Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn't Shortchange Self-Publishing

                      Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Shortchange Self-Publishing 

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning 
HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers

I have been Sinatra’s proverbial “prince, pauper” and a number of other things when it comes to publishing—meaning that I have tried publishing every almost every way imaginable and am here to tell you there is no one right way to do it. It can depend on your personality (are you super independent?), your pocketbook, the nature of your title, the time window you have and more. Because the term self-publishing is so often misunderstood, it is important to tell you what true self-publishing is and is not.

1.      It is frugal—or not—depending on the choices you make. It is flexible. You do everything yourself which is very frugal—very nearly free—with everything but you time. Or you hire the skills you know you should (like book cover design) and some skills you don’t want to take on (perhaps like formatting) when your pocketbook allows. And when you chose to ignore those guidelines for skills everyone adamantly recommends you avoid because you are too frugal or just plain stubborn (like editing), you tackle learning as much about it as you possibly can with the vengeance of becoming a professional and plan on doing double duty when it comes to getting help from beta readers as suggested in my The Frugal Editor.

2.      As suggested above (but bears repeating), you can publish with no upfront costs.

3.      You make all the net profit from your book. If you don’t, then it’s not really self-publishing. In fact it may be an indicator that it is vanity publishing which carries problems of its own. (By the way, I don’t like the “vanity” term because it negates the value of creativity of any book.)

4.      That you can’t use your own ISBN number is a myth. You must pay for your ISBN if you want one that carries no hidden code for a press that isn’t your own, but they can come free with some like Amazon and others like the dreaded vanity presses you have probably heard about. Most readers won’t know the difference.

5.      You keep all the rights to your work and, yes, though it isn’t easy, you can change your mind later.

6.      You make all the net profit from your book. If you don’t, then it’s not really self-publishing.

7.      You can (but won’t always!) publish more quickly. There are some very good reasons to want to do this. Your book’s topic may be time sensitive. You are aware that you may not live forever. You may simply have other stories (or books) waiting for their own time in the sun.

8.      You make all the profit net profit from your book. If you don’t, then it’s not really self-publishing. A better net profit is about making earnings for your efforts, but they also give you more room to play with like offering your book at a discount at book fairs and still make a profit for yourself (albeit a smaller one).

9.      Make no mistake, the likelihood of your self-published book of becoming a true bestseller or of seeing it on the shelves of bookstores everywhere is far less than if you snag a huge (read that “Big New York Five” as an example) contract. But if you’re publishing only to get huge sales (or profits), it is a long shot in cany case. Publish—traditionally, self, or somewhere in between—for other good reasons. There are plenty great reasons for each scenario.

10.   If you have another business, you can self-publish a book that will impart your professional credibility to your customers and attract new ones. (To say nothing of producing a little extra income stream).

Note: Your book may lead to other creative income streams like audio books, CDs, toys, and suggest other free promotions for the good of your book or other pursuits.

More About the Author

Carolyn Howard-Johnson started what she considers her “real writing” career when most are thinking of retiring. She brings her experience as publicist, journalist, marketer, editor, retailer, and the author of those books published almost every way possible including traditionally, to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program including a class on editing for self-publishers. The books in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers have won multiple awards. That series includes  The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor which won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award. Her self-published How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically launched to rave reviews from Karen Cioffi, writer and publisher.

 

Karen says, “I’m an author, content writer, and online marketing instructor. Reading Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s The Frugal Editor has given me lots and lots of tips and reminders on how to write right, whether I’m writing fiction, nonfiction, blogging, or marketing. It’s a writing tool I’ll refer to over and over again.”

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts.

What's New in the Publishing World

 

What’s New in the Publishing/Writing World

 By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers

 

Image Courtesy Amazon's New Buy Page for Series

I know.

 

You are laughing. Everything is new in the publishing world, and in the last decade it’s moved faster than ever before. That’s probably the biggest reason that Modern History Press is publishing my HowToDoItFrugally Series of books in new editions, including the just-released Third Edition of The Frugal Editor: Do It Yourself Editing Secrets for Writers. And that means that beyond the basics I had to decide what was new enough (and helpful enough!) for me to include in it. I mean, the second edition was already jam-packed with essentials needed way beyond grammar and craft needed by authors whether they self-publish or publish traditionally.

 

My publisher swears there is 50% more in the third edition than the second and we won’t even talk about the first! (Once published—gratefully—by Red Engine Press.)

 

So here is the new stuff that even those who read the second edition will find in this this new one. I hope you’ll find it well worth investing in the ebook. I promise you some surprises:

 

Why a Third Edition of The Frugal Editor?

It surprises people when they learn that grammar rules change over time. Or that what they learned in high school or advanced grammar classes in college is either passé or may not apply to fiction or to the publishing of books as opposed to the web and other media. It also surprises them to learn that a perfectly edited book is never perfect because there are always so many disagreements among experts. And even experts are often misinformed. Further, as my client base grew, I kept running into common misconceptions and outright annoying style choices that would never fly in the publishing world. Thus, a new edition of The Frugal Editor was a must! So here is a smattering of what is new:

·       The Third Edition has new “Editor’s Extras” based on my own school of hard knocks! (I think you’ll love seeing (and learning from!) the worst mistakes I made with my first publishing effort in spite of years as a journalist, PR professional, and writing instructor!)

·       Authors will love the all-new sections including:

o    Beta readers and peer reviewers

o    What you probably don’t know about custom dictionaries

o    Up-to-date rules for accommodating gender-specific and other cultural needs. I mean, are you using the LGBTQIA2+? When you need to be as politically correct possible? 

o    A chapter for word-lovers and poets

o    Quickie reviews of word processors. They’ve changed a lot over the years.

o    What even traditionally accepted front and back matter can (and can't)  do for your book sales, your career, and your readers

o    How to spot shady publisher scams

o    How and when to go for style choices for your book rather than rules.

·       The Third Edition of The Frugal Editor still includes the basics that make you into an on-your-own editor when you must be. Few writers other than Toni Morrison can afford to hire an editor for every query letter, every media release, every media kit, every blog post. So until your career is so star-studded you can afford a publicist and editor on a retainer basis, writers need to know both the basics of editing and the little-known secrets.

·       The third edition is still loaded with reader favorites like what authors need to know about book covers—but it’s updated!

·       New information helps with oft-misunderstood aspects of publishing like these:

o    Agents are a cantankerous lot. (Nope! In The Frugal Editor, twenty-one of the nation's best tell you their pet peeves and they do it in the best of spirits.)

o    If your English teacher told you something is OK, it is. (Language has changed since you were a sophomore. And your English teachers likely have no background in publishing, so apart from basic grammar, how much help can they be?

o    If a manuscript or query is grammar-perfect, you'll be fine. (No! Lots of things that are grammatically correct annoy publishers.)

o    Always use your Spell and Grammar Checker. (No! Some suggest you don't use it at all, but The Frugal Editor helps you make it your partner instead of your enemy.)

o    Your publisher will assign a top-flight editor. (Maybe, but don't count on it. The more you know, the better partner you’ll be for an editor!)

o    Formatters and editors will take care of the hyphens, ellipses, and all the other grungy little punctuation that English teachers avoid teaching because they didn't know how to use them either. (Chances are, you'll catch even great formatters and editors in an error or two if you know your stuff!)

 

More About Today’s Contributor

 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program. Both the first and second editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor are multi award-winners. The latter is her winningest book which includes awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award. Her third book in the HowToDoItFrugally Series is How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically. It was released to acclaim from The Midwest Book Review and others.

 

“Careers that are not fed die as readily as any living organism given no sustenance.”

Carolyn Howard-Johnson,

Website: http://www.HowToDoItFrugally.com     Blog: http://sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com
E-mail: HoJoNews  @ AOL.  dot   com        Amazon Profile and Book List: http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile

Authors Can Get Reviews Without Paying for Them!

Are you going to plunk down your $ for something tainted?  Carolyn Berates the Skunk-Like Odor Emanating from Paid-For Reviews

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award-winning author of The Frugal Book Promoter, now in its third edition
from Modern History Press

There is an old saying: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” I’m revising the adage to: “An old dog can go terribly awry when it tries a new trick.”

Furthermore, by the time a dog is old, he should know better than to take on something that smacks of the word ‘trick’ and he should sure as heck know when to turn up his nose at something that smells like skunk!

No, I’m not losing my mind. And, you may have guessed, I’m not talking about dogs here. I’m talking about the venerable Kirkus Reviews that has been respected by authors and librarians everywhere since 1933 and dozens or others with respectable names among publishers and authors. It is published in print 24 times a year, and has an online branch as well. It critiques some 5,000 titles--books of all kinds--in that period of time. It wields enormous power. A Kirkus review (or lack of one) can make or break a book by influencing the major book buyers in the country--both bookstores and libraries.

Back when I started writing, I wrote to their editors taking them to task for not attaching the names of the reviewer to each of their reviews. Kirkus’ own site says “The reviews are reliable and authoritative, written by specialists selected for their knowledge and expertise in a particular field.” It doesn’t say that these reviews are often (always?) unsigned. It seems to me that anyone with the kind of influence these critics wield over the welfare of a book should be willing--nay, required-- to attach her name to whatever praise or vitriol she dishes out and I told them so. It was my journalism ethics class that made me do it.

That was nearly two decades ago and and it wasn’t long before they upped their game. They violated my sense of ethics by taking paid-for reviews.

Here is what has ticked me off: Kirkus still offers a service to self-publishers and POD authors (and, it has come to light more recently) big publishers who feel their books were passed over unjustly. This isn’t a new ploy.  Fly-by-night reviewers have been preying on desperate authors in this way for some time but Kirkus should know better.

Such Pay-for-Review works against authors two ways. First an entity like Kirkus knows that books it chooses not to review will be their most likely paying customers; this is not a situation that encourages a just, even-handed selection process. Not that the method has ever been something that assured all worthy authors of consideration, but at least there was no reason for this journal--or any other-- not to attempt to choose the crème de la crème of submitted books, or at least the books that best fit their editorial needs.

Second: There is no way that a reviewer who is being paid by the author or publisher of the same work under consideration can offer a fair review to her readers. After all, if the journal bashed 9 of 10 of these books, pretty soon no one would be paying them for a reviewing service! Further, no matter how fair the critique, it cannot be trusted any more than one trusts the press secretaries and spin doctors who work for this or any other president’s administration; when one is in the employ of another, one’s attitude is forever changed, for better or worse.

One of our industry’s promotion gurus recently informed his newsletter subscribers of this new “perk” offered by Kirkus. It would naturally appeal to his readers, many of whom are independent or small publishers or emerging authors. He said, “Do I think this is a good deal? No, probably not.” He feels that because of Kirkus’ fine reputation, it might be worth the fee (several hundred dollars!) for the value of being able to quote something positive from Kirkus.

He isn’t exactly wrong. He’s looking at this like the great promoter he is--something I, with a book out like The Frugal Book Promoter am in total sympathy with. But he isn’t exactly right either. The “assets”  that a publisher or author might reap from plunking down their hard-earned cash is going to be tainted--if not right now then later when people figure out that something here, truly stinks.

I’m dating myself with this story, but in the old days, journalism schools had ethics classes and they still do. We were told not to take out-and-out bribes or to accept gifts and to be very careful to write careful, clean, unbiased copy. TV reared its inexperienced head and producers hadn’t any training in journalism--or, obviously, ethics. The payola scandals emerged from the lush, rich land of TVland and everyone got squeaky clean because now (gasp!) the public had their number.

Well, I’m here to tell you that this is akin to the payola scandals. We have here another cycle. This kind of thing undermines the public trust and that public includes book buyers and the wholesale level and book readers at the retail level.  Thanks to a higher power who loves books we still have Library Journal and a few good newspapers but I worry. So far, Kirkus leads, makes a lot of money and others follow. And if so, our only hope will be to quit using their d--- products so they’ll die a well-deserved death! Let’s hear it from the public.  “Do not foul our free press! Leave our opinion pages and criticism unpolluted.”

If you think I am over-reacting, consider: Our Democratic system is based on free speech and our free press is its watchdog. Speaking of dogs again, they tend to have good noses. Mine is lots less astute and even I can smell something rotten in the publishing world.

More About Today’s Guest:

Carolyn, author of the multi award-winning #HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers, has given up trying to convince periodicals who suffer from a very thin profit margin from backtracking and has instead turned to a book telling authors and publishers hoe to avoid the pay-for review scam and do it effectively. Find her  How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews to build and sustain a writing career at https://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews.

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Making Your Book Reviews Into Workhorses

 A Peek at Great Book Review Idea from New Release 

Off-The-Wall -Alternatives

Making Your Reviews Into Workhorses

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

 

Excerpted (and adapted) from Carolyn’s new How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews to build and sustain a writing career to be released this fall.

Authors rarely get the most of their reviews. Surprised? I think it’s either that they are so excited about the review or that the idea of extending a review’s value doesn’t occur to them. Or it’s because so many reviews these days come from readers. They aren’t professionals, so they have no idea how to distribute content beyond posting their review on Amazon.

One of the ways they can get more mileage from their reviews is to get them reprinted in more venues than the reviewer ever planned. Or you do it for them. And, no, it isn’t stealing or plagiarism if you get permission from the reviewer first. In fact, it can benefit the reviewer.
When you get further distribute reviews you already have, it’s like getting a little marketing bonus. Here’s how to do that:

If your reviewer doesn’t normally write reviews (these reviewers are often called reader reviewers), suggest she send her review or the link to her review to her friends as a recommendation.

If your reviewer lives in a town with a small daily or weekly newspaper, she could send her review to them. She may realize the thrill of being published the first time.

Ask your reviewer—even one who writes for a review journal—to post her review on Amazon.com, BN.com, and other online booksellers that have reader-review features. I have never had a reviewer decline my suggestion. It is ethical for a reviewer to do it or give you permission to reuse the review as long as she holds the copyright for the review. (Most reviewers do not sign copyright-limiting agreements with the medium who hires them.) Get more information on Amazon’s often misrepresented review policies in Chapter Eleven, “Managing Your Amazon Reviews.”
  
After you have permission from the reviewer to reprint the review, post it on your blog, on your Web site, and in your newsletter. Use quotations from the reviews to give credibility to selected media releases and queries.
  
Once you have permission to use reviews, send copies of good ones to bookstore buyers and event directors as part of your campaign to do book signings, to speak, or do workshops in their stores. Go to http://www.midwestbookreview.com/links/bookstor.htm for a starter list of bookstores.
  
Send quotations (blurbs) from the reviews you get to librarians, especially the ones in your home town or cities you plan to visit during book tours. Include order information. Try Midwest for a list of libraries.
  
Use snippets from positive reviews as blurbs in everything from your stationery to your blog. (Use your e-reader’s find function to search for other ideas for using your blurbs in this book.)
  
If your reviewer doesn’t respond to your request to post the review on Amazon, excerpt blurbs from them and post them on your Amazon buy page using Amazon’s Author Connect or Author Central features. They will appear on your Amazon sales page.
  
Include the crème de la crème of your reviews on the Praise Page of your media kit and inside the front cover of the next edition (perhaps a mass market edition like the pocket paperbacks sold in grocery stores?). See my multi award-winning The Frugal Book Promoter https://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/frugal_book_promoterII.htm for the complete—and I do mean complete—lowdown on media kits.

Hint: Occasionally authors get reviews on Amazon that, shall we say…don’t thrill them. Reviews like that can be minimized by asking others for reviews. As new reviews are added, the old ones tend to get buried in the lineup of reviews. We can also (pleasantly!) refute a position a reviewer takes using the comment feature—or thank them for bringing something to our attention. We can also dispute their validity with Amazon, though that rarely works.
You can use some of these suggestions as part of your keeping-in-communication-with-reviewers effort after her review has been published.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an award-winning novelist, poet, and author of the HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. She taught editing and marketing classes at UCLA Extension’s world-renowned Writers’ Program for nearly a decade and carefully chooses one novel she believes in a year to edit. The Frugal Editor (bit.ly/FrugalEditor) award-winner as well as the winner of Reader View's Literary Award in the publishing category. She is the recipient of both the California Legislature's Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award and the coveted Irwin award. She appears in commercials for the likes of Blue Shield, Disney Cruises (Japan), and Time-Life CDs and is a popular speaker at writers’ conferences.
Her website is www.HowToDoItFrugally.com.

Be sure to check out: How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically

The Fine Art of Asking for Reviews, Blurbs, and Anything Else

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Excerpted and Adapted from the third in the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers, How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews to build and sustain a writing career

To find even more support for your book or your career, we often need to get more comfortable with asking. You can put your reporter’s hat on and ask—tactfully—questions that will help your career or for favors that will help you expand your base (including reviews, blurbs, advice, etc.). Make the point that your contact’s answer or help is a gift to you, and that you would be pleased to reciprocate when the need arises. Try some of these possibilities:

•    Ask fellow attendees at writers’ or other conferences.

•    Ask directors of conferences if they offer a review exchange or provide an area where you can distribute fliers or sell your books. If the answer, is no, ask if they have other suggestions or know of other resources that might help you.

•    Ask instructors and presenters if they have a list of pertinent resources or know where you can find one.

•    When you’re on the Web, look at the resource pages of the Websites owned by bloggers and other online entities to glean ideas and help. Use the contact feature to ask questions or send queries.

•    Think about classes you have taken. The instructors may have a policy against reviewing students’ work but may be a resource for other needs; , ditto for your fellow students. (I hope you would try to do the same for them!)

•    Ask members of your critique groups or business/professional organizations.

•    When you read, make a note of books and their authors, columnists, experts in your field. Almost all magazines, newspapers and journals list publishers, editors, columnists, etc. and you might be surprised at how many might say “yes” to a request for a blurb or a mention of your service or book as a resource.

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MORE ABOUT TODAY’S GUEST BLOGGER

This little how-to article was extracted and adapted from my giant (415 pages) of How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews to build and sustain a writing career https://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/getting_great_book_reviews.htm third in the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. There is just so much to know about putting reviews to work for your book and endorsements (for your book or business!) Learn more about my books for writers and visit my free Writers’ Resources pages at http://howtodoitfrugally.com. It’s also easy to use my review blog. Just follow the submission guidelines in the left column at http://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com

How Authors Can Get Books into Campus Libraries

Q&A a la Ann Landers

Getting Your Book into Campus Libraries and More!

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

INTRODUCTION:

I occasionally run a Q&A based on the Ann Landers columns in my SharingwithWriters newsletters. I grew to love Landers’ wisdom when I edited the originals way back when I was a staff writer for The Salt Lake Tribune. This is one that received the most feedback since I published my first e-newsletter back in 2003. 

QUESTION

Regarding university bookstores: I know that Random House had my book in their catalog targeting educational sellers. Is there more than that I can do? How would I 

1. identify them and

 2. approach them?

ANSWER

I'm going to use my husband's experience with his What Foreigners Need to Know About America from A to Z as an example because he was so successful with it. 

He put together a form letter (which he tweaks) depending on who it's going to. He goes online and finds areas on campus that could use his book. Great possibilities on campuses include: 

1. College acquisition librarians

2. International student programs and clubs 

3. Campus career centers

4. International studies professors

5. Professors who teach American  literature, history, etc., especially the ones who teach ESL (English as Second Language) students

4. Campus bookstore buyers  

He spends about thirty minutes a day finding all the resources available on one or two campuses. He sends query letters to each of those resources, always trying to address the specific person in charge (and spell his or her name correctly!). Sometimes that's only one contact a day. Some days, when research goes well, it's three or four.  

Lance has had some amazing successes like having his book chosen as gifts/recommendations by the university that hosts the Fulbright Scholars in the US each summer. His book is also been accepted by imore than 300 university libraries and some of those ordered more than one copy. 

He offers a free book to those influencers who show an interest (i.e. those who answer his e-mail) with a “yes!” response. I am “The Frugal Book Promoter,” so I love this approach. It costs less than just sending a book with a cover letter to each contact.  Of course, there is also a cost to sending books when requested, but otherwise using this method doesn’t cost an author anything out of pocket. I love it because the results of one’s efforts are easily traceable. You know, as an example, a professor has recommended it to a class when suddenly you sell thirty-five books all being shipped to the same place! 

I also love it because the dollar-and-cents results have proven to outweigh the expense. 

When Lance gets a perfunctory positive response, he sometimes worries he will be wasting a book. But that response usually results in many more than the sale of one book. He has had requests to use excerpts for professors’ classroom assignments or handouts. (He always provides those who ask for permission to reprint with an extensive bio and sales pitch that he asks them to include as part of the assignment.) The top sale we could trace to his letters (it's sometimes easier for self-published authors to trace sales to a specific effort) was fifty-nine copies. 

One more secret. He is persistent.

One more big benefit: I’s apparent that word travels among universities.  

Here’s an alternative that he tried. It isn't as frugal and not as effective because the contact is not personal, but it’s a lot less time-consuming than his one-on-one method: 

IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) has a catalog that they send out to selected resources. One goes to libraries. A separate one goes to university libraries and another to reviewers.  I've used that service for my books in my HowToDoItFrugally Series of books,too, and a couple of my poetry books. It can be good...or not. Depending on the title. 

Be aware that if you find an instructor who recommends your book or uses it as class reading, the bookstore often stocks the book automatically. But not always. It doesn’t hurt to mention in your query letter that your book was ordered by X university or that Professor X showed an interest in your book in a followup letter to the library’s buyer.

PS: The recommendations and endorsements from many of these contacts also resulted in a request from a Ukrainian press to publish his work in translation. It was also published in Simplified Chinese, apparently through his contact with a Chinese studies program at one of these universities.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a multi award-winning novelist and poet who started her writing career in journalism, PR, and marketing. Her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers has been helping authors since the publication of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; now in its second edition. The multi award-winning second edition of The Frugal Editor; is also in its second edition, and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers and The Great First Impression Book Proposal are her inexpensive booklets for writers. Her Getting Great Reviews . She loves to tweet because it is a social network that understands the value of marketing.