LL Book Review Takes On All-Comers!

The popular self-publishing POD book review site, LLBR, from today, take on all-comers! Shannon and his team have been slowly expanding the POD publisher services they will consider for book reviews since the site launched in early 2008 specifically for Lulu authors. Shannon now reports:

"By the time our one year anniversary rolled around, we had added three outstanding reviewers to the team and branched out to include reviews of Wordclay and CreateSpace authors.

Shortly after that, we added Outskirts Press to the mix.

After a bit of debate about possibly adding another publisher to our short list this month, we all decided to just throw the short list out the window and open the LL Book Review to ALL self-published authors."

We wish Shannon, Dan, Julie and LK all the best. They've got their work cut out now!

Eason Staff Facing 12.5% Pay Cut

It’s not too often on these pages that I delve deeply into the moral economics of the book business. Today, I will make a rare exception. Sometimes, you need to make exceptions. Eason, the flagship Irish book and magazine retailer is reported to be considering a 12.5% pay cut on its employees. Eason employs 1500 staff, and their Union, SIPTU, held a meeting today with the company’s management at the Labour Relations Commission in an effort to resolve the matter. Unfortunately, common sense and human decency were left at the door this morning and no agreement was reached. The matter will now go forward to the Irish Labour Court in the next few weeks.

This dispute dates back to August of this year, and when Eason says all staff, one wonders in these types of proposed pay cuts if it includes newly appointed Eason boss, Conor Whelan. The fact is Irish workers have already endured their share of cuts and price rises in the last Government Budget this year, including an added 1% tax levy on income, and a further financial budget due from the Government in the coming weeks, anticipated to one of the severest in many years. While US and the stronger EU economies like France and Germany are showing signs of stability and even very marginal growth in some areas, the Irish economy has shown less signs of any immediate recovery in early 2010.

Any company, be it retail, publishing or any sector of industry is free to consider pay cuts at management level as an option on staving off the possibility of out and out job losses, but to suggest a 12.5% pay cut to its employees is bordering on disgusting and immoral.

Shame on you Eason.

Self-Publishing Book Expo: New York - Tomorrow, Saturday 7th, November

A final reminder that the Self-Publishing Book Expo takes place in New York's Sheraton Hotel all day tomorrow. The organizers of the event have managed to put together a very impressive array of speakers and panelists from the world of self-publishing services, independent presses, distributors, printers and self-published authors.

The highlight of the event looks to be the speaker addresses by Bob Young of Lulu, Brent Sampson of Outskirts Press and Mark Croker of Smashwords. You can see the full event details here and registration is still available.

The time has come to have an exhibition where the spotlight is solely on self-published books and authors. The first annual Self-Publishing Book Expo—or the SPBE as we’ve begun to affectionately call it--will bring national focus and attention to the fastest-growing segment of today’s publishing industry.

Unlike any other book exhibit, the Self-Publishing Book Expo will be the only event of its kind to highlight the books of self-publishing companies and their authors, and give them the prominence and prestige they deserve.

Sales - The SPBE will be open to the public, offering authors a unique opportunity to sell their books to the broadest possible audience.

Meet the Media - Producers of TV and radio programs, and editors of newspapers, magazines, and online media outlets, will attend the event, all looking for great stories that may otherwise be under their radar.

An Opportunity to Learn – Attendees will get to hear about the products and services offered by self-publishing companies from across the country.

Interact – Authors will have the opportunity to discuss their path to self-publishing, and share their unique ideas for marketing, publicizing, and selling their books.

Xulon Press Introduce Color Packages

Xulon Press have expanded their self-publishing services to include colour books. For an author solutions service, it was one blind spot in their publishing programs for authors. Here is some detail about it from their site.

Xulon Press offers Color Book publishing programs that will fit both your budget and your dream. To publish your book and position it for maximum exposure to the marketplace, choose the Best-Seller Color publishing program. The Best-Seller is the top choice of the most motivated authors. If funds are limited and your publishing dream less lofty, choose the Premium Color publishing program, or perhaps the Basic Color publishing program. No matter which program you choose, you will be served by the leader in Christian POD self-publishing company, Xulon Press.

	COLOR BASICFast, no-frills, basic, and easy program	COLOR PREMIUMChoose this for more options plus distribution	COLOR BEST-SELLERComplete distribution and marketing included
Regular Price	$1099	$1699	$2599

As a quick aside, regarding colour books, and the lack of emphasis on the reviews we do here on the site - I generally do not go into great detail about colour and illustrated packages when I write the reviews, simply because I am not yet convinced POD (print on demand) digital printing offers the top-end quality that standard offset printing offers. Of course, that does all depend on the quality of images provided by an author or artist, but I believe digital printing has a little way to go yet. Authors looking at a colour option from an author solutions service should always look to get their hands on a book from that companies list and review it for suitability. An author also needs to go into far greater detail regarding costing, and potential specification limitations built into colour publishing packages. It can be a far more complexed area and I strongly believe an author trying self-publishing of a colour book really does need to have some basic graphic and technical grounding.  

USA Today's Self-Publishing Article

USA Today have an article in this morning's technology section by Kim Kamando about the options for authors considering publishing their book outside of traditional publishers. The piece, while sound enough, strikes me as being a little on the simplistic and basic side. Here is the piece.

Lulu's Old Curiosity e-Book Shop

Lulu has become something of a curiosity in the old shop of author solutions services for me in the past year. Yesterday, we reported their announcement of an improved e-book facility, allowing them to properly embrace the development and continuing changes in the e-book market and provide self-publishing authors with something more than, what was, a pretty bog-standard e-book option. Bravo, Lulu. It was a step in the right direction.

Today, just when you think you know where you are with Lulu, and things may be on the up, they make another announcement. I'm all for announcements. Announcements are good. They provide this site with content and fill the hours of my day (when I should be working on my next book) with plenty of head-scratching moments. Today was no different in the Lulu stratosphere. Harish Abbott, Senior VP of Product with Lulu explains:

"Dan Brown. Malcolm Gladwell. Emeril Lagasse. They all have something in common with you: They’re on Lulu.

You’ll now find their works — and about 200,000 other eBook titles from traditionally published authors — in the Lulu Marketplace. We’ve added them through agreements with Ingram and other distributors to make their public catalogs available on our site.

It’s a significant shift for Lulu, but one rooted in a strategy to maximize author success that has guided us from the beginning. To sell more books, you need more exposure. We’ve long provided distribution choices to help you reach customers in myriad stores, including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. We’re continuing to expand those options, and we’ll have more to share soon."

Abbott is right. This is a significant step for Lulu. But I disagree with Abbott's strategy that making the Lulu Marketplace open to mainstream authors like Dan Brown is going to somehow increase the sales or exposure of my books or any other author who has self-published through Lulu. Yes, Lulu may derive more casual online search traffic, but ultimately, people out to buy Dan Brown's latest opus are not going to Lulu to purchase it. They are going to Amazon or Barnes & Noble if they wish to buy an e-book. In some ways, it is the same self-publishing sand trap authors who use an author solutions service assume will happen when their book is made available on sites like Amazon. Hell. someone is bound to stumble over my book on their way to the virtual checkout with a copy of Dan's Angels & Demons under their arm. Unfortunately we are in the desperate land of success by association, and that's like buying Irene Cara's old sweatband on ebay and thinking you're a cert to be in the next remake of Fame.

Interestingly, this was the first comment to appear on Lulu's blog after the announcement. I'll leave it to 'jrharv' to sum up the piece.

"I fail to see how this will help my books sell. Just like highly discounted books at Target/Walmart/Amazon by big name authors doesn’t help us, this certainly can’t. Our voices cannot be heard if people are looking for them instead.

I have 5 books with Lulu, haven’t decided if I’ll do a 6th. I am using another service for my current project that has a greater success rate at getting authors noticed.

Many of their authors are picked up by big name publishers like Simon & Schuster or McCleland and Stewart. That’s my aim.

Currently as a Canadian published by ME (YOU) is not available and all my works are Published by LULU so far. This prevents another publisher from taking me on.

I’ve changed genre and pen name and service, because my voice needs to be heard. Dan Brown and Emeril will easily outsell all of us, that’s not helpful."

There is an age-old adage in self-publishing that says self-published books are bought more often by the author themselves, or other self-published authors. It seems to me Lulu are simply trying to expand the the buying catalog for their own registered authors by adding a mainstream element. Perhaps, you may think me cynical in that view, but I don't think Lulu will be ordering too many more shopping carts to accommodate the extra rush.

Xlibris Get it In The Neck From Publishing Perspectives

Dear, oh dear. Xlibris really did get it in the neck today from daily online publishing magazine, Publishing Perspectives. They featured in the lead and accompanying articles by Edward Nawotka. You can read the two articles, A Cautionary Tale about POD, and also, Bonus Material: Is Xlibris Profiting More from Selling Publicity than Printing?. A little detail first before I digress.

Joanne Gail Johnson lives in the Caribbean and she set up Meaningful Books in 2008, initially, to self-publish Pink Carnival, a children’s colour picture book. It is the story of father and son who attend a colourful parade in Trinidad, and the son is taken by the wonderful colour pink of the surrounding rain trees. Dad balks at the idea of his son been taken by the colour pink and so ensues the story until Dad appreciates the innocence of childhood and agrees – hell, pink is ok! This was the first title by Johnson’s, Meaningful Books.

“Meaningful Books leverages the opportunity that print-on-demand offers to take risks in our still grossly under published market. Using picture books as care-giving tools intended to open doors to more meaningful conversations between children and their guardians, the imprint is partnered in Trinidad with a Non-Governmental Organization, Creative Parenting for the New Era.”

Johnson outlines how she looked at publishing options for many months and came across Xlibris, buoyed by the tenuous association with Random House. In short, she paid for a publishing package - problems occurred with quality and format errors, her single requested change, and the errors Xlibris introduced themselves in the proof process. Ultimately it delayed the book publication to the point she struggled to see it as a viable commercial publishing project for Meaningful Books.

“However, to date of this writing, November 2, I cannot capitalize on this demand for my book”

In the article by Publishing Perspectives, it is stated, Johnson first submitted her project in September 2008. She refers to several key promotional dates in February and April 2009, but it is never stated if the above ‘November 2’ refers to 2008 or 2009. Clearly, if it is 2009, then Johnson has endured a period of unacceptable delays by Xlibris – in effect, more than a year of six rounds of proofs, which, for any author solutions service, would leave any book dead in the water and impossible to promote for its author. If it refers to November 2008, and this is effectively supposed to be an unsatisfactory story of self-publishing author meeting with less than best service – then it’s entirely erroneous of Publishing Perspectives to dredge up a year old story. Frankly, I’m a little confused. At best, it is poor editing and article continuity by PP. Have a read of the two above articles. Am I the only one to spot this, or am I being dumb and missing something?

“Other legitimate questions have arisen as well: Why is it that when I require any changes I must pay a US$50 base fee each time just to get started, but when Xlibris creates errors there is no real compensation? And why do I now feel like I am working unpaid for Xlibris, helping them with quality control?

I had asked for and received a full-color children’s picture book sample which was, indeed, beautiful. But I was never told to expect some “acceptable variation”—an excuse that cropped up somewhere between round four and six of my author’s review copies.”

Joanne Gail Johnson.

While Johnson goes on to say that her experience with Xlibris and her book was frustrating and unacceptable, she says the staff were always courteous and apologetic. In the second Publishing Perspective article, Johnson was offered compensation in the form of a marketing package.

“As part of the compensation for her troubles with Xlibris (outlined in our feature article), Joanne Gail Johnson was offered what appeared to be a generous marketing plan, including an offer to send press releases to 100 media outlets (valued at $349) and promoting the book to 100 Web sites (valued at $299). But Johnson felt this was little more than an ‘inflated promise.’”

The compensation marketing package, in essence, consisted of much of the synopsis and book copy Johnson had already supplied to Xlibris - leading her to believe that the marketing plan was nothing more than a copy and paste job by someone who had never set eyes on her book. This is sadly consistent with many basic and even expensive marketing packages provided by author solution services.

I’m still trying to appraise this whole curious episode. Much depends on how long Johnson has been dealing with Xlibris and the final publication of her book. Her book does not exist on Amazon and her own site was last updated in April 2008!

I will leave you all read the articles, and make your own minds up. My instinct lies with the fact the book does not exist anywhere, and Publishing Perspective have underlined the misfortune and pitfalls of using an author solutions service. Somehow, there is a missing link here, and things just don’t add up to the full story. My two cents.

http://www.joannejohnson.info/

Lulu Improves e-book Options

Lulu have made a significant step forward today with their latest announcement on improvements to their e-book facility. The new improvements will allow wider format compatibility, DRM and a revised pricing structure. Up till now, their e-book facility was pretty basic. Here is some of their blog announcement.

"Why publish an eBook? The simple answer is it makes sense for both authors (universal distribution, more sales, and higher royalties) and readers (cheaper than print, instant delivery, and mobile access). How can Lulu help? By providing features to support a wide range of scenarios: give eBooks away for free as a marketing tool, automatically link eBook and print editions to enhance discovery and provide more options to readers, and offer optional copy-protection (DRM) to prevent piracy and unlicensed distribution.

Beginning today, Lulu supports all of these options, and more. With multi-device support, readers can access your eBook on a Mac, PC, iPhone (Stanza), Sony Reader, and many others. You can now upload files in the popular EPUB format, which is quickly becoming the industry standard (see recent announcements by Barnes & Noble and Sony). Concerned about losing sales when you make unprotected digital content available in the marketplace? You can now apply DRM to your eBook, and sell a licensed version which can’t be freely copied and distributed.

To support enabling these features for more than a million Lulu authors, Lulu has adopted a new pricing structure for eBooks and print downloads. As always, it’s still free to publish, and if you choose, you can continue to give away your digital content for free. For authors who want to sell eBooks and downloads, we’ve added a fixed $1.49 base price to cover our credit card processing and hosting expenses. Applying DRM (optional, eBooks only) adds $.99 to the base price to offset the fee charged by our DRM provider. To reiterate, authors never pay to publish, these fees are reflected in the list price and are only charged to the purchaser at purchase time."

Popping Over To The Co-op For An e-book?

Successful self-publishing authors have been around for many years and here on POD, Self-Publishing & Independent Publishing we have looked at many of the varied solutions services authors can use. What is very clear about self-published authors is often their ability and need to be innovative in the marketing of their books and how quickly they have utilised the platforms of digital and online publishing. In many ways, the difficulties self-published authors have in gaining widespread print distribution and bookstore shelf space has resulted in this adversity being turned into an opportunity and advantage over authors published by commercial publishers. While the commercial publishing world debates, posits, and plans about e-formats, pricing and the effects of Digital Rights Management, the cream of self-published authors have long learned how to extract the maximum reach and sales potential from e-book editions of their work.

Are we seeing the first signs that authors commercially published are biting back in their own innovative way?

Book View Café is a cooperative site created by a group of writers (currently 29), who want to take advantage of the internet’s possibilities for reaching a wider audience and to distribute their work directly to their readers. No, the authors who make up Book View Café are not a raggle-taggle of bohemian self-published authors. They have all been published by various independent and commercial publishers. In fact one the fundamental requirements for an author to become a member of Book View Café is that have followed the traditional route of publishing and have at least one work of fiction published by a mainstream publisher. The e-books available to purchase at the Book View Café are a mix of out of print books and new original work from many established and award-winning authors. The e-books are available in PDF format , which can be used on the Kindle, Sony e-Reader and the recently released Nook, as well as the Epub and Mobi. Here is piece from their press release. The Book View Café stress they are not a publisher, but, instead, a co-op bookstore where authors bring their work to sell.

“...the publishing world is gripped by unprecedented upheaval. In the middle of industry revolution, what's a working author to do?

For the authors of Book View Cafe, the answer is band together and take charge. This group of twenty-six award-winning and best-selling authors have elected to by-pass traditional publishing and bring out their latest work directly on Amazon's Kindle and Sony's eReader.

All professionally published, and many currently under contract with traditional New York firms such as Random House, Tor Books and Simon & Schuster, the Book View Cafe authors first came together in 2008 to create bookviewcafe.com, a destination website for online fiction. Armed with a century’s worth of experience in all aspects of publishing, members include multiple-award-winning authors like Ursula K. Le Guin and Vonda N. McIntyre, bestsellers like Sarah Smith and Laura Anne Gilman, and new talents like Seanan McGuire.

Once the main site was established, the authors formed Book View Press to take their titles out onto the wider Internet world.”

The fact that no outside publishing house is involved with the Book View Café, and the profits go directly to the authors, suggests many other commercial published authors may be inclined to withhold electronic publishing rights to their books in the coming years if publishers don’t quickly grasp the nettle and fully embrace the emergence of the e-book market. The lure of low-cost and increased profits may be too much of an incentive not to sell directly to the reading public through co-operatives like the Book View Café started in 2008. According to Project Manager, Sarah Zettel:

"Ebooks give us a fantastic opportunity to bring our best work straight to the readers. It's truly an exciting time to be an author."

It will be interesting to see if we see more of these collaborative ventures in the coming months and years.

Chip Kidd: Book Cover Design & The Future of E-books

Chip Kidd, renowned book cover designer is currently on a trip to Ireland and this evening he did an interview for Culture Shock, an arts program on one of Ireland's national radio broadcasters, Newstalk, hosted by Fionn Davenport.

Chip Kidd  is an associate art director at Knopf, an imprint of Random House. He joined the Knopf book design team in 1986, turning out jacket designs at an average of 75 a year, Kidd has also freelanced for Doubleday, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Grove Press, HarperCollins, Penguin/Putnam, Scribner and Columbia University Press. He also supervises graphic novels at Pantheon, and in 2003 he collaborated with Art Spiegelman on a biography of cartoonist Jack Cole.  His output includes book covers for Bret Easton Ellis, Haruki Murakami, Dean Koontz, Cormac McCarthy, Frank Miller, Michael Ondaatje, Alex Ross, Charles Schulz, Osamu Tezuka, David Sedaris, Donna Tartt, John Updike and others. His design for Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park novel was carried over into marketing for the film adaptation.

His novel, The Cheese Monkeys (Simon and Schuster, 2001), is an academic satire and coming-of-age tale about state college art students who struggle to meet the demands of sadistic art instructors. The book draws on Kidd's real-life experiences during his art studies. The sequel novel, The Learners, was released in 2008.

Chip shared his experiences of designing covers in the book publishing industry and the advent of e-books to the market. Significantly, Kidd believes that e-books remain a niche market and though the format will steadily grow, he has strong doubts they will ever eclipse the reader's demand for the printed book. What I found most significant in Kidd's interview with Davenport about e-books is his belief that much of the interest and attention on e-books and the arrival of the European Kindle is being greatly driven by the media and simply does not correspond to the interest from the reading and buying public. In an ever-changing world where we seem to discuss the future of publishing on a day to day basis, Kidd is the one of the inside voices of the commercial book industry who expresses a more tempered view on e-books. I wonder if perhaps Kidd is the other side of the more cautionary approach to the digital advancements  in publishing. Certainly, Kidd cannot be accused of being a conventionalist by any means. But in the great salvo of the commercial digital publishing world, perhaps he provides one stance and reason publishers are so circumspect and reluctant to overly change, invest finance, and ultimately, remodel their business plans for the short to medium term publishing future.

You can hear a podcast of the interview here. Kidd will also be appearing at the Offset festival this week in Ireland.

        

Self-Publishing Book Expo: New York, Saturday, November 7th

The much anticipated Self-Publishing Book Expo in New York's Sheraton Hotel is just a week away, taking place on Saturday, November 7th. The organizers of the event have managed to put together a very impressive array of speakers and panelists from the world of self-publishing services, independent presses, distributors, printers and self-published authors.

The highlight of the event looks to be the speaker addresses by Bob Young of Lulu, Brent Sampson of Outskirts Press and Mark Croker of Smashwords. You can see the full event details here and registration is still available.

The time has come to have an exhibition where the spotlight is solely on self-published books and authors. The first annual Self-Publishing Book Expo—or the SPBE as we’ve begun to affectionately call it--will bring national focus and attention to the fastest-growing segment of today’s publishing industry.

Unlike any other book exhibit, the Self-Publishing Book Expo will be the only event of its kind to highlight the books of self-publishing companies and their authors, and give them the prominence and prestige they deserve.

Sales - The SPBE will be open to the public, offering authors a unique opportunity to sell their books to the broadest possible audience.

Meet the Media - Producers of TV and radio programs, and editors of newspapers, magazines, and online media outlets, will attend the event, all looking for great stories that may otherwise be under their radar.

An Opportunity to Learn – Attendees will get to hear about the products and services offered by self-publishing companies from across the country.

Interact – Authors will have the opportunity to discuss their path to self-publishing, and share their unique ideas for marketing, publicizing, and selling their books.

Virtual Conference Today: Digital Content Day at Your Desk!

Book Business is presenting a free Publishing Business Virtual Conference today online, entitled, Digital Content Day at Your Desk! Here is a brief from their website.

Book Business is proud to present the first Publishing Business Virtual Conference & Expo: Digital Content Day at Your Desk! Please fill out the registration form below to register for this FREE event, and to ensure your access to the latest and most effective digital publishing strategies and solutions. Fields marked with an asterisk*are required.

Date: October 29, 2009

Time: 10:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. ET

Location: The comfort of your own office. It's virtual!

Prepare yourself ahead of time to make the most out of the Publishing Business Virtual Conference & Expo virtual environment! Click here to download our Attendee Success Kit.

The session content will include:

Special Keynote Interview – “Born Digital”
Jane Friedman, CEO, OpenRoad Integrated Media
LLC and former CEO, HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide,
will be interviewed by Book Business Editor-in-
Chief Noelle Skodzinski

Live e-chat – Join Noelle Skodzinski, Editor-in-
Chief of Book Business in the Networking Lounge
for an e-chat with Special Guest.
Sriram Peruvemba, Vice President, Marketing,
E Ink Corp.

On-demand webinar – Social Media
Strategies That Sell Books
Jesse McDougall, Web Editor, Chelsea Green;
Erik Qualman, Author, Socialnomics;
Karen Strauss, President, Strauss Consultants

On-demand webinar – The Impact
of Piracy and the Value of DRM:
Developing Effective Strategies
Brian O’Leary, President, Magellan Media; Andrew Savikas,
Vice President of Digital Initiatives, O’Reilly Media;
Sanford Bingham, President, FileOpen Systems Inc.

The Future of Book Manufacturing: The digital
challenge to traditional book manufacturing and
distribution models
PRESENTED BY: Océ North America
Duncan Newton, Manager/Client Development,
Océ North America

Live webinar – A Practical Model for Profiting
From Print-On-Demand
SPONSORED BY: Total Printing Systems
Gigi Brienza, Vice President of Editing, Design, Production
& Manufacturing, and Director, Stock Planning,
Oxford University Press


For a full agenda, you can click here.

...and here for Nicola Furlong who was a virtual attendee at the conference.

Google Books Settlement: Make Haste At Your Peril - Objectors

Judge Denny Chin, presiding over the Google Books Settlement case, has again been requested by opponents to ensure they are given ‘sufficient time to study and comment on any amended settlement agreement’ and that there are no limits on any objections. The call came from Yahoo and Microsoft, two of the most significant corporate objectors to Google.

Earlier this month, Judge Denny Chin requested Google and the plaintiffs to deliver a revised Settlement by November 9th. Judge Denny Chin indicated that his intention was to then schedule a hearing for December or January 2010 to bring this case to a conclusion. There is concern on behalf of the objectors to the Settlement that an eagerness by Judge Denny Chin and Google to fast tract this to a conclusion will once again result in a Settlement which will be legally flawed and open to continual challenges in the future.

'We are deeply concerned that a shortened process based on minimum additional notice will seriously impair the ability of objectors, amici, and commentators to provided meaningful analysis of the proposed amended agreement to the court.’