[Victoria Champion]

Topics covered: New Adult and Colleen Hoover

I can't remember the name of the other self-published author who said she had earned 250k so far. (Sorry!) Edit: It was Cora Carmack

Also, they interviewed a co-founder of Goodreads!

Surprising episode.

 

[MT Berlyn]

I didn't catch it tonight, but found the link. I'm going to go and watch it now. Looks interesting.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/

 

[OEGaudio]

Interesting stuff. It seemed like the people working for Nightline were a little confused and surprised by it all (not sure if that's typical, never watched it before).

 

[Hugh Howey]

Wow. How awesome is that!

I'm not an expert on the NA genre. Is it dominated by indies? Or are publishers ramping up release of these books? I know they've been snatching up bestselling NA authors, but I guess what I would find interesting is whether or not this has primarily been a reader-driven event with indies supplying to demand.

 

[SeanBlack]

Wow. How awesome is that!

I'm not an expert on the NA genre. Is it dominated by indies? Or are publishers ramping up release of these books? I know they've been snatching up bestselling NA authors, but I guess what I would find interesting is whether or not this has primarily been a reader-driven event with indies supplying to demand.

Seems to be both, Hugh. Writers are self-publishing, making sales and then the publishers are coming in with offers. More and more I think this is going to be how it works, with publishers using Amazon to find authors and books. I wonder where it will leave agents and authors who hold to the old system? It's a great system for publishers - they can now buy new authors who come with a built-in fan base and work that has already sold to readers. What's not love about that from their POV? That's why I think they are far from doomed.
The part of this segment that made me laugh was when one author was talking about getting rejections while on the NYT list with agents telling her she should take out the poetry in her book (just listen to the laughter and gasps from the fans around her).

BTW, Hugh, I saw a big stack of copies of Wool on the front table in a big bookstore in Dublin. Will try and grab a picture next time and email it to you.

 

[Klip]

BTW, Hugh, I saw a big stack of copies of Wool on the front table in a big bookstore in Dublin. Will try and grab a picture next time and email it to you.

I saw a pile of Wool copies on a table in a bookstore here in South Africa Looked really good.

 

[Katja]

"You appear to be outside the United States or its territories. Due to international rights agreements, we only offer this video to viewers located within the United States and its territories."

 

[Lisa Scott]

Wow.  Absolutely love Colleen's story.  Thanks for sharing!

 

[N. Gemini Sasson]

I didn't catch it tonight, but found the link. I'm going to go and watch it now. Looks interesting.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/

Thanks for the link, Thayer! I loved this segment. In fact, it was the best one I've seen so far about self-published authors who've hit it big. It highlights a lot of the changes that are going on in the digital book world - primarily how readers are having such a huge say in what genres they want and what books will succeed.

I've read quite a few NA books in the past couple of months. Hopeless was excellent and Colleen Hoover deserves every bit of her success and the attention her books have garnered.

 

[Atunah]

Its just really weird how totally clueless some are about genres. You'd think if you do a report on Nightline, you'd maybe actually read some of them? The headlines are using words like "smut", mixing erotica with YA, once again using the tired 50 shades as a comparison.
Slammed is not erotic, its quite tame. I read it and I don't even remember a sex scene in it. Racy? Are they kidding?

And here we are again, women managing to self publish and make money in a genre that many women like and once again we get belittled. It never stops. Its the extension of the romance genre dissing, many of us have lived with for years.

When a man writes a sex scene, or anything romantic, there are no headlines calling it smut. There is no automatic mentioning that he is a 30 something dad of 3 sons. Its all meant to highlight the "mommy porn" label.

 

[Janet Michelson]

Great story. My favorite part: she was getting rejection letters after she had made it onto the NYT Bestseller list.

I'm editing a ms right now that is in this genre, and it's very good. When you wake up in the morning and can't wait to get back to it--it's not just for young girls.

Writers are often wondering what the "next big thing" is in publishing. I'd say this is it. 

 

[Quiss]

And yes, some friends and family still say "Oh, you published that yourself. Well. Do you make money with this?"

 

[Atunah]

I found out about her on the amazon forums and through the feeds I get on goodreads. But I can't pin point what folks were some of those early discovers. Many of the people I follow on GR have a large batch of friends, so its a snowball effect.

Some of the groups are very active with a large number of members. But every time I heard anything about the book, it always came from readers. Never any kind of spam, or ad or anything.

 

[56139]

Wow. How awesome is that!

I'm not an expert on the NA genre. Is it dominated by indies? Or are publishers ramping up release of these books? I know they've been snatching up bestselling NA authors, but I guess what I would find interesting is whether or not this has primarily been a reader-driven event with indies supplying to demand.

New adult contemporary romance is the place to be right now if you're an Indie writing romance and it absolutely is reader-driven. Most of the top sellers are indies.
I haven't read Slammed, but pretty much everything that's selling big is a bit smutty. It's not a put down in my opinion - it's smart women who are writing what people want to read. Some of it (even the ones that are selling huge) are a bit stupid even, but they all have one thing in common - the characters are all are young people looking for sexual relationships.

Those "important bloggers" over at GR aren't hard to find. I could list five right now off the top of my head because they all run book blogs. I started my New Adult Addiction book blog last October and I've participated in hundreds of events so far. It's not a big world - you bump into them. They run events, they run promotional services, they are everywhere, everyday, talking about books. (But not all of them are reading NA - although I think that's changing. Even the one's holding out are jumping on board now - there's been quite a bit of discussion about this in the book blog world in the past couple of months.)

I've read a lot of posts here at KB about how book bloggers don't sell books and I just have to shake my head. If you really believe that, you have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe they can't sell every book- but if you write to the genre - strictly to the genre - you please them, they tell others. Your book sells.