What Am I Doing Wrong?

You spent a year crafting the perfect novel. Rewrites. Polishing. Editing. Proofreading. Finally you release your baby into the world and await the crowds of avid readers. But sadly, sales of your new masterpiece falter soon after your family members all have one. It is at this point that you ask yourself, “What am I doing wrong?”

During last weekend’s Just Write writer’s conference I was thinking about how writers get off track once their manuscript becomes a book. I was considering the big blunders, the global errors.  I wanted to write about the worst mistake a writer can make. The longer I thought the more I realized there are LOTS of “worst mistakes.”  I sorted thru my list to figure out the worst of the worst.

At the top of my list is failing to learn about the business. Just because you wrote a book doesn’t mean anyone is going to buy it. But if you write the right book you can improve the odds. So before you self-publish or send that manuscript off to a small press, do some research. Know who your competitors are and what they publish. Know how strong your genre is in the marketplace. What’s missing from the shelves right now? The better you know your market, the easier it will be to figure out a way to connect with readers, to get reviews, to build a platform and ultimately, to sell books.

Another big mistake writers may make is underestimating the importance of their book cover. I’ve even had authors tell me that since they’ve published an ebook the cover is irrelevant. It’s true that readers and book buyers often spend only seconds looking at book covers, and many of them are now viewing thumbnail-size images online. But I think that makes the cover more important than ever, and makes it more challenging to get a cover that hooks a reader in. That’s why we at Intrigue Publishing always invest in a professionally designed cover by someone who understands book design and the publishing industry and I think you should too. If you can't capture people’s attention with a strong cover, you will probably lose potential readers and buyers. If you put a lot of work into writing your book, give your book’s cover the same level of effort.

That’s just a couple of the worst mistakes I think writers can make.  Next week I’ll talk about a couple more.

The Joy and Frustration of Choices

One of the biggest changes the publishing industry has had to face in the last decade or two is the rise of a variety of formats in which a book can be published.  Since Amazon launched twenty years ago the e-book has come into its own.  That fact has been a book for self publishers and small presses, but it has also made publishing a bit more confusing.

The publishing business was already confusing when all books were paper.  A publisher would sell books to bookstores at a specified discount.  Each time a book was sold the publisher would pay the author a certain percentage of the price. The bookstore discount was pretty consistent at 40%, and cover prices for hard covers, trade paperbacks or mass market paperbacks were also pretty consistent.  For those reasons, author royalties were also pretty consistent across publishers. 

Of course this process continues. But now that author or publisher can also distribute this book for use on the iPhone, iPod Touch, Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook and probably some devices I haven’t thought of. Each requires a slightly different format and pays a different royalty.  If a publisher is handling these books, the company has to take those various royalties into account, which means that royalties to authors is not consistent from one publisher to the next. In the future a standard may well appear, but at this point both authors and publishers are still figuring out what seems fair and profitable.

AND there are variations on these variations. For example, if you give Amazon.com exclusive rights to your e-book you can get 70% royalties and even get paid when people just borrow your book. Otherwise your royalty will be just 30%, but you may actually make more if people with other e-readers buy your book.

Beyond that, each publisher (or self-publisher) sets the price for his or her book and there is no consistency there either.  I’ve seen e-books available for 99 cents and for 12.99.  One can assume the lower the price the more books sold but how do you establish what price will bring the publisher the most money?

If you choose to self-publish, good luck deciphering the new world of publishing.  If you find yourself trying to figure out  whether or not a publisher’s contract is fair to you, just now that the publisher on the other side of that contract thought long and hard on the decisions that, he hopes, will lead to a profit for him and for you… but that noboby has it all figured out yet.

Published by the firm of Dewy, Printem and Howe

Recently I've been trying to respond to some of the most frequently asked questions, on the theory that if one new author asked, a dozen more want to know the same thing. This one is fairly personal, but it is a question I often hear:

Hi, Austin--I took some time to look at your website, and was "intrigued" by your imprint. How did you do that?

I ask because I self-published my first novel with iUniverse. I'm not sure if I will do that again (self-publish) but it is in the back of my mind. I recently did an Amazon Kindle edition of that first novel to get it out there--and I'm an Echelon download author too.


Self publishing isn’t for everyone, but it it’s your choice there is a good reason for forming a publishing company and creating your own imprint.

iUniverse is probably the biggest Print-On-Demand publisher in the business. I was POD at first myself, with Infinity, but I soon learned that booksellers know who the POD companies are and would rather not do business with them. No matter how many books are in the warehouse and regardless of whether or not your books are fully returnable if they don’t sell, bookstore managers have it in their minds that POD books are trouble.

So my lovely wife Denise established her own publishing company – Intrigue Publishing - with one author – me. In Virginia it’s easy to be a business – just file for the privilege of paying sales taxes. For some reason booksellers like Borders are less skittish about small presses. They will order books from Intrigue Publishing, even though I get my books from Lightning Source and they are printed on demand. Lightning Source is owned by Ingram, the primary distributor on this side of the country, so stores can order easily.

Of course, I have a book with Echelon too, the Hannibal Jones novel Blood and Bone. Echelon has published more than 200 books, short stories, and novellas. They pay royalties and advances, and have international distribution with Ingram, Partners, Brodart, Follett, and others. Even gun-shy booksellers are happy to order from Echelon, and when they order Blood and Bone they often order a few copies of my other titles too.

The Intrigue Publishing imprint is an example of the principle of camouflage that I’m a big believer in. I guess I wouldn’t be much of a marketer if I didn’t at least mention that if you really want to know how I approach the marketing thing, you could always pick up a copy of my book, “Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21st Century.”

And one last point – when you name your company, pick something that store managers will take seriously. You may like Happy Leaf Press or Kitchen Table Publishing, but if your company sounds like a hobby, it’s harder to get bookstore managers to order.

Publishing’s Inconvenient Truth?

Regular visitors to this site know that I am a supporter of self-publishers, small publishers and even Print On Demand authors. After all, I am or have been all of the above. I always believed that having my book out there would be a plus, and that a track record of sales would make me more attractive to publishers. Besides, with a book published I can demonstrate how hard I’m willing to work to sell books.

The truth may be someone different. I’ve spoken with several agents lately and been told some things that, if true, I wish someone had told me a lot sooner. Some things that POD Publishers and small presses would NOT want you to know.

For example, I’ve been told that some agents automatically reject any manuscript from an author who wants to step up to a bigger house, or wants a chance at a wider readership once he or she is already published. They say that publishers prefer the unknown risk of debut authors to the known potential of established authors who have shown they’ll promote their work, unless those authors have sold more than 50,000 copies.

For years I’d heard that large publishers would pick up books that had been successful at a small house or POD, but until now no one every defined “successful” for me. (This particular agent, Janet Reid, was speaking in the Sisters-in-Crime newsletter.)

Agents also report that most publishers aren’t interested in taking on a series that is already started. They might look at a new series by an author with a series already published, but only if they see the new series as potentially a big breakout hit.

So the advice from these agents is, keep submitting everywhere because if you self-publish, publish POD or go with a small press it could spike your chances at a career as an author for one of the big houses. Ms Reid says that until you’ve queried 50 agents with three separate books, it’s too soon to consider the other options.

It’s hard to say to what extent this is just information that small presses and POD companies just don’t want you to hear, since their livelihood is based on getting writers to publish with them. There is also quite an industry that has sprung up around selling products and services to self-publishers and POD authors. They don’t want you to think it’s pointless, or worse, counter-productive to try.

But it’s also hard to say to what extent this information is self-serving for the agents, whose livelihood depends on selling manuscripts to companies that pay an advance big enough to make 15% worth having.

As there are no disinterested parties in this business, we must all still use our best judgment: publish now and risk never being considered by the big guys, or keep submitting, knowing that you may never be considered by the big guys.