Posts Tagged ‘Print’

by Bill Ruesch

There are lures aplenty to snag the unwise and unaware.

• AMAZING SECRET REVEALED…

• Will NEVER Again Be Repeated

• Newly Discovered Method…

• Only available to a select few…

• FREE!!!

• Cannot Fail [or] Fail Proof

Courtesy of PhotoBucket

The above are just some of the teasers cast out to hook an Internet fish. To the unscrupulous we are all fish. Self-Publishers, unfortunately, can be easily baited because many discover themselves in strange and unfamiliar waters. It is one thing to write a book and quite another to publish, print, and sell it.

No one wants to make a mistake or be a failure, so we are attracted by the many shiny lures dangled in front of our eyes. They promise that with their help all of our doubts and fears will just float away. They, and they alone, have the power to do this because of some magic formula, or secret knowledge they possess. For a reasonable fee ranging from a few dollars, (to get you on their list, so they can up-sell you later), to thousands of dollars, the way to the peaceful feeding grounds will be revealed.

Gold or Fools Gold?

Just like “tells” that poker players talk about, there are tells a self-publisher need to respect to avoid being skewered. You see, self-publishing is a huge and growing market. Some estimate that self-published titles are already three times greater than traditionally published works. It is a modern gold-rush. Like the California Gold Rush of the last century, all kinds of people, with all kinds of backgrounds are attracted to the glitter. You are the gold, and the greedy, slimy, and inexperienced are there waiting to take your money. They are well-equipped to make fool’s gold appear to be real, and they can be so convincing that even people who have been taken, often don’t figure it out until much later.

This isn’t to say that there isn’t real help available. The educated, legitimate, and experienced people are there too, but it is difficult for a new self-publisher to know the difference. What are some of the indicators?

1. Find out how long they have been in business and determine their level of experience. For example you might be dealing with a company that advertises longevity, i.e. 50 years in business, but how long in book production, and is your rep still wet behind the ears? A fifty year old company that was built on a platform other than books with a sales rep barely out of school won’t be very helpful to you.
2. Who have they served? Get references, and check them out. Book production often costs thousands of dollars, many self-publishers have sunk life savings into the venture, and yet they don’t take the time to find out who they are giving their money to? It is beyond me.
3. How successful have their clients been? Look at the numbers. Are they just trying to grab every dime that comes their way, or are they selective and only invest time and energy into books that have potential? There are plenty of companies, and many of them very large, who do not care about the merits of your book. As long as you pay them they are satisfied.
4. Are their fees reasonable? The Internet is a valuable resource to learn about what services cost. Do not take someone’s word that their prices are fair. Check it out. That doesn’t mean, however, that all pros charge the same. Many very experienced people can and do charge more, because their services are in higher demand.
5. Paying too much isn’t wise, but also is paying too little. You can bet that the cheapest price will be offered by the least valuable service. One way to make sure your book is second-rate is to work with bottom of the barrel suppliers. If they aren’t competent it will negatively impact your book.
6. How much upfront money is required? It the book production drains away all of your capital and you don’t have anything left for marketing, you are in trouble. Calculate all the costs as closely as you can and be sure to leave room for contingencies. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned.
7. Are their promises too good to be true? I refer you back to the list at the beginning of this post. Anyone of the phrases used above and many others should serve as a red flag to you. BIG promises are usually filled with hot air. Real professionals won’t make big, empty promises hucksters, on the other hand, will.

The bottom line for a self-publisher is that the onus is on you. Like the Little Red Hen you have to do all of the work. You can hire people to help, but you have to decide if they are giving you what you want and be willing to make changes if they aren’t. In the end, it is your baby and whether it succeeds or fails is in your court. All of it.

Yesteryear's Posse

It may seem odd to use a word like posse in connection with self-publishing a book especially since in today’s parlance it has come to mean a group of sycophants following the latest glistening celebrity. He who has the most toadies wins. No, I’m thinking more in terms of the Old West when the Sheriff sent out a call for citizen help and good, qualified people gathered to track down and capture the bad guy. They formed a team–a team on a mission–a mission to save the town and protect the womenfolk.

There will be some that disagree with me, and they will have a point, but trying to be the Lone Ranger when self-publishing is a hard road, even still, with the  exception of ePublishing, at the very least a self-publisher will need a printer. How many authors, besides Benjamin Franklin, are able to write and print books? Your desktop printer doesn’t count.

The typical self-publishers book posse consists of these:

• Content Editor (checks for plot flow, and sense–also accuracy of detail)
• Grammatical Editor (looks for typos, grammatical errors, etc.)
• Permissions Editor (checks the author’s right to use quoted or other material)
• Technical Editor (generally for non-fiction works to make sure the technical details are correct)
• Proofreader (proofreading is a skill that requires extraordinary attention to detail. The more eyes on it, the better.)
• Layout artist (takes raw copy and shapes it by selecting fonts, watching for functionality and ease of reading, margins, headers, pagination, etc.)
• Graphic Designer (Primarily for cover design. The objective a great book with a great cover.)
• Production Coordinator/Manager (This person brings it all together. They are the deputy in your posse. They assist in gathering the posse, getting pricing, arranging for shipping, etc.)
• Printing Broker (Serves as the posse’s guide seeking printers who provide the best value. Brokers, unlike company employees, have no self-interest in the transaction, and should there be problems can intercede in your behalf.)
• Printer (A good printer is GOLD, but you need to be careful, especially in this economic climate. Printers are hungry and as a result are going after any work they can get. Just because a printer can do, a job doesn’t mean that they are the best choice.)

After the book has been produced, you’ll need these for your posse:

• Distributor (makes sure book orders are shipped on time and at minimal cost)
• Warehouse/Storage (Where will the books be housed?)
• Marketing (Book sales don’t happen by themselves. What plans do you have to market the book? Who will help? What will you do?)
• Public Relations (includes press releases, interviews, book reviews, etc.)
• Travel Assistant (someone to help you coordinate speaking trips)
• Information Technology ( the Internet is critical–good IT people are a necessity)

Many of these people can serve in multiple ways. You, as the author, will take on many of the roles, and some will be filled family members or close friends, but be careful in your choices. Just because you have a nephew who can draw pretty well, doesn’t mean he has the skill to layout your book or create a K.O. cover. Here is where it gets tricky–be honest with yourself, are you knowledgeable enough to judge? Some of the worst books out there, the kind traditional publishers despise, come from potentially good authors who didn’t have the sense to hire experts. To them the book is incredible, but to a trained eye, it may be a wreck. Pay for professional advice and follow it, even if it takes you out of your comfort zone.

In coming posts I intend to describe the jobs of each of the posse members in greater detail and provide tips on finding and selecting the best ones.

A book that doesn’t sell is  landfill. We don’t need more landfill–what we need are books that get into the hands of readers. Social networking has proven to be an excellent way to reach possible readers and buyers, and The Author Platform (TAP) has developed a step-by-step program for authors to learn the ropes. Just click here to go to TAP and check it out for yourself.

1. Vanity Publishing

In my last post, I tried to make a distinction between vanity publishing and self-publishing. I also tried, with limited success, to convince the readers that the very word vanity is insulting. What I don’t understand and I hope someone will explain it to me, is why authors, particularly those who paid their dues and know how difficult it is to succeed in publishing, would want to continue labeling other authors with the demeaning term vanity.

Just because an author wants to print and distribute a book to a limited audience doesn’t make them vain.  Family histories, poetry, even cookbooks usually come about as a labor of love. I thought about Love Publishing as a possibility and then decided it would probably be misinterpreted as an euphemism for romance or sex.

Instead I suggest that we re-name this type of publishing as limited. Limited Publishing instead of vanity is kinder, and really more accurate, don’t you agree?

2. Self-Publishing

New authors are vulnerable and there are plenty of people just waiting to fleece them. Whether they are wolves or knaves doesn’t really matter–the point is RUN away from them as fast as you can.

I have nothing but scorn for those publishing businesses that prey on the dreams of new authors to tap their wallets and bleed them dry. There is an abundance of trip-ups and traps in alternative publishing. One tip-off is praise that is too lavish. Once they say the book will only need light editing–watch out.  Stephen King in his Author’s Note at the end of his recent book Dome, wrote “Nan Graham edited the book down from the original dinosaur to a beast of slightly more manageable size; every page of the manuscript was marked with her changes.”  If Stephen King requires heavy editing, what do you suppose a fledgling author might need?

Many claim that they will produce your book and market it through catalogs or other means.  Authors write to me about using these services and discovering, too late, that they are just a number, a notch in the publisher’s belt. After signing on the dotted line and paying their fees they were turned over to employees with questionable skills.  One author told me that when speaking with a graphic designer she was told to peruse clip art and select her own graphic for the cover.

This author sent me a copy of her book. I read it cover-to-cover because I wanted to know for myself if it was a worthy book. It was. It was an excellent book. The cover art, however, violated all of the basic rules of good graphic design. It utilized four different type fonts, and the graphic was a small smiley face. The design fought the intention of the book. The book’s message was serious and the cover was silly. There were other problems with the inside layout too. So the author paid good money to get her book produced and she should have kept it in the bank instead. Remember no one will buy your book if they can’t get past the cover.

Don’t, please don’t, place your precious manuscript into the hands of publishing grist mills who hire the incompetent, the unknowledgeable, or inexperienced just to keep their costs down.

A bargain price should be your first tip-off. When they offer you a special deal or are having a sale, run the other way. These companies do not care about you or your book, their only concern is that you give them money and they produce it as cheaply as possible so they can maximize their profits.

If your ultimate goal is to someday sell your self-published book to a traditional publisher, you won’t impress anyone if your book appears to be sub-par. Doesn’t your book deserve the best chance of success you can give it?

Okay, I admit it; I am a printed book snob. I want my books printed on nice paper preferably with gilt edges and leather embossed hardbound covers, but that’s just me. When I buy a software upgrade I always pay extra for a disk. I have files full of paper backups from things I store on my computer. I just don’t trust electronics, I guess.

My wife, who is more technologically inclined than I am, insisted I buy a computer for my Print Brokering business some 18 years ago. So I went to my local Office Max, and spoke with their computer expert who looked to be all of fifteen years old. He advised that I buy the latest PC with the brand-spanking-new Windows Operating System. That sounded good, so I bought it and carted it home confident that my wife, who worked on computers at her office, would be able to teach me everything I needed to know. Wrong. She was working with DOS and knew nothing about Windows. I was on my own. It was like being on Survivor without a camera crew, producers, or other participants; I was all alone.

I read tutorials, hired teachers, bought “easy to use software” before I learned that it was easy to use for the programmers who created it, but not for me. Despite my reticence I slowly I started to gain ground on this beast of convenience.

But it wasn’t long before I discovered the meanings of my C Drive crashed, my hard disks collapsed, and the computer froze. The admonition to save often made sense after losing a day’s worth of work. Then I found out about gremlins. Somewhere in the bowels of the malicious computer machine exists an intelligent life form whose only purpose is to make sure that the actions you perform today, will not work tomorrow, even if you meticulously repeat them.

This is the long road around to saying that I like many of us in the 50+ generation; have difficulty accepting anything made of electronic blips as friendly. As soon as you rely on them they erase themselves, become unintelligible, or transform into gigantic city stomping lizards. Well, maybe I went too far with the lizard thing, but you know what I mean. Heaven forbid you slip and drop them on the floor. Whether you are reading through a Kindle, an iPhone, or some other device drop it and like magic you’ll discover whether your credit card is maxed. On the other hand I can drop my printed book, pick it up and go on with my life. My credit card is untouched.

Is it inevitable?

So the question remains, is an e-Book a real book?  Somebody out there thinks so; e-Books are racking up the biggest sales numbers in the entire book market averaging an astounding 55.7% annual growth since 2003.  Compare this with all the other types of books from Adult Hardbound and Paperback, Juvenile Hardbound and Paperback, Book Clubs, Higher Education, etc. which grew a mere 1.04% annually (excluding sales for the Harry Potter series) in the same time period.

Here’s the shocker, do you know who are buying Kindle Readers by the boatload? The 50+ crowd. My peers. e-Book sales grew 183% among seniors aged 65+ and 174% among seniors aged 55-65. And here I was counting on older folks to save printed books.

Must I raise the white flag and surrender? 1.04% annual growth against 55.7% growth in e-Book sales is persuasive. Imagine fighting a war where the odds were 55 to 1. Can anyone say General Custer? My punishment for doubt is to write on the board 500 times, “e-Books are real books, e-Books are real books, e-Books are real books…”

How do you market an e-Book? Use the Internet. How do you learn how to use the Internet to sell e-Books? You can do it the hard way or the easy way. The easy way is The Author Platform. And you can test it for no money down. How’s that for an offer?

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