Approval Addiction:

“This is the first month of a new year and we all have our resolutions in place. But in order to succeed, we need to understand the terrain, the challenges we face. That’s what this series is going to address—Enemies of the Art. And yes, I am blogging five days a week now. My goal for this year is to master brevity.

“Today’s enemy is Approval Addiction.

“We all want approval. We long for admiration, a pat on the back, a nudge or a wink that tells us we have done something right. Yet, the dark side of this is that approval can be a drug. It lures us in with a rush that is fleeting. We start chasing the rush and can lose our art and ourselves if we aren’t careful.”

*****

“People-pleasing will kill your faith in yourself. It will distract you, drain you and the only one who will suffer is YOU. Last week we talked about burning our ships. One of the major reasons we fail to strike the match is we fear rejection. Burn the ship of approval. Do this for you. Do it for the art.”

Read the entire post here:  Kristen Lamb’s Blog

Julia Barrett

From The Jane Dough:

 For crying out loud. High school guidance counselor (and girls’ basketball coach, which will make you retroactively throw up in your mouth as you read this story) Bryan Craig has been fired by the board of his Chicago school district after publishing an e-book titled It’s Her Fault, “a guide [for women] to gaining the ‘upper hand in a relationship’ because he is tired of hearing them complain.”

. . . .

Craig reveals that he moonlights as a strip club bouncer which, he says, helps him manage his anger and be nicer to his wife.

One confessional reads: ‘Even though I feel I’m beyond the highest caliber of men, I still have a weakness for cleavage.’

. . . .

Craig holds a number of scientifically invalid and personally pretty gross beliefs about women. So it’s not hard to see why the school board voted unanimously to fire him. But…the rabid free speech advocate in me wonders if he was fired for the right reasons. Certainly someone who has such bizarre and unfounded beliefs about women shouldn’t be in a position to educate them — but I get the feeling that the school board was more upset about the explicitly sexual nature of the book than the advice offered therein.

. . . .

Can we look forward to teachers getting fired because they moonlight as Harlequin romance writers in the future?

Link to the rest at The Jane Dough

The Indie Revolution Inferiority Complex, by Lenore Skomal:

“When I moved to Erie, Penn. from the New York metro area, I quickly recognized one thing: my new cityhad an inferiority complex.

“Even though this coastal town has stunning sunsets, affordable and abundant lake front property, low cost of living, an excellent environment for raising kids and could very well be the best kept secret in the country, the people who live here don’t get it. The natives make fun of Erie, slap it around like a used mop and jump at the chance to denigrate it.

“I don’t get it. Where I come from, you’re proud of your hometown, warts and all.

“It didn’t take long for my husband and me to realize that the pervasive putdowns common among the residents went a long way to stigmatize this once bustling manufacturing city. And now, not just the folks who live here believe it, so does everyone else.

“The same thing is well on its way to happening to the independent self-publishing movement.

“Being a newbie to self-publishing (one and a half years), I can clearly see the similarities. The movement already suffers from an inferiority complex. Underlying our rally cry, ‘We are Indie, hear us roar,’ I can’t help but sense the word left unsaid at the end is, “Right?”

Read the rest of the article here.  It’s an interesting take on our Indie view of self:  Novel Publicity & Co.

Contributed by J. R. Barrett

From Indie Author News, an interview with editor Natascha Jaffa:

“Alan Kealey (Indie Author News): Please, tell us a little about yourself and your background.
Natascha Jaffa (SPJ Editing): I’m Natascha Jaffa. I’m convinced my mom named me after the Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle, but decided to confuse people by putting a “c” in there. I’m originally from Vegas, wound up in Utah, got married in the process (hence the Jaffa portion of my name), and came back down to bake to death in Sin City. For some reason I’ve always excelled in English Literature in school and knew by the time I was 21 I wanted to write.
Easier said than done as I’m sure most of you know. I queried my first novel the second I finished writing the first draft and actually couldn’t believe agents rejected me. How dare they! But I kept going.
Five years later, I’m now published under the pen name Nichole Severn (because I run my own freelance editing business under my real name) and just shifted into writing thrillers. You know, because they’re awesome.
I read non-stop, I run non-stop (training for Ragnar) and would probably be rich if I could just stop eating chocolate.

Can you tell us a little about the experience at SPJ Editing?
I started SPJ Editing because I wanted to teach writers the things I wished I’d known when I first started writing.
My main goal is to make my client happy. They are, in essence, letting go of it and trusting me make their work shine. I do that by teaching through showing (not only telling them to change something, but the reason behind the suggestion) and offering the best support I can.
Because I only accept submissions one at a time, I supply my clients with weekly updates to keep them in the loop and make sure they know they are my first and only priority.

How important is it to have a book edited? Can the author not do this by him/herself?
My favorite editing quote is, “The best writing is rewriting.” by Stephen King. As I mentioned above, I was shocked to learn agents didn’t want my first book (by the way, it will never see the light of day) and through that experience I learned writers are blind to their own work.
I’m an editor and I can’t even edit my own work! So I make other people do it for me.”

Read the rest here:  Indie Author News

–  Julia Barrett

From Book Promotion.com–

So, what’s going on in publishing this week?   I should correct that to say “What’s going on in publishing that I actually care about this week?”

It is 400 bazillion degrees in New York this week, and as such, everyone is cranky and everything is taking longer. For instance, even this blog post took longer, as this theme decided that it no longer wanted to recognize carriage returns, so I had to go all old-school and hand-write some hard returns so that it wouldn’t be the world’s longest paragraph. Sweet! In the continued saga of “publishing goes digital,” I have the following updates from the trenches, as it were:

1.  This week I had a weird “debate” with a person at a major publishing company about how they simply did not believe that eBooks should be priced below $10.   My reaction to this:   do you have a life-raft ?  You are on the ideological Titanic.  Publishers love to hate Amazon, but they sell a ton of books, and guess what?  They penalize you in the form of lower commission if you sell a book for less than $2.99 or more than $9.99.  To me, this means that Amazon will reward you if you stay in this profit zone.    Why on earth would big publishing not want the millions of dollars’ worth of market research Amazon is conducting every single day, I wonder?   Also, big publishing America, I would like to add that I talked to a New York literary agent this week who told me she just TURNED DOWN a $5,000 advance on a book for one of her authors because she wasn’t confident in the publisher’s digital capabilities.    Oh!  It burns!

2. I read this book, implemented some of this guy’s strategies, and am waiting and testing and recording results.  HOWEVER, I think he is absolutely insane for dismissing blogging and social media as a factor in author success.   I stopped reading his book once when he said “there’s no way Amanda Hocking blogged her way to success,” because I assumed anyone who would say something like that didn’t know the market and I couldn’t learn anything from him.  Well, my bad, he actually does have an interesting method (though, just to warn you, it is MUCH more complicated and time-consuming than it initially seems), but I still think he’s dead wrong about people with active blogs and social media.  Dead wrong.  Amazon will adjust its algorithm just like Google does, your books will rise and fall in Amazon ranking (after the first six months of your first book being out, you will quickly tire of this), and while this method may fall out of favor, you know what will NEVER be impacted be mysterious algorithms or whims?  A mailing list full  of your loyal followers and readers who actually want to buy your books.    I’m all for learning new things (in fact, I do it all the time so you don’t have to!), but it kind of bugs me when someone comes up with one theory, then dismisses all of the others.  This strategy, if you choose to learn it, should be PART of your arsenal of writer tools, not the whole thing.  Always be diversifying and building up that list!

Read the rest here:  Book Promotion .com

– From Julia Barrett

From Stant Litore, author of The Zombie Bible:

“Bea over at Writing Off the Rails asked me a few days ago what digital publishing, indie publishing, e-publishing, etc., means to me. That made me sit back and think a moment, because it means a lot to me. And not just what you’d expect. Here’s the answer I came up with.

It means all bets are off.

For the first time in quite a while, writers have options. A writer with a fantastic story, some marketing chutzpah, and the self-discipline of an old workhorse can take a decent shot at self-publishing, and that’s been good for a number of novelists. It’s a long shot, but thanks to the rapid growth of the e-book market and the ease of connecting writers and readers via the Internet, it’s far more feasible than it has been in the past.

Another thing that’s exciting to me is the new species of publishers emerging. Some of the small presses are not only entrepreneurial but also give their writers a fair deal, which is something that hasn’t really been the norm among large publishing houses since the 1950s.

And there are the Amazon imprints – Montlake, Thomas & Mercer, 47North, and the others. These not only offer a fair deal but a very powerful marketing engine, and they’re run by innovative people who invest in the author-editor relationship. They’re bringing good work out and they put their weight behind it – not just behind one or two titles they’re banking everything on, they put their weight behind all their books. I’m impressed by that.

All of this means that a good writer has a better shot at making a living than has been the case in quite a few decades.

That’s a good thing.

But what the e-book market and the digital publishing phenomenon really means to me is bigger than that. Much bigger.”

Read the rest at:  New Wave Authors, What E-Publishing Means to a Country Boy.

- Julia Barrett

From Indie Jane:

I’m going to state up front that I haven’t drawn any solid conclusions by the end of this post, but the information contained below about more changes to Amazon’s algorithm is important for indies to know.

Price matters.

One of the advantages indie authors have over our traditionally published counterparts is that we can choose to sell our ebooks very cheaply. Setting a price of $.99 has proven not only a great deal for readers, but writers still earn 35 percent of the list price, which is much more than what authors of traditionally published ebooks receive.

The $.99 price point has also been a wonderful tool for breaking into a large market and competing successfully against established names. In fact, the $.99 price is part of the strategy I used to propel Absolute Liability to the Top 100 last summer. It is less likely to work now though, and this frustrates me a bit because it removes a tool from my toolbox.

What’s changed?

Amazon’s algorithm. [Insert scary music]

Read the rest here:

http://indiejane.org/2012/06/about-that-algorithm/

- Julia Barrett

From Paid Content:

If you liked The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Twilight, you’ll love Popular Book Series of the 21st Century: Harry Potter, Twilight, The Millenium Trilogy, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, The Southern Vampire Mysteries and The Uglies Series. Too bad it’s just a collection of Wikipedia articles repackaged into a $17.66 paperback.

. . . .

The book is literally all of the Wikipedia articles about each series. We’ve seen plenty of spammy content on Amazon before, but this one stands out because Hunger Games interest is driving it up in Amazon’s recommendation algorithm and it is a pricey paperback rather than an e-book.

The book is also accompanied by two phony “customer images” showing shelves of hardcover books.

. . . .

The publisher is listed as “Webster’s Digital Services” and the book’s description notes:

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The trend in reading material this century, seems to be series which attract such a devoted following that they become their own subculture. Many of these series earn film or television versions of their stories, furthering their popularity. This book introduces you to the definitive series of the 21st century: discussing the series as a whole and then turning to each book within.

Project Webster represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Project Webster continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge.

Link to the rest at Paid Content

PG just checked and it appears Amazon took the book down.

Book designer Joel Friedlander points out that among the most poorly-designed books on the market are those that provide advice about how to self-publish your book:

I’ve often said that it doesn’t cost any more to produce a good-looking book than it does to produce a bad-looking one, but people aren’t listening.

When I first started blogging a couple of years ago I thought one good service for readers would be to review books about self-publishing.

Like lots of things, I set out with good intentions, and had barely gotten started before I tripped up on those same intentions, and had to abandon the effort.

The first book I reviewed was such a shambles from a book design point of view, I couldn’t hold back from criticizing the author/publisher.

. . . .

Like a lot of self-publishers, having control of lots of neat things like tinted boxes, type run-arounds, drop caps and automatic bullets apparently makes people think you need to use them all. On almost every page.

Perhaps they think that an unadorned page of type would, by itself, be so boring no one would read the book.

But it seems to me that all the books I remember most brilliantly, the ones I can never forget, are made up of unadorned pages of type. That’s because it’s the words and the story and the ideas that remain, when they are allowed to, not the fancy rules and type ornaments and drop shadows. That stuff just gets in the way.

Cluttering your book pages with stuff is pretty much the opposite of my idea of book design. I think self-publishers would do themselves a favor by creating very simple pages instead of fancy ones. Their readers will thank them.

. . . .

So I suppose it’s the rule that books about self-publishing that are self-published themselves look bad because the authors are attempting to follow the DIY (do-it-yourself) route to show just how easy it is to publish a book.

And maybe that’s the problem: it’s dead easy to publish a book, it’s just a bit harder to publish one that looks decent, or one that looks just as good as a book from a traditional publisher.

But does that mean all these books have to use bad clip art, pedestrian typefaces, awkward layouts, three or four fonts per page, and covers that look like they came straight out of the template cover generator?

When I look at a book cover with 6 lines of type on it, and every line is a different font or weight, with type that’s been digitally distorted, with big chunky drop shadows, I have to take a few deep breaths.

And that leaves me with a question: Why are the self-published authors of books about self-publishing so unconcerned with how their books look? Why are they convinced they don’t need a book designer? Why don’t they want to create a book that looks great?

Link to the rest at The Book Designer

From book designer Michele DeFilippo:

I’m responding today to a piece making the rounds, “The Death of Traditional Publishing” by Michael Levin, an expert ghostwriter who helps executives craft books designed to advance their careers. A noble and worthwhile profession which, like every other, must require a lot of experience, thoughtful consideration, and hard work. Levin writes about the shortcomings of traditional publishing and acquisitions editors. He then goes on to blast the entire profession of book design by writing: “…you just do the whole damned thing yourself, which is so easy that your 10-year-old can be your technical advisor.”

Seriously? Can an intelligent person write such a sentence and truly believe it? Or expect others to believe it? Apparently so, judging by the number of people who make this statement, or some variation of it.

In my opinion, Levin’s comments about book design do nothing to advance his credibility as an executive book coach and ghostwriter. I think they call into question the accuracy of his other assertions. Maybe he doesn’t know as much about traditional publishing or the daily work of acquisitions editors as he claims, either. Wouldn’t he be insulted, and rightfully so, if someone were to suggest that any 10-year-old can write a book?

. . . .

But the issue is much larger. This is about our collective intelligence. When inaccurate comments like this are dispensed for mass consumption, and then repeated, why aren’t all kinds of red flags raised? Why are we so ready to accept and believe such blanket statements? Why do they take on a life of their own, and an aura of undisputed truth?

I don’t know what you do for a living, but I’m pretty sure you’ve spent some time becoming an expert at it, and you’re doing the best job you can under circumstances that nobody on the outside can fully understand. Why can’t we acknowledge that others, in other lines of work, are equally competent? Why is there such gratification in accusing them, out loud, of providing a service that nobody needs?

Link to the rest at AuthoPublisher