publishing

Publishing: The New Skill

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Published using Nook for the first time for my latest book.  It was about as easy as Kindle, with a few less international options.  That’s pretty promising, as I’d usually have Lulu.com do the job.

It’s still a pain to self-publish merely for the amount of options, platforms, and issues one has to face.  There’s what to put the document in when you write, any conversions you have to make, then what tool to publish it in (I go from Libre Office to Jutoh myself).  It’s nice to be able to self-publish, but I wouldn’t call it simple.

The strange thing is self-publishing is basically it’s own skillset.  It’s not a gateway to easy publishing if you’re a writer since you’ve got to be more than a writer – or hire someone that can do the conversions for you.  Yes, the barrier to entry is far lower, but what was once insurmountable financially or business-wise is still a challenge because you need the skills to self-publish.

Writing well is still never enough.  The barriers and challenges to publishing have changed and even lowered, but they’re still there.  Success is still a lot of work.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

How We Might Turn Unoriginality To Our Advantage

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Nearly two years ago I noted that every other book cover I saw looked like Twilight and wondered about an originality/unoriginality arms race.

Reporting from the front lines in pop culture, I’d like to report that now a lot of book covers look like “50 Shades of Gray,” so I think unoriginality is winning.

When you think about it, there is doubtlessly a lot of 50-Shades derived books out there.  50 Shades is hot and hip right now, so there’s going to be attempts to jump into the market.  Sure all the covers look alike, but some of this is probably selling anyway.  Even though I am thrilled to see fanfic become fic , the story itself disturbs me.

Kind of makes me wonder how many stories wouldn’t be noticed, got made just for this, or were revived to take advantage of the new 50 Shades related craze.

So this got me thinking for all my writing and media friends.

We know that there’s plenty of problems with media originality.  It gets talked about a lot here at Fan To Pro.  Well, ranted about, as we do since many of us are authors.

We know that media goes in cycles, ones that are often big, obvious, and kind of blatant.  Twilight created one, 50 Shades another, but we know this goes back to the days of Star Wars and all it’s obvious ripoffs.

So instead of giving up on your great idea, or avoiding trends, why not embrace it and see what works you have work with current trends?

Any good author or artist has all sorts of ideas, potential projects, half-finished works, and more.  You could try and time their release or development of one of your works to jump on the existing trends.

Yes, there’s the danger of looking derivative, or unoriginal, or getting ignored.  But if you’re going to go with some of the big publishers, you’re facing enough challenges as it is.  Being seen as unoriginal by some, getting a smaller part of a larger market share, etc. aren’t the worst risks you can face.

So, if we’re gonna be in this cycle of unoriginality for awhile, maybe we media procures can take advantage of it.

Worse things could happen.  If nothing else maybe the book covers will all look the same differently . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

You Know, Sometime I Want To Say “Enough”

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I love e-publishing and self-publishing.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Lulu, and Nook, and I own a Kindle.  I’m glad I can sell books via e-Junkie.  I’m even glad to take a look at Ganxy, the new e-pub/promote service (look for a review).

But know what?  It’s now getting just a little insane.  OK insaner.  I had a lot of tolerance for all these options, but I think that we’ve reached the point where, unless you dedicate a lot of time figuring out what the best way to publish your book is, you’re taking shots in the dark (or spending all your time formatting, not writing).

Every time I look at my next book or my plans for minibooks, I find some new service, some new question, some new issue to address.  Sure I can experiment with all of them – in fact that’s part of what I do for here – but it’s getting a little frustrating by now.

I’d like to find a clear way to get distrubition, a clear way to format, some way to manage to get this all done without having to use 3 or 4 services, or how that service-to-service opportunities don’t mangle your book.  I’d like some sanity.

But as our own Serdar told me when we discussed this, that was called “A bookstore.”

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.