How To Publish (or Not)

Innovations in digital technology mean that publishing today is very different than it was even a few years ago. Also the growth and popularity of ebooks has changed the entire industry. In December 2010 Barnes & Noble announced that their web site sold more ebooks than print books. This trend is just beginning.

Since I have five books currently in paperback and six ebooks (plus 2 in production) I have learned a lot about the publishing industry. In 2010 I sold a little over a thousand books in a combination of paperback and eformat. In January 2012 I sold 11,000. Along the way I've learned a lot about publishing and I am writing this to provide information for other authors who wish to publish. What I write here is purely from my own experience and I will be adding to this as time permits in the hope it will help. So let me begin with a few words about conventional publishing:

Part 1 – Conventional Publishing & How It Works

The ideal for most aspiring authors is to sell their manuscript to a big publisher, get a hefty advance, and have their book edited, designed, printed and distributed. Once the book is in print authors dream of book signing tours set up and paid for by their publisher where they are wined and dined, meet their fans, sell and sign lots of books, and the money starts rolling in. The ultimate ideal is for the book to be optioned by Hollywood, a movie made with top name stars, and merchandising rights for everything from t-shirts to video games. This is a nice dream and it does happen for some lucky people but they are very much in the minority.

The truth is a publisher has to consider a lot of factors before even considering to publish a book, the top ones being a.) how much will they have to invest to produce it, and b.) how much market appeal does it have. Producing a book is very, very costly. The process of editing, working with the author through rewrites, designing, printing, distributing and promoting is expensive and publishers have to make sure their investment will yield a profit to justify their expenses. One of the things they need to consider is how marketable the author is, as well as the book. Like it or not, we live in a personality-driven society. New authors are tough to promote and an author who has a certain measure of “star” power has an advantage. Sad to say, but a lot of readers are more interested in the authors than in their books.

The conventional route to getting your book in front of a publisher is to find an agent who a.) thinks your book has potential, and b.) has the necessary contacts within the industry. In my career as a writer I have been through three agents, all of whom LOVED my book and none of whom were able to sell it. This is to be expected but the problem was that in each case I signed a contract with the agent which gave them a year within which to sell the book. So, during that year I had no control over the book. This meant I waited three years to find out my book was not going to be published. All three of the agents said the book was excellent but the reasons they gave for it failing to sell were more complex. The most common one was that, at 130,000 words, it was too long. The second most common was that, though it would be marketed as a “historical romance”, the period (the early 1960s) and the location (a seaport town on the Great Lakes) were not attractive to a wide audience.

I fully understand the need of a book to be able to support a lot of people. Every book that gets published has to provide revenue for 1.) the bookstore owners (usually 55% of the cover price), 2.) the publisher, 3.) the agent, 4.) the publicists, 5.) the editors and designers, 6.) the distributors, and 7.) the author. On average the author makes 75 cents on every paperback sold. 

Also, remember, that if you get lucky and the book is bought by a publisher they will then own it. They have the right to ask that it be changed according to their wishes, to delay publication depending on their publication schedule, and to not publish it, if they decide it no longer meets their promotional abilities/desires. 

So, the advantages of publishing with a big publisher are: you will get an advance up front (which will be deducted from your profits); someone else will handle the process of getting it in to print; and someone will be there to help with the marketing. The disadvantages are: it is a very, very long process with no guarantees; your return per unit could be very low; and, depending on the terms of your contract, you could not have much in the way of rights for your book -- including the sale to media and merchandising.

Part 2 – What is “Self” Publishing? 

Subsidy Publishing vs. Independent Publishing

For many people the words “self-published” bear a stigma and the suggestion that self-publishing is the only option the author had to get a book in to print. This is not true. Some authors who have self-published are Mark Twain, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Deepak Chopra, Virginia Woolf, and Margaret Atwood. Among the most famous of self-published books are Huckleberry Finn, the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and that most ubiquitous cookbook, The Joy of Cooking. Authors self publish for a variety of reasons.

Today publishing has been complicated by the addition of e-publishing. In this post I'm going to discuss the different types of print publishing, and include information on how e-books are handled by each. Since we already talked about traditional publishing I won't delve much further in to that but bear these things in mind as you decide how much time and effort you wish to spend pursuing a contract with a traditional publisher:

• A publishing house agrees to handle all aspects of getting a book into press and agrees to pay the author a certain percentage (royalty). Advances can be quite large although the average advance is around $30,000 from the larger publishing houses, less from smaller houses. Don't forget that this amount is deducted from your book's profits. Once a book is on the market the author does not receive any more money until their share of the book's profits exceed the advanced amount. If it does not, the author receives no more money.
• The publisher decides how long your book will stay in print. Usually, depending on how sales are going, this will be six months to a year. If the book does well it may well be longer but whenever the publisher decides it is no longer worth their while to keep the book in print they will “remainder” it, meaning they will keep selling the book until the remainder of printed books is depleted and then the book will be out of print.
• When you sign a contract with a traditional publisher it will also specify who owns additional rights and what your percentage from them is. Additional rights may include paperback sales, international sales, audio books, ebooks, movie rights, merchandising, etc. Depending on the terms of the contract, the author may receive a percentage of any profits specified or a flat sum but the rights will be owned by the publisher, not the author.

A few words about rights and pricing for self-published books:

Rights:The good thing about self-publishing is that you will probably retain all rights to your book! You can keep it in print as long as you like, you can contract for ebooks, audio books, movie rights, merchandising, etc. without a publisher being involved. However, if you are lucky enough to attract interest for a movie, television show, or other such production, it is best to consult an intellectual property attorney before signing anything.

Pricing: Major booksellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble are going to want a 55% discount to carry your book. Local bookstores usually want 40%-50%. You deduct the print-per-unit price from the discounted price to figure your profit. Ex. if your book costs $2.50 per unit to produce you need to charge $10 per book in order to make a profit of .90 per book sold. If you increase the price to $12.00 your profit will be $2.90. You should consider how long it will take you to make back your initial investment so that you price your book to make a profit in a reasonable period of time. Your biggest profit will be on the books you sell directly to readers.

SUBSIDY PUBLISHING

Long ago, before the digital age, what we now call subsidy presses were called “vanity presses”, a somewhat pejorative term that implies all books printed through them were done so out of the author's vanity. Today's subsidy presses all operate on a similar principle: the author sends them a manuscript and a check (the size of the check depends on the type of “package” the author chooses) and they layout, design, and print the book. Some popular subsidy presses include Xlibris, iUniverse, Lulu, Outskirts Press, etc. Some of these presses offer (for a fee) proof-reading and some editing (we will discuss the various stages of editing in a later post). Some of them also offer (for a fee) customized design. All of them also offer (for a fee) some marketing assistance including consultations with a marketing coach. The more money you have to spend, the more services you can add.

This is how a subsidy press works:

• Once you have selected the subsidy press you wish to work with, and the service package you wish to pay for, you upload your manuscript to their server and select a page layout design from those they offer. These will be basically “cookie cutter” layouts. The more premium packages will offer a wider variety of designs but remember that they are going to print your manuscript exactly as you have submitted it – they are not going to correct spelling, punctuation, or anything else unless you have contracted in advance for that.
• You choose your cover from templates or, if you have contracted for a customized design, you work with one of their designers to create a cover.
• They supply the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) under their imprint. All books available for sale in book stores and online are required to have an ISBN and a bar code. Because they are using an ISBN registered in their name, they will be listed as the publisher (this will be important a little later on in this post.) Anyone can buy an ISBN but publishers buy them in large blocks all registered to their imprint (name).
• They print the book and send you the agreed upon number of copies supplied in the package you have chosen.
• Once the book is available in print, they supply the book information (title, price, ISBN, description, etc.) to the Books-In-Print Directory from which it is then picked up by online suppliers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, etc. Brick and mortar bookstores can order from the Books-In-Print database if they wish to carry them in their stores. They will also list your book with the major distributors, Ingram and Baker & Taylor.
• Depending on the marketing options in your package you will be supplied with a page for your book on the subsidy press's site, possibly a blog page also, and various marketing tools such as press releases (from a template), and information on submitting your book to book review services which charge a fee (anywhere from $50 to several hundred dollars per review).
• From this point on books are printed as they are ordered (Print On Demand). If you wish to order books you will pay a unit cost per book and all shipping.
• As books are ordered, either from the press's web store or from any other book seller, the subsidy press will print and supply them and place your percentage, minus their print charge, in your account. At the end of every month you will receive a statement. Usually, payments are delayed for 90 days (to allow for returns), and then a check will be sent monthly thereafter.

Most subsidy presses will offer an option to have your book converted to an ebook which they will supply to major online booksellers as part of their service.

Subsidy presses have advantages and disadvantages: The advantages are that once you turn your book over to them they do all the pre-press and production work and they handle distribution. The disadvantages are that their prices can be very high for what you are receiving and you are required to use their imprint (i.e. their name will be on the book as the publisher). This can be a deterrent to sales if the particular subsidy press is regarded negatively by potential buyers, especially bookstore owners. Some bookstore owners refuse to carry books from iUniverse, Xlibris, and a few other such companies. You have to consider whether this is going to be an issue for you.

Subsidy presses can be an excellent resource for books with a limited audience: family histories, books of regional interest only, family cookbooks and memoirs, etc. Depending on how much money you have to spend and how much or how little involvement you want in the process of publishing a subsidy press can be your best choice.

What is INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING & how is it different from subsidy publishing?

Unlike subsidy publishing, independent publishing is entirely controlled by the author. Most of the prominent writers who have self-published have done so independently so that they could publish under their own imprint. What this means is that they take control of the entire process which includes selecting a name for their publishing company (I use Parlez-Moi Press) and purchasing their ISBNs under that imprint so their books are published by their own imprint. Sometimes 3 or 4 authors work together to form a small press, one local example is Back Shore Press which was formed by Peter Anastas, Schuyler Hoffman, and Peter Tuttle to publish and promote their books.

This is how an independent publisher publishes:

1. Editing and Proofing: No matter how skillful you are and no matter how much effort you put into your work it will need proofing. Mistakes occur even in books by major publishers. I am surprised by how often I find typos and inconsistencies in books by major authors. Independent publishers need to be particularly mindful of this. It is best if you can have your manuscript proofed by a professional – they are easy to find  on the internet. Prices vary widely. If you are lucky enough to have an English teacher or someone very skillful at proof-reading among your family or friends, you can ask for their help but I recommend that at least two people with strong proofing skills read your manuscript. Neither of them will catch everything.
   
   Editing is more complicated. A good copy editor is invaluable and can save you from making embarrassing mistakes. I'll discuss copy editing later. For now, realize that a good copy editor will make sure your tenses are consistent, you don't make glaring mistakes (like killing off a character in chapter ten who then appears in chapter thirty-five – unless that's part of the plot), etc. When I wrote Each Angel Burns I couldn't decide on the right name for the “bad guy”. I went through five names before I decided on “Sinclair”. Thank God my copy editor caught all the places I forgot to change his name or readers would have been very confused!
   
   
2. Layout and Design: Most printers will want your finished manuscript sent to them in a finished format, complete with page numbers, headers and footers, front matter (all the stuff that goes in the front of a book like title pages, copyright info, etc.), chapter numbers, etc. Usually they will ask for it to be in PDF format but they may also accept it in Quark or InDesign. In my experience most will NOT take Publisher or Word files. As an independent publisher you will either have to hire someone to do this or, if you have desktop publishing skills, do it yourself. If your book is a novel or straight text, this is relatively uncomplicated. If you require illustrations, photographs, etc. it may be more involved but a good designer/layout artist will know how to do what you need.
   
3. Covers: Independent publishers take responsibility for creating or hiring someone to create their own covers. This is very important because, despite the old saw that you can't judge a book by its cover, most experienced readers have an innate sense of what a book's cover tells them about it. Other than bad proofing and bad copy editing, nothing screams “self published!” like a badly designed cover. The most important consideration is that the cover convey the essence of the book – amusing covers for amusing books, artistic covers for literary books, direct no-nonsense covers for factual books, etc. Because I began my professional career as a typographer I am highly sensitive to typefaces. I'll write more about that later but, aside from hiring a good editor, hiring a good cover designer is the best investment you can make.
   
   

   

   
   
4. The ISBN & Bar Code: Anyone can purchase an ISBN number online, usually from Bowker and usually for around $50. The web site is isbn.org and most ISBN providers will include a free bar code. You can register the ISBN under your own name or you can create a name for your publishing business. My advice would be, if you only plan to publish one book then you can use your own name, if you like, but otherwise think of an interesting name for your publishing business. Some local presses use these names: Ten Pound Island Books, Back Shore Press, Silver Perch Press, Dogtown Books, etc.
   
5. Printing: Once your book is written, edited, proofed, designed and ready to go to press, you have one of two choices: a.) have your books printed by a printing company and assume all responsibility for distributing and shipping them, or b.) work with a POD printer to have them printed on an as needed basis.

The choice to go either with a conventional printer or with a POD printer is entirely personal. These are the differences:

Conventional Printer

Most printing companies can print a book for you. You supply them with the camera-ready art and they will give you a quote based on the number of copies you wish to order. Usually conventional printers will require you print a minimum of 500 or 1000 books for your first run and will offer substantial price breaks for larger runs. Once the book is printed it will be delivered to you (or you will pick it up) and you will then be completely in charge of your book. You will have to store it, set up accounts with online booksellers and bookstores, ship books that you sell, and handle all aspects of distributing your book. 


The advantages of printing with a conventional printer is that the unit cost will be substantially lower than with a POD printer (thus, you per-unit profit will be greater) and you will have total control over distribution. The disadvantages are that you have to pay a large up-front amount for the number of books you order, you have to warehouse the books yourself, and you have to do all the distribution work.

POD (Print-On-Demand) Printer

POD printers can produce a hundred books or one book at the same per-unit cost which will be higher than the unit cost of a conventionally printed book but which saves you a lot of work. I have worked with both conventional printers and POD printers and, for my own books, I much prefer PODs. The POD printer I have worked with for all five of my printed books charges a $75 setup fee, and an annual fee (I think it is around $12 per title) to keep my books listed in their catalog. Beyond that all I pay is the unit cost + shipping when I order books to sell on my own. For books sold over the internet or ordered by bookstores, the printer does all the fulfillment at the unit-cost rate. When they receive my title I am required to submit a detailed description of the book along with PDF files for the cover and the interior, all of which I upload online. If my files do not meet their specifications they send me an email telling me what revisions to make (this only applies to book specs, not to content) and I correct the files and re-submit them.

Once my books have been approved they send me a proof and once I approve that they list my book with Books-In-Print and, literally within days, my book magically shows up on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powells, Buy.com, etc. From that point on it is up to me to promote my book and, as each book is purchased, the printer prints it (one or 20), ships it out and makes note of it in my “Publisher's Compensation” report. They hold each month's payment in reserve for 90 days then directly deposit one month's profits.

The advantages of working with a POD printer are: the upfront cost is very low and they do 90% of the work for distributing, fulfillment, and book-keeping. The disadvantages are the per-unit cost is a bit higher which means either your profit is lower or your book prices are higher.

Independent Publishers and E-Books

The e-book revolution has made e-book publishing simple – maybe too simple judging by some of the dreadful books being published. All I can say is that at this point in the e-book industry “caveat emptor” – buyer beware. If you have a book that you are considering publishing as an e-book go to Smashwords.com and download their style book – it's free. Format your book according to their guidelines and then upload it to their distiller. They have the absolutely coolest technology imaginable for automatically converting your book (provided you format it correctly) to every device on the market from Kindle to Nook to Sony to plain old HTML. You can begin selling immediately and some writers use this as a no-investment way to test out new books. 


The advantage to using Smashwords is it is free, it lets you test out your book before going to press, and it provides you with everything you need to know about specifications. The disadvantages are if your book is badly edited or badly written you run the risk of racking up some bad reviews which don't go away – ever.

Part 3 – Before You Go To Press

Spelling and Grammar Matter

Thanks to the internet more people than ever are writing on a daily basis – they are blogging, Twittering, Facebooking, IMing, emailing, texting, etc. etc. However, all this writing has lead to a decline in basic grammar and spelling. This may be fine for everyday communications but that does not make it fine for books. Spell check will find words which are spelled incorrectly but it will not differentiate between there/their/they're, point out words that are used incorrectly, correct punctuation, etc. There are also grammatical conventions for constructing things such as dialog that should be followed if you want your published work to look professional.

Authors who are not open to having their manuscripts proofed, edited, and critiqued should really consider whether they are serious about publishing. Professionals in the publishing business tell me that if an author resists editing and making changes they cannot work with them and will terminate the contract. While it is perfectly reasonable to resist significant content changes to a book (one of my agents wanted me to rewrite The Old Mermaid's Tale for the Young Adult market -- I refused), writers have to comply with standard grammar, punctuation, structure, etc. if they want to be taken seriously.

COMMIT TO QUALITY

Please remember this: when you publish a badly written, badly proofed, 

badly edited book, you don't just make yourself look bad, 

you make all self-published authors look bad.

Readers are becoming increasingly sensitive to self-publishing and have no reticence

to give very bad reviews to badly constructed books.

As a self-publisher commit to the highest standards possible.

Preparing Files: Print Publishing vs. ePublishing

Remember: printed material is made of ink, electronic material is made of light.

When you are preparing files, either to send to press yourself or to give to a designer you have hired, it is important to know the difference in specifications for printed books and electronic books. This is particularly important for image files (covers, photos, illustrations, etc.). Print publishing files need to be in CMYK format and hi resolution, ePublishing files are in RGB and low resolution.

CMYK/HiRes: CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black. Those are the standard inks in 4-color process printing. Most 4-color printers will require at least 300 dpi images. dpi means Dots Per Inch – this refers to the number of dots (or pixels for RGB) that compose an image or a letter.

RGB/LoRes: RGB stands for Red, Green, Blue. Those are the rays of light that compose images in electronic media (eReaders, web sites, DVDs, etc.) Most images for electronic publishing can be 72dpi.

It is important to remember that you can always make hi-resolution files lo-res but once a file is lo-res increasing the resolution will make it blurry. When I am preparing photos and images for a book I follow these steps:

• Save the original image in as close to its original state as possible in a file called: filename-prime.psd
• Scale the image to the size needed for the book, convert it to CMYK, and set the resolution at 300dpi, then save it in a file called: filename-cmyk.tif
• Scale the image to the size needed for the electronic version, convert it to RGB, and set the resolution at 72dpi, then save it in a file called: filename-rgb.jpg

That way you have the original in case you have to go back and make adjustments, plus the print version and the e-version.

TYPOGRAPHY

When a reader picks up a book and begins to read, s/he is committing to however many hours it takes to spend with the words on the page or on the screen. That means the type used for those words has to make the experience as pleasurable as possible. There are many types of typefaces but the two most important ones are serif and sans-serif. Serifs are those little pointy little things at the ends of the lines that make-up letters. A serif typeface – like Times Roman, Goudy Old Style, Garamond, Palatino, etc. – has serifs. A sans-serif (“sans” is French for “without”) does not have them – Arial/Helvetica, Verdana, Avant Garde, Futura, are all sans-serif.

For centuries text books, books, newspapers, and magazines have used serif type for large areas of copy and sans-serif for headlines and to emphasize certain areas. People have grown accustomed to reading text in serif type and generally find it easier to read. The digital age has made sans-serif type more popular for reading on-screen and many e-readers allow you to choose which typeface you prefer to read, which is a wonderful innovation in my opinion. However, for the text of printed books it is still wise to choose a standard serif typeface.

PLEASE resist the urge to choose unusual typefaces for large areas of copy! It is fine to use funky, elaborate, artsy, or exotic typefaces for titles, sub-heads, sidebars, etc. but not for large areas of text. I recently was sent a book by a self-published author whose alternating chapters were typeset in a standard serif-type and a Medieval-style black-face type. Those chapters were tedious to read and I skimmed over a lot. Use your fancy typefaces sparingly, please.

Part 4 – Quality: Fact Checking, Liability, Good Editing & Good Writing

Although all writers should strive for excellence in all their writing this is of particular consideration for those who self-publish. Over the past few days I've been reading discussions on Amazon Discussion Boards and other Message Boards and one of the subjects that gets discussed a lot is quality. Because the term “self-published” has long carried a stigma of not-good-enough, indie publishers are struggling to convince potential readers that their books are just as good, an in some cases better, than those published by traditional publishers. It is very important that self-publishing authors police themselves to maintain high standards.

FACT CHECKING

Fact-checking is a touchy subject. There has been a lot of criticism in recent years of the many fake memoirs that have made best seller lists only to be exposed as frauds. probably the most famous one was James Frey's A Million Little Pieces which was selected by Oprah for her book club only to be exposed as a fraud. There are other examples and there has been a great deal of outcry about fact-checking as a result, but the truth is many non-fiction books simply cannot be fact checked. For example, if someone decides to write a book about UFOs, or ghosts, or exorcism, or any paranormal subject the whole idea of fact-checking is absurd. Suffice it to say that if you publish a book that you have written you will be solely to blame if readers start finding fault with your facts.

Authors frequently underestimate the readiness of their readers to call them on facts. There was a case some years back in Houston of a very popular columnist for one of the major newspapers who often wrote columns in which he referenced various characters as being his source for information. Eventually readers started questioning the reality of these people and the writer admitted he just made them up. He got fired by the newspaper and his credibility as a writer was damaged. If you are going to make stuff up WRITE FICTION!

LIABILITY

Publishing has become a highly litigious business. Self-publishers need to be careful on two accounts – both in writing their books and in producing their books. I have heard of way too many people who started out as best friends collaborating on a book and the whole thing ending up in court. If you plan to collaborate, make sure you have a legal contract with your collaborators. In producing your book designers, editors, photographers, etc. are best dealt with in work-for-hire arrangements. You pay someone to do the work and have no further obligation to them. Do not ever make the mistake of thinking someone is such a good friend that they would never sue you over the work you do together. It happens all the time.

The second area of liability is in writing about real people. Unless a person is a recognized public figure be careful what you write about them. Just changing a name is often not enough – if a person objects to what you have written and can prove that they were easily recognizable, they may have a case against you. This happens all the time in families, too. One person decides to write a memoir about their struggle with addiction/abuse/whatever and everyone associated with their life can be impacted. Be very cautious. When in doubt, don't.

GOOD EDITING

There are many books and online sites available to help you with your editing process. If you can't afford to hire an editor consider an exchange with other writers. Many writers groups form with the agreement that the members of the group will read one another's manuscripts for content, proofing, and editing. You can join a group in your area or you can find groups online. Yahoo Groups has many groups for writers where you can find people interested in mutually beneficial exchanges of this nature.

There are different kinds of editing. Copy editing is mostly concerned with correcting your grammar and punctuation, keeping your tenses consistent, making sure that conventions are the same throughout the book, etc. I recently read a subsidy-published book that used the same wrong grammatical form for dialog though out the entire book. It was very distracting and a good copy editor would have caught it in an instant. Content editing is another matter. That is more involved and is often harder for authors to accept but it is important. When I was first writing I had a hard time when someone told me that something wasn't working in a story. I'd argue with them about it and explain why they were wrong and I was right. Eventually I received some good advice – someone told me that if one person reads your work and questions something, don't worry about it but if 3 or 4 people mention the same thing, pay attention. That's why it is so important to have a trusted circle of readers who will read your book before you publish.

A few years ago I was working with an author who had written a very humorous book. He had a habit of using flashbacks which is a very good device but he frequently forgot which characters were in which time period. When I tried to point out to him that the person he was talking to in the beginning of the scene was unlikely to be there in the flashback (unless that was part of the story) he would get angry with me. I finally got him to see what was happening and he was pretty embarrassed but I think it is better to be embarrassed in front of one editor than an entire audience of readers.

GOOD WRITING

I am not going to tell you how to write. There are plenty of good books on the subject, classes and workshops you can attend, and online forums for coaching. But I am going to say it is important to know your audience. Non-fiction writing is different from fiction writing and, in fiction, genre writing is different than general fiction writing. Literary fiction requires a great deal of dedication to writing as an art form and is the hardest to do. Genre fiction seems to be the most forgiving. What do I mean by these?

Genre fiction falls into categories: romance, sci-fi, western, mystery, and the ubiquitous vampire, among others. Genre fiction is driven by story and, as long as the writing isn't outright bad, people who love their particular genre are willing to overlook flaws in writing style for the sake of a good story. Recently I became fascinated by a discussion on Amazon in the Romance Community on phrases the readers hated in describing characters and “romance”. It was, frankly, hilarious. In an effort to make their writing more interesting the authors had concocted some of the most bizarre descriptions of couples coupling. It made me very much aware of the fact that sometimes just calling something what it is may be good enough.

Literary fiction is more demanding. It is more focused on the characters and their experiences of what is happening than on what is happening itself. The plot may be less stringent than the plot of a genre story but the characters need to be well-developed and their experiences and how they deal with them are critical. Two things every general fiction writer needs to stay mindful of are clichés and descriptions/metaphors. Nothing an kill a reader's interest in a story like cliché characters can. It is not the circumstances of a character that makes them a cliché, it is how the author presents them.

I am acutely sensitive to bad metaphors – it is better to skip them than to do them badly. I'll never forget the book (unfortunately a self-published one) in which the author was describing a motorcycle accident and said it looked like someone had spread Cheez Whiz across the pavement – I tossed the book and never bought Cheez Whiz again. A good metaphor is a beautiful thing, a bad one is annoying.

Part 5 – Marketing and Promotion

Probably the most challenging part of being an indie author/publisher is the marketing. Unlike trad-pub authors, indie authors are responsible for all their own marketing. At one time this meant slogging boxes of books around to book stores, trade shows, flea markets – wherever you thought you might be able to push a few books. Thanks to the internet, however, all that is unnecessary. Welcome to the world of Social Media and internet marketing.

Let's face it, self-promotion is difficult. Most of us hate it but, unless you have a publicist or a friend or family member who thinks marketing is fun, you are going to have to do your own marketing. This means spending a lot of time at your computer but, let me tell you, that is much easier than driving round with boxes of books in your car trying to talk bookstore owners to take a few to sell and perhaps even schedule a book signing for you.

Before you venture into cyber-land you are going to need:

• a brief but informative biography, focusing on why you are qualified to write the book you wrote
• an author's photo that you feel good about and that conveys a sense of who you are
• 2 or 3 well-written descriptions of your book – one that is very brief, one that is a couple paragraphs, and one that is more detailed
• JPEG images of your book's cover – one 150px wide (thumbnail) and one that is 300px wide. You may also want a larger one, at least 1000px wide, in case you re asked for it
• a few blurbs (positive comments) about your book written by people who are credible to readers [optional]

If you have set your book up though a printer or service associated with Books-In-Print, they will automatically supply a cover image and description to most internet booksellers. However, some of these, like Amazon allow you to go into your book's page and add information to it. Amazon also gives you an Author's Page which will list all your books and links to them. Next you should consider:

Author's Web Site and/or Blog

if you only have one book available and don't plan to write another, you may use a URL dedicated to your book. But if you have more books or plan to write more books, set a web site up under your name. I always tell people to buy their name in a URL if it is available. I own KathleenValentine.com and plan to keep it as long as I can.

Your web site should have descriptions and pictures of your book(s) with to-buy links, sample chapters, author information, contact information, and links to other internet sits you are affiliated with. A blog can take the place of a web site, especially now that so many of them are so highly customizable. If you start a blog plan to blog at least 3 times a week. keeping content fresh will keep potential readers coming back.

Social Media

Social media is a phenomenon and it is free! Facebook and Twitter are musts for writers. They can be a challenge to use at fist but there tons of online tutorials to help you maximize their effectiveness. Other sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. can be useful as well depending on the time you have to put in to them but Facebook and Twitter are necessities.

YouTube can also be a huge asset if you want to promote your books with simple videos. You can make videos using programs like MovieMaker at low cost and they can be fun to do. I currently have 2 YouTube book videos, one for The Old Mermaid's Tale and one for The Mermaid Shawl and other beauties. I may make more when I have time.

Goodreads, Red Room, Author's Den, etc. etc. etc.

There are tons of web sites where authors can register. Some are free (good), some are not (don't bother). Explore a few, register for a couple (Goodreads is recommended) but don't get too involved. They can be terrible time-wasters.

Now, set about marketing. Visit other blogs and leave thoughtful, relevant comments. Join discussion groups and participate – don't just flog your book. Use your blog to swap guest author posts. Go to Amazon and find discussions that are of interest and participate. View the internet a a very big cocktail party where you have endless opportunity to sell yourself and your book.

About Reviews

Rule #1: NEVER pay for a review. Never, never, never – not even to Kirkus.

Rule #2: NEVER pay to enter a competition. No matter how prestigious they tell you it is, don't do it.

Rule #3: When you get emails saying your book has been specially selected for a review service or a contest, just mail a copy with a check to___, reread Rules #1 & 2.

One last thing, once your book is out in the big bad universe you will start getting reviews. Not all of them will be good. Some will be lame and some will be nasty. Often sites like Amazon and Goodreads will remove gratuitously nasty ones but you also have to learn to accept that not everyone is going to like your book. It hurts but it is part of the business. Everyone gets a few bad reviews. learn from them and move on.

And that is it. I plan to add another segment on ePublishing in a few days but I hope this helps. Please feel free to post Comments and ask questions. And, as always, Thanks for reading!