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Author Picks Fight with Harry Potter

This is a curious approach.

Joe Vitale’s book “The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for Creating Wealth (or anything else) From the Inside Out” (Wiley, $29.95) hit #2 at Amazon and #2 at Barnes and Noble yesterday.

The latest Potter book – still unreleased – is #1.

His method has been grassroots and (he says) inexpensive:

First: He made an offer few could refuse. Go to http://www.mrfire.com/factor and you’ll see a list of 23 bonuses – “ethical bribes,” Vitale calls them – for anyone who buys his book today. This encourages sales in one day. Many people are buying hundreds of copies to support the author.

Second: He has used allies to win the war. Vitale contacted owners of large lists and asked them to do a mailing for him. Most agreed, knowing it would be good publicity for them to be involved in Vitale’s one-man underground campaign to sell books.

Third: Friends of his posted a creative auction on EBay to sell two million books in one week. Whether he does it or not will have to be seen. See the listing at http://www.JasonMangrum.com/2MillionCopiesSoldOnEbay/

Not sure if he’s footing the bill for the 4 day/3 night Caribbean cruise (worth $800) of if he got someone to donate it.

This technique may work for the nonfiction author who relies on a writing/speaking/consulting triumvirate, but what about the fiction novelist struggling for publicity? Hmmmm…

Art and Soul Conference

Art & Soul
Tomorrow I’ll be working a booth at the Baylor Art and Soul Conference. Check back tomorrow and the rest of the week for updates as we offer daily coverage of this Christian Writers’ conference!

Oh, and if you’re coming to the conference and you’re not from Texas, please note the big news on Baylor’s campus: the Baylor Lady Bears yesterday won the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

Final Score: Baylor 84, Michigan State 62

This was their first time to the Final Four, and is the school’s first title in women’s basketball. Baylor ended the season with 20 straight wins and became the first Big 12 team to win a championship in women’s basketball. The 22-point margin represented the second-largest ever in the women’s title game.

You have to know this information before they will let you on campus for the conference I think… 🙂

The On Demand Dilemma

Online retail giant Amazon.com has acquired BookSurge, which maintains a catalog of thousands of print on demand book titles.

Greg Greeley, vice president of media products for Amazon.com says:

Print-on-demand has changed the economics of small-quantity printing, making it possible for books with low and uncertain demand to be profitably produced

Is this a good thing for writers? Depends. Often the perception of Print On Demand books is they are self-published, poorly edited books rejected by mainstream publishers. But this in not necessarily true. Best sellers such as “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “Chicken Soup for the Soul” were originally self-published. Most of these successful self-published works were non-fiction pieces the authors marketed heavily. What about fiction? There are some success stories, but they are few and far between.

Greeley continues:

BookSurge makes it possible to print books that appeal to targeted audiences, whether it’s one copy or one thousand…thanks to print-on-demand, ‘out of print’ is out of date.

In general, don’t self-publish fiction if you think it will enhance your resume. But if you’re writing a highly-targeted non-fiction book and you don’t mind doing all the marketing yourself, this can be a great medium.

Christian Writer’s Blogs for Dummies, anyone?

Read Full Article

Using Index Cards

Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anchor, 1995) mentions how how she uses index cards for more than just composition:

I have index cards and pens all over the house—by the bed, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, by the phones, and I have them in the glove compartment of my car. I carry one with me in my back pocket when I take my dog for a walk. In fact, I carry it folded lengthwise, if you need to know, so that, God forbid, I won’t look bulky. You may want to consider doing the same. I don’t even know you, but I bet you have enough on your mind without having to worry about whether or not you look bulky. So whenever I am leaving the house without my purse—in which there are actual notepads, let alone index cards—I fold an index card lengthwise in half, stick it in my back pocket along with a pen, and head out, knowing that if I have an idea, or see something lovely or strange or for any reason worth remembering, I will be able to jot down a couple of words to remind me of it. Sometimes, if I overhear or think of an exact line of dialogue or a transition, I write it down verbatim. I stick the card back in my pocket. I might be walking along the salt marsh, or out at Phoenix Lake, or in the express line at Safeway, and suddenly I hear something wonderful that makes me want to smile or snap my fingers—as if it has just come back to me—and I take out my index card and scribble it down.

Quote courtesy of mleddy.blogspot.com.

What Frank Peretti Watches & Reads

Check out this interview with Frank Peretti. When someone’s sold 12 million books, it’s worth learning some lessons from their habits.

He sees movies as a great way to lean the craft of storytelling:

I don’t watch television. Barb and I disconnected the TV years ago. We watch a lot of movies, practically every night. I watch them to see how the story is handled. It’s like in music when you listen to others who play your instrument to learn how they play it. You learn by observing others.

And note the secular fiction he reads:

…Michael Crichton — I like the way he constructs his story, his cinematic style and his eye for detail. He’s easy and fun to read, he moves his stories along. He’s always in a techno-thriller thing and I like that kind of thing. Mostly, I just like the way he handles his craft. I also like John Grisham. He’s a pretty good writer. I read a little Dean Koontz every now and then. I read a little Stephen King because I keep being compared to him. I can’t see the comparison.

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