Life in 10 Introduces Hybrid Publishing Service in RVA

Our friend Valley Haggard over at Life in 10 Minutes has just launched a hybrid press. The concept behind a hybrid press is different from an independent or even traditional press. With hybrid, the publisher acts as an assistant to the writer. For a fee, they will perform all the activities that transform your manuscript into a publishable book – but the author retains the rights and royalties. Typical cost for an 80,000 word book is $3,900.

From their website…

“Sales via third party vendors such as bookstores are processed and fulfilled through IngramSprark’s print-on-demand (POD) services. Typically, a book sold through a bookstore or other vendor will net 50% of its sales price (or $7.50 for a $15 book). Average manufacturing costs range from $3 to $5 depending on book size, as well as several other factors. Net profits (net sales price – manufacturing costs) are divided 60% to the author and 40% to Life in 10 Minutes Press. Life in 10 Minutes pays earnings to our authors quarterly. Your project manager will deliver a payment schedule to you during the production process.”

Hybrid publishing is a growing movement in the self-publishing world. It offers the advantages of self-publishing for those without the skill, resources, or time to do the work themselves. And it relieves a lot of the drudgery that is often associated with the business side of self-publishing.

However, just as in traditional or independent publishing, the author is still very much on their own for marketing. Hybrid presses (and L10 Press in particular) will send out notices to their marketing channels. However, it is still up to the author to create a platform for getting the word out and marketing their books.

Also, hybrid publishers, like Haggard’s, are differentiated from “vanity presses.” The vanity press preys upon unsuspecting authors by charging exorbitant fees, keeping author’s rights, delivering paltry royalties, charging high prices for copies of their books, and doing little to no marketing.

I’m very excited by the introduction of L10 Press to Richmond. Haggard has assembled a talented team of professionals to bring local authors to the market. Check them out at Life in 10 Minutes Press.

Author Earnings Sliding Fast in U.K.

1. Can authors make a living as a writer?
2. Is this another case for self-publishing and self-promotion?

From Publishers Weekly:

Median annual income of professional writers in the U.K. is now under £10,500, down by 15% since 2013, according to ALCS (Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society) research. That figure puts authors’ hourly rate well below minimum wage

The earnings figure of £10,500 compares to the figure of £17,900 defined last year by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as the income level considered to be a socially acceptable standard of living for a single person.

According to the ALCS research, working writers’ earnings continue to decline sharply and the gender pay gap is opening up. The median earnings of professional writers–that is those who dedicate over half their working hours to writing–has fallen by 42% in real terms since 2005, and by 15% since 2013.

Earnings are also well below minimum wage, which for those over 25 is £7.83. Based on a standard 35-hour week, the median hourly earnings of a professional writer are now £5.73.

More from PW_Weekly…

Authorpreneur

Confession time. Half of this word really scares me. Also, it makes me a little angry, a little frustrated, and a little unsure about my ability to succeed as a writer.

Here’s why: I’m not so sure that the skills needed to be a successful writer can cohabitate with the skills necessary to be a great entrepreneur, brander, marketer, social media mogul and sales executive.

I’m afraid I only have the former set of skills. I like to be alone, I like psychoanalysis, probing deep questions, imagining alternative realities, crafting language, and communicating my most dearly held truths.

The following things, on the other hand, make me feel icky: self-promotion, money, too much time on the internet (especially social media), strategizing, marketing, thinking about the salability of my most dearly held truths.

Am I doomed in the new arena of writing and publishing?

I hope not.

But I worry that developing the skills to hold up the entrepreneurial end of this equation will take place at the expense of the author end. Time spent in strategizing, marketing and social media blasting is time not spent writing, after all. And I only get the same 24 hours in a day as everyone else, unfortunately.

The alternative, of course, is to hire others to do the parts of the business that I don’t have an affinity for. This upsets me for an entirely different reason. Are we kidding ourselves about the great egalitarian wild west of self-publishing on the web? If time and money must be invested now by the author, instead of by the traditional publisher, aren’t we empowering some kinds of authors (those with an abundance of time and/or money) over others even more than we were before?

This troubles me. I don’t have the answer.

But, if I may be permitted to play devil’s advocate against my own argument for a moment, I can see some of the proclaimed advantages of this new author-centric system of publishing. For one, authors have greater creative control over the final form of their work than ever before. If you don’t want to listen to a bossy editor or publisher, you don’t have to. You want to write an 800 page debut novel? Knock yourself out. “We don’t see a market for that” is no longer a full-stop for writers seeking publication.

Authors stand to take home a greater slice of their profits than ever before, too. People are not writing novels in the hope of becoming millionaires by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s nice that the time and energy vested in such a long project can be rewarded by a higher percentage (if not all) of the profits of the book’s sales.

And I do think that for some, the skills used in the writing process are transferable to the realm of entrepreneurship. After all, entrepreneurs must also be highly creative to be successful. Blogging is just more writing (a good place to put all the ideas in your brain that don’t fit into your novel!). And many writers also have a knack for the visual arts, making designing their own covers a fun challenge, rather than an overwhelming chore.

I’m still hoping to be picked up by an agent and a traditional publisher. But, in the meantime, I’m learning how to build a platform, generate blog posts, and talk about my project to any willing listeners. Dogged determination, after all, has always been a part of the writer’s toolkit.

Agile Writers, what do you think? Are you as ambivalent about the term “authorpreneur” as I am?

5 Reasons WordPress.com is for Authors

One of the first recommendations I give to my writers is to create a website and a Facebook page. This is the beginning of creating a platform for selling their book. Even if the book isn’t written yet, the new writer needs to create an interested following. The easiest way to do this is through social media. As a writer, you need to get the word out that your book is coming. Creating a pool of followers makes for an instant customer base when your book finally hits the market.

Here are five reasons I recommend WordPress.com as a great, free website and blogging platform

Free Stuff

There’s hardly any argument against free stuff. Creating your own site from scratch using hosting and web creation software can cost a lot of money. Hosting your web site on a server can cost from $100-$300 a year. Domain registration can cost $10-$30 dollars a year. You can create your own site if you know HTML and CSS and you have an artistic bent. Hiring a graphic artist to create your site can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

WordPress.com pays for itself with advertising that is displayed at the bottom of your page. Its a very small price to pay for free stuff. Plus, the quality of WordPress.com software is excellent. It is very easy for the non-technical person to learn. You don’t need to learn computer languages or hire a graphic designer.

No Administration Headaches

If you buy your own web hosting you not only have to pay yearly fees, but you have to administer it yourself. This could mean learning Linux or some other operating system. It is possible to install free WordPress software on your own server. I do that myself for my http://AgileWriters.com site. (It’s worth it to me because I customize the software for my needs). However, if you do this you have to keep up with the WordPress upgrades, which I talk about next…

Constantly updated against hackers

Another problem I have with my self-hosted sites is hackers. The language used to create WordPress is PHP. It is prone to being hacked. I have to make sure to constantly update my site with the latest WordPress software to make sure I don’t fall prey to the hackers.

WordPress.com is constantly looking for “exploits” in their code. Your WordPress.com site is automatically updated with the latest software that has been hardened against hackers.

Akismet Spam Blocker

One of the biggest headaches for bloggers is spam comments. These are comments left on your blog postings that actually come from robot programs (bots) that seek out new blog posts and respond to them with comments that sell some good or service that you haven’t authorized. Some websites get tens or hundreds of these spam comments every day.

Akismet is a service that monitors spammers and keeps a database of them. If you host your own WordPress site, you can pay for this service to protect your site from spam comments. WordPress.com does this for you for free. It’s an invaluable service.

Brochure Web Site Built In

A brochure web site is one that is filled with static content that advertises some good or service. It’s called a “brochure” site because it is like your sales brochure on the Internet. WordPress.com allows you to create “pages” of static content that just tells people what you do. You can create an “About Me” page where you give your biographical information and your writing influences. You can also create a page for each of the books that you have written. It’s really easy to do, and again, you don’t have to learn a programming language to update your site or add a new page.

Blogging Web Site Built In

A blog is dynamic content that you add to on a regular basis (daily, weekly, etc…). A new entry in your blog is called a ‘story’ or ‘posting’. If you had a traditional web site, you might find it difficult to update daily because you would have to write HTML code in a text editor, save it to a file, upload it to your site, and update other pages to create links to the story.

WordPress.com is made specifically for blogging. It allows you to add new posts as often as you like. You can even write a batch of blogs and schedule them to be released periodically – so you don’t have to sit in front of your computer every day. It is this dynamic and regular updating that makes your site feel fresh and alive.

Conclusions

So there you have it, five reasons (nope, it was six reasons – I gave you a bonus one!) for using WordPress.com instead of relying on your own hosting. You have a lot to worry about as an author just writing and selling your book. You don’t need the headaches of managing a web server too.

Take it from me. I’m a software engineer with a lot of experience in managing web sites. I use WordPress.com for my blogs as much as I can. Take a look at the site I built with WordPress.com over at http://ReelHeroes.net and you’ll see how much you can do with a free WordPress.com website and blog.