Penquin's Purchase Of Author Solutions: Going To The Dark Side?

When I was a child, I dreamt of becoming an author and being published by Penguin. (Yes, I was an odd child, but that's a post for another day!) Even after I was stripped of my illusions about the publishing industry the name "Penguin" stood out for me as the mark of something special.

No longer.

If you haven't read David Gaughran's article on Penguin's purchase of Author Solutions you should. It gives all the facts and in David's succinct and eminently readable style. Here's an excerpt:

Penguin’s parent company, Pearson, has announced the purchase of Author Solutions for $116m – news which has shocked writers, especially given Author Solutions’ long history of providing questionable services at staggering prices.

Author Solutions are the dominant player in the self-publishing services market – via their subsidiaries Author House, Xlibris, Trafford, and iUniverse – and had been looking for a buyer for several months. According to the press release, Author Solutions will be folded into Penguin, but will continue to operate as a separate company. Penguin’s CEO John Makinson stated:

“This acquisition will allow Penguin to participate fully in perhaps the fastest-growing area of the publishing economy and gain skills in customer acquisition and data analytics that will be vital to our future.”

What does Author Solutions bring to the table? Well, for starters, around $100m in annual revenue. Roughly two-thirds of that money comes from the sale of services to writers, and only one-third from the royalties generated by the sale of their books.

Pause for a moment and consider that statistic. Penguin isn’t purchasing a company which provides real value to writers. They are purchasing an operation skilled at milking writers.

This is not a new accusation against Author Solutions. Industry watchdogs such as Writer Beware have received a litany of complaints about Author Solutions and their subsidiaries over the last few years: misleading marketing, hard-selling of over-priced services, questionable value of products provided, awful customer service, and, after all that, problems with writers being paid. (Penguin’s New Business Model: Exploiting Writers)

David gives examples a-plenty to back up his claims. Author Solutions is well known on sites like Writer Beware and Predators and Editors. The news that Penguin purchased the company astonishes me. I can only hope that Penguin discontinues Author Solutions' bad business practices and works with authors instead of preying on them.

Related reading:
- Writers Sue Harlequin For Underpayment
- Publish America: Writer Beware
- Jen Talty: Amazon's CreateSpace Vs LIghtning Source (Not about a scam, just a comparison of two good companies)

Helping Writers De-Stress: Meditation Apps

I got a late start today and have been relaxing in my comfy office char for the past 15 minutes reading my Google Alerts. I have a Google Alert for almost everything--almost everything I'm interested in, almost everything ... well, that would be a lot of alerts!--and I came across a list of meditation apps.

For some time I've been thinking of getting a meditation tape to help me de-stress, or help me get into a certain mindset before writing, and one of these could be just the thing. I've never used an app for mediation before, the closest I've come is the fabulous YouTube video, How To Meditate In A Moment.

By the way, thanks to incomparable singer/songwriter/composer The Land Of Deborah for posting the link to this video, otherwise I'd never have known about it.

All these apps sound cool, but only two of them are either free or have a free version. Since I'm a fan of being able to try something out and getting a feel for it before I buy, I picked one of those two to try out.

Headspace On-the-Go
Headspace On-the-Go is free, and you get 10 short meditation sessions along with over 200 hours of content. I watched the introduction video and decided to try the first session.

Here's the writeup:

With a friendly, positive feeling, Headspace offers 10-minute meditations over a 10-day course. It explains meditation with cute animation of a mind that looks like a puff of cotton candy with legs. You can track your progress as the mind leaps over the hurdle of each day's program. There's no music with the instructions that lead you to focus on your breath, body and environment.

My experience: Wow!

I feel more relaxed, the room even seems brighter. I'm going to try this for the full 10 days. I'll leave an update here about what my experience was like after I've finished.

I'll let Amber Dance over at the Times tell you about the rest of the meditation apps: Meditation apps let the peace flow through the phone, if they are anything like Headspace then they're definitely worth a look.

Further reading:
- Forget NaNoWriMo: How To Write A Novel In A Weekend
- How To Sell 100 Books Per Day: 6 Things You Need To Do
- Fifty Shades of Grey - Oh My!

Writers: How To Keep Your Series Straight

Last year Anne Perry was one of the keynote speakers at the Surrey International Writers' Conference--she was completely amazing--and I had the privilege of attending one of her writing workshops.

Ms. Perry spoke at some length about her Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series and I wanted to ask how she kept track of characters, their arcs and whatnot, over the course of many books. Alas, I didn't get the chance, but the question has stayed with me.

Today, Elizabeth S. Craig blogged about tips and tricks she uses, not to write multiple books in one series, but to write multiple series at the same time. Here's what she had to say (I'm paraphrasing):

1. Stagger your deadlines
You don't want to have each book coming due at the same time. That would be stressful and extremely confusing.

2. Re-read the series
Before you start writing the next book in a series familiarize yourself again with the previous books.

3. Develop a style sheet for each series
A style sheet should include:
- character names, descriptions, ages
- the names of businesses mentioned in your series
- a list of the connections/relationships between your characters, etc.

4. Listen to your readers
Elizabeth keeps a file filled with feedback from readers, what they liked, what they didn't, and she looks at this before she begins the next book in the series.

5. Write quickly
If you write quickly there's won't be time for writer's block to set in and you'll be able to keep everything fresh in your mind.

6. Keep all the facts of a series at your fingertips
Keep each book in each of your series in a searchable file. Not sure which character is allergic to peanuts? If you're writing more than one series at a time small details can begin to blur, or you can mistakenly put a character from one series into another.

Having each of your books on your hard drive enables you to search for details like this and saves you a lot of time in rewrites later on.

To read Elizabeth's article go here: Tips for Writing Multiple Series.

Great tips! One day I want to develop a really good style sheet for characters and their relationships. I find a style sheet is especially handy when something has interrupted my writing mid-way through a story and I need to pick up the thread again. Or, as Elizabeth says, to help me remember characters and their many transformations across the span of several books.

I hope these tips have been some use to you and, if you haven't all ready, don't forget to check out Elizabeth S. Craig's many wonderful books.

Cheers!

Related reading:
- How To Sell 100 Books Per Day: 6 Things You Need To Do
- Why Writers Need Editors
- Scrivener: A Writer's Best Friend

Writers Sue Harlequin For Underpayment

Three writers--Barbara Keiler, Mona Gay Thomas and Linda Barrett--have filed a suit against Harlequin, the world's largest publisher of romance books. They claim that Harlequin has unfairly deprived authors of monies owed.

The complaint is fairly involved and has to do with alleged legal trickery on Harlequin's part. I'll let Joe Konrath explain it:

Now I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure ... Harlequin contracts state they'll pay authors 50% for foreign and ebook royalties. This 50% is based on the amount they receive. But then they took those rights and sub-licensed them to another company for 6%, which means the author got 3% of the wholesale price, not 50%.

Confused? Here's an example.

Harlequin has an ebook it lists for $3.99. It sells that to Amazon at a wholesale price of $2.00. The author should make $1.00 for each $3.99 ebook that Amazon sells.

But instead of selling direct to Amazon, Harlequin sells the ebook to Company X for 12 cents. So the author only gets 6 cents. Company X than sells the same ebook to Amazon for $2.00, but because they are a sub-licensing company, they don't have to pay the author anything.

Sub-licensing is common. My publisher, Headline in the UK, sold book club rights to my novel AFRAID. The book club paid Headline a flat fee, and HEADLINE gave me 50% of that fee, according to my contract. The book club wasn't required to pay me royalties on each book club edition is sold. Just like Company X isn't required to pay authors anything.

This is all fine and legal. So why are authors suing Harlequin?

Because Harlequin and Company X are the same company.

In other words, it is sub-licensing the rights it holds to itself. Then it only has to pay the author 3% instead of 50%.

That's seems pretty shitty. It also doesn't seem like something a judge or jury will casually dismiss, even if Harlequin made sure it kept the two companies separate through an umbrella company.

No publishing company would ever sub-license rights for a paltry 6%, unless it was selling the rights to itself. Does Harlequin really expect a judge to believe that it sells a $3.99 ebook and only makes 6 cents? And according to the complaint, the 6% was not equivalent to the amount reasonably obtainable from an unrelated party, as required by the publishing agreements.

Ya think?

I love Joe's explanation, lots of flare but with a smidgeon of restraint. I'd encourage you to read Joe's entire post here: Harlequin Fail Part 2

Here is Harlequin's response to the lawsuit:

Harlequin announced today that they have been made aware of a class action lawsuit brought against them by three former authors.

The publisher wishes to make clear that this is the first it has heard of the proceedings and that a complaint has not yet been served.

“Our authors have been recompensed fairly and properly for their work, and we will be defending ourselves vigorously,” said Donna Hayes, Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of Harlequin. (Harlequin Blog)

Passive Guy, a practicing IP attorney, dissects Harlequin's responce:

Let’s see, this lawsuit has been in the works for months and generally discussed among romance writers during that time. PG has no inside information, but it’s not unusual for settlement discussions to precede the filing of a suit. HQ looks either clueless or dishonest when it claims to be surprised.

As far as the core issue of using one HQ company to license publishing rights to another HQ company in order to substantially reduce royalties paid to authors, PG figured that out the first time he reviewed an HQ publishing contract and authors have been complaining about it for years.

HQ’s statement that the complaint has not been served on it will draw a giant “duh” from any lawyer familiar with litigation. You file the complaint, then serve the defendant. Yet another clueless statement.

Since PG is always a helpful guy, he’ll provide Harlequin with a copy of the complaint below so they can read it. [PG put a copy of the author's complaint up on his blog, you can read it here.]

On a more serious note, most companies that are defendants in a major class-action suit incorporate a sophisticated public communications program to show themselves in the best possible light and minimize damage to their reputation.

Evidently, HQ doesn’t plan to do that.

You can read PG's entire article here: Harlequin Responds to Lawsuit by Authors Seeking Royalties.

That's all the information I have at the moment. I use to be involved with the Romance Writers Of America and many, if not most, of the published writers in that group either published through Harlequin, had at one time published through them or were actively submitting work there. I can't imagine this lawsuit will bolster the RWA's shrinking numbers.

If true, Harlequin's underhanded dealings not only hurt authors but they hurt readers as well. Of course I would be surprised if Harlequin was the only publishing company doing something like this. I hope this suit sets a president that encourages all publishers to deal fairly and honestly with their authors.

Further reading:
- Harlequin author Patricia McLinn, one of those involved with the lawsuit, has written about the suit on her Facebook page.

Forget NaNoWriMo: How To Write A Novel In A Weekend

Writing 85,000 words in a weekend gives a new meaning to the phrase "weekend novelist". Honestly, I hadn't thought it possible to write that many words in three days. I'm reminded of the scene in The Shining where Jack Nickleson writes oodles of pages a day but they all say the same thing: All work and no play makes Jack an dull boy.

I could do that. Of course I'd probably develop an unnatural affection for kitchen knives by the end.

Brian Keene did just this, he holed up in his house and wrote 85,000 words over the span of three consecutive days. No, it wasn't a publicity stunt, he had deadlines looming and he needed to write 85,000 words in three days. And, miraculously, he did.

Here's how he did it:

1) No distractions
Pretty much the only thing Brian did for the entire weekend was sleep, eat and write. He didn't do housework, he didn't visit friends, he just wrote. He writes:

All I did was write. And when I got tired, I slept. And when I woke up, I wrote some more. Did my wrists hurt? Sure. Did I give myself carpal tunnel? It certainly seems like it. Do I feel bad that I missed out on things? Of course. But did I accomplish what I set out to do? Absolutely.

2) Know exactly where the story is going
Brian didn't have an outline, but he knew exactly where the story was going. He writes:

Had these been novels I was starting from scratch, or had the subject matter been something I didn’t feel as intimate or close to (Sundancing), or simply frivolous and fun to write (The Lost Level) there’s no way I would have written that many words in a day. Indeed, there have been times (Dark Hollow, Ghoul, and Take the Long Way Home come to mind) when the subject matter was heavy enough that I was lucky if I wrote 1,000 words a day. And you’ll have novels and stories like that. But you’ll also have ones that you absolutely can’t wait to get down on paper (or onto a laptop screen), and it is my personal experience that those types of tales seem to write themselves a lot faster.

3) Quantity over quality
The 85,000 words were for two first drafts. 40,000 words went to the first draft of a novel and 20,000 were of a novella. They are just "the basic foundations of the books to come."

Consider the words I wrote this weekend to be a just-built house. Now, I’ll go back and start the second draft, which is when I’ll run the electrical wires and the plumbing, and hang the drywall and the vinyl siding. Then I’ll do a third draft, which is when we pick out carpet and furniture, and make it ready to show to buyers. But what I did this weekend is just unpainted lumber. It’s raw materials. It looks like a house, but you wouldn’t want to live there… yet.

Brian concludes with some excellent adivce we can all follow:

The important thing to remember is this — writers get too hung up on word counts. It doesn’t matter if you produce 1,000 words per day or 10,000 words per day. What matters is that you produce words. Novels and stories don’t write themselves. Ass in chair, fingers on keyboard, repeat as necessary is the best method I know. If you’ve written 1,000 words today and someone else has written twice that amount, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve written. Be proud of what you’ve produced.

And now I’m off to dip my hands and wrists in a big vat of Ben Gay…

Basically Brian did NaNoWriMo in a weekend, plus 35,000 words. I stand in awe.

Read Brian's account of his harrowing experience here: How To Write 80,000 Words In A Weekend. Thanks to David Gaughran for the link.

Related reading:
- NaNoWriMo: Why write a 50,000 word manuscript in a month?
- NaNoWriMo: Write A Novel In 30 Days
- SiWC 2011: Character and POV: The Voice of Your Story, by Bob Mayer

International Writers And The U.S. 30% Withholding Tax: Getting It Back

US 30% Withholding Tax

The Problem: 30% US Withholding Tax
If you are an international publisher/self-published author who sells through US companies then you will have 30% of all the money you make withheld for tax reasons. That's the bad news.

Solution One: An Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN)
The good news is that if you live in the UK, Canada or Ireland then you can avoid this tax entirely by applying for an Individual Tax Identification Number. There are also a few countries that, while they get some of the tax withheld, can receive most of it back. For a full listing of all countries that have tax exemptions read the document U.S. Tax Treaties--and if you can't get to sleep at night, it's better than warm milk and cookies.

Unfortunately an ITIN is difficult to get, and takes a long time, but it is your only option if you haven't started your own publishing company. Catherine, Caffeinated, has written a detailed article on how to get an ITIN so I'll send you her way: Applying for a US Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN): A Saga in 3 Parts

Solution Two: An Employee Identification Number (EIN)
If you have your own publishing company then you don't have to go through the rigamorole of getting your ITIN, you can just get an EIN. This is good news.

Again, Catherine, Caffeinated has a great post about this, courtesy of guest David Gaughran. His article is informative and funny. You can find it here: Non-US Self-Publisher? Tax Issues Don’t Need to be Taxing.

Another Problem: Getting Back The Tax That Was Previously Withheld
Now that you have your ITIN, or your EIN, and you've filled out the appropirate forms and sent them to Smashwords and Amazon and whatnot, now you're receving 100% of your earnings (big yea!). But you still have a problem.

You sold a few books while the withholding tax was in place and you'd like to get that money back. As always, there's good news and there's bad news.

The good news: You can get your money back.
The bad news: You can't just ask the retailer (for instance, Amazon or Smashwords) for your back tax, you have to ask the IRS.

While you can do everything you need to get your tax back, many folks would rather pay others to get the job done. If you're amoung that lot (Catherine is), there are companies who will get your tax back for you and charge you either a flat fee or a percentage.

One such company is Taxback.com. Catherine writes about her experience with them and recommends them. Her article is here: The Easy Way to Get Your US Tax Back.

That's it!

When you get your ITIN, or your EIN, and your back taxes have been sorted out, fix yourself a nice tall cool glass of lemonade and relax. You've earned it!

Good luck.

Related reading:
- How To Build A Platform: Why Every Writer Needs A Website
- The Business of Writing: Using Google+
- How To Sell 100 Books Per Day: 6 Things You Need To Do

4 Reasons Why Writers Will Always Have Work

Working Writers

Joe Konrath's done it again, this time on the subject of what has been dubbed "the race to the bottom".

The argument du jour seems to be that if publishers do collapse, then all the current bestsellers will have their ebooks available for $4.99 or less, and that will be the end of self-publishing.

Joe gives 4 reasons why, even if the current bestselling authors were to price their books at $4.99 or less, self-publishing would not only be here to stay but would still be a good way for writers to make a living.

1. Ebooks aren't a zero sum game
In other words, if publishing were like a zero sum game then because of Stephen King's deal with the devil--wait, no, I think James Patterson took that over--there would be fewer readers for the rest of us. That is the key point Joe disputes and I think he does an excellent job.

That said, Joe argues that even if publishing were a zero sum game self-published writers could still earn a living because there are so many readers. He writes:

Let's say there are currently 100 million ebook readers, and 1 million ebook titles on Amazon. In ten years, there will be billions of ebook readers (following the path of mp3s). But there won't be a corresponding 100 million ebook titles available--there aren't that many people writing ebooks, and never will be.

If I can currently sell a few hundred ebooks a day in the US alone, what will happen when ebooks become popular in India, China, Japan, Europe, Russian, and South America? There will be a bigger demand than unique supply, and I believe my position will improve.

2. People who are bestselling authors now may not be bestselling authors in the future
Readers have an insatiable appetite for reading. When we've finished reading our favorite best-selling authors we read other things, other books or blog posts. If deprived of reading material we'll resort to instruction manuals or the ingredients list on canned goods. Just as writers write, readers read.

Also, if bestselling books came down in price then readers would have more money to spend and it's a good bet most of it would be spent on buying books. Joe puts in this way:

Ever go into a store to buy a big ticket item, expecting to may more than you did? Let's say you research an over and find it for $699. When you go to the store, it is on sale for $499. And they also have a great toaster oven for $99. You probably wouldn't have bought the toaster oven originally, but now that you're saving money on the oven, the toaster oven becomes attractive.

If all ebook prices came down, more ebooks would be sold across the board.

3. The reason bestselling authors are bestselling authors is because of distribution.

A big part of the reason a bestselling author is a bestselling author is because her books are on sale everywhere books are sold. If, one day, publishers do collapse then bestselling authors will have exactly the same sort of distribution as other authors. Far from pushing other authors out it is just as likely--perhaps more likely--that as their distribution dries up so will their sales. Joe writes:

The market is getting bigger. People with ereaders tend to buy and read more. And authors can make a very nice living selling 100 ebooks a day for $2.99 each. Across multiple platforms, on a global scale, I see this as not only possible, but likely for decent, prolific authors. 

And as far as bestsellers go, they tend to fade when distribution changes or dries up.

4. The more ebooks there are the more ebooks will be bought

If bestselling ebooks come down in price that would make the purchace of an electronic reader an even better deal and the more electronic readers are sold the more electronic books will be bought. Joe writes:

If bestselling authors all dropped their prices, I believe I'd sell more ebooks, not less, because more people would buy ereaders and have more money to spend on content. There's enough room for 300 cable TV channels, and four billion videos on Youtube.

I would encourage you all to read Joe's entire post, Zero Sum.

I like what Joe says about a writer being able to support herself though her writing if she can sell 100 books a day at $2.99 or more. Sounds like a great goal to me!

Further reading:
- How To Sell 100 Books Per Day: 6 Things You Need To Do
- Joe Konrath: Are You Ready To Quit Your Job And Write Full Time?
- Amazon's KDP Select, Kobo & PubIt: Joe Konrath & Blake Crouch Share Their Experiences
- Joe Konrath's Letter To The Department Of Justice

Writers: In Order To Win We Must Embrace Failure

Writers create

I was tempted to title this article, "Writers: Masters of the Universe," but that wouldn't have been very descriptive. Much cooler though.

I was chatting with a friend this morning over email and she mentioned the necessity of embracing failure, the need to allow oneself to fail in order to have the freedom to create that magical first draft.

I'm not saying the first draft is magical because it's so good (although my friend's probably will be, she's an awesome writer) but because it contains in some form--even if it's a twisted, mangled promissory form--the seeds of a story.

It's the morning and I've only had one cup of coffee which means I need at least two more before I become remotely lucid, but it seems to me that the first draft is an act of creation. A writer starts with nothing, not even an idea. Then the idea appears and grows and transforms and becomes a story, something with a theme and a plot and characters and perhaps narrative drive.

To me, all such acts of creation are magical. Something is being created from nothing, ex nihilo.

Years ago another friend of mine introduced me to the term, "dark art". For instance, wine tasting is a dark art, so is picking a stock that performs well.

A successful day trader is a past master of the dark arts.

The idea behind the term is that sometimes there's no straightforwardly algorithmic way to achieve success in a certain field, or at a certain venture. And yet, somehow, people do and they do it on a regular basis. I think calling such people past masters of a dark art sounds cooler than remarking, "They have what it takes," or "They have je ne sais quoi, but it comes to the same thing.

Although there's no way someone can tell another person how to accomplish something for which there is no algorithmic path to success--that's the whole point after all--there are preconditions; requirements that must be met for success to be possible. In the case of a writer one of these requirements seems to be giving oneself the permission to fail.

I came across this quotation yesterday:

'It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly,' C . J. Cherryh

I needed to look that quote up to make sure I remembered it correctly (thanks Ali Hale) and came across this one:

'God sells us all things at the price of the labor,' Leonardo da Vinci

It might seem as though I'm contradicting myself. On the one hand, I'm saying writing a first draft is a dark art and, on the other, that going on a Dadaistic writing frenzy is the path to success.

Both are true.

As long as the idea--even the minutest, sickliest, germ of an idea--comes out in your first draft, even if it only tangentially gestures at the potential possibility of an idea, that's your lightning in a bottle.

On successive drafts you can hone the idea, get to know it, craft it, explore it, develop it. Perhaps, ultimately, the idea that eventually becomes the soul of your story will be another one altogether and your first idea will have served to merely show you the way.

I think that's part of the mystery of writing, why we fall in love with it. At heart, writers are drunk with the power of creation.

Or something like that.

Before I have my second cup of coffee I have two operating brain cells and they're locked in a death match, so take all this with a grain of salt.

Thanks for reading and remember Heinlein's first rule: Writers write.

(See what I mean? The title, "Writers: Masters of the Universe," would have been much cooler.)

Related reading:
- Jim Butcher: How To Write A Story
- How to build a Villain, by Jim Butcher
- Jody Hedlund: Talent Is Overrated
- Henry Miller's 11 Writing Commandments

"Writers: In Order To Win We Must Embrace Failure," copyright© 2012 by Karen Woodward.

Apple's MacBook Air: A Bundle Of Awesomeness!

Apple's MacBook Air

I just bought my first laptop! AND my first Mac. Since I first put my fingers on a keyboard I've been a PC gal but I took a bite out of the Apple, as it were, when I bought my iPad and I think I'm hooked.

My 13" Air arrived yesterday. I had it deilvered to a friend's house because my intercom is broken and the UPS guy left it with a my friend's neighbor! I had kittens. And then my kittens had kittens. My baby was with a complete stranger!

Fortunately for all concerned my friend's neighbor turned out to be a very sweet elderly Italian lady who invited me in for tea and cookies. But still! She could have been someone visiting from half-way around the word who needed money to support their growing iPhone addiction. For all I know they could have just taken my laptop and disappeared. Anyway, moving on.

Here's a picture of my new 13" MacBook Air in the box. I haven't discovered her name yet, but I'm confident she will tell me what it is.

SJ stands guard over my new MacBook Air

Pretty, isn't she? (That's my friend's cat, SJ. The first thing he did was climb inside the box and then try to lie across the computer.)

I need to do a few things with her before I can use her and I'm a bit nervous. As I said, I'm a PC gal and I've never really used a Mac before. I hope the learning cure isn't too steep. I'll blog about whatever adventures I had setting her up. (I'm excited!)

This post has been a bit different, more personal; I promise things will be back to normal tomorrow.

Cheers! (And wish me luck! I'm going to need it.)

Thanks for reading. :-)

How To Sell 100 Books Per Day: 6 Things You Need To Do

Joe Konrath has just written an excellent blog post called Zero Sum. I'm going to blog tomorrow about what he says about the race to the bottom but what I'd like to talk about now is this statement of his:

They [writers] need 100 sales a day at $2.99 to live very well.

My reaction: Yes! 100 sales a day seems doable. Sortof. So, here it is, six things you need to do in order to sell 100 books a day:

1) Write a lot of good stories
This point, though obvious, bears restating. Part of putting out a good book is making sure it has been edited, proofed and professionally formatted. (Joe mentions that he uses www.52novels.com for formatting his books.)

Even if unedited, unproofed and poorly formatted books will sell--we've all read ebooks like this--at the very least making sure your books look professional will give you a competitive advantage.

2) Have a great product description and a professional cover
This is self-explanatory. Joe recommends Carl Graves.

One thing I've found helpful in writing a product description is Nathan Bransford's advice for writing queries. Nathan gives a helpful paint/write-by-number formula for doing this that got me started and, often, getting something half-decent on the page, something you can work with, is half the battle.

3) Price your book right
It's devilishly hard to determine what is a good price for a book. Joe writes, "Currently I'm $3.99 for novels, $2.99 for novellas (over 10k words) and story collections, and 99 cents for short stories. But this isn't set in stone."

How ebooks should be priced is a hotly debated issue. One thing I will say is, given the changes in Amazon's ranking algorithm, it's not worth pricing any novel-length work below $2.99. How high you want to go is up to you.

4) Promote your books 
Have free giveaways to encourage reviews, write guest posts to announce sales, sell your books on different platforms, and so on. Those are a few of the things things you can do to promote your books. Here are some things Joe recommends not bothering with:

1. Advertising. It doesn't work on me, so I don't use it on other people. That's a cardinal rule of mine. I only use something or believe it works if I do it as a consumer.

2. Social media. Occasional tweets of Facebook announcements are fine. At most, once a week. Maybe once a day if you have a new release, but end it after a few days. Otherwise people get sick of you.

3. Publicity. I've already blogged that getting my name in the press doesn't lead to sales. You probably don't need a publicist.

4. Spamming. I have a newsletter, and use it a few times a year. I don't use it everytime I upload something new to Kindle. And I don't pimp my work on other peoples' blog or forums unless invited to do so, or there's a section for it.

Joe ends by writing:

I want to end this blog entry by telling writers: Don't Be Afraid. Yes, the future will be different. Yes, things will change. But there will always be a need for storytellers, and if you hold onto your rights, you'll be in a good position to exploit those rights no matter what the future holds.

I think this is an exciting time to be a writer. New possibilities for sales and distribution are opening up, writers are getting the lion's share of the royalties on most of their book sales and as a group we're starting to think more like business people and are taking charge of our careers. Go us!

Remember, in order to write a lot of good books we have to follow Heinlein's first rule: Writer's write. I hope you all have a productive day. Cheers!

Related reading:
- Kobo's Self-Publishing Portal: Report From A Beta Tester
- Query Tracker: Keep Track Of Your Stories
- 10 Reasons Why Stories Get Rejected