The Wall Street Journal had an article last Thursday (April 21) on page B1 that shows a study of “cheap e-books.” It seems that there a number of authors selling their books for 99 cents. And doing well. But keep in mind, Amazon takes 65 cents of this. Amazon takes 65% of the sales price up to $2.99.

But it is childishly easy to get a book into the Amazon sales system.  One author estimats that it cost him about $1,000 to get his book in digital e-book form. So a self-publisher can price his book at a very low figure since there is no additional cost. But the WSJ chart showed twelve books (out of the top 50 selling books) at 99 cents and only a few price from there to the $7.99 price. Then there were sixteen at the $13.00 level.

My digital consultant, Christine Rose, thought that my $9.99 price for a new novel and unknown author was too high. (I can always lower my price, but raising it is more difficult). But she sells advice books, which should sell for a lower price (in my opinion).  I think the $7.99 price is where many novels are selling, even best sellers.

But the printing media is loosing the market in a cascading fashion. You don’t even have to print your book. And it is very easy to “improve” or update an e-book.

Only about ten weeks ago, the New York Times has started listing e-book sales in the Sunday edition.

It’s a fast changing world.

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Self Publishing

Anyone wanting to sell their book, even when they have an agent and an active publisher, must learn how to work in the social media. Facebook and twitter. For an old retro-grouch like me, it is very, very difficult to learn how all that works. I suppose that young people just jump in and go with what works.

After I’ve read a few of the messages, it seems to me that there is very little useful information out there. But I am an engineer and don’t go much with idle chatter.  And you will find that most of it is idle chatter. So if you do get into using Facebook and Twitter, please try to give us some interesting information.  If you do, your name might be remembered.

Do not sell your product. Buy my book! is not what you should do. You should try to build a fan base. That is why you should include useful or interesting information. People will get used to stopping to read what you have posted. Your name becomes more and more recognizable. And if you are an interesting person, your book must be interesting.

More on this next week.

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Promoting Your Book

It is known from some authors’ experiences that even with an agent and a publisher, if your book doesn’t take off in ninety days, they will go on to another new author, and drop you. Sales drop to nothing. So from any approach, an author has to take a very active part in selling a book. And this is especially true if it is your first book, or you are not a “known” name.

How to promote yourself and your book. You will have to learn all about social networking. This is in addition to all the old avenues: radio interviews, getting on Oprah’s show, etc. Blogging, Facebook, Tweeting, etc. is the latest way all products are “promoted.” Even a publicist that I hired hasn’t yet got it completely.

So you first have to have a good website. Christine Rose has helped me fix my website. Go to her website (Christine and Ethan Rose). A social media expert is the first place to start. It will take you weeks and weeks to learn how to navigate all these, but just be patient and your will slowly figure out how to use them.

More on this later.

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SELF PUBLISHING #5

Find out what format your printer wants and be sure that you have prepared all the text in the format you like. A printer may use a ten font if you don’t choose. I think 12 is a better size for printed books, but you should insist on the size you like.

I had my printer offer a different cover design than I had developed. After showing the two possible designs to a number of people, the printer’s design won. Look on my web site for the final design with a swastika. Some people I have shown it to comment that it is offensive. A reminder of the Nazi cruelty. But after contemplating this, my final idea was that I hope that it is bad enough to attract attention. Maybe even an article in the newspaper on how offensive it was. So I might hope that it would be “banned in Boston.” Even bad publicity is good for sales, unless your story is no good.

It is very important to have your copy edited by as many experts as you can get. The best editing is not free. You need to plan on paying for content editing and copy editing. Some readers of your finished book enjoy pointing out any typos that they find. Helpful if you sell enough to print more books, but a little embarrassing, especially since you self-published.

More in my next blog on the next step. The importance of promoting your book.

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SELF PUBLISH EXPERIENCE

BLOG #4

One item that I failed to mention in previous blogs, is a book by James Thayer, The Essential Guide To Writing a Novel . This book basic information that a Self Publisher should consider before deciding. It will help you decide if your book is good enough to spend your hard earned money on.

I decided to go full bore and invest in my book. My wife earns a comfortable living for us and there is disposable income that could be used. If a male has a midlife crisis, he usually invests in a sports car. But in my case I drive a five year old van and invest in a book.

If you find a printer that seems to offer a per copy low price, watch out for other charges. Even if you use a standard Word format, there may be add charges for:

      Cover design

Typesetting

      Formatting

      Light proofing, line editing

      Cataloging in production (whatever that means)

      Cover design for dust jacket

      Page proofs

      Page restripped on blueline copy

      Mailings

      Shipping

These item can run into hundreds of dollars each. My hard cover book ended up costing 57% more than the quoted unit price.

      My only consolation is that if I can sell thousands of books, the next printing will be the unit price quoted, or close to it.

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BLOG #3, PRINT YOUR BOOK

If you have decided you want a printed version of your book, you should Google “book printers” on the internet to see what the costs might be for the following options:

1.     Do you just want to have a book to show to your relatives and friends? This might cost about $500.

2.     Do you want to invest the smallest amount possible and still sell some books? This might be in the neighborhood of $5,000. In Blog #4 or 5   I might have some actual costs on my Aunt’s book that she wrote at age eighty-five. Her granddaughter self published it through Lulu in a limited number.

3.     Are you prepared to invest some of your savings and try to make a serious profit? This can run $20,000 or more. They say promotion of a book can be three times the cost of printing.

If you have selected #1, then you are trying to stroke your vanity—hence this is called “Vanity Press.” You get ten books to hand out to your friends and brother-in-law. But you will have to make a small investment.

But when you decide on #2 or #3, you are going into a business, so be able to do the numbers. The costs will go up if you don’t include all the costs in your plan. I have a schedule showing some of the cost that I had.

In Blog #4 there will be some new ideas to consider.

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        If you decide to self publish, you may be satisfied just to get your work out on the e-book market. This is the easiest, fastest and by far the cheapest way to go. This takes a day, a printed version might be three months, if all goes well.

If you want to have a printed copy of your book, this will be discussed in my Blog #3, PRINT YOUR BOOK.

If you think your book is ready, you can make it available on a number of outlets in a few hours. But first you need to go to bowker.com and buy a ISBN number. It will cost you $100 for one number and $125 for ten. I recommend purchasing ten, since you have to have a different number for printed and e-book versions.The biggest sellers now are Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Both make it easy to get your title on their sites. You should have a cover ready and the text in pdf.  There may be more than one number for each e-book format. You can also make your book available in e-book off your website with one click purchase. I am checking this out and will cover this in a later blog.

Unless you are a very knowledgeable person about computers and the internet, you probably want to have a helper looking over your shoulder when you get ready to enter your work in the e-book market.

I read a publication that was five years old that stated Barnes & Noble was going to drop their e-book sales option. How things have changed. They now seem to be the easiest to work with and your take of the price (which you set) is 65%. On $9.99 price this would be $6.49. The Lulu percentage is 56% to the author. I haven’t been able to get the Amazon percentage.

But you can see, no matter what price you set, there is no further cost to you, beyond publicity costs, which you control.

Next blog is on my experience on getting a printed copy of your book.

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You are one of hundreds of thousands of writers who have a book that you feel is ready to present to the world. But you are not sure how to proceed. The traditional way is to find an agent that will present your work to publishers and get your book printed. But you may want to self publish.

Why should you try to find an agent?

1. If an agent and a publisher agree to a deal, then you now have two people who agree your work is pretty good. Your work is validated.

2. But if you are unable to get an agent to represent you, it might be that your work is flawed. Back to the typewriter.

3. Best of all, if a publisher agrees to print your work, you won’t have to invest any of your money.

4. So you can sit back and let the money roll in. Or not. Very few authors get Oprah to plug their book. Book sales don’t start to skyrocket and the publisher stops promotion after a few weeks.

5. Many authors have found that they have to personally take charge of promoting their book even though a publisher has printed their book.

6. You might then hire a publicist to help you promote your book, and be involved with publicity and promotion. Some authors have made this work.

See Blog #2 YOU CHOOSE TO SELF PUBLISH

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