General Announcement of Publication

My good friend and fellow author, John B. Meilink, has just published his third book, The Unruly Guitarist: "Thank you, Modesto, and Good Night!". I haven't read it yet, but will just as soon as I find an afternoon or two when a dozen or more critical projects are not demanding my time and effort.

The author is a professional musician, and when he isn't holding a piece of wood in each hand and hitting stuff with them, he's living the life of a musician.  Although he might deny it, many of the situations in this book are based on real life events.

I can't say it's an excellent read, since I haven't read it yet, but if it's anything like his first two books it's worth reading.

I'm A Celebrity!

On the way to finding something else entirely (which I'll post if I should find it), I stumbled across this article from the Toledo Blade: Under The Hat of Jack Roush. The author, Rachel Lenzi, quoted me and almost got it right.

Book Promotion and What to Avoid

I ran across this article by accident, which describes a very bad experience by one author who hired a company to promote her latest publication.  The author is Linda Formichelli, and her latest work is How to Do It All: The Revolutionary Plan to Create a Full, Meaningful Life - While Only Occasionally Wanting to Poke Your Eyes Out With a Sharpie, which sound a lot like something I ought to read, but isn't.  For one thing, I already have a meaningful life, and if my life gets any fuller I don't think I'll be able to stand it.

Linda contracted with Insurgent Publishing to promote her book from ground zero into the NYT Bestseller stratosphere, which didn't happen.  The entrepreneur in question, Tom Morkes, denies responsibility and wrongdoing.  Linda doesn't agree with that, which you can read all about in two posts: Brave Author Outs Marketer Who Messed Up Big Time and How One Author Got Ripped Off and How You Can Avoid It.

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't have done any business with Insurgent Publishing, for the simple reason that I can't find a mailing address or phone number anywhere on their web site.  Another item I can't seem to find is a long list of testimonials from grateful authors and their contact information.  In fact, testimonials seem deuced hard to come by.

The real procedure that should be used with any promoter or advertiser is this: Listen to their presentation (their spiel), and get a number.  In the case of a book promotion, it's the number of books the company will help you sell, or cause to sell, if you use their service.  If you'll just sign on the dotted line... Then get the cost.  You summary is, "So you're telling me that if I spend x dollars with you, my book will sell y copies within the first 90 days of its release - and I need do nothing more than hand you x dollars and a book that's ready to publish."  As soon as you get an affirmation, put a caveat on the end of the agreement.  "I'll tell you what - if what you say is true, I'll pay you twice what you're asking.  And by that I mean you, personally.  But, should sales fall short of the promised number, I owe you nothing."

Watch them back off.

A Cautionary Tale

I found this story of an uphill grind on the Internet this afternoon, but instead of shrugging the whole thing off as not my problem, I decided to respond and maybe save someone else a headache.

How Not To Market Your Work

Nosing around a few sites, I stumbled across Self-Publishing Review (SPR), where I found this little gem, Six Ways You Are Ruining Your Book Marketing Campaign.  This is worth reading.

About one-quarter to one-third of your time will be spent writing your book.  You'll spend an equal amount of time in editing your work, which is finding and fixing the places where auto-correct suggested the wrong word and you accepted its suggestion without looking.  Then there's the grammar and the pot plot holes you left with a promise to fix them later - and, well, now it's later.

So you've got a great book, or at least a finished book.  You create, or (like in my case) you buy a cover, then you put the whole business out on Amazon and wait for some big name Hollywood producer to call you and offer several million for the film rights of your brand new, Cinderella story, NYT runaway best seller, and big time money maker, which you've title Hundred Proof Gin for the Real Man's Soul.  When that doesn't happen, you check sales and see that you've sold two copies: One to your S.O. and one to an unknown aardvark who fat fingered his keyboard and now wants his bread back.

Your problem is that you didn't advertise.  For every day you spend writing, you'll spend a day trying to get the hoi polloi to buy and (you hope) read your magnum opus, then give it a six star review on Amazon.  But, see, no one knows you and your work exists.

That's where advertising comes in.  Sadly, you are not Don Draper.  If you were, you'd be working in New York and getting paid an incredible salary to come in to the office when it suits you, get hammered by two in the afternoon and sleep it off on the couch.

Truth be told, you enjoy life in the basement and the company of your cat, an undemanding purr-box who sits in your lap and occasionally helps you type.

Being no expert, you try advertising your book, and then wonder why sales don't spike.  This article points out why.  I especially like the second reason, consulting amateurs and treating their advice like that of a professional.  Would you go to one of these basement dwellers if you suspected you had cancer?  Or wanted your 401K to perform better?  Or maybe you need a few grand by the end of the week, and want a nice race track tip.  These guys would have it, right?

Read the article, then draw your own conclusions.  Or, if you lack the skill to draw, read the writing on the wall.

Hometown Reads

Last time I visited my local Barnes and Noble bookstore I asked the manager why the store didn't feature a section comprised exclusively of local authors.  I got a flat three minutes of prevarication, culminating in the tired old cliché, "I'm sorry, but my hands are tied."  Feeling a bit discouraged, I declined an overpriced B&N latté in favor of a more stimulating beverage.  I went down the street to Bar 145 and got two fingers of good old thought provoker in front of me, water back.

It has always seemed to me that local authors would benefit from a web page.  Someplace on the net where we could rest assured that we're not alone, where our work could be advertised, and where the liberals could give the conservatives a bad case of the red ass, then the conservatives would retaliate with a few stinging remarks of their own, which would send the moonbats into orbit - so the place would need to be policed a bit.  Then the organizer would have to find all the authors in Toledo, then set up the web site... we're talking about a ton of work, which I am not up for.

Fortunately for me, and for the rest of us, someone else arrived at this conclusion as well, and is willing to put some work behind it.  Becky Robinson of Weaving Influence has launched a new site, Hometown Reads, which features authors from the Toledo metro area.  Authors get their own individual page with links to their own website, Facebook, and other social media sites.  Or, if you'd just like to see what local authors are publishing, that's available as well.

This service has been needed for a long time now, and I'm glad Becky and her team are running the ball in for a touchdown.  As for me, it's five o'clock somewhere, but I have to teach tonight.  Toledo Ballroom (2400 N. Reynolds Road, Toledo, OH) has a group class scheduled tonight at 7:00, and I'm teaching intermediate bronze level cha cha. Happy hour will have to wait.

Worthy Reads for 10/28/2015

I found 5 Observations on the Evolution of Author Business Models by Jane Friedman via Morning Coffee – 28 October 2015 by Nate Hoffelder, which is an enjoyable site in and of itself. The author, Jane Friedman, has just returned from an Novelists, Inc. (NINC) convention / conference.  I believe this event was specified as a conference, which is a convention without the booze and attendant moral indiscretions.

Useful Links and Worthy Reads

Here's a hodgepodge of unrelated links and a worth while blog post.

Streetlib Now Distributes eBooks to OverDrive’s 33,000 Libraries
I ditched SmashWords several months ago, mainly due to the amount of work it takes to get a book on SmashWords, and the extremely poor revenue that's returned, as compared to the 500 pound gorilla that is carefully not mentioned - Amazon. If you put your work out there with the hope of making a few bucks, it's Amazon and whom ever you think is in second place.  Bite me.  It's my blog and I'll use whom if I see fit.  Anyway, the new player on the block is Streetlib, and it's so new that it refuses to rise to the top during a Google search.  I haven't given Streetlib more than a cursory look, but if it performs as quickly and cleanly as it looks, it could be a real contender.

5 Favorite Free Fonts for Interior Book Design
Part of formatting your work is choosing the right font so as to make your work attractive and easy to read.  Try reading something in an ornate Gothic font sometime and you'll appreciate Times New Roman in ten minutes or less.  The author, Joel Friedlander, seems to know what he's talking about, if for no other reason than I like his suggestions.  I found it an interesting, worthy read.

Cliché Finder
It was a dark and stormy night... or some variant thereof.  This site provides a searchable database of clichés.  It's kind of interesting, and I can see where it would be useful, especially if you want to find out whether or not the brilliant line your protagonist just uttered has been over-used in the last century or two.

Now if you'll pardon me, I'm more than fashionably late for happy hour.

Get Paid

Back in the early '70s (that would be in the last century for all you digital natives) I read Winning Through Intimidation by Robert Ringer, the little tortoise who could. The only two words in his book that are underlined are: Get Paid. That phrase stuck with me for the rest of my life, but it took me a while to learn to put it into practice.

To this end, Larry Correia of Monster Hunter Nation has written several articles that are well worth reading. The series begins when some unknown contributor with nothing but time on his hands manages to ruffle Larry's feathers. Here's the link to this story, which should be read at your own risk: File 770 Is Mad At Me Again. Larry goes on to explain exactly how authors get paid (or not, as the case may be) in How Authors Get Paid, Part 1 and How Authors Get Paid, Part 2. All of these articles are easy reads and well worth your time.

The part that Larry doesn't cover is that, unlike the rest of the world, the typical author isn't fighting with an employer or a client about a contract, a bounced check or the real meaning of net-30. The typical author is battling obscurity, and in order to Get Paid you must first beat obscurity three falls out of three.

Business Cards

I asked Tina Bongorno, the beautiful and talented lady who created the cover art for both my books, to design a business card for me.  Here's the best of four final results.

What impressed me the most is that the staff at the print shop remembered the logo.  Not me, of course - the logo.

"Oh yeah, you're the one with the feather and the ink well.  Nice card."

Well, there you have it.  At least an impression was made, which is worlds better than complete obscurity.  My thanks to Tina for the excellent job she did on the card.

On Publishing and Associated Headaches

Writing a book is only part of the fun. Next comes editing (where you get to fix all the mistakes you made, including typos) then the real work begins. Over at the Mad Genius Club, Cedar Sanderson has put together a list of links to articles that will help make this process a lot easier. You can read all about it at From Writing, to Publication, and Beyond by Cedar Sanderson published on March 7, 2015.