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Self-Publishing News: 1.25.2016

This week in the world of self-publishing:

Interview With Linda Stirling on the Self-Publishing Advantage

This week’s featured interview was posted to HuffPost Books on January 23rd, courtesy of contributor Rajesh Setty. In it, Setty speaks with Linda Stirling, author and CEO of The Publishing Authority website. “There are two ways for authors to keep books in print long-term,” says Stirling:

1. Sell a lot of books without ceasing so a traditional publisher will keep the book in print

2. Self-publish your books

[But] What a lot of writers are unaware of with book sales by traditional publishers is there are many variables to how these books can make enough sales for publishers to keep them in print.

As a result, Setty transcribes, well-known authors profit and midlisters suffer from a lack of creative control in addition to limited rights and revenue. The solution? According to Stirling, the answer is simple and easy and one that you already know: self-publishing. “Bookstores and publishing houses are in business to make money, not to nurture authors,” says Stirling. “They need to see a return on investment, so if an author doesn’t earn out their advance, it’s unlikely they’ll see another one.” With self-publishing, however, “none of these concerns need call the presses to a halt. Competition is seen as a plus; promotion is in the author’s hands and can continue indefinitely; and there is no selling window, so writers can go on to make income from their books indefinitely.”

Stirling makes for an excellent self-publishing ambassador and advocate. For the rest of her interview with Rajesh Setty, drop on by the complete HuffPost Books article.

Extended shelf life: Downtown library’s high-tech, equipment-rich DIY center

Good news for Cincinnati residents, writes Sara Gadzala in this January 22nd article for Cincinnati.com: the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has unveiled new additions to its nine-thousand-square-foot MakerSpace, including an Espresso Book Machine! The machine, which is only the third in the nation to be made available to the public in a library setting, prints and binds high-quality books so quickly you barely have time to sip your coffee while you wait. (See what I did there?) Says Gadzala, library patrons can “Consider it a birthday present for MakerSpace, and a gift to anyone who wants to self-publish or print content from OnDemand Books, which has a database of more than seven million titles.” According to the team leader of the Cincinnati MakerSpace, their offerings are “much more than a thrifty business tool. Anybody with a library card can make a reservation on the larger machines” even though a reservation is recommended due to high demand. We’ve written about the Espresso Book Machine before––several years ago, here and here––here on Self-Publishing Advisor, so it’s nice to see this technology being made available to more people.

BEA Announces Conference Programming for 2016

“Save the Date!” declares the website banner over this January 20th press release published to the Digital Book World website. If you’re free March 7th – 9th to travel to New York City, you couldn’t pick a better way to spend your time than by dropping by the annual conference put on by BookExpo America (BEA), which self-advertises as “North America’s premiere event for the publishing industry today” and which aims “to engage and educate booksellers, librarians, agents, authors, and industry insiders by delivering insights on the latest trends and unparalleled networking opportunities.”

Conference organizers have just released the program’s schedule and themes, and as it turns out it’s a good year for self-publishing conferencegoers, as one of the conference’s eight “tracks” or themes is dedicated to studying self-publishing concerns: “Within the self-publishing track authors and service providers will explore the opportunities to reach readers, build sales, and establish a social presence with readers.” That’s some handy information. (Other tracks include: Children’s Publishing, Marketing & Engagement, as well as Analytics, Tech & Mobile.) For more information, visit the original press release here, and the conference website here.

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.

ABOUT 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: 1.18.2016

This week in the world of self-publishing:

Write on: How you can publish a best-seller – The ebook revolution allows new authors to find fame

“They say everyone has at least one good book in them,” writes Toby Walne for ThisIsMoney.co.uk in his January 16th article, “and thanks to the internet there is no longer an excuse not to get it published.” He is speaking, of course, about the ebook revolution, which has long been entangled with both the digital revolution, the millennial generation, and self-publishing. Walne interviews author and expert Damien Fahy, “who runs money saving website MoneytotheMasses and is author of an ebook entitled 30 Day Money Plan” to get an idea for what indie authors should be looking to do in 2016. Says Fahy, “just getting published is not enough – you must also think how you are going to get people to buy your book.” Fahy and Walne walk readers through a series of recommendations––how to go about giving away free copies of your book for review, how to offer your book in multiple formats through a variety of online platforms, and when not to close the door on a publishing company (to name a few)––before closing with a commentary on crowdfunding possibilities. For more information, see the original article here.

Self-Publishing Preview: 2016

Jennifer McCartney of Publisher’s Weekly pulls no punches in this January 15th article, which lays the groundwork for what many industry experts believe we can expect of the coming year. McCartney begins her preview with a brief retrospective, touching upon the self-publishing “successes” and general market trends of 2015 with particular mention given over to Andy Weir’s The Martian, Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Redemption, Paul Kingsnorth’s The Wake, and the popularization of crowdfunding for self-publishing authors. But McCartney doesn’t dwell on the past for long; most of her piece is dedicated to emerging possibilities. She names McGuire as just one of a long list of authors who are either switching from traditional publishing to self-publishing or who are supplementing their traditionally-published books with side projects which are published through indie platforms––and in McCartney’s eyes, this is just the tip of the iceberg. What else does she expect to see in 2016? Preorders and “microtargeted subgenres” will continue to be important in driving sales for self-publishing authors; short stories and box subscription deals are growing in popularity as readers switch over to reading on their mobile devices; and the ever-present struggle to balance print and digital sales in a market where brick-and-mortar stores and public libraries remain mostly hostile to keeping self-published books on the shelf will remain at the forefront of indie challenges. For the rest of McCartney’s article, click here.

Five Marketing Models for Self-Publishing Success

In our second of two articles released in this week’s Publisher’s Weekly, Jane Friedman presents PW‘s readers with a series of models for indie publication in order to address the fundamental problem of newcomers to the market: “it’s hard to know whom to hire, how much to invest, and what type of marketing and publicity will make a difference.” Her five “strategic” models are:

“Reach Out Directly to an Established Audience”
“Always Be Producing”
“Produce Across Multiple Mediums or Channels”
“Know the Right People or Start Meeting Authors with Pull,” and to create the
“Right Concept at the Right Time for a Specific Market”

Friedman, who “teaches digital media and publishing at the University of Virginia and is the former publisher of Writer’s Digest,” is something of an expert on the matter––and luckily for everyone, she doesn’t just list bullet points but rather spends a fair bit of time deconstructing each point for the interested reader. For all of that wonderfully useful information, don’t forget to follow the link!

amazon, Kelly Speaks, news from the self publishing world, self publishing news, Uncategorized

Self-Publishing News: 1.11.2016

This week in the world of self-publishing:

Why Pay For An ISBN When You Can Get One For Free?

Corine la Font, in this January 10th article for the Jamaican Gleaner, writes that “it is wise and cost-effective to just obtain the free assigned ISBNs from the platform you are using”–since most platforms provide ISBNs automatically–instead of buying them directly. Since ISBNs are sold in batches of 10, you may end up with a whole lot more than you need, unless you use a third party service or hybrid publishing company. ISBNs, for those who aspire to self-publish but have yet to do so, are numeric codes of either 10 or 13 digits that publishing companies, booksellers, readers, and others will use to identify your book as well as the format in which your book is published. “Ideally,” says la Font, “each format should have its own ISBN, that is print, audio and Kindle/ebook, but what tends to happen is that Amazon, when publishing the ebook of the same title, assigns an ASIN (a topic for another article) to that specific format.” ISBNs are a key element of the publication process; for more information, visit la Font’s original article here!

Self-Publishing Platforms Reach Out to Spanish-Language Authors

Under the “Booklife Report” heading in this week’s Publisher’s Weekly roundup–published on January 10th–-you’ll find a link to an earlier 2016 article by Leylha Ahuile on the explosion of opportunities for self-publishing authors in the Spanish language market. While the article itself is only available to Publisher’s Weekly subscribers (leaving us with the tantalizing introductory sentence: “Self-publishing is a well-established part of the English-language book trade, but Spanish-language self-publishing is just starting to take off”), it reminds me of this 2013 article by Tina Folsom of the Indie Voice blog, titled “Exploring the Foreign Markets for Self-Publishing.” Ahuile’s article may claim that opportunities in Spanish language markets have some element of newness to them, but Folsom’s piece and many other articles besides have long been touting the possible benefits of looking beyond the tangible boundaries of geographical divides and the abstract boundaries of language. Whether you’re looking to self-publish in English and translate your book to Spanish, or publish directly in Spanish, don’t neglect to consider the fact there are more native Spanish speakers and Spanish-language readers in the world than there are native English speakers. And this doesn’t even touch the percentage of global citizens who speak and read other languages, like Mandarin Chinese! There has never been a better time to sell your book abroad.

Amazon has officially won the multibillion-dollar self-publishing market

“Penguin Random House, the largest book publisher in the world, is chopping off its self-publishing arm,” writes Amy Wang of the Quartz blog in this January 7th article: “The company said Tuesday (Jan. 5) that it has sold Author Solutions—the self-publishing author-tools platform that it bought in 2012.” Author Solutions has long been a mainstay of the self-publishing toolbox, but has struggled to emerge from its ownership transfer and other internal problems and to overcome significant obstacles to satisfying end-user demands. While a sale does not necessarily spell the utter end for Author Solutions, it does seem to indicate a continued slide towards irrelevance as other, better, and easier-to-use options reach a mainstream audience. Writes Wang, the sale is also an admission of defeat in the battle to stave off market dominance by Amazon, “which already churns out an estimated 85% of self-published titles via its various platforms.” That’s a tough number to beat. For more of Wang’s article, follow the link.

A manifesto for digital freedom in storytelling

“There’s too much grumbling among authors,” says Carol Buchman in this January 7th contribution to The Bookseller. But Buchman, a self-publishing author of Western fiction based out of Montana’s Flathead Valley, sees a lot of cause for hope: “some people seem to overlook the wonderful benefits of various publishing modes these days,” she says, citing the “freedom to publish and to read in the manner that suits [one] best,” the choice “among e-readers, audio devices, and paper—hardbound or paperback,” and the opportunity for authors to “publish their works in all three formats” as reasons not to despair for the world of words. “As a storyteller,” she writes, “I’m enthralled by the possibilities in technological development for storytelling.” She goes on to address “the innovative energy inherent in technology” as an empowering force, and to rally readers and authors alike to a more hopeful, optimistic outlook. Her full “five-minute manifesto” is available, courtesy of The Bookseller, here!

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

Self-Publishing News: 1.4.2016

This week in the world of self-publishing:

10 Industry Predictions for 2016

In his first annual list of prescient insights for the year ahead, Tom Chalmers writes in this December 28th article for DigitalBookWorld.com that we’re likely to see both more of the same kinds of things we saw in 2015 and some new and key trends emerging. What makes the list? Here are a few of the more pertinent bullet points as pertaining to self-publishing authors:

Continued regrowth of print sales.
Amazon spending some time under the radar.
Book fair evolution and the emergence of the micro-fair.
Struggle for subscription but steady digital sales.

Chalmers, who touts his stellar inter-office record at predictions (“I regularly point out in the office that I predicted [trends] two or three years ago. Given that I’m generally met with bemused looks, I thought I would make an official record of some predictions for 2016.”) has plenty of industry experience and data to back up his predictions for the year ahead. For the complete list as well as lengthy descriptions of the points above, check out the original article!

Interview with Roxanne Bland, author of ‘The Moreva of Astoreth’

In this week’s highlighted interview, Dorothy Thompson interviews science fiction author Roxanne Bland in this January 1st article for the Examiner.com. Bland, who struck out on her own to start her own publishing house rather than abide by the constraints of traditional publishing, prefers to identify herself as part of the “indie” community (“short for independent author or publisher. It’s not quite such a mouthful as “self-published,” and it sounds way cooler”), but doesn’t hesitate to defend the choice to self-publish. “For one,” she says, “there are no deadlines imposed by others. I don’t do well under that kind of pressure—I freeze, and make stupid mistakes. There’s also the satisfaction of doing everything yourself. I don’t know, it’s exhausting, but the feeling I get is one that I’ve really accomplished something great.” And it’s true––whether you call yourself “indie” or “self-published,” one central fact remains the same: you’ve done something truly and magnificently grand by opting to maintain creative control of your own story. For more of Thompson’s interview with Bland, follow the link!

Kobo has created a new e-book section for Wattpad

Remember our primer guide to the benefits of merchandising through various obscure platforms? Wattpad made the list as one among several up-and-coming possibilities to watch out for. Well, in his December 28th post for GoodEreader.com, Michael Kozlowski writes that e-book retailer Kobo “has quietly unveiled a new section of their website where readers can purchase e-books published by Wattpad.” The e-books, which sell for anywhere from $1 to $12, aim to take advantage of Wattpad’s massive user base, which “currently attracts over 40 million users per month, growing at a rate of over 1 new user per second.” The decision may have been made entirely for pragmatic reasons, Kozlowski attests, but there’s a certain degree of circumstantial resonance to the partnership: both Kobo and Wattpad are based out of Toronto, Canada. How’s that for coincidence? For more information about it, check out Kozlowski’s full writeup.

Orphaned orangutan inspires book by Halifax educator

Closing out this week’s top headlines is a story we can all feel good about! In a December 28th article that made the Arts & Life section of the Halifax Herald, contributor Jennifer Taplin highlights the work of local author Joanne Light. Light, who “was teaching in Malaysia in 2003 when she decided to go for a hike near Poring Hot Springs in Sabah on the island of Borneo,” was so struck by her interactions with native orangutans in the wild that when she later “learned about the plight of the orangutans—killed, injured or run off by palm oil manufacturers,” she couldn’t help but want to transform her love for them into a children’s book. Light––an educator, artist, and writer––found herself an illustrator in Lindsay Alchorn and has since self-published her book, with all of the proceeds going to Orangutan Outreach and Rainforest Rescue. Says Light, “Self-publishing is a very viable way of publishing,” especially now with the rise of e-books. To read more about Light and her book, follow the link!

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

Self-Publishing News: 12.28.2015

This week in the world of self-publishing:

From Adult Relaxation to Prole Erotica: Book Publishing Predictions for 2016

2015 been a “quiet” year in publishing, writes Jonathon Sturgeon for FlavorWire in this December 23rd article––and self-publishing has not been exempt. As a small bright note, however, says Sturgeon, “adult coloring books and books ‘written by’ YouTube Megastars helped keep print books out of the red in 2015″––and many of these books were put out by indie, hybrid, and self-publishing authors. Looking ahead to 2016 may prove a bit more complicated, as Sturgeon goes on to say: “I will now make a series of extravagant claims about what will happen in book publishing in 2016. Some of these claims, I’ll admit right now, rest on little but the shaky edifice of intuition. Some rest elsewhere.” Among his predictions for 2016, Sturgeon predicts: “we will see the rise of the novel written by group or committee,” “we’re also likely to look on helplessly as computers write novels with increasing sophistication,” we should “Look for increased investment in Hollywood-style superprojects, and look for content that is fabricated especially for this purpose,” and “that publishing will lean harder on the multimedia blockbuster model of Hollywood because the ‘unexpected comeback of actual books’ is not as strong as we’re making it seem.” Sturgeon goes on to take a quick look at erotica and young adult literature, and given their huge popularity he concludes with one final prediction: “I also wouldn’t be surprised if we see a literary novel that emulates an erotic novel.” Whether or not he’s right on all fronts, FlavorWire is a massive distributor of information, much like BuzzFeed and PopSugar. It may not have the literary cachet of a Publisher’s Weekly article, but Sturgeon’s piece is likely to be read far and wide as an indicator of millennial attitudes towards publishing.

Buying a house, funding a wedding in Vegas and giving up work: Meet the women who have made a fortune self-publishing best-selling books they wrote at home

“Gone are the days where a writer had to send their manuscript by courier and hold their breath while waiting for a response,” writes Unity Blott in this December 24th article for the Daily Mail. “Now, thanks to e-book publishing, armed with just a laptop and an internet connection, anyone can be their own editor, agent and publisher.” She goes on to introduce four women––Mel Sherratt, Stephanie Hudson, Tracy Bloom, and Louise Ross––who, in her words, “got bored of waiting and took matters into their own hands.” Blott, who transcribes a brief interview with each woman, is keen to impress upon her own readers the value of independence and authorial control when it comes to publishing; each of these four women struggled to find their place in the world of traditional publishing, and found their homes––as well as an excellent sense of community and support––when they made the decision to strike out into the barely-tested waters of self-publishing. For more of Blott’s articles and information about Sherratt, Hudson, Bloom, and Ross, follow the link!

Saturdays Are for Being an Author

Says Pratima Shantaveeresh of the New Indian Express on December 24th, “Everyone has a book in them, but not all can put the first sentence down or sell the first book to a publisher.” Luckily, says Shantaveeresh, “there is The Write Club Bangalore, started in August 2011 to encourage aspiring authors.” The Write Club, only four years old, now has more than two thousand members––around 35 of which show up every week in Bangalore to practice, give each other feedback, and participate in a casual but rich atmosphere of mentorship and mutual support. The club’s principal organizer, author Sharath Komarraju, says that the group attracts “all kinds of writers … Those who treat it as a light hobby and want to write something fun every weekend, those who enjoy the social aspects of the club and attend to catch up with friends, and those who want to write and publish novels.” With a population of well over two million, Bangalore is the capital of India’s souther Karnataka state and a hotbed of literary talent and self-publishing. For more of Shantaveeresh’s article and an update on what’s happening in the publishing world in India, click here.

Local writers leverage tech and self-publish

Echoing Shantaveeresh, Robert Kay begins his article for Hawaii Reporter (dated December 26th) with the line: “It’s been said that ‘everyone has a book in them.'” Kay––whose interest is, like Shantaveeresh’s, rather local––goes on to write that “Thanks to the Internet and the commensurate growth of technologies that support self-publishing, a number of Hawaii writers have taken the leap” into self-publishing. One of these authors, Mike Schmicker, has seen a great deal of recent success with his book The Witch of Napoli (“selling like hot cakes on Amazon,” says Kay). In March of 2015, The Witch of Napoli “hit the Amazon Top 100, ranking No. 41 in paid books out of 3.3 million books for sale in the Kindle bookstore”––and briefly “earned the No. 1 slot in both the historical fantasy and victorian historical romance categories in three countries — the U.S., Canada and England,” says Kay.

To read Kay’s full article and interview, chase the rabbit through this looking glass!

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