Tweepi: Helps You Manage Your Twitter Account

I'm always on the look out for programs that allow me to spend less time managing my Twitter feed and more time enjoying it, so when I stumbled across Tweepi I had to check it out.

One thing I especially like is I can try Tweepi for free and, even using the free account, Tweepi helps me do everything I want. On top of that Tweepi has many tools for guessing who I'd like to follow. I always check these people out myself first, but having Tweepi make suggestions can be a real time-saver.

That said, I found the interface a wee bit clunky. A week or so ago I started using the Google Chrome app on the iPad to manage my Twitter feed and I have to say it has been very nice. One thing I especially like is being able to see, at a glance, a user's bio and their last three tweets. Convenient.

That's what I found lacking with Tweepi. You can get access to certain stats--number of tweets, number of followers, last tweet and Klout score, but nothing that helps you determine whether a particular user is interested in the same things you are.

Premium subscription
If you take out a premium subscription you can do things like unfollow users you followed more than a certain number of days ago but haven't followed you back. You can also unfollow users who have been inactive for over a certain number of days, and so on.

Unfollowing and the 20% limit
For anyone who doesn't know, sometimes a user has to unfollow folks who aren't following her if she wants to continue adding new people. Once a tweeter follows 2,000 people the number of people they follow can be no more than 20% of the amount of folks who are following them.

Clear as mud?

For instance, let's say 2,000 people are following me. That means I can follow no more than 2,400 people. In order for me to follow another person I have to either get another follower or unfollow someone who hasn't followed me back.

Twitter Tips
I don't use any software for following people. If I'm thinking of following someone I read that person's bio, look at their their tweets and, if I have time, visit their website. Everyone I follow is important to me and I want to get to know them.

Some folks use software to automatically follow people but I feel that's defeating the purpose of being on Twitter. It's a social network, a place for folks to meet people, to chat with them and form connections.

That's my 2 cents!

Cheers. And remember, don't let Twitter keep you from writing!

Writers: Register Your United States Copyright

Companies can charge up to $150 to register your copyright on your behalf but you can do it yourself for only $35 and it'll only take half an hour. That's a savings of $115. Now multiply that by all the books you're going to need to register one day.

Why register your copyright? While it's true your work is copyrighted from the time it is created, unless you register your copyright you can't bring a lawsuit against theives for infringement. A related point is that if your book is uploaded to a website and offered for free without your permission the site will often remove it if you send them proof of copyright. In my opinion it's $35 well spent.

For an excellent guide through the entire process go here: A Step-By-Step Guide to U.S. Copyright Registration for Self-Publishers.

Thanks to PG over at The Passive Voice blog for posting a link to this how-to article.

The Breeders: A Self Publishing Success Story

Matthew J. Beier, author of The Breeders, writes: 

In deciding to take the big leap, I knew two things for certain: I was putting future chances of being traditionally published on the line, and I would not be able to undo any career-related damage it might cause.

. . . .

Before 2011, I was a fledgling writer in chains. My success as a novelist depended on whichever benevolent literary agent buried in New York’s bowels might find my work amazing and sellable. By the time I started sending queries for my “gay agenda” satire The Breeders (and actually having success getting manuscript requests), I was well broken in to the traditional publishing system, complete with thick skin and a healthy dose of self-doubt.

Read the rest of Matthew's article here: Of Decisions and Dream Chasing.

Matthew's story reminded me that when success comes it's often through prolonged, exhausting, effort. His is a great story and an inspiration although in an I-hope-it's-not-that-hard-for-me sort of way.

Thanks to Passive Guy for mentioning Matthew on the Passive Voice Blog.


Other articles:
- Twylah: Turn Your Tweets Into A Blog
- Fifty Shades of Grey - Oh My!
- Pixar: 22 Ways To Tell A Great Story

Writing Prompt: Desperate Phone Call

I thought I'd try something different and post a writing prompt.

It's the middle of the night and your phone rings. Grumpy, you answer it. The voice on the line is breathy as though whoever it is has been running. "You're in danger. Take it and leave town. Now."

You hear the gurgle of a semi-automatic machine gun and a muffled scream. It sounds as though the phone has clattered to the ground.  

Sleep forgotten you sit up in bed. "Hello? Hello!" No response.

After a moment you hear slow, deep, breathing. "We know who you are" This voice is menacing and gravelly. "We only want the package. Go to the police and you're dead."

What do you say? What do you do?

Good writing!

"Writing Prompt: Desperate Phone Call" copyright© 2012 by Karen Woodward.

How To Write In The Shower

I get my best ideas when I'm in the shower. Or at least it seems that way. Perhaps it's like the dream where you understand the answer to everything but forget it when you wake. I suspect if I remembered it would be something like 'hamsters'. Or '42'.

But I really do get my best ideas in the shower. For a while I kept a pad of paper by the bathroom sink and I'd dart out, try to dry my hands, and scribble down my epiphany.

It wasn't pretty.

I mentioned my dilemma to one of my writer friends, C.G. Cameron, and she had a great solution: keep a special water-friendly writing pad in the shower. I always wondered why she had the best ideas! Here's her solution:

At Staples I picked up a cheap plastic clipboard and a Help Wanted sign. ("Closed" signs don't encourage creativity.) Total cost, about $8. Turn the sign over (the back is plain white and exactly enough texture to grab the graphite of the pencil). You could do without the clipboard if you have a handy wall in your shower. Grab a pencil with a pocket clip on it, run a rubber band through the clip and through the hole at the top of the clipboard (chain multiple rubber bands to make it longer), or just grab any pencil to set at the side of the tub or on the soap dish. The graphite will write on the rough back of the sign, and you can clean it off using a Magic Sponge or a bit of scrub/cleanser (something slightly abrasive). Just remember to take the clipboard into the bathroom with you, with your towel and rubber ducky, and you're set.

Now you'll never again lose those ideas.

(Or you could go to a store that carries SCUBA gear and buy one of their writing tablets for underwater, and then just leave it in the shower, but Staples was much closer.)

C.G. gave me her permission to post these instructions (thank you!). She has a great Twitter feed: @jazz2midnight.

I'm curious, has anyone tried something like this? In any case, good luck constructing your water-proof writing tablet!


Other reading:
- Pixar: 22 Ways To Tell A Great Story
- Publishing With Amazon: The Hidden Cost Of Delivery
- Conflict Creation: The Needs Of Your Characters

Twylah: Turn Your Tweets Into A Blog

I was surfing the electronic currents of the web when I chanced upon Elisabeth Spann Craig's Twylah page. It looks incredible! I signed up too and today received my own Twylah Page. I'm thrilled to bits.

For some time now I've been looking for a program that could do two things: first, show which of my tweets were the most popular and, second, display them in a blog-like interface.

Tweets and popularity
I've often wanted a quick way of determining which of my tweets were the most popular--I guess this is known as 'trending'. After all, I don't want to bore anyone! It's true, there are a number of programs that will tell you how many times a certain tweet has been retweeted (for instance Topsy Labs Social Analytics and Tweetreach) but, in my opinion, they lack clarity. That said, I love Topsy Analytics and use it all the time to find who is re-tweeting my tweets as well as interesting people to follow.

Blog-like interface for tweets
I'm not complaining about Twitter's interface. I like it that I can go to my twitter account and see a timeline of my tweets. I can't tell you how many times my cat has jumped onto my keyboard while I'm composing a Tweet and I need to find out whether it was cancelled or published prematurely.

That said, it would be handy to have an attractive visual interface which allowed a user to take in my most re-tweeted tweets at a glance.

I've only just received my Twylah page so all I can give you are my first impressions. I'll write again about my experience with the service after I've used it for a while.

If you'd like to try out Twylah, here's the link: Twylah. The service is still in beta so you have to request an invite, but I got mine after two or three days.

Other articles:
- Aherk! Makes Writing App 'Write Or Die' Look Tame
- Changes in Amazon's Algorithm: An Update
- Mark Coker, Founder Of Smashwords, Talks About Indie Publishing

His Wish Granted: WIlliam Faulkner's, "The Sound And The Fury", Color Coded

I read William Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury as part of an English course taught by one of the most fabulous people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting: Sue Anne Johnson. I took the course in my second semester of college and it turned into one of the best experiences of my life.

I'd heard Faulkner's book was difficult, I'd heard it was written as a flow-of-consciousness narrative, but I was still unprepared. As I read the words on the first page I couldn't make them form a narrative. For me it was, as Shakespeare wrote, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

The next day Ms. Johnson asked us to raise our hand if we finished our reading assignment. One person had.

It got much easier after that first introduction and largely because Sue Anne explained a few things about the viewpoint Faulkner was using in the first part of his book. I won't go into that, but an excellent summary can be found in the Wikipedia entry on The Sound And The Fury. I remember Sue Anne telling us that Falkner wanted shifts in time indicated by a change of ink color but that the cost was prohibitive.

It thrilled me to read that now, for the first time, Faulkner's book has been printed as he first envisioned it. The following is from the Los Angeles Times:

In a special edition, the Folio Society is publishing "The Sound and the Fury" in 14 colors. It's a fine press edition, quarter-bound in leather, with a slipcase and an additional volume of commentary. It also includes a color-coded bookmark that reveals which time period is designated by each color.

The Folio Society worked with two Faulkner scholars, Stephen Ross and Noel Polk, to figure out how to divide the text. Only the Benjy section is rendered in the 14 colors of ink.

"With the Benjy section the different threads are sufficiently clear that I don't feel we are distorting or compromising the novel," Folio's commissioning editor for limited editions Neil Titman told the Guardian. "I found the book tremendously confusing the first time I read it, so I think that overall you have a net gain here, rather than feeling over-guided."

The color edition of Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" is being published July 6 in a limited edition of 1,480 and is priced at $345. One thousand preordered copies have been sold.

To read the entire article, click here:  'The Sound and the Fury' as William Faulkner imagined, in color.

If the colored copy of The Sound And The Fury retails at $345 today I cringe to think what it would have cost a publisher to produce back in 1929!

I would love to own one of these versions. Perhaps one day it will be released as an ebook.

Cheers.

Other reading:
- WorldCat: Find Books In A Library Near You
- How Important Is It To Promote Your Books?
- Query Tracker: Keep Track Of Your Stories

Penelope Trunk Discusses Time Management

A few months ago a friend sent me the link to Penelope Trunk's blog and I've been reading it ever since. This is easy to do since Penelope only posts every few days. Her articles are long and rambling, but in the best of ways. They are the kind of posts/stories you don't read so much as fall into. She has the knack of making you feel as though she's speaking right to you and, though I don't agree with everything she says--wouldn't that be boring?--I at least find it interesting.

This morning I realized I hadn't checked her blog in a couple if weeks and was pleasantly surprised to find a few new articles. I love it when she writes something relevant to writers, or that is relevant to me, and since I'm a writer, I hope it'll interest others.

One of the Penelope's new articles was on time management (Time management tips that'll work for your life). It's excellent. I think I like it so much because it's filled with what I think of as common sense. For example, she writes:

Tim Ferriss, (who I have complained about in the past) also, provides the fastest, easiest way to lose weight. He’s a time management guru and he’s extended that to weight loss. You don’t have to spend time at the gym. Instead, you can do stuff like eat in extremely restricted ways and binge one day a week. But how do you do this with a family? What do you tell your kids when you’re eating like a crazy person?
- Time management tips that’ll work for your life

The text I just quoted was written about her first point which was: Experiment in ways that won't risk the sanity of the people around you. Too few people say things like that.

As I read this I thought of some of the nutty things writers do. Sure there's the quasi-normal things like staying up all night to meet a deadline and sitting in front of a computer monitor typing away non-stop on a little keyboard for hours each and every day--I mean, students do this all the time. But we do other things, things like trying to write a novel in a month--whether for NANOWRIMO or not (and I don't meant to bash Nano! I think it's terrific.) But many of the things we do routinely could be said to risk the sanity of those around us.

The rest of Penelope's article is good too, and I'd encourage you to read it for her time management advice, although she does say more about what not to do than how to make it all work, but I'm not sure anyone can do that. I did especially enjoy her post about what it's like to have a film crew come and stay for a few days and film a reality TV show (it's called How to choose a new career).

Well, I'm off to get some grist for my writing mill by visiting a local Farmer's Market. Isn't research great?

I hope the weather is gorgeous where you are and that you can get out to enjoy it. Cheers!

Related articles:
- The secret to making a living as a writer: work for free
- Pixar: 22 Ways To Tell A Great Story
- Henry Miller's 11 Writing Commandments
- Penelope Trunk's Blog

WorldCat: Find Books In A Library Near You

This is a fantastic idea! Ever wondered if a certain book was in a library near you? I know I have. Here's a page that takes the pain out of your search, and it doesn't just work for books, you can use it to locate things such as CDs, DVDs and Articles. (If you'd like to try it out for yourself, go here: WorldCat: The World's Largest Library Catalog.)

To try it out I entered the city I live in and typed in the title of one of my favorite books, Lord Of The Flies, by William Golding. After hitting the enter key I was given a list of links to various editions and formats. I clicked the first link and was presented with a list of libraries in my area that have the book, what format the book is in, the distance to the library, and a list of links to information and services the library provides.

As if that weren't enough I was also presented with links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Better World Books in case I wanted to purchase the book.

Reviews
At the very bottom of the page I was presented with a smattering of reviews Lord Of The Flies has received and which rate it on a scale of 1 to 5. Which brings up the issue of how useful reviews are.
One reviewer on Goodreads.com gave Lord Of The Flies one star out of five and, which may be worse, 102 people agreed with that rating! Let me quote from this review:

See, I would have cared a bit more about the little island society of prepubescent boys and their descent into barbarism if you know, any of the characters had been developed AT ALL

As I say, the mileage you get from the reviews will vary. By the way, I can't give you a direct link to the review I quoted, but you can read it here, it's the last one on the page.

WorldCat: The Site For Mobile devises
WorldCat also has a site for mobile devises (WorldCat: Mobile Web Beta) so I thought I'd try it out on my iPad. This is terrific! It works just the same as the standard website but it seems more streamlined and user friendly.

WorldCat on Facebook
WorldCat also has a Facebook app, to learn more about that go here, WorldCat search plug-ins, or head straight over to Facebook's WorldCat application page.

Cheers!

David Gaughran Shares His Sale Figures: Print Pays

Last year David Gaughran used to list how much he was making from the sales of his books, what he was doing in terms of promotion, where he was selling his books, and so on, but he hasn't done it in awhile and I missed it.

Perhaps it's voyeuristic, but when David had a great month I felt inspired and when he had a slow month it made me feel better about the slow months I've had, so for me it was a win-win.

In any case, I was very happy to see David is once again reporting his numbers. In his latest post he concentrates on paperback sales of his book, Let's Get Digital (love that title!). He writes:

I was really slow to see the potential in print, and it was probably the biggest mistake I made over the last year. ...

I had felt that the market for Let’s Get Digital would be largely, um, digital, and that whatever was left would be cannibalized by the PDF version being available as a free download from my blog.
I was wrong.

Paperback Growth

Here are my paperback sales for the last five months:

February: 6
March: 24
April: 20
May: 49
June: 67

Note: A Storm Hits Valparaiso was released in Feb, Let’s Get Digital in May

I’m pretty happy with that growth – especially because I’m averaging $5 in royalties per copy sold. Last month, paperbacks brought in $330 (profit) – which is about 25% of my current income, helping me break new ground. I cleared $1000 in May and easily topped that in June – largely on the back of stronger print numbers.

Most of those paperback sales came from Amazon US, and, following that, direct sales to indie bookstores (mostly in the UK).
- Making Money From Paperbacks

Let's think about that. In one month David's paperback sales from just one of his books earned him 25% of his current monthly income from writing. That's what I call significant!

CreateSpace
This is the second time in the last few days I've come across an author singing the praises of Amazon's CreateSpace. (What Jen Talty of Cool Gus Publishing thinks of Amazon's CreateSpace.)

David makes another excellent point and one I hadn't considered. Let's say you're selling your ebook for $2.99 on Amazon and are offering a print version through CreateSpace for $13.99. When a reader views the ebook version they'll see the $13.99 price crossed out, the Kindle Price of $2.99 highlighted, and the customer will be informed that, in buying your ebook, they will save $11.

Now that's good advertising!

I've just concentrated on a couple of the things David talks about in his article; it's well worth the read: Making Money From Paperbacks

Related reading:
- Jen Talty: Amazon's CreateSpace Vs LIghtning Source
- Kobo's Self-Publishing Portal: Report From A Beta Tester
- Mystery Writer Elizabeth S. Craig's Reasons For Self Publishing

Photo credit: The Guardian

Kristen Lamb: Don't Let Trolls Make You Crazy

Don't Feed The Troll

I love Kristen Lamb's blog, but this time she's outdone herself! Anyone who has ever dared to do something that took them out of their comfort zone has had the unpleasant experience of being trolled. Kristen gives some excellent advice on how to respond to trolls: don't. She writes:

It is easy to have a bad day and snap on-line, but here’s the thing. That is a luxury only afforded to amateurs. If we are serious about being successful writers then we know that publishing/the blogosphere are small worlds. People who blog and take time to serve other writers are generally viewed in high regard, because let’s be honest. They don’t have to help other writers.

Read the rest of Kristen's blog post here: Trolling the Trollosphere–Staying Sane in a World of Crazy.

Sometimes, often, tolls make their presence known in comments--I have been extraordinarily fortunate in this regard, and (*knock on wood*) haven't yet had the displeasure of meeting one--but in my experience trolls also rear their heads in real life.

It is no secret that the world of publishing is rapidly changing and many folks who haven't been paying close attention don't realize there's a difference between self publishing a book and being taken to the cleaners by a vanity press.

When strangers think you're nuts for self-publishing that's one thing, but when friends take a condescending tone and try to show you the error of your ways it's quite another. But that could just be me! When someone tries to 'set me straight' about 'how it is' in publishing it puts my teeth on edge.

Now, I'm not saying I know it all, far from it! But I do know that for many authors self publishing was the right path for them, both temperamentally and financially. They are far happier on their own than they would be with a traditional publisher and they are making a decent wage through their writing.

If you are cornered by a friend in troll aspect, don't let his remarks get you down. I usually make the mistake of trying to educate my interlocutor about the current state of the publishing industry but this is useless since he doesn't think I've got the good sense God gave a slug and so won't believe anything I say. My advice: Kristen Lamb is (of course!) right. Don't waste your breath. Don't engage, just smile and change the topic.

Is that cynical? I hope not!

Have you ever had a run-in with a troll?

How Important Is It To Promote Your Books?

Book Promotion

Kris Rusch says: not very. She writes:

The person who disagreed with me ... was convinced I didn’t know what I was talking about when it came to the necessity of promoting work, particularly for a new writer. The writer actually said that I had never had a point in my career where I was unknown, which made me laugh. Um, we were all beginning writers once upon a time.

The writer challenged me to self-publish things under a super secret pen name, and was convinced I would understand then why new writers need to promote. I actually responded to this one—I usually don’t—because of the challenge, and because I’d met it  years ago.

I have four things up under four super-secret pen names, things which I put up with no promotion. One outsells everything I do under my name and my known pen names. One isn’t doing very well at all, and two are doing okay. All outsell some titles I have under the Rusch name. So I have met the challenge, plus some.

Because I had to explain to this new writer that back in the Dark Ages of Publishing when I started, there was no such thing as Twitter, blogging, Facebook, and the like. If a writer wanted to promote her work, she had to spend more than her advance to do so. Because even back then, publishers didn’t promote 95% of the books they published. Those books would sink or swim based on sales in bookstores that might or might not carry the books. Some of my early work wasn’t even listed with description and a cover photo in the publisher’s catalog. Just a one line listing under “Also Available” which was arranged by genre.

So how did a writer sell a lot of copies of her book? She wrote another. Back in the Dark Ages of Publishing, before the conglomerate bean counters got involved, most writers (even new writers) got a multibook contract. Because publishers knew it was the number of titles on the shelf that sold books, not the quality of an as-yet-unread single title, that got a reader to pick up a book.

So I not only met the challenge in this new world of publishing, I met that challenge every time I had traditionally published a book with a brand new name on the spine.

Read the rest of Kris' post here: The Business Rusch: Careers, Critics, and Professors

It's nice to know a writer can make a living using her craft without needing to promote.

I wonder though, if Kris had promoted her work perhaps she would have sold even more books. I guess then the question would be: would she sell enough copies to make the promotion worth it. If, rather than spending time and money on the promotion, she had just written, would she have made more money in the end? I could see that being the case.

Kris' post this week is wonderful, as always, and very encouraging. It follows her and Dean's theme of: Just write! I don't think we can get better advice than that.

Related reading:
- Henry Miller's 11 Writing Commandments
- Kris Rusch: The Value of Imperfection

Mystery Writer Elizabeth S. Craig's Reasons For Self Publishing

Don't worry, Elizabeth isn't saying goodbye to Penguin, but she has decided to write one book expressly for the purpose of publishing it herself. She writes:

It’s baffled me how acrimonious the traditional publishing vs. self-publishing debate has become. Emotions have run high in both camps and it seems to be centered around who’s right and who’s wrong.

I don’t think it matters who’s right and I don’t think it really matters what we choose to do with a particular book. We should probably just write plenty of books and experiment.

I’ve just handed in the fourth book of my Memphis Barbeque series to Penguin.

Now I’m writing a book to self-publish. I’ve self-published two other titles, but one was backlist and one was written for traditional publishing but didn’t sell. This is the first time I’ve written a book for the sole purpose of self-publishing it.

After that, I’ll be working on my 3rd book for the Southern Quilting mysteries for Penguin.

I couldn’t feel less-conflicted about it. I won’t try to shop the book I’m writing independently—it won’t be sent to my agent. I won’t agonize over the fact that I’m writing books for a traditional publisher and whether that means I’ll miss out on higher royalties.

Actually, it’s a real luxury to have more than one option. What’s a good approach for one book may not be right for another.

Exactly! I especially like this line: We should probably just write plenty of books and experiment. I couldn't agree more.

Read the rest of Elizabeth's article here: The Luxury of Having Options. Her wonderful Twitter feed is here: @elizabethscraig.

Elizabeth Spann Craig writes the Memphis BBQ mysteries (as Riley Adams) & the Southern Quilting mysteries (2012) for Penguin as well as the Myrtle Clover mysteries for Midnight Ink. (Taken from Elizabeth's Twitter bio.)

Cheers, and good writing!

Related reading:
- 5 Points To Ponder Before You Self Publish
- Amazon Award-Winner Regina Sirois & The Problems Of Indie Distribution
- How To Self Publish: An Introduction
- Kobo's Self-Publishing Portal: Report From A Beta Tester

Photo credit: Writers In The Storm Blog

The BlaBla Meter, Test Your Prose For Meaningfulness

I love this tool! From the site:

How much bullshit hides in your text?
PR-Experts, politicians, ad writers or scientists need to be strong here! BlaBlaMeter unmasks without mercy how much bullshit hides in any text.

A useful tool for everyone involved in writing!

Simply copy your text into the white field and check your writing style. It works with English text up to 15.000 characters (overhead will be cut off). For a meaningful result we recommend a minimum length of 5 sentences.

This is a fun way to spend 5 minutes, and there's the possibility of learning something. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself!

To try it out, go here: BlaBlaMeter.

Related reading:
- Aherk! Makes Writing App 'Write Or Die' Look Tame
- Write Or Die: The App

Query Tracker: Keep Track Of Your Stories

Robert Heinlein told writers to put their stories on the market and to keep them there until they sell, but he didn't tell us how to keep track of them.

Unfortunately it can take many, many, mailings before a story finds its home and it would be embarrassing, to say the least, if a writer sent his or her masterpiece to the same place twice!

This is where QueryTracker.net comes in:

Find Literary Agents & Publishers
- Use our extensive database search tools to locate the perfect agent or publisher for your work.
- Watch a demonstration video.

Organize and Track Your Query Letters
- Keep track of your query letters using the most advanced tracking system available on the web.
- Watch a demonstration video.

View Statistics about Agents and Publishers
- Our database allows information to be collected and shared. This gives access to useful statistical information about literary agents and publishers.

And, amazingly, it's free!

I wondered about this--how can this service be free? Here's the explanation given:

Why is QueryTracker free? QueryTracker is free because it is our goal to collect as much data as possible about query letter results.

To do that, we need as many members as possible to submit their data, and the best way to do that is to make it free.

One of my writing friends recommended QueryTracker to me. She uses it and swears by it, so I'm going to give it a try. If you use it, let me know what you think! Cheers.

Happy 4th of July!

Related reading:
- 6 Rules of Writing from John Steinbeck
- Henry Miller's 11 Writing Commandments
- 7 Tips On How To Get Your Guest Post Accepted

Photo credit: "Punctuation marks made of puzzle pieces" by Horia Varlan under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Jen Talty: Amazon's CreateSpace Vs LIghtning Source

I love Jen's posts! This time she examines the pros and cons of two print on demand (POD) providers, Amazon's Create Space and Lightning Source. She breaks down the cost of each and then gives her conclusion: Cool Gus Publishing is switching from Lightning Source to CreateSpace.

Here is Jen's breakdown of cost:

Lightning Source:

• $75.00 Upload fee for Cover/Interior
• $12.00 US Distribution (a year)
• $12.00 UK Distribution (a year)
• $30.00 Proof
• Change your files it will cost $40.00 per Interior and $40.00 per Cover
• $1.50 Shipping and Handling charge per order
• must provide own ISBN

****No services provided on cover, editing, or anything else that goes into the making of a book

CreateSpace:

• FREE self-service (there are services you can pay for, but the basic upload is free)
• $25.00 Expanded Distribution (one time fee)
• A proof is the cost of printing plus shipping.
• Can use CreateSpace ISBN for free

****There are many services that CreateSpace offers from building your book, editing and cover design that are all at the author’s expense, but they are not required at all

Jen concludes:

The bottom line for us came down to customer service AND ease of the system. LSI is a bit clunky and if you don’t know what you are doing with formatting a book, cover, etc., you are bound to make a mistake. I made a few the first time around. CreateSpace gives you templates (for free) for both interior and exterior so your book looks professional. They also have a cover tool. I have not used it since I’m an InDesign junky, but I’ve played with it and for the novice user, its pretty good, but my big caveat is most of us are not cover artists and always best to hire a professional.

Between talking with my team to wargame the best course of action, the ease of their on-line system was the deal closer. They have this 360 digital proof that shows you the cover and how it wraps around the book, well that right there sold me. Their entire system is very easy to use and while I just created more work for myself as we are going to transfer ALL of our books, I highly recommend CreateSpace.

Well, there you have it. I'd encourage you to read Jen's article in its entirety: Why is Cool Gus Publishing switching from Lightning Source to CreateSpace?

I haven't used a POD service yet, but I had been planning on giving Lightning Source a try. Now I think I'll go with CreateSpace. I love getting recommendations from unbiased industry professionals!

Related reading:
- Espresso Book Machine: Create A Book In 5 Minutes For 1 Cent A Page (Video)

Publish America: Writer Beware

PublishAmerica has been in the news lately and I wanted to write a post detailing why a writer should, in my opinion, never ever get involved with this company but David Gaughran beat me to it. He writes:

For those unaware of the checkered history of PublishAmerica, a quick summary:

1. They are one of only two organizations to earn the dubious honor of having their own sub-forum on Absolute Write’s Bewares & Background Checks (the other being Robert Fletcher’s infamous web of companies).

2. Preditors and Editors have a lengthy entry warning writers away.

3. The Better Business Bureau rates PublishAmerica as an “F”.

4. The leading industry watchdog – Writer Beware – regularly cover PublishAmerica’s various attempts to squeeze money out of their writers (e.g. here, here, here, here, here, and here - and that’s just the tip of the iceberg).

5. PublishAmerica are now the subject of a class-action suit, the allegations being very familiar to anyone who has followed the company (full complaint can be read here).

In short, PublishAmerica is probably the last place I would recommend to a writer.

This list is part of a longer article David wrote. It's about the Authors Guild and you can find it here: The Authors Guild Doesn’t Serve Writers.

Wherever you send your manuscript, I wish you the best of luck. Check your prospective publisher out with organizations such as Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors, do a search on their name and ask other writers what they have heard about the company before you sign anything.

Aherk! Makes Writing App 'Write Or Die' Look Tame

With the writing app, Write Or Die, if you stop typing for too long you can lose your writing, but with Aherk! you could lose your reputation.

From GalleyCat:

The new Aherk app will help you blackmail yourself into meeting your literary goals. The free service lets you pick a goal and save a “compromising picture” of yourself and use it as “knife on your neck” reminding you to finish your project.

Tell us what it is that you want to achieve and set a deadline. Upload a compromising picture that will be posted to Facebook in case you fail to achieve your goal. After your deadline expires, your Facebook friends will vote and tell us if you achieved your goal or not … No boring graphics and calculations, extensive how-tos or cheesy ‘you’re awesome, go get’em!’ texts. It’s just a knife on your neck that will keep you on your toes while your friends are watching.

Here's the complete article: Blackmail App for Writers. Aherk! is still in beta, but it looks as though it is open to the public.

Interesting idea. Perhaps more fans would friend their favorite authors on Facebook if it was known they were using this app. What pictures we might see!

On second thought, that might not be a good thing ...

Thanks to Elizabeth Spann Craig, mystery writer par excellence, for tweeting a link to this article. Elizabeth has a great Twitter feed which you can view here: @elizabethscraig.

Remember, whatever it takes, keep writing!

Related reading:
- Write Or Die: The App
- 4 iPad Apps For Writers
- Conflict Creation: The Needs Of Your Characters

Amazon's KDP Select, Kobo & PubIt: Joe Konrath & Blake Crouch Share Their Experiences

Joe Konrath published the post I've been hoping for ever since Amazon tinkered with its ranking algorithm. In his post, Exclusivity and Free, Joe is joined by Blake & Jordan Crouch, authors of Eerie, who share their experiences with various self-publishing platforms starting with PubIt!

Joe's post is a must-read for anyone who has self-published or is thinking about it. I'll summarize a few things here, but, really, head on over to Joe's site and read the original.

(Also, Black & Jordan Crouch are offering their book, Eerie, for free today (July 2), so head on over and pick up your copy.)

Here's the scoop:

Publishing platforms covered:
- Barnes & Noble's Nook/PubIt!
- Kobo's publishing program (Kobo is soon launching a self-publishing platform: Writing Life)
- Amazon KDP & KDP Select

Publishing platform that was the most flexible and author friendly: Kobo
What Blake had to say surprised me:

[I]n May, I had the opportunity to drop my best-selling title RUN into a Kobo promotion involving email blasts, coupons, and prominent placement on their landing pages. I could not have been more pleased with the results. RUN reached the top 10 on Kobo's overall list, stayed there for several weeks, and the rest of my catalog sold well in response. When you consider the size of Kobo's market share, the fact that I sold more books on Kobo in May than I did on Pubit! is astounding. It was only a few hundred dollars shy of beating Amazon for May, and it did beat Pubit! again in June. Even better, Kobo did not request exclusivity. Their writer-relations people are some of the friendliest, most proactive, responsive people in the business. Suggestions and requests I made last year were taken to heart. It's no secret that Kobo is on the verge of unveiling their own platform (Writing Life). If there is a company that could one day compete with the mighty Amazon, it's these guys. They're inventive, have far, far reaching plans to bring writers what could become the slickest digital publishing platform ever created, and they get that writers are customers. They listen. Best of all, my titles continue to sell and rank highly on Kobo's bestseller list, a month after the promos ended. I cannot say the same for Barnes and Noble. There is no other platform (aside from Amazon) where I've seen this level of "stickiness." If someone asked me what's keeping the majority of my titles out of KDP Select, I would have to say these guys.

That makes me more interested in hearing from authors who are testing out Writing Life before it's rolled out at the end of this month.

Pulbishing platform which sold the most books: Amazon
This was the least surprising thing Blake had to say. Every author I've talked to has admitted to selling more books on Amazon than on any other platform. That Kobo came close to Amazon's sales figures amazed me.

That said, Blake wasn't entirely pleased with his experiences with Amazon's KDP Select. He writes:

KDP Select opinion pieces are a dime a dozen. Amazon is still, hands down, the most lucrative platform for me. Even though the transition from free to paid sales appears to have weakened as of late, success stories like Ann Voss Peterson and Robert Gregory Browne are convincing enough for my brother and I to roll the dice and drop EERIE into KDP Select. I say this as someone who has had great success with free titles: they still make me nervous. I get the excitement of giving away 70,000 ebooks. The prospect of making new fans. But free, in the long run, is dangerous. It sets a bad precedent and level of expectation in the minds of readers. Am I a hypocrite for saying this while EERIE is free? Maybe. But if all the platforms did away with free, I'd be okay with that. As writers, we cannot keep going to that well. It will dry up. Kindles may be able to hold a gazillion ebooks, but readers can't read that many. The key is not being downloaded. It's being read.

This post is not going to end with a definitive conclusion on freebies and exclusivity. I'm uncomfortable with both concepts, even as I play the game. My sense is that the people who survive and continue to do well selling ebooks will be those who experiment, take risks, and adapt. We've said it before, but what worked yesterday, may not work today, and the possibility of a game changer (like KDP Select) is constantly looming. 

Publishing platform that has technical support staff from hell: Barnes & Noble's Nook/PubIt!

Although Blake and Jordan were "pleasantly surprised" by their books performance on PubIt! their sales rank was disappointing. He writes:

It [their book's sales rank] never seemed to correlate to a corresponding low rank. Even on days where we sold 400 books, our rank never dropped below 2000. I have no doubt this cost us many, many sales, a good chunk of money, and kept the book from every appearing on the BN bestseller lists. A real shame, because the marketing triggers that Pubit! pulled worked in a big way. The tech just wasn't there to support them, and their tech support staff just couldn't be bothered to give a damn.

But that aside, Pubit! clearly has some real marketing power, and the smaller window of exclusivity (as opposed to KDP Select's 90 day commitment) is a definite plus. When Pubit!'s tech support decides to follow the model of Kobo and Amazon and treat writers as customers instead of entities to be ignored, Pubit! could become a force.

Overall, Blake's experiences are encouraging. The promotions he ran with the various platforms worked and his book, in generally, ranked well.

Blake and Joe go on to discuss book pricing and the pros and cons of offering books for free. Joe just posted the blog, but already many authors have written in to share their experiences with various platforms and programs.

If you'd like to read Joe's post it's here: Exclusivity and Free
Read the comments here: Exclusivity and Free (Comments)

Related articles:
- Amazon Award-Winner Regina Sirois & The Problems Of Indie Distribution
- Amazon's KDP Select: Another Author Shares Her Experience
- Writing Life: Kobo's New Platform For Self Publishers
- Amazon To Acquire Dorchester Publishing

Photo credit: 3D Issue

10 Female Science Fiction Writers Who Changed Our Lives

Madeleine L'Engle

This is from Flavorwire.com:

In honor of the occasion of Butler’s birth (and because lady sci-fi authors never get enough love) we’ve put together a list of the greatest lady authors of science fiction and fantasy in this or any time — in our own humble estimation of course. ...

Madeleine L’Engle 
We don’t know about you, but Madeleine L’Engle penned what was probably our first interaction with science fiction of any kind, the phenomenal Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels, starring independent Meg Murray and her delightfully advanced little brother. Her writing is forthright and timeless, her ideas original and utterly captivating, and we don’t know where we’d be without her.

Connie Willis
Funny, fantastic Connie Willis has, among other things, won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards, to which we can only say: wow. But the lady deserves it — her science fiction is witty and weird, filled with strange, meticulously researched trivia and slapstick humor pressed up against skillfully handled portrayals of love and loss.

These are just two of the 10 authors profiled by Flavorwire. If you're looking for a good book to read, this list will present you with an embarrassment of riches. You may read the rest of Flavorwire's article here: The Greatest Female Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authors of All Time.

Madeleine L'Engle's book, The Wrinkle in Time, was my introduction to science fiction and it changed my life. I read the book for grade four and from the first few pages realized I'd better not let my parents know what I was reading. I read the book in massive gulps and finished it in a couple of days. I spent so much time in my room my parents thought I was ill! I suppose I had caught a bug of sorts, and I'm very grateful.

Madeleine L'Engle was one of the writers who made me want to be a writer, I wanted to be able to construct stories like that, worlds like that. I, and many, many others, owe her a great dept.

Thanks to the Passive Voice Blog for posting a link to Flavorwire's article.

Other reading:
- Henry Miller's 11 Writing Commandments
- How To Become A Full Time Indie Author
- Ursula K. Le Guin On Literature Versus Genre