E-Book Publisher Has Roots in Traditional Book Publishing

WRITERS. As you research different firms for publishing your e-books, don’t compare publishers solely on the price of their packages. For example, companies that have a history in the book-publishing business might be able to offer you services and insights that relatively new start-up companies don’t yet offer.

For example, Publish Green is a division of Hillcrest Media Group, which began as the book publisher Mill City Press. They offer a full range of e-book formatting, distribution, editing, and marketing services. Their goal is to help traditionally published authors, self-published authors, and book publishers of all sizes make their mark in the e-book publishing world.

Unlike most e-book formatters, each Publish Green e-book is converted from many different file types and perfected line-by-line by an in-house formatter.

You can submit your book as plain text, a Word document, a PDF, or InDesign file. A formatting team will then work on your book by hand to ensure that wacky spacing, missing words, or other mistakes commonly found in automated e-book formatting processes are eliminated.

After your eBook is formatted, you can perfect the final version before publication, ensuring that the e-book will be a work you can be proud of.

Publish Green uses patent-pending software with advanced features that enable virtually any form of text- or image-based book (novels, memoirs, illustrated children’s books, cookbooks, etc.) to be formatted into several different file types. Your e-book will be recognized by all major e-book reading devices.

Publish Green allows authors to keep 100% of the profit from book sales and completely own the rights to their e-books.  Through their global distribution package, you can choose to have your book distributed through many different online sellers of e-books. In addition to selling your work through Amazon and iBookstore, you can choose to have your work sold through Barnes & Noble, Kobo, the Sony Reader store, eBooks.com, Books-a-Million, Bookstrand, Books on Board, and others.

The company’s new website provides detailed descriptions of all their editing, formatting, and marketing services. I particularly liked how they listed what their editing services include (and don’t include). “Editing” often means different things to different people, so it’s helpful to find a website that clarifies the distinction between basic copy editing services and a comprehensive edit. For example, they explain that their editing services don’t include fact checking or securing necessary permissions for reproductions of copyrighted works that go beyond “fair use.”

Publish Green offers an impressive assortment of marketing services, including virtual book tours, Google advertising, book trailers, author websites, the Amazon Exposure program, and Facebook fan pages and Facebook advertising.

For newcomers to e-book publishing, Publish Green has produced a 20-page guide entitled, “The Basics of eBook Publishing.” The guide explains topics such as formats, royalties and digital rights management, and shows examples of some of the errors that can occur when e-books are converted through software that automates the process. When you download the guide, you can choose to download it in several different formats, depending on whether you plan to read it on your computer, an iPad, Barnes & Noble Nook, or Amazon Kindle.

LINKS

Publish Green

Free Guide: “The Basics of eBook Publishing”

 

BookWhirl.com Adds Copy-Editing and ePublishing Services

WRITERS. For almost five years, BookWhirl.com has been providing low-cost online marketing services to self-published authors of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books. Recently, BookWhirl.com expanded its services to include copy-editing and e-book publishing for self-published authors. After paying the upfront fees to convert your manuscript into e-books, you will receive 100% of the royalties.

 ePublishing Revo Services

Two types of “ePublishing-Revo” packages are available:

  • e-Pub Lite ($299) is for novels and books without images
  • e-Pub Pro ($399) is for books with images and charts.

Both packages include e-book layout and formatting, cover design, conversion to e-book formats, ISBNs, and distribution. The Pro package includes more advanced formatting and layout services.

For example, the advanced formatting in the “Pro” package can accommodate up to 25 images, drop caps, different font styles, chapter titles, page number placement, tables, charts, text boxes, graphs, lists, subheadings, block quotes, footnotes, and other features.

BookWhirl CEO Johnny Chu believes the timing is right to make electronic publishing services more affordable to self-published authors because so many people can use their mobile phones, e-readers, and tablets to read wherever they go. This means more writers have more opportunities to share their stories.

Copy Editing Services

BookWhirl’s new Copy Editing Services can help authors ensure that their self-published books will meet commonly expected standards. Professional copy editors can review your manuscript, checking for typographical and grammatical errors and consistency with the editing standards of The Chicago Manual of Style.

Although BookWhirl recognizes the imagination, creativity, and passion of self-published authors, “We also believe that greatness in writing comes with standards Agree or disagree, great writers need great copy editors,” said Don Harold, BookWhirl.com’s marketing director. He believes manuscripts that will be shared around the world need the fierce eye of a professional copy editor.

Book Marketing Services

To help promote your e-book, BookWhirl’s experienced team of online marketing strategists, ad copywriters, graphic artists, and web designers can conceptualize and implement efficient marketing campaigns. Marketing services include website design, online advertising, print advertising, media releases, online directory listings, and more.  

LINKS

BookWhirl.com ePublishing Revo

About BookWhirl.com

BookWhirl.com’s Copy-Editing Services

Book Helps Authors Prepare for Interviews about Their Books

WRITERS. Making a strong impression during TV, radio, and online video interviews can make a world of difference in your book sales.  To help you prepare for interviews, media-readiness consultant Alison Hill has published a 160-page workbook entitled “Media Ready, Media Savvy.” Exercises in the workbook can help you plan what you should say, how you should say it, and who you should say it to. After completing the exercises, you’re less likely to fumble for words when interviewers ask you to explain what your book is about and why people might want to read it.

The book also explains other skills you will need to promote your book, such as how to:

  • develop a catchy. one-sentence book description
  • write a pithy bio
  • create a press kit
  • craft proposals
  • pitch media professionals.

If you buy a digital (PDF) text-only copy of the book from the author’s website ($9.97), you can receive the exercises as MS Word documents on which you can type and edit your answers.

Alison Hill is an award-winning producer, writer, journalist, and interviewer. Her 15 years of professional industry experience includes: analyzing and reporting on U.S. news stories for the BBC and hosting the Emmy-nominated PBS series, Dropframe. She was also host, creator, and executive producer of the PBS show Quantum Factor. Hill understands the book-promotion needs of writers, because she, too, is an aspiring novelist.

Through Alison Hill Media, she produces book trailers, provides media strategy consultations for speakers and authors,  and offers workshops on topics such as: Preparing Your Message; Media Targeting and Pitch Development; and Interviewing.

LINKS

Book Website: Media Ready, Media Savvy

About Allison Hill Media

 

Writer’s Digest and Abbott Press Award First Mark of Quality

WRITERS. Now that everyone can become a published author, readers must discern for themselves which books match the type of quality standards they have come to expect through traditionally published books.

One helpful mark of distinction is the Writer’s Digest “Mark of Quality.” The designation is reserved for books published through Abbott Press that come highly recommended for style and literary merit by the Writer’s Digest editorial staff.

Earlier this month, the first Writer’s Digest “Mark of Quality” was awarded to the memoir “Prague: My Long Journey Home” by Charles Ota Heller.

The “Mark of Quality” provides many benefits within the writing community. First, the book will be recognized in “Writer’s Digest” magazine. It will also be listed in Writer’s Digest’s F&W Media Catalog, which is distributed to over 200,000 subscribers.

Additionally, authors receive a free pass to the annual Writer’s Digest conference and reception, where they will have the opportunity to network with other authors, agents and industry professionals.

“As a long time subscriber to ‘Writer’s Digest,’ I was blown away to learn my memoir will be the first ever to receive its Mark of Quality distinction,” said Heller. “My whole experience with Writer’s Digest’s Abbott Press division has been very rewarding. As someone who has published previously with a traditional publisher, I have been very pleased with the comparable level of service and professionalism they offer.”

In the book “Prague: My Long Journey Home,” Heller chronicles how his idyllic early childhood in Czechoslovakia took a drastic turn when Germany invaded the nation in the early stages of World War II. He recounts some of the measures he took to survive after the war tore his family apart and forced him into a life on the run. Ultimately, Heller fled post-war Eastern-Europe to escape the grasp of communism and emigrated to America, where he achieved success as a businessman and educator. His story culminates with an emotional journey home to embrace his heritage and face the demons of his past.

“The Mark of Quality is the highest literary achievement an Abbott Press author can receive,” said Keith Ogorek, senior vice president of marketing at Author Solutions, Inc., the publishing partner of Abbott Press. “Charles Ota Heller’s memoir is an incredibly powerful piece of literature and a very deserving recipient of the distinction.”

LINKS

About Writer’s Digest Mark of Quality

About Abbott Press

Prague: My Long Journey Home

About Writer’s Digest Magazine

Author Solutions

 

Website Can Help You Become an Award-Winning Author

WRITERS. If you would like to mention in your publicity that you are an “award-winning” author, you can enter a growing number of contests. Whether winning any of these contests has any real value is up to you to decide.

For example, one of the stated goals of the website Readers Favorite is to help authors gain more exposure through a Book Award Contest. In their 2011 Literary Award contest, awards were given in 70+ categories including Children, Christian, Fiction, Non Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy and Romance.

Debra Gaynor, owner of Readers Favorite claims that, “Award winners can enjoy increased exposure and the attention of bookstores, publishers, libraries, journalists and readers.”

Contestants are invited to submit full manuscripts, published and unpublished books, eBooks, audio books, comic books and poetry books. There are four award levels in each category: Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention.

Each winner will receive a personalized Award Certificate, a digital high-resolution version of their Award Seal for publication, and a roll of 500 reflective Award Seal stickers to affix to current editions of their book. Finalists will receive a digital high resolution Finalist Award Seal for future publications of their book, website or other marketing materials.

You can enter a book in one category for $89, or enter in up to three additional genre categories for $65 each. The deadline for entering the 2012 contest is May 1, 2012.

Readers Favorite also helps authors get their books reviewed, and will post the reviews on their site, Barnes & Noble, and Facebook. The site’s reviewers will also post your review on their websites, blogs, and popular review and social-media sites.

According to the Readers Favorite website, “We do not post negative reviews. If an author receives a poor review, we provide constructive criticism to the author instead. We are in the business of helping authors, not hurting them.” You can read bios of the volunteer reviewers on the Readers Favorite website.

LINKS

 Readers Favorite

 Winners of the 2011 Literary Award Contest

 

Five Tips from an E-Book Cover Design Specialist

WRITERS. If you need an affordably priced custom cover designed for an e-book project, check out the services of book-cover designer James Junior. He can create designs for all sizes and formats, including (but not limited) to:

  • Kindle e-books
  • Any other e-reader (Nook, iPad, etc.)
  • Mobile screens (iPhone, etc.)
  • Print books
  • 3D eBook covers and software boxes for website display

He prides himself in on offering excellent rates and is willing to work with you until you are satisfied with the design. Get a 25% discount by mentioning that you read about James Junior’s custom cover design services on Creatives at Work.

Design ©James A. Junior

For authors who have never worked with a cover designer before, James Junior offers these tips:

Know what you are asking for. Prices vary depending on the type of format(s) you need.

Be open to the designer’s ideas. Knowing what you want is great, but give the designer some room to inject their own talent into the cover.

Be honest, not nice. If you don’t like something about your cover design, say so; after all, it is your book and your money.

Before you accept the finished cover design, make a thumbnail of it around the same size as Amazon’s thumbnails. Why? You want to make sure the text is legible at that size, and the image isn’t distorted. The thumbnail version will be the first image a reader sees. It must be clear and compelling enough to entice the reader to click on your thumbnail to see a larger version.

Three-dimensional software boxes and book covers are used on websites to reinforce the buyer’s perception that they are buying a tangible product of value, and not just a digital download. ©James A. Junior

Ask the designer for the “layered version” or PSD version of your book cover. This will come in handy later if you want to add or change a detail on the cover and the designer isn’t available.

LINKS

Custom eBook/Book Covers by James Junior

James Junior: Sample Designs

 

Self-Publishing Coach Offers Advice on Pricing E-Books

WRITERS. How do you price an e-book? That’s a hot topic now that more and more independent authors are competing with legacy publishers. Everyone is trying to find the correct price points for fiction and non-fiction e-books in a market that Forrester Research expects to grow from $169 million in 2009 to almost $3 billion by the middle of this decade.

Cover of All Smart Cookies Can Self-Publish by Emily Hill
Emily Hill owns A.V. Harrison Publishing. To learn more about her workshops and personalized coaching, visit www.avharrison-publishing.com

In a recent press release, self-publishing coach and advocate Emily Hill shared her thoughts about e-book pricing for fiction and non-fiction e-books.

Pricing Fiction E-Books

“Except for the insatiable demand for paranormal/action stories, the fiction market is totally and completely glutted. This includes romance, westerns, young adult, and historical fiction,” states Hill. She believes e-book pricing for fiction comes down to three factors: (1) market demand; (2) the author’s emotional comfort zone; and (3) trial and error.

As fiction authors have flooded the market, Hill notes that readers must now do the job that used to belong exclusively to agents—separate the well-written manuscripts from the ones that just aren’t very good.

To get the attention of book buyers in today’s crowded marketplace, some first-time authors have resorted to giving their e-books for free—hoping to lay the foundation for future book sales.

Hill believes offering free fiction books can be a mistake: “Authors who give away their e-books and then loudly tout their ratings are frauds in my opinion. They either lack confidence in their work, don’t want to devise a marketing plan, or haven’t made friends with their fan base.” She emphasizes that, “If you are doing commercial writing (writing to make money), you should be writing to your fan base, and writing what they want to read.”

When she recently examined how the ten best-selling fiction titles for Kindle were priced, Hill found prices ranging from $0.99 to $12.99. Six of the best-selling titles were from one of the “Big Six” legacy publishers, and four were from independent publishers. The average price of e-books published by legacy publishers was $9.09, compared to either $0.99 or $2.99 for the fiction from independent publishers.

Because this sample of ten was so small, Hill consulted authors she regards as mentors for her own publishing efforts. Dean Wesley Smith advises charging $2.99 for short novels, $4.99 for a short-story collection, and $4.99 for standard-length novels. Tony Elridge suggests pricing e-books at $2.99, then using ‘book bundling’ to sell sets of titles at a higher price.

Nathan Bransford has noticed that the price of e-books have dropped dramatically over the period from June 2010 to June 2011. He has observed that when presented with two titles in the reader’s preferred genre, a reader will hit “Buy Now!” on the cheaper title, even if that title has been written by a lesser-known author, or even an unknown author or bad writer.

Best-selling independent author John Locke prices all of his e-book fiction titles at $0.99.His non-fiction book, “How I Sold 1 Million Books in Five Months,” is priced at $4.99.

Pricing Non-Fiction Books

When Hill scanned the list of 100 best-selling non-fiction titles in the Kindle Store earlier this month, the most expensive non-fiction title was priced at $7.00 and six of the top sellers were sex-related. But the Kindle Store list changes often. The top-ten best-sellers listed today (Aug. 30) range in price from $7.16 for “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young to $13.17 for “Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters 3.0” by Jay Conrad Levinson and David E. Perry.

While it’s important to price your e-book competitively, Hill urges authors not to overlook the other vital elements of book publishing and promotion. Success still requires good writing, a unique story, impeccable grammar and sentence structure, and sharp marketing. She advises writing the best book possible, and marketing it to a fan base you have already established.

Why Independent Publishing Is Growing

Emily Hill is an outspoken advocate of self-publishing and isn’t surprised that the IndiePub movement is exploding. Considering that less than 1% of emerging author’s manuscripts are selected for publication, she wonders “Why would those in the 99% agent-rejected category put themselves through the dreaded query process in the first place?” Hill believes the tough economy and diminished bookstore space caused by the closure of bookstores has made independent publishing the only alternative for most authors.

In addition to offering coaching and consulting services to independent authors, Emily Hill has written two e-books on self-publishing.

All Smart Cookies Can Self Publish” details the current landscape of the publishing industry and outlines steps necessary to publish and market books on your own. Priced at $3.95, the e-book provides practical advice such as how to insert linked-live Tables of Contents in your e-books and how to push the marketing of your e-books by embedding links to your Amazon and Barnes & Noble pages.

Hill just announced a new addition to her “All Smart Cookies” series, entitled “Making Money on eBooks: Smart Promoting.” The book features insights Hill has gained from teaching self-publishing workshops over the past two years: “You’ll learn how easy—and fun—it can be to make money by self-publishing your tips, insights, memoirs, and how-to guides.”

“Making Money on eBooks: Smart Promoting” sells for $2.99 and includes tips on marketing, promoting, and connecting your titles to the correct audience.

LINKS

All Smart Cookies Can Self-Publish!: A One-Step-At-A-Time 2011 Guide to Independent Publishing (Volume 1)

E-Book: All Smart Cookies Can Self-Publish by Emily Hill

E-Book: Making Money on eBooks: Smart Promoting by Emily Hill

A.V. Harrison Publishing

L.A. Times: E-book Sales Headed for $1 Billion