Margaret Atwood on the Ridiculous Book Business
“When people say publishing is a business–actually it’s not quite a business. It’s part gambling and part arts and crafts, with a business component. It’s not like any other business, and that’s why when standard businessmen go into publishing and think, ‘Right, I’m going to clean this up, rationalize it and make it work like a real business,’ two years later you find they’re bald because they’ve torn out all their hair. And then you say to them, ‘It’s not like selling beer. It’s not like selling a case of this and a case of that and doing a campaign that works for all of the beer.’ You’re selling one book–not even one author any more. Those days are gone, when you sold, let’s say, ‘Graham Greene’ almost like a brand. You’re selling one book, and each copy of that book has to be bought by one reader and each reading of that book is by one unique individual. It’s very specific.”
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We feel that one of our book’s greatest contributions to the morass of writer’s guides is our chapter on social media, aka chapter 2. We interviewed everyone one from Sree Sreenivasan (professor of journalism at Columbia University) to Margaret Atwood to Neil Gaiman (with whom there is an interview over Twitter) and many other social media geeks. The result is a hefty chapter on how to make social media work for you as a writer and author. Check it by clicking here.