Category writing

Oct 19 2014

Durned if You Do, Durned if You Don’t

fortune cookie

YOU CAN’T WIN

No matter what you do, your book will never be good enough.

Editing:

  • If you don’t get your book proofread well, the critics can be brutal.
  • But even if you iron out every spelling and grammar issue, people can still complain about editing. Show more, tell less. Language is too plain and simple. Language is too complex. The point of view changes where it shouldn’t have.
  • And even if your book is masterfully edited, you can still get a sour grapes review that claims that it’s poorly edited. For if the book just has a few reviews and one mentions editing issues, most customers will believe this at point-blank. Unfortunately, it’s often the case, so such sabotage can easily be effective. Your book is vulnerable. (But not defenseless.)
  • No matter how well-written a book is, there will still be readers who don’t appreciate the style. You can’t please everybody, so it will always be wrong to some.

Formatting:

  • If your book has formatting issues, this can deter sales.
  • You learn about justification, you master page numbering and headers, you do your best to format like traditionally published books that you see. Then critics point out how foolish you were for not hyphenating to reduce gaps in justified text, not removing widows and orphans, not having the same number of lines on every page.
  • Or you can spend big $$$ on professional formatting. Now the naysayers will tell you how little money the average self-published book (or even traditionally published book) makes. You might discover that even a most beautifully formatted book doesn’t always sell.
  • No matter how well a book is formatted, there will still be people who feel it’s wrong. Many prefer full-justified; others prefer left alignment. With a printed book, how can you please both?
  • Then there are people who have an agenda. There are book formatters who wish to drum up more business by making subtle points seem critical toward sales. There are authors who are well-versed in the subtleties of formatting who feel frustrated that poorly formatted books sometimes sell very well. There may even be traditional publishers who see a declining market share who wish to emphasize the importance of formatting and editing in order to dissuade people from buying self-published books.

Content:

  • If your book has storyline or characterization issues, this can lead to negative feedback and lack of word-of-mouth recommendations.
  • But no matter how amazing the story is, there will be some who will suggest various (and even contradictory) ways that your story could be better. You can’t please everyone.
  • If you write a single-volume fantasy novel, some will fault you for not going into more depth on the world and its rules. But if you write an epic fantasy, others will fault you for going into way too much depth.

Cover:

  • If your book cover attracts the wrong audience, that can cost you much potential traffic.
  • If your book cover doesn’t appeal to the audience, that can cost you much potential traffic.
  • If your book cover has appeal and depicts the content appropriately, critics will still penalize you for issues like choosing the wrong font, including the word “by,” using too many colors, making the background too busy, arranging your images in a collage, or countless other cover design ‘mistakes.’
  • Then if you spend good $$$ on a fantastic cover, anyone who is out to get you can simply write a review that says something like, “Since the cover is so amazing, I had high expectations for this book, BUT…” Hey, it can be an outright lie. There is no fact-checking when it comes to reviews. Everything is an opinion (even when it’s black and white).

Design:

  • If your book has an unappealing or inappropriate design, this can cost valuable sales.
  • If your book has a fairly good design, it may still suffer in subtle ways—text too close to the margin or spine, kerning not quite right on a few letter pairs.
  • You might add a decorative border to appeal to kids. Then someone will fault you for not making a different border on every page; someone else would fault you for not having matching borders; someone will fault you for not making it in color; if you make it color, someone will complain about price.
  • The cover, design, formatting, and editing are important, but let’s not forget that the story itself is the most important part. No matter how great the design is, it just takes one complaint about the story to undo all the benefits of a great design.

THE CRITICS

The problem is that there will always be critics.

The critics have the upper hand.

No matter how wonderful your book is, any critic can easily find some fault in it.

Most critics are genuine readers who just aren’t happy. No book can please all of the people who read it. People simply have varied tastes.

A few critics are frustrated writers, editors hoping to market the importance of editing so they can drum up more business, designers hoping to do the same, unethical authors hoping to elevate themselves by slamming the competition (this strategy will backfire for them, e.g. by dragging their own sales down with fewer customers-also-bought recommendations), editors of traditional publishers who feel threatened by competing titles, people who are simply jealous of the author, and even review police who simply want to bait authors to cross the line.

Remember, the vast majority of critics are genuine readers.

Most of the criticism that actually identifies something specific has merit.

Those with an agenda have the upper hand, so it’s not worth the battle.

Definitely, don’t respond to any review where the reviewer may have an agenda through a public comment.

It’s too easy for the reviewer to make the author look bad. It doesn’t matter what you say, there is a 99.999% chance that you will lose. You have a reputation to uphold. Some customers will think you’re unprofessional simply because you chose to comment on the review.

It’s easy for the reviewer to solicit an emotional or defensive response from you, which will really make you look bad.

Your comment itself lends credibility to the review. If the review didn’t have any merit, you wouldn’t need to address it, right? (I know, that’s not the way you feel about it when it happens. It can burn inside, and not go away for weeks.)

Here’s what’s very common. You think: I’ll just make one innocent comment and leave it at that. What’s the harm in that?

Here’s the problem: The reviewer will respond to your comment and ask you a question. Now you have no choice but to respond again. Suddenly, what you intended to be a single comment turns into a discussion. The last thing you want on your (quite public!) product page is a discussion with a reviewer who posted a bad review.

You can’t play the critics’ game. The critics have the ball. They have the home field advantage (even on your product page). They have control.

But you’re not helpless.

YOU CAN WIN

The first thing to realize is how much you need the critics.

You don’t just need praise. If all you have is praise for your books, that will do nothing but arouse instant suspicion.

You need balance, whether you like it or not. Customers expect it. There should be bad with the good.

The second thing to realize is that you can fight the critics by not giving in to temptation.

Show them (and more importantly, all the traffic on your product page) how professional you are by not engaging with the critics emotionally or defensively.

A third thing to realize is that your book and product page are dynamic.

You can always make a revision to the content and note this in the product description.

But you don’t want to make a revision based on every bit of criticism you receive. There may be customers who actually prefer it the way it was, who simply didn’t voice their opinions.

So the best course is to wait a few weeks and see if the criticism actually has any impact on sales. Sometimes, it actually helps sales. Often, it has no effect whatsoever. (Even when there seems to be a correlation, it often turns out to be coincidence—e.g. your book might have just come off the Last 30 Days list at the same time.)

Sometimes, you just need to add clarification to your product description.

A customer might have made a mistake, assuming your book was something that it wasn’t. If so, simply clarifying this in the product description may negate any effect of that particular review.

Another thing to realize is that things are often much better than they seem. Your book is your baby; you take the criticism quite personally. But the criticism usually isn’t directed at you; it’s directed at your book.

Not everyone has the same tastes. That reviewer is letting people with similar tastes know not to try your book. And that helps! People with dissimilar tastes may still appreciate your book.

If the criticism has merit, consider making a revision. If not, just let it go.

You also have a secret weapon: It’s called marketing.

Personal interactions can often make a huge impact with potential readers. These can have a greater impact than what some stranger says on your product page.

Personal interactions help to generate sales, help the reader approach your book with a favorable frame of mind (i.e. looking forward to it, instead of wondering if anything is wrong with it), and are more likely to result in reviews and recommendations.

PERFECTION

There is no such thing as a perfect book. Simply put, it can’t be perfect for everyone.

Sometimes, authors spend way too much time and money trying to over-perfect their books in various ways.

Here are the most important elements of any book:

  • Story appeals to the target audience.
  • Language appeals to the target audience. (Right vocabulary; flows well.)
  • Target audience can understand well without being distracted by too many hiccups.

The opposite problem—authors who don’t find and patch holes in the story, who don’t write in a way that appeals to the audience, who make many spelling or grammar mistakes, etc.—can be a huge sales deterrent. I’m not addressing the minimum effort here; I’m addressing the issue of over-perfecting.

Who needs perfect editing? An editor who reads your book. An author who writes well who reads your book. A reader who has a well-above average command of language. Others will be tolerant to various degrees as long as you meet the three points above as those points relate to them.

Who needs perfect formatting? A typographer who reads your book. An editor who reads your book. An author who has learned about formatting who reads your book. A reader who is much pickier than the average reader. Others will be tolerant to some degree. Subtle points they won’t notice any more than you did. It’s possible that they will have a nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right without knowing what that is, which may distract them from the story. It doesn’t take perfect design to avoid this; it just needs enough appeal.

Who needs perfect reviews? NOBODY! Virtually every customer who sees a stockpile of nothing but five-star praise will dismiss the book out of immediate suspicion. Customers expect varied and even wild and crazy reviews. They will see if those reviews seem relevant to them. A review that ruins your book for one customer has no impact on another customer. Rather, if they dismiss the criticism because it doesn’t matter to them, they are more likely to give your book a chance. In this way, any bad review can actually stimulate a sale.

Don’t forget who your target audience is:

  • Do you expect to sell many copies on Amazon.com? Do you want support from indie authors and their friends, family, and acquaintances?
  • Do you expect to sell most of your books through bookstores? (You need to do much research and have excellent planning for this.)

In the former case, it may be an advantage to use the free CreateSpace ISBN. If you want support from customers who support self-publishing, you want it to be clear that your book is self-published.

If you spend big $$$ trying to look professional, it might work, but it might backfire. Using your own imprint, you might lose support from millions of readers who support self-publishing. What are you gaining in return? Are you hoping to appeal to people who prefer excellent editing and typography? People who much prefer this are far more likely to read books from the big publishers, or small publishers who’ve branded an image for themselves with regard to delivering quality. They are less likely to take a chance on an unheard-of imprint. You need excellent bookstore potential, research, and planning—and you need long-term goals, like branding an image for yourself as a small publisher who delivers high quality—to make this strategy work for you.

But if you have big plans to sell to bookstores and libraries (not just hopes and dreams, but well-researched plans on how to make it happen), then professionalism can make a significant difference.

It really pays to know who your specific target audience is and what that audience will prefer.

Even if your audience supports self-publishing, they still have expectations. They’re investing money (or at least much time) to read your book. You have to deliver content and quality worthy of that investment.

HOW TO WIN

You don’t measure this through reviews. Though the first time a stranger says something nice about your book, print it out and paste it to your wall. Use it as a reminder that you’re doing something right.

You don’t measure this through sales. Though the trick to sales is to find ways to consistently grow them. If you can grow your sales annually, you can reach any goal in time.

So how do you win?

First, you win by not giving up.

You win by looking professional, even when the chips are down.

You win by writing more books.

You win by learning and growing as a writer.

You win by thriving on your strengths and by shoring up your weaknesses.

You win by caring about your readers, yourself, and your community of writers.

You win by building and growing a fan base.

You win by creating a brand for yourself as an author with a website, author page, and social media.

You win by helping fellow authors.

You win by reading other self-published books—and supporting those that meet your standards through recommendations.

You win by branding a good image for self-publishing.

You win by being part of a community of writers who thrive together.

You win by being the best you can be, and accepting that you are who you are.

You win by writing because you love to write.

You win when you can SMILE despite all the challenges that authors face.

You’re a winner! Congratulations! 🙂

Read Tuesday

Imagine a Black Friday type of event just for book lovers.

You don’t have to imagine it. It’s called Read Tuesday, and it’s free: www.readtuesday.com.

Please support the Read Tuesday Thunderclap. This will help spread awareness on the morning of Read Tuesday (December 9, 2014). It’s easy to help:

  • Visit http://thndr.it/1CkO2Bg.
  • Click Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr and sign in.
  • Customize the message. (Optional.)
  • Agree to the terms. All that will happen is that the Thunderclap post about Read Tuesday will go out the morning of December 9.
  • (The warning message simply means that Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr need your permission to post the Thunderclap message on December 9. This is the only post that Thunderclap will make.)

Halloween Reading

Looking for some spooky books to read this Halloween month?

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/scary-books

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

  • Volume 1 on formatting and publishing
  • Volume 2 on marketability and marketing
  • Boxed set (of 4 books) now available for Kindle pre-order

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

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Oct 8 2014

Who Wants to Read Your Self-Published Book?

Love Indies Pic

SELF-PUBLISHING?

You may have read an interesting article in the Washington Post recently, entitled, “No, I don’t want to read your self-published book.”

This particular article evolved from a letter from the editor in Horn Book Magazine.

The context of the letter is to explain, essentially, to indie writers why publications that review traditionally published books can’t consider reviewing self-published books.

This is in spite of the big “BUT”—i.e. but there are a few outstanding indie books, yet there are also some bad traditionally published books.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

I think it’s great news for self-published authors:

  • In the beginning, traditional publishers and professional book reviewers simply IGNORED self-published books.
  • Self-publishing has grown tremendously. There are many millions of self-published books being sold and read each year, taking up a very significant market share.
  • We’ve finally caught the attention of traditional publishers and, now, even editors who review traditionally published books. They’ve taken notice.
  • It’s an article in the Washington Post about self-publishing. It’s angled so as to explain what’s wrong with self-publishing books, in a way.
  • Maybe it’s not just a message to authors. I read it this way: They see more and more readers enjoying self-published books, and this is a marketing attempt to sell the perception that traditionally published books are better.
  • It may be more than that, too. Traditional publishers not only want more readers to prefer their books, they also want the best indie authors to try to jump through the hoops via agents so that they will have more good material from which to choose.

But I’m looking a little beyond the actual context with my last couple of points.

What is clear is that we’ve seen many articles on various aspects of self-publishing in major publications in the past few years. Self-publishing is gaining more traction.

ART VS. BUSINESS

Writing is an art.

Publishing is a business.

Authors tend to prefer feeling like artists when they write.

Publishers tend to prefer to publish what they feel is more likely to sell.

Self-publishing opens up a fascinating possibility: Writers can write for art’s sake, not worrying if they may be sacrificing some business.

An author can choose to write for a smaller audience.

But there’s another side to this coin: Readers are paying money or, at a minimum, investing time to read books.

As a reader, if you pay for a book, you expect quality.

Unfortunately, not all self-published books have delivered on quality, which brands a poor image for self-publishing at large.

On the other hand, there are self-published books that have delivered on quality, which helps brand a good image for the possibilities of self-publishing.

And then there are traditionally published books that have failed to live up to readers’ expectations. This tends to make readers think about investing much less money on a self-published book next time.

STAMP OF APPROVAL

This brings up to an important question: How do you know what’s worth reading and what’s not?

An intuitive idea is some sort of stamp of approval; some attempt at quality control.

It might sound good at first, but it gets a bit tricky.

Traditional publishing would have you believe that their publishing label is the ultimate stamp of approval.

It may be true that most traditionally published books have better editing than most self-published books.

Nothing prevents self-published authors from hiring quality editors. There are, in fact, very well-edited self-published books.

But if editing is quite important to you, traditional publishing might be more likely to deliver on editing. Or if you can find a quality editor whose work you like, you could read books edited by that editor, traditionally published or not. There are many ways to go about this.

Some self-publishers would like their own stamp of approval. Those who believe their books are better in some way often wish to have some means of easily differentiating their books from what they believe to be worse books among customers.

Here’s where it gets a little tricky: There are many ways to judge what makes a book better. Editing is just one. Storytelling is another. There are several qualities that factor into this. And then there is more than one way to tell a great story.

To a large extent, customers judge what’s better. Sure, they can leave reviews (but let’s not open that can of worms just yet). They can also recommend books they enjoy. Let’s give the customer some credit: He or she is likely to check out the product page and Look Inside.

But there are various stamps of approval. You can get an independent review from Kirkus, for example. You can get review quotes. There are indie reviewers and publications that review indie books. There are author groups and reader groups attempting to identify quality as measured in some way.

WRITING AS ART

Imagine that we’re talking about painting, not about writing. Both are art forms, right?

Suppose we give the painters a challenge: They must paint a picture using a page from a coloring book.

Would it be fair to take all the painters who fail to stay within the lines and REJECT their chances to display their art in a gallery because they failed to meet this elementary standard?

We’d lose some brilliant masterpieces if we did this.

Staying in the lines is arguably not the most important talent that one can find in a painter. Though for some kinds of painting, this talent may be quite desirable.

Not everyone appreciate the same art. Some may prefer paintings created by artists who could easily stay within the lines; some may prefer paintings by those who couldn’t do this.

Following the rules of spelling, grammar, and style are, in a sense, like painting within the lines.

The analogy isn’t perfect though.

  • A painter can’t find an editor to polish up the painting. A painter must perfect his or her own masterpiece.
  • An author can hire an editor to polish up grammar and spelling so that more readers can appreciate the art, and so that readers won’t be distracted by hiccups along the way.

Saying that the art of storytelling is more important than the art of grammar isn’t an EXCUSE to completely ignore the latter.

RULES OF ENGLISH

Are the rules of English really rigid?

If you master the art of spelling, grammar, and style, you want credit for your strengths. These are important to you: That’s why you learned them.

You look around and see others making mistakes. You see a few immensely popular books making spurious spelling and grammar mistakes. Frustrating, isn’t it? But there is more to a good book than just spelling and grammar.

There really isn’t an excuse for books to lack spelling and grammar correctness, but, alas, it happens. Even those who are very good at these make mistakes, and those who self-edit often read what they intended to write instead of what’s actually there.

Some people believe that there is only one rule of English: To communicate your idea clearly to others.

If others can easily understand what you’ve written, then you’ve followed the rules.

Many will see an instant problem with this: As soon as most people abandon the rules of English, it will soon become a challenge to communicate clearly.

We do need some rules.

A painter must perfect every square millimeter of his or her canvas. And so a writer must perfect every character on the printed page.

IMPROVE, IMPROVE, IMPROVE

You can’t say that your writing is a work of art and therefore consider your book finished just because you’ve reached the end.

As an artist, you must work diligently to perfect your masterpiece.

As a craftsman, you must learn to master all elements of your craft.

Because there is much more to writing a great book than just writing a great story.

The way you choose your words, the way your story flows, the variation in sentence length, the choice of vocabulary to suit your intended audience, the way you present your ideas, the perspective from which you describe events, the way you develop characters—these and so many other things go into storytelling.

And, yes, spelling, grammar, and style do matter. Because when they aren’t right, they do detract from the story itself.

WHO WANTS TO READ YOUR SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK?

I do. Well, I obviously can’t read EVERY self-published book. But I do read several self-published books every year. I throw in a few classics, too, because I believe that reading these is valuable toward writing well.

I’m not the only reader out there who supports self-publishing.

There are hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of self-published authors. Many of these authors read books. Not all, but many do like to support self-publishing by reading other self-published books.

These self-published authors have families, friends, acquaintances, and coworkers who also support self-publishing.

There are hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of authors who have been rejected by publishers, agents, magazines, and newspapers. Many rejected authors choose to invest their reading money on self-published books. (Yes, those polite rejections do have a cost; and the not-so-polite ones, well, maybe that wasn’t such a good business decision. Exclusivity may have benefits, but it also has disadvantages.)

Many people view traditional publishers as businesses. Guess what: They’re right! Do these businesses have writing as their top priority? Or is the top priority financial? With these questions in mind, there are many readers willing to give self-published authors a chance, hoping to find writing that was written for art’s sake, not for the sake of business. (It’s not easy to find such books, but there are books written this way, and there are readers who’d like to find them.)

Many people don’t want to read what’s popular. Many do: Bestsellers sell an insane number of copies. Many people do browse the bestseller lists, expecting those books to be better. But there are millions and millions of readers, and so a significant number do prefer to read what’s not popular. They’ve tried popular books and didn’t, for whatever reason, appreciate them. Maybe they will like a book written for a much smaller niche audience.

SELF-PUBLISHING IMAGE

The main thing is that readers want great books.

Self-publishing may have good potential, but readers need to be able to find books that they enjoy. Out of the millions to choose from.

How do you define ‘great’? One man’s trash is… you know how it goes.

But it doesn’t matter: As a reader, you want to find the kinds of books that you believe are great.

And you don’t want to find books that you can’t imagine anyone calling great.

Image counts.

When customers try self-published books and have a poor experience, they’re less likely to try self-published authors again.

Until they find themselves dissatisfied with expensive traditionally published books. Then they might reconsider.

There isn’t much that we can do about the worst of the worst at the bottom. Not all those at the bottom are bad books: There are some well-written books that simply have little audience, or just didn’t have the right cover or blurb to get attention. The problem with removing the worst books is the impossibility of efficiently identifying them. The other problem is that Amazon makes an amazing amount of money off even the books at the bottom, simply through huge numbers, and so it wouldn’t make sense financially for Amazon to remove them.

But everyone can help to improve the image. Small things go a long way:

  • We can all do our best to continually strive to improve our own books.
  • We can refrain from publicly discussing bad books, as that paints a poor perception that hurts even the best self-published books.
  • We can find great examples of excellent self-published books and mention those publicly. The more people who read and enjoy self-published books, the more readers there will be who support self-publishing.
  • We can offer tips for other self-published authors (indirectly, perhaps—not as unsolicited advice, which often has unintended effects).
  • We can educate readers about ways to find quality books.

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

  • Volume 1 on formatting and publishing
  • Volume 2 on marketability and marketing
  • Boxed set (of 4 books) now available for Kindle pre-order

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

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Oct 7 2014

A Storytelling Secret

Storyteller

STORYTELLING TIP

Of course, there isn’t just one tip toward becoming a master storyteller.

You don’t necessarily need to be a storyteller to appreciate the art of storytelling. A master storyteller can pull it off, but any reader can appreciate the art—and can tell which kinds of storytelling please him or her.

This article will just focus on one of the many aspects of storytelling.

One thing that many great stories do well is this:

Make it cool to be different.

It may be a plus if this is something that much of your target audience can relate to.

Here are some examples:

  • Rudolph, with his bright red nose, is a favorite misfit reindeer. He fit in with misfit toys in a popular Christmas special.
  • Shrek is one cool ogre, and Donkey is pretty cool, too. Fiona’s fate is a cool twist to the usual ideals, too.
  • Cinderella and Harry Potter show that orphans can be really cool.
  • It can be cool to be nerdy or geeky. Look at Velma from Scooby Doo, the Nerds movies, or Mr. Peabody. Then there is the evil genius, like Lex Luthor battling the Man of Steel. This last one doesn’t relate to storytelling, but I love Best Buy for making it cool to be a geek with their Geek Squad. I love the Geek Squad as they’ve helped me solve numerous problems.
  • You can probably think of many romantic stories where the protagonist would be far from fairest of them all based on common perceptions of what’s outwardly handsome or beautiful. You don’t need tall dark and handsome to fall in love with a perfect ten, and many target audiences may prefer it otherwise. (I don’t want to give any specific examples here and possibly insult anyone by making it seem like someone with any particular trait isn’t beautiful. Christina Aguilera has a song about that.)

After all, everyone is different. It should be cool to be you. It is cool to be you. 🙂

I bet you can think of some other good examples of where being different is cool.

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of Self-Publishing with Amazon (Boxed Set: 4 Books in 1)

Now available for pre-order for Kindle: http://amzn.com/B00O6MT158.

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Oct 2 2014

Authors: Have Your Manuscript Ready for a… Surprise?

Cover Problems Pic

AMAZON PUBLISHING

It appears that Amazon is launching a new publishing program. Look for an announcement to come in the next couple of weeks.

The reason for this article is just to give a heads-up. If you happen to have a novel in the works and this program may be of interest to you, you have a chance to get your manuscript and packaging in gear.

The terms may not (but may) interest bestselling published authors or thriving self-published authors, but may attract midlist published authors and many self-published authors.

Evidently, the program will include Amazon-featured marketing. This is likely to draw huge interest, assuming that it means more than the usual customers-also-bought lists and such. For example, if it includes featured placement or small ads, that could make an incredible difference. Amazon will have a vested interest in these books, so there is compelling reason for Amazon to include featured marketing in the offer.

You might be wondering, “How do we know about this?”

  • Amazon sent an email to select authors, notifying them about the program. The email included a link to an Amazon page, allowing authors to sign up for additional emails.
  • The Digital Reader and Publisher’s Weekly made initial announcements about this program on September 22, 2014.
  • Amazon sent a follow-up email this morning.
  • (Well, if you want to be a pessimist, you’ll ‘know’ if and when Amazon makes an official announcement.)

Update: The program is now live. It’s called Kindle Scout: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/submit.

It will begin with just the following genres:

  • romance
  • mystery
  • thriller
  • science fiction
  • fantasy

This new Amazon publishing program will be like a publishing deal for Kindle. The terms are better than many traditionally published terms, though the royalty rate isn’t as high as self-publishing with KDP.

  • $1500 advance. (Many indie authors are already excited.)
  • 50% royalties for e-books. (20% less than self-publishing, but it includes Amazon-featured marketing, which may easily make up the difference.)
  • A 45-day exclusivity period and easy rights reversions (unlike many traditional publishing contracts that make reversions difficult to come by). (There are some conditions. You’ll want to read these carefully when the program launches.)
  • Amazon only wants exclusive rights for e-books and audio in all languages. You get to keep the print rights (so you can self-publish with CreateSpace and keep 100% of your usual print royalties.)

What exactly is Amazon-featured marketing?

That’s the big question. If it included on-site advertising, that would be awesome. If it just means customers-also-bought lists and the usual benefits of publishing with KDP, then it would be a dud. (Basically, you’d be trading 20% of your royalties for a $1500 advance.)

The Digital Reader defined Amazon-featured marketing to mean enrollment in KOLL and Kindle Unlimited (well, you could get that by self-publishing!) and eligibility for targeted emails and promotions. This sounds great, except for that tricky word, “eligibility.” You’d hate to get no extra on-site publicity or featured placement at all.

Well, Amazon would have a vested interest in the success of books in this program. It seems reasonable to expect Amazon-featured marketing to be more than what’s merely automatic with KDP. I think we need to wait for the program to launch and see how it goes.

Get ready!

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Complete manuscript. (Never before published. Or self-published, I suspect, but you can ask Amazon for clarification.)
  • 500 character (or less) book description. (Does that include spaces? Probably.)
  • One-liner (45 characters or less) to grab interest.
  • Biography and picture.

Any author who’s interested in this program (even if you’re unsure), has a chance to get ready. Advance preparation could make the difference.

If you prepare now and decide later that it’s not for you, what have you lost? Everything you prepared will still serve its purpose when you instead self-publish or traditionally publish your book.

Here’s what I recommend:

  • Finish your manuscript. This is required.
  • Perfect the first 3000 words. This part will be publicly visible. Voting will be based on this. You want to show your best stuff early, and grab attention right off the bat.
  • Get a great cover that fits your book well. This will surely make a difference in catching interest. It will make a difference in selling the book, too, if published.
  • Perfect the blurb. Don’t summarize the book. Arouse interest. Keep it short.
  • Perfect your one-liner. Observe the character counts.
  • Get ample feedback on your cover, one-liner, title, blurb, and first 3000 words.
  • Build interest in your book and create buzz. Voting is involved in the process. (Not sure how this will be regulated or applied.)
  • I’m thinking minimal front matter (just whatever the program requires, if anything). It’s about creating interest in your story and selling your idea.

Effective marketing skills will surely help. You need good packaging (cover, blurb, look inside) and the ability to create interest in your book.

There will be a brief Q&A opportunity with readers to sell your story (and the story behind you coming up with the story—you know, like all those amazing success stories you read about).

Good luck!

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

  • Volume 1 on formatting and publishing
  • Volume 2 on marketability and marketing

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

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Aug 20 2014

One Muse Is not Enough

Muses

So you found a muse. Good for you.

She’ll help you string ideas together,

But one’s not enough. Sad, but true!

Writing’s not the only storm you’ll weather.

♦

With the story, your muse is great,

But editing is a different beast.

Your muse won’t help; you’re filled with hate

‘Til a new muse makes this worry your least.

♦

A poor cover won’t sell your book.

So next you must summon a design muse

To help achieve just the right look.

But you will still need yet another ruse.

♦

Your story muse won’t craft your blurb;

This requires a muse of another kind.

So important to find the perfect verb.

Without this muse you’d be in a bad bind.

♦

When you must design the book’s inside,

Not one of these muses will help. No fun!

Muse five joins the publishing ride.

Your book’s design’s now beautifully done.

♦

Still nobody will read a word:

You lack the most important muse of all.

Marketing muse helps you get heard.

Without her help your sales would surely stall.

♦

You’ve one more problem to solve yet.

It’s the toughest challenge that you will face:

All six muses play hard to get;

You can never find two in the same place.

♦

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen

Jul 11 2014

Dictionary Phobias in the Digital Age

Fear of Long Words

Reading in the Digital Age

—Have you heard the argument that most readers want easy reading, which doesn’t frequently send them to the dictionary? This is the subject of much heated debate, which isn’t the focus of this article (though I would say different authors have different styles and different audiences—if there is a significant audience for a style that you can write, it would make sense for you to write to that audience). Put your opinion on whether or not we should make reading vocabulary friendly aside for a moment. As I mentioned, I didn’t bring this up with intention of stirring that debate. I want to just call attention to the fact that there is a dictionary phobia in the Digital Age. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that there is one? Technology should be making it easier to deal with and improve vocabulary. If so, why are many people still afraid of encountering words they might not know? Here is my point:

  • I just opened a book on my Kindle Fire.
  • I encountered a word I didn’t know.
  • I touched the word with my finger until it was highlighted in blue.
  • A window popped up showing me the pronunciation key and definition.

Back when I was a kid (and we had to walk uphill both ways—if you want to enjoy a little humor, look for my ‘proof’ of this toward the end of this article—into the wind, too!)… …There was a mammoth unabridged dictionary sitting on its own table in every classroom. If a student asked a teacher what a word meant, said student would soon be standing at that table thumbing through said dictionary. …Sometimes, we’d be reading on the bus, with no dictionary in sight. Now it’s so easy. If you’re reading a digital book, all you need to do is touch the word. It’s almost like having a magic genie, except it’s a hundred times easier to press the word than it would be to rub the lamp and make a wish (and then you only get three wishes and each wish has unintended side effects).

When it’s so easy to look up a word, why are so many people afraid of seeing words they didn’t already know?

I think it’s a good question. There are probably some answers. That is, some reasons. I really mean, some ways to explain why it is the way it is. But maybe that isn’t the way it should be. Reading is a great way to develop better grammar, improve your vocabulary, and improve your writing. Now it’s so easy to look up any word you don’t already know. Okay, let me address the obvious exception:

  • If you have to look up every other word, even pressing the word in an e-book will become a chore and detract from story enjoyment. My question relates to occasional words, not this extreme.

Proof that we had it harder when I was a kid

So, I said, albeit in jest, that we had to walk to school and it was uphill both ways. I’m sure you ‘know’ that can’t be true, so I’m going to apply my knowledge of physics to prove you wrong. Here’s the deal. As illustrated below, the school was located on the side of a mountain. The school was very tall. The town was situated halfway up the mountain. First period was at the top of the school, so we had to walk up to get to the top of the school. Last period was at the bottom of the school, so we again walked up to get back home in town. QED.

Uphill Battle

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia

Isn’t that a great word? You gotta love it!

How do you pronounce hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia? What does hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia mean? Forgive me for my repetition, but any chance to use hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia in a sentence just can’t be squandered. 🙂

  • Hip·po·po·to·mon·stro·ses·quip·e·da·li·o·pho·bi·a (Hip’-uh-paw-tuh-mahn-stroe’-ses-kwip’-uh-dah-lee-owe-foe’-bee-ah) n. (hippopoto– Greek-derived for fear, –mostr– Latin for monstrous, –sesquipedali– Latin for long word, and –phobos Greek for fear)—fear of long words.

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

  • Volume 1 on formatting and publishing
  • Volume 2 on marketability and marketing

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

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Jul 8 2014

The Beauty of Marketing

Beauty

Book Marketing

There isn’t just one way to do it. The fact that there are many different book marketing strategies is your opportunity. Find a way to look at marketing in a way that you can enjoy it.

You want to be successful, right?

  • It’s not about embracing someone else’s idea of marketing and carrying it out with due diligence.
  • It’s about finding an effective marketing method that you can embrace with a passion and make it your own.

Most indie writers are artists at heart, not businesspeople. Yet self-publishing success, both on and off Amazon, depends on effective book marketing.

  • That doesn’t mean that you have to switch from artist to salesman to sell books. That’s like hammering a square peg through a round hole.
  • It means you have to view marketing as an art or craft to master, and pursue it with passion. That will fuel your self-motivation.

Look at this article. It’s about book marketing. I didn’t use $ signs for the picture. I left my artistic hat on and turned marketing into a rose.

You, too, can wear your artistic hat successfully both as a writer and an artist. Successful indie authorship is a combination of writing and marketing, both of which are driven by passion and feature creativity.

The business side of marketing books can seem dull and boring to writers. Many indie authors think of the following features when they first encounter marketing:

  • Advertising.
  • Self-promotion.
  • Screaming loudest.
  • Generating hype.
  • Judging a book by its cover instead of its content.
  • Salesmanship.

Actually, most of the things on the above list aren’t effective when it comes to book marketing.

If you approach marketing as something that’s dull or boring, you’re definitely not going to succeed at it.

  • Again, this doesn’t mean you have to get excited about something that you naturally feel is boring. That has inherent limitations.
  • Rather, it means that you have to find a way to look at marketing that makes you inherently passionate about doing it.

Fortunately, marketing does have highly artistic and creative elements that can appeal to writing artists:

  • Marketing is about sharing your passion with others.
  • It’s a chance to interact with others and let them discover your excitement about your book. (Let them ask you what you’ve done lately, rather than advertise what you’ve done. This distinction makes a huge difference.)
  • It’s an opportunity to put readers in a positive mindset before they open your book. People you interact with in person and who enjoy the interaction are more likely to look forward to your book with a good frame of mind.
  • You can wear your artistic and creative caps when you get involved in the cover design (a big part of marketing—it’s part of the packaging). Even if you hire a cover artist, you’re still involved in the design of your cover.
  • Blogging is a great match for marketing books. You love to write, right? Not only that, you get to interact with people who read your blog. You get to be creative coming up with ideas for posts and finding images to use.
  • Creativity is a great tool for catching the attention of your target audience and engaging interest in your book. When you talk to people, you have the chance to show your creativity in the conversation.
  • Imagination can also be a helpful marketing tool. Come up with a creative marketing idea and you’ll enjoy carrying it out; others may enjoy your creativity and check out your book.
  • Even your curiosity can be a benefit here, such as your curiosity for how to think of marketing in a way that doesn’t sound like salesmanship. Use your creativity to find other ways to think about marketing.
  • Branding is an art form. Pursue it as an art. Brand an image for yourself.
  • You can even approach marketing as a scientist. Come up with different hypotheses about marketing strategies and test them out.
  • Embrace book marketing as an art form and strive to master the craft.

If beauty truly lies in the eye of the beholder, then you have the power to see how beautiful marketing can be.

Chris McMullen

Want free information about book marketing? Find all my marketing posts by clicking here.

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

  • Volume 1 on formatting and publishing
  • Volume 2 on marketability and marketing

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

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Jun 17 2014

So Your Friend Is an Author…

Judge

Amazing, Isn’t It?

Yes. It is.

How many authors do you actually know?

Now your friend is one.

The key word there is friend.

This was your friend before. Becoming an author doesn’t change that.

Sure, you can tease your friend about this, if your relationship ordinarily involves teasing.

But your friendship is based on more than just teasing:

  • You support one another. Even if one of you writes a book.
  • You’re honest with one another. Even if you think the book isn’t quite, well, you know.
  • You know each other well. How to get on one another’s nerves. How to put things gently. So you can figure out the right way to share honest feedback.
  • You motivate one another. So in addition to honest feedback, you’ll provide encouragement, motivation, and direction.

Your friend wrote a book. That’s a huge accomplishment. Treat it as such.

There are some things you should know about writers:

  • Writing is a lonely process. Literally: Alone with the computer, writing. Marketing can be lonely, too. This same author, all alone, is reading reviews, which sometimes tear down the author’s hard work. Friends can remind that author that he or she isn’t alone. They can help the author handle criticism, and prevent the author from doing anything rash.
  • Once in a while, the author needs to be dragged outdoors into the real world, kicking and screaming. But if you try this when the author’s muse has just shown up after a long absence, it could prove to be a fatal mistake. You have to judge how vigorous the kicking and screaming is.
  • Writers can be a little eccentric at times. Your friend has some personality. You’ll be occasionally entertained. What’s not to like about this?

There are many ways that you can support an author (and still be honest and scrupulous):

  • Read the book, especially if it’s a kind of book that you’d normally be interested in. But if it’s not your kind of book, you can still support the author without reading it.
  • Help spread the word, especially if you’ve read the book and enjoyed it. But even a “Hey, my friend, Joe, just wrote a mystery” mention is valuable advertising for your friend. Most authors feel uncomfortable with the necessity of promoting their own books (even if they do this, they often feel uncomfortable doing so). Readers, also, sometimes put more stock in what someone else says about the book than the author’s own self-promotion. Gee, if only that author had some wonderful friends who could help spread the news… Hint, hint.
  • Do you know someone who read the author’s book? Ask that person to write an honest review. Authors need reviews, but asking for reviews of your own book… can look unprofessional (and again, authors can feel uncomfortable doing that). But an author’s friend, taking the initiative to do this (i.e. the author didn’t ask you to ask for reviews)… you could be that secret helping hand. You’d be like a superhero with a secret identity.
  • Follow the author’s blog, tweets, and Facebook posts. Encourage the author to keep separate Facebook pages for personal and authorship (e.g. there are author and book pages at Facebook). You should follow both. Expect to get tired of hearing about your author’s book. Don’t feel obligated to read and comment on every one of the author’s book-related posts. Your name is there. You participate occasionally. This means a lot.
  • If you have your own blog or website… just imagine if you mention the author’s book. Don’t even tell the author. Let him or her happen to come across it someday. “Wow! When did you do that? That’s so cool!”
  • Check out your friend’s product page at Amazon. Vote on reviews. Offer some feedback to the author on the cover, description, and Look Inside.
  • Visit local libraries and bookstores. Ask them why they don’t have this most amazing book right there on the shelf.
  • Attend a signing or reading. Encourage your author friend to do these. If you don’t feel like attending yourself, you can still help spread the word and encourage other people to attend.

Your friend spent months finding a little extra time each week, typing tens of thousands of words, massaging those words into a book. That’s no small achievement.

Your friend has considered agents, publishing houses, and self-publishing. There is no easy answer, no clear road to success. It’s a challenge.

Your friend is navigating the deep waters of marketing. It’s a strange world, but necessary to share the book with others. It’s daunting.

A little support from a friend would go a long way.

Mix that with some patience and understanding.

Remind the author that there is a real world here, which the author is part of… which the author needs to physically seem be a part of from time to time.

Remind the author that friendship works both ways. You have needs, too. It’s not just all about the author.

Throw in a little teasing, perhaps.

If your friendship survives authorship, it’s mean to last forever.

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

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Jun 6 2014

Morning Check-up for Artists

Writing

Imagination On. Check.

Motivation On. Check.

Quiet On. Check.

Distractions Off. Check.

Comfort Zone On. Check.

Eyes Ready. Check.

Mind Open. Check.

It’s a go.

Take a deep breath.

Creativity blasting off in 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0.

Let those creative juices flow.

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen

May 19 2014

Self-Publishing Is Like Golf

Golf

Self-Publishing Is Like Golf

Front Nine:

  1. Both seem easy until you try them. You think you’re gonna make a hole-in-one the first time out on the golf course. You think you’re going to sell 100,000 books your first year. Whoa! Where’s that easy button when you need it? Reality check in aisle three.
  2. One little mistake and you can look pretty silly. Great big swing… ball goes almost nowhere. Oops! Did I just do that? No, it was a practice swing. Honest! Misspelled the title. Three whole pages in italics. Paragraph gone missing. Page numbers out of order. Feel like crawling under a rock now?
  3. The easiest things can be the most frustrating. Miss a two-foot putt? Whiff the ball? Try not to break your club. Misspell your name? Accidentally upload the wrong file? Don’t smack your forehead too hard.
  4. There is always a silver lining. You can have 17 miserable holes, but if you get one birdie, it makes your day, it brings you back to the course. Even if you hit 100 miserable shots, you’re bound to have one good one, so that even your worst rounds leave something positive to provide encouragement. Whether your self-publishing venture seems like a success or failure, there must be something good you can take out of it. If nothing else, you’re a published author. You can see your book in print. Your first book is a learning experience. Kind of like being thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool. Infested with crocodiles. Hungry crocodiles.
  5. Mulligans are tempting. It’s easy to shank your teeshot on the first hole, and tempting to start over by taking a mulligan. It’s hard to nail that first book, too. Don’t worry too much. Pen names can help with that.
  6. You’re expected to observe proper etiquette. Don’t talk while your opponent is swinging. Don’t walk in your opponent’s line. Don’t spam your friends with repeated advertisements for your book. Don’t pester your ex-girlfriends for reviews.
  7. You can spend a ton of money that won’t necessarily help. Seven bucks for one ball that might not last more than one shot. A few hundred bucks on one club. Thousands on equipment. Hundreds more to dress like a golfer. The shot might look ugly, but you’ll look great on the course. You can spend hundreds on a cover, hundreds on editing, thousands on marketing. But if the content reads like a slice in the water hazard, it could be a book that looks great, yet doesn’t sell. Except to your mom.
  8. There is a ton to learn. It takes time and patience. Lessons can help, if the instructor knows what he’s doing. Even if you receive great advice, it’s easy and common to go against it. Because you’re the one newbie who isn’t going to make any mistakes, right?
  9. Out of bounds hurts. In golf, it costs you a stroke and distance (and a seven-dollar ball). There are boundaries in self-publishing, too. Like not commenting on all your reviews, telling your fans whether you wear boxers or briefs (maybe this is one time when telling is better than showing!), promoting your book on your competition’s blog, or reviewing your own book. You will get caught and the penalties will be severe. We’re talking tar and feathers.

Back Nine:

  1. You must clean up your mess. When you take a divot that goes further than the ball, you must repair the real estate. When it takes five shots to get out of the bunker, as an added bonus, you get to rake your mess. When you discover typos in your book, whether it’s selling or not, you fix them. It’s just the proper thing to do. Like covering a puddle with your new leather jacket so a woman you don’t know can walk across the street without getting her feet soaked.
  2. All golfers, golf-courses, books, and authors are not created equal. Some courses are much easier than others. Some golfers are much better than others. Some books have wider appeal than others. Some authors have more talent or experience than others. But it can still be fun for everyone to play the game. And when it isn’t fun, you get to exercise your vocabulary of four-letter words. All too often.
  3. There are rules to be followed. On the course, a marshal looks for signs of slow play, un-raked sand traps, and high heels on the greens. A rulebook dictates how to determine relief and penalties. Competitors attest your score. Retailers decide what can or can’t be published. Amazon determines what is or isn’t acceptable behavior. Yes, the rules do apply to you.
  4. Luck is involved. The ball doesn’t always bounce the way you’d expect. Sometimes it skips across the pond. Other times it hits a sprinkler in the middle of the fairway and rolls out of bounds. A great book can get a lousy review right off the bat. Or the right person can fall in love with your book and tell hundreds of people about it. Or your boss can discover you’ve been moonlighting as an author.
  5. Never fear, help is near. You can have a caddie carry your bag, help you choose the right club, walk off the yardage, tell you which way the putt breaks. Experienced authors can help you with formatting, publishing tips, marketing advice, which finger to pick your nose with.
  6. Practice can help. Hit a bucket of range balls. Spend time on the putting green. Write, write, and write some more. Read, read, and read more, too. And when nothing seems to help, maybe try some of that advice you’ve been ignoring. You know, the advice that requires doing hard work. But not that advice promising amazing results with super shortcuts. That’s the kind of advice where you pay hundreds of dollars for someone to toss you into a dumpster. And then you try it again because it didn’t work out the first time.
  7. Golf and self-publishing are both spectator sports. There is a gallery in golf to watch the pros, and millions of viewers on t.v. to support the sport. Authors have readers. A pro has a fan base in the crowd to support him. Authors have small followings, too. Whoa, dude! You’re, like, famous now!
  8. Starting out, you have a ton of anxiety for no good reason. On the first tee, you’re highly visible. People on the putting green, at the driving range, in the clubhouse, pulling up in the parking lot, or walking by can see your shot. Why do you have all those butterflies? It’s not like your name is Jack Nicklaus. You’re not expected to drive the ball 350 yards down the middle of the fairway. All those butterflies show up when you press that publish button, too. You don’t even have a gallery yet.
  9. Natural talent and years of hard work can pay off big time. You could become a scratch golfer. You could finally become a bestseller. Then, of course, you’ll meet that perfect someone and drift off into the sunset.

Nineteenth Hole:

  • Whether you finish a round of golf or a book, you deserve a little time to celebrate. If you make a hole-in-one or become a bestseller, the drinks are on you. Whether you can afford it or not.

Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen

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