How I became a writer

J.P.Summers

I stumbled into writing 3 years ago after my love for reading returned. As a child I loved reading, but college kind of took all the fun out it when I was forced to read a cluster of chapters for my classes every night. I guess you could say I simply just got burned out and chose not to read anything other than 2-3 page articles in magazines.

I got my start on FanFiction.net just like a few now famous authors (EL James of 50 Shades fame) Every night I wrote a chapter to a story I created with Stephanie Meyer's characters from Twilight. Within two years time I had written 15 stories and gain a huge fan base who actually were the main reason why I decided to finally publish my own work. 

In February 2012 I published my first eBook "Moving On Without Him" and had quite a bit of success for being self-published. Later during the year I published a short story "Like A Moth To His Flame" which had me seriously contemplating trying to land a deal with a publisher. At that time I was living a hectic lifestyle as a wife, mother of three, and banker. The idea of me committing to anything that could lead me to have a career in writing seemed probable, but not something that would happen right away. My plan was to self-publish five more books in 2012 and everything was going according to plan. That is until one day I woke up and my life changed in an instant.

For almost 8 months I wasn't physically capable of writing due to a condition that was later diagnosed as Chronic Migraines. I lost all ambition to create an imaginary world where my characters would have their happily ever after's when I was in constant pain and unable to drive to due severe dizziness, decreased motor skills, blurred/double vision and terrible imbalance. Even months after I sought out treatments to help my condition, I was still unable to write. The story "The Storms That Fated Us" had been ready to send out to my editor, but I couldn't follow through with doing the work to get it published.

I sat on the story that is partly based on myself as a teen, hoping it would be published within the year because I figured my health would improve by then. It actually took 13 months for me to begin working on the revisions with my editor and gather outside help from others to make self-publishing this book possible. Had I not had the emotional and moral support from the Clusterheads and the Chronic Migraine Awareness groups I might not have ever published another book.

"The Storms That Fated Us" is significant to me in so many ways. I wrote this story a year and a half ago when I was struggling with certain obstacles in my life. Writing this story wasn't only therapeutic, but it reminded me that the choices I made when I was a teenager were really no different than the choices I have made as an adult. Every decision has an outcome and effects those around me. 

I don't know what the future will bring for me as a writer. But what I do know is that everything happens for a reason. Because I suffer from migraines and other disabling headaches I have become an advocate on behalf of those who suffer from similar disabling,conditions as mine.

 

This past year she became an advocate for migraines and headache disorders after being diagnosed with chronic migraines and cluster headaches. Despite how disabling her condition can be at times, she has several books lined up to be published in 2014. She also has plans to speak at several migraine conferences and advocate on Capitol Hill with others who are just as passionate about raising migraine/headache awareness.

JP Summers is a Native Texan who resides on a 140 acre farm in northern Wisconsin with her husband and their children. She is a self-published author that loves chocolate and crushing over fictional men that are so unbelievably smoldering, you swear the pages could actually go up in flames while reading the book.  

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Trying to break into a B&N store

Most of our readers and contributors are Indie writers like myself. We have a few lucky mainstream published authors in our midst that I envied from the start of my writing endeavors. I decided to self-publish with Createspace after a 18 months of inertia on my agent's side and impatient waiting for things to happen on mine. Promoting my work and creating a platform that every author needs was the next step to getting noticed and making sales. This website is part of it.
Like me, you probably eagerly take every promotional opportunity with interviews and guest blogs or radio/ podcast interviews and tweet the heck out of your PC and mobile device. I follow every blog giving advice on writing, editing and selling my product. I also carry business cards and books in my car and steer a conversation my book's way when appropriate. That plus getting book reviews and writing press releases. Not to forget the networking. Still- it's a long, arduous road to success --whichever way you define it.
After a year of trickling book sales, I learned that there are on demand publishers that can make it into the Ingram's distribution list and via that to the holy grail of an established book store that actually has my printed copy on its shelves. Some authors only concentrate on eBooks, but a physical book in my hands, for me, was my humble  yardstick of success. Half a year, some added chapters and various editing hurdles and publishing obstacles later, a very a handsome man looks at the potential buyer from his shiny, sexy cover of the new bright blue version of Next Time Lucky. B&N here we come!
So we are on Ingram's list, Mr. Right and I. When and how does a store decide on which book to order, however? You must wait for a sales rep to pitch your book to the stores and a purchasing manager to choose it from thousands of listings. Good luck with that as a newcomer. Cold sales were never my forte, yet I plucked up my courage and walked into a B&N store to talk to the acquisition manager introducing myself as a local author...You know the spiel! (That's not what they're called here, btw: They are  "Community Relations Managers". (n.b.!)
A simple email would have sufficed, I was told.
Following up on my email that remained unanswered for weeks also gets my knickers in a twist, yet I managed to do it.
The reply I got triggered off this piece:

"I have researched your book; while the ISBN you provided does list the publication date as 1/13, I noticed that this is a reprint of a 2010 publication, with slight adjustments...Between this book being a reprint and lack of sales since it's (sic!) publication, I am going to pass on the opportunity to host an event with you and your book Next Time Lucky." ( no sales on B&N that is!-- Duh!)

Would you have let it sit at that? I called her directly and was told that "B&N 's Small Press Division has the policy NOT to take books on board that are published by small presses. And since it hasn't sold yet, they will not consider the signing." She admitted it was a Catch 22. 

How does a book get on a shelf if nobody has bought it before? How do buyers grab it in a store if it's not on a shelf? 

Fellow authors on writers sites assured me that mainstream shops like B&N are shooting themselves in the foot by underestimating or even ignoring Indie authors. From a best-selling Pen Woman I learned that readers come to her book signings and still buy online...Online sales look like the way of the future.

An article I recently saw: "Traditional or self-publishing?" is nothing but one big rhetorical discussion for me. Blog posts claiming that best-selling authors go the self-publishing route now in order to retain their rights and earn more money is one thing. To get the ball rolling as an unknown newbie is quite another. Give me a traditional publisher anytime.

            Your experience, please! 

                                                              

  Siggy Buckley

Pls. check out my hub: www.SiggyBuckley.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/SiggyBuckley 

Do we Need Publishers?

 

In an op-ed essay in the New York Times, Scott Turow warns about the “slow death of the American author” due to e-books, among other things. 

Hugh Howey, author of the indie-pub phenomenon Wool, on the other hand, says that self-publishing is the future, and great for writers.

In an essay for the online magazine Salon  he writes: “Those who take their writing seriously, who publish more than one title a year and do this year after year, are finding real success with their art. They are earning hundreds or thousands of dollars a month.”

Howey compares the self-published independent author to the independent musician. “We admire anyone who learns the grammar of chords and then strings these phrases together into music.” They begin by playing cover tunes, progress to busking and open-mic nights, get small gigs and hope to open for a big act or be discovered by a major label. “This is how artists are born. They are self-made.”

Like most successful musicians, Howey became an overnight success after years of hard work. His breakthrough, best-selling novel, Wool , was the eighth or ninth title that he published through Amazon’s Kindle Select program. After he sold half a million copies, Simon & Schuster offered seven figures for the publishing rights. Ridley Scott also optioned film rights.

According to Forbes magazine, Howey turned down S&S’s original seven-figure offer, and sold instead just the print rights for six figures. He kept the e-book rights for himself because he thinks that S&S won’t be able to sell enough to make up the royalty difference.

Not only is Howey’s story inspirational for all independent writers, it begs the question: what do we need publishers for? Either as writers, or as readers?

Commercial publishers claim to be agents of quality control: they find the best manuscripts, edit them rigourously, design and lay them out to be legible, print and distribute them so that readers enjoy reading them and promote them to bring them to the attention of audiences. Publishers take care of all those grimy aspects of publishing so authors are free to write more great books. And they keep those who cannot write very well out of print, sparing us readers.

Having worked for big and small publishers, here is what I know about the reality of choosing and editing books:

o   Acquisitions editors and agents choose manuscripts to publish based on sellability, not on quality. Because they cannot tell the future any better than you or me, they use factors like whether an author has been published before to make decisions. Getting selected from the slush pile is due either to blind luck or connections within the industry.

o   The quality of editing varies widely. Most copy-editors and proofreaders are right out of university and they’re so badly underpaid that most quickly seek more rewarding employment.

o   Manufacturing choices also come down to cost, not quality. The fact that magazines and book covers get printed in colour is due to competition and the relatively lower cost of colour printing today than 20 years ago.

In reality, authors today do most of what publishers did 20 years ago: research, check facts, write, edit, copy-edit and proofread. Interior design or layout is capably handled by word processing apps. Howey and any number of other authors concur that most authors published by big companies have to do their own promotion. The days of book launch tours are long gone.

What the corporations do is pay for printing and distributing copies to bookstores. The only promotion they do is of their biggest sellers and celebrity authors.

And it’s not hard for the individual author to handle that part as well as the commercial publishers do. Layout and production of e-books is done by software. Just follow Smashwords’, Amazon’s or iTunes’ instructions, and you’re fine. Amazon’s CreateSpace system makes laying out a book for print straightforward as well, and the quality is equal to, or better than commercial publishers’ — at prices is better than anything I’ve found in 30 years of managing printing.

That leaves cover design.

Proposing a new publishing model

Writers can do all the functions of a commercial publisher, and independent authors do so already. Hugh Howey’s experience proves that they do this very well.

In other words, authors don’t need publishers. I suggest a cooperative model of publishing.

A good writer is often a good editor, as well. (Not all are effective proofreaders, though.) Some are excellent cover designers — David C. Cassidy and Lisa Damers, for example.

As professional artists, we writers can trade our skills. We can trade editing skills for cover design, publicity for pre-publishing analysis, marketing savvy for layout or e-pub preparation. A large enough, dedicated enough group of authors can perform all the functions of a commercial publisher, without taking 90 percent of the authors’ revenues.

This is my suggestion: let’s get together, cooperate in producing the best books we can at a better price than commercial publishers ever could.

It’s time to return publishing to the authors.

Scott Bury

What’s Not Up!

Like many authors, we recently reduced our eBook price for the holidays. Our price was 99 cents* until the end of January 2013 or so we thought. It turned out that even after our new price of $2.99 went live on Amazon; the Kindle price remained 99 cents. At first we attributed it to being the weekend, yet it continued. So I asked Amazon why this was happening.

The answer came back that Amazon consulted eBooks connect website and it showed that the Sony version of our book was still at 99 cents. So I checked, sure enough it was at that time. As of the time of this writing, the Sony price is now correct but Amazon still lists it at 99 cents. I suspect that by the time you read this the price will be corrected on Amazon.

What did I learn? First don’t say prices are going to be a certain amount until Amazon updates them on the product page. Second, allow 2 weeks for Sony to process when updating prices through Smashwords. Third, remember lesson for next time we have a Holiday sale and adjust accordingly.

Hope this has been informative to my fellow authors; it certainly was an eye-opener for me.

Lynn Hallbrooks

Co-author of Call Sign: Wrecking Crew (Storm Warning)

Co-owner of Call Sign Wrecking Crew, LLC

*All prices quoted are in United States currency.

When a Free of Charge Book Becomes a Sale

There is a saying, “Never count your chickens before they hatch.” One could also say, “Never count your money until it is in your hands.”

As authors, sometimes we forget to pay attention to the business elements of publishing. Whether you are a self-publisher or use a traditional publishing company, you spend most of your time being creative by concentrating on developing your characters, plots and superb endings. In addition, you put your heart and soul into marketing and advertising your work and hoping you will make a nice return on your book(s).

In January of 2012, I enrolled my fourth book, Wicked Intent into Amazon KDP Select and offered the ebook free during the month of January. During the first two weeks of its release, the publisher’s records showed that I had sold over 1200 copies. To my surprise, it almost sounded too good to be true. After all, no major media featured my digital book, and it was not on The New York Times Bestseller List.

Nevertheless, I had big plans as to what I was going to do with my windfall. I needed a few office supplies, and I was going to purchase some books, but a little birdie in my brain said, “Do not charge any items on your credit card until the company wires the money into your account.”

When I saw no money put into my account at the end of March, I sent an email questioning where my royalties were.

To make a long story short, KDP responded. Their records showed that I had no sales during the month of January but sales during other months. Mind you, their records, which I downloaded, showed 835 units sold in US, 55 in other countries and 384 in the UK and four in Denmark.

I replied by attaching their reports of my sales to my email and asked, “Could you please explain to me why the attached three reports indicate that 1280 copies of my ebook were purchased?”

Well, I heard from Kindle Direct Publishing, and this is what they had to say, “I see you’ve enrolled your title, Wicked Intent, in KDP Select and offered it for free during the month of January. All of the copies of your title were sold for free during this period, and therefore you’re not seeing equivalent royalties.”

KDP also went on to say, “We’re making improvements to our reports to help give the clearest picture of your sales. Be sure to check out our Help pages and Community forums to learn about the changes we’re making.”

At first, I was embarrassed for bragging that I actually sold so many copies but at the same time, vindicated when KDP said, “All of the copies were sold for free.”

~*~

About The Author

Born in 1946, Vivienne Diane Neal is a storyteller with a wicked sense of humor. Vivienne has been writing articles for over twenty years and started writing fictional short stories in 2007. She gets her story ideas from observing people, places and things and watching true TV court cases.

Now, semi-retired, she continues to write short stores and articles on love, romance, relationships and other topics of interest on her One World Singles Magazine Blog.

Follow her on Facebook at http://facebook.com/viviennedianeneal and Twitter at http://twitter.com/boomer63