Dean Wesley Smith: Book Cards Work!

Here's the idea: You have an electronic book to sell but how can you show it to potential customers at, say, a convention? How can a bookstore sell your electronic book? It is stating the obvious, but ebooks aren't like paper books, you can't just hand the book to someone.

Sure, you can direct them to Amazon.com and say, "Well, just search on 'Until Death' ... and maybe add 'Karen Woodward' so you're sure to get the right 'Until Death' ... I mean, who knew certain titles would be so popular! You'll remember all that? Right?"

No. They won't. The solution? Book cards! This is Dean Wesley Smith's idea and I think it's brilliant. I'll let him describe it:

Each “book card” had two parts.

Part one was the plastic gift card the size of a credit card and the same thickness. The cover of the book is printed on one side, the code and instructions on the back. We used these cards alone for a sort of business card as well, since the cards had our web site addresses as well as WMG Publishing website address.

As you can tell from the image up to the left, these credit-card-sized book covers were way cool.

Dean cautions that,

For the next few years, until book cards become more accepted by bookstores, I do not see them being economically viable for an indie publisher to produce for every book for sale. It would take too long to return the printing investment.

But WOW are they great promotion. Worth every penny.

Let me say that again. On special books and for events, book cards are worth every penny.

He closes by saying ...

Honestly, I see book cards becoming a major way for bookstores to sell electronic books in four or five years. It’s going to take traditional publishers to jump onto the idea to make it easier for indie publishers to get book cards into bookstores.

And book cards, packaged like gift cards, have a huge market in major supermarkets and other major retail stores besides bookstores, placed right beside all the other gift cards that have already gotten into those stores.

Electronic books are clearly going to be over 50% of all books sold within five years. This is a way to get those books into reader’s hands and thousands of new markets that paper books are too expensive and large to get into.

And from the author perspective, all I can say is that they are great fun. These are fantastic promotion.

Now it is up to traditional publishers to get this going. Cindie and I gave copies of these to many New York editors and a couple major New York publishers who really, really loved the idea.

First publishers have to train bookstores.

And then bookstores have to train readers that they can buy their electronic books in a regular bookstore.

It will happen.

Read Dean Wesley Smith's entire article here: Book Cards Work.

Harlan Ellison: Writers Need To Be Paid

When I read this blog post -- Un-Screwing The Writer -- I immediately thought of Dean Wesley Smith. Those of you who follow Dean's blog know why.

The video is short (3 mins or so) and eye-opening. It is of sci-fi legend Harlan Ellison ranting about the assumption that writers don't need to be paid for their work. I read what I've just written and think: Of course writers need to get paid for their work, it seems glaringly obvious, but as Harlan Ellison notes, all too often it doesn't happen.

Kristine Rusch: Playing to Win

Imagine me as the couch who wants to teach you how to play effectively. The first thing you have to do is learn how to win.
- Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Business Rusch: Playing To Win

Kris Rusch hit a home run with her blog post this Thursday. It feels like each week I say: This blog post by Kris is a must read! And they are, but this one especially. She writes:

You won't succeed at writing and business every single day. You will fail. But no one wins without losing. Failures teach you how to be a success. In fact, the biggest successes always have a slew of failures behind them. Failing is how we learn.

We shouldn't feel like a failure if we haven't written a bestseller (yet!). Success comes over the long term. The key is to write fast and well and get a lot of work published, so it can sell consistently over time.

Playing To Win is a wonderful, inspiring, article. I'm going to go and write now.

An indie author publishes her sales figures for August 2011

I can’t force everybody to jump on the ebook party bus, but I will say that if you’re looking for a business that can insulate you during life’s hard times, you might find it’s a very nice place to be.
- Dahlia, My ebook sales figures for August 2011

Dahlia writes:

Everybody’s got a song-and-dance they’re using to get to the top of the financial food chain. But the big question you should be asking yourself today is that if life were to toss you a bag a moldy lemons and you can’t make lemonade, could your online business still support you?

If you were (God forbid) to become terribly ill and could only spend a maximum of 90 minutes a day online, could you still put a roasted chicken (or some veggie tofu) on the dinner table without straining?

A lot of online businesses are dependent on steady and active participation. I’m thinking in particular about my freelance writing friends. They stop grinding and the revenue stops flowing. That’s a little scary for me, even with a savings to pad the fall.

That’s part of the reason why I really began to pursue ebooks as my primary revenue source. I needed to know that I had something to support me should I suddenly need surgery, or if there’s a death in the family, or even if I fall in love with some awesome muchacho. (Love? Yes… I make breathing room for everything!)

Dahlia reports that she made $4,210 dollars in August! And her sales are down a thousand dollars from July. Way to go, Dahlia! To read her entire article click here.

4 Ways To Get Reviews For Your Book

Someone tweeted me today asking me how authors could go about getting their book reviewed and it got me to thinking: Hey! That's a great idea for a blog post.

1. BookRooster.com
Earlier this year Joe Konrath interviewed Catherine MacDonald of BookRooster.com (Interview with Catherine MacDonald from BookRooster.com). Joe's interview is well worth the read and many writers left a comment in which they talked about their experience with BookRooster.

The following is from BookRooster.com:

BookRooster.com is a community of over 3,000 passionate readers/reviewers drawn from BookLending.com and other Kindle reader communities. We organize the distribution of review copies of your book (in MOBI format for Kindle) to reviewers in exchange for their unbiased Amazon customer review.

How BookRooster.com Works:

1. Reviewers sign up to receive review copies of books in their favorite genres. BookRooster.com reviewers are expected to review a reasonable proportion of the books they receive, and we read every Amazon customer review they submit to keep an eye on review quality and objectivity.

2. When you request distribution of review copies of your book, we extend invitations to a select group of reviewers drawn from hundreds who have indicated a desire to review books in your genre. The invitations describe your book and provide a link for reviewers to request your book if they’d like to read and review it.

3. We send out review copies of your book (in MOBI format) to these reviewers on a first-come, first-served basis until at least ten reviewers post their reviews of your book.

We charge an administrative fee of $67 per book to invite suitable reviewers to review your book, to distribute your book to those who have agreed to review it and to track to make sure at least ten reviews are submitted by BookRooster.com reviewers.

Please note: BookRooster.com is not a pay-for-review service. Our reviewers love to read in their favorite genres and they will write unbiased, sincere reviews that reflect their real opinions about your book. For more information, you can read our Reviewer Guidelines.

2. Book Bloggers
Amanda Hocking, among others, attributes much of her financial success to book bloggers. Alan Rinzler writes that

When she rolled out the first of nine books in March of last year, Hocking had no idea what to expect. Over the next couple of months, her Kindle sales amounted to around 600 eBooks. Not bad for a newbie, but not enough for the 26-year-old to quit her day job.

Whoosh! Into the fast lane

Then she discovered and tapped into the world of book bloggers. Her sales took a gigantic swerve into the fast lane, tallying 164,000 books sold by the end of 2010.

“I had no idea such people existed,” Hocking wrote on her own website. “They just read books and write about them. And I don’t mean “just.” They take time out of their busy lives to talk about books and have contests and connect with followers and writers and other readers. These guys are honestly my heroes. I’m a little in love with all of them.”

USA Today this week reported the jaw-dropping news that last month alone, Hocking sold 450,000 of her nine titles, breaking into their top 50 bestsellers list. Taking her cue from iTunes, she had priced her self-published eBooks at $2.99 (she keeps 70 percent) and .99 cents (keeping 30 percent.) Do the math. That day job is history.

Here is a link to A Tale of Many Reviews, a book review site. I have never used this site (although I might!), I came across it as I was doing research for this blog post. It looked good, so I thought I'd share. :-)

Also, I have a list of book blogs on the left side of this page. You may have to scroll down the page to see it.

3. Author/Writer Bloggers
I think of book bloggers as folks who primarily do reviews and who are attached to a book review website, but there are other kinds of bloggers.

Bloggers like me! Writers who blog about the world of writing. Sure, the blogger might say, "No!" to your request for a review, but the negative response doesn't cost you anything and you'll never know if you don't try.

If you decide to go this route, it helps if you do your research. Read a few of the blogger's posts so that when you contact them you'll be knowledgeable about their work. I would suggest that you offer the blogger a free copy of your book.

4. Ask your readers for reviews
Amanda Hocking did this, and I thought she did it well. I don't think readers mind being asked, politely, without any pressure being applied, to share their opinion of your book by writing a review.

What to do after the review:

Blog about it! Let as many folks know about the review as you can. Blog about it and then tweet the link to your followers.

Also, IMHO, there's only one appropriate response to a book review, good or bad, insightful or all-kinds-of-wrong: Thank you for taking the time to review my book.

If anyone can add to my suggestions for how to solicit book reviews, I would appreciate your feedback.

By the way, if anyone would like to review my book, Until Death, please do! :-)

You Can Be a Successful Writer Without a Bestseller

To make a living at indie publishing, you must have a decent number of books and stories for sale.

This is the point Dean drives home in his latest blog post: The Money is All in the Numbers. Dean acknowledges that there are people like Joe Konrath and Amanda Hocking who have made a huge amount of money off of one or a few books in a relatively short period of time, but these good folks are the exception not the rule. Dean's point: you don't need to write a bestseller to earn a comfortable living as an indie writer.

Dean writes that

I have, at my last count, just over nine million copies of my books in print, yet I have never had any big splash. Just a book here, a book there, and a lot of books selling over decades. And none of that counts any ghost-written novel or indie-published title. (The number would be a ton higher if I counted those.) Just traditional novels through traditional publishers under one of my own names.

Traditional publishers, Dean says, make their money "not so much on sales-per-book ... but on numbers of different titles that are for sale". It is all about control. A publisher can't control whether one of their books will become a best-seller, but they can control how many titles they have for sale. The more titles they have for sale, the more money they will make month after month, year after year.

Some books lose money, some make more than expected. But the hope and goal is that the average over a line of books over a period of time will be around the 4% figure, give or take. If the book line loses money regularly, the editor is eventually fired or the imprint or publishing company is killed. Just business.

If these big publishers were only publishing one book (or even only one hundred books) per month, they sure couldn’t afford the big buildings.

Quantity in numbers of titles is everything.

Here's how all of this applies to indie writers:

Indie-published writers got all the money that publishers used to get for building those huge buildings in New York.  Instead of getting 14.8% on electronic sales (25% of 70% – 15%), that publishers were offering, we got 65-70%. Period. And we could put books on our own web sites for sale and maybe even make 100%.

And even more importantly to us midlist writers: All our backlist suddenly had value again. (This is huge!!!)

On top of that, indie writers have more freedom. Not only can we write what we want but we can also write to the length that's right for the story.

Even if you are a novelist. Remember the one-hundred-thousand word novel was an artificial creation of the publishing industry over the last forty years to justify price increases. Let your stories go natural lengths. You will discover that most novels are fine around fifty-to-seventy-thousand words. Sometimes shorter. Just write the story you want to write.

I have only discussed a few of Dean's points, I would highly recommend that anyone interested in writing or publishing go over to his blog and read his article, The Money is All in the Numbers.

Then, write, and build up that backlist! :-)

Indie Success Story Bella Andre: Two pennames are better than one

In the past 18 months Bella Andre has self-published 12 books in two genres: spicy contemporary romance and sweet teen romance. Further, she has published under two different pen names: Bella Andre (erotic romance) and Lucy Kevin (sweet young adult romance).

Her key to success?

Diversification across genres and author brands.

Thanks to Joe Konrath, here is her incredible story:

In April 2010, I began e-publishing with two sexy, contemporary, backlist Bella Andre romances. After having a bit of unexpected success in those early months, I knew my chance had come to finally write the book my readers had been sending me emails about for five years. When LOVE ME did better than I ever imagined--Joe and I spoke on the phone last summer and I remember telling him I was shocked to have sold 1000+ copies of that book. He cheered!--I realized there was something to this whole e-reading business.

Of course I quickly went out and bought a Kindle and then a Nook later that fall and most recently an iPad. I released a couple more backlist books in October 2010 and then an original sequel to my Bad Boys of Football series that had been released through Pocket a few years back.

Amazingly, GAME FOR LOVE went to #28 at BN.com and was one of the top 5 erotic novels on Amazon for months at $5.99. This June 20th I launched a 8 book contemporary romance series about the Sullivan family with THE LOOK OF LOVE. It hit #19 on BN.com right out of the gate and has been a consistent Top 30 romance bestseller at Apple. Frankly, the whole thing continues to blow my mind.

Meanwhile, my husband had been watching my e-numbers rise for these self-published Bella Andre books and he kept saying, “Put out those fun chick lit books you wrote that no publisher ever bought!” Because I’d written them several years earlier, they needed significant rewrites, but I had always believed in the novels...and I like my husband to feel like I listen to him now and again. :) But since those books were very sweet (and snarky all at the same time), I knew they couldn’t be published as Bella Andre books.

Lucy Kevin came into being on a cold January morning in the Northern California wine country. Honestly, I figured 6 people would buy her books. To say that I was shocked when more than 25,000 people had downloaded SEATTLE GIRL and FALLING FAST by the end of February is a huge understatement. I released a third Lucy Kevin book in March titled SPARKS FLY.

The thing people are surprised to hear is that I didn’t draw from my existing Bella Andre readership for the Lucy Kevin books. In fact, until the Washington Post article came out, no one knew that Lucy and Bella were the same person, because I wasn’t sure the readerships would overlap between my teen-friendly books and my super-sexy romances. With the Lucy books I got to experience launching a new digital author--and building that readership--entirely from the ground up. It's been a lot of work, but I've loved trying to figure out what made people want to take a chance on a book. Heck, I’m still trying to figure that out :) and then find enough hours in the day to actually make it all happen!

Amazingly, here’s what happened--in some cases retailers were more excited to feature Lucy Kevin because the chick lit/sweet romance novels could reach a bigger mainstream audience. It simply didn’t seem to matter that no one had heard of Lucy Kevin. The fun, flirty covers (Oh, hello new graphic design skills I never thought I'd need!) seemed to draw people to the books and I’m guessing the $.99 to $2.99 price points helped, as well. Once I’d developed relationships with retailers via my Lucy books (I’m a “PubIt! Pro” for Barnes & Noble’s self-publishing wing), my recent launch of the more mainstream Bella Andre THE LOOK OF LOVE became even bigger and better.

But wait, that wasn't all Bella did. Besides being a writer and graphic artist she is a singer-songwriter. She writes:

I took things another step further in April when I decided to incorporate multimedia in my latest Lucy Kevin young-adult romance, GABRIELLE. In my previous career I was a singer-songwriter, so I wrote five original songs (rather, my songwriting heroine, Gabrielle, wrote them during the course of the story) and linked to them via Youtube and iTunes as an ebook package to create not only added value and excitement for my readers, but also another potential revenue stream.

Here's Bella's analysis of her success so far:

I really like not having to depend on one author name to maintain--and build--sales. Having two brands means I can build sales with new books while offsetting risks. We all know that diversifying our financial portfolios is a good money strategy. I’ve found that diversifying my e-book portfolio has not only been a good financial strategy, but as importantly, it had been a really lovely creative strategy, too.

So if you have a new idea or platform – if you want to try something completely different from what you’re doing now – I say go for it! Even if you think no one will be interested, the truth is that until you put your book out there, you'll never know.

Bella is an inspiration; a very talented inspiration! What she says about writing under more than one pen-name, or at least in more than one genre, rings true to me. As independent writers we aren't strangers to risk, why not try and reduce it?

Joe's comments are, as always, one of the best parts of his guest posts. To read the rest of his great blog post, click here.

Cheers!

The book is dead. Long live the book!

Bookstores are closing.

Even though I knew this was coming it's sad. I love paper books.

When I was a child, I spent most of my spare time at the library. There was an atmosphere there, a love of learning. I wanted to take all the books home with me. I wanted to create my own library. The books weren't just books, they were ... please don't laugh! ... my friends.

When I was a bit older, and able to peer over the counter, I discovered bookstores. They became my new love. My library, wonderful as it was, didn't believe in interlibrary loans. At the bookstore they had a boggling number of books and, if they didn't have it, they could order it. I was in love.

Yesterday, I read Joe Konrath's blog post: Over. I'm a big fan of Joe's writing. I think his books are great, but my favorite are his blog posts. Pick any one at random, give a read, and you'll see what I mean. Before I read Joe's post I knew that bookstores were going to close; with the growth of ebooks it was inevitable. After I read Joe's post, and the comments folks shared, I had an overwhelming sense of loss. It wasn't going to happen one day. It was happening now.

An image popped into my mind: popcorn. I'm old school, I still make my own popcorn over the stove with a big old pot and lots of canola oil. After the oil is brought up to temperature and the popcorn kernels are dumped into the pot one or two or three kernels will pop, but those are outliers, heralds of what is to come. Suddenly, just as I'm wondering if nothing is going to happen, a wave of popping begins. Then, just as suddenly, everything is quiet. The kernels have all popped, except for a few burnt, incredibly thick-skinned ones.

In terms of bookstores closing, we're at the start of the wave. And then, just like that, they'll be gone.

The good news is that books are healthier than ever. Sure, electronic books don't have that deliciously dusty scent that some library books had. Sure, there won't be as many used book stores that look like the last scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. There will be new traditions, new loves. We're at the moment that things are changing, and that, in itself, is kinda exciting.

Big 6 publisher drops author Kiana Davenport for self-publishing

I first heard of Kiana Davenport on March 25, 2011. I can be specific because that was the day Joe Konrath published an email she had sent him. She wrote:

My last three novels were pretty good sellers. Scribners, Ballantine, you know the drill. A few years ago, sales dropped drastically, no more royalties, the recession hit and I started living on my meager savings. Other than that all I own are 3 acres of land here, which in this market no one wants to buy. I don't even own a house.

I studied Creative Writing at university, but for years I was a fashion model in NYC, lived it up and never saved a dime. Then I went back to writing, prepared to scale down and live modestly. But as you know, things got even worse with the economy. It took me four years to write the most recent novel for which a NY publisher offered me less than HALF my previous advance. A depressing figure, to be paid out in fourths through 2013! By then I could be dead, and it won't even pay my bills. I was so desperate I accepted. Now I have to wait another year for the book to be published.

Agents and editors were admitting we're in a 'dying industry.' With dwindling publishers, rock-bottom advances, I didn't see any reason to write anymore, which is what I LIVE for.

Somewhere around this time she heard of Joe Konrath and his blog, The Newbie's Guide to Publishing, and she made the decision to self-publish. Joe helped her out with some publicity and her book, House of Skin made it into the top 300 on Amazon.com.

From what I can tell, House of Skin was published before Kiana signed her contract with her publisher. After she signed the contract she published another book, also a collection of short stories, Cannibal Nights. Kiana's publisher didn't like this. She writes:

So, here is what the publisher demanded. That I immediately and totally delete CANNIBAL NIGHTS from Amazon, iNook, iPad, and all other e-platforms. Plus, that I delete all Google hits mentioning me and CANNIBAL NIGHTS. Currently, that's about 600,000 hits. (How does one even do that?) Plus that I guarantee in writing I would not self-publish another ebook of any of my backlog of works until my novel with them was published in hardback and paperback. In other words they were demanding that I agree to be muzzled for the next two years, to sit silent and impotent as a writer, in a state of acquiescence and, consequently, utter self-loathing.

....

Last week, I received from their lawyers an official letter terminating my contract with them, "...for permitting Amazon to publish CANNIBAL NIGHTS, etc...." and demanding back the $20,000 they had paid me as part of their advance. Until then, this publishing giant is holding my novel as hostage, a work that took me five years to write. My agent assures me I am now an 'anathema' to them.

You can read Kiana's entire blog post here: SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY: A CAUTIONARY TALE

Here is what Passive Guy, a lawyer who specializes in contract law, has to say about Kiana's dilemma:

If you had any doubts about any of Kris Rusch’s descriptions of publisher misbehavior in the post that appeared about an hour ago, Kiana’s story should lay those to rest.

Many agents will tell authors they don’t need an attorney. Passive Guy was very pleased to see Kiana has one advising her about her contract. From Kiana’s description, it doesn’t look like her agent would do her much good.

Since Passive Guy does not have all or even most of the information about this matter and hasn’t examined Kiana’s contract, he will not try to do a long-distance analysis in detail.

Speaking generally, as publishers view this sort of thing, it does appear somebody from the publisher really screwed up. Kiana is careful not to mention her publisher’s name, but a little internet research reveals that it was Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin.

As PG has discussed, it has become common for publishers to truss authors like a turkey with contract provisions that prevent the author from writing anything — sometimes until the book is published and sometimes forever — without the consent of the publisher.

It seems clear somebody at Kiana’s publisher forgot about inserting that clause or it would have been the first thing Kiana heard about.

One of the recurring themes of traditional publishers, the agents who live in their ecosystem and authors who have a deep emotional investment in the way things have always been done is that by signing with a big publisher, an author is assured that his/her book will be handled by experienced professionals who will guarantee a quality product.

What is professional about an editor repeatedly shouting at an author over the phone?

What is professional about a paranoid rant accusing an author of “betraying them to Amazon”?

What is professional about screwing up a contract, then trying to make the author pay for the screw-up?

What is professional about hauling out the lawyers to intimidate an author?

You can read the rest of PG's blog post here: Indie Author Goes Traditional -- A Cautionary Tale

Liebster Awards

Michael Haynes gave me a Liebster Award! I'm so excited. I actually did a silly little Scooby-dance.



It was just like this without the cool clothes and music. Honest!

Okay, maybe not.

After I finished my dance I wondered what the Liebster Award was. It was an award, yes, and therefore intrinsically good and something worthy of great excitement, but what was this Liebster bit about?

Apparently "liebster" is derived from a German term meaning, "a close friend." As I understand it, the award is given to a writer with a blog that has fewer than 200 followers.

Here are the rules of acceptance for the award:
1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog or sending them a tweet.
3. Post the award on your blog. (Right-click the image, above, and select "save image as").
4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the internet—other writers.
5. And best of all – have fun and spread the karma.

Without further ado, here are my picks:
- Kim Neville and her blog, Kim Neville: Faith, trust, pixie dust
- Kim Aippersbach and her blog, Dead Houseplants
- Martin Lastrapes and his blog, My Musings
- Jamie Sedgwick and his blog, Chronicles
- Shawn Hansen and his blog, Scribbled Stories

It was super hard picking just five. I ended up writing names on index cards, tacking them up on my wall, blindfolding myself and throwing darts randomly. I broke a window and gave my favorite top some ventilation, but it was worth it! Okay, maybe it didn't go quite like that but, still, picking the recipients was difficult.

Thanks Michael, this was fun!