Is Kindle's Good News Bad news for Authors? by Teresa Kennedy

The recent announcement that Amazon has opened new Kindle stores in Italy and Spain has been met with lots of excitement in the Kindle community, but it begs the question of just how good Kindle’s expansion in foreign markets is for the independent authors who publish with them.

According to PC magazine :

“The new stores have a total of more than 900,000 titles in various languages, including many international best sellers, the company noted. Amazon also announced that independent authors are free to use Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to make their works available in the Italian and Spanish Kindle Stores.”

A further breakdown of the numbers indicates only 22,000 titles are available in Spanish in the Spanish store, while only 16,000 titles are available in Italian in that country’s Kindle store. So if, as an independent, your book isn’t available in either of those languages, your chance of significant sales in those or any other country where Amazon has a Kindle store are pretty slim.

Further, you’re competing with international bestsellers; that means titles whose translation rights have already been sold throughout the world, usually through an agent or larger publishing enterprise.

It’s no secret that foreign rights sales can make significant money for an author, often much more than the original version. And the global nature of today’s economy means that rights sales are booming. The problem is that within the area of foreign rights, there’s a significant scramble going on for territory. In exchange for translating your work, publishers want exclusive rights to publish in their territory. And if an English language version of your book is readily available in their local Kindle store, chances are they’ll not only pass on ebook translation rights, but on print rights as well. That spells a potentially significant loss of revenues for authors, especially independents.

Too many aspiring authors, anxious to get their work “out there” have only a dim understanding of just what rights they’re giving up in signing Kindle’s direct publishing contract, and unfortunately, many independent houses now insist on “worldwide” rights as a means of skirting the whole issue.

It’s an area of the industry that raises a lot of questions, and most of those questions don’t have any easy answers. But make no mistake, Amazon’s wholesale distribution practices and new Kindle stores are for the good of Amazon, not individual authors. Most important is for authors to be aware of their rights, and to find publishers and representatives willing to protect them in the global marketplace. Negotiate in your own best interests. Ask if your agent or publisher has contacts or partners in the foreign rights community. We certainly have those contacts at Village Green, but many don’t.

NEVER sign away world rights unless you have to. Some agents cave on it just to make the deal and some publishers will try and convince you that translation and subrights are just not an issue unless you have a track record. But that’s just not true. If you’re in it for the long term, the potential for foreign rights sales is just as important for your first book as your last one.

For more good reasons to keep your eye on amazon, read the following:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2YvNBX/blog.taleist.com/2011/12/01/why-you-cant-afford-to-take-your-eye-off-your-amazon-sales

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-06/e-book-pricing-sales-restrictions-to-be-probed-by-eu-antitrust-regulator.html

 

Quantity and Quality by Teresa Kennedy

Yes I know, we all love our gadgets. Computers, smartphones blogs, texts, tweets and social networks have us connected in a way that we’ve never been before.

Honestly, I don’t think I ever would have finished a manuscript without the advent of the personal computer. Word processing takes a good deal of the drudgery out of writing, changing those names, correcting the typos, not to mention doing the research. Knowledge truly is power and the ability of our machines to put whole worlds of knowledge at our fingertips is really awe inspiring.

The problem being that all that information and social networking can keep writers and editors both awfully busy. We live in a world of more or less instant results and it’s that same point-and-click mentality that can really wreak havoc on the creative quality of our work.

As much as the world would like us to believe that creativity is somehow inextricably linked with productivity, quite the opposite is true. An author can write one book or fifty, yet we are continually urged to greater and greater amounts of output, to make more sales, gain more fans and build our networks.

But a good novel just isn’t about how many words it contains, or how fast the author wrote them. Some books take longer than others to write. Programs that insist you can write a novel in a month if you just produce X amount of words per day can be a valuable exercise in discipline, but they don’t necessarily result in quality books, any more than being able to draw that lady on the matchbook makes you a great artist.

I once had an author whose manuscript I had edited text me a corrected scene from her smartphone. She was so obsessed with keeping to her schedule, she wanted immediate feedback in order to proceed to the next “correction.”

Ambition is great of course, but sometimes the best thing you can do for your writing is to really take some time to track your own creative process. Where is your inspiration coming from? Chances are, your best ideas arise out of what I like to call “mental free time.” Day dreaming, night dreams, staring off into space, meditation, exercise—whatever it takes. Turn off the phone and (gasp!) even the computer--long enough to detach from the clamor of modern life and find that space of not-thinking, not-doing and not-worrying too much about how to make that scene come out.

As much as writing is a conscious process in the sense that it necessitates applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, typing away and getting that darned book finished, the creative process is largely unconscious, mysterious and full of wonder. The unconscious provides a rich, nearly inexhaustible resource, where ideas flourish and dreams are real. It’s a place where so-called writer’s block doesn’t exist and your characters take on a life of their own. Truly, I think every writer lives for that creative moment when the story begins to tell itself and the actual writing becomes almost secondary. It takes some work to get there, but it’s a magical moment, indeed.

So we have to make the effort to connect with that creativity. It’s in each of us, always. But for most of us, that means disconnecting from our technology, at least long enough to remember that productivity isn’t everything. It’s isn’t the quantity of the words on the page, it’s the quality of the ideas those words represent.

Voice: What Is It?

    I had an author I’ve been working with query me as to just what it meant when we talk about the writer’s voice. She’d been doing a lot of internet reading on the subject, and not surprisingly, discovered lot of conflicting information.

    At its simplest, the term “voice” means that everyone's writing needs to be different from everyone else’s. And the process of developing a narrative voice all boils down to a question of choices. Every writer makes choices --about the story they choose to tell, their topics, their choice of words, the details of character and scene; and how they begin, or end, their book. All those different choices in turn determine the collective effect their story has on the reader.

    While it’s often referred to  “tone” or “mood" or even “style,” your narrative always tells the reader something about your personality and the entirely unique way you see the world. That means your writing choices need to be conscious ones. The problem arises when you discover choices aren’t always made consciously, but rather are the result of idioms and idiosyncracies that have a way of creeping where they don’t belong. Readers are extraordinarily perceptive creatures. They can feel a writer hesitate, or struggle through a passage that isn’t quite there yet.

    When it comes to strategies for developing a more authentic voice though, there are a few rules to follow. 

    First and foremost, care about what you’re writing.That may sound fatuous, but face it, if you don’t care, your audience won’t either. You may have the most brilliantly conceived dystopian horror fest ever to hit Microsoft Word, but if you’re not into that sort of thing, your readers will know. Writing is not manufacture; there’s a subtle interaction between author and reader that happens somewhere between the lines. If you’re faking it, you will be found out.

    Express yourself honestly. Be yourself on the page. If everyone felt the same way about everything, we’d all tend to do and say and think the same things. But our feelings about things are what make us unique. Beginning writers very often reach for a tone or style that they believe is more “literary” than how they would normally express themselves. Some try to imitate the style of authors they admire. While there’s nothing wrong with experimenting with different styles, the key is consistency. If chapter twelve sounds like it was written by an entirely different writer than chapter two, you might be in trouble. If you want to be true, you have to start by being true to yourself.

    The stronger your feelings, the better. Do your own attempts at comedy actually make you laugh? Do you actually come to tears when you kill off a character? If they do, chances are you’re in the zone required for a really authentic voice.

    Be original. One can argue that there’s nothing new under the sun, but to say that something is original is simply to say that we haven’t seen it done quite this way before. There’s a difference about it that is ultimately the result of the confidence and willingness of the author to convey a sense of personality on the page. When a reader finishes a book by a favorite author, they frequently feel as though they’ve gotten to know that person. While it isn’t entirely true, that quality of intimacy is an important ingredient in developing an original and unique voice.

    Match your tone to your audience. A white paper on global warming isn’t going to have the same tone as a young adult rite of passage. A romance is not a mystery. I can’t say it often enough, but the voice you choose for your writing must match not just your purpose, but your audience. They want to get to know you, so it only stands to reason you should get to know them.

Double Standards by Teresa Kennedy

You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there.
- Yogi Berra

     Publishing puts you in touch with all kinds of interesting people, but never so much or so many as when you advertise that you are seeking novel-length submissions.

    Call it a sign of the times, but in the past few days, Village Green’s website has received a number of queries, almost none of which would be considered appropriate were we a more traditional venue. I get queries that demand references before I even see their book; I am asked whether we have ever infringed on an author’s copyright and I even had one note insist that no “reputable” publisher would charge for editorial or promotional services.

    Babes in the woods, poor dears.

    As a niche publisher and something of a hybrid in an ever-changing industry, we offer a full range of services both for those wishing to self-publish (whether electronically, or in print) and those wishing to pursue more traditional publishing outlets. Those services include development and editorial; design services, pre and post publication support, agent and submissions help, book reviews and publicity services.

In addition, we are also seeking to build a select list of titles for our own catalog. But just because a book isn’t right for our list doesn’t mean it can’t find success elsewhere.

    The interesting thing about many of the queries we get lately, is that they all seem to be informed by an overriding suspicion that as a relatively new company and an industry hybrid there is something inherently suspect about us. That we charge reasonable and entirely appropriate fees for our services seems to make us doubly so.

    We started this company with one mission—that was to see deserving authors published. As a 30 year veteran of this industry, both as an author and editor, when a former editorial client invited me in, I began the venture with eyes wide open. I’m not going to get rich at this; I’m not going to get famous, and it’s going to take time.

    Part of the illusion that pervades the unpublished author community these days is that those realities just don’t apply. Further, any and all publishers must now somehow justify their existence, as though we were all just one more evil corporation waiting to abuse the unsuspecting.

    And yet I ask you, if you were trying to get your book published with Doubleday or Random House, would you insist on seeing your editor’s resume before you made changes? If an agent recommended further editorial help before taking you on, would you consider them a rip-off? When you call a cab to get you to your destination, do you demand the cabbie produce his license to drive?

    Look, I know this isn’t an easy business, but that’s no reason to approach a prospective publisher with a chip on your shoulder. That’s one sure way to get nowhere.

    Whether writing is your passion, your art or your hobby, in the end publishing is a business. Businesses make money, and sometimes the best money is an investment in yourself.

Perfect Pitch

The best novel in the world isn’t going to capture the attention of an agent or editor if you don’t know how to pitch it. And the “pitch” is just exactly that. When constructing your queries, responding to calls for submissions, or looking for representation for your work, it’s easy for the uninitiated to make some fatal mistakes. Keep in mind that most agents and editors are powering through at least 200 queries a week, usually many more. More importantly, they have one and only one burning question in their minds as they do: Can I sell it? So for better or worse, your queries need to somehow address that single question. You are not selling yourself, your background, the astonishing intricacies of your plot or the compelling details of the character development. You are not pleading, coaxing or begging to have your genius recognized. You job is to intrigue them enough to make them want to see more. That is the essence of a perfect pitch. Step One: The Hook With so many queries running through the average agent’s or editor’s mailbox on any given day, if you don’t capture their attention in the first line or so, chances are they won’t read much past it. Thus, your hook can pose a compelling question relevant to your novel’s premise; you can compare your work to other bestsellers in the genre, or you can insist that your novel goes where no novel has every gone before. Your choice, but don’t be cute, don’t try to be funny and don’t try to otherwise divert their attention from the business at hand. Regardless of how you frame it though, hook them you must. Do NOT begin by telling them how long it took you to write it, who recommended that you write them, or how frustrating it is to find good help these days. Neither should you introduce yourself by telling them their business, i.e, “Paranormal fiction is flying off the shelves.” Everybody knows that. Step Two: The Jist Two short paragraphs at most, and hard as hell to write. More specifically, the body of your letter should address the three principle elements of your story—the protagonist, the setting and the plot. Period. Paragraph number two is all about the plot development. “After joining forces, X and Y struggle against the forces of evil embodied by A,B and C in their quest for the Grail. ” You do not need to let them know the detail of how the plot is resolved, only that is it resolved. Which should then be followed by a memorable sort of summary: “Their lives will be forever changed with the revelation that not every Prophecy is fated to come true.” That’s it, that’s all. No mas. That your characters take a side trip to Atlanta, or attend their 20th high school reunion may be all very well and good, but it doesn’t mean a thing who somebody who hasn’t read your book. So skip it. Step Three: Your Bio Here’s where too many authors make the mistake of trying to oversell themselves, rather than relying on their pitch to do the work for them. Many will include all their publication credits, how they’ve been writing for 19 years while the kids were asleep, and even their “day jobs”. If you blog as financial editor but your novel has nothing to do with finance, skip it. The key to imparting information about yourself is to only impart the information that is relevant to your novel. You can get friendly once they accept your manuscript. Close your query with the offer to send sample chapters or a complete manuscript. Let them know how long the manuscript is, and thank them for their time. Sign it, include your contact information and voila! Perfect pitch. Need help? See our sponsor page http://www.villagegreenpressLLC.com is offering a new AGENT LINK service. Special pricing for a limited time only!

The Editorial Bloopers Hall of Fame: Part One by Teresa Kennedy

Okay writers, let’s face it. We all have our little quirks, idiosyncrasies and those weird, entirely individual conventions in our style of personal expression that have a way of working themselves into our prose.
Sometimes, those can manifest on the page as what is politely called “authorial intrusion”. Other times, they are celebrated as the true essence of the author’s emergent “voice”. Most times, however, they provide unfortunate evidence that the overworked and underappreciated writer maybe should have gotten up from the computer and gone outside for more fresh air and sunshine until they stopped writing long enough to figure out what they were actually trying to say.
Remember folks, it’s not the number of words you write, but the quality and precision of those words that count. So to honor some of the most prevalent, and in some cases, downright spectacular crimes ever committed in the name of literature, we present the following examples, each in its own weird way, worthy of a mention in our Editorial Bloopers Hall of Fame:
The Directionally Challenged: “She looked up at the ceiling, as she sat down in her chair.” Here’s the thing: Ceilings are always UP and readers tend to know this. So are stars, the sky and indeed the firmament. Similarly, it is very difficult for a character to sit anywhere but down. Any and all chairs, sofas, settees tend to be constructed for that convenience. The only possible exception is when a character sits up from a prone position, at which time it is almost never necessary to specify what they are sitting up on. Surprisingly, readers are also never interested when characters “walk across the floor”. If they are indoors, there’s always a floor and everybody knows that.
Nouns are Not Verbs: Sure, you may insist upon poetic license, you might call it stylistically experimental, but the fact is, if your readers share a common language, we’re all fairly familiar with the basics of how it’s supposed to work. In much the same way that you can flavor tofu to taste like steak, but everybody still knows it’s tofu, dressing a noun up in verb’s clothing just doesn’t cut it. Therefore, sentences such as “Myrna fisted her hand.” Or “Gregory lipped a smile,” are enough to give the average reader serious pause. And guess what? When a reader pauses, they’ve stopped reading.
Body Parts: It is an unwritten rule of editorial thumb that unless you’ve authored some sort of zombie apocalypse, body parts should not react independently of the characters they’re attached to. “Her head swiveled at Alfonse’s entrance, as her chest heaved” might mean anything from torrid attraction to something out of The Exorcist, but unless we know the parts are indeed attached to the character in question, we have no way of discerning just what Milady’s reaction to Alfonse might consist of. Too often, a writer will zone in on the part in question thinking to clue us in, (her head is moving so she must be thinking) rather than specifying what’s actually going on, saying things such as, ”Her hand made a little gesture,” instead of actually coming out and saying if she was doing the royal wave or flipping somebody off. It never, ever works.
Winkin’, Blinkin’ and Nods. Truly the bane of a line editor’s existence, if we had the proverbial nickel for every time we blue-lined one of these, we probably wouldn’t be blogging. “He nodded his head,” “She blinked her eyes rapidly. “ “Ferdinand couldn’t resist another wink of his eye.” If you don’t find this device redundant, just try nodding something besides your head, or winking or blinking some bit of anatomy that isn’t your eye. See what we mean? Wink, wink.

Tune in again for Part Two of The Bloopers Hall of Fame!

Are Ghosts the New Vampire?

Teresa and I noticed a trend in horror novels lately: ghosts have become core characters in lieu of vampires. I find this very interesting because many have had experiences with what they would call a ghost or spirit whereas the vampire universe is relatively closed, or at least seems to be. I suppose enough people watch the Halloween specials on Discovery or A&E featuring real-life practitioners of vampirism, but I would bet if you approached 25 people on a dark street in, say, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and asked whether they had ever seen a ghost or experienced "spirit" activity, you would receive many affirmative responses.

So we're going to put it out to our readers: are ghosts the new vampire? And do you have a ripping yarn to tell about ghosts, vampires or both? Whatever your answer, as Halloween is fast approaching, we would love to post some good tales and get your opinion.