My favorite cover for Abundant Gifts

Trying to design your own book covers is one of the biggest mistakes I see new authors making, especially if they self publish.

One of the advantages of self-publishing is that you are in control of the whole process. When you work with a company like Intermedia, for instance, you own the rights, and you get to pick the cover, the interior design, everything.

However, there’s a downside to this. Just because you have the final say, that should not mean that you are the best one to judge the cover design, or even the title, for that matter. Having the final say should not mean having the only say–especially when it comes to areas you’re not trained in, such as the interior and exterior design.

Unless you’re an experienced designer yourself, leave this to the professionals. I have seen over and over authors who have a concept that’s so complicated, so esoteric, or so cluttered that I know their design will kill the book sales. I can almost always spot a self-published book right away, just by the look of the cover (the interior as well).

Good designers are trained not only to key into your concept, but to make sure it both fits current trends and also stands out in some way as to be interesting. Not an easy task, and definitely one for the professionals.

I came across a great article on working with a designer I suggest you read, along with Michele’s other posts.  Even if you work with a company that provides a designer, you want to work with that person and allow him or her to take the time to develop a great concept and design. Work with a great designer, and your book won’t scream, “Self-published amateur author!” like I’ve seen so many do. Instead, it will draw the eye and make the potential reader want to pick it up and explore more.

Part of the pleasure of a book is the visual nature of it–the cover.  Someone once told me about my Abundant Gifts book cover (first edition), “My wife keeps it out on the coffee table just because it’s so pretty.” That of course warmed my heart, and is about the best thing a cover can do for an author.

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As you can imagine, I have been very concerned about the child I sponsor, Saint Hilaire Germema, who turned 12 on December 5. I received a letter recently from Compassion, but nothing specific about the welfare of my child. I fear the worst, am praying for the best. I fear the worst, am praying for the best.

Please join me in praying for Saint Hilaire Germima, her family, Compassion International, ministries in Haiti, the relief efforts, and of course, the people of Haiti.

It’s often difficult to know how to help or to whom to give. I am giving to Compassion International because they have proven their integrity.

If you would like to help Compassion, go to www.compassion.com/haitiearthquake, or call 800-336-7676.

If you are an author or aspiring author, I am having a special Help Haiti sale on some of my products, and will be donating 75% of the proceeds to Compassion. (It would be 100%, but I have to take out taxes and administrative fees.) You can find out about those products at www.wordstoprofit.com/helphaiti.html.

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Basically, what is happening is “publishers” (really they are publishing services companies) such as Author Solutions are offering traditional publishers a way to profit from the authors they don’t deem worthy of taking a risk on and publishing in the traditional way. Author Solutions is the parent company of self-publishing imprints AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford Publishing and Xlibris. All of these are listed in the “Publishers to Avoid” chapter of Mark Levine’s excellent book, The Fine Print of Self-Publishing: The Contracts & Services of 45 Self-Publishing Companies–Analyzed, Ranked and Exposed.

I’m not necessarily against this new “partnership publishing” model. It’s probably inevitable, because the “old era publishing” model is becoming less and less viable. Retail outlets are closing right and left, publishers’ profit margins are getting thinner and thinner. As Mark Weiss stated,  this new partnership model allows publishers to use this new approach  as a “proving ground” for authors.”They get the opportunity to, in essence, create a farm system. … [Traditional publishers] get the opportunity to watch these writers and see how they do in the marketplace before they give them an advance.”

But, do the authors really benefit? They pay for the privilege of getting published … the media know what’s going on, and very rarely take books by subsidy publishers seriously, no matter what these “publishers” say. Distribution (in retail outlets) and coverage by the media have always been the issues subsidy publishers adroitly avoid addressing.

I thought it puzzling that Weiss said, “Because we do so much volume, costs are much lower than [traditional publishers']. It gives traditional publishing the opportunity to look at a different form of production of the physical book and start to experiment, and see how other people do things and get a much closer look at it. … It gives the publisher the opportunity to get involved in a new form of publishing without building all the infrastructure and expending all the time and energy that it takes to build something new.” Is he saying that traditional publishers don’t know how to edit, promote, and get books into the distribution channels?

Seems to me there IS something traditional publishers don’t know how to do, that many  subsidy publishers are very good at. That is profiting from authors’ work, while giving very little service. Author Solutions published 21,000 books last year. Can any company that services that many authors truly provide service? In the past, “old era” model, the publisher did take a big risk. The publisher only profited when they were right about a book, that it would sell well and make up for the 97% of books that didn’t sell out their advances. Yes, it’s been a risky thing, now more than ever, which is why that model is crumbling.

However, authors must be very wary of the new options being put forth. Always ask, “Who is really profiting here?” Make sure there truly is a win-win opportunity, and it’s fair. It’s fair for an author to pay for publishing services, if they are fairly structured and priced. It’s fair for the publisher to make some profit on their services, but not to mark up, say, the printing so much that the author must price the book higher than the market can bear in order to make a profit.

Author beware! Contact me for a consult before you sign on any dotted line. I have no interest in any company (which is why I refuse to allow ads on this site), and will give you my best, unbiased advice, based on your situation and my “publishing insider” knowledge.

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Boy, you asked a big question! Just about everything I’ve written on my blog and various websites are geared toward answering your question.  Many of my teleseminars also talk about what it takes to get published, especially the one I did with Terry Whalin at www.askaboutpublishing.com.

So I suggest you poke around my sites, especially this blog. Also, get the Author Success Plan. That 5-part minicourse is packed with insider’s tips on publishing and being a successful author gleaned from my 30+ years in publishing. It answers your question and shows you where to start: With the A-B-C’s of becoming a successful author.

Basically, it boils down to: Having a great idea, and building a following of people who like you and your idea. If you have enough of a following, a traditional publisher will take the risk of publishing you. Or, you need to publish it yourself, and glean a following through marketing.

Publishing has been undergoing a massive sea change, especially in the past 3 years. These days it’s very difficult to take the traditional publishing path, in which you get a publisher to take on all the costs of publishing and pay you a royalty (percentage of sales–usually 7.5% of what they get after they give the bookstores their 55% discount). Publishers just don’t want to take the financial risk of publishing an author unless the author can practically guarantee they can sell a lot of books, because the author already has a large following (called an author “platform”).

But while that old way of publishing is crumbling, a lot of alternative ways of getting published are springing up. More publishers are offering “publishing services” in a sort of partnership model of publishing whereby publisher and author share the costs.  That’s one of the things Terry and I talked about in the interview I mentioned, which you can listen to after signing up at www.askaboutpublishing.com. (I send you to the Ask page to sign up just so you’ll see how a cool way to market books works. It’s call the Virtual Book Tour, and I do these for publishers and authors.)

So I suggest you do a little more research on my sites, and if you still have questions, ask! I have a form on this blog (upper right corner) where you can ask questions any time. I periodically hold FAQ teleseminar to answer questions; asking a question on the form assures you’ll be notified.

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Seventeen-year-old Katherine asks, “Exactly what does it take to get published?”

First-time author Kevin sends me his manuscript and wants me to edit it so it can be publishable.

My response to all three people is, “The best thing to do right now is to create a blog and see if anyone is interested in what you have to say and the way you say it.”

Listen carefully, please: Being an author is not what it used to be!

It doesn’t have to necessarily mean having a print book. Not anymore.

Now it means establishing your authority in a credible way and gathering a following.

You can best do that, these days, by having a blog. One that you write regularly for. One that you drive eyeballs to through other means, such as Twitter, Facebook, articles, teleseminars, the media, and a myriad of other kinds of online and offline connections.

With a blog, you can publish for free.  Sorry, Kelsey, there is no such thing as publishing a book for free. Even if you get a publisher to pay you to publish, as in traditional publishing where they pay the publishing costs and give you an advance against royalties, you will have to invest something sometime in marketing and promotion. And it’s extremely difficult for first-time authors to get published in this way–unless they have a platform, that is, a following. So now we’re back to, How do you get a following? Answer: Create a very successful blog.

You can figure out how to create a decent blog by watching how others do it, and a couple I recommend are Jimmy D. Brown, Seth Godin, Michael Hyatt and Alex Mandossian.  If you have no idea how to start a good blog and want expert help, then I highly suggest you take the Wordpress Workshop with Cathy Perkins, The Wordpress Wizard. It starts TODAY, but sessions will be recorded. Cathy will actually give you a student blog to work on during the course, so by the time you’re done, you will have the kind of blog that will establish your credibility.

When you sign up for the workshop, you’ll get two great bonuses from me: the “How to Choose Your Bestselling Title” Special Report (to help you title your blog and book), and a free 30-minute consultation at the end of the course to make sure your blog is also the most effective it can be for an author. Details and signup here.

Blogging is free, it’s a way to test your market and establish your authority. As I said in previous blog posts, it may be THE current way to become an author.

So get a blog, and get published! (Just remember, “author” is no longer limited to “publishing a print book.”)

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Nowadays, to the media, it’s less important if you have a printed book than it used to be. If you have a well-visited blog that looks professional and people visit and comment on, you are seen as an expert. Read the rest of this post and listen to the teleseminar replay.

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You also get to ask Cathy or me a question, before and during the teleseminar.

Just go here at noon Central (1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific)for details and to ask a question.

In addition to answering questions, Cathy will give you a taste of her upcoming Wordpress Workshop–which I highly recommend. I’ve taken Cathy’s other courses before, and she is always very thorough and clear.

If you want a sneak preview of the workshop, which is limited because of the personal attention you’ll get, go here.

I do hope you’ll join us! This is your chance to find out more about one of the pillars of being a successful author. Blogs are the main way the main way that authors and would-be authors can create a following.

In fact, someone wrote me just today about how she had been in contact with several agents about her book, and how nearly all of them emphasize how important it is that an author have a website for their book.

You know I tout two kinds of websites, and Wordpress blogs are one of them. It has one advantage over the other kind, and that’s that people can comment on your blog. There can be a dialogue, and that’s hugely important. With Wordpress, you can also have your Twitter tweets posted, and so much more.

Every author needs a blog! And the best kind of blog to have is a Wordpress blog.

Find out tomorrow why. Noon central, here. Ask your question right now, okay?

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How?

By blogging.

Blogging is nearly as popular as having a phone–only you get to talk to and with a worldwide audience about anything you want!

Have you seen the movie Julie and Julia?

Julie–in real life–became a published author AND has this hit movie out about her BECAUSE she blogged about Julia Child and cultivated a huge, huge, HUGE following on her blog!

So what do you want to blog about!?

And if you don’t have your blog yet, you are in the right place at the right time, because my friend and award-winning colleague, Cathy Perkins, aka The WordPress Wizard, is about to launch her very personal, hands-on, interactive course — The Wordpress Workshop!

Find out what The WordPress WorkShop is all about on Thursday, January 14 at Noon Central, 1PM Eastern (the usual Publishing Coach Weekly teleseminar time) when I interview Cathy for you–about WordPress.

You’ll find out how you can use your WordPress site as your complete Website Platform–not just a place to blog.

In fact, you can use your WordPress site to develop your entire Content Management System–which Google adores for SEO– Search Engine
Optimization.

Oh–there’s so much I want to share with you! Because WordPress isn’t just a blog anymore!

That’s why I urge you to put this on your calendar now!

And I’ll be posting the dial-in details as we get closer to the call.

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For many, I know 2009 was a year to forget. So much bad news in the world, and much of hits home.

Yet for me, 2009 was an unexpectedly good year. Despite the economy and the turbulent state of publishing, it was an incredible year for me.

In fact, it was a “turnaround year,” when when the “bamboo” I’d planted and had assiduously watered and cultivated finally took off.

You know I’ve often said (borrowing from Alex Mandossian), success is like bamboo.

Bamboo grows silently in the ground for 4 years. Not a sign of life.

Then, in the fifth year, a shoot pops up. In that one year, it grows 80-90 feet tall!

2009 became my “bamboo year.” Around halfway through the year, the shoot popped up. I’m talking about my business and personal life–everything.

The things that contributed to my success are eminently duplicatable, I’m happy to say. I’m not just “lucky.” Luck has nothing to do with it. I’ve just discovered some resources and principles that have made all the difference–especially when used together.

I teach some of what I’ve learned in my Author Success Plan course, which if you don’t yet have, by all means get it.

I will be sharing more of what I’ve discovered in the coming days and weeks.

For now, I’ll just tell you about one of the key resources that has made a difference to me.

If you don’t already have a website that:

• people can find easily because it gets high search engine ranking
• is easy to set up and maintain, and doesn’t involve all kinds  of plugins and updating as blogs do
• does not require a webmaster to keep going
• allows you to add fresh content at will
• is secure from hackers (without having to take a course on how to, as I did for my blog)

… then you might want to check out the software I’ve been using for 5 years that’s as easy to use as MS Word.

This material will shave YEARS off of the learning curve as well as time and money you would invest in any other way of getting your website up and running smoothly.

Believe me, I know. I have both Wordpress blogs and this software, and hands down I prefer this. The only advantages to a blog are that people can comment, and if you want a membership site, you can use Wishlist Member software to convert it.

Otherwise, stick with Paul Smithson’s course and software. Both are absolutely topnotch. One of the best products I’ve ever invested in. And it was truly an investment, paying me back many times over.

Not only is this award-winning software for an extremely good price, but the customer service is great. Within the first 90 days, they will help you with anything you need to know to get your site up and running–within 24 hours– at no extra cost.

For me, customer service is a big indicator of the true quality of a company and product. I’m happy to report that the service has been excellent in the 5 years I’ve been using the product. First, I’ve hardly had to contact them. Second, when I have, the response has been speedy and the service excellent.

There is also an extremely extensive course on how to build a profitable website that’s top-notch. To see what the course has to offer, go here.

To see the features of the software, go here.

Again, happy new year! I’ll do my best to make it a “bamboo year” for you as an author. That’s my pledge!

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I look forward to serving you in the coming year as “your book publishing coach.” I have many new things in store for you!

If you would like to listen to an audio of me reading one of my favorite stories in my book, Abundant Gifts, just go to my abundantgifts.com blog.  I think you’ll like it.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the things that made 2009 a turnaround year for me, that may well make 2010 a turnaround year for you, too.

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