Category Archives: The Fictorians

E-Publishing – Why I chose it.

 As you know from my post earlier this month, I have two short story collections published by Musa Publishing. I’m participating in an anthology – The Jack Gorman Project – that was born at an after-conference dinner at the 2011World Fantasy Con, The anthology will release on July 20, 2012. I also have a novella, Apollo Rising, that should be released in September, 2012. All as part of Musa’s line.

So, why did I choose E-publishing?

Well, let’s be honest, Musa said yes.

All kidding aside, I chose to E-publish rather than continue the short story publication rounds or wait on traditional publishers to deem me worthy for several reasons.  But, before I go into those reasons, let me use Celina Summers’ definition of E-publishing from the June 1, 2012 blog.

According to Celina:

(E-Publishing) houses are digital first.  They publish e-books primarily, although some are moving into POD(print on demand) availability for their books.  An e-publisher is a genuine small house, following the same submissions, acquisitions, and editing processes as traditional publishing.  Five years ago, e-publishing wasn’t considered a legitimate publishing credit by agents and New York publishers. That mindset is changing as the popularity of digital books increases.

Okay, now that we are all on the same page, let’s talk about why I chose this path.

Probably most importantly, I met Celina at World Fantasy. I  liked her. We talked for hours about everything and nothing before she gave me permission to pitch her. I can’t stress how important this personal connection is in any form of publishing. I’m not sure I would have trusted my babies (the stories) to an e-publisher, especially one who’d just opened its doors, if I hadn’t met Celina.

On to more general reasons to consider an E-publishing house. I don’t have the time or energy to do all the work the fabulous people at Musa do for me. Self-publishing wasn’t an option for me. E-Publishing has all the benefits of traditional publishing. When I submit a story, a slush-pile reader has to like it enough to take it to the head editor for that genre. If the editor likes it, I get a contract. Once the story is under contract, it benefits from professional editing. Then it goes through line editing. So, we both know we’re publishing a book that’s as clean as possible. Musa has a professional artist that does my cover AND (unlike traditional publishing), for anyone but the N.Y. Time best sellers, I had significant input into what that cover looked like.

E-Publishing has the potential to pay better. Musa’s contract is on its website. You can see how your royalties will get calculated before you submit to it. If I’d sold my short stories to a magazine, I might get 6 cents a page. For a 15,000 word story, I’d be paid $900. It’s a good number, but that’s it until I get the rights back and resell it. Paths Less Travelled  is a 15,000 short story collection being sold for $3.99. For Paths, I make that same $900 after I sell about 460 books. That’s not that hard to do. From book 461 on, I’m making more money than I could have by traditionally selling the short stories.  It is potential that is up to me to realize. Musa will help, but success or failure sits on my doorstep. Which leads me to marketing.

As part of an E-Publisher’s line, you’ll get some limited marketing. But just like with traditional publishing the onus is on you to make sure your book sells. Musa helps me work on my marketing materials. In fact, Musa requires it. Musa won’t release a book unless its tags, blurb and excerpt are turned in. It also has pre-existing deals with Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and other vendors to get my book out to the public. There’s no one but myself to blame if I only sell 100 books. There’s a lot of people to thank if I sell 1,000, 10,000 or more books.

E-publishing also happens a lot quicker than traditional publishing. You might wait 2-3 years between signing a contract and a publication date with the Big 6. Not so with E-Publishing.  As a new author, it’s highly unlikely that a traditional publisher would take a risk on four books in one year. And, as it is said, the best marketing for your current book is your next one. By allowing me to get more stories to my audience quicker, E-publishing helps me build a platform that I can convert into more sales and, maybe some day a print contract.

The nature of E-publishing allows those houses to take risks that traditional publishers just can’t afford. A significant portion of producing a book is in the actual printing process. E-Publishers don’t have this expense. Most first time novels lose money for the traditional houses. Think about that for a minute. A traditional publisher knows that most of its first time authors won’t earn their advance. As a result, a traditional publisher has to limit its exposure to these losses meaning it will be hesitant to take on an unpublished writer. Because of the significant difference in costs structures, E-publishers can take more risks with new writers. Just like I have the potential of making more money this way, an E-Publisher needs to sell fewer books than a traditional publisher to recoup its expenses and start making a profit.

E-Publishing makes novellas and short story collections viable. A novella is a story between 40,000 – 70,000 words. Magazines have problems with novellas. Often, they are too big, and take up too much space. This length of story poses two problems to traditional houses: First, the expense of producing one is about the same as producing a full novel. Second, the spine of the book is going to be too small to show up on a shelf. So, novellas have been a hard sell for traditional publishing. However, E-books breathed new life into novellas and collections. E-publishers don’t have to worry about spine size or shelf space. They can price a book at $1.99, and still earn a profit. Traditional publishers can’t. E-publishing created a market where none existed.

I can’t end this post without bragging about Musa, and how thrilled I am to be part of this house. So, bear with me. Here’s what makes Musa special. Musa is a community of writers. We support each other. We help each other market. Musa offers master classes to help us become more savvy business people and better writers. I don’t know anyone else out there that’s investing in its writers in this manner.  Musa strives to provide more and better services to its writers and readers. We now have books on OverDrive, a library lending program. We have a vibrant blog. Again, if I don’t succeed to the level I want, I have no one to blame but myself.

So, yes, I chose E-publishing and it chose me. Does this mean I’ve given up on traditional publishing? No. I think they are both avenues that should be pursued. But I’m happy to be with this fabulous E-Publishing house. I chose it as much as it chose me.

For my short story collections, Paths Less Traveled and Shots at Redemption, or a host of other amazing stories in just about every genre, please check out Musa Publishing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Dalglish: The Triumph of the Dalglish: How I Sold 200k Novels While Not Knowing Squat

Guest Post from David Dalglish

In Christmas ’09 I bought my wife a Kindle as a present, which we ended up sharing. It took less than a week to realize that little e-reader was something special. Together we were reading more books than we had in months, and buying far, far more than in years. I felt like I’d stumbled upon the iPod just before its sales went insane, and mentioned to my wife how awesome it’d be if I could get in before it really took off. At the time, I was speaking out of wish fulfillment more than anything, but my wife went investigating, and realized I could start self-publishing on the Kindle without any monthly fees, upfront costs, etc.

Now at the time, I had a very simple mindset: self-publishing equals loss of money, and spectacular failure. In college I’d taken plenty of Creative Writing classes, and my favorite teacher had a single day each semester devoted to discussing the pure business of publishing. I still remember what she said: self-publishing meant the end of your career as a writer. You’d never be taken seriously again, because self-publishing was the route of the desperate, and those unwilling to put in the time and effort to get published traditionally.

I bought into this completely. I really did. And to be fair to her, much of what she said was true, particularly when she said it. When my wife showed me the option to self-publish on Amazon, I had, deep down, given up on a traditional deal. Everything I could find, from agents to publishers, basically said what I wrote wouldn’t sell. If you had elves, or orcs, disguise them with new names or consider yourself dead in the water. So trying to shop a series titled The Half-Orcs, well . . . yeah. So part of me was giving up, waving goodbye to a world of agents, query letters, minimum/maximum word counts, and the like. It was terrifying.

On the other hand, I still firmly believed two things. One, I could tell a story that’d entertain readers out there; those who grew up with Dragonlance and Drizzt. Two, the Kindle was going to be huge. I decided if I was going to do this, I’d go all out.

I scoured deviantart for covers (because at the time, you could point out 99% of self-published authors just by their cover, and I didn’t want to be one of them). I lucked out insanely to find Peter Ortiz, who has now done twelve book covers for me.

In a mad dash I edited, edited, rewrote, and then uploaded Weight of Blood for 99 cents. I basically tried to outrun my doubt and fear, because I knew if I delayed I would eventually wimp out. So on sale at Amazon went my first book. I figured fifty sales a month would be fantastic. Heck, on the first day that I sold five copies, I called and told my brother, all ecstatic.

“So you don’t know any of those five people?” he asked me.

“No! I don’t!”

“That’s awesome!”

“I know!”

It might seem crazy to get excited about what amounted to $1.70, but at the time, I considered it a score having a short story accepted at a magazine with copies as payment. Making money, however little? Awesome.

I should also point out I was working at Pizza Hut. An extra fifty bucks a month per book I wrote? Rock on. Two hundred books later, I’d be a millionaire.

So now things have changed a bit. Obviously. It seems everyone and their dog has self-published a book, and there are too many people making solid money to still believe self-publishing will destroy your career. And now I have people sending me emails, asking what I did, and what they could do to have sales like mine. The terrible truth is, I’m not sure what worthwhile advice I have to give. Why?

Because if I tried self-publishing from scratch right now, I’d fall flat on my face. That’s how much the self-publishing world has changed. Let me explain. Self-publishers are like locusts (I’m serious, hear me out). For every one person that is respectful, and putting time into their craft, and willing to abide by the rules, there are five who won’t, and will simply swarm in, regardless of the damage it might cause. So one of the earliest ways I got sales was by chatting with people on the Fantasy forums on Amazon. But once people realized that could earn sales, those forums were bombarded with spam, sock puppets, people recommending their own books regardless of the topic. Once upon a time, a reader could make a post saying “I just finished this book by David Authorguy, and it was great!” and you’d nab ten to fifteen sales just like that. The same went for the 99 cent price point. It was an easy way to get noticed, and undercut competition. But now? Pricing 99 cents does nothing, absolutely nothing, to make you stand out.

One of the biggest kickstarts to my success was when Amazon price-matched Weight of Blood free for about five glorious days. Sales for all my books quadrupled the following month. Now? With Select, we’re drowning in freebies. Websites with banners, email blasts, all costing more and more, and giving diminishing returns (other than a precious few . . . to give one example, ENT. They also filled up a year’s worth of paid advertisements for self-publishers *in a single day*).

So yeah, this probably sounds dire. In some ways, it is, at least if you’re in the get-rich-quick mindset. I rode the various waves just ahead of everyone else, and that’s probably the best advice I can offer. To do this, you need to keep your eyes and ears open. Pay attention to what’s going on, and always try to think from a reader’s perspective. Your pride does not matter. What you think your book is worth does not matter. You can trot out the tired “people pay four dollars for a cup of coffee” nonsense, but it changes nothing. Stay nimble, pay attention to the people who are doing well, and then emulate them.

I guess that isn’t my absolute best advice, but it’s what I usually resort to telling people when they ask. See, the other advice isn’t anywhere near as sexy. It’s also the most obvious. Write. And then write some more. You know what’s easier than selling 10,000 books? Selling 5,000 copies of two books. And far easier than that is to sell 3,500 copies of three books.

So many people seem to want to hit the jackpot with just one book. To be fair, people out there do pull it off occasionally. I’ve seen it, even had friends do it. But I’ve seen some of those same people have their sales eventually dry up into nothing, and instead of giving something new for their readers, they keep shopping and pushing that same book, trying to recapture that old miracle.

No.

Stop it.

Keep writing.

And I don’t mean crank out crap. Imagine that you have a fan base out there, one you’re steadily growing. Every book you write, make sure it’s something that audience will love and devour. With each new book, you’ll gather in the new, and satisfy the old.

I’m starting to ramble, so I’ll cut it off here. In short, if you want to self-publish, go in wide-eyed, your pride swallowed, and your ears open. Treat your readers, who are also your paying customers, with respect and courtesy. Don’t make excuses, but instead have the best editing you can have, the best cover, the best formatting, and the best presentation. Most of all, the best story.

And then do it again.

And again.

And again.

Guest Writer Bio:
David Dalglish is the author of the Half-Orc Series, the Shadowdance Trilogy, The Paladins Series, the Watcher’s Blade Trilogy, and the Land of Ash anthology. Find out more about David at http://ddalglish.com.

Sunday Reads: 3 June 2012

Since we’re focusing on publishing options during June, this week’s Sunday Reads are all about aspects of publishing.

Boyd Morrison takes A Detour in the Publishing Journey.

MJ Rose reflects on the E vs P Debate.

Pub(lishing) Crawl discusses Bringing Your Baby To Editorial Board.

The Write Type discusses Self-Published vs Traditional: Candid Tales from Frontline Authors.

Slate asks What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Lindsay Buroker has 3 Tip for Self-Publishing Success.

Amanda Hocking discusses reasons to pursue traditional publishing in How Am I Doing Now?

Nathan Bransford discusses The Biggest Challenges in the New Era of Publishing.

Tonya Kappes asks How Bad Do You Want Success?

Failure Ahoy! examines Amazon’s Ever-Changing Algorithms.

 

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

David Carrico – Anatomy of a Collaboration

Kylie Quillinan – June: Publishing Month

Guest poster Celina Summers – Different Paths to Publishing

 

 

Celina Summers: Different Paths to Publishing

  When we started discussing the idea of a publishing themed month, we talked about the different types of publishing. I’m fortunate enough to be part of a wonderful E-Publisher, Musa Publishing. Celina Summers, the  chief editor and founder of Musa, often talks about how she was frustrated that people equated E-Publishing with Self-Publishing. As a result, Celina was a natural choice to be our first guest poster this month. Writers have more options than ever to get to the reader. For a general overview of those options, read on and see what Celina said.

So take it away, Celina.

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It’s a great thing to be able to tell your family and friends that you’re published.  After all, you’ve achieved a lifetime goal. Millions of people have written stories or novels without any of them seeing the light of day.  But in the last couple of decades, the publishing industry has changed significantly.  With the onset of digital publishing, self-publishing-once an outlet only the financially well-endowed could consider-took off.  According to The Bookseller (http://www.thebookseller.com/news/publishing-proliferates-thanks-pod-and-digital.html) :

Nielsen 2010 book output figures show that 151,969 new titles were published in 2010, a leap of 14% on the output number given this time last year. The figure is derived from the number of ISBNs Nielsen issues over the year. However, the 2009 figure, of 133,000, has since been increased to 157,039 because of the late addition of digital titles in that year, a factor that may also further increase the 2010 figure. It means that year-on-year book production fell 3.2%, though the trend shows that output has soared: since 2008 it is up 13%, and  since 2001, the market has risen by close to 40%.

Once upon a time, there was one way to get published. You wrote your novel, typed it up, sent it to an agent, the agent loved it and submitted it to a traditional print publisher, who bought it and then published it.  But now, things are a lot more complicated.  E-publishing has taken off, with thousands of young publishing houses releasing digital-only content.  At the same time, self-publishing has exploded, with authors publishing their own books directly to the reader.  And of course, lurking around the sewers of the industry, vanity presses are always eager to prey upon the uninformed author.

But these four terms are not synonymous. There’s a lot of difference between traditional publishing, electronic publishing, and self-publishing.  (And vanity publishing is, at its heart, a scam) Where this becomes a problem is when the writer announces “I’m published!” but doesn’t distinguish between the different types of publishing.  Because unless your self-published book sells millions of copies, chances are that an agent or book industry exec isn’t going to be interested in that publishing credit-or a bookstore.  Regardless of what folks might think, there is a big difference between landing a multiple book deal  with Random House and self-publishing a book through Lulu. So in order to avoid trouble down the line, it’s important for an author to self-represent correctly-and, more importantly, to use the different avenues in publishing wisely, to build a foundation for a writing career.

So, let’s take a look at each term separately.

Traditional publishing-Print. To most writers, this means New York.  These are books that are represented by agents (most likely) and subsequently published by a major house-known as the Big Six-and any of their imprints.  These books are released in paperback. Some come out in hardback.  These books (usually) are where the legitimate bestseller lists originate. The author receives an advance for her book(s), and her titles are found in brick and mortar bookstores. In the past couple of years, the Big Six have jumped on board and begun to digitally publish their titles-at much higher prices and a much smaller royalty rate.

Let me interject that there are hundreds of legitimate, reputable, outstanding small presses out there-independent publishers that have nothing to do with New York or the Big Six.  Indie presses are a fantastic place for a young  writer to start out, especially genre writers.  I’m going to put indie publishers under the traditional publisher title because they, too, publish primarily in print.

 E-publishing-These publishing houses are digital first.  They publish e-books primarily, although some are moving into POD(print on demand) availability for their books.  An e-publisher is a genuine small house, following the same submissions, acquisitions, and editing processes as traditional publishing.  Five years ago, e-publishing wasn’t considered a legitimate publishing credit by agents and New York publishers. That mindset is changing as the popularity of digital books increases.

 Self-publishing-This is when a writer circumvents the publishing industry and releases his work himself.  That also means the writer is completely responsible for making sure the book goes through all the proper processes-editing, typesetting, cover art, formatting, uploading, publicity and marketing. Unfortunately many self-published authors don’t do this.  They release the book and then wait for the millions of dollars to roll in, which, unfortunately, rarely happens.  For every self-published author like Amanda Hocking, there are tens of thousands of authors who never sell more than ten copies of their book.

Vanity publishing-Where an author pays to be published.  Any time a publisher (or agent) asks for money up front, run away. Run fast. Yog’s law: money flows TO the author.

In the past six months, I can’t tell you how many people have told me their book was e-published, attempting to hoodwink me into thinking that another publisher had signed their book, put it through the processes, and released the book-only to find out later that in fact, the writer had self-published. (And no, making up a publishing company that only publishes one author’s work really doesn’t fool a publisher. If you’re self-published, just admit it.) Some come  to me only when their book didn’t make money and they want to try again.  Usually, those writers don’t know why.  I do know why.

You see-there’s a reason for the ‘gatekeepers’ in publishing. The agents, the slushpile readers, the acquisitions assistants all have the same goal in mind: they are looking for publishable books. Books that are strong technically, that are engaging and entertaining. In other words, books that people want to read.  When I am reading through submissions, I might ask to see one manuscript out of fifty.  That’s not because the stories are bad, but because the story is not publishable in its current condition.  Occasionally, however, I will be tempted to put more work into a manuscript because of the writer’s publishing history-her resume.  And this is where the correct publishing types really makes a difference.

In publishing, as in any profession, people need to be accurate and honest about how they present themselves to others.  If a writer’s book was self-published, it does no good for that writer to claim they were e-published.  Sure, the author electronically published his book, but the book never went through any kind of evaluation, most probably wasn’t edited (because many self-published authors wish to retain all creative control over their book) and more than likely didn’t sell more than a hundred copies.  If that book was e-published, to me that means that the author is familiar with the publication process-namely editing.  And that right there predisposes me to look upon that submission more favorably, because I know that I won’t be having to drag an unwilling writer through the process that will make that particular book better.

And of course, once you start talking traditional publishing, unless your books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies, it doesn’t matter very much if you’re e-published or self-published or published-by-your-Uncle-Vinnie-in-Des Moines published.   To a traditional publisher, it might as well be your first book.  However, among the gatekeepers to traditional publishing, e-publishing is no longer considered the red-headed stepchild of publishing.  I asked an agents’ panel three years ago if they considered e-publishing a legitimate publishing  credit. About 70% said yes.

Since we opened Musa Publishing, agents are now submitting to us.

It makes sense, after all. With e-publishing’s higher royalties, lower overhead and international  availability thanks to e-tailers like Amazon, authors and agents are intrigued by the possible financial rewards of a popular e-published success.  Publishers like Musa Publishing are able to create a high quality product that readers enjoy, at a price readers appreciate.  A lot of writers are making the same decision I made too-to begin my writing career in e-publishing. I could make better, immediate money while learning my craft and improving my work.

And the readers are reaping the benefits, as anyone with a fully stocked Nook or Kindle will tell you.

So there are sizable differences in the different types of publishing currently available, and it behooves the author to self-identify correctly.  As a writer, it’s important to understand the differences-and to use those differences wisely as you plot out your career.

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Thanks for that great insight. Celina. For my short story collection, Paths Less Traveled, my collection releasing today, Shots at Redemption, or a host of other amazing stories in just about every genre, please check out Musa Publishing.