Month: February 2013

Entrepreneurial Authors Wear Many Hats

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This post, by S.R. Johannes, originally appeared on Indie ReCon on 2/19/13.

In the digital age, a new kind of author is emerging. The entrepreneurial author (EA).

I think this is where the term indie publishing comes into play and maybe what kind of distinguishes a self published author from what some call an independently published author or indie.


Entrepreneurial authors run their own publishing business – all aspects. The only difference between an entrepreneurial author and an actual independent press is that EAs only publish own works and contract out the work needed. Independent presses publish more than one author while handling all business aspects.

To be an entrepreneurial author – you will have to wear many hats: (these are not in any order of importance)

· Writer – Write the best book you can. But in this industry, the writer side has to understand that self-publishing is not a shortcut to writing; it’s a shortcut to publishing.

· Editor – Edit and re-edit your own work. Traditional authors have a stricter vetting process where many people look over the work from content to copyediting. EAs need to be even better at editing. That way, the EA can use an editorial budget wisely – for content editing and copyediting.

· Cover designer – Figure out your cover design as well as overall book design. Even if you can’t do it yourself, try to learn about covers, find out what looks good and what doesn’t – placement, fonts, colors, jacket copy – and know your book enough to figure out what concept you want. Whether you pay someone or not – you need to know how to define quality work.

· Formatter – Unless you want to pay someone to format, you will be expected to format across several different channels that may have different requirements, depending on what ebook format you need (epub, mobi, pdf, paperback etc). This requires an understanding of Word, Html, and more.

· Project manager – When you have experts doing things for you (covers, swag, web sites etc.), you have to manage a budget and a timeline to be sure it all comes together.

· Distribution –
 

Read the rest of the post on Indie ReCon.

Are You Going To Be Left Behind?

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This post, by Anthony Puttee, originally appeared on Book Cover Cafe on 2/9/13.

There’s something that I’ve been noticing recently, and I wanted to get my thoughts out here today.

Amidst all the news and “noise” on the interwebs about how publishing has changed and what the future holds in store, I find it interesting that there are still some writers and authors that believe that someone is going to cut them a break and drop a nice publishing offer in their lap.

They still have a mindset towards publishing that’s ten or fifteen years old.

Is this because they’d rather turn a blind eye to change?

Perhaps they like their own idea of publishing, rather than what’s really happening in the world today.

One thing is clear to me, and that’s these people are going to be left behind. They’re going to find themselves on the wrong side of “change”.

Unfortunately for them that change is already here.

Our consumer economy is changing. People are buying online more than ever. We’re communicating online to each other more than ever. Making consumer and social transactions online is now commonplace and accepted.

I have news for these writers and authors. These changes aren’t going away and publishing is right in the middle of it.

The day of submitting to publishers is yesterday’s mentality. The trade publisher business models are changing. They’re joining forces to survive, like the Penguin and Random House merger. Their bottom lines are in flux and it’s not just to do with e-books like some would assume.

It’s to do with the overall global economy changing and how our social and consumer transactions are taking place online. A small part of that is e-books because of how these are purchased, discovered and how they’re read.

Gary Vaynerchuk said it well in his book the Thank you Economy:

Read the rest of the post on Book Cover Cafe.

David Farland's Kick in the Pants: Being Prolific

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This post, by David Farland, originally appeared on his site on 2/12/13.

Sometimes when people look at a writer who produces a lot, they make exclamations like, “Wow, how do you get so much done? You’re amazing! How did you get to be so prolific?”
-Kami M McArthur

Sometimes when people look at a writer who produces a lot, they make exclamations like, “Wow, how do you get so much done? You’re amazing! How did you get to be so prolific?”

Of course, as a writer, I don’t feel prolific, especially lately. I never think of myself in those terms. I do think about how to be more productive—almost every day. It started when I was young. So today I’m going to revisit some lessons from my youth.

As a child, I began working in the fields at age four, and at that time, I picked as many strawberries and beans as any other child—practically none. But my mother encouraged me to set goals for the day. She would say, “Why don’t you see if you can pick 100 pounds of beans today.” I tried it a few times and usually reached my goal by noon. (We’d start at about 7:00 A.M.) But after I reached my goal, I slacked off and played with the other kids in the fields.

When I was seven, I met an old woman who supplemented her income by picking fruits and vegetables. She was the most productive worker in the fields. On a regular day, she would harvest between 300 and 400 pounds of beans. So I got to wondering, “How does she do it?”

I began working in the row next to her one morning, determined to keep up. I found, first of all, that she kept her focus on the beans. She wasn’t watching other people or talking.

She noticed my interest and gave me a lesson. First, when reaching down to grab some beans, she would brush back the leaves from the bean stalks, exposing any beans that were hidden. So she hunted while harvesting. In short, she was multi-tasking. I soon discovered that I had only been picking about 3/4 of the beans available to me.

She also kept grabbing at beans until her hands were completely full, never pulling them free until she a got a good haul to drop into her bean bucket. In other words, I recognized that she was trying to make each movement count.
Of course she had to sit a certain way, squatting on her bean bucket with her legs spread wide enough so that she could put the beans in. She had to lean forward and stretch far enough to maximize her range. Then she would harvest two or three bushes at a time by working her way from the bottom to the top, then move the bucket three feet, harvest from bottom to top, and so on.

Moving this way hurt. The rim of the bean bucket would cut into her legs. The stretching made her back ache, and the fast labor meant that she constantly had sweat stinging her eyes. I asked her how to handle that, and her answer was simple, “Just ignore it, and keep on movin’.”

She worked relentlessly. While the kids nearby were throwing beans at each other, or singing, or taking water breaks, she was still working. She didn’t set goals to “work fifteen minutes,” she set goals to “finish the next three rows” before she would take a break.

Read the rest of the post on David Farland’s site.

To Register Or Not To Register Your Copyright

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This post, by Literary Lawyer Kelly Way, originally appeared on the Writer’s Fun Zone site on 2/8/13.

Welcome back to our regular column on literary law. Today we focus on whether of not to register your copyright from our monthly guest columnist, Kelley Way, a lawyer specializing in literary law. If you have general questions for Kelley on copyright or other aspects of literary law, be sure to comment [on the original post]. Thanks!

PS. A list of books on literary law can be found here.

PPS. For more on copyright, visit the U.S. Copyright Office.

And now for a bit of necessary legalese: Please note that this article does not constitute legal advice, and that an attorney-client relationship is not formed by reading the article or by commenting thereon.

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To register or not to register…

Copyrights and trademarks are very different. One protects your work, while the other protects your reputation. A sentence is almost impossible to copyright, but it can easily be trademarked. On the other hand, they have a lot in common. Both exist to allow you to profit from something you worked to create. Both can be obtained without having to file a form with the government. And both really deserve to have that form mailed in.

But why? I just said you can get a copyright or trademark without it. And do we really want the government to be a big know-it-all? Yes, we do, and here’s why.

First of all, the Copyright Office and the Patent and Trademark Office can be very useful tools for writers. You can check to see if a work is still under copyright before you quote it in your book (this is more useful for pre-1978 books, but I covered that in an earlier article; just assume that any work created after 1978 is copyrighted). You can also check to see if the title of your book is trademarked before you put it on the market. This will save you a lot of time, stress and money if you should end up on the receiving end of an infringement lawsuit. In order for this system to be effective, though, these offices need authors to register their works with them; they’re not going to reach out and find you.

And second, if your copyright or trademark is registered with the appropriate office, then if you should be in a position to sue someone else, not only do you have a more solid case, but you will also be entitled to statutory damages if you win. Let me elaborate.

Read the rest of the post on Writer’s Fun Zone.

How To Format The Dreaded Synopsis

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This post, by Lynnette Labelle, originally appeared on her site on 11/13/12.

We’ve been talking a lot about synopses lately, but do you know how to format one? Here’s a cheat sheet for you.

Agents and editors typically follow the same guidelines as below, but it’s always a good idea to check their website or blog in case they have a personal preference.

-Double-space a synopsis, unless it’s one page single-spaced—ANYTHING over a page means double spacing the synopsis.

-Align left (don’t justify).

-Use one-inch margins all around.

-Check your font. It should be: Times New Roman or Courier, 12-point, black.

-If the synopsis is double-spaced, indent the first line of paragraphs ½ inch, but don’t add an extra line between paragraphs.

-If the synopsis is single-spaced, do NOT indent the paragraphs, but put an extra line between them.

-Your header should be on the left like this: author’s last name/title/synopsis. For any page beyond the first, use the same header format but add /page number after “synopsis”.

Note: Contests usually don’t want you to have your name on the entry, so check if you need to remove yours.

Page One Formatting

 

Read the rest of the post on Lynnette Labelle’s site.

Mailbag Monday With Answers to your Self-Publishing Questions

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Well, that was an exciting ball game yesterday, wasn’t it? Today to help you cool back down, I’ve reached into the mailbag for some questions that have come in recently.

Since most self-publishers run into the same kinds of questions as they get further into the publishing process, I like to post these questions once in a while for the benefit of everyone.

Q: I’m ready to key my hand written story into a program that I can use to format, send excerpts from, massage, you know what I mean. Do you have a recommendation for me?

A: Most writers use Microsoft Word, but I’ve really been enjoying Scrivener lately, it’s a real writer’s tool. Scrivener gives you remarkable capabilities to organize your research and your writing in the same document, to easily rearrange parts of the document, many ways to view your content, and the ability export to ebook formats. It’s really state of the art.

Q: How do I determine the sell price of my book?

A: The best way to begin to get an idea about your pricing is to look at other, similar books that have been popular, like with Amazon’s “Top 100″ lists in your specific category, niche or genre.

Q: I thought if something was written and/or published that in itself would copyright it automatically. Is that not the case?

A: Copyright is created at the same time you create the work. The Copyright office registers copyrights, and that would be particularly important for someone publishing under a pseudonym, to establish who the actual copyright owner is. Q: I’ve been approached by a large on-line store who wants to carry our book. Hurrah!! They are NOT a bookstore, however, and I was unsure of what sort of discount to propose. A: If the retailer is outside the normal book distribution channels it’s common to give a bigger discount in exchange for payment on delivery with no returns. The most typical discount for this type of sale is 50% in my experience.

Q: Do e-Books need to have the bar code? I know they need a different ISBN but I am just doubtful about the bar code and could not find the answer anywhere. A: No, ebooks don’t need a barcode. Where would you print it?

Q: Is it possible to put the ISBN number on a book that has already been printed without the number? If yes, how do I go about it?

A: Yes, the way to do it is with self-adhesive labels. I believe you can buy these from barcodegraphics.com

Q: What’s the downside of not buying my own ISBN and using the free ones, provided by PoD companies or ebook distributors?

A: There are 2 potential issues with using a “free” ISBN. First, it will show the owner of the ISBNs (the PoD company or ebook distributor) as the publisher of record. Second, if you ever want to move your book to another vendor, you will need to use a different ISBN and deal with the metadata issues that that implies.

Q: Would you help me to choose (I think mostly between Garamond and TimesNewRoman) for inside fonts for a semi-technical book (about nutrition) I am about to self publish? I just want to use what is most common, nothing fancy…

A: If you are choosing between Times and Garamond, use Garamond. Times Roman was designed for newspapers, not books.

Q: I am about to self publish my first book and was wondering if I should incorporate a publishing company name, or just put it under my current corporate business name. Should I make up a publishing company name, use my business name, use my name, or not have one at all?

A: You can choose to use your current corporate name or create a new company, either will work. Many people who already have a company structure use that but create an “imprint” name for their publishing activities. So for instance you could brand your books with an imprint like “LiveMore Books” and keep all the business activity within your corporation. Any of these ways will work.

Q: I’m a new self-publisher and I don’t know whether to use CreateSpace or Lightning Source or Lulu or what. Can you advise?

A: I think the best place for authors to publish their own books right now is CreateSpace, were you can contract for other services if you need them but you don’t have to. You’ll get low prices and decent quality books, with lots of support and resources to help you. Lightning Source is more of a business-to-business company whose customers are publishers rather than authors.

Q: Guy Kawasaki in his “APE: How to Publish a Book” (which I read this week) suggests that the order of the parts of an e-book can deviate from the Chicago Manual of Style. Your thoughts?

A: Guy is correct when it comes to ebooks. Print books often have a long frontmatter section including blurbs, previous books, half-title and blank pages as well as copyright and contents. Since only about 10% of your book will be made available as a “sample” on eretailers’ sites, you want to make sure browsers can get to your content right away. You can move some of the traditional parts of the print book to the end of the book or even put them on a web page you link to from inside the book.

Have you run into any questions that are holding you back? Don’t know who to ask? Go ahead and ask in the comments [on the original post]and let’s see if we can help.

 

 

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

Why eBook Retailers Are Embracing Self-Published Authors

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This post, by Mark Coker, originally appeared on The Huffington Post Books blog on 2/12/13.

If anyone doubts the speed at which the epicenter of book publishing is shifting from publishers to self-published authors, look no further than the Apple iBookstore.

Last week, Apple’s iBookstore launched Breakout Books in the U.S., a new book merchandising feature that showcases books from popular self-published authors, including several that have already achieved New York Times bestseller status. The New York Times covered the story last week, as did The Wall Street Journal.

Apple’s merchandising team hand-picked the titles, all of which have earned high ratings from Apple customers.

Disclosure: Many of the eBooks featured were distributed to Apple by my company, Smashwords.

Although the iBookstore has always carried and supported self-published eBooks, last week’s launch signified an escalated commitment on the part of Apple, whose iBookstore currently sells books in 50 countries. The iBookstore first piloted the Breakout Books feature in their Australian store in late November and has since implemented similar ongoing features in Canada and the U.K.

A retailer’s merchandising decisions are among the most important levers driving book discovery and sales. Whether you’re a traditionally published author or a self-published author, such placement can make your book stand out in a haystack of millions of other books competing for your reader’s attention.

Why are retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Amazon giving self-published ebooks such merchandising love?

eBook Retailers and Readers Are Embracing Self-Published Authors

Over the last few years, I’ve written multiple posts here on The Huffington Post articulating the advantages of eBook self-publishing from the author perspective, such as the opportunity to bypass publishing gatekeepers; faster time to market; access to global distribution; higher royalties; and greater creative control. Many other industry watchers have covered the same.

Few in the publishing industry, however, have examined why retailers are stepping up their support for self-published books, and why readers are purchasing them. When we examine the myriad reasons, we see the playing field is likely to continue tilting to the advantage of self-published ebook authors.

Here, I’ll outline why retailers and readers are supporting self-published books, and what it means for authors:

 

Read the rest of the post on The Huffington Post Books blog.

The Best Way to Build an Author Website

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One common question that authors ask is how to build an author website, and some authors wonder if they really need a website at all.

A website is an essential tool for all authors. You need an online hub to send people to (everyone from potential customers and fans, to influencers and the media) and a place to showcase your books and your credentials.

By using a blogging platform to build your site, you can easily create a combination website and blog, all on one site, or just create a traditional website without a blog. For most authors, it’s the easiest and cheapest way to create an author website.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the terminology, a blog is a particular type of website where people post articles periodically. This article is a blog post and you can see a link to the blog section of my website in the navigation menu near the top of my site. Other links in the menu go to other parts of my site.

Here are the platforms that I recommend considering for your author website:

WordPress.org is the most powerful platform, offering the most flexibility and design options, plus lots of “plug-ins” to perform various functions. This is the tool that professional online marketers use. The platform is free, but expect to pay around $10 a month for web hosting services. To learn how to build, use, or improve your WordPress site, I highly recommend Blog Aid’s training programs.

Authors should be aware that there is a different version of WordPress called WordPress.com. There is a free version or you can pay a fee for certain upgrades. I don’t recommend WordPress.com because there are some limitations to the service. For example, Javascript is not allowed, which may cause problems with things like installing an opt-in form for your mailing list. And the terms and conditions of the service limit or prohibit advertising on your site – you can get details here.

TypePad is a good compromise between ease of setup and features. It’s the platform that I use, but I would use WordPress.org if I were starting over today. Expect to pay $9 to $15 a month, and there’s a discount for annual payment.

Blogger is free and it’s the easiest to set up, but it has some limitations in terms of what can be included on the site. This may be a good choice for single book authors who want to keep it really simple.

Related Articles

What’s the Most Important Thing on an Author Website?

Author Blogs – Use Categories to Organize Your Posts

Want to learn more about promoting your book? Subscribe to the free Savvy Book Marketing Newsletterto get advice and resources delivered to your inbox twice a month.

 

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

How EBook Readers Shop And The Importance Of Sampling

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An author at a conference recently asked me for tips on publishing on the Kindle and then said that he didn’t actually read books on digital devices.

I was kind of gob-smacked because how else are you going to know if there are problems until you start getting 1 star reviews?

When you publish a print book, don’t you buy it immediately to test the process and the quality? So why not do the same for ebooks?

If you’re going to digitally publish, I believe you should own an e-reader, even if just to test how your book looks. They aren’t expensive anymore so there is no excuse.

It’s also important to understand how ebook readers shop, because they are the high-volume readers, the ones who will make up the bulk of your digital sales.

How do ebook readers shop for books?

I read around 95% digitally, on a Kindle Paperwhite and through the Kindle app on my iPhone. I don’t own every device but I certainly test the .mobi format on Kindle and the ePub format on my desktop reader and my iPad and iPhone. I am also a voracious reader, getting through 3-5 books per week, more on holidays. Not having a TV helps!

This is how I shop:

a) I hear about a book on twitter, or I see one at a physical bookstore, or see a review somewhere, or find something I like in the Amazon store Top rankings for categories I like. I surf for fun in the Last 30 Days area.

b) If the book is available as an ebook, I download the sample right away and put it into a collection marked Samples. If the book isn’t available as an ebook, 99% of the time I won’t buy it unless it is an author I am committed to. I have other Collections on my Kindle marked ‘To Read’ which are books I have bought but haven’t started yet, “Reading” for ones I am reading now and “Make Notes On / Review” for those I want to revisit to write notes on or review on Amazon & Goodreads.

c) In between books I am currently reading, I go through my samples. If I make it to the end of the sample, I will usually buy the book because I am hooked. If I don’t, I delete the sample. No sale. I usually give a book 3 clicks of my Kindle before I delete it. Harsh, maybe, but life is too short to read books that don’t call to you.

So your marketing efforts, your book cover, your book description and reviews have helped your book get this far, but it is the sample that leads me to buy. I probably delete 60-75% of my samples so I have a harsh approach, but I don’t think I am an untypical example of a high volume ebook reader (although if you are one also, I’d love to know what you think in the comments!)

Make sure your sample makes the reader want to buy

Your book has to start with something that hooks the reader.

This isn’t new advice – if you want an agent, the first page has to hook them, and readers of print in bookstores may browse the first page, but because there are so many ebooks available, readers are increasingly unforgiving if a book doesn’t fit what they are looking for.

Here’s some tips:

  • Get into the meat as soon as possible. Put all the acknowledgements and extra stuff at the back, not within the sample. I was severely annoyed recently to download an Angela Carter anthology of short stories to find that the entire sample was an essay about her work and the stories didn’t come until later. I looked for a better version.
  • During the editing process, make sure you pay particular attention to what will hook the reader. If non-fiction, what is the problem you’re solving. If fiction, why would the reader read on? What have you caught their attention with? What loops have you opened mentally that they must close?
  • Make sure the formatting is excellent and easy to read throughout. I have deleted samples straight away when they start with coding errors. It denotes a lack of respect for the reader. This is why you need to test and curiously this has happened with more traditionally published books than indie. Seriously, one book was entirely formatted in Bold. Did no-one even check it? (Make sure this doesn’t happen to you!)
  • If non-fiction, DO include the table of contents. If fiction, your chapters don’t really add anything so aren’t so necessary.

What other suggestions do you have for improving samples? How do you shop for ebooks? Please leave your comments [on the original post page].

 

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

Open Mic Night For Self-Published Authors

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This post, by John Wilwol, originally appeared on The Washington Post Books site on 1/29/13. It describes a very interesting use of the Espresso Book Machine, in which authors are allowed to read excerpts from their books and listeners can purchase print-on-demand copies immediately.

Since it arrived a year ago at Politics & Prose, “Opus,” Washington’s first print-on-demand Espresso book machine, has helped hundreds of area scribblers realize their publishing dreams. On a gray, biting afternoon Saturday, a dozen of them gathered at the bookstore to delight a standing-room-only audience with selections from their work. It was the first-ever Opus open mike [sic].

Picked by a lottery open to all Opus authors, the diverse group brought poems, novels, memoirs and biographies. Before the writers came to the lectern, marketing director Lacey Dunham — timecards in hand — warned them not to break the five-minute limit: “I used to be a teacher!”

Joseph T. Wilkins, dressed in a red tie, white shirt and blue blazer, kicked things off with a lively introduction to “The Speaker Who Locked Up the House,” his historical novel about late-19th-century House Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed. “It’s a fat sucker,” he said of the book. “If you like history, you’ll like this.” A former municipal judge, Wilkins lives outside Atlantic City and comes to the District regularly for research. When he heard about Opus, he said, he was “fascinated by it.”

Read the rest of the post on The Washington Post Books site. Note – you’ll need to scroll down, an ad cuts the article in half right in the middle.

There's No Such Thing As A Real Pantser, Or A Real Planner

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I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no such thing as a pantser when it comes to writing. And I say this as a self-confessed pantser. I’ve stood up and defended the position of writing from the hip against those pesky planners. I’ve defended the greater creative purity of the unplanned writing session. But it’s all bollocks. And you know what? There are no real planners either. This is a bell-curve, so there will be those outliers, but I’ll get to them later.

Firstly, in case you’re the one person who doesn’t know what a pantser or a planner is, let me explain. When it comes to writing fiction, there are two primary camps – people who plan everything and decide on each detail of the plot before they start writing, who are called planners, and people who plan nothing and just let the story all pour out au naturel, called pantsers. These people have also been referred to as architects and gardeners, and in that post I talk about being a bit of one and a bit of the other. But here I intend to make the bolder statement that we’re all a bit of both.

I’ve always identified mostly as a pantser. I don’t like to know everything that’s going to happen in a story before I start to write. What’s the point in writing it then? It’d be like writing it twice – once in note form, then again in detail. But I do make some notes. I have a good idea where things are going and what major events are going to occur in a story. I sometimes don’t know exactly how a book or story is going to end, but I have a good idea where I’m going with it and the ideas I’m playing with. The process of discovery that accompanies the writing then, as my subconscious tells the story through my characters, is the thing I love most about writing. So I do write a lot by the seat of my pants. But I plan too.

It’s the same for planners. Any great writer, no matter how strictly they might plan a book, will gladly let a new idea or an unexpected turn take the story somewhere else. That may mean that they stop and re-plan, based on the unexpected revelation. Or they may just roll with it. The bits and details in between their carefully planned markers will still need filling in, and they will have to cover those transitions and interstices with writing from the hip.

So no pantser never plans, and no planner never pants. Like I said above, it’s a bell-curve. I think it’s more a case of where on the curve you sit. Not whether you’re a pantser or a planner, but to what degree you plan. We’re all plantsers – we all sit down with a story idea and we work on it. We have to. There needs to be some ideas in mind of what we’re writing about, who our characters are (at least in their most superficial incarnation to begin with) and where we’re going with it. That’s planning. But the degree to which we plan that, or how much we leave open, is the only thing that separates our writing styles.

Kim Wilkins is a writer with something like 24 published novels and she is quite vocal about being a very detailed planner. Whenever you raise the subject with her, she will simply cry, “Two million words in print! I rest my case!” and she does kinda have a point. But really, all she’s saying is that she plans a lot, not only a little bit. There’s a case in her argument that everyone should plan a lot. I disagree. I don’t plan in anything like the detail Kim does, but I do plan to a certain extent. We all do. And no matter how much Kim plans, no matter how much of an outlier she is on one side of the bell curve, I bet there’s some pantsing in there too. Just like the person who pretty much pants the whole way will still have a small amount of planning, somewhere in the back of their mind. And even when someone pretty much pants the thing entirely, there comes a point when they need to pull it all together at the end and that requires a bit of planning.

There’s no such thing as a pantser or a planner. There’s just the degree to which we plan.

 

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s Warrior Scribe site.

Discovery is Publishers’ Problem; Readers are Doing Just Fine

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This post, by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, originally appeared on his loudpoet site on 2/11/13.

The book publishing conference season is in full swing and “discovery” is the buzzword du jour, driven by the curious notion that, with the decline of physical bookstores, readers supposedly can’t easily find books online. There’s even new research that claims “frequent book buyers visit sites like Pinterest and Goodreads regularly, but those visits fail to drive actual book purchases.”

“We’re now seeing the transition we’ve been expecting. After five years, ebooks is a multi-billion dollar category for us and growing fast — up approximately 70 percent last year. In contrast, our physical book sales experienced the lowest December growth rate in our 17 years as a book seller, up just 5 percent.”

–Jeff Bezos, via GigaOm

Unfortunately, in the spirit of “lies, damned lies, and statistics,” that research is skewed partly by its authors’ underlying agenda (“Physical retail works if you protect it.”), but more importantly, by its flawed methodology, specifically its dependence on what’s known as last-click attribution, wherein the final interaction that led to a sale is given 100% credit for the conversion, ignoring the realities of multiple touchpoints and myriad potential influencers.

The problem is that this assumes that people are waaaay less complicated than they really are. Very few people buy anything after one brand interaction. We’re comparison shoppers. We want the best deals. I don’t buy anything until I’m sure I’ve found the best item at the best price.

–”The Death of Last Click Attribution,” Kimm Lincoln

Never mind the folly of dismissing Goodreads, a social network dedicated to books with 13m+ members and steadily growing, or even Pinterest, where Random House has inexplicably attracted 1.5m followers, but the very idea that “something is really, chronically missing in online retail discovery” is arguably contradicted by Amazon’s 2012 results, suggesting that “online retail discovery” isn’t really a problem for readers.

It’s a problem for publishers.

METADATA: NOT THE UNICORN YOU’RE LOOKING FOR

 

Read the rest of the post on Guy LeCharles Gonzalez’ loudpoet.

Why Only Some Grammar Rules Are Breakable

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This post, by Dr. Joel Hoffman, originally appeared on The Huffington Post Books blog.

A misguided debate is raging over English grammar. It began when authors Patricia O’Conner and Steward Kellerman claimed in the Smithsonian that “most of what you know about grammar is wrong.” Then The Huffington Post picked it up, and after that The Guardian.

The controversy is illustrated by a disagreement over “split infinitives”: is it, or is it not, okay to say “to boldly go…,” using the word “boldly” to split the infinitive “to go”?

Having written a column on (Hebrew) grammar for the International Jerusalem Post and with a Ph.D in linguistics to my name, I feel like I have a horse in this race. And as someone who likes talking to my friends, I have another horse in the race. As an author and lover of words, I have a third horse with my name on it.

And this is my point: There are three distinct ways to look at grammar.

Who Died And Made You King?

The first, and most traditional way, is what we linguists call “prescriptive grammar,” or, more snarkily, the “who died and made you king” approach. And it’s essentially a social policy, not unlike wearing white only after Labor Day. (Or before. Or Memorial Day. You know what I mean.) People in power make up rules and expect other people to follow them: Don’t end a sentence with a preposition. Don’t split an infinitive. And so on.

But Ms. O’Conner and Mr. Kellerman are misleading when they say that these are “phony rules.” They’re just like spelling: arbitrary agreements enforced by arbitrary language monarchs. There’s no good reason that the possessive “Michael’s” should have an apostrophe when the equally possessive “its” does not, for instance, but that’s the way it goes. The kings told us so. And the same is true of properly positioning prepositions and not inserting items into infinitives.

(Incidentally, the “with” in “put up with” is a particle, not a preposition, in spite of Churchill’s probably apocryphal stance that “ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put.” And Ms. O’Conner and Mr. Kellerman are simply wrong when they say that “to” isn’t part of the infinitive in English.)

But Everyone’s Doing It!

 

Read the rest of the post on The Huffington Post Books blog.

Let Your Writing Lead You Where It May

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Many of those who are reading this are facing the harsh reality that author royalties may never be enough to support yourself and your household, or at least the only slightly less harsh reality that while you’re waiting for lightning to strike, you’ve got bills to pay.

I am living proof that writing can be a great career skill and a surprising stepping stone; you can make a living with your writing, but not necessarily in the way you imagined, and not necessarily by doing nothing but writing. Still, writing in a professional context is no less legitimate than writing in an artistic context, and it can be very fulfilling while also providing you with some financial security, as I’ve learned firsthand.

I am one of those rare, incredibly fortunate individuals who has a dream job, and I have writing to thank for it. I get paid to consume all kinds of digital entertainment content (e.g., ebooks, audiobooks, apps, movies, TV shows, music) on various devices and write about it. I write reviews, tips and tricks, how-tos, and editorial commentary. I work from home, and have the flexibility of setting my own schedule. I am acutely aware of how lucky I am in this, and just as certain that I never could’ve arrived at this point in my career without having accumulated the skills and experiences gained through all the career paths I’ve traveled in the past. It’s been a long and circuitous route, but the one constant through everything has been writing.

I started out as an English major, but only because it was a favorite and easy subject for me, someone who’s always been a prolific writer and voracious, compulsive reader. There was just one problem: I never aspired to a career in education, academics or journalism. Of course I dreamt of becoming a published author someday, but it seemed more like a pipe dream than a practical career choice. When I decided I needed to change to something more paying-the-bills -friendly, I switched to an Animal Science/Veterinary major because I’ve always loved animals and science.

While doing a mandatory research project I realized I enjoyed analyzing data, working on my research paper, and using technology to facilitate better, faster and more accurate results more than I enjoyed providing healthcare to animals. From there it was a hop, skip and a jump to a career in software development, where my unique combo plate of communication and tech skills always kept me in demand. I may never have been the most brilliant software engineer or database admin in any of the companies I worked for over the years, but it was my writing and communication abilities that always tipped the scales in my favor. A particular strength I had was the ability to translate highly technical content and concepts into plain English. I did a great deal of technical writing and software documentation during that time, and wrote numerous project plans and proposals as well. This kept my writing skills sharp and it kept me happy, because I never had to give up completely on my first love: writing.

Little did I suspect those tech and writing skills would form an ideal platform for me to circle back around into my long-dormant dream of authorship, but that’s exactly what happened. Back in ’07, when Amazon launched its first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, ‘self-publishing’ was still a dirty word. Among most aspiring authors and publishing wonks, the bias against self-publishers was no less passionate nor baffling than the completely unjustified reverence heaped on mainstream publishing. I came into that milieu as an outsider with a tech/business perspective, and all I could see was that self-publishing simply made more sense for many would-be authors and existing authors, and that this was the direct result of two recent, disruptive technologies: ebooks and Print On Demand. It was really my innate drive to make sense of the nonsensical and disprove fallacies that drove me to champion indie authorship, and eventually, to found Publetariat.

In 2010, I had divorce and unemployment foisted upon me simultaneously. After I’d been floundering on my own a while, one of my online colleagues in indie authorship and ebooks reached out to me, and once again it was on account of my unique skillset. From my work advancing the cause of indie authorship, I’d learned all about the publishing business and self-publishing in particular. My work in software engineering had provided me with web development and site administration skills. My work in founding and maintaining Publetariat had schooled me in content development, SEO and social media. I’d also published books of my own, both mainstream and indie, both in print and e formats, so I could relate to the author’s perspective. On top of this my sincere passion for tech and digital media had never flagged. So my colleague, who was looking to expand his simple, Kindle-focused blog into a full-fledged site, offered me a unique opportunity to put all my skills and interests to good use in helping him take his business to the next level.

As his business grew and sprouted new sites, I transitioned into being administrator and Editor in Chief for his Kindle Fire site. This has been a great fit for me, since I still get to use bits and pieces of all my various skills and can finally put my lifelong love of entertainment content of all kinds (books, movies, TV shows, web, music, games) to work: the Kindle Fire is essentially a delivery system for all those things, so it’s part of my job to stay involved with them and write about them.

And this brings me to my latest career morph. I still run Publetariat, and I’m still Site Admin and Editor in Chief for Kindle Fire on Kindle Nation Daily. But a few days ago I launched a new site that drills down even further from what I’m doing on those other sites to focus on digital media and tech in a way that’s not limited to the Kindle Fire. The new site is Digital Media Mom, and its mission in life is to help non-geeks navigate the sometimes complex and confusing world of digital media. It’s about educating consumers so they can feel confident their digital device and media purchases are solving problems and saving money for them, and it’s also about having fun and talking some trash about entertainment media and content. It’s a lot of fun for me, and I hope it will be helpful and entertaining for consumers.

So while there’s no easy or guaranteed path to a dream job like mine, I hope my experiences demonstrate three things. First, that writing can be a valuable career skill in virtually ANY field. Second, that being a fulltime author is not the only dream job available to people who can write. Finally, that very often, the only way to get a dream job is to create it yourself. If you’re passionate about something many other people are passionate about, and you can communicate about it in a way that appeals to those other people, you can fill a niche. If you have skills or knowledge that can help others solve their problems or reach their goals, and again, you can communicate well, you can fill a niche. And many of the job skills you’re accumulating now, while working at jobs you may not particularly enjoy, may prove to be instrumental when the opportunity to write your own ticket comes along.

 

This is a reprint from April L. Hamilton’s Indie Author Blog. Visit April’s new site, Digital Media Mom, for tech information and tips in plain English, honest reviews, digital media bargains and freebies, commentary, and fun from the pockets where entertainment media and pop culture intersect.

Used Ebooks, the Ridiculous Idea that Could Also Destroy the Publishing Industry

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This post, by Brian Merchant, originally appeared on Motherboard on 2/9/13.

Amazon has a patent to sell used ebooks. When I first scanned the headline, I thought it must be some Onion-esque gag, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone. Used e-books? As in, rumpled up, dog-eared pdfs? Faded black-and-white kindle cover art, Calibri notes typed in the margins that you can’t erase?

Barely-amusing image aside, used ebooks are for real. Or at least have a very real potential to become real. See, Amazon just cleared a patent for technology that would allow it to create an online marketplace for used ebooks–essentially, if you own an ebook, you would theoretically be able to put it up for sale on a secondary market.

The approved patent describes the process:

Digital objects including e-books, audio, video, computer applications, etc., purchased from an original vendor by a user are stored in a user’s personalized data store … When the user no longer desires to retain the right to access the now-used digital content, the user may move the used digital content to another user’s personalized data store when permissible and the used digital content is deleted from the originating user’s personalized data store.

Used ebook shoppers could buy your digital copy, directly from you, and Amazon would facilitate the transfer of files–and it would pocket a fee.

It’s a fascinating concept, really, but it could ultimately be devastating to the publishing industry and, potentially, to authors. First, the elephant-sized absurdity in the room: a “used ebook” is identical to a new one. It is a precise digital reproduction. The file does not age, it cannot be damaged, it cannot be altered–therefore, it is worth no less than any other copy, and the only premium purchasers of “new” ebooks would be paying for would be the right to read it first.

And that’s where we start running into problems. Nobody, besides die-hard fans of a given author on a big release date, would ever care enough to pay extra for digital dibs. Used ebooks would eliminate nearly all the incentive to buy “new” ebooks. And Amazon could be banking on that, even though at first blush it might appear to undercut its own business.

Bill Rosenblatt, a copyright expert and witness in numerous digital content patent cases, argues that the online retail giant may be angling to push publishers out for good with such a move. He explained his case to Wired:

Read the rest of the post on Motherboard.