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EXTRA ETHER: A Good Day for the (R)evolution

I’ve hugged my technologist extremely closely and well.

Kate Pullinger

“Digital fiction” author Kate Pullinger of London, near the end of the day, embraced the subtle, central heart of Tuesday’s inaugural Author (R)evolution Day program at the O’Reilly Tools of Change Conference (TOC) installed this week at the Marriott on Broadway.

Note: There is a live video stream today, Wednesday, and tomorrow from the conference, during the plenary-session keynote addresses, in case you’d like to look in.

In almost every element of the contemporary writer’s condition, there are options, so many options, too many options. But tech’s tough-lovely drive is behind them. This choice-choked scenario that energizes some writers but paralyzes many more is derived from the digital dynamic sweeping the creative core of an exhausted industry.

The Author (R)evolution Day room was packed at many points during the day, attendees of the day’s adjacent  TOC workshops dropping by to see some of the program.

It’s apt, then, that tech- TOC has been the producing body to step up to a challenge I issued on the Ether last year. I wanted to see the authors in, basically—I wanted one or more of our major-conference producing bodies to provide an industry-class event in which the creative corps (and core) of this business could hear from top-level practitioners, observers, analysts, with a view to pounding out a serious way forward.

I saw publishers, CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, COOs mixing with innovators, startup chieftains, researchers, analysts…and no authors, no one who creates the fundamental element of publishing for all the rest, the stories.

After Tuesday’s event, I want to say thank you to Joe Wikert, Kat Meyer, their co-chair Kristen McLean — and to Tim O’Reilly, himself, who came to “#ARDay,” sat with us, watched and listened. O’Reilly is an organization that has stopped to turn and look at a pressing issue so richly associated with the upheaval and promise of a new publishing landscape. They’ve not only looked at it, but they’ve addressed it with a first outing that was, as promised, no tips-’n'-tricks writers’ confab of the usual needlepoint-lessons variety.

Here are several important ways in which Author (R)evolution Day has arrived as an authors’ conference for entrepreneurial creative professionals:

It leverages the new centricity of authorial energy in the business. Joe Wikert, in his opening remarks Tuesday: “The pendulum of power over the years has shifted to authors.”
“Entrepreneurial” is the key, not self- or traditional publishing. The program accommodates the breadth of response we now must welcome: Kristen McLean made the point during the  morning session that Author (R)evolution Day (ARD) is agnostic on the question of self-publishing vs. traditional for authors. She noted recent statistics that indicate potential success for what we’ve called “hybrids” for some time now, writers who both self- and traditionally publish. And she anchored the ARD initiative firmly in the realm of what’s “entrepreneurial.” ARD is developed to address entrepreneurial authors and their needs.
Amazon is in the room. I was particularly glad to see Libby Johnson McKee, Amazon’s North American Director for Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and CreateSpace. I’ve seen McKee in writer’s conference settings before. (Seattle’s leadership is engaged in the writing community, something I can’t honestly say about many other major publishers’ executives. Might be something to learn there.) We’ve already seen conferences this year with no Amazon presence. Nothing could be a bigger mistake. The largest player needs to be among us, know us, and let us know it. And in the warm, gracious humor of someone like McKee, a formidable edifice starts to look human in a hurry.

Meyer asked us at day’s end to help pinpoint areas in which we’d learned things. There were easily identifiable themes resonating all day in various sessions.

Conversation and engagement, reader-to-writer and writer-to-reader
Advocacy
Community
Strategy
Discoverability
Distribution
Self-direction

Authors, including Pullinger, Cory Doctorow, Mark Jeffrey, Scott Andrew James, and Amanda Havard of Immersedition, were on hand, as were writing counselors and program leaders including Eve Bridburg of Grub Street, who outlined the “logic model” she’s using with career-building authors in Boston.

Literary agent Jason Allen Ashlock—whose Movable Type Management has created the new Rogue Reader author collective—told the room with a wry smile that an author working alone in the business today may not be adept at what’s needed, “no matter how many times you’ve read Guy Kawasaki’s book.”  The agent as a rapidly evolving “radical advocate,” he said, is the only such support equipped to stay with authors for the long term of the changes ahead.

For the first time in my conference-coverage experience, a session on metadata for authors was included, with one of the country’s leaders in the field of identifiers, Laura Dawson of Bowker. One study, she said, has shown that simply adding a book image could increase reader interest in a book by more than 260 percent. The importance of good data, and of monitoring your data, she explained, cannot be overstated.

“Without this information, you’re leaving readers with a lot of questions,” Dawson said. “Or no questions, which is worse.”

Note: Bowker has announced a new partnership with with New York’s Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL) to form the new Bowker eBook Conversion Service for authors. I have a story for it at Publishing Perspectives, Bowker Intro’s 1-Stop ISBN Ebook Conversion Service.

From marketing and discovery discussions with Author Day co-sponsor (thank you) Publishers Weekly’s Cevin Bryarman and Kobo’s Mark Lefevbre to community and audience-creation debate with Wattpad’s Allen Lau and distribution points from Net Minds’ Tim Sanders, the tone and pitch of the day was rooted in responsibility—the author’s responsibility to educate him- and herself, to learn to flex long-unused business muscles by understanding the business and tackling deficiencies.

| | |

Last year, I left Digital Book World (DBW) and TOC frustrated because authors were all but invisible in these great annual high-end state-of-publishing productions. It felt scandalous to me that as a journalist I could hear from publishing executives, analysts, commentators speaking to each other…as if the authors weren’t on the need-to-know list about a market smoky with confusion and wholly dependent on the creative essential produced by the absent authors.

This year, as TOC “proper” goes forward Wednesday and Thursday, the picture has changed, thanks to O’Reilly Media’s first-class response to that appeal, complete with a daylong free video stream of the events provided for authors who couldn’t be with us.

Thanks to TOC’s Shirley Bailes, I can tell you that the presentation slides made available by ARD speakers are being posted on this page, and many are available now, including those I put together for my onstage interview with Bridburg.

You see what I mean about TOC being a class act.

The bar hasn’t been raised, it’s been set, and for the first time. TOC’s program is singular in its scope and fully up to the crisp standard of the production capability we know as its trademark in international conference events in publishing.

This Author (R)evolution was a good Day for writers. I look forward to many more.

 

Images: Porter Anderson

The post EXTRA ETHER: A Good Day for the (R)evolution appeared first on Jane Friedman.

EXTRA ETHER: A Good Day at TOC for Authors

I’ve hugged my technologist extremely closely and well.

“Digital fiction” author Kate Pullinger of London, near the end of the day, embraced the subtle, central heart of Tuesday’s inaugural Author (R)evolution Day program at the O’Reilly Tools of Change Conference (TOC) installed this week at the Marriott on Broadway.

In almost every element of the contemporary writer’s condition, there are options, so many options, too many options. But tech’s tough-lovely drive is behind them. This choice-choked scenario that energizes some writers but paralyzes many more are derived from the digital dynamic sweeping the creative core of an exhausted industry.

It’s apt, then, that the tech-seated TOC has been the producing body to step up to a challenge I issued on the Ether last year. I wanted to see the authors in, basically—I wanted one or more of our major-conference producing bodies to provide an industry-class event in which the creative corps (and core) of this business could hear from top-level practitioners, observers, analysts, with a view to pounding out a serious way forward.

I saw publishers, CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, COOs mixing with innovators, startup chieftains, researchers, analysts…and no authors, no one who creates the fundamental element of publishing for all the rest, the stories.

After Tuesday’s event, I want more than ever to say again thank you to Joe Wikert, Kat Meyer, their co-chair Kristen McLean — and to Tim O’Reilly, himself, who came to “#ARDay,” sat with us, watched and listened. This is an organization that has stopped to turn and look at a pressing issue so richly associated with the upheaval and promise of a new publishing landscape. They’ve not only looked at it, but they’ve addressed it with a first outing that was, as promised, no tips-’n'-tricks writers’ confab of the usual needlepoint-lessons variety.

Here are several important ways i which Author (R)evolution Day has arrived as an authors’ conference for entrepreneurial creative professionals:

It leverages the new centricity of authorial energy in the business. Joe Wikert, in his opening remarks Tuesday: “The pendulum of power over the years has shifted to authors.”
“Entrepreneurial” is the key, not self- or traditional publishing. The program accommodates the breadth of response we now must welcome: Kristen McLean made the point during the  morning session that Author (R)evolution Day (ARD) is agnostic on the question of self-publishing vs. traditional for authors. She noted recent statistics that indicate potential success for what we’ve called “hybrids” for some time now, writers who both self- and traditionally publish. And she anchored the ARD initiative firmly in the realm of what’s “entrepreneurial.” ARD is developed to address entrepreneurial authors and their needs.
Amazon is in the room. I was particularly glad to see Libby Johnson McKee, Amazon’s North American Director for Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and CreateSpace. I’ve seen McKee in writer’s conference settings before. (Seattle’s leadership is engaged in the writing community, something I can’t honestly say about many other major publishers’ executives. Might be something to learn there.) We’ve already seen conferences this year with no Amazon presence. Nothing could be a bigger mistake. The largest player needs to be among us, know us, and let us know it. And in the warm, gracious humor of someone like McKee, a formidable edifice sure starts to look human in a hurry.

Meyer asked us at day’s end to help pinpoint areas in which we’d learned things. There were easily identifiable themes resonating all day in various sessions.

Conversation and engagement, reader-to-writer and writer-to-reader
Advocacy
Community
Strategy
Discoverability
Distribution
Self-direction

Authors, including Pullinger, Cory Doctorow, Mark Jeffrey, Scott Andrew James, and Amanda Havard, were on hand, as were writing counselors and program leaders including Eve Bridburg of Grub Street, who outlined the “logic model” she’s using with career-building authors in Boston.

Literary agent Jason Allen Ashlock—whose Movable Type Management has created the new Rogue Reader author collective—told the room with a wry smile that an author working alone in the business today may not be adept at what’s needed, “no matter how many times you’ve read Guy Kawasaki’s book.”  The agent as a rapidly evolving “radical advocate,” he said, is the only such support equipped to stay with authors for the long term of the changes ahead.

For the first time in my conference-coverage experience, a session on metadata for authors was included, with one of the country’s leaders in the field of identifiers, Laura Dawson of Bowker. One study, she said, has shown that simply adding a book image could increase reader interest in a book by more than 260 percent. The importance of good data, and of monitoring your data, she explained, cannot be overstated.

“Without this information, you’re leaving readers with a lot of questions,” Dawson said. “Or no questions, which is worse.”

From marketing and discovery discussions with sponsor Publishers Weekly’s Cevin Bryarman and Kobo’s Mark Lefevbre to community and audience-creation debate with Wattpad’s Allen Lau and distribution points from Net Minds’ Tim Sanders, the tone and pitch of the day was rooted in responsibility—the author’s responsibility to educate him- and herself, to learn to flex long-unused business muscles by understanding the business and tackling deficiencies.

| | |

Last year, I left Digital Book World (DBW) and TOC frustrated because authors were all but invisible in these great annual high-end state-of-publishing productions. It felt scandalous to me that as a journalist I could hear from publishing executives, analysts, commentators speaking to each other…as if the authors weren’t on the need-to-know list about a market smoky with confusion and wholly dependent on the creative essential produced by the absent authors.

This year, as TOC “proper” goes forward Wednesday and Thursday, the picture has changed, thanks to O’Reilly Media’s first-class response to that appeal, complete with a daylong free video stream of the events provided for authors who couldn’t be with us.

Thanks to Shirley Bailes, I can tell you that the presentation slides made available by ARD speakers are being posted on this page, and many are available now, including those I put together for my onstage interview with Bridburg.

You see what I mean about TOC being a class act.

The bar hasn’t been raised, it’s been set, and for the first time. TOC’s program is singular in its scope and fully up to the crisp standard of the production capability we know as its trademark in international conference events in publishing.

This Author (R)evolution was a good Day for writers. I look forward to many more.

 

Images: Porter Anderson

The post EXTRA ETHER: A Good Day at TOC for Authors appeared first on Jane Friedman.

Start Small: Moving From Notebook to Story

In the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, Susan Jackson Rogers has written a brief essay on the writing life: “Closing the Gap: Moving from Notebook to Story.” She discusses how stories get their beginnings and gain traction:

Each time, I have to remember: Start small. Why doesn’t “starting small” feel like real writing? Really, there isn’t any other way to start. … It’s embarrassing to admit how long it’s taken me to realize that the whole trick is this: close the gap between notes and draft. At the beginning of a writing session, if I don’t know where to start, I go to the notes, and transfer the useful ones to the proper place in the draft I’m working on. …  I used to think, “but this isn’t real writing” (by which I meant that euphoric seven-longhand-pages-in-one-sitting kind of writing). Now I wonder what that could possibly mean. I am writing. That’s as real as writing gets.

Read the entire essay over at Glimmer Train.

Also in the latest Glimmer Train bulletin:

Acting on Faith by Aria Beth Sloss
Your Sanctuary by Steve Adams
Apocalypse Not by Christopher Marnach

The post Start Small: Moving From Notebook to Story appeared first on Jane Friedman.

Best Business Advice for Writers: January 2013

Best Business Advice for Writers is a monthly link round-up where I share the best online articles focused on the business of writing and publishing. Share any best reads you’ve found lately in the comments.

The State of a Genre Title, 2013 by John Scalzi (@scalzi)

A very successful novelist dishes on the sales of his latest novel according to format. I always love graphs, and he offers an insightful one. He writes:

My sales profile here is nicely diversified, but it’s also clear that the largest chunk of my sales are in eBook. I attribute this primarily to two factors: One, my personal presence and history online, which presents me as an “online native,” with a core fanbase of similarly tech-savvy readers; Two, science fiction as a genre tends to have a tech-friendly readership, which is likely to have adopted electronic readers early. A third factor is that eBooks tend to priced more cheaply than hardcovers, which is not insignificant.

Read his entire analysis.

7 Splendid Articles on Using Goodreads as an Author by Iain Broome (@iainbroome)

A solid round-up, something to bookmark if you’re interested in using Goodreads for marketing and promotion.

Rethink Cover Design for a Small, Small World by Elle Lothlorien (@ElleLothlorien)

Scroll down to the header “The Siren’s Call” and start reading about the importance of a book cover that pops at small thumbnail size. Lothlorien is exactly right when she says:

Designing a kick-ass book cover for the Kindle Store is one of the most valuable marketing and discoverability opportunities your self-published book is likely to have.

When designing an e-book cover, you MUST assume that every potential reader will see it first as a thumbnail on Amazon’s suggestive selling ribbon and not as a full-sized graphic.

Click here to read her excellent advice, paired with cover examples.

5 Things I’ve Learned From Self-Publishing by James Calbreath (@eadingas)

Some tough love here from someone all too aware of the drawbacks and struggles of self-publishing. He doesn’t candy coat the experience.

Modern self-publishing means that you’re on the mercy of the freelancers. All good freelancers are busy—and very good freelancers are very busy. No matter how much you will pay them, they are likely to forget about your book if you don’t pester them continuously. Pestering people and institutions (that includes all sorts of Customer Support) was the first thing I had to learn.

Read the entire post here.

The 17 Best WordPress Plugins for Social Media, SEO, and Better Visitor Engagement in 2013 by Neal Schaffer (@nealschaffer)

If you have a self-hosted WordPress site, review this list and make sure you’re taking advantage of the many helpful tools and utilities available.

What I’d Like to See from Booksellers in 2013: A Holiday Wishlist by Edward W. Robertson

While not titled in such a way, this post offers a terrific overview of the strengths and weaknesses of online e-retailers (including Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, and iBookstore). If you’re a self-publishing author, I highly recommend.

President of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management Jane Dystel: Agents Unwilling to Adapt Won’t Last, interview by Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid)

As Greenfield says in the intro to this interview, “One of the hottest new places for agents to find clients and for publishers to find their next bestselling authors is the self-published bestseller list.” A long-established agent, Jane Dystel, discusses the landscape and what kind of deals she’s negotiating for her clients.

One Author’s Kickstarter Experience, an interview with David Lang (@davidtlang) by Joe Wikert (@jwikert)

This interview offers an interesting surprise when Lang says that Seth Godin “almost” got it right when advising people on how to use Kickstarter:

Done right, Kickstarter is not the last step [as Godin said]. It’s the beginning of something new—having a community to co-create with. It’s a huge opportunity. As Yancey Strickler told me, “What people often forget is that money gets spent, but a community can stick around forever.”

Some food for thought here if you’re interested in crowdsourcing; go read.

How to Monetize Your Blog Without Selling Your Soul by Michael Hyatt (@MichaelHyatt)

A very clear and concise post about making money from your website or blog, regardless of how much traffic you get—although traffic helps, of course!

The post Best Business Advice for Writers: January 2013 appeared first on Jane Friedman.

Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing: Enjoy the Best of Both Worlds

CJ Lyons (@cjlyonswriter) is an award-winning, critically acclaimed New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She practiced pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine for 17 years before scoring her first big book deal, after which she quit her job and decided to become a full-time author. However, a few weeks before her first book was to be published, it was pulled for reasons beyond her control.

What happened next? She went on to have a very successful publishing career despite that initial bump in the road, in both traditional publishing and self-publishing. Her independently published novels have sold a million copies in less than a year, and at one time, her books held five of the top ten slots on Amazon.

Because CJ represents an emerging model of hybrid author, I asked for her perspective on questions of both traditional publishing and self-publishing. I am very grateful to her for spending some of her precious writing time to offer such insightful information.

Your career started off in traditional publishing with a dream deal, but as you’ve often spoken and written about, that first deal didn’t have a fairytale ending. How do you think that traditional publishing launchpad has impacted your career arc—positively and/or negatively? 

Even though my dream debut didn’t turn out as planned, overall, I think I’m enjoying a fairytale ending—living the best of all worlds. My traditional publishing helped me to gain critical acclaim, win awards, gave me my first bestseller, and is still a wonderful way to reach my readers who enjoy finding my print books in stores.

The downside of traditional publishing and the reason why I first began self-publishing is that it’s impossible to get books out as fast as readers want them. That’s where taking advantage of alternative publishing paradigms such as self-publishing can serve the reader, the author, the agent (via subright sales), and yes, even the traditional publisher. I proved this to my current publisher when I used an ad in the back of my self-published e-books to drive pre-sales of a traditionally published novel.

There’s no reason why authors should limit themselves to an either/or mindset—not when you can have it all, while also pleasing and delighting your readers.

Currently you have a hybrid publishing approach—traditionally publishing some titles and self-publishing others. How do you decide which path to take with each book?

My agent and I make this decision together. When I began self-publishing, I began with titles that we approached NYC publishing with but haven’t gotten the offers we wanted, so went ahead and self-published. Since my success with self-published e-books has increased my profile with publishers and given me a well-documented track record of sales, they now come to us and invite us to partner with them on projects, which is refreshing.

Given that one person can only write so fast, we’ve turned down several offers, but are always eager to discuss mutually beneficial partnerships with publishers of any size. In fact, my new YA thrillers are being published via Sourcebooks because their marketing plan to reach this new-to-me audience was so outstanding.

When I heard you speak last fall at Pennwriters, you went through the math of why it was a smarter decision to self-publish some of your work. Would you share that math here?

Instead of using any of my own offers as examples, let’s use a hypothetical where the math will be easy to do. Caveats to remember are:

advances are usually paid out in three installments over at least two years 
advances must be earned out before any additional money is paid to the author
the majority of traditional contracts signed now will tie up your rights for decades to perhaps the lifetime of the book, which is why it is essential that you partner with an agent and/or literary attorney before signing anything!

Oh, people should also know another reality of traditional publishing: over 80% of books do not earn back their initial advance. Not earning out = no royalties.

Okay, taking those caveats, let’s say you received an offer of $50,000 for your novel. Remember that the average advance is around $5,000 to $10,000 depending on your genre. Should you take it?

On the surface, it looks like a fantastic deal, right? BUT that advance will be paid over two years, so that gives you $25,000 a year. The odds of earning more are very little after that, at least not until you sell at least 100,000 books (combining 8% mass market and 25% net e-book royalties for ease of calculation)

And that’s it. One book, $25,000/year x 2 years, minus taxes and agent fees (typically 15%).

What if you self-published that same book? If you priced it at $4.99, you’d make $3 per book (at 70% royalty rate), so to make that $25,000/year you’ll need to sell 8,333 books per year or 700 books per month—OR to make the total $50,000, you’ll need to sell 16,666 books, about 83,000 less than with a traditional publisher.

BUT you get to keep earning money with every book sold forever. So even if it takes you a year or two to earn back the equivalent of the NYC offer, you get to keep building your profits. And with each new book you release, sales of the first will increase.

Now that I’ve totally reversed your thinking about that “very nice” $50,000 advance, remember there are still benefits to publishing with a traditional publisher. You need to look at more than just the money; focus on where partnering with this publisher on this project fits your overall business plan.

A traditional publisher can help to build your platform, grow your readership, and gain you attention that you might not be able to gain yourself. It’s important to weigh all the factors: who your audience is, how difficult are they for you to reach on your own, what your financial situation is, how fast you write, and so on.

What’s your agent’s role in regards to your self-pub work?

We’re a team. She takes her money from the deals she negotiates: foreign rights, audio, TV/film, other subrights. And thanks to her, my self-published books have earned far more from those subrights deals than they would have if we had taken any of those earlier traditional offers.

What’s your quality-control process for your self-pub titles?

I work with several professional editors, have a group of critique partners who are all multi-published, award-winning authors who are ruthlessly honest with their feedback (our motto when it comes to critiques is: if there isn’t blood on the page, we took it too easy on each other), a cadre of beta readers from my Street Team, and of course my agent weighs in on each title.

How do you recommend self-pub authors find quality editors for their work? What can they expect to pay?

This is the toughest decision an author faces! And it’s just as true for authors seeking traditional publishers—my agent and I would spend hours deciding on which editor we submitted to, and we’d do tons of research on their editorial style and how it would fit my needs.

When you’re going it alone, it’s much harder. First, I’d ask fellow writers (traditionally published or not—many NYC editors freelance) writing in the same genre for recommendations. Genre is important—you want an editor who understands readers’ expectations as far as pacing, character development, etc. Most freelance editors will do a few pages for free so you can see if their style resonates with you.

For developmental editing you’ll pay more, often $5–$10 a page or a flat fee of a few thousand dollars. For copyediting, rates vary from a flat fee to per word or per page, but in my experience it’s usually averaged out to around $1 a page. Proofreading is a little less, as they’re only looking for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation, not the continuity and line-editing that copy editors provide.

Bartering with friends who have experience is a great way to start if you don’t have the money. Just make sure they know what they’re talking about. I’d still pay a professional copyeditor for one final look before publishing.

I use at least two to three editors per novel—usually two copyeditors and one proofreader. I’ve had NYC-published books that have had seven or more editors and readers still find mistakes, so don’t get caught in the trap of endless editing, as no book is perfect. But do strive to publish a professional product. Remember your competition: NYT bestsellers. Never give readers a reason to think you’re second-class.

You can also check out this freelance editor association that has prices and lists of editors.

I think you’re one of the best author-marketers I’ve ever seen (as I’ve said before!), but I know you shy away from being called a marketing genius. Still, I believe you took concrete steps to learn how to be an authentic and meaningful marketer—partly by being a student of Copyblogger. Could you describe your growth in this area, as well as one or two strategies or tools that have been most effective for you? I know many novelists struggle with how to market their work—particularly through social media—without constantly feeling like a shill.

Thanks! After my dream debut fiasco, I realized that I needed to learn and understand the business—if only so I could choose my partners more wisely after having a major NYC publisher and my first agent abandon me so completely. I began to immerse myself in not just publishing but marketing and business, subscribing to Copyblogger, Lateral Action, Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, and even the free Harvard Business Review newsletter.

(BTW, you can pretty much create your own MBA curriculum via free blogs and newsletters! I share all these resources on my NoRulesJustWRITE.com site if you need a jumpstart.)

What was most enlightening and changed my approach to marketing was the realization that the professional marketers were talking about the power of story and how important it was to sell their products to their target audiences. I realized I already had the skill set they were trying to learn: storytelling.

Then I discovered Seth Godin’s theory of Tribes and how building the right community of a hundred connected, engaged, and excited audience members was more important than reaching an apathetic audience of millions.

When I combined the two and realized that marketing was really just telling the right story to the right people, everything clicked. I stopped trying to blog (never my strong suit and it sapped my creative energy), stopped jumping on every social media bandwagon, and gave myself permission to play to my strengths: writing books and chatting with my fans via e-mail.

I did tweak my e-mail newsletter last year, so now it’s once a month but not always about me. Instead I feature other authors my readers will enjoy—after all, I can’t write fast enough to keep up with the way they devour my books, so why not introduce them to others who write Thrillers with Heart? My mailing list went up about 10% since that change.

People always ask what I “do” for marketing. I enjoy learning about new things and trying them out, so I sometimes experiment with advertising (I’m doing a major campaign with the help of a few professionals in February and March), and I still do guest blogs when invited, but mostly it’s writing more books, sending my monthly e-mail to my newsletter group, and once or twice a week stopping by Facebook.

One new thing that I’m working on is a Goodreads community devoted to Thrillers with Heart (not just my books) and that’s growing nicely. My hope is to get one of the readers to take over as moderator and keep the discussion lively, as that’s simply not my strong suit. In fact, that’s the best advice I can give authors: play to your own passions.

If you love Tweeting and Facebooking, then chat away! If you’re an introvert (or a hermit like me), then maybe blogging or writing flash fiction will engage your readers without sapping your energy.

Do build a mailing list—don’t let Facebook or a social media site control your access to your readers. And always stay true to your brand: the emotional promise you make your readers with your books. So, for example, if you write Shaker Inspirational novels and your brand is: It’s a Gift to Be Simple, then your readers probably aren’t going to be interested in or connect with content that’s about how to find the best sex toys for your BDSM fantasy roleplaying.

Stay true to yourself and what you’ve promised your readers and they’ll stay true to you.

Do you have a specific strategy for balancing your writing time with your marketing/promotion time? 

I wish … after seventeen years as a doctor tied to a beeper and other people’s schedules, I have given myself permission with my new career to do what I want, when I want. Which 99% of the time means writing the next book. But, since I’ve found that’s my best marketing tool, it becomes time well-spent.

Many aspiring writers ask me if I recommend self-publishing first or traditional publishing first. I find that the answer is different for just about every writer. If you believe that’s the case too, then what questions should writers ask themselves to figure out which path is right for them?

I’m a firm believer in having it all! Why not pursue both? Finish your first novel, revise, revise, revise until it rivals New York Times bestsellers (your true competition in getting the attention of agents, publishers, and readers) then start the query process while you write the next.

Odds are by the time you have the second book polished you’ll know whether traditional publishing is right for you, then you can make a clear decision whether it’s worth pursuing or if you’d be better off self-publishing and building an audience as you continue to hone your craft (which never, ever stops, by the way!).

Oh, and don’t forget the power of small presses! There are some excellent ones that really know their audience and how to connect with them. Just because they may not be located in NYC doesn’t mean they aren’t excellent partners. That’s what agents and publishers are: strategic partners who help you get your book into the hands of YOUR readers.

Readers don’t care how the book gets to them—but be warned, once they read one and love it they want more, right here, right now! So I don’t advise publishing your first novel until you have another ready to go.

More about CJ

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of eighteen novels, former pediatric ER doctor CJ Lyons (@cjlyonswriter) has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge Thrillers with Heart. CJ has been called a “master within the genre” (Pittsburgh Magazine) and her work has been praised as “breathtakingly fast-paced” and “riveting” (Publishers Weekly) with “characters with beating hearts and three dimensions” (Newsday). Learn more about CJ’s Thrillers with Heart at www.CJLyons.net and everything she knows about being a bestseller and selling a million books at www.NoRulesJustWRITE.com.

The post Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing: Enjoy the Best of Both Worlds appeared first on Jane Friedman.

You Need Stakeholders in Your Writing Life

Over at Glimmer Train, author and editor Kate Gale discusses the importance of stakeholders in your writing life—just as a nonprofit organization needs stakeholders. She says:

You need a group of people who buy into this idea that you want to be a writer. … You only need a few stakeholders. Five is a nice number. But listen to them. The reason you chose them is that you thought they understood something about your writing life.

Click here to read more of her sound advice.

Also check out other authors writing on writing this month at Glimmer Train:

Anthony Doerr on his dark twin Z, who is very interested in checking e-mail
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier on “The Frame Game,” a simple strategy of structure and repetition

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Commodity Publishing, Self-Publishing, and The Future of Fiction

Many years ago, when I started working for Writer’s Digest, I was put on the self-publishing beat. I started by reading Dan Poynter’s guide, by the godfather of self-publishing, then the Marilyn Ross guide. I attended EPIC, once the leading conference for e-book authors, and sat on a panel with Piers Anthony to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of traditional publishing, POD publishing, and digital publishing. For a couple of years, I edited a newsstand-only magazine called Publishing Success, geared toward independent authors, and oversaw the Writer’s Digest Self-Publishing Book Awards. I developed lasting relationships with several indie authors during that time, including John Sundman and M.J. Rose, and I saw a few authors successfully cross over to traditional publishing.

At that time (which was in the early 2000s), if you were a self-published author, print-on-demand was emerging as the golden ticket to affordable independent publishing. New POD publishers were marketing their services with dirt-cheap introductory packages—as low as $99—to entice authors fed up with rejection to find success through this no-print-run-required technology. What most authors discovered, however, is that without access to bookstore shelves, or a reliable way to get in front of readers (these were the early days of the Internet—no social media and very little in the way of popular blogging), you were pretty much wasting your time.

One author stood out, though, as finding a way where the others didn’t—M.J. Rose. She was turned down by traditional publishers but was convinced there was a readership for her work. So in 1998, she set up a website where readers could download her book for $9.95 and began to seriously market the novel online. After selling 2,500 copies (in both electronic and trade paper), her novel Lip Service became the first e-book sensation to score an author a traditional publishing contract. (What is also interesting here is Rose’s background: advertising.)

When asked about the future of self-publishing in October 2012, Rose told The Nervous Breakdown:

In 2000, when I was the e-publishing reporter for Wired.com, I was asked about the future of self-publishing and at that time said it would become the best test market for publishers to find future superstars—as soon as e-books took off and that wouldn’t happen until the readers dropped to under $100. We’re there—it’s happening. Every week the press reports on two or three major deals with self-pubbed authors who have built up their own fan bases.[1]  But notice how those self-pubbed authors are moving to traditional deals.  As empowering as self-pubbing is—it’s not easy to go it alone. Most of us writers want to be writers—not have to spend years studying the business of publishing and becoming entrepreneurs.  So I think there are going to be more and more creative business models to offer authors trustworthy and creative partnerships as solutions to going it alone. It’s an amazingly exciting time in publishing.

I agree with M.J. My question is: Is self-publishing going to become the predominant, preferred, or recommended means for authors to launch their careers? While we might all agree there are more paths than ever to get published and be a successful author, some advocates of self-publishing—primarily those (perhaps exclusively those) who write genre fiction go a step further: Don’t even bother getting traditionally published. Self-publish first.

Usually the model or formula is expressed like this:

Write a ton of material.
Publish it yourself on all the digital platforms.
Repeat as quickly as possible.
Make a living as a writer.

For those unfamiliar with this emerging model of authorship, you may think I’m oversimplifying. Not by much. This model doesn’t care about quality. It says: You will get better as you write more, and besides, everyone knows that quality is subjective. It says: Don’t waste your time perfecting something that you can’t be sure makes a difference to your readers or your sales.

Nor does this model rely on marketing and promotion. According to its rules, the author is better off producing more salable product, which, over time, snowballs into more and more sales, and people discovering and buying your books. Do you need a website? Of course, like any author does. Do you need to market yourself or your work? As little as possible, the model says. Focus on writing your next book.

If you want to delve into the philosophy of this model further, I recommend reading the blogs of Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Katherine Rusch, very commercially successful genre fiction authors who have significant followings, with experience in both traditional and indie authorship.

My observations follow.

1. This model relies on a readership that consumes books like candy, or readers mostly interested in finding a next read as quickly and cheaply as possible. (We’re starting to see the impact of this cheap-read behavior: agents asking publishers to reduce prices because it’s inhibiting the greater volume needed to reach maximum profits.)

If you’ve ever walked into certain kinds of used bookshops (especially back before e-books became prevalent), you’ve seen the racks and racks of mass-market romances and other genre fiction, sold for 25 cents each. A customer might walk in, buy a grocery bag full, walk out, then return the following week for a refill.

The new era of self-publishing authors[2] are, by and large, serving these customers.

I call it commodity publishing. It’s not about art; it’s about product.

But isn’t that what traditional publishing has been about all along? Isn’t it also commodity publishing? It is a business, yes?

Funny, it’s the business that no one gets into for business reasons. It’s the business that, if you asked its individual participants, would likely prefer to talk about the art or culture of the business, would prefer to make the argument that it focuses on quality work that deserves publication. Yet those with trade experience know how the decisions really get made: based on a profit-and-loss analysis (P&L) and for the benefit of the bottom line.

2. If commodity publishing is here to stay, I can only see its future in the realm of genre fiction, because this is the area where I see sufficient reader demand to drive the kind of volume that leads to a living wage. It’s also the only area where I see authors without qualms about quality, or without any hesitation to produce as much material as possible, with the only limitation the amount of time you can keep your butt in the chair writing.

Most literary authors and nonfiction writers I know are not able to pursue this model. They either cannot produce—or would not want to produce—multiple volumes in a few years’ time.

I’m now on the edge of a longstanding argument: whether genre fiction is as “good” as so-called literary fiction. I’ve had more than one person challenge me on the definition of “literary” fiction on the premise that it’s an elitist, exclusionary term that implies that other types of fiction can’t be as intelligent or complex. That is to say, it is possible for literary romance, literary thriller, etc., to exist, and that “literary” should not exist except as an adjective to some other genre category.

That’s a sensible argument. But I do think it’s relevant to talk about how readers self-identify, or how they decide what to read next, and you can be certain there’s a class of reader who considers themselves devoted to the consumption of, at the very least, serious fiction. Serious fiction means: you don’t read it or skim it in an afternoon, and you don’t go through an entire grocery bag of them in a week. A lot of people enjoy both types of fiction. Yet you don’t often find authors who are switching off between writing beach reads and next year’s critically acclaimed novel. Further, authors tend to get pigeon-holed and marketed in a particular way to the same audience over years, since that’s how commercial success works best (see: James Patterson), and even if we find this constricting from a creative standpoint, it’s a sound marketing strategy.

All this to say: I don’t think it wise to recommend self-publishing as the first strategy for writers outside of the genres. I don’t think it is compatible with the goals or attitudes of a significant population of authors. However, this is NOT to say that such authors are somehow exempt from innovation, or from adopting digital tools to further their careers. Quite the contrary, and regular readers of this blog know how often I advocate that authors break out of the traditional thinking and experiment across mediums—that they think beyond the book in approaching creative expression, storytelling, and marketing/promotion.

As far as the ongoing need or demand for traditional publishers, it’s tough to imagine their demise when it comes to non-commodity authors, though I do worry that if publishers have been playing at the commodity publishing game all along (which they have), and their existing corporate parents expect growing profits, should we expect their fortunes to fall if/when the genre fiction authors increasingly go-it-alone[3] because they can earn more[4]—especially as more readers buy online and buy digital rather than visiting physical bookstores, that dwindling haven of traditional publishing profits?

And if traditional publishing declines, will the big corporate houses have the same ability to publish those titles that aren’t destined to be commercial successes, but critical successes?

Take this year for example:

No. 1 commercial success of 2012: 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James—published by Random House after the author self-published
No. 1 critical success of 2012: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo—also published by Random House; a National Book Award winner and named one of the top 10 books of the year by countless publications

Can Random House deliver books like the Behind the Beautiful Forevers if they don’t also profit from 50 Shades of Grey? Maybe someone else with more insight into corporate-wide publishing P&Ls can offer insight here.

3. Lest one be misled into thinking I prefer literary fiction and would like to protect it (and the infrastructure that goes along with it), I must agree with what Tim O’Reilly said in a recent interview with Wired:

Wired: You’re a publisher and big reader as well as a technologist. What is the future for books?

O’Reilly: Well, what kind of book do you mean? Because there are many, many things that were put into codices that have no particular reason to be books. Things like paper maps and atlases are just gone. Online dictionaries and online encyclopedias have killed printed dictionaries and encyclopedias. … But I don’t really give a shit if literary novels go away. They’re an elitist pursuit. And they’re relatively recent. The most popular author in the 1850s in the US wasn’t Herman Melville writing Moby-Dick, you know, or Nathaniel Hawthorne writing The House of the Seven Gables. It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writing long narrative poems that were meant to be read aloud. So the novel as we know it today is only a 200-year-old construct. And now we’re getting new forms of entertainment, new forms of popular culture.

Personally (after a couple decades of being a very devoted reader of novels), I have all but stopped reading fiction. My storytelling fix comes from watching TV, which, for my money, is where the best narratives are told these days—Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Breaking Bad, many others. I know I’m not alone in this.

So that begs the question of what I do read, and it’s narrative nonfiction of a journalistic bent (one of the reasons I recently joined VQR). I’m sure everyone is aware of the parallel conversations happening, in the magazine journalism and news world, about what their publishing future entails, and you’ll find no less confusion or wringing of hands. But I find their practitioners to be in a similar boat as the serious fiction authors, in that they need some kind of support—typically traditional media/publisher support—to carry out their work, which takes years to complete and cannot be churned out on demand. Katherine Boo, and many other nonfiction authors, require years of research to produce even a slim volume of import. What they produce is distinctly not disposable, not a commodity.

Will such authors be supported by nonprofits? Grants? Small presses whose profit demands are lower? Crowdsourcing? Kickstarter? I don’t know, but of all the options I can fathom, self-publishing seems least likely to become the preferred or prevalent model.

What do you say?

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

Publishers Lunch reported on roughly 5,000 traditional publishing deals in 2012; 45 of them were for books originally self-published.↵
There’s also another subset of self-publishing authors that are of the Seth Godin variety: authorities or experts who publish nonfiction and offer other content and services to a fan base, whether a large one or more modest one of the Kevin Kelly variety. I’m excluding such authors for the purposes of this post since I consider them an entirely different animal.↵
I’ve also written about my concern that traditional publishers may not evolve to offer sufficient value for authors. I write in-depth about this here.↵
Some have suggested that the high royalty rates that indie authors now enjoy from retailers like Amazon will be yanked down to much lower numbers once the e-reading/e-publishing gold rush has concluded. Who knows if that will come to pass, but if so, it would be smart for authors currently enjoying indie success to start building their online presence and e-mail lists to ensure they can reach their readership and sell direct in the future. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.↵

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5 Things Bad Radio Guests Do (And 7 Ways to Rock on Radio)

Today’s guest post is from Brad Phillips (@MrMediaTraining), author of The Media Training Bible: 101 Things You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know Before Your Next Interview.

Radio stations hate bad guests, since listeners will immediately switch the dial. Here are five habits of bad radio guests.

1. They give long answers.

Short answers allow the host to ask another question, take another phone call, or go to commercial—so keep your answers to 30 seconds or less. Finish your answer with a declarative sentence that ends on a vocal downtick to make it clear to the host that you’ve completed your answer.

Ari Ashe, a reporter and producer for Washington, DC’s top-rated WTOP-FM describes one particularly vexing radio guest:

WTOP once had a regular guest on from The Hill newspaper. Every interview went three minutes long and was exactly one question long. He went on and on, never stopping, never pausing, never letting our anchor get in a follow-up question. Eventually, we dropped him as a guest. We were no longer willing to put up with three-minute answers that would have been five minutes had we not cut him off.

2. They give complex answers.

Your goal is not to tell the audience everything you know about a topic. Ashe compares wonky guests to his undergraduate organic chemistry teacher:

He could not present the material in a way that was easy to understand; it felt like he was speaking a foreign language. He couldn’t explain difficult concepts in simple terms that connected to our everyday lives. If you’re like my organic chemistry teacher, you will not be successful in radio.

3. They’re boring.

Radio requires energy. Too many guests put a premium on the quality of their information but not nearly enough on their delivery of it. Great information is vital but isn’t sufficient on its own. As Ashe says:

Who wants to listen to someone who is putting them to sleep? Nobody. To win on radio, you must be memorable.

4. They’re alarmist.

Ashe reminds radio guests not only to articulate the problem but also to offer solutions. If your attitude is that there are no solutions, people will tune out.

5. They leave their humor behind.

Some radio formats are lighter than others, but almost nothing is worse for a humorous host than a guest who refuses to play along. Bob Andelman, host of Mr. Media Interviews, says, “Little is worse than if I make a joke and there’s silence.” Unless humor is inappropriate for your topic, bring your sense of humor to an interview. That doesn’t mean you have to be a comedian—it just means you have to be willing to play along.

7 Ways to Rock Your Next Radio Interview

I’ve done hundreds of radio interviews throughout my career. They seem simple. After all, you just pick up a phone or visit a studio and have a conversation with the host. But radio interviews are nothing like normal conversations (unless your friends take listener phone calls and go to commercial breaks!). Remember these seven rules for your next radio interview:

Prepare for an abrupt start. Most radio interviews are done by phone, not in studio, and most stations prefer to call you. Some producers call a few minutes before the interview begins, allowing you to listen for few minutes to get a feel for the program’s tone. But others wait until the last possible second, meaning you’re on the air within moments of picking up the phone. When you pick up the phone, be ready to go live on a second’s notice—or on no notice at all. You’ll hear the host over the phone line, so turn your radio off to avoid hearing a distracting delay.
Express passion. Sure, you’re on the radio. But listeners will hear it if you stand, move your hands, and smile—so get a telephone headset and gesture away. Try to match or slightly exceed the host’s energy level to avoid sounding flat.
Sit close to the microphone (in studio). Ashe advises guests to sit close to the microphone, no farther than a “fist’s-length” away.
Connect with the host (in studio). Ashe says it’s key for radio guests to make eye contact. “Look at the interviewer,” he says. “Speak to him or her, and speak like you’re talking to a friend or spouse. If you exude confidence and comfort with the interviewer, the listener will feel confident and comfortable with you. Be friendly, be cordial, and act like you’re just chatting with your best friend.” It’s okay to take a few notes with you and glance down occasionally to remember your key points, but try not to lose your connection.
Don’t depend on them to make the plug. You’re probably on the radio because you want to promote something—a new book, your website, your company. Although many experienced hosts are adept at “plugging” whatever you want promoted, some aren’t. So it’s up to you to mention that information a few times throughout the interview. You can increase the host’s odds of getting it right by sending in advance the information you’d like plugged. I also often send the producer a shortened version of my bio, which many hosts use verbatim to introduce me on the air.
Treat crazy callers with respect. If you appear on a radio show that takes listener calls, you may get an angry caller who goes on a rant that has little to do with your topic. Maintain the high ground. The public recognizes angry callers for what they are, so impress the audience with your graceful and kind handling of the caller. Push back on incorrect assertions, but do so respectfully.
Listen to the tape. Few people enjoy listening to tapes of their interviews, but doing so can help you identify and fix problem areas. At one point in my career, I was surprised to hear that I said “uhhh” a few too many times during my interviews. That self-awareness allowed me to kill the “uhhhs,” eliminating a problem I otherwise wouldn’t have known existed.

For more advice on how to handle any kind of interview, check out The Media Training Bible.

Do you have advice to share from your experience in radio? Share in the comments!

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How Do You Find Time to Write, Promote, Learn New Tech, and Still Have a Life?

One of the most frequent questions I receive from writers is how to manage it all: how to write, market and promote, stay on top of new technology and tools, and still have time for a life.

How is it possible to be active on several social media sites and still have time to explore a new one?

How can you learn a technology when it’s just going to change again in 6 or 12 months?

How can your focus on producing a quality work while also building a quality platform?

These are tough questions.

I had the opportunity to interview David Houle—a futurist who has spoken at publishing industry events—about the tension that emerges when living in an age of information abundance and technological change, and how it challenges creativity, particularly as it pertains to writing and publishing.

I think you’ll enjoy the conversation; you can find it at VQR.

In the comments below, I invite you to share tips, philosophies, or favorite tools that help keep you sane and productive during an age when nothing seems to stay the same for long. (You can see my tips here: The Secret to Finding the Time to Write, Promote, Market, Promote, and Still Have a Life.)

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Best Business Advice for Writers: December 2012

Best Business Advice for Writers is a monthly link round-up where I share the best articles I’ve spotted online focused on the business of writing and publishing. Share any best reads you’ve found lately in the comments.

The Inconvenient Truth About SEO by Paul Boag (@boagworld)

A plain-English post that should help quiet any anxiety you might have about optimizing your site for SEO, plus a clear explanation of those very rare cases where you might want to hire someone to assist.

How I Used Kickstarter to Reboot a Book Series and My Career by Tobias Buckell (@TobiasBuckell)

A 5,000-word article recounting one author’s experience using Kickstarter to crowdfund a project—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lots of concrete tips here about how to run a successful campaign, plus he’s upfront about his mistakes so you can avoid them.

$26,679 in 24 Hours: Stats From My Latest Book Launch by Nathan Barry (@nathanbarry)

Nathan Barry is not a book author as much as he’s a designer who happens to be launching information products. But I always find it helpful to observe how someone outside of the writing-publishing industry cocoon approaches a launch, and learn from their techniques. He has a wonderful section on using e-mail that’s a must read—plus he shares dollars, sales numbers, and site traffic stats related to the launch.

Power Pricing: How Should I Price My E-Books by Nathan Maharaj (@nrmaharaj) at Kobo

Straight-forward insights (with data to back everything up) on e-book pricing. Must-read for any indie author currently publishing and selling e-books.

New Year, New Hurdles & Opportunities by Russell Blake (@blakebooks)

Writing Like It’s 2009 by Kristen Rusch (@KristineRusch)

If you’re thinking of self-publishing in 2013 (or are actively pursuing an indie author model), these two posts are best read in tandem. The first is a set of predictions related to  indie authorship and Amazon. Russell says:

Many indies will give up. Having realized belatedly that 99% of indies fail to make any real money at this, those that don’t feel like beating their heads against a seemingly indestructible wall will go on to something more lucrative. The Gold Rush mentality of “hey, look at X, he’s a talentless twat and sold a ton; it must be easy, so I’ll throw my hat into the ring because then maybe I’ll sell a ton, too” will die, as it should. It will become abundantly obvious to even the dimmest that this is a very, very difficult business to make a living at, and that the chances of being that one in a million are close to nil. … The perceived environment where you can be illiterate and still find someone who will give your book a shot will dry up as readers demand more in exchange for their limited time.

Then move over to Kristen Rusch’s blog for her takedown of myths related to indie publishing today. More tough love.

Here’s the thing: From 2008-2010, e-publishing on the early e-readers was a gold rush. And if you look at the history of any gold rush, you’ll see a familiar pattern. A few people hit it big in an unexpected way. They make a small fortune.  They broadcast the news of that fortune, and then hundreds, if not thousands, of people follow. … Some of you will get rich very quickly. Some of you won’t. Most of you who stick with this for about ten years—the average time it takes for a writing career (hell, for any small business) to blossom—will make a good living at it. If you do it right, don’t sign your copyrights away, hire the best help, continue to improve, and stick with it.

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