Guest post by Margaret Norton

Five years ago, when I started thinking about writing my first book, most people recommended a traditional publisher rather than self-publishing. I took that advice many times, but since then I’ve wondered if I made the right choice.

One year after my book was released, I terminated my relationship with my publisher. There were several reasons for this: I felt that I was doing most of the work anyway – except for printing the book – so why not get the full financial reward? However, my biggest reason was lack of control. I felt that I had very little say over anything that happened with my book and I had no way to track my marketing efforts. Like most new writers, I wasn’t making much money anyway, so why not venture out on my own?

That was five months ago and this is what I’ve learned so far:

The electronic author has most of the same problems as the traditional author. For the new writer, the biggest problem is publicity. I am doing the same things I was doing 18 months ago – press releases, blog tours, working social media, trying to build a name for myself as a writer, etc. The only thing I’m not doing is physical book signings, which I could do with my remaining stock, but have chosen not to. My goal is to have a total virtual experience.

Technology is the biggest epublishing challenge, especially if you’re weak in this area. For months, I took classes and read articles to prepare for this change, yet I’m almost overwhelmed with the amount and content of the information. Initially, I was under the impression that there were two major formats – Mobi for Amazon’s Kindle and epub for everything else.

What I’m learning is there are variations on these two and it hasn’t been as easy as it sounded. Most web sites that publish books have technical departments that are very helpful and there are companies that assist you with the technical aspects of epublication such as formatting and creating ecovers.

Numerous outlets exist for epublications. New writers are usually encouraged to purchase their own books from the publisher until they create a demand for their product. Epublishers typically do not have as many restrictions and once your book is in the correct format, you can often list it free. One list had 40 web sites that allow you to sell books online.

This is time consuming. Some have regulations, some charge small fees, some have time limits, most let you set your own price with a minimum and maximum, some allow you to give your book away or free chapters, some have blogs and community support and some list your book with other sites and help with the promotion.

Payment is quicker with epublication and varies by site – PayPal, check or electronic transfer. Returns are not as likely with ebooks, a good thing. It takes time to get everything set up. Once this is done, all you have to do is maintain and collect your checks.

Changing from traditional publishing to epublishing is going from one extreme to another. I no longer feel that I have little control. Instead, I have total control over everything that pertains to the distribution, promotion and sale of my book. If it doesn’t do well, I can’t blame my publisher. On the other hand, if it does, then I’ll get to claim all the glory. The royalties are less per book, but the expectation is that I’ll sell more books.

Publishers tend to send you out to pasture unless you continue to generate healthy sales numbers. Online sales are different – they don’t drop you if sales are down. You can spend the rest of your life promoting a book and perhaps generate some healthy sales over time. For me, this was a chance that I was willing to take.

If you’d like a copy of the list of 40 web sites, the name of the company who did my formatting, my ecover designer or others who’ve helped me in this process, please contact me at margnorton at yahoo dot com.

About Margaret Norton: Margaret Norton has always pushed the envelope – never totally accepting the status quo. A people person, her greatest joy comes from helping others. Preventing abuse, empowering women and improving health are her passions. As a personal life coach, Margaret founded Life Transitions to help individuals deal with change. In addition, she’s a trained Stephen Minister and Dale Carnegie Coach. This training, along with her personal life experiences, makes her a caring and compassionate coach. Her stories have appeared in A Light Along the Way, the Upper Room, various local newspapers, and on-line.

Margaret Norton’s When Ties Break: A Memoir About How to Thrive After Loss chronicles one woman’s struggles through life, encumbered by far more than her fair share of burden, and her eventual triumph. The author provides an excellent guide through the tribulations of life, having survived divorce, abuse, abortion, excommunication, chronic illness, homelessness, death, bankruptcy, sibling rivalry, adultery, single parenthood, drug addiction, low self-esteem and depression.

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Image from flickr user Hawk Eyes

The Texas Rangers made the playoffs again this year. No smack talk from me. I just watch and hope for the best. “Rootin’ Tootin’ Ranger” was the name of a Rangers mascot from the ’70s. Wow, that game on Monday, October 10, blew me away. Would you believe the game’s walk off grand slam was the first in MLB playoff history?

What a series it has been between the Rangers and Tigers! The third base thing and it happened twice! (I won’t bore you with details, but email me if interested.) Then same guy who hit the walk off grand slam almost did the same thing in game four in the top of the 9th. He hit a three-run homer.

Brain food…

• The Art of Writing Business Processes. I did this for 10 years of my career before leaving the corporate world for freelancing. I enjoyed the work and believe in the importance of business processes and continuous process improvement.
• Being Kind Doesn’t Make Me Stupid. Is there something you can make right today? Things can and do happen sooner than we expect.
• How do you sign an e-book? I wondered this … now here’s a way. Not surprised.
• 5 Great Questions to Ask Yourself After a Failure. We all say we learn from our failures, but how much? These questions will ensure you learn as much as possible.
• How to Avoid Burn Out: 10 Symptoms of Severe Stress. Yes, another from Lifehack. You can love what you do and still burn out. Here’s help for those times.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• The Best Obnoxious Responses To Misspellings on Facebook. (Some cuss words.)
• Funky Font Flowchart. Won me over just by leaving out Comic Sans.
• The Seven Deadly Keys. I guess I have a bad case of envy.
• The 50 Best Steve Jobs Tributes From All Over The World. I liked so many of them, but a few stood out especially sefanomanca, three apples changed world, Apple cries.

Photo from sxc.hu user bo_1963

So I decided to come up with a wacky title for this week’s links. Nothing to do with dancing, but it rhymed and Monday is Columbus Day. In 5th grade, I drove my social studies teacher crazy by repeating two lines of a Columbus poem. (In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In 1493, he sailed the deep blue sea.) I’m amazed she didn’t send me to the principal’s office now that I have kids who have done the same to me.

We’ve all done things to drive our teachers, parents and other adults nuts. What about you?

Brain food …

• 3 Tips for Professional E-Book Covers. Yes, we do judge books by the cover — ebooks included.
• How to Read More: A Lover’s Guide. Even book lovers like me fall into a reading slump. You get busy or choose to relax while watching TV. (It’s essentially reading for me because I read captions!)
• 10 Key Points Freelancers Must Know About LinkedIn. Good reminders. LinkedIn has so much going on. This cuts to the chase.
• Mobile Framework Comparison Chart. For my designer buds. Compare all the frameworks and choose the one that best fits your needs. [Link: Deborah Edwards-Onoro]
• Exquisite Tweets. Paste the URL from a single tweet in a conversation to get a one-page thread to share or save. [Link: Dana Chisnell]

And for fun because we’re allowed …

• 10 Coolest Lunch Bags. If you work in office with public fridge, first lunch bag and one other (ick) will stop theft. I like the lunch bag art bags.
• the difference 10 years makes. Cartoon covering TV, mapping, cell phones and more.
• 12 Hilarious Graffitis on Signs. Spoiler alert! Skip the first one if you haven’t seen Marley & Me …
• Size Comparison Of Famous Sci-fi Spaceships. Putting the end to “My ship is bigger” debate.
• Social Media Icons. I rarely follow the egg. Maybe twice out of the 8,000 I follow.

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School begins on Monday. Yay! Hooray! Too excited? The kids had a good summer. It’s time to return to our regular scheduled programming, only this year it has a few more shows added than I would like. The little guy takes piano, does scouts and goes to religious school twice a week instead of once. The older guy adds football and has to practice twice a day for a big event in February.

The daughter gets busy with her college search and application process. Glad that last one will be done by November — I hope. I know some schools accept applications later on, but the bulk of the work happens this fall. Then, she can sit back and enjoy her senior year.

Me. I’ll be working extra hard to hold on to my sanity on top of mothering, wifing (boy, that looks like wi-fi’ing — you know, be a good wife), volunteering, serving clients as best as possible, chauffeuring, exercising, sleeping.

College has changed drastically from when I applied. I only applied to three schools. After I finished my freshman year, I applied to two schools because I moved to Washington, D.C. Now, kids typically apply to more than five schools. The cost? College tuition inflation multiples faster than regular inflation. In a conversation, someone said that it’s possible fewer kids will go to college in the future because of this. Or, go to community college — which are growing like weeds. I believe it.

Education is important. But not at the expense of your finances and sanity.  What are your thoughts on the state of college education?

Brain food…

• How to Find an Illustrator for Your Book. I suppose I should save this as I doubt Lane Smith, Chris Von Allsburg or Mo Willems are available or affordable.
• 3 Principles for Facebook Fan Pages. This author-focused article gives you the basics to get started, even if it’s with a personal page. Don’t start a page for the sake of it. Do it because you have a strategy and you want to commit to it. Although, he has been talking about social media for a long time, my client didn’t commit to a Facebook page until recently. If you’re into social media and marketing, you might find it useful.
• Is Free Too High a Price? I love this post as it clearly illustrates the value of giving away an ebook.
• 10 Things About Having A Writing Blog. George highlights what it means to manage a writing blog.
• Quiet Theory of Influence. A powerful post on how you can influence in social media without the oily stuff. People will argue against some of the points like the pop ups. I never liked them, but people have tested them and they do work. It’s like “Please RT” in Twitter. Yucky, but has shown to work. But I wouldn’t feel good about it… hence, snake oiliness.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• 12 Hilarious Pics of Starbucks Spelling. Do the barristers close their eyes to challenge themselves? How do you get “Parge” from “Kate?” Actually, I’d probably make these mistakes if I couldn’t read their lips.
• 50 of the World’s Best Guided Expeditions. I hope the next time I plan a vacation and travel someplace new, I remember to check this. [Link: Gina Stark]
• Exercises for the Terminally Busy. Often, I’ll take a short break mid-morning and do something like this. Then I do a full workout in the afternoon.
• 13 Hilariously Stupid Signs. “Staff and visitors only.” OK, who’s exempt?
• World’s Smallest Origami: A Rather Tiny Art Installation. Now I’ll be watching White Collar‘s Neal Caffrey copy … steal … these adorable works of art.

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My older two kids have a quirky schedule in the next week as they start taking final exams in 6th and 11th grades. The 2nd grader gets to have fun with an end of the year party and no finals. But 3rd grade is going to be serious business as it’ll be his first year of taking state tests. It won’t be long before he won’t get to do the fun stuff and not have finals.

Then summer begins. I’m not a fan of summer break because of the inconsistent schedule and work disruptions as camp and activities start later and end earlier than school. Of course, I’ll spend time with the kids — I just can’t spend it the entire summer and I like my quiet time and consistent schedule.

Brain food…

• Why I Don’t Count Followers, Mentions, Google Alerts, or Blog Hits Anymore: I try to ignore stuff like this and Klout scores. But sometimes you can’t help it and you wonder what you’re doing wrong.
• Getting Ready for “The Help”: Storyfix deconstructs “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett. I loved the book especially since it changes points-of-view and the main character wants to be a writer. Just a great example for writers even nonfiction ones.
• Why I love writing: my 25 reasons: Did this guy peek into my life? Good reminder especially on rough days.
• 5 Free E-Books Every Writer Needs: A great selection from Jane Friedman.
• Taken to the Cleaners: Clients hire you for your expertise. For example, I’m a writer — but I share expertise beyond general writing advice. It’s up to the client to decide whether to take the advice. Key is to explain the why, don’t just say “I recommend doing this.”

For fun because we’re allowed…

• The Period Table of Storytelling: Wow! If you’re busy — don’t click on this until you have lots of time. You can order this as a print.
• Periodic Table of Swearing: Speaking of periodic table… obviously, NSFW. [Link: Bitrebels]
• 20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World: Know a luftmensch? [Link: Michelle Mangen]
• Take the World’s Hardest Vocabulary Test: My brain is tired after studying the first few.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Image credit: ilker

Wow. Think about it. Ten years ago, we were all panicky about the Y2K business. Now that’s barely a blip in our memories. It was also ten years ago when I posted my first blog entry on June 1, 2000. I didn’t blog a whole lot in the first few years, but it picked up in the latter half of the decade.

I thank special people in this message… so it’ll be a long one, folks!

Please vote for your top 25 books on writing. Let’s get a strong list together to help writers everywhere!

Brain food…

• The Twitter Controversy over Thanking for RTs: As nice as thanking always is, thanking for RTs only matters to the people you thank. It creates noise for the rest. So I do it in private or return the favor with a RT if there’s a good one.
• 10 Ways to Start Your Business Year with a Bang: C’mon! Let’s re-energize! Want more? My 10 Things to Do Before the New Year over at Web Worker Daily may have more ideas for you.
• The Simple, Ridiculously Useful Guide to Earning a Living from Your Passion: Don’t know your passion? Read this one first to find your passion.
• Do It Yourself E-Book Conversions [Link: BubbleCow]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 50 Funny People in Twitter
• Worst Gifts Ever: Christmas Presents to Forget: Need to get rid of a bad gift? Try Bad Gift Emporium.
• Foodzie: Etsy for foodies [Link: Andy Hayes]
• How to make instant ice: I wouldn’t try it, but still very cool to watch and discover.
• Ricochet, the Amazing Surfing Dog: “From service dog to SURFice dog.” Facebook page [Link: Joan Stewart]
• Six Word Stories: “Headline wrong. Lives destroyed. Retraction buried.”

Special Thanks

I’ve met many wonderful people in 2009 who have challenged my thinking and taught me many new things.  I was nervous about doing this in fear of unintentionally overlooking someone. But I decided it’s worth it as I must express my gratitude to these folks who took the time to share meaningful thoughts here or guest blog. Thank you. (more…)