Self-publishing and Harlequin Kicking-up Dust

A mass of heated discussion is being shouted around the publishing world in the wake of recent announcements by Harlequin and Thomas Nelson to step in the direction of self-publishing.

Responses have exploded across the industry from the New Yorker to Publisher’s Weekly. Crotchety, curious, and shocked are among the many opinions swirling about, with the resurgence of the term ‘vanity press’ included in the semantical outcry of the literati.

Shocking at best. Inevitable indeed. Masturbatory? Opinions will be opinions. While I cannot fault traditional publishing houses from offering genuine detraction of these decisions – they are business too, after-all. As authors we must be wary of drinking the cool-aide. Not an easy thing to do. Writing is a personal, often intimate endeavor, which propagates a natural to desire for validation – something agents and traditional publishers have a monopoly on.

If writing is an art, publishing is a business. In business, components such as, ingenuity, creativity, evaluating risk, and (gulp), diversification have a proven track record. Those elements should be considered on the micro and macro levels – the success of your own book along with the industry in general.

Agent Richard Curtis provides a rather pragmatic perspective on the subject worth taking a look at on his site E-Reads. What are your thoughts?

– Karl

Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

Self-Published Book Review of the Week: The Heroes of Googley Woogley

The Heroes of Googley Woogley

by Dalton James

This self-published book was recently reviewed by www.readerviewskids.com:

“The Heroes of Googley Woogley” is a creative book written and illustrated by seven-year-old Dalton James. The book tells the story of a boy and his father going off to space to help the people of the rectangle-shaped plant of Googley Woogley. Cayden: “I liked that a kid wrote this book and drew the pictures. He colors and stays in the lines good like me. I liked the pictures of the SooDos and the SooDonts. My favorite part was when the bad guys got stuck. That was funny! This was a good story.”

Parent’s comments:
We found “The Heroes of Googley Woogley” to be an interesting and fun book. I love the fact that it was created by a child! I hope that Dalton James continues to follow his dreams and produce more work in the future.

For more information or to buy the book, visit the author’s webpage: www.outskirtspress.com/DaltonJames

Uncategorized

7 Reasons to Self-Publish, From the Top…

I’ve helped savvy authors transition their books away from traditional publishing houses, newly publishing authors make informed decisions to pursue other options, and even had personal experience publishing under my own traditional contract. Here are the top 7 or so reasons to re-consider holding out for that traditional contract and self-publish today…

7 – Traditional publishers lose money on over 85% of the books they publish, so they only accept 2% of those that are submitted.

6 – Traditional publishers typically accept manuscripts only from established authors who have already demonstrated a proven platform.

5 – Authors lose all control of their content during the editing process with a Traditional Publisher.

4 – Authors must still invest an enormous amount of time, energy, and money promoting a traditionally-published book.

3- Traditional Publishing: Authors typically receive 5-10% royalty on the wholesale price of the book, and from that have to give 15-25% to their agent. Do the math.

2 – The majority of books published by Traditional publishers go out of print within 3 years. Many books that are stocked on book shelves remain stocked for as little as five weeks before being returned, unsold, to the publisher.

1- Traditional publishers acquire all rights to your book and keep them, even when the book goes out of print or the publisher goes out of business!

– Karl Schroeder

Book Marketing, Self-Publishing

Understanding the Amazon Marketplace and Self-published, POD titles

If you’ve looked your Amazon.com listing, or any title if you’re just now preparing for publishing or self-publishing your book, you may have noticed “new and used” editions of books available for sale through the what is called the Amazon “Marketplace.”

Think of the Amazon Marketplace like e-Bay; it allows vendors and bookstores the opportunity to list books for sale in a new or used condition. 99% of the on-demand books sold through Amazon Marketplace are brand new and actually, in most cases, have yet to even been purchased by a wholesaler. In fact, most haven’t even been printed yet.

Marketplace is an apt name for this portion of Amazon because these book sellers are using it to “market” their businesses. So if you see “54 New and Used” copies of a book available through Marketplace, that does mean 54 copies have sold and are now available as read-and-used. It simply means that savvy bookstores are trying to draw the buyers’ attention away from the main Amazon listing and to their listing.

– Karl Schroeder

Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

Self-Published Book Review of the Week: By the Side of the Buffalo Pasture

By the Side of the Buffalo Pasture

By Lisa Boblett

Recent review for By the Side of the Buffalo Pasture:

Kathleen Buerer’s memoir, By the Side of the Buffalo Pasture, evokes yearning for meaning in life. This woman of courage left a materially comfortable existence in pursuit of that which is intangible yet as necessary as water. Clearly and compassionately, she describes her experience of leaving her position with the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC and the promise of a “fat retirement check” in search of something more.

That something more begins to unfold after she reads a newspaper article about the birth of a White Buffalo on a farm in Janesville, Wisconsin. She plans to visit the farm during her next trip to the Midwest. When she gets there, she feels drawn to Miracle, a “muddy beast” that in Native American culture represents the fulfillment of an ancient prophesy.

While many in midlife might turn to materialism to avoid confronting the mystery of life, Buerer chooses to delve deeper into life’s purpose and find meaning in her own existence. She visits Miracle repeatedly over the animal’s life span of 10 years and finds herself learning lessons from those encounters. She becomes more sensitive to the environment. “Love the Earth” is fixed in her subconscious. She becomes sharply aware of consumerism and the carelessness of the modern age and examines what it means to be a woman, a keeper of the earth, a mother.

Miracle, the White Buffalo, represents an era that has passed and the author romanticizes a simpler time when herds of buffalo roamed the plains offering their lives to sustain Native peoples. The captivating mythological
Legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman is beautifully retold and reminds us of the wisdom in the search for the still voice within. Buerer poignantly takes us back to the simplicity of the earth, the beauty of nature and the search for those things that make life worth living – love, compassion and honoring the planet and all of its inhabitants.

This book is an easy read. And well worth the journey.

To find out more about the author and her work visit www.kathleenbuerer.com.

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The Heroes of Googley Woogley

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By the Side of the Buffalo Pasture

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