USA Today's list

Lee Goldberg has an interesting piece (as he often does) concerning USA Today's bestseller list which includes self-published ebooks for the first time. He quotes one author in saying that other lists like the NY Times will need to start including self-pubbed ebooks or wind up being seen as irrelevant. I see this as happening, but...

There is also the prediction that this will mean that the major newspapers will need to start reviewing these books. That may be overly optimistic. The trend has been to shrink review space in newspapers. And that hasn't really been affected by fluctuations in book sales (or ebook sales). For the near future, I suspect the ebooks that get reviewed by major newspapers will be by mainstream authors that decide to forego traditional publishing. For instance, I can see the NY Times reviewing a Joe Konrath novel or a Lee Goldberg if he puts out a new novel in Kindle form.

The article goes on to predict that Amanda Hocking will surpass the million mark in sales at Kindle. I can see the major papers having articles about that event and what it means for publishing in general.

Sadly, my recent releases KILLING WAYS and THE DEVIL'S SNARE: A COMEDY probably won't be reviewed in the Times. Their loss, really...