3 things for you to read by Penelope Trunk, Susannah Breslin and Sarah Ockler

I've been meaning to start 2 new short daily posts here, one being "Tips," with a link to something I think is useful, and "5 Great Things About Today," which ideally I'd post every night as a way to keep me from sounding so morose, as I tend to do. Maybe tonight can be the first!

But before that, I wanted to share 3 quick links:

"Gold digging Web 2.0 style" by Penelope Trunk, who I mentioned in my "Is Social Media Ruining Your Sex Life?" column, and she commented and added that link.

In "I Got Downsized" at Thought Catalog, Susannah Breslin offers up five things she could possibly do to make money.

I'll leave you with "You're Not a Thing: 10 Anti-Insanity Tips for Writers by YA author Sarah Ockler, author of Twenty Boy Summer and Fixing Delilah - here's one of her tips, one I particularly needed to stop obsessing over why Amazon hasn't posted my Passion book trailer yet and a bunch of other things it seems like "everyone else" is doing:

Stop comparing. Unless you’re self-published, it’s unlikely that you’ll have accurate, up-to-date sales data at any given point. And what’s a good number, anyway? 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 copies sold might be phenomenal for one book, abysmal for another. This author got on a 10-city tour, that one got a dedicated Web site, this one got an ad in the NYT, that one is visiting every school in the country, this one got a 6-figure advance, that one got less… well? Every book is different and requires different marketing. You don’t always know what’s going on behind the scenes at your publisher, but even that doesn’t matter. Maybe you got the platinum edition marketing campaign or maybe you got utterly forgotten, but comparing anything to other authors doesn’t make the next book happen. I’ll tell you what it does make happen: crazy! Now stop looking at so-and-so’s Amazon rank and go work on your manuscript!

Why Amazon's book stocking system needs a major haul

If you've ever been a small publisher selling to Amazon, or an author/editor dealing with a small publisher dealing with Amazon (that's me! With Pretty Things Press and Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2 and Sex and Candy), you know that their stocking system makes no sense. Or, well, it makes sense to them, but sucks bigtime for publishers because they are constantly ordering in extremely small increments. I had to deal with frustration as an editor with my books not always being in stock; I've also had other Amazon issues with them de-listing the rankings of books like He's on Top, but that's another story.

Stephanie Grenier's Blog Blazers: 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets to Creating a High-Profile, High-Traffic, and High-Profit Blog! is one example of the flaws in the system. Today it's still showing "Temporarily out of stock" (and doesn't give potential customers a clue when it will be in stock). Bad Amazon. You deserve a spanking!

One commenter wrote:

Sometimes it’s good to be out of stock. It gives a certain degree of ‘get-it-now-before-it-runs-out-again’ perception to the buyers.

I respectfully disagree. What happened with me, full disclosure, is that Steph's reply to my comment convinced me to order it, but then the lovely Jennette Fulda (an interviewee) said she'd send me a copy, so rather than wait, I'm getting that one and will of course review it here and on Amazon. I really do look forward to reading it; I mean look at the bloggers who are interviewed: Dan Lyons, Jessamyn West, Seth Godin, Penelope Trunk, and onward. I think I found it via SEO Book, but I'm not sure.

My main point is, through no fault of the editor's, she lost a sale, and I'm sure more people will click through and buy a book on impulse if they think they're going to get it right away. One thing Amazon does well is shipping; I order from them often and usually get my book within 2 days, sometimes the next day (Manhattan delivery).

You can, of course, also order it directly from the author, and it does indeed exist:



I especially like the simple but informative blogger bios section, where you can easily find out more about these talented bloggers.