Author: coffeehousejunkie

Advice to authors regarding indie bookstores and Amazon.com

The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) offers advice to authors seeking to work with indie books stores:

  • Know the Marketplace
  • Know Who And How To Contact
  • Know the Terms (i.e. your business arrangement with the bookstore)
  • Don’t shoot yourself in the foot (avoid mentioning that you book is available on Amazon.com)

This is good advice for authors when working with indie booksellers. The operative words are “with indie booksellers.” Truth be told, the majority of the sales for books I’ve helped publish come from Amazon.com. The reason for this, I suspect, is that Amazon.com is where the masses go to buy books.

Know that I am a big supporter of indie bookstores. But I’m also practical and know that indie bookstores attract a niche audience of readers. Some book titles do better at indie bookstores than others. For example, if you’re a local writer with a book on regional hiking trails or you’re a local poet with a book, you may do better at an indie store than on Amazon.com. That being said, Amazon offers a 45/55 terms of sale (a smidge better than indie stores offering a 40/60 terms of sales). That may not seem like much, but if you’re a small publisher, that 5% difference may cover cost of shipping products to bookstores which directly impacts breakeven numbers for book titles.

As an author (or small press publisher), know that you have sales options. And avoid mentioning Amazon.com when working with indie booksellers — it gives them ulcers.

Link: How To Market Your Book to Independent Bookstores

Renovated Main Street

A couple of years ago the main street was ripped up and busy with construction trucks and earth movers. Now it’s quite lovely on a quiet August morning.

Rework is a really smart business book

fluffynotes:

Rework is a really smart business book written by the crew from 37signals. If you haven’t checked it out, you must. In the meantime, Gnat Gnat has done a nice job of summarizing the highlights in this downloadable cheat sheet (pdf).

Rework Cheat Sheet – The Denver Egotist

(Source: http://www.thedenveregotist.com/news/national/2010/june/7/rework-cheat-sheet)

30 poems in 30 days: update five

Day nine
Day nine

The 30 poems in 30 days challenge is complete. Since the last update the poems have veered all over the place in regards to theme, subject and tone. The main reason for the challenge was to:

  1. generate new material and
  2. unclutter my mind.

A lot of new material was produced but I cannot say my mind is more or less cluttered than before the challenge. I’m still trying to make heads or tails of what I wrote.

Learning patience by installing a/v software

MacBook Pro plus new display screen

The new MacBook Pro arrived this afternoon. It’s wicked sweet! Also included is a 24″ display screen for Tweetdeck (jus’ kiddin’). The additional display screen helps with the running various tools while editing multitrack audio files.

Now I’m patiently waiting to load all the audio/video software so I can work on some more podcasts.

When to sell and when to market

Often I hear people use the term “marketing” when they mean “sales” and vice versa. A Melbourne advertising professional succinctly defines the terms this way:

Marketing tells a story that spreads.

Sales overcomes the natural resistance to say yes.

Link: The difference between marketing and sales

So, If your “marketing” campaign isn’t yielding the “sales” you projected, it’s probably because you need to rewrite your campaign story and retool your pitch.

Learn what your social media specialist should know about podcasting

Last week I posted, “Learn what your social media specialist should know,” and received some response on- and offline. In the post I mentioned a report on podcasting I wrote for a client. Below is a non-client specific synopsis of the report that focuses on four key areas: workflow, programming, strategy and user interface.

Workflow:

There is a misconceptions that podcasts just magically appear in you iTunes podcast menu. Whether you’re producing a podcast a month or a podcast a day, a workflow chart is essential for podcast production.

My workflow looks something like this: audio capture, audio content review, script intro and outro, record intro and outro plus ad sponsor (if none is provided), mix it, save audio file as MP3, uploaded to web hosting server.

If you’re doing podcasts on your own (without the benefit of an IT team) you may have the added responsibility of: writing a XML file (complete with all details that tag your audio podcast which may require a bit of knowledge if writing basic HTML), and publish XML file to web hosting server.

Programming:

On the wild frontier of audio podcasts there are podcasts that listeners subscribe to and then there are podcasts that get lost in the vast obscure expanse of the internet. In spite of the harbingers of the decline of mainstream radio, the best podcast programming follows the same tenets of great radio shows. Your audio gear and your audio capture technique is important, but ultimately the podcasts content is what sells the show. Good content for good listeners.

Strategy:

As much as I love MAC products iTunes isn’t necessarily friendly to serious podcasters. iTunes does not provide any podcast download metrics. Still, iTunes is where most people subscribe to podcasts. Whether it is a necessary evil or not, I’ll let you decide.

The primary way to track audio content is through webstreaming content on your website. Webstreaming audio content provides recordable metrics that assist in establishing ROI and sponsor related data.

An alternate aggregating service for audio podcast is Youtube, which has better metrics to track user data. It also happens to be where the masses go to find video and audio content. Case in point: Ozzy’s new album is available on Youtube (not actual music videos but rather a still image of album art) and I have yet to see an actual music video of the new material.

Just because you have a podcast doesn’t mean anyone will listen to it. Use social media to build a community and share podcast links. It’s perfectly fine to leak/tweet that you’re working on an upcoming podcast featuring (fill in the blank). Promoting your podcast on Facebook and Twitter is a bit tricky because no one wants to be spammed on social media sites. But if you maintain a running conversation with your fans/audience then there’s a bit of anticipation when the podcast is released.

Train your listening audience to expect your podcasts every Thursday at 4 p.m. (or what every time you see fit). The point is to ritualize the experience and present a casual contract with your listeners. Also, a routine scheduled podcast may actually grab the attention of the podcast deities at iTunes and they may actually feature your podcast in the directory.

User interface:

Most users will use iTunes to access your podcast. Make sure you provide the necessary titles, descriptions and other details to help listeners access your podcast.

If not on iTunes, users will find your podcast on your website. If you have a separate podcast page, make sure to promote it on the landing page. A podcast page works best when it provides users quick access. Set up the podcast page like a table of contents. List of podcasts on the podcast page with headline, deck (or brief 10-word description), byline (host, co-host, or featured guest), date and “listen to” feature. Users can listen to the webstreaming content or download the audio podcast.

Making its own app adds revenue for beleaguered newspaper

And the key words are:

…revenue from sources beyond the traditional core streams of ad sales and circulation…

Link: New York Times Offers IPhone, IPad App Platform to Other Publishers

It’s not news that daily newspapers are struggling to maintain profit margins with online competitors. The financially struggling Newsweek published a stat, in the recent July 26 issue, that in 2000 the U.S. had 1480 daily newspapers. By contrast, a decade late, there are 1302 daily newspapers.

Basically, AdAge reports that The New York Times has an app, Press Engine, that allows the:

publishers keep any advertising and circulation revenue the apps bring in; they pay the Times a one-time license fee for the platform and then a monthly maintenance fee.

And just when we thought the newspaper business was going the way of the slide rule. Silly us.

Learn what your social media specialist should know

In a recent podcast workshop, a social media strategist said, “Just because you build it doesn’t mean anyone will hear it.” Today I spent the morning writing a report on podcasting with that thought in mind. Here’s a summarized, abridged version of Erik Deckers’s list of questions to ask your social media expert:

  1. Does your social media consultant avoid using Twitter?
  2. Who are your social media followers?
  3. Do you have a social media strategy?
  • 5 Questions To Ask After Your Social Media “Expert” Has Started

Keep in mind that social media isn’t a cheap promotional tool. It’s a conversation.

What will you spend your minutes doing?

I love these lines from Rachel Zucker’s poem:

With my minutes, I chip away at the idiom,
an unmarked pebble in a fast current.

Link: “After Baby After Baby” by Rachel Zucker

Are your paint chips calling you?

Okay, the 30 poems in 30 days challenged hasn’t been completed yet and I found my next assignment (if I chose to accept it). Rachel Berger, a graphic designer in San Francisco, wrote short writings inspired by paint chips. Read some of her samples.

Link: 100 Colors, 100 Writings, 100 Days

30 poems in 30 days: update four: targeted venom

Days six and seven
Days six and seven

Somewhere around day ten or eleven I fell off schedule. A lot of distractions and stress hit me like one tsunami wave after another. Last night I caught up with a binge writing session at a local bookstore. While having lunch (if a bagel and coffee qualify as a lunch) this afternoon at a cafe, I read through what I wrote last night and discovered some emotionally raw lyrics. Some of it is so personal it is not accessible to a casual reader. A closer investigation of the poem sketches reveal a controlled form providing a vehicle for anger. Whereas a poetic rant is the literary equivalent to vomit or oil gushing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, an angry poem attempts a focused avenue for venom much like a fire hose targets the base of a fire. Not all the poems composed last night are angry poems; only a couple. However, the angry poem sketches I composed shift from formal to informal dimeter (an example of dimeter is “The Robin” by Thomas Hardy or the use of dactylic dimeter in Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”). I wonder if editing the poems with longer lines, maybe like Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” or Ginsberg’s “Howl,” would change the tone dramatically.

Learn how to transfer files the old school way

An antique 100 Mb Zip disc

This takes me back almost a decade. But this morning I had to scan an illustration. The only machine in the office with a scanner is an old beige Power Macintosh G3 minitower with Zip drive. Because the machine is an antique it doesn’t connect to the network. So I dug up an old 100 Mb Zip disc, scanned the illustration using Photoshop 6.0 (it took two scans because the image is larger than the 8″x10″ scanner bed), transferred the art files to Power Mac G4 minitower with Zip drive, stitched the two scans together using Photoshop CS, and emailed the art file to my MacBook Pro.

The question you may be asking right now is why all the trouble? Good question:

  1. The scanner is so old it doesn’t have a USB connection.
  2. The Zip drives do not have USB connection.
  3. It’s Monday.

Sometimes I feel so used

Five Magazine Direct Mail Envelopes

Last week I received five direct mail envelopes from five different magazine publishers. Only two of those magazines have I actually had subscriptions (guess which ones). That means those two magazine publishers sell my name to other publications with similar demographic audiences.

How to improve your social media agenda

If you’re stuck in a traditional media organization where executives thing Twitter is something birds do or look blankly at you when you suggest posting videos to Vimeo, then check out Mashable’s tips list.

1. Share Content
2. Curate Conversations
3. Engage Audiences
4. Promote Your Presence
5. Customize the Experience
6. Track Everything

You’ll find links to all sorts of social media tools and resources.

Link: 6 Crucial Social Media Tips for Traditional Media

Coffeehouse Junkie Podcast

http://assets.tumblr.com/swf/audio_player.swf?audio_file=http://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/850012187/tumblr_l5za0v570O1qz6sbe&color=FFFFFF

Coffeehouse Junkie Podcast – Episode 15

This episode features an audio version of the three most viewed blog posts of the last week, including:

  • Writing Tips from C.S. Lewis. Link
  • 30 poems in 30 days. Link
  • Mechanical, thoughtless and unengaged: a Facebook story. Link

The most read story from the archives:

  • An interview with River District artist Eva Scruggs. Link

For questions or comments about the podcast, email me at coffeehousejunkie[at]gmail[dot]com.

You want to earn money as a webcomic producer?

Then cut out the middle man. Apparently that is what Scott Kurtz, of the popular webcomic PvP. His reason for leaving Image Comics (notably the fourth largest comic publisher in America) and Diamond (the primary distributor of comics in the U. S.):

Sales through brick-and-mortar stores are declining and online sales are increasing…

Well, I could have told him that. Almost all the books I’ve helped authors publish have been released online exclusively.

Link: PvP Goes It Alone for Publishing, Leaves Diamond as Well

Field notes

while walking this morning in the foggy dew… i wonder if norway has mornings like this?

30 poems in 30 days: update three

30 poems in 30 days: day 5
pages of a poem for day five

As stated previously, Deborah offered a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days. So far, I’ve been able to keep up with it in spite of a summertime cold and an urgent freelance job that evolved into a larger project than I anticipated. Still, the discipline of writing a poem a day, or at least a poem sketch a day, has proved to be rewarding in and of itself. Two benefits have come out of this exercise so far:

  1. the generation of new material and
  2. brain dumping stuff that’s been cluttering my mind.

At least one poem sketch so far helped articulate something I’ve been struggling with for a few months. Forcing myself to write at least once a day brought that struggle up from the subconscious and allowed me to form it into a personal poem. Somewhere in my reading I came across a poet, or writer, that said writing every day, even if it’s only for your own eyes, is good practice in writing content for others. My writing professor at the university encouraged students to write a novel for yourself first. Even if the novel is intended only for you, it is worth writing it. And sometimes it may find audience elsewhere.

Learn which company provides the best photo books

While searching for a place to print a family photo album I came across a couple photo book companies. I’ve used both Blurb and Shutterfly and am not particularly fond of either of their final product. Maybe I’m too much of a graphic design snob, but I really don’t enjoy the out-of-the-box templates and the poor image quality of the final printed photo book. Of the two, I prefer Shutterfly, but only because iPhoto makes it easy to order photos. Digital Home Thoughts provides a detailed product review of 10 other photo book companies and their top picks. I may try their top pick for my next photo book project.

Link: The Great Photo Book Round-Up Review: Who Makes The Best Photo Books?

Editors and publishers as midwives

Publishers typically sign on new projects, do some big-picture editing, then pass the project to the editor, who does the more painstaking work of carrying the project from its detailed editing and design stages to production. The life of an editor and publisher involves more reading than you can fit into a day at the office. We have to keep up with the publishing world, know what people want to buy, work closely and diplomatically with authors, and lug around heavy satchels of manuscripts. People often liken editors and publishers to midwives. The industry is dominated by women who aren’t paid all that well, but who are working in this helping, nurturing role, counselling authors and helping bring their “baby” into the world.

The scoop on working in publishing (via fluffynotes)

How to Take Command of Any Meeting

How do you like that emotionally rich, evocative headline? Copyblogger offers 12 other emotive headlines with emotional benefits explained after each headline. The emotional benefit to the above headline, How to Take Command of Any Meeting” is “feeling respected.”

Link: 13 Emotion-Based Headlines That Work

polyglot

wordjournal:

adjective • 1) containing, or made up, of, several languages. 2) versed in, or speaking, many languages.

noun • 1) one who speaks several languages. 2) a book containing several versions of the same text, or containing the same subject matter in several languages. 3) a program written in multiple programming languages (programming).

From Greek, πολύς (many) + γλῶττα (tongue, language)

30 poems in 30 days challenge: update two

30 poems in 30 days: days 3 & 4
pages of poems for days three and four

Deborah offered a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days. I took up the challenge and so far I’m on schedule with one poem a day. Maybe after the challenge I’ll translate the poems from handwritten form to digital, but for me the urgency is to get it all down first. It’s kind of like catching butterflies or lightening bugs.

One interesting item is that the poems have developed a theme. When I accepted the challenge I wasn’t planning on writing 30 theme-based poems, but somewhere under the surface it appears in each page of the poems I’m composing. I guess I’ll find out if it changes course by the end of the challenge.