eBook Deals: Barkery & Biscuits Series and Sommelier Mystery Series

Everyone loves a deal; for a limited time, grab these eBooks while they're on sale!

For a limited time, the eBook versions of the first three books in the Barkery and Biscuits Mystery Series by Linda O. Johnston and the first two books in the Sommelier Mystery Series by Nadine Nettmann are on sale!

	Buy for Kindle: $0.99 Buy for Nook: $0.99 Buy for Google Books: $0.99
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	Buy for Kindle: $0.99 Buy for Nook: $0.99 Buy for Google Books: $0.99
	Buy for Kindle: $1.99 Buy for Nook: $1.99 Buy for Google Books: $1.99

This Idiot's Guide to Ebooks

by Jennifer Harlow

I'm lucky in that I have one foot in both publishing worlds. I was blessed with what many dream of, a book deal with an actual publisher. If you go into the mystery section of Barnes & Noble chances are you'll find a Jennifer Harlow there. Eventually six of them, at the very least. The first time I saw one, I almost burst into tears and had to flee. It was one of the best moments of my life. But with the slow seemingly “death” of brick and mortar bookstores (still miss you Borders), mergers of the big publishing houses, and boom of ebooks most authors may never get that experience. As of right now the ratio of physical vs. ebooks sold is 60/40 but just three years ago it was 90/10. We all knew what happened to the music industry when iTunes came around. (I can't remember the last time I bought an actual CD.) So times, they are a'changin. If that’s a good or bad thing is up for debate, but my gypsy soul wanted to give this new time a try.

At the bare minimum you need a manuscript, a cover, and a blurb, all of which you can slap together yourself. Might cost you nothing. Put it up on Amazon and congrats, you're an author. This is wonderful if you just want friends and family to read it or just for bragging rights. From my research, this seems to be the standard. 90% of ebooks only sell about 50 copies. This is the equivalent in the traditional publishing world of making a living as a writer, of which only about 5% of authors can. But since I want to reach more than my immediate circle, and I'll bet you would too, you have to be willing to spend some money and time on this. I spent a full week researching the ebook racket, comparing companies and prices, hitting blogs for the best formatters and cover designers, learning if I need an ISBN and LCCN, deciding if I want print copies too, if Kindle Select was worth it, how to promote, etc. My mind was awash with information. But it was fun. I hate studying but love to learn. And here is what I learned, with the help of my friends Alan Orloff and Emily Kimmelman:

1) Before you do anything, work on your manuscript. I've had A LOT of feedback from Beta readers, my agent, even publishers on how to fix my book. It's been edited about twelve times, so I decided with this one to skip a professional editor. But I DO NOT recommend this. For the next Galilee book I plan to hire one. Things like missing commas, slow pacing, clunky dialogue all separate you from the 90%. You want to be a professional, you need a professional presentation. That includes making sure you have a Title Page, Copyright page that includes the ISBN and LCCN (more on those later) among others, dedication, acknowledgements, and author biography. 

2) Manuscript in ship shape and professional looking? Good. Next comes possibly the most important part: the cover. Once again, this is what separates the wheat from the chaff. Think about the last ebook you took a chance on? What initially drew you to it? Yep, the cover. Covers make or break a book. It's the most important marketing tool in your arsenal. Besides the editing, this is where the majority of your money should go. I did the most research on this. I looked at contests, inside ebooks (the artist is usually listed) I liked, and went to their websites to view their samples. I had no idea what I wanted my cover to look like except it needed bold colors, was moody,  and had something superhero on it. Damonza won by a landslide. His prices range from $195-$395 for ebook only. He is the premier for a reason as witnessed by my cover which is a freaking work of art. Don't skimp on this one.

3) Now comes the business side of publishing. One of my big questions was, do I need an ISBN? An ISBN is how your book is cataloged and identified. This is kind of a gray area if you really need one for ebooks or even print self-published ones. Some sites said yes, others no. If you go through companies, or even Createspace as I did for my physical copies (see item 7 ) they'll give you one, but then they control the ISBN. But since I'm a professional who has a toddler's grasp of copyright law, I decided to err on the side of caution and get some. To do this, you go to Bowker and create an account. When you do this, congrats! You have your very own publishing imprint! I named mine Devil on the Left. When you've created this, then it's time to buy your imprint's ISBNs. One costs $100 but ten cost $250, and you need a separate ISBN for every version (ebook/print/audio etc.) so buy the ten. This way you 100% own the copyright of your books and you're technically a publisher. More bragging rights!

4) Okay you have your cover and manuscript including copyright page with your ISBN on it. Now to get the manuscript into digital form. Once again, I recommend going professional. I am not at all tech literate and there are a million rules for formatting. Seen ebooks with no indentations or entire blank pages? Want to read something else by them? Nope. Hire a formatter. Once again I went with Damonza and got a deal for doing both formatting and cover with him. I got both ePub and MOBI (you can do PDF yourself from the Word document). When it came time to put it on Kindle I just had to upload the MOBI file. Easy peasy.

5) Now the blurb. This is the product description for the book. The cover gets them to read this, which really sells the book. Spend time on it. My agent and I wrote this one to send around to publishers so I was covered, plus I've been writing blurbs for ten years, but if you haven't maybe contract this one out too. If not then just make sure you use concrete imagery, don't give too much away, and really focus on the first sentence. 

6) Okay, I got everything. Time to publish the sucker. This is the easy part. Just set up an account at KDP and follow the instructions. But there is a caveat. They'll ask you if you want to enroll in Kindle Select. Once again I've heard arguments for and against. If you chose it you cannot publish on Nook or anywhere else for at least three months. The truth is, if you can't make it on Amazon you ain't making it anywhere. Enroll. That way you can do the five day giveaway thing and potentially get ten thousand people to download it. Sure you don't make any money but they may buy the second or third in the series. Another important thing is keywords for searching. I used "superhero, epic sci fi, hard boiled, etc" so whenever someone searches those words mine will come up. Don't get too general or specific though.

7) You got your ebook up! Huzzah! Now ask yourself if you want to do print too. You should. If not to sell them then at least to have physical copies for reviewers. Some will only take physical copies like when you do a Goodreads giveaway or at libraries. I used Createspace. Make sure you have changed the ISBNs but you can use the same Word document you sent to the formatter. You upload it and their program formats it for you. Then you create a cover using their templates, send it for review and you have a book. You can sell it on Createspace, Amazon, and if you spend $25 you can even get it to book distributors who buy for real bookshops. And if you go a step further perhaps even libraries. To get into the Library of Congress you need an LCCN. They only accept print books where you have your own imprint and ISBN. You fill out their form and they'll review you stuff. It'll take from a day to a week. At least this way you have a chance to get your baby into libraries, but don't hold your breath.

So, in total I spent about $825 on Justice so far (not counting the blog tour and other publicity stuff yet to come.) The usual average is about $1250 with an editor. I need to sell about 420 books just to break even. (Slowly getting there.)

One of the big questions floating around is which is better, traditional or self publishing? I've done both and honestly I don't have a verdict yet as I've only been at the latter a short time. Both have strengths and weaknesses, but so does everything in life. I'm a total control freak, and love my freedom, so the fact I got to have complete control over the back cover copy, cover, the title, all of it was nice. And the fact I get 70% of every book sold (a little over $2) instead of 10% is great. The downside is I front all the money, take all the risk, and unlike an advance from a publisher, I'm guaranteed no money. Plus with traditional you reach a wider audience (not everyone has joined the revolution) and get to see your book in stores. I'm doing about the same amount of publicity work on the ebook as I did for the others. But from a logic perspective, if you can go traditional, do. I wouldn't be a member of Mystery Writers of America or Horror Writers Association without going traditional. Gain experience with the publishing world, a fan base and connections then maybe branch out on your own if your gypsy soul commands it. Remember, everyone and their mother can and is publishing on Amazon. You're one voice among two million, it's damn hard to be heard. Hope this post makes it that much easier. 

Do you have any tips for ebooks, either the product or the marketing? I still read more physical books than ebooks, do you? Why is there so much us vs. them mentality when it comes to this topic?

INKSPOT NEWS - August 18, 2012

Sale! Sale! Sale! Great news! Amazon has put the Kindle version of many Midnight Ink mystery books on sale from August 11 - 23 as part of its "August Big Deal" promotion. Move fast to take advantage of this special promotion, and please spread the word to all of your mystery reading friends!

Here are the titles available for a measly $1.99 during August 11 - 23:

C.S. Challinor's Murder of the Bride
Beth Groundwater's Deadly Currents and Wicked Eddies
J. B. Stanley's Stiffs and Swine
Terri Thayer's Old Maid's Puzzle

Here are the titles available for $1.99 only on August 24th, as part of Amazon's "Kindle Happy Anniversary Deal" promotion:

Sue Ann Jaffarian's Ghost in the Polka Dot Bikini
Karen MacInerney's Dead and Berried
G. M. Malliet's Death and the Chick Lit
Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore's The Grail Conspiracy and The Phoenix Apostles

Also, on Saturday, August 25, 2012, from 9 AM – 4:30 PM, Midnight Ink author Beth Groundwater will present an “Engineering a Mystery and The Art of Dialogue Writing” Workshop at the Chaffee County Writers Exchange in the Meeting Room of the Sangre de Cristo Electric Association, 29780 US Highway 24, Buena Vista, CO 81211. There's still time to sign up to attend! Beth will sell and sign copies of her books after the workshop ends.

PAPER OR PLASTIC?

Last week I attended Malice Domestic in Bethesda, MD, then the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, PA. Both events were fabulous. I met many readers, some of whom were very enthusiastic about my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries and couldn’t wait for the next one in the series to come out. Others hadn’t read either but decided after hearing me speak at Malice or meeting me at the Festival, to give my books a try.

One of the most frequently asked questions I received at both events was, “Are your books available as e-books?” (Yes, they are.)

I’ve noticed in the short space of a year between the release of Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, and Death By Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the series, that ebook sales of my titles are far outpacing the trade paperbacks. More and more people are moving from physical books to e-readers.

There’s much to love about e-readers. You can carry around a lot of books with you at one time. If you finish a book while you’re traveling, you can easily read another, even if you’re in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles from a bookstore. I like that I can increase the font size of the words on the page, especially when I’m tired. The larger the print, the longer I can read without eye strain.

However, for those of us who love books, there’s something about holding a new book in our hands that an e-reader can’t satisfy. I wonder, what our homes will be like five, ten, or twenty years from now. Will we no longer have bookcases filled with volumes of our favorite titles? Will the Kindle and the Nook put bookcase manufacturers out of business? I love my bookcases filled with books. They take up space in just about every room of my house.

I stopped writing this for a few minutes and walked around my house, imagining each room without its bookcases. I’d certainly gain a lot of space if all those books resided in an e-reader instead of on physical shelves. I guess I’d have plenty of room to expand my teapot collection or start collecting something else. I just can’t imagine living without being surrounded by books.

What about the rest of you? Paper or plastic?

Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series. The first book, Assault With A Deadly Glue Gun, was a January 2011 release and received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist and has been nominated for a Book of the Year Award by ForeWords Reviews. Death by Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the series, was released in January. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.

Unanswerable Questions?

Keith here.

Is there one universe or many? What is the meaning of life? What happened to Jimmy Hoffa?

There are some questions that just cannot be answered.

As readers of this blog know, I am undertaking an experiment in e-publishing. My first two novels, both published in trade paper, did fine (and continue to sell). But I couldn't resist climbing aboard the ebook express and so I uploaded my latest effort, Drop By Drop: A Thriller, onto Amazon.com, BN.com, Smashwords, and Apple's iBookstore. Generally, all seems to be going well. While I miss bookstore signings, the fact I have already made more in royalties on Drop than on my last traditionally published book provides some solace.

But in the world of e-publishing, mysteries abound. There are questions for which I have no answers. Here are four:

1. How do people find out about an ebook original? I tried a little experimental advertising of Drop By Drop -- sales were not affected. Drop was greeted by a bunch of online reviews which definitely helped. Lately, there have been fewer. Still, sales have not gone down and are even trending upward. My experience is not unique. I have spoken to a couple of friends whose books were made available on the Kindle with little uptake. Only months later did their sales zoom. Why? They don't know. There's an invisible hand at work, I guess.

2. Living as I do in Silicon Valley, a few miles away from 1 Infinite Loop (Apple HQ), many readers tell me they have purchased their copy of Drop from the iBookstore. I also read about authors selling scads of books on BN.com. So here's the question: Why do I sell 20 times more books on Amazon than Barnes and Noble's BN.com and 9 times more than on Apple's iBookstore?

3. The United States has about 312 million people. The United Kingdom has about 64 million or about 20% as many. According to estimates, 750M paper-and-ink books were sold in the US in 2010 and 229M in the UK or about 30% as many. I did some Googling. According to these links, US ebook sales were $441M in 2010 and in the UK were £180M or about 60% of the US total. So why am I selling 80 times more books on Amazon.com this month than on Amazon.co.uk?

4. My second book, Smasher, made it onto a national bestseller list and was optioned for film. Reviews in paper-and-ink newspapers and mystery and publishing magazines were great. Drop By Drop was reviewed only in online publications. Smasher sells for $2.99 and Drop for $3.99. Nevertheless, Drop is selling 14 times more copies than Smasher on Amazon.com so far this month. How come?

Attention: there may be a Nobel Prize in store for whoever can answer the first question of this post, but all you get for answering any of the four ebook questions is my thanks and appreciation.

3 Books, 3 Formats, 6 Covers

Keith here.

The reading world is in the midst of a war over formats. We've all been following the back-and-forth between Kindle/Nook partisans and those who defiantly hold on to their paper-and-ink books. Here's which side I come down on: both.

Don't you think we authors should strive to ensure our novels can be read however our readers want to read them -- whether as words on a paper page or on an LCD screen? And what about those who might want to use their ears rather than their eyes to "read" a book? Fine with me. Let's add one more option to the mix then -- audio books.

My first two books have just hit the format trifecta. Dot Dead and Smasher are now available as audio downloads for iPods, MP3 players, and such on both Audible.com and Amazon.com. (You can listen to samples here and here.) Both are still available as ebooks and trade paperbacks. (Readers, pick your poison.) My third novel, Drop By Drop, is currently available only as an ebook, but if it continues to sell well (fingers crossed), I'm hoping it will be offered in print and as an audio book as well.

One side benefit to all these different formats is a flowering of covers. Dot Dead has one cover doing double duty for the ebook and trade paper and another for the audio version. Smasher -- lucky fellow -- has a different cover for all three formats. Drop By Drop is available in just the one format and hence has only one cover at present. If my arithmetic is correct, that makes a total of six covers. I'm pretty fond of all of them, but I do wonder which ones you prefer. Please let me know in your comments!

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The Importance of Format

One of the reasons my literary agent and I sought out Midnight Ink as a publisher was format. I wanted my books to be published in the two formats that Midnight Ink produces simultaneously--trade paperback and ebook. Why? Because readers were asking me for those formats. At the time, my mysteries were only in hardcover and large-print, both expensive formats that were hard to sell in a down economy.

Ideally, I'd love for my books to be available in all formats simultaneously, including hardcover, trade and mass-market paperback, ebook, large-print, audio, etc. so readers could choose the format they prefer. However, because of the costs involved and the low returns-on-investment of producing books in so many formats, most publishers only produce a subset of the possible formats. By restricting your book to only some formats, you're losing potential readers that prefer others. Of course, you want your book to be in the most popular formats. That's why the choice of publisher--and the formats they produce--is so important!

For a fiction author, ebook is becoming a more and more essential format. As discussed in this Publisher's Weekly article, fiction is the lead driver of ebook sales, accounting for 61% of sales and 51% of revenue in 2010. And by genre, Mystery/Detective is tied for fourth place with Romance, behind first place Literary/Classic (because of all the free classic books available), second place Science Fiction and third place Christian Fiction. So, as a mystery author, I am very, very glad that my most recent Deadly Currents mystery is available in ebook format, and even more pleased that they can be read on the entire gamut of devices, from Kindle and Nook to iPads, cell phones, and computers.

My new format goal? Downloadable audio! And yes, my agent knows I'm itching to sign away those rights. :)

As for what I prefer to read, I'm old-fashioned and choose paper over electronic, because I already spend so much time on a computer. And my favorite paper format is trade paperback. What about you? What book format(s) do you prefer?

Reporting in from E-book Land

Keith here

John Wanamaker, the founder of the eponymous Philadelphia department store, was reputed to have said: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

I'm trying lots of stuff to publicize my ebook original and just hoping half will work. I said I’d keep you up-to-date on my adventures in the terra incognita that is ebook land and so here goes.

As soon as Drop By Drop became available on Amazon and Smashwords, I emailed just about everyone on my contact list to let them know the news. That seemed to drive a spike in sales. I later put the ebook up on Barnesandnoble.com, but there hasn’t been much uptake there (yet?).

Through PRWeb, I circulated a press release. It was a reasonable $40 after using a coupon. Even at that bargain price, I didn’t detect any signs it did much. It sure as heck didn’t generate any press inquiries.

I’ve blogged here and at my own blog. Over at The Rap Sheet, I recounted “The Story Behind The Story" of Drop by Drop. Here's a sample.

"The Intelligence Committee had just been made permanent based on the recommendation of the Church Committee, which had deemed the CIA a 'rogue elephant.' I started as the junior of three lawyers on the committee staff. Before the end of my first year, the other two had left. I was 27 years old and suddenly the senior attorney on the committee overseeing the government’s secret intelligence activities. Holy shit!"

The Rap Sheet is a pretty popular ezine (with good reason), and my column was picked up by dozens of other sites. A blog called Indie Bee Covers managed to make me confess that if I could be any fictional character, I'd be Frank Hardy, Fenton's son and Joe's big brother.

Garnering reviews from the regular suspects is tough. Daily newspapers have been shedding book reviewers for years. I’m a subscriber to the mags Mystery Scene and Crimespree. I emailed the editors, but they’re not reviewing ebook originals – yet. I sent out a tweet asking if any online reviewers wanted a copy of the ebook. My tweet was re-tweeted and a couple of terrific reviews resulted. Therese Poletti, the high tech columnist for Dow Jones’s Marketwatch, interviewed me for her piece called "E-books causing seismic shift in publishing." About publishing Drop By Drop as an ebook original, she quotes me saying, "It’s both exciting and scary. I am a tech guy. I like trying new stuff and figuring this out." (No news if you've been reading my pieces here.) A local newspaper and TV show will have me discussing how the ebook revolution is affecting a working writer. We should see what they come up with soon.

Brick-and-mortar bookstores like Kepler’s, M Is for Mystery, and Books Inc, were huge supporters of my first two books, but what can they do with an ebook? A signing? There’s nothing to inscribe. And they don’t have ebooks sitting on the shelves. (I am going to be on a panel at Books Inc in Berkeley next Monday, but they’ll be stocking Dot Dead and Smasher for me to sign.) The Palo Alto Library sent me an email asking if I would come by for a talk on Drop By Drop, but they need to have copies to loan out. Ebook format is okay with them, but the only way they get ebooks to loan is through a service such as Overdrive. I did fill out an online form for Overdrive, but since they seem focused on dealing with publishers than authors, I am not optimistic.

I’m doing advertising on Facebook and Goodreads, but not getting too many clicks on them. (That's one of the three ads on Goodreads above.) Since I pay only for the click-throughs, this is an experiment that isn’t costing much. I have high hopes for the advertising I have planned on an email newsletter that goes out to Kindle readers, but that won’t happen till October. No space until then.

I should have a book trailer soon and will look forward to pasting that on my website and everywhere else I can think of.

Andy Gross, the thriller writer (and terrific guy) whose books show up on The New York Times bestseller list every year, sent me a blurb: “No one puts the crosshairs on Washington, terrorism, and intrigue better than Keith Raffel. Do yourself a favor and read Drop By Drop!” I immediately put it up on my website and in the book descriptions on Amazon and Goodreads. (Andy's Kirkus-starred Eyes Wide Open is out July 12.) Hank Phillippi Ryan, who has won 26 Emmys as one of the country's top investigative reporters on Boston's WHDH-TV, has also managed to pick up a triple crown of crime fiction awards -- Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity. Hank is a class act and whip smart, but must have had a rare lapse of judgment last night when she emailed me that Drop By Drop is "intriguing, intense, and with such an insider's knowledge of the war on terror that I'm surprised it's not classified. Sinister, scary, and heart-stoppingly realistic--this is a gem of a thriller!" Can't wait to use that, too!

It’s terrific that Jess, Gin, Karen, and Joanna's ebooks published by Midnight Ink are doing so well at prices under $3. I just wonder what MI is doing to publicize them. With a couple of the books in the top 100, they are doing something right!

When you get a paper-and-ink book out, you have a pretty limited time to make a splash. After a few months, bookstores send their stock back to the publisher. With an ebook, things can take time to ripen. It’s against my nature to be patient, but I do believe more reviews from readers will come and word-of-mouth will build. Or at least I hope so!

As always, I’m open to comments and words of advice. Please send them along!

The Real Deal on My Ebook

Keith Raffel here.

As I wrote in my last posting here, I’m doing some diversification of my literary portfolio. My agent in New York has a manuscript he’s circulating to publishers. He even has another in his back pocket. So I held back a third manuscript and have decided to publish it as an ebook original. Drop By Drop draws heavily on the four years I spent in Washington working as the counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Once I decided to go down the ebook route, all those housekeeping chores the publisher had done on my first two books became my responsibility. So I figured out how to copyright the manuscript, obtain an ISBN number, and more.

Then there’s coming up with a cover. I didn’t have much to do with the cover on my first two books. The publisher asked for ideas for a cover for Dot Dead. I said any cover was okay with me except for a woman dead in a bed. Guess what showed up on the cover? (See left. Over time, it did grow on me.) When the publisher came up with a preliminary cover for Smasher, I was delighted to be asked for comments. I took the request seriously and showed it to a few trusted booksellers and relayed their suggestions back to the publisher. No changes were made.

With Drop By Drop I was on my own for the cover. I found a designer and told him what I had in mind. I took the first draft of the cover and posted it up on Facebook for comments. It turns out my friends, especially Shelly, know what they’re talking about. This time suggestions were taken into account, and we discarded a tricolor cover and ended up with the one on the left.

Over the weekend I uploaded the text of Drop by Drop onto Amazon (click here) and Smashwords (click here). Smashwords in turn makes certain the ebook goes into the catalogs of Apple’s iBookstore and Barnesandnoble.com. I'll let you know how things go.

Wanted: Ebook Advice

Keith here.

Remember when you used to write "e-mail" with a hyphen? Then it got so ubiquitous that you dropped the hyphen and typed "email." Well, I remember when you inserted that hyphen in ebooks, too, but now it just looks old-fashioned, like you haven't gotten aboard the train before it left the station. The NY Times is running ebook bestseller lists. My compadre Barry Eisler eschewed a $500K advance for paper-and-pulp books to go the ebook publishing route. And I'll bet it can't be long before Mystery Writers of America and the International Thriller Writers add a best ebook original category to their awards to go with the best paperback original.

I live in Silicon Valley and have been on the cutting edge on some things like cloud computing and the Luddite fringe on others like smartphones. I guess on ebooks I'll be somewhere in between.

My agent is currently circulating a manuscript of mine for paper and ink publication. I have the rights to e-publish one of my books now on bookstore shelves in trade paper (Smasher), and I have another manuscript sitting on my hard drive. It's called Drop by Drop after this quotation by Aeschylus: “And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart....” In Drop I draw upon my experience as counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee overseeing spying and other covert activities conducted by US intelligence agencies. I loved writing the novel and friends who have read it have been nudging me, so I want to get it out there for others to read.

Paul Levine gave me advice on where to go to get the manuscripts formatted for Amazon and B&N and to get covers for them. (The one on the left above is just a mock-up I did myself.) But here's what I don't know, where I'm lost. When Smasher came out in paper, I went to BEA and signed books, and then visited bookstores and signed even more. The publisher sent out galleys to newspapers and magazines, which followed up with reviews. I was interviewed by print reporters and even on TV. But how do you do all that with an ebook? How do you send reviewers a copy? (It probably doesn't matter since they won't review an ebook original anyway.) I can't go to bookstores, for signings -- there's nothing to sign.

I had a great set of blurbs for Smasher, but what about blurbs for an ebook original? Is there even room for one to be legible on the front cover? (There is no back cover.) Is it uncool to ask for a blurb that would just be used on the Amazon, B&N, and Smashword download sites?

So I have to come up with a new launch strategy, don't I? I guess I can tweet and blog to my heart's content. But beyond that, how do I get the word out there? I'd be grateful for any ideas you have or experiences you've learned from. Thanks so much.

Keith

P.S. I'll let you know when the books are available for download and how it goes in a future posting.

How Do You Get Your Books?

Cricket McRae

Between e-readers, the closing of Borders, and the surge of self-published authors there has been a flurry of discussion about where the publishing industry is going. Keith posted recently about the future of independent bookstores, an excellent examination of what’s been going on with e-readers and the instant downloading of ebooks.

I’m not looking to enter into the debate about e-readers or whether reading on paper is better or not. I don’t think print books will vanish altogether, and I love, love, love them. But electronic books and their green delivery (sans fuel oil) are here, and they ain’t going away. It seems it would behoove those in the publishing industry to figure out what comes on the other side of the current ebook trends in order to leap frog ahead instead of playing reluctant catch up. What that new thing may be is beyond my ken right now, though. I feel as if I need a workshop  class advanced degree in what’s already going on with different formats and new marketing before I could venture a guess about what comes next.

But looking at the various books I’m currently reading, I realized their sources are widely mixed. And note that I don’t have a Kindle or Nook or any other e-reader, so that influences where I’ve obtained these books.

• The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love by Kristin Kimball  was recommended on a blog I regularly visit called Cold Antler Farm. And there I also found a link to Farmbrarian, which lists tons of other books about small scale farming, livestock, real food, and local eating – subjects which float my boat to an unreasonable degree. I bought it immediately online from Powell’s Books. 

• I’m making a point lately of catching up with mystery series that I’ve fallen behind on or missed one in the middle. So when I saw our own Jess Lourey’s Knee High by the Fourth of July at the library, I grabbed it and headed for the checkout desk. What a fun read! At the library I also picked up Laurie R. King’s The Language of Bees .

• And even though I don’t have a Kindle, I do have the Kindle app on my I-Phone. So when one of my critique partners who keeps an eye on YA trends suggested I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins I downloaded it for $5.00. So far I’ve read the first two in the series, on my I-Phone of all the crazy unintuitive places, and am nearly done with the third in the trilogy. This is my middle-of-the-night, can’t-sleep, don’t- want-to-wake-up-my-partner-but-want-to-stay-under-flannel-sheets read, and I can easily see downloading another book when I’m done with this one.

• Also on my I-Phone is Die Trying by Lee Child in audio form. This I dip into when I’m cleaning, walking, or whiling away my time on the elliptical if there aren’t any good cooking shows on television.

• In honest-to-God hardcopy, I’m reading Heather Lende’s If You Lived Here I’d Know Your Name which is a collection of essays by an NPR contributor about living in small-town Alaska. I bought this book at Third Place Books in Seattle after hearing Heather speak. I’ve had it in my TBR pile for a few years but only got to it recently. Since starting it I’ve gone to her website and see she’s written another book. I’m enjoying the first, and will probably pick up the second, too.

• And then there’s Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie, which I’m rereading in part because I’m blogging on occasion about the series’ influence on my weird fascination with colonial home crafts. My parents gave me this book 37 years ago, and it’s gone through three cousins before coming back to me. Still in pretty good shape, too.

• And finally, I’m regularly referring to three books I bought for background and research for my current writing projects. These I bought via Amazon because of ease, time efficiency and free shipping, despite the fact that I’m pretty unhappy with Amazon after they dumped all their Associates in Colorado over a tax issue. 

How do you read? A mix? How do you find books? Does the targeted marketing Amazon sends to your inbox or Google pushes at you work? Do you go with recommendations from friends, Goodreads, or particular websites?

High Tech to the Rescue of Independent Bookstores?

Keith here

Of the 200 Borders stores across the company that are closing, I’ve done signings in half a dozen. That makes the chain's bankruptcy just a little more personal. I recently spoke to the proprietor of a large independent bookstore near where I live in Palo Alto. I suggested that there was some consolation -- at least Borders’ problems would be good for his store. He disabused me of that notion, saying that after getting stiffed for tens of millions of dollars by Borders, publishers are tightening up on credit with his store and other independents. He doesn’t need another problem given the threat posed by e-books to his book-and-mortar store.



So is there any future at all for the independent bookstore? Today, the independents, along with Borders and Barnes & Noble, are becoming less booksellers and more book showrooms. People wander through these brick-and-mortar stores, look around, and then go home to buy print-and-ink copies of their choices from Amazon or, alternatively, they buy downloads from Amazon or another e-book retailer. This is no secret. Booksellers at brick-and-mortar stores tell me looky-loos in their store shamelessly admit they are looking to find a good book so they can go home and purchase it over the Web. But here’s the critical point: these looky-loos prefer seeing books on shelves and talking to booksellers who know their stuff as compared to trolling through websites to look for a book to read. The problem with their preference, of course, is that there will be no book-and-mortar stores to shop at if people just come to bookstore to look without buying.

Google is making a first effort at addressing this problem. Google eBooks permits independent bookstores to offer their e-books on their websites today. (See here for example.) The store then gets a cut of the sale. Of course, buyers can also download books directly from Google’s own site. The portent may be promising, but even here in Silicon Valley not too many people are bothering to go through the bookstore sites. Still, here’s what I suspect is coming and, if it’s not, it should be. People who are checking out the shelves in an independent store will just point their iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android phone, e-book reading device at the book they want and have it instantly downloaded. The device will interpret the new generation barcode with the squiggly lines that’s already being used on billboards and magazines to send potential customers to websites, maps, videos, and such. (It's just to the left of the bottom of the Mountain Dew bottle in the ad to the right.) The e-book will be downloaded right then and there.



And guess what? Most of those devices have GPS software built in. That means Google eBooks or other e-book suppliers will know exactly what bookstore the purchaser is standing in and can pay a commission to the store. This way the store is compensated for acting as a showroom staffed with bibliophiles. By the way, with this approach, a user of Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader can just point it at a book on the shelf at a B&N and have the book ready to read, too. The model doesn’t work for the leading e-reader, Amazon’s Kindle, because Amazon doesn’t want you buying a book or e-book from anybody but them. On the other hand, a model where readers can download an e-book instantly while holding the print-and-ink version in their hands will begin to give Amazon a run for its money.

So, here’s the future. You'll go to your independent bookstore and point and click. Poof. An e-book is on your reading device even before you leave the store. Instant gratification. Rumor has it that the American Booksellers Association is working to make this all a reality. I can’t wait.







Above that's my #3 trying to download Marcus Sakey's latest.

KINDLE ME BLUE

Darrell James

Earlier this month, yet another independent bookseller, The Mystery Bookstore announced its closing. So sad. Located in trendy Westwood, California, a mere block off the UCLA campus, this fabulous stalwart of the printed book has served the mystery reading community for the past 23 years, and has hosted virtually every mystery author, big name or small.

Robert Crais at The Mystery Bookstore (Wow!)
One of the last signings there.

On nearly the same day, the major book chain Barnes and Nobles announced record fourth quarter sales. How can this dichotomy exist?

Well, it seems the source of B&N’s bragging rights came not from book sales in its stores, but from the on-line sales of eBooks for electronic readers. On Christmas day alone, the chain reported that their computers had crashed as a result of being clogged with orders for eBooks for its latest reader, the color Nook. Another statistic said that more than half of all “best seller” sales were eBooks.

In the words of the song artist and poet, Bob Dylan “… the times they are a’changin’.”

For authors, it seems to ring the death knell for printed books. Yet the reality of it is that more books than ever are actually being sold. Just not in the form we’ve come to love.

I’ve come to the eBook revolution kicking and screaming. I love books. Real books. My shelves are crammed with them. My nightstand is stacked with them. I love the look and feel of them. Having spent time in the printing industry, I even love the smell of them—that heady ink-on-paper aroma.(I know you know what I mean.)

I’ve recited all my objections to owning a reader, be it Kindle, Nook, or iPad… “I don’t like reading off a screen.” OR “What happens when the battery goes dead?”

The response from the progressive minded people who already have one or more of these devises, sounds something like: “Yes, but you can’t tuck your book into a purse or pocket. You can have it with you anytime, over lunch, in line at the bank.” AND, “When you go on vacation you can carry dozens… no!… hundreds of books with you. Think about the size of the suitcase you’d need to do that. Huh? Huh? Have you thought about that?”

Okay, I have imagined trying to fit a shipping container full of books into the overhead compartment on an airplane.

The change, though, has left me feeling maybe a bit the way the scribes of old must have felt when Guttenberg first introduced movable type, making their beautifully crafted calligraphy-styled books obsolete.

The truth is, when I listen to the arguments, my objections seem rather lame. Technology has proven itself valuable to the consumer (again). People buy them because they like them. It’s progress.

I envision a day when brick-and-mortar bookstores will mostly be a thing of the past. Possibly a few will exist to service collectors and hippy-holdouts like me—those who still store their music on vinyl record albums, proclaiming… “It sounds better.”

It doesn’t sound better; it just sounds familiar.

For authors promoting their works, perhaps the rest of Dylan's lyrics apply:

“Come gather ‘round people wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown. And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone. For the times…”

You know the rest.

I now have plans for a Nook, Kindle, whatever… “Uncle! I give.”

Still, my heart cries, “It’s not a book, unless its printed.”

Where do you stand on the debate? Have you gone to the darkside of eReadership. Or are you clinging stubbornly to tradition?... Join in. Let’s call it our official poll.

Back from Bouchercon - October 2009

by G.M. Malliet

My apologies for the quality of the photo at left, which looks as if it were taken underwater. I have a few more from Bouchercon over here at Facebook, mostly featuring the lovely display of attending authors' book covers by the wonderful Sisters in Crime of the Indianapolis area.

I am generally too busy at Bouchercon to do more than race around and catch up with as many people as I can, and taking photos doesn't always happen. Running into people like Peter Lovesey, Sue Grafton, and Michael Connelly tends to make you forget you're carrying a camera in the first place--you're just too much in awe. But I did have the presence of mind to take the photo above, which is from the hugely popular agents and editors panel. From left to right are Joshua Bilmes, Michael Pietsch, Keith Kahla (M), Kelley Ragland, and David Hale Smith reporting on the state of the mystery genre.

Their news, I am happy to report, is on the positive side. I'll get to the negative in a minute. But editors Ragland and Pietsch (Minotaur and Little, Brown, respectively) report that, bad economy or no, they're still buying books to feed what seems to be the public's never-ending appetite for entertainment, mysteries in particular. Kahla (St. Martin's Press) and agent David Hale Smith agree--things are looking fine, and good books are still finding a home.

What no one is entirely sure of is the effect eBooks will have on the industry, but as one panelist mentioned, paperbacks were at one time viewed as the End of Publishing As We Know It, and we somehow survived that.

Joshua Bilmes, although agent to Charlaine Harris of the hugely successful Sookie Stackhouse vampire books, admits to being a bit of a pessimist nonetheless. He is more cautious than his colleagues, not only about how eBooks, when they really catch on, will affect profits, but the effect of illegal (or legal) filesharing on profits. If people can download a book for $10 and then share the same book with five or fifty friends, Bilmes wonders how that can fail to hurt the bottom line for authors and publishers. Is it different from or the same as friends in a book club, for example, sharing the same book to save money?

Your views on the pros and cons of the eBook revolution? (I used to think the fact that eBooks can't be signed would save us, until someone recently asked me to sign the cover of their Kindle reader.)