Very, very funny. Also: 16 minutes and a lot of profanity. A bunch of Hollywood talent (Elijah Wood, Simon Pegg, Mandy Moore).

(via Colleen Lindsey)

Though this poll's results are heavily skewed towards GoodReads as a source of recommendations, it's interesting to note how few readers picked up the last book they read because it was mentioned in the media (6.3%) or on a blog (6.6%). The most important factor in choosing a book, according to the readers who answered this poll, is word-of-mouth.

What this seems to say is that the impact of a single review -- or a single radio appearance, or a single guest blog -- doesn't have a significant impact on sales. JA Konrath said something similar on his blog a few weeks ago. "When I appear in some major periodical, I watch my Kindle numbers, looking for the big spike. I never see a big spike. In fact, I hardly ever see a small spike," he wrote. (I usually dismiss 3/4 of what Konrath says, but he has a point here.)

There are some media spots (The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, NPR, etc.) that may produce direct spikes in sales. "I saw a friend's numbers go berserk after an appearance on The Daily Show (admittedly, that's a big one and an outlier, like Oprah or something)," Barry Eisler wrote on Konrath's blog.

Cumulatively, I suspect, a different picture might emerge: A positive Times review, a guest post on Salon, and an interview on local radio station might all fit together to influence a reader into picking up a book. If anyone figures out the magic formula, let me know? Thanks!

UPDATE: Jennifer Weiner chimed in on Twitter: "My agent/publisher talk about Rule of 3: a reader has to read or hear about a book 3x before it clicks. It's cumulative."

(via GoodReads)

Apparently, for advertisers who spend at least $15k with Twitter, you can have any account "verified" with a blue checkmark. Even the fake account of someone who is, you know, dead.

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(via Holly Laurent)

I recently asked romance writer Jackie Barbosa about her foray into self-publishing; here's what she said:

I consider there to be two "types" of costs--hard and soft. Both count against my net income on any book, though. Hard costs would be the cover art (I'm not capable of doing that myself, so I pay for it), editing (I haven't paid for content editing yet, though it's possible I might in the future; I always pay for a professional copy edit, though), formatting (if you pay someone else to do that; I do it myself) and ISBN numbers. Soft costs are things like advertising, which I'd probably do even if the book were being put out by a publisher, but which nonetheless come out of my pocket, often before the book is released and before I've earned a dime from its sales.

My hard costs on my self-published novella, THE LESSON PLAN, were $125 for cover art, $225 for copy editing (a penny per word, roughly), and $25 for the ISBN (although I had to out-of-pocket $250 for a block of ten, only one of which I've used). If I were doing a full-length novel (and I will later this year), my editing costs would be proportionally higher.

Pretty sure this Breaking Dawn parody had a higher budget than the actual movie (which is out now on DVD).

According to this (unscientific) poll of GoodReads members, over 90% of readers would be likely to "take a chance" on a book based solely on its cover and jacket copy.

In a day and age in which many authors stress about the impact of negative (and lukewarm) reviews on sites like Amazon and GoodReads, it's shocking to see so many readers speak up and say, "I like to take chances." It's easy to forget: Readers are curious and adventurous creatures.

As Tobias Bucknell wrote on Twitter, "General awareness is built through reviews, but [reviews are] not as big an impact as people hope/pray/beg/plead/dread?"

(via GoodReads)

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