Indie-Publishing Extravaganza

I am a fan of the indie-publisher in the same way that I’m a fan of a lot of indie musicians. It’s a scary thing to put your work out there for others to judge. And as there will always be artists that maybe shouldn’t have released their work, there are authors that shouldn’t release theirs.

But that goes vice-versa, too. There are indie artists who are so good at what they do that they gain fans, word-of-mouth publicity, and possibly even a big label contract, which may or may not be their end goal. Lucky for us, the same thing goes for authors… except there is still a stigma behind “self-publishing.”

Today, I’m listing some useful websites that will help you decide if you want to take that leap into the unknown and become an independently published author.

Indie Publishing Revolution
Maintained by Zoe Winters, a frequent commenter and even a guest blogger here at Worderella Writes. She’s an intense supporter of independent publishing and is doing her best to make sure that you know what you’re getting into if you’re interested in doing the same.

Publetariat
Self-described as an “online community and news hub for the independent author.” The people behind it claim to be experts in editing, marketing, journalism, etc, and are determined to help you make the best product you can. It’s not that you’re “resorting” to independent publishing, it’s that you “choose” to independently publish.

Selling Novels on the Amazon Kindle
A first-hand account from an author who experimented with selling a draft version of his novel on the Amazon Kindle and in e-book format. Very interesting and useful; read the comments to gain more insight as to whether you want to follow a similar path.

CNet’s 25 Things You Should Know About Self-Publishing
An honest assessment of what you need to know about self-publishing from a man who had to struggle through it the hard way by himself. Read it, learn it, love it.

Book Cover Archive
Not actually a publishing website, but an excellent resource for those of you needing inspiration for your book covers.

Featured Author: Zoe Winters

Happy new year, everyone! I’m starting this year with high hopes; I’ve completed the surface edits of Trentwood’s Orphan and am ready to send it out for impressions/critiques. This is the second draft, so whatever comments I get will hopefully make the third draft ready for publication.

In other news, my blogging friend Erica Ridley has made a sale of her book, Touched!

Today we’re talking with Zoe Winters, another of my author friends, who has answered questions about Kept, now available as an ebook and on the Kindle. According to Zoe, Kept is about…

Greta is a werecat whose tribe plans to sacrifice her during the next full moon. Her only hope for survival is Dayne, a sorcerer who once massacred most of the tribe. What’s that thing they say about the enemy of your enemy?

What are the main points about you and/or the book that should be emphasized to the audience?

This is  paranormal romance novella, available as a free ebook and available on the Kindle reader.

Who do you think will buy your book (i.e., your market)?

My market is romance readers, as well as Buffy fans.  People who like Buffy would probably like my writing style and subject matter, though it is NOT a Buffy knock-off.  It’s just geared toward that type of reader base.  Interestingly, I’ve picked up a few male readers.  Not sure if they know they’re reading romance or not, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

If you could construct an interview for yourself, what questions would you want to be asked?

As for what questions I’d want to be asked, I don’t really have any specific preferences there.  Though I do find it very interesting how romance as a genre is ghettoized, when romance and love and sex are a part of the human condition and as worthy as any other subject matter to be written about.

Is there any competition for your book? How are the other books alike? How are they dissimilar?

Hellboy, in my opinion, was a paranormal romance movie, it just wasn’t marketed that way.  But everything ultimately revolved around Hellboy getting together with the fire chick.  And yet it was geared to a largely male audience.  The Hulk movie was another romance.  Almost everything revolves around Bruce’s love for Betty and hers for him.  Yet, another movie that was marketed more to men than women (lots of sarcasm, lots of explosions), but it’s STILL romance.

Yet, when we get to books, a strong romantic plot gets ghettoized as “not a real book.”  If this is true, it is only because of the ill-advised behavior of romance publishers marketing departments with clinch covers, shallow plots, and cheesy expository titles, because it surely isn’t the subject matter.

What was your inspiration for the book? Tell us anything about you as a working writer that you think might be interesting or unusual.

Originally I wrote the novella to submit to a special Samhain novella anthology.  But I didn’t make the deadline for their open submissions.  I could have made it but the story wouldn’t have been as good so I chose not to enter it.  Later I submitted it elsewhere, but in the end decided to self publish it as a free ebook, as an introduction to a much larger universe I’ve created.

For more information about Zoe and Kept, visit http://zoewinters.wordpress.com/.

Are you interested in being a featured author on Worderella Writes? E-mail answers to the following questions and I’ll post them as soon as possible.

• What are the main points about you and/or the book that should be emphasized to the audience?
• Who do you think will buy your book (i.e., your market)?
• If you could construct an interview for yourself, what questions would you want to be asked?
• Is there any competition for your book? How are the other books alike? How are they dissimilar?
• What was your inspiration for the book?
• Tell us anything about you as a working writer that you think might be interesting or unusual.
• What do you hope readers will learn/discover from reading your book?
• Is there anything else you’d like to add?

To Self-Publish or Not

The other day, I indulged during my break time and did some reading on self-publishing. This is self-publishing in the literal sense, meaning that I would handle the interior and exterior layout design, select the printer for the book, obtain my own ISBN, set up a business account, find the printer, and handle distribution.

In other words, to self-publish, I would be a micro press, a.k.a. small business owner. I’m not sure people realize that, in order to be a true self-publisher, you are effectively going into business. This is very different from publishing through Aventine Press, for instance (their services are excellent, but have high retail prices).

Why Would You Self-Publish?

There are multiple reasons for self-publishing, the first usually being that the author doesn’t want to jump through hoops to find an agent, an editor, and then shop around the big name publishers. In the 1990s, this was seen as the extreme vanity of selfish authors, hence the name “Vanity Press.”

A vanity press, also known as a subsidy press, is where the author pays a fee for the publication of the book. The press owns the ISBN, provides a template cover and interior (some packages provide more customization), and prices for small print runs are large due to the print-on-demand technology.

So there is a stigma against self-publishing authors who do it simply because they want to see their name on a book. These authors are seen as “cheating the system,” as it were. And then there are the authors who believe in the very spirit of self-publishing, like Zoe Winters.

Authors like Zoe and myself take great pride in our work, and turn to self-publishing because of this very fact. We also have an entrepreneurial spirit, which we apply to our passion for writing.

These are the two extremes of self-publishing authors: those who self-publish because they’re tired of the rat race, and those who self-publish for the sincere pleasure and pride of having self-published. There are other reasons for the authors who fall between these extremes; all are stigmatized against by the big name publishers and chain bookstores.

Is Self-Publishing for Me?

It depends. Do you have money? Because you’ll need it, to set up your accounts with Lightening Source, a wholesaler, for instance. Do you have storage space to hold your copies? Because if you go through Lightening Source, you are your own distributor and marketer.

But here is the most important question: what is more important to you, seeing your name in print, or putting your name on a book that you guided from draft to publication, hiring professionals as needed? A self-publisher invests in their book the same way a company invests in a product. If the product (your book) fails, you’ve lost the money you invested. If it succeeds, you receive all profits.

Zoe knows a lot more than I do about self-publishing, so I suggest checking out her blog. My experience is with vanity publishers, but for my next book, I do plan on releasing self-published print and e-book versions.

Which, by the way, I’m up to chapter 22 in the second draft! Things are coming along pretty well, I think, considering I’m a full-time graduate student.

Self-Publishers in the wilds of Amazon

I was going to post a Thursday Thirteen on graduating with my bachelors of science in computer science and engineering. Note the past tense. Instead, I’m going to weigh in on this ongoing hooplah about Amazon.com making a business decision that no small or self-publisher wants to hear: that print-on-demand books sold through Amazon must use Amazon’s subsidiary, BookSurge, rather than relying on the industry standard, Lightening Source.

A panic quickly ensued, and my RSS reader was flooded with blog entries about how Amazon is becoming a book monopoly. PublishAmerica was the first victim of Amazon.com’s new policy by having all of their “buy this book now” buttons removed. As such, PublishAmerica books are now only available through resellers on Amazon.com. Same with Whiskey Creek Press, which is a traditional publisher who uses print-on-demand technology to produce their books.

I am, of course, concerned. As an author who has vanity published, and plans to self-publish, Amazon.com’s contract with BookSurge doesn’t sound too attractive. To register with BookSurge, you have to pay $50 per new title in set-up fees, and Amazon.com takes 48% out of the sale price to pay for the printing of the book. If you choose to use the Advantage Program (using a POD other thank BookSurge), then you pay $29.95 a year to keep the book in print/stay a part of the Advantage Program, pay all shipping and handling to get the books to Amazon.com warehouses, plus Amazon.com still takes the usual 55% from the sale price.

It’s no wonder there’s little more than a dollar or two per book for us poor authors once the royalty check comes in the mail!

For the record, it seems that the big three print-on-demand companies have already signed the contract, so books printed through Lulu, AuthorHouse/iUniverse, and possibly Xlibris, remain available on Amazon.com. The general consensus is that Amazon.com is being really unfair to the little guys, and there is a petition to stop Amazon.com, along with an active suit against Amazon.com for becoming monopolistic. For updated information if this continuing drama, see here: http://www.writersweekly.com/amazon.php.

I do realize that this is a business decision, and a smart one on Amazon.com’s part. In fact, I’m surprised they, or Barnes and Noble.com, didn’t do this before. But it still stinks for the little guys like me, who are going into self-publishing. And now that there’s a class-action suit against Amazon.com, who knows where this will lead? This may go nowhere, and all this worry will be for naught… or, Amazon.com could win the suit, and I’ll just have to sell my book from my website and independent booksellers only… because I doubt I can afford such a cut of the sales if I want to make any sort of profit, even if only to break even. (FYI, if I break even, I consider myself a success.)

I’ll try to keep you all updated on what’s going on as I hear more, and I’m sorry for not breaking this sooner. I’ve been watching myself, hoping the entire issue would die down to reveal a mistake on the part of Amazon.com’s PR staff, or something.

In the meantime, I’ll need to take a short two week haitus as I take time to graduate, visit the extended family, start my summer internship, find a place to live for grad school, and hopefully find time to edit. See you the week of June 23!

To read more about this issue…

• Amazon’s Book Gambit Changes the Digital Landscape – The New York Center for Independent Publishing
• Author’s Guild Looking into Antitrust Issue of Amazon’s POD Plan – Publisher’s Weekly
• A Statement from Lightening Source – Lightening Source
• Use BookSurge or Die? – Writer Beware

Self-Published Authors and Taxes

It turns out that if you’re self-published, you’re considered self-employed. If you’re self-employed, you need to report your income if you accept more than $400 a year for your services (as seen on the form, here).

Some of you may know this already. But let me tell you, back when I was a naive, trusting seventeen-year-old (as opposed to the naive, not-so-trusting twenty-two-year-old I am now), I was completely bummed out that if I became the author I wanted to be, I’d have to pay taxes on my hard-earned royalties. This includes selling your books online, through PayPal, etc.

So for you writers that are either self-published or vanity-published, here are some tax forms you might want to take a look at.

• Publications and Forms for Self-Employed Individual: These are all the forms that apply to any sort of self-employed writer. Self-employed in this case would imply self- or vanity-published, because you are putting the money into having your work produced.
  

  That is the key distinction: you are producing your work. Otherwise, you are working with a small press or traditional, large press, who pays all of the production/marketing costs and eke out a small royalty your way.

• Filing Requirements for Self-Employed Individual: This page lists the different forms you may have to fill out in order to be kosher with the Tax Man.
• Business Use of Your Home: This page gives you some idea of what is considered a business in the home, and what benefits you can get by claiming your home office as such. Keep in mind, you need to keep separate receipts, as well as make sure that your office is specifically for your writing, etc. If you’re going to have a business office, keep it a business.

For more information, check out Taxes and the Writer, which goes into more detail (and in paragraph form) about allowable deductions, home offices, retirement plans, etc. And read Death, Taxes, and the Writer for an emphasis on the importance of filing your return, even if you only made $401 in income the previous fiscal year.

P.S. For those of you needing a bit of extra help with your writing, I’ve begun re-compiling my general writing notes on my website, along with all the quotes I’ve compiled over the past couple of years. Stay tuned for more goodies!

An Update

So. How is the WIP going? Fairly well, I would say. It’s a new month, which means I’ve printed out the previous month’s (incomplete) draft, kissed it, set it aside, and convinced my mind that I’m starting this month with a new inspired view of the WIP. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it seems to work for me. I’m 29% complete with this draft that I call The Rewrite of Novel # 2 ™.

It’s sort of a running joke between my friends, or, at least, those who are interested in my writing, to call my books by the order in which I started them. There is, of course, Number One, which is my self-published (subsidy) book from high school, Catching the Rose. Number Two is what I keep calling the WIP here, while Number Three is the sequel to Number Two, and the result of my participating in NaNoWriMo 2006. Number Three’s fun and quick tone convinced me to rewrite Number Two. (All of this is more information than you cared to know about, I’m sure, but I find the writing habits of other writers fascinating… so every once in a while, I indulge myslf.) I haven’t had a chance to write in the last four days or so, other than blogging, and I can feel the strain. This is funny, in a not-so-funny way, because last week I suffered from a mini-Block. This week, I’m struggling to hold the reins of my imagination until I have control of everything and know the exact route I want to take. Talking through the plot, or just talking about the WIP in general, does help, however, which is what happened this time around to kill the infamous WB.

I’d like to make an update, however, about a previous post in which I talked about Lulu’s Published By You package. According to POD Critic, while the package claims that the author (which would be you) is designated as the publisher (which essentially means you are the publisher and Lulu is merely the printer), the truth of the matter is that everywhere else you submit your book, Lulu will be listed as the publisher.

I began to think about this, and what the implications are. So, let’s walk through this. By registering your book with Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, etc, POD Critic claims that these websites still list Lulu as the publisher. Which means Lulu is still a subsidy press, rather than a community of self-run micropresses. It does make sense. After all, you can’t actually buy ISBNs separately, you have to buy them in groups of ten. So, Lulu is still being the middle-man by buying the blocks, and then allowing you, the author, to buy the ISBN separately, from them, Lulu. The U.S. ISBN Agency, however, will still list the ISBN as owned by Lulu. Anything that happens to the ISBN after selling it to Lulu is not really their problem.

Tricky, no? I think it’s a tricky move, and kind of mean, actually, but then, I suppose it is the author’s responsibility to look up and understand all the details of such a transaction. And really, if you’re going through all the trouble of buying the ISBN from Lulu, you might as well just set up your own micropress, like how POD Critic advocates. If you’re that serious about self-publishing, you might as well go all the way and just do it yourself.

Unique Selling Propositions

To be honest, I’d never heard of a USP until the other day. I kind of thought maybe they were trying to say USB, as in a USB port in a computer. Such is life as a computer science student, I suppose. Anyway, a USP is actually a Unique Selling Proposition , and it’s basically the best and only way to a strong marketing plan. See the below article from the AuthorHouse author’s resource blog.

Defining and Delivering Your USP: A Crucial Step in Developing a Strong Marketing Strategy In a market where consumers have so many product choices, it can be difficult for a product to grab mind share when it doesn’t explicitly convey a unique selling proposition (USP) to the consumer. Think about your own personal shopping experiences. When there are 10 different products staring you down from the shelf in front of you and they all sell the same general idea/concept, how do you decide which product will meet your need? Taking the time to define your own unique selling proposition will help you target market and make your product stand out among the others jockeying for position in a consumer’s shopping cart.

Test Your Title

Found something fun and nifty online, I can’t remember how I stumbled upon this but I thought I’d share it anyway: you can test your work-in-progress title for popularity.

Now that I’m writing this, I think I found it in Writer’s Digest, which I’m reading in between classes and while I wait for programs to compile.

Lulu.com has been working with statisticians, apparently, to come up with this nifty little Title Scorer, and the results are pretty accurate to a certain degree. You as an author, reader and writer will have to use your own judgement, of course, to decide whether you should believe it.

The highest score you can get is an 83, I’m not sure why, but such is life. My first novel, Catching the Rose, made it up to the 70s somewhere. The Winslow Charade got a paltry 20-something score.

Give it a try! Play around with popular titles. The DaVinci Code gets a laughably low score, I think, for being a best-seller, and Gone with the Wind doesn’t do so hot either.

We Have the Power!

Another of the many reasons to read POD-dy Mouth‘s blog: you get to hear about some pretty big and great news for self-publishing authors. So what is the good news? Let me give you a little bit of background first.

Any publisher, whether they are a self-publisher, vanity publisher, or traditional publisher, have to buy ISBNs (International Standard Book Number) in blocks of ten. I don’t know why, that’s just how the industry set it up. I believe it’s to make the ISBN cheaper since you’re buying in bulk, but in the long run it makes much more expensive to self-publish one book because you have to buy that block of ten. Anyway, this ISBN is one major key to getting your book published. If you don’t have an ISBN, it won’t matter how great or cheap your book is, no bookstore will ever carry it. Nor will any online store (such as Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Borders, etc) carry it.

What’s the point to all this? Well, Lulu.com has made publishing your book through them even easier. They are one of the largest self-publishing companies, and they fulfill my definition of self-publishing because they don’t format or edit anything. They aren’t vanity publishers because they don’t make you pay for anything, they simply take a commission from each print-on-demand order. They are, in other words, one huge and efficient printer of your work, and that’s it. You are responsible for editing and formatting your book, from the interior layout and copyright page to the cover. I remember checking them out back when I was looking for publishers for my first book, and at the time, I wasn’t too impressed because their book sizes were limited and I didn’t know enough about book layout design to do it. Lulu.com today is much better. You have the option of printing a mass market paperback sized book! What does that even mean? All those paperbacks you see in the grocery store? Mass market paperback. Most fantasy, science fiction, and romance? Mass market paperback. I don’t know why but I’ve always wanted to have my own MMP book, and the fact that Lulu.com now offers this is a big selling point for me.

But back to the ISBNs. How has Lulu.com made self-publishing even more powerful? Lulu.com is working in conjunction with the U.S. ISBN Agency to allow authors to generate ISBNs on a one-at-a-time rate. This means the ISBN is owned by the self-publisher, saving cost on buying more than is needed. This also means the work is not limited to only being sold on Lulu.com, you can migrate to other websites and submit it for sale. This is big. This is huge. This is splendid and wonderful and brought such a smile to my face. The service is called “Published by You”, and while I’ve been searching the site and haven’t found the exact description of the service yet, their press release assures me they are serious about it.

So. Go out there. Do the good thing. Be a self-published author!

Self-Publishing Experiences

When people ask me about my book, I tell them I self-published it. This is true and untrue. I paid to have the book printed, I bought a set of the book and sold it to my family and friends, and was interviewed by my local television station about it. Mainly because I was a senior in high school and it was my senior thesis. But if I had gone the actual self-publication route, I would have found a printer, custom designed my cover and interior, and kept all the profits for myself. What I did in reality was go through a print-on-demand company, Aventine Press. This route means I used an interior template, a cover template; in other words, the company limited my choices to what they had available.

For my first time in the publishing realm, I really have to say that Aventine Press kept my concerns in mind. Because of production delays due to the cover designer needing a root canal, they custom designed my cover. My book was placed online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many more. My dad helped me with local marketing by sending the press release to the news stations. I can’t even tell you what it felt like to hold my book that first time after opening the package. But looking back, I should have waited. They require that you pay extra for editing services, and let’s face it, my first book could have used some last-minute editing.

Other things to keep in mind: yes, if you put forth a good quality product and perfect your marketing plan, there is a larger change of a traditional (aka commercial) publisher of picking up your writing, as long as you follow the rules (querying, sending partials when asked, etc). But out of the thousands of people who went the self-publishing route (we’re talking POD, Vanity, and Self Publishing), only 20 were picked by commercial publishers.

So, I guess my point is that if you have the money and patience, research the “actual” self-publishing route. It’s more impressive, and you complete control. But most of all, be careful with the Vanity, Subsidy and POD publishers. Seeing the market now, I realize I was lucky.

The following definitions were found here.

• A commercial publisher purchases the right to publish a manuscript (often along with other rights, known as subsidiary rights), and pays the author a royalty on sales (most also pay an advance on royalties). Commercial publishers are highly selective, publishing only a tiny percentage of manuscripts submitted, and handle every aspect of editing, publication, distribution, and marketing. There are no costs to the author.
• A vanity publisher prints and binds a book at the author’s sole expense. Costs include the publisher’s profit and overhead, so vanity publishing is usually a good deal more expensive than self-publishing. The completed books are the property of the author, and the author retains all proceeds from sales. Vanity publishers do not screen for quality–they publish anyone who can pay. For an extra fee, some may provide editing, marketing, warehousing, and/or promotional services (often of dubious quality), or they may provide variously-priced service packages that include differing menus of extras.
• A subsidy publisher also takes payment from the author to print and bind a book, but contributes a portion of the cost and/or adjunct services such as editing, distribution, warehousing, and marketing. Theoretically, subsidy publishers are selective. The completed books are the property of the publisher, and remain in the publisher’s possession until sold. Income to the writer comes in the form of a royalty.
• Self-publishing requires the author to bear the entire cost of publication, and also to handle all marketing, distribution, storage, etc. However, rather than paying for a pre-set package of services, the author puts those services together himself. Because he can put every aspect of the process out to bid, he may pay a good deal less than what’s charged by vanity publishers; self-publishing can also result in a higher-quality product. Completed books are owned by the writer, and the writer keeps all proceeds from sales.