In the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey A. Trachtenburg writes about the best-selling marketing author, Seth Godin, who is ditching his traditional publisher, Portfolio, after a string of books and plans to sell his future works online directly to his fans:

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I plan to do exactly that. I recently received reversion of rights to my best-selling title, which is due for an 8th edition as the technology advances. I have had online access to my readership for decades, and the magazine I write for ([You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] will help me promote the new edition.

That works quite well for non fiction, especially with a fan base. Many non-fiction authors have a built in fan base through presentations where they sell their books. The same tactics are more difficult I think for fiction writers.

Well, Al, I wish you luck with your endeavor! You have a built-in platform that will certainly help.

What were the sales like of the 7th edition? It seems odd for Wiley to decline an 8th if it was still selling well. Did you discuss writing that fluff book for them at all, or were you just not interested?

There's a publisher, O'Reilly, I think it is, that does tech books for the tech minded, did you consider them or another tech publisher?

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I've had discussions with two Wiley acquistion editors. Both were very young; I saw their photos on a Webinar they held to solicit textbook writers. They looked a few years out of college and gave out some serious misinformation about image-gathering on that Webinar.

Both talked to me (at separate times about separate books) for about an hour, but ended up passing on the project. I felt they were basically seeking information about a lot of other things when we spoke.

I won't be querying them again.

eta -about Wiley wanting an author-produced accompanying video. I was told that authors were expected to provide all drawings themselves; it was implied that no grant monies were given for this. A prolific Wiley author who does all his drawings was constantly referred to. What was unsaid was that this prolific author is a professor emeritus who has grad students who do that work for him, and the college subsidizes it.