Cory Doctorow Does What I Said He Would!

I called it. Sort of.

Now, Cory Doctorow has written an excellent article about how great for readers, writers, and publishers the demise of DRMs would be.

Don't know what a DRM is? Read this. And this, for my analysis.

Ebook Pricing and DRM

Much has been made about Digital Rights Management (DRM), particularly in light of TOR Books' decision to go DRM-free in the future. It's a particularly salient conversation, too, because of the ongoing litigation between the DOJ, Apple, and the Big Six (although some have settled and Random House has escaped accusations of collusion all together--for now).


For a definition of DRM, take a look here. Basically, it's intended to prevent piracy. It doesn't. What is does prevent is the exchange of ebook software between the online retailers' proprietary ereader hardware (Amazon's Kindle, B&N's Nook).


From my perspective, DRM has indeed always seemed a little, well, silly because it's so easy to crack--to strip off the coding that makes a Kindle book readable only on a Kindle so that you can read it on, say, a Nook. I'm not posting any links here, but let's just say if you Google the most intuitive keywords you can think of on this topic, you'll find dozens of resources. Honestly, if any set of people is likely to know how to crack DRM, it's the pirates themselves, who tend to be tech savvy and determined.


Publishers invest in DRM, near as I can tell, because it's something of a security blanket ("We're doing what we can about piracy!") and a Cover-Your-Ass measure in case an author ever discovered their books out there on the Interwebz...but if you Google any of your favorite authors and "PDF," you'll find that DRM hasn't slowed piracy in the slightest. 


Where DRM is effective is in complying with the preferences of the big online retailers, one of which in particular (ahem, it starts with an A) has an extremely vested interest in their ebooks being read on only their own hardware. And as this article points out, limiting the ways that an ebook can be read affects its price (enter DOJ litigation).


We'll be seeing the aftermath of TOR's very bold move to strip off DRM shortly and I'm really interested to see what the reaction of the rest of the industry will be--and in particular that one begins-with-an-A behemoth, which has been known to strip publishers' books out of its stores over all sorts of disagreements. 


One thing's for sure: abandoning DRM will mean a big shift in the way retailers obtain market share of ebook buyers and shift the balance of power somewhat away from proprietary hardware (ereading devices) and back to the software (ebooks) that should be at the center of all this anyway.


What do you think about this? Would you want your ebooks DRM-protected? Have you used it if you've self-published?

Being "Booksy"

There is still a lot of debate surrounding the effect that the ebook has, both on our industry as well as on those who keep us being able to call ourselves an "industry": the readers. Some say it's a travesty, that writing can never be experienced the same way on a touchscreen as it can on a deckle-edged page. Some say otherwise (typically in large groups, conspicuously): that anything that gets more people reading is OK by them.

In all of this, though, I've always had the feeling that something is missing from the discussion. That, really, ebooks aren't a bad thing. That they're not infringing on your right to have a bookshelf full of first edition hardcovers with pages whose smell fills you with joy--but eventually you will have to pay more to fill that bookshelf, just as all those vinyl-philes do to keep their turntables turnin'.

The missing thing is reading. Love of the stories contained in books, rather than their packaging...when did we forget that binding is just a vehicle for getting you the story in a convenient, albeit well-designed way?

I read this (sort of pretentious and college-y feeling, unfortunately) article this morning, about the difference between loving to read and loving to fetish-ize reading (page sniffers!). The author says the following, among other very true things: "Booksing tends to show up as a gushy, shared celebration of the idea of books, rather than of the experience of reading any given one." You can read more here: http://bit.ly/GJZMzE

Thoughts?

Very Cool, Very Crowdsourced

I love this idea: Four regular guys on a mission to complete a list of '100 Things To Do Before You Die' and to help and encourage others to go after their own lists.

The guys crowdsourced an ultimate bucket list on Facebook and now it's going to be a book! You can check out the trailer here. And join the conversation on their Facebook page.

Learn to Blog in 90 Minutes!

Courtesy of yours truly and Writer's Digest. I'll be teaching a webinar about all the essentials and best practices for author blogs, including shedding some light on how agents use the blog to troll for potential clients. Then, I'll take a look at your own blog to tell you how to optimize for the most traffic, getting readers to come back and, of course, how to tailor the blog to help you get noticed by an agent.

Check it: http://bit.ly/x5MvJs

I've got my talking points, but I wonder: what are the most pressing questions for you? You can get as specific as you'd like.

Let me know in the comments! And, of course, you should also sign up for the webinar to learn the answers!!

Makin' Facebook Fancy

DO YOU KNOW how hard it is to integrate custom code into a Facebook page? VERY. Particularly if you're sort of making up/Googling the code as you go along. Which, most of the time, I am/do. But pretty well, I must say.

Working to customize Facebook is like that rule with chefs: you know that they're leaving at least one ingredient out if they agree to tell you a recipe--the most important one, usually. Yeah. That's what Facebook's instructions are like for coding on their platform.

But, just to prove that stubbornness and several sleeves of Ritz crackers will get you just about anywhere, behold. My custom Exclusive Excerpt tab for THE MARIA PARADOX. http://on.fb.me/wKPrOO

How To Get A Job In Publishing

When I got out of college and decided I wanted to do that publishing stuff, I liked some weird fiction. Fiction that, however artistically valuable it's now been decided to be (cough...30 years post-publication), would never ever be mistaken for "commercially viable."

That's why I have some empathy for people like the ones detailed in this NYT article. They're young, more than likely brilliant, and they love writing. Maybe their own, definitely others'. And they can't get a job in publishing.

These job seekers, not to mention the NYT, sort of likes to talk a lot about the "publishing establishment" as this big bad elitist enclave of insular haters. And that's why these brilliant, writing-loving people are having trouble getting publishing jobs.

But you know what? That is a big fat load of stuff-that-also-fills-crocks. 

And I know, because I would have made prime member of one of those classics-and-poetry reading clubs where people complain about The Publishing Establishment. But I was lucky. I got a job in publishing (a luck-filled story for another time), and I learned real, real quick that publishing is about loving the classics--but about knowing today's market and today's publishing landscape. And did I mention I was lucky?

This is a business. As much as every single person I've ever met that works in publishing LOVES writing and LOVES authors and loves art, they are also people who do relentless market research and read two or three published books every week (almost).

Now, the people in this particular article might not even want to be a part of the publishing industry...shoot. They might not want to be a part of any establishment. They seem happy, which is great. But, for people that do want to be in publishing, the industry (which is also full of art, if not exclusively):

Put down the Sartre and read some Suzanne Collins. Read Malcolm Gladwell and the new political nonfiction. Find out what categories you love and read what's coming out now.

Honestly, you'll be leaps and bounds ahead of your peers when you walk into an internship interview.

The Occupy Wall Street Generation

Well, this is totally off topic, but what do you guys think of this? The article is hilarious, but also has a lot of good insight about what's going on these days. In a nutshell:

"We talk a lot on this site about how geek culture has taken over the mainstream and I worry that another part of geek culture -- the social awkwardness and inability to deal with social settings -- is also going to become the norm. We've slowly killed off most of the activities where kids get together with other kids and have fun (and in the process, learn how to interact)."

Read more: 5 Ways We Ruined the Occupy Wall Street Generation | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-ruined-occupy-wall-street-generation_p2/#ixzz1fJvdOYcc

Writer's Digest Webinar: Self-Publishing

I'll be giving a webinar through Writer's Digest on Thursday, November 17th, about self-publishing.

We'll cover everything you could possibly want to know: the strategy behind self-publishing, its relationship to traditional publishing (aka will it help you get signed or published), file formats, different platforms to use, metadata, etc. etc. etc.!!

And just for icing, there'll also be question time and a guaranteed critique from me. Sign up here:

http://www.writersdigestshop.com/product/when-how-to-self-publish-webinar/

See you there!!

Synopsis Monday

It's Monday, which is bad enough, but I'm also working furiously on some series synopses for a couple of backlist series that we're sending to digital publishers to be published as ebooks. One is a Western series, which is difficult to sell these days but which did quite well in the 80s and 90s; I think we'll see them have new life as ebooks. The synopsis is hard to write, though!

Anyone out there working on synopses? Do you hate them? Love them (crazies)? 

Kathleen Ortiz has a great breakdown of how to do them well.

Self-Publishing vs Traditional Publishing

Agents wear all sorts of hats these days, but it's important to remember the first hat any agent wears (or should wear) and that's to sell books to publishers.

Which means self-publishing and traditional publishing diverge very fundamentally.

If you've published your book in any way, whether it's on your blog for free, as an ebook, or through a small press, you've essentially taken over the agent's job. Many do this to great satisfaction. Most, though, find themselves frustrated and feeling duped without representation.

Of course, some self-published authors get leveraged into traditional deals with publishers, but these are few and far between and the mechanics are complicated (more later this week). There is about a 1% chance that your self-publishing experience will look anything like John Locke's.

If you're hoping to be published traditionally, the best way to get there is traditionally. Query agents. Revise for agents. Attend conferences. Do research. Get an Agent. Get a Book Deal.

If you exhaust that avenue, and no one is smart enough to see you've written a bestseller, then self-publish (this is almost universally better than signing with a small press, believe it or not, because you keep ALL your rights--meaning you can sell them later if a big publisher is interested).

If you self-publish and then try to query agents, you will universally get "No" unless you've sold in excess of 5,000 copies. This is not an opinion of mine, it's the fact of the matter. An agent cannot leverage print rights on a self-published book without sales numbers to back it up. As a debut author, querying agents, you have no sales numbers and no one expects you to. You're a debut. But once you're published, even if you do it yourself, publishers need to see some $treet cred.

Queries of a different sort...

Yesterday was so much fun that I vote it become a Thursday institution on this blog. All those in favor? All those opposed? OK. It's settled.

Thanks so much for all the questions, everyone, and let's tune in next week for a discussion of self-/indie publishing and the relationship to traditional/agented publishing. Are they symbiotic? Mutually exclusive? The basics are covered in yesterday's comments section, so take a look there if you're wondering. But does anyone have any follow ups to yesterday's discussion of the matter? Let's make sure I answer them next week!!

Yay collaboration!

#AskAgent

Let's have question time. You can ask anything for the next two hours and I promise I'll answer it before midnight tomorrow (so end of the day Friday). Yes, questions about your projects are OK, but let's keep it general: word count for a particular category (or look here), character age, whether a character name is distracting. We're not editing (although maybe you'll find a good beta reader!), so don't post excerpts. Know also that this is public--don't post anything that you might not like the answer to (so no marriage proposals, please) or that might cross the "too personal" line!

Some of you will probably have awesome questions that are too complex to answer in the comments--for those, I'll do blog posts in the coming weeks.

Use good judgment, please, so that I want to do this again. :) 

Questions open now until 6:15 pm EST.

Word Counts

Approximate word count ranges for major categories are:

General Adult/Women's Fiction: 60-90K
Thrillers: 80-100K
Fantasy/SciFi: 80-low 100K
Young Adult: 60-85K (more for the scifi/fantasy/paranormal brethren)
Middle Grade: 40-60K (ditto)

I wonder if, with media being constantly condensed (shorter blog posts, headlines in lieu of full news reports, 140-character updates), readers will start to be less tolerant of longer books?

I've heard some rumblings about this, and I think there is definitely some trend here toward bite-sized media in all forms. But then I hear about all of the cool additions being made to books these days (like soundtracks), and I wonder if the changing face of media isn't going to make for richer multi-sensory experiences, even as some things, like word count, change.

Then I wonder if I'm really going to like all the add-ons all that much. So, you know.

What do you think?

QR Codes

A few months back, I posted about my favorite things as a way to talk about Quick Response codes, like the one below which will take you to the post in question:

Today there was a neat article in Publishing Perspectives about how these codes are being used to enhance print books, which I think is brilliant. For instance, Bill Cameron's COUNTY LINE (Tyrus Books) has QR Codes that link to discussion guides, an author video, and even a deleted scene. Our own Gordon Thomas' next edition of GIDEON'S SPIES, about the Israeli intelligence force Mossad, will include a QR code that links you to his blog for between-book updates.

What do you think?

Online Author Marketing: Your Book Is Pubbing!

You're living the dream, man. An agent, a book deal...now your book is about to come out!

This is going to be AWESOME.

Publishers dedicate marketing and publicity staff to your book, with their biggest push focused around the launch. It's called "event marketing" in the industry.

What that means is that there's one big push, but no long term marketing strategy for the book...and this is where most authors (and some agents) get really grouchy. ("They're not doing anything anymore!")

But before we start Publisher bashing, as is so en vogue these days, consider that just as your book had some launch-time marketing (galleys printed, an ad somewhere, etc.) the next book on that publicist's list has to get the same attention. The publisher has to move on.

Which means that, at this stage, your own marketing efforts have to get more aggressive and your strategy more sophisticated. In post one, we talked about building the foundation of your online presence. On Tuesday, about focusing your online strategy. At this stage, you should focus on marrying your marketing foundation (blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) with specific marketing strategy.

This means getting creative. Your goal should be to keep your book(s) on people's minds in the online space, where attention spans are notoriously short.

This is not done by "selling" your book.

As you've no doubt heard before, broadcasting "BUY MY BOOK" is a quick way to get ignored. Create value for your audience--by being funny, like Maureen Johnson, finding interesting images on Flickr, or marrying your writing interests with something broader, as Sarah Fine does with psychology and YA literature.

Keep them coming back for your digital content and persona (separate from your book) and they'll get your book news (new releases, discounted ebooks, etc.) too. Organically piqued interest has a much greater chance of generating sales and word-of-mouth advertising.

Yes, this "online stuff" takes time. Or money (you can certainly pay some very talented professionals to do this for you). The online space has become a hugely important marketing and sales environment. If you choose to ignore that online space, you risk dooming your book to the "Launch and Fizzle" pattern so many books fall into.

Online Author Marketing: Agented!

You may have been an unagented writer before, just trying to build a basic online brand (see yesterday's post) but now...

YOU DID IT!

You landed an agent. Nice work! You've got a blog with a few followers and you've done some guest posts here and there for other bloggers who've even returned the favor. You may have figured out The Twitter. The two platforms, through cross-linking, support one another.

Things feel a lot more concrete than they did when you were just hammering away at different projects. You've got one to really focus on, with some in the wings (your agent hopes).

Now that you have something specific to promote, whether sold or unsold, you should reevaluate your online strategy and perhaps expand into new platforms. Hopefully your agent can help you. For instance:

• Are you writing nonfiction as an expert in some area? You could join Quora and start answering questions there--it's a great way to build platform.
• Facebook. This is more complicated because everyone thinks they know how to do The Facebook. Most people have a Facebook page of some sort, but few have one that's really effective in building an online brand, (see here for some details). Think of a strategy for Facebook: what are you promoting? A single title? A series? You as an author?
• Flickr. If you're an artist or illustrator, Flickr is a great place to showcase your work and build stories--supplemental, perhaps, to your book--in a new way.

There are many more ways to build an online brand; your agent can and should help you with this strategy, although you shouldn't expect them to do it for you. If you're too busy for social media, see here. Apply to all social media platforms.

A word on oversharing: you're going on submission now. It's a nervewracking experience for all involved and it can be really frustrating. Don't blog about it. Don't tweet it. Don't write angsty poetry about it and post it to your Tumblr. Don't.

So in the agented stage you get an online presence with a little more flair, guided by your agent. You've also got a more focused message, since you'll have a project to promote. Go get 'em!

Online Author Marketing: Pre-Agent

On Friday, I participated in an amazing interactive interview on Krista Van Dolzer's Mother. Write. (Repeat.) Blog. One of the questions asked, concerning author online marketing, was too complex to discuss in the comments section:

How can a writer get the most out of the Internet at each stage of the writing journey (pre-agent, post-agent, pre-book release, post-book release)?

Since we couldn't talk about it on Friday, it'll be the subject of a series on the blog this week.

First, we'll cover pre-agent online marketing and platform-building tactics.

Since your online presence is the foundation for your online marketing in the future, you should have a strategy before you just jump on Blogger. What brand are you trying to build? What other people are already talking about what you want to? How can you possibly collaborate with them? Unfortunately, blogging about "your writing process" or "your publishing journey" is not going to cut it if you really want to build a following--too many are already doing it. For tips on blog topics, check out this post here (and the surrounding posts).

I suggest a blog and a twitter account as a good online foundation for an aspiring writer.

You don't have to be super active on Twitter as soon as you sign up. Go ahead and find 20 or 30 people to follow--a mix of writers you admire, agents, editors, and non-publishing people--and just lurk. Listen to conversations, jump in where you feel like you have something to say. As you get more comfortable with the platform, you can tweet more. A fully active account should be tweeting no fewer than three times a day.

The hashtags #askagent and #yalitchat are examples of ways to find others interested in the things you're writing about: both agents/editors and beta writers. You can search those terms on Twitter and read the transcripts of the chats, which are always full of great info.

A blog is another good way to get started building an online presence. As you'll see as you get your feet wet with Twitter, the writerly blogosphere is incredibly interconnected. Bloggers guest post, start series together, and share thoughts on books they loved (And hated). But here more than anywhere else you have to worry about oversharing.

Many writers serialize their work on their blogs. I cannot encourage you strongly enough to avoid that. Authors nearly always list "getting an agent" as the reason they put "teasers" on their blogs. But there is already a mechanism for showing your work to agents: the query. Trust that process; it is highly unlikely that an agent will just stumble on your blog. They usually find it by clicking links in a query. So why put it on the blog?

If you choose to do so anyway you may put yourself breach of the warranties and indemnities clause of the publishing contract that you haven't even signed yet. I like Krista's strategy: she has a widget on her sidebar that lists a logline for her book. That's interesting without crossing any lines. Kathleen Ortiz has a great author website post here that lists website elements you should focus on.

You should try to post about twice a week on your blog--a link with a caption is still a post, but try to make a habit of producing real content--between 100 and 400 words.

So what do you think? Any questions? Tomorrow we'll talk about changes you should make once you're an agented writer.

Facebook: Importance

Facebook is the mother of all Social Media networks. Building a presence there is harder than on other platforms because Facebook utilizes all of the content that you might put on other platforms: pictures, blog-like notes, and tweet-like status updates.

Facebook has also really blossomed in the last little while. E-commerce through Facebook is starting to pick up (Facebook as another online retailer?? You want to be there). With one-in-every-eight online minutes spent on Facebook, some are saying that Facebook is the internet. It's the new "mall." A one-stop shop for shopping, news, friends' updates, and entertainment.

But isn't Facebook just for the kids? I mean isn't just for college students to post, then untag that pic of them doing a kegstand?

No.

Here're some stats to illustrate:

• Facebook has 750,000,000 users worldwide, 350,000,000 (50%) of which log in every day.
• The average user has about 130 friends. That means that if you have a Fan Page with 50 fans, you're actually reaching, on average, about 5000 people every time you post.
• Facebook is second only to Google in terms of daily traffic.
• Over 50% of Facebook users are over the age of 35. There are about 30 million users in that age range just in the US.
• Books are the third most-liked products on Facebook, after Movies and TV shows (wompwomp)

Most shockingly:

57% of people--all people--say that they talk more to their friends/family members online than they do in real life.

Bottom line, get on Facebook. But know, before you do, that Facebook isn't magic, any more than anything else online. You have to be smart about planning a strategy.

In the next post, we address how you should get on Facebook. Posting schedules, types of content, and the like.

Anyone out there already on Facebook as a Fan Page, not a personal Profile?

Sources:

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://www.pcworld.com/article/197431/google_names_facebook_most_visited_site.html

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6128/The-Ultimate-List-100-Facebook-Statistics-Infographics.aspx

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-stats-facts-2011/

Facebook: Profile vs Page

In the comments section of the How-to-Social-Media yesterday, I saw someone reference "scrolling down to see vacation pics." They were talking about a Facebook profile page--where people can request and be approved to be your friend. But if we're talking about building your online brand, we're not talking about a Profile page.

Most people have a Profile page to connect with friends and family. It is NOT the type of page you want to set up as your "author" or public page.

If you're setting up any sort of public page: for your book, for you as an author, or any other sort of professional type thing, you want to set up a Facebook Fan Page. The differences:

• People just click "Like" to gain access to a page; they don't have to be approved the way you would a friend request on your Profile page.
• Your content should be related, although it doesn't have to strictly revolve around, the product or service you set the page up to promote. This means no personal pictures, no vacation uploads from your phone after your third mai-tai.

And Fan Pages, like a Profile Page, have some of the same tools to make your life easier:

• You can import a personal blog, so that when the blog updates so does your Facebook.
• All the same types of content is supported--you can add photos of, say, your book cover or a video of a reading or signing.
• You can link out to your website or to a buy link for whatever you're promoting.
• There is a "Wall" section where you and your followers can interact publicly, as well as messages where you can communicate privately.

Go here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to create your Facebook Fan Page--BUT WAIT.

Make sure you're doing so at the right time. If you don't have a book out in the next year (similar timeframe for other products: if you're not launching within a year, don't jump the gun), you probably don't want to start promoting it now--potential buyers will get fatigued. Twitter is a better, lower-commitment place to start if you're a couple of years out (we'll get to more on that).

Over the next few posts, we'll be talking more about Facebook, how to use it, and what its future looks like for commercial use. Stay tuned!!