77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected

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77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected

Written by Mike Nappa, available as e-book and print book at Amazon. The author’s experiences as acquisitions editor, marketing copywriter, and literary agent uniquely qualify him to write on this topic. He is also the author of more than 40 books and received more than 2,000 book rejections during his writing career!
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The book is divided into three sections: Editorial, Marketing and Sales Reasons for Rejection.  Starting with: “It takes less than a minute to reject your book” (by big publishers that is) Mike Nappa goes on with all the legitimate and also the silliest reasons your manuscript or book idea might be rejected.

As an author you might be able to work on many, such as marketing and your platform and following, however some of the reasons have nothing to do with the quality of your writing. 

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An editor is going to look at your proposal – and if it doesn’t meet certain editorial standards, it will go no farther. If it passes basic editorial scrutiny, an editor will then consider whether you have done your “marketing” homework — analyzed and defined your audience, established a platform, shown that you know how and why this book will sell. From there, the editor will need to convince the publisher that they can sell this book, and sell enough to merit the investment in its publication.
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Perhaps the clearest message that emerges from this book is that getting published is a lot of work. The job doesn’t end when you finish writing the last chapter. Publishers are in the business of selling a product, and it’s your job to convince them that your book will sell.
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Or maybe you will decide to author publish. After all you have to do your book marketing anyway, even if your book is accepted by a commercial publisher. “Success is the best revenge”  .

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 750 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

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What Publishers Won’t Tell You

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Book Pile

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Eager looking forward to get a publishing contract or happy your received one?  Finding a publisher who will consider your book idea and getting your manuscript published is time-consuming and can often be a frustrating experience. Going with a big publisher is not easier than author-publishing. You will be surprised to learn about the following facts, sometimes the hard way:

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Your book has three months to fly off the shelves.
If your book does not sell in the first three months of its bookstore life, it will be remaindered and disappears from bookstores and could end up at “A Buck a Book”.  90 to 95% of books don’t pay back their advance. Royalty will only be paid if the advance is paid back. What you get upfront as an advance is usually all you will ever get.
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If you screw up on your first book, you’re out.
If you do well with it, publishers will be eager to see your next title. But if you don’t sell a lot of books, your agent or publisher will not want to read your manuscript when it comes time to offer your second book.
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Traditional publishing is very slow.
Unless you wrote a political tell-all, your book is going to ”be in the making” for two years or longer until it goes into the bookstores. You need to be sure your topic is timeless and that you will be interested in publicizing it years from now.
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Most likely your book will not be published in foreign countries.
Unless you have a savvy agent (preferably speaking several languages) who is trying to sell your book abroad, there is little chance that your publisher actively tries to find buyers in foreign markets.
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Your advance will be the only money you will see.
You can get as little as $5,000 or as much as $500,000, but either way, you’ll pay 15% of that to your agent, and the remainder will be paid in thirds or quarters over the next couple years.  So you first need to “earn out” the advance, before any royalties will be paid.
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Publishing is the slowest possible get-rich-quick scheme.
Breaking into big money publishing is like becoming a movie star - being talented definitely helps, but luck plays a big role and the odds might not be in your favor.
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Sorry, no publicity.
Until a decade or two ago, publishers did some marketing for books. Now they might send out some galleys and wait to see if anyone is interested. Then they focus all their publicity on the books they expect to be a bestseller. If you want your book to be a success, YOU will have to do all the publicity yourself!
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Books don’t sell themselves, as most writers sooner or later find out – often too late.  If you are interested in making money or selling your book for a long time, better consider e-books and self-publishing.  But in any way, marketing skills or at least the willingness to learn about marketing and PR to promote your book, are essential for an author. 

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites:  We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 750 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

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Pros and Cons of Print-on-Demand

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“Currently unavailable.” When you read this on Amazon’s website you can be sure it is a POD Book.  Amazon assigns many of those out-of-stock books an availability status of 2-3 weeks. And no one wants to wait that long when ordering on the internet…
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POD (Print on Demand) services call it “self-publishing” – but there are important differences between a POD service and true self-publishing. They are in fact VERY EXPENSIVE PRINTERS – NOT PUBLISHERS!  POD printers are producing the book only when ordered. What are the differences?
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Rights
TRUE self-publishing:  all rights remain with the writer, who has full ownership of her work, including the ISBN number.
POD services:  mostly owns the ISBN and the author has a very limited claim on digital and/or electronic publishing rights.

Control
TRUE self-publishing:  the writer controls all aspects of the publishing process, cover art, print style, pricing etc.
POD services:  choices are typically limited to their service package

Book Sales
TRUE self-publishing:  the author keeps all proceeds from sales.
POD services:  they keep most of the sales proceeds to cover printing costs, and pays the author a small percentage of royalty, usually from the books NET price.
The POD Cons:

• Books from POD services are expensive and may be of poor physical quality.
• There are lots of extra fees, such as renewal fees, distribution fees, extra charges for non-template cover designs, charges for proof corrections etc.
• Royalty income may be less as it is mostly based on the books NET PRICE,  the retail price less discounts and/or all the publisher’s overhead.
• Your book will receive only wholesale distribution, and mainly sold online, Booksellers don’t like dealing with POD services.
• You do not get an advance – YOU have to pay an advance to the POD company, it just doesn’t make sense economically
• Marketing consists often only on listing on the company’s website and with various online booksellers, sometimes in a wholesaler’s catalogue.  Many POD services offer “marketing packages or media kits” for an extra (high) fee – a total waste of money!

POD Pros:
It is only recommendable if you:

• need galleys, or for short-run publishing and specialty markets
• want to print small non-fiction projects such as lectures or workshops
• want to create a recipe book, a family memoir, genealogy etc.
• bring back out-of-print books into circulation
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Who is the publisher?
It is the one who owns the ISBN for a book. If the author applied for and paid for the ISBN in his or her own name, then no matter who produces and sells the book, the author has become the publisher of record, an authentic self-publisher!
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Listen to the truth behind POD “publishing” or read more articles about this topic:

http://www.writersandeditors.com/self_publishing_and_print_on_demand__pod__57417.htm

http://beforeyoupublishyourbook.com/2011/07/22/the-truth-about-print-on-demand-publishing/

http://www.writergazette.com/content/pros-and-cons-self-publishing-print-demand

http://fonerbooks.blogspot.ca/2005/08/printing-offset-vs-print-on-demand.html

Do you have any experiences with POD publishing and how much was each soft cover book you ordered from them?

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 740 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

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What Every Author Should Know

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When consulting / coaching our clients, helping them with their book marketing, we often have to watch them coming to a screeching hold when they try to organize special sales or free days: authors cannot change prices, text or anything else on their retailers account if they go with a publisher. No matter if it is a traditional big publisher or one of these “vanity” publishers, as only those can go into the retailers account – unless they give their authors the keyword and other details and the permission to do changes on the sales page.
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Every writer, no matter if they author-publish (really self-publish) or if they have sold their manuscript, they have to do their own marketing. But how can you do it, if you are on the mercy of a publisher – real or vanity? If you don’t own the ISBN and if they have no access to they retailers publishing pages?
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This is a huge problem (among many others) that authors face after they have given away their work for pittance – or worse, have paid thousands of dollars to a vanity firm. So, what’s the difference between both, beside the fact that they hinder the authors in their marketing efforts?

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Traditional Publishers

• Accept very few submissions
• Authors receive a small advance and royalties
• They do not use print on demand (single or few books)
• Authors have barely any say to cover image, publishing date etc.
• It takes very long until the book is published
• Publisher pays for printing, editing services and cover image 
• Distribution services are covered by the publisher
• Professional marketing services available – but only for celebrity writers
• They own the ISBN for the book
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Vanity Publisher

• Accepts almost all submissions 
• Author never receives any advance 
• Author pays for printing, editing services 
• Quick turnaround and Print on Demand 
• Barely any distribution services
• No professional marketing services 
• Very few royalties – if any at all
• They own the ISBN for the book

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Why not self-publish?
If an author has all these challenges, waiting times (or costs to cover in the worst scenario) – and cannot even do the necessary marketing without huge problems, what’s the point in having a publisher? Why not author-publish / self-publish in the first place, and be independent when it comes to marketing?

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/seminar

If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 720 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

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Don’t Let it Happen to You… Literary Agents Scams

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Third in the “Scam Series”: Literary Agents Fee Scams

Don’t let it happen to you…

In Canada, only ten percent of authors / books are agent-ed. Aspiring and established authors  successfully submit the majority (10,000 plus) of the titles published every year directly to editors at publishing houses. US writers have to go through an agent – 80% of all publishing deals are made through an agency. Publishers in the USA don’t want to deal directly with authors.
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As an author trying to find a literary agent you have heard or read from, is not an easy task. And you might find an agency describing itself as “non-fee-charging” but then nevertheless wants money up-front. Most professional agents’ associations adopted policies prohibiting members from charging fees, called “reading fees” or “evaluation fees”.
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A literary agent gets his commission AFTER the book contract with a publisher is signed and the first money flows. If they charge reading or evaluation fees or any of the following fees – author beware:

• marketing fees
• submission fees
• travel fees
• legal fees
• advance fees
• or “per hour” fee

For those writers who might think they need an agent – have a look at the do’s and don’ts of both sides:

Reputable agents will NOT charge you a fee up front to represent your book. They earn their living by selling your book to a publisher and gaining a commission. That commission is a percentage of the proceeds your book earns. For one thing, this gives the agent an incentive to actually market your book around to various publishers likely to buy it for publication. This is another reason why many agents pick submissions carefully. They know what publishers are looking for and they will not accept anything which is not ready for submission or close enough that a few days of editing will make the difference.
Most agents these days charge 15% commission on domestic sales (North America).
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Never under any circumstances should you pay expenses or any fees up front: the agent only receives money by deducting his or her 15% commission from your eventual earnings. An agent telling new writers that she/he was charging 15% commission plus expenses — that’s a rip-off; don’t agree to it. The Association of Authors Representatives (professional organization of literary agents) also forbids the charging of “reading fees.” If an agent asks you to pay a fee for his or her “evaluation” of your manuscript, refuse!
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So, what could you encounter?
Some agencies pressure authors into various additional services and charge fees for websites, sample cover mock-ups or illustrations or social media listings.
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AgentQuery wrote on their website: Industry Red Flags:

Be wary of any literary agent that contacts you out of the blue, especially if you have not queried that specific agent and do not have a public platform or presence. Fiction writers should be particularly cautious unless the agent has a logical reason to contact you, like you’ve recently won a prestigious writing contest, or they’ve seen your blog or read your published stories, etc.

Beware of agents that offer representation for a fixed fee, offer representation only if you pay them money to edit your manuscript, or charge you up-front fees in the range of thousands of dollars to off-set the cost of submitting your manuscript to publishers. These are all warning signs—unethical behavior from an unprofessional scammer. Scammers will tempt you, especially if you are desperate and inundated with rejections. They will tell you how fabulous your manuscript is and you will want to believe them.

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WRITER BEWARE notes:
“Not all agents who charge marketing fees are dishonest. Some are simply inexperienced or inept. But scam or amateur, the bottom line for the writer is the same: a lighter wallet and no book contract.”

Remember, that many of these publishers operate under more than one name and as “in-house” referral services. This means they always find a reason to refer you to another company which they also own.
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Editors Nielsen-Hayden summed it up: “Writing may be an art or a craft (or both), but publishing is a business. It’s best to know the business before diving in.”

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More of our blog posts regarding Literary Agents:
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Visit often and get the latest alerts from WRITER BEWARE:
http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/alerts/
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How Agents work and How to work with Agents
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/how-agents-work-how-to-work-with-agents/
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Must-Read Blog to learn more about agents and how to approach them
http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents
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What Literary Agents Want to Know From You
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/what-literary-agents-want-to-know-from-you/
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100′s of Links to Publishers and Agents
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/100s-of-links-to-publishers-and-agents/
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Which Literary Agent is Right for You?
http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/which-literary-agent-is-right-for-you/
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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous articles of this blog (there are almost 700 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

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Traditional Published Authors Interested in Self-Publishing

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A third of traditionally published authors are interested in self-publishing their next book,
according to a new survey from Digital Book World and Writer’s Digest. The survey, “What Authors Want: A Comprehensive Survey of Authors to Understand Their Priorities in the Self-Publishing Era”, queried nearly 5,000 aspiring, self-published, traditionally published and “hybrid” authors (authors who have both self-published and traditionally published). It was presented at the Digital Book World Conference + Expo.

This trend should be worrisome for traditional publishers, which are struggling to demonstrate to the marketplace that they add value to the publishing process in an era where anyone can publish a book.  Perhaps of even more concern is that two-thirds of hybrid authors are interested in self-publishing their next book. It’s not surprising given the context of the rest of the survey: Time and again, hybrid authors had relatively negative opinions about publishing companies — that they keep too much money, don’t “get” digital and, generally, don’t add much to their publishing process.

At the same time, when offered the opportunity to publish traditionally, nearly three-quarters of hybrid authors are interested and — also good news for publishers — about two-thirds of self-published authors are interested. The prestige of a traditional publisher, the wide distribution a publisher can generate and help with marketing were all reasons cited.

Read the whole article by Jeremy Greenfield: 
What Authors Want: A Third of Published Authors Interested in Self-Publishing Next Book

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My thoughts on this excerpt, especially the last sentence: 
Both ways of publishing have their positives and vice versa. However the perception of traditional publishing is often not up to date in public , as the way of book marketing has totally changed. Only celebrity authors get the full PR treatment, other writers have to fend for themselves, and they often do not realize that their books have only a maximum of three months to survive on the bookstores shelves until they will be pulled out and returned to the publisher or discarded. 
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The prestige of a traditional publishers is also dwindling, as some of them, such as Penguin / Random House ally with dubious POD’s, establishing a subsidiary in an attempt to jump onto the self-publishing bandwagon and find a way to fleece unsuspecting writers.
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Even the wide distribution a publisher can generate is something, authors can organize these days by themselves: as soon as they have at least three print books (not necessarily their own, they can also partner with other writers) they can establish a publishing firm and work with Lightning Source / Ingram and have their print books distributed worldwide.

E-books can easily be uploaded at Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Apple and a dozen more online retailers. Proof-reading, copy editing, editing, book layout, cover design, translations, printing… just about everything can be outsourced by the author – including book marketing and PR.

Best advice for any author is to familiarize themselves with every aspect of the publishing
process, to consult a professional to get a clear picture of the time/financial involvement and
advice from a contract lawyer before they sign up any publishing contracts including those of
Print on Demand Publishing.

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Be Spoiled for Choice …

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… how you want to learn book promotion.  And there is a lot to learn: Publishing evolves constantly and the success of your book(s) is very much depending on you, no matter if you self-publish or if you go with one of the big publishers. 

Choices in publishing, essentials of book / e-book layout and design, your platform and brand,  optimizing social media, use of non-traditional ways of book marketing, book distribution, online retailers, learning about  marketing on a shoestring… it’s over-whelming.  But not if you get help from someone who has studied e-publishing and marketing for many years – and practices it all.

Choose between weekend seminars or sign-up for customized online marketing training (special offer in December)  

… or plan ahead for a publishing and book marketing seminar on a 5-day Caribbean Cruise on board of the Carnival Breeze, a brand new cruise liner, taking off in Miami, FL, on November 3, 2013.  Make your travel plans soon, bookings for this offer start at the end of this month!  

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Hello, I’m Doris-Maria Heilmann with 111 Publishing.  We are not only publishers of traditional and eBooks, we extensively market our authors books.  We also host informative seminars for authors on the “art” of promotion. 

During the last years, publishing books has totally changed. Nowadays we writers need to build our own platforms, identify our own demographics, and find our own market share – even if we are with a traditional publishing house!  The profession has changed and we need to adapt in order to succeed.   

Our unique “Seminar-At-Sea” will help authors to:

• Strategically establish a writing career
• Create our own brand
• Identify our target readers
• Find out how to reach these readers
• Market and publicize our books on a budget
• Find free book publishing funding sources

Soon I will be announcing all the details of this spectacular opportunity.  But for now…mark November 3, 2013 on your calendars!!  Connect with your peers and learn invaluable information to enhance your writing career…all while having the time of your life on an exotic Caribbean Cruise!!

Doris-Maria Heilmann

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 600 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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What’s Hot in Young Adult writing:

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Are you writing Young Adult Novels?

Mandy Hubbard, is a literary agent with D4EO Literary, where she represents authors of middle grade and teen fiction, and is an author under the pen name Amanda Grace of Prada & Prejudice, You Wish, But I Love Him, Ripple, and several other YA novels.
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She lists what’s hot in YA at the moment:

• Contemporary, MOST ESPECIALLY with a hook. Think: THIRTEEN REASONS WHY, anything By Ally Carter, etc. The usual “coming of age” or romance is tough, but if you can find a way to zero in on a big hook, you’re in GREAT shape.
• Epic Fantasy – I’m seeing more success stories like Pub Crawl’s own THRONE OF GLASS
• Horror/Thriller. Editors are looking for this like crazy.
• Sci-Fi, particularly if it blends Sci-fi with something else – a murder mystery, a thriller, etc.
• Crossover YA. This is hard, because you can’t write it thinking “I want to appeal to adults and YA equally!” Write a damn good YA novel and adults will love it, but it has to happen organically.

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She also mentioned topics that always work:

• Intense romance for YAs… MANY of these do really well, but the genre in general don’t go as gangbusters as some of the flashier types
• Verse novels– these are sort of “sleeper hits” when they do well. They still can be tough, but there are certainly success stories in this subset of YA.
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And her most important advise for writers:
Remember, with ANY book, it’s all going to come down to the writing.  A less timely book with knock-down writing will win people over, but a hook won’t sell if the writing can’t back it up.  

More, and also the topics that are not as “hot” right now in Mandy Hubbard’s blog post “The State of YA Market“

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 570 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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10 Signs, Showing You Vanity Publishing TRAPS

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Here on this blog I wrote several times already about vanity publishers and warned:  ”Writer Beware, Beware and Beware Even More!” and I also blogged about POD services “Don’t be fooled by POD Services”.

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The “Independent Publishing Magazine” explains their readers / writers in a great  article how to identify a vanity company:

• Reputable trade and independent publishers don’t advertise for authors in newspapers and writing magazines. Publishers are inundated with submissions. They don’t need to look for authors!
• Reputable trade and independent publishers don’t ask the author for money, ever, for any part of the publishing or marketing process. However, don’t always expect an advance (or a large one) on royalties from a small or niche publisher. The industry might not like to admit it, but the size of advances is reducing quickly and some small publishers cannot afford anything more than a few hundred dollars in an advance.
• Trade and independent publishers sell books [mostly!] – not only author services.

They help you How To Avoid The Vanity Publishing Trap  - don’t miss to read it!

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 570 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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Author Brittany Geragotelis: Six-figure Publishing Deal

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Remember the blog post about Wattpad I wrote in January?  This Canadian book “forum” has experienced explosive growth since its inception and has become the world’s most popular destination to upload and read e-books.

MacLeans Magazine now wrote about Wattpad: “Could Wattpad be the ‘killer app’ for aspiring writers? On Wattpad, anyone can write and get feedback—just ask Margaret Atwood”.

They explained that Brittany Geragotelis  was an aspiring author who had written six novels – all of them had been rejected by publishers. She worked as an editor at American Cheerleader magazine. In October of 2010, a digital venture from Toronto called Wattpad, asked her if she would promote the company in the magazine. She was a “big book nerd” and Wattpad—an interactive online forum where anyone can upload their own writing, and readers can read, comment on, and even contribute—was compelling. With nothing to lose, she wrote a novel and gave it away, one chapter at a time, for six months.

Within a week, the first chapter of “Life’s a Witch” had been read a couple of thousand times. By the time she finished writing and uploading the entire book, it had been read six million times. Half a year and 19 million reads later, Brittany Geragotelis had a new literary agent and a six-figure deal from Simon & Schuster.

Wattpad now has nine million visitors who spend about 2.2 billion minutes on the site each month 6.5 million “stories”— in 24 different languages—have been uploaded. Recently Margaret Atwood joint and published three new poems, Thriller Suite, on Wattpad.  Wattpad received more than US$17 million venture capital, some of that from Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang.
MacLean’s article

Calvin Reid from Publishers Weekly wrote: “YA Author with Huge Wattpad Fan Base Tries Self-Publishing” and “Swamped by Offers, Self-Pubbed YA Author Gets Agent and More”.

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How to Distribute Your Book Worldwide?

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Lightning Source / Ingram are one of the most important book distributors in the world and a household name to small and big publishers alike.

If you are publishing at least more than three books and if you are computer-savvy you might distribute your (paper) books through them.

In this case, don’t forget to list your books with Bowker to be in the directory for the whole world’s booksellers. See an earlier blog post “Expose your Book to the World“.
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photo: NASA

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Shepard wrote that Lightnings Distribution will be extended through partnerships with printers/distributors in other countries, starting with Germany and Brazil.  Read the whole article in Aaron Shepard’s blog.

The local company will market the book to local retailers, then borrow the print files from Lightning and fulfill the order. By default, a book’s pricing and discount will be based on its settings in your home currency. No returns will be allowed.  My comment: Long overdue!  And this no-return-policy will hopefully be the beginning of the end of this unfortunate practice. Overdue too!

The Self-Publishers-Notebook blog wrote: “While foreign sales might not be large in number for most authors, a book sale is a book sale. If you are already using LSI for your POD service, this new program is worth looking into. It costs nothing to participate in the program.”

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts (there are more than 560 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

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Call for Book Submissions

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Harper Voyager Global Digital Publishing, a global science fiction and fantasy imprint, takes for two weeks only – unagented – submissions, particularly novels written in the following genres:

• epic fantasy
• science fiction
• urban fantasy
• horror
• dystopia
• supernatural 

Submission guidelines and key information can be found at www.harpervoyagersubmissions.com. They are looking for full-length manuscripts of more than 70,000 words, and ideally between 80,000–120,000 words.

The submission portal will be open from the 1st to the 14th of October 2012.
The manuscripts will then be read and those most suited to the global Harper Voyager list will be selected jointly by editors in the USA, UK and Australia. Accepted submissions will benefit from the full publishing process: accepted manuscripts will be edited; and the finished titles will receive online marketing and sales support in World English markets. There is the “possibility” that submissions will be published in print as well.

The submissions and digital publications are a joint, global effort by Harper Voyager. The three editors note that: “No other publishing company has done a coordinated submission period for unagented authors across three continents, and all of us at Harper Voyager and at HarperCollins Publishers are absolutely thrilled to be launching this huge opportunity. We look forward to discovering and digitally publishing many new exciting voices globally at Harper Voyager.”

No word so far in their Questions & Answer section about the royalties for their authors. I am wondering how much it will be… 

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts (there are more than 550 of them : ) if you haven’t already.Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

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And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful.  Thanks, Doris

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Konrath’s Sales: the Numbers of Books

MUST READ:  A snippet from J.A. Konrath’s latest blog post:
Publishing can survive using this strategy, if authors are gullible enough to keep signing these one-sided contracts. Here’s how:

On a $6.99 paperback, the author makes about 56 cents. That’s close to what the publisher makes, after all expenses. While it is possible for publishers to get into the black before an author earns out her advance, earning out the advance is usually a good indicator the book is making money.

On a $6.99 legacy* e-book, the author makes $1.04 after agent commission. The publisher makes $3.67. So let’s play the advance game.

A publisher pays an author $20,000 advance. Author keeps $17,000 after the agent is paid. There is no paper version. The e-book, priced at $6.99, sells 12,000 e-books in five years, which is what my legacy e-book Dirty Martini has sold.

The author would still owe $7520 on the advance before earning another nickel. In the meantime, the publisher has made $44,000. Minus the $20k advance, the publisher has pocketed $24,000, and still will make money for a few more years without paying the author any more.

If the author self-pubbed his own book at $6.99, and sold 12,000 copies, he would have made $58,880.

If publishers keep signing authors for e-book-only deals, at the current royalty rates, they will get richer than they ever have, at the expense of authors. Before you sign any contract, understand what it means, what you are getting, and what you are giving up.

Read the whole blog: http://jakonrath.blogspot.ca/2012/09/konraths-sales.html

*legacy means big publishers

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Did Harlequin Publishing Deceive Their Authors?

Yesterday I read this article on J.A. Konrath’s blog:

“Three authors have just filed a class action suit against Harlequin publishing, which belongs to TorStar Corp., a Canadian publishing company.

One of them, Ann Voss Peterson wrote a book that Harlequin published, and she made 2.4% royalties per e-book copy sold. One of the reasons for this was:

While most of my books are sold in the US, many are sold under lower royalty rates in other countries.

In this particular contract, some foreign rights and – ALL e-book royalties – are figured in a way that artificially reduces net by licensing the book to a “related licensee,” in other words, a company owned by Harlequin itself.
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Here’s an example: Harlequin has an e-book it lists for $3.99. It sells that to Amazon at a wholesale price of $2.00. The author should make $1.00 for each $3.99 e-book that Amazon sells. But instead of selling directly to Amazon, Harlequin sells the e-book to Company X for 12 cents. So the author only gets 6 cents. Company X than sells the same e-book to Amazon for $2.00, but because they are a sub-licensing company, they don’t have to pay the author anything.

Sub-licensing is common. This is all fine and legal. So why are authors suing Harlequin? Because Harlequin and Company X are the same company!  No publishing company would ever sub-license rights for a paltry 6%, unless it was selling the rights to itself. Does Harlequin really expect a judge to believe that it sells a $3.99 e-book and only makes 6 cents? And according to the complaint, the 6% was not equivalent to the amount reasonably obtainable from an unrelated party, as required by the publishing agreements.

Do publishers have such a sense of entitlement, and do they believe that authors are so beneath them, that this is a fair and honest business practice?” Read J.A.Konrath’s full story and the court complaints. It makes for an interesting reading!

 

If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts (there are almost 500 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “Like” next to it.

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KOBO Launch in Japan and also in Italy This Fall

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Earlier this week, KOBO announced that it is launching in Japan on July 19.
Now there is another press release to announce that Mondadori Group, Italy’s leading retailer and publisher of books and magazines, will be bringing the awesome KOBO e-Reading platform and e-Readers to Italy this fall!

KOBO and Mondadori will offer popular e-books in Italian – ranging from major international works, romance, to bestsellers and favorite local authors. Italians can select from an extensive catalogue of more than 30,000 e-books in Italian language and from Italian and foreign publishing houses, plus KOBO’s other 2.5 million e-books in 60 languages.

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The KOBO Touch e-Reader will be available for €99 in Mondadori stores and online.

Andiamo Italy!

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out previous posts (there are almost 500 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on ”Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “Like” next to it.

Follow us on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr or StumbleUpon – or other social networking sites of your choice) – other writers might also enjoy this blog and find it useful.

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