Ebooks

Articles specific to writing and publishing ebooks.

Kudos to Publisher MacMillan for Speaking Up, Even if….

by

Along with most citizens of Kindle Nation, I happen to believe that some of the big publishers are making a big mistake by trying to control retail ebook prices and raise those prices by 30 to 50 percent. This mistake is compounded, in my view, by the apparent circumstance of its having been arrived at through a collusive, anti-consumer process in which the "Apple 5" of MacMillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Penguin, and HarperCollins have been lured by Steve Jobs into trying to fix prices and restructure retail relationships all at once.

That being said, congratulations to MacMillan CEO John Sargent for having the guts and transparency to speak up and address readers directly in this post on the company’s blog yesterday:

Macmillan CEO John Sargent on the agency model, availability and price

I had been critical of Sargent previously for addressing his earlier comments only to authors and literary agents, and consequently trying to position them to speak up on his and his company’s behalf, and this new post is well worth reading. He has not changed my mind, and I doubt he will change the minds of many ebook readers, but we will see. There are dozens of comments that give a good sense of the range of views generally in the ebook pricing controversy, and you may want to add your voice to those of other readers.

There are reasons for  optimism about the way that this will play out, and I see glimmers of hope both in the fact that Random House has yet to join the Apple 5 and in the fact that Sargent cracks open the door of flexibility an inch or two by acknowledging that some ebooks will be priced lower than $12.99 during their "hardcover new release" period. If readers are in a position where they are able to make buying decisions based on price as well as interest in particular books, it will be easier for publishers to gather information about the importance of competitive pricing.

Credit should be given to Sargent for staying away from two "that dog won’t hunt" arguments, at least for now:
 

  • He doesn’t try to claim that these dramatic increases are based on cost.
     
  • He doesn’t try to justify these dramatic increases by saying they will be good for authors or even lead to higher royalties for authors.

One omission that hurts his case involves the actual price that consumers usual pay for hardcover new releases. It is a classic  case of apples and oranges for Sargent to compare the hardcover suggested list prices of $25 to $35 with the $12.99 to $14.99 prices the Apple 5 wants to fix for ebooks. The retailers responsible for most hardcover book sales in the U.S. (Amazon, the chains, and the big box stores) have been discounting most hardcover new releases by 25 to 46% for years, and MacMillan is not taking any steps to limit this discounting. With publishers insisting that no discounting be applied to ebooks, the actual terms of comparison should be between $13-$15 ebooks and $15-$18 hardcovers, which doesn’t quite rise to the level of Sargent’s claim of "a tremendous discount from the price of the printed hardcover books."

 

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

Open-source .epub vs. Adobe .pdf

by

Over the past few days I’ve been reading up on e-book file formats. I have a collection of short stories I want to publish, and I have a working understanding of the technology that readers will use to embrace that content, but until recently I haven’t worried too much about delivering content to that technology. (The main reason for my delay is simply the pace of change. Time spent trying to understand or master e-content technology six months ago would have put me at buggy-whip risk.)

As luck would have it, Mark Coker just released data about the file formats most in use on Smashwords, his e-publishing site. At the same time, Joel Friedlander pointed me to a useful video tutorial about formatting content using Adobe’s InDesign software, which seems to be the tool of choice for many people. From these two sources of information I was able to understand and easily navigate the first fork in the road on my own publishing journey.  

Like any author, what I want is for my text — the words I’ve written using whatever tools I’ve chosen to use — to be available to as many people as possible. That’s going to be my main, unchanging goal, no matter what else happens in the future. Because of the technological time we live in, reaching that goal means providing my text in various file formats so it can be accessed by the end user. Ideally there would be only one file format for publishing text, and it would be open source — meaning no one would own or control that particular format, and anyone could use it without having to pay a per-use fee or buy a proprietary application. (For obvious reasons, this is not the preferred course for companies looking to profit from the dissemination of text.)

According to Mark Coker’s file-format data covering the past year on Smashwords, Adobe’s proprietary .pdf file format was the most-used format at 35%, followed by the open-source .epub format at 22%. Mark also noted that this was a change from the previous year, when .epub beat .pdf handily.

Why would a proprietary format beat out an open-source format? In this case the answer has as much to do with the demands of the content being published as it does with functionality of the file formats being used. As I recently learned, the .epub format’s strength is that it creates reflowable text — meaning text that adjusts itself depending on the size of the display, the font being used (if the user is able to change fonts), the size of the text, and various other variables.

From the point of view of many authors, however, this is also .epub’s weakness. If what you are publishing is simply a long string of text — as most fiction tends to be — then .epub works fine. If your content includes tables, images, sidebars and other layout-specific elements, then .epub quickly becomes a nightmare because you cannot control when and how these elements will display across all of the various e-readers and viewing applications.

The .pdf file format solves these layout-specific problems because it creates a static image — a picture — of each page. From the author’s point of view this is a godsend, because content will always display the same way for every user. For users, however, there is a downside. Precisely because .pdf text is not reflowable, it will not resize to fit each device or user setting. This means some users on some devices will need to zoom in and out to clearly see things like captions, table data, or sidebar text that may be in a smaller font. All of the information will be present as the author intended, but if the original page was 9 inches high by 6 inches wide, and the end user is looking at that same content on a Kindle or iPhone, there’s probably going to be some zooming involved — provided the device supports that functionality.

Because the stories I want to publish are straight text, the reflowable .epub format not only meets my needs as an author, but it provides the most transparent reading experience for end users. That’s a win-win for me because I don’t have to make any trade-offs between my own authorial needs and the end-user reading experience. Having said that, the appeal of the .pdf format is clear because it preserves all the work an author puts into page layout and structure. If I had content that was dependent on images, data or layout, I’d have to decide whether to use .pdf, or how to translate all of those assets into .epub-friendly equivalents. Ugh.

As a follow-up, I encourage you to watch the InDesign tutorial I mentioned above. I learned a lot in the few short minutes it took to watch, and I think it will give you valuable insight into these issues. It will also introduce you to the learning curve you’ll be facing if you decide you want to do some of the more complex stuff yourself.

As for me, I won’t be buying InDesign any time soon, for three reasons. First, at $699 it’s pricey. Second, the life of a successful writer will be defined as much by keeping costs under control as by anything else, so there aren’t going to be a lot of dollars going out until there are a lot of dollars coming in. Third, if I ever decide the software is worth having, I’ll still want to compare the total cost (in time and money) of buying it, learning how to use it and paying for future upgrades with the total cost of having someone else provide that service. If I can get the end result cheaper I’ll go with the service: if not, I’ll buy the software.

It should be noted that it is not necessary to buy InDesign, or any Adobe application, in order to create a .pdf file from most commonly created source text. Adobe’s proprietary tool for creating .pdf files is called Acrobat, and it currently sells for $299 in the U.S. The application that most computer users use to read .pdf files is called the Acrobat Reader, and it is distributed free — meaning anyone can freely read content that someone else has created as a .pdf. What is less commonly known is that the OpenOffice suite of applications includes a .pdf writer in its Write application, allowing documents created in a wide variety of file formats (including MS Word .doc) to be exported as .pdf files. More info here (scroll down).


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

5 Favorite Fonts For Interior Book Design

by

There’s no bigger decision you make in designing a book than picking the body typeface. A book by its nature is a long reading experience, and as book publishers we want our books to be as easy to read as possible while communicating the author’s intent. Style and fashion also play their part in many book designs, particularly in popular niches. The accumulated expectations of 500 years of book readers also come into play. Books are pretty conventional objects, after all.

Some fonts really lend themselves to book design while others, which look good in a brochure or on a business card or billboard, make odd, unreadable books. Any idiosyncrasy in the type design will be magnified by the repetition of typesetting 75,000 or 100,000 words in thousands of lines on hundreds of pages.

So the choice of your basic typeface looms large when you sit down to design your book. Here are five typefaces that have become favorites and which will almost always look great in your books too. You’ll find links to the vendor of the fonts as well.

  1. Garamond – Named after the famed 16th-century French “punch-cutter” or type designer Claude Garamond, many versions of this old style face exist. The one used most frequently now is the version designed by Robert Slimbach for Adobe. It’s known for its graceful, flowing style and humanistic elegance. Here’s a sample:

    Get Garamond here
    book-design-type-sample-garamond

  2. Janson – Designed by the Hungarian Nicholas Kis in the 17th century, the design was mistakenly attributed to the Dutch printer Anton Janson. It is a strong and elegant face with marked contrast between thin and thick strokes, and may be the most popular text face for fine bookmaking. Here’s a sample:

    Get Janson here
    book-design-type-sample-janson

  3. Bembo – Bembo, another old style typeface, was based upon a design by Fracesco Griffo, who worked for famed early printer and publisher Aldus Manutius in Venice in the 15th and early 16th century. It was a clear attempt to bring the humanist script of the finest scribes of the day to the printed page, and served as the chief inspiriation to Claude Garamond, among others. Bembo has a classic beauty and readability that are unmatched.

    Get Bembo here
    book-design-type-sample-bembo

  4. Caslon – One of the most popular text typefaces of the 18th and 19th centuries, Caslon was designed by William Caslon in England in the early 18th century. An old-style face modeled on early Dutch originals, Caslon has an appealing irregularity and creates a distinctive texture on the page. Many people recognize Caslon from its extensive use in textbooks. Here’s a sample:

    Get Caslon here
    book-design-type-sample-caslon

  5. Electra – A 1935 design by the prolific type designer D.W. Dwiggins, Electra creates a distinctive “color” and evenness on a printed page. It’s inventor said he wanted Electra to excel at setting down warm human ideas, to endow it with a warmth of blood and personality. Here’s a sample:

    Get Electra here
    book-design-type-sample-electra
    Although it would be easy to fill a book with samples of great text typefaces, it’s also true that many professional book designers could, if necessary, limit themselves to just these five fonts and continue to create great—and greatly varied—book designs, for years to come.

    So when it comes time to select the typeface for your next book, choose one of these five and rest assured that you have made a great selection.

    Those are my favorites. What about yours?

 

This is a cross-posting from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

Writers Need Social Media… and Social Media Needs Writers

by

I’m struck by 2 posts today that I need to share with anyone who has not “got” social media yet. The bottom line is that authors/writers need social media and vice versa. It is increasingly important if you want to connect, sell, network and promote yourself and your books.

First, watch this brilliant video by @equalman , author of  Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business
. It is an eye opening look at the importance of social media and also a brilliant example of a book trailer (It made me ready to buy the book and I’m already a believer!)


 

Second, read this post by publisher Jane Friedman which includes “Hands down, online tools are the fastest and easiest way for unknown writers to begin building an audience, get better at their craft, and network with others who can make a difference in their careers.”

Basically – you need to promote your book in some way in order to get readers and sell books. Social media online is a brilliant way to do it. It is fun and you need to make it a part of your life. Yes, you will spend too much time doing it, but that’s because it’s a) fun and b) it works!

My own evidence:

  • 95% of my book sales have come from people reading this blog, finding me on Twitter or Facebook or finding me through other social media sites. The other 5% are family and friends who would have bought anyway!
     
  • 100% of my course sales for the Author 2.0 Program and over 3000 downloads of the Author 2.0 Blueprint have come from the same sources
     
  • My top 5 traffic sources for this blog include: Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon – social media sites
     
  • Most of my networking is now done online and I have met amazing people from all over the world, including most of my podcast guests. Most of this is due to Twitter.

If you are just starting in the social media world, here are some related posts for you:

istock_000006428830xsmallSocial media sites also need writers. The essence of web 2.0 is connection and user created content. Everyone who has a blog is a writer of some sort and everyone can be a publisher online. The people with the best skills to take advantage of this – WRITERS!

Yes, you have the skills people want in this content driven market, and your writing can sell your books and promote yourself. So, if you haven’t jumped into social media yet, now’s the time!

 

Here’s where you can find me if you’d like to connect – I’d love to hear from you! (I am on many more sites but these are my main ones!)

Twitter: @thecreativepenn

Facebook: joanna.penn

LinkedIn: Joanna Penn

FriendFeed: Joanna Penn

Flickr: TheCreativePenn

YouTube: TheCreativePenn

 

This is a reprint of a blog post which originally appeared on The Creative Penn website on 8/26/09.

Proofing Thoughts

by

I just finished reformatting my 2nd mystery, Firebug, for uploading into Smashwords as an ebook. That was a worthwhile undertaking because, as in the 1st mystery, I found all kinds of proofing errors. This is after I had several people proof and professional editing. I had gone over it several times myself. The most common problem was using two words when they should have been combined into one. Second most common error was dumb little typos such as ‘be’ when I meant ‘me.’ A few passive sentences were caught (just like this one).

Two things often improve the accuracy of the writing process: multiple pairs of eyes and time away from the work in progress. It’s hard to catch everything when we proof immediately after writing something. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. It means we should do an initial proof, let it sit for sometime, and then come back to proof again. It’s amazing what an expectant eye will do to trick you that first time through. I am not alone in this problem—it is common in the profession.

The lesson to be learned here is that we are not perfect. We ere and we miss things. Because I have to do a careful line-by-line edit when reformatting into an rtf for Smashwords, I am more likely to see things the computer catches. Thank goodness for those wavy red and green underlines.

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

 

[Publetariat Editor’s note: also see these articles on editing and revision here on Publetariat:]

Choosing A Freelance Editor: What You Need To Know
Five Lessons For DIY Line Editing
Five Of The Most Commonly Misspelled Expressions In The English Language
Focus On Editing
How to Write Tight – Self-Editing Tips to Make Your Manuscript Ready for Publication 
More On Revising And Editing
Phantom Editors and Writing ‘Mistakes’
Simple Math: Fewer Editors = More Mistakes
Ten Words You Need To Stop Misspelling
The 32 Most Commonly Misused Words And Phrases
The DumbLittleMan Guide To Comma Use
The Science of Editing
Why Do You Need an Editor?  

 

Promote Your Book with Facebook Groups

by

Facebook groups are a great place to meet people who share your interests and to subtly promote your book. For maximum exposure, join existing groups and start your own Facebook group.

To find groups to join, enter keywords in the Facebook  search box.  When the search results come up, click on the Groups tab to view groups focused on your topic.

Click the Join Group button to join a group. Write an introductory greeting on the group’s wall, and post your book cover in the photo section. Your book cover will show up on the group page and also in the newsfeed of your friends, a great way to subtly promote your book. You can also post videos on group page. It’s not wise to post wall messages and images on more than one group page per day.

Most groups have a discussion board. Scan the list of questions to see if there are any you can answer. As with other online forums, observe proper etiquette and don’t be too promotional in your answer.

Groups are also a wonderful place to find Facebook friends. After all, if someone joins a group related to your topic of interest, they presumably share your interests.

Forming a Facebook Group

Forming your own group can be very beneficial, but to keep the group growing and active you will need to provide benefits to members by offering valuable information and/or active discussions.

To form your own group, log into your Facebook account then go to http://www.facebook.com/groups/create.php.

Groups should be used to provide information and interaction to people interested in particular topic. Be subtle about promoting books on your group. A Facebook Page is more appropriate for promoting your book or business directly.

Nonfiction authors can form a group based on their book’s topic. Fiction authors could form a group for people who love to read a particular genre. In the group they could subtly promote their book while discussing the genre and the writing process, offer free chapter downloads, and invite group members to share other books they enjoy.

Promoting Your Group

If you create an “open” group, anyone on Facebook can join, not just your friends. To invite people to join, use the Invite People to Join or Share buttons on the left side of the group’s page.

One way to attract members is to design your group page as an information hub, offering links and resources in the Recent News section of the page. You can offer a free downloadable report as a thank you to group members.  Don’t forget to promote your Facebook group on your website, in your email signature, and on other social networks.

Networking Through Your Group

As group administrator, you can send messages to members (up to a maximum of 5,000), delivered to each person’s Facebook Inbox.  Click the Message All Members link on the group page.

Be sure to communicate with the members periodically by sending something of value such as tips or helpful links. Just be careful not to send so many messages that you annoy people.

Administrators can also post to the wall and start discussions in the forum, to encourage interaction.
If you’re not already using Facebook groups to promote your book, give it a try!

Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of Facebook Guide for Authors. For more tips, follow @BookMarketer on Twitter, visit Dana’s book marketing blog, and get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips ebook when you sign up for her free book marketing newsletter.

Profiles in Publishing: #1 – Why On Earth Would I Want a Book Contract?

by

This post, from Judy Sandra, originally appeared on her JS Media blog on 2/13/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

Profiles in Publishing is a continuing investigation into the brave new world of publishing at JS Media Blog by Judy Sandra.  PIP will be a series of articles and interviews about methods and movers, reporting on who is exploring, who is inhabiting and who is succeeding in the new publishing landscape.
————–
We live in a whole new publishing world. I released my independently published book The Metal Girl (JSM Books) last month. Naturally, I sent an announcement to a personal mailing list. The first sale that I know about is a new acquaintance who excitedly emailed me, “I just bought your book on Kindle!”

Sale #1 = Kindle. I was more stunned that the first sale was on a Kindle, than I was that there was a sale. What to think.

This post began as an email to a writer/publishing industry colleague about an article we both read concerning the current state of the publishing industry and included several observations about self-publishing. From the writer’s point of view, the argument rested on, what seemed to me, the not so accurate conclusion that the ultimate “prize” of self-publishing is to land a book contract by a traditional publishing house. Really?

To be fair, this may be the goal for some. But it’s not mine. Why on earth would I want to sign such a bad contract, based on every outdated business model there is and extremely exploitive and non-remunerative to the owner/holder of the intellectual property? The author.

One wonders how many of those who say they want a book contract have actually read one. I have. I spent 23 years living in New York City, working in and around the publishing/media/arts business and have a number of writer and traditionally published author friends.

Let’s leave celebrities and huge commercial blockbusters out of the mix. Publishers didn’t market or promote the average author much in the past and now they do less than ever. Secondly, I’m a literary author, and major publishers abandoned us go a long time ago.

I published my book myself. I am now going to use my own language, because I find the phrase “self-published” cumbersome at best and mis-directed. I am going to call it “independent publishing”, or, if you like, “indie publishing”. As I’m also an indie musician and have been working with independent filmmakers, this feels about right. I’m an indie.

I created JSM Books as an imprint, so I am the “publisher” and am using Outskirts Press as my printer/distributor. They are a hybrid company and act like a real sales/distribution company. I have an ISBN number and barcode, I’m listed in Books in Print, books are available to the trade through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, and I’m POD on Amazon.com worldwide and Barnes & Noble.com. Through Outskirts I have the option to be represented in Frankfurt and other book fairs, if I want.

My great advantage, of course, is that I’m also a professional
brand strategist/marketer/promoter and had a client last year, who was the author of a non-fiction book about filmmaking. So I am probably one of the best people to promote my book that I know. I have the savvy of both old school and new media promotion.

About that experience, let me count the ways that my client’s major traditional publisher did not spend any money on marketing. The author had a huge platform to stand on, an enormous mailing list, was well known within her field, yet they would not give us any money to launch the book. Nada. And we asked. Not a penny, not a cupcake. They sent one large poster stuck to poster board. I set up the book signing/launch, begged the indie book store manager to order 50 books instead of the 25 she wanted to order, and we had an almost sellout event–sold 40 books in three hours.

I won’t say anything untoward about the in-house publicist who was assigned to the book, because I think she did a very good job, was great with the client and helpful and generous to me, but she had ten other books to promote and, again, no marketing budget. I got most of the high profile press for the client, and wrote all of her promotional materials. She paid for this out of her own pocket. Because of her established reputation, the good press (it’s an excellent book) and her speaking opportunities, which she created for herself, the book is now a bestseller in the film category on Amazon.com.

Fresh out of this experience, I had a miraculous encounter with my second novel. You can read the whole account here, but the short version is that the original manuscript was discovered by a wonderful reader, who loved the book and found me on Facebook, which encouraged me to publish it myself. At this point, there are so many reasons why I don’t want a contract that it’s hard to categorize them but let me start with eight big reasons, that have to do with bookstores, readers and buying habits.

1. Bookstores don’t matter.
I hear the chorus of people defending indie bookstores now, and I love them too, but this is not where the bulk of book buying happens. It’s just a fact. People are going to bookstores less and less and buying online more and more. I don’t know why this news item got little play in the U.S. but fact is, Borders went out of business in the UK. Read The Guardian story here:

2. Critics don’t matter. Bloggers and readers do.
Step away from the Manhattan island. Outside of that little crowd of
incestuous literary criticism (come on, you know what I’m talking about), these days people care less and less about critics. In fact, many newspapers and publications have let go of their book review sections and book reviewers. Indeed, there was a comment on a Galleycat post the other day by a Goodreads reader that said, “I don’t read reviews. I only buy and read what my friends post on Goodreads”. Huh. So, I joined Goodreads and wrote to another reader/reviewer. This woman, a librarian in Illinois, is now reading and reviewing my book.

I have connected with a professional, more mainstream and new media kind of person who has also agreed to review my book. I was surfing the blogs and discovered her. I now follow her on Twitter. Bloggers do matter, a lot these days. Like the Goodreads member, readers seem more interested in not just professional bloggers but average book reading bloggers, their peers and such.

The Internet has democratized culture, for better or worse, and sometimes I think for much better. Certainly there are more voices with a global reach. Most people gather their information online, and to them–a website, is a website is a website.

3.  U.S. book publishers are local, and I’m connected to the world.
Ever hear of social networking, say, Facebook? My Facebook page, just from my professional acquaintances, is rather international, from South Africa to Ramallah to Brazil. My novel’s Facebook Fan Page, for some odd reason, has been attracting young people from the Middle East and Eastern Europe. We live in a global culture now, not just an “American” culture. It was very fun to tell my UK Facebookers that the book is available on Amazon.co.uk.

4. Stop cutting down the trees.
POD, electronic formats and selective wholesaling of books is more ecological. The paper industry is a huge polluter. Does anyone NEED a hardback book?

5. Yes, they are reading on their mobiles and e-readers.
In spite of all the controversy, I’ve noticed that people who actually have a Kindle tend to like them. Nook is finally here, and the iPad will be bought. I have to tell you, my next door neighbor (a 40-year-old TV producer) is addicted to his iPhone and loves his Stanza, which lets him download books for free. He was annoyed when I said he would have to buy the e-version of my book. The Stanza has a very handy function of allowing you to enlarge the font size for easier reading. He gave me a demonstration, he went on for ten minutes.

6. The new companies, services and inventions are coming.
Do media people have amnesia? Do they think this or that device is the last one. There will be new companies, new inventions, new ways to do things. That’s life. Twitter didn’t exist 2 years ago, now it does, now I find it useful. The company I used for my book, Outskirts Press, is one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. They are a huge success, and that means more companies like them will pop up and/or others will evolve from them. There is an army of editorial freelancers–editors, copywriters, graphic designers. Popping up everywhere are new media book promoters, marketers, tools and so on. One of the reasons I’m writing this series is to discover what’s next. Life is change. This is a good thing.

7. The terms “vanity publishing” and “self-publishing” are so last century.
See above, even the term “self-publishing” is awkward and meaningless. Give it up already. Call it indie publishing and leave it at that. No one cares who published the book these days. When I tell people recently that “my book is out”. Their eyes light up; they’re so excited for me. “Great!” They say. “Well, I published it myself,” I say honestly enough. “Great, that’s even better!” No questions asked. They don’t care. “What’s it about?” is the only question. Is it good? Do I want to read it? There’s fan page on Facebook…

8. Indie publishing is now a choice, not to be dismissed with snarky condescension.
I’m an indie musician, and no one snarks about that. I am connected to
Mediabistro in Los Angeles, and lately have been talking to writers about
their book projects. A lot of them are just going for the indie publishing
route. They’re professionals, they have a platform, and they don’t have to
wait for anyone to get their book out. Why should they?
Repeat, #7.

OK, that’s a start. There is more to this, but it begins to cross over
into the whole communications climate at this point. My main argument is that we communicate differently, we consume differently, and we have a different and more active relationship to culture. We live in a global culture and multi-platform artistic/cultural universe. The idea of a “book industry” is, in itself, rather dated.

Bookmark Judy Sandra’s JS Media blog to continue following this series of posts.

The Value Of A Publishing House

by

This post, from Laura Dawson, originally appeared on her LJNDawson.com blog on 1/6/10. 

Slipping into the New York Times the day after New Year’s was an op-ed by Jonathan Galassi, president of FSG, which begins with the question, “What is an ebook?” and ends (or nearly ends) with this observation: “A publisher — and I write as one — does far more than print and sell a book. It selects, nurtures, positions and promotes the writer’s work.”

In between the opening question and the conclusion is a gap roughly the size and consistency of the La Brea tar pits.

To the first point – “Are e-books a new frontier in publishing, a fresh version of the author’s work? Or are they simply the latest editions of the books produced by publishers…?” – the answer is, of course, “It depends.”

If an ebook is simply a digital reproduction of a print book, the answer leans towards being “the latest editions” – and frankly, in the case of a lot of ebooks, it’s less of a reproduction than a travesty of formatting and a sort-of approximation of what the print book was supposed to offer.

If an ebook contains new information/illustrations, is presented in a variety of formats and fonts, and possibly contains video, or an author interview, or other material…it’s probably “a fresh version of the author’s work” which has been curated by the ebook publisher in a different way than the print publisher did. (And which is what Open Road is saying they’re all about.)

But is it solely the author’s work that forms the basis of that ebook? Galassi argues, in the case of William Styron, “An e-book version of Mr. Styron’s “The Confessions of Nat Turner” will contain more than the author’s original words. It will also comprise Mr. Loomis’s editing, as well as all the labor of copy editing, designing and producing, not to mention marketing and sales, that went into making it a desirable candidate for e-book distribution. Mr. Styron’s books took the form they have, are what they are today, not only because of his remarkable genius but also, as he himself acknowledged, because of the dedicated work of those at Random House.”

All true!

But then the trouble starts. Galassi states: “An e-book distributor is not a publisher, but rather a purveyor of work that has already been created. In this way, e-books are no different from large-print or paperback or audio versions. They are simply the latest link in an unbroken editorial chain, the newest format for one of man’s greatest inventions: the constantly evolving, imperishable book — given its definitive form by a publisher.”

And here is where I strongly disagree. It’s those words “definitive form” – which presume that the hardcover first-run is the “real” book, while everything that follows is somehow derivative. As our work with StartwithXML has demonstrated, this view of the “editorial chain” is rapidly evolving into a model where there is NO “definitive form”.

Read the rest of the post on LJNDawson.com.

Are You Listening, Mr. Bezos? Why a Kindle for Kids App Will Trump Academic Pilot Programs in Building a Kindle Future

by

Wonpyo Yun, a reporter for the Daily Princetonian, has the scoop on an official Princeton University announcement of the results from the Kindle DX pilot project on which the Ivy League school partnered with Amazon last semester.

 
Yun’s report suggests that the New Jersey university’s report will lead with the positive by touting cost savings and the fact that use of the DX "reduced the amount of paper students printed for their respective classes by nearly 50 percent." But it also makes clear that the Kindle DX pilot project was something less than a love fest.

(Update: here’s a link to the official announcement.) 

(Update: here’s a link to a more comprehensive report on all the Kindle pilot projects, courtesy of my friend Ned Stuckey-French, in Tuesday’s edition of Inside Higher Ed.) 

 
Out here in the real world, Amazon has generally been very successful in its Kindle marketing by lowering prices several times while promoting the Kindle in a rather understated manner as a dedicated or purpose-built reading device, setting up a delayed "Wow" factor when customers receive their Kindles and discover unexpected features and capacities with the occasional help of a Kindle guide or a Kindle blog. But Yun’s reporting on the comments of students and faculty at Princeton suggests that Amazon may have hurried or overplayed its hand with a $489 DX that is not quite ready for prime time as a replacement for textbooks and courseware. The complaints cited will probably come as no surprise to Kindle Nation Daily readers:

  • difficulties in annotating PDF documents
  • lack of folders or other content management features
  • lack of page numbers for citation, or to help in judging reading progress
  • tiny keyboard size, and other limitations on annotation
“It was great to have the experience of using a Kindle, but I think I’ll stick with books until they work out the kinks,” Cally Robertson ’10 told the Princetonian, and her impatience with the Kindle’s "kinks" seemed to be shared widely among students who have probably been denied very little in the gadgetry arena during their brief lives. 
 
 “I think [the Kindle]’s one of those pieces of technology that will seem ridiculously anachronistic five years from now,” said another student, aptly named No. 
 
Are you listening, Mr. Jobs?
 
It would not surprise me if, having been introduced by Amazon and their instructors to the Kindle, many of these Princeton students end up being perfect customers for Apple’s iPad. The iPad’s initial sticker price of $499 to $699 is not going to be a deal breaker for many of these students whose parents are paying $252,480 for four years of tuition, room, and board, even if the total four-year costs of 3G coverage, warranties, and accessories like the iPad keyboard shown above right bring that price above $2,500. That’s over five times the cost of a Kindle DX, but for now at least, you can’t write a term paper on the DX.
 
While Amazon has been around for 15 years, its Kindle business is still very much a start-up, and for that business Amazon faces a dizzying array of choices about how to invest its capital, its people, and its many marketplace advantages for the future. Kindle DX sales seem currently to make up only about 10 percent of overall Kindle sales, and Amazon may well decide not to engage Apple in what might become a hubris-driven battle for the highest-end convergence-devices-that-might-also-serve-as-ereaders market. 
 
But eschewing a market composed of the children of millionaires is not the same as eschewing a market composed of children, and that’s where Amazon’s smartest future-oriented strategic moves could soon come. I’ve been saying for months that it is time for a Kindle for Kids, and although my predictions along those lines have come to naught, the fact that I’ve been wrong about the timing doesn’t make the entire notion wrong. Whatever Amazon decides to do in the short term with regard to the DX and textbooks, I’m convinced that the company could do much more to build a long-term future for the Kindle and the Kindle Store by putting a full-court press on the possibility of creating a Kindle App for the Fisher-Price iXL Learning System (shown at right, below), scheduled to ship in July 2010 for $79.95 with Story Book, Game Player, Note Book, Art Studio, Music Player and Photo Album applications, an SD card slot for expanded memory, USB connectivity, PC and Mac compatibility, a software management CD enabling users to add their own songs and pictures, and onboard storage for additional software titles, songs, and pictures (and, I would assume, ebooks). Calling it a Learning System, of course, is a marketing masterstroke that guarantees heavy activity involving grandparents.
 
But what part of all that would a kid not love? What part of all that wouldn’t lead a fair number of Dads to try to negotiate some user time with their five-year-olds? Most parents are already familiar with the experience of taking their kids to a restaurant and secretly wishing that they too could order the crusty mac and cheese with the $3 price tag from the Kids’ Menu. 
 
And most manufacturers and marketers are already familiar with the way in which many kids’ eating preferences are dominated for years by the culinary themes and motifs of those same Kids’ Menus. 
 
For Amazon, it’s got to be obvious that getting Fisher-Price to link the iXL Learning System to a beefed-up Kids’ Korner of the Kindle Store would — far more than any academic pilot project — virtually guarantee the development of millions of little Kindle Kids and future Kindle Adults.
 
Hell yes, I’m serious. Or, given the subject matter and the need for this particular App to come with parental controls, "Heck yes."
 
Are you listening, Mr. Bezos? 

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

The Speed of Self-Publishing is Best When You Go Slow

by

Will you have the time?

A couple of weeks ago we took our son and his friend to lunch at Sam’s Anchor Cafe in lovely downtown Tiburon, a tony suburb of San Francisco that sticks out into the Bay. It’s a popular spot and attracts a lot of people coming from San Francisco on the delightful ferries that ply the bay. Bicyclists abound, dog walkers stroll, and there are numerous eateries to provide for people’s appetites.

Walking toward Sam’s, which features dining on its deck over the water amid sailboats moored along the piers and marinas, we spotted this parking sign: “3 Minutes Only Anytime.” Three minutes? Holy cow. There isn’t much on-street parking in Tiburon, but I was left puzzled.

What exactly can you get done in three minutes? It seems to take me about three minutes just to collect myself and get out of my car these days.

I wonder if this is just the latest sign of our rush-rush, Twitter-enabled life. Is three minute parking like microblogging for parking lot attendants? Is it just right for the ADD crowd?

 

We Have Slow Food, What About Slow Books?

This hurried aspect to life often collides with the realities of publishing. One of the common complaints about traditional publishing, with its seasonal lists, long response times, and endless editorial meetings is that it can take a long time to get into print. From acceptance of your manuscript it’s not unusual for a book to take 1.5 years to appear in bookstores.

Self-publishing cheerleaders often trumpets its ability to be more responsive, and to get to market much faster than the big guys, and that’s certainly true. But it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Books, by their nature, take time. Sometimes a long time. It’s understandable that an author, after spending months or years researching, writing, and re-writing their manuscript, will want to get the book to print as soon as feasible.

Taking the Time to Do It Right

But there’s no good reason to short-change the time it takes to properly edit, design, layout, and proof the book. Up front it may also take time to find a good match with an editor, to contract with a designer who can execute the right kind of design for your genre, to assemble the entire team that will be needed to produce a high quality book.

Once in motion, the team you’ve assembled will work together to produce a quality product. But this also takes time. Editing a 300-page history book, checking references, making sure citations are accurate and uniform, making style sheets to guide editors and proofreaders to the usages that occur in the book—all essential tasks that are time comsuming.

On the design side, giving your designer time to get familiar with your material, to scope out other books in your genre against which you may be competing, or with which you may be cross-selling, is time well spent. Then your designer is going to need time to come up with her unique vision for your book. In my case, I usually present three distinct and different solutions to the communication challenge that’s presented by your book. More time.

Illustrators, cover designers, indexers, proofreaders all need time to do their job properly. As publisher, it’s up to you to make sure you have the time in your schedule to allow your team to do its best work.

Having a Plan Makes Sense

You need a plan that’s based on your strategy for your book. For instance:

  • If you plan to sell through nationwide bookstore distribution, you will probably try to get prepublication reviews from the major prepub reviewers: Publishers Weekly, Libarary Journal, School Library Journal, Kirkus Review, and Foreword Magazine. You could add in the New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, BookPage, Quality Books and any book clubs you are thinking of soliciting.

    Since these review sources need Advance Review Copies with promotional material a good 4 months before your official publication date, their schedule may well dictate your publishing schedule.

     

  • If you would like to get corporate sponsorship or a promotional tie-in for the launch of your book, you will need sufficient time to pitch your proposal and sign partners before going to press. Many of these arrangements require the sponsor’s branding on the books themselves, so you need to have this in place before going to press.

     

  • If your book is tied to a holiday or other special event, you will need quite a bit of advance time to make absolutely certain you have your book in hand well before you need it. You don’t want to be sitting with 3,000 copies of your book that arrived right after the special event.

So although we live in a “hurry-up” world, taking the time to plan thoughtfully will go a long way to reducing the stress new publishers experience. Bring your “team” into your planning as soon as possible. Their experiences with previous projects will be available to you, an invaluable aid as you get ready to launch your book.

And a tip from me: that errand will take longer than 3 minutes. Pull around the corner and park somewhere else.

 

This is a cross-posting from Joel Friedlander’s The Book Designer site.

Interview With Association of Independent Authors Founder Leigh Cunningham

by

The AIA is an organization recently founded for the benefit of indie (self-published) authors. To find out what this new group is all about, and what it has to offer indie authors, Publetariat interviewed AIA founder Leigh Cunningham.

1. What is the AIA?
 
The Association of Independent Authors is a not-for-profit organization representing and advancing the interests of independent authors. Our vision is that independent publishing will be the preferred, first choice for all authors.

2. How is the AIA different from the Independent Book Publishers Association and the (mainstream) Author’s Guild?
 
The IBPA is a trade association of independent publishers. Its mission is to advance the professional interests of independent publishers.
 
The Author’s Guild is restricted to authors published by an "established American publisher." Self-published works and works published by subsidy presses do not qualify an author for membership of Author’s Guild.
 
The Society of Authors in the UK only recently amended its eligibility criteria to allow for self-published authors, but entry is subject to sales results, which is not the case for authors published through an established publisher.
 
The AiA in contrast has a singular focus on independent authors. Every resource in our community is relevant to authors who publish their own work, either in their own name or under their own imprint.
 
 
3. What are the benefits of membership in the AIA?
 
There are hundreds of thousands of independent authors, all doing the same thing, individually. A key function of the AiA is to facilitate the sharing of information and resources so that members can avoid the mistakes made by others. Since authors generally have limited budgets, our members can direct those funds to opportunities that will generate the desired outcome whether it is sales or publicity.
 
Another priority of the AiA is to improve the quality of self-published works. Our members are serious about ongoing improvement as a writer, and development as a business professional. We offer genuine, honest feedback on writing, cover and interior design, and market strategies, in a supportive community environment.
 
Members also receive discounts on an array of services relevant to independent authors including marketing, PR, video book trailers, magazines and courses.
 
 
4. Must a writer have self-published in order to join?
 
We have two levels of membership. An Associate is someone who is in the process of arranging the publication of their own work, or one who plans to publish their own work upon completion of that work. A Member is someone who has arranged the publication of their own work either under their own name or under their own imprint.
 
Unpublished authors (Associate members) require different services, information and resources to published authors who are looking to distribute, promote and sell their work. This differentiation allows us to tailor services to each member type. It also means members can communicate directly with others who are in the same part of the writing or publishing process.
 
5. Many mainstream-published authors are now going "indie" by self-publishing works for which the rights have reverted to them, or for works not yet signed over to a publisher, yet still have mainstream books in print. Will these authors be able to join the AIA?
 
Absolutely! We would love to have them along as they epitomize the vision of the AiA, like self-published poet, Chrissie Gittins. Having had success with her first two collections under her own imprint, Chrissie decided to self-publish the third collection because the contract terms offered by publishers did not compare to the rewards and benefits of self-publishing. Opportunities previously beyond the reach of self-published authors, for example global distribution channels, are now accessible, and of course, e-books break down all barriers. We expect therefore, that more and more authors will choose the independent path.
 
 
6. Will the AIA be taking public positions on issues that affect its membership (e.g., DRM, Text-To-Speech on Kindle books, etc.), and if so, will members have input to those positions?
 
We will definitely take public positions on issues affecting our members, for example, we support Amazon’s position regarding the price of e-books. We support the moves by publishing houses to establish self-publishing entities. The term "vanity publishing" has no relevance today – it is a business model that responds to the changes that technology has brought to the publishing industry. Publishing houses are already moving away from offering author advances. It’s only a small step from this to asking authors to invest in the success of their own work.
 
Our members will always have an opportunity to comment on issues affecting them, which is why the AiA community revolves around our forums, groups and community blogs.
 
 
7. What does it cost to join the AIA, and are there any other specific requirements for membership?
 
During the month of February, our inaugural month, the AiA is offering complimentary first year membership. Registrants can use promo code " COMP " to take advantage of this offer.

The regular, annual subscription rate is USD50 for Associates and Members, and there are no application fees. Membership is open to any author who has, or who is planning to publish his or her own work. Our annual subscription compares favorably with similar trade organizations, for example, Author’s Guild is USD90 and IBPA is USD175. The Society of Authors in the UK is GBP90 per annum (USD140)
 
We also have Consultant members, and following a request from a bookseller, have added a new category for Booksellers. Consultant members offer valuable information and resources to our members, which is posted in their Group forums and blogs. We plan to work closely with bookseller members to help them with the issues they are facing as much as they might offer opportunities for our individual members.
 
 
8. What does the AIA have planned for its inaugural conference in 2012?
 
The conference will address issues specific to independent authors. We will focus on the business side of writing as our members, as independent authors, effectively run their own businesses. This stream will include topics related to marketing, PR, sales, distribution, finance, etc. Additionally, as one of our goals is to improve the overall quality of self-published works, there will be streams for the technical aspects of writing and book design.
 
There is a detailed online survey on our website for members to complete, the responses to which will guide us in identifying the west-coast destination, the program, and speakers for the conference.
 
 
9. Where can Publetariat’s audience go to learn more about the AIA?
 
Our web site at http://www.independent-authors.org/ or they can contact us directly at info@independent-authors.org

pictureLeigh Cunningham is a lawyer by profession, but most of her career has been spent as a senior executive for two membership organizations. She also worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers as Director, Operations & Finance, Asia.

In addition to her law degree, completed with honors, she has three masters degrees: an MBA (International Management), Master of Commerce (e-commerce major) and a Master of International Trade and Investment Law. 
 
Leigh sees the AIA as a merger of her past professional career and her new career as an independent author. She hopes to use her business background and education to help other independent authors improve their capabilities as businesspeople, and to use her experiences as a self-published author to guide and strengthen the publishing plans of others.

 

Interview With Read An Ebook Week Founder Rita Toews

by

Read an Ebook Week is coming, March 7-13, and it has a lot to offer indie authors, small imprints and readers alike. Herewith, we present an interview with event founder Rita Toews.

1) What is Read An E-book Week, and what was its genesis?
 
Read an E-Book Week is an event to educate the public about electronic reading, and to promote the individuals and entities involved in all aspects of the experience – from the authors who create the books to the technology in the e-readers.

 
In 2003 I was looking for a way to unite e-book authors under a banner that would help them promote their e-books. I registered Read an E-Book Week with Chase’s Calendar of Events and encouraged authors to use the week to educate the public about e-books in general – thereby creating a market for their own e-books. Authors were encouraged to: approach publicity venues and offer to be interviewed, set up displays in libraries, offer to do readings in schools, and to generally spread the word.
 
2) How many years has this event been running? 
 
This will be the eighth year for Read an E-Book Week. The first few years were very low-key as I figured out what worked and what didn’t. The last few years were very successful.
 
3) Do you feel Read An E-book Week has been effective in raising awareness of, and interest in, ebooks? 
 
I think so. People have to hear about a new idea three times before it even registers in his or her mind. When something like a new way of reading books comes along the initial reaction is "There’s nothing wrong with the old way." So on top of having to introduce the idea, e-book authors had to break down the scepticism and barriers to electronic books in people’s minds. I think we’ve done a pretty good job. 
 
4) How can authors and small imprints partner with Read An Ebook Week to help promote their books while promoting the event? 
 
It’s very easy to partner with Read an E-Book Week. The website is a clearing house of events happening during the week. To partner, an author or publisher just has to offer a free e-book on their website, and host a banner linked back to the Read an E-Book website. We in turn will list the partner on the REBW website with a link back to the author or publisher. Anyone visiting our website can explore the participating partners list and visit those that catch their eye. Last year some partners reported 4,000 visits during the week.  
 
5) The upcoming Apple iPad has been rumored for many months to be a possible Kindle killer. Do you feel the ebook market needs an "iPod for ebooks" to truly break through to a level of market acceptance competitive with print, or are the challenges not specific to a device/platform? 

 
I don’t think the challenges are specific to a device/platform. In 2003 e-book fans wanted a device that was affordable and would allow them to read e-books comfortably. Now there are so many ways to read e-books that one device isn’t going to dominate the market. Actually, the most popular way to read e-books is on a mobile phone. A phone serves more than one function, is easily carried, and is a device that many people have with them all the time. It’s there when a person, even one who may not be a regular reader, has some spare time and decides to read. 
 
A dedicated e-book reading device such as a Sony or Kindle is something that a person has to make a conscious decision to have at hand when they want to read. It’s a device an avid reader would use – out at an appointment, or on vacation.
 
What is an iPad? Is it a small computer? An e-book reader? It’s too big to slip into a pocket or purse. It’s too expensive to forget at the Doctor’s office, so it will probably be used at home or in the office. This may be a product with an identity crisis. 
 
At this point, I think the challenges for e-books to break through to a level of market acceptance competitive with print are related to price, not device.  
 
6) Mainstream authors such as Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Stephen R. Covey are signing Kindle book deals directly with Amazon or go-betweens such as Rosetta Stone, cutting their print publishers completely out of the equation. Do you think this is the beginning of a bona fide trend, and if so, what are the larger implications for the trade publishing industry?
 
I really feel the interest in e-book by mainstream authors is the beginning of a trend. Publishers have resisted e-books for many years, fearing the new format would cut into their profits. Authors on the other hand are looking for profits, which are hard to come by in the traditional publishing formula. To them, e-books are a way to increase their profits. If traditional publishers continue to dig their heels in about e-books more authors are going to claim the e-rights to manuscripts and sign their own deals, cutting the publisher out of the equation.
 
7) Where do you stand on the $9.99 ebook question? Can publisher moves toward higher pricing succeed in making the $9.99 price point a memory, or will their strategy backfire?
 
$9.99 for an e-book is a high price. When a reader looks at $15.00 and more they will go elsewhere – perhaps to the independents. If a reader wants a specific book they may wait until it’s being cleared out. I’ve seen popular paperbacks at discount stores for less than $10.00. 
 
8) There are strong differences of opinion about the future of print and electronic books. Some predict e will inevitably overtake print, as CD has overtaken vinyl, to the point where print books will become the province of purists and collectors only. Others think print is here to stay and e will never become a very significant factor in trade publishing. Still others foresee a world in which the two format types will co-exist and serve different needs or audiences. What is your opinion?
 
In my opinion, the two will co-exist. There is a place for print and a place for electronic. Infant’s books are definitely a place for print, as are art books and reprints of classics. Electronic works well for travelers who would bring a lot of books with them, as well as for fiction that is popular at the time but will not become a classic. Anything that changes constantly is also well-suited for e-books.  
 
9) Along those same lines, some industry watchers theorize that the ebook is now in its infancy, and the current, predominant model of static text ebooks is just a phase to be superseded by a totally new model of enhanced ebooks and ebook "apps". Many ebook consumers say they would prefer not to have the distractions of embedded links and videos, yet enhancing ebooks may be the only way for publishers to justify higher pricing for them. How do you predict things will shake out in this area?
 
This makes me wonder what the monks, who hand-lettered and gilded each page of their lovely books, thought of books produced on a Gutenberg printing press. Change is hard. Is a book with links and videos a book at all or a form of entertainment?
 
Images and a few links would not be a distraction to me. After all, images in printed books add to the reading experience. When it comes to video and audio embedded in a book — that stretches the definition of a book a bit too much for me. 
 
Publishers may say they need to include the "add-ons" to justify the higher prices for e-books but that may not be so. It does cost a lot to produce a good quality e-book. The vetting of the manuscript, editing, formatting, advertising – each step costs the same whether the final product is in print or electronic. The cost of the paper, shipping and storage are saved when producing the electronic copy. It’s estimated those costs are about 12.5 percent of the average hardcover retail list price. That’s not a large figure. 
 
But there’s another way to look at e-book pricing. Do the people who buy e-books buy the expensive print books? E-books may reach an audience that print books don’t — meaning that each e-book sold is an added sale to the publisher. A sale they wouldn’t have had if the book were produced only in print.  
  
 
10) What do you say to the author or small imprint who/which has elected not to release books in electronic format due to an assumption that e is too small a piece of the market to matter? To the author/imprint who/which is holding back on e and waiting for the dust to settle on pricing, DRM and related issues? 

I say they are missing out on sales and the e-book reader’s goodwill. For any business to succeed they have to give their customer what they want. If one business doesn’t, the customer will go to the business that does.

 
11) Where can Publetariat’s audience learn more about Read An Ebook Week, and can you offer links to any general online resources for good, up to date information about what’s happening with ebooks and related technology?
 
Read an E-Book Week is located on the web at www.ebookweek.com The website has a host of information about reading and publishing e-books, as well as information on various e-book reading devices. Readers should also visit the Supporters page and the E-book Store page for a fantastic choice of free e-books during Read an E-Book Week.
 
There are a number of current on-line resource sites on the web. I would highly recommend Teleread and Mobileread.  The mobileread forums are really informative.

 

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: once again, Smashwords will be sponsoring Read An Ebook Week, with special discounts on Smashwords titles. Indie authors with books listed on Smashwords can learn more about how to participate here.]

Authors Can Be Stupid: Price War Motives

by

This post was written by Michael A. Stackpole. It originally appeared on his Stormwolf website on 2/11/10, is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission, and is the tenth installment in his series on common myths and distractions in authorship and publishing. The first installment is here, the second is here, the third is here, the fourth is here, the fifth is here, the sixth is here, the seventh is here, the eighth is here, and the ninth is here. 

It has been suggested that the battle between publishers and Amazon over ebook pricing actually had two motives. The first was to prevent Amazon from establishing a “monopoly” over ebook sales. The second was to create a “sustainable price model.”

I’ve suggested a third motive: greed.

Monopoly: Amazon never had a monopoly, wasn’t going to have a monopoly, and no one with enough neurons to form a synapse believed they were going to have a monopoly. Amazon never demanded exclusivity from any publishers in the United States, small or large. Amazon allowed files to be sent to a Kindle outside their store structure. Amazon did not support epub, which is the format that all the other ereaders support, leaving wide open a whole market vector over which they had no control. Amazon understood that to establish a monopoly—were they somehow able to do so—would invite Department of Justice investigations and anti-trust litigation.

Moreover, if publishers were truly worried about Amazon having a monopoly, they would have pushed matters before Apple offered the agency model for pricing. They would have sued for restraint of trade or otherwise have used lawyers to force Amazon to negotiate better deals. Amazon does have a lock on sales for the Kindle, and used their clout there to demand better pricing from suppliers. That is exactly what every retail outlet and chain in the world does when they have the opportunity.

In a last-ditch attempt to justify this idea, people have pointed to Amazon saying they would give in to Macmillan because the publisher has “a monopoly” over the content they produce. Evanescent persiflage. Every manufacturer has a monopoly over what they produce. No single publisher has a monopoly over all books produced. The monopoly comment was a statement of fact and to construe it as something more significant or sinister is just silly.

Sustainable Pricing Model: Nice business terminology that roughly translates into “I get what I want.” What the agency model does is allow publishers to charge as much as they want for books, which may not be what the market will bear. They will charge exactly what they believe they need to make for profitability—the return on investment they need to keep their current business model afloat. I’ve addressed before the question of bloated overhead that stems just from locating operations in New York that don’t need to be there. The model is broken, and inefficiency will be subsidized through higher prices—prices which, for years and years, were justified to the public as being caused by higher paper prices.

This model is built specifically to allow prices to rise, which is a ridiculous proposition in the face of downward pricing pressure when things move into the digital realm. Artificially high prices create a market for pirated versions of things. Premium prices charged for a premium product (hardbacks versus paperbacks) can be justified in the minds of the consumer. Charging a premium for the first look at a book will seem as nothing to fanatical devotees of certain authors; but will seem like a gross ripoff to many other folks.

The shift in sales figures and sales modalities in the music business should be pointing to a probable future. The problem with most publishers is that they’re part of larger entertainment conglomerates who had their music divisions clobbered by digital; and now they’re vowing “Never again.” Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and this is a disaster in the offing.

Greed: I really like greed as a motive here. The publishers take from Amazon by reducing Amazon’s discount. They take from authors by reducing our share of the electronic take. They refuse to make changes to their business which would eliminate waste and run things more efficiently, and they fail to capitalize the resources they already have (ebooks which are under the higher author cut) in favor of all the new things coming out where they make more.

I should also note here that publishers have suggested that the higher prices will allow them to pay authors. However, in the 22 years that I’ve been a published author, the average advance for a first novel has not risen at all. Authors who are not superstars—Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer—are constantly under pressure to hit it big with every book. Big, in this case, is a constantly shifting target that results in such authors, like me, being squeezed badly. The contract for my current fantasy trilogy offered me an advance that was 70% less than my previous contract, and I am not alone in facing this sort of down-sizing of pay. And I’m a writer who earns out his advances and has his books being reprinted all the time.

I can discuss the technical reasons for this sort of pressure another time, but in short strokes it comes down to this: instead of offering a journeyman author $30,000 for a novel that will be profitable but not a blockbuster, a publisher can purchase a dozen first novels and hope just one of them will explode. It’s gambling on the longshots, which is fine for a wasted weekend in Las Vegas, but isn’t a way to run a business. And it is a business model that persists for two reasons. First, that’s the way it’s been done forever and, second, virtually every editor, no matter their genre or division, hopes they discover the next James Joyce, so they can be immortalized through their discovery.

People can rationalize all sorts of noble motives for the deal reached with Amazon, but from where I sit, there’s only one winner that comes out of it: the publishers. They’ve evidenced a willingness to squeeze both sides of the chain and I see no reason to suppose they won’t continue to do so in the future. They’re in the driver’s seat, so they have the right to call what’s going to be on the radio.

But given how badly they’ve bungled things in the past, and how they seem to be quite happy to hit the gas while driving on black ice now, I think everyone should buckle up and hope they’re not hurt too badly in the crash, or find a way to mitigate the damage that’s coming down the line.

 

©2010 Michael A. Stackpole

Michael A. Stackpole is a New York times Bestselling author with over forty novels published including I, Jedi and Rogue Squadron. He was the first author to have work available in Apple’s Appstore. He has lectured extensively on writing careers in the Post-paper Era and is working on strategies for authors to profit during the trying time of transition.

Authors Can Be Stupid: Agency Model Pays Authors Less…

by

This post was written by Michael A. Stackpole. It originally appeared on his Stormwolf website on 2/10/10, is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission, and is the ninth installment in his series on common myths and distractions in authorship and publishing. The first installment is here, the second is here, the third is here, the fourth is here, the fifth is here, the sixth is here, the seventh is here and the eighth is here. 

An excellent post by April Hamilton [here] at Publetariat.com got me looking at the actual numbers on the money paid to authors under the old system for the Kindle, and the new Agency Model. Under the old model, ebook royalties were still connected to the cover price of a physical book. Under the agency model, they are linked to the retail price of the ebook. In both cases the author gets a cut of what the publisher receives.

Under the old model, it didn’t matter what Amazon decided to sell the book for. Amazon would pay the publisher 50% of the cover price. The author would then get his cut of that. (Prior to 2009, most contracts called for publishers to split that income 50-50. New contracts have been pushing a 25/75 split in favor of the publisher.) An author with a 25% ebook royalty rate, under the old system, would be getting 12.5% of the cover price for each sale, regardless of the discounted ebook price. Because most authors have a 10% royalty rate on physical books, every ebook copy sold by Amazon actually resulted in an increase in the amount of money the author got. Under that old model, ebook sales were better than hardback sales for an author, as the chart below indicates on the first two lines.

 

 

Under the new Agency Model, publishers will set their own prices for ebooks, with the $14.99-$12.99 price range for most hardbacks being commonly cited. Prices as low as $4.99 for older books has also been mentioned. The publisher will then get 70% of the money collected for each sale. Because authors get 25% of this 70%, their effective royalty rate is 17.5%, based on the ebook price.

As lines 3 & 4 on the chart show, under the agency model, authors who have a hardback selling for $27.99, and the ebook version selling for $14.99 will make twenty cents less on an ebook transaction over the hardback sale and nearly a dollar less than on an ebook sale under the original Amazon model. And if we were to set the price lower, to the Amazon-desired price point of $9.99, authors fare even worse.

So, the great victory over Amazon actually costs authors money.

The chart’s last five lines examine the price structure for paperback sales and the percentages for authors who signed contracts prior to 2009 and have a higher percentage of ebook receipts. While paperback-level pricing returns are slightly better for ebook sales over paper sales; you’ll notice a significant increase under the old contracts where a 50% share of the net receipts translates into a 35% royalty on retail price.

In short, before publishers decided to get greedy with a market niche that they all claim is somewhere between 1-10% of the business, writers did a lot better. Amazon and their pricing structure, which actually was being subsidized by Amazon, paid authors more, pure and simple.

Let’s be clear. Publishers are fighting for the agency model and the right to to set their own prices simply because they make more money that way. They, just like Amazon and every other corporation, acts in its own enlightened self-interest. What they think of as enlightened, however, can appear to many of us as short-sighted. As I showed previously, digital sales are actually more profitable for publishers, so they should hasten the transition and use that money to underwrite physical publication—much as Baen Books does.

It is also critical to point out that writers, while they have a dog in this fight, have no voice in it. Why do authors accept 25% of ebook receipts today when, two years ago the offer was 50%? Because we have no choice, or, rather, the choice is take it or leave it. If your boss comes to you today and says, “Either you take a 15% pay cut or I have to fire you,” what do you? If you have no alternatives, you accept the paycut

So, where’s the silver lining? How do authors win with the Agency Model?

Publish work electronically yourself. Then you’re not splitting the take with anyone aside from the retailer. (And you get the money faster.) Every author should realize something critical. If the publishers are pushing to maximize their money for digital publications by taking money from Amazon, and taking money from authors, they clearly believe this market segments is going to grow quickly. The fact is we’ve already seen demographic data that suggests that people who own ereaders buy more.

Authors can benefit directly by publishing themselves. Even if it’s not new material, but short stories and out of print books, it will sell. If you don’t do it, you leave money on the table.

And if you don’t do it, you won’t have an alternative when the publishers come to you and say, “You know what, 25% is too much for you for ebook sales. 15% or we have to let you go.” That day will come, and all writers want to be ready.

 

©2010 Michael A. Stackpole

Michael A. Stackpole is a New York times Bestselling author with over forty novels published including I, Jedi and Rogue Squadron. He was the first author to have work available in Apple’s Appstore. He has lectured extensively on writing careers in the Post-paper Era and is working on strategies for authors to profit during the trying time of transition.

Authors Can Be Stupid: $500 ebook design for free!

by

This post was written by Michael A. Stackpole. It originally appeared on his Stormwolf website on 2/9/10, is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission, and is the eighth installment in his series on common myths and distractions in authorship and publishing. The first installment is here, the second is here, the third is here, the fourth is here, the fifth is here, the sixth is here and the seventh is here. 

One of the things that keeps being said about self-published ebooks is that they lack professional book design. This is short for “they look like crap.”

As you are aware, I have two ebook readers, and I’ve purchased commercially available ebooks from traditional publishers. Those designers are no great shakes, for reasons I can’t fathom. What most of you don’t know is that back in the 1980s, while working for Flying Buffalo, Liz Danforth and Pat Mueller dragged the entire game industry into the realm of professional layout and design through the work they did on all of our products. I was fortunate enough to learn from them the arts of typesetting, layout and design.

So, here are the quick and easy rules for making sure your ebooks (especially epub versions) don’t look like amateurish crap.

1) Get a book on coding HTML, or cultivate a friendship with someone who knows this stuff. There are a couple coding tricks you’ll need to know. Most ebooks work off HTML, so if you can do it on a web page, you can do it in an ebook.

2) Choose a font. For the sake of simplicity, just use Times New Roman. (If you are picky about fonts, experiment, but be aware that not all devices support all fonts. Times New Roman is supported.) Font size is irrelevant since the joy of ebook readers is that the owner can change font size.

3) Prepare the text by reducing it to single-space. And justify the text. Nothing screams amateur like ragged-right text.

4) Do not put empty lines between paragraphs (the way most webpages like this format themselves). That looks like crap, doesn’t look like any print book anywhere, leaves tons of blank space and makes for weird page spacing. Instead you will indent your paragraphs, just like in a physical book. The code is easy to write and I use the measure of 1.5em. (I know, looks like code. It is, and you or your HTML-savant friend will put it right where it needs to go.)

5) Instead of putting in a blank space to suggest the passage of time, find a small illo (even just a straight line) to drop into that space. I have disks upon disks of copyright-free illustrations. I pick one appropriate to the story and slip it in as my break spacer. If you use the same illo throughout the book, it doesn’t add much to the file size. I prefer .pngs, but .jpgs work just fine.

6) Your cover should not be representative, it should be iconic. The cover for The Silver Knife was done by Kat Klaybourne and is just such an iconic image. It reduces great to an icon for the iPod/iPad interface and is attractive enough to catch buyers’ eyes. It is the bestselling of the titles I have on through the appstore, in fact, because of this cover. (Doesn’t hurt that the story rocks, too… Mycroft Holmes, Jack the Ripper and a lot more. A *lot* more.)

Put that all together, add the cover to the front of the file, convert it to the Kindle format, or any other format, and you’re set. A professional looking book that will look as good as or better than anything coming out of traditional publishers.

 

©2010 Michael A. Stackpole

Michael A. Stackpole is a New York times Bestselling author with over forty novels published including I, Jedi and Rogue Squadron. He was the first author to have work available in Apple’s Appstore. He has lectured extensively on writing careers in the Post-paper Era and is working on strategies for authors to profit during the trying time of transition.