PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by Val Stasik

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PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By Val Stasik, author of INCIDENTAL DAUGHTER

Here are some resources to help writers navigate the often stormy waters of publishing:

Book Production

Mark Levine’s blog has a lot of good advice and warnings, especially for those who are self-publishing. http://www.publishingrevolution.com.

Preditors & Editors helps writers avoid fraudulent or questionable publishing outfits. http://www.pred-ed.com.

Writers Beware Blog exposes scammers and questionable activities in the publishing business. http://www.accrispin.blogspot.com.

Your local writing association.

Agents, Publishers and Queries, a free site recommended by a fellow writer, provides a database of literary agents and publishers along with valuable statistical information about these agents and publishers. You can also organize and track your query letters on the site. In addition, the site sponsors a community of writers with whom you may share your experiences. To join free, go to http://www.querytracker.net/.

The Writer, Poets & Writers, and Writer’s Digest magazines often list agents and publishers and offer much advice on every aspect of writing, publishing, and marketing.

http://www.writersdigest.com Valuable information, conference information, and contests.

zGuy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch’s book, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book, provides a lot of good information on self-publishing and ebook publishing from writing to publishing to promoting. A MUST READ.

Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual is an old standby that is geared to nonfiction, but has good advice for all artisanal publishers.

Mark Levine’s, The Fine Print of Self-Publishing, rates over 20 print-on-demand (POD) companies.

CreateSpace, http://www.createspace.com.

Kindle, https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin.

Smashwords, http://www.smashwords.com/.

Bookbaby, http://www.bookbaby.com.

The Chicago Manual of Style provides information on the parts of a book and what goes into each part as well as providing guidelines for grammar and mechanics. It’s expensive but a lifesaver. ESSENTIAL.

Joel Friedlander, http://www.thebookdesigner.com/ provides invaluable advice on book design and http://www.bookdesigntemplates.com/ provides templates for designing the interior of a book in Microsoft Word. ($37.00 for the single use print template and $47.00 for both the print and ebook templates. See the website for multiple use and commercial use pricing.)
Fontsquirrel, http://www.fontsquirrel.com/ is a good source of free and low cost fonts. (Fonts are copyrighted intellectual properties. When you design your own interior, you cannot use the fonts that came with your computer for commercial purposes. You must either pay for a license to use them or find open source fonts or fonts licensed free for commercial use.)

ISBN numbers are sold by Bowker through https://www.myidentifiers.com/#. If your print-on-demand company provides the bar code (CreateSpace does), you do not have to order the bar code for the ISBN number. The ISBN shows the publisher of record. If your POD company offers a free one, know that the company will be listed as the publisher of record. You need an ISBN number for each edition—print, large print, translation, audio, ebook (except Kindle uses their ASIN number instead, but other ebook retailers would need an ISBN).

Copyright registration at http://copyright.gov/. Your work is copyrighted as soon as you write it. The advantages of registering may not be worth the cost—$35.00 if you do it all online; $65.00 if you do it by mail.

Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) provides the information that libraries use. You must apply for it before publishing so you have the information to put on your copyright page. The application page is http://pcn.loc.gov/pcn007.html.

Promotion and Advertising

Promotion “the act of furthering the growth or development of something; especially: the furtherance of the acceptance and sale of merchandise through advertising, publicity, or discounting.” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/promotion.

Advertising “the act or practice of calling public attention to one’s product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, on billboards, etc.: to get more customers by advertising.” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/advertising.

THE BEST PROMOTION IS WORD OF MOUTH.

Your local writing association.

The Internet and Social Media are essential to the promotion of your book. You need to be building your network long before you publish your book.

Website/Blog Avoid GoDaddy—their website builder is difficult to use, and they are constantly upselling you. You can get a free site from Weebly, http://www.weebly.com, that has a user-friendly site builder. All you need is a domain name, which you can buy through Weebly or some other domain register site. Look for other free site offerings on the Internet and webhosting rating sites. The free sites usually limit you to five pages. (I’ve used Startlogic.com for years as my webhost, and they provide the Weebly sitebuilder. I’ve found their support very good as well.) WordPress, http://wordpress.org/, hosts blogs, and many people use them for their websites. http://www.blogger.com/ , a Google product, is reportedly an easier site to work with. Remember: Your author website should be more than a static billboard. What’s in it for your visitor?
Facebook Your timeline is meant for your friends. To promote your book, you need to create a Facebook page. Facebook has contests you can use. You can leave your timeline open only to friends. The Facebook page can be left public so anyone can visit it.
LinkedIn is a professional social media site. There are a variety of writer’s discussion groups. You can only promote your book in these groups under the promotion tab, not in the group discussions.
Twitter You can build quite a following for your book with Twitter. Tweet what’s happening with your book. Offer advice and share sites that have been helpful.
Google+ Circles and Hangouts.
Pinterest A visual sharing site.
Goodreads A site for booklovers. Authors can feature their books and use Goodreads promotions.
MailChimp is an email service you can use for announcements and as an e-newsletter.
Amazon Sales Page and Amazon Author Central
Blog Tours There are blogs that specialize in sharing reviews of books with their visitors. Look for ones that have a wide readership.
Author Marketing Experts, Inc., http://www.amarketingexpert.com/ , is Penny Sansevieri’s Internet marketing company. This company can help you take advantage of all the promotional possibilities the Web offers.
zPenny Sansevieri’s Red Hot Internet Publicity and 2010’s 100 Top Reviewers. Both are helpful in giving an author a basis for Internet promotion.

Book Launches and Signings.

Press Releases, http://www.freepressrelease.com/ also http://www.pr.com/.

Book Fairs and Conferences See NMBA email alerts and LIBRO. Southwest Book Fiesta.

Book Reviews.

Contests:

NMBA SWBDA.
New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards.
Benjamin Franklin Award, http://ibpabenjaminfranklinawards.com/.
Writer’s Digest Competitions, http://www.writersdigest.com/competitions/writing-competitions.
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest, http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Novel-Award-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=332264011.
National Book Foundation, http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaentry.html#.UTgpjqN2FAN.

Promotional Materials (cards, banners, flyers, bookmarks, magnetic signs, etc.) http://www.vistaprint.com and http://www.gotprint.com.

http://valeriestasik.com/writers-resources.html, I’ve listed many resources and occasionally update this part of my website.

Who’s selling your book? http://www.bookfinder4u.com/ is a site where you can find out which retailers are selling your books and for how much.

PIRACY Your ebook might get hijacked, or you may find portions of your work appearing on other sites without your permission. You can send the owner of the site a DMCA Take Down Notice (search for examples on the Internet). If the owner is out of the country, there’s nothing you can do. If it’s a legitimate US site, it may respond to your takedown notice. If it doesn’t, your only recourse is a lawsuit, which is probably not worth the time and money.

————————–

Val Stasik shares a home in eternally sunny Santa Fe, NM, with her aging mixed terrier, Sugar, who allows her to sleep in his queen-size bed as well as sharpen her culinary skills for his benefit. Stasik spent many years as a writing teacher, helping other writers find their voice and tell their stories, and is a consultant for the Northern Virginia Writing Project. INCIDENTAL DAUGHTER is Stasik’s debut novel.

Stasik studied drama and English at the University of Pittsburgh and then transferred to the University of Maryland, College Park, graduating with high honors and a B.S. in Secondary Education, Communication. The year she attended graduate school was filled with student protests, bomb threats, and military helicopters.

Stasik became an editorial assistant for THE PHARMACOLOGIST in Bethesda. She then moved to Harpers Ferry where she taught for five years and participated in the Old Opera House Theatre onstage and behind the scenes.

In Harrisburg, PA, she became a groom and mutuels clerk at Penn National Race Track and, later, a commercial lines underwriter for Pennsylvania National Mutual Casualty Insurance Company. Right before her son was born, Three Mile Island happened. So far, neither glows in the dark.

In Virginia, Stasik enjoyed the enriching experience of teaching writing and literature in the Loudoun County Public School system, instructed other teachers in assessing student writings, and helped develop various English curricula. She also participated in the Fauquier Community Theatre on and off stage. From 2002-2004, she developed a part-time hypnosis practice. She then retired to Santa Fe where she has been writing—a few film scripts that have been produced (Café Destiny, on the Web, Spring 2013, www.cafe-destiny.com) and a couple of award-winning play scripts.

Stasik is currently a member of the New Mexico Book Association, the New Mexico Book Co-Op; Southwest Writers; the Independent Book Publishers Association; the Small Publishers’ Association of North America; the Small Publishers, Artists, and Writers Network; and Pennwriters.

Visit her website at www.ValerieStasik.com.

Connect & Socialize with Val!

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Question of the Day

How do you make sales happen for you?

A lot of hard work! I sponsor a lot of on line parties, festivals and contests. Book sales don’t magically happen, believe me. An author has to work hard to earn her readers. And then she has to work hard to keep them by giving them something they’ll enjoy reading. I try hard to make my books worth a reader’s time.

-- Sheila Roberts, Author of Winter at the Beach