Writing and reading fiction

Click the Scoopit! link below to scoot over to JW Manus's blog for an excellent take on the nature of advice, advice-givers and how we might look at the cost/benefit analysis of self-publishing. Love this! Subscribe over there, too. It's a solid blog with lots of advice about ebook formatting, too.

(When you're done that, check out author Jordanna East's guest post on my blog, www.ThisPlagueOfDays.com. Recent tragic and insane weather events underline our needs for disaster preparedness and Jordanna asks what's in your BOB? Check it out. It's important.)

Cheers!

~ Chazz

This is an interesting survey from Smashwords. For instance, shorter titles have a slight advantage and "the top bestselling Smashwords books averaged 115,000 words"? Cool to know. Learn at the link and see what you think.

~ Chazz

I think the most common problems with openings in any genre are false starts and a fascination with the weather worthy of a meteorologist with OCD. It's that sort of throat clearing that appears in a lot of manuscripts and annual Christmas newsletters. I like to start much closer to the action than that, no matter the genre or from whom the Christmas newsletter is sent.

On the other hand, some people go from tepid to hostile about prologues. They just don't like them. Personally, I don't mind prologues and epilogues or flashbacks at all, as long as they're well-written, of course. I find these devices only fail when they don't propel the action and deepen our understanding of character. (Full disclosure: There are a few flashbacks in Bigger Than Jesus and Higher Than Jesus, but I got praise for them and no reviewers complained they threw up in their mouths.) So there's that.

~ Chazz

In this post on Digital Book World by Beth Bacon (learn at the link!), she suggests we widen our pricing options and she suggests seven interesting options to consider.

Here are more possibilities I'd add to her list of possibilities to noodle with:

1. Make the first book in a series perma-free. Make each new book in the series incrementally more expensive as the series grows in popularity. Give discounts for batches. For instance, selling Books 2, 3 and 4 at once at one discounted price. Steadily escalate your prices. Fans who get in early pay less.

Or go with members-only discounts for the biggest fans. Reward your biggest supporters who knew you before you were famous with exclusive merch, or behind-the-scenes video of the making of the audiobook.) Chuck Pahlaniuk has his variation of this and it's called The Cult. Start with Smashwords coupons for discounts to people who love you and who are influencers anxious to spread the good word of your awesomeness.

2. Be less proprietary to gain new readers. For instance, encourage fan fic as the author of Wool does. The theory is that, instead of diluting your work, he's creating a larger funnel. The hypothesis has already proved mind-rippingly successful with a lesser book. That's how Fifty Shades started out, so that's not as crazy as it may sound.

3. Get into more channels and generate more income streams (and produce more faster) with co-authors and crowd-sourcing. 

Good example: Hit RECord because the tone set is open-eyed, cooperative revenue sharing. More of these sites seem to be popping up. Bad examples: James Patterson and James Frey, because the tone is usery and cynical opportunism.

4. Charge readers less on Amazon because the big dog sells more. This one will drive someone insane with rage. However, flawed channels, small channels or channels that are more difficult to publish to take more time and energy from the author/publisher with fewer positive results. Make consumers pay a premium for the trouble and inconvenience. Those that do pay a higher price might make it worth your trouble. (I'm looking at you, Apple.)

I admit that many authors will hate this idea, scream about punishing consumers, hurting ourselves and so on. However, if you call it "split testing", suddenly it will sound entirely reasonable. Reframe the practice and you'll sound stupid if you don't do it.

5. Broaden your platform with more free or cheap, but very short, ebooks as introductions and samplers. I'm thinking of "The Universe Doesn't Give a Flying F*** About You" by Johnny B Truant. It's worked for Truant to gain subscribers to his email list and expand his readership and brand awareness.

6. Expand your readership by combining catering to niches and repurposing material. I'm considering this with an upcoming title. If done carefully, I'm thinking this could work very well. Suppose you have a romance: Our Summer in Paris. Now suppose you introduce supernatural elements and werewolves: Our Summer in Paris WEREWOLVED!

7. Unpublish books. Somebody just fell on the floor, but pull your iPad closer, breathe deeply and reconsider: Scarcity provides value.

Suppose you have more than fifteen books/short stories on your channel's sales page. Many regular readers here would qualify. Sure, they're all gems to someone but they don't all sell as well and your less popular books are making it hard for casual browsers to find your most popular titles. Clutter slows sales movement and blocks discovery by potential fans. Your fans buy everything you put out anyway, so they already have your old stuff. Encourage sales and get a happy introduction: Take down the old stuff and offer it as a bonus to new readers when they buy your primo stuff.

I don't blame authors who are resistant to the 80/20 rule, but consider making business decisions rather than emotional decisions to win more readers in the long run. Eighty percent of your sales come from 20 percent of your efforts. Choose wisely.

When you have a carve out a big enough fan base (i.e. Neil Gaiman, Joe Rogan, Kevin Smith) your core fan base becomes your 20 percent and you don't have to work so hard at gaining new fans. You'll retire on the fanatics. It's arguable that, due to market fragmentation, that sort of base-building isn't possible anymore. That's an argument for a different post on another day.

Summary: The point I share with Beth Bacon is that we need to be open to price experimentation to find the sweet spot (or rather, sweet spots, since there are likely to be several over the life of each book). There are many more options in pricing and funneling than most authors and publishers usually consider. The ideas I've added in the commentary here are my own so if you have heat to give, give it to me here. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts and suggestions for more possibilities.

Learn about Beth Bacon's thoughts at the DBW through the Scoopit! Link below.

Interesting that Mimi Barbour's promoter advised not to price books up past 99 cents unless you're above 5,000 in Amazon rankings. I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but that does make some sense to me. Of course, I also know several authors who are pricing their books much higher and are doing well (but didn't start there.) I also know authors who feel low prices devalue their work (some successful, many not.)

If something isn't selling, experiment with the variables: price; cover; category etc.,...

Sometimes you hear people with a prejudice against 99 cent books. Are they a vocal minority who are quick to judge? Someone referred to 99 cents as a "bullshit price". However, with the value of free degraded (see the post directly below this one) maybe it's not BS anymore.

I priced Bigger Than Jesus at 99 cents not because it's crap but because it's an introduction to a series. I priced Six Seconds low because, though useful, it's short. My experimentation with pricing continues. I'll let you know how it works out.

Meanwhile, learn at the Scoopit! link from Mimi Barbour at Believe.

~ Chazz

Good survey of the current landscape and breakdown of the pros and cons we face. Reinforces my expectation that we'll have to factor in advertising budgets. Learn at the link to Lindsay Buroker's site.

~ Chazz

The Wall Street Journal counts 60 self-published authors picked up and even courted "furiously" by traditional houses. Nice!

What stands out for me in this article is that Mr. Howey kept his digital rights to Wool. I find this particularly delightful because schadenfreude, though it makes me a bad person, is also fun. 

Not so long ago, several famous agents and big publishers stated clearly that if they were going to do the self-published the favor of publishing their books in paper and distributing to bookstores, everything was on the table.  Publishers would, always and forever, get and keep digital rights, too (even if they were unprepared to do anything much with them.) That door, we were told, is closed.

Except, of course, it wasn't. The thing that disturbs me about that state of affairs is:

1. Smart business people do not assume the world is static. Only change is constant. Old-style publishing had a good, long run and that unfortunately made some of the runners arrogant.

2. Good agents aren't so damnably passive and argue for the publisher and against their clients. We don't need namby-pamby Old Mother Hubbards going to the cupboard and telling us poor dogs the cupboard is bare so suck it. We need lions fighting for us, or we don't need agents at all. 

3. Being the Party of No doesn't work as business (or any other) climates change and dinos go extinct. If there's still money to be made without digital rights, smart publishers will exhibit flexibility and negotiate.

4. "Because that's the way we've always done it," is never a valid answer. Winners dare to ask, "What if we did it differently?"

5. These old attitudes betrayed a misplaced sense of entitlement to all publishing rights and condescension to the self-published. Smart publishers are getting over that prejudice. Not-so-smart publishers will soon be selling real estate.

I do not condemn all traditional publishers and agents. Many are wonderful, adaptive, and bring us great books. They love literature and do not fetishize book glue. They understand that greed screws up win-win and, in our information culture, the greedy are more easily identified than ever.

I'll leave it at condemning those find themselves portrayed in Exhibits 1 through 5 and ask,"How's that taste? Yippee-ki-yay, Mother Hubbard."

Like the author of this post, I suspect this is a case of a systems problem rather than any attempt to steal. Personally, I've ordered copies of my books from CreateSpace that never showed up. They were fairly quickly replaced when I complained and the service desk at CreateSpace are friendly, kind and helpful people. However, it happened more than once. Obviously there are glitches to work out. I'd be more confident if mistakes weren't repeated. (Lesson: Make mistakes, but try to make new ones to learn from.)

Traditional publishers, too, have a history of slow accounting practices. Though that was common, it didn't suck any less for authors. With current tracking capabilities (i.e. computers), I can't imagine why that sort of ineptitude should continue. A small delay? Okay. When you have data dripping in from multiple venues, that's understandable. However, from the description on this post, it sounds like there are lots of promises to investigate but not a lot of cozy answers forthcoming quickly.

I hope the authors get their answers and any outstanding royalties due soon. For most of us, if we lose sales due to accounting issues, we won't know it. That's why we must have a clean accounting system working with transparency, clarity and timeliness. Screw with our confidence in the system and we'll find someone else to fill the role.

(FYI: I first reblogged this post through Wordpress. You'll note I posted it again through Scoopit! Sorry that was necessary, but Scoopit! gives me the option of deleting the photo. It was a good photo, but since I haven't licensed the pic, I posted again through Scoopit! so I could avoid using the photo on my blog. This also goes to my Scoopit! curation page so Scoopit! service followers can further spread the word about the original post by John R. Clark that way. I don't know if the straight reblog would be an issue, but since I don't know, I reposted without the photo to be cautious.)

There's a new alternative to Smashwords and Bookbaby. It's Draft2Digital  and it looks pretty good so far. From what I've read, it's kind of like an updated Smashwords without the catalogue. The idea is to publish across platforms (currently fewer than SW, but including kindle) with less fuss. (Read: No style guide. You yours!)

To review how I feel about Smashwords: The website looks dated and  univiting; the gift coupons for promotional purposes are awesome and all  other retailer should steal that brilliant idea; for the casual browser, the inability to avoid porn is unfortunate; it's a destination for writers looking for a cheap and relatively easy way to upload to a lot of platforms (except kindle) but it's not a destination location for readers to shop.

Speaking of stealing good ideas, Smashwords would also benefit from adopting one-click buying and more current accounting. I respect Mr. Coker's pioneering and he's done a ton for the digital publishing revolution. I wish the site would adapt to change faster. I'll still have stuff on SW in the future, but maybe through a limited selection of retailers or just for a listing on the site itself. My hope is that, with more competition, SW will improve on the fronts I've mentioned.

To review how I feel about Bookbaby: The price up front is higher; their payments and tracking are convenient; they've been slow to respond to me;  any change costs, and not a little. I'm withdrawing from Bookbaby to implement a new strategy.

Draft2Digital might be a big part of that new strategy and I'll certainly try them out. I'll still want to deal with Amazon directly, but from what I've heard lately, it might be the easiest thing for me to do to publish on Kobo.

Perhaps the most interesting thing for me is D2D says they can make publishing to CreateSpace easier. I like CS, but there is always a time-sucking problem and I'd be happy to have someone solve it cheaply. From what D2D promises, it's evident they have more humans involved in the process compared to the fully automated model of Smashwords' meatgrinder.

A service that makes publishing easier with human checks and balances done inexpensively? Wow. Early reports are good. If they can deliver satisfactorily and consistently, it's more than just a question of competition for SW and BB et al. It's that they can save me time and heartache so I can concentrate on writing the next book instead of struggling with logistics of publishing the last book. I like more tools and powerful weapons in my backpack for whatever struggle may come.

To learn more about Draft2Digital, click the Scoopit! link below. Thanks to Passive Voice for the heads up about this new service. ~ Chazz

I always pay attention when Roger Colby has a post, but this one is a real keeper for future reference. He walks us through how, with Scrivener and a couple of free apps, you can get your book up on iTunes. Very useful!

Please note that he's also started a podcast, Fanboys on Fiction. Subscribe on iTunes.

~ Chazz

Have you noticed a decrease in bog traffic, too? When I read this post from Andra Watkins' blog ("The Accidental Cootchie Mama", possibly the best blog name ever), I thought: Oh. So that explains the dip in traffic I've noticed in the last while. If you've noticed a dip, too, Andra explains at the link why that is and what to do about it. 

Good news: It's not necessarily because you're not awesome. Vast dark forces do battle and you are a casual casualty of their secret cyber-war. Check out Google's plans for world domination and how it affects you at the link.

Also to do: Thank Ms. Watkins for the analysis and subscribe to The Accidental Cootchie Mama. 

Mark Victor Young is a talented writer I met at a writing workshop a couple of years ago. Follow the Scoopit! link to CommuterLit and check out his short piece about writing process and tenses, "notes from a novel in progress". In a playful way, this captures our inner struggle to get the right words in the right order.

Looking forward to that novel, Mark!

~ Chazz

In an effort to be more competitive, Pubit! becomes Nook Press. There is concern about some of the terms. Some authors have decided to pull their books from B&N rather than come under Nook Press's TOS. Holly Lisle also raised concerns about them changing your book cover on you. I'm reserving judgment until I see them in action. 

As soon as Amazon bought Goodreads, there were cries across the Interdom that Amazon's competitors should have bought GR instead. I'm sure Nook Press was in the works long before the Amazon/Goodreads deal came to pass, but I do wonder if Amazon's competitors will be spurred to more action. 

For instance, as KDP Select's value has devalued, perhaps they could offer terms and promotions that can do KDP one better. I've been screeching for a long time that somebody should be copying Smashwords in one respect: Give us codes for coupons so we can promote our books more effectively.

No, no one listens to Chazz, but I'll be uncharacteristically optimistic here and say I think we will see more change and better offerings in the near future. Whining about Amazon's domination hasn't helped, so perhaps competitors will do more of what is effective: adapt and actually compete instead of complain.

Learn more at the Scoopit! link to BookPromotion.com.

~ Chazz

You're definitely going to want to read this piece from uber-successful author CJ Lyons. Make sure you consider the quotes from the Self-publishing Podcast guys farther down in the article, too. Their experience reflects my understanding of how the ROI on free has ebbed.

I have friends who are still fully committed to KDP Select. Meanwhile, I'm hoping Amazon will tweak the program to make it more attractive again. In the past, I auto-renewed every 90 days. I will still use KDP Select, but less so and much more carefully and never in the long-term if its terms remain static.

~ Chazz

This preamble is going to look unrelated to the Scoopit! link to the New Rules of Blogging. It's not. Bear with me as I bare myself.

The self-publishing blogoverse will probably be all atwitter about Guy Kawasaki's list of 10 mistakes we make as self-publishers (http://bit.ly/WDSbPp). Most of his advice is peachy. Some of it I disagree with, like: Idolizing Word without qualification (until you get to the comments on the DBW link), pumping up paperback versions without reservation and a sneaking suspicion he thinks we all want a trad publisher. Picky of me, perhaps. The bigger problem with the piece is he's all the way up there with a howitzer, all I have is a starter pistol and he's saying, "You really should use your cannon." Um...must be in my other wallet...the hoped-for-future wallet.

I think Kawasaki's article illustrates the chasm between someone coming in from trad publishing with money to spend and the majority of micro-publishers. I appreciate his book (APE as ini Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur) and think self-publishers should read it. There's lots of good stuff in it.

However, my major reservation about the DBW piece ($10,000 to $15,000 on PR?!) is that it sounds very old school and his budget is beyond me and most authors I know, self-published or not. This is actually an odd gap since he acknowledges that you shouldn't do this for the money and the chances of having a $15,000 PR budget are grim unless your day job subsidizes your micro-publishing efforts. I get the feeling that, from where he's standing, he can't understand my problems, my pathetic lack of world domination or my financial bind.

Confession: Last week I did a rare thing and bought a coffee. Because I was searching through small change, the counter guy at Canadian Bagel offered to knock 50 cents off the price to save my pride. Thanks CB guy! However, I dug up the pennies. I left feeling thankful for the kind gesture, sad and somewhat homeless. I really should get these jeans hemmed and make sure I look less scruffy, I guess.

Let me tell you something that will help. I wrote it in Crack the Indie Author Code and Write Your Book: Aspire to Inspire. It's advice I published for the rest of us, armed only with starter pistols, grim determination and unhemmed pants. I'm telling you here for free. It's key and it's not in the DBW article: Write more books! Write more books! Write more books! I put eight books up last year. (No, I didn't write them all last year and I obviously can't claim Mr. Kawasaki's long track record of success, but I do have a decent number of books for sale, so it's the start of an ambitious pace.)

My point is, you and I, the micro-publishers armed with cheap guerilla marketing tactics, are closer to each other than we are to the expensive suggestion of a costly PR campaign for each book. (Imagine having the fat stack to pimp eight books in one year at ten to fifteen grand a pop! Ooh, shivers!) I don't begrudge Mr. Kawasaki his promotional opportunities. We all fantasize about how much we could do to promote our books if we just had lots of cash to do it up pretty. We don't have that moolah, so we'll have to improvise on some of his otherwise excellent points. To his credit, he does say we each must choose our path. I agree and have said the same many times. It just feels like he doesn't realize people with starter pistols have fewer paths from which to choose and we are the vast majority of self-publishing's aspirants. One day some of us will have howitzers and we can take more of his valuable advice.

In the spirit of giving you something that's perhaps more hopeful to authors  reading this blog, I'm sharing this Scoopit! link about the New Rules of Blogging. It's about looking in new places for opportunity and gaining influence to get your signal through the noise. (The video is NSFW). Learn and enjoy at the link!

~ Chazz