Archive for February 2011
Meet the Author Podcast: Aaron Goldfarb, “How to Fail”
February 18, 2011 | 
Author 
Welcome to our brand new podcast, Meet the Author, and our first interview with Aaron Goldfarb, the author of the funny, raunchy novel How to Fail: The Self-Hurt Guide. Aaron and I talked about a lot of things including his book, the idea and experience of success and failure, the process of writing, publishing and marketing in today’s fast-changing book market, and his participation in Seth Godin’s collaboration with Amazon, The Domino Project.
Notes and Links:
Here are some links for books, authors and projects Aaron and I discussed during the interview (in chronological order as discussed):
Aaron’s novel, How to Fail: The Self-Hurt Guide
Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide To Formatting Books For The Amazon Kindle by Joshua Tallent
Paulo Coelho and his book, The Alchemist
Aaron’s 30 Bars in 30 Days Book Signing Tour
Seth Godin and The Domino Project
Aaron’s book of short stories, The Cheat Sheet and The Cheat Sheet Film Festival
Next week’s Meet the Author interviewee is Matt Mikalatos: Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos (free until the end of February)
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Hangman’s Daughter Hangs In, Topping the 25 Most Wanted for a Second Week
The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch is the most-requested book at BookLending.com (formerly Kindle Lending Club) for the second week in a row. Here’s what Booklist has to say about the book:
This novel has been popular in Germany since its 2008 publication there, and it’s easy to see why. Set in the mid-1600s in the Bavarian town of Schongau, it features a hangman, Jakob Kuisl, who is asked to find out whether an ominous tattoo found on a dying boy means that witchcraft has come to town. This is no idle fiction. The German rulers were, at the time, heavily involved in the detection, prosecution, and execution of suspect witches. Pötzsch, who is descended from the real-life Kuisl family, does an excellent job of telling the story and supplying the historical backdrop. And his characters—Jakob, the hangman; his daughter, Magdalena; and Simon, the physician’s son—are extremely well drawn and believable. Kudos, too, to translator Chadeayne, who retains the story’s German flavor while rendering the text in smooth and highly readable English. Readers of historical fiction should find this very much to their liking. –David Pitt
There’s an interesting back story behind The Hangman’s Daughter and its publisher, AmazonCrossing. AmazonCrossing, a publishing imprint of Amazon itself, uses Amazon’s international book sales data to identify popular books that were not originally published in English. It then acquires the English publishing rights for these books and leverages the huge bookselling reach of Amazon.com to market AmazonCrossing titles, in paperback and Kindle format, to English-speaking readers. In the case of The Hangman’s Daughter, this approach has been a phenomenal Kindle-format success for AmazonCrossing and its Bavarian author, Oliver Pötzsch; the book is currently #11 in the Kindle Bestsellers list, although it is only at #184 in the regular Amazon bestsellers list.
Are Kindle readers more open to trying new authors, and do you think The Hangman’s Daughter‘s popularity will cross over into paperback?
BookLending.com 25 Most Wanted
Week of February 6, 2011
1. The Hangman’s Daughter, by Oliver Pötzsch
2. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
3. Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games), by Suzanne Collins
4. Water for Elephants: A Novel, by Sara Gruen
5. Freedom: A Novel (Oprah’s Book Club), by Jonathan Franzen
6. Switched (Trylle Trilogy, #1), by Amanda Hocking
7. My Horizontal Life, by Chelsea Handler
8. Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater
9. Sizzling Sixteen, by Janet Evanovich
10. Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games), by Suzanne Collins
11. House and Philosophy: Everybody Lies, by William Irwin, Henry Jacoby
12. Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, by Joanne Fluke
13. My Blood Approves, by Amanda Hocking
14. Favorite, by Karen McQuestion
15. Wicked Appetite, by Janet Evanovich
16. A Scattered Life, by Karen McQuestion
17. The Inconvenient Corpse: A Grace Cassidy Mystery, by Jackie King
18. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert Summary & Study Guide, by BookRags.com
19. The Kane Chronicles, Book One: The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan
20. Get It Together Girl!: A 28-Day Guide to Practical NOT Perfect Home Organization, by Karyn L. Beach
21. Rebecca’s Promise, by Jerry S. Eicher
22. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
23. Calling Home, by Janna McMahan
24. No and Me, by Delphine de Vigan
25. We Interrupt This Date, by L.C. Evans
Valentine’s, Schmalentines! Romance Takes a Back Seat in The 25 Most Wanted
Literary fiction, the paranormal, sci fi, crime fiction, thrillers and even a memoir about a comedian’s one-night stands; it seems like booklending.com readers (who tend to be female and between 35 and 55 years of age) are reading anything but traditional romance in the lead up to Valentine’s Day 2011.
While Amanda Hocking’s vampire and paranormal romances for young adults remain perennially popular, only two of the top 25 most requested books are traditional romance novels: A Season to be Sinful, by Jo Goodman, and Terry Spear’s An Accidental Highland Hero.
Another interesting trend we saw last week as well? Eight of the 25 titles fall under the umbrella of young adult fiction.
BookLending.com Most Wanted
Week of January 30, 2011
1. The Hangman’s Daughter, by Oliver Pötzsch
2. Water for Elephants: A Novel, by Sara Gruen
3. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
4. Switched (Trylle Trilogy, #1), by Amanda Hocking
5. Wicked Appetite, by Janet Evanovich
6. Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games), by Suzanne Collins
7. Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games), by Suzanne Collins
8. Heart of the Matter, by Emily Giffin
9. My Horizontal Life, by Chelsea Handler
10. My Blood Approves, by Amanda Hocking
11. The Lover’s Dictionary: A Novel, by David Levithan
12. Freedom: A Novel (Oprah’s Book Club), by Jonathan Franzen
13. The Templar Concordat, by Terrence O’Brien
14. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
15. We Interrupt This Date, by L.C. Evans
16. A Season To Be Sinful, by Jo Goodman
17. Sizzling Sixteen, by Janet Evanovich
18. Favorite, by Karen McQuestion
19. The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, by Kevin Malarkey
20. Ascend (Trylle Trilogy, #3), by Amanda Hocking
21. Ender in Exile, by Orson Scott Card
22. Crossing Oceans, by Gina Holmes
23. Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater
24. Firefly Lane, by Kristin Hannah
25. The Accidental Highland Hero, by Terry Spear