Money, Money, Money Wednesday, Feb 18 2009

When you live in a capitalist society, it’s hard sometimes to appreciate the value of things that don’t come with a price tag.  But if you’re willing to put dollars and cents aside for a moment, here are some things you can do:

Write every day—even though it doesn’t earn you a dime.

Finish the draft of a novel, a screenplay, a poetry collection, an article or essay.

Take you Starbucks money for a week and make five copies of your manuscript to hand out to friends.

Make five more to hand out to strangers. 

Congratulate yourself: you’re now a published author!

Take the feedback you get and revise your draft to make it stronger. 

Write a children’s book, get your artistic neighbor to illustrate it (the one who also understands the value of willing to work for free), call the librarian at your local elementary school, and make an appointment to come in and read your book out loud to the kids.

Congratulations!  You just gave your first reading.

Take your vacation money and instead of going away for a week, stay home and publish your book through a print-on-demand service.  Give copies away to six of your friends.  When they’re done reading it, invite them over for wine and cheese.

Congratulations!  You’ve just hosted your first book party.

Tell your friends to list your book on Goodreads.

Congratulations!  You just got your first reviews.

When the summer comes, pack the kids in the back of the car and drive them to Florida/Arizona/North Dakota to see that aunt/cousin/college roommate you’ve been meaning to get around to visit for years.  While you’re there, ask your aunt/cousin/college roommate to hold a barbecue so that you can meet all of her friends.  While you’re all together eating chicken and ribs, tell them about your book.

Congratulations!  You just gave your first book talk.

Be sure to have a few copies in the trunk of your car to sell. . .just in case. 

Congratulations!  You just made your first sales.

Well, we never said money didn’t matter—just that it shouldn’t stop you from doing the things you want to do.

When you get back home, start on a new book.  Congratulate yourself!  You’re part of a new grassroots movement made up of writers who have decided to take their destiny into their own hands and bring their work to audiences on their own.

There are people out there waiting to read what you have written.  All you have to do is find them.  So put your money where your mouth is.  Get your work out there.  You know that you want to.  What are you waiting for? 

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Double double, toil and trouble Thursday, Feb 12 2009

Double, double toil and trouble;/ Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

First the trouble.

 According to yesterday’s New York Times, HarperCollins has just announced the closing of Collins.  In the last six months of 2008, Harper Collins saw a staggering 75% loss in its income, leading to lay-offs among editors, sales, marketing, and publicity staff–and now the closing of the entire Collins division, despite the fact that it has several blockbusters on its list.  HarperCollins joins a long list of publishing houses that have had lay-offs in recent months, including:

Random House

Simon & Schuster

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

St. Martin’s Press

Meanwhile, bookstores continue to struggle, with sales down in double-digits in recent months, and this past holiday season the worst in memory.  The decline of commercial publishing, which has begun in recent years to look like a train wreck in slow motion, has accelerated in our worsening economy.  Close your eyes.  It’s painful to see.

But all is not lost.

Now for the bubble.

Despite the bad news, there is one sector in the publishing world that has shown growth in recent months: self-publishing.  Author Solutions alone grew by 10% in 2008.  By all accounts, readership is up, but the way readers are getting their books—and the way writers are getting them to them—has changed. 

Here’s how Time Magazine put it in their recent article on “Books Unbound”: “[M]ore books, written and read by more people, often for little or no money, [are] circulating in a wild diversity of forms, both physical and electronic, far outside the charmed circle of New York City’s entrenched publishing culture.” 

The result?  Instead of being handed down to readers by a self-selected priesthood of editors from above, books are bubbling up from below, in a delightful, chaotic stew, everything from the best new literary fiction to fan fiction and Cell Phone novels—which have reached the bestselling lists in Japan.

Hang on to your hats.  The new world is here, and the only question left is: How will you fit into it?

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No Longer a Dirty Word Monday, Feb 2 2009

It’s official.  Self-publishing.  It’s no longer a dirty word.  Don’t believe me?  Read about it in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28selfpub.html?em

The judgment comes from no less a publishing luminary than Louise Burke, publisher of Pocket Books.  Self-publishing, she says, “is no longer a dirty word.”

Now I don’t want to brag that here, at Screw Iowa!, we’ve been ahead of the curve, but let’s just say we’re firmly a part of it.  The world is changing.  Traditional publishing models no longer satisfy readers or writers.  Instead, more and more authors are deciding to go it alone, either by using existing print-on-demand services or by creating entirely new presses. 

Granted, neither route is likely to make you rich or famous.  According to the Times, the average number of copies sold by print-on-demand services is only 150 copies.  If you measure your book against blockbusters that reach millions of readers, 150 copies can seem like a paltry number.  On the other hand, in comparison to the zero readers your book will have if you leave it unpublished, sitting in a box in your garage or under your bed, 150 is huge.

Think about it for a minute.  If you put your book into print, there is every reason to expect that over one hundred people will read it.  Not only that, but since you will be marketing it on your own, the chances are that you will be in contact with most—if not all—of those readers.  You will hear back from a good number of them, as they tell you what they thought of your book and what it meant to them, and you will have the pleasure of watching your audience grow.

What more could a writer ask for?

From where we sit, self-publishing is one grassroots movements that is bound to keep growing, because of its ability to be both personally and socially transformational.  A dirty word?  We never thought so.  It’s nice to see the rest of the world take note.

 

In memory of John Updike.  You set the bar so high, we knew we would never reach it, but we were bound to become better just by trying.  You will be sorely missed.

 

 

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Stigma Sunday, Dec 21 2008

Shh.  Don’t tell anyone.  Here at Screw Iowa! we’ve started publishing books.  That’s right, we’re actually putting our books into print and finding readers for them, without the help of an agent, a publicist, or even a commercial press.  We’re doing it . . .all on our own.

Wait a minute, you say.  Isn’t there a stigma associated with self-publishing?   Isn’t self-publication for writers who aren’t good enough to make the grade?  And isn’t it just a one-way ticket to a dead-end?

Interesting question.  It’s something that, up until a few months ago, we were asking ourselves.  But now that we’re actually (shh . . .don’t tell anyone) doing it, we have some answers, too.

Is there a stigma associated with self-publishing?  You bet there is—at least as far as many agents, editors, distributors, and booksellers are concerned.  Some of them grant a self-published writer as much respect as well, let’s just say, the stuff they scrape off their shoes on their way in the door.  But among readers—the actual living, flesh and blood people who like to read books?  Not at all. They’re just delighted to meet you.  An author with a book?  Do tell.  They can’t wait to hear more.

What about the quality of self-published books, you protest.  Aren’t they just awful? Well, it’s true there’s a lot of fluff in the self-published world, but there are a lot of hidden gems, too.  Just like the shelves of Barnes and Noble.  If the major publishers put out nothing but quality books, they’d have the right to look down their noses on people who choose to go their own way.  Otherwise, as the saying goes, people in glass houses . . .

Did we mention that in some publishing circles writers aren’t even called authors anymore?  They’re content-fillers.

But surely all those self-published books end up in the dustbin, you say.  You mean just like all those new books on the shelves of major bookstores that end up being returned or remaindered because their publishers won’t spend the time or money to back and promote them?  At least when you publish your own book, you can take as much time as you like to build your audience.  And your book will never go out of print, unless you want it to.

Who will read your book if you publish it on your own? The same people who will read it if you publish it through a commercial press: people who know you, people you reach out to, and people who like books like the one you have written.

It’s almost enough to make you wonder if the self-publishing stigma isn’t perpetuated by commercial publishers for a very good reason: to keep down the competition, and to ensure their monopoly—deserved or not—of the people who read. 

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An interview with C. Allyn Pierson Wednesday, Nov 26 2008

Today we’re talking with a C. Allyn Pierson, a writer who has successfully used a print-on-demand service: iuniverse.

Congratulations on your new book, And This our Life.  Tell us a little about it.

Thank you, it is exciting to finally see it print! And This Our Life is a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The book follows Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy through their first year of marriage.  The other main plot which entwines the story of Darcy and Elizabeth is that of his much younger sister, Georgiana, who was a relatively minor character in Jane Austen’s story.  Georgiana has reached the age at which she must be presented at court and make her debut in London society, and, ultimately, find a suitable husband. The story is set against the background of the Napoleonic Wars and the defeat and exile of Napoleon to Elba.

What brought you to write this book?

I have been a fan of Jane Austen for many years and was aware that there were many sequels, and I decided to look at some of them. As I read the descriptions it was immediately clear that the authors had scribbled them down without any regard to historical accuracy or even consistency of the characters with Austen’s original work. After reading a series of books I realized that I ‘knew’ what had ‘really’ happened and sat down and started writing.  I guess you could say that I was motivated by annoyance to finally sit down and write!

Did you do any special research for it?

Yes.  I think it is very important in historical fiction to fit the story into the historical context, rather than the other way around. I began my research with Wikipedia for an overview and then looked for specific online and printed references, some of which contradict each other, requiring that I make my best guess about what the truth was. I now have two entire shelves on Regency society, medicine, customs, etc!

It sounds like your book would be a great hit with Jane Austen fans.  What kind of response are you getting so far?

As is the case with most self-published authors, my difficulty has been getting my book into the bookstores.  The large chains, such as Barnes and Noble, have a nationwide policy of not carrying self-published books. I am well known in our community because I am a practicing physician so I have sold quite a few books locally. In addition, I have purchased ads on a Jane Austen fan website called the Republic of Pemberley (www.Pemberley.com), and  I have also accumulated a few reviews on Amazon.com which were all positive, so, all-in-all, I am pleased with how sales are going.

You published your book with iuniverse.  Not all writers know about this company.  Could you tell us a little about it?

iUniverse is a subsidiary of Barnes and Noble which provides print-on-demand services.  In past times writers would have to purchase a certain number of copies of the book, but  print-on-demand allows writers to publish without this minimum purchase requirement.  Each book is in the computer and when books are ordered they are printed, which takes about three days. Publication costs are paid by the author up front and are very reasonable. They also have secondary services available for purchase, such as author websites, publicist services, marketing services, etc.

What made you decide to use iuniverse?

I liked the way iUniverse advertised their services, and their service representative was very knowledgeable and explained the different packages available so that I could purchase the one that was right for my goals. Lastly, iUniverse makes it very clear in their contract that the rights to the book belong to the author, who may sell them to a traditional publishing company if they are able to. 

What do you see as the advantages of this kind of publishing service?  Are there any disadvantages?

The advantages of self-publishing are that you can start on the publication process as soon as you want, and every aspect is under your control. The disadvantage of self-publishing is the difficulty placing it in bookstores.  IUniverse guarantees availability at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, but it is very difficult to get it in the bricks and mortar stores.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might want to use iuniverse, too?

Make sure that you follow-up any e-mails you send if you do not hear back within a couple of days—I had a number of instances where I sent e-mails to my publishing service associate (PSA), who is the only person you have direct contact with, and she did not receive them.  

Would you publish with iuniverse again?

Absolutely!

Thank you so much!  And best of luck with your book.

 

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