A great Summary of Amazon, Publishing and Where Things Stand from The Nation

I think this is an excellent accounting of where things have come from and they stand.

I’ll post more next week after attending BEA.  Feel free to leave your comments on the article below.

http://www.thenation.com/article/168125/amazon-effect

 

Promoting your book in iBooks

One of the questions I’m constantly asked when I present workshops on Indie Publishing is: How do we promote in iBooks? or How do we increase sales in iBooks? Its not an easy question to answer. One of the things I’m working on today for Cool Gus Publishing is to add links in our website to where our eBooks are available on other sites. We believe this is a good service for our customers and some people just want that easy “one-click” from Amazon or prefer to buy from Barnes and Noble, supporting the bookstore.

But working inside of iBooks is all together a different bird simply because its contained in iTunes.

Recently, Apple sent us a couple of PDF’s about how to promote and market using some of their tools. We got this email because we use iTunesConnect to load our books directly to the iBookstore. Here are a couple of things I think are useful and are not that difficult to use.

The Book Widget. You can actually do this for other products as well.

From Apple: “With Widget Builder, you can easily add interactive widgets to your website or blog. These widgets allow users to explore books and more from the iBookstore and iTunes.”

Go here to see builder.

Basically, you find the books you want, add them to your widget and then copy the code and put it where you want in your website. Depending on your blog, you can do it there, but this morning WordPress is being fussy, so click on image to see the actual widget.

I like this widget and when I rebuild Bob’s site (creating a new Cool Bob site) I will be adding these kinds of widgets making it easy for the reader to find the books they love on the sites that work for them. Its all about the reader!

Another neat thing is the link creator.

From Apple: “With Link Maker, you can create links to content on the iTunes Store, the App Store, the iBookstore, and the Mac App Store, and then place those links on your website, marketing emails, or within your app.”

Go here to use the linkmaker.

Below is a link I created for Bob’s audio book The Jefferson Allegiance. When you click on it you have to launch your iTunes, which can be troublesome for some, but its the only way to get things from iTunes anyway.

I have a lot more reading to do on different things that Apple is doing and creating in order to help the author promote their books. These are just two quick things you can do to make it easier for your customer to get what they love, they way the love it.

Now I have to go put all this on our website….

AAR, DOJ and the Agency Model

The AAR recently sent a letter to the DOJ unanimously supporting the Agency model.  I find it odd that the AAR has yet to send a collective letter to the Big 6 asking for higher, and fairer, royalty rates for their authors’ electronic rights.  (This post is a version that was originally published at Digitla Book World on 10 May)

Perhaps the focus of the AAR is misplaced?  As an author and a publisher, I wear two hats, so I see a couple of facets of this situation from different perspectives.

Perhaps the focus of publishers trying to defend their pricing model is misplaced?  Their business model is shifting much faster than they can adapt to from distribution to discoverability.

Here’s the deal.  For too long some agents and many publishers mistakenly believed they actually created the PRODUCT that readers consumed:  i.e. the book.  Even with print, that’s not true.  The PRODUCT is the story, the words.  The printed book was the medium by which those words reached the reader.  Thus agents and publishers and bookstores were, and still are, facilitators.  Not creators.  As an author I create content.  As a publisher I facilitate getting content to readers.  I literally have two different offices in my house for the two different jobs.

The subtle arrogance built from years of having their own form of monopoly on publishing is now costing many in the industry and it makes the AAR letter to the DOJ regarding Amazon somewhat ironic.  As I’ve pointed out:  Amazon didn’t exist except in one man’s mind in 1994.  How much have agents, publishers and bookstores changed and adapted in the past 18 years?  In 2011 I had to radically change my approach to publishing.  My old approach had served me very well for 20 years, but projecting forward and studying other parts of the entertainment business as they encountered the digital wave, it was apparent a radical overhaul was needed in my career.

When the music business crashed and burned because of digital in the early part of the last decade how many authors, agents, publishers and bookstores, invested time and money to prepare for an inevitable digital wave?  I shook my head at all the hoopla raised when Tor decided to go DRM free a few weeks ago.  To me it was another sign of how far behind the times the Big 6 are.  At Digital Book World in January, my estimate was at least a year (an eternity in the digital world) and it hasn’t changed enough since then.

The medium is shifting from print to digital much faster than most still understand and 99% of the pundits (who are still punditting and being believed even though they have been wrong over and over) predicted.  Thus agents, publishers, bookstores, and everyone else between the author and the reader have to adapt.  We have to prove our value as a facilitator in that connection.  Instead, what we’re seeing is an entrenchment to hold to being the “gatekeepers”; the “curators”; whatever you want to call it.  Even some authors have jumped on the bandwagon, such as Scott Turow; but those on the bandwagon, are those who’ve been on the top 5% bandwagon. Of course they want to see the established system stay in place.  It works quite well for them.

Back when the Amazon-MacMillan battle was fought over pricing and MacMillan “won” I was also shaking my head.  In my opinion, based on having studied warfare and been a soldier both in the Infantry and Special Forces for many years, Amazon clearly won the war, while ceding the battle.  Perhaps a brush up with Sun Tzu might help?

Amazon clearly flexed its muscles and showed its capability, let MacMillan raise prices, which consumers just love, and moved on (now moving into the fashion world, to the dismay of the facilitators in that medium).  Since then, what exactly has MacMillan done to facilitate the writer to reader connection?  Kept eBook prices artificially high, while not increasing royalties to their authors any significant amount.

To be honest, I want the Agency model to continue.  It gives Cool Gus Publishing a great pricing advantage over legacy publishers.  When readers have to choose between our eBooks at $2.99 to $4.99 and a legacy eBook at $12.99, more often than not, our book gets the nod.  Please, NY, keep your eBook prices high.

At Cool Gus Publishing, we had to write a four page fact sheet to give to authors when they ask why they should give up an percentage of what they could make on their own self-publishing by signing with us. Our percentage is very small, especially when compared to the Big 6 or even most smaller e-publishers.  We have to prove our worth as a facilitator.  If we can’t, then we can’t stay in business as a publisher.  We have to be honest and upfront about it.

The issue now for agents, publishers and bookstores is not fighting a futile battle against Amazon and the inevitable digital world, but rather this:  how to adapt to become a worthwhile facilitator between author and reader?  What value do I add to this process?  The standard answers are quality control, editorial, print distribution (not dead yet! To quote Monty Python), etc.  But readers are making the ultimate quality control decisions now with the buy button.  Editorial can be outsourced to freelancers (many of them fleeing the sinking Titanic in NYC).  We don’t care much about print distribution as we make a “very nice deal” each month on eBook sales alone and don’t have to assume the high overhead of printing, physical sales forces, distribution, returns, etc. etc.  Digital also means we can shift quickly when needed, such as recently completely redoing the covers for my entire Atlantis series based on reader feedback, marketing research, metadata, and studying daily, weekly and monthly sales figures.  We did that in a week.  It’s taken the first NY imprint years to remove DRM.  We used DRM on a few books when we started in January of 2010 but quickly removed DRM because it’s what our customers preferred.  Our customers are readers, not agents, publishers, sales reps, book buyers, or bookstores.  I believe we run a form of what some have now labeled “agile” publishing?  We called it flex publishing about a year ago.

Perhaps the AAR, and others, might better spend their time writing letters about how they can change and help readers connect with good authors and authors connect with readers?

Book Expo America: The Plan

I learned the hard way how important it is to have a plan when attending a conference or convention. While I’m not a shoot from the hip kind of girl, the first conference I attended (RWA National in Reno), I didn’t have much of a plan and frankly, I got very little out of a very expensive experience. I didn’t read up ahead of time what the workshops were all about. I didn’t look at which authors were presenting, or even what they wrote. I had no idea what to expect.

In a nutshell, I went to a few workshops (was disappointed because I hadn’t done my homework on the presenters). I spent a lot of time in my room working on my pitch and then after I got the request for the full, I spent even more time in my room going through my manuscript one more time. After I got home, I sent off my manuscript and then began reading emails about other writers’ experiences. It was then that I realized how much I had missed. Now I plan.

Last weekend I gave a presentation to the Pocono’s Lehigh RWA chapter. What I loved about the writers attending is they all had a plan for my workshop. Everyone came with specific questions. I think this is important when going to a workshop. Know what you want to learn and don’t be afraid to ask for clarification or if something you thought would be covered and wasn’t, don’t be afraid to ask.

Whether it is presenting or attending, planing is key for making the most of your experience.

Bob and I have been using a combination of Dropbox and Google Docs for some of our work. Google Docs is nice because we can both be working on a document and we can see what the other is doing. A little weird, but it works. I parked a spreadsheet there for my schedule for BEA. I’m going to be meeting people from Kobo, Apple, Amazon and also talking to other authors. I like to set up meetings ahead of time when possible. I find it slightly amusing that Bob is adding to my schedule, but going to BEA is a big deal for Cool Gus Publishing. It will be the first convention we are going with the official new name change. We have a shelf on the digital bookshelf showing off some of our fiction titles. Its exciting times and I’m really looking forward to attending. I have never been to BEA. All the more reason to do my homework.

I’m only going to BEA for two days and I want to make sure I get everything done that I have my BEA checklist. I’ve contacted a few author and agent friends I know that have attended and they have given me all sorts of tips. Now, you would think someone like me who speaks at least 6 conferences a year, this process would be a no brainer. However, we have found that when we don’t use checklists we then make mistakes. Early this week Bob shared his SOP for the ACX audio program. Anytime he adds a book to our audio listing, he’s going to follow that SOP and if it needs changing, he will change it.

So what is my SOP for attending a conference? I actually change it up each time I go, but mainly it consists of:

• Write out business and personal goals for conference
• Create any swag, business cards, etc.
• Know what presentation to attend before getting there
• Know the presenters and find them on-line, learning as much about them as possible
• Contact other business professionals who have attended the conference
• Make a list of who I want to meet with
• Contact them if I can and arrange meetings
• Of the people I want to meet, find out if they are giving a workshop, having a booth and schedule in a time to visit
• Once there, walk the terrain–learn where everything is first
• Stay on the conference floor the ENTIRE day
• Drink water and have snacks like peanuts or a granola bar
• Wear comfortable shoes
• Take notes
• When returning home, rewrite notes
• Jot down thoughts and send on to Bob
• File business cards and connect with the people I meet
• Go through all of this a week later and work on staying connected after the conference

So far, for BEA I’m nearly booked solid for the two days with meetings. The highlight will be that Cool Gus Publishing will be hanging out at the Kobo booth on Tuesday from 1-2:30 and again on Wednesday from 1-2:30. If you are going to be at BEA, come stop by and say hello. Bob and I are very excited about the future and what that means for writers and more importantly: readers. Readers Rule.

Write It Forward

SOP for Authors Using Audible ACX by Bob Mayer

Audible ACX is an extremely user-friendly system allowing authors to produce their titles in audiobook format and make them available across a variety of platforms.

The information listed below contains my experiences and lessons learned using ACX over the past six months.  I have invested over $35,000 in audiobooks and while my experience has been great overall, there are a few things I would have done differently from the start.

1. When preparing a book for auditions take your time when drafting the product description.  You automatically get Amazon’s current product description. You can go in and change it as you’re preparing the book for audition, so I recommend you do so before sending the book into production.  I’ve found the product descriptions are usually truncated.  Also, any reviews or blurbs you might have are missing.  Even when I include them in the product description, they still aren’t there when the book is ‘published’. The only way to include them is to contact Audible.  Make sure all the information is correct as it’s difficult to go back and fix it once the book goes into production.
2. I recommend finding a professional narrator from the talent pool Audible provides.  For an audition you want to give a couple of pages, including a section that has dialogue to see how that is handled by the narrator.
3. While the auditions are a good method, I’d recommend finding other titles that narrator has completed. Listen to the sample and check the customer reviews.  Those are the best determiners of quality of talent.  If you are not someone who has listened to audiobooks, you need to understand that people who do listen value the voice as much as they value the content.  So take your time and make sure you have top talent and be willing to pay for it (more on this below as you have two options on paying).  Have someone who is familiar with audiobooks listen to the auditions and the first fifteen minutes when completed.
4. Be patient.  It takes time for the book to be produced and then it takes time for Audible to approve the book and place it in the production pipeline.  Start with one book and wait for it to be completed. Listen to the end result and have others listen to it and make sure you are satisfied before contracting the same narrator to do other books.  Duty, Honor, Country ended up being 18 hours as it was over 175,000 words.
5. Once you are happy with a narrator, try to use the same one for all the books in a series.  Listeners expect to hear the same voice just as they expect the same writing from authors.
6. Payment:  you have two options.  Pay for production up front OR do a 50-50 royalty split with the narrator.  For all my books I’ve paid up front so I can’t really comment on the royalty split.  I generally posted for a payment window between $100-$200 an hour and ended up paying between $150-$200 per hour.  Frankly, that’s about the lowest you can pay and expect quality work.  I think $175 is a solid pay rate, but have ranged up and down from there.  Remember, this is a long-term investment and quality is key.  This means a 100,000 word book is going to cost you around $1,500 to $2,000 up front.  When you consider what a good editor costs, this is a reasonable amount.
7. As far as royalty split I haven’t done it so can’t comment.  I think you’d have to ‘sell’ the book to the talent, so they believe it will sell enough copies to make it worth their time.  However, if you can sell that, than you also believe it will ‘earn out’ and thus I’d pay up front.  Just my opinion.  Also, by paying up front you have more control over the book in that you are not locked into a contract with the narrator beyond payment.
8. When the book is finished it is important to download all the files for the entire book and check them One of the files will be a retail audio sample.  You can use this for promotion on your web site and other locations.
9. Make sure the narrator labels the files in a coherent manner.  Most have their own preferences but it should be very clear in what order they go.  Usually title and then chapter number.

10. Your cover must be square, so have your cover designer redo your eBook cover into a square. I recommend the cover be as close to the eBook and paperback cover as possible.

The way Audible ACX matches content creators with talent is a template I believe other companies, including publishers, will use in the future.  It’s extremely efficient and easy to use.

 

Teaching, Shark Tanks and Covers

I’m heading down to Easton PA where I’ll be presenting a 3 hour workshop on Self-Publishing: What Really are your Options to the Pocono Lehigh Romance Writers. A few years back I went to a mini-conference for this chapter where the speaker was the one and only Bob Mayer. He was presenting his full day workshop on craft (highly recommend). I still have the notes. Really. Bob talks so fast that I had to write fast and when that happens I write in mirror image. My DH says that I have a real talent with writing backward…he just doesn’t know what the talent could be used for.

Back in the day when I was a high school business teacher I found that writing backward on the chalk board was a great opening day icebreaker (even better when I was a substitute teacher). It got the classes attention and most of my students thought it pretty cool. Let me tell you, capturing the attention of a 30 students between the ages of 14-18 when the topic is Accounting is no easy task, trust me.

I still occasionally use this unique talent when I am teaching or presenting depending on the topic and situation. This weekend I will be discussing the writers publishing options, the basics of self-publishing and bit on marketing and branding. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve meet a few of the writers in this group and they are fantastic! Also, I really enjoy talking on the topic.

Branding is a topic I really enjoy speaking about and I also love working with authors regarding developing brand and making that unique connection with their readers. My favorite part is the creation story because it forces the author to really look at themselves. Who they are. How their personal journey has shaped them as writers. And how all that will translate into the ultimate consumer interaction: the reading of the book. Get your readers excited through your own person excitement.

I got hooked on Shark Tank. Its the one show that my DH and I watch pretty much all the time together. If we don’t watch it together we are constantly discussing it. One of the things I love about it is these inventors have to come into a room full of “sharks” or the investors. These people are experts in their fields and have helped many business achieve their ultimate dream. I kind of find similar to pitching, but a little more brutal. There are times the sharks down right hate the product and pretty much tell the inventors to take a hike. Other times there are harsh negotiations. But here is the key: the inventors have to know their business, their product and what they bring to the table and convince the sharks to invest their money into their product. Sound a little familiar? They once even had a publisher on the show who seeking an investment into his ghost writing business. It was very interesting.

When I watch Shark Tank I pay close attention to how the inventors package their product. Packaging is very important. It’s often the first thing your consumer will see. I’ve actually learned a lot about covers from watching Shark Tank, at least in theory. There was one episode where a couple was seeking investors in their sippy cup product. It was a great product, but the packaging was all wrong and the sharks agreed.

On the last post Bob showed some of the covers we’re considering for the Atlantis Series. We have a few minor adjustments and tweaks (thanks to everyone–the observations and suggestions are appreciated) to make and the new covers will be revealed next week. But I’ve also been revisiting other covers that through market research we have found are not performing well. One is Synbat. Let me know what you think of this cover.

Write It Forward!

Covers, covers, covers and more covers—how do covers for a series work?

As an indie publishing house, we’re able to move quickly at Cool Gus Publishing (yes, the official change-over will occur later this week as our web site shifts to CoolGus.com).  We track our sales and our metadata, always looking for ways to improve sales and our brand.  I’ll blog more about the Cool Gus brand in future posts, but today I want to focus on covers.

The Atlantis series was the first of my backlist that we published.  We learned a lot doing that.  We learned scanning was very imperfect and copy-editing was essential (we still have those early reviews on the Amazon page and that was the price of ignorance).  We learned how to do covers, by starting with some pretty bad ones.

I think we hit our stride with my new Area 51 covers, Duty, Honor, Country and I love our cover for the upcoming release (11 June) of I, Judas: The 5^th Gospel.

Having cycled through over 70 titles in back and front list for our authors, we felt it was time to revisit our beginning.  We decided it was time to redo the Atlantis covers in order to make the six books seem more like a series and also so that they “popped” more.  That’s the word we use for a cover that really stands out in thumbnail.

Jen came up with a cover for the first book I really loved.  So then we had to figure out a way to make the next five books align, yet be different.  We decided to us the same base concept but with different colors and a different image on each one that represented something key from the story.

We spent days emailing back and forth as Jen tried concept after concept and I dove back into the books, trying to determine what images would be key.  So we’re putting this out there for your input.

Here were the concepts:

Atlantis—just the gate opening.  A gate to where?  By who?  That’s the story.

Atlantis Bermuda Triangle:  Opens with a ballistic nuclear submarine doing . . .  So we wanted a sub theme.  Here are two choices.

Atlantis Devil’s Sea:  Amelia Earhart plays a role in this book (and in subsequent books).  So first we tried the plane image.  But a gladiator in 79 AD also plays a role as Mount Vesuvius is erupting, so we had that image.  Then we also went with just the gate, but in red.  Here are three choices.

Atlantis Gate popped right away as the Battle of Thermopylae plays a key role in the past tale (the last 5 books have dual storylines from past and present).  I liked the helmeted image right away (although Jen did have one with the face in a shadow and glowing eyes).  I’ll show you that one here.

For Assault, I wanted the image of Crazy Horse, but in a statue (better than Custer with a few arrows in him).  They’re building a huge one near Mount Rushmore and I found these images.  We asked the photographer’s permission, Mike Tigas, and he graciously gave it.  Then Jen presented it in three different ways.

And for the final book, while the past storyline included Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, the present storyline featured an assault by Special Operations Forces against the Shadow and an advanced version of the Osprey figured in the storyline.  So we’ve got two options.

Feel free to weigh in.  Also, is it important that the covers in a series look alike?  Because the reality is, you’re never really going to see them like this, are you:

The Super Secret Sacred Words and our Fearless Leader

People ask me all the time how old my children are and I reply with a proud smile, “I have a 91, a 93 and 97.” Everyone reading this post who has a child who has played or does play hockey is rolling on the floor laughing hysterically because they get it.  They also understand that my nearly new SUV has more miles than the average 1966 Chevy owner. Seriously. Of course there is the advice I give my boys every time they leave for the big game, “make mama proud and hit someone.” Yes. I really say that. $20 bucks goes to the first Talty who “drops” someone. For those of you who have hockey players or follow the sport, this all makes perfect sense, for the rest of you it’s a foreign language.

All of the above is what is known in the “branding” world as SACRED WORDS. Sacred words are simply terminology that helps people feel as though they belong, and we all want to feel like we a part of something.

Sacred words are important because they are created out of communication with your readers and in such a way that makes them feel as though they are part of a special little world. When Bob and Jenny Crusie did the He Wrote/She Wrote blog their fans (the Cherrybombs) took a hold of things that Bob and Jenny said and made their own little language consisting of living the dream, we’re all doomed, nothing but good times ahead, and whose turn is it to watch moot?

Bob and I use things like: many roads to Oz, content is king, know the rules, break the rules, write it forward, lead follow or get out of the way, writers create the product, readers consume the product, readers rule, and of course Bob has been abducted by aliens 14 times and knows exactly what that mothership looks like.

Scared words are simply sayings we use over and over again that when people hear them they think back to us, or our books, or our blog, or whatever it is we are working on branding. These words or phrases should happen organically and not forced on our readership, but they are things we need to think about because they support our Creed: the singular notion we want people to think and feel.

Everything about Branding I’ve talked about so far (Creation Story, Creed, Icon, Rituals, Pagans, Sacred Words) are meant to be used as a looking glass into the connection between you and your readers. Remember, we writers produce the product and readers consume the product. That is a relationship and every relationship has a beginning (creation), a special meaning (creed), a symbol that connects them (icon), a set of interactions (the rituals), the people who don’t like your books (pagans) and a set of words or sayings that bind you together (sacred words).

And then there is the LEADER. A leader is a visionary. A leader has the ability to make tough choices and do what is best in the long run. A leader is good with big picture and projects out, but also has the ability to make adjustments when the big picture shifts. A good leader listens to the people he/she works with. Not everyone is built to be a leader. I always joke with my husband that I’m really, really good at being the support vehicle. The one that takes the visionaries plan and implements it. The joke is I take direction well, but at the same time, taking direction well is a good quality.

In your own branding plan YOU are the leader. In your network of followers YOU are the leader and it is important to exercise good leadership. This comes at the reader level and also at a professional level. Bob mentioned in his last post that no one is going to care as much about your book as you, and for the most part I agree totally, except YOUR readers care and any one else you bring on your team. Readers are a big part of your team and if we go back to the very first post I did on branding I talked about the promise you make to your reader. That promise is a trust and a bond.

Branding isn’t about marketing as much as it is about understanding yourself and finding that comfortable place where you belong…with others. This entire series is meant to show you how we as humans connect with others and build communities. Understanding that dynamic will help you develop a real reader/author community.

The 7 parts of primal branding are important and I truly believe it is important for every author to really examine each part. The creation story is who we are and from that everything else is built. It will change and grow over time, because we change and grow.

What are you doing to make that connection with your readers? And just for fun, what are your personal sacred words?

I’ll start. One of my sacred words/sayings that I use in my circle of friends all the time is: write ugly, it’s beautiful.

Aggressive versus Obnoxious in the Land of Publishing

When I give presentations to writers I joke that the difference between being aggressive and obnoxious is that the aggressive writer has a good manuscript and the obnoxious one has a bad manuscript.  For over a decade that’s always gotten a good laugh.

The only problem was, I wasn’t following my own advice.

I’ve grown much more assertive in the past six months.  One of the largest mistakes I made coming out of Special Forces and going into traditional publishing was trusting that other people would do their jobs without having to look over their shoulders.  This cost me.  I have to remember Special Forces are the elite.  I could trust my life to the men on my A-Team to do their jobs to the utmost of their capabilities and I did.

Now I push others, gently, but consistently, in order to achieve goals.  No one cares more about the success of your book than the author does.  Always remember that.  Perseverance and persistence count for a lot.

My experience over the last several years as an indie is this:  the absolute best bang for the buck and time is networking.  To actually meet the people who make this industry run.

The biggest mistake I made in traditional publishing was sitting back and thinking my agent, my editor, my publisher, etc. would take care of me.  They’re not bad people, but like any job, they focus on the fires and not the person who isn’t on their radar.  Getting on the radar is key.  I actually thought that by not calling, emailing, etc. they would appreciate me more.  Wrong.  Out of sight, out of mind.

Sitting back and expecting people to come to you is a fatal assumption.  There’s a reason the entire staff at Cool Gus Publishing—which is Jen Talty and I—have/will be attending in 2012:  Digital Book World, Romantic Times; Thrillerfest; Spellbinders in HI; Indiana RWA; Desert Dreams; New England Romance Writers; NJRWA; Utah RWA; Valley Forge RWA; and a score of other conferences.

I’m sitting in the Delta Crown Club on the way back from Desert Dreams in Phoenix.  Was it worth it?  Yes.  I gave a four-hour presentation on Write It Forward.  But the most important part is talking to people.  At this conference I talked to a Vice Dean at Ohio State who said I might be a good person to speak at their faculty retreat this summer.  We agreed ‘retreat’ is a bad word for something that is supposed to be a positive experience.  Retreat, hell.  We just got here.  I also talked to Brenda Novak for a while.  Have to remember to donate some stuff to her auction.  I’m thinking a year’s free enrollment in our on-line classes.  You donate something too or bid on something.  Yeah. YOU.

I listened to a panel of agents and editors.  And it confirmed that no one really knows what’s going on.  I’ll do a post on my instant reactions to that on Wednesday morning at Genreality.

It takes persistence to really network.  You have to look at all the cards you gather at a conference and after a few days to let everyone gather their brains, follow up.  Another thing I got at this conference was a three CD set of my presentation.  So we have to upload that to digital.  Then I want to figure out a way to coordinate the audio with the actual slide presentation.  I believe there is a program to do that, correct?  It’s something I just emailed Jen that we probably need to outsource rather than learn another entirely new skill set.  We’ve got enough work.  So, hint, if you know how to do this—drop us a line.  See. You can even network on a blog.

I force myself to go talk to people who I need to meet.  At Digital Book World I stood like one of those doofuses you always see hanging at the edge of the circle after the speaker is done and everyone else is talking to them after an exec at Amazon spoke.  I waited until everyone had said their piece, then talked to him.  Here’s a key though—you need an icebreaker.  Bella Andre says “I made a million dollars selling eBooks last year.”  She says it tends to get people’s attention.  Duh.  I said to this guy:  “I’m selling one thousand eBooks a day on Kindle.”  That got me some face time.

Actually, one piece of advice I give people now is that one of the best networking tools is to go to people’s blogs and leave cogent comments.  People tend to read the comments on their own blogs.  If you make sense, you will get noticed.

Bell Andre said something at Digital Book World:  you email someone and they don’t reply, you keep doing it.  Politely, spaced out.  Nine times you won’t hear back as they’re swamped with work.  But sooner or later you’ll hit that window where they have the time to respond.

As important as the writing is, networking is also important!

By the way, Jen’s new cover for Atlantis is working.  Sales doubled last week.  We have to redo the rest of the books in the series now.  But this is what I love about being an indie publisher.  We can change things quickly.

What do you do to network?  Any special tips?

Author Branding: Rituals, Pagans and Conferences…Oh My!

Rituals:

There isn’t much to say about rituals other than they are repeated meaningful interactions you have with your readers. It starts with the promise you made to your readers when you published your first book, since that is generally the first introduction your readers have into your world.

It used to be the author ritual consisted of a few media interactions during release, a book tour, book signings and then disappears to write the next bestseller. Today’s author can’t afford to shut down and shut off.

Meanwhile, Bob is heading “down the hall” to his writing office where there is no Internet. The difference is he’s not shutting down for months on end. He knows the new rituals of the digital author have to be fulfilled pretty much on a daily basis, but the most important ritual for the author is still CONTENT: the book.

You can look at the Area 51 as a ritual. Why? Because Bob’s readers are chomping at the bit to get the next installment. We constantly get emails asking if there will be more in this series (as well as other series). Of course, Bob responded with Nightstalkers (and oh boy is this one good!)

All this branding stuff I’m throwing out here is very important to long-term success, but nothing is more important than writing the book. You don’t create rituals and relationships with readers without a book. You can’t create a brand without a product: the book.

Pagans:

Or Non-believers. Pagans come in various sizes and shapes. Pagans are often your competition, so not necessarily an adversary, but simply another product. Coke versus Pepsi. The Buffalo Sabres versus Boston Bruins. Nora Roberts versus Jen Talty. Okay, the last one is a stretch, but you get the point.

The reason why Pagans of this variety are important is they help define who we are. 7-Up became the un-cola. Wendy’s asked “where’s the beef?” and Taco Bell told us to “think outside the bun.” But first you have to figure out who your non-believers are and then you can focus on those who might be believers. People who have to have their Starbucks every morning are not the same personality type as those who drink instant coffee. People who prefer to read Stephen King are probably not going to enjoy a Jen Talty romantic suspense novel…ah, but perhaps a Nora Roberts fan might.

Defining what you are not is just as important as defining what you are.

Once you do that you can learn to take with a grain of salt someone who hates your book for the simple reason it wasn’t their brand of coffee. They are not your readership and therefore the repeated meaningful ritual will not actually be repeated and that’s okay, focus on where those rituals will be repeated.

Conferences…on my…

I’m heading to the Romance Writer’s of America New England Chapter Conference; Let Your Imagination Take Flight where I will be presenting a workshop on how to get the most out of your conference experience and tips on pitching. This was the very first conference I ever attended and I believe it was the very first time Bob and I meet. Well, I had heard him speak before, but this was the first time I had a conversation with him, so I find it very fitting that I’m giving this workshop at this conference.  I also just registered for BEA in June and Bob and I have already begun our planning for what my goals will be at this conference. Planning is key to making a conference more than a success, but an experience.

Conferences are important rituals to the writer’s life because they put us with a group of people who actually understand.

I’m also really looking forward to this conference because my good friend Dena De Paulo’s debut novella Painted with Pleasure is a finalist in the Bean Pot Readers Contest. The only negative is Dena is making me wear a Tiara. Don’t ask. But I’m so excited for her. This being her first book and all. Validation is important, whether we want to admit it or not and I’m honored to be there for one of the nicest women I have ever met.

Write It Forward