digi.lit – ism

Was the last book you read a printed book?  I’m guessing it wasn’t.  Maybe it was a book on the kindle or a graphic novel on your iPad or a novel in serial form you read on your phone from any of several vendors.

As a blogger sitting on the first draft of my first novel, it’s never been a question to me of “if” I will self-publish, but when and where.  I’m still working through craft issues and I know that there is more work ahead before I release, but even outside of that, I find what is happening in publishing to be completely fascinating.  For these reasons, this past Saturday I attended the digi.lit conference on digital publishing put together by the organizers of San Francisco’s LitQuake literary festival.

The saying is typically that things change by the minute, but in publishing, it’s changing by the nanosecond.   The amount of time between the word hitting the page and the reader having it in their hands is drastically shrinking even to the point of writers releasing their work in a more serial format.  In the case of many of peers in Software Testing (Hello Elisabeth, Mike, Alistair, Cheezy, and Alan) they are publishing on Lean Pub and iterating on their work.

With the game re-arranging itself at such a fast pace, I’ve had a lot questions as I’ve been working on my draft and I’ve even seen some of those questions answered or change over time.  Here are some of the questions I had during the conference today.  Not all of them have answers, but I’ll leave those unanswered questions as a place marker or invitation for a blog comment.

Q:  I have a draft.  I wanna e-publish.  Now what?

A:  You could hang that draft out there for all to see, but it would likely be caught adrift in the tubez.  Literary agent April Eberhardt is of the opinion that 95% of e-books are not edited or layed out well or have crap covers.  Having read more than a few these, I tend to agree.  April suggests that you need to at least:
1.  Engage an editor so that you don’t have typos and so that your sentences flow well
2.  Get yourself a “good” book cover.  As an example, she suggested Holly Payne’s “Kingdom of Simplicity.”

Q: Should I plan on having some printed copies?

A:  This question gets to the heart of what is currently a huge tension within the world of self-publishing.  Fact: E-books require far less work to publish and market than printed books.  However, if you want your book to be reviewed, or if you want to engage the community that is physically around you to read your book, you will likely need some that are printed.

In all of the discussion I heard, the conclusion I came to about ebooks and independent booksellers is that the relationship between ebooks and independent booksellers is very murky waters.  A major and, I believe, unintentional theme of the conference was the hate-hate relationship between independent booksellers and Amazon.  It was emphasized that if you want an independent bookseller to carry your book, you shouldn’t be telling people to only go to Amazon on your web-site.  Ultimately, this is one of the questions that I haven’t answered for myself yet, but I also expect more change in this space before I have to worry about it.

Q: When should I start marketing my work?

A: The suggestion was repeatedly made that the time to start marketing a book is yesterday.  So much was said in this particular session about “building your marketing platform,” by blogging and tweeting, but, by all means “do what makes you comfortable.”

I couldn’t help but listen feeling very tongue-in-cheek about it.  On the one hand, I’ve been working on my novel for over a year by getting up every morning and writing.  I’m definitely interested in doing what I can to sell it when the time comes. OTOH, social engineering makes me throw up in my mouth a little.  I think every blogger will know what I’m talking about.  So far, I’ve always erred on the side of authenticity and I don’t really think that’s going to change, although I can see putting up a badge and blogging about a book I’ve published every now and them.   As a whole, the conference did inspire me to blog a little more.  I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Q: How much should you really shell out for a cover if it’s just an ebook?

A: Aside from getting your book edited, the other standout piece of advice that was mentioned over and over was to invest in a book cover that doesn’t suck.

In the panel discussion, “Judging a Book by its Cover:  The Potential of Graphics,” Geary Zendejas said that you have 6-8 seconds to sell your book on a web-site.  He also mentioned that research indicates book covers for ebooks that sell are very, very different from covers of print books that sell.  For ebooks, large typography draws the most attention but for printed books it’s more about photography, detail, texture and feel.  In the session on marketing, independent bookstore owner Christin Evans mentioned that for printed books, it is not just about the cover, but it’s also about the spine.  My personal philosophy is that you can sell anything with a cat on it, so maybe I’ll just stick with that.

My takeaways

  • It’s time to get back to the basics of blogging.  This isn’t even about blogging more.  What people forget about blogging is that it really is a two way straight where you’re participating in a community.  For myself, I plan on reading more of other people’s blogs and leaving comments.  It might sound cheesy, but I believe in having a shared pool of knowledge with active participants.
  • It’s time to get to know some of San Francisco’s independent booksellers.  I’m privileged to live in a city that is rich in indie bookstores and a few of the owners were present at the conference.  Something that was mentioned in one of the panels is that now that the American “big box” bookstore chain, Borders, is gone and Barnes & Noble is hanging on by its fingernails, indie bookstores are experiencing their own renaissance. I’m planning an upcoming post about this.
  • Expect change.  If you think things move fast in tech, try publishing.  I mean, who knows, the ebook market could collapse in a year!  Amazon could descend into chaos!  That ok.  If everything goes south, I’m sticking to my philosophy that you can sell anything with a cat on it.  I’ll just switch all of the hackers in my novel from humans to cats.  It’ll be great!