Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.
by Elizabeth S. CraigIf you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.
Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.
Are you guilty of any of these five mistakes brought to us by on the BooksGoSocial site? Number 5 is mine, I definitely need to work on that one. I would add one. Daily, I see authors not spending enough time on covers and good book descriptions. You spent so much time writing your story, it hurts to see people not spending the same time and effort on the items that will get them readers! Got any tips to help the rest of us? Or is there a pet peeve you see other self publishing authors do? Let us know!
Self publishing is a golden opportunity. For the first time in history authors can reach readers without going through the traditional publishing system. Ebook sales growth over the next few years will provide real opportunities for writers who get it right. One analyst is predicting 93% ebook sales growth between now and 2020.
If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.
Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.
Author Jody Hedlund speaks from experience; she has successful books through both traditional and self-publishing. Jody brings her unique perspective to the traditional vs self-publishing debate with an attitude of perhaps we can all just get along. What are your views on the two, and do you think they can co-exist?
By Jody Hedlund
This year in 2016, I have FOUR books slated for publication. Three of them are being published through three different publishers:
Undaunted Hope, a historical romance through Bethany House Publishers (Jan. 1)
A Daring Sacrifice, a young adult medieval romance through Harper Collins (Mar. 1)
Newton and Polly: A Novel of Amazing Grace, a historical through Random House (Oct. 1)
I’m super thrilled about all three of the books. While each of them targets a slightly different audience, my readers seem to be enjoying them regardless of the differences.
So far, I’ve had a very positive experience working with traditional publishers. I’ve learned a LOT about the ins and outs of how the whole process of publication works and varies between houses.
Since I’m in a super busy life stage (raising 5 kids), having a traditional publisher’s help with cover designing, editing, and marketing has really freed up my time to focus on writing. To be completely honest, I appreciate being able to hand something over to my publishers and know that the project is in good hands. It takes a great deal of stress off me.
Not only that, but working with a variety of traditional publishers has helped to get my books in front of different readers. Each of my publishers has different marketing strategies which has allowed my books a wider audience than if I’d attempted to publish them on my own. I’ve also appreciated the relative ease of getting into brick and mortar stores, libraries/library conferences, foreign print, large print editions, wide-scale blogger and reviewer programs, and many other venues.
However, as beneficial as traditional publication has been for my writing career, I’ve been itching to try my hand at indie publishing. I’ve heard so many positive things about it, that I wanted to experience it for myself.
Read the full post on Jody Hedlund
If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.
On The Write Life, Chuck Sambuchino gives his thoughts on the traditional versus self-publishing options for writers and why he thinks authors should try traditional publishing first. Do you agree with him? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
There are different ways to get your work published, but the biggest two options in today’s marketplace are still the following:
Traditional publishing: You sell your work to a publishing house, like Simon & Schuster or HarperCollins. The publisher typically pays you money up front in the deal, then distributes the book in print and e-book forms.
Self-publishing: This method allows you to publish your work independently, without anyone judging your work. You’re in charge of everything. A common website people do this is through Amazon’s CreateSpace.
I could talk about all the nitty-gritty elements to both publishing options — the pros and cons, the ins and outs — but that would take you hours to read. So instead, I’ll just focus this post on one simple question: If you’re unsure what path to take concerning these two major publishing options, what should you do?
If you are truly on the fence concerning which path to take, you should always try traditional publishing first — period.
I’ll tell you why.
It’s because if you send your work out to agents first but hit walls, you can always self-publish it afterward with nothing lost. Easy peasy. But if you self-publish it first and then seek an agent for it later, you’re setting up a very difficult task.
Let’s say you have a novel. You send it to an agent who is open to submissions. When the agent reviews your query and first pages, they are asking themselves the following: “Can this person write well? Is this an interesting story? Can I sell this?”
An agent will take a long critical look at your writing, and it’s not easy finding a rep who loves your voice and your book.
When an agent reviews a self-published book, it gets more complicated. They’re asking themselves the following: “Can this person write well? Is this an interesting story? Can I sell this? And why does this book deserve a second life via traditional publishing?”
Read the full post on The Write Life
If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below
This post by J.A. Konrath originally appeared on his A Newbie’s Guide To Publishing on 11/23/14.
My name is Joe Konrath, and I write fiction.
I’ve sold over a million books by self-publishing.
You probably were searching for “how to self-publish” or something similar and my blog came up.
This post for all newbie writers considering self-publishing. While it would be extremely helpful to you to take a week and read my entire blog to get a full understanding of how the publishing industry works, here’s the most important thing you need to know:
DON’T PAY ANYONE TO PUBLISH YOU.
Now you can certainly pay people to help you publish. Freelancers such as editors, cover artists, book formatters, proofreaders, and so on.
But when you hire a freelancer to assist you, you keep your rights.
That’s very important.
When you write something, you own the copyright. That’s automatic, even if you don’t register with the copyright office.
Copyright means exactly that; you have the right to copy it, to distribute it, to give it away, to sell it. You own those rights.
But if you pay someone to publish you, you GIVE THEM YOUR RIGHTS.
NEVER GIVE ANYONE YOUR RIGHTS.
There are many publishers, called vanity presses, that exist to prey on writers who don’t know any better. These presses are sometimes part of big, recognizable publishers, and it’s easy to be tricked into thinking that if you pay hundreds, or thousands, of dollars, you’ll be published by a major press.
The truth is, major presses PAY THE AUTHOR, not the other way around.
I have sold books to major publishers, and was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then I had to hire lawyers to get those books back so I could self-publish them. Because I make 10x as much money self-publishing as I did by selling my rights to publishers.
If you are looking to get a publisher, do your research.
Check out David Gaughran, Writer Beware, and Preditors & Editors. They have a lot of information about publishers you should avoid.
Learn all you can about vanity presses. Don’t get suckered in.
Ask questions. Seek answers. And DON’T PAY ANYONE TO PUBLISH YOU.
Now some Q&A.
Q: I saw an ad for a publisher. Are they legit?
Read the full post on A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.
This post by Joanna Penn originally appeared on her The Creative Penn site on 9/21/14.
Reflections On My Stockholm Trip
I spent a couple of days in Stockholm last week, and did three events in just over 24 hours for Lava Forlag, meeting authors at all stages of the journey. Here are my reflections on my time there.
The indie revolution is expanding…and it is incredibly exciting to see the light dawning in people’s eyes.
The Swedish publishing industry is still in the old traditional, print dominated way of doing things right now. Ebooks haven’t taken off yet, Amazon hasn’t opened its .se store and authors are still focused on the route of agents and publishers to reach readers.
I was told that the biggest publishers are integrated with the media companies – in the same way as Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp owning Harper Collins, the Fox Network, The Times and the Wall Street Journal.
When big media owns all the publishing channels, there is little chance for the independent voice against such established behemoths. But change is coming…
I was asked to Stockholm by the lovely Kristina Svensson, an indie author who sees the digital future coming to Sweden in the next few years. I spoke to the audience of authors about my reality, the world I live in, where authors are writing what they want, publishing what they want, and in many cases, making a decent living from their words.
Click here to read the full post on The Creative Penn.
This post, by Carla King, originally appeared on PBS Mediashift on 1/7/14.
The advancement in self-publishing tools and technology is a lot to keep up with, so here’s a roundup of the news that I think mattered most to self-publishers in 2013 and will continue to shape the industry this year.
1. Ingram Spark Gives Amazon CreateSpace a Run for Its Money
Ingram Content Group finally launched Ingram Spark, the much-anticipated print-on-demand and e-book distribution service aimed at self-publishers. It’s a welcome alternative to their publisher services tool Lightning Source, and competes with Amazon’s CreateSpace. Spark offers one author dashboard to handle both e-book and print distribution, while Amazon forces authors to two different places (CreateSpace for POD, Kindle Direct Publishing for e-books). And, unlike CreateSpace, Spark also allows authors to set the 55% discount and returns programs that bookstores insist upon. Do note that Amazon, being the pushy gorilla it is, sometimes lists print books not produced by them as “Out of Stock.” So this author continues to use CreateSpace in conjunction with other services, just to make sure that doesn’t happen.
2. E-book Subscription Services Entice Readers to Buy in Bulk
Click here to read the full post on Mediashift.
This post, by Joel Friedlander, originally appeared on his The Book Designer site on 12/2/13.
In yesterday’s New York Times there was an opinion piece by Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Here’s a quote:
“Even highly gifted and relatively successful writers, artists and musicians generally are not able (to) earn a living from their talents. The very few who become superstars are very well rewarded. But almost all the others—poets, novelists, actors, singers, artists—must either have a partner whose income supports them or a ‘day job’ to pay the bills. Even writers who are regularly published by major houses or win major prizes cannot always live on their earnings.”
— New York Times, The Real Humanities Crisis
You know this is true as well as I do, and it speaks to several larger truths:
◾ the low regard most creative artists who are not “superstars” generally command in our society
◾ the lack of leverage most creatives have in dealing with corporations who license their work
◾ the disempowerment of writers who are not “bestsellers” and who, by and large, are poorly compensated for their work
Stable jobs with dependable income involve helping the wheels of commerce keep turning, or unavoidable occupations like road building and health care.
But try making a living as a poet, a writer of histories, a novelist, a short story writer, a playwright, or any kind of writer whose work isn’t essential to making a living, and you better not give up that day job.
We don’t need to comment on the values this reality expresses, but we do have to deal with the consequences.
Now, with all the new tools of publishing, we can take a bigger role in our own publishing careers than ever before.
Self-Publishing Today
Talking to authors—and especially authors who have already been published by big traditional publishers—you can see the excitement and anticipation when this subject comes up.
Click here to read the rest of the post on The Book Designer.
This post, by Mari Selby of Selby Ink, was originally published on The San Francisco Book Review site on 12/5/13.
When Selby ink was founded 15 years ago publishing a book followed a routine process: You started by calling agents and editors who most likely told you to send them a query letter. Next step was usually a book proposal (if they were interested), plus a few sample chapters. Then the waiting game started, usually ending with disappointment. On the other hand, the option to self-publish was there, but it had a certain stigma…like your book wasn’t good enough for a “real publisher”. And eBooks were unknown!
When we see the sales figures for a self-published book like The Shack we realize that times have changed. Today self-publishing is not only popular, but often it’s the preferred publishing path of many respected authors. As long as your book is professionally produced, with an eye-catching cover and compelling content, you can directly compete with any bestselling author.
Thinking about publishing your book in the New Year? Here are my seven best reasons to self-publish your book:
1. Timing: Traditional publishers work on a long production cycle, they often plan a year to a year and a half—or even longer—to get a book out. As a self-publisher you can do it in a fraction of that time. It’s your material, your career move – you can take control of when you want to publish.
2. You Just Might Strike It Rich: Self-publishing offers the potential for huge profits. No longer do you have to be satisfied with the meager 5 to 15 percent royalty that commercial publishers dole out. When you use creativity, persistence, and sound business sense, money is there to be made. Most publishers require their authors to do their own promotion, why not self-publish and earn a 40 – 400% margin? If your book becomes a hit, publishers will come calling and give you the upper hand in negotiations.
Click here to read the rest of the post on The San Francisco Book Review site.
This post, by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant, originally appeared on Copyblogger on 12/5/13.
Most independent authors and content creators aren’t thinking in terms of building product funnels when they write their books and stories.
That is a mistake.
Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, smart writers who know how to build their catalog around funnels will always make more money directly with their words than writers who publish their work using the old “hope and pray” business plan.
Here’s how you do it.
Be a smarter publisher
We wrote for our own sites and blogs like Copyblogger for years — about business, entrepreneurship, marketing, you name it. But we both made a major shift during 2012 and 2013, and we spent the last year writing and publishing 1.5 million words of fiction through our company Realm & Sands.
In the two years since Copyblogger ran this post about serialized fiction, Sean has also published another two million words at his other company, Collective Inkwell, with David Wright.
But none of those millions of words were left to sell based on chance.
We wanted to make our full-time livings as authors — and since have — so we opted for something more certain.
Our words are our art, yes. But once those words are scrubbed in the editing process, they became products for sale. And what do smart marketers do with products? Well, if they want to sell any of those products, they arrange them into funnels.
Each week, we host the Self Publishing Podcast. In a year and a half of our show, the most frequently visited topic is how to build funnels.
Why?
Because applying proven marketing principles to independent authorship is how successful indie publishers turn a “luck of the draw” marketplace into a sound enterprise with a stable income source.
In our opinion, putting your work into product funnels is the very best (and most important) thing an author can do to increase sales … assuming you’ve created an excellent and professional-looking family of products.
Ready to sell some books? Well then, let’s take a look at “Funnels 101,” starting with exactly what they are and why you should care.
What is a funnel and why does it matter?
Click here to read the rest of the post on Copyblogger.
This post, by Mike Shatzkin, originally appeared on his The Shatzkin Files blog on 11/21/13.
As part of the promotion of the Digital Book World conference, I do some interviewing with the very capable Jeremy Greenfield, the editor of their blog. And Jeremy takes our conversations and chops them up into short pieces around the themes of our show. Since the focus of Digital Book World is “how digital is changing publishing”, Amazon is a topic of great interest and one we try to address in an original and enlightening way.
In my interview with Jeremy, for which he published very brief but entirely accurate excerpts, I did say that publishers would face a real selling job with authors when Amazon’s share grows by another 25% from its current base or if Barnes & Noble closed. Neither of those things is likely to happen in the next few years. If and when the day comes that one of those things does happen, not all publishers would be entirely defenseless even with today’s arsenal of capabilities. And Jeremy’s piece closes with my suggestion that publishers can help themselves by doing “digital marketing at scale, which is audience-centric in its thinking.”
Despite how this is interpreted in some circles, it does not add up to publishing “spiraling down the drain”.
Amazon is already truly disruptive and it isn’t clear to anybody but those on the inside of Amazon exactly how disruptive. I’ve written earlier that we know nothing about the used book marketplace they host and foster, which we must assume cuts into sales, particularly of bestselling books which have many copies in circulation. A recent discussion on a mailing list I’m on revolved around what we don’t know about how many ebooks are being published. Why? Because Bowker, which issues ISBN numbers and therefore helps us count the titles going into the marketplace, doesn’t necessarily get to touch (and count) titles that stay entirely inside of Amazon and therefore only use the Amazon “ASIN” substitute for the ISBN. Other ebook retailers will handle titles without ISBN numbers, but only Amazon has a large enough market by itself to make a substantial number of self-publishers work with them alone.
And now we have the anomaly of sales reporting from the AAP, once again working without totally internal Amazon IP, that suggests ebook sales are going down. Are they going down? Or are self-published titles exclusively inside Amazon taking share away from the part of the business we can see and count for ourselves and masking the ebook sales growth that is actually taking place? I have no evidence, but that strikes me as a more likely reality than that ebook sales have actually fallen year-to-year recently.
Click here to read the rest of the post on The Shatzkin Files.