eBook Pricing sets the Stage
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 10th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Regardless of where the major publishers decide to price their eBooks there will be plenty of room for independent authors to compete by pricing more aggressively. Whether $9.99 or $14.99 the big publishers have fixed costs that smaller companies and independent authors do not. There is no doubt the big publishing houses want their eBook prices to remain relatively close to the hardcover edition of each title however the closer to the $20 mark, the weaker their position.
Suggested retail pricing in publishing, especially the eBook is key to success. Unfortunately the print side of the business has such a rigid discount structure that under pricing the competition while covering the cost of printing low quantities of books makes profitability difficult, not so with eBooks. If a ground floor opportunity ever existed in publishing, this is it! Explore the possibilities; consider launching your publishing career in eBook format and wait for print. The cost of entry to the market is much lower and the possibilities are greater than print editions.
eBook the Next Frontier
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 8th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Imagine for a moment as an author, selling copies of your books and never having to print replacement copies. Consider the elimination of shipping, handling and warehousing costs for printed books. Imagine never having to deal with book returns ever again. A market exists where all sales are final, welcome to the new frontier of bookselling with digital downloads and eBooks.
For new authors struggling to create an audience, why would you want to launch in print when the price of entry into the eBook market is so low? A writer can take a manuscript that has been professionally edited and create an eBook for a fraction of the cost of producing a printed book.
When publishing independently and working to stay within a budget for production and marketing, wouldn’t your money be better spent on marketing rather than print and production costs? If you already have a printed edition of your book, and you own the digital and electronic rights, why not add an eBook to your product mix? Times are changing, markets are shifting, the eBook is fast becoming a viable market for selling content.
The method of eBook distribution is patterned after the print distribution business which means you need a publisher or distributor to gain access to the marketplace. Print is not going away but more consumers will be moving to the eBook because of price and wider availability of eReaders. If you have interest in exploring the market for eBooks, please contact me through this web site.
Making the Right Publishing Decisions
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 5th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
It’s interesting to note that many of the self-publishing mills (the big POD companies that market aggressively and often distort the facts) are offering writers a menu of options for publishing their manuscript. The question I have is, how can any writer know what is best for their book? Success in publishing is selling books, there is no other gauge. In order to sell copies, you need to know and understand the market for bookselling. In my opinion, you cannot make the right publishing decisions if you order your trim size, cover design, interior layout, price and page count from a menu of options. Your newly published book must fit the genre in which you write, and be positioned within that category to compete with all similar titles. Can you get that information from a menu? I don’t think so, not if you expect success, which translates into selling books.
Book Tour and Amazon Promotion by Dave Lieber
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 4th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Here’s an easy and free way to get noticed every week as a popular author in your hometown.
BookTour.com, which calls itself the world’s largest, 100 percent free directory of author events, offers a wonderful event calendar for your author engagements. The best part is the periodic e-mail update that gets sent to all readers who subscribe to learn about author events within a certain number of miles from their zip code.
What this means is this: If you list several events each month, you’ll show up on subscribers’ e-mail updates on a regular basis — unlike a visiting author who makes one appearance a year. Your consistency and obvious popularity will cause more buzz about you among your region’s serious readers.
But aside from pumping life into your public image, that same e-mail that arrives to subscribers with your “tour” dates, also comes with everyone else who is scheduled to appear in your designated region. This gives you real-time intelligence about which stores and events host authors on a regular basis and who they are hosting. This insight gives you a head-start when calling the bookstore: “Hi, I saw you booked Jerry Simmons last week. You know, I’m almost as good as him.”
As a reader award, I’m saving the best for last. Recently, BookTour and Amazon struck a deal so that all of your listed events on BookTour now stream into your Amazon Author Page, assuming you have one. (Go to authorcentral.amazon.com to sign up for that.)
A live stream of appearances on your Amazon Author Page gives you a leg up on many other authors, especially those who aren’t around anymore. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain aren’t coming to a bookstore near you. But you are.
You’re out there! Now the let the world know free and easy, every week, all the time — and find out what everyone else is doing, too.
Dave Lieber is an international speaker and newspaper columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. His newest Web site is davelieber.org – which he says is a sleek new “hub-of-the-wheel” author site that he just completed with author-tech guru Thomas Umstaddt Jr. of authortechtips.com.
Book Publishing is Very Competitive
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 4th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Let me share some numbers to illustrate the competitive nature of publishing in the US: 350,000—950—35,000—6—95—70,000—6,000— 125,000—& 60.
* It is estimated there are 350,000 new titles published every year in this country,
* That breaks down to more than 950 new titles published each day,
* The major New York houses publish approximately 35,000 new titles each year,
* There are 6 major publishers in the US of which 5 are foreign owned,
* All six major publishers represent about 95 percent of total books sales in the US,
* It is estimated there are over 70,000 small and niche publishers,
* There are around 6,000 traditional main stream booksellers in the US,
* Large mega-bookstores typically inventory about 125,000 individual titles, and
* The only number that should matter to an author is their percent of sale, and that benchmark is 60 percent.
If an author under contract to one of the large New York publishers and sells at least 60 percent of the total number of copies shipped, they can have a very nice career as an author.
Now you get a picture of the competitive nature of book publishing.
Independently Published Books
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 2nd, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
There are lots of good books that are independently or self-published and most use digital or print-on-demand technology. No doubt, if you take the entire self-published or POD community and read all the books available, you would find vast amounts of titles that would not only hold their own in sales but had the potential to become bestsellers if displayed and merchandised in bookstores. The problem is negative perception of POD and no ACCESS to the bookstore market.
Let’s examine some facts about the independent or self-publishing marketplace.
(1) The success of many self-published titles such as THE SHACK indicates there are good books that started as independently published. However, this book would not be on The New York Times bestseller list without the help of a corporate publisher who bought the book after it had sold over 300,000 copies.
(2) A recent article in Publishers Weekly titled “Big Houses Benefit from Savvy Self-Publishers clearly indicated that the success of a handful of self-published books that made it into the hands of the big corporate publishers has made that New York publishing world take notice.
(3) According to statistics provided by Ingram Books, the owner of Lightening Source, the self-published market will grow at 15-20% each year for many years to come. This of course crowds the market, but creates opportunities for authors who are self-promoters and write really good books.
(4) As the corporate publishers sell fewer copies each year, retail booksellers will search for new opportunities to sell a variety of new categories, and will welcome new unproven authors. If the New York corporate publishers won’t do it, then it’s time for a new publishing model to be introduced to the market.
For authors who want control over their writing, the ability to retain all rights, realize a royalty payment much greater than any corporate publisher would offer, and be willing to take suggestions on how best to package and price their book to maximize its potential in the market, then your time is here. This new hybrid publishing model is ready and available.
What’s wrong with Print-On-Demand?
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 27th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Nothing as a technology, but plenty as a publishing business model. Unfortunately for those who publish with a POD their books will not be accepted in the stores or warehouses of booksellers. What this means is that corporate and large independent bookstores will not purchase books in quantity for display in their stores that are printed by a POD publisher. That is not my rule, but the rule of the marketplace.
The reason is lack of editorial control which results in a negative perception of all published books by a POD. These companies publish anything that comes their way. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as the writer understands the limitations before they sign a contract and pay money to publish. POD’s are in the business of printing books for their authors and they do not control the editorial quality of the authors they print. They make money by selling products, services and programs to large quantities of writers and not upon selling books. This is the problem with print-on-demand as a publishing model.
The technology is wonderful, allowing authors and publishers to print small quantities of books in an instant to meet market demand. The problem is market access and the negative perception of the quality of the content based solely on the publisher. Until a company using print-on-demand technology as a form of printing exercises some editorial control over what they publish and not accept anything that walks in the door, the marketplace will continue to turn their back on these books.
Ask the Tough Questions
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 26th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Many of my blogs have to do with “so-called experts” who try and secure money from unsuspecting writers and authors. As much as I wish could write about more positive, constructive things, it becomes necessary for me to warn my readers that there are lots of people calling themselves “publishing experts” who are nothing of the kind. I find it once again important to give you some advice, and that is – ask the tough questions.
When someone tries to sell you a product or service, ask them about their success rate? Ask them to give you references? Go to their web sites and locate authors and titles, then do your best to inquire about the product or service? Network with me and other writers, members of your writing or critique group for advice. If you cannot find authors, titles, or anyone who seems to know anything about the product or service, then you really have to be careful.
The second thing you should inquire about is the person or company’s background, experience, and qualifications as an “expert.” When someone tells you they have been in publishing for 20 years, does that really qualify them to sell you their product or service? You need to dig deeper and find out the names of the companies they worked for? In what capacity, what was their job? What were their responsibilities? What were their successes in the business? Let them give you the names of the authors and titles with which they worked. Again, if this information is unavailable, then are they really experts?
If you dig deep before you buy, complete your due diligence with regard to the product or service, and ask for proof of the success, then you stand a good chance of saving lots of money and plenty of time. Ask the tough questions and it will serve you well, don‘t allow yourself to become a victim of these “experts.”
The Truth about Book Distribution
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 25th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
One of my readers sent an email asking about a particular book distribution program. He wanted to know if it was a scam. He quoted from some article he read where it talked about a distributor that went out of business trying to distribute books for small publishers. He said the article described bookstore distribution as a scam. There was in fact a small book distributor that did go out of business a few years ago because they didn’t understand what they were doing, which often happens to businesses with a bad plan.
When a small company of any kind, distributor or publisher, enters the world of book distribution to the mainstream marketplace, they better understand the rules and how to compete with the big corporate publishers. That is especially true with book distribution. One of the reasons for launching my book distribution program last year was to offer authors, small and micro-publishers an opportunity for exposure in the marketplace. This is a program that was two years in the making and I would not even attempt to launch if I didn’t feel it was viable and could be competitive against the corporate companies.
Book distribution into booksellers such as bookstores is a very competitive business and there are no guarantees of success. My program offers access to book buyers and nothing more. Anyone that tries to offer more doesn’t understand the business. Those that wish to throw stones at the idea of book distribution to bookstores just don’t understand the market. They know how to make money selling unsuspecting writers and authors products and services that don’t work. In turn they want to attack those that are trying to make the independent market a better place for authors, small and micro-publishers.
Nothing in the printed book business is easy, but before you jump to a book distributor make sure you understand the costs, terms and risks.
Authors Can’t Succeed if They Don’t Participate
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 22nd, 2010 | 1 Comment » (Click to add yours!)
Too many times I hear authors complain about the fact they created a Facebook page and are writing on Twitter and nothing has happened to the sale of their book. Well the fact is you have to actively participate before anything will happen. Actively being the key word meaning consistently over a long period of time. If your page is static and you don’t provide new content then nothing will happen. It’s called the Law of Action.
The same goes for your web site, the fact is readers, those who actually buy books, will not shop a site that isn’t interesting or lacks rich content. You have to participate, you have to add to your personal profile, your bio, you need to create content for your site such as articles you have written about the subject you are familiar that should tie-into your book. Video or audio placed on your Facebook and other free sites is also recommended.
The more you create content as Independent authors, the more readers will pay attention. The Nothing Binding web site is free and has thousands of links to that site. If nothing happens and there is no new content to your web site, Facebook, Twitter page, or Nothing Binding profile consumers won’t react. Make your site and social network pages your stage, you must participate and make it happen for yourself and your book. Give an author an online presence and stage—who knows what will happen?
