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June 2012

Kindle data progress four years later…

I’ve written a few posts about how I’d maximize the value of e-readers. Here’s the first and the second. Four years later, one of the things I’ve been agitating for–using the knowledge of how much time people spend reading a book and how many finish it–is starting to become real. Phil found this article in [...]

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Watching the price of media fall

I did a show at the NBC headquarters in NY a few weeks ago. I’m guessing that it costs them about $6,000 a minute to make a news show in the studio. That counts the painters, the set guys, the three camera operators and their assistants, the lighting guys, the producer, the executive producer, the [...]

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Author’s wishlist for Kickstarter

Having had a ball using Kickstarter, I couldn’t help but notice ways I’d like to improve it. Here are my top tweaks: Allow backers to get more than one reward. Right now, you need to open two accounts to fund two rewards. This is silly and helps no one. Allow organizers to load balance after [...]

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Why (some) Kickstarter campaigns fail

Kickstarter campaigns fail when the tribe of people who believe in the idea is too small It’s worth taking a moment to parse that out–it will help you understand how the whole thing works and where some campaigns fail. You either need more belief or a bigger/louder/more influential tribe. Kickstarter appears to be a great [...]

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Kickstarter, strangers and friends

My first Kickstarter project launches today, and I’ve spent a lot of time looking at projects, working with people who have built successful (and unsuccessful) campaigns and thinking about how it works. Like every successful internet platform before it (blogs, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, etc.) first-time users believe that it will magically help them find new [...]

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More on the economics of the self-published book

For books under $20 (which means just about all ebooks), all that matters is volume. Not margin, but volume. A book in the hand of a reader is far more likely to lead to another book sold. Bestsellers become bestsellers largely because lots of other people are already reading them. I know that sounds silly [...]

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Self publishers begin to explore the business out loud

One of the things that’s happening in 2012 is that self-publishing of books is no longer a quirky outsider effort, but instead more and more often being seen as smart alternative to getting picked by the mainstream houses. Andrew Hyde goes into great detail of the revenue stream of his self-published book. There are ton [...]

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Domino team, on stage

Lauryn rocks the house: Michael MPD testifies: And here’s Al Pittampalli, bestselling author: It’s absolutely incredible what talented people can accomplish when given the chance.

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Does curation work for publishers?

One mantra heard often is, “in a world with a million ebooks, readers need curators.” Of course, traditional publishers are good at curation, because traditional books are expensive to publish, so they had to be picky, merely as a method of self preservation. That pickiness leads to widespread rejection of books like A Confederacy of [...]

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Respect

I apologize. Earlier today, I posted a short remembrance of a hero of mine, a colleague, Ray Bradbury. When I heard about Ray’s death at 91, I had just spent three hours listening to the self-published audio edition of a new book by another hero (and colleague), Steve Pressfield. The juxtaposition of Steve’s message with [...]

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