Kawasaki on Self-Publishing

Why did you decide to self-publish in the first place?

A few years ago the publisher of Enchantment could not handle an order for 500 ebook versions. It passed the sale to Apple, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. These online resellers told the buyer that she had to purchase copies one at a time. She had 500 charges on her credit card. I couldn't believe that this sale was made this way. That was my tipping point. 

APE is your first collaboration. Why now?

Up until now, I knew—or at least thought I knew—everything I needed for the books I wrote. APE was the first time that I simply did not have the requisite knowledge—specifically, the technical aspects of publishing a book. At least I knew what I didn't know!

What are the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing?

First, the disadvantages: you don't get a large advance, you have to find and compensate all the vendors that you need such as editors, designers, and marketers. A traditional publisher takes care of most of the details for you. The advantages of self-publishing—or what I call "artisanal publishing"--is that you can control the total process including the content, design, and marketing. This also means you bear greater responsibility, however. As an artisanal publisher, you also make more money per copies. For example, you can make as much as 70 percent of the selling price of ebooks. For example, on a $10 ebook, you could made $7. This is several times what you'd make on the same ebook through a traditional publisher.

What’s your advice to writers in search of editorial services like copy editing and book design?

Your question pre-supposes the most important issue: that the author has decided to seek professional editing and design help. That's the hard step. The way to find competent people for these task is to ask around. You'll find that authors are happy to help you because they like to send business to freelancers--so that the freelancers will do better work for them. Some rough numbers for price: content editing  $1,000; copy editing $1,000; and cover design $1,000. We do have a way to help you find a good copy editor. Our copy editor created a copy editor's test that you can download from APEthebook.com.

What are the basics of cover design for ebook self-publishers?

Some people believe that cover design for ebooks isn't important because people won't be picking up books in stores. Nothing is further from the truth. The context of the display of your ebook is that it's on a Amazon page next to ten other ebooks, and all the covers are the size of a postage stamp. People can't pick up the book, turn it over to read the back-cover copy or open the book to read the flap copy. This means your cover has to be so compelling that people will click on it. Thus, you need a simple design with a simple and big font that reduces well. 

What do you say to writers who complain that they have neither the ability nor the desire to promote themselves?

Keep your day job or move back in with your parents. Artisanal publishing is hard: writing, publishing, and marketing. Each is necessary. And writing and marketing are done in parallel. Do you think that artisanal brewing, baking, or winemaking is easy? I don't. It's probably easier to work for Anheuser-Busch than starting your own brewery.

Talk about the various pricing strategies for ebooks.

Current wisdom is $.99 for a first-time author of adult fiction, $2.99 for follow on books, and $9.99 for non-fiction. The thing is that we're making this up as we go along. The beauty, though, of artisanal publishing—particularly of ebooks—is that you can easily and quickly change your prices to test price points. Pricing is an art—or getting lucky. It's certainly not a science. 

Once and for all, please explain “platform” and “guerrilla marketing” and how to use them to sell books.

The key to book marketing is realizing what people use as a proxy for reading a book to determine its quality. In the old days, the proxy was the imprint. If Random or Penguin published a book, it must be good. Today, few people know or care who the publisher is. Now people look at the number of stars of a book's rating and read a few reviews, or they depend on what people in their social ecosphere say about it. 

If you buy this theory, then building a platform is of paramount importance. With a platform, you can spread the word about your book and ask people to read it in advance in order to review it as soon as it ships. Members of your platform will also spread the word for you. Check this collection of reviews of APE: http://amzn.to/T37r5x. This wasn't an accident. 

What’s your outlook for the future of ebooks? For self-publishing? For traditional publishing?

Ebooks are about 10% of total book sales today. I don't think printed books will go away in the next ten years or so—I can't imagine a satisfying ebook version of Annie Leibovitz photographs. However, I'll bet that in ten years, ebooks are 90% of total book sales. This is especially true if the FAA removes the restrictions about reading tablets while planes take off and land. 

There will still be a role for traditional publishers because celebrities don't have the time, expertise, or inclination to self-publish a book. Also, traditional publishers and Amazon Encore will use the artisanal-publishing community as a proving ground and then snap up the cream of the crop. 

Still, the fundamental challenge of traditional publishing is to add value in a world where an author can hire many of the same people to edit and design their book that a traditional publisher would have used; where authors don't need a distribution pipeline to get dead trees to bookstores because they can use CreateSpace and Lightning Source to print on demand and distribute; and where people don't care about a book's imprint as much as its star rating and reviews.

How is APE doing three weeks after publication?

The results are promising, but not good enough to declare victory. Big numbers will occur only if APE helps catalyze an artisanal-publishing revolution where people who would have never written a book now do so just like Pagemaker catalyzed the desktop publishing revolution. 

What’s next for Guy Kawasaki?

Asking me this three weeks after APE shipped is like asking a woman who gave birth three weeks ago when she's going to have another baby. I'm still breastfeeding APE and trying to get it to sleep at night. I'm not thinking about the next thing yet. 

Here is more information about the book and some resources that you can use:

Name: APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur--How to Publish a Book (ISBN 978-0-9885231-1-1) 

Bios, picture, and cover: http://apethebook.com/bookassets/

Website: http://apethebook.com/

SPIT (Self-Publishing Intelligence test):

http://electricpulp.com/guykawasaki/ape/ 

Badges: http://apethebook.com/badges/

Sandra Gulland

How did you become a writer?

I grew up loving books, and always wanted to "make one." On the way I worked in a variety of occupations that had to do with book publishing. I was a typesetter (back in the day), a ghost writer, an editor. I dreamt of owning a bookstore, but wisely realized it would be the wrong vocation for me because I couldn't bear the thought of selling a book, seeing it go out the door. 

I had always intended to write a novel, but it wasn't until I turned 40 that I got serious about it. I was working as an editor at the time, and happened to read a self-help book that advised one to imagine the words on one's tombstone. The words that flashed before me were: "She never got around to it." I didn't want that to be me, and so I began writing every day.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Being entranced by fine writing, over and over and over, is key to developing an "ear" for prose. One novel in particular influenced me: "A Walk with Love and Death" by Hans Koning. Each sentence of that novel is spare and beautifully simple.

When I became serious about writing, I bought a stack of books on how to go about it. "A Writer's Time" by Ken Atchity was particularly helpful, giving simple-to-follow instructions. Writing a novel is such an unmanageable task, it helps to begin with a stack of index cards: something tangible. 

I continue to turn to my shelf of books on writing at various stages of the process. I have over 75 such books now (!), and I have learned something from each of them. 

Janette Turner Hospital and Jane Urquhart, fine writers and teachers, were extremely helpful at key moments. 

When and where do you write?

I begin writing first thing in the morning, and I usually turn to other tasks in the afternoon. I rise early, so by noon I will have put in a full day. I work in a room that's my designated office space. I will sit at a desk, or on a couch, or stretched out on a twin bed, always with my laptop computer. 

I am fairly mechanical in my method: I keep a small diary in which I write down the time, and the number of words in the manuscript. Then I commit to a certain number of words for that day. I do not permit myself to call it a day until I've reached my goal. Usually I will fly over, and award myself with silly stars. 

What are you working on now?

I am working on two novels right now. One I've been writing for over 4 years, and it's close to being finished. The working title is IN THE SERVICE OF THE SHADOW QUEEN. It's a historical novel set during the reign Louis XIV, the Sun King, and involves the theatrical, magical and courtly worlds of the time. It's to be published in the spring of 2014. The other I've yet to begin, but I'm thinking about it a lot. (Yes, I have a stack of index cards.) It will be a Young Adult novel about Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine Bonaparte's daughter. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Never!

What’s your advice to new writers?

In a word: persevere. Collect rejection letters. Keep going. Never give up.

Sandra Gulland is the author of four internationally-published historical novels: The Josephine B. Trilogy and Mistress of the Sun. A TV mini-series based on the Trilogy is in the works. Sandra has recently launched an e-book publishing venture—Sandra Gulland INK—in order to ensure that her novels continue to be available to readers worldwide. She and her husband live half the year in rural Ontario, Canada, and half in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. For information about the author, her work and INK publications, see her website: www.SandraGulland.com. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. 

Nat Segaloff

How did you become a writer?

You don’t “become” a writer. You either are one and get better at it, or you aren’t one and learn to hire one and “just fix it a little.” The first thing I remember writing was “I’m running away from home” notes. My mother, who was a school teacher, used to grade them and hand them back to me. Writing was a chore throughout high school. The first time I enjoyed it was when I was a college freshman and the instructor not only gave me an “A” for my character sketch, she said we ought to have it published. We never did, but it was the first time anybody had ever said anything good about my writing. There’s a lesson there.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

My writing influences are as eclectic as the work I have done. I love Twain, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Angelou, and Saroyan. I learned conciseness from Ellison (Harlan) and Mcdonald (Gregory); humor from Price (Roger), Douglas (Jack), and Gelbart (Larry). It was a newspaperman named Donald Cragin who told me that the trick of writing is putting a blank piece of paper in the typewriter and not stopping until it’s full, and it was screenwriter Stirling Silliphant who taught me that a script should take as long to write as it will to shoot -- in other words, efficiency and professionalism. But my most important influence is the business affairs person who also writes. Checks.

When and where do you write?

I write on a desktop computer. Hate laptops and touch pads. My handwriting is so bad even pharmacists can’t read it. I used to write on a 1940s Royal upright manual typewriter and y’know what? I think my writing was better because I really had to think first about what I was typing because retyping was a bitch.

What are you working on now?

My forthcoming book is Final Cuts: The Last Films of 50 Great Directors from BearManor Media in February of 2013. It’s about the last films of 50 great directors. Next up is a biography of a close friend who also happens to be one of the world’s foremost writers.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I’ve never been unable to write, but I have occasionally been unable to write well, which is just as bad.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Larry Gelbart used to say that the first advice to writers is to take solitaire off your computer. My advice is threefold: first, write about yourself and then stick it in a drawer because nobody gives a shit about you yet. Second, use that same drawer to store the first draft of anything you write that comes too easily, then go back two days later and ask yourself why. Third, learn spelling and grammar because no matter how well you write, if your mechanics are lousy, so is your writing.

Nat Segaloff started off as a movie publicist, then quit and become a journalist/critic, TV producer, teacher, and film historian. He has published something like ten or eleven books.