The Future of ebooks - Anecdotal Evidence Files (Plus a little bit on pricing)

I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas. So did my 11-year-old. I gave my 75-year-old mom a Kindle for her birthday. Yeah, you say, so you got a Kindle, big whoop. But in a way, it's a snapshot: three generations of inveterate readers and how they react to a new reading format. You see, we are a family who loves books. I grew up surrounded by piles of books. We loved the library, loved Okie's Used Book Hut in Manitou Springs, loved the indie Chinook Bookstore (which along with the Chief Theater and Levine's Toys is now just a melancholy memory), loved to come home from someplace with a towering stack of new places to go inside our heads.

Well, in the past month, I've really been thinking about the question of ebooks and how they fit into publishing and consumption of books as a whole. Last year, kid #2 asked me if I'd thought about getting a e-reader. Well, yes, I had thought about it, but it didn't seem like an imperative at the time, even though I was sticking my toes in the swirling pool of e-publishing. Fast forward to the release of the Kindle Fire. Now that was something I really DID want. We're not Apple people by nature, even though we are gadget people, so the iPad seemed expensive and, well, really Apple-y. I could wait. I didn't wait that long, because midway through December, the S/O came home and thrust a box into my hand, saying, "You're not going to have anything under the tree, but you seem like you could use this now." Apparently I'd been a tad whiny about the number of things I had to read, and the difficulty I was having in reading them on the computer when I spent so much time sitting in my car.

I love my Kindle Fire. More importantly, I love reading on it. It's quick and effortless and if I want to switch streams and stop reading the novel I'm on and switch to a short story, with a few flicks of my fingers I'm there. I have enough books on my Kindle to fill 4 shelves and they're with me wherever I go. I've sampled a ton of free works, and, yes, reading a good free work has induced me to buy a paid book from an author I never would have tried if I didn't have my Kindle.

But here's what got me really thinking: I received a request from one of the big six publishers to review an upcoming book. I could get a bound galley or an e-galley or both. This week I got the bound copy in the mail a day before I got the e-galley. Given the choice, I started reading the e-galley.  Then I thought back the week before, when I'd started a paperback from an author I really liked. Well, I was busy and running around, and to read it at night, I had to sit up with a hooded light so I wouldn't disturb the S/O. I set the paperback down and promptly lost in the stack of paperbacks that I have waiting to be read. Instead, I read 3 books on the Kindle. Yep, that's right. I forgot all about the paperback I had been looking forward to and read three books by authors I hadn't read before on the Kindle. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, traditional publishing.

OK, but I'm a technology adopter, what about my mom? Conventional wisdom says that older people are going to be less likely to make the switch. Well, my mom LOVES her Kindle. She can change the type so it's larger, her cats don't shred the pages trying to get her attention while she's reading, she can borrow from the public library with almost no effort (and as soon as a book on a waiting list is available, she's got it right there), and she can get loads of free books (she reads 3 or 4 books a week), low cost books, and find new authors when she's exhausted the supply trickled out by trad publishers. Plus, when she does find an author she really likes, she doesn't have to go hunting for their backlist. It's right there.

But what about kids? It's hard to get kids to read, right? The most stunning revelation for me was the adoption of ebooks by middle schoolers. My son immediately began reading on the Kindle. They have a program at his school called AR (Accelerate Reader -- most parents will be familiar with it) where you need to read such-and-such a number of books worth so many points. He spent his Amazon gift certificate on books. And when school was back in session he came home and said, "I need to take my Kindle to school." It seems the majority of the kids in his class had gotten Kindle Fires. (There were a few Nooks too, but 90% Kindle Fire) and that's how the majority of kids in his class are now reading. (You see, you can't take an iPad to school, but the administration views the Kindle Fire as not a multimedia platform but as a BOOK platform. This may change the first time they find a kid playing Angry Birds or Stupid Zombies instead of reading, but for now, the Kindle is the must-have accessory.) But the most important thing is this (and listen very carefully): kids see ebooks and paperback books as totally equivalent. There is no "but that's not a 'real' book" stigma attached. In fact, they think ebooks are superior to paper books in some ways. My takeaway from this is that ebooks are going to be the dominant book format as time goes on. Kids growing up now are going to see ebooks as the dominant form, NOT paper books. (For proof that the Kindle Fire is helping spur book sales, see here.)

I bring this up because last month I was doing a lot of research on book bloggers and book review sites (to be addressed in a future column). I was mainly looking for sites and readers who wanted to see ebooks as opposed to paperbacks, because most self-publishers at least start with ebooks exclusively. I found lots of reviewers who did not accept ebooks, or accepted them reluctantly. These reviewers/bloggers fell into two categories: those who said, "I can't afford an e-reader yet" and those who said, "Egad, I would NEVER read an ebook, I want a REAL book, one I can hold in my hands. This stupid ebook phase will never catch on, at least not with discerning readers!" (And to be clear, I'm really not disparaging people who prefer paper books; it's perfectly legitimate and cool. It's just that a lot of their protestations take on this kind of shrill air of semi-hysteria, as if even considering an ebook somehow shakes the foundations of decent society.)

Which, in a way, may have a kernel of truth, at least as it concerns traditional publishing. Like any big industry that has held a monopoly on content delivery, the book publishing industry is moving at a glacially slow pace in adopting smart epublishing practices. They seem to shoot themselves in the foot given the slightest opportunity. In an attempt to squeeze everyone into paper sales, they price ebooks too high for the market. The DRM them. They don't put out ebooks at the same time as paper books to reach a broader market. They offer authors the same lousy royalties as they do on paper books, but now with less transparency and slower payment.

They may well adjust (in fact they'll have to), but in the famous words of Simka from an old episode of Taxi, that's like "locking the barn doors after the horses have already eaten your children." Authors are wising up. Slowly, but they are. The balance of power is shifting. Ebooks are here to stay, and perhaps to dominate. Paper books aren't going to become extinct, by any means, but they're also not going to the only "real" books forever.

Which brings me to the bit about pricing I promised. I've been playing with pricing and studying the numbers released by authors regarding free, 99 cent, $2.99, more than $2.99, and the high prices asked by trad publishers (Anything over about $9.99 for my purposes).  Again, I'm planning a future column on that.

But there are two things to think about here, and this goes back to the "real" versus ebook argument. First of all, I want you to think about how much a book is worth and who deserves the lion's share of that compensation. One of the best things about self-pubbed books is that most of the royalty goes to the author, the person who produced the actual product. This is important because publishers are greedy. Yep, greedy. If you want to argue that with me, I'll give you some change and you can call someone who cares to argue that fact with you. Compensation to authors is crappy. (Leave out the bestsellers who make a gajillion dollars and then sometimes don't earn out their advances -- they are the exception and not the rule.)

So I think that complaining about high prices for ebooks published by big pub companies is totally on target. You're just shoving more money in their pockets and not into the pockets of authors. Screw that. Until publishing companies offer better royalty splits on ebooks, scream louder. (In fact, until they offer better compensation on ALL books, scream louder. Maybe they'll hear you before they lose their stable of writers and go bankrupt.)

But I want you to forget that fact for a minute and join me in a thought experiment. What is a book? Is it the paper it's printed on, or is it the story, the characters, the emotions it makes you feel, the joy or discovery or entertainment it brings to your life? Answer that honestly. Does the same book written by the same author have any less or more intrinsic value because it is ink on paper than pixels on a screen?

I ask this because a really good writer, one who is self-pubbed and very savvy about both writing and publishing, recently said something to the effect of: "I would have bought that book if it was in paperback for that price, but since it was an ebook, I thought it was too expensive." (I have changed that quote enough so that the the author's identity is oblique -- I'm not really picking on them.)

And I thought, the hell? What's the difference? This is the kind of thinking that marginalizes good writers who have adopted ebooks. It makes self-publishers into the kind of not-really-writers that the trad publishing industry is trying to convince you they are. In other words, if I'm willing to pay $8.99 to read a really good book by a self-published author in paperback, why should I not be willing to pay $8.99 for a really good book by a self-published author when I can have the added convenience of reading on my Kindle?  (You can insert your own numbers in here -- I'm trying to get at the reason behind the basic sentiment.) I'm purposely ignoring production costs. Everybody knows it costs more to produce and distribute a paperback than it does an ebook. What I'm trying to get at is the book is the same, regardless of the medium used to transport it into your head. You, the reader, are paying the same price and getting the same book, it's only the writer who's making a little more money.

Part of the new paradigm in publishing is to actually pay the writer instead of the publisher. If paying the same amount of money for an ebook as you would for a paperback allows a good writer who you enjoy to make a living and continue writing, I would think a reader would find that a bargain. Of course, I'm a writer, so I may be biased.

Whatever your thoughts, go buy a book, or even download one for free. Because, to put words in the mouth of the 11th Doctor: Books are cool.

Finding an Editor Part 1: Don't End Up In the Digital Dustbin

The old saw says “A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.” Well, the same concept goes for writers: a writer who edits himself has a fool for a client.


Since leaping into the indie publishing field, I’ve met a lot of great writers and read (or at least sampled) a lot of indie books. I will guarantee you right now that, with better than 98% accuracy, I can tell you pretty damn quick which of those books were professionally edited and which weren’t.

See, the thing is, you can be a fantastic writer and a terrible editor. And even if you’re a fantastic writer and a pretty good editor, you’re still going to run smack into hidden blind spots and camouflaged pits full of sharpened stakes onto which you will impale yourself and wriggle helplessly. And even if you are a writer who falls into that fraction of a percentage point who is both a fantastic writer and a fantastic editor and you spend hours looking out for your poisonous little darlings, your book is still not going to be as good as it would be if you have independent eyes looking over it.

If you think that’s not true, I can’t help you. But most any writer worth his or her salt knows that a finished story can’t exist in a vacuum. I’ve harped over and over again about the importance of beta readers and editors and proofers. In the halcyon days of publishing, if you were accepted by a publishing house of a magazine or an anthology, you didn’t need to worry too much about dealing with editors. Having your work edited was part of the contract. You shipped your baby off and someone somewhere worked their magic on it. And unless you were a prima donna and apt to get in screaming fights about your art, that was that.

Times have changed. Publishing houses are increasingly getting out of the editing business. Unless you’re incredibly fortunate, it’s terrifically hard to get someone to pay you for an unpolished work. Agents and publishers are looking for professional, ready-to-publish manuscripts. Self-publishing is no way to get around that fact, either. If you want to be a successful writer, either in traditional publishing or indie publishing, you need professional help.

For the indie writer this poses some problems. One, editing is expensive. It’s a job that takes a very high skill level and is time-intensive. Two, all editors are not created equal, and it can seem near impossible to find a good one.

First of all, let’s tackle the money problem. What does editing cost? I would say for a baseline you’re looking at minimum around a penny a word or a couple dollars a standard page or $25 to $60 an hour. (Keep in mind, those measurements are not equivalent to each other, just a baseline from looking at different service packages).   For a full-length novel (a minimum of 55,000 words), you’re looking at around $500 as a base price. Wow, you say to yourself, how many books do I have to sell to recoup that cost? A lot, but at least with a properly edited book, you have a chance to recoup your cost. An unedited book is going to die a quiet and unmourned death. Don’t believe me? Ask any writer who’s selling well. Good editing won’t make a bestseller, but no editing will ensure that you’re consigned to the digital dustbin.

There are ways to lessen your costs. Join writer’s groups, network, make friends. Trade manuscripts with other writers. You can learn a lot about making your work better, and if you’ve been practicing your craft long enough and hard enough and you find compatriots who have a high skill level, you can get a lot of the heavy lifting done before you get to the final editing/proofing stage.

Sometimes you can trade services. Your strengths may be someone else’s weaknesses. You may be a whiz at web design and find an editor who needs a website. Barter when you can. Ask about payment plans. Many editors will take a deposit and collect the balance when the job is finished.

Remember the old Christmas Clubs at the bank? Sock away your spare change in a book fund to pay for editing, proofing, cover design, and formatting. Save up until you’ve got what you need. Put $10 in a jar every time you finish a chapter or hit your weekly goal. As trite as it may sound, it’s an investment in your future. And I do mean that. Every time you work with a good editor, you learn things that you can apply to your writing going forward. A good editor will make you a better writer, and that will carry through your career.

Okay, you’ve accepted the cold, hard fact that you need editing. But bear in mind, a bad editor is just the same as having no editor at all. If you’re going to shell out your hard-earned clams for a professional service, you need to make dead sure you’re getting your money’s worth. In the next post, I’ll go over what makes a good editor (and what makes a bad one) and what makes you a good client. (Hint #1: Always get a sample! Hint #2: You are not James Joyce.)

Adventures in Formatting - Part 1: Going Nuclear

As mentioned previously, I decided to try out formatting by releasing four short stories on Smashwords and Kindle. They're all live -- whoo-hoo -- so it's time for an overview of what I learned.

I found the thought of formatting rather daunting, first of all because you read a lot of anecdotes about the trouble people have with formatting. There's also the fact that so many writers pay to have their formatting done. But since I'm all about the DIY, I decided we would do our own formatting and see how it went. Verdict? Although there were a few bumps and blind alleys, it wasn't hard at all.

We started out with the Smashwords Style Guide, which is a free download from Smashwords. We worked in Word 2010 (this will be an important fact later). You will need to work in some word processing program that will save your file as a .doc file.  I gathered up all the files -- cover, story, bonus content files -- and put them in one folder. (A separate folder for each short story.) Since the stories had all been written at different times and in different word processor versions, I first went with Smashwords "nuclear option". This entails copying your text and pasting it into Notepad, closing Word, then opening a fresh Word file and pasting the text from Notepad back into Word. This, theoretically, strips out all the wonky Word formatting. Please note the word "theoretically."

Two important lessons here: the nuclear option is NOT FOOLPROOF. Regardless of the care you take and regardless of common sense, formatting gremlins in Word are tenacious. You'll still need to double-check your text.  Second lesson learned? NEVER USE THE TAB KEY AND NEVER HIT THE SPACE BAR MORE THAN ONCE. Yes, I'm shouting. Write it on a post-it and put it where you can see it all times. Tattoo it on you hand. Henceforth, you will only indent by using your paragraph format option and you will never try to adjust spacing with the space bar.  NEVER.

Okay. Now that your "clean" text is back in Word, you have to format it. You do this by selecting all your text, going into your paragraph formatting box and setting things thus: Indentation, Special, First Line, 0.3". Then set your line spacing at 1.5 lines. Hit OK. That's it.

Now you want to check. Do a search for ^t and replace with nothing. Turn on your formatting view (Tools, Options, Formatting marks, All) and look for anything that is not a paragraph return at the end of a paragraph or a single space between words. If you find something, kill it. At this point, you'll have to add any special formatting you need, such as italics for interior thought, etcetera.

Now follow the Smashwords Style Guide to the letter in setting up your page breaks, titles, etcetera. It really covers everything in a step-by-step manner that's easy to follow. That's it; you should have a file that is ready to upload to the Smashwords Meatgrinder.

Next up: Adventures in Formatting Part 2: Uploading, or Not So Fast, Pardner

Week One - What To Do First?

A week ago, I decided to self-publish four novels. Having made that momentous decision, I was swiftly overwhelmed by a numbing set of possibilities and steps to be taken. Where to start?  If you're looking to publish yourself what should you do first? During the next week, I'll go through these steps in individual detail, but here's what you need to think about.

1) Examine your work. What do you want to publish? You may be a published author who has a backlist that's gone out of print. You may have a novel that you've been shopping around with limited or no success. You may have a novel you've just finished, or one that's still in the writing stages. Be honest with yourself about what you've got and the amount of work it's going to take to get to the publishing stage.

2) Analyze your expectations to choose a publishing model. You need to know what you want, what you expect, and what you'll be satisfied with. Jane Friedman has a very concise and helpful guide to The 4 Key Categories of Self Publishing. Do you just want an ebook? Will you not be happy without a paperback? How much DIY do you want to put into producing the cover and book?

3) Analyze your resources. You may want to do as much DIY as possible, which may entail an investment in software or even training. You may know people who are artists, proofreaders, copy editors, designers. You need to find who in your circle you can beg services from, barter services with, or hire to do the things you can't or don't want to do.

4) Look at your marketing presence. You need at minimum an author's website, but it's also a great idea to have a blog, a Facebook page, and a presence on Twitter. Join discussion forums and email groups. When you have something interesting to say, comment on other people's blogs. You need to become known, you need to have a network, and you need to start right this minute, months before you actually make your book available.

5) Have a plan. Set a goal, or a series of goals. Maybe it's a week to get a blog up. Maybe it's a month to have your novel proofread. Maybe it's 3 months or 6 months or 8 months to your virtual book launch. But once you've got a list of the steps you have to take, slice that mound of stuff into reasonable pieces and set out to tackle it step-by-step.

You've got to start somewhere.