Business End

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

Pirates Ahoy! Why The Media Just DOESN'T GET The Ebook Piracy Issue

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This post, from Dan Holloway, originally appeared on his The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes blog on 10/4/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

OK, not ALL the media necessarily, but I came across this terribly written article yesterday, and it’s representative of most I’ve seen on the issue of the ills of Ebook piracy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/business/04digi.html?_r=2&hpw

Let me outline the gist (but please don’t take it from me – I AM biased, I may have distorted it) of Randall Stross’ article "Will books be Napsterised". As a result of file-sharing the music industry lost vast revenue streams. As Ebooks take an increasing share of the book market, the same will happen there. The problem lies with file-sharing sites like Rapidshare. Sites like RapidShare allow anyone to upload files and then post the URL for others to download them. Whilst they will remove copyright-infinging files on the request of the copyright owner, these files are not policed upon upload. RapidShare talked to Mr Stross, urging publishers and authors to learn from Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails and use free downloads as part of their business model. Stross ends with a retort to this suggestion:

"I will forward the suggestion along, as soon as authors can pack arenas full and pirated e-books can serve as concert fliers."

Now, there is so little analysis and so much fabulation in this article I couldn’t deal with it all (apparently e-book hardware is "on the verge of going mainstream", for example, whatever that means—I didn’t see a single reference to the Kindle or the Tablet, and nary a mention of the phone vs reader debate, by the way).

OK, it’s time for my disclaimer. I hate plagiarism. It sucks, and sucks major. In fact, any form of copyright violation sucks. And it’s NOT a victimless crime. But. But, but. But, but BUT. The way to beat pirating is, I’m afraid, as RapidShare’s spokesperson says, to incorporate free downloads into your business plan. That’s not giving in, it’s not kowtowing. It’s the way it is.

The obvious way to do that is, as suggested, to study the successful musicians. I’ve been talking about gigging and merching for authors ever since I got into the blogging business, and I stand by what I’ve always said. Culture is culture. It inspires communal events, it inspires fans to desire souvenirs, to desire contact. These things aren’t unique to music. And as an advocate of the "freemium" model, I’d have to say I think content itself can be charged for in different formats – the special edition, the regular paperback even.

What we need, as authors, is to work – collectively and individually – on ways to adapt to the file-sharing world. I DO have a problem with exploiting fans. I don’t like the idea that some people pay for my stuff and others don’t pay for the same thing – so for me, ebooks have to be either free or not free (or it has to be transparent which is which). I DO think, though, that we need to look for something slightly more exciting than "free".

Part of the thing about file-sharing is the fact that it creates communities – where has the industry’s sense of history gone? Do they not REMEMBER the Warehouse and Rave scene? The buzz of these things is that they’re outside the usual channels – an anonymmous URL on a bulletin board, a phone box on the M25. It’s the same thing. These are communities that exist and get their energy from being on the outside. Bring them inside and they instantly use their energy. So "free" isn’t the only answer – that would be like having your parents sit down to watch Debbie Does Dallas with you on your 18th birthday.

As authors we DO need to use free, but we also need to be clever how we do so (but not, as I say, so clever we pretend our ebokos are for sale to try and make it seem a thrill to pirate them – that just exploits our fans). I’m not 100% sure what all the answers are (but Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans is part of the answer). But THAT’s the interesting debate – not whingeing when we left the sweet shop open that someone took our candy canes. And I never thought I’d say this, but the places we need to be looking are those semi-legal communities that use bulletin boards and chatrooms – the modern equivalent of rave culture – be it the BDSM scene, or the dogging networks, or the secretive supper clubs I saw on the news the other day. Come on, guys – we’re meant to be creatives, aren’t we?!

A further piece of logic that niggles at me. Until now, when I’ve talked about authors following the music model, and "doing a Trent", I’ve been told – as Stross concludes – that the two types of fan are fundamentally different, so it won’t work. If they’re so different, why worry about "Napsterisation" (other than for the rather unprofessional sake of using an emotive word)? Surely if books ARE "Napsterised", that’s just one more piece of evidence for those of us who maintain culture is, fundamentally, culture; and fans are, fundamentally, fans. And if they download stuff, they’ll pay for things they like.

A final point, Mr Stross. You complain that the group the file-sharing sites never mention are authors and publishers. And HERE, I’m afraid, you give yourself away. Stop speaking on my behalf, please. As a writer, I’m more than happy to embrace file-sharing. It’s not the people who file-share my work I lose sleep over. It’s the people who DON’T. The people who will lose out in the new landscape are the publishers. Please stop bundling our fate as writers in with theirs.

Dan Holloway is the author of the interactive Facebook novel The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, and just-released Songs from the Other Side of the Wall;  founding member of the Year Zero Writers Collective; organiser of the Free-e-day festival; celebrator of Indie culture – doing his bit to raise the issues the publishing industry doesn’t like to face.

Interview With The FTC's Richard Cleland

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This post, from Edward Champion, originally appeared on his Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits site on 10/5/09, and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. In it, he speaks to Federal Trade Commission representative Richard Cleland about the FTC’s new guidelines regarding blogger product endorsements with a specific focus on bloggers who review books.

This morning, the Federal Trade Commission announced that its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials would be revised in relation to bloggers. The new guidelines (PDF) specified that bloggers making any representation of a product must disclose the material connections they (the presumed endorsers) share with the advertisers. What this means is that, under the new guidelines, a blogger’s positive review of a product may qualify as an “endorsement” and that keeping a product after a review may qualify as “compensation.”

These guidelines, which will be effective as of December 1, 2009, require all bloggers to disclose any tangible connections. But as someone who reviews books for both print and online, I was struck by the inherent double standard. And I wasn’t the only one. As Michael Cader remarked in this morning’s Publishers Marketplace:

The main point of essence for book publishers (and book bloggers) is the determination that “bloggers may be subject to different disclosure requirements than reviewers in traditional media.” They state that “if a blogger’s statement on his personal blog or elsewhere (e.g., the site of an online retailer of electronic products) qualifies as an ‘endorsement,’” due to either a relationship with the “advertiser” or the receipt of free merchandise in the seeking of a review, that connection must be disclosed.

ftcIn an attempt to better understand the what and the why of the FTC’s position, I contacted Richard Cleland of the Bureau of Consumer Protection by telephone, who was kind enough to devote thirty minutes of his time in a civil but heated conversation. (At one point, when I tried to get him to explicate further on the double standard, he declared, “You’re obviously astute enough to understand what I mean.”)

Cleland informed me that the FTC’s main criteria is the degree of relationship between the advertiser and the blogger.

“The primary situation is where there’s a link to the sponsoring seller and the blogger,” said Cleland. And if a blogger repeatedly reviewed similar products (say, books or smartphones), then the FTC would raise an eyebrow if the blogger either held onto the product or there was any link to an advertisement.

What was the best way to dispense with products (including books)?

“You can return it,” said Cleland. “You review it and return it. I’m not sure that type of situation would be compensation.”

If, however, you held onto the unit, then Cleland insisted that it could serve as “compensation.” You could after all sell the product on the streets.

But what about a situation like a film blogger going to a press screening? Or a theater blogger seeing a preview? After all, the blogger doesn’t actually hold onto a material good.

“The movie is not retainable,” answered Cleland. “Obviously it’s of some value. But I guess that my only answer is the extent that it is viewed as compensation as an individual who got to see a movie.”

But what’s the difference between an individual employed at a newspaper assigned to cover a beat and an individual blogger covering a beat of her own volition?

“We are distinguishing between who receives the compensation and who does the review,” said Cleland. “In the case where the newspaper receives the book and it allows the reviewer to review it, it’s still the property of the newspaper. Most of the newspapers have very strict rules about that and on what happens to those products.”

In the case of books, Cleland saw no problem with a blogger receiving a book, provided there wasn’t a linked advertisement to buy the book and that the blogger did not keep the book after he had finished reviewing it. Keeping the book would, from Cleland’s standpoint, count as “compensation” and require a disclosure.

But couldn’t the same thing be said of a newspaper critic?

Cleland insisted that when a publisher sends a book to a blogger, there is the expectation of a good review. I informed him that this was not always the case and observed that some bloggers often receive 20 to 50 books a week. In such cases, the publisher hopes for a review, good or bad. Cleland didn’t see it that way.

“If a blogger received enough books,” said Cleland, “he could open up a used bookstore.”

Cleland said that a disclosure was necessary when it came to an individual blogger, particularly one who is laboring for free. A paid reviewer was in the clear because money was transferred from an institution to the reviewer, and the reviewer was obligated to dispense with the product. I wondered if Cleland was aware of how many paid reviewers held onto their swag.

“I expect that when I read my local newspaper, I may expect that the reviewer got paid,” said Cleland. “His job is to be paid to do reviews. Your economic model is the advertising on the side.”

From Cleland’s standpoint, because the reviewer is an individual, the product becomes “compensation.”

“If there’s an expectation that you’re going to write a positive review,” said Cleland, “then there should be a disclosure.”

But why shouldn’t a newspaper have to disclose about the many free books that it receives? According to Cleland, it was because a newspaper, as an institution, retains the ownership of a book. The newspaper then decides to assign the book to somebody on staff and therefore maintains the “ownership” of the book until the reviewer dispenses with it.

I presented many hypothetical scenarios in an effort to determine where Cleland stood. He didn’t see any particular problem with a book review appearing on a blog, but only if there wasn’t a corresponding Amazon Affiliates link or an advertisement for the book.

In cases where a publisher is advertising one book and the blogger is reviewing another book by the same publisher, Cleland replied, “I don’t know. I would reserve judgment on that. My initial reaction to it is that it doesn’t seem like a relationship.”

Wasn’t there a significant difference between a publisher sending a book for review and a publisher sending a book with a $50 check attached to it? Not according to Cleland. A book falls under “compensation” if it comes associated with an Amazon link or there is an advertisement for the book, or if the reviewer holds onto the book.

“You simply don’t agree, which is your right,” responded Cleland.

Disagreement was one thing. But if I failed to disclose, would I be fined by the FTC? Not exactly.

Cleland did concede that the FTC was still in the process of working out the kinks as it began to implement the guidelines.

“These are very complex situations that are going to have to looked at on a case-by-case basis to determine whether or not there is a sufficient nexus, a sufficient compensation between the seller and the blogger, and so what we have done is to provide some guidance in this area. And some examples in this area where there’s an endorsement.”

Cleland elaborated: “I think that as we get more specific examples, ultimately we hope to put out some business guidance on specific examples. From an enforcement standpoint, there are hundreds of thousands of bloggers. Our goal is to the extent that we can educate on these issues. Looking at individual bloggers is not going to be an effective enforcement model.”

Cleland indicated that he would be looking primarily at the advertisers to determine how the relationships exist.

[UPDATE: One unanswered concern that has emerged in the reactions to this interview is the degree of disclosure that the FTC would require with these guidelines. Would the FTC be happy with a blanket policy or would it require a separate disclosure for each individual post? I must stress again that Cleland informed me that enforcement wouldn’t make sense if individual bloggers were targeted. The FTC intends to direct its energies to advertisers. Nevertheless, I’ve emailed Cleland to determine precisely where he stands on disclosure. And when I hear back from him, I will update this post accordingly.]

Edward Champion is a New York journalist who maintains The Bat Segundo Show, a high-octane podcast featuring interviews with today’s writers. Be sure to bookmark his site and watch it for his updates on this developing story.

How Publishers Encourage Piracy

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This post, from Chris Walters, originally appeared on Booksprung on 10/4/09.

When a recalcitrant publisher and an impatient consumer square off online, it’s almost always the consumer–at least the tech-savvy one–who wins. Here are four ways in which publishers are encouraging piracy.

 

1. By not releasing official digital copies of works online.

Consider the work of Karen Blixen, the author of Out of Africa. Under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen, she published the short story collection Seven Gothic Tales in the 1930s, and the collection Anecdotes of Destiny in the 1950s. She’s a little obscure, but not forgotten; her short story “Babette’s Feast” and her novel Out of Africa were both adapted into Oscar-winning films in the 1980s, and she’s a widely acknowledged and praised artist.

Her work, however, isn’t available in ebook format on the Amazon Kindle store, the Sony ebook store, or fictionwise. If I want to read her work on a digital device–and I do–my only recourse is to scan a printed copy, convert it to a digital copy, and create my own digital version.

This digital version will exist entirely outside of the official publishing world; whoever holds Blixen’s copyrights will never see revenue off of it. By contrast, if either of those short story collections was available on any of the three ebook stores I mentioned above, I would have already bought them.

It’s not just a problem for dead authors, of course. In May the New York Times pointed out that a digital copy of J. K. Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard appeared on the website Scribd earlier this year. What’s more telling is that a reader wrote, “thx for posting it up ur like the robinhood of ebooks,” on the Sribd page. That’s not the cackling of a pirate, but the enthusiasm of a fan.

Rowling is famous for refusing to release her books digitally, and yet I can locate and download all seven Harry Potter books, plus the Beedle the Bard collection, in less than an hour. There are readers clamoring for her books in digital format, and they’d be more than eager to pay for the privilege; instead, she’s allowed piracy to dominate her online sales.

I would argue that every time a stubborn author or publisher refuses to release a popular book digitally, she contributes to the wider problem of piracy by helping normalize both the procedures by which one pirates a book and the behavior of reading unauthorized copies. That’s right, all you midlist authors afraid of your income drying up; you can thank Rowling for helping the ecosystem of pirated books grow larger by the year.

2. By crippling content so that it only works on one device, or only works if the reader is given permission by a retailer or publisher to open the file.

When I first bought an Amazon Kindle, one of the first frustrations I experienced was that my ebooks were tied to the Kindle device for no good reason. (Well, for no good consumer reason.) I had other devices that would display ebooks just as well, including a Nokia smartphone and an Asus netbook, and depending on the day I might have any combination of the three devices with me. What I discovered was that in order to read the ebook when I wanted to using whatever I had nearby, I would have to crack the encryption that locked the ebook to the Amazon Kindle.

But note that by doing that, I would be creating a new, unlocked version of the work that existed outside of the publishing industry. What’s worse, it would be in a standardized format (like ePub or PDF) that would be more popular and more robust than the locked Amazon format–which means it would be more attractive to other consumers should I ever put that new file online.

Read the rest of the post, which includes 2 more ways publishers encourage piracy, on Booksprung.

Free And The Future Of Publishing

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This post, from William Landay, originally appeared on his site on 7/27/09.

I had an interesting conversation on Saturday with Bruce Spector, the founder and CEO of a new web service called LifeIO. (See the end of this article [Publetariat editor’s note: follow the ‘read the rest’ link at the end of this excerpt] for an explanation of what LifeIO is all about.) Bruce was part of the team that developed WebCal, which Yahoo! acquired in 1998 to form the core of its own calendar service, so he has been watching the web with an entrepreneur’s eye for some time now and he had an interesting take on the whole “free” debate and how it might apply to book publishing.

If you somehow missed the recent back-and-forth about Chris Anderson’s book Free, read the pro-”free” comments by Anderson, Seth Godin and especially Fred Wilson, and the anti-”free” perspective by Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Cuban, among many others. This piece by Kevin Kelly, not directly about “free,” is very good, too.

For the uninitiated, the issue boils down to this: The marginal cost of delivering a bit of information over the web — a song, a video, a bit of text like this one — is approaching zero. As a result, information is increasingly available, and consumers increasingly expect to get it, for free. So traditional “legacy” information-sellers like musicians or movie studios or newspapers, whose actual costs are very far from zero, have to figure out how to turn free-riders into paying customers — and fast, before they go out of business. Fred Wilson’s answer is “freemium“: you lure the customer in with a free basic service, then up-sell the heaviest users to a premium version of your product. As Wilson puts it, “Free gets you to a place where you can ask to get paid. But if you don’t start with free on the Internet, most companies will never get paid.”

How does all this apply to book publishing?

Here are some of Bruce Spector’s ideas. He is a great talker, though, and a summary like this doesn’t do him justice. Also, this was a private conversation, but Bruce kindly gave me permission to repeat some of his comments here.

First, book publishers are no less vulnerable than other old-line media industries to the tendency of information to squirt around the web for free. E-books will be passed around as promiscuously as MP3’s. You can bet on it. So book publishers should expect their customers to demand that e-books be, if not free, then radically less expensive than traditional dead-tree books have been.

That means the current approach publishers are taking is precisely the wrong one. Locking up your content with DRM and enforcing higher prices will not work for books any more than it has for CD’s or movies. You cannot resist the downward price pressure of the web merely by refusing to acknowledge it. The old business model simply won’t work anymore.

How, then, will Random House — and novelists like me — make a profit? After all, in a world where iTunes sells songs for 99 cents, even successful musicians can’t make ends meet by selling recorded music anymore. They have to tour relentlessly. But a novelist like me can’t cash in by touring. I can’t play nightclubs performing my work live. For a novel, the book is the performance; the reader performs it in her head. So how do I survive in a world of, say, five-dollar e-books?

The answer is right in front of our noses, says Bruce. The business model is long established and proved to work.

Read the rest of the post to learn Bruce’s suggested solution on William Landay’s site.

Why Responsible Aggregation Is Not Only NOT Evil, But A GOOD Thing

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This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton’s Indie Author Blog.

There’s a lot of hue and cry against online aggregation circulating around the interwebs these days, and I really don’t get it.

Aggregator sites reprint excerpts from other sites’ articles and blog posts, along with a ‘keep reading’ or ‘read the rest’ link to the source article/blog post. The more responsible aggregators also include the name of the author, and the most considerate ones also include links to the author’s website or blog and a link to the home page of the site where the article or post originally appeared.

If an aggregator site prints an entire article or blog post, or 50% or greater of the article/post without the author’s permission, well that’s just theft. If the ‘read the rest’ link opens the source web page in a window controlled by the aggregator, that’s tantamount to theft since it appears to the viewer as if he or she hasn’t left the aggregator site; worse yet, most such windowing systems don’t make it easy for the viewer to escape from the aggregator’s window. They may click links on the source site, but the linked pages still open up in the aggregator’s window. As a web consumer, I find those aggregator windows incredibly annoying and have come to avoid following links provided by such aggregators.

If an aggregator fails to credit the author when printing an excerpt and ‘read the rest’ link, it’s depriving the author of his or her due and that’s wrong, too. If an aggregator surrounds aggregated material with lots of paid advertising, particularly advertising with which the authors of aggregated material might take issue, that’s also an abuse of the authors’ material. But if the excerpt is brief, the author is credited, a ‘read the rest’ link is provided back to the source article without wrapping it in the aggregator’s window, links are provided to the author’s website (where available) and the home page of the site where the aggregated material originally appeared, and advertising surrounding aggregated material is minimal and non-offensive, with very few exceptions (e.g., aggregation of material the author is offering for sale) I really don’t understand why authors or anyone else should have a problem with it.

Publetariat, a site I founded and for which I’m Editor in Chief, has a mix of both original and aggregated material. The site focuses on content for indie authors and small imprints, and operates on a ‘we scour the web for relevant articles so you don’t have to’ sort of paradigm while also providing a discussion board area and member profiles with blogging capability. Every weekday at about 11am PST, I tweet a link to the site with the titles of articles posted to the site for that day. My tweet is often retweeted by my Twitter followers, but I’ve noticed another phenomenon going on: some people retweet, but only after changing the link to point directly to the source article. They seem to be making a pointed, if somewhat passive, statement against Publetariat’s aggregation, but I don’t know why they feel the need to do so since Publetariat is providing a service to both the author and readers.

Publetariat is a heavily-trafficked and well-respected site in the publishing world, and it gets several thousand unique visitors every week. It also gets thousands of RSS feed hits every month. The site has a traffic rank in the top 2% of all sites worldwide, and a Technorati blog rank in the top .2%. In other words, getting your material on the front page of the Publetariat site gets you a LOT of exposure to a highly targeted audience of authors and publishers. Let’s look at a specific example.

My blog post entitled “Self-Publishing: Future Prerequisite” was published on my blog on 9/22/09 and cross-posted to the Publetariat site the same day. To date, the post on my blog has received 221 hits. Not too shabby. But the same post on Publetariat has received 709 hits: over three times as many reads. In the current climate, in which authors are supposed to be doing everything they can to attract readership and attention, why wouldn’t they want three times as many readers for their content? And if you’re an author services provider, such as an editor, book doctor or promotional consultant, why wouldn’t you want three times as many authors to know about you and your site?

To date, there have only been two authors/webmasters who’ve asked to have their aggregated material removed from the Publetariat site, and both times, Publetariat has complied with the request. But I will never understand why those authors/webmasters are turning down an opportunity for such highly-targeted, free exposure from a responsible aggregator.

When Publetariat aggregates, we credit the author, provide a ‘read the rest’ link that isn’t wrapped in a Publetariat window, provide a link to the author’s own website where available, provide a link to the home page of the site on which the aggregated material originally appeared, and sometimes even provide links to buy the author’s books or other merchandise—and these are not affiliate links, Publetariat isn’t making any money on those click-throughs. We do everything we can to ensure both the author and the site where the article originally appeared will benefit from being aggregated on Publetariat.

What about advertising? Isn’t Publetariat profiting from aggregation through its site advertising, and not sharing that profit with the bloggers and authors who’ve made it possible? While Publetariat does carry paid advertising, from the day the site launched to today, despite our impressive traffic stats we’ve received a grand total of about US$65 in ad revenue. All the rest of the advertising on the site consists of public service announcements and traded links. Advertising revenue isn’t even enough to cover our hosting expense.

So, it’s clear that Publetariat is a responsible aggregator. You can also see what Publetariat has to offer an author of aggregated material, and that Publetariat isn’t profiting financially from aggregation. But there’s one more facet to explore here: why it’s better for a reader to discover a given blog post or article aggregated on Publetariat instead of on the source site or blog.

When a reader visits my blog, they’re getting my content only. That’s great for me, but somewhat limiting for them. If they come across my blog posts on Publetariat, they’re also getting exposure to lots of articles and blog posts from my fellow authors, author service providers, publishers and more. Sometimes, they’re seeing material relevant to writers that originated from a site they weren’t at all likely to discover on their own because it’s not a site geared specifically to writers. It’s like going to a great party that’s filled with fascinating people and discussions, any of which you’d love to know more about, and having introductions to those people and discussions made on your behalf by the host of the party.

People who retweet links to Publetariat’s aggregated material only after editing the link to point directly to the source site are leading their Twitter followers away from the party, and depriving them of everything else Publetariat has to offer.

A last objection that’s sometimes raised is the matter of click-throughs. Some will argue that the click-through rate on ‘read the rest’ links is low, that many visitors to the aggregator site will only read the posted excerpt. This is true, but every reader who does click through is a reader you didn’t have before your piece was aggregated.

So if Publetariat or any other site wants to aggregate your material, so long as the aggregator site is higher-profile than your own site/blog and they intend to aggregate responsibly (with proper credit and links, no wrapper window, no offensive advertising), it’s not evil. It’s the easiest free promotion you can get.

And if you’d like your site or blog to be on Publetariat’s list of available sources for aggregated or reprinted material, post your name and a link in the comments section, below, along with your preference for having your material merely excerpted with a ‘read the rest’ link, or reprinted in full on the site.

Why I Am Not Afraid To Take Your Money

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This post, from Amanda Palmer, originally appeared on her blog on 9/29/09. Amanda Palmer is known primarily as a musician and cabaret artist, but what she has to say here is something authors need to hear, too.

aie!

i had two conversations within the last 24 hours which made me feel like blogging about this.

one was with jason webley, who i’ve been living with for the past week in the Middle of Nowhere.

i was writing a press release and in it disclosed how much money i made from the recent london webcast (about 10k).
i gave a copy of the text to jason to proofread over a cup of tea (that’s what rock stars do for each other nowadays instead of leaving lines of blow on the backs of bathroom toilets).
he suggested taking the money part out. he gently advised; he’s heard people gossiping about me and my shameless revelations about my webcast/twitter income etc.

right around the same time i got an email from beth, regarding the future of my webcasting.
she suggested we do something totally free and not ask people for any money.
she’s been picking up on heat from people that the ask-the-fans-for-money thing has gotten out of control.

listen.

artists need to make money to eat and to continue to make art.

artists used to rely on middlemen to collect their money on their behalf, thereby rendering themselves innocent of cash-handling in the public eye.

artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks.
please welcome them. please help them. please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money.
dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don’t fight it.

unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve surely noticed that artists ALL over the place are reaching out directly to their fans for money.
how you do it is a different matter.
maybe i should be more tasteful.
maybe i should not stop my concerts and auction off art.
i do not claim to have figured out the perfect system, not by a long shot.

BUT … i’d rather get the system right gradually and learn from the mistakes and break new ground (with the help of an incredibly responsive and positive fanbase) for other artists who i assume are going to cautiously follow in our footsteps. we are creating the protocol, people, right here and now.

i don’t care if we fuck up. i care THAT we’re doing it.

in fact, i ENJOY being the slightly crass, outspoken, crazy-(naked?)-chick-on-a-soapbox holding out a ukulele case of crumpled dollars asking for your money so that someone else a few steps behind me, perhaps some artist of shy and understated temperament, can feel better and maybe a little less nervous when they quietly step up and hold out their hat, fully clothed.

i am shameless, and fearless, when it comes to money and art.

Read the rest of the post on Amanda Palmer’s blog, and if you like what she’s saying and doing, buy something from her.

Creative Commons: What Is It And How Can It Benefit You?

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This is a cross-posting from The Creative Penn site, where it appeared on 9/13/09.

I went to a fantastic workshop this weekend at the Brisbane Writers Festival on Creative Commons. It was presented by Elliott Bledsoe, who is Project Officer at Creative Industries and Innovation in Australia and a wealth of information in this area. (You can find him on Twitter @elliotbledsoe). All the detailed information is at: http://creativecommons.org/

This is such important information for authors online so please read and share!

What is Creative Commons?

  • It is a version of copyright licensing, and it relates to your creative works. The basic Copyright law says that no one can copy or distribute your work, or use it, remix it or profit from it. This law becomes impractical in the digital environment where sharing, remixing, distribution and marketing are so important. Creative Commons licensing is a license you can put on your work to allow some of these things and make Copyright work for you and your creativity. Read this for the full lowdown on Creative Commons.
  • You can license your work for different purposes. The main aspects are Attribution (you let others use/distribute your work but you must be attributed as the creator), Share Alike (you can use my work but you must share your own work too), Noncommercial (you can use my work but you can’t profit from it), No Derivative Works (you can use my work verbatim but you can’t remix it or change it). For more on the different licenses, read this. People can approach you for options beyond the license e.g. you have a novel released under Creative Commons which is Noncommercial but someone approaches you with a movie idea based on it that will be sold. You can still allow them permission.

How can it benefit you as an author?

  • On Piracy vs Obscurity. You need to make your own decision as to whether you want your ideas to be out there and used (and potentially pirated), or whether you want to keep them in a drawer where no one will discover them. If you want to be a successful author who sells books, you need to be known and the internet is the place to build your global presence. The risk of piracyis nothing compared to being unknown. Cory Doctorow addresses this in “Giving it away”, a Forbes.com article where he describes giving the ebook versions of his books away for free under a Creative Commons license. His sales increased but his books were also translated by fans and his ideas spun into new creativity.
  • “Share your creative wealth and accomplish great things”. This is a quote from the video at the bottom of the page which explains Creative Commons in a great way. The internet has changed the way we produce and consume information. We all find ideas everywhere now. We put our thoughts and text online in the hope of building an author platform, or selling our books/products or finding an audience. Other people may get ideas from our work, and Creative Commons enables a legal way for them to re-use or remix it. This has started in mainstream books now with the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a remix of Jane Austen. Is it fan-fic or a remix of a Public Domain book?
  • Collaboration and Creativity. Expanding the theme of fan-fic and remixes, licensing under Creative Commons gives people the ability to take your work and recreate it in different ways based on your ideas. This could spread your work much farther than you could do on your own and may lead to some extraordinary ideas you can take and reuse in your turn. Is your idea your own? or can you release it and see what happens to it out there in the big wild?

How can you license your work as Creative Commons?

  • Advice from Elliott was: Have a really good think before you do license as Creative Commons. Are you really happy for people to use your work? Can they make money from it? Can they remix it? Only license once you are sure.

How do I find other authors and creatives using Creative Commons?

  • You can find works licensed under Creative Commons by including it as a Search term on sites like Google and Flickr. Many of the images I use on this site are Flickr Creative Commons and I add Attribution to each one. Use the Advanced Search option. You can also use http://search.creativecommons.org/
  • I have now licensed this site under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License, you can see this on the sidebar under my books. This license applies to the blog content and does not currently apply to my workbooks, Author 2.0 material and published books. This means that you can use my posts on your own websites, books and projects as long as you attribute me and this site as the original creator, share the work derived from it and don’t make income on it. Start with this one and spread the word about Creative Commons! You can see all the international licenses here. 

 

Building On The Momentum

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Promoting doesn’t and shouldn’t end with the book sale. I live in the middle of farm country where book sale events are hard to find. Harvest is about ready to start. Winter is coming soon. The internet is my best method for promoting. I’ve just had a successful book sale. Now I can build on that and find ways to promote the fact that I am an author with books for sale until the next event.  Do I know everything about promoting?  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still learning. 

I took my camera to the last book sale and snapped a lot of pictures. The first pictures I had my son take of me in my pioneer dress and bonnet and of my table after it was set up with stacks of books and the two posters. With these pictures I made an album on Facebook and other web sites complete with captions.

On twitter, I submitted messages about my book sale and later wrote to take a look at my album on Facebook. By the way, I am developing a following. I have at least two authors following me now – Stephanie Cowell and Steve Weber the author of Plug Your Book – online book marketing for authors (which I have).

Every time I find a website for writer/authors I’ve signed up. In fact, I am on so many that I had to log them in a book with login name and password. I wanted to stick to one login name.  My choice of names should describe me and what I do so I picked booksbyfay. I don’t want to miss an opportunity to reach internet users. Having a list helps me keep track so I don’t forget to make entries on one of those web sites about a new book, a book sale or press release. Several of these websites have links to other websites which I happened to registered on so I can link what I do to be announced on those sites.

I’ve put a link to Publetariat where I could. Hopefully, internet surfers will come across my blog post on the front page. I appreciate the opportunity to help other authors. On Biblioscribe, I wrote two news articles. One article was about the success of my book sale. The other article was about my blog entry "Preparing For A Book Sale" posted on the front page of Publetariat. That should get people to take a look at Publetariat and perhaps become interested in my blog.

So don’t stop promoting after a book sale event. Keep finding ways to get your name out there until the next event.  Then work on that event and build on the momentum.

Reviews, Word Of Mouth And Super Users

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This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter’s alanbaxteronline site, from 9/28/09.

Today I’m pleased to present a guest post by MCM. This post explores the difficulties in building a fan base through word of mouth, and talks about how reviewers can help us with that.

Recently, I’ve had some conversations with very smart people about the future of publishing, specifically about how readers and writers can connect directly and make old-style functions like reviewers obsolete. It’s a great notion with dangerous consequences, and if you’re game, I’ll explain why.

Here’s the thing: the internet breaks down barriers and actively enhances communication between people. In the old days, it was impractical for an author to chat with their fans; today, it’s downright pedestrian. The old notion of “word of mouth” expanded beyond your neighbourhood and now covers the globe. Tell your five best friends about your new book, and they’ll tell their five best friends, and eventually you take over the world. It is, theoretically, pure unbridled exponential growth (at least until you run out of people to tell). This is the way of the future.

Except it’s not as easy as it seems. Just because you tell your five best friends, it doesn’t mean all of them will like your writing enough to tell anyone else. There are lots of factors that play into the “infection rate”, but the end result is you may only get one of your friends to follow through. And then only one of their friends. And so on. It’s still exponential, just working on a lesser scale.

Word of Mouth (WOM) depends less on the potential pool of converts, and more on the accessible pool. There are billions of people on the planet, but you probably only know 0.000002% of them. Add in decay (meaning your WOM is not eternal… eventually, the lag in reading will affect the infection rate) and your growth is severely capped. If you have 135 friends at the start, in most cases you’ll end up with a total audience of 621 (note: all numbers are based on a rough systems model and are probably too high).

135 Reviews, word of mouth and Super Users Guest post by MCM

Next time around, you’ll have a base pool of 600 to work from, which helps a lot. But unless you’re willing to spend years and years building up an audience, straight WOM is not going to cut it.

This is where Super Users come in. They are, very simply, people with a lot of friends and influence. If they say “this book is awesome!” a larger percentage of their network will act on the promotion. You get a 1% infection rate, but they’ll score 10% or higher. Add that to their larger pool, and your growth will have much more potential. Switch from a gentle curve to a steep one, and you see the difference.

The other benefit of a steep curve is that the decay is postponed… someone, somewhere will always be finishing your book and telling their friends about it. It creates a constant state of critical mass, which also ups the infection rate. Think of it this way: nobody likes to be dancing alone, but if you’ve got a large pool of people all dancing together (even if some of them cycle out after every song), it looks like a party. You’re more likely to dance if that’s what everyone else is doing. Super users can find enough people to throw that party.

Super Users can take many forms online, but one important role to weblit is the reviewer. People are looking for advice on what to read, and reviewers read a lot of material. As a reviewer proves their merit, their social network grows, and so does their influence. Writers can expand their network with every new title, but reviewers can expand with every new posting.

135and1000 Reviews, word of mouth and Super Users Guest post by MCM

The value for authors is that a single positive review by an established reviewer can give them access to thousands of eyeballs, not just hundreds. If you have no social network, a reviewer can give you one. If you already have a solid base, a reviewer can help you tap a different set of people, or at least add to your own influence.

To compare: if your book is reviewed by someone with a social network of 1,000, your total audience potential increases from 621 to 4,937. If their social network is 10,000, you’re looking at just shy of 82,350. Imagine someone with a million Twitter followers reviewing your book… you’re looking at 8,242,224 converts.

1000and2influence Reviews, word of mouth and Super Users Guest post by MCM

The trick for weblit reviewers is that, right now, very few of them have large followings. That’s something authors can help change, by supporting and promoting them. It may seem unappealing to put reviewers on a pedestal (especially since it reeks of gate keeping), but if you look at it objectively, a healthy weblit community depends on a healthy reviewer class.

The question of how to build a SMART reviewer class is something I’ll cover in a guest post on Novelr tomorrow. And yes, it’ll have more graphs. Yay!

MCM is the creator of the animated series RollBots as well as the author of several picture books for kids. His grown-up work includes the sci fi thriller “The Vector” and a crowdsourced mystery novel called “Fission Chips”. He has a background in programming and systems thinking, which is how he learned to make graphs. He lives in Victoria, BC, Canada with his wife and kids, and may be at least partially insane.

What are your experiences with word of mouth marketing? Do you trust all reviewers or no reviewers? Do you have particular places that you’ll go for reviews to help you decide on a purchase? Leave a comment.

Running a Mile in Under Four Minutes

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On May 6, 1954 Roger Bannister became the first human in history to break the four minute barrier and run a mile in under four minutes.  Stick with me here folks, I really have a point.  He decided he was going to break this record and after several attempts he did it.  No one thought it was possible for any human being to run a mile in under four minutes.  It was too extraordinary to even comprehend.  But Roger Bannister decided in his head that he could and would do it, and then he trained accordingly.  

 

In the two years following his achievement, 37 additional people ran a mile in under four minutes.  Why?  No human in history had done it, suddenly Roger Bannister does it, and then 37 other people can do it too?  It’s because Bannister proved it was possible.  Once something is proven as a possible human achievement, other people gain the belief in themselves to make their dreams a reality.  And then other people achieve as well.

 

Tony Robbins is one of my heroes, and not just because he has those awesome big teeth.  This video is 38 minutes long, but if THIS doesn’t change how you view your dreams and go after it, then probably nothing will. I believe this video could be the best 38 minutes of your time you’ve ever invested. tonyrobbinstraining.com/320/interview-with-frank-kern-and-john-reese/

 

Tony explains it far better than I do, but the bottom line here as it relates to us is… self-publishing is really filled with a lot of underachievers, and I believe there is a reason for this. The reason is that self-publishing has been poo poo’d for SO long, that nearly every person who goes into it has a dream, but it’s a pipe dream.  They don’t REALLY believe they can do it and so they don’t take the required actions to make it happen.

 

In the past 10 months since I released my novella, KEPT, I’ve had over 10,000 readers.  over 2,000 of those readers bought the Amazon Kindle version, so they actually paid money to read it.  The rest got the free PDF.  (And just so no one jumps on me, the Amazon Kindle Version is a dollar, they won’t let little indies like me give it away.  So when you get it on Kindle, you’re paying for the format and convenience of having it delivered to your Kindle.  I have no control over that issue if I want to be on Amazon.)

 

And yet… there is a giant gap between free and $1.  Because free is a no-brainer, and $1 is a "buying decision" even if a little one.  Candy Bars are under a dollar but people don’t always buy those just because they are in their face at the check out line.  In this economy especially, something being cheap, doesn’t equal massive sales necessarily.

 

My "over 10,000" number doesn’t impress me. (Many people are doing far better than I am.  And I take full responsibility for the fact that I haven’t done even better.  I know how much (or little) I’ve worked at times, and the results are the fruit of that.) I see it as progress, and that’s great but it doesn’t just knock me over with "OMG I’m so awesome."  And that’s because I have big goals and even bigger dreams.  Meanwhile I’ve seen many self publishing authors who have moved under 300 copies in a full calendar year.  For free or pay.

 

Why?

 

There could be many reasons… maybe the book isn’t good. Maybe the cover is lousy.  Maybe the book isn’t being marketed; the author thought they could print it and it would magically sell itself.  Or maybe… the author doesn’t believe in himself.

 

Belief in what you can accomplish creates your reality.  You can’t just believe and not take action… that’s just a pipe dream.  And you can’t just take action without belief because then you’ll put less effort into it.  The force of your belief in yourself will drive you.  You have to get to the point of absolute certainty.

 

Absolute certainty that you are a good writer and people will want to read your work. (Get there however you have to get there.  Test market, get crit and beta readers, see if any agents show any interest in your writing at all, even if they don’t think they can sell it.  They don’t have to sell it. You will.)

 

Absolute certainty that you can create a GOOD and well-put together book that illustrates your competence.  i.e. you’re going to do what you have to do to have proper editing, layout, cover design.

 

Absolute certainty that you can market and sell this book and move a certain number of copies in a certain amount of time.

 

 

Self-publishing is one of the hardest things to do successfully, well except for maybe brain surgery.  Many people I’ve seen publishing their own work just aren’t displaying a high level of savvy.  They aren’t bringing much to the table.  Their covers look homemade, their editing is shoddy, they’ve sold 150 copies in a year.  I mean come on guys.  You have got to BELIEVE you can do this.  And then you have to bring the competence to the table.

 

Some of the people self-publishing have high-powered jobs, that require a level of savvy they aren’t bringing to the publishing table.  WHY?  Take this seriously.  If you don’t take it seriously, you’re not going to succeed.  If you don’t believe in yourself with absolute certainty you’re not going to succeed.  If you take a million shortcuts and don’t take the time to educate yourself about publishing and marketing and how to create a great book and get it in the hands of readers, you’re not going to succeed.

 

Here is the feedback loop many self-publishing authors are stuck in:

 

Critic:  You’ll never succeed. Do you know how RARE it is to succeed self-publishing?  Most self-publishing authors sell 150 copies or less.  You’ll never make any money at this.  Most self-published books suck.  They are poorly edited, have crappy covers, and don’t sell well.  You can’t get in bookstores, so obviously you can’t sell books unless you sell out of the trunk of your car.

 

When the self-publishing author hears this, unless they’re just really stubborn and determined, they’re likely to believe it and internalize these thoughts.  If the odds are so bad then they think of what they’re doing as a lottery.  They put minimal effort into it.  They don’t get the book well-edited or the cover properly produced because what’s the point?  They don’t learn what they need to about marketing or how they’re going to move books outside the bookstore environment, because there’s no point right? 

Because they’ve been infused with the belief, and bought into it, that their odds are really really bad and it’s probably just a silly dream, they don’t take themselves seriously and do the things that they need to do to succeed.  Instead they self-sabotage.  They design their own cover, and it looks it.  They don’t get proper editing.  They don’t do the proper market research, and when the book comes out, they don’t work that hard to sell it because they’re afraid of failure and being mocked. Or failure and losing money and being mocked.

 

If you’re going to do it, you may as well do it properly and take the time to learn HOW to do it properly.  Because some people do succeed self-publishing, and there are more of those stories than you think.  But you won’t, as long as you live into what your critics have said.  You have to rise above it.

 

Some of your critics and naysayers are trying to save you from yourself… bless their hearts.  What they don’t understand is… if a person truly has a dream they feel compelled to follow, they’re going to do it anyway.  And if a critic/naysayer really has their best interest at heart and just doesn’t want them to get hurt, then they’ll be supportive and help them problem solve, not try to talk them out of it.  Once the decision to do it has been made, the naysaying becomes pointless and cruel.  I’ve noticed that many many many people like to spend hours naysaying but they won’t spend five minutes trying to help problem solve.  Says more about them than it does about you, huh?  Keep it in mind so you can determine who is really on your side and who wants you to follow their path so they can feel better about their own choices.

 

There are also too many self-publishing authors who aren’t treating this like a business.  And it’s fine if you want to hobby publish.  But if you want to publish as a hobby then you need to understand that you are going to lose money.  Hobbies don’t generally make a profit.  You aren’t going to sell many books because it’s hard to be motivated to do a lot of work without any financial payout or promise of one at all.  If you just want to publish for love and not money, then give it away.  Save yourself the time and stress and money of getting it into print.

 

If you want to look at it as a business then you must become aquainted with the concept of the profit and loss statement.  Simple as that.  You have to have a business plan and a marketing plan.  You have to know where you’re selling and how.  You have to test market to see if people respond to your work.  You have to bring in more money than your sending out.

 

But in order to do all of this you have to take yourself seriously and believe in yourself.  Stop listening to the naysayers.  I’m going to let you in on a little secret of life… 90% of the naysayers out there are too gutless to follow their own dreams so they have to pick at yours.  And I gotta tell ya, I’m not that impressed with a mediocre cubicle monkey who can’t even THINK big, let alone act big. Don’t let them impress you either.

 

Grab your dreams and go for them.  If you’ve truly done your research and then you have someone coming to you with a million excuses of why your dream won’t work… then you know that you know more than they do.  Because you’ve spent months researching it, and in all likelihood, they just spent about 30 minutes to an hour reading other naysayer’s views and then parroting those back.  It doesn’t take guts or knowledge or savvy, or really anything impressive to follow the naysaying herd.  But it does take guts and knowledge, and savvy, to step out and follow your dream in your own way.  It takes guts and knowledge and savvy to self-publish successfully.

 

Weak-minded people concern themselves with everybody’s business but their own.  The strong-minded find what they want and stay the course.  In order for self-publishing to turn a corner and start breaking the stigma and stereotype, self-publishing authors must have the courage and strength to ignore all the negative mental crap being thrown at them and what their doing, and rise above it to follow their dream.  It’s the only way we’ll run that mile in under four minutes, and give others the courage to do the same.

 

 

A Clean Well-Lighted Place For Books

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This post, from Bob Stein, originally appeared on the if:book blog on 9/24/09.

The following started out as a set of notes to various colleagues suggesting that successful digital publishing involves much much more than coming up with a viable form for networked books. rather unexpectedly this led to the question of how bookstores might evolve to give publishers a way to reassert their brands and strengthen their position vis a vis Amazon (as well as Google and Apple). This is very much a work in progress but i thought i’d post it and bring others into the discussion along the way.

 

The idea that "a book is a place (where readers, sometimes with authors, congregate)" arose out of a series of experiments investigating what happens when the act of reading moves from the printed page to an online space designed for social interaction. as we expanded the notion of a work to include the activity in the margin, in effect we re-defined "content" to include the conversation that a text engenders. Put another way, locating a text in a dynamic network brings the social aspects of reading to the fore. (see Without Gods, Gamer Theory, Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and The Golden Notebook projects)

In an earlier set of notes ("A Unified Field Theory of Publishing in the Networked Era") I suggested that as discourse moves off the page onto networked screens, the roles of authors, readers, editors, publishers will shift in significant ways. For example, the author’s traditional commitment to engage with a subject matter on behalf of future readers will shift to a commitment to engage with readers in the context of a subject. Successful publishers, i posited, will distinguish themselves by their ability to build and nurture vibrant communities of interest, often with authors at the center, but not necessarily always.

The purpose of this new set of notes is to expand the thinking beyond how a specific text is presented or interacted with. Reading (and writing) do not happen only at the level of the individual work. There is a broad ecology of behaviors, activities and micro-environments that surround each work and our relationship to it — how things come to be written, how we choose what to read, how we make the purchase, how we share our experience with others. Currently (i.e. toward the end of age of print), that ecology is defined by agent/editor mechanisms of acquisition, sharp delineation between authors and readers, top-down marketing, heavy reliance on big mainstream media to get the word out, the bookshelves that make our books part of our daily life, bookstores and — yes — Amazon. Much more than not, Amazon is a product of the same DNA that underlies the still-dominant mode of the print-book read by the solitary reader. Everything about the Kindle, from its interaction design to its draconian DRM provisions, underlines its conservative role in preserving the ecologies of print.

The current e-book business (the buying/selling bits) was designed (or at least evolved) to minimize friction with the legacy business; pricing, release schedules and DRM all structured so as not to challenge print, which is still the predominant source of revenues.

To succeed at publishing in the networked era, it won’t be enough just to re-conceive the work as a "networked book." If we accept that social interaction will be paramount, not just at the level of the individual work but throughout the ecology of networked reading and writing, then it’s important also to ask the question "if a book is a place, what is the place for books? (or, more accurately but less forceful, "what are the places for books?")

Currently the predominant place(s) for books are bookstores, libraries, classrooms, cafes (as a stand-in for the general category of informal brick-and-mortar gathering places), living-room reading groups, and the infoweb (mainstream media + internet) where books are reviewed, promoted, and on sites like LibraryThing and Shelfari, discussed. Each of these places has its own culture, its own social fabric that determines how people relate to each other, what their transactions are like, how you meet "new" people, how you come to trust them or not, and how you manage ongoing connections/relationships.

The bookstore, The Library and The Cafe
Brick and mortar bookstores are much better for (un-directed) browsing than online stores. This is probably mostly a function of bandwidth, i.e. I can see so much more in a bookstore than I can on my 2D screen. This will change as the web and its attendant hardware/software develops over time, but my guess is that a satisfying browsing experience of the order i can get in a great bookstore is many, many years away from practical. On the other hand if you know what you’re looking for, online shopping excels at simplifying the process of making the transaction. In fact, in every sense except immediate transfer to the buyer of the object they’ve purchased, online buying is vastly more efficient. When the bulk of our book purchases are in electronic form, and therefore delivered instantly, the significant advantages left to the bookstore will be the superior browsing experience, the help desk and the cafe.

[And before you say "oh, it will be years before the bulk of what we’re buying is in electronic form," think about how many iPhone apps or iTunes purchases you or your friends have made in the past few months (including the books you’ve been reading on your phone or Kindle) compared to how many print books you/they bought. This part of the future seems to be near-now.]

Read the rest of the post on if:book.

One Thing Leads To Another For Book Promotions

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When I signed up for the internet a few years ago, I researched about author promotions on the internet. I still do search for new ideas. One thing I learned right away was that authors need a website. This was before I had a book published but dreamed that it might happen some day. So I hunted for a free website. I tried several and couldn’t figure out how to submit to them. Finally, I found tripod and understood the easy instructions. I haven’t had problems submitting to my website, but I hear that people have trouble finding it. Perhaps that’s because it’s free. http://www.booksbyfay.tripod.com

Every site I’ve registered on, I use booksbyfay to log in. I wanted a name that clued people into what I do. Now thanks to google search, I get about four pages when I put my name Fay Risner in the search box because of all the websites I’ve advertised my books on. Google uses a small portions of the websites announcing my books or events.

Now I have four blogs. I copy and paste the same entry on each one, but hopefully, I attract the attention of many different readers. Awhile back a woman emailed me she had linked one of my blogs to a website she belongs to because she likes what she read and wanted others to read my blog. Good Reads website put the bookshelf containing my books I entered there next to my blog on blogger. Amazon decided to give each author a page and blog.

A woman approached me at Civil War Days to ask if I would like to be a guest blogger on her blog. She asks people who are writers or illustrators. I told her I’d be delighted.

Another woman asked me to be a guest speaker for her church group "Golden Girls" to talk about my books.

　

 

Sometimes I hear things and think I should remember that for future reference. About five years ago I was told a successful business man from Texas came back for a high school reunion in Belle Plaine. A former classmate said he brought each of them a signed copy of his new book. So the 8th of August I had a high school reunion. I gave out 21 copies of my latest book "A Promise Is A Promise". Since then I have sold 11 other books to the classmates and one teacher.

This particular teacher wasn’t but a few years old than me when she taught high school home economics and girls gym. She took a liking for my whole class of 32 students and has been our cheering section ever since. She comes to all our high school reunions and keeps in touch with many of us. Always, she gives us encouragement and praises our successes. While I was at my book sale on Saturday no one could have been more surprised than me when she came walking across the park toward me. I asked how she happened to be there. She said because she heard I would be selling books. I thought she was teasing but turns out a former classmate passed on my news about going to Civil War Days. Do teachers today still have that commitment to students so many years after they are out of school? I think not. Oh, maybe they take an interest in one or two, but not 32.

I let you know how my guest blogging and book presentation for the women’s group turns out.

 

　

　

　

　

What Makes A Great Author Website?

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This post, from Thad McIllroy, originally appeared on his Future of Publishing blog on 9/19/09, and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.  

A colleague of mine who is a noted Canadian historian, and a prolific writer, asked today what makes a great web site for an author. So I began an exploration:

Most publisher websites for authors are pathetic, placeholders with short bios and links to books. A case in point is Canada’s “most venerable” old publisher, McClelland & Stewart. I wrote:
M&S is pointless:
http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=31934

With their partners in crime (Random House, Doubleday, etc.) they have created BookLounge.ca, which makes the first mistake of forcing you to register (I never did succeed in completing my registration).

I try without success to find any content from M.G. Vassanji (who was well-featured on M&S). Odd.

So I check out my old friend, Lucinda Vardey, and find that her listing is no better than if it appeared on the M&S site:
http://www.booklounge.ca/author/results.pperl?authorid=31912

Then I turn my search to well-known (i.e. bestselling) historians:

Niall Ferguson has what I would call an “adequate” website.

http://www.niallferguson.com/site/FERG/Templates/Home.aspx?pageid=1

There’s some substance to it, but many flaws. He doesn’t offer a blog per se, but rather a blog-like “thing” labeled “journalism”. The entries are often short and blog-like…it appears they were published elsewhere, but we can’t find out where.

There’s a listing of the two spring courses he taught at Harvard, but no listing of what he’s teaching this fall.

There are three videos offered with no indication of their content or length or why we might want to watch them.

You can sign up for a newsletter, but have no method to view a sample and no idea how frequently it might arrive.

NONE of his publications has a live link (including his books), so you have to expend extra effort to find out more about them.

Well, enough of Prof. Ferguson

* As an aside, I do not like E.L. Doctorow’s site: http://www.eldoctorow.com/ for essentially the same reasons. There’s a professional design and lots of content, but none of it is particularly engaging.

Jared Diamond does not appear to have a website.

Gary Wills does not appear to have an independent website

Bob Woodward has a surprisingly uninteresting website: http://bobwoodward.com/

Thomas L. Friedman, has a pretty good site because it’s packed with relevant, current stuff. There’s no interaction, per se, other than the usual “subscribe to my newsletter”.

But, for example, on the page for his latest book: http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/hot-flat-and-crowded-2
…you can download a sample, hear an audio preview and download a discussion guide. These are useful and show some generosity and thoughtfulness on the part of the author (or his publisher or publicists or whatever). Foolishly he offers no blog nor a way to contact him directly (although if you go to his page on the New York Times you can contact him directly there).

You’ll see he’s now on LinkedIn, which is the best professional social networking site (as vs. the child’s FaceBook). I recommend LinkedIn— basic membership is free. Plaxo is roughly 65% as good as LinkedIn and also free for basic service.

Malcolm Gladwell has a very simple site: http://www.gladwell.com/index.html

There’s always something to be said for simplicity. He also offers a genuine direct way to email him and a COMPLETE and accessible archive of all his great articles from the New Yorker. He’s generous with his excerpts from each book, and has a good Q&A for each. The blog is badly out of date. Not bad overall.

Back to the Yankees:

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s site rates about 5 out of 10. http://www.doriskearnsgoodwin.com/

The good is the personal stuff in the right-hand column on the home page. Also there’s a way to email her directly. The material available on her books is pathetic.

So here’s a Geist author with a beautifully-designed site:
http://www.sheilaheti.net/

Would this be “the right site” for you? Probably not. By the nature of your profession, more formal approaches are called for. But that doesn’t mean your site shouldn’t be fun also.

To me the keys to a great author web site are:

  1. The short answer is ENGAGEMENT: your site should make the reader feel that they’ve been inited into your living room for a chat.
     
  2. The same keys as apply to all great web sites: good design, clear navigation, lack of clutter, etc.
     
  3. A distinct personality to the site, which, god-willing, mirrors the personality of the author.
     
  4. More good stuff stuffed into the site than a child could pray for on Christmas.
     
  5. Backgrounders, audio-podcasts, videos from YouTube, discussion points. etc.
     
  6. Your blog should be hosted on you key site: your author site. Comments must be allowed, but moderated. The blog MUST be current.
     
  7. Generous links to other material you’ve produced that’s available online.
     
  8. Generous (AND APPROPRIATE) links to colleagues and other sites of interest. In return, they should agree to offer a link to your site.
     
  9. A direct way to email the author.
     
  10. Do not favor a single online bookseller as a source to get obtain books. Let your reader decide.
     
  11. Free previews of work-in-progress.
     
  12. Friendly personal info on you and your family and friends with lots of cute photos.

    [Publetariat Editor’s note: let your comfort level, as well as the comfort levels of your family members and friends, be your guide here, but we do recommend at least including the same quantity and type of personal information one typically sees in the author bios printed on book jackets.]
     

  13. A “Resources” section for those who want to explore BEYOND your work.
     
  14. You must establish your authority. This can be done in subtle ways (which I think comes naturally to good authors), but also requires a link to “Reviews,” and wherever possible links to live online reviews.
     

So there it is…one of several viewpoints about the ideal author’s online site. To overlook the effort is to overlook your career. 

September 21 update. Forgot ito include:

15. Don’t be shy about using ALL of the social networking tools available to you, at the very least Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace…

Thad McIllroy has authored or edited a dozen books on technology and marketing issues surrounding electronic publishing, color imaging, PDF, workflow, publishing automation, and the Internet. He’s also written some 200 articles and delivered innumerable seminars on a broad range of industry-related topics. He acted as Program Director at Seybold Seminars for five years, and in 1990 co-founded (with Miles Southworth) The Color Resource, a publishing and distribution company devoted to books and training materials on color design, imaging and prepress.

More recently he wrote the Composition, Design, and Graphics chapter (with contributions from Frank Romano) for the Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing (Columbia University Press, January, 2003). He’s a contributing editor to PrintAction magazine, a columnist for XMLPitstop.com, and a member of the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts, the Association for Computing Machinery and the Content Management Professionals. For three consecutive years he was named one of Canada’s 50 most influential people in graphic communications.

How Can I Help You With NaNoWriMo?

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This post, from David Niall Wilson, originally appeared on his Glimpses Into An Overactive Mind site on 9/23/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Sometimes I have so much to say I can’t shut up.  Seriously.  Just ask people within earshot.  Other times, though, I sit and tap the keys nervously and think – I should be working on that story instead of doing this.  Currently that story is Glenn and the Tart of Mortar Psycho Maine Tenants which I hope to complete tonight, or tomorrow night.  Still, I like to be productive in many arenas, and one thing that has become an annual goal is to help as many people as I can to prepare for the annual National Novel Writing Month challenge.

I’ve done Nanowrimo successfully every year since 2004, which was the first time I managed to say I was going to do it and actually start.  I’ve sold most of what I’ve written durning those challenges, and I’ve got a couple of decades of writing experience, a few awards, for what they’re worth – I like to think that when I post here I am somehow giving back and helping with the next “round” of creativity.

So here’s the deal.  If you have a particular subject you are interested in regarding Nanowrimo or writing, post it in the comments section and I’ll do my best to get to it.  You might want to type it into the search box here on the site though, because odds are I’ve covered it at least once.  Here are search links to a few common writing topics, and a couple of less common topics.  Sorry, the Nanowrimo lolcats keep showing up in all the searches … 🙂

Outlines

Characters

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Wordcount

Scheduling

Lolcats (these are important)

You might also find these links helpful / interesting:

Vintage Soul – dedicated to my Nanowrimo-written novel due out in hardcover this December – you can pre-order and get a signed copy cheap – particularly if you are a Nanowrimo winner, or Follow Me On Twitter!

Heart of a Dragon: You can register here to read along as I write this year’s Nanowrimo Novel – which is book II in the series begun in Vintage Soul – the DeChance Chronicles.  There are also more Nanowrimo tips posted here.

The Necronom-Icon – not really Nanowrimo related.  Short stories inspired by the smiley faces and tiny Emoticons proliferating on the web. All free.

Hope I’ve been of some help…

–DNW

Written by David Wilson – Visit Website
Follow me on Twitter

David Niall Wilson has sold 17 novels and nearly 200 short stories and has won the Bram Stoker Award for poetry and short fiction.  His novel Vintage Soul is due in December from Thompson/Gale Five Star and his collaborative novel with his wife, Patricia Lee Macomber – Stargate Atlantis: Brimstone is also due in November.

Pam Satran's Web-Book Synergy

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This article, from Laurie Lico Albanese, originally appeared on Shelf Awareness on 9/22/09.

Humor author Pamela Redmond Satran offers many lessons. For one, she advises those of us who are not-so-hip that the young and vibrant read vampire romances and graphic novels while assiduously avoiding eternal dieting, perpetual negativity, excessive housework or anything in leopard print spandex.

How Not to Act Old (Harper, $14.99, 9780061771309/780061771309), Satran’s self-help humor book inspired by the eponymous blog site known by its acronym HNTAO, was released August 7 and immediately hit the New York. Times Paperback Advice Bestseller List at the No. 7 slot, thanks to pre-pub orders fueled by the author’s tireless electronic networking outreach.

This included early cross-posting on the Huffington Post, marketing through More.com magazine in conjunction with Barnes & Noble.com and scoring a Best New Humor Website plug in the Los Angeles Times last year.

The lesson in this: as she has before for various literary projects, Satran was able to harness the evanescent attention and lightning-fast Internet connections needed to cross from blog to book to YouTube to Facebook, Twitter, print media, TV and beyond. And she did so on the cheap. Her start-up costs were "zero," plus "my own sweat-equity," she said.

After posting 70 entries on her new HNTAO blog site in July 2008, Satran went from web launch to book contract in six weeks, and from contract to book in a year. The book’s been favorably reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and has taken her to the Early Show, Good Day New York and dozens of radio spots. In July, Slate’s doublex.com Hanna Rosin praised "the great genius of How Not to Act Old," and the New York Times Book Review featured Satran at the top of "Inside the List."

Ironically Satran started the HNTAO blog after trying unsuccessfully to place a piece on the same topic in a national magazine.

"This is a hard market for people to understand," Satran said of her largely over-40, predominantly female market. "Ageism is deep-seated and pervasive and really at its heart is very vicious. I sometimes think that young people secretly wish we’d all go off somewhere and just die."
 

Read the rest of the article on Shelf Awareness.