Kiana Davenport's publishing battle

A few posts ago, Debra Purdy Kong wrote a great post about the battle between Kiana Davenport and her Big 6 publisher over self-publishing other works.

But what does another publishing company think about this situation?

Check out my post over at the Imajin Books Blog:
 http://imajinbooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/kiana-davenports-publisher-demands-she.html

Name a character in new novel by Noah Baird! (Contest)

Noah Baird, author of Donations to Clarity, needs the name for a female roller derby player. These girls/women love scary names, so let your imagination fly!

He also needs an original rock band name, circa late ‘80s. He wants something so sleazy, so nasty, you’ll want to bathe in Purell and throw your keyboard away.

If you are the winner of the contest, Noah will use your submission in an upcoming book (Unless he comes up with a better idea later on), and he’ll send you an autographed copy of Donations to Clarity.

To submit your names for consideration or for further information, click here: Don’t Read This Buhlog by Noah Baird.

Using Excerpts For Promo

Your book is out, and you need to promote it. Maybe you want to buy an ad, maybe you want to do a giveaway postcard or bookmark, or maybe you're doing a blog book tour. One way to attract readers is to give them a taste of the book--a "try before you buy". You want to give them an excerpt.

If the book is divided into chapters, you have a natural place to start. I have the first chapters of EEL'S REVERENCE and FORCE OF HABIT posted on my web site.

When I visit someone else's blog and he or she or they want an excerpt, I'm most often asked for something much shorter.

Now, even if your book is NOT divided into chapters, it's divided into scenes, and most chapters are divided into sets of scenes. Your scenes are divided into "beats": pieces of scenes in which points are made, information is gained, character or relationships are revealed or shifted.

How many beats or how long a beat you provide depends on your length requirements. You might just want a one-line quote, or a variation of the quote like this "tagline" for FORCE OF HABIT:

All she wanted was a breath of fresh air. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently so.

You might want a beat out of a scene:

"You are aware of the training vessel we operate in conjunction with the Galactic Union Space Troopers? St. Gregory The Wonderworker?"

"The kids call it 'Uncle Gus.'"

"Call what 'Uncle Gus?'"

"The ship. Galactic. Union. Space Troopers. GUS."

"Ah," Mother Hadrian said, as if the sound might pass for a display of interest. "Well. The students aboard are referred there by their teachers. They're the best of the lot."

Sure, they are. That's why they're out there, and you're down here. 

"You have a challenging and rewarding..." Mother Hadrian referred to Bel's contract... "five years ahead of you." She thrust a hand forward, cocked for a blessing.

Bel intercepted it and gave it a bitter shake.

Slain with the jawbone of an ass.

Although every beat of your book should lead from what comes before to what comes after, be scanning your manuscript for more-or-less self-contained bits that can be lifted out and used to tempt potential readers.

Marian Allen
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes

One Writer's Clash Between Traditional and Self-Publishing

As I cruise through the newsletters I subscribe to, I’m reading an increasing number of negative stories about traditional publishers’ (it always seems to be the large houses) response to the rapidly growing world of self-published e-books. First, I want to say that, for me, this hasn’t been a problem so far, but could it be in the future? I had to stop and think after reading a fascinating, and somewhat disturbing blog by a writer named Kiana Davenport, who reports of a unsettling experience with her traditional publisher. Here’s what happened.

To earn some much needed income, and while waiting for her Big 6 publisher to publish her novel in August 2012, Davenport self-published two collections of short stories. Many of those stories had already appeared in magazines and have nothing to do with the topic of her upcoming novel. The first collection was published before she signed her contract, and the second was published afterward. When the big-6 publisher learned about the self-published books, well, let’s just say things didn’t go well. One of the publisher’s editors phoned her and apparently began yelling at her for breaching her contract, which she maintains she didn’t. The editor also basically accused her of colluding with the enemy, which is Amazon. The editor then demanded that she withdraw this second collection from ALL platforms and remove any reference to the book. She has 600,000 Google hits! As she says in her blog, how does one even do that? Additionally, she must guarantee that she not self-publish anything until her novel has been released in both hard back and paperback. Needless to say, Ms. Davenport has a lawyer handling the matter.

I don’t know the publisher’s side of the story, but what captures my attention is the growing uneasiness between writers and publishers. Not a lot of Big 6 publishers (and others, I imagine) are fond of Amazon, so if you’re doing business with either party, will you be trapped in the middle down the road? Clearly, it’s more important than ever that you understand exactly what the publisher expects from you regarding any e-book and self-publishing ventures. To read more of Ms. Davenport’s blog, go to http://kianadavenportdialogues.blogspot.com/2011/08/sleeping-with-enemy-cautionary-tale.html

THE OPPOSITE OF DARK, http://bit.ly/i983XE, Chapters/Indigo http://bit.ly/gtFSFw
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

Word on the Street Coming Soon!

Two weeks from today, (Sept. 25th) the annual Word on the Street National Book and Magazine Festival will be happening in cities across Canada. The website indicates that Vancouver, Lethbridge, Saskatoon, Kitchener, Toronto, and Halifax will be participating for a fun day of workshops, panel discussions, musical entertainment, author readings, to name a few. This free event celebrates literacy and the written word in as many forms as possible. Poets and children’s writers have been well represented in the past, as have non-fiction authors, graphic novelists, and so on. WOTS is a fun, upbeat time with lots of great information about local organizations, publications, and educational opportunities on writing and publishing.

I and my colleagues will be manning the Crime Writers of Canada table in “the Village” located around the perimeter of the main Vancouver Public Library on Georgia Street, from 11 to 5 PM. We’ll be handing out cool bookmarks and letting people now about our organization and BC crime writers, and selling books, of course!

I, Robin Spano, Elizabeth Elwood, and Joan Donaldson-Yarmey will also be participating on a panel called De-Mystifying Mystery Writing in the library’s Peter Kaye room from 12 to 1 PM, so if you’re in the area, please stop by!

If you live near one of the WOTS venues, give this event a try! To learn more go to http://www.thewordonthestreet.ca/wots/

THE OPPOSITE OF DARK, http://bit.ly/i983XE, Chapters/Indigo http://bit.ly/gtFSFw
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

The Ongoing Dilemma of Ebook Pricing

First, thanks to everyone for posting your thoughtful comments on last week's topic about spamming. I really appreciate it! Now, onto new issues:

Since my first two mysteries, Taxed to Death and Fatal Encryption were published three years ago, I’ve been reading lots of internet discussion and articles about ebook pricing. Since that time, I’ve learned two things: the range in book prices is wider than ever and opinions about how much e-books should cost are stronger than ever. Here’s a sample of what I’ve been hearing:

Self-publishers were saying (generally speaking—there are always exceptions) that an unknown author with a new book should charge .99 cents (and sometimes even free) to entice new readers. Well, that worked well for a while and many of my colleagues were selling quite a few copies per month, but the game has changed, partly because of Amazon. Unfortunately, too many indie authors were using amazon’s forums to promote their books on the wrong threads which offended enough readers to launch complaints. So, amazon tightened the rules significantly about where and how much authors can promote.

The other factor is that the enormous number of .99 books has created what some readers/writers now refer to at the “.99 cent ghetto”. What this means is that a .99 cent book is automatically assumed to be self-published and of poor quality. To combat this growing attitude, some authors are raising their prices to $2.99 or even higher. As I write this, these folks are still generating sales, but the experiments I’m following are fairly new, so we’ll see how it goes.

Here’s the other side of the coin. A lower priced book, indie published or not, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as there are plenty of readers looking for new authors and a bargain. In fact, there are many readers who refuse to pay more than $3.00 no matter whose name is on the cover. You can see where the dilemma rises when trying to find the right price point for your own book.

There are also readers who assume, rightly or wrongly, that a book priced at $6.99 or more is a traditionally published book and therefore less prone to the grammar, spelling, and formatting glitches of self-published books and, believe me, this is a common complaint! It’s true that traditional publishers are pricing their books higher partly because they have overhead: hiring professionals to format in different platforms, as well as experienced book jacket designers, and so on. The other reason is that publishers tend to believe that books have value (again, there are probably exceptions). In other words, why should their products be the same price as a pack of gum? Publishing isn’t just about mass market thrillers, but about art, creativity, and thought-provoking, helpful information, for starters. Let’s think about it: how much do we pay to invest two hours of our time at a movie theatre? My last 3D movie (Harry Potter) was $13.50! The price of popcorn cost more expensive than most ebooks! Needless to say, this is a topic that’s ripe for debate.

And then there’s the backlash syndrome. One famous author who’s received his share of great reviews over the years commented that his ebooks were receiving 1-star ratings as a backlash for the book’s high price, which was $16.99, a price set by his publisher. Book piracy is now flourishing partly because people simply refuse to pay that kind of money for a virtual book. Even readers who don’t want anything to do with the .99 cent ghetto might still refuse to pay more than $10 for an ebook. And so, the dilemma rages on. I’ve love to hear your thoughts on this. How much do you charge for your books? How much are you willing to pay for someone else’s? Have you thought about changing your price, up or down, and if so, why?

THE OPPOSITE OF DARK, http://bit.ly/i983XE, Chapters/Indigo http://bit.ly/gtFSFw
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n