I heard a piece on the Today programme this morning about a chap who had sent the opening chapters of some of Jane Austen's books to various publishers, with just the title and character and place names changed. Were the books recognised? Read on!

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2129738,00.html#article_continue

Since having the freedom to publish what I want through Lulu I have not tried mainstream publishers but it does make you wonder about the "quality" of some publishers' readers.

Susan

"Hello everyone,
Sorry for the short notice but I was just wondering if anyone among you lives in Cornwall or in Devon? Lulu leaves London for a change to explore the beauty of Cornwall.

Two things will be happening in that part of the world next week:

1) My colleague, Carolyn Hack and I, will be giving a presentation about Lulu.

We will be visiting Cornwall to speak at the Self-Publishing seminar on June 14 2007 at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. The event starts at 6.30pm and will include a roundtable discussion with several authors who have self-published via Lulu or other self-publishing operations.
The event has been organised by thewritingcentre.com and it costs £15 to take part. Find out how to register here:
http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=684&Itemid=142

2) For those of you who can't or do not want to come to the talk, I would also like to organise a free meetup in Falmouth on Friday 15 June at 6.30 pm. The name of the pub is yet to be confirmed but I will keep you posted. It will be an informal opportunity for you to meet local authors, some of them publishing with Lulu, so bring a copy of your book! It will be a chance for everyone to talk about their work and learn about other authors' stories.

The invitation extends to anyone who lives not just in Cornwall but also in Devon or in the South West or indeed to anyone who wants to come along.
The more, the merrier…

I really look forward to meeting some of you there."

Lucy Pereira.

Please post to the thread on the Lulu forum if you are interested.

I notice that a few of you have been discussing web pages and the desire to have your own.
I designed, maitain and manage my own page (www.lovesey.net) and have designed pages for a local Bookstore as well as two fellow self published authors. The first can be seen at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/yongpease/index.htm and the other I am currently designing and working with the author.

I mention it here as given my own situation regards writing and promoting I tend to offer low rates for independent authors. As an example the current author was looking at a web hosting and web page design package that would have cost her over £1000 over two years. I am now working with her to design precisely as she wants and will proivde training so she can maintain the web herself moving forward. This is achievable in with around four hours work plus 1hr telephone training. So bottom line, if you can't handle a web page yourself (and I think every author should have a blog or web page, preferably both) then speak to me before spending oodles of cash with one of the 'rip off' merchants. Typically I would charge about £30 per hour (to an independent author) and we could your web page up running and with you trained in around five hours.

If you need more info on the IT/web side then post here or email me at ten.yesevol|ffat#ten.yesevol|ffat
Even if you don't want me tfor any paid services then just check in before investing your hard earned cash in web solutions. IT is almost as much a minefield as the self publishing business.

taffybach

It seems that, contrary to my statement in my reply to Susan's post on the Search Engines thread, it is not possible to make specific parts of any Wikidot site private. So the only way to do this was to create a whole new site which was, by default, viewable by members only. Obviously this one doesn't need to be as comprehensive or technical as the UK Wiki Lulu, but you are welcome to tweak it as you see fit. I will create a link to this new site on the Members Pages page of the UK Wiki Lulu. Only logged-in members of this private site will be able to see it and everyone else will see a page stating that the site is private, as also should search engines.

Please note that we are, at present, limited to 50 members for private Wikidot sites. This can be raised by contacting the Wikidot admin, but there's a possibility that this may cost, though I'm not certain of this. If we reach the point where more are needed then I'll look into it. As the UK Wiki Lulu probably has more members than the vast majority of Wikidot sites, at least more than any I've yet seen, they may be more amenable to us.

If you are a recent or new member of the UK Wiki Lulu and you find that you haven't been invited please contact one of the Moderators or Administrators of the UK Wiki Lulu who will be able to send you an invitation to join. As you will already be members of Wikidot it should be a very quick process to join the new site.

I uploaded a small short story (2800 words) just to test it out. Results were quite good, better than I expected.
Its over on my store front if youw ant to download (its free). Its a nine page tongue in cheek insight into PoD publishing.

One thing I noticed (and I can't remember who told me) but two Lulu authors both said that they do not have access to the PDF of their work when it is modified. That's incorrect. When the document is converted you have the option of saving it locally to your hard drive. As such there is NOTHING to stop you taking this PDF to a local printer if you so choose.

Taff

I see that you have added some References and Tools :)

Something else worth knowing (and I haven't seen it publicised recently) is the free online access to Oxford University and other books through local libraries. There is information about the national agreement (running until about March 2008) here
http://www.oup.co.uk/news/mla

By using the membership number from my local library I now have access at home and free to the OED, DNB, the Times from 1785 to 1985 and lots more. Check the website of your local library for 'online resources' or similar to see what you can get access to.

Best wishes

Susan

There are a lot of book festivals - there is a list at
[http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-literature-literary-festivals.htm]

I live in Lincoln and will be going to the Lincoln Book Festival (11-20 May 2007). On 19 May there is a Lincolnshire Writers' Day - I'll have a table and be trying (!) to sell some books.

We are listed as a local writing group at

[http://www.lincolnbookfestival.co.uk/default.asp?WCI=HomePage&C=50]

Has anyone else got involved with a local book festival?

Susan

My initial reaction is that Mobipocket could be of interest to UK Wiki Lulu members but it needs some careful examination first as it does not appear to be just a case of using any existing PDF as the source for a new book.

Having started this thread I'll add my further thoughts and comments as they develop.

Ken.

Looking at the wikidot statistics at first I thought I had a fan in the US; then I noticed that the said fan was mirroring my activity. Then the penny (or cent) dropped. I sometimes look at the wikidot at lunchtime in the office. Our office IT has been outsourced to a firm that I now find is based in the US. So I am one the large blobs in the the US!

I wonder how many other visitors produce 'blobs' at some distance from their own physical presence?

Best wishes

Susan

Web Page! Who Needs One?!

• You have just published your latest novel and feel you need a holiday but if you go away how will people stay in touch? Maybe you should stay at home and postpone your plans?

• A business man is on the road and notices someone reading a book by an author he has never heard of. As he is online on his laptop he decides to check this author out via the internet. He finds the books for purchase but no other information about this author. He closes his laptop and goes about his business. Author and book title forgotten!

• You have emptied your wine glass while visiting a friend. They have left you sat in the lounge while they refill your glass in the kitchen. To pass time you absent-mindedly pick up a book that they have been reading and the description grabs your interest, you notice that the book is from the library. When your friend returns you ask them about the novel and they sing its praises. Looking at the copyright page you see the author has his own web site. Your friend loans you a pen to note down the web page and you make a mental note so you can then check this out when you are next online.

• As usual Auntie Doris is stuck and unsure what to buy her niece for her birthday. She knows that her niece reads a lot and remembers that one of her favourite authors has a new book out soon. If only she could remember the name of that author and book?

• Spielberg looks out across the San Fernando Valley. He knows what he wants for his next movie but he can’t quite find the story that he’s looking for. He has the basis of four of five key ideas for the plot line, surely there is something or someone out there that already has a piece of work that he can mould for his next project?

A technique I picked up from my business writing was to use SQCA – Situation, Complication, Question and Answer.
The basis of this is that you hook in the reader by presenting scenarios to which they can relate, detail the complications and challenges in that scenario, reinforce what would be needed to reduce those challenges and finally suggest a method of how to do so.

All of the scenarios detailed above are real (well maybe not the last one) and many of us will be familiar with at least one of these in our author-lives. In line with the SCQA concept, what then can be done to alleviate some of the challenges that the scenarios raise?

What you need is a repository of information that readers and interested parties can access even when you are unavailable. A place where their questions can be answered quickly and efficiently and where they can find the very latest information about you, your writing and your publishing activities.

An author focussed web page goes part way to providing this solution!

I say part way because it will only be useful for those with access to the internet. It is NOT the ‘be all and end all’ as many would have you believe, but it is a very valuable tool, both for marketing and for communication with our reader base and I feel strongly that authors are losing a very effective communication mechanism if they choose to ignore the technology.

But surely I need lots of technical know how to have a page, or I need to spend a fair bit of cash to have someone do it for me?
Having the technical know how will help but, in short, the answer is no to both points.

With regards creating your web page there are now a host of tools out there that will help you with this. Some complicated web publishing engines that allow creation of pages and links and managed publication to the internet, and others more simplistic that will allow you to create web pages and links in a similar fashion to a word processor. Some expensive business focussed applications and others freeware solutions for the amateur.

Likewise, if you have a broadband connection, it is very likely that your service provider already has a file storage area reserved for your use and for publication of a web page and in most cases this will be an inclusive part of your broadband solution, a part that the majority of users do not utilise. For example BT provide space with the BT broadband solution and I have recently assisted a fellow independent author with her page and her provider, Tiscali, also had an inclusive web page file storage area. The result was that this author now has her own web page and it has not cost her a penny more than she was already paying.

Figure 1: BT Geocities Web Authoring Solution for BT Broadband Customers

In the first instance, if you are not technically savvy, I would recommend finding someone who has basic computer skills, but once you have been shown how to create, modify and publish web based information then you will realise that it is, in truth, fairly straight forward given the tools we have available today. In short, if you can use a word processor you can handle web page creation and publishing, and indeed, MS Word actually has a web page editing function included. Try saving a file as a web page (.htm) instead of the standard word document (.doc) – easy huh? You’ve just created a web page.

Figure 2: MS Word HTML Feature

But I’ll need all those snazzy graphics and artistic skills?

No again 
Most of the web document creation tools now include ‘royalty free’ designs and templates. Also, the less graphical content you use on your page the faster the page will load for readers. Remember not everyone has a fast broadband connection.

So as an author, what would I need on my web page?

This is entirely up to you and what you feel your readers would like to see.
However, as a minimum I would suggest including the following:

• A Home Page that is not heavy on content so it loads quickly and introduces who you are and shows all the links on your web site. This will be the page that people find on search engines and where they will ‘land’ when they arrive at your site.
• An Author Bio Page that gives a quick summary of who you are and your background. Readers love to see the author too so include a suitable image in your bio. Black and white photos are common and in many ways are more suitable for this type of marketing.
• Buy One; the essential page for business. Where can the reader or casual web surfer get hold of a copy. If you sell direct signed copies make this prominent, especially if, like me, this gives the best royalty payment. Include also the various suppliers of your books and take time to download their logos as opposed to just a text link.
• A Press/Review page; this should be a ’live’ page where you place information relating to reviews of your work and/or links to press articles, radio interviews etc;.
• Do include a page that provide a Synopsis for each of your books.
• Sample Chapters; pick your best ones and try to keep the sample to under 10,000 words in general.

I would provide these as the essential pages, however I would also strongly recommend the following:

• A News Page or BLOG (essentially an electronic diary); this is where you share your latest news with your reader base. The term blog is very common these days but I would resist the growing habit of many to use this area as a sounding block for opinions and for general ‘waffle’. This area should be for news relating to your writing and publishing. If you do want a blog that deals with more general things then separate the two and have a NEWS page and a BLOG link.
•

Figure 3: Typical Author Home Page

Interesting – so I should be able to publish my page and then start to get the sales rolling in, right?

Most definitely wrong.
The VAST majority of your web site visitors will go to your pages because they are searching for YOU. There are certain tricks that can be used to have search sites (such as Yahoo, Google etc;) put your web site on a ‘marketing’ list that will increase the visibility of your site but I would suggest that this would be money wasted.
You WILL generate additional sales from having a web page – but you are not going to have thousands of new readers visiting your site every week just by having one.
Look at the web page as primarily a useful source of information for your existing readers and with the added bonus of occasionally hooking in someone new. That way you won’t be disappointed when your sales don’t start to go through the roof.

Finally DO ask questions on chat rooms; such as the Lulu Forum and the UK Wiki forum. There are a fair number of people around with the skills and experience of creating and managing web sites and they will often offer their help and friendly advice. Even better if you know someone in the IT world who can help you out at first hand. After all, it is much easier and more effective to be shown something rather than read a wodge of technical instruction via email.

Figure 4: Typical Author Forum

Oh! By the way; that’s not an over-use of abbreviation in the title, it has a ? and an ! intentionally – I’ve heard the title phrase used in both contexts, as a question and as a statement. Hopefully this article has helped you make your own mind up.

Me? I wouldn’t be without one. Check out www.lovesey.net and you’ll see why.

Good luck and happy surfing!

Peter
Peter

Peter

Peter

Here we go.
On one of my off the wall promotional ideas again LOL…………..

As with many of you, I have attedned numerous small/medium craft fairs and markets but I have never tried one of the national shows at a major event (sdue to the cost).

The Living Heritage Craft SHows are some of the biggest in the UK and, as such, are very expensive but always last 2-3 days. They are held at large venues, usually stately homes and are visited by thousands.

(see http://www.craft-show.co.uk )

The cost of a standard table (14 x 6ft) for the events varies from £200 to over £350 so way out of our league.

However, if we could band a few of us together perhaps we could try one of these events. As an example there is an event at Knebworth on 6th-7th May. The cost for the table here is £200.
To make this viable for us we would need about ten to club together to fund the table and give at least a day of their time at the event. This would be £20 each. Les if we get more interested.

I chose Knebworth as this is fairly accessible from various directions.

If we can get ten authors interested I would be willing to attend the craft fair on all three days and 'run' the stall. Authors would be asked to attend at least one day but can spend all three there if they wish. I would limit the number of authors at the stall, probably to three, at any one time so that we are not over-whleming everyone. Similrly all others will be expected to sell all works, not just their own (although there will be a natural tendency to be more enthusiatsic about your own work than others of course).

I would effectively be there to set up the stall and would suggest that even if authors are not staying for all three days they have signed copies of their work available to sell over the three days, which you could leave with myself for safekeeping.
There are numerous other questions and things that would need to be sorted (such a one kitty and who runs it) but that is all details that I can organise later but at this point I am posting here to see if there are agroup interested. Once I have enough I will organise things.

Would we make a profit?
No idea. This would be a toe in the water check. Hopefully at £15-£20 each with the high attendance at these fairs we would be able to recoup that cost easily but it's a new idea so I don't know how it work work out but I'm up to give it a try. Also, as no-one will be on the stall all the time they will have access to the event so can enjoy the fair like any other punter.

I will be posting this on a couple of other forums too to try to band together the ten (or more) needed.

Thoughts peeps?

Taff

Thus I find it very difficult in reading some of the threads concerning Amazon pricing to understand why some folks are getting so upset. Could it just be blissful ignorance of thing in the real world and a lack of busines/commercial/induistrial experience?

I welcome your thoughts.

Peter

Peter

Peter

I won't invite anyone unless the consensus is the 'more the merrier'.

taffybach

Copy of Lulu Posting…
Many of you already know me from my involvement on the forum (and elsewhere).
In the past I have responded on a number of threads about eBay as a book selling outlet and in summary from the experiences of myself and others, eBay is a good outlet but will not bring in much profit. I was breaking even but I recently moved into small profit when a group of collectors bought a number of first editions of The Spider Gem.

A few days ago I was chatting with a friend who runs an eBay shop and suddenly realised that this is a way to reduce eBay listing fees and to get further exposure for our work. eBay shops operate under a monthly subscription but give much lower listing fees (as low as 3p for one month).

I have therefore decided to open and maintain an eBay store that will focus on self published and PoD published authors exclusively.
I cannot promise massive sales but it should generate a trickle and extend the readership of the author's work. It also opens up the books to those eBay users across the globe.
(as an example I have sold twenty books on eBay over the past 10 months).

I am not planning on running this as a profit making venture, it is just to provide an improved outlet for the my work and that of fellow self published authors.

To make a start I am looking for a minimum of around 6 authors to trial the service (although I can handle as many as want to join in). From what I have read and seen it should be possible for a few of us (or more) to join together to make this work well for us.

I can provide a full breakdown of costs associated with this eBay store and you will see that it really is a fairly low cost outlet (although not as high profit as selling direct to readers yourself).

If you want more details then send me an email at ten.yesevol|ffat#ten.yesevol|ffat
If you provide the selling cost of your book/s and the approx shipping charge based on weight I can give you a break down of the associated figures so that you can see how it is all laid out.

Like Chris' UK Wiki this is another outlet that could spread the word although this one does carry a small charge due to the eBay listing fees but at silly prices of 3p, 5p and 7p (dependent on listed price) there is not really a great gamble involved even if one month listing doesn't sell

This is a UK venture hence the posting here on the UK forum but if anyone overseas wants to take part then that's OK but please realise that sales will be impacted by larger shipping fees.

oh..and on the subject of the dreaded shipping costs I can work this using one of two models (author choice). You ship stock to me and I handle everything OR I handle the ebay selling side and you ship to customer/reader. The latter is by far the better option for self pubbies as it removes a set of shipping charges AND it allows the author to customise the signature as well as taking a small profit from any shipping charge (I generally round up so if postage and packing comes to £1.46 I would charge £1.50).

Give me a shout if you are interested. Any type of fiction or other self published product can work. Providing we get enough of us together then I'll keep you all posted on progress.

______

example of fee breakdown for using the eBay shop option

Method 1 I handle EBay you handle shipping to reader

For a book costing £9.99 requiring £2.50 shipping cost
EBay Shop Charge £0.00 Taff will cover this
EBay Listing (1 month) £0.05 For 7p a quantity of up to 5 can be listed
EBay Final Value Fee £0.90 Only payable if book sold (see below for rate)
Paypal Payment Fee £0.62 3.4% +20p on item cost plus shipping cost
Taff eShop commission £0.50 My eBay shop fee – only when book sold

In this scenario the buyer would pay me £12.49 into my Paypal account and I would pay you £10.42 via cheque or Paypal.

For a book costing £4.99 requiring £1.50 shipping cost
EBay Shop Charge £0.00 Taff will cover this
EBay Listing (1 month) £0.05 For 7p a quantity of to 9 can be listed
EBay Final Value Fee £0.50 Only payable if book sold (see below for rate)
Paypal Payment Fee £0.41 3.4% +20p on item cost plus shipping cost
Taff eShop commission £0.25 My eBay shop fee – only when book sold

In this scenario the buyer would pay me £6.49 into my Paypal account and I would pay you £5.78 via cheque or Paypal.

Method 2 I handle shipping and EBay

For a book costing £9.99 requiring £2.50 shipping cost
EBay Shop Charge £0.00 Taff will cover this
EBay Listing (1 month) £0.05 For 7p a quantity of 5 can be listed
EBay Final Value Fee £0.90 Only payable if book sold (see below for rate)
Paypal Payment Fee £0.62 3.4% +20p on item cost plus shipping cost
Taff eShop commission £0.50 My eBay shop fee – only when book sold

In this scenario the buyer would pay me £12.49 into my Paypal account and I would pay you £7.92 via cheque or Paypal.

For a book costing £4.99 requiring £1.50 shipping cost
EBay Shop Charge £0.00 Taff will cover this
EBay Listing (1 month) £0.05 For 7p a quantity of to 9 can be listed
EBay Final Value Fee £0.50 Only payable if book sold (see below for rate)
Paypal Payment Fee £0.41 3.4% +20p on item cost plus shipping cost
Taff eShop commission £0.25 My eBay shop fee – only when book sold

In this scenario the buyer would pay me £6.49 into my Paypal account and I would pay you £3.78 via cheque or Paypal.

For either method in the event that a listing does not sell all you pay is the listing fee (3p, 5p or 7p) and I can debit this against any follow up sale on subsequent months.

The 25% that I would charge for processing things will go towards the shop subscription fee. I;d start with the basic package (£6) and if we get more authors signing up I would the increase to the featured and anchored shop options. Mind you at a cost of £300 a month we'd have to get a lot of us onbaord for an anchored store! LOL
As I say, I'm doing this as an outlet for my writing rather than a profit makier.

The discussion button will create a forum thread for the individual page that you are on when you click on it. These threads are attached to the actual pages (known as a per-page discussion) and will not feature in the forum proper, though they will show up in the recent posts etc. If you click on the discussion button when it shows (0) a forum thread for that page will be started automatically, whether or not you decide to post to it, so try not to click on it when there's a (0) unless you want to post otherwise we end up with masses of empty threads. Once active (ie showing more than 0) the per-page discussions can be reached via the same discussion button at the bottom of each page and these threads are useful places to discuss the content of any particular page.

The content of any particular page can also be rated via the rate button. Useful for letting us all know what works and what doesn't, and which pages are popular, though this feature will probably become more useful when many more pages are added.

Finally, the tags button can be used to assign certain keywords to your page, much like the keywords on your Lulu content pages. When created these tags will show up in the tag cloud on the side menu. The tags in this cloud (and those at the bottom of each tagged page) can be clicked on so that all pages with that particular tag will be listed next to the cloud. The more pages each tag is used on, the darker and larger the tag in the cloud becomes, so the cloud should be a good indicator of overall content on the site. Steppenfreak has used these tags to particularly good effect so take a look at her pages to see how they work. Please note that tags with more than one word, such as 'short stories', need to be written as short-stories, otherwise you'll get one tag for short and one tag for stories. Also, please don't try adding tags to any of the forum pages as a tag added to any of these will automatically appear on all of the forum pages and this would obviously not be good.

I'll add info for the other buttons at a later date, though if you have any questions about any of the buttons, post a reply here and I'll do my best to help.

If anyone would rather have them back the way they were I can easily do this, so let me know if you them reverted.

Peter

Peter