Book Sales Slow at Frog Jump
Posted: July 18, 2011 Filed under: book publicity, self-publishing | Tags: All Men are Cremated Equal, book marketing, Elizabeth Fournier, Erika Dreifus, Jefferson Mint Festival, Moe Bowstern, Nye Beach Writers, self-publishing, Shoes Full of Sand Leave a comment »Shoes Full of Sand, the book, came out Friday. Marketing is intense, taking lots of time and energy. When I picked up my books, I told my printer, “It looks like I can either be a publisher or a writer.” She laughed, but it’s true. If you’re thinking about self-publishing, consider how much of yourself you want to give to the process of preparing and marketing the book. I love most of it, but I’m still working on balancing my various jobs.
Don’t do what I did Saturday afternoon. Although it was fun in some ways, making a four-hour round trip to sit at a table with my books at the Jefferson Mint Festival and Frog Jump (so Oregon!) was not profitable. The rain did not help, but people were there to play with frogs, ride rides, eat humongous elephant ears and corn dogs, and flirt with the opposite sex. They showed little interest in books.
It wasn’t all a loss. It turns out my boothmate and I both worked for the same newspaper chain in San Jose and knew some of the same people. This writer, Elizabeth Fournier, has published a delightful book called All Men Are Cremated Equal. Don’t let the title put you off. She’s a mortician, among other things, but the book is about going on 77 blind dates in one year, and it’s funny. I started reading it at the festival and had to bring a copy home.
My second event of the day, the Nye Beach Writers Series, yielded far more book sales. I recently rejoined the board of directors, and I read at the open mic after poet/songwriter Moe Bowstern entertained us. People liked what they heard and bought my books. The moral: If you want to sell books, go where people are interested in buying books.
You can find out more about mine at http://www.suelick.com/Products.html.
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Enough advertising. Have you visited Erika Dreifus’ Practicing Writing blog? She has good advice advice there. Every Monday, she offers a list of opportunities for writers. Check it out.
Happy writing!
Thinking about self-publishing?
Posted: May 24, 2011 Filed under: self-publishing | Tags: book marketing, self-publishing, Shoes Full of Sand Leave a comment »Ready to publish a book? In the old days, you had two choices, the acceptable route of securing an agent and a publisher via queries, proposals and synopses, hoping your manuscript would stand out among the thousands and earn you a contract, OR the not so acceptable route of paying a “vanity publisher” to produce copies of your book. Today, major publishers will not take on a book unless they’re confident it will earn them millions of dollars. Most books don’t fit into that category, even if they are wonderful books. Therefore, authors are taking their futures into their own hands. Thanks to modern technology, we can publish our own books affordably in print and/or digitally, and they can earn the respect they deserve.
Of my six books, four have been published traditionally. Publishers have paid me advances and royalties and handled all the distribution. One, a novel called Azorean Dreams, was produced by iUniverse.com as a print on demand book. I paid them a minimal fee to create a book for which copies are printed only when someone orders them. Frankly, I haven’t made any money on that book, but I’m glad it’s out there. I knew there was a market among my Portuguese-American fans, and they bought it.
When the original publishers of Stories Grandma Never Told decided after nine years and three printings that it didn’t “pencil out” anymore, I published a new edition myself with a local printer. Four years later, it’s still selling. I mailed out 14 copies this week. I’m about to go for a third printing.
I have just published my latest book, Shoes full of Sand, as a Kindle book through Amazon.com’s self-publishing program. The cost? Only my time. It’s already selling, and royalties will be coming each month. Meanwhile, I plan to produce a paperback with my local printer and also to get it into other e-formats via Smashwords.com. Is this the best route for this book? We’ll see. At least people have a chance to read it. It won’t make me rich, but I will make some money.
There’s not just one way to publish a book anymore. Getting a traditional publisher to handle your book is still the best way to go. You will earn more money, have better distribution, and be reviewed in important publications. But if you’re not having any success at that, want to have more control over your work, or know that an audience is waiting to read your book, you can do it yourself. However, and this is very important, authors who want to publish their own books have two huge responsibilities:
First, they must produce the best book they possibly can. Vanity publishing and every other kind of self-publishing have gotten bad raps in the past (and some folks in the industry still won’t consider a self-published book as a real book) because some of the books people put out are terrible. Even the most experienced authors need professional editing. It’s not optional. We cannot see our own mistakes. I edit manuscripts for other people, but I still need someone else to look at my books. The average reader doesn’t really care how a book gets published, but she does care if it’s not well done. The quality is up to us.
Second, the author has to not only write and publish the book but sell it. That means marketing through every possible avenue, including websites, blogging, blog tours, speaking engagements, mailings, and whatever else it takes to let people know the book exists and convince them to buy it. If you have never done this before, it can be overwhelming. And if you can’t identify a market for your book, you’re not ready to publish it.
I still have a lot of work to do for this new book and for the ones published earlier. Meanwhile, here’s the commercial. You can buy Shoes Full of Sand for the Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005201PD4 for a mere $4.99. If you don’t have a Kindle reader, you can download the free Kindle program on your PC or Mac. No, it won’t work on your Nook. That’s where Smashwords will come in.
You can also go to the kdp.amazon.com site to find out how to produce your own Kindle book.
I welcome your comments and questions. Let’s talk about this. I’ll be providing some resources for self-publishers in future blogs.
>Avoid these potholes in your writing
Posted: November 15, 2010 Filed under: clunky writing, need for editing, self-publishing Leave a comment »>I just finished reading a book that I bought as a gift for someone. It looked like a great story, mixed with history of the type he enjoys. However, I didn’t get past the first page before I realized the writing was awful and I couldn’t give this book to anyone.
I will not embarrass the author by sharing his name or the title of the book, but I do want to look at some of the things he did that made me want to toss this $15 paperback into the trash. They’re subtle things that add up to a negative impression, whether you’re writing a novel, a newspaper article, or a story on the web.
1) Clunky sentences. Every sentence in the first paragraph has the same structure and rhythm, and most of them should be deleted because they don’t tell us anything. Every sentence should have a job to do, and sentences should vary enough to keep the writing interesting. Mix short and long, simple and complex. Always read your work aloud to see if it flows naturally.
2) Too many modifiers. This author has a hard time leaving any noun or verb unmodified: “A quivering circle of smoke,” “blazing blue eyes,” “smartly indented brimmed felt hat.” “The two women’s shadows stretched over the opened trunk and bed like silent, eavesdropping specters.” We could just say “smoke.” Find one word that gives the idea of “blazing blue eyes.” Call that hat a fedora. As for the women’s shadows, it not only adds nothing to the story but makes me stop to figure it out.
3) Three mentions in one page of a woman’s bounteous bosoms. “She was holding a stack of papers that rose up to her shapely chest.” Why is this important? Is the woman just two walking breasts?
4) Unnecessarily inflated language. The girl with the shapely chest didn’t just walk; she “sashayed.”
5) Overuse of the same word. Ben gulped down his coffee, gulped down his whiskey, gulped down every beverage he came across. Enough gulping. If we need this at all, find another word.
6) Buried lead. We don’t find out what this story is going to be about until the third page. We should know by the third paragraph, no matter what you’re writing. Write whatever you need to write to get started, then go back and cut off the excess to get right into the story.
7) Here’s a habit that has bothered me in several things I’ve read recently: an overdose of quotation marks around certain words. Think twice before you “quote” a word because it makes readers stop and read the word differently. Is it “necessary”?
8) Typos/stupid mistakes: I found words missing, words misspelled, it’s for its, and much more. Proof your work, let it sit, then proof it again.
The biggest problem in the overall story is an abundance of ridiculous coincidences and stilted dialogue. I read the whole book in a gulp 
because I wanted to see what happened, and I wanted the history that came through in spite of the book’s flaws. But if I were an editor receiving this manuscript, I would reject it.
This book was self-published. I have nothing against self-publishing, but everybody needs editing. A good editor could have turned this into a wonderful book. Never assume that your writing is perfect the first time around. Let it flow in the first draft, then go back and examine every word. Content is important, but presentation counts, too. Don’t let bad writing ruin your stories.
Have you purchased your copy of Freelancing for Newspapers yet?
