According to the NY Times, self-publishing numbers are up and they’re gaining in cachet.

Cheap, digital-publishing technology — especially print-on-demand options, which let individual buyers essentially commission copies of books — has been a godsend to writers without agents or footholds at traditional publishing houses. It has also been a quiet godsend to literary history. Books that defy traditional classification now appear in print, and reprints of public-domain titles account for the biggest category of self-published books.

Change isn’t coming, according to the Book Industry Study Group’s Making Information Pay conference, it’s already here.

“St. Martin’s Press v-p and associate publisher Matt Baldacci said the point of no return came to him last year when a bestseller that eventually sold 30,000 copies in hardcover sold 11,000 e-book copies within the first few weeks of release.”

In this Media Bistro interview, agent Meredith Bernstein says “many editors have told me that they are looking for really good women’s fiction.”

“What I am looking for is pretty much always the same thing: A BOOK I CAN’T PUT DOWN. I really don’t care what the subject matter is or the genre or the setting. Just give me a STORY and CHARACTERS that I want to inhale and you’ll have me at “hello”!”

Taylor Martindale joined Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. One of her interests is women’s fiction.

Donald Maass mentioned RWA-WF member Susan Wiggs in his recent Writer Unboxed post this week, in which he talked about using multiple point of view to give depth to a novel and “to create a true sense of scale.”

Whether you’ve gotten rejections lately or not, this list of 30 famous authors whose works were (repeatedly and rudely) rejected is interesting.

Agent Jessica Faust from Bookends posted her New and Updated Publishing Dictionary. She says it’s an “ever-popular post.”

Agent Donald Maass wrote a blog about The Elements of Awe on Writer Unboxed that every writer should read. He used information from a New York Times article on a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. The study shows which NY Times articles are most emailed to friends and family, and end up going viral. Maass brilliantly links the results to writing.

“Their conclusions have some relevance for fiction writers because they reveal what it is about stories that probably generate word of mouth. This month and next I’m going to discuss these elements and show how you can apply them in your novels.”

If you can bear reading one more article about e-book pricing, the Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book might be the one.

J.A. Konrath has only good things to say about e-books. His blog title says it all: “JA Konrath Kindle Sales: 30k Ebooks in 11 months.”

“I’m currently selling $1.99 ebooks at the rate of 170 per day. That means I’m earning around $120 per day just sitting on my butt. If this trend continues as-is, I’ll earn $43,800 this year on previously published short stories and novels that NY print publishing rejected.”

E-books aren’t the only unconventional alternative writers are taking. John Edgar Wideman, a two-time winner of the Faulker Award for fiction, is publishing his next book through Lulu. Briefs, Stories for the Palm of the Mind, are available now.

“I’ve been thinking about alternatives for a long time,” said Wideman, whose works of fiction and non-fiction include the award-winning Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire and Fanon. “Lulu seems to represent a very live possibility as the publishing industry mutates. I like the idea of being in charge. I have more control over what happens to my book. And I have more control over whom I reach.”

This study on The Short-Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books on Print Sales shows that for the most part giving free digital books increases sales. The only ones that didn’t work was Tor, and they concluded it could have been because of Tor’s distribution.

“Two of these books (titles 32 and 41) both had releases of paperback editions that preceded the free book by only a few weeks. Thus for the majority of the ‘pre’ weeks, a paperback version was not available. These newly released paperback versions could easily explain why the “pre” sales of these titles were less than the “post” sales.”

Do you think e-books are hot in romance? Publishing Perspectives does. They have numbers and quotes, including information that the over 60 demographic reading e-books is growing.

RWA-WF member Susan Wiggs was mentioned in agent Donald Maass’s recent Writer Unboxed blog about writing “bigger” books. He said:

“Recently I had the privilege of co-teaching workshops with two contemporary novelists whose work embodies bigness: mystery novelist Nancy Pickard and women’s fiction author Susan Wiggs. In interviews and with in-depth analysis of a novel by each (The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy and Just Breathe by Susan) we were able to discover, at least in part, the methods of bigness.”

Agents are in the news again. Query Tracker reports that Kathleen Ortiz of Lowenstein Assoc. is looking for chick lit and YA. This is so new it’s not on the agency website yet. You could be one of the first to query her.

If you’re querying agents, you’ll want to read Chuck Samuchino’s Guide to Literary Agents editor’s blog on 7 Reasons Agents Stop Reading Your First Chapter.

Here’s an interesting blog on why women read women’s fiction, and why WF has difficulty making it in transmedia.

Not about publishing, but important to all women, the Senate passed a women’s health amendment. According to this New York Times article, “the Senate approved an amendment to its health care legislation that would require insurance companies to offer free mammograms and other preventive services to women.” Bravo to the Senate!

More recently, agent Jim McCarthy from Dystel & Goderich Literary Management blogged about the importance of voice for romance and women’s fiction.

Halfway down this Oxygen blog, which summarizes the panel on genre fiction from The Surrey International Writers’ Conference, is a question from an audience member about women’s fiction, with a great answer by Donald Maass.

Pimp My Novel has a great blog about Women’s Fiction, with links to blogs on the subject by agent Jessica Faust and author Jennifer Weiner.

If you want to go straight to Jessica Faust’s blog on The Future of Women’s Fiction, here’s the link.

Of interest to all writers is JA Konrath’s blog where he shows and tells his e-royalty figures.

I thought it would be fun to throw in this job position description posted on MediaBistro:

Finally, Penguin Group seeks a Senior Editor/Executive Editor for the New American Library. Here’s more about the job: “This position will work primarily with best-selling womens fiction and non-fiction authors. Offering a wide selection of commercial fiction and non-fiction, NAL aims at reaching the largest number of possible readers, the true mass market.”

Last, enjoy this video from Barbara Vey’s Beyond Her Book PW’s blog on Women’s Fiction last June.

If you have news about women’s fiction, please email me at edieramer@gmail.com.