Ty Cobb going in cleats, ninja-style!What's up, champs? I'm more than happy to have on Ben LeRoy this week, the publisher and founder of Tyrus Books, the company who'll be publishing Young Junius this fall.

Ben's a hardcore publishing/literature/crime fiction devotee and having him on here is tantamount to having on a publisher-version of what I've been trying to be as a writer. We get into some great topics this week in the first half of this interview: Tyrus's history, Andy Griffin, Young Junius, Maxwell Perkins, J.D. Salinger and much more!!

You'll also hear a short update on the front end about my progress with JP2/JP3 revisions. Enjoy!

Click here to listen to this week's 'cast!

Art by Bob OstromThis is where the big news gets dropped, people! Complete audio here! No, I'm not getting married, buying a ring, or any of that, but today's Special Guest, Alison Janssen of Tyrus Books IS. And that's mostly beside the point BUT, listen here to find out (within the first 5 minutes):

• How I'm resurrecting Palms Sunday 2010! (March 28th)
• What my next published book will be

and

• How YOU can get your hands on the book asap in a special limited, collector's edition as well as make publishing history by helping Tyrus and me pioneer a new model of book-release that (as far as we know*) only Scott Sigler has done so far!

If you can't wait to hear the news, click here to get it all after the break.

Click here to Listen to this post as Audio. (Right-click to download.)

As some of you already know, back on December 27th, I released a sample of my first short story collection A Long Way from Disney on Amazon’s Kindle store and used social media strategies to market it. I did this for various reasons, but mainly because, as I said here on Open Culture before, I believe authors need to take on the roll of scientists and experiment with what’s possible in today’s publishing world. (If you're interested in how I publicized this, see my recent posts at AuthorBootCamp.com.)

From a scientific point of view, the experiment was a great success. I learned a great deal, which I’ll discuss below. I sold a lot of books (at $.99 each): around 350 in the first week, and I got my name and stories in front of a lot of new people. I also heard from a number of them who read the book right away and really loved it! For you authors out there, I hope you can relate: Getting positive feedback on your work from total strangers is about the best feedback there is.

[For those of you keeping score at home, those sales put $260 into Amazon’s pockets and $140 into mine. Not too shabby, I don’t think, but also not the split an author might hope for.]

Okay, without any further delay: Here are the Results (What I’ve learned) from Experiment 1:

Call In Line 206-350-4998Click here to Listen!

I'm back in the Hot Tub today waxing nostalgic about the fact that the decade is ending and that Y2K was ten years ago. I talk about the A Long Way from Disney Kindle rush that went on this week, some of the milestones it reached and my holidays. I also unveil a new Kindle Promo: The Contest!

The Contest works like this:There are two giveaways--on Wednesday 1/9 and Weds 1/16.

Each week there will be two winners, who'll have the choice of three prizes:

1) signed Breakneck Books copy of JWU—the first printing! A collector’s item.

2) Original marked manuscript pages of JP2 or a short story by me.

Or 3) A consult on a short story or chapter of a novel you’re writing/working on.

To play: blog about the Disney Kindle release and chart rush to help spread the word. If you don’t have a blog, the equivalent of a blog post is deemed adding the info as a facebook or twitter status update for two days out of a given week. Be sure to put this link to Amazon into your post.

Doable? I think so! Fun? Yes!!

If you're interested in how I created the publicity around my Disney Kindle Rush and what I did on the back end to get people to know about the book, have a look over at Author Boot Camp, where you'll see Post I: My Prelim Checklist of Items and Post II: My Second Wave of Steps.

Results coming soon...

So I'm now into DAY 2 of this ALWFD Kindle rush. Here's what I'm observing:

1) the Kindle bestseller charts seem to be VERY long lag, meaning that I think they're heavily weighted to sales over a large number of hours--you can't sell 100 books in an hour and climb to the top. Seems like past days' sales are even taken into account.

Therefore, my number is STILL on the rise! I'm currently sitting at No. 255 overall in books, almost 30 hours after I started the rush. This is the highest I've gotten yet and (despite the sleeping hours) I've been climbing steadily the whole way. So make of that what you will.

2) There are a ton of public domain classics on the tops of the list that are free. These will always be hard to displace. Some new releases are free too.

3) The big point that's still worth mentioning is that people DON'T need a Kindle to buy the collection (that and the fact that it's only 99 cents!). People can download software for their PC here http://bit.ly/3bIDY1 or iPhone/iPod Touch here http://bit.ly/5B8aCt to read Kindle books. From there it's a snap to buy the collection here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ZVPSOU

It is DISNEY KINDLE COMMANDO SUNDAY!

Nope, you don't need a Kindle to play.

Yes, it is time for us to once again SHAKE 'EM DOWN in publishing with an Amazon rush. Lots of info is here on how to buy A Long Way from Disney today to help me rush up the charts at Amazon's Kindle store.

Want to go right to Amazon? OK.

Want to listen to some awesome free fiction from the collection? Yeah, you do. Here is my story Nilsa for you to put in your ears! Enjoy it. More to come soon and plenty more audio stories are here for the collection.

PS: If you want more free ebooks, have a look over at the OpenCulture blog and the new section there on freebies:

Free eBooks: Great Books on Your PC, iPhone, Kindle

Thizz is it, folks. We bring Publishing Experiment No. 1 to LIFE right now. Buy A Long Way from Disney now on your Kindle or with your Kindle reader account. Follow this link:

Buy ALWFD on Kindle now!

Complete audio and Merriest of Holiday Wishes!

More info on the release is here!

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Super Kwanza, and let's have a dynamite New Year's Eve! In the process can right now is a Kindle experiment with A Long Way from Disney. Here's what it is:

Publishing Experiment 1: If we know anything for sure about publishing right now, it’s that it is changing. Authors, I believe, must become the scientists running experiments with new technology, new publicity strategies, marketing, you name it. There’s just too much money involved for the big (and some small) presses to carry out the kind of testing and idea-trying that needs to be done. That leaves us independent authors to try things out on our own.

Get your hands on these a free sample of 12 Great Books!

I'm really happy to be a part of this great promotion of holiday books for gift-giving. This is a stellar lineup of your favorite and some of the web's biggest authors! What if the bookstore could come to you?

That’s the idea behind this In the Nick of Time! holiday sampler PDF. Inside are excerpts from a dozen new novels and nonfiction books by these New York Times bestselling authors, successful entrepreneurs, and wickedly talented storytellers:

Seth Godin - Tribes / Linchpin

Laurell K. Hamilton - Divine Misdemeanors

Joseph Finder - Vanished

Cory Doctorow - Makers

Chris Brogan & Julien Smith - Trust Agents

Robert J. Sawyer - Wake

Mitch Joel - Six Pixels of Separation

Cherie Priest - Boneshaker

Sott Sigler - The Rookie

Tara Hunt - The Whuffle Factor  AND J.C. Hutchins - 7th Son: Descent!

What a lineup!