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Showing posts with label indie publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indie publishing. Show all posts

Author Collectives: The "Third Path" to Publication. Is it Right for You?

Posted by Unknown On Sunday, December 15, 2013 0 comments


Liza Perrat contacted me a few months ago, asking for permission to quote me in a book about her author collective, Triskele Books. I've been fascinated by the idea of authors forming their own publishing companies, so I asked if she'd like to guest post for us. I was eager to hear more about her experiences and share them with our readers.

Some writers take to the "indie" route easily, but others prefer to work with a team, the way it's done in traditional publishing. But traditional publishing can be very scary these days. Not only is breaking in daunting, but "non-compete" and "in perpetuity" clauses, rigid rules, low royalties and glacial schedules can turn a lot of writers away from the whole process.

The author collective offers a way to have the best of both worlds. If you're a "team player" who wants the control indie publishing offers, but you don't want to go it alone, the collective may be for you. But you do need to choose your team carefully, and dedication is a must, as you will see from Liza's story.

The Triskele Books website is stunning and professional and the covers are beautiful. I could tell they have a team that includes a fantastic designer. Triskele was formed in 2011, by UK authors Gillian Hamer, JJ Marsh and Liza, who's originally from Australia and lives in France. In 2012, three more authors joined the team, Jasper Dorgan, JD Smith and Catriona Troth.

Although they write in slightly different genres, their books are aimed at a similar audience. All the books are "serious" works of fiction, mostly historicals, set in exotic times and places. They look fascinating.

They've also jointly written a non-fiction book that details their journey as a collective. The Triskele Trail A Pathway to Independent Publishing, which debuted in November.

As they put it, The Triskele Trail is a story about "a writers' collective who made some mistakes and some smart decisions; who discovered opportunities, found friends and dodged predators in the independent publishing jungle...This is not a How-To book. This is How-We-Did-It."

I'm so grateful to Liza for guesting for us while I recover from the flu and the loss of my mom. Liza has been amazingly gracious while I've been kind of a dragon-lady. Thanks a bunch, Liza! ...Anne

An Alternative Route to Publishing – The Author Collective
by Liza Perrat 



Once upon a time there were three authors. They met via an online writing group where they honed their writing skills, critiqued each other’s work, and where, attracted by the quality of each other’s writing, they gravitated towards each other. Around the end of 2011, each with manuscripts they believed were fit for the public eye, these three writers found themselves in a similar predicament.

‘Cross-genre won’t sell,’ Gillian’s agent said, of her historically-based crime thrillers with a touch of
the otherworldly.

‘Your crime novels are far too cerebral,’ one agent said about JJ Marsh’s European crime series.

‘Love it, but can’t see how to sell it,’ publishers told Liza’s agent, of her Revolutionary France novel.

Frustration at traditional publishing routes became a common topic of conversation so, spread across Europe and the UK, they got together and discussed their fears, hopes and plans.

At that stage, even as self-publishing was becoming an increasingly attractive option, the market was still littered with poorly-written, badly-presented vanity projects. They expressed their reservations about this, and about the lonely prospect of trying to tout their books in such a crowded marketplace, not to mention the frightening thought of taking on all that responsibility alone.

The idea of a team emerged. Sharing it between three, with that sense of mutual support, made it not only appealing but quite exciting. Apart, they were nothing, but together, they could make one hell of a team!

With all the administration of establishing a business, and because, legally, each member wanted to retain her own rights, they did not want to be a small press. So, they became simply a group of authors working as a team to promote their writing. Along the way, they picked up two more valuable members, and today the Triskele Books Author Collective remains a core group of five, inviting associate members from time to time, to publish under their label.

This is their story.



Getting the Author Collective off the Ground …


The three of us began by hammering out a philosophy founded on three principles:

  • High quality writing
  • Professional presentation
  • A strong sense of place
To brand ourselves, we chose the triskele as our logo, with its three independent, yet connected,
circles. We had already designed our marketing materials when we realised that the triskele symbol is also an identifier for the BDSM community. What the heck, we thought … all welcome, BYO whip and chains!

The question of finances arose next. Even though each author retains her own rights and profits, for Triskele Books to get off the ground, there had had to be a certain financial commitment. We voted in our cash-savvy member as financial manager, she opened a bank account and we all deposited an initial float to cover website, promotional material, design and initial launch. She sends out bank statements for all expenses and, as and when we need to add funds, we all chip in equal sums.

Our biggest mistake in the beginning was everyone trying to do everything. After losing a website, dragging books across London on a hot Saturday afternoon and putting noses out of joint by forgetting to use “REPLY ALL” for emails, we soon learned it was better to assign tasks to individual strengths. Each had a skill, and we should focus on that.

So, our admin girl now draws up monthly workplans, assigning each member –– based on her particular skills –– certain tasks, which the others know will be done to the best of her ability.


The Nitty-Gritty of our Author Collective…


For the actual book-writing aspects we basically hold each other’s hands throughout the process. We critique, edit and advise on each other’s drafts before they go for final professional proofreading. You might think that four editors could be counter-productive, but we all try and keep in mind what the author wants to achieve, and how we can help her to get there.

For marketing and promotion, we share the workload. In today’s crowded marketplace, an author has to shout pretty loudly to be heard over all the other voices, and it’s hard to keep thinking up new and witty things to say. Being part of a group means there is no lone wolf crying into the wilderness; we take turns out there, spreading the word, which leaves more time for actual writing. We argue. Not often, but we do. However, among five voices, we always find a solution.

Each writer self-publishes her own books. Choices regarding print and/or e-book, distributors, exclusivity or otherwise, translation rights, etc., are all up to the individual author. So far, we have all shared the same designer, but that’s not mandatory. Of course, we examine and discuss all the options together, but it’s as simple as that.

We have come to rely on each other for all these things, and take comfort in the knowledge that these mammoth tasks are far less daunting when shared. Not only that, but the pressure not to let the others down is even more of an incentive.

Tips for Writers Considering an Author Collective …


  • First and foremost, we believe you should look at quality, or level, of writing. Don't join with someone who can talk the talk and has a thousand Facebook and Twitter friends, but who lacks the skill, or ambition, to match your level of writing. 
  • One of the main reasons many people self-publish is to maintain absolute editorial control. All members of your Collective should be dedicated to quality and making each book the best it can be. It’s a good idea to say that all members must unanimously agree on any decisions concerning the Collective, and that you will never publish a book that does not have the full backing and agreement of the others. 
  • Look at diversity of skills. Who can do what? Who has business sense, financial nous, organisational skills? Who can market, and where? 
  • Don’t collaborate with anyone you do not like as a person. You might adore their writing, but if the very sight of them irritates you, it’ll never gel. 
  • Ask yourself if you would be happy to go into business with these people. Because even though this isn't a company set-up in the strict sense, the commitment is identical. There’s a lot of work and energy involved in self-publishing, and no ship can afford to carry unseaworthy passengers. 
  • But the most vital question is: who is reliable? Basic trust has to be the foundation stone of a workable Collective. You need members who can be honest about every aspect of the game; who are not afraid to tell each other the unpalatable truth. You also need people who are trustworthy on an emotional level. The route to independent publishing is bloody hard work, so someone will always be hyper, another despondent and another neutral. Whenever one hits a wall, she needs to be able to rely on the others to prop her back up. And of course, you have the slightest doubt that any of your colleagues might high-tail it to Rio with the Collective booty, best not to consider working with them. 
Founding a Collective is not something to be taken lightly, but with a team of like-minded, motivated people, it is becoming a truly viable option in today’s publishing world.

Our Author Collective Two Years Down the Line …


Eighteen months after launching the first three Triskele Books, our strategy seems to be working. In addition to practical advantages such multiple critiquers, editors and proofreaders, not to mention the emotional benefits of being able to crow or cry to sympathetic ears, the key gain has been the mutiplying of our marketing network.

We have launched our titles in sets of three or four, every six months. Each book carries an ad in the back for the others in its set, as well as a complete list of all Triskele titles.

People seem to respond more positively to the concept of a Collective rather than just another self-published book. Our sales are on the rise, we have supportive and enthusiastic readers, books ready to publish through to 2016, and a queue of authors
lining up to jump onto the Triskele team.

We’ve gained valuable advice from successful independently-published authors, swapped marketing and networking opportunities. We’ve grown to depend on each other whilst retaining our individuality.

Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves and letting out books stagnate on a hard drive, we have taken on the publishing industry, our way. Independently publishing novels to a professional standard has proved to be hard work, frustrating and exciting. We’ve shared the angst, the uncertainties, the mistakes, and learned a lot in a short time.

In conjunction with our latest release of Triskele Books at the Chorleywood Literary Festival, we’ve collated everything we’ve learnt –– our mistakes, our successes, our experiences ––into a short eBook titled The Triskele Trail.

***

What about you, scriveners? Have you ever thought of joining up with other writers to form your own indie publishing company? Have you had any experience with a collective that you'd like to share? Do you know of other successful collectives? Are you thinking of self-publishing, but have put it off because you prefer working with a team? 

***

Liza grew up in Wollongong, Australia, where she worked as a general nurse and midwife for fifteen years. When she met her French husband on a Bangkok bus, she moved to France, where she has been living with her husband and three children for twenty years.
Her stories have been published widely in anthologies and small press magazines. Her articles on French culture and tradition have been published in international magazines such as France Magazine and France Today.

She has completed four novels and one short-story collection, and is represented by Judith Murdoch of the Judith Murdoch Literary Agency.

Spirit of Lost Angels is the first in the historical L’Auberge des Anges series set against a backdrop of rural France, and published under the Triskele Books label in May, 2012. The second in the series –– Wolfsangel –– was published in October, 2013, and Liza is working on the third novel in the series ––Midwife Héloïse – Blood Rose Angel –– set during the 14th century Black Plague years.

Liza reviews books for the Historical Novel Society and Words with Jam magazine.

Contact and Other Information:

Book of the Week

Only $2.99 at Amazon US Amazon UK and Amazon CA





Once upon a time, there were five writers.

They believed there was a third way of publishing, somewhere over the rainbow. So they packed their books and set off to explore. This is what happened on the journey.

The Triskele Trail is a true story. About a writers' collective who made some mistakes and some smart decisions; who discovered opportunities, found friends and dodged predators in the independent publishing jungle.

Fourteen books later, here are the lessons we learned.

This is not a How-To book.

This is How-We-Did-It.

This is The Triskele Trail.

"Triskele stands out in the world of indie authors as an author collective that is focused and mindful of their writing, publishing and marketing processes. In this book, you'll learn their views on the fundamentals of being an indie author, as well as the benefits of a collective, who to trust on the journey, plus tips on time management and researching historical fiction. The Triskele Trail is a smorgasbord of useful tidbits and the book will definitely help authors make decisions in this rapidly changing publishing environment." –– Joanna Penn, Author of #1 bestseller How To Market A Book. www.TheCreativePenn.com

Opportunity Alerts

Dog Lovers! Here's one for you: AMERICAN KENNEL CLUB FICTION WRITING CONTEST  NO ENTRY FEE. Submit one short story, maximum 2,000 words. Entries can be on any subject, but must feature a dog. (But it can't talk) Prizes $500, $240, $100. Deadline January 31, 2014. 

CRAZYHORSE PRIZES IN FICTION, NONFICTION, POETRY $20 fee (includes subscription). This is a biggie, well worth the fee. This venerable literary magazine has published the likes of John Updike, Raymond Carver and Billy Collins. Winners in each category receive $2,000 and publication. Submit up to 25 pages of prose or three poems. All entries considered for publication. Submissions accepted in the month of January 2014 only.

2014 BETHLEHEM WRITERS ROUNDTABLE SHORT STORY AWARD $10 ENTRY FEE. Submit 2,000 words or fewer on the theme of "Food Stories". In addition to a $200 prize, the first place winner's story will be considered for print publication in the Bethlehem Writers Group's next anthology or as a featured story in Bethlehem Writers Roundtable. Their last anthology won Indie Book Awards for Best Anthology and Best Short Fiction. Second place will receive $100 + publication in the BWG Writers Roundtable. Deadline January 15th, 2014

DRIFTLESS REVIEW ANNUAL FLASH FICTION CONTEST $15 ENTRY FEE for up to three stories. Each short-short story limited to 500 words. $500 prize. Deadline December 31

Dark Continents Publishing's Guns and Romances anthology. They're looking for previously unpublished short fiction from 3500-9000 words. Any genre as long as there's a tough protagonist, weapons, and... at least one reference to music. Sounds interesting. Payment rate is a one-off of $20 per story plus a percentage of the ebook royalties. Publication estimated in late-2014. More info on the website. Closing date for submissions is February 28, 2014.

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What are Algorithms—and are They Killing the "Kindle Revolution"?

Posted by Unknown On Sunday, April 14, 2013 0 comments


First, an awesome announcement: this blog will be named to Writer's Digest's Best 101 Sites for Writers in the May-June issue! (special thanks to Lila and Janet for the heads-up.) We are so jazzed! The magazine should be in stores soon. Subscribers have already got their copies. Many, many thanks to whoever nominated us!! 

To celebrate this exciting news, my publisher has made all my mysteries 99 cents until the end of April. That's at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. This includes The Gatsby Game,  Food of Love, and the Camilla Randall Mysteries, either as the boxed set or singly, and No Place Like Home, usually $4.99 (still only at Amazon, alas.) Click those links or click through the book covers in the sidebar. Here's my author page at Barnes and Noble.

And Ruth Harris has joined in, making her Park Avenue Boxed Set only 99 cents as well. (That's 33c a book!) 


OK, we hear about them all the time, but what the *%@# are algorithms, anyway?

An algorithm is a line of code that gives a search engine a step-by-step process to produce a desired result: like a list of websites, a bra that fits, or a suggestion for the next title to put on your TBR list.

They aren't new. In fact they were invented in the 8th century AD by a Persian guy named Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmi . The word "algorithm" or "algorism" is a corruption of his name: al-Khwarismi.

But in the digital age this venerable type of formula has taken on a huge importance for the marketplace. An algorithm can make or break sales of any product online. As superstar author Hugh Howey said in an interview on Reddit, “I'm guessing 90% of my sales are from reader recommendations and Amazon algorithms.”

Or as his interviewer called them "the inscrutable Amazon algos."

They're sure not scrutable to me. I'm pretty sure they have to do with math, at which I suck. Seriously. I had to be counseled for “math anxiety” in high school.

Besides, algorithms aren’t that easy to define—even for the people who work with them. The Wikipedia article says, “While there is no generally accepted formal definition of 'algorithm,' an informal definition could be 'a set of rules that precisely defines a sequence of operations.' For some people, a program is only an algorithm if it stops eventually; for others, a program is only an algorithm if it stops before a given number of calculation steps”

Yeah, right. If you’re like me, your eyes have started to glaze over already. Secretly, I think of them as little robot elves who get things done inside my computer.

Like bringing up 64,300,000 links in .52 seconds when you put the word “algorithm” into Google’s search window.

Pretty durn clever, these elves. And kind of Big Brothery. They're what Facebook uses to analyze your “Likes” and figure out if you’re gay, conservative and/or smart.

They’re not infallible. They're responsible for sending you those emails from Amazon suggesting you buy or review your own book, and they're the reason you got spammed with dozens of ads for refrigerators after you accidently Googled “fridge” instead of “fudge” last week.

But they work well enough that businesses increasingly depend on them. A new online lingerie retailer, True&Co, uses a questionnaire and an algorithm to sell mail-order bras—a product that’s difficult to fit even in real-life dressing rooms. According to the NYT, at True&Co “women end up buying more of the bras chosen by the algorithm than the ones they select themselves.”

As you might imagine, online book retailers depend heavily on algorithms to get books in front of the people who might buy them.

David Gaughran talked about the complexity of Amazon’s algorithms in making Amazon’s bestseller lists on his blog, Let’s Get Digital.

“Amazon has a bevy of Bestseller Lists, all split into Free and Paid listings. The big one is theTop 100 in the Kindle Store, and placement on this list can drive staggering amounts of sales. This list is populated with items ranked #1 to #100 in the overall Kindle Store, which includes not just e-books, but also things like games, magazines, and newspapers.

The exact algorithm Amazon uses to assign a Sales Rank to each book is a closely-guarded secret, but the general make-up is easy to deduce. Simply put, your Sales Rank tells you how many books are selling more than you at this moment in time (it’s updated hourly). However, it also takes account of historical sales. More recent sales are weighted much more heavily in the algorithm, though, and velocity plays a big part too (how much your sales are increasing at that moment in time). There’s a lot more to it, but those are the basics.”

David talks more about how Amazon’s algorithm-driven recommendation engines work in a post from February 2013.

But the most important thing to know about the algorithms book retailers use is that they CHANGE. Those robot elves are programmed by real people—who are constantly inputting new data.

Mark Coker changed algorithms at Smashwords last year to encourage authors to stop devaluing their work by giving away so many free books.

Mr. Coker said, “At Smashwords, up until January of this year [2012], our algorithm for best sellers just looked at absolute downloads, but authors gamed that system by offering discounted or free books using the Smashwords coupon tool. So we changed our algorithm to focus on gross sales, so now when you look at the Smashwords best seller list, you’re looking at absolute dollar sales, which we are using as a representation of the interest of customers.”

Amazon changes its algorithms more often than Smashwords. Which means a whole lot of the “rules” you hear about how to sell big on Amazon are based on algorithms that no longer exist.

If you're in the indie author scene, you've no doubt heard a ton of rumors about what the Amazon algorithms will reward or penalize. You’ll hear that more than 50—or 100—“likes” will get more recommendations, or any 3-star or lower reviews will exclude you from the also-boughts or downgrade your author rank. Or that uploading from a non-US country downgrades your status, or dissing Amazon in their forums will be reflected in your sales ranking. Some of these may be true or may have once been true, but they’re hard to prove. And trying to game them generally isn't a good idea.

That's because the one thing we do know for sure about algorithms is that Amazon does not like it when you try to game them.

Which is probably why the Zon is removing the “like” buttons and “tags” on US buy pages. Every author group I belong to asks people to “like and tag” each other’s book pages whether or not the books are in a genre you read or enjoy. Which means the “likes and tags” no longer have meaning for tracking a person's individual preferences, which was the point in the first place.

Even though nobody can know for sure how the “inscrutable algos” are programmed, Amazon watchers can tell when there’s been a change. Some people make a serious study of them.

With the advent of KDP Select—Amazon’s program for books they have exclusive rights to sell—the algorithms were changed to benefit Select members. Select books get more weight in the popularity lists, more suggestions for “also bought” books, e-mail recommendations, and are featured when somebody searches the genre. That makes sense. When you ask for an exclusive, you need to give perks.

Now there’s an even more privileged “White Glove” program for books that have been “self-published” through a literary agency. It has a longer exclusive period and gets the benefit of even more also-boughts and other promotions.

Nothing wrong with that. It’s Amazon’s store and they can promote what they want. But it does make it harder on the truly self-published and small-press competition.

The “Kindle Revolution” that Amazon sparked in 2009 allowed individual authors to self-publish cheaply and gave them an equal opportunity with big publishing’s authors to get discovered. This was a brilliant way of providing a lot of inexpensive books for their brand new Kindle at a time when most people didn’t even think they needed an ereading device.

It was win/win. Amazon sold Kindles—and individual authors got to enter a marketplace that had been reserved for big corporations for half a century.

In doing that, Amazon shook up the book world and did a service to new authors that was pretty unprecedented.

But since then, Amazon has become a publishing company itself. Their Thomas and Mercer, 47North, Montlake Romance, and other imprints now compete with the Big 5. They also compete with the indies. Guess who the algorithms are likely to favor? (I did mention the elves are smart?)

Meanwhile, Amazon's competition as a retailer continues to grow. Kobo and Apple are gobbling up market share. Like any big business, the Zon wants to dominate the competition and keep its place as Alpha Dog of the online retail business.

So they’ve made it very appealing for authors to sell exclusively through them—both with their KDP Select and White Glove program.

And last month they bought Goodreads. We still have to see how that will affect self-and small-publishers. David Gaughran thinks it’s a boon to authors. But some others, like Jarek Steele, and The Author's Guild —not so much. But Mr. Coker saw a silver lining: a way of thwarting people who try to manipulate the elves with paid reviews. For a nice, balanced overview of the argument, read Porter Anderson's piece in Ether for Authors at Publishing Perspectives.

The one thing people agree on is that Amazon wanted Goodreads' data to feed its algorithms. As Gaughran says “Amazon’s recommendation algorithms will be vastly improved with all the data that Goodreads has been collecting.”

So is it true that the Amazon algorithm elves are no longer friendly to indies? Do they only like you if you publish through them, or have an agent—or at least give them an exclusive?

I think it's clear that multi-platform indies are not in the Zon's A-list any more.  I’m not sure we’ll see as many 100% self-pubbed authors reach the heights that Amanda Hocking and John Locke did in the heady early days of the "Kindle" revolution. But indie books by previously traditionally-published hybrid authors are still breaking records. And agents are still trolling the Amazon bestseller lists.

Indies are also hurt by the Big Six books that are being offered as cheaply as indies. (There have been amazing giveaways of big name author’s books, especially in the UK. And this week I saw Barbara Kingslover's iconic novel The Bean Trees for $1.99)

Some people think this all means that the self-publishing revolution is dying.

But the fact is, the trend to self-publishing and boutique digital press publishing is not only alive and well, but growing.

This is because Big Publishing has done nothing to change their attitude that the publisher/author relationship must be one of master/slave. They have made themselves less attractive to new writers with ever more draconian contracts and demands that authors hire publicists and provide expensive traditional marketing with their own funds while the publisher risks nothing, sometimes offering no advance.

The fact that Amazon aspires to become a big publisher itself may make Amazon less attractive for the truly independent author.

But the door to successful self-publishing has been opened and it’s not going to close. The Zon may no longer be the fairy godperson of indie self-publishers, but it's not the Great Satan, either.

And more important:  it's not the only game in town. Amazon now represents less than 50% of the ebook market.
  • A huge number of readers prefer to read on their iPads, which makes the Apple store a big contender.
  • 50% of Apple ebook sales are outside of the US, where the Zon is not always revered, due to a habit of tax dodging. 
  • Kobo has a growing share of the international market, plus Kobo ereaders are selling in indie bookstores, which gives indie authors a chance to reach readers through old-time word-of-mouth, in-store promoting. 
  • The moribund Barnes and Noble/Nook store is undergoing a major overhaul with the new Nook publishing. Those who fear change say it's a disaster, but many in the know say it's much more user friendly and heralds new and forward thinking from Nook, which is still a player in the ereader market. 
  • Plucky little Smashwords is expanding all the time. They are the only way for non-US writers to get uploaded to region-specific sites like Barnes and Noble, so they are becoming more and more useful to indies all over the world. 

Self-and small press published authors who want to be on top of the next trend need to spread their marketing to all platforms, instead of spending all their time courting the Amazon algorithms with freebies and/or organizing armies of fellow authors to give likes and tags and fake reviews.

Launching a book in Amazon's Select program still seems to be a good move. (It works for me, anyway) but after the first three to six months I think most writers need to spread out to other platforms and promote there.

What we do not want to do is keep repeating what worked when the algorithms were the BFFs of the indie authorpreneur and the word "Kindle" was synonymous with "ereader".

The  Indie "Kindle" Revolution may be fading, but the Indie Digital Revolution is still in a dynamic and robust infancy.

What about you, scriveners? Have your sales been affected by the changes in algorithms? Have you heard rumors that you need to do certain things to keep on the good side of the Zon elves? Do you miss the "likes" and "tags"? Do you fear the indie revolution is petering out? 

UPDATE: There is now an algorithm that writes poetry. See, I said those elves are smart! The New York Times now has a Tumbr site where they post algorithm-written haikus based on news stories, called Times Haiku. Here's my favorite. (From an article on Margaret Thatcher's legacy.)

But we are British
So most of us stood around
In awkward silence. 

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS:

1) Readwave: A showcase for short stories: ReadWave is a community of readers and writers who love to discover and share new stories from contemporary writers. Readers can access thousands of stories and read them for free on mobile or desktop--and writers can use ReadWave to build up a fanbase and market their stories online. ReadWave has created a new reading widget, that allows bloggers and website owners to embed stories online in a compact form. The ReadWave widget is the first reading widget to allow readers to "follow" the writer. When a reader follows a writer they are added to the writer’s fanbase and can receive updates on all of the writer’s future stories. ReadWave puts writers in touch with the readers that are right for them. This looks like a great innovative site. You know how I've been encouraging you to write more short fiction? This is where to put it to start building a fan base.

2) The Saturday Evening Post’s Second Annual Great American Fiction Contest—yes, THAT Saturday Evening Post is holding a short fiction contest. Could you join the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald; William Faulkner; Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; Ray Bradbury; Louis L’Amour; Sinclair Lewis; Jack London; and Edgar Allan Poe? $10 entry fee Deadline July 1, 2013

3) Inspirational anthology accepting submissions: A "Chicken Soup for the Soul" author is looking for heartwarming inspirational nonfiction pieces. Do You Have a Story on "Staying Sane in the Chaotic 24/7 World"? If you have a great story and would like to be considered for the anthology, 30 Days to Sanity, Send submissions to: 30 Days to Sanity at Box 31453, Santa Fe, NM 87594-1453. Or e-mail stories to stephanie@30daystosanity.com The maximum word count is 1200 words. For each story selected for the program a permission fee of $100 will be offered for one-time rights. There are no limits on the number of submissions. Deadline is May 1, 2013

4) Stanford Story Slam The first ever Stanford Story Slam has opened, a chance for a team of writers to win $500. Anybody can enter. To enter, you must collaborate to write about this prompt: “There are over 15,000 bikes used by students, staff, and faculty to get around Stanford campus. Over 300 bikes are stolen each year. Where do they go?” The Stanford Arts Review will publish the winning entry. Here’s more from the organizers You don't have to be a Stanford student to enter. Deadline is April 22.

5) The 35th annual Nimrod Literary Contest: The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and The Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. The Awards offer first prizes of $2,000 and publication and second prizes of $1,000 and publication. One of the oldest “little magazines” in the country, Nimrod has continually published new and extraordinary writers since. For more information about Nimrod, visit their website at www.utulsa.edu/nimrod. Deadline is April 30th.

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When is it OK to Blog Your Book?

Posted by Unknown On Sunday, April 7, 2013 0 comments


What? Blog a book?  Sez you. You're always hammering us NOT to put our WIPs on our blogs!

True. And I continue to do so—if you're a beginning novelist hoping to get a traditional book contract.

Tiny snippets of fiction for blog hops and other writing-community bonding exercises are OK, but blogging the rough draft of your novel in order to get critique or attract an agent is a bad idea.

For one thing, agents say you're ruining your chances with traditional publishers by giving away your first rights.

And the simple truth is they are about as likely to go looking for new clients on blogs as Hollywood producers are to cast their next film from a drug store lunch counter. Yes, it has happened, but that doesn't mean it's likely. Agents look for new clients in their slush piles. Which is why writing a good query is the best way to attract them.

Also, for some reason, most people don't read fiction on blogs. A popular author I know put some of her short stories on her blog and got only a handful of hits in six months. She decided to self-publish the stories in an ebook and they're now making her hundreds of dollars a month.

The thing to keep in mind is that people generally read blogs for information. They want to skim for nuggets of data, not admire your deathless prose or read an episode in the middle of an ongoing saga.

And very few want to read first drafts and provide you with free editing.

If you're a new writer and want critique, I advise you use a password-protected site like CritiqueCircle.com where you aren't "in public." You'll get more trustworthy advice and you'll avoid hanging your fledgling fiction out there in cyberspace at the mercy of any passing grammar nazi who's having a bad day. Rough drafts are supposed to be s***ty, according to Anne LaMotte. Asking people to read them is asking for a favor. You want your blog to OFFER something, not try to GET something (like free editing.)

Besides, your more mature writer-self will thank you. Trust me on this.

If you want to post samples of work that's polished and ready for the marketplace, you can do it on Wattpad, where 17-year old Beth Reekles got discovered and made a 3-book deal with Random House this week. (Yeah. A big congrats to her.) There's also a new site called ReadWave for sampling short fiction, nicely categorized by genre.

But if you write nonfiction, it's a different story. 

A blog can be a nonfiction writer's best friend. It showcases your skills and gets your name out there where the search engines can find you.

More than half the new writers I meet at conferences and seminars are working on a nonfiction book. Mostly memoirs. And by far the majority of clients who contacted me when I did professional editing wrote memoir or nonfiction as well.

I foresee even more in the pipeline. Many Boomers plan to write a memoir when they retire. And according to the Social Security Administration, every day 10,000 US Boomers hit age 65.

That’s a whole lot of memoirs.

Unfortunately, memoirs are the hardest books to write well. Almost no beginning memoir writer I’ve worked with knows how to mold a lifetime of experiences into a novelistic story arc that will make a compelling read. Instead they write autobiography: a series of episodes from birth until now. Or a series of personal essays.

These authors face years of learning to craft their episodic writings into narrative—or shelling out a ton of cash hiring an editor to do it for them.

So ask yourself: does your project have to be a book-length work at all? Why not a series of short pieces?

Like posts on a blog.

Instead of shoehorning your memories into an 80K-100K word narrative, you can take advantage of the contemporary reader’s short attention span and serialize them on a blog.

The goal of many memoirists is to share their experiences, bear witness to history and make a difference, not establish a long-term career churning out two or three books a year.

A lot of memoirists I've met are working on the following:

  • Eyewitness experiences of historical events, especially war. 
  • Advice from a health crisis survivor/caretaker to aid others who are going through the same challenges.  
  • Inspiring or unique stories about famous people the author has known. 
  • A journal of exotic travels.
  • Advice from an elder to the younger generation
If you’re writing any of the above, and your primary goal is to reach a lot of people with your message, not establish a long-term writing career. I’m going to suggest you let go of the big-book goal—at least for a while. You'll save yourself a lot of money and grief.

Yes, even a self-published book. Of course you can self-publish these days for not a whole lot of upfront money. But here’s the problem with the indie revolution:  the competition has become crazy-fierce. Which makes it very, very hard to sell a singleton ebook—as demonstrated in a recent article in Salon.

Indie authors don’t generally get traction in the big online retailers like Amazon until they’ve built a hefty inventory.

So I’m going to break from traditional advice and suggest you consider blogging your memoiric essays and advice rather than spending years conference-going, workshopping and learning to craft your memories into a book that may not have a market.

Another plus: posting your own photos on a blog costs nothing. Self-publishing a book that contains pictures is expensive and problematic. (At least in the age of the black and white Kindle)

Not me! Sez you. I want an agent. A book deal. And a big advance! Besides, I've heard blogs are totally over.

Actually blogs aren’t over. They’re just not the darlings of New York publishing any more.

But it’s not likely your memoir, travel, or self-help book will be either.

And that's OK. New York publishing is probably not a place you want to be.

It's good to be aware that as Big Publishing scrambles to keep profits up in the e-age, they only want what they consider “sure things.” That means they’re not interested in books—especially nonfiction—written by people who are not already household names.

These days, if you want to appeal to the Big Five nonfiction editors and their marketing departments, you pretty much need to be involved in a reality TV show and/or humiliating sex scandal, be the victim of a major disaster, or run for President. Better still—all of the above. (Unusual hairstyle choices are a plus.)

Being well-known in the literary world means nothing. You have to be über-famous:  Donald Trump-famous; Snooki-famous; I-Had-Justin-Beiber’s-love-child famous.

Or be willing to buy your place on the bestseller list.

Yes. You read that right.

I recently heard from a very successful fiction author with an engaged, enthusiastic fan base who had decided to shop around a nonfiction book proposal. Because her long-time agent didn’t handle nonfiction, she had to go the query route.

She was stunned by what she found. To be considered for representation, she was told by an agent that she’d be expected to—
  • Book and pay for her own national speaking tour. 
  • Hire a publicist (with her own funds.) 
  • Provide names and addresses (along with blog stats and Klout ratings) of high profile reviewers who had been properly primed to give positive reviews.
  • Contact major celebrities who would provide endorsements, TV spots, photo ops, etc.   
  • Provide names of organizations guaranteed to buy up copies of the book in bulk at the appropriate moment to game the bestseller lists. 
  • Spam her email list and personal contacts with newsletters, postcards, flyers, etc. (at her own expense, natch.) 
In other words, to get an agent to represent a nonfiction book, she’d need a private fortune or a SuperPAC.

And a very flexible set of ethics.

I don’t know if all agents require this kind of upfront promise to bankroll your own project these days, but it does explain why so many piles of political doo-doo make it to the top of the NYT Bestseller list.

Apparently those big advances you hear about are more likely to be what nonfiction authors PAY to have a bestseller, not the other way around. Nobody could break even with those expenses unless there was a truly epic advance. Which you’re not going to get unless you’re already a superstar.

It helped explain to me why Simon and Schuster thinks they can get away with selling a $25,000 “self-publishing” package through the vanity press AuthorHouse/Archway.

That’s because ALL Big Five nonfiction publishing seems to have become vanity publishing.

The famous author’s reaction was the same as the one I’m sure you’re having: “If I had the money for all that, why the %&@! would I need a publisher?”

Why indeed? This is the era of indie publishing.

Hey! didn’t you say if you’re not a career author with a big inventory, your self-pubbed book doesn’t have great odds of selling? 

Yes, but remember that blogging is publishing, which is why agents won’t represent something that’s been partially blogged: once it’s on the Interwebz, you’re officially published.

Once you start building an audience, you can think about self-publishing ebooks—maybe a series of shorts. One of the great things about ebooks is they can be any length. More on that in a minute.

And of course, if your blog takes off and you get millions of followers and somebody wants to make the blog into a big book and movie like Julie/Julia, it’s funny how their rules evaporate.

I'm not the first one to suggest this. Nina Amir has been urging people to blog their books for a long time on her blog, How to Blog a Book.

It's true that Jane Friedman, one of the most knowledgeable bloggers in publishing, has advised authors "Please Don't Blog your Book." But she says blogging your book is fine if: "you’re blogging in a nonfiction category, especially if your blog focuses on how to do something or solves a problem for people." And "you’re focused on your blog for the joy of blogging."

That's what I'm suggesting: Blogging for its own sake. For community. For reaching an audience.

If you need to make a little money in order to justify the time you’re spending, you might want to start off right away with the kind of blog that allows advertising. Free WordPress blogs do not. Free Blogger blogs feature AdSense, which can monetize your blog as soon as you establish a readership. But a montetizable WordPress blog is not terribly expensive and I’ve heard it’s better for long term expansion. If you want more info on how to choose the right blogging platform, Jamie Gold wrote a great guest post for Kristen Lamb this week on WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

You can also serialize your blog through Kindle and charge for the subscription. That way, your blog is listed on Amazon.

You can even put a donation button on the blog that works with PayPal. I think donation buttons are mildly tacky—and I definitely don't recommend installing one if you're bragging about how much money you're making with your business methods or you're chronicling your glamourous world travels. But if you've got a medical or caretaker blog that offers helpful advice and you're hard up financially, people can be amazingly generous. Funny how they're more likely to donate $5 to a blogger than they are to buy a $2.99 book.

I’m not pretending any of these methods will make you rich. But you won’t have to re-mortgage your house to bribe people to make your book into a fake bestseller, either. Or spend your golden years getting weekly agent rejections in your inbox.

Even the few bucks you might get from Ad Sense would be more than major newspapers pay most bloggers these days. The majority of newspaper bloggers are paid NOTHING—yes, I’m talking about professional journalists. Plus they have to sign away the rights to all their work forever—including their own photographs.

You’re way ahead of things with your own free blog. At least nobody’s making you pay to play.

But who’s going to read it? Sez you. How do I get traffic? 

It’s not going to happen overnight, and it especially won’t happen if you sit on your own little blog and wait for people to find you. You need to go out and meet your potential readers.

Submit your stories to magazines and online sites that appeal to your audience. (Some of these might even pay you. Look in the "opportunity alerts" below.) And they'll all allow a link to your blog.

Find websites and blogs that cater to your demographic, then—
  • Subscribe to or follow those blogs, 
  • Comment often 
  • Offer to guest blog 
  • Submit short pieces to zines and anthologies in your field
  • Make friends
If you have some stories that are too long to make good blogposts or articles, this is when you should think about publishing some of them as ebooks. As I said above, any length manuscript can be an ebook (although I suggest you don’t try to charge money for anything under ten pages.)

If you have a series of shorter titles, you’ll make much more of a splash than with one book.

And if you have mixed media to present, including poems, photos and essays, you can produce your own literary magazine at a site called Flipboard

I don’t want you to be discouraged by this post. Some memoirs do still sell to big publishing houses. But I’m offering alternatives. And a way to save a lot of editing fees.

If you’re set on seeing your project as a book-length work with a publisher’s name on it, and you’ve been working really hard on that story arc, you can also look to small, niche and regional presses that don’t require agents.

Regional presses will be interested in books about local history, and niche presses that specialize in military history might look at a war memoir (see "opportunity alerts".) A small press that specializes in the occult might like your book on tarot reading. A university press might be interested in your meticulously researched biography of a little-known artist.

These presses are generally a whole lot more author-friendly than the big guys. You won’t get an advance, but you might make a nice royalty.

But they’re going to be more interested if you’ve already established an audience with a blog. If you want step-by-step help in how to start a blog, I've got one in the book I wrote with Catherine Ryan Hyde, HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…AND KEEP YOUR E-SANITY. 

Agents may not want memoirs or nonfiction by non-celebrities, but there are plenty of readers out there who do.

A number of readers of this blog have started successful memoir/personal essay blogs.
  • Florence Fois of Fois in the City blogs about all things New York, including her fascinating memories of a Brooklyn childhood, and has built a loyal following.  
  • Retired businessman Silvio Cadenasso has started a travel blog about the journeys he and his wife take exchanging houses with people all over the world. His great articles and photos have got the attention of National Geographic and has a steadily building audience. 
  • Nina Badzin started her blog to build platform for her fiction and discovered she prefers blogging full time. Now her witty pieces are often picked up by the Huffington Post.
Instead of endlessly chasing that agent dream, these writers are reaching readers.

Right now.

Big publishing’s nonfiction wing may have become a one-percenters’ club for generating expensive, unread pulp for vain billionaires and political manipulators, but that leaves a big market unserved.

Yes, you can keep honing that memoir until the pages turn themselves while socking money away and hoping a sinkhole swallows your house, you become a contestant on the Biggest Loser, and/ or your wife admits to a secret affair with Dick Cheney.

Or, you can think outside the book and start a blog.

How about you, scriveners? Are you working on a memoir or nonfiction book? Are you surprised to hear that nonfiction writers need a private fortune to be considered for Big Five publication? Have you thought of blogging your own book or publishing it as a series of shorts? 

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS


1) FOR THE FEARLESS: The Horatio Nelson Fiction Prize comes from Black Balloon Publishing: "we champion the weird, the unwieldy, and the unclassifiable. We are battle-worn enemies of boredom and we’re looking for books that defy the rules." Prize is $5,000 and a Black Balloon Publishing book deal. They want a sample of your completed, novel-length manuscript. It's a two-tiered process, so make sure you follow the guidelines in the link above. Wait until April 1 to submit.

2) The Saturday Evening Post’s Second Annual Great American Fiction Contest—yes, THAT Saturday Evening Post is holding a short fiction contest. Could you join the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald; William Faulkner; Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; Ray Bradbury; Louis L’Amour; Sinclair Lewis; Jack London; and Edgar Allan Poe? $10 entry fee Deadline July 1, 2013

3) Inspirational anthology accepting submissions: A "Chicken Soup for the Soul" author is looking for heartwarming inspirational nonfiction pieces. Do You Have a Story on "Staying Sane in the Chaotic 24/7 World"? If you have a great story and would like to be considered for the anthology, 30 Days to Sanity, Send submissions to: 30 Days to Sanity at Box 31453, Santa Fe, NM 87594-1453. Or e-mail stories to stephanie@30daystosanity.com The maximum word count is 1200 words. For each story selected for the program a permission fee of $100 will be offered for one-time rights. There are no limits on the number of submissions. Deadline is May 1, 2013

4) Stanford Story Slam The first ever Stanford Story Slam has opened, a chance for a team of writers to win $500. Anybody can enter the writing contest and the deadline is April 22.To enter, you must collaborate to write about this prompt: “There are over 15,000 bikes used by students, staff, and faculty to get around Stanford campus. Over 300 bikes are stolen each year. Where do they go?” The Stanford Arts Review will publish the winning entry. Here’s more from the organizers You don't have to be a Stanford student to enter.

5) Small Press Seeking Memoirs and other Nonfiction. Yes! See I told you they exist. GrayBooks in New Hampshire says they are always looking for authors. They publish in four categories - Food, Fiction, History, Memoir. They are especially interested in war and historical memoirs. 

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Who Are the Big Six? What Does “Indie” Really Mean? Answers to Not-So-Dumb Questions You Were Afraid to Ask

Posted by Unknown On Sunday, May 20, 2012 0 comments


There’s much talk on the Interwebz about “Big Six, “small presses” and “indie publishing.”  But a lot of newer writers aren’t quite sure what these terms really mean.
None of us wants to sound dumb, so we usually don’t ask.
So I’ll pretend you did. (And thanks, Yumi, for asking about the word “indie” in the comments last week.)
Here’s a quick guide:
The Big Six

These are the six multi-national corporations that control most of the Western world’s publishing.
1.     Simon and Schuster
2.     HarperCollins
3.     Random House
4.     Macmillan
5.     The Penguin Group
6.     Hachette 
Two are American: Simon and Schuster and HarperCollins, (although Harper is a division of Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, so it’s pretty international.)
Two are German: Random House is owned by Bertelsmann and Macmillan is owned by Holzbrinck.
One (Penguin) is British
One (Hachette) is French.
Some people include the Canadian Romance giant Harlequin when they’re talking about “big publishing” (which I guess would make them the “Big Seven.”)
Most books you see in stores come from the Big Six/Seven. They have hundreds of imprints with familiar names like Little Brown, Knopf, Viking, NAL, Pocket, Scribner, St. Martins, Dutton, Avon, William Morrow, Crown, Tor, Zondervan, Grand Central, Dell, etc. but they’re all owned by one of those six corporations.
In almost all cases, you need an agent to query the Big Six. There are a few exceptions, like Tor/Forge/Tom Doherty—which is a division of MacMillan—and some children’s divisions of the big houses.
Five of the Big Six—all but Random House—have recently run afoul of the US Department of Justice because of their attempts to keep the price of ebooks artificially high. A lot of people think this means the Big Six are doomed.
I’m not so sure about that. Multinational conglomerates tend to be rather good at hanging onto their trousers in a crisis.
But there’s no doubt the ebook revolution is changing the face of publishing. Most of the changes the Big Six has come up with recently have NOT been author-friendly, but maybe they’ll learn from their mistakes. (We can hope.)

Mid-Sized publishers (sometimes called “small” just to confuse you)

This covers a lot of territory, from university presses to big international operations like Canada’s Harlequin(see above) and the UK’s Bloomsbury (which has branches in London, New York, Berlin, and Sydney.)  
When mid-sizers are successful, they tend to be bought up by the Big Six. (Thomas Nelson, the largest independent Christian publisher, was bought by HarperCollins in 2011.)
There are many dozens of mid-sized houses. They often address particular niche markets. Here’s a sample list—by no means comprehensive
  • Kensington: Most genres except sci-fi and fantasy 
  • Llewellyn: New Age nonfiction and mysteries (under their Midnight Ink imprint)
  • Chronicle Books: Art, food, pop culture (and some illustrated fiction like Griffin and Sabine.)
  • Perseus Books: Travel and other nonfiction genres. 
  • Workman Publishing: Tends toward the literary. Imprints are Algonquin, Black Dog & Leventhal, Storey Publishing, Timber Press, Artisan Books, HighBridge Audio, Fearless Critic.
  • Sourcebooks: Formerly a publisher of financial guidebooks, it’s grown to include fiction in all genres in the last decade. 
  • Sunset: Gardening, cookbooks and how-to
  • Poisoned Pen: (Maybe on the cusp of small and mid-sized.) One of the largest mystery publishers.
  • F + W Media/Writer’s Digest Books: How-to 
  • Dorchester: Genre fiction. Now in bankruptcy. It was the premier mid-sized independent publisher of mass market paperbacks until 2010, when it suspended most paper operations and went to ebooks only (see below.) Its financial difficulties have given it a “not recommended” stamp from most writers’ organization. 
  • Titan Books: UK publisher of movie and TV tie-ins as well as graphic novels. Took on Dorchester’s crime fiction imprint, Hard Case Crime
  • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: Textbook publishers (merged with the Irish company Riverdeep in 2008)
Most mid-sized publishers want agented submissions, but not all. Kensington still accepts unagented queries for all their lines (snail mail only.) Check websites for submission guidelines. Midnight Ink no longer accepts unagented queries, but some Harlequin lines do. Right now, they include Harlequin Heartwarming, Kimani Press, Harlequin Historical Undone, and Nocturne Cravings .
Here’s a database of midsized and small publishers compiled by Canadian thriller author Jack King .
NOTE: Mid-sizers tend to pay smaller advances and lower royalties (that includes Harlequin.) They also tend to be the most financially precarious. So expect some of these to go the way of Dorchester if they don’t keep up with the times.

Retailer/publishers

Amazon is a bookstore that has become a book publisher. It has a number of lines in different genres:
·       Amazon Encore: Reprints of self-published and out of print books
·       Amazon Crossing: Books in translation
·       Thomas and Mercer:  Thrillers
·       Montlake: Romance
·       47 North: SciFi
·       New Harvest: General Fiction—which will be published in conjunction with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (see how convoluted this all gets?)

You need great sales as a self-pubber to be approached by Amazon’s publishing wing, but agents are also selling directly to Amazon.
Amazon has some of the most author-friendly deals around, BUT other bookstores are reluctant to carry their products because of the obvious conflict of interest.
Other online retailers like iTunes/Apple may follow suit.
Brick and mortar bookstores are also producing their own books. This isn’t new. City Lights in San Francisco has had its own publishing wing since 1955, but with POD technology, this may become a trend that will help bookstores stay alive.

Independent Ebook Publishers

These are new publishers like Ellora’s Cave and Samhain Press (with more start-ups all the time.) They publish primarily ebooks and usually appeal to a particular niche.
Expect to see more and more of these.
Because ebooks have low overhead, they can be more author friendly and often provide some marketing help for their authors. (Samhain is branching into print, although the bulk of their titles are ebooks.)
These generally do not require an agent for submissions. But because this is a new industry, check them out thoroughly and try to get referrals from satisfied clients.

Small Presses

These are sometimes called “indie presses.” (Ten years ago, this is what people meant by “indie” publishing, but now self-pubbers have kind of taken over the word.)
There are thousands of them. It’s hard to find useful listings because the number is never stable. They spring up and get knocked down like a literary version of Whac-A-Mole.
Some, like Beacon Press, GrayWolf, and Copper Canyon Press are prestigious and have been around for decades.
Some are regional and publish books specific to one area--like guidebooks and local history.
Others address niche genres, like Canada’s SciFi publisher Edge , and noir mystery publisher BleakHouseBooks, or New England Cozy specialist Mainly Murder Press.
They tend to focus on poetry and literary fiction, so if you're a literary writer, you may find your home here. Poets and Writers has a great database of literary small presses. For more general list of small publishers, check the Writer's Resource Directory, curated by author (& friend of this blog) T.K. Richardson. It's a great resource for publishing info in general. 
Small presses are usually labors of love and nobody gets rich, but they’re often a good way to break in to print and lots of authors are very happy to stay with a small press where there is a more personal interaction with editors.
Authors are responsible for their own marketing and there’s generally no advance, but higher royalties.
These publishers generally don’t want to deal with agents—writers should query the editors directly. (Remember to check for submission guidelines on their websites.)
But beware: Check them out thoroughly with sites like Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors and if they’re not well-established, contact other clients before you sign. And always have a lawyer or publishing professional look at the contract before you sign.

Micropresses

These are a tiny version of the small press—usually one or two-person operations, generally oriented toward the literary. They often publish chapbooks of poetry. They operate on a shoestring, and are usually run as a hobby.
Often these are run by authors who are essentially self-publishers who also take on a few colleagues and friends. A micropress can be a friendly, supportive place for a writer to start out. But beware: they can also be clueless and unprofessional. There’sa horror story at Writer Beware this week about a writer who had her book rewritten without her permission by a “publisher” of this type.
Some of these can be a great first step into publishing, but look for red flags. Grandiosity, unrealistic promises, negativity about the industry, and bad spelling/grammar on the website are tell-tale signs.

Vanity Presses

These are publishers who make their money from services to authors rather from sales of books.
Before ebooks and POD (print on demand) technology, vanity presses were mostly pricey self-indulgences—although every so often a vanity-published book like 1990s phenomenon The Celestine Prophecy made it to mainstream readers.
Two of the best known of the traditional vanity presses are Vantage and Dorrance.
But as prices came down and self-publishing took off, the line between real publishers, printing services, and vanity presses has blurred. A lot of authors are taken in by vanity publishers posing as real publishers.
But others successfully use vanity presses as printers for self-publishing and--with a lot of promotion--make the bestseller lists with books like The Christmas Box and Legally Blonde. 
               The problem is, most vanity publishers overcharge for services so their books are too pricey to be profitable for the author. And there can be other problems. For instance, PublishAmerica ties up the author’s copyright for seven years. 
              But vanity publishers are not all scammers, and they can be useful for books that aren't produced to be profitable, like family histories and recipes, memoirs and poetry collections.
Here are some of the best known vanity publishers
·       PublishAmerica (aka Independence Books)
·       Tate Publishing
·       AuthorHouse (which has many imprints)
·       XLibris
·       iUniverse
·       Ivy House
·       Trafford Publishing
·       Poetry.com

Indie Publishing

True DIY publishing. You do everything yourself or hire somebody to do it for you. You can do this several ways:
·       Get help from a publishing facilitator like Smashwords or BookBaby, who for a flat fee will code your ebook and upload to different retail platforms and keep track of royalties. They also offer inexpensive cover design and other services.
·       Get shepherded through the process by an agent. A number of agents are actually helping authors become indie publishers these days—usually existing clients. Some industry purists consider this a conflict of interest, but the agented authors I know who have published through their agents have nothing but good things to say about this.
·       Hire your own private editor, cover designer, and coder and keep complete control.
NOTE: “Complete control” does not extend to Amazon. Author-friendly as it is, the ’Zon has glitches that can’t be controlled by anybody, apparently. Ruth Harris has been trying to get Amazon to post the correct book cover art on her Amazon author page for six months now, to no avail, and Saffina Desforges had her bestselling thriller Sugar and Spicedisappear from Amazon.co.uk for over a month with no explanation—when you’re selling an average of 10,000 books a month, that’s a hefty price for some glitch.
If you’re an indie publisher who wants your books printed in hard copy as well as electronic form, you’ll need the services of—

P.O. D. Publishing Service Providers

These are printer/distributors who use print on demand technology. This means that instead of having a huge print run for your book that has to be stored in a warehouse, the book is only printed when it is ordered.
Most small presses use these providers, too.
The primary POD providers are:

  • CreateSpace: Owned by Amazon. Printing with them gets you on Amazon, which owns a huge share of the book market
  • LightningSource: Owned by Ingram, the biggest book distributor in the US. Ingram supplies bookstores, so if you want to see your book in your local bookstore window, LS has the advantage.
  • Lulu.com: The only printer I know of that doesn’t charge upfront fees. So even though they keep 20%, I’m putting them in the service provider category rather than with vanity presses. They'll sell your books on their own site (not terribly customer-friendly) and post them to Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online retailers worldwide.
For a great comparison between Lightning Source and CreateSpace, small press owner Robin Sullivan has a great analysis on her blog Write to Publish. 
***
The ebook revolution is rapidly shifting the old publishing paradigm, and nobody’s quite sure what’s coming next. Much of what I’ve written here will probably be obsolete by next year.
But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the old guard. They may have life in them yet.. I think educating yourself about the industry as it is now will help you make decisions about what path might work best for you in the future. One of the best ways to learn about the industry is to subscribe to Publishers Lunch, a free newsletter from Publishers Marketplace.
Yes, publishing companies do seem to merge and change partners like square dancers on speed, but they’re still very much with us. And they're learning to adapt with the changing times. (Some are learning faster than others, and I have no doubt some will fall to the e-revolution.)
As I said last week, learn everything you can and don’t let anybody bully you into making a choice you’re not comfortable with. 
We live in an age when authors have more choices than ever before, and if you don’t like the choices you’re being offered right now, wait a few weeks and something new is bound to pop up!

What about you, scriveners? Did you know the names of the Big Six? How many mid-sized publishers can you name? (Let’s add some to my list. I hardly scratched the surface here.) And if you know of a great small publisher or ebook publisher, do leave that name, as well. If you’ve had experience with them, good or bad, we'd like to hear about it. Any additions, subtractions or caveats welcome. 

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