I Went For A Book Walk Last Weekend Part 2

Truthfully, it's been a couple of weekends now. 

The Struggle To Sell

Events like the book walk organized by Nutmeg Lit Fest last month are all about bringing readers and books together. Which sounds very nice. What they're really about is money, which doesn't sound as nice. We are talking about marketing books. Whether you are a self-published or traditionally published author, marketing is difficult. In large part this is due to the 2 million books that are published each year, which I mentioned last time. There are nowhere near enough readers to read all those books. In fact, as I also mentioned, eighty percent of those books will sell fewer than 100 copies.

Given those facts, being able to sell more than 100 copies of a book becomes a major achievement. But what about some other figures?

A Traditionally Published Author

Hal Johnson sketching in my book

I met Hal Johnson, the author of  Impossible Histories, published by a Macmillan imprint, at the book walk. He was one of two traditionally published authors I talked to, though there may have been more there. In our conversation, Johnson said that he took part in events like this one because traditional publishers don't do much marketing anymore. This is something I hear a lot to the point that I'd almost call it common knowledge now. But I don't really know what it means, because it's been so long since I've had a book published, myself.

Back in my day, boys and girls, marketing from traditional publishers involved:

• Sending arcs of your books to professional review sites
• Including your books in their seasonal catalogs
• Maybe taking your book to teacher and library conferences 
• If your book received a certain number of starred reviews, you'd get an advertisement in a professional publication of some sort
• The Hero of Ticonderoga was included in a one of those box displays in bookstores, but I can't remember why.

Are traditional publishers doing less of the above now? Or does the above have less impact because of the overwhelming number of books out there? 

It doesn't matter, of course. The end result is the same. It's hard to sell traditionally published books.

My husband and I used to think that handselling like we saw at the book walk didn't matter, because the number of books you'd sell would be so small, it couldn't have an impact. But, remember, eighty percent of books published sell fewer than 100 copies. You want to sell more than 100 copies to get into the twenty percent! That seems doable by making the effort to handsell at events like this. Remember, someone told me at this book walk that s/he had sold 200 copies of a book in a few months. 

But what about the income involved, Gail? For a number of years, conventional wisdom claimed that most traditionally published books don't sell enough copies to earn back the author's advance, the advance being an advance against sales that traditional publishers pay authors upfront when they agree to publish a book. Recently (meaning just now) I've read that that isn't necessarily true. At any rate, the advance isn't the only money traditional publishers invest in books. They have to pay for:

• all editing, 
• layout and design, 
• interior artwork, if there is any, 
• cover illustrations, 
• design of the covers, 
• and all the marketing listed above. 

Will selling more than 100 books cover all that, making you look like a desirable risk your publisher might publish again? How many books do you have to sell to do that? Beats me.

The Self-Published Authors

Mike Jakubowski

Mike Jakubowski, author of The Kings of Beacon and Joey and the Ocean of Possiblities, was one of
the first authors I spoke to. I was drawn to his covers and learned that he had a friend who did the illustrations and another friend who did the design work for them. We agreed this was very significant, because the cost of self-publishing can get up there. 

In fact, that's why I always call self-published writers self-published and not independent. They have to bear the burden of finding people to do all the work described above that traditional publishers do for the books they publish, and they have to pay for it. Themselves. There are companies that will do that for writers, and I've seen costs for that going anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000. The companies I've read about didn't include a developmental editor, which is the most important and possibly the most expensive part of publishing.

But what about the income involved, Gail? You often see not having to share income with a publisher as being one of the benefits of self-publishing. But without a publisher, you don't have anyone to take on the financial risk of publishing. Authors have to pay for everything. Themselves. 

How many books do they have to sell to cover their expenses? Again, it beats me.

Gail Is Impressed

Yes, when I go to any of these book events, I am greatly impressed by the effort and ingenuity and expense the authors attending put into their marketing materials. 

I'm talking serious posters, for instance, such as the one that Greg Gilmartin had made of his book covers. In fact, glossy book cover posters are a very common thing. I still have a poster a book fair made of one of my covers, but it was some kind of digital printout glued to a poster board. In two decades things have improved. 

I saw table coverings like the one Hal Johnson had made printed with his book covers.

I try not to pick up bling at festivals, because I dabble in minimalism and environmentalism. So I don't have much of that to show. But we're not talking the Kinko's black and white bookmarks I handed out in schools back in the day or the business cards we made on our printer. We're talking about beautiful things. Lots of them printed on both sides!

Don't I sound as if I just came out of the hills?

What really freaks me out, though, are the canopies.

These writers often market outdoors, and in addition to lugging a fold-up table of some sort and a chair, they also have to carry canopies with them to protect them from the sun and, presumably, some light rain. 

Jordan Lopez has a canopy.

As does Kelly Jarvis.

 

And Sarah P. Blanchard.

 

One of 4 book walk stations.

As did most of the authors at the Wethersfield Book Walk. 

Now, I have a canopy on my deck. It's horrible to work with. The one we have now is only a year old, and we've already punched a hole in it. Dealing with canopies is not a minor task. These writers are putting in a lot of personal, physical work to market their books. 

I'm going to be honest. I don't want to say I'm too lazy to do this kind of thing, but I'm too lazy to do this kind of thing. I have cases of my out-of-print books and thought about trying to join an upcoming event just to sell off what I've got. But then I said, No. No, no, no.

There is at least one other group in Connecticut that organizes events for writers handselling their books. But this kind of thing is happening all over the country. Shopping for books in this way may be becoming as common as shopping in bookstores. Or on Amazon. 

Time Management Tuesday: Slow Writing and Privilege

Here we are on Week 3 of my slow writing arc.

Remember Week 1  Slow Writing In November Instead Of NaNoWriMo?

And Week 2  Week Two Of Slow Writing? That really should have had a more descriptive title, since it deals with trying to pin down what slow writing is. But Zen tells me not to dwell on the past.

So we are moving  on to Week 3, where we admit that slow writing is going to be problematic for some people, particularly those who need to generate income. To do so, I'm going to refer you to A Manifesto for Slow Writing  by John Fox at BookFox. 

I want to put out there that I have trouble with manifestos. They are way too doctrinaire for my tastes. It's not that I'm such a nonconforming rebel. But I can't even tolerate 90 percent of writing prompts I see, because eh, I don't want to write about that stuff. So, sure enough, I can't fall into step with some of this particular manifesto. But the first two items are definitely worth some thought. Only one of which I will address today. Because, as I said las t week, I practice slow writing here by writing about small aspects of a whole, rather than force feeding everything into one long piece, overwhelming for both you and me.

Those Who Don't Have the Option of Actively Resisting

Fox says in his manifesto, "Resist the commercial pressure to pump out manuscripts at breakneck speed." He then goes on to discuss Marilynne Robinson who went twenty years between publishing two well-known books. I'm not sure that that's a good model, because most writers at some point accept that they aren't Marilynne Robinson. Fox ends this part with "Everything in the writing industry pushes the writer forward at a quicker and quicker pace, and this machinery must be actively resisted." Manifesto indeed!

This is a cry-to-arms that can only be answered by those writers who can resist because they are privileged enough either to be making decent money from their work or to not need income from it.  All the other writers are dependent on the machinery to make whatever they can. Self-published writers, who aren't dependent on the writing industry, are in an even worse spot as far as being able to choose slow writing is concerned.

Self-published Book Writers and Slow Writing

A few decades ago, it wasn't unusual to read about self-published writers who were trying to pump out short novels multiple times a year. They did this because, without access to the book distribution avenues traditionally published authors had, they couldn't sell very many copies of any particular title. Many of them also weren't paying for editing, design, or professional cover illustration, the lack of which could have hampered sales as well. Since they couldn't sell many copies of any one particular title, they tried to have multiple titles available. Sales for each book multiplied by the number of books=trying to get a decent income.

I don't read about that much anymore, since the self-publishing world learned that in order to compete with traditionally published books, self-published writers would have to seek out and pay for editors, design people, illustrators, and even marketing...all the things traditionally published writers got automatically through their traditional publishers. You could say that having to do that slowed these writers down. But it was the administrative work of publishing that did it, not "slow writing."

Self-published Short-Form Writers and Slow Writing

Internet platforms like Medium and Substack provide the possibility of generating income for self-published writers of humor, essays, short stories, food writing, travel writing...you name it. They are self-publishing their work right there, though Medium includes publications that act, to some degree depending on which one you're dealing with, as gatekeepers should you want to submit to them. The income generated, though, is small. Sometimes ridiculously small. To date, I've only made fifty-five cents on Dinner at Shirley Farr's House, one of my more sophisticated pieces. (Keep in mind that there is always the possibility that I'll make a few more cents on this somewhere down the line and that if it had been published in most literary journals, I wouldn't have made anything.)

Like the self-published book-length writers in days of old, self-published writers at Medium increase their income by writing a lot. And I mean a lot. There are people there who try to write and publish every day. I know this, because one of the things many people write about is publishing on Medium. One woman wrote an article about the month she published as many stories there as I had in over three years. How-to articles are popular at Medium, especially articles on how to publish on Medium. A particularly interesting one was by a fellow who explained he spent three hours per article, which included Internet research and writing. There have been articles from writers complaining that some editors of publications don't respond the same day they submit. These writers have publishing schedules! 

At Medium you get paid a tiny amount for each reader you attract to a story. You may not have attracted a lot of readers for each piece you published this month, but if you published thirty pieces at a small number of readers per piece, you might be able to get some kind of payday for your effort. Additionally, if you publish a lot, some magic algorithm thing might happen and you could have your work promoted, that could attract followers, if you build up a few thousand followers those people will be seeing your work regularly and if a certain percentage of them read it...income!

Does this kind of rapid writing produce stellar results? Would slowing down maybe enhance things? Let's not go there.

My point, as I did state at the beginning, is that slow writing, which appears to be mainly a lifestyle not a true method of working, is going to be a hard sell for those writers who really need to sell regularly. 

How Likely Is This To Happen?

 Five Years and 2M Copies Later...is a fascinating story about a successful self-published author. J.M. Dalgliesh just landed a contract with a traditional publisher after writing and self-publishing twenty-two books in five years while serving as the primary caregiver for two children. My guess is that that traditional publisher is attracted by the large number of fans Dalgleish has acquired over the years...on his own.

These are the kinds of stories that lead so many people into self-publishing, most of whom don't get this result. I think that's because this great story misses something Dalgliesh did.

In order to write twenty-two books in five years, he had to be working incredibly hard. On top of that, he published twenty-two books himself. That's time consuming and requires some effort. And then he marketed twenty-two books himself. Even if he hired help for any of that, he had to find the help and interact with them. And while he was doing all that, he was caring for children. Please don't assume that this guy had nothing to do but write and publish, because he was home with kids.

Dalgliesh deserves a lot of respect for what he did. We absolutely should not assume that just anyone could do it.

The Weekend Writer: I Need Someone To Do This For Me

When self-publishing first became a thing, it wasn't unusual to see blog posts and personal opinion articles about how traditional publishers didn't do that much for writers, yet they kept so much of the cover price of a book. Writers could do what publishers do and keep everything they make in sales themselves! 

Over the years, it has come out that traditional publishers do thousands of dollars of work on every book they publish, work that their authors don't do and don't pay for. Self-publishers can, indeed, do this work themselves, and they do. But not only do they have to fund all the work themselves, paying for professional level editing, cover illustrations, design, and marketing, they also have to learn everything that needs to be done.

A case in point--printing.

Andrew Watson's Book Printing 101: What You Need To Know Before Approaching A Printer appeared at Jane Friedman's Blog. I don't mind admitting, I was shaken by all the details involved. 

Now, I suspect there are companies out there, Amazon might be one of them, where self-publishing authors can just press a few keys, and everything will be taken care of for them. But isn't somebody, somewhere, still making decisions about types of paper for the text and types of paper for the covers, and what types of hard covers, and on and on?   

I have probably said something similar to this here before, but it's worth saying again: You just can't exaggerate what self-publishers need to know to give their books a chance at being successful.

 

What Self-publishing May Be Good At

Why am I writing about Due North, an adult mystery by Melanie Jackson? Three reasons, people.

• It's self-published, as is the eBook edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff, which I am featuring here this month. (See how I just managed to mention Saving the Planet again?) From time to time, I try reading a self-pubbed book, in an attempt to provide a little support for authors doing what I've done myself.
• Due North is the best self-published book I've read to date. 
• And, finally, it's an excellent example of the importance of world-building in a realistic, nonfantasy/scifi story.

 

The Story

Due North is set in the remote Canadian town of McIntyre's Gulch. We're talking remote in a not- everybody-has-a-phone-or-even-a-radio-connection-to-the-outside-world remote. In a you-might-not- see-your-neighbors-for-a-few-days-during-a-snowstorm remote. In a there-are-only-two-church- services-a-month-when-a-person-of-the-cloth-comes-by remote. The red-headed residents of McIntyre's Gulch come in two varieties--McIntyres, who are related to one another, and "self-selected Joneses...transplants from the outside: refugees, outcasts, and sometimes actual outlaws." The McIntyres come by their red hair naturally. Some of the Joneses "owe a debt to L'Oreal and Clairol." Which I assume they must have to have flown in. I can't recall why the outsiders choose to go red, unless they're trying to blend in with the natives and thus not draw attention to themselves.Which they all have reasons to want to do.

This is a rough crowd choosing to live in a rough climate, because they need to get away from it all. A disturbance comes their very well-drawn world when a plane falls out of the sky. It's not so much the plane that's disturbing as what's in it. The McIntyres and the Joneses respond about the way you'd expect them to. And the owner of the plane's contents responds about the way you'd expect him to.

I have to say, it is often a chore to read self-published books, something I do to try to make myself feel as if I'm doing good. That was not the case with Due North at all. It was an enjoyable read.

The Traditional Publishing Problem

I can understand, though, why traditional publishers would have a problem with a book like this. It's described as being part of the Butterscotch Jones Mystery Series, though it's not really all that mysterious. It's also described as representing "a new genre of cozy thrillers." I don't know if thriller readers are looking for cozy. This book and its sequels are on the short side, too. In its paperback edition, Due North is only 123 pages. Some of the other books are even shorter. Maybe it would be better to call this a short, eccentric, caper story.

My point being that traditional publishers would probably have a problem fitting this book into a marketing niche. They wouldn't know how to sell it. Publishers are in the business of selling books. If they don't know how to sell one, it logically follows that they wouldn't see much point in publishing it.

What Self-publishing May Be Able To Do

When self-publishing works well, with good writing, editing, and production, it may be able to provide a home for books like Due North. I'm talking books that are square pegs that won't fit into round holes and can't be sold with a tried-and-true marketing plan that everyone's comfortable with. In this best of all possible self-publishing scenarios, the reading public would be offered more options, options they can't find in traditional publishing.

You'd need a self-pub reading market that knows these kind of quirky books exist, of course, and how to find them. I believe I stumbled upon Due North in my Twitter feed. Someone tweeted that the eBook was only 99 cents, so I took a chance on it. It was worth the gamble.

The Weekend Writer: You Really Can't Say Too Much About Developmental Editing.

Yeah, I know I’ve written about editing, particularly developmental editing, before. But it is one of the most important aspects of professional-quality writing, so I’m going to mention it again. At Prolixme a new, unpublished writer discusses developmental editing. She is interested in whether or not it is necessary before submitting a manuscript to agents. I’ve heard this question before over the last few years. But only in the last few years.

Because the eBook edition of Savingthe Planet & Stuff is self-published, I’m more interested in the question of developmental editing for books that don’t go the traditional route of agent to editors at publishing companies to the public. STP&S did receive professional developmental editing when it was originally published by G.P. Putnam's Sons. An issue my editor brought up? In early drafts, the adult characters were more interesting than the YA main character. Yet this was supposed to be a YA book. Good catch, Kathy.

Having been through the the developmental editing process with eight books, myself, I think it's pretty clear when a book I'm reading hasn't had developmental editing or has had the wrong kind. I've read a self-published book in which the title only connected with the last quarter of the book. If the last quarter of the book was what the story was about, it took way too long to get there. A developmental editor would have pointed that out. I've read a self-published book that described itself as YA in which the YA character disappeared for a third of the story. That portion focused on an adult character we hadn't seen before. The author's note sounds as if there may have been developmental editing for that book. I wonder if the editor was familiar with YA. Long, unnecessary passages...characters who sound too much alike...awkward point-of-view switches...all these things should be pointed out by a good developmental editor.

I don't think developmental editing is necessary before submitting to agents, but it's certainly necessary before publishing. From what I've read, knowledgeable self-publishing writers realize this.

The Weekend Writer: New Writers, Please Look Before You Publish

I began the Weekend Writer project a little over two years ago, because I was upset when a friend from high school was being pressured by a salesperson from some kind of pay-to-publish company. Last month in my local newspaper, I read about someone who had just published her first book. She had considered self-publishing, she said, but thought it was too expensive. Then she found a traditional publisher interested in her subject.

I had never heard of this publisher, but I'm not queen of the publishing world. I haven't heard of everybody. So I googled the name. Guess what? It was a pay-to-publish company. There's nothing wrong with that. Some self-published writers do use them. The issue here is that according to the interview this woman gave to the paper, she didn't know. She thought this company was a traditional publisher. A librarian friend who had seen the article said, "Isn't she going to get a bill at some point?"

What makes this story more disturbing is that when I googled the company name, the fourth site that came up was one at which writers who had paid the company to publish for them were reporting problems they'd had. We're talking a pay-to publish company with unhappy customers.

Don't Rush To Publish

You hear the expression "rush to publish" now in relation to self-publishing authors who want to get their book out right away. Speaking from experience, I can say that preparing a manuscript for publication can be nearly as much work as creating it in the first place. Writers need to learn nearly as much about publishing these days as they need to learn about writing. The difference between traditional vs. self-publishing seems as if it should be the very minimum writers should know. However, I've heard of other authors being asked questions by self-publishing authors that indicated that those particular self-publishers didn't have even a basic understanding of what traditional publishers do.

Wouldn't you know it, I have covered this issue here before: The Difference Between Traditional Publishing And Self-Publishing. If you are a new writer beginning to think about publishing, please read it.

But Let's Add To The Confusion

The line between traditional and self-publishing has become wobbly because some major traditional publishers have added self-publishing services, and many of them are all using the same company to provide those services. Check out Author Solutions and Friends: The Inside Story by David Gaughran at Let's Get Digital.

The bottom line here, folks, is that writers who plan/hope to publish need to educate themselves about publishing.

Jerry Craft And The Craft Model

I met Jerry Craft last week at Avon Free Public Library's Children's Authors Night. Very soon thereafter, Publishers Weekly included him in an article on a book he illustrated that is being published this month by Scholastic.

Here's what I find interesting about this:  Jerry self-published his first Mama's Boyz book in 1996. And now he's illustrating a book for Scholastic and getting written up in Publishers Weekly! But it's not 1996 anymore. It's 2014. Jerry didn't go directly from self-publishing to working with a traditional publisher. In between he's worked as a cartoonist on graphic novels for Marvel and Harvey Comics, his cartoons have have been syndicated through King Features, where he also worked in sales, and he was the Editorial Director for the Sports Illustrated for Kids web site. He's also done covers for other authors' self-published books. 

My point is, he did not self-publish a book and become some kind of over-night sensation. He maintained creative day jobs while working toward success. To me, this is a great and realistic career model.

The Weekend Writer: The Hybrid Author

Since The Weekend Writer is a series for new writers, I'll send those readers over to the IndieReCon site to study up on hybrid writers. Hybrid writers, like my car that runs on both gas and electricity, operate two ways.  They publish both traditionally and on their own.

Notice that agent Lara Perkins says that among the benefits of being a hybrid author is "hybrid authors often enjoy greater creative control over self-published titles and over the scope of their career since they have more control over what to publish, when, and how." An example? I'm familiar with a situation in which a traditionally published children's author is interested in pursuing publication for an adult work. (Hmm. Another type of hybrid?) Her agent and publisher are discouraging her, wanting her to be firmly branded as a children's author first. The writer is concerned about striking while the iron is hot (she's done well with her first book). Also, branding could be a two-edged sword. The adult publishing world may not be interested in her once she's been branded as not one of them. There's definitely an issue there about who is in control.

Notice that Perkins also writes about the challenges for hybrids. They are essentially "running a small business." It is "a tremendous amount of work." And speaking from experience, I can tell you that while you're doing the tremendous amount of work of running the business, you have trouble finding time to do more writing. For all the control that traditional publishers get over writers, they also take over a lot of the nonwriting burden of publishing.

Understand the pros and cons of both types of publishing.

Retreat Reading: Self-publishing

Some interesting bits relating to self-publishing that I gathered while on retreat with no snow a few weeks back.

Ten Things I've Learned From Evaluating Self-Published Books for a Year  at Writer Unboxed  Notice that 2, 3, 6, and 8 involve very basic issues.

Companies book profits from self-publishing Who is making money from self-publishing?

Five Mistakes KILLING Self-Published Authors  Pay particular attention to Number 5.

E-book Sales Are Leveling Off. Here's Why.  This writer contends that the death of the paper book was announced way too soon, and that eBooks and traditional books will co-exist. Why is this of particular interest to self-published writers? Because eBook self-publication is cheaper and easier than paper self-publishing and has been seen as the way to go for many self-publishers.

The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators has established the Spark Award for self-published children's books. Applicants must be a member of the SCBWI.

Weekend Links: Carnival Of The Indies Edition

I took part in the most recent Self-Publishing: Carnival of the Indies. I also managed to visit a number of the other contributors. My favorites:

Book Cover Design: Judging a Book by Its Cover--Part I at WGB.  If I ever self-publish another eBook, I'll pass this along to Computer Guy.

Should You Convert Your Ebook Yourself, Or Hire A Professional? at Learn Out Live. I should have passed this on to Computer Guy before self-publishing Saving the Planet & Stuff.

Why Self-Publishing Needs a Sundance (and Who Should Be Redford) at Electronic Bindery. It's hard to believe there isn't one.

How I Created My First Podcast  at Small Blue Dog Publishing. I did send this one to Computer Guy. I love listening to podcasts while I'm working in the kitchen. (Yeah, as my Facebook friends can tell you, I don't mind spending time in a kitchen.) I have a podcast fantasy.

Team Indie Author Games: Elevator Book Pitch at Electronic Bindery.   Possible conference workshop?

The Elementary Marketing Tactic You Don't Know You're Missing at Be a Freelance Blogger. It's just one word. It is important in blogging, and I'm not sure how many writers realize it.

Self-publishing And Web Presence

Since I've been maintaining the Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar, I've been noticing an odd little quirk regarding the web presence of some of our local self-published authors. While it is common for self-published authors to have websites and blogs as sophisticated as anything you'll see in the world of traditional publishing, as well as Facebook pages, Google+ accounts, and Twitter feeds, it's also not unusual to see some self-published authors who have done nothing at all to market themselves on the Internet. I'll see authors making appearances at bookstores and when I try to find some information on them to link to within the CCLC, there is nothing. If I make a big effort (and I shouldn't have to--really, I shouldn't), I may find a small article in a local paper about Joe/Josephine Blow having published a book. And that's it. But sometimes I don't even find that.

What's going on here? you may ask. I certainly did.

In some cases, we may be talking about very inexperienced writers who are living the write-it-and-they-will-come fantasy. They may not realize that writers need to do something more than publish a book in order to find readers.

In other cases, we may be talking hobbyists, people who just want the experience of seeing their names on a book. Though why those folks are then making an appearance at a bookstore is a mystery. 

In either case, if they sat down and tried to come up with a plan to make it difficult for readers to find them, they couldn't do better than what they're doing, which is nothing.

I, of course, am interested in children's and YA writers for my children's literature calendar. I have occasionally come across writers who have chosen ambiguous titles and covers for their children's books. Unless the bookstore clearly labels these authors' events for children, and sometimes they don't, potential visitors/buyers can't even tell what age group the book is for and, thus, whether or not they're interested. If, on top of that, these authors have no web presence, there is no way to determine what their work is or who it is for.

Now, yes, traditionally published authors may not market themselves professionally, either. But the situations I have stumbled upon have all involved writers of the self-published persuasion.

I've had to put in some extra time and effort tracking down these people this past year. For the sake of my own work, I've recently made a couple of decisions: 1. If I can't find an obvious children's author's website immediately, I will list the event with no link for the author. 2. If I can't determine from the bookstore's marketing that an author has written a children's book, I can no longer justify taking the time to hunt down that information. That author's event just won't be listed.

Not only do these authors miss opportunities to connect with readers because they haven't put in the work to market themselves on the Internet, they also miss opportunities for professional networking. It isn't necessary to do every single form of Internet marketing, but it's hard to understand why someone wouldn't do at least one thing.

Speed Writing

Since I've been dabbling in self-publishing, I've been reading a lot about the need to have multiple books available for your reading public. You may not be able to rack up big sales on one title, but if you are getting okay sales on a number of titles, you can generate the kind of income writers who do rack up big sales on one title generate. If you follow my thinking.

This involves cranking out some writing, though. Writing on the Ether: Faster, Authors, Faster! at Jane Friedman deals with "The pressure to write faster, write more" on what author Porter Anderson calls "entrepreneurial writers." By that I believe he means those self-published writers who embrace their roles as publisher/businesspeople. Not only do these writers need to build a body of work for the reason I mentioned earlier, maintaining enough titles to bring in income, if they are series/serial writers who have built up a following, their fans may be pressuring them for more, more, more. And, practically speaking, writers in that situation may want to get more out there before the fans have forgotten them and moved on to someone else.

Traditionally published authors of stand alone titles are unlikely to feel much pressure to get a lot of books out into the world so that they have more to sell. In my experience, publishers aren't going to be keen to do that without some big sales of an earlier work. However, traditionally published authors of successful series/serials probably are under that same kind of pressure, especially if you're talking children's authors. If you have an 8- to 12-year-old fan base excited about your work, you probably don't want to make them wait too long for the next installment or they may have aged out. You can't be sure the next group of 8- to 12- year-olds will find the same author as engaging as their elders did. This is a case where striking while the iron is hot is important.

In Anderson's post, he writes about the feeling among many writers that they just can't keep up with the pace. I'm going to suggest that speed writing is particularly difficult for organic writers who spend so much time writing and rewriting preliminary work, which is usually how we come up with a basic story in the first place. Then we have to get it into shape later. And all writers have to deal with the fact that while they may feel they need to work faster, they have less time in which to work, period, because of marketing demands.

For those who are trying to speed up, I recently read about writing sprints, intense writing in 20 or 30 minute blocks over and over throughout the day. For my Time Management Tuesday followers, this sounds like the Unit System, but sprinters choose to work in even shorter periods of time.

And if you're willing to try something well outside the box, scroll down through the comments following the Faster, Authors, Faster! post. One commenter/writer uses a polyphasic sleep schedule to make more time for writing.

If you find a way to make more time to write, can you slow down?

What's A Self-Publishing Author To Do?

I've been collecting articles on self-publishing, and this post is an attempt to lay them out in some kind of meaningful order. They deal with conflicting attitudes toward the subject.

First off, The Real Costs of Self-Publishing a Book at Media Shift. I think a similar article appeared at last summer's IndieRecon. In a nutshell, this writer contends that self-publishing can cost from $3,600 to $37,000. (That's in round numbers.) The high end figure is for a book that needs a lot of editing and whose author has purchased reviews at Kirkus, Publishers Weekly Select, and BlueInk Reviews. Be sure to read some of the early comments on this article. I've read elsewhere to expect to pay around $1,000, anyway, but that's for a book that's not had much done for it in the way of professional editing or marketing or, probably, cover art and design.

The big expense for self-published writers is developmental editing, so finding a good editor is important. Jane Friedman's site offers 5 Ways to Find the Right Freelance Book Editor

Freaked out by the possible expense involved with self-publishing? Friedman has created a graphic describing the Key Book Publishing Paths that could help self-publishing authors come up with the best publishing plan for the money they have to spend.

Okay, so now you've spent your money and published your book. How many copies do you have to sell to Make a Self-Published Bestseller? Answer: A lot.

The future is no fun: Self-publishing is the worst got a lot of attention when it was published at Salon early last month. Again, interesting comments. This guy's self-publishing experience had barely begun, and he was already disappointed. A lack of understanding about how to market a self-published book looks to have been a factor here.

The Future Of Self-Publishing  deals with traditional writers' anxiety that self-publishing "is an awful lot  of work" and involves "a steep learning curve." The author, Suw Charman-Anderson, is realistic about  self-publishers' chances of getting reviews. "Access to book reviewers, for example," she says, "can be problematic for the self-published. At the very least it’s highly time-consuming to do the research into which reviewers read in your genre and which of those accept unsolicited books from self-published authors. At worst, there’s a whole swathe of reviewers who are simply out of reach of self-publishers." But she holds out hope that things will change, that eventually it will take less of self-published authors' time to get going and the financial burden of hiring freelancers will lessen if their careers move along faster.

So today's links suggest that for all the self-publishing angst being experienced now, there is still a chance that the self-publishing model will become more and more workable.

Saving The Planet eBook Now Available For Kobo

The Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook is now available for Kobo, as well as Nook and Kindle. All three of my eBooks published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, Happy Kid!, A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat, and A Girl, a Boy, and Three Robbers, are also available in all three formats.

While Kobo isn't as well known as Kindle and Nook, it is supposed to account for 20% of the e-reader market. In addition, Kobo has a relationship with the American Booksellers Association, which involves independent booksellers selling both the Kobo readers and eBooks.

Thus making their eBooks available on Kobo gives self-published writers an opportunity to maintain some kind of connection with independent booksellers.

Who Can Get You Into A Bookstore?

Last week I briefly mentioned a blog post I'd read called Eisler on Digital Denial. Author Barry Eisler wrote about his contention that the one major benefit traditional publishers can offer writers is distribution to "real" stores. Some folks disagreed with him. Tweeting was involved. It was all quite exciting.

While eating lunch just now, I stumbled upon Self-Publishing is for Control Freaks at the Forbes website. It appears to have been published a couple of days after Eisler's post at A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. The article is about a report on what authors look for when deciding whether to self-publish or seek out a traditional publisher. It concludes with this: "However, according to the report, distribution is far and away the most important factor and that should be comforting to publishers because, at this point, established publishers are the only reliable path into bricks-and-mortar bookstores, where a large proportion of sales are still made."

Only four comments follow the Forbes article. Eisler's article at A Newbie's Guide to Publishing got 185. Not that it's a competition, but either one readership found the concept waaaay more interesting than the other, or one site has more readership to begin with. Or something.