A Website for Independent Authors

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Saturday August 25, 2007 · 4:23 PM PDT

2007/08/25 · 16:23

After college, I went to work in the bookstore business. I was a manager for Borders, and then Barnes and Noble. I love books. I love to read. Working in a bookstore was extremely rewarding for me. But the pay sucked. And, the hours sucked. And, the aggressive anti-union mentality sucked. So, I left and went off to business school.

I received my MBA from Babson College in the summer of 2005. I went to Babson to hone my business skills with the dream of owning my own book publishing company. By the end of school I had serious doubts about entering the book publishing market for a number of reasons, mostly the consolidation of the industry and the rise of distributers, but I won't go into that here. Since leaving school, I've helped my husband take his business online, and he's enjoyed some modest success. But now I want to get back to my passion, books.

Recently reserven pondered her future as an author. I think she has a unique voice and a story to tell, so I told her she should go for it. But the truth is it is hard to break into the book business. Look at the New York Times best seller list sometime, and see how many new names are on that list. You'll find there are not many. The name of the game in book publishing is name recognition and successful formulaic writing (think Stephanie Plum or Tom Clancy).

I'm thinking about a new website for independent authors (authors who self publish, or publish with a small press, and are not represented by agents). I was thinking we could do book reviews, publish pieces online that maybe are not available in print, have a book business blog to help authors market their books, maybe have a number of sections (i.e. cooking, children's, fiction, non-fiction, political, autobiographical, etc.), have authors blog about their books and/or the writing process, and links to purchase the books promoted on the site.

I'm looking for feedback hence my new sig. Please let me know here or feel free to contact me if you have any suggestions. Thanks for your time.

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