Re: Authors market
"First books are rarely bought because the story catches on. They are bought because there is something about the author that fascinates the buyer."
Oh, yeah, that statement bugged me. That...and the sentence before it about the author having to stand out. If people would just think about this a little--they go into Barnes and Noble or the little shoppe around the corner, and they do what? They see an author standing out and rush to the counter to buy the author's book? Or they browse the shelves, thumb the pages, check out the blurbs on the back cover, look for that book that they saw reviewed in their local paper or that other book that Betty Sue recommended to them the other day?
Me, I do the latter. I've only ever twice bought books because the author was Right There, standing out. (Once was at a teen writers conference in junior high--I dragged my mom to the bookstore immediately after talking to a Real Live Writer--and the other was after listening to another author talk at a library.) Two books. Two books in all these years. The rest I found at the library--my number one introduction to books--or on my parent's shelves (second only to the library because my parents had less books than the library and eventually the numbers were bound to catch up) or by the recommendations of friends or because people in the industry had recommended X book or by browsing in the bookstore. But so very rarely because the author was standing right there, standing out.
(BTW, Uncle Jim can prolly tell me if this is true--but is it true that libraries, like brick-and-mortar bookstores are also loath to acquire vanity published and POD books? If so, then there's another huge audience down the drain for the PA people.)