Rolling On After A Crisis Of The Keyboard …by Susan Lute

This week I got a tattoo. I went on a two-week vacation and when I got home, I got a tattoo on my leg where I can see it. It’s a dragon. Sassy. With attitude. Refreshed, feeling a little full of myself, with a clear mind, the next thing I did was have a crisis of creativity. Actually it was less a crisis and more…why am I writing this? Hero’s Don’t Lie is coming along great. The characters are fleshing out, the plot is interesting, I like the story…but why am I writing it?

I’m preparing to give a workshop in August, and one of the questions I’m asking the participants to think about is why they are writing their current work-in-progress. There are, of course, a lot reasons to write a story – to continue a series, try something fresh, to push your writing chops to the next level, to revisit characters or a town you’re grown familiar with and have enjoyed, perhaps because you’re excited to write the next book. But here’s the thing. If you are writing a story because you think it’s expected of you, because you might feel guilty because you are “abandoning” the series (in my case) before it is completed, then you have to think very seriously about WHY you’re writing that particular story.

A good friend told me – ’cause when I go through these things, which is quite often you’ve noticed, I spill my guts. She told me, “you’re not really abandoning the project, you’re just setting it aside for awhile.” Always wanting to be honest with myself at least, I gave her sage advice considerable thought, and the real truth is, I don’t want to write contemporary romance any more. I won’t say I would NEVER write it again, because in this business you never say never, but I want to write something else. The Dragonkind Chronicles, Book Two is waiting, a little impatiently now, I might add, but even more exciting, I ran across a scrap of a note the other day on which I’d written a story idea, and pow!, I can’t stop thinking about how to make it into a story. It requires a lot of research, so I’m starting there. And it’s urban fantasy, which will push at my chops.

At the fork in the road, I turned right instead of left. Again all is right in my world. But there’s one more thing I want to say. There are so many changes going on in publishing these days, it’s like being in a speedboat racing down a rushing, white-water river without oars or wearing a safety belt. And it’s all happening on the net. Probably writers have always been busy at their craft, but not working ten hours a day at the “business” of publishing and eking out maybe two at the actual writing of the book. It’s okay to get out of the boat and take a step back. Maintain a web presence, but don’t let the business take over your writing time. And don’t let it take away the reason you’re writing your story, the passion behind discovering the characters, how they will survive the situations you throw at them, and the unveiling of who they (and you) have become during their journey.

Until next time, happy, passionate writing.

Guest Author Interview: Elizabeth Naughton …by Susan Lute

Recently we had the thrill of watching fellow Pacific Northwest author and chapter-mate, Elizabeth Naughton stay at the top the USA Today Best-Selling Books list for nine weeks. You can read about her journey at her blog, April 6^th post, Self Publishing #1. Of course this Jane had many questions, which Elizabeth agreed to stop by and answer. Please join me in giving her a big See Jane welcome…

So Elizabeth, what would you say is the most important element to your success as a self published author?

For me, it’s been having a lot of books out that readers can purchase. Every time a reader reads your book and falls in love with it, they immediately rush out to buy everything else you’ve ever written. If you have no other books out, your readers will quickly lose interest and move on to a different author. Romance readers are voracious readers. When they find authors they love, they’re loyal. The key to self publishing is giving them books on a regular basis so they continue to look for more.

What is metadata? Can you explain how to adjust metadata to sell books?

Metadata is crucial to discoverability. When a reader types in a keyword search, metadata tags take them to a listing of books about whatever subject they’re looking for. If your book is about a southern belle romance in the Civil War era, your metadata tags should reflect that so readers looking for that kind of book find your work easily.

Metadata is also what’s responsible for getting you on bestsellers lists. Amazon, Kobo, Apple, etc. all have genre specific lists, and readers troll these lists looking for books to buy. If they find six of my Eternal Guardians books on the fantasy romance bestseller’s list, they’re more apt to stop and say, “Hm, that must be a good series if all six books are on the list.”

Each online retailer has a different place to refine your metadata tags when you upload or edit a book. The key for most authors is figuring out what category your books fit in. Sometimes they cross sub-genres. For example, my RS books can be classified as both romantic suspense and contemporaries, and my Eternal Guardians books are tagged as both Sci-fi/Fantasy and Paranormal.

What is the best strategy when pricing books? When and how do you offer free books to increase sales?

I experiment with pricing all the time. That’s one of the great things about Indie publishing…if it’s not working, you can change it! I’ve given thousands of books away for free, I’ll do sales, I combine books in box sets, anything to get a book visibility and create.

As for free sales, it usually works best if you offer the first book in a series free (though there are exceptions…see my answer below). Readers read that first book, love it, then go buy the rest in the series. As for length of time to leave a book free…that’s really up to the author. I’ve left books free for a week, a month, even several months. The key—for me—is never being stagnant. At any one time, I always have a book free, or marked down or a new book releasing. When your books are stagnant, readers can’t find them. And when they can’t find them, your sales will drop.

What are the three best tools for marketing books?

I don’t do a lot of promo for my books outside social media, my website, and an occasional ad (BookBub has been great to me). In my opinion, the best marketing an Indie author can do is 1) Write an awesome book, 2) Create an eye catching cover, and 3) Experiment with pricing until you find the sweet spot. But by and far the most IMPORTANT piece of this puzzle is this…WRITE THE NEXT BOOK. Without a backlist, all the promo in the world won’t drive sales the way releasing the next book will.

What  is the single most important strategy that set your course for success?

The best part about Indie publishing is that you can try different strategies, see what works, and adjust those that don’t. Gemma Halliday once said that in order to be successful in the Indie world, you have to stop looking at your books as works of art and view them as products. That’s not easy to do when you’ve toiled over a story for months (sometimes years!), but if your goal is to sell books, you have to be both artist AND entrepreneur. Every time I finish a book, my goal is not just to sell that book, but to sell all my books. To that end, I will try any type of promo if it looks feasible.

At this point, the best strategy I’ve implemented is giving books away for free. I’ve done free promos several times – usually with the first book in a series – with great results. Every time I’ve done this I’ve seen a jump in sales of ALL my books. But the best response I’ve had with free was with WAIT FOR ME. In December 2012 I decided to make WAIT FOR ME free with the hopes of drumming up a little visibility for a book that was (at the time) my slowest seller, but highest rated story. All I was hoping for was a few more reviews. What I got was a book that shot to the top of the free list on Amazon. Reviews exploded, and over the course of four weeks I gave away more than 500,000 copies. When I took WAIT FOR ME off free, it jumped to #6 on the USA Today List and #3 on the New York Times Ebook List (and #4 on the combined print/Ebook list). It spent 9 weeks on the USA Today list and 5 on the NY Times. My agent has sold countless foreign deals, audio rights and we’ve even had Hollywood interest. I’m convinced none of this would have happened if I hadn’t made WAIT FOR ME free.

Thanks so much Elizabeth for sharing your insights with us. 

Here’s Elizabeth’s bio: Bestselling Author Elisabeth Naughton writes full time from her home in western Oregon where she lives with her husband and three children. Her books have appeared on every major bestsellers list, including the New York Times, the USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Digital Book World and IndieReader, and have been nominated for numerous awards such as the prestigious RITA® awards by Romance Writers of America, the Australian Romance Reader Awards, The Golden Leaf and the Golden Heart. When not writing, Elisabeth can be found running, hanging out at the ballpark or dreaming up new and exciting adventures. Visit her website at www.ElisabethNaughton.com to learn more about her books.

Ebooks And The Power Of Free …by Susan Lute

Next month will mark our two year anniversary doing this blog. Hard to believe, isn’t it? It’s been an interesting journey. I’d say we’ve learned a lot, but we’re not done yet. Personally, I’ve arrived at the portal of the free ebook. Does it have the power to boost sales?

If you’ve been watching Darla Luke’s column USA Today Best-Selling Self-Published Books, you’ll know one of our Pacific Northwest Authors, Elizabeth Naughton stayed on that list for nearly two months. You can read about her journey at her blog, and on May 9^th we are excited to have Elizabeth right here at See Jane Publish answering our own questions about how to boost sales.

There are as many opinions about the effect of the free ebook on sales as there are Indie authors, the most predominant, Yes, it works; No, it doesn’t! My humble opinion is that it does work, but with a caveat. And maybe lowering the book price to $.99 would do the same thing. I haven’t tested that out, so I don’t know. Keep in mind others will have differing experiences. One of the things I know about self-publishing is that it’s one great big science experiment. What works for one author doesn’t always work for another.

Marie Force gives away her first novel in her McCarthys of Gansett Island Series, Maid For Love, as part of her strategy to introduce new readers to her books. Her sales have been phenomenal and have allowed her to quit the day job, which I think is most writers number one goal. What Elizabeth and Marie have in common is that they both have long series; Marie, her McCarthys and Fatal series; Elizabeth, her Eternal Guardians. Even though Wait For Me was contemporary romance, it has still stimulated sales of all her books.

And then there’s Alexandra Sokoloff who gave away 50 ebooks of her new release Blood Moon for the potential opportunity to get reviews (check out her post, Blue Moon and e publishing, again). I love this idea. How many of you would perhaps be willing to post reviews to Amazon, BN, and Goodreads for a free e-copy of a novel?

I have tried the free ebook three times, with differing results. I don’t have ready access to the numbers – still on vacation – but I can give you the general results. Five days free at Amazon, Jane’s Long March Home (contemporary romance), inspiring results, but I didn’t have a series for readers to continue buying. I’m working on that now. The same five days for The London Affair, frankly lackluster results due in part I think, because it’s women’s fiction with a smaller audience. And just concluding five days free at Amazon, The Return of Benjamin Quincy, exciting numbers, not a spectacular as Jane’s, but exciting none the less. My conclusion: free has the greatest power when you have a long series to lure the reader into, and when you leave the book free for longer than five days, which means not doing it through Amazon’s KDP program, but by using a price matching strategy.

One last note: Jessa Slade has a new enterprise, Red Circle Ink. I can highly recommend her editing skills. She gives phenomenal feedback. Good luck, Jessa!

Self Publishing…Everything’s Changing, But One Thing Remains The Same. Let’s Party! …by Susan Lute

Yes, I’m late with my post, but there is SO much going on, and tons running through my head. I had two meetings yesterday, but before I get to that, there has been a lot of conversations going on in my house. One of them is storyteller versus writer. How do you go from being a good writer to being a great storyteller? I don’t know, but I’d love to find out. Of course, for the best storytellers, it’s a gift. One they’re born with. I also think you can learn to be a great storyteller. At least that’s what I believe today. I consider J.T. Geissinger a great storyteller (if you haven’t read Edge Of Oblivion, and you love paranormal stories, you must). And J.K. Rowling. And Jessa Slade. And Nancy Brophy. I think I write a good story, but a great storyteller? Not so much. This week I made a vow to figure out how to grow beyond being a good writer and it’s spiked my enthusiasm for writing, which okay, is almost always spiked pretty high.

So, the meetings – the first one was with Maggie Jaimeson, founder of Windtree Press. Maggie is a woman with a vision. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Windtree website, take a stroll. Windtree Press is in it’s infancy right now, but one day it’s going to be the go-to place to buy good stories by Indie authors, the Sundance of Indie Books, so cleverly put by the fabulous Carolyn Zane. Which brings me to my next meeting, which was with the lovely Two Hot Mamas, Carolyn and Wendy Warren. They came to talk to Maggie, but when they were done, I got to horn in on their meeting about their current project, a romance for Entangled Publishing. Just talking series titles with these two funny ladies is a hoot and a half. I’ve wrangled them in for an interview in June. Their new book comes out in September.

Which brings me to the part about how everything’s changing. I’m looking out my office window, and the sun is out. The sky is that baby blue of a warming spring day. It’s going to be 60 plus degrees in my little mountain town. And you know what? New York isn’t the only game in town anymore. We all know it hasn’t been for a long time, but it’s getting easier and easier to be a successful writer without them. Don’t get me wrong, if St. Martin’s offered a contract today, I’d be hard pressed to turn it down, and probably wouldn’t. That’s an old dream that hasn’t died.

Here’s the thing. Technology is changing so much, and so fast, it’s hard to keep up with all the new ways to publish your own book. Today, I can write a story, polish it to perfection, upload it to Jutoh (others have their favorite manuscript converter; Jutoh is mine), make sure there are no bugs, then upload the .mobi to Amazon, the .epub to BN and abracadabra, you’re published. The process is easy, even for non-left brainers like me who have to practice the processes until they get it right.

Eighteen months ago, five intrepid friends set out to write an anthology. Twenty-four hours after uploading to Amazon, it’s published! The Girl Most Likely To, an anthology by Linda Kaye, Jessie Smith, Darla Luke, Nancy Brophy and me, Susan Lute is now available at Amazon. Here’s the thing that hasn’t changed. Seeing a book you’ve put your heart and soul into on the bookshelf, whether it’s virtual or physical, it’s the best dang feeling there is! Except for looking at your newborn baby’s face for the first time, it’s…liberating.

Now it’s time to party!

Revisions Aren’t For Sissies …by Susan Lute

I am not one of those writers who can blurt out a story, write, write, write until I reached the end. I mull and ponder, watch film, and read until bits of the story start to surface. I’ve learned to map the story so I have set pieces and climaxes to aim for. I write from the beginning in a back and forth dance until I’m finished. And I can’t move on until the first chapters say exactly what they have to say; adding layer upon layer until the main characters reveal their purpose in the story.

So with all that being said, Bear’s Full House is coming along. I’m considering changing the title to Heroes Don’t Lie. I’m at 18,240 words, which may be less than my last report, but I’ve cut parts of scenes that are no longer relevant.

Yesterday, Cathy Lamb came to talk to our group about sketching a character. Yes, we actually made pencil sketches of our heroines or heroes. I haven’t drawn anything more challenging than flowers for the little girls in a long time, but this was fun. I did a good job with her hair, I think. Then around our character we were to write down everything we know about them. Cathy had some very specific questions for us to answer. The easy ones – who are her family and friends? What does she do for a living? How does she dress? Then harder questions like, what are the three worst things to happen to her (I came up with two)? That led me to thinking about the best thing to happen to her, which turned out to also be the scariest. What are her quirks? I’m still thinking about that one. If we were out to lunch at my favorite restaurant – Red Lobster, though I’m not a shellfish fan, I’ve just had some good times there – what would she tell me? She’d say, Life isn’t easy. Get over it. Face the hard stuff. Make your life matter.

The thing I find fascinating about all this is the ripple effect uncovering new information about characters has on the story. In Writing 21^st Century Fiction, Donald Maass has similar questions. What is your character’s worst habit, weakness, or blind spot? What is her or his most shameful memory? What does he or she most need to forgive? These are the kinds of questions that take a story to the next level. It’s not about just telling the story, it’s about the journey taken, and the characters who make the journey.

This kind of depth isn’t found in the first draft, it’s discovered in arduous rewrites. For me that’s four sets of revisions, cover to cover. Nora Roberts does three. Cathy Lamb, eight. Everyone’s different, but no writer worth their salt would do one less revision in their efforts to uncover every kernel of their characters and story. The journey home is as much for us the authors as it is for our heroes and heroines, and usually fraught with as much challenge.

How many revisions do you do? And what quirk does your main character have?

Report: Bear’s Full House or Heroes Never Lie - to page 18, 18,240 total words so far.

Virgins, What’s In A Name, And Pinterest …by Susan Lute

It’s very cool following Nancy’s posts, because it gives me a chance for rebuttal, to comment, and just have fun. First off, I wasn’t a virgin in college. I got married at seventeen and went to college at twenty-eight. I wasn’t a good dater, serial or otherwise. Too shy. And in any case, how many dates can you have at sixteen, or fifteen, when I first met the Mr. Yes, we’re still married. So to equate that to writing, har har Nancy, on the other side of the rocky road of marriage, happy-ever-afters make sense to me – it’s the journey home.

I have the unique opportunity of working at home. As a consequence I have two desks, three screens (two for the day job, one for the writing desk), and two cushy chairs. Earlier today the five year old was pulled up next to me at my writing desk, carefully writing her name on a slip of paper…Jane Faith Doe (not real of course, except for her middle name – this is the internet, after all). She was asking me to check her spelling, and then started playing with the sequence, ending with…Jane Doe Faith…and giggling. Faith is such a fabulous name.

Writers have the really fun job of naming characters, and not just one, but a whole book full. Faith could be a sunny blonde or a witchy red-head. Jane, a shy librarian, or a Marine Gunny. And then there’s Beyla, an elf, minor goddess or Shadow thief. Sometimes characters start out with one name and end up with another. Charlotte becomes Charlie, or Samantha, Liberty. A name should always say something about the character, give us a sense of the person behind the moniker.

Moving on…I discovered Pinterest last week. I’ve heard of Pinterest from it’s very first inception, but thought…not another social site, just can’t do it! Finally I got dragged there kicking and screaming by the daughter and discovered I like “pinning” for fun. I love to travel and it turns out my “Places I’d Like To Go” board is full of colorful pictures of Italy. Pinterest is an amazing repository of photographs and ideas. It’s plain fun. Now if I could just work the app on my cell phone.

And finally my report: Bear’s Full House 18,441 words.

Move Along Indie Author, Move Along …by Susan Lute

First, an update: Total word count written for Bear’s Full House (working title), 17,804. I didn’t add many words this week, BUT… I did get all the Amazon books working. Yay for the marvel of Jutoh! Also I’m reading Wait For Me (#129 this week on the USA Today Book List, where it’s make a strong showing for the last month) by Elizabeth Naughton. What a great read! I can barely put it down.

Now that I’ve got the Amazon books fixed, other projects are lining up. Today I was thinking about that and how important it is to figure out how to let go and follow the winding river. It’s like white water rafting. There are places in the river where rapids nearly dump you from the raft. And there are stretches so Zen-like smooth, you just know you’re on the right river. I wonder if the trick is knowing you’re on course while bouncing through the rapids? And what strategies do you need to get to that place of knowing? I have a suspicion it just takes practice.

There’s so much in life you can’t control. The publishing business is a prime example. What if we’re not supposed to be in control? That’s a scary thought for a control freak, because wind gliding without a tether doesn’t strike me as a safe or responsible sport. So many elements go into making up my day…and I’m not the only one. I’ll bet your days are chuck full of busy. What if it really doesn’t matter what we do (within the bounds of legality and moral behavior), just as long as we do?

…the next morning. It’s funny how life points out what’s important. The baby girl woke up with the stomach flu; the kind that twists your guts into knots. It’s been making the rounds here. With her sweet face buried in my shoulder, her tiny voice full of tears saying, “Hurts,” in that moment, nothing else mattered. Not the strategies for making it as an Indie author. Not the number of novels I’ll publish this year. Not even the writing. That little girl trust us, the adults in her life, to make everything better. You know, she’s right. And following the course of the river, full of crazy turns or not, suddenly doesn’t feel so dangerous.

Until next week, happy living!

Ciao

Indie Publishing – Writing For The 21st Century …by Susan Lute

You can tell Donald Maass’ workshop had a big impact. He left those who attended with a lot to think about, and this is where my thoughts took me. Writing for the 21^st Century. What does that look like?

It will come as no surprise that I watched You’ve Got Mail yesterday. No, I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it, but like most of the films I watch over and over, there’s something new to learn each time, besides the fact I enjoy them as much or more as the first time. If there’s anyone following this blog who hasn’t watched it, which I find very hard to believe by-the-way, I’ll try not to give too much away.

There’s one line that caught my attention. Fox Books, owned by Tom Hanks’ character, Joe, opens “just around the corner” from Kathleen’s – played charmingly by Meg Ryan – independent children’s book store, effectively putting her out of business. During the course of the movie Joe says to her, “It wasn’t…personal.” Her response (paraphrased), and I love it, “What’s so wrong with being personal, anyway? Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.” Suddenly that makes so much sense to me.

The Mr. is a political geek. It’s personal to him. Having some kind of faith is personal. Writing has probably always been a personal endeavor, but in today’s world with so many on the internet, and with the popularity of Indie books, readers don’t always make a personal connection with the author. In my humble opinion it’s more important than ever to take your writing to the next level. That’s what Donald Maass’ newest book, Writing 21^st Century Fiction, says to me. Get personal, put yourself into your story, don’t give your reader what they expect, give them what they don’t expect.

What a fascinating concept. Give your reader something they don’t expect. Make it personal.

How? Pick up Writing 21^st Century Fiction. It’s an eye opener.

I’m setting a goal so you all will keep me honest. I’m working on the second book in my Falling For A Hero series. I’ve written 17,664 words. It’ll finish up at 50K, so I’m coming up on the mid-point of the story. But I’m back at the beginning adding layers of internal conflict to make it more personal, for me, and hopefully for readers. At the end of April I’m going on a two week vacation. By the time I leave – yes, I’ll be taking the baby Dell – I want to be at 25K. Doable I think, but the more important thing will be the unfolding of the story. Can I do it? Heck yes!

Will you join me in making a writing (or reading) goal that you can reach by the end of April? The busy lady loves company.

Publishing…The Times, They Are A Changing… by Susan Lute

Today I went shopping. Okay it was therapeutic shopping, but hey. When I was done, a lovely young lady wearing the store’s name tag asked me if I was ready to check out. I most certainly was, I said with a smile, looking around for a check-out counter. Her response was to whip out a little black box, swipe my card and send the receipt to my email. Holy Moly! Times are changing.

Like Nancy I went to Donald Maass’ workshop, and while I haven’t written 4,000 words, I have revisited the first few pages of Bear’s Full House. Thanks to Donald’s insistence we apply his exercises to our current protagonist, I believe I have found Bear’s real story. And I think my writing has been forever changed. Good news for an author who was beginning to wonder if she’d lost her touch.

My mother just finished The London Affair and said she thinks it’s my best work, better than most other books she’s read. Yes, she’s my mother, but she’s one of those who tells it like it is. She doesn’t sugarcoat her comments (which are aimed at making her children better people) though she does have a sweet heart. I’m not sharing this for the pat on the back, but to show that kudos come from many directions and it’s important to take them in when they come, no matter the source. I ran into a very special friend of mine during my therapeutic shopping and she reminded me that five years ago we had a totally different vision of our future as writers. With all the changes that have come along, the reality is something quite different. As I sit writing this, I realize we’ve made it. The writing life is ever about change, whether you write traditional, e-pub, indie, or are a hybrid author. Decisions have to be made, new paths taken. This has not changed. For the first time in a long time, I understand that.

As for my program and process dilemma, I’ve found a solution. It turns out I won’t be using Scrivener. I like the program. I can see how it would work extremely well for lots of writers. I discovered in my search for the perfect writing tool that I like them simple. I’ve learned more about Open Office in this discovery phase and it turns out it really suites my needs. For conversion to .epub and .mobi I decided to go with Jutoh. Thank you Jessa Slade and Delilah Marvelle for the recommendation. It is straight forward and easy to use once you’ve tried it a time or two. And it interacts with Amazon, so far, perfectly. Jutoh also produces a Smashwords doc, which I’ll test out when I get that far.

So the journey is rolling along. After I reformat the last two novels, there will be more ahead…surprise, surprise. Loading the novels to Kobo, print publishing with CreateSpace. Trying a new venture. Writing. The. Next. Book. When all is said and done, it’s an exciting journey. Won’t you stay with me? Who has given you the best complement about your work?

Why Form or Join an Author Cooperative? …By Maggie Jaimeson

From the beginning of my self-publishing journey in summer of 2011, I knew I wanted to publish under a press name. At the time I did it purely to keep people guessing as to if my books were self-published or not. I didn’t hide it from anyone who asked. But I also didn’t advertise it. I wanted people to approach my books as they would any press book. So, I chose a press name, Windtree Press, designed a logo, put up a website and filed a DBA.

Being involved with technology for the past 30 years, both in Academia and in the software industry, I also knew that the self-publishing world was going to change rapidly. Technology was already changing on an almost daily basis. We were just beginning to look at the roles of social media, metadata, and marketing/branding. Software tools for creating and formatting are getting easier every day.

However, I did not want to traverse those changing waters alone. I wanted to find like-minded authors who would be willing to share their expertise and knowledge, banding together and moving forward together. That’s when Windtree Press became an author cooperative. We are an author cooperative with the belief that good people, of like minds and career goals, can help each other to be better, to do better, and in cooperating we will all rise together.

What I will share with you are the choices we have made so that others who wish to follow this path—whether creating your own cooperative or joining one that exists—will have at least one point of comparison. So far there are three members of Windtree Press: myself, Melissa Yuan-Innes, and Paty Jager. We are not bound by geography (Melissa is in Canada), nor are we bound by genre. We are only bound by philosophy and goals. We anticipate there will be others in the near future.

What does being part of an author cooperative really mean?

It means that the authors are all fully independent and self-sustaining in their work, their choices of genre, timing of publication, design of interiors and covers, and all aspects of their career. However, member authors have chosen to publish under a single press name, to gain the benefit of cross-promotion and sales, additional metadata development, and share the costs of highly complex technical implementations like e-commerce and direct sales. Other benefits accrue that only a press and multiple authors sharing expenses can garner (e.g., purchasing of multiple ISBNs at discount, uploads to Overdrive for Library lending, joint marketing and promotion).

Any decisions about the press, in terms of new members to take on, changes to operating principles or expenses, are discussed and voted on by all the author members of the press.

The press expenses are shared equally by all authors.  For Windtree Press those expenses are currently a monthly hosting fee which pays for the database backend processing of the e-commerce site, including book selling, credit card processing, PayPal merchant integration, customer management, and marketing. As each new member joins, that cost gets divided again equally. If the members decide they wish to hire a part-time digital assistant, or a marketing person or a technical programmer, then the cost is shared by all the members.

The concept of a Coop is that all authors share the burden of the work, giving of the skills they have, as well as the costs to run the press. Costs are paid up front, or monthly, whether a member is selling anything or not. The press does not take any royalty percentages at this time. Note: Other options one might choose in their own press is to take a small percent (say 1% and reinvest it into marketing, an assistant, a consistent presence in some venue, etc.). Windtree currently takes no percentage of author sales.

How does someone join a cooperative and who decides which books will be sold?

The inclusion of a new member author is by agreement of the current members.  It is important to the brand of the press that the quality of writing and presentation is very good. It is also important that all members can participate fully in running the press and making decisions. Because a coop member has complete autonomy, the current members need to believe that they can trust that person to have a well-edited book with a quality story and presentation moving forward. No one has the time or desire to be checking every book an author writes to approve or disapprove. Once in, we trust that everything the person writes is acceptable. We also don’t want to be in a position of constantly begging a member to participate in quarterly meetings or to do her fair share of the work in moving things forward. 
The key is “..good people, of like minds and career goals…”

Each author is responsible for her own books in terms of writing, editing, cover designs, formatting and which vendors, in addition to Windtree Press, she wants to carry her books (i.e., Amazon, B&N, Kobo, iBooks etc.). Note: If the author needs assistance in any of these areas, the press members can recommend people and/or tools to perform these services. The Press does NOT offer any of these services, and all such book development costs are paid by the individual author.

Each author includes Windtree Press as the publisher in all metadata, front matter, and distribution venues.  Because of the way Windtree Press started, we’ve also made the decision that a member author may simultaneously do business under her own press name (my Canadian friend does this as Olo Press). However, for any books also distributed by Windtree Press, the front matter must say something like “partnering with Windtree Press” or “distributed by Windtree Press.”  The press provides a logo that can also be used for print books and any reference to Windtree Press in front or back matter.

Each author creates her own accounts at other vendors (Amazon, B&N, Kobo etc.) so that money from those vendors comes directly to her. Each author simultaneously provides ebook formatted files to Windtree Press for direct sales.  (i.e., ePub, Mobi, PDF), as well as all descriptions, keywords, blurbs, and metadata information for every book and format intended to be distributed by Windtree Press.  All press ebook sales are automated to be immediately distributed to the customer upon receipt of payment.

All print sales through the press are the responsibility of the author for fulfillment. Orders are automated and emails are sent to the author regarding print fulfillment. We suggest doing drop-shipments from the print sales vendor (i.e., CreateSpace or Lightning Source) and perhaps maintaining a small amount of personal inventory so the author can autograph print copies for readers on request, and at an additional shipping/handling cost.

All press sales come through a single merchant account.  Payments to authors are made monthly, no matter what amount has come in ($1 or thousands of dollars).  The credit card fees for each transaction are automatically deducted from all payments.

Why would any indie author want to do direct sales?

The short answer is because only with direct sales can an author see exactly who is buying their books. When you sale through Amazon, B&N, Kobo, etc. you have no idea who is buying your books. You only know how many units were sold. When you run a contest and get all those emails to add to your newsletter, you never know if anyone on that list ever actually buys a book of yours. That means you have no way to mine that reader data and market to those readers who already like your books and know your books. With direct sales, you get all that data to use as best meets your marketing plan.

Windtree Press shares customer data with all author members of the press, and uses a mailing list and newsletter to highlight all member releases. This means that if you write a Science Fiction with romantic elements, you also get the benefit of seeing who bought MY book Eternity and marketing to those specific readers. In return, I also get to see who buys your SF romance and market to them. In other words, it builds out your potential market of real readers much faster than one person can do alone.

Finally, with direct marketing you now have more control than ever over the metadata that is indexed and put out on the web. This increases discoverability. The press website provides metadata not only for your book, but also for its relationship to other book on the press. Unlike Amazon or B&N where you are only discovered once you’ve sold lots of books, at a direct sales press you can build those relationships with all other coop members. Taking the same SF Romance mentioned above, every time someone looks at ETERNITY at Windtree Press they also see other member’s books as recommendations. They see other SF and Fantasy and Adventure and Romance. This same metadata is then also passed to web bot indexers, which then associates those books in other general searches.

So, should you create an author cooperative or find one to join?

Obviously I think the answer is yes. I believed a year and a half ago the wave of the future in successful self-publishing was to control the technology and to use the data to benefit authors. Though it is early days, I am exceptionally pleased in the development of the Windtree Press author cooperative and all the hard work Melissa and Paty have already done to make the e-commerce direct sales part come to fruition. I hope you will stop by and take a look at http://windtreepress.com . I also hope that if you decide to create your own press that you will benefit from learning what we have done, and you will share back with us anything you learn. There are many paths to success and I believe we can all benefit when we cooperate.