2011 Round-Up. Achievements, Reflections And What Could Be Improved

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I’m one of those people who thrives on goal-setting and measurement. I’m always setting new goals and although I often change direction, I tend to achieve more than if I set none at all.

It is important to celebrate achievements so this is my annual round-up. It’s not meant to be horn-tooting, more of a record of the year.

I hope you have learned a lot from The Creative Penn in 2011 and I look forward to serving you further in 2012. I’d also love to know if you achieved your goals this year before we all set new ones in the coming days.

 

Fiction Writing

Pentecost, my first novel, was published in Feb 2011 and has now sold 16,034 copies.

Prophecy, the 2nd in the ARKANE series was published yesterday on the Kindle. Print, Nook & other versions to come in Jan but I still got it out in 2011! I won’t be officially launching it until January 20th but it is available on the Kindle store if you’d like to purchase!

I’m pretty excited about the future of fiction with digital publishing. I’ll be exploring more in this arena in 2012 and onwards. I have so many creative ideas I want to explore.

I have also started a blog for my fiction fans, JoannaPenn.com where I will be adding information about my research and more.

 

 

 

The Creative Penn

This blog has now reached it’s 3rd birthday (hoorah!) It has won the Top 10 Blogs for Writers for the 2nd year running (as one of the Top 10 after 2100 nominations and comments). I’m really pleased with that so thank you if you nominated me.

In terms of growth and online platform, I shall record figures here for posterity as it’s good to revisit these regularly and this has become my annual checkup.

There are currently 3162 subscribers to this blog on Feedburner, 6585 subscribers to the newsletter, 23,279 followers on Twitter, 2418 on Facebook/TheCreativePenn and 1034 on Google+. Considering I’ve only been on Google+ for a few weeks, I’m interested to see how fast that is growing and the engagement over there. I may well give up Facebook in 2012! (but never Twitter!)

The Creative Penn podcast has now reached 113 episodes. There have been 41,358 downloads, at around 3400 per month in the last few months. The top listening countries are US (53%), China (12%), UK (10%) and Australia (7.4%).

In light of all this, I may be looking for some sponsorship for the podcast in 2012! If you’re interested, please do email me direct.

The most popular podcast has been On Changing Your Life, Writing and Marketing a Book which just happens to be an interview with me! You can download the backlist here – there’s over 60 hours of free information on writing, publishing and book marketing with more every week.

My YouTube channel The Creative Penn has 395 subscribers and has had 63,997 views of 122 videos. The top videos have been Tips for Publishing on the Kindle (3690 views) followed by Pentecost Book Trailer (2544 views). The top countries are US, UK, Australia and Canada. Demographics: 51.4% male, 48.6% female. Over 50% in the 45-54 age bracket. Although this isn’t spectacular, I will continue to invest in video as I think it is a growing market and the more I do, the more I enjoy it!

Transition to full-time author-entrepreneur

This wasn’t even something I thought would happen this year but a combination of circumstances have made it so.

I left my consulting job of 13 years for the more precarious, but rewarding, life of an author-entrepreneur. I have also moved hemispheres from Brisbane, Australia to London, England.

For the full story, read “I am creative, I am an author. From affirmation to reality.”

For this transition, I primarily thank Amazon Kindle for the KDP publishing platform, and WordPress for enabling this blog as well as Twitter for my network. Together, those services have changed my life!

If you’d like to invest further in your education, I now have the following products available for sale, with a focus on mini-modules, not full-blown courses:

I shall be expanding this digital product range in 2012 and rewriting the Author 2.0 Blueprint and modules in order to update everything to this ever-changing market.

How did I do against my goals for 2011?

Here are my New Year’s resolutions from Jan 2011.

  • Publish Pentecost – achieved.
  • Go to ThrillerFest in New York in July & pitch a publisher. I cancelled this trip as we moved from Australia to London in May which changed the budget somewhat. I would still love to go to ThrillerFest and the flight would be cheaper from London. I’m not so bothered about pitching to an agent now though. I am very happy being indie at the moment. I do have a goal of 50,000 book sales and then I may decide to approach an agent.
  • Finish Prophecy – achieved.
  • Launch a new blog for mystery & thriller lovers. I did launch MysteryThriller.tv but to be honest, I have now stopped doing reviews on video and am just reviewing books I like on Amazon & Goodreads. I don’t have the bandwidth for more reviews in general. The aim was to get some advertising revenue from the blog but it wasn’t justifying itself in terms of time and effort. I can make more income from writing fiction and this blog, so I won’t be continuing with that. So yes, I achieved it, but it was a misplaced goal. You can follow my reviews on Goodreads here.
  • Enjoy 1 day unplugged a month. Hmm, I don’t think I achieved this … I continue to be a driven person who isn’t very good at stopping. My husband says I am like a Ferrari with no fuel gauge. I only stop when it all falls apart. This is my natural rhythm. I have tried meditation again this year but it stops after a few days. I continue to journal a lot though, which is a kind of meditation. I definitely do unplug, but not regularly enough.
  • Learn more about grammar, language and the craft of words. I have specifically read prize-winning literature and poetry in order to glean more about language. I continue to listen to podcasts and do training as well as read books and of course, interview people. I also learn A LOT from having my own work edited. If you read Pentecost and then Prophecy, I hope you can see improvements in my writing. So, achieved.
  • Continue to expand The Creative Penn. I’ve definitely achieved this but it’s not a stretch goal. It’s more of a maintenance activity now. I LOVE this blog, it brings me so much enjoyment to be useful to you and to share the journey. So please do keep commenting and keep emailing me with your questions.

[On January 2nd] I will be sharing my goals for 2012.

How did you do with your goals for 2011? Please do share your achievements and how it went. Let’s keep each other honest!

 

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

Moving Toward Amazon Only

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And the craziness continues. Yesterday The Sex Club, which is now selling well again, was suddenly being discounted on Amazon from $2.99 to $.99. Which means, I was suddenly making a third of the money. After cursing loud and long, I tracked down the culprit. Kobo was selling the title at $.99—even though I requested they take it down two weeks ago.

I requested the takedown because I enrolled The Sex Club in the Kindle Select program and it requires exclusivity. So the fact that it’s still selling there could also get me kicked out of the program. I’m doing everything possible to correct this, but retailers are notoriously slow about taking down books, especially if they’re selling.

I distribute to Kobo, Sony, and various other retailers through INgrooves, and this is not the first time I’ve had to deal with the discounting issue. For those not familiar, here’s the short version: Amazon will not be underpriced. If a competitor puts an ebook on sale, Amazon matches the price. This can be a serious problem for authors who make most of their money from Amazon and need to control what price their books sell for on Amazon.

When I starting losing money on Amazon, I see my mortgage payment for the next month disappearing. Which leads me to strongly consider withdrawing all my books from INgrooves. The small amount of money I make from other retailers is offset by the profit I lose from the discounting issue.

My only hesitation, as always, is readers. I want them to have full access to my books, regardless of their e-reader device. But I’m running a small publishing business (Spellbinder Press), and I have to make smart business decisions. I have to be able to track and predict profit.

Also, I have to remind readers that my ebooks are available for purchase from my website.

Other writers tell me I should upload to Smashwords as my distributor, but that doesn’t fix the discounting issue. And I’m tired of continuously having to scan the other retailers to ensure they’re not undercutting my ability to make a living from Kindle sales.

Pulling my books from INgrooves would leave me with ebooks available on Kindle and Nook only. But what I sell on B&N/Nook every month won’t even pay my cell phone bill.

After I see my first bonus payment from Amazon for enrolling in the Select program, I’ll have to decide whether keeping my Detective Jackson books on B&N is actually worth it. I predict I’ll be exclusive to Amazon by the end of the next year. Some people may see this as a sell out. But I have to make a living, and I’m worth more than minimum wage.

Readers: Can you sympathize with this decision?

Writers: How do you deal with the discounting issue?

 

This is a reprint from L.J. Sellers‘ site.

Self-Publishing vs Sushi

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This post, by Emily Casey, originally appeared on her blog on 12/27/11 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

Picture a small town in Pennsylvania where the Amish ride horses through the streets and sell quilts at the market. A place where the locals have names for things most people in the country have never heard of. I went to a writer’s conference in this town and met aspiring writers, top agents, and best-selling authors.

On the first day of the conference, a New York agent asked the locals of this small Pennsylvania town where to get some good sushi.

The response from everyone was pretty much the same: Sushi?!
 
We all had a good laugh about it and the agent handled the faux pas with grace, but it got me thinking. This agent is wonderful at her job. I’d have loved to have her represent me (only she didn’t work in my genre). I don’t think she’s out of touch with readers. But I don’t think she’s in touch with every reader.
 
Agents represent books that they like and think they can sell to publishers. Publishers buy books they like and think they can sell to booksellers. Booksellers buy books they like and think they can sell to consumers.

But shouldn’t that mean that there are books out there that would appeal to readers, but didn’t make the cut because they didn’t appeal to everyone else in the chain?

 

Readers like books from every part of this Venn Diagram.
Except that little grey circle. Nobody likes those.

 

You may or may not like sushi. But if you were stranded and hungry in New York City, I’ll bet you could find plenty of delicious food. Still, you probably won’t find a gumbo that compares to the real thing from Louisiana, or real, honest-to-goodness Georgia peaches. 

If you’re reading this, odds are you love to read. Odds are, you’ve read hundreds of great books and are searching for your next. Imagine all those books, the great ones that didn’t make the cut because a publisher didn’t think it had "mass appeal". 

That’s why I want to self-publish. Because just like Georgia’s peaches, I have a story to tell that you can only get from me. 

I’m not doing this because I think agents are bad people, or that publishers don’t know what they’re doing, or that chain bookstores are soulless. On the contrary. I think as readers, we’re indebted to them. They’ve made so many good books available to us. They don’t just shape the world of literature; they BUILT it. 

But the publishing world is changing. 

I’m not trying to find readers that hate all the books ever published so far. That’s crazy. It’s like saying you couldn’t find a single decent thing to eat in New York. I’m looking for hungry readers, the readers that might also like a book from a different source.  

Think of my book as a new food or recipe. Are you willing to try it? 

Shifting Parameters: Editing Genre and Experimental Writing

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This post, by J.P. Hansen, is a reprint of an article that originally appeared on his The Art of Polishing Words site on 11/26/11. It is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Recently, I had the privilege of editing a fantasy novel. The job, it turned out, was fairly easy: I had to make suggestions about the delineation of characters, creation of vivid scenes, and formation of quality sentences.
 
Why was this job easy? Because it involved a genre novel which conforms to clearly defined characteristics. The novel’s very category provided me with parameters for editing. What are the expectations of fantasy? The characters need to seem larger than life and involved in epic-like dramas.  The scenes need to convey intense drama and action. And the sentences need to be clear and plainly written.

 
Next, I edited an experimental, mixed-genre manuscript, and all parameters went by the wayside. In fact, experimental literature by definition is writing in search of parameters, writing that establishes its own particular forms and means of approach. Sometimes, experimental writers, as did the author I was working with, even play with grammatical and spelling norms. At the level of proofreading, I needed to discuss with her whether or not some misspellings were intentional.
 
How is an editor to approach such a work? The only answer I can come up with is through empathy (See my post On Editing: a Dialogue Between Evaluation and Empathy on this blog.) My approach was to read through the manuscript once simply to catch on to the norms, forms, and expectations she was establishing. While I do something like this with all manuscripts, only in mixed-genre or avant-garde work does the first read-through involve trying to understand how this writing asks to be read.
 
In such a situation, I rely less on traditional editorial apparatus—the publicly accepted rules and expectations for good writing—and more on instinct and aesthetic taste. My feel for the piece of writing, and my feel for language in general, must be in deep accord with the author’s. For instance, I can’t just learn that she desires a certain "misspelling"; I need to understand why she wants it and how it partakes in her larger writerly palette.
 
The difference between editing genre work as opposed to experimental writing comes down to degrees. In genre work, editors are much more involved in honing the final product for public display.
 
Editors of experimental work are more involved in working with the writer to realize an artistic vision. Editors act as sounding boards rather than skilled and knowledgeable conventional language workers. This distinction is not, of course, absolute. Genre editors get involved with artistic vision, but not to the extent they do with experimental works.
 
As a general activity, the goal of editing in both works remained the same—to help make writing sing—but the feel of the work I did differed greatly.
 
About the Author: J.P. Hansen runs J.P. Hansen Writing & Editing Services and is the author of the Vanilla Lawyer Mystery series. He also blogs at Kindle Mystery and On Polishing: the Art of Editing, where this post originally appeared.

 

Ten Daring Predictions for 2012 from the Indie Author Trenches

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This post, by Bob Mayer, originally appeared on his Write It Forward blog on 12/26/11.

2011 saw great change.  2012 will bring even more. 10 predictions below.

The reality is, to thrive and not just survive, everyone in publishing must be willing to change on a dime and innovate.  My background in Special Forces taught me how to do that.  Also, it taught me that to succeed, I must take risks.  The company isn’t called Who Dares Wins for nuthing (as we say in da’ Bronx).

What do I see for 2012 in publishing from the perspective of someone who spent two decades in traditional publishing and two years in indie publishing?

 

  1. One big thing lurking is a major trad author who goes indie, once they crunch the numbers on their royalty statements (which are still working via the Pony Express rather than the Internet) and realize their loyal readers will follow them regardless of which imprint the book is published under and how their royalty rate can skyrocket on their own.  I still feel the fear coming off many authors about abandoning traditional publishing, even though trad publishing will dump them in a hearbeat if the P&L statement isn’t favorable.  And gives them very lousy royalty rates and restrictive contracts to boot.  Fear will kill you.
     
  2. Slow will also kill you.  I’d forgotten that “I’ll get back to you next week” in traditional publishing equals “I might get back to you in a few months, but likely never” in the real world.  That’s not going to cut it in the electronic age.  Five years ago, when describing publishing, I’d use two terms:  SLOW and TECHNOPHOBIC.  Both are killers today.  And they’re still damn slow. Tick-tock says the reaper.
     
  3. Agents as publishers.  Yep, every agent wants to make a living and keep their clients.  So they’re cobbling together some “experts” and offering services to their clients.  I’m not even going to weigh in on whether it’s ethical, my issue is can they do it?  Being an agent is not being a publisher.  It took almost two years to get feet on the ground with Who Dares Wins Publishing.  Can an agent do it?  Can their clients afford to go through their growing pains and mistakes?
     
  4. Authors as publishers: ditto.  I call myself indie, but in a blog post earlier this year I pointed out the term “self-publishing” is a dangerous one.  I’m not self-publishing.  I’ve got a company.  I can’t do it all myself.  I think the success stories from self-publishing will occur, but be few and far between.  What will happen is agents and publishers will use self-publishing as the new slush pile, letting the author do all the work, and then scoop in.  Nothing wrong with that.  I think it gives authors a fairer shot by letting readers and thei authors’ own initiative and work ethic count a lot more than the vagaries of the unpaid intern reading the slush pile.

 

Read the rest of the post, which contains 6 more daring predictions, on Write It Forward.

Secrets of Ebook Marketing, Excerpt Trades & the Future of Enhanced Ebooks

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This post, by Cheri Lasota, originally appeared on her site on 12/12/11 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

I’d been search­ing for months for the right book to do an excerpt trade with. I’d heard about this sim­ple idea from my won­der­ful friend Nancy Kelley who heard about it from her friend, Jennifer Becton. Sometimes ideas spread like wild­fire, and this one ought to because it’s bril­liant. The con­cept is a no-​​brainer: get together with another indie author writ­ing in a sim­i­lar vein and trade chap­ter 1 book excerpts in the back of each other’s books. Voila! Now you have access to a brand new audi­ence you wouldn’t have had oth­er­wise. Cool, huh?

 

When I joined the Pacific Northwest YA Authors group, group mem­ber Lisa Nowak rec­om­mended I approach Laura Elliott with the idea. It turned out to be the per­fect fit. I asked Laura some ques­tions about how she viewed the excerpt trade process and wanted to share her answers with you. Without fur­ther ado…

Did you have any hes­i­ta­tions about excerpt trad­ing when I first approached you with the idea? What put those hes­i­ta­tions to rest?

Not at all. I love to try every­thing. I guess if I had one doubt about the process it was my own skills at pro­gram­ming your beau­ti­fully for­mat­ted excerpt of Artemis Rising into my ebook, Winnemucca. I enjoyed read­ing such a beau­ti­fully for­mat­ted ebook and learned from you in the process of adding your excerpt to Winnemucca. Because you are so knowl­edge­able about the process of for­mat­ting ebooks and enhanced books our col­lab­o­ra­tion was like tak­ing a lit­tle class—my favorite class. Thanks for putting up with my learn­ing curve, Cheri! This how my ebook world broad­ened as a result of our collaboration:

I made epub files out of my books, Winnemucca and 13 on Halloween, (book 1 in the Teen Halloween series) and uploaded them to the Barnes & Noble site so that they are now avail­able for the Nook. I didn’t want to go the Smashwords route for a num­ber of rea­sons, so I pre­vi­ously only had my books avail­able for the Kindle and as paper­backs. But because I wanted to help spread the word widely for Cheri and her book, as her books were more widely avail­able on dif­fer­ent ebook plat­forms, I used Calibre to make the nec­es­sary con­ver­sions. As a result my books are avail­able to a much wider market.

I found that xhtml is easy for me to under­stand since I was an html pro­gram­mer. But I’m all thumbs com­pared to Cheri, not that any­thing I had to do to add her excerpt was very advanced, but I began to see what I could do. Anyway, I got inspired by Cheri’s for­mat­ting and inter­ested in mak­ing more beau­ti­fully for­mat­ted books. Cheri sug­gested that I read Elizabeth Castro’s book, and I look for­ward to read­ing it when I have some time to play around with this stuff. I mean, we are indies because one of the ben­e­fits we have over tra­di­tion­ally pub­lished authors is that we can con­trol every aspect of our books, includ­ing their for­mat­ting. Okay, it’s not as sexy as a cover for some, but there is going to be a great deal that can be done from what used to be termed “cover to cover.”

Granted we do need to find a bal­ance with our writ­ing, pro­mot­ing, and mar­ket­ing lives, so leav­ing this up to pro­gram­mers might be an option too. But even so, know­ing what’s pos­si­ble is very impor­tant in work­ing with ebook professionals.

Will you con­tinue to use excerpt trad­ing as part of your mar­ket­ing plan in the future? Why or why not? 

Yes, I will. I’m sure that excerpt trad­ing, as you have indi­cated, will morph into dif­fer­ent things in the months and years to come. But I think it’s a solid way to mar­ket great sto­ries to readers.

 

What do you think of what Author Carolyn McCray calls “sales nodes”? Do you think of this as a nat­ural expan­sion of excerpt trading? 

Yes, actu­ally I think this is the future of excerpt trad­ing. I think it makes sense to pro­mote in this way and it could be viewed as our own “lists,” if you will, like the lists that tra­di­tional pub­lish­ing houses have. We would offer our read­ers a col­lec­tion of writ­ers and not only excerpt their work but col­lab­o­ra­tively take turns at offer­ing books at steep dis­counts. A com­bi­na­tion of a candy store and old school pub­lish­ing cat­a­logues. And I think it’s a win-​​win for read­ers, because the mar­ket is huge. Finding qual­ity titles can be time-​​consuming. The odds of find­ing a great story among authors affil­i­ated in this way ups the reader’s chances of find­ing sto­ries they’ll love because authors would want to be sure the qual­ity is high in the group before lend­ing their name to it.

 

You are already doing a lot of cross-​​promotion with the authors of your Pacific Northwest YA Authors group and the YA Indie Carnival. What has been your most suc­cess­ful cross-​​promotion thus far?

Both groups have had huge suc­cesses! And I’m actu­ally also in a third group. =)

I think the YA Indie Carnival #yaindiecar­ni­val has been a huge suc­cess for cross-​​promotion. It is a group of 25 authors & review­ers who post on all things YA Indy every Friday. It’s been a great way to show­case our books and review sites to new read­ers. It’s also been a tremen­dous source of writ­ing and pro­mo­tion tips, and most of all we’ve helped to sup­port each other. We’ve not only learned about what’s new in our ever-​​changing indus­try but also about each other. Our most suc­cess­ful events have been our give­aways. Our most pop­u­lar posts have been about social media and exclu­sive excerpts of new releases as well as per­sonal posts about high school and a wide vari­ety of other top­ics. We like to keep it inti­mate at the car­ni­val so that read­ers get to know us well and want to run away with us to the car­ni­val every Friday.

The best cross-​​promotion for the Pacific Northwest YA Authors has been the tra­di­tional face-​​to-​​face tour­ing with our read­ers, be it at shows like Wordstock or libraries or inde­pen­dent book­stores. What an amaz­ing group of writ­ers! I can hon­estly say I’d never have been able to talk about my books as well as I can now, if it wasn’t for the sup­port of Stacey, Angela, Lisa, Rebecca, Cidney, and you. If it wasn’t for the group, I never would have met you, Cheri. And not only would I miss your sup­port, I would have taken much longer to find Artemis Rising, a story I loved. So, when you emailed propos­ing the excerpt trade I was thrilled. And I’m glad every­one was open to includ­ing me as I live part-​​time in Portland and part-​​time on the cen­tral coast of California.

I’m also involved in a group called The Paranormal Plumes Society and we have started cross-​​promoting each other in our books by list­ing each other’s names and web­sites at the end of our books. Beyond the cross-​​promotion we do, we just have a LOT of fun together and even had A Haunted Book Tour in Savannah, GA just before Halloween last October where we got to hang out with our read­ers and do things like eat at haunted restau­rants and get spooked at one of the scari­est haunted houses in the nation! We are on tour in Florida at the end of July, going to a high school and a few mid­dle schools in the Deltona, FL area.

 

What do you think about the direc­tion book mar­ket­ing has headed in the past decade? How do you think the ebook explo­sion will play into book mar­ket­ing in the next decade?

Well, I pub­lished my debut novel Winnemucca, a small-​​town fairy tale, last July so I wasn’t out there try­ing to swing for the fences before this year. I’m not really cer­tain of what it was/​is like for tra­di­tion­ally pub­lished authors, hav­ing not been one. But I have heard quite a few sto­ries about authors not feel­ing in con­trol. I pre­dict that in the next decade the for­mat­ting, pro­mo­tion and mar­ket­ing of books will be more and more in the hands of authors.

I also pre­dict that’s where the next big idea will come from. From authors. Tech-​​savvy authors. Someone among us is the Mark Zuckerberg of ebooks and ebook mar­ket­ing. One of us will be able to take ebook mar­ket­ing and aug­ment tra­di­tional book tours with a place where read­ers can learn about ebooks in all the ways peo­ple like to, with trail­ers and music and excerpts, reviews and author inter­views. We have entered the age of the reader.

Not since the Gutenberg Press has there been such a devel­op­ment in the abil­ity to read lit­er­a­ture. Now we need to har­ness it. Aggregate the con­tent, much like the Googles and Yahoos of the world do with what’s hot and trend­ing in news and enter­tain­ment. That’s my pre­dic­tion. There will be a Google or Yahoo of books, a site that aggre­gates things from Goodreads, Kirkus, Booklist, Amazon, Independent book stores, Barnes & Noble, and the other play­ers to give read­ers what they want, and easy ways to find sto­ries that they love.

Cheri, thanks so much for hav­ing me on your blog today! It’s been a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence to col­lab­o­rate with you on my first excerpt exchange.

 

** Want to read Laura’s cross-​​post on the same topic? Laura asks me about excerpt trad­ing as well as the future of enhanced ebooks. Just click here for more.

 

Amazon's KDP Select Results

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This post, by L.J. Sellers, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog on 12/16/11 and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

When Amazon asked me to enroll a few books its KDP Select program, I went along. Like many other authors, because of Kindle Direct Publishing, I now have readers and I’m able to make a small living. So I’m deeply grateful, and even loyal, to Amazon. I don’t necessarily like the 90-exclusivity requirement of the new program, but I don’t sell enough of certain titles in other venues for it to be a financial consideration.

So I enrolled three books out of ten, and promptly listed two for back-to-back, five-day giveaways, the main perk of the program.

The results were better than expected. First, I gave away The Suicide Effect, my lowest-selling book. Between the US and UK, in five days, I had 34,888 downloads. A stunning number for a book with suicide in the title. The book is now #61 in the entire Kindle store and actually selling for the first time. I know this effect is temporary, but still awesome. The bonus is that I have an excerpt of The Baby Thief in the back, and I sold several hundred of that title during the giveaway, and it’s selling better than ever too.

I also gave away The Sex Club, a book that’s already had a lot of exposure. In addition to the 23,868 ebooks downloaded so far, I’ve also seen a bump in the sales of my other Detective Jackson novels…even though The Sex Club is no longer listed as part of my series. (I recently blogged about that decision.)

So it’s been a good move for me. Ironically, two weeks ago I announced to my husband that I was giving up writing novels and looking for an office job…because I was working too hard and making too little money in this crazy industry. The power of Amazon!

Those three titles won’t be available on Nook, Kobo, or any other e-reader for at least 90 days, but I can live with that. I haven’t enrolled my Detective Jackson books in the program, and I don’t plan to. I want readers everywhere to have access to them.

I may never really know the full effect of this promotion. Many of those people will never read either story. Many may not read them for six months or more. But with so much exposure to my writing, it’s inevitable that I’ll pick up thousands of new readers. I’ve already had several people contact me and say something like, “I just started your book, but the writing is so good, I bought everything you have.” When you’re selling ebooks for $.99 and $2.99, it’s not a big commitment for a reader.

I’m sharing this information because many of my writer friends have contacted me to ask about my participation. How can I not recommend it?

But I’m leery of putting all my books in the program. Amazon would have to sweeten the deal considerably, such as by offering me a contract and/or promotional support. But I’m not holding my breath. I’ve worked myself into this position without any help from agents or publishers so far, and I suspect I’ll be indie for the long haul.

What do you think about this program? Have you participated?

Is Your New Year's Resolution "Inbox Zero"? Here's How To Do It.

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Inbox Zero is that state of digital communications nirvana in which you empty your email inbox, and keep emptying it on a daily basis. This may sound like a pipe dream to many, especially if you’ve had your email account for many years and your inbox message count is hovering somewhere around 1700, as mine was when I finally bit the bullet and tackled Inbox Zero. But believe me: it can be done, it’s not that difficult, and you don’t need to worry about the possibility of deleting messages you’ll later wish you hadn’t. First, let’s look at why Inbox Zero is a very, very good idea.

 

THE WHY

If you’re like me, you receive anywhere from 15-40 new emails on a daily basis. Some can be immediately deleted as spam, or filed in some existing folder, but many of them fall into that gray area where you know you’ll need to take some action or respond in some way, but can’t do so immediately for whatever reason. Maybe you need to do some research, maybe you need to invest some time in crafting a thoughtful reply…whatever. So you make a mental note to deal with those "gray area" emails at your first opportunity, and maybe you even mark them with a star or checkmark or whatever other symbol your email program allows to highlight important messages, then the next load of 15-40 new messages comes in and the "gray area" emails slowly but surely get pushed off your inbox screen and are soon forgotten.

Next thing you know, you’ve got 1700 emails in your inbox, you know that quite a few of them required a response or action at some point, and you also know that finding them will be a big, hairy pain. And even if you can find them, it’s probably too late to take whatever action you had in mind when you first saw them. Meanwhile, the people who sent those emails are thinking you’re a huge flake and entirely unreliable. These are not good traits for the reputation of an indie author, for whom building and maintaining a contact network are important.

You’ve thought about spending a day, or several days, or a week going through your inbox one message at a time and dealing with them once and for all, but it’s a daunting task. You can’t just summarily delete any messages that are older than a certain date of receipt, because many are from people you really will need to get back in touch with at some future date. You know you’ve got a problem, but you can’t see your way clear to a workable solution.

THE HOW

Here’s how you do it.

1) Create a folder called "Old Mail" and archive all messages that are 60 days or older into that folder. This will take a little time, since you’ll have to do a search based on your date criteria, mark all the matching messages as "Old Mail" and archive them, but it’s a whole lot less work than paging through the actual messages one at a time.

Yes, you will definitely be archiving many messages that really ought to have been deleted instead. But if you don’t have the time or desire to look at every one of your inbox messages individually, this is the most efficient tack. Besides, most email providers allow their users gigabytes of storage, so space limitations aren’t generally a concern. The important thing is, you haven’t deleted anything. So if at any point in the future you desperately need to find the email address of that contact who, back in 2010, offered to interview you when your book was published, you can easily do so by searching your email.

2) Go through the remaining, relatively recent messages in your inbox one at a time, and dispose of them appropriately: reply, and/or file, delete, or report as spam. Again, this will take some time, but MUCH less time than tackling the original virtual stack. If there are any you’re filing, but not opening to read because you already know what’s in them, be sure to still use the "mark as read" option before filing them away. This will prevent your email system from showing you an alarming count of supposedly new, unread messages for each folder.

2a) Don’t be afraid to create LOTS of folders. If you need to create a folder called "Reply After [date of your choosing]", by all means do so. Your goal is to get every single message out of your inbox, whether by replying, filing or deleting. Creating some folders with built-in action triggers in their titles, such as certain dates or events, can be very helpful, since you’ll see those folders sitting right there on your email screen every day.

In December I received many emails related to cross-postings for Publetariat and already had content scheduled through the end of the year. Rather than let these emails sit in my inbox, where the old me would’ve reasoned, "How can I forget about these if I keep them in my inbox?", I created a folder called "Publetariat-Publish In Jan". Now I’ve got all the relevant emails collected in one handy spot. After everything from the folder’s been published, I’ll re-label the emails as "Publetariat – Contributors" and archive the messages permanently there.

Be sure to create folders for your personal emails, too. I have folders for "Family", "Shopping", each of my kids’ schools, and plenty more.

3) Unsubscribe from any mailing lists that aren’t really adding value to your life, or that, despite your best intentions, you know you never actually have the time to read. If there are some you just can’t bear to part with, or don’t want to unsubscribe from because they’re from members of your network and you may need to refer to them at some point in the future, create a folder for each subscription and immediately mark each copy as "read" and file it when a new one comes in.

4) Gaze admiringly at your spiffy, EMPTY inbox and give yourself a pat on the back. And a cookie. You deserve it.

5) Going forward, every time you receive an email dispose of it on a same day basis: reply, and/or file, delete, or report as spam. Create new folders as needed, and dispose of the mail in your action-trigger folders when each trigger occurs.

You will find Inbox Zero becomes addictive. The presence of a mere 4-6 emails in your inbox will seem an unbearable clutter, and you’ll long to see that inbox screen empty once again. But most importantly, you’ll be back to taking care of business and done with letting important messages and opportunities fall through the cracks.

 

April L. Hamilton is an author and the founder and Editor in Chief of Publetariat. This is a cross-posting from her Indie Author blog.

Happy New Year!

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Publetariat staff will be off Sunday 1/1/12 in observance of the New Year’s Day holiday. No new content will be posted to the front page of the site until the evening of Monday, 1/2/12 at 6pm PST, but site members can still post to their blogs and use the Publetariat Forum in the meantime. We wish you a safe and happy holiday, and will see you next year—or, um…in this case, tomorrow.   No need to click through – this is the end of the post.

Top Posts of 2011: As Kindle Authors Make Their Own Bestsellers, Are Traditional Publishers the Vanity Presses of 2011?

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This post originally appeared on Publetariat on 4/20/11 and has received 1381 unique pageviews since then, making it one of the most popular posts on Publetariat in 2011.

Some interesting developments lately with Kindle Store bestsellers and bestselling authors….

First, congratulations to several Kindle Nation sponsors who have recently soared into the top 100 in the Kindle Store, and in some cases onto the USA Today bestseller list as well! Here’s where some of our past or current sponsors stand as I write this:

 

  • David Lender‘s Trojan Horse is #47 in the Kindle Store, up from #11,941 prior to its first sponsorship on February 19
  • Debbie Mack‘s Least Wanted is #55 and her Identity Crisis is #65 and #139 on the USA Today list (up from #3,374 and #1,048 before their first sponsorship January 18)
     
  • Victorine E. Lieske‘s Not What She Seems is #86 in the Kindle Store, up from #8,000+ before her first sponsorship in September, and was on the USA Today list ealier this month
     
  • And last but most definitely not least, colleague Abhi Sing of Kindle Review and his Seven Dragons team hold the #1 spot on the Kindle Store bestseller list with their magical and revolutionary Notepad app for the Kindle, which is currently featured as the Kindle App of the day here at Kindle Nation!

Meanwhile, we covered former CIA covert ops agent Barry Eisler‘s announcement the other day on Joe Konrath‘s blog that he has walked away from a half-million dollar St. Martin’s Press deal for his next two books in order to publish them directly via the Kindle and other platforms. “Direct publishing” is the new “self-publishing,” in case you hadn’t noticed, and it may be a more apt phrase since it is the platforms offered by new digital technologies such as the Kindle, rather than anything that we as authors have invented, that allow us to public and connect directly with readers.

Ruth Harris’ novel Decades, a future bestseller at 99 cents?

Eisler’s move has been widely hailed as a major development requiring — I’m sorry, there’s just not a pretty way to put this — very large cojones. And I agree, but courageous moves are seldom significant unless they blaze a trail for others. What may be most important about what Eisler has done is that there will soon be plenty more authors of distinction who follow a similar path to bring their previously published and newly published books directly to Kindle readers and other digital platforms, and it will be interesting to see how they go about the process of building fresh connections with readers, absent the usual intermediaries and gatekeepers.

One of these authors of distinction who comes naturally to mind is New York Times bestselling novelist Ruth Harris, whose Husbands and Lovers is today’s Kindle Nation Daily sponsor. Harris has sold millions of print copies of smart, stylish novels that have been translated into 19 languages and selected by the Literary Guild and Book-of-the-Month Club, and she recently brought back Husbands and Lovers, Decades and Love and Money as direct-to-Kindle offerings. Husbands and Lovers jumped from #55,528 to #5,275o on the Kindle Store bestseller list during the past few hours, and the author is priming the pump by offering Decades at a promotional price of just 99 cents. It will be interesting to see how the New York Times plays it when Harris sells enough directly published ebooks to qualify for bestseller lists, as I believe she will. The Times has taken an utterly indefensible, know-nothing stance to keep its bestseller list free of self-published authors, but if the self-published author is a former New York Times bestselling author, will she still be barred entry?

But not everyone is moving away from traditional publishers toward direct publishing. Along comes the amazing Amanda Hocking today — according to this New York Times scoop — to sign a … are you sitting down? … deal for over $2 million with MacMillan’s St. Martin’s Press for her next series, whose working series title is “Watersong.” Hocking, 26, blogged very eloquently on Tuesday about some of the reasons — in addition to the two million obvious ones — she might be interested in a traditional publishing contract. And who can blame her?

But I have to wonder how her ebooks will do if MacMillan and St. Martin’s price them in the $11.99 to $14.99 range which publishers stupidly claim is the right price for newly released ebooks. Currently Hocking has 6 titles among the Kindle Store’s Top 100 bestsellers, but they are all priced between 99 cents and $2.99. Could agency model pricing ruin the Amanda Hocking franchise?

While this is the first ebook-to-traditional publishing contract narrative to ascend to the rarified air of  the $2 million advance, there have been a few other cases where authors signed nice contracts after doing very well previously with direct-to-Kindle ebooks. A couple of years ago Boyd Morrison made a big splash when he sold enough copies of his self-published novel The Ark to crack the Kindle Store bestseller list’s Top 100 and he parlayed it into a multiple-title contract with agency model publisher Simon and Schuster. The Ark was reissued for about three times its original Kindle Store price, although Morrison’s royalty rate is less than it would be if he had published it directly at the more reader-friendly $2.99 price. Not surprisingly, The Ark has created far less buzz the second time around.

Lately it keeps occurring to me that the big traditional corporate publishers are the vanity presses of 2011. Obviously, when an author is offered a deal such as Hocking’s, nobody will blame her for signing on the line. But Morrison’s example suggests there may be plenty of others who sign away their rights for far less than they are worth because of some romantic and outmoded sense of what it means, or used to mean, to land a book deal.

 

This is a reprint from Stephen Windwalker’s Kindle Nation Daily.

Top Posts of 2011: E-Book Cards Will Change The Way You Sell E-Books: Transform A Digital Book Into A Physical Product

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This post originally appeared on Publetariat on 10/23/11 and has received 1163 unique pageviews since then, making it one of the most popular posts on Publetariat in 2011.

Publetariat welcomes author Cheri Lasota. In this guest post, Cheri introduces the idea of using physical gift cards as a means of ebook distribution through brick-and-mortar and other offline outlets.

Have you heard of e-book cards? If you haven’t already, I think you will soon. They are a new book marketing technique making headway and headlines around the country now. 

I heard about them from author Dean Wesley Smith. The idea stems from this simple question: how do authors and publishers sell a digital product in a physical store? 

So many of us are releasing e-book only versions of our fiction. In such cases, how do we sign our books at events? How can we hand-sell our books at conferences, speaking tours, or to the neighbor next door? How do we start to educate the paperback public that e-books are both the wave of the future and the here and now? E-book cards can accomplish all this.

These plastic cards are the same size as your credit card or the gift cards you might buy at the store. Why that size and shape? 

·      You can fit them into your wallet or purse.

·      You can slip them into larger sleeves or envelopes that can display even more content about the book.

·      You can put them in a display holder that has a slot for business cards.

·      You can sign them at events because the plastic makes them durable.

·      You can mail them in a standard envelope for promotional packages because they are so small and compact. 

And just think about how little space they would take up on the bookstore shelf, as opposed to a 600- to 800-page paperback?

SpireHouse Books released my novel on Sept. 13, 2011 and we have wholeheartedly embraced e-book cards in our marketing campaigns since then. 

Thus far, we sold many of the cards at my book launch, I’ve sold some by hand, several stores are displaying and selling them, many have bought them as gifts for their friends, and I have used them as giveaways at events and elsewhere.

In the future, we plan to mail them out to book reviewers,continue to use them for giveaways and to sell at events, give them as gifts for holidays and birthdays…the possibilities are endless.

You can tailor your e-book cards for your own needs. For my cards, my publisher put the book cover on side 1 and included two important notes on it:  “E-book Card Edition” and “Read On Any Device.” On the accompanying display, we mention that the e-book card edition is cheaper than anywhere else the book is sold, which gives bookstore owners a clear incentive to stock them and gives readers a great reason to buy in-store as opposed to buying online. Our e-book card edition also contains exclusive content.

On side 2, we included a “tagline” as well as a short synopsis of the storyline; clear, concise instructions on how and where to download the book; an ISBN/barcode; and a unique scratch off promotional code,which the buyer plugs into my publisher’s website.  

We see this as an incredible opportunity for bookstores as well as authors and small publishers. Spread the word to other authors. Talk about this with your local bookstore managers. Think outside the box and you may find that these cards give you access to readers you never thought you could reach. 

Have questions? Just comment on this post.

 

[Publetariat Editor’s note: more of the how-to nuts and bolts, and costs, of getting ebook cards produced are covered in this linked post from Dean Wesley Smith, which was referenced by Cheri near the beginning of this post.]

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SpireHouse Books just launched Cheri Lasota’s first novel, Artemis Rising, this fall. The book is a YA historical fantasy based on mythology and set in the exotic Azores Islands. Currently, Cheri is writing and researching her second novel, a YA set on the Oregon Coast. Over the course of her sixteen-year career, she has edited fiction, nonfiction,screenplays, and short stories for publication. Cheri also has twenty-four years of experience writing poetry and fiction. Learn more about Artemis Rising at http://www.cherilasota.com or buy it at http://bit.ly/ArtemisRisingNovel.

 

Top Posts of 2011: New YUDU Research Report Finds That Tablets Are Usurping e-Readers as Reading Device of Choice for Consumers

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This press release originally appeared on Publetariat on 6/16/11 and has received 1141 unique pageviews since then, making it one of the most popular posts on Publetariat in 2011.

[press release] Research Provides Detailed Insight and Statistics on the Rise of the e-Book Industry; 2011 Is Likely "The Beginning of the End" for Dedicated e-Reader Devices

 

CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire – Jun 15, 2011) – Digital publishing company YUDU Media (www.yudupro.com) today published a new report summarizing key research, facts and figures on the e-book market, which continues to grow at a blistering pace. The report, titled, "Rise of the e-book: e-book stats and trends," discusses some of the key components of the industry in its current form, aiming to provide analysis and insight into some of its most recent developments.

A sampling of the research included in this report:

  • E-book sales now outpace print book sales, as sales of e-books nearly tripled in the US from 2009 to 2010.
     
  • Tablets such as the iPad appear to be overtaking e-reader devices such as the Kindle as the platform of choice for reading e-books; Forrester predicts that by 2015, there will be twice as many owners of tablet PCs than there are of dedicated e-readers.
     
  • Apple’s iBookstore is gaining rapidly on Amazon.com as the highest volume sales platform for e-Books.
     
  • E-books have helped fuel success for self-published authors, who are no longer beholden to large, traditional publishing houses to get their works into the hands of readers.

"The e-book market shake-up is likely to become more pronounced over the course of the year, with a growing number of publishers and consumers alike choosing a tablet as their hardware of choice," said Richard Stephenson, CEO of YUDU Media. "While 2010 may be remembered as the birth year of consumer e-books, 2011 may well be considered as the beginning of the end for the dedicated e-book reader."

The e-book market in 2011 will experience exponential growth which will impact the book publishing industry as a whole. YUDU’s report offers a deeper analysis of the e-book industry with evidence that transitions in the market go beyond a simple upward sales trend. Ongoing technology innovations and shifts in consumer behavior are driving the continued growth of the e-book market, which publishers are embracing to meet consumer demand and factoring in as part of their overall growth strategy in order to compete in this rapidly changing environment.

Those interested in more detail can access the white paper online at www.yudupro.com/e-book_whitepaper or on the iPad/iPhone by downloading the YUDU Media App and selecting ‘e-book Report.’

About YUDU Media
YUDU Media is a web, mobile and tablet ePublishing specialist that’s been serving digital publishing solutions to book and magazine publishers since 2003. YUDU has customers in over 70 countries, produces up to 1,200 digital publications a day and has developed almost 100 iPad and iPhone Apps. YUDU Book customers include Wiley, AA Publishing, McGraw-Hill Ryerson and HarperCollins.

 

Top Posts of 2011: Promote Your Book by Commenting on Blog Posts

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This post originally appeared on Publetariat on 5/27/10 and has received 2101 unique pageviews since then. It’s been one of the most popular posts on Publetariat in 2011.

Commenting on other people’s blogs is a great way to get visibility, build relationships with bloggers, subtly promote your book, and get links back to your site (if the site gives "do-follow" links). But you can hurt your credibility if you go about it the wrong way. Here are some tips for successful blog commenting:

Actively look for relevant blogs to comment on. Subscribe to the feed of the most important blogs in your area of interest, and use tools like Google Alerts to keep an eye out for relevant posts on other blogs. You can also use Google Blog Search or blog directories like My Blog Log to find blogs that are a good fit.

Contribute to the conversation. Don’t just drop by and say "great post."  Instead, make a thoughtful comment that contributes something. You might offer an additional tip or real-life example, or expand on a point the blogger made. If you’re commenting on a book review, explain why you enjoyed reading the book. Your comment doesn’t have to be long, but you do need to say something useful and relevant. Do not give the impression that you are just there to promote your book or leave a link to your site.

Don’t make inappropriate comments. There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with a point that someone has made (and many bloggers encourage disparate views), but do so in a polite, respectful way. I’m amazed at some of the rude and tacky things people say on blogs and in online forums.

Don’t be overtly promotional. Commenting on someone else’s blog is not the place to blatantly promote your book or services.  However, there are subtle ways to convey that you are an expert on the topic being discussed and encourage people to click on your name to visit your website.

You might work in a reference to your book related to the comment you are making. Here are some examples:

"Twitter is such an important tool for authors that I devoted an entire chapter in my book to promoting through Twitter."

"In researching my book, Selling Your Book to Libraries, I discovered that . . ."

"Because I write mystery novels myself, I really appreciated the way that the author . . ."

Depending on the topic under discussion, I sometimes sign my name with a tag line such as "Dana Lynn Smith, The Savvy Book Marketer" or "Dana Lynn Smith, author of Facebook Guide for Authors."  Some people include their website address in their signature, but many bloggers frown on this. Creating a signature that’s several lines long and blatantly promotional is not appropriate. Some people think that including any type of signature or reference to your book is too promotional.

You will have to use your judgment to determine what is appropriate, but you might look at what other commenters on the blog are doing as a guideline. Just remember that you are a guest on someone else’s site and mind your manners. Comments, anyone?

Excerpted from The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Blogging for Authors by book marketing coach Dana Lynn Smith. For more book marketing tips, follow @BookMarketer on Twitter, visit Dana’s Savvy Book Marketer blog, and get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips ebook when you sign up for her free newsletter.

 

Top Posts of 2011 – An Aside to Authors and Publishers: CreateSpace Expands Distribution Through Deal with Ingram

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This post originally appeared on Publetariat on 12/3/09 and has received 4574 unique pageviews since then. It’s been one of the most popular posts on Publetariat in 2011.

For many Kindle Nation citizens, this post will be an easy one to skip over. It’s about what we around here call dead-tree books, and at first blush it may seem of primary interest to authors and independent publishers, because, at first blush, it is.

But the bottom line is that the playing field for publishing and bookselling just got a lot closer to being level, from the point of view of authors and independent publishers. And in the long run this could be a good thing for readers and independent bookstores as well.

Here’s what has happened, with thanks to TeleRead’s Paul Biba for the heads up.

CreateSpace.com, a print-on-demand publishing company wholly owned by Amazon, has made a deal with the nation’s largest book distributor, Ingram Content Group, and Ingram’s own print-on-demand subsidiary, which is called Lightning Source. As a result, CreateSpace authors and publishers are now able to distribute their titles to thousands of bookstores, libraries and online retailers. Here’s a link to the CreateSpace press release (full text of the release also provided at the end of this post).

For the past three years, CreateSpace has been far and away the best printing deal available for independent authors and publishers, except for one glaring omission. The CreateSpace platform allowed its clients print-on-demand production, with no up-front capital costs and no inventory or out-of-pocket fulfillment costs, at per-unit production costs that are competitive with short-run production costs for print runs ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 copies. For authors and publishers seeking to sell their books through Amazon or through their own websites and events, this amounted to a very sweet deal. CreateSpace has been my independent publishing company’s production arm for the past three years, and the interior and exterior quality of their printed trade paperback books has been flawless.

But there was a huge disconnect between CreateSpace and the rest of the bookselling world beyond Amazon, because CreateSpace did not offer wholesale distribution to bookstores, online retailers, and libraries. And the alternatives, involving Ingram and its primary competitor Baker & Taylor, were often difficult to navigate and significantly more expensive.

Now all that has changed in a collaborative deal that is so dramatic that it makes both companies’ spokespersons’ rhetoric about their passionate commitment to books seem utterly believable.

There are three new CreateSpace Expanded Distribution Channels, in addition to the previously available choices of the Amazon bookstore, a CreateSpace eStore whose doorways are seldom darkened by paying customers, and a relatively cheap author-copies feature:
 

 

CreateSpace Direct: By enabling this distribution outlet, you can make your books available to certified resellers such as independent bookstores and book resellers. The CreateSpace Direct program allows eligible resellers to buy books at wholesale prices directly from CreateSpace.

Libraries and Academic Institutions: By enabling this distribution outlet, you can make your book available to public libraries, elementary and secondary school libraries, and libraries at other academic institutions.

Bookstores and Online Retailers: By enabling this distribution outlet, you can make your book available to thousands of major online and offline bookstores and retailers, and expand the size of the potential audience for your books.

 

The expanded distribution royalties payable by CreateSpace to authors and indie publishers — about 20% in many cases depending mainly on retail price and page count — will be less than royalties paid on Amazon store sales, but will in most cases be significantly more than the royalties that would be payable either through what we still call "traditional publishing" or through the kind of short-run digital publishing referenced above.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: according to information posted on the Createspace site, the bookseller cut (referred to as "Sales Channel Percentage" on the CS site) is 20% for sales made on the CS site, 40% for sales on Amazon.com, and 60% for sales made through the Expanded Distribution Channel (EDC) program. Also, the site specifies that only books set up with the Pro Plan option are eligible for EDC. Some authors are finding they would have to raise the retail price of their books to earn a royalty on EDC sales due to the 20-40% higher bookseller cut on those sales.] 

Authors and indie publishers who have books in print on the CreateSpace platform can initiate expanded distribution options for their titles immediately. Here’s how:

 

  • Go to your CreateSpace dashboard page.
     
  • Select an "Available" title for which you would like initiate expanded distribution options and click on the pencil/edit icon to its right (image shown to the right of this bullet item —>). 
     
  • Scroll down to the heading called Sales Channel Management and click on the "Edit" hyperlink to the right of the heading.
     
  • Scroll down to the heading called Expanded Distribution Channel Sales and, at the bottom of the page, review the Distribution Royalty Calculation to ensure that you are prepared to accept the royalty offered to you for these channels. You can change your book’s price, but the price will be fixed across all of CreateSpace’s distribution channels.
     
  • If you wish to go forward and enable Expanded Distribution, click on the "Enable" button next to each of the three sub-categories. You will be able to enable the Libraries and Academic Institutions button only if your book’s ISBN was provided directly by CreateSpace.
     
  • After you have clicked on these buttons and see "Enable" in green to the right of the sub-categories, click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page.
     
  • You will be returned to the previous page, where you should scroll down to the Sales Channel Management heading and verify that you see a line that says "Sell via Expanded Distribution – Yes."


That’s it. Good luck.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: according to the Createspace FAQ on the EDC program, "It may take up to six weeks for your title to begin populating in the distribution outlets you select."]

Here’s the full text of the CreateSpace press release, for your convenience:
 

 

CreateSpace Announces Expanded Distribution Options for Members through Ingram Content Group and Lightning Source

CHARLESTON, S.C. – Dec. 03, 2009 – CreateSpace, part of the Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) group of companies, today announced a new agreement with Lightning Source Inc., the print on-demand unit of Ingram Content Group Inc. The collaboration between the two companies will expand CreateSpace’s distribution options for its members beyond Amazon.com and CreateSpace eStores.

Under the new agreement, CreateSpace’s Books on-Demand platform will allow members to print and then distribute their titles to thousands of bookstores, libraries and online retailers. CreateSpace members will have access to this enhanced print and distribution option as part of the CreateSpace Pro Plan, a program which gives members access to lower print pricing for their own book orders and better royalties for sales on Amazon.com.

"With this expansion, CreateSpace members will not only be able to reach Amazon.com customers, but they can also reach the thousands of bookstores, libraries and online retailers that work with the Ingram Content Group, " said Dana LoPiccolo-Giles, managing director, CreateSpace. "With Lightning Source and Ingram, our members can make their titles available to the larger book marketplace while remaining inventory-free with print on-demand."

"At Ingram, we are passionate about books and the book industry," said Philip Ollila, chief content officer, Ingram Content Group. "Our new relationship with CreateSpace is a continuation of Ingram’s long-term strategy to offer the broadest selection of books to our customers worldwide."

For more information about CreateSpace, please visit www.createspace.com.

About CreateSpace
CreateSpace is a leader in manufacture on-demand services for independent content creators, publishers, film studios and music labels. CreateSpace provides inventory-free, physical distribution of Books, CDs and DVDs On-Demand, music downloads via Amazon MP3 and video downloads via Amazon Video On Demand. CreateSpace is a brand of On-Demand Publishing LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).

About Lightning Source
Lightning Source is the leading print-on-demand company in the world, offering the unique combination of quality one-off book manufacturing and access to the most comprehensive distribution solutions in the publishing industry. Lightning Source is an Ingram Content Group company. The Ingram Content Group of companies provide a broad range of physical and digital services to the book industry, and immediate access to the largest selection of books and book-related products in the industry. For more information visit www.lightningsource.com

About Ingram
Ingram Content Group Inc. provides a broad range of physical and digital services to the book industry. Ingram’s operating units are Ingram Book Company, Lightning Source Inc., Ingram Digital, Ingram Periodicals Inc., Ingram International Inc., Ingram Library Services Inc., Spring Arbor Distributors Inc., Ingram Publisher Services Inc., Tennessee Book Company LLC, Coutts Information Services, and Ingram Marketing Group Inc. For more information, visit www.ingramcontent.com

About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as books, movies, music & games, digital downloads, electronics & computers, home & garden, toys, kids & baby, grocery, apparel, shoes & jewelry, health & beauty, sports & outdoors, and tools, auto & industrial.

Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), Amazon Mechanical Turk and Amazon CloudFront.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca and www.amazon.cn.

As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
For CreateSpace
Amanda Wilson
amandasu@createspace.com

For Amazon.com
Amazon Media Hotline
206-266-7180

 

This is a cross-posting from Stephen Windwalker’s Kindle Nation Daily.

Top Posts of 2011: 8 Simple Steps To Self-Publishing

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This post originally appeared on Publetariat on 5/4/11 and has received 1444 unique pageviews since then, making it one of the most popular posts on Publetariat in 2011.

Thanks go to Self-Publishing Coach Shelley Hitz for contributing this guest post. 

Are you interested in self-publishing a book?

It might not be as much work as you think. In fact, if you already own a website or blog, you can seamlessly transform your most popular content into a book. Think about it: you can take the same great content you’ve already written for your site and reformulate it into a printed book, PDF eBook or audio book to make the most of all your hard work. Follow these steps and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a self published author, like me!

8 Simple Steps to Self Publishing Your Book:

  1. Create an outline and chapter layout using the best articles from your website or blog.
     
  2. Enter your content into a template formatted for your desired book size (i.e. Microsoft Word).
     
  3. Save your book as a PDF file.
     
  4. Select a designer for your book cover or design it yourself.
     
  5. Select a self publishing [services] company.
     
  6. Sign up for an account with your publisher and upload your documents.
     
  7. Begin promoting and selling copies of your book online, via your website or blog and in person.
     
  8. Finally, convert your book into various formats to get the most out of your work (i.e. PDF eBook, audio book and Kindle eBook).

That’s it!

I stumbled upon the concept of self publishing books in the fall of 2008 when one of our colleagues, a fellow speaker, showed me a copy of his self published book. Not only were his books affordable-they only cost him $2-$3 each-but their quality was excellent. And he also gained the instant credibility of being a "published author."

I thought, "I can do this!"

And believe it or not, after about one month of hard work, I was ready to publish a 190-page book based upon my website, Teen-Beauty-Tips.com.

How did I do it? I followed eight simple steps!

The Nuts and Bolts of Publishing My First Book

Step #1: To get started, I assembled my first draft based on the best articles from my website. Once I selected the articles, I decided on an outline for my book and formatted the content into chapters.

Step #2: I then decided on a book title, "Mirror Mirror…Am I Beautiful? Looking Deeper to Find Your True Beauty," and began the process of copying and pasting the text of my articles into a Microsoft Word template.

Step #3: Next, I converted my Word document into a PDF file using the free edition of PDF995 (to do this click on properties, then advanced option and select the "statement [5.5 X 8.5] " from the drop-down menu for the paper format).

Step #4: Since I was working on a very low budget, I decided I would use a DIY design approach and used Photoshop to create my book cover.

Step #5: After more research on self publishing, I decided to use CreateSpace (affiliated with Amazon), to publish my book. Why? Well, there are no upfront costs, they list you quickly with Amazon and I can buy books for less than $4 each to sell at events.

Step #6: Finally, I was ready to upload my files and order my proof copy! My 190-page black and white soft cover book cost a mere $3.13 + shipping, with the help of the Createspace Pro Plan.

Although the Pro Plan requires a one-time fee of $39, followed by a $5 annual fee, these small fees are well worth it! With the Pro Plan you gain significantly higher royalties and can also buy copies at a much lower cost to sell at events. Therefore, I highly recommend the Pro Plan for anyone interested in self publishing with Createspace.

Step #7: What a great feeling to self publish my first book! I immediately began selling copies online through my website and at speaking events.

Step #8: My final step was to create other versions of the same book. I chose to offer it digitally as a PDF eBook and give a free copy away to my newsletter subscribers. In a very small niche-Christian teen girls-this has helped to build my list to almost 3500 subscribers in a relatively short period of time.

I also recorded an audio version of my book using the free software, Audacity, and a $30 microphone. Once the audio files were completed, I began selling the MP3 downloads of the book through ClickBank and the CD version of the audio book using Kunaki. With Kunaki, I can buy CD’s for as little as $ 1 (+ shipping).

Finally, I expanded my book’s influence by making a version available for the Kindle. To convert my book into the Kindle format, I removed all of the pictures embedded in the Microsoft Word template and saved it in as a HTML document. I then uploaded my book to Kindle Direct Publishing, text and began offering the Kindle version from my website as well. You can see my sales page here.

Do I Make Money Selling Books?

I’ll be honest. In such a small and specialized niche, I’m not getting rich by selling books from my website. However, I am receiving regular paychecks from both online and offline sales. And as my website traffic increases (now over 1000 visitors per day), my sales also increase.

If you want to "make it big" in publishing, I recommend that you hire a professional to design your interior book template and your book cover design. I also recommend hiring a professional editor. After taking the DIY route initially, I did eventually decide to hire a designer to update my book cover.

And finally, if you want to truly self publish, I recommend that you start your own book publishing company and use Lightning Source. Be aware that it does require more time, money and effort upfront. However, in the end, you can earn more in royalties by self publishing through Lightning Source, especially if you want to sell books to international audiences or in bookstores. If you’re interested in using Lightning Source, I recommend reading a book by Dan Poynter called, "The Self Publishing Manual" to help guide you step by step.

You Can Do It!

Since you’ve already invested so much time and energy into writing your website or blog, why not take a little extra time and get the most from your content by repurposing it into a self published book? Follow my eight simple steps and you, like me, will soon be selling physical products like paperback books, audio CD’s as well as digital products like Kindle books, PDF eBooks and MP3 downloads from your website.

Are You Ready to Get Started?

If so, I recommend that you go and download my free book templates and then sign up for a free Createspace account. It costs you nothing and yet provides you with an easy action step toward achieving your goal of getting published.

And have fun…soon you’ll be a published author.

Shelley Hitz is an entrepreneur, author and speaker. Her website, Self Publishing Coach, provides resources and tutorials that help you publish and market your book. Discover 200+ free book marketing and author tools in Shelley Hitz’s 36-page free report. You can also find Shelley on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.