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After months at the top of our Self-Published Bestsellers List and selling more than 150,000 e-book copies, Tammara Webber has landed a book deal with Penguin’s Berkley Books and Penguin Young Readers Group divisions for her novel, Easy.

Jane Dystel of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management negotiated the two book deal with Penguin Young Readers Group president Don Weisberg. On October 9, Penguin Group start publishing the digital version of Easy, and Berkley will release a trade paperback edition on November 6th.

Here’s more from the release: “Easy follows two characters on the cusp of adulthood and reflects a growing trend in publishing that media outlets and readers have dubbed “new adult.” In new adult novels, the characters are often in their late teens or college age and are facing the coming-of-age issues that accompany the move from teen to adult life. In Easy, 19-year-old Jacqueline grapples with both the aftermath of a sexual assault and the excitement of a new love interest.” (Author photo via)

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After dominating our Self-Published Bestsellers List, YA novelist Abbi Glines has signed a deal with Simon & Schuster’s Simon Pulse imprint for The Vincent Boys and The Vincent Brothers.

According to the publisher, Glines has sold more than 150,000 digital copies of the books since October 2011. Simon Pulse editorial director Jennifer Klonsky negotiated the deal with Dystel & Goderich’s Jane Dystel.

Simon Pulse has already released both books in eBook format. The Vincent Boys will come out in both hardcover and trade paperback format on October 30th. The Vincent Brothers will follow on December 18th.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Self-published author John Locke has inked a deal with Simon & Schuster. The first self published author to sell a million eBooks will let the major publisher handle sales and distribution of the first print run of his books.

Locke will continue to publish the eBooks and will produce the print books under his imprint John Locke Books, while Simon & Schuster will handle sales and distribution of the physical editions of the Donovan Creed novels. Locke’s agent, Jane Dystel of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, handled the deal. The titles will go on sale in February 2012.

Locke had this statement: “There are many paths from author to reader … and any path that puts the reader first will be successful. This agreement represents an exciting departure from the norm, and I applaud Simon & Schuster’s incredible vision, and their willingness to provide a vehicle that allows all readers traditional access to my books.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

I usually don’t blog on the weekends, but here I am at the fabulous Main Library up the street from my house. I’m working on creating a spreadsheet to help me with my revision process (I’ll share that in an upcoming post).

Anyway, of course the library has Internet access and so I felt the need to “ease” in to my revision process (i.e,. provide myself with a procrastination tactic).

I read some blogs, including the latest This Week in Publishing post on agent Nathan Bransford’s blog. He highlighted a publishing-related article in the NY Times, Book Sales are Down, Depsite Push. Just makes up want to jump up and sing right?

Nathan also pointed to a related blog post, Book Sales and Wails by Jane Dystel, of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. Here are some things she said in her post that struck a chord with me:

“Readers are becoming used to the fact that they will be able to find the books they want to read either in their originally published form or through used book sites or e-book editions. Just because these people are not in the bookstore the day a book is published doesn’t mean that that audience, if marketed to correctly, can’t make a title a bestseller six months after publication.

Despite this, publishers are still overpaying for a tiny percentage of books and then rolling them out as if the entire business depended on them, and they are invariably disappointed when they don’t sell by the truckload within a couple of weeks.”

I also think Ms. Dsytel makes a good point in her post about how the book industry isn’t necessarily like the movie industry where readers are going to bookstores on Tuesdays to purchase new books (okay, maybe I do, but you know what I mean, LOL). Some of the best books I didn’t even know about until several years after publication.

Maybe I’m being naive about this whole thing but I do understand that publishing is a business. But if a book’s survival is based on its sales performance in the first few weeks rather than giving it time to build an audience—these are going to be some tough times indeed for writers.

Okay, back to the spreadsheet and revision.