in your corner – Page 26 – Self Publishing Advisor

elizabeth speaks, Goals, Holidays, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner : Resolutions for 2016 That Every Aspiring Author Should Make (pt 1)

What’s your goal for 2016? New Year’s provides an opportunity to assess what has and has not worked in 2015 and resolve to make 2016 the best year yet, and for writers this opportunity is especially important. To that end, over the coming weeks I would like to focus on a number of ways in which authors can meet their New Year’s resolutions for and through self-publishing.

This week, I’d like to examine four goals. I’m going to list them here, and then break them down individually–because let’s face it, nothing’s quite so simple as a list of neat bullet points when we’re talking about real life and especially real life for an author!

Set goals.
Facilitate goals.
Make writing a priority.
Read, read, read.

So, what does it mean to set goals? What are the implications of a goal-driven self-publishing experience? I have to admit, I find it nearly impossible to keep even a modest resolution–much less a lofty one–without clearly defined benchmarks to reach and methods to follow. My first recommendation for you, the aspiring author, is this: If your resolution is to finish your memoir in 2016, make sure you break that resolution down into concrete, manageable steps. If it’s to publish a cookbook, chart out the steps to making that happen. If it’s to pen a romance novella, be sure to go about it in a structured way. Leaving room for creativity in your writing doesn’t mean leaving room for things to fall apart in terms of planning and organization–and in fact, many of the authors I work with find that tangible, manageable goals help rather than hinder the creative process.

On to the second point. What does it mean to facilitate goals. To facilitate something means, loosely, “to make (something) easier : to help cause (something)” to happen, and to remove any hurdles that might prevent you from keeping your resolutions. My job description boils down to facilitation, to helping authors get from point A to point B with the greatest ease and the least inconvenience possible. Your job, as an author, is to make sure nothing gets in the way of your writing–and in the way of your writing reaching your readers. I recommend reconsidering, if time is an issue, the number of hours that you work or your social commitments. You need both time and energy to meet your goals, and those resources don’t just manifest out of thin air. Someone once told me: “I think every person has a kind of emotional budget for the day. You wake up, and you have a certain amount of energy, and you have exactly 24 hours. You have to balance that budget by the end of the day and set up your budget for the next day.” If you spend all of your time and energy on other things, you’ll have–literally–nothing to spare for the writing and publishing processes.

And that third step you already know to be non-negotiable: Make writing a priority. You’ve heard all the tips and tricks before, some of them here on Self-Publishing Advisor: Take a break from TV and social media, and set aside a time to write every day. Whether you post creatively on Twitter or write your spouse a juicy love letter, regular writing is guaranteed to feed your creative side and improve your craft. There are loads of online writing courses and how-to guides to self-publishing available for free these days, and there are online communities and forums dedicated to providing support and encouragement to aspiring authors. Every person will find help from different sources–there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to writing and publishing–but one fact remains true for everyone. There is no cheating when it comes to writing original content; it all has to come from somewhere. And if you don’t carve out room for writing to be a priority … it won’t happen.

And last but not least: Read, read, read. The number one piece of advice best-selling authors offer to other writers is to read as much and as widely as possible:

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
— Stephen King

and:

“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

— Ray Bradbury

and last but not least:

“Be awesome! Be a book nut!”

— Dr. Seuss

See what I mean? Reading may be the last item on today’s list of resolutions, but it’s by far the most foundational practice for you to succeed as a writer. Books are your friends, both the ones that you write and the ones that you read, and your fellow book-lovers make the staunchest of allies in a world that can sometimes make it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, much less check items off the to-do list and meet your New Year’s resolutions.

But always remember: you are not alone. ♣︎

ABOUT 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.

elizabeth speaks, Holidays, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner : Christmas Traditions!

In this busy world, our equally busy lives can sometimes get in the way of passing along traditions to our family. Publishing a novel, a memoir, a cookbook, or some other piece of writing is an oft-neglected but rewarding way to pass on our traditions–as well as our special holiday stories–to family members and to our friends!

For example, take the cookbook. There are infinite varieties and forms that the cookbook can take–no two cookbooks look or feel or read the same, even if they overlap in terms of recipes. Why is that? Well, for one, a cookbook is first and foremost an artifact of its author’s personality, history, culture, and interests. The most interesting cookbooks, in my opinion, are not the ones produced by Williams Sonoma (as swoon-worthy as we all find their copper pots to be) or even Cooks Illustrated (although, let’s face it, we like the science). Books produced by committee may have their strengths, but they don’t lock in the same quality of story.

Take these three cookbooks, for example, all of them put out by Outskirts Press:

“The Seven Fishes: An Italian Christmas Cook Book”

“Firewood, Family & Friends”

“Easy as Hell Dinner Party Cookbook”

We have Sleeping with the Seven Fishes: An Italian Christmas Cook Book (2013) by Mike KC; Firewood, Family & Friends Cookbook (2010) by Cheryl Paninder; and the Easy as Hell Dinner Party Cookbook (2013) by Bill Bjorkman with Michael Cilella of the Cox Roosevelt Inn. And as you can tell from first glance, they’re all radically different books! One is geared specifically towards the holidays, one towards the cozy kind of relationships we prize during the holidays, and one towards the home cook with ambitions at throwing a gourmet extravaganza. (I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is which!)

What’s most important to note about these books, however, isn’t the covers themselves but what the covers and titles and typography–and all of the other graphical elements–combine to imply about the stories behind the individual books. These are the things that are worth taking note of as a self-publishing author–and whether you’re thinking of publishing a cookbook or some other type of book, the same principle holds true–because these are the things that grab a reader’s attention in the bookstore and compel that person to carry your book all the way to the check-out clerk. Authorship isn’t exactly a cult of personality, but it can sometimes be useful to think of a published book the same way you might think of a person going in for a high-stakes job interview: presentation matters, because it conveys a lot about that book’s/person’s backstory.

And for better or worse, people connect with story.

The Christmas holidays is an especially important time to be thinking about helping to preserve your family’s history and legacy by self-publishing a book. That’s because Christmas, perhaps more than any other holiday, is rich with oral storytelling traditions, baking traditions, and narrative traditions of all kinds. You can both collect new material for your book and enjoy the rich conversations that will inevitably collect around the news that you’ve got a book in the works. And sometimes, at Christmas as at other times of year when our relationships with the past are the hinge upon which our lives turn, we can all do with a little reminder:

It is my hope and wish that you enjoy a wonderful, relaxing Christmas–a Christmas thickly textured with the best kinds of traditions!

Merry Christmas!

You are not alone. ♣︎

Advocacy in Self-Publishing, elizabeth speaks, Holidays, in your corner, Self-Publishing, Uncategorized

In Your Corner : The Gift of Self-Publishing

Today, if you’ll let me, I’d like to speak a little bit about the gift of self-publishing–about how it’s a gift not to have to wait for an agent to accept your book, how you no longer need to give away your rights, and how with self-publishing, you’re in control of your book, your creation. I want to speak about how self-publishing is a gift that keeps on giving to–quite literally–everyone who is touched by the process, from authors to readers to–yes, I mean it when I add–those who publish through or work within the boundaries of traditional publishing.

A Gift to Authors

I’ve already mentioned the fact that, with self-publishing, you maintain full creative control over your masterpiece from start to finish. You also retain your rights, your royalties, and total control over your book. The profit goes where it should go (into your pocket), the look and feel is exactly what you dictate, and you get the satisfaction of knowing you have brought your original vision into the world exactly how you wanted to, full-fledged and ready to meet its ideal readers.

A Gift to Readers

And let’s not neglect to give those readers their moment in the sun! With self-publishing exploding onto the market in recent years, there’s an ever-more-broad and ever-more-diverse range of books for readers to choose from, new discovery tools to use to find new books, and ever-evolving ways to read those books. I’m talking about e-readers and ebooks, smartphones and tablets, social media platforms and websites like Wattpad and Fanfiction.net. Many of these websites lack the “respectability” of a professional product only in the eyes of purists; by and large, people are coming around to the idea that what makes for good reading and good writing boils down to personal taste–and there’s absolutely no reason to denigrate another person’s preferred reading material. I’m even talking about websites like LinkedIn and Etsy, which smart authors and smart readers are repurposing to serve as new conduits for self-published works. More options doesn’t always equate to more reading, but many of the tech-savvy silicon generation are connecting the dots and teaching each other how to leap that gap.

A Gift to Traditional Publishing

By broadening the field to make room for more authors and more works, self-publishing has raised the bar for the entire publishing industry. Traditional publishing houses have been forced to adapt, evolve, and rise to the challenge presented by a diversified, richly textured market. They can no longer sit back and take it easy when it comes to dominating sales; instead, the traditional industry is turning away from relying on mass-marketed and mass-printed books and towards so-called “niche” offerings. This is good news for everyone, because niches are petri dishes for innovation and further change. Authors can experiment more, readers can expect to find more cutting-edge work on bookstore shelves, and so on. Which leads beautifully to my next point:

A Gift to the Marginalized

When reinvention is the name of the game, even the stodgiest of stodgy institutions tends to open its doors–or at the very least, crack a window––to let in texts or conversations that might previously have been deemed unacceptable or controversial. As Zetta Elliot writes for the School Library Journal, “Like racism in police forces across this nation, racism in publishing is cultural and systemic.” And why is racism a problem, specifically, in the publishing industry? Miral Sattar of Mediashift puts it another way:

Ever since the birth of my daughter last fall I’ve become more acute to the fact that we live in a whitewashed world, and I don’t want her to go through the same experiences that I did as a child. I became more conscious about buying books that tell stories with characters from varying backgrounds. It’s hard to come by these books from traditional publishers since less than 6 percent of books published in 2012 had diverse characters. You have to look really really really hard or resort to buying books that have talking animals.

Sattar, who grew up in a Pakistani-American household, writes of attending publishing conferences and often finding herself the only woman much less the only woman of color in a room. Like Elliot, she has felt the sting of underrepresentation, and understands what it means to grow up almost entirely locked out of the day-dreams and fantasies that others so take for granted. (Astronauts, anyone? President of the United States? Mage in a fantasy universe?) And skin pigmentation is just one reason that traditional publishers have historically used as an excuse to not publish certain books (and it’s a terrible reason, let’s face it). With a new film adaptation of Annie and the advent of the new Hamilton musical, it might seem like we are making progress on this front–but authors like Elliot and Sattar warn of the dangers of complacency, especially since there are so many other factors that publishers still use and abuse in the same fashion.

Here’s the good news, though: self-publishing has become a safe-haven for authors of color, neurodivergent authors, and authors keen to address civil rights issues. And readers are hungry for these books, hungry enough to prompt traditional publishers to get in on the movement. Change to any institution so dead-set in its habits will be hard-won and slow, but it is happening. If you have felt that there was no room for your work in the market, cast your eyes upon self-publishing!

You’re not alone. ♣︎

Alternative Marketing Methods, Book Marketing, elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Marketing Your Self-Published Book, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized, Viral Marketing

In Your Corner : On Marketing

Marketing, for the self-publishing author, is a many-headed hydra and prompts endless questions and dilemmas. Major publishing houses have plenty of time and money to throw into marketing (although they would argue otherwise), particularly in comparison to you or me and any other self-publishing author out there. They hire people whose entire careers revolve around taking care of the marketing process for their A-list authors, an enviable prospect because all we really want to do is write more books, right? And yet, instead, we have both the blessing and the burden of running our own publicity campaigns.

Sometimes, I wake to a new day packed full with plans and routines to balance against each other, and I wonder:

Aren’t we always told that the hardest part of writing a book is writing the first paragraph? (Whoever says such things has clearly never attempted to tackle the tricky beast of self-promotion.)
Are there ideas I can steal from others about how to be more effective, so that I have more time to spend on what I actually love? (Which is, of course, writing.)
Who gave the world permission to make me wake up to an empty coffee pot?

In all seriousness, though: the way we approach marketing, as self-publishing authors, matters. Because it’s not optional. It’s not something we can get away without doing. We won’t sell books, and we won’t make room in our lives for the next book, either, if we don’t give some of our time over to marketing.

As Gareth Howard over at Infinity Publishing puts it: “Would you bake a delicious cake and not even eat it? Would you revise for important exams and not bother sitting them? Would you book an exotic vacation only to stay at home, wasting that precious deposit?” The answer is, of course, no. No, you wouldn’t want to waste the precious time and energy you’ve invested in crafting a beautiful manuscript–you want it to be read. You want your ideas to reach your readers! And sadly, we still haven’t figured out a way to guarantee authors that their books will just magically sell once they’re published. There’s still a vital legwork and elbow-grease component to the whole thing.

You do, thankfully, have an advantage over the enormous publishing houses with their big budgets and their paid professionals: You can make it personal. You can lend the marketing process a human touch, and you can take advantage of the most effective means of self-promotion known to humankind: your existing social network. You can also pick the things you do well, and reach out for professional help (with a shout-out to my day job) only when you really need it. The key is, of course, being prepared to work and work hard to achieve your marketing goals.

Others here on the SPA blog have written about marketing before, and have presented a number of ideas on how we can all be more effective at self-promotion as self-publishing authors. This holiday season, however, I’d like to issue a specific challenge to you (and myself!): Let’s figure out the next workable, manageable, and sustainable step that we can use to bolster our existing strategies. It’s no good if we have lofty goals that we never reach, so let’s be specific even while we’re also being optimistic. I bet you my best unsharpened pencil that we can do better in 2016!

There is, of course, a danger in all of this:

Once we acknowledge just how important marketing is, the process has a tendency to take over our lives and erode away all semblance of spare time we might have. Fortunately, there are a whole host of resources out there for you–to get you started, and to help you along once you’re already partway down the path. And of course, I’m here for you too–and the SPA email as well as comments section is always open to lend you a listening ear.

You’re not alone. ♣︎

elizabeth speaks, Holidays, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner : Giving Thanks for Self-Publishing

Why am I thankful for self-publishing? Let me count the ways!

I’m thankful because I don’t have to wait for an agent to read and accept my next book. We just need to write a book in order for that book to exist out there in the world and be read by others!
I’m thankful because I get to keep my rights and royalties. In a competitive market, this gives us both a leg up over authors who are published through traditional forms and processes, and a leg up on an industry that constantly seeks to inflate the profit margin for the publisher or film house–at the expense of ideas and the author at the heart of it all.
I’m thankful because I will maintain control over every aspect of my book that I want to, and I have a whole host of options to turn to (including my own employer, Outskirts Press) if there are aspects I don’t want to control.
I’m thankful for more flexibility. We get to work from home, on our own timeline, meeting our own personal goals and performing according to our own expectations–and not racing to constantly measure up to someone else’s designs, or match our schedules with someone else’s calendar.
I’m thankful that we don’t live in fear of progress, but rather surf the cutting edge of the digital and silicon revolutions. We are innovators, ambitious dreamers who make change happen and get stuff done. Right now we self-publishers are masters of the ebook, including the e-audiobook. What’s next? We’ll figure it out. And we’ll embrace it, I guarantee you, before anyone else in the publishing world.
I’m thankful that as a part of my job I get to help others sidestep the “information gatekeepers” who have historically limited access to publication for reasons to do with bias, influence over the industry, and profit. When has a small group of people determining the parameters of another, larger group of peoples’ lives ever turned out well? Vive la révolution! The more voices we hear, the more lives we witness, the more we know of the world and the way other minds work, the better we can live as individuals and a collective whole. I really believe that.
I’m thankful that this has been a big year for breakthroughs in terms of mainstream recognition and presence. Ridley Scott’s adaptation of self-publishing superstar Andy Weir’s The Martian is still rocking the box office. A film adaptation of Lisa Genova’s Still Alice received its wide release this year, too, and walked away with an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award (among others). And that’s just two of many self-published works that have been adapted for the big screen (and television) this year–a great litmus test and indicator of mainstream success. Countless other self-published books have seen more moderate success, too, and the indie industry is as a whole seeing diversification and stabilization.
And lastly, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving if I didn’t mention one of my greatest joys: the indie, hybrid, and self-publishing authors that I work with day and day out throughout the year at Outskirts Press. As a company, we are so very thankful for the authors that have made us a leading self-publisher in an energetic and ever-expanding market. We never tire of learning how we have helped authors realize their dreams, how we have helped author after author to put their ideas and words into beautifully bound books to be enjoyed by others. You inspire us to better ourselves every day. You inspire me to believe in the power of the written word, and in the power of helping others sound their voices throughout the world.

I hope that you have a splendid Thanksgiving Day today. As it is at all other times of year, it’s important to remember one simple fact this holiday season: You’re not alone. ♣︎

But always remember: you are not alone. ♣︎

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Merry Christmas!

You are not alone. ♣︎

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A Gift to Authors

A Gift to Readers

A Gift to Traditional Publishing

A Gift to the Marginalized

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