Dale’s Comments (group member since Sep 15, 2017)

Dale’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

A small bowl of popcorn for you: Too Many Toddlers, published in Lit Up.

I know not everyone has a lot of interest in religious subjects, but religion is part of the world we all live in, so it has some importance to everyone. Religion as a Unified Phenomenon

Connie wrote: "I suggest IngramSpark. They are the distributor for bookstores and libraries. I actually have all of my print books, except one, on both Amazon and IngramSpark. I wait for one of their free upload ..."

Thanks, I'll look into that.

Anyone else?

Looks great! Thanks!

Today's offering: NaNoWriMo: What Have I Done?

Got a possibly complex question for all you experts. Kathleen and I are winding down our little publishing company and are in talks with another publisher who is interested in taking over our imprint. Once that's done, I intend to continue self-publishing my own works under a new imprint.

Currently we use Adobe InDesign to create PDF and epub files. I convert epub to mobi with Kindle Previewer, then I distribute ebooks on Amazon and B&N using KDP and Nook Press tools. (This is just a matter of uploading the files and entering the publication and pricing data.)

For print books, we've always gone through a local printer. The problem with that is, first, we must pay for the print runs, and second, it's harder to distribute through Amazon & B&N than if we used their print book creation tools. Amazon would charge us shipping and an annual fee to carry print books, plus insists on a 55% discount. Because of this, we have never sold print books through Amazon. B&N is easier financially, since they will accept a 40% discount and will pay shipping costs, but their processes are a bit cumbersome. It can take months to get a title set up through them, and their payment system is annoyingly slow.

So I want to at least consider other ways to get print books out into the world. The key requirements would be:

(1) Books must be published under my own imprint and my own ISBNs.

(2) The system should import a print-ready PDF. I don't want to set up the same book separately for every print outlet, nor do I want to allow the distributor's software to create a print book from an ebook file (epub or mobi). From what I've seen, books created via such automated conversions often look like the typographer was on vacation. (However, I'm willing to consider them if there are ways to control the layout to achieve professional-looking results.)

What would you suggest? Thank you!

Karen wrote: "Dale wrote: "Theodore wrote: "He walked into the sunlit room, sat, and picked up his saxophone, bending over to pick up the metal canister of reeds from which he picked one that he put in his mouth..."

Nice job!

Theodore wrote: "You have to wonder why they made the requirements for KDP paperbacks different from those used for CS paperbacks if they've served Amazon so well for so long.
"

That I don't know. I've never worked with CS.

Theodore wrote: "...the rejection of CS books that aren't sponge-worthy would eliminate a lot of clutter on Amazon.com and free up a ton of storage space."

Nah, the storage space isn't likely the issue. A million books at an average of 3MB per book would only be about 3 terabytes. You can get laptops with terabyte hard drives.

Sound files take up a lot more space than books, and videos take up a lot more than sound files. And YouTube has over 7 billion videos on line . . . so far.

Theodore wrote: "I still find it difficult to believe, from a business standpoint, that given the millions (!) of paperback books out there, and the opportunity cost (read: risk) to Amazon, that Amazon is going to require its authors to move their books. It would make much more sense for CS to be subsumed within KDP, and the paperback books on CS to simply be moved "wholesale" to KDP without so much as a hiccup."

Software developer hat on

It may not be that simple. If the two systems have differing technical underpinnings, it could require writing some fairly complex data conversions, then testing and running them. There is a lot of risk involved in this kind of process. Even a small error could potentially affect millions of titles, tick off their authors, and inconvenience huge numbers of customers.

I used to do this sort of thing regularly for financial customers. It took two or three developers, two or three customer service reps, and several subject matter experts from the customer four or so months to write and test the conversion software. In the end, there were usually a few problems to be worked out in the days following conversion, although rarely were they too significant. Nevertheless, this was a small effort compared to what Amazon might have to do.

"Seamless" always sounds so easy, as it's meant to for the end user. But making it seamless often involves significant effort. And if you make a mistake in the process . . . kaboom!

That's probably why they're having authors manually make the move. No cost to them, and any mistakes are owned by the authors themselves.

Which is not to say I necessarily disagree with you. I'm sure Amazon has the resources to automate the process. But it is risky and gives them zero return on investment.

My next Writing Cooperative article: Don't Try Too Hard (avoiding purple prose).

Theodore wrote: "Ha! Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Great opening for your next novel!"

Maybe, but I don't want to steal your character. ;-)

Anna Faversham wrote: "Nice one!"

Thank you!

Gotcha, Marie.

Theodore wrote: "He walked into the sunlit room, sat, and picked up his saxophone, bending over to pick up the metal canister of reeds from which he picked one that he put in his mouth. Then, sitting back and closing his eyes, he thought about what truly gave him pleasure, this musician by day, this assassin by night."

Uh-oh, now it's like a game. Throwing it back into first person:

"I walked into the sunlit room, sat, and picked up my saxophone. Bending to select a reed from the metal canister on the floor, I took one and put it into my mouth, then leaned back, closed my eyes, and soaked up the warmth streaming through the window. I needed no inspiration this morning. The song was already flowing within me. A clean kill in the dark of midnight. A melody played in the pure light of day. Some would brand me a contradiction, this musician-assassin, but I hear the music of death, just as I hear the poetry of song, and here, now, in the brilliant morning, I played with feeling the dark deeds of the previous night."

Somebody else's turn. ;-)

D.J. wrote: "(I don’t know what the sun shining has to do with picking up a saxophone, by the way! Probably nothing unless they’re now solar powered.)"

The sunshine and birdsong motivated the musician to play, of course. ;-)

I just committed one of these yesterday (mentioning a real person). This is the sort of thing one can do without worry, though:

Melody's face scrunched into a fair imitation of Jack Nicholson enjoying a homicidal rampage.

My next flash fiction piece: A Sky of Blood. This is the shortest short story I've ever written, just 169 words.

Nice article. Congratulations!

One more reason not to sign up for KDP Select. The contractual inability to sue is commonplace these days. Many companies put arbitration clauses into their contracts or terms of service in an attempt to avoid the expense of lawsuits when things go wrong. In the U.S., there is a Federal Arbitration Action that states arbitration clauses apply in cases of maritime commerce or commerce crossing state lines. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the legality of the act (if I understand right). Unfortunately, these clauses are often forced upon parties wishing to do business with a company. You don't have the ability to discuss or suggest changes to Amazon's terms of service. You either play by their rules or you don't play at all.

I think Raye was the POV character in all versions. If so, it would be okay to say she didn't get it, because we're in her head. (And so forth.) But given that we only had snippets, it's hard to say.

But yeah, some of those sentences needed help. ;-)