Business End

Articles about the business aspects of publishing and self-publishing.

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.

Selling Books With Social Networking: #1, Facebook

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This post, by Michael N. Marcus, originally appeared on Book Making on 5/22/12.

If Facebook was a country instead of a social network, it would be one of the most populous countries on earth. Its population is approaching one billion “members”—including more than 40% of Americans.

With such widespread use and familiarity, it should not be necessary to devote much space to Facebook. But if your main activities on FB have been wishing people “happy birthday,” showing silly photos, complaining about politicians and announcing what you had for lunch, you’re missing a lot. It’s time to think of FB as a venue for selling books by interacting with friends, readers and potential readers.

An FB page can be a very powerful sales tool, and it has several advantages over a website:

·     It’s free.

·     You don’t need any special skills or any software (other than a web browser) to set up a Facebook page.

·     You can modify your page whenever you want, as often as you want, from any computer or computer-like device with Internet access.

·     Many people expect authors to be on Facebook.

If you already have a personal FB “page,” it can also be your author page. If you prefer, you can have multiple pages for you as a person, as an author and as a publisher. You can even have a page for a series of books. or for one book.

Many FB users have hundreds or even thousands of FB “friends” and “fans.” Some are people known since kindergarten, others are neighbors or business associates, and still others are friends of friends, or people met online who share common interests, or even unknown admirers. It should not be difficult to convert some friends into readers.

FB is a great place to tell the word about you and your books. If people “like” your page, or “like” or “share” your postings or comments, you may get additional fans and some of them may buy books. Use FB to let people know what you are working on, when future books will be available, where you will be making public appearances, etc.

The area at the top of your page is officially called the “timeline cover” and can be simple or elaborate. You can build it from scratch with any graphics program, or even with Microsoft Word. There are also templates online. Approximate dimensions for the cover are 850 by 315 pixels.

(above) Bestselling legal-thriller author John Grisham uses his FB page to announce new books and to interact with fans (but someone at publisher Doubleday apparently does most of the FB posting for him). His page is business-only. You won’t find what TV shows he likes or his email address.

(above) Sue Dent’s FB page identifies her as “Author Sue Dent” and it promotes her latest werewolf book. The page tells about Sue’s writing awards, has links to her websites and blogs, and includes personal information such as her birthday, family members, high school and email address.

 

Read the rest of the post on Book Making, and also see parts two, three and four in the series on Selling Books With Social Networking. The articles are all based on Michael N. Marcus’ book, 499 Essential Publishing Tips for a Penny Apiece.

Pixar Story Rules (one version)

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This post, by David A. Price, originally appeared on his The Pixar Touch blog on 5/15/11.

Pixar story artist Emma Coats has tweeted a series of “story basics” over the past month and a half — guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories:

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 15 more story tips, on The Pixar Touch.

7 Lessons to Improve Your Author Website (or, Learn from My FAIL!)

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This post, by Toni, originally appeared on Duolit on 5/23/12.

At the tender age of 14, I submitted my first website for a design review.

My masterpiece came together after only a few days spent tooling around in Geocities. I thought it was awesome – it featured a sharp black background, electric green content table, rockin’ aLtErNaTe capitalization, and sweet graphics made in Paint Shop Pro. I even had a page where you could adopt a sunflower seed (the terrifying screenshot you see on the right).

The result? A total disaster.

 

I’ll give the reviewer a bit of credit — she could tell that I was young and doing my best, but that made her review no less scathing!

According to her, my website was cluttered, hard to read and had little to interest any visitor. In fact, she said most would click away with a major headache!

I was crushed.

From that web design kick-in-the-face, however, I learned valuable lessons about what works in web design — lessons that are still true today.

 

The bottom line: my teen self produced a website that lacked purpose, effective design and relevant content. Visitors ran away screaming.

As a 14-year-old design n00b, fleeing visitors meant nothing but a learning experience. If *your* visitors skedaddle, however, readers and book sales vanish with them. And that? Sucks for both of you.

Don’t blame yourself for your website’s ills! You may not be a web geek, but you can fix each of the problems I’m about to share. Correct them today, and your visitors’ headaches will be a thing of the past!

 

1. Geocities.com/SouthBeach/Sandbar/3445 is NOT professional.

If you kicked it with me during the Geocities era, the URL above will look familiar. While those long addresses are (thankfully) a thing of the past, even a subdomain (such as yourname.wordpress.com) dings you on the credibility-meter.

The fix is cheap and easy: register yourauthornamehere.com and use it to your advantage!

2. Readers want to know *you* as well as your work.

 

Read the rest of the post on Duolit.

Why Isn't My Book Selling?

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This post, by Cherie Burbach, originally appeared on Working Writers on 5/16/12.

It’s a question I get asked a lot: “Why isn’t my book selling?” This question isn’t reserved for the author who is clueless about marketing. I’ve been asked this by savvy authors, even business people who can’t seem to figure out the system for selling.

Sometimes the reasons why a book isn’t selling are easy: the cover is poor, the content is not edited or the topic is unappealing. But in most cases that I’ve seen, you need to dig deeper. So, overlooking the obvious, let’s go a step further because the mysteries of selling might be a lot easier to fix than you think.

1. Start Early: In many cases starting early means earlier than you think. Often, I see authors beginning their campaigns a month prior to book launch. If you do that, keep in mind that your results won’t show up for months (and months), often it takes up to six months to see anything you seed start to grow. That’s partially why marketing people will encourage you to start early because it can take so long to see results.

2. Limited availability: Having a book that can only be purchased off of your website isn’t a great way to promote a title. You want to make sure that the book is where your consumer is: on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and even if you aren’t stocked on a bookstore shelf, you want to be sure that someone can order it. Limit your book availability and you limit your success. If you don’t give your consumer enough places to get your book, they will probably get someone else’s title instead. Don’t let your marketing serve the competition better than it serves you.

3. The rule of seven: You need to be everywhere. A lot. But what does that mean, exactly? It means that your reader (or potential reader) needs to see your book in a lot of different places. Have you asked yourself how many ways you are marketing the book? Are you active in any social media? Do you participate in blogs? Are you getting reviews? Think of the seven ways or access points that you need for your book to gain traction with the audience. Seven seems to be the magic number for many marketing people so go with that, use it as a goal. Your book should have access points in seven different areas. With so much out there begging for your readers’ attention you want to be sure that your book is getting an equal amount of attention.

 

Read the rest of the post on Working Writers.

Dear Indie Booksellers: Please Take Your Eyes Off Your Classmate's Paper And Focus On Your Own Work

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Dear Indie Booksellers:

Whether your operation is brick and mortar, strictly online, or a combo plate of both, you have an important role to fill in the communities you serve. It makes me sad to see shop after shop shuttered, and I miss the ones I used to frequent. So please, know that as both an author and a consumer, I want you to not only survive, but to thrive.

But many of you, those whose daily operational thoughts and actions are totally dominated by fear of being driven out of business by Amazon and the few big chains that are still in operation, need some tough love. As you read this, bear that thought in mind: I’m tough because I love.

Also bear in mind, as you feel the blood rushing to your face and your jaw clenching in anger while you read, there are some distinct advantages to being a small, indie outfit (as you probably know better than I do), and there are indie booksellers that are doing just fine without so much as a glance in Amazon’s direction; I will get to that by the end of this post, too. Okay, deep breath; here goes.

Please stop obsessing about, and badmouthing, Amazon and the chains. It’s no more attractive to retail customers than attack ads are to voters.

Please stop badmouthing consumers who shop at Amazon and the chains. Most consumers will buy some things from Amazon and the chains, and other things from smaller outfits. There’s no better way to ensure they’ll start buying everything from Amazon and the chains than to insult them.

Please stop trying to base your marketing and community outreach plans on guilting the public into believing their Amazon and chain purchases are leading to the destruction of reading culture as we know it. Nobody wants to be bullied or guilted into a purchase, consumers know they have a right to make the best choice for themselves based on their specific priorities, and they hold that right pretty dear.

Know that you cannot possibly compete with Amazon or the chains on price; you will almost never win with consumers for whom price is the ultimate, or only factor in a buying decision. But also know: this is not a bad thing. Those consumers were never going to be good customers for you anyway.

Know that if your bookshop is generalist, carrying a smattering of current release books in all the most popular genres and a bit of merch on the side, with few exceptions (e.g. captive audience shops like those in airports), you cannot possibly compete with Amazon or the chains on selection. They have massive, distributed networks of gargantuan warehouses stacked to the rafters with nothing but variety.

Please do not argue that you can order any of the same books one can find on Amazon or through the big chains, because we live in an age of pathological convenience and instant gratification. Most consumers who have already made the trek to the store are annoyed if they must leave empty-handed. Now granted, it’s not like in pioneer days when Pa would take the wagon into town for supplies on a weeklong trip that could very well end in death on the way there or back. But consumer expectations and demands have changed.

A consumer who can click his mouse twice to order the same item, at a lower price, and often with no shipping expense and two day delivery, isn’t often inclined to wait around in your shop for a few extra minutes while you fill out an order form, then wait a few extra days for your supplier to get the item into the mail and a few more days on top of that for book-rate delivery. Faced with the same choice a few times in a row, it won’t be long before the customer stops bothering to come into your shop at all.

But also know: this too, is not necessarily bad for you. Consumers for whom convenience is the thing were never going to be good customers for you anyway, you’re better off without them.

In the great retail deli counter of booksellers, you’re prosciutto; please stop trying to be bologna.

Look around: bologna’s cheap and plentiful, you can even buy it at 7-11 and some gas stations. But people who have a taste for prosciutto know it costs more than bologna and isn’t as easy to find. Prosciutto lovers are also generally willing to pay a premium for the best quality, and will typically feel the same way about buying other, related items, like cheese and wine. Figuratively speaking, prosciutto lovers are the customers you want, and they want you right back. Does the high-end deli or wine shop try to compete directly with 7-11? Of course not. The high-end place doesn’t even deign to acknowledge the existence of 7-11, because it doesn’t consider itself to be in direct competition with 7-11. Neither should you consider yourselves to be in direct competition with Amazon or the chains.

Do, and offer, what the 400-pound gorillas can’t: passion and specialized knowledge not only of the products you carry, but the communities you serve. I’ve noticed that most of the successful, healthy indie retailers in any community I’ve ever called home have one thing in common: they specialize, and whatever it is they specialize in, everyone from the store owner right down to the stock boy is an absolute geek about it.

While all of the stores I’m about to talk about are brick-and-mortar with an adjunct website, strictly online indie booksellers can mimic many of their winning strategies. Where a brick and mortar store has an author reading, you can have an author chat or post an interview. Where the brick and mortar store has an in-store book club meeting every week, you can have an online book club. Where the brick and mortar store staff can wax eloquent on areas of expertise to customers in the store, you can post your specialized knowledge and analysis online, in a blog.

Dark Delicacies, a Burbank bookshop, specializes in all things gothic, horror and supernatural. It’s the go-to shop for books, knick-knacks, toys, author readings, and even some clothing and accessory items that fit that description. If you’re looking for a onesie with a zombie on it, this is the place to go. It’s a fun shop to visit, and filled with so many enticing items that it’s near impossible for fans of this type of fare to walk out without buying something. And if you want to know anything about horror/goth books, horror/goth movies, goth art, goth style, dark music or the like, the staff’s near-encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm can’t be beat. Sure, you can find many of the same items on Amazon at a lower price, but nobody goes to Dark Delicacies for the prices. Burbank is an entertainment biz mecca and it borders on the North Hollywood Art community, so Dark Delicacies is smack in the middle of its target demographic: unconventional people with unconventional tastes. No Amazon or monster chain store can cater so effectively to a specific market sector.

Hennessy & Ingalls Art & Architecture Bookstore in Santa Monica does for art and architecture books and related merch what Dark Delicacies does for goth and horror. The thing about art and architecture books is, they’re generally in a larger format and more expensive than other types of books, will often have special features that don’t come across in a screenshot, and it’s hard to make a purchase decision without actually being able to look at them in person first. Santa Monica is an upscale community that’s home to a lot of entertainment types (actors, directors, etc.), so while H & I certainly doesn’t want to gouge its customers, it doesn’t have to worry much about setting price points high enough to earn a decent profit on each sale. It’s become a real destination for students and lovers of art and architecture, well worth the drive for those not in the immediate area, and it serves its clientele very well.

Mrs. Nelson’s Toy and Book Shop, located not far from my own neck of the woods, caters to schools, parents, and teachers in particular. Its selection of toys is easily dwarfed by a Toys R Us, but every toy in Mrs. Nelson’s is educational, and many of them are hand-crafted imports and award winners. Its selection of childrens’ and young adult books is likewise outgunned by Amazon and online chain booksellers, but that doesn’t matter. Just like at H&I, many of the books at Mrs. Nelson’s are large format picture books, popup books, and books that incorporate some kind of craft or game activity; these are all types of books you generally want to check out in person before making a purchase decision. The young adult selection at Mrs. Nelson’s is always better than that at any local brick-and-mortar chain store, as is Mrs. Nelson’s selection of books for teachers.

But here again, it’s the friendly, enthusiastic staff that puts Mrs. Nelson’s head and shoulders above any mere chain store or Amazon. If your kid has to do a book report on a biography, just tell the friendly staffer at Mrs. Nelson’s what grade your child is in, what her reading level is, and what her interests are, and you’ll be directed to a variety of choices that not only meet the requirements of the assignment, but any of which your child will actually enjoy reading. Any time an entire grade level at a local school is going to be reading some classic or other, Mrs. Nelson’s hears about it well in advance from its teacher and school administrator connections and will have plenty of copies on hand when they’re needed.

Mrs. Nelson’s has a calendar jam-packed with events and talks for kids, parents and teachers, some free and some fee-based (like the craft workshops), but probably the best events of all are the live readings from authors of beloved childrens’ books. The authors are always gracious enough to stick around afterward, signing books and meeting the kids who so love their work, and in cases where the author is also an illustrator, you can often find signed prints of illustrations from their books available for sale at these events. I’ve picked up a signed print from David Shannon’s wonderful "No, David!" at a reading there.

Nothing at Mrs. Nelson’s is cheap, either in terms of construction or pricetag. But I and plenty of other locals are happy to pay a little more for the higher quality and true community involvement on offer there.

So you see, it can be done, and it can be done well. I’m not saying it’s a simple thing to switch from a generalist store to a specialty shop, but I guess I am saying your survival may well depend on it. I want you to succeed, truly. I want a community dotted with Mrs. Nelson’s, Dark Delicacies and Hennessey & Ingalls, and I think plenty of other people do, too.

 

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

Unconscionability

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This post, by JA Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on 5/23/12.

Unconscionability (also known as unconscientious dealings) is a term used in contract law to describe a defense against the enforcement of a contract based on the presence of terms that are excessively unfair to one party. Typically, such a contract is held to be unenforceable because the consideration offered is lacking or is so obviously inadequate that to enforce the contract would be unfair to the party seeking to escape the contract.

If you read this blog, you know where I’m going with this. I’m going to point out some of the more one-sided, onerous terms in a standard publishing contract. And make no mistake–these are practically universal, and for the most part, non-negotiable.

For decades, the only way to get widespread distribution was to sign with a publisher. Writers had no choice. You either accepted the terms, or your book stayed in a file cabinet.

Now, I’m not a lawyer, and nothing in this blog post can or should be taken as legal advice. I’m just someone who has signed publishing contracts and gotten taken advantage of. If any of my interpretations are wrong, I welcome thoughts from those who know better.

Let’s start with one of the most obvious, and despicable, clauses, the Grant of Rights.

Author grants and assigns to Publisher the sole and exclusive rights to the Material throughout the Territory during the entire term of the copyright and any renewals and extensions thereof.

In other words, this contract is for the life of the author, plus 70 years after her death, plus renewals and extensions.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of any contract that extends beyond the life of the person who signed it. I would guess that my heirs would be bound to this contract, and potentially their heirs as well.

Does that seem a bit one-sided? Perhaps a smidgen unfair to the author?

"Territory" refers to where in the world the publisher is allowed to exploit these rights. In several of my contracts, Territory encompasses the entire world.

I don’t consider that unfair, especially if a publisher pays extra for these territories. But none of my contracts have clauses that say I get those rights back if the publisher doesn’t exploit them after a certain length of time.

So the publisher can have French or Japanese or Urdu rights for my lifetime plus 70 years, and might never do anything with them. But I can’t do anything with them, either.

Subsidiary rights follow a similar pattern. According to this contract I’m citing, the Publisher has the exclusive rights to:

    * Periodical or newspaper before and following publication
    * Publication of condensations, abridgments, and in anthologies
    * Book club publication
    * Direct sale and mail order
    * Braille

How many of these rights have they exploited?

    * ZERO

Why does this seem to me like a selfish child who has too many toys, but refuses to let you play with any of them, even though he won’t ever use them himself?

Joint accounting, or basketing, is another clause many authors (me included) got saddled with.

 

Read the rest of the post on A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.

Everybody in Hollywood Needs an eBook Strategy

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This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on The Shatzkin Files blog on 5/14/12.

As a result of spending my college days at UCLA, I had a handful of contacts in the Hollywood community when I came back East to live in 1969. When I started becoming familiar with New York publishing in the 1970s, I found myself, on occasion, shopping movie or TV tie-in projects. Armed with a script and a release plan, one could make the rounds of editors at the mass-market houses that had been assigned specific responsibility for this kind of acquisition.

At the time I was doing this kind of thing 30 or 35 years ago and more, the book business was growing wary of tie-ins to TV movies. They didn’t have the same promotional life as theatrical releases, even in those days when about one-third of the country was watching any network broadcast. Films that ran in movie theaters were definitely preferred as desirable book properties.

In the decades since then, the link between Hollywood and New York publishing has not exactly been severed, but it certainly hasn’t strengthened. One agent I spoke to told me that interest from Hollywood can definitely help raise the profile of a book project being peddled in New York, but the same agent agreed that the tie-in sale, where a script is novelized to just take advantage of the exposure the title and story will get through the movie, is all but dead.

Another agent, one with strong Hollywood connections through his office, had a slightly different point of view. He says it is still “humbling” to see how much being tied to a movie or TV show (“or even radio”) can “move the needle” on a book sale.

To the extent that the agent who believes in the power of Hollywood exposure to move books is right, the relative reduction in interest by New York publishers only increases the opportunity for Hollywood entities who exploit publishing through ebooks (and judicious and selective use of print) on their own.

(I recall two specific deals from my past relevant to this post. In around 1977 or 1978 I sold the book tie-in rights to a TV movie called “Cotton Candy”, which was produced by Ron Howard. In 1985, I sold the rights to two books to tie into the third “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie: one was a novelization of the first three films and the other a heavily-illustrated “making of…” book. I’d say the “Cotton Candy” deal today couldn’t possibly happen and “Nightmare”, which went to a major publisher, would be a real long shot.)

New York’s interest in Hollywood-originated content was, of course, centered on big properties. Hollywood’s enthusiasm about getting a book deal was often not very great. It didn’t add a ton of revenue (big publishing money for a big movie was small money to the movie producer) and the “promotion” done by publishers was trivial compared to what the movie studios did for the film.

In fact, there were often rights issues that got in the way. Even if the screenwriter had conceded the tie-in rights to sell the script, the studio might still be required to get clearances on the novelization, which would be a nuisance for a book project that often had annoyingly tight deadlines and not much benefit. If the screenwriter had held the tie-in rights and was the one selling to the publisher, it could become a bureaucratic nightmare to get art and logos from the film, which would be controlled by the studio, to promote the book.

New York’s incentives were often too limited to interest Hollywood. Hollywood’s unpredictability on things as basic as release dates, as well as the diminishing likelihood over time that any particular movie property would enjoy enough theatrical success to give real legs to the tie-in book, made systematic efforts unproductive for publishers. There haven’t been dedicated tie-in editors for decades.

But digital publishing changes many things. The relationship between Hollywood and the book business, because of the changes brought on by ebooks, will almost certainly be one of them.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Shatzkin Files.

Traditional Publishing And Self-Publishing Are Not Mutually Exclusive

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I’m getting a little weary of the hype that seems to suggest authors must either choose traditional or self-publishing, and that in no way could the two ever come together.

I also don’t like the polemic that has set authors against each other depending on how they choose to publish. I know this is an emotional topic and people have many different experiences of publishing in its myriad forms, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there and also see what you are thinking on the topic.

The choice of how to publish must be made per book.

I believe in the empowerment of the author to choose what is right for their book, and their business.

I also believe in the empowerment of the publisher to choose what is right for their business.

Some books are commercial enough that a publisher will pick it up because they believe it can make money for them. Some publishers may publish books because of love, not money but the bills still have to be paid.

Of course there are lots of great books that didn’t get picked up by the industry and many authors who feel disempowered by this rejection. Some authors have had bad experiences and have a justified grudge. But some books are just not right for traditional publishers at the time they were queried. The brilliant thing these days is that those books can be independently published by the author and do fantastically well. The author is empowered to publish.

But that doesn’t mean people should stop querying or aiming for a traditional deal if they want to.

I was on a panel on Radio Litopia the other night, discussing the London Book Fair and the launch of the Alliance of Independent Authors. In the chat room, it was suggested that all successful indies just wanted a book deal, and if they took it, they were somehow crossing a line. That they were betraying the indie ideal and proving that the establishment is all anybody wants.

But this clearly isn’t true either. There are successful indies accepting book deals, but they are plenty of authors leaving traditional to go indie, but who are not getting reported on.

So I think authors need to be empowered to consider their choices per book.

Is this book something a traditional publisher might be interested in?
Is this book something I want to relinquish control of?
Is this a project I prefer to have creative direction on?

Because most authors write more than one book.

Let’s face it. There’s so much creativity in all of us, and we have years of creation and publication ahead.

I am currently writing my 3rd novel in the ARKANE series, Exodus, and I have ideas for several stand-alone as well as more in this series. My current fiction is probably commercial enough for the traditional market, so I may decide to query it, although I am very happy with my indie sales so far.

I am also working on a re-release of my non-fiction book, How To Love Your Job…Or Get A New One (out in May). There is no way I would query that. Firstly because it is from my heart and the book I needed to write four years ago to change my life. The rewrite contains everything I have learned since then. Also, it’s not commercial enough for them and so wouldn’t be worth it. I believe in the book but I definitely want it to be published on my terms.

Lots of books written means lots of choice.

There are authors already managing the hybrid model.

Joe Konrath is always talked about as an example. He has books with Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer as well as his own indie books. Barry Eisler is another famous example, but I’d like to call out several other great authors who are rocking the hybrid model.

CJ Lyons has 16 novels and over the years has been with four different publishers for various books but after looking at her options, she decided to publish some books independently including some from her back-list that she had the rights back for. In September 2011 she hit the New York Times bestseller list with an indie book, Blind Faith, which was then sold to Minotaur. However, she continues to publish indie books, including recent success Bloodstained, currently rocking the Kindle charts at #60 overall as I write. [If you want to learn from CJ, check out these courses.]

Michael Wallace signed with Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint in a 5 book deal for his awesome suspense thrillers set in a polygamist enclave. But he also has 8 more books that he has independently published. Michael writes about the importance of persistence in this article.

Recent news has Boyd Morrison dropped by his publisher in the US, but who still has traditional deals in other markets. So he will be in perhaps the unique position of publishing his next book independently in the US, but traditionally everywhere else. Now that is really the hybrid model!

As I was about to post this, uber-author Jackie Collins wrote a blog post about her decision to self-publish. Clearly she has a a lot of books with traditional publishing but in this case she says “you’ve always got to be thinking two steps ahead of the game.” There are a lot of great nuggets for authors in that post. Definitely go read it.

This is actually the model I would like to have. Some books with traditional publishers and others indie published. Isn’t that the best of both worlds?

I am more aware of thriller authors, since this is the genre I read and write in, but perhaps you have other examples of hybrid authors – or perhaps you are one. I’d love to know your thoughts on this, so please do leave a comment.

 

 

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

Cut the Clutter and Streamline Your Writing, Part III

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This post, by Jodie Renner, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

In Part I of this series, I gave some tips and examples for streamlining your writing to make your message more accessible and compelling. In Part II, we saw some specific examples of words and phrases to cut or reduce, to write more powerfully.

Here, we continue to explore ways to cut out the deadwood by avoiding repetitions and convoluted phrasing and going for clear, concise writing. Remember, it’s about direct communication and carrying your reader along with the story. Don’t muddle your message with a lot of extra words that just clutter up the sentence and hamper the free flow of ideas.

Avoid repetitions and redundancies in all their forms: two words meaning the same thing; saying something in five or six words when you can express it with one or two; and phrases or sentences that keep saying the same thing over and over in different ways.
 

Redundant Phrases. Avoid this kind of “repetitive redundancy”:

Repetitive phrase:                 Concise equivalent:

basic fundamentals                 fundamentals

honest truth                             truth

future plans                             plans

regular routine                         routine

past history                              history

final outcome                          outcome

extremely unique                     unique

repeat again                             repeat

totally unanimous                    unanimous

sudden impulse                       impulse

unexpected surprise                surprise

overused cliché                       cliché

What’s the problem? It’s obvious — the only kind of truth is honest truth, an impulse is sudden, repeat means to do something again, a surprise is by nature unexpected, and so on.

Cut out the deadwood, words that restate what is obvious by the rest of the sentence, words that just repeat what you’ve already said, words that are just adding clutter to your sentence. For example, the phrases in brackets are redundant here:

We passed an abandoned house [that nobody lived in] on a deserted street [with no one around].

At this [point in] time, [the truth is that] complaints are increasing [in number], but I don’t see that as a problem [to be solved].

Cluttering your sentences with too many unnecessary words can subliminally irritate your reader. Here a few examples of this “little word pile-up” tendency:

Instead of:                              Use:

in spite of the fact that            although

as a result of                            because

came in contact with                met

at this point in time                  now

during the time that                 while

he is a man who                        he

make use of                              use

with reference to                      about

Here are some examples, altered and disguised from my fiction editing, of trimming excess words:

Before: He was shooting off his mouth in the bar last night telling everybody that he was going to find the bastard that ratted on him.

After: He was shooting off his mouth in the bar last night about finding the bastard that ratted on him.

Before: Jennifer ran along the tunnel and up the stone steps to the walkway. She hesitated for only a moment at the top in order to jam the hand gun she was holding into her waistband and give her time to figure out where to run.

After: Jennifer ran along the tunnel and up the stone steps to the walkway. At the top, she stopped to jam the gun into her waistband and figure out where to run.

Finally, avoid convoluted phrasing and leave out unnecessary little details that just serve to distract the reader, who wonders for an instant why they’re there and if they’re significant:

Before: He had arrived at the coffee machine and was punching the buttons on its front with an outstretched index finger when a voice from behind him broke him away from his thoughts.

After: He was punching the buttons on the coffee machine when a voice behind him broke into his thoughts.

In the first example, we have way too much minute detail. What else would he be punching the buttons with besides his finger? And we don’t need to know which finger or that it’s outstretched. Everybody does it pretty much the same. Avoid having minute details like this that just clutter up your prose.

Before: The officer was indicating with a hand gesture a door that was behind and off to the right of McKay. Angular snarl stuck to his face, he swung his head around to look in the direction the other officer was pointing.

After: The officer gestured to a door behind McKay. Snarling, he turned to look behind him.

Before: “Bastards. Why am I always the last to know?” Pivoting, the detective walked in the direction of the station’s front desk with a purposeful, nearly aggressive, gait.  He shoved himself bodily through the swinging door and locked eye contact with the uniformed officer on reception duty.
 
After: “Bastards. Why am I always the last to know?” Pivoting, the detective marched toward the front desk. He slammed through the swinging door and glared at the officer on reception duty.

Copyright © Jodie Renner, May 2012

Also, see my article entitled “Clear, Concise, Powerful Nonfiction Writing.”

Next: Resist the Urge to Explain (RUE), and One Plus One Equals One-Half

Jodie Renner is a freelance editor specializing in thrillers, mysteries, and other crime fiction, as well as YA and historical fiction. Jodie’s craft of fiction articles appear here every second Monday, and on four other blogs once a month. For more info on Jodie’s editing services, check out her website.

What Makes a Critic Tick? Connected Authors and the Determinants of Book Reviews

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A study of literary critics was recently conducted and the results have been posted at Harvard Business School’s The Working Knowledge journal.

Executive Summary:

The professional critic has long been heralded as the gold standard for evaluating products and services such as books, movies, and restaurants. Analyzing hundreds of book reviews from 40 different newspapers and magazines, Professor Michael Luca and coauthors Loretti Dobrescu and Alberto Motta investigate the determinants of professional reviews and then compare these to consumer reviews from Amazon.com.

Key concepts include:

  • The data suggest that media outlets do not simply seek to isolate high-quality books, but also to find books that are a good fit for their readers. This is a potential advantage for professional critics, one that cannot be easily replicated by consumer reviews.
  • Expert ratings are correlated with Amazon ratings, suggesting that experts and consumers tend to agree in aggregate about the quality of a book. However, there are systematic differences between these sets of reviews.
     
  • Relative to consumer reviews, professional critics are less favorable to first-time authors. This suggests that one potential advantage of consumer reviews is that they are quicker to identify new and unknown books.
     
  • Relative to consumer reviews, professional critics are more favorable to authors who have garnered other attention in the press (as measured by number of media mentions outside of the review) and who have won book prizes.
 

Author Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of expert reviews in the book industry. Reviews are determined not only by the quality of the product, but also by the incentives of the media outlet providing the review. For example, a media outlet may have the incentive to provide favorable coverage to certain authors or to slant reviews toward the horizontal preferences of certain readers.

Empirically, we find that an author’s connection to the media outlet is related to the outcome of the review decision. When a book’s author also writes for a media outlet, that outlet is 25% more likely to review the book relative to other media outlets, and the resulting ratings are roughly 5% higher. Prima facie, it is unclear whether media outlets are favoring their own authors because these are the authors that their readers prefer or simply because they are trying to collude.

We provide a test to distinguish between these two potential mechanisms, and present evidence that this is because of tastes rather than collusion — the effect of connections is present both for authors who began writing for a media outlet before and after the book release. We then investigate other determinants of expert reviews. Relative to consumer reviews, we find that professional critics are less favorable to first time authors and more favorable to authors who have garnered other attention in the press (as measured by number of media mentions outside of the review) and who have won book prizes.

 

Read the full text of the paper (in pdf format) here.

An Open Letter to the DOJ from Someone Who Actually Cares About Writers (and Readers)

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This post, by David Gaughran, originally appeared on his Let’s Get Digital Site on 5/15/12.

 The leading literary agents’ organization – the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) – penned an open letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) opposing the terms of the settlement reached with three of the publishers named in the Agency price-fixing suit.

I won’t go into the details of how wrongheaded that letter was. It has already been systematically taken apart by Joe Konrath, Bob Mayer, and Dean Wesley Smith.

Also worth reading are Joe Konrath’s subsequent dismantling of another open letter to the DOJ written by Simon Lipskar (a board member of the AAR), as well as the comments made by Passive Guy on the same topic.

If you have any doubt whose side (most) agents and the AAR are on (clue: it’s not writers’), then you need to read this guest post by Ann Voss Peterson on her exploitative Harlequin contract, the subsequent reaction to Ann’s post by romance agent Scott Eagan (read the comments following that piece) and agent Steve Laube, as well as Joe Konrath’s filleting of the latter.

I have heard privately from one agent who is opposed to the AAR’s position, but I haven’t seen any public postings to that end. If they exist, please point me to them and I will amend the above characterization (but I fear I won’t have to).

* * *

Gail Hochman, the President of the AAR, sent a copy of that open letter mentioned at the top to all members of her organization, along with an accompanying note calling on her fellow agents to both write similar letters and encourage their clients (i.e. writers) to do likewise. Their explicit aim is to influence the judge presiding over the suit.

From Gail Hochman’s letter to AAR members:

The DOJ must read and report to the judge who must ultimately approve the settlement each communication it receives commenting on the proposed settlement. For that reason, in addition to the AAR’s letter we urge all AAR members to express their views on the settlement to the DOJ and we hope you will also urge your clients to do the same.

Your note might address whether you feel the settlement will foster competition and well-being in the literary marketplace, or the opposite. There is a time limit for such communications, so your messages should be sent as promptly as possible. (The address is on the AAR’s letter.)

We believe it is tremendously important that we all be heard on this most significant issue. We believe the more letters from publishing professionals that are received, the better the chance of affecting the judge’s final decision.

While I’m not a member of the AAR, I suppose I am a “publishing professional” in one sense. I will gladly answer Gail Hochman’s call. A copy of the letter I’m sending on Thursday morning is below. If anyone wants to add their name to it, please make a note in the comments (or email me privately at david dot gaughran at gmail dot com) and I will include your name.

It would be great if there were other writers’ names to add, but make no mistake, this isn’t a petition. If mine is the only name at the bottom, I’m sending it anyway.

Some authors may be reticent. I can understand that. Many of you may be seeking representation or a publishing deal and may be afraid of stepping on toes. That’s fine. I don’t really care about that stuff so I’m happy to take any potential flak.

 

Read the rest of the post, which contains Gaughran’s letter to the DoJ, on Let’s Get Digital.

Is the Free Ride Really Over?

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This post, by Andrew E. Kaufman, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective site and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

I’m hearing a lot of talk lately among authors that the Amazon Select program is losing steam and no longer spurring the kinds of sales it once did. Many are reporting diminished numbers and poor results after their free giveaways. Rumors are spreading from blog to blog that on May 1st, Amazon abruptly changed its algorithms (The “customers also bought” section) so that free books are now given only ten percent weight in the rankings, in effect making ten free downloads really only equal to one sale. Also, borrowed books supposedly no longer count as sales where rankings are concerned.

 
I don’t know if all this is true, but a lot of people seem  pretty upset. Authors are complaining that Amazon wants them to give away their books for free with no benefit to sales. They’re threatening to withdraw their work from KDP Select and upload them to Smashwords.  Others are trying to decide whether to stick it out with a wait-and-see attitude. 
 
Many have benefited greatly from the Select program. I am one of them. My sales are still going strong, and I haven’t seen the diminished numbers others are reporting. I feel fortunate for that, but my suspicion is that while the free promos may have given me a good bump at the outset, what’s happening now is something entirely different. I never stopped promoting once the giveaways ended, and I’ve never relied on the Select program to carry me forever. I’m not saying that others have; I’m simply recounting my own experience.
 
But in the back of my mind, I’ve always wondered just how long the Select Effect would last. When it began, it seemed like a mad free-for-all, literally, and suddenly the market was flooded with free books. It only seemed logical that eventually, consumers might feel overwhelmed by it all, that they would grow tired, and yes, that the value of e-books might become diluted. After all, there are so many books and so little time to read them all. There’s no telling how many free books are sitting on Kindles now—and even worse, how many of them will ever actually be read.
 

I’m not a gloom-and-doom person, and I suspect that even if my sales weren’t doing well, I wouldn’t be one of those complaining right now. I still choose to see the glass as half full. Many authors are forgetting that even if they give away a lot of books and don’t see an immediate boost in sales, those are seeds that have been planted, and they’re getting the benefit of gaining new readers they never had before. I’ve learned that in this business, too fast never lasts, and that slow and steady wins the race. It’s how I’ve built my audience over the years. Besides that, there’s still the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and at least for me, it’s been like having extra books up for sale—money in my pocket I wouldn’t normally have.

The thing is, I don’t think the Select program was ever intended to carry authors forever; I think it was intended to give them exposure, help get their books into new readers’ hands, and ultimately, help them grow their readerships, and I still think it’s doing that. What happens after is really up to the authors. It’s not Amazon’s job to do all the work so our books can sell—it’s ours—and it’s not much to ask if we meet them half way.

The truth is, the free ride really isn’t over because in fact, one was never offered.

 

How Amanda Palmer Built An Army Of Supporters: Connecting Each And Every Day, Person By Person

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This post originally appeared on techdirt on 5/4/12.

Following the massive success of her Kickstarter experiment, we asked Amanda Palmer if she wanted to write a quick guest post about why she thought the offering was so successful. Here’s what came back, including a bonus bit from Sean Francis, who has helped Amanda for years on the tech/social side of things.

 

There’s a great story about how bamboo grows. A farmer plants a bamboo shoot underground, and waters and tends it for about three years. Nothing grows that’s visible, but the farmer trots out there, tending to this invisible thing with a certain amount of faith that things are going to work out. When the bamboo finally appears above ground, it can shoot up to thirty feet in a month. This is like my kickstarter campaign. The numbers aren’t shocking to me, not at all. I set the goal for the kickstarter at $100,000 hoping we’d make it quickly, and hoping we’d surpass it by a long-shot.

I’ve been tending this bamboo forest of fans for years and years, ever since leaving roadrunner records in 2009. Every person I talk to at a signing, every exchange I have online (sometimes dozens a day), every random music video or art gallery link sent to me by a fan that i curiously follow, every strange bed I’ve crashed on…all of that real human connecting has led to this moment, where I came back around, asking for direct help with a record. Asking EVERYBODY. Asking my poor fans to give a dollar, or if nothing else, to spread the link; asking my rich fans to loan me money at whatever level they can afford to miss it for a while.

And they help because they know I’m good for it. Because they KNOW me.

I’ve seen people complaining that this is easy for me to do because I got my start on a major label. It’s totally true that the label helped me and my band get known. But after that, the future was up to me. It bought me nothing but a headstart, and I used it. I could have stopped working hard and connecting in 2009. If I’d done that, and then popped up out of nowhere in 2012 to kickstart a solo record in 2012, my album would probably get funded to the tune of $10k…if I was lucky. There are huge ex-major label artists (pointless to name names) who have tried the crowd-funding method and failed dramatically, mostly because they didn’t have the online relationship with their fans to rely on. And vice versa: plenty of young upstarts with a small but devoted fanbase have kicked ass using crowdfunding, because they’ve taken a hands-on approach online and at shows, and have been close and connected with their fans ALL THIS TIME, while nobody was caring or watching.

 

Read the rest of the post on techdirt.