It's Still a Marathon, not a Sprint

What I'm reading: Open Season by C.J. Box

The rest of this month is going to be very busy for me. My daughter, Nicole is running in the LA Marathon. For those of you familiar with the area, the race starts at Dodger Stadium and finishes by the Santa Monica Pier. Feel free to show up anywhere along the route and cheer her on. She'll be wearing bib # 6580. I'll be flying out with her, and visiting my parents. Then, after I get back, I'll have a few days before I leave for Left Coast Crime in Sacramento.

And because I have marathons on my mind, I thought it would be a good time to revisit my e-publishing philosophy: It's a marathon, not a sprint.

I've seen countless people playing with pricing, frantically scheduling books for free, doing everything they can to get their books noticed in the rankings. (And we're talking primarily Amazon here, since they're still the 500 pound gorilla for most indie publishers)

They're tweeting, begging for everyone else to tweet that their books are free, or on sale. They're posting on countless Facebook groups that have turned into nothing more than "buy my book" sites. Since telling me to buy your book doesn't entice me to buy it, I figure others feel the same way.

While I agree that it's important to keep one's name out there, I'm more of the tortoise in this race. I've played the Twitter game and seen my sales go … nowhere. Now, true, who knows how many people have added samples to their e-readers, but I've yet to see a sales spike after a Tweet-a-thon.

What Do Authors Owe Readers?

What I'm reading: Contest Entry #2 of 8

First, a warm welcome to my newest followers. Thanks for coming on board, and I hope you'll stop by often. Next, please check the sidebar. I'm teaching an on-line workshop on Point of View next month, and would love to see some of you there.

There's been a lot of heated discussion on the new Amazon Kindle Select program for indie authors. In case you haven't heard, Amazon created a new program which benefits authors. It makes books available for readers to borrow (provided they've paid the $79 to become a member of Amazon Prime), and also gives authors the perk of promoting their books as free for a specific number of days per quarter. Free books raise the recognition factor.

The catch? You have to agree to publish ONLY at Amazon for a minimum of 90 days.
Authors are jumping on the bandwagon to mixed results. A lot seems to depend on whether they're well known to begin with, and whether they're selling established books or new releases. Since the program is less than 3 months old, it's impossible to make generalizations. Obviously, the authors who are the most excited about the program are the ones seeing immediate results.

Clearly, Amazon is in it to suck up as much of the market as it can, and that's simply doing business. The same goes for the authors who choose to participate. Indie authors are no longer controlled by their publishers, and they get to make their own choices.

Going Indie?

Today, I'm off to the Emerald City Conference. I'm traveling light, since I couldn't find a convenient itinerary with "my" airline, so I'm flying without any of my usual perks, including that free checked bag. Plus, I'm flying out of Denver, which creates issues with parking and schlepping to the terminal. So, it's a 'cram everything into one carryon' trip. I decided I could live without my laptop for the relatively short time I'll be gone.

I hope everyone continues to follow the blog, sign up for my newsletter, and all the other contest-entering options. I just won't be able to respond to comments. But I'll love it if when I come back, I have lots of new followers, contest entries, and comments. I've had two readers offer recipes already.

Last weekend, I attended the monthly meeting of my RWA chapter. Their program was a panel of authors who had recently decided to take the indie publishing route. They shared their approaches, which ranged from "do everything myself" to "pay a company to be my publisher."

There are pros and cons, of course. The author who paid for the service spent several thousand dollars for editing, formatting, and cover art. The company charges a separate fee for print and e-book formatting. Doing it yourself, of course, means learning how to follow all the formatting directions, and spending a lot of time. Time, as we all know, is money, so it's something everyone has to decide on an individual basis.

My thoughts. With the rise in indie publishing, there are going to be a lot of people out there who will take advantage of an author looking for help. You have to do your homework and shop around, because prices vary wildly, and I fear there will be horror stories about ripoffs. I've been lucky finding a good designer with reasonable prices for my cover art—I know I don't have the skills. Likewise, for my two original projects, I also added the cost of an editor. Again, I've been fortunate with reasonable prices. And I do think if you're going to indie-publish, you need to have a professional editor go through your manuscript. It doesn't matter whether you've been published before, or your critique groups say it's great. You need fresh eyes.

Case in point:

More to Publishing than Writing

What I'm reading: New York to Dallas, by JD Robb

Writing, especially if you're going the indie route, requires a lot of non-writing stuff.

When I got the rights back to my Pine Hills Police novels, FINDING SARAH and HIDDEN FIRE, and I decided to consolidate the 4 short stories featuring Randy and Sarah into a single volume, FINDING FIRE. (Title suggested by Facebook friend, author Lev Raphael, when I asked for suggestions. I think he blended the two titles very nicely, don't you ?)

If you recall an earlier post, when rights revert, the covers aren't included, so I had to get new covers for FINDING SARAH and HIDDEN FIRE. Thanks to Jessica's efforts, and my sister-in-law's photography, there's a new cover for FINDING FIRE that fits right in with the other two books.

Then it's a matter of formatting. Each sales venue requires slight modifications, so you have to make sure you're linking the Barnes & Noble books to your Barnes & Noble page, not your Amazon page. Formatting the actual text for Amazon, B&N and Smashwords is simple, but All Romance eBooks requires that you do your own conversions for the various formats. I used Calibre, which isn't too complicated, but it's still time consuming to create 4 or 5 formats for 3 different books.

Reversion of Rights - You Can Fix Things

What I'm reading: Part of the Bargain by Linda Lael Miller

After a long wait, I finally got a reversion of rights date for FINDING SARAH and HIDDEN FIRE. As of Wednesday, they will be mine. It should be noted that when you get the rights to a book back, all you "own" is what's between the covers, not the covers. So, I hired a cover artist and this is the new look. I'm trying to call attention to the fact that these two books are connected, so we went for a similar look in both. My sister-in-law provided the main cover image for FINDING SARAH and my son, whom many of you have met here, provided the image for HIDDEN FIRE.


Why did I ask for my rights back? Bottom line: the books weren't doing anything for me (or the publisher, I would assume). About 18 months ago, one of my publishers "remaindered" my first Blackthorne, Inc. book, WHEN DANGER CALLS. The rights reverted to me, and I thought I'd give indie publishing a try. E-books were nothing new to me; my other publishers had been e-book first publishers.

So, I tackled the learning curve for putting books on Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and a few other sites. I discovered that although I wasn't raking in the bucks, I was making some sales.

When Ellora's Cave said they were closing down their Cerridwen Press line, and were moving those books into the EC umbrella under the "Blush" imprint, I decided to take the rights back to WHAT'S IN A NAME? but to leave FINDING SARAH and HIDDEN FIRE there, to see if sales would be better under Blush. Meanwhile, I re-published WHAT'S IN A NAME? myself, along with a few short stories.

Being Your Own Boss--The Downside of Indie Publishing

Today my guest is Kelly McClymer. She's written short science fiction, fantasy,historical romance and YA. After dipping a toe into the indie epublishing trade by bringing out her backlist, she found she liked the control, the income, and the (relatively) quick payment turnaround. Once she gets the business side ironed out, she'll be epublishing several indie original YA novels. And while Kelly is here, I'm over at Coffee Time Romance talking characters.

I know many people who dream of being their own bosses…until they are. And then they run screaming back to the world of 8 hour work days, regular paychecks and paid vacation days.

I've always had a mix of choose-your-own and follow-the-leader jobs. I find good things about both (a paycheck you can count on is very nice), but at heart I'm an entrepreneur. I want to do something new as soon as I've learned the old thing well enough. Writing is the only career that lets me do that, with the added advantage of allowing me to use what I've discovered working regular jobs.

For years now, I've been pulling what I've learned from life and using it in books, some sold and some yet unsold and unfinished. Motherhood has informed a lot of my writing, but so has my first career as babysitter (perfect for a YA writer), my years working in the drug store, in various university offices, as a tutor for children with dyslexia, and as a temp employee. I always thought I was a good business person, though, and able to tend to the business side (deadlines, quality control, keeping myself out there for people to stumble over).

And then I started putting my backlist books out as ebooks. The learning curve was steep, and full of hair raising drops and rises, not to mention a hairpin turn or two. I ran a successful promotion and made good sales. I thought I was a good business person.

Letting Go

My guest today is author Sharon Hamilton, who writes paranormal romance and contemporary SEAL romance in Northern California. 

Is this Indie craze for you? Are you too late?

There are so many wonderful opportunities today for authors, especially with the rise of the Indie publishing wave. At the recent RWA Convention in NYC, I heard it said that this phenomenon is broadening the window a bit, giving readers more variety, and therefore expanding the numbers of authors who can participate. Indie has not only changed the lives of authors, but it has changed strategy for literary agents, and for publishers as well. The reader is now getting a plethora of new authors to explore, getting these books faster and cheaper. Will more books be sold? Are readers reading more than before? I don’t know the answer to those questions.

As with any changing market trend, there are pros and cons. Just when we think we’ve learned how it all works, everything changes again. Authors who never made much money on their books that languished out of print can resurrect them, dust them off, edit and re-launched in eBook format, where they can keep the lion’s share of the profits. This new life has brought instant riches for not only NYC best-selling authors, but mid-list authors as well. Author’s backlists are paying some serious bills, and allowing some to look forward to an actual retirement. Every week we are flooded with names of people making mega six figure incomes. It all looks so easy.

Publishing: It's About Marketing

What I'm reading: Dirty, by Debra Webb.

Also, I'm revisiting my post on romantic moments over at Ellis Vidler's blog, the Unpredictable Muse today.

Thanks to Paty for sharing her reasons for going indie with her older books. I'm in a similar situation, and understand exactly what she's talking about. In addition to publishing my back list titles, I've also taken the plunge into indie-publishing a new book. And in case you missed it, I'm offering a Buy 1, Get 1 Free sale. And, unlike the normal retailers, I'm not restricting the free book to the cheaper one. Nope. Buy the 99 cent book (When Danger Calls) and I'll give you the $2.99 book (Danger in Deer Ridge) free.

Why? Because if you're someone starting in e-publishing, people are more likely to take a chance if you've got an established name. I don't. One of the ways to get noticed is for your books to rise in the rankings at the e-stores, and the only way to get them up there is for people to buy them or review them. So, in the hope that if I gave away books, mine would move higher up the ladder, which in turn would generate more sales, I'm willing to eat the cost of giving away books. After all, any business must have an advertising budget.

So, if you've been considering reading my Blackthorne, Inc. e-books, this would be a great time to take that next step.

Recycling My Books

Today I welcome Paty Jager to Terry's Place. Paty uses her love of the old west and ranch life to bring the characters in her historical and contemporary westerns to life. Growing up in a rural area books were her crystal ball to the world outside the secluded Wallowa valley. Her characters portray her feelings on life and love and her joy of reading.

Terry, Thank you for hosting me on your blog today.

I'd like to share with you today how I’m extending the longevity of my books and making them even more accessible to readers.

When I started writing I just wanted to put the characters in my head on paper and enjoy the process of bringing them to life on the pages. Along the way, my husband thought I should see dollars for my efforts and my friends who enjoyed the stories thought more people should enjoy them. That brought me to learning to better my craft and eventually start sending my stories to agents, editors, and contests.

I did well in most contests, usually becoming a finalist, and the rejection letters stopped being photocopied letters and said, "We like this, but…". I became frustrated that while they "liked it but", was nice, it wasn't putting my stories in front of readers.

e-Publishing "Dangers"

What I'm reading: Live Wire, by Harlan Coben.

First: A very Big Thank You to those who have served to protect our country.

Next: Tomorrow is the last day for my May contest, given the dearth of entries, it's likely to be the last contest I run here for a while. Click the contest tab to enter.

And, lastly, Blogger's comment feature is acting up. I'm switching to the pop up window option to see if that helps.

When I started writing, my first publications were with e-publishers, so I've certainly been aware of the digital market from its infancy. I have several titles from my back list that I decided to publish independently, but I recently decided that I would bypass a publisher for my next book. It wasn't an easy decision, but I thought I'd share some of my reasoning, as well as the pros, cons, and potential pitfalls.

First: I'd hoped to add two more of my back list titles, but I have yet to get the official reversion of rights from that publisher, so they've been relegated to the back burner.

Second: my two short stories aren't due out in an anthology until August, and based on what I've seen with that publisher, it's not a firm release by any means.

Third: I'd already written the fourth book in my Blackthorne, Inc. series, and had to decide if I should submit it to the publisher.

Left Coast Crime: Publishing Part 2

In yesterday's post about publishing, everything focused on print vs digital. However, I neglected to give a nod to audio books, which is yet another way a story gets from author to "reader."

I should also mention POD, which once had the same bad rap as being self-published. It's important to remember that POD stands for "Print on Demand" and has nothing whatsoever to do with the content, or its quality. It's simply a technology—a way to put a book into print. Given the problems with bookstores finding shelf space for books, or publishers having to gamble on what size print run to produce, it's quite possible that more and more books will be printed on demand—that is, when a reader places an order.

I was going to discuss the panel on research today, but yesterday afternoon I discovered that an interview I did for the Kindle Author blog was posted. The blog owner, David Wisehart, asked some very interesting questions, and since it's a blog about Kindle books, and going the indie route, I thought it would fit with what I've been discussing. I hope you'll pop over there and read the interview.

Tomorrow is Friday Field Trip, and we're going to—where else—Santa Fe.