Authors

What Does It Take To Be A “Bestselling Author”? $3 and 5 Minutes

Gone are the days of having to be selected to put out a book. Gone are the days of having to go to a bookstore to see what is available. Now you can check online, with real time reviews, AND, real time “bestseller” rankings. It’s unsurprising that as the barriers to entry for the book business went down, so did the quality of the books being produced. These days, over one million books are published each year, with at least half of these self-published. So it’s almost obvious that, given the volume, you could game your way to the top of a category with very few sales. And yet, in spite of the fact that it’s as easy as I’ve shown to become an Amazon best-seller, those same people get to cash in on the goodwill and prestige build up in the title “bestselling author.” 

From What Does It Take To Be A “Bestselling Author”? $3 and 5 Minutes. | Observer

Gone are the days of having to be selected to put out a book. Gone are the days of having to go to a bookstore to see what is available. Now you can check online, with real time reviews, AND, real time “bestseller” rankings. It’s unsurprising that as the barriers to entry for the book business went down, so did the quality of the books being produced. These days, over one million books are published each year, with at least half of these self-published. So it’s almost obvious that, given the volume, you could game your way to the top of a category with very few sales. And yet, in spite of the fact that it’s as easy as I’ve shown to become an Amazon best-seller, those same people get to cash in on the goodwill and prestige build up in the title “bestselling author.” 

From What Does It Take To Be A “Bestselling Author”? $3 and 5 Minutes. | Observer

February 25, 2016 by Authors Internet

Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, dies aged 89

Author whose 1961 novel became a defining text of 20th century literature and of racial troubles in the American south has died in Monroeville, Alabama

From Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, dies aged 89 | Books | The Guardian

Author whose 1961 novel became a defining text of 20th century literature and of racial troubles in the American south has died in Monroeville, Alabama

From Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, dies aged 89 | Books | The Guardian

February 19, 2016 by Authors

Authors Guild Petitions Supreme Court to Rule on Google Copying Millions of Books Without Permission

Today, the Authors Guild, the nation’s largest and oldest society of professional writers, filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the United States requesting that it review a lower court ruling that allowed Google, Inc. to copy millions of copyright-protected books without asking for authors’ permission or paying them. At stake, the Guild claims, is the right of authors to determine what becomes of their works in the digital age. Read the full press release here.

From Authors Guild Petitions Supreme Court to Rule on Google Copying Millions of Books Without Permission – The Authors Guild

January 5, 2016 by Authors Books Google Technology

American Libraries Edits Upset Authors

We probably do not need to spell out why we are disappointed by this but, just for the record, we have two major problems:

These were not superficial changes and the editors at American Libraries should have spoken to us before publishing them.
More substantially, we feel it is grossly inappropriate for a magazine that is supposed to represent libraries and librarians to insinuate a vendor’s perspective directly into an article without the authors’ knowledge or permission. This is especially true when the vendor has a very obvious financial motive for being part of the conversation.
Let us state for the record that we did not speak to anyone at Gale/Cengage about this article, we had no role in developing or carrying out the survey, we did not see those quotes prior to publication and would not have included them in our article if we had.

Importantly, our problem is not with Gale/Cengage but with the way American Libraries is handling their relationship with them in the context of the article we wrote.

From Um … about that American Libraries article we wrote | Stewart Varner

January 5, 2016 by Authors Libraries

Want to get your male students to read? Become an action fiction author

The classrooms of Chris Raabe and John Kalkowski sit on opposite ends of the hall in Millard’s Andersen Middle School.

During the day they teach seventh-graders — Raabe, English, and Kalkowski, reading. On nights, weekends and summers, they write young adult fiction — sci-fi- and action-infused book series aimed at the same age group they’re teaching. And each job feeds the other.

Writing books makes them better at teaching sentence structure and storytelling subtext. Hanging around with seventh-graders all day helps them know what seventh-graders are like and what they’d like to read

Full article:
http://www.omaha.com/living/want-to-get-your-male-students-to-read-become-an/article_841b9fd9-a81e-57f8-b3ce-9008fd1613d3.html

December 6, 2015 by Authors School Libraries

Anne Frank’s Diary Gains ‘Co-Author’ in Copyright Move

When Otto Frank first published his daughter’s red-checked diary and notebooks, he wrote a prologue assuring readers that the book mostly contained her words, written while hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex of a factory in Amsterdam.

But now the Swiss foundation that holds the copyright to “The Diary of Anne Frank” is alerting publishers that her father is not only the editor but also legally the co-author of the celebrated book.

From Anne Frank’s Diary Gains ‘Co-Author’ in Copyright Move – The New York Times

November 17, 2015 by Authors EBooks Legal Issues

LISNews Author Spotlight

Benjamin Griffith Brawley (April 22, 1882 – February 1, 1939) was a prominent African-American author and educator. Several of his books were considered standard college texts, including The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States (1918) and New Survey of English Literature (1925).

Born in 1882 in Columbia, South Carolina, Brawley was the second son of Edward McKnight Brawley and Margaret Dickerson Brawley. He studied at Atlanta Baptist College (renamed Morehouse College), graduating in 1901, earned his second BA in 1906 from the University of Chicago, and received his Master’s degree from Harvard University in 1908.Brawley taught in the English departments at Atlanta Baptist College, Howard University, and Shaw University.

Full Wikipedia entry and list of publications here — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Griffith_Brawley

Books by Brawley, Benjamin Griffith
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/4226

November 10, 2015 by Authors EBooks LISNews

LISNews Author Spotlight

Benjamin Griffith Brawley (April 22, 1882 – February 1, 1939) was a prominent African-American author and educator. Several of his books were considered standard college texts, including The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States (1918) and New Survey of English Literature (1925).

Born in 1882 in Columbia, South Carolina, Brawley was the second son of Edward McKnight Brawley and Margaret Dickerson Brawley. He studied at Atlanta Baptist College (renamed Morehouse College), graduating in 1901, earned his second BA in 1906 from the University of Chicago, and received his Master’s degree from Harvard University in 1908.Brawley taught in the English departments at Atlanta Baptist College, Howard University, and Shaw University.

Full Wikipedia entry and list of publications here — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Griffith_Brawley

Books by Brawley, Benjamin Griffith
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/4226

November 10, 2015 by Authors EBooks LISNews

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