self publishing – Page 6 – President of Outskirts Press

The trouble with blogging – part five

I think I already mentioned that as a writer, the disorganization of the “typical” blog bothers me, and that may be why, instinctively, I start doing things that “force” organization to blogs, like naming them “parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5,” for instance. But that very philosophy is somewhat contrary to blogs in general. The disorganziation and immedicacy is what appeals to many people… and then “twitter” took that one step even further…

For example, blogs appear in reverse-chronological order, so writing a “series” requires new readers who come upon the blog in the middle to either miss the beginning or “scroll down” to the start. But do they scroll down? I would, because I like organization. But that very requirement of having to scroll down just to get to the “start” of something troubles me. Perhaps it’s the writer in me… I know that novels begin on page one. But blogs begin on the date they started, and that first blog isn’t at the top of the blog; it’s at the bottom.

It’s even more problematic since I’m writing many of these blogs in advance, and usually writing multiple blogs on the same day, and then scheduling them to appear on different days in the future. For example, I started this “Trouble With Blogging” series on January 3, but am scheduling them to appear throughout January, with the last posting in the series scheduled for the end of the month. But if I keep having to worry about writing a “series” in order to force a particular organization, I am probably missing the point of blogs…

Speaking of which, I just saw a link in the WordPress help section called “Write a book” and of course, being president of Outskirts Press, that phrase intrigued me, so I read the tip in which WordPress outlined a process for organizing a blog in a more traditional, book-like manner. Judging from the amount of blogs I’ve seen that offer any sort of organization like that (namely, none), I’d say that doesn’t seem to be too popular of a topic on WordPress.

Perhaps what people are expecting to see when they click on a “Write a book” link is a procedure by which they can take the content of their blog and publish a book out of it, and to that, all I have to say is… “We can help you with that.”

FREE self-publishing e-book

This week we’re trying something new. We’re giving away the e-book edition of Adventures in Publishing without first requiring an email address. Giving away the e-book of Adventures in Publishing and Self-Publishing Simplified has been one of the successful ways we have acquired a pretty extensive email database. But I’m sure an equal (or greater) number of writers don’t feel compelled enough to part with their email address just to read a free e-book. And, as a result, we are missing an opportunity to share the benefit and value of our services with them.

Yes, offering something for “free” in exchange for an email address, or some other contact information, is an effective and persuasive tool in the Internet age. But if the “free product” is compelling in its own right, you may want to consider providing it even WITHOUT the email requirement. Perhaps more people will read it as a result, and perhaps more people will find it a valuable solution to their particular situation, which may lead them to contacting you and volunteering their email address on their own. And wouldn’t that be better for everyone?

That’s the logic of this little experiment, at any rate… So, without further ado, here is the free e-book edition of Adventures in Publishing…

self publishing

The difference between “self publishing” and a “self publishing company”

I would like to address a point of contention and misunderstanding facing the author-supported self-publishing industry today, and that is the chasm between “self-publishing” and “self-publishing companies” or what some call “vanity” publishing. Authors who have traditionally published books or independently published their own books by doing all the work themselves often denounce “self-publishing companies” as either “vanity” publishers if they’re being nice, or “scams” if they’re feeling particularly hostile. Neither term is accurate; although I can appreciate their point of view–they’ve worked hard to accomplish something that self-publishing companies make relatively easy, so you can’t blame them for being mad.

Ultimately, much of the confusion comes down to semantics, and a misunderstanding of what differentiates “self-publishing” from a “self-publishing company.” I imagine “self-publishing companies” may use the term “self-publishing” in their marketing efforts, not to anger independent self-publishers, but rather to SET THE EXPECTATIONS of their own authors.

By labeling services as “self-publishing” there is an attempt to make it clear to the authors who use such services that their success rests largely on their own shoulders, just as it does for authors who independently self-publish. The difference is that with self-publishing companies, instead of incurring the time and effort of establishing a DBA or LLC or C-Corp or S-Corp or sole-proprietorship with the state, reviewing cover designers, seeking interior formatters, getting bids from printers, acquiring ISBNs, dealing with Ingram, dealing with fulfillment, dealing with returns, dealing with accounts receivables, dealing with taxes, etc., etc., etc., the author is incurring a service charge and having all those details taken care of for them. It’s not right for everyone, but it is right for a lot of people.

There are a growing number of companies in the “self publishing” industry. And why not? As the traditional publishing industry continues to struggle, the self-publishing industry is growing at a steady pace and is earning more respectability daily. The internet has made it possible for anyone to sell a book globally (on sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble) and has also improved the book marketing reach of authors who leverage popular sites like YouTube and twitter.

Very soon, traditional and bestselling authors with established names (Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, etc.) will realize they no longer need traditional publishers and will turn to “self publishing companies” for a greater stake of the profits.

“Self-publishing companies” are service companies who provide valuable (and convenient) services to writers for a fee. This is no different from any other service industry. For example, I can either choose to do my own taxes, or I can pay H&R Block to do them for me. I can either build my own house, or I can buy one that has been built by professionals, so I’m confident it won’t fall apart. I can either milk my own cow, or I can go to 7-11 and buy a gallon of milk that is ready to drink. Are people surprised that 7-11 charges money for milk? Do they get upset that 7-11 charges more money for a gallon of milk than King Soopers does? Rational people realize that convenience costs money and that industry know-how costs money. To suggest that a company cannot help you self-publish is like saying H&R Block cannot help you do your personal taxes.

Do I really want to spend my valuable time doing taxes, building a house or milking a cow–all of which first requires me to LEARN how to properly do all those things? Or would I rather calculate my own hourly rate and determine that it is more cost-effective to pay an expert to do it for me so I can spend my time doing things that are more important to me–like going to work and spending time with my family? Self-publishing companies don’t do anything that someone who is very motivated cannot do themselves with a lot of industry knowledge, effort, resources, time, and money. But much like doing taxes, building a house, and yes, even milking a cow, what seems easy at first is actually more complicated than you might expect — I would imagine. Personally, I don’t do my own taxes, build my own homes, OR milk cows for my own milk. Like most people, I pay professionals to do all those things for me.

For those authors out there who have already invested their time and energy on the steep learning curve that is “self-publishing,” naturally they don’t see the benefit of using a “self-publishing company.” But most people have better things to do, or at least, their interests lie elsewhere — most people just want to be published authors, not publishers.

You know what they say about the lawyer who represents himself, or the doctor who has herself as a patient, right? The same could be said for most authors. Sure, there are exceptions, but the services of “self publishing companies” are intended for the majority of writers, entrepreneurs and professionals out there who would find value in having a published book, but also value their time enough to let the professionals do it for them. And there’s nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is wanting desperately to be published and not doing anything about it — out of fear of failure or fear of someone else telling you that you made “a wrong choice.” The only truly wrong choice is not doing anything. As Wayne Gretzky says, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

self publishing, writing tips

The importance of editing

I underestimated how long the revision to Sell Your Book on Amazon would take. I had hoped to have it done and available by now, however the editor had quite a few suggestions, which I’m now implementing. This allows me an opportunity to stress the importance of professional copyediting when publishing a book.

A misconception that most authors who are pursuing conventional publishing have is that they don’t need to edit their work, and as a result, feel that paid copyediting services offered by publishing service companies represent another example of “money flowing the wrong way.”

Their feeling is, if they get published traditionally, “the publisher will edit it.”

It is true that IF your work gets accepted by a traditional publisher, they will edit it without any cost to you. But it’s not true that means you can submit a non-edited book for consideration.

That may be true for Stephanie Meyer, or Dan Brown, but it’s not true for you. If you are submitting an unsolicited–or even a solicited–manuscript to a publisher or literary agent, it is in your best interest to pay to have it professionally copyedited before submission.

Why? Because this is an extremely competitive industry and if your cover letter and/or query letter and/or book proposal and/or manuscript is littered with mistakes — or even contains just a few — that makes it all the easier to reject.

I’ll be the first to admit that every book I’ve published has contained at least one error — and that’s WITH editing! Imagine if I didn’t have them edited. The beauty of print-on-demand is that those mistakes are much easier to correct than a 5,000-10,0000 print-run containing errors. A number of my readers have been kind enough to politely point out small things I or my editor overlooked, and presto-done, POD makes post-publication changes a snap! That’s why pencils have erasers, keyboards have “Backspace” and why Outskirts Press has its revision option. — Why? Because we’re all human.

blogging, self publishing

The trouble with blogging – part one

Even though, officially, I’m a “fan” of blogging and I suggest that all entrepreneurs, professionals, and writers partake in the exercise of blogging on a consistent basis, for a variety of reasons, I have some basic difficulties with the whole thing. I can appreciate the philosophy behind blogging, the concept, but when the logistics, the reality, start to unfold, it just really isn’t all that it is supposed to be cracked up to be.

There – that previous sentence is a perfect example of one of my troubles with blogging. The writing can be … sloppy. Let’s face it, the majority of blogs out there are hard to read because they contain spelling and grammatical errors. If you can filter through the majority of blogs and arrive upon the minority that are professionally written, you are still, more often than not, presented with a level of writing that is redundant and messy, not fully fleshed-out, or not organized in any manner.

For example, I run each of my blog posts through a spell checker before I hit the “publish” button, but there are those out there who are cutting their teeth on the instant-gratification-world of blogs, twitter, and youtube, who would argue that “spell checking” a blog misses the whole point! And then after I spell check it, I paste it back into the WordPress box, and then re-read it for grammar and, for lack of a better term, “user-friendliness.”

But, in many cases, I may want to add a sentence or two of clarification to my previously spell-checked work and no matter how careful I believe I am, a typo may sometimes slip through. Do I have time to spell-check it again? Or do I have time to drastically re-write sentences or even paragraphs in an attempt to make the writing “better” or more organized? Personally, I don’t and judging from the blogs in existence, few bloggers do. Now as the president of a self-publishing company, I’m hardly in a position to say “Blogging is fundamentally evil because it makes it easy to be a sloppy writer.”

No, I wouldn’t say it’s evil. But blogging does make it easier to be a sloppy writer, at least for me. And as a writer, I need things to motivate me to be a stronger writer, not things that allow me to be a weaker one.

Of course, the other side of the argument is that blogging, and self-publishing for that matter, at least encourages, and in many cases rewards, the act of writing itself — and in this day and age of movies, video games, and Iphones, that’s a small miracle that perhaps grants it some slack.

publicity, self publishing

Speaking of HARO and Haiti

In my last post I praised an online service called Help a Reporter, and no sooner had I pushed the “Publish” button on that post when I was contacted by a New York reporter for my comments on the self-publishing industry who also found me — or I found her — thanks to HARO.

Naturally, I have a lot of things to say on the topic of self-publishing, and was only too happy to provide her with some publishing success stories when she asked. Like, most recently, Mr. Craig Juntunen, author of Both Ends Burning: My Story of Adopting Three Children from Haiti.

In the wake of the catastrophe in Haiti, Mr. Juntunen’s book has led to numerous radio and television interviews, increasing awareness of not only his book, but also his noble efforts at Chances for Children where Mr. Juntunen is the Chairman.

I called Craig yesterday to ask how Outskirts Press could help him. We weren’t alone. The NBA basketball team Phoenix Suns were already parterning with Craig and Chances for Children, and Craig alluded to some preliminary interest from both the Oprah and Larry King camps.

Mr. Juntunen published a book with Outskirts Press to share an inspiring message with the world. He is well on his way and his royalties go toward his cause. Let’s all support his efforts and the on-going relief efforts by making a donation either at the American Red Cross or through the Chances for Children website.

Amazon, self publishing

Self Publishing Simplified – Kindle Edition

We are relaunching our Kindle Edition option this month. Actually, we are “relaunching” a number of our author services options this month, because we’ve added more benefits to each of them while retaining the same retail price. The CD Media Kit and Enhanced Audio Excerpt each come with an included 30 minute phone consultation with a Marketing Assistant, while the relaunched Book Video Trailers are now cooler than ever, and feature improved social distribution, including links on twitter and Facebook.

One of these relaunched options is the Kindle, and this is a perfect time to announce it, with the release of the new Amazon Kindle app version 1.3 for the Iphone and Ipod Touch. This new app makes all Kindle books available for download and reading on the iPhone! This is big news for self-publishing authors, so while we announce this new benefit (and incentive to create a Kindle edition) we will also emphasize our improvements in formatting Kindle editions that actually look — you know — good. Forums and blogs are filled to the brim with this topic — the complexity and “pain” associated with converting a heavily formatted document — particularly one designed in inDesign, as nearly all Outskirts Press books are– into a Kindle edition that is aesthetically pleasing.

And to kick it all off, the Kindle edition of Self-Publishing Simplified was made available this week, at the lowest price I could set it, 99 cents. The whole point of this book (both the paperback and now the Kindle) is to demonstrate the pricing flexibility available to Outskirts Press authors. I would have sold the paperback edition on Amazon for less than $5.95 if I could, but that price represents not only the true power of the pricing we offer — where else can you find a 108 page paperback on Amazon, new, for $5.95?– but also an accurate representation of what IS possible. There’s no wizard behind the curtain — that price IS the price listed on Amazon for a 108 page book. Our authors have the exact same pricing flexibility I do. Granted, I’m only making 7 cents each time it sells, but that’s not the point. My goal was to demonstrate that POD books don’t have to have astronomical retail prices — at least, not if you publish with us. <smile>

The 99 cent Kindle edition doesn’t exhibit that pricing flexibility to the same degree, because it appears that Amazon allows authors to set a 99 cent price whenever they want. I couldn’t set a price lower than 99 cents, though — I tried to make it free, but Amazon wouldn’t let me.

Amazon, self publishing

Sell Your Book on Amazon – Second Edition

In March of 2007 I published Sell Your Book on Amazon, which reached #29 on Amazon.com in its debut month. In a strategically-planned effort, I first recorded a series of podcasts on the same subject matter, and distributed them through RSS and Podcast feeds (including iTunes) in the late fall of 2006. I then transcribed those podcasts into a first draft (an exercise which resulted in a rapid writing process–a process I highly recommend).

In the nearly-three years since that book’s publication, Amazon has changed a lot! Some of the tactics I recommended in the book have changed or have been removed entirely. Some of the reviews (175 at last count, with an average of 4.5 stars — nothing to sneeze at!) even started to imply these were short-comings in my book, rather than recognizing that Amazon’s policies, offerings, or guidelines had changed. What was a short-coming is that a second edition was long overdue! I admit it. Sorry — I’m kinda busy.

Nevertheless, over the past few weeks I’ve been working on the Second Edition of Sell Your Book on Amazon, and I’m pleased to report it is done. The “newly revised for 2010” edition is being proof-read one last time and a new subject index is being created (one of the services we offer for authors of non-fiction books). Once these steps are completed, the revised edition will be sent to Ingram, for distribution via EDI to all the locations Sell Your Book on Amazon is available, like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, etc.

We will also update the Kindle edition with the Second Edition at the same time, and that will drastically improve the Kindle edition, too. You see, Sell Your Book on Amazon was the first Kindle edition Outskirts Press released — I use my books as “guinea pigs” for all our author services, because if our services work for me, they can work for our authors, too — and it’s no small secret that Kindle isn’t the best when it comes to converting specially-formatted books. But our Kindle option now excels at providing Kindle with versions that compensate for that platform’s formatting short-comings.

I will also upload the Second Edition to Amazon’s Search Inside, and I’m looking forward to that change, because I’m making what basically amounts to an aesthetic change to the Table of Contents which actually should improve the overall sales of the book by giving the impression of a greater degree of content. Let me explain:

With the first edition, I was purposefully sparse with the Table of Contents, forcing it entirely on one page, even though each chapter of the book was divided into sections defined by sections on the various Amazon pages I was describing.

When looking at the book via Search Inside, the table of contents makes the book appear to be lacking information because the Table of Contents is so short.

So, when writing the Second Edition, I’ve changed my philosophy with the Table of Contents to include all the various sub-sections included within each chapter. This didn’t take any additional skill, or even much more time, but it makes the book appear to be filled with way more content.

The presentation of information is often just as important as the information itself. These are the kinds of things it is important for self-publishing authors to consider…

blogging, branding, self publishing

Writers and entrepreneurs

Why, you might ask, am I spending so much time writing about choosing a theme for the blog? Isn’t this blog supposed to be about entrepreneurs, CEOs, writing, self-publishing? You know, interesting things? Yes, and it is…

Here’s one reason for the details: When I have less time to devote to the minutiae, I often advise a self-published writer or a CEO to simply “create your platform.”

And when they ask “How?” I answer “Start a blog.”

That’s short and to the point. WordPress even makes it easy. But for many people, that advice is not very helpful in its generality. Just because something is easy for one person doesn’t mean it is easy for other people and it certainly doesn’t mean they will do it “right.” And that’s a good thing, because if everyone else knew what you knew and could do what you can do, you wouldn’t have anything of value to offer or sell. The trick is taking your knowledge, infusing it with necessity, and then packaging it, and offering it to others, either for “free” as in the case of a blog, or for some amount of money as in the case of your book, product, service, or company.

When starting a blog and creating a platform, doing it “right” means taking into consideration all of the things I’ve been pontificating about for the past few posts, like branding, SEO, and here’s another one — consistent content. Blogging is like the antithesis of writing a book, which is perhaps one of the things that has always bothered me about blogging — blogs are not supposed to be succinct. If your blog is too succinct, you run out of things to say, and then your blog only lasts 5 months, like my last one did in 2005.

Although I should mention that any blog effort you make could always have a positive effect. Early in 2009 I received a call from a reporter from the New York Times who was writing an article about Kirkus Discoveries, and saw one of my blog postings about that very topic. He referred to it 4 years after I had written it, so the first few minutes of our phone conversation were interesting because, to him, I had just written it because he had just read it. Yet, for me, that posting was 4 years old in my mind. I barely remembered what he was talking about. Nevertheless, it led to an interview with the New York Times. Can’t beat that with a stick…

And that’s just one of many reasons why entrepreneurs and writers should have a blog. In fact, by and large, I’ll probably use the word “entrepreneur” and “writer” somewhat interchangeably. All self-publishing writers are, in essence, entrepreneurs. And, even though all entrepreneurs may not consider themselves authors, they should consider themselves writers. So even though I’m devoting a large portion of the beginning of this blog about inane details revolving around the selection of a blog theme, the AUDIENCE of this blog is entrepreneurs, self-publishing writers, CEOs, CMOs and other marketers (both b-2-b and b-2-c), people involved in any kind of start-up, and anyone else who would find value in improving their sales platform.

Platform. Is that a term I’ve used on this blog yet? It’s going to be a recurring topic. The cornerstone of nearly every speech and presentation I make involves creating and maintaining ones “platform” – the foundation upon which you build your career, whether you are a writer, a doctor, a speaker, or an entrepreneur. You need a platform and it needs to be branded.

And that takes us full-circle back to choosing a theme for this blog. I think I “spoke” too early with my last posting, because for some reason I though the “thinner” column of the “Contempt” theme was on the left-hand side, when in reality, it appears on the right-hand side. So far, it’s still the best theme (after Blix) that I’ve seen on WordPress, so I’ll add a few more widgets to the column and see how it holds up…

self publishing

Adding books to the blog

I’ve made a commitment to myself to invest approximately 1 hour a day to social networking enterprises–involving myself more in social networking is on my New Year’s Resolutions list– although I admit I already haven’t been doing a very good job of maintaining that average when there are so many other things that require my attention.

I try to prioritize my time based upon accomplishing goals that benefit the greatest number of our authors (or future authors) as possible, and by that benchmark, it is difficult to justify spending much time on this blog. How does THIS blog help an Outskirts Press author? It probably doesn’t, or at least it doesn’t as much as offering the Espresso Book Machine editions, which we just announced today.

Getting that option set-up for our authors took a lot of my time, but it benefits a lot of our authors (current and future authors), so in my mind, that is time well-spent. So, in the dark recesses of my mind, all I can hope is that our authors find some kernels of marketing insights from this blog and can apply concepts I introduce here to their writing, publishing, and marketing efforts in the name of making them more successful. I am a writer first, and a CEO second, so my commitment is always to our current and future authors. I’ll talk more about that soon.

Anyway, back to the story: adding books to the blog. By the time I’m writing this posting, I had already added “Self Publishing Simplified” and “Sell Your Book on Amazon” to my blog, but today I added one of my remaining books, “Adventures in Publishing.” It’s a cute little children’s book about how to publish a children’s book, with full-color illustrations and rhyming verse. It’s meant to serve as an example of what is possible at Outskirts Press while also helping potential children’s book authors with the “how to” steps required to actually get their story illustrated and published.

I have another book, “Publishing Gems” which I may or may not add. Honestly, I’m not as proud of it as I am of the other three… it was my first non-fiction book and my main goal with writing and publishing it was to simply “get it out there into the world” as quickly as possible. Our self-publishing services certainly help people accomplish that goal. And by taking that baby step, I was able to take a breath, step back, and work on something of a higher caliber, like “Sell Your Book on Amazon.” Does that make “Publishing Gems” a poor book? Maybe — but perhaps its goal wasn’t to be “good.” Maybe its goal was to help me overcome something within myself to allow me to focus on “Sell Your Book on Amazon.” So does that make “Publishing Gems” a successful book because it accomplished its goal? Absolutely.

Different authors have different goals, and only the author knows what those goals are. Readers who project their own goals, or qualifications for success, onto the book and then announce them “successes” or “failures” are not giving enough credit to the author. Self publishing companies like Outskirts Press help authors realize a wide variety of goals, because as a writer myself, I realize that writers write for a variety of reasons.