self publishing – Page 14 – President of Outskirts Press

The Best Book of the Year Award selection process

When it comes to awards, our authors are already pretty prolific. From the Benjamin Franklin Awards to ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards and the Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book Awards, Outskirts Press is often represented with talented winners and finalists. Since we understand the value of our authors being recognized by these contests, we do our best to encourage them to submit their book(s) for as many awards as they can. Winning an award or being recognized as a finalist is a great reason to send out another press release, initiate another PR Publicist Campaign, create another book video and upload it to YouTube, etc. In fact, being a finalist or winner in a book contest can breathe new life into all book marketing efforts. And it should. Depending upon which source you believe, there are upwards of 500,000 books published every year in America. A statistical handful win awards. That’s the true quality gatekeeper; not the publisher and not the reader.

Our close relationship with the Colorado Independent Publishers Association also means that many of our authors are familiar with the CIPA EVVY Book Awards, which recognizes excellence in independently published books. Each year we officially nominate approximately 5% of our published titles for submission to the EVVY Book Awards. To help us narrow down the manuscripts, only books published with the Diamond and full-color Pearl packages are considered for nomination. It’s also an unwritten rule — there, I just wrote it — that the books should feature a custom cover design and be professionally edited. After all, we want our official EVVY nominated books to shine, and shine they do: Since beginning our participation in the EVVY Awards, Outskirts Press has been the winningest publisher each year among all participating publishers. Each year we win approximately 10-15 EVVY Awards.

So, in other words, we already have an established method for determining the top 1% of the books we publish each year at Outskirts Press — our EVVY Award winners. The Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award goes a few steps further. From among all the EVVY-winning books Outskirts Press will select three finalists, in much the same manner we determined the winner of our December Best Book Promotion, Irv Sternberg and his book The Persian Project.

From among those finalists, a winner is determined. How? That’s the next blog topic…

Outskirts Press Book of the Year Award

This month our self-publishing company Outskirts Press announced our “Book of the Year Award.” The talented author of the winning publication will receive a $1500 credit to his or her Outskirts Press shopping cart. In essence, the author is getting published for free (since none of our packages cost as much as $1,500).

As the self-publishing industry continues to grow, book awards and contests will become more important. After all, it used to be that publishing a book was, in itself, a testament to the book’s quality. Times have changed with technology. Now that POD publishing makes the act of publishing a book so fast, easy, and affordable, readers need another method for determining if a book is worth their time and money. And writers seeking validation need another method for determining if their writing “has what it takes.”

There are those in the self-publishing industry who have said that POD publishing “opens the gates” and allows customers to determine quality rather than the publishers. More democratic certainly, but the problem with that philosophy is that it asks customers to take a leap of faith on the quality of a book, often times sight unseen. Many readers are hesitant to do that, and an otherwise stellar self-published book can have low sales volume as a result.

Book contests and awards help high-quality self-published books stand out from the crowd. With the launch of our own Award, we wanted to present our authors with an exclusive opportunity to state without reservation, “My book is the best book published by my publisher this year.” So our Best Book of the Year Award was born.

The trick to any book award is making the selection process fair, balanced, accurate, and democratic, and I’ll talk about that next time.

branding, marketing, self publishing

Best Book announced

Waaaaay back in December, we ran a promotion looking for the best book submitted to us for publication in that month. The idea behind the promotion was to imitate a traditional publishing submission and publishing process — that is, to identify one single manuscript from among all the submissions we received and “accept it” for free publication and grant it an “advance” of sorts. I wrote about this in a previous blog posting in March.

Two days ago we announced the best book and the talented author in our most recent newsletter: The Persian Project, by Mark Irving.

Mark Irving is the pen name for Irv Sternberg, who has published two previous books with Outskirts Press, both of them regional bestsellers. And for those of you who fear I might be “letting the cat out of the bag” by revealing the author’s nom de plume, you can relax; Mr. Sternberg is open about his double-identity.

Congratulations, Irv!

Now we’re putting the finishing touches on a larger and more exciting “Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year” recognition program for 2010. We will hopefully announce it in July. The good news is that (unlike last year) this program will apply to all the Diamond or Pearl books we have published or will publish in 2010, not just those that come in after–or as a result of–this announcement.

ceo, marketing, self publishing

Self Publishing Version 4

My recent posts have briefly touched upon the new website Outskirts Press launched over Memorial Day weekend, which we are lovingly referring to as Version 4. Is this the 4th “version” of the site we’ve had? No; we’ve had more than that.

Version 4 comes from a convoluted history of enhancement-naming conventions. When I was single-handedly programming the first few versions of the Outskirts Press website in CGI and Perl (way back in 2002, 2003 and 2004), it went through a number of different “looks.” As the number of books we published exploded from 51 in 2004 to 220 in 2005, it started to become apparent that the site I had programmed was not sufficient for all the books we were publishing. In other words, it was bending under the quantity and demands we were putting on it.

So, the IT department was taxed with rebuilding the site from the ground up. This involved a migration of the programming and data to SQL. They started calling that first SQL version of the website SQL 1. Very little changed aesthetically with that first migration. It was a daunting enough task simply migrating all the author records and data into the SQL databases.

Once the foundation was in place to handle our growth, and once SQL 1 was working, we immediately began working on some aesthetic improvements that leveraged the new, faster advantages resulting from the SQL databases. These improvements became known internally as SQL 2.

Last year we launched SQL 3, which was a combination of some database improvements and aesthetic improvements, mostly involving the internal Author’s Center portions of our website. In other words, we were using resources to improve the experience for our core group of customers.

Even before SQL 3 was launched, I was already working (at least in my mind) on the next leap forward for our website and our company. This fundamental change was known as SQL 4 by our IT team, but since “SQL” has very little resonance outside of the IT world, we decided from a marketing & branding perspective to call it “Version 4” instead, more akin to software releases and operating systems.

So that’s the genesis of the name. With the next posts we’ll talk about the fundamental differences and improvements with Version 4 of the new and improved Outskirts Press, along with some hiccups along the way.

ceo, marketing, self publishing

Migrating a website

Any entrepreneur, business owner, CEO, or manager knows that running a successful business is hard. People with conflicting personalities push and pull, motivated by their department’s agendas. Fortunately, most of these internal struggles remain where they belong–inside, away from the microscope of the customer/client’s eyes. The goal is to keep these struggles internal even when the product instigating the struggle is for “public consumption” like a new consumer product, or a piece of software, or a new website.

The world is filled with examples of these internal struggles if you look hard enough. You might periodically notice a movie poster or advertisement announcing the date the movie opens, only to discover later that it was moved to a different date altogether. Or you might be waiting anxiously for a new computer game based upon its release date and then become frustrated when the game is postponed another six months.

The two opposing forces in all these cases are usually the same: the marketing (creative) people VS the business (financial) people.

They are each motivated by their own agendas, albeit for the overall betterment of the company. They just have different perspectives. Creative people want to broadcast their accomplishments with marketing and PR. After all, what’s the point of working so hard on something if no one knows about it?

On the other hand, business people want to manage risk (what’s the point of bringing a whole bunch of people to something if it “doesn’t work?”). There are a variety of different definitions of something not working. In the case of the movie example above, the definition of “doesn’t work” usually falls into one of two camps to motivate a release date reschedule. Either the movie is literally not completed yet, or a different, potentially better, movie is “getting in the way” – which might dampen box office receipts.

In the case of the computer game example, the definition of “doesn’t work” is typically quite literal. The release date might be moved simply because the game does not run– or does not run properly. Ironically, in many cases, the business (financial) people can be responsible for releasing a piece of software like a computer game too early, even if it doesn’t work properly. After all, they are also motivated by quarterly revenue projections and stockholder expectations, etc.

We have four main departments at Outskirts Press, and the launch of the Version 4 website involved all of them. We have two “creative” sides, i.e. the sales/marketing side and the book production side. We also have two “business” sides, i.e. the technical (website) side and the accounting side. Sure, there are technicalities involved in properly producing a book, but when compared with the technicalities involved in creating a dynamic, database-driven e-commerce website, producing a book falls squarely into the “creative.”

The creative sides wanted to start announcing the new website a while ago, to build excitement for new authors as well as inform current authors of the functionality and navigation changes. The business sides wanted to wait until 4-6 weeks after it was live, to put it through its paces and make sure everything was working flawlessly.

Like all business relationships, and most relationships of any sort, a compromise was reached. We let our current authors know about the changes over Memorial Day weekend, but are holding out any big announcements for a few days, not withstanding some brief mentions of it on my blog — this one and a few early mentions of it in the past (I just couldn’t help myself; it is all I’ve been working on for months).

So why do we feel Version 4 of Outskirts Press is so special? We’ll get to that in an upcoming posting…

partnerships, self publishing

Colorado Humanities publishes with Outskirts Press

Our first book for Colorado Humanities was published at the end of April. The title is 2010 Student Literary Awards Anthology: Winning Art, Poems and Letters by Colorado Students.

As the title suggests, it is an anthology of the winning entries in this year’s Student Literary and Art awards, held by the Colorado Humanities and sponsored by Outskirts Press.

It is a beautiful full-color publication at the 5.5″ x 8.5″ trim size, which we made available earlier this year. Proceeds from the sale of the book support the literacy and art programs of Colorado Center for the Book.

You can read the full press release by clicking here and you can purchase the book on Amazon by clicking here.

Amazon, self publishing

Sell Your Book on Amazon – Second Edition updates

For those of you who purchased the first edition of Sell Your Book on Amazon and are wondering whether it is worth buying the second edition, here is a quick rundown of the major changes. I already discussed in a previous post the cover changes, table of contents changes, and indexing changes — although none of those changes apply to the actual content of the book.

The first major change was Amazon’s migration from AmazonConnect to Author Central and how that affects methods for updating your bibliography, your author profile, your blog, and other features on Amazon. Some of those features previously existed in your Amazon account profile and others previously existed on the product sales page for your book, like the blog, for instance. With Author Central, much of the specific functionality geared toward authors was consolidated in one place. Does this mean you can focus solely on Author Central now, instead of your Author account profile? No, because Listmania, Guides, Reviews, your signature header, and other important elements of Amazon promotion still exist in your Amazon account profile. Author Central just means that now you have to keep two different accounts updated. Isn’t that nice?

The second major change involved Amazon’s launch of the Kindle and Amazon’s subsequent migration from their previous ebook system to their current Digital Text Platform system. Do I recommend a Kindle edition for every book? You betch’a.

Other smaller changes were made to bring the second edition in line with current Amazon guidelines and functionality. These include:

minor alterations to the recommendations I make regarding reviews in light of Amazon’s guidelines changes
minor alterations to the process for creating a Listmania list in light of Amazon’s guideline changes
minor alterations to the process for creating an Amazon Guide in light of Amazon’s guideline changes
several minor alterations to the Book Detail Page chapter in light of moderate changes Amazon made to the sales detail pages — mostly involving analytic information available for the book after it undergoes Search Inside scanning
minor alterations to the procedure for using tagging and “search submissions” for promotion since Amazon has since migrated all manual search submissions into their tagging engine
alterations to the BXGY promotion since Amazon no longer offers that to non-Advantage members
minor alterations to the Publisher’s and Book Sellers Guide analysis since that page is largely out of date even on Amazon’s own site

That’s about it. So if you want to purchase the second edition of SELL YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON, click here.

Amazon, marketing, self publishing

Sell Your Book on Amazon – cover tactic

Previously I discussed some of the cover issues to consider when publishing a book and marketing it on the internet, particularly Amazon. I encouraged authors to consider altering the cover image they submit to Amazon to utilize a greater percentage of the “space” Amazon allocates for the image.

Let’s look at an actual example, using my book SELL YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON…

Most people won’t search for your book by title or by your name. They will search on Amazon for a keyword or phrase that captures their interest. One of the very popular keyword phrases I optimize for is “book marketing.” When conducting that search on Amazon today, my book appeared number 10 in the listings on the first page, as shown below:

It comes in directly below The Frugal Book Promoter and two places above Jump Start Your Book Sales. But I’ll bet your eyes naturally gravitated to THOSE two books first, prior to mine in the image above. Well, that’s not good — at least, not for me. The white in my cover gets lost within the white of the webpage, while both those covers are bright. In fact, they’re yellow… hmmm, I wonder why that is…

Granted, The Frugal Book Promoter and Jump Start Your Book Sales are both very good online covers because, surprise surprise, they’re about book marketing, too! The authors are experts in doing exactly what they’re doing for their own books. My point is, in all likelihood, your book won’t be competing with marketing experts. If your book is about bank financing, your competition may not be online marketing savvy, but that’s all the MORE reason to take steps to make YOUR book about bank financing outshine the others, right?

But which image does your eye gravitate toward in this next screen shot? It’s the same search for “book marketing” on Amazon. The titles are all in the same order… I’ve simply adjusted the image that comes up for my book cover:

My image is almost twice as big, which makes the title stand out more, and I’ve replaced the white with a bright, obnoxious yellow to attract attention. I’m not trying to win any design contests here on Amazon — I’m trying to sell books!

This is an Amazon marketing option we’re considering offering to our authors, so we’re in the process of guinea pigging it — yes, I’ve made that an active verb again — with all my books and then keeping an eye on the Amazon Sales Ranking to see if it makes a statistical difference…

There are two problematic elements to this that we’re currently ironing out. The first is that the “larger” image gets degraded a little bit if Amazon adds the “Look Inside” graphic for Search Inside the Book books. The second is that the Kindle edition graphic, in my opinion, looks too similar to the paperback and hardback editions on Amazon. Sure, Amazon adds that little “kindle graphic” on the detail page. But I don’t think that’s good enough. For example, due to the “look inside” graphic outlined above, you will notice on the screen shot below, that the Kindle edition of my book actually looks MORE appealing than the paperback. There might be some situations where that’s preferable, but this isn’t one of them.

Hint: the first book is the paperback edition and the 3rd book is the Kindle edition.

ceo, self publishing

Entrepreneur of the Year Criteria #4

According to Gregory K. Ericksen in his book Entrepreneur of the Year Award: Insights From the Winner’s Circle, the fourth criteria the judges use to help them determine a winner involves the culture, values, and incentives surrounding the work force, the company, and the community.

An example of this involves our EVVY Book Awards. Every Diamond and Pearl book we publish is eligible to be nominated for an official Outskirts Press EVVY Award Nomination. Those nominees are subsequently submitted to the annual Colorado Independent Publishers Association EVVY Awards. Recently we won 16 different awards, the most among all participating publishers.

The Outskirts Press production team members for each first, second, and third place award also won compensatory bonuses for their valued contributions in producing EVVY-award-winning books for their authors. One of our internal goals at Outskirts Press is to help our authors publish award-winning books. So by creating a bonus structure for our production department that recognizes when that goal is met, our authors are happier and our cover designers, book formatters, and author representatives are happier, too. Win-win.

Another example is our $10,000 donation to the Colorado Humanities last December and our sponsorship of their Colorado Book Awards and Student Literary Awards.

Later this week, on May 6th, the winners of the Colorado Humanities Student Literary Awards will be announced in Denver. I will be attending the event and revealing the full-color anthology, published by Outskirts Press. The anthology is titled 2010 Student Literary Awards Anthology: Winning Art, Poems and Letters by Colorado Students.

Handing out awards to young and aspiring writers is very fulfilling. And seeing their faces light up when they discover they are published authors is extraordinary. I love it. Another win-win. And that is culture, values, and incentives in a nutshell.

branding, self publishing

Does self-publishing mix with the AWP Conference?

Last week the AWP Conference took place in Denver, Colorado. AWP is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and their annual conference is one of the largest of its kind in the country. An estimated 5000-7500 guests and exhibitors flock to the conference each year, which is held in various venues across the country. Last year it took place in Chicago and next year it takes place in Washington D.C.

The Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado was the venue for the 2010 conference, which is just a stone’s throw from Outskirts Press, on the outskirts of Denver in Parker. I attended the conference personally and Outskirts Press donated 5,000 copies of one of my books, Self-Publishing Simplified, for the AWP Conference goodie bags.

After all, if the exhibitors are any indication, this is a great place to reach writers. For example, the publishers for Writer’s Digest and The Writer were both there in person and I was pleased to finally meet them in person, considering our 5-year sponsorship of the Writer’s Digest Writing Competition Collection and the on-going advertising we place in The Writer magazine. All wonderful people. Some of my associates and friends from CIPA and SPAN were there as well.

Since I had never been to the conference before, I went somewhat incognito, to get a sense of the conference, the seminars, the speakers, and the attendees. The idea of sponsoring, exhibiting, or speaking — or a combination thereof — at a future conference has been suggested to me several times. Attending this one in Denver provided an opportunity to see if that would make sense.

And the verdict? It will depend upon results of the tracking code we put in the pages of the 5,000 free books we supplied.

And I’ll end this post with a related suggestion – if you give away free copies of your book or service or product for the purposes of marketing, always be sure there is a mechanism in place to track the results.