Some advice on ebook promotion

An article I wrote for MacFormat has made its way to sister title MacLife, and while it’s been uploaded out of context — it’s one section of a longer article, so some people are mentioned without any explanation of why you should value their opinions  — it’s still full of useful tips from people who’ve sold a lot of books.

For the record, Allan Guthrie is part of the Blasted Heath publisher and has sold more than 50,000 of his own ebooks, and Mark Edwards, along with writing partner Louise Voss, is a Kindle publishing sensation whose chart-toppers have led to an enormous book deal with a traditional publisher.

There are multiple keys to success, Allan Guthrie says. “Getting the covers right, having an edited manuscript, having a properly formatted manuscript, getting the product info right, getting the price right, getting decent customer reviews, informing as many ebook readers as possible about the book – those are all key factors. Sadly, there’s no magic formula.”

Coffin Dodgers, now in handy book form

Here’s one for anyone who doesn’t like ebooks: Coffin Dodgers, the dead-tree edition.  I’ve published the book via Lulu.com, and I’ve tried to make it as cheap as possible: it’s £5.24 plus delivery, and I’ll get a whole 21p of that.

I’m on track to deliver my 15,000th ebook tomorrow, and I’ll write a post sharing some numbers and thoughts when I get the chance. The numbers are roughly 10,000 paid copies and 5,000 freebies, with the UK Kindle edition of Coffin Dodgers accounting for 99% of those figures.

Just a wee reminder if you read and enjoyed the book: if you could spare a moment to write a quick review on Amazon, I’d really appreciate it.

The best tech-related thing I’ve ever bought

I’ve slipped a disc again, and for extra fun I’ve managed to do something to the sciatic nerve so there’s pain in my leg that isn’t actually real (it’s referred pain from the nerve) and that doesn’t respond to things like heat patches. It’s seriously bloody sore, and yet again I’m thanking myself for spending silly money on a ridiculous chair: where beds, sofas and dining chairs are all painful to sit at, my posh chair leaves me pain-free.

If you’re interested and flush it’s a Herman Miller Mirra, which I’ve seen online for around £375. That sounds like a lot but if you have back problems, you’ll get much more benefit from that £400ish quid than you will from a new smartphone or iPad. I’ve had this one for years, and it’s as good today as it was when I bought it.

Music, books and other media: meet the new boss, worse than the old boss

Most of the debate over digital music business models is about the record companies and their digital successors, but what about the musicians? David Lowery of Cracker argues that for them, things are much worse: at least some pre-digital musicians actually got paid.

The full thing is long but worth your time:

 Things are worse.  This was not really what I was expecting.  I’d be very happy to be proved wrong.  I mean it’s hard for me to sing the praises of the major labels. I’ve been in legal disputes with two of the three remaining major labels.   But sadly I think I’m right.   And the reason is quite unexpected.  It’s seems the Bad Old Major Record Labels “accidentally” shared  too much  revenue and capital through their system of advances.  Also the labels  ”accidentally” assumed most of the risk.   This is contrasted with the new digital distribution system where some of the biggest players assume almost no risk and share zero capital.

I don’t agree with everything he writes, but that bit there makes sense to me – and it’s being replicated in ebooks. What looks like empowerment can also be evisceration: the Apples and Amazons of the world aren’t getting rid of middlemen, but becoming them by getting writers to do all the work (editing, promotion, etc) that traditional publishers do. They still get a cut, but they don’t have to risk any of their money.

In the last few years it’s become apparent the music business, which was once dominated by six large and powerful music conglomerates, MTV, Clear Channel and a handful of other companies, is now dominated by a smaller set of larger even more powerful tech conglomerates.  And their hold on the business seems to be getting stronger.

There’s a wider angle to this too, which I’m sure I’ll come back to in a proper post: the way in which the new titans are organised in such a way that they can destroy their foreign rivals without paying foreign taxes. By routing ebook sales and music downloads through Luxembourg and putting UK earnings through Irish subsidiaries – something that, as public companies, they arguably have to do; their responsibility is to maximise their share prices, not to be good corporate citizens – the new bosses get yet another advantage: not only are they largely free from the need to invest in content creation, but they’re freed from some of the main costs of doing business too.

Lowery:

Taking no risk and paying nothing to the content creators is built into the collective psyche of the Tech industry.  They do not value content.  They only see THEIR services as valuable.  They are the Masters of the Universe.  They bring all that is good. Content magically appears on their blessed networks.

As I say, I don’t agree with everything he says, but it’s hard to argue against that one.

Fatherhood, depression and bullshit

Many new fathers are filled with great joy on becoming parents, but for some it’s the beginning of a long, dark period of depression. Writing in the Observer, Barbara Ellen completely misrepresents the issue and writes the kind of heartless column you’d expect from the Daily Mail’s Jan Moir:

I would have been more concerned that the mothers in question were having to put up with such exhausting narcissists as partners – men incapable of hiding their sulky self-absorption

As Ally Fogg writes on Comment is Free, Ellen’s column is based on a Daily Mail piece that’s hardly fair, balanced or even accurate. A study found that some fathers suffered from depression in the early stages of parenthood; the Mail’s Robert Lefever claimed that the “poor dears” had post-natal depression, which is something else entirely.

Lefever misreported the study’s findings as being that 5% of fathers develop post-natal depression. He went on to sarcastically ask whether men would get pre-menstrual tension next, and revealed his true colours by worrying that “politicians, of the bleeding heart tendency, will say that these men should be treated sympathetically – at the expense of their employers”.

Cue Lefever and Ellen telling everyone to man up. Fogg again:

Both Lefever and Ellen strongly imply that paternal depression is little more than whiny men wishing to jump aboard the PND bandwagon. Their prescription would appear to be: man up and suck it up. The reality emerging from medical and psychological research is precisely the opposite. Again and again, researchers point out that the biggest problem is that many men will not admit to depression and will not seek help when needed.

Ignore the Ellens and Lefevers of this world: depression is a serious illness with horrible consequences not just for the sufferer, but for the people around them. If you’re a dad and you’re depressed, you need to speak to somebody about it – sooner rather than later.

“Gun hats? What a brilliant idea!”

Another week, another faintly frightening bit of proposed state surveillance. Me, on Techradar:

What’s happening here is a classic bit of political manoeuvring. What’s supposed to happen is this: the security services ask for the power to do anything they like, plus some satellites with giant lasers and hats that can be used as guns, because that’s what the security services are supposed to do.

The government then tells the security services to get stuffed because we can’t afford gun hats, and because privacy is a fundamental human right.

Like Labour before them, the Tories have forgotten to do their bit. Instead of saying “get stuffed, you power-crazed doom-mongers!” they’ve said “Gun hats? What a brilliant idea!”

A quick bit of advice for anybody making a video where they’re sitting at a desk

If you’re keeping your hands under the table because you don’t want to wave your arms around or send knocks through the table into the microphone, make sure you keep your hands utterly, utterly still. If you don’t, it really looks like you’re having a wank.

“One, we are not doing the right things. And two, the things we are doing are wrong”

Bruce Schneier talks about post-9/11 airport security.

Airports are effectively rights-free zones. Security officers have enormous power over you as a passenger. You have limited rights to refuse a search. Your possessions can be confiscated. You cannot make jokes, or wear clothing, that airport security does not approve of. You cannot travel anonymously. (Remember when we would mock Soviet-style “show me your papers” societies? That we’ve become inured to the very practice is a harm.) And if you’re on a certain secret list, you cannot fly, and you enter a Kafkaesque world where you cannot face your accuser, protest your innocence, clear your name, or even get confirmation from the government that someone, somewhere, has judged you guilty. These police powers would be illegal anywhere but in an airport, and we are all harmed—individually and collectively—by their existence.

“If a few drunken tweets merit prison but harassment doesn’t, something’s going wrong here”

I’ve been thinking about Twitter racists and other unpleasantness. Techradar:

I’m no friend of racists, but the sentencing of Liam Stacyworries me. Stacy, as I’m sure you know, trolled Twitter users over Fabrice Muamba, posting vile racist crap when they responded, and as a result he’s been sentenced to two months in prison.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that what he did was acceptable – but two months in prison? For tweeting?

The point of the piece isn’t to justify what Stacy posted – it was vile – but to ask whether we’re throwing the book at the right people.  As I’ve said in the comments:

It’s an interesting area of law: how do you protect free speech (even if you loathe that speech with every fibre of your being) while cracking down on the harassers and scum like the people who troll the recently bereaved?

I don’t know what the answers are. Fines? Community service among the communities being abused? Electronic ASBOs and cyber-curfews banning them from social media?

“I used to think that the answer to piracy was to jail all taxi drivers.”

Me, piracy, PC Plus:

When I was young, a truck full of chocolate bars lost its load a few streets from my house. By the time the police turned up – which was, annoyingly, long before I found out about it – the cargo had gone. People didn’t take the chocolate because they were forced to; they took it because, hey! Free chocolate! The rewards were so attractive and the risk of being caught was so remote that half the town went on a three-day Wispa binge.