By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/18/2015
A little while back, Brian Hibbs wrote a piece involving the place of Kickstarters in the comics world that still seems to be making the rounds online. It comes at it from the retailer angle, and as somebody who’s run a few Kickstarters, I have a few different thoughts about how crowdfunding fits into the […]
By: Paula Becker,
on 9/5/2012
I dunno. I did this last week but never finished/posted it. These peas are identical LOOKING, but not so identical when it comes to personalities.
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By: Scott Laming,
on 10/18/2011
I just found a very interesting interview with bookbinder Michael Greer. While some folks are quick to suggest that high quality bookbinding is a dying art Greer feels that this doesn't have to be the case. He sees the expansion of print-on-demand publishing as the perfect partner for his luxury craft.
In the US, hand bookbinding as a trade has been nearly dead for many years. A few of us quixotic dreamers hang on. Still, the revolution in the last decade in on-demand publishing could create a space for us. Twenty years ago, self-publishers paid a hefty sum to print maybe 250 copies of their family history. They gave away ten and the rest went into the attic. For about the same amount of money, I can print and bind ten full leather volumes and create others on demand. The difficulty is letting people know that this kind of thing exists. When I do fairs, people often approach my table full of books with a mystified smile and say, “I didn’t know anybody did this stuff anymore.” If bookbinders can get the word out, we might be able to carve out a place for our services in the growing world of digital publishing.
I think this is a fantastic coupling of old and new technologies. Imagine your own family history album, complete with photos, bound beautifully in leather and preserved for your grandchildren.
(Via Moby Lives)
So far this week I’ve covered why people might want to self publish (and when they shouldn’t), and I’ve offered a step-by-step guide to the process. One big question remains—how can you turn a self-published book into a success story?
Since I just released my books, I can’t claim success yet. If you want to follow along with my story, I’ll be reporting updates on my personal blog on Wednesdays.
In the meantime, I can tell you my plan. First though, some comments from experts:
On the Behler Blog, Lynn Price acknowledges changes to the industry, but offers a warning to self-publishers: “The big advance money is drying up and the big guys aren’t buying the kinds of books they did years ago.… [However] It’s one thing to heed the call to the battle cry and chant ‘death to publishers!’ and quite another to actually go out and do it. And be successful.”
Self-pub superstar Amanda Hocking adds her own warning: “Traditional publishing and indie publishing aren’t all that different, and I don’t think people realize that. Some books and authors are best sellers, but most aren’t. It may be easier to self-publish than it is to traditionally publish, but in all honesty, it’s harder to be a best seller self-publishing than it is with a house.”
On the other side, Joe Konrath writes adult mysteries. He started in traditional publishing but has become totally gung ho about self-publishing. He sees no reason why anyone would want a traditional publishing contract today. On the other hand, he fully admits that success takes a big dose of luck. He often features guest authors sharing their success stories. These are primarily adult genre authors, but it’s still interesting to see what people do—and often how little difference a big publicity plan makes.
Along with luck, Joe says you need a well-written book, a great cover, a strong blurb describing it, and a good price point. He considers the e-book ideal $2.99, the lowest price at which you can get Amazon’s 70 percent royalty rate (it drops to 30 percent for cheaper books). You can judge my covers for yourself and check out the description and sample chapters of the writing at my Amazon page. Now let’s run some numbers to figure out that price point.
I can price my work as a $2.99 e-book and make $2 per book with Kindle’s 70 percent royalty rate. My traditionally published books are available on the Kindle, but at $5.99 for each of the Haunted series (the paperback price) and $8.80 for The Well of Sacrifice (hardcover price $16). I don’t get many sales that way, but many people complain that e-books are overpriced. (For an explanation of why, check out this post by former agent Nathan Bransford.) With The Eyes of Pharaoh and Rattled, people may be more likely to try the lower-priced books.
POD copies will be priced higher, because of printing costs. I can price Rattled at $7.99 which earns me $.92 for
One of Japana’s major book publishers, Futabasha Publishing, claims that a first print run of 10,000 copies of “Occupation, Thief; Annual income, Y30 million” has almost run out in the 10 days since publication.
Hajime Karasuyama – the pen name of the career burglar – claims to have developed the uncanny ability to guess just where the occupant of any home will have stashed the cash and valuables and provides tips on how to gain access to a locked property and then get away again without leaving any signs.
Karasuyama says he earns around $470,000 a year from burglary. The Japanese police are investigating.
However, in the meantime, Karasuyama who has a forensic history as a Japanese thief, and who describes himself as a gentleman cat burglar, has taken the book publishers by storm by become a best-selling author after writing a book giving tips on how to carry out burglaries.
“Once we get inside a house, us thieves have an instinct for knowing where the money is squirrelled away,” Karasuyama told the Shukan Taishu magazine in an interview about his book — which carries the warning “Please do not attempt to copy me” as its subtitle.
Karasuyama provides details on how to pick any lock and silently use a glass cutter on a window. In this exclusive book publisher edition, he reveals that placing a jeweller’s magnifying eyepiece against a door peephole reverses the view and enables him to look inside the house, while he recommends a hybrid car for going on “jobs” because they are very quiet.
The publisher dismissed suggestions putting out what amounts to a manual of how to become a burglar is irresponsible. “This book is not targeted at people who might want to be a burglar but more at homeowners who want to know how they can better protect their home,” Kenichi Nakazawa, the book’s editor, said.
By: Trisha, Gayle, and Jolene,
on 11/22/2010
Dropping down through the clouds, silent like a spider on a web, is a massive black sphere.
It’s a mile away, at least, but even from this distance it dwarfs the neighborhoods below. I brace myself for the horror of watching houses crushed with people inside. But it stops well above the trees, maybe five hundred feet off the ground. It hovers soundlessly. (p. 14)
At 5:00 in the morning, just days from his sixteenth birthday, a painfully loud metallic noise jarred Josh from his sleep. Hundreds of miles to the south, twelve-year-old Megs was already awake, waiting in a car for her mother to return from a job interview. The noise that shook them both, as well as millions of other people, announced the arrival of giant spaceships capable of making people and cars on the street disappear in a second.
Short chapters and a fast-paced, alternating first-person narration make POD a quick, engrossing read. Stephen Wallenfels continually ratchets up the novel’s suspense by raising the stakes for both Josh and Megs. Josh is stuck at home in Prosser, Washington with his father (his mother was away at a conference), unable to leave the house to gather supplies or see if his friends are okay, or anything else, really. He initially comes across as pretty self-centered—concerned about his mom, yes, but also a bit whiny in his petty rebellions against his father’s instinctive reaction to chart and plan everything he can to survive as long as possible.
Megs’ situation is the more immediately suspenseful, and not just because she was more sympathetic than Josh from the start. Her single mother parked their car in a hotel parking structure and instructed Megs to stay their until she returned. But with dangerous men breaking into and ransacking nearly every vehicle in the garage, she should leave the car and find someplace safer to hide, right?
While Josh and his father struggle to ration their remaining food and water, Megs must scavenge for supplies. With communications out, no one knows what the ships will do or what’s going on in other parts of the world; Josh doesn’t even know if his mother is still alive. And when, on day 13, all electrical devices—even battery-powered ones—suddenly stop working, survival becomes that much tougher.
Each chapter in POD covers a day in Josh or Megs’ life. Because the narratives focus on the more suspenseful or dramatic events of the day (and skipping over a couple of days), the story doesn’t really drag. This also allow Wallenfels room for character development; by the end of the story, Josh is a much more sympathetic character.
However, by the end of the story, readers will also have some unanswered questions. Thankfully, according to Wallenfels’ website, he is currently writing a sequel to POD.
Book source: public library.
Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.
2 Comments on POD by Stephen Wallenfels, last added: 11/24/2010
Beginning in the first quarter of 2011, Xerox will move into print-on-demand book publishing in a bigger way through an expanded relationship with On Demand Books, creator of the Espresso Book Machine (EBM), which has been described as an ‘ATM’ for books, allowing readers to wait for books they buy to be printed in a bookstore thereby transforming how books will be bought in the future.
The EBM channel is currently available to indepedent authors through Schiel & Denver Book Publishers. Learn more about the Espresso Book Machine (includes video footage):
http://www.schieldenver.com/learning-center/publishing-tutorials/espresso-book-machine.html
While the Xerox 4112 will continue to serve as printer for the EBM, the Fortune 500 company will now market, sell, lease, and service the rechristened machine, co-branded as the Espresso Book Machine, a Xerox Solution. The “solution” includes both hardware and On Demand’s EspressNet software that connects to the machine and enables it to print a library-quality paperback book at point of sale in a few minutes.
With its 4,000-person sales force, Xerox could significantly extend On Demand’s reach and its vision of making any book ever written available as a printed book for consumers. “Certainly they are going to take us to the next level,” said On Demand CEO Dane Neller, who is looking to Xerox to help On Demand overcome the chicken-and-egg problem faced by many startups.
Currently there are close to 50 EBMs in bookstores and libraries worldwide. McNally Jackson in New York City and Flintbridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse in La Cañada Flintbridge, Calif., are among the bookstores slated to add machines later this year. Schiel and Denver UK Book Publishers also offer access to the technology for authors.
“For independent bookstores, the EBM is an extraordinary technology,” said Jeff Mayersohn, owner of Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass. “And now the added value Xerox brings will help us secure new business while satisfying book enthusiasts instantly.”
In other news, On Demand is in the midst of readying a new edition, version 2.2. The fundamental self-publishing a book footprint will remain the same as that of its predecessor. But rather than being raised up, the printer will sit on the floor next to the machine.
Share and Enjoy:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2631716,alligator-chicago-river-caught-082410.article
Well, today they captured a baby alligator that was swimming in the Chicago River. What made this event so unusual is that alligators are not common to the Chicago River. Anyway, the poor critter will be watched for about three months, then hopefully released somewhere it can adapt. They say it was probably somebody's pet, since it looked well fed and in good shape.
I like to use everyday examples and tie them to my writing experience. Many writers swim around, do their best to follow the rules and try to get somewhere, yet all along they're swimming in the wrong place. The problem is how to know where the right place is. Is it better to go with a small press, a traditional press, or perhaps strike out on your own by self-publishing through ebooks, or print on demand?
All of us alligators need to make that decision. We can't expect someone to scoop us up and make the decision for us, as happened to today's gator. Take heart, though, you can always change your mind if needs be, or do a combination. Right now, I have two novels with a small press, one is self-published, and all are also in ebook form. I've submitted a partial to a traditional house, but am undecided what my next course will be. When the time is ripe, I'll take action.
Now, where do you swim? Or, aren't you sure yet?
By: Scott Laming,
on 5/21/2009
Sometimes the future comes sooner than you think, Print on demand is entering the mainstream. It was just last week when I wrote about authors personalizing POD novels as a marketing tactic and how it could help bring print on demand into mainstream aplication.
This week brings the anouncement of The Obama Time Capsule, a custom, 200 page, print on demand picture book which allows the customer to incorporate their own images and text into the body of the work.
According to this USA Today article, when you order the book you are given 10 days to customize it to your liking.
After ordering the book at Amazon, you'll receive an e-mail with a link that takes you to the Time Capsule website. You'll have 10 days to customize the book there or it will get shipped as is. You get to write a dedication, and your name appears on the cover (and an inside page) as one of the authors, next to Smolan and co-project director Jennifer Erwitt.
You can upload one image to appear on the back cover and another that will appear on a page next to pictures of Sean Penn, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities. There's also a place-holder for your kid's Obama-related artwork.
At this point the personalization is pretty basic, but I see the options in the future as nearly limitless.
Imagine a kiosk outside the Superbowl where after you have watched the game you can upload your personal photos from your digital camera and mix them in with pro shots taken by photographers that day at the game and have a finished book mailed to you a week later.... Or better yet, have something like the Espresso Book Machine on hand and print the copy right there so you have something to look over while you fight your way out of the parking lot.
Publishers Weekly made the announcement earlier this week that the number of Print on Demand titles on offer overtook the number of titles published in the traditional way last year. The vast (and I mean VAST) majority of these POD titles were super short run books on the extreme end of the long tail, but with the creators of The Obama Time Capsule alerady boasting that they might have the first NY Times bestselling POD in history, its becoming harder to deny that POD really is hitting the mainstream whether we like it or not.
By: Scott Laming,
on 5/13/2009
Print on demand technology is getting better and better by the day, and while it evokes the ire of book collectors, POD has opened a lot of doors.
The most commonly realized beneficiaries are academics and graduate students who are now more easily able to order affordable copies of highly specialized reports and research projects. The other groups to benefit are emerging novelists and poets who can offer their work to a large number of readers for a limited financial investment giving them a chance to build up their fan base potentially increasing their chances of picking up a publisher.
However one aspect of print on demand which I think is still in its relative infancy is the use of POD technology as a marketing tool for mainstream publishing.
I got thinking about this while reading my morning blogroll and seeing that romance novelist Brenda Novak is setting up an online charity auction for diabetes research where the winning bidder will be flown to a romance convention, have her photo taken with a cover model and get 10 copies of the book with "her" cover.
Another scheme that has been hatched as of late is authors auctioning or raffling off the chance to name a character in their novel. Stephen King, Amy Tan, Lemony Snicket, John Grisham, and Margaret Atwood have all done this for charity and today I read in Quill and Quire that Nathan Tyree (The author of Zombie Lust and the New Flesh and How to Make Love Like a Zombie) is taking this one step further and actually writing "you" into his next book, and he's pocketing the money.
The winner will have to provide me with their name, a photo of themselves, a description of their personality and mannerisms, a bio (background info and such). I will write the novel and guarantee publication within one year of the end of the auction. Then they will also receive a free copy of the book.
So my question is how long will it be before we see this kind of marketing translated into POD.
Just say a regular copy of the new Stephen King book will cost you $15, but for $35 you can have the personalized copy where your name is substituted in place for that of the beat cop who catches the telekinetic werewolf serial killer goes for $30. The same could be done with Novak’s cover scheme, have a premium option with a personalized cover. Depending on the author, I could see it being popular.
[Now reading: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley]
By: Bill Kirk,
on 1/2/2009
Wow! Where has the year gone? It's already January 3 and I meant to add this post bright and early on January 1. I had this thought of getting something meaningful said on the first day of the new year. I mean, the first day only happens once a year. So, it's not something you can replay. Could this be a harbinger of other assaults on my writing focus? Let's not go there just yet.
What was it I felt so compelled to say on the first day of the year anyway? It all started with our trip to Borders Books on the last day of 2008. It was kind of a lazy day in anticipation of a quiet evening at home with Dick Clark and a visit to a bookstore seemed like the right thing to do. Many others seemed to have the same idea as the store we visited was busy with browsers. And the checkout line was sufficiently long for the waiting time to be noticeable--both of which are good signs for those of us in the book writing biz, right?
As it turned out that day, the flurry of activity in the aisles and around the cash registers was at least partly related to the New Years Eve sale. The discounts were deep, even on the newer stocks in the store, and the sale table bordered on a "give-away". There were beautiful photographic books on Italy and on the architectural wonders of the world that originally would have sold for $75 - $100 or more. That day they were stacked and stickered at $15. And a $25 book published in 2006 about Michael Phelps' pre-Olympics days was marked down to $3.
There was also the headline in the days before Christmas that one of our area's Borders Books stores was closing its doors in January. I suppose at a certain point, the cost of the brick and mortar is too much for the books to bear. Which brings me to what got me to thinking.
While we were in the store, I drifted past the stacks and rows of books on virtually every topic imaginable. There, next to one of the support pillars was a small, flat-screen monitor with a mouse and keyboard. On the screen was an invitation to "Just Click The Mouse To Get Started".
A search window with fields for title, author or publisher came up. Choosing "publisher", in seconds every book in the Borders Books inventory was displayed in publication order by year, also sortable by author. Each book had a brief synopsis with the target age and price. Although leaving the store with the book in hand was not an option, the screen announced the book would arrive within two weeks.
That got me to wondering, where are all these books coming from? Were they in a large, dusty warehouse someplace in Kansas City, in boxes or shrink-wrapped and waiting to be shipped? Well there is a bit of that still going on. But as it turns out, more and more publishers are catching on to the fact that keeping inventory is expensive, from the printing cost to the storage costs to the recycling cost for books not sold. What to do? What to do?
What if the books weren't printed ahead of time--at least not in large numbers requiring storage? What if printers could turn a publisher's order around in days, including the binding and shipping? What if the book sellers were connected directly to the printers? And what if the printers could respond to buyer demand as if the books had already been printed, inventoried and warehoused? Print On Demand (POD) by any other name would smell as sweet.
Well, printing technology has advanced to the point that a book can be printed and leave the printer bound for the buyer as fast as or even faster than a book can be retrieved from a warehouse, processed for shipping and sent to the customer (either a bookstore or the buying public). The downside is that brick and mortar bookstores will find it more and more difficult to stay profitable as they shift from being a desirable customer destination shopping point to simply being a middle man adding unnecessary time to service delivery.
In point of fact, bookstores have evolved to quasi-libraries, although a bit glitzier with coffee shops and music. Lots of people go to bookstores these days to just hang out and browse. And bookstores have taken note of this shift, creating comfort zones for shoppers to get out of the cold or heat or rain, take their time checking out the merchandise, have a cup of gourmet joe and a designer muffin. It's a great way to spend a couple hours.
Maybe the next evolution will be that bookstores will only keep enough books in stock to meet "hit and run" demand, while expanding the network with printers who can print on demand. Then, again, maybe we're already there. But why has it taken so long? Could this be the equivalent of the automakers' shift to green? It should have, could have, occurred long ago but it appears vested interests got in the way.
Stay tuned. Just as public libraries have installed banks of computers to replace their card catalogs, you may soon see more computer terminals appearing in your local bookstores to give customers instant access to book lists and ordering. It's all quite amazing actually.
Repeat after me: Print On Demand. Print On Demand. Next up? E-Books....
By: Jenny Turner,
on 12/19/2008
POD = PRINT ON DEMAND
This is a form of printing where a specific company utilizes digital printing machinery to actually print books one at a time, when the demand necessitates action. Will it give you a rash? Will it kill you? Will it even hurt you? No to all of those questions.
PRINT ON DEMAND is simply a term used for a type of printing and not a type of publishing. There are many extremely reputable publishing houses that utilize PRINT ON DEMAND printing for a number of reasons.
POD technology allows publishers who prefer to put there $$ into marketing as opposed to printing books that may or may not sell. It allows printers to save money on purchasing materials that might ultimately be wasted when a print run doesn’t sell as well as a publisher hopes. It allows the paper producers to destroy fewer trees to produce materials that are again wasted.
There seems to be some misunderstanding in the book industry that POD books are substandard. Booksellers and librarians have been mislead to believe that books printed one at a time are not as good as “real books.” Okay, here is a news flash; some books that are printed on demand are actually better quality than books printed by offset printing companies.
Let’s consider why I say that. Say you are a bookseller and you order one book from Publisher A who uses print on demand technology. You can be assured that the POD book you will receive will have been thoroughly reviewed by the quality control staff member and is of the highest possible quality.
Now, say you buy one books from Publisher B who uses an offset printer (or as some in the industry insist on calling them, a traditional printer.) These books were printed in a set of, say, 25,000. How many of those books do you think were specifically checked for quality control? Probably 10%. You increase your chances considerably of getting a book that might not be properly bound or glued, or perhaps a section of the book got crimped in the binding process. That is a book you cannot sell and must go through the hassle of returning for credit. What a pain.
I hope that this brief explanation will make you stop and think about the options available to you as a bookseller or librarian next time an author or publisher comes to you.
As readers, I hope you will ignore all the hoopla about POD books and allow yourself the pleasure of reading an author who just might become a favorite author. It truly is of no concern to you as a reader how the book is printed, as long as the author has written an incredibly entertaining book.
Are you looking for a new favorite author? I would highly recommend you give Echelon Press authors a try. I am not at all embarrassed to say that Echelon has published some of the best writers currently available in the market. You can get more information on our authors by visiting www.echelonpress.com/directory.htm
Print on Demand companies
Lightning Source (owned by Ingram Book Company-largest Book distributor in US)
BookSurge (Owned by Amazon.com-need I say more?)
Lulu
Happy Reading!
©Karen L. Syed
By: Kyra,
on 3/2/2008
If you are interested in comparing the offerings of DOZENS of Print-on-Demand publishers, do check out the recently (Feb 2008) POD Database listing prepared by author Dehanna Bailee. This 22 page PDF is free from Dehanna. Enjoy!
By: Mayra Calvani,
on 11/25/2007
Hi all,
The special publishing issue of Voice in the Dark Ezine is out for your reading pleasure.
In this issue...
Editor's Note
Fictional Character Interview
Special Publisher Interviews
--Meet Lida Quillen, Publisher, Twilight Times Books
--Meet Kathryn Struck, Publisher, Awe-Struck E-Books
Featured Interviews
--Meet Lida Quillen, Publisher, Twilight Times Books, Interview by Mayra Calvani
--Meet Lynda S. Burch, Publisher, Guardian Angel Publishing, Interview by Mayra Calvani
--Meet Elizabeth Burton, Publisher, Zumaya Books, Interview by Mayra Calvani Book Excerpt -- Tremolo by Aaron Paul Lazar
Gladiator's Arena--by Mayra Calvani
Short Fiction
Articles
--It's my Book! Right? by Ghost Writer
--Traditional Publishing, Self-Publishing and Subsidy Publishing by Barbara Hudgins
--The Perils and Pitfalls of Publishing: Who Can an Author Trust by Dee Power and Brian Hill
--How Do Books Get on Book Store Shelves by Dee Power
Sanctuary -- Columnist Mayra Calvani
Whodunit? -- Columnist Billie A. Williams
Pam's Pen -- Columnist Pamela James
Seedlings -- Aaron Paul Lazar
This & That -- Columnist Dana Reed
Reviews
Notes
Events
Resources
Just go to www.MysteryFiction.net and click on Voice in the Dark on the left sidebar.
Enjoy!
Best,
Mayra
By: April Henry,
on 5/27/2007
"Anthony Edwards patted the right pocket of his jeans, just to make sure his dictionary was there. He drew it out, thumbing the yellowing pages, pressing down the packing tape that held the cover. Then he walked through the front door and down the aisles of a shop along Route 22. He was 31 years old and going to a bookstore for the first time in his life..."
Read more here.
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We Kickstarted the BAD KARMA hardcover and later offered it through Diamond (selling copies we had overprinted) via Dynamite.
My guess is we sold more copies through Diamond thanks to awareness of and response to the Kickstarter than we would have had we just offered it cold to the marketplace.
Kickstarters are a ton of work…I had to actually slow down on them a bit but picking back up in fall with a new one. The thing is you always have to look at your kickstarter as a store and try to offer the best product you can and show as much of it as you possibly can on your page. I love doing them because it creates a real connection with me and my audience and a certain kind of relationship that is just impossible to have anywhere else…but my point is that it is not an easy thing and you will judged by how well you communicate, and deliver a solid product. Like Todd says in this excellent piece, a lot of the after kickstarter income is made after the book is released and keeping digital as well as some of the books in stock like I do on the Paperfilms.com site is very important to those that might have missed the chance to become part of the kickstarter. As pictured, we have ABBADON now featured in the diamond catalogue under our partners Adaptive imprint and we are hoping word of mouth from the kickstarter helps its sales to a brand new audience.
[…] How To Make Crowdfunding Sustainable For Comics – A little while back … to your customer list each time. If you’re doing a series and you have some copies of the previous volume(s) in hand, offer a bundle of the whole series as an upsell. It can help you raise more … […]
[…] Crowdfunding | Todd Allen, author of The Economics of Digital Comics and veteran of several Kickstarter campaigns, discusses how crowdfunding fits in with the larger comics market — and how it could work better. [The Beat] […]
Standard 70 ain’t half bad. I use it for advance review copies and it’s noticeably less premium, but only if you’re comparing the book to offset-printed ones on your bookshelf. The print quality is nice and crisp, on bright white paper, and most people who look at them think they’re finished books until I tell them they aren’t.