Each workshop is 6 weeks long and is limited to twelve people. (Again, it will take you about four hours per week to do each of these.) These are the starting dates of upcoming workshops.
All have openings at the moment. For sign-up and more information about each workshop, click the Online Workshop tab at the top of the page.
Starting June
Class #17… June 3rd … Cliffhangers
Class #18… June 4th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #19… June 5th … Genre Structure
Class #20… June 6th … Openings
Class #21… June 7th … Idea to Story
Starting July
Class #22… July 8th … World Building
Class #23… July 9th … Plot Your Novel
Class #24… July 10th … Designing Book Covers
Class #25… July 11th … Designing Book Interiors
Class #26… July 12th … Essentials
Starting August
Class #27… August 5th … Ideas to Story
Class #28… August 6th … Openings
Class #29… August 7th … Genre Structure
Class #30… August 8th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #31… August 9th …. Cliffhangers
Starting September
Class #32… Sept 2nd … Essentials
Class #33… Sept 3rd … Plot Your Novel
Class #34… Sept 4th … World Building
Class #35… Sept 5th … Designing Book Covers
Class #36… Sept 6th … Designing Book Interiors
Sign-up and more information under Online Workshops tab at the top of the page.
Wow, scary stuff, Dean.
I’m not traditionally pubbed, but I wanted to spread the word anyway, so I tweeted it, with a link to Kris’s post.
I’m so glad Kris wrote this. Scary stuff, and I believe it’s probably true. I remember hearing from guys like Brandon Sanderson in early 2010 when he was saying he wasn’t selling that many ebooks (at Superstars Seminar I). At that time, I knew some indie authors selling thousands of copies a month, so I thought then that something smelled rotten in NY.
On another subject, for anyone interested in the Apple vs Sony Ebook App battle, the one that has possible implications for Kindle and Nook apps, which could affect our royalties, I researched the issue and wrote a blog post about it.
Ebooks in February were about 30% of all sales, minus textbooks. Considering that non-fiction doesn’t do ebook as easily as fiction, it’s likely that ebooks were even greater than 30% of the fiction sales.
Publishers no doubt are scrambling a bit.
All the more reason to DIY and have more control.
Mark,
Not true across the industry…yet. At the moment the number is 10% of all fiction sold is ebooks. And growing quickly. However, some companies are already saying that 30% or so of their sales are ebooks. Sourcebooks for one. But across the fiction industry the number at the moment is 10%, up from 9% in January.
Mark, one correction on what I said. The AAP, which gets reports from 14 publishers only, just reported that those 14 publishers say their numbers are 29% for last month of ebooks sales, making it the largest category of sales outside of trade paper. But again, a very small sample and not the number most look to for a real number. But even that was a stunner. Might be closer to your number than the one that is the “official” number. If that is the case, traditional publishing is in trouble in many, many ways. Most people did not expect the 25% “official” number to hit until the middle of 2012. If it hits this year, oh, oh…
Aren’t those 14 publishers the biggies? I don’t know what the AAP uses, but I assumed those 14 included the big six.
I think the growth of ebooks is going faster than most people anticipated.
One other factor in the February numbers: Publishers may not have been shipping to Borders due to their bankruptcy filing. That may account in some part for the loss in paper sales vs. the gains in ebook sales.
Amazon is going to have the ad-supported Kindle 3 at $99 at some point this year. The iPad 2 is selling like crazy. The color Nook is rumored to be selling 700,000 units a month (that’s from a respected Asian source that monitors units shipped). There are a number of new tablet devices shipping this year. And smartphones continue to gain marketshare.
More and more people are going to own portable devices that can be used for ebooks.
Mark, again, the big six is a very misleading term. More than likely five to ten of the fourteen are owned by one or the other of the big six. Maybe even all. But the reporting companies are the ones that want to report this stuff and know how to even track it. See Kris’s post today. The ones that can’t track it won’t report. And remember, there are upwards of a thousand different publishing companies at the level of the ones reporting. All imprints, publishing houses, or businesses not associated with the big six, as people call them. 14 is a very small number of companies that want to report. Not sure, but if Sourcebooks is one (because they do know the numbers) they would be tilting heavily the scale toward e-books. And if Harlequin reported, or any of their imprints reported, they also know how to track and are ahead of the game and thus would lean heavy toward eBooks.
And yes, you are right, the factors in this are the lack of shipments to Borders and also the huge Christmas push of new devices.
No doubt in the slightest this number, either 10% across the board or 35% of 14 self-selected companies, is going to climb like crazy. We will hit 50% and level in that range in a few years, that much everyone is sure about. Which publishing companies can make the transition through all their overhead and labor contracts to get to that day is anyone’s guess.
Woot! (a daily deal site) had refurbished e-ink Nooks on sale Weds for $99. I bought 3. I love me my Nook and am tired of the kids stealing it!
Dean, there’s one small flaw with your logic.
That 10% number you’re quoting came from the AAP research, too.
So the same source that came up with the 10% number that’s been floating around the publishing world NOW says that number was 29.5% – in February.
Wonder what it was in March? Wonder what it is now, in April?