Publetariat

Grow Your Crazy-Dedicated Fanbase through Reader-Centered Book Marketing

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Publetariat Editor’s Note: Today we’re pleased to welcome Toni and Shannon, the self-publishing experts over at Duolit, to our roster of regular Contributors with this reprint from their site.

What are some of the biggest books in publishing today? Twilight, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games.

What do they have in common?

Well, yeah, the YA genre. And the fanbases transcending any one target market. Also the multi-billion dollar movie franchises. But what else?

Crazy, rabid fans.

These folks will fake engagements to try on Bella’s wedding gown, get a full back tattoo featuring Dumbledore and spend hours creating elaborate signs declaring their love for Peeta.

How would you like to have fans like that going nuts over your book?

 

Okay, maybe you could do without quite that level of craziness. Still, wouldn’t it be nice to have readers spreading the word far and wide about you and your book?

That’s what I thought.

Guess what: fans like that? You can have them.

Sure, without the backing of Scholastic or Bloomsbury it won’t happen overnight. You’ll have to dig in for the long haul and get your hands dirty.

But, you’re an indie author — you’re not scared of a little hard work, right?

Suffering from Book Marketing Apathy?

Much of what I’ve seen out there in indie-land, however, seems to indicate otherwise. What’s up with that?

I call it “book marketing apathy.”

Some indie authors think that readers will appear out of thin air, throwing dollars at them mere seconds after their book is published. Others see marketing as an afterthought, as some sort of unnecessary burden. And yet others appear to have given up altogether, sadly begging for book purchases on Facebook or Twitter.

Don’t let that be you.

The 4 Truths of Indie Book Marketing

  1. It takes time.
  2. It takes effort.
  3. It takes dedication.
  4. It is totally worth it.

Your readers ARE out there, but they’re not going to find you by accident.

For the next few weeks, we’ll teach you how to stand out above the crowd and earn those crazy-dedicated readers through reader-centered book marketing.

It sounds silly and obvious, but it’s actually quite rare to see — authors focused on not only promoting themselves, but also providing value to their readers.

Are you following the Golden Rule?

Honestly, it all boils down to this — let’s call it the Golden Rule of Reader-Centered Book Marketing – treat your readers as you’d like to be treated.

To implement this “Golden Rule” you must:

1. Have the Right Attitude

If you’re not enthusiastic, confident and passionate about your work, how can you expect to jazz up readers?

Remember, just a few years ago, authors’ publishing fates were solely in traditional publishers’ hands. Take pride in your indie author status  and the fact that you have self-published your book!

Although you’ve likely experienced doubts about your writing, if you’ve taken the time to write, edit, design and publish a book that you know is your best work, act like it!

Blog tour and guest post to get your name out there, then eagerly engage each commenter and new reader — provoke discussion, answer their questions and value their perspective.

2. Give More than You Take

A common mistake many authors make (most likely out of sales desperation) is to make their only “message” one of pressure; one focused on selling their work.

This is a *huge* turnoff to potential readers!

A better method to earn readers is to share something of value (instead of strictly selling). Once they experience your generosity (and get a taste of your crazy talent in the process), they’ll gladly become faithful readers.

Some ways for you to provide value to potential readers include:

  • Writing guest posts on blogs your readers frequent
  • Recommending other books you’ve enjoyed
  • Providing free excerpts of your work
  • Giving away free copies or other goodies

Give, share and give some more and finally, when the time is right, ask your readers to give a little something back.

3. Think The Avengers, not Survivor

If you’re a reality TV geek (like, sadly, I am), you’re familiar with the motto of Survivor: outwit, outplay, outlast. Players constantly backstab, use and abuse each other in an effort to win $1 million.

That go-it-alone mindset may work for the last Survivor standing, but it won’t help you and your book!

A better method is that of The Avengers: work together.

Establish relationships with other indie authors, but don’t go about it willy-nilly. Be genuine; only reach out if you actually like and respect the author and their work.

Once you’ve teamed up, leverage the power of your combined readerships by:

  • Cross-promoting each other’s work through social media
  • Introducing each other to blogger friends for guest posts and interviews
  • Brainstorming ideas for giveaways and promotions
  • Supporting and motivating each other with things get tough

4. Don’t Let Your Readers Down

Once the new readers start flowing in, you must continually work to keep them by:

  • Encouraging them to subscribe to your mailing list and send out an update at least once a month
  • Keeping a schedule for updating your blog
  • Providing value through exclusive rewards and promotions

Whatever you do, don’t forget about them!

Ensure, however, that you’re only passing along valuable information to your fans (never spamming or pressuring). Don’t let your new fans down!

Call it the Wild Wild West rule: how many successful July 4th Will Smith movies did we get after that flop (which, for the record, I enjoyed)?

Remember: without a fanbase, you’re just writing for yourself, your mom and the Twitter spammers. 

Go Forth and Earn Some Youphiles!

Ready for more reader-centered book marketing goodness?

Next week we’ll discuss how to uncover the identity of those crazy-dedicated readers (and show you a targeting tool even more specific than your target market), but the concepts above give you something to work on in the meantime.

At the conclusion of our series, we’re unveiling a super-special book marketing workshop exclusively for indie authors who receive (totally free) updates from us. So, if you’re not on that list, hop to it!

You’ll also receive Self-Publishing Basic Training, a rockin’ 35-page guide to the basics of self-publishing, as an added bonus.

Talk Back

I’m curious: how do you take care of your readers? Do you find reader-centered marketing practices work better than pressuring and groveling? Am I totally wrong about everything I said above? Let me know in the comments!

 

This is a reprint from Duolit.

 

Class Action Law Suit Filed in Maryland Against PublishAmerica

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This post, by Mick Rooney, originally appeared on The Independent Publishing Magazine on 6/13/12.

The breaking news this evening, via Victoria Strauss, is that a class action law suit has been filed against PublishAmerica in the state of Maryland. The action was filed yesterday by Darla Yoos, Edwin McCall and Kerri Levine and "others similarly situated" in a 55 page document.
 
From the opening pages of the law suit:

 
 

Defendant PublishAmerica is a book publisher that  portrays itself as "a traditional, royalty paying publisher." But unlike traditional publishers, which profit from the sale of books, defendant profits from its own clients, i.e., the authors who submit works for publication by defendant. Defendant lures these authors in by promising to publish their book at no cost, and it makes false and misleading representations that it will promote their books and support the authors’ efforts to sell their own books. But this is not the case. Instead, once the authors sign the contract, which gives defendant the rights to their book for seven to ten years, defendant does nothing constructive to promote their books, but instead offers various promotion packages on a fee-for-service basis….These services, which are either misrepresented or never carried out, are not reasonably designed to promote class members’ books…. Defendant provides very poor editing services, is slow to respond to book orders, and it routinely overprices the books it publishes. This is no accident. Defendant will only lower the price of its clients’ books to a competitive rate for a $399 fee. These practices make it difficult for even the most enterprising authors to promote their own books. Defendant is not responsive to inquiries from its clients, or worse it is dismissive or belligerent. Like plaintiffs, thousands of other aspiring authors who signed up with PublishAmerica have become demoralized because the publishing contract appears to be little more than a pretext for selling dubious services…These authors also feel trapped because PublishAmerica owns the rights to their books for seven to ten years. This presents a Hobson’s choice for the authors: either throw good money after bad for suspect promotional services or abandon the book that was a labor of love.


14 Ways To Ask For A Favour

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This post, by Jean Oram, originally appeared on her site on 6/8/12.

Have you ever been asked a favour by another writer? Chances are (if you are online), you have. It might have been critiquing a query or chapter, or helping them with heir marketing and publicity. Lately it seems that writers and authors are flooding social media with lots of favour requests that are unintentionally turning folks off.

I’m sure I’ve done it… how about you?

There is an art in “the ask” and many of us get it wrong. Dreadfully, horribly wrong.

But we can fix it! We writers are awesome at getting into the heads of others, being creative, and being general, all ’round nice people.

Two key things to keep in mind so you don’t abuse other writers. First of all, writers are busy people. Heck, all people are. But writers usually have a lot going on all the time–especially when we are trying to get our career off the ground, or heck, even pushed away from the terminal! Second, we are a very generous sort and love to help out other writers because one day (hopefully soon) we will be in their shoes looking for some friend lovin’ as well. It’s super easy to abuse that unintentionally. (We say yes because we fear we may never be given an opportunity again if we don’t.

A Good Ask

I love this ask that I got via a direct message on Twitter from the lovely and talented author Claire Cook (Must Love Dogs). After a few tweets and mutual follow on Twitter she said in a DM: “Please like my FB author page if you have an extra minute. And let me know if I can like yours! facebook.com/ClaireCookauth….” That is a good ask. I believe I liked her page. I did not ask her to like my pages back even though they are in need of some “like” love. Why? I believed that it wouldn’t fit her brand and it didn’t feel right. But liking her did.

By the way, I get a lot of DM’s asking for FB likes and her’s is the first that has received action. And, at first glance I thought her DM was unlike the others because it felt as though it was meant just for me. Later I realized that it could have been an autosend. But it didn’t feel like it. It felt personal.

KaBOOM!, a playground action group, contacted me via my It’s All Kid’s Play (.ca) website as we had done some tweeting back and forth. They contacted me to ask if I could help spread the word about an upcoming summer challenge. They provided all the information I needed about their challenge as well as a fantastically easy to follow through upon ask that included this tidbit I could copy and paste into Twitter: “My friends at @Kaboom want you to take their #playgroundchallenge! Visit playgrounds for a chance to win a trip to DC. http://bit.ly/K5GfQw”

Which I did. I also gave it a personal spin and off it went. Easy. Even though I believe 100% in their challenge, I may not have sent off this tweet if they hadn’t have made it so easy for me to do so. (In the end I also ended up being a beta tester for their Android app (it maps Playgrounds–is awesome and is available on the iPhone already) and next week will be posting an interview with them about their challenge on my It’s All Kid’s Play blog. Wow. They got a lot from a simple, well-done email, didn’t they?

So, how do we get favours granted?

Ask for a Favour? 14 Tips That Lead to a “Yes”:

  1. Be clear.
    What do you want me to do? Is it to buy your book? Share your coupon? Like your page? Follow you?
     
  2. Be specific and to the point.
    I don’t need the story of your life. Remember: You are taking up someone’s precious time.
     
  3. Why should I?
    What’s in it for me? Why should I help? If you make your ask about the giver, they are more likely to help out. Think of it this way. I tell you to buy my book because it is a bestseller and everyone thinks it’s funny. Uh, great? But what if I told you that this book will change the way you think about your neighbourhood, the way kids play, and give you more time to spend playing with your kids. Hmmm. Suddenly that feels a little more personal and intriguing. There might be some personal value in this.

 

Read the rest of the post on Jean Oram’s site.

25 Ways To Fight Your Story's Mushy Middle

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This post, by Chuck Wendig, originally appeared on his terribleminds site.

For me, the middle is the hardest part of writing. It’s easy to get the stallions moving in the beginning — a stun gun up their asses gets them stampeding right quick. I don’t have much of a problem with endings, either; you get to a certain point and the horses are worked up into a mighty lather and run wildly and ineluctably toward the cliff’s edge.

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

But the middle, man, the motherfucking middle. It’s like being lost in a fog, wandering the wasteland tracts. And I can’t be the only person with this problem: I’ve read far too many books that seem to lose all steam in the middle. Narrative boots stuck in sucking mud.

Seems like it’s time for another “list of 25″ to the rescue, then.

Hiyaa! Giddyup, you sumbitches! BZZT.

1. The Solomonic Split Of The Second Act

Fuck the three-act structure right in its crusty corn-cave. See, right there’s your problem — first act is small, third act is small, and the second act is the size of those two combined. Go for a four-act structure, instead. Take the second act and chop it clean in half. Whack. Each act is its own entity — though it connects to the rest and still has its own rise and fall. Allow each its own shape, its own distinct feel. And don’t forget that when one act moves to another it is a time of transformation and escalation.

2. Fake A Climax

Hey, when you fake an orgasm, you gotta commit. You can’t just do a few eye-rolls and go “oooh, ahh, mmm, yes,” and then sit up and flip on CSPAN. You’ve got to sell it. Make ‘em think it’s the real deal. Scream so loud the dog starts howling. Break a lamp with a flailing limb. Release the fluids. And that’s what you gotta do in the middle of your story. The “false climax” is a powerful trick — you make it seem like things are coming to a head, that the pot is boiling over, that the fluid-release cannot be contained. You want the audience to be all like, “Whoa, this feels like the end but I’ve still got 200 pages left in the book. SHIT JUST GOT REAL.” (Of course, do make sure the actual climax is even bigger, yes?)

3. Fewer Curves, More Angles

The shape of a story — especially the shape of a story’s middle — is a lot of soft rises and doughy plateaus and zoftig falls. Each hill giving way to a bigger knoll. But sometimes, a story needs fewer hills and more mountains. Angles instead of curves. Fangs instead of molars. Think of inserting a few jagged peaks and dangerous ditches — take the story and the characters on a harder journey. Let things change swiftly, accelerate the plot, go left, feint right, don’t let the audience feel complacent and comfortable. Rough ground can be a good thing in the middle of a story. Some stories need more turbulence.

4. Opening Presents On Christmas Eve

When I was a kid, Christmas Eve was the most interminable time because, y’know, Christmas morning is everything. All else is chaff and dust and ash in your greedy little mouth. If setting fire to the tree would make Santa come earlier, shit, you’d do it. So, what do some parents do? They let a child open one gift on Christmas Eve. Adopt this strategy as a storyteller. All this time you’re introducing mysteries and conflicts and character arcs that you promise will be resolved by the conclusion of the story. Take one, conclude it early. Give the audience some payoff. (I’d argue if Lost gave viewers a few early Christmas presents the show wouldn’t have dragged its itchy doggy ass across the carpet for the middle seasons.)

5. Introduce A Character

Sometimes, a story needs a bit of new blood in the form of a new character — someone interesting. Not, y’know, “Dave the Constipated Cab Driver,” or “Paula the Saggy-Boobed Waitress,” but rather characters with an arc, characters who will have an impact on the story. You don’t need to replace your protagonist (and probably shouldn’t), but a new strong supporting character may grant the story new energy.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 20 more ideas for fixing your mushy middle, on terribleminds.

Dare to be an Indie Author?

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This post, by Laxmi Hariharan, originally appeared on The UK Huffington Post. It includes a handy quiz you can use to figure out if you’re built for the indie author life.

I am just back from The Literary Consultancy’s (TLC) http://www.literaryconsultancy.co.uk/ revolutionary Writing in a Digital Age conference. Organised by the inimitable Rebecca Swift–the speakers included leading authors and industry figures such as @harikunzru @lindasgrant, @nicolamorgan, @zubaanbooks (Urvashi Butalia), @simontrewin, @caroleagent (Carole Blake), @gavinjamesbower, @saqibooks (Rukhsana Yasmin), @karolinasutton and many more–#TLC12 brought together the traditional and the Indie on the same stage, a first of firsts.

The person who stood out was Rob Kroese, author of the self published, bestselling, humorous, apocalyptic novel Mercury Falls and its sequel, Mercury Rises. He is the creator of Mercury (the title character in Mercury Falls)–an acerbic, anti-establishment angel who is well-meaning but not particularly well-behaved. Rob @robkroese is funny, genuine and as one of my fellow delegates commented, "he is one of us". He likens the league of published authors to an elite night club, with gatekeepers, who decide who gets in and who does not. It struck a chord with me, and I suspect with many of the other ‘waiting to be discovered’ wannabes.

One of the most hotly discussed topics was whether to self publish or not? If Indie movies are accepted, why not Indie books? So taking a cue from Rob’s talk (thanks Rob!) I have put together my own quiz, to help you find out. Here are the questions

1. Do you want to be discovered or somewhere along the way have you discovered yourself?

2. Do you write to be published or do you write to be read?

3. Are you an entrepreneur, at heart? Do you normally jump in and think of the consequences later. Are you pragmatic about failure–enough to pick yourself up and move on swiftly to the next?

4.Do you like to experiment, and cannot resist a challenge? Do you thrive under pressure, and when the odds are stacked against you?

 

Read the rest of the post on The UK Huffington Post.

Writernese

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This post, by Tina Pinson, originally appeared on her Write Where I Want To Be blog on 6/7/12.

You have mastered the English language, well, sort of… and you are fluent in three different languages, like me… okay not really. I have a hard enough time with English as a first language. Took four years of German and one of Turkish and remember barely enough to get by.

Then, just when I thought school was over, I had to learn Writernese. What is that you may ask? Simply put… it the language of writers. Writerspeak.

Writernese.

And if you’re a writer, you know that writerspeak is often times hard to grasp. Kind of like cyberspeak. IMHO BTW LOL

I thought it would be prudent to take a look at Writernese and see if we can decipher some the meanings behind the words and acronyms to help us speak the language.

Common Writernese Terms and Acronyms. Trying to understand these few aspects of Writernese could be a brief exercise in madness, but it’s a start.

EC: External Conflict (oppositions or physical threats to heroine or hero reaching their goals–i.e.: villain, journey, opponent)

IC: Internal Conflict (character’s emotional struggles and growth)

GMC: Goals, Motivation, Conflict

Goals– your character has a goal that he or she needs to reach.
Motivation– what sends them out to accomplish the goal?
Conflict — all the trials and thorns thrown in the path of your character to keep him/her from reaching goal. (when established, these set up the premise of a book, the overriding theme)

Climax — a moment of great intensity that usually brings events to a head and moving toward the conclusion.

Foreshadowing — adding hints and important information earlier on in the story that tip the reader off to what may come.

Resolution — can be done on varying levels, like resolving problems in the story. Or resolving the main conflict.

Genre — the kind of story being written; Gothic, Mystery, Romance, Inspirational, Sci Fi, Women’s Fiction, Speculative… etc.

HEA: Happily Ever After (the resolution/ type of ending expected in a Romance novel) Think Fairy Tales. Hello, Prince Charming.

H/H: Hero and Heroine
Protagonist — the main character
Antagonist — opposition to protagonist… enemy

MS: Manuscript

WIP: work in progress. Unfinished Manuscript

POV: Point Of View — What a character can see or hear. (If it’s dark he or she probably can’t tell you someone’s eye color. If it’s behind them they can’t give detail.)

1st person POV — Spoken and told by one character in their viewpoint alone throughout the story. Uses I to lead sentences and so forth.

3rd person POV — Storytelling told using third person pronouns like he/she. This POV can be Limited or Omniscient.

Limited — The writer sticks closely to one character’s feelings, thoughts and viewpoint, while other characters are added externally.

Omniscient — The storyteller knows all the views and can bring in several character’s point of views for the story. POV purists prefer that one POV is used in one scene to avoid head hopping.

 

Read the rest of the post —and maybe even bookmark it for future reference— on Write Where I Want To Be.

How Amazon Saved My Life

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This post, by Jessica Park, originally appeared on indiereader on 6/6/12.

I am an author.

I still can’t get used to that title, but I suppose after having written seven books–five of them traditionally published–that’s what you’d call me.  The funny thing is that I feel more like a real author now that I self-publish than when I had the (supposed) support of a publisher behind me.

How did I end up on my own?  It began when I couldn’t get my first YA book, Relatively Famous, published, despite getting stellar feedback from editors and nearly selling the film rights to a teen pop star. I was at a loss for what to do. I couldn’t keep writing books without selling them. What if the next thing I wrote flopped? I took a risk, in many ways, and wrote Flat-Out Love. It was the first book that completely came from my heart, and it was a book that ignored all the industry rules. I knew in the back of my head that I could self-publish it, but at the time it seemed like that would have been an admission of defeat.

I spent months thinking that I needed a big publisher in order to be a writer, to legitimately carry that “author” title. To validate me, and to validate Flat-Out Love. I needed a publisher to print my books and stick a silly publishing house emblem on the side of a hard copy. They were the only way to give my books mass distribution, and having them back me would mean that readers would know my book was good.

I also, apparently, thought that I needed to be taken advantage of, paid inexcusably poorly, and chained to idiotic pricing and covers that I had no control over.

I was, it seems, deluded.

It turns out that I was entirely wrong. I was missing what I really wanted. One of the major reasons that I write is to connect with readers, not publishers. The truth is that I couldn’t care less whether New York editors and publishers like me. I don’t want to write for them. I want to write for you. The other undeniable truth is that readers could care less that my books aren’t put out by a big publisher. They read for the content, not the publishing house emblem.

I have a lovely, smart, powerhouse agent, who tried to sell my next book, Flat-Out Love, to every major publishing house. She adored the story and thought it would sell. Fourteen editors turned it down, although each one said how strong the book was. But, editors seemingly didn’t give a crap about whether or not they liked the book. What they did pay attention to were their totally misguided ideas about what would and wouldn’t sell. I heard two things over and over again about my book. The first was that my story starred an eighteen-year-old college freshman, and that age was “categorically” too old for YA books and too young for adult books. It seems that one is not allowed to write about characters between the ages of eighteen and…what? Twenty-five? Because… because… Well, I’m not sure. The second thing I heard was that because my simultaneously-too-young-and-too-old heroine was not involved with anything slightly paranormal, the book wouldn’t sell.

Did I cry over some of these rejections? Absolutely. Did I feel inadequate, untalented, hurt? Yes. Did I doubt my ability to craft a story that readers could fall in love with? You bet.

And then one day I got yet another rejection letter and instead of blaming myself and my clear lack of creativity, I got angry. Really, really furious. It clicked for me that I was not the idiot here. Publishing houses were. The silly reasons that they gave me for why my book was useless made me see very clearly how completely out of touch these houses were with readers. I knew, I just knew, that I’d written a book with humor, heart, and meaning. I’d written something that had potential to connect with an audience. As much as I despise having to run around announcing how brilliant I supposedly am and whatnot, I also deeply believed in Flat-Out Love. I knew that editors were wrong.

And I finally understood that I wanted nothing to do with these people.

I snatched the book back from my agent and self-published it. With great relief, I should note. I could finally admit to myself that the only thing I had really wanted was to be told, “You’re good enough.” You know who gives me that? My readers. My generous, loving, wild readers.

Publishers pay terribly and infrequently. They are shockingly dumb when it comes to pricing, and if I see one more friend’s NY-pubbed ebook priced at $12.99, I’m going to scream. They do minimal marketing and leave the vast majority of work up to the author. Unless, of course, you are already a big name author. Then they fly you around the country for signings and treat you like the precious moneymaking gem that you are. The rest of us get next to nothing in terms of promotion. If your book takes off, they get the credit. If it tanks, you get the blame.

No, thank you. I’m all set with that.

 

Read the rest of the post on indiereader.

Indie Authors Can Succeed: What Terri Did And How You Can Do It, Too – Part 1

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This post, by Novel Publicity President Emlyn Chand and author Terri Giuliano Long, originally appeared on Novel Publicity on 8/24/11.

What does it take to be successful as an author? How can one go from simply dreaming a dream to living its reality? Is there any hope for all of the starving wordsmiths of the world?

Why, yes. There most assuredly is.
 
Terri Giuliano Long: A Case Study

To prove this point to all of the starry-eyed optimists and cynical nay-sayers, allow me to present a case study. It’s no secret that Novel Publicity has been working with literary fiction author Terri Giuliano Long almost since we opened our web portal to business back in March 2011.

Terri published her first novel, In Leah’s Wake, in October 2010. She put in a lot of hard work and hard-earned cash to promote it, and by July 26th, 2011, she had sold her 1,000th copy. A milestone few authors ever reach, indie or not.

1,000 copies—that’s really exciting. But what’s even more exciting is what happened next. It took nine months to sell those 1,000 copies, and only another twenty-nine days to sell 1,000 more. Now Terri’s sales are above 100 per day and show no signs of sinking. Is it fair to say she’s made it?

I think so.

Now that we’ve laid the framework to show that, yes, an indie author can achieve at least a modicum of commercial success, let’s move forward and answer the more pertinent question and get to the real reason you’re reading this blog post anyway: how did she do it?

Perhaps more accurately phrased as: how can you do it?

Let’s explore this question chronologically. Along the way, we’ll discuss what Terri did that was right-on and what she could have done better to give you the chance to learn from both her mistakes and her triumphs.
Write the best book you can.

Not the best book in the entire history of humanity. Just the best one you can possibly write. Give it the time to take root and really grow. Don’t rush to meet a deadline. Don’t try to conform to what’s popular or what somebody else expects. Respect your artistic vision and respect the English language. That’s step one.

What Terri did…

I wrote the first draft as my graduate thesis – the entire first draft in three months. It was terrible, of course – awful writing, a lot of summary, lacking story development. I then spent about four years – while teaching and doing other writing- revising. I started from scratch, meaning I didn’t cut and paste; I started from a blank page and retyped the entire manuscript. This is important because it helps you see the novel with new eyes. I replaced summary with scene, created new scenes, developed characters. There is a lot of drug-related information in the novel. To get it right, I had to research. I also researched protocol on runaway teens, and I looked up information on construction practices, economics and so on. I then looked at thematic issues – this is a story about community and connection. Once I realized this, I worked to develop and pull the themes forward. I always read my work aloud, so tend to edit for style (vocabulary, syntax, etc.) as I write; while I did polish, I didn’t feel a need to style-edit the entire novel.

Package the book in a way that will appeal to readers.

This means, for the love of all that is holy, please PLEASE hire a professional editor. Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, readers will notice if your formatting or your punctuation is off. You can’t cut corners if you want to be taken seriously. And this goes beyond the editing.

You also need to present an attractive exterior—I’m talking about your book cover. Saying this goes against that cliché moral code of not judging a book by its cover, but people can and will judge your beloved novel in this way. Don’t give anyone the chance to discount your book for such a superficial reason. Cover your bases.

What Terri did…

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes four more strategies, on Novel Publicity. Also see Part 2, on the same site.

DOJ, Authors Guild, BEA, and Hypocritical Authors Backing Up Words With Action

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This post, by Bob Mayer, originally appeared on Write It Forward on 6/7/12.

I recently read the email where the Authors Guild is asking members to send to the DOJ to stop the legal action regarding the Agency Model.  I found it quite strange.  It felt as if the Authors Guild was defending bookstores, publishers, agents and others in the mistaken belief that in doing so they were helping authors.  I can’t ever remember the Authors Guild taking such strong action defending authors against bookstores, publishers and agents.  Demanding higher eBook royalty rates.

And even in the letter, the Guild admits publishers made a “mistake” in allowing Amazon to dominate the eBook market.  I’m not sure it was a mistake as much as it was arrogance.  I keep going back to one fact:  Amazon didn’t exist except in Bezos’ mind in 1994.  How much has publishing changed since then?

And then there are the authors.  Scott Turow and Richard Russo and Malcolm Gladwell key among them.  I love Richard Russo’s books, but I find his business stance quite hypocritical.  Ditto with Turow and Gladwell.  If Amazon is the evil empire as they quite clearly say, then why are their books still for sale on Amazon?  Hey guys, if you hate it so much, immediately demand your publishers pull your books from Amazon.  NOW!  You don’t get to have your sales and sneer at them too.  I’m sick of the top 5% of authors who get coddled by publishers defend[ing] a business that treats its other 95% of authors as replaceable parts that they can easily toss on the garbage pile and replace.  You show me a traditional author defending legacy publishing whose contract doesn’t get renewed, and I’ll show you an author whose tune changes very fast.

Publishers, agents, editors, bookstores, here’s something you basically need to wrap your brain around:  the physical book you hold so dear is NOT the product you are selling.  The story that writers create is the product.  That story can be bought by the consumer in the physical form of a book, but it can also be bought digitally to be read or listened to.  And the latter is going to become dominant sooner, rather than later.

I spent a day this week at BEA.  I did my first BEA about 10 years ago.  This one wasn’t much different.  I was walking the aisles with my business partner at Cool Gus, Jen Talty, and I told her:  “Half these people are going to be looking for jobs in three years.”  I’m not being mean, I’m being realistic.  It’s pretty much business as usual, like the band playing on the Titanic and the passengers swapping deck chairs to listen to them.  The ship is still going down people.  I saw nary a computer screen at any of the booths displaying digital books.  I saw not a single publisher giving away digital arcs (and wouldn’t it be so much cheaper and environmentally friendly to do so?).

 

Read the rest of the post on Write It Forward.

Self-Publishing Mistakes, Screw-ups and Disasters

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Over time, from talking to a lot of authors, I came to realize something really important about publishing your own books: a lot of people are afraid.

No, wait, I mean it. There are several kinds of fear you run into over and over again when asking authors about their publishing plans, and whether they will take the leap into self-publishing.

It might be

  • fear of doing it wrong, or
  • fear of looking like an idiot, or
  • fear of the negative opinions of others, like book reviewers, or
  • fear of appearing illegitimate to other, traditionally-published authors, or
  • fear that money, time and effort will be wasted, or
  • fear of being ripped off, scammed, or otherwise taken advantage of.

You get the picture, and I could go on.

These are all legitimate concerns, and in our best moments we understand that these fears can actually help us to produce a better book. They make us vigilante about mistakes, and about doing our homework as best we can before we hand our precious manuscripts over to someone else we hardly know.

But sometimes these fears get the better of us, don’t they? Then, we get stuck.

We’re afraid to move forward, while all the time realizing we can’t possibly move backward. So there we stay, stuck.

This is particularly unfortunate when it comes to authors. Writers have something to contribute to our larger society, a piece, however small, to add to the cultural mosaic.

When you get stuck, you don’t contribute your piece.

Self-publishing isn’t brain surgery or rocket science. Any intelligent, attentive writer can do it, and they can do it well if they prepare themselves with education and training. With attention to good practices and an understanding of the dynamics of how books are produced, marketed and sold, a writer has nothing to fear from the process.

And it’s pretty forgiving. You can overcome almost any calamity, if you know how.

In the second video in the free series of training videos from the Self-Publishing Roadmap, I take these fears on head-first. I also run through some common mistakes that new self-publishers make, and how you can avoid them. It will be posted early this week.

Understanding our own hesitations, fears, worries and concerns is really important to making progress, getting those books out.

That’s why I think your mindset is one of the most important assets you can possess when you get involved in self-publishing.

When that second video is ready to go, I’ll let you know here on the blog. Or you can sign up for the Self-Publishing Roadmap Early Notification List to make sure you don’t miss it.

Do you have those fears? How do you deal with them, or have you found a way to keep going, despite the nagging worries?

 

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

How To Self-Publish An Ebook

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This post, by David Carnoy, originally appeared on CNET on 6/1/12.

A while back I wrote a column titled "Self-publishing: 25 things you need to know," which was mostly about how to create and sell your own paper book. After folks asked me to do something similar for e-books, I created this article, which has now been updated a few times.

I begin with one caveat: The whole e-book market is rapidly evolving, and a lot of self-publishing companies are offering e-book deals bundled into their print book publishing packages, which makes them harder to break out and evaluate. It’s all quite complicated, and in an effort to sort through the confusion, I’ve decided to offer a few basic tips and present what I think are some of the best options out there for creating an e-book quickly and easily. As things change — and they will — I’ll do my best to keep this column up to date.

 

Tips

:

 

  • It’s gotta be good: The same rule applies to self-published e-books as it does to print books. You have to start with a good product if you have any hope of selling it.

  • Create an arresting cover: When it comes to e-books, everything starts with the cover image. Creating an eye-catching, professional-looking cover that also looks good small (it has to stand out as a thumbnail image, since it’s being sold online) is easier said than done, but it can really make a difference in terms of sales. Ideally, you should hire a graphic designer who has some experience creating book covers. From a production standpoint, an e-book cover is easier to create than a cover for a print book (you just need a JPEG with decent resolution), but it shouldn’t look out of place among traditionally published e-books. I can’t tell you how many bad self-published covers are out there.

  • Price your e-book cheaply: You should sell your e-book for $5.99 or less. According to research done by Smashwords, an online e-book publishing and distribution platform for authors, publishers, agents, and readers, $2.99 to $5.99 yields the most profit for self-published authors, and although 99 cents will get you more downloads, it’s a poor price point for earning income (see Smashwords’ presentation on pricing here). On the other hand, Lulu, one of the bigger online self-publishing operations, says that authors who price their e-books in the 99-cent to $2.99 range "sell more units and earn more revenue than those in any other price range."

    It’s important to note that Amazon’s 70 percent royalty for authors only applies to Kindle books priced between $2.99 and $9.99; otherwise, the rate kicks down to 35 percent). As for going free, well, Smashword data indicates that free e-books get about 100 times more downloads than priced e-books.

 

Read the rest of the post on CNET.

What I Love About Being An Indie Author: I Can Shift Course On A Dime!

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Despite the gloom and doom of some of the blog pundits, and despite the relatively weak effect of my last KDP Select promotion at the end of March, which came in the midst of Amazon’s shifting algorithms, I decided to put the two books in my Victorian San Francisco mystery series, Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits, up for another round of free promotions this month. While my goals have remained the same, my strategy changed in response to the changing algorithms, and, as a result, my outcomes this time around improved.

Goals:

As usual, the primary goal for my promotions was to push both of my novels up on the historical mystery bestseller list and to get them as high as possible on the historical mystery popularity list. I have written numerous times about my conviction that keeping my books visible on these lists is a significant factor in my success. (Maids of Misfortune has been on these lists continuously since July of 2010, and Uneasy Spirits has been on them since it was published in October 2011.)

If my books fell off the top of these lists I would be dependent on driving potential readers to Amazon to look for the book. As a relatively unknown author with only a modest social media presence this is a difficult proposition. Instead, when my books are near the top of the historical mystery lists then people who are browsing these lists get the chance to judge my books by their covers, excerpts, product descriptions, “also bought” lists and reviews). Conversely, I have heard how dramatically sales decrease for books by other authors when these books fall off the bestseller lists.

As an aside, I don’t understand why some authors still argue that using free promotions devalues books. For example, the buyer can see a book’s fixed price (in my case my books are now $3.99––becaue like other indie authors I am feeling more confident about pushing my prices up from $2.99), so they know it is only temporarily free. I see the use of free promotions as the same as any promotion––for example, when traditional publishers pay (cut into their revenue) to get their print books onto the front tables of bookstores. I don’t recall anyone concluding “that they must not be very good books if their publishers don’t feel the books can sell themselves on their own!”

A secondary goal of doing another free promotion was to make the books visible on other categories besides historical mysteries, even if they didn’t stay there once the books went back to paid. The historical mystery category is a relatively small category (2,182 books), and I don’t usually sell enough books daily to show up in the top 100 of the larger categories like mystery–women sleuths (6,420 books), or historical romance (12,163 books), except during free promotions. In addition, I switched Uneasy Spirits from romantic suspense to historical fiction for its second category after the last promotion, and I hoped that this round of promotion would get it exposure for the first time in this fairly large category (22,000+ books). In short, this promotion would be another chance to expand my market beyond the historical mystery category.

Pre-promotion status: 

By the middle of May, before the promotions began, Maids of Misfortune had slipped into the 7,000′s overall and 40′s on the historical mystery bestseller list. Uneasy Spirits was in the 9,000s overall and 70s on the bestseller list. Uneasy Spirits was dangerously close to dropping off the top 100, and was averaging 11 book sales a day, versus 25 a day in April and 42 a day in March (all these figures are for the US Kindle store). I understand that for many authors, 11 books a day would be nothing to sneeze at, but, again, if I want to sustain visibility I didn’t want to let that daily average slip any lower.

Amazon changes:

In case you haven’t been keeping in touch, Amazon apparently started testing new algorithms for its popularity lists in the middle of March (see this post by David Gaughran.) While these algorithms are secret it was very clear that a free download was no longer counting as a full sale. The effect of these changes was a drastic decrease in the post promotion sales bump most authors had been experiencing and fair amount of consternation among indie authors.

I confess I was relatively sanguine about these changes. Even though my own promotion at the end of March was seriously disappointing in terms of over-all sales, it did prop up my books’ rankings for a brief time and then slowed their decline. In addition, what I was witnessing was a very similar pattern to my post holiday sales from the year before––when KDP Select didn’t exist. Last year and this year my sales in April were 27-28% less than they had been at their peak in the 3 months after Christmas. The difference was that due to KDP Select the peak this year was ever so much higher than the previous year.

While Amazon’s introduction of KDP Select and its free days had given many of us a great gift in increased sales this past holiday, it was creating very volatile popularity and bestseller lists, and traditionally published books were being pushed further and further down those lists. It made sense to me that, given the DofJ settlement, Amazon would have a vested interest in proving that it could still provide a competitive market for those traditional books. Frankly it never had seemed right to me that some of my favorite historical mystery authors were doing so much worse than I was––it wasn’t their fault their publishers kept making so many bad decisions (high prices, bad formatting, refusal to participate in the Kindle Lending Library, ect.)

Then in the beginning of May the popularity list settled down––for now, and there has been general agreement that for the last few weeks the popularity lists reflect a new ratio where free downloads are only counted for about 10% (some say 5%) of sales for the purposes of ranking (ie 1000 free downloads =100 sales). There is evidence that the list is also weighted more heavily by a book’s sales (maybe even its total revenue) over the previous 30 days––rather than in the immediate promotion days. As a result, the effect of the already diminished download count is further flattened by the previous 30 days of sales averages.  Edward Robertson has done a good job of summarizing the effects of these changes.

Changing Strategies:

When I read the posts about the changes in the algorithm I decided to deviate from my previous strategy for free promotions. I had been putting Maids of Misfortune up with Uneasy Spirits at the same time for one day, then continuing Uneasy for a second day. My logic had been that Maids was my most persistent seller (and usually got its largest downloads the first day) and that people would see the two up together and a percentage would decide to go ahead and get both of them, boosting Uneasy’s downloads. The one time I had put up Uneasy by itself it hadn’t done well (and this was before the algorithm changes), and I assumed that people might be giving it a pass because it was a sequel. So each time I have promoted I kept Uneasy up for a second day, thinking that it needed the extra day to achieve a significant number of downloads and that people might have started Maids of Misfortune and enjoyed it enough to go back and get Uneasy the second day.

But, with the new information about the greater importance of the sales of a book during the 30 days before the promotion, I decided that I needed to rethink this strategy.

I wasn’t too worried about Maids of Misfortune. It hadn’t slipped down the rankings as far as Uneasy Spirits, and, because it was uploaded in 2009 when you could choose 5 categories it has a better chance of attracting free downloads. It also had 98 reviews, and I knew that this would help. I did decide, however, to leave Maids free for two days this time since it was going to take more downloads to achieve any sort of bump in sales with the new ratio.

More importantly, I also decided to put up Maids of Misfortune for free a week before I put up Uneasy Spirits (something I had never tried before). My thought was that if the free promotion of Maids increased the sales of Uneasy at all (and the ripple effect of free on sequels has been well-documented), then this would mean that at least 7 days of that 30 day average would have the increased sales to figure into Uneasy’s rankings­­––improving the chances that it would experience some sort of sales bump after it came off its free promotion.

So far it appears that this new strategy is working.

Post Promotion:

Maids of Misfortune was free May 19-20, a Friday and Saturday. At the end of the two days the book had 3206 free downloads in the US Kindle store. If the rumors about the new algorithm were right, this would translate into approximately 320 sales over those two days. The previous 30 days my average sales for this book had been 20 books a day, so not surprisingly these 2 days, at about 150 a day, did push up the book’s popularity rankings, which in turn increased the books sales and ranking on the bestseller list. The fourth day after the promotion Maids of Misfortune was in the mid 3000′s on the paid list, versus the 7000s where it had been before, and #12 on the historical mystery bestseller list, versus in the 40s.

And, during the free promotion for Maids, the sales of Uneasy Spirits doubled. The bump didn’t last past the promotion, but it does mean that Uneasy was in a slightly better position going into its own promotion, and that it has a slightly better 30 day average to help it sustain the bump it got from that promotion.

Uneasy Spirits was free May 25-25 (Saturday and Sunday) and did much better than Maids in terms of giveaways. While Maids only made it to 109 in the free store the first day and lost ground the second, Uneasy made it to #33 in the Free list and remained in the top 100 for the second day. (I suspect the fact that this was the beginning of the memorial day weekend might have caused Uneasy’ greater success). This meant it had much more exposure and achieved over 3 times the number of free downloads as Maids of Misfortune did (10,142 in the US Kindle store).

This of course meant an even bigger bump upwards for Uneasy Spirits when it went back on the paid lists since these downloads would translate into 1000 sales for the two days.

In fact, doing the promotions sequentially has benefited the sales and rankings of both books because Maids of Misfortune averaged 98 book sales over the 2 days that Uneasy Spirits was free, nicely adding to its 30 day average and pushing it up the popularity rankings as a result.

To date, 5 days after Uneasy Spirits joined Maids of Misfortune back on the paid lists, my average sales for both books is double what they were before the promotions began. Maids of Misfortune is now ranked 2945 over all, and it is #11 in the historical mystery bestseller list and #10 in the historical mystery popularity list. Uneasy Spirits is currently ranked 5138 over all and #22 in the historical mystery bestseller list (although 3 days after the promotion it did hit the 3000′s and was #18 on the bestseller list), However, perhaps more importantly for its long run sales, Uneasy Spirits is currently #8 on the historical mystery popularity list.

If Edward Robertson is correct in his analysis of the new algorithm, as the older, poorer sales for both books at the start of May drop off, and the newer higher sales during and since the promotions begin to dominate the 30 day average, both books should continue to do well in the historical mystery popularity list, which in turn should continue to boost sales and help maintain these books’ position on the bestseller list. In short, they may not have risen as high in the rankings as after previous promotions, but neither will they drop as quickly. If this turns out to be true, Amazon will have achieved its greater stability in the lists, but KDP Select will still permit indie books to be competitive as well.

My final point is that I learned about the new 30-day aspect of the Amazon algorithms on May 7th when I read about Edward Robertson’s blog discussion of the changes that had been made, and I was able to immediately respond (in the words of the title––change course quickly.)  Four days after reading this blog post I had made my decision to give the free promotions another try, but this time sequentially, and I went onto my dashboard and scheduled both free promotions and began to make the arrangements to feature those free promotions on such sites as Kindle Nation Daily and Pixel of Ink. A week later the first of the promotions began.

I didn’t have to consult with anyone (like an agent or editor) or get the permission of a marketing committee to make this decision, the scheduling of the promotions took seconds, and the pre-promotional work I did took about an hour. As a result, I was able to move quickly to reverse the downward spiral of sales before my books dropped off the historical mystery lists and became invisible. I know that this is not how things would have happened in the world of traditional publishing where people keep using the analogy of how difficult it is to turn a big ship around to explain how slow the Big 6 have been to respond to the ebook revolution. And for that I once again give thanks for the power I have as an indie author to exert some control over the fate of my books, even when the winds of changing algorithms threaten to blow them off course.

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke’s blog.

A Dozen Do's and Don'ts on Prepping Your Novel for ePublishing

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This post, by K.A. Hitchens, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog on 5/29/12 and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

Well, as you all know, I originally promised to blog, two weeks ago, about the ISBN monopoly controlled by initially the ISBN.org and then, here in the US, Bowker.  However, that post was delayed by an unforeseen “cat-astophe,” when The Amazing Zep (“Zeppelin,” properly known as Suncoon Tucson), a 7-month old Maine Coon kitten, decided he could fly off the top of our 7’ cat condo.  Obviously, I’ve allowed him to watch entirely too many Marvel Comics movies. 

He leapt from the top of the Condo, aiming at a nearby artwork niche, and the results were, shall we say, not good; he nearly came to be known as Hindenburg.  Half a house-payment and 5 exhausting days later of caring for him 24/7, he’s fine, the little monster, but I apologize for missing the blog.  His nefarious face is shown here, so all will know the miscreant.  (And, yes, because most people look at kitten pics and go, “awwwwwwwwwwwwww…;” I’m shamelessly exploiting your weakness for kittens.)

But yesterday, Editor Extraordinaire Jodie Renner dropped me a line, and asked me if I happened to have a list, or a link to a list, of tips for preparing your Word document for e-publishing, whether you’re going to use an eBookformatting company like mine, or DIY.  She suggested it would make a good blog post—and I’d do anything to oblige her.  So today’s topic is What NOT to do in your Word document, either to keep costs down, or to make it easier for yourself/your formatter, to create your book in a gorgeous style.

 

1.  Everybody already knows #1; use Word’s built-in styles whenever possible.  Use them to automatically indent your paragraphs; don’t use the tab key or the space-bar (5 times or however many).  Now, an experienced formatting won’t have difficulty with this.  But if you’re using someone new, or doing it yourself, this will cause you problems.  Moreover, if you use Word’s built-in styles for all your regular narrative paragraphs, you shan’t have a problem, when you upload to the  KDP, with inconsistent paragraph styling—which you will have if you “style” every paragraph differently, not deliberately, but through misadventure, by not knowing and understanding Word’s styles. 

If you don’t have a basic understanding of how these work (and how to see how they are working), take a few minutes and watch this video (not from my company, but we think it’s nice and clear enough that we host it in our Knowledgebase) on our Knowledgebase (you can enlarge it to full-screen for easy of viewing): http://booknookbiz.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/182863-video-on-word-styles . Our Tutorials section also has a video on the TOC and how to use headings (just click the “Tutorials and Videos” breadcrumb to take you to that section, or click “Home” above the article header to rummage around to your heart’s content.

 

2.  Speaking of…Header styles.  Very few people seem to know about or use what used to be called the “Document Map” in word.  If you use “Header Styles” to create your chapter headers, you’ll be able to easily navigate through your document by simply enabling the “Navigation Pane” on the left-hand side  (In Word 2007-2010, “View—> Click “Navigation Pane”).  If you’ve used header styles for every chapter head—lo!  Right there in the Navigation Pane, you’ll be able to see (and jump to instantly) the beginning of every single chapter.  An even bigger “freebie” side effect of doing this—you can auto-generate your Table of Contents. 

This is incredibly handy for those of you determined to “DIY.”  For the video on how to do this, please see our second Knowledgebase video: http://booknookbiz.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/182864-video-on-headings-and-toc-in-word . If you don’t like the LOOK of the header styles that are available to you, you can change that with a simple click—but that’s generally covered in the first video, so by the time you get to the second video, you should already know how to fix that.  This can also save you some ducats at the formatters, depending upon how their pricing lists are structured.

 

3.  Lists.  Ironically, for either price-savings or saving yourself DIY brain-damage, don’t use numbered or bulleted lists, IF they are indented.  If you must have a bulleted or numbered list (yes—like the one I’m using here, hence the irony), and you’re going to publish to Amazon, it’s a giant pain.  If you can live with the bulleted or numbered list at the left-margin, it will work fine.  However, if you are attempting to indent them, what will happen is that the wrap-indents will NOT align perfectly. This is due to the ability of the Kindle e-reader (of all kinds, excluding the Fire, which can do this quite nicely) to rescale fonts. 

The “wrap,” inside the secret-sauce code of a kindle book, is set in (either) a percentage (of the available screensize) or “ems” which are relative to the font, unlike text measurements—which are absolute.  What this means is that your text wrap will, on an indented, bulleted or numbered item, look perfect at one font size—but  will creep, ever so slightly, left-or right, as the font-size changes, relative to the selected font-size, if that makes any sense.  To wit:  if you increase the fontsize, you increase the amount of the second-line “indent” in the wrap.  However, the first line remains as it was set up (don’t ask), so your second line creeps left or right.  If this doesn’t faze you, then rock on.  If you have bulleted lists, and want them to align as perfectly as possible—well, you know where to find us.  ;-).  Making them perfect can’t be done in Word.

 

4. Return-itis.  This one may seem obvious, but, I kid thee not, we get at least one manuscript a week in that is actually typed with a “return” keyed at the end of each LINE.  Not paragraph, but LINE.  Seriously; we have authors who don’t understand that Word wraps automatically, nor how to set line-spacing, so in order to make their manuscript “submission-ready,” they type to the right margin, and hit “enter” twice.  Please:  for your sanity and mine, don’t do that.

 

5. Don’t create a dedicated STYLE to italicize or bold your text.  Simply highlight the text you want to italicize, and use the “I” button at the top of the ribbon/menu.  Same for Bold.  If you create styles, but also use the buttons, you can create inconsistencies in your work, and if you’re not a Styles-Genius, it can get confusing.

 

6. Fonts!  If you ever read what I write here, you know that you have to license any copyrighted fonts you use.  That’s the first thing; the second thing, however, is equally important.  If you use fonts in your book, to set apart various types of content—for example, the interior FP thoughts of your killer—be aware of the following:  the Kindle e-ink devices, as well as the majority of all e-ink devices, like the Nook e-ink readers and the Kobos—do not support more than a single font.  In the Kindle legacy devices—still the most widely-used of all reading devices, of any brand—they have a single font, called “Caecilia,” which is a Times New Roman clone. 

Therefore, although you can license and embed fonts that will work spiffily in ePUB readers and in the Kindle Fire, be aware that firstly, that second font, despite your wishes, won’t show up on the Kindle legacy devices and second, if you’re trying to do this from Word on a DIY basis, it won’t work.  Despite your best efforts, as far as I know, if you endeavor to upload a Word file with multiple fonts in it, you will not obtain the desired result; font embedding has to be done from within HTML or XHTML (HTML you used to be married to) to work correctly.  On a Kindle you can use a second font—a Courier monospaced font—if absolutely necessary, but it doesn’t reflow like the TNR font, and it’s not very attractive.  You should, if you are going to DIY, consider using a fleuron or some other graphic device, to set that “other font” or inner thoughts, or whatever it is, apart from the rest of your regular narrative flow.

 

7. Poetry, song lyrics, and other miscellaneous material that is indented and somewhat “columnar.”  For ease of formatting, both for yourself and any formatting company, don’t use “enter” at the end of the line; use a line break, which is SHIFT+ENTER, as opposed to the usual “enter.”  Don’t use this coding pair to create a new paragraph, but if you intend to display poetry or song lyrics, this is the combo to use at the end of each “line.”  At the end of each STANZA, however, you would use the usual “enter” key, twice, as you would for a scene break.  (Yes—there are better ways to do this, using Word’s built-in Styles, but this will work “okay” for both DIY and for any formatter worth his/her salt.)

 

8. Spelling.  Yes, I know—how obvious is this? But you would be shocked at the huge number of manuscripts we get in here that are chock-full of spelling mistakes.  I think that authors invent character names and places, which Word, naturally highlights with the ubiquitous red line; and they get so accustomed to seeing that, they ignore the REAL errors.  If you have invented names, places, etc., in your ms, tell your spellcheck to “Ignore” those, so that you stop being “spellcheck blind.”  Correcting spelling errors that your readers find, post-production, is embarrassing for you; and if you’ve used a formatter, it’s expensive, as editing in HTML isn’t like editing in Word.

 

9. Hyphenation and Track Changes:  (A Twofer!). First, if you’ve used hyphenation throughout the document, for line endings (optional hyphens), you should do a search and replace, and remove all optional hyphens.  If you don’t, they can show up as regular, non-optional hyphens in the finished eBook product, which you obviously don’t want.  Use Find > Advanced Find > More > Special > Optional Hyphen, and replace with nothing.  As far as Track Changes goes, ensure you’ve “accepted all changes” in your document.  If you do not, the edits that are now invisible to your eyes—all your additions, deletions, etc.– will show up in your ebook, just as if they were typed in the text.  I can’t emphasize enough the importance of these two “pre-flight” items.   

 

10.  Explicitly marking your scene breaks.  If you are going to use a formatting service, ensure that you explicitly mark your scene breaks.  If you haven’t been a religiously neat typist, and occasionally have extra “enters” between paragraphs, a formatter can’t infer when you want a scene break used (a flush left paragraph with vertical whitespace above it) and when you do not.  If, like some authors, you have multiple types of scenebreaks—one that uses a flush-left, and one that doesn’t, due to whether or not it’s simply a passage of time, or a POV shift—then be sure you mark them differently and explicitly. 

EBook formatters don’t read your book and can’t read your mind, so be sure to tell them what you want.  At Booknook, we have our clients use the old convention of *** to indicate any scene break where they desire the visual cue of a flush-left paragraph with vertical whitespace above.  Alternatively, of course, you can use a graphical fleuron—but be aware that using fleurons requires extra coding for use in Kindle, as the e-ink devices will try to grossly enlarge them (that’s the default Kindle behavior.)  If you use a formatter, the cost will be higher; if you try to do it yourself from Word, the results, on the actual e-ink Kindles, may not be what you expect.

 

11.  Broken Paragraphs:  If you’ve used any form of conversion software, (please see Tip #12, below), or perhaps typed the file on different computers, over a long stretch of time, make sure you diligently scan your document for broken pararagraphs.  If you’ve converted it from any other format, or had it scanned & OCR’d, the incidence of broken paragraphs will be quite high.  To find broken paragraphs, turn on your Pilcrow icon (if you don’t know what this is, please see my blogpost here called “Pilcrow A Go Go,” from last October), and scan the right-hand-margin. 

If you see a Pilcrow mark hanging out in the right-hand margin, in the middle of what should be a paragraph, that’s a broken paragraph, and that’s the way it will convert in an eBook—as two separate paragraphs, broken right where the Pilcrow is sitting.  If you see one sitting there, highlight it and delete it, and fix any formatting around it (usually, a space is needed before the ensuing word).  For additional information on the “end of line” pilcrow problem, please see my post on “Pilcrow No-No’s, Part II,” from last November, which addresses this exact problem.

 

12.  Don’t Convert!  Okay.  Here’s a tricky one.  This will sound contrary to everything you’ve read, on the KDP forums, etc.:  but don’t convert from Mystery Format A into Word.  If you have a PDF of the interior of your print book, just find a competent eBook Formatting company and hand it to them.  If you have a Wordstar File from the dawn of time, hand THAT to them.  WordPerfect?  Pretty much the same (although later Wordperfect files convert very nicely, but some don’t, and you end up with a manuscript full of “@” signs where you should see left-hand-quotes, and a host of other glitches). 

We get roughly 2-4 manuscripts a week in from prospective clients that know that we have a higher charge for PDF than for Word (as do all formatters that are serious), and they’re all the result of either using Calibre, or some online “You can convert your PDF file to Word, Easy/Free/Cheap!” website.  Here’s the actual truth:  It does NOT work, not at all.  What comes out looks, on the surface, like a pretty good Word file; but lurking beneath what your eyes can see is a disaster waiting for a place to happen. 

Believe it or not, it’s cheaper, in the long run, if you simply hand a PDF file to a converter, who, quite frankly, will scan it, OCR it, and proof it, just to get the same starting point as  a Word file—because the results from that are 100x better than what you’d get by using Adobe Acrobat X Pro and attempting to export the file as a Word file.  If you have an endless amount of time, and knowledge of HTML, you can use the “auto-convert” method; and spend days or weeks cleaning up the ensuing HTML.  But if you hand a file like that to a converter, like us, they’ll charge you for all those man-hours.  Honestly, the scan option is probably cheaper.

 

And there you go.  An even dozen items for you to use in creating and “pre-flight checking” your book for e-formatting.  We have other frequently asked questions, along with the two videos I already pointed you to, in our Knowledgebase, which you may find by clicking here.  Not many are actually about formatting, but we do have some nice links about marketing, Retailers, and a few hints and tips on Social Media.

(And yes, for those of you who’ve emailed, tweeted, and asked:  yes, it’s true.  We have Jackie Collins in the house; you should expect to see “Chances,” her first Lucky Santangelo novel, in eBookstores around the end of the first week of June!)

– Hitch

 

K. A. Hitchens is the owner of Booknook.biz, an eBook formatting and production company, specializing in producing affordable and professional conversions for every author–from first-timers to NY Times Bestsellers.  You can follow us at Twitter (@BooknookBiz), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Booknookbiz ), Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/booknookbiz/) or  LinkedIn (just search for us).

 

 

Guest Posts as a Platform Tool

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This post, by Jean Oram, originally appeared on her site on 5/28/12.

Lately I’ve been working on using guest posts on other blogs to increase my platform and help get my name out there. (Or as my daughter calls it, “Getting ‘famous.’” And, yes, she uses finger quotes around famous.)

As a byproduct, I always hope to find new followers and blog readers as well, because my ultimate goal is to show publishers that I am here for the long haul and won’t have qualms about getting out there and showing off my book should the opportunity arise.

While some people have claimed to get an increase of thousands of percentage points for their guest posts, I’d have to say they’re working some great magic, because for me, it just hasn’t happened. However, I have learned a few things in terms of using guest posts to help build your platform, get your name out there, as well as how to convert some of those readers into followers. It’s a lot of work and takes a bit of time, but I think it is worth it.

So far, with the exception of being a guest on a friend’s writing blog, I’ve done two larger guest posts. Here’s what I have found from those larger posts:

(On smaller guest posts, not much seems to happen in terms of new followers on Twitter or blog readers.)

Tips on How to Turn Guest Posts into Followers and Traffic:

Name Recognition: You have to keep hitting the same audience over and over again to get that name recognition. Guest posts aren’t a one night stand that suddenly leaves you with children. Nope. You have to keep trying! So, guest post on the same blog twice or spread yourself around to their competitors–follow those readers if they are the ones you want.

Go Big: Guest post on bigger and bigger blogs. Cut your teeth on smaller ones that are hungry for content and build your way up. The bigger the blogs the bigger the audience and the greater the chance that you will reach someone who feels compelled to follow you.

Bio: Make sure you get a bio at the bottom of your post. Best way to ensure they include your brand’s interest and URL (you want to convert those readers into followers of YOU!)?–send it along with your guest post and tell them that this is the bio for the bottom of your post. Bonus marks if you add a picture.

 

Read the rest of the post on Jean Oram’s site.

Ten Home Truths About Starting In Self-publishing

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This post, by Patty Jansen, originally appeared on her Must Use Bigger Elephants blog on 1/19/12.

This month marks my one-year anniversary at Smashwords. I started with His Name In Lights, which had been published previously, and now have sixteen items up, ranging from hard SF to non-fiction to fantasy. Short stories, novellas and novels.

Here are a few things I’ve learned in the process shared here for the beginning self-publishing writer.

1. You know Amanda Hocking, and Joe Konrath and them?
Yeah, you are going to forget their names and the fact that they’ve had phenomenal successes right now. They exist in a different universe where possibilities and probabilities have been interchanged and where luck smiles down on everyone. That is the universe you’ll find if you take a right turn at the sign that says winners only. But the way is almost always blocked.

2. Don’t expect anything
That way, you’ll be pleased with modest successes, because modest, they will be. Most of the successful self-publishers have a few things in common: they have already sold well in paper or, they have a large stable of available novels, preferably both. They are also likely to have a fair bit of experience in the literary world. And luck. See point 1.

3. First, make sure you can write
This issue should be an open door, but you only need to visit the Kindleboards briefly to see that some authors rely on their Amazon reviews to tell them what’s wrong with the book. For crying out loud, don’t slap your first finished novel on there without having an inkling of whether it’s actually any good style and technique wise. Join a workshop, a critique group or similar. Do they tell it it’s all fine and dandy? Go and find someone who tells you your writing sucks. Listen to this person’s arguments. Tighten your prose. Fix meandering plots. Learn to write. Sell a few short stories first. I made the pact with myself that I wouldn’t self-publish until I had met the criteria to join SFWA as full member. Make sure you can write. I cannot say this clearly enough.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 7 more tips, on Must Use Bigger Elephants.