Indie News

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Great!  Because the publishers don’t want you to.

Pikes Peak Library District is calling out big publishers about not providing library copies of ebooks…or charging over $100 a copy…or only letting the library check out the book 26 times before they charge the library for a new copy.

See their Facebook NOT eNOUGH page for a form letter to send to your favorite publisher today!

Or just pull off a copy of the letter here:

Join our letter-writing campaign!

Is your favorite author here?
Penguin Group (http://tinyurl.com/d8eaxb2)
Hachette Book Group (http://tinyurl.com/d9o65xy)
Simon & Schuster (http://tinyurl.com/d4q2zb)
Macmillan (http://tinyurl.com/c272f5f)

Send them this letter.

Ms./Mr. <insert author’s name>;

As a patron and supporter of libraries, I have long appreciated the opportunities that technology has granted libraries in the pursuit of providing information and entertainment to their patrons. The fact that we can access information 24/7 through our library’s website equates to a service of inestimable proportion. Likewise, the opportunity for libraries to share electronic copies of books – both in text and audio format – has been a great boon to the public’s ability to access information. Electronic reading devices, as you are well aware, are now a massive part of the way many people consume literature and information, and libraries need to be able to provide that content as they have always done. Over the last two years, the demand for eBooks has grown by leaps and bounds, and many library patrons are moving to eReaders as their choice for content delivery.

With that said, I want to express my displeasure with your publisher, <insert publisher’s name>. Rather than helping their longtime partners, public libraries, this publisher (and others like it) will not sell to public libraries. This disenfranchises public library users and cuts them off from your work. Patrons request that libraries provide this content constantly, but libraries have no recourse but to turn them away. Given the explosive growth of e-content, if public libraries cannot meet the needs of their patrons, libraries have less value in our communities. These publishers are, in effect, engaged in business practices directly detrimental to the survival of the public library in this country.

I understand that publishers are nervous about their property and intellectual rights – and authors are, too. What I do NOT understand, however, is why your publisher is apparently refusing to work with libraries at all in regard to e-content. There is already a secure DRM (Digital Rights Management) solution provided by all providers of e-content to libraries. I cannot believe that you, a popular author, do not want the public reading your materials, or to be able to borrow your materials, through the method that they prefer: from a public library.

I would ask you, as a prominent author, to bring pressure to bear on your publisher to open their e-content to public libraries. Failure to do so will deny public library patrons like myself access to your materials and other valuable content in the format that they desire. If the libraries of the future cannot provide content to patrons, they will truly die. That will be a very sad day for this country and for those who depend on the equitable access to information that they provide.

Sincerely,
<insert your name>

Pick your author, google them, and send them a nice letter.  More than likely, the author’s already on your side…and has a more direct line to the editors than you do.

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What what what?  Why didn’t I know that National Library Week was coming up?  Because I’m an ungrateful wretch, that’s why.  Pass the word on!

You remember when you were a kid and the only place you could get book (aside from Christmas, maybe) was the library?  Yeah.

At Pikes Peak Library District, check out the Mountain of Authors program on April 14th, featuring Connie Willis.  Doors open at noon.  A ton of authors will be there, with panels on Thrill and Chills and epublishing, and a book signing at 5 p.m.

If you’re not local, join the Six Word Story contest on Twitter by tweeting your story with the hashtag #nlw6words; you’ll be automatically entered.  Results will be announced at atyourlibrary.org.  Write fast – you only have until Wednesday, April 11th to enter.

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After finding out a few days ago that some independent bookstores were using QR codes and Google Books to sell ebooks, Google Books has been on my radar.

I have one ebook up for sale through Google Books, because it was such a pain in the butt to get it up there that I stopped there.  I feel leery of using it, because no matter how brilliant the setup may be, it’s just awkward trying to find out what I’m supposed to be doing.  My first books uploading on Smashwords, B&N, and Amazon were nerve-wracking…but not terribly involved.  Putting the ebook together was the learning curve, not the uploading.  Not so with Google Books.

And now Google Books has scootched over to Google Play:

Now, the company has announced, eh, it’s [...] folding the ebookstore intoGoogle Play, a portal that will also sell movies, music, and Android apps, andmaybe audiobooks. As Laura Hazard Owen puts it in a report on PaidContent, “The message is clear: Books are just one type of content that Google sells, and the company wants to offer them as part of an iTunes-like ecosystem rather than as a separate storefront.”

A Wiredreport says it’s not only about being like iTunes, but being like Apple AND Amazon, and even Microsoft (remember them) in that Google Play is — God, are you sick of this word yet? — cloud-based. (We wrote about the cloud war in a MobyLives report yesterday.)

All of which could mean, oddly enough, and despite the stupid name for the program, that Google is finally, genuinely serious about selling ebooks, if only because the move seems to mark the company’s realization that, well, it has to if it’s going to compete with Apple and — especially — Amazon.

Read the rest of the article at Melville House.

I checked out the Google Play site, and I’m not impressed.  These books, they aren’t discoverable past the ones that everyone has already discovered.  Okay, sure, maybe it’ll help bookstores stay away from Amazon and still be able to sell ebooks, but…if you dive down into the genres, all you get is a page of staff recommendations.  Not bestseller lists, not up-and-coming lists, not the weird and wacky, just a collection of evergreen classics that everyone knows about already.  You can’t even filter your searches by genre.

Maybe they’re just getting set up, but really?  Anybody can find a book they already know exists; they just google it.  The separate website doesn’t feel like it’s for ease of consumer use at all.

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Try naming a TV show.

“I put Everybody Loves Raymond on the original script. What I loved about it was that it was like I Love Lucy, and I was trying to do an old-fashioned show — a traditional sitcom to break out from everything hip and edgy at the time. Plus, it had that specificity: Once you knew the show, you got that the title spoke to sibling rivalries, problems with parents, problems with your wife. Before I turned it in, I showed it to Ray. He said, “You can’t call it that because then we’re asking for it. I’m named Raymond. I don’t want that pressure of everybody having to love me. The next thing is, ‘Oh yeah? I don’t.’ ” I said, “Let’s turn it in and see if the network even likes it.” CBS liked the script enough to go to pilot, and the whole time Ray is calling Les Moonves, saying, “You’ve got to change the title.” And Les was like, “Ray, you’re not even on the schedule yet. Don’t worry about the title.” Then we get picked up to series, and Ray goes nuts. He calls Les: “Thank you for picking up the show, but you’ve got to change the title.” Les responds, “Ray, if you become a top 15 show, you can call the show anything you want.” Ray says, “OK.” By that time, Ray has come up with a list of his own titles. There was That Raymond Guy, Raymond’s Way, What’s With Raymond? They were all terrible, which he admits now. He wrote them on a piece of paper, which we then framed and put up in our office. We do become a top 15 show, and the moment we crossed the threshold, Ray calls Les and says, “Can we change the title now?” And, of course, Les says, “You can’t change the title now. You’re a top 15 show!” Every introduction for the rest of Ray’s life will be, “Here’s the guy that everybody loves.” I’m happy for the success we had together, but I do feel guilty that he has to live with that until he dies, and probably after.”

Read more here.

The article has a lot of good examples…and some good tips that explain the logic behind how the names get picked (or don’t), along with some exceptions that prove the rule.

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Richard Lee Byers writes in Astrojive:

In the “Conan” movie, the Cimmerian is out to avenge the murder of his father and the slaughter of his clan. In the “John Carter” film, the hero is a Confederate veteran who lost his wife and child in the war (right, just like the dude in Hell on Wheels) and has come to believe no cause is worth fighting for.

Neither concept comes from the original stories. Howard and Burroughs didn’t weigh the heroes down with emotional baggage. They made Conan and Carter adventurers, and that was that.

Now, I’m a writer, and I understand the conventional storytelling wisdom the screenwriters followed. (In my stuff, I often follow it myself.) Giving the hero a personal stake in the story conflict and/or psychological problems can enrich his characterization and intensify the drama.

But the flipside is that by now, all of us moviegoers have seen the vengeance-driven and/or grieving hero many times. Instead of deepening and individualizing a character, such traits can make him seem clichéd. Maybe movie Conan and movie Carter fall victim to that perception.

Read the rest of the article here.

I haven’t seen the new Conan yet, but we saw John Carter last night, and let me say: the extra junk was annoying.  Did we have to see all that crap with the Army in Arizona?  And what the hell was all that junk about the so-called religious leaders who were really out to destroy planets?  All that crap about Carter having lost his meaning in life got in the way of his Southern Charm, which, in the book, I found charming but here was almost non-existent.

I hate it when I read books where the characters have sufficient motivation to do something–and then the author has to stack up other crap on top of it that add nothing, waste my time, and turn the story from a story into a MESSAGE.  (Not that stories shouldn’t have messages, but any message shouldn’t be in flashing, 150-point font with arrows pointing toward it.)  And that’s what happened with Carter: a perfectly good movie that you have to mentally edit, because parts of it–the parts that were meant to “raise the stakes” for the characters–are just a waste of time.

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Some people suffer pain. Other people mock it.

What’s the secret to never getting a bad review? This is a question authors get asked a lot. Hell, I’ve asked other authors the same question. “I don’t know. I don’t read reviews,” some say with a benevolent smile. Others shrug their shoulders and say, “There is no secret.”

Oh yeah? Wanna bet?

I’m about to let you in on the secret to NEVER getting a bad review again.

…

1) Find out where the reviewer lives and plant large quantities of meth in their closet, and then make an anonymous call to the cops.

Read the rest from j.a. kazimer here.  Or check out her new book, Curses! A F***ed-up Fairy Tale and help her find solace before she gets herself put in jail, or worse.

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I went to a bookstore opening for Back to the Books on Saturday and talked to author Bill Hubiak, who was there signing.  We brushed on the subject of ebooks: he’s selling some, and had color business cards giving the web addresses of place where people can buy the book.  I asked him whether he had any other ideas on how to sell ebooks at a book signing–but no dice.  Fast forward to today; thoughts about the booksigning are still running through my head.

So how hard would it be for a bookstore website to set up affiliate links for book purchases?

Well, that depends on the bookstore (and the state).  But let’s say that a) the bookstore already has a website, and b) the bookstore uses the website to promote author signings.

It should be doable to set up a page for the author’s signing that provides affiliate links to purchase the ebook versions of any of the author’s books.

And it should also be doable to have a booksigning computer: a small desk with a cheap computer on it with the browser open to the bookstore’s website…specifically, to the website of the author that’s signing at the moment.

At a bookstore and want to buy an ebook?  Great.  Sit down at the kiosk and buy it.  Then have the author sign a printed cover of the ebook (or postcard, or what have you).  Now you have an attractive souvenir and an ebook.

The bookstore isn’t making as big of a cut as they would if they were selling the book, but they’re not leaving money on the table.  However, it would force them to work with non-indie bookstores, and I think that would gall more than  a few of them.  Of benefit to the reader would be having the book available from their ereader’s bookstore (if they like), so it’s in their collection on the cloud: from my experience, this is a real benefit.

I’ve heard the idea of making scratch-off plastic gift cards to sell ebooks, and I thought it would be a good one, but the idea hasn’t taken off–mostly because it’s difficult with the way the systems are set up for authors to give out gift certificates.  Smashwords is great…but they’re a bridge too far for some readers.

Update:

Stephen Blackmore writes:

Actually, you just need a QR code. Mysterious Galaxy also sells through Google Books & has the code below the book on the shelf.   It’s on the bookstore’s end if the book’s available through Google. Here’s a list of indies that do it.

This is fantastic!

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Suw Charman-Anderson writes:

But anyone taking an objective view of self-publishing can see that it shows every sign of reaching the Peak of Inflated Expectations. And that can mean only one thing: Soon it will take that inevitable, unavoidable tumbling slide down into the Trough of Disillusionment. Just because new tools make the technical aspects of something easy doesn’t mean that the creative side of it becomes easy too.

Read the rest of the article and see the chart here.

The good news is that after the Trough of Disillusionment is the Plateau of Productivity.

They also link to a fantastic article by Cat Valente, author of The Girl of Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and more, who has published in all kinds of venues.

Much of the blaggering about How to Publish Without Those Foul, Cackling Warlock-Publishers relies on the idea, which most aspiring writers have, though the smart ones keep it on the down-low, that there is some kind of magic Success Wand that can cast Accio Everything I’ve Ever Wanted over them and make them sell a million ebooks just like Amanda Hocking.

I can’t say I agree with everything she says.  But then…I kind of like doing my own publishing.  I like editing and formatting and making covers.  I even, to some extent, am starting to like the marketing parts of things.  I’ll never be a cat-herding marketing mastermind.  But, you know, it’s not that bad, because I do the things I like.

I think those of us who actually like what we do as self-publishers will end up living through the hype cycle and hitting that sweet spot of the productivity plateau.

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To prepare for a talk at Pikes Peak Writers’ Conference, I’ve been posting things on my regular website about Indy Publishing.  It’s a try/fail kind of thing; however, if you’re interested, the articles are here.

I’ve talked about the money I expect to make and about the fact that a LOT of people are pouring into the epublishing world at the moment.  I’ll talk about cliffhangers and serials tomorrow:  an idea I haven’t tried out yet but will soon.

Please feel free to not treat me like an expert but a researcher down in the tide pools.