Oh and on the question I asked A non-fiction book has to sell 7,500 hardback copies for a small publisher to consider it minimally sucessful (it turns out that small publishers do still exist). A large publisher requires 10,000. Don't know the numbers for paperback; but I'd assume the ratio is the same as for fiction .

Gar, in fiction, at least, a lot depends on the size of the print run, and that's going to vary hugely.

Right. I think this is for smallest print run. In non-fiction. Apparently the smallest print run it makes sense to do is 5,000. So a minimally successful non-fiction book would sell all of the first run and half of the second. Obviously the publisher would have to have anticipated that level of sales and not gone much above 10,000 on total copies printed. I guess the point of a 5,000 copy run is that if it does not reach that level of sales, losses have at least been mimimized.

Ms. Rowling has been a hero of mine for some time, because she was almost as broke as me when she started out, and everyone said a kids' book was a very cute way to starve, but you're out of a job. Be more sensible. Not that the books aren't fun to me. They are. Just not as fun as that story. But that would be *my* Rowling letter, not yours, Deb.

From one Brit author to another, please read the enclosed and write a fantastic blurb for it.

I read that as, "From one Bitch author to another," and thought we weren't letting Aimee get out enough.

I'd sacrifuce a NeoCon or something.

I think the word sacrifice has just lost all meaning.

I. love. Cindy.

New drabble time!

Challenge #106 (the In Crowd) is now closed.

Challenge #107 is a repeat, but it's been over a year since we did it, and it's one that I like quite a bit, so I'm recycling: describe a person/character by the contents of his/her [_______]. The brackets stand for "anything in which the tangible bits and bobs of your life might accumulate," like a wallet, purse, car trunk, junk drawer, desk drawer, second shelf of the refrigerator, under the bed -- anything that holds your stuff.

The LJ post for this week's topic is considerably longer than it is here, mostly b/c I know all y'all, and all y'all know me, and I just wanted to explain things fully in LJ, where I *don't* know all the community members. I figure all y'all know what I mean when I say stuff, so I don't need to elaborate. And here's what I explained:

I got an e-mail this week from someone who I assume is a member of the LJ community, pointing out that some of the posted drabbles are over 100 words, and telling me that they think the word limit is an inherent part of the challenge.

I respectfully disagree, b/c it's my community. What I care about is the quality of the writing, and if something that's stunning needs to be 126 words -- or 300 -- I'm NOT going to tell the author to chop off their baby's legs to make it fit in the cradle.

Yeah, the 100-word limit is a good aspect of the challenge, in that it forces one to consider word choice carefully, etc., but the word count is not the point of the weekly challenge, for me. Plus, nobody so far has tried to post a 1,500-word thing week after week after week. People know the 100-word thing, they aim for it, sometimes they hit it, sometimes they're close, sometimes they go way over. Doesn't matter to me. All I care about is the writing.

Plus, I ain't gonna sit there and count words. Nuh and uh.

Got your back, Tep.

Besides which, for longer pieces, people will mostly say upfront "This isn't a drabble" or "on topic, but longer than a drabble".

I truly don't think it's a big deal, but since the person e-mailed me, I figured I'd just throw it out there to the community at large.

But if they want a word counter, I'm not their man.

But if they want a word counter, I'm not their man

"Sorry, we're into the quality of the expression. Thank you for being anal about it, but you may be in the wrong place. Deal."