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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Geri Clouston
Blogs from the Self-Publishing Book Expo Our trip to the Self-Publishing Book Expo, held in New York City on November 9th, was a huge success! Our presentation, titled "THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY" of self-published books was well attended and well received. We were the only panel (out of seventeen) that was filmed by C-SPAN's Book TV and we will let you know when the segment will be aired, likely later this month. indieBRAG team members Robert Clouston and Stephanie Hopkins joined me in the presentation and over the coming days we will blog about what we covered. This will include the results from the surveys we conducted among our readers and B.R.A.G. Medallion authors, the findings of which formed the basis of our presentation. We think you will find it all very interesting. We will also discuss some of the things we learned from other presenters at the expo, which further support our survey findings. So here we go- To begin our presentation, I shared some rather stark statistics that out of the over 1,500 books we have considered since indieBRAG began in April of last year, 50% were rejected during the initial screening process. Strictly for…

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Join us at SPBE in November!

Geri Clouston
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH Come join the fun as we celebrate five successful years as the only exclusive home forself-published books and authors.The Self-Publishing Book Expo is celebrating our 5th Anniversary! This year, in addition to an all-star line-up of some of the most knowledgeable speakers in the business, the Expo will feature some inter-active sessions, and some extended sessions allowing for attendees to have more access to the information they need to successfully publish. We are also introducing a special coffee hour for attendees to mix, mingle, compare notes, and askone-on-one questions of some of our speakers, sponsors, exhibitors and partners. At 12 noon, be sure to join us to discuss- THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY: What Makes a Good Self-Published Book?indieBRAG represents a group of 150 readers who have reviewed 1,000+ self-published titles. They are not editors, publishers, or literary experts; they are simply ordinary people who love to read. Members of the indieBRAG staff will uncover what they have learned in the process of choosing their B.R.A.G. Medallion winners. What does a book need in order to make it worthy of the reading public's time and money? What are the important things to weed out of…

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Shocked By Rejection?

Geri Clouston
    As you might imagine, some of the self-published authors whose books were rejected by indieBRAG readers are not happy. Fortunately, I am pleased to report that only a few of them have taken the time to berate us! The brutal fact is that many indie books have no chance at all of getting through our initial screening process, let alone being read by our reading team - they have poorly conceived stories and/or are badly written. These books are invariably rejected by most, if not all, of the readers who review them. However, occasionally we must reject a book with regret. These are books with really good stories but are in desperate need of professional editing- either content or copy editing or both. To have a book that is worth a reader's time and money, an indie author needs to do everything they can to fine tune and perfect their work. A great story poorly edited is a real shame. We recently rejected a book that the author said was going to be made into a film. This is wonderful news for the author but having a book made into a screenplay doesn't change the basic facts about…

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Agent Assisted Self Publishing

Geri Clouston
    How exciting, you got an agent- just one step from getting a publisher! Whoa, not so fast. Although few self-published authors use agents they can provide some valuable assistance. With the advent of digital and self-publishing, agents, like everyone in the publishing world, have had to reinvent themselves. Many agents are now moving into Agent Assisted Self-Publishing. Like any business owner, and as a SP author that is what you are, do not sign until you know exactly what you are getting for your money and how much control you may be losing. With permission from The Alliance of Independent Authors' (ALLi), we are sharing information they provided. We would love to have you join the conversation and share your experiences- Agent-assisted SP takes many different forms. At one end of the scale, it mean an agency encouraging one of their authors to upload their backlist, and showing them how, without taking any payment, content with the revenue boost this will give to the trade-published titles they represent.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         At the other are the many agents now uploading files to Amazon or other retailers in an account in their own name, and collecting 15% of the sales revenue ad…

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Getting into Brick & Mortar Book Stores~

Geri Clouston
Richard Due, author of the B.R.A.G.Medallion Honoree, The Moon Coin, recently had his books accepted into Barnes and Noble brick and mortar bookstore! We asked him to share how he was able to manage this since this is often something most self-published authors are unable to do. I wish I had a more exciting story to tell, but getting a self-published book into Barnes and Noble is all about time, diligence, and whether or not they want your book. In a nutshell, here's how I got the Moon Realm series into Barnes and Noble. Last fall I submitted to their Small Press Dept., at their Headquarters on 5th Ave, in New York. On their website, they said that if I didn't hear back from them I should resend, as they get 2,000 submissions a week, which means, every once and a while, they have chuck everything and start over. I got a letter back from them maybe two weeks later requesting paperback copies of The Moon Coin (the only Moon Realm book in paper at that time). That was back in November. My next task was to get a distributor or wholesaler. B&N had sent me a list of them.…

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Don’t Confuse Independent Publishing with Self-Publishing

Geri Clouston
by Judith Briles - The Book Shepherd   Indie, Independent and Small Press Publishing Are So, Soooooo Different from Self-Publishing, Vanity Presses and Pay-to-Publish "Publishing" I've said it once, I've said it a zillion times: yes, dear author-to-be (and those already published), there is a difference between self-publishing, vanity presses, pay-to-publish, a small press, and independent publishing. Don't mix them up. Don't get confused. Use Wikipedia as an initial guide: "The terms "small press", "indie publisher", and "independent press" are often used interchangeably, with "independent press" defined as publishers that are not part of large conglomerates or multinational corporations. Defined this way, these presses make up approximately half of the market share of the book publishing industry. Many small presses rely on specialization in genre fiction, poetry, or limited-edition books or magazines, but there are also thousands that focus on niche non-fiction markets." Did you read that? One-half of the market share of the book publishing industry! Do you understand what it says/means? It means most authors today whose objective is to be successful create a small or independent press. They create their own "imprints"—publishing houses only on a mini scale. Authors find that books breed books, more will come.…

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Promote your latest book with a book trailer

Geri Clouston
Words of Wisdom from Chris Robley at BookBaby- People love short videos. They're easier to watch and easier to share, and that makes them easy to talk about. One of the most fun, creative, and effective ways you can promote your new book on blogs and social media is by shooting (and then sharing) a book trailer– a video advertisement for your book similar to a film or TV trailer. Here are a few things to keep in mind when you're developing your book trailer ideas. 1. It's gotta be good! There are a lot of crappy book trailers out there. And to the big, bad, scary world of publishers, editors, critics, and agents, a crappy book trailer looks worse than NO book trailer at all. So if you're going to do it, it's worth doing right. The better your video, the more likely fans will share it, bloggers will post it, and critics will take notice. That being said, quality and budget are not always directly proportional. It's quite possible to shoot a great trailer yourself with consumer-grade gear and a little old fashioned elbow grease. Likewise, you can hire the world's most talented production team with all the…

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Folio Prize to allow self-published work

Geri Clouston
The Folio Prize has confirmed it is to consider self-published entries, a move that has been welcomed by the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). Sixty titles on the 80-strong longlist will be put forward by the Folio's academy, made up of members of the literary community, and it is understood they will be allowed to select self-published works. The remaining 20 will be called in by judges following publishers writing letters of support for particular titles. Self-published authors will be able to act as publishers and write letters of support for their own titles, which will then be considered to be called in. Dan Holloway is campaign manager of ALLi's Open Up To Indies program, which encourages prizes, festivals, the media and other bodies to be inclusive of self-published writers and works. He said: "This is important news and greatly welcomed by ALLi's Open Up To Indies Campaign. Whilst self-publishing has been stripped of much of its stigma by a string of high profile commercial successes, the suspicion remains in some quarters, notably the media, that the self-published corpus is not a place to find works of outstanding artistic merit that could take their place alongside the works of a…

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Eat, Drink, Read!

Geri Clouston
Where do you usually read - in bed, in a favorite chair? Maybe in a backyard swing on a summer day? I spend most of my reading time at night in bed - could be that's why I seem tired all the time! Where do you read? Do you eat while you're reading? I came across this list of Best and Worst foods to eat while you are reading and although there are some good suggestions, they left out two of the best (and easiest): chocolate and potato chips! I have been known to settle down with a good book, a glass of wine (also sadly left off the list) and a bag of chips. I can think of only a few things that can top that. What would you add to the list? Best 1. Bite-sized pasta - You eat this primly, with one hand and a fork, leaving the other hand free for the book. 2. Soup - Most soups are one-hand affairs. 3. Crackers, cookies, and carbs in general - But beware. Not only do they get crumbs in your pages you will also eat too much while reading. 4. Hard pretzels - Bite-sized and non-messy. 5.…

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Blog Series on the “three Rs of Writing” #3

Geri Clouston
Finally let's deal with Respect Respect is perhaps the hardest of the three "Rs" to acquire. Being financially successful and well-known does not necessarily mean you will be respected. This is especially true for self-published authors who enter the publishing ring with one hand tied behind their backs. Although the stigma is lessening, self-published books are still not accepted by professional reviewers such as the NY Times, or accepted by prestigious writing competitions. There are a lot of well-written indie books out there; I have personally read several that are every bit as good as, or even better than, the best that the big publishing houses have to offer. It is because of this literary snobbery that self-published books are held to a higher standard. If you want to be taken seriously as an author – and assuming that you have written a good book – then you had better make sure that it is meticulously edited: copyedited at a minimum and line edited if you can afford it. Not to do so plays directly to the indie stereotype, and will doom your work to the trash heap of broken dreams and forgotten titles. Now to end this blog series…

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