Month: November 2011

How To Make Sure Your Book Is The Best It Can Be

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As authors I believe it is our responsibility to make our books the best they can be. As independent (indie) authors it’s even more important to produce an excellent book because of the widespread criticism about the lack of quality. I’ve just sent my second novel Prophecy to my beta readers and in this video [5:55 mins], I explain my process of drafting and edits.

 

In the video, I explain:

  • How I have just sent Prophecy to my beta readers and how some people don’t consider the full extent of editing, rewriting and beta readers in the timing of their publishing schedule
     
  • The first draft to me is when you can read end to end with no missing bits or [must research this] [put fight scene here] etc. You should be able to read it end to end as a story. I  print this version out and read it in entirety.
  • I do a big structural edit at this stage. I rewrite scenes, restructure and delete sections (Here I explain why deleting 20,000 words is sometimes necessary). I added in bits I missed as well as foreshadowing and other layers to make it a better read. After this big second draft, I print it out again.
  • In this 3rd draft, I line edit, change repetitive language, fix typos etc to create a clean draft for beta readers.
     
  • Beta readers will read the book as if they bought it and give me feedback and comments. Importantly they will also mention anything that jolts them out of the ‘fictive dream’. My 7 beta readers are a mix of professional writers but also my family whose criticism is sometimes hard to take. We need thick skins in this business! They have 2.5 weeks to read and provide feedback.
  • Then I will make changes based on feedback. It won’t be everything mentioned but if there are commonalities I will fix these issues. It won’t be a complete rewrite but it will be a tidy up at this point which will create the final draft.
     
  • I will then submit to a copy-editor/proof-reader who check the grammar & typos in the final version so it is as professional as possible.
     
  • These things take time but it is critical that you put the best version of your book up for sale. I personally hate the accusations of bad quality that is laid on self-publishers these days. There’s no excuse for it!

What is your editing and rewriting process like? Do you do all these steps? If you’re an experienced writer, what changes as you write more books?

 

 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Build Your Author Platform Through Guest Posts

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Doing guest posts on other blogs is a great opportunity to build your author platform and gain exposure to potential book buyers that you may not reach in any other way. Getting backlinks from relevant websites is an added benefit of guest posting that will enhance the search engine optimization of your own site.

 Guest posts are win-win for everyone. Readers get useful or entertaining content, bloggers get additional content for their sites, and guest posters build their reputation, get links to their websites, and have the opportunity to sell books.

Your guest posts can take the form of how-to articles, essays, interviews, or case studies, and you can even create audio or video clips. Fiction authors can discuss the writing process or topics related to their novel.

Look for blogs that are a good match for your book’s target audience, then make comments on some of their posts before proposing a guest post. Check with each blogger to see what their requirements are for the length of the post, the topic, and whether they accept previously published content. Some bloggers post their guidelines on their site.

Be sure to write a good "resource box" containing a one or two sentence bio, a call to action, and a link back to your website. The call to action should include an incentive for people to visit your site, such as a free report or sample chapters. It’s a good idea to include a link to your book’s page on Amazon as well.

One terrific way to do guest posts on other blogs is to organize a virtual book tour where you will visit a series of blogs, radio shows and other venues during a certain time frame. Learn how to organize your own successful virtual book tour in my new book, Virtual Book Tour Magic.

 

 

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

How To Write Great Content When You Don't Feel Like It

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This post, by Onibalusi, originally appeared on his YoungPrePro blog.

If you’ve been reading blogs online for sometimes now you will know that people always have varied opinions. When I started blogging I battled with creating great content for my readers on a consistent basis and whenever I try to research to find a solution to my problem I came across at least two entirely different opinions. The first one stating that I shouldn’t force myself to write, and the other one stating that I should force myself to write.

 

It can be really confusing over time for you to know which advice to follow but after almost 2 years of blogging I have come to see that both aren’t exactly the best advice. The reason is that making yourself to write only when you feel like it isn’t really effective because you might not even feel like writing for a whole month, and forcing yourself to write is also very dangerous because it can crush your creativity.

Since the above are the two common advice out there to help those who find it difficult to write great content, how do you ensure you keep on creating great content for your readers even when you don’t feel like it? This article will be giving you a few tips to help you write great content even if you’re not in the mood.

You should know that the tips in this article aren’t just something I’m rehashing by reading another person’s article, but something that has consistently worked for me.

Know What Makes You Tick

The first step you have to take towards ensuring you’re always coming up with great content is to know what makes you tick. The reality is that as human beings we’re all different, and that is why there’s no one-size-fits-all advice for making you a better writer.

It’s all about knowing what inspires you. It’s all about knowing what motivates you and it’s all about knowing what puts you in the mood to write. You might not easily know what puts you in the mood to write, especially if you’re someone who hasn’t been observing yourself but you should try to understand what puts you in the mood and makes you your creative self.

Read the rest of the post on YoungPrePro.

Rejecting Rejection

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This post, by James Scott Bell, originally appeared on Right-Writing.

The writer Barnaby Conrad tells the story of a matador, all decked out in his "suit of lights," talking to a group of reporters outside the arena.

One reporter asks, "How did you happen to become a bullfighter?"

The matador replied, "I took up bullfighting because of the uncertainty of being a writer."

Truth be told, many of us would rather face the horns of an angry bull than another rejection letter. At least we can run away from the bull!

But for a writer, rejection goes with the territory. There is no way we can avoid it. There are ways, however, to keep it from becoming a poison, something that makes us want to curl up and quit. Here are a few things to keep in mind about rejection:

1. Rejection is not personal

Rejection of your manuscript is not a rejection of you as a person, or as a writer. It is only a rejection of a piece of writing you have turned out.

That makes a difference. You can always grow as a writer. Always. You can learn from your setbacks. If you stick to it, you will get better. So the rejection of a piece of writing is not saying anything about your potential.

A rejection says one of two things. Either a piece isn’t right for the publisher at that time, or it is not up to their standards. The first is something you can’t change; the second you can. You do it by learning to write better.

If, for some strange reason, someone were to tell you that you personally don’t have what it takes, you can be sure that someone is off his or her nut. How can anyone predict your future? Writing is a learned craft. People can learn how to write. No one has the capacity to tell you that you are the exception to the rule.

An obscure editor once told a future Nobel Prize winner: "I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language." Rudyard Kipling we remember. The editor no one can recall.

Writer Ron Goulart said, "Never assume that a rejection of your stuff is also a rejection of you as a person. Unless it’s accompanied by a punch in the nose."

2. Rejection happens to the best

 

Read the rest of the post on Right-Writing.

Reporting Back: 10,097

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Today (technically yesterday since it’s after midnight), I wrote 10,097 words. This is a big deal to me because this is the first time I’ve ever done this with original fiction. And I’d only done it one time with fanfiction. Looking back at the day’s work, I’m surprised by how doable it was. It wasn’t a horrific struggle, it just required sticking with it. I had planned to move between multiple manuscripts if I got stuck on a story, but that proved to be unnecessary, and as a result I was able to finish the novel I was working on. It ended up being a tiny bit shorter than I’d originally planned, but that’s okay. Some parts may get expanded in edits, but if they don’t, the word count I have should be fine. I’m not going to pad the story.

It’s crazy how I’ve stood in my own way and prevented myself from seeing how doable this was. Do I want to do this every day? No. I’m pretty tired. But I’m also running on a bit of an adrenaline high. Though I can’t imagine doing this all over again right now, after several hours of decompressing and then a full sleep, I may be able to do it once more before a break.

So here was what my writing day ended up looking like, for anyone curious about how it played out:

From start to finish my writing day spanned 8 hours and 45 minutes, but that includes the breaks I took.

I started at 5:45 pm. I’d just gotten up (yes, my schedule is THAT fucked up right now. I’ll get it fixed again next week). Tom, me, and my mother-in-law were going to order some pizza but I was determined that I would get my first 1,000 words for the day written before pizza crossed my lips.

The pizza arrived early while I was still writing, and then Tom’s cousin and her boyfriend came by. I said that the universe was trying to conspire against my word count, but I proceeded to write and finish up my 1k before eating or really socializing.

Rude? Perhaps, but dude, I had a mission and nobody told me anybody was coming by. And yes, I did totally just sit right here in a room with 4 other people and ignore them to write my words. I told them I had to finish something up and then proceeded to do so.

I ended up with 1,111 words when I found a stopping place. Then I took a dinner break and socialized for a bit. After Tom’s cousin and her boyfriend left, I dug into another writing session with a 3k goal this time.

A couple of hours later I had an additional 3,096 words. I took another break and then came back for another session that I managed to somehow accomplish in an hour and 20 minutes (I swear I blinked and it was over and I somehow had another 3,182 words.) Another break happened. I had a snack, stretched, checked some email, then buckled down for my final word count, ending up with another 2,708 words for a grand total of 10,097.

I may do one more day of this craziness before I take a couple of days off. Then Monday I need to get to work on edits for Dark Mercy so I can send it along to the copyeditor. I also hope to have the final cover art by Monday to post on my blog.

 

This is a reprint from The Weblog of Zoe Winters.

RIP Anne McCaffrey, Vale Dragonlady

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When I got up this morning I was checking through the social networks over breakfast and saw from Trent Zelazny’s Facebook page that Anne McCaffrey had died of a stroke yesterday. It hit me like a speeding a truck and a small part of my childhood died too. To say that Anne McCaffrey was instrumental in the person and writer I have grown up to be would be an understatement. I immediately put my condolences out through Twitter only to realise that the news hadn’t spread yet. I’m usually a bit behind on this stuff, but suddenly I found myself being the first person people had heard the news from. It was an unusual experience for me, but a profoundly touching one as I saw the massive heartache that Anne’s passing caused, saw so many other people as deeply affected as I was.

I discovered McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern books when I was a child, maybe ten or eleven years old. Already a voracious reader, I was always on the lookout for the next great story. McCaffrey’s books transported me. When I realised there were several of them, I couldn’t believe my luck. I felt like a prospector striking gold. Always a fan of dragons, here were books that made dragons into something nobler and more beautiful than I could have imagined. Here was a world so rich in detail and populated with such wonderful characters that I truly wished I could slip between and go there. If someone had offered me a one way ticket to Pern, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

RIP Anne McCaffrey, Vale DragonladyAt about 12 years of age, I wrote my first ever fan letter to an author. I needed to tell this lady how much her books meant to me, how wonderful they were. In the back of one book I saw a note, with an address for any correspondence. I found it hard to believe that such a thing was possible, but I sat down and wrote my letter and asked my mum to post it off. Weeks passed. Weeks are a long time for a twelve-year-old and I thought, Oh well, it was worth a try. It was no surprise that someone as magical as Anne McCaffrey wouldn’t have time to write to some precocious kid in England.

Then a postcard arrived. It had dragons on the front. On the back was a handwritten response from Anne McCaffrey, telling me how pleased she was that I’d enjoyed her books, and how much she appreciated my letter. I was stunned. In my letter I’d told her how I wanted to be a writer one day too, and that I hoped I could maybe write books as good as hers. In her reply she said, “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t.” That still resonates with me to this day. I do write books now, and maybe one day they’ll be as good as Anne McCaffrey’s.

I wish I could find that postcard. I kept it safe, but it was close to thirty years ago and I’ve moved many times since then, to the other side of the planet. If I ever find it, I’ll scan it and post it here. Regardless, it lives on in my memory as one of the most important things I’ve ever owned. It shaped me as much as her stories did.

Anne McCaffrey was a class act. An absolute legend who touched the lives of millions. It’s a world worse off without her in it, but we’ll have her stories forever. When I read the news over breakfast this morning, it was raining heavily. I sat at the table, staring out the window at the lancing rain and thought about the thread. I imagined riding a dragon out to burn the thread before it could harm the people below. I remembered just how magical those stories of dragons and guilds were. And all her other stories too, the Crystal universe and Ireta, Talents and Freedom, and so many more. Vale, Anne McCaffrey. If you listen really hard, you can hear the dragons keening.

 

 

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

On My Journey in Self-publishing: My Gratitude for the Kindness of Strangers

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J.A. Konrath has often repeated the list of what you need to become a successful self-published author: “Write good books, with good descriptions, good formatting, and good cover art, sell them cheap, and keep at it until you get lucky.” I would also add, however, you need the kindness of strangers.

I have a lifetime of experience of being supported by people I know, whose friendship, sympathy, advice, and encouragement has sustained me in my life and work. However, in the past two years that I have been involved in self-publishing, I have been overwhelmed by the way previously unknown strangers have helped me, and today I wanted to give thanks to them.

First there were the bloggers. When I started on the journey to self-publishing, my writer friends were still firmly enmeshed in traditional publishing. That was their experience, and most of them thought that was their future.  This meant that I had to turn to strangers, bloggers I had never heard of before, like Morris Rosenthal’s with his How to Publish A Book, Jane Friedman’s There Are No Rules, Mick Rooney’s POD, Self-Publishing, and Independent Publishing, Joanne Penn’s Creative Penn, Henry Baum’s Self-Publishing Review, and J.A. Konrath’s A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. I know how difficult it is to write consistently, clearly, and frequently about a subject that is so complicated, varied, controversial, and changeable. Yet these bloggers were doing exactly this when I started to look into self-publishing in 2009. It was these bloggers that convinced me that there were other options besides traditional or “vanity publishing.” These were the bloggers who gave me the confidence to choose self-publishing and the information I needed to become successful, and I thank them.

However, among their ranks there were bloggers who reached out and directly helped me in ways I can never repay. When April Hamilton made me a regular contributor to her wonderful and comprehensive site Publetariat this provided a platform for my ideas that I would have never have reached on my own, helping me build a following.

Joel Friedlander is another blogger who has gone out of his way to promote my blog, featuring my posts on his blog the Book Designer and tweeting about them. Whenever my back posts get a spike in hits, I can often count on Joel to have been the one who has caused this.

Next came Steven Windwalker, the champion of all things Kindle, who responded to some of my comments on Kindle Nation Daily with the offer to publish a Kindle Short (this was in the days before this cost anything), which then sent my first book, Maids of Misfortune, rocketing up the Kindle historical mystery best-seller list, where it remained for nearly a year, greatly facilitating that book’s success. I would like to specifically thank these three.

I know that on the surface the examples above might not seem like kindness, but just people making good social media connections for their own benefit. Yet what has struck me consistently about these and other members of the self-publishing community is that they seem genuinely interested in both sharing information with and promoting other self-published authors. I am a very small fish (in terms of length of time in self-publishing, books published, and breadth of my social media following) in a vast ocean, yet I have never been made to feel that way. Instead, I have been made to feel welcome, and the kindness of these strangers has been a large part of the reason I have enjoyed the process of self-publishing so much.

Then there are the writers. I have a writers group, who long ago stopped being strangers and became friends. But the group I am talking about is the growing number of writers who I have come to know in the past two years of self-publishing. I mean the strangers who I have never met face-to-face, who live scattered around the globe, who I may have encountered only briefly when they comment on my blog or participate in the same thread of discussion as I do on a list or blog. They have made me feel a part of a community of writers.

In particular I would like to mention my fellow members of the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative. This group of historical fiction authors who came together in 2010 to promote their ebooks has given me so much in the past year of my membership. These are men and women I had never met before, and they have edited, read, and reviewed my books, shared their knowledge of marketing, and spent enormous amounts of time working on building the membership and creating a wonderful website. In the process a number of them have moved from strangers to friends. For this I give special thanks.

Finally there are the readers. Strangers who write unsolicited thoughtful reviews on places like Amazon or Goodreads, write me emails telling me how much they enjoyed my work, and comment on my facebook page. Small acts of kindnesses that are more precious to me as a beginning writer than all the sales. Some of these people even offered to be beta readers for my sequel, Uneasy Spirits, giving me wise advice, close edits, and the confidence to get the book out before Christmas. Without every stranger who was willing to take chance on buying a book by an unknown author, I would have no success, and I thank them all.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

 M. Louisa Locke

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s blog.

3 Ways to Get Free (Or Almost Free) Training

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I’ve blogged about using a training budget before, but sometimes you may find your budget is hovering around $0. What do you do then? Spend time trolling through other author’s blogs, especially those who offer eBooks (and other types of media) covering topics you’re interested in, and prowling over social media networks. There are three things to be gained from this.

 

  1. Free information from the blog itself– Most blogs are free to read and easy to subscribe to by RSS or email. If you’re a savvy reader, you can pick up how-to info from author blogs whether the author is trying to teach their readers or not. Sometimes it’s obvious, like from http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/”>Kristen Lamb’s blog in which she teaches on how to build a killer author platform using social media. Other times it’s a matter of noticing what the blogger is not saying. Same goes for other social media like Twitter and Facebook. Find authors you want to learn from and follow them. Read enough blogs, tweets, status updates, etc. and you’ll learn an astounding amount about whatever it is you’re interested in.

    2.  

  2. Discounts are there to be had — I’m one of those people who rarely buys anything as soon as I see it. I hate buyer’s remorse. That means I’ll wait around until the book or service I want goes on sale. For instance, I really wanted to by http://www.problogger.net/”>Darren Rowse’s http://www.problogger.net/31dbbb-workbook/”>31 Days to Build a Better Blog as soon as I saw it on his site. However, there were no excerpts to read to know exactly what was in the book and I wasn’t sure my budget would handle yet another bad buy. (FYI this eBook is one of the better training buys I’ve purchased in several months.)I waited to buy the eBook until I read a tweet that said a group called http://www.thesitsgirls.com/”>the SITS Girls were signing up women bloggers to take the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge and Darren was discounting the price of the eBook for all those who signed up. Jackpot! Not only could I get the eBook at a discounted price, but I would have a large group of women to work with. Waiting can be hard, but it’s worth it when you get what you want at a price you can afford.

    3.  

  3. Sometimes a freebie is just a click away — Another author I truly admire is http://www.jakonrath.com/”>J.A. Konrath. He has found a way to make very good money on his eBooks through Amazon’s Kindle store, so, naturally, I follow http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/”>his blog closely. He also has an eBook called http://www.amazon.com/Newbies-Publishing-Everything-Writer-ebook/dp/B003I6496Y“>The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, which, like 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, I really wanted. The price wasn’t bad, but, again, no excerpts. Then I discovered that Joe has made the eBook available for free on his website. (Thanks, Joe!) Voila! A little research and I had my eBook for free in a version I can read on any laptop, computer or eReader. That won’t be the case for every book or training series you might want, but it’s worth a little “foot work” to see if it’s out there (and not a pirated version!).

    4.  

Finding what you need can take some time, but it’s worth it for good training.

Where have you discovered a great deal?

Important upcoming giveaway…

I believe prayer is an important part of life, especially during Advent and Lent. I also know that sometimes we get stuck in the details and make having a conversation with our loving Creator more difficult than it needs to be. That’s why I wrote Simply Prayer, to give you some tools to break through what’s holding you back.

With that in mind, I’m giving away a free copy of the Simply Prayer ebook during Advent (Nov. 27-Dec. 26) and during Lent (Feb. 22-Apr. 9).

Watch here for more details or follow me on twitter (@virginiaripple)

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Edge of Eternity blog.

eBooks and Smelling the Flowers

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I’m from the generation that grew up holding books and turning pages. I know – a dinosaur (one of the numerous extinct terrestrial reptiles of the Mesozoic era, like someone that believes that Congress should work for the common good). Today’s advances in technology are amazing and come at us so quickly. If it weren’t for my laptop, my book wouldn’t exist. If it weren’t for the Internet, I wouldn’t be talking to you now. Don’t misunderstand me. I am grateful for the many advances that speed our world along. However, consider that a book with printed pages helps ground us and slow us down, if only for awhile. I will always prefer a book with pages that I can "dog-ear" and spill coffee on. Printed books age with the rich aroma of adventure, their pages yellowing with time, but an eReader will always smell like a piece of plastic to me. I can see where the future lies, but I’m still nostalgic. So　.　.　. give me awhile to adjust my seatbelt. ;<)

 

Publetariat Observes Thanksgiving

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Publetariat staff will be off in observance of the American Thanksgiving holiday from now through the weekend. We will resume our normal editorial schedule of posting on Sunday, November 27 at 6pm PST. In the meantime the site will remain online and members can still use the Forum and post to their member blogs. We wish all who will be celebrating a safe and happy holiday.

[no need to click through, this is the end of the post] 

The Future Of Books And Publishing

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In the last week there have been two great audio interviews on the future of books. I would say it’s not the future but more current, emerging and becoming more mainstream every day. I recommend you listen to them both! They will educate and inspire you and that’s what this blog is all about :)

 

The Future of Books and Publishing at Six Pixels of Separation

There’s one podcast I listen to avidly and that is Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation. It’s primarily a marketing blog and podcast but also talks a lot about new media, publishing and Mitch interviews a lot of authors of business books. It’s not usually aimed at writers but this episode is a definite must-listen podcast for those of you who enjoy audio.

Click here for The Future of Books and Publishing with Mitch Joel and Hugh McGuire

Here are some key points I found interesting:

  • Hugh’s new software PressBooks (currently in beta) is a simple online book production tool. It’s based on WordPress software and produces a print book as well as an ebook but it’s also all online so it can be given away for free as well. This enables all the analytics to be tracked as people join in and share online.
  • How Amazon is a tech company with an amazing amount of analytics on their customers which enables them to compete aggressively. (For us as authors, this is a great thing as it fuels the Amazon algorithms that help sell our books.)
  • The key thing is the connection between readers and authors. You have to control that connection to the customer and Amazon has this. (This is also why we are building online platforms, so we can connect directly to readers)
  • “You have talent on one side and customers on the other and the middle is the engine of marketing.” Mitch Joel. Connecting the two is the key and Amazon has this.
  • Amazon as a publisher has signed Deepak Chopra now, as well as a lot of other authors including Tim Ferriss.
  • A discussion on the value of print books and books in general. The way of reading on the Kindle with sampling and having no time for books that don’t immediately grab you.
  • “It’s the context, not the container.” This underlies everything. What can you do as a writer/publisher to make things better for your reader? This is the important thing.

You can find Mitch Joel at Six Pixels of Separation and on twitter @mitchjoel

You can find Hugh McGuire at HughMcGuire.net and on twitter @hughmcguire

On the future of books: A discussion with Seth Godin

In an interview with Leo Babauta on Zen Habits, thought leader and marketing guru Seth Godin talks about:

  • How the current changes in publishing are scary for those people who want someone to pick them and just write but fantastically exciting for those writers who can embrace the change and pick themselves
  • There is an abundance of shelf-space online. It’s not about shelf space, it’s about finding a tribe and developing relationships and selling to those people. Your job is to connect and create your own community around your work. Then you have the power to market to them. It’s not about the table by the cash register at Borders, it’s your ability to attract a passionate tribe and then fulfil the needs of those people.
  • Really think about what needs to go into a physical book form and whether your ideas could be disseminated in other ways. Seth mentions how books will become 99c or $1.99 ebooks that people devour like popcorn (the John Locke model) and then a few very specific books that will be hardback or collector’s items and many more that will need to be sold to the tribe e.g. idea type books like his own.

There’s much more in this interview and one of my takeaways is that I feel I’m in the right place for the publishing shift. When I started this blog, there was a huge stigma against self-publishing but that lessens everyday and these two interviews on such high profile blogs prove that this model is not going away.

Click here to download the interview with Seth Godin on the future of books

Read the blog on The Domino Project, Seth’s (very successful) experiment in publishing here

Leo’s blog Zen Habits is also brilliant and focuses on minimalism if that’s something you’re interested in.

What do you think? Are you excited about what’s happening in the publishing industry?

 

 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Penguin Launches Rip-Off Self-Publishing “Service” Targeting Inexperienced Writers

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This post, by David Gaughran, originally appeared on his Let’s Get Digital site on 11/18/11.

Penguin has unveiled a self-publishing service – which will operate under the aegis of its online writing community Book Country – but questions are being asked about the huge fees they are charging, and the massive royalty cut that they are taking (on top of what retailers such as Amazon charge).

 

This topic has already been covered by bloggers such as Joe Konrath, Katie Salidas, Linda Welch, and Passive Guy. Their posts are worth reading in full – especially the comments where you can see the widespread disapproval of this move from the self-publishing community.

However, this message needs to be repeated again and again to reach as many writers as possible to steer them away from this truly awful deal, and to counter the wall-to-wall, uncritical coverage from the likes of eBookNewser, Publishers Weekly, and the Wall Street Journal (to get past their pay-wall, click on the first search result here).

The most contentious parts of Penguin’s self-publishing operation are the fee structure and the royalty grab. There are lots of other things to dislike, but we’ll get to that.

Overcharging for “services”

Book Country offer a range of options to self-publish your work, all vastly over-priced.

The premium package costs a whopping $549. To be clear: there is no editing or cover design included in this package (the two biggest expenses for self-publishers). There is also no marketing or promotion included in this package, aside from a “Publishing Kit” with “tips” and “ideas”.

All you receive in return for your $549 are your formatted e-book files and your typeset print files which they upload for you. Needless to say, there are a whole host of companies out there that will do the same job, quicker, for a lot less money.

For those with slightly less money to waste, the next package costs $299. The astounding thing about this package is that you get nothing other than the aforementioned “Publishing Kit” (with those “tips” and “ideas”), and the ability to use their software to format your own print and e-book files, which they will upload for you.

Again, it should be pointed out that this is more expensive than paying somebody else to do it for you. If you want to do it yourself, the software you need is free. I should also note that it costs nothing to upload your files to all the major retailers.

The cheapest package is $99. This gets you that “Publishing Kit” and the ability to use their software to format your e-book file only, which they upload to the retailers.

At the risk of repeating myself, there is no value in this package either. You are doing all the work, aside from the uploading, which is free, quick, and simple anyway.

But the poor value in these packages isn’t even the worst part as you will keep paying them every time you sell a book.

Royalty grab

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes several more recent updates, on David Gaughran‘s Let’s Get Digital.

Thrillercast Episode 32 – Sorting Out The Civil War in Publishing

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The latest episode of Thrillercast is out – Sorting Out The Civil War In Publishing. In this latest podcast, David Wood and I talk about the rise of evangelism on both sides of publishing – those advocating self-publishing as the only viable route, and those who think traditional publishing is the only acceptable path. And we discuss how we’re thoroughly sick and tired of both forms of extremism.

 

Listen, enjoy and share – Episode 32 – Sorting Out The Civil War in Publishing

 

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

Searching For The Formula To Deliver Illustrated Books As Ebooks

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This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on his The Shatzkin Files blog on 11/13/11.

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I want to make clear at the outset that this post is not about “enhanced ebooks”, making something multiple-media out of a book that started as straight text. That’s a “want to do” problem that I’ve always been skeptical about and which I believe many, if not most, publishers are abandoning as “not commercially viable at this time”. Today’s ruminations are about moving illustrated books from print to digital, which many of today’s book publishers will find a “must solve” problem as the channels to reach consumers effectively with illustrated books — the bookstores — are diminished in number and power by digital change.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble are trading boasts about whose iPad-lite is better than the other guy’s. Kobo’s Vox is joining the party with Kobo now owned by Rakuten, a massive Japanese company that gives the former upstart the means to really compete with all the other players. We can be pretty sure that tablets that can deliver color-illustrated book pages will be in many hands very soon. (That’s in addition to the tens of millions of iPads and many millions of Nook Color devices that have been sold already.)

This is presenting publishers with illustrated books on their list with what seems like an enormous opportunity. But it also presents some equally enormous challenges.

It has been estimated by many that 25% of the print books sold are illustrated books. (I last saw this number in a slide from Michael Tamblyn of Kobo at our eBooks for Everyone Else conference in San Francisco on November 2d.) I am not sure what that means. Trade books only?

And even if I did know what it means, I wouldn’t know enough. Books that are primarily pretty pictures, which don’t require much integration of the pictures and text (the minority of the 25%, one would assume) are a considerably simpler proposition to port to digital than a book with pictures and captions that have to stay with them or text that needs to be on the same page with a picture or a chart.

A lot of work is being done to create new standards called HTML5 and Epub3 that will permit more faithful rendering of a publisher’s intentions through a web browser or an ebook than our current capabilities do. But there are two very big flies in the ointment that persist regardless of the technology.

One: illustrated books are considerably more complex and expensive to deliver to digital devices than straight text books. (Even if HTML5 and Epub3 accomplish everything their creators want and they’re fed by XML-workflows, converting the backlists will cost a multiple on a per-title basis of what straight text costs. And I suspect we’re many years away from relieving publishers of the need to make the decisions necessary to execute multiple versions of each book, new or backlist, as will be made clear further on in this post.)

Two: we really don’t know whether consumers with tablets or tablet-lites will choose to consume illustrated books on those devices. (I’d say we do know that people will happily read straight text on devices; what seems to be true in my experience these days is that most of the people who say they “prefer printed books” have not tried an ereader yet.)

 

Read the rest of the post on The Shatzkin Files.

7 Types Of Testimonials: A Guide For Self-Publishers

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1. Faked Testimonial
I strongly advise against doing this. Readers are very sophisticated, and very tuned-in to what is real or fake. If there is even the slightest hint of being contrived, you will lose your audience – and they won’t come back. Don’t forget, it is extremely easy to get legitimate testimonials. So there is no practical reason to create fakes.You must be very careful not to do things like this because it will cause you and your book to lose credibility with your audience. And, as a self-publisher, credibility with your audience is essential if you expect to have any kind of success. Building credibility with your audience can take years to build. Don’t ruin all of your hard work by being too lazy to get legitimate testimonials.

2. Real Testimonial, without person’s name, title, and company
For example: “Jones’ book was really good.” Zachary S.

This testimonial is a total waste of time, and insulting to your audience. Your audience will automatically assume that these are fake. And if by remote chance they are not perceived as fake, your audience will question why none of your readers would give their full name and title. You will lose sales either way. There are plenty of people out there that are willing to use their full name and title – and your buying audience knows this. Your job as a self-publisher is to find them.

3. Real Testimonial, with person’s name, title, and company, talking about your book in generalities
For example: “Jones’ book was really fun to read.” Dr. Zachary Smith, associate physics professor, MIB University.

This one is also way too vague to be of any value to your buying audience. But at least this one has a real person with a fancy title attached to it. You will need to get back to this person and ask them for a more specific testimonial. Mention a few things in your book that they might have noticed or been interested in. Tell them more about what you were trying to accomplish with your book.

4. Real Testimonial, with person’s name, title, and company, talking about you the author
For example: “Jones’ is an amazing author and teacher. His writing is so clear and concise.” Dr. Zachary Smith, associate professor in physics, MIB University.

This is a nice statement about you, the author, but doesn’t say anything about the book itself. Some of your buying audience might be swayed to purchase your book because it says nice things about you. But most consumers want to know more about the book itself.

5. Real Testimonial, with person’s name, title, and company, talking about themselves and how they benefited from your book
For example: “Jones’ book helped me finally understand Einstein’s theory of relativity. His book made it so clear and easy to understand. Because of this book, I was no longer falling behind in my studies, and was finally able to pass my final exam.” Dr. Zachary Smith, associate professor in physics, MIB University.

Ok, here we finally get to it. This is a much better testimonial because it is telling your buying audience about how they might benefit from reading your book. This “third-person testimonial” is an extremely strong one to get. It is much more believable than the others. It is speaking directly to your audience’s need and telling them how they will specifically and directly benefit from buying and reading your book. They are seeking out books like yours because they have a need that must be filled – a need that they are willing to pay their hard-earned money for. Your testimonials must show them how they will benefit by buying your book. Don’t forget to get an assortment of testimonials like this from a variety of people: celebrities, experts with fancy titles, minor celebrities, industry insiders, other authors, and average readers. An assortment of testimonials like this add up to become a very powerful way to boost your credibility and your book’s sales.

6. Real Testimonial, with person’s name, title, and company, and a head-shot photograph, talking about themselves and how they benefited from your book
In addition to “Real Testimonial #5”, try to get the testimonial writer to give you a small head-shot photo. This won’t be easy to get, but you should ask anyway. This will be especially good to use on your website.

7. Real Testimonial, with person’s name, title, and company, and a video, talking about themselves and how they benefited from your book
This one is like hitting the jackpot. This is the ultimate testimonial. Keep the video testimonial down to about 60 seconds. Place it on your website. If at all possible, ask them to create the video testimonial to be used on Amazon, as a customer video testimonial.

This article was written by Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. and originally posted on KunzOnPublishing.com