Self Publishing Article in the NYT

I just read this article in the New York Times about Self-Publishing, written by Neal Pollack. Yesterday, I read that Amazon is selling more e-books than print books. Self-publishing has been working for me on a small scale, but I keep trying to get "published" the traditional way, while other seem to keep moving toward self-publishing. Hmmmm - am I going in the wrong direction? Any thoughts?

How to Publish Your e-Book on Amazon Kindle

I discovered this YouTube video and thought I'd pass it along to my writer friends:

Apple and the Kindle App

There's a lot of talk on the Internet about Apple's decision to require publishers to pay Apple 30% for any purchases made from inside an app, including e-books. (Example: if you buy an e-book on the Kindle app, the publisher of the book has to pay Apple 30%.)

HOWEVER, what is not being repeated is that customers can still use the Kindle app to read content they purchased elsewhere (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.), in which case Apple does not charge the publishers 30% of the purchase. (Read the "Correction" at the bottom of the article.)

If my understanding of this policy is correct, what's the problem? Apple is trying to make a profit like everyone else. Why shouldn't they charge if a purchase is made within their system? Apple still allows a reader to purchase e-books elsewhere and then access them on the iPad at no charge. The publisher, in this case, doesn't have to pay the 30% to Apple and the customers gets the benefit of reading his e-book on the iPad. Seems like a win-win to me.

Manufacturers of all products have to pay fees to anyone who distributes their products. In this case, the manufacturer is a publisher and the products are e-books. If the publisher wants to sell an e-book through more distribution channels (such as Apple), they will have to pay a fee for that channel.

As a reader, what does this mean for me? It's the same as any other product I buy. If I buy a product directly from the manufacturer, it will generally costs me less as the manufacturer doesn't have to pay the "middle man" or distributor. In the case of an e-book. I'll pay less if I can cut out the "middle man" or distributor.

Therefore, if you want to buy your e-book directly from inside an app, you'll have to pay more for that e-book. Otherwise, you'll need to go directly to a distributor (such as Amazon, B&N, Sony or even the authors themselves).

Just remember, the service of distributors is locating all these great books! If you don't know about them, you can't read them!

So whichever way you go, remember, everyone needs to make a profit to stay in business. No profit - no business. No business - no product (and no jobs!). That's the American way.

What are your thoughts?

Day 4: Sat. Session 4 and 5

Session 4: E-Publishing & Multimedia Options, Effective Strategies for Producing Yourself Online and Growing Readership with a panel made up of: David Carnoy, Andrew Schaffer, April Hamilton, and Jane Friedman

This was another panel discussion focusing on the tools of self publishing. Most of this was covered in the previous session. A few details were added, but again it was based on opinion and experience of each author.

Session 5 was the Pitch Slam, which I described in a previous post.

Day 4, Sat. Session 2

Do-it-Yourself Publishing and How to be Successful at It. This was a panel discussion with Jane Friedman, Patricia Davis, Moriah Jovan, David Carnoy, and April Hamilton.

Because this was a panel discussion, there were a variety of opinions on the topic. Too many to list here. As with all of us, they all had different ways of working, depending on their goals. The bottom line on this is that you need to have a goal for your writing: Do you want to be published traditionally? Are you more of an entrepreneur and rather do it yourself? Do you want to take time to learn how to publish your own books?

Some of the resources they covered were Create Space on Amazon, Lighting Source, Smashwords and Fast Pencil. They discussed pricing and mostly agreed that the sweet spot for e-books was $3.99 for fiction. Nonfiction has much more fluctuations and depended on supply and demand.

As a self-publisher, you can get your books into audio using PodioBooks.com.

You can get your books into libraries and bookstores by going through Lightning Source and Create Space.

If you're doing color books, they recommended creating an app rather than an e-book.

Self Publishing Article by David Carnoy

I found this informative article on self-publishing by David Carnoy (editor at CNET): Self-publishing a book: 25 things you need to know. He covers the why and how, as well as caveats of self-publishing. A must-read for anyone considering self-publishing.

Rubin Pfeffer Challenges SCBWI to join the Digital Age

Pfeffer, at SCBWI's Annual Conference last week made some interesting statements about e-books and e-book publishing. Read the article on Publisher's Weekly.

The future of books - interactivity!

I was amazed at Alice on the iPad (see my Alice review), but Jack and the Beanstalk proves that interactive books are only going to get better. Here’s why:

While Alice has exquisite graphics and fun animations, Jack and the Beanstalk has cute, kid-friendly graphics and LOTS of animations, PLUS music, interactions on every page, and games such as a memory game, a shape-matching game, bubble popping, and finger painting.

  

The interactions on Jack and the Beanstalk are things that kids will love to do like touch the screen to light the street lamp or start the fireworks, find hidden “easter” eggs that sing and wiggle, touch characters to make them talk or dance, and swipe to reveal hidden creatures in a lake and then count them.

You can turn “Narration Audio” off to read the story out loud yourself, but you may get tired of reading! Jack and the Beanstalk is a “book” that kids will want to “read” over and over again, not only to hear the fun story, but also to search for the hidden surprises.

And when you’re finished reading, you can go to the Ayars Website (www.ayarsanimation.com) and download the Jack and the Beanstalk coloring book for kids to color.

Jack and the Beanstalk works on the iPhone (3.2 or later) and iPod Touch, too. 

So, fellow authors and publishers, how can we take advantage of this new technology? Have YOU considered an app for that?

Visual Search - New Technology for Books

Macmillan raises royalty rates

Article on Author's Guild says that Macmillan is raising royalty rates on e-books to 25%.