Publetariat

Self-Publishing Basics: The Title Page

by

In an earlier post about the parts of a book, I briefly discussed the title page:

Title page—Announces the title, subtitle, author and publisher of the book. Other information that may be found on the title page can include the publisher’s location, the year of publication, or descriptive text about the book. Illustrations are also common on title pages.

But title pages are more than a dry listing of facts. They are commonly the most decorative display page in a book, and are often used as the only location really suitable for expressions of design and graphics, since the rest of the book is devoted to transmitting the thoughts of the author.

Some consider the title page one of the least important parts of the frontmatter. This may be because the first printed books did not have title pages. Typically, the text would begin on the first page, and books were identified by their first words, rather than by a separate title.

Here are elements that are found on the title page:

  • Full title of the book
  • Subtitle, if any
  • Author’s name
  • Editor’s name, in the case of anthologies or compilations
  • Translator’s name, for works originally in a different language
  • Illustrator or photographer’s name, for illustrated books
  • Number of the edition, in the case of revised editions
  • Series notice, if part of a series
  • Name and location of publisher
  • Year of publication

 

Setting the tone for the book

Stay - by Moriah JovanBut title pages have often been the canvas on which authors and book designers have painted a picture of what is to come in the body of the work. Here’s a title page from Mariah Jovan’s Stay, designed by the author (click on the image to enlarge).

Here we see all the required elements of title, author, note that the work is part of a series, publisher name and location. In addition, the typography helps to tie the cover and the interior together. The designer has also given this page a subtle resonance with the cover by “ghosting” the image of the buildings in the background. This lends it a very atmospheric quality, like a fine perfume.

Following it is a different style of title page, from the Chicago Manual of Style. This is a lovely and modern typographic design that emphasizes the fact that the Manual is updated regularly (click on the image to enlarge).

Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Ed.

All the same elements are present, but used in a completely different way. The large number “15″ in the background is critical to regular users of the Chicago Manual, since the most recent version is usually preferred. This allows the book to be instantly identified as the 15th edition.

It’s Your Title Page—Make the Most of It

I’m going to collect some title pages from different eras and different design philosophies for a future post. But you can see already that, when it comes to title pages, you have a lot of leeway for creativity. If you use the same type fonts that are used for the title on the cover, and the text of the interior, you will help integrate the various parts of the book, making for a more harmonious reading experience.

But if you’ve got illustrations, artwork for your cover, or an idea of a bold typographic design, this is the place to use it.

Takeaway: As long as your title page conveys basic and necessary information, it can be an opportunity to set a visual tone for your book. Be creative.

This is a cross-posting from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer site.

How to Sell More Books on Amazon by Increasing Your Book's Visibility

by

A good way to sell more books on Amazon is to increase your book’s visibility in the Amazon.com search results.

Amazon customers typically search for books by author, title, or keyword. Like search engines, Amazon uses several criteria in deciding which products to display on the search results page and in what order to display them. Popularity (the number of books already sold on Amazon) and how well the book matches the keywords are major factors in determining the results of keyword searches.

The more books you sell on Amazon, the more books you will sell in the future, because your book will appear higher in the search results. In addition, many customers assume that the best-selling book must be the best one on the topic.

One way to increase your book’s popularity, and therefore its search results placement, is to direct all of your online book orders to Amazon.com rather than offering links to several online bookstores or selling directly to consumers.

It’s also important to make sure your book matches popular search terms entered by customers. If your book is not yet published, you can add important keywords to the book’s title and subtitle. Some publishers use long subtitles in order to pack in as many keywords as possible.

To capitalize on searches for keywords not contained in your title and subtitle, enter important keywords into Amazon’s Search Tag feature.  About halfway down your book’s page on Amazon, look for " Tags Customers Associate with This Product." You can add a check mark next to existing tags and add new tags by entering keywords in the little box below.
 
You can’t use keywords that already appear in Amazon’s search function, such as the book title or author name. Word order matters, so create different search tags with variations on your most important keywords. After you enter a keyword, you must to tell Amazon why you think the book should be indexed under that particular term.

Amazon staff members approve Search Tags, so make sure your tag and your explanation are relevant and don’t sound like a sales pitch. It’s best to use the keyword phrase within your explanation. You can personally submit up to ten search terms for you book. If you have additional search terms to enter, ask a colleague to enter some for you.

Another way to increase your popularity on Amazon.com is do a virtual book tour or an "Amazon best-seller campaign," designed to push up your Amazon sales rank by generating a large number of orders on a single day.

There are a number of other ways to sell more books on Amazon, including getting lots of good book reviews on Amazon, writing reviews of other related books, participating in the Look Inside program, enhancing your book description, participating in Amazon forums for your book’s topic, and creating Listmania lists and So You’d Like To guides.
 
For a more in-depth look at how to sell more books on Amazon, I recommend reading Aiming at Amazon, by Aaron Shepard.

Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of the Savvy Book Marketer Guides. For more tips, follow @BookMarketer on Twitter, visit Dana’s blog at www.TheSavvyBookMarketer.com , and get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips ebook when you sign up for her free newsletter at www.BookMarketingNewsletter.com.

 

What You Steal

by

The Premise
A month ago I engaged in an interesting conversation with Luke Bergeron on his blog, mispeled.net, about copyright law. My interest was prompted in large part by Luke’s incisive generational examination of the question of piracy.

Here’s how Luke initially framed the issue:

The real issue goes beyond digital piracy to copyright itself. Now, I don’t believe that digital file sharing, even of copyrighted materials, is theft. That’s probably a generational thing, but we’re gonna do our best to suss out as much meaning as possible. Keep in mind, this entry is a fluid conversation, so comment if you wanna participate.

So, theft seems to me like it is inherently defined by the taking of something from someone else, depriving them of it. Theft is a physical concept, based on a starvation economy, that there is a finite amount of resources to go around, and possessing resources means someone else will not possess them.

Last week I read a post on The Millions called Confessions of a Book Pirate. On the subject of piracy the confessor had this to say:

In truth, I think it is clear that morally, the act of pirating a product is, in fact, the moral equivalent of stealing… although that nagging question of what the person who has been stolen from is missing still lingers.

Two days ago I read a post from Marian Schembari on Digital Book World, called
A Gen Y Reaction to Macmillan’s Piracy Plan. In her comprehensive rant, Marian had this to say about piracy:

I’m not condoning piracy (sort of), but if major publishers are only going to look at the “legal” side of things and spend precious time and money fighting the inevitable, they are going to crash and burn.

I’m poor, I understand technology, and I guarantee I can find any book online, for free, in 10 minutes or less. You can delete and sue all you want, but at the end of the day the internet is a wide and limitless place, meaning it’s a waste of time, money and energy to fight it.

In response to Marian’s post, Debbie Stier of HarperStudio/HarperCollins wrote a post on her company blog, congratulating Marian for stating her overall case regarding Macmillan, and for giving insight into the Gen Y perspective.

Here’s the bottom line for me — whether you agree or not with Marian Schembari’s views on piracy, she has given us a glimpse into the psyche of a Gen Y reader. I appreciate her honesty. I believe this is a gift. I think we should listen.

I agree with Debbie. We should listen. But then we should reply.  

The Response
To do any less is to treat Marian and Gen Y and Luke and anyone else who shares their views about piracy and content theft with condescension. We don’t pat seasoned peers on the head for showing us that they can put sentences together. We read those sentences, unpack them, take them apart — even hack them to bloody pieces — to see if they hold up.

Debbie’s right that it took courage for Marian to express her opinion, but the fact that Marian can express an opinion is not what’s important. It’s the resulting process of engagement — the conversation that takes place following the assertion of that opinion — that matters. And here I mean to single out not Gen Y but Gen X and the Baby Boom generation. Replacing wisdom and knowledge with the measuring of intelligence and facts may facilitate competition, but we lose something in that egocentric trade. While it’s true that some lessons have to be learned by each individual in each generation, it’s not true of all lessons. More importantly, it’s not true of the process of critical thinking itself, where critical thought can compound over time to produce generational benefits. (See also: penicillin; democracy.)

I also don’t think anyone should capitulate to generational opinion simply because a certain percentage of any generation has its fingers in its ears. If that was the right course of action we’d still have segregation in this country. It’s true that a certain percentage of every generation really does want to steal simply for the sake of stealing, but that doesn’t mean we should throw Marian and Luke or anyone else out with the Gen Y bathwater. What we should do is engage in a conversation so we can pass on the benefit of whatever meager wisdom we’ve accrued, while also testing our own assumptions. What’s happening with digital content is new in a very real way, which means we all need to talk this through.

I’ve stated my views on the question of piracy and content theft here and here. I’ve made the case that stealing is stealing: if it’s not yours, and it’s not being given away free, and you end up with it, then you stole it — and that’s true whether it’s a physical object, a digital file, or an idea.

But I also understand that it’s hard to make this case to Gen Y when massive corporations like Google are attempting to steal copyright authority from millions of authors covered by existing law. If Google can simply make a deal with another group (the Authors Guild) which obligates all authors under copyright to opt out of that deal, why can’t Marian make a deal with Luke to borrow his entire CD collection — and implicitly require the recording artists to opt out by imposing effective DRM? More to the point, is Google actually stealing anything when they scan a book and make it available online? Shouldn’t we actually applaud Sergey Brin for preserving the cultural history of Earth from fire and flood?

And speaking of the Amazon/Macmillan knife fight this past weekend, wasn’t Amazon actually stealing control of Macmillan’s products by selling those products at a price lower than Macmillan wanted? And even if they were, wasn’t that good for consumers? Didn’t it make books cheap?

The Conversation
My point here is that making Marian and Luke and Gen Y feel great about themselves because they can walk and chew gum at the same time congratulates them for meeting an absurdly low bar. These are serious people expression serious ideas and opinions. What they want is to be taken seriously, and to demonstrate the ability to think things through, and we should want that for them as well.

Look again at the conversation I had with Luke on his site. Look at the seriousness with which he engaged on the issues. That’s somebody who wants to know, and that’s someone who should be part of this conversation because in ten years Luke may be writing the books our grandchildren read. Or he may be setting public policy. Or leading a fight against a critical erosion of civil rights.

Why should Boomers and Gen Xer’s take the time to do this? Well, if you’re a consumer or consumer advocate, you can help Marian and Luke see that there are useful arguments against DRM that do not excuse theft or piracy as a cultural or generational right. Likewise, if you’re in publishing you can help Marian and Luke see that even though someone like Cory Doctorow is passionate about anti-DRM politics, his reasoning is a fraud*.

All of which would mean we could get on with the more important matter of finding a workable solution to the problems of piracy and DRM, as well as address the massive generational transition that is currently clouding both of those issues. I want Marian and Luke not simply to be assertive and confident, I want them to be smart and right and to prove to me that they’re right. I want them, in ten or twenty years, to be able to take apart the charlatans they run across, for their own benefit, for my benefit, and for their benefit of society. But they’re not going to be able to do that if we refuse to engage them on the merits of their ideas.

The Question
In the DRM debate the obvious point we need to engage on is the premise stated throughout the above quotes: that copying digital content is not stealing. If Gen Y is wrong, it needs to be proven through argument. If they’re right, the same requirement holds. It’s not enough to just say that theft is inevitable or that it can’t be stopped any more than it’s enough to say that it’s immoral and wrong. Both sides have to argue the case on the merits.

The reason this is important is precisely because these issues have never been dealt with before. Ownership questions regarding digital content and theft are so new as to be without precedent. While applicable laws have been added to the books, those laws, like all new laws, are an opening salvo in what will probably be a long-running legal debate. As with laws that used to exploit or abuse members of minority groups, new laws covering digital content may simply be an attempt by established forces to stop right from trumping wrong. Then again, they may actually protect individual rights and be good for society as a whole.

I think Marian and Luke are interested in being part of the answer to these questions. I don’t think they’re asking for a free pass. When they ask what is being stolen if someone takes possession of a copy of a digital file, they’re asking a serious question. And to their credit I think it’s exactly the right question to ask.

We all agree that stealing a can of beans from a grocery store is theft, for two reasons. First, there’s a can of bean missing from the store. Second, we have a can of beans in our hands that we didn’t pay for. On the other hand, when we copy a digital file the original file is still there, and we don’t actually have a new object in our possession. So what’s actually being stolen?

The problem here is that asking what is being stolen almost compels a response that describes a physical object. It’s the same problem you run into if you try to define right and wrong by asking if anyone got hurt. It implies physical injury or physical loss, yet I think we all agree that PTSD or emotional trauma can be as damaging as a broken arm. Just as someone can be hurt emotionally, economically and in ways other than through physical injury to the body, the theft of digital content may involve stealing things that are not physical objects.

To see why, let’s look at two situations in which, as with digital content, we see no physical object being appropriated. Maybe by looking at non-digital examples we can gain some insight into what a person is being deprived of if we avail ourselves of a copy of their digital content.

First, let’s say you live in an apartment complex. Across the hall your retrograde neighbor still has the local newspaper delivered each morning. You also know that he sleeps until noon. If you get up each morning and take his paper into your house, read it, then carefully reassemble it and put it back in front of his door, was anything stolen?

Second, let’s say you’re a huge RHCP fan. You know they’re playing at a nearby venue, but you don’t have the money for tickets. You gripe to a friend, who says he knows how to sneak in without having to pay. The concert takes place as scheduled, nothing is different except that you and your friend are there. Was anything stolen?

The answer in the first example is that you stole a service you didn’t pay for. The people who made the newspaper and delivered it were paid by your neighbor to make the contents of that paper available to him on a certain schedule. Even though you didn’t disrupt that deal, you profited yourself by not having to pay for delivery. In doing so you not only saved yourself money, you also denied the creators of the paper the right to control their content in a way that they determined, and that’s true even if you would not otherwise have paid to read the paper yourself.

In the second example you stole an experience. Everyone around you had to pay for that experience, but you got it free. You didn’t alter the experience by stealing it, and you didn’t leave with anything in your hand, but in the same way that you denied the newspaper creators the right to control their product, you denied the band the right to control the experience it created.

Are these examples convincing? Maybe, but maybe not. If the assumption is, as Luke first stated, that only objects can be stolen, then neither of these examples holds any weight precisely because they don’t involve the theft of objects. But I think there might be another way to show that they do involve theft.

As is usually the case when downloading digital content, in neither of these instances did you ask anyone for permission first. You had the social approval of your friend when you sneaked into the venue — which is analogous to the social approval provided by content pirates themselves — but you didn’t call the manager of the venue or the band’s manager and ask permission to sneak in, just as you didn’t call your neighbor or the newspaper and ask if it was okay to read the paper without paying for it.

The reason you didn’t do this is because you knew that they would mind, even if you yourself are convinced that you’re not doing anything wrong. Free newspapers and free concerts are announced as such: that’s how you know they’re free. Things that have prices attached to them, whether you agree with those prices or not, are not free. You can steal them — meaning you acquire them at no cost — but you can’t take them and not pay for them and then say you didn’t steal them any more than you can walk into a store filled with physical objects and declare them all free.

And you know this. And you know you know this. And I know you know this.

My Answer
Which means we’re not only having a conversation about theft, we’re also having a conversation about power. And that’s maybe the most important part of Marian’s post. It’s her declaration that Gen Y can’t be stopped, and she may well be right. At least, I don’t think anyone outside Gen Y can convince Gen Y not to strip the countryside bare.

What I am hopeful of is that Gen Y itself may recognize that there is a long-term cost to redefining content theft as legal, ethical, or even socially acceptable behavior. I’m also hopeful that it will ultimately be members of Gen Y who make this case to their peers. But none of that is going to happen (or happen soon) if we don’t engage the issue first. Today, right now, the obligation is on those people who believe that copying digital files without permission is theft to make that case. To that end the most important thing that can be said about piracy is that it is theft. There can be no equivocation on this point, because equivocation amounts to permission.

What Gen Y needs to be thinking about now, while they have all this power — and they do have an incredible amount of power — is that they are not simply exercising that power today. They are establishing a set of rules that everyone is going to have to live with in the future, and that includes their children. One day, maybe not too far down the road, Marian or Luke will have kids of her own, and those children may decide to create something (and it’s all going to be digital at that point). Maybe they’ll even try to start a small collective of artists and make a go of it in business, but that’s not going to be economically possible if the cultural norm says that copying digital content is not stealing.

Great generations aren’t great because they get away with whatever they can get away with. They’re great because they aspire to more than the minimum standard the law requires. To each member of Gen Y, and to anyone who is wrestling with the question of content piracy, I would simply say that you need to answer this question yourself, and to think about the long-term consequences of the answer you choose.

Don’t pass the buck and let someone else do your thinking for you. Luke isn’t doing that. Marian isn’t. Even the mysterious pirate confessor isn’t. Be your own compass. When civilizations do break down — as we’re seeing now in Haiti — ethics may become relative. But making ethics relative when there is no emergency simply reverses the equation, engineering a breakdown that would otherwise not have taken place.

If a crime is inflicted on you in the forest and no one can hear you scream, it’s still a crime. Even if nobody will ever know that you stole an MP3 or a e-book by downloading it from a website, it should matter that you know. And you should want it to matter, because the only people it really doesn’t matter to are sociopaths and psychopaths.

Doing the right thing takes more guts than flexing your generational biceps or kicking a corrupt corporation in the groin. It’s easy to take something for nothing, and Marian’s right that you can almost certainly get away with it. The odds are long that anything directly punitive will ever happen to you as a result of content theft.

The problem, however, is that you’re not just stealing content and you’re not just stealing from someone else. You’re also stealing from yourself.

This is a cross-posting from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk. Also see Luke Bergeron’s response to this post on his mispeled.net site.

*opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Publetariat or its other contributors.

Amazon v. Macmillan: Authors, Are You Backing The Right Horse?

by

Herewith, I present an updated and amended cross-posting of my blog post on the Amazon v. Macmillan affair. Let me state up front, I do not agree with Amazon’s strongarm tactics, and it is not my intention to defend those actions in this post. Rather, I’m puzzled by authors’ nearly universal lack of criticism for Macmillan’s part in the matter. I can’t help wondering, if Amazon had quietly agreed to Macmillan’s requested terms, thereby depriving authors of an easy target and distraction, might they have reacted differently to Macmillan’s move?

This week, Amazon announced it will cave to Macmillan’s demand that it sell Macmillan Kindle books at up to $14.99 instead of the $9.99 pricetag that’s become standard for Kindle bestsellers. Per a report on Booksquare, Macmillan may have plans to price their Kindle books across a range, anywhere from $4.99-$14.99, and author royalties on those books may be based on an ‘agency model’ calculation which computes author royalty as a percentage of net, not a percentage of list price. See the linked Booksquare post for more information.

Macmillan authors are rejoicing, and I’m shaking my head. Would musicians cheer a decision on the part of their labels to raise the price of their music on iTunes by up to 43%? I think not. Yet despite the fact that their books may cost up to 43% more than other Kindle bestsellers, and their royalty on those sales won’t be even one cent higher, the Macmillan author “victory” dance continues apace on the interwebz. The Author’s Guild has come out on Macmillan’s side too, and I’m completely mystified by that stance since Macmillan’s change in terms with Amazon only stands to hurt authors and ebook readers alike.

The only reason I can think of for authors to be on the wrong side of this battle is that they don’t understand it. Let’s look at the facts.

1. Under pre-existing terms Amazon pays big publishers like Macmillan half the hardcover price on each Kindle book they sell: generally, that’s between $12-$17. This means Amazon is taking a loss on the sale of every such Kindle book, but the publisher is still getting its standard share, regardless.

2. Macmillan cut their standard author royalty on ebooks from 25% of the list price to 20% of the list price last October.

[UPDATE – THIS JUST IN, 2/4/10: According to E-Reads Macmillan is now saying that going forward, its standard ebook royalty in boilerplate contracts will be 25%, *not* the 20% it came out with last October.]

3. Amazon announced last week it will grant a royalty of 70% of the list price to U.S. authors and 75% to UK authors who sign Kindle book publication deals with Amazon directly. Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Stephen Covey are just a few of the authors who’ve already signed on. A data storage/transfer/processing fee of .15 per MB will be deducted from list price prior to the 70% royalty split’s calculation, but Amazon states that on average this fee only amounts to .06 per Kindle book sold.

4. The author’s royalty in either case is/was based on the list price of a given book, not the price at which the book is/was ultimately sold. This means Macmillan authors used to get the same royalty on every sale whether the customer paid $14.99 for it, or $9.99 due to Amazon discounts.

5. Last week Macmillan informed Amazon that if Amazon wanted to continue to sell Macmillan books in Kindle format, Amazon would have to raise [or lower] the prices on them to Macmillan’s stated prices.

Recent reports have said Macmillan essentially asked Amazon to match the ‘agency model’ deal it made with Apple’s iBook store, which dictates a 30/70 split (70% going to the publisher) and allows the publisher to set the price at which each ebook would be sold. If Amazon did not agree to these terms, Macmillan would allow Amazon to continue to sell Kindle editions of their books under existing terms, but wouldn’t allow Amazon to release the Kindle edition of a new book for sale until 7 months after its initial release in hardcover and several months following release in Apple’s iBook store. I have yet to hear or read any report as to whether these delays would also hold for books intially released in trade paperback or mass-market paperback editions.

6. Amazon didn’t agree to Macmillan’s terms, and childishly removed the Amazon ‘buy’ links for all Macmillan books from its site in response to Macmillan’s demand for new terms.

7. Macmillan authors stormed the internet, posting angry diatribes against Amazon and drumming up support among their fans and followers for Kindle and Amazon boycotts. Yes, that’s right: they took the side of the party who demanded that Amazon raise the price of their Kindle books, or delay their release by 7 months, or reduce the price of their ebooks below Amazon’s $9.99 standard and pay their royalties based on an agency (net profit) model instead of the percentage-of-list-price model they’ve had on their Kindle books to date.
 
It was Macmillan which set forces in motion that ultimately resulted in the removal of ‘buy’ links, not Amazon, and while Amazon’s actions in this seem excessive, I still see plenty of reasons for authors to be irked with Macmillan. If the report stating that Macmillan intended to withold Kindle editions of their books for a number of months after those books were released in the iBook store is true, is that a move that would’ve pleased the thousands of readers who own a Kindle, or who use the Kindle reader app on their computers or portable devices? Seems like a rather diabolical move to pressure ebook consumers to buy their ebooks from Apple (at higher prices) instead of Amazon, no? And isn’t it very likely that by the time Macmillan books were released in the Kindle store following this Macmillan-imposed delay, Kindle-reading consumers would have forgotten all about those titles and moved on to other, more readily-available ebooks?
 
I don’t own a Kindle, but release delays and pricing impact my book-buying decisions, too. I rarely buy hardcovers because they’re so expensive, and there’s many a book I intended to buy if/when it came out in softcover or e or audio, but either the book was never released in those formats or—salient in this case—by time it did, I’d forgotten all about it. This same phenomenon among ebook fans is well-documented, and ebook fans have always clamored to have their preferred format released at the same time as any print edition.
 
Also, recall that Macmillan may be planning to offer Kindle titles in a range from $4.99-$14.99. This isn’t good news for their authors either, since Kindle books priced higher than $9.99 will be a tough sell and those priced below $9.99 will net the author a lower royalty. None of Macmillan’s intended changes in its Kindle books deal with Amazon stand to benefit Macmillan authors or ebook readers. The intended changes only stand either scare off sales (in the case of Kindle books priced higher than $9.99 or those delayed by 7 months) or reduce author royalties (on Kindle books priced lower than $9.99).
 
So while I can understand Macmillan authors’ anger at Amazon for having their buy links removed, especially in the case of authors of books offered in print editions only (since they don’t even have a horse in this race), I still don’t understand why Macmillan authors haven’t been publicly objecting to Macmillan’s actions as well. Macmillan presented Amazon with an ultimatum in which either option hurts authors’ and ebook readers’ current situation.

8. Macmillan authors will not receive one penny more in royalties on their Kindle books if those books are priced up to 43% higher, because their royalties were always based on the list price for their books, not the price at which Amazon ultimately sold them, in the pre-existing arrangement.  Now their royalties will be based on 70% of the ebook retail price, and it’s a safe bet their books will be netting fewer sales if prices go up to $12.99-$14.99.

9. The upshot is a lose-lose-lose. Consumers lose reasonably-priced Macmillan Kindle books, and reasonably-priced Apple iBooks too, since according to this NY Times article:

With Apple, under a formula that tethers the maximum e-book price to the print price on the same book, publishers will be able to charge $12.99 to $14.99 for most general fiction and nonfiction titles — higher than the common $9.99 price that Amazon had effectively set for new releases and best sellers. Apple will keep 30 percent of each sale, and publishers will take 70 percent.

So Macmillan earns the dubious distinction of being the first major publisher to make calculated moves to drive ebook prices higher across all platforms. Thanks to Macmillan’s "victory" over Amazon, Macmillan, authors and Amazon all stand to lose sales. Macmillan stands to lose market share. Authors stand to lose readership.

10. Prediction: emboldened by Macmillan’s so-called win, other major publishers will likely follow suit. More “lose” for everyone.

[UPDATE – THIS JUST IN 2/4/10: According to this report on the Wall Street Journal, Hachette is already attempting to renegotiate its Kindle book terms to match its deal with Apple, too. But why are publishers so anxious to get out from under the thumb of Jeff Bezos, only to wedge themselves beneath Steve Jobs’ opposable digit? I don’t know the answer, but what I do know is that in very short order, big trade publishers will get what they’ve wanted—and we ebook fans have feared—all along: a higher standard price point for mainstream ebooks. Still in Macmillan’s camp on this one?]

So tell me again: exactly why, and what, are we supposed to be celebrating here? I can already imagine the one objection I hear raised in discussions on this topic again and again: Macmillan is staving off devaluation of the ebook. There’s much hand-wringing over the notions that authors can’t possibly earn their due on low-priced ebooks, and that authors (like me) who sell their ebooks at prices significantly lower than the $9.99 Kindle store standard are somehow doing a great disservice to our fellow authors and trade publishing overall. This is so patently untrue, and such a pointless distraction from more important ebook issues, as to call to mind the Chewbacca Defense.

Under the pre-existing deal between Amazon and Macmillan, Macmillan authors earn a royalty of about $3.19 on their Kindle store standard-bestseller-priced books, whether those books are sold at $9.99 or $15.99. Under the new deal, which is the same in both Apple’s iBook store and the Kindle store, authors would earn a royalty of just $2.10 on an ebook priced at $14.99: 20% of 70% of the book’s $14.99 list price, and about $1 less in royalties per copy sold than what they have earned on their standard-priced Kindle books to date.

At a 70% royalty, I can earn $3.50 per copy sold of my self-published Kindle novels if I price them at just $4.99. The higher retail price does not add value for the author or the consumer, and at this point, it doesn’t even increase Macmillan’s profit since they’ve always gotten half the hardcover price on all their Kindle books from Amazon.

It’s quite clear that Macmillan’s take on each Kindle book sale under the new deal will be less than what they’ve received to date on those sales (since they used to get 1/2 the hardcover price and will now only get 70% of the ebook list price, which appears to have an upper limit of $14.99 for the foreseeable future), but I guess they decided they were willing to take that financial hit in exchange for the freedom to set their own ebook retail prices. Of course, Macmillan was under no legal obligation to include authors in their decision-making process, even though their decision stands to reduce their authors’ Kindle book royalties by up to 33%; I’m just saying it’s mind-boggling to me that Macmillan authors don’t seem to be the least bit peeved at this outcome. In fact, they don’t seem to have noticed it at all.

Publishers claim they need to wrest pricing control back from Amazon for the sake of what Amazon might do someday if it becomes too dominant in the ebook space. What if Amazon eventually decides to tell publishers it will no longer pay them half the hardcover price for their Kindle books, for example?

First of all, that’s a bridge to be crossed if, and when, someday arrives. Second, perhaps the correct answer in the event of that scenario is for publishers to lower their wholesale ebook prices. They claim it costs them just as much—or nearly so—to bring an ebook to market as it does to bring a hard copy, and they are therefore justified in their current pricing demands. But if it really takes a small platoon of publishing professionals and tens of thousands of dollars to bring a Kindle book to market, how is it possible that authors like me, JA Konrath, Piers Anthony, and countless others are doing it by ourselves, in our homes, from our consumer-grade computers, in a matter of hours?

“Your Kindle books lack the professional layout and design a publisher can bring to their Kindle books,” some of you are no doubt answering. This is true. But the thousands of readers who buy Kindle books from me, Konrath and the many other self-publishing Kindle book authors don’t seem to care all that much. I suspect that if you asked them, they would tell you they’d rather have a minimally-formatted Kindle book that costs $4.99 (or less) than an exquisitely-formatted Kindle book that costs $14.99.

As I’ve stated before, publishers arguing in favor of higher priced ebooks are ignoring the customer’s priorities in favor of their own, self-imposed priorities. This is because the ugly truth is this: the only parties being hurt by low-priced ebooks are big, mainstream publishers. Their overheads cannot be sustained by $4.99 ebooks, but that doesn’t mean their costs to bring ebooks to market should be forcibly subsidized by authors or consumers. To quote Konrath, “It would have really sucked to have been a buggy whip manufacturer when Henry Ford introduced the Model T. But technology changes things, and it isn’t always fair.”

In the end, all the arguments I’ve heard and read about the devaluation of the ebook are toothless. There seems to be this notion floating around that books must be expensive in order to inspire readers to value literature, but that’s ridiculous. If I’m earning more on my $4.99 Kindle books than a Macmillan author earns on a $15.99 Kindle book, both on a per-sale and volume basis, how is my book’s low pricetag hurting me, the author? And if low-priced ebooks bring more literature and ereaders within reach of more consumers, how are the books’ low prices hurting literature and literacy? If anything, low-priced ebooks stand to benefit authors and consumers alike, and advance the cause of literacy overall.

Hasn’t it been wonderful to find short fiction and poetry collections—species on the verge of extinction in trade publishing—coming back into their own in the Kindle store? It seems readers are only too happy to take a chance on these supposedly ‘fringe’ books if the price is reasonable. Midlist authors are earning new royalties and new readers by bringing their backlists back into print on the Kindle as well. Most importantly, in my view anyway, the current indie author movement wouldn’t be possible at all without Amazon’s equal treatment of indie and mainstream authors.

So authors, indie authors especially: if you’re backing Macmillan in this flap, why? Has Amazon’s overreaction distracted your attention from the long term ramifications of Macmillan’s move, and the likely damage to be done to you and your readership? To put it another way, see if you can answer this question: what part, if any, of Macmillan’s revised agreement with Amazon stands to benefit you?

 

April L. Hamilton is the founder and Editor in Chief of Publetariat. This is a cross-posting from her Indie Author Blog.

The Real Agenda of Apple’s Ebook Partners: Death to Ebooks

by

This post, from Aaron Pressman, originally appeared on his Gravitational Pull site on 1/31/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

The head of one of the big book publishers, MacMillan CEO John Sargent Jr., is out with an “open” letter about his dispute with Amazon over the pricing and timing of electronic books. It’s telling that this “open” ebook letter wasn’t released publicly and isn’t directed towards readers, book lovers and customers. It was placed as an ad in a small publishing industry trade rag and the message is for publishing industry insiders. Sargent’s message, despite a bunch of misleading surrounding verbiage, is simple: let’s strangle the growth of ebooks.

If you want to understand where Sargent and other major book publishers are coming from, I strongly recommend watching this online footage from a conference New York University hosted last September. Here you can see Sargent and a couple of fellow old media dinosaurs whine and complain about the digital world, dismiss Facebook, Craig’s List and Twitter as irrelevant non-businesses that will never make money and generally explain their plans to charge everyone for everything at every opportunity.

The real critical portions come towards the very end, in part three, as Sargent grows more animated about his opposition to giving away ebooks for free, even for promotional purposes. Despite being in charge of one of the largest publishing conglomerates in the world, he’s pretty pessimistic about the future of books. Challenged by Wired editor Chris Anderson to use digital distribution and new business models to attract new readers and expand the book market, Sargent is in full rejection mode:

“As the Internet grows, as all the other types of entertainment grow, it’s hard to imagine sitting here how we are going to convince everybody in this room to spend an extra six hours every week to consume another book. So in a way, if you look at the overall demand for books, it’s pretty hard to make that grow. We’ve tried. A whole bunch of people worked very hard to try and grow that. It’s pretty hard if you look at the demographics, how people read, to actually convince yourself that we have a growth business in books.”

In other words, what we have in books is a dying audience, a shrinking audience. And the way you extract the most revenue and profit from a shrinking audience isn’t with creative promotions and new ideas. It’s with ever higher prices. As Sargent says at a another point, in a barely veiled swipe at Amazon’s $9.99 ebook price:

“What we need is variable pricing. I think you guys would agree with this, variable pricing for content. You want a range of price points. You want to find a place — what you don’t want to do is give the consumer something for less than what they’re willing to pay for it in the rush to a new business model. Because once you get it out there it’s dangerous and hard to go back.”

Again, challenged to charge less because producing ebooks cost less, Sargent obfuscates, fixating on just one bit of savings, the printing costs of books (ignoring distribution, returns, overage, lost sales from out of print etc):

“Guys I can walk you through this. How much do you think a hardcover book costs us? A buck sixty. What are we saving? Not enough for the price point to drop from $22.50 down to $8.”

Amazon has been saying that its Kindle customers buy more total books – electronic and print – than they bought previously. It’s certainly been true in our household. I don’t have the figures at my finger tips, but I’d imagine that the whole creation and growth of Amazon.com has enlarged the book market, as well. But that’s not really happening in John Sargent’s world of mega-best sellers.

So keep in mind what Sargent was saying a few months ago when you read passages like this in his letter:

“In the ink-on-paper world we sell books to retailers far and wide on a business model that provides a level playing field, and allows all retailers the possibility of selling books profitably. Looking to the future and to a growing digital business, we need to establish the same sort of business model, one that encourages new devices and new stores. One that encourages healthy competition. One that is stable and rational. It also needs to insure that intellectual property can be widely available digitally at a price that is both fair to the consumer and allows those who create it and publish it to be fairly compensated.”

Leave aside for a moment the completely dishonest portrait Sargent paints of the old print book-selling world, and remember that he doesn’t believe the there will be any growth in book sales in the future. He’s not interested in a fair price for anybody — he’s interested in making sure that he never gives the consumer something for less than what they’re willing to pay for it.
He wants to extract the big bucks from the big sellers and move on.

The great danger to MacMillan is that it’s the authors of those big best-sellers who are becoming increasingly able to cut him out. If ebooks really take off, an author like Stephen King or Nora Roberts can sell a lot more of their books direct to their audience with no publisher at all. And that’s why Sargent’s real goal here is not to increase competition or create a level playing field. It’s to squeeze as much profit out of a dying industry as quickly as he can and hold off the digital future for as long as possible.

UPDATE: Henry Blodget also really gets it in his post today called “Hey, John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan Books, Screw You!” An excerpt:

Did Steve Jobs seduce you with that temporary “charge-whatever-you-want” speech?  Well, Steve has been known to seduce people from time to time.  Just imagine what will happen once Steve has put the Kindle out of business and Steve owns the ebook platform instead of Jeff Bezos.  That’s right: You’ll get held up even worse than Jeff’s holding you up today.  Just ask the music industry.  Careful what you wish for. So, bottom line, John, take your $15 ebooks and shove them.  We’re with Amazon on this one.

Good work.

About the author: Aaron Pressman is a professional journalist but wrote this on his personal blog. He lives in the Boston area with his wife, three kids and four Macintoshes. You can find links to more of his published articles here.

Publetariat Editor’s note: related to the subject of this post, also see: Apple Demands Removal of USB Sharing Feature in Stanza iPhone App from TechCrunch, and Peter Kafka’s on-the-fly transcript of Rupert Murdoch’s comments regarding Amazon, Apple and ebook pricing here, on All Things Digital‘s Media Memo.

Author Fail?

by

This post, from James Melzer, originally appeared on his site on 2/1/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. In it, he offers an author platform perspective on the Amazon vs. Macmillan fracas.

I don’t pretend to know a lot about the publishing world. Hell, we’re probably on an even playing field here. The fact that I have a book coming out in March of 2011 doesn’t make me some publishing guru or know it all. I’m a guy who writes books, sells them, and then does his best to promote them however he can. I’ve never been to NYC to visit Simon and Schuster, and I have no idea what goes on in those tall, ivory towers people seem to think they can’t break into. I write books. That’s about it.

Some of you may have heard that on Friday the shit hit the fan between Amazon and Macmillan. Macmillan wants to raise the price of their ebooks and Amazon said no, so they stopped selling all Macmillan titles in protest. Something like that, anyway.

Upon observing this pissing contest between two giants, I noticed something funny about the authors involved. I follow some of them on twitter, read their blogs from time to time, and I wanted to see their reaction to the whole thing, so my spidey senses were heightened during this whole kerfuffle (which still isn’t over yet, BTW), and I watched and read.

Here’s what I saw: Pretty much all of the authors that I know of who are involved were tweeting and facebooking and blogging about Amazon pulling their titles. They posted links to other authors and newspapers and bloggers who were talking about it, and how it’s all wrong.

For the record, I agree. It is wrong.

Pretend for a second that you’re average joe reader. You hear about a book, think it sounds good and want to buy it. You go to Amazon this past weekend and find that you can’t. It’s not there. WTF? You’re inclined enough to go check out the author’s website and find all this mumbo jumbo about Amazon pulling titles and not selling the author’s book. What a pity. The author has posted this big, long rant on how Amazon is the devil and blah blah blah.

Yet he doesn’t tell you where you CAN buy the book online.

Now, you just don’t care and go on to find an author whose book is listed and that you can get delivered to your home in a few days. Done and done.

The author that posted that big, long rant about how Amazon is the devil and blah blah blah just lost a customer. A reader.

My point to this whole thing is that most of the authors involved in this Amazon vs. Macmillan thing were bitching and complaining and linking here and there, but they weren’t telling their readers, their FANS, where they COULD buy their books. Amazon is not the only place online to buy books, yanna. There’s Powell’s, Barnes & Noble, Borders and if you’re Canadian like me, Indigo. Yes, people who are savvy enough know this and would have most likely gone over there to grab a title, but wouldn’t it be nice to hear it from the author who you’re giving your money to? No. Most of them just assumed that people knew.

A simple, “Hey, sorry you can’t buy my book on Amazon right now. Here’s where it can be found,” would have been nice.

Is that too much to ask of an author who wants his readers to find his books? More so, to attract new fans and readers? If someone who doesn’t know you or perhaps isn’t that web knowledgeable wants to buy your book but can’t find it on Amazon, then tell them where they can find it for goodness sake. The average joe reader doesn’t necessarily care about what Amazon or Macmillan are doing, they just want to read a damn book. Hopefully a good one. If they can’t find yours, they’ll go on to another author, and perhaps forget all about you.

Never to return again.

 

Two Roads Diverged: Understanding Traditional And Self-Publishing Differences

by

This post, from Todd Rutherford, originally appeared on his Ask the Publishing Guru blog on 1/29/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

The publishing world has experienced change over the past several decades as all industries have, but the next 10 years will be a cocoon altering it into a different species altogether. Many major print publishing houses have either merged, or acquired smaller houses, and the net result is that there are fewer traditional channels for getting your book published. However, this only means that the nature of the challenge of getting a book published has changed. It does not mean that the challenge has become insurmountable.

The traditional publishing path of the past has been described similarly by many sources. Write a book, send query letter and/or book proposal to agents, get picked up by an agent, get sold by agent to a small-to-medium-size publisher, pray that your book takes off and garners attention from a big publisher who pays you a six-figure advance in return for the rights to your book.

Nathan Bransford, a literary agent with Curtis Brown discusses going from small presses to big publishers. I agree with many of his points on the difficulties of being recognized by a big publisher. His advice is very similar to my premise, if your book is really good, well edited, designed, printed, distributed, and promoted, it will succeed.

Today, the traditional publishing path is in upheaval and turmoil. The economic downturn has caused many small publishers to shut their doors or, at best, significantly decrease their new release budgets. The emergence of the Kindle, Nook, and other Ebook readers has stirred things up. Publishers of all sizes are more carefully scrutinizing new authors, primarily seeking to invest in less-risky authors with established platforms. Gone are the days of a publisher investing marketing dollars to help an author develop their platform.

The new traditional publishing path is emerging as more of a partnership between author and publisher with the responsibility for marketing and publicity resting on the shoulders of authors. If you bring a viable manuscript to the table with a sound marketing plan and/or platform, the publisher will invest in editing, design, printing, and distribution, the rest is up to you.

The exciting game-changer for the unknown author is the advent of affordable self-publishing options. Self-Publishing should not be confused with the deplorable practice of Vanity Publishing where an author is charged seriously inflated prices for editing, design, printing, and/or marketing services while giving up 80% or more of profit and/or rights to their material. True self-publishing is where the author handles editing, design, printing, distribution, and marketing for their book or hires professionals to assist with the process while experiencing control, speed to market, ownership of rights, and max profitability.

The self-publishing path has existed since the dawn of time. Dan Poynter lists 155 best-selling books that started out being self-published. In the past, the editing, design, and printing of a book could easily run $15,000 or more because of minimum print runs of 5000 being required. With the advent of print-on-demand merged with distribution channels the cost of the entry toll on the path of self-publishing has diminished significantly. And publishing a Kindle version of your book doesn’t require an investment of money whatsoever.

I’m not preaching against the traditional publishing model. I cut my teeth in traditional publishing. My family was in the traditional publishing business for nearly 25 years. I started at the bottom in the warehouse of a traditional publisher picking and packing orders. I eventually worked my way up to running a subsidiary of this same publisher. Throughout my career, I kept seeing countless numbers of authors turned down because we simply didn’t have the budget to add them to our production schedule. When I was asked to take over the helm at Yorkshire Publishing, I studied the self-publishing industry in great detail. I became passionate about being a part of an author-empowering movement to publish and promote quality books that otherwise may have been unrecognized without modern advances in the self-publishing industry.

The old-school mindset that says to avoid the stigma of self-publishing is quickly becoming a whisper in the wind. More unknown authors are starting out self-published for the first time in history. I believe self-publishing is the democratization of the publishing industry. Any unknown author now has a chance.

In my seminars and workshops, I tell authors to treat their book like a business. If you want a real chance, you must treat your book like a big publisher would. When naysayers point to the statistics that say self-published books average less than 200 units sold, I can rebut with a missing link in the formula and Poytner’s list. Remember, if your book is really good, well edited, designed, printed, distributed, and promoted, it will succeed, regardless of the road taken in the yellow wood of publishing.

Yorkshire Publishing offers ghostwriting, writing coaching, editing, design, printing, distribution and marketing services.

When Procrastination Wins: What Do You Do To Return To Productivity?

by

This post, from Shaun Kilgore, originally appeared on his website on 1/25/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

What happens when procrastination wins and you find yourself staring at all the unfinished tasks or projects that you have to perform?  What do you do?  It can be frustrating.  You may even be suffering from anxiety due to putting things off.

Nowhere is this truer than when you are working at home and you alone are responsible for your work schedule.  You are the one who has to manage your time in constructive ways.  There is no one to tell you what to do.  It can be liberating at first.  Then you may realize that the loss of structure created by having a boss or supervisor and the set time frame of your work hours actually sends you spinning out of control.

I’ve always struggled with procrastination.  It is a struggle to keep things focused and on target.  My freelance writing business is no exception.  I’ve been a writer for the past four years.  I’m self-employed.  While the venue has changed some, I’m still the one who is ultimately responsible for how successful or unsuccessful my business is.

Procrastination does put me in some tight binds from time to time.  Depending on your view of the causes of procrastination, you may think I need to think more positively about my abilities, get busy working and stop dwelling on the past, or get an appointment with a psychological professional.  (It could be a little bit of all three.)

Why Am I Writing About Procrastination?

It’s been a recurring issue with me lately.  That’s the short answer.  Why am I procrastinating and putting off my work or at least not spending all the time I could on it?  Well, I have other ambitions or creative endeavors that are distracting me from the bare bones work I have to do.  For instance, I’m starting a publishing company.  This has taken a great deal of mental energy and time and diverted it to something not related to freelance writing.  I’m thinking about the upcoming release of the first book.  I’m speculating about future books and future authors we could have in our business.

Another reason I’m procrastinating is that I’m more interested in building this blog up and exploring my brand as a writer and creator rather than being the pen behind somebody else.  Ghostwriting does have financial incentives, but I’m at the point where my name on a blog post has more power to arrest my attention.

Perhaps, some of you are dealing with similar circumstances.  Heck, maybe some of you are dealing with the same issues in a more constructive way.  I applaud you for that.  If you have some tips, I would appreciate them.  I do have a few things to say that might help you (and maybe me as well.)

Productive Again

1. Be positive. I’ve got to stop dwelling on negative thoughts.  (So do you.)  Starting doing what you can to build your confidence about the tasks that you’ve been stuck on.  If you accomplish a series of daily goals, you will not only increase you confidence about the whole project but also increase your sense of satisfaction.

2. Break things up. This is accomplished by setting your mind on accomplishing a set number of daily goals and making them something you can accomplish easily.  Once a task is complete, you will feel better about the whole situation.  The funny question comes to mind: How do you eat an elephant?  Answer: One bite at a time. With this strategy comes the ability to start planning ahead more.  It may also give you a way to be more organized as well.  It’s important that you really take the time to separated those big tasks into smaller, manageable components.

3. Start immediately! Don’t let yourself procrastinate about dealing with your procrastination.  You must determine within yourself to start dealing with the problem now.  Right now, while you are reading this. (Even, while I’m writing this.)  You have to do something about it because no one else can.  When you start to tell yourself that you’ll start on this tomorrow, stop yourself.  That’s procrastination talking.  Every day is precious and once you’ve spent it, you cannot get it back.  Remember: If you want to break a bad habit, then break it already!

4. Make priorities.  You’ve got to do this one too.  When you have a whole host of things to do, there may be a tendency to start with the easy things.  In fact, the whole dynamic of your procrastination may run on this first assumption.  When you choose to start with easy things, you may end up putting it off since it’s so easy.  That’s a mistake. You must organize all of your daily tasks in order of legitimate importance or based on their overall practical value.  As a freelance writer, the priority should be the paying gigs that get money in your coffers.  Everything else should come after that.  Yes, develop those other businesses and potential projects, but don’t neglect what helps you stay afloat.

The Power Of Choice

I want to summarize all of this by way of an analysis of how you deal with the choices you make.  Everyone has the power of choice.  But not everyone knows how to use choice to their advantage.

The first thing you should do when given an assignment or taking on a project is to pay attention to how you first respond and your attitude.  You should be conscious of your choices – the ones that you make right away.  Your awareness of these choices will help you fight the urge to avoid the work. Pay attention to how you feel when you choose to tackle those tasks and get things done.  Make sure you keep a list of clear responsibilities.  This will help you set realistic and relevant goals.  Also, make sure you can be realistic about how long each of these tasks is going to take.  Being conscious and maintaining a focus on the power of your choices should give a way to be confident and help spur you on to more actions.

In Closing

I’m ready to defeat procrastination in my writing life so I can find the balance I need to expand my businesses and become successful at what I enjoy doing.  I’m lucky to be a writer, working from home.  Not everyone gets that option.  I cannot let procrastination rule the day.  Neither should you.  There is too much to do and you only have so much time in this life to do it.

If you have anything you want to add, please contact me or post your comments [at the original post].  I’d love to hear from you.  Until next time, keep fighting the good fight.  And keep writing.

Shaun Kilgore is a freelance writer and co-founder of Founders House Publishing, a new small press.  If you’d like to read more of what Shaun has written please check out his blog at www.shaunkilgore.com.

Promote Your Book on Facebook – Six Strategies for Success

by

Many book authors set up a profile on Facebook, but they fail to take full advantage of this powerful networking tool. Below are six strategies for promoting books and authors on Facebook:

1. Take full advantage of the promotional opportunities on your Facebook Profile. For example, just below your photo is a small box where you can enter a concise description of what you do, including the title of your book and a link to your book sales page.

The About Me box (under Personal Information) is a good place to describe your book and your business. In the Contact Information section you can enter multiple website addresses. Post your book cover in your photo album or another application and display it in the left column of your profile.

Mention your book in your status updates, without being too promotional. For example, announce your book launch, mention reviews and awards the book has received, talk your own book promotion activities.
Remember, your Facebook profile must be registered in your real name. If you create a profile for your book or business, you risk having your account cancelled.

2. Facebook Pages are similar to personal profiles, but they are created for business use and they are an ideal place for promoting books. You can create a page for your book, your business, or even one of the characters in your novel. People join a page by becoming a fan.

You may want to offer an incentive to join (or at least visit) your page, such as a free download or a coupon for one of your products. Another way to attract fans is to set your page up as an information hub, offering links and resources. You can also send messages to your fan base, which will show up in their Facebook newsfeeds.

3. Groups are a great place for book authors to meet people who share their interests and find new friends, while subtly promoting books. Search for groups by entering keywords in the Search box at the top of the page and then clicking on the Groups tab. You can gain visibility on a group page by introducing yourself on the wall, participating in disucssions, and posting your book cover, photos or videos.

Forming your own group can also be beneficial. Be sure to encourage discussions and offer valuable information such as free downloads and links to resources. You can send direct message the entire group.

4. Hosting an event is another way of promoting books. Set up a Facebook Event and invite others to live or virtual events such as book signings, teleseminars book launches, speaking engagements or virtual book tours.  Joining other people’s events is a good way to get visibility because you can write on the event wall and post photos.

5. Facebook displays pay-per-click ads on most pages on the site, and ads can be targeted by age, gender, location, education level, relationship status, or keywords in people’s profiles. Consider advertising if you have a very specific target market that can be targeted by more than one of the above criteria. For example, if you have written an exercise book for women over 50, you can target that demographic on Facebook and you can even target the keyword "exercise" in people’s profiles.

6. The Facebook Marketplace is a classified advertising area where you can post a free listing promoting your books. It’s worth an experiment if the topic of your book is something that might be searched for on a classified site. For example, if you have a book about collecting costume jewelry, people searching for costume jewelry will see your listing. (Don’t forget to use this strategy on Craig’s List and eBay as well).

There are a number of ways of promoting books and authors on Facebook, but remember to be subtle when using profiles, pages, groups and events. If you are too promotional or make promoting books your main focus, you will turn people off.

Excerpted from Facebook Guide for Authors.

Copyright Page Samples You Can Copy and Paste Into Your Book

by

One of the most common questions I get from new self-publishers is, “What do I put on the copyright page?” For some reason, the copyright page has the power to intimidate some people, with its small print and legalistic language, not to mention all those mysterious numbers.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are a few necessary items on the copyright page, and others that publishers add for various reasons. I’ve treated the copyright page in some detail in other posts, so if you want background please check here: Self-Publishing Basics: The Copyright Page. In a guest post, Joanne Bolton supplied some useful information for books that are printed overseas, and you can find her post here: Copyright Page Requirements for Books Printed Overseas.

To see the place of the copyright page within the book as a whole, check out An Unabridged List of the Parts of a Book.

The only elements required on a copyright page are the copyright notice itself:

© 2009 Joel Friedlander

And some statement giving notice that the rights to reproduce the work are reserved to the copyright holder.

All Rights Reserved.

Next you’ll see two versions of the copyright page, one long page with a CIP data block and a short version. Feel free to copy and paste these into your book file. Just remember to put your own information in.
 

Sample of a Long Copyright Page with CIP Data Block

Here’s an example of a copyright page that has the necessary elements, then adds ordering information, web address, CIP Data block (I’ve put this in blue so you can identify what is included; replace this with your own or delete it if you’re not obtaining CIP), edition information, and printing numbers (the string at the bottom) and dates for future editions.

Copyright © 2010 by Bill Shakespeare

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Imaginary Press
1233 Pennsylvania Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94909
www.imaginarypress.com

Ordering Information:
Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.
Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact Big Distribution: Tel: (800) 800-8000; Fax: (800) 800-8001 or visit www.bigbooks.com.

Printed in the United States of America

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Shakespeare, William.
A title of a book : a subtitle of the same book / Bill Shakespeare ; with Ben Johnson.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-9000000-0-0
1. The main category of the book —History —Other category. 2. Another subject category —From one perspective. 3. More categories —And their modifiers. I. Johnson, Ben. II. Title.
HF0000.A0 A00 2010
299.000 00–dc22 2010999999

First Edition

14 13 12 11 10 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A Short Copyright Page Example

Here’s a very short and to the point copyright page. It gives the necessary elements and not much more:

Copyright © 2010 by Wily E. Coyote
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2010

ISBN 0-9000000-0-0

Falling Anvil Publishing
123 Mesa Street
Scottsdale, AZ 00000

www.FallingAnvilBooks.com

This is the quick and easy way to get generic copyright page language into your book. Even with this short example, your copyright page will do the job it’s supposed to do, and give interested parties the means to contact you for publishing-related questions.

Next: Using disclaimers and giving credit on the copyright page. Let me know if you have questions about the copyright page. I’ll see if I can answer them.

This is a cross-posting from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer blog.

A Book Is A Book

by

A few weeks ago I entered a short essay contest at Backword Books. The Grand Prize was a copy of all eight works on the site. Second prize was a single book to each of eight second-place winners, and the contest rules asked each entrant to include mention of which individual book they might like to receive with their entry.

The book I chose, and the book I won with this entry, was Waiting for Spring by R. J. Keller.

How did I choose which book I was interested in winning? Well, a combination of factors. I read all the summaries, so content was probably the most important filter. Then there was subject matter: I like Maine, and I thought it would be interesting to read something by someone from Maine. Third, the cover interested me, because I like snow and cold. The more snow in my world the better, and if you want to drop -50° F on top of the white stuff, I’m down with that. So barren trees tends in a field of white tends to draw me in.  

My prize copy of Waiting for Spring arrived shortly after the close of the contest. The package that arrived had the weight of a book, and when I opened it that’s what I found: a book.

Flipping through the text I could see it was deep black against crisp white pages, giving good contrast. And the pages had some heft to them, so flipping back and forth was easy. In fact, I’ve flipped through a lot of books in my day, and if something had been markedly different about Waiting for Spring I think my book-flipping instincts, muscles and experience would have tipped me off. But no: it flips like a book.

I paused in a few places to read a paragraph or two, and what I read seemed able and sure-footed, like most of the text in most of the books I’ve ever read. I have no comment about the work as a whole because I haven’t read it yet. It’s still sitting pretty much where I left it, on a small stack with other books I intend to read when I have some time. But it doesn’t look out of place on the stack: it looks like a book.

Even as I type this I don’t know much more about it. I don’t even know if it has a copyright page or an ISBN. [Mark pauses to check.]

Okay, it has a brief copyright page, but no ISBN listed. On the back, however, there’s a bar code, and an ISBN is listed on the bar code. The book also contains some blurbs up front, and a Shakespeare quote, and I just discovered that it’s also signed, which is cool — and not because she gave away a signed copy of her book in a subsequent drawing and like and idiot I assumed that meant my copy was unsigned. It’s cool because it seems more real somehow. (Yes, that’s a serious tip to all you would-be authors. However, my lawyer would like me to remind you that if you blow a signature and ruin and entire copy with your errant scrawl it’s not my fault.)

In pretty much every respect Waiting for Spring looks like a book, inside and out. Yes, there’s the question of content. No, I won’t be posting a review. Yes, the publishing industry says it has all sorts of critical checks against content quality, meaning that a self-published work is probably crap. No, I don’t believe them in either case: they produce plenty of crap, and somewhere there’s an author self-publishing books who meets every test of quality and skill.

In the end, looking at the copy of Waiting for Spring now sitting in front of me on my desk, it seems unremarkable. Liberating as an idea, yes, but unremarkable as an object. Despite all the hand-wringing and the snobbery and the fear-mongering and the hysteria, a self-published book is pretty much like a published book, except perhaps in some small ways that simply don’t register with me. To the extent that these might be pointed out, I would never take anyone’s craft knowledge away from them, and I do not doubt the merit or value of their skills.

But from where I sit, at least today, a book is a book.

This is a cross-posting from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

#fridayflash: Almonds

by

I’m going on hiatus from #fridayflash for a while – too much else on my plate now, and in the coming months. Thanks to everyone who’s read and commented on my stories to date; I hope to rejoin you again, probably next year, after the launch of the revised/updated edition of The IndieAuthor Guide this winter.

“I miss the almond tree.”

Nancy looked up from her coffee. “What, honey?” she asked.

Ryan sighed. “I miss the almond tree,” he repeated, gazing out the window at the spot where the tree once stood in the backyard. Now there was a walkway leading to the remodeled back part of the house, where Nancy’s bedroom was.

Nancy wasn’t sure how to respond. She glanced up at the clock, and the daily routine came to her rescue. “Ryan, if you’re going to catch the school bus you need to leave right now.” She helped him gather his things and gave his shoulders a squeeze as he headed out the door. “Pick you up after basketball practice,” she said.

“’Kay. See ya.”

As the door closed behind him, her mind was already racing with worry. The almond tree? What did it mean? He used to climb that tree when he was, what? Nine, or ten? But that was so long ago. She scanned her memories of the months leading up to the remodel; it was a happy time. And Scott’s car accident happened months afterward, it had nothing to do with their home improvement project. Was Ryan associating the tree with his memories of a time before his dad died? The walkway had been her idea; was he blaming her for Scott’s death, somehow? She reached for the phone and dialed Dr. Crandall’s number.

“Dr. Crandall’s office. May I help you?” answered the lilting voice of the secretary.

“Yes, hello Alice. This is Mrs. Munroe. I need to speak to Dr. Crandall.”

“Um,” Alice’s voice trailed off, “let me see if he’s…yes, he’s just getting off the elevator. Hold, please.”

A moment later, Dr. Crandall came on the line. “Hello, Mrs. Munroe. What can I do for you?”

“I think I need to bring Ryan in. Right away. Today, if possible.”

“Has there been some sort of incident?”

“He seems very sad all of a sudden. He’s been talking about the almond tree he used to climb in our backyard when he was little. We had that tree taken out when we remodeled. I think he’s associating the tree with the way things used to be, you know, before Scott died.”

“Well of course, I’m happy to see him if you think he needs my help. Let me hand you back to Alice, and tell her I said I’d see you at five-thirty.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much.”

Later, as Nancy drove Ryan north on the I-20, he looked up from texting his girlfriend long enough to notice they weren’t on the way home. “Where are we going?” he asked.

Nancy took a breath and steeled herself for his reaction. “I’m taking you to see Dr. Crandall.”

“Mom!” he whined. “Why?”

“I noticed you seem a little sad lately, and I thought it might help you to talk to someone.”

“I’m not sad. I’m fine.”

“Ryan, denial isn’t going to help.”

“Again with the psycho-babble,” Ryan huffed, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Jeez, Mom! Give it a rest. Dad’s been gone for like, four years now. Aren’t you ever going to stop with this stuff?! Aren’t you ever going to go back to work and get a life of your own so you can stop messing with mine?!”

“Look, the appointment has already been made. If you need to talk to Dr. Crandall you can. And if not, well…better safe than sorry.”

He angrily turned his back to her and stared out the window in silence the rest of the way.

“Ryan!” Dr. Crandall said as he opened his waiting room door to them, clapping a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “Come on in.” He turned to Nancy. “You don’t mind if Ryan and I speak in private?”

“Of course not, Doctor.” She took a seat in the empty waiting room and picked up a magazine. “I really appreciate you seeing us after hours.”

Dr. Crandall nodded and he and Ryan disappeared behind his office door. Less than five minutes later, the door opened and Ryan stepped out into the waiting room, already texting his girlfriend again. “Ryan,” Dr. Crandall said, “You can wait here.” Ryan barely acknowledged the instruction with a slight nod as he lowered himself into a chair. “Nancy?”

“Yes, Doctor?” Nancy asked, standing up.

“Ryan likes almonds. That’s all.”

“Oh, what a relief!” Nancy said.

“Is it?” Dr. Crandall asked, ushering Nancy into his office and closing the door behind him. “Let’s talk about that.”

 

Why I'm Podcasting

by

Note:  This was cross-posted for me by the owner of Publetariat.com. Originally it was intended for my blog, so if it sounds a little too "self-promotey" it wasn’t an intentional "ZOMG publetariat guyz look at me!" Re-reading it in this context it may come off that way, so thought I would add a little explanation, since Publetariat wasn’t the original intended audience.

I’ve been thinking about the podcasting and why I’m doing it. I came across Charlotte Stein’s blog. and it’s very silly and goofy and awesome and made of win. Believe it or not, I’m very silly and goofy (I won’t go so far as to say I’m awesome and made of win here, since that’s just never going to come off right.)

This rarely comes off online. I’m very passionate about publishing and my writing and about every other topic under the sun. I have an opinion about everything. I may not be right, but I have a viewpoint and I’m not shy about sharing it. Sometimes people read anger that isn’t there. And I get that. My grandfather once yelled at one of my best friends on Halloween when she came over there with me. Only he wasn’t really yelling AT her. He was just really irate about something and he was yelling “in general” but it seemed like he was yelling at her. She was an audience for his yelling but not it’s intended target.

He doesn’t realize he does it.

I’m kind of in that same boat. Only I realize (generally after the fact) that I do it. Though generally I come off much “harsher” in text. I wish I could let my silly side out and my freak flag fly (and sometimes I do a little bit on Twitter), but online I’m just always on a crusade, even when I’m not trying to be. I’m just intense. And there are days I want a vacation from myself and that intensity.

Though I’m still passionate and intense about things on my podcast, I feel like the more personal level of a podcast changes things. Like I listened to April Hamilton being interviewed by Joanna Penn on this podcast.

In many ways, April is a lot like me. We can both be very outspoken and brash and we can both get into very intense debates with people that somehow go sour when someone gets upset because they feel it’s gotten personal even when it hasn’t. But hearing her speak on the podcast, her voice softens those edges and she sounds about as friendly as a person can get. Then suddenly you’re able to re-frame nearly everything she’s ever said as it’s actually intended to be. I’ve always “gotten” April’s intentions in these sorts of exchanges, but hearing that friendly of a voice on a podcast, drove it home more sharply.

And so I think that’s what a podcast does for me. It gives me that extra dimension and softens some edges. (Well when I don’t sound like a chipmunk in a trailer park. Cause DUDE holy crap sometimes it gets crazy.) Hopefully while it still may be passionate and intense, it becomes clear that I’m *not* angry with everyone. I’m incredibly excited about the path I’m on and what I’m doing.

Then the fiction podcast, that’s all about the work, and it gives me another way to get the work out there and hopefully interacting with and engaging with an audience. Plus I know this sounds crazy-level vain but I really like my reading voice. It’s much better than my other podcast voice or my live interview voice because when I take the time to slow down and enunciate properly the twang is there, but it’s not like ZOMG insane.

Anyway… I also promised a link to the Breakthru Radio Book Talk episode I was on, so here it is. It should be noted that parts of the interview I’ve got that trailer park chipmunk thing going on. Though the reading at the end sounds a lot better (not perfect, but much better!)

Anywho… and then there are times during the interview (I don’t know why I torture myself by re-listening to it) where I remember even during the interview I’m thinking “Don’t say that. My GOD Zoe, shut UP!” But yeah, no. Never happens. No one should give me a microphone and just let me talk, that’s madness I tell you.

Click here to check out my very first podcast. It’s not "state of the art" podcasting but it’s a starting point. Sometimes the important thing is just getting started. And doing a basic podcast really isn’t rocket science. It can be done.


This is a cross-posting from Zoe Winters’ blog.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest Entry

by

Monday was the first day for a week to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. I had been preparing for a month to enter my next book. After I finished writing the story, I went over and over it. Even taped the book for a friend in the nursing home. Reading the story out loud helps me catch mistakes that I missed when I read the sentences to myself. So by Sunday, I had the book ready to enter. A 300 word pitch and a copy the first 5000 words to the story had to entered in a separate part on the form.

I’d be the first to admit that blurbs for book covers and pitches are not my strong point. For me, trying to condense the whole story into a few words is hard. I entered the Amazon contest last year. My pitch was not good. Once I found out about the contest, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to work on it. This year I was better prepared. That 300 hundred words is what the judges look at to pick the 1000 contestants to go on, or how ever many have a good pitch up to a 1000. Next the judges look at the first 5000 words in the story and narrow the entries down again. Finally, three are picked and from that three one gets a book deal with Penguin.

This contest takes place until late June. In late February, the writers of the 1000 pitches are announced. Do I expect to be in the running? Yes, I think this year I’ve a good chance of getting into the first round. I’ll update you on that when I find out. If I’m not in the running, I should have a new self published book on the market in a few months. My pitch entry will work well as a jacket blurb so I have that out of the way. Look for the next book in my Amish Series Nurse Hal Among The Amish – Nurse’s Hal’s Rainbow.

As usual, anything that has to do with the computer does not come easy for me, but I didn’t expect the entry to take me all day. Once, I started I had to stay with it. The first entry was contact information. I filled it in and saved it. Time after time, red words warned me I need to enter the complete address or that my zipcode was wrong. Finally, the last time the form came up the space for state popped up. I filled that in, and I was ready for the next form. Copy and paste for the pitch and 5000 word entry went well, but no way could I get the form to accept my manuscript. My word processors weren’t compatible. I have Open Office and an outdated Lotus that no one has heard of lately. I could buy Microsoft, but once I figured out what I was doing with what I had, I didn’t want to take the time to learn anything new. I’d entered in this contest before so I knew I could if I figured out what I needed to do. After hours of trying, finally the manuscript was accepted, but the form didn’t think my pitch was right. I cut and copied the same pitch again and clicked save. That did it.

Last year, I received two reviews from the judges based on the first 5000 words. One judge was very complimentary about my original idea. The other pointed out my piece was poorly written with grammatical errors which didn’t surprise me since the story was no way near ready to turn in. That was the review that was the most helpful. I took the review to heart and went over my story to clean it up before I published it. I’m hoping this year’s entry is in better shape, but no matter what, I’m looking forward to the expert reviews if they do that again.

Now I’m working on short stories for the writing contest that is due the last of April. That gives me plenty of time to tighten the stories up to fit the word criteria and theme. I have some luck in those contests, but even if I didn’t it’s fun to compete with other writers.

　

　

Publetariat Vault Opens To Indie Press -Published Authors

by

By popular request, the Publetariat Vault is now open to authors who are published with a small, independent press and wish to seek a larger publisher or literary agent, or who hope to connect with TV, film, game and other content producers. Vault listings are free of charge through June of this year, and Vault University’s Author Platform/Promo curriculum is offered free of charge to any author with an active Vault listing, making this a terrific opportunity for indie authors of every stripe.

If you have no idea what the Vault is, here’s a description from the site:

The Publetariat Vault provides a groundbreaking service: the opportunity to get your self-published or indie-published book in front of the agents, publishers and producers who are seeking proven books for representation or low-risk acquisitions. If you’ve ever thought that if agents, publishers or producers only knew how much readers like your book, or how well it’s selling, or what a great job you’re doing to promote both it and yourself, they’d sit up and take notice, then the Vault was made for you…

For purposes of the Vault, a "small, independent press" is defined as any publisher which is not an imprint of a larger, corporate trade publisher (e.g., Random House, Penguin, etc.). We’re making this distinction, and limitation, because self-published authors and authors published by small, indie presses have less exposure to agents, producers and large publishers than those who are already published by larger publishers. Since Publetariat is all about serving the needs of indies everywhere, it seems only fair to make Vault listings available to indie press -published authors.

To learn more about the Vault, you can click here to view a blank listing form, here to view a sample published listing, and here to view the search form agents, publishers and content producers will use. Click here to view the site’s FAQ, and here to view the site’s Terms of Use.

To list a book in the Vault for free through the end of June, just go to the Vault site, review the Terms of Use and if you agree to abide by them, register for your free account. Next, follow the directions provided in the new user registration email to create your listing(s). All listings are created as ‘draft’ listings by default, not visible to searchers, until the author chooses to ‘publish’ them. This allows authors to take as much time as they need to complete and polish their listings before making them available for search by agents, publishers and producers. When you’re ready to publish your listing, use the Vault’s Contact Us form to request publication of your listing, bypassing the site’s PayPal payment processing and alerting a Publetariat admin to enroll you in the Vault University Author Platform/Promo curriculum at no charge. You will receive an email with your login information for Vault U.

Here’s some information about Vault U. from the Vault U. site:

Vault University is an offshoot of the Publetariat Vault, and is brought to you by Publetariat. Vault U. provides lessons in self-publishing, author platform and book promotion free of charge for authors with published Vault listings, and offers enrollment on a fee basis for all other authors. 

Vault U. offers a Publishing curriculum and an Author Platform/Promotion curriculum, with a new lesson posted to each curriculum at the beginning of each month. Vault U. enrollees have direct access to instructors via the comment forms provided at the end of each lesson, which ‘students’ can use to get answers to their specific questions about the lesson, or to further discuss any aspect of the lesson. Click here to learn more about Vault University, here to view a sample Vault U lesson, and here to view the What Goes Into an Author Press Kit portion of the Vault U lesson entitled ‘Your Marketing/Distribution Plan’.

Approximately two weeks prior to the end of June, 2010, all Vault-listed authors will receive an email reminding them that the free listing period is drawing to a close, and asking them to either cancel their listings or renew them at the usual rate of $10 per month. Authors who wish to cancel their Vault listings but remain enrolled in Vault U. will be able to do so by switching to paid enrollment at the usual rate of $5 per month.