independent writers

Nonfiction Writers Conference To Be Held Online May 16-18

WRITERS. Registration is now open for The Nonfiction Writers Conference, a 3-day online teleconference for writers who want to learn how to publish profitable non-fiction books.  Five 50-minute sessions will be presented from 9 am to 3 pm PST on Wednesday, May 16, Thursday, May 17, and Friday, May 18.

Topics include traditional and self-publishing, e-books, virtual book tours, social media, Amazon sales strategies, blogging, SEO, professional speaking, freelance writing, information product sales, and other book marketing tactics.

Conference organizer Stephanie Chandler has assembled a stellar line-up of 15 speakers, including:

  • Dan Poynter, author of “The Self-Publishing Manual”
  • Mark Coker, founder of the Smashwords.com e-book publishing platform
  • John Kremer, author of “1001 Ways to Market Your Books”
  • Michael Larsen, literary agent
  • Penny Sansevieri, author of “Red Hot Internet Publicity”
  • Jane Atkinson, author of “The Wealthy Speaker”
  • Jim Horan, author of “The One Page Business Plan”
  • D’vorah Lansky, author of “Book Marketing Made Easy”
  • Roger C. Parker, author of “Looking Good in Print”
  • Karl Palachuk, author of “Publish Your First Book: A Quick-Start Guide to Professional Publishing in a Digital Age”
  • Dana Lynn Smith, author of “How to Sell More Books on Amazon”
  • Kevin Smokler, author of “Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times”
  • Peter Bowerman, author of “The Well-Fed Writer”
  • Bill Belew, a search engine optimization expert.

Chandler, who has written a book “From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur:  Make Money with Books, eBooks and Information Products,” will also present a session.

The speakers will discuss:

  • How to write a compelling book with market appeal.
  • Methods for generating business revenue and opportunities with your book.
  • Simple ways to attract valuable media exposure.
  • How to break into professional speaking–from free to fee!
  • Ways to build your platform and get known as an expert in your industry.
  • How to take advantage of low-cost, high-return social media marketing strategies with Facebook and Twitter.
  • What it takes to turn your website into a traffic-generating machine.
  • The pros and cons of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing and mistakes to avoid.
  • Real-world advice on how to land a book deal.
  • Insider secrets for promoting your book online.
  • How to generate passive income from ebooks, special reports and other information products.

Stephanie Chandler conducted the first Nonfiction Writers Conference in 2010. She is the author of several books, including “Own Your Niche: Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics to Establish Authority in Your Field and Promote Your Service-Based Business,” “The Author’s Guide to Building an Online Platform: Leveraging the Internet to Sell More Books,” and “Booked Up! How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book to Grow Your Business.”

Several registration options are available, including discounts for writers who register early.  If you can‘t listen to all of the sessions live, you can register to receive MP3 recordings of all sessions and/or transcripts of the sessions.

LINKS

Nonfiction Writers Conference

About Stephanie Chandler

WriteLife Offers Semi-Traditional Approach to Book Publishing

WRITERS. Since starting this blog, I’ve been amazed to discover how many different book-publishing models are now available to aspiring authors. It’s as if traditional book-publishing has been smashed into a million little pieces, and no one yet knows which pieces will be used to reconstruct the book-publishing business in a whole new form. WriteLife LLC is a company I learned about while scrolling through online press releases.

WriteLife is a collaborative publishing company that offers serious writers of non-fiction, fiction, and children’s books an alternative to do-it-yourself and independent publishing companies. Instead of requiring you to pay some of the up-front expenses for publishing your book, WriteLife chooses which manuscripts they want to publish. Then, like a traditional publisher, they manage all of the details and costs associated with editing, cover design, book layout, pre-production, and production services.

On the plus side, you don’t have to go through the process of finding a literary agent to sell your work to the publisher. But don’t expect to get a cash advance either. According to WriteLife, “Our advance to our authors is the pre-production and production costs of editing a manuscript, creating a book, and placing it in distribution channels such as Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.”  And, no matter what publishing route you pursue, you will still be expected to play an active role in marketing and promotion.

With WriteLife, you will earn authors’ royalties equivalent to 50% of all net profits from the sale of your content. (Net profit is the money generated after WriteLife has recovered the expenses involved in publishing the book.)

Every WriteLife author receives a complimentary copy of their published book, without any requirements to purchase additional copies.

Here’s how the process works:

  • Sign up as a member of WriteLife.
  • Use the WriteLife2Go book-creation software or an approved word processor to produce your manuscript.
  • Submit your manuscript for screening. WriteLife Publishing Consultants will pre-screen all submissions for approval and assist you through the publishing process.
  • Upon approval, your manuscript will be reviewed by professional editors. WriteLife requests that you make the advised corrections. Your WriteLife Publishing Consultant will work with you through this revision stage and help ensure that your book is marketable for its intended audience.
  • Once the editing process is complete, you will be asked to review an e-proof.
  • After you approve your proof, WriteLife will submit your work for publishing.
  • WriteLife will see to it that your book is registered into the International distribution chain.  WriteLife will also help you generate ideas about how to market your book.

The major risk of being an independent author is that you can easily spend far more money producing and marketing your book than you will ever earn by selling it. Many independent publishing companies will happily accept your money without ever suggesting that your manuscript might not be marketable as a book. The authors of some dreadfully amateurish published books could have saved a lot of cash and disappointment—if only someone had been kind enough to give them an honest appraisal of their work early in the process.

Whether the WriteLife business-model is a better approach to publishing depends mostly on the expertise and proficiency of their editing and production team. Before submitting a manuscript to WriteLife, I would buy one or two of the books that WriteLife has published and examine it critically through an editor’s eye. Is there a noticeable difference in quality between a WriteLife book and other independently published books being sold online? Are WriteLife books closer in quality to what we expect from traditional publishers?

Eventually, the best new book-publishing business models will rise to the top, while others will fade away. Until then, authors will have to continue to figure out which model seems to make the most sense for them.

If you have experiences (good or bad) with different types of independent publishing models, I would love to hear your thoughts!

 

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

 

Folium Book Studio Upgrades Cover Design Capabilities

WRITERS. Earlier this year Folium Partners, Inc. launched a self-publishing toolset for converting  manuscripts created in word-processing programs into the digital formats required for electronic books (e-books) such as the Apple iBook®, Amazon Kindle™, Barnes & Noble Nook™ and Sony Digital Reader®.

Through the online Folium Book Studio app, you can upload a manuscript you wrote in Microsoft Word (or other word-processing program) and have it converted into the standard EPUB format needed for e-book distribution.

Folium Book Studio also gives you the tools to design the book layout, create cover art, and upload and insert supporting photos and illustrations for your books. All work can be reviewed and edited multiple times directly in the WYSIWYG editor. The finished product can be exported for distribution or saved securely online for a year. A free ISBN is provided for authors who require one.

This week Folium Partners, Inc. announced plans to upgrade Folium Cover Designer™. Folium Book Studio will be releasing hundreds of new image layers as well as core feature upgrades to their cover design tool.

Through exclusive arrangements with contributing designers, some of the new stock elements will not yet have been made available for use anywhere else on the web.

“Like it or not, people do judge a book by its cover—even a digital one,” said John Lee, CEO and co-founder of Folium Partners. A good cover: captures the essence of the book;  draws attention to the book; and makes it distinguishable on the e-reader shelf.

Lee observes that until recently, e-book cover art was either painfully unprofessional or very professional (and quite expensive). Folium Cover Designer was created to help independent writers and smaller publishers achieve a great look at a lower price point.

The upgrade to Folium Cover Designer includes a broad assortment of graphic elements that can be used as layers to build up rich textures, shadowing and light, or as starter templates. There collection includes an expanded selection of stock photos, fully designed backdrops and other useful pieces.

Folium Book Studio offers the cover design tool and gallery elements as part of its complete package. It is free to all customers of the service.

Through February 14, 2012, you can use the complete service for only $29.95 per project.

LINKS

About Folium Book Studio

Folium Cover Designer

 

Author Salon Seeks to Be Project Source for Agents and Publishers

WRITERS. Whether you plan to go the independent-publishing route or submit your book to an agent, your work must be so remarkable that others will recommend your book to others.  As anxious as you might be to get the book published as quickly as possible, it might be wise to get some objective feedback first.

One new source of feedback and assistance is Author Salon, a literary community website for aspiring authors as well as agents and editors in the book-publishing business. Author Salon seeks to help promising writers transform their fiction or non-fiction works into commercially publishable manuscripts. At the same time, Author Salon wants to establish itself as a viable and ongoing source of new projects for agents, producers, and editors in the book and film business.

Author Salon replicates the rigorous work-to-publish environment of a writing workshop. A rigorous peer-pro review system helps winnow serious writers from hobbyists and identify writers who might have the chops to publish commercially successful works. In other words, the process helps you evaluate your own work as an agent or editor might.

“When you sign up for Author Salon there are a lot of questions about your work. Often these questions make you look at your manuscript through new eyes,” explains  Alon Shalev, author of The Accidental Activist. “This is essentially the idea, that you see it not as the writer, but as the agent or publisher.”

At its core, Author Salon is about teaching and nurturing the art of good storytelling, whether it involves a story that is true, nearly true, or absolute fiction.  To that end, everyone at Author Salon, staff and writers alike, work toward creating the best stories they possibly can.

LINK

Author Salon

Book Publishing Trends that Will Affect Aspiring Authors

Books on library shelvesWRITERS. Here are a few links, quotes and predictions from a variety of expert sources in the book-publishing industry. Reading these posts can help you think strategically about how you develop your skills and manage your writing career.

E-book Market Forecast to Hit $2.5 Billion as the Book Industry Burns

In this post on GigaOM, industry analyst Michael Wolf states “I’ve never seen a market changing faster than the digital publishing market of today, where the sudden love of e-books has created a ‘digital backdraft’ that has set the entire publishing industry value chain aflame.”

He notes that book discovery is going social: “Whether readers are learning about new books from friends or general-purpose social networks like Facebook or through reading-centric networks like Goodreads, social recommendations are becoming increasingly important in the age of ebooks.”

Why 2012 Will Be the Year of the Artist-Entrepreneur

In another post on GigaOM, Michael Wolf observes that: “Everywhere you look, artists are taking more control over their own economic well being, in large part because the Internet has enabled them to do so. You see it in all forms of content, from books, to video to music.”

He says the web has democratized everything: content production, distribution, and monetization. He also sees a generational shift toward more tech-savvy artists who are creating their own apps and websites.

Ten Bold Predictions for Book Publishing in 2012

In this post on Digital Book World, Jeremy Greenfield includes these predictions:

  • “We will see more self-published best-sellers next year, with an exponential rise in the number of million-selling authors”
  • “Authors will become disenchanted with the rights they sign away to publishers. Shorter and more flexible copyright terms will become more attractive to authors.”
  • “The standard ebook royalty from major publishing houses will rise next year and will escalate with increased sales.”

David Farland Predicts That the Release of the iPad3 in 2012 Will Spell the End of Reading as We Know It Within 3 Years

In a press release issued on PRWeb, the author who founded East India Press predicts that “enhanced books” are about to change how we read. He believes we are at the start of a new era in which creative troupes of authors, artists, musicians, and publishers will collaborate to produce “books” in which text, images, and sounds come together in a collage.

The Publishing Industry, 5 Years from Now: Theories from the Frankfurt Book Fair

On the BookBaby blog, Chris Robley suggests 5 ways he believes that publishing will look different 5 years from now.  Here are two of his predictions:

The market for shorter works (10 pages to 10,000 words) will expand. He says, “Size really doesn’t matter. It only matters how useful and engaging the content is. So, pretty soon the novella will be back in vogue. Short stories will sell individually. If you’ve got something valuable and succinct to share, you no longer have to pad it out with fluff, filler, or filigree.”

Digital books will be serialized, including non-fiction books. Readers who purchase an upfront subscription will receive each chapter as soon as it’s finished. Meanwhile, as an author, you can get instant feedback from readers, so you can revise as you go. Robley writes: “By the time you release the full book, it will have gone through an invaluable editing process (for free) and it will be completely up to date.”

Publishers will recognize two types of consumers: those who like the “enhanced” ebooks that include video, audio, and interactivity, and those who prefer “old-fashioned” text-only ebooks. He predicts that publishers will “market these two kinds of products in increasingly different ways.”

Because of the increased costs involved in printing and distributing physical books, Robley also predicts that five years from now publishers will produce e-books for all of their authors, and physical books for only a few.

So, what’s your take? Would you like to share any other links to other big, bold predictions for the future of book publishing?

Expert Shares Secrets of Successful Self-Published Authors

Last month, I listened in on a terrific Writer’s Digest University webinar entitled “Seven Secrets of Successful Self-Published Authors.” The webinar was presented by Keith Ogorek, Senior VP of Marketing, Author Solutions Inc. (ASI).

ASI has become a leader in self-publishing by introducing new technologies and services to help more authors achieve their personal publishing goals. The firm has worked with more than
85,000 authors and 120,000 titles.  ASI is a partner in the Abbott Press division Writer’s Digest.

While working with many self-published authors, Ogorek noticed that those authors who achieved the most success and satisfaction tended to have certain things in common. Authors who didn’t possess these traits or pursue certain actions often were disappointed or frustrated with their self-publishing experiences.

Ogorek is currently publishing a series of posts on his Indie Book Writers blog that delve into these seven traits in more detail. But here’s a quick rundown of the seven traits and actions he discussed in the webinar.

Successful self-published authors can describe their audience in a way that is not unrealistically broad. They can picture their audience in terms of age, gender, interests, and where they go when seeking information.

Successful self-published authors believe in their work. Instead of fearfully sticking their novel in a drawer, they move forward with confidence, even after being turned down by literary agents or traditional publishers.

Successful self-published authors set a deadline for having a finished book in their hands. Sometimes this may be a milestone birthday or scheduled speaking engagement. Or, it could be just a random date. After setting a deadline for completion,
authors then work backward and develop a timeline with project-milestone dates for submitting the final pages to printing, proofreading the layout and design, and having the manuscript edited and cover designed. Experienced self-publishing consultants can help authors establish realistic deadlines and timetables for each phase—including action items authors might otherwise overlook.

Successful self-published authors understand their publishing goals and options.  Because writers today have so many options, Ogorek firmly believes “It’s the best time in history to be an author.” But, successful authors first take the time to understand the pros and cons of each option before choosing which route is best for them. The three main options include: traditional publishing, do-it-yourself publishing, or supported self publishing. Which option is best, says Ogorek, depends on each author’s talents, commitment, and patience.

For example, the traditional publishing route first requires selling the work to a literary agent, who must then sell it to a publisher. Authors may get more personal support with
traditional publishing, but must give up final control of the content, cover
design, and when the book is published.

The “do-it-yourself” publishing route (through companies such as Lulu or CreateSpace) gives authors total control over every phase of the process. The author can choose to
assemble his or her own team of designers, editors, and publicists as needed.

Supported self-publishing companies such as Abbott Press give authors easy access to publishing and marketing consultants who can edit manuscripts, design the book, and suggest marketing strategies. With supported self-publishing a manuscript can be converted into a marketable book within about 60 days.

Going the self-published route doesn’t eliminate opportunities to have the same work produced by a traditional publisher, Ogorek emphasized. But whatever route is chosen, authors must be prepared to commit a certain amount of time and money, particularly during the promotion and marketing of their books.

Successful self-published authors know the power of social media. Many authors use blogs to build a following long before their book comes out. Authors also use blogs to position themselves as experts in fields related to the subject of their books and establish online dialogues with potential buyers of their books.

Succesful self-published authors put together a marketing plan before publication. In addition to being able to describe who their readers will be, successful authors plan how they’re going to reach them and decide what kind of marketing help they need to build a groundswell of support even before the book is published.

Successful self-published authors plan a book-launch event. A scheduled book launch party motivates authors to get things done.  Ogorek said it’s also a great way to celebrate that “You’ve written to the finish” and achieved your goal of publishing a book.

About The Abbott Press

The Abbott Press is the new publishing division of Writer’s Digest, which has been providing education, resources, and inspiration to authors since 1920.  (Check Writer’s Digest University, Writer’s Digest magazine, and the Writer’s Digest bookstore.) In this video, Phil Sexton of Writer’s Digest explains what sets Abbott Press apart from other self-publishing companies.

LINKS

Indie Book Writers Blog by Keith Ogorek

About Author Solutions, Inc.

About Abbott Press

Writer’s Digest University

Writer’s Digest Bookstore