Publetariat

If You Love A Writer

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This post, by Eileen Flanagan, originally appeared on her blog on 7/24/09, but is just as relevant today.

After ten years of writing around my children’s schedules, I have a book coming out soon, and friends have been asking what they can do to support me. I’ve been touched by their offers and yet reticent to ask too much, especially of busy people in a tough economy. At the same time, the online writers groups I belong to are a buzz day and night with authors trying to figure out how to publicize their work before the entire publishing industry goes bankrupt. So, as a community service, I’ve decided to write up ten suggestions for all the people who love a book author who’s been fighting the publicity odds (Fellow writers, feel free to forward this link or add your own suggestions in the comment section.):

1.   Buy your friend’s book. If you can afford it, buy it for everyone in your extended family. If you can’t afford it, ask your local librarian to order a copy. In fact, you can suggest it to your librarian whether you buy a copy yourself or not.
 
2.   Don’t wait until Christmas or Hanukkah to pick up a copy. How it does in its first weeks determines whether a book will stay on the bookstore shelves or be sent back to the warehouse to be shredded (along with your friend’s ego). Try to buy it as soon as it’s published, or better yet pre-order a copy, which makes your friend look good and gets your friend’s publisher excited about the book’s prospects. An excited publisher will invest more in publicity, while a bookstore that is getting advanced orders is more likely to stock the book on its shelves.

3.   Friends often ask where they should get the book, which is a tricky question. In the long-term, it is in every writer’s best interest to support independent booksellers (reader’s too, actually). If you don’t have a favorite one yourself, you can go to IndieBound to find one near you. When a book is newly released, however, it may help your writer friend more to buy it through a big chain, so they keep it stocked where the most people can find it. Likewise, a high sales rate on Amazon can get people’s attention, and if your friend’s website links directly to Amazon, she may be part of a program where she makes extra money when someone enters Amazon through the link on her website and then makes a purchase. I personally have links toseveral booksellers,  on the theory that it’s good to spread the love around.
 
4.   If you genuinely like your friend’s book, write a review on Amazon or Goodreads, mention it on Facebook and Twitter, and recommend it to your book group.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes six more tips, on Eileen Flanagan’s blog.

11 Resources To Make Editing Your Novel Easier

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As if learning the craft of writing a novel isn’t difficult enough, after it’s finished you’ll need to edit it. If you’re going to be traditionally published, you’ll probably work with an editing staff to make your work marketable.

But before it gets to that point, you have to get it past the slush pile – that means doing a lot of self-editing first.

Of course, you may choose to go the indie author route and self-publish. No need to rise out of a slush pile, just a need to catch a reader’s eye out there in the big world. Sounds pretty simple.

But before you catch a reader’s eye (and you want to make a good impression, yes?), you need to have a great story – that means doing a lot of self-editing and perhaps hiring a professional as well.

No matter what you do, if you want to be read and have those readers give you great reviews, spread the word and buy your other books, you have to face the red pen. You must edit your manuscript.

Thankfully there are many resources available to help from blogs to books to videos. Here are 11 resources that will make editing just a little easier on you.

  1. Editing Your Novel: High Level Story Read Through by Joanna Penn – In this video, with transcript, Joanna explains some of the process she went through editing her first draft of Pentecost from weaving in back story to checking for consistency.
  1. A Perfectionist’s Guide to Editing: 4 Stages by Jami Gold – In this blog post Jami narrows our focus from revising the big picture to nailing down those pesky words that need to be just a little stronger.
  1. Proofreading & Editing Tips: A compilation of advice from experienced proofreaders and editors – This article is just what it says, a list of tips from general proofing to content editing.
  1. Copy-Editing And Beta Readers by Joanna Penn – In this blog post Joanna shares how she worked with beta readers and what benefits she found from their feedback.
  1. No Really: Kill Your Clichés by Leslie Wilson – This blog post takes a humorous look at how clichés can hurt your writing.
  1. Do You Copy? Tips on Copy Editing Your Own Work by Janice Hardy – In this blog post Janice shares several concrete examples of common problems such as tense issues, parallel series difficulties and ambiguous pronouns.
  1. Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty – In this book Mignon helps writers understand complex grammar concepts by using simple examples and memory devices.
  1. 10 Actions You Can Take to Improve Your Proofreading by Randall Davidson – This blog post is rather on the nose with simple tips that include slowing down, reading out loud and asking for help.
  1. 10 Grammar Rules You Can (and Should!) Ignore! By Tracy O’Connor – In this blog post Tracy gives us permission to break those “hard and fast rules” like split infinitives and ending a sentence with a preposition… only when it makes the writing sound natural, of course.
  1. A Good Edit Would’ve Fixed That by April Hamilton – In this blog post April gives several concrete examples of how to fix problems such as using internal monologue for omniscient exposition.
  1. 5 Essential Tips on Self-Editing by Catherine Ryan Hyde – In this blog post Catherine reminds writers to use spell check, but don’t rely on it, as well as four other very useful tips.

Editing is unavoidable and can be painful, but it doesn’t need to be impossible. These are only a few of the resources I’ve found. What about you? What resources and tips have you picked up as you’ve gone through the editing process?

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road to Writing.

What's In A Name? The Pink Floyd Effect

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The Pink Floyd Effect – The process of a name becoming perfect for its subject through familiarity with that subject and/or its actions.

Names. Very powerful things. Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with demonology or the occult will tell you what a powerful thing a name can be. If you know something’s true name, you have great power over it. Maybe that’s why Prince changed his name to a symbol, which is very hard to pronounce in spells – could he be a demon, hunted by occult adventurers? But I digress.

[Editor’s Note: strong language after the jump, and political opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author]

 

I’ve been thinking about this lately because we rescued a tiny stray kitten last week and he appears to live here now. He has a strangely large chin and I said, “He’s like Stan from American Dad.” Henceforth, the kitten’s name is Stanley. He’s very cute, really. Look:

stanley Whats in a name? The Pink Floyd Effect.

When I mentioned this on Facebook and Twitter, people were universally besotted with him, but the reaction to his name was interesting. A lot of people thought it was a great name and many people complimented me on giving him a “proper” name. I presume they meant as opposed to Tiddles or Mr Snookums. Other people were very confused and made comments like, “Stanley? Really!?” A couple of people even pointed out that he looks like a Stanley. Which he does, of course, because that’s his name. Chicken and egg.

The name and the named grow into each other and become inseperable. I guarantee that within a few weeks, our new kitten and the name Stanley will be completely normal, at least to us. It happens in every walk of life. For example, my favourite band of all time is Pink Floyd. Stop and have a look at that name. When you hear it, you think of the band and all the amazing work they’ve done. But really? Pink Floyd? The etymology is interesting. They started out called The Tea Set, then one day found themselves on a bill with another band called The Tea Set. So Syd Barrett suggested a name he’d been keen on for a while, based on his two favourite blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. So they played as The Pink Floyd Sound. After a few gigs they dropped Sound, but remained known as The Pink Floyd. Usually known simply as Pink Floyd since the early seventies, the definite article is still used occasionally even now. But really, when you think about it, Pink Floyd is a bloody silly name. However, it’s also awesome as it contains and references everything about one of the most seminal bands of all time.

So of course, I relate this name situation to fiction. Names become incredibly important when we’re writing. I agonise over names – it’s probably the thing that gives me the most grief when I write. I want to get names just right. I want them to fit. But the truth is, whatever name I give a character will fit if I tell the story well and write the character convincingly, because the character and the name will grow together and seem like it was always the perfect match. I call this ‘The Pink Floyd Effect‘.

Drizzt Whats in a name? The Pink Floyd Effect.I think the important thing is to not try too hard when coming up with names for your fiction, especially if you write fantasy. Remember, the apostrophied name is so overused now that it’s become something of a joke. Characters like Drizzt Do’Urden owned the concept back in the day, but now it’s seen as overly try-hard, or extreme wankery, to include crazy apostrophied names in your fantasy fiction.

In Brent Weeks’ Night Angel Trilogy, I was initially really annoyed at the name Durzo Blint. It annoyed me because it seemed uneccessarily “fantasy”, and it still does annoy me a bit. But the name also now conjures for me everything about that character, and he’s a character I really like.

Let’s look at it from another real world example. I’ll write a name, you be aware of your immediate reaction. Ready?

Rodney King.

That’s a pretty ordinary sounding name in and of itself, but I bet you had a pretty visceral reaction to it. The man, the name and the events for which he’s known have become ingrained in our culture and the name carries a lot of power because of it.

Let’s try another one:

Errol Flynn

Calm down, ladies. Take a deep breath. Errol Flynn is actually a pretty funny name, and you might feel a bit sorry for anyone with a name like that these days. Although I do quite like the name Errol myself. But there’s no denying that it has power.

Okay, one more:

Sarah Palin.

Did you feel yourself get a bit dumber just then? Just reading or hearing the name actively destroys brain cells and enhances right wing idiocy and religious insanity. And that’s a name that could become much more powerful if the American people don’t take a moment to get their shit together. But in itself, Sarah Palin is a pretty ordinary name.

So, my point is this: Don’t over-stress the names you use, be it for your pets or the characters in your fiction. The Pink Floyd Effect will kick in with time and the name and the named will become one and the same thing. And potentially attach themselves to events people are aware of around the world.

When you’re writing your fiction, spend some time to think about the names, make sure they have a good ring to them, are easily read off the page and stuff like that. Then put your effort into writing the characters and the story as well as you possibly can. By the time you’re finished, the names you’ve chosen will be perfect.

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Agree or disagree? Please feel free to share your thoughts and examples in the comments.

 

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

Kindle for the Web – How It Can Be Used by Authors?

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Kindle for the Web widget

In September last year Amazon introduced a new tool, Kindle for the Web, which allows users to read and share first chapters of books without leaving a web browser.

In addition to a good-looking preview interface, there are two useful features: sharing and embedding. The latter one is a very good, yet underestimated tool which can be used in many ways by authors who publish their books at Amazon.

Before I’ll list benefits and explain how to embed the preview in a blog, I’d like to point out to one very important fact. Despite the name, Kindle for the Web is not available on a page with a Kindle edition of a book. Just the opposite – you’ll see the green widget with a Read first chapter FREE button (picture 1) on a page with a print version of a book… and linking to Kindle edition.

This is misleading many people, who look for previews where they are not available. As a result they stop searching for books at all.

Why Amazon decided to profile the tool this way? A simple explanation is that by giving a chance to read a sample of a print book they want to convince people to try Kindle editions – and buy Kindles.

What’s related, and essential for authors, is that Kindle for the Web is available only for books with both print and Kindle editions.

Why it’s good to use it?

I was extremely interested in this tool since the very beginning as it opens a couple of new opportunities for authors. Let me list the most important ones.

1. It helps differentiate your social media activity

Instead of tweeting “buy my book” all the time, you can write “read first chapter of my book for free”. Remember, we never know what is the current mood of our followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook. Some of them are willing to buy, some – to test before buying (but don’t feel like downloading a free sample to their Kindle or tablet).

2. It makes your blog more attractive

If you embed a book in a blog post and stick this post to a home page, you’ve got a very inviting entry, what’s more: saying right at the beginning that this is a blog from a published author.

3. It changes the reader’s attitude

Let’s say you want to share a first chapter of your published book. The difference is that when you make a regular blog post with it, it’s just a regular blog post. When you embed Kindle preview in a post, well, that’s a different story – you are showing a first chapter of the book.

4. It helps focus on reading

This is one of my favorite topics: reading in times of distraction. If you use Kindle preview in your blog, there are bigger chances that the reader will read it, as it removes all the distractions (like banners and sidebars) after a full screen option is clicked.

5. It helps you manage your author’s profile

Some authors, including me, published a book some time ago, started a blog to support it and drifted into areas where they can be more useful – sharing experience or writing tips and advice.

You were a mystery romance writer and now you are a writing expert. Sometimes it’s hard to fight with this strong new profile. Using Kindle for the Web will make your readers more willing to accept your other face.

6. It allows to earn more money

Finally, but most importantly, you can earn extra money, if you are an Amazon associate. When you are getting a code to embed, you can also provide your associate tag. Thanks to that any book sold via link from a Kindle preview on your blog will bring you money not only from a royalty (author) but also from a referral fee (associate).

If you haven’t joined Amazon affiliate system, it’s a good moment to try. There is nothing to be ashamed of. What’s really interesting is that Kindle for the Web with a pattern to switch to Kindle ecosystem can be also a natural opportunity to sell on your blog Kindle e-readers.

How to embed a preview in a blog?

The minimum size of the embedded window is 500(width) by 325(height) pixels. Therefore the places to consider are either a page or a post.

1. Go to a print version of your book, find the green widget entitled Kindle Edition and click on a Read first chapter FREE button. A Kindle for the Web window will pop up.

Kindle for the Web window

2. Find Embed button in the upper right corner and click on it. When you expand it with a Customize option, you’ll see a window like this.

Kindle for the Web - embed box

3. Type the size of a window. Ideally the width could be exactly the same as your blog’s page/post. In the Associate Tag field, type your tag.

4. Copy the code and paste it into your blog’s new page/post (in HTML preview). Done. Now you can share it with your readers.

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Although adding Kindle for the Web to a blog is a relatively easy task, there are a couple of conditions when you may not be able to do it:

– your blogging platform does not support html scripts (WordPress.com or Posterous)
– you are not familiar with html and/or don’t want to bother with it
– your blog has a very narrow page/post area – if it’s less than 500 pixels you won’t be able to do it

You can always take advantage from a feature I added to Ebook Friendly, my site designed to make browsing for e-books a more friendly experience. There is a special section called Read Online, where Kindle for the Web previews are perfectly tailored to e-reading application design. What’s important, authors can provide their associate tags and earn money as they would do it on their blogs.

If you’re interested, read more details in this post.

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Kindle for the Web is a great, easy to implement and very engaging tool. Until now I’ve seen it used mainly on book review sites. I think it’s not the reviewers, but authors, who should benefit the most.

Discoverability Issues For Ebooks

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In this Beyond the Book podcast and accompanying transcript, provided by the Copyright Clearance Center, the CCC’s Chris Kenneally interviews leading industry experts on the question of how consumers find ebooks.

As part of the Independent Book Publishers Association‘s Publishing University for 2011, CCC’s Chris Kenneally moderated a discussion on “What’s Now and What’s Next in E-Reading.” Taking place just ahead of BookExpo America, the session featured Mark Coker, Founder and CEO, Smashwords; Ami Greko, Senior Vendor Relations, Kobo; James Howitt, Director of Publishing Services, R.R. Bowker; and Ron Hogan, Electric Literature.

“Last time we had a revolution of this kind,” Kenneally pointed out, “was the emergence of the printing press in the end of the 15th century. It took 150 years for anything like a publishing business to emerge. So while it’s possible to invent a technology, inventing a business takes a good deal more work. This is not the Middle Age, and we don’t have centuries to work these things out.” The panel noted ways that e-readers are changing how authors, publishers and their audiences think about the things we once called “books.”

From Bowker, James Howitt noted, “that we have to realize that bookstores hold in excess of 50, 60,000 titles to browse through. Today’s e-book buyer is going online and probably seeing — I don’t know, 50, 60 titles in front of them. There’s not that browsing, discovery capability just yet, and again, I’ll keep saying it, but not everyone is buying an e-book. So the challenge is about understanding each one of those customers and why they do what they do.”

 Emagination 2011 [41:57m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
 
View or download the transcript of this podcast here.

 

The Problem For Piracy

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I’m not going to include software in this, just entertainment. The main entertainment forms that are pirated are: movies/television shows, books, and music. (I know, duh, right?)

So I’m thinking about why we have this problem. There is the obvious entitlement people have, but where did this entitlement even come from? I actually believe it came from the entertainment industries themselves (inadvertently), way back before the Internet when it was actually costly and time prohibitive for the average person to share copies of shit they didn’t own the copyright to.

[Editor’s Note: strong language after the jump]

 

With the film/tv industry there was “local television” (and movies are included in this because SOME movies from the theater eventually got edited for network television.) Local television didn’t cost money. You just had commercials (which most people don’t watch anyway, so they don’t consider that a cost to them). It was drilled into people’s heads that television entertainment is FREE. (Unless you were one of the families who could afford cable… but I really think subscription based free-for-alls still encourage the idea that you are paying for a service, not access to content.)

Now we have Netflix and Hulu which supposedly help reduce piracy but it STILL drills this same message in. Netflix is under $10 a month for all the streaming you want (of what is available that way). I do a lot of Netflix Streaming. It’s legal. I pay for it. But I still don’t see how anyone is being fairly compensated for all I’m watching. Bottom line, even though I pay a monthly fee, I, and probably most other people sort of see Netflix Streaming and Hulu as “free”. And the reason for this is that I get DVD rentals at home, too at this price. So in my head I’m paying for the DVD rentals but not the streaming, because it doesn’t make logical sense HOW I’m really paying for ALL that I’m streaming at that flat fee.

Onward…

With music we have radio. We are used to listening to music for free. Sure, there are commercials, but we all change the channel, turn the volume down, or ignore it. So we don’t see it as a real “cost”. The only cost we really have with radio is that we don’t get to listen to the song we want when we want to listen to it. But twenty years ago we all solved that problem with our cassette player/radios when we just recorded songs on the radio we liked when they came on. Now, we didn’t set up shop in our basement with bootlegs, but we were getting personal use: free music. So in our heads… music is supposed to be free if we want it.

And finally… books. We have libraries. Borrowing books without paying and reading and enjoying them without paying. There aren’t even commercials here. Just a fine if we don’t get the book back on time. And with public libraries doing digital books as well, the line is REALLY blurring quite a lot for ebooks.

So this, IMO is the problem. It’s not because the economy sucks and everybody is poor. It’s not because it’s so easy to do it. It’s because of entitlement. But the entitlement doesn’t exist because everybody is a jerk. The entitlement exists because in all of these industries we have all been trained by social reinforcement to see entertainment of this nature as “free”. And that was okay before the Internet. Once the Internet got here, people just wanted to continue doing what they were doing, but more conveniently. A lot of folks weren’t paying for TV, music, or books before… why the fuck should they start now?

But by everyone acting on this entitlement, a lot of people who create stuff lose a lot of money and are justifiably pissed off. I think the people who built libraries and the radio stations and the TV people, they just never thought we’d reach a day where the good will fostered through free content could be turned on them in such a drastic way. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

Had people always paid for all books, all TV, and all music, my view is that everyone would have felt it was wrong to steal it when the Internet came along. Most people understand digital downloading without pay is illegal. But deep down many don’t believe it’s wrong. Because they were getting it free before in another way and no one was making money personally off their enjoyment of the entertainment… and it was okay then.

 

This is a reprint from Zoe Winters‘ Weblog.

All The Cool Kids Are Doing It

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Self-publishing, that is. Or at least, it can seem so. There are the breakthrough success stories at one end of the spectrum, bitter tales of sales disappointment at the other, and between the two, a generous smattering of testimonials from indie authors who aren’t earning enough to quit their day jobs yet but are covering the rent or groceries each month with proceeds from their book sales. Suddenly, if you’re not releasing a Kindle or Nook edition at the minimum, you feel like you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. The pressure to rush to market is great, but you must resist it until both you and your book are truly ready for prime time.

 

Is Your Platform In Place, Focused and Growing?
Releasing your book before you’ve made it easy for readers to connect with you online, whether via a blog, social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or an author website, is a big mistake. Readers have come to expect authors to have an online presence of some sort, and not having one paints you and your book as a bit more fly by night.

I’m not saying prospective buyers will check for platform before making a purchase decision, but platform is what spreads the message about you and your work, pulling more and more readers into your fold and making those readers feel you care about their reaction to your work. Building a community around your work makes each subsequent book easier to promote, and creates a cheerleading section that will do a fair amount of promotion for you.

Is Your Book Still In Beta Test, Or Should It Be?
If you just completed your draft a week ago, I don’t care who you are or how fantastic a writer you are, it’s not ready to be published. Don’t scrimp on the workshopping and rounds of critique, and don’t let your sense of urgency about publication color your rewrite decisions.

Let’s say the majority of your workshop/critique readers agree the second act needs a major overhaul, and a certain character needs to either be significantly expanded or cut entirely. Your heart sinks as you realize you’re staring down the barrel of six weeks or more of rewrites, followed by another round of review, which pushes your publication date back by three months or more. It can be very easy to become so focused on your target publication date that you give short shrift to any feedback that could possibly interfere with that date.

Just keep reminding yourself: releasing a book that’s not ready will lose sales and fans. And if it’s your first book, readers aren’t likely to give you a second chance. There’s just too much else out there for them to choose from, and at bargain prices.

Have You Succumbed To The "Good Enoughs"?
Your manuscript is all formatted for print or ebook publication, and for the most part, it looks great. There are some inconsistencies in your formatting, like maybe most passages written in the voice of your protagonist’s deceased son are italicized as you’ve intended, but a few have been left in standard type. Maybe most of your paragraphs begin with a .25" indent but non-indented paragraphs are scattered here and there. Maybe most of your line spacing is 1.15, but here and there you’ve lapsed into 1.5, and it’s barely noticeable. Readers don’t care about these things, right? Most of the book’s formatting is correct and consistent, and that’s good enough, right? Wrong.

You know a quality cover will elevate your book above the crowd, but you have no art or typography skills to speak of, don’t have the money to pay top dollar for a professional design and don’t have the time to search out a freelance artist you can afford. So you get your artsy sister to create a cover image for you, and it may not look like a slick mainstream cover but it’s not bad. It doesn’t scream "my sister designed this for me," and that’s good enough, right? Wrong.

Again, don’t let your sense of urgency about publication set an unprofessional tone.

Are You Prepared To Promote?
The book’s been workshopped, polished to a high gloss, has a fantastic cover and attractive, consistent formatting, and you’ve got an author blog, Twitter account and Facebook page set up. Time to publish? Maybe, maybe not.

Are you prepared to invest the necessary time and effort to post to your blog regularly and acknowledge comments left there, to tweet quality messages and links, and respond to Facebook messages and wall posts? A neglected platform can actually be worse than no platform at all if it makes your readers feel snubbed.

Will you be able to do some guest blogging or write some articles to help get the word out about your book? Can you find the time to reach out to book bloggers and other reviewers, and are you prepared to send out free review copies of your book?

Platform maintenance doesn’t have to be a fulltime job, and you can calibrate your platform activities to match your available levels of time and energy (e.g., maybe you can do Twitter or Facebook, but not both; maybe a static author web page is best for you because you don’t have the time to blog, etc.).

What’s important is that you’re not going into publication with an expectation that once the book is out there, your job is done and all you need do is wait for the glowing reviews and royalties to start rolling in. Raising and building awareness doesn’t happen by accident.

Are You Going To Make The Rest Of Us Look Bad?
Whether for any of the above reasons or something else, if you’re not prepared to do a professional job of preparing your book for release and promoting it afterward, don’t publish. While indie books and authors are gaining widespread acceptance, every amateurish indie book has the power to create or reinforce an anti-indie bias, and that hurts all of us.
 

This is a reprint from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

Book Marketing Toolbox: WorldCat

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It can be difficult to know if libraries are buying your books, because they usually purchase books through wholesalers. One easy way to estimate how many libraries have your book on the shelf is to do a search at WorldCat, an online database of library holdings.

First, enter the title of your book in the search box and click on your book title when it comes up in the search results. To find out which libraries have your book, scroll down to the section on your book’s page called "Find a Copy in the Library" and enter your ZIP code or location in the search box.

The results screen lists the names of libraries that have reported holding your book in their collection. Not all of your library sales will show up in WorldCat because not all libraries upload their catalogs to the site. Roughly 70% of U.S. public libraries participate in WorldCat, although the percentage is higher in some states.

If you’re doing a promotion to libraries, copy the list of libraries that have your book first. If you’re contacting libraries directly, you can skip the libraries that already have the book. A few months after your library promotion, check WorldCat again, to see how the list of libraries holding your book has changed.

On your book’s WorldCat page you can also enter book reviews and keyword tags.

Want to learn more about selling to libraries? Check out The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Selling Your Book to Libraries.
 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer.

Ebook Publishing And The Great Price Debate: My Numbers Tell An Interesting Story

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Before Christmas and the great Amanda Hocking success story hit the blogosphere, the general wisdom among ebook self-publishers tended to be that $2.99 was the sweet spot  for selling and profiting from sales. Particularly after Amazon instituted its new 70% royalty offering (which didn’t apply for books priced at under $2.99), anything lower than that was seen as reserved for short stories or novellas or at the most a brief promotional launch. However, the success of Amanda Hocking and a growing number of self-published authors selling their books at 99 cents changed the debate.

They proved that you could sell so many books at that rate that it would more than make up for the loss of the 70% revenue. An additional upside to the 99 cent approach was that the sheer volume of sales at 99 cents would put your book(s) so high up in the rankings in the Kindle store and its browsing categories that you could dominate the market in these subgenres, thereby attracting even more buyers.

I confess, as I watched my number of U.S.Kindle sales of my historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune, begin a steady decline after it reached a peak in January (2841 sales), February (1461), March (1191), April (728), I began to think about whether or not I should lower my price to 99 cents. But so far I have held off.  I decided that what I was seeing was a seasonal pattern, rather than a lack of competitiveness of my pricing. For example, Maids of Misfortune remained at the top of the historical mystery best-seller list, which suggested to me that other books in the list were undergoing a similar decline-otherwise they should have started to out-rank me. Shatzkin in his recent post analyzing the new data on ebook sales echoed my conclusions when he stated:

“…Christmas presents of ebook-capable devices would tend to result in ebook sales after December 25. (The devices would have been sold before Christmas, of course.) It might be true that people buy more ebooks in the first month or two that they own a device than they do on an ongoing basis.

So for the period left in our time of transition when Christmas presents of devices add new digital reading converts — and we certainly have one or two more Christmases like that coming, if not three or four — we can expect ebook sales surges right after Christmas that calm down in March and later.”

I think that every time Amazon puts out a new device (with a surge in new buys), every time a gift-related holiday rolls round (first 7 days of May I averaged 15 sales a day, Mother’s Day I sold 31!), Kindle books that sell well (have good reviews, good cover, are ranked high in browser categories, etc) will sell more. But I also believe that in most cases this will be followed by a decline—since people who get new devices tend to “front load” with lots of books, particularly low-priced books, and it will take them awhile to make their way through those already purchased books to begin to buy again. And I suspect that when they begin to buy again, they may not focus so narrowly on the free and 99 cent books, particularly if they found a high proportion of these cheaper books did not live up to their expectations.

This isn’t to say that by lowering my price I wouldn’t start to sell more books, but whether or not my book, in my genre, would sustain large enough numbers to compensate for the lower royalties over a month or two is still questionable. Since I hope to have my sequel out by early fall, it made much more sense to wait to experiment with lowering the price until closer to my launch-so that I could use it as a promotional tool to generate interest in the new book. I might also start out with a 99 cent price for the new book to generate enough sales and reviews to get it to climb the top of the historical mystery category.

Further evidence of the temporary effects of lowering the price of a work came this month when Amazon lowered the price of my short story, Dandy Detects, based on characters from the longer novel, from 99 cents to free. (Background here is that as a self-published author on Kindle I couldn’t offer Dandy Detects as a free short story, which is what I wanted to do. However, I was contacted ten days ago by Kindle Direct saying they were going to offer Dandy for free because it had been offered as a “free promotion on another sales channel.” I am not sure, but I think this was because Dandy had been offered as a free short on KindleNationDaily in July, 2010.

In the year since I started offering Dandy Detects, I had sold slightly over 2700 stories at 99 cents. May 11th when it was offered free for the first time, there were 3851 stories downloaded. This was the peak, and the numbers declined steadily, so that yesterday, May 19, I sold 123. However, as I had always hoped, the free short story led to sales of Maids of Misfortune. The first week in May my average sales was 15, the week after Dandy Detects started being free, my daily sales average was 31. Yet, as the number of new Dandy’s downloaded declined, so has the number of daily sales for Maids of Misfortune.

Will my daily sales, despite this bump, continue to decline? Possibly, until the next new device or a new lower price is issued, until the summer holidays cause an uptick in reading, until the people who front-loaded their devices begin to buy again. This April I may have sold only 728 Kindle copies of Maids, but last April I sold only 28.

In conclusion: from my experiences in Kindle sales as a self-published author I have drawn a few simple lessons.

•  As the number of people who own Kindles (or devices that support Kindle books) increases, the sales of ebooks from the Kindle store will increase, including sales of Maids of Misfortune. Amazon just announced that it has sold 3 x the number of ebooks so far in 2011 as it did in the same time period in 2010.

•  At the same time, the pace of the sales of ebook devices, while increasing over all, is influenced by such factors as the timing of when new devices are issued, the periodic lowering of the price of Kingles, and gift related holidays, causing a pattern of jumps in sales, followed by a temporary slowing in sales.

•  Offering short stories for free, or full length books for 99 cent prices, will also increase sales, which can be very good for promotional purposes (gets you higher ranks in categories, can raise the sales of other books), but it is not yet clear if this is a sustainable approach for the long haul (given the loss of royalties) for all ebooks (genre does matter here).

Finally, because Maids of Misfortune is a self-published ebook, and it will not go out of print (or be returned by bookstores), any declines in the number of daily sales (while does effect my monthly income) does nothing to determine the lifetime income the book will make. The first year the book was out I made over $5000, the next five months I made another $17,000 dollars, and I have every reason to expect that this income will increase in the next 5-7 months, as the number of people who own Kindles increases. And at the end of that period, I should have a second book out, and if I did my job as a writer and produced a good book, then in time my income should at least double.

So, what are your numbers telling you?
 

 

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

ThrillerCast Episode 18 – Getting Noticed As A Writer

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Episode18 of the podcast I host with David Wood is now up. In this episode we talk about what it takes to get noticed as a writer. We discuss short fiction as a means of promotion as well as a means of creativity in itself.

 

ThrillerCast Podcast

 

We talk about the difference between having a large body of work and a large online presence. Whether one or the other is better and so on. Go and have a listen, share it with your friends and anyone else you think might like it and feel free to comment or email.

All the details here.

 

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

How Publishers Are Affected By Digital Devices

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This Beyond the Book podcast and transcript are being provided in their entirety by the Copyright Clearance Center’s Beyond the Book Cast site, where they originally appeared on 5/29/11.

Recorded in Boston at the 2011 SIIA NetGain Conference, this conversation with leading analysts looks at everything from tiny smart phones to tablets to learn what’s hot, what’s not, and what you need to know that will impact your business.

A trio of Boston-based analysts provided insight on where businesses need to head: Vanessa DiMauro, CEO, Leader Networks; Jim Hamilton, Group Director, InfoTrends; and Ned May, VP & Lead Analyst, Outsell, Inc. They answered questions from CCC’s Chris Kenneally, including, “What are the devices that will have the most immediate impact on my business?” and “How fast, really, are the new mobile tools being adopted in the consumption of business information?”

 Leading Innovation [36:55m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

Read the transcript of the podcast here.

Five Proofreading Techniques Every Talented Writer Should Know

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This is a guest post from Randall Davidson.

Professional proofreaders use a number of proofreading techniques in order to produce the most polished and error-free results for their clients. These methods allow them to maintain their concentration on the material while ensuring that it is thoroughly checked for mistakes and necessary corrections. By adopting these proofreading techniques, authors and small business owners can improve the quality of their written communications.

  1. Double check. Most professional proofreaders check each project at least twice in order to ensure that no mistakes have been overlooked during the first pass. This can also help proofreaders to detect errors that may have been caused during the correction process itself, offering additional protection against mistakes at every stage of the proofreading process.
     
  2. Take a break. One of the most underrated proofreading techniques is also one of the most obvious; taking a break during the proofreading process can be exceptionally helpful in maintaining the necessary focus on the task. By stepping away from the project for a few minutes, proofreaders can often achieve a better perspective on the work both as a whole and in terms of spelling, grammar and punctuation. This can allow them to detect errors more efficiently and effectively.
     
  3. Look it up. A number of online proofreading resources are available to proofreaders in need of spelling clarification or grammatical help. Google can be useful in cases in which a word has been misspelled in a way that makes it difficult to identify. A dictionary is another obvious source of spelling information. By looking up any words that appear questionable or unfamiliar, proofreaders can ensure that the finished work is of the highest possible quality.
     
  4. Divide and conquer. Splitting the proofreading process into various stages can help keep the process fresh and the proofreader alert. Spell checking typically constitutes one phase, with grammar, style and punctuation each comprising one of the other three stages of the process. The same effect can be achieved by a multi-tier approach; by approaching the material first word-by-word, then by the sentence, then by the paragraph and finally in sections, the proofreader can achieve optimal results. This strict method of ensuring repeated viewings of the same material can provide surprisingly effective proofreading results.
     
  5. Call for backup. Even professional proofreaders consult with each other on long and complex projects. Small business owners and individuals can achieve the same results by enlisting the help of a professional proofreading firm.  These professionals can often identify mistakes that might otherwise go uncorrected, creating a final document that presents the information in the most professional manner possible.

Randall Davidson is a co-founder of ProofreadingServices.Us, a rapidly growing professional proofreading services company committed to providing others with the tools necessary to produce polished documents. He does this both through the informative articles he writes and through the high quality online proofreading services that ProofreadingServices.Us provides.
 

Strip Mining the Authors

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This post, by Passive Guy, originally appeared on his The Passive Voice blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has written another important essay on the changing face of publishing. I’ll intersperse some excerpts with my comments, but this is one you’ll want to read in its entirety. There is, as always, a link at the bottom.

As will be abundantly clear from Kris’ examples, traditional publishers and the new agents-turned-publishers are making a brazen grab for as many rights from authors as possible while reducing the amount of money they will pay authors for their books. This is the new strip mining model for publishing.

Why are they doing this?

When the ship is sinking, some of the passengers start fighting over the lifeboats.

With each passing week, the handwriting on the wall becomes more and more distinct. What does the writing say?

Big Publishing, the agents who rely upon it and the traditional bookstores that provide its lifeblood are sinking. Just like the Titanic, they’re not disappearing in an instant. The band is still playing and fashionable people are doing business on the upper decks. The good ship Big Publishing will be bobbing in the waves for some time to come, but Amazon, ebooks and indie publishing have punched big holes in the hull. Those holes cannot be patched and the ship is going down.

Does this mean the end of publishing ships? No, but it means the demise of the grand ocean liners. The S.S. Amazon is an entirely different design, crafted for speed and efficiency and it doesn’t need many sailors schooled in the old ways.

While the band is playing and champagne flows, people make brave speeches about the timelessness of their trade. But, make no mistake, a battle is underway below-decks for spots on the lifeboats. If it’s necessary to toss authors over the side to make room, well, that’s just the nature of the business these days.

From Kris:

[A bestselling] writer, more than any other writer, is in danger of losing money and copyrights, of in fact going from making a lot of money to making little or no money at all. How can she lose money when she will probably maintain her bestseller status, her sales will probably go up, and her work will go into more markets than ever before?

Simple. Her contract terms will change and she might not even notice.

At some time hidden in the mists of time, an ancient rule of contracts was formulated: When a business partner is in financial trouble and wants a change in a long-standing agreement, watch your wallet. The more “routine” the change, the more dangerous it probably is.

Kris talks about e-rights:

Another clause to beware of in the e-rights clause of your new contract is this one:

“The Author hereby grants to the Publisher…the exclusive license to produce, publish, sell, distribute and further license any Electronic Version of the Work…. ‘Electronic Version’ means versions that include the Work…in a complete, condensed, adapted, or abridged version and in compilations for performance and display in any manner whether sequentially or non-sequentially and together with accompanying sounds and images, if any, transmissible by any electronic means, method or device (including but not limited to electronic and machine-readable media and online or satellite-based transmission or any other device or medium for electronic reproduction or transmission whether now or hereafter known or developed…)” [Emphasis mine.]

Yikes! Ick! No. Never, ever, ever, ever sign this clause. Think about this: movies are digitized—they are performance, and they are often distributed online. Not only does that clause allow someone to monkey with your work, abridging it, taking it out of order, adding things to it, making it into a performance piece, adding sound effects, but it also is a backwards way of granting television rights, video display rights, and any other performance right, so long as that performance can be distributed electronically.

And don’t believe that someone in your publishing house won’t use that clause down the road. The editor you trust may leave, the publishing company might change hands, and a clause that was designed for one thing will be used for something completely different.

Gold has been discovered in ebooks. Smart people are prospecting for more gold with enhanced ebooks. Video in ebooks is a definite possibility.

While a few people sprinkled in publishers’ management positions high and low may have seen a vision of what books could become and the effect that might have on publishers’ profits in their traditional lines a few years ago, nobody bothered to tell the gnomes who tended the standard-form contracts.

Kris has seen far more publishing contracts during her career than Passive Guy has, but the ones he’s examined that are more than a couple of years old are tight where paperbacks and hardcovers are concerned and they leak like a sieve everywhere else.

Back to Kris:

Watch out for your option clause. Try to avoid signing one at all. In the past, option clauses were like job security, but no longer. Option clauses have now become a way to tie a writer to a publishing house and to prevent her from working for anyone else. So strike your option clause if possible.

. . . .

Watch your warranty clause.  Now, many publishers are reverting to an old practice. They want writers to warrant that the writer will not write anything until this particular book under this particular contract is published.

This used to be a separate clause, and very easy to find.  It existed in a lot of contracts 20 years ago, then faded away.  Now it’s back with a vengeance.  It used to be that the writer guaranteed that the book she had just contracted for would be her next book and no other book would compete against it.

Now she’s guaranteeing that she will not write another book until this one is published.  And in many cases, the publisher enjoins her from writing anything.

This clause, which has been in every new book contract I have seen from traditional New York publishers in the past six months, is buried in the warranties.  Which are the boilerplate part of the contract, the part that includes bankruptcies and acts of God.  A lot of established writers stopped reading the legal gobbledygook in the boilerplate years ago, and have been snared by this clause.

Sometimes people fighting for lifeboats don’t act in rational ways. During the fight, the lifeboat may be damaged, supplies lost and passengers capable of providing valuable assistance to the survivors prevented from boarding.

When he read Kris’ description of these provisions, Passive Guy was reminded about one of the fundamental rules of making contracts with important long-term partners: Don’t screw your partner in the contract even if you have an opportunity to do so. When your partner realizes you screwed her as she inevitably will, she’ll spend all her time and energy working on ways to get out of the contract instead of doing whatever it was that you wanted her to do when you signed the contract.

What about the clause that hog-tied the author to the publisher? PG’s already thought of a half-dozen likely ways to evade the clause. He can’t help it, that’s just the way his mind works. However, he’ll keep those under his hat for the moment because he hasn’t seen the language in the contract.

Something else also came to mind, however. As described, the hog-tying clause potentially precludes a professional author from earning a living by writing for a competing publisher. When you think of it that way, it sounds a lot like a non-compete clause.

Non-compete agreements are common in the tech world. When you go to work for a tech company or become a contractor for a tech company, you’ll be required to sign a non-compete agreement that prevents you from taking everything you learned while you worked on the Apple ebook project and taking it with you when you’re hired for the Microsoft ebook project.

As with everything else, however, non-compete agreements were abused by some employers and today a dense combination of state laws and court decisions have placed substantial limits on how much a company can restrict the post-employment work of a former employee.

One of the fundamental limitations on non-compete agreements is a public policy that people should be free to work and support themselves in their chosen profession and should also be free to move from job to job. Limitations on that freedom included in non-compete agreements must be narrowly-tailored with time limitations to protect the vital interests of the company, not punish ex-employees or former contractors for quitting.

Back to the bigger picture for a moment, hiding material limitations on an author’s freedom in obscure warranty clauses as Kris describes is an unethical business practice.

Depending upon how it’s done and what extra-contractual representations are made to the author, we may be moving into fraud territory.

This practice exploits the great mismatch in resources and negotiating power between a large publisher and an individual author. Passive Guy has no problems with bare-knuckles contract drafting and negotiations when both sides have access to good-quality legal advice, but this is over the line. It demonstrates disrespect for an author and an intention to fleece the author for the financial advantage of the publisher.

This is antithetical to a relationship of mutual respect between professional colleagues. This is destructive exploitation – strip mining – of an author’s life work.

Such behavior by a publisher gives rise to an additional inevitable question. If the publisher is willing to engage in borderline fraudulent practices in its contract with an author, what additional types of fraudulent practices may it engage in? Even hidden clauses in a contract are far easier to discover than under-reporting of sales and underpayment of royalties.

So, how do we deal with hidden gotchas in a publishing contract?

Next week, Passive Guy will unveil yet another lovely contract provision for authors. Check back to learn about the Smoke ‘Em Out Clause.

And most definitely read the entire post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. This one can make or save you some big money.

 

Word Counts

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Writers who do so for a living have been focused on word counts over the years. During the hey days of pulp fiction and pop magazines, writers used to be paid by the word. This sometimes led to excessively wordy books and articles. Today, with the internet’s space and attention constraints, writing tends to be much more tightly structured. This has led to articles for a set fee within certain word-count boundaries.

Today’s book recompense is basically focused around a percentage of a book’s retail or net price, depending on the terms of the publishing contract. Various genres tend to have different standards based upon what the reading public is accustomed to. Generically speaking, if a book is less than 50,000 to 60,000 words, it’s creeping into the novella region. Most publishers (and therefore agents) have submission requirements, which are based on the pragmatic realities of the bottom line.

An unknown, first-time author should try to stay within the 60,000 to 75,000 word range. Why? To keep the publishers’ pre-production and printing costs down. They are taking a major risk on an unknown entity–a gamble that the book will at least break even. I once had an editing client, who at the ripe old age of 20, had written a 3,000 page tour de force military thriller. Mechanically, he was a good client. He learned from his mistakes and caught them in future self-edits. His stories were gripping and accurate. He would never be able to sell such a book until he had established a major reputation and fan platform. The book would be way too huge to  risk its initial costs.

First-time-authored books often become self-fulfilling failures. Since the publishers are unwilling to take on the risks of production and marketing, everything is cut back or eliminated. This results in a low-cost cover that won’t attract anybody’s attention. few will get the word because the ad campaign just isn’t there. The bottom line is, there is no bottom line–no profit. Constraints on the word count also contribute to a dismal prediction.

What To Do

So what can you do word count wise to improve the chances your work will make it through the agent/publisher submission process?

  • Know your genre of interest in regard to writing styles (tight? not so tight?)
  • Know your genre agent/publishers’ submission requirements in regard to word counts
  • Pre-plan your word counts and be flexible about what goes into your story

Let me expand a little on this last point. Sometimes, especially if you don’t have much experience) you will write your story and suddenly discover it’s not long enough. Oh oh, what now? Go back through the story. Look for places where scenes that create more tension or more emotional quandaries might be added without creating a sense of padding. This approach is one of the best ones I know to expand a story while adding to its interest.

Of course, if you can plan for this ahead of time, it will make your life a lot simpler. Let’s say you’ve created scenes, chapters, and acts or sections. You’ve arranged them into a logical outline and you suddenly realize, “Hey, all this ain’t long enough!” I faced this while outlining my new fantasy. I’m accustomed to writing snappy little mysteries of 50,000 to 65,000 words in about 42 short chapters. My new fantasy only had maybe 25 or so chapters, which definitely won’t cut it these days. What could I do to lengthen the work while increasing its tension?

I made two lists. The first was all the dangerous animals my questors might confront and what might happen if they did. I then did the same with a list of all the natural and man-made catastrophes they might encounter while traveling on their quest. I then when through the outline seeking logical places where items such as these might be placed in order to increase tension and make the reader think, “My gosh, what next?” You want to give the reader encouragements to keep on reading, even if it takes all night.All this hails back to when I was a lonely little boy on my grandparents’ farm without playmates. I would tell stories out loud to myself for hours on end. The most common phrase you might have overheard from me was: “..and then…, …and then….”

Another way you can pump up the word count is through the use of additional or expanded subplots and characters. I have used these to good effect in the past. I have found one of the easiest methods of doing this is to add a scene. One way to identify or mark these places is with a break symbol of three asterisks centered or with a new chapter designation

There you have: the importance of word counts and how the plus them up if need be..

 

This is a reprint from Bob Spear‘s Book Trends blog.

10 Things You Need to Know About Self-Publishing

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This post originally appeared on the Web Design Schools Guide site and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

Today’s authors have started to catch on to the fact that they no longer have to depend on and pay a third-party publisher to do the work that they can do themselves by self-publishing. Self-publishing is no piece of cake, but these books have all the potential to be best sellers and major moneymakers just like their commercially-published counterparts. Whether you’re sold on having endless artistic freedom or complete control over your work, self-publishing is a rewarding task and terrific option for authors who are willing to put in the extra effort. Here are 10 things you need to know about self-publishing:

  1. You Need to Pick a Niche: It’s important to pick a well-defined niche for your book to guide you during the writing process and help determine your target audience. Niche books tend to do best, so it’s generally a good idea to write what about what you know and steer away from personal journals, emotional rants or niche topics that no one has heard of. Also, think about what your audience wants to read and what’s missing from your chosen niche. Once you determine this important information, you can better address the needs of your readers and niche market, as well as make a name for yourself.
     
  2. Study Your Competition: Before you self-publish, it’s important to study, analyze and keep up with your competition. If you haven’t picked a niche for your book yet, but have a couple genres in mind, start your investigation by looking closely at these types of books and authors to compare and contrast. If you do your homework and stay on top of your competitors’ latest works, you’ll be able to bring something fresh and new to the table and hopefully stand out from the others.
     
  3. You Are Your Own Editor: It’s important to remember that self-published authors are on their own for editing, unless you hire a professional editor, which can get expensive, fast. Proofreading and revising your own work is all part of the self-publishing process and is necessary to maintain full creative control of your book. If you’re taking the self-editing challenge, be sure to utilize the numerous editing resources available online, and try to get a second set of eyes to take a look.
     
  4. Make Your Title Memorable: In order to stand out among the rest, you’ve got to make your book title unique and memorable. This is true for any book – self-published or not. A short, clever title is always preferable, but it should still be clear and relevant to your book.
     
  5. Self-Publishing Includes Self-Promotion: If you don’t have a publishing company and literary agent to market your book for you, you’d better be ready to do it yourself. Self-published authors have to put themselves out there and take an aggressive approach to marketing if they actually want to sell their books. This includes promoting the book online, organizing book signings and sending complimentary review copies to newspapers and magazines. Essentially, you should eat, sleep and breathe your book so others will care about it as much as you.
     
  6. Praise and Criticism Should Happen Naturally: As tempting as it is to ask friends and family to write positive reviews for you, whether they’ve read your book or not, authors should overcome this urge and let praise and criticism happen naturally. Fake or forced reviews are easy to spot, and it won’t help your image one bit. So, sit back and let unbiased readers praise your work or rip it to shreds. After all, isn’t criticism better than no attention at all?
     
  7. A Literary Agent Isn’t Necessary: As much help as literary agents can be, they aren’t necessary for selling good books. If you’re dead set on self-publishing and reaping the benefits on your own, you probably don’t have much need or desire for a literary agent who works in mainstream publishing. Having an agent often defeats the purpose and personal benefits of self-publishing because you’ll no longer have 100 percent control over your work.
     
  8. Self-Published Authors Can Still Win Awards: Forget what you’ve heard before – self-published authors can win awards too! Every year, there are several writing contests to enter and awards to be given for superb self-published work, including short stories, fiction, nonfiction, poetry and many other genres. Credibility, a strong readership and strategic marketing will help you achieve your goals and reach the award-winning level.
     
  9. Know Your Audience: An essential part of writing and successful self-publishing is knowing your audience. Since self-published books generally cater to a smaller niche market, you have to consider your audience from the project’s conception, publication and marketing stages. One way of knowing your audience is to study the demographics, interests and needs of readers within your chosen niche. If you’ve self-published work in the past, get in touch with your readers and deeply consider their comments, concerns and questions when writing your new book.
     
  10. Send Out Review Copies: One of the best ways to establish credibility and garner attention for your hard work is to send out review copies to as many people and publications as possible. If your budget allows it, you can snail mail printed complimentary review copies of your book to newspaper, magazine and journal reviewers, as well as publishing companies, bookstores and anyone who sparks an interest in your writing.