Don't Hate The Wait

It’s a cliché that so-called overnight successes are many years in the making, but it’s also true. As you plug away at your day job and your manuscripts, year in and out, it’s easy to get discouraged. It’s hard not to feel nothing’s ever going to happen for you. And when you read about some hot new author du jour you’ve never heard of who got a six or seven figure offer, landed a spot on Oprah and got a full-page profile in The New York Times, it can seem impossible to be happy for her. In that moment of—let’s be honest—bitter resentment, it is impossible to imagine your dreams coming true. But if they ever do, it will be due in large part to all the time you spent waiting for it to happen, and how you spent that time.

I queried agents on a novel of mine for the first time about thirteen years ago. I was fortunate to land a great agent in that first round of queries, and I thought my writing career was well on its way. Thought is the operative word there. The novel didn’t sell. I wrote and submitted a second novel, which also didn’t sell. Most frustrating of all, the reasons for the rejections had nothing to do with the quality of my writing, which New York editors said was very strong. It came down to what those editors thought they could or could not sell up the chain. So I back-burnered my writing dreams for a while and got on with life: marriage, kids and jobs. It was just a few years ago that I became an advocate for the indie author movement, and I won’t have a book out from a trade publisher until next year. But looking back on it, I can honestly say all the time I had to wait, and how I spent it, was instrumental to my eventual success.

Marriage and becoming a parent have informed my work in authorship to an extent that can’t be overstated. This isn’t to say I think you’ll be a poor writer unless you get married and have kids, I’m just saying that the experiences I’ve had in those two areas have changed the person I am, caused me to abandon many of my formerly-cherished views, and caused me to look at people and the world differently. Others can get the same benefits from relationships with family and friends, romantic partners, travel, or any sort of life-changing experience.

My day jobs have all had their part to play as well. Working as a technical writer made ‘writing tight’ a reflex for me. Being a software engineer ingrained discipline and attention to detail, both of which are critical skills for any writer. Managing software projects taught me the value of organization, working to a plan, and prioritizing my time and effort. If I hadn’t learned those lessons, there’s no way I could’ve found the time, energy and will to pursue my goals in authorship with everything else I had going on in my life. Working as a web developer and database administrator paid huge dividends when it came to launching and growing my author platform. And continuing to work those day jobs exposed me to all manner of personalities and experiences I could draw upon later, whether in terms of creating a composite character for a story or working with peers and industry people on the business side of things.

What if that first novel had sold? I would’ve been thrilled at the time, but once the initial fanfare died down I think disappointment and failure would’ve settled in pretty quickly. The publisher wouldn’t have lavished a big offer and promotional budget on me, and I wouldn’t have had the money, skills, discipline or maturity to tackle promoting myself and my book on my own. I wouldn’t have had the first idea how to map out a project plan, assemble the necessary talents I lacked (if I even recognized that I lacked them in the first place), or network effectively. My novel most likely would’ve faded from store shelves pretty quickly, and I’d be damaged goods as far as publishers were concerned. Even if the story had been much brighter, if the book had been a surprise hit, I doubt I would’ve sustained a writing career for any length of time. How could I cope with this new, ubiquitous thing called the internet if I’d spent all my time holed up in my comfort zone with a word processor? Given my naiveté, relatively sheltered life to date and ordinary, suburban upbringing, what more could I draw from the well that would inform, entertain or inspire readers enough to keep them buying my books? How could I write about loss, the brow-beating yoke of responsibility, or the push and pull of adult relationships with any authority?

Some of you may already be protesting that there have been plenty of young, breakout writers. But ask yourself this: how many of them have had solid careers that spanned decades, and how many had a hit book or a single hit series, then never struck gold again? There are probably so few exceptions to this that you could count them on one hand, and in every one of those cases the author in question was most likely a true prodigy. For the rest of us, being made to wait till we’ve lived a little longer and experienced a little more of what life has to offer isn’t a bad thing.

Having to work a day job while you’re doing all this living and experiencing isn’t a bad thing, either. If you’re a cashier, bar tender, waitress, salesman or customer service rep, you’re learning how to comfortably interact with strangers and that will serve you well when you’ve got a book to promote. If you’re a worker bee in a tech field, author platform is going to be a walk in the park for you. If your job is the type that isn’t terribly interesting or intellectually demanding, such as assembly line work, driving a bus or working a fast food grill, be glad you have all that mental freedom to ruminate over your ideas and characters for hours a day; just keep a notebook and pen close at hand so you’ll be ready when inspiration strikes. If you’re a teacher or a caregiver of some sort, your daily interactions with the people you serve will enrich your characters and strengthen your dialog in a way no amount of creative writing seminars ever could. No matter what your day job is, it’s keeping you solvent and improving your writing. It, and the wait, are helping to ensure you’ll be ready when opportunity comes knocking.

So don’t hate the wait, and don’t resent your day job. Embrace them, and welcome all they have to offer.
 

This is a cross-posting of a post that originally appeared on my Indie Author Blog.

Crafting Your Back Cover — The Selling Continues….

…or at least it should continue.  The work you’ve put into designing an effective, attention-grabbing cover now continues with the spine and back.  I’ve made a point of mentioning in the first installment of this discussion, that I believe the spine can be as important as the front cover in generating interest.  It might be where your sales presentation begins.

If your book is going to be marketed to book sellers, and they will display it in the stacks, then the spine may be your only chance to persuade a reader to pull your book out and give it a look.  It’s a possibility that you should plan for, whether bookseller sales are a definite part of your strategy right now or not.

Of course, if your book will be hard-bound in cabretta leather with gold-leaf titling, then this discussion won’t be appropriate, but for anyone marketing a paper-bound book, this is for you.  

Tradition seems to work…

Tradition dictates that on a book spine, the authors name appears at the top, and is smaller in size than the book title.  Unless you have a very compelling reason why you want to alter this, having to do with your book’s content, resist the temptation to get too creative here.  The traditional way is what readers expect to see, and it might confuse them, and lose their interest, if it is not set up that way.  Be sure to leave space for your publisher’s imprint, if needed. 

I like the way a wrap around cover/spine/back leads the reader to naturally turn the book over and over in their hands.  If your background graphic image can be set up that way, it subtly implies a "continuing" story — on the cover.  Hard vertical edges, such as in abruput color changes, from font, to spine, to back cover, stop the eye and might distract the reader’s attention from abosrbing your carefully crafted pitch.

Even if only a small section of the front image will wrap around, I believe it is an effective tool to carry the reader’s interest to the back cover, where you do the main selling.

The point of the excercise…

The reason for a back cover design, is to persuade the reader to open up your book.  It will carry some very important information.  Foremost, is your hard-hitting, highly condensed lead-in copy.  A paragraph. Two at the most. Only narrative that leads to action. Events.

Use a "lead in" as the heading. It should be considered your agent pitch on steroids — lean and mean.  You shouldn’t summarize here, you should give the reader a savory taste. Whet their appetite for the salient meal inside: tasty, well-defined and believable characters, an intriguing plot, and questions. 

I’ve found that it makes good sense to end your back-cover pitch with a question or two.  The idea is that the answers will be found inside — in the reading.  Never ask a prospective buyer a question they can answer "no" to.  Leave them with "leading" questions — the kind that pose a situation, impart emotions or create empathy.  In the case of a non-fiction work, it’s always a good idea to reinforce the benefits by leaving them with specifics — here, concentrate upon the strengths of your work, as opposed to any other source where the answers might be found by the prospect.

Assembling the pieces…

Insert this element using the grid we discussed before — the rule of fives or fifths.  Be sure to include live space for barcoding/publisher’s imprint in the grid design.  A cover wrap around here can carry over to bleed, or end 1/3 of the way over.  You can end it with a hard color edge — creating a dark field for your copy — or a gentle fade, if a white or light-valued copy area is what you have in mind. 

If the background ilustrative or photographic cover image wraps, look for apparent lines within the image that will provide a good visual tie-in the the pitch heading.  Use the same visual eye-movement ideas we discussed in the first two installments. Lead the reader’s eye to your pitch. Put your pitch copy in the proper position for maximum retention and readability using at least 12 point type here in a font that carries into the book’s content.  You’ve got one more element to place.

Smile….Really?

Another element that will be found on the back cover is the author photo.  It isn’t an absolute, unless who you are is central to the work inside.  On the other hand, a good portrait can work well in helping the prospective reader find "comon ground" with the author.  This personalizes the message, and gives the writing inside a real voice. 

Don’t just use any old shot of yourself you happen to have handy.  You’ll want to consider contrast and lighting, so the best of the image will be communicated even in a smaller size. It should be cropped tight for maximum "interaction" with the viewer, and your eyes shuld seem to make eye contact. 

Your expression, in the image should connected with the feeling of the "voice" inside, and the subject matter.  For example, I wouldn’t use an author photo with a big, toothy grin on the back of a work dealing with the Irish Famine.  I wouldn’t want to use an image that looked like you were burying your mother either.  I tend to like a generous, open, yet pensive expression in author photos.  Unless you’re pitching (you’re still pitching here…) something hilarious — when a big grin might actually work well. 

Try out a few different images, on dummies of the back cover, printed on your trusty photo printer, until you select one that covers all the bases for you and those whose opinions you trust.  Find out why they like the shot, not just that they "like" it.  You’ll get more insight as to what an author photo can do.  Also don’t be afraid to use a gray-scale image for your photo — it seems to carry a bit more "gravitas" for most viewers, but color might really be important, say if you’re a colorful person (red hair, green eyes, for example) or need to make a more personal connection with the reader.

Double-check the size of the publisher’s live area — for your publisher’s barcode, imprint, etc.  They will usually tell you what size they want you to leave, or it will be in their cover template.

Testing…testing…1,2,3…

One final step, that I recommend, is to find an old paperback, the approximate size of your book and glue (rubber cement works really well here) an actual size full-color dummy of your cover to it, making up a full dummy of your book. 

Then, dummy or full color proof from your publisher in hand, pay a visit to your local book seller. Even if bookstore sales are not going to be a major part of your marketing, the knowledge gained from hands-on experience running a bookstore can be invaluable to acheiving the best cover you can for your book. 

Make an appointment firsthand, explaining that you want to get some impressions from the seller and staff, and that you want to test your cover on tables and in stacks to see if the cover design works the way you want it to. 

Then go in, and do it. Take notes.  Be sure that every impression you receive is the one you’re after. If one differs, be sure to take it seriously. Consider a re-design if the departure is distracting enough to be a problem.  You’re looking for raves here — and while they may be low key (no gleeful clapping, etc.) they are what you need to hear. If you don’t — ask why not, and try to get your respondents to be specific.  Take their comments seriously — and consider them all before signing off on that final proof.  It’s always easier to fix something before putting it out there in front of the market. 

Finally — keep listening. Keep asking. If there is a distraction of problem with your cover, you can still revise it — if you’re POD publishing, that is — and acheive better sales as a result of your effort.  Don’t lose interest.  Your book may have new lives ahead you haven’t considered.  Maybe an entirely new market niche will open up that will require a specialized edition — who knows?  Keep your options open, and be ready to implement them on a moment’s notice. 

Good luck — remember that the writing is supposed to be the fun part. The rest is hard work.

Note: If you’d like specific feedback, in a curmudgeonly fashion of course, on your book’s cover design, then by all means, submit jpg image(s) for my consideration in your comments.  I’ll get back to you within a week, if I can.

#FridayFlash: Justice For Cody

This is something new for me. Since I’ve been so busy with the whole indie author dog and pony show, I haven’t had time to work on my latest novel in over a year. But this new thing, flash fiction, has come to my rescue and I’m finding I really like it. Flash fiction is short stories of just a few pages (or less!), and many authors have begun posting them on Fridays. Hence, #FridayFlash.

The brevity of the format makes it feel much more doable than trying to make progess on a novel, and I’m finding the limited space forces tight writing and necessitates focus in a piece. I think it builds and hones skills. As often as time allows I’ll be posting my #FridayFlash here on Publetariat, since people come to my Indie Author Blog to read stuff about self-publishing and indie authorship, not my fiction. So here’s ‘Justice For Cody’. – A

 

She drifted back into awareness as the voice intoned, “…but we’re afraid your son’s—” the doctor glanced at the chart, “Cody’s vision impairment is permanent.”

“Vision im…you mean the blindness?” she whispered.

“Yes, Mrs. Cortez.”

She didn’t react, just sat there, pale and blank, in shock. After a full minute of uncomfortable silence, Dr. Whaley cleared his throat and motioned for a nurse to take Linda by the elbow. “Mrs. Cortez, Carrie will take you to a private lounge where you can lie down and rest for a while. Is there anyone you’d like us to call?”

“My husband,” she mumbled.

Two long, blurry days later, Linda and her husband sat at the breakfast table in their small apartment. Linda slapped the Formica surface hard with an open palm and raged, “No, Rafael! Paying the medical expenses is the least of this, our son is blind! He will be blind forever!” She stood up and paced the room as she became desperately businesslike. “He’ll have to quit Little League, and you know how he loves it. Then there’s karate, I don’t see how he can keep going to karate. The fun run in May, he’ll have to withdraw.”

Rafael grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to stop her frantic movements and thinking. “Linda, please. Forget about all of that for now, none of it matters. What Cody needs most right now is both of us, and his best friend.”

Linda’s eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched. “A proper best friend wouldn’t have made him do anything so dangerous. I never liked that Steven, I never trusted him!”

Rafael pulled her firm to his chest. “Shhh! You know that’s not true. We both love Steven as much as Cody does; he’s a good boy. It was an accident.”

“No!” she shrieked, and Rafael hugged her tighter. She buried her tears in his chest. “Don’t you care? Don’t you want…justice for Cody?” she whimpered.

“Baby, there is no justice for Cody. This is nobody’s fault.”

Linda yanked herself back from him and fixed him with a hateful stare. “You can give up on our son, but I never will.” She grabbed her purse and stalked out, leaving Rafael to gaze out the window. And feel guilty for being able to do it.

It took weeks to find the right attorney, but at last Linda was satisfied the Lynch boy’s family would pay and pay dearly for what their son had done to hers. She knew Steven’s mother would be bringing him to visit Cody at 4pm today, as she did every day right after school at Steven’s insistence. All of this Linda had learned from Rafael, having successfully avoided running into those awful Lynches herself during visiting hours.

Linda clutched the papers in her hand as her heels clicked curtly on the tiled hospital floor; she was looking forward to seeing the reaction on Debbie Lynch’s face. Rafael’s ultimatum sprang to mind one last time like a warning bell, but she shoved it aside. If Rafael didn’t want to do right by his only son, then she didn’t want to stay married to him, either.

She took a deep breath and threw the door open. “Debra,” she said, flatly.

Steven rushed up to her, shoving brochures and papers up toward her face. “Mrs. Cortez? I been learning about all the things to help Cody—well, my Mom helped me look on the internet…” At this, Linda shot a glance at Debbie, who averted her reddened eyes and lifted a Kleenex to her nose.

“—an’ I found out there’s this special school for the blind right here in Austin, an’ I got this application for a seeing eye dog an’ my mom and dad said it’s even okay if I wanna raise a puppy to be Cody’s seeing eye dog, an’ I can help Cody learn his way around the neighborhood till then, an’ I’ll walk him anywhere he wants to go, an’…an’ I’ll….” he burst into tears and threw his arms around her hips.

“Mom?” Cody’s small voice called from the bed, his bandaged head swimming to try and locate the sound. “Is Steve okay?”
Linda’s hand curled into a fist, crumpling the papers. She weighed them for a moment before tossing them in the wastebasket. She put a hand down to stroke Steven’s head. “Yes, honey,” she said. “Steven’s just fine.”

Don't Be Part Of The 5%: Master The 5 Crucial Author Platform Skills

For the past several months, I’ve been working on the Publetariat Vault. Among the hundreds of authors who’ve registered for Vault membership, about 5% are completely overwhelmed by the listing form. They refuse to read or follow the instructions on the form, or think 17 required fields are too much to ask, or don’t know how to create a synopsis or excerpt in pdf, rtf or txt format, or don’t know how to upload files to the site using the typical “Browse” + “Upload” button combo. And they’re kind of pissed off that we’re asking them to do all of this in the first place, they’re walking away from up to 5 months’ free listing time on account of tech frustration.

A couple of years ago I would’ve said the 5% are absolutely right, such a form is too demanding and no author should be expected to have that level of tech savvy. But the bar has been raised, and nowadays any author with a strong platform has all the skills necessary to easily complete the Vault form. The rest can no longer afford to be part of the 5%. It’s not fair, and it has nothing to do with quality writing, but it is the reality.

Any author who’s not yet heard the term “author platform” could only have been lost at sea or living in Amish country, but even among those who know it, I’m finding the term is often not fully understood. Many authors, both aspiring and published, indie and mainstream, think succeeding with author platform means having a blog or author website. And maybe they Twitter a little, or have a Facebook or MySpace page. They also often think author platform is something that’s very difficult and/or expensive, and only applicable to published authors.

They are wrong, on all counts.

Author platform encompasses everything you do both to promote your work and to establish yourself as a “brand” in the marketplace, and ideally, it begins long before you have a book to sell. Even if you intend to go the totally mainstream route of writing the best damned manuscript you can and then querying agents and publishers, you can no longer expect to get a pass on author platform. I’m currently working with Writers Digest on the publication of a revised and updated edition of my book, The IndieAuthor Guide, and when our talks began the very first questions they had for me were all about my author platform. What websites do I have, and how much traffic do they get? How many pageviews, how many unique visitors? How frequently do I blog? How frequently do I have public speaking engagements, and where and for whom have I done such engagements? Do I maintain an email newsletter or membership list, and if so, how large is it?

If you’re lucky enough to get a request for the full manuscript from an agent or publisher, are you prepared to answer all these questions? Because if you’re not, you’re not ready to have your full ms requested. And if you’re intending to self-publish, you should be asking these questions of yourself already.

Lucky for all of us, the minimum skills needed to do a pretty decent job with online author platform are few, and easy to master. The way it works is, with each new skill you acquire, new online promotion and publication options are opened to you. And when it comes to author platform, you want every available option at your disposal.

You must know how to use webforms to comment on articles or blog posts online, create and maintain your own blog, create and maintain a fill-in-the-blanks sort of author website, or have a Facebook or MySpace page.

If you also want to provide an online cover image of your book, or an author photo, you must either know how to create digital images (pictures a computer can read because they’re stored as a computer file; if you use a digital camera and know how to get the pictures off your camera and onto your computer, you already know how to create digital images) or have the images supplied by someone who does know how to create them, you must know how to use a graphics editor program to resize the images as needed to meet the file size and dimension requirements of the various sites on which you intend to share them, and you must know how upload files to a web server using a “Browse” + “Upload” button combo.

All the skills mentioned thus far are also needed to self-publish your work in hard copy formats via an online print service provider such as Createspace or Lulu, and to self-publish in various ebook formats via online ebook conversion services such as Smashwords or Scribd.

If you want to make excerpts of your work available for free viewing on your blog or website (which is one of the cheapest and most effective ways of growing readership), on top of everything else you must also know how to create an excerpt of the full work and output that excerpt to pdf format.

Let’s stop and take inventory. If you know how to use webforms, how to create and resize digital images, how to upload files to a web server and how to output your work in pdf format, you’ve got most of your self-publishing and online author platform options covered with just five basic tech skills. You can have a blog and a fill-in-the-blanks type of author website. You can comment on blogs and articles all over the ‘net. You can publish your work in multiple formats and make it available for sale online through various outlets. You can make excerpts of your work available online. You can Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn to your heart’s content—and you can do all of these things for the cost of nothing more than your time and the price of a single author copy (in cases where you’re self-pubbing in hard copy)! You’d be a fool to turn your back on such an embarrassment of author platform riches, but that’s what the 5% do every day.

Now, if you also want to Twitter, you’ll want to bone up on web abbreviations, emoticons and hashtags. If you want to be able to add cool little widgets (e.g., hit counters, ‘my Goodreads bookshelf’, BookBuzzr, etc.) to your blog, author website, Facebook, MySpace or other online pages, you’ll need to be comfortable copying and pasting snippets of HTML or script code from the widget provider into the desired location, but even then, someone else is providing the code and all you’re doing is copying and pasting it the same as you’d do with any ordinary text. The best part is, most such widgets are available for free! If you don’t know how to use them, you’re missing a huge opportunity to jazz up your platform at no cost.

When you’re ready to graduate to the master class, you can learn about RSS syndication and how to set up a simple web form on your site or blog to allow your readers to subscribe to your email newsletter, but this is nothing you need to think about right away.

For now, just focus on mastering the 5 crucial author platform skills and get yourself out of that doomed 5%.

Addendum: Regarding the Vault form, I’m the first to admit it’s a lengthy form. Authors will need to spend half an hour or so pulling together all the information they need to create a listing, and an additional 5-10 minutes to complete the form. However, the form includes very detailed instructions for every section and field, required fields are limited to those items publishers have said are most important in making acquisitions decisions, and authors participating in the Vault’s current promotions are getting several months’ free listing time. I’m sure those who go on to strike deals with publishers or producers will feel it was well worth filling out the form.

This is a cross-posting of a post that originally appeared on my Indie Author Blog on 10/8/09.

Promoting Books With Keyword Rich Articles

This article is cross-posted from The Savvy Book Marketer, where it originally appeared on 10/7/09.

Posting articles on your own blog and submitting articles to article directories, newsletters and other blogs are very effective ways of promoting books. Articles posted on other sites can drive direct traffic to your website and improve your site’s search engine optimization.

Good keyword optimization will increase the chances of people who are interested in your topic finding your articles in article directories and through search engines. Here’s my formula for promoting books by writing keyword rich articles:
 

  • Determine the goals of the article: how will this article help you in promoting your books and what action do you want readers to take?  
  • Define the target audience: who are you writing to?  
  • Select the topic of the article: what do you want readers to learn?  
  • Determine the approximate length. I usually shoot for around 500 words, but anywhere from 400 to 700 is a good length.  
  • Outline the points you will cover.  
  • Select a primary and perhaps a secondary keyword phrase for the article. I use Google’s keyword tool for keyword research.    
  • Write the headline, using the primary keyword at the beginning.  
  • Write the article.  
  • Go back and find ways to work the keywords into the text of the article, while keeping it sounding natural. I highlight keywords in yellow as I insert them, so I can easily see how many times the keywords are used.  
  • Write a good resource box at the end of the article, giving readers a reason to click through to your website.  
  • Proofread carefully. I find it more effective to print my articles for proofreading.
     

You may hear various experts talk about keyword density – the ratio of keywords to total word count on a Web page. I don’t count the words, I just try to make it look natural and don’t overdo it. If you stuff in too many keywords or write awkward sentences, it will be obvious and will tend to turn readers off.

In this article, Promoting Books is my main keyword. I didn’t try to optimize for Article Marketing because that term is too broad and not focused enough on my target audience, authors. I used the keyword phrase Promoting Books seven times in this 434-word article.

Keep in mind that the most popular keywords are not necessarily the best ones, because you will face much more competition. According to Google’s keyword tool, Book Marketing gets 60,500 queries a month, while Promoting Books gets only 1,600. But there are far more web pages using the term Book Marketing. I use a mixture of highly popular and more specific "long tail" keywords when promoting my books through article marketing.

Dana Lynn Smith, the Book Marketing Maven, specializes in developing book marketing plans for nonfiction books. She is the author of the Savvy Book Marketer Guides. Dana has a degree in marketing and 15 years of publishing experience. Read her complete bio here.

Open A Window

I’d say out of all my books Open A Window (Alzheimer’s Caregiver Handbook) ISBN 1438244991 is the one I am most proud to have written. At the nursing home, I’d been approached by resident families with questions. Not realizing the awful twists and turns Alzheimer’s takes, family members were caught off guard. They needed education.

 

 

The thought came to me that I should write an Alzheimer’s Caregiver Handbook to help educate people who have loved ones in the nursing home. I made a list of all the symptoms and behaviors that went with Alzheimer’s disease. While I was working, I watched for examples to use in this book. Each example, I wrote down right away when I got home so I wouldn’t forget any of the details. Eventually, I had enough information to make a book.

 

The program – Lotus – came with my IBM computer in 1999. I know that program has been outdated for a long time, but I like using it for documents. I’m used to it. The program has a booklet maker which came in handy back in the day when I had to make hard copy. The book pages are printed from the middle of the book back to the front on even pages. Turn the pages over and print the odd pages. This wasn’t a perfect system. I had to start over several times, because of printer errors.

Finally, I had a completed manuscript. After some consumer shopping, I found a Print shop to make my books. I wanted two staples to hold the book together on 100 books. That must have been a time consuming job that the workers weren’t crazy about doing. The woman at the counter tried to talk me into using the spiral plastic or perfect binding. I didn’t want my book to look like a telephone book, and perfect binding was expensive. This special book should look as much like any other book as possible so I was determined to use staples.

I designed the cover myself. A simple window with tie back curtains in purple, because that is the Alzheimer’s Association color. That cover didn’t suit the printer. They had to use one of their clip art windows. It’s been awhile, but I think the reasoning was I had too many shades of purple in my curtain plus the brown window. Thinking back on that explanation, it seems to me that no matter what the cover colors, the printer should have been able to print them. Anyway, I paid the extra $25.00 for the cover. The discussion about the staples and the cover kept up over a couple of weeks while they held up my printing job. By that time I was anxious to get my books done before the Printer found some other problem. The window turned out to be a good choice for the cover after all.

The nursing home administrator helped with book sales since many prospective book buyers that needed educating went through her office. People read the book and sent me complimentary comments. They were relieved to at last understand in layman terms what happens to a person who has Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2000, I started an Alzheimer’s support group at the nursing home. Open A Window came in handy as an ice breaker. I read a chapter. That was enough to get people started talking about what has happened with their loved ones. You would think that the many people in this support group over the eight years I facilitated it would be book buyers. In some cases, that was true. More times than not, someone would get me aside, with tears in their eyes, to whisper about a particularly hard situation they had at home. Always, I could say I knew how these people felt, because I had been there while taking care of my father. I offered advise from my experiences but I wanted to do more. I gave them a copy of my book. At the December meeting, I always came up with some small gift for the members. One year, it was a copy of my book. Since I hadn’t meant for this to be a profit making adventure, all I wanted was enough money to cover the printing cost.

Most of the books I sold went to audiences I spoke to on behalf of the Alzheimer’s Association. I was asked to speak at a training session for new employees at a Cedar Rapids Nursing Home. I left one of my books and mentioned reading from the book worked well for a support group. Soon after that, the social worker asked me to come to her support group meeting to speak. I sold several of my books as a result of that meeting.

The nursing home gives a inservice each month to educate the staff on various topics. One time, Jolene Brackey, a well known Alzheimer’s speaker and author, was invited to talk. At that time she lived at Polk City, Iowa. Since then she has moved to Montana. To find out more about her, her website is http://www.enhancedmoments.com This young woman gives a very dynamic speech that has her audiences laughing one minute and close to tears the next. Jolene asked if we had a support group she could talk to after the inservice. My group met at night, but I put out the word and had an afternoon meeting.

What I didn’t know was the administrator had sent Jolene my Open A Window book. After she read Jolene’s Creating Moments Of Joy book, she told her there was an author at our nursing home. She sent me a note to let me know how much she liked what I had written. One day, I received a call from Jolene. She was writing her latest book Creating Moments Of Joy the third revised edition. Jolene asked me if she could use some of my stories in her book. I was thrilled. That was the first of my writing to get published. Jolene said I was more descriptive than she was. That was quite a compliment from a woman who writes as well as she does.

When my supply of books ran out, I wanted to order another 100. By then I had come up with more examples so I had to do a new hard copy. Then I set to work on the cover. I didn’t want to pay another $25.00 so I scanned the window on the cover. For the new cover, I enlarged the window and the title. I bought stock paper and printed my covers to be stapled on the books. The old question of did I really want staples came up again. I held my ground and got what I wanted.

Under the window on the cover, I put By Fay Risner CNA. The idea of using CNA was to give my book some credence as help in a complicated disease. I got the idea while I attended an Alzheimer’s annual conference in Cedar Rapids. A speaker was listing who would be talking that day. One topic was about therapy dogs. The speaker said the dog used in the session was so well trained, he had more alphabet soup behind his name than she did. It occurred to me that I had alphabet soup behind my name. Granted I was way down on the health care totem pole, but still I should use what I have.

In 2002, I had mentioned to the Alzheimer’s Association director that CNAs aren’t getting enough training about Alzheimer’s before they start work. An evening session was started that year for CNAs to coincide with the evening session for family members. I was asked to be the first speaker. One woman in the audience is a social worker. She bought a book. Months later, I received a call from her. She was taking books to a social worker conference in Ames. Would I like to give her a box of my books to put out for sale? I was thrilled. She sold them all. The next year, the social worker took another box. A social worker at the conference took her book back to Grinnell. Loaned it to an nurse training CNAs and that nurse ordered three more to use for her training sessions.

Now I have Open A Window published. This is one of the books sold at the Lemstone Christian Bookstore in Cedar Rapids at Collins Road Plaza across from Linndale Mall. On the back cover of my book is a review from Jolene Brackey. Below that is as many of the reader reviews that I could fit on the page. I’ll talk more about the importance of reviews one of these days.

 

 

 

 

 

Mom tells me you haven’t fed her all day.

Dad keeps asking me the same question over and over.

Aunt Mable wants me to take her to her parents house. Her parents passed away years ago.

NaNoWriMo 3: What I Love

This post, from Jodi Cleghorn, originally appeared on her Writing in Black and White blog on 10/7/09. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place annually in November. 

Knowing what you love about NaNoWriMo and always being able to remind yourself of those seductive elements, is possibly the difference between finishing NaNo and getting your winners badge, or committing yourself to the wayside and another lost opportunity.

I learnt this important lesson, of focusing on what you love from my dear friend Dan Sinclair (aka Mama Magic). She wasn’t actually writing about NaNo when she imparted her wisdom, but about mothering. All too often (and I am one who falls into this trap) we can focus on what we hate, what we struggle with, what bogs us down, what we just don’t and can’t love enough or at all. It’s no wonder we get caught in all types of negative circular thinking. If instead we look to and cultivate the things we love and enjoy, AND have them at the ready, we really can get through any crisis or low point. Or even better, we can create environments, both internal and external, where we don’t end up having to deal with a crisis or low point.

So I thought it would be a good idea to suss out what it is I love about NaNo in the lead in, to get a psychological jump start on November. Then if the going gets tough, as it will undoubtedly do at some stage, there will be a point of reference to return to and refresh myself on why I chose this somewhat crazy path (again!)

These are the ten dot points I came up with and over the next few days I will explore them in more detail.

  1. It’s all about writing fiction
     
  2. It gives me an opportunity to truly get lost
     
  3. It provides me with a continuing story
     

Read the rest of the post, which includes her dot points #4-10, on Jodi Cleghorn’s Writing in Black and White blog.

How Book Authors Can Use Facebook As Part of Their Social Media Strategy

This post, from SACHI Studio, originally appeared on the SACHI Studio site on 4/23/08.

This is the next in a series of guides on how book authors can achieve social media success. The first was a 5-page article on why book authors should use WordPress as part of their web presence.

The following is a 4 page primer on how book authors can use Facebook as a viable social media tool to give more exposure to their book and work.

If you wish to read a print version of this, you can download the 4 page pdf guide here. Otherwise, you can read the entire guide in its entirety below.

Sachi Studio is available for Facebook social media consulting for selected book authors as well.

Update 8/13/09: Our new free eGuide, “Facebook Fan Pages for Book Authors” is out. Click on the badge to learn more.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: we’ve disabled this link since it leads to a page where you’re asked to complete an online form; as Publetariat has no control over the site or form, we prefer that if you’d like to follow the link, you do so on the source web page.]

badge
 


A Primer to Social Media Marketing on Facebook for Book Authors 

Like many other businesses, book authors are flocking to various social media communities such as Facebook and Myspace. They want to leverage these sites as best as possible to give more exposure to their books. But too many are lost and lack both direction and strategy as to how to best use these communities.

The following is a primer for authors to use Facebook as a viable social media marketing tool.

Before we get into specific methods and activities to use on Facebook, there are five principles that any book author should adhere to in the social media space. It is important you are aware of these fundamentals as they make up the foundation of success in social media.

  1. It’s not about you. It’s about the community. Too many overzealous marketers forget this principle when it comes to social media. They focus too much on promoting themselves at the risk of ignoring the needs of their users. Your followers have a voice that want to be heard. Create initiatives that allow your users to voice their thoughts and opinions on your work. Try to focus on their needs while simultaneously meeting yours.
     
  2. Be sociable. It’s not called social media for nothing, folks. This means that you shouldn’t just upload photos of your latest book tours or just promote the book on your Facebook profile. Be personal and allow those connected to you to see some personal stuff of you. In the world of social media, it helps to be three-dimensional.
     
  3. Think long term and be consistent. Don’t quit after a few days of work. Social media is a relatively new field. You have to continually test and benchmark various initiatives before you start to see results.
     
  4. Focus on user generated content. Much of the successful social media strategies today focus on allowing the end user to generate the content for us. There are too many authors who ignore or don’t realize how much power their users have in contributing to their work. Look for ways where you can get the community to do the work for you.
     
  5. Focus on multiple generations of users. Many of the failed social media strategies today are a result of marketers focusing on their first generation users. Successful strategies rely heavily on getting the first generation of users to continue to spread the message to their network and getting that network to spread it to their network. Hence, don’t just market to friends but to friends of friends of friends. As they say in networking, it’s not who you know, but it’s who they know.
     

Now that we’ve listed the basis tenets of successful social media strategies, let’s get into specific activities that authors can use on the Facebook platform.

Read the rest of the post, which includes 8 specific Facebook strategies for authors and book promotion, on the SACHI Studio site.

My Bio: www.davidluck@davidluck.net

 

I was born in rural Wyoming during a June snowstorm. The wide open spaces of Wyoming’s high plains provided the perfect place for me to grow and develop a keen imagination. It was working ranches along the Laramie River that help me develop an ability to write from a cowboy perspective: sparse, direct, and from the heart.

 

I attended Colorado State University, graduating with a degree in veterinary medicine. I make Denver my home with my wife Shirley. Together, we have four children and six grandchildren. I have written three books: Ghosts of Leadville, a book of poetry and photography about Leadville, Colorado, Men Are, short story fiction about the loves, lives, and feelings of men as they age, and Scraps, my latest book of fictional fragments.

 

When not writing, bicycling, photographing, or reading, I perform orthopedic surgery for dogs and cats.

 



Scraps

My new book of short stories, Scraps, is now available through Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble, and I invite you to check it out.

From slice-of-life vignettes to narratives with suspense, the short stories in author David Luck’s fiction collection stem from his observations of life around him. After moving from an isolated mountain cabin to a home near Sloan’s Lake in Denver, Colorado, Luck was intrigued by the activity surrounding the lake. Luck used these situations as fodder for this book.

Scraps’ first story, “Angelica and Carlos,” introduces the young Angelica as she waits for her son to be returned from a weekend visit with his father, Carlos. When Carlos and Roberto are more than an hour late, Angelica wonders if she will ever see her son again. In “Balby, England,” an American couple, married for forty-one years, travel to England for the first time and become the unwitting targets of a beautiful thief. “Going Postal” tells the tale of Maggie, a homeless woman; Jasper, a retired gentleman who has taken up in-line skating; and Merna, a cantankerous mail carrier —and how their lives intersect in an unusual way.

Infused with sensory images woven with beautiful language, the stories in the collection give a glimpse into situations, people, and places with which we can all identify. Author bio: www.davidluck.net.

Rising Above The Grass

This post, from Bob Spear, originally appeared on his Book Trends Blog on 10/6/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Last year over 275,000 new books were published. Actually, there were more than that because not all were reported to Bowker, the keepers of the assignment and registration of ISBNs and publisher of Books In Print. Then add to that very large number the books written and proffered to publishers which didn’t make it. Now, look at the various Best Seller lists and count the number of books listed (a few hundred at best). Now you have an idea of the odds involved in marketing books, especially your own. How can you rise above the crowd or grass level so that you’re seen?

There are many genres and sub-genres; however, for our purposes, let’s address nonfiction, fiction, and leave children’s books for another blog.

Nonfiction: This is the easiest genre to market. There are major distributors who refuse to carry anything but nonfiction because of this. It’s easier to: write well, define, identify market segments, and has multiple delivery channels. In addition to traditional bookstore channels, other channels can include: selling off the back table at a speech or training, partnering with a corporate entity to publish their own edition, selling direct by snail mail or by internet. Nonfiction lends itself very well to “Long Tail” marketing, which is identifying small but myriad niches that are outside the radar of the major publishers but can be lucrative to small, specialized presses. Working the media is far easier because specific topics and themes break out nicely for talk show themes.

To be seen above the grass in the nonfiction pasture, one needs to understand all these market channels and more. Use any and all the channels in conjunction with publicity, article marketing, blogging, social networking and general word of mouth. Obviously, any one of these areas is deserving of a separate blog.

Fiction: This is much more difficult to write well and to market. Although fan groupings can be broken out and defined, it’s not so easy to do so as it is in nonfiction. Fiction can be far more emotional (except for certain nonfiction “causes”). Reader tastes vary widely and reader needs are more difficult to nail down than they are in nonfiction.
It’s more difficult to align a book’s story with a talk show theme, for instance, yet that is what an author or publicist must do to fit into a media format. Some fiction genres, such as Sci Fi or fantasy are especially difficult to shape into an interview environment.

For fiction to be seen above the grass, social networking and word of mouth are king. Another avenue is getting your book turned into a movie, which usually won’t happen in nonfiction how-to books. The marketer’s focus is at the mercy of people who are opinion drivers. That’s where their focus should go: toward opinion makers such as Oprah and the like.

Endurance: Nonfiction tends to stick around longer due to its education potential. It lends itself to updating and new edition publishing. It can be milked for a long time. Fiction, unless it becomes a classic, is here today and gone tomorrow. Even really popular fiction authors are only as popular as their latest book (how have you entertained me lately?). These are considerations when deciding what to write. Some of my nonfiction has been around since the late 1980’s and still sells steadily. I expect my fiction, which will be coming out this winter, will have its day in the sun, and then I’ll have to write more, if I want to stay above the grass. As an author, you need to consider all these aspects and elect how you want to spend your writing minutes.

You Can't Ignore Your Passion

This post, from Andrew B. Clark (a.k.a. The Brand Chef), originally appeared on his The Brand Chef site on 10/2 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. The cartoon panel which appears in this post is also by the author, and is copyright Andrew B. Clark, all rights reserved.

What’s your passion?  Is it your job?  Do you paint?  Play an instrument?  Are you lucky enough to get paid to do what you love?

That’s okay…  I don’t either.

In college, I thought I was going to be the next superstar cartoonist – the next Berkeley Breathed, Bill Watterson, or even the freakishly odd Gary Larson or Robert Crumb.

baile_cartoonIn retrospect, I had a good start. I had a small following for my cartoons – mostly girlfriends and fraternity brothers; but the word was starting to spread.  Their parents were requesting copies of my panels.  Some (of the less offensive) panels were being reviewed by King Syndication.  I even had a professor from The University of Iowa contact me asking if he could put one of my panels onto the last page of his biology mid-term as a “stress-reliever”  for his students. Nice!

For a brief period in 1991, I was living the dream…

Then, I started listening to people.  I took suggestions (gasp). I “commoditized” my art – my passion.  I kowtowed to the masses. I stopped being creative.  I stopped trying to surprise.  It stopped being fun.

So, I stopped cartooning… I put down my pen and refused to do another silly panel.  I always intended to start it up again, but one thing led to another and, well, we’ve all heard it before.

Then, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this post from Brand Autopsy.  I immediately re-posted my thoughts on their video as well as ordered the book, Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys To Creativity by Hugh MacLeod.  I devoured the book in about 10 lunches (about the only time I get to read these days), all the time, Hugh was making me think back on my “more creative” days.

Hugh is bizarre, sarcastic, brilliant and pragmatic all at once.  His blog, gapingvoid.com, was an outlet for his passion – drawing cartoons on the back of business cards – which was quite unique in itself.  But then you add his view on corporate nonsense, marketing, social media, social networking, communication and dating, and it becomes hilariously addictive. He took his blog, the wisest and wise-ass-est of it, and made it into a perfect, creative self-help manual… just for me.

If you have a passion, a dream that you want to or wanted to pursue, “Ignore Everybody…” is a great place to start.  It succinctly provides a “how-to” on fostering the creative inspiration that led Hugh MacLeod to create gapingvoid.com and turn his professional  and personal world upside-down – in a good way…  It’s kind of a Cinderella story, but Hugh gives great reason and forethought to his success.

Here’s a little nugget that really got me thinking about my own passion:

ignore_everybodyChapter 10: Everybody has their own Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven.  But if you don’t make at least one serious attempt to get above the snowline, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

So, after reading the book, I put it down and immediately registered two new domains that will hold my past and future cartoons, illustrations, and musings.

Will I “make it big” like MacLeod?  Who’s to say?  But I’ll start by ignoring everybody…  and listening to my passion.

What’s your passion?  Painting? Accounting? Pan flute? Are you doing it right now?

Keep Cooking! (your own brand of passion)
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

Learn To Sell Yourself As An Author

On Saturday, I went to a niece’s bridal shower in Cedar Rapids. Along with the rest of the family I now eagerly await the wedding November 14th. This couple, after five years of making sure this commitment is for them, have decided to tie the knot. We are so excited for them. We are looking forward to having the welcomed edition of this new nephew to the family. To sanction this union, the couple did what we in-laws have had to do for many years. They made a trip to Arkansas to get the approval of the rest of the Risner Clan. That consists of the groom being able to hold his own in bragging rites about hunting and fishing. For the bride, this test means being appreciative of the women kin’s southern cooking. Truthfully, I almost failed that test. I’m not a fan of white gravy but I do occasionally make it because my husband and I were raised eating gravy and biscuits. Where I had a problem was hiding my breakfast egg under bacon grease gravy. My refusal to dip into the gravy bowl the first morning was cause for concern that was only alleviated by my husband’s aunt passing the blackberry jelly for my homemade biscuit. I’ll never turn down any food flavored with blackberries. We’re proud to say the groom to be passed the Arkansas scrutiny test with flying colors. Now we can relax and enjoy this couple as they grow old together.

A book selling instinct kicks in when I least expect it. A couple weeks ago, I was talking to the bride to be’s mother who hosted the shower. She told me 20 women were coming. Many of them friends of the couple and groom’s relatives that I don’t know. So at the bottom of my gift bag under the shower presents I placed my latest book – A Promise Is A Promise (ISBN 0982459505). My niece already owns three of my books. I thought she might like one more. When my niece held up the book, she proudly announced that Aunt Fay wrote it. Fay who? "That woman over there. She’s an author," my niece told them. As the book went along for gift inspection, the guests passed on other items the bride had opened up (barely looking at them) and held onto the book to read the back cover. Questions came fast for a moment. What genre do you write? How do we get your books? Then the attention was turned back to the bride where it should be. This was her moment.

Did it end there? No. I happened to have a stack of business cards with me just in case. Now I didn’t feel comfortable pushing the cards on the women at the shower, but the niece sees these ladies all the time. I had no problem handing the cards to my niece when I went to her house after the shower. I ask her if any of her friends or the groom’s family wanted to contact me about a book could she give them one of my card. She was delighted to help me out. She informed me these same women all belong to a book club. She grinned mischievously as she watched an eager glow light up my eyes at the mention of a book club.

The hardest thing in the world for a self published author of a new book is to sell themselves as an author. Putting the spotlight on ourselves is hard. I came from long line of women too bashful to keep on nightclothes after they got out of bed each morning just in case company showed up early. I live in the country, hidden by seven feet tall corn stalks on all sides for months. Still I find the thought of stepping outside in my nightgown difficult. To my amazement as I drove through town one early morning, I noticed a woman in her pajamas setting her trash on the curb. Her family tree surely had women the total opposite of mine.

Public speaking has been a big help for easing my bashful streak. Knowing my subject (my books) helps me have the confidence to stand in front of an audience. Last June when I was invited to Anamosa for the library’s author day, the other authors and I had fifteen minutes to talk about our books in front of a video camera as well as an audience. I was at a slight disadvantage since I had 13 or 14 more books to discuss than the rest of the authors. Talking about that many books in that length of time took some doing. My husband sat in the back of the room. He told me later while I was speaking he heard one woman remark that I was a good speaker. It must be that my public speaking training was something the other six authors didn’t have. I have no idea what purpose the video was used for, but I can hope that it will be to my advantage as an author.

I went to Author Day convinced that I wouldn’t sell many books. New to the area, unknown author and this is a small town. So I took a basket and a small note pad to use for a book drawing. My three smaller books of short stories, inexpensive to publish, were made to use for giving readers a taste of how I write if they don’t want to pay for the larger books. The audience could pick the book they would like to win. After the day was over, I drew a name and mailed the book to the winner. I sent the library a thank you note for inviting me and being so gracious. Whether I had sold any books or not, I felt the librarian deserved to know how much I appreciated the invitation. The audience was around forty strong. I sold a variety of my 16 books and gave out many bookmarkers for their future reference. From the way the day ended, I am fairly sure I will get an invitation to Author Day next year.

In August for my high school class reunion, I gave away 21 copies of my latest book. For me that was quite a sizable amount of money, but I put an inventory list in each book along with contact information. These former classmates live all around the country. Hopefully, my gift of a book will lead to other sales. Giving each of them a book wasn’t easy to do. Their critiques of my book might be quite critical. (So far I’ve only heard from readers who were pleased.) They have known me for years and never once thought of me as a prospective author at the other reunions. They do now. Since that night, I’ve sold classmates 11 other books which helped me to break even on the give away.

I signed in on Classmate.com awhile back. I spent most of my childhood in southern Missouri so besides signing in for Keystone High School in Iowa, I signed in for Schell City High School in Missouri. Recently, I heard from a former classmate and emailed another one. Now do I expect to make books sales from those contacts. Not really but by word of mouth, one former classmate might say to another, "I heard from Fay the other day. She has become an author. Sells her books on Amazon. Isn’t that something?" The curiosity to see what my books are about might lead these former classmates to check out my books on Amazon and eventually to a sale. After all, one of my books is about a family from that area in Missouri during the Civil War.

During a book sale, one of the hardest things for me to remember is to ask if the buyer would like to have me sign the book. At the start of the Civil War Days book sale in September, I didn’t think of asking until the buyer started away. She liked that about me that I was a novice yet about the workings (pushing myself as the author) of a book sale. However, I did try to remember to ask to sign the books after that. Once in awhile, someone would have to remind me to do it. In one instance, I asked if I should sign the book. The woman said yes because she only buys signed books. My first thought was lucky her. If I waited for a signed copy of books, I wouldn’t have very many on my book shelf. Then it occurred to me I should feel honored that I would be in this lady’s collection of signed books.

Of course, speaking one on one to a buyer is easier than a whole room full of people. Knowing the books I want to sell by heart because I wrote them does help my sales pitch. I talk nonstop about the book a prospective buyer is interested in until that buyer shows me the cash. One man listened to me start a detailed account of my Civil War book and he stopped me. (I try very hard not to give away too much, but I want to make the buyer curious enough to buy the book to get the rest of the story.) That buyer told me not to tell him too much. He wanted to buy the book and read it. I’m so enthusiastic about my stories and eager to share them that I don’t see how that can be all bad.

When I’ve been asked to sell my books, my first thought always is I probably won’t do very well with sales. Each time it has been my experience that I have done very well indeed. I feel it has something to do with that personal one on one contact with my buyers. You see by selling myself, I sell books.

Pirates Ahoy! Why The Media Just DOESN'T GET The Ebook Piracy Issue

This post, from Dan Holloway, originally appeared on his The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes blog on 10/4/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

OK, not ALL the media necessarily, but I came across this terribly written article yesterday, and it’s representative of most I’ve seen on the issue of the ills of Ebook piracy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/business/04digi.html?_r=2&hpw

Let me outline the gist (but please don’t take it from me – I AM biased, I may have distorted it) of Randall Stross’ article "Will books be Napsterised". As a result of file-sharing the music industry lost vast revenue streams. As Ebooks take an increasing share of the book market, the same will happen there. The problem lies with file-sharing sites like Rapidshare. Sites like RapidShare allow anyone to upload files and then post the URL for others to download them. Whilst they will remove copyright-infinging files on the request of the copyright owner, these files are not policed upon upload. RapidShare talked to Mr Stross, urging publishers and authors to learn from Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails and use free downloads as part of their business model. Stross ends with a retort to this suggestion:

"I will forward the suggestion along, as soon as authors can pack arenas full and pirated e-books can serve as concert fliers."

Now, there is so little analysis and so much fabulation in this article I couldn’t deal with it all (apparently e-book hardware is "on the verge of going mainstream", for example, whatever that means—I didn’t see a single reference to the Kindle or the Tablet, and nary a mention of the phone vs reader debate, by the way).

OK, it’s time for my disclaimer. I hate plagiarism. It sucks, and sucks major. In fact, any form of copyright violation sucks. And it’s NOT a victimless crime. But. But, but. But, but BUT. The way to beat pirating is, I’m afraid, as RapidShare’s spokesperson says, to incorporate free downloads into your business plan. That’s not giving in, it’s not kowtowing. It’s the way it is.

The obvious way to do that is, as suggested, to study the successful musicians. I’ve been talking about gigging and merching for authors ever since I got into the blogging business, and I stand by what I’ve always said. Culture is culture. It inspires communal events, it inspires fans to desire souvenirs, to desire contact. These things aren’t unique to music. And as an advocate of the "freemium" model, I’d have to say I think content itself can be charged for in different formats – the special edition, the regular paperback even.

What we need, as authors, is to work – collectively and individually – on ways to adapt to the file-sharing world. I DO have a problem with exploiting fans. I don’t like the idea that some people pay for my stuff and others don’t pay for the same thing – so for me, ebooks have to be either free or not free (or it has to be transparent which is which). I DO think, though, that we need to look for something slightly more exciting than "free".

Part of the thing about file-sharing is the fact that it creates communities – where has the industry’s sense of history gone? Do they not REMEMBER the Warehouse and Rave scene? The buzz of these things is that they’re outside the usual channels – an anonymmous URL on a bulletin board, a phone box on the M25. It’s the same thing. These are communities that exist and get their energy from being on the outside. Bring them inside and they instantly use their energy. So "free" isn’t the only answer – that would be like having your parents sit down to watch Debbie Does Dallas with you on your 18th birthday.

As authors we DO need to use free, but we also need to be clever how we do so (but not, as I say, so clever we pretend our ebokos are for sale to try and make it seem a thrill to pirate them – that just exploits our fans). I’m not 100% sure what all the answers are (but Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans is part of the answer). But THAT’s the interesting debate – not whingeing when we left the sweet shop open that someone took our candy canes. And I never thought I’d say this, but the places we need to be looking are those semi-legal communities that use bulletin boards and chatrooms – the modern equivalent of rave culture – be it the BDSM scene, or the dogging networks, or the secretive supper clubs I saw on the news the other day. Come on, guys – we’re meant to be creatives, aren’t we?!

A further piece of logic that niggles at me. Until now, when I’ve talked about authors following the music model, and "doing a Trent", I’ve been told – as Stross concludes – that the two types of fan are fundamentally different, so it won’t work. If they’re so different, why worry about "Napsterisation" (other than for the rather unprofessional sake of using an emotive word)? Surely if books ARE "Napsterised", that’s just one more piece of evidence for those of us who maintain culture is, fundamentally, culture; and fans are, fundamentally, fans. And if they download stuff, they’ll pay for things they like.

A final point, Mr Stross. You complain that the group the file-sharing sites never mention are authors and publishers. And HERE, I’m afraid, you give yourself away. Stop speaking on my behalf, please. As a writer, I’m more than happy to embrace file-sharing. It’s not the people who file-share my work I lose sleep over. It’s the people who DON’T. The people who will lose out in the new landscape are the publishers. Please stop bundling our fate as writers in with theirs.

Dan Holloway is the author of the interactive Facebook novel The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, and just-released Songs from the Other Side of the Wall;  founding member of the Year Zero Writers Collective; organiser of the Free-e-day festival; celebrator of Indie culture – doing his bit to raise the issues the publishing industry doesn’t like to face.

Interview With The FTC's Richard Cleland

This post, from Edward Champion, originally appeared on his Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits site on 10/5/09, and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. In it, he speaks to Federal Trade Commission representative Richard Cleland about the FTC’s new guidelines regarding blogger product endorsements with a specific focus on bloggers who review books.

This morning, the Federal Trade Commission announced that its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials would be revised in relation to bloggers. The new guidelines (PDF) specified that bloggers making any representation of a product must disclose the material connections they (the presumed endorsers) share with the advertisers. What this means is that, under the new guidelines, a blogger’s positive review of a product may qualify as an “endorsement” and that keeping a product after a review may qualify as “compensation.”

These guidelines, which will be effective as of December 1, 2009, require all bloggers to disclose any tangible connections. But as someone who reviews books for both print and online, I was struck by the inherent double standard. And I wasn’t the only one. As Michael Cader remarked in this morning’s Publishers Marketplace:

The main point of essence for book publishers (and book bloggers) is the determination that “bloggers may be subject to different disclosure requirements than reviewers in traditional media.” They state that “if a blogger’s statement on his personal blog or elsewhere (e.g., the site of an online retailer of electronic products) qualifies as an ‘endorsement,’” due to either a relationship with the “advertiser” or the receipt of free merchandise in the seeking of a review, that connection must be disclosed.

ftcIn an attempt to better understand the what and the why of the FTC’s position, I contacted Richard Cleland of the Bureau of Consumer Protection by telephone, who was kind enough to devote thirty minutes of his time in a civil but heated conversation. (At one point, when I tried to get him to explicate further on the double standard, he declared, “You’re obviously astute enough to understand what I mean.”)

Cleland informed me that the FTC’s main criteria is the degree of relationship between the advertiser and the blogger.

“The primary situation is where there’s a link to the sponsoring seller and the blogger,” said Cleland. And if a blogger repeatedly reviewed similar products (say, books or smartphones), then the FTC would raise an eyebrow if the blogger either held onto the product or there was any link to an advertisement.

What was the best way to dispense with products (including books)?

“You can return it,” said Cleland. “You review it and return it. I’m not sure that type of situation would be compensation.”

If, however, you held onto the unit, then Cleland insisted that it could serve as “compensation.” You could after all sell the product on the streets.

But what about a situation like a film blogger going to a press screening? Or a theater blogger seeing a preview? After all, the blogger doesn’t actually hold onto a material good.

“The movie is not retainable,” answered Cleland. “Obviously it’s of some value. But I guess that my only answer is the extent that it is viewed as compensation as an individual who got to see a movie.”

But what’s the difference between an individual employed at a newspaper assigned to cover a beat and an individual blogger covering a beat of her own volition?

“We are distinguishing between who receives the compensation and who does the review,” said Cleland. “In the case where the newspaper receives the book and it allows the reviewer to review it, it’s still the property of the newspaper. Most of the newspapers have very strict rules about that and on what happens to those products.”

In the case of books, Cleland saw no problem with a blogger receiving a book, provided there wasn’t a linked advertisement to buy the book and that the blogger did not keep the book after he had finished reviewing it. Keeping the book would, from Cleland’s standpoint, count as “compensation” and require a disclosure.

But couldn’t the same thing be said of a newspaper critic?

Cleland insisted that when a publisher sends a book to a blogger, there is the expectation of a good review. I informed him that this was not always the case and observed that some bloggers often receive 20 to 50 books a week. In such cases, the publisher hopes for a review, good or bad. Cleland didn’t see it that way.

“If a blogger received enough books,” said Cleland, “he could open up a used bookstore.”

Cleland said that a disclosure was necessary when it came to an individual blogger, particularly one who is laboring for free. A paid reviewer was in the clear because money was transferred from an institution to the reviewer, and the reviewer was obligated to dispense with the product. I wondered if Cleland was aware of how many paid reviewers held onto their swag.

“I expect that when I read my local newspaper, I may expect that the reviewer got paid,” said Cleland. “His job is to be paid to do reviews. Your economic model is the advertising on the side.”

From Cleland’s standpoint, because the reviewer is an individual, the product becomes “compensation.”

“If there’s an expectation that you’re going to write a positive review,” said Cleland, “then there should be a disclosure.”

But why shouldn’t a newspaper have to disclose about the many free books that it receives? According to Cleland, it was because a newspaper, as an institution, retains the ownership of a book. The newspaper then decides to assign the book to somebody on staff and therefore maintains the “ownership” of the book until the reviewer dispenses with it.

I presented many hypothetical scenarios in an effort to determine where Cleland stood. He didn’t see any particular problem with a book review appearing on a blog, but only if there wasn’t a corresponding Amazon Affiliates link or an advertisement for the book.

In cases where a publisher is advertising one book and the blogger is reviewing another book by the same publisher, Cleland replied, “I don’t know. I would reserve judgment on that. My initial reaction to it is that it doesn’t seem like a relationship.”

Wasn’t there a significant difference between a publisher sending a book for review and a publisher sending a book with a $50 check attached to it? Not according to Cleland. A book falls under “compensation” if it comes associated with an Amazon link or there is an advertisement for the book, or if the reviewer holds onto the book.

“You simply don’t agree, which is your right,” responded Cleland.

Disagreement was one thing. But if I failed to disclose, would I be fined by the FTC? Not exactly.

Cleland did concede that the FTC was still in the process of working out the kinks as it began to implement the guidelines.

“These are very complex situations that are going to have to looked at on a case-by-case basis to determine whether or not there is a sufficient nexus, a sufficient compensation between the seller and the blogger, and so what we have done is to provide some guidance in this area. And some examples in this area where there’s an endorsement.”

Cleland elaborated: “I think that as we get more specific examples, ultimately we hope to put out some business guidance on specific examples. From an enforcement standpoint, there are hundreds of thousands of bloggers. Our goal is to the extent that we can educate on these issues. Looking at individual bloggers is not going to be an effective enforcement model.”

Cleland indicated that he would be looking primarily at the advertisers to determine how the relationships exist.

[UPDATE: One unanswered concern that has emerged in the reactions to this interview is the degree of disclosure that the FTC would require with these guidelines. Would the FTC be happy with a blanket policy or would it require a separate disclosure for each individual post? I must stress again that Cleland informed me that enforcement wouldn’t make sense if individual bloggers were targeted. The FTC intends to direct its energies to advertisers. Nevertheless, I’ve emailed Cleland to determine precisely where he stands on disclosure. And when I hear back from him, I will update this post accordingly.]

Edward Champion is a New York journalist who maintains The Bat Segundo Show, a high-octane podcast featuring interviews with today’s writers. Be sure to bookmark his site and watch it for his updates on this developing story.