Book Doctor

Self-publishing Guest Post: The Book Doctor Shares

Q: I like English, and it has always been my best subject. I’m trying to find which area of writing I am most talented in. I feel that I can write punchy, short prose well. Do you have any tips for how I can find the type of writing that suits me? Would I be better taking lots of short learning courses? Reading books? Any help you could give would be very helpful.

A: I don’t know your age, but if you’re still in school, I’ll assume you are under thirty, and with that thought in mind, I can tell you what I did with my life and see if it works for you. I loved writing from the time I was young, so I took every creative writing class I had the opportunity to take, in high school, college, from arts institutes, or at continuing learning centers. I majored in journalism in college, because it was the only writing path available to me back in the 1960s, but I didn’t think I would be a journalist. I thought I would be great at writing advertising copy, so I wrote some spec ads to create a portfolio and took them to several ad agencies. To my surprise I garnered some freelance work, which led to my being able to build a strong portfolio of published works. Ad copy was fun to write, but I wanted more, so I volunteered to write articles for the newsletters and magazines that nonprofit organizations produced, and when those articles were published, I added them to my portfolio and went out to find assignments from trade magazines as well as consumer magazines. You get my drift; I never settled into one area.

Eventually I had tried out—and usually enjoyed—just about every kind of writing a person can do to make a living, including ad copy, press releases, brochure copy, business reports, proposals, news articles, personality profiles, magazine articles, radio commercials, resumes, business profiles, white papers, books, memoirs, personal experience essays, and you name it. With a motto of “I’ll write anything for money,” I launched a career in writing and editing that has carried me for more than four decades, and I am doing what I love and making a good living at it.

If I were you, then, I would try everything, and you will find what best suits you. If you find you can do it all, then why specialize? Write! Enjoy! Count your blessings that you’re able to do what you love and make money doing it.

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Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

Self-published book review of the week: “Ponzied”

Self-published Book Review: Ponzied

Ponzied
Marvin Lindberg
9781432758646, $13.95

Terror is not often bound by morality, and a ponzi scheme is more than enough to pay for what they need. “Ponzied” tells the story of private detective Wayne Davis as he’s drawn into a Vegas ponzi scheme that may be driving more than just greed. An exciting read that blends mystery with action and adventure, “Ponzied” is a choice pick, highly recommended.

Carl Logan
Reviewer

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Self-Publishing

Kindle, iPad, ebooks and your self-publishing future

Much discussion surrounds the future of ebook readers in the digital publishing world with the Kindle, iPad, and the upcoming release of the Google Book Store. Will e-books replace libraries and bound copies of books? Who’s to say? According to the Wall Street Journal, ebooks will account for 8.5% of all book sales this year.

But that’s really not the question; as authors, let’s step outside the box.

Think of e-books as an opportunity to tease. With a lower purchase price and more immediate gratification, many readers are inclined to give an e-book a try when they might pass on a traditional paperback, especially in the non-fiction and how-to genres. Instantly accessible information has its place, even though it is far from “everyplace”. And doubtful it ever will be. If readers like your e-book, chances are good they’ll end up purchasing the hardcopy book, anyway.

You can create an ebook on your own, but most full-service self-publishing firms will include that step for you. Many will for free.

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Book Doctor

Self-publishing Advice Guest Post: The Book Doctor on Chicago Manual or AP

Q: My company is contemplating changing from using the Chicago Manual of Style to AP Style. What are the differences between the two styles?

A: It’s a shame your company may shift away from Chicago Style. I’ve used both styles, and Chicago Style, preferred by book publishers, makes more sense to me. It relies mostly on clarity.

AP Style, created for periodical publishers, evolved from the fact that newspapers and magazines needed to save space, and, in my opinion, it sometimes leads to less clarity.

AP says to write out the numbers one through nine and to use numerals thereafter. Chicago Style says to write out the numbers one through one hundred and use numerals thereafter. AP Style abbreviates states, and it does not use the same abbreviations as postal carriers use. AP does not use a serial comma (red, white and blue), whereas Chicago Style does (red, white, and blue). Of course there are hundreds of other differences as well.

Your best bet is to read through the Associated Press Stylebook, which is much smaller and less expensive than the Chicago Manual of Style, plus it is laid out alphabetically, which differs from the numerical listings in the Chicago Manual of Style. You will probably find AP Style is easy to learn.

What’s your question for book doctor Bobbie Christmas, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing, and owner of Zebra Communications? Send question to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at www.zebraeditor.com.

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Uncategorized

Indie books and Indie book awards kicking up some old self-publishing dust

Author Solutions very recently announced its sponsorship of their inaugural “indie publishing” contest. The announcement reads…

“Since when can a writing contest turn the winner into an author with a published book…and provide a staff of book marketing professionals to help get the book into bookstores and publicized? This is the new reality of combining a traditional writing contest with the myriad advantages of indie publishing.”

According to the guidelines, aspiring authors can enter up to 5,000 words of their novel, nonfiction book, story, or even poem. Winners and runners up will then be selected from among the 4 categories, along with a grand prize winner. The entry fee is $35 ($25 for poems).

The news stirred up a long standing semantically charged debate among those in the book publishing and self-publishing industry, with a fight over what exactly “indie publishing” is.

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware writes, “By “indie publishing,” they don’t mean true self-publishing, or publishing with an independent publisher, but the kind of publishing provided by print-on-demand [POD] publishing services.”

And Sue Collier of Self-Publishing Resources emphatically calls out the ASI with this remark, “Say what? Authors Solutions is NOT — I repeat, NOT — an indie book publishing anything, let alone “leader.’”

Much of the controversy over the competition surrounds content ownership and ISBN assignments in particular.

Collier goes on to write, “Authors Solutions is a vanity press (aka subsidy press). It is a pay-to-publish service wherein authors pay to publish their book under the Author Solutions name.”

I think it is safe to say that the type of publishing this contest aims to produce is a form of self-publishing – authors still retain 100% of their rights in most cases, even using a publisher supplied ISBN.

What about the term “full-service self-publishing” though? There are publishing solutions where you can effectively select from among a collection of services from writing all the way to book marketing, and even offer private imprint options. Very few authors are also designers, marketers, editors, SEO experts, etc., all of which combine toward the goal of effective book publishing.

In many cases authors can benefit greatly by a full-service firm. Sure, you could contract all those services ala cart, but unless you have massive leverage, that’s likely to be an expensive endeavor. It’s a matter of scale. And yes, books are primarily available POD. Some are carried in brick-and-mortar stores, but primarily sold online. Readers buy books online.

This is not an Author Solutions promotion or plug for the contest however. Not all publishing services providers are equal, and like Collier, I have worked with many dissatisfied Author Solutions authors across all of their brands. Research is key. Sure, you may learn a few things from other’s AuthorHouse complaints, Xlibris scams, or iUniverse reviews. Take that information in part with a grain of salt – those unhappy authors are infinitely more likely to complain that happy ones.

In the end, successful book publishing is successful book publishing, and each author’s goal in that endeavor unique.

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