Business End

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

Plan a Book Launch Party for an Ebook

by

Recently an author asked me "How do you stage an in-person book launch with a novel that’s published as an ebook? How do you autograph a computer screen?"

Here are some suggestions for doing a live book launch event for an ebook:

Plan the event much like you would any other book launch party, except you will probably need to find a venue other than a bookstore. Try to use a venue that has some kind of tie-in with the book, and offer refreshments and perhaps some form of entertainment. See this article by Tolly Moseley for creative ideas on planning a book launch party.

Do a presentation based on the book’s content, not just a signing where you sit at a table. Nonfiction authors can speak on their book’s topic or plan an interactive activity based on the topic. Novelists can do a presentation based on some aspect of the book’s story or do a short reading. Children’s authors can read the book aloud, speak on the topic of the book, and plan fun activities for kids. All authors can talk about writing and publishing and take questions from the audience. Be creative and plan something interesting!

Print lots of bookmarks and handout several to all of the attendees so they can share with others. If you print your bookmarks with uncoated paper on the back side, you can sign the back of the bookmarks. See this article to learn more about using bookmarks for book promotion.

Encourage attendees to bring their ebook reading device to the event. They can download the ebook on the spot.  You could even provide a laptop computer where people can order the book if they don’t have their ebook reader with them, but you’ll need to make certain that each person logs out of their Amazon or other ebookstore account after using it.

You can "autograph" Kindle ebooks by using KindleGraph to send personalized inscriptions and signatures to the customer’s Kindle ebook reader.

If your ebook is available on the Nook store, you may be able to arrange an event at a Barnes & Noble store. Last year B&N announced that they were going to offer autographing services for Nook Color devices, but it’s hard to find any details on how to do it. Your local store event manager may have information on autographing.

Remember that you’ll need to promote your event heavily. Suggested promotions include press releases to local media, emails or evites to your friends and local contacts, announcements on your blog and social media accounts, and postcard invitations. Ask others to help spread the word.

Do you have any suggestions on how to do a live launch for an ebook? Please share in the comments section [on the source article’s page].

 

This is a reprint from Savvy Book Marketer Dana Lynn Smith‘s blog.

How To Get Seen And Noticed

by

With 500,000 new books being published every year, how can you compete? How do you get seen and noticed? How will independent booksellers fall in love with your book and promote it in their stores and on the recommended reading lists? Relax, I’m about to give away the deep, dark secrets of book marketing.

The American Booksellers Association (ABA)

The book industry trade group has been around for over 100 years. Based just north of New York City in Tarrytown, NY, this organization watches over the business health of over 1,200 independent bookstores throughout the United States. Notice I keep saying independent bookstore and not the giant corporate chains and Amazon. The ABA has many helpful programs and resources for both the booksellers and the publishers who sell to them. The following info will help you know what is available.

The link to the following information and costs is http://www.bookweb.org/pubpartner/resources.html:

The Red Box

This is a once-a-month shipment of marketing materials to bookstores. You can get the below particulars at

THE MONTHLY INDIEBOUND RED BOX MAILING PROGRAM

Designed to serve as a monthly “In-Store Marketing Action Kit”, the Red Box mailing (actually a white box with a large red sticker) contains the stores initial quantity of the latest Indie Next List flyers as well as other timely news and information from ABA and IndieBound.

For inclusion in the Red Box, ABA Publisher Partners are invited to provide marketing materials including but not limited to:

    * Shelftalkers, easelbacks, bookmarks, posters, or other point-of-purchase items to promote those titles chosen as
           Indie Next List Great Reads or Notables, or other recent or upcoming releases
    * Sell sheets and/or catalog copy for any “off-the-list” titles
    * Seasonal catalogs and/or order forms
    * Special offers, notice of backlist promotions, etc.
    * Any other news about titles, authors, tours, confirmed media appearances, etc.

The Red Box mailing is shipped within the first 12 days of the month to approximately 1100 IndieBound stores. The mailing is prioritized, based on the level of a store’s participation in IndieBound and ABA programs. The minimum quantity for inclusion in any mailing is 450 pieces.

Effective with the January, 2012 mailing, standard pricing for inclusion in all 1100 Red Boxes is as follows:

• A sell sheet or flyer
• A standard (4” x 6”) postcard • A large-format postcard
• Shelftalker
• Easelback poster
• Standard poster, flat or folded • Pack of 25 bookmarks

$275; $.27 per piece for quantities less than 1100
$145: $.15 per piece for quantities less than 1100
$180; $.18 per piece for quantities less than 1100
$145; $.15 per piece for quantities less than 1100

$525 and up, dependent on size; $.55 per piece for quantities less than 1100 $425 and up, dependent on size; $.45 per piece for quantities less than 1100 $695, other quantities custom quoted

No galleys, ARC’s or finished books are included in the Red Box mailing. Those items are exclusive to the monthly White Box mailing (please see Appendix B).

We are happy to custom quote on any item you may wish to include in this mailing. If you would like your materials to also be sent to other active ABA Publisher Partners as well as to the nine Regional Bookseller Association Executive Directors, please provide an additional 100 pieces (same pricing as above).

Please contact Carolyn Bennett (carolyn@bookweb.org) at least three weeks prior to the White Box materials due date of a given mailing (please see Appendix D for these dates) with information about the item(s) you wish to include.

All materials should be shipped to:

Transport Specialties International, Inc. (TSI) Attn: Keith Gosselin
9 Joanna Court
East Brunswick, NJ 08816-2108

Phone: 732.698.0988, x 110

Please mark all cartons and/or packing slips:“FOR INDIEBOUND “month” RED BOX” Early shipments are possible, but must be pre-approved.

The White Box Program

THE MONTHLY INDIEBOUND WHITE BOX MAILING PROGRAM

Every month a box measuring 18.5” x 18.5” x 4” is sent to each of the approximately 750 actively participating IndieBound stores, filled with galleys,ARCs and finished books provided by ABA Publisher Partners. As with the Advance Access Program (see Appendix G), this is an excellent and cost effective way to reach the Independent Bookstore market with news of your titles. By collating, packing and shipping all these materials from one warehouse, we are able to offer publishers substantial savings in time, labor, and postage over individual mailings done on their own.

The cost of inclusion in the White Box is dependent on the size and weight of the galley,ARC, or finished book. Standard pricing typically ranges from $1.35 to $2.50 per piece. Upon receipt of the dimensions and number of pages, we are happy to custom quote for any proposed inclusion.

    * The White Box mailing is prioritized, based on the level of a store’s participation in IndieBound and ABA programs. The minimum quantity for inclusion in any mailing is 450 copies.

    * To reach all stores receiving the White Box mailing, please plan to provide 750 copies.

    * If you would like your materials to also be sent to other active ABA Publisher Partners as well as to the nine Regional Bookseller Association Executive Directors, please provide an additional 100 copies.

There is an additional charge for the insertion of any bounceback cards, letters, or any other collation done in our warehouse. Charges for collation will be custom quoted.

Please contact Carolyn Bennett (carolyn@bookweb.org) at least three weeks prior to the White Box materials due date of a given mailing (please see Appendix E for these dates) with information about the item(s) you wish to include.

All materials should be shipped to:

Transport Specialties International, Inc. (TSI) Attn: Keith Gosselin
9 Joanna Court
East Brunswick, NJ 08816-2108

Phone: 732.698.0988, x 110

Please mark all cartons and/or packing slips:“FOR INDIEBOUND “month” WHITE BOX” Early shipments are possible, but must be pre-approved.

Children’s White Box

THE QUARTERLY INDIEBOUND CHILDREN’S WHITE BOX MAILING PROGRAM

Four times each year a box measuring 18.5” x 18.5” x 4” is sent to each of the approximately 750 actively participating IndieBound stores, filled with a variety of materials provided by ABA Publisher Partners specifically for Children’s book- sellers. As with the Advance Access Program (see Appendix G), this is an excellent and cost effective way to reach the Independent Bookstore market with news of your titles. By collating, packing and shipping all these materials from one warehouse, we are able to offer publishers substantial savings in time, labor, and postage over individual mailings done on their own.

Standard pricing for inclusion in all 750 boxes is as follows:

• A one-sheet or flyer
• A standard postcard
• A large format postcard • A shelftalker
• A pack of 25 bookmarks • A pre-folded poster
• An easelback poster

$190; $.27 per piece for quantities less than 750 $100; $.15 per piece for quantities less than 750 $125; $.18 per piece for quantities less than 750 $100; $.15 per piece for quantities less than 750 $475

$300 and up, dependent on size $400 and up, dependent on size

For galleys, ARC’s, F&G’s and finished books, costs for inclusion usually range between $1.35 and $2.50 per piece, depen- dent on size and weight. The minimum quantity for any galley,ARC, or finished book is 450 pieces. There is an additional charge for the insertion of any bounceback cards, letters, or any other collation done in our warehouse.

We are happy to custom quote on any item you may wish to include in this mailing. If you would like your materials to also be sent to other Publisher Partners and to the nine Regional Bookseller Association Executive Directors, please provide 850 pieces (same price as above).

Please contact Carolyn Bennett (carolyn@bookweb.org) at least three weeks prior to the Children’s White Box materials due date of a given mailing (please see Appendix F for these dates) with information about the item(s) you wish to include.

All materials should be shipped to:
Transport Specialties International (TSI)
Attn: Keith Gosselin
9 Joanna Court
East Brunswick, NJ 08816-2108 Phone: 732-698-0988, x 110

Please mark all cartons and/or packing slips:“INDIEBOUND “season” CHILDREN’SWHITE BOX” Early shipments are possible, but must be pre-approved.

IndIe Next List And Shelftalker Suggested Rate Card 2012

INDIE NEXT LIST:
Top 20 Listing, #1 Title $ 3,500
Top 20 Listing, Other Titles $ 2,500

This charge includes printing costs and postage for 450,000 fliers; store placement

“Now in Paperpack” (12 titles per month) $ 1,000

A pdf with jacket image, bibliographic information and bookseller quote as well as a shelftalker for each title is available for download at www.bookweb.org.

Top 10 Listing, Frontlist
Top 10 Listing, Backlist
Regular Listing, Frontlist
Regular Listing, Backlist

This charge includes printing costs and postage for 450,000 fliers; store placement

TEAR-OFF SHELFTALKERS:
Standard cost for regular Indie Next List titles, 1100 $2,875 Standard cost for Kids’ Indie Next List titles, 750 $2,175

Includes production and shipment, 5.5” x 7”, with four-color jacket image and bookseller quote, 50 tear-off sheets and printed backer.

Combined cost (to support an Indie Next List title) Kids’ combined Top Ten
Kids’ combined Regular

$4,500 $3,200 $2,700

Combined cost includes suggested rate for Indie next List placement and standard shelftalker production (see individual costs above).

Please contact Mark Nichols at mark@bookweb.org for further information Rates subject to change without notice.
 

Advance Access Program

This is an email alert to member stores where you can offer up free review copies of your book to those stores that request one. The ABA is currently re-doing its rate structure for this, so check back in from time to time to see when it becomes available again.

Snail Mail Lists

These are available for a price; however, I don’t think sending materials direct to the stores is nearly as effective as communicating through the ABA programs, which give them a much more valid image.

Summary

There you have it: the secret to success in book marketing. Yes, it is expensive! Yes, it’s well worth it. Book marketing is a full time job and an expensive undertaking. If you’re not prepared to do this, you might want to rethink the idea of self-publishing. It’s not for everyone.

 

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

Craft: Good Editing Help Is Findable

by

This post, by Jane Friedman, originally appeared on her Writing On The Ether site.

Be sure the editor (or editors, if it’s an editing service) is qualified. You’re looking for professional publishing industry experience–preferably, as an editor for reputable publishers–and/or professional writing credentials (legitimately-published books, articles, etc.). If the editor has a website, a resume or CV should be posted there.

We do a lot of yelling and screaming these days about how authors simply must get  outside, professional editing services. To my mind, this is true whether you’re trying to self-publish or sling-shotting your MS on a flash drive at the rococo facade of a legacy publisher.

But how to find reputable editing?  That’s Victoria Strauss’ focus in Vetting an Independent Editor.

I’m a little concerned only about her first comment about considering free alternatives such as:

…a friend who’s not afraid to criticize, a local writers’ group or critique circle, an online writers’ group (such as Critters Writers Workshop for SF/fantasy/horror writers), a peer critique community (such as Book Country or Authonomy), or a creative writing course.

In a hardship case, do what you have to do, of course. And if you’re in earlier stages with a book, you do want less expensive avenues of feedback, sure. But I’d say — and again, this is me, with no desire to put words into Strauss’ blog post — there’s a point at which a true run at the market goes far past the friends-and-family stage. And a professional developmental edit isn’t the same as exchanging input in a mutual-critique community.

I find some backing on this point in a post — Where will self-publishing get quality control? — from author Roz Morris, diligent in working on why so much self-published content is sub-par.

It’s raining slush and nonsense. Readers who’ve bought unreadable books are muttering ‘vanity press’ all over again.

Morris is asked by a reader, “If people won’t use editors, can we realistically replace them with critique groups and beta readers?”

Morris’ answer is typically straightforward and refreshingly honest:

 

Read the rest of the post on Writing On The Ether.

AAR (Association of Authors Representatives) Fail

by

This post, by JA Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing on 5/10/12.

I just read the letter the Association of Authors Representatives sent to the DOJ yesterday. 

Then I threw up in my mouth. Ack. 

The letter in plain text, my comments in bold. 

My comments will not be kind. 


May 8, 2012
John R. Read

Chief, Litigation III Section United States Department of Justice 450 5th St NW Suite 4000 Washington DC 20530

Dear Mr. Read,
I write to you as the President of the AAR, the largest organization of literary and dramatic agents in the United States, and on behalf of the unanimous AAR Board of Directors. Our more than four hundred seventy-five members represent writers who number in the tens of thousands. We want you to know in the strongest terms possible that we firmly oppose the proposed settlement between the Justice Department and three publishers with respect to e-book pricing.

Translation: We’re about to put our collective foot in our mouth. Stay tuned!

Joe sez: I count thirteen names on this letter. I don’t see the names of the other 462 AAR members, nor the names of the tens of thousands of authors they seem to be insinuating they speak for.

They DO NOT speak for me. And I hope the majority of the AAR who didn’t sign their name to this nonsense show some guts and leave an organization that erroneously claims to speak for them. Or at least fire the board members that sent this without getting a majority vote.

Readers, writers and the general public benefit when there is a healthy competitive literary marketplace. Two and a half years ago Amazon, with its proprietary Kindle devices and its willingness to discount e-book “bestsellers” to a level at which it sustained a significant loss on each copy sold, threatened the entire marketplace for books. 

Translation: Amazon invented a device that consumers wanted. That’s BAD. Readers were getting cheap ebooks. That’s BAD. It may not seem bad on the surface, and we don’t back-up our claim with any actual evidence, but boy oh boy trust us it really is because we say so.

Amazon’s practice of targeting the very titles that drive profitability of our entire industry and pricing them several dollars below cost was clearly leading to the demise of the independent bookstore, hastened the loss of Borders, and threatened the existence of Barnes & Noble, the one remaining large chain store that sells books. 

Translation: Customers were changing how and where they shopped because Amazon gave them a clearly better alternative; ebooks delivered instantly for less.

Joe sez: Apparently the AAR doesn’t remember that under the previous model, their authors were making more damn money.

Doesn’t AAR stand for Association of AUTHORS Representatives? Why are they suddenly spokesmen for Barnes and Noble?

And Borders? Weren’t they on the verge of bankruptcy (or at least in serious trouble) before Amazon even introduced the Kindle? Blaming Amazon for Borders’ woes is bullshit correlation. Or as a friend of mine calls it: causality magical thinking.

This was not healthy for competition or for authors or indeed for consumers in the long-term. 

Translation: Trying to outsell your competition, or attract customers with lower prices and better service, is bad.

And it’s bad when authors get paid more for each copy sold and sell more copies because of lower prices. 

And lower prices are bad for consumers, because maybe one day Amazon will again raise prices, possibly even up to the lofty heights publishers have them raised to now under the current Agency Model.

Retailers shouldn’t be allowed to set their own prices. That’s bad. It’s much better for the wholesaler to set both the wholesale and the retail price, because THAT and THAT ALONE encourages healthy competition. ESPECIALLY when there are several wholesalers in lockstep. 

Nothing is better for consumers than a group of companies who set wholesale and retail. And even though they set the SAME prices, it really still is competition! Really!

The steep discounting from Amazon was a practice of selling our clients’ work at a loss in order to make it impossible for other businesses to enter the e-book marketplace in a way that made financial sense for them.    

Translation: This predatory pricing is driving competitors out of business, like it did with… um… what’s that famous case where a company lowered prices, destroyed competition, and then became a monopoly and raised prices?

It must happen all the time, right?

Or if it doesn’t, it’s because the government steps in and stops it. Like in the case of… um…

Joe sez: Like in the case of the DOJ stepping in because 5 of the Big 6 were colluding to raise ebook prices?

 

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

Why E-Books Will Soon Be Obsolete (And No, It’s Not Just Because Of DRM)

by

This post, by Jani Patokallio,originally appeared on Gyrovague on 4/30/12.

E-books will be obsolete within five years.  Crippled by territorial license restrictions, digital rights management, and single-purpose devices and file formats that are simultaneously immature and already obsolescent, they are at a hopeless competitive disadvantage compared to full-fledged websites and even the humble PDF.

 

Last year, I bought a laptop in Singapore, and brought it with me to Australia.  It worked fine for reading the Economist online and what passes for journalism in Singapore, but one day I searched for the Sydney Morning Herald, and there were no hits: it’s as if it didn’t exist.  A little poking around revealed that to be able to view Australian sites, I had to register my browser to be in Australia, which also requires a credit card with a billing address there.  What’s more, switching countries like this would delete all my bookmarks, terminate my paid subscription to the Economist and stop me from being able to read even single issue of the Singaporean Straits Jacket.  And needless to say, the laptop is locked to prevent me from installing another browser that would allow me to get around these limits.

Does this sound ridiculous, a perverse fantasy of some balkanized Web of the dystopian future?  Nope: it’s all true, except that my “laptop” is actually an iPad and my “browser” is iTunes/iBooks.  Since my iTunes account has a Singaporean billing address, the Kindle application does not show up in my search results.  If I switch countries, I will lose access to everything I’ve previously downloaded.  And if I do bite the bullet and switch to Australia, a good chunk of apps, music and more on offer will no longer be available on iTunes, iBooks or Amazon, and I’ll pay around 50% extra on what remains.  But I chose not to, and thus didn’t buy 3 or 4 books I wanted to, because their publishers would not sell them to me.

Why?  Because publishers insist on selling e-books the way they sell printed books, and customers simply don’t figure in the equation.

Now, breathtaking stupidity like this is commonly attributed to digital rights management (DRM), and Lord knows there’s plenty of idiocy involved in there as well.  Fortunately, Charlie Stross has already eviscerated that particular sacred cow of the publishing industry (see here and here), so I’ll focus on what’s actually causing my problem: publishing rights.

On the Web, the very idea that the right to read a website would vary from country to country seems patently absurd.  Cyberspace is flat, after all, just computers talking to computers.  You, the reader, do not need to concern yourself with where these electrons on your screen are coming from, and neither do I, their publisher, need to care where they are going.  And when somebody attempts to artificially block those electrons — say, China and its Great Firewall — it’s the kind of the thing that the US Congress and the World Trade Organization get worked up about.

 

Read the rest of the post on Gyrovague.

Is There a New Type of eBook Piracy?

by

This post, by Sam Cheever, originally appeared on ‘Tween You And Me on 5/4/12.

Over the last week I’ve noticed something that has me really concerned. My titles are selling. And then they’re being returned. I’ve been indie publishing for about 2 years now. I can count on three fingers the number of returns I’ve had of my ebooks over that period of time.

Over the last 2 days I’ve had 8.

Okay, I know that’s not a lot in the overall scheme, but I think it’s a pattern. Amazon has been nice enough in responding to my concerns, though I imagine they think I’m a total loon at this point. The problem isn’t very big yet. However, to a hard working author who counts every penny she earns dearly, 8 lost sales is a smack in the face. Here’s what I think… I believe someone is scamming the system. I think they’re buying the books, reading or copying them, and then returning them.

Paranoid? Maybe. But there’s that pattern to worry about again. I’m not imagining the 300% increase in returns in an extremely condensed timeline. It’s not so farfetched when you think about how many pirate sites authors have to monitor and report in a given year. There are lots of unscrupulous people who apparently only care about getting what they want for themselves and the hell with the author/artist/whatever.

It’s disheartening. I hope I’m wrong. But I really think I’m discovering the leading edge of a new type (or at least growing if not new) of piracy.

 

Read the rest of the post (and be sure to check out the comments, too) on ‘Tween You And Me.

E-Ink Devices – The Fastest Invention In History To Become Old-Fashioned

by

I’ve been noticing that more and more people are reading e-books from tablets and fewer people are buying e-ink devices like the original Kindle. When I straw-polled this perception on Twitter, it seemed that I was right. While we are seeing more Kindles and Kobos than ever, the number of iPads and other tablet devices seem to far outstrip the e-ink growth.

Further chatting and some links supplied by friendly tweeters backed this up. When I tweeted: “I predict that e-ink devices could be the fastest invention in history to become old-fashioned”, futurist Mark Pesce replied:

@mpesce: They’re already charmingly quaint.

From a shiny new technology to obsolete and replaced in very short order. Already, the Kindle is “charmingly quaint”, like a gramophone player or a phone with a cord and dial. I’m a bit disappointed about this, because I love my Kindle. The thing I like most, apart from the very easy on the eyes e-ink screen, is that it’s a dedicated reading device. No distractions. It holds books and other documents that I need to read and that’s all. There are enough interruptions everywhere else – I don’t need them in a book too. Plus, the battery lasts literally weeks.

But I do have a slight issue in that I love my comics. I’ve read comic books forever and still buy several titles a month. I’d be happy to move to reading those digitally, but for the colour and graphic delivery I’d need a tablet like an iPad. I’ve yet to be able to justify the expense of an iPad purely for reading comics. But if it was for all my e-reading… And that doesn’t even begin to address the multi-media reading experience, with linked footnotes, video content and so much more that tablets make so easy.

But here’s where another problem presents itself. Reading novels (or other straight, unadorned text) from a tablet is problematic at the moment. It’s hard to see outside in the sunshine. The tablet has a terrible battery life, compared to the weeks and weeks I get from my Kindle. The backlit display is more tiring for the eyes. And herein lies the reason tablets are taking over – all those things are being addressed and improved at a furious rate. The tablet is starting to achieve all the positives of a dedicated e-ink reader, along with all the other things it does, making the strengths of e-ink irrelevant.

It’ll be a while before the tablet screen, ink, battery life and so on are as good as, say, a Kindle, but not that long a while. It will happen.

What this boils down to is actually something bigger. The device itself is becoming irrelevant. The beauty of the tablet is that it is a convergent device. You carry one thing and it does everything you need – reading, writing, web surfing, social networking, etc. This leads to a paradigm shift in content creation and delivery. As Eoin Purcell said on Twitter during last night’s conversation:

Things will be sold, but selling will take different forms. Subscriptions, memberships, ads, events, readings etc.

His point being that the content will be in the cloud, the creators and publishers will earn through the things he mentions in the quote above and that content will be consumed on a variety of devices. The device itself becomes irrelevant – all it needs is access to the cloud and a comfortable reading experience. That’s the tablet with the battery life, screen resolution and daylight clarity I talked about above. The implication here is that not only does the device itself become irrelevant – as long as you have one, any one will do – but the concept of an ebook is also irrelevant. You don’t buy a book. You subscribe to a publisher and access their content, whenever, wherever. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this…

So the dedicated e-reader, like the Kindle or Kobo, is already dead. It just hasn’t stopped kicking yet. Amazon know this, so they’ve released the Fire, which is a tablet device. Others are following suit. For those of us who prefer a dedicated e-ink device, we should make the most of it now. Before long we’ll be the hipsters of the digital reading world, congregating like those people in record stores who still buy vinyl and talk about what stylus they prefer. I wonder if half the people reading this even know what a stylus is.

(For further reading, I’d recommend this article on the subject by Eoin Purcell. Interestingly, this article is already more than two years old.)

 

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter’s The Word.

Springtime For Amazon

by

This post, by Jane Friedman, originally appeared on her site on 4/26/12.

As the market evolves, Amazon is becoming a home for readers.

Say what? “A home for readers?” The Evil Amazon? Did the jungle drums just miss a beat?

There is so much for readers to do on Amazon – so much book-related content for them to peruse before buying.

There it was again. I could swear I just heard a friendly word for Seattle.

We have to ask ourselves, with the collapse of physical retail for books, which company will book suppliers want to deal with most? Just as iTunes supplanted record stores, Amazon is supplanting bookstores. Of all the bookselling options out there, only the remaining indie bookstores and B&N are more “bookish.” Should they eventually collapse (or transform or get sold), Amazon will be the most bookish place for readers to go to buy books.

You’re not hearing from some Prime-drunk refugee of the Borders wars here. These are the thoughts of Laura Dawson, Firebrand’s reigning Queen of Metadata, one of our best-regarded publishing specialists, and she’s packing knitting needles, don’t cross her.

@ And as you say, Barnes & Noble started adding bookish things & services that made people feel better about it. So will Amazon.

April 26, 2012 11:40 am via YoruFukurouReplyRetweetFavorite

@tcarmody

Tim Carmody

 
 
 

 

In Why Amazon Will Be the Good Guy, Dawson is echoing a jazzy new counterpoint to the shrill call of the poison-dart frog we’ve heard so relentlessly in deepest, darkest Amazonia.

A new slant on the aggressive retailer is beginning to be felt. And this angle doesn’t always turn up along the same lines of debate, which indicates that a subtle but broad-based reconsideration may be underway. Dawson’s not dropping a stitch:

In the late 1990s, the American Booksellers Association sued Barnes & Noble and Borders over what they felt were unfair trade practices… B&N was the king of the discount. And for “bookish” folks, this was a source of friction – the cheapening of books made them seem commoditized, and our beloved independent bookstores were going out of business.

Hunker with me here. This is an argument many can’t see yet.

Amazon has been regarded as less than entirely “bookish” since its inception, when Bezos made it clear that books were just the beginning (and only because books were the easiest products to build a store around).

@ The premise of "bookishness" made me a little nervous, but it is undeniably a Thing.

April 25, 2012 10:30 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@ljndawson

ljndawson

 

 

 

Read the rest of the post on Jane Friedman’s site.

E-Book Prices Must Come Down

by

This post, by Richard Curtis, originally appeared on Digital Book World on 4/29/12.

If you seek cogency on digital publishing subjects you’ll always find it in Laura Hazard Owen’s postings. A good example is a recent one on the implications for consumers of the settlement agreements with the Department of Justice in its conspiracy lawsuit against five major publishers and Apple.

What does the settlement mean for customers? Here’s a summary:

1. Let the Discounting Begin.

“Readers are likely to see lower prices on e-books published by HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster — at least at Amazon, which expressed its glee over the settlement. But you won’t see those lower e-book prices until at least June…I wouldn’t be surprised to see some shockingly cheap bestsellers from those publishers — think massive summer promotions where big titles by authors like James Patterson, Jodi Picoult and Nicholas Sparks are $1.99.”

2. Amazon rivals will discount too.

“Other e-book retailers, like Barnes & Noble and Kobo, are likely to want to enter into new contracts quickly as well so that they are on a more even playing field with Amazon.”

Owen points out that Amazon competitors “may not be able to afford to discount a wide range of e-books as deeply as Amazon can.” But that has not prevented Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and even the struggling Sony from maintaining a healthy market share of the e-book retail business.

3. Bundling of e-books, and e-book/p-book combo packages

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes two more bullet points and a link to some further analysis on the DoJ lawsuit, on Digital Book World.

What Goes Into a Book: Case Study: The Catalyst

by

I was talking to a reader on my Facebook page and had mentioned a small part of the process for The Catalyst. Her reply was:

I knew that releasing a book was a complicated process, but ‘Wow’. As a reader it’s interesting to learn everything involved in order to get a book out, so that we can enjoy it. If more people understood everything that it takes to get a book out into the world, there would be alot less bitching about having to spend anything over 99 cents for one.

Since I think this understanding is so important, rather than JUST reply directly to her, I decided to make a blog post about it to take you through what goes into a typical Zoe Winters series book:

 

It’s not just writing a book and throwing it out there. In an indie situation all time and money costs are the author’s. There are promotional costs as well as the costs of putting out a truly professional product that can compete with mainstream published work on quality. On the one hand people expect indie books to be “cheap” but on the other, they complain about lower quality. In order to GET higher quality it takes a level of work (and often monetary costs) that require it to not be “cheap”. For example… if I charged 99 cents (making only 35 cents per copy sold), I would feel highly resentful, given what all goes into this both time and money wise.

Here’s what goes into the standard Zoe series book:

Rough Draft (usually I try to get this done in a month or less. Most people can’t do more than 2-3 hours of actual writing in a day because it’s pretty draining. Creative work is not digging ditches, but it can still be exhausting.)

Then I do a read through and edit and send it to the beta readers. (while it’s with the betas I’ll generally work on something else. That’s also when I start getting stuff together for the book trailer and the cover art and start the process for that. I consult on cover art but I’m more involved with the book trailer. I pick music, video clips, images, and write the text and give a basic storyboard idea of how I want it to go. But generally I’m also working on another phase of another project while my book is with betas or with the copyeditor. Like when Catalyst goes to the copyeditor I’ll be writing Lifecycle.)

When it gets back from the betas, I do another round of edits, based on feedback. Then I send it to the copyeditor. (while it’s with the copyeditor, I’m doing other things on other projects, or getting the book tour/promo set up and ready to go, or whatever.)

When it gets back from the copyeditor, I input the copyedits, do a final proofread, format for ebook, register copyright, then publish and run my promo and send review copies out to reviewers.

Then I format for print, send it to LSI and wait for my proof copy. When I get my proof copy, I proofread the print, then approve it for distribution. During all this I get things set up with my narrator and audio production people for the audio book. I consult back and forth on things such as the particular voices each main character will have and answer any questions on word pronunciations that aren’t clear.

As recording comes back for the book, I listen to it and note any audio errors that the editor might not have caught. A mispronunciation here… a part that’s hard to understand… etc. I send notes back and re-listen to the fixed parts, then approve for distribution.

As print and audiobook become available, I promote those with a newsletter, blog post, twitter, and facebook.

Things I spend money on… like for the Catalyst:

Cover art, including audiobook cover.
Copyediting
Book Tour (Blog tour)
Book Trailer and elements for the trailer (music, video clips, images)
Kindle Nation Daily ad
Audio narration
Free signed copies as part of previous promos.

Total costs involved for this book come to about $5,000 (a big chunk of that of course is audiobook narration and production, but I think the costs are worth it to be in audio.)

In the end analysis, writing, editing, promoting, and releasing a book takes me hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars of my own personal money. This is why I charge $4.95 for full-length books in the digital format. Digital is my main bread and butter. Audio and print are small sidestreams of income, though Audio will likely grow over time because the market itself is growing.

 

This is a reprint from The Weblog of Zoe Winters.

My Journey As An Indie Author

by

This post, by Julie Ortolon, originally appeared on her Julie’s Journal Online site on 4/27/12.

It was a year ago this month that my world changed forever thanks to the ebook revolution. April 2011 was when my sales exploded. I have been reeling – in a good way – ever since.

This journey, however, started long before that. It started in the fall of 2009. Back then, I had one goal: to somehow get back some semblance of a writing career. To me, at the time, that meant land another contract with a traditional print publisher.

Boy has that goal changed! But let’s look at how I got from there to here.

The First Step Down a New Path

In the summer of 2009, I was basically unpublishable in the eyes of New York. I hadn’t had a book out since Unforgettable came out in 2007. I’d gone from rocketing onto the publishing scene by hitting the USA Today list with my first title to sales numbers that were so bad (thanks to the implosion of the publishing industry) it was heartbreaking. I was also so emotional beat up after eight years of the publishing process, I needed a break. I stepped back for two years by going to the mountains of New Mexico to paint aspen trees and contemplate clouds.

That was fabulous for awhile, but after two years my muse started to stir. I wanted back in the game. So, I landed a new agent with a proposal for a new series. One of the first things I realized, though, was that a lot had changed in the two years I’d been away. Suddenly, it wasn’t just the proposal and an author’s sales numbers that publishers looked at before offering a contract, it was the author’s Website and overall Web presence, i.e. their number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Yikes! My Website was two years out of date, and I didn’t know a tweet from a twerp.

Fate Intervenes

As karma, chance, the universe would have it, I bumped into an Internet marketing coach at a wine bar one afternoon and I hired her to overhaul my Website. Instead, she overhauled my entire life by opening my eyes. I already knew the publishing industry doesn’t make sense to any rational business person. Yet, in talking to this very savvy businesswoman, trying to explain why I couldn’t implement her marketing strategies because “that’s not how things work in publishing” I started to see just how ridiculous the publishing industry is. Even so, the first time she suggested I ditch New York and self publish, I drew up with indignation and said, “I would never self-publish!”

Long story short, part of the strategy this marketing guru proposed to help me land another print contract was for me to start this blog. Julie’s Journal Online was meant to accomplish two things: 1) help me learn social networking by teaching others; and 2) seriously up my overall Web presence. In order to write my blog posts, I had to do a lot of research. That led to me reading things like Konrath’s blog the Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. Which led to me reconsidering epubbing my out-of-print backlist. Lord, what a hair-pulling experience epubbing was back in the early days before we had a sufficient number of cover designers and formatters to hire.

 

 

Read the rest of the post on Julie’s Journal Online.

Price Wars and Book Industry Illegal Activities

by

This has been a huge issue lately. To better understand it, let me describe a couple of different pricing models or customs which are at the heart of this controversy.

Wholesale Model: The publisher establishes a book’s recommended price and sells it to the booksellers for a percentage off that price. The bookseller can then sell the book for whatever price (sometimes higher) that he wants to.

Agency Model: The publisher sets a price for the book and then discounts it 30% to the reseller, who must agree to sell the book at the price the publisher establishes and cannot discount. The result has been for the publishers to push up the prices of their books because they can.

Impact on E-books: This has pushed up the price of E-books and has resulted in a major conflict between some of the major publishers and Amazon, who wants to keep the prices low for their Kindle market. In their efforts to control the situation in their favor, the major publishers began allegedly sneaking around in a variety of price-fixing activities. Ooops, they got caught at those and the following cover-up attempts. This brought the Federal Department of Justice into the fray with an anti-trust suit against five publishers and Apple. In the meanwhile, E-book distributor Mark Coker of SmashWords has come on record that he prefers the Agency Model because it allows the authors and the publishers to control the prices. This levels the playing field for smaller book retailers and preventing large retailers from loss-leadering their small competitors to death.

All these recent activities are pushing down E-book prices and tying the hands of the major publishers, which may hasten their demise.

Bottom Line: The forces of greed and control battles point to the obvious solution of self-publishing. Once a pariah in the book industry, self-publishing is becoming acceptable, as long as the author does a professional job of publishing his books. The legal fight has an indirect impact on self-publishers in terms of common price ranges. It all points to a much different business model.

 

 

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

An Idiot-Shaped Box

by

This post, by Zoe Spencer, originally appeared on her Colpo Di Fulmine blog on 4/26/12.

Yesterday I came across a small publisher who was looking for writers in the genre I’m currently writing in. I was quite excited until I dug deeper into their website. I’m not going to name names because I’ve no interest in getting into a fight on the internet but the overall tone was arrogant and off-putting.

I have a friend who works as an agent’s assistant in London and she says soft skills are of critical importance because the publishing industry is relationship-based. The tone of this publisher’s web site and specifically their submissions guidelines guarantee I’ll never submit to them.

The killer for me was their bald refusal to consider anyone who didn’t have AT LEAST two hundred followers on each of Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. If you don’t have that, they say, you’re not serious about your career and they have no interest in you whatsoever.

Where to start?

I’m very new to the idea of publication – this time last week I’d never submitted a thing and I still consider myself very much a learner – but this attitude suggests they expect their writers to market their books for them. I had this weird idea that was the publisher’s job. If Harper Collins tells me I need to build a web presence, fair enough. But when some relative nobody says my number of followers is more important than the story I have to tell or the quality of my writing, I shake my head and put them in an idiot-shaped box.


Read the rest of the post on Colpo Di Fulmine. Please read through to the end – it’s a kicker!

After The DoJ Action, Where Do We Stand?

by

This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on his Shatzkin Files blog on 4/14/12.

This post went up around midnight last night (Saturday, 4/14) in London, or between 6 and 7 NY time. I had been concerned about a part of it that has been edited below. If you read it before 5 pm today (Sunday, 4/15), you’ll not have seen this correction. And you’ll see some comments that obviously pre-date the update.

Well, we certainly have a confused book business on our hands following the announcement of the Department of Justice intervention last week.

According to my (admittedly tentative) understanding:

1. We have three Big Six publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster) that have agreed to a settlement with Justice that obliges them to modify their agency arrangements over the next 60 days in ways that will eliminate their ability to control discounting in the supply chain for the next two years.

2. We have two Big Six publishers (Macmillan and Penguin) that will contest the DoJ position that they acted illegally (in collusion). They can apparently continue to manage their business with agency pricing the way they have, at least until a court rules. And, as we know, that can take a while.

3. We have one Big Six publisher, the biggest of all (Random House), which can continue to sell under agency terms without restriction and without a lawsuit to defend. Why? Because they didn’t take simultaneous action with the other five and were, therefore, not implicated in the alleged collusion.

4. Agency terms, including even most favored nation clauses (which never really affected the Big Six anyway), have not been ruled illegal. (Cader said in his post on Friday, blocked by paywalls I think, that, as a result of this set of legal actions “agency itself is demonstrably considered legal.” If that is accurate, and he almost always is, that is certainly an unintended consequence.)

5. The DoJ delivered some convincing evidence, surfaced on the Melville House blog, that despite my conjecture to the contrary, big publishers did discuss agency among each other before they implemented it. That certainly doesn’t look good. But whether or not it was implemented legally does not affect my opinion about the value of agency or the damage from losing it.

Added later. But, aha!!! This is not convincing evidence of a conspiracy. It is most likely that this discussion, assuming the email quotes are all legitimate to begin with, was about Bookish, the book retailing initiative funded by Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin. If that’s true, it would suggest that HarperCollins was an early participant in the conversations about starting it. That makes sense. HarperCollins is a partner with Penguin in the financing of Anobii, an ebook retailing site in the UK. 

And hats off to my great friend and favorite consulting competitor, Lorraine Shanley of Market Partners, who made the penny drop for me in a conversation at the Digital Minds Conference today in London! I was only comforted when I spoke to one of the smartest guys in trans-Atlantic digital publishing who said, “of course” to this when I told him, just as I did when Lorraine told me. Like me, he didn’t get this right off the bat!

 

Read the rest of the post on The Shatzkin Files.

How Do You Survive Criticism?

by

This post, by Andrew E. Kaufman, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog on 4/18/12 and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

Being a writer means being vulnerable. I’m talking, rip your shirt open, aim your chest toward the heavens, and let the vultures have at it. I learned long ago that if I wanted to be an author, I’d have to accept this fact. And while, for the most part, people are wonderful, there will always be haters; they’re everywhere. And yes, they do suck.

 
Of course, accepting this philosophy is one thing. Surviving it is another. We, as authors, are human. We’re a sensitive lot. We pour our hearts and souls  onto the pages, and taking criticism, regardless of how much truth there is to it, isn’t easy. But we all have to endure it, whether it’s a nasty review, email, or passing remark. Friends, both readers and writers, often ask how I cope with that. Luckily, it doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I deal with it. I have no choice. I’ve developed a coping strategy. Sometimes it even works:

 

  1.  Accept that this is the nature of the beast. Simply put, if you can’t handle criticism, you’ve chosen the wrong business. This is not brain surgery; this is the arts, and being as such, not only must you accept criticism, you should expect it. 
     
  2. Take what you can use, throw away the rest. Constructive criticism is always welcome. I know I’ll never stop growing as a writer, and growing means listening. Besides, who better to give feedback than the readers? I consider them experts and their input important. If something resonates with me, I take it to heart. If it doesn’t, I respectfully consider it a difference of opinion and move on. I’ve learned a lot from my readers and I hope I never stop. 
     
  3. The exact moment someone gets nasty is the exact moment I realize it’s not about the book. It’s about them. When somebody becomes belligerent or starts calling names, I know there’s something else at work, that their motivation is more than likely coming from a bad place. Constructive criticism is thoughtful. Hate requires none. 
     
  4.  Not everyone is going to like my couch, and that’s okay. I look at it this way: tastes vary widely from person to person. If I bought a new couch—one I found particularly cool and awesome—and showed it to fifty different people, it’s a sure bet I’d get fifty different opinions. Some would love it, some would feel indifferent about it, and yes, some might even hate it. Does that make it a bad couch? Nope (of course, if everyone hated it, then I’d have to do some rethinking about my couch, just as I would with my book). But someone is bound to hate it. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. That’s called life. 
     
  5. Take pride. Anyone who has written a novel knows what a ridiculously difficult job it can be, but it’s also a huge accomplishment. I am by no means perfect, nor would I ever delude myself into thinking I produce perfect work. But I do take great pride in it. I trust my instincts. Even more important, I live for the process, and nobody can take that away from me. Whether I have one reader or thousands, whether people love my books or hate them, I will always write,  always love writing, and will always, every step of the way, enjoy the journey. 

What about you? How do you cope with criticism?