Is There A Point Of Critical Mass In Marketing A Book When It Begins To Sell Itself?

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At the beginning of September I made a pledge to myself to cut back on marketing, step up my writing, and see what effect this had on my sales. So how did I do?

 

Well, I wasn’t completely successful in terms of writing. A trip, a cold, several sets of papers to grade became useful excuses not to write, but I did write 2,000 more words, and have 5 chapters of Uneasy Spirits, my sequel to Maids of Misfortune, completed. More importantly, I am much more engaged in the process of writing. For those of you who have read my earlier posts, you know that I wrote the first draft of Maids of Misfortune 20 years before I actually published it.

 

Well, I also outlined the plot of Uneasy Spirits many years ago, so it has taken me awhile to reacquaint myself with that plot. (This is a good point for outlines-without that outline I suspect much of the plot would have been lost to me in those intervening years.) While I haven’t written a lot this month, I have spent hours each day fleshing out existing characters, creating new ones, researching historical details, deciding where in the San Francisco of 1879 everyone was living, and getting excited about  being back in that world, creating again. Time well spent.

 

Time I now had because I stuck to my plan to limit the amount of time I spent marketing. I only checked my list of updated blog postings on GoogleReads in the early mornings and late evenings. I still commented on posts occasionally-finding that particularly early in the morning I might find a posting that had been made over night where I could be one of the first commentators. I also wrote to a few bookstores in San Francisco about selling my book, and I now have an offer from a San Francisco store, M is for Mystery, to sell Maids of Misfortune on consignment at their booth at the Bouchercon conference this month, which I will be attending.

 

However, what I didn’t do this past month was obsessively check all the reader sites (like GoodReads and Kindle Boards) and writer sites (like Absolute Write) every day, looking for a reason to comment. I rarely tweeted or updated facebook, and I didn’t post on my blog, The Front Parlor, at all. And yet my sales numbers went up.

 

In August, I sold on average 11 books a day, for a total of 332 books sold. In September, when I limited my marketing endeavors, I sold on average 13 books a day, with a total of 441 books sold.

 

Why do I think this happened (less marketing, more sales?) Well, one reason is that 75% of the books I sold, were sold on Kindle, and this has kept me continuously at number one in the historical mystery best-seller list on Kindle. So, if a person is looking for an historical mystery on Kindle, they can’t help but discover my book. In addition, since I continue to have a 85-90 % sell through rate (ie if a customer clicks on my product page they go on to buy the book), finding my book seems to mean they will buy it, which keeps it at the top of the list of best sellers. Which means that it continues to be found-without me doing any additional marketing. The question becomes, does this mean the book now will simply sell itself?

 

If the market for my book was limited, the answer would be no. For example, if all the people who liked historical mysteries, and owned Kindles, were a finite number, eventually that market would be saturated, and my sales would begin to drop. However, since by most accounts, ebooks are the fastest growing sector of books (see for example http://bit.ly/9QyPre), and Kindle still has about 90% of ebook sales (see http://bit.ly/aUtG1t), then the potential market for my book should continue to rise as well. If so, the answer to my question should be yes. My sales should at least remain steady, and perhaps actually rise, without any additional marketing on my behalf.

 

Does this mean I am going to abandon all marketing? Of course not. For example, Amazon ended the discount on my print book this month (heaven only knows why), and my print sales dipped. So, I will continue work to keep my name and my book out there on the internet, and I will accelerate my foray into bookstores, albeit in a very targeted manner. (Once again I am struck by the benefits of being a self-published author. If traditionally published, with the book having been out for over ten months, unsold copies of my book would have been sent back to the publisher, and it would be way too late for me to try to enter the bookstore market.)

 

But more importantly, I now have the confidence to focus the bulk of my energies on completing the next book and writing some additional short stories, and one of the clear lessons I have learned from authors like JA Konrath, is that the most successful marketing strategy is expanded content. Besides, despite the constant refrain that to be a successful author you need to be a successful marketer, writing stories is why I became involved in this endeavor in the first place.

 

So what do you think? Can a ebook and pod book, by a self-published author, get to the point where it sells itself? 

 

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

E-Book Self-Publishing Roundup

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With Borders getting into the act, there will soon be four platforms on which authors can self-publish e-books directly to readers. I summarized them for comparison and thought I would share my findings.

Amazon: Digital Text Platform
This venture has been around the longest, has a reported 76% of e-book sales, and publishes content directly to the Kindle bookstore. Authors can upload a Word, html, or PDF file, which Amazon reformats as mobi file. Or authors can create their own mobi files to upload. The book’s cover must be included in the file.

For books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, Amazon pays a 70% royalty. For everything else, it pays 35% of the list price. Authors can price their books however they want, but Amazon reserves the right to discount the book. To keep the 70% royalty, authors can’t sell their e-book cheaper anywhere else. Amazon pays monthly and deposits royalties directly into the author’s bank account.

Most DTP e-books are purchased by people who own and read on Kindles, but Amazon has released applications that let iPad and mobile phone users buy Kindle books to read on other devices (except those of its competitors: B&N’s Nook and Borders’ Kobo). Authors can track real-time sales through their DTP bookshelf, and no start-up fee is required.

Smashwords
This publishing platform was founded by an individual, and it distributes content to many e-readers (Kindle, Sony, Nook, Kobo, etc.) and other devices (iPad, iPhone). Files must be uploaded as Word documents that must be properly formatted. Authors have complained about the difficulty of getting the Word formatting right and about the “ugliness” of the e-books produced by Smashwords’ software.

Authors can price their book (or short story) however they want, including offering it for free. For content sold directly from its site, Smashwords pays an 85% royalty—minus discounts and processing fees. It pays 70.5% for sales through its affiliates. Smashwords pays on a quarterly basis, 40 days after the close of each quarter. Authors can track their real-time sales on the Smashwords’ dashboard. Most authors report their Smashword sales to be only about 10% of their Kindle sales, but it is a way to reach the most distributors through one publisher.

Barnes & Noble’s PubIt!
The retail bookseller opened this platform recently and publishes an author’s work directly to its PubIt! bookstore, which supplies the Nook e-reader. PubIt! pays a 65% royalty on books priced between $2.99 and $9.99 and 40% on everything else. Authors can set the list price, but B&N reserves the right to change it.

Imitating Amazon’s structure, B&N also pays monthly to the author’s bank account, but a full 60 days after the end of the month. For some reason, PubIt! also requires authors to supply a credit card number. Most of these venues require authors to provide social security numbers so they can report earnings to the IRS. There is no set-up fee.

Borders: Get Published
Trying to get in on the action, Borders has announced an e-book self-publishing platform, scheduled to launch Oct. 25. The venture is a collaboration with BookBrewer, which lets authors copy and paste almost any word content, including blogs (RSS feeds), into its software to create epub files. This venue looks like it will be the easiest for authors who have few technical skills.

Like Smashwords, Borders plans to publish its content to various devices, such as its own Kobo as well as the iPhone, iPad, and Android powered tablets (but not to its competitors: Kindle and Nook). Unlike any others mentioned here, Borders charges a set-up fee of $89.99 to distribute the books. Or it will sell you the e-book file it creates for $199 and you can do whatever you like with it. This makes the venture both a vanity press and an e-book creation service. But keep in mind there are several other e-book creators that offer this service for a lot less money. (Booknook is my personal favorite.) Borders has yet to announce royalty or payment terms.

INgrooves
This is a distribution company, rather than a publishing company. Authors have to supply both mobi and epub files to INgrooves, which then distributes the books to various e-readers and e-books stores, including Amazon, B&N, Sony, and Borders. For authors who want a one-stop experience, this could be the best choice.

Authors set their own prices and choose where they want their book sold. As a distributor with hundreds of books, INgrooves can negotiate higher royalties than an individual author may be offered. INgrooves charges a $50 set-up fee per book and keeps 5% of sales. It pays authors once a month, unless they have less than $200 in sales, then it waits until the author has accumulated $200.

It will be interesting to watch these ventures and see which ones thrive in a market dominated by Amazon.

Authors: What platforms have you used and what has been your experience?

Promote Your Book on the Goodreads Network

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With more than 3 million members, Goodreads is the largest social network for readers. The site is a terrific way for authors (especially fiction authors) to interact with their target audiences through the Goodreads Author Program.

Like other social networks, members join and set up a profile. But the emphasis of this site is on discussing books and sharing book recommendations with others. Members can create a catalog of the books they have read, are currently reading, and plan to read in the future; post reviews; create lists of books; start a book club; join a discussion group; or even contact an author.

To sign up for this free reader network, just enter your name, email, and a password on this page. I recommend setting up your own profile and book catalog and becoming familiar with the site before you get started with the author program.
See this page for details on how to upgrade your account to "author" status. Here are some of the things you can do to promote yourself and your books on Goodreads:

• Post a picture and bio.

• Share your list of favorite books and recent reads with your fans.

• Start a blog or import a feed of your existing blog.

• Publicize upcoming events, such as book signings and speaking engagements.

• Share book excerpts and other writing.

• Write a quiz about your book or a related topic.

• Post videos.

The Goodreads Author Program offers these promotional tools to authors:

• List a book giveaway to generate pre-launch buzz.

• Lead a Q&A discussion group for readers.

• Participate in discussions on your profile, in groups and in the discussion forums for your books.

• Add the Goodreads Author widget to your personal website or blog to show off reviews of your books.

• Advertise your book to the Goodreads Community.

The key to getting good results on Goodreads is to join in the conversation on the site and share with others.  One of the best ways to make friends on Goodreads is to be active in groups related to your genre or topic and to send friend requests to selected folks in those groups. But don’t overdo it – as with all social networks it’s important to observe proper etiquette. Read the guidelines for authors and be careful not to engage in activities that are considered spamming, such as contacting or friending everyone who has read your book or similar books.

Many authors find reader communities such as Goodreads to be more beneficial than general networking sites like Facebook. I recommend starting with Goodreads because it’s the largest, but there are a number of similar sites and some are geared to specific types of books, such as children’s books. See this list of virtual reader communities for additional networks to consider.

 

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

5 Reasons You Should Do NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

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November is fast approaching so you need to know about NaNoWriMo!

National Novel Writing Month is November every year and the aim is to write 50,000 words in 30 days on a new piece of work. Basically, it’s a novel in a month. But don’t be afraid – no one gets to read your “novel” so it is basically a first draft piece of work. Here’s Nanowrimo in a nutshell.

You should do this because:

  • You have always said you wanted to write a novel, so let this be your first step. I felt like this last year (Sept 2009) and last week (Sept 2010) my thriller novel ‘Pentecost’ came back from my editor. Yes, I started ‘Pentecost’ in NaNoWriMo last year and now it is a 70,000 word novel ready for rewrites. Woohoo! I only managed just over 21,000 words in November and most of that was cut out but the idea sprung from Nano as well as a lot of the key ideas and plot. It catapulted me into a novel in 2010.
  • You need to understand how to write a first draft fast. I didn’t know how to write fast last year. I hadn’t learned about separating the creator and editor in my mind and so I agonized over my writing. I felt I had to create a perfectly crafted sentence before writing fiction. Then I was introduced to “Write or Die” and word count goals, and behold, a novel began (the first of many!) Nanowrimo is about quantity of writing, not quality so you are forced to get the words out. There are no blocks here!
  • You will learn a lot in 30 days of writing. Check out my NaNoWriMo posts from last year including videos of my progress and lessons learned. It is an amazing way to get into the nuts and bolts of writing a novel. I was stunned by how much I learned through the process of writing itself and then investigating as I went.
  • You will be part of a global community. Join in the hashtag #nanowrimo on Twitter or the blog posts from writers around the world. Check in at NaNoWriMo.org to see what other people are up to. Receive the brilliant encouraging emails that help you along every week. You can even join in live or online writing events. Thousands of people do this, it is a community writing month!
  • You can clean the novel up later, it’s just a first draft! The aim is to write, not to be perfect. So get the ideas flowing and you will discover that actually writing encourages the muse. You don’t need to sit around thinking – just write! Editing the novel comes later and that is a much more extensive process, but no one can edit a blank page.

NaNoWriMo 2009 changed my life. I can say that hand on heart. It gave me the courage to write badly and to start writing fiction, to put words on the page and to let the ideas flow. I have spent most of this year reworking those ideas, but that month started the process. Without it I may still be saying “I wish I could write a novel” or “I only write non-fiction”. If you have a dream to write a novel, I urge you to register for NaNoWriMo and get started on Nov 1st! (Click here for information)

PS. After saying all that, I have to admit that I won’t be doing NaNoWriMo this year as I have rewrites to do for Pentecost in order to have it ready to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards in Jan 2010. I did want to be ready but I am not pro enough to be able to complete a novel in 1 year yet! I hope you are still encouraged to join in.

Will you be joining NaNoWriMo this year?

 

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

Keosauqua, Iowa Road Trip

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Last Thursday was the day I spoke at the Van Buren County Hospital Women’s Health Fair at Keosauqua, Iowa. Wow! Did I get more out of the day than just speaking and selling books. Although being there did give me a chance to meet a lot of friendly people and spread the word about my books.

That morning, the sun shone brightly on Iowa fields filled with combines and tractors. The farther south we drove, the more leaves colored. The hundred and twelve miles was fairly flat land. We drove through smaller villages except for Fairfield, a college town. The two hours flew by as we enjoyed looking at the scenic countryside.

The visitors guide 2010 says "Keosauqua, the county seat, (pop. 1066) is the largest village in Van Buren County. It is located in the center of the county within the horseshoe bend of the Des Moines River. Keosauqua is a community of friendly neighbors with small town hospitality." I couldn’t have said that better myself.

The courthouse is the oldest in Iowa and on the National Register of Historic Places. Second oldest in the country. In 1846, the courthouse was the scene of the first legal death sentencing and hanging in Iowa. Don’t know when the town was founded but that statement tells me some time around 1846.

Van Buren Hospital is a much needed medical benefit to everyone as all our county hospitals are. The building was filled with friendly staff, and volunteers manned a table to greet the visitors at the door. The grounds were neatly groomed with trees and flowers beds. Stones had the name of people on them that the spots were dedicated to.

The health fair tables were spread out from one end of the building to the other down the maze of halls. Women came, interested in information about diseases that will or have affected them. Plus, there were other businesses doing therapy, massages, selling children books, nutrition drinks and much more. I had a drawing for one of my books. The addresses on the papers in my basket proved women were willing to drive some distance to attended this annual event.

Now step out of this modern hospital and tour the town. I loved that Keosauqua has preserved buildings that must have been some of the first built when the town was settled in the 1800’s. By now a lot of small towns historic buildings have been torn down to make way for progress. This is a town that would make a good back drop for the type of movies I’d like to watch.

We drove down a street headed east and watched a fisherman unload his boat into the Des Moines River’s fast currant right in front of us. We turned the corner. That street ran between the river and century or better old Riverbend hotel with a porch on the end that was built around the front of the building as well. If the long modern bridge hadn’t been in view, I might have expected a riverboat to slowly round the bend and trappers in canoes gliding over to dock. They’d be coming to town to sell their bundle of furs in the back of the boat. Perhaps, women, in their finery, holding onto a parasol and paper fan sat on the porch, waiting to go up the gang plank of that riverboat for a ride back home. No, the ladies sitting there was just enjoying the view while they ate their sack lunch.

We turned back west and drove along the front of the hotel. The long porch is held up with porch posts from back in the day. A picture flashed through my head of elderly bearded gents sitting on benches. Some smoking a pipe and others spitting amber in the dirt street (that used to be there) from the chewing tobacco in their jaws as they watched the younger generations move about town energetically.

Another neat sight was a church that looked like it should have been in Little House On The Prairie. The tower on the side of the church held a bell, rusted from all the years it tolled in inclement elements. Another building was the Farmers Creamery, long closed and perhaps part of the extension office built on the back. A reminder that this was a farming community then and now. At one time all over the country, farmers separated the cream from the milk and brought the cream to the Creamery to sell. Downtown still has that fifties look. Nothing wrong with that for a person like me that likes the familiar small town feel.

We were too early for the health fair, because we hadn’t expected to get to Keosauqua so quickly. By the time, we set up our table it was lunch time. I asked for a place to eat. Several choices of restaurants were suggested, but all of those had much the same menus that we can choose from at home. The one that interested me was Billy Ray’s Smokehouse just because I love fried catfish.

We’d quietly entered Billy Ray’s behind another couple. They sat on one side the room and we sat in a booth on the other. In a minute or two, the two waitresses spotted they had customers. We barely glanced at the menu since we knew what we wanted. Fried CATFISH. The waitress suggested the smoked barbecued chicken was good. We turned that down, because that wasn’t what we came in to eat.

And what a treat. The catfish was golden, large fillets. Taken from larger catfish than I’ve ever caught and tastier than how the ones I fry turn out. French fries were just right, too. The waitress even tore the top off our tarter sauce packets for us. I appreciated that small courtesy, because I can never get those stubborn packets open.

By the time we finished eating we were stuffed but already planning our return to Billy Ray’s before we headed for home. We wanted to try another meal on the menu. I asked what time the restaurant closed. The answer was 8 p.m. "We would be ready to box up my books by 5:30," I said, thinking out loud. The waitress said, "Are you telling me you’re coming back tonight?" Why not. We have to try that smoked chicken.

The two waitresses were watching for us this time. We enjoyed visiting with them almost as much as we liked eating their good meal. We said no need to hand us the menu. We were back for the smoked chicken which turned out just as delicious as the catfish. We eat out quite a bit, but we couldn’t order smoked barbecued food around us, and though we love the walleye we eat in our area, if that restaurant’s fried catfish was on the same menu, I’d have to flip a coin to decided. As a side, we had the special for the night – fried potatoes and onions which was perfect with the chicken.

We promised to come back sometime soon. With all the interesting sights to see that I read about in the visitors guide the waitress gave me, we can spend a day going from one small town to the next. Just so we’re close enough to end up at Billy Ray’s for meals.

J.A. Konrath: eBooks And The Ease Of Self-Publishing

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This article, by J.A. Konrath, originally appeared on The Huffington Post on 10/16/10.

October 19th is the release date for "Draculas," a horror novel that I wrote with Blake Crouch, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson. How four guys were able to collaborate on a single narrative is an interesting story, but not as interesting as the way "Draculas" is being released.

Though together we have over sixty years of experience in the print industry and have worked with dozens of publishers, we’ve decided to make "Draculas" a Kindle exclusive. Not only that, but we’re publishing it ourselves.

The choice to circumvent Big New York Publishing was easy. We all have print deals, and probably could have sold this project to a major publishing house, but the reasons to go the indie route instead of the traditional one were numerous.

First was an issue of time. We wanted "Draculas" to launch before Halloween, but we’d only finished writing and editing the novel in September. There was no possible way a major publisher could go from first draft to live within three weeks. But we did.

With Amazon’s assistance, we were able to put up a pre-order page and a free teaser last month, though we’d only written the first few chapters by that point. Like a traditionally published book, this allowed us to build buzz and accrue some advance sales.

Based on some of my experiments on Kindle, we’re pricing "Draculas" at $2.99–something no Big Publisher has done for a new release (except for AmazonEncore, who is releasing my thriller novel "Shaken" next week at that price point.) We’re also releasing it without DRM (digital rights management), which is another thing no publisher will allow (except for AmazonEncore.)

 

Read the rest of the article on The Huffington Post.

Making Print Choices

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Navigating the journey to publication is all about making choices. The many decisions you make as a self-publisher influence other decisions down the road.

One of the earliest decisions you need to make is the kind of print production you’ll be using for your book. Of all the printing and reproduction methods available to you, which will you choose? How can you decide what’s right for your book—and your budget?

Should you use digital printing with print-on-demand distribution? Is your book more suitable to offset printing and physical fulfillment? Who is the market for your book?

And what are the different ways to get a book into print? That would be good to know.

Understanding these options is key to making good decisions. Here are some articles that address reproduction and the choices you’ll be making.

Book Printing Choices

First you’ll need to understand the various ways books are printed, and how to determine the best method for each kind of book. You can start with a quick introduction to printing processes.
Self-Publisher’s 5-Minute Guide to Printing Processes

Once you decide how to print and distribute your book, you’ll face the choice of picking an offset or print on demand printer. And for specialty books, sometimes you need specialty printers.
Working With Blurb.com For Color Books
Book Running Late? Working With 48hrbooks.com
[Watch for more articles to come on making this choice!]

Digital Printing and Print on Demand

Every self-publisher needs to understand digital printing and print-on-demand distribution, because it’s becoming the favorite method of printing for people who want to limit their investment in inventory.

This form of distribution also makes the publishing, distribution and fulfillment process labor-free for the publisher. This one change in book printing has been the catalyst for the explosive growth of self-publishing, and for finally enabling books to continue “in print” indefinitely.
Self-Publishing Basics: Print on Demand: What Is It?
How Print-on-Demand Works

How Much Does Self-Publishing Cost?

One of the first questions from new self-publishers is “How much is this going to cost me?” The answer from most professionals is “Well, that depends . . .” In an attempt to give you a range of figures, I’ve broken down self publishers into three different kinds, and looked at a range of prices in nine categories for each. Studying these articles may help you decide which is the right route for you.
What Does Self-Publishing Cost? A Preview
What Does Self-Publishing Cost? DIY Self-Publisher
What Does Self-Publishing Cost? Online Self-Publisher
What Does Self-Publishing Cost? Competitive Self-Publisher

By this time you’ve done your research and picked a printer for your book. In that decision you’ve also chosen how you’ll distribute and fulfill the orders for your book.

All these decisions are influenced by the early work you did on figuring out the market for your book. Fine art books will need one type of production, self-help books need quite a different kind. Publishing for the online market imposes different requirements than publishing for national bookstore chains, or for back-of-the-room sales.

Your publishing venture stands the best chance of success if you address these questions from the start.

And now part of our planning is for the growing field of Ebooks and Ebook readers. That’s where we’re headed next.

 

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

eBook Pricing Goes Outright Insane!

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This post, from Mike Cane, originally appeared on his Xblog on 10/16/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

I downloaded a free Kindle book this morning and happened to look at the list of other books The Kindle Store said were somehow connected to it.

One had an interesting title: The Information Officer.

So I went to look and had my first shock.

 


Click = big

What?

There’s no “This price was set by the publisher” notice, so why isn’t this $9.99?

It made me wonder what other eBookstores were selling it for — and that’s when the eBook pricing insanity kept increasing in scale!

Here it is at Kobo:


Click = big

Here it is at the Sony Reader Store:


Click = big

At this point, I turned to a shortcut, Inkmesh, which will do the eBookstore dredging in one go.

It had Powell’s Books listing it for a whopping $26.58 — which is $1.58 over the “digital list price.”

So I went to Powell’s via the link but it apparently had some crossed wires, because I wasn’t seeing the listing for the eBook version. I had to search for that. And then I got this:


Click = big

Three things:

1) This is a book from Random House. This is not one of the five publishers that have formed a trust to fix prices. So why is this price so damned high, even at The Kindle Store?

2) This book was published in February! That makes it nearly ancient in Internet Time!

3) Does Random House really think someone with a $99.99 device is going to pay near one-fourth of its price to read one book?

Random House is creating its own Long Tail here.

Sensible people are going to look at that price and pass it up. That will mean lower sales. That will help kill the career of the writer. And since the book will probably never go away — because ain’t no way in hell will Random House ever revert those rights to the writer now that their paws are on them with an eternal eBook version — it will just sit there, receding into the distance, falling into the Long Tail.

And now here’s where the Big 6 of print publishing reveals its contempt for us, how they all just spit in our face:


Click = big

It’s cheaper as a paperback!

Update: I got sloppy and didn’t check. As someone points out in Comments, the paperback will not be available until March 2011! I should have gone instead with my original argument of used hardcovers and library loans.

And here’s the final kicker, the kick in the teeth, the spiteful insult.

I downloaded the Kindle sample and this is the eBook’s cover:


Click = big

You don’t even get the appealing cover the cheaper paperback has!

This is because Random House has had a policy of stripping the covers from its eBooks! (As do several other publishers.)

Pay more and get less!

Tell me how that isn’t having contempt for all of us eBook buyers!

Never in the history of American business has one industry done so much to guarantee its own failure.

Write For All You're Worth

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On Twitter, I try to retweet links of value to writers. Since I know many writers are constantly on the lookout for paying gigs, I follow @writersjobs and frequently retweet the help wanted ads they post. Mind you, @writersjobs isn’t actually placing any of these help wanted ads, they just post links to the ads on Twitter to provide an easy, centralized gig list for writers.

Today, I was disheartened and even a little sickened when this ad showed up:

Ghost writer needed to write 10 blog posts. Will pay $.01 per word for 200-250 word posts. You choose the topic. All 10 posts must be on the same topic. Topic must be legal and PG. Must be original posts – plagiarized posts will not be purchased. Looking for one writer. Long-term projects available for the right person.

Bring on the number crunching…

I think half an hour per post is a pretty realistic estimate of the time involved, if you count the time spent coming up with the concept, writing the rough draft, and editing and polishing. At a penny a word, the maximum-length blog post will net you—wait for it—two dollars and fifty cents. Write one more and you’re rolling in five dollars an hour; that’s about 40% less than minimum wage, and that’s before taxes, too. You can’t even argue that this is a resume builder, since it’s a ghost writing job: someone else is going to take the credit for your work.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Look, I know tough times call for desperate measures, beggars can’t be choosers, in times of crisis we all wear different hats, and lots of other cliches. But writing is a skill, writing well is a hard won skill, and even people who mop floors and flip burgers for a living are entitled to a minimum wage that’s mandated by law. Yet although this gig will obviously pay less than either of those jobs would, the person who’s hiring intends to be picky about selecting the "right person" for "long term projects".

The "right person" in this case is a fool who’s willing to be taken gross advantage of, but I have no doubt he or she is out there, writing an eager email to apply for the job this very moment. And it’s because of that writer that ALL of us, and our work, are being devalued faster than Detroit real estate.

Take a gig that pays minimum wage if you must, but do it knowing you’re earning no more than you would working fast food or retail at the entry level—less if you play by the rules and take self-employment taxes into account. If you’re good, you can and should command better pay. And "command" is exactly the right word for it.
 

This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

29 Principles for Making Great Font Combinations

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This post, from Douglas Bonneville, originally appeared on the bonfx site on 8/11/10. There’s some excellent guidance here for anyone laying out a print publication.

When it comes to making font combinations, there are principles and methods, but no absolutes. You can’t apply all the principles or ideas listed here at the same time. Just peruse this list of ideas and see what strikes you as interesting, and then pursue creating your own interesting typeface pairs!

In no particular order of importance…

  1. Combine a serif and a sans serif to give “contrast” and not “concord”. The farther apart the typeface styles are, as a generic but not infallible guideline, the more luck you’ll have. Fonts that are too similar look bad together. Go for concord or contrast but avoid the murky middle ground where all you end up with conflict. Put Garamond and Sabon together to see what “murky” means. Or try Helvetica and Univers together, which is just as bad.
     
  2. Don’t choose two serifs or two sans serifs to create a combination, unless they are radically different in some way.
     
  3. Avoid choosing typefaces from the same categories, like Script or Slabs. You won’t get enough contrast, and will end up with conflict. For instance, Clarendon and Rockwell together is not a good thing at all.
     
  4. Get enough difference in point size between the various fonts to make contrast.
     
  5. Assign distinct roles to each font and commit to them without variance.
     
  6. Try finding fonts from different categories that have similar x-heights and glyph widths. For instance, Futura with Times New Roman just doesn’t work that well because there is too much contrast between x-heights and widths, but in this case, mostly widths. However, if you are going to work with a condensed font, you can overcome this problem because now you’ve gone for an extreme contrast.
     
  7. Find some kind of relationship between the basic shapes. For instance, look to the letter O in upper and lower case. Round letter O’s and taller oval O’s, in general don’t seem to like each other when creating pairs.
     
  8. Contrast the overall weight of the fonts. For instance, Didot and Rockwell look really bad together for many reasons, but one clearly because they both have a heavy presence and just look mad at each other on the same page.

 

Read the rest of the post on bonfx.

Defining Value Outside the Hippie Commune

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In a perfect world, everything would be free. We would all voluntarily give of our time to help each other and make things and share things and it would be great. No one would be poor because everyone would be doing their fair share, and poor wouldn’t exist. Everyone would be valued and warm and loved and safe and fed and sheltered and protected.

But back to reality.

We don’t live in a hippie culture where everything is free. We live in a culture where everything costs money. Work is compensated with MONEY. Is it crass to mix art and money? Maybe for those who don’t do it and don’t know how much work it really is to produce something to distribute to the masses.

If you aren’t a writer, I would like you to do an experiment for me. I would like you to sit down in a chair every day and crank out 1,000 words of original fiction with a coherent plot. After you’ve done this for a month I want you to come back to me with a straight face and ask to pay 99 cents or nothing for the fiction you consume.

Once you’ve done it for yourself a few times, you’ll want to actually be paid for it. Writing isn’t play time. This isn’t a masturbatory activity for me. If I was independently wealthy, I still wouldn’t give it all away for free because I believe my work should be monetarily valued. And also because if I gave it all away for free, I would be helping to breed more entitlement into people, making it harder for others to make money.

The only reason I’ve ever given anything away for free or sold it for 99 cents is to build a platform and build trust in readers so they would give me a chance. It was never a permanent strategy. If I didn’t need to make money, I would have priced it higher to begin with and if people bought it, great, and if they didn’t, fine. To make a living as a writer one has to attain a certain level of exposure. Sometimes that exposure costs something. If I hadn’t needed to make some money I might not have set my prices so low “ever”. And if people didn’t like it, they could just not read it. But I didn’t have that luxury.

And now I know sales and sales ranks will drop some as a result of higher prices, but I think I have to be willing to suck it up right now. Because I can’t sustainably make it on 99 cent e-reads, no matter how big my backlist got. Plus I would resent the hell out of readers having to sell so much just to scrape together a barely-above-poverty-level income.

Outside the hippie commune in the real world, where most of us live, value is defined and shown through money. Monetary value isn’t the only type of value but it’s the most important to continued survival in our culture. I realize that creative endeavors have more than “just” monetary value. There are all kinds of kittens and rainbows and puppy farts forms of value that can be placed on a creative work. And that’s great.

If something I wrote is one of your favorite books, that’s awesome and I’m flattered, but you still need to compensate me for it. I provided a service. I entertained you. If I didn’t properly perform the service and you don’t feel sufficiently entertained, if you bought it on Kindle you can get a refund. If you bought it in print, you can resell the book to someone else and not buy anything from me again.

But you do need to compensate me because I did work. And work, in this culture is paid for. Financially.

I cannot pay my electric or gas bill on your praise. Praise is awesome and I love when someone loves my work but I still have bills. Right now my husband pays most of our expenses, but I still have some financial responsibility. I’d also like to get out of the crappy house I live in and into someplace nicer. I would like to own a car. If I am not monetarily compensated (fairly) for my work, I can’t do that.

Sure, readers don’t think about an author’s bills or financial situation when they buy a book. They don’t buy it so I can pay my electric bill. But if they don’t buy it I have to do something else to make money and I’m not going to write in addition to another job. One job is enough for me, thanks. We find it absolutely unacceptable to begrudge a doctor or lawyer or anyone else fair payment for their work. Authors should be able to make a fair wage. We’re working, too. We shouldn’t all have to write as a second job or small income-producing hobby.

So if you do place “any” value on my work at all, even if it’s the kitten and puppy fart kind of value, paying me is how you show that. Monetary value in this culture is inextricably tied to all other value because it’s how we show our appreciation for work well done. It’s how we build trust and show that we don’t take other people’s work for granted or think they are our slaves here to entertain us and do our bidding for nothing.

So it is fair for an author to set a certain price for their work and tie the price they charge and others are willing to pay into the value for that work? When there are traditionally published authors easily selling books for $6 and more on the Kindle, then an indie author asking for anything under $5 shouldn’t be controversial. In fact, once they have the platform, selling the same as NY pub authors are able to sell at, should be the norm.

It could be argued that NY books are overpriced on Kindle. And maybe they are. Some of them, however are selling at higher prices, which is a clear indication that their fans place a higher monetary value on their work.

I will always be a writer. I can’t help but be one. Most writers can’t. But, what I can do is control whether or not I share that work. And many other authors feel the same way. If we aren’t compensated, we won’t work. Does this mean that the whole world should collectively stand up and give a damn? No. There will always be someone willing to be taken advantage of just to get readers.

I just am not one of those people anymore. And I regret that I was one of those people for as long as I was, because it just made it harder for others to make money.

Here’s another writer with the same views. He’s a bit of an ass… but… he’s right:

 

This is a reprint of a post from Zoe Winters‘ blog.

Member Blog: 10 Steps to a Better Story

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I edit a lot of fiction, and I see a pattern of common problems in manuscripts from novice writers. The most important involve the bond between story and character. If you want an agent,editor, or reader to get past the first few pages, here are 10 things to keep in mind.

1. Make your main character want something. Desire is the engine that drives both life and narrative. Characters who don’t want anything are rarely interesting.

2. Make your main character do something. Your story can start with a character who is the victim of circumstances, but afterward the character needs to move quickly into action. Readers like characters who take charge.

3. Let your readers know the story’s premise early. If they get to the end of the first chapter and still can’t answer the question—what is the story about?—they might not keep reading.

4. Get conflict into the story early. It doesn’t have to be all-out bickering or deception between characters, but let your readers know things will sticky.

5. Skip the omniscient POV. Let the reader experience as much of the story as possible through the eyes of your main character. This is how readers bond with protagonists. If you shift POVs, at least put in a line break.

6. It’s okay to tell sometimes, instead of show. Not every character reaction has to be described in gut-churning, eyebrow-lifting physical detail. Sometimes it’s okay to simply say, “Jessie panicked.”

7. Introduce characters one at a time with a little background information for each. Too many characters all at once in the first few pages can be overwhelming.

8. Don’t overwrite. Nobody agrees on what constitutes good writing, so trying to make your writing stand out will probably work against you. The best writing doesn’t draw attention to itself; it just gets out of the way of the story.

9. Avoid word repetitions when you can. Read your story out loud. You’re much more likely to hear the repetitions than see them.

10. The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, setting. If you have to sacrifice something, start at the end of list. Never sacrifice the story for anything else.

 

This is a reprint from LJ Sellers‘ Publetariat member blog.

A New Publetariat Member Benefit

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Many of Publetariat’s members are active bloggers on the site, and there’s a lot of quality material being posted in member blogs. Prompted by member LJ Sellers, the author of the blog entry being reprinted today as a feature article, I’ve decided to add a new member feature/benefit to the Publetariat site.

The ten most recent member blog posts are already featured on the front page of the site in a link list in the right-hand column, but beginning with this post, once a week I will personally scan that top ten list for an article to be promoted to the front page as a feature article. I may not always find a post that meets the site’s editorial criteria, but I will be actively seeking them.

The goal is to provide useful content to site members and visitors while providing site members with an outlet for wider exposure. People who like what they find in a blog post are likely to click through and view the author’s member profile, and may even be inspired to go a step further and follow any links they find there for the author’s website(s) and book(s). In a way, it’s like bartering for free advertising on the Publetariat site.

In order to make the cut a post must be on a topic of interest to other site members and visitors, it must be professionally presented (occasional typos happen, but in general the piece must be grammatically correct, with proper spelling and punctuation), it should not have a primarily self-promotional focus, and must be of a length comparable to the site’s usual feature article content. Note that all content posted to this site remains the intellectual property of the author, so don’t worry that having your blog posts promoted to feature article status will force you to surrender any rights to the material.

So members, update your member profiles with links to your external sites and book pages, and start blogging! I’ll be watching.  =’)

Writing in Different Genres – A Writer's Tool Belt

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One of the fundamental parts of being writers, I think, is knowing your purpose for writing. Now, I’ll admit this is made much easier when your freelancing gigs keep you covered up in short informative articles or web content. That makes it simple. Yet, like any writer, you have this basic sense of purpose informing your choices on how to present those words. The issue is really one of genre. I’ve haven’t actively thought about this in a while other than some idle thoughts about switching over and writing some fiction rather than nonfiction. That’s really it.

Thinking It Over

On this fundamental level, all of us, as we prepare to writing something, should consider the purpose of their writing. There are some essential questions that help you determine this if you don’t already know intuitively. (This can differ with each writer and also how much experience one has.) What sort of questions? Well, for starters, are you writing for the purposes of entertainment? Or do you want to strictly inform the readers? Then again, you could be writing to persuade the reader of your viewpoint or position.

The act of deciding the purpose of whatever it is you’re writing has a close relationship to the purposes of reading something. What do I mean by that? Essentially, when you’ve defined the purpose you influence what types of choices you make about the form you want to use.

This is really where genre comes into play. It is a crucial decision since it can affect how the writing is received by your readers. Whether you are writing in the form of a story, a poem, a letter, or an essay, you may already have some clue about the ways these different literary forms are interpreted by the audience – and what ones work together the most effectively with your chosen subject matter.

Some Considerations

What I’ve realized is that you may not always get the genre right the first time. You may have written a story when a essay would have been more effective given your topic. Or, perhaps, in your effort to express your feelings simply by stating the facts as you see them or shaping them into a persuasive essay, you missed the pleasure of sharing your feelings in a poem or the lyrics of song.

Genre is something that typically has unique structure. It will serve you well if you can become knowledgeable of these distinctions so you don’t mistakenly mix them. The results could be atrocious. There are a variety of genres and categories that you will encounter during your time as a writer – provided you are still learning as much as you can about the craft you’ve called your own. (I’m talking to freelancers and novelists alike.)

A Starting Point For Further Study

It may be good to look at least six categories or genres that are a part of the writing life. Check them out. I’m offering them in no particular order but I do hope that you do some additional study of them individually.

1. Descriptive writing involves the careful choice of precise language, noting the sensory details and using metaphors and similes to make real, but powerful comparisons. You might be in the realm of essays and certain poetic types here.

2. Expository writing involves the synthesis and collation of information. You point here is to strive for objectivity. Often this genre will manifest as a report or a how-to article. You might also use elements of the expository in an essay or a treatise.

3. Narrative writing is storytelling. This is about creating your own tales, rewriting familiar ones in your own voice, and most of the time you’ll start dealing with elements like plots and characterization. This is the realm of the tried and true story arc – the beginning, middle, and end that make up every story created by human beings.

4. Poetry writing is the art of creating word pictures and using stylistic devices like rhyme and rhythm to express strong emotions or ideas. Poems come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

5. Journals and letters offer a less rigid format for self-expression through words than some of the other genres cited here. Now this doesn’t mean that a letter cannot be a full formed essay if you choose to treat it that way. Still, letters – especially when handwritten letters were the rule rather than the exception – could be a very deep and intimate outlet for communicating. Journals and letters alike can be a mode for sharing news, record notes, explore new ideas, among other things.

6. Persuasive writing is all about trying to convince the reader to change their opinions and sway them with logic, moral appeals, and emotional language. You are wanting them to side with you. Effective persuasion in the written form is accomplished through a combination of a clearly expressed position that is supported by various examples and evidences.

Write On

I’ve come through this short exposition on genres with the belief that even I should take some time to look over these familiar genres and think through the ideas that I have to determine how they might be best explored. There are so many ways to express yourself as a writer. Now, that you have some fodder for your thoughts and ideas, I recommend you get started right now. Don’t hesitate.

 

This is a reprint from Shaun C. Kilgore‘s site.

Bridges Of Virtue: Indie Publishers As The Golden Mean

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This post, by Paolo Chikiamco, Publisher, Rocket Kapre Books, originally appeared on Digital Book World on 9/21/10.

“Virtue, then, is a kind of moderation inasmuch as it aims at the mean or moderate amount.”

– Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics.

Being a philosophy major, I’m of the opinion that the great thinkers of the past have something important to say about every aspect of life, even our modern life. As such, I hope you’ll humor me as I open this talk on a decidedly modern topic – the opportunities for independent publishers in this digital book revolution – by talking about Aristotle and the Golden Mean.

For Aristotle, virtue or excellence is that trait which, when possessed in the right amount, keeps something in good condition, and allows it to perform its function well. One of the key phrases there is “possessed in the right amount” – Aristotle believed that virtue could only be found at some optimal point between two extremes, that of excess and that of deficiency. To use the most common example, the virtue of courage is found between the two extremes of cowardice and recklessness.

What does this have to do with publishing? Right now, publishing is defined by two extremes. First are the Big Publishers, the ones with substantial investment in the old status quo of print books, the entities with big-name authors, enviable capital and long-standing connections with distributors and media outlets. At the second extreme are the Self-Publishers, a class of authors which have always been with us – for authors, such as Aristotle himself, were releasing their works to the public long before third-party publishers existed – but who have in the past been stigmatized, as well as sidelined from the most lucrative types of commerce by an inability to match the scale of access and distribution available to Big Publishing. (In the Philippines, the most visible form of self-publishing – social networking aside – is the burgeoning indie komiks [comics] scene.)

Of course, “in the past” here must be taken to mean B.T.I. – Before The Internet. While I would not go so far as to say that the playing field has been leveled – although I’d argue that it is on its way there – the fact that the publishing landscape has been irrevocably altered cannot, at this point, be doubted.

“Nothing endures but change.”

– Heraclitus

Read the rest of the post on Digital Book World.