Author Archives: Laine Cunningham

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About Laine Cunningham

Laine Cunningham is an award-winning author, ghostwriter, and publishing consultant who has been quoted on CNN Money, MSNBC.com, FoxNews.com, and other national and international media. Her work has won multiple national awards, including the Hackney Literary Award and the James Jones Literary Society fellowship. She has received dozens of fellowships and residency slots from programs like the Jerome Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, the New York Mills Cultural Center, Wildacres Center for the Humanities, Arte Studio Ginestrelle in Assisi, Italy, the TAKT Kunstprojektraum in Berlin, Germany, Fusion Art in Turin, Italy and The Hambidge Center. She is also the author of the travel memoir "Woman Alone: A Six-Month Journey Through the Australian Outback" and a series of Zen and Wisdom books combining unique inspirational text with beautiful photos.

What Does Amazon Bestseller Status Mean?

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Because Amazon is very closed about sales information, it’s difficult to really judge what’s going on behind their algorithms. Publisher’s Weekly recently studied a few titles and determined that it takes about 300 sales of a single title per day to hit that marker.

Note, however, that these numbers are for the primary categories. The rankings also placed the titles in the top 10, not just the top 100. If you set your book into a smaller category, you need far fewer sales to hit the top 100. You’ll still need hundreds of sales per day to get into the top 10 but in the top 100, you’ll receive the additional benefits of Amazon’s algorithms.

Job Opportunity

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Quercus Publishing, Inc. seeks an associate director of publicity. Five to seven years direct publicity experience, superior writing skills, and familiarity with print, broadcast, and online media is required.

Top Ten Mystery Books

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A list from Publisher’s Weekly on the top ten mystery books. How does your writing stack up?

Is E-publishing The New Focus for the Big Five?

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As brick-and-mortar stores fall and ebook sales grow, a lot of chatter has been going around about whether this is the new focus for the top publishers. Even agents no longer assume that print will be part of their clients’ deals.

Pressure on publishers to release books more quickly as well as to keep an eye on profitable releases is a major driver. Authors fear that with a smaller investment from publishers, the publishers won’t feel that marketing is as necessary as before.

Since these days the main benefit publishers can offer is the ability to get books into stores, it’s a tricky situation for everyone. What are your thoughts?

5 Juvenile Series Adults Should Read

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The Millions recently published a listing of five books for young readers that adults should also read.

Book Agent Info

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Monica Odom of Liza Dawson Associates is building a client list based on literary fiction, women’s fiction and memoir. She also accepts nonfiction in pop culture, food and cooking, history, politics, and current affairs.

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Mollie Glick of Foundry Literary + Media is looking for adult fiction that straddles the literary/commercial line. 

Matchbook Grows

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Amazon’s bundling initiative, where purchasers of print books receive the ebook for free or a very low price, has already grown. The launch day offered 10,000 titles. Within a very short period of time, the number grew to 70,000 titles.

Currently, one of the biggest complaints about Matchbook is that most of the titles are backlisted…they are older titles that don’t hold much interest for readers. Try offering your own works now on Matchbook and be one of the few recent titles available. It’s an additional benefit that might help sales.

Job Opportunity

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Guilford Press is seeking a creative marketing professional as a fulltime junior marketing project manager. This position handles brochures, postcards, ads, market research and special campaigns.

Random House Acquires Figment

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Random House Children’s Books has acquired Figment, an online writing community for teens. Founded in 2010, the site has attracted more than 300,000 users. The site will remain open to titles from all publishers

Two Decades of Book Trends

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USA Today recently looked at twenty years of bestselling books from their own lists. Here’s what they found.

Self-help titles were big during the first five years. Oddly, the magazine connects this trend to the fact that print copies were still king then. In actuality, though, ebooks were first taken up by individuals reading nonfiction.

J.K. Rowling shattered the myths about what young readers wanted to consume both in terms of content and length during the 1998-2008 era.

Since 2009, in part due to the availability of ebooks (and of course the enhanced ability of readers to locate fiction through algorithms), fiction has risen to all-time highs.

New Ebook Purchase Model Might Benefit Authors

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Gale has launched a new purchase option for libraries. It’s a Usage-Driven Acquisition (UDA) model for ebooks. It allows libraries to purchase ebooks based on actual usage.

Since one of the latest trends among readers of ebooks is the frustration over not being able to share or gift their ebooks to others, this model might be something everyone can utilize to open DRM barriers that currently stop the average purchaser from sharing an ebook. If applied, it could provide authors with income based on actual readers.

Book Agent Info

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Beth Phelan of Bent Literary represents YA fiction and middle-grade readers, select commercial and literary adult fiction, and nonfiction in lifestyle, cooking/food writing, humor, pop culture, LGBT and pets/animals. She also reps adult fiction in the new adult, suspense, thriller, and mystery categories.

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Maria Vicente of P.S. Literary is looking for literary and commercial fiction, new adult, YA, middle grade and picture books. She also accepts nonfiction in pop culture, pop psychology, design, and lifestyle. She has a particular interest in magical realism, fiction with visual components, and nonfiction inspired by online culture.

Writing for the Christian Market

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Do you have to be Christian or a strong believer to write for the Christian Market?

No. They’re looking for great stories and high-quality writing skills. They of course want to convey a certain message but it’s not required that you follow the press or publication’s own set of beliefs to submit.

Do write well, and make sure your message is in line with theirs.

Keep the stories uplifting and inspirational!

Be open to feedback (as always) and you just might find a new market you’ve been overlooking.