Posts filed under 'Advice'
Self Publishing Holiday Printing & Shipping Schedule
Santa Claus may be able to travel around the world in the blink of an eye, but books can’t! Even with lightning fast print-on-demand technology, books still need a certain amount of time for manufacturing and shipping.
As the holiday season approaches, book production reaches peak capacity as hundreds of thousands of authors from all corners of the globe order copies of their books for family, friends, and relatives. What a wonderful way to celebrate the holiday season — with a freshly published book in the hands of your loved ones!
We want to be sure your season is filled with holiday cheer, so if you plan on ordering copies of your published book for delivery in time for Christmas, please place your order no later than December 1, 2009.
Sure, your books will probably arrive a few days early, but that’s better than a few hours late, right? This is for domestic ground shipping within the continental United States. If you’re aiming for a different holiday, and/or if you live outside the continental United States, adjust your ordering date accordingly.
We’re assuming an average shipping timeframe via UPS of 5 days, but keep in mind — UPS becomes over-burdened during the holiday season, too.
Are you a published Outskirts Press author? You can conveniently order copies of your published book(s) from your online Author’s Center here…
Not yet published? Start today…
1 comment November 19, 2009
Self Publishing Helps Cope With Life Challenges
Pepper is a born-and-bred New York City dog that loves the Big Apple — especially the city’s myriad fire hydrants. That is, until the attacks of Sept. 11th. Pepper sinks into a deep depression mixed with profound anxiety about the future. Then one day his friend Rover comes along and shows Pepper the goodness that surged in response to that infamous day’s events. Pepper learns that the world is worth living for, doggone it, and anyone who says otherwise is barking up the wrong tree.
Pepper and Rover are the main characters of It’s Still a Dog’s New York, Susan L. Roth’s post-9-11 book written for children who are either struggling to make sense of the tragedy or are learning about it for the first time. And it’s not alone. A growing number of children’s books dealing with Sept. 11—tackling youngsters’ unique reactions and fears, often starkly honest and vividly depicted—are now on bookstore shelves.
These books are a part of a sub-genre in children’s literature, broadly identified as “bibliotherapy,” that confront real-life issues like death, disease, divorce, and, yes, even the fear and uncertainty of an economic recession. Available for just about every age group of young readers, these books offer an opportunity for parents and educators to help their children and students cope with complicated problems.
Once a novelty, books tackling such broad issues as divorce and death are now widely available for children of all ages. And with the proliferation of print-on-demand, the genre is finding renewed creativity and relevance sparked by a new wave of self-publishing writers. Parents-turned-first-time-authors are now tackling issues unique to their own childrens’ situations, publishing books for the world to share, and experiencing the cathartic effects themselves, as well.
Evidence of the effectiveness of bibliotherapy continues to mount. Tabrina Legault and Melissa Boila, writing for the journal of the International and Child Youth Care Network, point to several ways in which bibliotherapy helps heal emotional problems. Among other benefits, they find bibliotherapy:
- allows children to identify with those depicted in the book and relate similar experiences to their own lives;
- leads to a recognition of how other people respond to frustration and disappointment, helping develop empathy and understanding of human behavior;
- can result in a self-analysis of their own feelings for further discussion.
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| 28 Days…A Recovery Journal
by Elaine Bergmann |
I Have a Secret: The Darkness of Alcoholism
by Elaine Bergmann |
Of course, children’s books acknowledging major life events are nothing new. Charlotte’s Web, for instance, masterfully deals with the issue of death and loss. What has changed is the honesty of the treatment on big issues as well as the variety of topics. Chalk that diversity up to a relinquishing of the guard. As recently as a few short years ago, conglomerate New York publishers were still the main gatekeepers on all children’s books published in America, leading to a glut of taffy-colored fluff while more serious subjects were considered taboo and relegated to the slush piles.
Now anyone with a story to tell can publish professionally. Filling the need for thoughtful entries on these tough subjects are parents, educators, and entrepreneurs. They’re penning their own children’s books and imbuing them with precisely the message they want to share. These people may never have considered themselves writers until now, but they have been empowered and feel an undeniable drive to share their message with their own children and children of the world.
Indeed, today’s self-published children’s books cover topics that might not otherwise have found interest among traditional publishers, topics like:
- bullies at school, directed toward a child’s weight, appearance, or lack of athleticism, etc.
- tolerance of differences among peers, such as income levels, religious beliefs, nuclear families vs. broken homes, etc.;
- a parent’s history with substance, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; long term changes in living situations , such as the arrival of stepchildren or grandparents;
- unique abilities and challenges faced by peers or family members with special needs, i.e., autism or Down Syndrome, etc.
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| Young Adults With Asperger’s
by David A. Krug |
Understanding Autism through Rapid Prompting Method
by Soma Mukhopadhyay |
What’s more, many of these novice authors are discovering another benefit to writing a book for children dealing with a significant, stressful life event: their own healing. Authors often discover that putting these important lessons into words forces them to work through their own emotions.
In fact, studies show the act of writing about stressful or traumatic events can have physical and emotional benefits. In a 2005 article in the journal Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, psychiatrists Karen A. Baikie and Kay Wilhelm examine how expressive writing—short, repeated writing exercises drawing on upsetting or traumatic experiences— appeared to have beneficial physical and psychological effects. They posited that writing about such issues encourages confrontation of previously inhibited emotions; helps with cognitive processing of events; and develops a coherent narrative for healing. While the research did not directly consider the writing of children’s books, it is easy to see the relevancy.
Regardless of the the issue tackled or the story composed, experts offer a few suggestions to ensure a book’s bibliotherapeutic effectiveness, including:
- using age-appropriate language;
- treating characterizations honestly and realistically;
- avoiding explicit preaching while allowing the reader to make the moral connection through critical thinking;
- providing a good, well-written story with relevant illustrations.
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| Marshmallows and Bikes: Teaching Children (and Adults) Personal Finance
by Brian Nelson Ford |
Pennies to Billions
by Thomas Fisher |
Of course, even the best executed book in the bibliotherapy genre is not a cure-all, and experts note books should never substitute for the intervention of a health care professional where necessary. But providing your child with a personal book for the purpose of healing, whether it’s off the shelf or self-inspired, will do what literature has done since we first began telling stories to each other: enlighten, explain, and excite!
For a limited time only, get up to 20 free copies when you publish with Outskirts Press. For details and the
necessary promotion code, click the button below.
Add comment September 9, 2009
How to register your self-published book with Google Book Settlement
Whether your book was published ten years ago or ten minutes ago, it is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to officially registering your book with Google to be eligible for potential pay-outs in accordance with the Google Book Settlement.
Rather than confusing this already-complex subject with summaries of what the Google Book Settlement is, or whether books are eligible or not (there is plenty of information and opinions on those topics online already), this is going to be short and sweet. We are going to assume you want to participate by opting-in (there’s no downside) and we’re going to tell you how to do that as simply as possible.
Here is what you need to do personally if you want your book(s) to be registered with the Google Book Settlement…
How to Register Your Book
# 1: Go to http://www.googlebooksettlement.com and read the information on the home page. There is a detailed and comprehensive FAQ if you are curious for more information. These steps below are of a general nature, so always be sure the steps you complete are in accordance with your specific circumstance.
You will notice two deadlines on this page . If you wish to be eligible for cash pay-outs, you must opt-in by completing this online process by January 5, 2010. These are the steps to do that.
If you choose to opt-out, you must complete the opt-out process online by September 4. There’s really no reason to opt-out unless you’re planning on suing Google separately from this class action suit.
Hint, if you do nothing at all, you will most likely be treated as if you opted in, but that is a judgment call that will be made much later, legally, by the Department of Justice. To be on the safe side, actively opt-in now.
After reading the home page on the Google Book Settlement site, click the “Claim Books and Inserts” button.
# 2: Your browser may ask if you want to see secure and unsecured items because you are now accessing an SSL (https) secure server. Indicate that you want to see both.
Here you are going to create your registry account. In 95% of the cases, you are going to select the first choice, “Author or author heir” so if you are unsure as to what to choose, choose the first one.
If you are positive that you specifically registered your own ISBN with Bowker manually yourself under your specific publishing imprint name, choose the second choice, “Publisher.”
# 3: At this point, a rather daunting form will appear. Fill it out in its entirety, using your personal information. Do NOT use your publisher’s information.
At the bottom of this form is a “Create Account” button. Once you have completed the form, press the button.
# 4: At this point, the website will require you to sign-in using the username and password you just created. In 98% of the cases, you will NOT have multiple sign-ins.
After you sign-in for the first time, the site will require you to confirm your email address. Check your email in-box for an automatic email from Google containing a verification code. Cut and paste the verification code from the email into the form and then click the “Verify Account” button.
# 5: Now you will be in your account where you can manage your claims. Of course, during your first visit, you won’t have any books listed yet. In order to claim your first book, click the “Find and claim” link hiding at the very bottom of the screen.
# 6: When you click that link you will see this page, which provides you with choices for how to best locate the book you want to claim. In almost all cases you will want to first conduct
a search for the book to see if Google can find it for you.
Click the “Continue” button once you have the “Search for books” choice selected to see
this screen.
Try to be as specific as possible at first, and then more and more general to double and triple check that your book is not in Google’s system before entering it manually. Check via title and ISBN first. The “older” your book is, the more likely it is that Google already has the title within its database, waiting for you to claim your rights to it.
If you are positive there are no matches for your title, click the “Add a book if it is not listed above” link at the very bottom to add your book manually.
# 7: Once you add the book, search for it to get this screen, where you can select the book by checking off the check-box to the left of the title. Make sure the book listed is truly your book. It is unlawful to lay claim to a book for which you don’t own the rights. On the other hand, completing this process for all your books will prevent someone else from mistakenly
laying claim to your book(s).
The click the button that says “Finish claim form for selected books.”
# 8: The following screen is a little confusing. You must first assert your rights and you do this by clicking the difficult-to-find “Assert rights” link within the title box at the top of the screen:
It will ask if you are asserting rights for the book, or an insert. In 95% of the cases, it will be for the book, so choose the “book” choice followed by the appropriate answer to the subsequent question concerning rights. Here, in nearly all the cases of self-published POD
books, you will choose the first choice: “I own the rights” but double check your own publishing contract agreement first.
If you are an Outskirts Press author, this choice is easy. You ALWAYS own all the rights.
# 9: Click the “Save and Continue” button, then read and certify the certification section by clicking the check box next to the “I certify that…” language.
Click the “Submit Claim” button and you’re done. If you have more than one book, repeat the process as many times as necessary.
Hurry! Our promotion to get up to
20 free copies with your book
is expiring soon. For details and the necessary promotion
code, click the button below.
Add comment August 17, 2009
How Self Publishing Distribution Works
One of the most common misconceptions about print-on-demand companies is that their only value is printing books one at a time. While it is true that just-in-time printing is an advantage of publishing with a POD publishing service company, there are many greater advantages than just printing. Allowing a company to handle all the “heavy lifting” like accounting, taxes (foreign taxes are particularly intensive), and fulfillment are all equally good reasons to publish through an established self-publishing company.
Perhaps the best reason of all, however, is not the printing of the books, but the distribution of the books after publication. Let’s use Outskirts Press and their distribution-on-demand network as an example. The distribution and availability offered by each company may differ, so be sure to check. The Outskirts Press distribution-on-demand network is visualized below and comes included with the Diamond, Ruby, and Pearl publishing packages.
As any independently published author doing everything entirely on their own will tell you, printing a book is actually the easy (albeit expensive) part. It is what happens AFTER the book has been made available that dictates success. The largest US Wholesaler is Ingram Book Company. Some publishers, like those offered by Amazon, for example, do not even distribute their own books through the largest US wholesaler Ingram. The graphic above indicates the crippling effect that could have on your book’s availability.
Even though Ingram is so important to a book’s availability, many independently published authors are unable to secure representation with Ingram because Ingram typically requires that an author or publisher have at least 7 active titles in order to be interested. No wonder more and more authors are seeking out print-on-demand publishers with extensive distribution networks like the one shown above.
Contributing to an author’s confusion about how self-publishing distribution works is a mind set that originated with old fashioned publishers — that a book must physically exist in printed form in order to sell it. Makes sense, right? Counter-intuitively, that is no longer the case. In fact, the very power of the distribution-on-demand network is that a physical copy of the book no longer needs to be printed before it is sold. Sometimes, the book is printed only after the book is sold, the money is collected, and the author’s royalty is earned. This is the explanation for how POD books can be available at thousands upon thousands of locations, and 25,000 bookstores and sales channels worldwide, even though that number of copies have not been printed or sold yet.
Understandably, some authors find this new concept in book distribution somewhat difficult. So let’s walk through the distribution network shown above, step by step, and you will see how amazingly easy it is to make your book available with the help of a full service publisher like Outskirts Press:
1. The Outskirts Press logo represents publication with Outskirts Press. At the time of publication, the book’s bibliographic information and metadata are provided to Bowker’s Books-in-Print database. The book is also made available through Outskirts Press Direct wholesaling at http://outskirtspress.com/buybooks for those sales channels that have access to neither Ingram nor Baker & Taylor.
2. The book’s information is accepted and catalogued by Ingram Book Company and becomes available to order wholesale through Ingram. An EDI (electronic data interchange) feed distributes that book’s metadata information to all the sales channels that receive the feed (shown above, and there are many others). Each sales channel has specific requirements for displaying the book’s information on their website. If the book’s specifications meet the retailers requirements, the book is displayed for sale.
3. Ingram also passes the book’s information to another large US wholesaler, Baker & Taylor, who provides wholesaling for some bookstores and also primarily offers availability to the US library system.
4. Nearly every retail bookstore (chain and independent) has a wholesale relationship with either Ingram and the same EDI feed that populates all the common book websites also provides direct access and availability to all those brick and mortar bookstores.
5. Now the book is available for order just about everywhere. Let’s use an order that originates on Amazon.com to see what happens next. An Amazon customer finds the book on Amazon, adds it to her shopping cart, and completes her purchase with a credit card. Amazon electronically sends that order to Ingram.
6. If Ingram possess the book in stock in one of its warehouses (rare), it uses a book from its inventory. Otherwise, the Outskirts Press book is printed POD within 24 hours from the time of order receipt. Once the physical book exists, two things happen. A) Ingram records the sale of that book (Amazon is the customer, not the end reader) and Ingram reports that sale on a monthly basis (3 months after the fact) to Outskirts Press. B) The book is drop-shipped directly from Ingram to the Amazon customer.
7. The Outskirts Press author did not have to order copies of this book in order to sell it. In fact, once it was published by Outskirts Press, the entire order, fulfillment, and accounting of the transaction occurred without the author’s involvement. Presumably, the Outskirts Press author was involved in the marketing of the book, which is how the reader ordered it from Amazon in the first place. But once that order is placed, there is no heavy-lifting by the author at all. Compare that with the stories from independently published authors who will tell you that processing orders can involve the heaviest lifting of all.
And that is how self publishing distribution and automatic book fulfillment works — and why self publishing through a service company like Outskirts Press is becoming more popular for authors who would rather write and market their books, and not haul copies in their car back and forth to the post office.
Ready to get published?
Add comment June 25, 2009
The definition of self publishing companies
There’s a lot of confusion right now about this whole DIY (do it yourself) publishing thing. The internet is partly to blame because it allows anyone with an opinion to publicize their thoughts, regardless of accuracy. The publishing companies themselves are also partly to blame, because this new realm of self-publishing or POD (print-on-demand) publishing is still so new that companies are jockeying for position, awareness, brand recognition, and author loyalty — all the while trying to find a widely accepted term that accurately describes what the companies do.
More on that tomorrow, as SELF PUBLISHING SELF HELP WEEK continues. Topics already discussed are the two different publishing business models, and the 3 paths to publishing. Now we’ll look at some commonly held labels for internet publishers to see if they are applicable, or even accurate…
The problem is, each company is slightly different, so applying an general label to any of them is apt to be partly wrong. While many perform some of the same tasks, many also differentiate themselves in some manner. For authors trying to find the proper company for them, a good tactic is to focus more on the differences between each company, not the similarities.
Even the concept of self-publishing itself is cause for some confusion, because different people have different definitions for what constitutes “self publishing.” As a result, companies and authors are now trying to draw a distinction between “self publishing companies” and “print-on-demand companies” – even though such a distinction does not help very much. Why? Because many “print-on-demand companies” are also “self-publishing companies.” And, by the same token, many “self-publishing companies” use print-on-demand.
Self Publishing Companies
Most companies that refer to themselves as “self publishing companies” utilize print-on-demand technology, further supporting the notion that trying to create a distinction between the two terms is futile. In fact, almost all references to “self-publishing companies” refer to companies that use POD almost exclusively. Where they differ from “print-on-demand companies,” apparently, is by emphasizing the “self” portion of the term. In other words, by some definitions (as faulty as they may be) a “self publishing company” leaves everything up to the author all by himSELF or herSELF.
This is a faulty distinction. Even though a website may appear to remove the “human touch” from the publishing process, all self-publishing companies that are referenced as such have humans working on each book behind the scenes, in some manner or another. An internet website publisher that doesn’t allow you to submit your manuscript electronically via the web isn’t drawing a distinction for itself. Both “self publishing companies” and “print-on-demand companies” should allow this type of functionality at this point in the internet revolution. Companies that do not or cannot technically offer manuscript uploads are probably technically limited in all areas, and should be reconsidered.
Print-on-Demand Companies
Equally confusing is the distinction of “print-on-demand companies” who still offer self-publishing services, but do so via print-on-demand technology. Well, that isn’t much of a distinction, because all so-called “self-publishing companies” also use POD technology.
If there is any validity to the distinction, it’s this: there are print-on-demand publishing companies that act more in the capacity of “conventional publishers” in that they solicit submissions, vet manuscripts, publish only those they feel they can profitably sell, and may even offer authors an advance against future royalties. In other words, the only difference between some so-called “print-on-demand companies” and traditional New York publishers is the use of POD for the printing. Granted, this is not the majority. The majority of “print-on-demand companies” are also “self publishing companies” and vise versa.
More confusing still is that some writer forums and blog postings refer to “self publishing companies” as “print-on-demand companies” if the company helps the author in any way, through the assignment of an author representative or advocate or other such human contact. Presumably the distinction here is that, since a human is assigned to help the author, the author is no longer “self” publishing their book and therefore the company cannot be a “self-publishing company.” Ultimately, this is all a matter of semantics.
It is for this reason that self-publishing companies (or is it print-on-demand companies?) attempt to counter this confusion by coining terms that they can try to brand and own. “Indie Publishing” is a new one, suggesting “independent publishing” – but that’s also inaccurate because an author acting independently would not be working with a company.
Outskirts Press currently uses the term “full service self publishing” to describe itself, as it seems the most appropriate. Authors receive full service, professional assistance while still maintaining all the rights, control, pricing flexibility, and customization that comes from self-publishing. Is it a term that will eventually make the grade as the new publishing industry finds itself? Only time will tell. But it’s working well for our authors in the meantime… We try to feature this competitive comparison here on our website: http://outskirtspress.com/offer.html
Want to experience full service self publishing for yourself?
Add comment June 24, 2009
