Talking about ISBN’s for the Indy writer – Smashwords comes out with a new plan.

If you’ve been reading along, and I trust you have, then you’re familiar with the Pros and Cons of purchasing ISBN’s for your novels and short stories. And you’re aware of how expensive it can be, if you want to be listed as the Publisher of Record, as opposed to allowing – say – Lulu or Createspace to be listed as the publisher of your book.

Either way, it’s always been and still remains your choice. For some, allowing Lulu to be listed as their publisher. For others, it’s important to be listed as your own publisher.

And, if you’ve been following along and reading the rules of ISBN’s, then you’ve come to realize for the ebook publisher, it’s a royal pain in the arse. Why? Because, as the rules are stated, you are required to obtain a separate and unique ISBN for each and every format your ebook is published in.

Can you say Holy Shite?

I thought you could.

In order to cover all the available reader bases out there, I have – via Smashwords – all of my ebooks published in no less than 9 formats. HTML, Java, Mobi for the Kindle, Epub (considered an industry standard, if anything can be considered standard these days) PDF, RTF, LRF (for the Sony reader) Palm Doc, Plain Text for online and Plain text for download view.

You can imagine how much it would cost if I were to purchase an ISBN for each of those formats.

So what’s new, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

Smashwords – my preferred ebook distributor – has signed a deal that will include titles in the new Apple bookstore, for all Smashwords books that meet certain guidelines. The requirements are simple – your book has to be included already in their premium catalog (which is a simple formatting and cover art issue) your book has to have a price that ends in .99 (I don’t know why, it’s odd, go figure but who cares) and your book has to have an ISBN assigned to the Epub formatted version.

Okay, so first you’re thinking “hang on, you just explained why ISBN’s are too expensive. Are you drunk?”

Yes. I mean, not right now. You see, another announcement from Smashwords is their new ISBN offering. They’ve managed to French kiss Bowkers and come up with a deal, wherein they can offer you options to place an ISBN on the Epub version of your novel.

Why Epub? Well like I said, that’s considered for now the industry standard, the most widely read and available version, so it makes sense to pick that format above all others and assign your ISBN to it. You can still buy numbers for your other versions, if you have deep pockets.

So what’s the catch? Is there a catch?

No catch, not really. But there are distinctions. Free vs $9.95.

For free, at no charge to you, Smashwords can assign an ISBN to your novel’s Epub format – making it widely available and easily searched for/ordered by anyone, anywhere – for the simple cost of listing Smashwords as your publisher. You remain the author, naturally, because – well – you’re the author. But Smashwords will be listed as your Publisher of Record.

For $9.95, you can have Smashwords assign an ISBN to your novel’s Epub format – making it widely available and easily searched for/ordered by anyone, anywhere – and have YOU listed as the Publisher of Record.

You. The publisher. For $9.95. Sure, it’s only your Epub version, but we’ve established that as being your industry standard version right now, and on that will be listed with Bowker’s, and made available in the Apple bookstore, for all those early adopters of the new Apple iKotex tablet computer.

Is this cool, exciting news?

That’s up to you to decide. Free is free, but lists Smashwords as your publisher. $9.95 will list you as publisher, and can be taken out of your profits from sales, so you’re not whipping out that credit card that you shouldn’t have in the first place shame on you for using credit cards have you learned nothing from my lectures!?

Ahem.

Also, if you’re just now listing that novel, and haven’t sold one yet, Smashwords will let you owe them the $9.95, and take it out of your first sales until it’s paid. So monetarily, it’s a win/win.

Are there ups, downs, lefts or rights to this news? I’ll let you know as I learn them. Right now, I went ahead and put ISBN’s on Ether and In The Time Of Dying. I want them listed in the Apple store so I can test that out and see how it affects sales and readership. It’s all pretty new, and I’m still experimenting with it, poking it with sticks.

But it is news. And a very intriguing developing in the ISBN wars of the Indy writer. Stay tuned!

Power to the People!

Make Love, Not War!

Does that iPad come with wings?

My current work in progress is a novel called The Legend of Darkness and Light. It’s a good old fashioned, balls-to-the-wall, no-deep-message-here adventure story. Kind of a tribute to guilty pleasures, I suppose. Anyway, the other day I mentioned to my friend Pete that every time I sit down to write another section, I wonder if this is going to be a good read or not, but then I realize that I really don’t care because I’m having SUCH a good time writing it.

And I am – I’m having a blast. I’m actually hand-writing it, then quickly transcribing every afternoon so I’ll have a spare copy. Occasionally while I’m transcribing, I’ll go on with the next passage on the computer, but later on I’m back to the notebook. I even had to draw out a segment, since I tend to work out issues visually.

Pete said that, honestly, no matter how good or bad the story, if it was written with pure joy, that comes through and entertains the reader. He’s probably right, since he often is. All of my novels have been written with pure joy and excitement. The novels I try and just crank out for cranking out’s sake never make it to fruition, so that’s pretty much all the proof I need right there. A story that I can stay away from more often than work my way through is a story that isn’t going to get finished, and shouldn’t, because it would show in the pages.

There have been times when I told myself I had to get something done, that I had to follow a trend or produce at a faster rate, solely because it was the correct thing to do. It was what was expected, it was the norm, whatever.

That never works for me.

When I write what I want, and take a ridiculous amount of pleasure doing so, that’s when a novel gets finished. That’s when a story entertains, and finds readers.

I spent a couple of years purposefully trying to get traditionally published. I sat down and tried to work out what was selling – not what’s on the shelves now, that’s a trend you can’t bandwagon due to the time difference between shopping a novel and having it hit the shelves – but you can see what publishers and agents are buying, what they’re interested in, and try to fashion something that will catch their eye.

So I did, and I sat down to write a novel that I could get an agent to sign on, one that I thought publishers might buy. And I wrote, and I worked, and I found other things to do.

Finally I saw the light (again, this light will vary from person to person, your mileage may vary, Indy’s not for everyone, bla bla bla) And I returned to writing what I wanted to write. Writing stories I wanted to read.

It took me a while to realize this, but when I made the switch to Indy, and experienced the incredible freedom that afforded me, this was the final tether-snap. When I knew that writing whatever gave me ridiculous huge amounts of joy, whatever would fly off my fingers in my own mad rush to see what happens next, that’s what I needed to write. That’s what I love to write, and that according to my sales and free-read stats, is what entertains.

When I wrote with fame and fortune in mind, I couldn’t. It wasn’t fun, I took no pleasure in striking the keys, cared little about what was to happen next. I was too concerned with doing things “right” and “properly” and following the prescribed pattern of success. And, I’d let this little parasite into my brain, called a Writer’s Forum – worse thing that can happen to a writer, being surrounded by people like that. They spend more time on writing forums than actually writing. They take more pleasure in screaming the rules and regulations at you than penning an epic of their own.

But I digress.

The other day (if by ‘other day’ you mean a few weeks ago) I wrote a short story, the very first one I’d ever done! Woohoo – well, okay, hang on . . . I wrote shorts in High School, didn’t I? Never really thought of them as shorts before.

“She’s wandering again, Maude.”

Anyway, I wrote this short, just for fun. Just to prove to myself that I could do it, and I did. But then I thought “hey, why not try and sell this?” I mean, why not? After all, if it doesn’t sell, big deal. I’ll put it up on my webpage, or write more shorts and sell an anthology. When I went to Duotrope to find a market, I suddenly realized this little ditty was impossible to label.

Genre-wise, we’re given ridiculous labels, beyond the simple SF-Fantasy, Mystery, Romance pegs. We’re talking absurd amounts of holes, in all manner of shapes and sizes, and I realized this short doesn’t fit into any of them. Maybe Humor, but they don’t list Humor without subcategories.

Did I mention subcategories? Okay, before we hear from Ethel on this, yes that’s a subject for another blog post.

Suffice it to say, when I wrote before, I wrote for fun. I wrote for the pure pleasure of discovery and exploration. I wrote because it was something I had a knack for, and enjoyed very much. Then I got it in my head that I needed to write for publication. I needed to write a novel that would sell to an agent, then a publisher, then wind up on book store shelves and gain me fame and fortune.

Even after I learned the ropes, and the facts, behind traditional publishing, I was not deterred. I still assumed I had to write to sell, and ‘make it’ in the world of novel writing.

Then I figured it all out, had my epiphany if you will, and went all Indy on your asses. Then, and only then, did I find myself having FUN again. Writing with love, and joy, and excitement, in anticipation of what comes next. I found my nirvana, my happy place, and my readership.

And as luck would have it, since it was no longer my focus or my care, some cash, too.

Power to the People!

Make Love, Not War!

Did I mention Ether is free this week?

If you’ve been living under a rock these past years, you probably still believe the only way for a writer to “make it” in the world of books and publishing is to struggle for years and years perfecting a novel, then trying very hard to find an agent who will — like the old Calgon bubble bath commercials — take you away! Wisk you up to that lofty Publisher-on-high and make you a star.

Maybe you peeked out from under your big round stone ten or twelve years ago and noticed something called Fanfiction, breeding all over the internet. Perhaps you saw things like Vanity publishing leaking off like the trails left behind by slugs, and a plethora of web sites made by colorblind individuals who thought a moving mailbox and a flashing red banner would entice you to read their little ditty. Then, convinced your life under that granite was really for the better, you went back down for another spell.

In that case, you’re unable to read this blog and haven’t figured out that this is the best time to be a writer. In fact, I can’t think of a better time. The world has opened up, or if you prefer, blown up, scattering into infinite possibilities going in a myriad of directions.

The rest of you should be rejoicing! Not only do you not have pebbles in your underwear, you’re writing in what has to be the most awesome era for story-telling.

Today, a writer has endless avenues and possibilities available to get their stories out to the reading public. If you still want to use the Traditional route, it hasn’t gone anywhere. There are agents aplenty, and a few massive conglomerate publishing houses who like to do things the old fashioned way.

But that’s no longer the only way up the mountain. Nor is it exclusive – – you can take that path, then come back down and find another, then angle left and take another. There is nothing stopping you from taking every single path to the top that you can find, and then some.

Want to Indy publish? Fanfreakin’ tastic!

Prefer a small press? Do you have any idea how MANY there are these days? Head over to Doutrope when you’re finished reading this blog and expand your mind.

You’re no longer forced to walk the one path to true enlightenment, and struggle to sell a midlist paperback trade. If that’s your goal, more power to you.

If not – we have a buffet of Audio publishing, Epublishing, Self publishing, Indy publishing, Small Press, Large Press, Indy Press, Free press – web sites, blogs, hell you can even Twitter fiction these days. Write short work for reading on cell phones, pen some Flash fiction in a banner ad, set up your own Podcast radio station and read your work, get a camera and post fiction on Youtube. Start up a website and charge subscription rates, or ask for donations, or give it away for free !

You can write novels, you can write shorts, you can write whatever the hell you want. With the plethora of small presses available today, a writer could make a solid living selling only short stories, audio fiction, podcasts.

You can sell your audio rights to one publisher – then turn around and sell first print rights to someone else, foreign rights to someone else again (read your contracts)

Sold a Novel? Nothing says you can’t turn around and Indy publish some Shorts !

Sold a Short? Put your Novel on Smashwords and control your destiny. Tweet your poems, audiocast your Flash. Sell another short !

Do you dream in Serials? Miss the old days of pulps and continuing stories that unfold week after week, exploring a vast, wide open world, but you don’t take the time to write one because you can’t find a publisher? What’s stopping you? Do it ! Sell it yourself, sell it to a small press, create a subscription readers list. ASK one of the small presses out there if they’d be interested – the worst they can do is say “No.” What writer hasn’t heard that before?

It’s a big wide open world for writers — the sky isn’t even a limit anymore. The only limits you’ll find, are those of your own expectations.

“There, see, Ethel – I told you there’d be a catch.”

“Oh hush up and keep reading!”

There is a catch, but the catch is – it’s all inside your own head. Your expectations aren’t what some nameless, faceless writing group tells you they should be, or what the guy down the street says they are. Your expectations aren’t what the media claims they should be, either.

Your expectations are entirely your own, but if you’re sitting at home, constantly rewriting that one novel, rewriting your query, tweaking a sentence here and a paragraph there, trying desperately to win over an agent, get that one book deal, then sit back and lead the life of a wealthy, famous author . . . I can offer you a great deal on a bridge over some Florida swamp land, cheap.

If that goal — that one singular mission — is all you expect and hope for out of this writing life, then I wish you all the best of luck. If you “make it” there, it’s because you’re the top .028% of the population struggling toward that same goal. Congratulations, and I mean congratulations. You had a goal, and no matter how long it took or how hard it was, you’ve achieved it.

But if that’s your sole idea of “making it” then you have my sympathies, because I’d be willing to bet it’s not going to mean what you think it means. By setting that singular goal, you’ve probably also built up a vast expectation of what it’ll be like when you get there, and I really don’t think you’ll ever be satisfied.

Who gets to determine whether or not you’ve “made it” ? Will getting an agent mean you’re there, or does that have to wait until you have a publishing contract?

What about when you have a publishing contract, but your book isn’t out yet, did you make it? If your book is on the shelves, but you’re not being asked to do a book tour, have you failed to make it?

What if they never buy another title from you, are you still there? Did you still “make it”?

I skipped my High School reunions, all of ‘em so far, but I’ve heard from friends who attended, and the funniest bit — the most telling of all the stories that stuck with me all these years, is how the High School jocks had all peaked. They were now balding, shadowy shells of their former selves, heads bent, “yes, dear” on their lips, desperate to relive the glory days because for them, their entire expectation out of life was to be the Big Guy on Campus. After that, after making it there, they had nothing else to do. There was nowhere to go but down.

They’d made it, but then what?

“She’s confusing me, Ethel.”

“Shut up and keep reading, Maude. I swear, you’re getting’ senile.”

If you’re a writer who’s sold some Short stories, maybe you’re struggling to finish that first Novel and you have high hopes a small press will buy it – – have you made it yet?

What if all you write is Short stories, have YOU made it?

Maybe you write Novels and put them up for sale at Smashwords, have you made it yet?

Perhaps you’re a writer who sold a handful of Short stories to small presses, maybe an audio book here and there, you’re working on a novel you’d like to sell to a Traditional house and you really want to see some of your work up on the web for free, have YOU made it yet?

Yes.

To all of you, Yes, you’ve made it. You’re writing, people are reading, you’re writing more and people are happy to read whatever you bring out – You’ve made it. You’re there. Celebrate ! You’re a Writer, you’re entertaining people, you’re weaving tales and expressing yourself, maybe you’re being paid, maybe you’re not. Maybe that’s important to you, maybe it isn’t. Maybe you’re Traditional, maybe you’re Indy, maybe you just stand at a corner and hand printed pages to folks boarding trains.

Whatever your methods, whatever the media, you’re there! You made it !

Even if you have other goals in mind, even if you’re still moving forward, exploring new options, writing new and exciting things, always looking for that “next big thing” – rejoice! You’re moving forward, but you’ve already made it. You ARE a writer.

Nothing pisses them off more. And by “them” you know I’m talking about the old time Traditionals. The ones who believe, unto their deathbeds, that THEIRS is the Way, the Only Way, and forever will remain The Way, Amen.

They look at you, Small Press Author, and you, Audio Fiction Writer, and even you, Indy Published Scribe, and they scoff into their Wheaties “You haven’t made it! You’re not a real writer! Until you’ve sold a book to a publisher using an agent, you’ll never make it!”

Screw ‘em. They’re bitter, old coots, more often than not. Angry that it took them years to achieve their goals, only to find those goals less satisfying than they’d expected. They were so busy reaching for their brass ring, they didn’t realize so many of us were already holding them. They’ve been told by so many people there was only one road up the mountain, they didn’t notice how many mountains there really are.

One day I realized just how much fun I was having with my current novel, and how much unadulterated joy I was taking out of being an Indy writer, and just being a writer. I’m not concerned with genre, or what is or isn’t selling right now. I’m not developing heartburn over writing a query, or researching agents, and I’m not pining away at my desk, wondering if and when my first novel will see the light of day, and be read by the world. Writing is a joy, it’s not a struggle, it’s not a time-suck. I don’t complain about lack of writing time, I don’t stress over ideas or plots or direction. The writing world is my oyster, full of pearls (which is a good thing because shellfish makes me wanna gag).

I can write Novels, I can write Shorts ( a newfound skill that is just awesome! ) I can sell them here, I can sell them there, I can do anything I want with them.  I can go Indy, I can sell Small Press, Audio, Traditional, any and all!

I’m there. I’ve made it. I climbed to the top of that mountain, and the next one, and the next one, and I’ve seen just how many more mountains are there for the climbing, and I can’t wait to summit them all.

I’ve made it, I shitz you not, and there isn’t a soul on this world or the next who can tell me I haven’t.

How about you?

Power to the People!

Make Love, Not War!

“Maude, shut up and eat your Wheaties”

I’ve heard some stupid things in my day, and I’ve probably even said a few stupid things in my day. But I read something today that, well it really tops a lot of ‘em.

If you hang around traditionalists long enough, you’ll notice they’re bound to say something stupid. Especially those who are dyed-in-the-wool, you’ll-pry-this-hardback-from-my-cold-dead-hands, everyone-who-does-it-differently-is-a-Commie traditionalists. This is not to say all traditionalists are stupid, sell-outs, sticks-in-the-mud or made of wool. But even they have to admit there’s a large contingent among their ranks who are.

Did you catch what I just did there? I’ve lumped all Traditionalists into one big group, accused them all of saying stupid things, then couched it with the tried and true caveat.

Now you’ll better understand my point.

It’s about eBooks, forward thinking and open mindedness. Lemme ‘splain . . .

This is what I read today – a quote from the author of such works as The Mosquito Coast, Dark Star Safari, and The Great Railway Bazaar. A writer by the name of Theroux who recently released a Kindle-only eBook. During a podcast interview, he said this regarding eBooks: “… The big danger is copyright infringement. Stealing books and sharing books without paying for them. What could happen to the publishing industry is what happened to the music industry. It was destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. People don’t buy cd’s anymore, they share mp3’s and they steal them. That could happen with books.”

Did ya catch that? Apparently the music industry is DOA. No one buys CDs anymore. At all. Music is dead, and we’re all pirates.

Wow. So, those CD’s I buy all the time are . . . what? Illusions? Sure, I put the CD’s into my computer, so I can load them on my mp3 player, so I can take them on walkies and play them in my car (because the CD player in my car is a right pain in the arse). Do I share them? Well, I give the CD’s to my sister because her car’s player works. I used to make copies on cassettes – remember those? But you know what? I like CD’s. I’ve had too many computer crashes in my time to trust my entire music collection to mp3 files, bytes and bobs.

Theroux says that the music industry was absolutely destroyed –I assume — because he believes that malarkey. In truth, the music industry hasn’t even been bruised. Sales of CDs have increased thanks to file sharing – in the old days it was called “Word of mouth” or “free advertising“. If anything, the music industry evolved into a new beast entirely – one that allows smaller bands, garage bands, individual musicians who couldn’t have made themselves heard beyond the local pub before, suddenly able to find an audience. The music industry wasn’t obliterated, it exploaded all over the ‘net ! It grew, it changed, it expanded, and now we’re all privvy to music we never would have heard otherwise. And that is farkin’ awesome!

He also says “people don’t buy cd’s anymore, they share mp3s, they swap them and they steal them.”

He’s just called you a thief. In fact, he’s just lumped together the entire human race (“people”) and called us all thieves. We don’t buy CD’s, we just steal music. All of us. Every last one of you out there, those reading this blog and all the others, we’re all thieves, responsible for the utter and complete destruction of the music industry!

This is the same argument a vocal group of traditionals make against the eBook “movement”. They think if books become files, readers will all just swap ‘em, trade ‘em, and steal ‘em, and they won’t make a lick of money for writing ‘em. They’re convinced — and balley-ho they’re gonna shout about it — that eBooks will spell the complete and utter destruction of life as they know it for the paperback and trade world.

Well guess what — people have been swapping, trading and sharing books for generations. I’ve done it (gasp!) and I bet you’ve done it, too. You read a really good book, then hand it to a friend, maybe a coworker, a fellow commuter, a family member – and say “Dude, you gotta read this, it was awesome!”.

That book likely gets passed around a few dozen times in it’s life, to people who get to read it without paying. Then someday perhaps it’ll end up in a used bookstore, or donated to a doctor’s office waiting room, and be read another dozen times, all by people who didn’t pay the author a dime.

The author got paid for the copy he sold, by the person who bought it. That person then passed it around to maybe a dozen others who enjoyed the read without paying. Chances are, if it was a good book, that dozen who read it for free might want to read more of the author’s work. They’ll head off to a bookstore and check for more titles, possibly even buy a few, and share those with another couple dozen readers.

The hard truth is, those who read it for free and didn’t go buy something else by that author – or head out to purchase their own copy of the book they read for free – weren’t going to buy your book anyway. They weren’t going to pick you up off the shelf and pay to take you home. These people are not lost sales. But with luck, chances are they will turn into free advertising, which in turn will result in a few new sales you wouldn’t have had otherwise.

The music industry wasn’t destroyed, it grew up. That growth period would have been a lot less painful and a lot more pleasant if they’d figured it all out ahead of time and stopped wasting time pissing off their customers. Do a handful of people steal music without ever paying? Of course they do.

Do you?

Probably not.

Do a handful of people steal eBooks with no intention of ever buying them? Of course they do.

Do you?

If I buy a painting from an artist, and pay the asking price – then later on, sell that painting to someone else for a hefty profit – will that bring down the entire art industry? Did I steal money from the painter by selling his art for more than I paid for it? I bought my house sixteen years ago for $69,900 and today it’s worth $147,950. If I sell it, do I owe the previous owner the difference?

The irony of Theroux’s statement isn’t just that he’s lumped all of humanity into packs of thieving book pirates – – the irony is that he’s done so while jumping on the eBook bandwagon himself. What if he’d simply jumped on the wagon and enjoyed the ride?

That’s what I’ll talk about next week – so your homework assignment is to go read this, then come back next week and find out what I mean when I say Define Making It: http://therumpus.net/2010/02/presto-book-o-why-i-went-ahead-and-self-published  

Power to the People!

Make Love, Not War!

Did you pay for that gum, young man?!