Stacey Voss's Blog, page 2

A New Way to Publish eBooks

From Digital Book World:

Digital book publishing platform Pronoun announced today that its service is now open to all authors.

Since Pronoun opened its waitlist three months ago, 8,000 authors have signed up for early access, creating more than 1,000 books on the platform. In December 2015 alone, Pronoun authors published 140 books across all major digital retailers, including Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble.

“We believe our early success reflects the publishing market’s need for a smarter and more efficient model that puts authors first,” said CEO Josh Brody. “While our platform is still in its early stages, we’re seeing so much demand that we’ve decided to give every author access to Pronoun’s ebook creation, distribution, analytics, and marketing tools.”

 

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I’m making worlds here!

Tuesday’s Teaser

“I know it’s not fair,” he said softly, “It’s not what I want. But you have to understand that they will kill you if they find you. I don’t want to lose you.”

 

Sarah sighed. She knew that she was in a dangerous situation. She knew that she needed to be away, not only for her own safety, but for Hillard and Christine as well. That didn’t mean she had to like it. She buried her face into Hillard’s shoulder. He hugged her tightly and they just stood there for a few minutes. Finally, he let her go and stepped back.

Who will kill Sarah?  Why? Put your thoughts in the comments. 

 

 

 

Indie Versus Traditional Publishing

I’m someone who has been on both sides of the fence in publishing. I started out as an Indie Author in 2009 after a student in Germany recommended that I try out the newly evolving Indie Publishing avenue. I trusted his opinions, as he was then the CFO of the largest bookstore chain in German-speaking Europe, Thalia. He and I had spent countless hours talking about books, book distribution, book marketing and publishing and he had expanded my already established love of books.

I self-published Thunder and Blood in April of 2009 and it was moderately successful. I had intended to publish a sequel in 2010, but became absorbed in family life and my son was born in May of that year.

In 2011, I met a fascinating man named Michael Antcliffe who had written a series of articles about his experiences as he faced death from Malignant Melanoma. I ended up helping him to compile his articles into a book that he used to raise money to help others walking the final path with cancer. I formed Split Tree Publishing with a few close friends after Michael passed away in August 2012.

Split Tree Publishing was in operation for just over two years. During that time, we published a total of eight books. During that time, I began to form a much greater understanding of why the Indie Publishing movement has grown so quickly.

Indie Publishing has never been easier and has been shedding its veil of stigma quickly. Print on Demand services have removed the financial obstacle of printing in large quantities and the marketplace has opened up as a result. POD began the movement that progressed into introduced easy eBook publishing for the individual. While this opened up opportunities for many authors, it has also had its own growing pains.

It became almost too easy for people to publish their work. Where traditional publishers once ensured that books were edited and produced with quality, these checks and balances went by the wayside and the readers suffered because of it. Readers became discouraged by seriously lackluster cover design and began to shun Indie Authors because of the prevalence of unedited work. This lead to massive fluctuation in eBook pricing and, when combined with the increased competition that emerged as the obstacles to publishing lowered, traditional publishers slid quickly into a fight to keep up with the changing technology while still making a profit.

I believe that we are finally at a point where both aspects of publishing are beginning to find a balance. Traditional publishing has its place, especially with authors who lack the drive or knowledge to publish independently, and will continue to be a lure with the prestige that is awarded to an author who has made it through the hurdles associated with going the traditional route.

Indie publishing is also a very valid route. It allows motivated authors to retain control over both the creative process and financial aspects that go into publishing. Where there are gaps in knowledge or skill, services have arisen that can fill those gaps.

But this is a cautionary tale; Indie Authors must ensure that they adhere to a high level of quality from the publication of their very first book. Readers are fickle and don’t look at a publisher’s logo when they pick up a book. If they find something lacking in a book, the author is the brand that they look to, and they have many others to compensate for the deficiency. Once an author is identified as producing shoddy work, that reputation spreads as quickly as the word of a potential bestseller. The number one resource to find new books to read is recommendations, or warnings, from other readers, and this is one idea that traditional publishers have grasped far more quickly than indie publishers.

I’m hopping back into the Indie ring and I have friends who are crossover authors–those who have some indie-published and some traditionally published works.

I look forward to seeing what the future holds for those of us compelled to create worlds and pour our souls onto paper (or screen). I’m happy you’re joining me in the adventure.

Tonight I’m going to be part of a workshop that will focus on Indie Publishing. If you’re in the Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada region feel free to pop by the Waverly Library tonight at 7:00pm.  I’ll be there with my crossover friend H. Leighton Dickson.

 

 

Did I flop again?

Here we are, week one of Stacey trying to figure out who the heck she is. I’ve tried to go back to the Madness and Blood manuscript countless times over the past five years.

Did I fail this time too?

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Well, the fact that I’m actually writing a summary and not just avoiding the world should be a good clue. I’ll tell you a secret . . . Monday night I felt like a person again. I realized that my identity had been drifting away like the fog in Thunder and Blood over the last year. It’s gotten even worse over the last few months as my hands have pretty much shut me down functionally.

I went from being an over-busy publisher to a stay at home mom in the blink of an eye. It’s can be a big job, but my kids are in school or grown. I’ve just been trying to manage the house.

I’ve had problems with pain in my hands since my early 20s. I’d always know if I’d overdone it because they’d yell at me. This summer, though, they never really got back to being quiet. Things around the house were getting more and more difficult. My awesome doctor ran a bunch of tests and sent me for a few referrals and we discovered that I had osteoarthritis in the end joints of my fingers and in both my big and baby toes. The only issue with that diagnosis was that I didn’t have pain in that part of my fingers. I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel and was so excited that the surgery might free me from hand problems.

The tingling is gone. The pain is worse and has been joined by its friend, Swelling. Turns out I likely have another kind of arthritis in my hands (either rheumatoid or psoriatic) which is autoimmune and the immune system response to my surgery caused a flare up.

I spent a good 2 to 3 months sitting around only reading ebooks and managing to feed myself. There’s lots of things I couldn’t do but I won’t bore you with the list.

Essentially, my self-identity as a functional human being was gone.

So, I’ve been struggling.  Maybe all of this was what I needed to get moving again. All I know is this– I finally feel like I’m a human being with a purpose. And it’s not just a purpose–it’s a purpose for me. I have my own identity back. I’m not just a mom (although I’m still rocking motherhood as the best job ever), and I’m not just someone who helps other writers get their books out to the world. I’ll never stop helping writers but I never want to do it full time again.

I am Stacey Voss, author. It’s what I wanted to be since I was 5 years old.

I have to really thank the people who came up to me at the December Dreams show last month to talk to me about how much they enjoyed Thunder and Blood. You reminded me how it felt to have my own work thrust out into the world again. you reminded me that, although not everyone will love what I write, some people love it. And that’s the second best feeling in the world … maybe 3rd. First of course is when my kids give me humongous kid hugs and the second is when my husband looks at me with that… look that tells me he loves me.

So yes, Madness and Blood is well on its way to completion. And I can’t wait to see my name on the cover.

What’s in store for publishing in 2016?

From BookBusinessmag:

In December, Book Business, sent out its annual Trendspotting Survey asking leaders in the book industry to share what technology they plan to invest in and which products and platforms they anticipate will drive revenue growth for their organizations in 2016. 139 executives responded to the survey, hailing from the trade, education, STM, university press, professional, and religious publishing segments.

Here are some of the insights we gleaned from this year’s survey.

Digital printing will catch fire in 2016. Although we’ve been covering the growing opportunities around digital printing technology for the past couple years through the Digital Book Printing Conference, it seems 2016 will be the year more publishers buy in (literally). 36.7% of survey respondents indicated that they plan to spend on digital printing or print-on-demand services in 2016, topping all other technologies and services. Last year, ebook conversion took the top spot.


Interest in email marketing has grown dramatically. Second only to digital printing, 27.9% of respondents intend to invest in email marketing technology in 2016. This is a huge leap from last year’s survey when it was near the bottom of publishers’ technology priorities. The increased interest in email marketing aligns with trade publishers’ growing efforts to connect directly with their readers.

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I need some invisible ink revealer!

Tuesday Teaser

So, from now until Madness and Blood is actually released, I’m going to post one paragraph from the book (not in it’s final, edited form) per week to get you guys thinking about what could be happening.

When they arrived at the guardhouse, they found Lee sitting at a table, looking through his microscope at a sample–a half-vial of blood sitting beside him in a stand. He was so busy inspecting his sample, he didn’t even notice that he had company until Thomas cleared his throat noisily. Then he started in his chair and looked up in surprise.

 

“Oh, hello there. I didn’t hear you come in. I was just looking at Brynn’s blood sample. It’s so strange. I have it set at the highest magnification and can’t see a single difference between vampire blood and human blood, let alone between human, vampire and Brynn’s blood. You would think there would be something to see.”

So, aside from the atrocious grammar and unfinished nature, let me know what you think. What could Lee be looking for?  Who is he, anyway?  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Tackling the monster!

Picking up the Madness and Blood manuscript again has been a very intriguing process. I last worked solidly on it in 2012 and I’ve been really afraid of looking at the potential mess I’ve promised to turn into a book by this spring.

I’m committed to the process, though. After letting my fans and readers (I know there’s a couple out there) linger, wondering what the heck the role the little caged girl would play in the new novel, I straightened my spine and got to it.

I was amazed that I had over 53,000 words already written and the rest plotted out. Madness and Blood is a bit more complex than Thunder and Blood was, but I’m actually proud of what the first draft looks like. I only have seven chapters left to write.

I’ve set my goal to finish writing by the end of the first week in February, and I should be able to accomplish that easily. I can write one chapter a day with no problem (she says, inwardly thinking of the mountain of words to make up those chapters). I’ll have twelve days to write seven chapters.

Current progress:

25/32 Chapters complete

53,962 words/70,000 approx.

Let’s do this! Tomorrow I’ll toss a teaser scene on here for you to whet your M&B appetite on.

Sometimes writing is hard