Month: February 2012

Marketing Direct To Kindle Readers. On Advertising And KDP Select.

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If you want to sell books, you need to find readers. Although there are a lot of ebook vendors out there, Amazon is currently the dominant player and there are a lot of readers who own Amazon Kindles/Fires and who shop on the Amazon store. I am one of them.

There are a few things you can do to market direct to these people, and you don’t need an existing platform to do it. You don’t need a blog or a twitter presence and you can still get thousands of sales or downloads of your book.

Direct Advertising

I believe you need a budget for your business as an independent author.

You need to use some of this budget for professional editing and cover design, and some of it can be used for promotional activity. There are a number of sites that specialize in promoting books to avid Kindle readers. These sites have lists with tens of thousands of readers on them so they can be a powerful way to boost sales and get your book moving on the Amazon charts.

In 2010, I used Kindle Nation Daily to promote Pentecost and it shot me up the charts. Pentecost reached #1 on Movers & Shakers, #4 in Religious Fiction and #93 in Thrillers. This year I decided to use PixelofInk.com as KND had increased in price and also had little availability for the time period I wanted.

Direct Advertising Results

The promo is a 1 day event with lots of other books also promoted that day. I paid US$250 for the promo of Pentecost, again counting on the first in the series dragging Prophecy up with it.

Copies of Pentecost sold: 800 @35c = US$280

Copies of Prophecy sold: 57 @$2 = US$114

Total income: US$394.

Given the cost was US$250, financially, this was worth the promotion.

But the impact on the Rankings was also fantastic. Pentecost reached #5 in the Action Adventure charts and Prophecy reached #88, so both books were ranking together, and Prophecy debuted in the charts above Lee Child. Awesome! Pentecost also reached #82 in the entire Amazon.com Kindle store. We still don’t know how the Amazon algorithm works but rankings, sales and reviews definitely play a part.

Will I do it again? Absolutely. (But remember, every book is different so don’t assume that what works for me will also work for your book. It’s all experimentation!)

My tips for getting the most out of the experience:

  • Have a great cover and back blurb
  • Have 10+ reviews of 4 stars or more on the sales page already – this social proof will help people to buy
  • Use great pricing. 99c will get you into the bargain area which will elicit more sales, although clearly higher pricing will result in more revenue for less sales.
  • You can find out more in the Author’s Corner on PixelofInk

KDP Select

If you’re not aware yet, KDP Select is an Amazon Kindle opportunity that allows you to put your book into the Amazon Prime lending program and receive a percentage of lending income from a fixed monthly pot. It also allows authors 5 days in a 3 month period where they can price the book for free. Previously, the only way to do this was to ‘game’ Amazon by setting the price to zero on Smashwords and waiting for their algorithm to pick it up. But now there is control over the period of time so you can coordinate your promotional period.

Free is basically a marketing activity. The aim is to get eyeballs on your book and to pick up data from the Amazon algorithm that may help your book when it goes back to paid. Most authors have experimented with some form of free but it works best when you have multiple books. Here’s NY Times bestselling author CJ Lyons on how free worked for her, and this was before KDP Select.

In order to be in the program, you have to put your book exclusively with Amazon for that 3 month period. You can then choose to renew or opt out again.

There have been some prominent indies in both the For and Against camps for KDP Select but I wanted to try it for myself in order to give a more informed opinion. Obviously the results will be different for every book so this is hardly the last word on the subject, but it is my experience.

How I used KDP Select

As part of the launch for Prophecy which is $2.99, I included Pentecost in KDP Select, hoping that people would get the first in the series for free and then buy the 2nd since the price is also pretty good for that. Given that Pentecost had already sold over 17,000 copies prior to this promotion, I figured I would get new readers.

I initially set the promo for 3 days but increased it to 5 once I got to the top of the Action Adventure charts in order to maximize the impact and downloads. I shared the fact it was free on Twitter and Facebook but that was about it. I know there are a number of sites that promote books as being free and also people who watch the lists, so no extra promo was really needed.

I did have to remove Pentecost from Smashwords in order to do this which meant the book wasn’t available on the other ebook stores.

Results from KDP Select

I started the promo on Sat 5 Feb and very quickly I was on the top free listing for Action Adventure. On Mon 6th Feb Pentecost reached #1 on Free for Action Adventure on Amazon.com and #2 in the UK. It stayed there until the promo finished.

Total downloads of Pentecost over the 5 days: 10,836

Total sales of Prophecy over the 5 days: 294

Was it worth it?

For me, I don’t think so. The uptick in Prophecy sales was quite small and I think a lot of people who get free books just get a lot of free books. They don’t necessarily need to buy books anymore as so many are free. How many of those 10,000 new readers will convert to fans of my fiction? It will certainly be a small percentage but perhaps the same number who would have bought the book over that period anyway, as I have quite consistent sales every month.

On the lending aspect, only 20 copies of my books have been lent in the last month. That’s not significant data at all but it does show that lending doesn’t work for all books as an income or promotional activity.

I also had to remove my books from the other platforms. I now have to republish them so I may have missed out on sales during that period as well. As much as I personally love Amazon as a reader and an author, I actually don’t like being exclusive to their store. Even though I buy there exclusively, it doesn’t mean other people do and I want to be available everywhere.

Will I do it again? Probably not, for fiction anyway. I might experiment with non-fiction. That doesn’t mean it’s not good for your book/s, but it’s my own experience. I have a guest post coming soon from an author who totally loves KDP Select, so we all have different experiences.

Have you tried direct advertising or KDP Select? How has it worked for you?

Want more tips on how to sell more fiction?

I have now been selling my fiction for over a year and I’ve experimented with a lot of different strategies and tactics. I have also changed my mind on a lot of things and believe that selling fiction is quite different to selling non-fiction.

I share my findings in this recent webinar recording: How to promote your novel: 21 ways to sell more books online. It’s just US$21 and has some rave reviews. Click here to read more about it.

 

 

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

2012: Best of Times for Writers, or the Worst?

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One thing that happens when you go to a writing conference is you end up spending a lot of time with writers. Many kinds of writers. And that can be very instructive.

There were several hundred writers in attendance at the San Francisco Writers Conference, which ended yesterday. Throughout the four days there were writing workshops, keynote addresses, “ask the pro” sessions and a lot of panels and presentations about options in self-publishing.

Although most of the sessions were on writing topics, the incredible popularity and explosive growth of self-publishing, both with new and already-established writers is the obvious rationale for presenting this material. And there were some people who were clearly interested in pursuing the self-publishing option.

Slogan of the Day

In almost every presentation, somewhere along the line I heard, “It’s the best time to be a writer.”

And why not? Armed with only a laptop and an imagination, a writer today can create her own publishing story, gather fans, learn to market her books, and start to make real money though book sales if she keeps at it and has good skills.

In many of these self-publishing presentations there were stories told of authors who had followed this same path and arrived at the promised land, where agents and editors are calling you with six- and seven-figure offers.

Just before the big panel I was part of on Saturday morning, I read in Publishers Weekly about the latest, Brittany Geragotelis, who used the reader community Wattpad to accumulate over 16 million reads of her work, attracting a six-figure contract from Simon & Schuster.

The Dark Side: Still There

It was also interesting that many writers had never considered self-publishing. On the last day of the conference there was a big, two-hour panel discussion on “The Great Adventure: Joining the Self-Publishing Revolution,” moderated by Carla King (Self-Publishing Bootcamp) and including Mark Coker (Smashwords), Brian Felsen (Bookbaby), Jan Johnson, (Turning Stone) and Jesse Potash, (PubSlush). And me. Pretty good panel, wouldn’t you say?

The room was reduced to half its usual size by dividers, and it was still only about half-full.

Where were all the writers?

They were upstairs, standing in a long, long line that snaked from a room at one end of the hotel, through the lobby and in front of the front desk. Each grasped a sheaf of papers and many looked nervous.

This was the core of their visit to the conference, and maybe the reason a lot of them paid to come to San Francisco: “Speed Dating With Agents.” A chance to sit down and talk face to face to a literary agent is a powerful draw for an unpublished writer.

I thought about some of the writers I know. Many are quite technophobic. Just learning Word is a major accomplishment. I know people who can write prose that will melt your heart, but they never figured out how to attach something to an email.

These writers will never join my training course. They might read the blog because you can get it in your email. The whole thought of “formatting” makes them nervous. They just want to write, and let other people take care of the rest.

I’m not so sure it’s the best of times for these writers. It could be coming into the worst of times. As popular fiction moves to ebooks, publishers try to find an economic model that will survive digitization, and marketing becomes a necessity for the average author, what are non-technical writers to do?

Most of the new self-publishers who are in the news get there through using social media for marketing. Many are bloggers or do blog tours. This is a community in which uploading to Kindle Direct Publishing is about as easy as booking a flight online.

But even in 2012, many writers aren’t there yet, and the dream of landing that contract lives on.

Do you think there will be writers who are pushed aside by the technical requirements of the new era in publishing? Or will there always be publishers to take care of the business end of things for writers who want no part of it?

 

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

Pimping Your Book, Indie or Traditional

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This post, by Holly Robinson, originally appeared on The Huffington Post on 2/28/12.

Now that I’ve got feet in both camps, I have a unique perspective on the good, the bad and the mysterious truths about book marketing. My memoir, The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter, was published by Random House. I leaped into the indie world when I self-published my first novel, Sleeping Tigers, a couple of months ago. My second novel, The Wishing Hill, will be published by Penguin in spring 2013.

These experiences have taught me a lot about book publicity, but I’m still learning new things every day. There are some differences in how traditional and indie books are publicized, but those differences are shrinking by the nanosecond. The truest thing I can tell you is that, no matter how your book makes it into the world, you’ll need to take an active part in the publicity. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Mine the Free Resources

The Internet is a wonderful tutor. There are more free resources out there about marketing your book than you’ll ever have time to read. Google anything from "picking a book cover" to "social media for authors," and you’ll get enough hits to last through a few thermoses of coffee each time you do it. Make good use of these resources. One of my favorites is Novel Publicity’s "Free Advice Blog."

Prepare Your Platform

No matter who you talk to in publishing — agent, editor, publicist, or sales team — they’ll tell you that their ideal is a good book written by an author with a "solid platform." Basically, that means that they want you to be famous before you even give them a manuscript — or they want some hook, like you chewed off your arm during a battle with a grizzly bear. (Even then, they hope you’ve been blogging about it.) One easy way to start building your platform is by crafting a virtual identity. Social media tools are free and easy to use. Start a blog, create an author Facebook page, get a Twitter account, and set up a Goodreads page. Give people useful information — don’t just pimp your book. If you know how to do something — anything from fly fishing to quilting — blog about that, guest post on other people’s blogs, and people will start following you. Yes, it’s time-consuming, but it’s also incredibly fun to connect with people. If you’re trying traditional publishing avenues, it will help your editor sell your book to the publisher if she can prove that you have an active presence online. Indie or traditional, you’re cultivating a loyal readership.

A Publicist Is Just Part of the Picture

 

Read the rest of the post on The Huffington Post.

How to Have a Successful KDP Select Campaign

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This is a guest post from Jeff Bennington.

Are you Planning a KDP Select Promo Soon?

If you plan to promote your book through Amazon’s KDP Select "Free" promotion, you can potentially receive exposure that is equivalent to a billboard standing in the middle of Times Square in New York City, or you might not.

There are several factors that can influence how well or how poorly your book fares when given such an incredible opportunity. Because the response to a promotion can vary from one title to the next, it is very important that you get everything right BEFORE you set your book loose. If you nail all of these elements, you will have a greater shot at success. If you are lacking in some or all of these elements, you might not experience the boost in sales/readership that you are hoping for. After nailing each of these elements, I hit #55 in Amazon’s Top 100 paid, and so have a few authors who have allowed me to help them.

The following is a list of key elements that will effect your biggest and best opportunity to FINALLY get noticed on the world stage:

Your Book Cover is the very first thing readers see, so it only stands to reason that it better be AWESOME. Unfortunately, many self-published authors have an unprofessional looking cover, yet expect professional results. Your cover needs to grab a reader’s attention, draw them in, or create enough curiosity to earn a "click". If your book cover is lame or screams "self-published" you might get far fewer clicks than if you spent a little bit of money on a sweet cover. And in the world of KDP Select promotions, a loss of clicks can mean a loss of several hundred to several thousand dollars. So it is definitely worth the expense.

Your Book Blurb is your sales pitch, and you don’t have much time to convince a book buyer to spend their dime on you. With so many books for free, and at affordable prices, your product description should be catchy, to the point, and professional. If you have misspelled words, or the layout of your product description is sloppy, too long, too short, or has bad formatting, a reader might assume that the book has similar issues. An ideal book description should include at least two quality reviews that build immediate credibility, followed by a brief, accurate, and compelling product description.

Your Price Point is critical. I mention pricing in my forthcoming book, The Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe, in detail. But my opinion of book pricing has nothing to do with the value of your book, it has to do with the size of your audience. Therefore, if you’re a newer author, and if you do not have many reviews, or awards, I would not recommend pricing your book over $2.99 during a KDP promotion. Unless your book really catches fire, a newer author is at risk of losing sales when over priced. In fact, check out the top 100; you’ll notice that there are more low priced books than ever before.

Reviews sell books. The more you have, the more credibility you will have with your potential buyers. If you have very few reviews, you might not sell near as many books with your free promotion than if you had 10, 20, or more quality reviews. Likewise, if you have received poor reviews, there is a greater chance that you might not experience the same success as some authors have had with KDP Select. If you need more reviews, check out The Kindle Book Review among other sites. You can always solicit reviews from book bloggers.

Layer your Marketing. The Select free promotion is the best shot you may have to get your book promoted on a world stage. You have to throw everything you’ve got into this promotion. I recommend scheduling multiple promotions on the day, and days following the moment your book returns to the "paid" store. I discuss the concept of Marketing Layering in detail and provide a few websites that will coordinate this effort in my book.

So here’s the deal: You have 90 days to use your 5 free days with KDP Select. If you are lacking in any of the elements listed above, I’d urge you to utilize your time and resources to get as many of these points nailed down BEFORE you offer your book for free. If you don’t, you could get a whole bunch of nothing from what I consider one of the best promotional opportunities in the history of publishing.

IF YOU NEED HELP, go to my my Author Services Page. I got skills.

Jeff Bennington, The Indie from Indy, is the author of Reunion, an Amazon #1 bestselling supernatural thriller, Twisted Vengeance and Creepy: a collection of scary stories. He blogs at The Writing Bomb and is the founder of The Kindle Book Review. When Jeff isn’t writing and blogging, he’s busy raising and homeschooling his four children with his wife in Central Indiana.

Writing in the Digital Age: Connecting with Readers: The Stephen King Problem

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This post, by Kelly McClymer, originally appeared on the Book View Cafe blog on 2/10/12.

I’ve been a writer for a long time. In high school, I was co-editor of our newspaper, but even before that I wrote plays for my sisters and me to perform. I’ve been an avid reader for even longer (does it bother anyone else that the Verso survey defines avid readers as reading 10 books a year…a YEAR?…I used to read 10 books a week when I was a kid). I love readers because they are my first tribe, outside of the immediate family (which did not include a lot of avid readers, to be honest). Readers are my peeps. I like to hang with them in the book hood…okay, that’s sounds creepy and wrong, but if you are an avid reader, you know what I mean. Libraries rule, bookstores smell like Heaven, and bookshelves hold the nectar of the gods.

As any writer knows, however, when you begin to be published, your relationship to readers changes. It is similar to when someone begins to sell Tupperware or Avon or Mary Kay and her friends start warding off sales attempts with fake smiles and glazed eyes. Readers learn to be wary of the writer’s pitch. I tried to get around this by never making a pitch. But it doesn’t work. Readers know that all writers are neurotic about their work. A casual, “Not my favorite,” by a reader translates in a writer’s brain to “I hate her and and her books and will immediately commence a write-in campaign to destroy her chance to ever sell a book again.”

A decade ago, writers did not cross paths with readers on a regular basis. The reader-writer connection was made through a library talk, a book signing, a class at a university or adult ed program. The readers self-selected to attend those events, and thus tended to be in the group we call fans. You know, people who like a certain writer’s style, genre, and back cover headshot. Avid readers, in other words. You could go to the grocery store and be fairly sure that your checkout clerk had no idea that you’d just spent two hours murdering someone in Chapter 2. Unless you were Stephen King (he is a beloved and well-recognized figure in Maine).

When my husband was interviewed for his job, one of the tours of the area included a trip to see King’s home. He has an interesting fence around his beautiful Victorian paper baron home. And he is (still) the most famous resident of the area — one that is rife with writers I may add. Can’t swing a stick without hitting a writer around here. But King had a problem, even back 25 years ago, when we moved to the area. People knew him by sight. Most, of course, said nice things to him (he and his wife Tabitha — she is also a writer — have been very generous to the local communities, especially the libraries). But his avid readers? They offered their opinions on his latest work. As you may imagine, those opinions were not always complimentary. Some may even have been termed complaints (why did you kill her? do you hate dogs? what do you have against vampires? etc.).

 

Read the rest of the post on the Book View Cafe blog.

How Do You Know If Your Writing Is Getting Better?

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This post, by Janice Hardy, originally appeared on her The Other Side of the Story blog on 1/20/11.

A reader asked…
For writers who, like me, have yet to publish anything (For pay) it’d be nice to better gauge where we’re improving, and what weaknesses are still holding us back, are there some exercises or self-study things we can do to figure it out, so we know where to go from there?
Oh boy, this one’s a toughie. There really are no checklists that will say if you’re improving or not. And it’s something that’s really hard to tell on our own, because it’s hard to be subjective about our own work. But I know how frustrated I was by this very same thing, so I’ll do my best to try to provide some way to help here.

 
 
I did do a post on the tour that gave guidelines for some general level ranges, and that could help some to see where you might be and what skills you might focus on to get to the next level.You can also look at old critiques to see what comments you regularly got, and check new crits to see if you’re still getting those comments. If the feedback is the same, that’s a good indication that you’re still making the same mistakes and might have stalled. But if you’re making all new mistakes, that’s an indication that you’re improving. You can also look at your old and new work and try to be objective, and review it as if you were critiquing someone else.

 
To give examples on how you might go about this, I went through old files and found some of my writing from as far back as college. It might help to share some of those and crit myself to see where I improved and where I needed work. Hopefully it’ll give you ideas for things to look for in your own work, and questions to ask, like, are you still telling emotions through adverbs or are you dramatizing scenes? Is there a solid POV or is the narrator floating about somehow? Are you giving the reader reasons to care about your characters?
 
1992-ish:This is from an idea I had that became my training novel. This draft was handwritten in pencil, so that shows you how long ago I wrote it. Eventually I wrote it "for real" with the intent to sell, but these pages aren’t there yet. This is the opening of the first chapter.
The Griff Inn was a dark, dreary little tavern that sat on the end of an equally dark and dreary street. Its windows were dirty, its floors unswept and its customers were an accurate cross-reference of the riff raff of Kintari. It drew the thieves as easily as the murderers, and that naturally brought in the charlatans, the highwaymen and the local scum.
 
Let’s just say it was not the moral backbone of the city and leave it at that, shall we?

It was, however, Aradelle’s destination and she walked through the darkened streets with none of the fear the average person would feel in the same situation.

I cringe reading this. It’s all told, there’s this weird omniscient first person-esque narrator, there’s no hook. Now, it’s not horrific, as it has a bit of a voice that’s kinda nice, and I can see the beginnings of my style starting to come through. There’s storytelling, weak as it is, and it’s going somewhere (eventually). To crit myself, I’d say I need to work on POV in a big way and work on showing, not telling. Get deeper in the head of my POV (and pick a real POV) and show the world through their eyes. Since I’m following Aradelle here, she’d be my choice. (And a decade later she was).
 
1995-ish: Same story a few years later. Again, the opening chapter.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Other Side of the Story.

Print Is Dead! Long Live Print?

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This article, by Jordan Kurzweil, originally appeared on TechCrunch on 2/25/12.

[TechCrunch] Editor’s note: Jordan Kurzweil is Co-CEO of Independent Content, an agency that helps media companies launch new digital products and businesses. Prior to starting Independent Content Jordan worked at AOL running original programming, and News Corp bringing its traditional brands to digital. You can follow him on Twitter @jordankurzweil.

It’s been said before, but it needs saying again (and again and again): PRINT IS DEAD. Across the publishing industry, year-over-year declines in revenue, subscriptions and circulation, are well documented. Yes, there have been a few quarters of blood-stanching flatness (yay!), but – you heard it here first (or few weeks ago from The Annenberg School, or over the summer from Clay Shirky) – print periodicals are going to go away – forced out of this world by the march of technology and changing tastes, and replaced by new powerhouse brands – TMZ, Buzzfeed and HuffPo to name a few — which are poised to own the future, because they know how to adapt to (and even anticipate!) evolving user behavior. As John Paton, CEO of one of the largest newspaper companies in the U.S., put it recently “‘You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone’ is not much of a business model.”

Just this week, Gannett gave us a stunning reminder of just how little it understands the world it lives (and dies) in, and how myopically it views its business when it announced its $100M bet on establishing paywalls in all 80 of its local newspaper markets. A gambit predicated on “the public’s strong desire for local news and in readers’ longtime trust in Gannett’s papers,” according to Gannett’s CEO Gracia Martore. Oh my. The paywall, whether for Gannett or other publishers, is a finger in the dyke, a cover-up for tectonic shifts in their businesses. For Gannett, local paper audiences are old (that’s what “longtime trust” means), and may well age out of relevance before Gannett’s gosh-darned paywall gets erected. And where’s the proof that the public wants local news? Readership is declining, local news website traffic is infinitesimal, and even pure digital plays like Patch can’t seem to find readers or revenue. The fact is, the thirst for local news can be sated by a single hometown blog, run pretty much by a single entrepreneurial blogger (granted they’d be very busy – and underpaid).

What can Old Print do to survive?

To use a trite metaphor (or two) – stop rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, grow a pair, and change your businesses. Pivot out of the corner and reclaim your heavyweight title. RUMBLE, Old Man, RUMBLE:

1. Face reality:

– The audiences of traditional print brands on paper and pixel are aging.

– Digital upstarts are capturing the new audiences, and stealing your least loyal current readers.

– The cost structures of Old Print companies are out of whack with the times.

– New technology is further commoditizing content, and fragmenting audience.

– In-house digital innovation at Old Print companies is largely non-existent, stymied by outmoded, editorial-first ego at the top, and fearful protectionism of current revenue sources: print subscriptions, ad pages and banner impressions.

2. Start thinking like startups.

Read the rest of the article, which includes 7 more pieces of advice for publishers, on TechCrunch.

Don't Blame Smashwords Or Paypal: The Frontier Moved For Indie Authors, It's Time To Move With It

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This post, by Dan Holloway, originally appeared on his The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes site on 2/25/12.

As this post and many others currently mushrooming on the web are commentating, indie ebook distributor Smashwords has asked authors of certain kinds of erotica to remove their content in order to satisfy an ultimatum from Paypal that such content be removed or the payment processing facility be withdrawn.

Now argument is raging on all kinds of fronts. Some have to do with US consitution, on which I’m not going to offer comment. Thankfully, very little debate has focussed on the type of material under discussion – that doesn’t seem, to me, to be the point.

The two points that seem to me to be most pertinent (others will have different opinions) are these:
– what do we think of Paypal makin this request?

– what kind of organisation does Smashwords want to be?

To take the latter first, Mark Coker, an inveterate champion of indie publishing, has regularly portrayed Smashwords as a champion of all things indie. It is this that I think has so many authors angry. I won’t harp on too much about this, but much confusion comes from what we mean by "indie", as I’m always saying. The more the indie book world looks like the regular book world (and as more people self-publish the more it *does*) the more we should expect indie champions to behave like people in the mainstream. Erotica authors were amonst the earliest adopters of epublishing – they were indie frontierspeople, and I think they still share a pioneering view of what indie means (as I tend to), hence they feel sold down the river first and foremost because what they thought of as a safe haven for boundary pushers has been colonised by the "safe" making it no longer safe for them. As it were.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes. Also see this related post on TechCrunch and this related post on The Digital Reader, which includes the text of the email Smashwords sent to affected authors and publishers.

My Latest Op-Ed Up At The Punch, In Which I Rant About DRM

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My latest opinion piece has been published today at The Punch, “Australia’s Best Conversation”. The title was the work of the editor, and is deliberately sensationalist, but the piece should clarify my position. It begins thusly:

Digital Rights Management doesn’t work. DRM is a method of locking digital media so it can’t be shared. Except it fails. For every form of DRM employed, pirates instantly break it.

DRM only inconveniences honest, paying customers. For example, in the case of eBooks, a person might justifiably want to have their book on their PC and their tablet, but DRM can prevent that.

I regularly get Google Alerts about my books being mentioned online and many times it’s when they appear illegally on filesharing sites. For every download like that, it’s a drop of cash not going to keeping food on my table, right? Actually, probably not.

Read the rest here.

 

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

Cover Design Is Key

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Indie fantasy author Ty Johnston’s 2012 blog tour is running from February 1 through February 29. His novels include City of Rogues, Bayne’s Climb, Ghosts of the Asylum and Demon Chains, all of which are available for the Kindle, the Nook and online at Smashwords. To learn more about Ty and his writing, follow him at his blogtyjohnston.blogspot.com.

 

Indie authors are all different. We write in different genres and styles. We each have our own unique plans to increase our readership. We each have different things to say, and different goals for success. Some of us want to be household-name authors like an Anne Rice or Tom Clancy, while others simply want to be able to make a career at our writing; some of us just enjoying the creative aspects and aren’t worried about the financial end of things.

 But we also share a lot of similarities. One such similarity is that each of us has to have a cover for our books and e-books, and we all want to have good covers.

Some might argue covers are not important, that what is behind those covers is what’s truly important, but they are missing the bigger picture (quite literally, when you think about it). Even if you believe good covers are not important, you would be hard pressed to argue that a bad cover can be helpful.

So why do we want good covers? Honestly, some of it is hubris. Writers like to brag about their covers and the cover artists. More importantly, writers who have even a drop of marketing sense in their blood realize the worth of a good cover.

A solid cover can catch a reader’s eye. This is important for obvious reasons. If readers never notice your books or e-books, then they will miss the opportunity to consider further whether they wish to read your book or e-book.

A good cover can hold a reader’s attention. Even if a reader passes on your book the first time around, a solid cover might draw them back again. A great cover can stick in a reader’s mind, and that can propel a reader to pick up your book at some future point.

Also, while there are those who might believe covers do not sell books, the truth is a good cover could be the tipping point for customers. If a reader is on the fence about whether or not to purchase your book, a good cover might just be the thing to convince them.

Traditional authors have the bonus of publishing houses behind them and the art departments that go along with them. Indie authors, however, are often on their own when it comes to creating good covers.

The most obvious choice for indie authors is to hire out their covers. There is a growing number of cover artists and designers on the market, and many of them offer quality work for a fair investment.

On the other hand, many beginning writers simply can’t afford to hire an artist. What to do?

Well, you can save up your pennies until you can afford an artist, which is not a bad idea, or you can create your own covers.

I can hear some of you screaming now, “But I’m no artist!” Perhaps that is true, but basic cover does not have to be fancy.

The first thing a beginning cover designer often asks about is the various software for creating covers. I prefer Photoshop because it does everything I need and then some. Obviously, if you can afford to buy Photoshop then you can afford to hire an artist. But there are other program available which can be used. I’ve known some authors who use Powerpoint for their covers; while this option sounds odd tome, whatever works works, right? Another option would be to download some free online software like GIMP, which is somewhat similar to Photoshop.

That’s the technical aspect. Use whatever you feel works best for you. If you have the chance, experiment with different software.

But what about the actual design itself?

Okay, I’m going to jump in here for a moment to tell a little about my own design background. I was a newspaper editor for 20 years, and publication design was a daily part of my job during that time. Sure, it isn’t the exact same thing as book design, but there are similarities and I did spend a fair amount of time over the years designing special publications and magazines, which are more like books than are newspapers when it comes to design. I tell you this so you will know I am not and do not consider myself a book design professional, though I feel I do have a leg up on design when itcomes to many of today’s struggling indie authors. What follows are my opinions, and someone who has been designing books for 20 years might suggest think I’m full of it.

First of all, you need to keep in mind you are not designing only a book cover. You are also designing an e-book cover and an icon that has the potential to be seen by millions across the Web. Remember that word “icon,” because what you want your cover to be is iconic. You want it to stand out from the crowd, to draw the attention of customers and readers.

In my opinion, simple is better. Yes, there are plenty of complicated, artistic book covers out there that look good in a bookstore, but how many of them look good on Amazon or Smashwords? How many of them are even legible on a website? Most aren’t, so simple is better.

As an example, take the cover of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. No, I’m not here to argue about the worth of the novel itself or the movies, so forget the snarky comments. But go take a look at that cover. Stark black background with a pair of pale hands holding a bright red apple. The title is a little small, in my opinion, but it is spotlighted by the arms at either side. The author’s name is somewhat small, but that was appropriate when the original cover was created because Meyer was not that well known then.

Now, look at the cover of Twilight again. Study it. Putting aside your love or dislike for the story itself, isn’t that an awesome cover? Here is a simple cover scheme with an iconic image right in the middle of all that black. This is a cover that looks pretty good in the bookstores, but it also looks good online, even when seen only as a small image. Now tell me that cover didn’t draw the eye and help to build the author’s following?

Okay, I’ve talked about simple cover design. What does “simple” really mean? It can mean several things, but I’ll stick with a few of the most obvious. Simple colors, for instance; the fewer the better, in my opinion. Bold colors, that contrast with one another and stand out on a computer or handheld device. An iconic image, something fairly simple that pops out at the viewer. Remember that your name does not need to be large, at least not unless you become somewhat famous, and this will give you a little more working room. However, I am a fan of larger titles on covers because I believe they help to stand out more in the viewer’s eyes and mind.

Also, when it comes to e-books, you don’t really need a lot of small, extraneous type on your covers. I know authors love their blurbs, but unless you have one from Stephen King, it’s really a waste to put it on an e-book cover because it won’t be seen. Any type on an e-book cover beside the author’s name and the title should serve some purpose that helps the reader make up their mind whether or not they want to read the e-book. Information I deem relevant would include a blurb by the likes of Stephen King, obviously, but also could entail whether or not the e-book is part of a series, whether it is a short story or novella, etc. Skip putting a price on the cover, because prices can change.

One last thing. When working on e-book covers, remember that the image is going to initially be seen by viewers in a very small size. Allow this to direct your design for an e-book cover. If you want a more extravagant design, by all means consider doing so, but I’ll suggest perhaps having two different but similar covers, one for the book and one for the e-book.

Okay, I lied. Really this time, one last thing. If you continue to be stumped by book cover design, always remember to study the basic design of books you like. I’m not suggesting you outright steal, because that is wrong, but you can study the creativity of book covers you find interesting and learn from them.

I hope I’ve helped at least a few indie writers who struggle with their covers, and I’d like to say a big “thank you” to those behind the scenes (hi April!) at Publetariat for allowing me this space on the site today.

Do Legacy Publishers Treat Authors Badly?

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This post, by J.A. Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on 2/19/12.

Some people have disagreed with my statement that legacy publishers treat authors like s**t.

So I’ve made this list. Decide for yourself if these actions constitute treating authors badly. FWIW, all the things I’m mentioning have either happened to me or to my peers.
 
Legacy publishers offer the author 17.5% royalties on ebooks, and keep 52.5% for themselves.

 
 
Legacy publishers have full control over the title of the book.
 
Legacy publishers have full control over the cover art.
 
Legacy publishers can demand editing changes or refuse to publish.
 
Legacy publishers promise marketing or advertising. In fact, they promise lots of things. Then they don’t follow through.
 
Legacy publishers fail to get paper books into certain important bookselling outlets, resulting in fewer sales.
 
Legacy publishers generate royalty statements that are incomprehensible.
 
Legacy publishers don’t try grow an author’s fanbase these days. If the books don’t show increased sales with each new title, the author gets dumped, even if the reason for decreasing sales is the publisher’s fault.
 
Legacy publishers hold onto rights even if the book is no longer selling. Getting rights back is a nightmare, and it takes forever.
 
Legacy publishers try to grab erights to books retroactively.
 
Legacy publishers take a ridiculously long time to publish a book. In some cases, more than 18 months.
 
Legacy publishers are a cartel. I suppose it could be a coincidence that the Big 6 all have exactly the same (low) royalty structure, and shockingly similar contract terms. But collusion seems easier to believe, and this collusion is aimed at limiting the income and power of authors. Legacy publishing contracts are painfully one-sided.
 
Legacy publishers have zero transparency when it comes to things like sales, returns, print runs, and inventory, and keep authors in the dark.
 
Legacy publishers fix prices. That’s what the agency model is. Even worse, these prices are too high and hurt authors’ sales.
 
Legacy publishers sometimes fail to edit.
 
Legacy publishers abandon books, releasing them into the market without any push at all.
 

Legacy publishers pay royalties twice a year. Are you freaking kidding me?!? It’s 2012! Why are their accounting and payroll departments stuck in 1943?

 

Read the rest of the post on A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.

Global Publishing For All

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This Beyond The Book podcast and transcript are provided in their entirety by the Copyright Clearance Center.

In this interview, Ingram Chief Content Officer Phil Ollila discusses what book publishers should consider when setting out for new markets, specifically international markets. He explains how the advent of the digital file has changed the barriers to distribution of content, opening up opportunities abroad that previously may not have existed. He also discusses how publishers can go about sharing their work with audiences worldwide.

In the publishing world, regime change is underway. It’s not happening in Tahrir Square or even in Times Square. The old is giving way to the new in the virtual square, and players like Ingram Content Group have declared themselves on the side of the new regime.

In his role as Ingram’s Chief Content Officer, Phil Ollila leads a number of Ingram business units including wholesale merchandising, Lightning Source, Ingram Publisher Services, and digital distribution through CoreSource. Last fall, Ingram launched Global Connect, a program to allow publishers in any country to print and distribute titles in countries where Ingram has its own operations as well as in countries of one of its partners. Ollila tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally what book publishers should think about in 2012 when setting out for new markets.

“Today, when we think about the delivery of books and the distribution books, one thing we should think about is the consumer, and not necessarily the traditional supply chains of bookstores,” he explains. “For publishers, their content can now be available on a worldwide basis with a single entry point. In the past, they had to think about selling rights in a foreign rights market, or the physical delivery of that book on a ship or a train or an airplane.”

Global Publishing For All [14:22m]: | Play in Popup | Download
 
View Transcript

 

Is Free A Price We Can Pay?

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This article, by Chuck Wendig, originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 2/13/12.

It seems that every book these days — or, at least, every self-published book — is popping up free for a short period of time, an act driven by inclusion in the exclusive Amazon KDP Select program.

I did it with SHOTGUN GRAVY, as you may have seen. To report back on the experiment, the novella has once more gone back to its two or three sales a day mark. The sales basically went like this: after going free for just over a day, the novella moved around 5200 copies. Then, after the promo ended, I sold (daily): 70, 4, 89, 48, 36, 13, then it we’re back to the two or three sales per day. During the time SG spiked, my other e-books mysteriously dipped for a couple days but then raged back strong thereafter. During that stretch, it netted be about 20 new reviews. So, I’m willing to call it a success.

 

And I’m not yet sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

The results were a good thing. But it’s the ramifications of those results that has me feeling wibbly-wobbly.

Here’s where I’m a bit troubled.

First, the fact we’re now seeing a new type of authorial self-promotion (my book is free! hurry up and not pay for it!) is troubling if only because I fear we’re just contributing to the overall noise — and it’s noise that spreads an intrinsic notion about the value of our work, which is to say, it maybe ain’t worth that much. This noise also helps to set up expectation: “If I wait around long enough, this book might just show up free for a couple days.” So, where before readers were becoming trained to wait for a sale — “Oh, now the book is $2.99 instead of $4.99, or now just a buck” — they’re instead waiting for it to cost them absolutely zero.

Second, the boost in sales that comes out of this process is effectively a cheat. It’s an exploit like you’d find in a multiplayer game. It’s not based on human word-of-mouth, it’s based on a programmatic exploitation of Amazon’s recommendation system — a system that is inscrutable and unpredictable. Amazon may intend for it to work that way so, in this sense it’s not strictly an exploit — but my point is that it’s based on an algorithm of recommendations rather than actual recommendations. Moreover, if that algorithm becomes dominated by this mode of juggling books to the top, then those books that are not participating may have a harder time finding a place in that already-unknowable and potentially-overcrowded recommendation system. Right? So, not only is this “free product exploit to boost sales” trick creating a potential ecosystem of lowered expectations in a story’s value (because a buck wasn’t cheap enough!), it’s also enforcing a programmatic ecosystem where if your book does not participate, it doesn’t get to play in the Reindeer Games with all the other once-free books.

 

Read the rest of the article on Chuck Wendig‘s terribleminds – and if you’ve benefitted from any of Mr. Wendig’s sage advice and opinion over the past year, consider picking up his new compilation ebook.

Writing In The Face Of Fear

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I’m getting ready to re-vision my blog. By that I mean I’m going to take a short break to brainstorm some great ideas for future posts. I want to make this a place you can stop by to pick up handy tips and inspirational messages to help you in your day-to-day life, as well as catch a weekly laugh.

That being said, I don’t want to just leave you high and dry while I work up a new plan, so I’ll be re-posting some of the best from the last year. Enjoy!

Writing in the Face of Fear

In his book The Courage to Write, Ralph Keyes tells us that every writer worth his or her salt has a fear of writing.  It’s not just a fear of being rejected by a traditional publisher, although fear of rejection often causes the would-be author to become what Ralph calls a “trunk writer” (someone who writes something, then puts it in a drawer or “trunk”).  There’s also the fear of the blank page (or blank screen).  We writers give it the nice euphemism of “writer’s block,” but more often it’s fear.  What if I can’t come up with anything?  What if I do and it’s crap?

Brenda Ueland has an answer to that in her book If You Want to Write.  She says it doesn’t matter.  She dares each of us to try to write the worst story we can because she believes even in the worst we can find great stuff.  Brenda cautions the would-be author not to get too hung up on technical details of writing and encourages us all to put something of ourselves into everything we do.

While I agree with Brenda on both parts, Independent Authors do need to make each work as flawless as possible before going to print.  It’s impossible to get anything perfect, but it is possible to make everything the best you can.  Ralph gives several suggestions on how to do this in The Courage to Write. Another good source for things to look for is Edward C. Patterson’s eBook Are You Still Submitting to Traditional Publishers? When it comes to technical aspects such as punctuation, my favorite resource is The St. Martin’s Handbook.  If you plan to freelance for magazines and newspapers, you’ll probably want a recent edition of The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual.

Knowing I have several good resources at hand helps me face the fear of writing, but I still find myself frustrated by the blank page on occasion.  Ralph points out that many great writers have what he calls rituals to help them get started.  Having a ritual may seem like a waste of time (sharpening 20 pencils before writing like Hemingway did certainly qualifies in my mind), but if it’s what gets you in the right frame of mind then it’s worth the “wasted” time.  Personally, I know I can’t string more than two words together without having my desk relatively cleared of clutter and a hot cup of Earl Grey tea at hand.  Whatever you need to do to psych yourself up to write, do it.  Just don’t let your ritual become an excuse not to write.

Although I won’t go so far as to say embrace your fear, I will say that knowing the fear is there for your fellow writers can be a comfort.  You’re not alone.  Remembering that and having a few good resources at  hand makes writing a little more enjoyable and a lot less frightening.

How do you face your fears?

 

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s blog.

Publetariat Observes Presidents' Day

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CORRECTION:

Publetariat staff are off in observance of Presidents’ Day. No new content will be posted to the site until the evening of TUESDAY, 2/21, but all areas of the site will remain accessible and members can stll post to their Publetariat blogs.

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