First Year As An Indie Author In Review: Sweet Success!

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A year ago, during the last week in November and the first weeks of December, I self-published my first book, Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, as an ebook on Smashwords and Kindle, and as a POD book through CreateSpace. I had no history as a published author, no contacts in the publishing world, and no marketing plan. I had a self-created author web-site and blog site, a facebook friends list of about 40, a lovely cover for the book (shout out to my cover designer Michelle Huffaker), and the confidence that I had done everything possible to make my book worthy of being published. I also had hope that if people found my book that they would buy it and like it enough to recommend it to others.

In addition I had discovered a vibrant community of indie authors and ebook experimenters who were blogging away about their own journeys into the world of self-publishing; and what I appreciated was their willingness to provide the details about their experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly, so people like me could learn as we went along. In that spirit I would like to provide a year-end assessment of my own experience, in the expectation this will help encourage other authors who are just starting out on this journey.

First the numbers:
In the first 4 months (December 2009-March 2010) I sold 158 books. 54% were ebooks-the vast majority through Kindle, and 46% print editions, slightly over half through Amazon.com. I made just short of $350—covering my costs–which were $250 for the cover design and $100 for proof copies of the print book and author’s copies to send to reviewers. I was cautiously optimistic, writing in a blog post subtitled “Can I call myself a real published author yet?” that 158 sold books had put me well on the way to the average number of books sold by self-published authors (200), and that I no longer worried that only people I knew would buy the book.

In the second 4 months (April 2010-July 2010) I sold an additional 772 books (making my total 930). 79% were ebooks (again primarily Kindle), and 21% were POD (but now 99% were directly through Amazon.com). I was ecstatic. If the 2006 Chris Anderson “Long Tail” analysis still holds true (and there is little evidence to the contrary), the average number of books per title sold in a year is 500, and 96% of all titles sell less than a 1000 copies. Based on this, my 722 books put me well above average, with an excellent chance to reach that 1000 goal before the end of the year.

In the final 4 months (August 2010-November 2010) I sold 1761 more books, 88 % of these were ebooks (primarily Kindle-which was now paying a 70% royalty) and only 12% were POD books. This meant that in the first year I sold 2691 copies of Maids of Misfortune, garnering me over $5000. (Note, none of this includes the books I have probably sold through Smashword affiliates in the past 2 months, since these balances haven’t come through yet; none reflect the few books I have sold on consignment in local book stores. It also doesn’t include the $300 a made from selling 629 copies at 99 cents of Dandy Detects, the short story I wrote to promote my full-length novel.)

What has this all meant to me?
First, I am just plain flabbergasted. I really didn’t expect to have sold these many books in the first year. While I know that this is a paltry amount for people who have gotten large advances and print runs in the hundred’s of thousands, I also know enough published authors in the midlist book category to know that this is pretty darn impressive for a first time author.

Second, it has completely justified my decision a year ago to self-publish. If in November of last year, I had decided to try the traditional route one more time, the story would have turned out very differently. If I had been lucky enough to get an agent and sell the book to one of the appropriate mystery imprints in this past year, I would have probably gotten an advance of under $3-4,000 (and if I had gone with a small press I might not have gotten any advance.) In either case, the book would not even be out yet, so no one would have read it, and the most I would have earned would have been about $1000 since advances are paid in 2-3 stages. So for 2010, no books sold versus 2600 books and $1,000 versus $5,000.

In case you were wondering, my expenses this year have continued to be low–and pretty much the same marketing costs I would have to incur if I had been traditionally published (business cards, attendance at a mystery convention, cost of entering 2 book contests)–so my net for this past year is definitely better than I would have had publishing through the traditional route.

But what about once the book came out through the traditional route? For 2011, even if the traditional publisher was inordinately speedy and got the book out in 12 instead of the 18 months that is average, and even if it sold a lot more print books than I have been selling, Maids of Misfortune, as a first time genre book, would be unlikely to sell enough copies at the much lower royalty rates of traditional publishers to pay out it’s advance in its first year. This would mean I could not expect to get any additional money, besides the rest of the advance ($2,000 to 3,000) in 2011.

However, there is every reason for me to think that I will do even better next year than I did this year with Maids of Misfortune because my sales rose steadily during the past year, and 65% of my book sales came within the last four months. The first 4 months I sold on average 1.3 books a day. The second 4 months I sold on average 6.3 books a day. The last 4 months of the year I sold on averaged 14.4 books a day, and in the first 4 days of this month (December) I have sold on average 26 books a day. I don’t know if this means that more and more people are hearing about my book and buying it, or that the number of people buying ebooks (the majority of my sales) is rising so sharply that, even if I am not attracting an increasing share of the market for historical mysteries, my total number of books sold will steadily rise. Either way, there is a very good chance that I will sell least 5,000, and maybe as many as 10,000, copies of Maids of Misfortune in 2011, and make at least an additional $10,000-$20,000 in sales. So going through the traditional route, I would have made at most $3,000 in two years; having self-published, I will make at least $8000 and maybe over $20,000 in two years.

Third, this level of success permitted me to make the changes necessary to write full time. As I discussed in my last post, two weeks from now I will retire completely from college teaching (I had been working part time to supplement my retirement income.) This in turn will help me accomplish my goal finishing Uneasy Spirits, the sequel of Maids of Misfortune, and publishing it before the end of next year. If I had published traditionally, with either no advance (small press) or a small advance (as first time author), and the book wasn’t even out yet, I wouldn’t have felt confident enough about the future earning power of Maids of Misfortune to have made this decision at this point.

Conclusion:
I have had a very successful first year as an indie author; however, there is no particular secret to my success. While I have spent most of the past year on this blog talking about why I made the decision to self-publish, what strategies I used, what has worked and what hasn’t, if you read these posts, you will discover that nothing I have done has been particularly brilliant or unique. In most part I have simply followed the advice given out by a number of wonderful experts on their blogs and in their how to guides. See, for example, April Hamilton’s Indie Author Guide, or Zoe Winter’s Becoming an Indie Author, or Joe Konrath’s Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.

What I think an aspiring indie author can learn from my story is that, if you have a book that is well-written and meets professional editing and design standards, and you publish it as an ebook (particularly on Kindle), and you follow the advice of the experts (develop a consistent brand, get the book reviewed, make sure it can be found under the right categories in ebookstores, and participate in the various conversations on the web that will get you and your book noticed), this sort of success is very achievable, even for a newbie. And it can be a lot of fun.

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s The Front Parlor.

Email Newsletter Services: Top 5 Roundup

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I did some research into the top five providers of email newsletter/contact services and decided to share the information. They all offer design and list management tools, a sign-up function for your website, and usually a free trial. The pricing doesn’t vary much, but there are important differences in services. Three offer a pay-as-you-go option for people like me with small lists who plan to use the service infrequently, and only two offer RSS services. Here’s a brief guide:

Vertical Response

  • monthly plan or pay as you go
  • PAYG: .015 per email for lists under 1000 ($7.50 for 500)
  • monthly: $10 per month for 500 or less
  • discounts on monthly plans if you buy 6 or 12 months at a time
  • free trial (first 100 emails free)
  • tracking, segmentation, and ROI reporting
  • free customer support
  • offers surveys and direct-mail postcards

Constant Contact

  • monthly plan only, no pay as you go
  • monthly plan: $15 for 500 or fewer
  • free 60-day trial
  • lots of customer support/phone, e-mail, library, videos
  • reporting details (who opened, what links clicked)
  • direct download from Microsoft outlook

iContact

  • $9.95 month for 500 or fewer
  • 15-day free trial
  • RSS features for blogs
  • offers survey services/features
  • offers lots of e-mail marketing information

Vista Print

  • $14.99 a month for 500 or fewer
  • also offers per-mail options (.03 per-email for 500 or fewer)
  • one-month free trial
  • reporting tools
  • set-up limited to Internet Explorer or FireFox browsers
  • can be integrated with Vista Print website (if you have one)

Mail Chimp

  • monthly plan or pay as you go
  • monthly plan: $10 for 500 or fewer
  • PAYG: .03 per email for small batches (uses a prepaid credit system)
  • RSS to email list
  • no call center phone support
  • offers Mail Chimp Expert, service that will do all the work for you
  • lots of marketing tools: segmentation, analytics (many of which I don’t understand)

I decided to go with Vertical Response because I need a pay-as-you-go option for infrequent mailings. Vista Print offers that option, but it’s more expensive, and Mail Chimp (will little customer support) is not for beginners like me. If you know what you’re doing and need RSS feeds, then Mail Chimp is probably a great option. Vertical Response also had direct-mail post cards, which I might use someday, and also has a good reputation in the writing community.

What service do you use? Are you happy with it?

L.J. Sellers is the author of the bestselling Detective Jackson mystery/suspense series: The Sex Club, Secrets to Die For, Thrilled to Death, and Passions of the Dead. For more information, visit: http://ljsellers.com

Hi, I'm Your Competition

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Authors like to talk about how we aren’t all in competition with each other. This is both true and false. There is some truth in it because readers don’t just read ONE author or ONE book ever. (Well, some do, but many do not.) So a reader buying J.R. Ward isn’t going to necessarily not buy me. And many readers read in specific genres, so… for the most part, an author who writes westerns is not going to be competition for an author who writes erotica.

However, human beings have limited resources, both of time and of money. So while it isn’t necessarily true that a reader buying J.R. Ward will never read me… a reader buying and reading 30 different authors who are not me, may not ever read me because they have plenty of other stuff to read that they’re happy with. So yes, other authors are your competition.

Another way to look at this is that if we aren’t all “competing” then why are there bestseller lists? If there is no competition then why does the NYT bestseller list matter to anyone? Why do people scream and jump up and down and tell their friends when they get into the top 100 of the Amazon Kindle store?

Make no mistake… we are in a competitive industry and we are competing. It doesn’t mean the competition has to be nasty or rude. It doesn’t mean we can’t band together with some other authors and help each other out. But it does mean that we need to logically look at the situation and stop pretending the laws of economics somehow mystically don’t apply to us.

Writers are traditionally horrible business people, so it should be no surprise that most have no concept that we are actually in competition with each other.

Many people try to discourage authors from self-publishing with all kinds of fake reasons, but the bottom line is that indie authors pose a threat. Indie authors are ANOTHER layer of competition. When everyone was funneled through the same narrow gates to achieve publication, readers had less choices and there was less competition.

With so few readers compared to other types of entertainment and so many people wanting to write and now self-publish, rest assured, indie authors are a threat. If someone is reading 10 talented indies, that’s less odds they’ll read a NY book, where the author’s contract depends on maintaining a certain level of interest in his or her work.

This isn’t to say readers will read “only” NY books or “only” indie books. It rarely works out that way. But I think it’s important to remember we are ALL competing, whether we like it or not. That’s what business is. A competition.

Indies and trad pubbed authors are all competing for the same limited pool of readers… and a small portion of their available money and time.

So what is the solution to this? It all seems rather grim. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Work on connecting with and finding YOUR readers. Work on building your platform. Focus on YOUR work. It’s competitive, but everything in life human beings actually WANT to do is competitive. If you don’t like the nature of competition, apply to be a janitor. It’s probably less competitive.

 

This is a reprint from the Weblog of Zoe Winters.

The ISBN Ownership Question

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In preparing to publish my first print-on-demand book I’ve had to confront a number of issues. Along with formatting and pricing and cover design I’ve gone back and forth about the ISBN ownership question. In the end I’ve come to a conclusion about ISBN’s that surprises me a bit, but I think I’m right. And if I’m not right, I don’t think it will cost me anything.

If you don’t know much about ISBN’s, don’t feel bad. I didn’t know anything about them until a year ago, when I set out to learn what I could. It’s a measure of how naive I was that I thought ISBN’s were some sort of quasi-governmental tracking number. In fact, ISBN’s are a product sold by the monopolistic R.R. Bowker company (which doesn’t go out of its way to make clear that it is not, in fact, a quasi-governmental agency).

I don’t dispute the publishing industry’s need for something like an ISBN. Given that a single book can be published in different versions and editions, and in different languages and countries, there obviously needs to be some way to differentiate between all those variations. If you want the Romanian large-print edition of Moby Dick, you need some means of ordering that ensures you get the version you’re expecting. The ISBN system makes that possible.

I’m also not against the idea that a for-profit company services the ISBN market. I don’t like monopolies, and R.R. Bowker is clearly a monopoly. But every publisher, bookseller and book manufacturer relies on the ISBN numbering system, and until that changes — or somebody shoves the Sherman Anti-Trust Act down Bowker’s throat — there’s no point in fighting the beast. (Some of you are wondering how multiple companies could hand out ISBN’s without the whole system collapsing. It’s a fair question, answered in full by the various companies registering domain names all over the world.)  

Self-Publishing and the ISBN
As someone on the outside looking in, I understand that I need to adapt to the current system. I also understand that the ISBN system wasn’t designed with self-publishing authors in mind, even though Bowker is aggressively promoting ISBN sales to individual authors as that market explodes. If a print-on-demand publisher requires that my book have an ISBN in order to be published, then that’s the end of that conversation.

I’ve also followed a lot of conversations about the importance of the ISBN to the self-published author, and I’m not in any position to dispute the general consensus, which is that the ISBN number of your book is important to success in the marketplace. Still, as a self-publishing author I think it’s important to remember that what I’m doing is not what most people in the greater publishing industry are doing.

I may be looking to use the same sales channels that everybody else is using, and I may be packaging my content in the same delivery vehicle (a book), but in terms of scale there are significant difference that shouldn’t be ignored. I don’t have an assistant or department dedicated to managing ISBN’s. I don’t have plans for multiple versions of my book. I don’t plan to market my book in a way that will drive sales in one big pulse. And most importantly, I don’t have any way to pass along my ISBN costs to someone else.

The ISBN Question
The question, then, is not whether to use an ISBN because use is compelled. For me, and for many people publishing through services like CreateSpace, the question is whether to buy ISBN’s directly from Bowker or to use ISBN’s provided by the print-on-demand manufacturer. Purchasing one’s own ISBN means ownership and control of the associated metadata. But there’s cost involved, and for many people that cost may not be trivial. CreateSpace provides ISBN’s free to people using its service, but it owns those numbers and the associated metadata.

It’s not an easy question to answer. I went back and forth on this issue for over a year. My instinct is to always make sure I own and control the information that matters to my writing career. Because there’s nothing more central to that ethos than controlling one’s own copyrights, it seems to me that owning one’s own ISBN’s (and controlling the associated metadata) is a good idea.

But. In what I can only describe as a surprise I recently decided that my instinct in this case is wrong. Or, more accurately, the instinct is a good one, but reality is at odds with my philosophical beliefs. The question is not whether I should buy my own ISBN’s or not, but whether the expense is worth it. All things being equal, yes: I would want to own my own ISBN numbers. But all things aren’t equal.

The ISBN Answer
Currently, a single ISBN costs $125. Whatever Bowker’s direct costs in delivering that computer-generated number to me, $125 is not a small amount.

As I said in the previous post, any potential publishing expense can be judged relative to the number of copies that need to be sold in order to recoup that expense. Whatever per-copy royalty I expect from my book, buying my own ISBN is going to cost me money and obligate me to make more sales in order to break even. Using the free ISBN provided by CreateSpace will cost me nothing. And the more I think about self-publishing, and how critical it is for self-published authors to control their costs, the more convinced I am that cost is the only criteria that matters in this case.

Now, at this point proponents of owning one’s own ISBN’s would point out that a block of ten ISBN’s can be purchased from Bowker for $250, or a per-number cost of $25. And yes, I agree that’s a substantial savings over the monpolistically inflated and absolutely indefensible single-ISBN cost of $125. But in order to achieve those savings the self-published author is obligated to double their up-front ISBN expense, meaning twice as many copies will need to be sold to recoup that initial $250 expense.

So that’s my answer. If the choice is between a free (or inclusive) ISBN and an ISBN that I have to pay for myself, then I’m taking the free ISBN on that basis alone. As a self-publishing author I think there are reasons to doubt the value of ISBN ownership all together, and I detail those below. But the bottom line for me is that every penny I save on publishing costs means fewer books I’ll need to sell in order to make a profit, and from a business perspective I can’t deny that logic.

The Value of an ISBN
Again: the question is not whether to have an ISBN, it’s whether to pay for one. I’m making a judgment based on dollars alone — a judgment I believe best protects my interests as an author and business person. I’m not giving ownership of my copyrights away, or in any way letting someone control my work. I’m not locking myself into a proprietary relationship with CreateSpace, because at any point I can buy my own ISBN and release a new edition using that identifier. What I’m doing is saving money.

Those who advocate for author ownership of ISBN’s would say that I’m either putting myself at risk or losing the ability to control my sales channel, but I don’t see that. I’ve looked, I’ve listened to all the arguments, and right now, with my book, I can’t see any value in owning my own ISBN’s that compensates me adequately for the cost.

Specifically:

  • How many people are ever going to ask for my book at a bookstore or search for it online using an ISBN number? I say none, ever.
     
  • How many times have I ever used an ISBN to order or locate a book? Never. Not once in my entire life.
     
  • How many times have I gone to a bookstore looking for a book and had someone ask me for an ISBN? Never.
     
  • How many times have I heard an independent author say that ISBN ownership was critical to their success? Almost never. (The only examples I can recall involve vanity publishers who used control of an ISBN to push an author around. Yes, in such instances I sure it was a relief to be able to buy one’s own ISBN, but I’m not coming from a place of abuse.)
     
  • The people advocating for direct ownership of ISBN’s are either R.R. Bowker or people who make their living selling metadata services to authors and publishers. I don’t fault these people for their views, and I don’t discount their expertise, but I’m not in the business of making other people rich at the expense of my authorial health.
     
  • As already noted, if something changes and I need my own ISBN, I can create a new edition of my book and buy an ISBN. The choice I’m making now will not prevent me from doing anything in the future.
     
  • Making my book available is the most important thing. It opens doors with readers and makes my work available to people who might be looking for content. If somebody else wants to publish my work or translate it or adapt it in another medium then I can revisit the question of ISBN ownership at that time, if its even necessary. In the meantime I’m not out $125, or $250 if I do the ‘smart’ thing.
     
  • The ISBN system was created in the pre-internet days. It solves a problem related to tracking and inventory, not a problem related to marketing and sales. The modern internet search engine, primed with a few keywords, can now connect 99.99% of the people who want to find my title with a point of sale. What else do I need?

Speaking of internet searches, this is a good time to remind readers that the importance and utility of your online presence and author platform obliterates the importance of questions like ISBN ownership. Given the choice between spending $125 on a year of site hosting or an ISBN, the greater value is in the site hosting by a factor of a zillion.

The Internet as Metadata
As testament to that fact, if you type ‘Mark Barrett’ into the Google search bar you’ll see that I show up on the second page of hits. Type in ‘Mark Barrett’ + ‘writer’ and I show up as the first hit on the first page, and on five of the ten hits on that page. Type in ‘Mark Barrett’ + ‘story’ and I’m again the first hit, as well as four of the first ten. Type in ‘Mark Barrett’ + ‘elm’ (from the title of my short story collection, The Year of the Elm), and I show up as the first six hits on the first page. Finally, type in Ditchwalk (as if you somehow couldn’t remember how to find my site from that word) and my site or my name or something about a post I wrote shows up in nine of the first ten hits.

As an independent author (or artist of any kind) you will almost always struggle to meet your economic needs. It’s the nature of the beast, and the price to be paid for following your heart and staying true to your convictions. Every dollar you can avoid spending keeps your dreams alive and makes it possible to write another day, hour or minute. Spending money on an ISBN when you don’t have to makes no sense to me. If I’m wrong about that, if something changes, or if my decision hurts me in some way I’ll follow up. But for the time being, that money is staying in my pocket.

* Bowker sells ISBN’s in various blocks. The largest block is 1,000 ISBN’s for $1,000, or a dollar each. That’s how CreateSpace can provide a free ISBN to me: it only costs them a buck and they can easily recoup that cost in their fees. I see no reason why Bowker should be able to prohibit a third-party registrar from purchasing ISBN’s in blocks of 1,000 and then selling them singly or in groups for whatever the market would bear. I’m sure Bowker would fight the idea tooth and nail (and probably already has), but given how quickly the self-publishing movement has grown and evolved, even over the past year, I think it’s an idea whose time has come. Either that, or Bowker’s monopoly should be given a much closer look by the United States Department of Justice.

 

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

The Cult Of The Book—And Why It Must End

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This article, by Jeffrey R. Di Leo, originally appeared on The Chronicle of Higher Education site on 9/26/10.

The culture of the book in American higher education is in crisis. New e-reader technology, coupled with the rising cost of print production and the shrinking budgets of university presses and libraries, has led many academics to fret about the future of the book. They are right to worry. The culture of the book—the culture in which most scholars have built their careers—is no longer tenable, a reality that resonates with implications for research, tenure, and promotion. To move forward, academe must transform itself from a fundamentally print culture to one that is fundamentally digital.

The reasons are obvious. Paper-and-ink books are more expensive to produce (and reproduce) than their digital doubles, and more difficult to disseminate, search, and recycle. In short, digital books are more affordable, accessible, and environmentally friendly. So why has academe been slow to embrace digital publishing? Why, for example, do many in the academy discriminate against digital content by demanding that it also be available in print, as if only a print version can legitimate its digital double?

Many concerns about the intellectual quality of digital publications are valid, and digital content can be easier to plagiarize. But those concerns are historical, not permanent. There is nothing intrinsically inferior about spreading knowledge on a screen rather than on a printed page, and plagiarism is an ethical issue, not a material one. Words may look better in print, and a book may feel better in your hands than a Kindle or an iPad, but the words are the same.

The real difference—the real reason that academe has been slow to embrace digitization—is cultural, not material: an attitude rooted in the belief that the printed book is intrinsic to scholarship. Ink is permanent; pixels are impermanent, or so the argument goes. This perspective is not an ontological or metaphysical one: People who believe that books are permanent do not believe that books can’t be destroyed. Rather, they believe that the comfortable manner in which readers approach a paper-and-ink object is fundamentally different from the attitude they bring to a digital copy. These attitudes are the products of cultural conditioning and habit.

 

Read the rest of the article on The Chronicle of Higher Education.

15 Commandments For Writers

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This post, by Bill Walker, originally appeared on his site on 12/3/10.

I posted these once before and thought now would be a good time to re-post them. I don’t who the original author of these commandments is so if you do please let me know so I can give the author appropriate credit.

As you set your writing goals for the new year, stop and think about this list of commandments for writers.  Which one(s) do you need to work on?

  1. Thou shalt think like a professional, starting now.

  2. Thou shalt begin and keep going till you’re through.
     
  3. Thou shalt take your efforts and desires seriously.
     
  4. Thou shalt call it work.
     
  5. Thou shalt write for yourself, not the market.

  6. Thou shalt not wait for visits from the muse.
     
  7. Thou shalt not ask whether you are good enough.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes ten more writer commandments, on Bill Walker‘s site.

Staying Committed To Writing

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This can be a problem for all writers–neophytes or old pros and all in between. It includes writers block, but it also touches on staying motivated. How can you stay on project until it’s done? Consider bloggers and columnists who must pump out content against deadlines, sometimes for years.

Think of a Dave Barry or Erma Bombeck, who had to produce columns that were interesting and funny. How did they do that? I know, because they were paid to. Even then, it can get old. The following are some ideas to help you keep your writing nib to the grind stone.

Make writing a routine in your life and fence in that time slot. Whether you are writing daily or weekly, try to always write something during that period. Make it a habit–part of your life. Try not to allow interruptions.

Be on the lookout for interesting things happening around you or in the news. Keep a notebook or journal of interesting ideas. Try to never run out of possible content.

Tired of writing? Try ditch digging for a change. You don’t know what you got until you lose it.

If you aren’t writing to a deadline, create one for yourself. Become obsessive about it.

Vary the types of things you write. Don’t allow yourself to become burnt out.

Stop! Smell the roses! Think of what all you’ve done, and then think of what else you need to do.

If you take a break, make sure it doesn’t become an extended one.

If you come to realize you just don’t like to write anymore, quit, but always allow yourself to do it again later if the urge comes on.

Writing is but one means to express yourself. Consider the other arts and consider whether they can be blended into your writing. i.e., become a song writer or an art critic.

Finally, constantly challenge yourself with writing goals and celebrate every time one is attained.

I hope these suggestions provide some ideas of use to you. Remember there’s only one way to learn how to write–just do it, the more the better.

 

This is a reprint from Bob Spear‘s Book Trends.

7 Ways to Get Your Book Discovered on Amazon

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This  post is part of the virtual book tour for How to Sell More Books on Amazon, by Dana Lynn Smith.

With a vast selection of 14 million books listed on Amazon.com, it can be a challenge to get your book noticed by shoppers on the site. Here are seven ways to help customers find you and your book on Amazon:

1. Use Keywords in the Title and Subtitle of Your Book

Many shoppers search for books on Amazon by doing keyword searches, so it’s important to use relevant keywords in the title and/or subtitle of your book.

If you’re publishing in Kindle format, it’s easy to add a subtitle if the book doesn’t already have one, and there’s also a keyword area on the publishing dashboard where you can input keywords.

2. Tag Your Book with Keywords

Another way to take advantage of keyword searches is to add keywords through Amazon’s Tag feature.

On your book sales page, scroll down to the "Tags Customers Associate With This Product" area and add keywords that people might use in searching for a book such as yours. When you ask people to post reviews of your book on Amazon.com, ask them to also click on the appropriate tags (each click gives the tag one vote) or add new tags.

The tag feature works for fiction as well. Adding tags can help shoppers find your book when they search for things like "cozy mystery set in the South" or "children’s books about horses".

3. Post Reviews of Other Products

Posting reviews of other related books and products is a good way to get visibility for yourself and your book. You’ll get exposure through the "signature" at the top of your profile and you can also make subtle references in your review to the fact that you are an author or expert on the topic.

4. Publish in Kindle Format

There are more than 720,000 ebooks available in the Kindle store, and the number is rising rapidly. But that’s still far fewer than the 14 million print book listings on Amazon.com, giving you a greater chance of being found.

5. Create Lists and Guides

You can get visibility on the Amazon sales pages of competing or complementary books by creating Listmania® lists or "So You’d Like To" guides. These features let you create a list of books on a particular topic or genre, including your own book.

6. Enhance Your Personal Profile on Amazon

In your personal profile on Amazon, you can post your photo, a description of yourself and your book, and even a link to your website. Be sure create a "signature" with the name of your book or your area of expertise, because the signature will appear, along with your name, at the top of each product review that you post on Amazon. For example, my signature is "The Savvy Book Marketer."

7. Participate in Amazon Customer Communities

Check the Customer Discussions section of your own book sales page or the pages of competing books and look for discussions that you can contribute to, without being overtly promotional. For nonfiction authors, this is a way to demonstrate your expertise in a subject.

To learn more about using these tactics to get your book discovered on Amazon, read How to Sell More Books on Amazon. This new ebook, available in both PDF and Kindle format, outlines strategies for boosting visibility on Amazon.com, increasing sales, and improving profits. For more book marketing tips, follow BookMarketer on Twitter and get Dana’s free Top Book Marketing Tips ebook at www.TheSavvyBookMarketer.com

Self-Publishing and Distribution: Jacqueline Simonds of Beagle Bay Books, Part 1

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Today I’m interviewing Jacqueline Simonds of Beagle Bay, Inc. I met Jacqueline on Twitter, and because she is the distributor of Pete Masterson’s Book Design and Production for Authors and Publishers.

New self-publishers have a lot of trouble figuring out how book distribution works. Jacqueline, a self-published author, has a unique view on distribution, and carries books by a number of self-published authors.

Here’s a chance to get the story on book distribution from someone who is on the front lines every day. This is a great opportunity so I hope you’ll follow along for both days. It’s well worth it.

Jacqueline also sent along this note:

First, it must be noted that Beagle Bay, Inc is winding down its distribution services. As I will explain a little further into this, we feel that for most self-publishers, using Ingram’s Lightning Source International Print-on-Demand and Direct Distribution is a great way to leverage a start-up publishing company. Our business model has always been about helping small publishing start-ups, so we are making the transition to an all-consultation company.

So although you may not be able to use Beagle Bay to distribute your book, we get to reap the wisdom Jacqueline has gained as a long-time publishing professional with a deep understanding of the self-publisher’s situation.

Because this interview ran very long, I’ve split it into two posts. The second half will run tomorrow. Here’s Part 1:

Not many kids dream of becoming book distributors when they grow up. How did you find yourself in this business?

Ha! No, I never imagined myself as a distributor!

All I wanted to do, back in 1999, was to get my novel, Captain Mary, Buccaneer, into print. But back then, there was no Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean, and no publishing house could imagine why an adult would want to read about pirates. Particularly, a woman pirate.

Jacqueline Simonds Beagle Bay Books self-publishing

So I learned the ins and outs of self-publishing. Fairly soon, we were approached by someone with another women pirate novel, and we published that. Then we published 3 more books.

We were lucky enough to get into the book industry when Ingram and Baker & Taylor (the two biggest wholesalers) were testing the waters with the big new wave of self-publishers. They allowed us to play on the same playing field as the big guys. But by 2002, Ingram decided they didn’t want to deal with anyone with fewer than 10 books and $20,000 a year in sales with them. We squeaked in, but a lot of people were thrown out.

At the same time, a lot of smaller distributors went under. This left a lot of self- and small publishers with no distribution (and sometimes having to buy their books back from a bankruptcy court). One such person was a friend of one of our authors, and convinced us to distribute her good-selling travel book. We took it on. And then someone else heard about that. And then someone else…

Voila! We were in the distribution business!

Can you explain the difference between and distributor and a wholesaler?

A wholesaler acquires books from publishers and distributors and sells them to a retailer. Basically, wholesalers aggregate goods so that a retailer has broader access to – in this case – numerous book titles.

A distributor takes on many publishers to get their books into as many wholesalers (and retailers) as possible. For self-and small publishers, this is an important function. Retailers and wholesalers tend to ignore a one-book press. Retailers especially hate writing multiple checks to tiny little publishers (and given that the owner is often the bookkeeper & cleaning person, you can see why they do). Getting into a distributor allows you to leverage your tiny company so that it has as much access to the book trade as, say, Random House. (Note that access does not mean sales.)

Distributors take in pallets of books from the publisher, do all the accounting, inventory management, shipping, and accepting returns.

Distributors discount the book at 65-70% off list price. This breaks down as such: 10-15% of the list price goes to the distributor; 15% goes to the wholesaler; 40% of that discount goes to the retailer. [In most retail businesses goods are marked up 100-1500%. This is why bookstores are failing. There’s simply not enough margin.]

Wholesalers may take as few as 1 copy of a title to fulfill orders from retailers. Shipping “onesies” is too expensive to sustain. This is why your title mixed with others by a distributor helps lower your costs.

For a lengthier discussion, please see my webpage about the pros and cons of each here: New Self-Publisher’s FAQ

Can you tell us a little of your experience with subsidy publishers?

I have little experience with subsidy publishers. A book produced via a subsidy press cannot be distributed to the author’s fiscal gain. That’s because the per book (unit) cost is so high, there’s no room for the 70% charged by a distributor.

The two other problems I have run into with clients who have used subsidy press services are that a) the subsidy press owns the ISBN (so the metadata points to them, instead of the actual publisher/author), and b) at one point, two subsidy presses locked up authors into 20-year contracts and a written release had to be acquired. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.

Unless you are only producing 10 books for your family, I would avoid a subsidy press.

Is traditional distribution right for today’s self-publisher or start-up small press?

For almost all self-publishers, I recommend that they reject the traditional distribution model.

Traditional distribution demands that a publisher print AT LEAST 1000 offset printed copies, arrange storage with a distributor and take returns. That’s a lot of upfront money to tie up on a risky venture. Although we all hope to sell scads of our wonderful, terrific book, hoping is not really a good business model.

For almost all self-publishers, I recommend that they reject the traditional distribution model.

A more conservative business model is to produce the book via Ingram Wholesale’s Lightning Source International, the largest digital print-on-demand facility in the world.

  • The pro: While as a digital printer, their prices are very competitive (most subsidy printers use LSI, so why not just go to the source?), they also offer distribution to the book trade: other wholesalers, libraries, bookstores and e-stores.
  • The con: Because it is digital, the per book printing cost is higher, but there is no shipping to a warehouse (and the fees that entails), then shipping to a destination. The book is only produced when there’s an order, and shipped at no cost to that destination (unless you are ordering a quantity for yourself). So the higher cost balances out.

If you select the distribution model, they will charge 55% off the list price of the book to ship to wholesalers & stores. You will also need to accept returns, if you intend to make the book available to bookstores.

Not aiming at bookstores or libraries? It’s probably smarter to go to Amazon’s CreateSpace (affiliate) and have the book done there. Then it will be available on Amazon (and they can send you copies). You can specify no returns and only a 20% discount.

Your business model is the only way you can make these choices. If you know absolutely (not just hope, but have the pre-orders/demand) that you can sell 3000 copies of your book in the first year, then you need to do the traditional distribution route (get a distributor, print the books offset). This method is a lower cost per unit, but a higher cost per distribution. If you expect to sell directly to your customer (and that includes Amazon), then there’s no reason to do anything else besides CreateSpace.

Most start-up self-publishers are wise to select the LSI printing route. This gives the book the optimum chance to succeed in the highly competitive book world (1 million books per year are published – and it’s not a meritocracy). If the book doesn’t succeed, then the publisher has exposed her/himself to a lower risk/loss. If the book does take off (sells more than 1000 in 2 quarters), the publisher can always switch to the traditional method of distribution and printing.

What kind of books do you distribute?

We started with women’s historical adventure fiction. Then one day we realized that the non-fiction was outselling the fiction 10-to-1. So we stopped accepting fiction.

We changed to Women’s Issues – which is broad enough to cover a lot of bases (I like what I like and love to work with new publishers on a great book). We also have done a lot with travel (who does most of the travel planning in a household? Right. Women).

What are the criteria you are looking for when deciding whether to take on a publisher as a distribution client?

Like many distributors, we only take a book 4-6 months before it is published. We do this because we assist in getting the book into pre-publication reviewers (like Publishers Weekly and Library Journal) for a chance at a review that can build strong sales at the book launch. Libraries especially do not buy unless they see a review in Library Journal or Booklist – and this can mean 1000 or more books sold. So it’s worth the hassle of getting galleys and sending the book out 4 months before the publication date.

I want to see books that have a new, needed approach to a subject. Understanding the audience is a key factor here.

The two key things I look for with a new book are:

  1. What’s it about – and who does it serve? If the book is just another naval-gazing self-absorbed memoir, I don’t have time for it –and neither does the industry. If the book was produced in the absence of any research or understanding of the facts, I have no interest. I want to see books that have a new, needed approach to a subject. Understanding the audience is a key factor here. If the author/publisher can tell me, “this book addresses the 18-34 age group of women who have burning questions about how ____ affects their lives – and what to do about it” I’m all ears. It doesn’t hurt to have a blurb (endorsement) or foreword by someone pretty big in the field.
     
  2. The other thing that I look at is the marketing plan. How is the author/publisher going to make the world aware of this book? As I’ve mentioned before, the book trade is not a meritocracy. Just because your book is the very best on the subject, it doesn’t mean a mediocre book by someone published by Random House wouldn’t completely obliterate your title. How can you reach your audience/customer directly in a way Random et al can’t? I want to see concrete steps and work you’ve already done to make that happen, even before the book is out.

In cases where publishers are moving from a digital to an offset print model, I would want to see sales trends and how the publisher was going to sustain and grow those numbers.

Which self-published books are most successful in your kind of distribution?

I used to think I had an idea of what kind of self-pubbed books sold and which didn’t. Since then, I’ve seen people succeed wildly with books I wouldn’t have given 10 minutes to. The single common factor to success was great marketing and the author never, ever gave up.

In general, though, I’d say that poetry, memoirs and novels are the very hardest things to succeed at. Non-fiction – and topics that fill a niche not being currently served – is the best path to success. It’s not easy finding that sweet spot.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: see part two of this interview, also]

 

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

If You Haven't Caught On To Smashwords, You've Dropped The Ball

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I know a lot of the visitors to this blog are authors and many of you already use Smashwords. Any fans will know that we at Edward G. Talbot launched our first two ebooks last spring via Smashwords. Some of you may not know about Smashwords however. I’m here to tell you that you need to.

Smashwords is of course the place that allows you to publish your ebook to ALL of the major ebook retailers. Smashwords charges nothing up front, merely takes a small cut of any sales. Their site will automatically get your book into all the different ebook formats. You can charge any price you like, including giving the book away. In short, it’s a no-brainer.

Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords has put together a short presentation about Smashwords. Check it out. Then check them out

Introduction to Smashwords – Ebook Publishing and Distribution Made Easy

 

This is a cross-posting from the Edward G. Talbot blog.

Reading in the Digital Age, or, Reading How We’ve Always Read

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This post, from Kassia Krozser, originally appeared on her Booksquare site on 11/30/10.

As much as the idea of enhanced ebooks brings the sexy to publishing, it doesn’t really do much for most of the books published. Enhanced, enriched, transmedia, multimedia…these are ideas best applied to those properties that lend themselves to multimedia experience (or, ahem, the associated price tag). While many focus on the bright and shiny (and mostly unfulfilled) promised of apps and enhanced ebooks, the smart kids are looking at the power of social reading.

Social reading is normal reading. It’s how we already read in an offline world, and, yes, how we read in an online world. First, some historical context, all stuff that is well known. In the beginning, humans told stories around campfires*. The storytelling happened in group situations, with some stories passed from campfire to campfire, and eventually the woolly mammoth the hunter felled was a large as the Titanic. Some stories became institutionalized — myths, biblical stories, parables. Others, well, they never really gained market share.

Hmm, publishing, the early days.

Time passed. We developed alphabets, we coalesced around local language standards, we wrote stuff down, but the process was laborious (think rocks) or fragile (think parchment) or valuable (think illuminated manuscripts). These printed stories (using both words broadly), fiction and non-fiction, were not possessed in great numbers by common folk. Reading, or sharing of stories, was done in groups, except for those ancient-times-us who wrote stories in their heads (go ancient-times-us!).

Even after the invention of the Gutenberg press, the possession of books was outside the reach of most people. We moved from campfires to candlelight, while the act of reading remained a social activity. The tradition of people reading to each other remains alive and well. I cannot think of the stories of the knights of the Round Table without remembering my mother reading them aloud to four impressionable minds. Likewise, when I remember “reading” The Island of the Blue Dolphins for the first time, I remember my third grade teacher’s voice as she read it to us.

And with the reading, of course, comes the book discussion.

 

Read the rest of the post on Booksquare.

A Writer's Night Before Christmas

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In honor of the holiday season, I’m digging up this old chestnut from last year. I hope you enjoy it!

Twas the night before Christmas and all through my draft
Were examples of my inattention to craft
My characters all hung about without care,
In hopes that a plot point soon would be there.
 

My family were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of red herrings danced in my head.
The dog on its blanket, and the cat in my lap
Had just settled themselves for a long winter’s nap.


When on my computer there showed a blue screen!
(And if you use a PC, then you know what that means.)
Away to the cell phone I flew like a flash;
I dialed tech support and broke out in a rash.


The sales pitch that played while on hold I waited
Ensured my tech guy would be roundly berated.
That is, if he ever should come on the line.
And for this, per minute, it’s one-ninety-nine!


“Good evening,” he said, in a Punjab accent,
“I am happy to help you, and my name is Kent.”
More rapid than the Concorde was his troubleshoot,
I was back up and running, after one last reboot!


"Now Gaiman! Now, Atwood! Now, Cheever and Austen!
Salinger! O’Connor! Shakespeare and Augusten (Burroughs)!
Don’t withhold your wisdom! Upon me, bestow it!
Inspire me! Show me how best not to blow it!"


To their books I turned for some worthy advice;
I was pumped to return to my work in a trice.
So across clacking keyboard my fingers they flew,
With a speed and a passion—and no typos, too.


Hour after hour, the prose kept on flowing,
Though I had no idea where my story was going.
“But write it, I must!” I decided right then.
I resolved to see this project through to the end.


At one a.m. the second act came together,
At two I knew this book was better than ever!
My hero had purpose, my plot had no slack.
I cut my “B” story and never looked back!


I got up to make coffee at quarter to three;
Curses! My spouse left no Starbucks for me!
With instant crystals I’d have to make do.
Cripes! He used all of the half and half, too!


“I could add some Kahlua,” I told myself.
“There’s a big, honking bottle right there on the shelf.”
So I added a splash. And then a splash more.
At five, I finally came to on the floor.


With more Kahlua than coffee in the cup nearby,
An idea for the third act I wanted to try.
Werewolves! In high school! And vampires, as well!
It worked for that Meyer chick, my book’s a sure sell!


I tied up the plot in a neat little a bow,
With the arrival of aliens, and giant worms from below.
Defeated were foes of the Earth and the sky,
And thousands of townsfolk did not have to die.


With the Kahlua bottle all but drained,
I turned to do the last bit of work that remained.
To this one tradition, I was happy to bend.
Two carriage returns, all in caps: THE END. 

To Facebook I sprang, to announce I was through.
From thence, on to Twitter, and MySpace too.
But lo, I exclaimed as my face met the sun,
"Twenty-four days late, my NaNoWriMo is done!"

 

Is Speech Recognition Software The Next Step In Writing?

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I think any writer can tell you that, when you stop writing, life becomes nothing but shades of grey. That’s what my last few weeks have been — nothing but shades of grey. In short I’ve been miserable. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write. It’s just that I’ve been very busy. I usually have just enough time to juggle all my responsibilities, including working on my current project, but I’ve recently picked up a few hours at work and its severely limited my time.

And so I am once again faced with trying to find a creative work around to my lack of time. I’ve heard that voice recognition software can really speed up the process of writing. However, as I test this new software today, I’m finding it more than challenging. Why? Because I’m used to letting the words flow through my fingers and talking in my head, not out loud. I’ve found staring at a blank screen to be daunting as I try to decide what words to say. I usually close my eyes and “let my fingers do the walking,” but with speech recognition software you have to keep track of what the machine is doing. (Of course, that could just be the perfectionist in me. :P )

I have to wonder if this software is more for people like my husband who likes to talk things out rather than write. He’s a very auditory person. I’m very visual. In fact when I talk in my head I actually see the words as they float by. Strange, I know, but then I wouldn’t be a writer if I weren’t a little strange.

So far I’ve spent more time trying to get this software to do what I want than getting any work done. It would’ve been faster to type this than use voice recognition. Still, I don’t like to give up on something new, so I’ll go through some training with my computer and give it a little more time before I decide to chuck it all.

I’m curious to know, is there any writer out there who thinks voice recognition software is the greatest thing since sliced bread? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Is this the next step from pen to typewriter to computer to speech on The Road to Writing?

 

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

Finished NaNoWriMo – Lessons Learned

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I’m back after missing a few Tuesday posts. My competitive side came out while I tried to prove to myself I could succeed at this contest. On Sunday, I pasted into the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) site what is to be my next book. I modestly put 51,900 words in my word estimate updater. The validater totaled 52,028 words. That puts me well over the 50,000 I needed. According to the site that makes me a winner along with most of the 36,000 plus other contestants.
 

Last year, I entered and didn’t have half the words I needed by the end of November. However, that contest was a good learning experience to prepare me for this year. I learned from the 2009 entry what I needed to do to compete in this contest and make it to the finish line. For one thing, I have been too used to going over what I’ve written to correct the first time around as I go. Over the years, I’ve entered many writing contests. All the elements that go into a story has to be perfect in order to place. So last time, I didn’t pay attention to the fact the contest information states that the book can be poorly written and should be to get done by the end of the month. How sloppy the sentence structure or how poor the details are doesn’t matter. That can be taken care of after the contest. All right so this time I got it.

Stick-to-itness and watching the words add up are a must. I checked after each writing session to see how many words I’d written. A writer has to average close to 12,000 or over a week to be able to finish a winner. When I hadn’t made that goal by the end of a week, I knew I had to buckle down and continue until I had the amount of words I needed. Then I could stop, rest and get ready to start over the next day. So what if I wasn’t at my brightest when I slaved away at the keyboard, trying to make the 12,000 words a week. All I had to do was keep in mind that I was allowed to be a sloppy writer on this contest entry. No one was going to hold it against me.

I excused last year that I had too many interruptions in November to write. I found this November wasn’t any different. The key is I was prepared for the interruptions and didn’t let those distractions stop me from working when I was home. That meant cutting down to the minimal amount of distractions. For instance, I really did need to go grocery shopping or keep a dental appointment. One cut was not making blog posts most of the month. Writing a post doesn’t take me long, but my dial up Internet connection is slow. It takes a morning and sometimes a day to download the post on my various blogs. While I was writing I kept away from the telephone as much as possible. Time to chat is now that I’m done with the contest.

Turns out, I have done much the same sort of writing with all my other books. I just didn’t think about the time it took to get to the finished version. For one thing, I don’t have a deadline so the days melt into months while I work on a story and rework it and eventually the book is done. I like it that way, but this contest was an incentive to keep working.

NaNoWriMo is certainly a way to motivate authors as long as they have a basic outline or plan in their head for the story. That means start giving some thought to what you want to write about in October. Once the contest starts, there isn’t any time to have writer’s block. The great thing about this contest is whether I got to the 50,000 word finish line or not, I could considered the process a great writing exercise and a portion of a book done.

Now comes the real work. I’ve got to edit the entry, rewrite and delete many words in the sloppy sentence structures. Wouldn’t be surprised if I chop out half of the entry, but that’s all right. The basic story is still there and one of these days I’ll have a book completed.

  

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

Finished NaNoWriMo Contest A Winner

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I’m back after missing a few Tuesday posts. My competitive side came out while I tried to prove to myself I could succeed at this contest. On Sunday, I pasted into the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) site what is to be my next book. I modestly put 51,900 words in my word estimate updater. The validater totaled 52,028 words. That puts me well over the 50,000 I needed. According to the site that makes me a winner along with most of the 36,000 plus other contestants.

Last year, I entered and didn’t have half the words I needed by the end of November. However, that contest was a good learning experience to prepare me for this year. I learned from the 2009 entry what I needed to do to compete in this contest and make it to the finish line. For one thing, I have been too used to going over what I’ve written to correct the first time around as I go. Over the years, I’ve entered many writing contests. All the elements that go into a story has to be perfect in order to place. So last time, I didn’t pay attention to the fact the contest information states that the book can be poorly written and should be to get done by the end of the month. How sloppy the sentence structure or how poor the details are doesn’t matter. That can be taken care of after the contest. All right so this time I got it.

Stick-to-itness and watching the words add up are a must. I checked after each writing session to see how many words I’d written. A writer has to average close to 12,000 or over a week to be able to finish a winner. When I hadn’t made that goal by the end of a week, I knew I had to buckle down and continue until I had the amount of words I needed. Then I could stop, rest and get ready to start over the next day. So what if I wasn’t at my brightest when I slaved away at the keyboard, trying to make the 12,000 words a week. All I had to do was keep in mind that I was allowed to be a sloppy writer on this contest entry. No one was going to hold it against me.

I excused last year that I had too many interruptions in November to write. I found this November wasn’t any different. The key is I was prepared for the interruptions and didn’t let those distractions stop me from working when I was home. That meant cutting down to the minimal amount of distractions. For instance, I really did need to go grocery shopping or keep a dental appointment. One cut was not making blog posts most of the month. Writing a post doesn’t take me long, but my dial up Internet connection is slow. It takes a morning and sometimes a day to download the post on my various blogs. While I was writing I kept away from the telephone as much as possible. Time to chat is now that I’m done with the contest.

Turns out, I have done much the same sort of writing with all my other books. I just didn’t think about the time it took to get to the finished version. For one thing, I don’t have a deadline so the days melt into months while I work on a story and rework it and eventually the book is done. I like it that way, but this contest was an incentive to keep working.

NaNoWriMo is certainly a way to motivate authors as long as they have a basic outline or plan in their head for the story. That means start giving some thought to what you want to write about in October. Once the contest starts, there isn’t any time to have writer’s block. The great thing about this contest is whether I got to the 50,000 word finish line or not, I could considered the process a great writing exercise and a portion of a book started.

Now comes the real work. I’ve got to edit the entry, rewrite and delete many words in the sloppy sentence structures. Wouldn’t be surprised if I chop out half of the entry, but that’s all right. The basic story is still there and one of these days I’ll have a book completed.