The Good, The Bad, and Smashwords

                                                      

Well, finally I discovered Smashwords….

Given that this is the major (apart from Amazon, that is) seller of e-books, one would have thought I’d have known about it before I started. I didn’t. But then I have always felt one can do too much research….

What is Smashwords?

Smashwords is an e-book selling site. But more than that, it is also a distributor. Publish your book here and it can be published, automatically, to Kobo, Diesel, Sony, Barnes and Noble, even the i-Tunes store (ok, so I have only heard of the latter two). And it is all done through their own, proprietary software – Meatgrinder – no downloading some dodgy third-party stuff like Amazon (and apparently they will publish there too soon).

What is Good about it?

Well, they give you stats, not only about how many people have viewed your book’s entry on a particular day, but also how many ‘samples’ have been downloaded. (Imagine my surprise to discover one day that 4 people had downloaded it! This was tempered somewhat when I realised only one person had visited the site that day – you can download in a variety of formats and they all count , unique users or not – my book obviously appeals to the technically illiterate).

This can be disheartening though. It is almost better to believe your book is lost among the many rather than it is just crap. Seeing the samples downloaded resulting in nil sales is a pretty damning statement, however tacitly made.

The Ugly?

Well, the site for one – it looks strangely amateurish – and the name for another – Smashwords: is it a slogan, a call to arms?

The only other downside is that they are American, and they are obliged to withhold a tax of 30% on your royalties unless you are an American tax payer, or have an International Tax Number which you can apply for but is a pain in the neck (I would if I thought I was going to sell any).

I won’t moan about the champion of the free-market indulging in yet another form of protectionism, but 'Oi!'

Apart from that it is great, and given its ease of use, its pending agreement with Amazon, and its other distribution channels, it will become the e-book distributor of choice. In fact, if I were Jeff Bezos, I’d buy it ….

Reviews and How Not to Get Any

According to the late DJ Enright in 'The Alluring Problem' — a wonderful ‘discourse’* on the nature of Irony — Goethe is said to have said that 'nowadays, books are written only to be reviewed rather than read'.  Of course the ‘nowadays’ he was referring was the beginning of the 19^th Century and while that may or may not have had any truth in it then — he was being ironic — for the self-published author, there is certainly a truth about it now.

In the mire of Amazon (and Smashwords and its affiliates – see next post) there are essentially three ways a book gets in front of the ‘browser’:

• the new releases;
• what others are buying, the bestsellers;
• and what others have enjoyed, the highest rated.

For the unknown writer, without either a ‘name’ or those 'golden stars', a book is lost. Who reads the unread, the unloved, the starless?

When the book is first released, it has a moment when it is at the top of the list, a chronological accident, but this is the 'chance', to be seen, to catch the eye of the buyer. After that, it sinks and only sales, or reviews, will keep it visible to the browsing buyer.

I first saw my Amazon rating when I was 10,000^th. I then watched with dismay, as day after day, I sunk – 168,000^th my last position, until that is someone else bought it – my second sale! - and I jumped again to 22,000^th. (I mean, who browses twenty-two thousand titles? Have they no work to do?).

And of course, the refusal to prime the process, get a friend, a colleague, a ‘collaborator’ even, to rave about your work means you are relying on those who have bought it, returning and saying something nice, hopefully (and Sandra Patterson’s blog, as well as talking about reviews - the good and the bad - also has a link to some interesting research).

Unlike a proper book, you cannot pick up an e-book, open it and read at random (or even page 99 or whatever today’s special number is). When looking at the preview of the book, the sample, your e-reader will start you at the beginning. You could press ‘page down’ a few times, but it is doubtful one would: pressing a button doesn’t have quite the allure of flicking through the pages, an experience almost erotic in its promise, for me at least.

So, the languorous opening paragraph has to be a thing of the past. They used to say you should have a body, either dead or moving rhythmically, on page one; now, with the advent of e-readers, e-published authors should aim for the top half of page one, if not the opening sentence. My poorly written work has neither. Little wonder then that I have not yet made my million.

But a languorous opening paragraph doesn’t mean the book is bad. To rescue the book from this failure to compromise for the medium, one needs others to assure the would-be buyer that it is worth continuing, that the bodies will come, one way or another, and if they don’t, they won’t be missed, the writing is good and the work worth reading.

 

The other reason for a review, the one the writer cares about, is the simple desire to know what one’s readers thought, good or bad. But that is by-the-by in this discussion..

The point I am trying to make is that a self-published e-book, sans marketing, sans stars, quickly disappears. As mine has.

Harrowing? Well, it’s not exactly life-affirming. But that is one’s lot, and I am beginning to think I have made a terrible mistake…

*I call it a ‘discourse’ as calling it a ‘study’, though perhaps more accurate, would make you think he had sucked the life out of the subject: far from it, it is a wonderful read and I recommend it (five stars! though needless to say it was never published on Kindle).

The Day After THE ‘Sale’.

The first day and one sale.

Before I could celebrate, I check to make sure no one I knew had bought it without me knowing.

Satisfied that I haven’t breached the ‘contract’, I have glass of wine (I’d have had one anyway, but this one tastes better).

Promising, and this morning, on first check, my wife points out I am 12,000 odd in the rankings. This may well be ten times the number a normal bookshop should stock, but I am quite pleased.

And secretly, I am reminded of a tale an old teacher of mine — Mr Weeks: cheers and nevermind the headmaster telling my mother I was responsible for your heart attack — told me when I was seven.

It concerns a courtier who did some enormous favour for the potentate with whom he played chess.

“What can I pay you?” the potentate asked, “Whatever you want in my kingdom.”

The courtier, a wise man, said: “I shall have a penny, place it on the first square of the chess board.”

“Is that all?” asked the potentate.

“Not quite.” Said the courtier. “Tomorrow, you shall double it. And the day after it shall be doubled again, doubled for each square on the board.”

I shall leave you to do the maths, but by the sixty-fourth square, the potentate was broke and the courtier the richest man in Christendom. I have been looking all my life for someone to put that one over on. No takers so far.

However, one sale today, two tomorrow and who knows?

Except there are no sales tomorrow and as I type my ranking has fallen to 32,000 and it is only my pessimism that is doubling.

The doubts creep in: do Amazon ’buy’ one copy of each book, just to keep their selling customers happy? Note that royalties are not payable until they reach £10, and they could always say it was ‘refunded’.

So, a new strategy? Already, you say. Well, I need to get a review. There are sites, though the only one I have seen so far that will consider ‘self-published’ works requires a’ reading fee’. No thanks.

So, while I research on, I am looking for new ways, some other way of getting it out there.

Please, ideas on a postcard…

….alternatively leave a comment.

Marketing and Why I Am Not Doing Any

The argument that self-publishing is an ‘open gate’, that the guarantee of quality a ‘proper’ publisher (or, more importantly, the editor) offers the reader is not there for self-published works, has been well-made many times and I won’t rehearse it here.

As I have said, I don’t think my book is ‘bad’ – not as good as it could be - but it is not bad, and I wouldn’t be ashamed to have my name on it as it is (it doesn’t have my name – instead some absurdist pseudonym that I blame entirely on those who failed to answer my call).

But more importantly for the self-publisher, there is no marketing department, no advice on hand, no one telling you how to get your books to the reader, giving them a chance to buy.

I will say it again, for the self-publisher happy with the quality of their work, this is the greatest loss that self-publishing incurs. There are a quarter of a million works of fiction published on e-book format on Amazon.com, non-fiction is double that (Amazon.co.uk figures are harder to come by). Regardless of quality, getting the work noticed is the biggest challenge a self-publisher faces.

And here I explain why I am simply not going to do any marketing whatsoever, at least not for a while.

The First:

On looking at the Kindle ‘community’ website, I noticed a thread entitled ‘Marketing’. I thought I’d have a look. There weren’t many responses, but two things I noticed: the first was a link to a 2009 blog by Mr Konrath, self-publishing’s own (self) success story. It was interesting, though he was only reporting sales in the low hundreds then.

The second thing was that two of the participants came to an agreement on the thread to write glowing reviews of each others work. And mightily pleased they seemed to be with themselves and their ‘wheeze’: mutually beneficial co-operation in action.

Except of course that to post a review of a work, a false review, is a lie, intended only to dupe the reader, or at least the potential reader.

We would all be quite appalled if advertisers were allowed to get away with ‘bigging up’ the claims of their products. In Britain, as I imagine in most countries, false advertising is illegal and one tempted to lie to the public could find themselves fined or worse. Yet it happens on a daily basis on the pages of Amazon and I don’t see anyway of stopping it, at least not completely.

But legal or not, duping readers is morally wrong (odd thing to say for someone who believes in no absolutes and as such would consider themselves to be, philosophically at least, an ‘amoralist’) and I want no part of it.

So that is the first reason; the second follows as surely as day follows night:

E-Publishing is not self-publishing. But given the size of e-publishers, many of their authors are expected to self-market. Tweet, they are told, blog, do everything you can to get your name out there, stand out above the crowd. And so they do, and I have nothing but respect for them.

But perhaps it was the way I was bought up, but for me, self-promotion is an anathema.

Even this blog, well, were it not for the anonymity of the internet, I would have saved you the few moments it has taken to read this far.

But I have seen the self-publicists – and in our world that is usually understood as a derogatory term, or has been until now, but it shouldn’t be and here I don’t mean it in that way – I have seen how they have to work, have to promote, encourage and cajole. And, as much as I admire them, I want no part of that either.

So, no ‘duping the reader’ and no self-publicising, so why do it at all?

Well, if this is the way things will go – and I hope it is not –  i.e. if agents are on the way out, publishers going down the sink, then I had better learn what happens if one simply refuses, if one doesn’t ask one’s friends and acquaintances, back-scratchers, even blog-readers to write reviews; no asking anyone to shout one’s name from the rafters, help propel one’s book up the charts.

So that is why no marketing: simply to see what happens. And that is what I shall be telling you here. 0 sales and counting….

And please, tell me what you think.

The Practicalities

One should note that a proper writer would have people to do all this for them, and they wouldn’t take so little time doing what I did. Nevertheless, once decided upon something, I like to get it done and while patience maybe a virtue, sinning is much more fun.

Fun? Maybe I should think again….

First Day – The Cover

A day when I should have been doing other things. Nevermind…

Given that I am not going to be doing any kind of viral marketing, asking friends etc etc (and I will explain why at a later date) I have to rely on someone looking at the book on line and being interested enough to read the blurb.

So the cover is all.

I am lucky in that I have one sister who is an illustrator and another a graphic designer specialising in CD covers. However, I am unlucky in that I don’t feel in a position to ask them to disturb their busy working lives to work, unpaid, for me. But I email for advice.

Can I nick stuff of the internet, change it a bit and claim it is my own? No. You’ll be sued, people aren’t stupid. Oh…

So, for a while I was tempted to dust of my paint pots. But I am the non-artistic one amongst my siblings. So I have a think about what type of image I want, what I want to convey.

And then I dress up: my wife is very forgiving.

A photograph, played with on Photoshop, can easily be made to look like a drawing, and once I have managed to hide the length of my nose with the judicial use of a masking tool, I’m ready to go.

Now for titling.

Font. I found a lovely site, a French chap who has some lovely fonts you can download for free. Here.

I play around, my wife giving guidance, and together we came up with something which was okay.  And if I didn’t have the sisters I have, I’d have left it at that. Instead I send an email: ‘Can you just have a look?’ I ask.

And so it comes back, redesigned, corrected and with an even better font than my researches had uncovered. Cheers, sis.

Next stage, formatting the text…I know you can’t wait.

Second Day – The Text

Gosh, I hate third-party software.

Why can’t I just upload my Word.doc? Why do I have to first learn, then use, then realise I hadn’t learnt properly and go back and use again, some strange program? Computers were meant to make life easier, weren’t they? Somebody should tell programmers…

Anyway, if you want to know how to use ‘Mobipocket Creator’ send me an email and I’ll tell you how not to do it…

But once ‘built’, I have to check everything to make sure it has formatted properly. This turns out to be a good thing – though I thought I had a clean, mistake free copy of the book, I realise I have confused homonyms, left out words, missed punctuation. So I spend a day copy-editing and my eyes and shoulders are knackered.

And after many abortive attempts, I have something to upload.

Of course I should wait: it is eleven o’clock at night, I am tired, and have drunk far too much wine: wait, leave it and look again in the  morning. But do I wait? Of course not. Upload!

And that is it. The Book is now pending acceptance - 24 hours I am told – a bit of a let down now its done. So off I go to bed to dream of selling copies, millions of them, overnight.

Now that would be nice.

Next, Marketing, and how I am not going to do any…

An Introduction

I asked for advice. None came. So I thought I'd do it anyway.

Do what?!

Publish on Kindle of course.

You missed out – I was going to ask you to provide a pseudonym - but at least that saves me a dilemma, namely…

… a word of warning, or rather to put you at your ease – I shall not be telling you the name of the book here, on Twitter, or on any other network social or otherwise.

I am not selling.

This blog is my record and my present to you – you can learn from my mistakes. And while you learn , you can laugh both at my incompetence and my soaring, pathetic hopes matched by my despair as such hopes are dashed, cruelly but inevitably.

Although to be honest, I have no hopes and nothing to lose – 'nah, nah' as they say.

Let me state what I’m risking:

This is my first novel I am ‘publishing’. I don’t think it is badly written and I am not ashamed of it. But it is unpublishable in the sense that like most first novels, it really should be left in the drawer. It simply fell between two stalls and should be treated as a training exercise, something to learn from and move on. So no risk at all. Except…

...except it is an asset. I have invested what – three hours a day, five days a week over six months? Does that sound reasonable? 390 hours. If I was paid cash that would be a reasonable sum. Plus the hours I have spent thinking about it, submitting it, pointlessly, to agents.

And I’m broke. But that is not the main reason. 

The main reason it that my dear friend Pk sent an email around the other day, pointing to a blog which suggested that the age of the agent might be over. I hope it is wrong (and I intend to try the traditional route for the novel I am in the middle of now - if I ever finish it).

But if the blog was correct, then the lesson will be invaluable. For us all.

Follow me on this journey. See me fail.