In the Ether: News from Southern - The Next Big Things

I was reading the Southern Review of Books today and wanted to pass on some news I found very interesting.

The Next Big Thing

I've been having discussions with people who write Speculative Fiction and we were all wondering about the 'next big thing.' Vampires and Werewolves have been done to death and if I never see another fanged, semi-human creature who sucks blood or sprouts a snout, I will be very happy.

People are looking for something else now, hopefully. But no one seemed to know what that was. At least none of those I talked to.

Then I read something in the July issue of Southern Review and found this:

According to USA Today, "publishers are releasing a school of mermaid novels.”

Stephenie Meyer, famous for her vampire novels, told USA Today that she is writing about mermaids.

MerCon 2011, the first mermaid convention, will be held on August 12-13, 2011 at the Mirage Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

The recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie featured...you guessed it, mermaids.

So, is mermaids the 'next big thing'?

Exclusive Kindle Club

The next bit of news deals with eBook sales. John Locke is the 8th author to join the Kindle Million Club.

Yes, you read right. Despite having only been out a few years, there have been 8 authors who have sold over 1 million Kindle books. Lucky them.

The others are Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris (author of the True Blood series), Michael Connelly (The Lincoln Lawyer and The Fifth Witness), Lee Child and Suzanne Collins.

The eighth and latest one, John Locke, is of particular significance because he is the first to be self-published through Telemachus Press which charges for its services. He sold 369,000 books in March alone and hit both #1 and #2 on the Amazon best seller list at the same time, as well as being a New York Times best-selling author.

"By the middle of March, 2011, it had been calculated that “every 7 seconds, 24 hours a day, a John Locke novel is downloaded somewhere in the world.”

And he did it all by himself, and remarkably at virtually no marketing expense, or so the claim goes.

And I bet that a lot more people will be downloading that book to see how he did it...

Looking at success stories like this, it seems like it should be easy, but believe me, for the millions out there still trying to achieve the same thing, it's not, but there is hope :)