Chicken Scratchings

Posts Tagged ‘Published’

by Bill Ruesch

In many posts, I have been very vocal about the Internet Wolves and Knaves that lay in wait to snare self-publishers. I’ve witnessed what happens to authors hoodwinked into spending their savings with little or no results to show for it. I’ll continue to rant about those dirty rats. You can count on it. I’ve even advised self-publishers to visit Victoria Strauss’s Writer Beware web site because she is doing a reasonably credible job warning us about traps and dangers.

Who has bigger dreams and expectations for your book manuscript than you?

No one. What attracts those who prey on self-publishers, especially new ones, is the rookie author’s general lack of knowledge of the process and their wide-eyed belief in the value of their manuscripts. Getting a book published is a lifetime dream for most. When someone says you can have your dream come true for just (whatever the dollar figure is) you may feel you just won the lottery.

Knowing what to avoid is a good thing, but it doesn’t go far enough. Authors need to know where to find legitimate, competent, and cost effective assistance. I don’t care how brilliant you are, a first-time self-publisher isn’t likely to successfully negotiate the complexities and produce a commercially credible book on their own. Professional help is required.  After all, you wouldn’t set out on a safari through the darkest jungles without guides, would you?

BookWise & Company, BookWise Publishing, and WriteWise Mentoring

Recently I attended a self-publishing boot camp, known as a Book Camp, organized by BookWise Publishing. This isn’t the old BookWise & Company, founded by bestselling authors Richard Paul Evans and Robert G. Allen. BookWise & Company was a multi-level marketing enterprise.

It seemed like a great idea at the time.

The idea was to give 100 new authors the opportunity to learn how to publish or get their books published with the aid of two New York Times bestselling authors as mentors. For a reasonable flat fee, newbies could submit their manuscripts and have them edited by peers of published authors, designed by experienced and talented designers, printed by excellent presses, and marketed by the authors themselves, with hands-on coaching from Richard Paul Evans, Robert G. Allen and other experienced pros. What would it be worth to a green, untested author to be given the attention of people like these instead of just being dumped on some clerk’s desk, in a forest of cubicles, inside a cavernous room, deep in the basement of some publisher’s impenetrable fortress?

The thought was that if a book received very professional treatment from the outset it would garner greater attention should the author wish to go the traditional route, or give them an edge should they decide to self-publish.

No one can guarantee a book’s success. Some felt that their books deserved to be bestsellers because they paid for mentoring. It doesn’t work that way.

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware panned the old BookWise & Company.

She had a point—when she was talking about the multi-level part of the company. BookWise Publishing is not BookWise & Company. BookWise Publishing owned and operated by Karen K. Christoffersen and Meagan Bunten is carrying on helping the authors and assisting their progress. Currently they have over 200 authors in the pipeline and have completed over 65 books over the last two years.

Despite Ms. Strauss’s good intentions…

the problem with the Internet is like the old story of the woman with a gossiping habit. As a lesson, her minister emptied a feather pillow into the wind. Her impossible task was to retrieve all the feathers. Once something hits the net it spreads like feathers in a breeze, probably further and even more impossible to call back. BookWise Publishing doesn’t deserve the stigma. It is not a multi-level enterprise.  It is a company with the same name but different owners and management.  Karen Christoffersen asked a brilliant young woman, Meagen Bunten, to be her partner in  the new BookWise. They have no relation to the old MLM and are building BookWise Publishing as an independent collaboration of top people in the publishing business who are dedicated to assisting authors with everything they need to effectively produce and market their books. Costs are contained and kept reasonable by the fact that all services are virtual. There is NO overhead and every associate is self-employed.

Experience matters.

The difference between what BookWise is doing and what hundreds, if not thousands of others are doing, is that they have collected many experienced associates with real life publishing skills. They didn’t  hire the brand-new-just-graduated-learn-on-the-job-beginners and let them loose on unknowing customers. They have real-honest-to-goodness experienced experts.

Am I prejudiced in my assessment? You bet.

I came across BookWise Publishing a couple of years ago, sort of. I had written a novel and even though with my print background I can produce a printed book in my sleep, I didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to sell it. I called Karen—and this is where the sort of comes in—because I knew that she had done a lot of marketing work for Richard Paul Evans and his books over the years, I figured that she could help me if I asked nicely. That’s when I learned about BookWise, the old BookWise. Karen was doing a lot of work preparing the books to go to print. She was burning the candle at three ends.

One thing she could sweep off her plate was the print production. Well hey, there I was, an expert print manager walking right through her door. Since that day I have helped her with the printing side, and she’s been helping me with my writing. I tell you this because I have a special interest in BookWise. BookWise sends me business and they like me so much that my bio appears on their website as the printing expert. I don’t mind. I am an expert and I do consult with them on their printing needs, but I am not an employee nor owner of the company.

The question you should be asking right now is, “Is Bill Ruesch’s opinion of BookWise tainted?” The answer is yes, but that doesn’t make it wrong.  I encourage any self-publishing authors reading this to contact BookWise Publishing, compare their expertise, check their prices, and be prepared to be very impressed. They will be happy to give you the names and contact info of some of their authors so you can hear their testimonials. These are real people and they won’t pull any punches. This is a relatively small, intimate group of new authors who love to get together 2 or 3 times a year at Book Camps in Salt Lake City (and once a year at Book Expo America) to rub shoulders with each other and perfect their craft.

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

BookWise Publishing isn’t just another me-too author’s production resource group. It has the talent, connections, and brains to become a real force in the traditional and independent publishing worlds for years to come. Watch them and see for yourselves.

15 stacks of books higher than this

by Bill Ruesch

Latest figures based on ISBN’s reveal that the US published nearly 190,000 books last year.  If you assume an average thickness of 1″ per book, and stacked them one on top of the other you’d have fifteen stacks of books each stack taller than the Empire State Building in New York. Last year–15 stacks of books taller than the Empire State Building. This wasn’t over a ten or twenty year stretch, but just last year. Try to visualize these fifteen stacks standing beside the Empire State Building and then imagine what would happen to the streets of New York City if two, five, or ten year’s worth of published books were stacked among the buildings.

All of this is from US publishing alone!  Another 130,000 books were published in the UK. If you added these books to the stacks it would create another ten more Empire State sized stacks. It boggles the mind.

The Questions to Ask

• Does my book stand a chance?
  • The odds are, please excuse the pun, stacked against you.  Every hour of every day over 21 books are published in the US. The competition is unbelievably tough, but as difficult as it is, if you don’t enter the fray you are guaranteed to fail. Remember as difficult as it is to win a lottery, lotteries are won every day. Like Han Solo said in the movie Star Wars, “Never tell me the odds kid.” That is the attitude you must adopt.
• What is the best path for me to pursue in getting my book sold and read?
  
  • First dispel the notion that all you have to do is write well and you’ll become rich and famous. That’s a fairy tale. There is no happily ever after for 99% or more of all authors. Even Mark Twain in his heyday knew the value of marketing. It has been recorded that he had 10,000 people selling his books for him. If Mark Twain had to arrange for his own book sales, it isn’t too far of a stretch to think that you would have to too. Even traditionally published authors have to participate in selling.  The Red Hen Association has downloaded an interview with a contemporary published author, Casey Sherman. Mr. Sherman has some very enlightening things to say about book selling today. Check it out at Casey Sherman interview.
  • Consider the genre of your book. Small independent publishers produce four times as many nonfiction titles as fiction. There is a reason for this disparity. A nonfiction book usually has an identifiable market.  A book of fiction has a more difficult time locating its audience; however, a novel has the potential for much greater sales in the long run. According to  http://BookStatistics.com popular fiction comprises 55% of book sales, followed by 10% religious nonfiction, and 9% cooking and crafts.
• How many books do I have to sell to make money?
  • Large publishers say they have to sell 10,000 books to break even, but for self-publishers without huge overheads break even can come much sooner. It is difficult to name a figure for profitability because costs of printing, editing, art, illustration, and cover design can, and do differ for each book. Simple math is all it takes to determine earnings. Add all the sales and then subtract all of the costs. Be sure to keep records of all costs including transportation to and from events, mail and shipping expenses, professional services like accountants and attorneys, meals if you are out of town, etc. Not only will you want to report expenses to the IRS to decrease your taxes, but you can’t get an accurate break even number without it. Self-publishing is a business. It’s best if you treat it as a business and not a hobby.
• How have other authors done it ?
  • In today’s world it is easier and more difficult at the same time to be heard among the babble. The Internet makes it possible to reach out to the entire world. You can setup and start a blog for free in minutes. Just think, you can launch a soap box and speak to the whole world right now. The problem is that 175,000 other blogs are started each day according to Cnet. Nonetheless, a blog has become a necessity. A stagnant blog, will not serve you. Just because you build a blog site doesn’t mean that you will attract visitors. You have to market the site, in order to market yourself and your book.
  • Arrange speaking engagements where you can sell and sign copies of books.
  • Go to where the potential readership goes. If your book is about race car drivers, see if you can get the book into NASCAR events. Maybe your book is about fairies, go to FaerieCon or other fairy festivals. Got a cookbook? Go to places where cooking is the topic. Be creative and think in terms of places people might be who would relate to your book even if it is a stretch. I have a friend who writes books about Dutch oven cooking. He has an arrangement with a Dutch oven manufacturer to put a sales piece about his books in the box of every oven they sell.
  • Be fearless. Call on buyers for stores and ask them to stock your book.
  • Get your book on library shelves. Contact the American Library Association for places and times of librarian conferences.

  Will these tips really work? They aren’t guaranteed, but they will help. The biggest tip is make your own fame. If you find a way to become a household name, you will sell books. There’s your guarantee.

I read a discussion item posted by the LinkedIn professional group BookLink . To quote David Bennett who was responding to an invitation to introduce himself, “When I consider the changes over the past 10 years, I wonder how life will be in another 10 years! Incredible! I sometimes feel so overwhelmed by all these new ‘gimmicks’, ‘widgets’, ‘plug-ins’, ‘blogs’, ‘snippets’, etc. that I’d just like to lean back and breathe…” I got that. Is there anyone out there who doesn’t feel overwhelmed, confused, and not quite up to speed?

There are many in cyberspace claiming to know all of the secrets — but do they? Do they really? If you want access to those secrets it’s gonna cost you a bundle. Honestly I wish I had the kind of extra cash to learn what the experts know, but I don’t, so I’m feeling my way around in the dark and shinning a light on anything within reach that I find interesting. Those out of reach will just have to wait. My belief is that once something is learned it changes anyway, so how do you keep ahead?

Photo by Debbievators

My father was a computer programmer. The company employing him as an accountant decided to install computers and tested their employees to see who was the most trainable. Dad and one other man, Norm, got the jobs. Sometimes the computers were busy during the day, so my father would take me with him to keep him company at night. It was fascinating. Computers back then filled a large room and the support machinery took up nearly as much space.  The computing power of these behemoths was less than the typical cell phone now. Unlike computers and printers today which are virtually silent, the old Univac’s with their tape reels, the tractor-fed dot matrix printers, and the punch cards made a loud racket. Most of the readers of this blog will have never seen a computer punch card sent out with billings from power companies and the like. The instructions on the cards were very clear and became a joke, “Do not, fold, spindle, or mutilate.” Of course the reason for this was that the cards had to be returned in reasonable condition for them to feed correctly into the sorter.

By the time the PC tidal-wave hit the world, Dad was retired. He had worked with the computer languages COBOL and FORTRAN. Today’s programmers speak other languages based on many of the old ones, but more advanced. He bought a PC and tried to catch up, but he really couldn’t. Even with his years, and years of programming and systems analysis knowledge the technology moved too fast. He was left behind, but he was retired so it didn’t really matter.

When I get overwhelmed I like to reflect on the past. This blog has made me a little nostalgic. I don’t know how you cope, but writing, especially writing poetry helps me. And since I am a legitimate published poet, I thought it would be okay to share one of my poems with you. Maybe you’ll find some respite here.

Rocking Chairs

I wanted to write about a porch/ the kind my grandmother / had with a view of the street / and chairs enough to welcome / anyone to sit a spell and reminisce / about Tin Lizzie’s, nickle gasoline, / and Roosevelt, while taking turns / cranking the stiff handle / of the wooden ice-cream maker.

I wanted to write about the night / thick with cricket calls / and how just-picked peaches / mixed with rich cream / fresh from the morning’s milking / melted in the mouth like sweet / snowflakes caught on the tongue.

But most of all, I wanted / to write about the thrum / in my grandfather’s chest / as the conversation bobbed / like fishing line on the river / and how an old patchwork quilt / felt when wrapped around / a small boy held and rocked, / held and rocked, until the night/ folded into itself and disappeared.

Bill Ruesch

You’ve written a book. CONGRATULATIONS. 80% of adults dream of doing what you’ve done. A very small percentage actually do, so you are in an elite group. Hold your head high. You are now an author.

What, you don’t believe it? According to my Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary the act of writing is all it takes to become an author. If you wrote something, you are an author.

To become a published author is another thing altogether. For most of us the ultimate goal is to see our books in print and distributed to readers everywhere.  After all, what is a writer without a reader? It’s Yin and Yang. Two halves of the whole. As far as I’m concerned a manuscript in a desk drawer defines you as an author, but something definitely is missing.

There are only two approaches you can take to get published. You can do it yourself (self-publish) or find someone else to publish it for you (traditional publish). How do the two choices compare?

At first blush it appears that the easiest path is to sell your rights and let someone else publish your book. Let’s face it this is what most of us think of when we talk about being published. The biggest hurdle with the traditional publishing model is that  4% or less of manuscripts will ever become a book. And for that 4% there are probably thousands that never even make it to a publisher’s desk. It’s pretty obvious that if your manuscript doesn’t get read, it will not be published. I’ve said it before, if you are unknown, getting a book published through traditional channels is like winning the lottery. The odds are that bad.

Let’s compare the two methods and help you decide which way is best for you:

weigh your decisions carefully

1.  Who accepts the financial risk? If self-publishing you pay for all the costs involved in producing the book including the editors, artists, and printers. In traditional publishing the publisher takes on that burden.

2.   Who has creative control over the look and presentation of the book? If you do it yourself, you retain the rights. If you sell those rights to the publisher they can do whatever they think is best. That doesn’t seem important to you? It will if the publisher changes the meaning of the text through their editing, or comes up with a cover design that would lead readers to a totally opposite idea from what you meant. It happens.  Your only remedy you have is whining.  Selling your rights will give you money, but it may not give you peace of mind. Which is more important to you?

3.  Who arranges for distribution? If self-published, the burden is all yours. No matter how good the book is, please keep in-mind that some channels, like national bookstore chains, may not be available to you. Many booksellers have a policy against accepting self-published books, but If  your book is traditionally published, and your publisher pays for distribution, many of those guarded gates will be opened. It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s the game.

4.  What about marketing? Marketing is doing all of the things needed to promote the book, making fliers, public relations, appearing on TV talk shows, and radio programs. Issuing press releases, teaching seminars, speaking at schools, clubs, and wherever you can find an audience. You’d think that if traditionally published your publisher would handle all of this. Wrong. Most book contracts today require the author’s active involvement in promoting the book. That involvement is much more than showing up for the occasional book signing.  So, whether self-published or traditionally published, you dear author, must by contract, be hawking your book, mostly at your own expense.  If you don’t drum up sales your book won’t move, except from the shelves inside the store into the discount bins outside. If that happens, your chances of ever being traditionally published again are astronomical.

5.  Profits, ah profits, who gets the money? The one who takes the risk takes the money. If you are lucky you’ll earn between $.50 -$1.00 per book in royalties. Sell ten thousand books and you get $5 to $10 thousand dollars. That same book, if self-published, could generate $150 thousand dollars.

The self-publishing model is heaven made for those authors who believe in their product and are sure that they can find a market. It is costly and difficult to self-publish, but if you are right and you can successfully reach your readers, the amount of money you could make is much greater. You can have financial freedom and personal freedom as well.

Which way is best? It all depends on you. Either way, it will take energy, money, and lots of effort. After putting everything you have into it, it may not be enough. If the traditional route is the one you choose, the odds are that you will never be published. If you self-publish and can’t find your audience, your garage full of books will hang like albatross around your neck. But remember, that even though the odds are notoriously poor, someone always hits the lottery eventually. Who knows, maybe this time it might be you.