Archive for March, 2010

I Smash Pads

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

I was disappointed when Apple released the iPad. Not because it sucks in any way, but because I was hoping for a new idea – something that hadn’t been done before. Functionally and physically, the iPad is just a large iPod Touch; there’s nothing new about it – it’s just more of something we could already buy. I wanted it to do something mind-blowing, something that would create or revolutionise a market. Like I said, I was disappointed.

One area I thought Apple might explore, given their history of placing pro-level creative tools into the hands of amateurs, is publishing. Maybe adding an iPublish app to the iLife suite that would allow you to upload magazine layouts or text from their Pages app to create online magazines or eBooks for sale from their online store. Maybe iPublish would let you take the podcast you could already create in Garageband and upload it to the iTunes Music Store. I’m just thinking out loud here, like I was back then, but that’s the kind of market shift I was hoping for. There’s still time for them to do this – the iLife suite is overdue for an update, and could be released soon after the iPad with a new twist to offer, but it’s not looking likely.

Then, two days ago, I realised that Apple had actually delivered that market shift; they signed a distribution deal with Smashwords. I know that Amazon have allowed writers to publish directly on the Kindle store for a while, but you need a US bank account to do it, which shuts out a lot of people. Apple have removed the last obstacles to any writer reaching their readers. By signing a deal with an independent distributor of independently published books, Apple have removed all need for publishers and agents. Notice that I said need, not want; there’s every chance the iBook store will devolve into the same morasse as the App Store, so there’s still a strong argument for the consistent “quality” that the traditional publishing machine can deliver, but as long as I can buy a title of the quality of Doom Resurrection in the App Store, there’s hope for its literary neighbour.

This isn’t “the death of traditional publishing”, but something big did just happen. Where we all go from here is anyone’s guess; I’m sure that Apple like to think they know, but they can’t predict what readers are going to choose any more than I can. And Smashwords aren’t predicting anything; they’re just enabling the rest of us.

Tags: Apple, EBook, Indie, iPad, Kindle, Publishers, Smashwords
Posted in Opinion, Software, eBooks | No Comments »

Making a Global Move

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

So, if I’m so disappointed in eBooks following my attempt to buy one, am I still considering publishing Make a Move in an electronic format?

Hell yes.

A Change of Perspective

You don’t have to be your target market to understand it; I get that now. I’m not selling to a group of people like me, who read books to relax and take a couple of weeks, maybe a month, to finish each title. eBook consumers – those driving the developing market – are voracious readers, and they consume books in varied forms. I don’t buy the pro-Kindle argument that you can take many, many books with you on holiday, as I only take one. Admittedly, it’ll be one big-ass book, but still just one. And my iPod. The people who would buy a Kindle probably take an extra bag, just for books.

Another reality I’m now starting to understand is that the US and UK markets for eBooks are completely different. As in, at time of writing, the US has one. I’m a tech writer when not masquerading as a real writer, and I work for a global software house with a lot of educated, technologically minded people. I know one person with an eBook reader, and I’m pretty sure that 90% of the contents are pirated. Add to that the fact that Sony’s reader is the only retailer-supported device available in the UK (the Kindle’s availability is more of a hack than a product launch) and that’s not a market I’m looking to enter. The US, however, is at the peak of the eBook wave. Until now, that 3000-mile-wide stretch of water separating UK writers from the US has been an insurmountable obstacle to the Stateside distribution of self-published books; it just isn’t cost effective. And now it may as well be gone.

What Price Freedom?

There is still a potential barrier in my way, though, and that’s cost. There may be a large market of readers consuming eBooks in the US, but as literate technology fans, they’re going to be intelligent enough to have the same issues with cost as I do, and that’s something I need to work out before I can find a market.

Do you know what the cost of developing Make a Move for electronic distribution is? Zero. I’ve already paid for everything in producing the printed version, so the eBook is free. Literally free. Yes, I have to reformat the text and proof it again for errors I may have introduced in doing so, but that’s just my time, not my money. I think that’s why I’m so hard on publishers who are defending their eBook prices by outlining the development cost of producing the text to the required standard of editing and proofreading. What? Are you going to slip the print books onto the shelves quietly and hope no one notices? And I know that eBook sales are going to eat into print sales to some extent, but how about allowing your business model to evolve with the market, rather than trying to cover phantom losses with padded margins up-front? Your protectionism is only hurting early adopters – the people you need on your side.

So I still need to set a price that I think is fair, and I’m not 100% decided yet. I need to put the research hours in, which is something I can do while I’m preparing the text files for upload.

But Will it Sell?

Who knows? I have been thinking about something that the poet Guy LeCharles Gonzalez first put in my head: the power of niche content. If you walk into the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of a larger Waterstones store, you’ll usually find a bookshelf of US imports. These are books by “cult” US writers who aren’t in print in the UK. Their books are generally more expensive due to the import overheads.

So let’s flip it around. How many books by UK writers are in print in the US? Most I guess, but still a lot that aren’t. If you liked a writer and their books were available in print, you’d probably buy the book, but if you can’t get those printed books, the eBook version, coupled with an eReader, is just as good. Ubiquity isn’t attractive, whereas niche can be, simply because it’s niche. I think a lot of American’s would love my book; it’s set in a part of Paris most writers ignore, is filled with British humour, has a European flavour, and is broken down into easy-to-digest sections that I think public-transport commuters will love.

I don’t think I’ll find a mass market in the US, but I may find a comfortable niche. And with no setup costs, there’s nothing stopping me trying.

Tags: Distribution, EBook, Kindle, Make a Move, Proofreading, Publishers
Posted in Publishing, eBooks | No Comments »

The Results of My eValuation

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

When Amazon released the Kindle application for the Mac last week, I downloaded and installed it, then went onto the store to see what was available. I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I found some bestsellers around the $10 mark (yes, I have to buy in dollars and stitch a commission when my credit card company performs the exchange) and a lot around the $0 mark. As in, a LOT of free eBooks. Guess which I bought?

Neither. I went to the Amazon UK store and ordered a couple of paperbacks instead. Seriously – I’m not just trying to make a point.

My thinking was this:

BULLET $10, with an exchange commission, is about £7 on my credit card bill. That’s almost the price of a new release paperback in Waterstones. On Amazon UK, I can get the same paperback for between £4 and £5 if I don’t mind waiting a couple of days for free delivery (and bear in mind that this is a book for my reading pile, not music or a movie; I can wait). If I don’t get the physical book to keep, I’m not prepared to pay more than half of the cover price for an eBook edition, so for an £8 print book, my eLimit is £4.

BULLET A price of $0 tells me that you don’t think your book is worth anything. I understand that writers want to build a fanbase and get “sales”, but a fanbase of people who “bought” your book for free is simply a list of people who downloaded your book. They didn’t pay for it, so there’s no compulsion to read it and extract value from it. And if you spent 2 years writing it, and don’t think it’s even worth one penny, why should they risk 10-12 hours of their time reading it when there are books to be read by authors who think their work is good enough to justify charging a fee in return for their time, writing skills and creativity? I know authors whose only goal is be as widely read as possible, and I admire that goal, but I’m not sure giving your work away for free is the way to do it. 1000 unread downloads doesn’t generate word-of-mouth. How about charging one dollar and giving the proceeds to charity (and making the charitable nature of the sale clear in the online store)? Now that would probably sell and be read.

I know that the eBook market is aimed more at customers using eReader devices, but I wanted to buy a book, and if I factor in the price of hardware, that first eBook purchase is going to cost over £200, with no guaranteed savings over the following years to cover that outlay. And I can get the same book on Amazon UK for £4…

So, my first foray into eBooks was a non-starter. I tried, honestly I did. I looked around and read some blurbs and compared some prices, but couldn’t find a price point I was happy with for a book that interested me. I was disappointed.

So how has this affected my opinion on whether to publish Make a Move as an eBook? Find out tomorrow…

Neither. I went to the Amazon UK store and ordered a couple of paperbacks instead. Seriously – I’m not just trying to make a point.

My thinking was this:

$10, with an exchange commission, is about £7 on my credit card bill. That’s almost the price of a new release paperback in Waterstones. On Amazon UK, I can get the same paperback for between £4 and £5 if I don’t mind waiting a couple of days for free delivery (and bear in mind that this is a book for my reading pile, not music or a movie; I can wait). If I don’t get the physical book to keep, I’m not prepared to pay more than half of the cover price for an eBook edition, so for an £8 print book, my eLimit is £4.
A price of $0 tells me that you don’t think your book is worth anything. I understand that writers want to build a fanbase and get “sales”, but a fanbase of people who “bought” your book for free is simply a list of people who downloaded your book. They didn’t pay for it, so there’s no compulsion to read it and extract value from it. And if you spent 2 years writing it, and don’t think it’s even worth one penny, why should they risk 10-12 hours of their time reading it when there are books to be read by authors who think their work is good enough to justify charging a fee in return for their time, writing skills and creativity? I know authors whose only goal is be as widely read as possible, and I admire that goal, but I’m not sure giving your work away for free is the way to do it. 1000 unread downloads doesn’t generate word-of-mouth. How about charging one dollar and giving the proceeds to charity (and making the charitable nature of the sale clear in the online store)? Now that would probably sell and be read.

So how has this affected my opinion on whether to publish Make a Move as an eBook? Find out tomorrow…

Tags: Amazon, Bookshops, EBook, Kindle
Posted in Opinion, eBooks | No Comments »

The Pace of Independence

Friday, March 19th, 2010

I’ve taken my foot off the marketing gas this last couple of weeks. Balancing writing and promoting is difficult at the best of times, but I let disharmony creep into my domestic life, and that’s been eating away at my free time. Now that I’ve been able to straighten out my schedule, I’m back in the game, but with an air of tension that I’ve somehow damaged my reputation as a self-publisher by not pushing the book as hard as I could have. It’s not been a complete washout – one of my retailers called to ask for more books – but I have this feeling that I could have, and should have, done more. I was beating myself up over this failure, when I came to a realisation.

This project is running to my schedule.

This mantra of promote, promote, promote didn’t originate in my world – it came from publishers of music, books and films who have moved from a position of developing artists over time, to looking for a fast return. If your debut album bombs, you’re done. If a movie underperforms on its opening weekend, it’s a flop. The big publishing houses are still putting marketing money behind significant releases, but that window is narrow, with other book slots chasing it, and that title has to hit big in its allotted time. No one cares about letting a product find its market through word of mouth any more, as it takes too long.

Word of mouth is everything to me for two reasons. First, I don’t have access to national/international physical distribution, and second, I want my book to find the readers who will love it, and I know they’ll love it because it’s been recommended by friends who know their tastes.

Word of mouth takes time to build. A long time. And I have that time, as I don’t have to provide an immediate return on this title. Yes, I’m mad that these last two weeks have been unproductive, and yes, I’m working my ass off to catch up, but I’m not stressing about it anymore. There is no deadline.

Not that I’m being complacent, and allowing apathy to creep in. I’m just seeing this project for what it is: my life.

This project is running to my schedule.

This mantra of promote, promote, promote didn’t originate in my world – it came from publishers of music, books and films who have moved from a position of developing artists over time, to looking for a fast return. If your debut album bombs, you’re done. If a film underperforms on its opening weekend, it’s a flop. The big publishing houses are still putting marketing money behind significant releases, but that window is narrow, with other book slots chasing it, and that title has to hit big in its allotted time. No one cares about letting a product find its market through word of mouth any more, as it takes too long.

Not that I’m being complacent, and allowing apathy to creep in. I’m just seeing this project for what it is: my life.

Tags: Films, Music, Publishers, Retailers, Self-publishing
Posted in Opinion, Publishing | No Comments »

Fear and Loathing

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

I had an idea for a new book today and, I have to admit, it scares the crap out of me. Not because I’d have a hard time writing it – it’d be easy compared to my first novel – but because I’d be putting so much into it, and taking HUGE artistic risks. The potential for failure – financial and critical – are massive, and I could end up looking like a complete amateur for even trying to tackle this project.

Yet it excites me.

I suspect that in every successful creative career, there’s a point where the artist took a risk. I took a slight risk self-publishing Make a Move, but I was reasonably confident I’d at least make my money back. It wasn’t a leap of faith. This… is something of a different magnitude.

I needed to capture this moment so I could look back at it later – either to recall this feeling of fear in taking a risk, or to loathe myself for being a loser and not jumping for it. It might not work out; there might be too many obstacles in the way, and it’s an idea I have to “sell” to at least two different parties, but I’m more interested in finding out how I respond to this situation as/if it develops. Details, hopefully, to follow.

And don’t worry, Make a Move fans: Freddy, Jay and Holly WILL be back soon. This project, by its nature, would have to be a very fast turnaround, and it could be the creative burn I need to get Make a Move 2 fired up.

Tags: Make a Move, Projects, Self-publishing
Posted in Writing | No Comments »

Judgement Day

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

There’s no turning back now; I just dropped a review copy of Make a Move in the post, and I can’t get it back. I knew this was a hurdle I’d have to get past at some point, but it’s still a nerve-wracking time. Creative people in the public domain always suggest against reading your reviews, but I need reviews to promote the book, so I need to know if I should draw attention to the comments, or pretend it didn’t happen. Regardless of the marketing and promotion options it gives me, I always knew I wanted to get the book reviewed by an impartial reader. I’ve received comments from people who don’t know me, and they’ve been unanimously fantastic, but they paid £12.99 for the book, so they have a vested interest in enjoying it; they want it not to suck to justify their outlay. With a reviewer, they’re just looking at your book and comparing it to the other books in its genre. If a reviewer likes it, it’s good.

I’d like to say I don’t need the validation, but I do. I can’t take myself out of the equation as I wrote the thing, so I need someone else to do that for me.

I’ve done everything I can to make sure the book receives a sympathetic review (apart from getting a friend to review it, which is ultimately pointless). I chose a local publication with a readership that sits squarely in my target demographic, and I queried the literary editor without sending in the book, who is now keen to review it himself after reading the blurb I sent. So far, it all looks good, but I’m not making any assumptions; I need this review to be objective, which means no safety net.

I’ll post a link to the review (if it’s also in the online edition of the paper) once it’s out.

Fingers crossed…

Posted in Writing | No Comments »