Y’know it’s hard out there for a pimp, er author…

First, let me be clear, I am NOT passing any kind of judgment. I very much enjoyed the Harry Potter series and have great admiration for J K Rowling as an independent woman, ambitious writer, person of integrity, and possible modern-day Horatio Alger story protagonist. And, with no need for the money, I truly believe she wrote as Robert Galbraith for the sheer low-pressure pleasure of being an unkown.

THAT SAID, as a writer struggling on the ground and in the cyberverse to continue to have opportunities to publish work… As someone who does not write fantasy/dystopian/zombie/psy-fi and who is not Stephenie Meyer, Veronica Roth, John Green, Cassandra Clare, Ms. Rowling herself, or an author of the Official SAT Study Guide (second edition)…

The following data points about THE CUCKOO’S CALLING (pseudonymously published but now revealed as a JK original) are a tough swallow.

“The novel had sold around 1,500 copies in hardback. However, in the hours after Rowling was named as its author, it shot up the bestseller charts. It was listed as the third biggest seller on Amazon.co.uk on Sunday, having entered the top 100 only the day before.” THE TORONTO SUN

“A few hours after the news broke, New Statesman reported that the book's Amazon sales have gone up more than 150,000%.” THE HUFFINGTON POST

“On Amazon.com, sales soared more than 507,000% after Rowling acknowledged being the author.” CNN.COM

"The upside of being rumbled is that I can publicly thank…all those people at Little, Brown who have been working so hard on The Cuckoo’s Calling without realising that I wrote it, and the writers and reviewers, both in the newspapers and online, who have been so generous to the novel.  And to those who have asked for a sequel, Robert fully intends to keep writing the series, although he will probably continue to turn down personal appearances."    JK herself

Here’s my translation:

• It appears that strong reviews, a great cover, and a terrific publisher still often yield tragically low hardback sales.
• Unknown writers stand little chance of getting books noticed.  Not no chance. Little chance. The odds kind of suck.
• Name recognition is priceless
• I haven’t got any much.

Sigh.

I think I should go pour me a glass of wine.

Also, I plan to contradict myself next week.

Back to Business Monday: Amazon's Author Central

In the frenzy of everything that's been going on with my debut novel, I feel like I've really gotten away from Back-to-Business Monday posts.  Over the years, I've written quite a bit on school and library marketing issues, writing reading guides and promotional materials, and other topics related to my day-job in publishing.  While I'd like to continue to provide this type of information, I'm also learning so many new things along my publishing journey that I'd like to share.  So, I'm going to do two things:

1. Archive my School & Library Marketing posts so that they're more accessible (look out for this soon).

2. Get back to "Back-to-Business Mondays" with a focus on sharing some of the interesting new things I'm learning from the writer side of the fence.  I'm going to try to start each post with a question.  Here's today's:

What do you do when your book cover suddenly appears on Amazon and, in the information beside the cover, your author name is listed as "Louise"?

If you're me, you start by giggling a little and thinking how "Louise Kehoe" really doesn't sound so bad.

Then you get a headache.

Then you cyber-wail-and-moan to your writer-friends in the blogosphere, who tell you to get in touch with Amazon's Author Central.  And you do.  And they fix it.  Which is very nice.

I'm just learning about Amazon's Author Central features.  I mean, as soon as I saw that my cover was up, I signed up to be an Amazon Author so that I could upload a photo, bio, etc.  To avail yourself of all of the features, Amazon has to confirm that you are who you are with your publisher.  When this took over a week, I requested a call from Author Central--took about 10 seconds to get connected--and they fixed this, too.  I was very impressed by how responsive and helpful they are--even to a lowly debut novelist like me!