Snowbooks is one of the UK’s publishing’s success stories. It’s a thriving independent publisher with a solid reputation for publishing strong titles and selling them in high numbers (the covers are beautiful, too). It's got a great blog, too. Here Emma Barnes, Snowbooks’ co-founder, discusses her very effective approach to marketing and promotion.
One of the interesting things about being a small publisher is that we can see the direct effect of every piece of marketing activity that we do. In larger companies, where there’s a medium-sized budget for a title, there might be a series of interviews and signing sessions, an online ad campaign, an SMS campaign, a series of ads in women’s magazines, a print run of in-store posters, a fund for co-op promotional spend, and a run of pre-publication proofs for endorsers, reviewers, reading groups and prize-winners to enjoy. If the book does well, who’s to say which bit of marketing worked? For our titles, most pieces of marketing activity are usually standalone. If something works, we can usually tell so easily, without the noise of other activities to confuse matters.
So, for instance, when we took out a £600 ad in a popular publication for The London Scene, a collection of Virginia Woolf essays featuring a never-before-seen sketch, it was easy to see that it had had no effect whatsoever when sales remained at a steady rate. When an extract from that self-same book scored a double-page spread in the Guardian’s G2 section, and sales remained static, we could divine the value of that, too. However, when the book subsequently featured in a high street retailer’s promotion, and shifted 4000 copies in a six month period, we knew that we were on to something.
Since then we’ve often experimented with ads and review coverage, because the received wisdom is that PR, reviews and coverage sell books. Maybe it’s just us, but we have yet to find much empirical evidence to support that proposition. Last summer, for instance, we were lucky enough to receive, as part of a deal we’d done, a free full page of ad space in a leading men’s magazine, worth £50,000 if you look at the rate card. I designed a perfectly lovely advert for a book perfectly tailored to that market. Sales didn’t budge at all. When that book got a core stock rating in a leading high street retailer, however, we sold 150 copies in one week.
My point? Retailers sell books, not marketing. Am I right? I’m right as far as Snowbooks is concerned – I have the data to prove it. There is, however, something in the idea that spending a sufficient amount of money will certainly get people’s attention. A Tube ad campaign, for instance, would have to be very poor if it didn’t sell some books. My question would be whether enough books are sold as a result of the marketing activity to pay for the activity in question. There’s also a strange phenomenon about having to spend money on consumer marketing in order to persuade retailers that you are serious so that they promote your title, although I’ve never come across the need for such complicated manoeuvrings myself. And even when PR does sell some books, the costs and time of hiring the PR agency or lunching contacts on a regular basis are often much greater than the promotional charges levied by retailers to achieve the same result.
By the way, when I make comments like these, the first response is always ‘but I buy books based on reviews and so on’. Yes, but look what you’re doing. You’re reading a blog about how publishing works. You are an interested party; someone with an above-average interest in books and the business of selling them. Your behaviour is not representative of the book-buying public as a whole.
If the findings for Snowbooks held true for the whole industry, what would that mean? It would mean budgets should be realigned away from ads and towards retailer activity. It means relationships with retailers should be seen as the most important part of the publishing process. It means the acknowledgement by agents, authors and publishers of the role of the retailer as gatekeeper to the reader. Who knows how differently we’d all behave if we took a fresh look at what retailers achieve.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Thursday, 26 February 2009
What Is A Synopsis For?
A synopsis is selling-tool, which shows editors and agents that you can write well and that you know how to structure a book.
A synopsis, therefore, has to entertain and inform. What it shouldn’t do is intrigue. If you don’t give away your book’s ending in your synopsis then how will anyone you have submitted to know if you can construct a water-tight plot?
A synopsis, therefore, has to entertain and inform. What it shouldn’t do is intrigue. If you don’t give away your book’s ending in your synopsis then how will anyone you have submitted to know if you can construct a water-tight plot?
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
How Mainstream Publishers Could Make Money Out Of Their Slushpiles
(Or, Perhaps I Live In Cloud Cuckoo Land)
How could a mainstream commercial publisher make a POD, accept-anything imprint work without acting unethically and attracting criticism?
The publisher would have to be absolutely honest about the problems that its POD authors would face, and make it clear that they were very unlikely to sell more than a handful of books each.
The publisher would have to provide lots of information and support for all its writers: details about booksellers' discounts, promotional and selling techniques, and editing resources. All this could be done via a website, tied in with a message-board open to all where writers could discuss their endeavours and network to create joint sales and marketing opportunities.
It would help all sorts of writers get published who didn't have the ability or expertise to be published in any other way.
Some of those who took part might well do very well, in which case they could reconsider submitting their books for commercial publication, and the editorial, sales and marketing support that goes with it.
The volume of the slush pile would reduce, the submission-response times would improve, and many mainstream publishers might well reopen their doors to unagented submissions.
How could a mainstream commercial publisher make a POD, accept-anything imprint work without acting unethically and attracting criticism?
The publisher would be wise to enforce a strict "previous rejections required" policy when accepting books for POD publication, in order to ensure that the books which might have an excellent chance of commercial success were still published through the usual channels.
There are more details which would have to be considered, such as the possibility of recommending paid-for editorial services (and here the publishers' successful writers could opt in to provide a freelance service—I bet that many would welcome the extra money); cover designs (a standard template which was colour-coded according to genre could be used, unless the author provided their own); and the possibility of providing some sales and marketing support for selected books, and the scheme as a whole.
There'd be a conflict of interests if publishers referred the writers it rejected direct to their own POD imprints: but if several publishers set up such imprints they could together fund an umbrella organisation to govern them all (which wouldn’t take much—a carefully-researched website, plenty of information and resources, and someone to respond to queries), and refer rejected writers to that organisation for advice. This organisation could run much like the UK's Society of Authors: it would provide all interested writers with information about the problems inherent in publishing books with no editorial, marketing or sales support, in order to reinforce the message that this was not a route to billionaire-status; and it would add an extra layer of assurance that the writers knew what they were getting into.
What would this sort of scheme achieve?
Discuss.
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
The Bookseller Blog: How Self-Publishing Really Works
I have another piece up on The Bookseller blog today called "How Self-Publishing Really Works" (catchy title, don't you think?), in which I discuss the differences between self-publishing and vanity publishing. I'll be posting something similar here in a week or two but I'd really like it if you'd comment over at The Bookseller in the meantime.
Special Orders: Why You Have To Pay In Advance
Suppose that a customer walks into a bookshop and asks the bookseller to order her a copy of a book that the bookseller has never heard of: and that when the bookseller looks the book up, he finds that it was published by a vanity publisher which is notorious for publishing terrible books at horrible prices. What do you think he's going to do?
The well-informed bookseller is going to demand that payment is made for the book before he actually orders it—otherwise the book is likely to never be collected and could end up sitting on the shelves for years, at the bookseller's expense.
You can read about just such a case here.
The well-informed bookseller is going to demand that payment is made for the book before he actually orders it—otherwise the book is likely to never be collected and could end up sitting on the shelves for years, at the bookseller's expense.
You can read about just such a case here.
Monday, 23 February 2009
Personalised Rejections
Very few editors or agents personalise all of the rejections they send out: most rejections are made by a form letter, with no detail or comment.
When work shows particular promise but still isn't quite right, then sometimes an agent or editor concerned will write a little note explaining exactly why it has been rejected. Perhaps it's too similar to another book that’s just been signed; perhaps it's an unfamiliar genre; or perhaps it's not quite good enough for publication yet, and needs further work to get it there. But why don't agents and editors do this for every rejection? A couple of lines don't take up too much time; surely it's not too much to ask? (If you think that last is true, then read Emma Darwin's comments here for some new insight on the practicalities involved.)
Editors and agents earn their living from the books that are published, not from the books that they reject; and the ever-replenishing vastness of the slush pile means that if they did personalise every rejection they sent they’d never get anything else done and would be out of business before the month was up.
Assuming, however, that our agent or editor has time available for these things, could anything they have to say be useful to those rejected writers? The majority of the books in the slush pile are so bad that it would be impossible to know quite where to start in order to explain why they were rejected. If an agent were to write, "I've rejected your book because it is dreadful in every way," would that be of any more help to the writer on the receiving end than a form rejection? The writers who are likely to receive such rejections are also unlikely to believe them: what good would it do?
Some writers see any personalisation as an invitation to develop a deeper relationship with the person who rejected their work: they’ll argue that their work has been misunderstood, or that more of it needs to be read in order to fully appreciate its many finer points. Or they might write back just to insult the person who rejected the work (I wonder what writers think will be gained by this behaviour: do they hope to change someone’s mind just by insulting them?). But there’s a more worrying side to this, and it’s one I have first-had experience of. A writer I once sent a personalised rejection to ended up stalking me. He sent me more and more submissions; phoned me every hour; and ended up sending in photos of me arriving at work in the mornings, going out for lunch, and taking the bus home. Now, that was scary stuff and I know of a couple of other editors have faced this too. Like me, they switched to form rejections for just about everything as a result.
When work shows particular promise but still isn't quite right, then sometimes an agent or editor concerned will write a little note explaining exactly why it has been rejected. Perhaps it's too similar to another book that’s just been signed; perhaps it's an unfamiliar genre; or perhaps it's not quite good enough for publication yet, and needs further work to get it there. But why don't agents and editors do this for every rejection? A couple of lines don't take up too much time; surely it's not too much to ask? (If you think that last is true, then read Emma Darwin's comments here for some new insight on the practicalities involved.)
Editors and agents earn their living from the books that are published, not from the books that they reject; and the ever-replenishing vastness of the slush pile means that if they did personalise every rejection they sent they’d never get anything else done and would be out of business before the month was up.
Assuming, however, that our agent or editor has time available for these things, could anything they have to say be useful to those rejected writers? The majority of the books in the slush pile are so bad that it would be impossible to know quite where to start in order to explain why they were rejected. If an agent were to write, "I've rejected your book because it is dreadful in every way," would that be of any more help to the writer on the receiving end than a form rejection? The writers who are likely to receive such rejections are also unlikely to believe them: what good would it do?
Some writers see any personalisation as an invitation to develop a deeper relationship with the person who rejected their work: they’ll argue that their work has been misunderstood, or that more of it needs to be read in order to fully appreciate its many finer points. Or they might write back just to insult the person who rejected the work (I wonder what writers think will be gained by this behaviour: do they hope to change someone’s mind just by insulting them?). But there’s a more worrying side to this, and it’s one I have first-had experience of. A writer I once sent a personalised rejection to ended up stalking me. He sent me more and more submissions; phoned me every hour; and ended up sending in photos of me arriving at work in the mornings, going out for lunch, and taking the bus home. Now, that was scary stuff and I know of a couple of other editors have faced this too. Like me, they switched to form rejections for just about everything as a result.
Sunday, 22 February 2009
Snowsales
The rather lovely independent publisher Snowbooks is now publishing details of sales and returns on its new(ish) Snowsales blog.
Do you want to know how many copies of each title Snowbooks sold in December? How many returns bookshops made the following month? Or which bookshops return copies of a book one day, only to reorder them again a few days later (and what the environmental and business implications of this silly shilly-shallying really are)? It's all there. Each blog post takes the form of an overview with a spreadsheet attached, which you can download and examine at your leisure
All you have to do to read all this fascinating stuff is email Emma Barnes and ask for a password, so she knows who has access to her sales information. You can find out everything you need to know here.
Do you want to know how many copies of each title Snowbooks sold in December? How many returns bookshops made the following month? Or which bookshops return copies of a book one day, only to reorder them again a few days later (and what the environmental and business implications of this silly shilly-shallying really are)? It's all there. Each blog post takes the form of an overview with a spreadsheet attached, which you can download and examine at your leisure
All you have to do to read all this fascinating stuff is email Emma Barnes and ask for a password, so she knows who has access to her sales information. You can find out everything you need to know here.
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Friday, 20 February 2009
Droplifting
I've seen several people suggest that droplifting is a good way for writers to promote their self-published books: but I think it's a terrible idea.
Droplifting is shoplifting in reverse and involves surreptitiously leaving copies of books on bookshop shelves in the hope that someone will buy them. The obvious problem is that while the books will physically be in the bookshop, they won't have a virtual presence in the bookshop's computer system and so if they ever do reach the checkout, the cashier will be unable to sell them. If there's a manager on hand to authorise the deal the shop will probably just give the books away: if there's no manager available the books will be put to one side and will probably end up in the recycling bin or dumped with the sale items. But as booksellers tend to be aware of their own stock, chances are that one of the shop workers will spot the droplifted books on the shelves, recognise that they shouldn't be there, and dispose of them within hours of their deposit.
How ever this is worked, the writer loses money. How does the writer benefit? And what on earth do they think they will achieve by doing this?
ETA: Marian Perera, over at Flights of Fantasy, has written a much better piece than mine about droplifting, which you can read here. Thank you for the link, Marian!
Droplifting is shoplifting in reverse and involves surreptitiously leaving copies of books on bookshop shelves in the hope that someone will buy them. The obvious problem is that while the books will physically be in the bookshop, they won't have a virtual presence in the bookshop's computer system and so if they ever do reach the checkout, the cashier will be unable to sell them. If there's a manager on hand to authorise the deal the shop will probably just give the books away: if there's no manager available the books will be put to one side and will probably end up in the recycling bin or dumped with the sale items. But as booksellers tend to be aware of their own stock, chances are that one of the shop workers will spot the droplifted books on the shelves, recognise that they shouldn't be there, and dispose of them within hours of their deposit.
How ever this is worked, the writer loses money. How does the writer benefit? And what on earth do they think they will achieve by doing this?
ETA: Marian Perera, over at Flights of Fantasy, has written a much better piece than mine about droplifting, which you can read here. Thank you for the link, Marian!
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Reverse-End Vanity Publishing
There are vanity publishers out there which insist that they are not vanity publishers because they don't charge their writers anything for publication. PublishAmerica, a notorious reverse vanity publisher, even pays its authors a token advance of one dollar in an attempt to signify its good intent.
As is so often the case, all is not necessarily what it appears.
A vanity publisher is one which makes the majority of its money from its authors, rather than from selling its books on to new readers. Ordinary vanity publishers do this by charging their writers fees upfront for publication, and often making further charges of extras that they consider optional, like editing, design, press release writing and distribution and so on—all of which are done as standard and for free by reputable mainstream publishers.
So how can a publisher which charges no upfront fees be considered a vanity press? Especially when, like PublishAmerica, it pays its authors an advance? Simple.
Instead of charging of those upfront fees, our reverse-end vanity publisher gets its authors to pay after the event, usually by persuading them to buy copies of their own books for resale, often at inflated prices. PublishAmerica does very well out of this business model: at the last count it claimed it had signed up over 35,000 happy writers. No wonder PublishAmerica’s CEO Willem Meiners can afford to fly a helicopter.
As is so often the case, all is not necessarily what it appears.
A vanity publisher is one which makes the majority of its money from its authors, rather than from selling its books on to new readers. Ordinary vanity publishers do this by charging their writers fees upfront for publication, and often making further charges of extras that they consider optional, like editing, design, press release writing and distribution and so on—all of which are done as standard and for free by reputable mainstream publishers.
So how can a publisher which charges no upfront fees be considered a vanity press? Especially when, like PublishAmerica, it pays its authors an advance? Simple.
Instead of charging of those upfront fees, our reverse-end vanity publisher gets its authors to pay after the event, usually by persuading them to buy copies of their own books for resale, often at inflated prices. PublishAmerica does very well out of this business model: at the last count it claimed it had signed up over 35,000 happy writers. No wonder PublishAmerica’s CEO Willem Meiners can afford to fly a helicopter.
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Cutting The Slush Pile Down To Size
The slush-pile is an ever-present sea of despair. Some writers wallow about in it for years, while editors avoid it's depressing claggy depths. Most of the books it contains have no hope of ever being published by a mainstream publishing house; and yet their writers are so determined to be published that they submit their work repeatedly, racking up the volume of the slush pile and making it even harder for agents and editors to discover the few commercially-publishable works that the slush-pile contains.
If the books which stood no chance of commercial publication were removed from the heap, the submissions system would be transformed: volume would be reduced and response times could be improved; and the big publishing houses might just well reopen their doors to unsolicited manuscripts.
How could this be achieved? First, by writers taking more care with their submissions by editing their work more carefully, and by ensuring that they submit only to appropriate markets; and then by the provision of an ethical alternative route into publishing for the manuscripts which are commercially unpublishable.
I’ll be discussing that last point in greater detail soon.
If the books which stood no chance of commercial publication were removed from the heap, the submissions system would be transformed: volume would be reduced and response times could be improved; and the big publishing houses might just well reopen their doors to unsolicited manuscripts.
How could this be achieved? First, by writers taking more care with their submissions by editing their work more carefully, and by ensuring that they submit only to appropriate markets; and then by the provision of an ethical alternative route into publishing for the manuscripts which are commercially unpublishable.
I’ll be discussing that last point in greater detail soon.
Editors On Facebook Discuss Difficult Authors
A discussion on Facebook has irritated a few author-friends of mine. I've been sent a link to this ongoing discussion and, while the editors involved think it's funny, not one of the writers who have seen it seem to be laughing.
I'm not going to tell you which side I'm on because then I'll upset everybody. Just click the link and work it out for yourself. You'll need a Facebook account to be able to read it.
I'm not going to tell you which side I'm on because then I'll upset everybody. Just click the link and work it out for yourself. You'll need a Facebook account to be able to read it.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
YouWriteOn and The Bookseller Blog
Last week, I was invited to write a response to a piece on The Bookseller Blog about YouWriteOn's publishing scheme. My contribution has just gone up, and you can read it here.
Many thanks to all of you who provided information and helped with the research: naturally, I'm not going to out any of you here but you know who you are and your help is much appreciated.
I have two more pieces due to appear there over the next couple of weeks: they which discuss vanity publishing, self-publishing, and the growing involvement of mainstream publishers in such schemes. I'll provide links when they appear.
Many thanks to all of you who provided information and helped with the research: naturally, I'm not going to out any of you here but you know who you are and your help is much appreciated.
I have two more pieces due to appear there over the next couple of weeks: they which discuss vanity publishing, self-publishing, and the growing involvement of mainstream publishers in such schemes. I'll provide links when they appear.
Trios: Stories From Publishing's Front Line
I'm planning a short series of contributions from other writers and would welcome your comments.
My plan is to run a series of trios of articles which examine the publication process of specific books from the viewpoints of three of the professionals involved in the books' publication. The obvious three professionals would be the writer, the agent and the editor: but I'd particularly welcome suggestions for contributions from people who work in less obvious areas, like marketing, production, royalties, rights sales, distribution, bookselling or design.
Contributions from all genres are welcome, and from as wide a variety of publishers as possible, from great big conglomerates to the tiniest of micro-presses; I'd be happy, too, to consider stories from self-published and vanity-published authors so long as they've got something interesting to say.
The pieces must inform and entertain, and examine a specific issue that has been overcome or a challenge that was met during the book’s publication process. I don't want puffery or pieces which are overtly promotional, although stories of miserable failure are as welcome as stories of great success. I'll be happy to coordinate the appearance of these pieces with specific dates; and I'd be especially pleased if a free copy or two of the book concerned could be arranged for me to give away to my readers.
If you're a writer, editor, agent or any other publishing professional interested in participating then please email me (my email address is on in the top right-hand corner of my blog): please put "HPRW trio" and your book's title in the subject line to make sure that I don't mistake your message for spam. And if you're not in a position to participate in this series yet, then let me know: are there any particular people, books or aspects of publication that you'd like to see covered here? I can't guarantee to arrange it for you, but I will do my best. And just so you know, I already have several names lined up that I'm really rather excited about.
My plan is to run a series of trios of articles which examine the publication process of specific books from the viewpoints of three of the professionals involved in the books' publication. The obvious three professionals would be the writer, the agent and the editor: but I'd particularly welcome suggestions for contributions from people who work in less obvious areas, like marketing, production, royalties, rights sales, distribution, bookselling or design.
Contributions from all genres are welcome, and from as wide a variety of publishers as possible, from great big conglomerates to the tiniest of micro-presses; I'd be happy, too, to consider stories from self-published and vanity-published authors so long as they've got something interesting to say.
The pieces must inform and entertain, and examine a specific issue that has been overcome or a challenge that was met during the book’s publication process. I don't want puffery or pieces which are overtly promotional, although stories of miserable failure are as welcome as stories of great success. I'll be happy to coordinate the appearance of these pieces with specific dates; and I'd be especially pleased if a free copy or two of the book concerned could be arranged for me to give away to my readers.
If you're a writer, editor, agent or any other publishing professional interested in participating then please email me (my email address is on in the top right-hand corner of my blog): please put "HPRW trio" and your book's title in the subject line to make sure that I don't mistake your message for spam. And if you're not in a position to participate in this series yet, then let me know: are there any particular people, books or aspects of publication that you'd like to see covered here? I can't guarantee to arrange it for you, but I will do my best. And just so you know, I already have several names lined up that I'm really rather excited about.
Trouble With Comments
I've had a few reports lately that people have had trouble posting comments on my blog. While Blogger doesn't report any issues with the comments feature I've seen similar issues reported on other blogs, and so do wonder if something's up.
I'm keen to correct this as the comments and discussions that go on here are the best part of this blog; and while the blog has been attracting a huge number of hits lately, there haven't been as many comments as I would have expected based on the viewing figures.
I've temporarily disabled the word verification feature on the comments system, which might make things a little easier: but if you still can't get your comment to go through, just email it to me at "HPRW at tesco dot net" and I'll see if I can post it myself. Remember to use a sensible subject line for your comment so I don't confuse your message for spam; and make sure you include your name, and your blog or website address if you have one, so I can add your details to your comment.
I'm keen to correct this as the comments and discussions that go on here are the best part of this blog; and while the blog has been attracting a huge number of hits lately, there haven't been as many comments as I would have expected based on the viewing figures.
I've temporarily disabled the word verification feature on the comments system, which might make things a little easier: but if you still can't get your comment to go through, just email it to me at "HPRW at tesco dot net" and I'll see if I can post it myself. Remember to use a sensible subject line for your comment so I don't confuse your message for spam; and make sure you include your name, and your blog or website address if you have one, so I can add your details to your comment.
Monday, 16 February 2009
Authonomy and Blurb
When HarperCollins’s manuscript display site Authonomy announced last month that it was going to add a self-publishing option to its site, there were some people who were not pleased. Authonomy’s implication that self-publishing could be a stepping-stone to commercial success was seen by some as misleading because, while it's true that some writers have done well by self-publishing, the majority of self-published authors flounder in relative obscurity and fail to make any significant sales.
What wasn't picked up on was Authonomy's odd choice of bed-fellow: the POD provider Blurb.
Blurb first came to most people's attention when it teamed up with Chronicle Books in 2007. Chronicle is a well-regarded mainstream publishing company with exacting standards: I know, I've edited for it (and we all know how good I am, right?). I was astonished when I heard that Chronicle was directing some of the books it rejected towards Blurb, as this seemed to me to represent a direct conflict of interests.
Blurb was set up to produce heavily illustrated books: showcases for illustrators and photographers, collations of photojournalism, and personal collections. Its focus on quality is admirable: but combine that with its bias towards full colour printing and you end up with very high unit prices which, while only to be expected for full-colour books, are simply ridiculous when applied to novels and memoirs—which is what makes up the bulk of Authonomy's members’ books. And while it’s recently set up a text option for the books it produces, I’m still waiting to be convinced that it’s the best option for Authonomy’s many members.
What wasn't picked up on was Authonomy's odd choice of bed-fellow: the POD provider Blurb.
Blurb first came to most people's attention when it teamed up with Chronicle Books in 2007. Chronicle is a well-regarded mainstream publishing company with exacting standards: I know, I've edited for it (and we all know how good I am, right?). I was astonished when I heard that Chronicle was directing some of the books it rejected towards Blurb, as this seemed to me to represent a direct conflict of interests.
Blurb was set up to produce heavily illustrated books: showcases for illustrators and photographers, collations of photojournalism, and personal collections. Its focus on quality is admirable: but combine that with its bias towards full colour printing and you end up with very high unit prices which, while only to be expected for full-colour books, are simply ridiculous when applied to novels and memoirs—which is what makes up the bulk of Authonomy's members’ books. And while it’s recently set up a text option for the books it produces, I’m still waiting to be convinced that it’s the best option for Authonomy’s many members.
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Authonomy
In the spring of 2008, HarperCollins opened the doors to Authonomy, its new online manuscript display site. I was one of the first people to test it.
Authonomy allows writers to post their writing, and to comment on each other’s work. It’s possible to post anything from a single paragraph to a complete book, although extracts of under 10,000 words remain invisible to everyone but their authors.
I’m curious why HarperCollins started Authonomy, and in this form. HarperCollins has made a big investment in the design and development of the site; and by hiding all extracts under 10,000 words they’ve made certain that the site is going to be large and flabby. As it stands they’re making no money from Authonomy: might they introduce a joining fee in the future? Or is HarperCollins treating Authonomy as its own personal electronic slush-pile? If so, I can see a few problems.
While HarperCollins claims that the best of the work posted will rise, cream like, to the surface, I’ve seen little evidence of that happening. While some of the work there is good, the work which is the most commented-upon is the work from the most active writers, regardless of its quality.
I’m not sure that it’s a good thing for writers, as the only way to get your work noticed there is to spend a great deal of time networking and promoting yourself there: and for most aspiring writers, that’s going to cut into their writing time quite hard.
There’s also the problem with its size: with new work being added to the site daily, Authonomy is soon going to start staggering under its own weight. It’s already slow, and makes for cumbersome browsing for people like me, who live in an area without broadband access.
Good old-fashioned slush-piles can be monsters, but at least they are subjected to periodic culls as work is rejected. Is HarperCollins planning on ever culling any of the work on Authonomy? Or does it intend to let Authonomy lumber on unchecked, eating up bandwidth until it collapses under its own weight?
Authonomy allows writers to post their writing, and to comment on each other’s work. It’s possible to post anything from a single paragraph to a complete book, although extracts of under 10,000 words remain invisible to everyone but their authors.
I’m curious why HarperCollins started Authonomy, and in this form. HarperCollins has made a big investment in the design and development of the site; and by hiding all extracts under 10,000 words they’ve made certain that the site is going to be large and flabby. As it stands they’re making no money from Authonomy: might they introduce a joining fee in the future? Or is HarperCollins treating Authonomy as its own personal electronic slush-pile? If so, I can see a few problems.
While HarperCollins claims that the best of the work posted will rise, cream like, to the surface, I’ve seen little evidence of that happening. While some of the work there is good, the work which is the most commented-upon is the work from the most active writers, regardless of its quality.
I’m not sure that it’s a good thing for writers, as the only way to get your work noticed there is to spend a great deal of time networking and promoting yourself there: and for most aspiring writers, that’s going to cut into their writing time quite hard.
There’s also the problem with its size: with new work being added to the site daily, Authonomy is soon going to start staggering under its own weight. It’s already slow, and makes for cumbersome browsing for people like me, who live in an area without broadband access.
Good old-fashioned slush-piles can be monsters, but at least they are subjected to periodic culls as work is rejected. Is HarperCollins planning on ever culling any of the work on Authonomy? Or does it intend to let Authonomy lumber on unchecked, eating up bandwidth until it collapses under its own weight?
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Buffy Squirrel Is My 100th Follower!
The lovely BuffySquirrel is the one hundreth person to decide follow this blog!
Thank you all for your support: it's especially welcome this week. I promise to be back soon, but right now I have to walk the dogs and dig the car out again so I can get out to collect the children and yep, it's snowing again.
Thank you all for your support: it's especially welcome this week. I promise to be back soon, but right now I have to walk the dogs and dig the car out again so I can get out to collect the children and yep, it's snowing again.
Apologies For My Absence
I'm sorry I'm not keeping up to date with comments right now: I've got three articles to write and a book to edit, and I've lost a lot of work-time to the vile weather. I've scheduled articles to appear while I'm gone, and you can chat among yourselves for now: I promise to catch up with all that you've said as soon as I've got all this work off my hands. It shouldn't take me too much longer.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
How Not To Sell To Book Shops
Any self-published authors who intend to sell their books direct into bookshops would do well to read this post from the Fidra blog, which tells everything you need to know about how NOT to do it.
There's also a sequel to it, in which a better strategy is revealed, which will be useful to all writers, whether they're self-published or with a mainstream, commercial house. Go and read these two pieces now. You will be glad you did. Honest.
There's also a sequel to it, in which a better strategy is revealed, which will be useful to all writers, whether they're self-published or with a mainstream, commercial house. Go and read these two pieces now. You will be glad you did. Honest.
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
A Long And Boring Story About My Life
Today is, officially, a bastard bloody horrible day.
Was intending to write a paid-for piece today. Woke up to TWO MORE FEET of snow, drifts around the car, had to dig it out.
Traffic on school road nose to tail. 40 minutes to drive 500 yards, nowhere to park. Car starts bouncing and the rear end is suspiciously low. Drop Younger Son off 20 minutes late for school.
Try to get Older Son to school: roads are slushy, cars are nose to tail, all roads to school are blocked. Car is very bouncy.
Turn round in the middle of heavy traffic and in front of a frowning policeman; drive over pavement to get back onto road; car bounces alarmingly. Pull over. Suspension has failed. Phone Obliging Husband, now in his office on the other side of the city; he promises to phone garage.
Abandon car, walk Older Son to school, get back to car. Hilly three mile round trip over snow, slush and ice completed in 40 mins. Knees hurt.
Obliging Husband reaches car. "Suspension's gone," he says. I know. We drive in tandem to mender's, car bouncing like Spotty Dog on springs.
Mender doesn't have part.
We drive in Obliging Husband’s Focus to get part, which is ten miles away through heaving traffic, slush and ice. Part costs £30. Drive back with Obliging Husband chanting, "This is too easy, it's not going to work." I try to refrain from slapping him.
Mender mends car in an hour and a half. Obliging Husband drives off to work leaving me to pay mender. My handbag is still in Obliging Husband’s car: I have no way to pay mender. Eventually he trusts me to return and gives me my car keys. Foolish man.
I drive seven miles home behind a learner going at 15mph in the middle of the road. I have not yet even had breakfast and it is now past 1pm.
I get to the bottom of the mile-long, single track, uphill, snow-covered lane to our house and hear GRINDING.
Half way up, at the cattle grid, is a van. The rubbish van (we don’t get the big truck, we’re too remote), driven by a man who must clearly be bonkers coming up here in this weather in a TRANSIT VAN. It is half on the track and half off. Behind it is a tow truck. Also stuck in the snow.
I lock my car and block them in, and walk half a mile home, uphill through three feet of snow.
I try to write my piece but Jack the dog is sick on my FOOT.
I make a sandwich; leave it on the table while I clean up Jack-sick; while I’m cleaning, Jack eats the sandwich.
I eat an apple and some chocolate, walk back to the car. Van is still stuck. Tow truck driver promises to get it out before I return with the children at 4. I have to reverse nearly a mile in deep snow before I can turn round. I hurt my neck.
I get the kids, come home, find tow truck at bottom of track.
"I got the van out but it's stuck again," he says. "But I've got a Landrover to tow it out."
I abandon car at bottom of drive, put key in post box for Obliging Husband to drive up later if he can the Focus this close to home, walk the full mile up the track with two freezing children. In places snow is up to Younger Son's waist. He is not happy, and neither am I.
Pass van and Landrover, both now stuck right in front of my house.
Swear at them a bit while my children laugh.
Realise that the bastard bloody rubbish van still hasn't collected the two weeks of rubbish that we have here.
Swear a bit more.
Cook for the kids, have no time to write my piece, watch the van and Landrover combo get stuck again on the track outside. Several times.
Jack the dog is sick on the long-pile cream bedroom carpet: copiously.
Obliging Husband arrives home in my car, having got past the van/Landrover combo. Says it's not been too bad a day really. But we've run out of ice so do I really want a gin?
You'd better believe it.
Was intending to write a paid-for piece today. Woke up to TWO MORE FEET of snow, drifts around the car, had to dig it out.
Traffic on school road nose to tail. 40 minutes to drive 500 yards, nowhere to park. Car starts bouncing and the rear end is suspiciously low. Drop Younger Son off 20 minutes late for school.
Try to get Older Son to school: roads are slushy, cars are nose to tail, all roads to school are blocked. Car is very bouncy.
Turn round in the middle of heavy traffic and in front of a frowning policeman; drive over pavement to get back onto road; car bounces alarmingly. Pull over. Suspension has failed. Phone Obliging Husband, now in his office on the other side of the city; he promises to phone garage.
Abandon car, walk Older Son to school, get back to car. Hilly three mile round trip over snow, slush and ice completed in 40 mins. Knees hurt.
Obliging Husband reaches car. "Suspension's gone," he says. I know. We drive in tandem to mender's, car bouncing like Spotty Dog on springs.
Mender doesn't have part.
We drive in Obliging Husband’s Focus to get part, which is ten miles away through heaving traffic, slush and ice. Part costs £30. Drive back with Obliging Husband chanting, "This is too easy, it's not going to work." I try to refrain from slapping him.
Mender mends car in an hour and a half. Obliging Husband drives off to work leaving me to pay mender. My handbag is still in Obliging Husband’s car: I have no way to pay mender. Eventually he trusts me to return and gives me my car keys. Foolish man.
I drive seven miles home behind a learner going at 15mph in the middle of the road. I have not yet even had breakfast and it is now past 1pm.
I get to the bottom of the mile-long, single track, uphill, snow-covered lane to our house and hear GRINDING.
Half way up, at the cattle grid, is a van. The rubbish van (we don’t get the big truck, we’re too remote), driven by a man who must clearly be bonkers coming up here in this weather in a TRANSIT VAN. It is half on the track and half off. Behind it is a tow truck. Also stuck in the snow.
I lock my car and block them in, and walk half a mile home, uphill through three feet of snow.
I try to write my piece but Jack the dog is sick on my FOOT.
I make a sandwich; leave it on the table while I clean up Jack-sick; while I’m cleaning, Jack eats the sandwich.
I eat an apple and some chocolate, walk back to the car. Van is still stuck. Tow truck driver promises to get it out before I return with the children at 4. I have to reverse nearly a mile in deep snow before I can turn round. I hurt my neck.
I get the kids, come home, find tow truck at bottom of track.
"I got the van out but it's stuck again," he says. "But I've got a Landrover to tow it out."
I abandon car at bottom of drive, put key in post box for Obliging Husband to drive up later if he can the Focus this close to home, walk the full mile up the track with two freezing children. In places snow is up to Younger Son's waist. He is not happy, and neither am I.
Pass van and Landrover, both now stuck right in front of my house.
Swear at them a bit while my children laugh.
Realise that the bastard bloody rubbish van still hasn't collected the two weeks of rubbish that we have here.
Swear a bit more.
Cook for the kids, have no time to write my piece, watch the van and Landrover combo get stuck again on the track outside. Several times.
Jack the dog is sick on the long-pile cream bedroom carpet: copiously.
Obliging Husband arrives home in my car, having got past the van/Landrover combo. Says it's not been too bad a day really. But we've run out of ice so do I really want a gin?
You'd better believe it.
Monday, 9 February 2009
Andrew Lownie, Literary Agent
If you’re keen to discover exactly what a literary agent does, take a look at Andrew Lownie’s website.
He’s a fabulous agent and has written several very candid articles about his work, in which he discusses his reasons for rejecting submissions, details his daily routines, and reveals his submissions statistics. It’s funny as well as informative: I laughed out loud as I read his descriptions of his slush pile. He regularly invites other publishing professionals to contribute (although quite what he was thinking of when he requested this piece I cannot imagine); and if you subscribe to his newsletter you don’t even have to visit his website to read all of this wondrous information as he’ll send it straight to your inbox.
Just remember to come back here when you’re done with him, because I do want you back.
He’s a fabulous agent and has written several very candid articles about his work, in which he discusses his reasons for rejecting submissions, details his daily routines, and reveals his submissions statistics. It’s funny as well as informative: I laughed out loud as I read his descriptions of his slush pile. He regularly invites other publishing professionals to contribute (although quite what he was thinking of when he requested this piece I cannot imagine); and if you subscribe to his newsletter you don’t even have to visit his website to read all of this wondrous information as he’ll send it straight to your inbox.
Just remember to come back here when you’re done with him, because I do want you back.
Sunday, 8 February 2009
It's All About Me
Lots of people have posted their own snow pictures this week, and I can no longer resist the temptation to show off. We have a huge amount of the white stuff here (that drift is now two feet deeper), I have a stupendously unfashionable parka: but we do seem to have lost my husband's car... it's got to be out there somewhere. Meanwhile we've been sliding about, very slowly, in my Discovery, and wondering when all this horrible snow is going to melt.
Right: onto business. The more observant among you might have noticed that I've added a list of people who have linked to me. I am amazed that there are so many of you: thank you for your support! If you've linked here from your blog but aren't on my list, comment here or email me with your details and I'll add you as soon as I can.
And speaking of being amazed: just look at my hit-counter! I was thrilled when it hit 6,000 after I'd been blogging for just a few months; on New Year's Eve it passed the 15,000 mark; it got just over 5,000 hits in January and just one week into this month nearly 3,000 more people have visited. It's become far more popular than I ever expected it would. So popular, in fact, that the publisher I had lunch with yesterday strongly advised me to turn it into a book. The thought had crossed my mind before but I've always felt that the interraction that we all have together is what makes this blog a success. I love the debate and fear that to try to reproduce this in book form would fix it too much, and make it even stuffier than it already sometimes is. So what do you think? Would you buy a How Publishing Really Works book? If so, what would you like to see in it: brief pieces which echo the blog's format, or longer essays which explore more things at once, and in more depth? All comments are appreciated on this, even if you think it's a bad idea: I'd be grateful for your opinions.
Thursday, 5 February 2009
YouWriteOn and Arts Council England: What's The Connection?
There’s a lot of confusion over who runs YouWriteOn, and how it’s related to Arts Council England. People seem to think that YouWriteOn is run by Arts Council England, organised by Arts Council England, or part of Arts Council England in some other nebulous way, but this is not the case: YouWriteOn’s only apparent connection with Arts Council England is through the substantial funding it has received from that organisation.
Arts Council England’s funding has forged a link between Arts Council England and YouWriteOn which many people perceive as a stamp of legitimacy. When the YouWriteOn publishing scheme was first launched, there were writers who saw it as a chance to get published by Arts Council England; others felt reassured that the scheme had to be above-board because of Arts Council England’s apparent involvement. However, when Arts Council England was asked for clarification of its involvement in the publishing scheme it replied:
You’ll find Arts Council England’s letter reproduced in full in comment number 5 to this blog post. Soon after that letter appeared on the blog, a disclaimer was posted on YouWriteOn’s home-page which stated that its vanity publishing arm was separate from the Arts Council England-funded area of the site: that disclaimer has since been edited, but at the time of writing it reads,
Despite YouWriteOn apparently being taken to task by Arts Council England and instructed to distinguish between the Arts Council England-funded and vanity-funded areas of the site, the Arts Council England logo still appears at the top of every one of YouWriteOn’s web pages—including the pages which offer the vanity publishing packages.
Some writers have now contacted Arts Council England (and here's a handy list of its chief executives, just in case you were considering doing the same) to ask why it funds a vanity publisher, but have received what they consider to be less-than-satisfactory replies: while I’ll not reproduce them here, I suspect that anyone with a complaint would do better to contact the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Government department to which Arts Council England reports: one of the ministers there is the rather effective Barbara Follett, who also happens to be married to a writer called Ken something-or-other.
It’s widely felt that it’s inappropriate for Arts Council England to be associated with a vanity publisher in this way: vanity publishing doesn’t support writers, it exploits them, and Arts Council England has apparently stated independently that it does not and will not condone such schemes. While I’ve been unable to find written evidence of this stance, it seems likely considering Arts Council England’s remit to support and encourage the arts. My opinion is that YouWriteOn should either accept funding from Arts Council England or continue its vanity publishing operation, but that it shouldn’t run the two projects side by side: there are too many conflicts of interest between them. But YouWriteOn is unlikely to give up its Arts Council England funding just because I think that it should, because there's too much at stake: it's received nearly £85,000 from Arts Council England in the last three and a half years (the following links will download PDFs when you click on them):
June 2005: £29,896
February 2007: £24,000
2007-8: £10,000
February 2008: £10,000
October 2008: £11,000
Total Arts Council funding received by YouWriteOn since June 2005: £84,896
I’m particularly interested by the £11,000 paid last October: the grants information form states that this amount was paid to Edward Smith of YouWriteOn.com to fund “A major new writing competition in partnership with Random House. This will give new writers the opportunity to have their books published by a major publisher”. I’m intrigued to know more about this competition: this funding was approved four months ago, and yet no announcement of any competition has yet been made. I wonder what Random House will have to say about that?
This Arts Council England funding, plus the £11,000 or so which YouWriteOn has received as a result of its vanity publishing operation, works out to a rather nice turnover of around £27,400 each year—impressive for a start-up business which seems to be run by just one man. It’s worth noting that there are a few layers of potential income that I’ve not included here:
Arts Council England’s funding has forged a link between Arts Council England and YouWriteOn which many people perceive as a stamp of legitimacy. When the YouWriteOn publishing scheme was first launched, there were writers who saw it as a chance to get published by Arts Council England; others felt reassured that the scheme had to be above-board because of Arts Council England’s apparent involvement. However, when Arts Council England was asked for clarification of its involvement in the publishing scheme it replied:
YouWriteOn.com receives funding from Arts Council England to run its website forum and professional critique service for writers.
Arts Council England has not funded, and has not endorsed, the separate Print-on-Demand self-publishing service offered through the site.
As with any self-publishing service, Arts Council England would encourage writers to read the terms and conditions carefully and make an informed judgement about the service on offer. If in doubt, you should contact the Society of Authors http://www.societyofauthors.org/ who have information sheets and guidance about self-publishing and vanity publishing.
We have asked the site moderator to make this absolutely clear, so that there is no confusion about the involvement of Arts Council England.
You’ll find Arts Council England’s letter reproduced in full in comment number 5 to this blog post. Soon after that letter appeared on the blog, a disclaimer was posted on YouWriteOn’s home-page which stated that its vanity publishing arm was separate from the Arts Council England-funded area of the site: that disclaimer has since been edited, but at the time of writing it reads,
The Arts Council fund critiques for new writers from leading publishers each month on YouWriteOn.com.YouWriteOn also offers its own book publishing initiative, funded solely by us.
Despite YouWriteOn apparently being taken to task by Arts Council England and instructed to distinguish between the Arts Council England-funded and vanity-funded areas of the site, the Arts Council England logo still appears at the top of every one of YouWriteOn’s web pages—including the pages which offer the vanity publishing packages.
Some writers have now contacted Arts Council England (and here's a handy list of its chief executives, just in case you were considering doing the same) to ask why it funds a vanity publisher, but have received what they consider to be less-than-satisfactory replies: while I’ll not reproduce them here, I suspect that anyone with a complaint would do better to contact the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Government department to which Arts Council England reports: one of the ministers there is the rather effective Barbara Follett, who also happens to be married to a writer called Ken something-or-other.
It’s widely felt that it’s inappropriate for Arts Council England to be associated with a vanity publisher in this way: vanity publishing doesn’t support writers, it exploits them, and Arts Council England has apparently stated independently that it does not and will not condone such schemes. While I’ve been unable to find written evidence of this stance, it seems likely considering Arts Council England’s remit to support and encourage the arts. My opinion is that YouWriteOn should either accept funding from Arts Council England or continue its vanity publishing operation, but that it shouldn’t run the two projects side by side: there are too many conflicts of interest between them. But YouWriteOn is unlikely to give up its Arts Council England funding just because I think that it should, because there's too much at stake: it's received nearly £85,000 from Arts Council England in the last three and a half years (the following links will download PDFs when you click on them):
June 2005: £29,896
February 2007: £24,000
2007-8: £10,000
February 2008: £10,000
October 2008: £11,000
Total Arts Council funding received by YouWriteOn since June 2005: £84,896
I’m particularly interested by the £11,000 paid last October: the grants information form states that this amount was paid to Edward Smith of YouWriteOn.com to fund “A major new writing competition in partnership with Random House. This will give new writers the opportunity to have their books published by a major publisher”. I’m intrigued to know more about this competition: this funding was approved four months ago, and yet no announcement of any competition has yet been made. I wonder what Random House will have to say about that?
This Arts Council England funding, plus the £11,000 or so which YouWriteOn has received as a result of its vanity publishing operation, works out to a rather nice turnover of around £27,400 each year—impressive for a start-up business which seems to be run by just one man. It’s worth noting that there are a few layers of potential income that I’ve not included here:
- Its original vanity-publishing package, which it runs in association with Legend Press, costs £399, £699, £899 or £1,499, depending on which package you choose.
- YouWriteOn runs a paid-for critiquing service: prices start at £75 for a short story of up to 3,000 words, and then increase with your page count: a report on a 400-page novel would set you back £550. Writers are asked to state which three advisors they'd prefer to comment on their work: while the people who provide these reports do seem reputable and experienced (although I haven't checked out any of the names), I could find no guarantee that anyone would get the advisor(s) they requested.
- It’s not yet clear how many books YouWriteOn/Legend has vanity-published at £39.99 each and it seems that not all books have yet been published, so the initial income from this will almost certainly reach a figure higher than the £10,906.35 I quoted yesterday.
- YouWriteOn will continue to earn money from every one of the sales of those vanity-published books as their writers work to sell them.
Meanwhile, I’ve found this quote about YouWriteOn and the man who runs it, Edward Smith, buried in the depths of this PDF from Arts Council England:
Edward Smith, YouWriteOn’s director, provided the design spec for the site, and manages it from day to day, with some support from web company ZARR. In terms of user experience, the site is clunky, full of broken links and difficult to navigate, with forums that mysteriously open at particular hours only. Nonetheless, YouWriteOn.com has 6,000 members, and receives millions of page views a month. There is clearly a hunger for these services. (Edward used to work in a Citizens Advice Bureau and sees his work as being about information and empowerment.)(Bolding mine: I added the link to YouWriteOn's "web company", too: perhaps it knows what's happened to the forum.)
Just yesterday, Tom Chalmers of Legend Press told The Bookseller that the project has "largely been a success". Meanwhile, there are many writers who Smith promised to publish in time for Christmas who, despite making numerous attempts to contact Smith, have still heard nothing from him, several weeks later. Many don’t know whether or not their books will even be published; and while several have now cancelled their contracts, few have received any confirmation of their cancellations, leaving them worried about the future of their books.
I wonder just how empowered they feel right now.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Legal Deposit
All publishers have a legal obligation to provide at least one copy of each of their publications to the Legal Deposit Office of the British Library. This obligation includes all books and periodicals which are published or made available in the United Kingdom, but excludes internal reports, examination papers, local transport timetables, appointment diaries, wall and desk calendars, and posters, unless the British Library makes a written demand for the material: in which case, the publisher is legally obliged to supply those requested copies.
Up to five further copies may be requested by the The Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries, which coordinates such requests on behalf of the five other Libraries which take part in the scheme: the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Cambridge University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Library of Trinity College Dublin; and the National Library of Wales. If these copies are requested then once more, the publisher has a legal obligation to provide them.
These copies must be supplied at the publishers' cost within one month of publication. Their details are then added to the searchable integrated online catalogue which the British Library maintains, and this huge resource is available for inspection at the British Library. If they are not supplied then the Legal Deposit Office will demand a copy of the publication in order to maintain the UK’s national archive, which has been established for over four centuries. Consequently, it knows what it's doing: so when it tells me (as it did just last week) that it's the publisher which is obliged to supply these copies, and not the writer, I have every reason to believe it.
Up to five further copies may be requested by the The Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries, which coordinates such requests on behalf of the five other Libraries which take part in the scheme: the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Cambridge University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Library of Trinity College Dublin; and the National Library of Wales. If these copies are requested then once more, the publisher has a legal obligation to provide them.
These copies must be supplied at the publishers' cost within one month of publication. Their details are then added to the searchable integrated online catalogue which the British Library maintains, and this huge resource is available for inspection at the British Library. If they are not supplied then the Legal Deposit Office will demand a copy of the publication in order to maintain the UK’s national archive, which has been established for over four centuries. Consequently, it knows what it's doing: so when it tells me (as it did just last week) that it's the publisher which is obliged to supply these copies, and not the writer, I have every reason to believe it.
Monday, 2 February 2009
YouWriteOn’s Free Publishing Offer: An Update
Last autumn, YouWriteOn’s “free publishing deal” attracted a lot of attention from writers and industry watchdogs. It was discussed on several writers’ message boards; Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware blogged about it; and so did I.
The deeply sceptical felt that it was at best an ill-thought-out scheme or at worst, a cynical vanity publishing plan to separate naive writers from their money; the optimistic saw it as an innovative publishing scheme designed to break the mould of corporation-controlled publishing (in case you haven’t read my original posts, I fell in with the sceptics).
Publication was initially scheduled for the first week of December but as we moved into the second week of the month, only a tiny handful of writers had been notified that their books were available. Books trickled onto Amazon and Barnes & Noble—but only those written by authors who had paid what Ted was misleadingly referring to as the “distribution fee” (the £39.99 he had charged writers to assign an ISBN to their books): not a single book appeared from the writers who had chosen the free option.
YouWriteOn members began to post questions on the YouWriteOn message board, asking when their books would appear: but Ted Smith, who seems to run YouWriteOn single-handed, largely failed to respond directly to their questions: instead, he pointed out that publication by Christmas had always been an aim, but not a promise. When the level of complaints and in-fighting threatened to overrun the message board, Smith began deleting posts (including a few of mine); then he began deleting whole threads; and then, on December 19, he closed down the entire message board, supposedly for its brief annual Christmas break. The board remains closed to this day. It’s apparently undergoing upgrades. They had better be good.
What is YouWriteOn doing with this break from message board moderating? You’d think that it would be taking care of the legal obligations that come with running a reputable publishing company, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Last week a representative of the British Library confirmed to me that despite all publishers having a legal obligation to provide it with copies of all their books under the Legal Deposit scheme, YouWriteOn has not provided a single copy of any of its latest titles. And YouWriteOn can’t say that it was unaware of this obligation: it was discussed on the YouWriteOn board before the board was taken down, and in Absolute Write’s thread about YouWriteOn which Ted Smith has contributed to; and if that were not enough, the Legal Deposit team alerted YouWriteOn to its legal obligation last summer when it had to make an official request for one of YouWriteOn’s previous publications, when YouWriteOn failed to provide a copy within the legal deadline.
Meanwhile, what of YouWriteOn’s authors? As I write this, 192 books are listed under the YouWriteOn imprint on Amazon, and 273 on Barnes and Noble—although I’ve also noticed several YouWriteOn books listed without any imprint details, so the actual number will be higher.
Not one of those books that I’ve checked (and I've looked at over half of them) has any form of synopsis to tell the browsing reader what the book is about: and most of the jacket designs use the same standard template in purple, cream and black which is, I’m afraid, downright ugly; or an image of a blue planet, which renders the superimposed title illegible. So much for the ten foot rule.
I’ve spotted many errors in Amazon’s listings: one author’s first name was correctly given as Tamsin on her book jacket, but was listed as Jasmine in the Amazon details, which would have made searching for her by name impossible; there were several cases where the Amazon details referred to one book but a completely different book appeared in the cover image provided by YouWriteOn. Many more showed spelling errors in names and/or titles on the provided image of the book jackets, in the details provided to Amazon, or on both; and there were some particularly odd inversions of the authors names. Two authors have discovered that their titles, names and ISBNs are confused to such an extent they’re not sure which is their book, and which belongs to the other. Am I nitpicking? Hardly. Out of one hundred YouWriteOn books that I chose at random from Amazon UK two weeks ago, sixty seven had errors in the details provided to Amazon by YouWriteOn. Of those sixty seven books with errors, only one now shows corrected copy. The remaining errors are still in place.
One writer paid to have her cover professionally designed and, while the designers did a good job, all thirty of the copies which she ordered for her launch party arrived with a green stripe running across the cover, as did copies that her friends ordered at different times: which implies that this was not a printer malfunction, but an issue with the PDF held by Lightning Source—which was, of course, supplied by YouWriteOn.
At least she has a book, though: several writers have still heard nothing about their books’ status from YouWriteOn despite repeated requests for information. Writers who didn’t cough up for the “distribution fee” have been told that their books will be available to order from the YouWriteOn website on some unspecified date in the future and as the contract states that they won’t earn any royalties on copies they buy themselves, they have no real way to make money from the sales of their own books. Some writers have cancelled, but have received no confirmation that their cancellations have been received; and meanwhile, YouWriteOn has blithely announced on its own website that following the huge success of its publishing scheme it’s planning to open its doors to a new round of submissions in the spring.
I have to ask: a success for whom? Not for the writers who still have no idea when, or if, their books will published; nor for the writers whose books are incorrectly listed on Amazon. And while I’m genuinely pleased that some YouWriteOn writers are happy with their books, I wonder how well their books will do bearing in mind that YouWriteOn has provided these books with no editorial input or distribution whatsoever.
One thing that has been provided, though, is a nice big chunk of money to YouWriteOn: the authors of every single one of those 273 YouWriteOn books now showing on Barnes & Noble paid £39.99 to YouWriteOn to get them there: a total of £10,906.35, plus the income provided by the authors whose YouWriteOn books are listed as “imprint unknown”. That’s a very nice return for making a couple of slapdash downloads every day in the four months or so since this scheme launched: and it doesn’t take into account any of the money which YouWriteOn has earned on the back of the sales of these books. Is this vanity publishing? It certainly looks like it to me.
(Please note: I'd have liked to have linked to various posts at YouWriteOn's message board to provide my many sources for this piece, but as it's been taken down that's not possible; and while it might have been useful to link to some of the many errors I've seen on Amazon I didn't want the authors concerned to feel that I was poking fun at them: so I've decided not to highlight any individual books here.)
The deeply sceptical felt that it was at best an ill-thought-out scheme or at worst, a cynical vanity publishing plan to separate naive writers from their money; the optimistic saw it as an innovative publishing scheme designed to break the mould of corporation-controlled publishing (in case you haven’t read my original posts, I fell in with the sceptics).
Publication was initially scheduled for the first week of December but as we moved into the second week of the month, only a tiny handful of writers had been notified that their books were available. Books trickled onto Amazon and Barnes & Noble—but only those written by authors who had paid what Ted was misleadingly referring to as the “distribution fee” (the £39.99 he had charged writers to assign an ISBN to their books): not a single book appeared from the writers who had chosen the free option.
YouWriteOn members began to post questions on the YouWriteOn message board, asking when their books would appear: but Ted Smith, who seems to run YouWriteOn single-handed, largely failed to respond directly to their questions: instead, he pointed out that publication by Christmas had always been an aim, but not a promise. When the level of complaints and in-fighting threatened to overrun the message board, Smith began deleting posts (including a few of mine); then he began deleting whole threads; and then, on December 19, he closed down the entire message board, supposedly for its brief annual Christmas break. The board remains closed to this day. It’s apparently undergoing upgrades. They had better be good.
What is YouWriteOn doing with this break from message board moderating? You’d think that it would be taking care of the legal obligations that come with running a reputable publishing company, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Last week a representative of the British Library confirmed to me that despite all publishers having a legal obligation to provide it with copies of all their books under the Legal Deposit scheme, YouWriteOn has not provided a single copy of any of its latest titles. And YouWriteOn can’t say that it was unaware of this obligation: it was discussed on the YouWriteOn board before the board was taken down, and in Absolute Write’s thread about YouWriteOn which Ted Smith has contributed to; and if that were not enough, the Legal Deposit team alerted YouWriteOn to its legal obligation last summer when it had to make an official request for one of YouWriteOn’s previous publications, when YouWriteOn failed to provide a copy within the legal deadline.
Meanwhile, what of YouWriteOn’s authors? As I write this, 192 books are listed under the YouWriteOn imprint on Amazon, and 273 on Barnes and Noble—although I’ve also noticed several YouWriteOn books listed without any imprint details, so the actual number will be higher.
Not one of those books that I’ve checked (and I've looked at over half of them) has any form of synopsis to tell the browsing reader what the book is about: and most of the jacket designs use the same standard template in purple, cream and black which is, I’m afraid, downright ugly; or an image of a blue planet, which renders the superimposed title illegible. So much for the ten foot rule.
I’ve spotted many errors in Amazon’s listings: one author’s first name was correctly given as Tamsin on her book jacket, but was listed as Jasmine in the Amazon details, which would have made searching for her by name impossible; there were several cases where the Amazon details referred to one book but a completely different book appeared in the cover image provided by YouWriteOn. Many more showed spelling errors in names and/or titles on the provided image of the book jackets, in the details provided to Amazon, or on both; and there were some particularly odd inversions of the authors names. Two authors have discovered that their titles, names and ISBNs are confused to such an extent they’re not sure which is their book, and which belongs to the other. Am I nitpicking? Hardly. Out of one hundred YouWriteOn books that I chose at random from Amazon UK two weeks ago, sixty seven had errors in the details provided to Amazon by YouWriteOn. Of those sixty seven books with errors, only one now shows corrected copy. The remaining errors are still in place.
One writer paid to have her cover professionally designed and, while the designers did a good job, all thirty of the copies which she ordered for her launch party arrived with a green stripe running across the cover, as did copies that her friends ordered at different times: which implies that this was not a printer malfunction, but an issue with the PDF held by Lightning Source—which was, of course, supplied by YouWriteOn.
At least she has a book, though: several writers have still heard nothing about their books’ status from YouWriteOn despite repeated requests for information. Writers who didn’t cough up for the “distribution fee” have been told that their books will be available to order from the YouWriteOn website on some unspecified date in the future and as the contract states that they won’t earn any royalties on copies they buy themselves, they have no real way to make money from the sales of their own books. Some writers have cancelled, but have received no confirmation that their cancellations have been received; and meanwhile, YouWriteOn has blithely announced on its own website that following the huge success of its publishing scheme it’s planning to open its doors to a new round of submissions in the spring.
I have to ask: a success for whom? Not for the writers who still have no idea when, or if, their books will published; nor for the writers whose books are incorrectly listed on Amazon. And while I’m genuinely pleased that some YouWriteOn writers are happy with their books, I wonder how well their books will do bearing in mind that YouWriteOn has provided these books with no editorial input or distribution whatsoever.
One thing that has been provided, though, is a nice big chunk of money to YouWriteOn: the authors of every single one of those 273 YouWriteOn books now showing on Barnes & Noble paid £39.99 to YouWriteOn to get them there: a total of £10,906.35, plus the income provided by the authors whose YouWriteOn books are listed as “imprint unknown”. That’s a very nice return for making a couple of slapdash downloads every day in the four months or so since this scheme launched: and it doesn’t take into account any of the money which YouWriteOn has earned on the back of the sales of these books. Is this vanity publishing? It certainly looks like it to me.
(Please note: I'd have liked to have linked to various posts at YouWriteOn's message board to provide my many sources for this piece, but as it's been taken down that's not possible; and while it might have been useful to link to some of the many errors I've seen on Amazon I didn't want the authors concerned to feel that I was poking fun at them: so I've decided not to highlight any individual books here.)
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