Where do you stand when the boundaries blur?

The boundaries between the different types of publishing just keep getting more blurred and more porous.

Amazon and Hachette’s dispute has reached a new plateau, with the respective CEOs writing mass emails to explain their respective positions over book discounting. Amazon is also in a dispute with Time Warner, and has blocked pre-orders of some Disney movies.

About three weeks ago, Amazon spurred news attention yet again with rumours that it’s in negotiations with another Big Five publisher, Simon + Schuster. Some speculated that it may lead to Amazon purchasing this publisher from its current corporate parent, CBS.

In addition to the publishing operations that Amazon already has, this would make Amazon one of the biggest publishers as well as the biggest book retailer.

Is this really new, though? Remember the Doubleday Bookstores, which were the most prestigious in the US until they were bought by Barnes & Noble in 1990.

Major corporations straddle boundaries

One of the raisons d’être for the commercial publisher is to provide those essential selection, editorial, design and manufacturing services that ensure audiences get quality books. Self-publishing, according to this argument, just cannot measure up to the professional standard of major publishers. I’ve ripped this argument apart a number of times already, so suffice to say now that it’s not backed up empirically.

But several major publishers have invested millions and more in self-publishing platforms. Penguin launched Book Country in 2011 and then bought Author Solutions a year later. Simon & Schuster has Archway Publishing, a vanity publisher. And they’re not the only ones.

So, now we have vanity publishers owned by major commercial publishers, in an embarrassing and disingenuous pissing match with the biggest retailer, which also owns the most successful self-publishing platform.

Neither side in this argument is being open

It’s kind of hard to understand just why Amazon is going to such lengths in this dispute. After all, they make a lot of money reselling publishers’ products. Why should they care what price the publisher sets? But remember that Amazon also sells a particular brand of e-book reader. Lower prices for e-book versions of the world’s favourite, bestselling titles will encourage Kindle sales.

The dispute between Amazon and Hachette or Time-Warner is over how much of the money readers pay they get to keep. The author isn’t part of the dispute, even though both sides like to repeat how important the author is to them.

“Brick and mortar” bookstores are another trope in the sympathy pleas of both sides. “Amazon is putting brick-and-mortar, physical bookstores out of business.” It’s hard to argue against that, particularly following the loss of Borders and uncounted independent booksellers.

As for the independent booksellers, though, they’re getting squeezed not only by the Internet, but also by the growth of big-box corporate bookstore chains. And if it weren’t Amazon, it would be some other company that uses the efficiency of the Internet to grab market share.

Amazon, for its part, does what it says it will do, and efficiently. Whenever I have ordered anything from Amazon, it’s arrived in a breathtakingly short time.

In this light, I have a hard time finding sympathy for big publishers, multinational corporations that are self-appointed gatekeepers of the written word.

What if we change the question

What if we shift our focus from the publisher and bookseller to the author? What if the authors, the people who put most of the work into producing a book, got the greatest part of the proceeds? What if publishers and printers and retailers were only incidental to the value chain?

It would be an ideal world. But I’m not hopeful it will arrive.

My print adventures

Publishing a printed book is much less forgiving than producing an e-book. I have known that since I started working with electronic publishing, lo many years ago. But I really felt it with the production of my third book, Army of Worn Soles.

I have printed books before, and I thought getting a print version of my third would be a piece of cake. And it was—until I made my own life my difficult by making the books itself more complex and using photographs within. No, it’s not hard to do, but getting the results you want means you have to follow some pretty strict guidelines. 

Here are some of the lessons that I had to re-learn.

Use them when you prepare your own books for printing through CreateSpace, Lightning Source or any other printing service.

Word perspective

There are some things about document design and layout that I knew about even before I started writing. 

• Use proper opening and closing quotation marks, not straight quotes/inch marks. 
• Use real, curvy apostrophes, not inch marks instead of apostrophes.
• Double-check to make sure you’re using a real open quote ‘ instead of apostrophe ’. Most modern word processors like Microsoft Word and Pages automatically format these for you. If you’re not getting quotation marks at the beginning of the quote that point in the opposite direction from the marks at the end, go to your Preferences or Options menu and select “smart quotes.”
• Use the Ruler in your word processor, or the Styles menu, to indent the first line of paragraphs.   —but remember not to indent the first paragraph after any heading or subheading. Don’t double-space paragraphs unless you’re writing a business guide or something similar. Definitely do not double-space paragraphs in fiction.
• Learn the differences between hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes. 
• Use the hyphen to join compound words, like “north-west.” 
• En dashes are twice as long as hyphens. Use them to indicate a range in numbers, like “August 3–4.” You’ll enter it by typing Ctrl-hyphen or, on a Mac, Option-hyphen. 
• An em-dash is twice as wide as the en-dash. Use it to break a sentence to indicate a new idea or a brief break in the logical flow—like this. Enter it with Shif-Alt-Hyphen, or on a Mac, Shift-Option-Hyphen. Decide whether you want to have spaces on either side of your em-dashes — like this — or not—like this—and use them consistently.

Come up to the page

When I got my first job at a subsidiary of one of the Big Five publishing companies, I learned to think about book layout in terms of the two-page spread. When readers look at a book, usually they see a left, or verso page, next to a right, or recto. In the West, where we read left to right, we tend to start with a right-hand page, so the left is the back, or verso, of the right-hand page.

Left hand pages have even numbers, right pages have odd numbers, because we start page 1 on the right-hand side, then turn it over. Word allows “mirroring margins,” so that you have opposite left and right margins, and a different setting for the “gutter.”

Image courtesy Knite Writes http://knitewrites.com/2013/11/25/formatting-for-createspace-the-knite-way/

Depending on whom you talk to, the outside margin—left on the verso (left) page, right on the recto—should be either wider or narrower than when laying out pages that are to be printed on one side only.

Createspace asks for a wider gutter—right margin on the left page, opposite on the other side— because of the perfect binding—the flat, glued spine of the book. With a thick, perfect-bound book, text too close to the spine is harder to read. Createspace offers a Word template that has a suggested width for left, right and gutter margins.

Headers and footers

With opposite pages, you can have opposite formats for headers and footers.

The first thing to realize here is that the first page of every document and every chapter has a different format. In Word, choose “Different first page” from the Layout menu. In Apple’s Pages, select Setup—Section—“Hide (Headers and footers) on first page of section.”

The second thing to remember is that left and right pages necessarily have opposite treatments of page numbering.

Traditionally, when it comes to fiction, publishers have not done much about this. Looking at some old books I have, I notice that typically, the verso page has the author’s name, while the recto bears the title of the book. Page numbers are centred on the bottom, or the footer.

With textbooks, on the other hand, the page number (folio, in publishing jargon) is on the outside corner —that is, on the far left of the header or footer of the left-hand/verso page, and on the far right of the recto. 

Personally, I think it’s much better. Think about how you use a book. Pick up a print book, the one closest to you right now. Turn to page 96. How do you do that? You hold the book’s spine in one hand, and use the opposite thumb to flip through the pages. How much more difficult it will be to find page 96 if the folio were in the gutter, instead of on the outside? 

Sometimes for very long books or anthologies, one header may have the name of the author of that chapter, while the other page has the title of the whole anthology, or sometimes the theme of the current section.

For example, my 1999 edition of Lord of the Rings, three-volume set has the book title (eg. The Fellowship of the Ring) on the left/verso, and the chapter title, eg. “A Short Cut to Mushrooms,” on the right/recto. The page numbers are on the outside corners of the header, and the footers are blank.

The textbooks that I worked on had a much more complex treatment. Headers or footers would show the part and chapter titles, along with the page number, in the outside corner.

It’s important to put the folio in the outside corner. 

How to accomplish this

In Word or Pages, you can change the header and footer from one page to the next this way:

• Go to the Header and Footer or Page Layout menu and select “different first page.” 
• Inserting a Section Break at the end of each chapter and deselect the “Continue from previous” button in the Header/Footer menu.

This gives you four areas to put four different kinds of information:

• book title
• part title
• chapter title
• author.

When I was writing my first novel, I sent a preliminary draft to a beta reader who had pretensions to being a publisher. I thought I would send something that would imitate a professionally printed book, as far as possible with the technology and my experience at the time, so I did those very things:

• set up facing pages
• put the folios (page numbers) on the outside corners
• put the name of the series of the book (The Dark Age) on the left (verso) footer
• put the name of the book (The Bones of the Earth) on the recto footer
• put the part title (Part 1, Initiation Rites; Part 2: Tests; Part 3: The Mission) on the left header
• put the chapter title in the right header.

The beta reader went ballistic on this. “What are you doing! A publisher just wants to see the page numbers in the header or the footer. This is way too fancy.” But why? It’s information that adds to the experience for the reader. If you don’t want to see it, don’t look—in fact, when we read a book, this fades into the background.

While Word makes this pretty straightforward, Apple’s Pages word processing program has no facing pages option, so this is very frustrating.

Take care with photographs

The photo of the author (me) in the print version of my first two books didn’t turn out so well. They looked great in the e-book, but muddy in physical form. 

Turns out I made a rookie mistake, one I should have known better than to commit. I have worked for years in print, after all, and I remember telling other people to do this very thing: don’t print .jpg-format images.

If you have a photograph or any other image to print, you have to make sure that you’re sending the printer a file that will print well. Make sure you do at least these things:

• In your photo editor program, change the colour space to either Grayscale for black-and-white, or CMYK if you’re printing in colour.
• Set the resolution to at least 300 dpi. More isn’t really necessary, but less will look terrible.
• Save the image as a .TIFF or .EPS format file.
• Import the high-resolution .TIFF file into your word processor or page layout program.
• If you have to send the printer a PDF, make sure your resolution and colour space match the printer’s requirements. Make sure that the page layout program’s resolution for images is also set to at least 300 dpi, CMYK.

Lightning Source requires a PDF (Acrobat) format file. Here are some other settings to check before you upload your file:

• Page size—the default for your .pdf output is probably 8 ½ by 11 inches. This will not produce a book. Change the page dimensions, margins, bleed and trim settings to Lightning Source’s (or whichever printer you’re using) specifications.
• Page orientation—again, check whether the output will give you the results you expect. Test it on your own printer first.
• Fonts—if you’re using a special font, you will have to embed them in the .pdf. You can do this with the Printer settings.

Producing your printed cover is even more complex by a factor of magnitude. I’ll cover that in a future post.

For now, for those working on formatting their print books, this is just a place to start. But following these tips will get you past the initial errors that a lot of people make.

Tell me about your experiences in print.

Not self-publishing—independent publishing

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I am not a self-publisher, because I did not publish my books by myself. I was part of a team of talented, dedicated, professional, skilled and very giving people, to whom I am indebted and grateful.

You know by now that my new book, Army of Worn Soles, will publish in e-book form on June 22, 2014—less than a week from the day this post goes up on the blog.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been busy with all sorts of not just last-minute details on the book itself, but also with advance promotion and publicity. I’ve been answering questions, and learning, from those answers. A question that has come up (however, not as frequently as I expected) was about “self publishing.”

I prefer the term “independent publishing,” simply because I think it’s far more accurate. I don’t publish any books by myself.

Publishing any book calls upon a wide range of skills:

• writing—creating the story or the information for the reader
• substantive—“story editing,” a review and critique of the overall worth of the manuscript, whether it’s complete, or there’s too much material, and whether the basic ideas make sense
• copy-editing—ensuring it’s clear, grammatical, logical?
• proofreading—looking out for spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes and silly little errors in logic (like setting the opening of a chapter on a spring morning and ending, without indicating any passage of time, with a winter night)
• design—of the cover as well as the interior
• layout—setting up the interior according to the design, and making sure that the whole book follows the same design
• manufacturing—transferring from manuscript to e-book or print format with the highest fidelity to the final manuscript and the highest production quality affordable.

Each of this is a major task requiring specialized knowledge, and no, I don’t attempt it myself. I can do many of them, but not all—not well.

And I have always said, “You can’t edit your own stuff.”

The team

When it comes to publishing my books, I call upon a supportive team. For Army of Worn Soles, that team included:

• Fred Brooke, Alan McDermott, Russell Blake and Cinta Garcia de la Rosa as pre-readers
• Rebecca Dickson as my stalwart editor
• David C. Cassidy as cover designer
• a large team to help promote the cover and excerpts, whom you are meeting through other posts on this blog.

Army of Worn Soles, like my other books, is a truly collaborative effort.

No, I do not self-publish. Army of Worn Soles, and all books I write, followed a cooperative publishing model, one promoted and supported by Independent Authors International. Like those published by the Big Five commercial publishers, are the result of a team of talented professionals applying developed skills to producing a quality book.

 

From the Book Fest floor

Today, I'm participating in the first (annual) Book Fest organized by the National Capital Region chapter of the Canadian Authors Association. The picture shows me at my half-table with my little display of books.

This is the first time I've done anything like this. The doors opened an hour ago, and it's been quiet so far, but there has been some "customer" traffic. Mostly, I've enjoyed talking to some fellow authors, including one Facebook friend, Barry Finlay. 

I've already done a two-minute reading from The Bones of the Earth and heard a panel discussion with four Canadian writers in various genres.

I'll try to post a few times through the day as interesting things happen.

What do great writers like to read?

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What makes a good read? Is it characterization, plot, style? A unique idea, or the rules of your favourite genre?

I’ve asked some of the best independent authors I know what they like to read — what makes a good read for them. Today, here are the first three to answer: 

• RS Guthrie, author of the Bobby Mac paranormal-thriller series and the James Pruett mystery series
• Karen Wodke, author of James Willlis Makes a Million and half of the Wodke Hawkinson writing duo, authors of Betrayed, Zeke, Sue, Tangerine and other books
• Scott Morgan, author of Stories My Evil Twin Made Up, Character Development from the Inside Out, and How to Be a Whiny Beeyotch: 71 Writing Excuses Meet the Back of My Hand

Name three characteristics of books that you like. What makes you keep reading a book? 

RS Guthrie: I personally love great, literary writing and deep characters. Of course, like everyone, my initial buy many times depends on the cover, or especially the first part of chapter one sampling. I usually know by one to three paragraphs in whether I will like the book. Actually, that's a pretty good indicator of the books I won't like. You can never know for sure about liking/loving a book until it ends; sometimes writers give up two-thirds of the way through and that's a HUGE disappointment you can't see coming.

Rob Guthrie

Karen Wodke: Three characteristics of books I like: 

• being drawn into the story right from the start

• when a story is handled in a unique way or deals with unusual material

• when a book is so well-written, it takes me away.

Scott Morgan: Good books need a strong storyteller's voice; to be true  to its internal universe; and to take chances. I don't want to read the same thing someone else wrote, I want to read a new idea, new way of seeing, new world.

What are some books that you weren't able to put down until you finished them? 

RS Guthrie: The last book I read I could not put down was Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn. I can never put any of his books down. Gun, With Occasional Music rocked my world! Dissident Gardens is just out and I have not read it yet.

Karen Wodke: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn; The Mothers by Vardis Fisher (about the doomed Donner party crossing); Evening News by Marly Swick; The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien; Life-Size by Jenefer Schute.

What other books have these characteristics?

RS Guthrie: Anything by James lee Burke. In fact, he's the master of melding both elements (literary style with great characters). All of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series (21 books). Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, If I Die In A Combat Zone, and Going After Cacciato.

Karen Wodke: The books I mentioned are very different in style from each other. What they have in common is a compelling story. It would be impossible to list all the other books that share this characteristic. I like Dean Koontz, JA Konrath, earlier Stephen King, earlier James Patterson, Wally Lamb, Robert Heinlein, and a number of indie authors. The books I most enjoy reading share the following characteristics: interesting plot, descriptions that are appropriate to the story, a unique style of writing, and a steady pace.

Scott Morgan: All good books have these characteristics (a strong storyteller's voice; true  to its internal universe; and to take chances). Best examples for me are (fiction) Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg and (nonfiction) The Trouble with Tom by Paul Collins.

Scott Morgan

Do you consciously try to emulate these books? 

RS Guthrie: When I first read James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux series, I knew I had found my voice. Until then I kept flip-flopping between a more literary style versus deep, engaging characters and a lot of great dialogue (something you don't find in "literary" books). Burke showed me that the two can not only coexist but enhance each other and make for a compelling read. Primarily that affects my characters, dialogue, and definitely word choice. You need to be sparsely descriptive. Yes, describe the surrounding stage so the reader can smell it, see it, feel it, but don't take thirteen pages to do so. And dialogue, for me, is key. Good, engaging dialogue is the best way I know to show your character rather than tell him/her to the reader.

Karen Wodke: I don’t think I consciously try to emulate any other book. That said, a good book inspires me to work on improving particular elements in my own writing. For instance, reading Gillian Flynn has made me want to come up with

Karen Wodke

better similes and metaphors; she’s brilliant at both. She also has a very distinctive voice. A skill I admire in Stephen King is the ease with which he tells a story. Opening one of his books is like settling into a favorite chair. I admire the way Koontz pulls a reader in from the first page. And some thriller authors write such clean, tight plots; I can’t help but be impressed. There are important things to be learned from any well-written book.

You know what they say: easy reading is damn hard writing.

Scott Morgan: I try to emulate the writers more so than the books. writers like Brian Hodge always come up with incredible ways to tell stories that are not limited to single books. If I'm borrowing from books, it's usually inn how the writer constructs his/her universe with as little detail as possible. Great writers can put you in their heads but let you keep your own eyes.

Win signed books from BestSelling authors

BestSelling Reads authors are doing it again — giving away a virtual boxed set of five  signed paperbacks in the BSR October giveaway. 

How does it work? From BSR's own blog: 

The grand prize winner gets to choose a total of five titles, choosing from all the books available by BSR member authors. Five titles from one author, or mix and match with one title each from five different authors. Plus a $50 Amazon gift card to add even more titles to your shelf!
Second prize is a virtual boxed set of three signed paperbacks plus a $20 Amazon gift card. Eight runner-up winners will receive one signed paperback of their choice by any BSR member author plus a $10 Amazon gift card. 

To enter, visit BestSelling Reads' blog at BestSellingReads.com and enter the Rafflecopter.

Good luck!

Helen Hanson:

She should have dialyzed last night, but she’d fallen asleep too soon, cocooned in fading dreams, down, and enchantment.

The next round of belly noises came with spikes.

“That shit was good. You ever think of going into politics?”
“Only with a bulldozer.”

Helen Hanson is an Amazon bestselling thriller author of 3 Lies and Dark Pool, novels that mix action, intrigue, humour and tenderness, and a strong writing style comprising dialogue, description — and as you can see from the examples above, she likes a good metaphor.

Helen is also one of the driving forces behind the BestSelling Reads authors cooperative. She took time from her incredibly busy schedule to tell Written Words just how she writes the way she does.

How would you describe your own writing style?

This question makes me want to tip my Fedora and dangle a cigarette holder from my lips, dahling.

Thrillers tend to be dour works, so I weave a thread of humor throughout because that’s how I live my life. I’m the kind of person who finds something to giggle about at a funeral.

The Avengers aside, I don’t believe in superheroes. I prefer to watch the everyman rise to an occasion. See what he’s capable of when pushed to an extreme. Count his beads of sweat as he faces danger.

Are there any authors whose style you admire? Do you try to emulate them?

John le Carré, Len Deighton, even the put-upon John Grisham. All of these authors inspired my work in some way, but I write nothing like they do.

My first completed novel will never see daylight. It’s like that scene in Apocalypse Now where Captain Willard loses it and trashes his hotel room. That’s what a first effort should be: messy, destructive, and ultimately defining. When you come out, you know there’s some stuff you don’t want to do again.

Are there authors whose writing style you dislike?

Yes, but it’s not my place to call them out. I just don’t read them. Some are commercial giants. I often disagree with millions of people over matters of taste. In the end, I have to acknowledge that the author did the job—emotionally connecting the reader to the story world.

You seem to like metaphors. How important is your writing style to you? Are you happy with your style, or are there aspects of it you try to change during rewriting or editing?

I enjoy juxtaposing ideas and creating metaphors that ring true. Technology imbues my story lines, so I hide the occasional Easter eggs for liked-minded geeks. I really do write to please myself. I figure if I’m having a good time others will too.

Mechanically, I tend toward short, choppy thoughts in my first draft, and when I edit, I restring the pearls.

What are the important elements of your style? What are you trying to achieve?

I don’t see life in particularly black-and-white terms. I may have decided how I plan to live, but it doesn’t mean I don’t see the other facets of a thing. When I write, I try to turn the gem over a bit and give the other sides a chance to glint.

How can readers identify your writing style? Are there particular words or kinds of words that you tend to favour? Sentence structures? Or is it more in the story, the pacing or the characters?

Thrillers for Geeks. That’s what I call my novels. My protagonists all understand and use technology for their work and survival. Hackers, spammers, robotics engineers, satellite tech executives. None of this capability was around fifty years ago.

But people haven’t changed. They still want hot dates for Saturday night and wonder if they appear too needy.

I try to write smart, deadly, witty and to end every chapter with something hanging.

Do you think your genre imposes certain restrictions on writing style?

No. The thriller genre isn’t a monolithic entity. It runs the gamut from the literary lyricism of John le Carré to the raspy rhythm of Dashiell Hammett.

To quote from the Rodgers and Hammerstein version of Cinderella: In my own little corner, in my own little chair, I can be whatever I want to be.

Do you think your audience responds to your writing style, consciously or unconsciously?

I hope both. I absolutely expect them to laugh out loud on particular lines because I did when I wrote them. I plan for them to wonder if the guy is going to make it out alive. But I trust the finer points to return for a reader’s consideration when he least expects it.

How important do you think writing style is to an author's commercial success?

It’s everything. Or nothing. I’m not sure how one measures the effect of style. One can fail miserably in grand style.

Eye of the beholder, baby. Eye of the beholder.

Thank you, Helen.

Visit Helen Hanson's Amazon Author page.
Get 3 Lies on Amazon.
Get Dark Pool on Amazon.
And visit her website: Helen Hanson, Thriller Author.

Independent Authors International: a new model changes the way books are published

I’m very excited about a new literary venture.

I’ve joined a group of 10 authors from 5 countries who are forging a new cooperative publishing model: Independent Authors International.

The members are all professional writers not affiliated or published by any major imprint. Instead, we are all independent authors who recognize that writers can provide all the services that a major publishing house can offer: editing, proofreading, design, e-book formatting, layout for print books and publicity. We’re sharing these services with each other to raise the quality and the credibility of independent publishing.

The news release explains it all. Then check out the website: iauthorsi.org. And check out the iAi author I'm cross-promoting this month: Haresh Daswani. Followers of this blog know that I found his Evolution of Insanity irresistible, if flawed.

Every month, a different iAi member's book will be featured in that spot on the right-hand side of this blog.

And when you’re hankering for great reads, now you know where to look!

Authors’ cooperative venture changes the publishing world — again

iAi to be a symbol of quality and professionalism in publishing

A group of writers, marketers and designers unaffiliated with publishers have banded together to create their own publishing model, “Independent Authors International (iAi).”

The new organization, whose members hail from across the U.S. and around the world, aims to support and legitimize the independent author movement, and bring new voices to readers throughout the world.

“Recently developed technologies like e-readers and print-on-demand make it now possible for individual writers to publish books without the resources of a large commercial publishing enterprise,” says iAi spokesperson, Scott Bury.

“The iAi co-operative will help professional authors by bringing together the skills and services that a commercial publisher offers, while leaving the authors in control of their work, at a fraction of the cost, and with a much more responsive and personal touch.”

The iAi's goal is to help its members produce quality, professional works recognized by literary agents, publishers, booksellers, and readers. The group is a democratic, cooperative organization controlled by its members.

Membership is granted by invitation of existing members. The group vets prospective members to ensure they meet the professional writing, editing, and marketing standards of the iAi.

To receive the services of the organization, members must contribute their editing, production, or marketing skills to other members.

The iAi currently has 12 authors and publishing professionals from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Israel and the Philippines. The iAi website at http://iauthorsi.org/ has information on the organization's goals and principles, a list of members, books that meet iAi criteria and links to sites where these books can be purchased.

For more information about Independent Authors International or to schedule an interview with one of its members, please contact Scott Bury by email at scott.bury@iAuthorsi.org.