Tara Maya's Tales

I think we'll be seeing a lot more of this : Harper Voyager has launched an international talent search, with aspiring writers invited to submit their un-agented manuscripts directly to the publisher. The HarperCollins sci-fi and fantasy imprint will be opening a two week window in October where writers can submit their novels, with plans to publish selected titles digitally. Writers are wondering if this is a good deal . Obviously before the digital revolution and the possibility of cutting out an extra layer of middlemen, this would have been a great opportunity. But is it now? I have a couple of thoughts: 1. The only possible reason to go with a traditional publisher at this point would be to get your books into a bookstore, hopefully in hardcover. So why on earth would you sell ebook rights only? 2. There's no such thing as "free" editing, cover, proofreading and promotion. You are paying for these services by forking over a huge percentage of your roy...

Dave Fortier provided some links to explain the Mystery That Is Amazon Sales Ranking. Amazon's algorithm for sales ranking is complicated and some recent attempts to extrapolate the data have yielded some basic guidelines. Discusses approximate sales from sales ranking. Here he mentions that a book needs to sell a copy a year on Amazon, through Amazon direct or a marketplace merchant, to have an approximate sales rank of 2,000,000. Less than a sale a year results in a larger number, or a worse ranking. A book without a sales ranking has yet to make a sale. Similarly, Brent Sampson yields this list: 2,000,000+ Perhaps a single inventory/consignment copy has been ordered 1,000,000+ Current trends indicate total sales will most likely be under 40 100,000+ Current trends indicate total sales will most likely be under 200 10,000+ Estimate between 1 - 10 copies being sold per week. 1,000+ Estimate between 10 - 100 copies being sold per week. 100+ Estimate between 100 - 200 copies be...