January 2012 – Page 2 – President of Outskirts Press

Designing a Facebook Welcome Page – Part One

Last month, Outskirts Press added approximately 1,500 new Facebook friends to our company Facebook page. Sure, when compared against Facebook pages boasting millions of “likes” this isn’t very impressive, but when one considers that we had approximately 2,500 “likes” at the beginning of December, adding over 1500 new friends in 31 days is pretty good. At least, I thought so…

How did we do it?

Over the next several weeks, I’m going to show you, by taking what we did in December, modifying it for our current Facebook efforts in 2012, and detailing the exact steps you can take on your own Facebook page. Granted, many of these steps may be more applicable for a branded company page than for a personal profile; but if you’re an author, you ARE a brand (or should be), so these are steps to pay attention to, also. And even if you already have a Facebook Welcome page, this will be a series worth reading since I’ll reveal some helpful tips to systemize it, along with a technical trick very few people know to keep your welcome page from always showing up, even for those people who have already “liked” you.

There will be two parts to this series of posts about Facebook Welcome Pages. The first part, which we will begin tomorrow, begins with the discussion of the “creative” element to Welcome pages. Then, after we cover that portion, we’ll continue on to the technical side. Both portions are equally important. After all, it doesn’t matter if you know how to “do” something if you don’t have anything worth “doing.” And right there, that’s kind of similar to book publishing, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how easy self publishing has become if you don’t have a good book to publish. (Of course, that’s what ghostwriting services are for…)

See you next time for the “creative” of a Facebook welcome page…

Amazon, compare self publishing companies

The funniest self publishing contractual clause

For three weeks I have been examining the top ten funniest self-publishing contractual clauses from competitors and dissecting what the legalese means and why each clause is “funny.” What is perhaps funniest of all is that all ten of these clauses have been from the same single competitor.

#1 Funniest Clause from the Competitor’s Contract – You acknowledge that you have no input or control over the price at which your Titles are sold.

What it means: It seems pretty clear what it means.

Why it’s funny: What’s “funny” (i.e., worrisome) is that some authors are willingly relinquishing control over their own books to such a degree.

Wouldn’t you rather publish a book with Outskirts Press, where the sixth clause in our author-friendly contract is: “AUTHORS SET THEIR OWN RETAIL PRICE to any price ending in .95 cents, provided the Retail Price exceeds the Wholesaler’s Price.” (And between you and me, if you don’t want your book ending in .95, it doesn’t have to).

Amazon, compare self publishing companies

2nd funniest self publisher’s contractual clause

For the last 2 weeks I’ve been examining the top ten funniest self-publishing contractual clauses from competitors and dissecting what the legalese means and why it’s “funny.” This week we’re doing the top three and yesterday I did #3. Here’s the…

2nd Funniest Clause from the Competitor’s Contract – We will have sole discretion to determine the production, appearance and format of each Unit (for example, bar code placement).

What it means: You have no control over what your book looks like or even what size it’s going to be.

Why it’s funny: Can you imagine thinking you’re publishing an 8×5 paperback book only to receive a 8.5 x 11 hardback instead? I’m not suggesting this competitor actually does such a thing — but… you have to wonder why it’s in their contract…

And tomorrow, the #1 funniest self-publishing contractual clause…

Amazon, compare self publishing companies

3rd funniest contractual clause from a self publishing company

3rd Funniest Clause from the Competitor’s Contract – We may terminate this Agreement at any time by sending you an e-mail notice at the e-mail address associated with your account. Our notice of such termination will be effective at the time we send you the notice. Upon termination, you will pay us whatever fees were incurred prior to the date of the termination.

What it means: They can stop working with you and your book at any time for any reason with nothing more than an email, at which time you are still required to pay them whatever you owe them, regardless of whether they actually delivered upon the Agreement’s terms (since, you know, they’ve just terminated it).

Why it’s funny: Why isn’t it funny? And adding insult to injury are the other clauses in this particular competitor’s contract that I covered last week–after the contract is terminated, this publisher still gets to store your entire book’s content on its servers and continue displaying your book on its website, forever…)

Tomorrow, #2…