Everything you need to know about publishing your book This is a number unique to the book (unique to the edition, actually: the hardcover will have a.
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- Book publishing in the 21st century | Climate Etc.
- Literary Publishing in the 21st Century
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- Getting Published in the 21st Century: Advice from a Literary Agent by Carly Watters;
- Be Your Best At Marathon Running: The authoritative guide to entering a marathon, from training plan.
- Book publishing in the 21st century!
- Getting Published in the 21st Century: Advice from a Literary Agent.
Texts will be online and cheap. Individual classes will have online communities like a forum, supported perhaps by assistants or volunteers. Teachers will be student rated, as will classes and texts. How degrees will be awarded is an open question. I suspect that pay walls are going to come down due to competition from open models. Who will pay those subscriber fees? How will journals with their paywalls prove their value in the market?
Funding for research will likely change also, perhaps crowd sourcing will play a role. I saw a thread on CE recently regarding glacial albedo and dust rdmobservations perhaps? The current higher education model is going to experience downward price pressure. When products become commodities it gets tough for the sellers with expensive models. So, yes, paper books, though I love them, are soon going to join clay tablets, papyrus, and hand copied books in the museum. I have studied climate science for six years.
I have not even heard of any of these books. Question Why does the literate public so resolutely ignore the literature of climate-change denial? At least Hansen got it right about nuclear but much of the book is him venting his frustrations with his nemesis with lots of boring details regarding testimony. I have a healthy sceptism with respect to claims the sky is falling, especially when the proposed solutions will cause tremendous suffering for many and money for an elite and connected few.
It is said that more people are arrested wearing wide brimmed hats than any other type of headwear. Does the hat cause the person to be arrested or do those wearing wide brimmed hats have a propensity to be arrested? Plus one for your joke, but I am surprised you passed up the chance to talk about your favourite climate scientist whose principled stands I do rather admire, even if I think his cause is misguided.
Green stuff going back to E. Schumacher has had a huge popular following for decades. For that matter, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin sell millions of books, so they must be right. God help us, there are even people out there other than lobbyists and other professionals who actually buy and may even read the pap generated by politicians in their books. Many older book are now free on Amazon otherwise I would not know how poor old Athos died and where creepy Aramis ended up , and a paperwhite is superb for reading novels at home and on cruises. But when I want to learn something I still print it on paper and read it with a pencil and a yellow marker.
I think all of the views above: Yglesias, New Republic, Salon, and especially Krugman — are completely off base. The true role of a publisher is far more than logistics and operations. For one thing, a good publisher has the job of finding and cultivating talent.
The other danger with self imposed enfiefdom is marginalization. It is far easier for an author with their own admiring circle to get stuck into rote than one where the editor and publisher see more of what is going on in the wider world. While they do attempt to recommend books — at least for me their recommendations are crap. For Flint — to paraphrase — the money is all in the initial run of sales. Exposure and marketing is the one and only factor which drives this initial run — royalties from publications once out a year or more are individually negligible.
The picture built is thus dramatically different than what Yglesias, et al seek to propagate. I have now published three ebooks, most recently Blowing Smoke: Essays on Energy and Climate, with a foreward from our gracious hostess. My experience largely agrees with Yglesias. I suspect this new format will do to traditional publishers what the internet is doing to mass media. Ebooks reach wide audiences on multiple platforms simultaneously. Using an epublisher helps with formatting, copyright, cover art, and such. A fair deal; I get half of the sell price, they and the platforms like Amazon divide up the other half per whatever arrangements they have in place.
Print rights and foreign language rights are separate and retained, in case one of the books becomes sufficiently popular somewhen to justify a print bersion or a translation. The books are richly illustrated in the sense of necessarily colored graphs, charts, photo images, schematics,… , which make ideas easy to comprehend.
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I seriously explored what a print version of the first book would have cost. Nobody would undertake a press run except at my expense self publish ; too expensive and risky given all the embedded color imagery. Increasingly there are important books only available in ebook format. He is a Spanish professor trained in geology and geography, a paleoclimatologist cut from very different cloth than Michael Mann.
Would I still be able to publish my autobiography as an e-book after posting individual chapters in the public file of my Dropbox as they were written? I want the story distributed as wide as possible, since I believe the survival of mankind is threatened by unreported decisions made in to hide the force of life:. I think so, although the copyright might be a little weak. Self publish or publish with an ebook publisher? Those still have gatekeepers who decide whether to take the book on. It is pretty hard for an ebook unless you plan to independently sell a compressed.
Even if you focus only on Amazon Kindle, you still go through their ebook prescreening process, and they still behave like a publisher. I am a luddite. I still have drum texts that I bought in college 25 years ago that I routinely work from. I just dont believe ebooks will ever work like that. Ebooks have their time and place. If you are travelling on a plane it saves carting several big heavy books around and for general travel you can carry around a lot of reference material.
It think my real issue is not so much the technology as it is the distrust of companies milking for every cent and an objection to DRM of any kind. I dont want to buy anything that someone can take from me or censor without theoretically encountering my second amendment right I dont actually own a gun. Nickels, once you buy and download an ebook onto some reader machine I use an iPad with the iBooks and Kindle apps it is yours.
The simple ability to change font size rather than don reading glasses , hyperlink, bookmark, key word search, annotate, and highlight all available in both apps make ebooks more user friendly than paper books IMO. And embedded color illustrations are a joy. What made high school and college textbooks so expensive is now a thing of the past. Bad for the school bookbag industry, but good for students and teachers.
Kindle even allows gift copies to anyone anywhere. Only disadvantage is I cannot gift author signed copies, like I wish could send to Judith. This artificially raises the price of popular works, which admittedly are a small but very lucrative minority think Agatha Christie and Disney — but nevertheless it is a dead hand on dissemination and publishing of those works. The heirs, who get a windfall for something they had nothing to do with creating, are sitting pretty. What does this have to do with academic publishing? Well, the mega-publishing companies cover the risk of their other products with the revenue from milch-cows like Christie and Disney.
There would be few, if any, scholarly publications that survive the death of the author by 70 years. Over time, the milch-cows will decrease in number and value as more and more creators electronically self-publish or come to arrangements like that which Rud described above. So in the medium to long term, it is certain that the publishing model will have to change. Just as the printing press changed everything, e-media will change everything — and for the better, for the same reasons, IMO.
Yes, copyright is an elephant in the room. But there are much larger issues. Many blogs see WUWT claim everything they post is copyrighted. Guest contributions from others? Because my books use copious illustrations, I have had to be very careful epublisher insists. Self created images, no problem. Government doc images usually not always do not claim copyright. Scientific paper images usually do, and you have to rely on the US fair use doctrine, which does not have equivalent precedent in Europe.
My post here and book essay Shell Games provides numerous examples.
My second book was held up almost 6 months just getting residual republication image permissions in writing for the remaining images. I used my version, not theirs, anyway. Really useful copyright law!?! I completely agree with you that the tide is turning in favor of intellectual freedom, no different than after Guttenberg printed the Bible and put monk scribes out of business. It is moving fast right now, and precedent based law is of course lagging.
Book publishing in the 21st century | Climate Etc.
Another reason for using an epublisher to spot any major unintentional copyright infractions. Hope you will get and enjoy Blowing Smoke. Savor each stand alone essay. Regards from the front lines. In practice, on those rare occasions when I do visit a physical store I end up finding and buying or occasionally showrooming way more books than I ever do online. It is so clunky and often blocked by missing pages not made available for sampling compared to the meat-space alternative that it is easy to give up.
Yes large corporations have old tired business models. BUT Amazon are essentially doing the same job as traditional publishers. They just have a different medium and business model. People want to only go to a few outlets to get what they want e. Like traditional publishers, they will in the end decide what gets published and what does not — or rather what gets uploaded and what does not. But we needed to find a distributor.
The publisher took care of all that. Digital distributors do the same thing by providing a reliable place for people to shop online! The big difference is that it costs traditional publishers quite a bit to publish a book, while it costs Amazon pennies at most! Yes, as I said they have a different business model. As for uploading every book. I think that is untrue.
Also Amazon can list books according to what they want to sell. As such, it is difficult for me to accept arguments that savings are really being passed on.
- Publishing in the 21st Century?
- The Well-tempered Clavier (Book I): Prelude and Fugue No. 17;
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Sure, there is free stuff available. See Andre Schiffrin and Pantheon Books as an example of this pushed out into the open in Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Home About Blog Rules Patreon donations. This entry was posted in Open knowledge. MishaBurnett October 28, at 5: DocMartyn October 28, at 6: Wagathon October 28, at 6: Matthew R Marler October 28, at 7: Matthew R Marler October 28, at There is an alternative explanation: Matthew R Marler October 29, at 2: Matthew R Marler October 29, at 4: John Robertson October 29, at 9: Skiphil October 29, at Matthew R Marler October 30, at 1: What have been the documented negative effects of CO2 increase since ?
But the moggies and pooches! Do any budgerigars get it the neck? Faustino October 29, at 1: It included the lines: Matthew R Marler October 28, at 6: I expect the market to become more fragmented and seemingly even less rational. ATAndB October 28, at 6: Curious George October 28, at 7: ATAndB October 28, at 7: Michael Larkin October 28, at 7: Curious George October 29, at Thank you very much. Clearly I am not keeping up with technological advances.
David Wojick October 28, at 6: I do not regret that decision. Alexander Biggs October 28, at 6: Alexander Biggs October 29, at 1: Ragnaar October 28, at 7: Doug Proctor October 28, at 7: JustinWonder October 28, at 9: Rob Ellison October 28, at 8: David Wojick October 29, at 2: Peter Davies October 28, at 8: Peter Davies October 28, at 9: JimReedy October 28, at Agree whole heartedly Peter….
It may just be a product of my age though And re the etcetera wrote this yesterday. ATAndB October 29, at 9: And why do climate-scientists love hats? How cool is that, the world wonders! Rob Ellison October 29, at 4: Curious George October 29, at 1: JustinWonder October 29, at 2: Tonyb October 29, at 3: Fan It is said that more people are arrested wearing wide brimmed hats than any other type of headwear.
Tonyb October 29, at 4: Fan Plus one for your joke, but I am surprised you passed up the chance to talk about your favourite climate scientist whose principled stands I do rather admire, even if I think his cause is misguided Tonyb. There used to be a slogan: Steinar Midtskogen October 29, at 1: Alexej Buergin October 29, at 5: Wagathon October 29, at Carl Sagan is known more for what he said on TV than wrote in books.
Rud Istvan October 29, at Thanks, Rud, for information on e-books. I want the story distributed as wide as possible, since I believe the survival of mankind is threatened by unreported decisions made in to hide the force of life: Rud Istvan October 29, at 4: Tonyb October 29, at 2: Nickels Ebooks have their time and place. The elephant in the publishing room is copyright.
JustinWonder October 29, at 8: Rud Istvan October 29, at 9: Liberalis Books LiberalisBooks October 29, at 7: Think this guy needs to think a little harder before writing such short sighted dross.
AK October 30, at 8: Twitter New post from Ross McKitrick: Post was not sent - check your email addresses! I rather feel that they are also people who love the books as much as I do. Highl As a first time author, my head is filled with hundreds of questions about who a literary agent is and how her world looks like. Jul 21, Leah rated it it was amazing Shelves: I devoured this book in one sitting.
Sep 12, T. If the mind of one literary agent were extracted as open letter to prospective authors. Feb 18, Diane rated it it was amazing. Lots of useful information! Apr 12, William Arsenis rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Carly Watters is one of those top-of-the-line, no-nonsense agents that serious career authors have on the very top of their wish list.
Literary Agency, and has signed numerous debut and bestselling authors. I met her at a conference, and Ms. Watters is as impressive and professional in person as is she is in this book. Her writing is to the point, easy to read, and a breeze to reference. I read—scratch that—studied this short book in a matter of hours. Carly Watters confirms what I have heard many agents say in conferences, but more important, she corrects several common misconceptions, such as the belief that agents do not like debut authors, or that agents chase trends.
None of this was new to me, but I found it reassuring to see an agent who has her finger on the pulse of the market confirming what I have learned over the years. And then comes the really juicy part—how to actually get an agent. Here Carly Watters goes into great depth on query letters. How to write one, the hook, the synopsis, the pitch, and six tips to make a query letter stand out.
Literary Publishing in the 21st Century
She goes into detail with six reasons she would stop reading your manuscript, and she also writes about when to follow-up with agents. She even delves into non-fiction proposals which was of special interest to me. Watters then discusses the agent-author relationship. Whether you have an agent or not, this gives you a great insight into publishing and prospects for your future. Finally, she talks about publication and promotion in the digital age. I view this book as a bible for people who are committed to a long-term career as a traditionally published author.
My take from the book is that success in traditional publishing is a matter of persevering, and offering agents what they want, while at the same time being true to yourself. Jan 12, Tammy Murray rated it really liked it Shelves: Like any good cookbook this has the recipe for success if you follow the directions. Also like a cookbook you'll want to keep it on hand for constant reference as you go through the steps to publication. Aug 27, Dan Martin rated it it was amazing. There are many great books on the process of writing, but this one approaches it from the business side of things, and it is invaluable.
A great little book full of wonderful information. Often I felt like topics could have been expanded on, but overall there's such great info that it's a valuable tool for writers. Dec 27, Christine rated it it was amazing. This book answers so many literary agent questions that I've not found anywhere else, except of course Carly Watters' blog. If you like the book you will love her blog. Aug 15, Carrie rated it really liked it. Great overview with lots of helpful tips for writers getting ready to query. Apr 04, Amber rated it it was amazing.
My Go-To There are many books out there on writing and publishing but this one has elements that others don't. I definitely recommend it. It is worth the read.