Moving Through Molasses

Here's a letter I recently received from Agnes, one of my writing colleagues. I think it illustrates yet another one of the indirect changes arising from the changes in publishing technology. Here's the letter, followed by my response. (Edited, of course, to protect identity.)

The Letter

Currently I feel like I'm moving through molasses, going incredibly slow, and not getting anything done. I guess I've been feeling like that all year, since I began epublishing a year ago.

I've been annoyed with myself, because this past month, I've only gotten one chapter written on my new novel. I haven't got another novel in print yet though it is up electronically, and I've only gotten one more novel up on Smashwords and Pubit and not on Amazon yet. Blah. It's a strange feeling, like I'm just not moving at all.

But when I look back over the year as a whole, I have to think that feeling of not getting anything done is an illusion. Since last October, I've published electronically a dozen books and half-a-dozen short stories. And put eight of those books out in print.

What I can't figure out is why it feels like I'm not getting anything done at all, when if fact I'm being somewhat productive. It's just crazy.

My Response

Not crazy, Agnes. Just unfamiliar. I've been feeling the same way ever since I started publishing electronically, and I've put up over forty books.

I think, for me, it's not experiencing the various "mileposts" of traditional paper publishing: the letters back and forth from and to various editors, the contract, the galleys, the phone calls, the page proofs, more letters, the cover designs, ...

I didn't realize it all these years, but these mileposts made me feel I was accomplishing something—though of course I now realize they meant just the opposite. They were all delays, preventing me from seeing my work "in print."

Now, once I finish my part(s) of the publishing job, it's finished. Done. Ended. And on sale and earning royalties. And I'm left with the feeling I haven't really done that much.

One thing that helps me is watching the sales figures climbing every day. I know some of our colleagues say you shouldn't do that, but it takes less than five minutes a day. Those five minutes give me a sense of accomplishment, a sense that motivates me to do more work that day.

Anyway, that's the way it is for me. Perhaps it's something similar for you.

If you enjoyed this little essay, take a look at Weinberg on Writing, The Fieldstone Method. You can find it listed at these stores

• Barnes and Noble bookstore: http://tinyurl.com/4eudqk5

• Amazon Store: http://amazon.com/-/e/B000AP8TZ8

• Apple Store: http://apple.com

• Smashwords Store:

Why English Will Never Be 100% Automated: Example

One of the nice features of the Kindle eBook service is they way they copy-edit some of their better-selling books. This can be a particularly important service for print books that have been scanned to make eBooks. For instance, Amazon recently wrote about my Kindle book, An Introduction to General Systems Thinking:

Typo issues exist that may have been caused by an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) problem. Few examples are given below:

loc 1561 - "T call them" should be " I call them".
loc 2946 - "But 1 still can't" should be "But I still can't".
loc 3351 - "Shasta the liger" should be "Shasta the tiger".

Please look for the same kind of errors throughout the book.

The first two instances are common OCR (Optical Character Recognition) errors: "T" for "I" and "1" (the numeral) for "I" (the capital letter).

The third example is a not quite so common OCR error, "l" (the letter) for "t". And, in this case, it's not an error at all.

The sentence in question was:

We do not often have our excessively sharp view of the world challenged by phenomena like Shasta the liger at the Salt Lake City Zoo, whose father was an African lion and whose mother was a Bengal tiger.

Still, the sentence contains a more subtle error: the failure of the author (me) to account for the mental state of the typical reader, for whom the term "liger" may be unfamiliar. (Even though it is found in at least 16 on-line dictionaries.)

I corrected this much more subtle error by redrafting the questionable sentence as:

We do not often have our excessively sharp view of the world challenged by phenomena like Shasta the "liger" at the Salt Lake City Zoo, whose father was an African lion and whose mother was a Bengal tiger.

As I dealt with this situation, I kept sighing and thinking, "English will never be entirely automated."

And then I took a deep breath and thought, "I suppose I prefer it that way."

How about you? Would you like English to be entirely clear and logical?

An Introduction to General Systems Thinking

"Smashwords vs. Kindle?" Are Your Lights On?

Yesterday, Don Gause and I posted out book on problem definition, Are Your Lights On?—a book many have called a "classic."

Today, I ran across a perfect example of why the lessons in the book are so useful. On one of the writers' forums in which I participate, a reader posted a query entitled Smashwords vs. Kindle? Here it is:



Gemma, a writer, asks:

Can someone tell me what the benefits or advantages of publishing on Smashwords might be when Amazon, the number five most visited site in the USA, (according to Alexa.com) provides such a successful solution and so much higher traffic? To compare, Smashwords ranks 2,751 in terms of daily traffic. Amazon's "query popularity" is 86 out of 100, versus only 38 out of 100 for Smashwords. Amazon visitors spend an average of eight minutes on the site and view 8.8 pages while Smashwords visitors spend six minutes on the site and view 6 pages.

Still, I have found the folks on this list to be a savvy bunch, so I suspect there must be some hidden advantages or benefits of which I am unaware. Can anyone who has published on Smashwords help me out by sharing some benefits? I am about ready to put up some titles on Amazon and had decided to stick exclusively to that platform and to B & N, but maybe I am cutting off potential sales by not posting on Smashwords.

Perhaps someone else has the answer already:

One of the things Are Your Lights On? teaches is to use all the information you have. In this case, I had an earlier answer from another author, "Linda."

Linda offered this answer:

Yes, Amazon offers worldwide traffic, but Smashwords offers retail eBook outlets that we do not get at Amazon.  My books are directly at Amazon Kindle.  And then I have also added a number of my books and my husband's at Smashwords to take advantage of the retail outlets they distribute to.  At Smashwords I opt out of Amazon, and will continue to do so.  But Smashwords has not only their direct website, but the books are sent to the ebook retailers-- Kobo, Nook, Diesel, IPad, etc.  I love being able to check daily on my Kindle sales and be paid monthly by Kindle.  Royalty payments and sales via the Smashword's distributors are slower, depending on the retailer.

So the advantage is having more retail distribution (and hopefully sales) by putting your books at Smashwords, in addition to having them at Amazon Kindle.

Even good answers may not be complete.

Are Your Lights On? teaches:

"If you can't think of at least three things that might be wrong with your understanding of the problem, you don't understand the problem."

Well, I really liked Linda's answer, but applying the Rule of Three, thought about how it could be improved.


Jerry adds to Linda's answer:


First of all, listen to Linda. She and her husband use exactly the same strategy Dani and I use. [Note from AYLO: Answers don't just have to be right, they have to be convincing. Supporting Linda's excellent answer is the first job a consultant has to do to be effective in this case.]

So, my first answer to Gemma is this: You've done your research, and done it well, but the data you've gotten happens to be irrelevant to this problem. The traffic each site receives doesn't really matter. What matters is selling books. Suppose Site A receives 1000 hits/day, and the average stay is 10 clicks, and they sell one book per day. Site B receives 10 hits per day, and the average stay is 1 click, and they sell two books per day. Which is better for you, the writer, A or B?
The answer is "none of the above." Why, because you don't have to choose. You can put your book on both A and B's sites, and sell three books.

On to the details:

Once you have the right problem definition, the solution is often trivial, as above. Since I can't verify my assumptions about Gemma's problem definition, I can add some other facts to support various definitions, such as,

1. A book sold at Smashwords gets a higher royalty than the same book sold at Kindle. For each $7 of Kindle royalty, the same sales on Smashwords earn $8.

2. Smashwords, as Linda says, distributes to many retail outlets that would be a pain to reach individually, and perhaps not worth the small sales they generate. Through SW, I reach them with zero extra effort.

3. In addition to extra retailers, I reach readers who don't use Kindle. As Linda says, SW formats automatically for just about every eReader known to humanity, again, at zero extra effort.

4. I don't know how many SW sales I would have through Amazon if SW weren't available, but I do know that through SW, I earn about 2/3 of what I earn through Kindle, so instead of, say, $1,000 through Kindle, I earn about $1,666 through the combined offering. (plus another $100 or so through Barnes and Noble, which you should also use.)

5. SW has a "coupon" feature that Amazon doesn't offer. That allows me to offer special price deals for a day, a week, a month, or whatever period of time I wish, for whatever price I wish. Very useful for marketing, and for reviewers. On Kindle/Amazon, a price change takes about three days to start, and three days to remove, and is seen by the whole world. On SW, the change takes place instantly, and can be removed instantly. I can offer it to one person, or 10, or 100, or to the entire internet world. My choice.

6. And, if you offer a book on SW, you can pull the book(s) any time you want. So, if it turns out you don't like something about SW, you're out of the deal instantly, whenever you want--not cost, no fuss. It's totally under your control.


Bottom Line

Yes, the book-selling business can be complicated, but this one's probably a no-brainer when you have all the facts—if I have the right problem definition. In a real consulting situation, I'd be able to talk with Gemma and verify that I understand her problem. Since I don't have access to her, I'm guessing that her implicit problem definition is wrong from the start.

Gemma, I think it's not "Smashwords vs. Kindle," but "Smashwords and Kindle" (and Barnes and Noble, and any other sites you wish, as long as they don't restrict your publishing elsewhere).

Perhaps the definition would have been better stated: "How can I achieve the best sales results for my eBook?"

P.S.

You can sample Jerry's books on Smashwords, including Are Your Lights On?, then buy them there or at any other site you might prefer. See and sample all my books on Smashwords (more going up all the time).