Think

Opinion pieces offering commentary on various aspects of book culture, publishing and self-publishing.

Five Things About Bad Guys that Make Me Want to Punch Their Creators in the Face

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This post, by Benjamin Leroy, originally appeared on the Hey, There’s A Dead Guy in the Living Room blog on 6/28/12.

Last week’s attempt at a slightly inflammatory title and opening line seemed to go over well enough, so I’m back again this week, desperately clinging to the same formula. Even though this is all about bad guys and violence, I’m certainly not advocating socking somebody in your writers’ group because their writing doesn’t live up to the subjective literary code outlined below.

Quick digression using professional wrestling as a reference point.

In the parlance of the professional wrestling industry the phrase “to get heat” means that a bad guy gets booed. There are two kinds of heat relevant to this discussion. The first is the kind you want—you want the audience to “hate” the bad guy, salivating to see him get his comeuppance. The second kind is when the marketing department has shoved some wrestler down the audience’s collective throat, the wrestler’s personality doesn’t click with the audience, and when the crowd boos, it can be translated to something like, “Get the hell off my tv. You’re annoying and I’m going to turn the channel because you suck.”

We’re going to be talking about how to avoid the “Get the Hell off my TV” kind of heat.

As you’d probably guess, I read a lot of query letters, sample pages, and every now and again, full novels. I also have the good fortune of meeting writers at conferences all across the country. And, because I deal primarily in crime fiction, I see a lot of bad guys. If I were in a different field, the antagonist might be nature or something more abstract, but mine is the domain of black hatted, curly mustachioed, slightly accented villains. Here are some things I see too often that make me hate your villain.

Let’s go!

(1)    Evil Because He’s Crazy Because He’s Evil – Sometimes I’ll be sitting at a conference rapping with Author X and the conversation will turn to the novel he’s working on tentatively called Extreme Absolute Justice or something like that. Here’s a sample of how the conversation goes:

Author X: My protagonist, Everchance Purity, is an FBI agent trailing notorious serial killer, The Waxahachie Ax Hacker, when…

Me: The who?

Author X: The Waxahachie Ax Hacker.

Me: Why is he a serial killer?

Author X: Because he’s craaaazy!

Me: Why is he crazy?

Author X: Because he’s a serial killer…

This circular logic and the subsequent chase around the tree is much less thrilling to the audience than Author X thinks. I’m going to need a little bit more from the “what’s my motivation?” department. Also, I’ve met a bunch of straight up criminals in my life, but I’ve never met one yet that didn’t have some upside somewhere. Funny. Good storytellers. Artists. Can pluck a guitar some. Obviously these traits don’t excuse crimes, but they also indicate a little more depth. I want to see that in all bad guys.

 

Read the rest of the post on Hey, There’s A Dead Guy in the Living Room.

The Curious Case of Ebook Sharing Sites

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This article, by Alice Marwick, originally appeared on the Social Media Collective Research Blog on 6/5/12.

The popularity of ebooks has skyrocketed in the last few years. The Association of American Publishers reports that eBook sales by US publishers were up 300% in 2011:

Total eBook net sales revenue for 2011 was $21.5 million, a gain of 332.6% over 2010; this represents 3.4 million eBook units sold in 2011, up 303.3 %. As comparison, print formats (Hardcover, Paperback and Mass Market Paperback) increased 2.3% to $335.9 million in 2011. (Source)

With this increase has come the usual hand-wringing over the end of print, the effects on book stores, access to books for people who can’t afford e-readers, the problems caused by DRM and the demise of the First-sale Doctrine (which says you can sell second-hand books, DVDs, videos, etc.), and so forth.

These are all worth investigation, but I’ve become interested in two specific effects of this shift.

First, the enormous rise in erotica sales and the ability of unknown authors without agents or publishers to publish ebooks cheaply and easily.

Second, the ebook sharing underground: a loose network of sites that let people swap ebooks without DRM. Because the files are so small, they’re much easier to disseminate than movies or television shows. They can be easily emailed, DropBoxed, or placed on a DDL (direct download) file-sharing server like 4Shared or Rapidshare. (There are also ebooks on BitTorrent, but it seems that most ebook sharers bypass the torrent infrastructure entirely, probably due to usability concerns or lack of comfort with the protocol.) The popular freeware program Calibre allows ebook users to convert any format (pdf, epub, mobi) to any other format; there’s a popular Calibre plugin that cracks DRM. Most ebook sharing sites contain a tutorial or two on using Calibre.

While all sorts of books are shared online, many of the ebook sharing sites I’ve come across are largely comprised of romance novels. Romance novels are an enormous industry, comprising 13% of the US market and generating more revenue than any other category:

Romance fiction: $1.358 billion in estimated revenue for 2010
Religion/inspirational: $759 million
Mystery: $682 million
Science fiction/fantasy: $559 million
Classic literary fiction: $455 million
[Source: Romance Writers of America]

From my highly unscientific perusing of ebook sharing websites, the majority of participants are women, and most of them are voracious consumers of particular subgenres, such as paranormal or Western. They’re aware of release dates — romances are published on a strict schedule– and so there’s a constant stream of new content being made available. Romances have become so popular on ebook sharing sites that one disgruntled participant wrote:

 

Read the rest of the post on the Social Media Collective Research Blog.

Suw Charman-Anderson Offers Three Articles of Interest to Indie Authors on Forbes

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Suw Charman-Anderson is an author and contributor to Forbes whose articles there are about self-publishing and crowdfunding.

She’s written three excellent and informative pieces this month: Valuable Lessons From Self-Publishing Survey, Book Promotion For Self-Publishers: A Waste of Time? and Self-Publishing and Ebook Sharing: The Industry’s New Bellwethers.

In Valuable Lessons From Self-Publishing Survey, she lists five inportant findings from the recent Taleist survey of self-publishers. Among them:

1. Get help

The first lesson for self-publishers is that if you get help with things like cover design, story editing and proofreading, you will likely earn more. The report found that getting help, paid or unpaid, with editing, copy editing and proofreading provided a 13 per cent bump in earnings. Those who added cover design to that list saw a 34 per cent increase over the average. Interestingly, ebook formatting help added only an extra 1 per cent.

— and —

3. It is possible to earn a living

It’s not without reason that much of the coverage of Taleist’s survey has focused on respondents’ income. The average income from self-published books was just over US$10,000, plus a bit less than half of that from traditionally published books. But, as is so common in creative fields, a minority of authors were responsible for the majority of income.

 

The median income, a more useful figure denoting the point at which half the respondents earn more and half earn less, was $500. This is typical of a power curve distribution and is exactly what we’d expect.

Read the full Valuable Lessons From Self-Publishing Survey article.

In Book Promotion For Self-Publishers: A Waste of Time?, Charman-Anderson writes:

Rusch has a very strong point that one of the best things that an author can do is carry on writing and get more books finished and put up for sale. Authors cannot put all their eggs in one book-shaped basket. Having a selection of books available gives the reader choice, and readers who like one book may well go on to buy a second and third, naturally bumping sales. 

She is also right, as she says in a comment, that it can be impossible to predict how a book will sell, when it will take off, and in which territories. There is undoubtedly an element of chance involved. Maybe your book starts to get passed around a community of readers all interested in similar things, or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe the subject matter hits the zeitgeist, or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe another author writing similar stuff to you has a massive hit and that exposes your book, via the ‘Customers who bought X also bought Y’ recommendation, to a much larger volume of people, or maybe they don’t. There is simply no telling.

Read the full Book Promotion For Self-Publishers: A Waste of Time? article.

In Self-Publishing And Ebook Sharing: The Industry’s New Bellwethers, Charman-Anderson notes:

Most of those sharing ebooks are women, says Marwick. This may reflect the fact that women have less disposable income than men. They may find current prices prohibitive, particularly if they are having to choose between buying a book and buying their children new shoes.

Does this then point to a large, under-served corner of the romance market? And is there an opportunity to craft an offering that meets those needs with more affordable books? Clearly it would have to be a volume sales proposition, but equally clearly the demand is already there.

— and —

The tempting reaction for publishers is to gnash their teeth, search for stronger DRM and bewail the evil grasping nature of those who would dare crack it. But that would be to quite spectacularly miss the point. There’s clearly a market for erotical written by women for women, but this market is, as per romance, not wealthy and potentially under-served.

Read the full Self-Publishing And Ebook Sharing: The Industry’s New Bellwethers article.

 

What was San Francisco like in 1880? The Economy

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Publetariat Editor’s Note: in this post, historical fiction author M. Louisa Locke shares some of the wealth of information she found while doing research for her novels. It’s worth a close read for anyone working in the historical fiction genre, as it reveals the levels of depth and detail required when doing this type of research.

This is the first in a multi-part series describing San Francisco in 1880. For those of you who have read either Maids of Misfortune or Uneasy Spirits, or my short stories, this will provide you with some deeper understanding of the city where my main characters, Annie Fuller and Nate Dawson, lived as children in the 1860s and returned to as adults in the 1870s. If you are not familiar with my Victorian San Francisco mystery series, I hope these historical pieces will pique your interest––although I promise my fiction is much livelier reading. All the material quoted below is from my thesis, “Like a Machine or an Animal: Working Women of the Far West in the Late Nineteenth Century,” University of California: San Diego dissertation, 1982 pp. 60-69.”  I must say, it is much more entertaining to convey historical information through fiction than heavily footnoted fact!

Part One: The San Francisco Economy

“In 1880 San Francisco, with a population of 233,959 residents, was the ninth largest city in the United States. Located at the end of the peninsula that separates the Bay of San Francisco from the Pacific Ocean, this city of hills, sand dunes, fogs, and mild temperatures had been only a small village called Yerba Buena less than forty years earlier.  This small village was one of the chief beneficiaries of the incredible influx of people into the region after the discovery of gold to the north in the winter of 1847-48.”

[For those of you who have read Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits––Annie Fuller, her parents, her Aunt and Uncle, and her housekeeper, Beatrice O’Rourke, were among those who traveled west and settled in San Francisco in those first years.]

“Commerce dominated San Francisco’s economic structure through out the nineteenth century. Its fine natural harbor and its location near both ocean shipping lanes and interior river routes stimulated much of the city’s early economic growth. The city served as the port of entry for the massive flow of people and goods into the region during the Gold Rush, and once agriculture developed in the interior in the 1860′s San Francisco also became the major port to handle goods shipped out of the region. The disruption in trade resulting from the Civil War further promoted the development of agriculture in the Far West, and San Francisco merchants worked hard in the 1850s and 1860s to ensure that all goods entering or leaving the region passed through their hands. By and large they were successful, and their control of the region’s trade remained firm until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. As late as 1875, San Francisco still handled at least ninety percent of all the goods leaving the state and a major share of the trade leaving the Northwest.”

“As a commercial port city, San Francisco first developed manufacturing that centered around supplying shipping needs and processing the raw materials that constituted the bulk of the city’s trade. By the late 1850s a few firms also began to manufacture a significant amount of the heavy equipment used in hydraulic mining.  In the 1860s…the Civil War and the completion of the transcontinental railroad fostered the development of a new kind of industry within San Francisco––the manufacturing of light consumer items for regional markets. The dislocation of Eastern trade during the Civil War not only aided the development of agricultural lands in the Far West but also encouraged San Francisco’s manufacturing sector by diverting capital investment from the cities of the East to the Far west and by forcing the latter region to look to San Francisco to supply its consumer needs.”

“The high shipping rates of the Central Pacific Railroad acted as a protective tariff for the city, and the railroad gave San Francisco easier access to raw materials and to regional markets for its manufactured goods. The construction of the railroad also attracted great numbers of Chinese and European immigrants who flocked to San Francisco once their job with the railroad ended. This new abundance of labor, in turn, drove down wages in the city and encouraged the creation of the first large-scale manufacturing establishments in the city. As a result, by 1880 San Francisco had a mature, broadly based manufacturing sector that completely dominated the Far West. San Francisco ranked ninth among cities in the nation in value of products…most important industries in 1880 were meat packing and processing, sugar refining, boot and shoe making, heavy metal and machine making, men’s clothing, and tobacco and cigar making. San Francisco’s continued vitality as a commercial center and its growing manufacturing capabilities also insured that the city acted as the financial capital of the region. The headquarters of almost all of the California banking institutions were located in San Francisco, and banks in other cities were often dependent on San Francisco capital.”

“Despite this relatively favorable working climate, San Francisco was not in any way protected from the economic cycles that affected the rest of the nation, nor were the laboring classes immune form exploitation by their employers. In fact, the high wages of the 1850s and 1860s and the popular myth that fortunes were easily made in the Far West promoted unrealistic expectations that were dealt a particularly harsh blow when hard times hit the city in the 1870s. With the completion of the railroad in 1869, the chronic labor shortage that had kept wages high vanished, and for the first time there was severe unemployment throughout the state. The national depression sparked by the Panic of 1873 reinforced the local downturn in business, and in 1875 the collapse of the Bank of California and the decline in the output of the Comstock Lode (in which much of the city’s capital had been invested) added to the city’s difficulties.”

“Even though a visitor to the city in 1880′…was much struck by the depressed air of the tradesmen,’ and a Norwegian pastor implored his countrymen living in the Midwest not to come to San Francisco expecting to find jobs easily, by 1880 San Francisco’s economy shared in the recovery that was sweeping the nation. The development of manufacturing in the city, which had in part been fostered by the very economic difficulties of the 1870s (because it lowered wages), meant that the city entered the new decade with an economy that was more diverse and stronger than ever.”

[It was the Panic of 1873 and the subsequent national depression that had played a key role in Annie Fuller’s late husband’s financial ruin back east and it is the improvement in San Francisco’s economy that Annie takes advantage of as the clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl, when she offers business advice to local businessmen like Mr. Matthew Voss in Maids of Misfortune.]

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s site.

25 Ways To Fight Your Story's Mushy Middle

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This post, by Chuck Wendig, originally appeared on his terribleminds site.

For me, the middle is the hardest part of writing. It’s easy to get the stallions moving in the beginning — a stun gun up their asses gets them stampeding right quick. I don’t have much of a problem with endings, either; you get to a certain point and the horses are worked up into a mighty lather and run wildly and ineluctably toward the cliff’s edge.

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

But the middle, man, the motherfucking middle. It’s like being lost in a fog, wandering the wasteland tracts. And I can’t be the only person with this problem: I’ve read far too many books that seem to lose all steam in the middle. Narrative boots stuck in sucking mud.

Seems like it’s time for another “list of 25″ to the rescue, then.

Hiyaa! Giddyup, you sumbitches! BZZT.

1. The Solomonic Split Of The Second Act

Fuck the three-act structure right in its crusty corn-cave. See, right there’s your problem — first act is small, third act is small, and the second act is the size of those two combined. Go for a four-act structure, instead. Take the second act and chop it clean in half. Whack. Each act is its own entity — though it connects to the rest and still has its own rise and fall. Allow each its own shape, its own distinct feel. And don’t forget that when one act moves to another it is a time of transformation and escalation.

2. Fake A Climax

Hey, when you fake an orgasm, you gotta commit. You can’t just do a few eye-rolls and go “oooh, ahh, mmm, yes,” and then sit up and flip on CSPAN. You’ve got to sell it. Make ‘em think it’s the real deal. Scream so loud the dog starts howling. Break a lamp with a flailing limb. Release the fluids. And that’s what you gotta do in the middle of your story. The “false climax” is a powerful trick — you make it seem like things are coming to a head, that the pot is boiling over, that the fluid-release cannot be contained. You want the audience to be all like, “Whoa, this feels like the end but I’ve still got 200 pages left in the book. SHIT JUST GOT REAL.” (Of course, do make sure the actual climax is even bigger, yes?)

3. Fewer Curves, More Angles

The shape of a story — especially the shape of a story’s middle — is a lot of soft rises and doughy plateaus and zoftig falls. Each hill giving way to a bigger knoll. But sometimes, a story needs fewer hills and more mountains. Angles instead of curves. Fangs instead of molars. Think of inserting a few jagged peaks and dangerous ditches — take the story and the characters on a harder journey. Let things change swiftly, accelerate the plot, go left, feint right, don’t let the audience feel complacent and comfortable. Rough ground can be a good thing in the middle of a story. Some stories need more turbulence.

4. Opening Presents On Christmas Eve

When I was a kid, Christmas Eve was the most interminable time because, y’know, Christmas morning is everything. All else is chaff and dust and ash in your greedy little mouth. If setting fire to the tree would make Santa come earlier, shit, you’d do it. So, what do some parents do? They let a child open one gift on Christmas Eve. Adopt this strategy as a storyteller. All this time you’re introducing mysteries and conflicts and character arcs that you promise will be resolved by the conclusion of the story. Take one, conclude it early. Give the audience some payoff. (I’d argue if Lost gave viewers a few early Christmas presents the show wouldn’t have dragged its itchy doggy ass across the carpet for the middle seasons.)

5. Introduce A Character

Sometimes, a story needs a bit of new blood in the form of a new character — someone interesting. Not, y’know, “Dave the Constipated Cab Driver,” or “Paula the Saggy-Boobed Waitress,” but rather characters with an arc, characters who will have an impact on the story. You don’t need to replace your protagonist (and probably shouldn’t), but a new strong supporting character may grant the story new energy.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 20 more ideas for fixing your mushy middle, on terribleminds.

Writernese

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This post, by Tina Pinson, originally appeared on her Write Where I Want To Be blog on 6/7/12.

You have mastered the English language, well, sort of… and you are fluent in three different languages, like me… okay not really. I have a hard enough time with English as a first language. Took four years of German and one of Turkish and remember barely enough to get by.

Then, just when I thought school was over, I had to learn Writernese. What is that you may ask? Simply put… it the language of writers. Writerspeak.

Writernese.

And if you’re a writer, you know that writerspeak is often times hard to grasp. Kind of like cyberspeak. IMHO BTW LOL

I thought it would be prudent to take a look at Writernese and see if we can decipher some the meanings behind the words and acronyms to help us speak the language.

Common Writernese Terms and Acronyms. Trying to understand these few aspects of Writernese could be a brief exercise in madness, but it’s a start.

EC: External Conflict (oppositions or physical threats to heroine or hero reaching their goals–i.e.: villain, journey, opponent)

IC: Internal Conflict (character’s emotional struggles and growth)

GMC: Goals, Motivation, Conflict

Goals– your character has a goal that he or she needs to reach.
Motivation– what sends them out to accomplish the goal?
Conflict — all the trials and thorns thrown in the path of your character to keep him/her from reaching goal. (when established, these set up the premise of a book, the overriding theme)

Climax — a moment of great intensity that usually brings events to a head and moving toward the conclusion.

Foreshadowing — adding hints and important information earlier on in the story that tip the reader off to what may come.

Resolution — can be done on varying levels, like resolving problems in the story. Or resolving the main conflict.

Genre — the kind of story being written; Gothic, Mystery, Romance, Inspirational, Sci Fi, Women’s Fiction, Speculative… etc.

HEA: Happily Ever After (the resolution/ type of ending expected in a Romance novel) Think Fairy Tales. Hello, Prince Charming.

H/H: Hero and Heroine
Protagonist — the main character
Antagonist — opposition to protagonist… enemy

MS: Manuscript

WIP: work in progress. Unfinished Manuscript

POV: Point Of View — What a character can see or hear. (If it’s dark he or she probably can’t tell you someone’s eye color. If it’s behind them they can’t give detail.)

1st person POV — Spoken and told by one character in their viewpoint alone throughout the story. Uses I to lead sentences and so forth.

3rd person POV — Storytelling told using third person pronouns like he/she. This POV can be Limited or Omniscient.

Limited — The writer sticks closely to one character’s feelings, thoughts and viewpoint, while other characters are added externally.

Omniscient — The storyteller knows all the views and can bring in several character’s point of views for the story. POV purists prefer that one POV is used in one scene to avoid head hopping.

 

Read the rest of the post —and maybe even bookmark it for future reference— on Write Where I Want To Be.

Dare to be an Indie Author?

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This post, by Laxmi Hariharan, originally appeared on The UK Huffington Post. It includes a handy quiz you can use to figure out if you’re built for the indie author life.

I am just back from The Literary Consultancy’s (TLC) http://www.literaryconsultancy.co.uk/ revolutionary Writing in a Digital Age conference. Organised by the inimitable Rebecca Swift–the speakers included leading authors and industry figures such as @harikunzru @lindasgrant, @nicolamorgan, @zubaanbooks (Urvashi Butalia), @simontrewin, @caroleagent (Carole Blake), @gavinjamesbower, @saqibooks (Rukhsana Yasmin), @karolinasutton and many more–#TLC12 brought together the traditional and the Indie on the same stage, a first of firsts.

The person who stood out was Rob Kroese, author of the self published, bestselling, humorous, apocalyptic novel Mercury Falls and its sequel, Mercury Rises. He is the creator of Mercury (the title character in Mercury Falls)–an acerbic, anti-establishment angel who is well-meaning but not particularly well-behaved. Rob @robkroese is funny, genuine and as one of my fellow delegates commented, "he is one of us". He likens the league of published authors to an elite night club, with gatekeepers, who decide who gets in and who does not. It struck a chord with me, and I suspect with many of the other ‘waiting to be discovered’ wannabes.

One of the most hotly discussed topics was whether to self publish or not? If Indie movies are accepted, why not Indie books? So taking a cue from Rob’s talk (thanks Rob!) I have put together my own quiz, to help you find out. Here are the questions

1. Do you want to be discovered or somewhere along the way have you discovered yourself?

2. Do you write to be published or do you write to be read?

3. Are you an entrepreneur, at heart? Do you normally jump in and think of the consequences later. Are you pragmatic about failure–enough to pick yourself up and move on swiftly to the next?

4.Do you like to experiment, and cannot resist a challenge? Do you thrive under pressure, and when the odds are stacked against you?

 

Read the rest of the post on The UK Huffington Post.

What I Love About Being An Indie Author: I Can Shift Course On A Dime!

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Despite the gloom and doom of some of the blog pundits, and despite the relatively weak effect of my last KDP Select promotion at the end of March, which came in the midst of Amazon’s shifting algorithms, I decided to put the two books in my Victorian San Francisco mystery series, Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits, up for another round of free promotions this month. While my goals have remained the same, my strategy changed in response to the changing algorithms, and, as a result, my outcomes this time around improved.

Goals:

As usual, the primary goal for my promotions was to push both of my novels up on the historical mystery bestseller list and to get them as high as possible on the historical mystery popularity list. I have written numerous times about my conviction that keeping my books visible on these lists is a significant factor in my success. (Maids of Misfortune has been on these lists continuously since July of 2010, and Uneasy Spirits has been on them since it was published in October 2011.)

If my books fell off the top of these lists I would be dependent on driving potential readers to Amazon to look for the book. As a relatively unknown author with only a modest social media presence this is a difficult proposition. Instead, when my books are near the top of the historical mystery lists then people who are browsing these lists get the chance to judge my books by their covers, excerpts, product descriptions, “also bought” lists and reviews). Conversely, I have heard how dramatically sales decrease for books by other authors when these books fall off the bestseller lists.

As an aside, I don’t understand why some authors still argue that using free promotions devalues books. For example, the buyer can see a book’s fixed price (in my case my books are now $3.99––becaue like other indie authors I am feeling more confident about pushing my prices up from $2.99), so they know it is only temporarily free. I see the use of free promotions as the same as any promotion––for example, when traditional publishers pay (cut into their revenue) to get their print books onto the front tables of bookstores. I don’t recall anyone concluding “that they must not be very good books if their publishers don’t feel the books can sell themselves on their own!”

A secondary goal of doing another free promotion was to make the books visible on other categories besides historical mysteries, even if they didn’t stay there once the books went back to paid. The historical mystery category is a relatively small category (2,182 books), and I don’t usually sell enough books daily to show up in the top 100 of the larger categories like mystery–women sleuths (6,420 books), or historical romance (12,163 books), except during free promotions. In addition, I switched Uneasy Spirits from romantic suspense to historical fiction for its second category after the last promotion, and I hoped that this round of promotion would get it exposure for the first time in this fairly large category (22,000+ books). In short, this promotion would be another chance to expand my market beyond the historical mystery category.

Pre-promotion status: 

By the middle of May, before the promotions began, Maids of Misfortune had slipped into the 7,000′s overall and 40′s on the historical mystery bestseller list. Uneasy Spirits was in the 9,000s overall and 70s on the bestseller list. Uneasy Spirits was dangerously close to dropping off the top 100, and was averaging 11 book sales a day, versus 25 a day in April and 42 a day in March (all these figures are for the US Kindle store). I understand that for many authors, 11 books a day would be nothing to sneeze at, but, again, if I want to sustain visibility I didn’t want to let that daily average slip any lower.

Amazon changes:

In case you haven’t been keeping in touch, Amazon apparently started testing new algorithms for its popularity lists in the middle of March (see this post by David Gaughran.) While these algorithms are secret it was very clear that a free download was no longer counting as a full sale. The effect of these changes was a drastic decrease in the post promotion sales bump most authors had been experiencing and fair amount of consternation among indie authors.

I confess I was relatively sanguine about these changes. Even though my own promotion at the end of March was seriously disappointing in terms of over-all sales, it did prop up my books’ rankings for a brief time and then slowed their decline. In addition, what I was witnessing was a very similar pattern to my post holiday sales from the year before––when KDP Select didn’t exist. Last year and this year my sales in April were 27-28% less than they had been at their peak in the 3 months after Christmas. The difference was that due to KDP Select the peak this year was ever so much higher than the previous year.

While Amazon’s introduction of KDP Select and its free days had given many of us a great gift in increased sales this past holiday, it was creating very volatile popularity and bestseller lists, and traditionally published books were being pushed further and further down those lists. It made sense to me that, given the DofJ settlement, Amazon would have a vested interest in proving that it could still provide a competitive market for those traditional books. Frankly it never had seemed right to me that some of my favorite historical mystery authors were doing so much worse than I was––it wasn’t their fault their publishers kept making so many bad decisions (high prices, bad formatting, refusal to participate in the Kindle Lending Library, ect.)

Then in the beginning of May the popularity list settled down––for now, and there has been general agreement that for the last few weeks the popularity lists reflect a new ratio where free downloads are only counted for about 10% (some say 5%) of sales for the purposes of ranking (ie 1000 free downloads =100 sales). There is evidence that the list is also weighted more heavily by a book’s sales (maybe even its total revenue) over the previous 30 days––rather than in the immediate promotion days. As a result, the effect of the already diminished download count is further flattened by the previous 30 days of sales averages.  Edward Robertson has done a good job of summarizing the effects of these changes.

Changing Strategies:

When I read the posts about the changes in the algorithm I decided to deviate from my previous strategy for free promotions. I had been putting Maids of Misfortune up with Uneasy Spirits at the same time for one day, then continuing Uneasy for a second day. My logic had been that Maids was my most persistent seller (and usually got its largest downloads the first day) and that people would see the two up together and a percentage would decide to go ahead and get both of them, boosting Uneasy’s downloads. The one time I had put up Uneasy by itself it hadn’t done well (and this was before the algorithm changes), and I assumed that people might be giving it a pass because it was a sequel. So each time I have promoted I kept Uneasy up for a second day, thinking that it needed the extra day to achieve a significant number of downloads and that people might have started Maids of Misfortune and enjoyed it enough to go back and get Uneasy the second day.

But, with the new information about the greater importance of the sales of a book during the 30 days before the promotion, I decided that I needed to rethink this strategy.

I wasn’t too worried about Maids of Misfortune. It hadn’t slipped down the rankings as far as Uneasy Spirits, and, because it was uploaded in 2009 when you could choose 5 categories it has a better chance of attracting free downloads. It also had 98 reviews, and I knew that this would help. I did decide, however, to leave Maids free for two days this time since it was going to take more downloads to achieve any sort of bump in sales with the new ratio.

More importantly, I also decided to put up Maids of Misfortune for free a week before I put up Uneasy Spirits (something I had never tried before). My thought was that if the free promotion of Maids increased the sales of Uneasy at all (and the ripple effect of free on sequels has been well-documented), then this would mean that at least 7 days of that 30 day average would have the increased sales to figure into Uneasy’s rankings­­––improving the chances that it would experience some sort of sales bump after it came off its free promotion.

So far it appears that this new strategy is working.

Post Promotion:

Maids of Misfortune was free May 19-20, a Friday and Saturday. At the end of the two days the book had 3206 free downloads in the US Kindle store. If the rumors about the new algorithm were right, this would translate into approximately 320 sales over those two days. The previous 30 days my average sales for this book had been 20 books a day, so not surprisingly these 2 days, at about 150 a day, did push up the book’s popularity rankings, which in turn increased the books sales and ranking on the bestseller list. The fourth day after the promotion Maids of Misfortune was in the mid 3000′s on the paid list, versus the 7000s where it had been before, and #12 on the historical mystery bestseller list, versus in the 40s.

And, during the free promotion for Maids, the sales of Uneasy Spirits doubled. The bump didn’t last past the promotion, but it does mean that Uneasy was in a slightly better position going into its own promotion, and that it has a slightly better 30 day average to help it sustain the bump it got from that promotion.

Uneasy Spirits was free May 25-25 (Saturday and Sunday) and did much better than Maids in terms of giveaways. While Maids only made it to 109 in the free store the first day and lost ground the second, Uneasy made it to #33 in the Free list and remained in the top 100 for the second day. (I suspect the fact that this was the beginning of the memorial day weekend might have caused Uneasy’ greater success). This meant it had much more exposure and achieved over 3 times the number of free downloads as Maids of Misfortune did (10,142 in the US Kindle store).

This of course meant an even bigger bump upwards for Uneasy Spirits when it went back on the paid lists since these downloads would translate into 1000 sales for the two days.

In fact, doing the promotions sequentially has benefited the sales and rankings of both books because Maids of Misfortune averaged 98 book sales over the 2 days that Uneasy Spirits was free, nicely adding to its 30 day average and pushing it up the popularity rankings as a result.

To date, 5 days after Uneasy Spirits joined Maids of Misfortune back on the paid lists, my average sales for both books is double what they were before the promotions began. Maids of Misfortune is now ranked 2945 over all, and it is #11 in the historical mystery bestseller list and #10 in the historical mystery popularity list. Uneasy Spirits is currently ranked 5138 over all and #22 in the historical mystery bestseller list (although 3 days after the promotion it did hit the 3000′s and was #18 on the bestseller list), However, perhaps more importantly for its long run sales, Uneasy Spirits is currently #8 on the historical mystery popularity list.

If Edward Robertson is correct in his analysis of the new algorithm, as the older, poorer sales for both books at the start of May drop off, and the newer higher sales during and since the promotions begin to dominate the 30 day average, both books should continue to do well in the historical mystery popularity list, which in turn should continue to boost sales and help maintain these books’ position on the bestseller list. In short, they may not have risen as high in the rankings as after previous promotions, but neither will they drop as quickly. If this turns out to be true, Amazon will have achieved its greater stability in the lists, but KDP Select will still permit indie books to be competitive as well.

My final point is that I learned about the new 30-day aspect of the Amazon algorithms on May 7th when I read about Edward Robertson’s blog discussion of the changes that had been made, and I was able to immediately respond (in the words of the title––change course quickly.)  Four days after reading this blog post I had made my decision to give the free promotions another try, but this time sequentially, and I went onto my dashboard and scheduled both free promotions and began to make the arrangements to feature those free promotions on such sites as Kindle Nation Daily and Pixel of Ink. A week later the first of the promotions began.

I didn’t have to consult with anyone (like an agent or editor) or get the permission of a marketing committee to make this decision, the scheduling of the promotions took seconds, and the pre-promotional work I did took about an hour. As a result, I was able to move quickly to reverse the downward spiral of sales before my books dropped off the historical mystery lists and became invisible. I know that this is not how things would have happened in the world of traditional publishing where people keep using the analogy of how difficult it is to turn a big ship around to explain how slow the Big 6 have been to respond to the ebook revolution. And for that I once again give thanks for the power I have as an indie author to exert some control over the fate of my books, even when the winds of changing algorithms threaten to blow them off course.

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke’s blog.

Dear Indie Booksellers: Please Take Your Eyes Off Your Classmate's Paper And Focus On Your Own Work

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Dear Indie Booksellers:

Whether your operation is brick and mortar, strictly online, or a combo plate of both, you have an important role to fill in the communities you serve. It makes me sad to see shop after shop shuttered, and I miss the ones I used to frequent. So please, know that as both an author and a consumer, I want you to not only survive, but to thrive.

But many of you, those whose daily operational thoughts and actions are totally dominated by fear of being driven out of business by Amazon and the few big chains that are still in operation, need some tough love. As you read this, bear that thought in mind: I’m tough because I love.

Also bear in mind, as you feel the blood rushing to your face and your jaw clenching in anger while you read, there are some distinct advantages to being a small, indie outfit (as you probably know better than I do), and there are indie booksellers that are doing just fine without so much as a glance in Amazon’s direction; I will get to that by the end of this post, too. Okay, deep breath; here goes.

Please stop obsessing about, and badmouthing, Amazon and the chains. It’s no more attractive to retail customers than attack ads are to voters.

Please stop badmouthing consumers who shop at Amazon and the chains. Most consumers will buy some things from Amazon and the chains, and other things from smaller outfits. There’s no better way to ensure they’ll start buying everything from Amazon and the chains than to insult them.

Please stop trying to base your marketing and community outreach plans on guilting the public into believing their Amazon and chain purchases are leading to the destruction of reading culture as we know it. Nobody wants to be bullied or guilted into a purchase, consumers know they have a right to make the best choice for themselves based on their specific priorities, and they hold that right pretty dear.

Know that you cannot possibly compete with Amazon or the chains on price; you will almost never win with consumers for whom price is the ultimate, or only factor in a buying decision. But also know: this is not a bad thing. Those consumers were never going to be good customers for you anyway.

Know that if your bookshop is generalist, carrying a smattering of current release books in all the most popular genres and a bit of merch on the side, with few exceptions (e.g. captive audience shops like those in airports), you cannot possibly compete with Amazon or the chains on selection. They have massive, distributed networks of gargantuan warehouses stacked to the rafters with nothing but variety.

Please do not argue that you can order any of the same books one can find on Amazon or through the big chains, because we live in an age of pathological convenience and instant gratification. Most consumers who have already made the trek to the store are annoyed if they must leave empty-handed. Now granted, it’s not like in pioneer days when Pa would take the wagon into town for supplies on a weeklong trip that could very well end in death on the way there or back. But consumer expectations and demands have changed.

A consumer who can click his mouse twice to order the same item, at a lower price, and often with no shipping expense and two day delivery, isn’t often inclined to wait around in your shop for a few extra minutes while you fill out an order form, then wait a few extra days for your supplier to get the item into the mail and a few more days on top of that for book-rate delivery. Faced with the same choice a few times in a row, it won’t be long before the customer stops bothering to come into your shop at all.

But also know: this too, is not necessarily bad for you. Consumers for whom convenience is the thing were never going to be good customers for you anyway, you’re better off without them.

In the great retail deli counter of booksellers, you’re prosciutto; please stop trying to be bologna.

Look around: bologna’s cheap and plentiful, you can even buy it at 7-11 and some gas stations. But people who have a taste for prosciutto know it costs more than bologna and isn’t as easy to find. Prosciutto lovers are also generally willing to pay a premium for the best quality, and will typically feel the same way about buying other, related items, like cheese and wine. Figuratively speaking, prosciutto lovers are the customers you want, and they want you right back. Does the high-end deli or wine shop try to compete directly with 7-11? Of course not. The high-end place doesn’t even deign to acknowledge the existence of 7-11, because it doesn’t consider itself to be in direct competition with 7-11. Neither should you consider yourselves to be in direct competition with Amazon or the chains.

Do, and offer, what the 400-pound gorillas can’t: passion and specialized knowledge not only of the products you carry, but the communities you serve. I’ve noticed that most of the successful, healthy indie retailers in any community I’ve ever called home have one thing in common: they specialize, and whatever it is they specialize in, everyone from the store owner right down to the stock boy is an absolute geek about it.

While all of the stores I’m about to talk about are brick-and-mortar with an adjunct website, strictly online indie booksellers can mimic many of their winning strategies. Where a brick and mortar store has an author reading, you can have an author chat or post an interview. Where the brick and mortar store has an in-store book club meeting every week, you can have an online book club. Where the brick and mortar store staff can wax eloquent on areas of expertise to customers in the store, you can post your specialized knowledge and analysis online, in a blog.

Dark Delicacies, a Burbank bookshop, specializes in all things gothic, horror and supernatural. It’s the go-to shop for books, knick-knacks, toys, author readings, and even some clothing and accessory items that fit that description. If you’re looking for a onesie with a zombie on it, this is the place to go. It’s a fun shop to visit, and filled with so many enticing items that it’s near impossible for fans of this type of fare to walk out without buying something. And if you want to know anything about horror/goth books, horror/goth movies, goth art, goth style, dark music or the like, the staff’s near-encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm can’t be beat. Sure, you can find many of the same items on Amazon at a lower price, but nobody goes to Dark Delicacies for the prices. Burbank is an entertainment biz mecca and it borders on the North Hollywood Art community, so Dark Delicacies is smack in the middle of its target demographic: unconventional people with unconventional tastes. No Amazon or monster chain store can cater so effectively to a specific market sector.

Hennessy & Ingalls Art & Architecture Bookstore in Santa Monica does for art and architecture books and related merch what Dark Delicacies does for goth and horror. The thing about art and architecture books is, they’re generally in a larger format and more expensive than other types of books, will often have special features that don’t come across in a screenshot, and it’s hard to make a purchase decision without actually being able to look at them in person first. Santa Monica is an upscale community that’s home to a lot of entertainment types (actors, directors, etc.), so while H & I certainly doesn’t want to gouge its customers, it doesn’t have to worry much about setting price points high enough to earn a decent profit on each sale. It’s become a real destination for students and lovers of art and architecture, well worth the drive for those not in the immediate area, and it serves its clientele very well.

Mrs. Nelson’s Toy and Book Shop, located not far from my own neck of the woods, caters to schools, parents, and teachers in particular. Its selection of toys is easily dwarfed by a Toys R Us, but every toy in Mrs. Nelson’s is educational, and many of them are hand-crafted imports and award winners. Its selection of childrens’ and young adult books is likewise outgunned by Amazon and online chain booksellers, but that doesn’t matter. Just like at H&I, many of the books at Mrs. Nelson’s are large format picture books, popup books, and books that incorporate some kind of craft or game activity; these are all types of books you generally want to check out in person before making a purchase decision. The young adult selection at Mrs. Nelson’s is always better than that at any local brick-and-mortar chain store, as is Mrs. Nelson’s selection of books for teachers.

But here again, it’s the friendly, enthusiastic staff that puts Mrs. Nelson’s head and shoulders above any mere chain store or Amazon. If your kid has to do a book report on a biography, just tell the friendly staffer at Mrs. Nelson’s what grade your child is in, what her reading level is, and what her interests are, and you’ll be directed to a variety of choices that not only meet the requirements of the assignment, but any of which your child will actually enjoy reading. Any time an entire grade level at a local school is going to be reading some classic or other, Mrs. Nelson’s hears about it well in advance from its teacher and school administrator connections and will have plenty of copies on hand when they’re needed.

Mrs. Nelson’s has a calendar jam-packed with events and talks for kids, parents and teachers, some free and some fee-based (like the craft workshops), but probably the best events of all are the live readings from authors of beloved childrens’ books. The authors are always gracious enough to stick around afterward, signing books and meeting the kids who so love their work, and in cases where the author is also an illustrator, you can often find signed prints of illustrations from their books available for sale at these events. I’ve picked up a signed print from David Shannon’s wonderful "No, David!" at a reading there.

Nothing at Mrs. Nelson’s is cheap, either in terms of construction or pricetag. But I and plenty of other locals are happy to pay a little more for the higher quality and true community involvement on offer there.

So you see, it can be done, and it can be done well. I’m not saying it’s a simple thing to switch from a generalist store to a specialty shop, but I guess I am saying your survival may well depend on it. I want you to succeed, truly. I want a community dotted with Mrs. Nelson’s, Dark Delicacies and Hennessey & Ingalls, and I think plenty of other people do, too.

 

This is a cross-posting from Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

Self-Promotion Or, Warning: Being A Published Author Means You Are Entering A Whine-Free Zone.

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This post, by Colleen Lindsay, originally appeared on The Swivet on 2/4/09.

A recent comment on a writing blog caused me to start mumbling under my breath and making impolite mutterings to my cats and furniture. (This is what one does when one is housebound and sick for a long time.) I’m paraphrasing the commenter here, who said something to the effect that s/he missed the good old days of publishing, when writers only had to write the books and publishers marketed them all, but alas, writers no longer live in that world and now we are (wailing and gnashing of teeth!) forced to (horrors!) self-promote!!!

I have news for you: We have never lived in that fantasy world.

Not ever.

Most authors have been responsible for the bulk of their own self-promotion all the way back to Dickens’ time. (And Dickens was a master of self-promotion, by the way.) Because publishing brings in such a narrow margin of profit, publishers have always relegated the bulk of their promotional resources to those books that they see as their best opportunity for a return on their investment. And the more money they have invested in the manuscript, the more they’re going to want to promote that manuscript. It’s pretty simple math.

But authors have always been expected to do their own self-promotion and outreach. It’s in every author questionnaire ever sent to an author by a publisher. It’s in every conversation an agent has with a potential new client (and if it isn’t, it should be): What will you be doing to aid in the promotional efforts for your own work?

It just seems that today I’m hearing writers complain about it a lot more.

Well, stop whining and suck it up. Every job comes with unpleasant tasks, even being a published writer.

Read the rest of the post on The Swivet.

How To Get Seen And Noticed

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With 500,000 new books being published every year, how can you compete? How do you get seen and noticed? How will independent booksellers fall in love with your book and promote it in their stores and on the recommended reading lists? Relax, I’m about to give away the deep, dark secrets of book marketing.

The American Booksellers Association (ABA)

The book industry trade group has been around for over 100 years. Based just north of New York City in Tarrytown, NY, this organization watches over the business health of over 1,200 independent bookstores throughout the United States. Notice I keep saying independent bookstore and not the giant corporate chains and Amazon. The ABA has many helpful programs and resources for both the booksellers and the publishers who sell to them. The following info will help you know what is available.

The link to the following information and costs is http://www.bookweb.org/pubpartner/resources.html:

The Red Box

This is a once-a-month shipment of marketing materials to bookstores. You can get the below particulars at

THE MONTHLY INDIEBOUND RED BOX MAILING PROGRAM

Designed to serve as a monthly “In-Store Marketing Action Kit”, the Red Box mailing (actually a white box with a large red sticker) contains the stores initial quantity of the latest Indie Next List flyers as well as other timely news and information from ABA and IndieBound.

For inclusion in the Red Box, ABA Publisher Partners are invited to provide marketing materials including but not limited to:

    * Shelftalkers, easelbacks, bookmarks, posters, or other point-of-purchase items to promote those titles chosen as
           Indie Next List Great Reads or Notables, or other recent or upcoming releases
    * Sell sheets and/or catalog copy for any “off-the-list” titles
    * Seasonal catalogs and/or order forms
    * Special offers, notice of backlist promotions, etc.
    * Any other news about titles, authors, tours, confirmed media appearances, etc.

The Red Box mailing is shipped within the first 12 days of the month to approximately 1100 IndieBound stores. The mailing is prioritized, based on the level of a store’s participation in IndieBound and ABA programs. The minimum quantity for inclusion in any mailing is 450 pieces.

Effective with the January, 2012 mailing, standard pricing for inclusion in all 1100 Red Boxes is as follows:

• A sell sheet or flyer
• A standard (4” x 6”) postcard • A large-format postcard
• Shelftalker
• Easelback poster
• Standard poster, flat or folded • Pack of 25 bookmarks

$275; $.27 per piece for quantities less than 1100
$145: $.15 per piece for quantities less than 1100
$180; $.18 per piece for quantities less than 1100
$145; $.15 per piece for quantities less than 1100

$525 and up, dependent on size; $.55 per piece for quantities less than 1100 $425 and up, dependent on size; $.45 per piece for quantities less than 1100 $695, other quantities custom quoted

No galleys, ARC’s or finished books are included in the Red Box mailing. Those items are exclusive to the monthly White Box mailing (please see Appendix B).

We are happy to custom quote on any item you may wish to include in this mailing. If you would like your materials to also be sent to other active ABA Publisher Partners as well as to the nine Regional Bookseller Association Executive Directors, please provide an additional 100 pieces (same pricing as above).

Please contact Carolyn Bennett (carolyn@bookweb.org) at least three weeks prior to the White Box materials due date of a given mailing (please see Appendix D for these dates) with information about the item(s) you wish to include.

All materials should be shipped to:

Transport Specialties International, Inc. (TSI) Attn: Keith Gosselin
9 Joanna Court
East Brunswick, NJ 08816-2108

Phone: 732.698.0988, x 110

Please mark all cartons and/or packing slips:“FOR INDIEBOUND “month” RED BOX” Early shipments are possible, but must be pre-approved.

The White Box Program

THE MONTHLY INDIEBOUND WHITE BOX MAILING PROGRAM

Every month a box measuring 18.5” x 18.5” x 4” is sent to each of the approximately 750 actively participating IndieBound stores, filled with galleys,ARCs and finished books provided by ABA Publisher Partners. As with the Advance Access Program (see Appendix G), this is an excellent and cost effective way to reach the Independent Bookstore market with news of your titles. By collating, packing and shipping all these materials from one warehouse, we are able to offer publishers substantial savings in time, labor, and postage over individual mailings done on their own.

The cost of inclusion in the White Box is dependent on the size and weight of the galley,ARC, or finished book. Standard pricing typically ranges from $1.35 to $2.50 per piece. Upon receipt of the dimensions and number of pages, we are happy to custom quote for any proposed inclusion.

    * The White Box mailing is prioritized, based on the level of a store’s participation in IndieBound and ABA programs. The minimum quantity for inclusion in any mailing is 450 copies.

    * To reach all stores receiving the White Box mailing, please plan to provide 750 copies.

    * If you would like your materials to also be sent to other active ABA Publisher Partners as well as to the nine Regional Bookseller Association Executive Directors, please provide an additional 100 copies.

There is an additional charge for the insertion of any bounceback cards, letters, or any other collation done in our warehouse. Charges for collation will be custom quoted.

Please contact Carolyn Bennett (carolyn@bookweb.org) at least three weeks prior to the White Box materials due date of a given mailing (please see Appendix E for these dates) with information about the item(s) you wish to include.

All materials should be shipped to:

Transport Specialties International, Inc. (TSI) Attn: Keith Gosselin
9 Joanna Court
East Brunswick, NJ 08816-2108

Phone: 732.698.0988, x 110

Please mark all cartons and/or packing slips:“FOR INDIEBOUND “month” WHITE BOX” Early shipments are possible, but must be pre-approved.

Children’s White Box

THE QUARTERLY INDIEBOUND CHILDREN’S WHITE BOX MAILING PROGRAM

Four times each year a box measuring 18.5” x 18.5” x 4” is sent to each of the approximately 750 actively participating IndieBound stores, filled with a variety of materials provided by ABA Publisher Partners specifically for Children’s book- sellers. As with the Advance Access Program (see Appendix G), this is an excellent and cost effective way to reach the Independent Bookstore market with news of your titles. By collating, packing and shipping all these materials from one warehouse, we are able to offer publishers substantial savings in time, labor, and postage over individual mailings done on their own.

Standard pricing for inclusion in all 750 boxes is as follows:

• A one-sheet or flyer
• A standard postcard
• A large format postcard • A shelftalker
• A pack of 25 bookmarks • A pre-folded poster
• An easelback poster

$190; $.27 per piece for quantities less than 750 $100; $.15 per piece for quantities less than 750 $125; $.18 per piece for quantities less than 750 $100; $.15 per piece for quantities less than 750 $475

$300 and up, dependent on size $400 and up, dependent on size

For galleys, ARC’s, F&G’s and finished books, costs for inclusion usually range between $1.35 and $2.50 per piece, depen- dent on size and weight. The minimum quantity for any galley,ARC, or finished book is 450 pieces. There is an additional charge for the insertion of any bounceback cards, letters, or any other collation done in our warehouse.

We are happy to custom quote on any item you may wish to include in this mailing. If you would like your materials to also be sent to other Publisher Partners and to the nine Regional Bookseller Association Executive Directors, please provide 850 pieces (same price as above).

Please contact Carolyn Bennett (carolyn@bookweb.org) at least three weeks prior to the Children’s White Box materials due date of a given mailing (please see Appendix F for these dates) with information about the item(s) you wish to include.

All materials should be shipped to:
Transport Specialties International (TSI)
Attn: Keith Gosselin
9 Joanna Court
East Brunswick, NJ 08816-2108 Phone: 732-698-0988, x 110

Please mark all cartons and/or packing slips:“INDIEBOUND “season” CHILDREN’SWHITE BOX” Early shipments are possible, but must be pre-approved.

IndIe Next List And Shelftalker Suggested Rate Card 2012

INDIE NEXT LIST:
Top 20 Listing, #1 Title $ 3,500
Top 20 Listing, Other Titles $ 2,500

This charge includes printing costs and postage for 450,000 fliers; store placement

“Now in Paperpack” (12 titles per month) $ 1,000

A pdf with jacket image, bibliographic information and bookseller quote as well as a shelftalker for each title is available for download at www.bookweb.org.

Top 10 Listing, Frontlist
Top 10 Listing, Backlist
Regular Listing, Frontlist
Regular Listing, Backlist

This charge includes printing costs and postage for 450,000 fliers; store placement

TEAR-OFF SHELFTALKERS:
Standard cost for regular Indie Next List titles, 1100 $2,875 Standard cost for Kids’ Indie Next List titles, 750 $2,175

Includes production and shipment, 5.5” x 7”, with four-color jacket image and bookseller quote, 50 tear-off sheets and printed backer.

Combined cost (to support an Indie Next List title) Kids’ combined Top Ten
Kids’ combined Regular

$4,500 $3,200 $2,700

Combined cost includes suggested rate for Indie next List placement and standard shelftalker production (see individual costs above).

Please contact Mark Nichols at mark@bookweb.org for further information Rates subject to change without notice.
 

Advance Access Program

This is an email alert to member stores where you can offer up free review copies of your book to those stores that request one. The ABA is currently re-doing its rate structure for this, so check back in from time to time to see when it becomes available again.

Snail Mail Lists

These are available for a price; however, I don’t think sending materials direct to the stores is nearly as effective as communicating through the ABA programs, which give them a much more valid image.

Summary

There you have it: the secret to success in book marketing. Yes, it is expensive! Yes, it’s well worth it. Book marketing is a full time job and an expensive undertaking. If you’re not prepared to do this, you might want to rethink the idea of self-publishing. It’s not for everyone.

 

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

Why E-Books Will Soon Be Obsolete (And No, It’s Not Just Because Of DRM)

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This post, by Jani Patokallio,originally appeared on Gyrovague on 4/30/12.

E-books will be obsolete within five years.  Crippled by territorial license restrictions, digital rights management, and single-purpose devices and file formats that are simultaneously immature and already obsolescent, they are at a hopeless competitive disadvantage compared to full-fledged websites and even the humble PDF.

 

Last year, I bought a laptop in Singapore, and brought it with me to Australia.  It worked fine for reading the Economist online and what passes for journalism in Singapore, but one day I searched for the Sydney Morning Herald, and there were no hits: it’s as if it didn’t exist.  A little poking around revealed that to be able to view Australian sites, I had to register my browser to be in Australia, which also requires a credit card with a billing address there.  What’s more, switching countries like this would delete all my bookmarks, terminate my paid subscription to the Economist and stop me from being able to read even single issue of the Singaporean Straits Jacket.  And needless to say, the laptop is locked to prevent me from installing another browser that would allow me to get around these limits.

Does this sound ridiculous, a perverse fantasy of some balkanized Web of the dystopian future?  Nope: it’s all true, except that my “laptop” is actually an iPad and my “browser” is iTunes/iBooks.  Since my iTunes account has a Singaporean billing address, the Kindle application does not show up in my search results.  If I switch countries, I will lose access to everything I’ve previously downloaded.  And if I do bite the bullet and switch to Australia, a good chunk of apps, music and more on offer will no longer be available on iTunes, iBooks or Amazon, and I’ll pay around 50% extra on what remains.  But I chose not to, and thus didn’t buy 3 or 4 books I wanted to, because their publishers would not sell them to me.

Why?  Because publishers insist on selling e-books the way they sell printed books, and customers simply don’t figure in the equation.

Now, breathtaking stupidity like this is commonly attributed to digital rights management (DRM), and Lord knows there’s plenty of idiocy involved in there as well.  Fortunately, Charlie Stross has already eviscerated that particular sacred cow of the publishing industry (see here and here), so I’ll focus on what’s actually causing my problem: publishing rights.

On the Web, the very idea that the right to read a website would vary from country to country seems patently absurd.  Cyberspace is flat, after all, just computers talking to computers.  You, the reader, do not need to concern yourself with where these electrons on your screen are coming from, and neither do I, their publisher, need to care where they are going.  And when somebody attempts to artificially block those electrons — say, China and its Great Firewall — it’s the kind of the thing that the US Congress and the World Trade Organization get worked up about.

 

Read the rest of the post on Gyrovague.

Self-Publishing As Meaningful Work

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This post, by Matthew Iden, originally appeared on his site on 4/25/12.

There is a passage in Malcolm Gladwell’s amazing book Outliers that, at its heart, speaks volumes about why writers should self-publish.

[T]hree things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether our works fulfills us. …Work that fulfills those three criteria is meaningful.

Over and over again on websites and in personal correspondence, I hear writers who have chosen to self-publish talk about how energized (or re-energized) they are. While there’s the inevitable grousing about low-sales numbers or promotions gone haywire, rarely are there complaints about the work itself. I know I find myself ready to write every day, eager to get to the page and get my latest words down.

That’s because, according to Gladwell’s definition, self-publishing is meaningful work.

 

Autonomy

The vast majority of would-be writers get up in the morning and write for a faceless agent at an unknown agency. They write so they can add their manuscript to a growing pile of manuscripts so large that at some agencies the interns can sit on them like chairs. That manuscript may be rejected for any number of reasons that, in most cases, will never be communicated to the author, leaving no opportunity for improvement.

The self-published author writes for himself or herself and sets the standard for quality, content, and length. There are no bosses—or, they are the best kind to have: readers and fans. Writing for yourself means there are no barriers or go-betweens. The relationship consists of you and your audience, and that’s it.

Complexity

 

Read the rest of the post on Matthew Iden’s site.

How Do You Survive Criticism?

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This post, by Andrew E. Kaufman, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog on 4/18/12 and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

Being a writer means being vulnerable. I’m talking, rip your shirt open, aim your chest toward the heavens, and let the vultures have at it. I learned long ago that if I wanted to be an author, I’d have to accept this fact. And while, for the most part, people are wonderful, there will always be haters; they’re everywhere. And yes, they do suck.

 
Of course, accepting this philosophy is one thing. Surviving it is another. We, as authors, are human. We’re a sensitive lot. We pour our hearts and souls  onto the pages, and taking criticism, regardless of how much truth there is to it, isn’t easy. But we all have to endure it, whether it’s a nasty review, email, or passing remark. Friends, both readers and writers, often ask how I cope with that. Luckily, it doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I deal with it. I have no choice. I’ve developed a coping strategy. Sometimes it even works:

 

  1.  Accept that this is the nature of the beast. Simply put, if you can’t handle criticism, you’ve chosen the wrong business. This is not brain surgery; this is the arts, and being as such, not only must you accept criticism, you should expect it. 
     
  2. Take what you can use, throw away the rest. Constructive criticism is always welcome. I know I’ll never stop growing as a writer, and growing means listening. Besides, who better to give feedback than the readers? I consider them experts and their input important. If something resonates with me, I take it to heart. If it doesn’t, I respectfully consider it a difference of opinion and move on. I’ve learned a lot from my readers and I hope I never stop. 
     
  3. The exact moment someone gets nasty is the exact moment I realize it’s not about the book. It’s about them. When somebody becomes belligerent or starts calling names, I know there’s something else at work, that their motivation is more than likely coming from a bad place. Constructive criticism is thoughtful. Hate requires none. 
     
  4.  Not everyone is going to like my couch, and that’s okay. I look at it this way: tastes vary widely from person to person. If I bought a new couch—one I found particularly cool and awesome—and showed it to fifty different people, it’s a sure bet I’d get fifty different opinions. Some would love it, some would feel indifferent about it, and yes, some might even hate it. Does that make it a bad couch? Nope (of course, if everyone hated it, then I’d have to do some rethinking about my couch, just as I would with my book). But someone is bound to hate it. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. That’s called life. 
     
  5. Take pride. Anyone who has written a novel knows what a ridiculously difficult job it can be, but it’s also a huge accomplishment. I am by no means perfect, nor would I ever delude myself into thinking I produce perfect work. But I do take great pride in it. I trust my instincts. Even more important, I live for the process, and nobody can take that away from me. Whether I have one reader or thousands, whether people love my books or hate them, I will always write,  always love writing, and will always, every step of the way, enjoy the journey. 

What about you? How do you cope with criticism?

 

Tor/Forge to Go DRM-Free By July: Immediate Thoughts

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This post, by John Scalzi, originally appeared on his Whatever blog on 4/24/12.

This is pretty big publishing news: Tom Doherty Associates, an imprint of Macmillan and the publisher of most of my science fiction work, has announced they plan to ditch DRM (Digital Rights Management, i.e., the stuff that keeps you from moving or copying your eBooks) entirely. Here’s the release that’s going out about it.

 

Tom Doherty Associates, publishers of Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen, today announced that by early July 2012, their entire list of e-books will be available DRM-free.

“Our authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time,” said president and publisher Tom Doherty. “They’re a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly legal ways, like moving them from one kind of e-reader to another.”

DRM-free titles from Tom Doherty Associates will be available from the same range of retailers that currently sell their e-books. In addition, the company expects to begin selling titles through retailers that sell only DRM-free books.

About Tor and Forge Books

Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is a New York-based publisher of hardcover and softcover books, founded in 1980 and committed (although not limited) to arguably the largest and most diverse line of science fiction and fantasy ever produced by a single English-language publisher. Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is also the home of award-winning Forge Books, founded in 1993 and committed (although not limited) to thrillers, mysteries, historical fiction and general fiction. Together, the imprints garnered 30 New York Times bestsellers in 2011.

I called Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Senior Editor of Tor Books, to ask what going DRM-free will mean for the publisher’s efforts regarding online misappropriation of author copyrights, because I know that this is a very real concern for many writers. This was his response to me, which he allowed me to post here:

Just in case anyone is worried: I can tell you with complete confidence that Macmillan and Tor/Forge have no intention of scaling back our anti-piracy efforts in the e-book realm. We expect to continue working to minimize this problem with all the tools at our disposal.

As you know, we already have a legal team in place that pursues major infringers. We don’t expect that to change at all, and we hope we continue to get the kind of cooperation from infringed-upon authors that’s been such a big help in the past.

Now, thoughts. Please understand this is me speaking personally, for myself, and only for myself.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes links to two updates, on Whatever.