Monthly Archives: March 2011

From big-time agent, Jane Dystel:

Being late with the delivery of your manuscript (sometimes way late) and assuming that your Publisher will grant you endless extensions.

Sending rude notes to your editor rather than first speaking to me so that I can run interference.

Finding everything that your editor throws out in terms of title, cover and copy wrong and not saying one positive thing.  (It isn’t smart to alienate your editor and your publisher especially before your book is published.)

Link to the rest at Dystel & Goderich

Penny Sansevieri, marketing expert, says authors should blog.

Excerpts:

With all the Tweeting, Facebook Liking, and LinkedIn connecting going on, it’s easy to forget about blogging and finding the time to do so. Blogging, however, can be extremely useful for more reasons than just populating your website with content (although that’s important too).

. . . .

Blogging gives “voice” to a website: In an age where there are millions of websites and millions more coming online each month, how can you stand apart from the crowd? One way is to get a great-looking site, but as we all know, sometimes budgets allow just the basics. A blog can then step in and (through your voice) give content and character to any website, regardless of how fancy or plain it might be. In fact, some of the best blogs have carried the success of many a less-than-spectacular website.

. . . .

The competitive edge: No matter what category you publish under, there is always a lot of competition. Yes, you can compete with a better cover, a better book, but on your website a blog will help define you as the author in a unique way that a book category can’t. When you’re in a cluttered market, like dating, dieting, or finance, a blog can really help to define and refine your message.

Link to the rest at Author Marketing Experts

Suggestions from Victorine Lieske:

I quickly learned that the wonderful people over on the Kindleboards don’t appreciate authors who post an ad once a week and never stick around to socialize.  Those get ignored.  I found that the best way to draw attention to my book was to put my book cover in my signature line with a link to the Kindle version, and then get to know people.  I posted on the threads that I was interested in.  I joined in the conversations.  I tried to be polite.  I also tried to make sure my posts weren’t filled with grammatical errors or typos.

. . . .

Now, Kindleboards.com is a fantastic place for authors to mingle with readers.  But it’s also a wonderful place for authors to network with each other.  When any author was looking for another author to interview, I signed up.  When a new person was starting a review blog, I submitted my book.  I found out a lot of ways to promote by reading the posts in the Writer’s Cafe.

. . . .

1. Giveaways.  Goodreads.com is a great place to give away paper copies.  If you’re giving away Kindle books, try posting about it on the Amazon Kindle facebook page.  Just have people send you their email in a private message.  Doing giveaways on your own facebook fan page is a good way to get more followers.  I also did a giveaway on this blog.

Link to the rest at Victorine Writes

I’ve blogged before about self-published author Derek J. Canyon and all the details he provides about his experiences on his blog, Adventures in ePublishing.

Beginning on March 1, Derek started a pricing experiment with his two ebooks , dropping his fantasy novel, Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance, from $2.99 to 99 cents and raising the price of Format Your eBook for Kindle in One Hour from 99 cents to $2.99.

His charts tell a more detailed story, but unit sales of his novel are up and his Amazon sales rank is much higher. He projects sales of 1,000 copies of his novel in March. The price increase for his how-to book  on Kindle formatting has not adversely impacted sales and, as you would expect, his revenue is up substantially.

Link to the rest at Adventures in ePublishing

Links to prior posts about Derek J. Canyon HERE, HERE and HERE

Smashwords CEO Mark Coker lays out the path to destruction for Big Publishing in a blog post and an online interview. To him, it looks a little like the Egyptian revolution.

Excerpts:

If authors – the beating heart powering Big Publishing – lose faith in Big Publishing, then big publishing as we know it will die. By “Big Publishing,” I’m referring to the old, pre-self-publishing system embodied by the Big 6 New York publishers, in which the publisher serves as the author’s judge, jury, gatekeeper and executioner.

If Big Publishing approves of your book, they acquire it. Post-acquisition, an author can die happy knowing they’re a published author with all the esteem, respect and future possibilities embodied in this blessing. At least, that’s what most authors are trained to believe.

Unfortunately, it’s tough to find a traditionally published author who waxes eloquent about their post-publication experience. It’s like the author goes to heaven and reports back via John Edwards (the guy who talks to dead people) that they discovered famine on the other side of the pearly gates.

Big Publishing, although it employs thousands of talented and well-intentioned professionals, is built upon a broken business model.

. . . .

Two questions and their answers will drive the author uprising against Big Publishing:

1. What can a publisher do for me that I (the author) cannot do for myself?
2. Might a big publisher actually harm my prospects as an author?

Ten years ago, the answers to these simple questions validated the need for Big Publishing. Why? In the old print world, Big Publishing controlled access to readers. They controlled the printing press and the access to retail distribution.

. . . .

Indie authors are a leading indicator of where publishing is going. Ebooks already outsell print for most indie authors. Brick and mortar bookstores are in decline, and this is both a cause and a result of the move to online book buying, among other factors. When book shelves go virtual, the playing field between big publisher and indie author is leveled. Actually, I’d go one step further and say that the move to indie ebooks actually tilts the playing field to the author’s advantage. Big Publishing can’t compete against indie ebooks because their expenses are too high and production schedules too slow.

To appreciate the dramatic growth of ebooks, the numbers from the Association of American Publishers provide a useful point of reference. According to the AAP, ebooks as a percentage of overall trade book sales in the US reached about 8% in 2010, up from 3% in 2009, 1% in 2008, and ½ of 1% in 2007. Yet these numbers dramatically understate what’s really happening.

The AAP numbers reflect what the 12-14 large publishers who contribute to the data are doing with ebooks, but the data doesn’t capture small presses and indie authors. The numbers also don’t reflect unit volume. Since ebooks are priced less than print, the unit market share for ebooks is greater than the revenue numbers would indicate.

Large independent publishers like Sourcebooks that have embraced ebooks are already seeing 1/3 of their revenues coming from ebooks. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sourcebooks begins deriving over 50% of their unit volume from ebooks with the next nine months.

. . . .

Many writers today still cling to this old idea that they’re not a real author until they’ve been blessed by the Holy Father of Big Publishing. Screw that. Why should authors subject themselves to this false religion of Big Publishing? Big Publishing as we know it is dead.

Sure, some of the Big 6 will survive, but they’ll do it by getting smaller or consolidating. Their expense structures are unsustainably high. Manhattan sky rise rents add absolutely no value to a book, only expense.

Ebooks, led by indie authors and mainstream author defections to indie, will accelerate the demise of Big Publishing. Authors are already asking, “what can a publisher do for me that I can’t do for myself.” The next big questions is, “Will a big publisher limit my success as an author?” You’ve answered that question for months here on your blog. It’s a question Big Publishers don’t want their authors asking, because the answer reveals the mirage of Big Publishing.

Big Publishing was built on a model of scarcity. They controlled the printing press, they controlled access to distribution, and they limited supply. In the old print world, if a writer wanted to reach a lot of readers, they had to bow subservient upon the altar of Big Publishing.

Link to the rest at The Smashwords Blog and A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing

Former agent Nathan Bransford runs the numbers on Amanda Hocking’s traditional publishing contract and Barry Eisler’s decision to turn down a traditional contract and self-publish to see if their decisions make financial sense.

Excerpts:

All things being equal, let’s say [Eisler] sold those 71,633 e-books to break even at $250,000 with Amazon (with 55% market share). In that case he’d sell an additional 32,560 copies through B&N for earnings of $105,608.36, and about 26,048 through Smashwords for earnings of about $77,884.61. Getting the e-book out there widely is the way to go.

Lastly lastly, if he does work out a print component that would be a bonus to the above depending on the printing costs and level of distribution. But if he doesn’t work out a print deal, he’s essentially betting he can sell more than 70,000 e-books.

. . . .

Well, right now when e-books represent approximately 20-30% of the market, it’s somewhat of a safe bet. Hocking will likely sell, I’d predict, a mix of hardcover and mass market paperback. Over the lifespan of her books, let’s say 75% of those print sales are mass market (priced at $7.99, 8% royalties) and 25% are hardcover (priced around $22.00, 10% royalties). In that case, the average print sale would generate about $1.03 in royalties.

Assuming she sells eight print copies for every two e-books sold, she makes way more in print royalties than she loses in e-book royalties. Two e-books sold as a self-published author equal $4.18. Two e-books plus eight print books as a traditionally published author equals $9.28 (minus commission). But if she sells, say, six print books for every four e-books traditionally ($6.18), compared to four e-books as a self-published author, those gains evaporate ($8.36).

If she breaks out in print or if St. Martin’s boosts her sales significantly, the decision will definitely have been worth it (not to mention that she has a guaranteed $2 million that she gets no matter what). But if the bulk of her sales continue to be in the e-book format, she may lose money per copy sold.

Link to the rest at Nathan Bransford, Author

Based on current hard copy/ebook sales percentages (80%/20%), you probably do better with a traditional publisher if you sell a lot of hard copies.

However, if the ebook percentage of sales increases between now and when your traditionally-published book comes out (18-24 months from signing a publishing contract), the numbers could turn out much differently. If you had built the spreadsheet a year ago, you would have assumed ebook sales of about 5% of total.

Courtesy of Ted Weinstein, Literary Agent, click HERE to download the Excel spreadsheet that lets you run your own calculations.

Alexander Greenwood writes a wonderful essay about his grandfather, an author of Westerns, and his own journey through the publishing world.

Excerpts:

I learned from [my grandfather] things you can learn from any true professional writer: read a lot, write every day, edit, edit, edit and most importantly: don’t quit.

As a child I was once startled to see my grandfather seated at a card table at a Waldenbooks in the mall. Next to a small sign that read “Meet the Author” set a small stack of his latest book. He seemed to be doing some sort of lonely after school detention for grownups.

“Whatcha doing Rob?” I asked him (I called him “Rob” or “Grandpa Rob,” but mostly “Rob”).

He smiled. “Just sitting here with my books.”

“Why?”

“Trying to sell a few,” he said, ever patient at my interrogation. I don’t think he sold a whole lot that day, if I remember correctly. But he seemed happy to be there.

In retrospect, I wanted to be there, too. Still do.

. . . .

I toiled in the mines of writing good query letters and researching the right agents. I earned roughly enough rejection letters (and email) to literally wallpaper my office (“nice, but too short” “I liked it, but you need to chop at least 40 pages of exposition” “You write well but we no longer represent thrillers” …ad nauseum). A half dozen agents asked to read a few chapters; another three asked for “partials,” which is roughly half the book.  Two agents thrilled me by requesting a “full”–the entire manuscript.

One agent said she thought it had potential but didn’t like my narrative voice. If you ask me that’s pretty similar to a girl saying she likes you but not the way you kiss. But that’s okay–either you turn her on or you don’t.

The other agent said she really liked the book but the way the industry was going it didn’t look like something she could rep successfully. I got it. This was 2008–the economy was on the brink of a very large, unforgiving crater. Most publishers were simply not going to take a chance on an unknown newbie’s solid (but probably not blockbuster material) thriller.

At this point, after spending two years writing the book and another two trying to sell it, I was defeated. The book–my best manuscript ever– was going to cozy up to the mediocre and terrible attempts from my youth in a despised cardboard box in the basement.

. . . .

Despite nice reviews, I often get the old “don’t quit your day job” look. One friend dropped the big one on me, saying (not unkindly) “But won’t this self-published thing ruin your chances at a real publishing contract?”

And boom…there it was. I can call myself an “indie author” all I want, but there are still those who will always equate me with self-published hackdom because I didn’t wait my turn. I picked myself, as Seth Godin would say. I shot the gatekeepers the bird.

Link to the rest at Alexander G. Public Relations

Joanna Penn, author, blogger, speaker and business consultant based in Australia (although she is British) sounds like she could name ten more.

Excerpts:

3) You can publish your book within 24 hours – and for free. Speed to market has to be one of the most annoying factors of traditional publishing. It can take 18 months – 2 years to reach bookstores after you’ve finished writing a book. Perhaps that can be chopped down to as little as 6 months but with ebooks, you can publish to the Kindle store within 24 hours. You should absolutely be using professional editing, cover design and formatting but once the book is ready for the market, you can publish fast and easily. Oh yes, and it’s free to publish on Amazon and Smashwords. They just keep a small % of sales.

. . . .

7) Daily sales figures. This type of reporting is unheard of in traditional publishing where authors may never learn exact sales figures or understand the source of the sale. Royalty statements might come months later and aren’t traceable to any specific marketing campaign. On Amazon and other platforms you can see your sales figures and adjust your efforts accordingly. As someone who appreciates internet marketing and online sales, I really like to know what I am selling and what money is coming in. It’s great to be able to log into the Amazon KDP and see sales figures for US and UK sites.

Link to the rest at The Creative Penn

Last week produced two major stories in the indie publishing world. For those who see traditional publishing and self-publishing in a duel to the death, each side found something to cheer about and reason to mourn.

The first story was an announcement by bestselling author Barry Eisler that he had turned down a $500K two-book contract and would self-publish those two books.

The second story was an announcement that Amanda Hocking, indie queen who has sold over 1 million ebooks, would sign a four-book publishing contract with St. Martin’s for about $2 million.

So, for those keeping score, indie publishing was 1-1 for the week and traditional publishing had the same record.

Looking a little deeper, we see that each author’s decision was not necessarily about money and instead focused on less-tangible career growth/satisfaction considerations.

Hocking said her principal reasons for making the switch were to reach more readers, citing many who wanted to buy her books in bookstores, and to obtain quality editing for her books, something that has eluded her so far. Publisher promotion was also a factor.  This wasn’t a complete blowout for traditional publishing, however, since Amanda strongly implied that she would continue to release new indie titles at least until her St. Martin’s books are released sometime in 2012. Click HERE for more about Amanda’s reasons.

Eisler said his major reasons were to avoid the hassle of dealing with publisher screw-ups and take more control over marketing, pricing, timing, etc., for his books. Click HERE for more about Barry’s reasons.

Each author made the switch because he/she wanted something the other author already possessed. Each one looked in the opposite direction over the same indie/legacy fence and liked the appearance of the grass on the other side.

Amanda switched for publisher distribution, publisher editing and publisher publicity. Barry switched to escape from publishers and do his own thing for a change. Barry has received publisher services for lots of books and is not enamored with their value. Amanda has experienced indie freedom and generated the best indie results of any author currently writing, but wants someone else to do all the things she’s been handling on her own.

Will Barry and Amanda each capture the dream of their professional hearts?

Two years is an eternity for a business in the middle of disruptive change, but, if Passive Guy remembers, he’ll revisit Amanda and Barry some time during the spring of 2013 to consider the success of their experiments. Peering into his crystal ball, Passive Guy suspects the most surprising result would be that each author is pleased with the outcome of the experiment.

Here are some of the questions we’ll ask:

• Will Barry be selling enough self-pubbed books to offset the absence of a $500K advance? (To be fair, Barry is presently looking at a much longer time horizon than two years for his indie ROI.)
• Will Barry be happy with his own marketing, editing, etc.? More important, since Barry can delude himself, what will the larger publishing world (in its much-changed condition) think about the quality of what Barry has produced (or hired other people to produce)?
• Will Amanda see a tangible difference in the quality of her traditionally-published books and the marketing supporting them?
• Will putting a publisher in charge of marketing and promotion really give Amanda more time to write?
• Bonus Question: Will Amanda stay in Austin, Minnesota, or move to Manhattan?

Commenters, please add questions of your own.