Month: November 2013

Life Inside The Megaconglomerate Book Business

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Daniel Menaker, formerly an editor for Random House, contributed a very interesting article to Vulture yesterday: What Does the Book Business Look Like on the Inside?

“Every list—spring, summer, and fall—has its lead titles. Then there are three or four hopefuls trailing along just behind the books that the publisher is investing most heavily in. Then comes a field of also-rans, hoping for the surge of energy provided by an ecstatic front-page review in The New York Times Book Review or by being selected for Oprah’s Book Club. Approximately four out of every five books published lose money. Or five out of six, or six out of seven. Estimates vary, depending on how gloomy the CFO is the day you ask him and what kinds of shell games are being played in Accounting.”

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“Publishing is an often incredibly frustrating culture. If you want to buy a project—let’s say a nonfiction proposal for a book about the history of Sicily—some of your colleagues will say, “The proposal is too dry” or “Cletis Trebuchet did a book for Grendel Books five years ago about Sardinia and it sold, like, eight copies,” or, airily, “I don’t think many people want to read about little islands.” When Seabiscuit first came up for discussion at an editorial meeting at Random House, some skeptic muttered, “Talk about beating a dead horse!” ”

“To make matters worse, financial success in frontlist publishing is very often random, but the media conglomerates that run most publishing houses act as if it were not. Yes, you may be able to count on a new novel by Surething Jones becoming a big best seller. But the best-­seller lists paint nothing remotely like the full financial picture of any publication, because that picture’s most important color is the size of the advance. But let’s say you publish a fluky blockbuster one year, the corporation will see a spike in your profits and sort of autistically, or at least automatically, raise the profit goal for your division by some corporately predetermined amount for the following year. This is close to clinically insane institutional behavior.”

 

Click here to read the full article on Vulture.

 

Amazon's Ebook Returns Policy Is A GOOD Thing. Here's Why.

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This post, by Publetariat site founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton, originally appeared on her Indie Author Blog on 4/22/13 and is reprinted here in full with her permission.

Recently some indie author friends have become so outraged by ebook returns that they’re trying to organize and bring pressure to bear against Amazon to eliminate its 7-day return policy on Kindle books. There are other vendors who allow returns as well, and I’m sure this same group will be targeting those vendors in due time.

The main reason why this group of authors is so upset is that they’re watching their online, real-time royalty reports very closely, and making financial decisions for themselves and their households based on the “sales” they see reported there.

However, as any mainstream-published author already knows all too well, until net royalties for book sales are actually paid they are subject to change, and a large quantity of returns can easily bring your royalty statement for a given 6-month period into the red. The same is true of returnable self-published books, but these authors don’t seem to get that, or if they do get it, seem to think it’s unfair.

And so they’ve taken to social media to try and raise the visibility of this issue, to nudge their fellow authors into taking action intended to eliminate legitimate, vendor-sanctioned ebook returns. In my opinion, what they’re doing is a big mistake and if they succeed in getting vendors to eliminate ebook returns, it will be bad for all authors who have ebooks on the market.

Amazon’s 7-day return policy seems to be the biggest target here, so I’ll address my remarks to that specific vendor. But I think the points I’m about to make here are equally applicable to any ebook return policy.

I am *in favor* of Amazon’s 7-day return policy on Kindle books. Here’s why:

 

1. Hard copy books can generally be returned up to 30 days after purchase—longer, if you bought them someplace like Target. Therefore, as a consumer and reader, I don’t see why ebooks shouldn’t be returnable as well. Why aren’t all of these same authors up in arms about return policies on hard copy books? I’m all for removing barriers to ebook adoption, and one major barrier is consumers’ perception of value, that an ebook is somehow inherently inferior to, and less valuable than, a hard copy book. Elimination of ebook return policies makes ebooks economically inferior to hard copy books, from the consumer perspective.

 

2. Returnability removes the risk for buyers who might not otherwise take a chance on a new author.

 

3. People who want to game the system will always find a way, and it doesn’t make sense to take these first two benefits away from readers (and authors) for the sake of trying to do battle with the scammers. Take returns away, and the scammers who are abusing the returns system will just go back to outright piracy. Meanwhile, you’ve given paying customers some good reasons not to take a chance on your ebook.

 

4. I don’t believe most people DO read a book within 7 days of purchase, nor do I think most readers WANT to be put under that kind of time pressure. Those who are willing to read EVERY Kindle book they buy within 7 days are already paying a significantly higher cost than the price of the book in terms of their time and convenience.

Classic case of penny-wise, pound-foolish. True, the dishonest buyers’ inconvenience does not put money into authors’ pockets. But this just underscores my point about people who are looking to game the system. People who are willing to put themselves out like that to save three bucks or less are not a desirable target demo. I don’t want them to be my fans because they’re not truly invested in my work in any sense of the term, and never will be.

 

5. Regarding the “missing” or “stolen” royalties issue, I know this will sound harsh, but authors shouldn’t be counting their chickens before they hatch, anyway. Until I actually get a royalty transfer into my bank account, I know those figures I see in the KDP reports are fluid and subject to change. KDP authors still have it better than mainstream-pubbed authors, who must wait a year or longer for the first royalty check and only get them every six months thereafter.

My Indie Author Guide STILL hasn’t ‘earned out’ (the collapse of Borders meant thousands of returns), and it was published in November of 2010.

 

6. Contrary to what these agitating authors seem to think, those ebook returns do NOT represent lost sales. The people who are motivated to steal books or anything else never intended to pay for those things, and never would have paid for them. This argument from the authors is like a bank manager thinking that if only the bank robbers could’ve been talked out of their heist, they would’ve opened accounts at the bank and become customers.

Pirates and thieves are pirates and thieves, period. It’s just a question of how they get the books for free: illegal download, or return policy abuse.

 

7. Some of the authors who are speaking out about this are suspicious that there are actual, organized groups promoting the practice of return abuse as a means to get free ebooks. But even if there ARE groups of people who’ve organized to promote theft, well…so are pretty much all piracy groups. There’s no way to stop all piracy, and if people are abusing Amazon’s returns policy, it’s just another form of piracy.

 

8. Again, I know I’m about to sound really harsh, but the realities of business ARE sometimes harsh and that doesn’t make them any less real: Ignorance is not a defense here. Anyone who’s self-publishing for profit has a duty to read, and ensure they not only understand but agree with, any contracts they’re signing, and that includes KDP terms of use and Amazon’s ebook listing and sales policies.

If you don’t like Amazon’s ebook returns policy, you shouldn’t publish there or list your ebooks for sale there.

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Personally, I share Neil Gaiman’s view on piracy: I don’t care how people initially discover me, because once they’re fans and are able to pay, they will. And in the meantime, they’ll be spreading the word about me and my books. You may disagree with this stance, or even feel it’s naïve. But the bottom line is the same, regardless of anyone’s opinion about it: thieves will ALWAYS find a way. Hassling your paying customers and fans in an effort to discourage thieves will NEVER stop the thieves, but it is LIKELY to annoy customers and fans, resulting in TRUE losses in sales and new fans.

Has consumer hatred of DRM taught us nothing?

 

8 Years Later, Google’s Book Scanning Crusade Ruled ‘Fair Use’

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This article, by Cade Metz, originally appeared on the Wired site on 11/14/13.

Eight years after a group of authors and publishers sued Google for scanning more than 20 million library books without the permission of rights holders, a federal judge has ruled that the web giant’s sweeping book project stayed within the bounds of U.S. copyright law.

On Thursday morning, U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin dismissed a lawsuit from the Authors Guild, ruling that Google’s book scans constituted fair use under the law. Though Google scanned those 20 million books in full and built a web service, Google Books, that lets anyone search the digital texts, users can only view “snippets” of a book if the right holder hasn’t given approval.

“In my view, Google Books provides significant public benefits,” the ruling reads. “It advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders.”

In a statement sent to WIRED, a Google spokesperson said the company was “absolutely delighted” with the ruling. “As we have long said, Google Books is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a card catalog for the digital age giving users the ability to find books to buy or borrow.”

Michael Boni, a partner with Boni & Zack, the law firm representing the Authors Guild, did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment. Nor did the Authors Guild. But the Guild has told other news outlets it will appeal the decision.

 

Click here to read the rest of the article, which includes a statement from the Authors Guild, on Wired.

Also see this article, Google Books Ruling a Win for Fair Use … and Rich Tech Companies, on Slate.

 

How To Make A To-Do List That Works

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Fast Company is a site mainly geared toward entrepreneurs and other businesspeople, but if you’re an author-publisher, you ARE an entrepreneur and can benefit greatly from some of the great content they’ve got over there. For example, Belle Beth Cooper‘s excellent article about to-do lists. Who among us hasn’t struggled with time management and ‘getting it all done’?

The article opens with some interesting factoids about the history of human list-making, as well as some of the psychology that a) drives us to make lists and b) sabotages our efforts to keep on top of said lists. Excerpted from the article’s 4 top to-do list tips:

 

1. Break projects into tasks, don’t succumb to the Zeigarnik effect

We kind of have a reminder system built-in to our minds that nags us about unfinished tasks, called the Zeigarnik effect. It sounds pretty cool that we already have this, but it’s actually not that reliable or healthy for us.

What really happens is that there’s a disconnect between our conscious and unconscious minds–the unconscious mind can’t plan how to finish the task, but it gets annoyed with the feeling of it being unfinished. To shake off that feeling, it nags the conscious mind with reminders about the task–not to finish it, but simply to encourage us to make a plan.

If you’ve heard of David Allen’s GTD method, you’ll be familiar with his concept of “next steps,” which is pretty much the same thing. It’s the process of breaking down a project or task into smaller tasks, and planning which one will be the next step towards completing the whole thing.

This abates the nagging of the unconscious brain, as it’s satisfied that at some point we’ll get onto that task, and we know exactly how we’ll do it.

Maria Popova at Brain Pickings says the essentials of creating these do-able next steps are to make “a few very specific, actionable, non-conflicting items.”

 

Click here to read the full article, The Amazing History Of The To-Do List–And How To Make One That Actually Works, on Fast Company.

 

How to Build an Awesome and Relevant Twitter Following in 6 Minutes a Day

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This post, by Joel Friedlander, originally appeared on his The Book Designer site on 11/4/13.

If you’re like lots of other authors, you might feel a bit conflicted about Twitter. On one hand, you know that Twitter has become something more than just another social media network. It has started to function as the information network of choice for millions of people around the world.

These days, you even see Twitter feeds on television, and journalists, politicians, and celebrities make use of Twitter’s ability to communicate quite a lot in just 140 characters.

You know it’s a great place to interact with readers and colleagues. And with more and more people joining Twitter every day, you also know it’s a great place to promote your book, your blog and your other activities.

Right now, as Twitter gets ready to “go public” we know that they report over 218 million active monthly users, and that Twitter grew almost 48% in the year between March 2012 and March 2013. This trend shows no signs of slowing down.

On the other hand, Twitter can seem both cryptic and confusing when you first get started.

For one thing, there are lots of people just like you who already seem to have hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of followers. How will you ever catch up?

 

The Party’s Just Getting Started

Don’t worry about being late to the Twitter party; this service will be growing for years to come. And if you’ve been holding back from getting into Twitter because you think it will suck up too much of your time, relax.

To make it easier to grow your own community, I’ve got a simple, effective method you can use to build an engaged following of Twitter fans in just a few minutes a day.

Of course, you can “buy” Twitter followers if all you want is a big number after your name, but what’s the point of that? What you want is people who are likely to be interested in what you have to say.

This method is built around knowing both your own readers and the people who have already become successful in your niche, and who are also active on Twitter.

Let’s look at how to get ready to use this method, so we know we’re starting off on the right foot. Before getting started, you should:

1. Know something about your readers. For this method, you may only need to know what kind of books they like to read, but in general, you can never know too much about the people who make up the market for your books.

2. Know some writers who represent where you’d like to be when you become successful writing the kind of books you want to write.

3. Find some of those writers who are active on Twitter. Some of these people will have blogs, some will have e-mail lists, and all of these things may become important to you further down the road.

That’s all the prep you’ll need. Next, let’s see how these elements come together into a simple strategy to explode your own Twitter following in just a few minutes a day.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Book Designer.

 

Six Easy Tips for Self-Editing Your Fiction

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This post, by Kristen Lamb, originally appeared on her Kristen Lamb’s Blog on 8/21/13.

There are a lot of hurdles to writing great fiction, which is why it’s always important to keep reading and writing. We only get better by DOING. Today we’re going to talk about some self-editing tips to help you clean up your book before you hire an editor.

When I worked as an editor, I found it frustrating when I couldn’t even GET to the story because I was too distracted by these all too common oopses.

There are many editors who charge by the hour. If they’re spending their time fixing blunders you could’ve easily repaired yourself? You’re burning cash and time. Yet, correct these problems, and editors can more easily get to the MEAT of your novel. This means you will spend less money and get far higher value.

 

#1 The Brutal Truth about Adverbs, Metaphors and Similes

I have never met an adverb, simile, or metaphor I didn’t LOVE. I totally dig description, but it can present problems.

First of all, adverbs are not ALL evil. Redundant adverbs are evil. If someone shouts loudly? How else are they going to shout? Whispering quietly? Really? O_o Ah, but if they whisper seductively? The adverb seductively gives us a quality to the whisper that isn’t already implied by the verb.

Check your work for adverbs and kill the redundant ones. Kill them. Dead.

Metaphors and similes are awesome, but need to be used sparingly. Yes, in school, our teachers or professors didn’t ding us for using 42 metaphors in 5 pages, but their job was to teach us how to properly use a metaphor or simile, NOT prepare us for commercial publication as professional novelists.

When we use too much of this verbal glitter, we can create what’s called “purple prose.” This glitter, while sparkly, can pull the reader out of the story or even confuse the reader. A while back, I edited a winner’s 20 page entry. The story began on a whitewater river and the rafters were careening toward a “rock coffee table.”

Huh?

Oh, the boulder is squarish shaped!

Thing is, the metaphor made me stop to figure out what image the author was trying to create. If the rafters had merely been careening toward a giant flat rock? Not as pretty but I could have remained in the story without trying to figure out how the hell furniture ended up in the river.

I’ve read some great books, but as an editor, I might have cut some of the metaphors. Why? Because the author might have a metaphor SO GOOD I wanted to highlight it and commit it to memory…but it was bogged down by the other four metaphors and three similes on the same page. The other metaphors/similes added nothing…unless one counts distraction.

Go through your pages and highlight metaphors and similes. Pick THE BEST and CUT THE REST. Look for confusing metaphors, like rock furniture in the middle of a river.

 

#2 Stage Direction

She reached out her arm to open the door.

Okay, unless she has mind powers and telekinesis, do we need the direction?

He turned to go down the next street.

He picked up the oars and pulled a few more strokes, eager to get to his favorite fishing spot.

We “get” he’d have to pick up the oars to row his boat, or that is a seriously cool trick.

Be active. Characters can “brush hair out of their face” “open doors” and even slap people without you telling us they reached out an arm or hand to do this. We are smart. Really.

 

Read the rest of the post, which contains four more self-editing tips, on Kristen Lamb’s Blog.

 

Publetariat Rises From The Ashes!

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Hi group! Founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton here. It’s been a VERY long time coming, but at long last I’m ready to resurrect Publetariat for real, with a regular schedule for posting new content and everything! We’re kicking off with a post intended to help keep you NaNoWriMo’ers going.

 

Why’d It Take So Long?

Anyone who doesn’t know the full story, check out this post: Why, And How, Publetariat Was Hacked.

The first couple of months after Publetariat was destroyed by hackers were spent in recovery and rebuild mode. With the very generous, pro-bono help of developer and author services provider Shawn E. Bell, the majority of site content was salvaged from the decimated Drupal site and ported to the new, WordPress site you’re viewing now.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Since Publetariat had already been on hackers’ radar for many months, they weren’t about to give up just because the new Publetariat is on a new platform.

First came many weeks of tinkering with various site features, to try and figure out where and how hackers could still attempt to hijack the site, and disable any and all features that had the potential to serve as backdoor portals for hackers. Hence, no more interactive site features (like commenting) and no more site membership features. This was followed by many more weeks of trial and error in trying various “plug-ins” to keep the site secure without breaking other site features.

Next came several months of “trapping” incoming traffic from hackers so they could be blocked from the site going forward. There’s hardly a thing in this world as persistent and single-minded as a hacker web bot: those automated terrors just keep coming, through slightly altered avenues and with slightly different approaches. I didn’t want to start officially welcoming site visitors back until I was sure it was totally secure, and stable.

 

This is the kind of thing Digital Media Mom was created to combat.

What Else I’ve Been Up To

During this time I’ve kept busy with my day job managing the Kindle Fire on Kindle Nation Daily site and writing content for the site, and I’ve also launched a brand-new site of my own: Digital Media Mom. The creation of this site was inspired by my own mom’s call one day, to ask me, “How come my iPad only works at home?”

She didn’t understand that many of the things she liked to do on the iPad required Wi-Fi connectivity, didn’t understand how Wi-Fi works, and had no idea how to get Wi-Fi connectivity outside of her home. I did a little hunting around online for a plain-English tech site for the ultra-non-tech-savvy like Mom, but came up empty.

Since I have both tech and communication skills, and a real passion for digital media and tech stuff, it seemed an ideal project for me to take on. And just like that, the Digital Media Mom site was born. I’ve been helping folks like my mom cope with tech one daily article at a time ever since.

Just about a week ago, I released the first compilation book from the site: The Digital Media Mom’s Guide To High Tech In Plain English, and I hope to keep releasing new volumes in the series each year. I also released my divorce / breast cancer / job loss / home loss memoir, To Hell and (Hopefully) Back, a few months ago.

 

What Now?

Publetariat will now resume its usual editorial schedule of posting two new articles each weeknight from Sunday through Thursday evenings. This schedule ensures new content will be there Monday – Friday mornings for site visitors from most time zones.

Cross posts and reprints from some of your favorite past Publetariat contributors will be back, along with some new stuff from new contributors.

I’ll be tweeting links to the new posts each weekday under my personal Twitter account, so feel free to follow me there if you want to be sure you’re alerted to new posts.

 

WELCOME BACK, AND THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

 

 

14 Published Novels Written During NaNoWriMo

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This post, by Stacey Conradt, originally appeared on the Mental Floss site on 11/1/13. It may provide some much-needed motivation to hang in there for this year’s NaNoWriMo’ers.

While November means turkey, football and marathon shopping for some, it’s a month of being hunched over at a laptop slurping cup after cup of caffeine for others.

Yep—it’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. People who are crazy ambitious enough to accept the challenge aim to write 50,000 words in November, which is about 1,667 words every day. While no one expects masterpieces in such a short time span—the goal is to force writers to get some words down on paper without overthinking it—sometimes it happens. Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants is a particularly successful example. But she’s not the only author to see buckling down and hammering out 50,000 words in a month pay off. Here are 14 other NaNo books that can be found on the shelves at a bookstore near you.

1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. She wrote it during two NaNos, but we’re not holding it against her. The Night Circus spent seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won an Alex Award from the American Library Association in 2012.

2. The Beautiful Land by Alan Averill. From Amazon: “The Beautiful Land is part science fiction, part horror—and, at its core, a love story between a brilliant young computer genius and the fragile woman he has loved since high school. Now, he must bend time and space to save her life as the world around them descends into apocalyptic madness.”

3. Wool by Hugh Howey. From Barnes and Noble: “In a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside.” Ridley Scott has expressed interest in directing the Wool movie, the rights to which have been purchased by 20th Century Fox.

4. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. Another NYT bestseller, The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a young adult novel that takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States that is overrun with zombies. This is the first of a trilogy, and the film rights have been optioned by Seven Star Pictures.

5. Don’t Let Me Go by J.H. Trimble. From Publisher’s Weekly: “Nate and Adam are smalltown adolescents whose relationship is threatened when Adam moves to New York. Nate recalls the first moments of their romance and its development even as it’s threatened by the arrival of Luke, a closeted younger teen who’s attracted to Nate. Told frankly and honestly from Nate’s point of view, the novel explores issues like coming out, parental acceptance (and its lack), antigay violence, and the attitudes of faculty and fellow students, whose ranks provide both antagonists and allies. Layered with the gritty everyday details of teen existence, the book provides a convincingly clear window into the many perils and sometimes scant pleasures of life in high school while never feeling overly grim; it will be appreciated by adults and teens alike.”

 

Read the rest of the post on Mental Floss.