Vincent Zandri has sold 100,000 ebooks in 60 days.

That's 100 THOUSAND books in sixty days.

Sumbitch, brother!

Now Vincent works his ass off promoting his books. There's no question about it. And I stand in absolute admiration at both his efforts and successes (and maybe a little jealousy as well?). But interestingly, in his blog, he mentions that his publisher, Stonegate Publishing, had the right juju in selling ebooks--apparently more so than other ebook publishers.

So that got me to thinking. How does one indie publisher absolutely excel at selling their books and promoting their authors, while others just shuffle along and seemingly only go through the motions of selling books? I mean you have some indie publishers simply beating the bejesus out of their competition. Other publishers in the ebook business just tread water.

Take Untreed Reads, for instance. A San Francisco publishing house that does only ebooks. They are one of those 'beat the bejesus out of the others' kind of houses I mentioned. They offer their books in a plethora of different bookselling sites around the world. And they are successful. Very successful. (a publishing house soon to bring out one of my Turner Hahn/Frank Morales novels, by the way)

How?

Don't all ebook publishers jump into the same swimming pool more or less wearing the same bathing suit? Each one has the tools in front of them to succeed or fail. Yet so few seem to really succeed while hundreds of start-up ebook publishers flash into existence for a year or two and then fade away.

Trestle Press is a new company. It's head honcho is a guy by the name of Giovanni Gelati. Full of piss and vinegar (and Giovanni, if you're reading this--that's a compliment). Has a thousand ideas about publishing. Asked me to submit a lot of my stuff--and be damn if it wasn't up and on Amazon in a matter of days. I'm excited to be one of his early writer/authors. I've got a feeling Trestle Press is going to be a stellar performer.

Let's hope so. I'm busting my ass trying to write the material he wants. His success is my success. And yes, brother, it's about damn time I saw some success in this gig.

It's been a long time coming.

The Trip Wire

Okay, here's the question of the day: you're a writer. A writer of ebooks. And obviously you want to sell'em. So you begin social networking. Find sites all over the internet that works for you and you make your presence known. You constantly update. You continuously 'friend' for new friends.

The question is this . . . When? When does this active social networking gig begin to pay off? What trip-wire has to be stumbled over before there is a sudden bounce in sales and a sharp rise in fans buyng your books that feeds on itself for a long period of time?

Vincent Zandri and J.A. Konrath come to mind when I think about this. They sell thousands of their books a month. A MONTH!! That's impressive to say the least. Mind-boggling is more like it. It literately just boggles the mind.

So did they do it just be social networking?

Konrath has said repeatedly his previous writing gig with big publishers didn't help him in the least when it came to selling ebooks. Vincent Zandri is not so sure. I asked him that very question the other day on a--get this--social network site and he said he thought his previous exposure had to have helped some.

I have a sneaking suspicion there's more to it than just social networking. Like it has always been . . . and always will be . . .I think you have to be in the right place and at the right time to be 'discovered.' And like always--a huge amount of pure, unadultered blind LUCK comes into play.

Social networking. Hard work. Exposure. And fricken' blind luck makes the successful writer. I can do the first three. It's the LUCK thing that bugs me.

How do you stumble into blind luck?

The E-book Harry Potters

Holy Hogwarts! Can you imagine the gold mine waiting for J.K. Rowling when she signs the dotted line and the publishers converts all the Harry Potter novels into e-books?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/05/harry-potter-ebooks

Already the richest woman in Britain, Rowling may become the richest person in the world. Beating out Bill Gates and all the Caliphs and oil sheiks of the Middle East combined. And I'm all for it.

If you know the story behind her struggles to create Harry Potter you can't help but applaude. As writers we all struggle. Many of us never get the recognition--even a smidgin of recognition--we all think we should have. Not complaining, mind you. Just stating a fact. And when a writer like Rowling suddenly materializes into the limelight . . . well . . . you either stand up and applaude. Or you burn bright and hot in jealousy.

I'm for applauding.