Author: selfpublishingadvisor

Book Reviews, Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week, Uncategorized, weekly self published book review

“Still Marching On” : A Saturday Self-Published Book Review

Book reviews are a great way for self-publishing authors to gain exposure. After all, how can someone buy your book if he or she doesn’t know it exists? Paired with other elements of your book promotion strategy, requesting reviews is a great way to get people talking about what you’ve written.

When we read good reviews, we definitely like to share them. It gives the author a few (permanent) moments of fame and allows us to let the community know about a great book. Here’s this week’s book review, courtesy of Observations From a Simple Life:

Still Marching On by Lynda Stephenson

Still Marching On

by Lynda Stephenson

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN: 978-1478771982

Synopsis*:

Frankilee Baxter is back! And she is as sassy and resolute as ever. In Still Marching On, Miss Baxter aspires to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, become editor of the Athena College newspaper, and marry Calvin Morris–and odds are, she’ll make her dreams come true with sheer force of personality. A witty young woman with nerve and verve, Frankilee is in no way the traditional Southern sorority girl, which brings disappointment and alarm to her family, as well as shock and dismay to Calvin’s parents. With humor and heart, this highly anticipated third novel by award-winning author Lynda Stephenson depicts the triumphs and the failures of a plucky girl determined not only to stand against the Southern customs she loathes but also to marry the man she loves.

“Here is the story of the irrepressible Frankilee Baxter, who, while she may be a disappointment to the 1960s down-south establishment, will fight to the end for life and liberty, and all that she believes in. I loved it.”

-Carolyn Wall, author of Sweeping Up Glass and Playing with Matches

Critique:

Still Marching On by Lynda Stephenson is the story of a young college girl at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. She must fight against the injustice of the Jim Crow laws and as well as social practices which could keep her from following her dreams.

Frankilee Baxter is a young white college student at Athena College where her roommate, Eleanor, is African American. Together, they join the Civil Rights Movement when racial tensions are very explosive. Frankilee is the type of girl who likes to shock people and study their reactions. She begins to conduct social experiments and writing about her experiences. She is able to sell a few of her stories to the New York Times. She joins sit-ins at a local department store who refused to serve African Americans. She joins Freedom Rides which leads to time in jail. While she fights for social change, she must deal with the everyday issues at home. Her mom is sick. Her dad is having trouble with the bank. Her aunt is trying to bully everyone to follow her plan for the grandfather’s ranch land. And she falls in love with Calvin Morris, a law student who seeks the social change she does. Will Frankilee succeed in her dreams of journalism? Will she be able to forge the social change she seeks to see in the world? Will her dream of marrying Calvin come true?

I enjoyed Still Marching On. It is an interesting book with a passionate retelling of the Civil Rights Movement from a participant who seems so unlikely. The details the author put into the events are graphic but very real. You shiver as you know that person suffered injustices and cruelties as they fought for civil rights. Frankilee is passionate, rash, impulsive and ready to take on the social injustices. The debates between Frankilee and those on the other side and the opinions expressed are dealt with realistically. I highly recommend Still Marching On.

[ reviewed by Jennifer Lara at Observations From a Simple Life ]

Here’s what other reviewers are saying:

Another outstanding book by Lynda Stephenson. Great character development, and very authentic to the period. If you were a college student during the 1960’s you can really identify with the subjects dealt with in this book. The civil rights movement, the freedom riders, the limited professional opportunities for women college graduates, and the predetermined expectations of parents for their children, especially girls. Frankilee, the main character, takes on all these issues with wit, humor, passion, and, yes, her rebellious ways. Ms. Stephenson’s previous book in the Frankilee Baxter series focuses on Frankilee’s freshman and sophomore year; in this book the focus is her junior and senior year. She is more mature, more thoughtful, and more concerned about social inequality. She truly grows into adulthood. Obviously, this is a great book for anyone that was a young adult in the 1960’s, but if you have parents or grandparents that lived through that period and you want to know what they experienced and what life was like, then this book is for you. FINALLY, THE BOOK HAS A GREAT ENDING!

– Amazon Reviewer AdaBill

In Marching On, Frankilee Baxter is fundamentally the same wonderful, perplexing, and often perplexed character that we came to know and love in Dancing With Elvis and The Southern Chapter of the Big Girl Panties Club. In this third novel of the series, author Lynda Stephenson expands upon the theme of integration as it developed in the 50’s and early 60’s. The struggle for civil rights in the South becomes the central factor in Frankilee’s personal struggle to establish her worth and purpose in life. More than ever, she is an idealist who pays dearly for pursuing social and moral goals that clash with purveyors of deeply entrenched bigotry. Though tempered by her comical girlhood blunders, Frankilee at the same time leads the patient reader down (or up) a primrose path seriously darkened by physical and emotional pain.

Looking for structure, Frankilee attempts to summarize her life in literary terms: as classical comedy, which ends with a wedding, rather than as tragedy, which ends in death. Yet more specifically one might say that her willful suffering bespeaks a more complicated persona than one finds in Jane Austin or Emily Dickinson, two of Frankilee’s heroines.

Nor is Frankilee’s journey deeply tragic in the Shakespearian sense of an uber-complicated Hamlet. Her sacrificial cause is rooted in the powerful utopian dream of idealists such as John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr. Buttressed by the somewhat enlightened progressives among her friends and family, her optimistic belief in a more just world seems realistically achievable.

Marching On is the story of a small town girl in the throes of becoming a world class woman. She entertains us with an overlay of buffoonery, but she is defined by her capacity for love, including love for her friends, for her family (no matter how obtuse or obnoxious); for her man, and, most importantly, for the unvarnished Truth, however awkward or undignified that makes her feel. In her own personable way, Frankilee Baxter embodies the correct side of our unfolding history.

– Amazon Reviewer James A. Moore

Book Trailer:

* = courtesy of the book’s Amazon book page.

saturday self-published book review

Thanks for reading!  Keep up with the latest in the world of indie and self-published books by watching this space every Saturday!

Self Publishing Advisor

selfpubicon1

elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Taking it to the Big Screen

It probably isn’t news to you that video is an important tool in your toolbox as a self-publishing author, so I’ll skip the part of this blog post where I laud the benefits of using video in addition to written means of promotion in order to sell your book, as well as the part where I defend the book trailer as an indefensible part of your self-marketing strategy.  What you’re interested in–and what we’re all interested in, really–is how to use that video to stand out.  How to actually put it to work.  And since we’re sliding into a new month right now, I thought I’d take August as an opportunity to do some serious work when it comes to this whole self-promotion thing.

video trailer promotion

A Miniature Soapbox

Because let’s face it, those “X for Dummies” books have a point, even if they simultaneously belabor the point (thus falling into the whole “defense of X” rut I’ve said I’ll skip, above) and insult readers’ intelligence while at it.  Sidebar: My father gave me the “Photography for Dummies” book almost a decade ago, but I still haven’t really touched it, even though he insisted he didn’t actually think I was dumb.  The real problem with the “X for Dummies” books is that they assume their readers are insecure in their sense of self-worth when it comes to whatever task or object they’re seeking to learn more about.  But let’s be clear: You’re not a “dummy” just because you want to get down to the nitty-gritty of how to make something work.  A lack of information is not a lack of intelligence.

How (& Where) to Use a Book Trailer

  1. Upload your video to your website & on your YouTube channel

Creating a YouTube channel is free, and it happens to come along with a bundle of customizations.  Take a look at the YouTube channel of your favorite musician if you’re looking for inspiration–and then take a look at a variety of different artists’ and musicians’ channels for comparison–and note what customizations work: banner images, layout alterations, etc.  It’s easy to Google templates and tutorials.  Sometimes the simplest changes are actually the most impactful, so don’t overthink it.  Making your YouTube channel beautiful is secondary to making people aware that you have one, so make sure you not only upload your video, but that you promote it too.

  1. Tweet about your book trailer

Fans accessing links to online videos via Twitter watch, on average, an extra minute of video compared to those who stumble across your book trailer via a search engine.  After uploading your book trailer to YouTube and your personal website, tweet about it!  And don’t just tweet about it once, either.  Spread the word across all of your social media platforms–Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and everywhere else you have a digital presence.  This will serve as part of your promotional strategy for raising awareness about your book video trailer, but it also will serve as a boost to your overall digital footprint.

  1. Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Before you distribute your book trailer on YouTube and elsewhere, you should understand the basics of search engine optimization (SEO). There’s simply no point in creating a website or book trailer or any other content online if that content can’t be easily found. Which means, when push comes to shove, that you’ve got to start thinking like a search engine.  Each website page or blog post should be optimized so that search engines can find it.  And in the same way you optimize your blog, you need to optimize your book trailer so people can find it.  We’ve written about SEO before, in detail–and it really is worth it to take the time to do this right.

You are not alone. ♣︎

ElizabethABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
Book Design, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized

The Book Beautiful

You’ve heard it all before: people aren’t morally opposed to reading self-published works, but they are aesthetically opposed to reading books of substandard appearance and physical quality–which they often equate with the same thing.

But here’s a fact: to self-publish doesn’t mean you’re accepting a lesser standard of quality, and to read self-published books isn’t to lower some standard out of pity or poor taste.  Many self-published books are already beautiful.  Did anyone see Andy Weir’s original cover for The Martian?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Or how about Christopher Paolini’s covers for Eragon and its sequels?  Those are sometimes said to have helped reshape Young Adult fantasy book covers for the last decade.  And what’s true for the outside of a book is true for the inside, too.  A self-published book can’t automatically be said to have substandard interior design, with faulty formatting and messy editing.  And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think we can even pass this off as a “well, we’ve just gotten better at it with so much practice!” sort of situation.

The truth of the matter is, there is and always has been a powerful stigma to self-publishing, a stigma so ubiquitous and so powerful that it has warped our perception of reality to the extent that even actual self-publishing authors sometimes believe they’re choosing something second-rate, that going indie is a fallback after failure to reach actual success (often equated with traditional publishing).  And while many people do come to self-publishing after doing other things first, that’s beside the point.  The self-publishing world is an inclusive one, where maybe we can begin to heal some of the systemic hurts enforced and policed by traditional publishing.

There have ALWAYS been many beautiful self-published books, just as there have always been some that are less beautiful.  But the same goes for traditionally published books; just because one of the Big Five publishers takes you on doesn’t mean they actually care about the quality of your book’s design, production, and manufacture.  They can more than make up for letting a few books fall through the cracks by pushing sales for next year’s blockbuster success story.  In the world of self-publishing, however, every book matters–no matter its genre, its author’s point of origin, or how much money has been poured into its creation.  If it’s an interesting concept, with an eye-catching cover, readers will show up for it.

A book’s appearance matters.  Its author matters.  Its content matters.

Its publisher, ultimately, doesn’t.

So, over the coming weeks, we’re going to spend some time looking at what makes a book beautiful–and how a book’s appeal can be turned into a currency of its own, something useful to the author’s bank account.  And of course we will dedicate page space each week to talking about how to coax out just a little bit more of that beauty with each facet of a book’s design.

book art

 

Thank you for reading!  If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or contributions, please use the comment field below or drop us a line atselfpublishingadvice@gmail.com.  And remember to check back each Wednesday for your weekly dose of marketing musings from one indie, hybrid, and self-published author to another. ♠

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com. 10:00 AM
Advocacy in Self-Publishing, from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized

From the Archives: “Vanity Verses Self-Publishing”

Welcome back to our Tuesday segment, where we’ll be revisiting some of our most popular posts from the last few years.  What’s stayed the same?  And what’s changed?  We’ll be updating you on the facts, and taking a new (and hopefully refreshing) angle on a few timeless classics of Self Publishing Advisor.

∗∗∗∗∗

[ Originally posted: October 24th, 2008 ]

The self-publishing author community is becoming increasingly educated in options available, naturally comes in part as the by-product of approaching sound resources and asking good questions.

One question I do see stumbling around from time to time is some form of this, “Isn’t self-publishing the same as Vanity publishing?”

The answer: not really at all…

Vanity Presses often very dubiously attempt to present themselves as small presses, similar to ‘traditional’ publishers. They do this by claiming to be selective in terms of content. But those rejection rates are very low – generally reserved only for those manuscripts containing things like libel or pornography. But vanity presses do not otherwise screen for quality. They publish anyone who can pay, but don’t disclose that until well into the publishing process. Often, those fees are hidden in obscure production services unrelated to design, materials, or binding. That is where these operations ultimately make their money – charging authors book printing costs only to sell right back to authors.

The good news is that quality self-publishers are available with open, upfront, book production, distribution, and marketing options. And once books are professionally published copies are available where readers actually buy books. Unlimited printed copies are availabe for retailers and wholesalers on-demand, without additional out-of-pocket printing costs.

Keep writing.

– by Karl Schroeder

You may be wondering why today, of all days, I choose to return us to the argument over vanity presses vs. self-publishing, but if you glance back at yesterday’s news you’ll notice mention of Samita Sarkar’s July 28th Huffington Post article, in which she deconstructs Globe and Mail Books Editor Mark Medley’s mission to cast shade at the work of Canadian author Douglas Gardham earlier in the month.  Gardham, who made his mark by hand-selling books on long cross-country tours, symbolizes everything despicable and pitiable in the self-publishing world–according to Medley, that is.  Sarkar comes to Gardham’s defense, and in so doing works hard to redefine the boundaries between vanity presses and self-publishing (a distinction that Medley is more than happy to blur for the sake of an easy character smear).

Sarkar defines vanity presses and self-publishing narrowly:

There is a difference between publishing with a vanity press or so-called “self-publishing service” and true self-publishing. True self-publishing means being the owner of your own ISBN. Self-publishers register their ISBN under their own publishing imprint, or their own name. They hire independent editors and cover designers, and upload their manuscripts directly to bookseller websites, such as Amazon, Smashwords, and iTunes. Self-publishers maintain maximum creative control over their work, and receive much higher profits from sales.

Unlike true self-publishing, if the author uses a vanity press, the publisher will remain the owner of the book’s ISBN. The author will also have to pay hefty upfront fees for the book’s production, and to top it all off, authors will receive low royalty rates even though the publisher has not invested in the book whatsoever. This backwards business model is how vanity presses make their money. This is why vanity presses aren’t picky; so long as it’s not hate speech or pornography, anything goes.

Whereas traditional publishers pay authors for the rights to their book and consider the readers to be their customers, and self-published authors also consider the readers to be their customers, vanity press customers are authors, not readers. I have yet to meet an author that has turned a profit from publishing with a vanity press. There are very few exceptions.

And in many ways, I agree with Sarkar–if not exactly  in point, than in the general direction of her argument.  I still align with what Karl first wrote for us eight years ago–vanity presses are the realm of personal ego thinly disguised as corporate profit. Vanity presses give their authors a little, but take a lot–in terms of creative control and royalties, and that’s how you can recognize them.  And self-publishing companies take a little (usually a percentage of profits) while leaving the rest entirely to the author’s discretion.

Really, the most glaring mistake that Sarkar makes is the omission of hybrid publishing companies, a subject we’ve discussed before.  The lines are far more blurred even than Medley knows–but not between vanity presses, which are straight up scams that almost always trap authors in stasis.  The blurring is between self-publishing and hybrid publishing–and the distinction between these terms would be better described as a spectrum, with bare-bones self-publishing experiences like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing at one end, and more fully fleshed-out hybrid publishing service providers like Outskirts Press at the other end.  (And OP just updated its website this week!)

You can easily tell the difference between a vanity press and a hybrid publishing company, as I mentioned, by the royalties and creative control.  With a hybrid publishing company like Outskirts, you own your ISBN and while you have the option of paying for cover design (if you’re not comfortable designing one yourself) you can just as easily choose to be your own designer and forego the cost.  This is how hybrid publishing companies work: you choose which services you need and pay for those, and you own whatever is produced by those paid services.  The object of Sarker’s dislike (vanity presses) is correct, but her reasoning (there’s no room for a middle-man in self-publishing) is an extreme position, if not downright incorrect.

Not every person has the time or the skills to create a beautifully produced, polished, designed, and edited masterpiece.  But that doesn’t mean that such a person has no story worth telling or self-publishing.  It just means they need a conscientious and ethical way of paying for the services they didn’t come built in with at birth, and they can find these services at a hybrid publishing company.

Thanks for reading.  If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them.  Drop me a line in the comments section below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can.  ♠

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.

Kelly Speaks, news from the editorial desk, news from the self publishing world, self publishing news, Uncategorized

Self-Publishing News: 8.1.2016

Look what we woke up to today!

anniversary

Eight years, really?  Boy, doesn’t time fly?  We are going to commemorate this milestone with a whole new look for the Self Publishing Advisor blog.  It’s now cleaner and faster/easier to navigate. We hope you like it.

And now for the news!

This week in the world of self-publishing:

In this July 28th press release as reposted on Broadway World, Outskirts Press makes known its latest crop of bestsellers, several of which you may already have heard–including, of course, actress Mirtha Michelle Castro Marmol’s Letters, To the Men I Have Loved.  Published just over two years ago in June of 2014, Letters continues to demonstrate its remarkable staying power while it holds on to spot number six.  (Her latest book, Elusive Loves, was published late last year.)  And in tenth place, Chidozie Osuwa’s What She Feels continues to make good on its international acclaim.  (Is it a coincidence, one might ask, that both of these regulars on the Top 10 list are books of poetry?  I don’t think so.  Whoever tells you poetry is dead–and there are plenty of people who do say this–clearly hasn’t looked at sales figures over the last year.)  The list includes several other books of interest (exactly eight, to be precise), several of them centering on the theme of faith, and several others of the memoir and nonfiction genres.  To read up on all ten books, check out the original press release here.

“The dismissal of self-published books in a grand sweeping statement is irresponsible of a modern newspaper editor,” writes Samita Sarkar in this July 28th Huffington Post article.  Her piece, while also a fine defense of self-publishing in general, serves as a highly specific takedown of one particular person: Globe and Mail Books Editor Mark Medley, who made it his mission to downplay the hard work of Canadian self-published author Douglas Gardham earlier in the month.  “It is fine not to consider most self-published books,” Sarkar continues, “but this shouldn’t be because they’re self-published, and if it is, at least have the good sense not to admit this to your audience.”  Sarkar goes on to explain the difference between self-publishing and vanity presses, giving eloquent pause to anyone who might have the audacity to judge or–worst of all–pity an author who chooses to publish and market without the backing of a traditional publishing company.  “By registering an imprint and truly self-publishing their work, self-published authors can compete with traditionally published authors for the attention of readers,” writes Sarkar: “The unethical vanity press ‘middle man’ should have no place in this industry.”  But she saves her final word for the unfolding story of Douglas Gardham, whose hard work is already being discovered–and will no doubt continue to be so.  For the rest of Sarkar’s essay, follow the link!

This is a week for lists, as John Maher’s July 28th post to Publishers Weekly online proves.  Not to be shown up by Outskirts Press, Publishers Weekly is also in the habit of releasing its lists regularly, and this week’s is a doozy.  Says Maher, “The tables were turned against the traditional publishers on the iBooks Bestseller list this past week, as five of the top ten titles on the list were self-published.”  The five titles in question include “top-slotted” Just Friends by Billy Taylor in first position and Helen Hardt’s self-published Obsession down at #4, with several volumes of Kendall Ryan’s self-published Hitched also making the list.  When you consider that Taylor and Hardt both beat blockbuster successes The Girl on the Train and J.K. Rowling’s screenplay for the newest addition to the Harry Potter canon–well, that speaks volumes about how far self-publishing has come in making its mark on book sales.  You can find Maher’s full list here.

spa-news

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry.This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Monday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.