Today I did a Loft Literary Center online 2-hour class with one of my favorite authors John Scalzi (great books, great blog, and usually hysterical Twitter account filled with lots of cat photos). Called “Ask Scalzi Anything: Observations and Advice on Writing, Publishing, The Writer’s Life and More” it covered questions about the craft of writing, questions about publishing, questions about the writing life/finances/etc, and a fun miscellaneous section where people could ask any questions.
Here was the official blurb on the class “Award-winning and New York Times Bestselling author John Scalzi (Old Man’s War, The Last Emperox) knows you have questions about writing, the publishing industry and how to manage the day-to-day realities of the writing lifestyle — and in this two-hour session, he answers them, fully and frankly, providing answers based on his own experiences in a three-decade-long career as a professional writer. The session will break out into four categories: Writing, the Publishing Industry, the Writer’s Life and Finances, and then “Etc” — covering anything and everything from pets to film and television. No question too big or small! It’s everything you ever wanted to know about writing, and more” (https://loft.org/classes/ask-scalzi-anything-observations-and-advice-writing-publishing-writers-life-and-more).
The class was presented in a format called crowdcast.io, which is a live event platform. I had never used it before and it worked pretty well, but I did notice some sound issues as the sound faded in and out during the 2 hour talk, but it did make asking questions easy.
There were 43 people listed in the class, with Scalzi and the Loft people also on the call, it was a good size for an online author event. Scalzi did a great job of answering almost all the questions that were asked and gave well detailed responses. You get the impression he could talk on these topics for hours. I was waiting to see if his cats would make an appearance, but sadly no cats. His wife Krissy did make a quick appearance, so that was nice. So I asked 2 questions and they were both answered. He pronounce my last name correctly with the first question, but not so much on the second question, but that’s ok, as long as its close, it’s all good).
Question 1: From a financial standpoint how do eBooks and Kindle figure into things? Is it better to have a $0.99 sale on your books vs. selling a new hot off the press book? Thank you!
Scalzi answer summarized: More money made from new book sales of $11.99 vs sale of ebooks for $0.99. Also depends on a lot of other factors, such as if you are self-publishing. A smaller price is better for marketing if you are trying to get people to read the first books in a series and buy more books.
Question 2: Did or do you have a list of “great” books that you want Athena to read. What books would be on that list?
Scalzi answer summarized: No. He wants her to read what she wants to read and the important thing is that she is reading. She became a reader on her own. He really wanted her to read the ‘Dark Is Rising’ series and she didn’t (he felt betrayed! haha), but she did read her own stuff such as ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ books and the ‘Uglies’ series by Scott Westerfeld and other books that were relevant to her.
A fun event. For more Scalzi see his website at https://whatever.scalzi.com/ and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scalzi
