Amazon's Ebook Returns Policy Is A GOOD Thing. Here's Why.

Recently some indie author friends have become so outraged by ebook returns that they're trying to organize and bring pressure to bear against Amazon to eliminate its 7-day return policy on Kindle books. There are other vendors who allow returns as well, and I'm sure this same group will be targeting those vendors in due time.

The main reason why this group of authors is so upset is that they're watching their online, real-time royalty reports very closely, and making financial decisions for themselves and their households based on the "sales" they see reported there.

However, as any mainstream-published author already knows all too well, until net royalties for book sales are actually paid they are subject to change, and a large quantity of returns can easily bring your royalty statement for a given 6-month period into the red. The same is true of returnable self-published books, but these authors don't seem to get that, or if they do get it, seem to think it's unfair.

And so they've taken to social media to try and raise the visibility of this issue, to nudge their fellow authors into taking action intended to eliminate legitimate, vendor-sanctioned ebook returns. In my opinion, what they're doing is a big mistake and if they succeed in getting vendors to eliminate ebook returns, it will be bad for all authors who have ebooks on the market.

Amazon's 7-day return policy seems to be the biggest target here, so I'll address my remarks to that specific vendor. But I think the points I'm about to make here are equally applicable to any ebook return policy.

I am *in favor* of Amazon's 7-day return policy on Kindle books. Here's why:

1. Hard copy books can generally be returned up to 30 days after purchase---longer, if you bought them someplace like Target. Therefore, as a consumer and reader, I don't see why ebooks shouldn't be returnable as well. Why aren't all of these same authors up in arms about return policies on hard copy books? I'm all for removing barriers to ebook adoption, and one major barrier is consumers' perception of value, that an ebook is somehow inherently inferior to, and less valuable than, a hard copy book. Elimination of ebook return policies makes ebooks economically inferior to hard copy books, from the consumer perspective.

2. Returnability removes the risk for buyers who might not otherwise take a chance on a new author.

3. People who want to game the system will always find a way, and it doesn't make sense to take these first two benefits away from readers (and authors) for the sake of trying to do battle with the scammers. Take returns away, and the scammers who are abusing the returns system will just go back to outright piracy. Meanwhile, you've given paying customers some good reasons not to take a chance on your ebook.

4. I don't believe most people DO read a book within 7 days of purchase, nor do I think most readers WANT to be put under that kind of time pressure. Those who are willing to read EVERY Kindle book they buy within 7 days are already paying a significantly higher cost than the price of the book in terms of convenience.

Classic case of penny-wise, pound-foolish. True, the dishonest buyers' inconvenience does not put money into authors' pockets. But this just underscores my point about people who are looking to game the system. People who are willing to put themselves out like that to save three bucks or less are not a desirable target demo. I don't want them to be my fans because they're not truly invested in my work in any sense of the term, and never will be.

5. Regarding the "missing" or "stolen" royalties issue, I know this will sound harsh, but authors shouldn't be counting their chickens before they hatch, anyway. Until I actually get a royalty transfer into my bank account, I know those figures I see in the KDP reports are fluid and subject to change. KDP authors still have it better than mainstream-pubbed authors, who must wait a year or longer for the first royalty check and only get them every six months thereafter.

My Indie Author Guide STILL hasn't 'earned out' (the collapse of Borders meant thousands of returns), and it was published in November of 2010.

6. Contrary to what these agitating authors seem to think, those ebook returns do NOT represent lost sales. The people who are motivated to steal books or anything else never intended to pay for those things, and never would have paid for them. This argument from the authors is like a bank manager thinking that if only the bank robbers could've been talked out of their heist, they would've opened accounts at the bank and become customers.

Pirates and thieves are pirates and thieves, period. It's just a question of how they get the books for free: illegal download, or return policy abuse.

7. Some of the authors who are speaking out about this are suspicious that there are actual, organized groups promoting the practice of return abuse as a means to get free ebooks. But even if there ARE groups of people who've organized to promote theft, well...so are pretty much all piracy groups. There's no way to stop all piracy, and if people are abusing Amazon's returns policy, it's just another form of piracy.

8. Again, I know I'm about to sound really harsh, but the realities of business ARE sometimes harsh and that doesn't make them any less real: Ignorance is not a defense here. Anyone who's self-publishing for profit has a duty to read, and ensure they not only understand but agree with, any contracts they're signing, and that includes KDP terms of use and Amazon's ebook listing and sales policies.

If you don't like Amazon's ebook returns policy, you shouldn't publish there or list your ebooks for sale there.

- - - -

Personally, I share Neil Gaiman's view on piracy: I don't care how people initially discover me, because once they're fans and are able to pay, they will. And in the meantime, they'll be spreading the word about me and my books. You may disagree with this stance, or even feel it's naïve. But the bottom line is the same, regardless of anyone's opinion about it: thieves will ALWAYS find a way. Hassling your paying customers and fans in an effort to discourage thieves will NEVER stop the thieves, but it is LIKELY to annoy customers and fans, resulting in TRUE losses in sales and new fans.

Has consumer hatred of DRM taught us nothing?

If You're Not Ready To Invest, You're Not Ready To Publish

This post is about the alarming sense of entitlement I'm seeing out there among indies and would-be indies now that we've become empowered to publish. I'm sure I sound like a broken record (or damaged MP3) by now, but apparently I need to keep saying this:

The decision to self-publish for profit is a BUSINESS decision. When you decide to self-publish for a profit you are deciding to LAUNCH A BUSINESS. You are going into direct COMPETITION with every other publisher and self-publisher out there, and many of them have a lot more money, time and experience than you do, no matter who you are. No one who goes into business has an inherent right to success or profit, or even the attention of consumers. All of those things must be earned, and are generally hard-won.

Anyone who wants to launch a new business like a restaurant, widget manufacturer, accounting practice or pool service expects to invest a certain amount of start-up capital, both in terms of actual cash and sweat equity. Neither is dispensable. Yet plenty of would-be indie authors seem to think it's unfair for me, and even the book-buying public, to expect them to invest anything more than the sweat equity part of the equation. They expect the public to be able to look past a cut-rate cover, ignore the typos, bad grammar and the many other substantive flaws that can be eliminated by a good editor, and see the excellent story within. These indies are wrong, and they're hurting all of us by lowering the collective bar.

In a recent Facebook exchange, one indie author directed this to me:

Not all self published authors can afford to hire out for pro services. If that were the case, why not go with a vanity publishing company and all their promises.

To which I responded, in part:

...if we self-publishers wish to compete head-to-head with mainstream books, we have to be willing to invest what it takes both in terms of effort and money. Hiring a pro editor and cover designer yourself is a far cry from going with a vanity press, which will usurp your rights and take a cut of your royalties. A pro edit, file conversion and cover design shouldn't cost most self-pubbers more than about $400-$600, if you check the freelancer listings on Smashwords---and many can beat even those prices by shopping around and calling in favors. Yes, it's a lot of money, but compare that to how many thousands of dollars a mainstream publisher invests in every book *it* acquires and releases. If we want a seat at the poker table, we have to be willing to invest at least a small stake.

Another commenter replied:

I work as a handyman. I'm barely making it. $400 to $600 is half a months' wages for me. How would you suggest I scrape together enough to pay someone to edit my book and another someone to design a cover for it?

My response was:

I'm sorry to say this...but the realities of launching and running a business are what they are, and I have often advised would-be indies NOT to publish until they can afford to do it right. The vast majority of authors, mainstream and indie alike, do not earn enough from sales of their books to live on. Virtually all of us still need day jobs.

The fact that the content is gold won't matter if all the reader notices is typos, bad grammar or spelling mistakes, and an amateurish cover. For years us indies have been saying all we want is the opportunity to compete against the mainstream on a level playing field---but that means we have to be willing to do (and spend) what it takes to compete. I'm all for DIY when the person has the skills, and for trading favors and doing whatever else one can to shave costs. But it's unrealistic to think one can go up against multi-million dollar publishers without spending even a few hundred dollars.

Hopeful Olympians pay for quality equipment, coaching and travel. Hopeful artists pay for quality supplies, professional framing and gallery space. Hopeful filmmakers pay for quality cameras and professional editing, or at least time in a professional editing bay to do it themselves. The fact that it's much easier for a rich hopeful to afford the necessities of his craft or sport than it is for a poor one doesn't make those things any less NECESSARY for the poor hopeful.


People DO judge a book by its cover, as I've learned firsthand. The cover for my novel Adelaide Einstein is much less slick than the one for my novel Snow Ball, and Snow Ball outsells Adelaide month in and out despite the fact that Adelaide has nearly three times as many positive reviews. I can complain all I want about how unfair it is that more readers won't give Adelaide a chance, but that won't sell more copies of the book.

And ebook fans DO post negative reviews based solely on bad editing and poor formatting. I've found most ebook fans to be very welcoming to indies, and even willing to cut them some slack to an extent in acknowledgment that we're not backed by a Big 6 publisher. But when poor formatting or bad editing gets in the way of their enjoyment of the content, they stop reading and let others know about it.

Remember: publishing was never meant to be fair. It's a business. Mainstream-published authors have the luxury of a whole staff of businesspeople standing between their delicate, artistic sensibilities and the harsh realities of commerce, but they pay for it pretty dearly in reduced royalties and the loss of control of their work. We indies have to be willing and able to play both sides of the net, art AND commerce, ourselves.

If you're not willing, or you're not able, you're not ready to publish.

UPDATED TO ADD: having seen comments on this post here and elsewhere, I'm kind of shocked that this is such a controversial stand to take. I mean, if I wanted to go into business making and selling any other product, and openly admitted I had no money for quality control (editing), packaging (cover design) or marketing (author platform) for the product, that I didn't have the skills to do all of those things myself at a level comparable to a professional, and I don't know anyone who'd be willing to offer those services to me for free, everyone would just say, "Well, maybe you need to wait till you've saved up some money, then."

But for some reason, to some people, when the product in question is a book, it's somehow a special case. To those people, suggesting the author delay publication till he can make his product---a book---the best it can be is elitest. I'm not saying that only the rich should be able to publish, not remotely. I strongly encourage controlling costs, acquiring as many skills as possible so you can do a professional job of things yourself, calling in favors and comparison shopping for services. And I'm not saying those who don't do these things should be barred from publishing.

All I'm saying is, if you're going to step into the spotlight and invite the scrutiny of a paying public, doesn't it make sense to put your best foot forward? If "good enough" is inadequate when it comes to the quality of your storytelling and characterization, why is it acceptable when it comes to the quality of your book's presentation?

What To Do With Your Stale-Dated Prose

Ah, progress. Had telephones existed in Verona of old, Romeo and Juliet would've been able to synchronize their plans perfectly and avoid all that mistaken suicide business. Consider the movie, It's A Wonderful Life: if security cameras had been mounted in the Bedford Falls Building and Loan, George Bailey and his scatterbrained Uncle Billy would've known in a matter of hours what became of the missing $8,000, and Clarence the apprentice angel would've had to find another way to earn his wings. Underwater radar and GPS technologies could've reduced Moby Dick to a short story. My point is, changes in technology and social norms can eliminate certain kinds of problems and conflicts, create previously unforeseen problems and conflicts, and more generally affect the way people behave.

Many writers and authors are jumping into the indie fray these days, dusting off old manuscripts and shorts that have yet to find a home with a traditional publisher, giving them a cursory once-over and forging ahead with indie publication. I applaud these efforts, and hope they continue. But a word of warning: that pre-publication once-over needs to a be a bit more thorough if your material is contemporary, but more than a few years old.

If your upper-middle-class dad gets lost when he hits the road in his brand-new SUV, the reader will be wondering why he doesn't just use his car's (or phone's) GPS to get back on track. Similarly, if your characters' pop culture references include The Oprah Winfrey Show and the post-divorce exploits of Lady Di, those references are dated and the reader will notice.

You may think, "So what if the reader becomes aware at some point that the book was written years ago; it's not like they're going to stop reading it, or think it's a bad book just because of that." I don't disagree, but with all the distractions of the modern world's wonderland of electronics, technology, social media and noise of all kinds, it's already a big enough challenge to get and keep your reader's attention. Anything that takes the reader out of your story world for any reason is to be avoided, even if it's only for the moment or two it takes the reader to mentally observe, "Nobody uses Thomas Guide road map books anymore; this story must've been written a long time ago." Far worse for the reader is the supposedly contemporary story in which the central conflict or source of tension would be easily eliminated with some modern (and common) convenience or other, like caller ID or the internet.

However, stale-dated prose doesn't necessarily require an extensive rewrite. It just calls for the author to manage reader expectations. The simplest fix is to insert subtle cues and signposts in the beginning pages that will let the reader know your story takes place in the recent past. This may be as simple as editing to highlight the anachronisms, rather than merely observing them in passing. If you make a point of the fact that your protagonist works in the Twin Towers in New York, the reader will immediately know the story must take place prior to 9/11/2001 and therefore won't expect to find anything that happened, was invented, or was popularized after that year.

Stories that were intended to be of-the-moment when they were written will probably require a more extensive edit to update or eliminate dated references. For example, your story about the impending doom of Y2K will no longer work as the straightforward thriller you had in mind when you wrote it. You can either take it in the direction of satire or comedy, or change the threat to something people are still worried about today: 2012, anyone?

Finally, don't lose sight of editorial repercussions. If you decide to change your protagonist's paranoia about Y2K to paranoia about 2012 for example, make sure you update all such references throughout the manuscript to maintain consistency.

Publisher, Sell To Thyself!

I'm always astounded by the hard-sell and oversell antics of some indie authors. While I often advise indie authors that they must be able to take off their Author hat and put on a Publisher hat, the thing is, no matter which of those two hats they're wearing they should always have a Reader beanie on underneath.

While I wouldn't ever advise a writer to engineer his or her fiction to suit a given demographic, this is definitely required when it comes to nonfiction. You must do this in order to identify your target audience and ensure your book contains the information or reference material that audience will want. But having said that, I'll go on to say that even fiction authors---even literary fiction authors---would do well to give a thought to the reader as they lovingly craft their prose. You want to see your vision brought to vivid life on the page, certainly, but you don't want to confuse or bore your readers in the process.

It's even more critical to keep your Reader beanie on nice and snug when you go to don your Publisher hat. This is necessary because among other things, you still must identify your target audience, regardless of whether your book is fiction or nonfiction, in order to develop an efficient and effective marketing plan. You need to figure out who's most likely to be interested in your book, and where and how to reach those people. But this doesn't mean that once you've done so, you should go all full-bore, Mad Men, Marketing Exec From Hell on them.

Author and Publisher you may be, but you're also still a human being and a consumer. You still shake your head in annoyance at the pile of junk mail, junk email, junk fax and even junk Facebook and Twitter flowing into your life on a daily basis, don't you? So why on Earth would you ever risk being counted among the purveyors of that junk?

How is it possible that the Author who chuckles to herself at over-the-top marketing hype in advertisements for weight loss aids will nevertheless splatter "MY BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!" in gigantic, flashing red letters two inches tall on her author website?

How can the Author who complains about all the pointless piano-playing cat videos his Facebook friends post to his wall go on to blast all his Twitter followers with twice-daily reminders of his book's current availability and sales rank on Amazon?

Why does the Author who's sick of all the spam comments left on her blog turn around and post a so-called review of someone else's book in which she devotes as much time to plugging her own book as talking about the book she's supposedly reviewing?

Yes, you must get the word out about your book. But you most do so with some consideration for the people on the receiving end. When in doubt about a given tactic you're about to employ, put yourself in the shoes of a non-writing, non-publishing, ordinary consumer and imagine how your tactic will be received under those circumstances. Don't overthink it, just go back to the Golden Rule: advertise how you'd want to be advertised to.

Indie Author Mailbag: "Can you tell me the best way to ensure the success of my book?"

In a word, no.

If I've said it once, I've said it too many times to count:
There is no one-size-fits-all, by-the-numbers success formula for indie authors. There is no specific template or blueprint that will guarantee lasting sales or readership for any book.

Assuming for the moment that your indie book is exceptionally well-written, immaculately edited and sports a compelling cover, it's just a matter of getting the word out about it and pricing it reasonably, right? Wrong.

Every author is different, every book is different, and every sales climate is different. Consider the (originally self-published) book which launched me into a life of publishing punditry and activism, The Indie Author Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use. This was clearly a simple case of the right book at the right time. Writer's Digest Books was happy to pick up the rights and republish the book in a revised edition because interest in self-publishing is at an all-time high right now and they viewed it as the only truly comprehensive how-to, nuts-and-bolts book on the subject.

Had I self-published the same book just five years ago, neither Writer's Digest Books nor any other mainstream publisher would've been interested in picking it up. The self-published edition of the book wouldn't have been very successful either since self-publishing was widely viewed as a fringe activity up until about two years ago, engendering dismissal at one end of the opinion spectrum and open scorn and ridicule at the other.

Let's take a look at some of the supposedly surefire success strategies for indie authors, as they apply to this book and my other, still indie novels.

1. If You Build A Quality Author Platform, You'll Succeed.
I cannot deny that for anyone seeking a mainstream publishing contract, platform is key. Mainstream publishers want to see a pre-existing audience, and the potential to grow that audience exponentially. However, even for me, a retired software engineer with web developer skills of considerable sophistication, no amount of web presence or social networking savvy would've made my book a success five years ago. Even today, no amount of platform quantity or quality would make my book a success if it were poorly written or didn't contain the specific information the target audience wants and needs.

With respect to my novels, platform has not, in and of itself, made much of an impact. Not only do I have a custom, professionally-designed author website, I'm also on Facebook and Twitter, I'm the founder and Editor in Chief of Publetariat.com, I'm a Technorati BlogCritic, on the Board of Directors for the Association of Independent Authors, and...well, I won't bore you with the rest of this litany. Yet despite all this "visibility" and "web presence", my novels only do fair-to-middling business unless I'm actively and specifically promoting them. Why? Because the bulk of my platform activity pertains to serving the needs of self-publishing authors, not readers in general.

So yes, platform is important. But just getting your name and face and the titles of your books out there isn't enough. Your platform activities must be targeted, with each piece of the platform puzzle helping to support the others. At this point, if sales of my novels were to become a priority for me, I'd launch a secondary platform strategy just for them because I know my established audience for The Indie Author Guide is more or less indifferent to my novels.

2. If You Price Your Kindle Books At .99, You'll Succeed.
All of my indie Kindle books have been priced at .99 for over a month now, in a kind of pricing experiment of my own devising. Sales have ticked upward a bit, but not dramatically. It's definitely worth experimenting with different price points on your Kindle or Nook book, since it's easy and low-risk to do so, and you can see (and interpret) results of price changes pretty quickly. But it's a mistake to think that a .99 pricetag is the shortest distance between you and blockbuster sales.

3. If You Make Your Books Available In As Many Formats And On As Many Sites As Possible, You'll Succeed.
My novels are listed on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, Createspace, Scribd, GoodReads, Shelfari, LibraryThing, and Audible.com, covering the spectrum from hard-copy through ebooks and even audiobooks. Yet no one on the NYT Bestseller list is quaking in his boots from fear of me and my novels. Sales of The Indie Author Guide, on the other hand, have benefitted greatly from the book's visibility across multiple bookseller and book review outlets. Its availability through the Writer's Digest Book Club has made a big difference as well.

Yes, it's important to get your work out there and available through as many outlets as are feasible; just don't assume that doing so will guarantee significant sales growth.

4. If You Get A Lot Of Good Amazon Reviews, You'll Succeed.
My indie novel, Adelaide Einstein, has 47 Amazon reviews with an average star rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars. My other indie book, Snow Ball, has 16 Amazon reviews with an average star rating of 4.43. Adelaide has more and better reviews overall, yet it sells at a fraction of the numbers I see for Snow Ball.

When both books were first published in 2008, Adelaide Einstein sold better than Snow Ball. Now it's just the opposite. I can only speculate as to why, but if pressed, I'd say that the chick-lit and hen-lit genres into which Adelaide fits are somewhat played out, whereas the mystery genre to which Snow Ball belongs is less trendy. It could also be that Snow Ball's darker tone of humor is more appealing to readers in these trying economic and social times.

5. If You Do All Of The Above, You'll Succeed.
I'm already doing all of the above, and my novels aren't doing gangbuster business. But that doesn't mean the work and time I've spent on all of the above was (or is) a pointless waste.

Since you've read this far, I'll share a little secret with you. There actually IS a surefire success strategy that works equally well for any book, movie, game or music release. And here it is:

Capture the zeitgeist in your work, then maximize
your work's exposure.

Yep, all you need do is figure out what the majority of the Western world's populace will be interested in at a given point in time, create a work or product that serves that interest, time the release of the work to coincide with when interest in its content will be approaching a peak, and then make sure as many people as possible know the work exists.

It's that first part that's the tricky bit, the whole "right book at the right time" part. Then, for fiction at least, there's the matter of actually caring enough about the work to imbue it with passion and soul. But even if the Fates smile upon you, you actually have the right book at the right time and it's filled to bursting with passion and soul, the second part of the equation is just as important: maximizing exposure. So while none of the supposedly surefire success strategies is any such thing for books in general, couple the right book with the right time and #5 above, and you're well on your way.

Unfortunately, since you can't know if you've captured the zeitgeist until after your book is published and you've maximized its exposure, you're pretty much stuck working every exposure and sales angle you can to find out. And even if your book hasn't exactly captured the zeitgeist, if it's a quality book in a broad-based genre, there's no reason you can't drum up respectable sales and interest through your efforts. But it will be an effort, you will have to pursue every promotional avenue available to you (given your personal time, skill and financial constraints), and there's just no way around that.

If you're looking for shortcuts or get rich quick schemes, you're in the wrong business.

All The Cool Kids Are Doing It

Self-publishing, that is. Or at least, it can seem so. There are the breakthrough success stories at one end of the spectrum, bitter tales of sales disappointment at the other, and between the two, a generous smattering of testimonials from indie authors who aren't earning enough to quit their day jobs yet but are covering the rent or groceries each month with proceeds from their book sales. Suddenly, if you're not releasing a Kindle or Nook edition at the minimum, you feel like you're missing out on a huge opportunity. The pressure to rush to market is great, but you must resist it until both you and your book are truly ready for prime time.

Is Your Platform In Place, Focused and Growing?
Releasing your book before you've made it easy for readers to connect with you online, whether via a blog, social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or an author website, is a big mistake. Readers have come to expect authors to have an online presence of some sort, and not having one paints you and your book as a bit more fly by night.

I'm not saying prospective buyers will check for platform before making a purchase decision, but platform is what spreads the message about you and your work, pulling more and more readers into your fold and making those readers feel you care about their reaction to your work. Building a community around your work makes each subsequent book easier to promote, and creates a cheerleading section that will do a fair amount of promotion for you.

Is Your Book Still In Beta Test, Or Should It Be?
If you just completed your draft a week ago, I don't care who you are or how fantastic a writer you are, it's not ready to be published. Don't scrimp on the workshopping and rounds of critique, and don't let your sense of urgency about publication color your rewrite decisions.

Let's say the majority of your workshop/critique readers agree the second act needs a major overhaul, and a certain character needs to either be significantly expanded or cut entirely. Your heart sinks as you realize you're staring down the barrel of six weeks or more of rewrites, followed by another round of review, which pushes your publication date back by three months or more. It can be very easy to become so focused on your target publication date that you give short shrift to any feedback that could possibly interfere with that date.

Just keep reminding yourself: releasing a book that's not ready will lose sales and fans. And if it's your first book, readers aren't likely to give you a second chance. There's just too much else out there for them to choose from, and at bargain prices.

Have You Succumbed To The "Good Enoughs"?
Your manuscript is all formatted for print or ebook publication, and for the most part, it looks great. There are some inconsistencies in your formatting, like maybe most passages written in the voice of your protagonist's deceased son are italicized as you've intended, but a few have been left in standard type. Maybe most of your paragraphs begin with a .25" indent but non-indented paragraphs are scattered here and there. Maybe most of your line spacing is 1.15, but here and there you've lapsed into 1.5, and it's barely noticeable. Readers don't care about these things, right? Most of the book's formatting is correct and consistent, and that's good enough, right? Wrong.

You know a quality cover will elevate your book above the crowd, but you have no art or typography skills to speak of, don't have the money to pay top dollar for a professional design and don't have the time to search out a freelance artist you can afford. So you get your artsy sister to create a cover image for you, and it may not look like a slick mainstream cover but it's not bad. It doesn't scream "my sister designed this for me," and that's good enough, right? Wrong.

Again, don't let your sense of urgency about publication set an unprofessional tone.

Are You Prepared To Promote?
The book's been workshopped, polished to a high gloss, has a fantastic cover and attractive, consistent formatting, and you've got an author blog, Twitter account and Facebook page set up. Time to publish? Maybe, maybe not.

Are you prepared to invest the necessary time and effort to post to your blog regularly and acknowledge comments left there, to tweet quality messages and links, and respond to Facebook messages and wall posts? A neglected platform can actually be worse than no platform at all if it makes your readers feel snubbed.

Will you be able to do some guest blogging or write some articles to help get the word out about your book? Can you find the time to reach out to book bloggers and other reviewers, and are you prepared to send out free review copies of your book?

Platform maintenance doesn't have to be a fulltime job, and you can calibrate your platform activities to match your available levels of time and energy (e.g., maybe you can do Twitter or Facebook, but not both; maybe a static author web page is best for you because you don't have the time to blog, etc.).

What's important is that you're not going into publication with an expectation that once the book is out there, your job is done and all you need do is wait for the glowing reviews and royalties to start rolling in. Raising and building awareness doesn't happen by accident.

Are You Going To Make The Rest Of Us Look Bad?
Whether for any of the above reasons or something else, if you're not prepared to do a professional job of preparing your book for release and promoting it afterward, don't publish. While indie books and authors are gaining widespread acceptance, every amateurish indie book has the power to create or reinforce an anti-indie bias, and that hurts all of us.

Want To Avoid The Perils Of Self-Publishing? Attend My Writer's Digest Webinar

WILL YOU BE A SAVVY, OR SHORTSIGHTED SELF-PUBLISHER?

More and more authors, aspiring and mainstream-published alike, are embracing the benefits they can enjoy through self-publishing. Retaining full creative control, earning significantly higher profits, being able to bring a complete, polished manuscript to market in a matter of weeks instead of months or years, releasing one's work in as many (or as few) formats as desired, and controlling one's own intellectual property rights are just a few of the considerable advantages indie authorship and publishing have to offer. However, there's no single, one-size-fits-all success plan for self-publishers, and there are plenty of costly mistakes to be made along the way. This webinar is about the questions and issues every self-publisher must address if he hopes to avoid these pitfalls, and reach his goals in authorship and publishing as painlessly and efficiently as possible.

Date and time: 4/28/11, 1pm EST (11am PST)
Length and price: 90 minutes, US$79
(Each registration comes with access to the archived version of the program and the materials for 1 year.)

What you’ll learn:

• How to identify your goals as both an author and publisher, and why this is such a crucial first step
  


• The 8 most common causes of self-publishing failure, and how to avoid them



• The 8 traits most successful self-publishers have in common, and how to cultivate them



• The 5 crucial author platform skills every self-publisher should strive to master



• Types of books and authors for which the indie path is particularly well-suited, and conversely, types of authors and books for which mainstream publication is still the smarter path



• Where to go to get more help and information

Who should attend?

• Authors and aspiring authors who are considering self-publishing, but want to learn more about it first



• Authors and aspiring authors who have decided to self-publish and want to avoid the "gotchas"



• Authors who've already self-published without much success, but want to try again, armed with the information needed to do better the next time

Speaker

April L. Hamilton is an author, author services provider, blogger, Technorati BlogCritic, leading advocate and speaker for the indie author movement, and founder and Editor in Chief of Publetariat, the premier online news hub and community for indie authors and small imprints. April is also on the Board of Directors for the Association of Independent Authors. She's been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, MSN Money and The Washington Times, and profiled by ABNA Books and The Writing Cast podcast. Her originally self-published book, The IndieAuthor Guide, has received favorable mention on CNET and recommendations from The Huffington Post and New York Times Magazine; the revised and updated edition, released by Writer's Digest Books, is currently available from booksellers everywhere in both print and ebook formats. April is also the author of novels available in both ebook and POD form.


Register here.