Business End

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

How The Literary Class System Is Impoverishing Literature

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Today’s post is by Lorraine Berry, from the Literary Hub website, on December 4, 2015.  In her article, Lorraine examines the realistic views on the class system within the literary community. This is something can be expanded to cover the divide between “self-published” vs. “traditionally published” authors as well. While the self publishing world is making great strides, how much does having connections and opportunities help with getting a contract and attention with a publishing house? 

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How The Literary Class System Is Impoverishing Literature

On the Systemic Economic Barriers to Being a Writer

One of the things I was taught as an elementary school student in Illinois was that America differed from Europe in that it was founded as, and has remained, a classless society. These days, if politicians such as Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders bring up the disparities among the classes in America, they are accused by their political opponents of conjuring up class Piggy bankconsciousness in order to foment class warfare. Unfortunately, of course, Obama and Sanders are right, and my schoolteachers were wrong. And while class disparity manifests in all sectors of society, for those who seek careers in literature, class differences have a huge impact on who gets hired and who gets published. This, in turn has a real effect on the portrayal of class in literature, and in media depictions of the writer’s life.

In the past few years, countless essays, articles, charts, graphs, and surveys have been published making the case for greater gender and ethnic diversity in the literary world, that our literature might present back to us a truer accounting of the society in which we actually live. There remains a long way to go but we have slowly come to understand that by publishing more writers of color, by increasing the number of women’s bylines, by being more inclusive, we will increase the quality of our collective storytelling.

But very little has been explicitly articulated about the exclusion of the great American underclass, that perpetually poor group on the bottom tier of society that includes all races/genders/creeds. And as we winnow out opportunities for art about poverty, we lose so much potential for change.

One doesn’t learn to be a writer in college and then graduate with the same opportunities as everyone else. When it comes to looking for a job, or having the time to write, social stratification determines who gets the internships, and by extension who gets to forge the connections that help one find an agent, or get a job with a publishing house.

A colleague and I have the same argument at least twice a year, usually at registration time when he bumps into me in the office and complains to me about our students’ unwillingness to go after off-campus internships. Most of his scorn is directed at students who only want to do an on-campus internship, during the semester, rather than taking an internship over winter or summer breaks.

And, given that the college where I teach is a four-hour drive from New York City, he is brutal when discussing the failure of the students to feed at the Golden Corral of publishing internships that is Manhattan. And so, each semester, I have to remind him of the reality of our students’ lives. I start with the fact that NYC internships often pay at most a token salary of perhaps a thousand dollars per month. Apartment rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn cost more per month than that highest token salary, and even if you can find a sharing sublet for summer and live on Ramen, rice, and mac-n-cheese, most of our students must spend summer working as many hours as they can so that they can get by working part-time during the school year. A summer internship that has a negative impact on summer savings is out of reach for any student not supplemented in some way. Some students luck out because a relative lives in one of the boroughs and is willing to house them, but once again, while it’s not a guarantee of money, it is still the accident of having a relative live within commuting distance of New York City.

Read the full post on the Literary Hub website

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

Author Websites: Part One – The Domain Name Game!

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Now that you have decided to create your own author website, the first step is figuring out what your domain name is going to be. Even if you plan on hiring someone to do most of the heavy lifting for you, it is good to understand the process.

According to Wikipedia, a domain name is “an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet.” Yea. If that made sense to you, then congratulations, you don’t need this article. In plainer words, it is what people type in their browser to pull up your site.Robot with WWW sign. Website building or repair concept

As discussed in the post What is in a name? Everything if you are an author. Why you need your own author site, the best choice is to use your author name if you can. To find out if it is available, you can go to one of the many domain search engines on the web. I personally like namecheap.com. I am not getting paid in anyway to promote them, I just like them. Feel free to use whomever you want.

If your author name is not available, consider adding extra words to your name such as “author” or “books”. For example AuthorJoeName.com, or JoeNameBooks.com. If you are blessed with a heritage that leans towards long and unpronounceable last names, go ahead and shorten it to something that is easily type-able. Anastasios Papademetriou from high school, I am talking to you. You want to make it easy for people to find you.

The nice thing about these search tools is they will offer you suggestions if your desired domain name is already taken. Beware, they will often show you your domain name with other available domain extensions like .biz. Don’t waste your money. Really, when most people search they will be going by a .com name. If you buy the .club, .biz, or any of the other options, the .com is what people will find first. You will be spending your time trying to educate people about how the yourname.com is not you. The only exception would be if you are writing on behalf of a charitable organization, then the .org could be used or if you are writing x-rated material, then the .xxx is perfect for you.

So you found your domain name is available. That is awesome! While you are looking, go ahead and see if your book title is free too. You can always have more than one domain redirect to one site. So for example, you could have AuthorJoeName.com, JoeNameisreallylong.com, and Joenamebook.com all end up at the website AuthorJoeName.com. (I will go into this in later posts!)

So now you are ready to purchase! You can either purchase from the place where you did the search, or sometimes you can go through the web host. I will have more on that next week’s post – Author Websites:  Part Two – Hosts With The Most! A lot of web hosts will also allow you to purchase domain names, and even help you set things up.

A side word on “Whoisguard”.  Whoisguard is a service that blocks the public display of your domain registration information.  To register your domain, you need to provide personal information including your name and address, things you don’t want to be public. When you go to purchase your domain, you might be offered Whoisguard for a year free, or for purchase for a few bucks more. Do yourself a favor and get the Whoisguard.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit to be posted on this site or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

How to Find a Literary Agent for Your Book

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Today’s post is by , off of her site janefriedman.com  on April 29, 2015.  With Nanowrimo ending (Hooray and congrats to all who entered!) it is time to think of next steps. Jane’s post gives some really good advice on deciding if you need a literary agent, and then what steps to take.

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Ready to get publishedWhen writers ask me “Can you find me a literary agent?” they don’t realize it’s kind of like asking me “Can you find me the right spouse?” This is a research process and decision that’s best conducted by you. I think you’ll understand why by the end of this post.

Understand Your Work’s Commercial Potential

There are different levels of commercial viability: some books are “big” books, suitable for Big Five traditional publishers (e.g., Penguin, HarperCollins), while others are “quiet” books, suitable for mid-size and small presses. The most important thing to remember is that not every book is cut out to be published by a New York house, or even represented by an agent; most writers have a difficult time being honest with themselves about their work’s potential. Here are some rules of thumb about what types of books are suitable for a Big Five traditional publisher:

  • Genre or mainstream fiction, including romance, erotica, mystery/crime, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, young adult, new adult
  • Nonfiction books that would get shelved in your average Barnes & Noble or independent bookstore—which requires a strong hook or concept and author platform. Usually a New York publisher won’t sign a nonfiction book unless it anticipates selling 10,000 to 20,000 copies minimum.

To better understand what sells, buy a subscription to PublishersMarketplace.com and study the deals that get announced. It’s a quick education in what commercial publishing looks like.

Also, check out Manuscript Wish List, where agents/editors specifically spell out what they’re looking for. It’ll keep you up on trends.

If your work doesn’t look like a good candidate for a New York house, don’t despair. There are many mid-size houses, independent publishers, small presses, university presses, regional presses, and digital-only publishers who might be thrilled to have your work. You just need to find them.

Decide If You Really Need a Literary Agent

In today’s market, probably 80 percent of books that the New York publishing houses acquire get sold by agents. Agents are experts in the publishing industry. They have inside contacts with specific editors and know better than writers what editors or publishers would be most likely to buy a particular work. Perhaps most important, agents negotiate the best deal for you, protect your rights, ensure you are paid accurately and fairly, and run interference when necessary between you and the publisher.

The best agents are career-long advisers and managers.

Traditionally, agents get paid only when they sell your work, and they receive a 15 percent commission on everything you get paid (your advance and royalties). It is best to avoid agents who charge fees other than the standard 15 percent.

So … do you need an agent?

It depends on what you’re selling. If you want to be published by one of the major New York houses (e.g., Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster), then you more or less need to have one—and want one on your side.

If you’re writing for a niche market (e.g., vintage automobiles) or wrote an academic or literary work, then you might not need an agent. Agents are motivated to take on clients based on the size of the advance they think they can get. If your project doesn’t command a decent advance, then you may not be worth an agent’s time, and you’ll have to sell the project on your own.

Read the full post on janefriedman.com.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

We will be back to our regular schedule Monday, October 30th. December 1st. See what all NaNo and no sleep does!

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The Most Super-Duper, Exhaustive, Comprehensive, and Current Listing of Free and Paid Book Advertising Websites and Ideas

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Today’s post is by Ana Spoke, off of her site AnaSpoke.com  on October 8, 2015. Ana gives a pretty decent list of marketing options that she has tried or researched. Full disclosure, as a Freelance Software Engineer I do work for Windwalker Media as a General Manger.

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The Most Super-Duper, Exhaustive, Comprehensive, and Current Listing of Free and Paid Book Advertising Websites and Ideas

Hi, everyone,

As mentioned in the previous post, I have found the hard way that advertising books on social media is not a very good or even a decent marketing strategy, if it is, in fact, your one and only strategy. As an update, I have to let you know that it does work, though – I have ignored Twitter for a few days last week in the wake of this realisation, and my book sales dropped from an average of 11 per week to 3. Not a huge difference in numbers, but let’s express it in percentage points…OH MY GOD, I’VE LOST 75% OF SALES! Sorry for yelling, but you get my point, right? Keep working at social media, but do consider doing what the pros have always done – broadcast to unsuspecting masses.

I hope I can help by sharing this list of book marketing sites and ideas with you. I intend for it to be a continuous work in progress – I plan to update it as I go and then reblog once I have something super exciting to report. Even if you don’t want to advertise a book, the sites below are excellent resources to find free or bargain-priced books.Marketing Mix Signpost With Place Price Product And Promotion

First, how about the NUMBER ONE THING I’VE LEARNED from doing this research? It’s simple – you must plan an overall sales strategy, preferably over the whole year. Why? I’m glad you’ve asked:

  1. The main reason for this is that once you’ve had a sale or a free promotion for your book, many sites WILL NOT CONSIDER promoting your book at a higher price for 30-90 days (see below for details on each site).
  2. Some sites you can notify on the day of the promotion, others you have to notify well in advance.
  3. Holidays. You might want to schedule your sales to be around Christmas? Or beach vacations? Or Independence Day?

And now, without further adieu, here are the advertising sites (some of which I’ve used), in alphabetical order:

Addicted to eBooks: Can post a free or low price ($5.99 or less) ebook only for free! The catch is that you will not know when it is posted on the front page, but at a cost of nothing, why not? They don’t accept erotica and you have to have at least 5 reviews. You can only submit your book once.

My experience: I have applied for an account on 25 September and got approved on 28 September. Created a profile and Shizzle, Inc ad on 28 September. Considering paying $15 for a week-long sidebar ad and a Facebook post, although the profile by itself has not made any impact on the sales.

Ask David: They have 43,900 Twitter followers as of October 2015. $15 promo package or free service for KDP Select freebies. Schedule free days up to 30 days in advance.

Author Marketing Club: subscribe to get marketing tips. 25K+ subscribers. Free subscription or optional premium membership. Very flashy website, and it kept sending me to the premium membership form – I almost gave up, but luckily found the Free Membership Form eventually.

My experience: I have signed up to try some of the tools.

Awesome Gang: Appears to be run by the same person that runs the Discount Book Man. I was pleasantly surprised that the top books in their “featured” list had great Amazon rankings (not to say it was all due just to the Gang, no matter how Awesome). That’s only for $10!! They say their newsletter goes to 4,600 subscribers, and they have almost 50K Facebook fans.

My experience: I was pretty impressed with the apparent value for the money, so submitted Shizzle for a promo on 10 October for a $10 USD. UPDATE: hard to say, as I had another promo on the day, however I’ve heard from other writers that they’ve been disappointed. I’ve tried contacting them after to ask when they’ve sent my book out – no response whatsoever.

BargainBooksy – see FreeBooksy.

BitTorrent: this is a bit “out there” idea, as this is the site often blamed for piracy.  It has over 200 MILLION users. This seems great if you have a series – just give away the first book in the series for free, to build a fan base which will come back to buy the rest.

BookBlast: now called Booksends (below).

Booksends: claim that big-name publishers advertise with them. NOTE: the promo price has to be the lowest of any within the previous 90-day range.

BookBub: you will need to set up an account, after that you can go straight to Submit a New Deal. The price to list a free promotion is $70, and a $0.99 sale is $140 FOR THE US ONLY. Ouch. Another issue that the sale price has to be the lowest of the last 90 days. Apparently it’s so popular that it’s difficult to get selected, despite the cost. There’s an excellent series of articles by an author Nicholas Rossis, which describe tips and tricks on how to get selected.

Book Goodies: post your book for free, but only once, and you have to fill in an author interview (answer questions). So, you first have to complete the interview, then wait 2-3 weeks for it to be approved, then list your book. Cumbersome – yes. Free – hells yes. Please note that you give the website the right to publish your interview and your photo (if you choose to upload a photo).

My experience: I have answered interview questions and it was live just a week later on Book Goodies website. I received an email notification of the interview being posted on 5 October and it already had  3 Facebook and 4 Twitter shares. On 8 October it had 14 Twitter shares, but that number has not increased since.

Book Gorilla: seems a cheaper option, while still being quite popular and famous. This explains why they are BOOKED UP TO 2 MONTHS IN ADVANCE. Once again, the price of advertising depends on the book price – $4 to $50. You can also ask to be “starred”, although they will decide if they want to do it, based on your book quality – that would be an additional $100. They themselves say that it’s not likely to make much difference.

Read the full post on AnaSpoke.com.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

What is in a name? Everything if you are an author. Why you need your own author site.

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Have you ever googled your own name? You should. It is interesting to see what comes up. If you are an author what shows up when a fan or agent searches for you is pretty important. If you write, you need an author site.

Why an author site instead of a book site? With the focus on you as an author, instead of the individual book, you have room to grow. Each book can have its own landing page or subdomain under your author site. Fans want to get to know the author behind their favorite books. Read on for the reasons why you need your own author site.Web Design Puzzle Shows Website Content And Creativity

  • Shows you are legit
    There are a thousand new books being created each day. To stand out, especially from the “do-it-yourself-quick” crowd, you want to present as a professional author. Having a good looking site with well written content sets you apart. Agents and fans often google peoples names. To be the first result that pops up in a Google search is reason enough to have you own author site.
  • Social Media Anchor point
    Social media is more powerful with a website, and an author website is more powerful with social media. It is a symbiotic relationship. Managing multiple social media outlets is much easier from a central website. In fact, there are plugins and options that will automatically post to social media for you, especially if you use WordPress or other content management systems.From your author site you can post to Facebook, tweet to Twitter, pin on Pinterest, or whatever your social media flavor is, while keeping a consistent message. Promoting from Facebook or Twitter to another platform is much harder. Which makes sense if you think about it. Each social media site was set up for a different niche.  Facebook allows images but is more chatty. Twitter is text less than 140 characters. Pinterest and Instagram are more image driven. So you might not get as much traffic on your site as on your social media outlets, but having a website will make your life easier and will drive traffic through the social media sites. Plus not everyone is on social media, so it is good to have a place for them as well.
  • Control
    An author’s site is their castle. You get to decide what goes on your site, and you are not restricted by Amazon or anyone else’s policies. In fact they will all have a place where you can put a link to your author site!There are so many cool options that you can provide on your own site. If you want to provide a free chapter you can. You can have press kits, media kits, official author bios, event listings, book club materials, testimonials, whatever you want. Sell your book off your own site and keep every precious penny!While this might seem overwhelming, having this freedom and control over your message is a beautiful thing. So guard it well and don’t fret. There are plenty of articles out there to help guide you. Start small and then grow.
  • Connections
    This is what it is all about really. You wrote down words with the hopes that they would connect with someone, hopefully with many someones. The someones are going to want to connect back to you. The author site is about you, and because you have control over your site, you can manage how your fans interact with you. Interactions vary from providing a simple bio where you fans can learn carefully scripted information about you, to interacting directly with your fans through comments or even forums.You can set up your site to collect emails. Emails are golden! Having someone decide that they like you enough to take the action of filling out a form and trusting you with their contact information is a wonderful thing. This is a very targeted audience, no matter how small. Make sure you treat people’s emails with the respect they deserve. Offer them extra treats for being so cool, like bonus chapters, or even to be a focus group for your next book!

Of course creating an author website is not the end, you will need to set aside time for updates and maintenance. Updated content keeps the search engines happy. While this sounds like a lot of work, a good author site will be a solid foundation for your overall market strategy and it can be a load of fun too.  In future articles, we will dive deeper in the process of creating an author website: how to create one, what you need on your author website, more on social media, and tools and tricks to help.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

Advice to First Time Authors – From Michael Hyatt

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This post by Michael Hyatt originally appeared on his blog on July 12, 2012. His good advice is timeless, especially don’t lose heart. I see so many people who believe if they write it, people will flock to read it. Writing well is hard work.

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As the former Chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson, I receive a lot of email from would-be authors who are trying to get published. Because I make my email address public, it’s pretty easy to get to me.

However, by the time I hear from people, they are usually frustrated. They can’t get anyone in the book publishing world to respond, and they are convinced that they have a killer-idea. “If only someone would just read my manuscript,” they plead.The problem is that most publishers will not review unsolicited proposals or manuscripts. When I worked at Thomas Nelson, I personally received hundreds of proposals each year; my staff received thousands. Publishers simply don’t have the resources to review these. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

So as an author, what do you do? Here’s what I recommend:

  1. Educate yourself. If you want to publish with a general market publisher, read 2012 Writer’s Market by Robert Lee Brewer. If you want to write for the Christian Market, read The Christian Writers’ Market Guide 2012 by Jerry Jenkins. Both books include writer’s guidelines and submission procedures for publishing houses. These books will give you a good overview of the literary marketplace.

Read the full post on Michael Hyatt’s Blog.

Google may be copying your book without your permission. Here’s why that is a good thing.

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Similar to web searches, Google is trying to create an online searchable library through Google Books and the Google Library Project. Approximately 30 million books have been scanned. The only larger collection is the Library of Congress, which has 37 million items of various media, not all of which is accessible online and the Library of Congress doesn’t point potential buyers to Amazon, any other merchant, or even an author website.

With the Google Library Project, Google partnered with libraries who provided select materials for scanning. The materials are often out of print, or rare books and publications. However, authors are not contacted for permission to use their works, which brought the attention of the Author’s Guild.

Google uses the scanned items to provide better literary searches along with “snippets” of relevant text, while the libraries have access to scanned copies of their materials. The libraries are still restricted by copyright law on how they handle the scanned content. A win-win for both parties, but what about the authors?

According to Google’s website “The Library Project’s aim is simple: make it easier for people to find relevant books – specifically, books they wouldn’t find any other way such as those that are out of print – while carefully respecting authors’ and publishers’ copyrights. Our ultimate goal is to work with publishers and libraries to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages that helps users discover new books and publishers discover new readers. ”

The Author’s Guild filed a lawsuit on behalf of the authors, with claims that the snippets of text shown in the search results through Google Books and the Google Library Project are against “fair us” and could be used to compile a copy of the text by enterprising hackers. It should be noted that Google does not make any money off of the links or run ads against the search results. Author’s benefit because links are provided to purchase the titles when available.

“Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use.” – copyright.gov

Recently the Second Circuit Appeals Court unanimously exonerated Google from the lawsuit brought forth by the Author’s Guild.

As part of their findings the judges said “The ultimate goal of copyright is to expand public knowledge and understanding, which copyright seeks to achieve by giving potential creators exclusive control over copying of their works, thus giving them a financial incentive to create informative, intellectually enriching works for public consumption.””

The “snippets” show up as text in the search, just like the text of websites shown by Google currently, but as excerpts from the scanned books. There is an option for authors and rights holders to opt out. If there is an alternative source that will fulfill the search request, such as a dictionary, then that source is used. Parts of the scanned books are “blacklisted” and won’t show in the search results. You can see yourself, in the sample below.

Google search snippet example

In one part of the litigation process, The Author’s Guild and Google had come to terms where Google would pay a nominal fee to have exclusive rights to use the scanned texts. This was dismissed by the judge as providing an unfair advantage to Google and if approved would have stopped anyone else from providing an online book search.

From the judge’s statement “Google’s program does not, at this time and on the record before us, expose Plaintiffs to an unreasonable risk of loss of copyright value through incursions of hackers.”  With less than 16% of a book used for the snippets, it is not possible for someone to recreate the book even if they wanted to take the time and effort to do so.

The judges went on to state “Google does not sell its scans, and the scans do not replace the books. While partner libraries have the ability to download a scan of a book from their collections, they owned the books already — they provided the original book to Google to scan. Nor is it likely that someone would take the time and energy to input countless searches to try and get enough snippets to comprise an entire book.”

While the judges conceded that theoretically the snippets might mean some lost sales to authors, reality is that someone looking for factual validation has many resources, such as Wikipedia.  If more than a snippet of text is needed then the likelihood increases that the user will purchase the book and be able to use the handy links provided. While the majority of the current scanned texts are more esoteric and hard to find publications, who knows how far Google will take this project in its bid to become the comprehensive online library catalog. One thing all authors struggle with is getting their material in front of likely readers. Someone searching for specific material online is the author’s target audience and will be more likely to make a purchase.

In response to the ruling, The Author’s Guild is planning to present the case to the Supreme Court. From their website:

“We aren’t challenging the benefits of Google Books search engine, just the seizure of copyrighted material,” explained Authors Guild President Roxana Robinson.  Indeed, Authors guild members are perhaps the greatest users of Google Books search and know its benefits better than anyone. “But Google should be willing to compensate an author for copying her work for use in its database,” continued Robinson.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com

Resources:

Click to access agvgoogle.pdf

http://copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html

Authors Guild

https://www.google.com/googlebooks/library/

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-ever-happened-to-google-books?mbid=rss

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151016/08010632559/appeals-court-explains-yet-again-to-authors-guild-that-googles-book-scanning-is-fair-use.shtml

http://consumerist.com/2015/10/16/appeals-court-says-googles-book-scanning-project-is-legal-fair-use/#more-10220932

Passing the Publetariat Torch

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It’s Publetariat founder, April L. Hamilton here.

When I founded Publetariat way back in 2008 it was because in all the online writer groups I knew of at the time, “self publishing” was a dirty word. Indie authors were openly mocked and shunned at worst, snickered at behind their backs at best. I wanted to provide a safe and useful online haven, where self publishers could feel welcome and empowered, know they were part of a nascent—but important—movement and growing community, and have access to the kinds of information and resources they needed most.

Since then, indie authorship has gone mainstream. The majority of established, traditional authors and publishers have now come to view self-publication as a legitimate option, and at times a smarter business choice than going the mainstream route.

Guy Kawasaki and Joanna Penn (one of Publetariat’s earliest supporters and contributors) have brought the role of authorpreneur into focus as a realistic career option.

Artist-technicians like Joel Friedlander have generously shared all they know in the areas of book design, fonts, layout, ebook formatting and more to help self-publishers create a finished product that can hold its own against the most highbrow mainstream published book.

The hybrid publishing model has emerged to place indie authorship and mainstream publication side by side on a more level playing field, the explosion of social media has provided authors and would-be authors with more direct access to their fans and prospective readership than ever before, and indie boosters like Dana Lynn Smith have stepped up to teach authors the internet marketing ropes.

Publetariat needs to evolve, to better address the sea change in indie authorship and the many new issues, opportunities and challenges indie authors now face. However, since I’ve spent the last few years redirecting my focus toward a career more specifically in tech and tech blogging, I am not the best person to guide Publetariat into the future. Paula Reichwald will now take the helm.

I’ve known Paula for nearly twenty years, and in that time she’s become my closest friend. She also happens to be an experienced web developer, software engineer, a WordPress, CSS and ebook formatting expert, and she’s pretty darned handy with digital graphics too. On top of all that, she’s a blogger and a NaNoWriMo veteran with a passion for books and authors.

I know I’m leaving Publetariat in more than capable hands, and I look forward to seeing Publetariat continue to grow and change with its readers under new leadership.

Keep writing, keep publishing, and keep your dreams alive.
– April L. Hamilton
10/25/15

Create A Compelling Book Title

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This post by Rachelle Gardner originally appeared on her site on 9/17/15.

I’ve been coaching several of my clients through the process of coming up with a good title for their book, so I thought I’d share my tips with you.

Let’s start by acknowledging a few things. The publisher is usually responsible for the final decision on title, and in the query stage, it’s not that important. In fact, some agents have said they don’t pay any attention at all to titles. But at some point, you’re going to want to think seriously about this. Your title is part of the overall impression you’re creating about your book. It can set a tone and create an expectation. Whether you’re pitching to an agent, or your agent is pitching to publishers, I think you want to have the strongest title possible.

Think of it this way: the better your title is, the better your chance that the publisher will decide to use it, rather than changing it.

So here’s what I recommend when you need a title, for either fiction or non-fiction.

 

Read the full post on Rachelle Gardner’s site.

Reality 301 With @heidicullinan

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This post by Heidi Cullinan originally appeared on her blog on 5/15/13.

Tonight Twitterverse roared with outrage over Kendall Grey’s post on Authors for Life where she bemoans the fact that sometimes, publishing is hard. Grey spent four years writing and a great deal of money and effort promoting an urban fantasy trilogy; it tanked. She wrote an erotic novel she describes as a “piece of trash” in two months, spent much less in promotion and gave it much less effort, and that book made some decent money. She’s angry that she wasn’t rewarded for her “beautiful, artistic” book and that by selling out she made money. Grey writes:

I know it’s depressing to hear that in order to find success, you may have to compromise your principles. I’ve come to grips with the fact that in the current market, trashy smut sells, and urban fantasy does not. Tough shit for me. If you want to sell books, you have to feed the market what it craves.

Grey goes on to state that

once you’ve done your part to feed the reader machine, and you get paid ridiculous amounts of money for publicly shaming yourself and lowering your standards, you’ll be armed with the power to write what you want.

I think the best place to start in response is to take a moment to acknowledge where this kind of selfish, angry thinking comes from, and like most things gone awry, it starts from something well-meaning. We could build several acres of affordable housing out of the stacks and stacks of books, blogs, and inspirational memes urging writers to write from the heart, to follow your vision, to let your voice ring out and be heard. The problem is that almost always after that advice comes the promise that should a writer (or any artist, really) follow this path of purity, success and happiness will unquestionably follow.

It’s not that this promise isn’t true, exactly. It’s that for far, far too many writers “success and happiness” gets equated with “lots of money and fame.” Here’s the reality of making art: the brass ring is BRASS, not gold. To believe even for a moment that simply producing the work of one’s heart means one will now be a bestseller is beyond naive. To proceed as if commercial success is due because of one’s effort or expenditure is embarrassingly foolhardy. But most of all, publicly ridiculing readers, especially one’s own, is a hanging offense, and anyone who commits it will very quickly feel the cinch of a brutal noose.

 

Read the full post on Heidi Cullinan’s blog. Note that it contains strong language.

 

How Did YA Become YA?

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This post by Mulberry Street Library Supervising Librarian Anne Rouyer originally appeared on the New York Public Library blog on 4/20/15.

“Why is it called YA anyway? And who decided what was YA and what wasn’t?”

Not too long ago, during an author panel on Young Adult literature at the most recent Teen Author Festival, YA author Scott Westerfeld asked, “Why is it called YA anyway? And who decided what was YA and what wasn’t?” The answer of course is: librarians. More specifically you can thank New York Public Library librarians. Not only did they pioneer library services to teens, an NYPL librarian popularized the term “young adult.” However, before we get to all that we have to start at the beginning and it all starts with a young, passionate, pioneering children’s librarian named Anne Carroll Moore.

In 1906, Anne Carroll Moore became the Director of Work with Children for The New York Public Library. As she was busy revolutionizing services to children and children’s rooms all over the city, she knew that there had to be a way to keep children, who weren’t quite adults yet, coming to the public library and not let all her hard work for children be for naught. It’s for these reasons, in 1914 that she hired Mabel Williams, a young librarian from Somerville, Massachusetts. Mabel was working as a reference librarian and collaborating with local high schools and Anne wanted her to do the same thing, only on a much bigger scale, at NYPL. Mabel began working with schools and inviting classes into branches and finally in 1919 she was appointed to Supervisor of Work with Schools and her groundbreaking work with young people (aka teens) began. Her official title (“Supervisor of Work with Schools and Young People”) wouldn’t happen until 1948.

 

Read the full post on the New York Public Library blog.

Amazon Sues Over 1,000 Freelancers For Writing Fake Reviews

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This article by Mari Jo Valero originally appeared on the Fox23.com site on 10/18/15.

Amazon.com is fighting fake reviewers with a lawsuit against more than 1,000 people.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, targets freelancers working for Fiverr, an online website that offers services like video editing and graphic design for cheap.

As for the name of the defendants? Well, Amazon doesn’t really know. They’re all listed as John Does in the suit.

And instead of cheap services, Amazon claims these John Does are deceptively selling online reviews for as little as $5.

The company says it’s suing the individuals for “tarnishing Amazon’s brand for their own profit and the profit of a handful of dishonest sellers and manufacturers.”

 

Read the full article on Fox23.com.

Connecting With Book Blogs

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This post by Stephanie Barko originally appeared on The San Francisco Book Review on 10/2/15.

When Technorati quietly changed their business model earlier this year and quit categorizing and ranking blogs, I began to wonder how to identify the top book blogs going forward. It turns out there are still plenty of ways to determine the best book blogs to partner with. It just takes a little time and effort.

Where are those book blogs whose followings we can’t wait to borrow for free? Let’s take a look at some of the options out there for finding and connecting with book blogs.

 

Alexa

Alexa is a good resource for blog traffic stats, but it’s not free like Technorati was. However, Alexa offers some pretty savvy tools, such as:

• Which sites to pay attention to: Easy-to-use tools let you narrow down the web to specific sites that meet your criteria.

• What a site is doing and how well it’s working: Use Alexa’s intelligence tools to pick up traffic stats and demographics.

• How a site compares to others: Benchmark any site to see it in relation to competitors.

These are excellent tools that will definitely locate quality book blogging sites, but prices range from $10 to $149 per month. It requires a bit of an investment.

 

Blogrolls

 

Read the full post on The San Francisco Book Review.

 

Anatomy of A Query Rejection

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This post by Kristin Nelson originally appeared on Pub Rants on 7/7/15.

This June, I taught a query workshop at Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Lit Fest. Afterward, one participant approached and asked me to read a response letter she had received (not from me). She wanted to know if it was a “standard” rejection letter. I read it aloud and was a little chagrined to discover just how similar it was to the letter I had been using for years. I told her that yes, this was not a personal letter but a standard rejection. Two days later, I was chastised by an aspiring writer who said it was time for us to change our standard rejection letter. Obviously that poor person had received our letter multiple times.

But I took the chastisement to heart. It was time for a change. So I’m going to share with you, my newsletter readers, our standard rejection letter and explain why I chose the verbiage I did.

Dear INSERT WRITER’S NAME:

KN: I actually do input the writer’s name. This business is so impersonal (some agents don’t even respond at all if they aren’t interested in a query), but I always want writers to be acknowledged as human beings. Even though it takes longer to respond to queries.

Thank you so much for thinking of me for your query. I wish I could offer a more personalized response but on average, I receive 500+ email query letters a week.

KN: This is true. In fact, I receive way more than 500 queries a week. Recently I’ve been averaging about 100 to 150 email query letters a day. Don’t let these stats daunt you. If you are serious about your career, you’ll persevere. Know the odds, but give them only the weight of a side note. I have signed many a client after finding them in our query inbox.

 

Read the full post on Pub Rants.