Writing to be Read, Speaking to be Heard

I am speaking tomorrow (Saturday, 05/26) at the California Writers Club in Fremont on the Devry College campus, 6600 Dumbarton Circle,(rm 223) . All are welcome. I think I’m talking about The Accidental Activist and why I see ‘Fiction as a Vehicle to Social Justice.’

Often, however, the talk turns at some point to craft and book promotion. Last Friday I offered a list of books that colleagues have highlighted as being instrumental in improving their craft as writers. One of the groups that I facilitate is the monthly California Writers Club – Berkeley Branch Marketing group. We come together each month prior to the general meeting and focus on a topic that one of the members has prepared.

At one of those meetings, a businesswoman suggested that we each decide on a marketing model that suits our books and our own personalities. I’ve read a number of books and they definitely change with the times. I would like to point out three which. apart from anything else, are very recent and most up-to-date with an industry that changes almost monthly.

Get Published Today! An Insider’s Guide to Publishing – Penny C. Sansevieri.

I have often shared my enthusiasm for reading from my kindle, but this time I must admit to feeling frustrated. I don’t seem able to flick forward or refer back with ease. This might be me, and if you are an e-reader expert, please share a few tips in the comments below.

Ms. Sanservieri comes from the industry but is astute enough to acknowledge the inevitable changes happening all around us. She does this with commendable objectivity, and also approaches Print on Demand in a similar way.

How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months – John Locke

This book has inspired me. The guy comes with an attitude, but he has valid claim to having earned it. He writes very clearly and succinctly and shares his model in simple step-by-step methods. Be warned. Despite the title, I do not believe this is a get-rich-quick scheme, and have no doubt that Mr. Locke works hard and invested money to expedite the process. Still if I only sell a million books in five years, I will be very appreciative of Locke sharing his success.

Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (Smashwords Guides) – Mark Coker

If anyone understands eBook business it is Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, one of the few successful publishing stories of recent years not to include ‘Amazon’ in its title.

All three books have been published in the past 12 months,and can be purchased for less that $15 together (eBooks). Not a bad investment for a burgeoning business.  Now please excuse me. I have some books to read.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/ and on Twitter (@alonshalevsf).

Wanted: A New Publishing Model

The world is changing, and the publishing world perhaps faster than most other businesses. No one seems to be questioning the emergence of the ebook revolution (unlike global warming). It is now accepted that ebooks are providing an appealing purchasing option (and environmental sustainability) that is proving hugely attractive, both to young people (on techno-life support) and older people (who can either change the size of the font or listen to the book read to them).

The ease with which one can now ePublish a book, often without any financial investment whatsoever, has meant that anyone can throw up a book without honing their craft, or having their book suitably edited. Buoyed by the success of a few leading individuals, people are throwing together series’ that will hopefully build a following and declaring themselves authors.

 The problem with this ePublishing is that it is difficult to distinguish between those who have worked hard to create a good novel learning and respecting all the legitimate components and those who have not. Many books are riddled with spelling and grammar errors, plot issues, or flaws in character development. In fact, according to Penny C. Sansevieri (Get Published Now), only 1% of independent books published reach the industry editorial standards.

This model serves no one: not the reader, the serious author, or the fly-by-nighters. The reader, even when paying only $0.99 or $2.99, can feel that their money and time have been wasted. The genuine craftsman/craftswoman can’t get him/herself noticed among the mass of ebooks, and the fly-by-nighters get frustrated because they fail to build a following and rake in the royalties.

It is a lose:lose model when it should be exactly the opposite.

Most of those writers involved are not interested (or not good enough) to be picked up by agents and conventional publishers. The time span (often 18 months in production), the lack of marketing help, and the inevitable withdrawal of books that don’t reach performance level in a few short months, doesn’t make the conventional model any the more appealing. John Locke, in his must-read book, lays it out succinctly.

John Locke

We, the authors, need to set our own boundaries and standards, to ensure that readers retain faith in the model and are willing to invest their time and money in a new author.

 One way that this can be achieved is through author coops. Authors can join together within genres, edit each other’s work, and market within their niche as a group. Each coop establishes it’s level of craft and marketing. Perhaps the group tithes a percentage of their earnings towards marketing as a group.

If there is a holy trinity of website, blog and twitter as Locke advocates, how much more effective would this be if five authors were expanding this platform in a coordinated fashion?

It would be a tragedy if the ebook revolution faltered because of lack of quality. The technology is good for all readers (except those who read in the bathtub), for the planet, and may well force the conventional publishing world to change their own way of doing business.

Anyone out there writing political fiction and interested?

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/ and on Twitter (@alonshalevsf).

YA Market and the E-book Revolution

I have entered my Young Adult epic fantasy novel into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. My plan is if I do fall at some point to send submissions to about 20 agents and try to publish in the conventional way.

If this does not succeed, I assumed that I would then join the e-book revolution and hope to create enough splash to be picked up in the footsteps of Amanda Hocking and J.A. Konrath. I have read closely John Locke’s successful business model and would love to try it.

But today something hit me. Do young adults (10-18 year old) – my primary market for my epic fantasy series – read their books on e-Readers?

Laura Hazard Owen recently wrote: “The children’s and young adult e-book market faces special challenges not shared by the adult market, new research shows. And teens are slow to adopt e-books, in part because they do not see e-books as a social technology and they think there are too many restrictions on sharing digital titles.”

She reached her conclusion based on two online surveys commissioned by  PubTrack Consumer towards the end of last year who surveyed 1,000 teenagers and 1,000 parents of pre-teens. The details of the survey can be found here –  “Children’s Publishing Goes Digital.”

There are some interesting theories and statistics here. Firstly, youngsters are extremely social and want to share their books with friends and e-book technology is perceived as too restrictive. I thought that perhaps the teens did not have access to comfortable e-book readers. The majority has cell phones, but I am not including this. 60% of those surveyed receive technology from their parents as the latter upgrade.

Ms. Hazard Owen makes another excellent point It is not just young adults propelling YA books like the Hunger Games trilogy onto e-book bestseller lists:

– 30-44-year-olds constitute 28 % of YA print book sales and 32 % of YA e-book sales. -18-29-year-olds buy the most YA books, purchasing 31% of YA print sales and 35% of YA e-book sales.

Making a decision to invest in the YA fantasy e-book market doesn’t look as attractive as for genres aimed at adults, but this is going to change as more young people receive the necessary devices. Also, the realization that the YA market goes not from 12-18, but 12-44 year olds make for a more encouraging prospect.

A final interesting point is that this age group is more likely to buy a book because of a recommendation on a social network.

Now, please excuse me, this 47-year-old is going to read The Hunger Games, recommended to me by my 13-year-old son.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/ and on Twitter (@alonshalevsf).

Amanda Hocking Joins Elite Group

Amazon.com have just announced that Amanda Hocking has joined the Kindle Million Club. She joins Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins, Michael Connelly, John Locke, Kathryn Stockett, Janet Evanovich, George R.R. Martin, David Baldacci, and Stephenie Meyer.

Amanda Hocking

Amanda, together with John Locke, sold most of her books herself through self-publishing, then working incessantly to promote them online. Hocking, still in her 20’s, is now the best-selling author of 10 books, including the My Blood Approves series and the Trylle Trilogy. The latter has been optioned for movies.

When asked, Hocking paid tribute to her readers, thanking them for their support. She also praised Amazon for creating the Kindle platform. This is humble and welcoming, but I have been following Ms. Hocking’s blog, and she reached this landmark by tenacious belief and hard work.

Beautiful Covers - We share the same cover designer.

Congratulations, Amanda Hocking.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/ and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).

Amazon Challenges Publishers Pt.2

This is a continuation of Friday’s post, a further examination of Amazon’s new approach to woo authors.

Barry Eisler, who turned down an attractive offer from St. Martin’s Press, and is publishing his new book himself through amazon is not deterred by the claim that he is restricting his audience by only publishing for Kindle readers. Eisler states that his book will be available without DRM (digital rights management) and therefore it can be read on any e-book reader, including the Nook and the Kobo. Many of us have, in addition to publishing through amazon, also published through the successful Bay Area start up Smashwords which I discussed a while ago on Left Coast Voices.

More telling, Eisler can sell his book at a low and attractive price for a broader audience. With a traditional publisher,  a hardcover would cost $25, and astonishing in my opinion, an ebook for as much as $13. “Availability six months earlier and at half the price seems like a pretty good deal for readers to me,” Eisler added and you can see his point.

This new strategy  between amazon and authors such as Eisler, or popular author Tim Ferriss, is a hard blow for traditional publishers. They had been more than tolerant with writers such as Amanda Hocking who created their fan base outside of the traditional framework only for a publisher to step in and help both the author and publisher profit. This new strategy, however, is pulling popular writers such as Ferriss and Eisler away from traditional publishing world.

In the process, Amazon is making the rest of the traditional industry look out-dated, inefficient, and profit-driven. If they are to woo such authors, they must shorten their publication process which is glacial in comparison to Amazon. They also need to understand that their price structure is antiquated in the face of technology.

I do not think that all is lost, however. Many of these emerging authors are businessmen and women and extremely pragmatic. Read John Locke’s new book as a case in point. 

As Eisler puts it: “My objectives were to make more money from the title, to get the digital out first, and to retain more control over business decisions. If a better way comes along … of course I’m going to take it. Publishing for me is a business, not an ideology.”

The market is such that an author will take a publishing deal if it is lucrative enough. If it is not, however, they might decide to look for other options and Amazon is ready to welcome then in. The ball is in the court of the major publishers. They need to adapt fast or risk joining the dinosaurs.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/ and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).

Locked Down

As mentioned previously, my weekend blog post relates to what is happening in either my own or the writing world in general.

I have already blogged about John Locke, congratulating him for becoming the first self-published author to sell one million ebooks. Now Locke has decided to share his business model in a new book – How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! – and it is a great read for anyone in the business.

Locke is an entrepreneur and has already made his money in other ways. He seemed to take as much satisfaction from proving his sales model as he did from writing his novels. In fact when someone commented that it was easier for him because he chose a popular genre (detective), Locke went and wrote two Western novels (considered the most difficult genre to sell) and applied his model to marketing these books.

John Locke

 

I’m not going to give everything away here as Locke deserves your $3 for sharing his ideas. But I do want to focus on one important aspect that is the basis for any measure of success – identifying your target audience.

Who are the people that buy your books? I mean the audience who will consistently purchase, enjoy and recommend your book at the water cooler the following day. In May, a colleague of mine, JoAnn Smith Ainsworth led a workshop on creating a business plan for authors. She also stressed the need to identify your target audience and it was surprising how, even after JoAnn explained why this is important, so many of the participants were resistant to the assumption that everyone wants to read their novels.

JoAnn Smith Ainsworth writes historical romance.

I am spending quite some time defining the characteristics of my target audience and it is not easy. Who are the people that get excited about social injustices in fictional form? What is the profile of the reader drawn to characters who go through a transformational process?

If you have a moment, please help me out here. Whether you are one of my target audience or not, please leave a profile of the sort of person I should be focusing my marketing efforts in the comments below.

On another note: Happy Birthday, Dad – 86 years old today and can still out-foxtrot most on the dance floor.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).

Author Update and Question

The beginning of the month is a good time for a progress report: what is working and what needs tweaking. It is an exciting period of time coming up.

Will be re-released as an ebook in October

A Gardener’s Tale has been professionally edited and, like a middle aged, overweight individual who has let things go in the last decade (no analogies please), is returning leaner and tighter. The novel has lost weight, some 7,000 words in fact, but still retains the plot and characters.  A Gardener’s Tale will be released later this month as an ebook, in time for…

The Virtual Book Tour kicks off in November. There are eighteen stops along the way with interviews, guest appearances, and reviews being organized under the professional auspices of Premier Virtual Author Book Tours. This is a whole new territory for me and I am excited to see how it goes. My publisher, Three Clover Press, has three authors doing this over the next few months, so it will be a fascinating to see the comparison. One interesting facet in the obvious comparison to traditional book tours is the fact that these appearances will stay on the Internet.  I will learn more about this in the next week and keep you posted.

Unwanted Heroes has been submitted to the publisher and will be released in the new year. Now it is time to focus on book covers and the promotional release. Since I envisage Unwanted Heroes as the first in a series of books revolving around many of the same characters and staying in San Francisco, I am becoming excited at the idea of introducing you to the main characters. They are going to be around for a few years and  hopefully you will become good friends.

I wrote back in August about John Locke who became the first independent author to sell one million ebooks. I just read his latest book in which he analyses his success.  One of the key components of his strategy is to clearly define who his target audience is.

John Locke - 1 million ebooks sold.

This has me thinking. Who are the people reading my social justice novels? I would like to create a clear profile of ‘my readers.’ Could you help me with this? Please leave a character profile of yourself or someone who you would recommend my books to. What are your or your friends’ attributes and demographics? When you imagine someone sitting in a coffee shop reading The Accidental Activist or Unwanted Heroes, how would you describe them?

You didn’t expect homework did you? Still, there is only a pass grade and a very grateful author marking your work.  

Seriously though, thank you for all your help and support.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).

The New MidListers

Yesterday I highlighted John Locke as a successful ebook author who has sold more than 1 million ebooks. Along with Amanda Hocking and J.R.Konrath, they are the Grishams and Pattersons of the new book reality. Thinking gof this made me wonder whether there is an emerging ‘midlist’ in the ebook jungle. Gotta love Google – I came across “The New Midlist: Self-published E-book Authors Who Earn a Living” by Robin Sullivan.

Amanda Hocking - leading the charge.

Ms. Sullivan suggests that this is in fact the case and that these authors are able to generate income because of the high royalties. The traditional book model (the terms offered by the big six publishers) offers 25% royalty on net sales of ebooks. But Amazon.com offers 35% for books up to $2.99 and a whooping 70% for books that sell between $2.99 and $9.99.

The trick is to leverage the Internet to generate high volume sales that are attracted because of the price is allowing more self-published and small press e-book authors to receive five and six figure yearly incomes. Many of these authors are able to leave their day jobs and make a living by doing what they love most–writing.

Michale Sullivan - leading the mid-listers

Ms. Sullivan runs a small press, Ridan Publishing. Her husband, Michael J. Sullivan, has six books published. From January to September 2010, his income averaged just over $1,500 a month or around $10,700 in total (Amazon US Kindle sales only). Once he hit the tipping point  he earned more than $102,000 in just five months. For details on his monthly income see the following chart:

A quick glance at Writer’s Café (a section of the Kindle Boards forums), shows that Michael’s sales increase is not an isolated phenomena.  The following graph shines light on the number of authors who sold at least 800 books a month (Data provided on Kindle Board).

Ms. Sullivan estimated the income of several of these authors according to the sales and book price data that the authors were posting on the Kindle Boards for one month.

• Michael J. Sullivan — $16,648
• Ellen Fisher — $3,915
• Siebel Hodge — $15,425
• N. Gemini Sasson – $4,222
• David McAfee — $6,085
• David Dalglish — $12,132
• Victorine Lieskie — $7,281
• M. H. Sergent — $4,211
• Nathan Lowell — $9,296

What I found interesting is that only Victorine Lieskie, from among those listed above, ever had a book that made the Amazon Top 100 Bestseller List. The other authors are selling at least 800 books a month.

It is possible to live the author’s life.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).

Author Sells One Million Ebooks

On Monday, June 20th, 2011, Amazon.com have recently announced that crime novelist John Locke has become the first independent author to sell more than one million ebooks through Kindle’s Direct Publishing program,

1 million ebooks sold - so much for needing an agent and publisher?

Locke points  to his $0.99 pricing model as a major influence and has self-published nine novels through the Kindle Store, including New York Times bestselling ebook Saving Rachel, as well as his first non-fiction title, How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months. He has six novels in the Amazon Top 100 and has coveted the No. 1 spot.

A line of books seems essential to make serious money in this climate

Locke has never been signed by a traditional agent or publisher. He joins seven other authors, including Stieg Larsson and Nora Roberts, in the “Kindle Million Club.” Locke sells his books for $1 and makes 35 cents per book. That is hard for me to fathom – selling the books I have sweated and toiled on for at least a year, but I can’t question that it works.

Along with Amanda Hocking and J. A Konrath, Locke is creating a new reality in the ever-evolving book world. They all create a system, work hard to achieve their goals, and are now reaping the benefits. The rest of us would be foolish to ignore them.

Good luck to them.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).