FIB - Scams 101

Re: I need advice on book publishing

Posted By: Carla Ball
Date: Monday, January 31, 2011, at 8:43 p.m.(pst)

In Response To: Re: I need advice on book publishing (Mel. White)

Well you were a "little" help-LOL Thanks Mel I can always count on you girl. I knew you wrote but didn't know it was books, thought articles and SF art stuff. Well this is all good to know and she did say she was going to start a blog and I am not if she is like you and may find it hard to do everyday.

She is well known in Au and Indonesia and wants to break out to the states. I LOVED her first book and can't wait for the second one to come in the mail, it was mailed on the 19th from Bali but am enjoying proof reading her book.

I am sure her AU will handle her Ebook deal but wanted to know about the US business. I can imagine the Ebook bus is hurting the paper publishing to some degree, I heard Borders may have to file bankruptcy.

Thanks for the advice and good luck with your own venture, it is tough everywhere nowdays. Carla

>> >> She is going to put it on
>> >> Amazon as a Ebook but would like to find a publisher in the
>> states. Here
>> >> is a link about her
>> >>
>> http://www.timeoutjakarta.com/books/article/694/a-knight-s-tale.html

>> The US book business is a real mess right now, and to be honest, her
>> best bet is to go through her Australian publisher. If she chooses to do
>> that, she needs an American agent who is familiar with contracts and who
>> has contacts with book companies. American book contracts are complicated
>> and involve lots of "you can have this but you can't have that"
>> items which may (or may not) include electronic rights, first world
>> rights, first English language rights and a host of other complex issues
>> -- including which court in the US will hear the case if there's a
>> dispute.

>> I'm speaking from first hand experience. One of my book properties is
>> being re-issued and I just went through a round of "please put this
>> in the contract and take that out" negotiations before signing the
>> contract.

>> The best way to learn this is (I'm not kidding) join your local
>> Romance Writers Association. Yes, I know this isn't a romance book, but
>> they've got chapters everywhere, they teach stuff on how to make
>> presentations to agents and publishers, they have experienced people who
>> will read over your proposals and make comments, will show you which
>> publishers to trust, and will tell you a boatload of things about the
>> ebook business.

>> The industry is a real mess.

>> Advertising in the US... well, there's two different scales: the one
>> where you have to go do it yourself (true with self pubs, small press
>> pubs, or book companies who are throwing all their money at Stephen King
>> and ignoring all the other authors -- which'd be about most of them) and
>> the ones where the book company does it.

>> Book company events are set up by the company and will include things
>> like radio interviews (the publishers have people who contact radio
>> stations and send interviewers a packet of information along with a book
>> to review) and bookstore signings (once a very popular method, now mostly
>> a rather dismal effort unless you're Oprah or one of her authors.) More
>> successful options include appearing at specialty conventions (for her,
>> that'd be psychic fairs and the like.) She would buy a table (to sell
>> books and sign books) and make arrangements to be a speaker on panels at
>> the event.

>> Unless you're a big name author, no one pays to bring you to an event
>> and nobody pays your hotel bill or food expenses. It's all out of your
>> pocket.

>> If you're a small press/self publisher, you do all of the above plus
>> blog plus put out business cards/bookmarks/etc at conventions and possibly
>> use Twitter. A good blog brings readers (which means regularly updating
>> it... NOT "occasionally updating it", as I am prone to do.)

>> (confession: I'm not doing any of the above yet and I know I'm not
>> doing myself any favors here. It's a problem of "not enough time to
>> do everything.")

>> Mark Coker on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/markcoker owns Smashwords,
>> an e-publisher and often tweets good articles about marketing and
>> publishing.

>> Selfpubreview is mainly for self publishers but often has good general
>> information articles that they link to:
>> http://twitter.com/#!/selfpubreview

>> Janalyn Voigt does a daily newsletter oriented toward SF&fantasy
>> writers but again some good material here:
>> http://paper.li/janalynvoigt/Fantasy-Writers

>> I hope this was a LITTLE bit helpful. Romance Writers of America will
>> probably be the best and most helpful way to go.

Messages In This Thread

• I need advice on book publishing
  Carla Ball -- Monday, January 31, 2011, at 12:28 p.m.(pst)
  • Re: I need advice on book publishing
    Mel. White -- Monday, January 31, 2011, at 8:14 p.m.(pst)
    • Re: I need advice on book publishing
      Carla Ball -- Monday, January 31, 2011, at 8:43 p.m.(pst)
    • Re: I need advice on book publishing
      Carla Ball -- Friday, February 11, 2011, at 10:20 a.m.(pst)
      • Re: I need advice on book publishing
        Mel. White -- Friday, February 11, 2011, at 6:09 p.m.(pst)
        • Re: I need advice on book publishing
          Carla Ball -- Thursday, February 24, 2011, at 7:34 p.m.(pst)
          • Re: I need advice on book publishing
            Mel. White -- Sunday, February 27, 2011, at 9:12 p.m.(pst)

FIB - Scams 101 is maintained by Lesley Fountain with WebBBS 5.12.