Getting Published ~ Part I Options

Hi everyone,

My first post of the year that isn’t one of the regular weekly posts (Poetry Corner, What Can YOU Write in 6 Sentences or an Author Interview) is going to be a two-part post about “Getting Published”.

In today’s publishing world, there are so many options to choose from in order to get your work out to the masses and I’m going to cover them all very briefly in this post and then provide a bit more in-depth information in part II.

PUBLISHING OPTIONS

Agent:

The traditional route, for some, is still the most desired route and you can certainly submit your work to an agent in the hope that you will find representation by a major publisher.  You can find a fairly decent list of literary agents online at AuthorAdvance, or you can search the database of the Association of Authors’ Representatives. Another alternative is to check at your local library as they may have a comprehensive listing of book publishers, agents or other resources available.

Independent Press:

A growing field, the independent press, enables you to find a publisher who may not give you any money up front for your work but who is more likely to be loyal to your work over the long run. You won’t find many agents that work with the smaller publishers because their advances are small or nonexistent, and agents live on commission.

Co-op or “POD” Publishing:

Until I had begun research for this post, I had never heard of this option – a recent development in alternative publishing! This group comprises of co-op publishers, who charge authors a fee for the production and publication of their work. A great alternative and a step above the self-publishing route where the author bears the full cost of publication for a very small number of conventionally printed books.

A word of caution: some Co-op Publishers let you retain your rights as the publisher while others do not.

Electronic Publishing:

A publishing option that is rapidly gaining public acceptance and is becoming a significant economic force in the publishing world!! Some e-publishers produce POD books and some don’t. Also, some may be here today and gone tomorrow so you want to make sure you have up-to-date information on the field before committing your work to any particular firm.

Self-Publishing:

If you have determination and some money to invest, you can be your own publisher and Mystery Writers Unite has already done numerous posts on the subject! Check out some of the information by clicking here: Self-Publishing

Make sure to check out Part II of “Getting Published” on Thursday!

Becky

The Importance of a GREAT Book Cover!!

Hi everyone,

Today we are going to touch on the importance of making a good cover for your book.  Should you do it yourself?  Hire a professional?  Can you imagine what it should look like in in your mind?  These are all important questions and decisions...

I can’t stress the importance of marketing and branding your book the right way, as your success will depend on it.   As a matter of fact, I believe that how you present your book – the first thing people will see when they are introduced to your writing - is just as important as the first impression you make on a perspective employer or lover or friend!

There are tools out there that can help you!  For example, before preparing this post I found an online program called "My eCover Creator" that allowed me to create a professional looking e-book cover (see below) in as little as 15 minutes once I figured out a few easy steps; it cost's $3.95 US to download once completed.

FOR ILLUSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY

Other authors use Photoshop or some other program that allows them to work with graphics easily.  Whatever method you choose to create your cover, there are a few things you will want to keep in mind as you are producing the packaging for your hard work, which are:

• Do make sure that the tile is legible;
• Do make sure that the font on the spine really stands out (for printed work);
• Do make sure that the back cover provides a brief summary about the book’s content;
• Do make sure that if you are going to include an author picture that it is a head shot and looks professional (for printed work);
• Do choose fonts wisely!! Each genre of books has similar typeface characteristics. It’s important to recognize these patterns and consider them when selecting cover fonts. For example, the same typeface used for books on sympathy may not be appropriate for a murder mystery; and
• Don’t try and portray your entire story with cover artwork. Instead, garner a potential reader’s interest and make them want to know more. Keep the front cover simple; it’s the back cover’s job to summarize and provide more information.

Remember the importance of branding!! Your readers identify with your brand more than anything else so stay true to it! If this seems overwhelming to you and you are looking to have someone do it for you, I'm considering offering this as another service for authors and writers so send me a message and I will put my Business Marketing diploma to work for you!!

What other guidelines do you follow when creating your book covers?

Have a great day!

Becky

Does Everyone Have a Novel in Them?

Kate Burns, Co-Author

I'm thrilled to be here writing for Mystery Writers Unite. This is one of the most prolific and interesting new blogs on writing and the new world of publishing, and Ms. Illson-Skinner has honored me with the invitation to be a regular contributor. It goes without saying that any mistakes, opinions, and leaps of logic I make are heretofore my own and do not necessarily reflect on this site or its Host.

While contemplating my first article for this blog, I mulled over how to introduce myself, and thought about all of the tales I could tell about my journey in the new world of independent publishing. No one knows me. I could tell any tale I want!

However, in the interest of that not biting me in the keester later, I will opt for the truth. The truth, followed by a question.

Five years ago, I was not a writer. Far from it. I have a full time career doing work that I love -- Graphic Design -- and several hobbies to address any residual creative energy I have left over. I'm also a mom and step-mom. "Energy left over" is an abstract concept at the best of times.

I knit, crochet, decorate cakes, bake weird concoctions and force my family to eat them. I get ideas -- strange ones. Let's have a pirate treasure hunt at camp in honor of Pirates of the Caribbean Three. Not One or Two, idea didn't hit me then, but Three, hoo-boy, you couldn't get that idea out of my head. I slept, ate, drank, and drew plans for a big wild dollar store charged scavenger hunt the likes of which would be talked about by those little urchins for years to come.

So, five years ago, if you had asked me if I felt like outlining, writing, rewriting, rewriting, rewriting, rewriting, synopsizing, blurbing, entering contests, sending query letters, studying the publishing industry, designing cover art, titling, self-publishing, and promoting a novel, I would have looked at you the way I look at my toddler. Cute, but I don't get the babbling, kid.

But over a glass of wine one Saturday evening, during a rare quiet moment, I looked out the window. The snow fell, as it had been falling for weeks, and dinner ticked over in the slow cooker. For the first time, I noticed how clearly I could see the apartment building we had worked so hard to get out of… and an idea began to form. Over the next few weeks, the idea sucked in everything: news, fears, atmosphere… even the falling snow. And, without passing 'short story', or even 'novella', it stopped at NOVEL.

By the time my husband Dave asked me what I was up to, I was in it deep.

When people find out you are writing a novel, particularly if you haven't tortured over writing since Grade Six, the reactions are startling. In my case, it was almost as if I had announced I was taking up Rocket Science for the Backyard Hobbyist. You writers out there know what I'm talking about. Reactions range from excited to dismissive, with a smattering of eye-roll thrown in, in case you don't understand exactly what boundaries you are violating. After all, who writes novels?… is the unspoken question… the unspoken answer is, of course, Novelists.

Ah, Novelists.

Novelists are creatures sprung fully formed as Tormented Writers, wise from birth, lurking mysteriously at parties. Where they are born, no one knows, though one presumes that family and friend alike knew from the outset that they were Novelists.

The truth, though, is that the Novelist… is us. All of us. Anyone who wants to tell a story.

Hm. Pardon that. That's not exactly true. The Novelist is anyone who wants to outline, write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, synopsize, blurb, enter into a contest, query, publish, choose or design a cover, title, and promote a story.

(Maybe it's not such a surprise that my friends looked at me like I grew another head.)

The best reactions come when you reach a major milestone.

"How's your 'novel'?"
"Finished."
"Oh! So... are you published?"
"Yes. The Ophelia Trap comes out this month."
"..."

That reaction should be very satisfying. Except for one thing. Now that I am a Novelist, on the other side of the magical door, I find that everything looks much the same over here. Except now I can see another door, another threshold to cross. I want to write a series. And my family and friends don't cast funny glances my way anymore. Now they look at me with expectation. So... I'd better keep writing.

The rest, as they say, is history. History still being written, word by word, following ideas that have been released from an invisible cage.

As promised, the question: Is there a novel in each of us? And a bonus question: If there is a novel inside of you, what are you willing to do to let it out?

Comment like crazy, please. We love the conversation here at Mystery Writers Unite. And when you get a chance, check out The Ophelia Trap.

Guest Blogger ~ Scott Bury on Self-publishing

The Shallow Learning Curve

Written by Scott Bury

E-book publishing? Making the work available and placing it where readers can buy it is easy. Selling it is not.

My experience with e-publishing -- that is, the process of creating electronic books that can be downloaded from the Internet and read on e-book readers, has been very positive. It’s easy to create a book-format. Creating the content is not easy, and then selling it to readers? Well, those stories are books in themselves.

I decided to self-publish my stories and novels, frankly, because I could not get a traditional commercial publisher to even look at the manuscript. I put a lot of work over several years into it, and others who have read parts of it praise the work. But publishers would not read even a sample of it, saying they just weren’t looking for new authors. There’s been a lot written and published about the challenges traditional publishers are facing now, so I won’t go into that.

If you are considering self-publishing as an option, here are three platforms available to help you in your quest:

Calibre

To create the e-book version of my novel, I downloaded a shareware program called Calibre. The shareware if free, but if you like it, you should send the developer 10 bucks or so (whatever you think is fair).

Calibre works well at converting your files into the many different formats used in e-book readers. The software also organizes your e-book library and comes with a basic e-book reader application for your computer.

The downside, the interface is a little quirky and counter-intuitive, there is no manual, and the help files available through the Web are not very helpful.

That being said, once I figured out that you have to start with a PDF file and I followed the rules, Calibre worked nicely.

Smashwords

After making sure my character Sam, the Strawb Part,looked good, or at least readable, on an e-reader, the next step was to publish it.

 

I went to Smashwords, an e-publisher and e-bookstore that will publish your work in several formats, and sell them, too, for a 15% royalty, which is better than Amazon (30%) and far better than any traditional commercial publisher, who generally gives YOU only 5% of the selling price of YOUR book!

Smashwords uses a program they call the “meat grinder,” which transforms your text file, adds a JPEG as a cover and produces a book in EPUB format. They sell it through their own e-bookstore, and also through Apple’s iBookstore, Barnes & Noble’s e-bookstore in Nook format, Diesel, Sony, Kobo—just about every e-bookstore except the biggest, Amazon.

Smashwords demands that you follow some guidelines. If you want your book to get their “premium” service, which includes sending it to all those other sellers, you need to follow them. So first, download their free manual and READ IT COMPLETELY.

Smashwords demands that every book have ISBN. Smashwords will provide one for you (at a cost), but, as a Canadian citizen, I can self-publish and get ISBNs at no cost through Library and Archives Canada. Canadian readers, check that out.

Note:  every different version of your book should have its own ISBN: the paper version, the version you publish through Smashwords and the one you publish through Amazon should all have their own numbers. If you revise the book later, even just change the cover, you should get another ISBN.

Be prepared to add some “front matter” and “back matter” to your book. “Front matter” includes the cover and title page, but also the publishing information, which includes information about the book, the name of the author and the publisher, copyright information and the ISBN number. Smashwords insists that the edition you send to them includes the phrase “Smashwords edition” in that copyright information somewhere, as well as “published by (your name or your publisher’s name) through Smashwords.” “Back matter” can include your picture and a brief bio, as in “About the author.”

Once you are ready, log into your Smashwords account and upload first the text as one text file, and then the cover image as a JPEG. Smashwords will respond to tell you how long it will take for the “grinder” to process your book. This will range from a few hours or longer depending on how many books are in the queue ahead of you but it is well worth the wait! I was thrilled when I looked at the Smashwords store and “Sam, the Strawb Part, by Scott Bury,” was available for purchase!!

Within a few weeks, (yes, weeks), I could see my story on Apple’s iBookstore and Barnes & Noble’s electronic bookstore, as well.

Next, I saved my document with a slightly different file, got a new ISBN and changed the copyright information and published through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing system.

The Mighty Amazon

Publishing with Amazon’s KDP system is even easier than publishing through Smashwords. Like Smashwords, KDP takes your text as a Word file, but KDP allows you to use HTML for more control over the format, if you’re familiar with it.  Again, read the manual before converting or uploading.

Amazon is also quicker about publishing your book onto its site than Smashwords is. However, since I used Amazon.com’s KDP site, Sam, the Strawb Part is not available on Amazon.ca. I will have to look into that.

All in all, the self-publishing process is not difficult at all. It isn’t even that time-consuming. What is time-consuming, and should be, is the creation of a book or story worth reading!

The $0.99 Book Price -- Is it Making or Breaking You?

Hi everyone,

I hear that this is a "hot topic" these days as the publishing world is being turned on its ear by self-published authors that grew tired of waiting for the ultimate "yes" letter. I don't blame you and for those of you still waiting for your letter...STOP.

Self-publishing is easy and fairly inexpensive so why wait to get your work out to the masses? There may be a couple of reasons such as a) deciding on where you want to market your work b) deciding on the cover art and c) probably the most important decision you will need to make ---- what will you price your book at?

I know from speaking with a friend of mine, that is an author and has a book available on Amazon for $0.99, that there are definitely two ways of looking at book pricing. This author is in favor of the pricing whereas I'm somewhat opposed to it. So, I thought I would do an entry on this subject and see what the masses think :-)

IN FAVOR OF THE $0.99 BOOK PRICE:

• Affordable -- less than a cup of coffee
• It may make someone who doesn't know you or your writing more likely to give your book a chance
• It may lead to mass sales due to lower price as opposed to fewer sales at a higher price

OPPOSED TO THE $0.99 BOOK PRICE:

• May be viewed as "garbage reading" the kind of reading that you find in the bargain bin at the bookstore
• You are branding yourself, as well as your work and you are a professional author -- when is the last time you seen a book by James Patterson for $0.99?
• A slightly higher price will make up for the possibility that the masses won't buy if your book is priced above $0.99

I KNOW there are many more points of view on this subject (based on what I've been reading) both for and against this pricing model -- PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT and let me know why you are "for" or "against" and why :-) 

Oh, and please, please don't think that I'm judging because I'm not. Just a hot topic that provides food for fodder.

(BTW, when did they get rid of the cents symbol?)

Have a great day everyone!

Becky

Guest Blogger ~ R.S. Guthrie on Social Media Marketing

Come On In, the Water’s Fine

Written by R.S. Guthrie

 

First I’d like to thank the lovely and talented writer, Becky Illson-Skinner for not only having me here to guest blog, but also for her outstanding interview earlier in the week!

For anyone who throws a serious hat into the publishing ring—for we writers—an ugly truth is soon discovered:

We need to be marketing experts!

Now, granted, if you majored in Marketing, or have been doing it the past few decades, you are probably okay with this realization. But for those of us who skipped Marketing 101, the understanding arrives more like portents of DOOM.

Marketing? Isn’t there a department for that?

Sadly, writers, the answer is an unequivocal ‘no’. We’re pretty much on our own, particularly if we are independent (although most authors signed to publishing houses are also nearly one hundred percent responsible for their own marketing). Enter, social media networking. (I think I just heard someone hack up a nervous hair ball.)

Seriously, though, in this revolutionary world of digital wonder, you better get savvy on everything from Internet slang to the latest browser plugins, social media software, and reliable network connections. Why, you ask?

BECAUSE YOUR SUCCESS OR

FAILURE DEPEND ON IT!

 If you’ve yet to jump into the pool feet first, you aren’t alone. There are still a lot of writers who are standing around dipping their virtual toes, feeling like the water is too darned cold and confusing.

And when you look out over the water, you see all these beach balls being tossed back and forth with printed names like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

So you are tempted to think: “Maybe I’ve got this handled! I’ve got accounts in all those places. Things aren’t as bad as they seem.”

Then, without warning, all these big, ugly, tattooed kids jump into the water and start stealing all the pool toys. The tattoos say things like: Hootsuite, TweetDeck, Social Oomph, Tweet Adder, and even a bicep tattoo that reads Twit Cleaner.

Things are starting to look bleak.

Don’t worry too much. Again, you aren’t alone. And the great news is that most of the products in today’s social networking universe are designed so that a child can use them.

Okay, scratch that. Your kids are probably a lot more technical than you. They are designed so that YOU can use them. And the best part is that most of the tools are all about automation. They exist to make your marketing job easier.

Take Twitter, for example. First of all, you need to be on Twitter. Second of all: You. Need. To. Be. On. Twitter. There are debates about the quality ratio of Facebook friends to Twitter followers. Don’t worry about that now. Get. On. Twitter.

Then use a product like Tweet Adder to help automate the process of finding followers. I’ve been on Twitter for just over two months. (I know. I should follow my own advice.) In that short time, I am past 3000 followers. I owe Tweet Adder a few rounds of drinks for that. This application allows you to search tweeps on several different criteria, from who they follow to who follows them to what food they most often tweet about. (And, yes, “tweeps” is a highly technical term, but you’ll eventually figure that one out.)

Just remember this: Tweet Adder follows people for you. While you sleep, while you water ski. Tweet Adder doesn’t care. It works so you don’t have to.

So what do you do once all these tweeps are following you? They’re all really cool people, right? Hmm, have you forgotten the hooligans at the pool? The last thing you need are deadbeats filling up your Twitterverse. A free tool called Twit Cleaner  will help you with that problem. Twit Cleaner is basically a free Private Investigator who camps outside each of your follower’s virtual homes, records their bad habits, and reports them back to you (normally in a few minutes, depending on the size of your following).

Twit Cleaner identifies followers who haven’t been on Twitter since Paul Revere tweeted “One if by land, two if by sea”. It shows you people who talk only about themselves, who post nothing but links, and who are “relatively unpopular”. (I know, that last one sounds too much like high school.)

Now that you’ve got all your followers, the group is pretty devoid of deadbeats. What now? Well, you want to consider a platform that organizes your social networks and helps you keep track of your prowess (and also does some cool things like scheduling tweets).

I use Hootsuite. A lot of people use TweetDeck. Each of these products is free and helps you build feeds (filtered lists of tweets categorized by elements that work best for you). These are basically applications that organize all your networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) in one easy-to-read display. The nice thing about Hootsuite is that it’s web-based (i.e. you don’t need to install any software and can access it from any computer connected to the Internet). One of the features I like about TweetDeck is that it allows you to go over 140 characters in your tweets and automatically posts them with a link to read “the rest of the story”. (Posthumous apologies to Paul Harvey for that one.)

But you can’t possibly spend your whole day tweeting and posting to Facebook, right? Au contraire.  

The Cadillac of social media marketing software is a product like Social Oomph. This application is like a universal remote control with a mind of its own. You can build tweets, responses to retweets and follows—it can even do a Tweet Adder-like following for you. You can schedule your tweets: send some every hour, some every couple of days—you could even build your Christmas card tweet list and send them out while you are sunning yourself in Mazatlan. Pretty cool, huh?

More scared than ever? Well, that’s okay. We all were at first. And this is just a sampling of what’s out there. The most important thing for your social marketing campaign is to BEGIN.

The rest you can leave in the capable hands of software, hardware, middleware, and a growing sense that you are not nearly as technically necessary as you once thought you were. 

Guest Blogger ~ Mark Stone on Amazon Rules Re: $0 Kindle Pricing

Amazon Takes $0 Kindle Pricing out of the Hands of the Author

By Mark Stone

There is no doubt that with the advent of the digital age, the publishing industry faces its greatest dilemma yet. And, thanks to the Kindle from Amazon and to the late, great Steve Jobs, they are scrambling like madmen to repair the shrinking book market. I mean, who wants to lug around 1500 books when moving when all you need to do is pack your digital reader or tablet?

The literary world is in the middle of its greatest paradigm change since Gutenburg used the very first printing press, putting thousands of scriveners out of business. This is not a bad thing, change is inevitable, even necessary to promote growth and enhance our lives. One of the biggest changes, and seemingly far outpacing all the new digital gadgets that hit the market every few days, is the world of self-publishing.

Amazon has provided a platform for John and Jane Q. Public to write, edit, publish and market their own creativity and achieve the literary recognition. Okay, maybe recognition is a bit much, but now anyone can publish an e-book and actually have a chance to reap some greenbacks for the effort.

Which brings me to the point of this article…marketing of self-published books. Yes, there are some very good self-published works out there, and a whole heap of crap that stink up the site. So, with literally millions of e-books to choose from, what’s an author to do?

Price it right. There are a TON of $.99 books on Amazon. Enough that you’d have reading material for the next decade! Then some bright penny out there decided to price a book at $0 in an effort to become noticed. Hey, if a person enjoyed their book at $0, maybe they would be willing to shell out $3-4 for a second from the same author, right?

Right. Overall, it is an effective campaign strategy that has worked well…for the author. But what about Amazon.com?

I know, I know…you’re saying "Amazon is HUGE, it makes a metric ton of money, why should they make more? They should be helping the writers out."

Understood, however Amazon is a business, and like most businesses, is out to make money. They provide the publication service (via CreateSpace) and virtual bookshelves. If we as authors use their sites, it is not unreasonable for the provider of said bookshelves to ask for their cut, even if it is only pennies on the dollar.  They didn’t have to be a vendor of e-books, but they are and as a vendor they are allowed to asked for a fair cut of the profits.

In other words, try toddling off to the local Barnes & Noble with a boxful of your books and ask them to stock their shelves with your product, but take no profit from doing so because you want to give them away. How fast will you be laughed out of the store? I think it would break the sound barrier.

Does that mean Amazon should never have free books. I don’t think so. A case-by-case basis should be made for multi-published authors to dole out one free book as a lure to purchase their others. Since customers are always looking for the deal (as am I. There are quire a few free books on my Kindle), the multi-published author can get his/her name out there, perhaps garner a fan base. It not only makes sense, it is a good business model.

Now, for those authors who have not self-published more than one book, sorry, it is my opinion and it is Amazon’s call. If you think they are taking unfair advantage, you could always stay with Smashwords and other e-vendors who would be willing to give your work away for free.