Five things you need to know about getting your book into indie bookshops:

1. Your book must have an ISBN number and barcode and be Nielsen registered.
2. Be prepared to give 35% – 40% wholesale discount off the cover price.
3. You need to phone first then ask if you can send a sample to them (be prepared to lose this stock if they don’t want to order more).



4. If they do stock your book they’re not likely to take more than a handful in the first instance.
5. Terms offered should be 30 days.

For more on publishing your own book and getting it to market, read Anna Crosbie’s How to Publish Your Own Book.

Related posts:

1. Co-publishing – pros and cons
2. Independent publishers – an author’s perspective
3. Book Club: The Book Thief

I have recently published my book through Amazon Kindle. My choosing to go straight to an e-book format was simply based on there being a large enough Kindle marketplace to make it worth my while. To date Kindle, Nook, iPad etc, account for 20% of the book buying market. Naturally I wanted to follow my heroes Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clark and get into print, seeing my books on the shelves of traditional bookshops, but there are other options available and I decided to give it a go.

How much does it cost?

Amazon Kindle has zero up-front costs. There is no charge to get your book on Kindle other than what you may have spent on having your cover designed. But even that is not necessary. I designed my own cover but if you aren’t able to do that and don’t want to pay someone else to do it, Kindle have some generic covers you can use.

So if there’s no up-front cost does that mean everything you earn is profit?

Not exactly. Amazon take a cut of your profits. For books priced $2.99 – $9.99 they will take 30%. For books under $2.99 they will take 65%. [Compare that to a conventional print publishing deal where the author gets on average 10% - The Crafty Writer]

Quality control

So now you’ve got your book published you simply wait for the dosh to roll in? Not quite. Firstly, a word of caution. It is very easy to get onto Kindle – in some ways, too easy. On one hand, that’s good, but there is a sting in the tail which could potentially discredit the e-book as a quality item: it takes less than an hour to have your novel up and out there on the internet. While this is amazing considering the traditional publishing route could take over a year to get off the slush pile from first submission, there is an inherent danger of assuming your book is good to go. Remember there is no professional editor to hit the brakes. You will have to trust someone to honestly proof your work with an objective eye. I had to fight the temptation to put out my novel on Kindle straight away and looking back I’m glad I did now. The whole point is to create a book to as professional a standard as one can muster, despite circumventing the publishing industry gatekeepers.

The blow-back from this easy publication method is some cowboys are going to flood the e-book scene with sub-standard work. One should approach writing an e-book as though it was meant for print publication so as to maintain credibility. Not doing so will bring the e-book scene into disrepute and eventually the market will move away.

Marketing

Secondly, you are alone so have no publicity machinery to kick into gear. I’m learning as I go and so have a somewhat ad-hoc approach to drawing people’s attention. For me, social media networks were the first port of call, going by the saying that there are only six degrees of separation between people around the world.

The other aspect of getting people to talk about my book is pricing. Not being a former contestant of Big Brother, and hence lacking “product recognition”, I had to price low enough for readers to take a chance (99 cents current introductory offer). And if they are reading it then they are talking about it. Word of mouth has to be the oldest way of publicity. Of course you could also pay for advertising space on print and electronic media.

How to get started

The following is a link to guide you through Kindle Publishing It took me less than an hour to work through it and get my book from a simple text document into an e-book format. The guide is pretty easy to follow and you do not need to be an expert in computer technology.

See you on Kindle!

(Please note: The Crafty Writer does not review books other than ‘how to’ books on the craft of writing. This is not a review of Chak Chak the Last T-Rex. See here for a further discussion of the pros and cons of self-publishing and co-publishing).

Related posts:

1. New novel on Kindle: The Peace Garden
2. An e-book story
3. Going Indie – starting an e-publishing company

Journalists

Full-time journalists can expect to earn a living wage, averaging around £24,000 a year. For a discussion of how salaries may increase over your career visit the Graduate Prospects website. Freelance journalists are likely to earn considerably less and £12,000 a year or below is fairly common (although higher earners do exist). However, what you lose in money you gain in time and freedom. For details of what freelance journalists in the UK can earn, please visit the National Union of Journalists website. Be aware however that employers are not compelled to pay these fees and that smaller media companies, where you are likely to get your first paying work, frequently pay less.

Prose writers

For more creative writing  the average annual earnings from writing alone is around £5,000. This includes average royalties from published novels and PLR fees (a small percentage you get when someone takes your book out of the library) and fees for published short stories. Most writers have to supplement their earnings with other jobs. The most common include teaching, lecturing and leading creative writing workshops. But any job will do as long as it is flexible and gives you time to write. A friend of mine has just taken on a job as a dish washer in a cafe’ while he finishes his novel. Another writer I know is a street sweeper. He says the early morning rides on his sweeping machine give him lots of creative thinking time. For a realistic overview of what creative writers can earn, visit the careers advice website. If the thought of earning so little from your writing horrifies you, then perhaps this is not the right career for you. Most creative writers write because they love to and getting paid is simply a bonus.

Scriptwriters

Writing for stage, radio, TV and film can potentially bring in more money than prose writing, but professional commissions are few and far between and it is very hard to get your first break. Earnings start at around £6,000 for a full-length stage play (which could take you quite a few years to write, get commissioned, developed and produced) up to around £40,000 for a full-length feature film script that actually gets produced (you only get the full fee if the film gets finished; many don’t). This fee is for feature films with a total budget of over £2 million. Films with a budget of less than that will pay less to the writer. For further details of agreed rates for scriptwriters, see the Writers’ Guild website. Again, most scriptwriters have to take on additional work to keep them above the bread line.

Poets

I have never tried to earn money from my poetry. The reasons are two-fold: firstly, I don’t write enough poetry to make it a serious career choice and secondly, because I know that it’s the most poorly paid of all writing ‘jobs’. Even more than prose writers, poets do it for the love of words not the love of money. Many poetry presses simply give the poet some books to sell themselves.  For a discussion on poetry and pay visit Empty Mirror Books. Poets can earn a little by giving workshops and entering competitions for cash prizes. But the poetry itself, even if published, earns them next to nothing.

Self-publishing

I can guarantee that as soon as I publish this post I will be inundated with adverts and comments about people earning mega-bucks from self-publishing their own books or co-publishing (splitting the cost of production with the publisher). This is not as wonderful as it sounds and while a few people may make the big time, most people do not. For a fuller discussion of this topic, check out the pros and cons of co-publishing.

For a very interesting discussion around what writers earn that attracted writers from all over the web and a bit of a bun fight visit Can you earn money as a writer?

Related posts:

1. Can you earn money as a writer?
2. Do you want to write full time?
3. Beginner Blogging for Writers: part 3

The Writer’s Handbook tells me that ‘most prizes and awards are not taxable, though it depends on the conditions in each case’. But it doesn’t specify what these ‘conditions’ are.

I then found a helpful thread on the British Comedy Guide which says that the tax man differentiates between ad hoc wins and prize money earned by people who pursue writing as a ‘trade’. So I’m beginning to get a bit worried.

I then decided to bite the bullet and call the HMRC. They directed me to their website which gives me a very clear answer. The key it seems is whether or not the award is ’solicited’. If I didn’t enter my work into the comp and they just decided to give me the award (such as the Booker Prize; Best Young Playwright of the Year award – not that I’d qualify for that anymore!) then it would not be taxable. So damn, I’ll have to declare it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

If you would like to find out more about managing your writing earnings, please see my post on finance and tax for writers. Please note this article was originally written for freelance magazine writers, but the same rules apply to people submitting fiction or any other form of written work for remuneration.

Related posts:

1. My First Poem competition
2. People’s Play Award
3. What do writers earn?

The company needs to sell roughly £45,000 worth of books to keep afloat for the rest of the year. Publishing director Chris Hamilton-Emery said the company had not wanted to repeat the initiative “because we thought it was unrepeatable, but we have just reached crunch time this week”. He added: “We realised if we didn’t get some sales, we would probably go bust very shortly.”

Hamilton-Emery said a number of factors had contributed to Salt’s financial woes, including the recession, the World Cup and the demise of Borders UK late last year. “They were a good customer of ours, so that was a real blow,” he said.

The Crafty Writer’s guest poetry tutor, Andrew Philip, is published by Salt.  He says:  “It’s harder and harder these days for authors – début authors and mid-listers in particular – to find publishers. The big houses are taking on fewer writers and concentrating their marketing power on certain titles in their lists. So writers need publishers such as Salt more than ever. Publishers who don’t simply bend to the howling winds of celebrity memoirs. Publishers who will take a risk on writing they simply believe in. Publishers who believe in you and give readers the chance to let your voice enter their hearts and minds. If Salt goes, we all lose.”

Writers and book lovers are being asked to buy just one book to help save Salt, Andy recommends:

• Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story, ed. Vanessa Gebbie
• The White Road and Other Stories by Tania Hershman: wonderful science-inspired short and flash fiction (read an interview with Tania on Andy’s blog)
• The Opposite of Cabbage by Rob A Mackenzie: lively, imaginative, inventive new poetry from Scotland
• Off Road to Everywhere by Philip Gross: children’s poetry from the recent TS Eliot prize winner
• Lions in Winter by Wena Poon: vivid, engaging stories that capture the true urban sophistication of New Asia

Related posts:

1. The Ambulance Box – getting your poetry in print
2. Independent publishers – an author’s perspective
3. What do writers earn?

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Over-commercialization

While most children’s authors are out to entertain, educate and inspire, there exists the danger of over-commercialization. Once a children’s book or youth reader succeeds at a certain level it becomes a “property” and begins to “spin-off” into other product and program categories. For example, the author may find her characters on clothing, translated into toys and games and appearing on food and beverage packaging.

The dilemma becomes how to determine when a property is over-commercialized. There are three classifications that any product or program falls into: GOOD FOR KIDS, NEUTRAL, and BAD.

‘Good’ products

Products and programs that are GOOD for kids include sports toys, school supplies, developmental toys, and most books. Products that are NEUTRAL are a little trickier in that used wrongly or to excess these products could be harmful. Neutral products and programs include clothing, TV programming and food & beverages among many others. These products and programs need to be monitored and managed by parents and caregivers.

‘Bad’ products

Then there are those that are just plain BAD for young people. These include many videogames – especially those with violence and with inappropriate sexuality. The Bratz dolls have been criticized in this regard. This BAD category also includes inappropriate internet content and the obvious such as tobacco, drugs and guns.

‘Neutral’ products

Where most children’s authors might get into contracts that end up being bad for kids is in the neutral category. An author must determine if allowing their characters to appear on food and beverage packaging, for example, will result in harm at some level. If the food or beverage content has excessive sugar or other ingredients that may be harmful it would be best to stay away. As cute and loving as Barney, Dora, the Muppets or the Webkinz pets are, they can end up hawking harmful products.

Keeping your characters clean

The key is to keep these three categories in mind. Continue to ask yourself: Will my book’s content – especially its characters – ever promote anything that may turn out to harm children in any way? If so, decide against it and keep your nose and your character’s noses clean.

Crafty tip: make sure you read the small print about commercial spin-offs in your contract; not just who earns what, but what products may be endorsed. Ask your lawyer or agent to ensure that the contract is worded in such a way that you retain control over what products you may be associated with in future.

Dr Dan Acuff is the co-author, along with Dr Robert Reiher of Kidnapped: How Irresponsible Marketers Are Stealing the Minds of Your Children. He offers an evaluation service for children’s and YA authors and inventors of toys and games. His website, Stories Toys Games also has free advice for authors with tips on how to consider the psychology of young readers in your writing.

Related posts:

1. Writing for children: Picture books
2. Writing for children: sex, love and romance
3. Writing for children: mysteries and thrillers

Related posts:

1. American Writing Markets
2. Travel writing: in-flight magazines
3. Freelance writing for the internet

It’s not vanity publishing

Well firstly, let me say that it is not vanity publishing. In fact, since the self-publishing revolution, brought on by Print on Demand (POD) technology, the charlatans who preyed on desperate writers seem to have scurried back into their holes (although I fear, some of them may have re-emerged as ‘co-publishers’). Vanity publishers will print anything.  They claim to be ‘real’ publishers but there’s no editorial input and, apart from a post on their website, no marketing or distribution either – and you of course foot the whole bill. In addition, you have to buy your own books from them, albeit at wholesale discount or ‘cost’. For more information see this article by the Society of Authors.

Disadvantages: no bookshop will touch a vanity published book with a bargepole, you will never recoup your money, you will be bitterly disappointed and possibly be turned off publishing for life.

Advantages: errrrr none.

It’s not self-publishing

Self-publishing is what it says on the can. You become the publisher. You arrange the editing, design, printing, distribution and marketing. You may use a publishing service to assist you in this, but they should not ‘pretend’ to be a publisher. See my article on authors Sue Brownless and Eleanor Patrick who used a publishing service to help them self-publish. Sue and Eleanor still had to edit the book themselves, but the publishing service arranged for the printing and warehousing of the stock, plus handled orders and payments. Sue and Eleanor still have to market the book but they’re doing an excellent job. 

Other publishing services include the online giants Lulu and Lightning Source who use POD technology, which means you don’t have to warehouse stock, This, on the surface, appears to bring down the costs; beware though that postage cost per unit is very high and this will need to be added onto your cover price, which may turn off potential buyers.  It is still cheaper, per unit, to go through a conventional printer. The problem is though that you may be stuck with 1000 unsaleable copies.

Advantages: you can potentially make more money than with a mainstream publisher, as you get all the profits. If you thrive on the business side of writing, you will find self-publishing deeply satisfying.

Disadvantages:  You need to do everything yourself. If you don’t have the requisite skill set, you could be biting off more than you can chew and losing a lot of money in the process. It’s hard to get self-published books into mainstream bookshops as there are legitimate concerns about  ‘quality control’. The feeling is that if the book was not ‘good enough’ for a mainstream publisher, it’s not good enough full stop. This however is not always the case, but it’s a preconception you will have to deal with.

So what is co-publishing?

Co-publishing is when the writer and the publisher ’share’ the costs. This is usually done by a compulsory purchase order ie the writer has to agree to buy a certain number of units before the deal can go ahead. They do not (or should not) ask for payment for their editorial services up front, as this would taint them with a vanity publishing label at worst, or a publishing service tag at best.

However, this isn’t always the case. I entered a co-publishing partnership with Vineyard Publishing for my book Donovon’s Rainbow.  Vineyard offer both conventional publishing contracts and co-publishing deals. They usually offer the co-publishing option to new authors.  They edited, designed and marketed the book like any publisher should. We split costs 50/50 – a contract that I negotiated as I wasn’t happy with the initial compulsory purchase model. To me, that suggested that I, the author, took all the financial risk. We printed 2000 copies and I took 50% of the stock to market and distribute myself; they took the other 1000 to distribute through their chain of world-wide bookshops. I was free to distribute anywhere apart from Vineyard bookshops. I have made back my money and am now in profit – as are Vineyard.

But most co-publishing deals these days are financed by compulsory purchase orders alone. The problem is, I fear the writer is footing the whole bill.  I am also concerned that some co-publishers are either pretending to be ‘proper’ publishers or are in fact ‘proper’ publishers, using co-publishing models, but hiding the fact (unlike Vineyard who were very up-front about it). Three case studies that have recently come to my attention will illustrate this:

Case study 1: An established non-fiction author, to whose e-newsletter I subscribe, sent out a request for people to pre-purchase his next book. When I asked for more details (ie what it was going to be about) I was told that this couldn’t be disclosed as a contract had not yet been entered into. The author’s publisher was not prepared to go ahead with the book until the author could provide x-amount of sales up front. They blamed the ‘current economic climate’ for their new methodology. I recently got another email from him thanking everyone who had pre-ordered because now they could ‘cover costs.’  It’s very troubling when an author now has to guarantee sales before he or she can get a publishing deal.  I also sincerely doubt that this publisher will admit that this is in effect a co-published book as the definition of a conventional publisher, according to the Society of Authors, is that they take all the financial risk.

Case study 2: A non-fiction author whose work I critiqued some years ago through The Crafty Writer Critiquing Service emailed me to say that her book had now been published and was about to be launched. Would I be prepared to interview her and feature the book on the site. I had a look at the publisher’s website and saw that it was a co-publisher – although it didn’t say so overtly. As I’d had a positive experience of co-publishing myself, I wanted to promote it and suggested the interview deal with that subject. The author said it wasn’t a co-publishing deal, but a ‘proper’ one. I asked her for the terms of her contract and she told me she ‘only’ had to buy 800 copies of the book at 60% discount. I then pointed out to her that effectively she was financing the whole print run and then some. She didn’t disagree with me, but said the publisher would not like to be involved in an interview that dealt with co-publishing as they were not co-publishers. Really?

Case study 3: I recently had a manuscript for a non-fiction book rejected by a conventional publisher. In fact, it is one of the leading Christian publishers in the United States. So I was surprised when I received an email from them a month later asking if I would like to re-submit my book to their new co-publishing wing. They, like Vineyard, were now going down the two-pronged route. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as they are up front about it. And it seems that they are.  They will edit, design and market your book just like their ‘conventional’ books and you have the advantage of having a ‘big name’ behind you. There’s also a conventional royalty agreement that comes into operation after your advance copies have been sold. So what’s the catch? Well, again, the author has to finance the lion’s share of the deal. I would be asked to buy 1000 – 2000 units. I asked the publisher how many they would buy and she said 500. Could I sell 2000 copies of the book using my own resources? Probably not, particularly because the publisher’s own marketing will be selling their ‘own’ copies. However,  if you were going to be self-publishing anyway, maybe it’s worth it to get the extra benefits.  But that’s for you to decide.

Related posts:

1. Going Indie – starting an e-publishing company
2. Independent publishers – an author’s perspective
3. Crafty Publishing

You will need:

1. A stock of DVDs of your film – preferably labelled with the title, director’s name, aspect ratio, format, duration and contact details.
2. Stills from the film in electronic format.
3. Director’s filmography in electronic format.
4. The names of the key professionals involved including director, producer, DOP, sound, music, editor, designer.

Distribution websites

There are several websites which will help you distribute your film. Some of the best known are:

• www.withoutabox.com
• www.shortfilmdepot.com
• www.britfilms.com

Withoutabox

This website aims to be comprehensive and it gives you access to a wide range of festivals. First, you need to do quite a lot of set-up work, entering the details of the film. Withoutabox needs these because at a later stage you will ask the system to “qualify” your film, ie check that it fits the criteria laid down by the festival.

One of the most important details is the list of screening formats which you have available. For instance, the film which I am currently distributing was shot in high density video and the screening format is DVD-PAL Region 2 – this is what most people would call a normal UK DVD. The producer can, if required, also supply Mini DV and Digi Beta. However, many festivals call for formats which I cannot provide, such as 35mm or DVDs tailored to the US market: this lack of fit should be highlighted when I “qualify” my film.

When you go into Withoutabox you can search its database of festivals in many ways: you can look for festivals by name, or festivals in given country, or festivals with a submission deadline within a certain period. In most cases, you can click on a link and view the festival’s submission rules and entry form: in many cases, you can submit your film online. If you submit online, this doesn’t usually mean emailing the film in electronic form: you will usually be given an entry number which you need to write on the DVD before posting it.

Withoutabox also allows you to set up Paypal details which you can use to pay entry fees for many festivals. Some quibbles concerning withoutabox: many of the festivals listed are in the USA. Most charge a submission fee and many do not accept European formats. Hence you may need to do quite a lot of spadework to find festivals that you want to enter. Note however that some festivals only accept submissions through Withoutabox or Shortfilmdepot. Withoutabox also has a category for screenplay competitions too. A summary of up-and-coming festival deadlines will be emailed to you once a month if you sign up for their newsletter.

Shortfilmdepot

Again you need to spend time setting up your film on this system. Once you’ve done this, you need to log in regularly (say once a week) and it will suggest festivals with deadlines in the near future. You can often enter at the click of a button.

Britfilms

This site is maintained by the British Council and includes a list of UK and worldwide festivals. The database does not guide you: it’s up to you to search for festivals that you may wish to enter. However, I like this website because it’s very easy to search.

Suppose that I am looking for UK festivals: I choose UK from the drop-down menu and I get a list of festivals in alphabetical order. The list shows the month in which the festival takes place, and usually the deadline for submissions. This enables me to make a very quick decision about which UK festivals are likely to be accepting submissions at the present time. I click on the name of a festival and I can view a page containing brief information. This may enable me to make a snap decision about eligibility eg the festival may specify young/black/gay filmmakers only. I can then reach the festival website with a couple of clicks.

Competition Rules

Always read the rules of each festival carefully. There are innumerable variations on many basic themes. For instance, some festivals only accept submissions online. They will allocate you a number which then needs to be written on the DVD. Some festivals accept both online and hard copy submission forms. Some festivals need two copies of your DVD. Some require a press kit including still photos, director’s biography etc, others don’t. There’s no point in wasting postage if you haven’t followed the festival’s rules.

Eligibility and ‘premieres’

Most festivals prefer to show films which can be billed as premieres. You will often be asked to state whether the film has been publicly shown in the territory in which the festival takes place. Don’t assume that you have lost the “premiere” effect once your film has been to one festival. There are very few festivals which insist on world premieres. Remember that your film can have several premieres – in the UK, in the US, in France etc.

However, if you have already made your film publicly available online, you have effectively given away its “virginity” and from that point onwards its festival life is circumscribed. Some festivals specifically state that they don’t want to show films which are already online. The subject of online distribution is of course a separate, and more complex subject. Most festivals ask when your film was completed and in many cases they will only accept films made within a certain period – often two years before the festival date.

Sending your film

The whole process ends with a trip to the Post Office to post your envelope containing the film, the form, the cheque etc. Before you go to the Post Office, make sure that you have labelled the envelope “FOR CULTURAL PURPOSES ONLY – NO COMMERCIAL VALUE.” Many festivals actually specify this in their rules. As you can see, there is a lot of clerical work to be done and the process is quite expensive when you add up submission fees, postage and stationery costs. If you are lucky, the producer may have funding for this part of the process and may reimburse you: but if this is a self-produced film, and you have limited money available, you need to think carefully about your distribution strategy so that you get the best value for money.

Keith Jewitt is the founder of North East Screenwriters who meet on the third Saturday of each month at the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle upon Tyne. His films are ‘69 Miles to London’ (Shakabuku Films, 2007) and ‘Litterpicker’ (Pinball Films, 2008)

Related posts:

1. Short Story Film Festival: ‘Enemy Lines’ in New York
2. Rushes Soho Short Film Festival
3. SoCal Film Festival – semi-finalist