive sales.

Tiffany & Co.

Neil Gaiman.

Deepak Chopra.

Again, writing great books is a HUGE part of the job, but the other part involves creating a platform and brand. This is also where I hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

But all I want to do is write the books.

Don’t we all?

A properly constructed brand only grows stronger over time. Authors with a solid brand have freedom, flexibility, resilience, and they also have a lot of very lucrative ways to bring in income other than books.

J.K. Rowling became a billionaire because of her brand. She didn’t make over a billion dollars on book sales alone.

Her Harry Potter brand earned (and continues to earn) hundreds of millions from movies, merchandising, and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, and more.

There are some amazing changes in the industry, and a solid brand is what makes the difference between missing the train and driving it. Within the next few years, it will be the best time in history to be a trusted author.

I won’t discuss all those avenues here, though I do detail some of them in my classes.

The Bookstores of the Future

Will have the same goal as all bookstores in the past—connect readers to books they’re willing to BUY…then come and BUY MORE.

Suffice to say that bookstores will have to be able to FIND an author before they can decide if they like the author.

Barnes & Noble has already proven that stocking shelves solely with legacy published novels is no panacea. Too many known and beloved authors are not coming from the traditional path.

Bookstores will have to get a good mix of authors from all origins if they hope to be competitive.

This means that those managers in charge of the new Barnes & Noble stores, the upcoming Amazon brick-and-mortar bookstores, as well as the managers of those indie bookstores that have been thriving despite the on-line competition will stock the authors (books) they like and KNOW (code for they have a brand).

This could be any one of you guys, so no long faces anymore.

I truly believe we will see new gatekeepers emerge and the up-and-coming bookstores will do a lot better job. Hard to do a crappier one.

Eventually I believe a spot in bookstores will be part of what separates the professional from the poseur.

This said…

An Insider Tip: Publishers haven’t had a major disruptor (a runaway game-changer) in over FIVE years. 50 Shades of Grey was the last dark horse, and publishers are desperate for that new author who breaks in and turns the world inside out…in a good way.

This disruptor could be you. Why not?

In the meantime, our job is to write excellent books readers will love and cultivate that on-line brand and platform.

Feel free to get a copy of Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World if you want a step-by-step book how to build a resilient brand that grows as you grow.

I created the book to be evergreen. It doesn’t rely on technology and is technophobe friendly (and funny). Social media changes, but humans never do.

OR you can scroll down and I have a long list of On Demand craft classes AND social media, sales and branding classes on CLEARANCE. Summer sale!

Everything y’all need to make your mark in this next phase of bookstore history .

What are your thoughts?

I LOVE hearing from you!

Are you tired of the digital revolution and the giant landfill of crap? Weary of all the focus on gaming the system instead of writing good books?

Tired of a system that almost FORCES authors to fixate on gaming strategies instead of solid writing?

Are you excited that the remnant independent bookstores and new, reimagined indie bookstores are on the rise? Does this news help ease the depression/panic you might have felt last post?

While my next post likely will tackle gatekeepers of the future and the reinvention of bookstores (in more depth) what are your ideas?

What are some ways that we can establish some NEW and hopefully IMPROVED system of finding the diamonds buried the literary landfill?

Thanks SO MUCH for all the comments last time. I promise, we’ll get back to shorter posts once the smoke clears.

Just FYI, I will have to free up space on our servers. All my classes come with a free recording. This said, I’ve put selected recordings on CLEARANCE until new classes begin.

This not only is to help y’all get the training you need (affordable summer school), but it will open up room for the new recordings of new classes.

Please take advantage of the sale! I rarely drop prices this low.

After July 17th, these classes will no longer be for sale (and will be slated for deletion).

Some, I will offer again later in the year. Others? I won’t be offering again the same way (will be likely splitting them into two classes because they ran long).

Thanks so much for your support!

ON DEMAND CLEARANCE ON BRANDING & CRAFT CLASSES!

Available until July 17, 2019

CLEARANCE Branding, Social Media & Sales Classes

ON DEMAND T.K.O. BUNDLE: Branding, Blogging & Sales for Authors

$99 (Regularly $165)

ON DEMAND Brand Boss: Branding for Authors

$35 (Regularly $55)

ON DEMAND Sales for Writers: Sell Books Not Your SOUL

$35 (Regularly $55)

ON DEMAND Blogging for Authors

$35 (Regularly $55)

Also Offering:

ON DEMAND Social Schizophrenia: Building a Brand WITHOUT Losing Your Mind

$35 (Regularly $55)

CLEARANCE Craft Classes

Plot Boss: Writing Books Readers Want to BUY!

$35 (Regularly $55)

Fiction Addiction: The ‘Secret’ Ingredient Readers Crave

$35 (Regularly $55)

Story Master: From Dream to DONE

$35 (Regularly $55)

The Art of Character: Creating Dimensional ‘People’ in Fiction

$35 (Regularly $55)

Beyond Bulletproof Barbie: Creating Strong Female Characters for a Modern World

$35 (Regularly $55)

The post The Death of Ye Olden Bookstores & the Author Identity Crisis appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Ah, the book business. So many shifts and changes since the day I set out to become a novelist…and ended up a social media expert, blogger, teacher and self-appointed author crusader. I’ve dedicated millions of words and countless hours of research to guide y’all through the massive changes in the publishing industry.

My goal was (and is) to do everything I could to shelter you (writers) from predators I knew would prey on your fears. Three books and thirteen hundred posts later…

It’s been an honor to serve and shepherd you guys through the largest changes in human history and in publishing. Frankly, without you guys, I might have given up ages ago. Thank you so much for being there for me! We are not alone, right?

After years of upheaval, good news is…I think we’re almost there.

*angels sing*

The Long Road Unknown

Deep down I knew the little guys would win if we just held our ground. It’s why I’ve gone to the mattresses time after time against predation, fraud, usury, deception, and greed. Why I’ve created strategies that empowered authors in branding, social media, and platform building.

The only side I’ve ever taken has been the writers’.

I think it’s fair to say most of us (writers) have been in a perpetual state of terror (peppered with brief windows of hope) for far too long. If you’re like me, maybe your sparkle’s been dimming.

Would we really ever taste freedom? Was writing even worth it anymore? This ‘new age’ that was supposed to be so wonderful had only managed to crush our childhood dreams.

Don’t know about you, but I dreamed of book signings, launch parties, my novels on pretty displays in an actual store. I imagined a real book signing with devoted fans I’d be able to meet face-to-face. Those were the dreams that kept me going in my darkest hours when it made no sense to keep on writing.

I don’t think a single one of us fantasized about favorable algorithms, a massive mailing list with a solid open rate, or a depressing spot for ten copies of our book on a Costco bargain table. And I sure as hell never dreamed of working like an organ-grinding spider monkey for fractions of KU pennies.

None of us did.

I kept wondering how we could possibly be in a Golden Age for creatives when it FELT like an Ice Age. How was this possible? Now? I believe I know that answer.

It’s because a Publishing Cold War has been raging…and it’s all about to play out.

Clash of the Titans

Since the birth of Web 2.0, two superpowers have been gridlocked in a Publishing Cold War: Amazon vs. Traditional. There have been major upheavals, great wins, and massive casualties. Meanwhile, a lot of writers huddled under our desks doing drills. Here’s how to kiss our @$$es goodbye!

Cheer up!

It’s all on the verge of playing out and it’s an incredibly bright future for writers who can position properly (high-quality books, large vested platform, solid brand). Great news is we writers control all three of these factors ;).

Last time we discussed The Success Paradox, and we’ll continue those lessons. But I can’t help you win a game if I don’t show you the whole board. I think by the end of his post, you’ll see why I believe writers finally have MUCH to celebrate. Bear with me. I’m cramming 20 years of publishing changes into this post so you can fully appreciate the vista we never thought we’d live to see.

I know you’re going to LOVE IT!

Why Listen to Me?

I’ve called virtually every major market shift in publishing years before said ‘shift’ happened. Among too many other predictions to mention (which came true) I forecasted the contraction of the Big Six and that Amazon would open brick-and-mortar stores on May 2, 2012.

I reiterated this Amazon prediction at the end of 2012 .

Amazon has become a name to be feared when it comes to e-commerce, but there are still limitations to selling on-line. Also, in my opinion, Amazon Publishing is the woman in the red dress who finally wants a ring. She wants to be legit, and the only way to do this is to have a physical presence in a bookstore.

Commenters called me crazy. But just because I was crazy didn’t mean I wasn’t also correct. Amazon opened their first brick-and-mortar in Seattle in November of 2015, three and a half years after I blogged this would happen.

*gets cramp patting self on back*

Know the Business of Our BUSINESS

Now, do I have magical powers or some under-the-table deal with Satan that allows me to see with this kind of accuracy? Nope. My degree trained me as a political analyst then my early career in industrial paper sales taught me to think like a business analyst. I never could have imagined how this job was preparing me for a future I’d never considered.

Back in the day, I had a nine-state territory that also included Northern Mexico, which I drove…in a CAR. On top of that, I had to meet a minimum yearly sales quota of two million dollars. That is a LOT of freaking paper, by the way. A lot of driving, too. I’ve logged more miles than most truckers. Eighty thousand miles in one year.

My job required that I be able to look at the market as a whole then, using countless data points, hazard good guesses. The better my ‘guesses’ the greater my chances of making or exceeding quota. Unless I wanted to waste a lot of time and even more gas, I had to be able to predict where the best business would be that month, in six months and the following year(s).

When It ALL Goes Horribly Wrong

I’d just about hit my stride and figured out my new job when the cost of steel skyrocketed, which shot our largest customers’ operational costs through the roof (the shipping industry). Back then, these companies used our cardboard to protect and stabilize inventory, which they then secured with steel banding.

Super cheap steel banding meant these customers had always been able to purchase regular truckloads of paper. Alas, those big bread-and-butter orders vanished literally overnight.

Dutifully, I redid my forecasting to account for this…setback. I could do it. Keep…pressing….

Then the 9/11 attacks.

*taps out*

I could still forecast, but maybe too well. All my predictions ended with plant closures and me out of a job. With war imminent in the Middle East, it was only a matter of time until the price of gas skyrocketed.

Paper is heavy, meaning it burns a lot of fuel. Didn’t take a genius to see trucking our heavy @$$ product was going to plunge us deep in the red.

This all does a lot to explain the stress illnesses that effectively ended my career in sales.

Blood Lessons

This experience taught me countless painful but priceless lessons—blood lessons—which I’ve been applying to the book business since 2004. It’s true. Sometimes there are factors we can’t control which will impact our capacity to sell, but that’s no excuse.

To be successful in business, even the book business, it’s critical to do as much as possible to limit the impact of outside forces that control or limit earning ability. I learned this in paper sales and it’s how I could see why and how Amazon eventually was going to take over.

One major reason Amazon has been kicking legacy tail for years is that legacy publishing had/has too many outside forces beyond their control that impact profit. Namely, they’re business model depends heavily on the big-box bookstores.

In the late 90s, Borders and Barnes & Noble, in an act of unrepentant greed, obliterated the small indie bookstores. This move also wiped out the author middle class. The Big Six was all for these giant stores reinventing the book business because literacy and choices and…literacy!

Sure.

Or maybe it had to do with all the 26,000 square foot stores crouched on every corner that required a crap ton of physical inventory. Megastores meant massive preorders and unprecedented control over which authors/books were positioned where. I’m not judging. It was a sweet business move for the time.

Publishing Oligarchy

Heavy hitter household names obviously garnered premium displays/locations and the largest guaranteed preorders. Didn’t you ever wonder how some mega author’s book could be a #1 New York Times Best Seller when the actual book wasn’t even yet available to READ?

I know I did.

The megastores also made sure to carry these authors’ backlists. Essentially, authors who were already multi-millionaires made even more millions. To be clear, I love it when writers make millions, even if they’re making more millions. My main gripe has always been this ‘success’ came at the expense of those authors who were not yet household names.

And, under this big-box bookstore model, they never would be.

Hell, Tom Clancy DIED in 2013, but ‘Clancy’ is still putting out books as of November 2017.

#NotCreepyAtAll

Let Them Eat Cake

If one happened to be a mid-list author or a new author? Sucked to be you. Mid-list authors who’d been making a good living wage had to get a day job because, in the spirit of a ‘browsing experience,’ most backlists were mothballed (taken out of print).

Readers could get copies but only in secondary markets (used books) where the authors made no royalties. Since the mid-list authors’ backlists were no longer gracing shelves in the primary market (new books), these authors suddenly were struggling to make a decent living.

Also without the market saturation that goes part and parcel with having a robust backlist in circulation, there was little to no chance of ever making mega status the old fashioned way.

The Author Homecoming Court had already been chosen, and apparently even death can’t free up space.

New writers? Spine out on a shelf and pray your last name didn’t start at crotch level or lower. Tragically metaphoric.

Reap What You Sow

In the 90s, gas was super cheap which contributed to the rise of the big-box store boom. Problem is, what happens when karma catches up?

Was it really necessary for Borders and Barnes & Noble to drive virtually every last mom and pop store and small chain out of business? The answer is NO. No it was not.

Remember, I mentioned paper is heavy? #Irony

Apparently folks in charge forgot Business 101. Markets are not static and operational costs can change in the blink of an eye. Physical books have to be shipped to physical stores. Gas prices go up? Profits plunge.

Then there was this thing board members of Borders and Barnes & Noble probably should’ve paid better attention to in the late 90s: the imminent rise of a user-friendly Internet and the very real threat of viable e-commerce.

While the bookstore moguls might have dismissed these ideas as science fiction Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Bill Gates took it all very seriously.

*has mental image of these guys coming together like those robot lions that form Voltron*

Anyway…

Borders’ death wasn’t a shock to me. It’s hard for me to be anything but frustrated watching Barnes & Noble continue to bleed out. Oh, and trust me, they are. I ran the numbers and from 2008 to 2017 B&N was forced to close an average of 21 stores a year. In 2008, they had 798 stores and as of September 2017 B&N was down to 634 stores, according to Forbes.

The latest CEO in a string of failures has come up at least one answer to what ails them. Barnes & Noble needs…smaller stores.

Also, the newest plan to save the Barnes & Noble bookstore is to sell mostly everything BUT books (vinyl records, toys, gifts, etc.).

*silently screams*

The Publishing Cold War

Earlier I mentioned one tenet of business success: Do as much as possible to limit the impact of outside forces that control or limit earning ability.

Amazon did this. By mastering e-commerce, they controlled overhead, were highly maneuverable, and outside forces had limited and manageable influence over them. Borders and Barnes & Noble failed to do this, as mentioned earlier.

Another tenet of business success is to never take on your competition in the area where they hold major advantage. 

Amazon also understood this, which is why they waited until 2015 to open their first brick-and-mortar store. Barnes & Noble, however, decided to duke it out with one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies in the very arena Amazon built.

Barnes & Noble forgot it was in the book business, and not a tech company. They launched the Nook which has been nothing but a black hole sucking in millions and tanking stocks…a financial hemorrhage that’s been a major factor driving so many store closures.

Barnes & Noble got target fixation and bought Amazon’s feint…hook, line and sinker. Amazon had them (and a lot of other people) wholly convinced most consumers preferred to shop on-line.

Not necessarily…

Consumers are People

People. Not numbers or data points. Readers are flesh and blood humans. Humans like to browse, touch, hold, feel, etc. We are social and tactile by nature. I knew that, which is why I wagered Amazon had a very different game plan than most folks believed.

All of this is purely conjecture, but I think I make a solid case.

Amazon convincing B&N they had no choice BUT to compete on-line reminds me of Reagan convincing the USSR that America could nuke them from space.

The more money B&N shoveled into e-commerce, the more their physical store presence shrank to cover losses. All of this played right into the Amazon’s long game. From what I can see, I believe Amazon’s objective was to force the competition to cannibalize itself…and vacate the precise market they WANTED.

Brick-and-mortar.

Once the big-boxes were down to a certain number, then Amazon would open their own small bookstores. A lot of them. And they wouldn’t have to cater to the Big Five’s demands or worry about any big-box competition.

***Oh, and they used the time bludgeoning megastores to perfect algorithms to prepare for smart-stocking their future stores.

Humans Never Change

Why Hubby and I are no longer allowed back at Home Depot….

What Barnes & Noble never realized is that humans generally prefer what’s easiest. If there aren’t any bookstores close to us, then we’ll shop on-line. Again, in 2012, I wrote a post I’d hoped B&N would read and heed, regarding small being the new big.

I pointed out that consumers wanted bookstores that were convenient. We wanted physical bookstores, but we weren’t willing to drive to the next fricking city for a ‘browsing experience.’

Especially since these big guys haven’t been an experience since about 2001. They were Applebee’s…but with books and no french fries. Same look, same books *yawns*. Displays weren’t curated by passionate and autonomous sales clerks. Every inch of real estate was pre-negotiated and mapped out.

Anyway, I’d say Amazon counted on Barnes & Noble’s hubris. The best way B&N could have kicked @$$ years ago was to open up small bookstores in strip malls…just like the ones they’d obliterated.

But, alas, pride comes before the fall.

In the October 21, 2016 article in The New Yorker, What Barnes & Noble Doesn’t Get About Bookstores, Leonard Riggio, the man who bought Barnes & Noble forty-five years ago and turned it into a giant finally conceded this mistake:

The No. 1 consideration of where someone will shop is how close it is to where they are. It has nothing to do with pedigree or branding. If there’s no bookstore close to them, they’re more likely to buy online. If there’s one close, they’re more likely to buy if it’s a block away.

 

Amazon & The Long Game

Why would I bother trying to help Barnes & Noble time and again despite how they’ve hurt writers? Again, let’s hop in our blog DeLorean and visit—you got it—2012. Something about that year. Mayans maybe? *shakes head*

I wrote a post called Amazon: Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts. Feel free to go read the post in its entirety, but to save you clicking over, I’ve copied the salient parts from a post that is SIX years old.

I really hope New York gets its act together, because, once the competition falls away and Amazon burns New York to the ground? What happens to the writer? What happens when we fall asleep and it is safe for Amazon’s Trojan Horse to unleash the gorilla?

Amazon right now is in the courting phase with writers, and it is using us (writers) as a weapon to kill our former masters. Ah, but if Amazon really gets its way…what then?

When NY is razed and Amazon has no real competition, do they have to keep giving us the same sweet royalty rate? What happens when it’s Amazon’s turn to hold all the keys to the kingdom? Will they use them any differently than those they crushed to gain them?

Still a good question, which is why that platform is so vital. If Amazon goes cray-cray, we have the power to walk away. Yet, for the record, I support legacy publishers and I’m cool with Amazon. I love great books and don’t care how they’re published or by whom. I buy a lot of books from both of them.

It’s monopolies that give me hives.

Back to Book Business

While the masses screamed Amazon was killing the bookstore, I was betting differently. Frankly Amazon couldn’t kill something that was pretty much already dead.

Borders and B&N had already decimated indie bookstores and small chains. Amazon wasn’t out to kill bookstores, it was out to kill the big-box bookstores…then replace them.

Why writers need to pay attention to this new shift is that Amazon is about to be top dog in e-commerce as well as brick-and-mortar. This means that platform/branding thing becomes a whole lot more important. So does the writing really amazing books . But, if Amazon is not your beer, I have wonderful news!

You’ve Got Mail (Alternate Ending)

Who would have guessed the end of You’ve Got Mail wasn’t the end of The Shop Around the Corner?

Nature abhors a vacuum and while Amazon was doing it’s big power play, little guys slipped in and did what entrepreneurs do best. They got creative. Independent bookstores are exploding in popularity and readers are thrilled to have their local bookstores back…only way better.

The Indie Bookstore 2.0 is a very different creature. Some have wine bars, cocktail hours, flower shops, cafes or even microbreweries. The imagination knows no bounds. There are culinary bookstores dedicated to cookbooks that hold cooking classes and have fully stocked kitchens so customers can try out merchandise.

Some stores are architectural works of art, their owners passionately vested in creating spaces humans want to gather and hang out. Hubs for communities to come together and klatsche.

We agree, Kathleen. Whatever anything is, it ought to begin by being personal and enterprising new indie bookstores concur.

Now these entrepreneurs have actually enhanced the bookstore experience. Check out Novel in Memphis, Tennessee, BookBar in Denver, Colorado, and Read It & Eat in Chicago, Illinois.

Shoppers have wanted bookstores all along (and we’d long ago lost our fascination with cheap). Heck, Amazon has a bazillion crappy books we could download free. No, these next-generation indie stores handcraft their selections. Salespeople are well-read experts who love books, who are empowered regarding book placement. In many of these stores, premium spots are non-negotiable and not for sale.

The books readers want and salespeople love grace the best spots. Don’t know about you, but I’m giddy. It’s like the Chess Club finally has a real shot at the Homecoming Court, LOL.

Raise Your Glass!

Readers and writers win! This new generation indie bookstore is not chained to the Big Five or beholden to Amazon, though very friendly to both. These bookstores don’t care about pedigree, they care about what books readers want to read. The give no figs if authors are published via legacy, traditional, small press, indie or self-pub. Their sole loyalty is to their customers (readers) and to the authors their customers love.

Kind of like the good old days only now we have nibblies, and wine .

I LOVE Hearing From YOU

What are your thoughts about the changes ahead in the book business? Me? I’m almost giddy! Imagine all the creative types of independent bookstores. Bookstores with only fitness and nutrition, healthy living and wellness books that hold yoga classes and bootcamps in the parking lot. Science fiction and fantasy bookstores that carry gaming and D&D supplies, Cosplay costume classes, or demonstrations on sword fighting. Mystery bookstores that include a Mind Maze experience, too?

Now THIS is a bookstore future I can get fired up about! Vindication! Good books win! A social media platform that is social and focused on people and relationships matters! (Told you guys to ignore all that newsletter algorithmic alchemy crap). This is fantastic news. Unlike the B. Dalton days, we can cultivate passionate fans willing to pay retail ahead of time instead of relying on BLIND LUCK. *does cabbage patch dance*

I love hearing from you and am not above bribery!

What do you WIN? For the month of JANUARY, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

NEW CLASSES!

Master Class: How to Write a Series

Taught by Kristen Lamb AND Cait Reynolds…together…in same room. It’ll be fun! Class is NEXT FRIDAY January 19th, 7-10 PM EST in our W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom. $75 for a three hour class of intensive education and lots of shenanigans.

A free recording is included with class purchase…though we reserve the right to edit out anything that can and will be used against us in a court of law.

Your Life as a Story: How to Write a Memoir

Friday, January 26th 7-9 PM EST in the W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom with USA Today Best-Selling Author Cait Reynolds. Class is $65 and a free recording is provided with purchase.

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