Sunday, July 7, 2013

Publishing Hoops

Nudist Cruise has been out for a week and it already went to #22 in one of its categories. I can't believe it.

I don't generally pay much attention to sales figures, but I might look into it from time to time when a new book is out. Hailey's Bali Diary went up to #4 for about a minute, but that was after it had already been out for a while. A friend told me the new book will sell faster because there is nudity on the cover, but Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other sites have plenty of books with a lot more nudity. Some of the covers are more graphic than I thought they would allow.

I don't know how I feel about that. The cover doesn't have nudity to make it sell faster. It's there because it goes with the story. The cover for the Bali book has nothing to do with the story, but this one is more representative. Naked or not, I like the Bali cover better.

I'm not doing this to make money. If you want to make a lot of money, don't write books. There are far too many other books for far too few readers. If Stephenie Meyer writes another vampire book, it will be in every bookstore and on every website. Most of us will never get that kind of coverage. I suppose that's the way it should be, from a business perspective. Retailers make more money from the blockbuster franchises. They will never make much money from anything I ever do.

I don't mind the fact that I'll never be an international bestseller. I'm not even a writer. This isn't what I do. What I write isn't everyone's cup of tea, just like those vampire books aren't for everybody either. I just think it would be better if the people who would want to read it had some way to know that it exists. Every bookstore would make far more money if they promoted more than just the top seller. It's like movie theaters that only show the same five movies as all the other theaters and then complain that people don't go out to see movies anymore. Hundreds of movies are made every year, but you would never know it if you only looked at your local theater.

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