Heather Huffman's Blog, page 29

The Changing World of Indie Publishing

I have another guest on my blog today! Author Pandora Poikilos is here to share her views on indie publishing. Her novel has an interesting premise (click on the picture below to learn more) and a beautiful cover. I’m looking forward to reading it!

~Heather

[image error]By Pandora Poikilos

Indie publishing has been in the news quite a bit lately. With authors like John Locke and Amanda Hocking seizing headlines and Amazon charging for the bigger slice of the pie, there have been numerous debates as to how this will play out.

Should indie publishing be dismissed? There is a scene from Charlie Wilson’s War which best describes this. The Americans have powered the Afghanistan people with weapons, they have beat the Russians and Congressman Charlie Wilson (played by Tom Hanks) is the man of the hour. As he celebrates and gloats, Afghan Task Force chief, Gust Avrakotos who assisted him with the cause tells him this story.

“There’s a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse… and everybody in the village says, “how wonderful. The boy got a horse” The Zen master says, “we’ll see.” Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, “How terrible.”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.” Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight… except the boy can’t cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, “How wonderful.” And the Zen master says, “We’ll see.” 

Obviously, indie publishing is no war of any kind. But the game is changing. New players are being added, rules are being changed faster than they are being enforced.

I would say don’t dismiss something when you can’t see the end of it. Yes, some writers are in it for the money and couldn’t give a rat’s ass about language, formatting or appearance. But for some of us, indie publishing isn’t how we earn our living, it’s how we live and guess what, we’re here to stay.

Indie authors will have one consistent thing to deal with in the years to come and this is change, a bit more change and then some more change.

You will have those who have given up because indie publishing failed to make them a few quick bucks and then you will have those who have persevered. Irrelevant of which party you belong to, I doubt the route will get any easier.

But then again, anything worth having isn’t always easy.

To any writer wondering if indie publishing is the way to go, here’s the best advice I can give you from my personal experience – don’t expect overnight success. Rome wasn’t built in a day and people who tell you overnight success is achievable are lying because it just doesn’t exist.

Set your own trail. Be consistent. Keep away from negativity. And then work even harder.

 

Connect with Pandora Poikilos on Twitter & Facebook

Blog http://peacefrompieces.blogspot.com/

Website http://moonstarluxury.com/

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Dividing Amazon into Edited and Un-edited Books

I’m taking a break from my usual Friday’s Mark series this week to give a bit of time to a fellow author so she can offer up her thoughts on how to help readers sift through self-pubbed novels on Amazon. The publishing industry is changing, and there are more avenues to publication than ever before. My own publisher, Booktrope, is pioneering something they call Team Publishing, and idea that recently won them first place at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network’s FirstLook Forum.

I don’t normally talk much about the publishing industry as a whole on my blog, so it’s a bit of a departure from my usual fare. It’s an interesting topic, though, and I’ll be back soon with regularly scheduled programming.

Thanks for popping by. ~ Heather

 

[image error]By Shannon Mayer

I’ve had several guest editors on my blog that have written about the importance of getting your work edited before you self publish. The general consensus is that (and I agree with this) all writers should have their work edited prior to self publishing.

But there is a conundrum when it comes to the market. Readers want books that are inexpensive and often won’t take a chance on a new author if the book is over .99. Readers are afraid to put money out for a book that isn’t put together well. I don’t blame them. I have seen a number of e-books by self published authors that are not only riddled with mistakes, but also look as if the author hasn’t cared to even attempt a proper e-book design.

You know, the book is missing things like chapters, an attempt at formatting, spell check. Basics that should be done no matter what you decide to charge.

So I don’t blame the readers one bit for not wanting to take a chance on an e-book. I get frustrated too.

There are authors who say that they can’t afford editors if they are only going to be putting the book up for .99. Their argument is something along the lines of what do you expect for a .99 book? Again, I can understand that. Let’s say you put $1000 worth of editing into a book (that’s not a lot by the way, that is a mid-low range of cost) and then you put your book up for .99. Under the current royalty rate at Amazon, you need to sell over 2800 books just to break even. That’s a lot of books, most authors won’t sell that in a full year.

But what if there was a different way to go about this? A way to, in a sense, reward authors who’ve taken the time and money to properly edit their books prior to publishing them?

Stay with me here. I know that there are flaws in what I’m about to suggest, but it’s an idea that may prove some merit if you give it a chance. If nothing else, it will start dialogue and through that perhaps ideas for change.

What if when you uploaded your book to Amazon (just for simplicities sake I’m going to use Amazon as my example) there was a section that said “Tag your Editor”. And then there was a list of *(1)*Editors registered with Amazon. You scroll through, find your editor and then tag them.

Editors would of course, send in their names as such, showing their credentials in some way.

In my case that would be Jessica Klassen and Melissa Breau.

Then Amazon sends an email to these to lovely gals asking for confirmation that they did indeed edit my work. They click on the “yes” button, and now my book has confirmation of being edited.

What would this accomplish you ask? Two things.

1.It would show readers that the book was, at the very least, edited giving them a higher confidence in it.

2.It would allow the author to charge a higher price for their book if they chose to.

You see, my idea is that if you aren’t an edited author, you can still publish your book, but you can’t charge more than .99 for it. Quality and cost can now intersect on Amazon.

In fact, to take this a step further, why not have Amazon break the Indie Authors into two sections? Edited and un-edited. That way the reader can decide where they want to spend their money and their time, with authors who *(2)* can’t/won’t/don’t edit or they can spend their money on authors who think enough of themselves and their work to put in a little time and effort.

If you have editors you could still choose to do a discount of .99 for your book, but again, readers would be able to see that you have CONFIRMATION of editing have been done.

Like I mentioned, there are flaws to my plan, but they could be worked out. This would give readers some idea of the quality of book they were purchasing and allow them to feel more at ease with a slightly higher price for an indie author’s book, which would in turn help the author make a living.

After what I’ve read in indie books, I can tell you that while there are a large number of authors who would never publish their book without editing, there are also a large number of authors who don’t, for a variety of reasons even make an attempt at having their work edited. The unfortunate part of this is that the people who need to get editing done are rarely the ones researching and finding out what the industry standard is, because if they were, there would be no need for this discussion.

*(1)*The editors would have to somehow prove that they were indeed legit before being able to get on the list and it could be broken down into country too. Perhaps they would have to supply Amazon with either a reg. Number from an editors association or proof of employment with a publisher or perhaps just website. I don’t know the answer to this one, it’s one of the flaws in my system that could easily be taken advantage of.

*(2)*There are a LOT of editors out there who are reasonable, I don’t think it’s a matter of can you afford to edit, but can you afford not to. Save your pennies, you can hire an editor, even if it’s for a single pass through the manuscript, it’s worth it.

 

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Three Things

This past week has been a doozy – and I’ve got about 10 more days until I have a hope of things letting up. I was tempted to simply skip today’s blog post in the name of catching up, but then I decided it would be more fun to write a quick little post with three things you might not know about me.

1) I have two tattoos: a heart on my upper arm/shoulder and a fish on the side of my calf. The heart is because I got tired of apologizing for wearing my heart on my sleeve and the fish is because Christ told his disciples “I will make you fishers of men.”

2) If I could be anything besides a writer, I would be a singer. I love to sing and do so a lot. My sisters teased me about my singing so much when I was younger that I actually became pretty terrified to sing in front of others. Until fairly recently, I only sang for my boys and in the car. Then about 6 years ago I joined a choir for a year or two – even though it scared me to the point of almost hyperventilating – to force myself to get over my phobia. It worked, and now you can’t shut me up. (I totally rock “I Will Survive.”)

3) I’m a complete fiber dork. In researching alpacas before making my first purchase, I learned everything I could about fiber, spinning, dying, blending… you name it. I can spin with a drop spindle but don’t have the patience to make enough yarn to do me much good. I also learned what to do with the yarn once it’s made. (Or, more accurately, once I’ve purchased it from someone with more patience than me.) While I’ve never mastered knitting, I love to crochet and fingerweave. In fact, from about September through February, you’ll seldom catch me without a project in my purse because I hate to sit still, and this gives me something to do with my hands. (Which also helps me activate my mental filter. If I want to say something and know I shouldn’t, my fingerweaving or crocheting gets a little more intense.) I switch to embroidery in the spring and summer because it’s too hot for yarn work.

I’d post a picture of one of my recent fingerweaving projects since most people don’t know what that is, but all of my scarves and stuff are packed up as I’m in the middle of moving my family to our dream homestead! So, I’m heading back to packing and editing like a madwoman. I hope you all have a lovely week!

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Suddenly a Spy & More

[image error]Sometimes, I feel like Suddenly a Spy is it’s own little duck. Unlike the other books, I don’t remember the dream that sparked it. I don’t really remember where it came from, actually! I do remember pitching it to the agent who said my other work wasn’t marketable.

She liked the pitch and wanted to read more, so I worked frantically to finish the book before she forgot my name. When I finally submitted the book, she didn’t care for the writing. Sigh – back to the drawing board.

I rewrote the beginning and tinkered with the novel as a whole until I was happy with the finished product. I like the way Veronica and Rick bicker, and I like the change we see in Veronica over the course of the novel. Still, when the novel left off, even I had to wonder what was next for the two. They had a lot of baggage to overcome.

We’ll get to see more of Veronica and Rick’s journey together in Devil in Disguise – there particular skill set proves invaluable for recovering Rachel’s little sister from the claws of human traffickers.

Stay tuned for more on Devil in Disguise… maybe we’ll even get a peek at the cover soon!

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Neena’s Mark

[image error]I’m always a little afraid to go back and re-read books once they’re out there because I’m afraid I’ll suddenly hate it. Then I’ll be horrified it’s out there for the whole world to see.

I just finished re-reading Jailbird, and I have to admit, Neena Allen is still one of my favorite characters. She is the epitome of not letting life get you down. I like her story; it makes me smile. That’s an odd thing to say about someone who has such a rough life, I know. But that’s what I like about her – she never lets it stop her.

That’s the mark she leaves on the world. She’s left a mark on my world, if nothing else. Every dandelion season, I think of Neena and smile. Sometimes, when life seems especially hard, it helps to think of her strength. I want to be just like her when I grow up.

So it was really important to me that as we revamped covers, Jailbird’s still captured the feel of the book. I had fun making the original cover, but there were a few things about it that never sat well with me. (The lack of contrast in the picture and how difficult it is to read the title, to mention a couple.)

Just yesterday, we got the final approval on the new cover, and I love it! I hope you do, too. (If not, be gentle!)

Why am I re-reading Jailbird, you ask?

Because I want to be sure I don’t contradict myself in my new book, Devil in Disguise! I’m stupidly excited about its fast approach. Keep an eye on my blog next week for a sneak peek!

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The Wine List

[image error]I’ve always thought Gerard Butler seemed like a cool guy. I’d be lying if I said I never drooled even a little over him, but in truth, he seemed like the kind of person who’d be fun to hang out with. I’m not one to follow celebrity gossip, but the occasional rumor makes it way even to me. Though it seems the ickiest of them aren’t true, it also seems he’s rather lost at the moment. There’s lots of partying and not much substance, which makes me think – at very least – we’d run out of things to talk about pretty quickly.

I’m sure he’s not losing any sleep over my opinion of him, and I’m not losing sleep over it, either, but still – I was a little disappointed.

That got me thinking about some of the other celebrities I’ve always kind of liked, though. I’m not talking about “the freebies list” a-la Friends-style, but the people who just seem really cool – the ones I’d love to chat with over a glass of wine. These are the ones I could see myself being friends with. (You know, if I were rich and famous or if they weren’t.)

1) Jon Stewart – the man can make me laugh so hard I snort. Embarrassing, but true. He’s wickedly intelligent, and I love that little grin he gets when he’s really amused himself. Underneath the sharp wit, I believe he’s is a genuinely good person. I think a conversation with him would be incredibly fun. Or terrifying.

2) Natalie Portman – the fact that she’s beautiful aside, she is a strong, intelligent woman and a brilliant actress. She’s Harvard educated and speaks a slew of languages. She’s an activist for many of the causes I believe in, using her fame and intelligence to make a difference in the world. I also love that she doesn’t let any of the above go to her head; she’s still funny and warm.

3) Josh Turner – yes, he’s a cutie, but that’s not why he’s on my list. First, I love his voice and many of his songs. I hear the opening strains of “Would You Go with Me,” and I smile. My shoulders kind of bop along, even if I’m somewhere where I shouldn’t be bopping along to this happy little song. I also love that he’s a Christian and those values come through in his songs and the way he lives his life. I love that many of his songs sound like he’s romancing his wife. It seems to me like he loves his wife and kids, and I can definitely respect that in a man.

4) Ashley Judd – along with beauty, brains and acting ability, she’s a woman who acts on her beliefs. Just yesterday one of my pastors said something that resonated with me, and it comes to mind now, “A heart to act without movement and motion accomplishes nothing.” It seems to me that Ashley Judd gets this concept; she is in constant motion fighting for justice in arenas all over the globe.

5) Bruce Springsteen – there is something terribly endearing about his smile and mannerisms, and something in many of his songs strikes a chord in me. “Janey Don’t You Lose Heart” is my song, and I could listen to it for hours on a continual loop. No really. I have. In addition to being a truly brilliant musician, he just seems like good people. He’s compassionate. I might not agree with every word that comes out of his mouth, but I think his heart is always in the right place. A friend of mine once saw Bruce on the street and asked him if they could take a picture together. Not only did he agree, he showed her how to work her camera and laughed and smiled the whole time. There was no way he could have known her story or how precious those few moments were to her. The man has been famous for decades, but he still hasn’t lost patience with fans asking for a picture. That’s good people.

Those are my five – who are yours? Who would you love to have a chat with if you could?

 

 

 

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Friday’s Mark: Using Art for Good

[image error]My Friday’s Mark guest this morning is the graphic designer for 61 Strong. She volunteers her services for the group as her way to fight human trafficking and social injustice. I will never forget the look on the group members’ faces when they learned they had a real graphic designer on the team, or when they saw their own logo for the first time. It encouraged them to keep fighting. It made them feel like they were being taken seriously and making a difference. I’m not sure if Krystahl, the young woman who so graciously donates her time, ever realized how important her contribution was to those children and young adults. So I asked her to write a short post about why she chose to spend hours designing a logo and shirts for a group of kids determined to change the world. It’s a perfect example of everyone doing what they do best to make the world a better place. ~Heather

Krystahl’s Story

I originally went to college to be a nurse and then from there train to become a physician assistant.  As a freshman, I did what every sure and wise freshman does and I changed my major.  Only half a semester into college, I optimistically began pursuing a degree in graphic design, the “practical, lucrative art major.”  I was always one of the best artists in a graduating class of a whopping forty-seven students, so why wouldn’t I choose to create art as a living?  I was ready to go, ready to sink my teeth into the industry of high fashion advertisements and Fortune 500 Company branding.

It all seemed so exciting, glamorous, and professional.  “Yes, I was a feature designer in the latest PRINT magazine,” I would dream of confessing at my high school reunion.  I wanted to turn the design world upside down, the same way David Carson did in the 90’s.  I was going to go places and reinvent magazines and companies along the way.  Fame and fortune while doing what I loved seemed like the top of the mountain to me.  My parents would be so proud of me. What else is there?

The beginning of my last year in college, I began to reap what my selfishness had sown.  Jesus went to bat with the Holy Spirit, and like a pitcher that either didn’t reach for the ball or get out of the way in time, I was leveled.  My motives lay bare in my field of dreams.  But in the middle my pain, I found joy as Jesus saved me from myself and the broken promises of this world.  The ones that said, “Do whatever makes you happy… do whatever feels right… success is the key to happiness.”  They were lies!

And all of a sudden I realized that I didn’t want to promote companies and fashion industries thriving on the greed of consumerism, selling stuff to people who already have too much stuff, a.k.a. me.  I wanted to make a difference with my graphic design.  God is still opening my eyes and changing my heart and now my convictions for giving a voice to the exploited and aid to the impoverished determine my clientele.

That’s why I can only say I have only been paid for one logo and a month standing in for designer at a large church.  Not that I am against getting compensated, but I am also okay with my compensation being souls for Jesus. I am honored and humbled to be a part of establishing God’s kingdom through design.

I love working with ministries that love people through the Holy Spirit and human trafficking abolition is a movement so near to my heart.  I am privileged to have the opportunity to work with 61 Strong.  I know He will use these amazing young people and so many others like them “to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives.”  I pray you allow Jesus Christ to use you to bring hope to the hurting.

I think Heidi Baker explains the simplicity of the Great Commission best, “Just look for the ONE, just stop for the ONE.”

 

Check out Krystahl’s portfolio at http://krystahlgoodale.carbonmade.com/!

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Visiting Stitch Read Cook

Many thanks to Stitch Read Cook for having me as a guest today to talk about what a typical day in my life looks like. You should stop by – it’s a thrill a minute. Okay, it’s probably not really, but you should still stop by; it’s a great blog!

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Visiting My Thirty Spot

Many thanks to My Thirty Spot for having me as a guest today for the Love for 30 Project. Stop by when you have a moment to check out my post on a Decade of Dreams and the rest of the blog!

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Friday’s Mark: The Covering House

This week, I’ve asked The Covering House in St. Louis to be my Friday’s Mark guest. This is an amazing organization standing in the gap for one of the greatest needs in the fight against human trafficking. My favorite thing about them? They were founded by a woman no different than you or me. When she heard about human trafficking, she knew she had to join the fight, so she found out what the greatest need was and set about filling it.

Right now, The Covering House is very close to being about to open their doors this year. They need our help to do it. Please take the time to read their post. Then jump in an create a fundraising team to help out. If that’s not your style, consider donating to my fundraising team for the Covering House capital campaign. ~Heather

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The Covering House needs your help to open a home in St. Louis for girls who have been rescued from sexual exploitation or sex trafficking. 

Sadly, the Covering House has received enough calls to help young girls in St. Louis over the past year that we could have filled our home more than once.  However, until our doors are open, these young girls have nowhere to go in St. Louis to receive the specific healing they need.

The Covering House became incorporated in the state of Missouri in November of 2009 and received its 501(c)3 status in August of 2010.  Since that time a network of volunteers, interns, and professionals have offered their time and services.  The Covering House brings awareness about the issues of domestic sex trafficking of children through multiple media outlets and through an average of six speaking engagements each month to diverse groups in the area.  A Holistic Safety Program has been developed to be piloted at The Covering House by Katie Rhoades MSW, a recent graduate of Washington University.  Currently, no comprehensive program is available in the United States that meets the unique needs of this population, putting us at the forefront of providing specific care.

We are now at the critical stage where startup funding is needed to open our doors in St. Louis.  A home has been identified and we have reached a rent-to-own agreement with the seller.  We are kicking off our Covering Campaign in April to help raise the much needed money to purchase the home and provide budgetary needs for operation.

The Covering Campaign 2012 is an online Fundraising Campaign designed to achieve 3 Financial Milestones.  By achieving all 3 milestones, not only can The Covering House purchase our home, but will be sustained through six months of operating costs.  What we need is 212 teams willing to find individuals who can give $20.12.  Think about it, to us $20 is a new haircut, to her it’s a new life.

To join the campaign, go to http://www.firstgiving.com/thecoveringhouse/the-covering-campaign-2012-covering-st-louis. Follow the instructions on how to create your Personal Online Fundraising page or how to join a team.

To learn more about this campaign, visit our new website at www.thecoveringhouse.org, and follow our progress on Facebook and Twitter.

On behalf of all the girls who feel no hope, we thank you for making a difference.

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