Dear Susan,

Reading the comments below the article was very inspiring as well, particularly the top comment by NCM... Statements very close to my heart, and something that should be read on this site...

The problem I see is that there are so many people enetering the 'indie' or self-published market that it's a little saturated to say the least... I have managed to push over 4,000 poetry works now (which I am most satisfied with) but circa 95% of those are free...!!! I even have a #5 slot on Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Poetry (as of today, 14th November) but its free, nice for the ego and awful for the
bank balance... By the way this doesn't mean my work is in any way noteable, it's just free...

It seems then that volume and low prices are the key to succes with digital books, but only if the story is something a reader wants to buy, the same as print books really... What is also striking is that the same names are at the top in just about every article I have read, in particular Amanda... Therefore, learning the marketing side is all the more important when first launching an eBook... 

Great post, thank you Susan...

Love Ya, Spargo Postle.

Dear Susan,

To be frank the thoughts about publisher or self-publisher are reasonably easy for me as my work is poetry... In  the Uk there is only really Faber & Faber or Penguin who are interested in publishing poetry to sell to the main stream bricks & morter retailers... I have been taking a very long hard look at Smashwords, Kobo, B&N, Amazon, Sony eReader, iBooks etc etc, and they are groing at one hell of a pace...

iPhone, iPad, and the like is fast catching up with Amazon for eBooks but difficult to search and find books unless they are part of a large publishers stable (I dont sell / giveaway many here)... B&N is a really good print and eBook retailer and extremely well organised and I do reasonably well through their Nook Book sales... Amazon is something I have only been on for a couple of months and again not the easiest retailer to browse but I have done very well there on the free downloads, even though it does not show on the site when work is free!!! (need to get my head around that one)... Sony is my favourite as it has always brought me steady downloads, although their ranking system is something of a mystery... Kobo is my dark-horse and a very good each-way bet for future growth in the eBook retailer world, they have a large number of joint ventures particularly in US, Canada, Australia and now the UK through WH Smith which is one of our top 2 print retailers here in the UK. And now they have been bought by a very large Japanses internet conglomerate (in the top 5 largest I believe) which will open up the far east and may even attempt to contend with Amazon over the next few years if they can bring the business model into one cohesive strategy...

Amazon for print is so idiot proof it is easy to see why so many people get their books published with them... But... It is more restrictive than one imagined... To the point I have to focus all my selling attempts on the USA to keep costs reasonable for any would-be, one-day-in-the-futre, perhaps, buyer... I may look at Lightning Source for any other print versions of anything I write as they are part of Ingrams and the international aspects seem far more condusive to true international sales... Print and ePublishing will at some point over the next 5 to 10 years most likely get to 50-50 for sales, it's just a natural evolution, whether anyone likes it or not...

As for marketing, I really am on the fence with this one... The world is a savy place on the whole, they can see a marketing stragety from a hundred paces... The value of a lone author / small publisher marketing campaign has to be in question once you are past the "please look at my work" stage of any campaign... Large publishers/retailers, whether print or ePublish, are interested in money and will back the horses they believe are going to bring them some return... Any book will have to almost be guaranteed sales before getting a large marketing push from the professionals... Yes I know we have all written that one piece of literature that the world has been waiting for and will set the reading world on fire, but if you're not in that top 0.00002% of writers out there that will sell automatically or the publishers sees pure literary genius you are on your own whoever publishes it... You will have to continue to do your own publicity...

So what's the point of self-publishing... For me at least it is two-fold; 1) complete and unadulterated utter vanity and the desire to have my written legacy 'out there' before I pop-off. In the space between my ears there is someone who keeps saying my work is quite good and people like it so get it out there. No different than thousands of books that have been used as fire lighting paper since the printing press was invented, 2) It might just sell, it is highly unlikely, but it might just connect with a readership, they might like my work, they might want to spend what money they have left in their pocket and buy it, perhaps even in reasonably large quantities...

The reality is, no matter what you hear with all the hype, not too many people are making any substantial money by selling their books through self-publishing... But some are, those that write what a reader wants to read, those that have more work of the same standard, those that write at a good standard (for a reader not some self-professed literary grammer and structure critic)... Will I, you, anyone else on tNBW sell our books if we self-publish rather than wait for a publisher...??? No, not if we keep it on our laptop...!!! Perhaps, after all a reader of books is a reader of books and a purchaser of books tends to be someone who buys what they like to read... If your first book is poo then your reader will use it as fire lighting material or delete and never buy anything of yours again... If it's good they may just purchase a second, exactly the same for publisher published or self-published... Trick is, how to get people to see your work if you are not an already published author...

Sorry about spilling my guts and boring the whatsits off you but I'm still out of work after three months and feeling a bit pissed at the world...

Love Ya, Spargo Postle.

Dear Susan,

Thank you for the conversation. It is an interesting time we try to hawk our work in... When I finally find a path, or more likely a number of path's I'll let you know where it takes me...

All the best to you and yours, and please pass my best wishes onto Jeni...

Love Ya, Spargo Postle.

Hi, Spargo Postle. I did some looking on you. Don't fret. It's all good. I see you have several collections of poetry on Amazon. Congratulations on your latest. I don't know which ones you've self-published -- I think the latest one? -- Alone Among Many. Love the title and the cover, except the depth of field blur toward the vanishing point (sorry, it's just me that hates out-of-focus fading). My question is, and I hope you don't mind me asking: Since you seem to have a talent and knack for self-publishing, why entrust Iconic with the latest tnbw-poet compilation? And I have to say, Said and Unsaid flew under my radar, or over my head because I missed the whole push for it. And I used to read through the forums all the time... Since (I believe) poetry collections are good candidates for self-publishing, I wonder why you'd want to NOT retain total control over your project (you are the driving force if I'm right?), own the ISBN number, etc.? If you think about it, this collection will sell to the poets involved's friends and family, and the other target audience is tnbw members who are more than generous in supporting our 'local' authors. How will Iconic be able to beat that? I mean who has 'an in' more than the featured poets? Many of whom are my favorite poets on this website. One in particular...psst...his initials are j____.

Either way, good luck with your tnbw endeavor. And here's my unsolicited advice: Step up your marketing. Don't call it Volume Two or anything like that. It's like picking up a book and finding it's Part Two. I always feel like I didn't get in on the first one, so I'm already behind and walk away, so as not to face my failure. I'd go with a similar title to Said and Unsaid, whatever be your theme. Maybe 'Proud and Prejudiced'?

Last edited by s_thatcher (11-20-2011 11:02:40)

Hi, Spargo!

From what I see, most publishers don’t touch poetry collections because there’s not a lot of money to be made. Even if you’re Billy Collins, or some other famous poet laureate, poetry collections are tough sells outside a small market. But poetry can always be shopped to -- and found in -- magazines. I see poetry thriving in poetry journals, literary fiction journals, ezines, and more recently in some very nice self-published collections. I’m sure you know more about the poetry market than me!

As far as going with Iconic over self-publishing, that’s up to y’all. Hi-ho.

In the past, small presses were started by people who worked at big to medium houses and brought with them ‘experience’. They hired editors they knew from the industry, and the editors brought with them known writers, too. Their aim was to sell good books (usually niche) to readers and realize a nice profit. Nowadays, what you get with start-ups is this scenario: A failed writer who unsuccessfully tried to shop their novel and got rejected all over the place. Because of their experience, they decide the industry is broken and/or antiquated, and will tell that to anyone who listens. They pledge to be the NEW kind of publisher, the kind who will give unpublished writers (like themselves) a break. The problem is they lack publishing and editing experience, and they are clueless about how to market a novel. They usually fail in their first year. It’s uncanny how often this scenario is replayed.

Start-ups will claim there is a vast number of really good unpublished manuscripts at the bottom of the slushpile sea, if only... This is a myth. Only a handful of manuscripts rise above mediocrity to even be considered good enough to be read all the way through; count_on_your_fingers, out of 1,000s of novels. The manuscripts at the bottom of the slushpile sea belong there.

Hmmm… Chief Inquisitor. I have a stunning headdress in my closet to go with that outfit! But I must defer that position to maxkeanu.
I've got a novel to write.

Best wishes.

Spargo Postle wrote:

S_thatcher, we can support each other here… Your work in understanding the pitfalls of the publishing world, it seems to me from what I have read, needs some expansion as you are more often than not right on the money with the topics that need debating in the industry… Perhaps we should lobby Sol to start getting the various publishing houses in all their different guises to post their opinions of the way ahead and what writers should be doing to plan for the future… This site has a lot of good press and one would imagine that tNBW attracts a reasonable profit from its budding authors… The publishing houses will profit from what happens here on tNBW as more and more talent is educated and polished in the art of satisfying a readership… We need tNBW, under your guidance as Chief Inquisitor, to get the inside track on whether we are heading in the right direction… Not a monthly or quarterly thing but a weekly posting from anyone who is anyone, major print publishers, ePublishers, magazines, ezines, bricks and mortar retailers, eRetailers, printing houses, agents…!!! I can think of nobody better suited than you to head this up, although others will now be aghast that their name wasn’t mentioned, ah well you make one person smile and another will always frown…

As you can see from the above being temporarily out of employment gives me far too much time to think, not always a good thing for me…

Love Ya, Spargo Postle.

Since you're unemployed, Spargo, maybe you'll want to browse the tnbw bookstore, if you're interested in the publishing houses tnbw members are publishing with. Some members are self-published, some are vanity pressed, some are small pressed. This website is a very encouraging place in which to workshop a novel. It's like a mother's lap.