SPRT #158 – Roundup of Indie Publishing News and Stuff – 1 September 2016

Welcome to the Roundtable Roundup, our monthly podcast (first Thursday of the month) where we invite a guest or two to join us live to discuss the previous month’s news and views from the self-publishing and indie industry.

Romance author Zoe York joined us tonight!

Zoe York, Chrishaun Keller-Hanna and Erica Conroy to discuss the below topics:

Penguin Random House still claiming that subscription services are hurting authors

(According to The Bookseller) Markus Dohle – global CEO of Penguin Random House, spoke at the Global Top 50 Publishing Summit at Beijing International Book Fair in China earlier this week. He’s quoted as saying:

“PRH had not signed its titles up for any subscription services, such as Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, Mofibo or Scribd, because the ‘all you can eat’ models threaten to “devalue” intellectual property (IP) at a time when most authors can barely afford to earn a living.”

See the full story:

Joanna Penn’s strategy for getting on a bestseller list

Congratulations to Joanna Penn who hit the USA Today bestseller list at #121 the other week with her single author 3 book boxed-set. She posted all about her marketing strategy which included:

Reduced the price from $6.99 to 99c
Using ad stacking with several paid sites including bookbub as well as bookbub’s beta ad service
Using FB ads
Her mailing list
And some assistance from Draft2Digital on getting some B&N merchandising to push sales there

See the full strategy: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2016/08/20/usa-today-bestseller-ad-stacking/

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author taken to court by Hachette

Seth Grahame-Smith and his company, Baby Gorilla are being sued by Hachette for turning in a manuscript that does not meet the requirements stated in an agreement made several years ago. A manuscript that they allowed a three year extension for. Hachette alleges (as taken from the court documents) it:

“is not original to Smith, but instead is in large part an appropriation of a 120-year-old public-domain work”
“materially varies from the 80,000-100,000 word limit”
“is on a subject that was never approved by Hachette“
“is not comparable in style and quality to Smith’s wholly original bestseller Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter“

See the full story:

If you have a second, an iTunes review would be VERY appreciated!

Alternatively please feel free to leave a comment 🙂

See you in next month!