Publetariat

3 Myths About Social Media For Authors

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This post by Tim Grahl originally appeared on Out:think on 12/13/13.

More advice about social media is swirling around out there than ever before. I read the posts. I watch the videos. I’m constantly looking for that secret that I’m missing and each time I’m reminded of the same thing.

When it comes to selling books, spending a huge amount of time building a social media following is a waste of time.

In this post, I’m going to debunk many of the myths about social media and how it can be used to sell books and then I’m going to share a couple of things you can do to actually take advantage of these platforms.
2 Ideas About Social Media

Tools and Tool Boxes
All of the things we use to build our online platform – blogs, email lists, social media, podcasts, guest posts, etc – are all just tools in a tool box. The focus should never be on the tool. The focus is on what we are trying to build – in this case an author platform.

However, with tools like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn and others, we often lose site of that. We decide we need to use them to sell books then run around trying to figure out the best way to do it. This is the same thing as picking up a hammer from your toolbox and then running around trying to figure out what to build with it.

You should never start with the tools. You start with a plan, then reach in your toolbox and pull out the right tool for the job.

 

Click here to read the full post on Out:think.

 

Focus on Writing A Great Book

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This post by Rachelle Gardner originally appeared on her blog on 1/12/14.

It seems in the last few years, dialogue about all-things-publishing has been focused on platform, marketing, increasing output, distribution platforms, technology, and self-publishing. (This blog is no exception.) But as I noted in this post at Author Media , I think it’s important to call our attention back to the work. 

It may be easier to get published these days because of self-pub and the proliferation of indie publishing options. But it’s not any easier to write a good book. 

In fact, it may be even harder to write a good book than it was in days past, because both you and your reader have more distractions. You’re tempted by the Internet, your ability to concentrate for long periods of time has been compromised, and deep focus is more challenging. Meanwhile, your reader has infinite sources of information and entertainment. So a book has to be darn good to to keep both your attention and your reader’s. Now is the time to make sure we’re not minimizing the importance of mastering the craft.

 

Click here to read the full post on Rachelle Gardner’s blog.

 

Barnes & Noble's Last-Ditch Effort To Save Itself: Going Back To College

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This article by Phil Wahba originally appeared on The Huffington Post on 5/8/14.

NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (Reuters) – Barnes & Noble Inc is turning to its college roots to boost its top line.

The U.S. bookseller, which opened in 1965 as a university bookstore in New York, wants a much bigger presence on college campuses, where students last year spent an average of $1,200 on textbooks and supplies, according to the College Board.

Barnes & Noble, now the second largest operator of college bookstores with 696 shops, plans to have about 1,000 locations within five years, Max Roberts, chief executive of the company’s college business, said in an exclusive interview at Rutgers University’s bookstore in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

It intends to do that by getting more schools to outsource their bookstore operations with the lure of nicer, higher-grossing stores and by poaching accounts from larger rival Follett Corp, which runs 940 stores.

Success isn’t a slam dunk: About 45 percent of U.S. colleges still run their own stores. And overall college store sales have stagnated in recent years at about $10 billion, according to the National Association of College Stores.

 

Click here to read the full article on The Huffington Post.

How to Write

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This post by Heather Havrilesky originally appeared on The Awl on 5/5/14.

I teach a Popular Criticism class to MFA students. I don’t actually have an MFA, but I am a professional, full-time writer who has been in this business for almost two decades, and I’ve written for a wide range of impressive print and online publications, the names of which you will hear and think, “Oh fuck, she’s the real deal.” Because I am the real deal. I tell my students that a lot, like when they interrupt me or roll their eyes at something I say because they’re young and only listen when old hippies are digressing about Gilles Deleuze’s notions of high capitalism’s infantilizing commodifications or some such horse shit.

Anyway, since Friday is our last class, and since I’m one of the only writers my students know who earns actual legal tender from her writing—instead of say, free copies of Ploughshares—they’re all dying to know how I do it. In fact, one of my students just sent me an email to that effect: “For the last class, I was wondering if you could give us a breakdown of your day-to-day schedule. How do you juggle all of your contracted assignments with your freelance stuff and everything else you do?”

Now, I’m not going to lie. It’s annoying, to have to take time out of my incredibly busy writing schedule in order to spell it all out for young people, just because they spend most of their daylight hours being urged by hoary old theorists in threadbare sweaters to write experimental fiction that will never sell. But I care deeply about the young—all of them, the world’s young—so of course I am humbled and honored to share the trade secrets embedded in my rigorous daily work schedule. Here we go:

 

Click here to read the full post on The Awl.

 

15 Things a Writer Should Never Do

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This post by Zachary Petit originally appeared on Writer’s Digest on 5/10/13.

Based on interviews with authors over the years, conferences, editing dozens of issues of Writer’s Digest, and my own occasional literary forays and flails, here are some points of consensus and observations: 15 of them, things anyone who lives by the pen (or seeks to) might consider. It is, like most things in the writing world, a list in progress—and if you’ve got your own Dos or Don’ts to add, I’d love to hear them in the Comments.

1. Don’t assume there is any single path or playbook writers need to follow. (Or, for that matter, a definitive superlative list of Dos and Don’ts …) Simply put: You have to do what works best for you. Listen to the voices in your head, and learn to train and trust them. More often than not, they’ll let you know if you’re on the right path. People often bemoan the surplus of contradictory advice in the writing world—but it’s there because there really is no yellow-brick road, and a diversity of perspectives allows you to cherry-pick what uniquely suits you and your abilities.

2. Don’t try to write like your idols. Be yourself. Yeah, it sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s true: The one thing you’ve got that no one else does is your own voice, your own style, your own approach. Use it. (If you try to pretend to write like anyone else, your readers will know.) Perhaps author Allegra Goodman said it best: “Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.”

3. Don’t get too swept up in debates about outlining/not outlining, whether or not you should write what you know, whether or not you should edit as you go along or at the end—again, just experiment and do what works best for you. The freedom that comes with embracing this approach is downright cathartic.

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes 12 more tips, on Writer’s Digest.

 

Will Barnes & Noble be gone by New Year's?

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This editorial by Michael Levin originally appeared on The Contra Costa Times News on 5/2/14.

If anyone gives you a Barnes & Noble gift card, be sure to cash it in by the end of the year.

This may be the last year that Barnes & Noble bookstores remain open.

It’s bad news for people who love books. It’s worse news for the next generation of readers, who may never experience buying a book in a bookstore.

B&N has been closing about 20 stores per year since 2012 and has said it will continue to do so for the next several years. But its financial position is bleak.

This follows a decades-long period of expansion, moving into neighborhoods where privately-owned bookstores thrived, destroying those stores with cut-price best-sellers, and all but owning the book business.

Borders collapsed because of poor choices — weak locations, an overemphasis on music, and, worst of all, selling off its online bookstore to Amazon for $20 million in the 1990s. Chump change, by today’s standards.

So why is B&N on the ropes, if it has virtually no competition today from chains or privately owned bookstores?

 

Click here to read the full editorial on The Contra Costa Times News.

 

The Writer’s Dread – Marketing #RomFantasy

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This post by Denyse Bridger originally appeared on her Fantasy Pages blog on 5/5/14.

I know, I can feel the cringe already among those who have to devote way too much time to this chore, and have to leave the art of writing to wait when it’s all we really want to be doing. At any rate, I thought I’d make a few observations, and this is my official disclaimer that all comments are my own thoughts and opinions in the event anyone gets ruffled or takes offense.

A lot of new authors don’t seem to understand the basics of marketing and branding yourself and your product. I see so much pushing of the same excerpt, or just endless postings of the same excerpt over and over. I know it’s very important to all of us to get our books out there before readers, but when entire Yahoo digests come from one author or your promo company, neither of you is doing your efforts any positive impact.

Promotion and marketing means more than getting your newest book in front of people, don’t kid yourself. HOW you present your material makes a huge impact on whether readers support you or avoid you. There’s also the fact that if you don’t focus at least some of your attention on creating a recognizable brand for yourself, you’ll never find that audience you want so badly.

 

Click here to read the full post on Fantasy Pages.

 

The Great E-book Pricing Question

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This post by David Gaughran originally appeared on his Let’s Get Visible site on 4/17/14.

There’s more guff written about pricing than almost anything else, resulting in an extremely confusing situation for new self-publishers. I often see them pricing too low or too high, and the decision is rarely made the right way, i.e. ascertaining their goals and pricing accordingly.

 

Price/value confusion

Before we get to the nuts-and-bolts, it’s time to slay a zombie meme. Much of the noise on this issue springs from conflating two concepts, namely price and value.

Authors often say something like, “My book is worth more than a coffee.” Or publishers might say, “A movie costs $10 and provides two hours of entertainment. Novels provide several times that and should cost more than $9.99.”

Price and value are two different things. From Wikipedia:

Economic value is not the same as market price. If a consumer is willing to buy a good, it implies that the customer places a higher value on the good than the market price.

The price is something we, as self-publishers, attach to the product. The value is the worth the consumer places on it (not the author or publisher). In simple terms, unless your price is lower than the value a reader places on your book, they won’t purchase.

Marketing isn’t simply about reaching consumers but also about convincing them to place a value on the product higher than the price-tag. The higher the price, the harder that job will be.

In other words, it’s a lot easier to sell a book at $2.99 than $9.99.

 

Doesn’t price influence value?

 

Click here to read the full post on Let’s Get Digital.

 

Q&A: IBPA Director Angela Bole on Self-Publishing and the Digital Future

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This post by Rich Bellis originally appeared on Digital Book World on 5/5/14.

Angela Bole assumed her role as executive director of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) in July 2013, moving over from No. 2 in command at the Book Industry Study Group (BISG). As she rounds out her first year as the head of the largest publishing association in the U.S. with about 3,000 individual members, she took some time to speak with Digital Book World about her plans for IBPA and how independent presses, self-published authors and digital natives are all reshaping the marketplace.

 

Rich Bellis: What was it like transitioning from BISG, where you served as deputy executive director since 2009, and how were the first few months settling in at IBPA?

Angela Bole: It was a little bit of the best of both worlds. I had a lot of the same contacts coming over from a similar trade association in publishing, or at least a sister association. I still had a lot of the same people that I continue to work with, so that was really helpful.

But it’s a whole new market for me working with independent publishers and self-published authors, so there’s a learning curve as well. I’m still in the middle of it.

 

RB: What direction are you planning to take IBPA in order to continue to serve that market?

AB: IBPA has a long history. It’s been around for 30 years, and it’s one of the most trusted associations in publishing for independent publishers. It has a strong legacy, and that was really interesting to me coming in. Our focus now is just to strengthen the foundations even more: to look at the different programs that we’re running and make sure they’re relevant today—and they have been for many years—and to change some of them if we see that we need to do that to make sure they’re meeting our members’ needs.

Another thing that’s important to us right now is really understanding who our members are. So we launched a full-scale member survey in March, and we pulled results in that we’ll be analyzing this summer so we can start to tailor programs to different members’ needs.

 

RB: Without having done that yet, can you speculate on anything you’re likely to learn about the makeup of your membership?

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on Digital Book World.

 

Wattpad Gets into the Digital Publishing Game

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This post by Michael Kozlowski originally appeared on goodereader on 5/2/14.

Wattpad has popularized the notion of serialized digital books on their website. Millions of readers and writers use the free service to hone their writing skills and develop a loyal following. The serialized approach is the most dominant on the platform with readers giving their feedback after every chapter. Wattpad is now getting into the publishing game with two of their most seminal stories.

Wattpad is using Amazon Createspace to make physical versions of the books available. This will give people the ability to buy printed versions of the books and allow the authors to do book signings. Wattpad is also distributing the books digitally with Amazon, iBooks and Kobo.

 

Click here to read the full post on goodereader.

Also see: Wattpad Raises $46M From OMERS Ventures And Others To Grow Its Social Publishing Network, from TechCrunch.

 

The Poorest Man's Copyright

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This post by Lily Hay Newman originally appeared on Slate on 5/4/14.

Do nothing.

ou could have heard about the “poor man’s copyright” anywhere: from an older relative, from a friend, from a high school English teacher. They find out that you’ve been working on a novel and they want to help, so they tell you to mail it to yourself once it’s done. That way, even if you don’t do anything with the novel for years (or if those snooty literary agents and publishing houses are incapable of recognizing genius when they see it), you still have a copy bearing an official federal date—and no one can steal your spot on the New York Times best-seller list.

It’s a nice idea, but the problem with the poor man’s copyright is that it doesn’t work. The humorless federal copyright office explains on its website, “The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a ‘poor man’s copyright.’ There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.”

But if you’re a starving artist, don’t worry. Copyright legislation that took effect on Jan. 1, 1978, dictates that all works are automatically copyrighted from the time that they are created and “fixed” in some recognizable way.

 

Click here to read the full post on Slate.

 

Forest in the Trees: The Challenges of Shaping a Book (not a Collection) of Essays

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This post by Rebecca McClanahan originally appeared on Brevity on 1/18/14.

In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard seems to warn writers away from embarking on a collection of individual works: “…[S]ince every original work requires a unique form, it is more prudent to struggle with the outcome of only one form—that of a long work—than to struggle with the many forms of a collection.” As someone who has written both kinds of books (long form, book-length nonfiction, as well as books of individual essays), I must agree with Dillard. In fact, she’s letting us off easy by warning of only one challenge: the struggle to find the best form for each individual piece. Several other challenges await the writer who shapes a book of essays. Note that I wrote book of essays, not collection. To my mind, the two are vastly different. A collection merely gathers individual pieces under the same roof—the cover of the book. A well-shaped book of essays is another genre altogether; though each essay can and should stand alone, each also relates to the other essays in significant ways. If you embark on shaping a book of essays, here are some of the challenges you might face:

1. Choosing which essays to include

I never set out to write a book of essays, nor do most of the essayists I know. Rather, we find ourselves writing one essay, then another, then another. (I like how that sentence came out—we find ourselves writing—as if writing helps us find ourselves, which of course it does.) After a while, the essays accumulate. “How many do you have now?” a writer-friend asks. “Enough for a new book?” Well, that depends. Maybe enough for a collection, but a book?  I’d have to think about that. Do all the essays talk to each other in interesting ways? Is there a center point, a hub, into which all the spokes fit? If I had to write the cover copy for this book, what central elements would I highlight?

 

Click here to read the full post on Brevity.

 

Appeals Court Reinstates Lawsuit Against Harlequin

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This post originally appeared on The Passive Voice on 5/1/14.

Keiler v. Harlequin is a proposed class-action lawsuit by Harlequin authors against Harlequin for actions by the publisher that resulted in massive underpayment of royalties to authors for ebooks. Some authors report receiving as little as six cents in royalties for sales of each of their ebooks by Harlequin. PG has posted about the case previously here, here and here.

The trial court ended up giving HQ a win, but the authors appealed. Today, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the trial court on one count, allowing the HQ authors a chance to move forward with their case at the trial level. Here’s the appellate court’s summary of its decision:

 

Click here to read the full post on The Passive Voice.

Also see this coverage, from The Hollywood Reporter site – Appeals Court: Book Publisher Must Face Self-Dealing Lawsuit “Suing romance novelists believe that Harlequin used foreign subsidiaries to create artificially low net receipts on eBooks”

Click here to visit the Harlequin class action lawsuit website.

 

Balancing Productivity and Art

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This post by David Farland originally appeared on David Farland’s site on 4/21/14.

If you are producing anything—toy dolls, bread, vacuum cleaners, or novels—there are some variables that you have to work with. Ideally, a publisher would like you to bring them in 1) quickly, 2) beautifully written, 3) and at a low price.

If you are producing anything—toy dolls, bread, vacuum cleaners, or novels—there are some variables that you have to work with. Ideally, a publisher would like you to bring them in 1) quickly, 2) beautifully written, 3) and at a low price.

But buyers will almost always be willing to make tradeoffs. Your goal is to provide two of the three. For example, I used to know an editor who handled a series of novels based on a major television series. A couple of times he asked me, “Could you write a novel for me in two weeks? I’ll pay you twice what I normally do for it.” In other words, he wanted a good novel quickly, and he was willing to pay through the nose. He wanted two out of three.

I told him “No” every time. The reason was that I felt that writing a novel that quickly would hurt the quality of my work, and ultimately a sub-standard novel would damage my reputation. In the short term, I might make some good money, but in the long term it would hurt my career. I’d rather write one great novel than ten bad ones. (Besides, I wasn’t a fan of that particular series, so it seemed a distraction.)

Yet more and more, it seems, this career demands that you be productive, that you up your word count. For many writers, that might seem frightening. They might feel that they are being pushed to write too quickly.

 

Click here to read the full post on David Farland’s site.

 

When An Author Should Self-Publish And How That Might Change

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This post by Mike Shatzkin originally appeared on his The Shatzkin Files blog on 4/17/14. a

There is a question that every agent and publisher is dealing with, because authors surely are. And that’s this: when should an author self- (or indie-) publish?

The answer is certainly not “never”, and if there is anybody left in a publishing house who thinks it is, they should think a little harder.

For a number of reasons, the belief here is that most of the time for most authors who can get a deal with an established and competent house, their best choice is to take it. It’s good to get an advance that is partially in your pocket before the manuscript is even finished and assured once it is. It’s good to have a team of capable professionals doing marketing work that authors are seldom equipped to do well themselves and which can be expensive to buy freelance, particularly if you don’t know how. It’s good to have a coordinated effort to sell print and ebooks, online and offline, and it’s good to have the supply chain ready for your book, with inventory in place where it can help stimulate sales, when you fire the starting gun for publicity and marketing. And it’s great to have an organization turning your present book into more dollars while you as an author focus on generating the next one, and start pocketing the next advance.

Publishers have heretofore really had only one model for working with authors. They acquire the rights, usually paying an advance-against-royalties, and own and control the entire process of publishing. It is generally understood that all efforts to make the book known can show benefits in all the commercial channels it exploits. So publishers have generally insisted on, and authors have generally accepted, controlling all the rights to a book when they pay that advance. The two pretty standard, time-honored exceptions have been cinematic (Hollywood) rights, which are rarely controlled by the publisher, and foreign territory and language rights, which are only sometimes controlled by the publisher.

Since publishers until very recently effectively monopolized the path to market, they could effectively make the rules about what an author could publish.asdf

 

Click here to read the full post on The Shatzkin Files.