Publetariat

CIP: What It Means, How to Read It, Who Should Get It

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There is one place in printed books were we look for all kinds of editorial, bibliographic, legal, promotional and production information: the copyright page. But among all this information, data, legal notices and marketing and contact information, there’s one piece of content on the copyright page that is obscure to most people who pick up the book: the CIP data block, issued by the Library of Congress’ Cataloging in Publication program.

According to the Library of Congress, the CIP program allows catalogers to

complete the descriptive cataloging …, assign subject headings …, and assign full Library of Congress and Dewey decimal classification numbers. … A machine-readable version of the record is distributed to large libraries, bibliographic utilities, and book vendors around the world.

This transmission of data is what makes participation in the program useful for selling books. Being listed in the databases of large libraries and book wholesalers thanks to the Library of Congress program eliminates one of the obstacles to achieving library sales for a book. And for many books, libraries are a critical part of their market.
 

The Problem with the Program

Unfortunately, the CIP program excludes self-publishers from participating, and that applies to authors who have [self-published through a print service company like Lulu or Createspace]. It also excludes publishers who have issued less than 3 books by authors other than themselves. This effectively bars self-publishers from the program, even those whose books would be of great interest to libraries.

The good news is that participation in the Library of Congress’ Preassigned Control Number (PCN) program is open to all publishers who list a U.S. place of publication on the title or copyright page, and who maintain an office inside the U.S. where they can answer questions from the catalogers. And once you have a PCN you can pay for your own CIP to be created.

CIP data blocks created by the Library of Congress are known as LC-CIP. Those created by a publisher, or by a third party on behalf of a publisher, are known as P-CIP. The chief source for P-CIP for many years has been Quality Books, a distributor of small press books to libraries. Their fee for this service is $100.

As with the Library of Congress, you will have to fill out their forms and supply information about your book. A cataloger will analyze your submission and produce a P-CIP data block to be printed in your book. Of course, the downside is that this record will not be distributed to large libraries and wholesalers, the way the Library of Congress’ record is distributed.

This leads to the question of whether it’s worth it for a self-publisher to go through the time and expense of having a P-CIP data block produced for her book. And the answer is actually quite simple: If you anticipate making any appreciable sale to libraries, it’s probably well worthwhile to get P-CIP. Having this cataloging information simply makes librarians’ jobs that much easier, reducing their resistance just a bit to acquiring your book for their collection.

Particularly if you publish reference books, histories, books about local events that would be of interest to libraries in your region, travel books, directories, how-to books on popular topics, or similar books, you could well have a good sized market with the thousands of libraries, both public and private, throughout the country.

What Does it All Mean?

 

Copyright page CIP data block

Click to enlarge

This brings us to the data block itself, and our attempts to decode the arcane notation of the catalogers. Here’s a line by line guide to what’s in the CIP in this illustration (and this is a complete invention, just for illustration).

 

A. Alerts the librarian the CIP was prepared by or for the Publisher

B. The main entry under which the book is cataloged, always the author’s name.

C. The title, followed by a statement of responsibility, in this case assigning authorship to John and Joan Doe.

D. Physical description of the book, almost always blank since the books are usually not yet published.

E. Notes whether an index or other bibliographical entries are in the book.

F. ISBN

G. Subject headings, conforming to Library of Congress usage. Here’s an important note from Lisa Shiel, an experienced CIP cataloger: “The subject headings . . . MUST be authorized Library of Congress subject headings or it isn’t really CIP–and it isn’t properly cataloged. . . . Unless you are experienced with choosing subject headings you may misunderstand the intricacies of cataloging or inadvertently choose a heading that has fallen out of favor.” See the comments to the blog post for Lisa’s complete comments.

H. Indicates other ways the book will be cataloged, here by title as well as by author.

I. Library of Congress classification number.

J. Dewey Decimal classification number.

K. Library of Congress PCN. Note the year the number was issued is in the first four digits.

Note that since this article was published I have incorporated the information generously provided in the comments by Lisa Shiel, an experienced CIP cataloger.

So there you have it. Here are some resources for going further into the CIP area:

  1. Library of Congress PCN program information
     
  2. Quality Books P-CIP Program
     
  3. Adrienne Ehlert Bashista, a freelance Cataloger-At-Large who prepares P-CIP data blocks for publishers
     
  4. Five Rainbows CIP Cataloging service

Takeaway: Although participation in the Library of Congress CIP program is closed to self-publishers, understanding this data block and how it’s used by librarians will tell you whether to go to the time and trouble to acquire your own.

 

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

ISBNs Don't Matter As Much As You Probably Think They Do, But You Might Want To Start Owning Your Own Anyway

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I was about to post an overlong response in a comment thread on Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer blog, but on reflection, realized what I was about to post wasn’t a response, it was a blog entry in its own right. The article associated with the comment thread is about Library of Congress registration information [Editor’s note: the article is reprinted here on Publetariat today], and the subject of ISBN ownership came up in the discussion going on beneath the article, in the comments. And here’s what I have to say about ISBN ownership:

In the case of an individual author who only self-publishes his own manuscripts (as opposed to someone running an imprint, publishing works by other authors) what does it matter, really, who’s the registered owner of the ISBN on a book? There’s no legal or regulatory tie between ISBN ownership/registration and copyright or intellectual property rights. ISBN registration only designates ownership of the ISBN, not ownership of the content of the book to which the ISBN has been assigned.

I’ve used Createspace’s free ISBNs on all of my self-published books to date, and while this technically makes Createspace the ‘publisher of record’ in the ISBN records, I still retain all rights to the published material and I still own the copyrights. CS’s terms of use state this explicitly, and CS is also very adamant that their company not be listed as Publisher on their clients’ books’ copyright pages.

ISBN ownership can help to establish the legitimacy of a publisher’s claim to profits from a given book in a legal challenge situation, but given that CS has made it abundantly clear it never wants to be named as the publisher of record for any of the books it prints and distributes, the likelihood of CS trying to usurp my royalties seems pretty remote. Also, since copyright is the most meaningful measure of intellectual property ownership in the case of a book, and I own the copyrights on my books, the fact that CS is the registered owner of my books’ ISBNs wouldn’t allow CS to claim my intellectual property rights, either. One caveat: the financial and legal waters would be a bit murkier if I were running an imprint and publishing other authors’ works as well as my own, and in that case I would absolutely want to purchase and register all the ISBNs in the name of my imprint.

While not being the registered ISBN owner prevents me from listing the books with wholesale catalogs myself, since Createspace now offers to create wholesale catalog listings as part of their service, it’s a non-issue for me. My CS books are available on Amazon, Amazon UK, through Barnes and Noble, and through every other bookseller and retailer that stocks its inventory via the Ingram or Baker & Taylor catalogs, and that’s most of them.

Borders is a special case, in that its online and in-store inventory is stocked from an internally-maintained catalog; the only way any publisher, indie or mainstream, gets her books listed with Borders is to get one of Borders’ buyers to add them to Borders’ internal catalog. Since my CS books are listed in the Ingram and Baker & Taylor catalogs, from which Borders draws entries for its internal catalog, I could approach a Borders buyer and inquire about getting my CS books added to Borders’ catalog if I wanted to, but I haven’t bothered.

True, my books aren’t available through European wholesale book catalogs (since only the registered ISBN owner can list books with those catalogs), but since I’m not promoting my books in foreign markets nor releasing them in foreign language editions, I don’t think I’m missing out on many sales there. Amazon UK is the #1 bookseller for English-language books in Europe, and my CS books are already listed on that site.

While not being the registered ISBN owner also prevents me from registering my books with the Library of Congress, I don’t really care about that and I don’t think anyone else does either—with respect to my books, anyway. It would matter if I were trying to get my self-pub books stocked by public and institutional libraries, but let’s face it: self-pub books, novels especially, aren’t likely to be stocked by those libraries anyway.

If I self-publish anything new in the future I’ll most likely purchase my own ISBN/barcode blocks for the new projects, but only because "premium" or "expanded" distribution options offered by print and digital publishing service providers increasingly require that the author/imprint be the registered owner of the ISBN. Since this is already a requirement for Smashwords’ premium ebook catalog, I expect it’s going to become commonplace for ebooks to have ISBNs just like print books and hard media audiobooks.

Even so, I still see the whole thing as little more than an administrative hoop through which I’ll soon be forced to jump and an extra expense I’ll be forced to shoulder to make retailers’ lives easier. Cost of doing business, and all that. I’m still not likely to list my self-published books with European wholesale catalogs, nor Borders’ internal catalog, and I definitely won’t bother registering them with the Library of Congress.

I have always maintained, and still maintain, that ISBNs are merely tracking numbers used by retailers, libraries and government agencies to organize, and retain control over, their inventory of books—nothing more, and nothing less. Some people (and I’m not talking about Joel Friedlander or anyone who’s commented on his article) treat ISBN purchase and ownership like some kind of mark of legitimacy, and others even go so far as to tell self-publishers that if your book’s ISBN isn’t registered in your name, that fact alone makes your book a "vanity" project and you an amateur who doesn’t deserve to wear the name "author".

Horsefeathers. There may be compelling business reasons for this or that indie author to purchase and register his own ISBNs, and there are definitely compelling business reasons for imprints to do so. But that’s all they are: business reasons.

This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author blog.

Short Story Contest Winner

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The winners up to sixth place are now out and online for the Arkansas Writers’ Conference contests at Little Rock, Arkansas.

I placed second in contest 25. Look What The Cat Dragged In. Title of my short story was The Unexpected Visitor. Guidelines for this entry – a short story and no word limit which is great for me. I know 2500 words is about the top limit for an entry, but I like it when I don’t have to watch the count close.

I’ve been entering this set of contests since 2003 and have many awards from first to sixth place. For the $10 entry fee participants can enter as many contests as they want. I have entered up to a dozen each year, but this year I found only four that I wanted to do. Several of the themes had vampire or ghost subjects. Vampires aren’t something that I can write about, but I did come up with a ghost story. I’ll share that one with you around Halloween.

The $15.00 prize money paid my entry fee and expenses of ink, paper, envelope and postage. Plus, I am listed online in the list of winners for anyone that wants to look up the website.

Every year the contest rules come out in January. The entries have to be in by the last of April which is plenty of time to work on a short story. After all these years, I’ve become familiar with the different contest themes. When I get an idea in the months before the contest starts, I write a story and wait to see if it will fit the guidelines. Sometimes, the story only takes a little reworking.

The first four contests entered, the writers have to present at the conference the first weekend of June. Contests 5 – 28 are open to all writers. Contests 29-36 are for residents of Arkansas only.

Now my entries to White River Writers Conference Contest, Searcy, Arkansas, have been sent in. Another Arkansas based conference with a July 26 deadline. More on that later in September if I place in the contests. Sometimes I submit the short stories I’ve used for the Arkansas Writers’ Conference. I’ve found with a different set of judges I place this time when I didn’t in the other contest.

Over the years, I complied quite a few essays and short stories. When I published my books back in 2008, three of those books were made up of these contest entries. Wild West Tales, Butterfly And Angel Wings and A Teapot, Ghosts, Bats & More.

The books didn’t cost much to publish. I use them as give aways at book signings. The winner has a choice of the three books. Also, I gave a copy of A Teapot, Ghosts, Bats & More to my family doctor to put in the magazine rack in the waiting room. It took the longest time for that book to get placed in the rack. I finally figured out all the staff read the book before they gave it up to the patients. In the back of each book is my contact information and list of other books I’ve written if anyone reading this book wants another from me. I’ve sold the doctor two of my Amish books and the staff has bought four of my Alzheimer’s caregiver books Open A Window.

Three of the short story entries became books. I make sure to list that I was a contest winner with the short story. Right now I have a western book, second in my Stringbean Hooper Westerns, to be published soon. I entered my western in a Western Three Chapter contest. Dusty Richards, well known western author, is the judge. He gave me second place for my first Stringbean Hooper book, The Dark Wind Howls Over Mary. Contest winners are announced in September at the conference. If I am awarded anything I can use that acknowledgment in my next book.

　

　

　

 

Me and My Best Friend: When Publishing Goes Bad

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For me, there has only been one story in publishing over the past few days, and it is this one, about Leo Hunter, six years of age, signing a 23 book deal with a US publisher. I didn’t get the chance to dig deep enough when the story first broke (supposedly) when I posted about it here and on also on Facebook on Friday.

The UK media piece most commentators have focused on was in the Daily Mirror newspaper. The real revelations about this story have been filling the blogosphere for the past few days, but I’ve yet to see one actually link to where this whirlwind first began. If you were only to follow the UK media who covered the story, you could be forgiven for believing ‘Me and My Best Friend’ by J. S. Huntlands had just been published this week. It wasn’t, and this torrid little saga, and the real author behind it, has actually been on the map with this particular book since July 2009, when it was first published by Strategic Book Publishing.

  Firstly, let’s deal with the source of the Daily Mirror story. It’s penned by Rod Chaytor, but like some national news stories, it was ‘lifted’ from a provincial piece written the day before by Paul Whyatt in This is Derbyshire. This is a provincial newspaper in the UK where Jamie Hunter lives. Who is Jamie Hunter? Ah, here’s the rub. She is Leo Hunter’s mother, an author of one book published by AuthorHouse in 2008 called ‘Nick: Twisted Minds’, a self-published and heart-felt story of domestic violence. Who wrote ‘Nick: Twisted Minds’? Well, officially, J. S. Huntlands, but you see, Huntlands is the pseudonym of Jamie Hunter. Where things start to get a little muddled is that the children’s book penned by Leo Hunter, aged 6, is also officially authored by J. S. Huntlands. But that’s ok, because in the Mirror piece Jamie Hunter says: 

"He’s so young that he is not allowed to sign a contract with the publishers. It’s unfortunate because it means his name doesn’t get to go on the book, but we make sure everyone we know realises that he is the author."

Really, Jamie? In the introduction to the book, you say:  

“Thank you to my son for the inspiration to write this series.”

OK, he provided the ‘inspiration’ and chat that led you to write this book, but he is not the author of the book, no more than I am or JK Rowling is. Jamie Hunter also says she sent the book to JK Rowling. Her son is certainly at six years of age seeing the lights of stardom. In the media piece, he is quoted as saying:
 

I like Harry Potter but I like my books even more. I would like to be more famous than JK Rowling and even more famous than Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowell.

Jamie said her son comes up with ideas for a basic plot – for example, a boy who gets lost – and then she helps him make notes that help him write the story.

She said: "He’s very bossy and tells me exactly how he wants the front page to look like and how the illustrations should appear.

 UK Mirror article.

  Here is what the back blurb says on ‘Me and My Friends’:
 

“J. S. Huntlands is the author of Nick Twisted Minds and is currently working on more books in this series as well as 23 more books in the Me and My Best Friends Series.

Huntlands is a full-time writer as well as mom to a wonderful four-year-old boy.”

Take careful note of the age – not six, now it is four years of age.

‘Me and My Best Friends’ was actually first published in July 2009 by vanity publisher, Strategic Book Publishing, now under a lawsuit by Florida’s Attorney General’s Office, and the publishing group it is run by is headed up by Robert M. Fletcher, vanity publisher and literary agent scammer.

Strategic Book Publishing has also goofed up on the book’s product description on Amazon – it is for a completely different book!  

I am trying to be kind here to one of Fletcher’s authors, but she has got sucked into his publishing scam as well as fooling herself into being one of his represented authors in his other literacy agency scams, but she has done herself no favours now – in the past week – or in the past year. This is Jamie posting (spamming) Making Light, a literary blog last year where Fletcher and Strategic Book Publishing were being discussed.
 

#14 ::: JS Huntlands ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2009, 08:08 AM:

Set in today’s day and time, Me and My Best Friend is about a young boy, his faithful companion and their exciting adventures.

Henry and Liam are the best of friends and they do everything together. They can run and play all day long. But when Henry the puppy gets tired and tries to take a nap, three-year-old Liam keeps waking him, wanting him to play some more. Will Henry get any rest?

Get your children involved with this beautifully illustrated book. Your child will love to match up words and pictures, and find Liam, who keeps hiding in his bedroom. Perfect for the young reader!

About the Author

J.S. Huntlands is the author of Nick Twisted Minds and is currently working on more books in this series, as well as 23 more books in the Me and My Best Friend series. Huntlands is a full-time writer, as well as a mom to a wonderful four-year-old boy. This book is dedicated to her son in hopes that he never forgets his best friend.

 Resident writer James D. MacDonald reacted to the above posting:


#23 ::: James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: September 04, 2009, 10:22 AM:

If you Google on "Set in today’s day and time, Me and My Best Friend" you’ll get over 900 hits for this particular comment spam.

She’s trying hard….

What she needs to do now is get in touch with the Florida Attorney General and hope that she can get restitution.


#30 ::: JS Huntlands ::: (view all by) ::: January 25, 2010, 07:23 AM:

Wow,

What can I say? You have strong views. Thank you for the advise.

No I didn’t read this before signing the contract with AEG. I got rid of my website as my 12 months for free ran out and AEG offered a free web site. (good idea at the time)

I don’t have 1000’s of books in my house but, AEG do try to make you have x amount on hand. I own one of each of my books. I have been though a rough time but still no excuse for typo’s (typed for you Joel Polowin,) or not doing my homework. There are 100’s and 1000’s of publisher’s out there. It’s not so easy finding the right one for you. 

On the plus side for me though I did sign a ‘traditional contract’ So publishing cost me nothing. The advertising however can be very costly with nothing in return. Hence I have done it myself. Ie: live radio shows, newspaper reports. The blogging. I thought a great way to get out there. Clearly not such a great idea. Thank you again for your thoughts
 

Interestingly on Answers.com, we also have the following:

What books does jk rowling like?

A: Nick Twisted Minds written by J. S. Huntlands.
Her children like Me and My Best Friend also written by J. S. Huntlands

 

Somehow, I don’t think it was JK who supplied this answer! Ms Hunter has been a very busy girl with her marketing steamroller.

And I don’t think Jamie Hunter learned anything from James’ advice from all accounts in the last week. Somewhere in here should have been the story of a woman experiencing domestic violence and finding hope in the words she wrote in a book, but along the way, it got messed up in a vanity dream, and somehow, a wonderful, bright and creative kid got mixed up in that dream too. He should never have been a part of it, and I’m baffled as to why Jamie Hunter choose to involve her son in her own literary ambitions. 

I have no doubt what he has experienced with mom over the past couple of years could make him the next JK Rowling or Stephen King, but right now he isn’t, and shouldn’t be, and for the UK media or the people who love him to expect that, would be grossly unfair. We must live our lives as adults, and leave our children to dream theirs.

This story is also building up some steam over on AbsoluteWrite.

 

This is a cross-posting from Mick Rooney‘s POD, Self Publishing and Independent Publishing.

New RSS Feed Options At Feedburner

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Recently I wrote a post about why it’s so important to offer RSS feeds on your author blog. Feeds enable your author blog posts to be automatically delivered to your readers’ email inbox or feed reader, so you don’t have to rely on people remembering to visit your blog periodically.

The best way to set up a feed is through FeedBurner. You may be tempted to use one of the feed widgets offered by your blog service provider, but they do not allow you to see statistics on your feed subscribers or customize your feed settings. It’s best to go directly to FeedBurner to set up your feed. 

I recently logged onto FeedBurner to set up a feed for a new website I’m developing (more details on that coming soon!) and I noticed that there were quite a few changes on the FeedBurner site since the last time I was there. It seems that since Google purchased FeedBurner several years ago, they have continued to tweak the service by adding and deleting options that help you promote your blog posts, podcasts, and vcasts (video blogs). 

I was happy to learn that MaAnna Stephenson has just updated her ebook, Just The FAQs: RSS Feeds, to reflect the recent changes at FeedBurner. If you offer your feed via email, you’ll want to check out all of the new customizing options for email format and delivery. There is also a new Password Protector option that helps keep your feed safe from hackers, but could negatively impact the delivery of your email feed. The new Socialize tool has customizing options for pushing your feed to Twitter, but the jury is still out on whether this tool works well for everyone.

Be sure to read the Publicize section to learn about an often overlooked link on FeedBurner that offers even more free ways to publicize your blog and help you rank higher with Google. Podcasters should pay attention to MaAnna’s explanation of the conflict between FeedBurner’s SmartFeed and SmartCast features.

If you aren’t yet offering feeds on your blog, get started today! If you’re already got a feed, it’s a good idea to log onto FeedBurner and check out the new features. From your home page, click on the name of your feed, then go through all of the tabs and check out the various features and settings.

To learn more about how to set up your feed on FeedBurner and take full advantage of all of its features, I highly recommend Just The FAQs: RSS Feeds. This ebook offers step-by-step instructions in plain English, and comes in several versions, designed for installing and configuring feeds on WordPress.com or WordPress.org.

If you use TypePad (like I do), read this article to learn how to find your TypePad RSS feed and connect it to FeedBurner, then order the WordPress.com version of the Just The FAQs: RSS Feeds ebook to learn how to configure your feed.

And be sure to subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss any posts on The Savvy Book Marketer! In the right column of this page, under "Get Blog Updates," just enter your email address in the box to receive blog posts by email or click the "subscribe in a reader" link to have the feed delivered to your favorite feed reader or to the "RSS Feeds" folder in Outlook.

 

This is a cross-posting from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer.

The Book Industry: What's Next?

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Two driving factors come to mind in discussing book trends:

  1. How many books are written and published
  2. Rapidly advancing technology

How many books are written and published

In the late 1800s, there were between 3,000 to 5,000 new books published a year. During the depression years, there were around 8,000 to 10,000 new books published a year. By the 1940s, the figure was 7,000 to 11,000. In the 50s it was 11,000 to 15,000. Then things really started to explode: 1960s= 15K to 30K; 1970s= 36K to 45K; 1980s= 42K to 53K; 1990s= 47K to 68K. By 2005 the number was in the 172K range, and now between the US and the UK, we may be talking over 600K per year.

The really sobering stat is out of the 172K US number, only 1K sell over 50K copies. In other words, writers, reconsider quitting your day job. Very few authors actually make a living from their book sales. Now, when you consider how difficult and competitive it is to get accepted for publishing, especially by the agented major publisher route, you’ve got to wonder how many books were written every year. The number has to be staggering.

Now, let’s look at the book marketing and retail side. With these numbers, how do you get your new books seen, acknowledged, and desired? Every day more and more outlandish attention-getting techniques are tried. Even if you don’t consider all the previous decade’s new books and just look at one year’s crop, where do the retailers find room to put them? In the big box stores such as Borders and Barnes & Noble, they have enough shelf space at best to display 60,000 titles at any one time.

In the smaller independent bookstores such as I own, we’re talking maybe 10,000 to 20,000 at most. The book retail business is like trying to force 100 gallons of water through a tiny funnel. For you readers, you have a shopping choice of being overwhelmed by the numbers or hoping for a very knowledgeable book clerk who can make excellent recommendations and do a good job at hand-selling.

Now I haven’t addressed the online experience yet. In addition to Amazon and Barnes&Noble.com, there are a myriad of other electronic catalog experiences out there. Some of them are online-only businesses and some are extensions of bookstores trying to stay in the game with all the venues. The choices are daunting. For example, The Book Barn’s (my store) landing page entitled GRREAT Books uses the book distributor Baker and Taylor’s 2 million book/music/movie data base. Again, the number of choices is daunting. A positive note is that self-publishers and print-on-demand are becoming more respectable if they are done right.

Electronic Media and the Emerging Technologies

So far, I’ve only addressed printed books. Now we add audio books, tape, CD, or downloads and ebooks in all their different formats. Publishers and retailers are flailing in their attempts to keep up with the various technologies. New marketing and distribution channels are developing at the expense of more traditional ones. Many folks are trying to jump on an already speeding train. Some will fall off and hurt themselves. We’re already seeing many alarming stats.

Traditional publishing isn’t finished. There will still be a market for traditional print books, but ebook readers such as Kindle and iPad are very attractive to some, and not just to the very young. Older folks are joining the ranks of fans for these devices for both comfort and flexible convenience. I’m 65. I have arthritis in my fingers and wrists. Reading a 1,000-page printed book becomes a painful process for me. As my vision gets worse, print becomes more difficult to see. The electronic readers are lightweight and will become more so, making them easier, less painful to hold. Their text font sizes and selections allow the reader to use whatever is most convenient to see—the reader chooses for convenience instead of a publisher choosing fonts and sizes for cost effectiveness.

Although I currently don’t have a reader, I see the day rapidly approaching when I will. How will bookstores service that market, or will it be the exclusive domain of the online sources? Will bookstore become a place to come to have your reader refueled with the latest ebooks, which they will download for you? I can see that as a possibility for the aging baby boomers who don’t want to bother doing it themselves, but will they be enough for a store’s survival.

Looking into the future

I’m no prophet, but my military intelligence background trained me to think in contingencies. Here are some trends and timelines I see developing:

  1. Printed books will be around for a couple more decades, but will gradually ease out of the picture.
     
  2. The models for publishing and marketing are already changing to accommodate the changing technologies. The future is here today.
     
  3. People are becoming far more visually (graphics not text) oriented.
     
  4. Technology already in place to allow writers to become speakers as software turns their spoken words into text, bypassing the keyboard barrier. We think and speak much faster than most of us can type.
     
  5. As self-publishing becomes more powerful and accepted, the inevitable explosion of works produced will become massive; however, with the technology to organize and provide conveniently quick searching, it will become easier to find exactly what you’re looking for. This will make Long Tail Marketing king (which has already begun to happen).
     
  6. Expect to see far more multimedia approaches to the providing of information. Already we have book trailers as well as movie trailers.
     
  7. Finally, marketing will become a much more fluid playing field with increasing complexities. Nothing is sacred, only what works well this time and that is guaranteed to change. Marketing will require far more creative thinking and mental flexibility. Reaction times to the market will be shortened greatly by necessity.

There you have it for now. Like anything else these days, all this prognostication is subject to change.

 

This is a cross-posting from Bob Spear‘s Book Trends blog.

Wattpad Global Ebook Metrics Report, Q2 2010

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From the Wattpad site:

Wattpad Global Ebook Metrics Reports

Wattpad is the pioneer in ebook cloud services. With over 5 million downloads supporting over 1000 phone models from 600 mobile operators, Wattpad is also the most popular mobile ebook application. As a result, Wattpad can analyze every usage, read, search, click and uses this to optimize its services. These reports offer a snapshot of the data to provide insight into trends in the ebook ecosystem.

2Q 2010 Report Highlights

The Apple iPad has been quickly adopted for ebook consumption since its introduction in April 2010. The iPad accounted for 5% of all iOS devices.

The growth of smartphones continue to come from North America and Europe, whereas Java devices continue to lead growth in Asia.

Click here to download the full Q2 2010 metrics report.

Click here to subscribe to future metrics reports. 

Late To The Fair: Why I Became An Indie Author

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Last week I caught up to the fact that Chris Kelly was having a blog carnival on Indie Publishing just as the deadline closed. However, after reading the blog posts of those who made it to the fair, and mulling over my reactions, I thought it would still be useful to post on this topic.

I have written previously on my blog about the path that lead me to self-publishing, which echoed other writers (disappointment with the traditional route, issues of control, greater financial opportunities, etc) so in this post I am focusing more narrowly on the most important personal reason I had for deciding to become an indie author.

The traditional publishing route takes just too damn long (and I am too damn old).

I remember a year ago last June coming back from a mystery convention, business cards from an agent and the editor of a small press in hand, and sitting down and looking at those cards. I knew the drill. I and my author friends had been down that road before and I knew that even if I was successful, the minimum time it would take from first query to finished product was 18 months, and as a first time author it would more likely take two years. Even worse, editors at that convention made it clear it would take at least another year after coming out in print before the book was published as an ebook.  (I know that this, like much of publishing, is changing, but in June 2009 most traditional publishers were adamant about not publishing print and ebooks at the same time.)

I had had the idea for Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery 30 years earlier, I had written the first draft 20 years earlier, and I was now approaching sixty, and 2-3 years simply felt too long to wait to get it into readers’ hands and discover if my book was indeed something that readers would enjoy.

Now I know that sixty is supposed to be the new forty, but my mother was dead at the age of 67 and my father’s poetry writing came to a halt when he was in his late 70s and entered the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, so in actuarial terms, life really was too short.

In addition, while theoretically my sixty years have brought me wisdom, experience and the financial security that would give me an edge over younger authors, what I felt was just old as I read blogs by twenty-somethings who, with the boundless energy of youth, could put in longer days, were more comfortable with new technology, and didn’t have to spend so darn much time keeping the body moving smoothly. Even more distressing were the real forty somethings who not only had widsom and experience, but also had twenty to thirty years of successfully publishing books under their belts, with established contacts and fans, to help them on their way.

I felt like I was late to the Fair, and if I didn’t get a move on, all the rides would be closed. So I put the business cards away and committed myself to taking the self-publishing route. I took the next six months to do the final edit and do what was necessary to be ready to publish (get cover designed, set up author website, set up blog), much of which I would have needed to do prior to even sending out my query to that agent or editor.

Then in a two-week period in December of 2009 I published my book as an ebook on Smashwords and Kindle and used CreateSpace to publish a POD edition.

Two weeks, not two to three years.

And now I am nine months down the road and I am not worrying that my window of opportunity is closing and that bookstores will be sending unbought copies of my book back, and Books Scan is going to label me a failure because my sell-through rate wasn’t high enough, and my publisher is going to drop me (or let my book go out of print) because I didn’t make back my advance.

Instead I am having the time of my life. I have sold over 1150 copies of Maids of Misfortune, over 500 copies of my short story, Dandy Detects, and I am watching my sales improve every day. And I haven’t even turned 61 yet!

 

 

This is a cross-posting from M. Louisa Locke‘s The Front Parlor.

What Writers Can Learn From Flamenco

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Creativity through dance is fascinating when writing is our main form of expression. Here are some lessons learned for writers from Spanish flamenco dancing.

  • Know the tradition that lies behind and within you. Flamenco is native to Andalusia in Spain with Gypsy, Sephardic Jew, Moorish and Byzantine influences. It is beautiful to see old people dance it as well as the women in their prime and the young girls who learn the skills. There is a vast tradition behind the movements of flamenco as well as the songs that are sung with it. For writers, we have a great tradition behind us that we need to be aware of. We need to know the rules and the past in order to bring our words to life on the page.
  • Extemporize from that tradition to find your personal expression. For dancers, this is your style of flamenco, for authors, this is your voice and writing style. Once you know the tradition, you can express yourself within it and use creativity in your own way. Flamenco dancers seem to go with the music, almost as a jazz band improvises as the music moves. Each time they perform it would be a little different. As writers, we need to know where we are coming from and the rules of our genre, and then we can go out from there to a place of originality.
  • Use your passion and your personal power. Flamenco is incredibly empowering to watch and to dance. It exudes pride and power, a separation of the artist from those who watch. The expression is usually serious and the movements compelling with authority. This is a dancer that knows their worth. As writers, we definitely use our passion to write but sometimes that power can be missing. We need to reclaim that, to be unapologetic in the ability to express and create. No one can take that from you, whatever their judgement.
  • Have a varied repertoire. Flamenco is best known for the stamping of feet, the fast tapping and grand movements but there are also slow dances, almost mournful in their experience. The songs and flamenco guitar are spine tingling in emotion. For writers, we must also have this full range of skill both in writing, and also in all the other areas of a writer’s life these days, like marketing and promotion.
  • Celebrate each other with Ole! When watching flamenco, it is part of the experience for the audience and other participants to shout ‘Ole!’ and other encouragements, and clap during the performance. It is an interjection like applause and acts as a spur to the dancer to move faster. As writers, we don’t have much applause in our daily writing lives so we can learn from this to try to encourage each other further, to spur each other on to greater things.

It is important to get out there and live a life that is worth writing about. Watching or even dancing flamenco is an experience that will challenge most people and spark new ideas. Have you found inspiration in a dance or other physical form of creativity?

 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Whither The Author-Artiste?

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Seth Godin’s announcement yesterday that his future works will not be traditionally published seems, to me anyway, to have finally knocked over the "Tipping Point" domino in a chain that’s long been poised to open the floodgates of true acceptance and respectability for indie authorship. For authors like Godin, JA Konrath, Steven Covey, and lesser-known indies like me, this is a wonderful development. It’s a clear signal that going indie can be a big step in the right direction for any author, established or aspiring, who’s got an entrepreneurial spirit and commercial sensibilities. But what about all those other authors, published and aspiring, who are more in tune with art than commerce? How would a Flannery O’Connor, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Camus, Dostoevsky or Salinger fare in this brave new world of indie authorship? Not too well, I suspect.

These are authors of seminal literature which has inspired whole generations of writers, thinkers and artists, and their works will continue to inspire thought and action for generations to come. Yet somehow I doubt any of them would’ve been very excited about, or done very well with, something as worldly and mundane as author platform. And this begs the question: where, and how, is the important and challenging literature of tomorrow to be discovered and brought to the public’s attention? Will it be lost to the ages for want of a Twitter account and Amazon Rush?

I’m not saying the rise of indie authorship has somehow created this problem. If anything, indie authorship has opened a door of opportunity for those few authors of literary fiction and philosophical or metaphysical nonfiction who are also web savvy and/or highly motivated to get their work out to the world. After all, it’s not as if mainstream presses have been clamoring for more edgy, unclassifiable, non-commercial manuscripts. Trade publishing in the United States hasn’t been primarily about enlarging the canon of quality American literature for quite some time.

While there have always been passionate and compassionate editors, agents and others willing to champion this or that "great" book, regardless of its apparent commercial potential, these have increasingly been diminished to the role of mere voices in the wilderness. Because the publishing business is, first and foremost, a business, and there’s nothing wrong, illegal, or unethical about that. A book that doesn’t look like a substantial moneymaker isn’t likely to be picked up by a big, mainstream house. Small, independent presses can bridge the gap between art and commerce to some extent, but those presses have to turn a profit to survive too. Great reviews and a slew of doctoral theses based on a given book won’t pay the rent.

I’ve turned this over in my head again and again, but there are no easy answers. Plenty of people have gone through the exercise of sending some literary classic or other to a mainstream house or agent under a different title just to get it rejected and then knowingly blog about the generalized cluelessness of trade publishing (and in so doing, entirely overlook the fact that publishers are engaged in a for-profit business), but this exercise barely pays lip service to the larger issue. If we agree as a culture that important, if non-commercial, literature deserves wide exposure, study and discussion, who’s supposed to foot the bill for getting it out there in front of eyeballs?

Indie authors like me who’ve worked long and hard to master platform and publishing skills may feel some righteous indignation at the notion of our artier, less business-savvy counterparts getting somewhat of a free ride when it comes to the labor involved in indie authorship, but we should try to get past this tit-for-tat mentality and look at the big picture. I know all kinds of things about self-publishing, trade publishing, setting up and maintaining an author platform, and the business side of indie authorship, and I’m a pretty good writer of entertaining little novels and instructional nonfiction, too. But I’m no Salinger, O’Connor, Dostoevsky, Garcia Marquez or Camus, and I never will be.

Is it better for the culture at large if the only new authors to achieve any meaningful level of exposure or acclaim are like me, succeeding largely for reasons having at least as much (if not more) to do with our business and marketing skills than our writerly gifts? I’m thinking, no. I have come up with some ideas to address the problem, but it’s a woefully short list. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments area.

1. Introductory self-publishing, author platform and publishing business courses should be added to the core curriculum of all creative writing degree programs; many students in such programs may have no intention of ever self-publishing, but these subject areas are so commonplace in the publishing world of today that to be ignorant of them is indicative of an incomplete education.

2. The National Endowment for the Arts has grants on offer each year, but admittedly, they’re limited to pretty specific categories and putting together an acceptable grant proposal is scarcely easier than setting up and maintaining an author blog and Twitter account.

3. Anyone who’s mastered a crucial publishing or author platform skill like podcasting, ebook creation, book cover design or the like should share the wealth of those skills by providing some free instruction to their fellow writers in the form of how-to videos, articles, or podcasts.

4. Any author or publishing pro who’s in a position to give wider exposure to a deserving non-commercial manuscript, book or story should do whatever they can to lend a hand to the writer in need.

Remember: it was probably some classic of literature, not a NY Times Bestseller, that originally inspired you to become a writer in the first place. Let’s all do what we can to give that same gift of meaning and inspiration to future generations of writers, thinkers and artists everywhere.

 

This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

Cozy Mystery Website Adding My Mystery Series

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If you like cozy, clean mysteries like the Amazing Gracie Mystery Series I write, I’ve found a site on an Amazon mystery discussion group. There are many books to choose from at http://www.cozy-mystery.com The site had an email contact for the host so I sent a message requesting she try a complimentary copy of Neighbor Watchers – ISBN 1438246072 so she can see for herself what my mystery series is like and think about adding my books to her site.

The host replied, "Thank you so much for writing and letting me know about your Amazing Gracie series. It looks like exactly the type of mystery series that this site emphasizes. I have added you to my list of authors to post, but I must warn you that it might take a little while before I get to you. My list is always expanding, but every once in a while I make it a project to get some more authors done.

Check out the site if you are interested in reading or submitting a cozy mystery book. The site has links to everything. Danna gives her definition of what a cozy mystery is. Cozies don’t usually involve a lot of gory details or explicit adult situations.

Authors are posted alphabetically.

TV shows and movies

Cozy mysteries with themes such as culinary themes, librarian themes and for cat and dog lovers

Cozy mystery new releases

In Danna’s cozy mystery blog, she talks about different movies and shows.

If you have a submission email Danna@Cozy-Mystery.com

Danna mentioned that she’d like people to link to her site. If you contact her mention that you found out about her site by reading my blog. That way she will know I helped spread the word.

I tried to list my Amazing Gracie Mystery Series on different websites for mysteries a couple years ago when I published the first book. I got a reply from one site that I must be kidding if I thought the book would be put on that website if it was sold by Amazon. I didn’t have any idea what that meant. As a writer, I figure I am always going to win over some and lose some so I keep looking ahead for other possiblities. I didn’t hear back from another mystery website I contacted. An online book store in California took three signed copies of my book on consignment but never got back to me. I was unknown, and my series is not the violent, sexy stories that ate popular so I’m assuming the books didn’t sell.

Two more mystery book list websites are http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/ ( which I found on an Amazon mystery discussion group) and http://www.thebloodstainedbookshelf. I emailed The bloodstained bookshelf and didn’t hear back so I assume my books wouldn’t fit in either of these sites.

Sorry I missed my blog post entry last week. We made a quick trip to Arkansas for my husband’s aunt’s funeral and visited with my aunt and uncle near Cabool, Missouri before we came home. The loss of one aunt is a reminder to me to spend time with another one about the same age.

Now I’m back, and a day early with this blog post, because I don’t want the phone line tied up tomorrow. My three month old dishwasher quit working a couple days ago. The repairman is suppose to call me when he is ready to come fix the dishwasher, and that is one call I don’t want to miss.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Choosing What To Write

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The writing, publishing, and marketing landscapes of books is very fluid these days. They refuse to be nailed down to the “Tried and True” solutions anymore. Given that, how does a writer go about choosing a topic/genre to write in these days of shifting sands? Fiction or nonfiction, the problem is universal if you’re going to write for any audience beyond yourself, friends, and family.

Every level in the book industry is trying to second guess what will be a good seller, if not a best seller, next. Their solutions depend on anything from very expensive market surveying and focus groups to trying modifications to what’s working now, to ouiji boards. I’d like to address the writers today. All you other levels in the book industry are welcome to listen in since what the writers produce have a major impact on you.

Write what you know?

This is a common sage bit of advice handed out to beginning writers that makes sense; however, there are some exceptions. Yes, if you write about themes that are familiar to you already, you stand a better chance of producing something that will be interesting to others. In the 1980s and 90s, I wrote several books about the subject of self-defense applied to the military, police, and street defenses. I had studied various fighting system since I was about ten-years-old, especially the Korean killing and maiming art of Hapkido. I had taught many people around the world and had people contacting me about how my information saved their lives. The problem was there were only so many ways one can fold, spindle, and mutilate an opponent. I was getting bored with repackaging the same stuff for different applications. I branched out into self-reliance, political, and later in history books. Most recently, I’ve been trying my hand at mysteries. I still write about what I know, but I’ve found many ways to use that knowledge. My fictional fight scenes are realistic and I think exciting because of my intimate knowledge of what can happen in violent situations.

Ah, but what about writing about things we don’t know about. Many freelance writers of magazine articles can tell you that it is possible to venture into subjects you know next to nothing about and yet still produce credible material. The same goes for copywriters. My bookstore, The Book Barn in Leavenworth, Kansas, had no books about out historic community to sell tourists and citizens alike that were less than $15. There were some good books, but they were $50 to $65 hardbacks. I asked several of our community’s historians if they would be interested in taking on such a project—nobody was. The inevitable happened. My wife, Barb, said, “You’re going to have to write this book.” I knew the town was the first city in Kansas and had a colorful history, of which I knew few details. I had never written anything historical before. All that meant it took me six months of intense research and drafts and rewrites, in addition to taking a lot of pictures of film pictures. The result was a colorful paperback which won three design awards and keeps selling steadily to the exact markets it was written for. Here is the cover of Leavenworth: First City of Kansas.

The Scientific Approach

Another interesting approach to find a topic to write about is to use the tools of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Go to Google or any other major search engine and type in “keywords” and “adwords” and “SEO” and you will be led to any number of services and softwares packages running anywhere from free, to try it before you buy it, or simply purchase one of these many tools. They will explain how to take a key word and enter it into their evaluation engine, which will tell you how many times the word has been requested in a certain time period. You want something that appears to have been requested at least a respectable number of times in the period but not a huge number of times. Too many times means there will be too many others like you jumping onto that bandwagon—why ask for stiff competition. The tool should give you an idea of what those ranges might be. Remember my explanation of Long Tail Marketing in my 31 May, 2010 blog post, Comments on a Garrison Keillor Column by Bob Spear? These types of tools are how one goes about identifying niches in a long tail. By finding several closely related keywords that provide encouraging results and are interesting may have just what you need to write about.

Look for Synergy

Be on the lookout for topics that can be used in interesting combinations. Independence, Missouri and bestselling author Jim Butcher did that very successfully. He combined the genre of hardboiled detective mysteries with the paranormal genre (both of which have been hot genres in the past). Out of that came a big city private eye who happens to be a real warlock and takes on werewolf and vampire cases. What a super combination! This is what I mean by synergy. If nothing else, it is one way to take a couple of tried and true but hackneyed genres and build in new excitement through their use in combination. Try looking at the familiar with a new pair of glasses.

Now, go thou and try something. Who knows where it might lead.

 

This is a cross-posting from Bob Spear‘s Book Trends blog.

3 Ways To Boost Potential Book Sales Using Samples

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I was recently browsing the blogosphere for eBooks on self-publishing and blogging when I came across Kristen Lamb’s eBook We Are Not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. It sounds like a very interesting read based on the blurb at Who Dares Wins Publishing. Will I buy it? Not without a lot of thinking and considering.

The information available in the book sounds great. I enjoy reading Kristen’s blog. I’m looking for whatever new info I can get on self-publishing and blogging. The price for the print version ($14.99 @ Amazon) is reasonable for a self-published book. The eBook version is also not terribly high ($7.99 for .pdf, .ePub, MS Reader, .mobi and Kindle). So why not jump on it? Because I have no idea exactly what is in it.

Think about the pull bookstores have on potential readers. What’s the one thing they still have in their favor? You can sit and peruse a book before you buy it. It’s the same reason customers prefer to buy books on Amazon that have the Look Inside feature. No matter how fantastic your blurb is, it will never fully capture what lies between the covers.

I could buy the less expensive eBook version of We Are Not Alone, but I’d still be out $7.99 if I don’t like it. (Even if I hate a book, I rarely return it or try to sell it.) That’s often the risk readers are faced with when looking at self-published books/eBooks and, with people reigning in their spending, giving away a free sample can mean the difference between a sale or clicking on by.

There really is no excuse for not providing a sample, especially if you do the work for your book yourself (which is what self-publishing is all about). I know of at least three ways to make a sample available to potential readers.

  1. Create a .pdf version and make it available for free download on your web site. You’d want to create something similar to an Amazon Look Inside for it to be of real value to potential readers.  Hacking up your book into sample bits like this can be a challenge, but it’s better than not having a sample at all.
  2. Use a service such as Scribd. Again, this means creating your own .pdf sample of your book, but you’ll reach an audience you may not reach otherwise.


  3. Go with BookBuzzr. This service is by far the best available to Independent Authors. They will hack your book however you want and give you widgets to use for your blog, facebook and email. Beyond that you can set up automatic tweets to market your book.


 

If you plan to sell your self-published books, you must reach readers, entice them to give you their hard won money, and the best way to do that is to offer them a sample of your wares on The Road to Writing.

 

 

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

When Redesigning Your Site Or Blog, Don't Forget To Grandfather

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I recently redesigned my author website. It’s something many of you will do at some point, whether to add features, get a more professional look, put the focus on a specific book or service, or just because you think it’s time. Whatever the reason, when bringing in the new, be careful not to get too overzealous about throwing out the old.

Some of the content on your site may be quite popular, with many links, tweets, backtracks and so on all over the web. Check your site statistics or pageviews to get a quick read on which pages or articles are getting the most traffic, check for backtracks/backlinks on any of your content (backtracks and backlinks are instances of other sites linking to yours) and also take a trip down memory lane to remind yourself which pages or articles you have heavily promoted in the past. Be particularly alert to any content that has been mentioned in the media or highlighted on others’ websites and blogs.

When revamping your site or blog, be sure to keep that popular and much-linked content, and keep all of the associated web page addresses and links intact. After all, you’ve already put in the effort to create the content, and it’s bringing new visitors to your site or blog on a regular basis. Why on Earth would you want to toss that valuable information and goodwill asset on the junk heap?

In the case of my old site, there was a very popular page containing a BookBuzzr widget which displayed the first edition of my book, The Indie Author Guide, online in its entirety for free, as well as a free guide to Kindle publishing. This page has received numerous positive mentions (with links) in the mainstream media. It was no cakewalk building my author platform up to a point where outlets like The New York Times, MSN Money, CNET and The Huffington Post were sending new site visitors my way, and the articles in which my guide had been mentioned will still be on the web for years, or even decades, to come. Even though that Kindle publishing guide is currently out of date and I’m in the process of updating it, and an updated and revised edition of The Indie Author Guide is on its way as well, it would’ve been a mistake to completely eliminate the page and leave a slew of broken links in the wake of my site redesign.

It so happens that I didn’t intend to include this specific page in my new site. I’d created a new organizational scheme and the page just didn’t fit. However, I didn’t want to turn away any new visitors who might discover me through all those links to the page.

So I created a new version of the old page, to match the new site design, and ensured it had the same title and web address. I added a statement indicating I’m in the process of updating the guide and when I expect the new version to be posted, plus a statement with information about the revised and updated edition of The Indie Author Guide, so anyone landing on that page will get the most up to date information.

Note to those who actually write the code for their sites or blogs: even though the new page didn’t have any need for HTML anchors to be included on it, I ensured all anchors present on the old page were included in the new one, so that any links pointing to those old anchors wouldn’t be broken, either.

I didn’t include this page in my site’s navigation bar, because again, it just doesn’t fit the new scheme. But anyone who clicks on one of those old links will not be disappointed, and since the navigation bar for my new site is on that "secret" page too, it’s possible new visitors may click around a bit and learn more about me and my books. 

 

This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

Indie Blog Carnival: Why I Went Indie

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This post, by Kait Nolan, originally appeared on her site on 8/19/10.

Indie author Chris Kelly is hosting a blog carnival around the topic of “Why I went indie.”  Since it’s a topic that’s really on my mind this week, it seemed an ideal post topic and a sign to participate.

I didn’t plan to go indie in the beginning.  I’ve been off and on pursuing traditional publication since I was 15.  Still have those first rejection letters somewhere.  Of course in the intervening fifteen years, publishing changed a lot. 

Having a web presence and a platform became vital.  So Forsaken By Shadow started out as a means to start building an audience.  Originally it was going to be free.  But of course you can’t release things for free on Amazon if you’re not a publisher.  So I listed it for a buck.  There and everywhere else.

Between making the decision to put something out there on my own and actually GETTING it out there, I got into ebooks myself as a reader.  And the publishing industry started going through radical changes, even before the economy tanked.  Rather than looking at ebooks as the next phase of publishing, the big houses looked at them as a threat and have done every conceivable thing to sabotage them–delaying release, pricing them ludicrously, giving authors a pittance in terms of royalties.   Agents and editors started telling their existing authors, “Keep your day job.”

Read the rest of the post on Kait Nolan‘s site.