(1) It was recently announced that Pulitzer
Prize-winning playwright, David Mamet, will self-publish a novella and two
short stories. His previous book, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of
American Culture, was a best-seller, yet Mamet has complained about poor
marketing by publishers. His
agent, ICM, recently announced its new self-publishing service, following the
lead of Trident Media Group, who initiated a similar program last fall.
According to Bowker, some 235,000 books are
self-published each year. Given
the realities of the conventional publishing world (aka, NY Literary Mafia)
these days, I suspect the figures will continue to climb. 25% of the top-selling books on Amazon
last year were self-published.
Agencies aren’t the only ones encouraging authors
to consider this option. Major
houses like Harlequin and Penguin now also have self-publishing divisions.
(2) Another phenomenon is the “small” book. Stephen King’s essay, “Guns,” is only
around 25 pages or so in length.
This is too short for a printed volume, but the work is doing quite well
as a Kindle Singles release. [It
should be appended that Amazon does a far better job marketing than some of the
NY firms!]
(3) In a sign of a notable trend, e-books amounted
to 22.55% of all sales in 2012 -- $1.54 billion of $7.1 billion.
(4) Finally, Oscar-winning director Steven
Soderbergh is apparently writing a novella – on Twitter!
