Published by deborah.woehr on 04 May 2008
I’ve heard of Jeffrey Deaver, but I’ve never read any of his books. Some of you may have read The Bone Collector or The Sleeping Doll. CBS interviewed him about his writing process, which he talks about how long it takes him to outline a story and how many pages this outline contains. Then there are the rewrites. Watch this video.
Source: All Written Down
Published by deborah.woehr on 14 Apr 2008
I read the book when it came out sometime in the mid to late ’90s. It was a deeply disturbing portrait of severe child abuse, inflicted on a 13 year-old. Ketchum did an awesome job of portraying the psychologies of the victim and the abuse, as well as the nightmarish descriptions of the incidents as they escalated. The Girl Next Door not only hit home, but left a lasting impression on me. Ketchum is a great writer who knows how to make readers squirm. But I’m surprised that this book didn’t get banned because it was so controversial.
Yesterday, I found the movie in my local Best Buy. I found myself both surprised and curious to know if this was an adaptation of the book. It was. I set the DVD back on the shelf without a second thought or regret. I’d read the book. That was enough.
Curiosity sent me to Amazon, however, to see what viewers had to say about the film. As it turns out, my instinct was correct. The movie is just as disturbing as the book. This is one instance where I’ll pass.
Published by deborah.woehr on 31 Mar 2008
Despite the backlash from irate authors, Amazon is standing firm on its decision, although they clarified their reasons in a letter which they posted on their site. I’ve included the link below.
Open Letter to Interested Parties
The major reason why people got upset was Amazon’s reported stance of exclusivity. They have denied this.
No, there is no request for exclusivity. Any publisher can use Amazon’s POD service just for those units that ship from Amazon and continue to use a different POD service provider for distribution through other channels.
After reading the entire letter, I’ve come to a better understanding as to the reasoning behind Amazon’s controversial decision. Simply put, they want to ship our books to their customers faster, instead of relying on a middleman (such as Publish America and Lulu) to supply them with our books. I totally understand this, given my frustration at Christmas when I was forced to wait two weeks for Lulu to ship my final proof for Prosperity. Lulu normally takes a week to ship books to their customers (my experience) during the off-season. During the Christmas season, it can take up to three weeks. I’ve ordered books and other items from Amazon as last-minute as a week before Christmas and got them just in time to wrap them and stick them under the tree.
Figuring that Lulu was going to be next on the chopping block, I signed up for Amazon’s Advantage Program on Saturday, thinking that I could circumvent the inevitable disabling of the “Buy Now” button by supplying Amazon with a handful of copies for their warehouse. As it turns out, my intuition was correct. If you want to self-publish with the POD house of your choosing, then you’ll have to fork over $29.95 per year to Amazon if you want to make your book available on their website.
That’s nothing, compared to what people pay annually to host their websites and blogs. If you can market yourself and your books well, then the annual fee will more than pay for itself.
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Published by deborah.woehr on 30 Mar 2008
I decided to do a little research on BookSurge to see what authors can expect, should Amazon prevail. What I read did not sit well with me at all. I’ve been a loyal customer of Amazon since 1996 because they’ve provided an excellent service. You would think they would have revamped BookSurge to match the reputation of their online bookstore. Nope.
The Good
A Review of BookSurge, by Website Publisher Blog
The Bad
Self Publishing with Booksurge: This forum has a great comparison between BookSurge, Lulu, LSI, and Kyodo
The Downright Ugly
Quoted from the Self Publishing with Booksurge thread, post dated 12/9/07:
BOTTOM LINE: Whatever you do, do NOT publish at BOOKSURGE. It is a pain and (in the short-run as well as the long-run) outrageously expensive! They will make more mistakes that you can count (including pricing, royalty, affiliate etc.) and that will hurt you not only financially but also your reputation when your customers see that the prices are changing everyday for your books. I don’t know why things are so bad with them, but based on my experience and everyone I personally know who has published through BookSurge, we all were left feeling pissed off by their lack of customer service, lack of responsiveness, and lack of interest in helping their authors succeed. They are only committed to one thing: short-term profits for themselves rather than building long-term mutually rewarding relationships with their authors (and customers!). After all the negative comments, feedback and remarks, you would think they would improve, but what is weird is that they have only gotten worse. Very unfortunate, because their basic business model was good (close relationship with amazon.com), but their execution has been terrible. From what I hear this has to do with the leadership (founders/owners/ceo) of the company, but I do not know this for a fact. All I know that the ceo could not give a damn when I complained about getting ripped off by his salesperson. Neither he nor his salesperson had the courtesy to apologize or to clear up the misunderstanding (if there was one). They could not care less, and as a result they lost me and about 4 other people who I personally know who were looking at BookSurge vs others. Where did we all go after BookSurge? We ended up going to different POD publishers (some of which have been listed here) as a result of this horrifying experience. While none of them are perfect, at least we get treated with respect and are not finding ourselves with poor quality books (incorrect types/fonts, poor binding, terrible paper etc.) as we did with some of our BookSurge experiences.
Big warning about POD sales (Booksurge, etc.) and Amazon etc., by Writers Net
Another Lawsuit Against Amazon: Author April McDonald Sues Amazon for $10.5 M
A Mixed Bag
Absolute Write Water Cooler - BookSurge You’ll find some good testimonials as well as bad ones on this forum.
Based on everything I’ve read, I have no desire to publish my future books via BookSurge or CreateSpace (which is free). What alternatives does this leave me, if Amazon decides to disable the “buy” button for my books’ listing? I’m looking into that right now.
Published by deborah.woehr on 30 Mar 2008
Unsurprisingly, there is still no word from Lulu’s management about their position regarding Amazon. I also wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t find anything about this publishing coup on Amazon or BookSurge. This hasn’t stopped stopped people from reacting, both inside and outside of the blogosphere. The list below is from Beyond Niche Marketing, who has compiled a list of 62 people who have commented on this development.
Amazon plus BookSurge WTF?, by AuthorNation.com
Just Remember Amazon.com that karma is a beautiful thing, by Jupiter Gardens
You’ll find more reactions on the Lulu forum: Does Lulu Have Any Comments on the Latest Amazon Development? Lulu author, Anita Stewart has set up a petition for anyone who is interested. You can access it here.
Published by deborah.woehr on 28 Mar 2008
When Marti sent me the link to the Washington Post’s article, Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers, I just about fell over in my chair when I followed the link to read what Writer’s Weekly had to say about it. Basically, Amazon is forcing authors to sign up with BookSurge if they want their books to be sold directly through Amazon’s website. I drove home from work, pissed and worried about my listings for Prosperity and the 2006 Writer’s Blog Anthology. I’m happy to report that as of right now, you can still buy these books (and any others published by Lulu) from Amazon.
Authors who chose Publish America as their route for publishing are not so fortunate, unless they had their books formatted for Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader. Although their books are still listed, they have to either rely on third party vendors to sell their books or enlist in Amazon’s Advantage program.
Will the same thing happen to Lulu publishers in the future? No one knows right now because management has yet to respond, but it’s a strong possibility if Lulu doesn’t adhere to Amazon’s terms. One author on the Lulu forum commented that Amazon isn’t the only avenue to sell your books, and he’s right. But Amazon has become a household names to millions of people who otherwise wouldn’t know of your book’s existence. That’s what really hurts, the lost book sales and for a POD service that is inferior.
I can’t help but feel that Amazon has joined the ranks of Google and Microsoft.
Published by deborah.woehr on 12 Mar 2008
I was ecstatic when I found an email waiting for me this morning, by paranormal author Pamela K. Kinney, who recently published Haunted Richmond. Below is a snippet of the full review that she wrote for Prosperity.
This book explores not only the theme of the paranormal kind of hauntings, but digs into those of the psychological kind that haunt both the living and even the dead. Lines between evil and good can be splattered by many shades of gray. That sometimes, a town is more than just s town, but the center of Hell itself. And that is why Prosperity will scare you.
I give Prosperity 4 Dragons.
Published by deborah.woehr on 18 Feb 2008
When I wrote yesterday’s post, I honestly didn’t expect to see my book listed on Amazon before the month was up. Imagine my surprise when I found it up early this morning. There is no synopsis, and Amazon is listing it as temporarily unavailable. A year and a half ago, I had no problem uploading the synopsis for the anthology. But if you frequent Amazon as much as I do, you’ll know that they changed their interface again.
Even though I’m able to update the author information, date of publication, etc., they left out the synopsis section. So. I’ll have to look for a solution on Lulu forum to see how I can get around shelling out $25 for the Amazon Advantage program. I’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime, here’s the link. Thanks to all of you who gave me moral support and/or offered advice. I would still be revising the manuscript if it wasn’t for you.
Published by deborah.woehr on 17 Feb 2008
It’s been a month and a half since I published Prosperity, and so far things are going pretty well. So far I’ve met 10% of my goal to sell 50 copies by the end of this year. Most of the feedback I’ve received up to this point has been biased (but encouraging, nonetheless). This is what my editor had to say after he finished reading and marking up my manuscript:
It is an excellent story, very well written, a strong storyline, and characters that not only start with a strong impact, but also develop well. I would have liked to have seen more physical descriptions of the characters, but that’s a small issue, and one that doesn’t negatively impact the story. The idea is good, and you maintain a good pace throughout, which makes the book a very good read.
That’s my first unbiased review. I have another review scheduled for March 15 by paranormal author Pamela Kinney. I’m in the process of looking for other reviewers. Yes, I should have done this well beforehand. Live and learn.
The virtual book tour is still going well. I’m meeting new people and had a blast with my latest interview with Henri, the Ghostest with the Mostest.
Last weekend, I contacted Lulu to see when I can expect to find Prosperity listed on Amazon. They told me that it would take 6 to 8 weeks. Somewhere on that site, I had read 2 to 4. Because I inadvertently left out the ISBN number off the copyright page, the book didn’t get published until January 15. That means that I won’t see it listed until March 15, at the latest.
Published by deborah.woehr on 13 Feb 2008
I’ve been down with the flu since Friday, so I have some catching up to do.
Interview with Beyond the Books: I don’t know about you, but I enjoy listening to or reading about people’s life stories. The questions are mostly writing-related, which were interesting, but I enjoyed reading the authors’ responses to the last five questions, which focused on their goals.
Author Spotlight at The Dark Phantom Review: Mayra Calvani, who interviewed me at Blog Critics, posted my excerpt on her book review site. Like Beyond the Books, you’ll find all kinds of books here.
Prosperity: From Concept to Reality posted at The Story Behind the Book: This is another gem of a blog. The title says it all. The most interesting article I’ve read on that site so far is “Marwan: The Autobiography of a 911 Terrorist. I remember reading about how several authors had experienced having their books kicked back to them after 9/11 because they referenced this tragedy in one way or the other.
Author Spotlight at Buzz the Book: This is another good place to go if you’d like to read book excerpts from new authors.
