self-publishing on ereadersIn recent years the development of the internet, advances in print technology and changing reading habits, have made self-publishing a viable route for many writers. However, I now believe that the growing popularity of digital reading devices, such as the Kindle and Ipad, offer the Independent Writer a virtually risk free route into self-publishing.

This article will examine the old self-publishing model, look at what has changed and outline an almost risk free self-publishing model.

The Old Self-Publishing Model

As little as ten years ago publishers were all powerful. If a writer wanted to be published then they needed a publisher who would provide the finance to print the books, the distribution chain to get books into bookshops (where almost all books were sold) and the expertise to generate marketing and promotion. However, over the years, technology has gnawed away at each of these three pillars of the publishing world, until, finally, the power has swung into the hands of the writer.

The first pillar to go was printing. Technological developments made short run printing (less than a thousand copies) a reality, with Print-On-Demand later lowering this to just a single book. This meant that no longer were writers reliant on publishers to provide the finance needed to print a couple of thousand books. The arrival of the internet took care of the next two pillars. The rise of websites such as Amazon removed the power of the bookshops and the development of social media has given writers direct access to readers. Authors are now able to launch and execute their own marketing campaigns, without the support of a publisher.

The self-publishing model, though now well established, may be straight forward but is far from risk free, with writers still needing to find a significant amount of money to print the books for them to sell. Self-publishing is not cheap and risk comes in the fact that writers are required to print books that have no guarantee of selling. Even professional publishers are unaware of which book will sell and which will flop. However, these big publishers have the resources to find the best-sellers, which go onto support the poorer selling titles. Self-publishers don’t have this luxury and are therefore are presented with a far greater risk.

Yet, self-publishing writers have little choice than to layout the cash and take the plunge, delving into an untested market with fingers firmly crossed. It is true that the rewards can be huge, but the stark reality is that almost all self-publishing writers end up making a loss.

When you examine the self-publishing model, it is clear that the best way to reduce the risk would be to gain an initial assessment of the marketplace, in advance of any financial outlay. Imagine how much more prepared a self-publishing writer would be, if they were able to have an insight into the number of books they could expected to sell (if any) PRIOR to shelling out money for printing

I now believe that this is possible…

The Digital Revolution

So what has changed?

The answer, once again, is technology, but it is also reading habits. The rise of the digital reading device and the easy access to books, through apps such as iBooks, has left readers with little excuse not to read digitally. Over 3 million Ipads have already been sold and with the recent release of the next generation of the Kindle, the eReader market is set to keep on growing.

This is good news for readers and writers alike, yet there is one more piece of the jigsaw that should be bringing Independent Writers to a fit of excitement. This is the fact that both the Ipad (via companies such as Smashwords) and the Kindle, directly, allow writers to upload their own books and take a large share of the revenue produce!

This means that the digital platform is free and fully accessible to self-publishing writers. The reality is that the Ipad and Kindle have combined to produce a new and accessible market that is just waiting to be tapped by forward thinking writers.

The New Self-Publishing Model

What I find most exciting about the development of this digital marketplace is that it presents self-publishing writers with a free to enter test bed for their new books. In essence, the Ipad and Kindle can be used to assess the readability and commercial viability of your self-publishing project. Put more bluntly, with a minimum outlay, self-publishing writers can determine the demand for their book PRIOR to expensive printing.

So here’s my vision for an almost risk free route to self-publishing:

1. Pre-production:

The first step is to produce a book of high quality. I can’t say this too strongly. You are producing a product to sell. You are expecting readers to give you their hard earned cash to read your words, it is your duty to ensure that the product they receive is amazing. This means not only being well written, but also thoroughly edited, proofread and a cover that has been professionally designed. There are no shortcuts here. As a writer your skill and value comes in producing the text, but if you are to produce a book you expect people to buy, then you need to invest to ensure all other aspects are of the same professional level.

Getting down to the nitty gritty I would expect you to be able to get a 50,000 word novel through the pre-production process for less than £1000. Here’s an outline of some rough costs :

  • Editing by BubbleCow is £5/1000 ($8) and would be £250 for a 50,000 manuscript. We are more competitive than most editors so ensure that you pay close attention to the pricing,
  • Proofreading prices should be less than editing and you are looking at maybe £200 for a 50,000 word novel,
  • You can get a cover designed from about £250 (though more expensive for very high quality covers),
  • I would also budget at least another £100 for odds and ends such as an ISBN number.

This means that realistically you can push a book through pre-production for about £800 (250+200+250+100). At this stage I would suggest you don’t spend any money on typesetting since the formatting for both Ipad and Kindle is fairly easy to carry out yourself. However, should you go on to print the book, then typesetting is essential.

2. Writer’s Platform.

Much has been written about building a writer’s platform and for self-published writers this is an essential part of the process. In essence, a writer’s platform is an on-line presence designed to capture potential readers. These articles will help to explain more. I can’t over empathise just how important this is for an Independent Writer. A self-publisher is taking on all of the roles of a traditional publishing house, and promotion and marketing are just two of these roles. If you are unable to promote your book, then you will have no readers and no readers means no sales. I would also suggest that you consider whether you will need to invest money at this stage in employing a professional to help set up your network (website/blog etc.).

3. Digital Test Bed:

The next stage is to test the market and determine if there is enough demand to move onto the final step. This is the crucial stage between you and an expensive printing mistake, so go into the exercise wholeheartedly.

Having prepared your manuscript in pre-production, you should now upload it to both the Kindle and the Ipad. This article will explain how. The process of uploading is free. By using this Digital Test Bed you can assess if there is a readership for your book. The Ipad and Kindle offer a living, breathing marketplace and it provides you with an real life indication of your book’s potential.

The temptation at this point is to become carried away with ANY sales your book gets. It is very easy to extrapolate a few sales into millions of copies and start rushing to the printers, cash in hand, well before you have any meaningful data. I would suggest caution.

The point of this exercise is to do one thing, and one thing alone, assess the marketplace and you book’s potential. It is essential that you set a measurable sales target long before you upload the book. In the cold light of day you need to determine how many books you need to sell, over a set period of time, to deem the exercise a success and give you the green light to go onto traditional printing.

It may be that you decide to not move onto printing until you have produced enough revenue from ebook sales to pay for a print run. But you may decide that just assessing sales is enough. To put things into prospective, a traditional publisher would expect a book to sell between 1000 and 5000 copies a year. Taking the lower figure of 1000 books, this is roughly 80 books a month, about 20 a week. This is not a hard and fast rule, but if you are not selling this many book on a digital platform, then you are probably not going to sell them in the real world. Remember, the Digital Test Bed is a way to assess your marketplace BEFORE you invest money in costly printing.

If your book fails to sell on the Ipad and Kindle, then it is time for some soul searching. There are three reasons a book may not sell in the numbers that you need to move onto the next step. The most likely is that you have failed to market the book correctly. After all, if readers don’t know about your book why would they buy? The second is quality. It may simply be that your book is not good enough. However, if you have carried out the pre-production professionally, then this is probably not the reason. The final reason may be market size. It may be that the market for your book is just not big enough to support your ambitions,

Whatever the reason for your failure to hit your targets, I would urge you to attempt to correct the problem and return to the digital marketplace before moving onto expensive printing.

4. Printing:

The final stage is printing. If you get to this stage then you will have established that a viable marketplace exists for your book, and you will be pretty clear just how many you can sell and, therefore, how many you need to print. Much has been written elsewhere about this process so I will leave you to do your own research, however, I would offer one word of warning. Printing is expensive and many self-published writers have a garage full of books to prove just how risky it can all be. My advice is don’t move on this stage until you have proven with your Digital Test Bed that a market exists.

Just don’t.

If you are tempted, but don’t have strong sales on the Ipad and Kindle to back your gut, then consider a Lulu trail. Put the book on the Lulu website, and offer POD to your readers. See what the take up is like and wait for feedback. Only when you are sure a market exists, should you move onto the final stage of parting with money for printed books.

My final word of advice is that selling physical books is different from marketing yourself on-line. It is harder. It involves convincing book shops to stock your book, attending events and rounds of persistent marketing and self-promotion. So even if the Digital Test Bed demonstrates a market, still approach the final stage with your eyes wide open.

I would love to hear you feedback on this approach.

{ 2 comments }

Publishing your book on the Ipad and Kindle. As the war of the eReaders hots up, writers are being presented with a new and potentially profitable route to market. For the first time, Independent Writers have a self-publishing avenue that is not only low cost, but also offers the realistic prospect of reaching a significant number of readers, whilst actually making a profit in the process.

This post examines the expanding market and offers a step-by-step guide to preparing and publishing your book on the Kindle and Ipad.

War Of The eReaders

Regardless of where you stand on the debate between dedicated eReader (e.g. Kindle) Vs third party tablet device (e.g. Ipad), the news is good for writers. Readers are increasingly opening themselves to reading books digitally and the mass sales of both types of devices has created a significant market. Amazon have been caegy about the sales of the latest generation of the Kindle, but even without accurate figures the sales have undoubtedly been huge. Apple, on the other hand, are understandably proud of the Ipad’s impressive sales and have openly confirmed that over three million devices have been sold. It also is strongly rumoured that Google intend to enter the tablet market with a device using Android. The result is that the market for digital books is set to expand.

Why Should Writers Care?

The first answer to this question is that it opens a new market for writers. However, that is a post in itself. What is important for writers wishing to self-publish their own work, is that neither Amazon nor Apple have set up barriers to publication for Independent Writers. It is perfectly possible for ANYONE to sell their digital books on both the Ipad and Kindle. This post will give advice and guidance on how best to prepare and submit your book for digital distribution.

Preparing Your Book For Digital Publication

Just because your book will not be printed on paper, it is still essential that you spend time and resources on the pre-production stages of the publishing process. Getting your book onto the Ipad and Kindle is just the start. You need to ensure that once readers download your book, that the reading experience is so good that they have no option but to mention your book to their friends. In order to do this you must ensure the book looks and reads the best it can be.

Editing

Editing is so much more that checking for errors and it is your first step to producing a great read. If your book was to be prepared for publication by a publishing house, it would pass through a four editing step process prior to printing:

  • Structural editing,
  • Stylistic editing,
  • Copy editing,
  • Proofreading,

If you intend to self-edit your work then you should read your manuscript on a line-by-line basis, whilst holding the following questions in your mind:

  • Is the book’s organisation and content suitable for the intended audience, medium, market, and purpose? [Structural]
  • How can the book’s meaning be clarified, the flow improved and the language smoothed?[Stylistic]
  • Have you ensured the correctness, consistency, accuracy, and completeness of the document? [Copy]

Don’t underestimate the difficulty of this process – this blog post about self-editing will help.The reality is that you will probably need two or three passes to knock your manuscript into shape.

Once happy, I would suggest that you then ask two or three friends/family to read through your work and provide feedback. It is essential with this type of feedback that you firstly frame the type of input you require and secondly give the reader permission to criticise. This blog post will give you more insight into getting the most out of feedback from friends and family.

Yet, with all of the best intentions self-editing is a risky process for any self-publishing writer. The key is to see self-publishing your book as a business project. The aim is to make a profit. In order to do this you must have the best possible product to sell. Editing is a essential aspect to preparing your book and you should seriously consider investing money into having the book edited professionally. BubbleCow offers a professional editing service, but even if you don’t use us, I urge you to seriously consider paying for a professional edit, it will be money that you will not regret spending.

The final step in the editing process is proofreading. This should come at the very end of the process and is the final step once you have made all other corrections to your manuscript. The job of proofreading is to find the errors and typos. Once again you should be looking to friends and family, whilst also considering employing a professional.

Cover Design

Assuming that you are happy with the content of your book the next step is to think of cover design. It goes without saying that a good book cover will sell books. This is especially important for books being sold from bookshelves in book shops, but still applies to the digital market. It is essential that you have a good book cover. As with editing, cover design is a skill and you should seriously consider using a professional to design your cover. Here are just a couple of suggestions of companies that BubbleCow trusts – 2H Designs (UK) and The Book Designer (US).

Self-Publishing On The Ipad

self-publishing-on-the-iapdApple’s distrubtion system for the Ipad (and Ipod), is a free app called iBooks. Once installed on your device, iBooks allows you to buy, download and store your ebooks. Though Apple have little restriction on the books that can be uploaded to the iBooks software, individual writers are not able to directly upload titles. Instead, Apple have appointed a number of Apple-approved iBookstore aggregators. These companies will be familiar to most Independent Writers, but for the sake of simplicity this article will focus on Smashwords. The process of uploading your book to Smashwords is simple, and most importantly, free.

Here’s the step-by-step process SmashWords recommends:

1. REGISTER: Sign up for a free Smashwords account, if you haven’t already. Choose a “member name” that corresponds with the pen name or publisher name you will be using. Choose carefully, you cannot change it later.

2. STUDY: Study every link at the How to Publish at Smashwords page. If you carefully study the links and resources, you’ll find it’s much easier and faster to get your book approved and distributed to Apple.

3. FORMAT: Study and implement the Smashwords Style Guide so you can learn how to format your ebook to the requirements of Apple and our other retailers. Your book will not get distributed by Smashwords unless you follow the Style Guide. Your book must be uploaded to Smashwords as a Microsoft Word .doc file. No, you cannot upload a PDF or EPUB or MOBI as your source file.

4. COVER IMAGE: You will need a quality book cover image (JPEG file), and it must be a vertical rectangle shape, at least 600 pixels tall, and the cover should include both the title and the author name. The cover cannot be a greyscale image (i.e. black and white only), and it cannot contain hyperlinks or web site addresses (it’s not considerate to Apple to direct your prospective customers elsewhere).  As with all Smashwords ebook covers, keep the image PG-13 (no nudity).

5. STUDY PREMIUM CATALOG PROCESS: If you haven’t already done so in Step 2 (naughty writer!), click to the Smashwords Distribution Information page to learn how Smashwords distributes books, how the Premium Catalog evaluation process works, and how to fast track your books. If you follow the instructions carefully, you could see your ebook in the iPad iBookstore within a few days, and usually no longer than a week or two!

6. CONTENT RESTRICTIONS: To publish on Smashwords, you must be the original author or the exclusive digital publisher or distributor. Your book must satisfy the Smashwords Terms of Service. Smashwords, as well as Apple and our other retailers, strictly forbid content that encourages illegal activities, promotes intolerance or discrimination, invades the privacy of any person, or that slanders or libels a person or organization. Erotica that depicts underage persons engaged in or witnessing sexual acts is stricty prohibited, and may result in immediate Smashwords account deletion, forfeiture of earnings, and banning from our distribution channels. Common sense, folks.

7. PRICE, ATTACH & UPLOAD: Once you have carefully formatted your book to the Style Guide, click the Publish link at the top of any page. Carefully fill out the information. Apple prices ebooks in 99 cent increments, so we encourage you to do the same, otherwise we will round up your price to the nearest 99 cent increment. Triple check every field is completed before you click the publish button at the bottom of the page. If you experience problems uploading, this troubleshooting FAQ will help.

8. MEATGRINDER CONVERSION: After you click the publish button, your browser will pause as it uploads your information to our servers and our Meatgrinder conversion service.  Once we receive the book (usually takes ~30 seconds), you’ll see it progress to a conversion page with a spinning wheel. You can watch the wheel turn, or you can click away. If you watch, at the end of the conversion you may see AutoVetter messages, suggesting probable formatting problems. Take these recommendations seriously. If you decide to click away and not watch the conversion (if the system is backlogged, it can take hours to process), you can wait until you receive an email confirmation of your completed conversion.

9. CHECK FOR INSTRUCTIONS: Check your Dashboard. What does it say under the “Premium Status” column? You want it to say “Pending review” or “Accepted.” It usually takes a week or less for us to manually approve your title for the Premium Catalog. If it says “Requires Modification,” click the link for instructions, where you’ll find AutoVetter messages and/or personal notes to you from our reviewers. If your book requires modification, it means you probably did not accurately implement the Smashwords Style Guide. You’ll find additional tips if you scroll down that page.

10. UPLOAD NEW VERSION (ONLY IF REQUIRED): If you were asked to revise the book, after you’re done with the revisions return to your Dashboard and beside the book title, click “Upload new version.” NEVER NEVER go back to Step 6 to re-publish a book you already published. This can get you banned from the Smashwords service.  However, you are welcome to upload updated versions via the “upload new version” link as often as you wish.

11. VALIDATE YOUR EPUB: Once your ebook conversion completes, we’ll output your book in multiple formats, including EPUB.  Apple requires that your EPUB file pass the EPUBCHECK validator.  Here’s how you can check:  Go to your book page, download the complete (not the
sample) EPUB, then upload it to a free validator such as http://threepress.org/document/epub-validate.  Most books pass 100%.  If your book fails, it’s usually caused by easy to fix (though sometimes difficult to diagnose) problems such as poorly
formed hyperlinks.  Learn more about EPUBCHECK error messages by clicking here.  After you fix your book, return to your Dashboard and click “upload new version.”

12. ASSIGN AN ISBN: Apple (as well as Sony) requires your book have an ISBN. Go the the ISBN Manager page to learn about ISBNs and assign one to your book. Your ebook ISBN must be different than the print book ISBN. We can assign you a free or low cost ISBN, or you can obtain one from your local ISBN registrar.

13. OPT-IN TO APPLE CATALOG: Go to your Dashboard and click on the Channel Manager link where you must manually opt-in to the Smashwords-Apple distribution channel for each book. You will be asked to carefully review and agree to special terms, required by Apple, in order for them to list your book in the iBookstore.

14. WAIT: After your book is accepted to the Premium Catalog, and you’ve assigned your ISBN and have opted in to the Apple channel, then your job is done. Now you wait for Smashwords to distribute your book to Apple. We typically ship abount once per week. After we ship, it will usually appear in the iPad iBookstore within a day or two, although erotica can take longer because it can be subject to manual review at Apple. Check the shipment status in your Channel Manager.  If you notice that ship dates pass you by (even after your book has been approved for the Premium Catalog, and you’ve opted in to the Apple channel and attached an ISBN via the ISBN Manager), then it could indicate your EPUB file is failing to pass the EPUBCHECK validator, as required by Apple.  See Step 11 above.

15. PROMOTE YOUR BOOK: Download the free Smashwords Book Marketing Guide for an extensive list of book marketing ideas, all of which are free to implement. Learn what Smashwords does to market your book, and what you can do for yourself.

16. GET PAID: For all sales at Apple, you will earn 60% of the retail price you set. Smashwords pays quarterly on all monies received by Smashwords on your behalf by the end of each quarter. Keep in mind this means there is a lag time between the time a customer purchases a book at Apple and that money is transfered to Smashwords. To learn more about how we pay you your earnings, and the royalty rates for all of our different sales channels, see this Smashwords Royalty FAQ.

Self-Publishing On The Kindle

self-publishing-on-the-kindleAmazon have taken a different approach to writers uploading their books for sale on the Kindle. Instead of using aggregation companies, they allow Independent Writers to upload their books directly. This gives writers more control over the process, but does mean they don’t have any third party support. The foundation of Amazon’s self-publishing system is their Digital Text Platform. Below is a step-by-step guide to publishing on the Kindle but I strongly recommend that you read the information on the Kindle forums before actaully uploading your book.

1. CREATE AN ACCOUNT: Go to the Digital Text Platform (DTP) and create an account.

2. FILL IN BOOK DETAILS: Once logged into the DTP, click the “add a new item” on top, left-hand side of the page to publish a book. This will open a dashboard, from which you need to do the following:

  • Enter the product details: Add the Title, Language, Categories and Authors. Plus also add ISBN, Description, Publisher, Publication Date, Search Keywords, Edition Number, Series Title, Series Volume and Product Image (cover page) where possible.
  • Confirm the content rights: Assuming you own the rights choose “Worldwide rights – all territories.”
  • Choose format: The Kindle only supports Word (.doc), MobiPocket (.mobi and .prc) and HTML files. Be wary of formatting.
  • Choose price: Enter the price of the book.
  • Publish your book:Hit the “publish” button. It will take Amazon 24 to 72 hours to process.

This post offers the bare bones of self-publishing on the iPad and Kindle. Therefore, I would be very interested in hearing any advice writers who have already used the services can provide.

{ 7 comments }

Twitter Fiction: A Guide

The explosion of Twitter in recent years has lead to a number of writers experimenting with the format to produce varying kinds of fiction, which range from full novels to snippets of stories. One interesting incarnation that was persisted is Twitter Fiction. This post sets out to examine Twitter Fiction, looks at where it can [...]

Read the full post →

A Guide To Writing A Book Pitch For Penguin Books

Book publisher Penguin (UK) have announced that between August and October 2010 they are accepting unsolicited manuscripts from writers. This means that unpublished, un-agented writers have a chance of landing a book deal with a big publisher. In this post I will provide you with the step-by-step guidance and advice you need to prepare your [...]

Read the full post →

Dealing With Rejection And Moving On

Rejection is part of the life of EVERY writer and it often feels as though they are coming up against nothing but locked doors. In this post I look at rejection and show why it is essential to rationalise and react correctly to the rejections that will certainly appear. The very nature of seeking to [...]

Read the full post →

Links to resources for writers #week1

Keywords: A writer’s guide to attracting more traffic to your blog Ten Reasons To Keep Writing Surprising Truths From Richard Nash’s Publishing Talk The Book Shelf Test or How to Research Your Market Part I Publisher Tips: Gylphi Q and A with Faber editor, Sarah Savitt How My Mom Landed on Oprah and Launched a [...]

Read the full post →

Keywords: A writer’s guide to attracting more traffic to your blog

Experts will agree that one of the most effective tactics for driving traffic to your site is to maintain a regular blog. However, it is possible to maximise the traffic your site generates by the careful use of keywords. What are keywords? Keywords are words or phrase that search engines use to navigate the web. [...]

Read the full post →

How To Get Published With A Single Email

There are two sets of rules for getting published – those for unpublished writers and those for writers who already have books in print. One of the big secrets that agents, publishers and published writers don’t want you to know is that you can skip the slush pile and pitch your book with just one [...]

Read the full post →

Editing Your Own Novel: The Importance Of Self Editing

All writers know that if they are to stand any chance of successfully pitching their book to an agent or publisher, their book needs to be perfect (or as close to perfect, as possible). To do this, a writer must learn how to self-assess their own work. This article looks at why self-editing is so [...]

Read the full post →

Who Will Read Your Book?

I recently had a conversation with a non-writing friend regarding my own writing. As the conversation progressed I explained that I wrote children’s history books, aimed mainly at boys, aged 9-12, who were reluctant readers, but could hopefully be inspired to read more. This got me thinking… Just how many writers know their audience this [...]

Read the full post →