From the Smashwords blog:

For the study this year, we analyzed over $12 million in sales for a collection of 120,000 Smashwords ebooks from May 1, 2012 through March 31, 2013.  We aggregated our sales data from across our retail distribution network, which includes the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Amazon (only about 200 of our 200,000 titles are at Amazon).  As the world’s largest indie ebook distributor, I think our study represents the most comprehensive analysis ever of how ebooks from self-published authors and small independent presses are behaving in the marketplace.

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1.  Ebook Sales Conform to a Power Curve
Most books don’t sell well, but those that do sell well sell really well.  This finding wasn’t a surprise.  Just as in traditional publishing, very few books become bestsellers.

However, the underlying dynamic of the power curve is extremely significant, especially when you consider it as a framework for evaluating the survey’s findings.  As a title moves up in sales rank, its sales grow exponentially.  We see this in our sales results all the time.  On any given day, a #1 bestseller in an ebook store might be selling twice the number copies as the #5-ranked title on that day, and triple or quadruple the number of copies as the #10 bestseller.  In our data over this 11-month period, the #1 Smashwords bestseller, measured in dollars, sold 37 times more than the book ranked #500, and #500′s sales would put a smile on most authors’ faces.

The opportunity for every Smashwords author and publisher is to make decisions that cause their books to move up in sales rank.   This is power of my Viral Catalyst concept.  When you consider that there are potentially dozens if not hundreds of factors that can make your book more (or less) discoverable, desirable and enjoyable, then you realize that you – the author/publisher – have more control over your book’s destiny than previously thought.  Your opportunity is to make dozens of correct decisions – big and small – while avoiding the poor decisions that will undermine your success.

. . . .

2.  Viva Long Form Reading:  Longer Books Sell Better
For the second year running, we found definitive evidence that ebook readers – voting with their Dollars, Euros, Pounds, Krone, Krona and Koruna – overwhelmingly prefer longer books over shorter books.

The top 100 bestselling Smashwords books averaged 115,000 words.  When we examined the word counts of books in other sales rank bands, we found the lower the word count, the lower the sales.

Now consider how authors can use this finding, combined with the knowledge of the power curve, to make smarter publishing decisions, and to avoid poor decisions.  Often, we’ll see an authors with a single full-length novel break the novel into chunks to create a series of novellas, or worse – they’ll try to serialize it as dozens of short pieces.  When you consider that readers overwhelmingly prefer longer works, and you consider that bestselling titles sell exponentially more copies, reach more readers and earn more money than the non-bestsellers, you can understand how some authors might be undermining their book’s true potential.

Like every finding from this survey, you should use this information as one data point.  There will always be exceptions to any rule.   If your story deserves 50,000 words – nothing more and nothing less – because this is the length packs the biggest pleasure punch for readers, then by all means don’t bloat your perfect story with extra words just because the data shows that longer books, on average, sell more.  Do what’s right for your story because that’s what’s right for your reader.

Link to the rest at Smashwords

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Are you tired of buying eBooks that are poorly formatted and designed? A lot of other readers are too. Proper interior design and packaging of an eBook is relatively easy and cheap compared to writing, editing, marketing, and the cover design of a book. However, eBooks on the market continue to have formatting errors that create reader outrage, even from major publishers. Compared to the technology in web browsers, eReading systems from Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Adobe, and Kobo are a bit behind the times. However, if you keep things simple in your layout and formatting, you will create a pleasant reading experience across all devices.

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Most of the vendors make you separately upload a cover that is massive in size (2500px in height is a good size to upload to most platforms). However, the cover you embed inside the eBook package typically does not need to be that large. 1024px in height is fine. Different eReading systems have different ways of rendering the cover. For the MOBI/KF8 format for Kindle, Amazon’s guidelines do not allow you to link to the cover in the Table of Contents for some reason. However, for EPUBs it is generally a good idea to create a separate cover page HTML file plus a link in the Table of Contents or else your cover won’t show up on Adobe Digital Editions.

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Generally, all you need on the Title Page for an eBook is the name of the book and the author. The text should almost always be centered. You can also include the publisher’s name and/or logo if you like and other contributors (e.g. the editor, the cover designer, etc.). Some authors like to put the edition (i.e. Kindle Edition, EPUB edition) and the copyright on the title page. Although, you can put this information on the copyright page instead—it’s a matter of preference. An important note for people uploading EPUBs to Smashwords, the title page must have a copyright statement and “Smashwords Edition” right below the copyright or your eBook will not get into Premium Status.

Link to the rest at BiblioCrunch

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Self-publishing is not for every writer. In order to succeed, you need to have or develop specific traits, along with certain ways of approaching the publication of a book. Consider the following questions.

1. Are you positive and proactive?

Many writers wait for permission from an agent or publisher to say they are fit for publication—or for a PR campaign to explain why somebody should buy their book. The flip side of this passivity is chronic complaint syndrome: writers moaning about the vagaries of agents or publishers, about the death of bookstores, the dominance of Amazon, etc.

Not independent authors. You must take responsibility for the risks, as well as the rewards, of publishing your own work.

. . . .

4. Are you entrepreneurial?

Independent authors who do best have an entrepreneurial mindset. You must always be on the lookout for new ways to reach readers, new communities who might be interested in your books, new opportunities to get your message out. You should be a savvy user of social media and know how to engage resources like e-mail lists, newsletters, promotions, competitions, and book giveaways to extend your readership. You must be open to failure and willing to learn from mistakes, while excited by the prospect of new projects and creative collaborations.

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13. Do you know who your reader is?

Some authors become self-publishers because they are recognised experts, or to enhance their standing in their field, or to justify an increase in their fees. Some they are committed to a cause, or have a story that just has to be told.

Regardless of your primary motive for writing, you must have a marketer‘s sensibility. You may not use marketing terms, but you will not survive, never mind thrive, if you are not attuned to the needs of your readership or don’t communicate with them. You will need to to go where most of your readers are most likely to be found online, to their forums and blogs, and make it your business to understand their concerns.

Link to the rest at Jane Friedman

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Jay Goltz, proprietor of a small retail store, has hit upon e-commerce’s real threat to his business which he accurately says goes beyond economies of scale or even ability to avoid sales taxes. It’s impossible to make money competing with Amazon, he says, because Amazon itself isn’t making money:

Why would a company choose to operate without a profit? Because it wants to provide great value? Check. Because it wants everyone to love the brand? Check. Because it wants to gain market share? Check. Because it wants to put everyone else out of business, so that it can one day flick a switch to raise prices and make a fortune? CHECK!

Don’t believe me? Well, here is Jeff Bezos of Amazon, explaining why making a profit isn’t important. Of course, he doesn’t say he’s planning to raise prices after he puts a lot of people out of business, but let me translate something for you: Gaining market share by not taking a profit makes the most sense if you are planning to raise prices later when you have less competition.

. . . .

But “drive the competition out and then raise prices” is very much a meatspace business strategy. In a world where physical location doesn’t matter very much, it’s hard to see how you could pull it off.

Link to the rest at Salon and thanks to Sariah for the tip.

The same accusation has been leveled at Wal-Mart at least a million times in meatspace. When Wal-Mart announces it is building a store, particularly in a small town, someone always claims that, after it drives the local merchants out of business, Wal-Mart will raise prices sky-high.

The only problem with this theory is that Wal-Mart has entered dozens (probably hundreds) of small towns, some local businesses have closed, yet Wal-Mart’s prices remain the same – lower than elsewhere, even when elsewhere is a long distance away.

Like Wal-Mart, Amazon is designed to operate over the long run with low prices. Low prices are a part of its fundamental business strategy. Better than anyone else, Amazon understands a competitor can open a retail website in a few days without spending much money and offer lower prices everywhere that Amazon sells.

PG opines that those who accuse Amazon of a devious scheme to gain dominance with low prices, then jack prices up to monopoly levels and rule as an evil king are often engaging in psychological projection wherein they’re ascribing their own inner attributes to others.

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Kurt Vonnegut

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The New York Times started to include ebooks in print and online editions back in 2011. The company announced today that it is suspending the inclusion of ebook titles in the newspaper and only posting them on the website. The prices of the ebooks will also not be included going forward, due to the shifting economic landscape of online sellers.

Pamela Paul is the current editor of the Book Review section of the New York Times, a post she only attained in April. She said in a statement, “The ebook list has migrated online, the digital world being its natural habitat. Given the fluid variety of pricing in today’s marketplace, we have also stopped including cover prices on the lists.”

Link to the rest at Good Ereader

There’s a new term for 99-cent ebooks — fluidly-priced. Remove them from the Sunday paper and those nasty indie ebooks will surely go away. Take the print readers on a pleasant journey back to an earlier time before the economic landscape of publishing began to shift. Why remind the New York literati about Amazon over their coffee and croissants?

The new editor knows how to make Big Publishing cheer. But can she can make them buy more advertising?

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Orange Prize-winner Ann Patchett has warned that authors who decide to shun traditional publishing deals and instead use self-publishing channels to “cut out the middle man” are turning their back on vital publishing services they really need.

. . . .

Patchett told The Bookseller that authors should become more involved in the industry and take greater responsibility as part of a wider ecosystem, just as book-buyers should think twice about purchasing through the cheapest channel, like Amazon, if it means they might lose their local bookshop. She also said authors who shunned traditional publishing deals in favour of self-publishing, thinking they would be able to earn more money, should think carefully about the step.

“If you had asked me two years ago, I would not have thought it was my responsibility. But I do think authors need to get involved with all sort of aspects of publishing and health of the publishing industry,” she said. “This is not every man working for themselves, we need to think and work as a business. Authors have been protected for a long time, we are very well cared for, but we need to think about our other partners, from bookshops to publishing and self-publishing.”

Regarding self-publishing, she added: “There are people who want to put books on Amazon because they cannot get publishing deals and that is understandable. But there are some authors who could get published in the mainstream but because they are trying to make more money, they think the best way is to self publish. They are cutting out the middle man whose services they really need, such as the editor and the publicist.”

Link to the rest at The Bookseller and thanks to David for the tip.

PG has just about decided that the differences between indie publishing and traditional publishing are so great that nearly anyone immersed in traditional publishing has almost nothing useful to say about indie publishing.

One of the most fundamental mistakes someone who is an expert in one field can make is to assume their expertise is transferable to another.

Thus, those who have deep experience with traditional publishing assume indie publishing is the same except without advances or some other such idiocy. Those who have lots of experience with bookstores assume Amazon is the same except with lower prices.

The idea that an indie author pursues his/her path because day-to-day life in indie world is superior in every way to traditional publishing with all its accoutrements and hangers-on is terra incognita for most in traditional publishing.

But, the services! How can we forget the services that traditional publishing offers?

Editors? Indie authors can choose the one they want to work with instead of arguing semi-colons with a fresh-faced and clueless English major who is somebody’s niece.

Publicists? You mean people who order authors around and insist on twenty Tweets per day?

Publishers? Ah, yes,those who present you with medieval contracts, take most of your money, never answer emails and send you disappointing checks with impenetrable royalty statements every six months.

What professionals get paid every six months? Lawyers? Doctors? Accountants? Teachers? Publishers? Editors? Publicists? No, no, no, no, no, no and no. Even sex workers get paid more often (and usually better) than traditional authors.

Even if indie life didn’t pay more, it would be worth it to a lot of authors not to have to deal with so many annoying and largely useless “services” they don’t need from people they didn’t choose.

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For the past two posts, I’ve been speaking about how to get “zoned in,” to reach that mental state where your writing time is the most productive and where the quality of your work is at its highest. I spoke about the importance of getting rid of all external and internal distractions, and I suggested that you need to move into your writing zone slowly, often by performing writing exercises. Now comes the third step:

Step 3: Play. Shakespeare once said “The play is the thing.” I think that he understood that playing with words, with ideas, with characters in opposition—brainstorming as he wrote—that was the key to writing well.

. . . .

[W]hen you’re writing, you very often have a bunch of characters in conflict, but as you begin to write, you find that one of them feels more fascinating to you, more genuine and real than the others.

New writers will often complain at that point that a secondary character has “taken over” the story, yet I sometimes wonder if they haven’t really just “found” the true story, the one that feels deepest and most important to them. Many times I’ve found that the author in such cases is writing about a heroic character that is larger than life. The protagonist feels hokey and shallow. It’s when the writer begins exploring a minor character that the tale comes to life for them.

. . . .

So as you play, you begin to discover the story that you most want to tell. Characters come alive, and you find yourself envisioning scenes that you never intended to include in your tale. Fresh new themes suggest themselves, and that requires even further departure from your original plans.

In short, it is not until we begin playing in the woods of our subconscious that we can find ourselves lost in them.

. . . .

The subconscious mind, which resides in the right hemisphere of the brain in most people, spends a great deal of time trying to make sense of emotional issues. It’s constantly trying to help us resolve issues related to frightening images, powerful sexual urges, or unkind words. It tries to alert us to dangers that the conscious mind is too preoccupied to deal with. That’s what happens in humans. We have two brains connected with a little bundle of fibers, and so each of the brains works somewhat independently. As artists, we’re trying to tap into the reservoir of wisdom locked in the creative part of our mind. But that can’t happen if we’re feeling stressed, if our subconscious is trying to deal with other issues. If it’s already working overtime, you’re not going to be able to get much out of it.

Link to the rest at David Farland

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