Month: March 2012

Seth Godin’s Poke the Box, Doubt, and the Will to Publish

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Could you sell a small, 84-page hardcover book with no title on the jacket for $12.99? Seth Godin can.

Godin, one of the premier marketing minds of our time, a prolific blogger and the author of numerous bestselling books recently closed down the publishing activities of The Domino Project.

This was an experiment in publishing books in partnership with Amazon, and resulted in numerous publications that are interesting to other publishers for lots of reasons.

 

I wanted to take a look at his book production and bought the little hardcover to have a look.

As a fan of Godin’s blog and other writings, I wasn’t surprised to find many of the same themes he’s often written about in the book.

He concentrates on the importance of “shipping,” actually moving forward and putting your work to the test in public, all the while understanding that the risk of doing nothing is far greater than the risk that your effort might fail.

Godin-isms Abound

Godin explained the lack of a title or any other copy on the cover, a pretty unusual move, by reminding readers that the book was only available online, where the cover is always shown next to the title and description.

Seth GodinLike a number of other unusual features of his book publishing, this makes perfect sense—for him. If you’re not a world-famous marketer with intimate ties to the largest book retailer in the universe, it might not work as well for you.

However many of the lessons Godin draws from his work with large corporations are so basic, so insightful about basic human truths, that they are just as useful for you and I, working silently away at our keyboards.

“It’s extremely difficult to find smart people willing to start useful projects. Because sometimes what you start doesn’t work. The fact that it doesn’t work every time should give you confidence, because it means you’re doing something that frightens others.” All quotes in this article are from Poke the Box

Godin’s background as a blogger is evident throughout the book, which reads like a series of his blog posts. It’s divided into little sections, each with its own headline followed by about six short and conversational paragraphs. It’s a completely “chunked” book, ideal for reading in 3-minute spurts.

Throughout Poke the Box Godin shows how inaction, fear and doubt are the real enemies, not failure or risk.

“We’re extremely adroit at hiding our fear. Most of our lives in public are spent papering over, rationalizing, and otherwise denying our fear.”

Godin constantly reminds us that planning, projecting, brainstorming and other activities are fine, but they are not “starting” and they are not “shipping.” Starting means initiating something new, sticking your neck out.

“Part of initiating is being willing to discover that what you end up with is different from what you set out to accomplish. If you’re not willing to discover that surprise, it’s no wonder you’re afraid to start.”

Shipping, on the other hand, is finishing, getting the new project, the new proposal, the new book “out the door” and into the public’s hands. Maybe it will fly, maybe it will crash. Without shipping, you’ll never know.

Poke the Box is, in Godin’s words, a “manifesto about starting.” What exactly does he mean by “starting”?

“Going beyond the point of no return. Leaping. Committing. Making something happen.”

On a small scale, publishing a book with no title on it is a risk, isn’t it? Will it work? Or will the book fail? Godin has often done this, including giving books away rather than selling them. Or trying to sell a book to marketers that’s titled, “All Marketers are Liars.”

But that’s the nature of risk, isn’t it? If you stand to lose nothing, you haven’t risked anything.

Where Publishing Fits In

Poke the BoxOne of the reasons I admire Poke the Box and a lot of other work by Godin is his insistence on owning your own ideas, standing up for your viewpoint, being willing to take the risk.

That’s not so different from self-publishing, is it?

In traditional publishing you can get some of this, but your work is mediated by agents, editors, marketers and publicity people at the big publisher who took the risk on your book.

But when you publish your own books—like Godin did with Poke the Box and others from The Domino Project—there are no intermediaries. Instead there are collaborators, colleagues, contractors you hire and over whose work you maintain the ultimate control.

This puts you in the position of taking a risk with each book you put out. Will it fly? Will it crash and burn?

Doubt and fear are what hold us back. Year after year I talk to authors who want to publish their own books. Some tackle the project with relish, anxious to get feedback from the ultimate authorities—their readers.

But others dither. They find reasons to not publish. There’s a new technology coming along next month. They haven’t decided whether to add one more chapter. They can’t settle on a title, or whether to go hardcover, or what trim size to pick, or who to ask for testimonials, or …

The list goes on and on, but the real reasons are doubt and the fear that it produces.

2 Years of Shipping

Like you, I’ve been confronting this situation since I started blogging a couple of years ago.

Over and over, I’ve been captured by doubt, but somehow managed to ship anyway:

  • This blog, launched despite the doubts that anyone would be interested in “book construction”
     
  • A series of subject-matter guides for authors, despite the doubt that I could sell $10 PDFs from my website
     
  • A Self-Publisher’s Companion, put together from blog posts, although I had written that making a book from your blog is a bad idea
     
  • A website for eBook conversion services, although there was no obvious way to monetize or profit from the site
     
  • A blog carnival, despite the obvious signs that blog carnivals were a dying form
     
  • Monthly ebook cover design awards, despite the possibility that all those judgments might tick off my readers
     
  • An online video training program for authors, even though I had never constructed a course, created lessons, or shot instructional video in my life.

A Self-Publisher's Companion--KindleTo be frank, some of these were pretty much failures. Sales of some of the “for sale” items were dismal and, the last time I looked, the Amazon sales rank for my book was about 800,000 (although I’ve contributed to this by leaving the book at Lightning Source to measure the impact of Amazon’s recent changes to their process for selling books from third-party POD suppliers).

Each time, the doubts in my own mind were the real enemy, it wasn’t resistance from the “real world.”

How Doubt Works

Godin talks a lot about the “lizard brain,” that primitive part of our thinking left over from the time when we were concerned almost exclusively with physical survival.

“The connected economy of ideas demands that we contribute initiative. And yet we resist, because our lizard brain, the one that lives in fear, relentlessly exaggerates the cost of being wrong.”

What did I really pay for the failures? If I remove the emotional let-down, not really that much.

But each time I gained invaluable lessons, lessons in what really works and what doesn’t, what people want, and what they need.

Do you ask people what they want? Do you really understand the needs of your market? Or maybe you’re just a bit ahead, and people aren’t ready for your ideas, your innovation or your particular story.

Without shipping, without actually taking that idea into the marketplace, you have no way of knowing, you’ll just be left wondering or worse, fantasizing.

The Voice of Doubt

The worst part of doubt, the one that affects me and maybe you the most, is the voice inside my head.

You have to pay attention to hear this voice, but it’s there. It’s the one straight from the lizard brain, but it’s a voice you’re so familiar with you might not recognize it right away.

It says things like

  • “I’m not really good at writing copy, am I?” Or,
  • “Screwed that one up, didn’t you? Typical.” Or,
  • “What did you expect? It didn’t work last time either.” Or,
  • “If I write that, people will know how lame I really am.” Or,
  • “If I get it wrong, that will be the end, I’ll never be able to do this.”

These are the doubts that pull us down, desperate to prevent us starting, initiating, focusing and shipping the wonderful thing that’s in our heads.

And that’s one of the reasons I love both self-publishing and blogging.

When you get that book out, when you stop censoring yourself, pulling back from the ideas that really excite you because you’re afraid they might be just too outrageous, too outside your own definition of yourself, you win.

And you win whether the book or the article or the idea “wins” or not.

“Of course, the challenge of being the initiator is that you’ll be wrong. You’ll pick the wrong thing, you’ll waste time, you’ll be blamed. This is why being an initiator is valuable… Initiative is scare.”

So here’s the message: technology has put the tools of publishing into the hands of creators: you and me.

What will we do with the tools, the new reach the online world has given us to promote our ideas, our stories?

Will you start?

Will you ship?

That’s what self-publishing is all about to me.

Remember the little man on the cover of Poke the Box?

“He’s you, the excited, optimistic experimenter who understands that risk is misunderstood and that forward motion is the key to success.”

Our responsibility is to make sure our ideas are clear, and clearly presented. That our books are as good as we can make them.

Keep publishing, and thanks for reading.

 


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

If the Government Makes Agency Go Away

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This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on his The Shatzkin Files blog on 3/8/12.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Justice Department has notified the Agency Five (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster) and Apple that it plans to sue them for colluding to raise the price of electronic books. I have no standing to comment on the law here. But if this does mean the end of the agency model, it would seem to be a cause for celebrating at Amazon and a catalyst for some deep contemplation by all the other big players in the book business.

Agency pricing, for those who have not been following the most important development in the growth of the book market, enabled the publishers to enforce a uniform price for each ebook title across all retail outlets. This was Apple’s desired way to do business, and it addressed deep concerns the big publishers had about the effect of Amazon’s loss-leader discounting.

Although the WSJ article and Michael Cader’s follow up in Publishers Lunch make no “agency is dead” declaration and there are quotes from publishers and others indicating that there are a range of possible outcomes, including a version of agency that is modified to allow some discounting, everybody in the industry now has to contemplate what it would mean if the agency model is legally upended.

To Amazon, it would mean they would be free to set prices on all books again, including the most high-profile and attractive ones that come from the big trade houses. That is an opportunity they are likely to seize with loss-leader discounting of the biggest marquee titles.

To Barnes & Noble, it would mean they have to devote cash resources to ebook discounting that they might have preferred to dedicate to further development of the Nook platform, maintaining the most robust possible brick-and-mortar presence, and improving the user experience at BN.com. Unconfirmed stories abound that B&N is about to announce an international expansion. Whether that will produce cash flow immediately or require it for a while is not yet known. For B&N’s sake, it would always better if it were the former, but if they’re about to fight discounting wars, it might be critical.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes commentary on possible impacts to authors and others, on The Shatzkin Files.

How to Get Traffic to Your Author Website

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The author website (or blog) is an essential book marketing tool, and authors often ask how they can get more traffic to their website. To answer that question, let’s first take a look at the ways that people land on websites.

In the graph below, you can see the sources of traffic (visitors) to my website last month, according to Google Analytics.

 

GoogleAnalytics
Search Traffic:  About 47% of visitors found my site through a search engine like Google. Most of those people searched for keywords such as book marketing or book promotion, although some searched for my name or brand name. The process of making your site attractive to search engines is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

Referral Traffic: About 18% of visitors landed on my site by clicking a link on another website. Generating incoming links from other sites, including social networks, is a valuable way to get people to your site and it’s also helpful in SEO.

Direct Traffic: About 24% of visitors came directly to my site, either by typing my website address into their browser or clicking a link in an email (my newsletter). This also includes people who bookmarked my site in their browser and visited by clicking on the bookmark.

Campaigns: In this category, Google includes people who have subscribed to my RSS feed and clicked a link in the feed.  If I were running any online ads on Google or another site, those visitors would also show up in this category.  

I am writing a series of articles with more details on how to generate more traffic to author websites through search engines, incoming links and direct traffic. Stay tuned for the next installment coming next week. To make sure you don’t miss any posts on The Savvy Book Marketer, I invite you to sign up for the blog feed. 

 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer. Also see Part 2 in this series.

The Business Rusch: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

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This post, by Kathryn Rusch, originally appeared on her site on 3/7/12.

The quote in my title comes from Mark Twain’s autobiography.  Twain said:

“Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

 

The problem with Twain’s attribution, however, is that no scholar can find anything in Disraeli’s papers that even resembles it. (Yes, scholars have that kind of time on their hands.) The website twainquotes.com cites an 1895 article by Leonard H. Courtney in which the quote first appeared—or so everyone thinks.

I find it hilarious that the source of this quote about statistics is almost impossible to track down. I also find it funny that Twain’s preface to the quote has gotten lost in the pithiness of the “lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

“Figures often beguile me,” he wrote, “particularly when I have the arranging of them myself.”

And thus, Mark Twain, who died in 1910, has poked at the heart of modern publishing. We all love statistics – or figures, as he calls them – but they prove nothing. In fact, this year, statistical analysis is harder than ever.

You’d think it would be easier. We have computers, after all. We have incredible processing speeds and more information at our fingertips than ever before. We can “crunch” the numbers quickly and easily.

The problem is in which numbers we crunch.

Let’s take, for example, the number of e-book sales versus the number of print book sales. We’re seeing a lot of statistics about the percentage of e-books in the marketplace. And those statistics come from reputable organizations.

I felt uncomfortable about those statistics at the end of 2011, and I feel even more uncomfortable about them now. These statistics purport to examine all books sold, and I know that’s not true. I also know that there are equations that supposedly take a statistical sample, and apply them over information not yet gathered (or information that’s impossible to gather). And even though I know the mathematical model is accepted, I’m still uncomfortable.

You see the mathematical model in polling all the time. Pollsters contact 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 sufficiently diverse people, poll them, and then use them as a statistical sample that supposedly represents the entire population. This same technique takes place in medical studies. Studies gather information from 50 to 500 to 5,000 people, gauge their reactions to, say, a medication over a period of time, and then use those as a basis for the result.

People who watch medical studies, for example, generally ignore the ones with less than 100 participants, and really believe the ones with tens of thousands of participants. And if those tens of thousands were studied over years, then the medical study is considered even more accurate than the one that follows someone’s reaction to a treatment or a medication over a few hours.

See why Mark Twain insisted that he liked figures if he arranged them himself? Or to put it in 2012 language: he liked statistics if he manipulated the information himself.

One of the first things I learned as a journalist, back in high school of all places, was how to look for statistical manipulation. “Four out of five dentists surveyed” might mean that five dentists were surveyed, and four of them (the ones who worked for the company) liked the product. Or it might mean that four out of five dentists in a survey that contacted 10,000 dentists (none of whom worked for the company) liked the product.

Both statements would be true. Four out of five dentists liked the product. But only one statement might be information that a consumer might benefit from.

As the past year has continued, it has become clear to me that e-book sales are rising. Anyone who watches numbers knows that. Every day there’s a new tablet hitting the market, or some new version of an e-reader. Just this week, Apple unveiled iPad 3.  At the same time that Apple announced the New HD iPad (which is what they’re calling it), Google announced Google Play which it claims will rival iTunes. We’ll see.

 

Read the rest of the post on Kathryn Rusch’s site.

25 Things You Should Know About Word Choice

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This post, by Chuck Wendig, originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 3/6/12.

1. A Series Of Word Choices

Here’s why this matters: because both writing and storytelling comprise, at the most basic level, a series of word choices. Words are the building blocks of what we do. They are the atoms of our elements. They are the eggs in our omelets. They are the shots of liquor in our cocktails.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: strong language after the jump]

Get it right? Serendipity. Get it wrong? The air turns to arsenic, that cocktail makes you puke, this omelet tastes like balls.

2. Words Define Reality

Words are like LEGO bricks: the more we add, the more we define the reality of our playset. “The dog fucked the chicken” tells us something. “The Great Dane fucked the chicken” tells us more. “The Great Dane fucked the bucket of fried chicken on the roof of Old Man Dongweather’s barn, barking with every thrust” goes the distance and defines reality in a host of ways (most of them rather unpleasant). You can over-define. Too many words spoil the soup. Find the balance between clarity, elegance, and evocation.

3. The “Hot And Cold” Game

You know that game — “Oh, you’re cold, colder, colder — oh! Now you’re getting hot! Hotter! Hotter still! Sizzling! Yay, you found the blueberry muffin I hid under the radiator two weeks ago!” –? Word choice is like a textual version of that game where you try to bring the reader closer to understanding the story you’re trying to tell. Strong, solid word choice allows us to strive for clarity (hotter) and avoid confusion (colder).

4. Most With Fewest

Think of it like a different game, perhaps: you’re trying to say as much as possible with as few words as you can muster. Big ideas put as briefly as you are able. Maximum clarity with minimum words.

5. The Myth Of The Perfect Word

Finding the perfect word is as likely as finding a downy-soft unicorn with a pearlescent horn riding a skateboard made from the bones of your many enemies. Get shut of this notion. The perfect is the enemy of the good. For every sentence and every story you have a plethora of right words. Find a good word. Seek a strong word. But the hunt for a perfect word will drive you into a wide-eyed froth. Though, according to scholars, “nipplecookie” is in fact the perfect word. That’s why Chaucer used it so often. Truth.

6. No One Perfect Word, But A Chumbucket Of Shitty Ones

For every right word, you have an infinity of wrong ones.

7. Awkward, Like That Kid With The Headgear And The Polio Foot

You might use a word that either oversteps or fails to meet the idea you hope to present. A word in that instance would be considered awkward. “That dinner fornicated in his mouth” is certainly a statement, and while it’s perhaps not a technically incorrect metaphor, it’s just plain goofy (and uh, kinda gross). You mean that the flavors fornicated, or more likely that the flavors of the meal were sensual, or that they inspired lewd or libidinous thoughts. (To which I might suggest you stop French-kissing that forkful of short ribs, pervhouse.) To go with the food metaphor for a moment (“meat-a-phor?”), you ever take a bite of food and, after it’s already in your mouth, discover something in there that’s texturally off? Bit of gristle, stem, bone, eyeball, fingernail, whatever? The way you’re forced to pause the meal and decipher the texture with your mouth is the same problem a reader will have with awkward word choice. It obfuscates meaning and forces the reader to try to figure out just what the fuck you’re talking about.

8. Ambiguous, Like That Girl With That Thing Outside That Place

Remember how I said earlier that words are like LEGO, blah blah blah help define reality yadda yadda poop noise? Right. Ambiguous word choice means you’re not defining reality very well in your prose. “Bob ate lunch. It was good. Then he did something.” Lunch? Good? Something? Way to wow ‘em with your word choice, T.S. Eliot. To repeat: aim for words that are strong, confident, and above all else, clarifying.


9. Incorrect, Like That Guy Who Makes Up Shit When He’s Drunk

Incorrect word choice means you’re using the wrong damn word. As that character says in that movie, “I do not think it means what you think it means.” Affect, effect. Comprise, compose. Sensual, sensuous. Elicit, illicit. Eminent, immanent, imminent. Allude, elude. Must I continue? Related: if you write “loose” instead of “lose,” I cannot be held accountable if I kick you so hard in your butthole you choke on a hemorrhoid.

10. Step Sure-Footedly

Point of fact: the English language was invented by a time-traveling spam-bot who was trapped in a cave with a crazy monk. Example: The word “umbrage” means “offense,” so, to take umbrage means to take offense. Ah, but it also means the shade or protection afforded by trees. I used to take the second definition and assume it carried over to the people portion of that definition. Thus, to “take umbrage” meant in a way to “take shelter” with a person, as in, to both be under the same shadow of the same tree. I used the word incorrectly for years like some shithead. If you’re uncertain about the use of any word, it’s easy enough to either not use it or use Google to define it (“define: [word]” is the search you need). Do not trust that the English language makes sense or that your recollection of its madness is pristine. It will bite you every time.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 15 more things writers should know about word choice, on terribleminds.

Steve Berry’s 8 Rules of Writing

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This article, from Writer’s Digest, originally appeared on that site on 9/5/08.

At the Maui Writers Conference, bestselling thriller writer Steve Berry says there are eight key rules that all writers must know and follow:

1. There are no rules. You can do anything you want as long as it works.

2. Don’t bore the reader. You can bore the reader in a sentence, in a paragraph, by misusing words, poorly choosing words, using the wrong length, etc.

3. Don’t confuse the reader. Don’t misuse point of view. Don’t do too much at once.

4. Don’t get caught writing. Don’t let you, the author, enter the story. (E.g., “And he never would see Memphis again.” How would anyone other than the author know that the character would never see Memphis again?)

5. Shorter is always better. Write tight. It makes you use the best words in the right way.

 

Read the rest of the article, which includes 3 more tips from Steve Berry and numerous links to other related articles, on Writer’s Digest.

Box Your Can’t-Get-Started-Writing Blues

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This article, from Blue Horizon Communications, originally appeared on that site on 5/11/09.

The most difficult problem you face in writing your book can be summarized in just two words.
 
Getting started.

 
You have a brilliant idea, of course, and an outline or some notes. Maybe even a chapter draft, or two. But now what?
 
If you are like most will-be authors, you begin casting about for other things that demand your attention — first.
 
The birdfeeder needs cleaning. The gardening stuff at the back of the garage needs weeding. Heck, the entire garage needs to be emptied and put back in pristine order. It’s good feng shui, you tell yourself.
 
In other words, after the brilliant idea, the outline, the notes, and the drafts, you’ve earned the right to your resistance.
 
Why? Because you don’t know — that is, know specifically — what to do next with your book. Writing it feels so frustratingly vague, so frighteningly VAST.
 
So, you tackle the things that you do know how to do: birdfeeder, gardening stuff, garage. And then you feel guilty and pained. Uncomfortable.
 
But wait. You needn’t be stuck in discomfort. There is a solution to resistance. A simple solution. It is a . . . Box.
 
Yes, a box. Not a literal box, but the imagined form of a box, which you can use as a magical tool to get to work on your book — without suffering from let’s-just-do-other-things-first-itis.
 
Here is what it takes to create a Box:

 

Read the rest of the article on Blue Horizon Communications.

Holes in History—License for Imagination

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This post, by Suzanne Tyrpak, originally appeared on the Historical Fiction eBooks site on 12/31/11.

When I write historical fiction I look for the holes in history, because that’s where I can fill in the gaps and allow imagination free reign.

Writing historical fiction is similar to writing fantasy, except, when writing historical fiction, there are limitations. To some extent, we know about other times, places and people of the past. To some extent, history has been documented. But, as well as creating boundaries, these limitations serve as jumping-off points for story and can fuel the imagination.

World building is essential for historical fiction and fantasy—the writer must create a world and sink the reader into it. In historical fiction, unlike fantasy, readers often have preconceived ideas about the world the writer is creating. For example, if I say ancient Rome, images will probably populate your mind. You may have gleaned these images through reading, movies, television, travel—but you have some knowledge of that time, and I don’t have to build the world from scratch. As a writer, it’s my job to draw those images together for the reader and paint a picture which serves as the context of my story.

This involves a lot of research. And the research can be overwhelming. I’m not a historian. I write fiction. I do research so I can highlight details which will serve my characters and my story. Selecting these details is key. Too many details and my story will be boring, too few and it will lack authenticity. Deciding which details to put in and which to leave out is one of the great challenges of writing historical fiction.

Rather than war and politics, I’m interested in the daily lives of ancient people, especially the roles of women—a lot of that has not been documented. In order to create that world, I steep myself in fragments of writings, jewelry, household goods and my imagination.

 

Read the rest of the post on the Historical Fiction eBooks site.

Best and Worst of the Digital Writing Life

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This post, by C.J. West, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog and is reprinted here with that site’s permission.

When my last physical was over, my doctor asked, “You still writing suspense novels?”

“Absolutely.” I smiled.

“But what do you do to make a living?” he asked.

If I sold a book for every time I heard that one…

Then yesterday someone asked about my schedule and was surprised that I usually work well past midnight. That’s if you call what I do work. I love writing and if I’m not sleeping, spending time with my kids, or doing chores, I’m working.

My boss is a slave driver!

Work for me can be anything from researching a subject for a new book, writing and editing a novel, to spending time online connecting with friends in the writing community.

Since the writing life is such a mystery to non-writers, I thought I’d shine a light on what my little corner of the universe is like.

The top 10 great things about being a writer in the digital world:

10. Writing connects me with thousands of great people all over the globe.

9. My commute consists of pulling back the covers and stretching to power on my laptop.

8. The digital store is open 365 days a year (366 this year) and I can see exactly what I’m earning minute to minute.

7. Tweeting and Facebooking are important job skills.

6. Blogging about my addiction to chocolate or my attempts to diet earn me readers.

5. My office fits in a carry-on with room to spare. I can work on a beach or plane.

4. When I’m looking out the window and dreaming, I’m doing my best work.

3. My imaginary coworkers can’t sue for sexual harassment and they don’t complain about working conditions or low pay.

2. People write to tell me my writing has changed their lives.

1. The digital explosion has allowed me to reach tens of thousands and earn a living doing what I love.

Ten worst things about being a writer in the digital world:

10. Mediating squabbles on the digital playground.

9. There is no excuse for being late to work.

8. I can check my earnings minute to minute, but sometimes it’s better not knowing.

7. My family and friends think I should have a real job.

6. Everyone thinks I’m available to help them 24/7. See # 7.

5. Marketing. I love writing. I’m not fond of selling. (But I do like giving stuff away.)

4. Thousands of people think I can write a bestselling book about their great idea, give them half the royalties, and we’ll both be rich. It’s funny until they ask the third time.

3. If something good happens in the book business it’s always luck.

2. If something bad happens, it’s my fault.

1. My imaginary coworkers don’t do what they’re told even though I created them.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my writing life.

 

QR Codes and Tomorrow’s Blog

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Have you ever wondered, when you’re out interacting with people on your fan page on Facebook, whether your author platform was actually growing?

Or questioned whether you should be doing some serious Tweeting, like a lot of other authors do, to gather a big following?

 

Well, good news. Dan Blank from We Grow Media will be here tomorrow with a content-rich article about exactly how to get started answering questions just like these.

I know you don’t want to miss it. Dan’s gathered some great resources and uses his vast experience helping authors to show you how it all works.

Using QR Codes for Book Promotion

There have been a number of publishing-related events nearby recently, and that got me thinking about promotion.

From past experience I knew that most event-goers get weighed down with freebies from vendors, and everyone ends up with plastic totes stuffed with promotional literature that might get seen, but might not.

A few weeks ago I created some new business cards at Moo.com. They print on Mohawk Superfine, probably my favorite printing paper of all time, and other similar stock. The cards are twice as thick as normal business cards and larger, too.

So I went back to Moo.com and made this one:

book marketing

In this case, the book I’m promoting is the free PDF I give away on the blog (top [of the right column on my blog]).

I reasoned that, rather than try to sell somebody I had just met something they might or might not want, content marketing could make my job a lot easier.

After all, I would be in groups of writers and indie publishers, the exact people who are likely to be interested in the articles here and in the free PDF.

By giving them the card, they would have the option of downloading the PDF. If they take the trouble to get it, I can assume that they are going to be interested in the other things I do.

Here’s the back of the card:

book marketing

My hope is that the promise of the PDF and the novelty of the QR codes will intrigue people enough to get their smartphone out and scan them. Of course, I’ve included a “human readable” web address as well.

After this, my next experiment with QR codes will include analytics, since I just ran across a very clever way to track QR codes with Google Analytics.

Of course, this is more metrics, more analysis to look at.

Authors as Marketers

Hate it, huh? But let’s face it. The more book discovery and purchase happen online, the more adept self-publishers have to become at understanding how this stuff works.

That’s exactly the reason I’m doing the analytics I do here on the blog and in my other projects, and why I’m excited to bring you Dan’s article tomorrow.

 

This is a cross-posting from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

Review Honestly and Often

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One of the best things about the modern world of publishing is that there is more good stuff available, and it’s easier to get hold of, than ever before. Small press and boutique publishers are springing up everywhere and, along with indie and self-publishers, they’re giving the “big six” more of a run for their money than ever before.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

I think this is great, as it really does give an outlet for pretty much anything. There are still gatekeepers in the form of all the hard-working editors at those small and boutique presses. Hopefully there’s still control in content from the self-publishers, as they should be employing editors and proof-readers and cover designers to make their work the best it can be. Of course, a lot aren’t and, whether indie, small press or big six, there’s an awful lot of shit out there.

So, this is where everyone else steps in. That’s you and me, the readers and consumers. I’ve blogged before about readers as gatekeepers and this post is an expansion of that. In part, this is simply a reminder of that post – you’re a reader, so you have the power to share the good stuff by reviewing and/or rating it on Amazon, Goodreads, your blog and so on. Keep doing that.

But the expansion is this – do your reviews regularly and honestly. If you see a book on Amazon and it has ten five star reviews and nothing else, it’s altogether possible that it’s really that good. Or it’s equally possible that ten friends and family of the author posted a review and nothing more. A lot of value is added to a book when there’s a variety of reviews and ratings. A book with ten reviews that are a mix between three, four and five star reviews is a lot more likely to be something reviewed by a variety of people who actually read the book. You can read their comments and get a real feel for the book that way and decide if it’s going to work for you. That’s kind of thing is far better for authors.

I can understand not wanting to give a bad review. That’s fair enough, and if you really hate something you can just choose not to review it. If you feel you want to review and mark it poorly with only one or two stars and explain why, then that’s great too. If you’re clear about what you didn’t like, others can get value from that. What pissed you off might actually attract another reader with different sensibilities. The honesty of a range of reviews from a variety of readers is far better for an author than just a few dollops of glowing praise that won’t really move anyone reading them.

So please, don’t forget to review. It takes hardly any time, it’s incredibly easy with places like Amazon and Goodreads, and it’s invaluable for authors. If you enjoy their work, think how much time and effort was involved in making it and spend a few of your own precious minutes clicking a star rating and typing a few words of opinion. It doesn’t have to be much at all, just a couple of comments about why you did or didn’t like the book and the author will love you for it. Be honest. If I get a three star review and, “I liked this book and would recommend it. Not the greatest thing I ever read, but worth your time” then I’m as happy as Larry. (Who is Larry, anyway?)

Of course, I much prefer four and five star reviews, because I love it when people enjoy my work enough to praise it that highly. But any review is helping me out one way or another.

Review everything. Review honestly. Be a pal to all the authors.

 

 

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

Indie Author’s Barriers

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This post, by M. Keep, originally appeared on her Femmedia blog on 2/24/12. 

I wrote before about barriers and piracy, but this time I want to narrow in on a single barrier.

The biggest barrier for indie publishers (of all media) is not being known. No one is going to buy your book, or game, or movie, or anything else if they don’t know you or it even exists. 

Anyone who has become well-known in their market has had an enormous amount of luck on their side, be it a good review on a popular site (or many popular sites), or if they just got a small group of fans that kept growing as they kept putting out more and more media.

The barrier here is obvious – people can’t buy your stuff if they don’t know it exists. Piracy, then, has been stated to have had a very positive effect on people who aren’t well known. There was a group of indie musicians that came out in support of Napster back in the 90s. These relative-unknown’s were building a fan-base. People were looking for sounds similar to what they already enjoyed, and Napster provided an easy way to browse similar users collections and be exposed to a band they never would have heard of otherwise.

The same applies to books.

Even once you do stick your head above the crowd, you have to make it count. I don’t read as many books as I’d like because I’m not familiar with many authors that have impressed me, and $10 (the typical paperbook price) is daunting to figure out if I like an author. My location isn’t very library friendly either, so it’s a 40 minute walk to and from a library and there are just some points of the year I’m not up for that hike (say, in the winter or rain).
 

Read the rest of the post on Femmedia.

Yep, Life is Getting Harder for the Indie Author

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This post, by Ruth Ann Nordin, originally appeared on The Self-Published Author’s Lounge on 2/25/12. 

This is a piggyback on Joleene Naylor’s post which talks about Amazon removing about 4000 books.  Details are in her links, so I won’t go over it except to say that it looks like authors (in general) are seeming to have a harder time keeping their books on sites where we need to sell them to make a living or to be on our way toward making a living.  Sorry I’m posting so soon after you, Joleene. 

The post Joleene just made falls in line with the same topic I have in mind, which is the fact that screws are being tightened across the board for authors.  From the post Joleene made, it sounds like small publishers will face some hard times as well.  My focus will be on indie authors because this is an indie author blog. 

Last night, I came across this thread on the Kindleboards:  http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,105037.0.html.  It was saying that Smashwords is dropping erotica titles with incest, beastiality, rape, and underage characters.  I’m summing it up, but you can go to the latest press release on Smashwords to learn the specifics: https://www.smashwords.com/press/release/27.  The Kindleboards link will give you more of a commentary on it and what authors think of this.

I’ve been studying this since last night and through the morning to best form my thoughts for this post.  I wanted to do a post on it because this is something that has the potential to impact all of us, but I wanted to get as many facts straight as possible.  Even after the time spent on looking up articles on this, I don’t know if I have the full scope of what is happening.  Is it only indie erotica authors who write the above taboo themes being removed, or are small press authors affected, too?  If I got my facts right (and I might be wrong so correct me if I am), then it sounds like Siren Publishing still has books up at Bookstrand with the taboo subjects in their erotic books.  That’s the gist I got from this Kindleboards thread: http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,104604.0.html.  I am not familiar with Bookstrand.  Until this week, I never even heard of them.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Self-Published Author’s Lounge.

Latest Ebook Alliance

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It was inevitable. Smaller e-book enablers are striking deals with major companies in order to see their content distributed and sold. E-books are no different from any other valuable commodities; they need economy of scale to be able to succeed and survive. The latest is last week’s deal struck between Smashwords and Blio.

Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords, announced the deal and explained it in an email to all the authors who have e-books on the Smashwords site that they would now also be carried by Blio, a major e-book distributor that provides content from the major publishers.

Baker and Taylor, the second largest book distributor in the world, uses Blio to sell its e-books to indie bookstores and libraries. My bookstore, The Book Barn, has its own landing page on Baker and Taylor’s data base. If you go to that page, you can see the Blio connections. You can even download their free AP to turn your computer into a book reader. Blio also connects with Google Books where over 1,000 e-books that have outlived their copyright protection can be had for free.

This is a win/win for everybody. It also levels the playing field with Amazon and Barnes and Noble. All this makes good business sense.

[Here’s a link to the Smashwords blog post about the new alliance.]

 

This is a cross-posting from Bob Spear‘s Book Trends blog.

"Coincidentally" Is Never Good Enough

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Think about the plot of your most recent novel, or work in progress. If you had to summarize the plot, at any point in your recap, would you find yourself saying the word, "coincidentally"? Or the phrase, "it just so happens that…" ? If so, there’s something wrong with your plot, your characters, or both.

I was recently with a young friend who was watching the movie, Zookeeper. In the beginning of the movie, the somewhat shlubby but kind and sincere protagonist asks his super hot, super shallow girlfriend to marry him, in a carefully orchestrated, horseback-riding-on-a-beach at sunset scenario. She not only turns him down, but tells him she’d actually been intending to break up with him because he’s just a zookeeper and she can’t accept it. Apparently she wants a more worldly and wealthy guy. At this point, I tuned out for a while to focus on something else.

My other task done, I came back to the movie, where a wedding reception was in progress. Shlubby guy was there with his smart, gorgeous co-worker. Hey, do you suppose he’ll end up realizing she’s a better match for him than the super hot, super shallow girl at some point before the end? I could write a whole different post on predictable retreads of tired rom-com cliches, but that’s not the topic for today.

I asked who was getting married, and my young friend explained it was the shlubby guy’s brother. Suddenly, the super hot, super-shallow girlfriend was doing an elaborate dance with some other guy at the reception. I asked what she was doing at the shlubby guy’s brother’s wedding. My young friend explained that the super hot girlfriend was one of the bride’s closest friends, so she was invited to the wedding and came with her new fiancee.

"So," I asked, "it just so happens that the super hot girl who dumped this guy in the first scene was one of his brother’s fiancee’s best friends? Isn’t that kind of a HUGE coincidence?" She replied, "Yeah, you just have to go with it."

Actually, you don’t. And neither do your readers. It was obvious not only to me, but to an 11 year old girl, that the only reason the super hot girlfriend was a friend of the bride was so that she’d be in the wedding reception scene, making shlubby guy jealous and prompting him to his next ill-advised round of hijinks intended to win her back.

It’s possible that I missed a flashback in which it was shown how the brothers began dating these besties, but even if there was, it would be very tacked-on and serve only as an excuse to get the super hot ex to the wedding—where of course, there were lots of wacky, slapstick physical comedy set pieces.

Wouldn’t it have made much more sense to have shlubby guy run into the ex and her new man somewhere in public, or at a gathering in the home of a mutual friend? After all, if they met at some point in the past they should run in similar circles, or still have one or two friends in common. Of course, this wouldn’t have allowed for the presence of the giant ice sculpture and aerialist equipment that played crucial roles in the shlubby guy’s public humiliation, but those also had "coincidentally" written all over them. Seriously, who hires a Cirque du Soleil -type aerialist to perform at a wedding reception?!

If the only reason a character DOES something, or IS something, is to set up a later scene, the writer is sacrificing plot and character integrity for the sake of his own convenience, and straining the reader’s credulity.

Some might say that Zookeeper also features talking animals, and therefore it’s asking too much of the writers to expect much in the way of plot or character integrity. But look at the movies The Golden Compass, Stuart Little, Ratatouille, Cars and Finding Nemo. Talking animals, cars and fish DIDN’T strain credulity in the least in these films, and it’s specifically because the writers paid very close attention to plot and character integrity. It’s possible to be fantastical and comic, and even a little slapstick, without resorting to the "coincidentallys". If anything, the harder it is for your characters to get where they need to be, the richer your plot (and characters) will be by the end of the tale.