BOOK PRICING

The science of pricing a book is evolving. In the good (?) old days, publishers decided what an author's book would sell for and they pre-printed it on the cover. They would often show different prices for different countries on the same label and assume that the exchange rate wouldn't change. All of this was tantamount to price fixing, but the bottom line was that the content creator had no control over what the reading public paid, and their own income was decided by someone else.
The internet has changed all of that, along with everything else it touches. As authors have begun to find new ways to connect with their audience, and new formats ( e-readers), they have taken pricing into their own hands. The old-line publishers are resisting the change, and in many cases they are keeping their author clients in check by maintaining an artificially high price for e-books. However, as bestselling authors from the legacy publishers discover the freedom and economic advantages of controlling their product ( that is, self-publishing) the pricing of books will begin to find a common ground.
Jackie Collins announced today that she is re-releasing one of her best sellers as an e-book at $2.99. I think we will find that the pricing will almost always be under $9.99 as we move forward. It is just a guess, but I think the "big guys and girls" will start offering their new releases around that price and the rest of us will begin to slot ourselves around that standard.
Once the Stephen King's, David Baldacci's, Dan Brown's and J.K. Rowling's break from the legacy publishers and decide to strike out on their own, the price formula will become much more obvious, to the great good fortune of the reading public.

MEMOIRS - ONE MORE THING

I previously offered 3 tips about writing a good memoir and you can find that post here.
One thing that seems to help sales of memoirs is targeting a much smaller audience. Somehow, when it comes to writing a memoir, that seems like a crass statement - "targeting an audience." I didn't, or at least I didn't know I was, when I wrote, MY SECRET MOTHER, and I'm guessing that if you are writing your memoir, you aren't either. However, if you plan to publish, it helps to know that there are people who are benefiting from, or at least enjoying your efforts. For most of us, writing a memoir (or anything else) and hoping the entire world will read it, is nonsense - they won't. In most of our cases, 99.9% of the world don't even know we exist, let alone care to read about our lives. So, how much is .1% of the population - you figure it out. (hint: in the U.S. alone, that's over 350,000)
I have mentioned in other places that I continue to be surprised by the sales of MY SECRET MOTHER and that, other than the links on my blog pages, I don't do any actual marketing for it. Here's what I think has happened. I am an adoptee and have spent much of my life wondering about what that meant and how I should act, react and proceed, based on this fact. I wrote about my own feelings and thoughts around adoption, and I addressed the whole thing to the mother that I have never met. I don't think that many writers are writing specifically to birth mothers from the post WWII era, although there is lots of info out there about adoption in a general sense. Sounds like a very small market doesn't it? Maybe that accounts for the success, in terms of sales.
A few readers have passed on the title to other people they know who are connected to adoption in one way or another, and it gets mentioned in relatively (in a marketing sense) small groups of women, and so the word spreads among them. A small sliver of the population still represents a lot of people in a numerical sense.
You might consider looking at your memoir in order to find the unique part of your life and experience, and making that your focal point.
If you concentrate on the uniqueness and use even a small amount of SEO to create your title, or sub-title, and use similar search engine optimized phrases in explaining what your book is about (what your book is about - subject of a blog in the near future), then you should expect to make some reasonable inroads into that marketplace. If my personal experience is any indicator, it would appear to work.
You might want to look for the life experiences that may not be shared by many, or the little-known hobbies and interests you enjoy, maybe the small corner of the world that you grew up in, something that sets you apart, but not alone, from the teeming masses. It will give your memoir a unique flavor and ring a bell with a group of readers that share a curiosity about that slice of your life - and perhaps theirs.

3 THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT WRITING A MEMOIR

MEMOIRS DON'T SELL.    Anyone who has ever broached the subject of writing their memoir with an agent, publisher, coach, editor, anyone, has heard the same reply - "Don't bother, memoirs don't sell, unless you are incredibly famous." So what to do if you are not a former president, A-list celebrity, or much publicized convicted felon? What if you have an interesting story to tell, or you witnessed an event that you feel compelled to write about or simply want to leave a legacy for family and friends? What if you decide that you are going to go ahead and write a memoir, regardless of the advice of all of the so-called experts? First of all - good for you!
Heeding the advice of experts leads to committee-based decision making in which mediocrity becomes acceptable.
So, if you have decided to write your memoir anyway ( it's a great place for early stage writers to get their feet wet), then let's see if we can make it the best that it can be. Good principles of both non-fiction and fiction writing can be applied to help the process and we will deal with three of them here:

1. WHO WILL READ IT AND WHAT VALUE WILL THEY RECEIVE?    Before you start any writing, consider who will be your target readers and what should they expect your book to deliver in the way of value. How will it make their life better, easier, more interesting? What will it cause them to stop doing, start doing or do differently? Include this thought process even if you are writing your memoir purely for the benefit of your offspring and don't expect it to ever find a public audience. There's nothing worse than taking your children for granted with a boringly told tale without a purpose.
2. LIST FIVE HIGHLIGHTS THAT YOU WILL WRITE ABOUT.    Name the highlights or events and target your writing to revealing the interesting or unknown parts about them. I was once asked to work with a man who had written a 650 page family history but could not name the major events. He was also convinced that he didn't need an editor because he had "spell-check." I promise you that no one will make it through your opus unless you respect their need to be not only informed, but entertained, as well. If your life has been so eventful that it requires dozens of separate and unconnected events to be explained fully, consider a follow up book. "FIVE" is a target but a reasonable one to offer your readers a glimpse into your story. No, I didn't take on the "family history" project - he knew better than I.
3. USE DRAMATIC TENSION TO MOVE THE BOOK FORWARD - JUST LIKE A NOVEL.    So, you need to be careful here - if you make up something in the story that is not true - it's not a memoir, it's fiction based on real life events (see A MILLION TINY PIECES for what can happen here). The only way to keep the reader interested is to create, or reveal, the drama in the events so that they can understand that the protagonist ( you?) ran the risk of either losing something significant or not getting something that you really wanted or needed. Maintain the idea of suspense throughout your writing and let the reader be relieved or peeved with the results. They will want to read more if the outcome is in doubt.

Memoirs are kind of a hybrid writing project based on actual facts and events but in desperate need of a good dose of excitement, challenge and plotting. Start with an outline and look carefully for those ways of pacing your story like a novel with suspense, and the possibility that life doesn't always work out the way you planned. Have fun with it - who knows where it could lead.
One last thing, write from who you really are rather than that public persona you have been wearing and your readers, no matter who they are, will become your fans.

READING ISN'T DEAD, BUT...

Seth Godin, one of the pre-eminent marketers of our generation and clearly a thought-leader in the field of writing and publishing, has a few comments to make about the current state of reading.
As writers, we might want to pay attention.
Go here and read his brief blog - it's worth your time, if you are writing in this market.
As always, I welcome your comments and please forward this to people you think might be interested.

WELCOME TO THE RESOLUTION

Here we are again - another year past and another year ahead. If you had spent one hour per day everyday during the past year writing 500 words, you would have written 182,500 words or about 2 average size novels. Yes, you can argue with that stat but instead, go write your 500 words.
I don't particularly like the word "resolution" and prefer the word "intention" because I think it is stronger. So, I guess that means it's time for this year's New Years Intentions:

1. I intend to write 500 words per day
2. I intend to take at least 2 vacations (but I'll write my 500 words)
3. I intend to belly laugh at least once per day
4. I intend to stop having "seconds" (notice I didn't say desserts)
5. I intend to shake hands less and hug more
6. I intend to dream bigger
7. I intend to go to bed earlier
8. I intend to "unsubscribe" from more sites than I "subscribe" to
9. I intend to seek happiness in every situation
10. I intend to see possibility instead of impossibility
11. I intend to listen more actively and talk less frequently (unless being paid for it)
12. I intend to create life rather than watch it pass
13. I intend to take a few minutes first thing every day to read something inspiring 
14. I intend to listen to my "gut" more and follow its path
15. I intend to spend more time with people and businesses who support me, and less...
16. I intend to make 2012 the springboard to my best life

If you would like to share, I would like to post it, or perhaps you will use the comment section to list your one, most important New Year's Intention and please feel free to share these thoughts with others. It's easy to use the buttons below to send it to your friends.

AN INCOMPLETE LIST

Writing a book is one thing but publishing/marketing/selling it is quite another. Planning, organizing, researching and writing are commitments that compete for our time and resources and there is soooo much information out there that we could spend all of our time reading the offerings of others and don't actually create our own book. I thought that regular readers of this corner might be interested in a list of people and resources that I have found helpful in the past year or so: this is incomplete and I have only included people's websites rather than email addresses for obvious reasons. In a few cases, I have recommended that you send me an email since the person does not have their own website that I know of. I will forward their contact information to you and yours to them. I should note that I have no financial arrangements officially or otherwise (except for one - can you guess?) with any of these people, but have found them to be reliable and honest.

Printers and Publishers
BlitzPrint www.blitzprint.com
CreateSpace (Amazon)  www.createspace.com
Our Little Books www.ourlittlebooks.com
Polished Publishing Group  www.polishedpublishinggroup.com

Editors
www.thewritesupport.com
send me an email for others

Cover Design
 send me an email

Illustrators
Janice Blaine

Layout
send me an email

Distribution
Sandhill


E-Book and Digital platforms
Kindle Direct
Smashwords


Portrait Photographer
Insight Photography

Videographer
Jillian Lee

Word of Mouth and Relationship Marketing
Theresa de Grosbois


Workshop and Meeting promotion
send me an email

If you contact any of these organizations, mention my name. I doubt that you will get any discount but it makes me look good...maybe you too.

CREATE A BEST SELLING TITLE

THE 7 STEPS TO A BESTSELLING TITLE

This is an excerpt from my book THE ONE HOUR AUTHOR: non-fiction book writing for busy people, that shows aspiring authors how to create a non-fiction book and guide them from the thinking and planning process to the fully prepared manuscript.

Bestselling non-fiction books have several common characteristics, but the title is arguably the most important of these because the potential buyer will be drawn to your subject and your solutions, information and opinions, or not. Today, many non-fiction books are offered in an e-book format only and other than the marketing material, there is very little to differentiate your offering from the many others available. So, that leaves us with the title and leaves you with the task of creating one that exhibits as many of these winning characteristics as possible.

I suggest that you read through and make a list of ideas that pop into your mind as you are doing so. Often, it is the first thought that is the most powerful and successful.

Having a working title near the beginning of your project helps you as the writer to stay on focus and so this will be a good time to introduce you to the seven characteristics of an excellent title.

1. Juxtaposition - this is more important if your book is going to be found on a traditional bookstore shelf. The books that stand out have titles that do not seem to fit on the shelf the buyer is looking at. The potential buyer walks into a store looking for something on Italian cooking and on the shelf with the other cookbooks, they cannot help but notice one with a title that just does not seem to fit.

“You put WHAT in the Sauce?” is probably more attention getting than “Cooking Italian.”  The point is to get noticed enough to have the potential reader pick up your book instead of the one next to it.

2. Address the issue, problem or need that you are writing about. Give the reader the opportunity to know what you are writing about - nothing cutesy, but at least one word in the title should mention your topic. This might be in the sub title rather than the main one.

3. Keywords - once again we talk about search engine optimization but if you can possibly get a few search-able words connected to your main topic, it will go a long way toward being found in the various search engines and databases. There is much more to this science than we are going to cover here and it takes much more than just a word or two in the title, but that will at least support your further efforts to create and locate your audience. Do not get carried away in this need for SEO but simply be aware, especially if you intend to self publish.

4. Promise - your title should inform potential readers of something they will stop doing, start doing or start doing differently as a result of reading your book. This is why your audience will buy your book, because they want something as a payoff for their hard-earned dollars. They will pay for your book in exchange for receiving a benefit for themselves. There are personal benefits to reading an altruistic book that offers world change because it makes the reader feel better, even though they might not personally benefit.

5. Tease the reader with something provocative, eye catching, controversial, shocking, humorous, unexpected, and challenging or over the top in the title. You are seeking attention in the face of thousands of other titles that are competing with you. Some authors have had great success with NURDS. This is the art of creating a word that does not exist but mashes other words into a new one - sometimes it will even enter the language if the book is very successful. e.g.. Freakenomics or a word that is totally unfamiliar like, Outliers.

6. Alliteration or rhyme will help the title roll off the readers tongue; helps make it repeatable and memorable. Be careful here because, depending on your topic, a cutesy title could easily work against you. You will want to test this idea with an objective advisor or two before you commit to it.

7. No superfluous words. Keep the title as tight as you can, try using a verb or action word in the title - some recent releases use just one verb as the main title and rely on the sub title or the author’s name to carry the day. This is not a hard and fast rule since there are many exceptions that have long titles, but the first couple of words are the key to remembering the book.

bonus: try to work numbers into the title if you can such as, the 5 habits, the 7 secrets, the 3 most important...  You get the idea; it is part of the promise that you, as the author, are making to the reader and you are telling them what to expect as a result of reading your book. This has worked very well for some multi-million selling books and it might for yours, too.

The bottom line is that you will not be able to work all of these characteristics into your title, but the more you can use, the better chance you will have of being noticed. The idea is to encourage your potential reader to take your book off the shelf, examine the cover and decide to investigate further.

And just one last word of caution, if you are going to sell your book to a traditional publisher, they will have the final say on any title. Spend some time in your local bookstore perusing the titles both in your genre and outside and see if some ideas start to occur to you.