Tag Archives: publishing

Jan 11 2013

E-readers: A Love/Hate Relationship

She unties the ribbon, peels the wrapping paper off, and opens the box.  What is it?  A Kindle Fire!  That’s awesome!

She turns it around to find the power button.  It doesn’t come on.  Hmm.  Oh yeah, it needs to be charged.  She finds the charger and plugs it in.

A while later, the Kindle is charged and turns on.  Service?  What?  It doesn’t come with free service?  It needs wireless service!  Let’s see.  There is free wireless at the coffee shop, but a router must be installed in order to access the internet from home.

After a trip to the electronics store, she has a router.  It should be easy to install, right?  Where is the modem?  She crawls under her desk, bending her body so that she can connect cables to the back of her CPU, modem, and telephone.  So dirty!  Electronic devices are dust magnets!

It’s time to try it out.  Not yet.  Need to wash those hands first.  What?  Still no service!  Of course.  The hardware is connected, but the software hasn’t been installed.

Where are those instructions?  Setup.  Three easy steps.  She follows the directions to install the software.  She tries using the Kindle again.  It still doesn’t show up.  So frustrating!  Ah, finally!  There it is.  Enter the password.  Ta-da!

Receiving a present sure can be a burden!  But well worth it.  Now it’s working.  Just look at the graphics.  What is that design?  Gears?  It looks incredible!

She wonders what to do first.  Let’s get a book!  Click ‘books.’  That was easy.  Sort by ‘title.’  Wait a minute!  There aren’t any books here.  Where are the books?  Okay, there aren’t any books on the ‘device.’  Better click ‘store.’

Best sellers, popular categories, daily deals.  So many choices.  It’s almost time to start preparing dinner.  How about a cookbook?  That might not be a popular category.  Where are the other categories?  Let’s hit ‘browse.’  Didn’t work.  What?  That’s not a button.  Maybe cookbooks will be a popular category.  She clicks ‘popular categories’ to find out.  Way down at the bottom, there is ‘all books.’

Wow!  This is really cool.  It’s like having a bookstore in the living room, on a bus, or in an airplane.

Huh?  All of the books are in order on a single list.  Where are the categories?  Oh, there is a ‘refine’ option.  Is it an ‘eBook’ or a ‘single’?  What is the difference?  Try ‘eBook.’  Finally!  There is a ‘cooking, food, & wine’ category; subcategory ‘meals.’  Where is dinner?  Ugh!

She puts her Kindle down and logs onto her desktop computer.  She visits Amazon, finds Kindle, and clicks on ‘Kindle eBooks.’  Oh, this is so much easier!  That’s the book.  Kindle for PC?  No, not for PC; for a real Kindle.  Hmm.   There is a ‘deliver to’ option.  What is a ‘cloud’?  This word ‘cloud’ was on the Kindle.  Let’s see…

All right!  There is finally a cookbook on her Kindle Fire.  Need to turn a page.  Oh, it works like a cell phone.  Small picture.  Is there a zoom button?  Where are all the buttons?  That’s power…  When she presses the screen, some touchscreen options come up at the bottom.  She increases the font size, but the pictures are still small.  These other buttons don’t zoom either.  She finds more touchscreen buttons at the top.  Still no zoom, but there is a ‘more’ button.  Must be under ‘display.’  Nope.  Where is the instruction booklet?  She checks the packaging for the instructions.  No instructions!  Which evil genius designed this infuriating gadget?

She touches the picture.  Nothing happens.  She touches it twice quickly.  The picture opens on its own page, larger than before.  What was that?  Double-click to zoom?  It’s not like there is a mouse…

After finding a suitable recipe, she begins following directions to prepare lasagna for dinner.  Why is the Kindle off?  It must have timed out…  She turns it back on and retypes the password.  Incorrect password!  Must have touched the wrong letter.  Try it again.  She continues cooking.

She returns to the Kindle to read the next step.  What is that on the screen?  A smear!  Already?  It’s brand new!  Need to get a screen protector… and a case.

What is that message on the screen?  Fifteen minutes of battery left.  No way!  Dinner won’t be ready for another thirty minutes.  Better find the charger…

During dinner, she reflects on her first experience with her new Kindle Fire.  There was a slight learning curve, but it wasn’t too bad.  She is getting the hang of it.  It’s really convenient.  The graphics are awesome.  It functions like a great big cell phone.  Not only can she buy any book and read it anywhere on a fairly big screen, she can even browse the internet anywhere that she has wireless access.  Very cool!

Later that night, with her Kindle fully charged, she begins reading a science fiction book that she found.  Which is more convenient ─ portrait or layout?  She settles on portrait mode.  Trying to scroll onto the next page, she accidentally turns back a page.  No biggie.  Another time, she holds her finger on the spot a little too long, and the word is highlighted.  A window pops up, showing the pronunciation key and definition.  A built-in dictionary.  That’s amazing!  She also sees ‘note’ and ‘highlight’ options.  Impressed, she tries to do this again with another word.  A display comes up instead.  No, not that.  She tries again, holding her finger in place longer.  Aha!  That’s it.

As she continues reading, she notices that some of the indents are longer than others.  That’s strange.  Why isn’t there a standard size for the tabs?  A while later, she finds a little square in the middle of a sentence.  What is that little box doing there?  How funny.  Several pages further, she discovers a hyphen-ated word in the middle of a line.  Aren’t hyphens used at the end of a line?  In the next chapter, she spots a misspelled word.  Really?  This is the age of technology.  The book is digital.  The author must have used a computer to type it.  Neither the author nor the editor used spellcheck?  How is this possible?

Attempting to scroll onto the next page, suddenly an internet browser opens.  What is going on?  She is reading a book, not going online.  When she closes the internet browser, she spots a hyperlink in the middle of the page.  Oh.  Must have clicked that by mistake.  This book is like a minefield.

The next day, a friend inquires, “So what do you think about your new Kindle Fire?”

She replies, “Oh, I absolutely love it!”

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

Jan 5 2013

Reading & Writing with Passion

A bookstore is like a bar where you go to pick up books; internet bookstores are like online dating services.  You browse through the books to find one that catches your eye.  When you see one you like, you look at it more closely.  You scan it up and down, turn it over and examine its rear.  The book doesn’t mind.  In fact, the book is yearning for more.  This is what it was written for.  It is begging, “Pick me!  Pick me!”

Satisfied with what you see so far, you look inside.  You judge its appearance inside and out.  Then you decide to get to know it better.  You read the cover blurbs.  You check out the contents, browse through the introduction.  You’re measuring its personality, knowledge, and communication skills; judging its potential.

If the book passes your examination, you take it out on a date.  You begin reading the first chapter.  The whole time the book is anticipating that first kiss, wondering if you will take it home with you.  Meanwhile, you are analyzing the book’s every move.  Going steady with a book is a big commitment.  You don’t want to be disappointed.

How do you know if the relationship will work out?  Curling up by the fireplace, snuggling in warm covers in bed with a booklight, sneaking a quick page or two in the bathroom.  You will share these intimate times with your book.  You want to know that the book is Mr. or Mrs. Right for you.

When you look at the cover, you see the book’s handsome or pretty face and stylish suit or dress.  As you read, the plot unfolds.  The plot is like the book’s body.  A great plot is like an attractive body.  But is that enough to satisfy your needs?  Suspense, engaging and captivating text, these are the hormones that the book sends out to arouse and sustain interest.  But will your attraction to the book be purely physical?  When the style of the writing shows personality, when the ideas massage your mind, when the writing exudes with passion… are these not the romantic elements that you are looking for in your relationship with your book?  Even if the book is not a romance novel ─ even if it is nonfiction ─ would you not prefer a book that was written by an author who was extremely passionate in his or her work?

If the book captures your interest, you read on.  If it is suspenseful, you turn the pages rapidly.  If the plot thickens, your intrigue builds.  And then… eventually… the book reaches its climax.  The story ties its loose ends.  Your physical attraction to the book wears off.  And what remains?  If the ideas of the book appealed to you, if the writing evoked passionate emotions from within you, if the book did more than just satisfy your curiosity to end the suspense, then the book leaves an everlasting impression upon you.  It changes you.  It becomes part of you.  Forever.

Yes, the writing can have passion.  It can entertain.  It can wine and dine you.  But the reader can add passion, too.  You control the voice you hear in your head, the pace of the read.  You can read it with style and zest.  You can build your own interest.  You can even insert your own ideas between the lines.  Yes, the reader can reciprocate the passion that the author put into the book.

A blog, on the other hand, is not a book.  It’s more of a tease.  As soon as you get into the blog, it’s already over.

Chris McMullen, author of the fictional work, Why Do We Have to Go to School?

Jan 1 2013

Judging a Book by Its Cover

The saying tells us, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”  Is this really sound advice?

Sherlock Holmes would tell you that you can learn much from appearances.  For example, little details like style of clothing and marks on the hands may provide clues to a person’s occupation and natural habitat.  Maybe we can similarly deduce some information about the content and quality of a book just from its cover.

A poor cover may be quite suggestive.  The reader may naturally wonder, “If the publisher didn’t put any effort into the cover, perhaps the content is also lacking in quality.”

An eye-catching cover tends to draw interest.  This is true whether you’re browsing for books in a store or on the internet.  You can’t help it; your mind simply notices images that stand out visually.

Do you have any books lying around the house that you haven’t read?  How about ebooks that you’ve downloaded, but never opened?  Why did you buy those books if you haven’t read them yet?  Could it be that they looked interesting?  If a cover impresses us and the text on the cover fascinates us, we become magnetized to the book.

Let’s face it.  We’re all fashionable – even if our style is plain, we all have some sense of style that we feel comfortable with.  We buy shirts and sunglasses that we feel comfortable wearing.  Don’t we also consider how a cover and title fit in with our sense of style before we dare to read it on an airplane or a subway?

You can’t truly judge the quality of a book until you’ve read the content, but the cover does plays a pivotal role in whether or not you may ever read the book in the first place.

The book industry is evolving.  We purchase books online, and read ebooks on cell phones and tablets.  An increasing number of books are self-published.  There are more and more books to choose from, and we strive to find the few books that are the best fit for us.  Occasionally, we purchase a book where the formatting or editing is poor.  We even find formatting issues with ebooks from major publishing houses.

So when we search for books, we try to filter out those that appear most professional.  This begins with the cover.  We look for a professional cover.  Not just its visual appearance; any formatting or editing issues with the text on the cover quickly place the book in the unprofessional category.

If the cover passes our initial inspection, we may read the description, check the reviews, learn more about the author, and read the sample.  But our judgment begins with the cover.

Hence, for the publisher, designing a professional-looking, eye-catching cover that the intended audience will feel comfortable holding is all-so important.

Please don’t judge this blog by its cover.  🙂

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

Dec 18 2012

Writing & Publishing Aren’t as Scary as They Seem

Zap!  Suddenly, it strikes you like a bolt of lightning.  You have a great idea for a book.  You’re so excited!  At first, your idea is a sentence.  Then it grows into a summary for a plot.  You enjoy your idea for quite a while… but…

Eventually, uncertainty creeps in.  What do you do with your idea?

Write a book, of course!  Wait a minute…  That’s going to be a few hundred pages.  If you sit down right now, you could type a page.  Let’s see.  If you type one page a day, how long will it take to write the book?  Hmm, that’s about a year.  That’s a lot of work!

Do you really want to invest a year writing a book?  Hmm…

It sure would stink to do all of that work and then not get the book published.  Maybe you should write a book proposal first.  That way, if a publisher agrees to publish your book, you will surely be motivated to write it.

How do you write a book proposal?  Gradually, you learn more and more about the process of writing a book proposal.  It takes a lot of research just to find potential publishers willing to accept work by a first-time author in your specific genre.  Then you must master the art of writing an effective query letter.  If your query letter sparks the editor’s interest, then you must prepare a lengthy book proposal.  Your proposal doesn’t just describe the book, so you must also describe your qualifications and even develop a marketing strategy?  It might take months just to get a response.  Ugh!

Why won’t the publisher market the book for you?  Why should you have to do that yourself?  You’re  an aspiring writer, after all – not a salesperson.  And why is there such a bureaucratic process just to see if the publisher is interested in your book?  All you wanted to do is run a simple idea by some publishers to see if it’s worthwhile to write your book before you get started.  Writing all of these query letters, researching to get the names of the specific editors for your genre, and preparing a lengthy book proposal sure seems like a lot of work.

So maybe it would be better to write the book instead?  At least that will result in a finished product.  Writing query letters and a book proposal might turn out to be a waste of time.  What will you do with those if your book doesn’t get published?  If you write the book and nobody wants to publish it, at least you can self-publish it.

Now you need to read up on self-publishing.  Will you write a paperback book or an e-book?  Why not both – you can reach more customers that way.  Where will you publish?  Now you need to research that.  Oh boy!  Now you don’t just write your book, you must also format your book, edit your manuscript, draw your own artwork, and even convert files to PDF format.

Maybe you could hire someone to do the formatting and do the artwork?  How much will that cost?  Will they do a good job?  Will you sell enough copies to make it worthwhile?

Hmm…  How about an agent?  More query letters and proposals.  That’s just like finding a publisher…

Boo!  The publishers are scary ghosts.  They hide under your bed when you sleep.  Muhahaha!  The self-publishing industry is a witch flying across the sky on a broomstick, looking for unsuspecting indie authors.  Aaaooowww!  Literary agents are werewolves, haunting writers during full moons.

It’s so scary!  How will you ever escape from this nightmare?  Why were you cursed with this book idea?

And then…  Dun dun dun dunnn!  It’s your fairy godmother to the rescue!  She advises you that it’s not as scary as it seems.

Your fairy godmother sprinkles some confidence over your head.  That’s right!  You can do it!  You had this great book idea for a reason.  Carry it out and see where it leads.

But you don’t know where to begin, you plead.  Your fairy godmother reminds you that your idea was to write.  So start writing.  Publishers and agents will want sample chapters.  Whether you publish it yourself, try to find a traditional publisher, or search for an agent – in any case, you will need to write.  As you make more and more progress writing your book, you’ll become increasingly motivated to learn how to publish your work.

Gosh!  That’s a lot of writing.  You’re not sure you can do it.

Your fairy godmother uses her magic wand to sign you up for your very own blog.  Just write a little bit here and there, she tells you.  Develop a character.  Write a short story.  Start out with small things that will help you with your book.  If you get a few followers to express interest in your blog, that will help motivate you to work on your book.  Who knows?  By the time you complete your book, you might even have a small fan base already interested in it.

Your fairy godmother is right.  It’s not as scary as it seems.  Just get started.  The more you write, the more you will get into it.

Good luck with your writing and publishing!

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

Dec 14 2012

Customer Book Reviews – Can’t Live With ’em, Can’t Live Without ’em

Twenty years ago, we would stand in our favorite aisle in the bookstore, hoping to select a few good books.  There weren’t nearly as many books to choose from back then – we only had to choose from the limited selection of books that the publishing houses deemed fit for us to read.  If there were any reviews to guide us, they were printed in newspapers and magazines.  We didn’t have customer opinions to help impact our buying decision – unless friends or family happened to have read the book.  The only customer reviews that we saw in the bookstore were the biased quotes and testimonials that appeared on the cover and on the first pages.  If you wanted to express your opinion, you had to have your own printed article.

How times have changed!  Now we can sit in our PJ’s and sip coffee while browsing for books online.  Customers express their opinions and even rate the books on a scale of one (*) to five (*****) stars in customer book reviews.  Everyone has an opinion, and anyone is free to share it.  You don’t have to be an expert to be a critic.  In fact, experts are often ineligible – since other authors who have expertise writing in the same genre are not allowed to review books in that genre.  For example, who would be better qualified to review a sci-fi book than someone who has been both reading and writing sci-for for thirty years?

But that’s okay.  We’re not really looking for experts to tell us what we should or shouldn’t read.  We want to know if we will enjoy the book or not, so we look at the opinions of other customers like ourselves.  So when we pull up a few pages of search results, we look at two things – price and rating.  Naively, we expect five star (*****) books to be awesome and one star (*) books to be awful.  After all, five stars (*****) means you love it, three stars (***) is neutral, and one star (*) means you hate it.

Then we find some of our favorite books online and see that they have three stars (***).  Why don’t the books we used to love have rave reviews?  Then we buy some five star (*****) books and learn that some don’t live up to our expectations.  Experience tells us not to rely solely on the rating.

Next we start reading the reviews.  This is when it really gets interesting.  Five people can say, “It’s the best book ever,” while three others can say, “Don’t buy it.  It stinks,” and yet everyone is talking about the same book.  This is characteristic of most books that have dozens of reviews.  Best-selling established writers who have hundreds of reviews often have a rating from three (***) to four (****) stars, including several customers who hate it and love it.  People form a wide variety of opinions, and some people like to disagree.  This is definitely reflected in the reviews.

So how do you know whom to believe?  You can discount any review that doesn’t provide a good reason for why they love it or hate it.  You can also discount anything that isn’t useful.  But you may still be left with plenty of reasons to read it or pass on it.  These days we can make well-informed buying decisions.  Too bad so much of the information is conflicting!

If you appreciate the struggle of sorting through these conflicting reviews as a customer, just imagine the emotional state of the author who only has a few customer reviews.  The fate of the self-published author, especially, often hinges upon every review.  If one of the first reviewers leaves one star (*), the poor author feels crushed.  This must be a tough blow after putting so much time, effort, and thought into a book to be shared with the rest of the world.  If you come across a book that has a single one star (*) review, would you buy it?  If a book has 100 reviews, we know that we will personally disagree with many of them; but for some reason, if a book has a single one star (*) review, instinctively we trust that review and avoid that book.

The books with just a few reviews are tough for both customers and authors.  The authors need more reviews to help customers judge whether or not the book suits them.  Potential customers also want more reviews for the same reason.  If a book has three reviews, it pretty much doesn’t matter what the rating is, it will be difficult to judge the reliability of the reviews.  For example, some customers shy away from a book that has three five star (*****) reviews because it seems suspicious.  Maybe these were all friends of the author..?

Unfortunately, only a tiny percentage of books are actually reviewed.  Just look at the bestsellers.  A book that has sold tens of thousands of copies may only have hundreds of reviews.  Very often, one out of a few hundred customers will actually take a few moments to express his or her opinion.  That’s fine for popular books.  Once a book has a hundred reviews, another review isn’t going to matter much.  But when a book only has a few reviews, every review is critical – for both the author and for other customers.

If a book has dozens of reviews, that’s a sign that the book has been purchased frequently – at least, it appears to have been good enough for several other customers to try.  As long as the system hasn’t been abused.  The idea behind the customer review process is to provide an assortment of honest feedback about the book in order to help other potential customers make more informed purchasing decisions.  Unfortunately, the system can also be abused in a variety of ways, such as shill, sham, and paid reviews.  A small percentage of authors have created multiple accounts to leave themselves reviews, get family members and other parties who have a financial interest in the book to leave reviews, or even pay others to leave book reviews.  This practice hurts customers and all of the scrupulous authors.  Customers and authors alike need for the customers to be able to trust the system.

Personally, I’ll take the many conflicting reviews – which often times are entertaining to read – and occasional abuse of the system – versus sitting in the bookstore aisle completely uninformed about the books.  If you want to improve the system, the answer is pretty obvious:  If you happen to read a book that doesn’t have hundreds of reviews, take a moment to voice your opinion.  But beware!  If someone doesn’t like your opinion, you may get a No vote under, “Was this review helpful to you?”  We not only express our opinions on the book itself, but we even express our opinions on the opinions!  Have an opinion on that?

– Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers