Category: Business of Writing

AmazonCrossing, BookTrack, SELF-e Updates

Business of Writing, Uncategorized

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigAmazon updates

I’ve been experimenting with or pursuing different avenues for distribution and visibility.  Here are updates on what I’ve been working on with links in case you want to check these things out, yourself.

AmazonCrossing—Amazon is now publishing translated fiction for international readers.  You send them a pitch and they consider your work for translation by their publishing arm.  As I suspected, it’s tough to get in—I got a rejection email last week. But the email also invited authors to keep sending them other work to pitch, so I may give another book a go. Who knows? Maybe they’d be happier with my zombie book.  If you’re interested in checking it out, the link is here: https://translation.amazon.com/submissionsContinue reading

IngramSpark

Business of Writing

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigIngramSpark

I’d been hearing a lot about IngramSpark, but I hadn’t ever figured out why I might need them as a print book manufacturer/distributor. My books were on CreateSpace and selling well through Amazon. It seemed as if my relationship with Amazon was filling the print book need.

At the NINC conference in October, it finally fell into place: bookstore distribution.

I tend to pooh-pooh bookstore distribution.  My pooh-poohing is premature.  I do, according to my Penguin-Random House royalty statements, still sell a lot of print books. The statements are, however, less than transparent, but I’m still going to assume that those print sales are also at non-Amazon retailers. I tend to have a dim outlook on the future of large, Barnes&Noble-esque booksellers, but the truth is that print isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and B&N isn’t the only game in (many) towns.Continue reading

Timing a Release

Business of Writing

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigfile8151262998458

When I was strictly traditionally published, timing a release had nothing to do with me. It was, actually, in my contract.  Usually I had a two or three book contract and my deadlines and the books’ release dates were spelled out.

The release dates even trickled into my writing…I frequently set the story during the season the book would be launching in.

I remember that other trad-published mystery writers weren’t happy about December releases, for example.  I did have a trad-pub December release in 2013. It was a slow start for that book, but it has ended up being one of my long-term strongest-selling titles. Although slow starts do tend to make publishers nervous since they’re not so into publishing’s “long tail” as self-publishers are. They encounter returns from bookstores.

Toward the end of November, I had a completed Myrtle Clover (self-pub) book. I remembered the bias against holiday-timed releases. But there was no way I was going to sit on the launch, either. I’d listed the book as releasing in 2015. So I put it out on Thanksgiving weekend. I sent out a reader newsletter to announce the release, carefully set up the book’s pages on Amazon, etc., to reflect reader reviews for the rest of the series, and then just carried on with hosting house guests and doing family activities and stuff like that.Continue reading

Reducing Stress as a Writer

Business of Writing

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigfile0002062790027

Journalist Porter Anderson had an interesting article in Thought Catalog: “Author-Editor Relationships: An Endangered Species?” In it, he says:

“One of the things that makes the 2015-2016 transition interesting in the creative corps is a subdued, reflective, sometimes exhausted, and often pensive mood.

A lot of it revolves around marketplace fatigue.”

Smashwords founder Mark Coker states in his post “2016 Book Publishing Predictions”:

“Many full time indies will quit or scale back production in 2016.”

He explains this is due to authors who may have prematurely quit their day jobs and are now facing a much more challenging publishing landscape.Continue reading

Writers and Social Media

Business of Writing, Promo Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigblog 3

I recently read an interesting post, “My Social Media Mid-Life Crisis” from writer and publishing consultant Dan Blank.  In it, Dan talks about how he went from being an early-adopter of social media, to becoming somewhat disenchanted with it, to finding a good solution to help him enjoy using it again.

I’ve experienced similar transitions in my relationship with social media. I started out much more gung-ho and on quite a few channels.  I expanded into more channels, more group blogs, more exposure.  Then, after several years  I started trimming down my activity on sites and blogs. At one point I had social media platforms under my name and a pen name, was forcing myself to be active on sites I didn’t enjoy, and was part of four or five group blogs.  I was overextended to the point where the overwhelm spilled over into everything I was doing.

If you’re new to building an author platform, a few tips:Continue reading

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