Tag: publishing

Self-Publishing: MAYbe I’ll Start My Own Publishing Company #MayChallenge Day 2

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So for those of you who are familiar with me, you know I am on the journey to start my own publishing Company one day. Technically, this company already exists. However, right now I am just using it to publish my own books. Why is this important? I love the way Justin T. McCain put it. He’s someone I’ve had the pleasure of working with recently and a couple of weeks ago his Twitter status read:

I think we become so enthralled with the novelty and idea of some things that we often miss the actual cultivation of them or how to do so.” Justin McCain

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I’ve been working at this goal, officially, for a couple years now and I’ve gotten lots of inquiries and questions into when I will officially launch. The truth is that I don’t want to rush it. Right now I am just polishing my skills and perfecting my goals. Thing is, if you’re thinking about MAYbe starting your own publishing company, you MAY want to start by perfecting the publishing process of your own books first. At least this is the advice I’ve taken to heart. After all, how can I assist anyone in an area in which I am not deeply familiar? If I am going to be trained to play Basketball then I MAY as well learn from a former basketball player. Likewise, I want to offer you the best of the best. A Self-Publishing Company that is unique in more ways than one with a team that will stop at nothing until your book is just the way you want it. I’m talking superb Book Cover Design, Editing, Formatting, and MAYbe throw in some tips on making sure the title of the book is just as eye catching as the cover. After all, these are the first two things that attract readers: The Book Title and the Book Cover. As you can imagine, there’s a lot to do and unless I break my goals down into tiny steps it can get overwhelming. After all, I’ll need to hire a Graphic Designer, Editor, the list goes on and on. So any-who, this post is just an update to let you know that I have not given up on the vision! This is still one of my primary goals. I know it may seem like a huge step but that’s just the kind of person I am. I love writing and publishing but I would like to take it a bit further. What good am I if I cannot pass my skills on to someone else? Like the saying says, “Let each one teach one”. Or in my case, since this is the MAY challenge, “MAY Each One, Teach One! So right now I’m just cultivating this knowledgeable soil about the industry, and really examining and structuring my goals. Speaking of goals, I hope to have the business plan finished by years end! I cannot do anything until that target is knocked down because that is how I can finish the financial process of looking for grants and things of that nature. MAYbe then I’ll start by offering Self-Pub services. As Self-Publishers there’s a lot of help that I know we need in general. Many of us do not have a team of professionals to assist us in the process. MAYbe I’ll build one. Until then, I’ll continue to perfect the craft of publishing and use my own books as a catalyst for how it MAY be to represent someone else.

What about you? Have you started your own publishing company where you represent others? What was your motivation to start? Do you like it? How did you get out there? Any tips? I’d love to hear from you!

A Good Review on Basics: Avoiding Writing Scams

Must Read Information For Self-Publishers On Promo. / Marketing Scams / Request For Manuscript Submissions From Scammers

vanderso's avatarJust Can't Help Writing

This piece from Just Publishing AdviceBlue computer distills some important basic considerations to attend to for those of us trying to learn the book-publishing and marketing process. I get “requests” to submit manuscripts quite often and have usually wondered who it is that’s so desperate to see my work when traditional agents turn down hundreds of submissions each week. This article helps to put the situation in perspective.

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Real Writers Don’t Self-Publish

Check out this excellent post by Kristen as a response to the “For me, traditional publishing means poverty. But self-publish? No way” article as posted to The Guardian.

Personally, I admire aspects of both Traditional and Self-Pub and I couldn’t have said it better. I really liked Myth #2: “Self-Publish and ALL Time Will Be Spent Marketing Not Writing”. This is actually not true and proves a lot of people judge books by their covers (pun intended). Sure, Indie’s promote a lot and this is what is seen in public, but those Indie’s who do more promo and marketing than they do writing their next book is…umm, doing it wrong and are not staples for the entire Indie Author Community.

Author Kristen Lamb's avatarKristen Lamb's Blog

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One of the things I love about doing what I do is that I have the ability to connect so closely with you guys and speak on the topics that matter to you. Yesterday, a fellow writer shared an article from The Guardian, For me traditional publishing means poverty. But self-publish? No way. She wanted my take on what the author had to say.

All right.

For those who’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, I hope I’ve been really clear that I support all paths of publishing (vanity press doesn’t count).

All forms of publishing hold advantages and disadvantages and, as a business, we are wise to consider what form of publishing is best for our writing, our work, our goals, our personality, etc. But my goal has always been to educate writers so they are making wise decisions based off data, not just personal…

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Writing 101 Step 1: READ

“You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it’s true. If I had a nickel for every person who ever told me he/she wanted to become a writer but “didn’t have time to read,” I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.” – Stephen King

Dear Self-Publishers: You Are Not JK Rowling

stop-comparing-yourself-to-others

The rain sounds like marching footsteps on my roof. Yes, it is pouring out. So, I thought I’d take the cozy time spent underneath the covers to devote time to my laptop which means sharing another thought that recently crossed my mind concerning Self-Publishing. As always, my thoughts are based on my own experience. Will you get something out of it? It is always my hope that you will.

There is always something we can gain from one another. Always something we can add to our Self-Publishing arsenal of sorts. However, while each self-publisher is similar, each is also different. There is no one answer to self-publishing a book. There is no one way that it is done. In this post, JK Rowling is not merely representative of herself, but she is representative of others who have succeeded in the business of book publishing. Thing is, I am not JK Rowling and neither are you.

Using Rowling as a platform of discussion, I’ve viewed her countless outlines available online for her books in the Harry Potter series. They are very nice layouts and tend to be very organized but it was also very confusing to me. Rowlings outlines are, again, well organized but it is not something I could have followed. For me, to follow an outline for writing books would just confuse me and I will probably never finish it. It is just not the way that I write. I and me are key terms here.

What makes your book special? In a world where people are Self-Publishing books everyday (and often coming out with them at the same time) what makes yours worth the time? Wrote a Historical Novel? So what, so did the next guy. Wrote a Young Adult piece? Who cares, so did she. Her over there. Yes her, she wrote a Fantasy, Horror, Young Adult novel too. In a world where there are seas and seas of Self-Published books, it is not the concept of the story itself that is so different. I believe there are tons of books with similar themes. I also believe that every book has a question that needs to be answered, a message it is trying to deliver, or a problem that it attempts to solve and each author has to answer that question or reveal that message or provide a solution to that problem in his or her own unique way. This, the answer, is what makes him or her stand out. It is the unique combination of that authors own persona as well as his or hers approach that is different and that makes that author either stand out or blend in with the sea.

I’m sure authors whose names we all know have been influenced by others, of course. But they have also become known for their individuality. There is always something slightly different about how one author approaches a subject as compared to another. Terry McMillian and Sista Souljah are both talented writers, but Souljah can’t write like Terry and Terry can’t write like Souljah. For each to be successful, each will have to bring something to the table that is different in order to become their own name brands.

Dear Self-Publishers: You Are Not JK Rowling

It is not up to us to write like those who’ve become successful financially and globally. It is up to us to write in a way that works for us, according to our individual personalities and our individual styles.  It appears that everyone wants to have the answer to how to Self-Publish a book. The truth? There isn’t one. At the end of the day we have to write stories that people want to read and lets just say the JK Rowlings are already taken. I’d be willing to bet that a book written with less than desirable grammar and poorly promoted can still be read IF it’s an engaging story. Writing is, after all, story telling which is not something everyone can do.

This, the skill of writing, tends to be overlooked when it comes to advice or discussion on self-publishing. I’ve seen tons of advice on how to promote, why it is important to get a story edited, why book covers should be appealing, ISBN Numbers, the list goes on and on. I’ve spoken myself about the importance of these factors, why they are important and so on. Except, I do not hear much about the actual skill of writing; the craft of story telling. Poor books is not always because the book cover is bad, the editing is crappy, or that the marketing skills are poor. No. It is because not everyone can write a book. I’ve read Traditionally Published books with tons of grammatical errors and yet people love the stories because they are told well. There is a skill there that draws readers in. Toni Morrison said it best when she said that obviously some aspects of the field can be taught, but you can’t teach skill or talent. I love to sing, but I am not going to walk into someone’s studio and record an album. While I’m sure my voice is decent, singing is not a skill that I have. I would much rather let the Alicia Keys and Whitney Houston’s have at it. As for my voice? Well, that is what showers are for.

As for the purpose of this post? Well, we’ve all heard it before: Be yourself, everyone else is taken.

The Best Way for Writers to Use Amazon’s Preorder Feature

Great info over at Live.Write.Thrive on how to use Amazon’s PreOrder feature. Here are some key bullet points in the article that can help you to make wise preordering decisions (please visit the site for the entire article). Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO Author Marketing Experts, and best-selling author says:

  • First Time Published Author: If you’re a newly published author, the idea of a preorder probably seems exciting, right? Your book is up on the Amazon site as time ticks down to its release. And while it seems exciting, it’s not advisable to spend a ton of marketing time on the book because you can’t get reviews (though there is a workaround for that), but using this to build a fan base may not be the best idea. 
  • Already Published Author: If you have a book out there (or several), and you’ve built a mailing list of fans, then preorder may be a fun thing to do to build excitement for your upcoming book. 

I would still caution that the lion’s share of your work should only begin when the book is actually ready for purchase. Why? Because unless you are some mega-bestselling author, it’s hard to drive significant numbers to a preorder page.

The other issue is immediacy. If a reader wants something now, they may not want to wait for your book to be ready and will, instead, buy another Amazon-recommended book. Also, this is another reason to keep your preorder time short—which I’ll explain next.

<<<I only gave about 2 weeks for my preorders. Penny explains why you should keep your Preorder time short>>>

  • Timing of Your Preorder: Though I know there are folks who are fans of long preorders, I am not one of them. Amazon allows you up to ninety days, but when I’ve done this, I have found that a month is just about right. That way you can promote it to family, friends, and even your e-mail list, and still build some momentum for it without spending a ton of time pushing a book that no one can read.
  • Promoting a Preorder: Along the lines of what we discussed earlier, I would share this with your followers and your e-mail or newsletter list. If this is your second, third, or fourth book, the interest is going to be stronger than if it’s your first. But even a newbie author should not be discouraged from pushing this to folks who know you to let them know it’s coming. You can do this through images, blog posts, Facebook posts, and Twitter updates.

<<<Don’t Forget The Road to Freedom is available now for preorder at $0.99>>>

  • Pricing Your Preorder: For reasons I mentioned earlier, I would keep your pricing low— even if you plan on raising it later. Why? Well, you’re competing with millions of titles on Amazon and your book isn’t ready (yet), so the immediacy isn’t there. If you want to entice an impulse buy, keep the pricing lower at first, then once the book is live, you can always raise it.