Meetings and Naps and a Fantastic Post on Publishing
A Day of Meetings and Naps First
Even the meetings were fun and I don’t remember the naps.
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THE DAY IN GENERAL
Managed to roll out of the house around 1:30 p.m. and hit the snail mail on the way to the first meeting.
Up to WMG Publishing offices then to talk with two other professional fiction writers, plus Kris came through to work in her office there and Allyson was in and around.
Sometimes that office is very quiet, sometimes it is a crazy place. And fun. Today was a fun day. Great conversations.
I worked on formatting Smith’s Monthly from 5 p.m. until a couple other writer friends showed up for some more wonderful talk. Then I had to go get Kris.
Home by 7 p.m. to cook dinner and watch the news.
Came in here around 9:30 p.m. to do e-mail but by 10 p.m. I felt so tired I needed a nap.
Since Kris was reading near my reading chair, I went into our dark bedroom and two hours later stumbled out. Watched some television, and finally got back in here around 2 a.m.
I did a 1,100 word section on the novel before tossing in the towel on that. Far too tired.
Took a break, did a chapter on the Sales Copy book. 1,250 words.
So 1,100 words of fiction. 1,250 words of nonfiction. Better than I thought I would get done tonight.
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TOPIC OF THE NIGHT: A Fantastic Post on the Places to Publish
Tonight over a list someone sent a link to a wonderful article Bookbub did on all the places to publish your work to get it out to readers.
And they have a ton of links.
So for those out there who are asking where you can start putting your work up, this article is a savior. And it has a ton of information and suggestions.
They even have a one page comparison chart you can print off, but read everything.
And if you already know how to put stuff up and other younger writers are asking you how, now you can just send them to this article.
This has been a public service announcement. Put this link in your history because trust me, you will want to pass it around to friends and other writers.
http://insights.bookbub.com/ultimate-guide-to-self-publishing-book-distribution-tools/
Now, one thing I noticed is that they say they see many using CreateSpace to get paper books into Amazon and IngramsSpark to get books into the trade distribution systems.
Seems logical to me if you only have a few titles in paper.
But if you are aiming at a lot of titles, that Sparks up-front fee and yearly title fee will chew you up something awful.
So it might sound all good to go both ways early on. But caution. Those Sparks fees can really snap your budget.
In fact, my suggestion is stay away completely with anything that has upfront fees. That’s where they are making their money, not on sales of your work. Stay with no fees up front. That way they only make money if you make money.
But that is just my suggestion.
The overall article is stunning. Go read it.
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Writing of Heaven Painted as a Cop Car
Day 1… 2,100 words… Total Words to date… 2,100 words.
Day 2… 2,300 words… Total Words to date… 4,400 words.
Day 3… 0,000 words… Total Words to date… 4,400 words.
Day 4… 2,400 words… Total Words to date… 6,800 words.
Day 5… 2,100 words… Total Words to date… 8,900 words.
Day 6… 1,100 words… Total Words to date… 10,000 words.
Day 7… 2,400 words… Total Words to date… 12,400 words.
Day 8… 1,900 words… Total Words to date… 14,300 words.
Day 9… 1,100 words… Total Words to date… 15,400 words.
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Totals For Year 3, Month 1, Day 13
Writing in Public blog streak Day 743
— Daily Fiction: 1,100 original words. Fiction month-to-date: 15,400 words
— Nonfiction: 1,250 new words. Nonfiction month-to-date total: 10,250 words
— Blog Posts: 600 new words. Blog month-to-date word count: 7,400 words
— E-mail: 15 e-mails. Approx. 800 original words. E-mails month-to date: 397 e-mails. Approx. 13,900 words
— Covers Designed and Finished: 0. Covers finished month-to-date: 3 Covers
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6 Comments
Stephen Gradijan
“But if you are aiming at a lot of titles, that Sparks up-front fee and yearly title fee will chew you up something awful.”
I could be wrong, and forgive me if I am, but it seems to me if you are expecting a lot of sales via Brick and Mortar, this is precisely the way to go because going wide distribution via Amazon you have to pay a steep price via massively reduced royalties.
I believe it comes down to how many sales per title you expect to sell via B&M; if it is a little number then go Amazon wide, but if it is a large enough number to overcome Ingram’s listing fees, then keep the full Amazon royalty and use IngramSpark to go wide instead.
dwsmith
If you are thinking of selling a vast amount, you would have a standard printer print them and go through a standard trade distributor. Again, there are a thousand ways to approach this at this point in time, which is wonderful. Choices. Lots of choices.
Vera Soroka
Very good article. I thought though that Createspace did give you worldwide distribution, like in Baker &Taylor and Ingram’s. I think Kobo does a paper book link. I hope so as I’m from Canada and I want my paper book to be available through Chapters.
dwsmith
Yes, CreateSpace goes to all places. That’s why I was surprised that people were using both, but there are options in Sparks in distribution that are not available in CreateSpace. But Sparks has issues into Amazon, where Createspace goes instantly to Amazon, but is slower in the other direction.
Dane Tyler
That was a great post, Dean, thanks for the link. I use a little program called Pocket (http://getpocket.com/) for saving such things. You can share from it too, so it’s handy. Just a little helpful tip.
As I read through your comments on the post, I remembered you saying something about using POD for paper distribution before. I read a post you did some time back (sorry, I don’t recall which one) where you stated it was possible to get books into bookstores this way.
Since I have only a few titles worth putting out in print, would you recommend using CreateSpace? Does a self-pubbed author need to do something special to get into bookstores through CS?
If this is all in the “Think Like a Publisher” book, please let me know. I’m going to pick it up anyway, but maybe that would be a reason to do so sooner rather than later. 🙂
All my best!
dwsmith
In either IngramsSpark or Createspace, you just click the extended distribution. Spark has a few other things you can pick as well. But both are simple to access their distribution systems.
The key to remember with both is that they are printers first. The distribution systems are just there to help you get into the trade channels which gets you to bookstores. Actually, it gets you available to bookstores. The stores have to want to order it. That’s another issue.