A Personal Note on Etta James’s Passing

Posted by Julie Ortolon on January 22, 2012

Last Friday started out on a high note for me. After days of jumping through hoops to get the soundtrack to my novel, At Last, to go through, I discovered it was live at Amazon. Cause for celebration. I posted the news to Facebook and was about to post on Twitter when I heard the news that Etta James had just died.

It stopped me cold. I didn’t even know how to respond. I’m a huge fan of Etta James, so the news would have saddened me any time, but to learn that she was dying right as the companion soundtrack to At Last was going live added a layer of discomfort to my sorrow. I immediately slammed the breaks on all my personal promotion effort for the day. Unfortunately, there was no way to stop the big push Amazon had scheduled—yes, for that very day. That campaign has been in the works for months. The timing is just . . .  ironic and unfortunate.

I naturally spoke with Barbara Calderaro, the singer who recorded and produced At Last, the Soundtrack. She had the same mixed feeling about the timing. We also shared our memories of Etta James and the impact her music has had on us.

Here’s what Barbara had to say: “I always loved Etta James’ music and her earthy delivery of some great songs. As a vocalist who sings jazz standards (among other genres) I always enjoyed singing ‘At Last’ which was one of Etta James’s biggest hits. It has been sung by other vocalists…even men, but none were quite like Etta’s version. So, when I decided to record ‘At Last’ on my first CD five years ago, I discussed it with my guitarist and arranger, Howard T. Levine,  who  suggested  that we change the style and rhythm of it to make it my own. Howard’s arrangement has kind of a Latin flavor to it.”

When Barbara first told me about the new arrangement, I thought it sounded nuts. Then I heard it, and loved it. I also agree that giving it a different spin was the right thing to do out of respect. No one has ever or will ever sing the original arrangement like the great Etta James. (To hear Barbara’s version of this great romantic standard, click here.)

Once Barbara and I had both recovered from our shock, we realized that perhaps the timing of the soundtrack release wasn’t unfortunate after all. To have a fresh recording of Etta James’s signature song go live on the day of her death is actually a testament to the fact that she will live on as an icon to our musical culture.

Farewell, you will be greatly missed, and fondly remembered.

Do you have any special memories of Etta James, her music, or the song “At Last”? Feel free to share as a tribute to one of the greatest female vocalist of all time.

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Rocky Road to Launching At Last, the Soundtrack

Posted by Julie Ortolon on January 19, 2012

If you read my last post, Making a Music Soundtrack for a Novel, you know At Last, my new ebook release from Amazon/Montlake, has a companion soundtrack. It includes eight romantic American standards that were recorded by the amazingly talented Barbara Calderaro specifically to go with the story (since my heroine is a singer). The goal was to release both the novel and soundtrack at the same time.  I, Amazon, and Barbara worked together to coordinate this. The music was already “in the can,” since the eight tracks are part of a previously released CD. The soundtrack is digital only, so all we needed was a new cover that would coordinate with the ebook cover.

Creating Covers

Amazon created a beautiful cover for the ebook with plenty of time for us to create the coordinating cover for the soundtrack. Once we got that to the singer, all she had to do was re-upload the eight tracks we’d selected with the new cover. (The full version of the CD is still available with the original cover.) Everything was running like clockwork. Until…

The Best Laid Plans

The first hiccup came right before Christmas when we realized the images used to create the ebook cover had a time limit on the copyright license.  Which meant throwing out that beautiful cover that I loved and looking for new images. Did I mention this was right before Christmas? Everyone was traveling. I was heading for NYC to see family, so there I was, emailing my editor at Amazon and my agent with my iPhone in the airport. Have you ever tried to type a message on a phone while standing in a moving tram? With one elbow hooked around the pole so you don’t fall over? Not easy!

We finally got a new cover, and it’s gorgeous, but we were down to the wire. We had one week to create a cover for the soundtrack. The only way to meet that tight of a turn around was for me to do the soundtrack cover. I’m a graphic designer, so this was not a problem. Except the singer was in the hospital for knee surgery. She didn’t have access to her computer until Friday night, which gave us three days to upload the files to CD Baby and have them distribute it to Amazon. And two of those three days are Saturday and Sunday. Ugh!

Roadblock

Sadly, despite the singer jumping through every hoop she could working with a live person at CD Baby, we couldn’t push it through the process fast enough. The ebook, At Last, went live on Tuesday – and I’m thrilled to say it’s selling very well. But this is Thursday morning and we’re still waiting for the soundtrack to go live at Amazon. Late yesterday, however, CD Baby did finish their end, so now we’re just waiting for it to arrive at Amazon, so they can create the product page for the music and provide a link to that on the page for the ebook.

Temporary Fix

Amazon has posted the cover to the soundtrack on the page for the ebook along with a list of links to the individual songs. But that takes you to the tracks with the original cover to the full CD. As soon as this goes live, there will be a link to a page with the new cover where you can download the full soundtrack or individual songs.

In the Meantime

At Last, the Soundtrack IS AVAILABLE AT CD BABY. You can listen to sample and/or purchase it there. It really is fabulous. I love Barbara’s voice, and how she sings all the songs. I’ll let you know as soon as this special soundtrack goes live at Amazon!

And, of course, the ebook, At Last is available for sale at Amazon. It was awarded Best Single Title Contemporary by Bookbuyers Best the year it came out in print under the title Unforgettable. I hope you’ll give it a try.

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Making a Music Soundtrack for a Novel

Posted by Julie Ortolon on January 14, 2012

Since I announced that my new ebook release, At Last, will have its own music soundtrack, I’ve had so many authors tell me they’ve longed to do the same thing. I’ve also had a lot of questions about how I managed to pull it off. Answer? Serendipity!

The Challenge

Many authors mention songs in their stories and would love to offer those songs in a collection for readers to enrich the story experience. The obstacle that stands in the way is that little thing called a copyright. Creating a collection of already recorded songs would be cost prohibitive for most authors because of all the royalties. So, how did I solve that?

My Stroke of Luck

While writing At Last, I became friends with a local singer, Barbara Calderaro, who happens to sing the kind of music I wanted my heroine to sing: American standards like Unforgettable, Them There Eyes, Sunday Kind of Love. Going to hear her sing inspired many of my song choices for several scenes. Since Barb and I became friends, and mutual fans of each other’s work, she agreed to go into the studio and cut a CD featuring the songs I mention in my novel.

That’s the key. I had a singer willing to take on the task of copyright payment, plus the expense of studio time, and having physical CDs created. This was an enormous investment on her part, but it worked for her because she needed a CD to sell at gigs, so my novel provided the incentive. Howard T. Levine, who plays guitar on the CD, wrote some brilliant arrangements to give the old standards a fresh new sound. That, combined with Barbara’s amazing voice makes for a wonderful collection of romantic songs.

It did not, however, fulfill our dream of bundling the paperback and the CD.

Obstacles in the Physical World

The problem with a romance novel about a singer, and a real life singer willing to cut a CD as a companion to that novel back in 2007 (the original release date for both) is that they were physical entities. Romance novels and music CDs are distributed and shelved by completely different departments in brick and mortar stores. Bundling them was impossible.

The Magic of the Digital Age

The explosive popularity of ereaders that play music and smart phones has obliterated those obstacles. Now readers can easily buy an ebook with a digital soundtrack on their multi-media device such as the new Kindle Fire or iPad. When I signed with Montlake (an Amazon imprint) for the re-release of  At Last as an ebook, they were very exited about the idea of bundling the ebook with a digital soundtrack.

Repackaging the CD

Here’s another difference in the physical world and the digital world. When Barbara recorded the CD, it had to be packaged as a “CD by Barbara Calderaro,” not as a soundtrack to my novel, because she planned to sell copies at gigs. It also needed to have more songs than just the ones my character sings in the story. The full CD is still available in its entirety with it’s original cover.

But when Amazon decided to release my novel as an ebook and bundle it with the music, that gave us the chance to truly make it a digital soundtrack to the novel. The new version has a cover that coordinates with the ebook cover and includes the eight songs from the original CD that are specific to my story. Rather than a photo of Barbara, we opted for an image that looks like my heroine, Riley Stone, the sexy singer who goes toe-to-toe with a straight-laced lawyer to save a historic dance hall in Texas.

Bundling the Ebook and Soundtrack

Right now, as I’m writing this, the soundtrack has not gone live yet at Amazon. This is Saturday (January 14), and my ebook goes live next Tuesday, so we’re scrambling to get everything in order so the soundtrack will also go live on Tuesday. Barbara is uploading the new cover at CD Baby. They will then distribute it to Amazon. Amazon is standing by to add the soundtrack to my detail page for the ebook as soon as they receive it.

It’s going to be a race to the finish line, but if all goes well, we’ll make it. In the meantime, you can Click Here to read my interview with Amazon and preorder the ebook so you get it as soon as it goes on sale. Or Click Here if you want to learn more about the story and read Chapter One free.

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Working with Amazon as a Publisher

Posted by Julie Ortolon on January 11, 2012

Since I accepted an offer from Montlake Publishing in October, many of my published author friends have been asking me what it’s like working with Amazon as a publisher. Like me, many of them have jumped into the indie-publishing pond, releasing backlist and frontlist as ebooks. Some of us have had amazing success. I know I have. My Perfect trilogy soared up the charts when I released it last April, and spent more than a month in the Top 100 for Romance at both Amazon and Apple.

Given the success I’ve achieved on my own, some authors have wondered why I’d give up the control and freedom of indie publishing along with some of my royalty, and if I think it was worth it.

Why I chose to partner with Amazon

Notice I said “partner with,” not “sign with,” the more common term authors use when discussing a new publishing contract. When Amazon first approached me about publishing my final backlist title as an ebook, I hesitated. (Actually, they approached me about the new material I’m working on, but then they realized I still had one backlist title available.) Even just giving them a backlist title worried me, despite the marketing power I know they wield. Working with any publisher had come to equal giving up control. My print career basically died because of bad choices made by my previous publishers. Did I really want to open myself up to the potential for that kind of mismanagement again?

But reading posts online by authors like Lee Goldberg, Barry Eisler, and Joe Konrath about their experience with Amazon as a publisher, and talking to my good friend Connie Brockway, gave me the courage to take a deep breath and take the plunge. I’m so glad I did!

Working with Amazon has been nothing like my experience with traditional publishers. Rather than giving up control, I’ve been treated like a partner working with them on a project. I’ve had input on everything, including the cover and marketing strategies. I feel respected, not just for my talent as a writer, but as a business person with ideas that have value.

Is it worth what I gave up?

Financially, I won’t know for sure until after my Montlake release comes out, but from what I’ve witnessed so far, I think the answer is going to be a resounding yes! I predict my sales will more than make up for the lesser royalty. As for giving Amazon exclusivity, I researched what percentage of ebook readers use various devices, and discovered a huge percentage of non-Kindle owners read on their phone. So, anyone with a smart phone, iPad, or computer can download the Kindle app free. As for the Nook, Sony Reader, and Kobo, readers can convert a Kindle ebook into a file that’s compatible with their device with a free software download called Calibre.

My First Montlake Release, Coming January 17

At Last, my first release with Montlake, was originally published in print by Signet with the title Unforgettable, but we’re going for a complete new package. I think both the new cover and new title fit the story much better.

I was holding on to this final title because it has a music soundtrack that goes with it. I was hoping that with the digital revolution, I could figure out a way to bundle them together. Partnering with Montlake has given me that opportunity. We are in the final days of preparing At Last, both the ebook and the soundtrack, for their digital debut. In the coming days, I will blog about the process, and hope you’ll follow along. So, more to come. But so far, working with Amazon has been a breath of fresh air.

To learn more about At Last and read an excerpt on my Website, Click Here. You can also Click Here to read my Q&A with Amazon, and preorder a copy.

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Reader Poll: Excerpts at the End of Ebooks–Do You Love ‘em or Hate ‘em?

Posted by Julie Ortolon on December 21, 2011

I recently learned–much to my surprise–that a lot of readers get quite angry when an author includes bonus material at the end of an ebook. I always thought it was a good idea, so I put full chapter-one excerpts to two or three of my other ebooks at the end of all my ebooks. I’ve never received a single complaint. Apparently, other authors have. Some readers feel cheated when they’re reading along, thinking they have a lot more story to go, only to turn a page and realize the last percentage of the ebook is excerpts or other material.

Available FREE at Amazon, B&N, Apple, and Smashwords.

The only time I received complaints was when I released my Pearl Island trilogy with an extra chapter that wasn’t in the original print books at the end of each story. Existing fans of the trilogy wanted the bonus chapters without having to re-buy books they already owned. I didn’t blame them, so I put all three bonus chapters into one free ebook as a gift to fans of the trilogy.

I want to hear from readers and authors, though, about how you feel on the issue.

Here are my questions:

1) If you read ebooks a lot, have you come to expect excerpts or other material at the end, so it doesn’t surprise or bother you? Or do you get annoyed when you turn a page and realize the story is over when you thought you had 5% to 10% more story left?

2) What type of bonus material do you enjoy?

• Full, first-chapter excerpts? Or do you prefer short snippets? Or just a blurb?

• A bio or maybe a letter from the author?

• How about a short “story behind the story” piece? Similar to a DVD that has “The making of this movie.” (Note: I wrote one of these for my Pearl Island trilogy, but I have it on the Website specifically dedicated to fans of the trilogy: PearlIslandBooks.com)

• How much is too much? Or do you not care, since space doesn’t matter with an ebook?

• Have you run across any particular bonus material you especially enjoyed? If so, what was it and why did you enjoy it?

3) Would you rather have the excerpts and bonus material on the author’s Website with a link in the back of the ebook? Would you actually go to the site to read the bonus material? Or would you be irritated that you couldn’t read it on your ereader?

Thank you so much for your input on this! Please use the share buttons below to invite other readers to offer their input. The information will be shared with many authors, so your voice matters.

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Indie Anthologies, the Wave of the Future?

Posted by Julie Ortolon on November 22, 2011

Those of you who follow this blog won’t be at all surprised to hear I’m blazing yet another new trail in the ever-evolving ebook revolution. This time, however, I’m not going it alone. I’m traveling into uncharted territory with five of my closest author buddies by doing a multi-author, ebook anthology.

For those of you who are fans of my Pearl Island trilogy, and who chat me on Facebook, I finally get to stop being vague and say: Woo-hoo! The official title for “Chloe’s story” is Happily Ever After, and it will appear in…

Masters of Seduction

This anthology, to be released Dec. 1, includes six completely new, never-before-released short stories by Marsha Canham, Virginia Henley, Jacquie D’Alessandro, Jill Gregory, Sherri Browning Erwin, and myself. Just seeing my name on a cover with these authors is beyond thrilling for me. Not just because they are all such established, talented authors, but because these women are a huge part of my life. I can’t imagine where I’d be and what my life would be like without them.

A Little History Behind the Scenes

The six of us in the anthology and two others, Connie Brockway and Julia London, have been on a private email loop together since 1999, along with Kathleen Givens, whom we lost tragically on New Year’s Day, 2010. The loop started out as a much larger group for all romance authors who wrote for Dell Publishing. That was before Random House merged Bantam and Dell and, well, “things happened.” All of us landed on our feet, but the journey has not been without some interesting twists and turns.

Adversity breeds solidarity. Or at least it did with the nine of us who decided we would stick together no matter what the publishing world threw at us. That has grown into us sticking together no matter what life throws at us. Through the years, we have shared laughter, tears, triumphs, and tragedies. That history is why this anthology means so much to us.

What Makes an Indie Anthology Groundbreaking?

Anthologies come out all the time, so you might be wondering: What’s the big deal? Well, an anthology is usually put together by a publisher. They pick a small group of authors who have a similar target audience, oversee the editorial, the packaging, and handle all those pesky little details, like say… the money! For eight separate authors who all have drastically different voices and distinctly different audiences to say, “Hey, let’s do an anthology!” is akin to transporting cats in wheelbarrow. Two of the authors in our little band, Connie Brockway and Julia London, had to pull out due to contract obligations, but frankly, I’m amazed we pulled this off with six of us.

Which is why I’m going to say no to the question: Will this be the next big wave? I’m sure we’ll see more anthologies, but the challenges are too numerous for us to see a lot of them.

Challenge One: Different Audiences – Different Voices

A saner approach to an anthology would be for authors with a common target audience to ban together for a project. But ebooks are the Wild West of publishing where anything goes. When this idea came up, and emails started flying, we decided to address the issue of “different voices” by having an object connect all our stories. We chose a mirror pendant and decided to follow it from the past to the present, then we each called dibs on which time period we wanted. We had a few email equivalents of arm wrestling, but finally worked it out. (Our names appear on the cover in the chronological order of the stories.)

So, we have one element tying the stories together, but the writing varies from gritty to heart-warming, from steamy to sweet. For heroes we have medieval lords, a Regency shopkeeper, a cowboy, a vampire, and a computer geek. (The computer geek, that’s me and my Pearl Island story.) At this point we have no idea how readers will react, but at least we can say, “This anthology has something for everyone who likes romance!”

Stepback to the front cover.

Here again, we had an arm wrestling match. Both Marsha and I design covers and we both wanted to do this one. Surprisingly, even though Marsha and I have extremely different taste, we both had a shockingly similar vision for the cover. With one huge difference. Marsha wanted the hot guy and the mirror pendant on the cover. I wanted just the hot guy. We put it to a vote – and it split evenly.

Solution? Create the first-ever (that we know of) ebook with a cover with a stepback. Which is a second reason this project is blazing a new trail.

Challenge Three: Money

This is the main reason I don’t foresee indie anthologies coming out in droves. You have to have all the money go to one author, and that author has to divide the earnings. There’s also the issue of 1099 forms. I just don’t see a lot of authors wanting to hassle with this. Which is why, at present, we’re planning for this to be a limited-time release.

The Adventure

I love being out here in the Wild West blazing new trails. It’s even more fun to share the adventure with friends. You can learn more about the history of our friendships at Marsha Canham’s blog. Or follow all of us on Facebook this adventure continues to unfold: Me, Sherri, Jill, Jacquie, Virginia, Marsha.

UPDATE: This release is now ON SALE at Amazon and Smashwords. Coming soon to B&N, Apple, Sony, and Kobo.

Category Categories: Promoting ebooks, Uncategorized, book cover design, ebooks, self publishing  |  Comments 3 Comments »

Amazon and New Era in Publishing

Posted by Julie Ortolon on November 17, 2011

I am thrilled to announce that I have accepted a very exciting deal with Montlake, Amazon’s new romance imprint, for the re-release of Unforgettable, one of my contemporary romance novels originally published by Signet Eclipse. I held back releasing this out-of-print title as an ebook on my own, because I wanted some way to finally achieve my original vision for packaging this story.

Original Vision: Release a Novel with a Music Soundtrack

The heroine of Unforgettable sings American standards in a nostalgia bar. While writing the book, I became good friends with a fabulous singer, Barbara Calderaro. Many of the songs Barb sings became inspirations for the songs my heroine, Riley Stone, would sing. At some point, I suggested — half-joking — that Barb should cut a CD to go with my book. To my surprise, and delight, she said “Okay!”

We had visions of a joint release, cross promotion, and creating huge buzz. Only one problem. This was 2007. We were, apparently, four years too early.

Timing is Everything: Then vs Now

The marketing department at Penguin loved the concept. Logistically, however, it couldn’t be done. Penguin’s marketing department and sells reps weren’t set up to market a CD along with a mass-market paperback. As for the big-box bookstores, they have separate buyers for music and books. They also have separate areas to shelve those products. Everyone loved the idea, but the challenges proved too great at the time.

Welcome to the Digital Age

With the explosive popularity of ebooks and multi-media devices, including phones, tablets, and now the Kindle Fire, all those barriers vanish. Especially when you add Amazon’s new publishing arm. I’m very impressed with Amazon’s willingness to explore innovative ideas. When Montlake first approached me through my agent, this wasn’t what any of us had in mind. But the minute we all realized I had Unforgettable WITH a soundtrack waiting in the wings and Amazon had the Kindle Fire about to launch, we jumped on the idea and hit the ground running.

Life in the Fast Lane

Things move VERY quickly in the digital world. This all started in Oct. Now it’s Nov, and the ink is barely dry on the contract but, if all goes as planned, my ebook romance novel bundled with a digital soundtrack will launch shortly after Christmas. That’s less than three months! Even in the digital world, that’s fast for a project of this magnitude.

What better way, though, to showcase Amazon’s new multimedia device, the Kindle Fire, and their new publishing branch, than releasing an ebook bundled with an eCD.

A Fresh New Start: New Title, New Cover

For a number of reasons, we’re looking at a total repackage of the novel and music, including a new title for both. Again, I’m impressed with Amazon’s openness to author input. This feels like a partnership in which they respect the success I’ve had as an indie author, combined with my experience in designing ebook covers for myself and other authors. I look forward to working with Amazon on the packaging of this project. It’s going to be exciting.

Looking Toward the Future: Indie Publishing

Does this mean I’ve abandoned indie publishing? No. I’ve been working on a couple of short stories set on Pearl Island, the setting for my popular Pearl Island trilogy, and have enjoyed being back in that world so much, I plan to set even more stories there. Whether I work with Montlake and Amazon again on full-length novels, and that’s certainly a possibility, I plan to indie publish any Pearl Island novellas as a way to complement my future works.

I’ll post updates on my Facebook Page as this adventure continues to unravel.

Julie

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NINC Conference, 2011: The Ebook Gold Rush is on!

Posted by Julie Ortolon on October 24, 2011

A year ago, authors breaking ties with traditional publishing to strike out on our own frequently used Titanic analogies to describe the sea shift in publishing. At this year’s Novelist Inc conference at St. Pete’s Beach, Florida, (NINC 2011) I noticed the analogies have switched from Titanic to Gold Rush. Not surprising. As those of us who’d blazed the trail into indie publishing struck gold, those who’d held back became almost frantic about tying up deadline obligations to traditional publishers so they could head west. Reversion of rights letters started flying. The early ones met with little resistance until publishers woke up and joined the rush in their own way — by getting out-of-print titles back in print as ebooks as fast as they could. Sadly, many authors who hesitated too long to fire off those letters lost their opportunity. Others, namely bestsellers, never had the chance since most of their backlist has never gone out of print.

There’s Gold in Them There Hills!

As one of the first to arrive and strike gold, I knew what was coming. I saw the dust cloud on the horizon months ago, and heard the rumble of a stampede heading this way. Did it worry me? Of course it did. Do I begrudge those authors just now joining the rush. No. Every author who’s willing to put in the work and face the challenges deserves to reap the benefits of indie publishing. Those benefits aren’t just making more money. They include a frontier style freedom denied to us back in the restrictive East Coast society where we were told what we could and couldn’t write. This really is the Wild West where authors can whoop it up, write what we want and let the readers decide.

Striking the Mother Load

As with the historic Gold Rush of the 1800s, the the Ebook Gold Rush is unfolding in much the same way. Those of us who arrived early enjoyed a brief time in which striking a mother load was much easier. (Note I said easiER, not easy. Nothing about indie publishing is easy.) As the population out in the Wild West grows, the percentage of authors making a huge strike will become smaller, but, as new territories open up (more ereaders in the US and abroad) the overall amount of gold out there increases, providing opportunity for small but steady gold mines. At the same time, opportunities continue popping up for entrepreneurs. In the old days, that meant shops, eating establishments, and boarding houses. Today that means ebook formatters, cover designers, and author assistants.

The Taming of the Wild West

Where opportunity exists, companies soon follow. A year ago, I shook my head over the large gap between those of us blazing the trail and the traditional publishers in terms of understanding and adapting to the new publishing dynamic. At this year’s NINC conference, I saw that gap shrinking. On one hand, I’ve never been to a writing conference where so many industry professionals sitting on panels said — more than once — that the authors in the audience knew more about the subject than they did. On the other hand, you better believe those industry pros were soaking up that knowledge.

Which means publishers are joining the gold rush, but they’ll be arriving in cushy pullman cars with deep pockets to afford the finest accommodations when they arrive. What does that mean in publishing terms? Co-op dollars, baby.

New Game in Town

As income for traditional publishers shifts from print books to ebooks, so will their expenditures. Some of the budget that used to go toward special placement in the brick-and-mortar stores will be spent on improving their ebooks’ “discoverability.” This is a term we will all be hearing a lot in the coming years. Deep pockets will give publishing houses a tremendous advantage over individual authors for getting their ebooks in front of potential buyers.

Betting Against the House

We all know, when gambling the odds favor the house. Does this mean “game over” for indie authors? No. It just means we have to work harder and smarter. We can do that in a couple of ways.

  1. 1) Form indie author co-ops. Lou Aronica (who wears many hats as a publisher, bestselling author, and incoming president of NINC) preached heavily on this during one of his sessions. It’s hardly a surprise that some of us trail blazers sitting in the audience were way ahead on this one. Author Patricia Ryan got up to explain BacklistEbooks.com, a project that has been in the works for several months, thanks to a lot of sacrifice and hard work from both Pat and fellow author Doranna Durgin, the driving forces behind this innovative idea. (NOTE: If you’re a print-published author actively epubbing your backlist and you haven’t heard of BeB, you need to check it out!)
  2. 2) Support groups. This can apply to all authors, not just indie authors. Out here in the Wild West, your best asset is your nearest neighbor. So, form small groups of authors who write to a similar target audience and support each other via social networking and other projects. Even if it’s just retweeting and commenting on each other’s posts, this will help improve your visibility.

Don’t Bet the Farm

My advice to authors as things continue to evolve is don’t bet the whole farm in hopes of hitting the mother load. Whether this means combining traditional publishing with indie publishing in a way that the two complement rather than compete, or whether you explore other emerging opportunities, keep your options open.

Wrapping Up

So that’s my broad take on the NINC conference. I’m lining up a few guest bloggers, though, to swing by Julie’s Journal and share more specific tips, like effective social networking and improving your “discoverability.” For now, though, back to writing. Always remember, the writing itself is your BEST promotional tool.

Julie

PS: If you’re just joining the gold rush, check out The Ebook Revolution Survival Guide for Authors.

Category Categories: Promoting ebooks, The Journey, ebooks, self publishing  |  Tag Tags: , , , ,  |  Comments 3 Comments »

How Important are Cover and Price When Promoting Your Ebook? Very!

Posted by Julie Ortolon on September 11, 2011

by USA Today bestselling author Julianne MacLean

Thank you for inviting me here, Julie!  I am a huge fan of your work and am so grateful to you for all your generous contributions to the world of indie publishing.

As I write this blog, I am in the midst of a two-week 99 cent sale for my ebook TAKEN BY THE COWBOY, a time travel romance that I originally released with a completely different cover and title last June.  At this moment in time, the book is ranked at 172, and I’d like to share how I reached this position.

First Let’s Talk About the Packaging

I am a traditionally published author of historical romance, and I have been building a loyal readership over a number of years, so when I decided to self-publish a slightly quirky time travel, I wanted my readers to understand it was something different, and I also thought I might like to experiment and try to reach new readers.

I had a fun, contemporary cover designed by the fantastic Kim Killion at Hot Damn Designs, and I launched the book in June under the title THE SEXY GIRL’S GUIDE TO COWBOYS.  It was unlike all of my previous covers, however, and it stuck out like a sore thumb on my website.

To make a long story short, the sales were not what I had hoped for, and I quickly realized that the majority of my long time readers were shying away from the book because it looked like chick lit.  I had tossed the “cover continuity” rule out the window, changed my brand and alienated my readers, which meant I was starting from scratch to target a new and completely different readership.

I immediately re-hired Kim to design another cover that would be consistent with my brand, and I retitled the book TAKEN BY THE COWBOY (see cover at top of page).  Within a week, I had the new version uploaded.  I was able to keep the same ISBN number, so all links to the old book page remained the same, and Amazon was helpful enough to send emails to everyone who already bought it – to let them know there was an updated edition.  Smashwords was equally helpful. If anyone unwittingly tried to buy it twice, they would be informed that they already had it.

I also rewrote the back cover blurb to make it less chick-litty.  Here is the original version:

The West Was Never Wilder…

What would you do if your car spun out of control and you woke up in the Wild West of 1881?

Dressed in skinny jeans, sexy red pumps – and frustrated by a troublesome lack of cell phone reception – fitness columnist Jessica Delaney soon finds herself dodging bullets.  Before the night is out, she’s thrown in jail for a murder she didn’t commit, and if things don’t seem complicated enough, the hot-looking sheriff in charge of her arrest has danger written all over him – and a sexy swagger to die for.

Jessica knows she needs to get home, but when ruggedly handsome Sheriff Truman Wade gives her a taste of the real Wild West, she begins to wonder… what’s her hurry?

The new version, which is currently on Amazon, reads more like my other books.  It focuses more on the alpha male hero and the emotional intensity of a deeper romance.
Even at the same price, the ranking immediately improved when I let my readers know about the new cover, so I believe it was the right move.  It was a good lesson about the importance of author branding and cover continuity, and staying loyal to your devoted readers.

The 99 Cent Price Promotion

TAKEN BY THE COWBOY was priced at 4.79 since June, and has held a steady ranking of about 5000-6000 all summer.   I decided I wanted to give it another push, however, so I planned a two week 99 sale from Sept 1-15.

I booked features on two ebook “power blogs” –Daily Cheap Reads and Ereader News Today–which both command a lot of traffic.  I also let the admins know that it was a “limited time only” price.

On September 1, the Daily Cheap Reads post appeared and the ranking spiked to a peak of 400, then it levelled out to 1000 a few days later.
A week later, on Friday night, September 9, Ereader News Today featured the book, and I saw another immediate spike within an hour.   The ranking rose from 1000 to a peak of 139 by Saturday morning, and today (Sunday) it’s 173.  I’ve sold about 700 copies since Friday night, so in my opinion, ENT definitely qualifies as a heavy artillery blog.
I must add, however, that for me, the 99 cent price point has worked best when promoting on these power blogs.  I don’t get anywhere near that kind of click-through success if my book is priced over 2.99.  So I think it’s worth it to drop the price for those important blog appearances if you can plan it that way–even just for a temporary promotion–in order to get your ranking up as high as possible in a short amount of time before you raise the price back to its normal level.

(Other factors that influence click-through success are the right combination of a great cover, good reviews, intriguing blurb, and a popular genre.  Some genres simply do better than others.)

I suspect the higher ranking I have attained will hold steady for a while, because my book is now positioned more prominently all over the Amazon site.  I’ve hit three bestseller lists during this promotion and my cover is appearing on more book pages in the “Customers who bought this item also bought…” section.

Finally, in terms of price strategy, I did not let Amazon do the discounting for me by lowering my price elsewhere.  (i.e. If you lower the price at Smashwords, and it becomes cheaper at other retailers, Amazon will lower the price to match it, and you will still receive 70% royalty–even at 99 cents.)  This is a good strategy if your book is priced at 99 cents permanently, or if you don’t mind it staying there for a while, because it looks attractive to customers who can see the markdown and know they are getting a discount.
But for my situation–where I wanted to blast hard and aggressively for two weeks only–I chose the 35% royalty and lowered the price myself.  I took that royalty loss so that I could be in complete control about raising the price again when I wanted to.  I did not want to be forced to wait for Amazon to get around to raising it, because that can sometimes take weeks.

This is important to consider if there is a chance the stars might align and you could end up hitting the Amazon Top 100 storewide list.  In that case, you may want to end your sale (and strike gold) while the book is selling well.  (If you’re on the Top 100 list, you can sell about 1000 books per day, and even more than that if you hit very high on the list.)  If that happened to your book, it would be a shame not to be able to end your sale when you intended to.

Please leave a comment if you have questions or suggestions about great pricing and packaging strategies.  I am happy to share information, and I am very thankful to all the other indie authors out there who are so generous with their knowledge.

From Julie: Thank you Julianne, for sharing this information and your valuable insights. Readers, CLICK HERE to grab your copy of Taken by the Cowboy during this 99¢ promotion, or to read the updated blurb on her product page.

Learn more about Julianne MacLean from her Website at http://www.juliannemaclean.com where you can see how much better the new cover blends with her historical romances published by St. Martin’s Press.

You can also follow Julianne on Twitter, and like her on Facebook.

Category Categories: Promoting ebooks, Uncategorized, book cover design, ebooks, self publishing  |  Tag Tags: , , ,  |  Comments 25 Comments »

Why Do Ebooks Have So Many Typos???

Posted by Julie Ortolon on September 9, 2011

Ever read an ebook that was littered with errors? If you read ebooks at all, I’m guessing the answer is “Several!” It’s easy to think “Good heavens, hire a proofreader.” Oh, if only the problem was that easy. Sadly, the weirdness that looks like typos and poor proofreading is far more complicated. For any professionally written and edited ebook, 99% of all those things that look like typos are actually scanning, coding, and conversion glitches.

I recently learned there’s one more cause: perfectly formatted ebooks can become corrupted even after you downloaded a clean version to the Kindle or Nook. I’ll cover that below in the Advice to Readers, after I explain what causes most problems. But if you’ve purchased an ebook that’s seriously littered with problems, chances are your device or the file on your device is corrupted and you need to fix it on your end. See “How to Fix Corrupted Files” below.

Good News Bad News

I cringe at admitting that the first three ebooks I released, the Pearl Island trilogy, had numerous glitches. Thankfully, *knock on wood* I have fixed all of those errors. So, if you purchased a poorly formatted copy, you can go back to the site where you purchased the ebook and get a corrected file free. What I went through, though, inspired me to write The Ebook Revolution Survival Guide for Authors. (Available at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords. Coming soon to the Sony Reader Store, and the Apple iBookstore.)

What Causes All those Errors?

1) Scanning

Most of the ebooks that have these errors are backlist novels, so they have been professionally copy edited and proofread. Unfortunately, to turn a print book into an ebook the first step is cutting the spine off a physical book and feeding the pages through a scanner. OCR (optical character recognition) software is not human. It produces a word file based on what its computer brain “thinks” it sees. So words like lips may come out as hps. Since hps isn’t a real word, that’s easy for a proofreader to spot and fix because spell check will put a red squiggly line under it. Others aren’t so easy. Like aim instead of arm. Little ones like that are SO easy to miss. Still, they’re not typos left over from the original manuscript. They’re scanning glitches that the new proofreader didn’t catch. (And let’s face it, even print books by major publishers have a few typos the proofreaders missed.)

2) Coding and Conversion

Random paragraph breaks and whole sections that indent are caused by hidden code the proofreader can’t see when viewing the file as a Word .doc. Chances are the scanned file wasn’t “purged” before the formatting began. (I cover purging and basic formatting in my Survival Guide.) Without doing a purge, a file can look perfect when it’s uploaded, but those codes kick in during the conversion process. So when someone buys the ebook and views it on a device, it can look like a big hot mess.

As for those long hyphens with hooks on the end, those are called optional hyphens. They are completely invisible during the proofing process unless the proofreader turns on “show formatting.” A scanned file will likely have hundreds if not thousands of optional hyphens.

Other errors caused by invisible coding include extra space between paragraphs and words with special characters (like fiancée) that go haywire.

Advice to Readers

So, what should you do if you buy an ebook, start reading, and discover it’s full of glitches? Whatever you do, do not hop onto Amazon or wherever you bought it and post a nasty, one star review, slamming the author for being so unprofessional that they didn’t even bother proofreading their own book. Chances are, the file was diligently proofed but problems snuck in anyway.

The nice thing to do is email the author privately and let him or her know there’s a problem. Include specifics about what you spotted, where you purchased the ebook, and what type of a device you use for reading. That gives the author the chance to fix the problem and upload a new file. As soon as they do that, you can download the new file free since you already own the ebook.

How to Fix Corrupted Files

If the author emails back saying the file is fine, that there shouldn’t be any glitches, then chances are the individual file on your ereader, or possibly even the ereader itself, has become corrupted. According to tech support at B&N, this is fairly common. If you have a corrupted file, the advice from B&N is to try these three steps:

  1. 1) Download the file again for free. If that doesn’t work…
  2. 2) Archive then un-archive the ebook. If neither of those work…
  3. 3) Re-register your ereader.

Advice to Authors

If you uploaded a file that looks completely fine, only to discover it’s rife with glitches, chances are you either didn’t purge the file, or it wasn’t properly formatted. Again, I have instruction for purging and basic formatting in The Ebook Revolution Survival Guide for Authors, along with tips on how to price and market your ebooks. (Available for $2.99 at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords.)

If you want more detailed information for a higher level of formatting, I recommend The Ebook Revolution Formatting Guide by Pam Headrick, the savvy formatter who was able to take my glitch-ridden early files, clean out all the wonky coding, and add lots of bells and whistles. Her guide is available for $2.99 at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords.

Or, if you’d rather hire a professional formatter, Pam’s excellent. If she can satisfy a picky perfectionist like me, she can format anyone’s ebook. You can contact her through her website.

Category Categories: Uncategorized, ebooks, ereaders, self publishing  |  Tag Tags: , ,  |  Comments 9 Comments »

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