Business End

Articles about the business aspects of publishing and self-publishing.

Is Publetariat Worth A Dollar To You?

by

I am in desperate straits, and as a result, so is Publetariat.

In March of this year I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Two days later my husband announced he was leaving me, and did. We would’ve been married 19 years last month.

*UPDATE 12/21/10* To clarify, as many have inquired about my health, I’ve had surgery and the mass was completely excised. I’m totally recovered, though left with a scar and a large hospital bill.

The small business we used to run together, which was our family’s primary source of income, is now a thing of the past and has been for months. I’m trying to sell off what’s left of its assets, but in this economy buyers are scarce. To say I’m struggling to make ends meet for myself and my two children doesn’t quite cover it. The bank is preparing to foreclose; I and my children are facing homelessness.

Before the business, I was a software engineer. I still have considerable skills in that area, but again, the economy is killing me. Too many people are out of work, and many of them have fresher or broader skill sets than I do. I am trying to make a go of freelancing, and you may have noticed I’ve tried to run more advertising on the Publetariat site, too. It’s not enough.

This morning when I booted up my computer and immediately went to check Publetariat to make sure it’s up and running normally, as I always do, it occurred to me that if I lose my home I probably won’t be able to keep running Publetariat and its sister sites. Then it occured to me that Publetariat’s audience would probably be very disappointed if this happens.

And it further occurred to me that Publetariat’s audience numbers in the tens of thousands, and if each one of them were to pitch in just one dollar, it could keep my children and I—and therefore, Publetariat—afloat for a few more months, while I try to get more work and make other financial arrangements.

So please…if you’ve found anything helpful, informative or entertaining on this site over the past two years, if its content has inspired you to keep going when you were ready to quit, solved a problem for you or answered your questions…if it has saved you a dollar’s worth of time, effort or worry, please donate that dollar now. If you can afford more, it will be much appreciated. And those of you outside the U.S. – your foreign currencies are welcome too, and will be automatically converted to U.S. funds.

If you find yourself in such financial difficulties of your own at this time that you really can’t spare even one dollar—and I know there are far too many in those circumstances right now—, please at least spread the word by sharing this link on Twitter, Facebook, your blogs and sites: Is Publetariat worth a dollar to you? http://ht.ly/3qhet
 


 

Thank you for your support.

*12/23/10 UPDATE* – click here

 

Some Handy Publetariat Searches

by

Publetariat is almost two years old now, and there’s a wealth of great information here on the site. Whatever your specific area of interest, whether it’s self-publishing, author platform, ebooks, or the publishing industry in general, you can find plenty of relevent content here on the site. To use the handy links below, which cover some of our more popular subjects, just click on the topic(s) of interest to you, and presto! A lengthy list of links to relevant articles will appear.

The Writing Life

How to Write

Ebooks

DRM

Crisis in Publishing

What Authors Earn

Why Self-Publish?

Author Platform

Book Promotion

 

If you can’t find what you’re looking for in the list above, try the search box at the upper right on every page of the site.  

Advertising in Ebooks: An Inevitable Outcome

by

I made a passing comment on Twitter yesterday that led to some heated discussion. My comment was this:

Ebooks will soon carry links, photos, video, etc. They will also, in order to really monetize the medium, contain ads.

Which I followed with this tweet:

Your ebook will start in 60 seconds, after these messages from our sponsors. #wontbelong

Man, that triggered some visceral reactions from a lot of people. Particularly the advertising part. I think multimedia ebooks are inevitable too, but they’re already showing up in some guises. It’s a matter of ereaders catching up that stands between the standard ebook as it is now and the future ebook full of other media.

But when it comes to advertising in ebooks, I think it’s something that people need to accept. There are many reasons, not least the desire to monetize the ebook and keep “cover” prices down. I’m a big fan of ebooks, but I believe they need to be a lot cheaper than print books. I know all about the general production, formatting and so on, but the same applies to print books. The simple fact is that a person doesn’t get a physical object and the price needs to reflect that. Also, with ebook retailers, the margins are much wider. I make a bigger royalty on a Kindle version of RealmShift, for example, than I do on a print version, even though the Kindle edition is $2.99 and the print edition $9.99. But it’s obviously in everyones interests for publishers to make a healthy profit as well as authors. The more money a publisher has, the more authors they can take on and the more books they can produce. The more authors and books a publisher has on board, the more choice and variety the reading public have. It’s a win for everyone. But how to make it happen?

Kindle ad Advertising in ebooks an inevitable outcomeIt’s a simple fact that we live in a capitalist society. If anything is going to work, someone needs to be making money. Ideally, everyone is making money except the people buying the product, and those people are happy with what they get for their outlay. In that environment, other than producing a quality product, a lot of profit comes from advertising. And is it really so bad to have ads in ebooks?

A lot of people on Twitter yesterday complained about ads interrupting the reading experience. I agree that if ads suddenly popped up when you turned a page, that would piss me off no end. But that’s not how it has to work. When you buy a DVD, you put it in and you get some ads and trailers before the film starts and maybe some afterwards as well. The movie experience itself is solid and uninterrupted. I see this as the way forward with ebooks. Hopefully consumer demand will force that to happen. If publishers start putting ads in the middle of books, customers should rightly voice their rage and refuse to buy from the publisher any more. But if you have to flick through a few pages of ads before the start of chapter one, it’s a slightly annoying but overall not very debilitating chore. Especially if the presence of those few pages of ads means the ebook is a reasonable price and the author and publisher are making money. Obviously, with the presence of ads, it’s the publisher that stands to make the most, but don’t forget my point above about publishers with good profit margins taking on more authors and giving readers more books.

I even see a time when an ebook might open with visual or video ads that you have to endure before the book itself starts that aren’t just the publisher promoting their other books, but third party advertisers buying space. Imagine an ebook of something by John Grisham, Dan Brown or J K Rowling. These are people that sell a lot of books. If their publisher sold advertising space in the opening pages of their books, that space could be sold at a premium. The publisher could stand to make a lot of money. Hopefully we’d see some of that money given back to authors in higher advances and royalties as well as being invested in future projects. I realise this is something of a utopian view and perhaps rather naive, but we can all dream. If the money is there, we can all lobby to see at least some of it spent right.

With most ereaders now utilising wifi and 3G technology, we could even see a situation where a different set of ads pop up every time you open a book. Ideally you’d only ever see ads at the start of the book, but if the advertising code used the wireless networks you might decide to reread a book a year later and see entirely new ads at the start. We’re already seeing video games where the billboards are updated with current advertising in-game. It’s no great stretch to see that happen with ebooks, thereby making that advertising space more profitable. Someone on Twitter (@NomentionofKev) even mentioned that the ereaders themselves might carry the ads, not the books. That risks a situation where every time you turn on the reader, you see an ad. For me, that’s going too far and I’d avoid that kind of reader. But it’s quite possible that we’ll see that situation before long.

Someone else (@Cacotopos) said that they have a demand list for ebooks – 1) no DRM 2) .ePub 3) no intertextual ads. And they noted that price wasn’t even on their list yet. I tend to agree with their list, but I would definitely add 4) Never more than $5 RRP.

Advertising annoys all of us, but it’s a necessary evil in a capitalist society. Sure, it would be great to have an ebook with no advertising, but isn’t it better to suffer a bit of advertising and have more choice of books, more new authors given a chance to get their work out to wide audiences and cheaper ebook purchase prices? I’m convinced that ads in ebooks are inevitable. It’s down to us to think about that and start voicing our opinions now so that we can hopefully help to shape the way that advertising is approached from the outset.

What are you thoughts on the matter?

 

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

Evaluating Self-Publishing Expenses

by

Unfortunately, what we have to spend says nothing about how we should spend it, and what things cost now says little or nothing about their total cost over time. The only thing we can say for sure is that if we don’t have [enough money] we’re out of luck. Other than that, even knowing the cost of the service does little to help validate the expense.

As regular readers know, I think the most important thing an independent artist can do is control costs. At some point, however, authors interested in writing professionally will have to confront publishing expenses (site hosting, POD fees, etc.), as well as consider a number of author services (proofreading, cover design, etc.).

To my mind the only useful way an independent author can assess such costs is to compare each outlay to potential revenue. That’s obviously Business 101, but it’s a mindset many independent authors fail to adopt. Instead, self-published writers often see expenses as worthwhile or necessary because they fund the physical production of a book: money gets spent and a book — your book! — springs to life. The problem with this approach is that it omits any relationship to sales or revenue, which means each expense is not a business decision so much as a purchasing decision, like buying fruit at the grocery store or a new pair of jeans.

If you’re trying to be a professional writer, implicit in that goal is doing what you can to avoid going broke. You don’t have to aspire to wild profits, and there are good reasons for not doing so, but at the very least your minimal goal should be recovering direct costs, if not also compensating yourself for your time. Even the ultimate goal of writing full time and living on one’s earnings demands similar analysis, because the realization of that lofty dream is directly related to your cost of living. The cheaper you’re willing to live, the longer you’ll be able to stay in business for any amount of generated revenue.

  

The Per-Copy Profit Method
Whatever expense(s) you’re considering, I think the only useful metric is a comparison of the dollar cost of the expense with the number of copies you would need to sell to recoup that investment. The good news is that once you know those two values the math is simple, and the formula can be applied to any expense for any work.

The first step is to approximate the per-copy royalty you expect for the book(s) in question. You don’t have to have an exact number here, but you need to be realistic. If you’re new to self-publishing and don’t have any experience to draw from, it’s probably going to take a while to come up with this number, but don’t skip this step. In fact, if you don’t understand the basics of self-publishing well enough to estimate your expected per-copy profit, it’s by definition too soon to be shelling out money.

Once you know what your per-copy profit will be, evaluating any expense relative to that particular title is a breeze. For example, let’s say you’re considering a cover-design cost of $200. If the book you’re creating will net a royalty of $2 per copy, then you’ll need to sell 100 copies of that book just to break even on your cover-design cost. ($200 / 2$ royalty = 100 copies.)

I don’t know about you, but a decision that obligates me to sell a hundred books just to break even doesn’t seem like a good idea. At the very least, that’s knowledge I want to have before I pull the trigger on an expense — and particularly so if there’s a chance that the cost of that cover design could go higher.

What I particularly like about this method of evaluating expenses, beyond how easy it is, is that it makes the benefit of cutting expenses wildly obvious. Continuing the previous example, if you cap your cover-design costs at $100 instead of $200, then you only need to sell half as many books (50) to break even. Instead of putting the emphasis on the out-of-pocket difference between $100 and $200 (a hundred bucks, which may or may not be a lot of money to you), the emphasis is again on how that difference affects your ability to turn a profit.

The vast majority of self-published authors are going to find it almost impossible to predict future sales, which is why this kind of analysis is so beneficial. Not only can the formula be applied to any title, and even adjusted on the fly if your royalty changes, but it puts the emphasis where it needs to be. Comparing expenses to the number of books you would need to sell in order to recoup those costs avoids the risks and uncertainties of forecasting, but keeps you focused on that critical relationship.

 

This is a reprint from Mark Barrett’s Ditchwalk.

The Secret To Self-Publishing Success

by

What is it that separates successful self-publishers from the people who end up with the proverbial “garage full of books” and a feeling of hopelessness?

Why does one author publish and promote their way to regular monthly income while others are still trying to move their sales figures into 3 digits?

And why is it that despite networking, blogging, Facebook pages, promotion, and website development, some self-published authors accumulate a strong, active community of readers while others never get any community traction?

A really good book. Planning. Realistic goals. They all come into play.

But the single largest influence on self-publishing success seems to me to be education.

The Hidden Difference Between Self-Publishers

Why education? When you sat down to write your book you probably knew nothing about publishing, distribution, marketing, promotion and sales.

You may not have even intended to publish the book yourself, but had thought of getting a contract from a traditional publisher.

At some point in the journey from writer to self-published author, everyone has to come to the realization that they are starting a publishing business.

And when you realize that, and begin to find out all the big and small decisions you will need to make to get your book into print, you understand why education is so critical.

  • For instance, vanity presses and abusive subsidy publishers would have far fewer clients if those authors were better educated to begin with.
     
  • Books with horrible covers that turn off prospective buyers would be less likely to get into print if authors knew even the most basic elements of cover design.
     
  • Books typeset in unreadable typefaces and bizarre text arrangements would be less likely to disappoint their creators if the authors knew even a bit about what a book should look like.
     
  • Books filled with hundreds of typographical, grammatical and factual errors would be much less likely to see print if authors found out how essential the editing process is to successful publishing.
     
  • And books written with no regard to what their intended market is interested in or willing to pay would be less likely to fail if their authors had some idea of how to find out what their market wants.

Of course, this list could go on and on. There is usually no single reason for success or failure in the real world, that’s simplistic.

But education—or the lack of it—has more to do with success and failure in self-publishing than any other individual factor I can think of.

Okay, But How Do We Find The Time?

Every day I talk to self-publishers and authors thinking of taking the leap into doing their own publishing.

I’ve explained how book distribution works, how to calculate discounts, how print on demand works, what you need to do to copyright your book, dozens and dozens of times.

Some people prepare diligently, hunting out sources of reliable information and doing everything they can to give themselves the best chance of success. But even for these people—and they are the minority—the odd practices, ancient conventions and rapid pace of technological change can be daunting.

There are a number of excellent books on self-publishing, and they are all very valuable to newcomers. Books from Dan Poynter, Sue Collier and Marilyn Ross, and others, attempt to offer encyclopedic compendiums of every question that a self-publisher might come up with.

Other books from Susan Daffron, Aaron Sheperd and others concentrate on one aspect of self-publishing, offering practical advice on that area.

Although I own these books and recommend them, in our fast-paced, on-demand, 24/7 world, sometimes it seems a bit regressive to tell someone, “Just order this book and when it arrives a week later look up the chapter on ISBNs and barcodes and you’ll find everything you need.”

E Learning to the Rescue!

I’ve spent the last year writing about self-publishing, book design, book marketing, social media and new publishing technologies that offer new markets and new ways to distribute the content we, as authors, create.

Over that time I’ve had to study intensively in areas like blogging, internet marketing, ebook creation, electronic workflows and a number of other fields. But I haven’t bought one book on any of these fields that I had to sit around and wait for at my mailbox.

That’s because most of these fields, have embraced the latest in e-learning, and deliver educational material in creative ways to people who need them.

I think self-publishing can borrow some of this technology to make education—the greatest indicator of potential success in self-publishing—available to more people, more easily, and more efficiently than ever before.

So for the last several months I’ve been investigating what the best ways are to bring this type of e-learning to the people who can use it.

This is the wave of the future. Delivering just the information and education people need, exactly when they need it. It’s up to us as self-publishers to both make use of this type of learning for our own education, and as educators ourselves, each in our own area of expertise.

Now that’s exciting to me, and I can’t wait to see where it leads.

Because it’s education that will make us stand out from the crowd, and show each of us the secret to success lies in helping other people grow and succeed themselves.

 

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

Editor’s Note: Publetariat’s sister site, Publetariat Vault University, offers online courses in Publishing and Author Platform/Promotion at a subscription rate of just $5 per month. Beginning in March 2011, the site will also offer individual lessons and lesson ‘paks’ for purchase with no subscription required.

CreateSpace and Foreign Distribution

by

     This posting of my experience with CreateSpace and problems with ISBN numbers and their effect on foreign distribution is an addendum to April Hamilton’s posting on April 14, 2009 on the truth about CS’s ISBN numbers. On the whole, Ms. Hamilton, who favors CS, is reasuring about accepted CS’s free ISBN numbers. But she does have some caveats concerning foreign distribution of CS books, "which aren’t visible to book buyers outside the U.S." As she writes, "When you publish through CS, an Amazon listing is automatically included as part of the publishing process for free. . . . Listings on Amazon’s international sites are not included. In order to get your book listed on any of those sites, you must register your book with the Nielsen’s catalog (it’s free), and in order to register with Nielsen’s you must be the registered owner of your book’s ISBN."  It is not clear from Ms. Hamilton’s posting whether an author can publish with CS, buy his/her own ISBN number, and still get the Amazon.com listing and the CS account. Ms. Hamilton may not make that explicit because, by her own admission, she never sought international sales. But as a CS author who does need and want attention in the U.K., I am staggered by my own errors and incorrect assumptions. I am posting my experience for two reasons. It may alert future authors to clarify their positions before entering publishing contracts with CS so that they make informed choices. And, I am still trying to sort out my position and my options and seek more feedback.

     To backtrack, I am a retired professor of English literature with four academic press books to my credit, all of which are listed on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.ca.  On the first two sites, I have an author’s page. My books received critical acclaim if not much in the way of royalties, but they took me safely through academia’s publish or perish system, and resulted in promotions to full professor.  But literary criticism was an end as well as a means, and there was pleasure and excitement in my work.  I taught crime fiction courses for fun (mine and the students’) late in my career. When, after retiring, I decided to write a critical study of a popular novelist, known primarily for her mysteries, Ruth Rendell (aka Barbara Vine), I began to face many problems, intellectual and economic.  When my completed ms. of The Fiction of Ruth Rendell: Ancient Tragedy and the Modern Family was circulated by my agent to commercial and academic presses, the book was praised highly but the inclination to publish the book was nil.  Then, when a reader’s report called the book "impressive" but not marketable, and added he doubted readers of a mystery writer would care to read about her books, I decided to self-publish.

     I had already raised some colleagues’ intellectual eyebrows when I announced the subject of my new book.  Plato banished poetry from his Republic, and Edmund Wilson banished mystery writers to a very low link on the literary chain of being.  I was laboring under genre assumptions that Wilson had established.  Even worse, I was self-publishing my book.  Didn’t that mean it was not worthy of being accepted by a commercial publisher?  Assuming my subject was worthy of pursuing in the first place?

     I admit it, I was defensive.  When I did a little research and came across complaints from other self-publishing companies that Amazon favored the authors who published with its own self-publishing division (then BookSurge, now CS), I decided I had solved my problem.  An Amazon listing of this book among my others, complete with cover images, would validate my abilities as a critic and author.  Also, when someone entered the name Ruth Rendell in Amazon to buy one of her novels, my  study of her fiction would show up as well.  And it has, beautiful cover and all, with a reader’s report (ironically, from the U.K.) that gives it five stars, and glimpses of the interior content.

     Self-publishing this book was expensive but also exciting if often frustrating (I am not very computer literate).  Eager to see the book exist, I pushed off thinking about sales although CS informed me I would have that responsibility. To date, the book has sold very slowly, to say the least, but I do have plans to move it along.  When I inquired about it being listed on Amazon.co.uk, I was informed by CS that only if the book sold very well here would that happen.  Well, what some call lit crit is rarely a big seller.  But occasionally I would look at Amazon.co.uk and a few weeks ago I discovered that through it some other English booksellers were offering two new and two used copies of my book, each at about double the price (depending on the exchange rate) it commanded on Amazon.com.  I had always known that the U.K. was my natural market for this book, because Ruth Rendell is virtually a household name in the U.K. whereas she never has received in the U.S. the acclaim she deserves–not only as a mystery writer but as a major novelist.  It was time to think about foreign distribution.

    Back to research, I discovered to my joy (which has since abated) that the route to go is Lightning Source which prints on demand all over the world.  It has a U.K. office.  Well!  LS would be handling distribution of my book to U.S. booksellers through the Expanded Distribution Channels that I bought with my CS publishing contract.  I would just ask CS to extend the reach of LS to the U.K.  Right!  Wrong.  The sense I have had from e-mails back and forth is not so much that CS could not extend the distribution but that it chooses not to. "Elects" not to, to use Ms. Hamilton’s word on the subject.  And since CS owns the ISBN number, which I accepted as a free offer, I cannot act on my own unless I get a new one.  This brings with it a number of potential problems described in Ms. Hamilton’s posting, problems that Walt Shiel describes quite forcefully as a response to my inquiry to him about my options. Our exchange has been posted on his View from the Publishing Trenches.

     This is now my situation as I understand it.  And frankly, I don’t completely understand it and feel a bit like Alice behind the looking glass.  CS owns not only my ISBN number but the digital files that print the book on demand and that will allow LS to make my book available in the U.S. to booksellers looking for a wholesaler and wholesale prices.  I specifically have in mind a number of small, surviving mystery bookstores, one of which recently ordered several copies directly from me at a discount I offered the owner.  If I want LS to distribute my book in the U.K., I could, since I own the copyright on the book’s contents, start from scratch and pay for a new cover design as well as a new format and print set-up.  Just how that would affect my account with CS is not clear to me.  Right now I do not want to assume any more unanticipated problems.  I do not want the book as it exists now to be listed as out of print, which I understand might happen if it is listed under a second ISBN number.  It is the most physically beautiful of my five books.  I am still hoping to promote more sales of the book here, but realistically, it will never be a best seller.  So this is how my situation seems to me now: CS elects not to be involved in distribution of my book in the U.K.  Its representative has suggested in e-mails and phone conversations that I get a new ISBN number and enter into my own agreement with LS, but he has not offered to explain what the consequences of that move might be with regard to my account with CS.  I have asked that this be spelled out, but as of this posting, have not heard back.  On my own, I cannot do anything unless I start from scratch and scrap what I have achieved and paid CS for so far.  And just how that would play out, assuming I wanted to go to that expense, is–again–not clear to me.

     But mea culpa.  I didn’t do my homework!

Barbara Fass Leavy

First Year As An Indie Author In Review: Sweet Success!

by

A year ago, during the last week in November and the first weeks of December, I self-published my first book, Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, as an ebook on Smashwords and Kindle, and as a POD book through CreateSpace. I had no history as a published author, no contacts in the publishing world, and no marketing plan. I had a self-created author web-site and blog site, a facebook friends list of about 40, a lovely cover for the book (shout out to my cover designer Michelle Huffaker), and the confidence that I had done everything possible to make my book worthy of being published. I also had hope that if people found my book that they would buy it and like it enough to recommend it to others.

In addition I had discovered a vibrant community of indie authors and ebook experimenters who were blogging away about their own journeys into the world of self-publishing; and what I appreciated was their willingness to provide the details about their experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly, so people like me could learn as we went along. In that spirit I would like to provide a year-end assessment of my own experience, in the expectation this will help encourage other authors who are just starting out on this journey.

First the numbers:
In the first 4 months (December 2009-March 2010) I sold 158 books. 54% were ebooks-the vast majority through Kindle, and 46% print editions, slightly over half through Amazon.com. I made just short of $350—covering my costs–which were $250 for the cover design and $100 for proof copies of the print book and author’s copies to send to reviewers. I was cautiously optimistic, writing in a blog post subtitled “Can I call myself a real published author yet?” that 158 sold books had put me well on the way to the average number of books sold by self-published authors (200), and that I no longer worried that only people I knew would buy the book.

In the second 4 months (April 2010-July 2010) I sold an additional 772 books (making my total 930). 79% were ebooks (again primarily Kindle), and 21% were POD (but now 99% were directly through Amazon.com). I was ecstatic. If the 2006 Chris Anderson “Long Tail” analysis still holds true (and there is little evidence to the contrary), the average number of books per title sold in a year is 500, and 96% of all titles sell less than a 1000 copies. Based on this, my 722 books put me well above average, with an excellent chance to reach that 1000 goal before the end of the year.

In the final 4 months (August 2010-November 2010) I sold 1761 more books, 88 % of these were ebooks (primarily Kindle-which was now paying a 70% royalty) and only 12% were POD books. This meant that in the first year I sold 2691 copies of Maids of Misfortune, garnering me over $5000. (Note, none of this includes the books I have probably sold through Smashword affiliates in the past 2 months, since these balances haven’t come through yet; none reflect the few books I have sold on consignment in local book stores. It also doesn’t include the $300 a made from selling 629 copies at 99 cents of Dandy Detects, the short story I wrote to promote my full-length novel.)

What has this all meant to me?
First, I am just plain flabbergasted. I really didn’t expect to have sold these many books in the first year. While I know that this is a paltry amount for people who have gotten large advances and print runs in the hundred’s of thousands, I also know enough published authors in the midlist book category to know that this is pretty darn impressive for a first time author.

Second, it has completely justified my decision a year ago to self-publish. If in November of last year, I had decided to try the traditional route one more time, the story would have turned out very differently. If I had been lucky enough to get an agent and sell the book to one of the appropriate mystery imprints in this past year, I would have probably gotten an advance of under $3-4,000 (and if I had gone with a small press I might not have gotten any advance.) In either case, the book would not even be out yet, so no one would have read it, and the most I would have earned would have been about $1000 since advances are paid in 2-3 stages. So for 2010, no books sold versus 2600 books and $1,000 versus $5,000.

In case you were wondering, my expenses this year have continued to be low–and pretty much the same marketing costs I would have to incur if I had been traditionally published (business cards, attendance at a mystery convention, cost of entering 2 book contests)–so my net for this past year is definitely better than I would have had publishing through the traditional route.

But what about once the book came out through the traditional route? For 2011, even if the traditional publisher was inordinately speedy and got the book out in 12 instead of the 18 months that is average, and even if it sold a lot more print books than I have been selling, Maids of Misfortune, as a first time genre book, would be unlikely to sell enough copies at the much lower royalty rates of traditional publishers to pay out it’s advance in its first year. This would mean I could not expect to get any additional money, besides the rest of the advance ($2,000 to 3,000) in 2011.

However, there is every reason for me to think that I will do even better next year than I did this year with Maids of Misfortune because my sales rose steadily during the past year, and 65% of my book sales came within the last four months. The first 4 months I sold on average 1.3 books a day. The second 4 months I sold on average 6.3 books a day. The last 4 months of the year I sold on averaged 14.4 books a day, and in the first 4 days of this month (December) I have sold on average 26 books a day. I don’t know if this means that more and more people are hearing about my book and buying it, or that the number of people buying ebooks (the majority of my sales) is rising so sharply that, even if I am not attracting an increasing share of the market for historical mysteries, my total number of books sold will steadily rise. Either way, there is a very good chance that I will sell least 5,000, and maybe as many as 10,000, copies of Maids of Misfortune in 2011, and make at least an additional $10,000-$20,000 in sales. So going through the traditional route, I would have made at most $3,000 in two years; having self-published, I will make at least $8000 and maybe over $20,000 in two years.

Third, this level of success permitted me to make the changes necessary to write full time. As I discussed in my last post, two weeks from now I will retire completely from college teaching (I had been working part time to supplement my retirement income.) This in turn will help me accomplish my goal finishing Uneasy Spirits, the sequel of Maids of Misfortune, and publishing it before the end of next year. If I had published traditionally, with either no advance (small press) or a small advance (as first time author), and the book wasn’t even out yet, I wouldn’t have felt confident enough about the future earning power of Maids of Misfortune to have made this decision at this point.

Conclusion:
I have had a very successful first year as an indie author; however, there is no particular secret to my success. While I have spent most of the past year on this blog talking about why I made the decision to self-publish, what strategies I used, what has worked and what hasn’t, if you read these posts, you will discover that nothing I have done has been particularly brilliant or unique. In most part I have simply followed the advice given out by a number of wonderful experts on their blogs and in their how to guides. See, for example, April Hamilton’s Indie Author Guide, or Zoe Winter’s Becoming an Indie Author, or Joe Konrath’s Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.

What I think an aspiring indie author can learn from my story is that, if you have a book that is well-written and meets professional editing and design standards, and you publish it as an ebook (particularly on Kindle), and you follow the advice of the experts (develop a consistent brand, get the book reviewed, make sure it can be found under the right categories in ebookstores, and participate in the various conversations on the web that will get you and your book noticed), this sort of success is very achievable, even for a newbie. And it can be a lot of fun.

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s The Front Parlor.

Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur and Agent of Change Seth Godin and Amazon Announce "The Domino Project"

by

Want to witness the birth of a totally new trade publishing paradigm? Then check out this press release from Amazon, dated 12/8/10.

Godin’s new publishing imprint the first to use Amazon’s "Powered by Amazon" publishing program

SEATTLE, Dec 08, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) —

International-bestselling author Seth Godin and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that Godin’s new publishing imprint "The Domino Project" will publish an initial list of six titles using Amazon’s new "Powered By Amazon" publishing program. Powered by Amazon enables authors to use Amazon’s global distribution, multiple format production capabilities, including print, audio and digital, as well as Amazon’s personalized, targeted marketing reach.

 

Godin will serve as the lead writer, creative director and instigator for a series of "Idea Manifestos" under his new imprint, The Domino Project, which will include books by other bestselling authors, entrepreneurs and thought leaders. These books will be made available for sale in print editions via Amazon.com and as audiobooks via Amazon.com and Audible.com, at bookstores nationwide and as e-books exclusively in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore).

"I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to break ground and help define what a new publishing model can become," said Godin. "We all know that ideas that spread win, and this new publishing house will enable my colleagues and me to create, write and spread ideas that matter. At the same time, we can leverage Amazon’s strength in what they do best: fulfill to a global audience, across all formats, and help me reach my core audience while increasing discovery among brand new readers. A book that isn’t read doesn’t do anyone any good, and too often, the structure of the book publishing industry gets in the way of books reaching people who can benefit from them. Amazon knows what to do to help these books get read."

"Our goal with Powered by Amazon is to give authors like Seth full creative and editorial control while offering turnkey support for their publishing vision – from distribution to tailored marketing that simply works in getting books out in all formats to customers quickly, efficiently and globally," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. "We’re proud to have Seth’s ‘Idea Manifestos’ as the first books in this program."

Starting today, interested readers can sign up for free updates at www.TheDominoProject.com. Included with the updates will be announcements of free Kindle books and updates about other exclusive content once the books are published in early 2011. Print and audio editions will be available on Amazon.com’s global sites, as well as at bookstores nationwide. Additionally, audio editions will be available on Audible.com. Like all Kindle books, these "Idea Manifestos" are Buy Once, Read Everywhere: Kindle customers can purchase these books and read them on the $139 third-generation Kindle device with new high-contrast Pearl e-Ink, on iPads, iPod touches, iPhones, Macs, PCs, Blackberrys and Android-based devices. Powered by Amazon is a brand for titles published by Amazon Content Services LLC.

About Seth Godin

Seth Godin has written 12 books – all bestsellers – that have been translated into more than 30 languages. He has long been a provocative proponent of changing the way books are created and marketed. Godin writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. American Way Magazine calls him, "America’s Greatest Marketer," and his blog is among the most popular in the world written by a single individual. An entrepreneur since the age of 16, he founded Yoyodyne, his first internet company, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 1998. It pioneered the use of ethical direct mail online, something Seth calls Permission Marketing. He was VP of Direct Marketing at Yahoo! for a year. His latest company, Squidoo.com, is ranked among the top 90 sites in the U.S. (by traffic) by Quantcast. It allows anyone to build a page about any topic you’re passionate about. The site raises money for charity and pays royalties to its million plus members.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle and Kindle DX are the revolutionary portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle and Kindle DX utilize the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon.

 

The ISBN Ownership Question

by

In preparing to publish my first print-on-demand book I’ve had to confront a number of issues. Along with formatting and pricing and cover design I’ve gone back and forth about the ISBN ownership question. In the end I’ve come to a conclusion about ISBN’s that surprises me a bit, but I think I’m right. And if I’m not right, I don’t think it will cost me anything.

If you don’t know much about ISBN’s, don’t feel bad. I didn’t know anything about them until a year ago, when I set out to learn what I could. It’s a measure of how naive I was that I thought ISBN’s were some sort of quasi-governmental tracking number. In fact, ISBN’s are a product sold by the monopolistic R.R. Bowker company (which doesn’t go out of its way to make clear that it is not, in fact, a quasi-governmental agency).

I don’t dispute the publishing industry’s need for something like an ISBN. Given that a single book can be published in different versions and editions, and in different languages and countries, there obviously needs to be some way to differentiate between all those variations. If you want the Romanian large-print edition of Moby Dick, you need some means of ordering that ensures you get the version you’re expecting. The ISBN system makes that possible.

I’m also not against the idea that a for-profit company services the ISBN market. I don’t like monopolies, and R.R. Bowker is clearly a monopoly. But every publisher, bookseller and book manufacturer relies on the ISBN numbering system, and until that changes — or somebody shoves the Sherman Anti-Trust Act down Bowker’s throat — there’s no point in fighting the beast. (Some of you are wondering how multiple companies could hand out ISBN’s without the whole system collapsing. It’s a fair question, answered in full by the various companies registering domain names all over the world.)  

Self-Publishing and the ISBN
As someone on the outside looking in, I understand that I need to adapt to the current system. I also understand that the ISBN system wasn’t designed with self-publishing authors in mind, even though Bowker is aggressively promoting ISBN sales to individual authors as that market explodes. If a print-on-demand publisher requires that my book have an ISBN in order to be published, then that’s the end of that conversation.

I’ve also followed a lot of conversations about the importance of the ISBN to the self-published author, and I’m not in any position to dispute the general consensus, which is that the ISBN number of your book is important to success in the marketplace. Still, as a self-publishing author I think it’s important to remember that what I’m doing is not what most people in the greater publishing industry are doing.

I may be looking to use the same sales channels that everybody else is using, and I may be packaging my content in the same delivery vehicle (a book), but in terms of scale there are significant difference that shouldn’t be ignored. I don’t have an assistant or department dedicated to managing ISBN’s. I don’t have plans for multiple versions of my book. I don’t plan to market my book in a way that will drive sales in one big pulse. And most importantly, I don’t have any way to pass along my ISBN costs to someone else.

The ISBN Question
The question, then, is not whether to use an ISBN because use is compelled. For me, and for many people publishing through services like CreateSpace, the question is whether to buy ISBN’s directly from Bowker or to use ISBN’s provided by the print-on-demand manufacturer. Purchasing one’s own ISBN means ownership and control of the associated metadata. But there’s cost involved, and for many people that cost may not be trivial. CreateSpace provides ISBN’s free to people using its service, but it owns those numbers and the associated metadata.

It’s not an easy question to answer. I went back and forth on this issue for over a year. My instinct is to always make sure I own and control the information that matters to my writing career. Because there’s nothing more central to that ethos than controlling one’s own copyrights, it seems to me that owning one’s own ISBN’s (and controlling the associated metadata) is a good idea.

But. In what I can only describe as a surprise I recently decided that my instinct in this case is wrong. Or, more accurately, the instinct is a good one, but reality is at odds with my philosophical beliefs. The question is not whether I should buy my own ISBN’s or not, but whether the expense is worth it. All things being equal, yes: I would want to own my own ISBN numbers. But all things aren’t equal.

The ISBN Answer
Currently, a single ISBN costs $125. Whatever Bowker’s direct costs in delivering that computer-generated number to me, $125 is not a small amount.

As I said in the previous post, any potential publishing expense can be judged relative to the number of copies that need to be sold in order to recoup that expense. Whatever per-copy royalty I expect from my book, buying my own ISBN is going to cost me money and obligate me to make more sales in order to break even. Using the free ISBN provided by CreateSpace will cost me nothing. And the more I think about self-publishing, and how critical it is for self-published authors to control their costs, the more convinced I am that cost is the only criteria that matters in this case.

Now, at this point proponents of owning one’s own ISBN’s would point out that a block of ten ISBN’s can be purchased from Bowker for $250, or a per-number cost of $25. And yes, I agree that’s a substantial savings over the monpolistically inflated and absolutely indefensible single-ISBN cost of $125. But in order to achieve those savings the self-published author is obligated to double their up-front ISBN expense, meaning twice as many copies will need to be sold to recoup that initial $250 expense.

So that’s my answer. If the choice is between a free (or inclusive) ISBN and an ISBN that I have to pay for myself, then I’m taking the free ISBN on that basis alone. As a self-publishing author I think there are reasons to doubt the value of ISBN ownership all together, and I detail those below. But the bottom line for me is that every penny I save on publishing costs means fewer books I’ll need to sell in order to make a profit, and from a business perspective I can’t deny that logic.

The Value of an ISBN
Again: the question is not whether to have an ISBN, it’s whether to pay for one. I’m making a judgment based on dollars alone — a judgment I believe best protects my interests as an author and business person. I’m not giving ownership of my copyrights away, or in any way letting someone control my work. I’m not locking myself into a proprietary relationship with CreateSpace, because at any point I can buy my own ISBN and release a new edition using that identifier. What I’m doing is saving money.

Those who advocate for author ownership of ISBN’s would say that I’m either putting myself at risk or losing the ability to control my sales channel, but I don’t see that. I’ve looked, I’ve listened to all the arguments, and right now, with my book, I can’t see any value in owning my own ISBN’s that compensates me adequately for the cost.

Specifically:

  • How many people are ever going to ask for my book at a bookstore or search for it online using an ISBN number? I say none, ever.
     
  • How many times have I ever used an ISBN to order or locate a book? Never. Not once in my entire life.
     
  • How many times have I gone to a bookstore looking for a book and had someone ask me for an ISBN? Never.
     
  • How many times have I heard an independent author say that ISBN ownership was critical to their success? Almost never. (The only examples I can recall involve vanity publishers who used control of an ISBN to push an author around. Yes, in such instances I sure it was a relief to be able to buy one’s own ISBN, but I’m not coming from a place of abuse.)
     
  • The people advocating for direct ownership of ISBN’s are either R.R. Bowker or people who make their living selling metadata services to authors and publishers. I don’t fault these people for their views, and I don’t discount their expertise, but I’m not in the business of making other people rich at the expense of my authorial health.
     
  • As already noted, if something changes and I need my own ISBN, I can create a new edition of my book and buy an ISBN. The choice I’m making now will not prevent me from doing anything in the future.
     
  • Making my book available is the most important thing. It opens doors with readers and makes my work available to people who might be looking for content. If somebody else wants to publish my work or translate it or adapt it in another medium then I can revisit the question of ISBN ownership at that time, if its even necessary. In the meantime I’m not out $125, or $250 if I do the ‘smart’ thing.
     
  • The ISBN system was created in the pre-internet days. It solves a problem related to tracking and inventory, not a problem related to marketing and sales. The modern internet search engine, primed with a few keywords, can now connect 99.99% of the people who want to find my title with a point of sale. What else do I need?

Speaking of internet searches, this is a good time to remind readers that the importance and utility of your online presence and author platform obliterates the importance of questions like ISBN ownership. Given the choice between spending $125 on a year of site hosting or an ISBN, the greater value is in the site hosting by a factor of a zillion.

The Internet as Metadata
As testament to that fact, if you type ‘Mark Barrett’ into the Google search bar you’ll see that I show up on the second page of hits. Type in ‘Mark Barrett’ + ‘writer’ and I show up as the first hit on the first page, and on five of the ten hits on that page. Type in ‘Mark Barrett’ + ‘story’ and I’m again the first hit, as well as four of the first ten. Type in ‘Mark Barrett’ + ‘elm’ (from the title of my short story collection, The Year of the Elm), and I show up as the first six hits on the first page. Finally, type in Ditchwalk (as if you somehow couldn’t remember how to find my site from that word) and my site or my name or something about a post I wrote shows up in nine of the first ten hits.

As an independent author (or artist of any kind) you will almost always struggle to meet your economic needs. It’s the nature of the beast, and the price to be paid for following your heart and staying true to your convictions. Every dollar you can avoid spending keeps your dreams alive and makes it possible to write another day, hour or minute. Spending money on an ISBN when you don’t have to makes no sense to me. If I’m wrong about that, if something changes, or if my decision hurts me in some way I’ll follow up. But for the time being, that money is staying in my pocket.

* Bowker sells ISBN’s in various blocks. The largest block is 1,000 ISBN’s for $1,000, or a dollar each. That’s how CreateSpace can provide a free ISBN to me: it only costs them a buck and they can easily recoup that cost in their fees. I see no reason why Bowker should be able to prohibit a third-party registrar from purchasing ISBN’s in blocks of 1,000 and then selling them singly or in groups for whatever the market would bear. I’m sure Bowker would fight the idea tooth and nail (and probably already has), but given how quickly the self-publishing movement has grown and evolved, even over the past year, I think it’s an idea whose time has come. Either that, or Bowker’s monopoly should be given a much closer look by the United States Department of Justice.

 

This is a cross-posting from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

Hi, I'm Your Competition

by

Authors like to talk about how we aren’t all in competition with each other. This is both true and false. There is some truth in it because readers don’t just read ONE author or ONE book ever. (Well, some do, but many do not.) So a reader buying J.R. Ward isn’t going to necessarily not buy me. And many readers read in specific genres, so… for the most part, an author who writes westerns is not going to be competition for an author who writes erotica.

However, human beings have limited resources, both of time and of money. So while it isn’t necessarily true that a reader buying J.R. Ward will never read me… a reader buying and reading 30 different authors who are not me, may not ever read me because they have plenty of other stuff to read that they’re happy with. So yes, other authors are your competition.

Another way to look at this is that if we aren’t all “competing” then why are there bestseller lists? If there is no competition then why does the NYT bestseller list matter to anyone? Why do people scream and jump up and down and tell their friends when they get into the top 100 of the Amazon Kindle store?

Make no mistake… we are in a competitive industry and we are competing. It doesn’t mean the competition has to be nasty or rude. It doesn’t mean we can’t band together with some other authors and help each other out. But it does mean that we need to logically look at the situation and stop pretending the laws of economics somehow mystically don’t apply to us.

Writers are traditionally horrible business people, so it should be no surprise that most have no concept that we are actually in competition with each other.

Many people try to discourage authors from self-publishing with all kinds of fake reasons, but the bottom line is that indie authors pose a threat. Indie authors are ANOTHER layer of competition. When everyone was funneled through the same narrow gates to achieve publication, readers had less choices and there was less competition.

With so few readers compared to other types of entertainment and so many people wanting to write and now self-publish, rest assured, indie authors are a threat. If someone is reading 10 talented indies, that’s less odds they’ll read a NY book, where the author’s contract depends on maintaining a certain level of interest in his or her work.

This isn’t to say readers will read “only” NY books or “only” indie books. It rarely works out that way. But I think it’s important to remember we are ALL competing, whether we like it or not. That’s what business is. A competition.

Indies and trad pubbed authors are all competing for the same limited pool of readers… and a small portion of their available money and time.

So what is the solution to this? It all seems rather grim. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Work on connecting with and finding YOUR readers. Work on building your platform. Focus on YOUR work. It’s competitive, but everything in life human beings actually WANT to do is competitive. If you don’t like the nature of competition, apply to be a janitor. It’s probably less competitive.

 

This is a reprint from the Weblog of Zoe Winters.

7 Ways to Get Your Book Discovered on Amazon

by

This  post is part of the virtual book tour for How to Sell More Books on Amazon, by Dana Lynn Smith.

With a vast selection of 14 million books listed on Amazon.com, it can be a challenge to get your book noticed by shoppers on the site. Here are seven ways to help customers find you and your book on Amazon:

1. Use Keywords in the Title and Subtitle of Your Book

Many shoppers search for books on Amazon by doing keyword searches, so it’s important to use relevant keywords in the title and/or subtitle of your book.

If you’re publishing in Kindle format, it’s easy to add a subtitle if the book doesn’t already have one, and there’s also a keyword area on the publishing dashboard where you can input keywords.

2. Tag Your Book with Keywords

Another way to take advantage of keyword searches is to add keywords through Amazon’s Tag feature.

On your book sales page, scroll down to the "Tags Customers Associate With This Product" area and add keywords that people might use in searching for a book such as yours. When you ask people to post reviews of your book on Amazon.com, ask them to also click on the appropriate tags (each click gives the tag one vote) or add new tags.

The tag feature works for fiction as well. Adding tags can help shoppers find your book when they search for things like "cozy mystery set in the South" or "children’s books about horses".

3. Post Reviews of Other Products

Posting reviews of other related books and products is a good way to get visibility for yourself and your book. You’ll get exposure through the "signature" at the top of your profile and you can also make subtle references in your review to the fact that you are an author or expert on the topic.

4. Publish in Kindle Format

There are more than 720,000 ebooks available in the Kindle store, and the number is rising rapidly. But that’s still far fewer than the 14 million print book listings on Amazon.com, giving you a greater chance of being found.

5. Create Lists and Guides

You can get visibility on the Amazon sales pages of competing or complementary books by creating Listmania® lists or "So You’d Like To" guides. These features let you create a list of books on a particular topic or genre, including your own book.

6. Enhance Your Personal Profile on Amazon

In your personal profile on Amazon, you can post your photo, a description of yourself and your book, and even a link to your website. Be sure create a "signature" with the name of your book or your area of expertise, because the signature will appear, along with your name, at the top of each product review that you post on Amazon. For example, my signature is "The Savvy Book Marketer."

7. Participate in Amazon Customer Communities

Check the Customer Discussions section of your own book sales page or the pages of competing books and look for discussions that you can contribute to, without being overtly promotional. For nonfiction authors, this is a way to demonstrate your expertise in a subject.

To learn more about using these tactics to get your book discovered on Amazon, read How to Sell More Books on Amazon. This new ebook, available in both PDF and Kindle format, outlines strategies for boosting visibility on Amazon.com, increasing sales, and improving profits. For more book marketing tips, follow BookMarketer on Twitter and get Dana’s free Top Book Marketing Tips ebook at www.TheSavvyBookMarketer.com

Self-Publishing and Distribution: Jacqueline Simonds of Beagle Bay Books, Part 1

by

Today I’m interviewing Jacqueline Simonds of Beagle Bay, Inc. I met Jacqueline on Twitter, and because she is the distributor of Pete Masterson’s Book Design and Production for Authors and Publishers.

New self-publishers have a lot of trouble figuring out how book distribution works. Jacqueline, a self-published author, has a unique view on distribution, and carries books by a number of self-published authors.

Here’s a chance to get the story on book distribution from someone who is on the front lines every day. This is a great opportunity so I hope you’ll follow along for both days. It’s well worth it.

Jacqueline also sent along this note:

First, it must be noted that Beagle Bay, Inc is winding down its distribution services. As I will explain a little further into this, we feel that for most self-publishers, using Ingram’s Lightning Source International Print-on-Demand and Direct Distribution is a great way to leverage a start-up publishing company. Our business model has always been about helping small publishing start-ups, so we are making the transition to an all-consultation company.

So although you may not be able to use Beagle Bay to distribute your book, we get to reap the wisdom Jacqueline has gained as a long-time publishing professional with a deep understanding of the self-publisher’s situation.

Because this interview ran very long, I’ve split it into two posts. The second half will run tomorrow. Here’s Part 1:

Not many kids dream of becoming book distributors when they grow up. How did you find yourself in this business?

Ha! No, I never imagined myself as a distributor!

All I wanted to do, back in 1999, was to get my novel, Captain Mary, Buccaneer, into print. But back then, there was no Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean, and no publishing house could imagine why an adult would want to read about pirates. Particularly, a woman pirate.

Jacqueline Simonds Beagle Bay Books self-publishing

So I learned the ins and outs of self-publishing. Fairly soon, we were approached by someone with another women pirate novel, and we published that. Then we published 3 more books.

We were lucky enough to get into the book industry when Ingram and Baker & Taylor (the two biggest wholesalers) were testing the waters with the big new wave of self-publishers. They allowed us to play on the same playing field as the big guys. But by 2002, Ingram decided they didn’t want to deal with anyone with fewer than 10 books and $20,000 a year in sales with them. We squeaked in, but a lot of people were thrown out.

At the same time, a lot of smaller distributors went under. This left a lot of self- and small publishers with no distribution (and sometimes having to buy their books back from a bankruptcy court). One such person was a friend of one of our authors, and convinced us to distribute her good-selling travel book. We took it on. And then someone else heard about that. And then someone else…

Voila! We were in the distribution business!

Can you explain the difference between and distributor and a wholesaler?

A wholesaler acquires books from publishers and distributors and sells them to a retailer. Basically, wholesalers aggregate goods so that a retailer has broader access to – in this case – numerous book titles.

A distributor takes on many publishers to get their books into as many wholesalers (and retailers) as possible. For self-and small publishers, this is an important function. Retailers and wholesalers tend to ignore a one-book press. Retailers especially hate writing multiple checks to tiny little publishers (and given that the owner is often the bookkeeper & cleaning person, you can see why they do). Getting into a distributor allows you to leverage your tiny company so that it has as much access to the book trade as, say, Random House. (Note that access does not mean sales.)

Distributors take in pallets of books from the publisher, do all the accounting, inventory management, shipping, and accepting returns.

Distributors discount the book at 65-70% off list price. This breaks down as such: 10-15% of the list price goes to the distributor; 15% goes to the wholesaler; 40% of that discount goes to the retailer. [In most retail businesses goods are marked up 100-1500%. This is why bookstores are failing. There’s simply not enough margin.]

Wholesalers may take as few as 1 copy of a title to fulfill orders from retailers. Shipping “onesies” is too expensive to sustain. This is why your title mixed with others by a distributor helps lower your costs.

For a lengthier discussion, please see my webpage about the pros and cons of each here: New Self-Publisher’s FAQ

Can you tell us a little of your experience with subsidy publishers?

I have little experience with subsidy publishers. A book produced via a subsidy press cannot be distributed to the author’s fiscal gain. That’s because the per book (unit) cost is so high, there’s no room for the 70% charged by a distributor.

The two other problems I have run into with clients who have used subsidy press services are that a) the subsidy press owns the ISBN (so the metadata points to them, instead of the actual publisher/author), and b) at one point, two subsidy presses locked up authors into 20-year contracts and a written release had to be acquired. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.

Unless you are only producing 10 books for your family, I would avoid a subsidy press.

Is traditional distribution right for today’s self-publisher or start-up small press?

For almost all self-publishers, I recommend that they reject the traditional distribution model.

Traditional distribution demands that a publisher print AT LEAST 1000 offset printed copies, arrange storage with a distributor and take returns. That’s a lot of upfront money to tie up on a risky venture. Although we all hope to sell scads of our wonderful, terrific book, hoping is not really a good business model.

For almost all self-publishers, I recommend that they reject the traditional distribution model.

A more conservative business model is to produce the book via Ingram Wholesale’s Lightning Source International, the largest digital print-on-demand facility in the world.

  • The pro: While as a digital printer, their prices are very competitive (most subsidy printers use LSI, so why not just go to the source?), they also offer distribution to the book trade: other wholesalers, libraries, bookstores and e-stores.
  • The con: Because it is digital, the per book printing cost is higher, but there is no shipping to a warehouse (and the fees that entails), then shipping to a destination. The book is only produced when there’s an order, and shipped at no cost to that destination (unless you are ordering a quantity for yourself). So the higher cost balances out.

If you select the distribution model, they will charge 55% off the list price of the book to ship to wholesalers & stores. You will also need to accept returns, if you intend to make the book available to bookstores.

Not aiming at bookstores or libraries? It’s probably smarter to go to Amazon’s CreateSpace (affiliate) and have the book done there. Then it will be available on Amazon (and they can send you copies). You can specify no returns and only a 20% discount.

Your business model is the only way you can make these choices. If you know absolutely (not just hope, but have the pre-orders/demand) that you can sell 3000 copies of your book in the first year, then you need to do the traditional distribution route (get a distributor, print the books offset). This method is a lower cost per unit, but a higher cost per distribution. If you expect to sell directly to your customer (and that includes Amazon), then there’s no reason to do anything else besides CreateSpace.

Most start-up self-publishers are wise to select the LSI printing route. This gives the book the optimum chance to succeed in the highly competitive book world (1 million books per year are published – and it’s not a meritocracy). If the book doesn’t succeed, then the publisher has exposed her/himself to a lower risk/loss. If the book does take off (sells more than 1000 in 2 quarters), the publisher can always switch to the traditional method of distribution and printing.

What kind of books do you distribute?

We started with women’s historical adventure fiction. Then one day we realized that the non-fiction was outselling the fiction 10-to-1. So we stopped accepting fiction.

We changed to Women’s Issues – which is broad enough to cover a lot of bases (I like what I like and love to work with new publishers on a great book). We also have done a lot with travel (who does most of the travel planning in a household? Right. Women).

What are the criteria you are looking for when deciding whether to take on a publisher as a distribution client?

Like many distributors, we only take a book 4-6 months before it is published. We do this because we assist in getting the book into pre-publication reviewers (like Publishers Weekly and Library Journal) for a chance at a review that can build strong sales at the book launch. Libraries especially do not buy unless they see a review in Library Journal or Booklist – and this can mean 1000 or more books sold. So it’s worth the hassle of getting galleys and sending the book out 4 months before the publication date.

I want to see books that have a new, needed approach to a subject. Understanding the audience is a key factor here.

The two key things I look for with a new book are:

  1. What’s it about – and who does it serve? If the book is just another naval-gazing self-absorbed memoir, I don’t have time for it –and neither does the industry. If the book was produced in the absence of any research or understanding of the facts, I have no interest. I want to see books that have a new, needed approach to a subject. Understanding the audience is a key factor here. If the author/publisher can tell me, “this book addresses the 18-34 age group of women who have burning questions about how ____ affects their lives – and what to do about it” I’m all ears. It doesn’t hurt to have a blurb (endorsement) or foreword by someone pretty big in the field.
     
  2. The other thing that I look at is the marketing plan. How is the author/publisher going to make the world aware of this book? As I’ve mentioned before, the book trade is not a meritocracy. Just because your book is the very best on the subject, it doesn’t mean a mediocre book by someone published by Random House wouldn’t completely obliterate your title. How can you reach your audience/customer directly in a way Random et al can’t? I want to see concrete steps and work you’ve already done to make that happen, even before the book is out.

In cases where publishers are moving from a digital to an offset print model, I would want to see sales trends and how the publisher was going to sustain and grow those numbers.

Which self-published books are most successful in your kind of distribution?

I used to think I had an idea of what kind of self-pubbed books sold and which didn’t. Since then, I’ve seen people succeed wildly with books I wouldn’t have given 10 minutes to. The single common factor to success was great marketing and the author never, ever gave up.

In general, though, I’d say that poetry, memoirs and novels are the very hardest things to succeed at. Non-fiction – and topics that fill a niche not being currently served – is the best path to success. It’s not easy finding that sweet spot.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: see part two of this interview, also]

 

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

A Writer's Night Before Christmas

by

In honor of the holiday season, I’m digging up this old chestnut from last year. I hope you enjoy it!

Twas the night before Christmas and all through my draft
Were examples of my inattention to craft
My characters all hung about without care,
In hopes that a plot point soon would be there.
 

My family were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of red herrings danced in my head.
The dog on its blanket, and the cat in my lap
Had just settled themselves for a long winter’s nap.


When on my computer there showed a blue screen!
(And if you use a PC, then you know what that means.)
Away to the cell phone I flew like a flash;
I dialed tech support and broke out in a rash.


The sales pitch that played while on hold I waited
Ensured my tech guy would be roundly berated.
That is, if he ever should come on the line.
And for this, per minute, it’s one-ninety-nine!


“Good evening,” he said, in a Punjab accent,
“I am happy to help you, and my name is Kent.”
More rapid than the Concorde was his troubleshoot,
I was back up and running, after one last reboot!


"Now Gaiman! Now, Atwood! Now, Cheever and Austen!
Salinger! O’Connor! Shakespeare and Augusten (Burroughs)!
Don’t withhold your wisdom! Upon me, bestow it!
Inspire me! Show me how best not to blow it!"


To their books I turned for some worthy advice;
I was pumped to return to my work in a trice.
So across clacking keyboard my fingers they flew,
With a speed and a passion—and no typos, too.


Hour after hour, the prose kept on flowing,
Though I had no idea where my story was going.
“But write it, I must!” I decided right then.
I resolved to see this project through to the end.


At one a.m. the second act came together,
At two I knew this book was better than ever!
My hero had purpose, my plot had no slack.
I cut my “B” story and never looked back!


I got up to make coffee at quarter to three;
Curses! My spouse left no Starbucks for me!
With instant crystals I’d have to make do.
Cripes! He used all of the half and half, too!


“I could add some Kahlua,” I told myself.
“There’s a big, honking bottle right there on the shelf.”
So I added a splash. And then a splash more.
At five, I finally came to on the floor.


With more Kahlua than coffee in the cup nearby,
An idea for the third act I wanted to try.
Werewolves! In high school! And vampires, as well!
It worked for that Meyer chick, my book’s a sure sell!


I tied up the plot in a neat little a bow,
With the arrival of aliens, and giant worms from below.
Defeated were foes of the Earth and the sky,
And thousands of townsfolk did not have to die.


With the Kahlua bottle all but drained,
I turned to do the last bit of work that remained.
To this one tradition, I was happy to bend.
Two carriage returns, all in caps: THE END. 

To Facebook I sprang, to announce I was through.
From thence, on to Twitter, and MySpace too.
But lo, I exclaimed as my face met the sun,
"Twenty-four days late, my NaNoWriMo is done!"

 

Amazon Must Kill the Kindle, and Other E-Book Reader Developments

by

This article, by Erik Sherman, originally appeared on bnet on 1/8/10. It’s interesting to revisit the information and opinion contained within it eleven months later.

The line of announcements on the e-book reader front, both at CES and out in the rest of the world, has become prodigious. It seems like almost every week someone comes out with a new one. And that’s exactly the reason that, for the good of itself, its investors, and everyone else, Amazon (AMZN) should kill off its Kindle.

There was a point when pushing its own device helped jump-start a relatively nascent form of publishing and drove others, like Sony and Barnes & Noble to either improve or introduce their own units. And it’s easy to understand how Amazon wanted a vibrant e-book market: better potential pricing because of no printing, virtually zero inventory costs, limitless availability, and instant gratification for customers.

The seeming potential has become obvious to almost everyone in the industry (or trying to get into it), as recent announcements have shown:

  • Magazine publisher Hearst is backing the Skiff, with high resolution and the ability for full-motion video.
     
  • Notion Ink announced the yet-to-ship Adam.
     
  • Plastic Logic finally showed its lightweight Que after over a year of promising to.
     
  • Borders Book Group (BGP) and Spring Design have a deal to sell the latter’s Alex reader, which has dual screens (one to show Internet links) and runs Android.
     
  • Book distributor Baker & Taylor, working with K-NFB Reading Technology, announced rich media reader software called Blio, which hopefully will be successful or likely attain the moniker Blooey.

It’s a pretty full slate that faces twin pressures.


Read the rest of the article on bnet.

Cheap Books Or Surviving Business?

by

I recently posted about how Aussies can get great prices on books right now because the Aussie dollar and the US dollar are at around 1:1 for the first time. Chuck McKenzie, recently wrote about how cheap online stores are a real threat to bookshops. He cited my post in his own. Chuck’s a good friend of mine, a writer and makes his career as a bookseller, so there’s a good case to be made from his perspective and I certainly don’t take any offence that he would use my post to help back up his own position. He makes many good points that are worth considering.

Chuck’s points about the comparisons between online bookstores and the paralell importation issues are valid. Follow the links in Chuck’s post to learn more. Chuck says:

I’m not pissed off that people are buying online – I’m pissed off at the lack of balance, in that so many people – and, it must be said, so many of the same people who vigorously defended the rights of authors and publishers during the PI debacle – are now singing the praises of the online booksellers without apparently taking stock of what effect this shift in consumer behaviour will mean for traditional booksellers.

I’m rather torn on this subject. I want there to be traditional booksellers. I love bookshsops. I love the people that run bookshops. I’ve always dreamed of owning a bookshop, though I know it’s a pipe dream. But I also love cheap books, because that means I can afford to buy more. I love shopping online because I live in the country and the internet is like a massive mall right on my desk. I’m also a big fan of ebooks, Print-On-Demand as an alternate publishing model and so on. The face of publishing and book selling is changing. We’re moving into the future every day.

The problem is that these things are market driven. While I would love to support Australian stores by buying from them, if I can get two books for the price of one by going online, I probably will. I guess bookshops need to rise to the challenge and offer something the online stores can’t. If they can’t compete with pricing, they need something else to keep them viable. What that something else might be is anyone’s guess. But market forces will ensure that bookshops survive or die based on the services they offer. It would be great if it were different, but we can’t hold back progress, even if it kills things. Which is regularly does.

In my own case, my novels are published in the US. There’s no domestic Australian distribution. So the only way to get them is online. I have some copies here and am always happy to send out a signed copy to anyone that buys one, but it’ll cost them more than if they bought it from Amazon or Book Depository. Maybe having a signed copy is enough to warrant the extra expense on their part. I also sell them at cons and have books in a variety of bookstores that are generous enough to stock them for me. Chuck’s store is one of those and I’m extremely grateful to Chuck for helping me to shift books by making them available on Australian shelves.

You may remember the instore signing I did recently. That was at Chuck’s shop and it was excellent fun, we all sold some books and had a great time. I don’t want to see things like that stop. I don’t want Chuck’s career to get eaten by progress.

Perhaps it’s worth all of us stopping periodically to check before we buy a book. Maybe we should think about local business over price and try to help bookstores survive. But it’s not really our job to do that. We’re the consumers and we’ll be guided by the market and the prices. As a writer, I want as many bookstores as possible, because that should mean more sales for me. I can’t see bookstores ever disappearing completely. But while we wait for the shops to come up with ways to keep themselves going, maybe we should do all within our means to support them in the meantime.

 

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