More brilliant work from a Master Illustrator - Bernhard Oberdieck - Illustration: E-Book - Story Map Cover

Bernhard Oberdieck - Illustration: E-Book - Story Map Cover: Nun ist es soweit. Mein erstes E-Book App ist im Apple App Store erhältlich. Es ist zunächst das Grimm Märchen "Die Bremer Stadtmusika...

This stunning book is also in hardcopy as well!
To read more about Bernhad's wonderful work, read my interview with him on my blog -http://jrpoulter.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/bernhard-oberdieck-leading-german-illustrator-creator-of-childrens-classics/
and my review of his book collaboration, "Cat's Concert" -  http://jrpoulter.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/cats-concert-latest-modern-classic-by-bernhard-oberdieck-to-hit-the-shelves/

Enjoy! :)

A new take on the 'sea-change' theme - Black Cow

Black Cow by Magdalena Ball
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Maggie Ball’s Black Cow is an honest take on mid life crisis and the need to redefine who we are and why the #@&! we are here anyway’.  Maggie’s pull no punches, no holds barred approach leaves you feeling you have looked like peeping tom’s over the shoulders of her characters into their inner sanctums  and watched them sink, swim and drag themselves ashore spitting weed. This is an honest to goodness look at ‘sea-change’ warts and all for which Maggie is to be  roundly congratulated!


View all my reviews

Createspace vs. Lightning Source For Self-Published Print Books [Molly Greene]

The Great Debate: Createspace vs. Lightning Source For Self-Published Print Books

by Molly Greene on OCTOBER 17, 2011 in SELF-PUBLISHING, WRITING & WRITERS

Another fabulous guest post courtesy of my generous friend and best-selling, award-winning author, Terri Giuliano Long! 

Congratulations! You’ve decided to take the plunge and publish your book. Welcome to the indie revolution! In addition to the myriad design and marketing decisions you’re about to make, you must also decide whether to publish only in eBook format or publish in hard copy too. Authors choose one option or the other for various reasons. For our purposes, we’ll assume that you’ve decided to publish your masterpiece, your baby, in paper.

Which service do you use? If you’re the nervous type who prefers everything done for you, you may want to go with one of the full-service self-publishing houses. It’s been a publishing lifetime since those so-called “vanity presses” made their debut. Back in the day, print on demand was a dirty word and authors who published with these shady companies worked (their detractors whispered), under the sick yellow glint of supreme self-delusion.

Today, even the top dogs use POD technology, and terrific full-service publishers, like Pennsylvania-based Infinity Publishing, offer an array of high-quality services and print books that rival any I’ve seen on the market. Of course, those services come at a cost. Royalties are typically low and retail prices can be high.

If you’re looking for a low cost, high royalty option, the two major competitors are Createspace and Lightning Source. While both are reputable companies that produce library-quality books, there are major benefits, drawbacks and differences to each that every author should be aware of before making an educated choice.

CREATESPACE 
PROS:
Createspace is a quick, relatively simple, inexpensive option for authors hoping to sell high-quality hard copies of their self-published books primarily online. With Createspace, publishing a book is easy and hassle-free; optional services include complete setup, cover design, formatting, and marketing. CS also offers a free DIY book creation service. Or, if you wish, you can hire your own designer. As long as your digital file meets CS specifications, you’re good to go. You can use your own ISBN (purchased separately, on your own) or, if you prefer, Createspace will supply one for you. (If you opt to distribute through the library and academic institution channel, however, you must use a CS-assigned ISBN. When I published my CS edition, that’s the reason I used theirs.)

Like most self-publishing companies, Createspace allows the author/publisher to choose the book’s retail price. By self-publishing standards, the CS per/book cost is low, offering authors the flexibility of choosing either a higher royalty (by setting a higher retail price) or a lower retail price (enticing for buyers, but lower royalties to the author).

With retail pricing, CS and LS are comparable. Compared to other self-publishing companies, CS and LS come out ahead. At one point, I considered working with a full-service self-publisher. I loved the company, found the staff friendly and professional, their design services excellent, and their print quality superior to CS; problem was, their sales model, which offered absolutely no flexibility, would have forced me to set my retail price at a minimum of $17.95, a cost that I felt would price my book out of the market.

CONS:
Createspace offers no return policy, which means corporate brick-and-mortar bookstore chains are unlikely to stock your book. According to a Createspace customer service rep, the company instituted this policy to protect their authors: returns are unpredictable and, with shipping and handling expenses, accepting returns can get costly. This is certainly true, particularly if you factor in return shipping and handling changes.

For expanded distribution channels, CS offers a set wholesale discount of 40%. The author has no choice in this. The industry standard is 55%, with 47% and under considered a “short discount.” While, yes, less of a discount means that authors earn a higher royalty, a sub-standard discount decreases incentives for bookstores.

Today, with the rapid decline in bookstore sales, and the majority of sales occurring online, you may not care if bookstores carry your paperback book. However, if you suddenly find yourself with a hot-selling title, you may change your mind. If you try to place your CS-distributed book in bookstores, you’ll run into problems. When In Leah’s Wake hit the Barnes & Noble bestseller list in August, B&N considered stocking the paperback in their brick and mortar stores. When they realized that Createspace was the distributor, they declined, citing the CS non-return policy. I never reached the point of negotiating discounts. Unfortunately, I ran into the same thing with other bookstores.

Of course, stores can always order your book from Createspace to fill a customer request. Nevertheless, if they don’t stock your book – put it on their shelf or, better yet, in their window – you lose impulse buyers and bookstore loyalists, as well as bookstore employee evangelists. As a solution, Createspace suggests hand-selling your book. If you approach your local B&N or independent bookstore, especially if they anticipate enough local interest to generate sales, there is a good chance that they’ll agree to stock your book. As an incentive, you can offer your own return policy or perhaps ask them if they’ll accept your books on consignment.

These are great ideas, but selling books by hand takes time and energy that many authors simply don’t have.

LIGHTNING SOURCEIn August, when Barnes & Noble declined to stock my book, I contracted with Lightning Source to print and distribute a separate ILW edition. It’s too soon to determine if this will have been a good or bad move. While the Lightening Source print edition of ILW is now readily available to stores, and can be ordered for overnight pickup, LS reports only total sale numbers, giving me no way to tell if bookstores have ordered copies to shelf.

Despite nearly equal numbers – in September, I sold 223 paperback books through Createspace and 188 through Lightning Source – my Lightning Source edition ranks consistently lower on Amazon than my Createspace edition. This hour, for example, my LS rank is #22,678, CS #4522. Sales calculations determine rank. This disparity in Amazon rank, and again with total sales being roughly equal, suggests that many of my LS sales come from retailers other than Amazon.

PROS:
Lightning Source, the go-to POD publisher for big guys like Random House, offers library-quality POD as well as offset printing (for higher print runs). They can also scan existing hard copies, a service CS doesn’t offer.

The return policy and wholesale discount makes LS books more attractive to booksellers. LS publishers have the option of accepting or not accepting returns. As a publisher, you set your own retail discount – I offer the standard 55% but you may offer less – giving you flexibility in offering wholesale incentives.

Lightning Source distributes titles through all the major players, including Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Bertrams, and others, which means that stores, libraries and academic institutions can buy LS books without making any changes to their process. Theoretically, if you go with LS, bookstores, libraries and academic institutions should be more inclined to buy your books.

CONS:
Lightning Source costs more than CS. LS charges a $37.50 setup fee and $30 for proofs. Later, if you need to make corrections, you’ll be charged $30 per file change, plus $30 for a new proof. Createspace offers free setup, proofs have the same low set-cost as books, based on size and page count – in my case, $5.17 – and each file change costs $25, in addition to the set single book charge.

Should you decide to order a book for your own use or to give to a friend, Lightning Source charges more too. One copy of In Leah’s Wake from Lightning Source costs $6.30, plus shipping; the same book from Createspace – if I’m enrolled in their Pro Plan - costs $5.17, plus shipping. The difference is, the price of CS books is set, with the same cost for 1 or 500 books, while Lightning Source offers quantity discounts.

With LS, the book creation process is more complicated than with CS. First, LS is entirely DIY. Although they do provide optional marketing services, they offer no design services. If you run into a problem with a digital file, you’re responsible for making corrections. While the same is true with CS, CS offers design services.

Before you begin, you must create a publishing company. There is no need to incorporate. You can set up an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) or operate under a trade name, also called a DBA (Doing Business As). Here’s info from the Small Business Association on both. Lightening Source requires you to fill out a standard business application. This is not a hugely big deal, but it can be time-consuming. By the time I had my paperwork in order and submitted, two weeks had gone by.

Another drawback: Amazon stocks CS titles, while listing LS titles as having a 1 – 4 week delivery time. (LS claims to ship Web orders within 5 days.) This is purely anecdotal, but the delivery lag seems to be a turn-off for buyers. On Amazon, my LS edition retails for $2.00 less than my CS edition, yet my CS sales are much higher. To check the veracity of Amazon’s listed delivery times, I ordered a copy of my LS title; it arrived in less than a week. 

Amazon’s delivery time for my LS edition recently increased from 3 to up to 4 weeks, so these artificially extended delivery times may be a marketing decision on Amazon’s part. I’m not sure. It’s possible that they’ll reverse it, but, while I hate to be a naysayer, I don’t see that happening unless they get a lot of flack.

SELLING THROUGH BOTH DISTRIBUTORS: You may be thinking, as I did – I’m smart: I’ll use CS for Amazon sales and LS for distribution. If so, hold on.

First, by publishing print editions through both companies, using separate ISBN numbers (as I currently do), you kick yourself in the head. Book Scan, the company that tracks book sales,tracks by ISBN number. There is no way to show that two ISBN numbers belong to one book. Having two separate editions of a book hurts your sales rank. This is true on retail sites like Amazon and it’s also true of tracking for bestseller lists like USA Today or the NY Times. As we all know, once they hit stride, bestselling books sell because they’re bestsellers.

The other day, my CS edition ranked under 3500 on Amazon, while my LS edition ranked over 19,000. If every sale were credited to one edition, the higher sales numbers should have put my rank under 1000. Sales numbers affect not only buyer perception. They also determine where your book populates in queues. A book with high sales finds its way into the “readers who bought this also bought this” queues of popular titles.  When you finish a book you loved, where do look for another? First, check the author’s backlist – and then you look at those queues. Believe me, a book on the first page of the queue on the detail page for The Help sells copies.

A book queued with a hot title has what we refer to as “a positive meta-message.” In other words, a book associated with a hot title gains status in the buyer’s mind. Currently, ILW is queued with Midwives, While I Was Gone, and a few other older Oprah book picks. I’m ecstatic! Truly, I am. But, what if I’d been smart and stuck with one edition? Combined sales may have put it in the queue with newer bestsellers, maybe even on a back page in the queue under The Help.

Yes, if you own the ISBN for your book, you may use the same number for both LS & CS print editions.  BUT – while this may help your Book Scan rank – if you’re NY Times bestseller caliber, kudos to you – it changes nothing on Amazon, the world’s number one reseller. On Amazon you will still have two detail pages – one for the CS and one for the LS edition. Despite using the same ISBN number, sales of CS and LS editions will be credited separately. So, except for Book Scan, you’ll still be dealing with ALL problems outlined above.

NOTE: I was contacted recently by Aaron Shepherd/Shepherd Publications. According to Aaron, who’s published 12 books, if you use the same ISBN number for your Lightning Source and Createspace books, you will not – as I had been told by the CS rep I spoke with – end up with two detail pages. Here’s how Aaron recommends getting around this: http://www.newselfpublishing.com/PlanB.html  You may still encounter the problems I mention above with availability and stocking. 

I haven’t tried Aaron’s method, only because I  just learned about it and have not yet had time to make the adjustments. Although it seems rather complicated and time-intensive, it may be worth trying. 

Important: LS requires you to own the ISBN. You can NOT use a Createspace-supplied ISBN number with LS. If you publish with CS and opt-in to the library and academic institution distribution channel, you MUST use a CS ISBN.

WHAT TO DO?
It takes about 4 – 6 weeks for LS titles to populate on online retailer sites. A few weeks after mine did, spurred by the rank issue – sadly I’d failed to consider the rank issue beforehand – I contacted LS and asked them to cancel distribution to Amazon. I figured I’d use CS to service the Amazon behemoth and LS everywhere else.

No dice. With Lightning Source, it’s all or nothing. You distribute or you don’t. You can’t pick and choose.

Meanwhile, I’d already cancelled CS distribution. Practically overnight, the CS edition disappeared from online retailer shelves – e.g. BN – leaving me with a LS-distributed book with a 1 -3 week delivery time! Ack! Only one week earlier, the LS book had been listed as in stock! SO . . . I re-upped CS distribution – what choice did I have? – putting me right back at square one.

My advice? Wait until your eBook sales pop to spring for a paperback. Six months is a light-year in this evolving publishing world, and who knows? The rules may have changed by then. Or, publish your paperback with Createspace.

If you have the time and resources, consider hand selling to bookstores. If sales justify it (you’ll have to decide when that is) and you can afford to, offer your own return policy. This may not fly with corporate retailers like Barnes and Noble, but it will probably work in local BN and some indie bookstores.

For now, while it’s certainly not optimal, experience tells me that’s our best bet.

Terri Giuliano Long grew up in the company of stories both of her own making and as written by others. Books offer her a zest for life’s highs and comfort in its lows. She’s all-too-happy to share this love with others as a novelist and a writing teacher at Boston College. She was grateful and thrilled beyond words when her award-winning debut literary novel, In Leah’s Wake, hit the Barnes and Noble and Amazon bestseller lists in August. She owes a lot of wonderful people – big time! – for any success she’s enjoyed! Follow Terri on twitter @tglong, and visit her website.

In Leah’s Wake can be purchased through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Also available at local indie bookstores through IndieBound.

Twitter know how for Authors [Molly Greene]

0 – 4000 in a Snap! How to Build a Quality Twitter Following FAST

by Molly Greene on SEPTEMBER 26, 2011 in GENERAL, SOCIAL MEDIA, WRITING & WRITERS

If you’re an author, blogger or book reviewer learning the social media ropes, your goal is probably to build readership for your blog and/or grow interest in your book. The pros tell us creating a twitter following is one of the best ways to drive blog traffic, and, hopefully, gain respect. So here you are. You have a twitter handle, bio and photo, and understand how to tweet and check @mentions and retweets. What next? Time to build a serious twitter following.

When I fired up my twitter account, defining a purpose was easy. Figuring out how to grow a following was mind-boggling. Since then, I’ve found that having a simple, manageable process in place designed to increase my twitter presence has positively affected my success. Yes, it takes time, but if you make a plan and stick to it, the rewards will be evident soon enough!

Different philosophies exist, and I often see tweeps discussing their desire to limit follows to people they’re familiar with. I don’t believe this approach will result in the level of promotion a new author or blogger requires. The truth is, by the time you have a few hundred followers you can’t easily pick tweets out of the melee, anyhow.

It’s easier to rely on other methods to keep track of fellow tweeters. Twitter is all about building a mutual, interactive network, and you need to be an active supporter to be a valuable part of your team. It’s much easier to use LISTS (more later) to keep close tabs on your favorites. Don’t let the fear you might lose track of people hold you back. Build your twitter platform NOW!

Here’s my story: In early March, 2011, I had a brand-new blog and my debut novel was nearly ready to send off to an editor. My intention was to create a platform to promote my book (scheduled for release Spring 2012) by growing online readership and cementing twitter relationships with other authors and pros who would hopefully help me learn the mysteries of book publishing and promotion.

To get up to speed, I learned twitter basics by reading reference material (like Publishing Talk’sTwitter Cheat Sheet) and sending a few dozen tweets, but mainly observed. When I felt confident, I got serious and began to follow active tweeters in earnest, setting a goal to follow 25 people daily. I looked for readers and fellow writers, authors, novelists, bloggers and book reviewers. I assumed these would be the most likely to support authors like myself. (Resources like Tweetadder will automate this process for you, but I prefer to do it “by hand.”)

I kept track by turning on notifications to be emailed every time someone follows, and every morning I checked messages (and still do) without fail, reviewed new tweep’s feeds, and followed back those who are actively interacting, except those listed below, and minus businesses, porn stars and search bots. (Illustrated by my followers vs. following numbers.)

To find potential followers, I viewed other author’s followers, checked out hashtags, reviewed public author’s lists, and followed twitter’s suggestions of “people similar to me.” I read every potential follower’s tweet feed to be sure they were interacting positively with others, and I followed them when I liked what I saw.

My intention is NOT to point the finger, offend, or disrespect anyone. Tweeps have different reasons for being on twitter, mine is to talk with real people who have the same goals I do! I made a decision not to follow:

• Tweeps who do not interact with others at all (no @mentions in their feed), and who only tweet quotes, statements, or links to business promotions
• Tweeps who are inactive, have not tweeted recently and/or don’t tweet regularly
• Tweeps with a massive list of followers, as I’m not sure they can really interact (exception! Paul Dorset at 55,000 followers – check out his blog: How to build a brand on Twitter)
• Tweeps who tweet about being “unfollowed” or dissed by someone
• Tweeps who don’t tweet in English
• Tweeps with a list of followers much, much higher than they number they’re following.  They probably won’t follow back, or they’ll follow for a day, then unfollow, a plan people sometimes adhere to when the agenda is to drive up numbers.

You may appear unpopular if you’re following 1500 people and only have 100 followers. You can avoid this by being patient and following slowly (hence my figure of 25 a day). Also, Twitter doesn’t like it when you try to follow too many all at once. (Review Twitter’s Follow Limits)
I soon discovered that those interested in following back would do so within a week to 10 days, with few exceptions. So I signed up for justunfollow.com (free for 25 per day) and began to unfollow people who opted not to follow me back, 25 at a time, a couple of times a week. Of course, I allowed a lead time of about 10 days for folks to follow if they had a mind to. (I no longer need this service every week, and you’ll get to that point, as well.)

Unfollowing people who aren’t interested in your message (without judgment!) keeps your figures close re: the percentage of people you are following vs. the number of tweeps following you. Once you get to 2,000, twitter limits the amount of people it allows you to follow – IF you’re following way more than are following you. So best to keep your numbers close right from the beginning. Reminder: There are so many reasons why people don’t follow back, and none of them are personal, so do NOT focus on this, it’s irrelevant!

To grow a quality following, you must interact with a percentage of your followers, comment on their blogs, and help with retweets. A sincere, reliable way to gain true support is to retweet blog posts, book reviews and book links. I like Steven Covey’s advice, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Just as in life, on twitter we benefit when we give our support without expecting paybacks. Give to gain. Don’t expect others to support you if you haven’t paid your dues. AND ALWAYS SAY THANK YOU!

IMPORTANT! These behaviors demonstrate bad manners! DO NOT:
• tweet snarky comments about others
• tweet anything about people not following you, and don’t tweet an @mention about those who unfollowed you (If you’ve been around for a while, you know twitter unfollows people FOR YOU, unbidden and without your knowledge, and you cannot tell the difference between a twitter mistake and a purposeful action by a follower. @mentioning unfollows is classless. Take your hits and move on.)
• DM or tweet someone directly with an uninvited self-promotion or a link to your book or blog! Here’s an example of what NOT to do: @mollygreene, Check out my blog atwww.Imagreatwriter.blogspot.com - Thanks! or @mollygreene good afternoon, may I interest you in my book? Its a fabulous read on www. mememememe.com

So now more about lists. To keep close tabs on a group of people, create a twitter list and add your faves. When you click on your list, you’ll see their feeds. I’ve created a couple of private lists (you can make your lists public) for my besties so I can easily keep tabs on them and RT without missing anything, and I review it daily. You don’t have to be following people to keep them in a list, so you can do this with agents or anyone you care to keep close.

I’m happy to report that my twitter experience is fabulous. I have SO much fun on twitter I actually spend too much time on the site! I have the best followers in the world, and my hope is that they feel the same about yours truly.

I owe a special thanks to my twitter besties @tesshardwick, @tglong, and @christinenolfi, who reached out early on and took me under their wing. They showed me how to be a REAL twitter sister, and to understand how it should be done. Follow them all!

Happy tweeting!

 How to set up a list:
• Go to “lists” on your profile page
• Choose “create a new list”
• Choose “private” or “public,” and name it, etc.*
• Go to the tweeps’ profile pages and click on the black “head and shoulders” icon to the right of the DM envelope, and add them to the list
• Back on your own profile page, click on “lists,” and choose from the drop-down

Resources:
Must read! Novel Publicity’s Cease and Desist: 10 Bad Twitter practices to be stopped immediately! http://bit.ly/ncir5v  @novelpublicity @emlynchand
Twitter Rocks! http://bit.ly/kCzgdBTerri Long’s @tglong 5 EASY Ways to Use Twitter to Increase Blog TRAFFIC!http://fb.me/XmynI4n2John Cox/Paul Dorset @jcx27 How to Get 16,000 Twitter Followers in 90 Days without steroidshttp://bit.ly/hx9K0U (A great read. We used a similar method, but Paul kicked it up a notch!)Cathy Larkin, How to use Twitter Lists, My POV Tess Hardwick’s guest post re: how twitter can help sell books! To Blog, or Not to Blog? THAT is the Question!

*If you set your lists to public you can use a service like http://paper.li to publish daily feeds from your lists which also promotes your followers and keeps them happy – this from Paul Dorset @jcx27