Conversations with a Self-Publishing Writer, Royalene Speaks, Uncategorized

Conversations: 4/15/2016

THE MUSIC OF WORDS part THREE

Impressions of Nature in Black and White by Wiliam Carlson

With the recent release of his book of photography and verse, IMPRESSIONS OF NATURE IN BLACK AND WHITE, author Bill Carlson quoted one of the most famous composer/pianists of all time at the close of his Introduction saying, “As I ponder the thousands of spectacular moments I’ve enjoyed while creating my portfolio of photography, I add this additional thought, attributed to Ludwig Van Beethoven: ‘Mother Nature is the Revelation of God.’” This recognition of the marriage between sight (photography), sound (symphonies), and poetry is a more complete definition of what is being honored each April—the National Poetry Month. And what all writers can learn from exploring the best of past and present poets is their unique ability to touch a Reader’s heart and soul with their words.  Here are a few of the best pieces of writing advice that I’ve collected from poets over the years:

 

  • “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou
  • “The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love.” Walt Whitman
  • “I am not a teacher, but an awakener.” Robert Frost
  • “Draw a crazy picture, Write a nutty poem, Sing a mumble-gumble song, Whistle through your comb. Do a loony-goony dance’ Cross the kitchen floor, Put something silly in the world That ain’t been there before.” Shel Silverstein
  • “Every answer asks a more beautiful question.” e.e.Cummings
  • “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.” Edgar Allan Poe
  • “Mistakes are a fact of life. It’s the response to the error that counts.” Nikki Giovanni
  • “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching.” Mark Twain

 

Are their poets, artists, musical composers, lyricists, sculptures, banjo players you know who inspire your work? What about the famous photographers of the world? The renowned magazines National Geographic and Life have published a collection of photos from on earth and beyond—just for your inspiration pleasure.

We writers can also learn the importance of tenacity. Most know that Beethoven was almost totally deaf by the last decade of his life. Yet he never stopped creating beautiful music. Maya Angelou survived a very difficult life in her early years. And yet, each poet was able to reach inside and find their “muse”—that irresistible presence (or voice) that draws the artist toward their light of creativity.

What you are writing today may just be the next piece of poetic inspiration the world needs. If you notice things that others don’t see or sounds that others don’t hear and find meaning in your dreams, you are a poet/writer. If you are never satisfied with quick explanations but seek the truth, you are a poet/writer. Don’t wait for applause. Many may not “get” what you’re writing, but you must not stop.

Study the greats. Find your own voice! Write and write and write! Then…PUBLISH! ⚓︎

RoyaleneABOUT ROYALENE DOYLE: Royalene has been writing something since before kindergarten days and continues to love the process. Through her small business—DOYLE WRITING SERVICES—she brings more than 40 years of writing experience to authors who need “just a little assistance” with completing their projects. This is a nice fit as she develops these blogs for Outskirts Press (OP) a leading self-publisher, and occasionally accepts a ghostwriting project from one of their clients. Her recent book release (with OP) titled FIREPROOF PROVERBS, A Writer’s Study of Words, is already receiving excellent reviews including several professional writer’s endorsements given on the book’s back cover.  

Royalene’s writing experience grew through a wide variety of positions from Office Manager and Administrative Assistant to Teacher of Literature and Advanced Writing courses and editor/writer for an International Christian ministry. Her willingness to listen to struggling authors, learn their goals and expectations and discern their writing voice has brought many manuscripts into the published books arena.
elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner : Save the Earth (and maybe even the Whales) with POD!

Do you ever wonder what you can do as an author to save the world?  Are you the sort to take recycling and environmentally-conscious living seriously?  As we get closer to Earth Day 2016 (April 22nd), these conversations rise to the surface and spark all kinds of innovative thinking.  And this year, I’d like to toss one more idea into the ring–one more way you, an author, can do your bit to better protect this beautiful planet of ours:

Convert to Print on Demand (POD) publishing

Remember 50 Shades of Grey?  (Of course you do.  Who could forget?)  In the most interesting anecdote I’ve read all week, the Swansea Oxfam used bookstore received so many donated copies of 50 Shades that they–quite literally!–built a FORT out of them.  Think I’m kidding?  They posted a picture to their Twitter feed:

50shades

The tweet has gone viral, generating a series of articles on the rise and fall of E.L. James’ once-rabidly-popular and now-slightly-less-popular steamy Twilight fanfiction-inspired novel.  More importantly, in my mind, is the fact that this media frenzy has prompted people to take a second glance at how publishing is done–in particular, how the traditional publishing model blankets the world in a flood of books that nobody buys, or that people buy and then dispose of almost immediately.

The second issue–the disposability of a book–is more or less a consequence of its content.  But the first issue–the excessive number of printed books that never find homes–is one that you can avoid simply by choosing the self-publishing model, and choosing to print your books on demand.  What is Print on Demand (POD)?  The clue is in the title: POD is any service that allows authors to print however many copies of their book that they want, as they gauge interest and on the go.  This saves everyone from repeating the dreaded Swansea book fort scenario, and helps mitigate a sad reality in the West: unsold books headed straight to landfill.  I was speaking to a local librarian the other day, and it turns out that despite their best efforts to redistribute all donated books to area Little Free Libraries, book nooks in local businesses, and sales through Amazon … they still sometimes have to send new books straight to the dump, because nobody wants them.  These are usually titles of which so many copies were printed, everyone has already read them, and all the people who want to own copies already have one at home.

So we return to the simple fact: POD is far more earth-friendly than a massive print run.

Instead of being locked into a massive initial print run that they then must recoup the cost of through sales, indie and self-publishing authors can print a smaller number of copies, recoup the cost faster, and go back for more whenever they like or need to.  POD services are included in the cost of many publishing packages, including several of those offered by my own employer, Outskirts Press.  At Outskirts and other hybrid publishing firms, the diversity of packages offered creates additional flexibility–authors only pay for what they need, and not for excesses that underscore a traditional publishing company’s bottom line.  And at least with Outskirts, books are printed mainly on recycled paper (another earth-friendly boon!) and we offer ebook options that require no paper or ink at all!  It’s well worth your time to explore all of the options available to you, and to tailor your publishing experience to suit your resources.

 

I didn’t use the word “convert” earlier lightly.  It has somewhat religious undertones (or overtones, depending on who you ask), and I find it fitting because nature at its best often inspires a kind of spiritual or religious experience.  I remember standing on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon overlooking the Colorado River hundreds of feet below–that was pretty miraculous!  And I remember how I felt walking among the ancient Redwoods in Northern California–a different kind of grandeur.  Greener, more peaceful.  These moments are among the many gifts that the world gives us, an earth that quite literally keeps us alive and breathing.  I think limiting our excesses, whether in respect to printing books or supporting sustainable water usage and so forth, is an important step to take–and in this case, it’s also a way to protect your pocketbook from a different kind of excess.  It’s rare that what’s good for making a profit and what’s good for the environment line up, but Print on Demand (POD) publishing is one of those rare cases!

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.
Alternative Marketing Methods, Book Design, Book Marketing, Kelly Speaks, Marketing Your Self-Published Book, Uncategorized

Marketing Missteps Episode 4 : Designing your own book cover

Three weeks ago, I began this series to define and explore some of the many important marketing mistakes I’ve made or seen made over my many years of experience in the self-publishing industry.  I say “important” because each of the missteps I’ve listed: Devolving into a self-centered campaigner,  confusing the sales message with the marketing campaign, and waiting till the book is done to start marketing–each of these things can tank your book sales singly and for a long time, and a combination of these mistakes will leave you struggling to recover years in the future.  The worst part is, they’re all incredibly easy to make, and making one or two is no bad reflection on you as a person and writer, but the inevitable consequence of those of us who do know choosing not to share that information.  After all, there are so many hundreds of thousands of blog posts, advice columns, and self-help books out there these days–it seems impossible to filter them all.

That’s why this series is here. These are the Big Ones, the Absolute Disasters, the mistakes you really must work to avoid when possible, and work to minimize if unavoidable. And what’s this week’s misstep, you may very well ask?

Designing your own book cover.

book covers

… or at the very least, designing your own book cover without seeking professional advice.

A book cover is a powerful thing.  It’s the first thing your readers see when they pull books off of the self at their local indie bookstore.  It’s the first thing they see when they Google your name and click on your Amazon author page.  It’s what distinguishes your book, on sight, from every other book on the market–and at the same time, a good cover will clue your readers in on the genre and atmosphere of your book.  It’s one of the most important puzzle pieces in your marketing plan, so crafting a good book cover just isn’t enough.  You need to craft a perfect book cover.

Hiring a graphic designer is worth it.  You’ll hear a lot of waffling on this subject in various corners of the internet, and allowing for the remote possibility that you may be a working graphic designer yourself, perhaps you yourself do have the skill to create something that will knock new readers flat with its beauty and efficacy.  In general, however–and the graphic designers amongst you can affirm this–the best artistic work is done by paid professionals on the clock, working as part of a responsive design team who can provide feedback as the design process is underway.  Graphic designers who have worked in the book industry for years are more than just paid consultants for your book cover: they have been around long enough to know the ins and outs of the big picture, and they are invaluable resources in positioning your book for success in both visual and contextual ways.

The other day, I was browsing the Goodreads giveaway page, and I noticed something.  Every book with a beautiful custom cover that displayed well at the size of a postage stamp had more than a thousand entries–a thousand people vying for copies of that book.  And every book with one of those tacky, generic-looking free template covers?  The numbers fell to somewhere between twenty and forty.  There are of course other mitigating factors (books published by traditional means will have a large-scale marketing campaign funneling more people on to Goodreads in the first place, for example), the trend was noticeable enough to be undeniable.  You want your book to grab people, even in competition with high-powered traditionally published works!

So find yourself a designer, or purchase a package from a hybrid self-publishing company that puts your book in the running for Most Beautiful Book on the Goodreads Giveaway Page.  You want your book to be that book.

 

book cover design

Thank you for reading!  If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or contributions, please use the comment field below or drop us a line at selfpublishingadvice@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
from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized

From the Archives: A Reader Views Book Awards Retrospective (#2)

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.

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[ Originally posted: April 5th, 2016 ]

This week we will be leaping off of the platform we set last week, in which we took a look back in our archives at a number of posts related to the Reader Views Literary Awards.  As of last week, the Reader Views Awards committee had revealed its finalists, and this week they have released the winning titles for the 2015-2016 round to their website.  We will not rehash last week’s post, but we will build upon it:

 

readerviews

Last week, I wrote about how the Reader Views Literary Awards are not just for authors, but for readers, too–and this week, with the announcement of not just its finalists but its winners, I can’t help but think how right I was.  (I’m working on humility, too, I promise!)

The award categories are as follows:

  • Children, from toddlers through 5 years of age
  • Children, from 6 to 8 years of age
  • Children, from 8 to 12 years of age
  • Teens, from 12 to 16 years of age
  • Teens, from 16 to 18 years of age
  • Body, Mind, & Spirit
  • Business, Sales & Economics
  • Fantasy
  • Gay, Lesbian & Erotic Novels
  • General Fiction Novels
  • Graphic Novels & Short Stories
  • Health & Fitness
  • Historical Fiction
  • Humor
  • Ebooks
  • Memoir, Autobiography & Biography
  • Mystery, Thriller, Suspense & Horror
  • Poetry
  • Religion
  • Romance
  • Science Fiction
  • Self Help
  • Societal Issues & Spirituality
  • Travel
  • Classics
  • Regional
  • Global

And if that wasn’t enough reading for the awards committee to knock out, there are also fourteen (fourteen!) special individual awards.  If I had to pick five of the books that particularly pique my interest, they would be:

As Executive VP for Outskirts Press, I’m always excited to see so many of our books in the winner’s list.  This year, there are twelve.  (Twelve!)  But really, I’m mostly just honored that my company has attracted people of such talent, and I’m equally excited to pick up the other award winners to get a peek at what great company they keep.  The Reader Views Literary Awards just keep getting better and better, year by year.  Kudos to you, Reader Views!  (I promise to stop fangirling now.  Just for a minute or two.)10:00 AM

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 self publishing world, self publishing news

Self-Publishing News: 4.11.2016

This week in the world of self-publishing:

“Tammy Malinowski O’Reilly of Union Dale has loved crime stories since she was 6  years old,” writes Regge Episale for the Independent Weekender––a web-based newsletter that comes out of the Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania area––but her love of solving crimes continued into her adulthood, prompting her to pursue entry into the Pennsylvania State Police Academy. Despite having to leave the Academy to devote more time to other things, her passion for solving crimes stuck with her, and between 1989 to 1991, she published a series of stories in True Detective Magazine under the name “Tammy Mal.” “At the age of 47,” writes Episale, “40 years after she first fell in love with her genre, she self-published her first book, Little Girl Lost: The True Story of the Vandling Murder, a well-researched book about the murder of 9-year-old Mae Barrett in 1945.” And that was only the beginning.  After a number of successful true-crime novels and other works, O’Reilly turned her attention to the 1994 Katrinak murders in Catasauqua:

From more than 10,000 official documents including Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) reports, FBI Files, forensic lab results, and the 6,500-page trial transcript, four years of intensive research, countless interviews with those involved, and hundreds of letters, phone calls and personal visits with Patricia Rorrer, O’Reilly found details that didn’t add up, had never been made public, and that raised serious questions about the case and Patty’s guilt.

Her book, working title Reasonable Doubt, details the original story as presented in the press and the story as found in the files and reports.

Through her research, O’Reilly has been instrumental in getting the Philadelphia Innocence Project to take a closer look at the evidence and has gained the support and cooperation of Appeals Attorney Craig Neely.

How’s that for lasting impact?  While the case in question is still under appeal and therefore details in O’Reilly’s book can not yet be made public, one hopes that Reasonable Doubt will hit bookshelves in the not-so-distant future.  To read more about how this self-publishing author is making a real difference in the world, check out the full article here.

It’s official: self-publishing has reached the glamor market! As Ashley Coleman writes for Essence magazine on April 7th, “there used to be a time when aspiring authors were simply at the mercy of literary agents [… h]owever, with the growth of self-publishing platforms, so many more authors are able to get their work from the pages of their notebooks to the world.”  A self-publishing author herself and friend to other self-publishing authors, Coleman spends the rest of her article combining tips and advice for how to get started with tidbits of encouragement for those still wavering between pursuing indie or traditional modes of publication.  “Although in self-publishing you will have to put a lot of thought into not only creating the work but how to get it out there, the return on the investment may be well worth it,” she writes.  She advocates for outlines, deadlines, discipline, and professional editing.  She also weighs the benefits of designing a book cover or having it designed for you by a paid professional, as well as the pros and cons of Print on Demand (POD) options.  Her closing words hold a life lesson for us all: “Your book can literally go as far as you are ready to take it!”  For the rest of Coleman’s how-to (succeed in self-publishing) article, follow the link.

“It started with a routine procedure,” writes Valerie Bonk for Howard Magazine, syndicated through The Baltimore Sun on April 6th.  Connie Bowman’s path to self-publishing started with a procedure, and with tragedy–the death of her daughter due to a botched catheterization.  She self-published her book Back to Happy, through Amazon’s CreateSpace program, and says that she chose the self-publishing route “over a major publisher like Penguin Random House or HarperCollins to ‘get it done.'”  Another local author, Patty Sroka of Woodbine, chose a similar path after taking her Girl Scout troop on a trip along with a copy of Nora Roberts.  She now publishes under the pen name P.J. O’Dwyer, Bonk reveals. Says Sroka:

Back then, when I would run into authors and they said that they were self-published, I would kind of stick my nose in the air and say, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to be self-published. I want a major publisher.’ But then I realized that it doesn’t mean you have a poorly written book. It could be that publishers don’t have room on their lists that year or they already have reached their quota of books like yours.

But with the success of her Fallon Sisters Trilogy of romantic suspense novels, Sroka was struck by the idea that ought to share what she had learned in a more systematic way.  And so she approached Howard Community College “with an idea for teaching a course to help others in the area navigate the world of self-publishing. She now teaches a series of noncredit classes focusing on writing fiction, self-publishing and marketing fiction,” writes Bonk–and her students are already finding their own ways to success.  For the complete story, including snapshots of where Sroka’s students are now, check out the full article on The Baltimore Sun‘s website.

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.