Publishing in the Digital Age

“The biggest challenge [to authors today] is self-restraint. Publishing tools, like Smashwords make it fast, free and easy for any writer anywhere in the world to publish. But we don’t make it easy to write a great book. Many writers, intoxicated by the freedom to self-publish, will often release their book before it’s ready.”

“I don’t want to be Amazon’s Bitch.” Who would?

authors have to realize that sometimes the efforts they make to promote their books…well…simply don’t have the hoped for impact. Why? Because these days readers spend most of their time in Cyberspace searching out information on their interests and seeking out the advice of experts and opinions of others. In the process, they may—or may not—discover you and your book.

why authors might need to stop focusing so much attention on marketing and rely more on discovery

Many editors of literary journals don’t want work that has been published anywhere—even online. Even on a blog. Even on Facebook.

lit mag editors will likely refuse to consider the individual works for publication, citing the fact that they were previously published.

the nine independent publishers who finally took a stand: Abrams Books, Chronicle Books, Grove/Atlantic Inc. Chicago Review Press, Inc, New Directions Publishing Corp., W.W. Norton & Company, Perseus Books Group (where I work), the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, and Workman Publishing.

the independent publishers asserted that, “in aggregate, according to market data published by Nielsen BookScan the independents accounted for approximately 49 percent of total trade book sales nationwide in 2011.” A significant portion of those sales were through Amazon, which is why their decision to challenge the settlement and incur the possible wrath of this retailing giant is cou rageous.

If the agency model is effectively banned, Amazon will have the ability to price whole categories of e-books below cost in a way that is likely to drive out competition from other less deep-pocketed booksellers as well as brick and mortar booksellers.

Yet the first chapter remains basically what it was when they began—before they fell into the rhythm, before the text fully took shape.

This is where the right freelance editor will help your manuscript grab readers’ and agents’ attention and put it in balance.

Once they’ve seen the whole manuscript—or at least a detailed synopsis (which I often ask for, and is worth doing anyway, since it is often requested by agents), editors can see what is relevant to readers and what will overwhelm readers before they’ve fully committed to reading your book.

A big part of that control stems from Amazon’s ownership of the Kindle, the leading e-book reader, and that books bought for the device have DRM built in. Stross argues that this effectively locks many e-book buyers into the device, since it’s virtually impossible to read Kindle books on other devices

Publishers — and some authors, especially those who control the Authors Guild, which has fought every attempt by Google and others to open up the book market — have been so obsessed with piracy and locking down their products that they have allowed Amazon to take control of their fate

even if you take advantage of Amazon’s self-publishing options to avoid having to get a traditional publishing deal, you’ve really just exchanged one corporate overlord for another.

Brilliant website design and why it’s so important for authors. James mentions some of her favorite authors who have ugly and terrible websites. BUT if the author is established, it doesn’t matter. New authors don’t have this luxury. We have to stand out in the market. We have competition. The author website is a way to connect. It’s critical to make a good impression and a personal connection. You can only do this through your web presence and social media. Bring them back to reading your work, so they will read your books, enjoy them and tell their friends. Chris Guillebeau, author of the recent $100 Startup tells how it was easy for him to get a book deal as he had an established platform online. Read more in James’ guest article - Is your website hurting your writing?

A bad choice of colors can kill first impressions.

A mystery might be greys and blacks, whereas a go-getting kickass non-fiction book might be red and modern white.

double digit sales growth month by month over the last year.

Imagine for a moment what it would feel like if people walked into your company and used the lobby to call your competitors and buy their products. That’s standard consumer behavior in a bookstore.

To truly compete, he would also have to solve consumer’s expectations for instant gratification and delivery.

Content is King

If non-fiction, create stand-alone pieces  anywhere from 300-700 words per post. If fiction, craft a stand-alone episode with a provocative title.

Set up some Google Alerts to see who else is writing in your niche.

Before I write a scene, I envision a stage and my characters upon it. Who would want to go to a play and watch the actors meander around the stage talking to themselves or reflecting on problems while eating, getting ready, shopping, driving in the car, talking on the phone, etc.?

Jane was an early adopter but didn’t understand it initially and so abandoned it. Once she had figured it out, she loved it and used it strategically. Her early start was part of the growth of her account.

tweets 3-6 times per day and doesn’t use it very conversationally

Unless bookstores can not only acknowledge their role as beacons of culture, but really embrace that role and market themselves as such—as long as they try in vain to compete with one of the world’s largest retailers at its own game—they will slowly lose ground as they steadily morph into increasingly bizarre hybrids of book-music stores, bookstore-cafes, and bookstore–tapas restaurants, until they simply become businesses that sell the latest quirky breakout novel on the side to customers who’d rather pay $15 for a sandwich and a cup of coffee than for a book.

Here in the Boston area, two bookstores have managed to not only survive but thrive: the Harvard Bookstore (not affiliated with Harvard University) in Cambridge and Brookline Booksmith in Brookline.

they also sell a great selection of used titles at lower prices.

The skill is copywriting.

A query letter is not a straightforward description of your work. It’s a sales letter. It should be persuasive and seduce the agent into requesting your work.

And this is why writers struggle with queries, because they can’t bridge the gap between writing to entertain (or inform or inspire) and writing to persuade. It’s a different mindset, and it requires an ability to look at one’s work as a product that has a selling point.

"This is a business which has always been driven very much by supply rather than demand factors. Consumer taste doesn't actually change all that much but what does change is the availability of books in different channels. "It is tougher to predict how we will be 12 months from now, as an industry, than pretty much any time that I can remember."

Book publishers have long attested that short story collections don’t sell; Wolf would respond they’re not trying hard enough. “Traditional publishers don’t do a lot of marketing for the midlist authors today,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s that they’re too busy trying to survive or they don’t have the budget.”

“I’m organizing and coordinating all the different authors and having them all communicate to their specific niches and audiences. I’m driving them to a common landing page and we created a book blog. We’re leveraging social media and talking to the press.”

it’s true that, with limited marketing budgets, publishers often have to focus on the big titles, and smaller authors must pick up a lot of the marketing work themselves for a shot at success.

over time, more and more blog traffic arrives from Search Engines

In order to optimize your post for a particular keyword phrase you can get a free plugin, called WordPress SEO which helps you to use the keywords you’ve found in all the right places.