One of the projects I help out with is the International Literary Quarterly. And now there’s the interlitq blog to go along with the Quarterly. Add it to your news reader.

We’ve recently launched one of our side projects: bookswrittenby.com, a gallery of writers and their websites.

The site is a showcase for author websites in all genres by any designer. Browse around and get an idea what authors are doing with their websites.

I’ve prepared a list of more than 1,000 authors with websites that I will be adding over the next few months. But if you have suggestions for author websites to be included, please let me know.

This is a post I’ve had in draft mode for a while but haven’t had the time to finish. This morning I saw a couple of articles that reminded me I needed to finish this post. The two articles that made me come back to this topic: How to Beat the Long Tail which links to Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans.

Joe Wikert posted an interview with Jeff Gomez, author of Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age that raises several good points including a future where the notion of what it means to be published is going to change. Gomez says, “The Internet is the best thing that has ever happened to the midlist author.”

Then I saw a comment to Joe’s interview where someone said, “who ever made money selling fiction on the web? (Nobody, that’s who)”.

What are some ways in which the fiction writer can leverage the Web in order to support a life of writing?

I’ve been thinking that a writer could earn a sustainable income by direct sales to loyal readers, either through books – digital downloads or POD – or even through a membership site.

Membership? Have a favorite writer? Not a lot of writers get very far in their blogging because – I suspect – they feel that blogging takes away from their real writing. But many writers craft essays, columns, and stories for publication. What if the author’s own membership site became an outlet for that creative content?

As an avid reader and follower of contemporary fiction I would gladly pay $50 a year (possibly more) for access to writings by my favorite writer. Make that writers. There’s certainly a limit on the number of writers I would support with an annual contribution but I spend a lot of money on books anyway.

How many loyal fans does it take for the writer to earn a sustainable income, either through selling direct or opting for some type of membership site? Do the math.

Keven Kelly writes

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

It’s not a matter of if but when writers will break away from publishers and go independent.

It has not yet happened because most fiction writers are not net savvy or entrepreneurial.

Not just for loyal fans:

A writer also could use online products, either free digital downloads, or a membership site to attract new readers. For instance, I’ve recently developed an interest in Will Self. Since it’s not so easy for me to get his books down here in Buenos Aires, I would consider subscribing on a trial basis to get access to more of his writings, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. Then I might be converted into a loyal fan.

A team is needed:

Of course, most writers are not going to be able to handle the slightest technical aspects of implementing such an online campaign, though a few will do so. And writers always will need editors and designers (your online site has to look good if you’re asking people to give you money). But there are plenty of ways to contract with those professionals. In the future publishers will need to shift towards providing that type of team to writers and managing an author’s online presence. If publishers don’t, then others will step in and do so.

I have many more thoughts on this topic but for now you should go read 1,000 True Fans.

There’s a good discussion in the comments over at the BookEnds literary agency blog on the Power of an Author Blog.

Most people are never very interested in blogs that are too personal. No one really cares about what you had for dinner last night or seeing photos of your cat. Blogs are not for writing about your interesting life.

Internet marketers do as much thinking about how to use the net as anyone and view a blog largely as an attraction strategy, a way of bringing attention to one’s products or services. Blogging tools are superb for optimizing a Web site in terms of search engines.

Author blogs and web sites are not so much for an author’s current readers but serve as a strategy for attracting new readers.

Blogs are ideally suited for the non-fiction writer who can write about a niche and gain readers that way. For example, Quid plura? by Jeff Sypeck is a non-fiction writer I came across while reading those comments to the BookEnds post. Sypeck just released a book about Charlemagne. While I don’t think much about medieval history these days, browsing through Sypeck’s site makes me interested in reading the book. Note, too, that Sypeck’s new book also has its own Web site: becomingcharlemagne.com

I have a theory that an author website/blog will one day be the primary distribution platform for an author’s writings. The details of that are for another post.

Meanwhile, here is a great quote from Sypeck’s blog:

I was reminded of the neatest thing about writing a book in the first place: the author’s obsession, developed over years and often nurtured in solitude, finally becomes a shared point of reference through which readers can look anew at some aspect of the world.

A number of blogs have talked about Picador’s new plans to release literary fiction only in paperback, bypassing the “prestige” of hardcover. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of that Guardian story was the quote, “It is not uncommon for a literary fiction hardback to sell under 100 copies.”

I didn’t think much about Picador’s new publishing plans until I was browsing the bookstores on Avenida Santa Fe this weekend and noticed that Coetzee’s latest novel, Diary of a Bad Year, is already out in the stores here in Buenos Aires and in paperback.

Most literary fiction in Argentina already debuts in soft cover. I assume that’s true for all the Spanish-language market. No one here seems to mind and the price is certainly lower than a hardcover equivalent. Essentially, in the Buenos Aires bookstores you only see literary hardcover for collector editions.

Prices for one reason

Diario de un Mal Año retails in Buenos Aires for 35 pesos, which is just over $11 US dollars. In the UK the hard cover is £16.99 and in the U.S. the book is a whopping $25.95! (And in the U.S. the novel isn’t even published yet).

Sometimes I complain about the price of books in Buenos Aires but in comparison 35 pesos is a great deal. But, hey, since Coetzee (one of my favorite authors) writes in English I’m going to wait for the English version, which will arrive with UK pricing converted to pesos – sigh.

But if publishers and readers of Spanish can deal with literary fiction coming out only in softcover, then why can’t UK and US publishers and readers?

Uh, about that cover

In another view to this topic: publishers of books in Spanish save a lot of money by ripping off cover designs from the UK. (Note that this Spanish edition of Coetzee is published by Mondadori, the huge Italian publisher.) Here’s the Spanish version:

Compare that to the UK version:

Now, compare that to the U.S. version, which is quite different and we find quite lovely.

We like the UK version but prefer the U.S. version. The Spanish version is just an embarrassment, though it’s much better than a lot of book covers I see on the shelves of Buenos Aires bookstores. Note even the poor use of type in the Spanish version when compared to the UK version. Of course, it’s likely that Mondadori paid very little for the Spanish cover, probably 1/10 of the design fee charged for either the U.S or UK covers. For Spanish-language publishers, cover design is just not important – unfortunately.