Category: publishing

Easy-peasy audiobooks, relatively speaking

Published on by Mike McCandlessLeave a comment

Last month, we journeyed from idea to the publication of our first audiobook in three weeks. At no cost. International distribution. Easy-peasy.

Here were the keys:

  • We already had a decent microphone, a Blue Yeti, and a tiny bit of experience using the Audacity free version as our audio studio.
  • The narrator has done some acting and is familiar with speaking lines. He was the co-author and worked for free.
  • We used FindawayVoices.com as our production/distribution platform, and that was very helpful, and free.

The book, 50 Fun Facts About the New York Yankees, was launched in paperback and e-book on Amazon in July. We had the thought to produce an audiobook version once the Yankees were definitely going to the World Series. We didn’t allow quite enough time as it turned out, so we missed that opportunity. But not by much. We’re delighted that the book was available as quickly as it was, and on multiple distribution channels. We can now say that we have started up a brand new arm of Touchwood Press.

Takeaways:

  • Don’t be intimidated at the prospect of producing an audiobook version of your book. Just as with publishing the print book, you can do this, even if you need a little help.
  • However, remember to respect the medium. You’ll need a quiet place to record. You’ll need to be aware that your breathing and other mouth noises (and other noises) will absolutely end up in the recording. It may require multiple takes and some editing to get an acceptable audio files.
  • The two co-authors of the Yankees book are on different coasts. This did not present any serious problem. One author sent production-ready audio files to the other, who merged and did final production on them before uploading to FindawayVoices. There were remarkably few re-tries needed to get an OK from Findaway, and we were off to the races. Within a few days, we were notified that six distribution channels (GooglePlay, Audiobooks.com, others) have included our audiobook in their catalogs. Listeners everywhere can buy our audiobook, and we get royalties (almost) instantly, at rates that vary by channel. Pretty slick.

What about Amazon?

Amazon’s ACX is the kingpin in the audiobook production world, especially for self-publishers. That’s great. However, through my research and what I’ve heard from others over time, ACX offers a more complicated path for self-publishers than say, FindawayVoices, which we use for our first adventure into audiobooks. The complications begin with the ACX Book Posting Agreement, a lengthy contract that is well worth your time if you want to get into the audiobook business. For our purposes, publishing our first audiobook, this was a bridge way too far. Having said that, I look forward to accessing the benefits that ACX can offer as we ramp up our audiobook enterprise.

The Opportunity

The audiobook market is expected to grow about 25% per year between now and 2032. The market was $4.2 billion in 2022 and could be as big as $40 billion in 10 years. It’s not hard to figure out why, in a world where we live tethered to our phones, more and more folks are listening rather than, or in addition to, reading. Decide for yourself if you can bite off the time and effort to produce your own audiobooks and gain another slice of the pie.

The Times, They Never Stop Changing

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It has long held true in publishing that 20% of the titles make for 80% of the profits. Whether the typical numbers are more like 40/60 or 10/90, the principle is the same. In any speculative business such as book publishing (or movies or music or gold mining), the best-sellers carry the rest of the list to profitability and sustainability. But if Lora Kelly, a writer for The Atlantic, is right, even this economic pillar of the publishing business is changing. See Taylor Swift Is a Perfect Example of How Publishing Is Changing for the story.

This may be very good news for other self-publishing authors like Ms. Swift. I’ve always thought that the best way for a self-publishing author to get a shot with an established, aka traditional, publisher is to wait for them to come to you. For years now, savvy acquisition editors have been training their sights on Amazon and other platforms to get a bead on the next best sellers. A single shot to an aspirational writer has sometimes landed a new super-star author. What are the odds? Better than a total shot in the dark, apparently.

So, be ready for that e-mail or letter from an editor at a big-name publisher. Know your rights, and your copyrights. Be prepared to sell some, but not necessarily all, your rights to the first big-game hunter who has their sights on you. In the meantime, dream big, and get back to writing your sequel!

ALLi

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I’ve watched and waited for a really good association for independent author-publishers to develop, and I’m happy to report that one has. The Alliance of Independent Authors, or ALLi (pronounced ally, appropriately). It’s not that ALLi is brand new, far from it. But in my opinion, they have now reached escape velocity and are orbiting the indie author ecosphere sustainably. I’m sure the folks at ALLi, if they read this, will be saying, “So, where have YOU been?” Answer: lurking for 7 or 8 years to see when it would be worth the time to join and engage with your staff, members, and resources. That time has come.

ALLi has just put on a first-class online conference comprising presentations from top-notch experts and pundits in indie publishing. I want to encourage everyone looking for current info and a deeper dive to check out ALLi and seriously consider becoming a member.

The Alliance for Independent Authors

How do I know if my book is ready for publishing?

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A wise friend reminds me that “Done is better than perfect.” Sometimes it is better to go ahead with a new venture and just see what happens. Counting the benefits and costs of this is important.

Be kind to yourself and realize that having your book live on Amazon or wherever will have several immediate bonuses:

  1. There is no substitute for “seeing your name in lights,” as it were. Pressing the “Publish” button in KDP will produce a live product page for your book on amazon.com. Since this is familiar territory for Amazon shoppers, you should feel a mild rush of pride or maybe apprehension (Am I an imposter?) about see your book suddenly for sale in the world’s largest store. Savor the moment and then get on with promotion, because just having your book on Amazon does not mean automatic best-seller status.
  2. Your book on Amazon plants a stake in the ground of your writing/publishing career. This is a forever milestone. Use it to get a new sense of what you’re about with this writing thing.
  3. If you’ve created an effective title, description, categories, and key words in your KDP setup process, you may make some sales, especially if your book is nonfiction and well-aimed at a specific reader group.
  4. With your book on Amazon, you now have someplace to send friends, family, well-wishers, Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, etc. to show them what you’ve been up to. Send them an email, message, or tweet and ask for their feedback and if they’re inclined, a positive review. This can help kick-start your book’s marketing.

Having made the case for self-publishing on KDP, I will balance my enthusiasm for this with the caution than wile done is better than perfect, perfection is a variable concept. Make sure to edit out typos, spelling errors, bad grammar, and obvious mistakes. In other words, respect the process and make sure to do a creditable job of editing and formatting. While KDP will make sure your book and cover meet their manufacturing standards, it won’t tell you that you have mistaken “there” for “their” or split your infinitives. Publish a creative product you will take pride in.

All in all, I strongly recommend self-publishing using the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service. It will introduce you to publishing as something you can do yourself at very low cost. You won’t tie yourself forever to one publisher or process, which means maintaining your freedom of choice down the road. Most important, self-publishing with KDP will get your book out there, pushed gently out of its nest, ready for the world to take notice. After all, done IS better than perfect.

Contact us at Touchwood Press if you’d like to talk through your project, get some coaching, or use us as your project manager.

Best tools for my project? There are so many!

Published on by Mike McCandless1 Comment
A_logo

Is this your first self-publishing project? Assuming it is, I say, “Keep it simple!” Lucky for us, we can start at the top, as it were, by starting our self-publishing journey in Amazon-land, using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Why lucky? Because Amazon already sells more than 70% of all e-books and can give you access to just about any market or reader audience segment. So, the tool/platform I recommend, especially for starters, is Kindle Direct Publishing.

This doesn’t really answer the question, though, does it? As you already have seen, there are dozens, at least, of tools, platforms, distribution channels, and publishing services providers to choose from. I’m just saying if the leading provider of just about everything is free/cheap and easy to use and you get all its massive marketing machine working for you, why not start there? There’s plenty of time to get deeper into the marketplace and engineer the perfect set of capabilities and resources for you. Whatever you decide, best of luck to ya’!

How do I copyright my book?

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The right to make copies of any creative work belong automatically, naturally, and legally to its creator. There is easy-to-access information about copyright basics available at copyright.gov. Get started on this page. Briefly, you do not need to file a form or pay a fee to claim and hold the copyright to your work. At your first opportunity, you should simply add a copyright notice to your draft manuscript. That is enough to claim your copyright. Make sure that all copies of your work carry your copyright notice. The standard form for this is “Copyright [year] [name of copyright owner].” The copyright symbol (which can be rendered as (c) if you can’t insert the fancier version, ©) isn’t necessary but is normally used. Later, if you want to register your copyrighted work, you can do so starting at copyright.gov.

Self-publishing reads

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Get some help and learning from the folks who track with the latest in self-publishing news about people, tools, and technologies. How much time is enough to stay current? You need to be selective. I follow these experts:

  • Mark Dawson: The Self Publishing Formula and Self Publishing Show podcast. Lawyer turned best-seller author, Mark and his partner and former BBC producer James Blatch produce a best-in-class podcast worth a weekly hour. 
  • Joanna Penn is, fair to say, the fount of everything worth knowing about self-publishing with her books, courses, Kickstarters, and podcast.
  • The Independent Book Publishers Association: professional association for self-publishers and small presses. A great community for engaging with publishing peers.
  • Jane Friedman: author, speaker, teacher, and professional publishing veteran Jane has long reported on the publishing industry via her newsletters and courses. A quality read/listen from an insider.  

Ten Reasons for Authors to Blog

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blog word in mixed vintage metal type printing blocks over grunge wood

Elsewhere here, I suggest blogging is a great thing for a writer/self-publisher, both before and after your book is out. This blog post, Anne R. Allen’s Blog: Ten Reasons for Authors to Blog, goes deeper.

Your blog is your sketch book, note pad, diary (of sorts), op/ed column. Take advantage of the free and easy opportunity a blog affords to air out your prose or poetry if you’re really sincere about growing as a writer.

How do I avoid that self-published look?

Published on by Mike McCandlessLeave a comment

A self-published look may result from your selections of fonts, margins, justification, and other simple look-and-feel variables. Your objective is not to try and improve several hundred years of book formatting tradition, unless that is your objective. 🙂 Your deviations from what readers have come to expect will just be noise, loud or subtle, but noise nonetheless. It will distract them from the business of enjoying your writing.

These days, most writers are using Word as their word processor, but these comments will help create a better look anywhere. Here are some simple guidelines to use as you write and edit your book. These are helpful for straight-ahead fiction or even for nonfiction books, which tend to include more complex layouts with photos, illustrations, charts, etc. Makes no difference if your target format is print, e-Book, or audiobook.

Since I first wrote this article, I have started to use Standard Document Format as my default for writing manuscripts. I cover SDF specifically in a separate article.

  • Set your font to Garamond; this is a sure bet. Just this choice alone will make your book look like it came from a mainstream publisher.
  • Use right and left justification, called full justification. Check it out. Most books, regardless of genre or publisher, are fully justified. Yes, you may need to learn in Word how correct for a few widows and orphans (book talk for little bits of text that get hung out in space and need to be brought back together with their precedents and descendants…look it up), but it’s worth it.
  • Insert page breaks (Ctrl-Enter in Word) after every page in your front and back matter and after the last character in every chapter. This will prevent text from getting up and moving to another page and other issues with maintaining your content in decent and good order.
  • Indent all paragraphs EXCEPT the first paragraph in every chapter. I use Word styles to manage this.
  • Use Word Styles. Just a few, to make you more productive and help generate your table of contents. (This is a whole other topic, to be covered later.) If you can’t manage Word Styles, you can do what you need to do manually and with the help of a downloaded template from Amazon or other free source.
  • Don’t copy and paste images, only Insert them.

I sense a new class and book on this topic. Long story short, take advantage of what Amazon, Word and free web resources give you about formatting your book and avoiding the self-published look.