What's That?

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Anyone who follows this blog knows I’m not big on rules of writing. But in my experience as an author, a reader, and an editor, I’ve found the word "that" is one of the least needed, most overused, and most frequently misused, in all of modern literature.

To better understand what I’m driving at here, allow me to rewrite those first two lines with the "thats" left in:

Anyone who follows this blog knows that I’m not big on rules of writing. But in my experience as an author, a reader, and an editor, I’ve found that the word "that" is one of the least-needed, that it is among the most overused and misused words, in all of modern literature.

Notice how the "thats" add nothing to the passage. They don’t clarify, they don’t improve flow, and they don’t reflect any sort of stylistic choice, either. They’re just taking up space and bloating word count. The word "that" is only rarely actually needed in a sentence, but for some reason, an awful lot of writers are in the (bad) habit of peppering their prose with this largely superfluous word. Consider the following, typical constructions:

He knew that I wasn’t going away.
vs.
He knew I wasn’t going away.

She was sure that everything would be fine.
vs.
She was sure everything would be fine.

You get the idea. When you find yourself tempted to include a "that" in a sentence immediately following a verb or adjective, try the sentence without the "that" first. In the vast majority of cases, you’ll find your meaning is perfectly clear, and your prose much tighter, without it. Now look at these constructions:

None of the cars that we saw were suitable.
vs.
None of the cars we saw were suitable.

The books that I needed weren’t in stock.
vs.
The books I needed weren’t in stock.

Again, the "that" adds nothing but characters on the page. As with "thats" following a verb or adjective, try any sentence where a "that" follows a noun without the "that", and see if it doesn’t read tighter.

So when is it appropriate to use "that"? When it’s needed to clarify your meaning:

As a pronoun – That is the hotel where we stayed last time we were here.
As an adjective – I’m pretty sure that book belongs to Jimmy.

Or to improve the flow of your prose, as a stylistic choice:

As an adverb – It didn’t matter all that much.
(compare this to)
It didn’t matter much.

Moving on, what about "that" versus "who"?

The judge that heard the case was biased.
vs.
The judge who heard the case was biased.


All the kids that came to the party had a good time.
vs.
All the kids who came to the party had a good time.

Presumably, the judge is a person, not a thing. Kids are people, too. People are "whos", not "thats". However, both of these examples illustrate the case where a relative clause requires an object to restrict an antecedent, which is just a fancy-pants grammarian way of saying a "that" or "who" really is needed to clarify the meaning of the sentence and make it grammatically correct. Just be sure to use "who" in reference to people, and "that" in reference to things.
 

One more thing: are you mixing up your "whiches" with your "thats"? Consider:

The dog that was found in her yard was a stray.
vs.
The dog, which was found in her yard, was a stray.

Note the difference in meaning. In the first sentence, the fact that (<– see, even I think they’re necessary sometimes!) the dog was found in her yard is an important detail. The use of "that" makes the subject, "dog", more specific. We’re not talking about the dog she saw in the park, or the dog on the corner. In this type of usage, the phrase, "that was found in her yard" is called a "restrictive phrase".
 
In the second sentence, the fact that the dog was found in her yard is incidental. The sentence could be shortened to, "The dog was a stray," with no loss of meaning or clarity. In this type of usage, the phrase, "which was in her yard," is called a "nonrestrictive phrase". The phrase does not exist to better specify a particular dog, it’s there to provide additional information about the dog.
 
It can be a tricky distinction. Let the comma be your guide when choosing between the two words. In general, if the desired meaning or emphasis of a given sentence is best conveyed when a descriptive phrase within it is offset by commas, you’re looking at a nonrestrictive phrase and "which" is the right way to go. Conversely, if such a phrase is not surrounded by commas, you’re looking at a restrictive use and can safely go with "that".
 
Also note, what’s grammatically correct isn’t always a match with the most commonly-accepted usage:
 
The puzzle pieces which we couldn’t find this morning turned up under the cushions.
 
Gah! This sentence is like fingernails on a chalkboard to a grammarian’s ears because it uses "which" as part of a restrictive phrase. Yet the sentence will seem correct to most readers because most of them think the rule used to divide the "thats" from the "whiches" is based on whether or not the noun in the sentence is plural. Look at the grammatically correct version of the same sentence:
 
The puzzle pieces that we couldn’t find this morning turned up under the cushions.
 
It sorta kinda doesn’t "sound" right, does it? It’s because the incorrect usage has become more ubiquitous than the correct one. You can moan and complain, stamp your little grammarian feet, and even threaten to pull out your Chicago Manual of Style, but about 99 times out of a hundred you will lose a bar bet on this. It’s usually fine to go with the more common, incorrect usage in such a case, but better still to avoid the whole kerfuffle and dispense with both words whenever possible. Remember, most often, you’ll find a given sentence is just fine without either one:
 
The puzzle pieces we couldn’t find this morning turned up under the cushions.
 
But if you should find yourself in a bar with nothing better than grammar to bet on, whip out your web-enabled phone and bask in the victory round – Grammar Girl‘s got your back.

 

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

What Does Self-Publishing Cost: Online Self-Publisher

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This is a continuation of the What Does Self-Publishing Cost series:

 
Today let’s look at the next level of ambition, the author who decides to publish and seriously attempt to sell books in an economical way. Let’s call this publisher the Online Self-Publisher.

 
9 Cost Categories for Online Self-Publishing
  1. Company setup—It’s more likely this self-publisher will formally organize her company, probably as a sole proprietorship. She’ll pay attention to costs and have some way of accounting for sales and expenses, doing it herself. Taxes are getting complicated so it’s probable our publisher will need tax help at the end of the year too. All these costs are due to the added complexity of selling book wholesale and retail and the effect on your personal income and tax liabilities. At the beginning you may have an offsetting loss on your taxes since your business will likely spend more than it takes in just to get your book ready for publication.

    Total: $100 – 300
     

  2. ISBNs—You’ll definitely need ISBNs since you can’t sell through online merchants like Amazon.com or BN.com without one. The question now becomes: how many ISBNs to buy?

    One ISBN will cost you $125 at the myidentifiers website run by Bowker to sell these oh-so-precious numbers. But if you plan on ebook editions and, in the back of your mind you’re thinking that if this book sells, you’ve got another one you could follow up with, you need more. Ten ISBNs will cost you $250, but you’ll be prepared for a couple of years of publishing to get you going.

    Total: $250
     

  3. Manuscript preparation—The Online Self-Publisher will likely do as the DIY self publisher did, and do all manuscript preparation themselves.

    Total: $0
     

  4. Editing—The Online Self-Publisher knows that editing is important, and will try to find an editor to help organize, or to “polish up” their manuscript. Although some authors will use a fuller range of editorial talent, starting with developmental editing, typically the limited budget of the Online Self-Publisher will dictate a light but thorough review of the manuscript by someone who has at least has professional editing experience

    Nothing is more difficult to estimate in the book process than editing. Recent books I’ve worked on have ranged from 45,000 to 227,000 words. Some are challenging in their language and aspirations, others are intended to be casual and conversational. Each author brings different communications skills to their books. Some books need a lot of fact checking, or have copious notes sections that have to be painstakingly formatted. Each of these factors influences the time it takes to edit the book, and therefore the expense.

    Let’s say our self-publisher finds an editor on a writing forum, or through a writer’s group, or through a service like elance.com. And let’s also stay with my model book, a 65,000 word, 200 page 5.5″ x 8.5″ trade paperback. This will give us at least a framework for what the editorial cost might be, $700-1,500.

    We can add to this the cost of a basic proofreading. In many cases the Online Self-Publisher herself, or a friend, will proofread the book. In my experience it’s unwise to skip this step. $0 – $500

    Total: $700-2,000
     

  5. Design—Online Self-Publishers know that a book that looks decent will be more appealing than one that looks like your nephew did it in Apple Works. She will budget for a cover designer but will probably skip an interior design, preferring to stay with the DIY model in the interest of saving money. At a minimum, the publisher will have to learn to submit files to the Print on Demand provider, or pay someone to do it for her.

    Total: $200 – 500
     

  6. Review program—Reviews for the Online self-publisher will typically be limited to online reviewers, where a PDF of the book can be submitted at no cost. But it’s also likely that he will run a small review campaign offline as well. Prepublication reviewers, specialty media, local newspapers and any trade associations are likely candidates for review copies and a DIY media kit. Due to the expense of packing, mailing and digitally-printed books, this can add up pretty quickly. Lets assume 24 books split between reviewers and authorities or other authors who might supply blurbs to help in promotion. 
    Cost of one book: $3.50. Add a Jiffy bag: $1.79. Add media mail postage: $2.38. Oh, and something for the rest of the paperwork that gets sent with review copies: $1.00. That’s a total of $8.67, or $208 for 24 copies.

    Total: $200 – 300

     

  7. Platform building—In addition to the free resources for building her author platform, our new internet marketer may also consult with a search-engine optimization expert to help with online visibility, or opt for custom work to be done on her website or blog. Remember, this will be the main hub of her business, and she may even install some ecommerce capabilities to be able to take orders directly on her website. Making excerpts available, capturing names and email addresses for mailing lists and other tasks are commonly outsourced to freelance technicians. Our budget should account for some mix of these tasks. Let’s make it an estimate, since the options are extremely broad.

    Total: $200 – 500
     

  8. Proofing and Reproduction—Like our DIY self-publishers, Online self-publishers will use digital printing through print on demand suppliers to manufacture their book. However, some of these publishers will have moved from author services companies like Createspace to a more manufacturing-oriented and economical supplier like Lightning Source. There are setup costs associated with this move, and some fees you would not have to pay the author service companies. However, if you expect to sell any quantity of books you will quickly make up this expense in the savings on per-book prices. We’ll also include an initial order of 50 books to the publisher for direct sales and other promotional uses.

    Total: $300 – 400
     

  9. Fulfillment—Book sales through online retailers require no fulfillment expense on the part of the Online self-publisher. Using a fulfillment service to pack and ship orders is far too expensive for the quantity of books sold, so the Online self-publisher will likely do her own fulfillment. Hey, she bought that big box of Jiffy bags for the review campaign, remember? Here’s where we use the rest of the box.

    Total: $0
     

Let’s Add It All Up
 
The Online self-publisher is serious about putting out decent books and trying to sell them using lots of tools at her disposal. Adding our nine categories, we have a total of $1,950 – 4,250. This is a significant business expense but, considering that you are starting a new business and simultaneously developing a new product and the means to market it, I would come to a different conclusion.
 
By far the largest investment of the Online self-publisher—or any of the other self-publishers, for that matter—is the time and effort it takes to put this whole project together. The time to understand enough about the parts to have some idea of how they fit together. The time to research, meet and talk to people, to work on all the incidental projects that come up in the course of the publishing journey.
 
This is truly what will make or break the publication of your book. The commitment you make and the actions that come from it are far more important than the money you will invest, and will go farther to determining the success of your book.
 
Total Online self-publishing cost: $1,950 – 4,250
 
Takeaway: Online self-publishers can produce quite acceptable books at a reasonable cost. While there may be inconsistencies and a lack of finesse in the book interior, a diligent self-publisher should be able to turn out a book of decent quality to sell online.

 

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

What Does Self-Publishing Cost: DIY

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In my earlier article I looked at a framework to determine what it costs to self-publish. I described 9 cost categories and three paths to publication as a way to organize the costs for different kinds of self-publishers.

After all, not everyone wants the same kind of book, nor do people publish for all the same reasons. It seems practical to help people decide which category they’re in and look at the costs for each approach.
Today I’m going to collect the kinds of costs a self-publisher might encounter if they want to keep their cash outlay to the absolute minimum, doing much if not all of the work themselves. These are the DIY self-publishers.
 
 
9 Cost Categories for DIY Self-Publishing
  1. Company setup—The choice here is to establish a sole proprietorship or to simply publish your book under your own name, without any company structure. The cost of establishing a company vary, but the minimum cost would be whatever you are required to pay to register a business name.

    Here it costs $42 plus about another $40 for the classified ads you need to run as a public notice. These costs aren’t strictly necessary, but if the self-publisher is treating her publication like a business at all, she will take this step.

    Total: $0 – 84 
     

  2. ISBNs—Another way to control costs is to print with one of the services that will supply you with an ISBN. For someone with a book project but a small budget, this can be a considerable expense at a minimum of $125.

    You only need an ISBN if you intend to sell your book through a book trade channel, such as Amazon.com. If you don’t plan to make your book available through those channels, or if the book is strictly for private or personal use—for instance a fundraiser—you can skip the ISBN completely.

    On the other hand, if you’re concerned about the future publishing possibilities for your book, and that you might someday want to take the book to another printer or service provider, you should think about buying the ISBN up front.

    Total: $0 – 125
     

  3. Manuscript preparation—At the DIY end of self-publishing, the author will do all manuscript preparation, usually using their favorite word processor.

    Total: $0
     

  4. Editing—If our DIY self-publisher can find someone to look over the manuscript for errors, it will likely be on a free or barter basis. There probably won’t be any editing except self-editing, so expenses here are pretty much eliminated.

    Total: $0
     

  5. Design—The DIY self-publisher is the designer of the book as well. Some publisher services companies provide templates that authors can download and use with programs like Microsoft Word. And some have cover generators to help create a decent-looking cover. But the principle here is that the author completes all these tasks on his own, with or without the help of customer service staffers.

    Total: $0
     

  6. Review program—Reviews for the DIY self-publisher will probably be limited to online reviewers, where a PDF of the book can be submitted at no fee. In my experience, most of these books are not submitted to reviewers with any regularity, saving more money.

    Total: $0
     

  7. Platform building—The DIY self-publisher who wants to spread her work, find new readers and sell some books will look to online resources to do her author platform building. Typically this will involve a blog at one of the free blog hosting sites, and a lot of time spent online.

    Total: $0
     

  8. Proofing and Reproduction—Virtually all DIY self-publishers will use digital printing through print on demand suppliers to manufacture their book. A copy of the book essentially acts as the proof if one is considered necessary. Since these services—like Lulu—only charge for the books you actually buy, you could say that there is no cost here. But let’s assume our self-publisher orders 5 copies of her 200-page book, and that we consider this part of the expense of getting into print.

    Total: $27.50
     

  9. Fulfillment—Books sold will be by hand, through the self-publisher’s website, or on retailer websites. The first two options could encounter costs for packing and shipping, but they are transaction costs, not included in getting into print.

    Total: $0
     

Let’s Add It All Up
 
Each publisher has different goals for their book, but for many getting into print at the lowest possible cost is a major consideration.
 
Adding our nine categories, we have a range of $27.50 (plus shipping, of course) to $236.50 if you go for the ISBN and company set up. This plan is completely reasonable, and shows just how far we’ve gone to eliminate the obstacles to publishing your book.
 
Keep in mind that a book coming out of this process will be an amateur production. It wasn’t editing, designed or produced by publishing professionals, and it’s very likely to show it. But you will be in print, the proud owner of 5 copies of your book, with the possibility that many more people will discover you.
 
Total DIY Self-Publishing Cost: $27.50 – 236.50
 
Takeaway: It’s entirely possible to get a book into print for almost nothing. The effort, ingenuity, and talent of the author-publisher are what will determine the final quality of the book.

 

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

Review of the Public Domain Publishing Bible

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Some of you may be aware that I run http://www.heartlandreviews.com. A couple of years ago I went to a fee-paid format to cut way down on the submissions. The following review, however, was not paid for. I found the book that helpful and wanted to get the word out. Here is my review as posted in both my nonfiction and writers books pages of Heartland Reviews:

Title: The Public Domain Publishing Bible
Author: Andras M. Nagy
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Murine Communications
Publisher Website: www.thePublicDomainBible.com
Pages: 164
ISBN: 9780982499412
Price: $13.45
Publishing Date: 2010
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts

This extraordinarily helpful how-to is a must-have for publishers and self-publishers. The author, who has published over 60 books, teaches how to find and use content in the public domain to increase your streams of income and to bring to light timeless information. He provides both instruction and valuable resources and links to enable you to find and publish books no longer protected by copyright.
 
His chapters include: Public Domain in the USA; How to Select a Genre; The Print on Demand Advantage; How to Construct Your Book; A Guide to Book Scanning; How to Build a CIP Data Block; How to Work with Lightning Source; How to Market Your Business; Search Engine Optimization; How to Work with Amazon; How to Work with Createspace.com; How to Get Publicity; New Technologies; My Ten Commandments; Public Domain Resources; Publishing Resources; Copyright Search Firms; International Copyright Treaties; and a Bibliography.

His information prompted me to download a public domain book about the 1850s we sell steadily in our bookstore from Project Gutenberg, re-typeset it, redesign a cover, put our ISBN on it, and print it for sale in our store. All except for the printing of course and the ISBN was absolutely free. I now plan to publish a series of books from the 1800s frontier days to create a special section in our store, as well as wholesaling them to local museums and such. This book made all that possible. We rated it our max five hearts.


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

New Trends for Books

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Sunday, May 2, 2010

New trends for books

Hello,

Copies of my latest novel, A Type of Beauty, the story of Kathleen Newton (1854-1882) have arrived from printers  and are waiting to be launched first at Listowel Writers Week (www.writersweek.ie) on 4 June and secondly at the National Yacht Club, Dunlaoghaire (www.nyc.ie) on 18 June. The books look terrific – you don’t realise how wonderful a product a book is until you hold it.

Currently, I am particulalry interested in where the book publishing and book selling business is heading. The scenario has changed radically over the past very few years. And not only in Ireland – it’s a worldwide phenomenon.

Bryan Appleyard’s rivetting piece in The Sunday Times Culture section dated 25/4/2010 is about the advent of the iPad which has him wondering is the book made of paper and board dead? I hope not. I love the physicality of picking up a book, browsing its pages, running the tips of my fingers over its surface, smelling the gorgeousness of fresh paper and print – and all that before reading!

Obviously, enthusiasm for the iPad depends on who you ask. Apple who make iPad and the various digital officers attached to the larger publishing houses are ecstatic. So what precisely is this iPad? Basically it offers a way of reading books. You download them and they appear on virtual wooden shelves on your screen. You turn the pages by flicking the screen.

It looks as though the iPad is here to stay. After three weeks, sales in the States are approaching 1m, whereas the estimate for sales of Kindle over 30 months is 3m. The ‘agent model’ adopted Apple looks as though it could be good news for writers. Apple takes 30% of the sale of their books; the author 25% and the remainder goes to the publisher, making the retailer the publisher and Apple acting as agent.

Keep reading and keep writing, and do make contact.
Patricia
www.patriciaoreilly.net

The Legacy of Publishing’s Ownership of Work

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There are a couple of things here that you may think are unrelated but I’ll try to bridge the gap and make a coherent argument in support of my thesis. I contend that the history and very institution of publishing has lent itself to a culture of a lack of ownership by authors and artists, resulting in today’s hysterical clamoring on privacy issues.

[Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

You all have a better sense of the publishing industry since Gutenberg than I do, so there’s no need to retread. So just think about how difficult it is to turn that Titanic of a beast around in just a few short years. I’m no industry apologist–I think that’s been made clear–and I’m not saying that we should give it some time. I’m asking that we reconsider how we are framing the debate around the breakdown of the traditional publishing industry; the rise of the independent author; the risks and opportunities of technology to serve readers, established authors, and independent writers; and the implications of copyright, privacy, and ownership on all of the above. Here are some of the areas through which we have to change our perspective in order to offer thriving solutions:
 
Agents. While agents have no doubt played a pivotal role in mediating the publishing industry’s desire for total control of a text and an author’s rightful assertion of ownership, they have also perpetuated that very dispute. How? They haven’t fought on behalf of writers for their fundamental rights, because that is not their role, traditionally. Sure, a good agent has fought for more money, bigger marketing budget, a favorable contract that matches the author’s strengths. However, agents have supported the passive-aggressive nature of the publishing industry in recent decades by fighting within the publishing companies’ own rules.
 
See, what I mean by that is this issue of framing our own perception of things. We have to work outside what we know as the traditional boundaries. Isn’t that what successful technology innovators do? Next:
 
Ownership, Privacy and Copyright. I never thought I would get hung upon this, but every day we are seeing some outrageous assertions of ownership, and not by the authors. Where the hell are our writer-brethren taking to the proverbial streets and proclaiming their ownership of their works? Because we are seeing press releases and contract clauses and Terms of Services stating proudly that the content deliverer retains at least some aspect of the rights to the work in perpetuity, or some godforsaken thing. Come on, y’all, that’s just ridiculous.
 
What I’m trying to get at here is that writers have been utterly de-fanged over the years of publishing industry beatdowns, reinforced by agents. We need more Stephen King and less, well, of everybody else. (Which is to say, we need more writers who tell the industry paper-pushers to fuck off. See Hunter S. Thompson’s comment to this effect.)
 
It’s not rocket science. It just means operating outside the “Terms of Service” and when enough of us do so, and if we create a strong enough demand in the marketplace for our work, miraculously those terms of service will derive from our side of the dispute, not the publishers’.
 
Now I’m not talking about bunnies and unicorns: this is going require a tremendous amount of discipline. Which brings me to my next point:
 
Desperation. This is the reason why the industry as we know it has perpetuated. Writers in general are desperate for exposure and that potential big gain from a publishing contract. So what do they do? Give it all up. That’s right, they give up their e-book rights and derivative marketing rights to a marketing department full of 22 year old interns with no budget who foil that author’s attempt at success because they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. But the writer is ok with this, because they know that the risk they’ve put on the table is worth the possible reward. Wait, not it’s not. The rewards of signing with a major publishing company suck, and the chances of a $1 million book contract are nil, so why not publish yourself and instead play the lottery each week for a better chance to win?
 
BECAUSE WRITERS ARE SO FUCKING DESPERATE THEY ARE BLIND.
 
I guess we could consider what it is that has made writers so desperate. Maybe it is in our personalities: we create something and put it out there and hope for accolades, because that piece of writing is an extension of ourselves. Maybe writers are just talented people who didn’t get enough love and so this is what they do. Except I’m not a shrink and couldn’t possibly assert any truth there. All I know is that when there is a mass population (there are a shitload of writers) who require such enormous public accolades, with a finite number of readers (and by extension a finite amount of money you can earn from selling your work which is in effect a measure of that public love), there are bound to be disappointments. Lots of disappointment.
 
Is it social Darwinism of writing? I don’t accept that because it assumes a framework from which to judge good or bad writing and assigning it a successful or unsuccessful stamp. But clearly our expectations must change or else we are all headed for continued disappointment.
 
Democratizing the world of reading and writing will help everyone, I’m sure of it. No more hardcover books, sold at ridiculous prices–there’s just no need. No bottlenecks and gatekeepers needed any longer, you are relieved of duty. The internetz can enable this democratization of the book and content marketplace, but let’s just keep aware of the vultures who prey on writers’ naiveté  or their unwillingness to blaze their own trail, instead of following the trail of peanuts right back to the monsters that ripped out their teeth.

 

This is a cross-posting from Lenox Parker’s Eat My Book.

What Does Self-Publishing Cost: A Preview

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One of the first questions people ask when they think they may want to self-publish is: What’s it going to cost? It doesn’t matter if the author is producing a cookbook for a fundraiser, or plans to end up on Oprah’s couch, we need to know how much we’ll have to spend to get our book into print.

I’ve found it difficult to answer this question without a fairly involved conversation with an author first. I need to find out the author’s goals for her book, get a sense of what kind of marketer she will be, judge as best I can whether her goals are realistic given the budget available. Then, and only then, can I put together an estimate.
 
But wouldn’t it be great to have a way to categorize the different costs involved in self-publishing? That’s what I’ve tried to do here. And by looking at three distinct paths authors can take to publication, I can create a set of cost factors you can use in planning for your own book’s publication.
 
Here’s how I’ve broken down the costs:
 
 
9 Cost Categories for Self-Publishing
  1. Company setup—Most self-publishers are doing this for the first time, and most don’t have a company structure in place. Although you can’t assign these costs directly to the individual book you’re starting with, you still have to pay or you won’t have a publishing company at all.
     
  2. ISBNs—Although years ago this was an insignificant cost, the new reality is that Bowker, who administers the ISBN program in the United States, has decided this will be a cost factor that penalizes one-book publishers. But hey, you can’t fight city hall, can you?
     
  3. Manuscript preparation—Are there costs to get the manuscript to the point where it can be handed over to an editor? Fact checking, adding a bibliography, rounding up artwork or illustrations are examples of the kinds of costs in this category. I don’t include here developmental editing, which is a manuscript development cost, not so much a publishing cost.
     
  4. Editing—The editing process on any book might be long and involved, or it may be a read-through for grammar and usage, for typographical errors. It’s a truism that every book needs editing, and editing can be a major cost in getting ready for print.
     
  5. Design—Someone will have to design the cover for your book, and someone will have to at least do a layout for the interior. There are many ways to go about this step, and most of them cost something.
     
  6. Review program—For authors who intend to sell into the retail book channel, book reviews are critical. They also come at a cost.
     
  7. Platform building—Most self-publishers are relying on the internet for both customers and sales. This effort needs to start with an author’s platform, and there are costs there too.
     
  8. Proofing and Reproduction—Whether using offset printing or digital printing with print on demand distribution, this may be the single largest cost in your plan. We have to nail it down.
     
  9. Fulfillment—In some of the models we’ll look at, storing, invoicing and shipping your books are costs that have to be taken into account.
Three Paths to Publication
 
In looking over the 9 Cost Categories above, I can see that different authors will approach these tasks differently depending on the path they’ve chosen. I’ve separated these into three approaches:
  1. The hobbyist, do-it-yourself, lowest-cost path to publication
     
  2. The online bookseller, seeking to maximize profits with minimal cost
     
  3. The fully competitive publisher, who intends to compete agressively in their niche in all parts of the distribution chain
Each of these publishers will approach the cost categories differently. That’s as it should be, because different goals animate their different strategies.
 
In the series of articles to follow, I’ll look at how each category impacts the cost of your publishing project in each of the three publishing scenarios. We’ll look at actual costs and attempt to come up with a bottom line number for a “typical” book going through each process.
 
I think this will be a useful exercise. Times change, options multiply, aims get more focused. With the information we’ll develop, any author ought to be able to calculate for themselves the costs for their book. They will be able to answer the question: What will it cost?
 
If I’ve left out any costs that should be included here, please let me know in the comments.
Takeaway: Although every book is different, costs for the three paths to publication can be calculated in advance.

 

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

How Google Editions And New Google Search Affects Authors And Their Books

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Here are two massive developments from Google this week that you need to know about. From looking at these together, it seems clear that Google search will bias books on the Google publishing platform.

Google Launches Editions Digital Publishing
 
Google Editions ebook store now has a start date of June/July this year. This article from the Wall Street Journal suggests that they will allow any retailers to add books to the store and they will be highlighted on their specific Books search page. Any device will be able to read them as long as the manufacturer allows it. So people can search with Google, find books and immediately buy them.
 
Google Search has split books out separately
 
This week, Google changed their search to split out different categories and Books is now a separate way to search. Clearly, Google controls search and once they have a bookselling business they will show books that are in their program, not others.
The first image to the left is a search for my name on Google.com which returns my blog, twitter etc. But there is now a split on the left hand side bar which means separate sub-searches can be done.
 
 
 
 
 
Click Books and only one of my books is displayed, “How to Enjoy Your Job”. I only have this one book on Google Books so far. The others are on Amazon.com, my website and other places but not Google Books, and as you can see, they are not displayed at all against my name. Interesting!
 
 
 
 
Actions for you in order to take advantage of this
  • Set your self-published or backlist books up on Google Books if you haven’t already. Here is a page of information on it. They show up in Google Book search with links to buy at other places but presumably will be sold direct from Google once Editions is available. If you have a publisher, check with them how your book will be integrated with Google Editions.
Consider the very near future. The biggest search engine in the world returns your book based on keyword search terms and people can buy within that page immediately, on any device. Brilliant!  This is yet another way for you to reach an audience with your work, and make it pay. Exciting times indeed!

 

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

Are Agency Model Publishers Hanging Together, Or Playing Their Own Edges?

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Latest Kindle Nation Price Survey Shows Decline in Titles Priced Over $9.99!

It’s been exactly a month since we last took a systematic look at the population of ebook price points in the Kindle Store, so it seems a good time for a fresh look after five weeks of experience with the agency model. Under the agency model, we were told, some of the big publishers were colluding with Apple to take retail ebook pricing out of the hands of retailers such as the Kindle Store and replace Amazon’s standard of $9.99 as a price for newly released ebooks with a 30% to 50% increase to price points between $12.99 and $14.99.

The remarkable news is that very little has changed when it comes to Kindle Store ebook prices, and if anything in the past 30 days the trends are toward lower prices. Alas, publishers! How can you make collusive price fixing work if some of you are playing for an edge and hoping that your partners, er, competitors will maintain their unpopular high prices?

After a brief period in late March and early April when we saw slight increases in the percentage of books prices over $9.99, there have been small but significant decreases at the same levels since April 7. Among the 511,259 ebook listings in the Kindle Store as of 9 a.m. today, May 7, 2010, the total percentage of books prices above $9.99 has decreased from 22.69% to 21.73%, essentially a full percentage point.

Meanwhile, while the percentage of titles priced at exactly $9.99 has decreased slightly from 11.01% to 10.62% during the past months, listings at all price points from 99 cents up to $9.98 have increased.

Other recent trends:
 

  • The overall size of the Kindle Store catalog has continued to increase by about 800 titles a day, growing from about 487,000 on April 7 to over 511,00 this morning.
  • The increase of over 63,000 in the number of Kindle Store titles since February 25 is roughly equivalent to the total number of listings in Apple’s iBooks Store at launch.
  • The number of free titles in the Kindle Store declined from 4.2% to 4.0% during the past month, while the number of free titles in the iBooks Store is reportedly somewhere between one-third and one-half of all iBooks titles.

 Among the 100 top Kindle Store "bestsellers," it’s a case of plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
 

  • As of this morning, 59 of these titles were free, 2 were between $.01 and $3, 15 between $3 and $9.98, 16 at $9.99, and 8 at $10 and up.
  • As of April 7, 61 of the 100 top Kindle Store "bestsellers" were free, 1 was between $.01 and $3, 16 between $3 and $9.98, 12 at $9.99, and 9 at $10 and up.

It will be interesting to see how the pricing array evolves over the next two months, as Amazon prepares to increase its royalty structure to 70%, by June 30, for thousands of independent authors and smaller publishers who participate fully in Kindle features and maintain or bring their suggested Kindle Store retail prices into Amazon’s preferred range between $2.99 and $9.99, inclusive.

Here’s a price breakdown of the 511,759 book titles in the Kindle Store as of 9 a.m. EDT on May 7, 2010:
 

Here’s where we stood with the 487,715 book titles in the Kindle Store as of 9 a.m. EDT on April 7, 2010:
 

  • 20,620 Kindle Books Priced "Free" (4.23%)
  • 4,709 Titles Priced from a Penny to 98 Cents (0.97%)
  • 46,360 Kindle Books Priced at 99 Cents (9.51%)
  • 69,846 Kindle Books Priced from $1 to $2.99 (14.32%)
  • 94,891 Kindle Books Priced from $3 to $4.99 (19.46%)
  • 86,924 Titles Priced from $5 to $9.98 (17.82%)
  • 53,705 Titles Priced at $9.99 (11.01%)
  • 7,537 Titles Priced from $10 to $12.99 (1.51%)
  • 13,124 Titles Priced from $13 to $14.99 (2.69%)
  • 90,011 Titles Priced at $15 and Up (18.46%)

Here’s where we stood with the 480,238 book titles in the Kindle Store on April 1:
 

  • 20,620 Kindle Books Priced "Free" (4.29%)
  • 4,706 Titles Priced from a Penny to 98 Cents (0.98%)
  • 43,993 Kindle Books Priced at 99 Cents (9.16%)
  • 68,807 Kindle Books Priced from $1 to $2.99 (14.33%)
  • 93,706 Kindle Books Priced from $3 to $4.99 (19.51%)
  • 85,612 Titles Priced from $5 to $9.98 (17.83%)
  • 53,124 Titles Priced at $9.99 (11.06%)
  • 5,952 Titles Priced from $10 to $12.99 (1.24%)
  • 14,158 Titles Priced from $13 to $14.99 (2.95%)
  • 89,525 Titles Priced at $15 and Up (18.64%)

Here’s where we stood with about 463,000 Kindle Store titles on March 10:

 

  • 20,125 Kindle Books Priced "Free" (4.34%)
  • 2,588 Titles Priced from a Penny to 98 Cents (0.56%)
  • 39,095 Kindle Books Priced at 99 Cents (8.44%)
  • 64,105 Kindle Books Priced from $1 to $2.99 (13.84%)
  • 90,580 Kindle Books Priced from $3 to $4.99 (19.55%)
  • 84,055 Titles Priced from $5 to $9.98 (18.15%)
  • 53,697 Titles Priced at $9.99 (11.56%)
  • 5,793 Titles Priced from $10 to $12.99 (1.25%)
  • 13,731 Titles Priced from $13 to $14.99 (2.96%)
  • 89,448 Titles Priced at $15 and Up (19.31%)

And here’s where we stood with about 447,000 Kindle Store titles on February 25:
 

  • 19,795 Kindle Books Priced "Free" (4.42%) 
  • 3,023 Titles Priced from a Penny to 98 Cents (0.67%) 
  • 36,370 Kindle Books Priced at 99 Cents (8.12%) 
  • 62,275 Kindle Books Priced from $1 to $2.99 (13.9%) 
  • 87,722 Kindle Books Priced from $3 to $4.99 (19.58%) 
  • 81,230 Titles Priced from $5 to $9.98 (18.13%) 
  • 55,269 Titles Priced at $9.99 (12.34%) 
  • 5,139 Titles Priced from $10 to $12.99 (1.15%) 
  • 9,331 Titles Priced from $13 to $14.99 (2.08%) 
  • 87,771 Titles Priced at $15 and Up (19.59%)

 

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

Virtual Book Tours For Fiction Authors

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On a virtual book tour, authors visit a series of blogs, websites, radio shows or other virtual venues during a certain time frame – usually one to three weeks – to promote their book. Most tour stops involve making guest posts on blogs (either by writing an article or being interviewed by the blog owner) or having the blog owner review the book.

Virtual book tours can be a good way to promote fiction. When planning your tour, look for book blogs related to your genre, general book review websites, and blogs that cater to the specific target audience for your book. Here’s an example of an interview-style tour stop on a highly targeted blog, Suburban Vampire.
 
It’s best to create a web page with a schedule listing the stops for your tour. Here’s a great example for the tour for TimeSplash by Graham Storrs.
 
For best results, seek out sites with good traffic. You can estimate website traffic by comparing the Google Page Rank or Alexa ranking of different websites.
 
What kinds of topics can fiction authors talk about on their blog tour? Of course, you can talk about the characters and plot in the book you are promoting. But, many people are fascinated by the writing and publishing process, so you can also cover topics such as these:

• How do you come up with story ideas and characters?
• When and how do you write?
• What other authors inspire you?
• How did you find your publisher?
• How long does it take you to write a novel?
• How do you overcome writers block?
• What’s your next project?
• How long have you been writing and how did you get started?
• How does your background influence your books?
 
If you’re wondering whether virtual book tours are really worthwhile, read Blog Tours for Authors – Do They Work? by Fiona Ingram.
 
For a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a virtual book tour in progress, see Andy Shackcloth’s series of articles about Graham Storrs’ tour for his sci-fi ebook, TimeSplash.
 
To learn more about the advantages of doing a virtual book tour, see Why Authors Should Do a Virtual Book Tour by Nikki Leigh

 

This is a cross-posting from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer.

The Spiritual Side of Writing

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How we live our spiritual lives is a passion for me, so it’s really no surprise that I’ve begun work on Prayerfully Yours, a book about prayer (obviously :P ). I wish I could say that taking care of my spirit is a number one priority and that I have it down to a science, but I can’t. Like my favorite “get organized” mentor, FlyLady Marla Cilley, I’m still working on integrating spiritual disciplines into my life… and I bet I’m not alone.

As Independent Authors, Freelancers, people who “do their own thing,” we often have to work much harder than the “regular Joe” with a typical 9-5 job for financial security (and sometimes just because we’re crazy, driven individuals :D ). We get so busy doing we forget that we are human beings. We were created as much to be as to do. As we push ourselves harder to make that deadline, market that book, get our name out into the public view, we often discover that we’ve become drained, that we’re beginning to live fractured lives. Usually this realization comes on quite suddenly, though it wasn’t a sudden shift in what we’ve been doing that caused it in the first place.

So what can we do to slow down and reconnect with our spirit? Keri Wyatt Kent, author of Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity, offered three practices in her guest blog on MacGregor Literary:
  1. Community — “Join a small group, preferably not made up of just other writers. Pull yourself away from the writing for a time to actually nurture others by praying with them, listening to them, simply enjoying them. Celebrate and enjoy the gift of friendship.”
     
  2. Inspiration — “Walk through a garden or an art museum, read really great writing. In a way, this is a form of listening prayer, of hearing God through beauty… Such activities are not a waste of time—they feed [your] soul, which nurtures [your] writing.”
     
  3. Sabbath — “You may be worried that taking a day off will put you further behind. But Sabbath actually has the opposite effect.  In the weeks that I don’t write on Sunday, my overall production (measured by words written, articles finished, whatever) is higher than it is on the weeks I don’t stop. And on Mondays, after a day of rest, my productivity soars.”
I would add just one more to the list:
 
4.  Be present in the moment. Focus on one thing at a time. If you’re working on a project, then focus on that project and not the to-do list that’s growing longer than your arm. If you’re with your family on an outing, then concentrate on what they’re saying rather than on that deadline that’s fast approaching. When you’re fully in the present, you find great new ways of expressing life’s little things in your writing later.
 
Being an Independent Author is not easy and it’s not always fun, but it can be fulfilling, especially when you remember to care for your spirit while on The Road to Writing.

 

This is a cross-posting from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road to Writing blog.

Post Office Slow – Three Kings Early

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Here’s an update on my trying to collect an insurance claim from the postal service for a box lost in the mail last year. I spent most of Monday afternoon copying proof to support my claim for insurance on a package of 15 books that was lost in the mail over a year ago. After 13 months of not hearing back from the postal service, I wrote a letter asking the status of my claim. The reply took a month to come back which was last Friday. My claim had been denied for these reasons. Mail not bearing the complete names and addresses of the mailer and addressee, or is undeliverable as addressed to either the addressee or the mailer. I’ve been given 60 days to reply.

I copied everything I had as proof that the postal services reasons aren’t so such as the pieces torn off the cardboard box which the postal service sent me back from the dead letter place in Hazelwood, Mo. where the box ended up. The postal service employees didn’t have any problem finding me by taking my address off the return address to contact me. Other cardboard pieces contained the address sticker for the person who bought the books plus the canceled stamps. I’d kept my email correspondence to show the person emailed her address to send the books to and the address matches the address sticker on cardboard piece.

My problem didn’t begin with this box. I sold the 15 books on January 1, 2009 and sent the first box a day later. It was lost in the mail at the same Hazelwood, Mo dead letter office as the second box. I was sent cardboard pieces of that box with address stickers and stamps, but I hadn’t insured the box so didn’t have any way of getting back my loss. So the second time February 9, 2009, I did insure the box. Both times, I was asked to send pictures of what was in the box so the postal employees could look for the contents and fill out a form describing the contents. I was hopeful if the employees had portions of my boxes they might have some of the books. I didn’t hear back one way or the other.

Not wanting to lose a good customer, I sent a third shipment of books by UPS. That box was delivered to the address, which the postal service said couldn’t be correct on the missing boxes, in 24 hours. By then, I was out 45 books and $20 postage, postal insurance and tracking fee and was paid for 15 books and postage to cover one shipment. My letter to the postal service states if I had that kind of bad luck with their service very many times, I’d be out of business.

In February 2009, I was told I had to wait a month to fill out a claim form in case my boxes were found. My month was up in March 2009. I waited patiently for a reply on finding the books or the insurance claim check but didn’t hear from the postal service. Finally months later, I called the claims status phone number. The help line is voice activated. I tried giving my umpteen numbered claim and was ask to repeat the numbers. Finally, I was told I’d have to wait 17 minutes for someone to help me in person that could understand me. Not 10, 15 or 20 but 17 minutes. I hung up.

After waiting a year, I’ve heard stories from others that they hadn’t gotten insurance claims either. I was told by them not to be hopeful. Now I’m sending my 9 pages of proof and two page letter back to see what happens next. It is a good thing to keep a paper trail for transactions. Whether it helps me or not we’ll have to wait and see. After all this long wait, I still may not get a reply for months. When my patience runs out again, I’ll inquire why the postal service hasn’t gotten back to me, I’ll get a letter from the postal service telling me the inquiry wasn’t bearing the complete name and address of the mailer so they couldn’t answer me.

Saturday afternoon, we scurried around like squirrels burying nuts for winter. The weather men said it was going to be down to 31 degrees that night. My husband covered up as much of our large garden as he could with tarps. I put lids on the plastic coffee cans that protected our two dozen tomato plants I’ve babied since February, a dozen pepper plants and a few sweet potato plants. I brought my hanging baskets and small flower pots inside. My husband took three large ones, containing two feet tall geraniums I had taken care of in an upstairs bedroom all winter, to the garage.

Sunday morning, we checked from window to window, looking for frost in the hayfield and pasture. Though the air was cold enough to cause the furnace to run with the thermostat set on 60, we couldn’t see any flowers or vegetables that froze. We spent the evening at my husband’s mother’s house in Belle Plaine. The rest of the family had tales about frosted grass, icy sheets and wilted leaves. When I lamented we may have to go through this again at the end of the week because it will be the Three Kings days, my mother-in-law said not to worry. The Kings came early this year. They won’t be back. I sure hope she’s right.

The first of our setting hens hatched chicks yesterday. My husband has them in a secure, warm place in the barn which is the only varmint proof building we have. We had two other hens sitting on nests in the machine shed, but a mother fox decided she needed those hens and eggs worse than we did. She has babies in a field driveway culvert not far from our house. Recently, I thought she was cute when I saw her red head peeking at me in tall road ditch grass as we drove by her home. Several mornings in a row, we discovered empty eggs shells a few at a time on the machine shed floor then my hens came up missing. We realized Mrs. Fox was paying us nightly visits. I don’t think she is cute now.

We decided the machine shed is off limits to the hens wanting to be mothers. We have other places that the hens can hide so we forgot to keep checking the old corncrib we use for storage. Yesterday we found a nest with 17 eggs. Later when I looked again, the hen was on the eggs. When she stays on the eggs at night, we’ll know she’s sitting. The corncrib isn’t any safer than the machine shed so I hope Mrs. Fox doesn’t find out about her.

Writing Secondary Characters in Novels

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This post, from C. Patrick Shulze, originally appeared on his blog on 4/20/10.

When writing your novel, have you ever cut back or cut out a character you liked? How about one you didn’t like? Have you ever promoted a secondary character into a larger role within your novel? These events happen all the time in novel writing and, in fact, should happen.

Secondary characters are as common as leaves on a tree but have the power to kill both your writing and your novel. Despite this, they are as necessary to a good novel as your major characters.

How do they kill a novel? They can take over roles that belong to other characters. It is most onerous if they [overtake] a major character like the hero. In this case, the protagonist diminishes in stature which, in turn, makes readers less empathetic toward the him. And we all know an unlikable hero is the kiss of death to a novel. Further, if you incorporate too many secondary characters in your novel, they can confuse and overpower the reader, with the same result as the unsympathetic hero.

 

To keep the number and roles of your secondary characters in check, you can assign your characters to one of three levels of importance.

Primary Character: Hero, Villain, Sidekick

Secondary Character: Any necessary support character to provide needed color

Fringe Character: There for setting or imagery – walk-ons, if you will.

How do you decide which characters to include? Remember, your story is about your hero, not the secondary characters, so only include those who might affect the core beliefs or attitudes of your major characters. Not counting your fringe characters, a rule of thumb for a four hundred page novel suggests you might have three main characters and four to six secondary characters.

So, once you’ve decided upon your secondary characters, how might you bring those guys to life so they enhance your novel?
 

Read the rest of the post on C. Patrick Shulze‘s blog.

Publishing & Self-Publishing in 2010

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I read quite a lot each day about the issues going on in the publishing world, but in particular about self-publishing and the part it now plays within the industry of book publishing. Note the subtle emphasis on the word within. Say nothing—keep it under your hat—just maybe they, the industry, won’t notice! What is significant today is, much of what appears in trade magazines, news services, publisher and writer blogs, as well as the wider media dealing with the latest technological and digital advances in publishing is just as relevant to independent and self-published authors as it is to the most seasoned publishing houses or bestselling authors.

I would go further and suggest the challenges facing publishing houses—trade and independent—in the current economic climate are what self-publishing authors experience in their microcosm world of publishing. Make no mistake—self-publishing a book is a business decision and slowly but surely, authors entering the field are realising this fact.

Self-published authors have long been dealing with the commercial dilemmas of e-book platforms and formats, targeting, and crucially, engaging their readership with carefully but aggressively led viral marketing plans. What self-published authors are quickly learning, particularly authors of non-fiction, is that the paper product of "book" is not necessarily always the primary selling point. It can often simply be a promotional tool used to present an idea, service, strategy or philosophy.

The core focus of POD, Self Publishing & Independent Publishing has always been to look at global publishing from the perspective of the author considering the possibility of publishing his book outside of the mainstream channels—that is—sans literary agent and even the sniff of a publisher or small press of any kind. I’ve never seen self-publishing as some form of compartmentalised oddity on the soles of the publishing industry’s shoes, or the guy who hawks folded and stapled A4 sheets of verse through the pubs of Ireland. This romantic notion of bard with verse may have once been the view of self-publishing in its bad old days of vanity publishers, but it no longer reflects the burgeoning industry within a larger industry.

Though our pub crawler with his sheets of stapled verse may consider himself as published and legitimate an author as Joyce, Yeats, Hemmingway, Pynchon or Picoult, the fact is, the self-published fraternity have dramatically upped their game in the past ten years. Self-publishing may have an unfair perception of poor-quality books and content, but is no longer the outpost for Aunt Maple’s home recipes for family and friends. It is now the playing field of talented authors with true and original voices, as well as highly motivated business entrepreneurs.

I’ve hosted several short, hour-long sessions with writers’ workshops and book clubs, with the topic of discussing self-publishing. I carry out the same exercise at the start of each one. I lay out ten books, a mix of fiction, non-fiction, paperback and hardback, and challenge them to identify the two books self-published or printed through an author solutions service. After several minutes and much mumbling, they all make their choices and note them down, having been encouraged to sniff, stroke, rub and read each book on the table. They will usually be insistent as a group on which ones are bona-fide and the three or four that ‘look suspect’. I normally go through the books afterwards with them and announce that actually eight of them are self-published and only two published by mainstream publishing houses. You won’t believe how many times at least one mainstream title ends up being one of the suspect pair. Yes, I did have a session where they both ended up as the suspect pair. God knows why some woman thought Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee was self-published!
 
I mention this exercise in the context of my opening paragraph and the fact that readers of books pay little or no attention to who the publisher of a book is; be it CreateSpace or Canongate, Little-Brown or Lulu. Branding only means something to the reader in the context of the author they identify with and the words produced on page. We don’t shop for books in the same way we shop for food. A good book is a good book and the most discerning and fickle editor in the world is often the ordinary reader.
 
The landscape of global publishing has dramatically changed in the past year. I find it increasingly difficult to speak about publishing without instinctively including self-publishing. For one, the most innovative and refreshing approach to modern publishing is coming from self-published authors, though not necessarily from the author solutions services they choose to pay for and use. For the most part, with a few exceptions, authors get their book set up with a digital printer and made available online, and with the potential to provide a finished product comparable to anything offered from a commercial house, provided the author invests in good editing and design services. From there on, the author is pretty much on his own to promote and market his book online, or ideally, secure distribution and placement on the shelves of bookshops—something even commercial publishers are finding harder to do with low and mid-listed titles from their catalogues.
 
Without doubt the most significant news in self-publishing occurred in late 2009. For many traditional-thinking purists of the publishing industry—the unthinkable happened. Thomas Nelson, the fifth-largest trade publisher in the United States and leading global publisher of Christian textbooks, signed a partnership deal  with Author Solutions (ASI), the largest global corporation of author services. ASI own some of the biggest brands in the self-publishing sector, with companies like AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Xlibris, and Trafford. Their partnership with Thomas Nelson led to the formation of Westbow Press, an imprint of Thomas Nelson offering self-publishing services to authors. Hardly had the ink dried on that deal when ASI announced a second partnership, this time with commercial romance giant Harlequin. The resulting new imprint, Harlequin Horizons, caused considerable criticism from three major author guilds in the US, MWA (Mystery Writers of America, RWA (Romance Writers of America) and the SFWA (Science-Fiction Writers of America). Within days Harlequin changed the name of the imprint to Dell Arte Press in an effort to remove the implied connotation authors might be confused and think they were being published for a fee by Harlequin’s mother ship.
 
The jury is still out on these new entities of self-publishing—shrouded in the criticism that Thomas Nelson and Harlequin are exploiting manuscript slush piles by referring rejected authors to their paid services. But then, in some form or another, haven’t commercial publishers always been exploiting authors by retaining and sharing out 90%+ profits with printers, distributors and retailers on every book sold? Would you be happy if you devised or invented a product, sold it to a manufacturer, and they offered you 6 – 8% on every unit sold? Probably not, but then, that’s the publishing model as we know it. Deal with it or self-publish.
 
What we are seeing in self-publishing increasingly are authors with more savvy and the know-how to reach directly out to the readers through blogs, online forums and fanzines like Shelfari, and the ability to use unique sales platforms like the Amazon Kindle bookstore and Smashwords, beyond the standard e-tailers. More authors are slowly educating themselves about self-publishing and they know the difference between services like CreateSpace and AuthorHouse. In the past couple of years we are seeing an increasing amount of authors opening commercial accounts with Lightning Source (LSI), the primary choice of printer and fulfilment services for many of the world’s POD (Print-on-demand) Publishers—effectively we are seeing a new breed of self-publisher confident and bold enough to purchase his own block of ISBN’s, set up his own imprint, and entirely cut out the middle man by going straight to source.
 
It is clear we are seeing the lines between publishing and self-publishing blurring, and the core model of the traditional business of publishing is changing, not because it wants to, but because it has to if it wants to survive. In many ways, both publishing perspectives have a great deal to learn from each other. Time, then, to learn…
 
(This article first appeared in Irish Publishing News on February 8th 2010.) 

 

This is a reprint from Mick Rooney’s POD, Self-Publishing and Independent Publishing site.

The sharpest writing is world-wide sourced

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scholar_1
Photo credit: paladinsf

The sharpest writing is world-wide sourced
for the next Big Picture, and Rabbi Jamaica’s
dealing with it, as the poster-boy he actually is

And the winds bring choices, and the words
of our mouths are the deaths of generations.
Scholars are dropping in a bass continuo.

But they lack the awareness, yo fun-boys!
So what the chances are now, stepping
an interlude, to split out in toys?

A consensus unmoors as flooded lines,
castaways children are watching the smoke;
physician are sitting delighted,

fulfilled in their upper vocations.
Just the two of us, we are the strangers,
we are about to walk by. We cast a light.

So let us ’scape immediately, now stray my fair!
Don’t let them stare at ya, don’t goodbye,
our geese are hissing; our task is found.