Advice for Indie Authors: Local book signings - sell yourself!

One of the hardest things to come to terms with as an indie author is that it is up to you to sell yourself. If you had the luxury of a publishing deal, you would have a team doing that for you! But you don't, so it is time to get busy!

There isn't any real rocket science when it comes to getting a book signing at a local bookstore. A good press release will help, but it's really just about making contact and asking if you can do one. I was actually surprised at how easy it was to arrange a book signing. At the start of September I went into my local Waterstones in Sutton and simply asked the manager if I could do one - that was it! I had seen other authors doing book signings before so I thought why not - the worst they can say is no.

But as I said, they were quite open to the idea. I simply explained to the manager that I was a local author and wondered if they held any events or book signings for local authors. At the end of the day they are a business and they have to think of ways of getting people through the doors and then buying copies of the books of the shelfs. Having an author in their store signing books is a bonus.

Initially they arranged for me host an event called An Evening With Steven Scaffardi. The idea would be to have people pay (yep, I said pay!) £2 per ticket to come and spend an hour and a half with me as I talked about my stand-up comedy and The Drought for an event at the end of November.

Two tickets got sold! I couldn't believe it either - that is two more tickets than I expected, and it wasn't even my mum who bought them. It was a total stranger!

But two strangers staring at me for 90 minutes for the paltry sum of £4 wasn't seen as a good business model, so it was decided we would switch the to a daytime event where I would simply stand in the shop and sign copies of my novel for anyone who wanted to buy a copy. (Pen Press are helpful at this stage, as they will make sure the bookstore where you have arranged book signings are fully stocked with copies of your novel.)

In the meantime, I simply went on to Waterstones website and looked at where the nearest stores were to me, and then fired off an email to those stores asking for further book signing opportunities, and I am pleased to say I got one at the store in Croydon on December 2.

As for yesterdays book signing, I think it went well. I managed to sell 10 copies (including one copy to the lady who had bought the two tickets to come and spend an evening with me!). The most challenging thing is making yourself speak to people in the store, and to keep doing it for 3-4 hours. Most people won't be interested, but they will be polite enough as long as you don't hound them too much and you just have to remember that these people are in a bookstore for a reason, and it is not to buy a kettle! Sooner or later you will find someone who is interested in the genre of your novel, and the opportunity to buy a signed copy of a book is a good selling point. And then we are back to word of mouth - if they like it then they'll tell there friends about it.

It is certainly something I highly recommend any indie authors doing, especially around the Xmas period. You don't have anything to lose and everything to gain. Not only will you sell copies of your book to people who did not know who you were previously, but I now have copies of my novel stocked in both the Sutton (and soon the Croydon) branch of Waterstones. For me, that is a huge achievment and a big step in the right direction.

Advice for Indie Authors: Media exposure and reviews

The Drought is now less than two weeks away from official publication date. On September 24 my novel will be available to the masses of book lovers everywhere. I can’t wait! The only thing getting in the way of my excitement is that tumbleweed which seems to be hanging around.

Let’s face facts – as an indie author I don’t have the benefit of a well-oiled marketing machine promoting my book and drumming up a buzz that every book launch needs. What I have is me, myself, and I. So what have I been doing for the last few weeks I hear you say? Allow me to explain.

At the start of August I received the first batch of printed copies of my book. As I explained in one of my previous blogs, it was time to sell, sell, sell! I am pleased to say that sales have been going reasonably well with about 60 copies sold already to friends and family. Not a bad start, and to encourage those sales I offered signed copies through my website.

I have been plugging the signed copies at every opportunity via my social network feeds and emails, and as a result I have made sales to people who I haven’t seen in years. It might not be a huge number, but these people are going to be key in my future promotion sales plan. I now have people who have read the book and if they like it, they can tell their friends about it, or like my Facebook page, or Tweet about it. Never underestimate the power of word of mouth. These are the people who will write those first initial reviews on Amazon, and anyone who shops online knows how a good review can influence your decision to buy.

However, I knew I couldn’t simply rely on sales to friends and family. After all, I’m not that popular! Sales would soon start to dry up. My next step was to start circulating the press release that the marketing team at Pen Press had put together for me as part of my self-publishing package. I decided to keep it local to begin with. Having a background of being a reporter on a local paper, I know what sort of hook to use when approaching local newspapers to cover a story.

Think about your connection to an area and send it to papers where you live, where you work, where you went you school. Send it to as many local newspapers as possible and make sure to mention early on what your connection is with that local area. Local newspapers want stories about local people – it might sound obvious but it’s amazing how many times people miss an opportunity by not flagging that up early.

From this I have already managed to get some good media coverage. As soon as I had a story in my local paper I took it into my local Waterstones and asked if I could do a book signing in their store. I have now been pencilled in for a Christmas book signing!

The one mistake I made in this whole process was not sending the press release out earlier. I identified other titles and media I should target by matching up the audience I was trying to target with the readers of different magazines or newspapers. I sent it to all of the lads mags and a couple of women’s magazines. I actually had a response from a features writer at Glamour magazine, but they had just put their October issue to press, so I had missed the boat. However, they did ask if I would mind being kept on file if they ever needed a funny male writer, so something could potentially come from that in the future.

You must have an entrepreneurial way of thinking. No one is going to sell your book other than you, so think about what else you can do to open up access to a wider audience. There are a large number of forums out there on the world wide web, full of book lovers discussing what they want to read next. Join these communities and instead of just plugging your book, engage with these people. I have already started selling copies of the eBook and yesterday, someone from Australia came on to my website and bought a signed copy of my book. This marked the first sale of my novel to someone I don’t know – an indication that my marketing plan is starting to work!

Facebook, Twitter, and blogging are a great way of engaging with people who might be interested in your book. Last week I decided to start a competition where I offered a signed copy of The Drought and a £25 Amazon voucher as a prize to one winner (chosen at random) who followed me on Twitter or ‘Likes’ my Facebook page. Using the hash-tag #competition and asking people I know to help promote this on their status updates or tweets has resulted in over 150 new followers and Likes from people I don’t know in under a week. This is all free publicity (well, apart from the £25 Amazon voucher!) and now I have an audience to promote to that I didn’t have a week ago.

This is the sort of promotion you will have to keep on doing long after your book has been published. I am already working on a new strategy that I am about to unleash on the unsuspecting world this week, but I’ll save that for another blog!

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

Advice for Indie Authors: Sell, sell, sell!

Ten days ago the first printed copies of my novel, The Drought, were finally delivered to my doorstep. It was a joyous occasion, despite the best efforts from the London looters to halt their arrival (the books should have been delivered two days earlier but the riots caused their delay - sort it out Cameron!).

I stared at the 65 copies of my book; filled with the words that I had written. Two years of hard work packed neatly into two cardboard boxes. Proudly holding a copy in my hand, one thought immediately popped into my head: How am I going to shift this lot?! After all, 65 copies of the same novel on my bookshelf would not only look a little silly, but perhaps a tad self-indulging too!

I did not want all this hard work to simply be viewed as vanity-publishing. For the first time I realised that if I wanted to do this properly, I would need a business plan. I wanted to evaluate everything that I had done so far, set myself an objective, and then work out what I needed to achieve to this.

Time to look at the facts:

- So far I had spent in excess of £2,000 on publishing and marketing (including the silver self-publishing package with Pen Press, the promo silver pack and Kindle eBook conversion with Author Essentials, and a website with Advanced Web Creations)
- The first 65 copies I sell would offer me 100% profit as these books come as part of the silver package
- I would make an average of £1 - £2 profit for every printed book sold through a retailer
- My profit would increase by nearly 200% on all sales off my own back (I am able to purchase additional copies of my book at any time from Pen Press at £3.25 per book - minimum 25 orders)

Clearly there is a greater benefit selling my book myself because of the larger profit margin. However, as a consumer, I am also aware that I would more than likely buy something from a reputable retailer than I would anywhere else. I also couldn’t use any of my promo marketing material yet, as it all references that you can buy the book and a Kindle version from Amazon, but it is going to take approximately six weeks for my book to be registered and start appearing on sites such as Amazon.

Rather than bogging you down with numbers and a maths lesson, I worked out that in order to break-even and start turning a profit, I would need to sell 665 copies of my book myself. Time to get to work!

I set-up a PayPal account and created a business account to allow people to buy copies of the book through my website. This also allows people to pay by credit card if they don’t have a PayPal account.

My plan for the first six weeks is to try and create a buzz through people that I know - friends, family, work colleagues, clients, friends of friends, acquaintances! Anyone I can possibly make direct or indirect contact with. I put together a list of 250 email addresses I have and sent an email blast out to announce the book has been published and that they can purchase a copy from my website. Furthermore, to incentivise people to buy through my website, I am offering signed copies and a free bookmark.

I have also targeted contacts and friends through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I asked people post links on their status updates or re-tweet information to their followers.
After week one of sales I have shifted 50 copies of the book. Not bad for a first week, but plenty of sales to go!

But already I am starting to forward plan. For every sale I make, I make a note of their their email address because in six weeks when the book will be available via retail outlets online, I will email everyone who has bought a copy of the book to ask them to write a review on Amazon.

And reviews are the next stage of my business plan, but that is for a different blog.

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

Advice for Indie Authors: Edit, re-edit, and edit again!

This week has been busy and productive, and things are now starting to pick up some real pace. Two days ago I approved my final edited manuscript to be sent to press. Within a week I will receive the first hard copies of my novel, The Drought.

There is a real air of excitement now. For the last two weeks I have been spending pretty much every spare minute I have reading, checking, and re-reading my manuscript, to make sure all mistakes are ironed out. I have been working with a brilliant editor at Pen Press, who has been helping me every step of the way.

I can’t stress how important the re-editing stage has been. Over the last two years I have lost count of the amount of times I have re-read my work, edited it, changed things, added new characters, deleted chunks of text, re-written whole chapters, and somehow inserted an extra 10,000 words worth of new content.

When I completed that first draft back in September 2009, the most difficult thing I found was to sit back and be self-critical. I knew I would have to make the odd spelling and grammar correction, but in my eyes all of the effort I had put in already was enough.

But you have to be open minded to realise that there is always lots of room for improvement. I tried looking at my work through a different set of eyes. It never ceased to amaze me the amount of errors I had missed, or how much of the content I decided to change, each time I re-read the manuscript.

I started to scrutinise every minor detail, but in doing that I gradually fell into the trap of being overly critical, obsessed with making it as perfect as possible, and sometimes making changes for the sake of making changes. A comma here or an extra word there; I think I drove my poor editor, Claire, mad with all of the little last minute tweaks I insisted on making towards the end!

I’m confident all the changes and the time putting into the editing stage will all be worth it in the end, but as Claire said to me: “You have to learn to listen to that instinctive voice inside that tells you when it's done and to step away from the canvas.”

And that is what I did in the end – I listened to myself.

The rest of my week has been spent looking at designs for my marketing material. As I mentioned in a previous blog, social media is a fantastic tool, but nothing still quite does it like good old fashioned print.

Through Pen Press, I was put in contact with a company called Author Essentials who specialise in marketing and promotional services for authors. I have opted for flyers, bookmarks, postcards, A3 sized posters, and business cards, and I plan to use them all in various different ways. But perhaps the most useful way will be off-the-cuff conversations I have with people who take an interest, and I will be able to physically hand them a piece of marketing material related to my book. The power of print…

The next step of the process is now in the hands of Pen Press, who are taking care of registering the book and uploading information (ISBN, price, dimensions, genre and description). As per national legal requirement, all books are registered with and copies sent to The British Library and Neilsen BookData.

Nielsen's supply information to the majority of the book trade, and is where all reputable book sellers get information on books so that they can sell it. It is important to give an advance release date when registering. It takes six to eight weeks for booksellers to upload their information for PODs and three months for full, traditional published books.

Once that has been complete, I will be a published author. Writing the book in the first place was by far the hardest part, but the guidance I have received from Pen Press since April to get to this point has been invaluable. I’m already looking forward to the next chapter in this process.

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

Advice for Indie Authors: The social media opportunity

At the start of this year a story appeared on printweek.com about Bristol printer Business Forms Express (BFE), who had made the bold move to drop their own website in favour of a Facebook page. At the time, managing director Colin Roberts, said the company was “moving with the times”. I’m not too sure how that move has worked out for BFE, but it certainly highlights just how much social media is regarded as a marketing and business tool.

No one could have predicted the growth and strength of Facebook when it was launched in 2004. After all, it was originally designed for horny college students to track down girls. Fast forward seven years and it is now worth $50 billion, and as of July 2011 it has 750 million users. And whether you are an indie author like me, or a printer based in Bristol, the great thing about social media sites is that they are absolutely free to use. Self-publishing my novel, The Drought, means I am solely responsible for all of the marketing.

“Conventionally published books previously held the public eye, funded by publishers with vast marketing budgets and contacts in high places,” Sarah Juckes, Head of Company Marketing at self-publishing house Pen Press, explains. “But now, the balance has shifted, giving the indie author the chance to reach a mass audience that was previously unavailable without huge funding. Twitter, Facebook, websites and blogs have become must-have marketing tools for every author.”

But the real challenge with social media is that you are competing with millions of people all trying to promote one thing or another; whether it is a business or simply someone who is willing to shave their hair off if they get one million people to 'Like' their group. It doesn’t matter how many friends you have on Facebook, you cannot simply rely on these people to be your customers. You need to expand. Like any marketing strategy, the key is to plan your attack on this huge audience. My book should be published in August, but my digital and social media marketing campaign started over eight months ago. I wanted to build up some momentum so when I had a publication date, I would already have started to raise awareness.

Personally I believe a website is just as important as any social media tools available, because I use it as the central hub that points at everything that I do. I specifically planned to have my website created at the start of the year because I found out that it can take up to six months before search engines like Google start to trust your content and therefore improve your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. I had my site created by a fantastic small web design company called Advanced Web Creations who specialise in websites for small to medium local businesses. They were extremely accommodating, professional, and perhaps most importantly – great value for money.

Content is key when it comes to a website, as you want as much related content to your product as possible in order to appear high in the natural search. This is one of the main reasons I started performing at open mic stand-up comedy nights. My book is a comedy novel, so I was able to film my stand-up comedy shows and upload them to YouTube as well as my own website.

Anyone searching for "comedy" could now potentially stumble across my website. I am now tapping into the video-sharing community, as well as getting my name out there as a comedian and raising my profile. If people like my comedy, then hopefully they will take an interest in the book. Keeping with the comedy theme, I also started to blog about my experience on the stand-up circuit, and linked everything back to my website. I was slowly starting to build my online “brand” across various different websites, and increasing my SEO presence across different platforms.

These rules apply to any type of business, whereby you upload content about your products and services, and that is the mindset I am trying to get into - an indie author is a business.

LinkedIn is undoubtedly a fantastic business tool, but how could I use this as an independent author? This is where you have to start mixing and matching your social media activities. I have been blogging on printweek.com about my experience of self-publishing with Pen Press since April, so I found relevant self-publishing groups on LinkedIn and posted the URL to my blogs in these groups, as well as in any self-publishing forums I could fine online. This has produced feedback from other authors and those working in the publishing sector across the globe, and has made my name aware to people I never normally would have gotten the chance to put myself in front of.

So now I have the website, the YouTube videos, and the blogs. It was time to unleash this content on to the big boys of the social media world – namely Facebook and Twitter. I have had an account on Twitter for a couple of years, without really doing anything with it other than informing my 9 followers what I was having for dinner. But since using my tweets to promote both my stand-up comedy and the upcoming release of my novel, my followers have grown to 174.

“Twitter allows the author to set up a voice among the millions, following and engaging with his/her targeted readership,” Sarah Juckes told me. “The author can tweet about the book’s themes, characters, plot etc, and cause a stir that could quite literally spread to the masses. Every tweet has the ability to cause worldwide interest.”

But how?

“It isn’t enough to tweet to an empty room – Twitter, like everything, takes work,” Sarah continues. “The author must engage - using tools like the hashtag (#) to tap into discussions, Direct Messaging and @ing individuals to build up a reputation as being someone worth following. Once they have a follow base of readers, the author can start selling, directing the masses to the book on Amazon, the blog with free snippets of the book, perhaps even to the free eBook downloads as rewards for those who help spread the word.”

“Once Twitter has them hooked, Facebook can keep them in the boat. A ‘like’ of the author/book page means that person will see updates and giveaways amongst their friends’ personal updates every time they log in. Facebook is for friends – it is more intimate. This is how you can get a casual follower to become a guaranteed book buyer – perfect for those sequels.”

Creating a Facebook page has been the most recent piece of my social media marketing puzzle. For someone to “Like” you on Facebook, there needs to be a good reason. My stand-up comedy gave me a reason to develop a page and 105 likes later, I now have a decent sized audience, who have bought into my brand of comedy from my open mic performances, that I will be able to promote my book to.

“Of course, this just the tip of the iceberg,” Sarah says of the social media opportunities. “YouTube and the boom of the book trailer is a great way of directing people to your book – giving them a feel in pictures and sound rather than tweet after tweet saying the same thing. Goodreads and Shelfari allow the author to tap directly into a book-buying demographic. The blogs of others generate discussions the author can involve themselves in, and their own blog will normally allow readers to subscribe to the blog and updates.”

Social media can be as much about research as it is anything else. Whatever type of business you are in, take the time to do your homework before launching into a social media marketing plan. Could you really imagine creating your own video advertisement 10 years ago to promote one of your products? Social media has opened up that door to the masses. Use it in the right way, and you will get results.

I am not suggesting that social media is the only tool you will need. Printed marketing material is just as important as digital, and that is why I contacted Authors Essentials who specialise in various book marketing needs from eBooks to websites to printed material. They are also currently promoting a short story competition with the prize being a Bronze publishing package with Pen Press. (Competition closes August 20 - check out link for more details). But this is a story for another blog...

I’m off now to film my book trailer – Hollywood here I come. Well, sort of.

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

Advice for Indie Authors: You do judge a book by its cover!

I read with interest an article last week about the research conducted by HP that claimed digital book printing is greener than offset. The comments that followed the article threw up some interesting debates; such an argument that the research only applied to short-run jobs, and what would the carbon footprint comparison be against eBooks?

This sort of research is only good news for the print-on-demand market, and particularly the self-publishing houses that are able to churn out tens of thousands of copies of books each year at the click of a button.

I would also like to think whatever side of the fence you sit on, when it comes to book printing, most printers should be fairly confident of getting it right when printing black text on white paper.

But what about the book cover? This has to be a slightly different discussion. In spite of the well-known saying don’t judge a book by its cover – surely that is the first thing a consumer does when they pick up a book. The quality of the cover and the quality of the printing has to come into play.

I have realised over the last three weeks just how important the cover is. Working closely with Jacqueline Abromeit, Art Director at Pen Press, has shown me that the design of the cover is vital. After nearly two years and 90,000 words later, I am on the verge of becoming a published author, and the last thing I want to do is put people off by the cover.

“You really cannot tell if a book is well written or if you will enjoy reading it by looking at its cover,” Jacqueline said. “Still, we need a book cover to communicate with us. And of course, like all packaging, it should help to sell its contents by appealing to its targeted audience. Never try to please everybody – it is not possible!”

Doing some research in the printweek.com archives, I found an interesting story from last year on how publishers are now looking at different printing techniques to make sure their books stand out on the shelves.

As an indie author without the backing of a big publisher behind me, having a cover design service like the one offered by Pen Press has been a huge benefit, as Jacqueline has always been on hand to offer advice when needed, and to make changes and recommendations.

“At the very least it should clearly inform us of the book's title, author and genre,” Jacqueline said. “The cover should intrigue the potential reader into picking up the book. Something that is even more important for the unknown author who doesn't yet a have faithful following, or the famous name to attract attention. And then there is this other line – a picture says more than a thousand words.”

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

Advice for Indie Authors: Are we there yet? Nearly!

Genuinely exciting moments can unfortunately be few and far between in your working and professional life. The clock hand hitting 5.30pm on a Friday is one of those moments, and having a vending machine that actually serves something that resembles coffee is another.

But neither of these two come close to raising the excitement levels I experienced this week. Despite my sarcasm, I did actually feel an overwhelming sense of exhilaration, as in the past week I have received both the final edited draft of my manuscript and the first draft design of my book cover from Pen Press. This is really happening!

In the past couple of months, my experience of working with Pen Press has been first-rate. I won't sugar coat it – I had absolutely no idea of how to get my work professionally edited, let alone get a book cover with blurb created. These services are immensely helpful, especially as you have a dedicated representative from Pen Press to talk you through both of these elements to make sure you feel involved during these important production stages.

But then it started to dawn on me. What is the point of being a published author if no one actually bothers to buy the book? It’s not like I have the marketing weight of the likes of JK Rowling behind me.

So what am I dealing with here? In an earlier blog I pointed out that one self-publishing company had published work for 1.1 million people over the last decade, and that doesn’t even take into account traditional published work. Check out these stats from Wikipedia to give you an idea of the minefield I am about to step into! These are pretty daunting numbers to contend with!

But there is hope. Stories of self-published authors achieving successful sales are becoming more common now than you might think. Just last month, Mel Comley, a UK-born self-published author of the Impeding Justice series of crime novels, signed a contract with the respected New York literary agent Richard Curtis.

Mel said: “It's been eight months of hard work, 14-16 hour days of writing and promoting my novels. But it was all worth it as I have now achieved 20,000 sales and obtained the services of one of the top agents in New York. Plus, I still have agents contacting me weekly on both sides of the pond.”

Hard work is certainly the key to success. There doesn’t really seem to be a magic formula, except to write great novels that people want to read. Without self-publishing, Mel might not have ever been discovered.

Earlier this year in March, PrintWeek published a special issue on books. Digital was once again the buzzword when it came to examining the growth of this market.

TJ International was ranked 11th in the UK book printers league table, and their managing director, Angus Clark, echoed the praise for digital book printing by saying: “Digital is our biggest growth market and we believe digital book manufacturing will continue increasing at phenomenal rates.” Further evidence for this growth came in the shape of the on-demand books feature in the same issue.

So now I have an edited manuscript, a book cover and blurb, and at the click of a finger I have a novel ready to be unleashed to the world via on-demand printing. Don’t you just love technology!

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

Advice for Indie Authors: Think before you print!

They say that everyone has got a book in them, which apart from sounding quite painful (sorry – bad joke), it probably goes a long way to explaining why so many people are turning to self-publishing.

The numbers speak for themselves, with some self-publishing companies in the UK boasting of 40,000 authors on their books (pardon the pun) with over 60,000 titles.

But there is of course the argument of quality over quantity when it comes to self-publishing, and it certainly adds up when you consider that just one best-selling novel will easily outsell 60,000 bad ones.

In the current climate, the majority of literary agents and the major book publishers will now take on just one new writer a year; so for an aspiring new author like me, self-publishing makes sense. It also offers the author more control over their work.

After much research, I eventually decided to self-publish with a company called Pen Press. Unlike their rivals who churn out authors and books by the dozen, Pen Press only published 137 commercially available books last year.

Whereas this may not seem as much when compared to companies who are publishing titles in their thousands, Pen Press pride themselves on offering a tailor made experience for their authors.

“We work hard to ensure that the author feels like they have a working relationship with every member of staff they deal with at Pen Press and are very comfortable contacting us for assistance throughout the process of bringing their book to life and beyond,” Danny Bowman, the Marketing Manager at Pen Press, told me.

I have to say I am already reaping the benefits from this approach. Four weeks ago I received a Reader’s Report from Pen Press after submitting my manuscript. It was so refreshing to receive professional feedback after dedicating over two years of hard work to make my novel, The Drought, a reality.

Of course I had previously received positive feedback from friends and family, but what else were they going to say? You only have to tune into Britain’s Got Talent every Saturday to bear witness to a whole host of sorry souls who have been encouraged by their loved ones to share their talent with the world.

The Readers Report offered an unbiased opinion of my work and pulled no punches. Unlike my family and friends, it didn’t care if it hurt my feelings. It told it to me straight – what was good about the novel and what wasn’t. It allowed me to go back to the drawing board and change the parts that needed changing.

My book is now in the process of going through the proof-reading and copy-editing stage, another service offered as part of the Pen Press package. After working in the publishing industry for over five years, I am well aware of the pitfalls of a print job done badly or littered with errors. When this happens, print can certainly be one of the most unforgiving forms of media, so these services are essential before I even consider getting around to the actual printing.

With any piece of printed material, you only have one shot at the reader – they don’t care if you can correct your mistakes and supply a new book via print on demand at a later date. And as the author, you really don’t have any excuses for this to happen, but some people find out the hard way!

While self-publishing may not be the traditional form of book printing, it still needs to be professional, and so far I can’t have any complaints in that department. Onwards and upwards!

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

Advice for Indie Authors: eBooks & The London Book Fair

I sat on the tube this morning and read with great interest the headline story in the Metro titled Ebook piracy ‘is colossal threat’ – especially after my visit to the London Book Fair last week.

During my visit to the Earls Court show, I took in a Self-Publishing Masterclass seminar, and the full extent of the eBook revolution was laid out with some impressive stats:

• Amazon now sell more eBooks than physical books for its top 1,000 titles
• In 2010, Amazon sold more Kindles than printed copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• There are 115 eBooks sold for every paperback

So it is perhaps not a great surprise that eBooks are now suffering the same fate as the music industry did when iPods and MP3 players first took off. However, it is not all bad news. As Leila Dewji, editorial director at Acorn Independent Press Ltd, said during the presentation: “During this same period of growth for eBooks, paperback and hardback sales have increased.’

And it was only last week in a printweek.com article that self-publishing giant Lulu.com said it expects its print-on-demand sales to grow almost as fast as eBooks.  Self-publishing is a global phenomenon, and not only is this good news for the printing industry, but it is great for indie authors like me.

I spoke with Danny Bowman, marketing manager at Pen Press Ltd where I am publishing my first novel, and he said:

“The energy of this year’s book fair was palpable, with representatives of many fine companies visiting our stall and visibly keen on getting involved with us. While all our titles received a great deal of interest, it was fascinating to note that Party People by David Jamilly was a very popular focus point for rights’ buyers from the Asian Pacific Market.”

“Also very noticeable this year was the sheer amount of authors stopping by to express interest in our services. We found on perusing some of the samples shown to us that the overall quality of these authors was very high indeed. Several of the authors we spoke to had, in fact, been published by mainstream houses before but were keen to consider self-publishing with the flexibility and artistic control this option affords. This just goes to show that self-publishing continues to shed the stigma that has previously been attached to it and becoming an increasingly popular choice for those serious about getting their books read.”

Digital technology is certainly revolutionising the book printing industry, as PrintWeek editor Darryl Danielli pointed out in his comment piece on Friday. Self-publishing has given book printing a new lease of life, and clearly this is being recognised by some of the major players in the digital sector, with both HP and Kodak exhibiting at the London Book Fair for the first time this year.

At the Dispelling the Myths of Self-Publishing seminar, Simon Potter from Fast Print said: “Authors are now in control of their own destiny and technology has allowed this change. Print on Demand is taking over the publishing world. In the US, more than half of the books published were self-published.”

HP put on a series of seminars to highlight the printing capabilities of their digital technology, including a talk from Teresa Pereira from Blurb, who highlighted the affordable nature of self-publishing for things such as photobooks. Kodak, meanwhile, had an impressive display of POD samples. For someone like me, it was exciting to see the quality of a self-published product – it makes the whole purpose of self-publishing more worthwhile to know that a product I created will be printed to the highest possible standard.

Today I emailed the final copy of my manuscript to Pen Press. Over the next few weeks, all of the hard work that goes into creating a successful printed product will engulf my life. And I can’t wait!

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com

Advice for Indie Authors: The incredible journey starts here...

Did you know that way back in the 1450s, The Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed with a movable type printing press, and marked the age of the printed book?

Of course you did; you took a degree in the history of the print industry right? How obtuse of me. Okay, let me try another one.

Did you know that The Diamond Sūtra - printed on a wood block press around 868 AD in China - is earliest complete survival of a dated printed book?

I can tell by some of your murmurings that I am still failing to impress you. After all, any fool can find out this sort of information on Wikipedia. Okay, give me one last shot.

Did you know that two years ago I finished writing my first ever novel?

Ha! I finally have you on that one! The again, why should you know that? After all, two years on and I still haven't managed to get the damn thing published.

Since 2009 I have lost count of submission letters I have sent to publishing houses and literary agents, offering them the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take me and my work on, only to receive a rejection letter informing me that financial restraints now limit them to taking on just one new writer a year. One new writer a year!

So where does that leave me? Like many frustrated authors, I could publish my work on the Internet for free, perhaps even on this blog right here! After all, here I have on my doorstep an audience in the millions - billions in fact - to showcase my work to.

Then again, the appeal of someone stumbling across my work by accident during a random Google search, and clicking off just as quickly, doesn't quite do it for me. And I get the feeling there is a good chance it could get lost in the billions of cyber pages out there (unless I name the book Click here for porn - that might get me a few more clicks!).

After all the hours I spent typing away at my laptop night after night, for months on end, my dream was not to see my words uploaded onto a computer screen in the hope that it might get seen. Call me old fashioned, but the goal of all my hard work was to finally see my words on the pages of a printed book, just like The Diamond Sūtra or The Gutenberg Bible all those centuries ago.

And apparently I am not alone in this way of thinking, hence why the self-publishing industry is now such big business.

According to US trade magazine Publishers Weekly, there are more then 86,300 publishing companies worldwide, with self-publishers making up a vast majority of that number. Depending on what figures you want to believe, it is estimated there are 300-400 mid-sized publishers, and six large well-known publishers. That leaves a huge number for the self-publishing fraternity to fall into.

Those figures might sound astonishing at first glance, but perhaps less so when you look at the figures published by Lulu.com, one of the largest self-publishing companies in the world. They have published work for over 1.1 million people since 2002, from more than 200 countries, and add 20,000 titles to their catalogue each month.

For someone like me, self-publishing not only represents a fantastic, yet daunting, opportunity to have my work published in both paperback and eBook form, but perhaps more importantly here is an example of where a print business has evolved with new technology, and is certainly thriving.

I want to find out more about this sector of the print industry that seems to be growing by the day, so tomorrow I am off to the London Book Fair at Earls Court to meet with Grace Rafael, who is Director of Indepenpress Publishing Ltd (Stand E205), in the main exhibition hall. Indepenpress have a successful self-publishing division and imprint, Pen Press, and it is with Pen Press that I will be self-publishing my book with.

This is the start of my journey to create a printed product, using all of the tools and technology at my disposal to make it a success, and to prove that print is not dead, it's simply evolving. I hope you enjoy the ride.

This blog was originally posted on printweek.com