Interesting print quality comparisons

Having a self-published book that is printed on demand means you (or rather, your readers) have to tolerate inconsistency in print quality, because different printers have different ways of reproducing your source file.

So, if you are about to order one of my books or have just done so, although the interior of the book - the main content - will remain the same there are some slight exterior difference.

For example, after designing the front cover of Drive to Nowhere, I purchased proof copies from the Lulu site. The printed colours, especially the blacks, did not come out as dark as I would have liked (see version on the right), although the quality was nevertheless acceptable.

The company that printed the books when I ordered them via Lulu was Anthony Rowe, a short to medium run book manufacturer in the UK. When comparing the book to the source file, my design definitely looked darker on screen (and my monitor has been colour calibrated) and the edges of the letters on screen was smooth. But as we know, in the print on demand world this doesn't mean that the actual physical book will turn out the same.

For this reason, I chose not to try and redo the cover because no matter who you use, the cover will always look slightly different.

If you order my book from Amazon UK, then Lightning Source will print it, so it will look different again. I'm still waiting on that copy, but I also ordered a copy of my book from the Amazon US site which I think is also printed by Lightning Source. It was interesting to discover the colours turned out far darker than the Anthony Rowe version -- almost too dark, in fact, but closer to my original intention. In addition, there was less of the blurred, fuzzy edges that had characterised the Anthony Rowe versions. Also of note: they'd added their own version of the barcode to the back of the book and on one of the last pages, and the back cover was EXACTLY as I'd intended. So if the third printer produces a front cover that's in between these two versions and has the Amazon.com style back cover... or is that too much to ask?

Drive to Nowhere and Amazon distribution

You can now 'search inside' Drive to Nowhere - a process that the publisher must initiate. It was all quite easy, though, and took less than three weeks.

The book is currently listed for sale on all Amazon sites including Japan and retail prices remain steady at approximately $19/£9.

When you purchase a Distribution package through Lulu, the book is eventually listed by a number of online retailers. However, physical shops don't tend to automatically stock your book unless you have a reputation because print-on-demand books are not returnable. You're a liability to them if you're an unknown.

One solution is to buy in bulk yourself and sell the books on consignment to the physical bookstores. For most, this is not economical, takes up space and defeats the whole purpose of print-on-demand. You need to buy a lot of books to get a higher margin on them.

The other advantage of an ISBN is that theoretically customers should be able to order a book in from any bookstore, right? It doesn't always work that way, however, due to the deals big chains have with distributors. With a little persistence it should be possible, though

Banned by social networking sites everywhere?

The trouble with promoting a book yourself is that you don't really have a budget. Mine's been stretched to the limit with the postcards, promotional copies and press packs I've sent, or am sending, out.

So, there's always the social networking route, right? Potentially millions of people stumbling over your creation... virtual buzz on forums everywhere...

Well, I've tried hard to use social networking as a promotional tool for Drive to Nowhere, and I'm having little joy after receiving warnings lately from various companies!

First there was Bebo, the social networking site that's popular with my demographic -- the 13 to 24s. Bebo has a section called Authors. It allows you to share your works in progress, add fans and create a special page dedicated to your story/novel/poem/whatever.

I spent three hours creating a customised skin for the page, which basically means the page's theme is all Drive To Nowhere-related stuff. I also posted three free chapters of my novel on the page, and on the blog I mentioned that the book was now ready to purchase on Lulu.com (I saw another profile mentioning their Lulu book, too!). I submitted the page for possible inclusion on the Authors homepage.

I told a few people about the site, but only about six people visited it. Next time I tried to visit, the page was broken. Thinking it was a temporary error, I left it for the day but the problem still persisted. I could log in and see my Author profile, but when I clicked through to the page there was an error message.

Frustrated, I emailed Bebo to ask them what was wrong. I later received the response:

You have been reported due to inappropriate content or conduct. We are unable to enter into detailed discussions regarding this, but we do evaluate each case ourselves before sending a conduct warning or cancelling a membership and regret that we have need to resort to this course of action. You were in violation of our Terms of Use, please read the abstract below. You can access our full Terms of Use by clicking on the following link or copy and pasting it into a browser window: http://www.bebo.com/TermsOfUse.jsp.

Excuse me? I was reported? This reminded me of when I was kicked out of the university library in 1996 for 'chatting' online.

I clicked on the Terms of Use link and was still flummoxed. I still am, although I figure they may have considered my measly link to my Lulu shopfront as 'disseminating unsolicited advertising'. I wouldn't think that was grounds for deletion, and even if it was, I would have appreciated being told what I'd done wrong, and given a chance to delete the links. After I'd conducted a social networking investigation on Bebo and other websites in 2006, the amount of stuff I'd seen on Bebo (bullying, porn, spam, drug use etc) was by far greater grounds for deletion than my piddly little website. And when I reported the pages to Bebo back then, it took them a long time to get rid of them. Even the Google Ads at the time were inappropriate. Bebo has stepped up its game since then but had it now become almost too vigilant?

Undeterred, I boycotted Bebo and moved on to Facebook. As I'd joined the London network, I thought I'd take a look at the Marketplace where you could list items for sale. I had a few books in my possession and an Amazon link now, so I could try and sell books direct or send them to my Amazon site where I might make a sale.

I looked at the other advertisements on the Facebook Marketplace. These included get rich quick schemes, 'work from home' modelling solicitations, £5 Nintendo Wiis and other general detritus. Surely my ad about my book was in no way violating their terms of use?

So, I proceeded to list the item. Then yesterday, I get this:

You posted a Marketplace listing that violated our Terms of Use, and this listing has been removed. We do not allow spam, nudity, drug use, attacks on an individual or group, or other obscene content. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in your account being disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact us at warning@facebook.com from your login email address. The Facebook Team

Hmm. My book is for teenagers. Spam? No. Nudity? No. Drug use? No. Attacks on others? Er, no. Obscene content? No.

I logged in to Facebook and above the News Feed I was greeted the warning message that repeats the content of the email I received. I'm supposed to tick a box and 'acknowledge' that I have read the information. I refuse to tick and acknowledge this unless I get answers from Facebook about why my posting was deleted when, again, there are all these other spammy posts being chucked on there.

So, each time I log into Facebook, I'm going to see that message. And I'm leaving it there.

Update: 24 hours later, I received a response which said:

Your listing was removed because we do not allow users to advertise services or businesses using the Marketplace feature. If you would like to advertise your business in the future, please consider using our Facebook Ads system. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Hmm. I don't think it was a service or business, but the second part of the paragraph proves what I thought. They just want me to buy their ads.

I'm almost thankful for Murdoch and MySpace. Despite the chaos, the site is so crammed with ads and people promoting themselves, it's almost as if they've given up and let us get on with sorting it out ourselves! Don't get me wrong, if something is genuinely violating the Terms, then I'm all for taking it down -- and quickly -- but I just don't see how my tentative attempts at promoting a self-published novel have been greeted with such dismay. I guess they just want to see the money.

Does anyone even look at Google Books?

When you buy a Distribution package through Lulu, which gives you an ISBN and online listings at retailers worldwide, you also have the option to enable Google Book Search. Your book's PDF file is sent to Google where the text goes into its searchable database.

The entire book is scanned but you can only read snippets of copyrighted books and publishers can remove their books if they no longer want them scanned. Books that are out of copyright can be downloaded as PDFs.

I like the idea but whether it will drive sales remains to be seen.

The Google Books 'About' page contains a testimonial about how great it supposedly is. One author writes: "Lack of exposure is the primary reason that a book like mine would fail in the marketplace. Your search engine is the primary way that people find their way to my website, and subsequently, my book." Another says: "If we have hope as authors in the digital age, it's in projects like Google Book Search."

It may take two months for your book to be indexed once submitted, and mine isn't on there yet. But when it is, will I see a jump in sales all of a sudden? I don't think so. Maybe it's not so big in the UK, but I don't hear of people using Google Books Search regularly. Still, it is only in Beta (testing) mode and I do like the idea of books being on there -- it's a nice concept. I managed to discover through the Book Search that I was cited in three publications, which was pretty cool. It also seems to be a useful source for students, historians and other researchers.

Another testimonial said their book's sales rank "jumped 85 per cent" on an online retailer's site. Sounds good in print, but if mine did that, it would jump from 1.2 million on Amazon.com to 200,000 or something -- not a huge achievement by any means!

Marketing Drive to Nowhere

Marketing a book when you have just self-published a novel is hard work.

Two weeks ago, I:

• Wrote a press release using PrLeap which was made available on Google News, Moreover and other outlets to help increase search engine traffic and visibility for key word searches.
• Sent out around 25 press packs to UK and Australian magazines, newspapers and booksellers. This included the press release; some included a colour illustration of the main protagonist. I also included a see-through envelope containing a selection of glow-in-the-dark stars. Some lucky (random) people may have also received glow-in-the-dark planets and even an ammonite or piece of obsidian (volcanic glass)!
• Did some social networking - created a MySpace page for Eeare and linked to my press release on Facebook. Actually, Eeare's picture has been subconsciously seen by dozens of journalists all around the country in a screen shot of her MySpace page this week and by about 150,000 other magazine readers - let's hope subliminal 'advertising' does work!
• Sent my book to the British Library's legal deposit office to make it official.
• Sent a few emails to family and friends to encourage them to buy the book.
• Donated a copy of the book to my local library. They might want to sell it off, but so long as someone reads it, I'll be happy.
• Checked how my Distribution went. Now, my books are available on Amazon, Play.com, Lulu.com, The Book Depository and more, with more to come. Images and meta-info now need updating.

How many books have you sold?

I think it's a myth that 'self-publishing' is something you should be ashamed of. I think the only people who scorn self-publishers are the big-name publishers themselves, and the snobby reviewers in highbrow newspapers and magazines that no one reads anyway.

Yes, it's true -- most self-publishers won't sell that many books, but that's something you accept if you take this route. (Besides, most traditionally published books don't turn out to be blockbusters either as there's no marketing budget for everyone.)

Lulu.com, the company I used to set up and start distributing Drive to Nowhere, says its aim is to have one million authors selling 100 books each rather than 100 authors selling one million books each. Even Amazon has moved into the self-publishing market with CreateSpace which lets anyone sell their own book on Amazon (US).

The self-publishing of today is different to the vanity presses from ten years ago. Back then you'd have to order the stock yourself and pay for absolutely everything involved in the production. This was handy for an elderly family friend who published her memoirs and needed assistance with layout and editing. She didn't mind forking out the cost as she had the money and a story to tell. But these days, you can do it all online for free, so there's minimal risk involved. That is quite liberating!

Drive to Nowhere is finished!

After more than a year, Drive to Nowhere, my first novel, is out there and available for purchase, warts and all. It's about a girl called Eeare Kindred, her friends and a mysterious and harrowing experience in the Australian wilderness.

Thanks go to Sean and Anne for their help in reading an earlier draft of the manuscript; their comments were extremely helpful.

I thought I'd start up a blog to tell people about the book and also about how the self-publishing process needn't be a chore. I highly recommend using Lulu to publish your books, as there's minimal outlay. By purchasing an ISBN from them you'll also be able to see your books sold at retail outlets worldwide like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Tesco, WH Smith, Waterstone's, BOL and many more.

That's not the only thing you'll need to do, though. A lot of marketing is involved. You can tell your friends and family about the novel, but that's not enough. You will need to create a press release, and send that out, and basically scream about the book at the top of your lungs. You will need to get respected, positive reviews from people, too -- that's the bit I'm up to. Or you could just try and strike it lucky and hope random people come across your creation... so that's what this blog is going to be all about!