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Postal Service Update AGAIN

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 I think I have the Postal Service Claims Center in St. Louis, Missouri figured out. When a insurance claim comes in for a package that is lost in the mail the Center ignores the claim. It’s my understanding since this is the only Claims Center in the United States, the Center is swamped with insurance claims. So why not see how many claims the staff can ignore to see if  people who file the claims will just forget about the whole thing. Perhaps in most cases that works.  

 
If a person finally runs out of patience and a year later writes a letter to find out what is taking so long to get a response of some kind from the Claim Center, the response letter is a denial to pay the claim.  The reasons are all the fault of the person who mailed the package for not having the right address or return address.  A simple way to put an end to the claim the Claim Center thinks. Perhaps in most case that denial letter is the end of the matter.
 
 
Except if that was the case when I filled out the two different forms to hunt for my two lost boxes of books complete with pictures, the Dead Mail Centers had a chance to find what was left of the boxes. The books weren’t sent back to me, but my return address and the addressee’s address were on pieces of the boxes. The Postal Service knew my address and where the boxes were to be sent.
 
I guess I messed up the Center’s system when I sent in a two page letter and seven pages of documentation on why their denial was wrong.  So next part of the Center’s strategy is give in to accepting responsibly for the loss and send a check. I got a check, but it was for a third of the amount. No letter of explanation for not sending the full amount was included. The person will accept any amount after so much time has past. Would this be the way I should think? After all, this has been on going since January 2009 when the first shipment of books was lost. In my latest letter to the Claims Center I wrote this has been a consuming effort on my part which has cost me in time, ink, paper, postage and mileage to the post office to mail my documentation.
 
Sending that check to me proved that the Postal Service now believes loosing my box of books was the Postal system’s fault and not mine. The receipt attached to the check says for payment of package not delivered. So here is what I did. I copied the letter from the Claim Center with the claim number on it and attached the check to it after I copied the check so I had proof for the next phase of this saga if there is one. I sent a two page letter explaining I clearly realize and so do they that I was not at fault. I refused the check and attached it to a copy of the insurance claim. I said I expected to be paid the full amount for the claim which I added up – books amount, postage and tracking fee, to save the person reading the letter the trouble. The next page was another copy of the pictures of my books with ISBN numbers under them and this time the price of each book to show my loss. Attached to this sheet was one of my business cards that shows the address of my online book store, plus I mentioned Amazon, ebay and buy sell community where they could look to find my books so the Claims Center can quit questioning that I am a business.
 
I’d like to thank MyEntre.net’s Rob Williams for giving me the next idea. I use the Postal Service to mail my books. I should be considered a valued customer by them. So I put in a customer site map for the U.S as proof.  An X on each city in the states marks my customers. I update this map often in my bookstore online. My letter states this map shows all the mailing I do and some of those X’s are for more than one customer and more than one order of books. I again detailed the facts for trying to mail a valued customer a shipment of books twice which didn’t make it to the addressee until 10 weeks later (and only after the third shipment was delivered by UPS in 24 hours).  This was bad for my business reputation. I was unhappy about the fact that since I haven’t heard from that customer since I fear I lost future sales because of this mess.
 
Finally, I stated I didn’t see why I should have to send anymore proof to support that I am a business that uses the Postal Service’s business. I thought I should be reimbursed without delay and sent some assurance that this wouldn’t happen to me again. I’d like to go back to insuring large shipments, but I won’t until I know I don’t have to go through this hassle again if they lose my shipment. 
 
At the beginning of this problem in 2009, I sent an email on the Postal Service website to complain. A dead mail center in Georgia sent me pieces of my box, with stamps and addresses, attached to them was a letter from a bookstore in Missouri. An expensive textbook had been lost on it’s way to Iowa City to the college. The book store wanted to find that book. One more unhappy customer to fuel my persistence.   My answer was an emailed form to fill out asking me what I thought happened to my boxes. Was there a problem at my local post office? Could it have been vandalism?  Certainly not I replied. This problem was happening in southern Missouri and I believed it to be employee carelessness. I felt the area should be investigated.
 
What that response got me was a call from my local post office. The worker said she was told to tell me she was sorry about this problem. If there was anything else she could do to help me I was to let her know. I felt sorry about that. In this small town, everyone knows almost everyone else. I know and like the people I deal with at the post office. No way did I want to get them in trouble, and that’s what it felt like to me. I explained to her I made it very clear that the postal employees on my end do a good job. Now I’m waiting for a call again from my post office assuring me that my packages can be mailed insured without a problem with the Claims Center. Does this mean that I won’t have a problem the next time the Postal Service loses my books?  Will I get a check for the full amount from the Claim Center?  To be continued. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bone Spitting: Just a Taste

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This review gave me wood!

convo.us/conversations/5088

"Wow. Reads like Raymond Chandler meets Hunter S. Thompson. Then there is the fundamental irony that the tough, gonzo writing is about…teaching English in a school in China… So of course I want to see what the experience is like. YOur style suggests it isn’t as tame as all that…"

-Douglas Gorney Convo.us

 

Who do You think is Good?

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Hello, I am Sarie Mackay.  Coming out with my second self-published historical novel very soon.  First one:  Lodestar; new one:  Fair Game.  I’ve been invited by my alma mater to come back and speak on self-publishing.  I’m honored but I have to confess I have not read THAT MANY other self-published authors.  Can anyone out there tell me whom they believe to be some of the more talented self-published authors?   I certainly don’t want to go and blab only about myself.   I suspect whoever is reading this feels the same sense of cause celebre  that I do about working very hard on a creative task for a long time….and I would like to represent all of us. 

Check me out at sariemackay.com.  Thanks.

Lightning Source – Reviewed

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Lightning Source (LSI 268.40) has become synonymous with authors pursuing what is described as ‘true self-publishing—whereby an author sets up their own imprint, purchases a block of ISBN’s and uses Lightning Source’s global print and fulfilment services to publish and make their books available for distribution.

 

“Lightning Source, an Ingram Content Group company, is the leader in providing a comprehensive suite of inventory-free on-demand print and distribution services for books to the publishing industry. Lightning Source gives the publishing community options to print books in any quantity, one to 10,000 (POD or offset print runs), and provides its customers access to the most comprehensive bookselling channel in the industry in both the United States and the United Kingdom.”

Founded in 1997, with its headquarters in La Vergne, Tennessee, Lightning Source is a subsidiary of Ingram Industries Inc., and a sister company of U.S. book wholesaler, Ingram Book Group. Lightning Source quickly established itself as the global leader for print-on-demand book printing and fulfilment services with massive operations in their La Vergne base and their plant in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom. The Lightning Source digital library database holds over 750,000 books and has built lasting partnerships with Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Gardners. LSI’s strength is the flexibility to print and ship a single copy of a print-on-demand book or several thousand copies.

LSI has become so synonymous with POD (print-on-demand) that authors often lump the global print solutions provider in with so-called self-publishing companies like Lulu and CreateSpace. LSI is neither a POD publisher nor an author solutions service. They are a global digital printer for the publishing industry, but due to the explosion in self-publishing, they now deal directly with authors wishing to utilize their services. However, dealing with LSI directly requires a new account holder to verify that they have registered blocks of ISBN’s under a publishing imprint name and they provide an accessible bank account and sign a commercial contract with them.

Working with LSI as a publisher or author does require a reasonable hands-on knowledge of book creation software and the proficiency to provide and load-up print ready files to industry print standards directly to their website. This is not a service that should be used by the faint-hearted or novice author and I would strongly suggest that previous experience in self-publishing and book design is required, or contracted out to a professional prior to attempting to submit a book file to LSI’s database. My own experience with LSI reveals a company laden with online tutorials and guidance, a strong commercial customer focus, but a professionalism that means they are not available for hand-holding. This is one of the reasons their website is packed with the necessary information an author might need; from technical book specifications, a spine width calculator, and a step-by-step manual. The actual process of loading up a book file to LSI can be mastered with a degree of study, patience and attention to detail—by no means beyond any computer-savvy author.

https://www.lightningsource.com/covergenerator.aspx
https://www.lightningsource.com/spinecalc.aspx
https://www.lightningsource.com/tutorials/tutorials_title_set_up.aspx
https://www.lightningsource.com/ops/files/pod/LSI_FileCreationGuide.pdf
 

“Thank you for your interest in Lightning Source.

If you are a publisher…

… and want to become a customer please proceed to our New Account page.

Please note that Lightning Source does not provide design, file work, editorial, promotional or marketing services. These are solely the responsibility of the publisher.


If you are not a publisher…

… and require publisher services, like design, editorial and marketing services, please contact an author services company.”

 
Lightning Source, in the following benefit section, explain the Print to Order and Print to Publish programs they offer – meaning the author or small press operator has the option to utilize LSI’s print and distribution services or simply use their print facilities.

Print to Order

With this service the publisher sets the retail price, wholesale discount and return policy.

We send the data out to our Distribution partners (including leading distributors such as Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com and others).

They capture the demand from booksellers, libraries and consumers and we print to fill the order.

We collect the wholesale price, deduct the print cost and pay the publisher the balance.

The price for this service is $12.00 a year per title. Just one dollar a month.

B&N purchases through Ingram Book Group.

As you know Lightning Source titles are listed in the Print-to-Order program – an exclusive service that allows Ingram to display 100 copies on hand at all times. As part of this arrangement, and to avoid book buyers from having to backorder, we at Lightning Source guarantee books ordered by Ingram will be printed and returned to their shipping dock within 8 – 12 hours, generally in time to be included in the book buyer’s regular order.

Print to Publisher
 
With this program we fill orders placed by the publisher and ship them in any quantity to any location. That can be one book to a reviewer or 5,000 to a warehouse.

As part of that service we offer Offset printing on paperback quantities of over 2,000 or hardback quantities of over 750.

Turn around time on digital printing is days, turn around time of offset is about 7-10 days depending on the books specifics.

Offset printing
 
Offset printing isn’t a component of Print to Order.
 
We also offer traditional printing services for titles that require large print orders.

In effect, dealing directly with LSI, is simply cutting out the middle-man—or in this case the author solutions services who use LSI, like Lulu, Outskirts Press, Xulon, Xlibris, and hundreds of others. The difference is—the author will pay $75 for title set-up ($37.50 each for interior and cover files). You are also required to purchase a proof copy and you are charged $12 per year to keep the title in LSI’s database. One important detail authors should be wary of is the LSI submission load-up fee of $40. This does not apply to the first submission load-up, but does apply on any subsequent file revisions after the proof is delivered. This is why I believe LSI is really only for the seasoned self-publisher, familiar with working with print ready PDF files. Print charges for POD books are set out below, and taking our normal 200 page colour cover and black and white interior as an example, her is how it plays out:
 

PRINT CHARGE EXAMPLE

$0.90 per unit $0.90
+ 200 pages x $0.013 per page $2.60
Total print charge per unit $3.50
 
Authors buying copies of their book directly from LSI only pay for the book at print cost—there are no mark-ups or built in fees imposed by LSI. The author, when setting up a title, decides what retail discount should be given, but LSI advises not to go below 20%. However, some retailers may expect far more discount (up to 55% – Amazon) before they will even consider stocking your book.
 
In light of the above costs – pause for a moment – and just consider what fees other POD publishers/printers will try to charge authors. Yes, sometimes the fees charged by other author solutions services can be in the thousands, and often, the author is getting little more than a printed book made available online.
 
When it comes to royalties—LSI don’t do a ‘Mill City Press’. You really do get 100% profit following the subtraction of print cost and retailer discount.
Returns Program
The decision to make a book returnable lies with the author/publisher, and significantly, LSI do not charge a fee for this service. Why should they? Returned books will be subtracted off author/publisher payments. This is one area which should really highlight to authors using author solutions services, and paying anything up to $500 for a returns program, just how much authors can be gouged on profits when the POD publishing middle-men muscle in on the business of publishing.
 
Online Distribution and Availability
Provided an author ensures their book is listed with Nielsens Books in Print, using LSI, who are owned by Ingram in the US, you are, for the most part, getting exactly the same promised distribution that you get with Lulu, CreateSpace’s Pro-Plan or AuthorHouse (AUH 222.38), or most other POD author solutions services.
 
Yes, you will have to look after all the promotion and marketing of your book, but the reality is, many POD publishers actually use their affiliation with LSI/Ingram as if that in itself was the gateway to heaven. It is not—but it is no more or no less than you as an author are getting from most other author solutions services.
 
Lightning Source may be a bridge too far for some authors, unfamiliar with preparing book files for a printer, but for the charges and gouging practices engaged by some author solutions services, it may actually be worth the effort to pause and contemplate crossing that bridge.
 
Frankly, LSI’s reputation as a digital printer and fulfilment service is not in question—they are also used by the world’s leading mainstream publishers just as much by author solutions service providers. Bluntly, if you are not using a service like LSI, Lulu (LUL 244.75) or CreateSpace (CSP 256.21) for printing and making your book available—you must think beyond the production of your book—and ask what exactly it is any other company is providing you with, beyond what the above companies do economically.
 
RATING: 8.5/10
 

This is a cross-posting from Mick Rooney‘s POD, Self-Publishing and Independent Publishing.

Writing Grief

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For the past year or two I have been living with two impending deaths. One was natural, merciful and literal. The other was unnatural, tortured and figurative. Both have both come to pass.

I have been alive long enough to know that there is no way to anticipate or speed the grieving process. There is no way to shed grief but to endure it and to respect the truth of it. I am also aware that the trend these days is to encourage people to move on with their lives, or to otherwise ignore or distract themselves from grief — advice that is often proffered by friends and family who do not want to embrace the totality of loss, or the inevitability of mortality, in their own lives.
 
As I have watched myself move through this process in two instances, I have noticed that as a writer I do not have the tools to accurately describe what I am thinking and feeling. Were I authoring these events I would struggle greatly to communicate the totality of what I feel as a character. 
 
The lesson here — the fiction writing lesson — is that this cannot be done. The craft of the writer is as much about reconnecting readers with vistas already observed as it is about describing vistas that have never been seen. (And in this is the difficulty of writing about life for young readers. Because they have so little of life’s experience to draw on, there is little that can be evoked.)
 
If there is a common core to every writer’s work, it is found in the intersection between what the author wants to express and what the author can evoke. This is true of love, of loss, of madness and of resolve. It can only truly be communicated if the reader already speaks the language.
 
I don’t know if I will ever write about my grief. I don’t know if I ever want to, or if in doing so I would have anything more to communicate than adding my voice to the human scream.
 
What I do know is that I know how. As I tread water and look for landmarks by which to orient myself, I find my craft sustaining me in ways I did not anticipate.
 
Writing is inextricably a part of who I am. It has always been my way of seeing and being.
And it is a constant reminder to go to the truth not simply in my work, but in my life. Even if that truth is grief.

 

This is a cross-posting from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

Sandwich Critiquing

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You’ve been asked to read a friend’s manuscript. After dutifully plowing through 100 pages of less-than-perfect, sometimes entertaining, but often difficult to understand prose you’re left with one question: how do you tell your friend her manuscript needs a lot of work?

Unless you really don’t care about hurting your friend’s feelings and possibly losing a friend, this can be a very tricky situation. I know several writers who refuse to read other people’s unpublished works for just that reason. Yet, it seems crueler to me to let a friend send an unpolished manuscript out knowing you could have helped.

Enter the sandwich method. I don’t know who first came up with the idea, but I say, “God bless ‘em,” because it makes giving (and receiving) constructive criticism a lot easier on the old ego. Simply put, the sandwich method gives the criticism “sandwiched” between bits of praise.
 
I can hear my husband saying, “So I can say ‘I like your hair. Your characters stink, but those jeans are really slimming on you.’”
 
Uh, no. The praise has to come from something in the manuscript.
 
“But, Virginia,” you may be whining, “it’s nothing but sentimental drivel and inane cliches!”
 
That may be; however, as Brenda Ueland says in If You Want to Write, even in the worst writing there is something of value. You may have to look hard, but it is there.
 
As for the actual criticism, it’s always best to be specific. Telling someone their story didn’t hold your attention doesn’t cut it. Why didn’t it “hold your attention?” Was there too much description? Were the characters two-dimensional and uninteresting? Perhaps the sentences were too long and rambling. Be specific.
 
Last of all, be sure to end with some more praise. I like to point out something good in the work I didn’t mention before. Sometimes all you can do, though, is reiterate the praise (using different words, of course) that you already gave. Either way, I tell the manuscript’s author that it has potential because I honestly believe everything has potential. Some things just need a lot (and I’m talking about a whole overhaul) of work.
 
It’s the process of growing one’s work from potential to published through the use of helpful constructive criticism that makes it worthwhile to travel The Road to Writing.

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road to Writing.

1950's Decoration Day Memories

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 Last week, we drove seven miles from where we live to the cemetery. It didn’t take long to put flowers on the graves and come back home, but the doing of it once a year always brings back memories about when I was a kid. Perhaps the reminders are due to the fact that my mother bought their stone with a vase on either end and gave me instructions to put red roses on Dad’s side and any spring flowers on her side.

 
Decoration Day is now Memorial Day. The holiday started after the Civil War to remember fallen soldiers on both sides.  It’s still the day to pay amage to the brave military that give their lives to keep the rest of us free.  My family didn’t think of the day as the start of the summer holidays, because we seldom went far from home and never took vacations.  That day was just what the name implied.  A day to decorate the graves of family and friends which for my parents, my brother, John, and me was an all day process.
 
I think I’ve probably told you some of this before but here goes again.  When I was a kid we lived on an 80 farm in southern Missouri.  Times were economically tough for farmers. Mom and Dad were always trying to think of ways to supplement their income. They sold flower baskets to take to cemeteries.  So several months before Decoration Day while we listened to The Lone Ranger and Cisco Kid on the radio in the evening, John and I put together pink, blue and white carnations from Puff tissues. That’s when Puffs were perfumed. Mom put together various colors of crape paper roses. Help the roses last longer in the elements, Mom melted paraffin wax in a pan and dunked the roses to coat them.  This was before plastic and then silk flowers.  While we worked on flowers, Dad gathered sticks, dried them and constructed log cabin baskets in different sizes and wreaths. Mom did the flower arrangements.  After all the customers had bought theirs, we were left with assortment of baskets left hanging from the nails on the back porch wall. If what was left wasn’t enough, we made up more for our use.
 
Decoration day dawned sticky hot. John and I had baskets wedged between us in the seat and around our feet on floor of our 1935 Chevy. The red country roads to all the cemeteries consisted of natural rock and potholes. We didn’t have to look at the rising red cloud behind our car to know the road was dusty. We watched the dust settle on everything in the car, because we had the windows cranked down. The car didn’t have air.
 
Since we would be gone all day, Mom fixed a picnic lunch of bologna sandwiches, cookies, a jar of coffee for Dad and Mom and a jar of cool aide for my brother and me.  The bologna was the good kind. The grocery store sliced the meat off a large roll in a red wrapper. We just needed enough food for lunch, because we had to be home in time for my parents to milk cows at night.
 
Some of the old cemeteries were not well care for so my parents spent a little time at each place, cleaning around the graves.  John and I made a pass around the cemetery, looking at the old tombstones. Dad always cautioned us not to step on the graves. Out of respect sure, but since the wooden coffins deteriorated long ago, we might find ourselves sinking along with collapsing soil in the middle of the graves. Mom’s worry was the poisonous snakes lurking in the shaggy grass – copperheads and timber rattlers. "Watch where you step," she admonished at each cemetery.
 
Each year, my brother and I were given a history lesson about relatives that died before we were born.  We saw them through the eyes of our parents. We had to walk a quarter mile to get to Montevallo Cemetery. The timber lined path led down a steep embankment and through a shallow creek. Dad stopped the car.  We waded the creek, stepping on rocks as much as possible, walked through a pasture to the cemetery gate where amid Confederate soldiers and bushwhackers my father’s two grandfathers were laid to rest, both Union soldiers buried with wives and offspring. One grandfather was a farmer and the other a druggist back in the day when plants gathered from the timber were turned into potions and compounds. This civic minded grandfather was a justice of the peace and on the school board.
 
His son, my grandfather, was, on the other hand, a partier. He became a druggist after his schooling to become a doctor was cut short by the death of Great Grandfather at 54 in the 1800’s. He took over the family drugstore from his mother who kept the business going until he came home. Grandpa only made it to 50. In all fairness, a hereditary heart condition was the cause of death but this fun loving, good natured man’s life style may have hastened his demise. He didn’t miss a town celebration and most towns had them in those days complete with parades and games.  This was our musically talented Grandpa. He played the trumpet for a Woodsman band in the parades.
 
Not far down the road, we visited Mom’s two baby sisters graves at Olive Branch Cemetery.  One baby was stillborn in 1919. The other died from measles in 1929. In the early 1900’s, Mom was born the oldest in a family of eleven in times when babies had a tough time surviving, and all but those two lived long lives.
 
In Virgil City Cemetery is the graves of Mom’s great grandparents on her father’s side  She was sent to live with them when she was 16 and stayed two years to care for them. Great Grandma passed away, and Great Grandpa moved in with Mom’s grandparents, ending Mom’s responsibilities. Everyone took care of their elderly relatives in those days until they died. Mom remembered her Great Grandfather as a gentle soul. Great Grandma had the title Blind Grandma tacked on her for future generations to differentiate her from others. Grandma went blind when she stepped out of the outhouse one day you know which toped my list of why I preferred not to use outhouses as a kid.
 
Mom’s grandmother was known as Indian Grandma within the family. This was not a matter for discussion with other people. Not even us kids. She was young when Grandpa Luther brought her home from Kansas. They became a well respected couple. Though people suspected Indian Grandma’s lineage no one pried. This grandma I knew well. When we’d go visit her after Grandpa died, she’d come spend a couple days with us. Grandma slept with me.  During the day, her salt and pepper braided hair crowned her head.  Before she went to bed, she’d unbraid her hair and brush it.
 
About ten years ago and a couple years before she passed away, we took my mother back to Missouri. It was a going back in time trip as we traveled all those dusty roads again. We took plenty of flowers so Mom could decorate all the graves just like in the fifties. Mom enjoyed herself on that trip. After ten long years of taking care of my father who had Alzheimer’s, she needed to go home and connect with the past which held pleasant memories for our whole family. Hopefully, this last journey home was a comfort to her after so many difficult years taking care of Dad.  Also, she had the peace of mind that she taught her daughter well a life lesson years ago.  Remember and honor those that came and went before you, because they had a hand in shaping who you are.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Erosion of Price Due to the Pervasiveness of “Free”

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When it comes to any product, there are costs involved in its creation.  For things such as cars or waffles or underpants, part of that cost is purely in raw materials.  Each of these items is a physical good, requiring actual matter to create.  The same is the case for items like DVDs, books, CDs and videogames. The difference in these verus the formerly mentioned physical goods, however, is that the vast majority of their primary value (the reason that someone actually wants them) can be replicated digitally, without raw materials other than those that are typically already possessed by people, such as free space on a hard drive. Their primary value is information, and as such it can be broken down into simple bits and bytes and easily distributed for minimal cost.

The other portion of the cost that both of these types of items have is the cost of actual manpower to create.  There’s someone designing the underpants, just like there’s someone writing and performing the music. This even includes if a waffle was made by some sort of automatic waffle maker – that automatic waffle maker was created by manpower (or the robots that created it were created by people who programmed the robots). Or, if the music is completely computer-generated, someone created the computer program that allowed the music to be created. If a person’s time or talent has value, then creation has a cost.
 
The point I’m trying to make here is that everything has some sort of cost involved in creating it. Nothing is free to create.
 
With this cost come questions for creators. Do I pass any of that cost on to the consumer? What is my purpose for creating?  What is the price of my creation?
 
If any of the reason for the creator is monetary, then there must be some price to be paid by someone for some aspect (no matter how vaguely connected) to your creation.  If it’s not monetary, then what did you create it for?  Was it simply to better the human race?  Perhaps it was to strengthen the acceptance of a cause you feel strongly about. In both of those cases you’re at least charging the cost of a person’s time to consume your creation. There are plenty of creations out there that fall into all of these camps, and a lot more.  As such, there’s a lot of competition out there.
 
The easiest way to compete in business is by offering a lower price. If you are okay with assuming your time, knowledge, talent and effort are worth nothing monetarily, then it’s easy to offer your content for free.  With millions of people creating content today, a percentage of them are willing to offer their creations for free, and that percentage of a lot of people turns out to still be a lot of people. So what we have is a lot of content for free, competing with some content with a price. How does one compete with free?
 
Again, the easiest way to compete is by offering a lower price – and there’s no lower price than free – so instead, many individuals compete with free by offering free, plus something else for free (in an example of an e-book, think of an e-book but with a free bonus podcast).  So what ends up happening is that free competes with free in an effort to increase consumption. To what end that consumption is encouraged is up to the creator or distributor, but the battle right now lies ultimately in consumption.
 
If we back up to the cost of a creative work, however, the vast majority of that cost really is in time, effort, talent, skill and knowledge. Costs exist, but in our previous world where bits and bytes were not free (or nearly free), they cost raw materials to reproduce.  People actually paid for a physical object.  The fact is, however, that what they paid for was much more than the cost of the raw materials – it was the cost of the raw materials, plus all those skills, efforts, hours and smarts (put into an equation of expected sales volume, marketing costs, etc) that made up the price the consumer paid.  The consumer, however, placed their value on the physical product that they paid for, rather than the information or aesthetics that were portrayed via those physical media. When someone paid $15 for a CD, they said they paid $15 for a CD … not $15 for the music that Nirvana recorded and distributed to individual listeners for a cost that was below the actual cost of recording the music but was hopefully made up for (with little left over to pay for food) via volume.
 
Due to this idea of paying for the physical product rather than the creation within, it was easy for us to start viewing the actual media itself as the item with a price.  Therefore, when the media was no longer required and the new distribution options had little cost (I’m already paying for Internet access, why should I pay to access things via my Internet access) it was also easy for us to feel that the creations really weren’t something we should start having to pay for.  We didn’t pay for books before; we paid for the paper they were printed on and the shipping and the store shelf space.
 
The price was nothing. In the world of music, the new digital price actually started as nothing. The music industry wasn’t first to start offering their music online, but instead it was people – people who had been trained to think that the music itself really wasn’t what one paid for. After all, one doesn’t pay for the radio. So what happened was that by distributing music for free from the beginning, an anchor point was set for music to be worth nothing.  The fact that the music industry was very slow to respond with any sort of model on their own only reemphasized this idea.  The price at which music was available online was zero. There was no alternative – or if there was, people didn’t know about it.
 
A really simple explanation of the way pricing works is as follows: Costs are determined and volume is estimated. A profit goal is set. The minimum price should be equal to your total cost + your total profit goal, divided by volume (or units). Or, as a mathematical equation:
 
(Total Cost + Total Profit Goal) / Units = Price Per Unit
 
In today’s world of a digital economy, however, one can easily be led to believe that volume is potentially unlimited. Since the costs are only up-front for a creation that is distributed digitally (that is, the only costs are those costs to create the work in the first place – replication has no cost), and volume is unlimited, price can be set almost to zero and the profit goal can still be met, even as the profit goal reaches infinity. But if the profit goal is zero, and a lot of people have no profit goal (or if they do, they are assuming they can make a profit through another channel, perhaps through speaking engagements, branded automatic waffle makers, etc.), they can easily set their price to zero.
 
So when the monetary costs of raw materials are virtually zero, and one is willing to value their own time and work monetarily at zero, we end up with creations that are priced at zero. With a small percentage of a lot of people doing this, we end up with a lot of people pricing their content at zero.  There are also a lot of people pricing their content at prices much higher than zero. But regular people (consumers) are seeing a lot of stuff priced at zero. They then ask, “what’s with these people asking for monetary compensation?”
 
What happens is a product or service is set at a price, and if enough items are priced at that level for a long enough time, people accept that price as the price of the item. For example, if a pair of pants typically costs $70 at Banana Republic, one then assumes that a pair of pants at Banana Republic is worth $70. When the pants are on clearance for just $40, it’s a great deal – even though a pair of pants at JC Penny might only cost $40 normally.  By JC Penny setting their price at $40 normally they’ve set the value of their pants at $40 – so for their pants to be a great deal, even if they’re exactly the same as the ones at Banana Republic (in this example let’s just pretend they’re the same), they need to drop the price considerably. 
 
The same was the case with CDs – when they cost $18 at Sam Goody and Best Buy started offering them for $12, Best Buy had the better deal. Suddenly $12 was a great deal – but over time, $12 started to become normal (the anchor point) and $18 seemed overpriced.
 
When music was offered for free online, an anchor was set. Other media, such as books or movies, was also susceptible, but didn’t catch on at the speed music did.  By the time the music industry was ready to compete they had to deal with this anchor, as well as the anchors they had set via the physical model.  A digital download of a song had some value, they argued, but that value was also less than the cost of a CD divided by the number of songs on it, since a CD also had physical raw material costs involved. As such, $.99 sounded like a fair price.
 
Still, more and more music is being offered for free – but this time it’s being offered for free by the bands, labels, etc. This is because, as I stated earlier, the easiest way to compete is by setting your price to free. By doing so you have set no barrier to entry other than the time it takes the user to download, the time it takes the user to listen (if they even do is another question) and the tiny bit of space it might take up on their hard drive if they save the song (which nowadays they don’t, since streaming is ubiquitous).
 
Of course, this phenomenon is not unique to music, but has expanded into all realms of content that can be recreated and distributed digitally. What’s happening though is that with more and more creations being set to a price of zero, the anchors are moving as well. Over time, the expected price for most creations will be zero.  This is the issue that the newspaper industry is battling now – and it’s the reason that Rupert Murdoch is setting up a pay wall for the Wall Street Journal. He has decided that his content has value – the work his journalists do has a cost – and their knowledge and expertise is actually worth something. This is why he’s charging – he’s attempting to reset the placement of the anchor.
 
Where anchors are set is purely subjective. Anchors are a battle of what creators want to be compensated versus what other creators are willing to sacrifice for their work. They’re a battle of what goals the creators are attempting to accomplish – is it to make money or to make a difference? Where they end up being set is ultimately a choice left to those who create, and what their goals are.
 
Whether consumers are willing to pay the prices asked is really a question of whether or not they have a cheaper alternative with a perceived value higher than the cost they paid.
 
But remember: the easiest way to compete is by offering a lower price. It doesn’t mean you’ll win the competition.
For further reading on the topic, check out this article by Monica Valentinelli. 

This is a cross-posting from William F. Aicher‘s site.

Comments on a Garrison Keillor Column

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The master storyteller, Garrison Keillor, wrote a column that appeared in yesterday’s Kansas City Star entitled The End of an Era  Looms for Book Publishing: Going the Way of the Typewriter. He begins by mentioning many popular authors he met at a BEA  party. These were accompanied by agents, editors, and elegant young ladies dressed in black and sipping white wine. He went  on to say how much he admired elites such as these and that there was a ground swell of anti-elitism throughout the country. He lamented that traditional publishing with all its gates and barriers seemed to be slipping into the ocean. It was going the way of the typewriter, overcome by technology and total writing freedom.

His description of the self-publishing movement boiled down to: “And if you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you’ve got yourself an e-book. And that is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75″ He then goes on to describe the outmoded painful process of getting accepted in the traditional way, spoken like a true English major.  

Finally he explains how self-publishing is a two-edged sword. “The upside of self-publishing is that you can write whatever you wish, utter freedom, and that also is the downside. You can write whatever you wish and everyone in the world can exercise their right to read the first three sentences and delete the rest.” This hooks back into a comment he makes about today’s readers: “…and it’s all free, and you read freely, you’re not committed to anything the way you are when you shell out $30 for a book, you’re like a humming bird in an endless meadow of flowers.” That is a very apt illustration, and that is really the launching point for the rest of the story. I realize he sees this as a bad thing. Whether it is or not, it is a “real” thing.
 
The era of publishing as it always has been done is dying. Some say slowly and some say quickly, but its time is over. The rapid rise of technology coupled to the interconnectivity of the internet provides that endless meadow of flowers. Yes, a lot of free sampling is taking place, but there still are many passionate readers out there who know what they like. Writers who commit the most heinous sin of all are quickly ignored and even informally blacklisted. What is that sin? “Thou shalt not waste my time and attention!”
 
The endless meadow of flowers is a way of describing the phenomenon of long tail marketing. Here is an example of a chart signifying this:
 
 
The large curve is for the bestsellers desired by the masses. The long tail is to the right. This represents related areas of interest desired by small groups of readers. In other words, small niches. This is where small presses and self-publishers rule. The small presses can’t hope to compete for the best-selling territory, which requires massive marketing budgets and expensive overhead. Why even bother? There’s gold in that thar long tail.
 
Once you identify a niche, it becomes far more efficient and less expensive to focus on that market. Since the big publishers don’t feel it’s worthwhile to go after these small niche markets, the field is white and ready to harvest with very little if any competition. As long as your quality is good and you don’t commit the great sin, you’ll do fine.
 
This is what Garrison is missing. He sees literature devolving into chaos and anarchy, and in some ways, he’s right; however, the marketplace is one of the most efficient arbiters of what is considered good or bad, needful or unnecessary. All is not humming birds in an endless meadow. The interconnectivity of social media quickly spreads the word of mouth that creates trends and tipping points.The order that emerges out of modern chaos is viral. That moves way too quickly for the traditional publishing model to be able to take advantage of it. This is why the rules had to change and new, smaller publishing entities have emerged to satisfy the long tail niches.
 
Keillor is a wonderful storyteller and his comments were right on as far as they went; however, he has not yet caught on to what is really happening and where it’s going. The new publishing model is still being defined; however, its major components are quick reactions, speed, small is better, detecting and filling niches that are too small for large publishing houses but are quite lucrative for individuals and small presses who have the ability to respond to the realities of today’s market place. Quality is determined by the marketplace and not by the literati elite in their ivory towers. 

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

Happy Memorial Day

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Publetariat is taking the day off on Monday, May 31st in observance of Memorial Day. But never you fear, indie authors, small imprints and bookish types in all walks: we’ll be back with new content as per usual on Tuesday, June 1st.  (no need to click through, this is the end of this post)    – Editor

Four Steps to Managing Your Ideas Constructively

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It is one of the hazards (and blessings) of being a writer that sometimes you find your imagination brimming with ideas. By brimming, of course, I mean overflowing the wee little cup you have. During the upturn of the typical "feast-or-famine"cycle, this could be great because you have a ready supply of concepts in hand to approach the markets. You surely must have something ideas that will be legitimate enough to catch the eye of some magazine or website. With so many ideas swimming around in those mental floodwaters, you may end up losing control. You may be wondering how you can manage your ideas constructively so a new project can be given the best chances of success.

How Does It Happen

1. Always write ideas down. You should never undervalue the importance of writing down your ideas so they can be references and [be] expanded. A stray idea without such recognition can join other unacknowledged thoughts and ideas. Both contribute to mental clutter – hardly a benefit to constructive management.

2. Organize them. Once you pour all of your thoughts and ideas onto paper or the computer screen, you should take some time to examine them and begin organizing them into categories. Once ideas have structure and potential contexts, they can be used more effectively. This also helps you separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. When you have a host of related ideas, it makes it easier to notice the ones that don’t belong.

3. Hatch a plan with your neatly arranged ideas. If you’ve taken the time to write them down and organize them, ideas offer you the chance to build a strong article, story, book, etc. You can save a lot of time, at least.  All of the relevant material is there in front of you, laid out in a reasonable fashion.

4. Pack them away. One of the most important steps to managing your ideas constructively is having the sense to put some of them away. When you’ve taken the time to write them down, organize them, even use some of them for projects, you’ll have material left over. You won’t always use it, but this doesn’t mean your ideas are great catalysts for future work. Save them. Refer to them at prearranged times or when something new but relevant comes up and you want to pursue it.

In Closing…

So what did you think? I know there are different opinions about this subject. In fact, there is much more that could be said. I wanted to skim the surface of the topic. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the issue of effective use of ideas. Leave a comment. Catch you later.

 

This is a cross-posting from Shaun C. Kilgore‘s site.

Writing and Reading Books Are Stress Relievers

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Authors have always been lucky enough to have a built in stress reliever whether they know it or not. It’s called writing a book. Once I’m working on my characters and their lives for a new book I’m so absorbed that nothing [and] no one in today’s stress-filled world bothers me.

I like getting lost in a developing story and putting the main idea whirling around in my head down. It’s a challenge adding to the skeleton story I’ve created to fill in and build a book. That takes all my concentration. I get excited every time I’m working on a scene, and when something new pops into my head for the character to say or do that fits into the story.

Humor is important to me. It should be to everyone. The more we laugh the better we feel. Humor is a stress reliever. Being able to laugh can make you feel more relaxed. You smile at someone, and they’ll smile at you. You laugh and someone laughs with you. The scenes in my book I’m working on that make me giggle while I’m writing them are the moments I’m told by readers that make them laugh out loud when they read my books. What a delightful feel-good moment for me to hear this from readers.

Sometimes, the comments are that my characters draw the readers into the story. In my mystery series of five books, the characters are so colorful that once the readers have finished the first book, they have to read the other four to see what happens next to everyone in the book. The same is happening now that I’ve written two books in my Amish series. Readers like the characters Nurse Hal and her Amish family. They want to know what will happen to all of them next. The readers are so deeply absorbed in the characters lives to the point that they try to read my books in just one sitting. While reading my books doesn’t leave any room for thinking about something stressful. It’s simply a time to relax. I know all this because I hear it from my book readers.

Not everyone has the inclination to write a book just to find a stress free time but if writing interests a person keeping a journal might be helpful. I’ve written daily journal logs over the years. Now it’s fun to look back and read about something that I had long ago forgotten. One journal was about the ten years I helped care for my father while he was battling Alzheimer’s disease. Talk about feeling stressed. In those days, I’d come home from my parents home and plop down exhausted emotionally and physically. I’d pick up my journal and write about that day with my father, entering my thoughts, emotions, fears and dreads. Though I hadn’t thought about writing a book at the time, that journal later became my book Hello Alzheimer’s Good Bye Dad. I’ve hoped that the story might be of some help to others. There are many similar books on the market about a family coping with Alzheimer’s. To make my book an educational tool rather than just a story, I added helpful tips throughout the book and in the story. Perhaps, reading that book would be a stress reliever for caregivers. They learn ways to help their family member while they become educated about what the disease will do to their loved one next.

I know for a fact that books help readers relieve stress. When I don’t like the programs on television in the evening, I tune out by reading a book while my husband watches a program. Then there is maybe the extreme when one buyer wrote me that she read one of my books (A Promise Is A Promise) six times while she’s been going through a tough spot in her life. Wow! I as an author am helping myself and helping others at the same time just by being creative. So if you’re a writer, relax and work on that story. If you’re a reader get you a good book (of course I’d like it if you bought one of mine at ebay, amazon or www.booksbyfaybookstore.weebly.com), set down in a quiet place with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and go with the flow.

 

This is a reprint from Fay Risner’s Booksbyfay blog.

The Write Music for the Write Mood

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Here’s the scenario: It’s late at night and after a long day of doing what you have to do (i.e. working, cooking, cleaning, etc.) you finally get a moment to do what you want to do: write. You sit down in your personal writing space, put your fingers on the keyboard (or wrap them around a pen) and wait for the words to come to you.

And wait.

And wait some more.

And then pass out face down on your desk for an uncomfortable (and unproductive) nap.

We’ve talked a lot about how hard it is to find time to write, but even when you do find the time, how do you also find the inspiration? 

My answer is music.

Not only can music stir up your brain waves, the right music can get you in the right mood for the exact subject matter you need to write about. Music can be a geographical reference (jazz, latin, hip-hop, western, etc.), an association with a particular time period (big band, disco, grunge, etc.) or specifically associated with certain emotions.

Read more

Discovering Passion and Purpose in Writing

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I’ve often heard it said that everyone dreams of writing the next great novel. That may be, but few get beyond “trunk writing” and fewer still actually publish something of quality. Why is that? Perhaps it’s because, while people may dream of being a “writer,” only those with a true passion for writing can find the energy to do it.

As I continue work on Prayerfully Yours, I am amazed at how much passion it takes to keep plugging along at something I often feel unqualified to write.  I sometimes ponder what exactly is my purpose, not just in writing this book about prayer, but also about my purpose in life in general. It’s given me yet another subject for research and I would like to share what I’ve found.
 
First, there is the need for passion. If you’re like me, determining your passion can be difficult. I’ve always thought of it as something you eat-sleep-breath (much like my husband’s obsession with Star Wars action figures). That may not be the case for you, as it hasn’t been for me. A passion can be something that you naturally gravitate to, but don’t necessarily obsess over.
 
In her article Determine Your Passion, Amber Keinath poses several questions such as the obvious “What are you good at?” to the less obvious “What were you doing the last time you really had a lot of fun and found the time flying?” that can guide each of us to determining our own passion. For a writer, those questions can lead to a long list of possible books, essays, posts and even workshop notes on a particular topic.
 
After passion comes purpose. That is possibly the most difficult question to answer: What is my purpose in life? Some people, called nihilists (see #6 on Dictionary.com), believe we have no purpose. Others, like myself, want to believe we have a purpose (or more than one), but just don’t know how to discover it.
 
Many a book has been written on the subject of discovering one’s purpose in life and some have become very popular for whatever reason, like Purpose Driven Life. Unlike Rick Warren, however, I like to think that each of us has our own purpose separate from each other. As Albert from UrbanMonk.net said in a guest post to ZenHabits:
Are Your Goals Yours? This statement is everywhere, and yet it is ignored so often that it bears repeating: Your purpose is your own. No one can cramp themselves into another person’s definition of happiness and success and, well, expect to be happy and successful.
 
That was why I particularly enjoyed Steve Pavlina’s article “How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes.” Steve’s solution is simple: title your blank page with “What is my true purpose in life?”, then write down any answer that pops into your head. According to Steve, the answer that makes you cry is your life’s purpose. Again, as an Independent Author, I can see where finding this purpose can lead to so many new avenues of income from book sales to speaking events.
 
It’s not always about making money. The money, in my opinion, is a byproduct of doing what we’re meant to do. For this Independent Author, discovering a passion and a life purpose is just part of the journey on The Road to Writing.

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road to Writing blog.

Four Good Reasons You Should Plan A Book Before You Write It

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Today, I just wanted to look at a few good reasons why it is better to plan your next book rather than blindly taking a plunge and plunking down text on the page. In this case, I will offer five good reasons. At this time, I’m focusing this post on their relevance to writing a non-fiction book rather than the novel. I’m sure some of them would apply in some sense, but right now I find myself writing a piece of nonfiction so it is easier to write about nonfiction.

The issue we are addressing right now is really one of good project management. For most things, it really does make more sense to start planning out what you want to say before you ever write a single word. Think about? Most of those writing resources you’ve read or that are currently taking up space on  your bookshelf will mention something about the benefits of having a plan whether it is taking notes, writing a synopsis, or outlining. These are obviously important elements. Still, you may be one of those writers that ignores this little piece of advice and you tackle that book without a clear picture. I want to give you some really good reasons not to skip the plan.

Four Reasons

1. A plan helps you find a focus for the book. If you have started writing a non-fiction book with no thought for the contents, you may end up rambling along without a clear objective for the text. While you may have had a central reason for writing in the first place, this may be obscured by side issues. You could end up writing on tangents that change the real scope of your book to something you didn’t expect. You may even repeat yourself from different perspectives. Why muddle the content? If you have a focus that is organized as part of your overall writing plan then you can avoid these difficulties.

2. Keep your options limited. What does this mean? Well, you should be aware that there are many options to choose from when writing a non-fiction book. It is your goal to find a structure that will work for you and eliminate all of those that are not appropriate for the information or subject matter you’re trying to convey. This point might also include practical issues of design, page count, and distribution choices (especially if you’re a self-publisher). If you don’t narrow these considerations, the task of writing a book can become overwhelming.

3. Make sure you have a market. If you stop to take in all of the considerations about potential markets before you’ve starting writing, you can save yourself from producing a book that no one wants to read. This is particularly true in the realm of non-fiction where some topics have been so thoroughly covered that the market is saturated. Additionally, if you know you have a market before you write, then you will be able to produce a book that best fits the current needs of that market.

4. Consider the alternatives to your book. What do I mean by alternatives? When it comes to non-fiction there is room to think about peripheral benefits. If you do research and take the time, effort, even money to making this book happen, then you should consider how you can get the most out of this expense as you can. Simply put, planning up front allows you to identify markets for future books so you can start planning for the next project. You may be able to write on the subject in magazines or create a course which can help promote your expertise in your topic of choice. Think about how you can use the information and planning you’ve done to your advantage.


In Closing…

I’ll admit that these are just a few reasons. If you commit to planning before you write, you should be able find other reasons based on your own experiences or choices of topic. I wish you luck on your writing endeavors. If you have any other reasons, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Keep writing!

 

This is a cross-posting from Shaun C. Kilgore‘s site.