Looking to the Future

Today PRNewswire released the results of a Harris poll conducted 7/11-7/18, 2011 on reading habits in the US. The headline was that one sixth of the population is now using an e-reader of some sort, with the same number projecting that they are likely to purchase one in the next year. Various variables are analyzed but what do they really mean in terms of book sales. I decided to do the math. With the current penetration of the market, and assigning median values of 1.5, 4, 8, 15, and 25 for the number of books purchased per year, we can figure the number of books sold per 10,000 people. That comes out to 45,390 books / 10,000 folks for conventional book sales and 15,030 books / 10,000 people for e book sales. So about a third.

What is interesting is to extrapolate where we'll be if the projected growth in e readers materializes. In that case, conventional book sales would be expected to drop to 37,380 books/10,000 people and the number of e-books should jump to 30,060 e book sales/ 10,000 individuals. So at 30% penetration almost half of sales are of e books. When costs and profit margins are taken into consideration, I think where we're headed is obvious.

Scott Anderson
IsoLibris Publishing


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Location:Mississippi

The Uncommon Thread Project

I guess I better explain how there are so many Uncommon Thread shorts coming out. Well, there were a bunch of them that were in a book that is coming out jointly by China Grove Press (Hardback) and IsoLibris (e book) later this year called Una Voce, that was a compilation of work by Dr. Dwalia South and myself. But Una Voce as it was compiled cut off before the death of Dr. South's dear husband Rob, and the things that she has written in the interim are so compelling that I reworked the collection and pulled my own work out, because of the gravity and excellence of the material available from her alone. We had already planned to put columns from my more recent column "The Uncommon Thread" out through the Kindle singles program, but that program has a lot of particular constraints, one of them being that the material should be of an intermediate length that isn't suitable for either a novel or a magazine article. Well since all of these have already appeared in the JOURNAL of the Mississippi State Medical Association, we got rejected on that one. Oh well, because we now have access to the older material and we aren't constrained by the Kindle singles program, we've bundeled collections of 6-10 columns into short format releases that run about 50 pages each. So far I've put together five of them. These will represent about all of the things that I've put out that have a general interest appeal, I don't guess you care about specific issue topics or medically based subjects so these were tossed from consideration. We will offer another collaborative volume next spring of the best of these that will be offered in both hardback, by China Grove, and e book, by IsoLibris. So I hope you give them a try. If you like one, try more. If you have suggestions about which stories are your favorite let us know and that's what will go into the book. You get to determine what we publish. I hope you'll be a part of deciding what we put out. To do it, go to www.IsoLibris.com and then click on my page. Thanks, Scott This is your chance to direct what gets put in a book!!!

A new wrinkle in The Uncommon Thread Project

The more I've been thinking about this project, the more I want to encourage you guys, the readers, to participate, so, I think that you should have an incentive to be involved. Anyone who takes the time to read and offer comments on all five shorts will get a signed first edition of the book when it comes out, and whoever sends in the most helpful guidance (judged by the author, me) will get a personal "Thank You" in the Acknowledgements section of the book. To download the shorts go to www.IsoLibris.com and go to my page. Scott

Una Voce

Here is the blurb for the book I just edited and put together, it is coming out in November. This is one of the most difficult and intense acts of creation that I've ever undertaken, to create a whole from pieces that are not yours is extremely difficult. Coming up with the obscure bits that are needed to make the whole and assembling them so that they make sense to the reader is a unique art, it is like making a mosaic. A mosaic of words.

  Una Voce - Dwalia South M.D.

 This collection of stories, poems, and letters is gleaned from the writings of Dr. Dwalia South throughout her writing career. Constructed as a compelling narrative to tell the story of an extraordinary life, from her remembrances as a young girl growing up in the hill country on the Mississippi-Tennessee border to her election as President of the Mississippi State Medical Association and beyond as she faces life’s deepest mysteries on both a professional and personal level. It chronicles both her efforts to care for the people of her hometown of Ripley, Mississippi and the effect that her vocation, life, and community have had on her as a person and as a physician.

 Dr. South’s ties to William Faulkner are far deeper than geographic or kinship. Her writing mines the wealth of history and tradition that gave rise to Yoknapataha and all those that populated it. With that same insight she tells the stories of her home state and of medicine.

 Her heartfelt reflection of the people she serves and the lives she is privileged to share changes us, and that is a hallmark of great writing.

Lost Time

Finished the production work for D. South's book Una Voce. Now all we need to do is finish the cover and it's off for galley prints.


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