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Kevin Kelly shares tips to successful book publishing in 2025 [1]
['Mark Frauenfelder']
Date: 2025-08-18
In the most recent issue of the free Recomendo newsletter, my friend Kevin Kelly wrote about his new guide, called Everything I Know About Publishing and Self-Publishing.
Kevin knows what he's talking about: "In my professional life, I've had several bestselling books published by New York publishers, as well as many other titles that sold modestly. I have also self-published a bunch of books, including one bestseller on Amazon and two massive hit Kickstarter-funded books. I have had lots of foreign edition books released by other publishers around the world, including bestsellers in those countries."
Samples:
On the changing publishing landscape:
"For the most part, however, the peak of this traditional system is gone, finished, over. Reading habits have altered, buying habits are new, and attention has shifted to new media. It's an entirely new publishing world."
On publishers and audience:
"Traditional book publishers have lost their audience, which was bookstores, not readers. It's very strange but New York book publishers do not have a database with the names and contacts of the people who buy their books."
On advances:
"The rule of thumb for an author is that you should get the biggest possible advance you can… The reason is: the bigger the advance, the bigger commitment the publisher must make in promotion, publicity, and sales."
On the core challenge:
"The short version: it is not hard to produce a book. It is much harder to find the audience for it and deliver the book to them. At least 50% of your energy will be devoted to selling the book."
On the shift to screens:
"We used to be people of the book, but now we are people of the screen… Books no longer have the gravitas they did… The audiences for my books are counted in thousands but the audience for my TED talk videos are counted in millions."
On promotion:
"You will be the publicity department no matter what… Even with a commercial publisher releasing your work, you will end up doing the majority of whatever promotion gets done."
On crowdfunding:
"A misconception about Kickstarter, Backerkit, and crowdfunding platforms like Patreon is to imagine that you will automatically find your audience there. It is almost the opposite. You won't be able to have a successful crowdfunding campaign unless you bring the crowd with you."
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[1] Url:
https://boingboing.net/2025/08/18/kevin-kelly-shares-tips-to-successful-book-publishing-in-2025.html
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