From The Domino Project: Are you feeling lucky?
One of the biggest distinctions between old publishing and new is the nature of luck.

From The Savvy Book Marketer: The Media is Paying Attention to Self-Published Authors
I came to self-publishing by accident. I wrote a novel, A Great Place for a Seizure, with the plan to find a literary agent and a publisher. Several rejection letters later I decided to be strategic and attempt to win an endorsement for my manuscript from organizations that could attest to the value of a novel that gives a well-rounded account of life with epilepsy.

From Publishers Weekly: Amazon Launches The Kindle Cloud Reader
As expected in the wake of Apple’s new restrictions on buying content outside the Apple in-app purchasing system,  Amazon.com has launched the Kindle Cloud Reader, an HTML5 reader that will allow consumers to buy and read Amazon titles through the web browsers found on almost any PC or mobile device.

From Authority Publishing: 12 Tasks Every Author Should Tackle Before Publishing a Book
1. Start a Blog – Do not wait until the book is in print to start building your audience. Write about topics of interest to your target audience and update your blog at least twice each week.

From TeleRead: Google adds book sharing feature to Google+
Google has added a feature to let people share links to Google Books e-books on their Google+ social network circles. The feature can be used either by clicking a link on the e-book’s “About the Book” page, or by pasting the Google Books URL into the Google+ Share box.

From Pod People: Indiereader
Indiereader started out as a site for readers of self-published material to mingle and discover new books. What they discovered, and most people already knew, is that dedicated self-published books readers are a demographic that barely exists outside of the authors themselves (and sometimes not even them).

From the Idea Logical Company: If you like irony, you must love the publishing world of today
Anybody who doesn’t find the publishing business interesting in its time of digital change is simply not paying close enough attention. No matter what story we’re focused on, scratch the surface (or scratch your head) and you find you are pondering something else.

From Mashable: How Blurb Tapped Into the Burgeoning Self-Publishing Industry
For the last six years, Eileen Gittins has made it her mission to help anyone and everyone become an author via Blurb. What started as a self-publishing startup for do-it-yourself bookmakers has become a multi-platform storytelling service, adding an app for iPhone and iPod Touch in April, and most recently, an iPad iteration. Mashable spoke with Gittins about the conception and evolution of the company, her inspirations and, of course, cowboy boots.

1. Do you want to be in control?

People who self-publish like to control their own destiny. They want to decide what the title is, how the cover will look, what the interior design is like, how the content will be edited, what ways the book will be promoted and sold. They want to be in charge of the whole enchilada.

2. Are you willing to educate yourself?

You’ll likely spend thousands of dollars on this venture. Surprisingly, many people will investigate all aspects of a summer vacation . . . yet jump into self-publishing without a clue. That’s bad news. You need to be willing to read books like The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing, to attend writing and publishing meetings in your area, to seek out and attend relevant national conferences. This kind of preparation helps you avoid costly mistakes and gives you insider knowledge on what works best.

3. Do you have persistence? Tenacity?

Are you willing to follow through doggedly? Writing is just the beginning. Book marketing should begin the minute you get an idea for a book — and never end! You must be willing to pursue hot leads and persevere five, six, even seven times. (Of course, every author must be willing to do this if he or she hopes to sell books.) Self-publishing allows you to get off to a fast start (just a few months versus a year and a half [or longer] with traditional publishers), but you must have staying power.

4. Do you have the time?

If you think writing was a chore, double or quadruple that if you truly want to be successful. Book production details take hours and hours, and marketing is never ending. We’ve had clients who got up at 5:00 a.m. to work on their projects before they went to their daytime jobs. Others block out three hours in the evening to pursue their publishing project.

5. Can you afford it?

While you can put something together via print on demand (POD) for just a few hundred dollars, if you are planning to make serious money and change lives with your book — be prepared to invest more. The returns can be enormous. Some successful self-publishers make as much as 80% of the retail price of their book when they return for second, third, and fourth print runs.

6. Are you willing to discipline yourself to be a “business person”?

Writing books often attracts creative souls. Successful self-publishing requires a business mind-set. They are not mutually exclusive. You can learn to hire and supervise suppliers, do bookkeeping, fill orders ,and  organize and execute marketing campaigns. While many of these things have creative aspects to them, they are much more right-brain than left-brain. When you self-publish, you are going into business.

7. What’s your passion level?

You’ve got to have a huge commitment to your book. No one cares about it as much as you do. You’ve got to love it, and nurture it, and raise it to outstanding adulthood. Is what you have to offer important enough for you to get — and stay — supremely pumped up? There are few professions that allow us to touch lives . . . to make people happier, healthier, or wealthier . . . to actually enrich the world with our words.

I’ll start by saying that I am not the average person who has no idea what lurks in slush. I spent many years in the trade, going through those very awful slush piles that blogger writes about. And it’s true; there is some real crap out there. And everyone does not have a book in them.

That said, this does not mean that every acquisitions editor working for a major publishing house would know slush if it came in a cup. There is plenty of junk out there that is sitting on the bookstore shelves right this second. Some of it is written by bestselling authors or celebrities, ie, the publishing companies know it will sell. To imply there is some rigorous high standard that always goes along with book publishing is untrue. It’s about money, pure and simple. For most houses, there is no loftier goal than publishing what will make money—regardless of whether it is crap or not.

I fully agree with this, from the article: “I do have to say one thing in defense of self-publishing: it is a very useful tool for people who have a niche audience or their own book sales channels. Ideally, both. Most traditional publishers may not do ‘niche’ projects (not a large enough target market to justify general trade publication).” But may I also add that traditional publishers today are also looking for authors who have a built-in platform—before they sign the contract. Because the reality is that most trads do little to promote their mid-list authors. It is primarily up to the authors themselves.

I also don’t believe that every self-published author believes The Man (as Kidlit refers to the trads) is holding them back so they must “settle” for self-publishing. There are plenty of savvy authors out there—check out indie author and publisher Zoe Winters, for instance—who realize the odds are not in their favor. It isn’t because their work isn’t “ready”; it’s simply because there are a finite number of books being published by traditional publishers. As publishing houses have gobbled one another up in recent years, there are even few opportunities to be published. It isn’t about feeding the ego by getting a “stamp of approval” from The Man for these authors; it is about sharing their message. And if you truly have something to say, wouldn’t you rather have a few people hear it rather than none?

I think it’s misleading to tell writers that when your manuscript is just as perfect as perfect can be, you have a very good chance of being picked up by a traditional publisher. I think that’s overly optimistic. My husband’s heavy metal band is very good—all members of the group are accomplished musicians—but the reality is that they have virtually no chance of being picked up by a major record label. They know that. But it doesn’t stop them from wanting to be heard anyway.

“I’m only interested in people who grow, learn, polish, adapt, and set their sights on the difficult goal of traditional publication. It’s hard for a reason. Not everybody gets to do it.” What about the indie music scene? Should my husband’s band not put out their own CDs because they are pining for some major label to sign them? What about indie movies? Are they any less of an achievement because they are not produced by some major film company?

“But most people who self-publish don’t have a niche book or a good marketing strategy: they want to target the mass market. They have a project that would appeal, in their opinion, to everyone and anyone. And self-publishing a book intended for a trade audience is where these would-be authors get in trouble. Because reaching a mass audience — casual readers — with a self-published fiction project is nearly impossible.” I say there are plenty of self-published authors who go into it with their eyes wide open and their expectations realistic.

It’s unfortunate that with the advent of the so-called “self-publishing companies,” such as Author Solutions and Lulu, way too many people dive right into “self-publishing.” (Incidentally, this is usually “vanity” or “subsidy” publishing, which has somehow become lumped in with true self-publishing wherein authors set up their own imprint and have their own ISBN under which to publish books.) I have a real issue with these cookie-cutter, assembly-line service providers who enable authors to publish their slush on the cheap. Would I consider publishing these books an “achievement”? Not usually. Do I consider truly self-published authors who work hard writing a good, salable manuscript; have it critiqued and edited by professionals; and have the book well-designed as having achieved something? Absolutely.

Yes, there are those who “who don’t believe what editors and agents keep telling them: their work isn’t ready”—or that their work is just bad. I say, let those people go publish with Lulu. Their book will be available on Lulu.com, where approximately zero people actually go to buy books. What I’d like to see is the true self-published authors not denigrated for what they’ve done—because it is a real accomplishment.

Traditional publishing is not exactly known for embracing change (anyone want to talk about the fact that returns are still allowed?!), but I think maybe The Man is going to have to adjust his way of thinking whether he wants to or not.

(Cross-posted at the Writer’s Digest website.)

Please feel free to comment and ask questions!