Publishing

Quick Link: How to Create a Smart + Savvy Publishing Plan

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We have talked about having a marketing plan and even a writing plan. Kristen Kieffer thinks we should be looking at it differently, that we need a publishing plan. Head over to She’s Novel to see if you agree.

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How to Create a Smart + Savvy Publishing Plan

Search for planHello again, lovely friends! I’m so happy you’re here because I am super pumped to talk about today’s topic.

Like, SUPER pumped y’all. Why? Because I get a wee bit passionate sometimes, especially when it comes to helping you guys avoid major (and unfortunately all too common) writing mistakes. Let me back up a second.

So you can find writing, publishing, and marketing “rules” all over the internet, right? I mean, plenty of them are right here on this site, so I am totally not against the “rules”. But I’m also not *not* against the “rules”. And that’s because the “rules” are often techniques that reflect a pattern of successful fiction.

In other words, the “rules” are usually backed by data, wisdom, and years of experience.

But they’re also not the total sum of every writer’s experience ever. We’re all different, and so while most of us (and most of our stories) can benefit from following classic writing “rules”, there are also the outliers. The marks that fly waaaay off the graph.

Catch my drift?

And so, while I’m 100% positive that this relatively new writing “rule” we’re going to talk about today works for some people, I don’t think it has nearly enough time, research, data, and experience to back it up. What “rule” am I getting at here?

I’m talking about the idea that you need to start publishing ASAP if you want your best chance at success.

I’ve seen this advice everywhere lately, and I get where it’s coming from. It’s implying two things, really:

A) That it’s going to take time to begin building your readership, so you should start now.

B) That your first published book is unlikely to be your best, so you might as well get it out of the way and start working on the next one.

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In The News – Indie Authors to Finally See their Books on B&N Shelves

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In The News – Articles Of Interest For Authors

This should be filed under about effing time, if it works out. I have been rooting for B&N to become competitive with Amazon and Apple. The more choices authors and readers have, the better. But B&N continually steps on their own feet.  There are quality based caveats on an indie author having their titles in the store,  which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But will B&N manage to make good this time? Head on over to Good eReader for the full story.

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Indie Authors to Finally See their Books on B&N Shelves

June 28, 2016 By Mercy Pilkington

barnes_nobleAbout three years ago, then-VP, Digital Content and GM of Barnes and Noble’s Nook Press division Theresa Horner sat down with GoodEReader at the Frankfurt Book Fair to discuss the state of the company, namely its self-publishing option and its ebook self-publishing platform. She posed the question as to what it would take to effectively compete with Amazon. Our response–which was not at all tongue in cheek–was for the retailer to stop banning indie authors’ books from brick-and-mortar stores. If Nook Press had developed a viable print-on-demand option and then told authors there was even a possibility of seeing their titles in their local bookstore on the condition that they pulled their books from Amazon’s exclusive KDP Select program, authors would have jumped at the chance.

Unfortunately, that didn’t come to pass and Theresa Horner is no longer with the company. The concept of opening the doors–and the shelves–to great self-published titles fell by the wayside.

Since that time, B&N has announced two print-on-demand options, both of which fell far short of meeting indie authors’ and small press publishers’ needs. One was to simply allow the upload and creation of print editions for what basically amounted to collectors’ editions and gift giving. The books were not listed for sale through B&N, and there was a significant upfront charge to produce them–unlike CreateSpace, just to name one example, that charges nothing to produce a print book then takes a portion of the sales price after it distributes the book to Amazon. Even though the Nook Press print option also included the choice to create a hardcover edition, there was no help in selling the print titles.

Read the full post on Good eReader

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Quick Links: Turning Losing into Winning: The Kindle Scout Experience

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Have you heard of Amazon’s Kindle Scout program? I love it! Authors submit their titles to the program in hopes of winning a publishing contract through Amazon. Users vote on the different titles and if a book that they nominated is selected, they get a free copy.

But even if you are not selected for a publishing contract, authors can still win. The people that voted for you are notified when the book goes on sale at Amazon. I have purchased titles this way because I didn’t want to miss out on the story.  Melissa Bowersock at Indies Unlimited has all the details.

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Turning Losing into Winning: The Kindle Scout Experience

Melissa Bowersock

Posted on

kscoutWhen I finished my latest book, Finding Travis, a time travel story, I sent it out to beta readers and prepared to self-publish as I always do. But then a friend began broadcasting the news that she had entered her latest book in the Kindle Scout program and was looking for nominations. I remembered that another friend had entered his book in the program months ago, and had won the coveted publishing contract with Amazon. Because I really, really liked this new book of mine, and because I had built up quite a decent fan base, I decided to try Kindle Scout for myself.

The Kindle Scout campaign is a two-pronged deal. Amazon evaluates the book on its own merit, but they also look at the number of nominations a book receives from potential readers. Because Amazon doesn’t ever tell us how it writes its algorithms or how it decides what’s a winning book and what isn’t, it’s hard to know exactly how to go after the win. The only things that were in my control were (1) writing a good book; and (2) getting as many people as possible to nominate the book. So that’s what I did.

Some people might balk at the idea of nominating a book they haven’t read. I totally understand. However, Kindle Scout creates a landing page for each book and includes the cover, a short blurb, and the first chapter as a sample for voters to read. Readers can then decide for themselves if they feel the book is a winner, or they might simply go on the author’s past performance.

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Quick Links: What is the Kindle “Delivery Cost” and How Does it Affect Me?

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If you upload your eBook to Amazon you will be faced with a “delivery cost” which is based on the digital size of your manuscript. Thanks to RJ Crayton at Indies Unlimited for going into detail about this cost. Just so you know, there are ways to shrink the file size, so if you end up with a big enough delivery cost you might want to talk to someone about reducing the file size.

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What is the Kindle “Delivery Cost” and How Does it Affect Me?

Author RJ CraytonPosted on June 27, 2016

CostsFor those new to Kindle publishing, questions often arise about the Kindle delivery cost. Some people aren’t sure what it is, who it affects, and if there’s a way to make it go away. Today, I’m going to give a quick overview of the fee and what it means to authors.

What is the fee? It’s the amount of money Amazon charges you to deliver a book to customers. The amount is determined by the size of your book and is based on a dollar per megabyte rate. You can find the exact rates here. However, I’ll offer up the rates for the four largest English-speaking markets. The US, Australia, and Canada are $0.15/MB in their countries’ respective currency; and the UK is £0.10/MB.

Will the fee be expensive? That depends on the kind of book you’ve got. Most books that are primarily text will come in under a megabyte. However, once you start adding images to your books, you will really increase the file size and start incurring a large delivery fee. So, if you’re selling a photo book, a cookbook, a comic, a children’s picture book, or anything that’s image heavy, you could end up with a large delivery fee.

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Quick Link: What Authors Should Know About OCR

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OCR or optical character recognition is when someone scans text and uses a computer program to recognize and pull the text from the scan. This is very important to know if you have created an eBook from an older manuscript because OCR is notorious for having issues. At Digital Book World, explains.

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What Authors Should Know About OCR

By: Ben Denckla | June 27, 2016

Typewritten manuscripts are especially difficult for OCR
Typewritten manuscripts are especially difficult for OCR

Expert publishing blog opinions are solely those of the blogger and not necessarily endorsed by DBW.

If you published a book before 2008, its ebook edition was probably created using optical character recognition (OCR). And if your ebook was created using OCR, it probably has typos in it. That’s the bad news.

The good news: you don’t have to accept this situation.

What’s special about the year 2008? Nothing, really. I just chose 2008 because the first Kindle came out in late 2007. So 2008 is the earliest year I can imagine a significant number of publishers adopting a single-source workflow: a workflow in which the ebook is created from the same files used to create the paper book. For example, nowadays Adobe InDesign can create an ebook and a paper book (well, a PDF) from the same file. A single-source workflow avoids OCR and OCR-caused typos. It doesn’t avoid all problems, but it goes a long way toward making higher-quality ebooks.

Many publishers continued to use OCR for books published more recently than 2008. On the other hand, commendably, some publishers used single-source workflows for books published before 2008. Since files may be available for books published as long ago as the 1970s, single-source workflows are possible (though unlikely) for books published while Jeff Bezos was still a child.

The bottom line for authors is this: regardless of its year of paper publication, ask your publisher whether OCR was used to create the ebook edition of your book.

If OCR was used, your ebook probably has typos in it. It was probably spellchecked, but not carefully. The whole conversion, including spellchecking, was probably outsourced to inexpensive workers who, even if their English skills were good, were probably working under severe time constraints. And even the most careful spellchecking, as you know, is no substitute for good old proofreading. Your ebook was almost certainly not proofread.

So what can you do?

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Quick Link: Is KDP Select Right for You?

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One of the tougher decisions for authors is to sign up with Amazon exclusively, through KDP select,  and get higher rewards, or to go with a variety of vendors and get lesser monies from Amazon. Marcy Kennedy tries to help you decide what is best for you. Head on over to Fiction University to learn more. What have your experiences been?

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Is KDP Select Right for You?

kdp-selectThursday, June 23
By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy

Part of the Indie Author Series

One of the choices we need to make when we publish our book is whether we’re going to distribute wide or go exclusive. Up until this point, I’ve always gone wide, but with a new series scheduled for release in November, the idea of going exclusive has been on my mind a lot lately.

Distributing wide means that we’ll offer our book for sale at all the major retailers—Amazon, Barnes & Noble, AppleiBooks, and Kobo at least.

Going exclusive, at this point, means we’re putting our ebook into Amazon’s KDP Select program. Amazon’s terms of service for the KDP Select program state that we can’t sell or give away the enrolled ebooks anywhere else. You agree to this exclusivity for 90 days at a time, and then you can either continue in the program for another 90 days or opt out. In exchange, they offer you some perks they don’t offer to books that aren’t enrolled.

Three important things we need to keep in mind are…

Don’t confuse this with simply publishing through Kindle Direct Publishing. They’re not the same thing. KDP Select is an option for authors who publish through Kindle Direct Publishing, but you can publish on the Kindle Direct Publishing portal without enrolling in KDP select. Enrollment isn’t automatic or mandatory.

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Quick Links: Busting Myths about Book Reviews

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A good book cover and title will get a potential reader to look closer at your story, and a good description goes a long way. But it is still book reviews that most people use to decide whether or not to invest the time into reading a title. On Live Write Thrive, the esteemed C. S. Lakin bust some myths about book reviews.

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Busting Myths about Book Reviews

Busting myths so hard!
Busting myths so hard!

June 23, 2016

For Throwback Thursday, we’re looking at excerpts from past posts on Live Write Thrive. Today’s post is from 6 Common Myths About Book Reviews, by Dana Lynn Smith:

Book reviews are a powerful promotional tool, but there are some misconceptions about how to obtain them. Here are some common myths about getting book reviews.

  •  Myth #1 – Book reviews are just for new books.

It’s true that book review journals read by librarians and booksellers review books at or soon after publication. It’s best to focus your review efforts during the first year of a book’s life, but some venues will review older books.

  •  Myth #2 – No one will review a self-published book.

It is more challenging for self-published authors and small presses to get reviews in certain venues, but it’s certainly not impossible. Self-published books are far more likely to be reviewed if they are produced to industry standards (well written, edited and designed). A number of book review websites welcome self-published books or even focus specifically on them, and there are several book journals like Midwest Book Review that are friendly to independent and small presses.

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Quick Links: What’s the Best Print on Demand Service for Self-published Paperbacks?

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Print on demand is such a wonderful option for authors who want to expand from their eBook offering.  helps you to ask the right questions on what to expect from POD services, and which option is right for you. Go to Self Publishing Advice Center to learn more.

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What’s the Best Print on Demand Service for Self-published Paperbacks?

By Jay Artale

This looks expensive.
This looks expensive.

June 21, 2016

In a new occasional series here on the blog, ALLi’s Communications Manager Jay Artale dips into our vast Author Advice Centre archive of information and distills the answers to some of the most frequent questions among self-publishing authors.

Before you dive headlong into creating a paperback version of your ebook you should ask yourself why you want a print version in the first place, which will give you all the information you need to choose the right print partner to achieve your self-publishing goals.

Many of the decisions regarding printing your books will depend on your goals. If you only intend to sell online, you’ll have fewer decisions to make. If you intend to try and get into brick-and-mortar stores, you have a lot more to consider. Quality and cost are considerations, but ease of use also comes into play when making your POD decisions.

Determine your POD goals

Choosing a print partner is not as much about money as it might seem at first. It’s a decision that can only be answered after you determine exactly what you want to do with your printed book. Here are five questions to ask yourself:

  1. Are you going to be primarily an ebook author with a few printed books for promotional purposes?
  2. Are you going to restrict print sales to online, through the pbook retailer and your own website?
  3. Are you going to limit yourself to a few local or handpicked bookstores?
  4. Are you going to go all out and try to get a distributor and do a print campaign with the associated trade-style publicity in newspapers and other media that is necessary to sell books in this way. If yes, why?
  5. Have you realistically budgeted time and money costs?

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Quick Links: Should You Self-Publish or Traditionally Publish?

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Jane Freeman tackles the question should you try to publish traditionally or go the self-publishing route.  She gives you some thoughts you might not have heard before.  Personality has a lot to do with it. As someone who is self-employed, self-publishing seems a more likely route for me, if I ever get a book finished. ; )

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Should You Self-Publish or Traditionally Publish?

June 21, 2016

The key is to know yourself. You got to check yourself, before you wreck yourself.
The key is to know yourself. You got to check yourself, before you wreck yourself.

by Jane Friedman

Are you wondering if you should self-publish or traditionally publish? You’re not alone. The same question is on the minds of many writers I meet, regardless of their career path or how established they are.

When I began working in the publishing industry in the mid-1990s, a stigma surrounded both self-published books and self-published authors. I recall speaking at the Chicago chapter of the Romance Writers of America in the mid-2000s, and running a workshop on how to self-publish. About three people showed up and two of them were already self-published; it was by far the worst-attended session I’ve ever run at a major writing event. At the time, self-publishing was not a well-regarded path to success, and it indicated some kind of author failing or eccentricity.

Times have (dramatically) changed, and now some self-published authors accuse traditionally published authors of being misguided or short-sighted in their allegiance to a “legacy” system.

But there is no single right answer to this question because it’s context dependent. That means the right answer can change—even for the same author—from book to book, and from year to year.

This post outlines what I think are the biggest factors that play into the decision.

1. Do you expect or want to see your book stocked in bookstores across the country?
It next to impossible for a self-published author with a single title to achieve wide-scale distribution for their book at bricks-and-mortar stores. You may be able to get your book stocked locally or regionally, especially if you have the right connections or are a well-known person in your community. But for the most part, a self-published authors’ books will sell primarily through online retail, whether as a print book or an e-book. That’s not the drawback it used to be, given that more than half of all books sold in the United States sell through Amazon (regardless of format).

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In The News: Timberland libraries now offer access to self-published books

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Libraries get more offerings for their patrons, authors get more exposure.
Libraries get more offerings for their patrons, authors get more exposure.

In The News – Articles Of Interest For Authors

While this is a local news item, I am sharing for the information on Self-e.  Self-e is a free program for authors and small publishers to get their books into local libraries. The Olympian is just one news organization that is highlighting the opportunities this presents for authors.  Anyone out there tried Self-e? If so let us know your results.

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Timberland libraries now offer access to self-published books

By Ben Muir bmuir@theolympian.com

  • SELF-e is a website that lets libraries distribute the work of independent authors
  • It helps authors who don’t have publishing houses increase their visibility
  • It increases the library’s offerings for patrons

There are two ways to publish a book these days.

The first is through the six prominent publishing companies that are still the recommended route to maximum exposure.

The other is through independent publishing, an approach authors take when they haven’t signed with an agent or a publishing house, but still want their work to be read.

And there was no middle ground until SELF-e became the compromise.

SELF-e is a website that lets libraries distribute the work of independent authors, and offer an array of genres and content for subscribing patrons.

The Timberland Regional Library system has joined thousands of other libraries across the country in providing SELF-e offerings, said Timberland public relations specialist R.J. Burt.

“One of the barriers for writers is being recognized enough to be picked up by a large publishing house,” Burt said. “Libraries have broken down that barrier for writers, so they should certainly use it.”

How it helps local authors

Publishing on SELF-e is not only free but effortless, said Kim Storbeck, a library collections development specialist. After authors upload a book to SELF-e, there is a vetting process that takes roughly a week.

Read the full post on The Olympian

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Quick Links: From Trad-Pub to Self-Pub–Tips and Observations

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Elizabeth S. Craig is one of those amazing authors who has had book published by a publisher as well as self-published. She recently got rights back to some titles from her publishing house and decided to re-release them as eBooks her self.  She is gracious enough to share her experience and thoughts.

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From Trad-Pub to Self-Pub–Tips and Observations

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

 This is the second time I’ve gotten the rights to my characters back from a publisher and taken a trad-published series to self-pub.  The last time I did this was five years ago.
Karma Karma Karma chameleon....
Karma Karma Karma chameleon….

There were some big differences between this time and last time.  The first time I’d had only one book released in the series before taking it to self-pub.  This time the series had five books in it.

This latest series had a nice following but I found that many of my readers for the Penguin series  seemed unaware of my self-published series.  They would email me asking when the next Southern Quilting Mystery was coming out and I would tell them…and then ask if they knew about my Myrtle Clover series.  Many times they didn’t.

One reason they didn’t is because Penguin didn’t want any non-Penguin books included in my author bio.  I can understand this.  So not only were my self-published books not included in my bio, the original trad-published book in the series (from Midnight Ink) wasn’t, either.

So that’s officially my favorite thing about taking this series to self-pub. I loved, loved, loved being able to advertise my self-pubbed series in the back of the book.  I’m hoping for some real crossover from my audience.

And now for the curiosities from this release.   Print sales have been very strong…I’ve ranked as high as in the top 15,000–18,000 for printed books on Amazon.  It’s also selling well through IngramSpark, which tells me that bookstores are ordering it for customers.

 

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Quick Links: 5 common audio book production misconceptions

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Offering an audio book version of your story is a great way to add value to your eBook and also a way to attract a different type of fan.  To learn more check out Richard Rieman’s post over at Build Book Buzz.

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Guest post: 5 common audio book production misconceptions

June 8, 2016

"It was a dark and stormy night...."
“It was a dark and stormy night….”

Today’s guest blogger, Richard Rieman of RRVoice.com, is the author of The Author’s Guide to AudioBook Creation. He’s also an audio book self-publishing expert and a top Audible narrator. Richard has narrated dozens of titles on Amazon, Audible, iTunes, and more. He also produces audio books for authors voicing their own audio books and consults authors seeking a narrator.

Guest post: 5 common audio book production misconceptions

By Richard Rieman

Do you ever wonder if an audio version of your book is a good idea?

Maybe you listen to audio books – perhaps a Harry Potter book with Jim Dale doing more than 150 voices – and you think that it’s probably way too complicated or expensive.

Not necessarily!

It’s not as hard as you think if you do a little research and know what you’re getting into first. Like anything else in the book publishing business, the more you know about how to do it, the better your end product will be.

If you’re an audio books rookie, you’ll want to get smart about these five common audio book misconceptions now:

1. Audio books aren’t popular enough to make this worth my while.

E-book popularity is waning, but audio book listening on Audible grew 38 percent last year. Audio book sales growth is up 20 percent worldwide two years in a row.

Smartphone listening is the fastest growing method for enjoying audio books, so automakers such as Honda and GM are now including audio book apps from Audible and iTunes in new cars.

Audio books also have their own fan base, so it’s a way to sell more books.

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Quick Links: How to Prepare for Self-Publishing: Ebook Formatting

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This is the next in a series of posts about self-publishing from Digital Publishing News. talks about some basic formatting hints and things to look out for. If you have a question or problem with preparing your manuscript for eBook publishing, let me know in the comments below and perhaps I can help.

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How to Prepare for Self-Publishing: Ebook Formatting

By: Catherine Dunn
J

This is part three of a six-part series.

Not an acceptable Amazon file format.
Not an acceptable Amazon file format.

You’ve got your finished manuscript in Microsoft Word and you’re ready to turn it into an ebook. You need to convert it into MOBI format (for Amazon Kindle) and EPUB (for everywhere else). There are various companies, tools and programs that can convert your file for you, but how can you make sure it ends up looking right? You already know that ebooks behave quite differently from Word documents, so how can you be confident that your carefully crafted file will work as an ebook?

Keep it simple

Don’t forget that most ebooks—unless you’re specifically opting for a fixed format to handle lots of illustrations, charts, tables, etc.—are reflowable, which means that the reader can choose the size of the text and some other elements like font, line spacing and margins. So your careful choice of 12 point Palatino won’t always render exactly as you envisaged. By keeping the formatting as simple as possible, you reduce the risk of introducing anything that will be too distracting to the reader. After all, you want her to focus on what you’ve written, not on what it looks like.

Before you submit your book for conversion, there are a few really basic things you can do within Word to make it look more professional.

Switch on the “Show nonprinting characters” option—click the button that looks like this: Show nonprinting characters

This displays the formatting marks, showing all the formatting you’ve used: spaces, line breaks, paragraph breaks, tabs, page breaks—the works. This makes it easier to see what you’ve done and will help you to strip out extraneous formatting.

Remove rogue spaces from the beginnings and ends of paragraphs. This can be a tedious job, but it’s worth it, because extra spaces often stand out on an e-reader.

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Quick Link: Maybe it’s time to take the plunge and become self-published like me

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After having some success with traditional publishing, author Denise Deegan decided to try out self-publishing. She writes up her experience on the Independent.ie site.


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Maybe it’s time to take the plunge and become self-published like me

by Denise Deegan

 5/30/2016

The art of reinvention: Denise Deegan took charge of her own work and became self-published.
The art of reinvention: Denise Deegan took charge of her own work and became self-published.

I found excitement on a whole new level when I self-published writes Denise Deegan.

Authors, like artists, live with rejection. We meet it when trying to get published. We meet it trying to stay published. We write, and then others decide if our work is good enough to be let out into the world. Or at least, that’s how it used to be.

In 2001, I gave up my PR business to write a novel. I had no agent, no publisher, no experience. I didn’t even have an idea. In retrospect, it was crazy. But then, maybe sometimes craziness is exactly what’s required to change your life. I wrote the novel in six months, sent it out to publishers and agents and prepared for rejection.

It came!

Thankfully, I also received feedback on my writing. I edited the manuscript and sent it out again. I got to work on a second novel so that the next batch of – inevitable – rejections wouldn’t stop me writing. I told myself that it didn’t matter if I never got published. Of course it mattered.

The edits worked. That first novel was published. Three more followed. After that, I wrote a Young Adult series called The Butterfly Novels. And can I just say, the reaction from teenagers to these books would make up for any rejection ever.

Meanwhile, the world of self-publishing was being born. For the first time, authors could reach readers directly and globally. The fact that royalty rates were higher meant lower prices to the reader. This transformation in publishing was exciting to watch. Such was the success of self-published novels like Fifty Shades of Grey and Still Alice that traditional publishers began to offer contracts to their authors.

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Quick Links: How to Prepare for Self-Publishing – Covers Design

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A great cover is like a great outfit for your book. And like a great outfit, the cover should look good close up as well as far away. It is also the first thing a potential reader will judge you on. In a sea of titles, a quality cover will stand out and speak to your reader about the wonderful story within.  At Digital Book World, shares her tips for self-publishing authors on how to have a great cover.

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How to Prepare for Self-Publishing: Cover Design

By Catherine Dunn

Getting professional help is always a good option
Getting professional help is always a good option

Good cover design is the single most obvious way of making sure your book stands out on the shelf and looks professional.

Do Your Research

Look at your competition, both in hard copy and online. What looks professional and what looks bad? Why? Make your own list of some pitfalls to avoid and features that you like.

Think About the Ebook Version

It’s important to remember that something that works well in hard copy might not look so good as a thumbnail. A great design, though, should work in both formats.

A detailed background and delicate colors can get swallowed up at thumbnail size. That doesn’t mean you can’t use them at all, but you need to make sure that the overall design still works on a small scale.

What Type of Book Is It?

One piece of advice that I’ve heard over and over again is to make sure your cover design correctly conveys the genre of your book. You might not want your work to be pigeonholed, and you probably want it to look different from the competition, but you need to put those feelings to one side. Readers use some basic visual cues to decide whether they think they’ll enjoy your book or not. Embrace a healthy dash of cliché. If you’ve written a romance, the cover needs to say “Romance” loud and clear so that your intended readership will pick it up and have a look at the blurb.

This aspect of cover design has a big impact on completion rates. If people think they’re getting a cozy mystery and it turns out to be gory dystopian sci-fi, they’ll put the book down without reaching the end. They might only read the first chapter. If you’re publishing an ebook, this kind of thing can be tracked, and makes your book look poor when it might be a fantastic dystopian sci-fi novel! You might even get bad reviews if the content doesn’t match readers’ expectations.

Read the full post on Digital Book World

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