Month: September 2014

Book Marketing 101: Don’t Sell a Book; Build a Brand

by

This post by Derek Murphy originally appeared on CreativIndie.

For a lot of authors, “book marketing” still means something like advertising or publicity.

In other words, you put something in front of people that tells them about the book, and that they should go buy it.

Here’s why that doesn’t work:

– People need repetition before they notice, then take action. So they’ll need to see whatever it is you’re doing many times (usually 7 or more) before it even registers. That’s why something like a one time radio appearance or newspaper review isn’t likely to sell many books.

– People buy based on trust. They’re much more likely to buy the book if a friend recommends it, or somebody else online that they’re following that they already know, like and trust.

– People hate advertisement and promotion these days. That’s why the biggest, million-dollar companies avoid it in favor of content marketing, which means, you they make other really cool and interesting content that their target buyers will enjoy and appreciate. There is no hard sale or call to action, except indirectly.

Coke has been doing this for years. When was the last time you saw a Coke ad that said “On sale for only 99cents right now!” Coke doesn’t need to sell it’s product. They don’t need to offer discounts. Pricing is irrelevant. Coke sells a lifestyle. Everything cool that they do makes people like them more, which, in turn will actually sell soda.

So here’s what you need to do to sell more books:

 

Click here to read the full post on CreativIndie.

 

Big Publisher Bashing Again With Fictional Facts

by

Today we present two opposing viewpoints from industry professionals regarding the Amazon/Hachette dispute. This post by Mike Shatzkin originally appeared on The Shatzkin Files on 9/14/14, and was written in rebuttal to the Clay Shirky piece we are also sharing today (link to the full Shirky’s post included immediately below).

The estimable Clay Shirky has written a lengthy piece called “Amazon, Publishers, and Readers” on medium.com saying, essentially, that an Amazon-dominated world would be an improvement over the Big Five “cartel”-dominated world of publishing we have today. This is an apples to oranges comparison. The Big Five are not nearly as broad a cartel as Amazon — which reaches way beyond the consumer books they publish — is a monopsony. Amazon touches much more of the book business than the Big Five publishers do. To make his case, Shirky recounts some very questionable history and employs some selective interpretation to get from his own impression of the current Hachette-Amazon dispute (about which he says “Amazon’s tactics are awful, the worst possible in fact”) to a completely different conclusion.

My complaint with the facts and logic start at the top: with the two paragraphs Shirky uses to set up his argument and establishes the “holier-than” context for his position. He says:

Back in 2007, when publishers began selling large numbers of books in digital format, they used digital rights management (DRM) to lock their books to a particular piece of hardware, Amazon’s new Kindle. DRM is designed to transfer pricing power from content owners to hardware vendors. The publishers clearly assumed they could hand Amazon consolidated control without ever having to conspire with one another, and that Amazon would reward them by passing cost-savings back as inflated profits. When Amazon instead decided to side with the customer, passing the savings on as reduced price, they panicked, and started looking around for an alternative conspirator.

Starting in 2009, five of the six biggest publishers colluded with Apple to re-inflate ebook prices. The model they worked out netted them less revenue per digital sale, because of Apple’s cut, but ebooks were not their immediate worry. They wanted (and want) to protect first editions; as long as ebook prices remained high, hardback sales could be protected. No one had any trouble seeing the big record companies as unscrupulous rentiers when they tried to keep prices for digital downloads as high as they had been for CDs; the book industry went further, violating anti-trust law as they attempted to protect their more profitable product.

Almost every sentence of this is subtly or blatantly wrong.

1. Publishers did not begin selling large numbers of books in digital format in 2007. Amazon started Kindle in late November 2007. Significant sales of ebooks didn’t start to occur until after Christmas and continued to grow rapidly thereafter.

2. Although an uninformed person would be led to infer from reading this that DRM was somehow created for Amazon, in fact DRM was routinely used for ebooks for their entire existence before Kindle. DRM on Kindle continued current practice; DRM was not created for Kindle or at Kindle’s behest.

 

Click here to read the full post on The Shatzkin Files.

 

Amazon, Publishers and Readers

by

Today we present two opposing viewpoints from industry professionals regarding the Amazon/Hachette dispute. This post by Clay Shirky originally appeared on Medium on 9/12/14.

In the current fight between Amazon and the publisher Hachette over the price of ebooks and print-on-demand rights, Amazon’s tactics are awful, the worst possible in fact: They are denying readers access to books, removing pre-order options and slowing delivery of titles published by Hachette. Amazon’s image as a business committed to connecting readers to books is shredded by this sort of hostage-taking. The obvious goal for readers in should be to punish anyone using us as leverage.

This skirmish will end, though, and when it does, we’ll be left with the larger questions of what the landscape of writing and reading will look like in the English-speaking world. On those questions, we should be backing Amazon, not because different principles are at stake, but because the same principle — Whose actions will benefit the reader? — leads to different conclusions. Many of the people rightly enraged at Amazon’s mistreatment of customers don’t understand how their complaint implicates the traditional model of publishing and selling as well.

Some of the strongest criticism of Amazon comes from authors most closely aligned with the prestigious parts of the old system, many of those complaints appearing as reviews of “The Everything Store”, Brad Stone’s recent book on Amazon and Jeff Bezos. Steve Coll, Dean of the Columbia Journalism School, wrote one such, “Citizen Bezos,” in The New York Review of Books:

At least two qualities distinguished Bezos from other pioneers of e-commerce and help to explain his subsequent success. The first was his gargantuan vision. He did not see himself merely chipping away at Barnes & Noble’s share of retail book sales; he saw himself developing one of the greatest retailers in history, on the scale of Sears Roebuck or Walmart. Secondly, Bezos focused relentlessly on customer service — low prices, ease of use on his website, boundless inventory, and reliable shipping. To this day, Amazon is remarkably successful at pleasing customers.

Coll does not intend any of this as a compliment.

He writes about book-making and selling as if there are only two possible modes: Either the current elites remain firmly in charge, or else Amazon will become a soul-crushing monopoly. The apres nous, le deluge!-ness of this should be enough to convince anyone that the publishers are bullshitting, but if your worry is market manipulation, the publishing cartel we have today has has already created decidedly non-hypothetical harms.

 

Click here to read the full post on Medium.

Click here to read Mike Shatzkin’s rebuttal to Shirky’s post, on The Shatzkin Files.

 

Want to Successfully Publish? First, Are You a “Real” Writer?

by

This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her blog on 9/15/14.

For many writers (me included), we don’t start off with the confidence to yell to the world, “I’m going to be a professional author!” Heck, I wrote a 178,000 word “novel” and still didn’t believe I was a writer. Later, I had over a year and a half of consistent blogging under my belt, multiple short stories, and newbie novels that had been at least good enough to win prestigious contests and yet….

I was not a “real writer.”

Schrödinger Writer? If you put a writer in an office at a keyboard, is the writer alive or dead (real or fake) until the book is published?

 

We’ve Come a LONG Way, Baby

The literary landscape has shifted dramatically. More avenues of publishing have opened and become appealing, thus this silly question of, “Are we a real writer?” holds far less power. Believe it or not, when I began blogging, I dedicated countless posts to answering this very question. In retrospect, I did it for me as much as for others.

I’ve always asserted that we are what we do. What is our primary career focus (beyond a necessary day job)? The second we sit at a keyboard and write, we are writers. Yet, as my first “novel” glaringly illustrates, we might not yet be a “good writer.”

 

Click here to read the full post on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

The Curious Case of Ellora’s Cave

by

This post by Jane Litte originally appeared on Dear Author on 9/14/14. Note that this post contains strong language.

Long before there was the Kindle, long before self publishing, long before the emergence of Fifty Shades, a digital first publisher by the name of Ellora’s Cave began to deliver sexy reads that would transform the face of romance publishing. Ellora’s Cave was established in 2000 as an outlet for Tina Engler to publish books with heavy sexy content that were romantic in nature. Because there was no “ebook” in the late 1990s, Engler would create PDFs and email them to reader who sent her money via paypal. In 2000, EC was established and soon thereafter, it would become a powerhouse selling hundreds of thousands of ebooks a year in a world where ebooks did not exist for the most part.

Engler’s path was not dissimilar to that of JK Rowling. She went from welfare to millionaire in a short time.

Ellora’s Cave fed an unheretofore unexplored appetite of women for explicit scenes, bold women, and frank language. Prior to 2000, references to the penis would often be couched in terms such as “manroot” “stalk” and “pleasure rod”. The clitoris or vagina would be known in equally obscure terms. Now it’s not uncommon to see the use of “cock”, “cunt”, or “pussy” within many mainstream romances whether they be historical, contemporary or paranormal. Today the line between erotic romance and non erotic romance appears blurred, not just for readers but authors and publishers as well.

But in 2000, erotic romance was a new and somewhat scary thing for mainstream publishers. In fact, the recent acquisition or launch of digital publishing arms for mainstream publishers followed a similar trajectory to the old acquisition and launch of erotic romance lines. While it might seem ludicrous today, in the early to mid 2000s, agents had to identify which publishers would accept erotic romances and which would not. And it was a big deal when traditional publishers started accepting erotic romances regularly.

 

Click here to read the full post on Dear Author.

 

Harnessing the Power of Goodreads

by

This guest post by Penny Sansevieri originally appeared on D’vorah Lansky’s Build A Business With Your Book.

Goodreads has really become a front and center social network for authors. If you’re not on Goodreads or if you haven’t touched your account in a while you should consider this site and the benefits it offers.

There have been many success stories from Goodreads, authors who “got noticed” by having lots of activity there, mingling with other members, and getting tons of reviews. While success isn’t guaranteed on this site (or anywhere), Goodreads can really help you get a leg up on your promotion. So, how did the massive growth of this site happen?

Their CEO, Otis Chandler, cited three primary factors behind the acceleration: “a critical mass of book reviews,” “explosive” mobile growth, and international expansion.

To understand Goodreads as an author, what works and what doesn’t, you have to understand the average demographic of the site, which is adult female, many with college age kids and, surprisingly, a whopping 81% of them are Caucasian. They are avid readers, though many are less affluent than the average Internet user so low-priced books and free books do very well on this site.
 

Click here to read the full post on D’vorah Lansky’s Build A Business With Your Book.

 

The Inspiration Drought

by

This post by Ed Finn originally appeared on Slate/Future Tense on 9/16/14.

Why our science fiction needs new dreams.

This piece is part of Future Tense, a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University. On Thursday, Oct. 2, Future Tense will host an event in Washington, D.C., on science fiction and public policy, inspired by the new anthology Hieroglyph: Stories & Visions for a Better Future. For more information on the event and to RSVP, visit the New America website; for more on Hieroglyph, visit the website of ASU’s Project Hieroglyph.

Why are all our narratives about the future 50 years old? We seem to be recycling big ideas as if we live in an inspiration drought. We’ve retooled Star Trek so many times, it’s starting to look like one of those 1957 Chevrolets still cruising the streets of Havana.

One reason is that writing about the near future is hard to do convincingly. Imagining life 10 or 20 years down the road requires placing the same big bets that science fiction always makes (in the future, we will all wear matching leotards!) but provides an incredibly short runway to get from now to then.

Storytellers can play it safe by depending on tropes that we have already been trained to expect: In the future people will use phasers and doors will swish open with a satisfying noise. We make a comfortable nest of assumptions and “rules,” allowing everyone to get on with the tale of young love or the hero’s journey.

 

Click here to read the full article on Slate/Future Tense.

 

The Real Link Between the Psychopathology Spectrum and the Creativity Spectrum

by

This article by Scott Barry Kaufman originally appeared on Scientific American on 9/15/14.

Plato once noted that “creativity is a divine madness, a gift from gods.” Romantic notions of the link between mental illness and creativity still appear prominently in popular culture. But ever since scientists started formally investigating the link, there has been intense debate. Some of the most highly cited studies on the topic have been criticized on the grounds that they involve highly specialized samples with weak and inconsistent methodologies and a strong dependence on subjective and anecdotal accounts.

What has become much clearer, however, is that there is a real link between creativity and a number of traits and characteristics that are associated with mental illness. Once we leave the narrowed confines of the clinical setting and enter the larger general population, we see that mental disorders are far from categorical. Every single healthy human being lies somewhere on every psychopathology spectrum (e.g., schizophrenia, autism, mood disorders). What’s more, we each show substantial fluctuations on each of these dimensions each day, and across our lifespan.

A major issue in attempting to scientifically study the link between the various dimensions of psychopathology and creativity is the outcome measure. What should we be predicting? Because here’s the thing: Creativity also lies on a spectrum, ranging from the everyday creative cognition that allows us to generate new ideas, possibilities, and solutions to a problem, to the real-world creative achievement seen in publicly recognized domains across the arts, humanities, and sciences. Therefore, the link to psychopathology spectrum disorders may differ depending on the outcome.

Enter a new study by Darya Zabelina, David Condon, and Mark Beeman. They examined whether levels of psychopathology in a healthy non-clinical sample are associated with creative cognition and real-world creative achievement among a group of 100 participants, aged 18-30. None had been hospitalized for psychiatric or neurological reasons, and none abused alcohol or drugs.

 

Click here to read the full article on Scientific American.

 

David Streitfeld is Dangerous and Disingenuous

by

This post by Hugh Howey originally appeared on his site on 9/15/14.

David Streitfeld of the New York Times has now cemented himself as the blabbering mouthpiece for the New York publishing cartel, and while he is making a fool of himself for those in the know, he is a dangerous man for the impression he makes on his unsuspecting readers.

(I should point out here that I’m a 7-day-a-week home delivery subscriber to the New York Times. I start every day by reading the physical paper. I love it. But they do make occasional hiring mistakes.)

A dishonest man with access to a pulpit is like a poisoner with access to a well. David Streitfeld is a dishonest man. He is a reporter with an agenda. A good case in point is this head-scratcher: Just one summer ago, David made reference to Orwell’s well-known disdain for cheap paperbacks to draw a comparison to Amazon’s fight for lower ebook prices. A year later, the same David Streitfeld claimed that Orwell was a fan of cheap paperbacks. What changed?

What changed is that Amazon used the same Orwellian quote in proper context, just as David did a year ago, but we all know that Amazon simply can’t be right about anything. And so enterprising Amazon-bashers reframed a partial quote from Orwell in an attempt to have the deceased man stand for the opposite of his opinion, in an exercise as disgusting as it was Orwellianly ironic.

 

Click here to read the full post on Hugh Howey’s site.

 

The Magic Building Where English Majors Work: Making Sense of Creative Writing’s Job Problem

by

This essay by Cathy Day originally appeared on The Millions on 9/10/14.

When is the right time to tell people about their job prospects? In graduate school? Before they even apply to graduate school? Or sooner than that even—in their first creative writing class? Never? Let them Google it because it’s just too depressing otherwise?

[Note: The student I describe is a composite character of many students I’ve met in my 20 years of teaching.]

A few months ago, Tracy came to my office. She was majoring in something practical, “but I love reading, and I love writing,” she said.

She wanted me to talk her into becoming a creative writing major. But she needed assurances.

Her eyes got a little dreamy. “I know that somewhere out there, there’s a building where I can work and get paid to do what I love. Tell me. What is that building?” she asked. “How do I find it?”

My heart broke a little then, because once upon a time, I dreamed about that building, too. “Well, there isn’t just one building,” I said. “There are thousands of buildings.”

“You mean publishing houses,” she said, nodding her head.

I hear this a lot from students: I want to work in publishing. Usually it means that they love the world of books more than they actually want to be writers—and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

So I told her about a class we offered on Literary Editing and Publishing. I told her about the internship program in New York to which she could apply. “But Tracy, I want you to know that it’s hard to get a job in publishing. At least in the way that you imagine it.”

“It is?” She looked incredulous.

 

Click here to read the full essay on The Millions.

 

Writers as Casualties of Commerce

by

This post by James Scott Bell originally appeared on The Kill Zone on 9/14/14.

Since 2009 or so, the so-called midlist at traditional publishing houses has dried up faster than a mud patch in the Serengeti. The bleached bones of writers who did not earn out are scattered around in random configuration. On the parched ground near a scorched femur can be seen a message scratched in the dirt, a last call from a thirsty scribe: Help! My numbers suck!

I’ve heard from many friends and colleagues about traditionally published writers––some who have had relationships with a house for a decade or more––seeing their advances drop to record lows, or not being offered another contract at all.

And then what? What happens to these foundering careers?

Two writers give us answers. The first is Eileen Goudge, a New York Times bestselling author. She had a soaring career in the 1990s, and even a power marriage to super agent Al Zuckerman. That’s how I became aware of her. Zuckerman wrote a good book on writing blockbusters where he recommended reading Goudge’s Garden of Lies. I did and loved it, and read another of hers a bit later on.

So I was gobsmacked last month when I read a post by Goudge about her travails as a casualty of commerce. She describes what happened to her and many other writers this way:

 

Click here to read the full post on The Kill Zone.

 

12 Most Go-To Grammar Tips

by

This post by Becky Gaylord originally appeared on 12 Most on 8/19/14.

Most of us must communicate in writing — not necessarily with paper and a writing instrument anymore, yet digital media has changed only the tools we use. In fact, as new-fashioned means of communication have multiplied, so have demands for the old-fashioned skill of conveying information in writing.

See, we still write cover letters, memos and notes. But now, we also write status updates, blog posts, emails, online comments, tweets, bullets for slide presentations, captions for visuals to share on social media, and so on.

In nearly all cases (text messages aside) correct grammar matters. This is especially true if communicating for work or to a professional audience. Using correct grammar begets credibility. Think of it as an extension of appearance: Spiffy beats sloppy.

The goal, though, is to be spiffy, swiftly. And that’s the purpose of this post: It’s an organized, streamlined guide. It’s alphabetized. And, it gives one-word answers. (Example sentences follow each answer, giving context.)

So, next time you need grammar help on the fly, here are 12 go-to tips!

 

1. Accept/Except

Accept = Receive
I must accept blame for the accident because I ran the red light.
He accepted the award on behalf of the whole group.

Except = Excluding
Everyone is going except Harry.
I like all vegetables except broccoli.

 

2. Advice/Advise

Advice = Noun
The advice you gave me was really useful.
No, I don’t need, or want, your advice.

Advise = Verb
He advised her to be careful in dealing with the complicated situation.
I don’t know anything about it; please advise me how to proceed.

 

Click here to read the full post on 12 Most.

 

On Death and Writing

by

This post by Ksenia Anske originally appeared on her blog on 9/6/14.

I have blogged about death before. When Philip Seymour Hoffman died (here is that post), and when I came across a man on the highway who was hit by a truck minutes ago and died (here is that post), and when I was hit by a truck and didn’t die but woke up in the hospital with a bloody face and half of my body bruised black (here is THAT post).

Joan Rivers died 2 days ago, and multiple tweets about it made me look her up. Yes, I have heard her name. No, I didn’t really know who she was. It took for her to die, for me to discover her. Her biting wit, which I immediately fell in love with, and her heritage. Turns out, she was born to Russian parents. I was wondering what was so appealing to me in her humor. It’s the sharp unapologetic truth and the stabbing hilariousness and the bitter charm that I have in my blood, yet am still afraid to let go. Thank you, Joan, for showing me that I can. You told me that I can say what I think, through comedy. What would I have done without you dying? You can punch me in the face from comedic heaven for saying this, because you must be the queen of it now. I’m convinced of it.

 

Click here to read the full post on Ksenia Anske’s blog.

 

Ten Key Things You Need To Know About The Self-Publishing Industry

by

This post by blurb staff originally appeared on the blurb blog on 9/2/14.

Before you take the leap, look over the ledge. The more you know about how self-publishing a book really works, the better off you’ll be in the long run. Here are ten truths that may not be exactly self-evident, but will help you make better decisions, spend less money, and create the book you’ve been dreaming about.

 

1. Self-publishing is simple.

It’s making a book for yourself. No more, no less. You won’t have to pitch your book to a publishing house that likely isn’t interested, you won’t have to hire an agent to represent you, and you won’t have to bargain for royalties and advances. It’s just you, your talent, and publishing and marketing tools provided by a platform or service.

 

2. Self-publishing is complicated.

That’s all very true, but you’ll still find yourself facing a world of decisions. From relatively simple ones to book size and cover type to huge ones like which self-publishing platform to go with, you’re on the hook for every aspect of the journey. And, unfortunately, there aren’t many short cuts. While the challenge can be fun, be aware that you’ll need to become an expert (or at least aware of) a whole new world. Royalties, typesetting conventions, ISBNs, distribution, marketing trends—–you’ll need to learn a lot if you want to succeed. Luckily, there are a lot of guides out there to help you on the way.

 

Click here to read the full post on the blurb blog.

 

How Not To Respond To A Bad Review

by

This post by John Dugdale originally appeared on The Guardian on 9/5/14.

Stephan J Harper’s litany of angry comments about a critic is a textbook demonstration of the reasons why wounded writers should keep shtum

If it’s not the craziest response ever by a novelist to a negative review, it’s almost certainly the longest, most obsessive and most ridiculous. When Michael E Cohen reviewed an interactive ebook called Venice Under Glass on the Apple-related site TidBITS.com, he can’t have expected that underneath it would eventually appear more than 50 responses from a single commenter: the book’s author, Stephan J Harper.

Seemingly unembarrassed by the incongruity of mounting a vehement defence of a detective story in which all the characters are teddy bears, Harper initially penned a series of comments (many of them over a single night between 1am and 4am) in which he quoted passages from the book, hoping to persuade Cohen that his criticisms of its “workmanlike” prose or “juvenile” plot were unjustified.

 

Click here to read the full post on The Guardian.