Tag: Writing

Book Promotion, Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

Ask the Book Doctor: About Book Covers and Free Feedback

Ask the Book Doctor: About Book Covers and Free Feedback

Q: My book is being edited and will be soon be ready to be printed. Being short on cash, how can I put a nice cover on it as cheaply as possible? I don’t expect it to be on a bestseller list, but I do want it to be more advanced than my first attempt.

A: You are wise to be concerned about the cover. The cover often is the only thing that sells a book. If the cover looks bad, few people will buy the book, no matter how well written the contents may be. As in editing, the cover is not a place where you want to scrimp.

If you don’t want the cover to look cheap, don’t be cheap. That is, pay someone, even if it is only a design student, to design a book cover properly and well. Don’t create your own artwork for it unless you’re an accomplished artist. Don’t use the artwork of one of your children unless the book is a children’s book.

Getting the front, back, and spine looking professional takes much more work and knowledge than most non-designers can imagine, plus the file must be compatible with the printer’s equipment. Unless you have a design program, know how to use it, and have studied design, I don’t recommend designing a book cover yourself. If you want the cover to look professional, hire a professional to do it.

Barring hiring a pro, you can use one of the self-publishing companies that offers cover design as part of a printing package. You can check the Internet for such companies and see if they offer any covers that appeal to you at a price that is satisfactory, or you can surf the Web for cover designers and pick one with the best price. Through the miracle of the Internet your designer can be anywhere in the world and send the files to you electronically. Be sure to check out some of the lower priced book design companies in India, too.

Yours in writing,
Bobbie Christmas, author Write In Style, the triple-award-winning textbook on creative writing
Zebra Communications
230 Deerchase Drive, Suite B
Woodstock, GA 30188
770-924-0528
http://www.zebraeditor.com
Bobbie@zebraeditor.com
Choosing a Publisher, Networking, Self-Publishing

Self-Publishing and Online Marketing

Leading traditional book publisher, HarperCollins, recently initiated an online social networking and self-publishing operation that is designed to flesh out new titles to pull into their traditional publishing program. This provides concrete evidence that self-publishing is the real deal, despite what detractors may purport.

Among the many advantages of self-publishing, as in part demonstrated by HarperCollins, is the ease of online social networking and media access, which provides outstanding viral marketing potential for authors. Outskirts Press is offering a free 30 second book teaser video for authors initiating the process this month. What a cool and effective marketing tool.

Traditional publishing is looking to the pool of self-published titles to bring to the market. The good news is that the market is already there for self-publishing authors. Make sure your publisher offers a variety and adapting base of marketing support and options following publication. The potential is huge.

Have fun and keep writing…

– Karl Schroder

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

Self-Publishing Stats: Retail and Royalty

The self-publishing journey isn’t always an easy one, even though we often claim it to be. There are many decisions to be made, and sometimes choices can get confusing.

While many of my posts may refer to authors who have yet to publish, the information is really universal. One thing I generally see successful self-published authors do is constantly learn and research. 
 
If you have published your book already, you may be starting to recognize some of the “fine print” issues involved with your publisher. For example, you may be discovering with your current publisher that their “20% royalty” is not what you expected.  Or you may be learning that your author’s copy price keeps increasing year after year, or that you have to buy 100 copies at a time just to get a fair price. You may be discovering that the royalty you earn for Amazon sales is much, much lower than the royalty they told you when you signed up. High royalties are usually reserved for publisher’s bookstores, but most books are purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Or you may be discovering that once your book was published, your publisher stopped communicating with you entirely and left you to figure out how to promote your book yourself.

These are all “tricks of the trade” and things that a good self-publisher will not do. Many authors have discovered that switching publishers is actually more profitable in the long run, even with additional upfront fees.

I recently reviewed one case study in which a best-selling author from “Publisher A” to another leading full-service self-publisher and that was the best decision he ever made. His royalties increased from 15% of his retail price to 55% of his retail price as a result. Instead of $3.74 per book, he started making nearly $14 for every book he sold on Amazon.

The good news is switching publishers is easier than you might think. Almost all publishers offer non-exclusive contracts, and you’ve already gone through the process once, after-all.

Have fun. Keep writing and keep learning!

 

– Karl Schroeder

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

More Copyright Information for the Self-Publishing Author

Copyright infringement is not a pleasant topic. Some self-publishing authors find themselves in trouble without even knowing it, by doing something as innocent as including the lyrics from their favorite songs in their book.

Music is one of the most protected copyrightable works; infringement of copyright can carry heavy fines for which the author is responsible. If you are going to use the lyrics from a song in your book, you will need to have permission from the original copyright holder. This includes cases where you are only using a stanza or two and sometimes even if you are using anything more than a single line.

Only song lyrics created and first published prior to 1923 are in the Public Domain in the United States. If the song was created after that, you will need permission to use it (or parts of it) in your work.

There are two great resources on the Internet for finding the rights holders for most music and song lyrics, from the two leading music entities, ASCAP and BMI, respectively:

http://www.ascap.com/ace/search.cfm?mode=search
 http://www.bmi.com/licensing

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

Writing for Self-Publishing: Ask the Book Doctor

E-Books

Q: I am working on formatting and editing a nonfiction book designed to be both an e-book and a published hard-copy book. I will also likely end up doing the work to get this work accepted by a publisher. Can you tell me, have e-books become popular yet, or is the core of publishing still in paper and not looking to move forward?

 

A: Most publishers I know that help authors produce e-books and printed books are not traditional publishers; that is, they produce print-on-demand books and do not stockpile books or distribute them to stores. They simply print one at a time when they are ordered, so there’s no major investment on their part and no advance on royalties to you. Basically if you sell a book, you get a percentage of the profit, but if you yourself don’t sell it, the printer won’t go to any trouble to sell it for you.

 

As far as the popularity of e-books, several companies have tried to produce machines (Kindle and others) to make e-books more attractive to readers, but still e-books lag far behind printed books when it comes to sales. Still, after an e-book is created, you incur no further cost to reproduce and distribute it when sold, so e-books can provide one-hundred percent profit to authors who have a client base and can promote their own books or sell them through their own Web sites. 

What would you like to ask a book doctor? Send your questions to Bobbie Christmas at Bobbie@zebraeditor.com.