My Top 7 Tips For Authors Who Want to Evolve into Book Publishers

This post by Joel Friedlander originally appeared on his The Book Designer site on 1/19/15.

I’ve had a long love affair with book publishing. At this point I can’t quite put my finger on when it began, but growing up in a printer’s family probably didn’t hurt.

When I first moved back to New York City after my youthful travels, I started planning a series of cookbooks based on public domain works that I was going to sell through classified ads. Don’t ask me where I got this idea, but looking back, it’s probably better that I never got very far with it.

But eventually life and opportunities lined up with what my work made possible, and I published my first book in 1986. By that time it was more feasible to start publishing, since I was working for a book publisher, and had spent years in New York’s graphic design industry.

So, yes, I knew how to make a book, what goes into it, who you need to help.

I’ve told the story elsewhere about publishing that book and what came of it, so I’ll try not to repeat myself.

But one of the other results came a couple of years later when Jill and I started our own publishing company, based on our experience with that book.

Making the Leap from Author to Publisher

There’s an astonishingly huge difference between publishing your own book, and taking on other authors and trying to make a profitable business out of publishing their books.

As the indie publishing field matures, we’re starting to see more authors attempt this leap. Others are forming publishing cooperatives, and still others are acting on plans to create small presses.

These are all positive and expected evolutionary changes, as simple organisms develop into more complex ones, creating new opportunities for all concerned.

But even in the era of the 72-hour ebook (“Write it on Day 1! Prep it on Day 2! Publish it on Day 3!”) there’s a whole lot involved in making this transition from author to publisher.

So if you’re one of those authors who has caught the “publishing bug,” if you think you can take your success to the next level, here’s some guidance from someone who’s been up on the shore.

My Top 7 Tips for Going from Author to Publisher

  1. Get help—Although many authors do just fine as self-publishers by doing virtually everything themselves, it’s rarely a good idea to run a publishing company without help. What kind? Start with an author’s assistant or virtual assistant (VA). Pretty soon you will have many administrative chores that take up valuable time, and which could just as easily be done by your assistant. And you’ll be glad every time you launch a book that you’ve got help with the crushing weight of tasks that pile up around your launch. You can also have your assistant filter your email inbox, do basic research, and a myriad of other things that will help you in your publishing venture. Take this seriously.

 

Read the full post on The Book Designer.<

 

2014: Some (Honest) Publishing Numbers, and (Almost) Throwing in the Towel

This post by Kameron Hurley originally appeared on her site on 12/31/14. Note that it contains strong language.

About this time last year, GOD’S WAR, which had been out in the UK for a solid seven months, had sold just 300 copies there, and every single major publishing house had passed on THE MIRROR EMPIRE, the epic fantasy novel I thought was the most marketable thing I’d ever written.

I was, to be blunt, pretty fucking devastated.

A lot of people think that once you publish a book, that’s it – you go on publishing books. The publishing world opens its arms to you and welcomes every book like a precious squealing babe. The reality is that publishing your first book is when the real work starts. All that time you spent leveling up your craft, on dealing with rejection, on editing and revision: that was just a warm up for the crushing reality of life day-in, day-out as a published author.

In early January of this year, I was getting ready to shelve THE MIRROR EMPIRE and take a break from writing for  a while, and come up with something somebody wanted to read. I knew MIRROR EMPIRE was a good book, which was frustrating: it was just a good book nobody wanted to buy at the moment. I needed to wait for the market to shift. The plan was I’d just hold onto it until somebody at some house got a new job – new editors have different opinions. Maybe somebody would buy it some day. In the meantime, I had no project idea that was more marketable than this one, so… I was going to need to take some time to recover from my disappointment and write something new. Another slog of a year, I figured, with no new book coming out, again.

Like a lot of Night Shade Books debut authors caught up in the spiral of near-bankruptcy and eventual sale, my work had suffered from declining sales, especially the third book. RAPTURE had sold low, just 2,000 copies, only about 350 of which actually showed up on Bookscan. Low sales like that give editors on the fence about a project a good reason to pass. The performance of that third book was not helping MIRROR EMPIRE.

 

Read the full post on Kameron Hurley’s site.

 

Revisiting the Long Tail Theory as Applied to Ebooks

This post by Marcello Vena originally appeared on Publishing Perspectives on 1/8/15.

The myth of the Long Tail for ebooks may be fading away as the digital book market grows, and it is operated by few mega e-retailers.

In a limitless world of digital goods, powerful search and recommendation engines, near-zero marginal cost of digital production, storage and distribution, niche products shall get much more market relevance. “Selling less of more” is part of what the “Long Tail” theory has been preaching.

Does it apply to the creative industries too? And how? Should digital book publishers reduce attention on blockbusters and increase focus on the Long Tail as the source of the most profitable growth? Is there a space for unlimited growth of niche ebooks? Who is going to consume a potentially unlimited supply of creative goods?

 

Long Tale Theory is a Decade Old

It is interesting to note that the Long Tail theory was first published — by Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson — 10 years ago (October 2004), a few years after the dot-com bubble, when Internet was still in its infancy (it was 11 years old then). Amazon had not yet launched the Kindle (that came at the end of 2007) and the ebook market was still waiting to ignite. The digital music scene was nascent, as Apple launched its iTunes Store only in April 2003, and that was the single most important booster to the digital music market in the years following. When the Long Tail theory was first popularized by Anderson, detailed sales data regarding the digital music in USA was not available yet. It was not until 2005 that Nielsen Soundscan made first sales data available and only at end of that year did Billboard start to take into account paid downloads in the music charts in US. In fact, the first edition of the book (published in 2006) does present some examples of digital music sale, but it doesn’t address the digital market as a whole. No data from iTunes or the entire market (Nielsen Soundscan) was incorporated.

 

Read the full post on Publishing Perspectives.

 

Why Traditionally Publish? A Response To A Comment

This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 1/19/15.

So, the other day I said something about how in publishing no real debate exists and hey isn’t it super-nifty that we have lots of options and all options are equal and valid in the eyes of WRITING JESUS and I dunno, I probably said something else but I tend to fade out.

One such comment on that post was the following, by addadinsane:


You think that’s just vanity publishing? There’s no difference between how much work you have to do in marketing whether you’re trad published or self-published. The only authors that get a marketing budget nowadays are the huge sellers. (Even my friend who is A-list doesn’t get one – he’s still not big enough.)

It was funny, I was on a panel a couple of months back with a bunch of traditionally published authors and someone in the audience brought this up, said to me “But don’t you have to do all the marketing yourself?” So I turned to the other five panellists and said “Hey guys, how much marketing do you have to do?” Answers ranged from “Loads” to “All of it”.

And trad publishers take a lot more than 50%. One wonders what for.

I’m all in favour of “no debate” but I think people should be accurately informed about the truth of traditional publishing rather than looking through rose-tinted spectacles. Then they can make an informed decision.

Frankly I don’t know why anyone goes trad published to be honest. The only reason I’ve heard recently is that they want to be a “proper” author. And if that isn’t vanity, I don’t know what is.


And I wanted to respond to it. But I started to write up my response and found it too long for a mere paltry comment, and figured, hey, well, I’ll take up some oxygen at the blog, proper.

 

Read the full post on terribleminds.

 

Among The Disrupted

This essay by Leon Wieseltier originally appeared on The New York Times Sunday Book Review on 1/7/15.

Amid the bacchanal of disruption, let us pause to honor the disrupted. The streets of American cities are haunted by the ghosts of bookstores and record stores, which have been destroyed by the greatest thugs in the history of the culture industry. Writers hover between a decent poverty and an indecent one; they are expected to render the fruits of their labors for little and even for nothing, and all the miracles of electronic dissemination somehow do not suffice for compensation, either of the fiscal or the spiritual kind. Everybody talks frantically about media, a second-order subject if ever there was one, as content disappears into “content.” What does the understanding of media contribute to the understanding of life? Journalistic institutions slowly transform themselves into silent sweatshops in which words cannot wait for thoughts, and first responses are promoted into best responses, and patience is a professional liability. As the frequency of expression grows, the force of expression diminishes: Digital expectations of alacrity and terseness confer the highest prestige upon the twittering cacophony of one-liners and promotional announcements. It was always the case that all things must pass, but this is ridiculous.

Meanwhile the discussion of culture is being steadily absorbed into the discussion of business. There are “metrics” for phenomena that cannot be metrically measured. Numerical values are assigned to things that cannot be captured by numbers. Economic concepts go rampaging through noneconomic realms: Economists are our experts on happiness! Where wisdom once was, quantification will now be. Quantification is the most overwhelming influence upon the contemporary American understanding of, well, everything. It is enabled by the idolatry of data, which has itself been enabled by the almost unimaginable data-generating capabilities of the new technology. The distinction between knowledge and information is a thing of the past, and there is no greater disgrace than to be a thing of the past. Beyond its impact upon culture, the new technology penetrates even deeper levels of identity and experience, to cognition and to consciousness. Such transformations embolden certain high priests in the church of tech to espouse the doctrine of “transhumanism” and to suggest, without any recollection of the bankruptcy of utopia, without any consideration of the cost to human dignity, that our computational ability will carry us magnificently beyond our humanity and “allow us to transcend these limitations of our biological bodies and brains. . . . There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine.” (The author of that updated mechanistic nonsense is a director of engineering at Google.)
Read the full essay on The New York Times Sunday Book Review. Note that The New York Times may move this material behind a paywall in the future.

 

Give it to Me Short n’ Dirty: Bulletpoint Query Tips (III)

This post by Saundra Mitchell originally appeared on her Making Stuff Up For A Living blog on 1/26/14.

Maybe you don’t feel like reading an essay about queries. Why would you? You need to get one written, RIGHT NOW OMFG EMERGENCY NOW NOW NOW. Okay, yo. Cool. I can give you a short n’ dirty query bulletpoint list so that you can skim it real fast and get back to work.

– A query letter is a BUSINESS LETTER. If you’re sending it by postal mail, format it exactly like your standard business letter. That link there will take you to Purdue University’s guide.

– If by e-mail, you’re going to start with the salutation and leave out all contact information with your signature except your name, your e-mail address, and your URL.

– WRITE IT LIKE A BUSINESS LETTER. Don’t print it on sparkly paper, don’t enclose confetti, don’t scent it with your favorite Axe spray, don’t. Don’t enclose food, bugs, hair, MONEY, character family tree– seriously. The only thing that goes in that envelope is the letter and SASE.

– WRITE IT LIKE A BUSINESS LETTER. Do not attach documents, pictures, totally cute cat JPGs, no GIFs, do not doge or lolcat the subject line, do not ask people to follow links to your query letter which is elsewhere, do not ask them to read the book that’s posted on your website.

– WRITE IT LIKE A BUSINESS LETTER. Don’t tell the agent about your aunt Suzie or how much your kids like your book. Nobody cares.

– Do tell them if Oprah Winfrey personally promised to endorse your book and include her assistant’s e-mail address so they can verify that.

 

Read the full post on Making Stuff Up For A Living.

 

Kindle Unlimited Not a Great Deal for Readers or Authors

This post by Marion Stein originally appeared on her Marion’s Blog on 1/12/15.

One of my Goodreads friends recently asked if he could find my works on Amazon’s recently launched Kindle Unlimited scheme. Here is what I told him:

My books aren’t enrolled in Kindle Select and won’t be. Authors who participate are mostly losing money compared to before. Authors who aren’t in it are also seeing sales drop. Everyone is losing money but Amazon. There are now 700,000 books on Kindle Unlimited. That may sound like a lot, but unless you only read indies, most books you want to read are not there. Traditional publishers can put books into Kindle Unlimited and still sell those books in other venues like Nook Books and Kobo. However, indies have to also be enrolled in Kindle Select to be on Kindle Unlimited, which means they have to sell those ebooks exclusively on Kindle, and many authors (and readers) feel that that lack of competition is not a good thing.

Here are some more reasons why Kindle Unlimited is bad for authors:

Readers can use Indie Select as a private (but expensive) library. They can borrow your book, but if they don’t bother to actually read it, you get NOTHING. If they do read more than 10%, you get something, but it’s far less than if they bought it.

 

Read the full post on Marion’s Blog.

 

Fired Old Man Angry at World, Ranting About Something or Other

This post by Ken Wheaton originally appeared on The Word O’ Wheaton on 1/18/15.

Leon Wieseltier, recently run out of The New Republic as a gang of Silicon Valley nitwits took over and tried to fix it, has a piece in The New York Times Sunday Book Review that starts thusly:

Amid the bacchanal of disruption, let us pause to honor the disrupted. The streets of American cities are haunted by the ghosts of bookstores and record stores, which have been destroyed by the greatest thugs in the history of the culture industry. Writers hover between a decent poverty and an indecent one; they are expected to render the fruits of their labors for little and even for nothing, and all the miracles of electronic dissemination somehow do not suffice for compensation, either of the fiscal or the spiritual kind. Everybody talks frantically about media, a second-order subject if ever there was one, as content disappears into “content.” What does the understanding of media contribute to the understanding of life? Journalistic institutions slowly transform themselves into silent sweatshops in which words cannot wait for thoughts, and first responses are promoted into best responses, and patience is a professional liability. As the frequency of expression grows, the force of expression diminishes: Digital expectations of alacrity and terseness confer the highest prestige upon the twittering cacophony of one-liners and promotional announcements. It was always the case that all things must pass, but this is ridiculous.

I’m sure after reading that bit of succinct and too-the-point prose, you’re just dying to read the rest of it. Good luck with that. You see, Leon is what I’d call a writer’s writer — or, as he’s also known, the “last of the New York intellectuals” — someone much more interested in showing off — his skill, his education or his connections — than getting to the point already. There is, of course, a way to do both without looking like you’re trying to hard to do either. But Leon, who IS a smart guy whose writing I’ve enjoyed in the past, isn’t getting it done here. He also seems to be suffering from selective historical amnesia.

 

Read the full post (which is actually about the need for editors) on The Word O’ Wheaton.

 

How Jessica Mitford Exposed A $48m Scam From America’s Literary Establishment

This post by David Gaughran originally appeared on his Let’s Get Digital site on 12/16/15.

Jessica Mitford took on the American funeral industry, the California Department of Corrections, and the Ku Klux Klan, but it was her 1970 exposé of The Famous Writers School which led to Time calling her “The Queen of the Muckrakers.” And if a courageous editor hadn’t reversed his decision to kill her story, it might never have happened.

Mitford had been aware of The Famous Writers School’s existence for some time. Anyone who was a frequent reader of newspapers, books or magazines would have seen its ever-present advertisements, inviting aspiring writers to cut out and apply for the free aptitude test. While Mitford was suspicious, she didn’t have anything concrete until her lawyer husband took on a new client.

Bob Treuhaft was approached by a 72-year old widow, living on Social Security, who had cleaned out her bank account to make a down-payment to The Famous Writers School. On the same day Mitford heard the widow’s sorry tale from her husband, she received a book in the mail for review: Writing Rackets by Robert Byrne, which also mentioned the school.

Mitford had lunch with Bill Abrahams not long afterwards – then the West Coast editor of The Atlantic. She shared tales from Byrne’s book on literary frauds and the story of the cheated widow, and Abrahams asked her to write a short piece for The Atlantic covering both.

The following day Abrahams called to say that the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Robert Manning, had decided not to run the piece after all. While Manning agreed that the bold claims made in The Famous Writers School’s advertising were “probably unethical,” he pointed out that The Atlantic had made “many thousands of dollars” from those self-same ads and felt it would be equally unethical to run a piece criticizing the school.

 

Read the full post on Let’s Get Digital.

 

Social Media is a Waste of Time for Writers—Hmmm, Think Again

This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her blog on 1/20/15.

We’ve been talking a lot about social media lately and I am always grateful for your comments and thoughts. This kind of feedback not only helps me improve my blog, but my also books, because I get a glimpse of your worries, weaknesses, fears, loves, and strengths.

As a teacher/mentor/expert, it’s my job to address those fears and put you at ease or reinforce when you’re headed the right direction and give you tools and tips to take what you’re doing to another level.

There’ve been some comments that have piqued my attention lately. Namely this notion to give up on social media completely to write more books (out of vexation for the medium and the task).

Oh-kay….

Social Media is a TOTAL Waste of Time

Write more books instead of tweeting or blogging. Social media is a giant time-suck better spent writing great books.

I don’t know how to answer this besides, Er? *screeching brakes* Personally, I can think of no larger waste of time than researching and reading and spending countless hours crafting a wonderful book of 60,000-110,000 words and then?

No one knows the book exists so few people ever read it, enjoy it or are changed by the author’s story.

It’s like spending six months to a year on an oil painting to hang it in an attic.

 

Read the full post on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

A Look Ahead to Self-Publishing in 2015

This post by Jennifer McCartney originally appeared on Publishers Weekly on 1/16/15.

Industry insiders predict an increase in diversity, serialization, and hybrid publishing

Self-publishing saw another successful year in 2014, with authors like Deborah Bladon and Jen McLaughlin hitting the New York Times bestseller lists, fanfic authors like Sophie Jackson receiving six-figure advances, and many millions of titles being published across the industry’s numerous platforms. The view of self-publishing as an outlet of last resort for desperate authors is also changing—the negative stigma that’s long been associated with the industry is being discarded for a more progressive outlook, along with the acknowledgement that self-publishing and traditional publishing can coexist and even benefit one another. And self-publishing platforms are increasingly serving as a kind of testing ground for traditional publishers, which are snapping up successful indie authors and offering them, in some cases, million-dollar advances. Further, some traditionally published authors are becoming more open to exploring self-publishing as a supplement to or as a replacement for their traditional publishing careers.

A year ago, we predicted that the self-publishing industry would mature in 2014, with writers taking ownership of their role as both authors and business owners. As 2015 begins, we once again anticipate a year of growth, despite some concerns about market saturation. For this year’s preview, we talked to a number of industry insiders about the current state of self-publishing, the trends they’ve noticed over the past year, and the current challenges facing indie authors in an increasingly crowded market, along with some of their predictions for 2015.

As an example of continued industry growth, Ashleigh Gardner, head of content at Wattpad, noted that in 2014 the social publishing site gained millions of users who shared 15 million works of fan fiction alone—resulting in breakout publishing stars like Anna Todd, whose One Direction fanfic, After, got her a four-book deal with Gallery Books at Simon & Schuster.

Established self-publishing sites like Lulu also saw growth over the past year, according to the company’s v-p of marketing, Dan Dillon, as a result of new initiatives like Lulu Jr.—a brand enabling children to become published authors. In addition to Lulu Jr., the company announced a partnership with Crayola to develop a line of co-branded book-making kits for kids.

Across all segments of self-publishing, there were signs of continued growth and innovation—from Crayola to fanfic to hybrid publishing to the rise of serialization, we break it all down for you here.

 

The Rise of the “Authorpreneur”

 

Read the full post on Publishers Weekly.

 

Why Copyblogger Is Killing Its Facebook Page

This post by Erika Napoletano originally appeared on Copyblogger on 10/17/15.

Have you ever stared at something, knowing you’re doing everything right, but it still won’t … freaking … work?

That’s how Copyblogger has felt about its Facebook page for quite some time.

As of today, the page has 38,000 “fans,” but Copyblogger’s presence on Facebook has not been beneficial for the brand or its audience.

Just over three months ago, Brian Clark reached out to me for some extra help on the page.

He thought that, given the success I have with my own Facebook page, several others I’ve managed for clients over the years, and the rapidly growing Your Boulder Facebook page I manage for him, maybe I’d be able to bring some life to Copyblogger’s Facebook presence.

Yep, I said. Let me at it.

Well, today I’m here to tell you that we’re deleting the account. This is the last day you’ll see the Copyblogger Facebook page.

If you’ve ever been frustrated with an aspect of your social brand presence, you’ll want to keep reading — because there are countless reasons why Copyblogger is killing its Facebook page.

 

Read the full post on Copyblogger.

 

These Days, Writing Isn’t A Career. It’s A Rich Man’s Hobby

This article by Toby Young originally appeared on The Telegraph on 1/16/15.

Writing’s always been lopsided, but it’s got a lot worse in the last decade

I envy William Hague. Not the £2.5 million country house he’s just bought in Wales, although that would be nice. Rather, the fact that he plans to spend his retirement writing books.

These days, you need a substantial private income – or a public sector pension – to be a full-time writer. Last year, a survey of 2,500 professional authors found that their median income in 2013 was £11,000. That’s a drop of 29 per cent since 2005 and significantly below the minimum salary required to achieve a decent standard of living.

The writing game is notoriously lopsided, in which a small handful of bestselling authors earn a fortune and the vast majority live on scraps, but it’s got worse in the past decade. “You’ve always been able to comfortably house the British literary writers who can earn all their living from books in a single room,” says the author Will Self, whose own royalties have tailed off in recent years. “That room used to be a reception one, now it’s a back bedroom.”

 

Read the full article on The Telegraph.

 

Amazon Discusses Kindle Unlimited & Kindle Select Participation: Digital Book World, Day 2

This post by Jane Friedman originally appeared on her site on 1/15/15.

If you’ve been watching publishing news over the last 24 hours, then you may have seen a flurry of articles summarizing the Digital Book World session featuring a conversation with Russ Grandinetti of Amazon.

These were some of the most memorable takeaways for me:

In describing (with complete sincerity and seriousness) the indie author community: “They’re awesome. It’s an incredibly vibrant community. They like caps locks sometimes—we view that as a feature not a bug. … [Authors are] among the biggest sources of input in how we build and evolve.”

Regarding Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s ebook subscription service: He was reserved on the matter, and said that Amazon didn’t have any particularly strong “answers” or insights about ebook subscription services, or their long-term effect on “a la carte sales” since it just launched in August 2014. However, he said that if you look at a customer’s buying patterns 60 days before KU and 60 days after, these customers are spending more money on books after enrolling—25% more on average.

 

Read the full post on Jane Friedman’s site.

 

Six Things Every Writer Needs to Succeed (Psst: MFA is not on this list.)

This post by ML Swift originally appeared on Writer Unboxed on 1/14/15.

When Therese asked if I’d like to scratch out an article for Writer Unboxed, I literally — in the most figurative sense of the word — stood up, turned around, and knocked the gold bricks out of my chair. Did I read her note correctly? Would I like to write an essay for the website I’ve worshipped for over three years, and — e’en if for a day, ere I’m shown the door fore’er — dispense Parker-esque aphorisms to the most respected minds in the industry, while at the same time, make a complete and utter fool of myself? Would I? Would I? I pounced on the keyboard: “Does a bear sh—?” Wait. Breathe. Backspace and delete. Respond as if it were as commonplace as “You want fries with that?”

“Why, yes, Therese, that would be lovely.” There you go. Classy. Mature. Professional. Kiss, kiss; hug, hug. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

By dinnertime, my euphoric ride on the Cumulonimbus9 had ended with a belly-flop to earth, leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere, dusting off rainbows and gnawing my thumbnail like a piece of beef jerky. “Mike, what in the world were you thinking?” Actually, if you really want to get down and velveteen about it, I used a much more colorful, less Hogwarts-friendly expression.

You see, that very morning, Sharon Bially had written a post listing six criteria for an impressive writer’s resumé, and according to the stats, I was batting zero. Even worse, I didn’t foresee three of the six items making my five-, ten-, or twenty-year plan. Her suggestions, in order of my probable attainment (from “most likely” to “you’ve got to be kidding”) included:

 

Read the full post on Writer Unboxed.