Over the past few weeks, I’ve been following publishing industry news about how romance giant, Harlequin, has branched out to self-publishing and e-publishing.

As a business communicator, I see how the world has adjusted, and still is, adjusting to the various means and trends of communicating (e-print, e-news, INTERNET, hello!). IMHO, it’s a given and bottom-line advantageous for corporations to rethink how they do business and communicate.

And as an aspiring romance author, I believe this holds true for any other company, with stockholders (i.e. publishers).

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in the standard publishing tradition of receiving an advance and royalties for one’s hard work and talent.

However, I am not opposed to having my work published by an only-digital publisher such as Samhain, Carina Press, Ellora’s Cave, and Loose ID–to name a few (although Samhain and Ellora’s Cave are doing print). These e-publishers allow authors who may never publish traditionally, the chance to have their work published and their talent displayed.

I’ve been following self-publishing and have friends who have gone that route and have become successful. They did so because they couldn’t find a traditional publisher (or agent) willing to take the chance on their work.

I’m sure we’ve heard plenty of stories how a self-published author, who was scoffed by traditional publishers, goes on to make millions. That’s great and I’m happy for them.

But I’m also happy for the author who, after self-publishing, receives accolades and (guess what?), an agent—after their book sold a few thousand copies. This is a monumental feat for pre-published authors who have developed personal relationships with the big “R”—rejection letters. It shows determination, confidence and resilience.

I’m not sold on publishers that offer to help “self” publish, but charge a large fee and want half the royalties (i.e. Harlequin Horizons, who have subsequently changed their name to DellArte Press). If I’m going to self publish, I’d like to do the work and reap the benefits.

As with anything, you have to weigh the good and bad. With self-publishing and digital publishing, you have to be aware of the pitfalls and disadvantages. Do your homework. Talk to people who have been through the process, just as you would talk to authors who have dealt with certain traditional publishers.

I’m not looking for millions. (But if they come, hey that’s a different story!) I’m looking for a nice bottom line that my business partners (agent, publishers) and I can enjoy. My main goal is to offer romance readers what they want—a story that makes you sigh, cry and beg for more.

After writing those two reviews of Twilight, I’m feeling pretty drained. But seriously, folks, today a word from the publishing industry:

Last Monday I attended “Words Worth Paying For? Publishing in the Age of Electronic Readers,” a panel discussion about the future of publishing. On the panel were Katherine Dunn, local novelist; Vailey Oehlke, director of libraries for Multnomah County; and Dennis Stovall, coordinator of curriculum for the publishing program at Portland State University and publisher of Ooligan Press. The panel was moderated by Al Stavitsky, director of the George S. Turnbull Portland Center at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Altogether, that is four great people and a lot of job titles.

Barry Johnson wrote about the evening for the Oregonian; you can read his article here. The discussion focused on electronic reading and its effect on our world. Electronic reading devices such as the Kindle (from Amazon) and the Nook (from Barnes & Noble), as well as reading on computer and cell phone screens, are on the rise. How will they change the way in which we read? Katherine Dunn made some insightful remarks about the incorporation of audio and video into e-books: vooks, as they are sometimes called, may even be able to squirt out some kind of scent to go along with the story. This is all very novel, and I wonder how this kind of interaction will affect both reader and writer.

When e-books come up, there is always a commotion about their replacing traditional books. Generally, the panel and audience felt that physical books would still be read for quite some time. The overall feeling was, too, that both physical and electronic books have merit and that technology is offering us enormous potential for both efficiency and creativity. Katherine Dunn expressed concern over the continued digitization of entire libraries: electronic archives can be damaged or lost. I appreciated her points about keeping “hard copies” of original material—not only to maintain the integrity of our history but also to preserve a physical history of the art of bookmaking. And I share her concern about the keepers of electronic history: will all this information be held in good hands? What are the consequences if some or all people are denied access?

Indeed, accessibility was a concern for the panel and audience alike. A lot of voices chimed in about the “haves and have-nots.” As we rely more on technology to do our reading, more information (aka more books) will be converted to and created for e-reading devices. Where does that leave people who do not have e-devices? We talked about this in the comfort of the largest city in Oregon. The discussion might have been more urgent and more intense elsewhere: as a friend pointed out, towns in rural Oregon represent some of the technological “have-nots.” She works for a library that still maintains collections of cassettes and VCR tapes because the community still uses these devices. This community has the sacred right to read. Will the rise of e-books deprive them of this right?

A conference room full of authors, readers, publishers, and librarians can talk for two hours about e-publishing and still have more to say. So there’s no way that I, with my limited knowledge and time, can do anything but skim the surface of a conversation that is ongoing and going on worldwide. As an editor, I frequently encounter e-publishing. Indeed, I have to stop writing now and get to work on some articles that will be published online. But I will share more thoughts about e-publishing whenever I am able to do so.

Notable news
Tor.com have announced the launch of the ebook of the second book of the epic (though perhaps a new word should be created to describe the scale) series, Robert Jordan’s, Wheel of Time, The Great Hunt:

We’re happy to announce that The Great Hunt, volume two in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, is now available as an eBook from the Sony eBook Store and other online retailers. This edition sports a new cover and has been re-typeset especially for ebook production.

But riddle me this?
Why do they not just sell it direct? The multi-publisher bookstore provides just the platform, they have created an incredible audience and the property is a very, very good one. I cannot understand this decision. Sure the rest of Macmillan also avoids ebook sales listing instead other sellers on their site bit surely teh selling of a digital download is not THAT difficult? Is it?

Eoin
PS: The covers are quite frankly fantastic for the ebook series, savvy to redesign them!

October, 2010

With the demise of Microsoft’s Encarta (it has been discontinued) and the tribulations of the Wikipedia (its rules have been revamped to resemble a traditional encyclopedia, alienating its contributors in the process), the Encyclopedia Britannica 2010 (established in 1768) may have won the battle of reference.

The Encyclopedia Britannica 2010 Ultimate Edition (formerly “Student and Home Edition”) builds on the success of its completely revamped previous editions in 2006-9. The rate of innovation in the last four versions was impressive and welcome. It continues apace in this rendition with Britannica Biographies (Great Minds, Heroes and Villains, and Leaders), Classical Music (500 audio files arranged by composer), and a great Workspace for Project Management (a kind of friendly digital den). Six months of free access to the myriad riches of the Britannica Online complete the package.

The Britannica comes bundled with an atlas (close to 1800 maps linked to articles and 287 World Data Profiles of individual countries and territories); the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus, augmented by a Spanish-English translation dictionary; classic articles from previous editions; twelve yearbooks (11,200 articles in total); an Interactive Timeline with 4000+ indexed timeline entries; a Research Organizer; and a Knowledge Navigator (called The Brain or BrainStormer). All told, it offers a directory of more than 166,000 reviewed and vetted links to online content.

In its new form the Britannica is user-friendly, with an A to Z Quick Search feature, monthly updates and the aforementioned 6 months of free access to its impressive powerhouse online Web site (more than 1 million additional articles and other items!).

The Britannica’s newest interface is even more intuitive and uncluttered than previously and is great fun to use. It offers morsels of knowledge, some of it date-specific, appetizingly presented through a ticker tape of visuals that leisurely scrolls across the bottom of the screen plus highly edifying interactive tours of articles and attendant media.

When you enter even the first few letters of a term in the search box, it offers various options and is persistent: no need to click on the toolbar’s “search” button every time you want to find something in this vast storehouse of knowledge. Moreover, the user can save search results onto handy “Virtual Notecards”. Whole articles can be copied onto the seemingly inexhaustible Workspace.

The new Britannica’s display is tab-based, avoiding the erstwhile confusing proliferation of windows with every move. Most importantly, articles appear in full, not in sections. This major improvement facilitates the finding of relevant keywords in and the printing of entire texts. These are only a few of the numerous alterations and enhancements.

Perhaps the most refreshing change is the Britannica’s Update Center. Dozens of monthly updates and new, timely articles are made available online (subject to free registration). A special button alerts the user when an entry in the base product has been updated.

Regrettably, the updates cannot be downloaded to the user’s computer or otherwise incorporated into the vast encyclopedia. Moreover, the product does not alert its user to the existence of completely new articles, only to updated ones. It takes a manual scan of the monthly lists to reveal newly added content.

Speaking of updates, one must not forget to dwell on the Britannica’s unequalled yearbooks. Each annual volume contains the year in events, scientific developments, and everything you wanted to know about the latest in any and every conceivable field of human endeavor, or Nature. About 11,200 articles culled from the last 12 editions buttress and update the Encyclopedia’s anyhow impressive offerings.

The Britannica provides considerably more text than any other extant traditional encyclopedia, print or digital (a total of 59 million words). But it has noticeably enhanced its non-textual content over the years (the 1994-7 editions had nothing or very little but words, words, and more words): it now boasts in excess of 30,000 images and illustrations (depending on the version) and 900 video and audio clips. This is not to mention the Britannica Classics: articles from Britannica’s most famous contributors: from Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein to Harry Houdini and from Marie Curie to Orville Wright.

The Britannica fully supports serious research. It is a sober assemblage of first-rate essays, up to date bibliographies, and relevant multimedia. It constitutes a desktop university library: thorough, well-researched, comprehensive, trustworthy.

The Britannica’s 84-107,000 articles (depending on the version) are long and thorough, supported by impressive bibliographies, and written by the best scholars in their respective fields. The company’s Editorial Board of Advisors reads like the who’s who of the global intellectual and scientific community.

The Britannica is an embarrassment of riches. Users often find the wealth and breadth of information daunting and data mining is fast becoming an art form. This is why the Britannica incorporated the BrainStormer to cope with this predicament. But an informal poll I conducted online shows that few know how to deploy it effectively.

The Britannica also sports Student and Elementary versions of its venerable flagship product, replete with a Homework Helpdesk, “how to” documents, and interactive games, activities, and math and science tutorials. Still, the Britannica is far better geared to tackle the information needs of adults and, even more so, professionals. It provides unequalled coverage of its topics.

Ironically, this is precisely why the market positioning of the Britannica’s Elementary and Student Encyclopedias is problematic: compared to the Wikipedia, the Britannica’s brand is distinctly adult and scholarly. The vacuum left by the Encarta (lamented) discontinuance, though, should make it easier to market the Student and Elementary versions (which are an integral part of the Ultimate Edition and not sold separately).

Still, the 2010 editions of both the Student and Elementary encyclopedias improve on the past in terms of both coverage and facilities: the Homework Helpdesk is a collection of useful homework resources including a video subject browse, online learning games and activities, online subject spotlights, and how-to documents on topics such as writing a book review. There are also Learning Games and Activities: hundreds of fun and interactive games and activities to help students with subjects like Math, Science, and Social Studies. Both versions are updated monthly with new online-only articles.

The current edition is fully integrated with the Internet. Apart from articles about new topics and personalities in the news, it offers additional and timely content and revisions on a dedicated Web site. The digital product includes a staggering number of links (165,808!) to third party content and articles on the Web. The GeoAnalyzer, which compares national statistical data and generates charts and graphs, is now Web-based and greatly enhanced.

The Britannica would do well to offer a browser add-on search bar and to integrate with desktop search tools from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others. Currently it offers search results through Google but this requires the user to install add-ons or plug-ins and to go through a convoluted rite of passage. A seamless experience is in the cards. Users must and will be able to ferret content from all over – their desktop, their encyclopedias, and the Web – using a single, intuitive interface.

Some minor gripes:

The atlas, dictionary, and thesaurus incorporated in the Britannica are still surprisingly outdated. Why not use a more current – and dynamically updated – offering? What about dictionaries for specialty terms (medical or computer glossaries, for instance)?

Despite considerable improvement over the previous edition, the Britannica still consumes (not to say hogs) computer resource far in excess of the official specifications. This makes it less suitable for installation on older PCs and on netbooks. If you own a machine with anything earlier than Pentium 4, less than 1 Gb RAM, and less than 10 Gb of really free space, the Britannica would be clunky at best.

But that’s it. Don’t think twice. Run to the closest retail outlet (or surf to the Britannica’s Web site) and purchase the 2010 edition now. It offers excellent value for money (less than $40, with a rebate). For less than the price of an antivirus software and for a fraction of the cost of Windows 7, you will significantly enhance your access to the sum total of human knowledge and wisdom.

DISCLOSURE The product was provided to the author at no cost.

The Britannica 2009

Microsoft’s Student with Encarta Premium 2009

Microsoft’s Encarta and MS Student 2008

The Britannica 2008

The Six Sins of the Wikipedia

Microsoft’s Encarta and MS Student 2007

The Britannica 2007 Opens to the Web

The Encyclopedia Britannica 2006

Interview with Tom Panelas

Battle of the Titans – Encarta vs. the Britannica

Microsoft Embraces the Web – Encarta and MS Student 2006

Old Reference Works Revived

Revolt of the Scholars

The Idea of Reference

The Future of the Book

The Kidnapping of Content

The Internet and the Library

The Future of Online Reference

Will Content Ever be Profitable?

The Disintermediation of Content

The Future of Electronic Publishing

Free Online Scholarship – Interview with Peter Suber

So I figured out what I wanted was to e-publish books, the next step is to narrow down what will be published. You can’t publish it all and have a much better chance to succeed if you go for a niche market, unless you have the backing of 3,000,000 dollars like CEO Jane Friedman at Open Road Integrated Media. But, as of this time, I don’t have that level of funding -yet
Also, it’s best to work with what you know and love. And in my case I have been reading Science Fiction, Fantasy and Mysteries for around 40 years. And, I want to help new authors get exposed to an audience, yet I also want to give the audience what they want. So the next question is ?how do I do that, and still survive as a business. (after all this is a business)…..

Please welcome fellow Resplendence Author Anny Cook.  So Anny, How long have you been writing?

I’ve written for many years. However, it wasn’t until three years ago that I first submitted a story to a publisher. That was Dancer’s Delight which I submitted to Ellora’s Cave. Imagine my shock—and delight—when they offered me a contract. Since then, I’ve had thirteen books released.

Q: To date which of your books was the hardest to write and why?

I think it was probably Love Never-Ending. That was my longest book at 70K+. Since it was the fifth book in the Mystic Valley series, there were a million details to check, double check and match with the other books.

Q:  Which country would you most like to visit and why?

Peru. I would love to visit Machu Picchu. Although in reality, I would probably need an oxygen mask because of my asthma.

Q:  Which author would you most like to meet and why?

Shall I confess? I’m a total fan girl of Jayne Ann Krentz. I would love to have time to sit down with her and discuss writing. She has a fascinating mind.

Q:  What is your writing process? Do you outline, fly by the seat of your pants or a combination of both? Do you use mood music, candles, no noise, when you write?

Ohhhh. First I put on my sexy lingerie and my pink heels. Then I wrap my favorite feather boa around my neck… NO? Actually, I sit in front of my computer with the minimum noise I can manage (this is after all real life!) and I write. I don’t outline though I have a general idea of where the story is going to go. After that, I just write with a counter running in the back of my head…every 3500 words is a chapter.

Q:  What do you feel is the most important aspect for all new authors to remember when writing or creating their own stories?

Write every day unless you are so sick you have to stay in bed. Write a grocery list. Write a blog. Write a letter to you mother. Write SOMETHING. It’s very important to develop and maintain the habit of writing. And once you develop that habit, understand that anything written can be revised and changed. But a blank page is impossible to revise or change.

 Q:  What do you think is the biggest misconception in erotic romance fiction?

A) that we as authors have done everything we’ve written about. B) that we as authors WANT to do everything we write about. C) that we’re all just looking for a few GOOD men… NOT.

 Q: We all know “SEX” sells, have you ever been asked to “sex-up-your books”?

Yes, I have. Sometimes I’ve complied if it seemed the story called for it. Sometimes I’ve declined. Clearly, if we’re writing erotica we already know the expectation the publisher has. Mostly, I believe if you don’t want to add sex, then don’t submit to that genre.

Q:  What is on tap for the rest of 2009?

Wow. Well on November 10, my newest story, Prisoner of the Heart will be released from Resplendence Publishing. It is part of an anthology, Carnal Reunions. There are seven stories in all—about seven young women who return to their college for their tenth reunion. While there, each of them reconnects with the fellow who got away.

 Aside from that, I have several works in progress that I hope to finish before the end of the year—a vampire story, a fantasy, a futuristic/apocalyptic, a Mystic Valley story, and a contemporary older woman/younger man.

Q:  When a new book comes out, have you ever been nervous over readers’ reaction to it?

Oh, yeah. I’m always nervous. It’s impossible to please everyone, but even knowing that, it still stings if someone doesn’t like the book. Every time. You never get past that.

Q:  Where can readers find you on the World Wide Web? www.annycook.com and www.annycook.blogspot.com 

I also have MySpace and Facebook pages.

Thanks for a wonderful interview Anny!  Join me on Saturday when Anny shares a steamy excerpt.

See you then,

Tina

Since mankind started scratching letters on papyrus with charcoal, there have been writers.  And since someone started collecting papyrus rolls and trading them for gourds, there have been publishers.  Sure, papyrus eventually changed to paper and gourds eventually became $20 bills but the basics hadn’t fundamentally shifted until the advent of the internet.  Now, there are new rules on who can be an author (anyone) and how they can get published.  With the advent of e-readers and print on demand, the marketplace has changed.  Unfortunately, the publishing industry hasn’t done a very good job of changing with it.  This has led to the rise of many self styled “self publishing” services that can turn a Word file and a jpg into a book but charge the authors to publish it.  The more editing and cover design help required, the more the price goes up.

We at Marvcorp hope to change the business model for independent authors.  Instead of charging authors to publish their work, why not (and this is the radical part), share in the sales?  There’s more risk for us, we need to identify good work that’s going un-noticed and spend a little money up front to turn it into a book.  However, if we do it correctly, it’s a win-win-win.  A win for the author because they get some much needed help in turning their work into a book that can sell.  A win for independent authors because there is a built in layer of quality control that hasn’t existed to this point with self published books.  And a win for us because we make money on books we publish.

There is one caveat to add here.  We don’t accept just any book.  Like those traditional publishers we all lament about, we only take books we think are legitimately capable of making money.  However, we can make money with a few hundred books sold instead of many thousand.  That means you don’t have to be a celebrity or already published to get our attention.  You just need a good, well-edited story.

So, next I thought of the different ways to be involved with books: Bookstore, Used Bookstore, Editing, Writing, and Publishing.

Bookstore/Used Bookstore: I knew that many of the Independent bookstores were having a difficult time competing with the big box stores and Amazon. Used bookstores were going the same way as the Independents, and the only way to really make money is to get on Amazon and sell used books as cheap as possible, while getting the most you could out of the shipping and handling charges. Also, starting a physical bookstore would require large amounts of capital just to get started.

Editing: I have done document editing, but kinda figured the only way to get into editing at a publishing company was to sell everything, move to New York and start as an intern. Well, I don’t really like New York, and at 46 years old was not ready to live with 5 other people in an apartment in New York. Besides I wanted to work for myself, not someone else.

Writing: I had contemplated writing at different points in my life, first is the solitary work of a rough draft, then the solitary work of revising the same work 2 to 3 times. Then once the writing and revision is done, you can HOPE to find an agent, a publisher, or contemplate self-publishing as Joe Konrath is doing. But I realized I LOVE to read much more then I like to write.

Publishing: Would allow me to read, would allow me to introduce new authors, would allow me to work for myself. But, I knew that traditional publishing was not where I wanted to go, first you find an author, request changes, edit for continuity, edit for typos, punctuation, etc.., find and pay artist for the cover, find a printer, find a distributor, pay for printing and distribution, hope bookstores buy what you’ve created and you make your investment back.

E-Publishing: Is new and is currently poised to explode. Would allow me to read, would allow me to introduce new authors (which I get to read) at a much lower cost then traditional publishing, would allow me to work for myself, would need to edit for continuity, typos, punctuations, etc.., could encourage reader (customer) to have more input in WHAT the he/she wants to read, could be set up as a revenue sharing between the publisher, and the author, help the writer get direct feedback from their reader (customer), would NOT need distributor, printer, and all the other middlemen.

And that was just the beginning of the thoughts that came to me when contemplating being an E-Publisher, it was definite where I wanted to go, and do.

It started, as many new companies start, because I was tired of my day job. I had been doing the job for many years, but had reached the point where everything about it was the same every day, same letters being written, same reports being sent, dealing with the same people (fortunately there were a few bright points). I felt stagnant and brain dead; I was desperately unhappy, and looking for a new way to go in my life.

As a news junky, I made it a point of reading MSNBC, CNN, USA Today, New Scientist, etc.., a couple of times a day; it kept me up to date, and brought a little variety into my day. Then one day, I came across an article on USA Today:
“Ideas, opportunities, and inspiration: Becoming a business owner” http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/startup/week1.htm.

As I was perusing the different sections to this multi-week article, I saw a questionnaire, and one of the first questions it asked was “What are you passionate about?” Without even a mental pause I knew the answer: BOOKS.

I love books, I love to escape to that other world and get away from the one I am in, if only for a few hours. And I knew, right then that what I wanted was to work with books.

It’s my great privilege to have Regency Romance author (and IECRWA chapter-member) Jeanne Savery on my blog today. Her current series include the Scandal series (about Elf and Ally, spinster sisters who tend to stick their noses into everyone’s business, making certain true love doesn’t stumble over complications in that rose strewn path) and The Ghost series, both available from Cerridwen Press. She has a great story about the power of persistance and a new release out today. But, I’ll let her tell you more about it.

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Nearly twenty years ago I published my first Regency Romance. For years I published with Zebra—and then Zebra stopped buying Regencies…I grieved. Well, I’d been what author’s call “orphaned” so I suppose it was natural to grieve? No one was buying Regencies. I tried other things, but nothing worked. It seems the only thing I can write is the Regency.

I discovered the Regency when in England. My younger daughter turned five that year and started school there. She now has a son about to graduate from high school, but enough about my age…At that time an English publisher was re-releasing Georgette Heyer’s books. Needless to say, I loved them. Heyer wrote strong characters in delightful situations and, of course, always a happy ending. And funny! Every time I’d giggle, my husband would want to know why and listen while I read him a passage. Pretty soon he was reading Heyer’s books for himself (and still does occasionally).

I was also intimidated by Heyer’s detailed knowledge of the Georgian and Regency era so, later, when I began writing, I tried contemporary romances. After all, I knew something about the modern world. Maybe? Although I received some very nice rejections, all I received were rejections. Usually I’d get mad and swear I’d show ‘em, whoever ‘em was at the time. Finally, I got depressed. When I’m depressed, one or two of Heyer’s books will lift me right out of it. That time I read her whole shelf and wanted more.

I wrote one. My critique partners told me I’d been writing the wrong thing all along and they must have been right. My first “real” Regency manuscript was a RWA Golden Heart finalist and although it didn’t win the Heart, I did win in the long run. One of the judges bought that manuscript, bought two more, and then that publisher stopped publishing Regencies. However, a manuscript my editor hadn’t wanted sold to Zebra at almost the same time, so I’d no chance to get dispirited. All in all, Zebra published, or republished, nearly thirty full length Regencies and perhaps half that many novellas in collections.

My current outlet is an e-publisher. Talk about trying to teach an old dog new tricks! I’d pretty much managed to join the 20th century before it ended, but now we’re into the 21st and I don’t think I’ll live long enough to join it. (I’m having problems learning to use a cell phone—does that explain what I mean?) Anyway, thanks to exceedingly patient editors, I have learned to send in my manuscript, learned to edit it on line, learned how to download the resulting e-book my publisher sends me…but still haven’t figured out how to use them to get myself advertising out there in the web! Let me tell you, it is a harsh cruel world when inventions are thrown at you long after you’ve decided there couldn’t possibly be anything new on this earth!

Cerridwen Books Cotillion Line has bought all my latest Regencies—five so far! The latest, The Ghost and Patrick Tomlinson, will appear in early November and a short story is in Christmas Spirits, a December release. Both these tales are part of a series that involves the ghost of the late Earl of Everston. While on his deathbed, this gentleman  realized he’d made a serious mistake when writing his will. His intentions had been good, but he’d not thought through possible consequences. He stuck around to make certain everything went as it should, solving problems for his heirs and, incidentally, seeing their love life goes smoothly. He’s also waiting until it is time for his long time love, Jenna, to join him. She can see and talk to him, but they are not allowed to touch. How they miss that loving! (The first two books in this series are The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead and The Ghost and Sarah Tomlinson.)

**********************

Jeanne will be giving away one of her Cerridwen titles to a lucky commenter.

I took tentative toe-dip into the world of e-publishing a few weeks ago and uploaded a story to Myebook.com. I just wanted to see what notice it would receive, given zero promotion. To date, it is over two and a half thousand views.

The story is “The Terrortubbies and the Raven King”, a childrens’ story written by me and illustrated by my very good friend Andrew Baxter, drawing stylistically from Victorian childrens’ literature. When the midnight hour comes, the Terrortubbies come out of their coffins to play. In their timeless, twilit realm, all the monsters of horror fiction are children, and the only authority figure is the frowning face of the Full Moon.  When Poe’s pet raven disappears, the Terrortubbies – Mary Shelley, Stoker, Lovecraft and Poe - encounter the King of the Birds, and learn the real meaning of giving a gift.

We were very happy with it, but alas, agents were less so. So I have put it online. Please have a look. It’s a lovely interface:

In retrospect, this revised talk by Michael Tamblyn from Shortcovers at TOC Frankfurt was one of the most positive and enjoyable! Thankfully following some pressure on Twitter and such like, he put it up on Blip.tv! You should watch it!

This is a very clever post on building a channel (read niche if you will):
Here

Mike Cane on Apple’s long term strategy for ebooks! You’ll like it:
Here

That’s right YOU.

It bears repeating because at times I fear people have missed the reality that If you have a Blogger or a WordPress.com blog, if you Tweet, Tumbl or Flikr YOU are a publisher.

That carries enormous implications as Guy Gonzales points out in a Tweeted response to me:

What you do about it is up to you, and it doesn’t guarantee success but it IS a fact.
That is why the tagline of this blog is:

It’s that simple — and that hard. And that inescapable.

It’s a line from a rather excellent article in Fast Company by Tom Peters. The article is called The Brand Called You and it’s about branding. It is deeply relevant to this discussion. You should read it.

Eoin
Publisher
Eoin Purcell’s Blog

http://www.bookrix.com/

BookRix is an internet portal and the first book community where anyone can place their own books, short stories, poems etc. to be promoted on the web, just like a published piece. The massive Web 2.0 – Projects, which have been hugely popular with music, video and photography fans, now have a sister platform, which will delight literature fans around the world: BookRix.

I’m putting these up cold, but there will be a post that goes into detail early next week.

Comments most welcome!
Eoin

It is well worth dropping over to The Digitalist and reading Sara’s notes from her speech at TOCFrankfurt. I thought she was most refreshing for a large publishing as I mentioned in my previous blog about the event.

Lots to get done today,
Eoin

PS: The Bookseller covered the controversy and featured a response from Andrew Savikas.

This presentation was made at the Panel Discussion on The Digital Public Sphere: Books in the Age of New Media, Oct. 15, 2009, Iowa City Public Library as part of the 2009 Obermann Humanities Symposium PLATFORMS FOR PUBLIC SCHOLARS. Professor Teresa Mangum at the Department of English, University of Iowa invited me to this, and I had the privilege of discussing with important literary personalities. Translated into direct non-roundabout speech, it means that I was overwhelmed, and scared, and frightfully unsure of what I was going to say. There was essayist Scott McLemee, and the International Writing Program’s Director Chris Miller as the other speakers. And then, Joseph Parsons, Acquisitions Editor of the UI Press was the moderator.

Scott McLemee made points about the emergence of the public sphere in the context of the digital discussions–I have a whole page of notes, but nervous to type it out for fearing of going wrong with the transcriptions. I have never scribbled so furiously since I heard my Chemistry teacher at school go about the structure of Benzene. Heavy, but wonderfully well-articulated academic discussion. Chris Miller was much more down-to-earth, speaking from experience and personal history, and you will certainly know how much I love that. He spoke about reviewing books for Public Radio International’s The World program. Some bits of that talk (called Talk is Cheap) were truly hilarious.

Here’s my stuff:

I review one or two books every fortnight for The New Indian Express. And since I have just finished my doctoral thesis, I can safely say that I read about twenty books a month, if only for research purposes. I faithfully post all these reviews on my blog, leaving the door open for discussion. Readers tell me they have gotten lazy since they go around selecting books with the kind of reviews I write. Some urge me to be more spiteful, more vicious and develop an acidic style of attack. Many of the readers stray into my blog looking for a review of some book, then they chance upon my poetry, and taken an interest in my writing and activism. I love all of this. Teresa, in an email, asked me if blogging about books led to relationships with authors? I love that prospect too, but right now, they are all just friends. Facebook friends, to be precise. Let’s leave it at that. Translating got me into enough entanglements, so you see, I am playing it safe this time around.

Why did I get to blogging in the first place? I started blogging in 2002—when it was really not such a craze—I called my web-log Impudence, and it was typically at Blogspot, and I pulled it down two years later when I lost my anonymity and was stalked. That is another story for another day.

But, the democracy to speak up and speak out ensured that I was back to blogging again. Big media houses which own the major publications rarely give opportunity to Dalit (ex-untouchable) writers, and there’s an absence of Dalit/anti-caste writers who write in English. The elitist writers want to write the feel-good stuff, India Shining myths, and that’s the work that gets into print. So, I wanted to tap the power and enormous outreach of the internet: how anyone can write and be read/heard in the virtual space. I was not writing because anyone was commissioning me, I didn’t have to follow other people’s diktats, I could speak my mind. Google and tagging ensure that I can get heard without having my own column in any newspaper. Sometimes its helped me bring some happenings to light—such as the recent inside story of Dalit students being beaten up at a law university in Chennai (the mainstream media merely reported it as a “clash” at first) and so on. Blogging on feminist issues, with a caste perspective, was also something that I set out to do, because feminism in India forgets that caste exists at all, and that women at the bottom of the caste hierarchy do suffer more. Blogging about literature and books ensured that I got a larger audience–and consequently I got into the print media in a big way. Now, I review books for a major national newspaper. And, on an average day, my blog gets anywhere between 250-300 hits, which I guess is pretty modest for someone at the start of her writing career.

Since the cost of establishing alternative media in India is extremely high, activist groups have taken to the Internet in a big way. There is a hunger to use the potential of this media, and human rights defenders are doing it the right way. The campaign to free Binayak Sen; the exposes on state terrorism, fake encounters and police atrocities; the virulent speed in which fact-finding reports can be circulated; the ease with which the LGBT community in India came together and organized their shows of strength in every major city—these have all been possible because of the digital sphere and the space for social networking, discussion and dissemination that it allows.

For a few years, I was collaborating with Tamilnet.com, the only independent website that reported from the Vanni, the battle-zone, Sri Lanka’s war-ravaged territory. The news-site is banned in Sri Lanka, but proxies provide people a way out to retrieve some of the real information. Hundreds of thousands of Tamils across the world access that website on a daily basis. Just one single website in English, along with a couple of others in Tamil, had the power to destroy and dispel one of the worst disinformation campaigns ever undertaken by a state. Not just that, it binds them together as a community. Even if the absolutely paralyzed and impotent international community did nothing to stop the genocide of fifty thousand Tamils in the course of a few months earlier this year,  they at least acknowledged and addressed the fact that innocent civilians were being slain as part of a ruthless cleansing campaign. Were it not for the advent of online publishing, I doubt if the truth would have ever been told.

This sort of publishing on the internet has its payoffs too. I think E-books actually ease the cruel war against terror. A Catholic priest in Colombo told me stories of how Sinhalese soldiers doing a routine check on the local seminary in March this year checked for guns stashed inside hardback, hand-bound Bibles. If that Holy Book were just an unread PDF file, whatever threat could it pose? For the sake of argument, had Satanic Verses been released merely in its zipped version, whoever would have read it through? And what would the zealots have burned on the streets when they sought a ban? And what would I have religiously lugged around with me, as a hefty style statement, in order to impress a certain older man?

A book is no longer a material thing that you can use to flaunt your knowledge. It has outgrown its handiness as a pillow or a paperweight. Forget the dilemma of choosing the right shade of burgundy that would work well with lipstick-kissing your collection of poetry! Books, in their 21st century digital avatar cannot even be autographed. They have lost their fresh scent, their serrated edges. The loss of personality has ensured that books are no longer independent entities. It is time for them to collectively call upon a shrink. Or they can fall back upon their cosmic power, their new-found God-like ability to exist without any beginning or end. Reading one book is no longer just reading that book. Something in it prods one to look up for more, to chance upon tens and hundreds of other books. Every book entices you into its exclusive lair. But walking away has never been easier. Information is now served in its sexiest scrambled form, and extracting just a little something from that whole system is quick, but also cumbersome. And I somehow believe that the way a book is read presently is certainly going to radically affect the way in which books are written. Google-addicted audiences demand and deserve nothing less, I guess.

Yesterday, I met a young man as fierce and weird as me. I met him online of course, on Facebook, and by the time it was our fifth conversation there was talk of snipers. And he recalled sniper alley in Sarajevo, asked me if I had read Kurt Schork’s famous and heart-wrenching dispatch, spoke of correspondents being killed while reporting from conflict zones, selected Dan Eldon’s story in Somalia as the most tragic of that lot, condemned the necessity to make a biopic on him. And then we both laughed at the fact that the said biopic was going to star Daniel Radcliffe. Until the Harry Potter reference, I had to simultaneously google in order to keep up with this charming, but overloaded guy. But believe me, I managed to come out pretty unscathed, with no ruin to my reputation as someone well-read. Even of course, if the reading did take place way past the eleventh hour. Had the said conversation been taking in a coffee shop, or at the college library, I can imagine how wide-eyed and tongue-tied I would have been.  Thank god for the internet, for its explosion of knowledge, its enormous ease of access.

Would this presentation ever have been possible without the web? Where else in the world can ideas be bounced around with wild abandon, where else would people have the opportunity to offload all their knowledge on another hapless soul whose only sin was to have a green button indicating availability to chat. And above all, where else could anybody get away with preparing a whole essay and never having referred to a single book to do so? In which other world, would an author shamelessly admit to this?

(I thank all my friends who helped me shaped this presentation. I owe special thanks to Ravi Shanker, my friend-in-need whom I never stop bothering; his inputs were most valuable).

~~~~ End of article~~~~

The happiest part of the night was the $100 voucher to buy books at Prairie Lights. Thank you Teresa.

And the saddest part, was an American man, almost in his sixties, walking up to me and asking, “They got your leader, didn’t they?” and I would have cried then and there, had he not said (seeing my reaction perhaps), “But it was great. For 25 years nearly, he put up a pretty fight.” I am so shaken as I write this, but I think that’s all that matters. That one fights. For rights. For as long as it is possible.

fiction, non-fiction

There are 4-7 publishers that will produce and market your non-fiction or fiction books almost instantly and almost free (or totally free!) once you have the text written, edited, styled, and in print-ready form.

I doubt you’ll make a bundle by any path, or all of them together, but you can have seven different copies of the same book out at the same time, all buyable by your friends, family, and new fans, and all paying you a modest royalty. It’s super for novels, memoirs, family history, and specific how-to books.

The process is called ancillary publishing and it involves your posting your masterpiece at these sites: lightningsource, Lulu, CreateSpace, Kindle, and perhaps Blurb, Smashwords, and scribd.

But before you do that, see my free 10-1 newsletter where I explain the whole process and walk you through my journey of putting out nine books in 30 days. I’ve got the links, the royalties they pay, which works best where, and how you can integrate all of this into your own parallel self-publishing activities.

It looks like the deal of all time for folks who have a book in their mind or are ready to go but can’t or don’t want to do it all themselves. I’m not hawking anything here; you work with them. But I can’t think of anything this immediate or well structured so fast or so free since I put my first book (of 38) out in 1982!

(Yes, I will release an audio CD that will make collective sense out of ancillary publishing in a few weeks. Keep your eyes here about 11-1, but do your own digging now. The newsletter just out will give you valuable starter guidance.)

Best wishes,

Gordon Burgett

THE WICKED MARQUESS is a traditional Regency. I feel like it should come with a label — Warning: No Explicit Onscreen Sex. The characters in the traditional Regency romance genre don’t swing from chandeliers shouting the historical equivalent of  ‘do me now!’ This particular story has quirky characters, humor, misunderstandings and muddled thinking, several surprises, and of course titillation. The characters may not indulge themselves onstage, but they certainly consider it. Frequently.

I’ve always liked both reading and writing traditional Regencies. Actual plots are required.

E publishing is fast. I turned in the manuscript Monday and it was available for download at RegencyReads.com on Thursday, before I’d even thought about what I was going to say about it on my blog.

Instead I was thinking about the garden window we’re replacing. Home repair gets complicated in a hundred-year-old house. Especially with a furry escape artist — Adventurous Andy — just waiting for his chance to exit via the opening in the kitchen wall.

Andy has developed a new meow. It’s low and disgruntled. I say something along the lines of ‘no, you don’t need to be up on the kitchen counter’, or ‘no, you can’t go outside.’ He stalks out of the room, muttering not quite under his breath.

He doesn’t hold a grudge, however. Last night he was determined to sleep on my pillow. I finally gave up and removed myself to the living room couch.

I’ve never know what to say about one of my books. I wrote it, I liked it, I hope some folks out there like it too.

Miranda is determined not to marry, lest she make a scandal like her mama and her grand-mama and various other female members of her family, all of whom had weaknesses for charming scoundrels. But then Fate thrust into her pathway the very rakehelly Sinbad, Lord Baird.

Maddening Miranda and the reluctantly wicked Sinbad were a great deal of fun for me. Not to mention his grandaunt, Odette; Chimlin, the ill-tempered cat; provoking Percy; and, oh yes, the ancient abbey and its ghosts.

I didn’t write the story alone. Both Andy and Mo helped.

UPDATE: A bonus #5: No content on the Amazon Kindle Global Blog!
Update: Making it #6: UK Kindle buyers (and by extension Irish Kindles readers) pay 40% more for ebooks

This is just a short list but here are some reasons I suspect this is a rush release by Amazon:

1) It’s not shipping till 19th October! Did they need the news before Frankfurt and not have the device ready?
2) No country specific sites, you need to order the device from Amazon.com
3) The iphone/itunes app is not yet live in Ireland, I doubt it is live in the UK yet either (Twitpic)
4) No word on the extension of the Digital Text Platform to other countries (that would extend the device to independents and authors outside of the US, currently you need a US Bank Account)

I’m sure there are more, but this feels like something of a rushed and to my mind fluffed launch, despite the massive space given on four site home-pages to the product!

More on Kindle International here too,
Eoin

by JL Wilson

Please welcome fellow Resplendence Author JL Wilson.  Let’s get started.

Q: What advice would you give to writers just starting out?

Be disciplined. Writing is a job, more creative than some, but a job nonetheless. You can’t wait for inspiration to strike or the Muse to come visiting. You have to sit down and work at it, making sure to continue to learn as you write.

Q:  What were your feelings when your first novel was accepted/when you first saw the cover of the finished product?

My first acceptance was a real soul-searcher for me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be with an e-publisher, but a fellow author whom I respected had a good experience with that publisher, so I signed with them. Suffice it to say, the experience was NOT a good one; the publisher went out of business but I got my rights back unscathed and later sold that book to another publisher. So my first contract was a bit of a mess and my first covers were awful – I can say that because they were changed, but the one that I finally got was still not what I wanted (it’s not one of my mystery books but a romantic suspense book; I’ll leave you to figure it out ::grin::J. ) So the whole ‘ooh, look at my cover’ experience was not a good one.

 Since then, though, I’ve had great editors, covers, and publishers, so I guess I got all my bad experiences out of the way early.

Q: Are you working on any books/projects that you would like to share with us? (We’ d love to hear all about them!)

I’ve got a new series starting in September with The Wild Rose Press called “The New Human Intercession”. Human Touch is the first book, followed by Living Proof then Leap of Faith.

It’s set on another planet and features telepathy, shape shifting, and the overthrow of a government. I had a LOT of fun writing it. The first book comes out this year, the second next year, and the third in late 2010 or early 2011. They’re all written & submitted & almost done with editing.

I also have 6 mysteries I’m waiting to submit then I’m moving on to a new phase in my career: I plan to work on an alternate America, a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy. I’ve got 8 books planned in that ‘world’.

Q: What is the hottest love scene you’ve written to date and why?

The hottest scene hasn’t been published – I deleted it from the book because I think it was just too over the top. Most of my books are only moderately steamy and my first-person mysteries are “closed door” sex books (they close the door so you don’t get the details).

When I had that sex scene in one book, I was toying with the idea of delving into erotica. Then I realized it just didn’t really fit with that book or those characters, so I deleted it. It might appear in a later book, though. You just never know.

Q: How anatomical are you when describing sex organs?

I’m not at all detailed. I like to leave some things up to a reader’s imagination.

Q: What are the best reviews you’ve received so far?

I’ve gotten quite a few good reviews, but one of the ones that pleased me a LOT is from a totally unexpected source, a mystery review site (http://www.fmam.biz/reviews/mar08.shtml#ifnotforyou). It was for the digital edition of If Not For You, which just came out in print. The reviewer totally got what my heroine was all about. That heroine (Layla Whitford) is a favorite of my critique partners (one person said, “I want to be Layla when I grow up.” I totally agree).

It’s always fun to get reviews you don’t expect!

Q: Have you ever encountered “negative” feed back on your work?

Oh, sure. My very first review was sort of negative. The reviewer thought it was odd that I had a car chase in Iowa, like car chases don’t happen in the Midwest or something (believe me, there’s crime in the Midwest. Oh yeah, there’s crime). It was an odd review because I got the feeling the person didn’t like reading about older heroes and heroines, but that’s what I write, so … I didn’t get too discouraged by it, not when later reviews all said how refreshing it was to have the over-40s main characters.

Q:  What makes a book a page turner?

You’ve got to have a hook. Remember in Gypsy – ‘you’ve got to have a gimmick?’ In writing, you’ve got to have a hook. You’ve got to have a reason why someone wants to keep going. You need unique characters, unusual plots, or an unusual setting. My books all feature regular people like you & me who get caught in unusual situations (someone is murdered at work; they’re present when someone is killed in front of them, etc.)

I think if a reader can identify with a character then that reader will keep turning those pages.

Q:  Does a hero always have to be good looking and why or why not?

I’d rather have a hero who is unique. Handsome is fine but it’s more important that they have good character and be just good people. That said, in Endurance the hero is drop-dead gorgeous, but he’s in love with a woman who’s not a stunning beauty. I love that about him!

Q:  Where can readers find you on the World Wide Web?

I’ve got a web site (of course): http://www.jayellwilson.com. The best place to find me is Twitter (@JLwriter) or just check here: http://tinyurl.com/ak8hl8. It lists my hang-outs

Join me on Saturday when we read an excerpt from “Human Touch.”

Love,

Tina