#WWoW: Tammy's Tidbits from #RomConU and Indie Publishing #MyWANA

Hello my friends! Welcome to Tammy's Tidbits here at Writer's Words of Wisdom. I know it's been a long time since my last post but I've a fabulous one for you today. I just returned from Denver, Colorado where I attended RomCon University and RomCon 2014. I had a great time connecting with fellow authors, readers, and friends—both old and new. If you've ever wondered whether or not you should attend conventions and conferences, stop right there. Do it. You need to interact with your peers, make connections, and overall enjoy yourself.

This year was the first time I attended RomCon University. This portion was aimed specifically for authors—published and aspiring. So many great topics were covered, but I filled my schedule with seminars aimed at marketing, publishing, and formatting. 

I'm what people call a hybrid. I have books published traditionally through a publisher (Siren Bookstrand), and I've self published the rest for FOUR pen names. I have the best of both worlds, but there's always room for improvement. That's why I looked forward to this conventions for months. Let me tell you, I wasn't disappointed at all. 

I attended two talks given by Smashwords' Marketing Director Jim Azevedo. He gave out a thumb drive with his presentations on it as well as the three free books put out by Smashwords founder Mark Coker: Smashwords Style Guide: How to Format Your EBook, Smashwords Book Marketing Guide - How to Market any Book for Free, and Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success. All of these books are FREE and can be found on Smashwords.com or Amazon. Go ahead and download your copies now. I'll wait.

Got them? Good! You'll need those later, but for now let me give you the highlights of Jim's talks. Self publishing no longer has the stigma it had as little as five years ago. Before, if you said you published your own books, people thought you weren't good enough for a traditional publisher to take you under their wing, so why should they read any of your work. It's a good question, but very misguided.

You see, some of the most talented authors out there are self publishing/going "indie". Of course, there are some books published way too soon, without formal editing and publishing. There are some with covers that will make you cringe...but so many more with professional looking covers that draw you in. This is the group we choose to be in and Smashwords is one of the ways we can get there.

One thing many of us struggle with is how to price our books. Should we go for a freebie to draw in readers? Should it be 99 cents? What price is too much for an eBook? Jim shared a lot of research with us. It's a good marketing strategy to set the first book in a series for free in order to get the readers invested in the characters and the story lines. If they love them, they'll come back for the next books and pay for them.

He shared that 99 cent price point pays out quite well, but the $1.99 spot is a dead zone. Very few if any books sell at that number. Best to move it up to $2.99 and get the sales. For the larger books over 60k words or so, $3.99 is a good price point. Much higher than $5.50 and the sales numbers go down, but of course you make more per book than you would at the 99 cent price point.

Why did I share that? Well, for those of us still building up our following, it's valuable information. The lower prices do help get your name out there and new readers feel they aren't breaking the bank taking a risk on a new author. Once they're hooked, if you price your work fairly, they'll keep coming back again and again.

Smashwords of course isn't the only name in the Indie publishing game. If you want your work to get into the brick and mortar book stores, you need to have it distributed through Ingram. Now I know what some of you are saying. If you have the expanded distribution through Createspace, you do get distributed through Ingram, but buyers see that Createspace is the publisher (by the ISBN number) and they don't want the books. You can't do the expanded distribution through Createspace if you have your own ISBN number, so what are you to do?

Go directly to Ingram and have them distribute for you through their Ingram Spark program. With Ingram Spark, you can publish an eBook, paperback and hard cover all in one spot. Hopefully by the end of the year, they'll have reworked their process so you can use a Word.doc file for all your needs. For now, you need to upload a clean EPUB file for your eBook, and a clean PDF for the print versions. 

Robin Cutler from Ingram gave the presentation on using Ingram's services. For minimal fees, you can have it all at your fingertips. For only $49 per title, you can distribute both print and eBook versions. It's the same cost for print alone so might as well do both. If you only wish to go the eBook route, it's only $25 per title. There is a $12 annual marketing access fee per title as well. 

For these prices, you get included in the Ingram catalogs distributed to libraries and book stores. There are many other tools on their site to help you market each title and you have all the benefits of print on demand without the hassle of having to be responsible for books in a warehouse or for the cost of returns.

As the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Sassy Vixen Publishing, all of this was fabulous news. I came away from those lectures with a renewed outlook on the publishing industry and my part in it. Sure SVP only represents me and my other three pen names, but one day we will take on additional authors. At that time, I want to give them the best options out there for their books, just like Siren gave me when I first started out.

Still not sure going Indie is for you? Check out Ingram Spark and read the Smashwords guides for yourself. It's not the secret world that some make it out to be. If you have your manuscript edited, re-edited and polished until it shines, and you have a professional looking cover, get yourself to these sites and upload your work. Join the world of the published authors and have fun!

Until next time,
~Tammy

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a best selling, multi-published poet and erotic romance author with Siren and Sassy Vixen Publishing. Her writing explores many facets of romance from ultimate betrayal to finding your soul mate. Her poetry serves as a companion to her novels and has inspired entire series all on their own. Tammy and her alter egos Lia Michaels and Stephanie Ryan and Tawny Savage make up the core authors at Sassy Vixen Publishing and together they've created the shared world series Temptations Resort. Look for the first books in that series to come out later this year.

Now happily married to her own Muse and soul mate, she continues to live her dream and act as secretary to all her characters demanding to have their stories told.

Check out:

Tammy's Website

Tammy's Blog

Tammy's Books on Bookstrand, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords,  and iTunes 

Sassy Vixen Publishing

Friend Tammy on Facebook

Like Tammy's Facebook Author Page

Friend Tammy on Goodreads

Friend Tammy on Pinterest

Follow Tammy on Twitter

Find Tammy's Videos on Youtube

If you'd like to share your experiences in the publishing world, please contact us about setting up a guest appearance. We'd love to hear from you!

#WWoW!: More Fun with Formatting and Distributing #ebooks with @dochappycamper #amwriting #MyWANA #ASMSG

Welcome back to Tammy's Tidbits here at Writer's Words of Wisdom. This is my first post of 2014 and I thought I'd continue with my last post of 2013. Formatting your ebooks for publishing can be a daunting task, but with just a little extra work you can produce files that look great on any ebook reader.

Last time I talked about the Smashwords Style Guide. It's a fabulous resource for all self published/Indie authors whether you decide to do your own formatting or not. Just the tips on how to tame Microsoft Word are enough to make it a must read and a KEEPER for your publishing arsenal. The best thing—it's FREE. 

Just this last week I decided to try out another site: Draft 2 Digital. I have to say it's the most user friendly site for self publishers and small independent publishing houses. D2D will take your Word document and convert it into a beautifully formatted EPUB file you use on ANY other site. In fact, you can take this file and covert it to any other ebook format you need with Calibre.

Why couldn't you do this with Smashwords? Well, all the files produced by the "Meatgrinder" formatting process on Smashwords are required to have "Smashwords Edition" in the front matter where your copyright page is located. 

Not so with Draft 2 Digital. With my newest release, I put "Electronic Edition" in the same area I normally would acknowledge Smashwords, All Romance, or Amazon. Now, I can take this one Word document and create all I need. Right after the conversion process, D2D allowed me to download the epub file. I looked it over to make sure it looked good in a NOOK and then accepted it on the site. 

Next. I got to choose the stores to distribute my book. Since it was my first time and I had already set up Smashwords, I decided to opt out of Barnes and Noble and Kobo. At the point when I did that, Smashwords hadn't shipped them the file yet so it worked out.

Now, The Surrender of Julia (Now and Forever 3) is live on both sites thanks to D2D. All the other distribution sites I've got covered with Smashwords, All Romance, and Amazon. The next book I publish, I'm starting out with Draft 2 Digital and distribute to BN, Kobo, iTunes and maybe a few more. They even have Createspace as an option so I could do my print formatting with them as well.

Go ahead and check them out and see what I'm talking about. If you're not ready to publish yet, bookmark the site so you can go back to it when you're ready. They have plans to add more distribution channels in the future and I for one can't wait to see who they partner with next. 

Until next time,

~Tammy

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a best selling, multi-published poet and erotic romance author with Siren and Sassy Vixen Publishing. Her writing explores many facets of romance from ultimate betrayal to finding your soul mate. Her poetry serves as a companion to her novels and has inspired entire series all on their own. Tammy and her alter egos Lia Michaels and Stephanie Ryan make up the core authors at Sassy Vixen Publishing and together they've created the shared world series Temptations Resort. Look for the first books in that series to come out later this year.

Now happily married to her own Muse and soul mate, she continues to live her dream and act as secretary to all her characters demanding to have their stories told.

Check out:

Tammy's Website
Tammy's Blog
Tammy's Books on Bookstrand, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords,  and iTunes 
Sassy Vixen Publishing
Friend Tammy on Facebook
Like Tammy's Facebook Author Page
Friend Tammy on Goodreads
Friend Tammy on Pinterest
Follow Tammy on Twitter
Find Tammy's Videos on Youtube


If you'd like to share your experiences in the publishing world, please contact us about setting up a guest appearance. We'd love to hear from you!

#WWoW! Indie Authors Use NetGalley!

There are new opportunities on NetGalley for self-published authors! And I'm so excited about what this means -the doors it opens- for Indie authors. There are basically three options but I've found OPTION THREE to be the most affordable and beneficial for Indie authors.

What Does NetGalley Do?

NetGalley provides a place where authors/publishers can upload their ebooks (ARCs or older titles) and reviewers can request a copy for review. If approved, NetGalley readers will read and review the titles.

NetGalley gives you fast and easy access to the 120,000 bloggers, journalists, librarians, booksellers, and media people who use NetGalley. And these reviewers are some high profile groups - movers and shakers in the book review realm.

Three ways for Indie Authors to join NetGalley:
OPTION ONE Indie authors can upload their ebooks to NetGalley manually. For $400, you can post one title for six months.
OPTION TWO Indie authors can upload their ebooks to NetGalley through the IBPA program. For $350, they will help you in posting one title for six months.
OPTION THREE 20 indie authors can form a co-op that will have access to 20 title slots for one year. Each individual author can swap out as many titles as they need during that year. The cost is $300 per author for the full year of access, unlimited number of titles.


GOOD NEWS! I jumped at OPTION THREE. When I found it difficult to find space in current CoOps, I decided to form my own. Indie authors interested in being a part of the BECKONING ROMANCE CoOp, contact me. Be sure "NetGalley CoOp" is in the subject header.

LOOK AT THESE STATS FROM THE All Night Reads CoOp (found on Susan Kaye's blog)

"Within a day of getting All Night Reads started, we had 11 titles live in the catalog, with 446 approved requests, of which 286 downloaded right away and 1 person had read and reviewed. ALL IN ONE DAY.
After a week, 19 titles with 2,216 approved review requests (2,185 actually downloaded) and 36 reviews."

THOSE ARE SOME SOLID STATS!

So, $300 feels like an awful lot of money. BUT... here's why it's worth it...

1. It includes a year's worth of NetGalley access for as many books as you want! NetGalley allows you to switch them out which means you could have a new book live each month.
2. It saves you the time of querying reviewers/ bloggers directly. No more cold call emails!
3. It exposes your book to the right reviewers. NetGalley allows the reviewer to request the books they believe matches their reading interest so your book lands in the right hands.
4. It puts your book in front of a diverse audience. NetGalley reviewers include librarians and other media people, as well as book bloggers, general Goodreads reviewers and booksellers.

Indie CoOps are popping up on NetGalley. For information on another Indie CoOp, follow this link to Patchwork Press where my idea to form my own originated from. Here's another author speaking about her experience in forming the All Night Reads CoOp.

It's a new opportunity for Indie Authors! CHECK IT ALL OUT. Then let me know if you want to be a part of the BECKONING ROMANCE CoOp. All genres welcome. We'll begin in 2014 as soon as we have twenty members!

Keep Writing!

Paloma

#WWoW!: Formatting Ebooks with @dochappycamper #indie #MyWANA

Welcome back to Tammy's Tidbits here at Writer's Words of Wisdom. This is going to be my last post of the year because of all the holidays...and my birthday in less than two weeks. (whoohoo!) I'm also in the middle of a hefty publication schedule. As the co-owner of Sassy Vixen Publishing, it's not only my responsibility to get my own books ready to publish, but those of our other authors as well. With one new release down and two more to go for the next month, my plate is a bit full. 

I'm now published under three pen names, a fourth in the wings and part of an anthology with three of my author friends. In fact, the anthology comes out in just nine days. I've been working on formatting five novellas into one file to upload to Smashwords, All Romance Ebooks and Amazon. It's not as easy as just uploading a Word file to each site and hope for the best. You see, there are a lot of things that are hidden in the code of Microsoft Word that will make an ebook a mess of errors on an ereader.

So how do you prevent it from happening? 

You could have someone format it for you. That could cost you a pretty penny and if you're just starting out like I was, you need to watch the budget. Unless you have a friend or family member who has published ebooks before...and they look fabulous on those little screens, you need to learn how to do this yourself and fast.

How?  The Smashwords Style Guide.

I know what you're thinking. Why would you use the guide to publish on Smashwords to create files for other sites? Easy. This book has detailed instructions on how to make a file that is stripped of all the hidden codes, lines, tab settings, indents etc that can make your ebook look ugly and jarring to the reader. If your manuscript makes it through the Smashwords "Meatgrinder" you can be darn sure it will make it through the other site

One of the biggest issues I've come across in the ebooks I've read for pleasure and to review inappropriate set up of a paragraph. If you use the built in tab settings to do indents or Goddess forbid, multiple spaces to get an indent, your ebook will have paragraphs that start in the middle or two thirds into the line. If your manuscript is more than single spaced, your ebook will have huge gaps between lines and look bizarre on those ereader screens.

The Style Guide walks you through each step on how to set up your paragraph so that every indent will be the same as well as the justification to the left or whatever you choose. Here's a few screen shots of what I mean. Now these are not in the guide, but are from a tutorial on how to use Microsoft Word. Similar pics are in the Guide and you can refer to them over and over again when you format your books.

I set up my paragraphs to have a first line indent of 0.3", single spaced and left justified. All the margins I set to 0 inches. This is my basic set up for any of my manuscripts for self publishing. Now if you're submitting your manuscript to a publisher, you have to follow their guidelines. You can do that here too. 

The above is a close up of the window you use to set up the indents. All of these pointers and more are in the Style Guide.

Best thing about it...it's FREE.

That's right. This guide is FREE. You can download it from Amazon or from Smashwords right to your Kindle and have it to refer to every single time you need it. The goal of the guide is to help you create a beautiful looking ebook...one that shows up on all the electronic reading devices.

In this day and age where anyone and their brother can publish a book on their own, we have to do something to make our work stand out in a good way. Self published authors already have a bad reputation for having poorly edited and formatted books out there. Why not make sure yours isn't one of them? 

Join me and many others out there who swear by this guide and the methods detailed inside. Help me give self published authors a better name and put our best foot out there. No longer will reviewers and readers have the excuse to slam us and treat us as if we're inferior because our ebooks look like landmines filled with formatting errors.

One final note: if you do have someone else format your book for you, make sure you review it on the various ereaders. You can download free versions of all of them from the web. Just because your book looks good in print or in .doc file, doesn't mean it will look the same in EPUB, MOBI, PDF or HTML.

Food for thought! 
Until next time,
~Tammy

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a best selling, multi-published poet and erotic romance author with Siren and Sassy Vixen Publishing. Her writing explores many facets of romance from ultimate betrayal to finding your soul mate. Her poetry serves as a companion to her novels and has inspired entire series all on their own. Tammy and her alter egos Lia Michaels and Stephanie Ryan make up the core authors at Sassy Vixen Publishing and together they've created the shared world series Temptations Resort. Look for the first books in that series to come out later this year.

Now happily married to her own Muse and soul mate, she continues to live her dream and act as secretary to all her characters demanding to have their stories told.

Check out:

Tammy's Website
Tammy's Blog
Tammy's Books on Bookstrand, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords,  and iTunes 
Sassy Vixen Publishing
Friend Tammy on Facebook
Like Tammy's Facebook Author Page
Friend Tammy on Goodreads
Friend Tammy on Pinterest
Follow Tammy on Twitter
Find Tammy's Videos on Youtube


If you'd like to share your experiences in the publishing world, please contact us about setting up a guest appearance. We'd love to hear from you!

#WWoW! Authors join Read Tuesday!

Here's an opportunity for authors to promote their books during the holiday season... READ TUESDAY.

It'll be a huge day like Black Friday, but for buying and gifting books at amazing sale prices.

In 2013, the date for Read Tuesday will be Tuesday, December 10.

It's SIMPLE TO SIGN UP and participate. In fact, I've already done it! My self-published books will be part of this HUGE HOLIDAY SALES EVENT!

THE ORIGIN OF READ TUESDAY

*taken directly from the READ TUESDAY Website.*

On Black Friday and Cyber Monday, there are great discounts on electronics, tools, toys, and clothes, for example, but very few books seem to be discounted more than usual. There are millions of books to choose from. Most tend to remain at ordinary prices during these big sales events.

Read Tuesday is a special event dedicated to big book savings. Thousands of books will be on sale on Read Tuesday. This is a great opportunity for readers to stock up on books from their favorite participating authors and publishers.

Discounted books also make great gifts for the holidays. It’s easy to gift e-books, returns are not a problem with most retailers, the gift is delivered instantly (but you can schedule when to have it delivered), and there are no shipping and handling charges. Share the gift of reading.

Read Tuesday is also a great opportunity for authors, small publishers, and booksellers to benefit from a huge holiday sale event. Books are featured in their exclusive catalog once you sign up for the event.

FOLLOW READ TUESDAY ON TWITTER.

FOLLOW THE READ TUESDAY BLOG.

So, with the countdown beginning to the holiday season, here's a chance for authors to promote our books to shoppers. This event is going to be huge with a large marketing campaign that will ensure maximum exposure. Sign up. Join the hundreds of other authors participating already.

Then, get back to work... and Keep Writing!

Paloma

#WWoW!: My Additional Two Cents on Self Publishing

So you've finally finished that manuscript you've been slaving away at for quite some time. It's as polished as you can get it, been through three or four rounds of brutal edits, and now you're ready to send it off to a publisher. Fellow WWoW author Lacey Wolfe wrote about making sure you do your research before just sending off your "baby." Her post was filled with excellent advice and it made me want to take it a step further. Instead of sending it off to a publisher, why not do it yourself?

Relax. Stop hyperventilating for just a second and let me explain.

I've published my writing now in both the traditional and Indie routes and I have to say I LOVE both of them. They are different experiences and I've learned a great deal over the last two years. I was lucky enough to send my very first erotic romance to a well-established publisher in the market. They encouraged the authors to interact with and learn from each other. As a "newbie" I really appreciated that sort of guidance. It was because of these fabulous authors, that I decided to take what they taught me and venture out on my own a bit by self-publishing my first book of poetry. 

One thing I learned a long time ago and a bit of advice that still holds true today is NEVER, EVER pay to have your book published. This does not mean not to pay to have someone design your cover art, or do professional editing. What it does mean is that you shouldn't have to give a "publisher" money up front in order for them to publish your book in print or ebook form. If you do sign a contract with these vanity presses as they are called, you could be in for a world of hurt. Not only have you paid them to put out your book, but you may see very little royalties from them at all. To top it off, some of the more unscrupulous types have you under contract for your future endeavors as well. 

Don't be so hell bent on getting your book published that you fall for this kind of trap. There are so many FREE alternatives out there. For me, I started out with Smashwords. This is an excellent way for you to get your ebook out to multiple markets at the same time. They distribute to Apple, Sony, Barnes and Noble, Amazon (although they've had some formatting issues that are still being worked out), libraries and various other outlets. 

Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, put together a complete guide to formatting your manuscript so that it will be able to go through their system. The Smashwords Style Guide is a concise and straight forward manual. You can't publish to the site without following the precise guidelines, so go ahead and download your free copy today. It's even available on Amazon.  The guide was recently updated in June 2012, so make sure you get the latest version. I got mine from Smashwords.

As I mentioned previously, Smashwords and Amazon were having some issues with their systems not being compatible or something odd. So instead of waiting for them to work that out, I chose to opt out of Smashwords sending my book to Amazon so that I could upload my book there myself. Amazon used to require the file to be in PDF format to upload to their site and they have a few other rules you'll want to follow. Now you can simply upload your book as a .doc file. 

Here's the GUIDE for them...and yes it's free too. If you choose, you can opt into the KDP program (Kindle Direct Publishing Program) where you agree to keep your book exclusively on Amazon for at least 90 days. In exchange, you can offer your book for free at specific intervals. This could be a good marketing tool for you if you choose to do it. 

I liked that idea, but didn't want to keep my book just with Amazon. If you go with Smashwords as well, you can create coupon codes to be able to offer your book at a discounted price or even for free at different times. This option has worked great for me and for many others. Some of my other author friends have enjoyed the KDP program with Amazon. The choice is yours. Pick the program that fits YOU and your writing the best and run with it!

So now that you've got the ebook publishing under your belt, how about print? Well, Smashwords doesn't offer that service and Amazon KDP program is for the ebooks, so where do you go? Amazon to the rescue here! 

They have an affiliate called Createspace. Here you can upload your book, pick the size of the paperback you wish to put out, choose your cover from their prefabricated covers, or upload your own. Once you have things the way you want them, you can order a proof to be sent to you for final approval. This is the only cost to you at this point. For my poetry book it was less than three bucks. 

Once you approve that, within a few days (usually less than 24 hours), your book will be available for purchase through Createspace and Amazon. That distribution is free. If you wish to have your book sent to some other groups such as libraries and universities, you can opt into that distribution program for less than $30. For me, this has already been paid for ten times over through the sales of the print version of my book. 

So after you've done all your research and chosen a publisher, go ahead and submit your manuscript to them for consideration. While you wait for their answer, read up on how to publish through Smashwords and Amazon. Finish up that next manuscript and publish it yourself. You too can reap the benefits of working with a traditional publisher and going the Indie route. Trust me. You'll be glad you did!

Here's another article for your consideration when doing research on Indie publishing. Five Reasons to Publish Your Ebooks On Smashwords puts it out there in black and white why you should give Smashwords a try.

I originally wrote this article in December 2012. Since that time, I've put out a second poetry book myself and within the next month will have the third book in my Now and Forever series ready to publish as well. No longer under obligation to submit the rest of the series to Siren Bookstrand, I'll be releasing The Surrender of Julia (Now and Forever 3) myself through my own publishing house Sassy Vixen Publishing LLC.   

I've hired a cover artist and an editor for reasonable prices and will upload the book myself to Amazon, Smashwords and ARe. I've entered a new phase of my writing and publishing career now and I'm not looking back. How about you? Will you take the plunge and go the self publishing route?  Come on...what are you waiting for?

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a multi-published poet and erotic romance author with Siren and Sassy Vixen Publishing. Her writing explores many facets of romance from ultimate betrayal to finding your soul mate. Her poetry serves as a companion to her novels and has inspired entire series all on their own. Tammy and her alter egos Lia Michaels and Stephanie Ryan make up the core authors at Sassy Vixen Publishing and together they've created the shared world series Temptations Resort. Look for the first books in that series to come out later this year.

Now happily married to her own Muse and soul mate, she continues to live her dream and act as secretary to all her characters demanding to have their stories told.

Check out:

Tammy's Website
Tammy's Blog
Tammy's Books on Bookstrand, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords,  and iTunesSassy Vixen Publishing
Friend Tammy on Facebook
Like Tammy's Facebook Author Page
Friend Tammy on Goodreads
Friend Tammy on Pinterest
Follow Tammy on Twitter
Find Tammy's Videos on Youtube