Publetariat

Self Publishing Success: A New Author Shares Her Journey In New Era Book Publishing

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This article, from Israel Vasquetelle, originally appeared on AwarenessMogul on 9/13/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with the author’s permission.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing author M. Louisa Locke. Her first novel, a Victorian era mystery, has managed to reach an audience despite not benefiting from the resources of a traditional book publisher. She’s not a household name, at least not yet, however, in the era of new media and the technology that makes it these channels possible, it’s not necessary to have a huge audience to find success.

Locke is part of a growing contingency of authors that have chosen to bypass the lottery-like odds that require the need to gain the limited attention of traditional publishers. Instead of chasing a middleman, she reaches a potential audience by utilizing the democratizing services of digital distributors and print on demand services that helped her to make her title a reality.

Traditionally, authors with aspirations of making it alongside bestsellers on bookshelves would need to convince gatekeepers of their potential to sell huge quantities. Obviously, only a tiny percentage of those considered ever garner a book deal. Once getting through that level of immense scrutiny, typically, for a new author, that means a small advance and a ticket on a waiting list that could last many months or years. Furthermore, for better or worse, the author’s words are subject to a barrage of changes and revisions by editors. If, and when the book finally hits the market, it will only receive the promotional resources of its publisher for a very short window of time. 

In many instances, the author also finds themselves investing their own funds and efforts to further promote the title. If an author is to realize income from the sale of the book, the revenue realized by the publisher first must offset expenses associated with the printing, packing, shipping, and marketing of that title. The publisher first has to recoup a bulk of their investment– including advance monies paid to the author– before the book’s creator ever has a shot at realizing further revenue. Even then, the potential of revenue in most cases is miniscule. This is because the author’s share is derived from a small percentage of sales. Because of this fairly standard model, only a small percentage of authors actually reap financial rewards from the sale of their product- beyond an initial modest advance. Without an impressive amount of sales, it may take quite a while for their next book to reach a bookshelf, if ever. Many authors understand these issues, however, continue to choose this route as a shot at reaching an audience and for the potential prestige associated with being a published author.

Due to changes in distribution and how people consume books, the publishing paradigm continues to change rapidly. Not too long ago Amazon announced that over 50% of its book sales are now coming from digital sales. This is great news for many authors that would never have a shot of having their books on the shelves of a Borders or Barnes & Noble nationally. Today, these authors can have their books sold right alongside the biggest-sellers on places like Amazon and B&N. And, its not just digital versions that are on these virtual shelves, physical books are now printed as orders come in. Technology makes it possible to forgo the need to incur the overhead of advance printing and then the shipping and storing for a book that may take months, if not longer, to sell. Even with these advances, sales aren’t going to happen effortlessly. Just making the content available doesn’t guarantee its consumption. Ultimately, the product has to be good and new authors must also be savvy marketers willing to participate in a variety of activities online to connect with audiences. For authors like Locke that fit that criteria, the opportunity for success is more of a reality than ever before.

Unlike the stories that we’re used to reading about the million-selling success of blockbusters, new stories will continue to emerge of a new type of media success that doesn’t involve immense budgets and multinational conglomerates. These individuals don’t have to recoup millions, hundreds of thousands, or in some cases not even thousands of dollars to be in the black. Many just have to reach hundreds or maybe thousands of interested readers. So, what is success in this new space? Everyone has a different definition, for many authors it’s simply making their work easily accessible by an audience and being fairly compensated for that consumption. Locke is realizing this achievement. In this interview, Locke shares her journey of publishing, technology, new media, and reaching an audience.

Can you discuss the premise of your book?

My book, The Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, is the first in a planned series of historical mysteries set in 1879 San Francisco and featuring Annie Fuller, a young widow who runs a boarding house. Annie supplements her income as the clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl, who gives business and domestic advice. When one of Madam Sibyl’s clients dies, Annie, with the help of a local lawyer, Nate Dawson, investigates his death.

From the beginning it was my intention to use the historical mystery genre to illuminate the late Victorian world of women and work. Maids of Misfortune focuses on domestic service, the most prevalent paid female occupation of the period, while Uneasy Spirits, the sequel I am currently working on, examines nineteenth century spiritualism and female trance mediums. Subsequent books in the series will concentrate on teaching, clerical work, and other common forms of paid work for women. These books will also investigate the Victorian gender system through the developing attraction between Annie and Nate. Of course, despite these historical themes, my primary purpose is to tell entertaining stories, with tension, romance, and humor.

As a college history professor, you obviously have a passion for the subject. Can you discuss what finally convinced you to write your book after being inspired so many years ago?

I actually had the idea for the book thirty years ago while working on my dissertation for a doctorate in history. I was reading a diary of a domestic servant who was complaining about being locked out of the house, and it gave me the idea for a locked room mystery. Ten years later, when I thought I would be stuck in the underpaid career of adjunct teaching, I wrote a first draft of the mystery. Then I was offered a full time job teaching at a local community college. This twenty-year career as a history professor was an extremely satisfying one, but it kept me so busy that I didn’t have the time to devote to writing and trying to sell the book.

However, I never gave up my determination to become a published author. I remained active in a writer’s critique group, I worked on rewriting sections of the book, and I kept up on trends in publishing. When I cut back on my teaching (instead of teaching 5 classes a semester, I only teach one), I knew I had to give my writing career one more chance.

I felt that Maids of Misfortune was a book that deserved to be read, and what I had learned about the new opportunities provided by self-publishing, ebooks, and print on demand technology convinced me that I didn’t have to depend on the traditional publishing route to make that happen. That was very liberating, and I have been pleased with my experience as an indie author.

There is a level of responsibility and control when you self-publish that is both terrifying and gratifying. I knew that I had to get my manuscript to the same level of professional writing as a traditionally published book–that was the terrifying part. At the same time, I had complete control over the text, cover and interior design, and marketing, and when the final product was finished and began to sell–that was very gratifying.

Your book falls into a unique niche due to it being a romance novel focusing on a Victorian era female sleuth. Can you discuss how your audience has managed to find you and your book?

At this point, I haven’t really positioned the book in the romance genre, although I do believe that fans of this kind of fiction would enjoy the book. This is simply because the romance in the book, while a strong part of the story, is subordinate to the mystery. In addition, there isn’t the explicit sex that readers of romances often expect.

Instead, I have concentrated on marketing Maids of Misfortune as part of the historical mystery sub-genre. To that end I contacted those websites that specialize in historical mysteries. For example, there is a site called Crime Thru Time and another called Historical Mystery Fiction that list mysteries by era. This is one way to make sure people who read this sort of fiction will find my book.

Amazon’s browsing capabilities may be the best way that fans of the historical mystery genre have of finding me. I specifically put the words "Victorian" and "Mystery" into my book title, and as a result, if you put in the words "Victorian mystery" into an Amazon book search, Maids of Misfortune consistently shows up on the first page, even when I hadn’t yet sold many books. In addition, Amazon’s "Customers Who Bought This Item, Also Bought…" programming very quickly began to list my book when people bought other better-known Victorian mysteries.

Perhaps most importantly, Amazon permits people to browse in its Kindle and print bookstores, and one specific sub-category is historical mysteries. At first, because of a computer glitch, my book didn’t show up under that path, but when this error was corrected, Maids of Misfortune started showing up as one of the top three bestsellers in this category on Kindle, and one of the top 100 in Amazon’s book store. Therefore, anyone looking for an historical mystery of any type is going to find mine, is going to see the 4 1/2 stars, the positive reviews, and the free sample. According to Amazon’s data, consistently 80% of the customers who click onto the product page for the print book go on to purchase it, and over 90% of the Kindle customers who click onto the book product page go on to buy the book. I think this is probably the main way I sell the book.

I know you have a blog, can you discuss a bit about how you connect with your audience there and on any other online platforms or social networks?

My blog, The Front Parlor, is the main place where I have chronicled my path as an indie author. I wrote a series of three long posts on "Why I decided to self-publish," and later addressed how I handled the lack of a professional editor in a series of posts entitled, "How to be your own best editor." These topics doesn’t necessarily translate into potential sales of my book, since people interested in this subject may not be interested in buying historical mysteries.

However, when I entered a contest on Publetariat, a site devoted to self-publishing, and won, this began to expose me to a much larger national audience. Once I became a regular contributor to this site and Maids of Misfortune began to be advertised on the site (as a consequence of winning the contest), I noticed an uptick in sales.

When I first published my book, I made an announcement on Facebook, and much to my pleasure a good number of old high school friends and acquaintances ordered the book. On the other hand, as of yet I don’t have an enormous number of Facebook "friends" so the impact of this has been rather limited (except I continue to hear about other people learning about the book through "word of mouth" from these first buyers).

I do use twitter, although again, like Facebook, my contacts are limited. I find twitter a great way to keep up on publishing trends, and I try to follow people who have shown interest in historical mysteries, which may have garnered me sales. I admire writers who make good use of twitter, but so far I haven’t figured out a way to use either twitter or Facebook efficiently or effectively. There are lots of "how to" advice articles on using social media to promote your books, but most of the suggestions seem to require a good deal of time (which takes me away from writing), or a kind of direct promotion with which I feel uncomfortable.

Can you discuss other ways that you build awareness for your book?

There are a good number of sites where readers hang out and chat about books, and I have just begun the process of joining and participating on these sites. Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari are the most famous. Each of these sites has smaller groups or forums that concentrate on different kinds of genre fiction–including historical mysteries. There are also specialized sites like the delightful romance fiction site, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and Historical Fiction Online, and KindleBoards. Every time I join in on a conversation on one of those sites, I am essentially introducing myself to new readers, who if they like what I have to say might check out my profile, see that I have published a book, and might eventually buy that book.

It is important to actually participate on these sites in an honest fashion rather than just joining to promote your book (readers are very touchy about this). I am a life-long reader and fan of mysteries and historical fiction (and devoted Kindle fan), so this really isn’t much of a hardship, but it does take time.

Have you reached out to press or new media outlets for coverage?

Standard print media outlets generally do not review self-published books or ebooks (or genre fiction for that matter). If my first book continues to do as well as it has, when I am ready to publish my next book I will probably contact my local paper, because at that point I will have an established track record, and they might be more likely to take me seriously.

In contrast, Internet reviewers seem more comfortable with the new trends in publishing, and there are an expanding number of bloggers who specialize in reviewing genre fiction. I queried 14 reviewers, got requests for review copies of the book from six, and eventually received four reviews, all positive. Traditional book publishers send hundreds of review copies of books out to reviewers, but I don’t know what kind of return they get on this effort in terms of reviews if the book isn’t by an established, best-selling author.

I did submit Maids of Misfortune to two contests for self published books as a way to garner press. I was a finalist in the historical fiction category in the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and this meant that my book was part of this organization’s promotional activities, including the distribution of their catalog at Book Expo America in New York. (The second contest won’t announce winners until October.)

Can you describe any promotional activities? I believe that I read that you offer a free ebook. How has that worked out in regards to building your audience and garnering sales?

I haven’t pursued the use of contests (with free giveaways), which is one promotional method that some authors are using, although one of the on-line reviewers gave away my book in one of her promotional contests.

What I did was write a short story, Dandy Detects, based on characters from my novel, and I offer that free on Smashwords (which because of its affiliations, means it is also free in the Barnes and Noble estore and Ibooks on the IPad.) Over 400 copies of this short story have been downloaded on Smashwords, which means 400 potential buyers of Maids of Misfortune. A number of people who have independently reviewed Maids of Misfortune on Amazon, Shelfari, etc., mentioned reading Dandy Detects first.

Unfortunately, as a self-published author on Kindle, I couldn’t offer the story for free, but have to charge 99 cents. Even so, I have sold over 250 Dandy Detects on Kindle. But, I got a chance to see the effectiveness of offering free material when Steven Windwalker on Kindle Nation Daily featured Dandy Detects as part of his "Free Kindle Shorts" at the beginning of July. Within two days I sold 187 copies of Maids of Misfortune, I hit the top of "movers and shakers" on Amazon, and this is when I started showing up in the top of the bestselling list of historical mysteries.

Are you involved with any offline activities such as book readings or signings? Have you sold books directly to your audience at such outings? If you haven’t, why not, and would you consider? 

Book tours and books signings are the traditional methods of promotion for most authors (with the mailing of book marks, post cards, and newsletters as a way to tap into an existing fan base–a base that I am just now creating). I haven’t pursued any of these activities as of yet. I am not convinced from what I have read, and from the experiences of my friends who have published traditionally that these methods are cost effective.

In addition, it is very difficult to get self-published books into traditional bookstores (who would be then willing to host a book signing). This is the main marketing advantage traditionally published print books have over independently published (or electronic) books. Their sales departments sell to bookstores, and then an author can book a signing with stores (who benefit because it brings traffic into the store).

Self-published authors can sometimes convince bookstores to carry their books on consignment (particularly if it is a local author with a certain local fan base). The local mystery bookstore in San Diego, Mysterious Galaxy, has agreed to do this for me. I will probably arrange a book signing with them when I launch my next book. I am also planning on writing to local bookstores in San Francisco (since my book is set in that city), and I hope that some of them will also be willing to carry Maids of Misfortune on consignment. If I am successful, I would try to arrange some book signings in that city.

For authors who publish ebooks, or print on demand books, (Maids of Misfortune is both), it is estores like Amazon.com, Smashwords, and Ibooks, not brick and mortar stores, that are important. And the data is quite clear-it is in estores where a steadily increasing percentage of books are now being bought. Therefore the marketing strategies that drive buyers to those sites and help them find my book when they shop in those ebook stores (Internet reviewers, social networking, fan sites, key words, etc.) make the most sense for me as a self-published author.

I do think I would consider doing a virtual blog tour, probably for the launch of the next book. Here you arrange to guest blog on a variety of blogs, which then helps promote those sites (since you advertise this on your own websites), but it also garners you potential sales from their readerships.

Can you discuss the publishing process? Can you describe your experience with the services that you used? Did you hire an editor?

The first step to self-publishing a book has to start with getting your manuscript in perfect condition. This means you want the reader to have no clue that it didn’t go through the whole traditional editing process-which doesn’t just mean no typos or grammatical errors, it means a high standard of writing, well plotted, and characters you care about. The most gratifying aspect of publishing Maids of Misfortune has been the frequent comment by readers that they didn’t want it to end, and they can’t wait until the next book. This is how I feel about my favorite books, and to have this said to me about my book is an immeasurable pleasure.

I didn’t hire an editor-although I think that most new self-published authors should, and I very well might hire one for future books. I had been working on this book literally for 20 years, I had gotten feedback from agents, editors, and my book critique group, I had rewritten it several times, and I had 30 years of correcting other peoples writing under my belt. In addition, I spent about four more months rewriting, with extensive cutting, polishing, and proofreading, and then I gave it to readers, and after their comments, I went through it one more time.

The next task was to get a cover designed-which was the one thing I paid someone else to do. I knew that I needed a cover that would show up well as a thumbnail-which is the main way most people will see it, but it was also important that it look completely professional for those people who bought the print book. I hired a local designer, Michelle Huffaker, who has subsequently become a good friend, and she did a terrific job.

I had chosen to publish Maids of Misfortune as an ebook with Smashwords and Kindle, and to produce my print book through Amazon’s print on demand division, CreateSpace. The main task to do this is to format the manuscript according to the requirements for each one.

Some people pay other people to do the formatting. I did it myself. I am not particularly tech savvy (my husband was my tech support) and it did require an attention to detail, but was not all that difficult. There are guides, how-to-books, and community forums to turn to for advice, but I depended on April Hamilton’s Indie Author Guide on Kindle, and a new print edition is coming out in this winter-I highly recommend it. For Smashwords you primarily had to produce a word document with all the formatting stripped from it so that their formatting program could work. For Kindle you need to create an html document. There was more to do to plan the interior design for the CreateSpace print edition (headers, chapter breaks, margins and gutters, etc), and it required a pdf document. However, once the files were created in each format, uploading the files and covers literally took minutes. Once I proofed each version and clicked "publish" the books were ready to be purchased in less than a week. Talk about instant gratification!

Are there other services that you considered using, but didn’t?

I might eventually publish an ebook with Scrib’d, but the benefit of Smashwords is that it produces a book that can be read on a variety of ereaders, including the Nook and IPad. Kindle is not only the largest market for ebooks, but through KindleAps, makes my book available on smart phones, the IPad, etc. In addition Smashwords provides the author 85% royalty rate, and now Kindle gives me 70% royalty rate-which is fantastic.

The other print on demand service I considered was LuLu, which provides a pretty comparable service and production cost to CreateSpace, but using CreateSpace gave me access to Amazon’s free shipping option for buyers, and the CreateSpace and Kindle support staffs-since they are both divisions of Amazon–were crucial to helping me solve the browsing path error I discussed previously.

What has the ratio of physical to ebooks sold via your selected online sellers?

At the end of the first four months, 54% of the books I had sold were ebooks, but the next four months 79% of the books I sold were ebooks. Since my ebooks are priced at $2.99 and my print books are $12.75, I am pleased that I am doing as well as I am selling print copies!

You generously revealed information about your first quarter sales. In a recent article in Publetariat.com, you shared that you’ve cracked the 1,000 sales mark. Can you discuss what activities you feel have provided the best results?

I believe a series of activities, cumulatively, have helped increase my sales.

In April 2009 three things happened. I became a regular contributor to Publetariat, I published my short story, Dandy Detects, and I changed my ebook price on Maids of Misfortune from $4 to $2.99. My total sales in March were 28; my total sales in April were 46. There are a number of people who have discussed how $2.99 seems like an important price point-that readers feel comfortable with taking a chance on a book at this price. I also noticed that occasionally for some reason Amazon discounts this to $2.39 and my numbers go up even more.

Then in May I began to get my first reviews on websites and got the book award, and my total sales in May were 80!

The trend continued upward, so that in June I sold 156 books. At the end of June I got the browsing path on Amazon fixed, and a week later the short story was featured on Kindle Nation Daily. In July I sold 490 books (three times what I sold the month before!). If you take away that 2-day bump, I still did well with 302 books sold. In August I have sold 330 books, averaging slightly more than 10 books a day, 75% of them ebooks. I figure that if I keep active on my blog, keep participating on other blogs and on the fan sites, I should at least be able to maintain that average. And with each new reader, there is the incalculable word of mouth factor to potentially increase my sales.

Would you have done anything differently?

The best way to answer this is to discuss 1) what I still hope do to continue market Maids of Misfortune and 2) what I plan to do differently for the next book.

1) As I mentioned earlier, I really haven’t pursued the traditional markets or marketing strategies. So I am committed to reaching out to more local San Diego books stores, as well as to San Francisco bookstores. I will be giving a talk at my college on my experiences with self-publishing, and I will talk to the college newspaper and other publications about doing interviews.

My intention was always to use my blog to talk about more than self-publishing, and I would like to begin to do a series of posts about writing historical fiction, and I think that will also make my blog more interesting to people who have read or might be interested in reading my book.

My author website is very practical-it is an effective place to find out about my book and short story and how to purchase them. But I would like to make the site a place where people who have gotten involved in the world of Maids of Misfortune would come to learn more about the characters, the time period, and the places that were featured in the book.

2) What I will do differently when I am ready to publish my sequel, Uneasy Spirits, is concentrate on truly "launching" the book with a lot more pre-publication activity. I will get reviews ahead of time. I will reach out to any stores who have shown interest in the first book and schedule launch parties and book signings. I will schedule a blog tour. I will encourage people who have bought the book to review it immediately and put those reviews on Amazon and Smashwords-something I didn’t do with Maids of Misfortune.

What’s your biggest lesson that you’ve learned from this experience?

I have learned if you have a good "product," in my case a well-written historical mystery, and you make the effort to use the new opportunities available on the Internet so that potential buyers will come across the book, look at the reviews, and sample the first chapter, that you can be successful.

Am I making a lot of money yet? No-although I am making $2 a book on my ebooks, and $2.77 on my print books-so the reader can do the math. . Could I make a living at this? Yes, in time if I produced 3 or 4 more books like Maids of Misfortune, and the ebook market continues to expand, as everyone predicts it will.

Without the option of self-publishing and ebooks, and these new ways of marketing, I am not at all convinced I would have gotten this book published, or if I did, that I would have been successful in getting enough books sold in bookstores before the dreaded return policy of stores kicked in. As a result, I probably, at my age (60) wouldn’t have had the motivation to continue to market the book, or write the sequel. And Annie Fuller and Nate Dawson and their world would not have been heard from, and that would be a shame.

 

 

Bad Advice to Ignore from Your Critique Group

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This post, from Anne R. Allen, originally appeared on her blog on 5/9/10.

Finding a beta reader or critique group is essential to any writer’s development. We can’t write in a vacuum. Nobody ever learned to be a good writer holed up in an attic with no one to review his work but the cat. (Cats can be so cruel.)

Rachelle Gardner ran a guest post by Becky Levine in April with useful advice on how to choose a critique group by assessing your own stage of writing development.

There are lots of places to look for groups—bookstores and libraries if you want an in-person experience, or writers’ forums and genre organizations like RWA online. I’ve heard good things about Critique Circle and there are many more. If you’re looking for a single beta reader, you might try the forums at Nathan Bransford’s blog , the hub of all things writerly on the interwebz

But remember not all the advice you’ll hear will be useful. As Victoria Strauss says in her must-read Writer Beware blog “never forget that people who know nothing are as eager to opine as people who know something.”

Even worse than know-nothings are the know-somethings who turn every bit of advice they’ve ever heard into a “rule” as ironclad and immutable as an algebraic formula. Follow their advice and your book will read like an algebraic formula, too.

Here are a few critique group “rules” I find more annoying than useful.

1) Eliminate all clichés

Unless your characters are wildly inventive poets, space aliens, or children fostered by wolves, their dialogue and thoughts will include familiar expressions. Don’t rob your Scarlett O’Hara of her "fiddle dee-dees" or deprive your Bogart of "doesn’t amount to a hill of beans."
 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 7 more types of advice to ignore, on Anne R. Allen‘s blog.

10 Steps to a Better Story

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I edit a lot of fiction, and I see a pattern of common problems in manuscripts from novice writers. The most important involve the bond between story and character. If you want an agent,editor, or reader to get past the first few pages, here are 10 things to keep in mind.

1. Make your main character want something. Desire is the engine that drives both life and narrative. Characters who don’t want anything are rarely interesting.

2. Make your main character do something. Your story can start with a character who is the victim of circumstances, but afterward the character needs to move quickly into action. Readers like characters who take charge.

3. Let your readers know the story’s premise early. If they get to the end of the first chapter and still can’t answer the question—what is the story about?—they might not keep reading.

4. Get conflict into the story early. It doesn’t have to be all-out bickering or deception between characters, but let your readers know things will sticky.

5. Skip the omniscient POV. Let the reader experience as much of the story as possible through the eyes of your main character. This is how readers bond with protagonists. If you shift POVs, at least put in a line break.

6. It’s okay to tell sometimes, instead of show. Not every character reaction has to be described in gut-churning, eyebrow-lifting physical detail. Sometimes it’s okay to simply say, “Jessie panicked.”

7. Introduce characters one at a time with a little background information for each. Too many characters all at once in the first few pages can be overwhelming.

8. Don’t overwrite. Nobody agrees on what constitutes good writing, so trying to make your writing stand out will probably work against you. The best writing doesn’t draw attention to itself; it just gets out of the way of the story.

9. Avoid word repetitions when you can. Read your story out loud. You’re much more likely to hear the repetitions than see them.

10. The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, setting. If you have to sacrifice something, start at the end of list. Never sacrifice the story for anything else.

Hello and my road to self publishing

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First off, I want to say hello to my fellow publetariats. This is a good website and props to everyone who makes it happen.

In brief, my name is David Perez, and I’m a writer/editor/journalist and actor from New York. I now live in Taos, New Mexico with my wife Veronica Golos, whose second book of poetry, Vocabulary of Silence (Red Hen Press), is due out in Feb. 2011.

You can check out my profile, as well as my website (click here) for more information on my work. What I’d like to briefly share is my road to self-publishing. I recently completed my memoir, Wow! about growing up in the South Bronx in the 1960’s. I was fortunate to have some accomplished authors read my manuscript and provide solid critique. All I need to polish it off is getting it copyedited and proofed, and then finding a good book designer. My brother George, a famous comic book artist, is going to design and illustrate the front and back cover and will also sketch some chapter headings.

I decided early on not to go the agent route, as there a re plenty of good presses that accept queries, samples and even whole manuscripts without requiring an agent. One small press quickly agreed to publish my book (they read it in less than two weeks and sent me a contract!) and another noted midsized publisher also expressed interest. But after doing extensive and sometimes exhausting research on the state of publishing, coupled with the fact that I have to do 90 percent of the marketing anyway, I decided to publish it myself. Among other factors, I wanted full control of the artwork, book design, price, and the schedule of publication – not to mention the higher royalties. My aim is for Wow! to come out early next year.

Soon after my decision, a good friend of mine involved in the film business decided to expand into publishing and wants Wow! to launch the new 11B Press, which is still in business formation but should be up and running in the next few weeks. I received excellent royalty terms and retain control over content, pricing and timeline, with the added bonus of my friend’s many networking contacts.

With all these things in my favor, it made perfect sense to me to go the self-publishing route. I’ll continue to do research into marketing and distribution, as well as navigating the bewildering and often intimidating world of social networking and media. Sites like this one, with its invaluable readers’ comments, have been very helpful. It’s inspiring how so many folks take the time to share their experiences, often in great detail. Gracias!

The main decision I have to make with Wow! is whether to print through Lightning Source or Createspace, both of which have strong advocates. I’m leaning toward LSI because of problems some writers (probably a minority) reported with their covers being warped, or the glue binding coming undone. These reports were actually on a discussion forum within Createspace itself, which I found interesting and refreshing for its honesty. To be sure, there are plenty of writers who’ve had great experience with Createspeace, and their website, pricing martrix and forums are clear and friendly. Still, all signs point to LSI being the best, taking into account, of course, that you need to be a “publisher” who can meet their extensive requirements. But the payoff seems worth it, in my opinion.

Assuming I go with LSI, I’m unclear how to proceed with individuals who want to order the book. I know folks can always ask for it at a bookstore, or order it through Amazon. But I think I’ll make the most money, if 11B Press orders quantities in bulk and then ships the books themselves. This would mean. I think, opening a Paypal account with Shopping Cart options – or something similar What my friend and I are unsure about is: do we want to become a shipping warehouse, or is it better to just let Amazon be the store of choice?

However I proceed, it’s been an exciting journey getting this far. I’ll keep everyone posted.

 

 

Publishers’ Agency Model Punishes Mid-List Authors

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This editorial, by Authorlink.com Editor in Chief Doris Booth, originally appeared on the Authorlink site in October 2010.

Many authors who received their royalty checks from major publishers this summer received an unwelcome shock. In a number of cases–especially among back-list authors– royalty incomes have been slashed in half as the result of the so-called new “agency model” which lets major publishers set the retail price of their books.

The new scheme was touted to authors and their agents as one that would earn them just about as much royalty at 25% of the publishers net income (agency model) as they did under the old retail model—generally 8- to12% of a book’s retail price. The new royalty rate almost sounded like a pay raise. But it hasn’t turned out that way for some.

True, the difference between 12% of the gross or 25% of the net on average amounts to a few cents per copy. Not a big deal unless the author is selling millions of copies. Where the real pain lies for the beleaguered writer is in publishers’ new retail pricing structures.

Under the old pricing system, publishers “sold” their titles to booksellers such as Amazon at a discount of 45-55% , and the reseller set any sale price it desired. But early this year, Amazon scared the bejeezus out of publishers when it started buying publishers’ e-books for its Kindle reading device for about $13 and then selling them at a loss for $9.99. Publishers feared that Amazon and other e-book retailers would drive the price point down to around $9.99 for just about every title—including high-dollar bestsellers. So publishers devised the new “agency model” that allows them to set their own retail prices and pay resellers like Amazon and Apple a flat commission of about 30% on the sale.

The squabble over who gets to set the price escalated when Amazon pulled an across-the-board “black out” on titles from publishers who didn’t agree with their heavy discounts, prohibiting the sale of their books in a venue that commands about 80% of the e-book market.

Panic set in.

Read the rest of the editorial on Authorlink.

Ebooks Don’t Cannibalize Print, People Do

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This post, by Evan Schnittman, originally appeared on his Black Plastic Glasses site on 9/27/10.

Last week in The Bookseller, Philip Jones covered a seminar in the UK by Enders Analysis that presented data done as a part of a Nielsen BookScan report.  The article led with the following statement.

“The growth in e-book sales in genres such as romance and science-fiction is leading to a cannibalisation in sales of printed books, according to Nielsen BookScan data.”

This led to the inevitable debate on the Read2.0 listserv (also known as the Brantley List for the devoted followers of Mike Shatzkin). While there was little illumination in the ensuing voluminous discussion, there was an overall consensus that ebooks were indeed cannibalizing print books.

While I see the logic behind this understanding – I posit a slightly more nuanced definition of what is happening: Ebooks aren’t cannibalizing print books — consumers with ebook reading devices are, as a rule, no longer buying print books. Subtle? Yes, but from a commercial publishing point of view this is a crucial difference between seeing a direct correlation between ebooks and print books and understanding what happens to a customer when they make the switch to reading devices.

To wit, last week, on the very same listserv, there was discussion about a new book about the trade publishing industry entitled Merchants of Culture by Cambridge University professor and co-owner of Polity Press, John Thompson.  Unfortunately for John, the conversation quickly turned into a series of screed-like complaints about the lack of an ebook version. To most this was especially irritating as John had written and published a seminal work on ebook publishing called Books in the Digital Age.

I happened to see John the same day and I asked him why he didn’t have an ebook. He explained that this was not a strategic decision not to have an ebook — he is entirely happy to have it available in this format — but one driven solely by channel issues that are currently being negotiated and will soon be resolved.  I urged John to solve this ASAP because he was losing buyers every day the ebook wasn’t available. This is the real ebook tipping point evidence — lost customers due to the lack of an ebook.

 

Read the rest of the post on Evan Schnittman‘s Black Plastic Glasses.

Book Video Awards 2010

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This is a cross-posting about a book trailer contest being held on the Foyle’s bookseller site. Whether you wish to participate in the contest (by voting) or not, it’s worth checking out the contest entries to get some ideas for creating your own book trailer.

The Book Video Awards is a joint initiative run by Random House and The Bookseller Magazine. Now in its third year, the objective of the Awards is to enable talented young film directors to make high quality video trailers for great books. Students from the National Film and Television School are invited to submit proposals to create a 90 second trailer for a book from a selection presented by Random House. The winners each receive £5,000 to create their videos which are then used to promote the books online for example on author and fan sites, YouTube and retailers. Videos from previous years have also been used in adverts, on TV news and as enhancements for ebooks.

Read more general information about the contest here.

View the four finalist 2010 book trailers and cast your vote here.

Here are links to some videos from previous years:
The Outcast by Sadie Jones
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Here’s a link to a page with finalist video trailers for Childrens’ books, which was the contest theme last year.

 

Promote Your Book and Your Publishing Business with Bonus Materials

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Giving away free bonus materials is a great way to drive traffic to your website, encourage people to sign up for your opt-in mailing list, and promote your books and other products and services.

Having free resources and bonus materials on your website can draw visitors to the site, encourage repeat visits, and motivate visitors to recommend your site to others. You can also advertise your free bonus materials through your social networks, press releases and other promotional tools. Bonuses are effective for both fiction and nonfiction books.

Customers who have already purchased your book in a retail or online bookstore or checked it out at the library haven’t necessarily visited your website. A good way to encourage readers to visit your site is to include information within your book about bonus materials available at your website. For example, include a page at the back of the book or a message at the end of a chapter inviting the reader to visit your website for more information or a special bonus.

There are several ways to give away bonus material on your site. First, it’s important to encourage people to sign up for your opt-in mailing list so that you can continue to keep in touch with them and let them know about other books or services you offer. The best way to encourage opt-ins is to offer a free bonus to visitors in exchange for their name and email address.

If you have more than one bonus item to offer, you can make the others freely available. Some authors offer bonus material that’s exclusive to people who already bought the book. For example, you might offer downloadable worksheets from your book and require customers to enter a password (such as "the first word on page 47 of the book") to gain access. A more user-friendly alternative is to list a special URL in the book that links to bonus material that’s not found elsewhere on your website.

 

Bonus material can be in the form of downloadable documents or online resources. The key is to offer something educational, useful or entertaining that’s tied to the topic of your book. Here are some bonus ideas for nonfiction books:
 

  • Ebooks and special reports
  • Video and audio tutorials
  • Checklists
  • Quizzes
  • Case studies
  • Updated material from the book
  • Shopping guides
  • Teleseminars
  • Mini-courses via email

For a great example, take a look at the downloadable grocery shopping, food storage and meal planning tools on the Eat Clean Diet website.

Here are some ideas for giveaways suited to fiction books:
 

  • Short prequel or sequel featuring characters from your book
  • Historical profile for the time period that the book is set in
  • Profile of the location where the story takes place
  • Sample chapter from the book
  • List of other similar books (including yours) that readers may enjoy
  • Contests related to the story or theme of the book
  • Checklist for keeping track of favorite authors and books to read
  • Games, puzzles, or videos for children’s books

Downloadable documents can reinforce your brand and advertise your other products and services. For example, you can place an "about" page at the end of the document that promotes your other offerings.

Think about what type of bonus materials would be best suited to your book and how you can use those materials to draw people to your website, increase your opt-in list, and promote your other products and services.
 

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

Being An Indie Author And Self-Publishing With Zoe Winters (podcast)

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This interview was such fun! Zoe and I laugh our way through the serious but fun topic of being an indie author.

Zoe Winters is an independent paranormal romance author and has written the Bloodlust trilogy of novellas which have sold over 22,000 copies. She is also a passionate advocate of ‘indie authors’ and blogs at IndieReader.com on this topic.

 

 

In this podcast you will learn:

  • How writing inspiration can come from your obsessions and loves – whether that is Buffy or the Bible! How Zoe created a world of vampires and shape-shifters and other paranormal creatures. Write the books you want to read, don’t get hung up on what you “should” write.
  • What is an indie author anyway? Indie authors are self-publishing but they are reclaiming the word. It’s more like indie bands and indie film-makers. It’s about control and understanding how it all works, as well as self-esteem. Most indie authors do most of the work themselves. They pay for some services in order to make a professional book like editing and cover design, but use technologies like Print on demand and ebooks for distribution. Zoe recommends LightningSource as the best option. You do need to be a “publishing company” to be on Lightning Source as well as owning your own ISBNs.
  • Main distribution method for indie authors is online. The costs are down, you can reach an audience more easily. You can still do print as well as ebooks.
  • Once you’re selling well on Amazon, you’re in the system and the more you sell as you get recommended. Selling on Kindle and Amazon is the best way to sell. Use dtp.amazon.com
  • Get a professional editor for your work. Polish your writing and work with critique partners before you send it to the editor. Then they can improve it from there.
  • If you can, learn to do your own formatting. Smashwords style guide for Kindle. Perfect Pages by Aaron Shepard. Pro typesetting is not really necessary for a standard fiction text-based novel.
  • If you outsource, make sure you understand the contract. You can find professionals on Twitter.
  • Being an indie author is not for everybody. You need to be into keeping creative control. You also need to have a thick skin as there are many nay-sayers. You need to treat it as a real business.
  • How Zoe balances her time between writing and marketing after 2 years into indie authorship. It is difficult but you do need to focus on your writing as well as marketing. It’s good to build up a list of people who want your books and support you. There is a good community of people who are out there, doing their thing. Social networking is more about connection, not hard core sales. If people like you, they are more likely to buy your book.
  • On the Zoe Who? videos. Zoe wanted to take advantage of a video audience but didn’t want a book trailer or to put herself on the video. So she used XTRANormal.com to make some funny videos on self-publishing and being an indie author. Check them out on YouTube here.
  • How we feel about our first drafts and sending to editors. Zoe talks about “Save my Soul” and I talk about “Pentecost”. Most writers start with rough drafts and then it gets better with each revision. On putting the book out there when you have an audience already.

 

 

You can find Zoe at her website ZoeWinters.org and also at her blog.You can buy her books on Amazon.com here. She also writes at IndieReader and is on Twitter @zoewinters

 

 

Here’s one of the Zoe Who? animations – you can see more here.

 

 

This is a cross-posting from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 36:18 — 8.3MB)

Self-Published Authors Find Success on the Kindle

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This article, by Beth Barany, originally appeared on Writer’s Fun Zone on 9/28/10.

More and more romance authors are independently publishing on the Kindle. I sat down with two women from the San Francisco Romance Writers of America chapter to uncover more about this phenomenon and discover their promotional secrets.

 

Many authors think they need a traditional publisher to succeed as an author, but actually all you need is drive, vision and a hungry audience. Then you can started now on your career as a successful published author.

Discover four tips on what it takes to succeed on the Kindle and in the digital publishing market from two authors who’ve done it, one at the start of her career and another in the middle of it.

Tip #1: The Cover is Everything

“I was thoroughly ignored by agents and editors alike, while my critique partners and beta readers kept telling me my writing was ready to be published,” says Tina Folsom, www.tinawritesromance.com, bestselling author of paranormal and erotic romance (Amaury’s Hellion, 2010). “So, when Amazon.com started their self-publishing platform and I got a Kindle for myself, I figured I had nothing to lose.”

She published her first books in Spring 2009. But they had “boring” covers, she said, and she only sold a few copies.

“I still had an old copy of Adobe Photoshop on my computer and taught myself how to use it so I could design decent covers. And boy, did that pay off! As soon as I changed my book covers for the older novels I had out there, plus designed really sexy covers for the two new books (Scanguards Vampires), my sales took off,” says Folsom.

Folsom designs her own covers and only paid a few dollars to purchase the photos from www.bigstockphoto.com. Folsom highly recommends spending your time and effort on your book cover. “People will click on the book if the cover looks enticing,” she adds.

Bestselling, multi-published author, Bella Andre, www.bellaandre.com, chose to publish a sequel with the Kindle while she was between book contracts with no contract clauses to worry about. She had kept getting requests for a follow up to Take Me, published by Pocket Books in 2005, and decided to “get the book to the readers who wanted it.” In July 2010, Andre published Love Me via the Kindle and SmashWords.com. Andre said she was picky about the cover and took care to brand her Kindle books to express “the more erotic side of Bella Andre.”

Andre was also inspired to publish directly to the Kindle due to J.A. Konrath’s reports of his self-publishing success with the Kindle. (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/) Inspired by his reported good sales results, Andre thought she’d “probably sell” if she put up her sequel. Andre hasn’t released her sales results yet, but has reported that they are “very good.”

Tip #2: Know Your Reader Expectations

 

Read the rest of the article on Writer’s Fun Zone.

E-Texts For All (Even Lucy)

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This article, by Char Booth, originally appeared on the Library Journal site on 8/5/10. If you’re publishing for the Kindle and haven’t enabled text-to-speech, this article just might change your mind.

If digital literacy is exploding, the visually disabled are taking the shrapnel. I would wager that most librarians consider ourselves committed to accessibility and make individual and organizational efforts to comply with (and often exceed) the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in our buildings and the Rehabilitation Act Section 508 standards on our websites. We may not, however, have had the sobering experience of trying to access an ebook or e-journal using screen-reading software or other assistive technology. Despite our best intentions, this limited insight can lead us unwittingly to collection development and web design decisions that make digital literacy far more difficult for the print disabled.

Over the past year, I’ve been working closely with Lucy Greco, a colleague and disability advocate at the University of California-Berkeley (UC-B). Lucy, who has been blind from birth, has transformed my understanding of the word ­access. Not only do librarians need to understand the accessibility front of the ebook wars, we have the responsibility to embrace our advocacy role in shaping its outcome. As one of the few public sector agencies charged with recognizing the access rights of all, libraries must collectively examine how we can steer the e-text trajectory-from ebooks to e-journals to any other format-in a more universally usable direction.

Ebooks and DRM
Lucy is partial to a few sayings that have helped me understand the e-text accessibility paradox. The first is that "ebooks were created by the blind, then made inaccessible by the sighted."

Online text formats like DAISY and EPUB were pioneered in part by the accessibility movement as an alternative to expensive and cumbersome Braille texts. As ebooks have gained popularity, however, digital text became inexorably less accessible as for-profit readers like the Kindle and Sony Reader muscled onto the scene. A patina of digital rights management (DRM) has been added in order to protect the intellectual property of vendors, contrary to the open and accessible orientation libraries have long held toward literacy and learning.

Device- and interface-specific ebooks are often "locked down" to other readers, meaning that by default they block attempts to be read by JAWS and other screen-reading software. The Kindle—still the dominant hardware ereader—has text-to-speech capability, but its speech menus remain inaccessible despite a 2009 promise from Amazon. [The Kindle 3, announced last week, has addressed this particular flaw.—Ed.] Hence the recent Department of Justice letter to college presidents warning against inaccessible emerging technology use and a suit brought by the National Federation for the Blind against Arizona State University’s Kindle DX pilot.

Dollars = leverage
 

 

Read the rest of the article on Library Journal.

No It's Not Writer's Block, It's….

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It seems I keep circling around this topic every time I think about what I want to say here. Writer’s block is nothing new if you happen to be a writer by trade. It’s been covered so many times in so many contexts that I really don’t think it is worth the time to address anew here. Okay, you might be wondering why I’m writing this post then. I want to answer that by saying that I’m beginning to think differently about the whole concept of writer’s block.

I’ve heard my share of those who believe writer’s block and those who patently refuse to acknowledge it as a reality. I sort of exist in this middle ground where I acknowledge there is something happening. I myself have endured the disruptive experience where nothing is moving through my creative centers. I can’t get one word to form on the page. I can’t say with honesty that writer’s block is a myth or an excuse – although it has been used as one. Other times, it may merely be matter of calling it a block when there is something else happening below the surface.

When I think about writer’s block, most of the time the main thought takes the form of a question. "Am I sure this is writer’s block?" Then the next question becomes, "What is it then?"

Other Options

There is reason to believe that there are other reasons you can’t write. I want to at least mention them briefly so you might rethink how you explain problems with writing.

1. Maybe you haven’t planned your writing enough. Now, this option doesn’t fly far with those writers who disdain the idea of outlining, but I want to at least mention it. Still, it matters to many us who struggle with a piece writing simply because we didn’t think to jot down some notes or outline the possible structure of an article or an essay. Do you see what I’m getting at? A little forethought can go a long way to keep you working when a bout of block would have been the result in the past.

2. Perhaps, you need a break. Now, this can be revolutionary for the workaholic writers among us. You may think that spilling words on the page a breakneck speed is the only way to work – that is until you trip over a monster-sized block. You may also be pushing yourself closer to a true burnout. Either way, the idea of stopping and taking a breather may do more good than you think. By taking time away from keyboard to spend time with friends or family, or may catch a movie or something, you may begin to recharge your creative batteries so you can come back ready to write .

3. Turn your attention to another project. It may really be as simple as shifting your focus from project that’s got you gridlocked. If you have one article you’re trying to draft, but have another that’s already written, why not spend time editing that piece until you feel ready to write the other one. This is just one idea. Think about this one. Maybe you can come up with some ideas for yourself.

In Closing….

Obviously, there may be other reasons why you find yourself affected by writer’s block of one type or another. I would suggest that the writers among my readers reconsider what’s happening. Don’t use block as an excuse not to do something. There may be better options that keep you productive. At least you can think about it. See you next time.

 

This is a reprint from Shaun C. Kilgore‘s site.

Understanding Fonts and Typography

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The design of your book has a critical part to play in how readable it is. Whether you’re designing the book yourself, or hiring a professional book designer, it pays to understand the basic building blocks that books are made of. Type fonts and they way they are arranged on the page—typography.

After deciding on the size of your book, the next big design decision is picking a type font for the body of your book. Although many classic book typefaces look similar they can have a sizable affect on the overall look and readability of the page.

Here are some articles that will give you a little background in book typography:

5 Favorite Fonts for Interior Book Design
3 Great Typeface Combinations You Can Use in Your Book

There are thousands of type faces avaialbe for digital typography, most of which are available for download at various type foundries on the web. But very few of these fonts are used for books.

Classic Book Typefaces

Most of the typefaces we use for books are classic typefaces, either oldstyle or transitional designs. The designs of these typefaces trace their roots to the very infancy of printing, in the years when printing with type first spread from Germany thoughout Europe.

It was in Italy that the earliest type designers and book printers created many of the letterforms that influence us today. You could say that our culture has grown up, grown literate, and grown learned through the agency of these typefaces, and I think that’s one of the reasons they have such a firm place in our cultural history.

Here’s an article I wrote for Self-Publishing Review that will give you some idea of the kind of history embedded in our typefaces:

Deconstructing Bembo: Typographic Beauty and Bloody Murder

Typography on the Book Page

When you start designing and laying out your pages in whatever program you’re using, you want your book to look professional. You can do this by conforming to standard conventions and making good choices.

Here are some articles that deal with the makeup of book pages:

Elements of the Book Page
5 Layout Mistakes that Make You Look Unprofessional
The Title Page
The Poetry of the Typography of Poetry
Book Page Layout for a Long Narrative
The Typographer’s Curse: Automatic Leading

The Coming of the EBooks

Behind the self-effacing practice of book design lies the history of the printed book, and all the marvelous innovators and printers who came before us. While we don’t yet know how far books will travel away from the classical models that have ruled book design for centuries, we can be sure that digitization and the evolution of ebooks will change typography forever.

Now we’re just seeing the beginnings of what will eventually become a robust capacity for typographic design. Caution though, it may be a bit rocky getting there:

Apple iPad Typography: Fonts We Actually Want
iPad’s ePub: The “Book” of the Future?
Books on the iPad’s iBookstore

Your book is taking shape now, starting to look like the book it will become. Tasteful and readable typography will do its part to help make your book stand out from the crowd. As your book moves closer to completion, you’ll move on to our next topic, Making Print Choices. Onward.

 

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

Aspiring Authors Fail To Click During E-Book Emergence

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This story, by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal and was reprinted on the South Oregon Mail Tribune site on 9/26/10.

When literary agent Sarah Yake shopped around Kirsten Kaschock’s debut novel "Sleight" earlier this year, she thought it would be a shoo-in with New York’s top publishers.

"Her project was one of the most exemplary in the last decade or so," said Jed Rasula, Kaschock’s teacher, who has taught in the English department at the University of Georgia since 2001. "I certainly thought she’d find a New York publisher."

To the surprise of Yake and Rasula, the major New York publishers passed on "Sleight," a novel about two sisters trained in a fictional art form.

Coffee House Press in Minneapolis, a small independent publisher, now plans to publish the book, offering Kaschock an advance of about $3,500 — a small fraction of the typical advances once paid by the major publishing houses.

It’s always been tough for literary fiction writers, particularly first timers, to get their work published by the top publishing houses. But the digital revolution that is disrupting the economic model of the book industry is having an outsized impact on the careers of literary writers.

Priced much lower than hardcover books, e-books generate less income for publishers. At the same time, big retailers are buying fewer titles.

As a result, the publishers responsible for nurturing generations of America’s top literary fiction writers are approving fewer book deals and signing fewer new writers. Most of those getting published are receiving smaller advances.

"Advances are down, and there aren’t as many debuts as before" says Ira Silverberg, a well-known literary agent. "We’re all trying to figure out what the business is as it goes through this digital disruption."

Much as cheap digital music downloads have meant fewer bands can earn a living from record company deals, publishers and agents say fewer literary authors will be able to support themselves as e-books gain broader acceptance.

"In terms of making a living as a writer, you better have another source of income," says Nan Talese, whose Nan A. Talese/Doubleday imprint publishes Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, and John Pipkin.

In some cases, independent publishers are picking up the slack by signing promising literary fiction writers. But they offer on average $1,000 to $5,000 in advances, a fraction of the $50,000 to $100,000 advances that established publishers typically paid in the past for debut literary fiction.

The new economics of the e-book make the author’s quandary painfully clear: A new $28 hardcover book returns half, or $14 to the publisher, and 15%, or $4.20, to the author.

Under most e-book deals currently, a digital book sells for $12.99, returning 70%, or $9.09, to the publisher and typically 25% of that, or $2.27, to the author.

The upshot: From an e-book sale, an author makes a little more than half what he or she makes from a hardcover sale.

 

Read the rest of the article on the South Oregon Mail Tribune site.

While You Wait For Book Three, Authors Die!

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The title of this post is slightly sensationalist, but in a literary sense it’s actually very true. I mentioned recently that I’ve finally started reading A Game Of Thrones, which is the first book in George R R Martin’s A Song Of Ice & Fire series. This comment led to a few discussions in various places that has subsequently led to this post.

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

When I mentioned that I was finally getting around to reading A Game Of Thrones a lot of people assumed that also meant that I’d only just bought it. Especially when, in answer to the question, “Why has it taken you this long?” I replied, “I was waiting for the complete story before I started.”

A lot of people do this, and fair enough. When you notice a big old fantasy series that you think catches your interest, it’s reasonable to assume there’s going to be a whole story told. Often these days a writer will sell a trilogy (or bigger series) to a publisher and that publisher will set a publication schedule to release those books over a relatively short period of time, maybe even inside a year.

However, if no one buys the first book, it’s very possible that books two and three will never see the light of day. An author survives on [his] sales figures. If [he] performs poorly at the checkout, the publisher will discard [him] like a greasy burger wrapper and think nothing of it. That’s business. It’s fucked, but it’s business.

Going back to Martin’s series, when people started telling me how awesome it was, I started buying the books. They’ve sat on my shelf for ages. I wasn’t going to read them until there was a whole finished set, but I bought them to ensure that Martin showed solid sales figures and stayed in favour with his publisher. (I ended up starting to read recently because of the forthcoming TV series, and I wanted to have read the books first).

Obviously someone like George R R Martin doesn’t need my help, but the same thing applies across the board. For example, I was on a panel recently with Paul Cornell and he talked about one of his comic series being cancelled. There was conjecture that the series was cancelled because so many people these days wait for the trade, rather than collect the individual comic books. If no one buys the comic books, the story is considered a failure and there’ll be no trade.

The same applies to big series of novels. If no one buys the first book, the author/story will be considered a failure and there’ll be no release of the rest of the books. The people that read the first one are denied closure, the people that were waiting for a whole series have missed the opportunity and, most importantly, the author is dropped and never has the chance to expand their career. This is a very sad result of market forces and it’s actually a false result.

So if you see the first book of a series that you think you might like, buy it! You don’t have to read it right away – consider it an investment in your reading future. Buy the subsequent volumes as they come out and you’ll end up with a solid reading experience once the whole series is finished. And you’ve done your bit to ensure the success of an author and their literary vision. Hopefully you’ve had a good read too. If you put off buying that first book, you could have actively participated in the failure of an otherwise awesome story and potentially stellar career. No pressure.

 

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