Why I Am All In with Amazon for Ebooks

By Jim Jackson

Every Indy Author (a.k.a. Self-published Author) must make a fundamental decision about how to market their electronic books. Do they jump in bed solely with Amazon or play the field, allowing readers to purchase books from Amazon, B&N, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play and others?

Authors must evaluate many factors before coming to a decision about how to sell a particular book. The size and breadth of their following, including the percentage of readers in the U.S. compared to other parts of the world where Amazon is less dominant can impact their choices. The price of the book can also matter, since Amazon will only pay 70% royalties for ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99, inclusive.

Print editions have other considerations. Today I want to concentrate on electronic books.

A year ago I regained rights to Bad Policy from a small publishing company whose philosophy is to go wide, making ebooks available on every platform they could find. During the three years they controlled the distribution and pricing, 80.3% of electronic sales by both volume and royalties were through Amazon and 19.7% through other outlets. My second book, Cabin Fever, (currently, with nearly three years of sales data with the same small publisher) has Amazon at 81.9%, with 18.1% for all others.

For simplicity let’s round the split to 80/20. Choosing to become exclusive with Amazon for Bad Policy, I’d potentially give up 20% of my sales. What would I get from Amazon that could justify reducing revenue flows by 20%?

The main advantages of going exclusive with KDP (Amazon’s self-publishing platform) are (1) simplicity in the publishing process, (2) the use of a limited number of days to use countdown deals/and or give the work away for free, and (3) access to Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL).

Simplicity is nice, but not a very high hurdle. With a broad distribution, you can (with work) nearly duplicate the effect of Amazon’s countdown or free days. The difference-maker from my perspective is access to KU and KOLL.

Ant Farm, the first Seamus McCree novel, was published by Kindle Press (an Amazon imprint), so the ebook is Amazon-exclusive. KU and KOLL revenues for it represented 29.9% of revenue—greater than the 20% I was losing by cutting off alternative sales outlets.

Now, the first thing one must realize is that the extra 10% is not all additional revenue. Some people who read the book would have purchased it from Amazon had it not been available on KU. I cannot quantify that number, but my gut sense is that it is very small. In talking with people who subscribe to KU, they claim to rarely buy books, preferring to read exclusively those available through KU. Amazon probably knows for sure whether that is true, but it seems unlikely those people buy many books from non-Amazon sources—which is why Amazon pushes KU subscriptions.

Offsetting that “double-counting” are people who prefer to read electronically using their Nook or Kobo, but have a Kindle reading app they use when that is their only choice.

I decided the gains would outweigh the losses, so when I reissued Bad Policy, I made the ebook exclusive to Amazon. It’s been less than a year since the reissue. During that time, KU has generated 30% of revenue—the same result I have had for Ant Farm, which has always been exclusive to Amazon.

When I published the fourth Seamus McCree novel, Doubtful Relations, in August 2016, my experiment with Bad Policy was already producing positive results. But I was reluctant to write off the 20% of my readers who were reading my books on non-Amazon platforms. I chose to go wide, using Draft2Digital to distribute to the other platforms. Instead of the expected 20% of sales from the other retailers. I earned less than 10%.

The reasons are not all that clear to me. Perhaps since Bad Policy’s original release in 2013, fewer people are reading on alternative platforms. (I know I initially preferred Nook, partially to help keep competitiveness in the ebook market, partially because I could turn my Nook into a tablet. I gave up on using my Nook as a tablet when much more powerful tablets became ubiquitous, and because it was so difficult to navigate B&N’s website and so easy to find what I wanted on Amazon.) Although I do enjoy detailed numerical analysis, I have not taken the time to do a month-by-month comparison to determine if the Amazon ratio had been increasing in the past year.

After three months with the same low rate of non-Amazon sales, I made Doubtful Relations exclusive to Amazon and enrolled it in KU. It’s too early to know for sure how that decision will play out, but in that partial first month, KU revenue was twice what I had earned from all other retailers in the previous three months.

This past Tuesday, LowcountryCrimes: Four Novellas made its debut. I polled the other three authors to determine if they had very strong readership on non-Amazon platforms. Everyone was noncommittal, so I went with my gut, which said KU readers would be willing to take a gamble on our four novellas. It only cost them reading time to try authors they might not know, and I (technically my publishing arm, Wolf’s Echo Press) made the ebook exclusive to Amazon.

But I also decided to publish each novella separately. And there I went wide! My thinking was that if you could get all four for free in KU, there was no advantage to having individual novellas enrolled in KU. If someone wanted to read (say) Tina Whittle’s “Trouble Like a Freight TrainComing” they could order up the entire anthology and read her story. Maybe they’d give the others a try. But, if Tina did have fans who read exclusively on Nook, I’d give them an opportunity to acquire her novella at B&N as well. Plus, I found a publisher (Pronoun) who pays 70% royalties on books priced less than $2.99, double Amazon’s policy of paying only 35%. The total anthology ebook is priced at $3.99; each novella at $1.99. (So you can purchase the entire anthology for the price of two separate novellas.)

That’s my current thinking. Will it change in the future? You betcha. The publishing industry remains in flux, and any business (and being an author is a business) needs to continue to keep on top of trends and experiment.

I’m curious, dear blog readers: has your way of reading changed over the last few years? Do you expect it to change in the future? Those of you who are authors, what are you finding with your sales?

My eBook Strategy

I’m entering the publishing business a step at a time. My first toe in the water was after Ant Farm successfully weathered the Kindle Scout process and Amazon (their Kindle Press group) agreed to publish the eBook. Rather than search for a publisher to produce a print version of the book, I decided to do it myself. I’ve documented that process previously as well as provided my analysis of why I use both CreateSpace (for Amazon sales) and IngramSpark (for all others).

When I took back the publishing rights to Bad Policy from Barking Rain Press, I used the paperback template I had prepared for Ant Farm with a few minor tweaks. I did have to produce eBooks for the first time, and since it had been out for three years, I chose to start by making it available for Kindle only. Why?

Kindle Only or ePub as well?

Living exclusively within the Kindle universe provides two major advantages: (1) The book is included in Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Lending Library, (2) For a few days within each 90-day renewal period I can put the book on deep discount and still retain the 70% commission, (rather than the 35% commission Amazon usually pays on books priced under $2.99), or alternately, during those days I can offer it for free. The disadvantage is those people who prefer to read electronically using ePub files either don’t get the book or they need to figure out a way to read Kindle files on one of their devices.

While Bad Policy was under Barking Rain Press’s control, it earned over 80% of its royalties from Amazon. The rest came from Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and others. I gambled that I would balance those lost non-Kindle sales with the extra royalties from Kindle Unlimited.

It’s still early days, but so far Kindle Unlimited has provided 20% of my eBook royalties since I took over from Barking Rain Press. The first promotion I ran for the Kindle eBook met my expectations.

Fast forward to Doubtful Relations. My print strategy remains the same with a minor variation. I had read multiple discussions on the topic of whether white pages or cream pages were better. Everyone had opinions, both sides’ arguments had merit, and people seemed to be evenly split on the issue.

I constructed a Facebook poll to test the question; it also resulted in a 50/50 split on preference. I decided to print CreateSpace with white pages and IngramSpark with cream. When people buy directly from me at bookstore and other events, I’ll offer them a choice and find out what happens. Of course, those who buy on Amazon will get white; those from a bookstore or other online retailer will get cream. Who knows how this will turn out, but it costs me nothing to run the experiment.

For the eBook, I chose the wide distribution approach rather than listing it only with Amazon. I figured most new readers would come to the republication of Bad Policy having read Ant Farm (Kindle only) or through a promotion targeted to Kindle readers. Doubtful Relations, however, follows Cabin Fever, which is available from Barking Rain Press in all formats. People who enjoyed Cabin Fever will likely prefer to read it in whatever format they chose previously (about 15% of eBook royalties weren’t from Amazon). I can change to a Kindle-only strategy sometime in the future to pick up Kindle Unlimited readers, but I don’t want to lose the Nook, Kobo, and iBook readers to the series.

As a special thank you, I’ll send anyone who orders Doubtful Relations by the end of August (and sends me evidence of their purchase) a free new Seamus McCree short story "Power of Attorney" you can read electronically (Kindle, ePub or PDF). You can conveniently find “buy” links to a variety of online retailers on http://jamesmjackson.com/Novels/doubtful-relations.html.

Kindle Scout and Me

Have you heard about the relatively new Kindle Scout program? If not, I’ll tell you about it in a minute. If so, I’ll tell you why I chose to try it.

But first, here’s how I came to my decision to try to qualify for this Amazon publishing venture and here is the link where you can nominate my book, Ant Farm.

The situation before Kindle Scout

The Seamus McCree series is published by Barking Rain Press (BRP), a small publisher. The books have generated positive reader reviews. The few professional reviews they have received have also been positive. But BRP does not have the resources for any kind of major publicity campaign. While I have done what I can to promote the books, one aspect I have not had any control over (nor would I in a traditional publishing contract) is the ability to aggressively price books to generate a larger reader base.

I have confidence that if I can get people to read a book in the series, they will want to read more about Seamus and friends and the scrapes they get into. If I were persistent and produced a book a year, by the time I had five or seven books in the series, I would have built a bigger following and the series might have traction. Was there a better way?

My electronic equivalent of the bottom drawer contained the first novel I wrote with Seamus McCree. I referred to it as my practice novel because, through its dozen drafts I learned how to write a mystery. It was good enough to garner an agent offer, but not strong enough to be published, and so six years ago, I put it aside. Last fall I reread it. Ant Farm had good bones, but needed major work to bring it up to my current standards. With effort, I could make it an excellent read.

If I self-published that reworked story, I could use it as a marketing device to help bring readers into the series. It could be a loss leader for the series. I could hook readers with Ant Farm and continue to provide good stories with Bad Policy, Cabin Fever, and Doubtful Relations (the manuscript I put aside to rework Ant Farm). Done correctly, I could build the Seamus McCree “franchise” more quickly.

After hemming and hawing at this change in plans from finishing Doubtful Relations first, I decided to tackle Ant Farm. I rewrote, re-edited, sent to beta readers, re-edited, proofread, and now it’s ready to go.

While I was revising, Amazon announced the Kindle Scout program. Briefly, it is a way for Amazon to get great content for their Kindle ebooks and Audible audio books based on reader nominations. An author submits a complete book in one of three genres, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Romance or Science Fiction/Fantasy. Amazon staff reviews the submission, which includes a book cover, logline, blurb, author bio and some optional questions the author can answer. If they appear reasonable, within a couple of business days the book is listed and available for nomination. My direct link is https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/3IATL9SA04ZS2

Disadvantages of Kindle Scout Program

Extra preparation

Submitting to the Kindle Scout program cost me no money and only a bit of time to jump through their hoops.

Unlike traditional publishing where the publisher produces the book cover, for Scout I had to submit one. Since I had planned to self-publish anyway, I already had a cover prepared. However, I had to develop a logline with a maximum of 45 characters, a short blurb (max 500 characters), cram my author bio into another 500-character limit, and choose three questions to answer, each in 300 characters.

I can use the logline for promotion, and the other stuff didn’t take too much time, and I had no extra cost, so the process was not much of a burden.

Loss of Pricing Control

Recall that one of my reasons for independently publishing Ant Farm was to maintain pricing control so I could generate free and reduced price opportunities to introduce people to the Seamus McCree series. Amazon, as the publisher, controls all pricing decisions. They will decide if the book is $2.99 or $5.99 or whatever. They’ll decide whether to provide free days.

Loss of Timing Control

If selected, Amazon determines when the ebook version of Ant Farm will be published. If I am not selected, I could have had the ebook available a month earlier. That possibly cost a bit of revenue, but not much.

Kindle only

If accepted, my ebook will be available only in the Kindle format sold by Amazon or loaned through their Prime and Kindle Unlimited programs. No Barnes & Noble, no Kobo, no Scribd or Oyster. Amazon generates about 75% of my ebook sales. That means hooking my wagon to their horse gives up 25% of that potential revenue if all things are equal.

But will they be equal? I don’t think so, which brings us to the advantages as I see them.

Advantages of Kindle Scout Program

Promotion

The primary reason I wanted to independently publish Ant Farm was to generate more readers for the Seamus McCree series. I believe (no facts on which to judge as the program is too new) that Amazon will want the early books to succeed. As of this writing, the Kindle Scout program has selected eight books in November, eight in December, and so far only one in January.

If they select my book, it will be one of the first published, and I believe they will make sure those books will do well. They will promote the heck out of them, and they can do that much better than I, because they have the platform for it.

Advance

The Kindle Scout program pays a $1,500 advance for books they publish. That advance would cover the editing and book cover costs I’ve incurred. Whatever royalties I earn would be profit.

Free Publicity

Participating in the Kindle Scout program provides 30 days of free publicity for Ant Farm and by extension the entire series. Even if not selected, at the end of the 30-day period those people who nominate the book receive an email from me thanking them for their interest and inviting them to keep in touch with an email address and link to my website.

Plus, during the nomination process I will use social media to generate interest in Ant Farm’s participation in the program. If others retweet and share Facebook posts, it provides additional content for new people to learn of the series.

As the saying goes, “There is no such thing as bad publicity.”

Exit Strategy

The initial contract with Kindle Scout is five years. However, if the ebook does not meet defined monetary goals, an author can cancel the contract in as few as two years. My contracts with Barking Rain Press have a three-year lock in. In reading Kindle Scout’s contract, it’s clear they intend the authors to be successful and if not, let them out of the program. So, if it is a bust, I can exit after two years, self-publish on all the platforms, and move on.

My conclusions

It comes down to giving up total control and ebook retailers to gain Amazon’s marketing power. Given my current level of sales, I think it provides a good risk/return tradeoff. Others may be in different places in their writing careers and could come to a different conclusion for them.

In case I haven’t been obvious. If you haven’t nominated Ant Farm yet, I hope you will. If you have, then thank you very much. I am offering extra praise for those who help publicize Ant Farm’s quest by letting others know.

It’s a good book, although I am a bit prejudiced.

~ Jim

Two Writers Take on a Big Guy by Polly Iyer and Ellis Vidler

Writers Polly Iyer and Ellis Vidler agreed to fill in for Linda Rodriguez who is taking some time off. Polly and Ellis have new books that will be released in October. In the coming weeks, I hope they will tell us about their books because I've become a fan of their writing. Please welcome Polly and Ellis to WWK!                                                                                                                                                                     E. B. Davis

I’m borrowing the idea for this blog post from my friend, V.R. Barkowski, who referred to this article from Huffington Post, written by Warren Adler, on her blog a couple of weeks ago. I’ve taken only the first sentence of each point Adler makes. If you’d like to read the whole column, copy and paste: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren-adler/the-fate-of-the-novelist_b_5692200.html?utm_hp_ref=books&ir=Books I’ve asked Romantic Suspense author, Ellis Vidler, to add her comments for another viewpoint. We realize our opinions mean nothing more than our opinions. We don’t have minions waiting with baited breath for our take on things.

Frankly, I’m tired of the so-called gurus on both sides of publishing, meaning Traditional and Indie, telling us the way of the world in publishing. Fact is, no one really knows. They’re all guessing. So here goes.                                                                                                                                  Polly Iyer

1.     WA: The print industry, as we have known it, is a dead man walking.

PI: There will ALWAYS be print books. The industry may change, but the industry has always changed. Change is good. I know people who wouldn’t touch an electronic book. They like the feel of holding the book, the smell of the paper, the sense that they’re reading a real book.

EV: Who knows what future generations will do? No idea, but I believe print will be here for the next few. That doesn’t mean publishing companies will be the same or that new delivery methods won’t spring up. I read print and electronic books and listen to them on audio now. I love having the choices.

2.     WA: Advances are drying up. Fewer and fewer authors will be able to make a living from their books, even those authors published by the large traditional publishers.

PI: This is probably true. I’m self-published, but I’ve published two books with an e-publisher who did advance me $200 for each book. I was thrilled to get it. One of the problems with publishing is the big advances given to the top-tier writers. They’re the ones keeping the publishers alive. But in the long run, what’s left doesn’t encourage new writers to seek out traditional publication, even if they could get an editor to read their submissions. That’s another story entirely.

EV: I’ve been published by two traditional presses and received royalties but never an advance. I’m now self-published; it suits my personality and needs. Authors who write good stories will develop a readership and can make money, maybe not as much as they’d like, but some are making more than they ever expected.

3.     WA: Amazon, at this point, controls the book market.

PI: Other behemoth companies like Alibaba, a Chinese Internet conglomerate might give Amazon a run for its money in the future. Right now, Amazon controls 80% of the e-book market, but nothing stays the same. Remember Sears and K-Mart?

4.     WA: The Netflix subscriber model of content for a monthly fee, like Amazon Unlimited, Oyster, and Scribd, will flame out.

PI: Don’t know about this. Maybe in books, but not in movies. That’s a guess.

EV: I’ve never used any of them and don’t know.

5.     WA: The quality of content is diminishing, or so it seems. I know I sound like a book snob, but it is hard as hell to find what was once called, "a really great book."

PI: Bull! There are great books out there. Great undiscovered writers. If the publishers didn’t have such closed minds about “What the public wants,” or “We don’t know where to put your book on the shelf,” or “No one wants to read about…” Yeah, Mr. Adler, you’re a book snob, and nothing says it more than #6.

EV: I find many great books. Maybe Mr. Adler should branch out and try a few more authors. There’re also more poorly written books, but there are simply more books being published. But has there’ve always been less appealing books around—I’ve read, or started, many published by big houses. Has the proportion changed?

6.     WA: Even so called commercial fiction, the kind of books one found on best-seller lists in the middle to the latter part of the last century, is being replaced by genre fiction, which would not have made the cut in those bygone days.

PI: Genre fiction? Mystery is genre fiction. Sci-fi, Romance, Police Procedurals, Suspense. Since when have these replaced anything? They’ve always been part of the reading culture.

EV: Genre fiction has always been around. Commercial fiction is simply another form of it. Literary fiction has never been as popular, but readers determine that.

7.     WA: There are simply too many books being published, especially in fiction. Among them are probably some really wonderful ones, but they are hard to find.

PI: This is true, and my guess is that’s always been the case. No doubt self-published opportunities have allowed more books into the marketplace, and, yes, it’s harder to find the good ones. But marketing an indie writer’s book falls on the writer, and if s/he isn’t willing to do her/his part of promotion, chances are the book will remain hard to find. That has become as much a job for the traditionally published writer as the indie writer. No one will get you book to the attention of the reading public than you, the writer.

EV: See #5

8.     WA: In an effort to find an audience, many authors are forced to give away their books for free or at heavily discounted prices.

PI: I’ve given away tens of thousands of books. To me, that’s part of marketing. I’m sure I’ve reached readers in the States and abroad that would never otherwise read my books. A very high percentage of those readers who liked what they read for free paid to buy my other books. How do I know? They’ve told me both in emails, on Facebook, and in their Amazon reviews.

EV: Authors as opposed to publishing companies, who give away thousands of books at book fairs and to reviewers? It’s advertising, a way to get books into the hands of readers, who, if they like it, will buy more of that author’s work.

9.     WA: Because we are now a global society, books by writers from other countries and cultures have reached flood stage as well.

PI: And what’s wrong with that? It’s precisely for that reason that we are a global society.

EV: So?

10.  WA: There is no end to people who want to write novels.

PI: Good. Will some books be crap? You bet. But people are expanding their horizons by doing so. They’re learning, exploring, reading, and improving their literacy.

EV: People have always wanted to write, but home computers have certainly made it  easier.

11.  WA: There is still great personal satisfaction in self-publishing.

PI: Halleluiah. I agree. Self-publishing my books, seeing them on Amazon, and knowing that people are enjoying them have afforded me great satisfaction. After two years with an agent who unsuccessfully shopped my books, I have six books available, seven by the end of the month. I am personally satisfied.

EV: There is great satisfaction in seeing your work published. Has that changed?

12.  WA: Many are convinced that their books would make terrific movies, and spend time and money trying to bring their stories to the silver screen.

PI: That’s their prerogative. I wrote a screenplay for one of my books, and I learned a lot about tightening my prose. I also learned I didn’t want to be a screenwriter.

EV: This is a new thing? I don’t think so.

13.  WA: While books are being digitally published like popcorn, I do not believe that readers are keeping apace.

PI: The novelty of loading up electronic readers is waning. Speaking as a reader, I don’t think I could ever keep pace with all the books I want to read.

EV: There’s more competition from all directions, but a great many people still read novels. There are more people too. Has the percentage of readers to non-readers changed? Hard to say.

14.  WA: A cottage industry has emerged big-time to distribute, market, publicize and merchandise books, by mostly self-published authors or backlist titles of published authors.

PI: As with any business, there will always be businesses that feed off those trying to breakthrough. I don’t think the self-publishing business is any exception. Writers need to be caution of those trying to make a buck off them.

EV: If there’s a need, someone will fill it. Is this a problem?

15.  WA: Expect countless marketing ploys as publishers and authors try new gimmicks to sell their works of fiction online.

PI: Welcome to the world of opportunity. When has this been any different?

EV: Again, so what’s new? Scammers and cons have always been around. There may be more, but there’s more of everything.

THE ROAD TO SELF-PUBLISHING

                                                                               

On December 19, 2012, I received an early Christmas present – a box delivered by UPS holding 20 copies of my first book; The Blue Rose, A Catherine Jewell mystery published through CreateSpace. The cover looked more beautiful than the picture of it on my computer. I skimmed through it and could find no problems. Even though I read, reread and edited it over and over for the last ten years, and I should be able to recite the whole book from memory, there’s something special about reading it as a real book.

I first decided to self-publish a year ago. I’d been considering it even longer than that after reading articles in The Writer, Writer’s Digest and Time. I started reading some blogs about the benefits of self-publishing, like Dean Wesley Smith’s blog, and I ordered mysteries by self-published Guppies. I’d long heard negative comments about those who self-published, but I found almost all those I ordered very well done. Not all were to my taste, but that’s a personal thing and not related to the quality of the book. Over the years, I’d certainly bought lots of traditionally published books that have disappointed me, and I’d found just as many minor glitches in those books as in the self-published ones.

I think a lot of the negativity of self-publishing goes back to vanity presses which authors paid to have books published, and from what I’d heard, many self-published books are not well written or well edited  so I can understand why some hesitate to buy them or to go that route themselves for publication.

Why did I choose to do this? It certainly would be easier to have someone else handle all the work required to self-publish. Partly it was the age factor. I was tired of waiting to get it published. I wanted to see my first book and others published before I said my last good-bye.  I started The Blue Rose under a different title over ten years ago. I sent numerous queries out over the years, although not nearly as many as other dedicated authors do. After each rejection, I’d quit querying for a while to tend my garden and do other things before I’d start to query again.

Meanwhile I kept writing because I could not let go of Portage Falls and my characters. Plots kept jiggling around in my head before I went to sleep, while walking in the woods, gardening or driving someplace. I finished two more books in the series as well as a middle-grade mystery. I also continued writing poetry and started writing short stories. And still except for some of my poetry and short stories, my books gathered dust waiting for someone other than my critique partners and beta readers to read them. It’s getting harder and harder to get the attention of the big publishers or agents. I tried a few small publishers. Most wanted a shorter mystery than mine, and I was not willing to make such drastic cuts to hit the required word limit. Then I stopped querying even the small publishers, when I considered the time frame and the pressure to sell so many books before they’d consider the second book. Even if I reached that quota, it would be another year or two before the second book was published and the same time frame for the third book.

I love writing, but I enjoy so many other things, too. I don’t want to neglect family and friends, my social activities, gardening, walks, concerts, plays, reading and the list goes on and on. I know promotion is a big part of being published, and I intend to do that, but with self-publishing I don’t have the pressure of having to sell several hundred books or more before my publisher will publish my next book. When I think my book is as polished as it can be, I can publish it. I can slowly build a reader base and not worry about how many books are sold. Beyond my blog commitment, I have only self-imposed deadlines to meet for my books. I’m not a wealthy person by any means, but financially my only goal is to break even with a small profit to report to the IRS.

Why did it take me almost a year to do this? It was partly the fear factor and partly learning how to format for both a print and e-book. I’d asked one of my grand-daughters, a graphic artist, if she’d create my cover. She enthusiastically agreed, but since she’d never done a book cover before it engendered much procrastination since she was unsure of the process and worked full time. She had to learn to draw roses. Then she needed a picture of a dead body. She got that when I asked my son to pose as a dead person. This past year a  lot of things happened that took up my time, but it was worth the wait to unpack that box of 20 books and hold one in my hands.

The Blue Rose as a print book can be ordered through Amazon and my e-books through Smashwords or Amazon Kindle.

My Road to E-Publishing

I've been asked to share some of the tricks I've learned while publishing my short story on Amazon and Smashwords.

First off, I want to give a HUGE shout out to my editor, Nancy Adams!  She's been a boon to my writing by helping me wade through the grammatical errors I'd been making for much of my life.

I also want to thank the two writers groups to which I belong: Sisters in Crime - Northern California Chapter, and the Guppies (which stands for the Great Unpublished, for those of you not in the "know").  Through these groups I've met several people who have been helpful with their war stories and gentle prodding to get me in the right direction.  I even met Nancy through the Guppies, while looking for Beta Readers.

Also through the Guppies, I was turned on to the blog by CJ Lyons, titled "No Rules, Just Write."  Her blog arrives in my inbox every few days with amazing gems for writers.  Some of the past titles are Creativity's Secret Ingredient and Find the Heart of Your Story, and--being a self-published author herself--she has many blogs to help those interested in that as well.

Ms. Lyons even offers a great tutorial on how to format your book for publishing on Amazon's Kindle.  In 5 Easy Steps to Format Your e-Book she walks you through step-by-step instructions for getting it set up.

For those of you interested in publishing on Smashwords, they also offer in-depth guidelines on how to make your manuscript e-reader friendly.  Their information reads more like stereo instructions, but I highly recommend you read them anyway.  I didn't at first, and my short story was delayed from being published on their site for two weeks because of it.  And those who could see the story, it looked all wonky and weird.  NOT a good example of your "professionalism" in this business.

As for the cover of my story, that I made myself.  I used Adobe Photoshop software, and bought some images from Getty Images.  You can also buy stock photos from Shutterstock, or iStockPhoto.  These sites offer royalty free images that you can buy and use as many times as you want.  I also purchased a bundle from Getty, which allows me to download five pictures for one price.  I'm not sure if Shutterstock or iStockPhoto have that option as well, but I would assume they do.

For those of you not Photoshop savvy, you could check with neighbors or friends who might have knowledge of the software.  Lots of people are getting into graphics and graphic design these days, so I'm sure they wouldn't be hard to find.  But, if you're interested in learning it on your own, it's quite fun to see what you can create in Photoshop.  Yes, a professional would be able to make a great cover for your book, but they can also cost a pretty penny.  I'm sure it's worth it, but you have to look at where your finances are, realistically.

Hopefully this has given you some help and knowledge.  Stay tuned while I learn how to market my book(s), and I'll give you those pointers down the road.  :o)

Sock Puppets, Fake Controversies, Pretend Reviews, and Using Readers as Editors

Once again, I’m using Writers Who Kill to help me think my way through a wild situation in publishing. I doubt if anyone reading this attended the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival at Harrogate since it’s in the UK. (I would dearly love a chance to attend it one of these days!) This whole mess of worms (or snakes) came out at that conference and has been widening on the internet. That’s the reason I know about it. I follow several great British thriller writers on Twitter. And they’ve only risen in my estimation because they’ve taken on this mess and tried to get one of their peers to stop doing these bad behaviors and others to stop ignoring and allowing him. Not surprisingly, Jeremy Duns, who exposed Quentin Rowe’s plagiarism and other instances where authors have stolen the work of other writers and passed it off as their own, has led the charge on this, along with another fine British writer, Steve Mosby, who was a member of the controversial panel.

http://storify.com/stevemosby/jeremy-duns-on-stephen-leather-s-sock-puppetry-and

Stephen Leather is one of the UK’s top-selling writers. Sitting on a panel about e-publishing during Theakston, he publicly stated that he has many sock puppet (i.e., fake and disguised) email and Twitter accounts that he uses to give great reviews to his books on Amazon and Goodreads and rotten reviews to those he deems competition or whose authors he simply dislikes. He bragged about using the accounts to attack himself and other accounts to defend himself on Amazon, Goodreads, and Kindle discussion boards in order to create fake controversies that will get readers to buy his books out of curiosity. When another author panelist said he couldn’t put out work as fast as Leather does because of the need for quality writing and editing, Leather remarked that he doesn’t worry about that—he uses his readers as editors. If enough of them notify him about a problem, he apparently fixes it sometime in the future. Here’s the link to an initial account of the panel by another panelist.

http://www.theleftroom.co.uk/?p=1716

A number of authors have taken issue with these behaviors, led by Duns and writers from the UK. The use of sock puppet accounts alone (on an apparently large scale) damages the effectiveness of Amazon and Goodreads reviews. If one major-trade-published and self-published bestselling author does this, it leads one to wonder how many others are also doing it, perhaps on a smaller scale—since Leather’s scale of this activity is vast. How can any review be trusted? How can any discussion on any book discussion board be taken seriously? And apparently, Leather also uses these fake accounts to cyber-bully (much less successful) authors he dislikes for some reason.

http://www.theleftroom.co.uk/?p=1724

Then there’s the matter of putting out work you know is not ready for publication with the expectation that the readers who buy it (thinking this has been professionally written and edited) are responsible for editing it. This is something that’s actually fairly common with some self-published writers, though without the shameless openness about it. (Please, self-pubbed readers, take note of the qualifiers in that sentence!) What does this do to the whole market for books, especially e-books? It seems to me that it causes the most harm to those self-published writers who have been professional and paid (with money or time) to have their books edited in order to give their readers the best possible experiences. It’s not going to cause readers to avoid trade-published books where that’s not a major issue, but it may well cause them to avoid self-pubbed books after having been burned too often. And that’s not fair to the many self-published writers who invest in putting out a professional-quality book.

I guess what bothers me is that there’s a fundamental dishonesty about all of these behaviors—tricking readers with false reviews and fake controversies, as well as tricking them into thinking they’re paying good money for a professionally written and edited book. I also think it contributes to the reason so many sales and review outlets still won’t accept self-pubbed books. If you do, you open yourself to a flood of books that include a fair number of these kinds with little or no way to tell one from the other without taking a great deal of time and trouble. The easiest way is to simply say “no self-published books.”

What do you think, readers? Is this, as Stephen Leather says, a tempest in a teapot, or are these serious issues with consequences for the industry, or at least the self-published part of the industry?

(NOTE: I use “self-published” rather than “independently published” because I come out of literary publishing—my husband still works in that field—where an independent publisher has long been a small press that does not publish the work of the publisher.)

Jumping In to the Deep End

I've rarely been one who gets all the information before jumping into a situation.  If I want to do something, I do it, and pay whatever consequences later. That's not to say that I'm reckless--at least, I don't think of myself that way--but I'm not someone who likes to do a bunch of research before doing things that I'm interested in.  I'm much more impulsive than that.

I say this in relation to trying out new activities.  For instance, when I wanted a new quilt years ago, I bought some fabric and started sewing it together, rather than read up on it first.  I had never made a quilt before then, and I didn't follow a pattern (other than the one in my head), nor did I know what size I was shooting for.  I simply measured my bed and added a couple inches.  It wound up taking me quite a while to finish the quilt--and there were many times I had to pull out the stitching and redo what I’d spent so much time on--but I was proud of myself for having done it.  I’ve even made quite a few of them since, and still haven't looked at a quilting book for tips.

Then, there was the time I got a free couch off of Craigslist that needed new upholstery.  I did find a book on the subject and glanced through it, but I got a little bored with all the detail described in the book.  So I decided to just take the old fabric off, cut the new pieces of cloth from the old ones, and reattach the new pieces.  That project also included some altering every now and then.  There are some small gaps in the fabric here and there, but unless I point them out, most people can't tell.  Those gaps wouldn't be there if I'd taken it to a professional, but the couch has still served us well these last 3 years.

I use this same approach in my writing, apparently.  I recently decided to e-publish a short story of mine on Amazon and Smashwords.  I know there is much speculation about whether that’s a wise thing for an unknown author to do, but I also know me.  If I take the time to learn all the ins and outs of the publishing world, I'm sure I would get overwhelmed, and wind up not following through with it.  Whether out of boredom or fear I'm not sure . . . probably a little of both.  So I’d much rather jump into the deep end of the pool, as it were, and learn how to swim through all the mistakes and rough patches that will come my way.  I've no doubt that there will be many lessons I could've learned before taking this big a leap, but I find that doing it this way makes it more interesting to me.

So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce my short story . . .

High school sophomore Tabitha Patterson receives her first paid assignment: follow Sarah's boyfriend and find out who the redhead is that he's been seen with. With the help of her best friend, Stu, Tab discovers that--in order to solve a mystery--sometimes you have to get your hands a little dirty . . .

You can download it at the following sites:

          Amazon.com for Kindle at:  Sarah and the Other Woman
          Smashwords for other e-readers at:  Sarah and the Other Woman

I hope you enjoy the story.  Now, I’m off to dive into the Marketing deep end . . .