My Self-Publishing Saga Continues

My 3rd book, Surviving Hostage Situations, was turned down by 35 publishers. Those who were kind enough to explain why had a common theme: No one likes to think about the bad things that can happen to them. They were correct, but as an intelligence professional who lived for contingencies, I really didn’t understand that attitude. So, that experience plus the bad publisher experiences convinced me to self-publish. This was fortunately the same time I acquired a Mac clone made from a Mac mother board and a PC case. I also acquired Page Maker software and entered the dizzy world of book design. I eventually sold 5,000 of these in English and 2,000 in German through a German publisher of a military magazine in Düsseldorf, Germany.

I also acquired rights to a Army Promotion Board study guide written by an Army education specialist. That became my cash cow. The first order for that little manual came from the European Stars and Stripes bookstore system in Germany. Their initial order was for 5,000 copies. The catch was it would be 6 months before they would pay. I had just paid out of my own pocket for 1,000 copies each of the hostage book and the study guide. I was tapped out of cash and credit.

I went to our bank across the street seeking a $15,000 line of credit to print more books based on the study guide order. After they finished chuckling, they said they’d be happy to set one up if I 2nd mortgaged my bookstore building. I didn’t really have a choice, so I did it. That study guide eventually sold 25,000 copies and funded the printing of several other books.

I took on one other book by an author other than myself–an exercise book by a Marine officer who combined traditional physical exercises with visualization exercises. It was a flop. Traditional exercise adherents thought it was too airy fairy. New Age readers thought it was too traditional.

The next book was Close Quarters Combat for Police and Security Forces. It was the non-lethal version of Survival on the Battlefield. It sold about 3,000 copies, but was never as popular as the military manual.

In 1992, after double knee operations, I had recuperation time on my hands. I wrote and typeset 126 pages of my next book, Military Knife Fighting. A month later, my Korean son, Patrick, and I went into the photographer’s studio with my 14-year-old daughter, Desiree, who was my script girl. She read each technique’s captions, and Pat and I went from pose to pose. We took over 350 pictures in an hour, completely blowing the photographer’s mind. That book became another cash cow. In the BEA held in Miami, I obtained a table at the Military Book Show held in conjunction. Doubleday’s Military Book Club editor, Moshe Feder, looked over my books and signed me up for Survival on the Battlefield and Military Knife Fighting. They both became best sellers for the book club, selling over 25,000 copies. I didn’t make as much money per book; however, they used my printer and allowed me to order copies on the same print run. Instead of paying for books at the 1,000-2,000 copy price range, I could piggyback along with Doubleday’s 5,000 book printing, getting the 6,000-7,000 per book price, which was much cheaper. Economy of scale is a great thing.

Marketing became my primary focus. I met and made friends with the editors of men’s magazines such as SWAT, Soldier of Fortune, American Survival Guide, and Fighting Knives Magazine. They began giving me very positive reviews in their magazines. I in turn paid for display ads and classified ads, building up my direct marketing business. I began writing anti-New World Order books and became a popular interviewee on talk radio–so much so, that I was offered my own radio show–a 5 day a week hour-long show called the preparedness hour. With that ready-made marketing venue, I put together a 200-book mail order catalog operation and performed all operations myself, invoicing, picking, packing, wrapping, mailing, and inventory management. I was also traveling all over the US giving workshops and selling books at survivalist and book trade shows.

By 1997, I was completely burned out after 8 years of 12-18 hour days. I gave all 8,000 of my catalog customers a month’s warning and pulled the plug. This had been a 1-man endeavor and I couldn’t do it any longer. I never had time for writing. It had all become a full-time job of marketing.

After a 2-year hiatus of college to gain music teacher certification in the State of Kansas and 2 more years of teaching all subjects at our Juvenile Detention Center, I pulled the plug on that and began Heartland Reviews on line. I saw so many books submitted that weren’t ready for publication, that I began offering editing and designing services as a book packager.

Today I am focusing on writing fiction and helping self-publishers and small presses. At age 64, I am slowing down a little, but helping people has always been foremost in my mind. Thus ends how I fell into the wacky world of self-publishing.

How I Became a Self-Publisher

The Beginning

Back in the early 1970’s, I served in South Korea with the US Army Intelligence. I spent 3-5 hours a day 4 days a week studying the Korean fighting art of Hapkido (a mixture of Korean Karate and Japanese Jujitsu). Unlike Judo, we had no reference manuals; however, the art had over 1,000 techniques. I decided to write a definitive manual. In 1974 and 75 I posed with fellow students for technique pictures and wrote all the text. In 1976, I was stationed at Ft Huachuca, AZ. I submitted my proposal to Rainbow Publications (Black Belt Magazine). They turned it down because they had just published a Hapkido manual by the Korean actor, Bong Soo Han, who had been in the Billy Jack Movies. It was poorly written by a ghost writer, but they depended on Bong’s name selling the book. The word quickly got around the martial art community that it was poorly written, so it didn’t sell well.

Although I sent proposals in to other martial art publishers over the years, hoping than my credentials as the 1st non-Korean to attain a 3rd Dan black belt and instructors certification would make me acceptable. No luck, so I put it on a back shelf and got busy with other things.

In 1985, I attended an American Booksellers Association Expo (now called the BEA) and met with editors from Rainbow Publications and the second largest MA press, Unique Publications (Inside Kungfu Magazine). This time I was able to establish credibility and was asked to submit. Rainbow turned me down again because they didn’t want to compete against their own book. Unique accepted, and I finally had a foot in the door.

Two months before an assignment to Munich, Germany in 1986, I mentioned to them I had an idea for a military fighting manual based on Hapkido and other arts. They got excited, since they had nothing for the military in their backlist, and asked me to go ahead. I wrote it in the next 6 weeks and then flew out to Burbank, CA on my own dime to honcho a photo session with their models. The night before the shoot at dinner, my editor told me I had to eliminate half of the techniques. That was a huge amount of stress to sacrifice half of my book overnight, but I did. The next day, despite an ear infection and a 103 degree fever, I coached the models through the remaining techniques and flew home the next day to get doctored up before driving my van across country to ship it from NJ to Germany.

In 1987, I received a box of my 2nd book, Survival on the Battlefield: A Handbook to Military Martial Arts. They had decided to publish it first and never gave me a chance to review the proofs, so I didn’t have the opportunity to correct technical mistakes they made. The next year, the same thing happened with Hapkido: The Integrated Fighting Art, except it was much worse. Instead of issuing a 2-volume set of every technique from white belt to 2nd degree black belt, they decided to issue a broad brush overview, cutting out techniques but not editing out references to these poor dead spirits. On top of that, the cover was ugly. I was heart-sick. It was like seeing my baby stillborn.

At the time, I was touring Germany on the weekends doing author signings and appearing on a TV talk show on AFN. I was advertising in GI magazines. I finally decided that my third book, Surviving Hostage Situations, would be published by me. My experiences with the major niche publisher and reading Dan Poynter’s wonderful self-publishing manual gave me the courage to make that decision. I arrived back in Kansas in 1989 just in time to pick up my first 1,000 copies of my third book from the printer. My next post will address how my press, Universal Force Dynamics Publishing, came to be and why it became a success.

Leave No Stone Unturned—Sell Thru All Channels!

I have talked about the competitiveness of the book industry. Last year there were over 275,000 new books published. At the same time, there are fewer bookstores. If you don’t understand why, go watch the popular video You’ve Got Mail to see a very realistic scenario. So, what to do?

It is imperative to sell your books in as many channels as possible. OK, that’s Marketing Speak—translation—sell your books to as many places as you can in as many forms as you can. Let’s take a look at these:

• Traditional distributors & Giant Chains
• Bookstores
• Libraries
• Nontraditional outlets
• Direct sales of printed books
• Direct sales & distributor sales of Ebooks
• Direct sales & distributor sales of Audio books

Traditional Distributors & Giant Chains

These include selling with the help of a wholesaler such as Ingram, Baker & Taylor, and smaller independent distributors, as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc. These are the height of competitive channels; however, they are necessary. They are also not very lucrative, since you have to give 55 to 65% discounts to these entities. With the cost of production, that doesn’t leave much for the publisher. Still, you need to use them because of their established inroads into the bookselling community.

Bookstores

They are harder to reach because there are fewer of them—both major chains and independents—and because they are overwhelmed by the book offers they receive. Still, they must be approached.

Libraries

This market has shrunk somewhat due to shrinking book buying budgets. They also prefer getting books from well established library distributors that add in little benefits such as paper pockets for date-due-by cards and such. If you believe your book will have an appeal to this market, I would highly encourage you to include the Library of Congress registration data on the copyright page.
Nontraditional outlets

This can be a lucrative market if done right. One of the chief benefits is no returns. Retailers other than bookstores just aren’t used to doing that. If your book, nonfiction or fiction has a specialty theme in it, this is a viable market for you. For example: you’ve written a guidebook to bike trails in your community. Bicycle shops are far more likely to sell your book steadily because that’s where your market segment can be found. It can work for fiction as well. If you’ve written a good action novel about bike racing or touring, bicycle shops are a great place to sell it. This is one example, so use your imagination to consider other places. Let’s say you’ve written a series of mysteries built around quilting (sound familiar?) Quilting stores and even craft supply stores would be natural venues for your books.

Direct sales of printed books

This worked well for me during the 1990’s when I had my own publishing company. In addition to fulfilling orders for my own products, I added about 200 products from other publishers in a direct mail catalog. I had 8,000 customers and did a third again more business from the basement of our home than I did from our bookstore downtown. Today, we have the internet in addition to the postal system, which is a whole new world.

Direct sales & distributor sales of Ebooks

A pdf version of your book and cover isn’t that hard to produce and sell over the internet as an ebook. It should sell for about 50% of what your printed version’s retail price is; however, it’s all pure bottom line territory. If you want to make multiple format versions for Kindle, etc., you can buy the software to do that or you can use a distributor such as Smashwords.com who will put your book into multiple versions and sell it through many channels for only 15% of the retail price. To me, that is a good deal and well worth considering.
Direct sales & distributor sales of Audio books

Finally, there are audio books. These can be as technically difficult to produce and certainly more expensive than printed versions. This is why audio books generally more expensive than printed versions. Traditionally one would use skilled readers (usually out of work actors) in an expensive recording studio. Then there are the expenses of pressing CDs and designing their labels and container covers, which are every bit as expensive as book covers and even more so if multiple pages are required. But I have found a wonderfully cost effectively way to do this—Hudson Audio Publishing. They do have an acceptance committee, so if your book doesn’t cut it, you won’t be able to go thru them; however, their up front production costs are minimal and are paid primarily from royalties. You can record your own right at your PC or Mac or you can use free lance voice over experts they can recommend. They charge 30% (for a $10 book, you keep $7) of the retail price to sell your book through established audio book markets as downloads. This is the audio version of an ebook. They pay royalties every 90 days. You can find them at http://www.hudsonaudiopublishing.com/.

Bottom Line

You cannot afford to not consider all of the above in today’s competitive market place. The more venues you use, the more formats you use, the more credible you become. You’ve got to be a player if you expect to quit your day job (oh no, not yet!). Now go out there and make your presence felt.

Significant Reader Trends

Shift in Topic Popularity

According to the Shelf Talker newsletter, the long run of vampire/werewolf fascination is just about over. The next fad is predicted to be post-apocalyptic novels.

A Major Shift in Some Readers’ Tastes

We have seen a very interesting trend at our bookstore, The Book Barn, in Leavenworth, Kansas just north of Kansas City. It started several years ago when the Harry Potter fad began, followed closely by the Eragon trilogy. These mid-grade and young adult fantasies became read by many parents. Although the books were long for the genre, these parents discovered they enjoyed the reads. This led them to read more of the shorter-length YA lit to see what it was like—partly to learn what appeals to their children, but more and more for their own enjoyment. When we asked them why they were reading more YA’s, they disclosed several reasons why:

• Easy to read
• Fun to rea
• Fits into their daily schedules

Ah, this last factor is the important key—Available Time. People have so many demands on their recreation time, they don’t have enough time to read thick tomes anymore. Much YA lit is designed to pull the reader through quickly with 1-3 page chapters. They are fun, if not challenging, and short. A good adult reader can speed through a book and be entertained while reading it. They have found they prefer tightly written books where every chapter leaves one hanging, curious to read what’s next. My wife and I believe we have discovered an important trend. We’re not alone. Some major NYT bestselling authors have begun writing YA novels—Patterson for one example. They are taking advantage of the trend we noted. Although their YA’s have young protagonists, the characters act more adult than is usually found.

I remember 20-30 years ago, during the height of Harlequin Romance popularity when some men were reading these books to put themselves to sleep. Then, as now, non-traditional readers sometimes emerge to make an impact on the book marketplace. There is a need for shorter adult books written specifically for the time-challenged market segment. Most genre novels are 70,000 to 100,000 words or more. We believe there is a need for some genre lit written within the constraints of 45,000 to 65,000 words. They need to be written tightly without too much description, focusing on rapid plot and quick character development. This approach reminds me of the 30,000 to 45,000 stories of the pulp fiction era.

I’m putting my money where my mouth is, as I have written four mysteries of place set in Leavenworth and consisting of 50,000 to 60,000 words that will appeal to our region, military officer couples, and time-challenged adults. Only time will tell if my take on this trend is accurate or not. I believe other authors, and more importantly publishers, should consider supporting this market segment, which should grow as more and more demands are made on our available time. I welcome your comments. Remember, I’m not saying all books should be written this way, but that there is a previously unnoticed market segment.

 

Why Booksellers Must Become Destination Marketing Oriented

What is Destination Marketing?

It is creating your business in such a manner that people want to come to it to have fun and be entertained. Whole downtowns can band together to create fun-to -shop places as a theme for their business community. There are plenty of stories about the big box chain bookstores driving the Mom and Pop bookstores out of business. How can the little guys compete and survive? By becoming a shopping destination. My bookstore, The Book Barn, is a small store. It is literally a Mom and Pop operation, since 1979—just my wife and myself. It was 10 years or so ago that we first learned about destination marketing. We began having many more events at our store—author chats & signings and historical events such as The America Girls. We got better at these until we began to win national and State Governor awards for our events. More importantly, the word of mouth started getting around. The Book Barn was an interesting and fun place to be. Despite the economy, the price of gas, and 3 big box bookstores within 15-20 miles, our business began improving. Just as important, businesses around us began to understand what we were trying to do and started working on their events.

Two plus years ago, we decided to expand the scope of our next Harry Potter release party. It was difficult, but we talked the businesses on our block to work with us to create a Diagon Alley experience. The newspaper printed a special edition of the Daily Prophet and handed them out at the event. We had a HP movie playing outside. Over 2,000 people, many in costume ,came. See http://www.abookbarn.com/Diagon_Alley_Event.html to see many pictures of people having a very good time. Ask yourself the following questions:

• If they had a really fun experience in our downtown, would they leave with a good impression?
• Are they more likely to return to shop?
• Are they going to tell others about the fun time they had?

By putting this together and succeeding, the businesses around became more likely to join us in future events and have done so

In addition we have author book chats and signings, music & poetry events, and finally, we have historic events where we talk about a time frame, play & sing music from that time, play games from then, work on art/craft projects centered around the theme, and eat snacks common to the time and culture—a surround sound context. The kids and the parents love it. We ask for food or school supply donations for our local social care organizations

We have a wonderful Yellow Lab, Tucker, who greets everybody and loves up to them. Some bring in their dogs to meet and play with Tucker. We have had both dog and cat theme events featuring animal books and activities. We ask for treat and food donations for the animal shelter and the new dog park the city is building.

Do you see a pattern here?

We want people to see our store as a happy, happening place. We are not alone in this. Look at Rainy Day Books in Kansas City. They have stupendous lecture/signing events in cooperation with the Unity Church near their store. They draw huge crowds for national and international-level speakers and authors and sell a lot of books. The Wild Rumpus, a wacky children’s bookstore in Minneapolis, creates a wonderful, child-appealing atmosphere. There are live chickens and rabbits running around the store. In the middle of the mid-level book section, there is a small log cabin. Inside, there is a foot-wide plexiglass covering of a 10′ long trench which is lit up and contains white rats running back and forth under the floor. When you go into the unisex bathroom, watch what happens to the mirror over the sink when the light goes out—whoa, there is a beautiful aquarium filled with colorful tropical fish behind the mirror showing through.

The Bottom Line

For the smaller stores to compete there a number of things they can do; however, becoming a destination for people who want to come there is absolutely critical. The same can be said for websites. Make them interesting and fun to come to. People tend to share two things with their friends: great experiences and terrible experiences. Be sure you’re in the first category. Providing a good time while giving great service is essential..

Book Interior Designing Trends

There used to be sacrosanct rules in the layout of book interiors. To violate these rules was to scream , as the Germans would say, “Unprofi” or unprofessional. That became one of the sure signs of a self-published book. That is no longer the case. Green considerations about wasting paper and economic considerations about printing costs when margins are so small for the publisher have forced publishers to re-think how books should be laid out.

One of the major changes is the old rule about always beginning new chapters on the recto or right hand side. When a chapter ended on the recto, there would follow a blank page on the next verso or left hand page. That is seen as wasteful today. Chapters’ beginning pages will often be seen on either page, eliminating the need for blank pages on the left. This cuts down on the page count.

Another rule is to not show headers or footers on blank pages and pages where a chapter begins. This is beginning to change. One, there are fewer blank pages. Two, not showing a page number on the start of a chapter, especially when the table of contents gives one is annoying to the reader. The header above the chapter heading still should be eliminated because the page will look too cluttered; however, the page numbers should be placed as footers and they should remain so someone can more easily find a chapter from the TOC.

The inclusion of Library of Congress numbers on the Copyright page. I see these as optional. One, the staff at the LOC seems somewhat overwhelmed by the number of number requests. Two, if you don’t feel there is a large market in the library sector for your book, why bother with it. The librarians are the only folks who refer to these numbers in any way. If your book was designed to sell off the back table at your lectures and your primary sales venues are direct sales or bookstores, don’t bother with the LOC number.

These may seem like small points, but trust me, many publishers agonize over them. If any of you know some other practices which are changing and why, please add a comment below.

Why Johnny Won’t Read and What To Do About It

More & more children do not like to read, especially boys. Why is that and what can we do about it? To answer these questions, I will address the following:

• Developing a love of story
• Lack of reading skills
• Short attention spans
• Competition for children’s time and attention
• Lack of good, appropriate content

Each of these points presents problems as I see them and possible solutions. In addition to my book & writing background, I am a certified teacher and taught in a juvenile detention center as its school master for two years in 2000-2002. I’m also a professional storyteller (since 1997) who toured my state’s schools as a performer on the Kansas Arts Commission’s Touring Roster.

Developing a love of story

When I was a little boy in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, My grandmother and my mother read to me or told me stories often. Each day I would anxiously await the Story Hour program on Purdue University’s radio station, when a story lady or man would read from an exciting children’s book—each day carrying the story along serial fashion until the book was finally finished and then a new one would begin. My favorite teachers were ones who would read aloud to our classes whenever they had the chance. All this developed my love of story and contributed to my love of reading. At one point, my mother and step-father (who were not readers of habit) actually took me to our family doctor with their concern that I was reading too much (is there such a thing?). Reading was my escape, my transport to other worlds and lands. Famous British children’s fantasy writer, Brian Jacques, understood that compulsion, when as a ragamuffin boy, he used to sneak into the library, grab a book, and hide back in the stacks to read until he was caught and they threw him out for being a dirty street kid. (He personally shared that story with me one night at an Author’s Dinner at the BEA).

Are we inculcating a love of story in our children today? Did we we read to them until they learned to read at school and then assumed they would read now that they knew how? Did we stop reading to them? Did books cease to come alive for them in the hands of a skilled adult reader? I read aloud to my incarcerated juveniles 30-60 minutes a day and they loved it. In my own family, even when my kids were in their teens, we would take turns reading thrilling children’s books aloud as a frequent family activity.

Finally, are we good role models to our children? Do we allow them to catch us reading? How can we teach them a love of reading, if we don’t display that behavior ourselves? All this illustrates what I mean when I talk about developing a love of story and a love of reading them.
Lack of reading skills

I could always tell when a student had been taught to read by the “whole word” reading approach. As they stumbled along, guessing at words until the passages became utter nonsense, I cringed at their frustration. Teaching reading by whole word recognition is like teaching the very visual Chinese written language. Instead of teaching students how to sound out words for themselves, using phonics, the students are required to memorize the shapes of words and encouraged to guess what words might be. It just doesn’t work well and makes reading a hideous, frustrating chore. How can children love to do something that they don’t have the skills to do?

Short attention spans

It is a great temptation to use the electronic babysitter (the TV) to occupy our children while we focus on getting the housework done. The next time you watch TV, note how often the camera shots change, about every 3-5 seconds. This constant stimulation of the brain at the unconscious level programs it to expect to be stimulated often. When that doesn’t happen, boredom immediately sets in. Is it any wonder we have so many children with ADD problems. The TV has trained them to expect constant stimulation on a very shallow level. Responsible parents should limit TV watching to few favorite shows per week instead of a constant bombardment of the senses. Books don’t hold up well in the competition for the senses because they require thought, visualization, and imagination. TV, movies, and video games offer immediate and constant gratification which doesn’t require any of these brain skills. In my early years, TVs weren’t available yet, so I sat and told myself stories I made up by the hour for my own entertainment. From this came my imagination and creativity in my adult years. Turn off the boob tube!

Competition for children’s time and attention

When I grew up, there were very few organized activities. Playdate? What the heck is that? Our biggest complaint as kids was there was nothing to do. Today, there are way too many things for our children to do: gymnastics, dance, music, horseback riding, sports, you name it. Moms and dads are worn to a frazzle just trying to keep track of all the schedules and transport there to. When is there quiet time just to read? When a child is constantly stimulated with physical activities, how can a non-physical activity such as reading compete in that environment?

Lack of good, appropriate content

My last point is directed more toward young boys than girls. There is not enough good content to read. That is slowly starting to turn around, although way too many children’s book authors tend to only write fantasies for boys and a wider range of literature for girls. Writers and publishers, you must consider your target audience/market! What do boys like to do? That’s what needs to be written about. Like their fathers, many boys tend to prefer nonfiction. They like true life tales, sports stories, history, as well as fantasies. There are a few authors championing this cause; however, they are too few. Make a difference! provide interesting, fun content boys can identify with.

Conclusion

If you go back over the above material, the common theme is adult responsibilities. The child can’t and won’t make these fixes. YOU have to. Hopefully, this has given you some ideas as to how a love of reading can be inculcated. From my experience with wayward juveniles, it’s never too late, but the earlier you start, the better your chances will be. Our civilization is threatened. Remember what the old cartoon character, Pogo, once said: “We have seen the enemy, and he is we.”

Word from Frankfurt on EBooks

According to Publishers Weekly on 19 Oct, European publishers seemed very concerned about the risk of piracy. Although some speakers tried to be reassuring, their audiences weren’t always buying the message about ebooks. At the same time, the International Kindle hardly caused a ripple as far as its impact on foreign rights, Anyone in Europe can download English language ebooks from the Kindle store, yet the rights guys didn’t seem to have a position on that reality.

Another development, however, raised eyebrows when a California company, Spring Design, introduced a new reading device called Alex that looks just like the new Barns and Noble digital reader. Speculation ran rampant that both devices might be serious competition for Kindle and the Sony Reader.

Finally, an Aussie ebook developer DNAML, is offering a website with free club memberships to get a 25% discount on front line and back list books from major publishers. Their format is focused on PCs and Macs, rather than specific readers, betting that the market is too soft for that many ebook reader purchases over the next year due to the weak economy. That reenforces what I said in my last post that it may not be necessary to commit to too many ebook reader versions. Focus on the computer versions for now.

EBook Formats—Where are they Now and Where are they Going?

Formats

For those of us who are more seasoned citizens, remember the battle between cassette tapes and 8-tracks? Remember the video format fights between VHS and Beta? Those seem very simple choices when considering what format choices we have today for ebooks. I certainly don’t claim to be the expert here, but hope those more knowledgeable will feel free to chime in with comments, which will expand our knowledge base. Please treat this as a forum.

According to my research there are quite a few methods to view ebooks, and, therefore, quite a few formats. What is a publisher to do? Stick to the most common format or publish his ebooks in several different formats? First, let’s take a look at some of the ebook devices, because they drive the formats. One term you should be aware of is DRM, or “digital rights management,” which refers to techniques that seek to prevent illegal copying or pirating of a digital work, like an ebook or music:

• Computers (PC and/or Mac) which easily read the pdf format.
• The Sony Reader primarily uses Sony’s proprietary Broadband eBooks (BBeB) format for documents with DRM but also supports RTF and non-DRM PDF.
• The Amazon Kindle uses Amazon’s proprietary AZW format, which supports DRM.
• Flip Book is an online connected technology that uses their proprietary format and plays on a computer (PC or Mac versions). It presents a 3-D appearance for those of us who like flipping pages and want something that looks like a book.
• As the market expands, there will be more devices. For example, former HarperCollins President and CEO Jane Friedman has launched Open Road Integrated Media (ORIM) in partnership with film producer Jeffrey Sharp. They will use a proprietary format for their own devices. Barns and Noble, not to be out done by Amazon, will be releasing a new device called the Plastic Logic e-reader. It will use the EPub format that has also been adopted by Sony. Yet Barnes & Noble’s e-bookstore won’t be accessible by Sony Reader. Amazon Kindle users won’t be able to download books from Barnes & Noble’s e-book store. And so the Tower of Ebook Babel continues to grow toward Heaven.

What’s A Publisher To Do?

First, in my opinion, it’s not worthwhile to use DRM features, because it treats all customers as potential pirates. That doesn’t make for good PR, and it adds more complexity to your sales process, which is never a good idea because it gives the customer the opportunity to become frustrated and opt out before the sale is made. Pirating is a problem, but it isn’t that big of one. Besides, pirates will always develop work-arounds, which may render DRM useless.

If you would like a free resource that rates all the different ebook formatting software packages, you might go to file:///Users/owner/Desktop/Formatting%20ebooks/eBook%20Software%20FREE%20Guide.html to obtain their free ebook guide. Personally, for the time being, I will stick to a simple pdf version.

I’m going to wait for device dominance, unless the ensuing battle goes on for too long, then I will consider going to multiple format editions. How will I do that? By relying on a formatting service. One such that I found is Smashwords. Go to https://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords to learn how they produce multiple DRM-free format versions and publish the ebooks for you for 15% of the retail price. I consider that a good deal, especially if it takes you out of the fulfillment loop.

Ever the pragmatist, I have offered my approach; however, I easily could have missed something. So, here’s the opportunity for the experts to weigh in and present alternatives. As I said, please treat this as a forum.

Designing Books

The title refers to two types of book designing:

• Book Interiors
• Book Covers

Book Interiors

The design and layout of a book is both art and practicality. It’s important that art is pleasing, but it should not get in the way of a designer’s mission. I’m sure most of us have seen books where the design became so complex or even jarring that it became distracting. Better that the art be plain but subtly supportive. If the book is a military thriller about snipers, it would be appropriate to use a small rifle scope’s crosshairs as a text break or as a small decorative by the page number. A fantasy based in Olde England might be well served with a celtic decorative capital letter for a drop cap. This is what I mean when I say supportive of the book’s theme.

The selection of fonts must balance and make sense, with none over-riding the others for attention. Most importantly is their practical importance of enhancing readability while subtlety supporting the book’s theme. Font selection also has direct impact on page count, and therefore, production affordability. When I work with a client, I see the decisions about all these elements and more parts of an iterative process. Design suggestions go back and forth with the client involved at every step for his education and acknowledgement that she is the boss who has to live with the resulting product. A designer should never attempt to force a design without giving good reasons.

Book Cover Design

First, let me acknowledge to the world I am no artist or illustrator. Instead, I am a book retailer , an author, a publisher, and a book reviewer. Last year, I was one of three judges of fiction book cover judges for the Ben Franklin Awards. In other years, I have also judged the writing in general fiction and mystery/thriller categories. What has been gratifying is that in every case and every category, the three judges all picked at least 2 of the top 3 choices in the blind with no knowledge of or communication among one another. What that says is, the cream will rise to the top. That is certainly the case for book cover designs.

Here is where I have to put on my retailer hat. The next time you’re in a bookstore, watch the shoppers. See what catches their eyes. Observe what draws them to pick out a book from the shelf (even those with only their spines showing). How far away were they? What didn’t they pick up? This is all about marketability. In an earlier blog I talked about getting seen above the grass. That is what takes place literally.

Color and graphics and treatment of fonts matter. This is definitely the realm of the artist; however, that person must be both excellent at her craft and understand how to portray the book’s theme visually. Recently, vampires are all the rage. That’s a very dark theme! Unfortunately, the covers end up being very dark, if not black, as well. The next time you’re in that bookstore, notice how much alike they all look. Is that being seen above the grass? Nope! What if on that black background there was a profusion of yellows and oranges (flames of hell perhaps)? What if the evil vampire has a purple cloak with gold ornaments and the threatened heroine is dressed in virginal white? Wouldn’t that be more eye catching and distinctive. Could someone see that from 10 feet away and find it more enticing to one’s curiosity apart from the other vampire books surrounding it?

Bright, varied colors work well, and so do light backgrounds with simple designs. Whatever the genre, your design needs to be somewhat different from other books that may physically surround it on the shelf.

Again, I am not a cover designer. I job that task out to illustrators to whom I have given the above lesson. That has worked well for us. I stand in awe of visually oriented talented people. I’m a writer and a musician, but I’m also a communicator. All these elements have to play together for successful book presentation, marketing, readability, and putting the readers in the right frame of mind. Help them escape into the magic of the book!