Textbook publishing – a changing model

Posted on June 15, 2009 by Ray Robinson

I’ve blogged about textbook publishing before  – and the ‘broken’ model that costs college students (or their parents) often thousands of dollars for product that barely (if at all) meets their needs. Professor Textbook is an indie textbook publishing model that we created out of our Dog Ear Publishing experience – and a great post at one of the blogs I follow on the state of the publishing industry discusses exactly the topic that is near-and-dear to anyone following the industry.

I believe that textbooks would even benefit from a more ‘distributed’ approach – with more control centered with those providing the instruction, and less ‘teach what we publish’ mentality.  More and more professors are taking on the publication of their own textbook – and feel they are providing a more focused and quality learning experience for each of their students. Dona J. Young – a professor at Indiana University Northwest – did just that, producing two writing textbooks in less than a year. Her reasons were simple, “As a teacher, I am most effective when I develop my own materials tailored to my students’ needs.” and “What is most important, though, is that Professor Textbook helps teachers give students access to high quality books that are cost effective.”

Check out what Seth Godin had to say about the topic (thanks to Joe for putting this link in his blog) of textbook publishing. He goes far further than most would dare… but he makes all sorts of great points, even down to stating that textbooks should be free (not that I entirely agree with that point – I believe they are way too expensive, but I can’t quite wrap my head around free… unfortunately very few models actually support that – the biggest one being just normal human motivation…)

The independent publishing / self publishing route isn’t the only angle – as I discussed previously a number of organizations are pursuing a truly ‘open’ model of textbook publishing that really IS free. Check out the effort by Rice University, Connexions, and the Make Textbooks Affordable campaign.

Filed under: Joe Wikert, self publishing, textbook publishing | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Writer’s Digest – Everything You Need to Know About Self Publishing

Posted on March 11, 2009 by Ray Robinson

This edition of Writer’s Digest (the March / April 2009 edition) has an amazing selection of articles on self-publishing – and actually does an amazing job of covering, literally, just about everything you actually need to know to get started self publishing your book. In the interest of full disclosure, as most of you know I own a self publishing company called Dog Ear Publishing, Dog Ear is represented well in one of the articles on resources for self publishers.

The articles take a very straight forward approach to defining what authors need to know before choosing to self publish their book – no punches are pulled in any way, but conversely very little negative prejudice shows in ANY of the articles. I couldn’t actually find ANY myself, but a few other readers I surveyed felt that some of the writing was ‘too honest’ about the chances of self published works ending up in the traditional market… I tend to believe that reality is uncomfortable for many folks – especially when it’s fairly applied to their dreams and wishes – so I was pretty comfortable that everything I read was pretty much just grounded in the realities of  our market.

Jane Friedman – publisher and editorial director of Writer’s Digest – opens the discussion with an article titled “Straight Expectations.” This is a quick intro to the 5 key items authors should consider… not that any one of the items would dissuade a potential author from self publishing, but each is a critical item for review.

Contributor Andrea Hurst – president of Andrea Hurst Literary Management – is next with “The Stark Reality of Self-Publishing: An Agent’s Perspective” – and tough medicine that authors looking to self publish their book need to take in large doses. Even though self-publishing seems to be a logical first step in getting your book into a traditional house, the chances of success don’t really seem to be much better than if you’d just sent a query letter and sample chapter – and with good reason. The self-published books that fail to find an audience do so not because they are self-published, but because of some other mitigating factor (such as quality of writing; lack of marketing by the author – yes, even as a traditionally published author you’ll be asked to help out to a large degree; or often times – just no market for the book on a broader basis…). Even with all the ‘medicine’ Ms. Hurst’s piece is an amazing perspective from one of the significant gatekeepers of the traditional publishing world.

Joe Wikert – you’ll know him from my comments on his blog Publishing 2020 – he’s one of the gurus I read on a daily basis because his take on technology in our industry is amazing. His article The Changing Landscape of Self-Publishing highlights this in great detail – and highlights how little so many of us really understand about what is going on ‘out there’ – our industry (if you can even call it ‘our industry’ any more…) looks nothing like what any of us expected even a single year ago – let alone 10 or 15 years ago.

More articles follow – even one that discusses Brunonia Barry – along with commentary by readers on self publishing… it’s an amazing issue (can’t tell that I enjoyed it?) – so go out and get your copy today!

Filed under: book marketing, Joe Wikert, self publishing, Self Publishing Company Comparisons | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Amazon Kindle Webinar – self publishing implications

Posted on August 21, 2008 by Ray Robinson

I’ve just attended a webinar about the Amazon Kindle product, titled “Leveraging he Kindle – How to maximize the Kindle’s benefits to your readers and your business” presented by Joe Wikert of John Wiley & Sons. The webinar was for the most part aimed at book publishers, but in the self-publishing world the word “publisher” is really synonymous with “author”. Even if you’ve hired self publishing company like mine (Dog Ear Publishing) you still will perform many of th functions of the traditional indie book publisher – and you should be aware of what new and upcoming publishing technologies mean to you.

The Kindle – for those of you who don’t know – is Amazon’s relatively new e-book reader. The reception in the traditional book industry has been fairly cool, with most publishers unsure of what impact, if any, the thing might have on their bottom line.

Joe’s presentation brought to light a number of ways the Kindle might be important to you, the self-published author. (I’m skipping past all the iintro stuff – like what the Kindle does, how it does it, why it’s ‘clunky’ and that pretty much only books with no complex formatting or graphics work well).

A couple big points from the webinar -

No manufacturing cost on a ‘per unit’ basis. According to Joe, the retail price for Kindle books seems to cap at about $9.99. Most of the books in the Amazon top 50 Kindle seem to run from about $7 to $9.99. Amazon forwards 35% of the SRP for the Kindle product to the publisher/author. So, if your book is $9.99, you get $3.50… Pretty decent for no manufacturing expense.

No apparent impact (negative or positive) on print book sales. Dog Ear Publishing has a number of authors that have released Kindle versions of their books. As an average over the group, there appears to have been no significant impact on print product sales. That’s good in that it means the authors basically made ‘free’ money by releasing a Kindle. Since none of the Kindle product appeared in a ‘pre-release’ marketing version (they all released as entire books) I don’t know if additional demand was built prior to the book release.

A great way to leverage your content and turn it into either marketing materials or content sub-sets for whic you can get paid some amount. An example is an author that releases as a Kindle book a small excerpt of his book, and charges some nominal fee for the download. Another might be an author that takes each chapter of her book and makes it available as an individual Kindle product.

(another angle on this is the web site Scridb.com which I’ll discuss in another post Monday.)

Take a look at the webinar -it’s up for the next 90 days (you’ll just have to register) – you might find the Kindle becoming another tool in your book marketing plan.

Filed under: Amazon, book marketing, Book Marketing Plan, Joe Wikert, self publishing | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

The First Real Post – or – publishing blogs everyone should read

Posted on January 11, 2008 by Ray Robinson

Welcome to the first real blog post in Self Publishing Today – my first foray into the blog-osphere…

If you are involved in publishing or self-publishing any kind of content, there are lots of blogs you should be reading because the folks who write them are pretty darn brilliant – two of my top, daily-read, blogs are these

Tim O’Reilly – of O’Reilly and Associates, a purveyor of great knowledge that happens to be one of the amazing innovators in the publishing industry – has a blog here that discusses an amazing array of topics relevant to authors and publishers alike. To get a good sense of why you should read this blog, take a look at the introduction :

“Technology is transforming publishing. From the way ideas are generated to the packaging of information to the delivery of products, the industry is in the midst of a sea change. We’ve always considered O’Reilly as much of a technology company as a publisher, a belief that’s led us to develop information products such as GNN (the first commercial website), Safari Books Online, and the Tools of Change for Publishing conference. As publishers seek a new equilibrium in our networked world, we aim to be both a catalyst and chronicler of what has inevitably been called Publishing 2.0. “

Wow – can’t get more appropriate than that, can you? Even if you can’t go to New York, spend some time digging around O’Reilly’s Tools of Change for Publishing conference site here.

Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 blog – my second most read publishing blog (and a new one to my list). Here VP and Executive Publisher for John Wiley, Joe Wikert, takes on all sorts of topics in the publishing and self-publishing industry. His widely varied posts range from book reviews to discussions of music. Most of them have a common theme centered around the creation, delivery, and consumption of content – whether it be via web, traditional publisher or self-published author. Visiting this blog is not just interesting in and of itself, but Wikert spends lots of time dissecting OTHER resources in the industry and pointing his readers is very valuable directions. For a guy from the ‘traditional’ publishing fold he is extraordinarily open minded when it comes to other publishing models.

Filed under: Joe Wikert, Self-publishing blogs, Tim O'Reilly | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

  • RSS Self Publishing News

    • What Upstream Color & Walden Can Teach Us About Self-Publishing - mediabistro.com
      What Upstream Color & Walden Can Teach Us About Self-Publishingmediabistro.comWriters spend too much time arguing about the goldmine potential of self-publishing. When we talk about indie books, why does money dominate the conversation? Instead, we should worry about the artistic freedom that creators like Shane Carruth have ...and more »
    • The Real Costs of Self-Publishing a Book - PBS MediaShift
      The Real Costs of Self-Publishing a BookPBS MediaShiftAt every writers conference or self-publishing panel the question that almost always inevitably comes up is: “How much will self-publishing really cost me?” Because the book publishing industry is one of the last industries to go digital, it's going ...
    • Self-Publishing authors redress quality control - Canadian National Newspaper
      Canadian National NewspaperSelf-Publishing authors redress quality controlCanadian National NewspaperMoreover, the self publishers often fail to implement proper measures for quality control such as proofreading, editing, typesetting and copy editing. As a result, the quality of the book is greatly compromised which leads to drastic fall in the ...
    • Self-publishing revolution helping equine authors - Horsetalk
      HorsetalkSelf-publishing revolution helping equine authorsHorsetalkBut the face of publishing is changing, with many talented authors turning to self-publishing. E-book downloads revolutionised the book publishing industry and have given rise to a multitude of e-publishing companies with multitudes of e-books of every ...
    • PBS MediaShift starts publishing ebooks; first topics: cord-cutting and self ... - paidContent.org
      PBS MediaShift starts publishing ebooks; first topics: cord-cutting and self ...paidContent.orgMediaShift's first two titles are How to Self-Publish Your Book (80 pages, $3.99) and Your Guide to Cutting the Cord to Cable TV (50 pages, $2.99). (I have to point out here that GigaOM's also got a cord-cutting ebook, written by our own Janko ...
    • Talking To Jimmy Palmiotti About Religion, Self-Publishing And Breasts - Bleeding Cool News
      Talking To Jimmy Palmiotti About Religion, Self-Publishing And BreastsBleeding Cool News2279d9c99b4f5380a455541bfd9901df_large I've known Jimmy Palmiotti for quite some time. We started getting very chatty around the time he and Joe Quesada headed up Marvel Knights and it seems like so much in the current mainstream comic scene ...
    • The perils of self-publishing - Morris Daily Herald
      The perils of self-publishingMorris Daily Herald“Nobody should self-publish,” says Philip Corbett, the standards editor of the New York Times. “Everything should go through an editor. Ideally, it should go through two editors.” Corbett was speaking in January 2011, after the Times mistakenly ...
    • The future is no fun: Self-publishing is the worst - Salon
      The future is no fun: Self-publishing is the worstSalonI can tell you that self-publishing is not fun. As I write these words, I am now in my seventh week of attempting to spread the word about “West of Babylon.” I have sent emails to many newspapers, from the Boston Globe down to the Miami Herald across ...
    • Self-Publishing Authors Can Now Go Green and Save Green with New Elite E ... - San Francisco Chronicle
      San Francisco ChronicleSelf-Publishing Authors Can Now Go Green and Save Green with New Elite E ...San Francisco ChronicleOutskirts Press, the leading self-publishing and book marketing service provider, announced today the launch of its Elite E-book Publishing Package, which bundles three valuable e-book distribution services into one discounted publishing […]
    • 'Wool' author Hugh Howey chimes in on print, digital, self-publishing - Tampabay.com (blog)
      'Wool' author Hugh Howey chimes in on print, digital, self-publishingTampabay.com (blog)In 2011, he began self-publishing, through Amazon's Kindle Direct program, a series of postapocalyptic short stories that eventually became the novel Wool. It sold so well that in 2012 he signed a six-figure deal with Simon & Schuster to publish a ...an […]
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 340 other followers