Below are the most recent 2 friends' journal entries.

Thursday, December 31st, 2009
treva2007	3:57p	Our Decade in Review Ten Years Ago: --In January 2000, Margaret and I met at a local romance writer chapter meeting after emailing back and forth as critique partners. She convinced me to try e-books. The first publishing company I contacted went subsidy press before I had released my book and I got out of the contract. (Yes, the industry has always been volatile. My DH wasn't so lucky when he contracted with RFI West just before it crashed.) --I decided to learn the industry and started reviewing at a site that a friend had founded and recommended. (She is the only person I know who sold a review site for actual money to someone else. I figured anyone who could make money at this had to know what she was doing.) From there I heard one of my fellow reviewers had started an e-book site that sold, as she phrased it then, “spicy romances.” I read one and said, OMG. Then I said well – what could writing just one hurt? The publishing company was Ellora’s Cave and Treva and Margaret (Shelby) were two of the earliest authors there. --From there the learning curve went straight up and off the charts. I was plunged into chats and promo, writing and releasing a book every two months, and general mayhem. Everything was new to me and equally new to my audience. --The competition got tougher, the writing got ever spicier, Margaret and I fulfilled our own ambitions of starting publishing companies. And the learning curve kicked up another few notches. --I've made lasting friendships, written through fun and not so fun times, been disillusioned, had my illusions returned, hated and loved the whole thing in turns. I'm happy doing what I do and I want readers and authors to be happy with what I do as well. Happy 2010 from Treva and Shelby! Treva Harte _www.Trevaharte.com_ (http://www.Trevaharte.com) Margaret Riley AKA Shelby Mogen _www.ShelbyMorgen.com_ (http://www.ShelbyMorgen.com) (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
treva2007	9:28a	Looking Ahead in Electronic Publishing A few trends we've noticed looking back on 2009, and a few predictions for 2010: Unlike print publishers, the year was not bad for sales for us. Sales are still growing for independent e-publishers, but how royalties are received is changing. As Margaret and I said in another blog article, third party resellers are starting to provide a higher percentage of sales -- not the bulk of our sales by any means, but more than they have in the past. Fortunately sales volume with resellers generally appears to offset the cut they take as their commission. New book formats are beginning to gain a toehold with readers, and may be attracting them to some of the resellers -- everything from Sony and Kindle e-readers to files designed to work on I-Phones and other multi-platform devices. Audio has moved from cassette tapes and CDs for your car stereo to file formats available to download and play on your I-Pod and other portable readers, opening new venues for experiment to publishers like Changeling. The bar for entering e-publishing is getting higher. While anyone can purchase a domain name, it's unlikely that customers will be impressed by anything less than a professional site with an assortment of authors and genres, and readers have come to expect top notch editing and proofing from independent e-publishers. There's little tolerance for less than first rate, at any level. In general, print publishers seem to be trying to play catch up in the electronic market, without adapting their marketing or contract terms. Independent e-publishers are continuing to follow the digital model, which pays a far higher percentage, and offers royalties paid EOM30 -- payment to authors within 30 days of the end of the month in which payment is received. (Book releases in January, you get paid in February.) We expect to see some changes in the print model as more and more authors who cut their teeth on electronic publishing negotiate contracts with the bigger print houses. Change is still exponential. What the trends for 2010 will be is anyone's guess. Unlike print, however, independent e-publishers are continuing to expand, doing our best to stay ahead of the curve. Happy Holidays to all, and Best Wishes for the coming decade! Treva Harte Loose-Id.com Margaret Riley, AKA Shelby Morgen ChangelingPress.com (1 Comment |Comment on this)