Month: July 2012

Tim Roux of Taylor Street Publishing, on “The Publishing Market”

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This post, from Winston Emerson, originally appeared on The Object on 7/22/12.

Recently, The Object interviewed author J. Eric Laing, who told us he had placed his novel Cicada with Night Publishing, owned by Tim Roux, but several months ago withdrew it from Night and self-published instead.

A disagreement between the author and publisher unveiled itself during the interview and subsequent commenting, which has led to Tim offering us an article entitled “The Publishing Market” that details his perspective on the subject, along with how his company operates in today’s publishing world.

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The Publishing Market

by Tim Roux, Taylor Street Publishing

I have been a professional international marketer, brand manager and business strategist for 30 years but, like many a closet (or at least bookcase) bookworm, I always felt I had a book inside me.

Then, in 2004, after throwing away a few chapters of an effort that embarrassed even me twenty years earlier, I went for it and wrote ‘Blood & Marriage’ in 3 months, mostly 35,000 feet in the air.

It was, and is, a totally self-indulgent book that nobody should ever be asked to read, but it led to nine other books, some of which have been kindly reviewed, and I have had something like 20,000 sales / downloads of my books since, so I can declare with false modesty to anyone who will listen – and many who won’t – ‘Yeah, I have sold a few books’.

However, where I have really begun to sell books has been as a publisher. When I started out in January 2010, I simply knew that I wanted to get some books I loved into print. I knew how to publish books on the cheap into paperback – I had self-published my own – but I certainly didn’t know how to promote or sell them. Nevertheless, I was friendly with several authors and managed to persuade a few of them to let me publish them (as I still do).

I started with a target of publishing 5-6 books a month. Nine months later, our first book really took off – 3 sales in 6 months, then 11,000 the next day. The company got into its true sales rhythm about a year ago. It has certainly had its ups and downs since, and the original company was driven into the sidings during a particularly vicious divorce process, but the phoenix companies are up and fighting all over again, with a specific view of publishing which I would like to share here, whether it is useful to you or not, or even true or not.

I think the first thing, as authors, we have to decide is what we want from writing. Do we want to hold our own book in our hand; do we want people to read it; do we want to make money out of it?

If all you want is your own book, then you can self-publish your book in a day, and nothing can stop you. If you want people to read your book, you have Kindle Select and Smashwords to offer free downloads in their tens of thousands, if your book is attractive enough. If you want to make money, well, as Mark Twain said, “Any idiot can write a book, but it takes a genius to sell it.”

The book market is a market, and all markets have segments, eventually. As far as we are concerned, there are four topline segments for fiction – literary, genre, life and weird.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Object.

Splurge & Save: How To Be A Thrifty Indie!

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If you’ll allow me, I’d like to take just a second to clarify an important point before we resume our regularly scheduled blogging…

Last week, our post on Self-Publishing Costs was added to Reddit.com by a well intentioned reader who felt we were projecting way too much overhead cost for indie authors (a sentiment that was echoed by many other readers on that website).

Holy misinterpretation Batman, that’s definitely not what we meant.

Judging from the comments we received here on Duolit from our wonderful readers, you guys seemed to have no problem picking up on the point of the guide – it was an overview of the possible costs associated with self-publishing.

 

But just in case that wasn’t clear, we want everyone to know that it was never our intention to say that self-publishing required the purchase of every service, product, tool, and coaching session we mentioned in the post.

Just like the example we used at the beginning about going to Wal-Mart – it’s possible to spend thousands of dollars in Wal-Mart (especially if you like camo and beef jerky) but it’s also possible to spend $5.

It all depends on your wants, needs and budget.

The same goes for self-publishing.

*Phew! Glad we got that straightened out!*

Moving right along, we thought that this week we could delve a little deeper into the possible costs of self-publishing by giving some advice about where you’ll get the most bang for your buck and where it’s okay to scrape and save a little.

To simplify things, we’re going to use the same breakdown from last week.

The Costs of Writing

¢ Save ¢

  • Organizational Materials: The dollar store sells post-its, pens, highlighters, thumbtacks and a variety of other office supplies that we love (!) but don’t need to spend big bucks on.
  • Coaching: Find a friend or family member who can be your sounding board/motivational coach through the writing process. You can also buddy up with a fellow author to keep each other on the straight and narrow for free!

$ Spend $

  • Books and Courses: Research is valuable. The more information you have at the outset of your project, the more you will save down the road by avoiding costly mistakes. Don’t go overboard by any means, but find a few resources that you trust and invest in your author education.
  • Software: If you’re planning to do your own formatting (see below for more on that) Microsoft Office is a better bet than any of its open source counterparts. There are more features, it’s user-friendly, and you can easily find support for it online if you have questions. It’s worth the extra cost for less headaches!

The Costs of Editing/Revision

¢ Save ¢

  • Beta Readers: This is a no-brainer my friends. If you start your marketing early on in your writing process (like we recommend!) you should have some fans in your corner prior to publishing who would be happy to test drive your novel. You’ll get valuable feedback, earn new fans, and not have to spend a dime. That’s the definition of a win-win!
  • Proofreader: When it comes to copyediting (finding those pesky typos, misspellings, inconsistencies and general word flow) you can probably find a friend, family member, or former teacher who can read over your manuscript for the cost of a nice dinner (or maybe a gift card). It’s so cheap we’d recommend getting at least two people to proofread for you.
  • One other quick savings note for editing: Do the less expensive editing options above before you dive into the professional editing below – you’ll take care of all the basic fixes before you put your manuscript in a pro’s hands and start incurring some pro costs by the hour.

$ Spend $

  • Professional Editor: A good editor is worth Fat Albert’s weight in gold, if you know what I mean. This is not the place to cut corners – find someone good, with good references, who has experience in your genre. Get this domino positioned perfectly and all the rest will fall into place behind it. [Check out our Indie Resource Directory if you don’t know where to find someone!]

The Costs of Professional Design/Layout

¢ Save ¢

  • Layout Design: If you really need to save money, you can DIY your interior formatting with the right software (see the discussion about software above).  To avoid piling up your set-up/submission fees with your publisher, you should do your research on margins, bleeds, fonts, letting, etc. (see the discussion about courses and books above). Believe it or not, eBook formatting is actually more complicated in a lot of ways than print formatting, so be sure you know what your publisher requires before you dive into this one and if you don’t feel comfortable doing this yourself, you can hire a professional without breaking the bank.

$ Spend $

  • Cover Design: We all know this by now, but you absolutely do judge a book by its cover. There are simply too many books in the marketplace not to make snap judgments based on a book’s immediate visual appeal. To compete in this market your book design *must* hold its own against traditionally published titles. Still, you can sometimes college art students or online designers who can give you a good deal without sacrificing quality.

The Costs of DIY Design/Layout

¢ Save ¢

  • Software, Stock Images/Photography & Fonts: Toni gave pretty good details on how/where to save here, so I’ll just offer one other tidbit for you – if you are a college student (with a valid college email account), you can get major awesome discounts on design software like the Adobe Creative Suite through AcademicSuperstore.com. If you are not a college student, I would NOT ever tell you to find a college student in the family and use his credentials to get your discount. I would NOT tell you to do that. NOT.

The Costs of Publishing

¢ Save ¢

  • ISBN: If you plan to write multiple books, it’s well worth it to buy ISBNs in bulk (lots of 10) directly from Bowker (keep in mind that your eBook has to have a different ISBN than the paperback version, so that’s two separate numbers right there). If you’re just getting started, it’s totally okay to use the provided ISBNs from publishers like CreateSpace and Lulu. You absolutely maintain the rights to your work, they just get listed as your publisher in the files and on your title page. Not a big deal, yo.
  • Setup Fees & Distribution: Do your research on publishers before hand to find out who has the loweset fees for set-up and distribution (but be sure you’re comparing apples to apples – what you get for the money is as important as the money itself).

$ Spend $

  • Proof: Once your book is approved and sent out to the distribution lists, releasing a new edition becomes time consuming and often requires you to pony up those set-up fees all over again. It’s MUCH better to get the proof copy and clear up any issues from the outset than to try and fix those mistakes down the road.
  • Review Copies: Like Toni said, where possible you’ll want to provide eBook copies to reviewers, but some will require paperbacks so it’s worth it to have a stash of printed copies on hand to mail out.

The Costs of Promotion/Marketing

¢ Save ¢

  • Website Design: I recently put on my big girl pants and redesigned my website all by myself (even though I have a world class designer for a best friend and business partner). With the newest Twenty Eleven WordPress template (free) it was easy peasy to add a custom header and background. You can also add navigation tabs and set-up pages with one click, it really couldn’t be any easier. (Also, take a look at Suzanne Collins’ website and you’ll feel much better about anything you can design yourself.)

  • Domain Name & Hosting: I hate their commercials, but Go Daddy is cheap and easy when it comes to domains and hosting. You can choose to pay monthly or quarterly (for less commitment and smaller upfront cost) or get long term savings by paying for a year in advance. Either way, it’s a bargain.
  • Mailing List: We seriously love Mail Chimp like whoa. We are unfortunately in the process of leaving them for AWeber (only because we’re planning some more advanced marketing stuff coming up in the near future) and it’s breaking our hearts. But for your indie author purposes MailChimp is a dream come true!

$ Spend $

  • Book Trailer: You don’t have to do a book trailer, but they are becoming pretty popular and give a three-dimensional feel to your book. If you do decide to get one, it’s worth it to spend the extra bucks and get a quality one versus using something that looks like it belongs in a bad corporate media presentation.
  • Author Branding: If you’re really serious about making a career out of this author business and you are clueless when it comes to design, it’s worth it to get with a designer and plan out a logo, colors and general brand aesthetic you can carry through everything you do (website, book designs, business cards, etc.). It will help readers begin to recognize your books from the very beginning and I think it has a lasting impact!

Don’t smash the piggy bank just yet!

That’s our two cents (get it???) on where you can save and where you should splurge when self-publishing your book.

We have one other tip that’s worth mentioning – and it’s you! If you’ve already been down the self-publishing path, you probably learned where you could save in the future and where you were glad you spent some extra money.

Help your fellow authors out and share some of those tips, you’ll probably learn a few secrets as well!

 

 

This is a reprint from Duolit.

Why Your Idea Isn’t Spreading (The Salesman’s Problem)

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This post, by Jeff Goins, originally appeared on his site.

This one’s inspired by you, Mr. Pushy Salesman who tried to sell me a home security system by coercing and shaming me (instead of wooing and charming me):

What? You don’t want your family to be safe?

Yeah, buddy. This list’s for you and all those like you who try to convince the customer to do what you want instead of empowering him to make the right decision.

Please stop this

Here’s why your idea isn’t spreading, why your product isn’t selling, and/or why people generally don’t want to listen to you:

  • You’re too pushy.
     
  • You’re impatient.
     
  • You don’t solve a real problem.
     
  • You insulted me.
     
  • You’re rude.
     
  • You put your needs before my own.

 

Read the rest of the post on Jeff Goins’ site.

Publishing in the Cloud is the Next Big Important Subject

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This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on The Shatzkin Files.

Much of the change we are living through in publishing is plain as day to see. The shift from print to digital, like the shift from stores to online purchasing, is evident to all of us, inside the industry and out.

But there’s another aspect of the change that is not nearly as visible and that’s around systems and workflows. Publishing, even in the pre-digital age, was a systems-driven business. The big companies are producing 3,000 to 5,000 titles a year: each one with its own unique contract, metadata, editing requirements, and (in most cases) market. I like to observe that “each book published presents the opportunity to make an unlimited number of decisions, which must be resisted.” Most of the time the systems don’t help so much in making the decisions, but it takes a lot of support just to keep track of them all and report them to each person who needs to know!

Over the years, the companies with stronger systems have tended to acquire the companies with weaker ones. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it has most of the time. And over the years there have been stories about when publishers almost lost their business because systems broke down. The original Macmillan (now a division of Simon & Schuster) almost died in the 1960s when they fell so far behind on returns processing that they couldn’t properly dun bookstores to pay their bills. In the late 1980s or early 90s, Penguin had a warehouse crisis that was a similar existential threat. A friend of mine with a process-oriented consulting practice really made his year working on that problem.

In the digital age, systems are once again front and center. Every publisher is facing new requirements and seeing the parameters change for the old ones. Most of a trade publisher’s revenue, for at least a while longer, comes from print but the digital side is where the growth is. Systems have to support both.

Until recently, publishers ran on systems that were, primarily, housed on their own computers, either created or heavily customized by their own IT departments, and the operators in the publishing house (editors, production people, marketers, salespeople) were at the mercy of their IT department queues. If they wanted something done, they had to get on line for tech support.

And smaller publishers doing 50 titles or 100 titles or 200 titles a year had to make do with less robust, less customized, and often less capable systems even though their outputs also required thousands of decisions to be tracked and they are no less affected by the shift from print to digital.

But this is changing. Or maybe we should say it has changed. The new systems in publishing are Cloud-based. They are frequently referred to as SaaS: software as a service. They don’t live on a company’s own computers but are hosted by the service provider. They often don’t require an IT department to customize them and they certainly don’t require an IT department to keep them up to date. And the best news of all is that they are cheaper to acquire and faster to install in a company’s workflow than the systems of the past.

Within this change, there is enormous opportunity. Big publishers can sidestep the tricky question of scaling down their print-based systems and scaling up their digital ones. Small publishers can now use systems and workflows that give them capabilities equivalent to their much larger competitors.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Shatzkin Files.

To Be (authentic online) Or Not To Be (authentic online): That Is The Question

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Writers are supposed to be passionate, communicative, and have some strong opinions. Like all artists, it’s their job to speak truth to power when others will not or cannot. In other words, they’re supposed to have something to say, and they’re supposed to say it, and they’re not supposed to give a damn what anybody thinks. It is in this that the purity of their art is grounded. 

Authors are supposed to establish an online presence that’s open, welcoming, inclusive, and entirely inoffensive. Like all marketers, it’s their job to appeal to the widest demographic possible. In other words, they’re not supposed to have anything negative or controversial to say, and if they do, they’re not supposed to post it, and they’re supposed to care a great deal about what everyone thinks of anything they do post. It is in this that their online reputations are kept untarnished. 

Do you see the disconnect here, the fundamental opposition of these two sets of requirements? 

[palm-forehead] What were we thinking?!

For years now, I’ve been proferring the same author platform advice: carefully cultivate and maintain your image, always be nice, don’t say or do anything that could be construed as negative or controversial, and strive to avoid turning off your readers (and potential readers) at all times and at all costs. I’m beginning to think this advice is wrong. 

How can one possibly spend half or more of the time wearing his Author hat and being a totally benign milquetoast, and the rest of it wearing his Writer hat and churning out impassioned, moving prose? Assuming it’s possible to make a habit of pretending not to care too much, or be bothered too much, by anything, is it a good idea for any artist to do so? 

I’ve noticed that after about five years of doing the benign milquetoast thing, the seams on my carefully cultivated, totally benign, online effigy are starting to show sometimes. And rip open in a few places. However hard I try, when I come up against something or someone with which/whom I disagree very strongly, there are only so many times I can avert my eyes, either say nothing or just mumble something vague, and keep moving. Increasingly, I can’t seem to help going off on the things and people that bother me lately. 

Maybe it’s just because election years always bring out the ignorant yahoos and smug twits in droves, and I’ve had just about enough of their nonsense. Maybe it’s that the collapsing economies all around the world have us all on edge. Maybe it’s because I haven’t felt I’ve had a well-developed enough concept to channel all that writerly angst and passion into a new novel. Maybe it’s because I’ve been (figuratively) beaten down and bloodied by a few simultaneous life crises over the past two years. 

Maybe I’m just a cranky bitch. 

Or maybe, just maybe…it’s because behind my carefully tended online persona, I’m a human being who’s alive, with an active mind, who has thoughts and experiences and feelings, who is imperfect, and sometimes gets angry at the wrong people or for the wrong reasons, who feels guilty or insecure every now and then, and every so often runs out of patience at precisely the wrong time. 

As a writer, I’m supposed to believe—no, I NEED to believe—that all the mistakes I make, all the wrongs I either inflict or endure, inform my work. As an artist, if my art is to have any impact at all, I am supposed to wring meaning and insight from these experiences and channel it into my work. 

Remember when part of the charm of celebrated authors was their other-ness? They were legendarily prickly, snarky, bohemian, drunks, or brawlers who seemed to spend their days in bed (often with multiple partners), and their nights about equally divided between scandalizing the bourgeoisie and pouring out Important Literature. Above all, they didn’t give a toss what the general public thought about them. How could they? In much the same way an actor must be totally un-self-conscious in order to really disappear into a role and be true to the material he’s been given, a writer must be totally un-self-conscious in order to disappear into the world of his stories and characters and be true to the material he’s creating. 

When you’ve developed the habit of turning off your authentic self to the point that it feels effortless, how can you be sure you’re really capable of turning it back on again? If you spend so much of your time worrying about how you’re being publicly perceived, how can you prevent that insecurity from creeping into your work? If you care so much about being perceived negatively online that you’ve made it a practice to avoid posting anything that could possibly cause you to be perceived negatively, how can you be sure you’re not sanding off all the rough edges of your ideas, plots and characters as well? 

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying writers should all immediately pick up some self-destructive habits and start purposely offending everyone within virtual earshot. No, no, no. But I am saying that maybe it’s not so bad to take a stand every now and then, and maybe it’s not the end of your career if it’s a poorly informed and badly executed stand. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to expose your human-ness and your passions once in a while. 

Being a good little Author Platformer means putting the Ego in charge: the reasoning, detached part of the self that suppresses baser urges and animal instincts. The Id is where all base urges and instincts originate, but it’s also where insight and creativity live; chaining the Id to a post in the basement of one’s day to day life may be the worst mistake any artist can make. My Id has been locked up for too long, and it’s acting out. I’m beginning to wonder if I should’ve been letting it come out to play, and make its mistakes and messes, a little more often than I have these past five years. 

Case in point: a post of mine was picked up by The Passive Voice blog, and there were a number of comments. One commenter zeroed in on one specific line in the post, and took up a real battleflag against it. And this irked me, a great deal. Straw man arguments are a pet peeve for me, but not without good reason… 

I have read and personally experienced far too many cherry-picking arguments when the indie author movement was just getting off the ground, where some naysayer or other would attempt to discredit the entire notion of indie authorship by attacking or attempting to disprove one specific statement in an essay or blog post—an essay or blog post with which they could find no other particular fault. Time and again, the trolls would come forward to hold up this or that one, specific example of a failed or poor-quality indie book, and use it as the foundation for their thesis that, "therefore, all indie books are bad and virtually no one buys indie books." So I’m pretty touchy about cherry-picking arguments. 

I do not believe this commenter is a troll, nor do I think he necessarily deserved the chilly and irritated responses he got from me. I’m sure many people have seen the exchange, and some of them thought worse of me for it. Three years ago, I would’ve been frantically working damage control and obsessing about the potential fallout. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have responded to the commenter at all. One year ago, I would’ve responded with some bland bit of mild disagreement, sure to include at least one qualifier that would welcome anyone reading my response to dismiss it completely. 

Now, I’m doing nothing. I overreacted because this commenter unintentionally hit a raw nerve, but while I did go so far as to wonder "aloud" what his motivations might be for so tenaciously clinging to this one line of argument, I don’t believe I stepped over the line into being rude or hurtful. A display of poor judgment on my part? Absolutely. Obnoxious? Fine, I’ll give you that. A total meltdown? No, I think that’s going too far. 

Above all else, what it was, was proof positive that I’m not just a bland…um, I mean brand. It was a demonstration that I can and do get bothered and passionate about things sometimes, even if this Author Platform lifestyle of stuffing those tendencies down for the past five years is now resulting in me getting a little too bothered and being a little too passionate about relatively unimportant things. 

I’m not advocating for authors to start shooting their mouths off about anything they want to in any setting. There are such things as decorum, respect, and ‘reading the room’, after all. I’m just saying that maybe it’s not such a bad idea to be your authentic, opinionated, imperfect self now and then, at least when the stakes are low, even in the context of author platform. Some will respond well, others won’t. But those who don’t like your authentic self probably never would’ve liked your work anyway. And if constantly stifling your authentic self may also result in stifling the authenticity of your work, it’s a price that’s too high to pay. 

Maybe letting your Id peek through the veil every once in a while serves to vent bile that would otherwise build up until you do have a public meltdown when some minor irritation tips the scale. I can’t say for certain. All I can say is that whatever I’ve been doing up until now ain’t working anymore.

 

This is a cross-posting from Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton’s Indie Author blog.

On The Subject of Being Offensive

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This post, by Chuck Wendig, originally appeared on his terribleminds site.

I’ve had this unformed post in my head for a while, and I’m tired of it racing around the ol’ skull-track like a squirrel with a lit firecracker up its ass. So, here’s the post in all its unformed, uncertain glory.

Last week, I wrote a thing about Tomb Raider and Lara Croft. And I saw some comments around the Internet — not so much in reference to anything I wrote, but rather to the overall negative reaction to Lara Croft being used, abused, and downgraded — that chalked up the outrage to “political correctness.”

In a totally different thing, sometimes people send me things — via email, tweet, Facebook, psychic transmission — written by other people, and they’ll say things like, “This sounds like Chuck Wendig wrote it!” And what they send often has a certain whiskey-and-rage-sodden vibe to it, but also often uses pejoratives like “retarded” or “gay” or “fag” in the process. Which, to my mind, doesn’t sound like me at all.

And again, you might be thinking, “Well, sure. Political correctness.”

Let me stop you. Hand planted on your chest, me clucking my tongue.

Political correctness is a desire to minimize or eradicate offense.

I care very little about minimizing or eradicating offense.

I’m okay with offending. I don’t find that traipsing too gingerly about a subject does that subject any good. I’d rather expose something for what I feel that it is rather than swaddle it in gauzy, soft-focus layers.

Clearly, this blog is part of that. I’m happy to use sexual imagery or profanity — not as a means to an end but because it’s just part of the way I like to say things.

And yet, I no longer use words like “retarded” or “gay” or “fag” in my posts or my daily parlance (though once upon a time I, quite lazily, did in fact use those terms as clumsy and inept shorthand).

 

Read the rest of the post on terribleminds.

Thank You For Unsubscribing

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

Several years ago I had a conversation with a woman that really changed the way I think about how I relate to people. What she said was simple and elegant and probably one of my first memorable exposures to a Zenlike philosophy.

She said, “Do you want everyone to like you?”

What a stupid question. Of course I want everyone to like me.

I’m a people pleaser. I like doing things for people and I have a terrible time saying no to a request.

But there is more to me than that. I have my share of strong opinions and an overactive sense of justice. Some people disagree with me based on what I believe. That’s only natural. So even as I go through life trying to make everyone happy, I invariably find some people I don’t get along with.

Another thing I’ve realized is that I am very slow to anger. Very few people annoy me and usually when someone annoys me they are annoying a whole lot of other people, too. So I’ve decided that sometimes it is okay to act on those feelings of annoyance.

Last week someone on Facebook taunted me about a spelling mistake in my status (with three derogatory posts). I reflected for a moment and realized a few things. This person is highly unlikely to buy my work. They might prompt others to decide not to buy my work as well. And I certainly was not enjoying their company. So why have this person on my page?

I’m not a public service. I’m just a guy trying to make a buck and have some fun.

The solution… I blocked them. I never have to hear from that person on Facebook again. Ever.

That got me thinking about what’s been happening with my newsletter lately.

I’ve been running a Kindle Giveaway called CJ West Fires Me Up. Each month I send out two or three newsletters to contestants. At the end of each month I give away a Kindle Fire in the form of a $200 Amazon Gift Card.

A month or two ago I came across a guy named Ben Settle who professes to be a master of email marketing. I read a bit of his advice and changed the way I write my contest emails.

My new messages are snarky and fun. Sometimes flirty. Almost always sarcastic. Basically I’m having fun writing a quick email and delivering some news to my contestants.

The response has been very interesting.

First there was the older woman who accused me of trying to start a fight between her and her husband.  I got a good laugh out of that one, but I was concerned.  I didn’t want my female readers to think I was hitting on them. (I’m writing suspense not romance.)

A dozen other people have unsubscribed in the past two months. Reading between the lines of their messages I could tell they were not entertained.

I became concerned so I started paying close attention to feedback.

Several friends on Facebook complained they didn’t get one of my messages when I had a database glitch. One woman actually requested that I resend a message because she deleted it too soon. She wanted to reread it. Really?

And nearly fifty people have written to say how much they enjoy my contest emails.

How cool is that? I’m sending marketing fluff and people enjoy it so much they thank me.

What I realized in the end is that I should thank people who unsubscribe. They give me the freedom to be my authentic self. My new messages are fun for people who enjoy my writing and my sense of humor. And I enjoy writing them, too.

How do you feel when someone quits your list?

 

Indie Authors And Amazon Removing Reviews

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This post, by Renee Pawlish, originally appeared on her To Become A Writer site on 7/10/12.

Many times I write posts with what I hope is helpful information for other indie authors.  I try to impart things that have helped me along my journey, like marketing advice.  One key thing that is critical to our marketing is Amazon reviews.  And unfortunately there is something not up-and-up going on with Amazon and book reviews.

Indie Authors And Dropped Reviews

Some of you may be seeing issues with your Amazon reviews.  I first saw something on a Facebook group about this topic.  For those of you who haven’t heard, it would appear that Amazon is starting to remove reviews.  At first I didn’t think anything of it.  I see so many rumors of what might be, so I dismissed it.

Then It Happened To Me!

I’ve seen three reviews for Nephilim Genesis of Evil removed and two (oh, since I started this blog and now checked again, I’ve lost two more reviews, so make that four) from The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within.  What???  I’ve heard a number of different reasons why this might be happening:

  • the review didn’t say Amazon verified purchase

  • the review didn’t say that the reviewer received a complimentary copy of the book
     
  • the review posted links though to an outside source like Goodreads or the blog where the original review was posted
     
  • some bloggers were plagiarizing Amazon reviews so Amazon is removing those reviews
     
  • the reviews were paid for so Amazon doesn’t like that (don’t even ask me what I think about Amazon being in cahoots with Kirkus and their paid-for reviews)
     
  • Amazon is targeting certain reviewers and removing all their reviews

Indie Authors And What Amazon Says

I emailed Amazon and here is the response I received:

I understand your concerns about these missing reviews. We take the removal of customer reviews very seriously.

I’m not able to tell you why these specific reviews were removed from our website.  I can only discuss that with the person who wrote each review.  However, I can tell you that reviews are removed from the Amazon.com website for three reasons:

1. The review conflicted with our posted guidelines http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines/.

2. The review was removed at the request of the customer who submitted the review.

3. We discovered that multiple items were linked together on our website incorrectly. Reviews that were posted on those pages were removed when the items were separated on the site.

None of this explains what happened to the reviews of my books.

Indie Authors – What To Do?

 

Read the rest of the post on Renee Pawlish’s To Become A Writer.

Promote Your Book with Book Awards

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Book award contests can be a great promotion tool for authors. When your book wins an award, you can promote yourself as an "award-winning author" and the book as an "award-winning book."

In addition, the award organizers often promote the winners and they usually provide some kind of a graphic (such as the one shown here) that you can use for promotional purposes.

My book, How to Get Your Book Reviewed, recently won an Indie Excellence award. The award was for the paperback version, but the book is also available in PDF, Kindle, and epub formats. Here are some of the things that I’m doing to promote this award:

  • Write a blog post about book awards.
  • Write an article in my newsletter about my award.
  • Add the award graphic to the book’s sales page and the media page on my website.  
  • List the award in the book description on my website, on Amazon and on the Nook site.
  • Add the words "award-winning author" to my bio.
  • Post a press release about the award on a free press release site.

Award competitions are held throughout the year, but the major ones tend to have entry deadlines in the December to April timeframe. This article lists some of the most popular contests. The entry fees can really add up, so you’ll need to be selective about which contests you enter and read the eligibility rules carefully. For example, some book award competitions accept only books published in the current year, and some do not accept ebooks. 

Now is the time to start researching and planning for book award contests to enter. And if you have won any awards, be sure to get maximum promotional benefit from them!

Do you have any other ideas on how to promote book awards? Please share them in the comments area below.

 

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

Publshed but NEW here!

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Here I am at this wonderfully interesting site! I’m not only new but practically computer illiterate but what I lack in expertise I try to make up for with perseverance (ie – stubborn-failure is not an option – LOL). At the moment it’s practically impossible to get away from me if you’re a reader since I’ve got something in every formant (currently) known to man on the NET or on Amazon.com. My favorite things to write are souhern cozy mysteries and like life, my characters and plot twists are full of adventure; reality; humor; romance; relationships; and colorful characters. An example is this thumbnail of a recent novel : "(title left out) is about BLOODY red murder; COLORFUL characters and clues scattred from New York to a small town in Tennessee; and has enough paranormal scenes in it to make the television paranormal shows GREEN with envy – enjoy!" Now – if you like a mystery – go to my list of works on Amazon and see if you can figure out which of my novels this describes. CLUE: It’s part of the Maryvale series.

Good luck and good reading to all of us,

Jackie Griffey 

A Plea to Book Trailer Producers and Authors, too…

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In one of my past lives – still actually overflowing into this one – I spent more than twenty-five years as an Adman of sorts. I worked as a graphic designer/art director and also copywriter for a variety of agencies and eventually my own design studio. My learning curve was a rugged one and while I learned from many of the very best professionals, I also learned from some hacks. As a result, my experience ranged really widely, but touched on just about every area of marketing from Mom n’Pop to Corporate. When I sold my design business and became a full time writer and Indian Trader (really, no kidding…), I had to keep up my design skills so I could work up websites and promotions as the technology of marketing shifted, for our new business.

All that said, I have now added cover design as a sideline, and as a result, I get a lot of inquiries to review covers, make suggestions for improvement and even re-design them, create advertising for launches, posters, collateral mailing pieces and now, it seems, book trailers. A few days ago, I received a request from a fiction author I know and respect, to do a review of the trailer for his upcoming launch.  OK – I’m always glad to give my opinion, as you probably have already figured out.

The trailer was alright. It did a passable job of conveying the nature of the book, the period, the mood and a little tickle about the characters. But the end?  Really, really problematic.  The producer had chosen to end the trailer with an ultra-fast scroll down of the Title, the author’s name, and the sales availability/retail locations for the book. Much too fast to read, but following the scroll down, the viewer had to look at a still self-promotion frame for the video producer/artist for a full three seconds, and if I tell you that the images in this frame had nothing to do with the style or content of the video, it is a huge oversimplification. It was awful and I had to stare at it and the artist’s contact info/cred until the trailer was finished. Since it was U-Tube, I was left with the still frame of this artist’s promo, long after the trailer ended.

Let me be perfectly clear here. No professional marketing artist/designer/producer would ever so compromise a client’s message. Ever. Not only did this smack of hobbyist level production, it completely killed the trailer message. I told the author what I thought he should do to improve the trailer, and a day later, he sent in the revision, which corrected some redundancy in the copy, added a credit to an outside reference he’d missed, and slowed the scroll down at the end. IN addition, at my suggestion, following the scroll down, was a last image (or so I thought…) of the book cover. But then, scrolling up from the bottom was a copy blurb promoting the trailer producer/artist and when the trailer actually ended, I was still looking at the promotional page of thumbnails of this artist’s work.  I was aghast, but replied to the author’s request by saying that the video was much improved, but effectively hobbled by the unprofessional addition of the producer’s promo. He indicated it had been a friend or something like that. I assume I won’t hear from him again on this matter.

Here’s the thing. If you launch a book with an unprofessional trailer, it is never going to go away, unless you only release it on television broadcast – then it has a relatively short life, and I’ve seen bad commercials forgotten and the product resurrected to sell well. Online, though, it will never die. It will live on and on and on long after its useful  lifespan, to haunt you, your book and maybe your future work as well. Don’t make this mistake.

Here’s the thinking: a book trailer is a “commercial”, if you will, for your product. A published book is a product, like any other, that is sold to consumers. When you market your product to consumers, you must work hard to set is aside from all the marketing clutter they will read/view. In the case of a book trailer, at least you know some viewers will see it that are readers within the genre, so some of your work has been done for you already. Still, in the most tangible, personally connecting way you can, you need to do the elevator conversation.  In three minutes, you must tell a total stranger what your book is about and motivate them to buy it. A trailer is much shorter, but it uses images which can be more useful than words as they enter a different part of the brain. The imaging cortex stores images along with associations. Words are just stored words, but the two: images and associations, are retained, intact. This is something you can actually control and direct. Amazing stuff!

If your pockets are not deep, you may have to rely upon the services of a friend or acquaintance to produce a trailer for you: mix and stream the music and voice over if you use one, etc., plus find stock footage, shoot new footage and stills and edit it all down to make your pitch with as much impact as possible. It’s not an easy job, and to do it right takes a great deal of skill. But the lasting impression a viewer will retain may well be that last frame. Don’t ever negotiate a trailer deal where the last frame is a promo for the trailer’s producer. EVER. If mutual promotion is the deal breaker, then offer live links on your blog, do a guest blog, tweet out the producers site, etc., etc., but don’t be such a wuss that you let them destroy the efficacy of your promotional trailer by plastering their name on it.  As I’ve said, an unprofessional launch can hobble your book.

And those of you, who want to be trailer producers, read this again: Your client’s trailer is not a place to promote yourself. Do it on your own time, anywhere but in their trailer. It makes you look like a dilettante, or worse…  It might be tempting to see your name up there, but don’t do it. You will be hurting your client as well as yourself. Consider this a fair warning.

 

This is a reprint from Richard Sutton‘s site.

Why DIY Publishing is Not a Dead End

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This morning I read a post by Anderson Porter about a four-piece article written a few weeks in the Boston Phoenix by Eugenia Williamson, entitled The dead end of DIY publishing. I had read the Williams piece earlier, and the more than fifty comments, which in my opinion had done a more than adequate job of pointing out its problems. But when Anderson seemed to accept much of her analysis, and labeled the comments as “the usual pitchfork-waving, spittoon-dinging dismissals, I found myself spending the rest of the morning writing a reply. When I finished, I thought I ought to expand abit, and post what I had to say as a blog, thereby at least justifying a morning lost to writing on my next book. So here goes:

I am a DIY self-published author, who found Williamson’s piece upsetting because it did what so many other pieces have done, alternated between describing self-published authors as a group in dismissive terms and using some of the most unrepresentative examples to prove its points. I am not going to argue that traditional publishing is dead, or that self-publishing is the best or only route for every author to take, but what I am going to do is give you my reasons why I don’t believe that self-publishing is a dead end.

Williams is making 3 points: That publishing is not profitable, that when it is, it is not because of merit, and that it can not provide “the equivalent of research and development: the nurturing of young writers with a first book of short stories as well as critically worthy mid-list authors provide the equivalent of research and best sellers paid for.”

For example, in Williamson’s article she has as a heading the statement: SELF-PUBLISHING ISN’T PROFITABLE, OR MERITOCRATIC. I don’t know how you would interpret this, but I read it to mean that if you self-publish you won’t make money, and if you are successful it isn’t because of the value of the work you produce. As a self-published author who is successful (in this my 3rd year as an author the income I am making per month in sales is well over what I made as a full time history professor), I naturally found the first part of the statement inaccurate and the second point insulting.

Her proof of the first statement is that for every Konrath there are thousands who don’t make any money. This is a meaningless statement since, while I am sure it is true, it is equally true that for every Steven King there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of traditionally published authors who make no money. Writing, at least until now, is not profitable for the vast majority of the people who engage in this activity. If she really wanted to make a statement that added to the discussion, she should have said that self-publishing was less profitable than traditional publishing for the majority of authors. But she can’t say this, not just because the systematic data comparing the two doesn’t exist, but because the increased number of traditional authors who are choosing to self-publish would argue that the statement was untrue.

Since she can’t prove her statement that self-publishing is unprofitable, she instead feels the need to insult those people who do it by suggesting that the authors don’t care if they make money because they “wouldn’t make a dime because no publisher would take them,” or that if they make money, it was only because they had the money to invest in the process because the “truth is self-publishing costs money.”

Then she picks one of the least representative examples of a self-published author she could find–De La Pava to prove this point. Here is an author who published a book and “forgot about it.” How unrepresentative is that! And she mentions that he spent thousands of dollars, which sounds like he used an “authors services” package. If she had either done her research or wanted to paint a balanced view of self-publishing surely she would have taken the time to interview one of the hundreds of self-published authors she could find on the internet (we blog incessantly about our experiences), and mentioned that Smashwords, Amazon’s KDP, and Barnes and Noble’s PubIt, and Amazon’s CreateSpace and Lightening Source have made it possible for authors to publish without that large initial investment.

But no, she doesn’t do that, instead she tries to use this author to make the point that there is no meritocracy in self-publishing because this particular author was successful because he had good luck. The implication is that success has nothing to do with the work an author puts into the writing of the book, or the marketing of the book, or the judgment of the readers, hence the idea that those who are successful don’t “merit” the success. If Williamson had spent just a few hours reading the blogs of self-published authors she would see how much time is being spent on the craft of writing, on learning how to design better book, inside and out, on how to most effectively promote, on actual promotion, and she might have been able to see how little luck has to do with it.

Finally there is her third point that self-publishing lacks the nurturing of young authors through that advances provide or the research and development possibilities of traditional publishing. Porter (and many of the authors who commented on the article) pointed out the problem with her assumption that traditional publishing uses its bestseller profits to nurture their midlist authors, so I won’t belabor this point. What I will argue is, that if we are discussing fiction, which Williamson seemed to be doing, the nurturing that authors need the most is a steady predictable income so that they don’t have to work full time at something else, and the research and development they need is marketing data that they can then use to develop new strategies for getting their work to the reader and getting that reader to buy their work.

If you compare the traditional to the self-publishing model, the self-publishing model is anything but a dead end. For the traditionally published author, small advances, spread over 3 or 4 payments, and royalties, that only come 2-4 times a year, mean that most authors have a very insecure and spotty income. It is hard to take the leap to leave your “day job” when your money comes in dribs and drabs and you don’t know from year to year what you are going to make.

In contrast, as a self-published author I see my sales daily, I get my checks monthly, I have sales data for 2 1/2 years and can tell you which months I will make the most money, and which months the sales dip, so I can make my fiscal plans accordingly. Within a year of publishing my first novel, I was making enough money monthly to replace my part-time teaching salary (I was semi-retired), and I retired completely to write full time. As with most small businesses, it may take authors who self-publish years to grow their business to the point of making a living, but I am hearing many more stories of authors finding this sort of sustainable income than I ever heard from mid-list authors in traditional publishing. And with more income coming from ebooks, which don’t have the short life span of print books, this income has a much longer impact on an author’s financial security.

I have every reason to expect that the two books I have published will continue to sell, and that as I publish more books, my income will go up. My traditionally published friends know that in most cases they will never make any money after the advance, and they have no guarantee that the next book they write will ever be published. Which vision of the future would you find more nurturing?

Williams says that if traditional publishing disappeared the only books published would be by those with “the money and the time to publish and promote it.” But if she had done adequate research she would have seen that the initial investments in self-publishing are generally small (mine was $250 for a cover) and can be recouped quickly, and only a small percentage of future profits need to be plowed back into the business on a yearly basis (upgrade websites, professional editing, etc.), and you don’t need to even do that to get out another book, which can then double your earnings.

And for fiction, research and development should mean researching the market and developing good promotional strategies. But again, traditional publishing doesn’t do a very good job of this for most authors. Traditional publishers are just starting to talk about shifting their marketing focus from book sellers to book readers, and most authors are still expected to come up with their own marketing campaigns based on extremely limited data and often years-out-of-date information about where and how their books are selling. Even if they get direct feedback from their fans, they have little control over covers, interior formatting, pricing or promotions. So even if they did their own research, they don’t have authority or mechanisms to use that information to improve the product.

In contrast, because I know every day how many books sold, in what venue, I can mount a promotion, change a price, upload a book into a new book store, and know instantly what the effect of these actions are. I can change a book cover, go in and correct formatting errors instantly, not wait until another edition is printed (if ever). And, as I write my next book, I can take into consideration what 100s of my readers have said in their reviews, not what an editor says based on limited marketing analysis of my mid-list genre.

Just three years ago when I started, it was very difficult to get any information on how other authors were doing with their sales. (Which is why Konrath’s willingness to publish his sales data was so revolutionary!) While there might have been a top down mentoring system among agents, editors and successful authors, there wasn’t the vibrant community that now exists among authors that is open to all. Self-published authors share information readily about what promotions worked and what didn’t. We share information about sales data, how to over come formatting difficulties, what covers work, what fonts to use, and promotional strategies. We open up our blogs to guest reviewers, form cooperatives for cross-promotional purposes. Self-publishing welcomes writers of any age, any background, who write about every subject in every form. Any time spent online looking in Barnes and Noble or Amazon’s stores, or reading writers’ blogs demonstrates that authors are experimenting more than ever before. Short stories, novellas, graphic novels are being published and read that would never have made it through the narrow gates of traditional publishing, which tended to strain out anything that deviated from the recent bestseller trend.

Will some authors fail, or be disappointed? Of course. Will some of these experiments prove unsuccessful, certainly. But, without self-publishing these authors wouldn’t have gotten the chance to fail, and many others, like myself, a former academic in her sixties, wouldn’t have ever gotten the chance to succeed.

I would love to hear from those of you who have had experience with both traditional and self-publishing and examples of nurturing you found in both.

 

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

Indie Authors: Stop Promoting To Other Indie Authors

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The majority of indie authors have day jobs, family responsibilities, the burden of developing, writing and publishing their books, and the burden of establishing and maintaining an author platform on top of all of it. It’s not surprising that when it comes time to promote a new book, indie authors very frequently begin by reaching out to their fellow indie authors. After all, who can better understand the struggle and sacrifice that went into the achievement of bringing a book to market independently, and who could possibly be more supportive of an indie author’s efforts than another indie author?

Even though that rationale seems sound, authors promoting to other authors has got to stop, NOW, for two very good reasons.

The first is that unless you’re writing nonfiction books on craft or book production, other authors are not your target demographic and every bit of money, time and effort you spend promoting to them is money, time and effort that isn’t going toward courting your real intended audience. The second is that it’s simply too much to ask of your fellow authors.

You may think the fact that you’re spending more time promoting to fellow authors than the general public doesn’t matter, since increased sales and positive reviews will inevitably raise your book’s visibility among members of your target demographic and the general public, leading to more sales, but you’re wrong. Book lovers have gotten pretty savvy to the indie world, and they automatically discount reviews written for indie authors by indie authors. If the majority of your book’s positive reviews are from fellow indies — especially those who take posting a review as an opportunity to cross-promote their own books by including their own book title in their username or signature line — it’s actually a mark against your book in the eyes of the general public. They think, "How good could this book be, if the only people who read it and posted positive reviews are friends of the author?"

You may also think that since writers are readers too, it’s totally legitimate to promote to them the same as you would any other member of the public. But the thing is, most indie authors don’t promote to one another the way they would to the general public, they often think nothing of spamming and haranguing their fellows in ways they would never even consider doing to the general public. For example, they may think it’s totally fine to post a promotional message and link to their book’s product page on the Facebook wall, page or timeline of an indie author ‘friend’, but would never dream of doing so on other Facebook members’ walls, pages or timelines. They would never send out a "please buy my new book, I really need your support" email to their PTA or church email list, but don’t hesitate to do it to their own email list of indie authors.

Spam is spam is spam, regardless of whether or not the person on the receiving end is a fellow indie author. If anything, indie authors should be even more hesitant to bombard their fellows with promotional messages and pleas than they would be in dealing with the general public, because they should know very well what those fellows are up against every day.

Several times a week (or more) I’ll receive pleas from indie authors to buy, review and recommend their books, attend their events (virtual or IRL), locate and tag their books on Amazon, cross-post announcements of their book release events, share links to their blogs on my own blog, "Like" their Facebook pages, follow them on Twitter, allow them to post their promotional messages on my sites, et cetera. They don’t seem to realize it, but what their requests really mean to the person on the receiving end is this:

"Hey, I know you have a job, and a family, and your own works in progress, and your own published books that you need to promote, and a website, blog, FB page, Twitter stream and Goodreads account to keep updated, and a To Read pile a mile high containing many works from favorite authors of yours that you’ve spent the last year wanting to read for pleasure and for your continuing education in craft, and that on top of all this you’re trying to squeeze a half hour or so of free time or exercise into your day (and failing in that endeavor more often than not), but can you just drop one or more of those things to do me a favor, even though we’re only nominally acquainted and your own siblings would think twice before making this request? P.S. – Since we’re only nominally acquainted you don’t really know me, and it’s possible that I’m hypersensitive or just plain off my nut. If you don’t grant me this favor I may go totally ballistic and badmouth you all over the internet as being non-supportive of your fellow indie authors. ‘Kay? THANKS!!!"

If the request is to read a book and post a review for it, this wrinkle is added:

"I know you value your online reputation and integrity and stuff, but can you read my book and post a positive review of it? And if you don’t like it, can you just write off all that time you spent reading it and pretend you never read it at all? P.S. – If you do post a review and it’s anything less than a glowing 5-starrer, I may go totally ballistic and badmouth you all over the internet as being non-supportive of your fellow indie authors. I may even be one of those mean and bitter types who will go so far as to post negative reviews on all your books on every site where they’re listed. ‘Kay? THANKS!!!"

If the request is to buy a book, that request really means this:

"Hey, I know you’re only earning something like twenty bucks a month in royalties off your own books but can you take some of that hard-earned cash this month and hand it over to me? Of course, I’ll only be getting a small percentage of the profit, you’ll actually be giving most of your money to a publisher or reseller. I know you’re acquainted with hundreds of other indie authors who may be making this same request, and of course I realize you can’t afford to buy everyone’s books, and you don’t really know me any better than you know any of the rest of them, but can you just blow the rest of them off this one time and buy my book, because I really really really really need the help so much more than they do, and you know what it’s like being a struggling indie author so I’m pretty sure your guilt alone is already making you lean toward ‘yes’? P.S. – Again, since you don’t really know me it’s possible that I’m a selfish jerk. If you don’t buy my book and I find out about that, I may go totally ballistic and badmouth you all over the internet as being a greedy, tight-fisted hypocrite. ‘Kay? THANKS!!!"

What about lesser requests than these? You may assume that because it only takes a second to ‘Like’ a Facebook page or re-tweet a message, there’s no reason why anyone should turn you down or be annoyed by the request when you make it. But many people take their ‘Likes’ and re-tweets seriously, and believe there’s an implied endorsement and recommendation in every one of their ‘Likes’ and re-tweets. I don’t personally think there’s anything wrong with asking for a ‘Like’ or re-tweet, the problem is that most people who make the request attach an expectation to it and get angry or disappointed when their expectation isn’t met. Asking isn’t the problem, it’s the wave of resentment or even retribution that too often follows.

Identifying your target demographic, locating its members and crafting a promotional strategy that’s tailor-made to appeal to that demographic is hard work, but it’s the only kind of promotion and marketing that truly builds a dedicated and enthusiastic readership from the ground up. An appreciative readership becomes both a fan base and a cheering section, filled with people who are very happy to recommend a book they’ve discovered and enjoyed. That kind of fan base grows organically, so long as the author or publisher doesn’t screw up the relationship by subjecting the fans to spam or trampling on their boundaries.

If you still insist on viewing your fellow indie authors as a kind of training wheels community to which you can turn for support in promoting your book and goosing your sales, really think about what you’re asking before you ask. And no matter what, never ask your fellow authors for something, or promote to them, in a way you would think is inappropriate to do to your neighbors, the other parents involved with your kid’s soccer team, your co-workers, or the general public.

Being an indie author is a demanding and draining privilege; we need to treat it, and one another, with respect.

 

This is a cross-posting from Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

Monthly Mash-ups: 7 Encouraging Posts For Writers

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Being a writer is often lonely and thankless. If we’re fortunate, we can make a living by our words, but that can take years before it happens.

Here are 7 encouraging posts to keep you going  when it feels like you’re getting nowhere.

  1. Turning a Stall into a Start by Barbara McDowell — Sometimes life gets in the way of our writing. Barbara gives us a pep talk and suggests joining the ROW80 crew to keep us on track.
  2. Keep Money in Its Place by Rachelle Gardner — In this post, Rachelle reminds us that when we focus on the money instead of the joy of writing, we can lose that joy. Her suggestion is to “keep your writing life separate from your financial anxiety.”
  3. What are “Hidden Sales?” by Mary DeMuth — Most published authors, trad and self, have heard someone say they loved their book so much they just had to lend it to a friend. Mary gives us a way to look at those lost sales that puts it all in perspective.
  4. Why Fiction is Good for Your Heart by Colin Falconer — We’ve all heard how reading is good for our brains, but did you know reading fiction is good for your moral character? Colin leads us through how reading fiction is good for us.
  5. How Fiction Shapes Worldview by Mike Duran — If “all truth is God’s truth”, then we can use general truths to move our readers to specific Christian truths without needing to use specific scripture or dogma, according to Mike.
  6. Making God Your Partner — Fulfilling our visions, be it in writing a great book or anything else, means making connections. In this post I break down Cheryl Ricker’s 5 connections we must make to achieve our goals.
  7. Blog Better by Slowing Down by Timo Kiander — In this post, Timo takes us through his thoughts on why we should re-consider blogging multiple times per week, including avoiding burnout and broken relationships.

What other tips, tricks and posts do you know of that encourage you to keep writing?

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s blog.

Are You Published?

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This is such a loaded question. Whenever somebody asks me this, I don’t really know how to respond because I’m not sure what they are really asking or what it is they really want to know. Are they just making idle chit chat and don’t care one way or the other what the answer is? Are they asking if I’m making a living–i.e. is this my job instead of a hobby? Are they asking if some authority figure (i.e. a big NY publisher) deemed me “worthy enough” to have my words see the light of day? i.e. are they asking about prestige? Are they trying to figure out if I’m a “big deal”?

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

I have no idea. Because a lot of non-publishing/non-author people have a lot of serious misconceptions about the publishing world. And even many of us IN the publishing world, have some pretty big misconceptions at times, so how can the general public be blamed, when the ignorance spreads so far and wide? (And by ignorance I mean a simple lack of knowing something, not an insult.)

It’s also impossible to know what assumptions somebody is starting out with. In the general public there seem to be two very opposite views about authors in reference to making money. Either they think it’s nearly “impossible” to make a living doing this and that only a lucky handful of authors ever can or do. Or they think just being published period means you’re raking in the big bucks. Neither situation is really true.

Those that assume “having a publisher” means you are “making the big bucks”, don’t grasp the economics of publishing. For many published authors only doing a book a year and living somewhere on the midlist, you’re talking maybe a $5,000 to $10,000 book advance. A lot of books don’t make the author more money than the advance. Some do. But a lot don’t. There are foreign and audio and other rights that might also make an author more money, so it’s not “just” the advance. But in general, few authors, unless they are bestsellers are making a living writing one book a year.

And yet… a vast majority of writers have been trained into this mode of thinking where 1 book a year is a lot of pressure and oh my God it’s just SO much work… and so anybody stuck at that level who doesn’t really “break out”, is unlikely to be making a living.

It’s hard to make a living as an indie at that publishing rate as well, but the money, for most authors isn’t “great” in traditional publishing. And that was one of the big motivators for me going indie. When I found out that most NY pubbed authors aren’t making a living from their fiction, I decided I wasn’t interested in going that route. The only reason for me to fight and claw for something like that is if it would end in a career making career-level money just doing that. If I wasn’t going to make a living, I wasn’t letting anybody else control any aspect of my work, period.

Which is what a lot of “regular people” (meaning people not in this business), don’t understand. If they didn’t understand publishing before, they don’t understand the new shift in publishing now, for the most part. (There are, of course, exceptions. Some people read author blogs for their favorite authors and know a bit more about it than the average man on the street.)

Given the very slow publishing schedules in mainstream publishing and the fact that there is a limit to how many books a publisher wants from any given midlist author in a year, the money odds for “most” of us who are not famous or breakout bestsellers… is in the indie side of things, because we can publish on a faster timetable, while still keeping the quality up. Remember, a lot of us aren’t buying into these myths that were sold for so many years inside the mainstream system of publishing.

Also, those of us labeled “prolific”, don’t necessarily have shorter creative cycles, we just have more of them going on at once. At any given time I have several books in various stages of production… one in planning, one in rough draft, one in editing/with betas, one with the copyeditor. I don’t always have irons in all those fires at once, but just about, which is why sometimes my publishing schedule is like boom. boom. boom.

We also can make a lot more per book sold, which means fewer copies needed to make decent money. So making a living becomes somewhat more probable, depending on work ethic and of course on how your audience responds to the work you give them and if it’s compelling enough for word of mouth to go to work. Every author, depending on popularity, needs a different number of titles to make and maintain a living doing this, whether they are trad pubbed or indie.

They say the best way to market your work is to write another book. The reason is that word of mouth is king in book publishing. Sometimes other forms of marketing and promo can get the ball rolling or help to get a book back in people’s minds again, but it’s got to grip people enough that they talk about it or all the advertising in the world won’t do any good. (A lot of people complain about how their publishers won’t market them, and they are expected to do all that themselves, but given that it’s nearly impossible to know what the public will “go for” in a big way, most advertising on any author who isn’t already a proven quantity is a big financial risk. It might not seem fair, but it’s just business.)

So that brings me back to “Are You Published?” and how to answer that question. I usually just say yes because frankly any other answer is going to lead into a long boring conversation (like this one) that they probably don’t care about anyway. Then I’ve gone from “mystique” to making their eyes glaze over. Why have a conversation that’s going to make me less cool by the end of it?

It’s akin to the other question that drives me batshit: “How’s your book coming?” WHICH ONE? Often this is a question some ask me every time they see me. If I don’t see them for 6 months I wonder if they think I’m still working on the same book. In 6 months a LOT has happened in my publishing world and the book they’re talking about is probably in my rear view by that point.

So when someone asks: Are you Published? I say yes. I have books out. I’m making a living. This is my job/career. If they care about prestige and authority figures over actual results, then I honestly don’t care if they think I’m a liar.

And when someone asks: “How’s your book coming?” I just say fine.

I assume both questions are just small talk and the questioner probably doesn’t really care anyway. I can tell there are times when the person IS really genuinely interested in my job, and when that happens I give them more than a flip monosyllabic answer, but most times Yes, and Fine, suffice and it saves me a lot of explaining and frustration.

 

This is a reprint from The Weblog of Zoe Winters.