Writing to the Market
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 17th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
This is a big mistake. Write the story that you want to write, not what you suspect the market wants. Whether it’s a novel or non-fiction, your background, experience and insight are what make your story unique. No other writer anywhere on the planet can duplicate your own writing!
Book sales are cyclical. If you look at the past 30 years you’d see the highs and lows of category sales. What publishers try to do is catch the rise to the top and avoid the dip to the lows. As an author, there is no way you can try to match or write to that cycle.
Forget about market timing. It won’t work. Write the story you were destined to write and focus on making it entertaining, enlightening and informative. Consumers will always buy good books so make yours as good as possible.
The New Hybrid Publishing Model
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 15th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
As the major publishing companies evaluate their current situation, one thing becomes clear, what they are doing is not working. You cannot stem the tide of falling unit sales when your strategy is to produce more of the same. Propping up a broken system that makes it difficult for new talent to break in and reprinting less-than-stellar writing from old tried-and-true authors is the best way to drive your customers away, and that strategy seems to be working!
The reading public is screaming for a new approach. This is my conclusion after seeing a decade long slide in single copy sales. How can an industry constantly fly in the face of the basic law of supply and demand? When demand goes down in publishing, the big companies increase supply by shipping more books and raise cover prices at the same time. This does not make sense.
The time is right for an entirely new approach, and it’s called the hybrid publishing model—combining the experience and vast knowledge of former New York publishing executives with top quality production to assist writers in publishing their own manuscript. In the end, the finished product is made available to booksellers via direct sales to book buyers at top retailers. The advantages are considerable.
Remember, publishing is about perception—publish with the wrong company and the quality of your writing will forever be judged before your title has a chance at success.
Publishing Changes are Coming!
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 12th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
It’s in the wind. There is no doubt that changes in book publishing are happening fast. As we all watch bleary-eyed at the evening news and more talk about the tough economic times we are all experiencing, executives in the New York publishing houses have forgotten about the average consumer. No longer can these companies starve the market for good new writers and interesting new categories by publishing helpless titles and charge $16 to $27. They have to change to survive. Their solution over the past fifteen years has been to publish more of what they know sells, but it’s not working! Consumers aren’t buying it, and it’s about time!
There are quality writers publishing independently and for consumers interested in reading books not typically found in bookstores may I suggest you visit the web site NothingBinding.com then tell your friends and colleagues to join and post their writing. The strength of independent publishing is in our combined numbers. If all 300,000 new authors each year would join forces there is no telling what kind of impact we could have on the marketplace. To capitalize on all the changes in the book business will take some huge effort. Let’s bind together to generate sales for our independent books. Now is the time.
Facts not Promises
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 11th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
I’m often asked a variety of questions regarding publishing, marketing, and book sales. The common theme among all the writers and authors who contact me is the same, when it comes to questions about publishing, products, services and marketing “who can you believe?” That is a difficult question to answer since I have my own perspective (25 years in New York publishing) and opinions (based on 7 years in the independent publishing market).
It has been my experience that writers and authors tend to believe:
(1) friends, other authors, and colleagues within their own writing group or circle of friends,
(2) the best sales pitch with the least cost and biggest promises of success, and
(3) those offering facts and not promises which is the way I describe myself and other members of the INDI Publishing Group.
There is nothing wrong with believing whom you want to believe, however, if experience makes the difference, then you should be listening to those with the most experience with a solid background in New York publishing. I am not biased towards any form of publishing. For me and my clients, it depends on their personal goals, wants, hopes, and dreams. I pride myself on telling the truth and being honest to a fault. Sometimes writers don’t want to accept the facts.
My professional services and those of my group are not the least expensive and you shouldn’t expect that. Our combined experience is unparalleled in publishing. I don’t make wild promises or offer guarantees, I refuse to paint a rosy picture of the bookselling marketplace, and I absolutely will not associate myself or do business with anyone that is not above reproach. These are the rules I go by and if that fits your criteria then send me an email. I will do everything I can to offer you my expertise and guidance with the goal of making you a successful author.
eBook Pricing sets the Stage
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 10th, 2010 | 1 Comment » (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.
