Successful Publishing

I read an article this week that is getting a lot of play in the writers' groups I belong to. I'd like to discuss some of the points. First of all, the article is here (http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/smashwords-ceo-mark-coker-indie-authors-need-to-become-great-publishers/). It's by Mark Coker, who is the force behind Smashwords. Smashwords is the online ebook publisher most authors turn to first when they're self-publishing. If you follow the detailed formatting guide, it's not too difficult to make yourself an ebook from your manuscript. The processor takes your Word file as input and produces multiple files in formats, such as mobi for Kindle, epub for most other ereaders, pdf, html, etc.

So, that's who Mark Coker is and what his product is. I was amazed to learn that Smashwords is only 4 years old! He comes from a public relations background, so knows how to sell his product. Not that the author pays anything up front. One thing I'll commend him for, okay, one among many, is his refusal to go public. He's afraid a stockholder or venture capitalist might want to charge writers for using Smashwords. Of course, they take a cut of the published book, but much less of a cut than a traditional publisher takes.

Here's the nugget that's getting discussed. He says, " The biggest challenge faced by self-published authors, it’s not marketing, it’s not discoverability, it’s adopting the best practices of the very best publishers. It’s about becoming a professional publisher."

What does he mean by that? What IS a professional publisher?

He also says, "I imagine a book is an object and attached to the object you have dials and levers and things you can tweak and turn and twist, things that can increase the availability, discoverability, accessibility, enjoyability to readers."

His first dial is price. How do you know when you've hit the right price, though? Set it too high and it won't sell, for obvious reasons. Set it too low and you devalue your product. Or do you?

The second is the cover. It should give the browsing potential reader an idea of what's inside. Mary Ann has mentioned this several times. A misleading cover can indicate the wrong genre and will disappoint the readers who buy expecting a different type of story.

The book description sounds obvious. It's hard, though, to distill your year (or more) of labor into a few sentences. You gotta do it though.

What else can the indie writer do to increase chances of success and to make books visible? I guess if anyone knew that, he or she would be outselling all of us. And probably wouldn't share the secrets here. I'm happy, but not ecstatic with my sales, so would love to hear ideas!

Build Your e-Book Online

A friend of mine sent me a link recently to a web page about how to self e-publish books through Borders. The page is called “Borders Get Published™” and it can be found here: http://borders.bookbrewer.com/home?cmpid=SA_20101114.

The concept seems relatively easy and straight forward. They give you the tools to format, assemble, and test your eBook, all for free. You can “copy and paste content into the manuscript in Word or PDF, or import content from your blog.” They say there’s no obligation to purchase anything and registering is free, as is building your book.

The catch is that once your book is ready, you have to purchase one of their “self-publishing packages” for $89.99. They will assign an ISBN and distribute your book to online booksellers. They said it works with Borders, Kobo Books, Amazon.com, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble.

I haven’t tried this out yet, and I’m not endorsing it, but I wanted to get it out in front of like-minded individuals. I think it might be worth a little more research, especially with the eBook formats becoming more and more popular.

A Smashing Success

After being gone for a month, I'm dropping in with a quick note. I know, I know. And it's BSP, too. But maybe some readers can benefit from my experience.

I've just put out my own short story collection on Smashwords and they immediately started selling. If you follow the direction exactly, you end up with lots of different convenient formats. I even did a table of contents, which works in most of the versions. I'll warn that the rtf versions don't hold the formatting and I left those out when I redid my book the next day.

I'd advise publishing it, downloading all the formats you can, proofing, then re-doing. I found that I had left one story out of my table of contents, and my cover said there were 8 when there were really 9! It's simple to reload everything. When the book is as perfect as you can make it, then is the time to start publicizing.

You can peek at the first two and a half stories in my collection at
A Patchwork of Stories on Smashwords. The book will make it to Amazon in a couple of weeks.

If anyone is thinking of self-publishing for any reason, I'd highly recommend this site!

Traditional Publishing vs. Self-Publishing

Although writers have always outnumbered publishers, it seems like today the supply of writers has far surpassed the demand for books. As more and more writers get fed up with the state of the publishing industry, there's a growing trend toward self-publishing. Yes, self-publishing does let you get a book "printed" faster than going with a traditional publisher; however, this does not mean self-publishing is the answer to your publishing problems.

Self-publishing is not right for everyone (neither is traditional publishing). There are many cons associated with self-published books:

1. No barrier to entry: Meaning anybody willing to pay can get published (whether the work is good or not). 
2. Negative stigma: Because there is no barrier to entry often times the editorial, print, and design of self-published books are of poor quality. As such, many retailers won't shelve self-published books and many media outlets won't cover/review them.
3. Poor distribution: A printed book is worthless if you can't get it out into the retail chain. Often self-publishers don't have the contacts, reputation, or resources to effectively distribute their books.
4. Cost: No advances here, the author foots the bill on the entire project as well as serving as project manager and marketer

Of course, there are some positives, like:

1. Creative control: You can say how it looks, what it says, and where it goes.
2. Ownership: You're not selling your rights to a publisher, so you get to keep full ownership of your material.
3. Time to market: traditional publishing can take years to get a book to market, whereas most self-published books can get to market in a matter of months.
4. Higher returns: There is no one else to pay but you, so you get to keep the money you earn on the back end. 

Traditional publishing isn't good or bad either--it's just a different model. Some of the negatives of traditional publishing include:

1. No ownership or creative control: You sell your rights to the work, and often times your rights to final say in cover design and other elements.
2. Time to market: As stated earlier, it can take years to traditionally publish a work.
3. Barrier to entry: You have to go through an agent, which also adds time to the publishing schedule (and another mouth to feed).
4. Small royalties: Most authors never earn back their advances, much less start earning royalties (if you think you can get rich as an author, you're in the wrong industry).

On the other hand, traditional publishing provides:

1. Credibility: Traditionally published books are thoroughly vetted, so retailers and media know they are good quality.
2. Strong distribution: Traditional publishers have established national distribution to all the major outlets.
3. Small up front costs: You're still responsible for your marketing, but here you're not expected to make any other investment and often times you do receive an advance (though those are shrinking).

So, before you take the plunge into self-publishing, do a little research and get serious about what your goals are as an author. If you have the ability to market and distribute your book and the funds to invest to produce a high quality work and to partner with a distributor, then maybe self-publishing is for you. If not, you may want to stick with the traditional route. Either way, be committed and educate yourself on the process. It will make everything easier on you and the publisher.

To learn more about your publishing options, read this white paper.