Ebooks

Articles specific to writing and publishing ebooks.

Pinterest: The Hottest New Social Site – Should Authors Join?

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Everyone’s buzzing about Pinterest, a rapidly growing social site that’s all about creating and sharing collections of images (photos or illustrations) that you find around the Web or create yourself.

Pinterest calls itself a “Virtual Pin Board’ and members can use it to share their favorite artwork and books, organize recipes, plan weddings, post travel photos, and more.

The site is basically a giant online bulletin board that people pin images to. As a user, you create "boards" geared to different topics or interests.

As you’re cruising around the Web, you see an image that you’d like to share with others and you "pin" it to one of your "boards."  When someone clicks on the image, they can be directed back to the website that the image came from. You can also upload images from your computer.

You can post images related to your personal interests or hobbies, as well as images related to your book. You can also "follow" other people or boards, "like" or comment on images, and "re-pin" other images on the site to your own boards.

To the left is an example of a book cover that someone posted on a board called "Must Reads". You can see that it has attracted 218 likes and 113 comments, and it’s been re-pinned 5,393 times.

Pinterest can be integrated into your Facebook timeline, and you can add a “Follow Me on Pinterest” button on your website and cross promote the site through your other social networks.

After an incredible growth spurt in late 2011, Pinterest is now attracting nearly 12 million monthly unique visitors and generating a lot of buzz. Shareaholic recently reported that Pinterest is driving more referral traffic to websites than Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. (Referral traffic is defined as visitors who land on a website through a link from another website.)

Naturally, many businesses are taking advantage of this new way to promote their brand and their products visually. But it’s easy for authors and other entrepreneurs to get caught up in "shiny object syndrome," chasing after each new thing that comes along and losing focus on what’s most important in their business.

Should you join Pinterest? Here are some things to consider:

    * How well does your book topic lend itself to sharing relevant images? Travel guides, cookbooks, and gardening books would be a natural, but authors in many other topics can probably find relevant images to share. Novelists could share images related to the storyline or setting of their book. Children’s authors can share images from their books. All authors can share their book covers and images from their blog posts.

    * Is Pinterest a good use of your time? The good news is that Pinterest doesn’t require as much time as other social sites like Facebook.

    * Is Pinterest something that you would enjoy doing for fun, to share images with friends and family or others you meet on the site? I have found that people pin a lot of beautiful artwork and photos and it’s fun to browse the site.

If you think you may want to use Pinterest, I recommend signing up right away so that you can secure the user name of your choice.

Right now, you have to be "invited" to join Pinterest. You can ask someone who’s already a member to send you an invitation, or click the red "Request an Invite" button at www.Pinterest.com.

To help you get up to speed fast, I have created the Pinterest Guide for Authors. This 35-page ebook contains numerous screenshots, so it’s a quick and easy read. 

 

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

Two Questions That Loom Over The Trade Publishing Business

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This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on The Shatzkin Files blog on the Idea Logical Company site on 2/28/12.

A lot of people in publishing would pay a lot of money to get a reliable answer to these two questions:

When will the growth in Amazon’s share of the consumer book business stop?

Who will be left standing when it does?

I won’t attempt to answer those two questions in this post. In fact, the purpose here is to begin to generate agreement that those are, indeed, the way the industry’s existential strategic questions should be framed going forward. In my consulting work, it is often my role to provide “synthesis and articulation.” This post will begin to document the synthesis that led to articulating the questions, which are actually implicit statements, above. The catalyst for these ruminations was the news last week about Amazon’s dust-up with Independent Publishers Group (IPG), a demonstration of its power and willingness to exercise it that recalls an incident almost exactly two years ago when they were unsuccessful at bullying Macmillan (or the other big publishers) into giving up their notion of implementing agency pricing.

Amazon was not the first online bookseller. But they appear to have had several distinctions from all others from the beginning. One is that they always saw bookselling as a springboard to a much larger business. That meant that bookselling was, perhaps primarily, a customer acquisition tool, not an end in itself. A second is that they saw, long before it was accepted general wisdom, that perfecting the “customer experience” online was the core requirement for success. And the combination of those two things, in concert with the ubiquitious availability of capital for promising Internet propositions that characterized the late 1990s, fueled growth powered by aggressive pricing that has had their trading partners and competitors agape for nearly two decades.

Any discussion of Amazon’s success must acknowledge that the other key component, aside from the strategic components of long-term vision, smart use of capitalization, and customer-centricity, has been the quality of their execution. This has been true from the beginning and it is still true today. Some of this is subjective, but it still looks to me like they offer a better print searching-and-buying experience than BN.com and a better overall ebook ecosystem than Nook or Kobo. I read on an iPhone and use all the ebook purchasing systems from time to time, but I use Kindle the most because it is the best. I am close to somebody who prefers to buy from BN.com because (she says; I don’t do this research…) they give money to Democrats and Amazon gives money to Republicans, but she still does her searching at Amazon because it works better before she hops over to BN.com to make her purchase.

[An update on that last point since the original posting of this piece. I was challenged on the "Amazon is red" statement by a couple of people whose opinions I trust, so I asked my favorite Democrat for citations and I got two. You’ll see (if you care and if you look) that both of the analyses that delivered this characterization are squarely within the Bush presidency, so they could constitute a company hedging bets rather than expressing political conviction. On the other hand, B&N was blue throughout the Bush Administration. And the point about the search engines, which was the one germane to this piece, remains true.]

Read the rest of the post on The Shatzkin Files.

Thirteen O’Clock Australian Dark Fiction News and Reviews – Launched

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I’m very happy to be able to officially announce this new venture. Myself and writers Andrew McKiernan and Felicity Dowker have put together a new website, to fill a void in the Australian dark and weird fiction scene. Since the untimely demise of Horrorscope, there’s been a gap where good dark and weird fiction can be reviewed and reported. We’re hoping to fill that gap with Thirteen O’Clock. And, after all, you can’t have too many sources of news and reviews in this game. Here are the relevant links:

Thirteen O’Clock website.

Thirteen O’Clock on Facebook.

Thirteen O’Clock on Twitter.

All the details are in the official press release, here.

 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

Are Kindle Owner’s Lending Library (KOLL) Borrows Cannibalizing Your Book Sales?

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This post, by , originally appeared on the Digital Book World site on 3/1/12.

I always find it amazing when researching marketing strategies how incredibly superstitious and eager some authors are to not just believe, but also truly embrace urban myths.

Especially if it might impact their careers.

The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) borrowing system is a prime example.

So rather than relying upon your cousin’s friend’s blog to terrify you that KOLL is killing your book sales, let’s return to a trusted friend.

Math. Good, old-fashioned math. Let’s calculate how KOLL is affecting your book sales rather than running around the room waving our hands over our heads. :-)

I am going to use examples from my platform; however, you can calculate your numbers using your own data. Drilling down into your sales numbers is the only way for anyone to determine if any advertising venture is worthwhile or not.

Indie authors, or even small/trade publishers can perform this series of calculations to see if KOLL is a cost-effective option for their book titles.

Let’s look at those titles priced between 99¢ and $2.98. These 35 percent royalty books generate 35¢ to $1.04 royalty-per-sale.

Since the current KOLL Payout is approximately $1.60/borrow, any title in this 99¢-$2.98 price range is actually making money from each borrow.

In the case of 99¢ titles, you are actually quadrupling your royalties versus a sale. #sweet

The next price bandwidth we want to look at is the $2.99 titles. If we simply looked at raw numbers, it would appear that these books were losing money on KOLL.

The $2.99 price point at 70 percent royalty = $2.09 – KOLL royalty of approximately $1.60 = a net loss of 50¢/borrow versus purchase.

But not all sales at $2.99 are paid out at 70 percent royalty. A subset of your sales is always calculated at 35 percent royalty if the sales originate outside the territories covered by the 70 percent royalty contract.

On average, you can expect about 7 to 8 percent of your sales are going to fall under the 35 percent royalty rule. This brings down your $2.09 average royalty at 70 percent down to a combined 70 percent + 35 percent royalty of $2.00/book.

Now, we must subtract the delivery charge of 8¢, which brings our average royalty per book down to $1.92/book.

Average net royalty $1.92 – $1.60 KOLL average royalty = 32¢

That brings your net loss down to 32¢/borrow versus purchase.

However, we must now factor in a more human component. The question becomes: “Would each of the KOLL borrowers have actually bought your book?”

 

Read the rest of the post on Digital Book World.

22 Top Book Designer Tasks for Getting Your Self-Published Book Into Print

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I frequently get asked what exactly a book designer does. Just the other day I spoke with a client whose book is in copyediting. I’ll be getting ready to start work on his interior next week.

“Well, do you need to do anything,” he asked. “I mean, there’s just a couple of formats, right?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess we must be doing our job pretty well,” I replied, “if you can’t even tell the difference from one book to the next.”

But I got to thinking about it later. We talk frequently about the need to hire publishing professionals, to get your book properly edited and designed to compete in the marketplace, or, if you’re going to do it yourself, to make sure you understand the conventions and best practices of book production.

 

When a Designer Is Not Just a Designer

But there are book designers and book designers. Many cover designers do only covers, that’s their specialty. Some designers do only interiors. There are designers that do covers, websites and marketing collateral. Then there are designers who provide a complete resource for self-publishing authors.

When I meet with prospective clients the first time, it’s really the beginning of a relationship. In this relationship we share responsibility for the embodiment of their manuscript in the form of a consumer product. By the time the books roll off the press, I may have been involved in many aspects of the book’s development.

Recently I sat down and made a list of 22 tasks that fall to the book designer in the course of a project:

  1. Determine whether the prospective self-publisher can articulate a clear goal for her book and, if not, to help her achieve that.
  2. Help the client determine the category, niche, or target market for the book.
  3. Assist client in obtaining ISBN, LCCN, SAN and publisher listings if needed.
  4. Decide the best printing process to meet the goal and help client select provider.
  5. Analyze the formats that will be needed in the finished book.
  6. Arrange for copyediting, if the author has not done so already.
  7. Set up a production schedule.
  8. Hire an illustrator if needed.
  9. Clean up text files submitted by author.
  10. Create sample interior designs, using a representative chapter and most if not all of the formats needed for the final book.
  11. Create sample cover designs demonstrating the different ways the book can be positioned within its category.
  12. Work with client to adjust designs to fit their needs and aesthetics.
  13. Layout all the pages of the book, correct formatting where needed and adjust the length to the right number of pages.
  14. Remind client to finish the copy for the copyright page.
  15. Obtain a spine width calculation, cover template and technical specs from client’s book printer.
  16. Layout and proof complete flat cover including barcode.
  17. Scan photographs if necessary, and adjust photographs for selected printing method, if any are used.
  18. Prepare Advance Review Copies (ARC) for marketing and review purposes.
  19. Arrange for proofreading and indexing if needed.
  20. Advise publisher about her packing, shipping and storage options for offset books.
  21. Create reproduction files conforming to printer’s specifications, and coordinate proofing and production with printer.
  22. Celebrate every milestone as one step closer to the client’s goal.

If It’s a Real Production, Doesn’t That Make Me a Producer?

When I looked at this list, I realized why my favorite term for what I do is Book Producer. However, no one has ever called me up saying, “I need a book producer,” so I don’t use it. But that’s what it is, gathering the resources and talent needed to produce the book at hand, and making sure the project runs smoothly, and on budget, to a satisfying conclusion.

Keep in mind that nothing in the list of 22 Tasks above describes the biggest part of the designer’s work: creating the typographic container for the author’s work, and doing the actual fitting, pushing, nudging, aligning, sizing and organizing of the content into something that looks the way a “book” should look, that actually enhances the experience of reading.

And that, in the end, is really the most satisfying part of what I do. Most of the books we create, even if they are influenced by the fashion of the day, will be around far longer than we will. As a designer sometimes I feel as if I stand between the 500-year traditions of bookmaking on one hand, and the potential hundreds of years some of these books may last on the other.

Not a bad place to be at all.

 

 

This is a reprint from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

Can We Stop Calling Amazon a Bully?

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

Amazon is a company. Granted, a retailer with aggressive tactics meant to support long-term growth. But it is not an oversized kid (or childish adult) with personality problems who deliberately picks on weaker people for sport. And when people call Amazon a bully, they dilute the term’s meaning and diminish the experience of human beings who have been personally victimized, bruised, and emotionally scarred by such human behavior.

Amazon functions much like other companies, only more successfully than its competitors. Its tactics, as far as I know, are legal. (The tax issues are still being debated but that’s another subject.) Some people would argue that its tactics are not fair, but what does that mean? Does the word fair apply in business? Again, we’re not dealing with children. The concept of one for me and one for you is not how capitalism works.

Some businesses are content to coast along, partner with others, and not worry about the future. Other businesses are more ambitious. They have long-term goals, and they work aggressively to meet those goals, even if it means putting competitors out of business. Barnes & Noble was once that kind of business. It bought up competitors, closed many retail outlets, and forced hundreds of indie bookstores to fold. People called it a bully too. But it was just business, capitalism in action.

Now the same people who denounced B&N (small bookstore owners, small publishers, and writers clinging to the old model) are crying foul on Amazon and worrying that B&N, now the underdog, will not survive the competition for customers.

I too worry a little that Amazon will dominate the publishing industry, at least for a while, and that customer choice will begin to be limited. But Amazon won’t get to that point by being a bully, just a savvy, fast-growing company with an eye on the long-term future.

And yes, this blog was inspired in response to the struggle between Amazon and Independent Publishers Group, which I blogged about yesterday in more detail. A struggle in which Amazon held firm on its terms and lost the right to publish all of IPG’s ebooks. I saw Amazon called a bully over and over yesterday, but I think the word is misused.

I don’t mean to imply that the human owners of indie publishers and bookstores aren’t feeling emotional about what’s happening in the publishing industry as a result of Amazon’s success. I’m sure they are and rightfully so. But Amazon’s success is not a vendetta, and there’s no point in taking it personally. Those emotions will just keep people from making rational business decisions.

What do you think?

 

25 Inspiring Biographies for Aspiring Writers

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This post originally appeared on the OnlineCollege.org site and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

Before setting off in pursuit of literary and intellectual greatness (or at least goodness), it behooves the journeyman author to learn a few things from those that came before. Don’t get bogged down in fantasy. Take the time to read up on how successful writers — no matter their chosen genres or mediums — generate ideas and inspiration, process them, then bestow them life on paper or screen. Painting teachers often request their students to copy old masters in order to learn techniques they may uniquely, creatively build upon as their own visions begin emerging. And the exact same strategy works beautifully for the written arts in kind.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou: Oftentimes cited as one of the greatest American memoirs, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings chronicles the beloved poet’s sexual abuse, struggles with race and class divides, teen pregnancy, and how sheer willpower and bibliophilia carried her through. It’s a testament to the importance of strong character and an open-mindedness to new ideas when writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: Ernest Hemingway’s sexy memoir of expatriate experiences in Paris is a oenophile’s dream — oh, and it also stands as one of the best peeks into Europe’s pre-WWII creative circles. Read up on his interactions with the likes of Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, and (most famously) F. Scott Fitzgerald, with whom he shared one of the most legendary road trips ever.

 

 

 

 

   

 

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath: For the deepest look into the highly troubled poet’s mindset, be sure to read the uncensored journals husband Ted Hughes never touched before publication. Even readers with no desire to launch writing careers can still learn valuable lessons about the realities of mental illness (specifically, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety) and its frequent intersections with creativity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers: In this Pulitzer nominee, Salon.com editor, McSweeney’s founder, and all-around literary Renaissance man Dave Eggers unpacks the one thing that left the greatest impact on his life. Specifically, losing both parents to cancer and winding up the exclusive caretaker of his young brother while still a young man attempting to figure out his own life.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass: Frederick Douglass’ memoir eventually grew into one of the undeniable cornerstones of the abolitionist movement and solidified his status as an excellent orator, writer, and activist. In his game-changing publication, he reflects the extremely inhumane conditions in which slave-owners forced others and why that needed to end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter: Because the beloved Lord of the Rings author’s family authorized this biography, readers will learn about him through family and friend interviews as well as personal notes and correspondence. Fans of literary history with or without an interest in the fantasy genre will appreciate the insight into Oxford’s legendary Inklings circle, which included his once-close companion C.S. Lewis.

 

 

 

 

 

The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima by Henry Scott Stokes: Raising a private army to overthrow the Emperor probably isn’t the best course of action for wannabe writers of note, but that doesn’t mean they can’t find inspiration in Yukio Mishima’s fascinating life. Henry Scott Stokes was a good friend of the seminal author, which granted him probably the most well-rounded glimpse of his nuances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confessions by St. Augustine of Hippo: Personal failings and epiphanies have fueled creative pursuits for almost as long as creative pursuits existed, but Confessions usually exists as the quintessential example. You don’t have to be religious to understand (maybe even appreciate) the author’s candidness and how his own experiences led him into theological rock-star status.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: Cartoonist Marjane Satrapi worked her trauma from the Iranian Revolution and the (sometimes subtle) displays of discrimination and racism she faced in Europe into a simultaneously tragic and hilarious graphic memoir. Through her art and writing alike, she inspires others who’ve experienced very real (and not always historical) horrors to seek solace and reveal truth through creation, not destruction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom: When the author watched his elderly sociology professor Morrie Schwartz on Nightline and learned about his ALS, he called him up and rekindled their intellectual relationship. The dying man eventually took on a mentor role during the 14 meetings they shared before his death, influencing his former student far, far beyond the literary.

 

 

 

 

  

 

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe: New Journalism’s trailblazer Tom Wolfe followed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest author and MK Ultra participant Ken Kesey and his gang (The Merry Pranksters) on a psychedelic exploration of the United States and drug subculture. Ingesting various hallucinogenic substances may not necessarily stand as the most legal route toward inspiration out there, but it exists as an option utilized by many creatives all the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell: Frequently touted as a forerunner to the modern biography — not to mention one of the all-time greatest examples of the genre in the English language — this James Boswell masterpiece covered the entire life of the ubiquitous literary giant with whom he was acquainted. So astute were his observations and inclusions, contemporary doctors wound up diagnosing Samuel Johnson’s seemingly erratic, eccentric behavior as Tourette’s Syndrome.

 

 

 

 

 

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is actually about renowned modernist and art patron Gertrude Stein rather than her eponymous lover, though she relays her own biography through that particular perspective. It covers the entirety of their time together, as well as the creative luminaries who phased in and out of the apartment during one of Europe’s most fertile, volatile eras.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin: Although obviously more well-known as an actor and comedian, Steve Martin certainly deserves recognition for his writings, both humorous and not-so-humorous. For him, self-expression allowed him a worthwhile conduit for the pain he felt over isolation from his parents; authors hoping to pursue their craft citing similar reasons might find this narrative useful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Years with Ayn Rand by Nathaniel Branden: Pretty much everything anyone needs to know about this biography pops up right there in the title. Objectivism founder Ayn Rand’s protege and paramour (and the pioneer of self-esteem) dishes about their problematic relationship. To this day, the Atlas Shrugged author remains a polarizing figure, and reading about her here shines a more human light on what she offers literature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excelsior! by Stan Lee and George Mair: The Spider-Man/X-Men/Avengers/countless others co-creator should never be mistaken as the inventor of comics, but his bombastic, campy writing style undeniably left a major impact on popular culture. Learn all about his early life, early career, and eventual success here, though do keep in mind his talent for, um, exaggeration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pimp: The Story of My Life by Iceberg Slim: By age 18, Iceberg Slim already established for himself a pimping career, placing him directly in the urban underbelly which eventually fueled his literature. Critics embraced his fiction and literary nonfiction alike, believing it an accurate depiction of an often overlooked, marginalized atmosphere in serious need of assistance.

 

 

 

 

  

 

The Diary of Anais Nin by Anais Nin: With the same eloquence as her beloved erotic fiction, the extended journals of Anais Nin romantically reflect on everything from DH Lawrence’s writings to her famous entanglements with Henry Miller and his wife June. However, her sensuality stands at odds with a discomfort toward overt sexuality — surprising, considering her oeuvre.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Why this World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser: After perusing the modernist’s own private writings and manuscripts, Benjamin Moser peeled back much of the mystique surrounding Clarice Lispector. No other biography comes remotely close to exploring her nuances like this one, and even those who’ve never once picked up any of her myriad works will still find her tragic and beautiful life riveting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ignatius Rising by Deborah George Harvey and Rene Pol Nevils: Gut-busting tragicomedy and Pulitzer winner A Confederacy of Dunces sports a publication story as compelling as the narrative itself, though way more heartbreaking. Delve deeply into John Kennedy Toole’s complex relationship with his mother, issues with sexuality, and other factors that eventually led him to suicide before ever seeing his masterpiece go to print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King: Not only do On Writing readers receive quite the insight into ubiquitous horror author Stephen King’s own personal mindset and process, they also learn quite a bit about the art. It’s oftentimes cited as one of the best literary autobiographies and practicums to boot, so consider it an essential read!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson: You don’t have to shovel a dump truck full of hallucinogens and alcohol into the gullet every morning to learn a little something from the quintessential gonzo journalist. At once fiction and nonfiction, his most famous work delves into the frustration of finding inspiration and chasing the shattered American Dream.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain: Learn all about the great American wit from his own unique perspective here, which saw publication after he died and didn’t exactly care what people thought. Completely unedited and unabridged, his autobiography should sit on the shelves of every aspirant writer around, no matter their chosen medium or genre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson: Influential LGBTQ author Jeanette Winterson’s real-life struggles between her Pentecostal upbringing and lesbian sexuality famously inspired the novel Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. This memoir unveils the realities behind her most famous work, which might inspire many up-and-comers to seek emotional solace in their own literature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson: In his charming memoir, popular travel writer Bill Bryson candidly discusses growing up in Des Moines during the Cold War’s first two decades. Some of it sheds light on his later publications, but it also reveals the curiosities and quirks one can find in current amenities, inventions, family, and friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 29th, 2012 written by OnlineColleges.org

 

2012: Best of Times for Writers, or the Worst?

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One thing that happens when you go to a writing conference is you end up spending a lot of time with writers. Many kinds of writers. And that can be very instructive.

There were several hundred writers in attendance at the San Francisco Writers Conference, which ended yesterday. Throughout the four days there were writing workshops, keynote addresses, “ask the pro” sessions and a lot of panels and presentations about options in self-publishing.

Although most of the sessions were on writing topics, the incredible popularity and explosive growth of self-publishing, both with new and already-established writers is the obvious rationale for presenting this material. And there were some people who were clearly interested in pursuing the self-publishing option.

Slogan of the Day

In almost every presentation, somewhere along the line I heard, “It’s the best time to be a writer.”

And why not? Armed with only a laptop and an imagination, a writer today can create her own publishing story, gather fans, learn to market her books, and start to make real money though book sales if she keeps at it and has good skills.

In many of these self-publishing presentations there were stories told of authors who had followed this same path and arrived at the promised land, where agents and editors are calling you with six- and seven-figure offers.

Just before the big panel I was part of on Saturday morning, I read in Publishers Weekly about the latest, Brittany Geragotelis, who used the reader community Wattpad to accumulate over 16 million reads of her work, attracting a six-figure contract from Simon & Schuster.

The Dark Side: Still There

It was also interesting that many writers had never considered self-publishing. On the last day of the conference there was a big, two-hour panel discussion on “The Great Adventure: Joining the Self-Publishing Revolution,” moderated by Carla King (Self-Publishing Bootcamp) and including Mark Coker (Smashwords), Brian Felsen (Bookbaby), Jan Johnson, (Turning Stone) and Jesse Potash, (PubSlush). And me. Pretty good panel, wouldn’t you say?

The room was reduced to half its usual size by dividers, and it was still only about half-full.

Where were all the writers?

They were upstairs, standing in a long, long line that snaked from a room at one end of the hotel, through the lobby and in front of the front desk. Each grasped a sheaf of papers and many looked nervous.

This was the core of their visit to the conference, and maybe the reason a lot of them paid to come to San Francisco: “Speed Dating With Agents.” A chance to sit down and talk face to face to a literary agent is a powerful draw for an unpublished writer.

I thought about some of the writers I know. Many are quite technophobic. Just learning Word is a major accomplishment. I know people who can write prose that will melt your heart, but they never figured out how to attach something to an email.

These writers will never join my training course. They might read the blog because you can get it in your email. The whole thought of “formatting” makes them nervous. They just want to write, and let other people take care of the rest.

I’m not so sure it’s the best of times for these writers. It could be coming into the worst of times. As popular fiction moves to ebooks, publishers try to find an economic model that will survive digitization, and marketing becomes a necessity for the average author, what are non-technical writers to do?

Most of the new self-publishers who are in the news get there through using social media for marketing. Many are bloggers or do blog tours. This is a community in which uploading to Kindle Direct Publishing is about as easy as booking a flight online.

But even in 2012, many writers aren’t there yet, and the dream of landing that contract lives on.

Do you think there will be writers who are pushed aside by the technical requirements of the new era in publishing? Or will there always be publishers to take care of the business end of things for writers who want no part of it?

 

This is a reprint from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

Marketing Direct To Kindle Readers. On Advertising And KDP Select.

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If you want to sell books, you need to find readers. Although there are a lot of ebook vendors out there, Amazon is currently the dominant player and there are a lot of readers who own Amazon Kindles/Fires and who shop on the Amazon store. I am one of them.

There are a few things you can do to market direct to these people, and you don’t need an existing platform to do it. You don’t need a blog or a twitter presence and you can still get thousands of sales or downloads of your book.

Direct Advertising

I believe you need a budget for your business as an independent author.

You need to use some of this budget for professional editing and cover design, and some of it can be used for promotional activity. There are a number of sites that specialize in promoting books to avid Kindle readers. These sites have lists with tens of thousands of readers on them so they can be a powerful way to boost sales and get your book moving on the Amazon charts.

In 2010, I used Kindle Nation Daily to promote Pentecost and it shot me up the charts. Pentecost reached #1 on Movers & Shakers, #4 in Religious Fiction and #93 in Thrillers. This year I decided to use PixelofInk.com as KND had increased in price and also had little availability for the time period I wanted.

Direct Advertising Results

The promo is a 1 day event with lots of other books also promoted that day. I paid US$250 for the promo of Pentecost, again counting on the first in the series dragging Prophecy up with it.

Copies of Pentecost sold: 800 @35c = US$280

Copies of Prophecy sold: 57 @$2 = US$114

Total income: US$394.

Given the cost was US$250, financially, this was worth the promotion.

But the impact on the Rankings was also fantastic. Pentecost reached #5 in the Action Adventure charts and Prophecy reached #88, so both books were ranking together, and Prophecy debuted in the charts above Lee Child. Awesome! Pentecost also reached #82 in the entire Amazon.com Kindle store. We still don’t know how the Amazon algorithm works but rankings, sales and reviews definitely play a part.

Will I do it again? Absolutely. (But remember, every book is different so don’t assume that what works for me will also work for your book. It’s all experimentation!)

My tips for getting the most out of the experience:

  • Have a great cover and back blurb
  • Have 10+ reviews of 4 stars or more on the sales page already – this social proof will help people to buy
  • Use great pricing. 99c will get you into the bargain area which will elicit more sales, although clearly higher pricing will result in more revenue for less sales.
  • You can find out more in the Author’s Corner on PixelofInk

KDP Select

If you’re not aware yet, KDP Select is an Amazon Kindle opportunity that allows you to put your book into the Amazon Prime lending program and receive a percentage of lending income from a fixed monthly pot. It also allows authors 5 days in a 3 month period where they can price the book for free. Previously, the only way to do this was to ‘game’ Amazon by setting the price to zero on Smashwords and waiting for their algorithm to pick it up. But now there is control over the period of time so you can coordinate your promotional period.

Free is basically a marketing activity. The aim is to get eyeballs on your book and to pick up data from the Amazon algorithm that may help your book when it goes back to paid. Most authors have experimented with some form of free but it works best when you have multiple books. Here’s NY Times bestselling author CJ Lyons on how free worked for her, and this was before KDP Select.

In order to be in the program, you have to put your book exclusively with Amazon for that 3 month period. You can then choose to renew or opt out again.

There have been some prominent indies in both the For and Against camps for KDP Select but I wanted to try it for myself in order to give a more informed opinion. Obviously the results will be different for every book so this is hardly the last word on the subject, but it is my experience.

How I used KDP Select

As part of the launch for Prophecy which is $2.99, I included Pentecost in KDP Select, hoping that people would get the first in the series for free and then buy the 2nd since the price is also pretty good for that. Given that Pentecost had already sold over 17,000 copies prior to this promotion, I figured I would get new readers.

I initially set the promo for 3 days but increased it to 5 once I got to the top of the Action Adventure charts in order to maximize the impact and downloads. I shared the fact it was free on Twitter and Facebook but that was about it. I know there are a number of sites that promote books as being free and also people who watch the lists, so no extra promo was really needed.

I did have to remove Pentecost from Smashwords in order to do this which meant the book wasn’t available on the other ebook stores.

Results from KDP Select

I started the promo on Sat 5 Feb and very quickly I was on the top free listing for Action Adventure. On Mon 6th Feb Pentecost reached #1 on Free for Action Adventure on Amazon.com and #2 in the UK. It stayed there until the promo finished.

Total downloads of Pentecost over the 5 days: 10,836

Total sales of Prophecy over the 5 days: 294

Was it worth it?

For me, I don’t think so. The uptick in Prophecy sales was quite small and I think a lot of people who get free books just get a lot of free books. They don’t necessarily need to buy books anymore as so many are free. How many of those 10,000 new readers will convert to fans of my fiction? It will certainly be a small percentage but perhaps the same number who would have bought the book over that period anyway, as I have quite consistent sales every month.

On the lending aspect, only 20 copies of my books have been lent in the last month. That’s not significant data at all but it does show that lending doesn’t work for all books as an income or promotional activity.

I also had to remove my books from the other platforms. I now have to republish them so I may have missed out on sales during that period as well. As much as I personally love Amazon as a reader and an author, I actually don’t like being exclusive to their store. Even though I buy there exclusively, it doesn’t mean other people do and I want to be available everywhere.

Will I do it again? Probably not, for fiction anyway. I might experiment with non-fiction. That doesn’t mean it’s not good for your book/s, but it’s my own experience. I have a guest post coming soon from an author who totally loves KDP Select, so we all have different experiences.

Have you tried direct advertising or KDP Select? How has it worked for you?

Want more tips on how to sell more fiction?

I have now been selling my fiction for over a year and I’ve experimented with a lot of different strategies and tactics. I have also changed my mind on a lot of things and believe that selling fiction is quite different to selling non-fiction.

I share my findings in this recent webinar recording: How to promote your novel: 21 ways to sell more books online. It’s just US$21 and has some rave reviews. Click here to read more about it.

 

 

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

Pimping Your Book, Indie or Traditional

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This post, by Holly Robinson, originally appeared on The Huffington Post on 2/28/12.

Now that I’ve got feet in both camps, I have a unique perspective on the good, the bad and the mysterious truths about book marketing. My memoir, The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter, was published by Random House. I leaped into the indie world when I self-published my first novel, Sleeping Tigers, a couple of months ago. My second novel, The Wishing Hill, will be published by Penguin in spring 2013.

These experiences have taught me a lot about book publicity, but I’m still learning new things every day. There are some differences in how traditional and indie books are publicized, but those differences are shrinking by the nanosecond. The truest thing I can tell you is that, no matter how your book makes it into the world, you’ll need to take an active part in the publicity. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Mine the Free Resources

The Internet is a wonderful tutor. There are more free resources out there about marketing your book than you’ll ever have time to read. Google anything from "picking a book cover" to "social media for authors," and you’ll get enough hits to last through a few thermoses of coffee each time you do it. Make good use of these resources. One of my favorites is Novel Publicity’s "Free Advice Blog."

Prepare Your Platform

No matter who you talk to in publishing — agent, editor, publicist, or sales team — they’ll tell you that their ideal is a good book written by an author with a "solid platform." Basically, that means that they want you to be famous before you even give them a manuscript — or they want some hook, like you chewed off your arm during a battle with a grizzly bear. (Even then, they hope you’ve been blogging about it.) One easy way to start building your platform is by crafting a virtual identity. Social media tools are free and easy to use. Start a blog, create an author Facebook page, get a Twitter account, and set up a Goodreads page. Give people useful information — don’t just pimp your book. If you know how to do something — anything from fly fishing to quilting — blog about that, guest post on other people’s blogs, and people will start following you. Yes, it’s time-consuming, but it’s also incredibly fun to connect with people. If you’re trying traditional publishing avenues, it will help your editor sell your book to the publisher if she can prove that you have an active presence online. Indie or traditional, you’re cultivating a loyal readership.

A Publicist Is Just Part of the Picture

 

Read the rest of the post on The Huffington Post.

How to Have a Successful KDP Select Campaign

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This is a guest post from Jeff Bennington.

Are you Planning a KDP Select Promo Soon?

If you plan to promote your book through Amazon’s KDP Select "Free" promotion, you can potentially receive exposure that is equivalent to a billboard standing in the middle of Times Square in New York City, or you might not.

There are several factors that can influence how well or how poorly your book fares when given such an incredible opportunity. Because the response to a promotion can vary from one title to the next, it is very important that you get everything right BEFORE you set your book loose. If you nail all of these elements, you will have a greater shot at success. If you are lacking in some or all of these elements, you might not experience the boost in sales/readership that you are hoping for. After nailing each of these elements, I hit #55 in Amazon’s Top 100 paid, and so have a few authors who have allowed me to help them.

The following is a list of key elements that will effect your biggest and best opportunity to FINALLY get noticed on the world stage:

Your Book Cover is the very first thing readers see, so it only stands to reason that it better be AWESOME. Unfortunately, many self-published authors have an unprofessional looking cover, yet expect professional results. Your cover needs to grab a reader’s attention, draw them in, or create enough curiosity to earn a "click". If your book cover is lame or screams "self-published" you might get far fewer clicks than if you spent a little bit of money on a sweet cover. And in the world of KDP Select promotions, a loss of clicks can mean a loss of several hundred to several thousand dollars. So it is definitely worth the expense.

Your Book Blurb is your sales pitch, and you don’t have much time to convince a book buyer to spend their dime on you. With so many books for free, and at affordable prices, your product description should be catchy, to the point, and professional. If you have misspelled words, or the layout of your product description is sloppy, too long, too short, or has bad formatting, a reader might assume that the book has similar issues. An ideal book description should include at least two quality reviews that build immediate credibility, followed by a brief, accurate, and compelling product description.

Your Price Point is critical. I mention pricing in my forthcoming book, The Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe, in detail. But my opinion of book pricing has nothing to do with the value of your book, it has to do with the size of your audience. Therefore, if you’re a newer author, and if you do not have many reviews, or awards, I would not recommend pricing your book over $2.99 during a KDP promotion. Unless your book really catches fire, a newer author is at risk of losing sales when over priced. In fact, check out the top 100; you’ll notice that there are more low priced books than ever before.

Reviews sell books. The more you have, the more credibility you will have with your potential buyers. If you have very few reviews, you might not sell near as many books with your free promotion than if you had 10, 20, or more quality reviews. Likewise, if you have received poor reviews, there is a greater chance that you might not experience the same success as some authors have had with KDP Select. If you need more reviews, check out The Kindle Book Review among other sites. You can always solicit reviews from book bloggers.

Layer your Marketing. The Select free promotion is the best shot you may have to get your book promoted on a world stage. You have to throw everything you’ve got into this promotion. I recommend scheduling multiple promotions on the day, and days following the moment your book returns to the "paid" store. I discuss the concept of Marketing Layering in detail and provide a few websites that will coordinate this effort in my book.

So here’s the deal: You have 90 days to use your 5 free days with KDP Select. If you are lacking in any of the elements listed above, I’d urge you to utilize your time and resources to get as many of these points nailed down BEFORE you offer your book for free. If you don’t, you could get a whole bunch of nothing from what I consider one of the best promotional opportunities in the history of publishing.

IF YOU NEED HELP, go to my my Author Services Page. I got skills.

Jeff Bennington, The Indie from Indy, is the author of Reunion, an Amazon #1 bestselling supernatural thriller, Twisted Vengeance and Creepy: a collection of scary stories. He blogs at The Writing Bomb and is the founder of The Kindle Book Review. When Jeff isn’t writing and blogging, he’s busy raising and homeschooling his four children with his wife in Central Indiana.

Don't Blame Smashwords Or Paypal: The Frontier Moved For Indie Authors, It's Time To Move With It

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This post, by Dan Holloway, originally appeared on his The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes site on 2/25/12.

As this post and many others currently mushrooming on the web are commentating, indie ebook distributor Smashwords has asked authors of certain kinds of erotica to remove their content in order to satisfy an ultimatum from Paypal that such content be removed or the payment processing facility be withdrawn.

Now argument is raging on all kinds of fronts. Some have to do with US consitution, on which I’m not going to offer comment. Thankfully, very little debate has focussed on the type of material under discussion – that doesn’t seem, to me, to be the point.

The two points that seem to me to be most pertinent (others will have different opinions) are these:
– what do we think of Paypal makin this request?

– what kind of organisation does Smashwords want to be?

To take the latter first, Mark Coker, an inveterate champion of indie publishing, has regularly portrayed Smashwords as a champion of all things indie. It is this that I think has so many authors angry. I won’t harp on too much about this, but much confusion comes from what we mean by "indie", as I’m always saying. The more the indie book world looks like the regular book world (and as more people self-publish the more it *does*) the more we should expect indie champions to behave like people in the mainstream. Erotica authors were amonst the earliest adopters of epublishing – they were indie frontierspeople, and I think they still share a pioneering view of what indie means (as I tend to), hence they feel sold down the river first and foremost because what they thought of as a safe haven for boundary pushers has been colonised by the "safe" making it no longer safe for them. As it were.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes. Also see this related post on TechCrunch and this related post on The Digital Reader, which includes the text of the email Smashwords sent to affected authors and publishers.

Cover Design Is Key

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Indie fantasy author Ty Johnston’s 2012 blog tour is running from February 1 through February 29. His novels include City of Rogues, Bayne’s Climb, Ghosts of the Asylum and Demon Chains, all of which are available for the Kindle, the Nook and online at Smashwords. To learn more about Ty and his writing, follow him at his blogtyjohnston.blogspot.com.

 

Indie authors are all different. We write in different genres and styles. We each have our own unique plans to increase our readership. We each have different things to say, and different goals for success. Some of us want to be household-name authors like an Anne Rice or Tom Clancy, while others simply want to be able to make a career at our writing; some of us just enjoying the creative aspects and aren’t worried about the financial end of things.

 But we also share a lot of similarities. One such similarity is that each of us has to have a cover for our books and e-books, and we all want to have good covers.

Some might argue covers are not important, that what is behind those covers is what’s truly important, but they are missing the bigger picture (quite literally, when you think about it). Even if you believe good covers are not important, you would be hard pressed to argue that a bad cover can be helpful.

So why do we want good covers? Honestly, some of it is hubris. Writers like to brag about their covers and the cover artists. More importantly, writers who have even a drop of marketing sense in their blood realize the worth of a good cover.

A solid cover can catch a reader’s eye. This is important for obvious reasons. If readers never notice your books or e-books, then they will miss the opportunity to consider further whether they wish to read your book or e-book.

A good cover can hold a reader’s attention. Even if a reader passes on your book the first time around, a solid cover might draw them back again. A great cover can stick in a reader’s mind, and that can propel a reader to pick up your book at some future point.

Also, while there are those who might believe covers do not sell books, the truth is a good cover could be the tipping point for customers. If a reader is on the fence about whether or not to purchase your book, a good cover might just be the thing to convince them.

Traditional authors have the bonus of publishing houses behind them and the art departments that go along with them. Indie authors, however, are often on their own when it comes to creating good covers.

The most obvious choice for indie authors is to hire out their covers. There is a growing number of cover artists and designers on the market, and many of them offer quality work for a fair investment.

On the other hand, many beginning writers simply can’t afford to hire an artist. What to do?

Well, you can save up your pennies until you can afford an artist, which is not a bad idea, or you can create your own covers.

I can hear some of you screaming now, “But I’m no artist!” Perhaps that is true, but basic cover does not have to be fancy.

The first thing a beginning cover designer often asks about is the various software for creating covers. I prefer Photoshop because it does everything I need and then some. Obviously, if you can afford to buy Photoshop then you can afford to hire an artist. But there are other program available which can be used. I’ve known some authors who use Powerpoint for their covers; while this option sounds odd tome, whatever works works, right? Another option would be to download some free online software like GIMP, which is somewhat similar to Photoshop.

That’s the technical aspect. Use whatever you feel works best for you. If you have the chance, experiment with different software.

But what about the actual design itself?

Okay, I’m going to jump in here for a moment to tell a little about my own design background. I was a newspaper editor for 20 years, and publication design was a daily part of my job during that time. Sure, it isn’t the exact same thing as book design, but there are similarities and I did spend a fair amount of time over the years designing special publications and magazines, which are more like books than are newspapers when it comes to design. I tell you this so you will know I am not and do not consider myself a book design professional, though I feel I do have a leg up on design when itcomes to many of today’s struggling indie authors. What follows are my opinions, and someone who has been designing books for 20 years might suggest think I’m full of it.

First of all, you need to keep in mind you are not designing only a book cover. You are also designing an e-book cover and an icon that has the potential to be seen by millions across the Web. Remember that word “icon,” because what you want your cover to be is iconic. You want it to stand out from the crowd, to draw the attention of customers and readers.

In my opinion, simple is better. Yes, there are plenty of complicated, artistic book covers out there that look good in a bookstore, but how many of them look good on Amazon or Smashwords? How many of them are even legible on a website? Most aren’t, so simple is better.

As an example, take the cover of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. No, I’m not here to argue about the worth of the novel itself or the movies, so forget the snarky comments. But go take a look at that cover. Stark black background with a pair of pale hands holding a bright red apple. The title is a little small, in my opinion, but it is spotlighted by the arms at either side. The author’s name is somewhat small, but that was appropriate when the original cover was created because Meyer was not that well known then.

Now, look at the cover of Twilight again. Study it. Putting aside your love or dislike for the story itself, isn’t that an awesome cover? Here is a simple cover scheme with an iconic image right in the middle of all that black. This is a cover that looks pretty good in the bookstores, but it also looks good online, even when seen only as a small image. Now tell me that cover didn’t draw the eye and help to build the author’s following?

Okay, I’ve talked about simple cover design. What does “simple” really mean? It can mean several things, but I’ll stick with a few of the most obvious. Simple colors, for instance; the fewer the better, in my opinion. Bold colors, that contrast with one another and stand out on a computer or handheld device. An iconic image, something fairly simple that pops out at the viewer. Remember that your name does not need to be large, at least not unless you become somewhat famous, and this will give you a little more working room. However, I am a fan of larger titles on covers because I believe they help to stand out more in the viewer’s eyes and mind.

Also, when it comes to e-books, you don’t really need a lot of small, extraneous type on your covers. I know authors love their blurbs, but unless you have one from Stephen King, it’s really a waste to put it on an e-book cover because it won’t be seen. Any type on an e-book cover beside the author’s name and the title should serve some purpose that helps the reader make up their mind whether or not they want to read the e-book. Information I deem relevant would include a blurb by the likes of Stephen King, obviously, but also could entail whether or not the e-book is part of a series, whether it is a short story or novella, etc. Skip putting a price on the cover, because prices can change.

One last thing. When working on e-book covers, remember that the image is going to initially be seen by viewers in a very small size. Allow this to direct your design for an e-book cover. If you want a more extravagant design, by all means consider doing so, but I’ll suggest perhaps having two different but similar covers, one for the book and one for the e-book.

Okay, I lied. Really this time, one last thing. If you continue to be stumped by book cover design, always remember to study the basic design of books you like. I’m not suggesting you outright steal, because that is wrong, but you can study the creativity of book covers you find interesting and learn from them.

I hope I’ve helped at least a few indie writers who struggle with their covers, and I’d like to say a big “thank you” to those behind the scenes (hi April!) at Publetariat for allowing me this space on the site today.

My Latest Op-Ed Up At The Punch, In Which I Rant About DRM

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My latest opinion piece has been published today at The Punch, “Australia’s Best Conversation”. The title was the work of the editor, and is deliberately sensationalist, but the piece should clarify my position. It begins thusly:

Digital Rights Management doesn’t work. DRM is a method of locking digital media so it can’t be shared. Except it fails. For every form of DRM employed, pirates instantly break it.

DRM only inconveniences honest, paying customers. For example, in the case of eBooks, a person might justifiably want to have their book on their PC and their tablet, but DRM can prevent that.

I regularly get Google Alerts about my books being mentioned online and many times it’s when they appear illegally on filesharing sites. For every download like that, it’s a drop of cash not going to keeping food on my table, right? Actually, probably not.

Read the rest here.

 

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

Do Legacy Publishers Treat Authors Badly?

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This post, by J.A. Konrath, originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog on 2/19/12.

Some people have disagreed with my statement that legacy publishers treat authors like s**t.

So I’ve made this list. Decide for yourself if these actions constitute treating authors badly. FWIW, all the things I’m mentioning have either happened to me or to my peers.
 
Legacy publishers offer the author 17.5% royalties on ebooks, and keep 52.5% for themselves.

 
 
Legacy publishers have full control over the title of the book.
 
Legacy publishers have full control over the cover art.
 
Legacy publishers can demand editing changes or refuse to publish.
 
Legacy publishers promise marketing or advertising. In fact, they promise lots of things. Then they don’t follow through.
 
Legacy publishers fail to get paper books into certain important bookselling outlets, resulting in fewer sales.
 
Legacy publishers generate royalty statements that are incomprehensible.
 
Legacy publishers don’t try grow an author’s fanbase these days. If the books don’t show increased sales with each new title, the author gets dumped, even if the reason for decreasing sales is the publisher’s fault.
 
Legacy publishers hold onto rights even if the book is no longer selling. Getting rights back is a nightmare, and it takes forever.
 
Legacy publishers try to grab erights to books retroactively.
 
Legacy publishers take a ridiculously long time to publish a book. In some cases, more than 18 months.
 
Legacy publishers are a cartel. I suppose it could be a coincidence that the Big 6 all have exactly the same (low) royalty structure, and shockingly similar contract terms. But collusion seems easier to believe, and this collusion is aimed at limiting the income and power of authors. Legacy publishing contracts are painfully one-sided.
 
Legacy publishers have zero transparency when it comes to things like sales, returns, print runs, and inventory, and keep authors in the dark.
 
Legacy publishers fix prices. That’s what the agency model is. Even worse, these prices are too high and hurt authors’ sales.
 
Legacy publishers sometimes fail to edit.
 
Legacy publishers abandon books, releasing them into the market without any push at all.
 

Legacy publishers pay royalties twice a year. Are you freaking kidding me?!? It’s 2012! Why are their accounting and payroll departments stuck in 1943?

 

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