Comparing Ebook Covers for 2nd Mystery by Bob Spear

First Iteration of Ebook Cover for 2nd Mystery

This is what Cliff Fryman, know as Selorian to his Twitter followers came up with for an initial design. I had some suggestions, so he came up with three more versions. We then conducted a marketing survey with our bookstore customers and certain professional artists and designers. Here are covers #2, 3, and #4:

Cover #2

Cover #3

Cover #4

The results of the poll were many liked the first, but were confused by the background in the upper area, which looked like a burning ship to many. Most of the pros said there was too much detail for an on-screen thumbnail image, especially if a square audio book cover was based on the same image. Number four got very few votes as its letters were too dark. Number three got a lot of votes; however, number two won because it was simple, easy to read on screen, and manageable to cut down to a square format. The flames in the letters in both 2 and 3 were really cool (great work Cliff) and the only difference was some smoke in #3 at the base of the burning stake. The second image cut down to the audio format very handily, as shown below:

Audio Book Cover

The story is based on a true event in Leavenworth’s 1901 history when a young black man accosted a white lady and was arrested as a suspect in similar incidents, including a murder of a girl during the previous year. A lynch mob (white & black) of 5,000+ tore the iron doors off the jail that night, took him to the edge of town and burned him alive at the stake. In modern times, a young man researches his roots and discovers he is a descendant of the burned man. He decides to take vengeance against the descendants of the mob’s ringleaders. The protagonist has to figure all this out and put a stop to it.

Survey’s Hidden Agenda

In addition to helping us make a decision about the ebook cover (ebook is available at http://bit.ly/bUymON ), the survey became a wonderful marketing took to prepare the public for something exciting is coming to our town. We got strong positive reactions to the fact that we would be publishing a mystery series based in our own town which appears very professionally done. Wow, what a powerful side benefit that was!!!

Cliff ’s work as a web designer and illustrator can be seen at http://cliffordfryman.com/  As you can see, I’m very pleased with his work!

Lightning Source POD by Bob Spear

In the past, I have always used a small, local printer for my POD work. They are very reasonable and even deliver my books to our store. Fellow Tweeter LeviMontgomery reminded me, however, that Lightning Source was a good resource for print on demand work as well. When I did my research, I discovered Lightning Source (LS) was a little bit cheaper until set up charges and shipping were added in. Even so, their costs weren’t unreasonable at all, compared to many of the so-called vanity POD publishers.

Distribution

The really important consideration, however, was LS’s distribution partners. First is their parent company, Ingram Book Distributors, the largest book distributor system in the world. For a small or self-publisher to even be considered by Ingram, it must offer at least 10 different titles. Even then, one’s books must go through a very picky vetting process. By using LS, all that goes by the wayside and your books will automatically be in Ingram’s system, and they’re not the only ones. The other distribution partners include: Baker and Taylor (2nd largest book distributor), NACSCORP ( an Ingram college bookstore distributor ), Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Espresso Book Machine (often used by large bookstores for on the spot POD), Eden Interactive Ltd. (a British Christian resource company), Aphrohead (a British discount book & music mail order company). and I.B.S – STL U.K (the leading British Bible and Christian Book charity). That’s an amazing distribution force and LS has already done the hard, expensive work.

Costs

First comes the one time set up charge of $75. This is fixed, so the per book impact is a function of how many books you get printed. If you had 100 books printed, that charge would be 75 cents per book. An annual cost is $12 per ISBN to be listed in their catalog. That’s a no-brainer decision. Printing costs are based on either 50 lb white paper or 55 lb creme paper with black ink. The covers are 4 color with coating. They can render several format sizes and binding types. My 1st book runs 212 pages (they need 4-page signatures). The last two pages must be blank for their use of their barcode on the last page. The printing cost for my book in a standard trade soft cover format would be $3.65 per book (plus $0.75 setup and $0.12 catalog) for an order of 100 books. That is very reasonable for digital printing. Compare that to the quotes you’ll get from vanity presses. Hah!

Layout

They will provide a cover template based on the number of pages in the book so the trim and the spine measurements will be accurate. This will contain an ELAN barcode on the back, so you won’t have to bother buying one of those separately. They have free downloadable guideline manuals on interior design dimensions and other layout considerations, which are very helpful.

Services

These are too numerous to go into detail here. I recommend you go to https://www.lightningsource.com/ and peruse. Be sure to download all their free manuals and their application blanks, which include many pages of detailed information. You can have books printed in lots of 50 and you can have onesys and twosys printed for the various distribution partners, and LS will handle all the fulfillment and invoicing chores to the partners.

Admin

The registration process is a little involved. You are expected to provide your own ISBNs and BISACs. Once you are in their system and all admin loose ends are finalized (3 business days for digital submissions), you can expect turnaround times of 2 business days for paperbacks and 5 for hardcovers, plus shipping time for printing. One cool aspect is they have a UK facility as well as their Tennessee headquarters. This gives you direct access into the Euro business environment. How cool is that?

Larger Orders

Once your book has proved out and you decide to have it printed in larger amounts by traditional offset printing technology, LS will be happy to render you a bid for that service. Since I am not at that level yet, I don’t know how their rates compare; however, I’ll be sure to give them a chance. If they’re anywhere in the ballpark, I’ll let them have the job out of sheer convenience and simplicity. If not, oh well.

In Sum

So far I’ve covered the basics of ebook, audio download, and POD publishing. Hopefully this has given you a toehold into the process of modern book publishing. I’d love to hear your comments and field those questions I am able to answer.

Proofing Thoughts by Bob Spear

I just finished reformatting my 2nd mystery, Firebug, for uploading into Smashwords as an ebook. That was a worthwhile undertaking because, as in the 1st mystery, I found all kinds of proofing errors. This is after I had several people proof and professional editing. I had gone over it several times myself. The most common problem was using two words when they should have been combined into one. Second most common error was dumb little typos such as ‘be’ when I meant ‘me.’ A few passive sentences were caught (just like this one).

Two things often improve the accuracy of the writing process: multiple pairs of eyes and time away from the work in progress. It’s hard to catch everything when we proof immediately after writing something. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. It means we should do an initial proof, let it sit for sometime, and then come back to proof again. It’s amazing what an expectant eye will do to trick you that first time through. I am not alone in this problem—it is common in the profession.

The lesson to be learned here is that we are not perfect. We ere and we miss things. Because I have to do a careful line-by-line edit when reformatting into an rtf for Smashwords, I am more likely to see things the computer catches. Thank goodness for those wavy red and green underlines.

Audio Book Production & Choices by Bob Spear

As promised, here is a post on audio books. Have you ever priced audio books in comparison to printed versions? Mass market=$8-10, Trade Paperback=$15-20, Hardback=$22-30, Abridged audio=$26-40, and Unabridged audio=$35-60. Why are audio books on CDs so much more expensive? Production costs. First, there is the different cover and packaging. Then comes the cost of the pressed CDs (analogous to printing). Finally, there are the costs of recording, which consist of: using a professional recording studio with all its expensive equipment, its talented engineers and producers, talented reader(s) capable of smooth readings and producing different character voices consistently.

All this is very expensive! Having been a studio musician and been involved in recorded book-like projects as far back as 1966, I’ve had the opportunity to personally experience both the music and the reader sides of the process. For these reasons, I decided to go with Hudson Audio, an internationally based company out of Australia. They charge a very reasonable setup fee of $285, which is taken out of earned royalties. Their site is http://www.hudsonaudiopublishing.com/ and they take the pain out of much of the process. Technology has gotten to the point where CDs are not absolutely necessary. Newer model cars have plugins in their dashes to accommodate ipods. Ipods and similar devices are to the audio world as e-book readers are to the e-book world. Both can download electronic files to play at their leisure. Doing away with CDs is like doing away with printing books. That makes the production process much cheaper.

Not for Everybody

I’ll be up front with you, although they allow folks to produce their own electronic files, you have to either be able to pay for their production or do it yourself. If you choose the latter, they will listen to a sample first to determine if it’s up to their standards. Despite my experience, when I recorded on my iMac’s internal mike, unwanted background noises were introduced, which made for a poor quality recording. Back to the drawing board I went and solved the problem by buying a $60 studio quality mike and using my PC instead of my iMac. Although I initially tried freeware digital recording software such as Audacity, I eventually decided to spend $30-$40 on AVS Audio Editor. This gave me better control over the audio editing. If I muff a line or hiccup, I can see and find the offending area, erase it, and seamlessly record the proper material over it. A reader must do character voices, so that gave me a leg up to reading my books myself. Hudson Audio has a list of professional readers and studios that are reasonably priced if you can’t do it yourself. They also have certain technical parameter requirements you’ll need to use when recording. You’ll need to record each chapter as a separate MP3 file. What I just described sounds easy and it is; however, if you don’t know your way around a sound studio, you might find all this rather daunting—it’s not for everybody.

Reading

A good reading is not easy. There is a reason why seasoned actors are often the ones picked to read audios. They must be able to create excitement or interest with their voices. Different characters often require unique voices and accents. Fortunately, I have been a professional storyteller since 1997 and had musical and community theater experience prior to that. Storytellers do characters all the time, so I felt comfortable doing all this. Again, it’s not for everybody.

Distribution

Now comes the important part—getting your creative efforts out there for people to buy and download. Hudson Audio sells through Amazon, iTunes, and Audible.com with a 5-year commitment to them, which also means they need a con commitment from you. They are doing the hard part of distributing to the most likely markets. You keep your CD version rights; they are only interested in the download rights. So, what sacrifices will you have to make and what will you get for them?

You will get 70% and they will keep 30% of any royalties due to them through their sales to the above mentioned companies. The normal royalty they receive on a sale through these major companies is 20%. Let’s consider an example: Let’s say you place a retail price on your work of $10. For every time it is sold by iTunes, Amazon, or Audible.com, Hudson will receive 20% or $2. Your share of that $2 will be $1.40. Their share will be $.60. They pay out royalties every 90 days. At this time, they’re not going to make you wealthy; however, I think that’s going to change once more people become comfortable with downloading audio books like they do e-books.

Your Responsibility

Like everything else in this business, you must do the marketing. That involves time and funds, but will have to wait for another post on how to go about getting the word out.

A Better Day by Bob Spear

I’m published on Smashwords. My first mystery, Quad Delta, is posted on their Mystery page at http://tinyurl.com/ykchb4t . Smashwords founder Mark Coker and action officer Bill Kendrick worked closely with me. The problem was a Mac/PC compatibility problem. The files I was sending in weren’t arriving with the correct tags. They should have had the .doc Word identifier and even in one case the .rtf identifier, which I thought were on them. Only when I manually typed in an rtf on the end did it show up correctly. Once I did that it greased through like bacon thru a goose.

OK, listen up because here comes important info about graphics. First for the e-books, you only need the front cover 600 x 900 pixels at 72 dpi. For audio books, you need 600 by 600 pixels at 72 dpi. What gets easily noticed on a computer screen is different than what gets easily noticed in print. The following designs were rendered by two top notch designers. Cliff Fryman did the screen version you see here:

Angela Farley produced the printed version here:

Angie’s is so beautiful but its subtleties would get lost as a thumbnail on the screen. Cliff’s shows up well on the screen.

That’s all I have for tonight.

Another Day of Frustration by Bob Spear

After two days of simplifying my 1st mystery’s Word file, of going through line by line, of re-doing italicized thoughts and dialog, and eliminating all hyperlinks, as well as reading the style guide over and over, I still can’t get my ms accepted by Smash Word’s software. I have sent one short email asking for help, but no answer. I would have to say I’m not having a good customer experience. I’m not ready to pass judgment yet until I get some actual communication, but I am frustrated.

On a brighter note, I received a contract from Hudson Audio for a 5-year exclusive. I will sign and have it witnessed tomorrow, since I have no time today because of medical appointments. Last night I recorded two more chapters. Tomorrow, I will explain some of the details of what and how I’m doing that for those of you who would like to jump on board the audio download train.

I got internet connectivity down at my bookstore yesterday. That’s going to allow me to work on marketing and to also allow me to work with my various websites while still being on hand to assist customers as needed. Once nice thing is being able to search from our landing page in Baker and Taylor’s 2 million plus data base for books requested by our customers. It really helps build our special order business, especially for folks who aren’t comfortable with searching it themselves.

That’s all I have for today. I’ll tilt at the Smash Words windmill tomorrow.

Oooops, Spoke too Soon by Bob Spear

I worked all day yesterday setting up my book file the way I thought I had been instructed by the Smash Words Style Manual, only to discover their meat grinder would not accept it when I uploaded to their site. Also, their software routine, Auto Vetter, which is supposed to tell you what is wrong, did not appear anywhere. I’ve sent a forlorn help request, so we will see.

On a brighter note, Hudson Audio, the audio book people contacted me to charge ahead with a contract, so I have begun that process. Later today, when I’m more awake and have more energy, I will try to record some more of the 1st mystery. In the mean time, I have a new DSL modem/wifi router combo to install at the bookstore. I hope that goes better this time. Technology is wonderful when it works. It’s very frustrating when it doesn’t.

Initial Impressions of Smash Words by Bob Spear

I decided to jump back into publishing via the e-book route first. Having done my due diligence, I chose Smash Words as the best outfit out there. They have automated software they call their meat grinder that turns a Word MS into all the different e-book formats. They do this for FREE! All they ask is they manage your e-book sales. They do this for a 15% cut or, if you want to give others the privilege of selling your e-book as affiliates, they get an additional 15% for them. DEAL! This does not relieve you from the obligation of marketing; however, it is a huge support system.

The first thing I did was to go to https://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords to learn how they do what they do. This entailed downloading two well-written e-manuals—one a style guide and the other focusing on e-book marketing. Both were easy to understand. In reading the style manual, which focuses on what you need to submit to them, I discovered I had to drop back ten and punt. All my interior design work was for naught, as far as e-books go. The reason is the various e-book readers have their own way of laying out the books they read. The using person can change fonts and sizes to suit his needs. That means all the pretty designs go out the window. Forget drop caps and cute little illustrations, they just get in the way. This means I had to go into my InDesign file, select all the text, and paste it into Word. Then I had to save it as a text file, stripping out all the hidden InDesign code. Table of Contents and Indexes are stripped out since they won’t make any sense in the e-book readers. Chapter Numbers and titles are changed to a common sans serif font, in my case Helvetica at 14 point, and the text should be common, in my case I’m using Times New Roman at 12 point. I’ve had to eliminate my pretty ornamentals I use to show text breaks and go back to 3 asterisks. Because I stripped out all styling, I’m having to go through to replace the italicized text that was lost in the process. I also have to insure there are no tabs or excessive paragraph symbols or spaces.

Once I have rendered this simplified file that will play on all the different formats, I’ll be ready to send it to the meat grinder. Smash Words has routines that check for my compliance with its style requirements, which is a good thing. Obviously, this will take some time, but now I know what I have to do for my four other mysteries. Everything they require is for good technical reasons. Their style manual made understanding them easy. Their marketing manual is practical and in keeping with common sense guerrilla marketing principles. So far this has been a positive experience except for the redoing of the file, which will take time. I hope to have that finished by tonight. Then, I will be ready to complete their application and send my file to their meat grinder. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes, hopefully tomorrow.

Practicing What I Preach by Bob Spear

As I venture back into the publishing business after a thirteen year hiatus, I have decided to chronicle my journey into a far more complex venture. I will be presenting the pros and cons of publishing my series of mysteries set in Leavenworth, Kansas featuring a PTSD flawed protagonist, retired Lieutenant Colonel Enos Hobson who translates his military intelligence skills into the private investigation world. The cast of characters who support Enos are quirky and fun. Enos slowly changes despite himself, while helping all manner of victims. I will be chronicling my experiences with Print on Demand, traditional printing, ebook publishing through Smash Words, and downloadable audio book through Hudson Audio.

The purpose of providing this information is to hopefully help others who want to do the same and to entice more experienced folks to add helpful comments. I will be adding on posts more often, so if this project is of interest to you, you might want to go over to the right hand side of the page and go down to the RSS and Email notification buttons, which will automatically let you know something new is up.

I will be telling about my guerrilla marketing efforts on a shoestring and how effective those efforts are. I will also talk about what we try in our bookstore, The Book Barn. Hopefully, there will be something for everybody: authors, self-publishers, small independent publishers, book coaches and packagers, and consultants. Imagine this project to be similar to the famous cooking experiment, Julie and Julia. Please pass the word to those you know who might have an interest in this effort and don’t be shy to provide comments along the way.

Bob Spear

Character Developing Thoughts (Fictional characters, that is) by Bob Spear

The Helpfulness of a Data Base Bible

Previously, there have been comments and discussions here about the importance of characters to the story. They are intrinsically linked. Humans are interested in stories that include other humans (sci-fi excepted). A good story should have interesting, believable characters. So how do you make them that way? My very good friend, Jacqueline Simonds of Beagle Bay Books, put a name to a convenient data base practice I use by calling it a “Bible.” As a story line begins to form in my mind, I begin to imagine the types of people who have parts to play in the story. I assign roles to them and start thinking up names. As I do this, I use a simple Works data base to begin keeping their aspects straight in my mind. There is no hard and fast requirement for that data base’s structure; however, you might want to include some of the following:

• Roles
• Names and nick names
• Relationships to others
• Sex (both actual and balance of attributes)
• Age
• Hair, skin, eyes, tattoos, scars, etc
• Height
• Build
• Fitness
• Education and training levels
• Vocal aspects (accents, region, tone, pitch, quirky ways of talking, etc)
• Personality
• Social ability
• Special Skills
• Noticeable and hidden strengths
• Noticeable and hidden weaknesses
• Handicaps
• Motivations (why the person does or doesn’t do certain things)
• Thinking quirks
• Moral strengths and weaknesses, religion, or the lack thereof, mentors, and centers of influence
• Habits
• A possible short resume if applicable
• Comments about where he or she fits in the plot line

No, you don’t have to use all of these, or you can also include other factors if needed. Remember, this is a working aid to help you, the author. Such a Bible can help your characters come alive for you and your readers. You don’t have to use all the stuff you write down and not all characters are equally important. You may want to include a lot of detail for your major characters, perhaps less detail for characters who make only short appearances in the story, and practically no detail for very minor characters

Names

Try to be realistic. Don’t be too cutesy with names such as Dudley Doright. Try to be accurate as to regions, nationalities, and ethnicities. I have had to include folks from various Middle Eastern countries, India, Pakistan, and China. To help me find appropriate names for these characters, I went to Wikipedia articles specifically on names and how and why they are formed in these specific cultures. I also Googled typical male and female baby name lists by culture.

Names can become very Freudian. Jacqueline Simonds content edited my first two mysteries. (She’s very good, by the way and I highly recommend her at http://www.beaglebay.com/contact.html ) She pointed out that every significant female character in the male protagonist’s family and close relationships had been given a name beginning with the letter “S.” After all that writing and rereading, I had never noticed it. It was an easy fix with global find and replace tools, but it was also unsettling to have it brought to my clueless attention.

Balance in All Things

Be very careful here. It simply isn’t realistic for a character to be all good or all bad. That is such a temptation, especially with the villains, but, people are more complex than that. In fact, when comparing a protagonist (hero) with an antagonist (villain) you may discover how much they have in common. What sets them apart in their respective roles are the choices they make and the actions they take. “There but for ___would go I.” These are the details that make a story so interesting. Getting down to the motivations of those light or dark sides makes for keen psychological studies.

Flexibility of Characters

Finally (no, there is no room here for a be all, end all treatise on this subject), are the degrees of flexibility in the main characters. The arc of the story is driven by what happens to and by characters and what they learn and how they change. Most readers are hoping to see characters that rise from the ashes of debacle, to overcome their weaknesses, their problems, and their challenges. No character should be perfect; however, characters that find the courage and wisdom to rise above adversity are preferred. I hate a story where nobody wins, all are destroyed, and nothing is learned except that life sucks. Sorry, that is neither entertaining nor uplifting to me. Of course, I’m just an old, set-in-my-ways man who knows what I like. And, well crafted characters I love.