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Q&A: How does writing a book feed your social media marketing?

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Q: I’m told having a book will help me build my social media platform. Can you explain how that works?

A: It’s not so much that the book helps build the platform. Actually, you need the platform to sell the book. But the book can be one plank in your platform. Even that isn’t an entirely accurate way of putting it. All the pieces of the platform puzzle work together, but they can also function independently of one another. It’s more like flowers in a vase. Together, they create an attractive image, but each also stands alone. You can think of them as tools in a box, if the flower metaphor is too girly for you.

Anyone promoting a business needs to be in social media in some way. Maybe just LinkedIn or Twitter. Maybe half a dozen others. It all depends on your goals and, more importantly, where your target market is hanging out. If your potential clients are on Pinterest, you should be too. If not, then don’t worry about it.

A blog is another key component of the promotional arrangement. This gives you a place to show your expertise on a regular basis. You can even put the book and the blog together, either by using the blog as a testing ground for parts of the book before publication, or by using book excerpts as blog posts after publication. Nina Amir literally wrote the book on blogging a book.

If you’re trying to get speaking engagements or media interviews, it helps to be able to bill yourself as the author of a book on the topic. If you have a print edition, you can also sell the book from the back of the room when you give speeches.

Social media, blogging, and public speaking are all good tools to have in your promotional kit. Adding a book to your marketing mix gives an extra level of credibility as a topic expert.

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Writing Q&A: Do I need to study English to be a writer?

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Q: I’m interested in writing a book. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and I’ve been blogging for a while, but I’ve never tried writing a book. Should I go back to college and take some English classes? I’ve also considered getting an MFA. Would that help?

A: You certainly need to study, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay university prices to do so.*

If English is your native language, and you’ve been a writer all or most of your life, college English courses will not give you a huge boost toward achieving publication. I know a lot of writers, but I don’t know any who got their book published because they had a master of fine arts degree. The common element of successful writers is that they write a lot and seek constructive feedback from other writers.

If you’re a writer by nature and you read a lot, and widely, your instincts are likely to be solid. If you feel there are problems with your writing, the first thing to do is diagnose the specific problems, and a good way to do that is through a critique group, preferably one that includes published writers. Once you’ve identified your problem area—for example, plotting, character development, or grammar—there are tons of resources online to help you grow that skill through independent study: books, websites, critique groups, conferences…try Googling the name of your state and “writers association.” Try to find a chapter near you and go there to ask for help.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that you can also hire a professional to diagnose the areas of your writing that may need improvement. A book doctor or writing coach can offer more directed assistance than a college course.

If you’re not a writer by nature, but want to write a book for personal or business reasons, creative writing courses, rather than English, are primarily what’s needed. Even if you’re writing nonfiction, creative writing classes will help you present your material in a more engaging way. This is often called creative nonfiction. If you already hold a degree in your topic area, there’s no need to go back and get another in English to write about it.

Here are some options for self-directed learning:

  • Coursera—web-based free classes from major universities
  • iTunes U—mobile app with free recordings of university classes
  • The Great Courses—audio and video classes by college professors; pricey, but high-quality

Writing, like many other skills, is better developed through applied practice than through classroom learning. Write, seek critiques from writers, and write some more.

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* Like Peter Thiel, I’m of the opinion that university tuitions are experiencing a price bubble. Economists have shown that those with degrees out-earn those who don’t, but when students take on loads of debt to get the degree, it devalues the earnings. So be cost-aware as you consider college options.

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Why owning your ISBN is important—or not

When you hire a vendor to produce your book, the company usually provides one of its own ISBNs, which makes it your publisher of record. This is also true if you use the free ISBN provided by Create Space or Smashwords.

book publishing isbn

Photo by Ove Tøpfer

Bowker is the U.S. registrar for International Standard Book Numbers. Each book receives a unique ISBN, which goes into the Bowker database booksellers and libraries use for ordering. When a bookseller looks up the book in Bowker’s database, the “Publisher” field will say “Create Space” or the name of your vendor.

How can this be if, as I said, you’re the publisher because you’re paying the bill?

It’s a technicality that shows the industry has failed to keep up with new publishing models. We have two meanings for the word “publisher.” One is my definition: the publisher is the one paying the bill. The other, more common, definition is that the publisher is the printer that’s fulfilling orders for the book. We really need a new term for this latter role when the printer is not funding publication but is paid by the author. I prefer the term “vendor” because it accurately depicts the relationship between the author and a company that’s selling services.

If you’re published by a royalty house, this is all irrelevant. The royalty publisher pay you, owns the ISBNs, and fulfills orders. It’s a publisher in every sense of the word.

If you’re self-publishing on the do-it-yourself model, you own the ISBN, you’re the publisher, and yet you can still delegate printing and fulfillment to a vendor such as Lighting Source or Create Space.

This issue of who is the publisher of record only arises when you outsource your book production to a vendor and use its ISBN. I don’t think this is a huge problem. I published three e-stories at Smashwords using its free ISBNs, so technically Smashwords is my publisher. I’m OK with that.

But what if you want to be the publisher of record? I recommend the DIY route, but some find that too overwhelming. If that’s you, there are a couple of options.

You could choose a vendor that will let you bring your own ISBN. Buy your ISBN from Bowker and have the vendor put it on the book. If the vendor insists you use its ISBN, consider finding a different vendor. There are a ton of them listed, and some reviewed, at The Independent Publishing Magazine.

Another option is to hire a consultant to guide you through the DIY process. You’ll probably only need hand-holding once. You’ll probably find that it’s not so scary after all, and you’ll be confident enough to handle it alone in the future. Then again, maybe you’re a busy businessperson more concerned with saving time than avoiding the hassle. You just need someone to delegate the task to. Either way, I can help.

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Why what you call a ‘publisher’ matters

Last week, I wrote about the differences, slim though they are, between vanity presses and subsidy presses.

In the comments, Jennifer wrote, “What a publisher calls itself does not matter. What matters are the terms of the contract.”

True. A company can call itself whatever it chooses, but whether it’s a true publisher or a vendor providing services depends on what’s in the contract, not its name.

But what the rest of us call these companies does matter. It troubles me to hear authors who’ve hired an author services vendor to produce their book refer to that company as “my publisher.”

It troubles me for two reasons. My first concern is that the author is deceived, and doesn’t understand how publishing works.

Subsidy publishing: Author pays printing company

Subsidy publishing: Author pays printing company

My second concern is that the author understands full well how publishing works, but is calling their vendor a publisher to fool people into thinking they have a “real” publisher. This is the kind of mindset Bernard Starr was talking about when he called traditional publishing “the new vanity publishing.”

I don’t entirely agree with Starr, but I understand where he’s coming from. His premise is that since it’s possible publish your book with little or no cost, the only reason to bother with a publisher at all is because you crave the cachet of being one of the chosen few to be contracted by a bona fide royalty-paying publisher.

There is some truth to that.

But more to the point, as we’ve already seen, is that to produce a high-quality product, you have to shell out some bucks for editing, proofreading, and design. Given the choice, many of us would prefer to have someone else pay the bill.

In a way, it does matter what companies call themselves. I think it’s misleading for a vendor to call itself a publisher. “Publishing services” is better, but still a bit weasely. “Book producer” would be better.

The important thing, whatever route we take to publication, is that we are honest about it and don’t try to cloak what we’re doing in obscure nomenclature. If you hired a vendor to produce your book, you’re a publisher. Claim it with pride.

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Vanity press vs. subsidy: What’s the difference?

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Q: Earlier you talked about the difference between royalty publishing and a subsidy press. I’ve heard other writers complain about “vanity presses.” Is there a difference between a subsidy press and a vanity press?

A: Depends on who you ask.

Some people think so-called “traditional publishing” is the only true publishing, and that any author who pays to publish their book is getting ripped off. Those folks will tell you that subsidy publishing is just a new name for the ol’ vanity press scam.

I disagree.

Subsidy publishing involves you hiring a company to print your book for you. Subsidy presses are generally very up front about this arrangement. They may provide the ISBN, which makes them your publisher as far as the record-keepers at Bowker are concerned. This may also be the case if you self-publish through Amazon or Smashwords. But the important thing is that you retain all rights to the book.

Vanity publishing also involves you hiring a company to print your book for you, but a scam press will be vague about this arrangement. They often advertise in writers’ magazines that they are “accepting submissions” and will, after “reviewing” your manuscript, tell you that your book has been “accepted for publication.” The main thing, though, that separates the scam press from the legitimate press is that the scammer will take your rights from you and ask you to pay them for doing so.

When you enter into a contract with a royalty publisher, you sell the publication rights to them, and they pay you for them.

So this is an important distinction for authors to understand:

  • Royalty press: pays the author for publication rights.
  • Subsidy press: paid by the author for book production; author retains rights.
  • Vanity press: paid by the author for book production and press retains rights.

There is no earthly reason why an author should pay a press to take their rights away. Whether any vanity presses actually remain in business, I don’t know. I suspect there are a few, because so many people don’t understand how the business works.

Which is why I’m here, trying to explain it all.

There’s a case to be made that all publishing is vanity. We must be vain to believe that the story we have to tell or the information we have to share will be important to readers. There’s nothing wrong with that. As Orna Ross said recently in a blog post,

Why doesn’t the musician entertaining the crowd down the pub not get accused of vanity for getting up and playing his music? Why is only writers who are asked to justify their urge to create?

You don’t have to justify your urge to create. Your story and your knowledge deserve to be shared. How you share them is up to you. Educate yourself about your options, and pick the one that works for you.

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When self-publishing, consider your profit potential

Whether you’re buying publishing services from a single vendor or from a set of freelancers, you have to do a cold calculation. Can you sell enough copies of your book to recoup your investment?

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Illustration by IconEden

In an earlier post, I talked about some of the costs that go into producing a book. I came up with a figure of about $6,000. But if in addition to what I outlined earlier you were also to hire, as most publishing houses would, a developmental editor, several proofreaders, and most importantly a kick-tail artist to create a unique cover illustration, you can easily rack up $10,000 in costs.

If you make $2 per book, you’d have to sell 5,000 books. Can you do that? Are you sure? Most self-published books sell in the hundreds, not in the thousands.

This isn’t only a problem for self-publishers. If anything, the risks are even greater for royalty publishers. They invest huge amounts of cash in each book: multiple levels of editing, up to eight professional proofreaders, and top-notch cover artists. Add in their overhead costs, and big publishers can sink up to $50,000 to produce a book. Which is why they are so stinkin’ picky. They’re risk averse. Who can blame them? I would be, too.

This is why platform is so important to writers and publishers, and doubly so to self-publishing authors. You need to be able to realistically estimate how many people are going to buy your book.

The amount of money you spend producing your book, divided by the royalty you’ll receive per book, equals the number of books you must sell to break even.

Just break even. Beyond that, you’ll get into profit, although there’s cost of sales to consider, also. But let’s not go there just yet. And never mind the costs you’ve already put in: your time, all the books you’ve bought, conference fees…If you start thinking about those, you’ll despair of ever seeing a return on investment. Just focus on your hard costs, because that’s a tough enough equation.

Cost ÷ Royalty = Units

Am I saying don’t publish if you can’t recoup the costs? No. Publishing, like a lot of things, is a worthwhile endeavor even if you do it at a loss. There is nothing wrong with publishing as a hobby. And there’s nothing wrong with cutting costs to match your sales expectations. And if publishing is part of your business model, consider carefully whether it’s a profitable revenue stream or a cost of doing business.

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How does one train to be a fiction editor?

 

When I guest blogged at Random Writing Rants the other day, a commenter asked about how one gets trained as a fiction editor. Here’s an expanded version of my answer.

I belong to two professional associations, both of which provide editor training:

The EFA’s Developmental Editing course is a four-week course covering the major aspects of book-length works in both fiction and nonfiction. From the course description:

Participants will gain a general understanding of relevant editorial topics and necessary skills, including the basics of looking at the big-picture elements of a manuscript and communicating editorial suggestions to authors. The course will also cover how to establish an efficient developmental editing process and run a developmental editing business.

This course hasn’t been offered since Spring 2012, and is not on the Spring 2013 course list, but this or a similar course will probably be offered again in the future.

The PEN course is 20 weeks and covers every aspect of novel writing and editing. If you’re interested in fiction editing, I highly recommend the PEN fiction editing course, even if you don’t write for the Christian submarket. Excerpts from the course description:

Through concise lessons with lots of examples, the participants will plunge into the elements that are essential for helping writers reach write award-winning fiction… Opening hooks and chapter ending hooks…Proper use of flashbacks or back story…Deep Point of View…

And, as the infomercials say, much, much, more. Jeanne Marie Leach, who teaches the PEN course, is very thorough and precise.

Another source for editorial training is Author-Editor Clinic. I haven’t taken any of their courses directly, but the instructor for my EFA course was trained there.

Editing fiction isn’t just about grammar and sentence structure, although those are important skills for an editor to have. Fiction editors need to be able to put themselves in the reader’s seat, examining the text as a reader would. Every editorial decision made must serve the reader. The reader, not arbitrary style rules or personal preferences.

The editor must also have a desire to help writers achieve their best possible results. You also need self-restraint, to avoid imposing your own personality on someone else’s work. Good editors help writers shine, while remaining invisible themselves.

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What having a publisher gets you

The self-publishing revolution has a lot of writers asking whether they even need a publisher. It’s a fair question. So let’s take a look at what a publisher does for an author.

First and foremost, as I’ve said before, the publisher pays the bill. That is, the publisher fronts all the money for the production of the book, thereby assuming the financial risk for the endeavor.

Self-publishing proponents argue that an e-book can be published at no up-front cost. Technically, this is true, but you get what you pay for. We looked earlier at what goes into book production.

A publishing house, even a small press, will provide editors and proofreaders, either on staff or as freelancers, all dedicated to polishing your text to the height of perfection.

Page designers will create the interior pages of the print edition using high-end software like Adobe InDesign. This will provide much smoother typography and page layouts than are possible in Microsoft Word.

Cover designers will ensure that your cover is eye-catching without being cheesy. This is harder to do than you think. I was a graphic artist for close to fifteen years, and I still can’t design covers as good as the top finishers in The Book Designer’s E-book Cover Design Awards.

Skilled technicians will convert the print edition to e-book formats and troubleshoot to make sure crazy stuff doesn’t happen, like misplaced illustrations or weird page flows when font sizes change.

If you’re lucky enough to land one of the major publishers, you might get bookstore distribution. With a small press, this is less likely. But either way, you will at least get some advice on marketing, and you may even get actual support in the form of promotional materials.

The final piece a publisher provides is an intangible: the expertise of the people running the company. That’s a value that’s impossible to put a price on.

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Writing Q&A: Do you need permission to mention a product name?

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Editors are frequently asked whether it’s permissible for writers to mention product or business names in books. The short answer is yes.

The long answer is be careful.

By the nature of doing business, companies put their brands into the public forum and in fact usually appreciate publicity. But you do need to ensure you’re not needlessly casting them in a negative role.

For example, if your novel takes place in Ybor City, Florida, it would create a great sense of place to have your characters dine at the historic Columbia Restaurant, founded in 1905. That would cause locals to say, “yeah, I know that restaurant.” It adds realism to the story.

Maybe you don’t need to specify the town, but you want to mention Denny’s because you need a place where your characters can meet in the middle of the night. That’s fine. But if it will be a crime scene, it’s probably better to make up a fake all-night diner.

Trademark owners can’t stop you from using the names of their products: your hero can drive a Toyota to Starbucks and work on his MacBook. The trademark owner will ask you to capitalize it as registered, as the capital B in MacBook, and they would prefer that you not use it in a negative context, e.g., “the victim was found in a Dumpster behind Denny’s.” (Note Dumpster is capped because it’s a trademark!)

Trademark owners often ask that their trademarks not be used in a way that doesn’t represent their product. An editor at the newspaper I used to work for once used the phrase “snap crackle pop” in an editorial that had nothing to do with breakfast cereal. She got a cease-and-desist letter from Kellogg Co.’s trademark lawyers. But if she had used the phrase to describe Rice Krispies, we’d have been fine.

Libel is another matter. One must be careful not to defame a person, product, or company in writing, unjustly. Those writing about the financial crisis need pull no punches in naming the companies that contributed to the housing market boom and bust, as long as what they report is true. But if, for example, your memoir speculates about malfeasance at a company but you lack proof, you’d better run the story by a lawyer first. News organizations do this often.

You don’t need permission to refer to a company or product by name. But do ensure that you are doing so in a respectful way.

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Why the traditional publishing model is broken

As we discussed last week, in the royalty or “traditional” publishing model, the publisher pays the author for rights to publish a book. That’s the simple explanation, but in fact there are all kinds of complications in this system.

book publishing

Photo by Aleksandra P.

The up-front payment authors receive for their book is called an advance, because it’s a payment of the royalties the book is expected to earn. The publisher estimates how many copies of the book will be sold. Say 10,000 copies, at a royalty rate of 70 cents per copy. So the author advance is $7,000.

If the book sells more than 10,000 copies, then the author receives additional royalty payments. This, it turns out, is a rarity.

Most publishers don’t release their actual numbers, but the best-guess estimate, derived by industry pros talking to one another at conferences, is that only 30 percent of books published by traditional houses “earn out” their advance. That is to say, they sell enough copies to cover what was paid to the author and then some.

So 70 percent of the time, publishers are not making enough sales to cover that advance. They are paying for sales that never happen. That’s just bad business. We have seen declines in advances in recent years, so maybe some sensible accountants have started pointing out that sales projections ought to be more in line with reality.

As the author, if you got that $7,000 advance and then your book only sold 8,000 copies ever, you would get no further royalties. If, however, you sold 6,000 copies in year one, and 4,500 copies in year two, then you would receive royalties on the 500 “extra” copies, and every copy thereafter.

Some authors have complained about declining advances, but this is absurd. If you earn out the advance and receive royalties, then you are being paid fairly, regardless of the size of the advance. If you don’t earn out, you’re being paid more than fairly, because the publisher doesn’t take back the unearned portion of the advance. If authors are going to complain, they should complain about the low royalty rate.

A business model that pays in advance for sales and then overestimates sales 70 percent of the time is one in need of a major overhaul. Small presses are beginning to do this. Some have given up on advances entirely. Royalties paid on books sold. Period.

Advance-paying publishers often pay only 12 percent of net sales. Publishers that skip the advance pay more. That’s smart planning. The higher rate benefits writers, and eliminating the advance reduces publisher risk.

Historically, the major publishers have used the cash earned by their blockbuster bestsellers to make up for the shortfall on the 70 percent of underselling books. But that doesn’t seem to be working anymore. Big publishers keep consolidating to reduce overhead, but they will never run as nimbly as a small press. Small presses and self-publishers can get books to niche markets more cost-effectively than big publishers.

For new authors, small presses offer a great opportunity. They are often easier to reach because they don’t require you to have an agent to submit. Unlike the subsidy or self-publishing model, they don’t require the author to front any cash for the endeavor. They use freelance editors and designers and print-on-demand technology to reduce overhead costs. And they have begun to repair the broken business model of traditional publishing.