Hi Alanna,

Thanks for calling by. I'll check out your podcast -- it sounds interesting!

Great interview Aggie! You don't have many idle moments!

Good to hear from you, Donald!

Hi Kaylin,

Good luck with your book! You are right about the difficulty of marketing! All the book covers are mine. I took the photo for The Power of Persuasion but the photo for Forever Friends was taken by Michael Tovo. I used the photo under a Creative Commons License.

Thanks Malcolm!

Glad you found the article helpful!

What are you saying, Susan? That writers read as much as they write?

These writers don't:

"In Groundreport we have fewer reader of our news/articles.
Why?
Because we don't read the news/articles. (I think)
Every member in GroundReport should help each other by reading the articles and leaving valuable comments about the news/article.
Most of members come here to write only."

http://www.groundreport.com/World/In-Ground-repor...

... and reading is in decline:

"For the past few months, literary writers, editors, and critics have been using some strong adjectives while discussing To Read or Not to Read, a report released last November by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). “Scary,” “sad,” and “downright depressing” have been common responses—and for good reason. Reading in America is in serious decline, according to the NEA, especially among the young. Fewer than one-third of thirteen-year-olds read for pleasure every day—a 14 percent decline from two decades ago—while the percentage of seventeen-year-old non-readers doubled over the same period. Americans between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four watch television about two hours a day, the study reveals, but read for only seven minutes."

http://www.pw.org/content/grim_reader

Most "long tail" authors suffer from the "not me" syndrome: everyone else is a mediocre writer but I am one of the few worthy writers whose work isn't commercial enough to attract an agent/publisher.

Unknown writers, who gain enormous pleasure out of writing, fool themselves into believing that thousands of readers would love to read their novels.

The first print run of the final book in the Harry Potter series was twelve million but the initial print run of the first book was just 350 hard copies (mainly sold to school libraries) and 150 proof copies:

http://www.theweeweb.co.uk/public/article_details...

It is extremely difficult to persuade readers to try something new. Without a big push to bring books to the attention of new readers, sales will not take off the way the HP books did. For the majority (mediocre books), it is impossible.