If I Self Publish My Book, Will Traditional Publishers Blacklist Me?

Filed Under: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions by Corinne — Comments Off on If I Self Publish My Book, Will Traditional Publishers Blacklist Me?
July 20, 2012
Self Publishing Advice can be Yucca

Spiky Issues for Self Publishers

I’ve heard passionate debate in the book industry about whether self publishing ruins an author’s chance of getting a book deal with a traditional publisher.

Some well-respected experts swear that it is the kiss of death for an author to self publish. Others, equally well-respected, say that one day soon, all authors will have to first self publish and self market to prove that their work can sell before a larger publishing house will pick them up.

The irony of the whole discussion is that self publishing turns authors into publishers, who then have the same concerns as publishers (without the staff, budget, connections or market reach.. !)

As a publisher, I need my book to sell. If my book is selling, and selling well, then I believe that my author (that’s me) will be able to talk to traditional publishers for either a larger market for that book… or for a future book.

Every year brings a new story of a self published author who had success with a project and then either got picked up by a traditional publisher, or decided to continue to go it alone due to the success.

The most bitter statements I’ve heard all have to do with the quality of self published books. The idea behind that is based on the assumption that traditional publishing curated a standard for literary excellence… and it is therefore the temerity of the line-jumping author that so badly offends, because the self publishing author could be putting out a product so vile it should never have touched a binding machine.

But if a self publisher puts out a bad book, it won’t sell. It won’t get good reviews. Store managers and distribution agents will not carry it.

And if a self publisher puts out a fantastic book… and if a self publisher markets the heck out of that fantastic book… then it will sell. And if it sells enough, traditional publishers will want to look at it.

So no, if you self publish your book, traditional publishers will not blacklist you. They don’t have the time or the energy.

If you query them on that self published book, they will probably ignore you the same way they were ignoring you before you self published…. unless you sell a LOT of books!

It certainly does get wicked in some of these high-tension discussions. This is a time of big change in the publishing industry and it is creating big emotions. From personal experience, I can say that getting a re-order request from a store carrying my book felt a lot better than getting a rejection letter from a publisher on the same book. But I love those rejections because they are so much better than silence, so I still submit.

Because I believe there is room for both market models.

 

 

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Memoir versus Biography and Writing “Just A Couple Of Chickens”

Filed Under: Blogs @ "Just a Couple of Chickens" by Corinne — Comments Off on Memoir versus Biography and Writing “Just A Couple Of Chickens”
July 18, 2012
Just a couple of rose comb chickens

Just A Couple of Chickens is about the work that went into creating www.TheFeatheredEgg.com.

When I wrote “Just A Couple of Chickens” about raising poultry and a family, I wasn’t thinking about genre and whether it was a memoir, or an autobiography.

If I was thinking anything, it was that this was a how-NOT-to book on chicken raising. It was only when the “raising poultry and a family in hard times” part began that I realized that it might be one of those genres. But I didn’t really understand the difference. And based on the number of arguments in writing forums, writing groups, writing classes, at writing workshops, and on writing panels, I am not the only confused person.

Memoir is fantastically popular right now. Biography is less popular, but still a steady page-turner. But if biography is the story of person’s life – and expected to be more than just the chronological facts… and if autobiography is the story of a person’s life told by the person… then what is memoir?

Memoir is the personal memory, and self interpreted impact or meaning, of a person’s own life. The definition is contained in the word, memoir. It’s about our memories, and how we feel about what we’ve remembered. Memoirs used to be about what the author remembered about other people’s lives, but now it is almost exclusively what the authors remember about their own lives – plus how they feel about those memories.

Complicating the whole issue is the modern audience’s lurking potential for harsh critique should the memoir be revealed to contain inaccuracies. Lies. Fabrications. But since memories are notoriously fallible, that makes it complicated. I understand the upset when a memoir turns out to have been falsified. I don’t share the upset when a memoir has minor inaccuracies. Not that I had either of those problems with my chicken raising memoir. I remembered, and wrote, it in all its accurate and glorious homeliness.

Today’s memoir demands a greater revelation of the meaning and emotion carried by the memories. This is the most consistent comment I’ve had from readers over “Just a Couple of Chickens”… that they want to hear more about what I felt about what I was doing. And what I’m doing now… which is writing a sequel, in which I have the challenge to share how I feel about what I’m doing now…

But I’m not supposed to swear… hmmmm, challenging.

 

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Do I Need A Business License To Self Publish My Book?

Filed Under: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions by Corinne — Comments Off on Do I Need A Business License To Self Publish My Book?
July 16, 2012
Self Publishing Advice Sky's the Limit

Getting a business license can seem like stormclouds at night, but it is simple and easy, other than choosing what to name it!

 Yes!  You do need a business license to self publish your book. But it’s easy!

Because you become a publisher in order to self publish. And to become a publisher, you choose a business name and then register it by getting a business license through your state or county.

In Oregon, the process can be done online and costs @ $50 for a simple business (more for a Corporation or Limited Liability Company). To find out how to do it, I googled “How do I start a business in Oregon” and then followed the links, which rapidly led me to the website for the Oregon Secretary of State.

  •  You will need to have some business name ideas on hand, because in most states, you can’t have an identical business name to someone else. I suggest you don’t name your publishing business after yourself or based on your writing genre, because then you will have more flexibility to write in different genres and under pen names if you choose.

 

  • You need an address for your business, so if you aren’t going to list your home address (and I strongly recommend that you do not use your home address because it will therefore become public record and searchable all over the internet forever)… then you should get a mailbox set up before registering.

 

  • You will need a way to pay for the license online. Since you can’t set up a bank account for your publishing business until you have a business license to show the bank, you’ll have to use your personal debit or credit card or checking account… but as soon as you have a business license, you should set up a bank account for the business. Your business start up funds still come from yourself, but the separation is important.

 

  • You generally give your own social security number as your business tax ID number if you are going to be a sole proprietor.

In some states, you will also have to set up a sales tax account. You can find out more by calling the information number listed on the website where you filed for your business license.

Once you have your business license, you can get started buying your ISBN numbers and getting your book ready to publish.

And yes, once you have your business license and your pack of 10 ISBN numbers, you can choose to be a publisher for someone else’s book… but then you are no longer just a self publisher. You are an independent publisher, or small press.

Getting a business license is not difficult and worth doing. It sets you up to do business properly, publish completely, and do your taxes correctly.
The hardest part is figuring out the name!

 

 

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3 Things You Can Do For Free As A Self Publisher

Filed Under: How to Get Started in Self Publishing by Corinne — Comments Off on 3 Things You Can Do For Free As A Self Publisher
July 13, 2012
3 Eggs of Self Publishing Advice

Three eggs of self publishing advice to nest with.

Some self publishing helper companies may charge you for things you can do for free if you own your ISBN number… so you should know about 3 things you can do for free as a self publisher.

  1. You can create your own cover using the print-on-demand’s online software for no additional fee, although I strongly recommend you get your cover professionally done. This is true for any author actually. You don’t have to have your own ISBN number. It depends on what POD service you choose. Both Createspace and Lulu offer a free cover creator tool.
  2. You can register for a Library of Congress Control Number yourself, for free. (You must mail them a copy of your published book).
  3. You can list your title in Books In Print for free.

Also, consider this when evaluating a company’s service pricing:

You can register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office for $35 – $65 (and, depending on your project. You must mail them a copy of your published book)

You can get your book on Amazon.com yourself by using the right print-on-demand company. Research LightingSource and Createspace before paying a company to put your book on Amazon. Expanded distribution will cost, but putting it on Amazon may not. I have used Createspace and I’m happy with their service and product, but there are other companies out there that I haven’t tried yet (future posts!). If I have an affiliate link on this site to a company, that means I’ve used the service and I like it… and I’ve probably got a post in here somewhere reviewing it. Createspace is in, and you don’t pay extra to get your book on Amazon, because Createspace IS Amazon.

As with everything else, if you do decide to pay someone else for a service you could do for free… there is value in the fact that you don’t have to spend your time whacking away at the search engines and web portals to get it done. But my mission in my self publishing journey is DIY and DIFF. Do It Yourself and Do It For Free.
Because knowledge is power.

 

 

 

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Self Publishing is all about the ISBN number

Filed Under: How to Get Started in Self Publishing by Corinne — Comments Off on Self Publishing is all about the ISBN number
July 11, 2012
Barnacles of Self Publishing Advice

Self Publishing can be barnacled with confusing terms and definitions.

Publishing chatter today is very confusing. Self publishing, vanity press, subsidy press, independent publishing, traditional publishing, print on demand, epublishing, … whuuut?

And it doesn’t help that almost all of the companies who come up under a google search of Self Publishing are offering to help authors by handling the publishing for them. Which is not always self publishing…

It’s all about the ISBN number.

If the author owns the ISBN number, then the book is self published. 

Even if the author hired out portions of producing the book.

And in order for the author to own the ISBN number, the author had to establish a publishing business. This can be as simple as getting a business license and giving the business a name. So the author is now a publisher.

A Self Publisher.

If the author accepted the free ISBN number offered through the print on demand company, then the author is not self published. The print on demand company is the publisher. That’s not always bad, but it isn’t self publishing.

The companies that offer help with self publishing must require you to get your own ISBN number, otherwise they are actually the publisher for your book. Many of them state this upfront, but I am frustrated with the ones that don’t explain it well enough and offer the ISBN number for “free” as “part of the service”.

It is free… but if you want to take your book and publish it somewhere else, you discover that they are the publisher and you can’t easily do that. (You can get your own ISBN number and go on your merry way… but my point is the confusion involved.)

Authors can buy a single ISBN number for @ $125 (as of 2012) or a pack of 10 for @ $300 from Bowker. Self publishing authors should buy the 10, because having gone to the effort of publishing one book, it’s a good idea to put out another one. You will need the ten.

Own the ISBN and you own the rights.
It’s important.

 

 

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What is Print On Demand (POD)?

Filed Under: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions by Corinne — Comments Off on What is Print On Demand (POD)?
July 9, 2012
Self Publishing Advice for Blue Hens

Inquiring Hens want to know, what is POD?

POD is a good way to get a book ASAP as long as you have a PDF.

Print On Demand (POD) is the heart of the new publishing revolution. A publisher, or author, or pretty much anyone with a PDF  (Portable Document Format) file (an electronic copy of your book, already formatted, sized, and totally ready to print) can upload the file to a POD (Print-On-Demand) supplier and order up a single copy of the book. The cover of the book is usually a separate PDF file, uploaded at the same time. The important point here is that the PDF file is totally ready to go – no edits or adjustments required. The POD company prints either a single copy of the book, or as many as you have ordered, and ships it out. Fast.

Print On Demand is a tool that self publishers can use. Traditional publishers can use it too.

When someone orders my book through Amazon.com, they are ordering up a POD copy. I do not have a stock of printed books sitting in an Amazon warehouse in one of their strategically placed supply centers… although I could do that if I wanted to. I could have the books printed up ahead of time and shipped to that center, then Amazon would pull one from inventory and ship it out. This is a core difference between me, a self published author, and Simon & Schuster, a massive, big, respected, resourced, old-school, traditional publisher. Or one core difference, among others. Because I don’t have that big book inventory sitting in a warehouse, I don’t have all that money tied up there either.

Print On Demand also makes it possible that no book needs to go Out of Print ever again, as long as there are servers and electronic data in the world. Many books that existed before the publishing revolution are not yet available POD and so are still Out of Print… but this is a main strength of electronic publishing. Ebooks are another, but that’s another post for another day.

AND, this is a new industry. A new science. It has bugs.

I recently added a disclaimer paragraph to my PDF file at Amazon that tells my reader that their book was from a Print On Demand supplier, and if it is not perfectly printed, to please contact me at www.TheWestchesterPress.com. Because I had tested the system, and been in contact with readers, and some people got books that were not perfectly trimmed or perfectly printed. Quality control was running at about 90%, which still left some readers getting weird-looking books – and this was my only way to combat that issue.

But the benefits truly outweigh those problems, and Print On Demand is a wonderful thing… it makes Self Publishing possible.

 

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The Internet and My Research on Cloyce J. Tippett

Filed Under: Blogs @ "Colonel C. J. Tippett" by Corinne — Comments Off on The Internet and My Research on Cloyce J. Tippett
July 6, 2012

Party like it’s 1943!

I started researching my grandfather, Cloyce Joseph Tippett, for a biography twenty years ago. I used libraries, magazines,  US Government military and civilian archives, museums, personal connections… every “old school” research method I could find. As the Internet became available, I used it too.

With my Dad’s help, I ordered a copy of my grandfather’s military record – which was a treasure trove of dates and facts. The sheer volume of paperwork that the US Military can produce is amazing.

In the last three years, researching my grandfather’s biography became an entirely new thing. For one thing, it became FUN!  The evolution of both search engine function and more sources to search from resulted in an astonishing difference between researching now and researching ten years ago.

One example, out of hundreds: Jefferson Caffery was the US Ambassador to Brazil during the time my grandfather, Cloyce Joseph Tippett, was establishing civil aviation in Brazil. My grandmother, Louise, attended several evening functions with the Ambassador and had salty opinions of the “going-ons”… This story is supported by a few documents in Tip’s letter archive, but voila!  The University of Louisiana, Lafayette, in the Edith Garland Dupre Library Special Collections and Archives has the Jefferson Caffery Collection, and double voila, in box 48-f, under the “T-U-V” correspondence list, is Tippett, Cloyce J.: American Embassy, Rio.

For me, this is external confirmation of an interaction between Tip and Ambassador Caffery – which is important in supporting the story with facts. I think of it as provenance.  It’s just so cool. Almost as cool as partying with Ambassador Caffery on Ipanema Beach in 1943.

The book is getting closer and closer to being ready… let me know if you want to be on the release announcement list!

 

 

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