Writing Biz

by Kimberly A. Cook      (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

It’s fabulous news. For the first time, Generation Y (born between 1979 and 1989) have surpassed us Baby Boomers in buying books. The news release last week from Bowker and Publishers Weekly means great news for writers on three fronts.

First, the age group the Librarian of Congress was concerned had the lowest reading rates has stepped up their game. Two, the Baby Boomers, us pig in the python oldies, are still out there with massive future book buying power and we can compete with the young whippersnappers. Last and best – we have more reading customers! Let me just be mercenary about that last part and enjoy it.

The press release listed a couple of reasons for the change, but three stood out; the shift to ebooks, the ease of buying ebooks and the loss of the Borders bookstore chain which pushed people toward ebooks. Is it just me or did I almost swoon with ebook envy?

Though completely unsupported by scientific fact, I’m also going to throw out the possibility this pesky recession also chased more than a few of us to good old-fashioned cheaper entertainment like grabbing a good read. With ebooks also going from free to $9.99 in the most popular price range, it’s also a bargain.

Now before everyone gets crazy from some of the comments I saw online, let’s look at the numbers. Advice from my first semester of statistics comes back to me – you can say anything with numbers. The study says even with Baby Boomers as the biggest population group and spending the most on books in the past, 30 percent, we dropped to 25 percent. The Gen Y buyers stormed up to 30 percent from 24 percent last year.

This does not surprise me. While we Boomers are trying to retire, buy our long-term health care insurance and support college graduate kids who can’t find jobs, we’re slowing down a little on book buying. Ya think?

But just you wait. Treacherous old age Boomers will outwit youth and wi-fi debit cards. As for the small percentage drop in women buying books; while caring for aging parents, growing our own vegetables, babysitting grand kids and trying to make money, we are a tad bit BUSY right now.

However, we will be back. Boomer women buy. We did the 1980s the first time around – we know real sparkle, truly big hair and valley girl competitive mall shopping. We are not done. As soon as we get those retired husbands on an activity schedule, the grand kids atrocious spelling cleaned up from texting and our own businesses built to make enough money to support us to age 115, we’ll be right back.

There is no downside to this news. But keep in mind, there are more of us Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964). We might have lost one year of our book buying edge, but we can win this title back, I know we can. Let’s show these kids we survived without seat belts, bike helmets, cell phones or i anything. It’s a Baby Boomer Book Buying Throw Down. It is on!

Read the entire news release here http://tinyurl.com/c9jshmu )

by Kimberly A. Cook         (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

The Olympics Games are over so we mere mortals can get back to the yard work, laundry and writing. Besides learning what a physically fit woman’s abs are supposed to look like, there are lessons we can all take away from the games.

Preparation and effort are paramount. While Michael Phelps is happy to not hit the cold pool water at 6 a.m. every morning now, knowing he is going to work on his golf game might give Tiger Woods pause. No matter how popular any author is, there are always other authors in the wings. Keep writing.

It’s the journey, not the medals, for writers. We learn a lot about ourselves by writing. Not only what we choose to write about, but how we use description, details and emotions to touch our readers. We also find out where we are on our own hero’s journey and what challenges we are trying to solve through our craft; if we pay attention.

Sometimes it is not our time. While the Olympics makes time keeping and scoring an Olympic sport in itself, a book’s life and acceptance is not graded the same way. Neither is an author’s life work or career. Each of us decide what our goals and “gold medals” will be, not some committee. Thank heaven. Works for us and we don’t have to wear matching swimsuits.

Time is finite. We all only have so much time on this planet to get our work done. We carbon-based life forms don’t last forever. Write because it is what you want and need to do, not because someone else thinks you “should” do it. Figure out how to carve writing time into your schedule and keep at it.

Celebrate. When you achieve a goal have a party. Even if that party is you dancing with the cat or celebrating with a walk around the block and a cupcake. No need for fireworks, but cheering is allowed.

The next summer Olympics are in Rio de Janeiro starting Aug. 5, 2016. What writing goals will you have accomplished?

by Kimberly A. Cook               (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

A recent special event for a group I volunteer with brought several of my lives together in one public spot. Family members, writing friends, my editor and members of my volunteer family all in one place. It seemed a bit odd, much like the Facebook discussion of whether you have family, friends and business associates all on the same account. Are we separate people online?

This same topic came up two years ago in a travel writers conference I attended. The Search Engine Optimization Guru felt it had come to the point that all our lives had to be one online; there was no more separation of private and professional in the online arena. With a background in both journalism and public relations, this is a bit of a tough nut for me to swallow.Reporters are taught to not reveal or admit personal biases and work to be fair and balanced. Try to keep that invisible wall up between the reporter and the story. But these days, with everyone from future employers to lending banks checking what’s on your social media accounts, are we ever truly offline? What’s a writer/publisher to do?

My best advice comes from my days as a public affairs officer at a medical center; first do no harm. Whether on your posts or pages or with friends or enemies, keep your posts and persona fair, balanced and positive. Assume you are never “off” and the microphone is always “live,” as several president’s have forgotten at times. There is no “off the record” and there really is no “offline.”

Everything we do online can be searched and dragged up at the worst possible time. Whether you are building a new writing platform online or have been around for years, the Internet never forgets. Keep it clean, keep it complimentary and keep your screen clean, so to speak.

They are out there and we are being watched. It comes back to the basics, no matter how many lives and personas we have on this planet, we are one when it comes to our online presence. Act accordingly.

By Kimberly A. Cook        (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

It’s been a wild and wooly week for e-books and it’s barely Tuesday. The Digital Book Mobile was in Gresham yesterday and Portland, Oregon today, promoting getting e-books from the library.

http://youtu.be/JkKi_MNztlY

Then I stumbled upon this video about the challenge libraries are having with traditional publishers to get e-books into the libraries. http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=8619132&pid=8619131

Yesterday Microsoft pumped $300 million into Barnes & Noble for a 17.6% share of the Nook, making B&N’s shares rise 85%.  Can’t wait for what happens today.

Next came this CNN Money article quoting Alan Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers citing a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Speaking at Columbia University he said,

“The United States has the ‘best educated 60-year-olds’ in the world’ but is in the middle of the pack when it comes to its 30-year-olds.”

What else does that mean for e-books? Ladies and gentlemen I give you the Baby Boomers. Our eyes are shot, we’re trying to downsize our stuff and save money for retirement. E-books were made for the “best educated 60-year-olds in the world” because we like to read and we can’t do mixed martial arts cage fighting anymore, our knees can’t take it.

My Mom has two boomer daughters and she is hunting Wi-Fi hot spots when she’s not using her home Wi-Fi with her Kindle Fire. Ease, portability and low-cost rule with e-books. There is a huge future e-book market with Baby Boomers, besides the digital natives growing up on integrated media. If you’re a Baby Boomer writer, e-books are our future.

For us Baby Boomer aspiring romance authors, the future of e-books is astronomical. Check out the latest stats from the Romance Writers of America about the romance industry http://www.rwa.org/cs/the_romance_genre/romance_literature_statistics Then realize romance readers are early adopters of technology and we have been snapping up e-books like free cupcakes.  Check out buying and pricing habits here http://www.rwa.org/cs/readership_stats

In the meantime, we better get our hands on those 30-year-olds. They need to read and get college degrees. I’d like to retire from the day job before I turn 90!

by Kimberly A. Cook            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

The publishing and epub industry is heaving like the Titanic, with publishers and agents trying to rearrange the band, the deck chairs and the captain’s table. Some writers have been caught in steerage, of course. A good thing to do in any storm is to check on what the independent bookstore ships are doing. One small business article this past Friday caught my eye.

Our beloved www.Powells.com Books here in Portland, Oregon, a mega-independent bookseller, is always worth watching. The article talked about how the former site of Powell’s Technical Bookstore is being proposed for demolition to become a “seven-story, 60-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail storefronts,” according to www.oregonlive.com

The article goes on to say the Technical Bookstore “vacated the site in 2010 and moved to a smaller location” across the street from the main Powell’s bookstore.  Notice the “smaller location” for technical books? See them moving into real estate and diversifying their revenue streams?

The Powell family presents their $7 million project proposal today to the city of Portland through their development firms.  The fun new project will come complete with a bicycle parking room and no on-site parking.  Who needs to park when you can walk to the bookstore?

Besides thinking book lovers might want to get in line to sign up for an apartment a short saunter from a block large book treasure, it brings to mind the changes in our industry. If one of the largest independent bookstores in the country is going into real estate development, what does that say to the writing community?

Me thinks we authors have slipped the bonds of steerage and escaped into the epub lifeboats. Grab an oar and let’s row!

Full Article Here: http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2012/04/apartment_building_planned_at.html

By Kimberly A. Cook             (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

One of the great things about being a writer is how few tools we really need to practice our craft. Having progressed from feathers and ink to computers, we can make up stories and novels with very few tools. Paper is everywhere.  But then along came the gadgets.

Having survived my recent computer upgrade, barely, we’ve gone from simple tools in the old days to a geek gadget space race. It’s getting complicated.  Smart phone or dumb phone? Tablet or iPad? Android, Apple or Blackberry? Flip video, camcorder or a digital camera that also records video? Nook, Kindle Fire or iPad?

It’s enough to make even a semi-sane writer cower under the bed. No matter how much research I do to make my life easier, it seems I always run aground on the gadget reef in the tech ocean. If I pick the product and then buy it, it’s going to tank and be upstaged by another upgrade or innovation. I’ve got bread older than some of my now past-their-prime gadgets. Palm PDA anyone?

Sometimes the good old days look pretty darn good. So after much soul-searching and trying to figure out how to consolidate my gadgets and reduce my costs for roaming and wandering, or whatever they charge us for, here is my next wish list.

I’m keeping the Flip video cameras and my Canon PowerShot cameras for photos and video. Get the new iPad to combine my Nook eReader and Kindle accounts, transfer my email to the iPad off my Blackberry, go back to a prepaid phone for talk and text only, have a screen large enough I can read and carry around with a wireless keyboard to replace my pink notebook and be able to use Squareup to sell books using credit cards at my talks.

Finally, a decision. Looks like I will buy in June. Expect Apple to tank in July. You heard it here first!