The Word Cloud

From the beginning, I promised to publish my sales figures every month. I had several reasons for this. Joe Konrath was the first I know of to share all his numbers.

Several followed his lead, and that culture of openness he initiated was a key factor in my realization that self-publishing was now a viable path for any writer.

I think most writers find these numbers helpful, but I know a minority find it a little distasteful. That’s fine.

If you are if that persuasion, I have a guest post today over at the blog of Jonathan Dalar which you can read instead, called “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt” about the tactics that some defenders of the status quo are using to steer writers away from self-publishing.

For the rest of you that don’t mind the monthly peek in my wallet, the full July sales report, along with analysis of my first three months self-publishing, is here: 

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/july-sales-report-big-jump-in-sales-huge-jump-in-revenue/ 

For the click-shy, here's the short version: over 500 e-books sold in the first 3 months, including around 300 short stories, and a massive increase in revenue in July - I made around $425 (up from around $35 in June).

It's been a very hard slog, including working well past sunrise the last couple of weeks, but my new book has been released.

Let's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should is available from Amazon UK for the special launch price of £1.71. But best of all, it's also available as a free PDF download on my blog, which you can share with anyone you choose.

Today is a very exciting day, the book is racing up the charts in the US and the UK, and I have already picked up some excellent reviews.

The cover and blurb are below. 

You won’t make any money from self-publishing.

MYTH!

The internet has revolutionized every business it has come into contact with, and publishing is no different.

For the first time, these changes are handing power back to the writer. It’s up to YOU if you want to profit from them.

Let’s Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should.

This guide contains over 60,000 words of essays, articles, and how-to guides, as well as contributions from 33 bestselling indie authors including J Carson Black, Bob Mayer, Victorine Lieske, Mark Edwards, and many more.

It covers everything from how the disruptive power of the internet has changed the publishing business forever to the opportunities this has created for writers. It gives you practical advice on editing, cover design, formatting, and pricing. And it reveals marketing tips from blogging and social networking right through to competitions, discounts, reviews, and giveaways.

If you are considering self-publishing, if you need to breathe life into your flagging sales, or if you want to understand why it’s a great time to be a writer, Let’s Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should will explain it all.

If you are interested in reading more, you can download the PDF for free on my blog.

There was a ridiculous article last week in the Wall Street Journal called “Cherish The Book Publishers – You’ll Miss Them When They’re Gone.”

I was going to write a take-down of this, but Kris Rusch and Joe Konrath beat me to it. You should check out both their responses. Krus Rusch goes point-by-point, and Joe Konrath, in a post titled “The Tsunami of Crap”, laughs at the ridiculousness of it all:

“Some people believe the ease of self-publishing means that millions of wannabe writers will flood the market with their crummy ebooks, and the good authors will get lost in the morass, and then family values will go unprotected and the economy will collapse and the world will crash into the sun and puppies and kittens by the truckload will die horrible, screaming deaths.”

Heh.

Michael Stackpole weighed in too with an exploration of the genesis of this myth. All worth reading.

I’m not going to follow suit, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, and this carp is already riddled with bullets. In any event, I’ve already dealt conclusively with the myth that a “mountain of crap” will prevent good writers from making a living in this blog post.

Also, as Kris Rusch pointed out, it’s hardly a new story, and snooty bloggers, as well as various people invested in the status quo, have been pushing this line for some time.

I’m sure you remember last month’s hullabulloo instigated by one publisher hysterically claiming that 99c self-published e-books were “destroying minds“.

What was interesting to me about this Wall Street Journal article was that it was trying to elicit sympathy for the billion dollar corporations that have lost their monopoly over book distribution.

And it was also trying to spread fear about how horrible the world would be without the gatekeepers that shut out tons of new writers to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into books by Snooki and The Situation.

Sure.

But I don’t want to talk about that. Instead, I want to look at all the terrible developments since the rise of self-publishing:

1. No More Disappearing Genres. Before, if you were a fan of a genre that New York declared “dead”, as happened with Horror and Westerns, you would struggle to find any new books. Self-publishers have shown their is life in these genres, and that readers were craving new books. This is good for readers and good for writers.

2. Writers have more options. So you went on submission with your agent, and only got one lousy offer. Before, your only choice was to swallow your pride and accept, or write another book. Now you can self-publish, make some money, build your audience, and still pursue that trade publishing dream if you wish. And, if you could never crack the system, now you are no longer barred from reaching your readers.

[SNIP]

This one was getting a bit long, so if you want to read the rest, pop over to:

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/batting-for-a-broken-system/

I haven't posted here in a while, but as you will see, I've been very busy.

This month will see the release of my latest book Let’s Get Digital.

As is almost compulsory in non-fiction, it now has a snappy subtitle: Not just how to self-publish, why to self-publish.

That’s not just window-dressing. I believe it is essential to have an understanding of the current state of the publishing industry in addition to learning how to publish something professionally.

Let’s Get Digital

The first part of this book will give you an overview of the rapidly changing book business. It will explain why the big publishers are in serious trouble, and how the internet has revolutionized things to the point where a writer, working on their own, can make a living out of it.

It will talk about why you don’t need to fear piracy. It will shatter the myths surrounding self-publishing, chief among them being that you will never make any money out of it.

And it will explain why this is a great time to be a writer, and how you can profit from these seismic changes that are taking place.

The second part of the book will deal with the nuts and bolts of digital self-publishing in a very hands-on fashion.

It will cover everything from finding an editor, arranging for a professional cover, how to format your book so it appears perfectly on every device, the appropriate pricing strategy for your work, and a whole host of marketing tips covering everything from blogging, social networking, reviews, competitions, to how to arrest a sales slump.

Finally, in the third part, I will present the stories of thirty-three successful self-publishers who share their journeys in their own words. Most of these guys are selling over 1,000 books a month, some are selling almost 100 times that.

There is a real mix of writers, covering all genres. Some had long, successful publishing careers but are making even more money from self-publishing, others had careers which had hit plateaued, but re-ignited when they went out on their own.

But most are people who had never published anything before, and are now either making a living from writing or quickly approaching that point. Their stories are powerful and inspiring, and I am very excited to present them to you.

I’m keeping the identities of my contributors secret for now. The plan is to name them on release day, but I may get excited and leak a few in the run-up. Anything is possible.

Overall, Let’s Get Digital will contain 60,000 words of articles, essays, and how-to guides. Some of it is information that has appeared on this blog in one form or another. Some of it is brand new. All of it has been extensively re-written and updated.

I think everyone will get something out of this book, no matter what stage they are at in their own writing career.

Let’s Get Radical

I will be doing something a little counter-intuitive with this book: giving it away for free.

To read about that, and how I think it will make me more money, read today's blog post:

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/let’s-get-digital-a-radical-free-strategy/ 

It seems like the big news stories are coming every day now. That’s what happens when you combine the disruptive power of the internet with a revolutionary change like digital self-publishing.

In an announcement that is sure to cause some surprise, Dystel & Goderich – agents for Barack Obama, Judge Judy, John Locke, Joy Bauer, David Morell, and Richard Dreyfuss – have announced a move into publishing. Or have they?

I have made my feelings about agents moving into publishing quite clear on a number of occasions, and have always attempted to highlight the egregious practices that are becoming more common. However, before we grab the pitchforks and march on 5th Avenue, I’m going to ask for a moment to get a few things clear, and to take a closer look at what is actually being proposed.

First, I want to look at what this actually is, and then I will examine whether it is a good idea or not.

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/major-us-agency-moves-into-publishing-or-do-they/

There is an old adage that half the money you spend on advertising is wasted but the problem is you never know which half. I think with social media the percentage which is effective is more like 10%.

I see it like a farmer scattering a mystery bag of seeds in a wide open field. You don’t know which ones will take, and which will get eaten by birds. And you never know when they will blossom.

Like many self-publishers, June has been a tough month for me. Amazon’s Sunshine Deals (where they discounted 600 Big 6 bestsellers to between $0.99 and $2.99) just killed my sales. By the time it kicked in fully a few days into the month, my sales had more than halved.

However, this weekend,  a four-pronged promo assault pulled my sales out of the fire. What happened? How did I achieve this?

Read today's blog post to find out:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/you-never-know-when-your-promo-seeds-will-blossom/ 

There are a lot of myths surrounding self-publishing, and part of the mission of this blog is to try and dispel them.

One of the most common myths is that if you self-publish you will never make any money.

The usual reasoning is that most self-published work is crap and readers know it is crap, and they avoid it like the plague. Self-published work is poorly formatted, has a terrible cover, no editing, and – worst of all – it’s not ready for public consumption.

And, even if you manage to avoid all of these pitfalls and you have written a good story, readers will never be able to find it in the sea of crap that’s out there, and you will only sell a handful of copies to family and friends.

I come across this misconception all the time. Usually from people who either work in trade publishing, have a trade publishing deal (and no interest in self-publishing), or those who are pursuing one.

There are a number of assertions in the above argument that need to be teased out, and when you examine the assumptions behind them, it all falls apart.

You can read the rest of the post here:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/self-publishing-myth-1-you-will-never-make-any-money/

This is the final part of INDIE PUBLISHING FOR INTERNATIONAL WRITERS, a step-by-step guide to getting your stories into (digital) print. 

I will be compiling all these steps into a free e-book for my blog-readers when I am done. It’s called Let’s Get Digital and is penciled in for release at the end of June.

STEP TEN: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SALES JUST STOP?

All self-publishers experience a dip in sales. Every single one of them. Most will also experience a run where they sell nothing at all. It happened to me three days after my second release. My sales just died. Three days after a new release!

I sold nothing in the UK for a week – of either title – and I sold nothing in the US for four days. Then it picked up again. This happens. Sometimes it’s a reporting delay by Amazon, but sometimes nobody is buying your books, and sometimes it continues.

What do you do then?

Today's blog will show you how to look at your entire presentation in a dispassionate way, and reveals the greatest promotional tool available to any writer:

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/indie-publishing-for-international-writers-step-ten-what-happens-when-the-sales-just-stop/ 

I have spoken on my blog several times about what the future holds for agents in a world where publishers are disintermediated by the dominance of e-books and the marginalisation of bookstores.

Some agents are responding to the fall in advances and the collapse of print by seeking alternative revenue streams: editing services, creative writing classes, and, worst of all, becoming publishers.

However, it’s now becoming very clear that some agents have decided that the time spent dealing with the fire-hose of submissions would be better spent scouring the Amazon rankings for indie writers.

When I suggested this on a writing forum, I was told to “get real”. Some people are so scared of the changes occurring in the publishing industry that they are willing to go on record and deny basic, provable facts.

Noah Lukeman has been closed to submissions for some time. That in itself is not surprising, a simple glance at the list of awards his clients have won will tell you that this an agent in demand. What is notable is that he is now signing self-publishers.

Powerhouse agency Trident Media Group have been extremely vocal about what a terrible idea it is for agents to become publishers. What are they doing instead? They have signed five self-published writers this year.

To anyone who still doubts that this is occurring, or that it’s becoming more common, here are a list of self-published writers that have been approached by, and signed by, New York agents in the last twelve months: Mel Comley, LC Evans, Victorine Lieske, Scott Neumyer, Amanda Hocking, John Locke, Linda Welch, Lynda Hillburn, Christopher Smith, Nancy Johnson, Colleen Houck.

On top of those eleven writers, several more have been approached by publishers directly (both foreign and domestic), or have been approached by agents but haven’t signed anything yet. Over half were signed in the last three months.

Read the rest at: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/the-kindle-store-the-new-slush-pile/