The Art of Self-Publishing -- Part II

So you have written a book and want to launch your baby out into the world? With my first book Next Time Lucky  I went through all the hoops to find an agent. After over 100  polite "No thank yous", a "very timely novel, but..." and some other gentle turn-me downs while encouraging my fresh writing style, I thought I had hit the jack pot. An agent from CA called me on a Saturday around lunch time --early in LA! She was even more excited than I was mentioning film rights! She just knew the right people in the industry and the perfect actress - Goldie Hawn- to play my protagonist, the matchmaker from Dublin.

With all the excitement, I totally forgot the migraine I was nursing. My best friend and mentor, Millie (RIP), found my good fortune this reason enough to send me a bouquet of flowers congratulating me on my imminent success and fame.

18 months later while I lived in suspended animation, it became evident even to me and my disillusioned, vainglorious, yet ambitious self, that this lady wasn't going anywhere. The promised movie rights would have been sold to her son for $1. Allegedly, he worked for a movie company -- in what capacity I never found out. Your guess is as good as mine. In the interim, I had learned about Preditors & Editors. Alas, too late!

The book was ready, overripe really, and something needed to be done before the timely touch turned into the timeless touch of a zombie.

I decided to self-pub. With my latest book I dared to send my manuscript to a few publishing houses. A big no-no, as I was told years ago. The ones I chose did accept submissions by email, yet never deigned to answer or even acknowledge the receipt of my book. So much for that.

I Once Had a Farm in Ireland is now up on Amazon for pre-order. Its paperback version will follow as soon as hubby as completed the complicated requirements of formatting. I use the remaining time until my chosen launch date, May 14, to send press releases out. Google Press Release and you'll find a number of websites where to publish your good news at no cost. They will also give you samples how to do that.
Next, I will also refresh my connections with the local papers and TV stations by sending them the news release.
For a while, release parties were popular on Facebook. Have you attended any? Did they work for you? I'd be curious to know.
Then there is the minor matter of a media kit. More about that in my next blog.
                                                                               ###
Siggy Buckley
on Amazon                                           Our Farm in the Winter               

Ready to Publish-- Which Steps to Take?

It's the most exciting time for a writer when she/he gets ready to publish a book. Given that most of us  belong to the self-pub'd variety, the fun and glory besides the work is loaded on our own shoulders.
How many years do we spend on writing it on average? How many years do we go through numerous if not countless revisions? Whether you are a fast writer and keep writing to get the story out of your mind onto paper (computer) or whether you belong to the meticulous type, like me, who corrects every sentence as soon as you see it written down: n'importe quoi! It always seems to take forever until we can launch our baby into the big old world.Ask a big, traditional author how long it took him! Also years, sometimes. Unless you are so well established that their publisher makes them write a book a year.
And a launch is not merely a publication date anymore. While having the book revised and formatted so that it is ready for print, some of us play around with title covers, asking fellow writers and beta readers which cover image they prefer, which font, which sub-title etc. After all, we want to get it just right. At least for our own critical eye if not ideally for all the potential readers. So hours are spent scouting through the allegedly free websites that advertise free pictures ...and always get their hands in your purse and charge. Find a talented cover designer who puts your ideas into print. And I must say, I'm very happy with mine, Tayyaba Bano. Not just creative but also reliable and affordable!
With a little tweaking here and there you soon make it to the launch pad and announce the title cover reveal with much aplomb, send press releases out and maybe organize a launch party; a virtual fest on Facebook. Lucky you if you have a publisher of your choice. For first timers calculate in some days of comparing self-publishing houses to each other. I have my experience with 2 of the big names and could now decide quickly which one to go for. The publisher of my choice at least gives you the illusion that he can get you into bookstore by nature of being on the Ingram distribution list. But buyer beware-- it doesn't often happen, definitely not automatically. So another difficult choice has to be made: Do I spend the extra $60 for my high hopes of making it this time for my paperback version?
First title around I learned how to buy a cheap ISBN and how to register it. Formatting an e-Book is child's play.Well, Amazon converts your manuscript almost automatically. Uploading is simple and it will go live within 24 hours. The learning curve for me this time round is figuring out how to offer the option of pre-publication orders. I wish...!
Still waiting for endorsements and reviews here which should go on the back cover or inside. I guess that could be added later.
Since there is practically no holiday between now that St. Patrick's Day is over and Bloomsday (16 June), I could really go public any day. (Bank holidays don't count!) Who knows about Mr. Blooms Day anyway? Nobody I know ever really read Ulysses. And what has that got to do with an organic Irish farm and its farming life anyway?
So without further ado I now give you my latest baby.

I ONCE HAD A FARM IN IRELAND: LIVING THE ORGANIC LIFESTYLE

If you'd like to review it, contact me and I'll send you a free copy!
Siggy Buckley, the Ex Farmer's Wife
On Facebook
On Twitter
I just noticed I forgot to mention the media kit.I'd be grateful if some other authors could enlighten us on that!

Ready to Publish--Which Steps to Take?

It's the most exciting time for a writer when she/he gets ready to publish a book. Given that most of us  belong to the self-pub'd variety, the fun and glory besides the work is loaded on our own shoulders.
How many years do we spend on writing it on average? How many years do we go through numerous if not countless revisions? Whether you are a fast writer and keep writing to get the story out of your mind onto paper (computer) or whether you belong to the meticulous type, like me, who corrects every sentence as soon as you see it written down: n'importe quoi! It always seems to take forever until we can launch our baby into the big old world.Ask a big, traditional author how long it took him! Also years, sometimes. Unless you are so well established that their publisher makes them write a book a year.
And a launch is not merely a publication date anymore. While having the book revised and formatted so that it is ready for print, some of us play around with title covers, asking fellow writers and beta readers which cover image they prefer, which font, which sub-title etc. After all, we want to get it just right. At least for our own critical eye if not ideally for all the potential readers. So hours are spent scouting through the allegedly free websites that advertise free pictures ...and always get their hands in your purse and charge. Find a talented cover designer who puts your ideas into print. And I must say, I'm very happy with mine, Tayyaba Bano. Not just creative but also reliable and affordable!
With a little tweaking here and there you soon make it to the launch pad and announce the title cover reveal with much aplomb, send press releases out and maybe organize a launch party; a virtual fest on Facebook. Lucky you if you have a publisher of your choice. For first timers calculate in some days of comparing self-publishing houses to each other. I have my experience with 2 of the big names and could now decide quickly which one to go for. The publisher of my choice at least gives you the illusion that he can get you into bookstore by nature of being on the Ingram distribution list. But buyer beware-- it doesn't often happen, definitely not automatically. So another difficult choice has to be made: Do I spend the extra $60 for my high hopes of making it this time for my paperback version?
First title around I learned how to buy a cheap ISBN and how to register it. Formatting an e-Book is child's play.Well, Amazon converts your manuscript almost automatically. Uploading is simple and it will go live within 24 hours. The learning curve for me this time round is figuring out how to offer the option of pre-publication orders. I wish...!
Still waiting for endorsements and reviews here which should go on the back cover or inside. I guess that could be added later.
Since there is practically no holiday between now that St. Patrick's Day is over and Bloomsday (16 June), I could really go public any day. (Bank holidays don't count!) Who knows about Mr. Blooms Day anyway? Nobody I know ever really read Ulysses. And what has that got to do with an organic Irish farm and its farming life anyway?
So without further ado I now give you my latest baby.

I ONCE HAD A FARM IN IRELAND: LIVING THE ORGANIC LIFESTYLE

If you'd like to review it, contact me and I'll send you a free copy!
Siggy Buckley, the Ex Farmer's Wife
On Facebook
On Twitter

A Writer's Prosaic Drive By

Samuel Murphy

Personally, I believe that the experts finally got something right: As difficult and exhausting as writing can be, nothing compares to the challenges and sheer misery of marketing one's self.

Just the huge numbers of electronic avenues make this experience quite daunting. (I run into that word quite often when I discuss trying to sell one's work). And as many of us have come to realize, it's not just the sheer numbers of Internet sites, it's the TIME you need to spend on them to make yourself credible. That's the REAL killer. I'll spend at minimum, an hour agonizing over THIS composition.

And so we Google, “How do I promote my new book?” Up comes millions of sites with easy sounding names, like “How to Sell a Million Books With One Click of a Button,” or “Make sure you become a member of the following 438 sites you can post on to make your book a bestseller,” and “Here’s a complete list of book bloggers that will review your book and make you wildly successful.”

Of course, The “One Click of a Button” leads you to websites that are impossible to navigate and probably useless, but for the sake of just one sale, for the next day or two down the rabbit hole you go. The 438 sites? Let’s just politely say that it’s not that they are not interested in your life; they are just interested in theirs a little more. And then there’s the bloggers who will review your books - for only $29.99, but it will take about 3 months, and they have so many restrictions, and they always seem to be yelling at you, but that’s OK because most of them no longer exist or let you know that they are not accepting new submissions until the summer of 2015.

So here you are, all excited and duly proud of yourself for having completed something that you devoted weeks, months, even years to and you can't even get your sister to buy one and give it a five star rating. You should be having this HUGE celebration with all your friends. Instead, you're fumbling around like a teenager in the back seat of your old man's Chevy, trying to add some kind of Pin to a Board on a site that you REALLY don't care about, and then Googling one inactive “Will review your book for free” site after another.  And it's TWO O'CLOCK IN THE DAMN MORNING!

But you've checked your numbers and you're 697,364 in Amazon's Best Seller Rank. So you text and you tweet. You create a fan page. You blog. You Skype. You Pin, and you Tumble. You contact every "friend" you have, and have them contact every friend they have, and every friend they have, and so on down the line. "Yes," they say, "I'll get me a copy of that new book you just published. I'm gonna read it, rate it, and give it a whole passel of stars." Two days later and now you're at 798,621.

And so you text and tweet some more looking for support and ideas. But as much advice as I get; I write. I consider myself a writer. Maybe not a very lucid one, but a writer nonetheless. I have stories inside of me. Having them stay there while I attend to other business only makes them fester and this will ultimately lead to some really bad juju.

By nature I am not a tweeter or a texter, a Pinner, or Tumbler. I don't try to StumbleOnto anything. Don't much care for Skyping, and I secretly hate all of my "friends" on Facebook.

And so here I sit, trying to promote my book on one more site, and it's now 3 o'clock in the damn morning. I just keep repeating to myself, "I'm a writer..., this will work..., I'm a writer, this will work..., I'm a writer…

I guess you can consider this some kind of prosaic drive by. I don’t know about you, but for once, I feel better.
                                                          

Samuel Murphy
Amazon
Meet him on Twitter: @swmurf

How I Fought the Amazon Wars and Won

When I wrote my first historical detective mystery, Forevermore, I had a clear goal in mind: I wanted to write the best story for my reader to enjoy. This is the goal of every independent author out there, and the reason I want to communicate this fact of indie publishing is that many of the "big publishing houses" are not publishing the best stories for their readers. Please allow me to elucidate.

I have been published by a big publisher. It was called "Harcourt-Brace," and it was the small professional arm of the corporation, "AP Professional Press" that published my book, The Digital Scribe: A Writer's Guide to Electronic Media. Notice the quaint reference to "electronic media." Back in the late nineties, we were still bedazzled by the newness of digital technology and its "multimedia" aspect. Today, digital multimedia is part and parcel of most of the "packaged novels" that get submitted by the big agents out there. They've already looked ahead to all the money to be made on movies, computer games, translations, Chinese edited versions, ads on the walls of urinals, and on and on with the corporate merchandising aspect of business. This was 1996, so publishing had yet to go through the gigantic and tumultuous war with the Amazons (coming soon to a screen near you!), and I was too much of a rookie to see the writing on the Amazon wall, so to speak.  Amazon, after all, was also a "big corporation."

Flash forward to 2013, and I am completely entrenched in the "indie publishing movement." Yes, I am politicizing this because there is a grassroots "political" movement going on that dares to stand-up to the big publishing giants and call them on their intrigues and misrepresentations. I wrote a "little mystery" that I was proud to say was a "big publisher's worst nightmare." Why? First of all, it was short (114 pages in paperback, 12 pt. font); it was not padded with description and useless back story; it was, in short, the best short mystery I had ever written, and it was meant to grab the readers' interest and keep them entertained for the entire 114 real pages and 2415 Kindle pages. I used the simple and straightforward distribution method of Amazon's (there's that creepy name again) Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). This method allowed me (ME, ME, ME, a thousand times ME) to control all of the content, all of the revisions, all of the covers, all of the entire blasted book! Oh my God! It was if I had been re-born! I now had a direct line to my reader! No longer would I have to haggle with an editor about using a drawing of a male monk in the Middle Ages on my book's cover because, she said, "Eighty percent of readers are female, and they would not want to see a male monk."   But, I argued, monks were male in the Middle Ages!  Anyway, I had to "compromise" and use the "hands of the monk" holding a feather pen! With KDP and those lovely Amazon ladies, I was able to make all of these big, "executive decisions" about my own book! What power! All of that concentrated energy infused my body!  (Or perhaps too much caffeine?)

Of course, I must give a spoiler alert to all you would-be indie pubbers out there. Unless you know what goes into a really good story, and you've consulted with other indie authors about how to set-up your book, you had better stay away from the wild forest where the Amazons roam. They will capture you, possibly castrate or dismember you, and put you in a pot for Mah Jong hors d'oeuvres later that day. Suffice it to say, get somebody to "have your back" when you go down the indie road into the dark Amazon forest of KDP or even the seemingly "friendlier" places where they Smash Words or read together with Sluggo and Little Lulu. I suggest you check-out places like Indies Unlimited. They have some crusty old buggers who have been down many of the self-publishing roads, and they are really friendly to newbies! Don't, under any circumstances, fall for the scams out there! You thought Amazons were tough? You haven't experienced anything until you've been raped by Author Solutions and its vast minions of corporate goons!

Okay, where was I?  Oh yeah, me (my favorite topic).  So I wrote this tiny little mystery that began to receive some favorable reviews on Amazon (up to 11 so far) from my readers.  These weren't reviews from some paid author who publishes his books at the same big publisher as I do, or some "computer harvested mass of reviewers" who are paid by big publishers to receive some other "reward."  No, these were actual readers of the book (the best kind for reviews, by the way).  I know they are the best kind because I have been hoodwinked by so-called "professional" reviewers who never read my book.  In fact, my favorite short story is "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff.  In this story, the protagonist, Enders, is a professional book reviewer of this ilk, and he receives his just desserts!

The final bullet in my brain came from my hero detective author, Lawrence Block.  He was saying how he recommended all would-be mystery writers to become independent if they want to bypass the "screwing over" that was becoming the norm in big publishing.  This is a gentleman who could practically "name his advance" in the detective mystery genre, so when he barked I sat up.

Are there independent author success stories?  I'll let you be the judge.  This ain't a war for nothin', ya know!

Jim Musgrave is an author, English Professor and business owner who lives in San Diego, CA.  His most recent historical mystery series features Detective Pat O’Malley in Forevermore. 

We are the Forerunners

My favorite weekly German news magazine "Der Spiegel" surprised me last week with an article about eBooks and becoming your own publisher;a newsworthy topic that filled two pages. Germany seems to have cultivated its own answer to "Fifty Shades of Grey" with somebody called Jana Falkenberg and this lady is  quoted as the paradigm for e publishing. Writing under a pseudonym about her bedroom conquests in the style of a popular women's magazine, this "Jana Falkenberg" is most elusive; is not available for face time and her cell phone number is changed regularly to keep her identity a secret. Allegedly, she is in marketing otherwise.
Jana explains how she converted her book into an e data format on one afternoon after creating a cover page on the cheap with a designer friend. All she has to pay now is for the domain name (19.95 EUR a year). "Traditional publishing houses want to rip you off by paying only up to 20% royalties max," she said. "Now I can stick out my tongue at them!" The going rate for her eBooks is EUR 3.49 a piece.

Well, we all know how it works, we Indie authors and others.
One traditional publisher commented that the industry feels ripped off after investing a lot of money into e publishing. In all fairness, his main investment was inot an online dating site if affiliated with another reputable newspaper.
Other traditionals like the owner of dotbooks who only went online last week predicts that paperbacks will be extinct in two or three years. "The times of begging traditional publication houses to take your book are over!"
The way to becoming a publisher is also described in that article.
The magazine claims that there is a movement by authors away from traditional publishing and going your own.
If I had the choice between self-publishing and a reputable publishing house, I know who would win hands down.
Germans are still very tentative when it comes to reading eBooks. Most people I talked to had never held a Kindle in their hands and proclaimed they still preferred a paper book.
Why was I surprised? Germany is leading in many areas of technology be that alternative, renewable power, cars, or high speed trains. Yet a little thing like a Kindle (and its brothers and sisters) hasn't been embraced yet. Hence our fellow scribblers or after hours writers as they were called by the Spiegel, are lagging behind us the experienced, e - plus self -published authors, Twitter and Facebook savvy and all!
Siggy Buckley
www.Nexttimelucky.com
Siggys Omnibus: www.SiggyBuckley.blogspot.com  

The Self Promotion Treadmill (1)

One of the downsides of being an Indie writer is the need for self promotion. I've spent a lot of time over the last year trying to figure out how to promote White Jade and The Lance. I've read a lot of blogs, articles and books about guerrilla marketing and self promotion. Joe Konrath has probably written the Bible of Indie promotion. If you have not already done so, look him up. His blog is at http://www.jakonrath.blogspot.com. Joe's basic philosophy is brutal in its simplicity: promotion takes time and a lot of work.

The problem isn't so much finding out what to do, it's balancing that with writing. For me, that is the real work. It's where the juice is. Marketing is a job. Writing is hard work, but it's not a job. It's life.

Nelson DeMille's approach is that writing more books is a better way to spend your time than self promotion. Konrath would agree that you need as many books out there as you can produce, a body of work over time.

You're probably in trouble if you are writing just for the money, both from a creative standpoint and for the future of your early retirement. But still...money is good. Reward is good. Millions of readers would be good. That is going to take self promotion.

We are in the first stages of a massive revolution in publishing and marketing and it's not clear yet what really works and what doesn't. It also depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Here are a few things that keep popping up from various experts on marketing your books.

WARNING: Cliché Alert

Take this list with a grain of salt.

       1.      ads don't work, don't waste your money

2.      press releases don't work, don't waste your money

3.      you need a great cover

4.      you need to write a lot of books

5.      a series is good

6.      you need to stick to your genre

7.      you need to keep control of your work

8.      you need to think in terms of the long run

9.      you need to think internationally

10.  you need friends

11.  you need to support other Indie writers

12.  you need to do all those things Amazon suggests, like the Author Central page

13.  you need the patience of Job

By friends, I don't mean Auntie May, your buddies Joe and Irene and your Mom. I mean the people you support and meet online, on Facebook, on the Amazon forums, in specialized groups on Goodreads and LinkedIn. I'm not so sure about Twitter, but maybe. The groups you choose to join are an invaluable resource. It doesn't mean those folks will buy your books. It does mean you can joke, laugh, tap resources, learn, celebrate success, get the word out about your writing, get yourself out of the writer's isolation and in general participate in the human race. That is good, trust me.

It boils down to this: link up with others and support them. Write as much as you can. Trust in the value of what you write. Have fun doing it. Otherwise, why bother? Remember Field of Dreams? If you build it, they will come...

Alex Lukeman

Twitter: @alexlukeman  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alexlukeman

The Humorous and Not So Witty Path to Writing

I did not learn how to write until I went to college. “How does one get accepted into college without knowing how to write? What I mean is that writing correctly was not one of my strongest points. I had my share of dangling participles, run on sentences and incorrect use of tricky words, i.e. to, too, who, whom, lose, loose and so on. So becoming an author was never in the picture.

When I decided to go to college, I was in my late twenties, which was a surprise to me, because I had no interest in going to college when I graduated from high school. However, that all changed when I started to work at a textile company that made linings and interfacings. The company employed home economists in various regions of the country. Their job was to go into stores and demonstrate how to use those materials when constructing clothing. This is when I became interested in becoming a home economist.

Since a degree in home economics was required, I made up my mind to register at a community college where I obtain a Liberal Arts Degree. During my first year there, I was required to take English. The professor, who taught this subject, inspired me to be a better writer. She made the course exciting and stressed good grammar, correct use of words, and proper sentence structure in a clear-cut way. Still, becoming an author was never on my radar. I went on to complete my BS degree in Home Economics. That was in 1979.

In 1982, the court summoned me for jury duty. While serving, I met an editor who represented a major publishing house. When she discovered that I was a Home Economics Consultant, she thought I should write a book on home management. I made it very clear that I was not interested in writing a book. She kept insisting, and I kept saying, “No.” She was persistent. Finally, I gave in, developed an outline and sent it off to her publisher. A couple of weeks later, I heard from the publisher. They turned down the idea. I cannot remember the reason they gave for rejecting the synopsis.  Even though my heart was not into writing this book, my ego was somewhat bruised.

Then in 2006, I started my second online dating site. Everything was going great; people were joining and becoming paid members, and I was making money. Then the unthinkable happened. After operating this site for over a year, and without any warning, the affiliate closed my site. After getting over that initial shock and displeasure, I wrote an article about the incident. From that piece, I wrote and self-published my first book, “Making Dollar$ And Cent$ Out Of Online Dating.” It is my personal journey into the difficulties I encountered while finding a company to host my site.

Eventually, I started to write short stories and decided to put those narratives into a book called “Shades of Deception,” a collection of ten short stories, and “Malicious Acts,” an anthology of five short stories. The genre is contemporary romance. Since my business is all about romance, my stories center on relationships, love, lust, deception, manipulation, betrayal, scandal and fraud.

Writing these books has had its challenges, but the rewards of having a product that you were involved with from start to finish, outweigh the setbacks. As a self-publisher, I have had my share of blunders. Even though I consider myself a good writer and sometimes become overconfident, I make mistakes and so do traditional publishers.  After publishing my books, I had to revise them, thanks to an author who gave me some constructive feedback. He found my stories clear and engaging but thought my segments were too long. After reviewing my books, I understood what he meant. Therefore, I split my lengthy paragraphs into shorter bits, and corrected a few mistakes, which somehow my proofreader and I missed. I learned a very good lesson. No matter how great of a writer I may think I am, I am not flawless.

For over twenty years, I wrote and edited articles for my past two publications and created a singles’ publication. I did not realize it then, but I was preparing myself to become an author. I still do not see myself as a novelist. Writing comes naturally to me. If I had to choose between reading and writing, I would pick the latter. Recently, someone asked me to provide a letter of recommendation. I did and read to her what I had written. She then asked, “Did you write author after your name?” I laughed and said, “Of course not.” :)

~*~  

Vivienne Diane Neal The author is now semi-retired, but she continues to write short stores and articles on love, romance, relationships and other topics of interest.