Author: RosemaryJ

RosemaryJAuthor of novels set in the Forgotten Realms and multiple superhero stories centered in Cobalt City.
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Lots of Interest And A Few Sales At Wordstock

wordstock2015bannerBeth Chapple of Granite Peak Publications recently returned from Portland’s book festival Wordstock. For the first time in several years, Book Publishers Northwest participated. Two other volunteers, Jill Kelly and Kim Bouchard, met Beth at the table shared with the Northwest Independent Editors Guild.

Since Book Publishers Northwest had limited space, it was decided only to take the books previously displayed at the PNBA Fall Trade Show. With mysteries, poetry, and nonfiction titles on display, the table showed off the range of books published by BPNW members. Also available were the bookmarks and other sales literature provided by the publishers for PNBA.

“We spent time carrying, displaying, and discussing people’s books. Lots of attendees took the free bookmarks and postcards, so I hope BPNW members are happy with the exposure,” said Chapple.

Wordstock granted attendees a $5 “certificate” to be used at the displays. As decided earlier, books were swapped for this certificate.  Approximately a dozen books were taken by Wordstock attendees. Money earned was used to reimburse volunteers for having to purchase their ticket into Wordstock and defray the cost of display.  Splitting the table with the Northwest Independent Editors Guild helped keep costs down but BPNW still spent far more than exhibit than was earned through sales.

“I had fun, but I have not decided if I personally will participate again,” said Chapple. “Nor am I sure I will recommend it to Book Publishers Northwest unless the publisher can attend or send an author to be on a panel.”

Remaining books and sales literature will be brought to the November 28 meeting for pick-up. Unclaimed books will be donated to the Friends of the Seattle Public Library.

WLA Has Helped Authors For 40 Years

podiumSometimes, independent authors and small presses come up against a legal question that can’t be answered easily. It may be determination of copyright in a project with multiple participants, how to protect intellectual property in estate planning, or when it is “fair use” to quote another person’s words.

Since 1976, Washington Lawyers for the Arts has served the performing, literary, media, visual, and interdisciplinary arts. While best known for the pro bono or reduced cost services that they provide to arts organizations, WLA also will help individuals when they are operating on a very limited budget and cannot afford to secure the services of an attorney. Local attorneys, who volunteer or offer their services at reduced cost, will provide specialized legal expertise when such services are not available elsewhere for the artist.

Earlier this year, the locally produced play That’swhatshesaid was served a “cease and desist” notice by publisher Samuel French Inc. Seattle playwright Courtney Meaker had pieced together bits of dialog and stage directions from the several hit plays to show how female characters are commonly presented on stage.

As noted an American Theatre article about the project, the result might be seen as “fair use” of the quoted material as the author was making a critical point about the portrayal of women in contemporary theater. French, and later the Dramatists Play Service, argued that the play infringed on the copyrights of the authors quoted.

Jeff Nelson, a Seattle intellectual property attorney and chair of WLA, represented Meaker pro bono. The WLA also offered a free panel discussion this month with Meaker, members of her creative team, and Nelson to help others in the community understand the intersection of fair use and free speech.

Artists of all types can become a WLA member for $25. This entry level of membership provides regular updates via email, special offers from other community organizations, and a 15% discount on all regular workshops.

Regular legal clinics are offered throughout the year for those with intellectual property and entertainment legal questions.

WLA’s referral program connects artists needing ongoing representation or have legal topics beyond intellectual property or entertainment law with attorneys in the WLA network.

Red Letter Press Reports Canadian Distribution Problems

RedLetterPressHelen Gilbert, managing editor of Red Letter Press, reports that her company recently lost $1900 worth of books when a Canadian distributor destroyed the stock that they were holding. According to Gilbert, the company took over the Red Letter Press inventory in 2003 from another Canadian distributor they absorbed.

“To our shock, we discovered early this year that Disticor had decided to no longer carry books. Although they claim to have notified publishers that they should make arrangements to have their books returned, we never received any notice,” said Gilbert. “So they destroyed books worth $1900 at the price they would have paid us for sales.”

Gilbert would like to hear from anyone else is in this situation and what steps that they have taken. She has contacted the Better Business Bureau but said the case was closed when the distributor failed to respond.

Contact information for Red Letter Press can be found at their website: www.RedLetterPress.org

Marketing Tips From The Publishers Roundtable

Book Publishers Northwest’s February 2016 meeting was a meet-up of local publishers and authors to discuss what works and doesn’t work for them. For many, the major task remains marketing. Here’s a few suggestions made during the evening and at earlier meetings in 2015.

BookBub was mentioned by several members as one of the better sites for advertising ebook deals.

Advertise In Ebook Reader Newsletters
One of the largest e-newsletters out there for ebook readers, BookBub drives sales for publishers by allowing them to advertise ebook deals to their readers. This is not an inexpensive advertising option. BPNW members suggested this marketing tactic works best for publishers of genre fiction, particularly romance, and also mentioned that it can take several months to get a slot in a popular newsletter like BookBub. Several similar enewsletter sites are listed below. Each has different requirements for the type of book that they will advertise. Some required a minimum number of reviews on Amazon. Others will only take new titles. Read directions carefully. One tip from a publisher is to spread out ads on such sites so you never have more than one ad running during a set time period. This allows easier tracking of impact than running several ads simultaneously. All of these sites depend upon an ebook version being available via a major seller such as Amazon:
robinreads.com
readcheaply.com
www.bookgorilla.com
bookbasset.com
fkbt.com/for-authors
ereadernewstoday.com
digitalbooktoday.com

Create Box Sets or Anthologies
This topic will be explored in-depth for BPNW’s March meeting. Largely used by publishers of fiction, “box sets” allow authors to partner with several people to present several ebooks sold together as a “box set.” For those with short fiction or essays, an anthology serves the same purpose.  Whether single author or multiple author, box sets are priced so that readers spend less than if they had purchased each book in the set individually. Anthologies also serve as a way that authors can reprint stories or essays previously appearing in several different publications. This technique is used to build word-of-mouth as well as better results in sale site search engines for authors. Such sets work well for “deals” in the ebook newsletters listed above.

Send Out Review Copies
A variety of websites offer ways to get digital review copies, aka galleys, into the hands of readers, librarians, and booksellers. The best-known and, according to some, most expensive is NetGalley. Unless publishing multiple titles per year, BPNW members suggested joining with other authors or publishers to defray costs. Another site that offers “giveaways” of galleys is GoodReads. GoodReads suggests running a giveaway about one month prior to publication but the timing is up to the author or publisher. Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association runs a program for publishers to send review copies to interested booksellers called Northwest New Title Preview. Information about this and other advertising programs is available on PNBA’s website.

Show Off Photos On Instagram
Instagram is all about posting images via smartphones or tablets. It can be viewed but not accessed through laptops or desktop computers. Nonfiction publishers with photo-heavy books can tease a topic with selected pictures or using pictures that didn’t make the final printed edition. Several mentioned that using hashtags (#flowers or #Seattle) are essential for building a following. It was suggested that for each photo posted that people should put three or more hashtags in the comment section.

Reader Magnets To Build Newsletter Lists
The idea of creating “reader magnets” to build a newsletter following for an author or publisher comes from a site called www.yourfirst10kreaders.com. A free copy of his tips are available from author Nick Stephenson by emailing nick@yourfirst10kreaders.com or you can watch his webinars on his site. His methods rely on building value for the reader to encourage them to sign up for an enewsletter. Said one BPNW member: “He does simple step-by-step graphics for building an email list that I really like.”

Got a tip that you’d like to share? Post it in the comments section.

Boxed Sets From LostLoves

LostLoves Books’ author Phoebe Matthews announced a new “boxed set” (an e-book containing more than one novel). Getting the pieces put together went fine, according to Matthews, but somebody clicked a wrong button on the pre-ordering set up and created multiple sales dates. From her newsletter:

CampusCouplesMid January began the half price preorder for the  LostLoves BookClub boxed set, titled Campus Couples, and containing two favorites from the Rain City Romance collection, When September Returns and What I Know About Boys. Kindle will send your ebook Feb. 17. Kobo will send it the day you order it.

Umm, how do I explain this? Okay, here goes. The distributors and I managed to mangle the pre-order concept, but here is what is happening. Order the ebook of Campus Couples from Kobo any time before March 1 and you will get it for the pre-order bargain price and get it immediately. Order it from Kindle and again, the bargain price is good until March, but you will not be sent the ebook until February 17. Don’t ask. If I could explain, I would have to understand what happened and I don’t.

Matthews also placed an earlier title, Valentine Vampire, on sale. “My grandmother lived two blocks away from the location of the crime and heard the shooting. So did everyone else in the neighborhood. They all knew better than to run outside to see what was going on because that was Chicago in 1929,” wrote Matthews. “Sure, the Chicago Tribune ran detailed accounts of the action, but my grandmother heard the guns and knew how the neighbors reacted. 

 Valentine Vampire is the romantic version and is the freebie for February on Kobo, Ibooks, and Nook.”

Valentine Vampire is part of a larger series, Turning Vampire, originally published by Dark Quest Books and now being reprinted in boxsets by LostLoves Books, a member of Book Publishers Northwest.

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How to submit an article about your adventures in publishing: send your newsletter, press release or story to bpnwnews at aol.com.

 

Local Publisher Launches Souls Newsletter

BlaschkoBookTom Blaschko of Pine Winds Press/Idyll Arbor (and treasurer of BPNW) is writing a book with the working title We All Have Souls and I Think I Can Prove It. It will have a model of the soul and evidence from a diverse set of areas including scientific research, reincarnation, ghosts, martial arts, energy healing, subtle activism, shamanistic practice, and more. They are all tied together and support the evidence from each other. Religion is mentioned, but it is definitely not a religious book. It’s planned to be out in 2016. Blaschko previously authored Calculating Soul Connections about human relationships.

As part of the writing, Tom is sending out a biweekly newsletter on topics related to souls and the life force. If any of the topics sound interesting, he’d like to have you sign up to receive the newsletter. You can even send in questions you would like answers to.

To sign up go to http://WeAllHaveSouls.com and fill out the newsletter form with your name and email address. You can even click the Facebook Like button for the We All Have Souls page while you’re there.

Parenting Press Uses Pinterest Boards

Parenting Press uses Pinterest boards to help parents and teachers find titles of interest. Their newest Pinterest page shows off its Spanish and bilingual books. Pinterest is a photo-bookmarking platform with a 100 million subscriber base. Among social media advertisers, it is seen as a alternative to Facebook and Twitter. Setting up Pinterest pages is free (for now) and material can be sorted by categories such as Parenting Press has created:

BPNW member Parenting Press shows off Spanish titles on Pinterest

BPNW member Parenting Press shows off Spanish titles on Pinterest

Guest Article: Typesetting. Who Needs It?

by Rosie Gaynor

If your text is long—and if you want it to be read—then chances are it’s going to need some typesetting.

How much?

An easy way to decide how much time and money to devote to typesetting is to consider your choice of printing house and paper stock. For text that is meant to be read, I’d recommend that…

  • The typesetting be as good as or slightly worse than your printer. A bad print job is going degrade your type, so it’s worth paying for good printing.
  • The typesetting be as good as or slightly better than the stock. Good stock cannot cover up bad typesetting. Good typesetting, on the other hand, can help the reader forget a lesser stock. (Bad stock can degrade the type, though, so go for stock that is at least good enough.)

It feels so heartless to do this kind of triage, to engage in lowly budget-based bargaining when books are involved. But our goal is to get the book out the door and into people’s hands without losing our shirts (or hair), so we do the very, very best we can with the resources we have at the moment.

The illustration below shows the difference typesetting can make. (To really see the difference, download the PDF and print it on a good printer.)

BPNWRosieGaynortype

Book designs differ, but usually a good typesetter’s goals look something like this:

  • Word spacing, letter spacing, and line length work together to create lines that read evenly and easily. (It is important to see a print-out of this. An onscreen PDF is not going to show you what you need to see here. Print out the PDF of the sample above and you’ll see for yourself how big a difference it makes to view type printed on paper.)
  • Hallmarks of good typography have been considered, such as curly quotes, hanging quotes, curly apostrophes instead of prime symbols, proper use of hyphens, en-dashes, em-dashes, and real small caps (instead of InDesign’s approximated small caps). Old-style numerals, lining numerals, proportional numerals, and tabular numerals have been used purposefully.

DIY? Maybe.

If you are used to looking carefully at type (say, maybe, you’re an editor?) and if you’re comfortable on the computer, you could probably pull off something like Example #1 above on your own. I did, years ago, before I took design classes.

You’ll need to know the basics of InDesign and you’ll need to have a good feeling for what typeface and type size fits your text block well. If you go this route, I’d highly recommend you take a short class in InDesign (at, say, my favorite: School of Visual Concepts in Seattle) and that you find a copy of Mitchell & Wightman’s Book Typography: A Designer’s Manual. (It’s a gem of a book, content-wise and beauty-wise. Just turning the pages—a Precision fine 130 gsm stock—is an experience!)

Example #2 above? That kind of work takes some training and a really good eye. And it takes time. And dogged patience. Generally speaking, it takes a pro.

If you do hire a typesetter, ask to see a hard copy of a book that s/he has typeset. One page is not enough, as you’ll want to see how s/he managed the awkward paragraphs. (There are always paragraphs that refuse to cooperate.) With that book in hand, you’ll also be able to tell whether s/he had the stamina to make the type look even throughout the entire piece. If you go with a printing company’s in-house typesetter, ask to see a sample book done by the person who will be working on your book. They might fuss a bit, but I’d ask anyway.

How Much Do Typesetters Charge?

Typesetting fees are all over the place. But, like olive oil, cheese, chocolate, and shoes, the cheapest ones are generally not the best. The 2013 Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines suggests $6–$12 per page for a simply formatted book, like a novel. Figure $900–$1,800 for a 150-page novel.

It’s daunting. I think it helps to consider the printing–stock–typesetting balance. And to go back to the very basics: What makes the most sense for your goals, for your budget, for your preferences, and for your timeline? What’s your gut telling you?

Why bother? Because good typography will set you apart.

Scribes of old knew: Well-drawn pages paid respect to the words and to the author. Eventually, we figured out that well-set pages allowed for easier reading, greater comprehension, and better sales. And we book lovers today still know: When we hold a well-set book in our hands, we are holding a treasure.

We live in a world of typographical atrocities. Alas. But it’s also true that we live in a world of near-perfect typographic masterpieces. Your book will be somewhere on that typographical spectrum. The nice thing is that you get to choose where.

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Rosie Gaynor owns Seattle Scriptorium—the business of beautiful communication. She has worked in the design departments at Tiger Oak Media, Puget Sound Business Journal, and TCS World Travel. She has typeset three books and would love to work with you on yours. She can be reached at rosie[at]seattlescriptorium.com.

Are you a publishing professional or a service for publishers? Would you like to submit an article to Book Publishers Northwest? Email bpnwnews[at]aol.com.

Several Ways To Avoid Formatting Headaches

blankbook_freeimagesOne of the most frequently heard questions at BPNW meetings boils down to “is there an easier way to do all the formats that we need?”  Here’s some suggestions that have popped up recently during meetings or online discussions. We welcome comments about user experience (please keep them polite as well as forthright) and suggestions from those reading the blog.

Smashwords
In Internet years, this site for creating and distributing ebooks to a variety of vendors is practically ancient. Everything is based upon having a manuscript in Microsoft Word and there is no fee for using their “meat grinder” to reformat for various vendors. Instead, Smashwords retains a percentage of the list price for every book sold through their site.

Draft2Digital
This service is used by LostLoves Books and mentioned by a couple of other members as less cumbersome than Smashwords. There are no fees for formatting or distributing an ebook. Draft2Digital handles the conversion from a Word doc and listing on ebook sales sites. They keep about 10% of the retail price whenever a book is sold.

Bookalope
A newer service promising “interactive and smart software tools that help you with the style analysis and the extraction of structured content from your book’s manuscript, with cleaning up and checking the text for many different punctuation and spelling problems, and with generating e-books for different devices and for print.” Fees vary based on quantity. Not currently used by any BPNW members (that we know of) but they have reached out to the group to alert us to their service.

Book Design Templates
For those who like to keep everything in Microsoft Word, this site has a number of templates for purchase that are suitable for creating manuscripts for print-on-demand services like Create Space or Lightning Source. Templates run around $37 for most styles and members who have used this site report that queries about issues receive a quick response.

Canva
This graphic design site has basic templates for ebook covers. Users can upload their own images or purchase stock images for $1.

Lynda.com
This educational service is available for free through the Seattle Public Library and many other institutions or by subscription for as low as $20 per month. Lynda.com provides video tutorials on how to create both print and ebooks by using such popular software as Adobe’s InDesign or Apple’s IBook Author.