Don't be Vain!

 Let's talk about a sensitive topic that I think a lot of you may be able to relate to. Vanity presses. Only they don't call themselves that anymore. Now they label themselves as 'hybred publishers', but let's be real. They are exactly the same. 

If you remember a few years back, there was a stigma for those of us who chose to use a vanity press to self publish because we just wanted to see our work out there. To hold a finished copy of our book in our grubby little hands! It's so exciting! 

But, the downside is the fine print they're not telling you. You see, the way they make money is not by selling your book, but by selling YOU to give them money to CREATE your book. If they make money on the book sales, that's just gravy. 

You STILL have to do all the marketing legwork. Get your book out there, write the blurb, and hire your own developmental editor, all of which can be confusing and costly. If they do provide a cover, chances are good it will be very basic. What about if you want to make changes to anything? It's bound to be a frustrating and time consuming process. 

So what are you paying for? You're paying them to do what YOU can do, if you only knew how. To publish the book and have it out there in the world. They are charging you for your lack of knowledge. Not only that, if your book DOES sell, then the contract you've signed with them says you get 40%. What they're not telling you is that is 40% of the royaltys THEY get. 

Let me break it down for you. When a book is uploaded to Amazon, they will pay the publisher 70% of the books price. That means that for a book that is listed with a $2.99 pricetag, the publisher gets $2.06. OF that YOU get 40% which is $0.84. This is for the eBook copy of your book. If your book is listed as a PRINT book, well that's different. You get even less. 

A paperback copy listed on Amazon is paid at 60% of the listed price and the minimun they allow a paperback to be listed at is $12.57. Let's say it was listed at that price. The royalty that Amazon pays the publisher is $2.52, which means that YOU get 40% of that. But wait a minute, you say, the math makes little sense. Shouldn't Amazon be paying $7.54 if the royalty is 60%? Ah! We've forgotten to factor in the printing cost of $5.03, which is of course subtracted out of your royalty. So now, from the original pricetag of $12.57 paid by your loyal reader, you make $1.00. Yup. A whole freaking dollar. 

Are you following me? 

Now, imagine you'd published your book on Amazon without the middleman. (There are arguements that Amazon is also a middleman, but that's a topic for another day. We'll just keep it simple for now.)

Now whatever Amazon pays out in royalties when your book is sold goes directly to you and no one else. Doesn't that sound better? 

But Jess, how do I do that? Well, that's where I come in. I can show you exactly how to upload your book to Amazon so you don't have to rely on a vanity publisher to get your book into the world. I will walk you through all the steps and if you are still confused, you can schedule one/one time with me to share my screen and walk you through exactly what to do and how to do it. 

I hope this was helpful to you in your journey. I’d love to hear from you. What challenges are you facing in your journey toward self-publishing? If you found this post helpful, stick around with me and don’t miss my other content as I guide you toward your goal of seeing your book baby in print! Hit subscribe to follow me and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter!

Show Vs Tell

 

So you’ve decided to self-publish and you’re trying to polish that fiction book manuscript.  First of all, congratulations! It’s a huge achievement to finish a book, something that 80% of writers aren’t able to do. That puts you in the 20% of writers who will become authors.

Now what do you do with that amazing piece of fiction you’ve just created? How are you going to get to the place where you are holding the completed book in your hands?

If you’re like most people today, you’ve started searching the internet for answers. And like most people you’re quickly overwhelmed with the amount of information out there. Should you hire an editor? A book cover designer? A publicist? Or give your precious manuscript over to a publisher and let them take over?

As someone who has worked with a few new authors, I can tell you that the first thing you need is patience. Just because you’ve finished your book does not mean it’s ready to see the light of day, in spite of what your significant other or best friend say.

“I can’t believe you’re an author! When can I buy my own copy of this masterpiece you’ve written?”

Hold up there Charlie! This book as a few more stages before it’s ready for sharing with the world.

Like what?

Well, like editing. I’m not talking about proofreading, where they check it over to make sure the commas are in the right place. No, I’m talking about developmental editing.

What is developmental editing? I’m glad you asked. It makes the difference between how your book is both presented and received by the world.

It’s easy for an experienced author to spot a novice a mile away. The novice hasn’t yet mastered the art of show vs tell. Sounds simple, right? It’s not as easy as it sounds, but mastering this process will make your books more engaging and help with that pesky word count that never seems quite long enough.

What is the difference?

Simple. Telling a story is just that.

Let me show you what I mean. This is an example of TELLING a story.

Sally went to the grocery store and bought the ingredients to bake a cake for Charlie. It was his birthday and she wanted to surprise him with her baking skills that night at his birthday party. They’d been dating for over a year and she was getting antsy for him to pop the question. Maybe if she baked him a gorgeous cake, he’d realize how much he wanted to marry her because she was a fabulous cook and the obvious choice for mother of his children.

Her imagination went a little wild at the thought of how he’d drop to his knees at the party tonight in front of everyone and declare his love and propose.

Okay, that’s not bad, right? We’ve got our couple, Charlie and Sally. She’s wants a proposal and thinks that baking a birthday cake is going to be the key to him realizing he wants her too. Sounds like a romance waiting to happen, right? But there’s a problem with this example.

Can you tell what it is?

It’s as dry as day old toast. Yup. Bland.

Why?

Well, think about it for a minute. What might make this more interesting? We’re writing a story here. So should the beginning really be Sally walking into the grocery story to buy ingredients for the cake? How boring is that? What reader wants to follow along on that boring chore? I mean unless the lobster tank overflowed and she’d dodging escaped lobsters through the seafood aisle along with other screaming customers while the fish guy chases them around the store with a broom . . . okay I’m getting carried away. But you see my point. There’s no ‘hook’ there. Nothing but a dry boring shopping trip. Who cares?

So, what DO the readers care about?

They want to be drawn into the story and care about Sally and her anticipation of a proposal from the elusive Charlie. Let’s see how that might go.

Here is an example of SHOWING the same story from above.

The doorbell rang just as Sally finished putting the last candle in place on Charlie’s birthday cake. It looked perfect. Since he was turning thirty, she’d only put on three candles. The cake design was a race car with headlights and taillights that really worked. Maybe most men might find it childish, but she knew Charlie would love it,  and she took a breath of pleased satisfaction as she wiped her hands on her pink and white checkered apron and stepped back to admire her work.

The doorbell rang again, and she looked up, realizing that she’d missed the first ring because she’d been so focused on the cake.

“Coming,” she called as she trotted down the short hall, checking her face in the mirror next to her condo’s front door before she pulled it open.

“Hey Sally,” her best friend Michelle sailed inside, her arms loaded down with huge bags filled with gifts and party favors. “Took you long enough. My arms are killing me. Where do you want me to put all this stuff?”

Sally followed her down the short hall and pointed into the living room where she’d set up a table, decorated with racing themed tablecloth and balloons.

“Wow. You really went all out for him, didn’t you?” Michelle said as she started unloading race car themed paper plates and cups.

“This could be it,” Sally said, grabbing a couple of presents from where Michelle had dropped them on the floor and arranging them carefully on the gift table. “When he sees how organized I am and what a great baker. Why, what man wouldn’t want that in a wife?”

                “So, matrimony is your end game then?”

“Do you think he’ll propose tonight?” Sally stepped back to admire the decorated tables. “We’ve been dating for almost a year, and he keeps dropping hints about wanting a family.”

               

Can you see the difference? So the first example, where we were TELLING the story, it was only 116 words. With the second example we learned a lot more about the characters by seeing the scene that was created. And it more than doubled the word count! The second scene was written in 312 words and we could have easily kept going along the same lines to complete the scene.  We even get to meet a few more characters who are important to the main characters and help move the story along.

This is how a developmental editor could really be key in helping you take your manuscript from ‘telling’ to showing. They can point out those instances in your story that you may have overlooked, or not realized could have been ‘shown.’ Sure, you can probably try your best to figure that all out on your own, but wouldn’t it be more helpful to have someone with more experience hold your hand through it? Honestly, even a good beta reader can be helpful with this.

I hope this was helpful to you in your journey. I’d love to hear from you. What challenges are you facing in your journey toward self-publishing? If you found this post helpful, stick around with me and don’t miss my other content as I guide you toward your goal of seeing your book baby in print! Hit subscribe to follow me and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter!

                

You've Decided to Self-Publish. Now What?

 

Ten years ago I was a traditionally published author. It wasn’t easy getting that far. I joined Romance Writers of America, went to a few chapter meetings, and discovered the joys of ‘pitching’ my book to editors and agents at the conventions. Time and again I was rejected — until I pitched to this woman in the elevator that I had no idea was an editor.

But the book deal wasn't as lucrative as I’d expected. After two books were published, I got divorced and stopped writing. Instead of having time to write, I had to worry about paying bills and taking care of my two small children. I’d also stopped believing in romance, which as a romance author is a huge taboo.

Fast forward nine years. I’m remarried to my soulmate, kids are happy and I believe in romance again. So I started writing again. Then I realized, I didn’t want to send my new book to the publisher. They hadn’t made me any money, so there didn’t seem to be any point in taking 40% commission when I could get all of it (minus Amazon’s fees). I had to do all my own marketing anyway.

So I decided to self-publish. That was almost a year ago and I haven’t looked back since. Since I’d already been through the process of being published, I had a good idea of what needed to happen. The first thing I did was request my copyrights back from the publisher.

I’m not going to bore you with the stuff I did after that. Let’s talk about you.

The first thing you need to do in your journey is to realize that it’s probably not going to give you overnight success. That being said, I know plenty of authors who sold whopping numbers of books or KU reads with their first book. The funny thing is, they don’t even realize that’s a huge accomplishment. I also know many who made less than $100 in the first three months. So kick any expectations you have about how your books are going to sell to the curb.

Now, I’m assuming that you’ve written or are in the process of writing, your masterpiece. The first thing you need to do is to make sure you are connecting to readers. Yes, that’s right. Readers. Not joining Facebook groups full of other authors trying to figure out how to write. Not tweeting out blasts to #WIP and #WritingCommunity while completely ignoring the community of people who will actually BUY your book.

That is the whole point of why you wrote it, right? So that you could SELL it? You need to get in front of people who will love it and BUY.

Who is your target reader?

Answer this question for yourself. Who is going to love my book? How does your ideal reader spend their time? What hobbies besides reading might they have? What movies do they watch? Start looking for them. I promise you, they are out there.

If you’re wondering how to find them, think about how you would track down your husband’s ex and start stalking those readers. Not in a crazy way, but use the ingenuity that would have you seeking out information and hunt those readers down. They want to be found.

Start a Facebook group and start inviting them in. Comment and like posts. Join other groups where they might be lurking. Go on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Post about things that you also enjoy. Talk about the characters in your books. Develop that following of ‘friends’.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying to ignore all other authors or the writing community. I’m telling you to know where your bread and butter comes from. The writing community is great for helping you get there. But the majority of them don’t buy your books. They’ll be super supportive of you in every other way. Think about it. How many books can you afford to buy?

Take a Marketing Course.

Don’t just start throwing up ads willy nilly. You’ll waste more money than if you’d just tossed it into the wind. In fact, you might as well, you might get a better return! You can easily waste thousands of dollars on ads that get you nothing.

Decide what platform you want to focus on and then research the hell out of it. If it’s Amazon Ads then do some research before putting money up. Make sure you’ve got the cover that will draw them in and the blurb that will make them want to read more. Which brings me to my next point.

Be Prepared to Spend Money on Covers and Editing.

Unless you’ve taken a course in cover designing or have a really good eye for that sort of thing, leave it to the professionals. You need an eye-catching cover that doesn’t scream “SELF PUBLISHED”. I can’t tell you how many of those I’ve seen and cringed. Maybe the book is well written but readers will never know because most of them are reluctant to spend money on something that looks like it was created by an amateur.

Book covers shouldn’t be overly expensive and with a little research online you can find someone who will create something amazing for around $100 or less. There are a ton of premade covers out there too for $20 or less. My point is, you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a cover. Just make sure it looks good and matches your genre.

The money should go to editing. Seriously. A good editor is worth their weight in gold. They keep you from sounding awful and catch all the typos that you’ve missed after the twentieth time going over your book. Your brain misses mistakes because it thinks it should be there, so it sees it as correct, even if it's really not.

Know the difference between editors too. Developmental editors help point out story issues and are pretty much a story coach. They ask you why Jack slept with Jane in chapter two when he is clearly in love with Jill. Unless it’s that type of book. Then, by all means, carry on.

Line Editors help make your book flow better. They’ll help you decide if you should use “said” for your dialog tags. Give you suggestions for different word choices or show you ways to change the words around that will make the whole thing read better. If this is something you struggle with, then you should spend the money and find one who works with your style.

Copyeditors are the ones who catch the commas and get the book ready for that final round before proofreading. This step is extremely important, as Developmental and Line Editors don’t focus on this. Usually, after they’ve finished with your book, you’re making so many changes that even if they did, you would have changed things anyway and they would need to be done again.

Don’t skip the Copyedits.

This is the round of editing that most Authors think of when they think of editing. Not only is it the most common, but it is also the most important. You don’t want to spend money on an editor who doesn’t know what they’re doing either.

I made that mistake. I thought hiring a cheap “editor” would be okay because I could save money. Big mistake. Huge. She didn’t catch things that I caught afterward and I was so disappointed that I refused to pay her because it was so obvious she didn't’ know what she was doing. Most editors will do the first few pages for free so you can see if they will work well for you. Don’t make the mistake I did.

Get that thing formatted!

You’ve made it through all the editing rounds and are ready to hit print. Hold up. First, you need to format that book. There are quite a few different ways to do this, and you’ll want to research the way that works best for you. There are many articles on the software to use, so I won’t go into that here. Just know that you’ll need that step for a nice, clean copy of your book.

Now, You Can Publish!

But where? Stay tuned. I’ll be talking about that in my next piece. Until then, if you’ve enjoyed this article, please like and follow me. Post a comment below with any questions you have about what I’ve written. I’d love to hear from you.