Now Authors Can Easily Accept Credit Cards

 Posted by at 8:36 am  No Responses »
Jan 202010
 

Early on at Quill Driver Books we discovered that an author who could take credit cards would sell three times as many books as one who was stuck accepting checks and cash only. Today, with everyone using debit cards, it’s even worse.

So, when one of our authors was speaking at a large event or was going to put up a table at a book fair or similar event, we would pack up one of those machines that took the card’s imprint and the multi-part forms the machine used and send it all off to our author . We would also send instructions on how to use the machine and a request to please have the buyer write his phone number on the form.

After the event, the author would return everything back to us including the completed forms. We would run the charges, credit the author’s account with the revenue, and write the author a check.

Often things went wrong. The card either didn’t imprint legibly, was rejected by the bank, or the customer would forget they bought the books and challenge the charge through their bank when they got the bill. Those were invariably the charges for which the author had failed to get the buyer to write down a phone number.

For years we continued to do this because, one, we wanted to sell the books and, two, for many authors, the income from sales of their books (we give most authors a 50 percent discount on their books and also pay regular royalties on books they buy) is an incentive to attend the event. If the author sold 50 books he or she would reap something like $500. Ok pay for a three- to four-hour gig that also promoted their book.

Eventually, for some reason that isn’t clear to me now—maybe it just got to be too much of a hassle, we drifted away from this practice. Both Quill Driver Books and the author are the poorer for it.

Enter technology. Now, thanks to a new start-up company named Square, any author with a smart phone can easily take credit cards. Watch this video by Kevin Rose and be amazed at the ingeniousness of it all.

 
 

Just a Write Thought.

Take-‘em-to-the-Bank Publishing Predictions for 2010

 Posted by at 1:24 pm  No Responses »
Dec 302009
 

I was going to take a shot at predicting what we would see by the end of the approaching decade but, with the speed things are changing and evolving, I decided it would be safer to limit myself to just one year. My 2010 predictions are:

1. The interest in mobile readers (iPhone, Kindle, Nook, others we haven’t heard of yet) will continue to snowball with as many as 50 percent of people regularly getting part of their news, work, and entertainment reading via a mobile device.

2. By the end of 2010 no one e-reader device will have cornered the market, but the majority of books, magazines, and other material available on one will be available on the others. The difference will be the quality of the experience with the better ones offering a robust mix of media including color, images, sound, video, and text.

3. We will see new, exciting, innovative, and useful ways “aggregators” will slice and dice others’ digital material and deliver it to market. For instance, your favorite movie star may piece together an e-cookbook using copy-righted material obtained piecemeal from other cookbooks residing in print-on-demad digital repositories. The repositories will then forward a small royalty to the original cookbook publishers each time a copy of the star’s e-cookbook is sold. (Madonna’s Guide to Barbequing Au Natural?) This will also work for professors who want to mix individual book chapters and magazine articles from multiple sources to form their own textbooks.

4. Our ability to quickly—and cheaply—obtain information of all kinds will continue to expand. This will put pressure on those used to charging for this information to find a new economic model, which they—or others, if they fail—will.

5. The Pope will remain Catholic.

The last one is insurance so, come 2011, I can claim at least some degree of prophetic success.

Happy New Year.

Just a Write Thought.

Eleven-Year Prison Sentence is Christmas Present for Writer

 Posted by at 10:27 am  No Responses »
Dec 252009
 

In a three-hour trial two days ago, Chinese professor, literary critic, writer, and political activist Liu Xiaobo was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power” by a Beijing court. Today, Christmas Day, the court sentenced him to 11 years in prison.

Liu had coauthored a declaration which called for an end to one party rule and for increased human rights. The declaration was signed by hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens.

Liu was a professor at Beijing Normal University and had served as a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City. He was president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center for four years. According to the PEN website Liu was not permitted to present evidence at his trial.

While the United States is far from becoming the authoritarian state that China is, as the American public accepts the government’s increasing role in each of our daily lives, it behooves all of us—especially authors and publishers—to be watchful for limitations, no matter how subtle, imposed on our right to say or write anything we please.

 Just a Write Thought.

Digital Book Printing for Dummies Available

 Posted by at 10:04 am  No Responses »
Dec 242009
 

The Book Industry Study Group has published Digital Book Printing for Dummies with the help of Wiley and the sponsorship of CreateSpace, Hewlett-Packard, the Independent Book Publishers Association and Lightning Source. Featuring case studies, the book aims to “de-mystify the short-run, ultra short run and on-demand printing process for publishers.” The book draws on the expertise of Barnes & Noble, Blurb, CreateSpace, Harvard University Press, Hewlett-Packard, IBT, On Demand Books, Xerox and the Independent Book Publishers Association, among others.

Copies of Digital Book Printing for Dummies are available on the BISG website and the IBPA website (where they are discounted for IBPA members).

Full disclosure: I’m on the board of IPBA and, I copied this nearly word for word from the free e-mail newsletter Shelf Awareness, that endeavors to help people in the book trade keep on top of their game. Author or publisher, you might want to subscribe to this newsletter to help you keep abreast of the industry.

Merry Christmas.

Just a Write Thought.

 

Best Book Cover of 2009?

 Posted by at 10:02 am  No Responses »
Dec 232009
 

A book’s cover isn’t the final factor in whether a book sells well or not, but it does, certainly, play a roll. For one thing, the cover immediately sets the tone, helping the potential reader understand what the book offers. Often one book sells well and publishers copy its design for a similar book.

Have you got a favorite book cover from all those published in ’09? If so you can upload an image of it to The Huffington Post’s “Photo Poll.”

Out of the ones already up, my vote goes to Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal, Julie Metz’s well-received tale of infidelity. Metz is a graphic artist and designed the cover herself.

Apple Tablet: Better for Publishers than Kindle?

 Posted by at 9:05 am  No Responses »
Dec 092009
 

Stock pick expert Yair Reiner, who follows the Apple company stock for Oppenheimer, predicts that Apple will start shipping a 10.1-inch touch screen computer in March or April. The computer or “tablet” will rival the iPhone or iPod Touch and, some say, may set the standard for e-readers. Apple might offer a better deal to book publishers than Amazon.com as well. According to an AP article:

 Reiner said his contacts in the U.S. said Apple is offering an “attractive” deal to book publishers, which he believes implies the tablet will also function as an e-book reader to rival Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle. He said he believes Apple’s terms are better for publishers than those offered by Amazon.

 The new tablet will retail from $500 to $1,000 each according to which source you believe. Apple has never been shy about pricing so I’d expect the higher price if I were you.

 Just a Write Thought.

Mystery Writers Removes Harlequin Books from Approved Status

 Posted by at 11:01 am  No Responses »
Dec 072009
 

The Mystery Writers of America has removed Harlequin and its imprints from its approved publisher’s list. This means authors may not use Harlequin-published titles as a basis for active membership in MWA nor will any of Harlequin’s titles be considered for the coveted Edgar Award.

The MWA website states “We did not take this action lightly. We did it because Harlequin remains in violation of our rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.”

This follows action taken by Romance Writers of America against Harlequin in November. See my post “Is It Self-Publishing or Vapor-Publishing” for the story there.

 Just a Write Thought.

Trying to Get a Book Published?

 Posted by at 8:34 pm  2 Responses »
Dec 032009
 

As you likely know, it’s often tough to get a book published by a conventional publisher. Here you’ve got a great idea and you can’t even get agents or publishers to take a hard look. Then you get your Book-of-the-Month Club catalog as I did this month, and they are offering a book titled “Entertaining Your Indoor Cat” by Kevin Kelley.

Good grief. This fellow Kelley not only got it published, it’s a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Must be someone’s nephew?

Full disclosure: I haven’t even seen this book, it may be the most wonderful book since “Why Cats Paint” which was a big hit about five years ago.

Just a Write Thought.

Borders U.K. Files for Bankruptcy Protection

 Posted by at 11:59 am  1 Response »
Nov 272009
 

Borders U.K. has filed for “administration,” something comparable to the U.S. bankruptcy.

In a good article the U.K.’s Guardian did a fine job of listing the many things that worked against the 45-store British chain, including:

• Competition from retailers such as supermarkets which carry only the bestsellers but discount those. This effect has been greater because of the mega-bestsellers such as the Harry Potter and Twilight series. If everyone is reading a bestseller they picked up with their bangers and mash, they aren’t reading a backlist or midlist title they may have found at a Borders store.

• The reluctance of the British population to drive to a “retail park” to visit a Borders big box store and its cafe. The article quotes a retail analyst as saying: “Although we now have a coffee culture, the idea of driving four or five miles to browse, then sit in a Starbucks and read a book never sat well with the U.K. consumer.”

• The fact that the generation exemplified by the TV show “Friends” has become the first generation to buy online regularly. It’s thought that online book sales now count for 20% of the total market.

• The impact of e-book readers like Amazon’s Kindle and B & N’s Nook, an impact that has been small to date but is likely to become a sizeable in the next few years.

• The general malaise of the economy.  This appears to be as overblown in the U.K as it is here. The Guardian reports that book sales last year lost their upward growth for the first time, declining 1% last year and up to 2% this year. U.S. sales are experiencing approximately the same decline. I agree, with profit margins being what they are, losing 3% over two years is tough, but it shouldn’t a killer except for the weakest companies. But the real damage comes when booksellers—including publishers—over-attribute their struggles to the down economy taking the focus off more important challenges that can actually be dealt with. The book industry won’t single-handedly turn the world economy around—Obama is doing that— but they can be proactive when dealing with changing buying habits and product delivery methods.

Just a Write Thought.

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