The Seven Year Itch And Publishing

Have you ever watched the movie The Seven Year Itch? That's the movie in which, among other things, Marilyn Monroe stands stands over a subway grate so she can get some relief from the summer heat. The heat which, at least in the 1950s, drove people out of New York during August.

Apparently New Yorkers aren't the only folks to take August off. The publishing world did as well. Which is no surprise given that New York used to BE the publishing world. But that wasn't the only reason. Dean Wesley Smith tells us that book sales traditionally slump during the summer, from mid-May to mid-September.

Which brings us to the subject of Dean's post: The Seasons of Publishing. Specifically: fall, winter and spring. When I read that list I suspected a typo. Where's summer? But in publishing there was no summer. There were three seasons and each lasted for 4 months. Dean writes:

[A] major reason for no summer catalog and sales season for the publishers was that it was known that the lowest time for buying books by customers was May through the middle of September. That has not changed.

The lesson for indie publishers:

Don't watch your numbers like an obsessive-compulsive hawk!

If, currently, your book sales are down, at least one of the reasons is that it's summer and book sales go down in the summer. Simple as that. But that's just one reason that your sales could be down. The important point here is that, many times, when your sales go down it has nothing to do with your book. The dip is often completely beyond your control.

So if indie authors worry about our sales dropping and try to prop them back up by commissioning another cover, by rewriting the blurb, and so on, we really are just wasting time that could have spent writing more books.

Given the natural ebb and flow of book sales, what should indie authors do? Here are Dean's suggestions:

1) Focus only on learning and writing the next book.

2) Check your numbers when the money gets deposited every month and no more.

3) Expect your overall sales to go down from May 15 to September 15 unless you push in new titles or do something else to change your list.

The summer is a great time to push in new titles because they will be solidly in the system, throughout the world, as we go into the fall book-buying season. So if you do anything in the summer, get new titles up.

If you do change a price, for heaven’s sake, give the new price at least six months to nine months to return numbers to you. Changing a price from week to week or month to month is just flat silly in this business.

Think long term. Checking your sales numbers twelve times per year is enough. And for heaven’s sake, stop reacting to low sales in a traditional low-sales period in the business.
Nothing wrong with your books. Low sales in the summer are just normal.

I especially like Dean's recommendation to give a new price at least 6 months to preform before changing it again. Well, that and the advice to publish during the summer to give your book some traction before Christmas. Actually, I like it all! (grin)

You can read Dean Wesley Smith's entire article here: The New World of Publishing: The Seasons of Publishing.

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Great Authors Who Wrote Only One Novel

From Office Space For Rent:

Stephen King, Sue Grafton, and Dean Koontz have each written dozens of novels. They are successful, prolific authors whose works span decades. Other authors have been less productive but no less successful. 

 For instance:

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray: Wilde was a poet and playwright and like Salinger and Mitchell, published a number of collections, but only wrote a single novel. The Picture of Dorian Gray was criticized as immoral and was heavily censored. Wilde revised the book, and it eventually became a gothic classic. Wilde went back to poetry and plays and never undertook another novel.

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird: Published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was an immediate bestseller. The critically acclaimed classic won Lee a Pulitzer and a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and its 1962 film adaptation won three Academy Awards. Lee never expected the novel to be successful and shied away from the attention she received. She started other novels, but, dissatisfied with them or unwilling to face more publicity, abandoned them.

Oscar Wilde and Harper Lee are just two of many who, while writing short stories, plays, etc., wrote only one novel. To read about the rest, click here: 8 Amazing Authors Who Only Wrote One Book.

An interesting read! Thanks to Eric for the link.

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Photo credit: Infrogmation

Stephen King's Joyland (June 4, 2013): Cover Art Just Released

From EW.com:

Not only is King going retro with the setting of his upcoming novel, he’s also sticking to a tried-and-true format. “I love crime, I love mysteries, and I love ghosts,” he said in the press release. “I also loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we’re going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being. Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book.”

Charles Ardai, editor of Hard Case Crime, promises a layered, genre-crossing story. “Joyland is a breathtaking, beautiful, heartbreaking book,” he said. “It’s a whodunit, it’s a carny novel, it’s a story about growing up and growing old, and about those who don’t get to do either because death comes for them before their time. Even the most hard-boiled readers will find themselves moved. When I finished it, I sent a note saying, ‘Goddamn it, Steve, you made me cry.’” (See the cover of 'Joyland' by Stephen King)

- Read Stephen King's press release on StephenKing.com
- View the cover art for Joyland
- Join Stephen King's mailing list.

I find Stephen King's stories usually either make me scared of the dark, closets, washrooms (especially toilets) and dogs, or they turn me into a puddle of tears. This one seems to be the puddle of tears kind, although I do have the feeling I might not want to go to any carnivals after dark, at least for a while .... None of that matters, though. I've marked my calendar and am counting the days until Joyland hits the shelves. :-)

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Photo credit: StephenKing.com

A Discovery of Witches: An Oxford Walking Tour

From time to time Amazon sends me book recommendations. When they started doing this, years ago, I used to read their recommendations to friends so we could share a laugh, that's how inaccurate they were. Lately, though, they've been getting better. Much better. For instance, recently I picked up a copy of Deborah Harkness' book, A Discovery of Witches. I haven't finished it yet, but am thoroughly enjoying it.

Just this morning Amazon sent me 10 book recommendations. The second from the top was A Discovery of Witches. Right under that was the sequel, Shadow of Night. I had no idea there was a sequel, so that made me happy, but it felt like cold fingers were trailing up my spine. Gah! Am I really that predictable?

Although I haven't yet finished A Discovery of Witches I am thoroughly enjoying it, so when I came across a link to this this YouTube video (A walking tour of Oxford for A Discovery of Witches) on Deborah Harkness' website I thought I'd share it.



Apparently there is going to be a third book in the series as well as a movie based on A Discovery of Witches.

Warner Brothers Pictures has secured the film rights to the All Souls Trilogy. Work is currently underway to adapt the first book, A Discovery of Witches, for the screen. Denise DiNovi and Alison Greenspan are producing the film. Playwright David Auburn, who has received both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, has been hired to write the screenplay.

For the latest information about the movie, click here: All Souls Trilogy Movie.

Has anyone else read A Discovery of Witches? What did you think of the book?

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Norway Pays Authors $19,000 Per Year

This is from MediaBistro.com:

Norway buys 1000 copies of every book a Norwegian author publishes. It provides a $19,000 annual subsidy to every author who is a member of the Authors’ Union. The Association of Bookstores is allowed to have a monopoly on the sale of books—but is prohibited by law from engaging in price competition. It requires, by law, that bookstores keep books in stock for two years regardless of sales. And it exempts books from its very steep sales tax. Not surprisingly, Griswold finds, “Norwegians everywhere read, and they read a lot; Norway has one of the world’s highest reading rates.”

I tried to confirm those figures at the Authors' Union website but, unsurprisingly, the text is in Norwegian. The quotation comes from Regionalism and the Reading Class, a book on sociology by Wendy Griswold.

Wouldn't that be nice? $19,000 a year may not be enough to live on, but it would certainly help! It only applies to those living in Norway, but, still, I can't help but wonder what the entrance requirements are for joining the Authors' Union!

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Photo credit: Photo by Mahlum, altered by Karen Woodward

Amazon's KDP Select Program: Is Exclusivity Worth The Perks?

A few days ago I mentioned that the Amazon store in India is now offering a 70% royalty option (Amazon's India Store Now Offers 70% Royalty Option) but apparently I didn't read the small print. Kris Rusch writes:

This week came the news that Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program will offer its content providers a 70% royalty on all sales made in India—provided the content providers go with Kindle Select only. For those of you who don’t know, Kindle Select requires exclusivity from anyone who joins it. You can’t market your work on the iBookstore, for example, or on Kobo if you’re part of Kindle Select. Only on Amazon.

Let me play devils advocate. Many writers I've spoken with say they make upwards of 95% of their sales on Amazon, so selling only through Amazon is not costing them a great deal of money. Further, since Amazon gives them perks like free days and inclusion in the lending library many authors end up selling far more through Amazon than they would have through all the stores combined.

Personally, I thought the above line of reasoning was compelling, but Kris raises an excellent point. She writes:

[M]y own beliefs about maintaining different platforms for my work got reinforced this week after WMG hired someone to input the sales figures for the last six months. We looked at those numbers yesterday. I sell a lot of books on Kindle, but my biggest selling title, a short story called “The Moorhead House,” sold a grand total of one copy on Kindle from January to June.

Every single one of “The Moorhead House”’s rather surprising (to me) sales came on the Nook. For some reason, Nook readers either like or have found or continue to find that one short story. And they buy it more than they buy anything else of mine offered through Barnes & Noble.

If I had joined Kindle Select with that story, I doubt I would have made comparable sales.

I don't think I've read a business post of Kris Rusch's that wasn't well written and well thought out. This one is no exception. If you'd like to read the whole thing here's the the link: The Business Rusch: Content is King.

I'd like to share one more thing with you before I leave. Kris writes:

If you can control the content, then you can control the money.

But here’s the problem with content: it’s not easy to create. If a bunch of monkeys at typewriters could write novels, don’t you think the publishing industry would have conscripted the little buggers decades ago?

I thought that was hilarious! So true.

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Photo credit: Karen Woodward

Stephen King's Sequel To The Shining, Doctor Sleep, Coming Sept 24, 2013

Stephen King's Signature

From theguardian.co.uk:

Readers who have been waiting for more than 30 years to find out what happened next to Danny Torrance, the young boy who survived the horrific events of The Shining, can breathe a sigh of relief: Stephen King has finally announced a publication date for his long-awaited sequel.

Doctor Sleep will be published on 24 September 2013, King has announced – 36 years after The Shining was first published in 1977.

King's third novel, The Shining tells the story of the Torrance family, who move to the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado mountains where father Jack is to act as caretaker over one long winter. Jack Torrance becomes possessed by the evil spirits in the hotel, and attacks his family, but Danny – whose psychic abilities have strengthened the hotel's ghosts - and his mother Wendy eventually escape.

Many, many novels later, King's Doctor Sleep will take up the story of a middle-aged Dan Torrance, a man who has "been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father's legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence", according to the synopsis released by King's UK publisher, Hodder & Stoughton.

Dan has settled in a New Hampshire town, where his "shining" psychic power is used to provide final comfort to the dying. Known by the townsfolk as Doctor Sleep, he comes into contact with a 12-year-old girl, Abra Stone, whose shining is "the brightest ever seen", and must fight a terrifying tribe of quasi-immortal beings who live off the "steam" which children with the "shining" produce when they are slowly tortured to death. (Stephen King's Shining sequel Doctor Sleep coming next year)

Here is Stephen King reading a chapter from Doctor Sleep:



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Amazon's India Store Now Offers 70% Royalty Option

I found this in my inbox last night. From Amazon:

We are happy to announce that the popular 70% royalty option is now available for sales to customers in India for titles enrolled in KDP Select. This royalty option is available for books sold from the new India Kindle Store, Kindle devices, and Kindle apps.

New features for authors and publishers in India include the ability to set prices specific for India, receive royalty payments in INR, and now earn up to 70% royalties when enrolled in KDP Select. For additional details, check out our Terms and Conditions:

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=APILE934L348N

Also, take a look at the 70% List Price Requirements:

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A301WJ6XCJ8KW0

If you would like to review or change your royalty preferences for each title sold in India, just visit the KDP Bookshelf here:

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/dashboard

Looks like the ebook market in India is just getting started:

If you happened to wander down the aisles of the Delhi Book Fair that concluded recently, you would think that India is soon going to be swamped by a tsunami of ebooks, heralding a digital revolution in e-reading like never before. Almost every other store had something about soon-to-come ebook offerings.

The reality is that the Indian publishing industry in its offline form is still flourishing, churning out 100,000 titles a year and growing at 12 to 15 per cent a year. Many of the biggies in the book selling business seem impervious to all the noise about the business of reading digitally. Leading online book chain, Flipkart, had earlier said it was studying the space, but refused to comment on ebooks for this story. Snapdeal, the online marketplace, says that it is treading cautiously. Snapdeal co-founder and chief executive officer, Kunal Bahl, says that he too is analysing opportunities, but first wants “to ensure that there are enough devices for people to access ebooks.”

Looks like a great market for indie authors! The rest of this article can be read here: Is an ebook revolution around the corner? Thanks to the Passive Voice Blog for the link.

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Photo credit: Unknown

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance

"The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything." 
John Irving (1942 - )

"You can't think yourself out of a writing block, you have to write yourself out of a thinking block." 
John Rogers, Kung Fu Monkey, 06-25-11

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.
Ray Bradbury (1920 - 2012), advice to writers

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.
Stephen King (1947 - ), On Writing, p. 147

These quotations are from The Quotations Page.

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How To Format A Word Document For Amazon's KDP Publishing Program

As anyone who has successfully published a book will tell you, formatting your MS Word document correctly is the key to a successful, low-stress, experience.

One of the best explanations of how to format your Word document in preparation for publishing is in Zoe Winter's book Smart Self-Publishing: Becoming An Indie Author, but if you don't have it, this video by Connie Neal has some great tips: Formatting a Word 2010 Document for KDP.

I agree with Passive Guy's comment on the video:

In the demonstration, Connie applied some styles, then manually centered the text. PG would probably modify the style so it includes a centered text format. Very easy to do.

Rather than using one of Word’s style sets, PG uses a set of styles he has developed for all of Mrs. PG’s books. When he receives a new manuscript, he applies the styles he’s developed to that book. If he wants a different look for the new book, he can modify the styles or add other elements.

He usually begins by formatting the CreateSpace printed copy, always using section breaks instead of page breaks, then uses the result for conversion to ebook formats. It’s not the only way to do it, but it seems to him to be the most efficient.

Another great resource for formatting is Mark Coker's Smashwords Style Guide. I know, I know, we're talking about formatting your Word document for publishing through Amazon's KDP program, but the basics of formatting are the same regardless of where you're uploading to.

The key, I think, is to "go nuclear" and strip out all formatting from your document and then put it back in, making sure that the only formatting you use in your finished document, the one that's going to be uploaded to Amazon, are paragraph styles. I strip out the formatting by copying the entire text of the manuscript and pasting it into a text file like Notepad (on the PC), copying that text, then opening up a new Word file and pasting the text from Notepad file into it. (Clear as mud?) Sounds like a lot of work, but it's worth it to be sure you've stripped out every last pesky pit of formatting.

Stripping out all formatting will also strip out italics so I've taken to indicating italics in my manuscripts by putting "_" on the left side of a word. For instance, "She _loved chocolate" equals "She loved chocolate". Then I just do a global search and italicize all words that have an underscore as their first character. After that I remove all underscores and there you have it. (This article, Find and Replace Using Wildcards, is terrific)

I imagine there's a far more simple and elegant way of doing the same thing, and if any of you folks have discovered it, please do let me know! :-)

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