feng shui assassin

An excellent article on self publishing, peoples reactions to a self published book and the expectations for a self published author at slushpile.net - which, although posted over two years ago - still garners comments!

This is great to see that an interesting and informative post can still hang around in bookmarks and search engine queries enough to rank well. The post itself is fun - but as with most of these posts from media-related sites - it’s the commenter’s that reveal insight into the reasons why people do (or do not) dislike self publishers.

An interesting comment from Padraig O Maeloid where he mentions the annoyance of an over bearing self published author at one of his cons - and her badgering of attendees as they neared the book tables to buy her book. A pity that his experience has made him deeply wary of self published and POD authors. But there are some terrible lengths to which independent authors will go to to get their book in front of the noses of the general, or specific, public.

Attending a genre convention would be valuable. But I don’t believe Indy Authors should focus on selling their book one person at a time. It’s essentially cold calling - and that’s depressing enough. Rather, a buzz about the general concept of the book can go so much further than trying to offload individual copies.

An interesting article on the role of the editor on Guardian Online - and as usual with the Newspaper articles - the comments section proves to be a lively forum with input from industry professionals and others ‘in the know’.

It’s interesting to note that within the established publishing industry the title of ‘Editor’ is bandied around and attached to anyone lacking a real job description.

Editing is the most important step for any self published author. Let me say that again. The. Most. Important! It is an essential step - absolutely crucial if the independent authoring community is going to gain any respect from the purchasing public.

I would hope to see independent editors becoming more available to independent authors. I know that many of the small self-publishing houses have an editorial service - with the additional pennies required for the author. As an essential step in the publication process - it will be money well spent. However, not all services are created equal - and it will be a hit and miss process for many.

Perhaps having your manuscript edited by a renowned editor will be as much a selling point as the cover, or the title, or even the writing itself. A badge of acceptance with an editorial house logo or somesuch - yet further removing the independent author stygma from vanity publishing. Even to the point where these editing houses would help market the book (in an online fashion) for a cut of the book.

Just a quickie - but another article from Guardian online regarding the lack of financial reward for bringing out a book.

It is safe to say that most first-time authors will be lucky to make £5,000 from their first book (and considering most newbie authors will receive an advance of £10-£12 grand for a two booker deal - then they probably won’t see any of that royalty cheque anyway). This is the way of things, I guess. The author will then have to build upon their first book, creating a necessary fanbase upon which to build popularity and, more importantly in the eyes of the Publisher, sales.

There is no denying that great writing will shine amongst the dross. But it takes more than great writing to earn a living - it takes the tenacity of the writer too. And probably luck for a reader to stumble upon such a gem.

Luckily the web, with its many reviewer sites, is re-dressing the balance of marketing hype and push that Publishers can exert on a favoured new release. But it’s still all too easy for a first-timer author to get lost on the bookshelves and be obscured by the next months new releases before getting their toe-hold on that oh-so slippery ladder!

Perhaps all authors should self-publish.

Self publishers face a difficult task when it comes to distributing ‘the book’. I have read a few independent author blogs that have talked about the frustrations of trying to get their book into a Waterstones or Borders (outside of their local town). This is why I plan to concentrate efforts on Amazon and other internet-focused book distributors and to look into opportunities for widening exposure outside of the High Street Book-pushers.

Lovereading is a site that offers reviews and first chapter peeks of many new releases. A friendly site that replicates the best of a High Street store without too many of their bad habits, allows you to browse a first chapter and allows a discount on purchasing from the site.

However, Lovereading have now brought out a new site dedicated to the self publisher (and the want to be published) with their Lovewriting site. Lovewriting is a showcase site for Independent Authors and the self published - and they have replicated their original site to offer the Independent Author a new avenue to promote their book to the lengthy list of lovereading subscribers.

It seems an excellent step forward for Independent Authors in the UK - and a positive step to breaking down the self published perception of poor quality tatt. (Not saying that there isn’t lots of self-published poor quality tatt out there - just that this site, along with others, helps the cream rise to the top).

An interesting article from an author explaining the realities of payment and earning from your book writing - even when you are a successful author with a number of books on the shelves. Jeaniene Frost details at length the myth to the realities - a good job of managing a potential authors expectations.

I have seen a couple of these articles (from American authors, naturally. Would a British author be persuaded to talk about the nitty gritty realities of payment, Royalties and the advance?). I’ll have to try and search for those other articles - but they did all talk about the same thing - don’t expect too much - the advance is just that, an advance against future sales - and that the author receives between 6 - 10% (typically 7.5% of soft back sales).

One of the reasons to starting this blog was to explore the different business models available to selling your book online - and also to consider whether an author could be paid a set amount per book - to do away with the percentage game (which becomes ludicrous when a book is sold for £3-50 and an author can expect about 26p?).

A set fee of, say £1 per book would mean that an author could become a full time writer with a first successful book. This will be looked into in more detail - as I hunt out sales figures for a moderately successful first-time author (I’m guessing they’re around 40,000 books on the initial print run). This would mean a well selling author could concentrate more time on writing their second effort.

Anyhoo - worth a ponder.

After dredging thru the internet looking for info on layout and jacket dimensions (from selfpublishing.com and Biddles and a few others) - I may just crack and approach a local professional for an hours work.

I’m pretty confident with the layout of the insides - the dimensions from edge of page, spacing between lines and half a dozen other terms I’ve had to get to grips with. But the cover of the book will be the most important aspect of this stage - and if that’s wrong - then they won’t exactly fly off the shelves.

Biddles offer a hardback option for their printing - with a jacket that requires designing and mocking up. And whilst I’ve some excellent artwork for the front cover - and can pretty much handle Paint Shop Pro - should I really risk doing the jacket cover - only to find that it’s the wrong DPI (dots per inch) or the spine measurements were out.

Well - time will tell. If I can get someone within the next few weeks, then ‘yay’. Otherwise, I’ll get to grips with it myself - and hey - a mosaic smudged cover may give the right impression!

An initial step in self-publishing is the requirement to have your own ISBN’s. The Neilson agency in the UK provides these to publishers and individuals alike - in blocks of ten (no single ISBN numbers available). Those nice people also include the brief details of the book onto a directory and database - from which a number of book distributors receive their information.

In the eyes of the bookworld - the ownership of an ISBN number is the difference between you as a publisher (you have) and you as an author (you have not).

Something to keep in mind is the ‘publishing name’. I’ve kept away from publishing under Adrian Hall and plumbed for a trading name (register this with your local registration agent - mine cost £40) - which means you can open up a bank account under the trading name (in my case, Gecko Publishing. Though it was a close run thing between that and ‘I can’t believe it’s not a Publishing House‘).

A warning note - unless you purchase the ISBN you are not the publisher. If it is an add-on service of the printer/short run publisher that they provide you with the ISBN, then it’s not yours, it’s theirs.

And hello to the world of Feng Shui Assassin. The ISBN numbers are being sought and then on to the printers. The site is up to ensure the search engines get a taster - meanwhile I’ll blog about some of the concepts and concerns for Independent authoring and how to make books and comics available on the internet for free (or as-near-as-dammit).