I’m so busy in fact I have no new post for you yet…but I thought I would take a page from Chuck Wendig’s (blood stained, written on human skin) book and send you a few links to places of interest on the net:

First and foremost if you’re even thinking of self publishing you need to go and check out Robin Sullivan’s series of posts (click to go to part one) about Goodreads and how to best use Goodreads to get your work out into the world.

Speaking of the Sullivan’s, Michael J. Sullivan has a series of posts anyone thinking of writing should check out. It’s his writing advice, learned through doing the hard yards in front of a keyboard for years, distilled into easy to absorb bites. He’s up to post eighteen now, so I suggest starting there and working backwards.*

Despite some site issues, Mur Lafferty keeps pumping out excellent interviews and podcasts over at ISBW. It should go without saying that you should be listening.

I mentioned the bearded man above, did you know that Chuck Wendig has a novella out called Shotgun Gravy? You can read a excerpt right here.

Dina James has a new book on its way that has a new take on the Urban Fantasy genre (or at least one I haven’t hit before). Her book is called All Wounds and I’ll get you guys a review as soon as I can. In the mean time Dina’s site is here and you can get All Wounds from Amazon here. 

* I know I pimp the two Sullivan’s a lot, but between the two of them the’ve given out an incredible amount of free advice, detailed plans and just generally been pretty cool about everything.

A short bit of background: Ridan Publishing is the e-publishing house behind Michael J Sullivan’s Ririya Books (just about to come out from Orbit after massive success as an indie), Nathan Lowell’s Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series and, among publishing works many other super talented authors, Ridan also publish the ebook version of Joe Halderman’s Forever War.

Robin is determined to share what she knows about publishing, which turns out to more than enough to fill several books. I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did.

Interview:

What do you think is the single biggest mistake self published authors make?

Well I’m going to start by assuming that the book is already a quality product. That it is well written and edited and therefore “ready” to be published. I don’t want to give the impression that ANY book can be successful. You have to start with quality first as there is nothing that can save a bad book.  But if you indeed have a quality product than I think that the biggest mistake is a pretty broad one and has to do with mindset. It is imperative for the author to take off their creative artist hat and start to think like a businessperson. This has a trickledown effect to all aspects of their book rollout – pricing, cover design, title choice, back of the book blurb, and so on.

Let’s look at something as simple as title. Most authors come up with their book’s titles very early in the process with no thought about marketing. You have to think about things such as “search engine optimization” which basically means how likely is it to find your using Google.  For instance, one of Michael’s early books had a working title of “Wizards” but I would never release a book with that title. It is much too broad and would be nearly impossible to get dominance. If you type Wizards into Google right now there are 81,500,000 results. We selected the titles for Michael’s books very carefully. For instance if you type Nyphron Rising, it returns 19,000 links and while I’ve not gone through all of them I looked through the first 10 pages (100 entries) and each one was relate to Michael’s third book. This title has great SEO. Even if all you remembered was the Nyphron part you still get all entries related to Nyphron Rising.

The other issue with title selection has to do with what it conjures in people’s mind. I’m currently reviewing a great thriller by a new author. It is a about a female CIA agent who is after a criminal who starts off with a simple crime and escalates the stakes with each one. At each crime scene a card is left behind saying, “This was my xx crime, the next one will be bigger.” Taped to the card is a stick of gum (the first crime was stealing that pack of gum). The author’s title is, The Bubble Gum Thief. but this makes me think of so­­me kind of Scooby Doo or Encyclopedia Brown Boy Detective book where an eight year old is investigating some mystery. So I would definitely re-title this before release.

Title choice is just one of a myriad of issues that has to be thought of from a “publishers” standpoint and not a “writers.” So if you don’t start out by changing your mindset early you’ll make a ton of small mistakes along the line that will all add up in the long run.

Conversely, have you seen any moves made by authors or publishers that you thought was brilliant and adopted it into the way you do things?

Oh, all the time. I’m in a constant state of learning and believe in standing on the shoulders of giants. I’m always incorporating new techniques and ideas. One of the great things about the Internet, and indie authors in general, is that they are willing to share what has made them successful. In general we are a community of underdogs all pulling together and in blogs, and forums like Kindle Board’s Writer’s Café information flows very freely. In my talks (I regularly give free lectures to writers in the DC area) I’m always telling them to watch people who are successful and copy them.

I’ve been at this for years so the list is too large to fully talk about here so I’ll just pull a few examples off the top of my head.

Todd Fonseca  - did a fantastic job with opening my eyes to the advantages of tagging books on Amazon. This was not an area that I knew much about until I ran into him and after learning from him I saw just how beneficial this could be.

Joe Konrath – does a great job of leveraging “like authors”.  He does a lot of co-authoring, which introduces his fans to other writers and vice versa. He also puts excerpts of other authors in his books to give author friends of his exposure.

John Locke – recently wrote a great book, How I sold 1,000,000 ebooks in 5 months. I was pleasantly surprised by this little gem of a book (a steal at $4.99) because I thought he was going to tell me that his “trick” was write a bunch of books quickly and price them at $0.99 – I was so very wrong and I love his whole approach.

Simon Sinek – is not an author, but he has a fantastic talk on TED (ideas worth spreading*)  that really solidified for me something that I knew but had never articulated before. In a nutshell he explained why certain people or organization inspire and it is because they think, act, and communicate in exactly the opposite way of everyone else – which is to say they start with “why”, rather than “what”. It’s a great presentation and well worth the 18 minutes it takes to watch it.

I just finished John Locke’s book and I can vouch for it too. Something I’ve heard you speak about before and we touched on in the last interview is e-book pricing. John Locke is all about the 99 cents, even if his sales strategy isn’t and he’s clearly done well for himself.

Do you think all authors should try a period of 99 cent pricing, or is it better to go higher? Clearly you can make more money in the 2.99-5.99 bracket, but I’m thinking in terms of marketing as well as pricing. 

Pricing is, without a doubt, the most highly contentious issue in ebooks among various indie authors.  I do think there are two wildly different demographics of readers…some who only buy from the low-end and those that buy books that they are truly interested in, as long as they are reasonably priced. Each author needs to decide for themselves which of these pools they want to draw their readers from. I fall into the second camp so I’m one of the few indies that routinely price my books at $4.95 and this price point works very well for Ridan.

I personally think many authors choosing the $0.99 and $2.99 do so because of a lack of confidence in their own work. I hear over and over again statements like, “Well I’m a new, unknown author so I have to price at that level to give people an incentive to buy my book.” All authors are new to a specific reader at some point, and I think it is a better strategy to market yourself, such that people are interested in buying your book, then they won’t balk at $2.99 or $4.99. I think those pricing at $0.99 are sending the wrong message, saying to the world that the author doesn’t value their own work, which makes me wonder why the reader should value the product.

I also worry that using $0.99 routinely could create a self-imposed self-published ghetto. The types of numbers required to generate a living wage at $0.35 a book is huge, and if you can produce those kinds of numbers, then your books will have a word-of-mouth following and a higher price (again as long as it is still reasonable) won’t dissuade readers.  Many say that it is the buyer that dictates what a book is worth, but if $0.99 is the only price we give them then it is the seller who is training the buyer on what to expect.

One last thing to mention about the $0.99 price is that a sale may not translate into a reader. Some people buying at the low end are collecting books like seashells on the beach. They have huge to be read piles of these low cost bargains, most of which will never be read. Some authors are just fine with that, others are more concerned with building a fan base and when your book is priced higher the likelihood of it being read goes up

To obtain a higher price point I think all indie authors should put their work out under a publishing imprint label (even if they are the only author on that label). I priced all Ridan books (except book #5 of my husband’s very popular Riyria Revelations series – which is priced at $6.95) at just under $5.  Books from large established publishers are routinely priced at $6.99 – $14.99 so in this playing field $5 is a bargain but still indicates a quality product.  I position my books not with other self-published authors but with established professionals.

Now, that being said…I track a lot of stats on the Amazon top 100 and have done pricing experiments of my own, and I can say that $0.99 and $2.99 can work to sell a lot of books. In fact in the 8 or 9 month’s I’ve been watching, only one fiction title has hit the top 100 at anything above $2.99, and that was the third in J.R. Rain’s Vampire series at $3.99.  I’ve had a few Ridan authors come close (Michael hit 102 and Nathan 112) priced at $4.95 and there have been a few non-fiction books who have done this, John Locke’s book I mentioned earlier and a title by Seth Godin who is a marketing superstar. But most of the titles that have been in the Top 100 did so at $0.99 for a first book and $2.99 for subsequent books. But even when you are not in the top 100 you can sell a ton of books.  Soldier of the Legion sold 6,300 books in June with rankings of 200-240. Full Share sold 4,400 books with a ranking from 150 – 650.

My best advice is to watch your timing, track the results, and adjust as necessary. You SHOULD experiment with different prices. If you use $0.99 to get high in the Amazon ranking, don’t leave it at that price too long.  Think of it as a “sale” to get some attention, but then return it to a more profitable price while it is still generating good volume.  Remember to think like a businessperson, which means working to maximize income. As long as you analyze the results at various levels you’ll find the “right price” for your particular books – but keep in mind that price may vary with time and season and again, adjust and analyze.

Given that the majority of Ridan’s promotion is done through blogs, reviews and sites like Goodreads, what do you think of the idea of paid advertising, such as ads on other websites?

As someone who used to own and operate an advertising agency that managed paid advertising budgets for many companies, I should say that it is an excellent idea, but alas I don’t. (And didn’t even when I was placing ads on the behalf of my clients, but I couldn’t convince them of this).

The big problem with paid advertising is that you can’t dip your toes in it. Advertising is all about impressions, and it takes 6 – 10 impressions before you start to make a dent into a person’s buying decision consciousness. So you have to make a pretty substantive investment over a pretty extended period of time (3 – 6 months). All that can add up to big dollars. In marketing we are always looking for ROI (return on investment) and most ads will have a negative ROI and we chalk up the dollars spent to “mindshare building” that may get sales that we can’t measure to it. Because a well thought out paid advertising strategy has a high investment the chances of you earning back are slim.

Other than writing a good book, what do you think represents the best ROI for an author as far as paying for help goes. For example paying for a pro editor to look at the manuscript, or a pro artist to make the cover?

That’s a tough one because it really depends on the writer and where they have strengths or weaknesses. Let’s first look at the production tasks that would normally be handled by a traditional publisher: developmental editing, copy editing, print book layout, ebook layout, and cover design.  The short answer is you need to spend your money on whatever of those tasks you aren’t good at, would take too much time, or you can’t learn.

Let’s take the easiest ones first.  Print book layout and ebook layout.  At one time I would have said hire a freelancer to do print book layout, but I recently ran across a good set of videos on the web that shows you how to do this yourself pretty easily.  For those that are interested you can find it here. Ebook layout is ridiculously easy. (I’m going to do a similar video above one of these days) If you type in kindle formatting to the Kindle store you’ll find more than 100 books (some priced at $0.99 or $2.99) that will show you how and since it only takes an hour or two I say do this yourself as well.

The toughest ones are editing, because it depends on how self-aware an author is about his/her writing. I happen to consider myself an exceptional developmental editor. I can take any book and immediately see if it is “good to go” or whether it needs restructuring. I find plot holes and notice character motivations problems and in most cases they can be fixed very easily. There have been many times where I’ve substantially added to a book, but the reality is that it would have been okay to go to market without what I did to it. In other cases, the books would have failed without the rework.

There are many times when writers, who I’ve come to know online, will send me their books asking for an opinion.  In many cases these books, that the author thought were ready for prime time still need substantial work. And in some cases they’re unfixable…mainly because the author just hasn’t mastered the skill of writing yet. These are the books that shouldn’t be self-published but the author is not self-aware enough to know that is the case.

Finding a developmental editor is difficult and expensive. If your book needs substantial developmental editing then it’s probably not worth investing dollars in because it will just take too much heavy lifting to get it where it needs to be.  Knowing whether you need it or not is the trick.

That leaves us with cover design and copy editing. By copy editing I mean little grammar nits like comma placement, verb noun agreement, missing words, repeated words, and homophone errors.  There are many ways to get this assistance at a reasonable price so I think that this is worth the investment. But again think about ROI.  Spending several thousand for this is going to make it really hard to earn that money back.  Spending a few hundred is probably money well spent.  The big issue with this is you can edit until the cows come home and there will still be a nit here or there.  There is a point of diminishing returns where the cost to find one or two errors is not worth the herculean efforts to find them.  Some readers of self-published books are VERY critical of minor grammar infractions. Where a so called “professional” book from a traditional publisher can have one or two typos that are dismissed, a self-published book with the same typos could be ridiculed as “poorly edited.” I think in many ways self-published books have to twice as good because many people are looking for them to fall short. So that’s a long way of me saying a “reasonable” expense for copyediting is a good thing, in my opinion.

As to cover design, again it depends on whether you have any skill in this area.  Again, you have to set a high standard here and bottom line is you need to make a book that someone could not recognize as “self-published”.  My husband did all the covers for his books, and many people have said they like them more than the “professional” covers done by his big-six publisher.  No one suspects these books as being self-published from looking at them. But most people don’t have the graphic talent of Michael.  But, you don’t need to. If you look at other covers in your genre and “mimic” what you see then you can probably produce something on your own.  A great example is Christopher Smith’s Fifth Avenue. There is essentially no “graphic” on this book – just the hint of a NY skyline but the color and font treatment mirrors what you’d see on a James Patterson book. If you are doing something on your own – I suggest that “less is more” and the most important aspect is the font treatment for title and author’s name.  If you study a bunch of books you like – you may be able to produce something similar. If you simply can’t make that jump, and no matter how hard you try your results look “self-published” then yeah you should hire someone to do this. Again, there are ways to do this “on the cheap”. You need to keep the cost down so $200 – $400 would be the most I would spend on this.

When you first started Ridan, when was the point where you thought that you and Michael could do it all (covers, editing, publishing etc)? Was it a gradual realization that you had the skills between you or was it something you set out to achieve just between the two of you?

We knew from the start that we were in good shape because of our combined backgrounds. In many ways, all the jobs we had held up to that point had provided the tools required.  For instance, Michael’s graphic skills came from doing thousands of graphic arts jobs for various clients at our advertising agency. He already was in an expert in the various programs: InDesign, Photoshop, etc.  We had created hundreds of websites for clients so making one for ourselves was easy.  I had a lot of knowledge about online selling because I had been a product manager for a software company that created tools for people to sell online.  And of course we were already highly knowledgeable about branding, marketing, and how to reach an audience.

The things I had no clue about were, distribution for print books and  file formats for ebooks. The good news is there are many people who have come before and are more than willing to share their experiences with. I read Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual  (free at the library) and this, while a bit dated because it was pre-ebook revolution, really helped to get me to see that it really wasn’t as daunting as would be expected. For ebook formatting – I just started with Google and followed my nose. That was many years ago and today you can find dozens of books on ebook formatting just by going to the Kindle store.

The one thing I knew I would need outside help for, was copy editing. My background was in Software and Advertising, not English and grammar. Developmental editing wasn’t an issue, because as I mentioned before I’m really good at dissecting a story and knowing how to restructure , trim, or add, to make it the best it could be.

The good news, is there are a lot of freelance people out there that do this type of work. The bad news, if it seems that no one single person gives me the results, at the standards I want. What I mean about this is some people are good at catching one type of problem, while someone else is good at another. I’ve run extensive experiments (with more than 100 editors at a time) where I give them all the same 5 pages to edit/return and believe it or not no two are ever alike.  Some miss something like a closing quotation mark, others overlook missing words, some are great at finding misused words (further vs farther) but no one got a 100% on  my test by finding “all the errors” I inserted – regardless of the price I was willing to pay.  I think a lot of it comes down to how much attention to detail you have and whether you are the type of person that errors jump off the page at you.  In many cases, I’ve found avid readers to be more successful at finding errors than seasoned professional who make a living from copy editing.

I also became frustrated because the “so called experts” would disagree with one another.  Especially on hotly debated issues like the serial comma, or when to offset an introductory phrase with a comma (Some say always, others say that is “old school” and excessive and should be removed except when absolutely necessary to avoid confusion, still  others  will decide on the number of words).

In the end, a lot of it comes down to attention to detail and how passionate you are about eradicating the mistakes. While Michael’s big-six editors are VERY good, I would still find errors during proofing that they missed.  I think it is nearly impossible to find all the problems, but in order to minimize editing errors I’ve done a lot of self-education and now do a lot of it myself. I’ll still pay freelancer’s to do a “first pass” but then I find myself having to go over their work as a safety net to prevent any little things from getting through.

My next set of questions will be around Michael’s move to Orbit and where you see Ridan going next. Is there anything else you’d like to say on self publishing/indie publishing? 

For self-publishing/indie publishing…the bottom line is I think it is an exceptional opportunity for anyone with the following:

a) talent b) skill (notice these are two different things), and c) an entrepreneur spirit.  Writing in general takes a lot of persistence and perseverance. Whether it’s making it through the mass rejections of the query-go-round. Or fighting to get some mind share in the self-publishing world. There are no quick and easy answers, but for those willing to roll up their sleeve and work hard – there are great opportunities.

Michael (Michael J Sullivan)  is very lucky to have you in his corner! Speaking of Michael, he’s just sold his six book series the Riyria Revelations to Orbit books and the six books, now three larger tomes, are due to start being released in November. How has the process been for you, moving from having a lot of control over the books to sharing that control with Orbit?

Thanks.  I think he is pretty aware of that by this point. As to Orbit…well considering what control freaks both Michael and I are, one would think that it would be a nightmare waiting to happen but the opposite is actually true. I think there are several reasons for this. First Orbit has been a great choice.  Our agent actually had several publishers interested in the series and we chose Orbit because of the books and authors they have selected in the past and what they have done with them. They seem to “choose well” and have had several New York Times Best Sellers as well as books that have won many of the industry awards, even though they are a relatively new imprint (from a big-six parent company – Hachette Book Group).  The fact that they don’t produce as many titles a year as say, Tor, was very attractive…again going back to that whole “being selective” stand point.  But they really got my attention when they said they wanted to fast-track the books and put them out in three consecutive months. Usually you have to “wait in line” as the production schedules are already full and follow-on books can take six months or more to get scheduled.  When we first went looking for a publisher we figured it would take a long time to find a taker and we thought the last book would have been released before we got any nibbles. That turned out not to be the case and as we were very anxious to get that last book out we’re glad to have the series fast-tracked and the time between books so negligible.

The one thing I was really concerned about was editorial changes. I had heard over and over again most authors NEED substantial developmental editing of their books and I wasn’t so sure how Michael was going to take criticism as was really happy with how they had come out. What if Oribit wanted to replace Royce with a female thief? Or decided certain characters had to go? What if they put some “new editor” on the book with far less expereince than Michael? There were so many potential pitfalls. As it turned out Orbit put their senior editor on the project, Devi Pillai, and I had heard fantastic things about her from other authors who are much more knowledgeable than I am about who the good editors are. This gave me some encouragement that any changes would have a good foundation. We were amazed when the edits came in as there were so few changes and what there was, was very minor and easy to implement.  Devi’s comments were that Michael’s books were very “clean” which basically meant they were structurally sound and as such really didn’t require much work at all. We added a new first chapter to book one, and added some clarification to certain people and places but all in all the two editions are almost identical.

As for releasing control for things such as cover design, marketing copy and the like. Michael really just abdicated all this to Orbit. They have a good track record and terrific people working on the team so there was no reason for him to muck with those aspects. The fact that he had already had the opportunity to get the books out “his way” (i.e. with his covers, layout design, icons, etc) certainly helped with that regard. In many ways he felt that he had already got what he wanted so as far as he was concerned they could do whatever they thought was best in those regards.

All in all Orbit has proved to be an incredibly flexible partner. They even are allowing Ridan to put out a version of Percepliquis with Michael’s cover/design so that those people who have the first five books in the series can complete their sets. This isn’t something they had to do, but the fact that they are willing to is just more proof that they were a good choice.  Another example…they were hard at work on the books even before we had actually signed contracts. They invested in editing, cover design, ARC’s and the like while the legal department and our agent fiddled with specific language clauses. If they hadn’t done that, the books would not have stayed on schedule but they were willing to accept up-front risk to make the deadlines. For a time there was a little hiccup with some boilerplate language that would have technically limited Michael’s future writings, and I thought he wouldn’t sign. But once again, they proved a perfect partner and we finally got changes made and it is all official now. The contract does what it should, which is fits the needs and desires of both parties. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about working with big-six publishers but we’ve had none of that with Orbit.  I guess it all comes down to picking a good partner and everything flows from that.

Considering that publishing contracts in general seem to be becoming more restrictive rather than less that’s actually a remarkable step by Orbit, especially in allowing a Ridan version of Percepliquis (I for one am pretty happy about that). 

For those that don’t know, can you give a quick explanation of what boilerplate language in a contract is and what authors should watch out for? 

So, let me say that I’ve read a lot on the subject, but I’m not inside any publisher’s legal department, nor have I ever acted as an agent,  so I’m going to give my “best” understanding, realizing that I could be completely wrong.  If any of your readers can confirm or deny what I’m about to say I would appreciate it. From my understanding, every publisher has a legal department that has developed certain language for various clauses of a contract. For large agencies the agency and the publisher might have established their own template and that is the basis for each contract and then they adjust based on the potential of the author. (Stephen King for instance does not have the same provisions in his contract as Michael Sullivan for instance).  If your agent is from a smaller agency, or independent, then they start with any number of “standard contracts”.  For some clauses there might be several variations (some more “author friendly” than others) and they develop the initial contract weighted in the publisher’s favor.  The agent then looks at the contract, and taking into consideration other contracts that they have negotiated, tries to pull the language back in favor of their clients.  In general, the publisher doesn’t want “one-off” contracts they want to have the language match one of their pre-approved choices as it were. In some cases, certain clauses are set by an entity further up the line – for instance Hachette Book Group may have similar clauses for all their imprints so Orbit (an Imprint of Hachette) can’t easily change language that corporate has dictated.

As for what to look out for…that’s a little bit hard because each author is going to value different things. For instance someone who has no qualms about writing under a pen name, may not be so concerned about wording in a non-compete clause because they’ll just create a separate identity. Those that have written something that they think has a high probability to be made into a movie will want to retain those rights (or have the subsidiary share between author and publisher be very highly weighted to the author).  For some, it might be under what circumstances rights revert.  Someone else might be very concerned with changes to their work so they might have an eagle eye on any wording about abridgement or statements that say “based on the work”.  The bottom line is there will probably be  a lot that you aren’t happy with in a contract but you have to choose which battles you’re willing to pick and which you’ll have to let go of.

For Michael, he values his freedom over all things so the sticklers with his contract revolved around what he could and could not write in the future.  In addition there was a little statement about performing promotional activities that basically said…if Orbit says go…you go.  For the promotional language it was the matter of adding “and the author agrees” to language such as “If the publisher decides”.  This would seem like a minor point to many but to Michael it made all the difference in the world as he really doesn’t want to feel like someone else can control what he will and will not do.  For another author, they might think to themselves…hey if my publisher is willing to send me across the country on a book promotion tour – I have absolutely no problems with that.

If you were to ask me, as a business person, what I think you should be concerned with it should be the following:

• Under what conditions do the rights revert: If you have a contract that has a limited time period (say 3 years) then in many respects I don’t care as much about what the other clauses related to reversion say, because I know there set date where I get control back. Many contracts, however, are written for the life of the copyright,  which means 70 years after the authors death, and that is a LONG, LONG time. So for those contracts I want to see reversion language such that when the book is no longer producing for the publisher it goes back to the author. In the old days this was generally that the book was “in print”, which meant as long as there were copies in the warehouse the contract was in effect.  But in today’s POD and ebook world, you can keep books in print forever…so in this environment it is important to have language such that when the books earn less than a certain $ figure per royalty period it is essentially “dead” and should revert. What that $ is will be the point of contention.  If it is too low, then again you are back to “essentially forever”.
• What rights you are transferring: Basically you want to give away the least amount you can. For instance you want to hold back foreign language, movie rights, merchandising, enhanced ebooks, audio, etc, etc. Nowadays I think the “minimum” you can hope for is to transfer print and ebook rights for English North America distribution (Basically US and Canada).  A slight step down from that would be “English speaking” rights which would extend sales to England, Australia, etc.  What you want to try not to give is “World Rights” as that could substantially limit your income from foreign income.  One author friend of mine was very excited because they had foreign sales on a book and it essentially earned out their advance before the book was released -  but as I pointed out if they had sold only English rights – they essentially would have had twice the advance because the foreign sales would have been additional money in the pocket not just counting toward the advance.  In regards to rights, I hear many “inexperienced” authors say…well I’ll sell the print rights but I’ll keep my ebook rights. I think that is a pipe dream. No “responsible” publisher today will take just one without the other, and if they do only want print…I have to question their business acumen.

• Restrictions on other books: There are three things that will restrict other writing.  One is the option clause (granting your publisher the “first crack” and future works). You just need to make sure this is a pretty simple arrangement – such as I show it to you…you get xyz time to review…if we don’t agree…I can do whatever I want with it.  I’ve seen some option clauses that have language such as…if another publisher makes an offer we can match that offer and get the work back.  While this wouldn’t sound like a “bad thing” think about the situation where you are having disagreements with your publisher or are unhappy with how they treated your first work. Such language could FORCE you to put out the next work with them even though you don’t like their treatment of you.

Another thing that is usually buried in the author warranties section is language to the effect that the work under contract will be the “next book released”.  If this is there, and the contract gives the publisher several years to produce the book then the author is cut off from any income in the meantime. For a prolific author, this could be a huge problem, but for one that takes several years to finish a book it could be a moot point.

I would carefully examine any non-compete clause and interpret it in the narrowest terms that you think could apply to it. In other words, think of the ‘worst case scenario’. In the language of Michael’s original contract it could mean that he could never put out another medieval fantasy, including prequels and sequels to the Riyria Revelations. This was, not surprising, a deal-breaker.  Once that language was further clarified we were able to proceed.

• Ebook Royalty Escalation: The industry standard is a 25% royalty on net-receipts for ebooks. Which generally means a share as follows: 30% to Amazon (or other retailer), 52.5% to publisher, 14.9% to author, and 2.6% to agent.  This 52.5%/14.9% split is not one that will hold up in the future (IMHO). So I would make sure that if the publisher starts offering higher %’s then your contract should automatically adjust to the higher rate.
• Copyright Infringement: It should go without saying that you want to protect your characters and the worlds you create. You should ONLY assign the right to produce your work, not transfer any copyright or give the publisher the right to create other works based on your writing. If you enter into a “work for hire” arrangement you probably don’t own the character or world but if this is an original creation of yours you want to keep it yours.

These are just a few of the most important things to look at. When reading a contract think about it in terms of what “could” happen if the relation went sour and always have remedies in place. Think about things such as the following: What if they don’t pay their royalties? What if they go bankrupt? Do they have a time limit in how long after you give them the final work before they have to put it for sale?  What if they don’t? The contract should address these kinds of things and specify penalties if they don’t (contract nullification, rights reversal, etc).

Ridan has had a stellar year so far, what are you excited about that’s coming up for you and Ridan?

Wow, where to begin with that one, as there is so much to be excited about.

I’m not sure when it will “hit theaters” but Ridley Scott (director of Blade Runner & Alien) is adapting Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War for film. I’ve never had a book with a movie tie-in before and after seeing the skyrocketing effects this has had for other books it will be VERY interesting to see how his Ridan ebook will sell when this is released. I actually re-watched Blade Runner just last night and I can see why Mr. Scott is attracted to The Forever War – it will be a great film in his hands.

Nathan Lowell recently completed the sixth and final book in his Trader Tale of the Solar Clipper Series (in audio book version). Ridan released the third book in ebook/pbook in May and I’m hard at work editing number four, Double Share.  I want to ramp the release schedule of the last two after that so they come out just as soon as humanly possible. Both Marshall Thomas and Leslie Ann Moore are receiving really good sales from their completed series and I expect having the ‘final’ book in this Trader Tales will do incredible things for Nathan’s already stellar sales.

There are three projects that have been at Ridan for a while now that I’m finally getting close to completion. I’m finally getting them to the state where I see the end of the editing tunnel on these. First is the second book in Todd Fonseca’s Time Cavern series. This is our only entry in the “juvenile” market (9-13 year olds). For anyone who has read the first one they know how charming the Time Cavern is, and what a talent writer Todd is. It will be great to have another book in this series out.

The second project is Cluck: Murder Most Fowl. This is an extremely entertaining book by Eric Knapp and is about…of all things…undead chickens, a sentient farmhouse, an automobile obsessed with 007 novels, and a fowl exorcist. I know that sounds utterly ridiculous but trust me it is brilliant and if you like Terry Prachett you’ll love this.

The third project is by a never before published author (the only one I’ve pulled from the slush pile) writing under the pen name Jackson Archer. He’s actually going to be published by Ridan and another publishers and I’m excited at the competitive aspect of seeing how the book I have with him will sell against the other one. The first line in his query was, “There are only a handful of things that scare Michael; the fact that he’s about to die isn’t one of them.” Doesn’t that just grab you? For those of you writing queries – take note of what a really good first line can do for you.

Another interesting thing is we’re partnering with a company to bring out app versions of our books for tablets, ipads, iphones, and Android phones. Book Apps are really in their infancy but I’m really excited to be on the cutting edge of this technology and have a ton of ideas for how to further enhance standard ebooks.

Although I’ve not announced it yet, here’s a scoop for your readers:
Ridan is going to expand our genre list to include mystery/thrillers.  I’ve got nine titles in various developmental stages and their all excellent. I’m starting to think a Ridan author is like a Lake Wobegon child in that they are all above average. But seriously I love finding such great books and helping them to find an audience. As to “other lines” I’m also seriously considering a one for short stories but that is not as firm in my mind as the mystery/thrillers which is a “done deal” at this point.

Last but certainly not least is that Ridan is getting the attention of a number of authors that are already well established and like what we’re doing and want to be a part of it. I’m actually writing up a contract today for a well established science fiction writer to bring on seven books from their backlist. I don’t want to announce it as they’ve not signed but I had a great phone conversation with them today and they are 100% on board.  I also had an author from overseas that received a $600,000 advance for a three book deal and he wants Ridan to be the North American publisher of that. The fact that I have such noted authors willing to put their trust in Ridan is really a signal that I must be doing something right.

* She isn’t kidding. Go watch it.

The first writing podcast I ever listened to is not only as good as it ever was then, it’s even better now. Mur Lafferty approaches ISBW with honesty and good humor. This isn’t a techniques podcast/website (although they get mentioned), what Mur excels at is discussing the emotional side of writing.

It’s well worth signing up to her Society Of Ink Splattered Fabulists too, for uncut interviews, more personal posts and the odd interview you won’t get otherwise.

Write 2 Publish

So, I know I’ve  been a on a bit of a combined Robin Sullivan/Ridan Publishing/Michael J Sullivan* kick of late, but there’s good reason for that. Robin, in the space of three weeks, five podcasts and an interview with me managed to turn my thoughts on publishing on their ear.

Robin is amazingly honest and forthright about everything she does to promote Ridan’s books and her blog should be read by anyone and everyone thinking they want to write for a living.

The Newbie’s Guide To Publishing

Joe Konrath’s epic, seemingly endless blog about publishing that stretches back into the distant mists of time when self published authors where looked on with the same favor as flesh eating proto humans.

I haven’t always agreed with Joe**, but it doesn’t matter, because he was saying things about ebooks and the future of publishing that seem prescient now. You don’t have to like him, but Joe’s gotten so many things right that you do need to listen to what he has to say.

Writing Excuses

One of the best writing podcasts out there, period. Howard Taylor, Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells and May Robinette Kowhal talk about writing for fifteen minutes per week, each time covering an aspect of writing technique or marketing in an almost unbelievable amount of depth for a fifteen minute long show.

Consistently awesome, now even more so that Mary is on board. She’s a professional puppeteer as well as an author and that may be one of the coolest jobs ever.

Museum of Mysteries

M J Rose’s blog. M J is the powerhouse behind AuthorBuzz, and the author of eleven books, including the excellent Reincarnationist series. I’m getting M J on for an interview next week to talk about book marketing and writing as an indie author.

Adventures In Sci-Fi Publishing

AISFP are a bunch of pimps. I mean this in the nicest possible way. AISFP conducts podcast interviews, gives writing advice and generally puts out consistently good content. A LOT of consistently good content. When I first discovered AISFP I listened to almost nothing else for three weeks.

Dead Robots Society

More podcasting! Started by Justin Macumber and co hosted (currently) by Eliyanna Kaiser and Terry Mixon. Dead Robots has a very relaxed, easy to get into style for their podcast and they conduct a damn good interview.

As much as you should be listening to DRS for their content, they’re also a great example of how to interact with the writing world as a whole. They’re professional, yet relaxed  enough to seem like people you’d actually like to hang out with.

Terrible Minds

Chuck Wendig’s blog, website and general land o beard. Chuck regularly dispenses advice that can save you from wasting huge amounts of time. Occasionally Chuck dispenses advice that will get you banned from four different states in the USA.

Either way, you can’t afford not to be reading Terrible Minds, because not reading what Chuck is doing would involve not knowing what Chuck is doing.

That would just be wrong.

Amazon Kindle Boards

Some people will object to this one, but I think you need to at the very least be lurking around on the Kindle Boards just to see what’s going on with the other kindle authors, reviewers and the like.

Thesaurus.com

No I’m not kidding. Sometimes you need to know if there’s another word for underpants.

Of socks. As far as I know there is no other word that sufficiently encompasses general sockiness as much as socks. If anyone knows another word for socks, let me know in the comments!

* Michael is currently going through some posts on writing advice which are well worth a read.

** For the record, more often than not, I was wrong.

I sure hope so…because this is the path I’ve decided on. Before I get into this though,  I have to admit I was wrong about something.

You see I’ve been following Joe Konrath’s blog for awhile, I’m a fan of his Jack Daniel’s series of novels, and his epic interview with Barry Eisler should be required reading for everyone…

But I’ve resisted what he was saying about e-publishing and self publishing for a long time.  I’ve never abused him online or anything stupid like that* but I have been open about the fact that I haven’t always agreed with what he was saying.

Yeah, turns out I was wrong.

Hate it when that happens.

The thing is that Joe is looking damn near prescient now. He was predicting the rise of the indie author almost before it was a twinkle in Amazon’s eye. His predictions that more and more e-book authors, authors with no prior history in publishing, could make a living have not only come true but they have even surpassed his initial estimates.

Self-publishing, if you’re a good  (and prolific, smart and motivated) author is a viable way to make money, and good money at that, from your writing. It won’t work for everyone but it will work for a LOT of people, and as the number of Kindles, iPads, Nooks and other e-readers grows that number will grow. An grow.

It’s hard to imagine where it will stop.

I doubt he’ll read this, but if he ever does; I’m sorry I doubted you Joe. ** I freely admit to grinding my teeth when I’ve read some of your articles, but damn man, you were right.

On to the main topic :

Self publishing/Legacy Publishing… can you do both?

Six months ago I would have said probably not. Sure there were a few people making the cross over, but it was still regarded as the death knell for any author’s hope of making the big time.

That’s changed.

Author’s like Amanda Hocking and Michael J Sullivan have parlayed their success in self-publishing into major publishing deals. If you read the interview I did with Robin Sullivan, you’ll see that she actively seeks out self-published authors and shoulder taps them to see if they’d be a good fit with Ridan.

So why the change?

I think it’s because the publishing industry isn’t quite as moribund*** as it’s made out it be. A self published author with a quality book, an established fan base and serious self marketing drive represents an excellent investment and one with very low risk.

Amanda Hocking doesn’t just have a legion of fans, she has an army ready to kick in the doors of bookstores to buy her books (they may or may not then rampage through the city).

I know for a fact that when Michael J Sullivan’s sixth Riyria Revelations book, Percepliquis is released by Orbit in December, I’m going to buy it. I may even do a short dance.

There are a lot of people who are going to do the same thing.

Buy the book, I mean. I think I may be alone in the dancing.

There will always be those who are against self-publishing, and conversely there will always be self-publishing evangelists who consider  any kind of legacy deal to be a terrible idea. I think the fact that you can now do both and make some money on your work and potentially attract a publisher is the best news I’ve heard in a very long time.

Publishing is changing, and at a pace that means my thoughts on this could be wrong by noon tomorrow, but I think the future is in this model. Indie authors put up their own work, attract an audience and then publishing comes knocking, offering better marketing, professional services and a wider audience.

This of course assumes your book is actually good. And that you’re at least a little lucky and a lot smart, but the odds are improving for writers, not getting worse.

I should say that I was inspired to write this by Chuck Wendig at www.terribleminds.com who is in fact having a shot at both right now. His book Confessions Of A Freelance Penmonkey contains all the writing advice you will ever need.

It also contains equal measures of profanity, liquor and beard.

I also need to thank Robin Sullivan at Ridan Publishing for opening my eyes to the publishing world’s changes. Sometimes you catch the right words at the right time. I have a follow up interview with her coming up in the next two weeks.

What do you think? will you give both a try? Just one?

* No matter what, don’t go abusing people. It never makes you look good.

** I’ll try to get Joe on for an interview to talk about where he thinks this e-book business is going.

*** Moribund. Great word.

As to Robin, she’s been very busy lately helping us bloggers and podcasters out by doing interviews, and I thought you might like to check them out.

Mur Lafferty did an excellent interview with Robin on I Should Be Writing. You can find that podcast here.

The Dead Robots Society Podcast did two interviews with Robin which are both well worth a listen. The first is here, and there is a follow up show here. 

I hope you enjoy them, and I’ll be back next week to talk to you about covers.

Pre-order now!

Hi everyone! I’ve kept this a little quiet, but awhile back I wrote a short story called Dead Man’s Shoes to appear in the Zombie Survival Crew‘s anthology Undead Is Not An Option.

This morning Undead Is Not An Option opened up for pre-orders (at the introductory price of $10.00), and I’d love it if you could go and pick up a copy. I’ve heard that there will soon be an ebook version for digital aficionados as well, so no matter how you like to read, The Crew will take care of you.

Undead Is Not An Option is, as you might have guessed, a collection of zombie stories from around the world. But that’s not all it is (from the ZSC website):

“Zombie love, zombie hate, how to get your killing spree on – we’ve got it all. When the Zombie Survival Crew organized, we realized the talent pool we had at our fingertips and decided to put together this unique volume of work by the crew members. Short stories, educational pieces, and artwork combine to take you on the zombie-ride of your life and help you prepare to “meat” any challenge.”

The Zombie Survival Crew started out as a fan movement for AMC’s show The Walking Dead, but has grown into an international community of zombie enthusiasts, zombie horror writers and a squirrel.*

My story Dead Man’s Shoes is a twist on the voodoo zombie tale, and it has all the blood, guts and nightmare creatures you could want from a tale of the undead.

I’d really appreciate it if you could share this post with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, your blog or any other site. There’s an Add To Any Button underneath this post that can help you tell the world, no pimp suit required.**

So tell me, what’s your favorite zombie tale? I’ll pick a commenter at random and buy them a pre-order, so the winner will get a copy sent to them the second it comes out.

* We try not to talk too much about the squirrel.

** This doesn’t mean you can’t wear a pimp suit, or a big hat. Do what feels right.

My greatest weakness when it comes to writing is creating a coherent plan for the story and then following it.

I know most writers divide themselves into two camps; planners and pantsers. I don’t want to pan the pantsers at all, after all I am one at heart, but it can take a lot of time and a lot of heartache to pants your way to a complete story.

For me, I can pants (yes, I do love saying pants, it’s true) my way to a really good two or three chapters…then it all turns to custard.

I’ve written about my attempts to story plan before, and it’s not really worked out as well as I hoped, but quitting is for quitters so I go once more into the planning breach.

I hope you can learn from my folly.

The Plan So Far

1. Write out all the cool story elements I’ve cooked up so far on different bits of paper. Part of my problem is disparate ideas being shoehorned into one story, so by writing them all out I can organize them into one thing.
2. Write out a 20 line synopsis. If can’t explain a story in 20 lines, 200 or 2000 lines is not going to help.
3. Write out a full story plan, paying attention to the story structure hints provided at www.storyfix.com
4. Try not to punch myself in the face (note to self: important)
5. Re read a couple of books by authors I admire with story structure and planning in mind. At this point in time I’m going to look at Changes, by Jim Butcher and Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane.

Tell me, what are your greatest weaknesses as a writer (or not, if you feel like confessing your weakness for Faberge eggs, feel free). Also, if you have any solid gold tips for planning a story, feel free to tell the world.

Let me know in the comments.

So. Tired.

Eyes dropping, gravity’s getting the better of my face too. I feel like one of those cartoons of astronauts in high gravity where everything is dragged down into a soupy mess on the floor.

We all feel like this sometimes.*

But we all will have to battle through it at some point and sit down to write. Whether it’s a deadline from a publisher or you just want to get your one thousand words for today sometimes you can’t just chuck it all in.

So here are five quick suggestions to help you battle on when your will to stay conscious is so low you’re already in your jammies.

1. The Caffeine Nap

I got this one from Dr. Lonnie Lowry over at T-nation.com (I haven’t directly linked to it because that site is NOT. SAFE. FOR. WORK. Google T-Nation and you’ll find it) but it’s been mentioned on the 4 Hour Work Week site by Tim Ferris.

The Basics are this: You throw down a dose of caffeine appropriate to your body size and then take twenty minute nap. The combined boost from the caffeine added to the short downtime of the nap snaps you awake like someone cocking a pistol behind you.

2. Magic Vitamins

Before anyone goes off the rails here, I mean B-Vitamins. Most of us (especially filthy vegetarians like me) are low on vitamin-B. If you’re doing something during the day that taxes you in a significant way, then you’ll be double low.

This time, take a dose appropriate for your body type and situation, then go for a short walk. You’ll feel the vitamins kick in after about twenty minutes, and the walk helps with blood flow to your brain.

3. Trigger

I got this one from Alan over at Optimum Mind. It takes a bit of a time investment but it’s well worth it.

The trick to this, uh, trick is to wait until you’re in the optimal state for writing. When you’re high on energy and right in the flow of words, make a gesture.

It can be any gesture (note: do not pick flipping the bird unless you’d really like to offend your neighbor) as long as it’s unique and it’s repeatable.

Make it again.

Now every time you feel that good you’re going to make that gesture multiple times until it’s anchored in your brain and your subconscious mind associates the gesture with the good feeling.

Now, whenever you’re feeling bad, take a moment to make the gesture and trick your mind into feeling better.

My personal experience with this is that you need to keep re-anchoring the gesture to the good feeling, and to do it several times every time you’re in the zone. This will make sure you anchor the gesture to feeling good, not to feeling that you’re on day eight of a seven day bender.

4. Ultra Nap

You do need some spare time to make this work. This is just a 90 minute nap that takes advantage of your body’s natural rhythm. By making it only 90 minutes you make sure you don’t wake up too groggy, but you get enough of a sleep you wake up feeling better.

5. Higher protein, lower carb

If you’re planning on spending a few hours in front of the keyboard, then it can be tempting to load up on some chips, some kind of fizzy drink and a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The problem with this is that you’re not going to be in a state where your body can burn off the carbs, or put them to good use repairing the muscles. Instead your body does what bodies have been doing since we lived in caves and belted each other for the best bits of meat:

It uses insulin to store the extra energy. As fat.

Now fat storage for writers is a whole ‘nother article, but when it comes to energy the bit you need to be concerned about is the insulin spike, because insulin will make you feel like you need to take a nap. A long nap.

Instead of loading up on the sweets, which lead to sugar crashes (where you feel energetic for all of about twenty minutes, then pray for death), have a bit of protein instead. I usually have a protein shake or eggs but if you’re a meat eater a lean cut of meat with some veggies will do you just fine.

I have studied dietary science but I’m a writer, not a dietician, so please for the love of Pete, check with your doctor before making any drastic changes to the way you eat.

6. Bonus: If nothing else works

I’m including this one because my fiancé suggested it, and I have a standing resolution for myself that I at least consider her ideas, because she so often turns out to be right.

If nothing else works, try cutting gluten out of your diet.

Gluten is a protein derived from wheat that gives bread its wonderful sticky gooey texture. Unfortunately if you can’t process gluten, then it can poison you and leave you feeling like poo.

I went gluten free three months ago, and despite the odd slip up, my health has never been better. I have more energy and better focus because I’m not feeding my body something it can’t tolerate every four hours.

This is something to talk to your Doctor about too. It can be a struggle but if you’re wandering around in a fog, this can be a cause. It’s worth getting it checked out.

* If you feel like this all the time, see a real Doctor

I’m gonna sing the Doom Song now. [singing] Gir: Doom doom doom…

-         GIR, Invader Zim (2001)

Are we all doomed?

Listening to the news and various writing blogs it certainly sounds like it. Book sales are down, major book stores are going out of business, I can’t find my shoes…

It’s like the world of publishing is falling down and it’s falling on authors. How can we expect to make a living slinging words when the publishing world is heaving like a dragon in its last throes?

I’ve spoken about this before but the myth of publishing’s demise is a persistent one. Publishing isn’t dying, but it is changing.

Sure, if you’re determined to cling to the ideal of doing nothing but writing, and leaving everything else to publishers and agents you might be in for a hard time* but it’s not like people have stopped reading, it’s just that the way books are read and sold is changing.

No force in the ‘verse can stop it.

But we can ride the wave. We are already seeing a major shift towards authors being the primary promotional force behind their work and that’s going to become the norm. Not that publishers won’t market your stuff, but if you can successfully build a following before you’re published it will make your book more attractive to publishers.**

As authors we can also look at the emerging opportunities offered by e-books. I’m not saying you have to rush out a fifty book back list or devote your entire soul to self publishing, but at least check it out and see if the time and the toil is something you’re prepared to do.

One way of dipping your toe in the black waters of self publishing is by putting out a book of your own short stories.

Making the massive assumption that the stories are good, and you pay to have the cover designed by someone who knows what they’re doing, it can be a positive step for your career.

I plan to do this later this year, but for now if you’d like to look at a couple of excellent collections I have two you can’t go past (especially since they’re $2.99).

I’ve ranted on about Chuck Wendig’s excellent Irregular Creatures as a good example of a well done self published short story collection. I can also highly recommend James Melzer’s horror collection The Other Side as a great example of just how good a self published collection can be.

It’s worth noting that James and his wife Jenny  are two of the nicest people out there in publishing, they both talked to me a lot on Twitter when I was a complete newbie and asking stupid questions, so anything you can do to help them out I would appreciate immensely.

You’ll get a damn good book too. Melzer has real skill when it comes to the rhythm of his stories. If you can’t wait you can pick up The Other Side from Amazon here and from Smashwords here.

The Other Side isn’t for the faint of heart. If you and the macabre don’t get on this is probably not the book for you.

That said, it’s macabre gone awesome. In fact I like it so much I’m going to give away a copy. Tell me, what are you afraid of? It can be in real life or in fiction. Let me know in the comments.

I’ll pick a winner in 24 hours and that winner will get their choice of format of The Other Side.

* Write a really great book and you might still be okay, but this is starting to look less and less likely.

** Bear in mind that your book still has to be good, a great platform but a terrible book is probably not going to make it. There are exceptions but why not have everything working in your favour?

I think we all do this. I do it all the time, but I’m suffering from a decade’s worth of head trauma, so doing what I do is probably not a good idea.

We set ourselves a goal that’s out of our control, then, when we don’t hit that goal, we punish ourselves.

It usually goes something like this: “I will publish a book by the age of X” or perhaps you do it like this: “I will sell X number of books by 12/12/12.”

If we were flexible about these goals, and took it easy on ourselves, then they wouldn’t be such a problem. Sadly, expecting a writer to take it easy on themselves is like expecting a bear to eat your arch nemesis.

Theoretically possible, unlikely in reality.*

The biggest issue I have with these sorts of goals is that they’re outside of your sphere of influence. Getting published depends at least partly on someone else. You can write the best book you possibly can and still get rejected, or get it accepted and then have to wait 18 months to see your book get printed.

All we can do as writers is write the best stuff we can, then edit the hell out of it. After all that’s done then we can try and sell it. Sometimes it’ll sell, sometimes it won’t, but punishing yourself because of someone else’s decision makes no sense.** You will write, you will get rejected, but the only thing you need to do is to force yourself to try and improve your art.

Self flagellation is not self improvement.

I think the best thing we can aim for as writers is a realistic daily word goal (say 1 or 2 thousand words a day***) or a time based goal that forces you to sit in front of your computer for a set amount of time each day regardless of how much you write.

I personally prefer a word count goal as there’s no telling how long a particular scene will take me to write.

Have you ever set yourself an unrealistic goal? Did you get there or were you forced to make an adjustment?

* Meet reality half way; put a bear in their living room.  

** If you write a blatant rip off of Harry Potter, refuse to edit it and then call and abuse the agents that didn’t want to know…then feel free to punish yourself all you like.

*** Terry Pratchett once said: “Write 400 words a day, even if you feel like poo.”