Next Workshop: March 4

How to Publish Your Own Book: Next workshop is scheduled for April 1, 7 to 9 pm, at Black Cat Books, 720 Manitou Ave, Manitou Springs, CO 80829. The Publishing Pro.

Have You Heard of Twitter?

The latest in social networking: Twitter is designed to help people stay in touch with each other. It's limited to very short text messages--much like what you would send on cell phone (one way to use twitter)--and a little weird. Who has time to tell people you just enjoyed a cup of tea? And what good does that do? However, Joseph Liberti, one of our customers, thinks it's the bees knees for authors. I'm trying it out. Click here to follow my twitter. The Publishing Pro.

PayPal Makes It Easy ...

But be careful: If you'd like to take credit and debit card orders for your book(s) but don't want to pay the freight for a credit-card merchant account, PayPal is a viable option. PayPal has several plans available, which can be both confusing and helpful. And you should also be aware that there are many complaints on the web about PayPal, most from merchants rather than consumers and many of the complaint sites seem to be supported by a competing merchant provider. Several of our clients are using it to take credit card orders and like it. One of them, Scott Mares (author of The Complete Book of Cyclocross) found that Yahoo web hosting made PayPal a particularly convenient option for his bookselling site. The Publishing Pro.

In Tough Times, Publish.

... Or perish: The old expression from academia applies in the business world today. Even though the world seems to be constricting, this is a good time to publish. In fact, publishing may be the difference between your success and failure. Here's why:

• In tough times, people want help. In fact, they are desperate for it. If you've got something to say that will change their lives, say it now--when your audience is most interested in listening.
  
• In tough times, you have to be better. You can't be lazy. You must be focused. You have to know your audience, know what they need, and know how you can meet that need. In tough times, you are more likely to produce a great book.
  
• In tough times, your book can be the difference in your business, ministry, or work. The right book builds your credibility and your brand, gets you more business, makes you desirable as a speaker, and is a profit center in its own right. The right book may even make you attractive to an employer.
• In any times, publishing a book--if you do it right--is low risk. Nowadays, you don't have to dump your money into inventory. You can print as you go. Moreover, you can adjust on the fly.

Let us tell you how to make your project a success, especially in these times. The Publishing Pro.

Join Our Author's Meet-up!

Reach your audience: I'd like to form a Colorado Springs "authors' meet-up" This would differ from a "writers' group," which typically focuses on the introverted part of the publishing process. Instead, we would focus on the extroverted side of things--the selling, the marketing, the reaching out to your audience--what I call "authoring." Early feedback suggests that we charge a modest fee, maybe $5.00 for would-be authors and $1.00 for anyone who brings their published (traditional- or self-). The reason for the distinction is that published authors would be able to share their experience, strength, and hope. We've settled on the first Monday of the month, time and place. still to be determined. This is a great opportunity to get free coaching and support, both from me and participants. Contact me if interested. (If you are interested in this sort of thing but live outside of the area, let me know. There are virtual ways to meet.) The Publishing Pro.

Do-It-Yourself Typography: Double Space

It's a New Era: In the typewriter era, good style required you to put two spaces after a period. Typewriters used "monospaced" fonts, meaning that every letter or glyph took up the same width. With monospaced fonts, two spaces after a period looked better and we're needed to set off a sentences from each other. When we moved into the computer era, more than two decades ago now, most fonts in common use are variable-width. These fonts look better when you use only one space after a period.

Even so, a surprising number of people keep to the habit of inserting two spaces after a period. This either makes more work for your desktop publisher, who will eliminate them, or will leave your book looking a little amateurish if your desktop publisher doesn't better than to eliminate all those extra spaces.--The Publishing Pro, LLC

Do-It-Yourself Typography: Serif and Sanserif

The Basics: In typography, regular fonts fall into two major categories--serif and sans-serif. "Serifs" are little nobs or slight ornamentation on the ends of letters. Fonts that don't have these bits are called "sans-serif," from the French sans meaning without. Here are a few rules of thumb:

• For printed works, use a serif font like Times New Roman for your body text. It will be easier to read as text than a sans-serif font like Arial.
• For online works, use a sanserif font for your body text. For reasons that have something to do with light, sans-serif fonts read more easily on current computer screens.
• If you want to use more than one font family, use (for a printed application) a serif font for your body text and a sanserif font for display or non-body text applications (e.g., chapter headings, subheadings, and the like). This works because serif and sans-serif fonts are so different from each other that your choice will look deliberate. On the other hand, if you try to combine serif (or sans-serif) fonts from different families, it will look like you don't know what you are doing.
• In general, you don't want too many font families in your book. For most purposes, two font families are plenty. You can get more than enough variety from variations in style (i.e., Roman, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Large Caps, Small Caps, Underscoring, and the like). The Publishing Pro, LLC
  

If You Recycle, Are You Really Saving Trees?

It Seems Logical: If you print a book, you need paper. If you use virgin paper for your book, you have to cut down a tree to make the paper. Therefore, you are reducing the world's forest. Well, not really, as it turns out. "Pulp" trees are faster growing than lumber trees. Like Christmas trees, they are planted and cultivated. Farmed. The more paper you use, the more trees get planted. This excerpt from a story by Sally Herigstad in MSN MONEY, says it well enough.

We've all heard: Recycle paper and save the trees. But according to James
Wetzel, a professor of environmental economics at Virginia Commonwealth
University, the end result of all that recycling is fewer acres of timberland,
not more. More than one-third of paper pulp now comes from recycled sources.

"Alas, one result is a decrease in demand for pulpwood -- thus the price of
timberland falls," Wetzel says. If timber companies sell fewer trees for paper,
they find more-profitable things to do with the land, like sell it to
developers.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," Wetzel says. "If you want
people to plant more trees, they need a reason. In 30 to 50 years, they will
harvest those trees."

Shredded paper may not make it into recycled paper, anyway. Anca Novacovici,
founder of Eco-Coach, says, "Shredded paper cannot be recycled with regular paper because the fibers are cut short. Therefore it is demoted to a lower-grade material."

To me, it still makes sense to recycle paper when you can because it saves (maybe) some energy. It just doesn't save the forests, so don't lose sleep over printing your book when recycled paper isn't practical.--The Publishing Pro, LLC

Smart Publishers Don't Market Individual Books ...

... they market books: New authors--and some experienced ones--think publishers exist to market their individual books. While this seems logical, book publishing doesn't work this way in the real world. In fact, it doesn't make financial sense. A very modest project--a small book with a press run of 2,000--might cost the publisher $10,000 for editing acquisition, production, printing, order-taking and fulfillment, administration, and marketing. If the publisher expects to make a profit, only about $1500 (15% of the total costs) can be allocated to marketing--and that includes the book's share of marketing department salaries, catalog, website, exhibits, customer service, and directly allocated marketing expenses such as press releases. Only for really large projects is there any money at all for and individually tailored marketing or publicity campaign.

This doesn't mean that traditional publishers do nothing for a book. What niche publishers bring to the table is a large basket of customers interested in books in a given area. Travel, for example. They have a marketing system--catalogs, websites, customer service, telemarketing, package stuffers, trade exhibits, and so on--that reaches travel customers. They plug each new book into the system and can usually count on some percentage of their existing travel customers being interested in this new book. And this new book then will generate a few new customers who might be interested in some other travel books already published by the company.. It's a relatively efficient system--and the way most niche publishers make money, if they make money.

Does this mean your book will get no individual attention? No, but you're the one that will have to give it that individual attention. Your publisher will expect that. Most publishers try to make this clear--though I've noticed that many authors don't seem to hear the message and become resentful when they realize they have to do "all the work." Like it or not, this is how the business works. If you can make your peace with it, you can take advantage of your publisher's infrastucture to become quite successful.--Ken Guentert, The Publishing Pro.

Marketing Tip: Write Yourself a Book Proposal

Don't write a book without one: If you're on the hunt for someone to publish your book, you'll send prospective publishers a proposal. If you're smart, that is. (If you're not smart, you'll send them all a manuscript that they'll throw in the wastebasket.) Writing a book proposal is a good exercise--even if you're planning to publish your book yourself. The reason: the book proposal is your primary planning document. Here are the basic steps:

• Write a short description of your target reader. Instead of using generalities, describe a specific person, or couple, or family. Depending on your book, relevant details might include their appearance, their age, their marital status, their family size, their income, their needs, their desires, their values. If you can picture an actual person in your mind, more’s the better. (Note: if your book’s buyers will be different from your book’s readers--the case for children’s books, for example), you might have to split this exercise in two.)
  
• Write a short summary of your message. This is best phrased as how you will change your reader’s life. This is a powerful concept. The change you promise may be modest—maybe you are a mystery writer who only wants to entertain someone sunning herself on a beach—but the more significant the change you can promise, the more likely you are to find readers and the higher price your book can command. If you can’t promise to change someone’s life, why do you expect anyone to buy your book?
• Decide on a working title and subtitle. Generally, the title and subtitle should clue your potential editor and reader into what your book has to say and to whom. Be descriptive rather than poetic How to Make a Million Dollars Selling Widgets is a stronger title than Widgets Gone Wild. If you must be clever and creative with your title, your subtitle definitely will need to the do the descriptive job. As in: Widgets Gone Wild: How I Became a Billionaire Selling Widgets.
• Write Your Table of Contents. Again, your Table of Contents should be descriptive. The purpose is to clarify (for yourself, if you’re self-publishing, and ultimately for your readers) where you are taking your readers and what you will do for them. Your Table of Contents is an extremely powerful marketing device, one that may determine whether someone buys your book or not. Writing a good one—it’s basically an outline—also will make it easier for you to finish writing your manuscript. And it will definitely help you stay on track.

That’s it. Now you’ve got a proposal that defines your book from the ground up.--Ken Guentert, The Publishing Pro.