Month: June 2011

The Author As Publisher

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This post, by Mary W. Walters, originally appeared on her The Militant Writer blog on 5/30/11.

(2nd in a series of articles about the new realities for writers and readers)

It seems inevitable to me now that unless they take up the sideline manufacture of weaponry or bath salts to subsidize themselves, the major publishing houses are going down. There will certainly be a role for niche publishers in future (literary presses that focus on poetry or esoteric fiction among them, teetering on the brink of expiration as they always have, and non-fiction houses that specialize in such limited areas as the flora and fauna of Paraguay or the battles of World War II), but for the majority of mainstream fiction and non-fiction book writers, independent publishing will soon become the norm.

In this post, I examine the “services” publishers have traditionally provided to writers and their books (and therefore to readers, I suppose), and then I look at how I believe these same functions can be managed—often in a more effective manner—by the authors themselves when they publish their own books. The post examines five specific areas:

  • manuscript selection
     
  • editing
     
  • production
     
  • promotion/sales
     
  • distribution

There are other areas that publishers have traditionally managed for writers, often with the help of agents. Most of them relate to subsidiary rights—e.g., translation rights,  dramatic rights, merchandizing rights, and so on. Publishers have traditionally taken a chunk of the money that accrues when a book has been translated or made into a movie. They have argued (with good reason) that after a manuscript has been accepted by a publisher and turned into an attractive book, it becomes more appealing to rights purchasers. Publishers have at times facilitated the process by presenting their books to prospective foreign publishers at the London and Frankfurt book fairs, for example, but for the most part they have simply secured some portion of the subsidiary rights without actually doing much to encourage an income flow for either themselves or the author from such sources.

So, on to the “services” they have offered and fulfilled.


Read the rest of the post on The Militant Writer for more in-depth analysis of the five specific publisher "services" in the context of the past, present and future, and also see the first post in the series.

The Future of Book Publishing

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Last week I was invited to attend a fascinating presentation about technology trends, delivered to a group of hospitality industry technology professionals by Peter Leyden, who is the former managing editor of Wired magazine and author of The Long Boom, a History of the Future 1980-2020. As an author and publisher, two main themes stood out to me:

1.    The tablet computer changes everything.

2.    The use of video will continue to grow rapidly.

During his presentation, Leyden cited the huge growth in sales of ebooks and the next big trends in book publishing: apps and multi-media ebooks with images, audio, and video integrated into the text. 

I have been writing a lot about ebooks lately, with good reason. Consider these recent developments:

  • Publisher’s Weekly just reported yet another month of falling sales of printed books and surging sales of ebooks.
  • In January of 2011, Forrester Research predicted that by 2015, 82 million U.S. consumers (one-third of U.S. online consumers) will be using a tablet computer. Some analysts say that projection is too conservative.
  • Right now, the Apple iPad owns the tablet market, but a number of new competitors will soon appear. Last week, CNET reported that Amazon is planning to release its own Android-based tablet PC by the Fall of 2011. Think about what a game changer that could be.
  • Here’s a quote from a recent press release from Barnes & Noble. Notice how they refer to NOOK Color as a "tablet" and mention apps before books.

"Barnes & Noble continues to make its bestselling, critically acclaimed NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet even better, delivering customers a wide array of high-quality apps, books, interactive children’s books, magazines and more. The company announced it doubled its number of NOOK Apps since recently introducing a broad collection of popular apps."

  • Ebook publisher Smashwords recently announced that their ebooks are now available to the app marketplace through ScrollMotion, which is developing applications for mobile platforms including Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7 and WebOS.

As authors and publishers, we need to capitalize on these trends by making our books available on tablets like the iPad and looking for ways to integrate multi-media features and create apps. The future is here!

Related Articles

Sales of Ebooks and Reading Devices Soar 

6 Reasons Why You Need to Publish Ebooks

How to Publish an Ebook for Multiple Platforms

Quick Start Guide to Marketing Your Kindle eBooks Like a Pro!


About the Author

Dana Lynn Smith, The Savvy Book Marketer, helps authors and indie publishers learn how to sell more books through her how-to guides, blog, newsletter, and private coaching. For more book marketing tips, get her free Top Book Marketing Tips ebooks, subscribe to her blog, follow BookMarketer on Twitter, and connect on Facebook.

 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer.

Kindle For The Web: How It Can Be Used By Authors

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In September last year Amazon introduced a new tool, Kindle for the Web, which allows users to read and share first chapters of books without leaving a web browser.

In addition to a good-looking preview interface, there are two useful features: sharing and embedding. The latter one is a very good, yet underestimated tool which can be used in many ways by authors who publish their books at Amazon.

Before I’ll list benefits and explain how to embed the preview in a blog, I’d like to point out to one very important fact. Despite the name, Kindle for the Web is not available on a page with a Kindle edition of a book. Just the opposite – you’ll see the green widget with a Read first chapter FREE button (picture 1) on a page with a print version of a book… and linking to Kindle edition.

This is misleading many people, who look for previews where they are not available. As a result they stop searching for books at all.

Why Amazon decided to profile the tool this way? A simple explanation is that by giving a chance to read a sample of a print book they want to convince people to try Kindle editions – and buy Kindles.

What’s related, and essential for authors, is that Kindle for the Web is available only for books with both print and Kindle editions.

Why it’s good to use it?

I was extremely interested in this tool since the very beginning as it opens a couple of new opportunities for authors. Let me list the most important ones.

1. It helps differentiate your social media activity

Instead of tweeting “buy my book” all the time, you can write “read first chapter of my book for free”. Remember, we never know what is the current mood of our followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook. Some of them are willing to buy, some – to test before buying (but don’t feel like downloading a free sample to their Kindle or tablet).

2. It makes your blog more attractive

If you embed a book in a blog post and stick this post to a home page, you’ve got a very inviting entry, what’s more: saying right at the beginning that this is a blog from a published author.

3. It changes the reader’s attitude

Let’s say you want to share a first chapter of your published book. The difference is that when you make a regular blog post with it, it’s just a regular blog post. When you embed Kindle preview in a post, well, that’s a different story – you are showing a first chapter of the book.

4. It helps focus on reading

This is one of my favorite topics: reading in times of distraction. If you use Kindle preview in your blog, there are bigger chances that the reader will read it, as it removes all the distractions (like banners and sidebars) after a full screen option is clicked.

5. It helps you manage your author’s profile

Some authors, including me, published a book some time ago, started a blog to support it and drifted into areas where they can be more useful – sharing experience or writing tips and advice.

You were a mystery romance writer and now you are a writing expert. Sometimes it’s hard to fight with this strong new profile. Using Kindle for the Web will make your readers more willing to accept your other face.

6. It allows to earn more money

Finally, but most importantly, you can earn extra money, if you are an Amazon associate. When you are getting a code to embed, you can also provide your associate tag. Thanks to that any book sold via link from a Kindle preview on your blog will bring you money not only from a royalty (author) but also from a referral fee (associate).

If you haven’t joined Amazon affiliate system, it’s a good moment to try. There is nothing to be ashamed of. What’s really interesting is that Kindle for the Web with a pattern to switch to Kindle ecosystem can be also a natural opportunity to sell on your blog Kindle e-readers.

How to embed a preview in a blog?

The minimum size of the embedded window is 500(width) by 325(height) pixels. Therefore the places to consider are either a page or a post.

1. Go to a print version of your book, find the green widget entitled Kindle Edition and click on a Read first chapter FREE button. A Kindle for the Web window will pop up.

Kindle for the Web window

2. Find Embed button in the upper right corner and click on it. When you expand it with a Customize option, you’ll see a window like this.

Kindle for the Web - embed box

3. Type the size of a window. Ideally the width could be exactly the same as your blog’s page/post. In the Associate Tag field, type your tag.

4. Copy the code and paste it into your blog’s new page/post (in HTML preview). Done. Now you can share it with your readers.

* * *

Although adding Kindle for the Web to a blog is a relatively easy task, there are a couple of conditions when you may not be able to do it:

– your blogging platform does not support html scripts (WordPress.com or Posterous)
– you are not familiar with html and/or don’t want to bother with it
– your blog has a very narrow page/post area – if it’s less than 500 pixels you won’t be able to do it

* * *

You can always take advantage from a feature I added to Ebook Friendly, my site designed to make browsing for e-books a more friendly experience. There is a special section called Read Online, where Kindle for the Web previews are perfectly tailored to e-reading application design. What’s important, authors can provide their associate tags and earn money as they would do it on their blogs.

If you’re interested, read more details in this post.

* * *

Kindle for the Web is a great, easy to implement and very engaging tool. Until now I’ve seen it used mainly on book review sites. I think it’s not the reviewers, but authors, who should benefit the most.

Self-Publish: Is It A Dirty Word?

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This post, by Liliana Hart, originally appeared on her site on 6/26/11.

I’m new to the self-publishing world. It was a long and dirty fight for me to get to this place (mostly I was fighting with myself). What I want you to understand is that I’m proud to be an indie author. I know there are other authors in my position who have felt the same triumphs and disappointments I have over this tumultuous journey, and they’re struggling with something that slowly eats away at a writer’s delicate soul: self-esteem. It could also be called ego. All writers have issues with this. I don’t care who you are. Whether you’ve sold millions of copies or one. Writers are needy creatures. We need to be reassured. We need pats on the back and words of praise. A bad review can spiral us into the darkest depression, while a complimenting fan can make us sit down behind the keyboard with enthusiasm.

I had another author respond to that statement on another thread with derision. He said he didn’t have an ego or need pats on the back. He was only writing for the money. My response to that was, WTF? It took me by surprise because I’ve never met anyone before who said, "I’m going to start a business and get rich. What should I do? Oh, I know, I’ll be a writer." It’s absurd. Writers write because they love it. It’s too hard of a profession to just take up on a whim. So if anyone else falls into the camp of the guy above, just know you’re in the minority and good luck with your business.

That being said, I have a confession to make.

I was wrong… (I know, it’s hard to narrow this statement down. I’m wrong a lot. Mostly about haircuts and infomercials, but that’s another blog topic).

I’ll gladly admit my attitude has changed since I joined the ranks of indie authors who seem to be popping up like proverbial daisies on the Interwebs. There are more than 700,000 self-pubbed authors out there, folks. And most of them don’t sell more that a single book a month. But they’re doing it, and they have hope.

There seems to be a negativity that follows indie authors around. Maybe you’ve felt it. I’ve certainly felt it on more than one occasion–that I might as well have a scarlet letter of shame tattooed on my forehead (Insert inappropriate comments here).

Let me explain…

I finished my first book almost almost seven years ago. I was 24 years old. The idea of ebooks taking over the industry was laughable. New York agents and editors were at the top of their game. Publishing houses turned their noses up at the idea of anything being better than print copies. I was bound and determined to see my book sitting on the shelves at a "real" bookstore. Nothing else would do. And it didn’t help that the organizations I was involved in seemed to separate themselves from authors who chose a different path. Loyalties were divided. Arguments were had. Many arguments.

I fell into the camp of thinking that ebooks were an inferior product. Once again, I was wrong, so hear me out. I listened to my published friends. I listened to my various writing groups. At the time, that thinking was the majority. I was on my first agent (the first of three I’ve had in my career), and I was sure the next big contract was going to be mine. But as the rejections came, and I moved from agent to agent, my thinking changed somewhere along the way.

 

Read the rest of the post on Liliana Hart’s site.

Game Changer – J K Rowling, Pottermore And Ebooks Without A Publisher

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The internet has been abuzz lately since mega-billionaire-super-author, J K Rowling (of Harry Potter fame, in case you’ve been a monk in a cave for more than ten years) announced Pottermore. In a nutshell, it goes like this:

After seven books and eight films and more merchandising than you can fit in George Lucas’s ego, Rowling has now announced a website which will be a complete interactive experience for all ages based on her stories. Along with that she’s announced that for the first time ebook editions of the Harry Potter series will be made available. Well, legal ebook editions that is. Rowling truly is the master at monetising her ideas and characters, having turned some books about wizards at school into an international behemoth across all media.

With Pottermore, as the press release says:

For this groundbreaking collaborative project, J.K. Rowling has written extensive new material about the characters, places and objects in the much-loved stories, which will inform, inspire and entertain readers as they journey through the storylines of the books. Pottermore will later incorporate an online shop where people can purchase exclusively the long-awaited Harry Potter eBooks, in partnership with J K Rowling’s publishers worldwide, and is ultimately intended to become an online reading experience, extending the relevance of Harry Potter to new generations of readers, while still appealing to existing fans.

It’s a pretty inspired concept. Of course, Rowling with her riches and business partners is the kind of author with the kind of clout you’d need to make something like this happen.

The real game changer among all this, however, despite the partnership comment above, is that the ebooks will be essentially self-published. Her publishers, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, etc., don’t own the eletronic rights – and I bet they’re really happy about that. So Rowling is planning to make the ebooks available directly through Pottmore. Of course, when Rowling self-publishes, she’s has a team of people behind her and her own company on the case, so it’s not like she sits there on her own and uploads files to Amazon. But the key here is the lack of a third-party publisher.

The Kindle will accept epub format ebooks soon and the announcement that the Harry Potter ebooks will be available from October seems to fit in with that, so it’s likely the books will be in epub. That certainly does seem to be the prominent format and, aside from Amazon’s mobi format, has been the industry leader all along. Once the Kindle accepts epub too, we have the first stage of industry standardisation and that’s a good thing for all of us. Perhaps we have Rowling to thank in part for forcing that change – who knows who talked to who while this was getting off the ground.

Authors leveraging their existing print success to manage their own ebook releases is nothing new – just see J A Konrath’s example for one. But nothing on this scale has happened before and we can see things shifting a little more on the axis. I’ve said it before – we’re living in exciting times in writing and publishing and the ride ain’t over yet. I wonder how many kids will get an ereader with a set of Harry Potter books on board for Xmas this year? This will be a big step in mainstreaming ereaders, which are becoming more and more mainstream anyway. On a recent flight to Melbourne I noticed several people reading from Kindles and Sony Readers while waiting for my plane.

The kind of cross-media storytelling and promotion which Pottermore represents is certainly not new, but we’ve seen nothing on this scale before. Just the official announcement video is better than any book trailer a lowly author like myself could hope for. I wonder where we go from here?

Here’s the official release video from Rowling herself.

And here’s the Pottermore site.

Interesting times indeed. What do you think? Is this a good thing or not? Where do things go from here?

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

Is Butt Glue Necessary When Writing?

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When you want to be a career author you can’t just write when the muse is singing. Sometimes you do need a little butt glue to keep you from wandering around doing everything but writing. That’s true… except when it isn’t.

Is butt glue always necessary?

Today I learned a very interesting thing about my writing needs. I’ve recently begun putting Larry Brooks‘ instructions on Story Engineering to good use re-plotting my novel Apprentice Cat, which has been floundering for some time now.

I’ve done everything from conceptualizing to character worksheets. Today was the first full day I’ve been able to spend creating the story structure and it was a revelation in how I develop plot.

According to Larry, there are only 60 to 90 scenes in any given novel, which are broken into four parts. I decided to put together an excel worksheet with the four major plot points and divide the rest of the necessary scenes between them. That worked fine until I began having problems coming up with scene ideas.

I tried applying butt glue, but it only made me itch.

My poor brain seemed to freeze. Every character had something he or she needed me to write at that very moment. It was like being in a room full of screaming pre-schoolers all wanting my attention at once. All I could think of was how I knew I needed to be creating these scenes, but they weren’t materializing.

That’s when I realized I needed to do something un-writerly, something physical like cleaning up the mess my toddler had made of my living room or doing dishes or anything. Butt glue was the last thing I needed.

I followed my instincts to a better story.

As soon as I stopped thinking about how much I needed to write and the self-imposed deadline I was on for finishing my plot outline, the scenes started appearing. I was hearing snippets of conversation and seeing my characters doing things I hadn’t even considered.

When a scene popped into my head, I quickly went back to my laptop and slotted it into the worksheet. If nothing else came to mind within a couple of minutes, I went back to doing whatever I was doing before. Worked great and I’m now 2/3 done with the outline. Yeah!

Butt glue is great when we’re just procrastinating, but it can get in the way of the creative process if our creative selves become paralyzed and overwhelmed by the blank page.

I’m curious to know, have any of you had the same thing happen? When do you find you need to apply butt glue? When has it hampered your creative flow?

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road To Writing.

Embracing The Entrepreneurial Spirit!

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This post, by Pete Morin, originally appeared on his site on 6/2/11.

Following the oft-inveighed advice to network and expand my platform, I participate in many social media-type forums. So many of them are really, really great.  Some of them are quite useless.

Yet, like the spectator of a horrific train accident, I am drawn back to them. Sometimes it is simply to marvel at the utter idiocy of some of the people who will follow their muse to the ends of the earth with no more clue when they get there than they have today. I know that sounds rather pompous of me – but I do not profess that I am less clueless. I just hide it better.

Seriously, though. Hanging around some of them will give you empathy for literary agents.

Anyway, aside from the schadenfreude, every day I join the thousands like me, trying to follow the lurching and jiving going on in the fiction publishing business. I posted about this a few months back, and even since then, earth quake changes have occurred – the most recent perhaps being Amazon’s rapid and aggressive entry into the publishing business with their own genre imprints.

These are heady days, of course, and I’ve heard it said so many times by agents, editors and writers alike that “there is no better time to be a writer.” Why? Because our dreams of publication, of readership, are not dependent on anyone but our artistic, entrepreneurial selves.

The gatekeepers are keeping gates, but you don’t have to go through them to get to the Promised Land. It’s like the scene in Blazing Saddles with the tollbooth in the desert. We don’t need a shitload of dimes any more.

Anyway, among the less useful venues I monitor are a half-dozen of the bazillion writing-related groups on LinkedIn. Here is a place where the most oblivious of aspirants gather to ask silly questions while a few others hold court and burnish their Big Brass Badges of Blovitus. With rare exception, I have succeeded in staying away from the discussions.

It is the rare exception about which I post here.

Read the rest of the post on Pete Morin‘s site. 

Failure – The Forge of Excellence

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This post, by Kristen Lamb, originally appeared on her blog on 6/24/11.

Today, we are going to talk a bit about failure. All writers who dare to dream seem to have this same fear–FAILURE. It can seem larger than life and everything fades away in the face of this looming beast. I want to let you in on a little secret. For many years I was the best, the Big Kahuna, the Big Gal on Campus. I was positively THE most successful person…at failing.

A little about me…

I was a high school drop out at the age of 15, then again at 16. I worked as a waitress, but was a really bad waitress. I lost my job and returned to school. I finally graduated high school at the age of 19. No one figured I would make much out of my life since it’s highly likely I graduated last in my class. I think by the time you get a GPA as low as mine was, they just start listing you alphabetically.

I came from a military family, so I decided to enlist in the Army…only I got sick in the middle of the physical and failed. Doc gave me a medical disqualification (DQ).

Great.

So, I dusted myself off and attended junior college. I figured I’d go to school and try the Navy. I come from a family of Squids, so that wasn’t so bad. I put in all my paperwork…then they found out about the Army. Sigh. Apparently a medical DQ lasted two years.

No Navy for me.

Back to the drawing board (school). I knew the medical DQ would run out, so I worked really hard and ended up winning a full military scholarship to become a doctor. I didn’t really want to become a doctor, but this was the best scholarship and I was broke ergo not picky. I transferred to T.C.U. and began pre-med. I swore in to the Air Force (yes, I made my rounds of all the branches) and pledged my life to serving my country as a future military doctor.

Two years in, I was a shining scholar with a 3.79 average. Then, in March of 1995, Fort Worth was hit with an ice storm and T.C.U. refused to cancel classes. On my way to class, I slipped and fell and hit my lower back on a concrete curb…and fractured it.

Bye, bye military. Bye-bye scholarship. Bye-bye medical school.

I returned to school a semester later. I had to use a cane for eight months as my back healed and there was no such thing as handicapped access to anything in those days. It seemed every class I had signed up for was on the third floor, too. But I did my best and took it one class at a time.

I didn’t want to be a doctor if the DoD wasn’t picking up the tab. Didn’t have the money. So I changed majors because I could no longer afford to be on a medical track. This was all well and good except that it set me back. Instead of being a junior, I was back to being a sophomore.

Felt a little like high school.

Read the rest of the post on Kristen Lamb‘s blog.

Your Second Storefront

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This post, by JA Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on 6/24/11.

I just had a long conversation with Barry Eisler (no, we’re not writing this one down) and one of the things we touched upon was what makes a bestseller a bestseller.

I’ve argued that brands, name recognition, and fanbases aren’t as important as we’d like to think they are. In short, the authors who are famous bestsellers right now might not be famous bestsellers in the near future. Rather than repeat the reasons why, you can read the argument here.

In the legacy world, the more books you had in print, the more you’d sell, because you took up a lot of shelf space (both in a single store, and in thousands of stores.)

But in a digital world, every ebook has one slot on the shelf. You can increase shelf space by having many ebooks, but there are only a handful of stores (Amazon, BN, Smashwords, iBookstores, Sony, Kobo, etc) rather than the thousands of bookstores and thousands of other stores that sell books.

This is a much more even playing field. And while I disagree that name authors lowering their ebook prices will hurt my sales much (at low prices, people buy more), I do recognize the importance of standing out among the millions of other titles.

It is easier to make a sale in a digital world, but there it is still a multi-tiered process.

1. A reader must discover that your book exists.

2. A reader must be compelled to look at it.

3. A reader makes a decision to buy it.

4. A reader makes a decision to read it, and then possibly buy your other titles.

 

Read the rest of the post on JA Konrath‘s A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog.

How Convenient! Contrived Coincidences

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This post, by Roni Loren, originally appeared on her blog on 6/22/11.

A while back I talked about the TSTL character in a Lifetime movie I was watching.  Well, unfortunately (or fortunately–considering it provided fodder for two blog posts), the crappy plot devices did not end there.  The You’ve-Got-To-Be-Freaking-Kidding-Me moments continued.  But this time in the form of contrived coincidences.
 

Contrived Coincidence describes a highly improbable occurrence in a story which is required by the plot, but which has absolutely no outward justification

When we left our heroine in the previous post, she was under suspicion for murder.  So, she had decided the best course of action was to break in and search the crime scene (leaving DNA-laden hair and fingerprints in her wake no doubt).  Well, she doesn’t find much over there (although the killer does stop in the house briefly–at the exact time she’s there–she hides under the bed, seeing only his feet).  But, that my friends, is not even the silliest coincidence.

Our heroine goes on and continues her search for evidence in different places, but doesn’t turn up much.  However, she strikes up a friendship with the local coffee barista who tells her how every townie takes his or her coffee.  Well, fast forward, and Ms. Brilliant is being followed all around town by a mysterious black mustang (the car, not the horse, although that would have been better).  Because that’s what killers do, they show you their car and follow you in broad daylight.  But anyhoo, a few days later her own car is vandalized and she needs to go buy another vehicle.

Well, lo and behold, as she’s searching the used car lot, she happens upon what?  You got it.  The black mustang that’s been following her.  Oh, and what’s that you say Mr. Salesman?  The car was just dropped off yesterday and IT HASN’T BEEN CLEANED YET!  Well, hot damn!

So she buys the car and what is laying neatly in the floorboard of the car?  A receipt for coffee with the very order of one of the people the barista told her about.  Killer identified!

Seriously.  I’m. Not. Kidding.  That’s how they wrapped this thing up.

 

Read the rest of the post for some concrete tips on how to avoid contrivances and coincidences in your writing on Roni Loren‘s blog.

Publetariat Scheduling Announcement

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Due to vacation scheduling, Publetariat will be on skeleton crew through the end of July. During this time it may take us a few days to process new member registrations, answer emails, and approve comments. Thanks for your patience, and happy summer to all!  (no need to click through, this is the end of the post)

It Starts with an Idea

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An author who sold several bestsellers and millions of books once shared some insights into becoming a successful author. They indicated that the book has to be well written, professional looking, with a good product description, and for sale at the right price. With a bit of luck, these attributes can help make a book a commercial success.

What the author neglected to add was that successful writing starts with a good idea. Anyone can copy the latest literary trend, but a truly successful novel or story should be based on a compelling idea. The idea does not need to be original per se, but rather one that piques readers’ interest. It means moving beyond the latest paranormal vampire romance into unexplored territory. Can you guess what the next frontier in writing will be? If so, write about it before it becomes passé. A strong idea can be a good foundation for success.

Your Agent Should Not Be Your Publisher

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This post, by Peter Cox, originally appeared on his Redhammer blog on 6/8/11.

A major debate is going on in publishing circles at the moment, and you need to know about it.

Frequently, these things are a storm in a teacup.  What excites publishing folk often leaves the rest of the world… a bit limp.  “Inside Publishing” isn’t always as exciting as… watching leafcutter ants.

This time it’s different.

This issue is enormous.  Because it will affect every book deal, every publication contract, from now until the end of time.

It affects every author who has an agent, or who would ever like an agent.  It goes to the heart of what being an agent is all about.

In a nutshell, this is the question:

Should your agent also be your publisher?

In recent weeks, there have been a spate of agents who have cut deals on behalf of their clients with… themselves.  One such involved the agent to the estate of the late author Catherine Cookson.  According  to the Daily Mail, the literary agent didn’t even inform the author’s publishers, Transworld and Simon & Schuster, that she’d done a deal – with herself – to digitally publish 100 of the author’s titles.  “I haven’t told either firm about the deal”, she said, “and I am sure they are going to kick up a fuss about it”. [Click on image at right to read the full story]

Yes, I bet they will.

As should any author whose agent says to them – come on – let’s cut your print publisher out of the picture… give me those lovely digital publishing rights, and I’ll publish you myself!

No doubt many agents will jump on this particular bandwagon before it overturns.

It’s Not OK To be Your Client’s Publisher

Let me be absolutely candid with you.  Although various excuses have been put forward by agents for doing this – it’s mostly about lining their own pocket.

Not that I’m against agents making money – how could I be?

But this isn’t just about making money. It comes perilously close to what is termed in law “self-dealing“, and it is both ethically wrong and legally very dangerous. In taking this fateful step, those agents who choose to do this are in danger of crossing a line that is legally and ethically of immense significance.

Read the rest of the post on Redhammer.

Heightening Emotional Impact

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This post, by Juliette Wade, originally appeared on her TalkToYoUniverse site on 6/21/11.

How can you get your reader to feel emotionally moved by your story?

Well, first off, you can’t just tell them, "you should be emotionally moved." This is obvious, I think. I had been thinking about the topic of emotional involvement and creating intensity at particular points of the story, and then I ran across this article by Lydia Sharp, where she gives the following quote from Donald Maass:

You can’t expect your reader to feel what your protagonist feels just because they [the characters] feel it. Only when that emotion is provoked through the circumstances of the story will your reader feel what you want them to.

Lydia then asks:
"So what does this mean? For starters, it goes back to the age-old advice of "show, don’t tell." Where emotions are involved, it’s best not to simply outright tell your reader what the characters are feeling. Let the reader experience it.

"And how do you do that? By not being obvious."

All of this, I agree with. If I were to take the Donald Maass quote and give my own take on it, I would have to say that our impressions of the emotional experiences of characters grow more out of our own emotions in a particular part of the story than the other way around. In other words, it is our own emotional understanding of the story that deepens the character’s experience, rather than the character’s emotional state deepening our own.

In a way, this makes sense. Because the character inhabits the story, he/she is limited in his/her ability to grasp the entirety of the story. The reader usually does not have these same limitations. I’m going to come back to the idea of the entirety of the story in a moment, but first let me address Lydia’s advice.

Lydia suggests we should let the reader experience what the characters are feeling, rather than telling them, by not being obvious. An excellent point. There are a number of ways that emotional states can be shown. One way is to describe the internal physical sensations of a person – adrenaline surges, feeling hot or cold, and many different kinds of metaphorical descriptions of pain, fear, embarrassment, joy, etc. can be of use for internal points of view. Another way is to show the external behaviors of a person feeling an emotion. If the point of view is external, you can show facial expressions; this is awkward to do with internal points of view, but you can still show actions of rage (as one example) like throwing things across the room, or pacing, stomping, etc. Still another way is to have the emotional state of the character in a scene be reflected somehow in the way that person perceives things around him/her, by including a sense of rage or other emotion in the surrounding descriptions of setting, descriptions of the actions of others, etc. There is a descriptive passage in Snow Falling on Cedars where the destruction wreaked by a storm is treated in intensive detail…and that reflects the inner state of the protagonist, Ishmael.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes numerous specific, before-and-after examples, as well as some concrete tips, on Juliette Wade‘s TalkToYoUniverse.

Metadata For Self-Publishers, Part I

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Metadata—even the word sounds hard to understand. meta comes from the Greek, and means “above” or “enclosing” Metadata is simply data about data.

In other words, metadata is information about your data. You can think of data as being an electronic document, file, music file, book or any other form content presented in electronic format. Metadata is meant to summarize the key characteristics of the underlying work—in our case, our books—for the purpose of making the work itself discoverable to electronic searches.

An Example

Think about it for a moment. Suppose you want to know how to train your dog. You’d like a book that describes the step by step actions you can take to teach your dog to stop barking every time he hears a little sound in the bushes. You punch up Google and look for a moment at the search bar. What are you going to type in?

This is the moment you need to understand when it comes to the book you’re trying to market online. There’s simply nothing as important as understanding what’s going through the mind of your potential book buyer when they are thinking of how to search for the information they need.

Let’s say there’s a really good dog training book that would answer this searcher’s question. Suppose the author has titled the book “Getting Along With Man’s Best Friend.” Notice that the words “dog” and “training” don’t appear in the title. How would Google or any other search engine know that this book could possibly be a great find for the searcher?

The answer is: Metadata.

Filling In All the Blanks

When this book was published the author (or publisher) had an opportunity to enter metadata about the book. The principle place this is done is in the Bowker information file about the book. Usually self-publishers fill this out when they buy their ISBNs and then forget about it.

That’s a mistake. This seemingly inoccuous-looking form that appears to be just a nuisance to get through as fast as possible is actually a key to how well your book will sell. Why?

Metadata.

If you fail to fill in all the fields, or use the many types of metadata available, your book will be harder to find. The information you’re providing is the same information that will come up in Google’s search. If the description of this book, for instance, says:

An easy to use, step by step guide to training your dog for behavior problems including barking, biting and sitting.

It’s quite likely that the book will be included somewhere in Google’s results. Without this information, how would the search engine know that this book is a perfect fit for the searcher? It’s your responsibility as publisher to make sure the metadata for your book is as accurate and complete as possible.

Back to the blank line

Try to put yourself in the place of the guy sitting there listening to the dog barking out back, and looking for a solution. What are some ways we could construct a query that might be similar to what the searcher will come up with?

You’ll quickly find that the most important part of figuring this out is keywords. One reason this is so is because we can’t actually guess how the searcher will frame his question. But we can have a pretty good idea of some of the words she will use in that question:

  • dog
  • bark
  • training

Just with this much we can start to do some research on keyword phrases or long-tail keywords (3 or more words used together as a keyword). Knowing the keywords that are associated with your book is essential to marketing your book online.

In the next part of this series, I’ll look at the way this metadata is stored and exactly where you can go to make sure you’ve got the strongest, brawniest, most focused metadata you can for your book.

 

This is a reprint from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.