You pays your money, you takes your choice ...

The Book 2 Book newsletter that I subscribe to today has two snippets in the form of press releases from Authorhouse, the largest print on demand operation in the UK, if not the world. The first of these announces two new publishing packages for hard and paperbacks respectively, each of which includes professional one to one support, custom cover design, ISBN registration, online distribution, custom interior layout, and what they term as "more services". The hardback package also includes personalised back cover and 5 complimentary copies.

The second press release states that the company have launched a new and improved UK website. The new site, which they claim is easier to navigate (anything would be an improvement on the old one) will in their own words "improve the experience for the increasing number of authors choosing to publish a book with AuthorHouse UK".

New features include a special savings and offers section with the latest offers for saving money on publishing packages, marketing services, and books, an author resource area with tips and advice from fellow authors, plus an updated bookstore which makes searching for and purcahsing Authorhouse titles quicker and easier than ever before.

I went to the new site to have a look myself and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to find your way around and to obtain information (if not prices) on the various options available. The prices for the publishing packages are there for everyone to see, and at first look compared to my own publisher Authors OnLine Ltd do not appear unreasonable, but the service that Authorhouse provide, judging from what I saw at the seminar that I attended (which admittedly was three years ago), and from talking to those who have published with them, does not begin to compare. I remember when I first spoke to Richard, the boss at Authors OnLine Ltd and mentioned that I had considered Authorhouse, he said to me that everything they could do, he could do better, and probably cheaper, and I believe he was right.

The clincher for me is the Borders and Waterstones packages that they like to tout around. The sum of £999 buys you a basic Borders or Waterstones package whereby they guarantee that 3 copies of your work will be on display for 10 weeks in selected Borders or Waterstones stores (if the Borders ones are still there - one of those in the programme is Dublin). The books are displayed on a special Authorhouse stand - lumped together with all their other titles and therefore advertising to the world and his second cousin twice removed that the books are self published. This stand is not genre specific and is placed slap bang in the middle of the fiction area - fine for fiction writers but not so good for non fiction (of which the majority of self published books are). If you want to add either of these 2 options to your exisiting Authorhouse package you can do so, for £204 for Borders and £175 for Waterstones (why Borders costs more is not stated - perhaps because they demand a higher discount).

My point is though that you do not need to pay extra money for this service - all you need to do is prepare a few publicity materials (information sheet, reviews and so on) and a bit of professional sounding spiel, and ring the stores up. If you say the right things in the right way then they will order copies. It is as simple as that - these copies will be displayed where they belong, in the section that is relevant to your book, if they sell, for considerably more than 10 weeks.

Of course if you really want book stores to stock you, then the books need to be returnable, and this is where the Authorhouse returns package comes in - for the sum of £599 for the first year, you can buy an insurance policy that allows Authorhouse to place your book on sale or return with Gardners, the largest wholesaler in the UK, making it much more attractive to book stores. The problem is that very few if any self published titles make this kind of money - I would have to sell around 450 to 500 books to make this worthwhile - the same number that I have sold in the three years since publication. The sums for the majority of self publishers just do not add up.

Of course if the authors who are stupid enough to sign up to this package (which can be renewed after a year for a further fee of £249) had published with Authors OnLine Ltd and worked as hard as I did, then Richard would have put their books on sale or return for free. This is once again a lesson for would be self publishers to research the market and understand how things, in particular the supply chain works, which most that I encounter fail to do. You pays your money, you takes your choice - I know which one I would make, every time.

Author Solutions buys Trafford Publishing

I read yesterday in the regular Book2 Book newsletter that I receive that Author Solutions, the US based print on demand publisher had acquired Trafford Publishing for an undisclosed sum.

Trafford was a relatively small but well known operation, set up in 1995, with offices in both Canada and the UK, and accordingly to The Bookseller, the world's first print on demand provider. My own publisher, Authors OnLine Ltd was established not long after, since this is their 12th year of business. Trafford may have been the first POD provider in the world, but AOL were the first in the UK - the original, and in my opinion, still the best.

Author Solutions, who own several POD imprints including AuthorHouse and iUniverse, are rapidly becoming the MacDonalds of the print on demand world. This comes on the back of their acquisition, just a few months ago, of Xlibris.

During 2008, they claim to have published over 21,000 titles from over 90,000 authors. Look closely however and you will see that the average sales for one of their titles was hardly more than 200 copies. Although it is true that this is largely due to the efforts (or lack of) on the part of their authors, to me it is not exactly a glowing advertisement. I suppose it depends on what your motivations for publishing are in the first place.

The news of this acquisition is to me a very sad day for the POD world. When you look at the history of the traditional non POD sector, and see how the smaller independent presses have been gradually swallowed up by the big boys, you will see that the power is concentrated in the hands of four or five large companies, who effectively have control of close to 75 percent of the market. This means less choice all round, and provides no incentive for the companies to compete with each other by offering better or different products, leading to less choice and less innovation. This is where the smaller companies, like the aforementioned Authors OnLine come in, who offer a real alternative with different options to suit different budgets without the 'pile em high and sell em cheap mentality that seems to emanate from these larger, less personal companies.

Fingers and toes crossed

I have just spoken to Paul, the amateur publicist for works on behalf of Richard's authors, and boy do I wish I had gone to that Winchester Book Festival. It seems that there were representatives there from Amazon, Booksurge and Authorhouse and Paul ruffled the feathers of all three - which is probably not difficult to do! When Amazon admitted that they are planning to implement their controversial Booksurge policy in the UK, Paul's words were "over my dead body", or words to that effect and promised them one hell of a fight (he has a lot of contacts in the media that he would not hesitate to use). He compared the quality of Booksurge books to one of his own, printed by Lightning Source and was able to prove that the LS, which is five years old and has been handled by well over 100 different people, is far better quality, since unlike the Booksurge one, the pages are all intact and not coming away from the spine.

As for Authorhouse, well my opinion of them is well known. It seems that Authors OnLine have a growing reputation within the POD world for turning out good quality books, which is making them a wee bit jealous. Authors OnLine as a company are really going places, with their X-Books website, and many other innovative ideas that are helping to raise their profile. They have had several major successes this year, including I am proud to say, my own work.

Paul's new book has just been published and is making inroads in Waterstones stores. He has 4 book signings already lined up, and is trying to work out a deal with Waterstones to get the book into more of their stores. Peter North, the new independent author advisor at Waterstones Head Office, has looked at Richard's site, and from what Paul says, he is very impressed with the range and quality of titles. He tells me that they are looking at stocking (this will be core stock, buying direct from Richard) several of Richard's titles, including my own, which is of course already stocked and selling well in almost 90 of their stores.

I always knew that it was only a matter of time before this book began to get noticed, and it seems that it may finally be about to happen. Fingers, toes and everything else then crossed to see what transpires.

How much more successful could Lorna have been?

Going back to the Lorna Page debacle and the storm that seems to be brewing regarding her novel, A Dangerous Weakness, I am beginning to think more and more than she is a victim of the press. Ordinarily I would try to avoid the use of the V word, but in this case, there isn't really another I can use. Of course the whole affair is also helping to highlight print on demand and the problems that we face. While the rumours persist, it is not however, the kind of publicity that we need. It certainly isn't doing her any favours.

I see from Waterstones website that despite all the publicity, not one single branch has copies in stock, of either the hard or paperback. The paperback has though been slightly reduced, so I guess people must be buying online. Of course the reason it is not in stock is because as a print on demand book, it is non returnable.

Of course it would be a different story had she published with Richard at Authors OnLine Ltd. When Martin Baum, one of his authors (To Be or Not To Be Innit) published his book earlier this year, one of the first things he did was send a copy to Peter North, independent author advisor for Waterstones. They kept in touch, and when the book made the national headlines, following Martin's contact with his local media, and was subsequently featured on Channel 5's The Wright Stuff', Peter emailed him to le him know that he would take the book as core stock. Martin (and Peter) contacted Richard to give him the news.

Richard was straight on the phone to Lightning Source to hammer out a deal, by agreeing with them to make the book returnable (core stock is supplied direct by the printer/publisher, cutting out the wholesalers etc, whom he could otherwise have turned to). For all their muscle and grand postering about how they are the biggest and most succesful POD provider, I cannot see Authorhouse doing this. Thank goodness then I saw through the hype, as had I gone with them, I doubt if my book would got into those stores either. This is then yet another example of an author failing to do their research and blindly going for the same publisher as recommended by a family member/friend.

Mind you, I cannot blame her, and Cate seems to have done an admirable job in her role as publicist. The fact that the press did what they did is (probably) not her fault. At the age of 93 it is still a remarkable achievement. If the book is already this successful though without being returnable, just think how much more successful it could have been if it was.

A Dangerous Weakness - and a lesson for newspapers to check their facts!

An interesting and somewhat misleading story has been circulating around the mainstream press this week, concerning 93 year old first time author, Lorna Page. From what I can tell, it started with The Guardian and rapidly spread to the other newspapers and radio stations.

After writing for most of her life, Ms Page has finally become a published author. This is no doubt a wonderful achievement, and one that she is justifiably proud of. The article went on to state that her book had been so successful and her advance so large, that she had been able to move from a modest one bedroom flat in Surrey, to a large house in Devon, worth over £300,000, taking several friends who had been in care homes, with her.

As Page says "Care homes can be such miserable places. You sit there all day staring out the window with no one to talk to. "I thought it would be lovely to give a home and family life to one or two people who would otherwise be sitting around there. It's nice for me too because at my age it's handy to have someone to live with. Now every book that sells will help towards making a home for someone."

She wrote her book, A Dangerous Weakness, three years ago, but like many authors, put it in a suitcase and made no attempt to find a publisher, until her daughter in law read it and encouraged her efforts.

I applaud her for doing this, and think it is very clever publicity, but there was one small problem. If you read the article carefully, it went on to say that her book was published by Authorhouse. As anyone in publishing will know, Authorhouse are the largest print on demand (self publishing) company both in North America and the UK, authors therefore pay them, not the other way round! There is then no advance. As for royalties, the book was only published a month ago, and because of the length of time it takes the publisher to get paid by the various stores and wholesalers who buy their books, plus of course the ridiculous returns system (not that this applies to most print on demand books), no author can expect to receive royalties until at least 3 months after publication. It goes without saying, that the author gets to keep the profits from any copies that they hand sell, through talks, book fairs etc or to friends.

I am quite understand why Ms Page decided to self publish, as let's face it, what 93 year old has the time to go through the agent/publisher cycle, waiting for up to three years to get published. She might be dead by the time this happens!

When the read the article again though, and look at the facts, something is clearly not right. While I acknowledge that certain sectors of the press do have a tendency to embellish (I have been at the sticky end of this myself), I was very surprised to see a newspaper of the calibre of The Guardian doing this. It is to my mind very sloppy journalism (it would not happen with the newsletter that I edit!), since the facts had clearly not been checked.

Having seen the original press releases, here and here, which make no mention of either a house or an advance, and understanding how the press work, it is easy to see how this could have happened. Newspapers tend to get their information from the various news agencies, whose websites press releases are posted on. Once one picks up the article, the others inevitably follow, until it becomes a game of Chinese whispers.

The article has since been corrected, but the damage has already been done. As The Guardian state: "The following clarification was printed in the Guardian's corrections and clarifications column, Friday August 15 2008 (today). In common with most other papers we reported that 93 year-old Lorna Page, "suddenly prosperous on the advance and sales" of her novel A Dangerous Weakness, had been able to buy a big detached house for herself and three of her friends. Aspiring writers (and house buyers) should note that her publisher, Authorhouse, is a self publishing company whose website states: "For a modest financial investment you can choose what you want for your book."

Their idea of a modest investment is clearly not the same as mine, as they charge almost twice what Richard does when you add it all up!

It is rather embarrassing to say the least, even more so for both Ms Page and Authorhouse. It is a tad misleading to say the least, and I get the feeling that her author advisor and whoever wrote that article will be busy cleaning up the mess (not to mention eating humble pie), for some considerable time.

The plot thickens when you realise that Ms Page's publicist Cate Allen, is none other than the daugher in law who persuaded her to publish in the first place. She is also published by Authorhouse and so recommended them to her mother in law (keep it in the family). Author and publicist have both gone on record stating that they have no idea where the story about the advance and royalties came from and pointing out that some of the newspapers "just made up facts". I can well believe this, but it still does not excuse what happened or why it took so long for the story to be corrected. I also to an extent feel that there is no smoke without fire, and suspect that one of these journalists must have spoken to Cate, as they must have got these ideas from somewhere. The article was too detailed for it to have been completely made up.

The BBC blog site has some interesting comments from listeners (dated August 12th) following an interview with presenter Chris Vallance, as well as author and publicist, indicating that their comments were taken out of context, so why did it take The Guardian another three days to correct the article which is on their website? Cate states that she is now making it clear to journalists what the true situation is, and how it has been misreported and is encouraging her client to do the same. I should think so too!

Amazon tightens its grip - now dictating to publishers re their own prices !

Chris Work, who posted some comments on one of my earlier posts on this blog, I see from The Bookseller website, has added a form to his blog to contact the Washington State attorney with regard to the Amazon affair. This can be found here. All you have to do is simply copy the text and send it to the email address that Chris provides with any message of your own. I urge everyone involved in this affair to send this form post haste, as like Chris says on his blog, "Amazon isn't going to pay much attention to you or me... but they will listen to anti-trust lawyers of the state of Washington". I don't see that they will have an awful lot of choice in the matter, but then again, I don't know how US law operates, and anything is possible.

The Bookseller it seems though is not the only British heavyweight publishing website to be covering this story, as according to the latest edition of Publishing News, the headlines of which were waiting for me in my inbox when I got home from work today:

"AMAZON HAS THREATENED publishers who sell direct at discount on their own websites with punitive action. PN understands that it has said that if the publisher continues, Amazon will take the selling price as the RRP and apply its terms of trading to that price. In other words, if Amazon receives a 50% discount from Penguin, for example, but Penguin is selling a £20 book for £15 on its website, Amazon will only give Penguin £7.50, rather than £10. One publisher told PN: “This has been around for a while. There have been discussions going on since Frankfurt. Essentially, they're not happy when the manufacturer, as they call us, sets the price of a book. The threat is that they will apply the agreed terms of trading to our web price. But they are on very shaky legal ground. After all, they've been invoiced at an RRP less their discount, so if they refused to pay that amount, they would be in breach of contract.”

Another publisher was more forthright. “Nobody can tell somebody else what price to sell a book at. Publishers will resist this. We're talking about very few titles and we are very confident of our position.”

Although the number of titles being sold direct by publishers is very few, some observers believe Amazon sees it as the thin end of the wedge and wants to fire a warning shot. The move is being driven by Amazon's UK Head of Books, Christopher North, and comes as a blog storm has erupted over Amazon.com's announcement concerning its print-on-demand operation BookSurge. Independent publishers are angered by the US company's decision to economically favour those companies that switch their printing to BookSurge. The row forced Amazon to release an open letter clarifying its position. Amazon.com will sell titles from other POD providers it said, but the publishers would have to join Amazon's Advantage Program, which has a fee. Amazon UK said that are no plans to introduce the service here, but one publisher is taking legal advice. “They're abusing their monopoly position. Once they've got you, they'll start increasing the terms.”

In the background to the moves may be Amazon's realisation that it has effectively dominated online bookselling for some years. Its figures with publishers grow faster than any other retailer (hence publishers' reluctance to anger it), but with other players establishing their online operations - Waterstones.com and, shortly, Borders as well as increasing noise from Play.com and publishers' own sites - it realises that this might very soon change.

This is indeed the thin end of a very long wedge, and I think Clive Keeble is right when he said a few days ago that "Amazon are a dangerous predator that needs to be stopped".

I have a reading booked with my good friend Diana Summer tomorrow, my first for over a year, to discuss various issues regarding work and the book, and I plan to include this as one of the questions. I have my own theories, some of which I have mentioned in previous posts, but it will be interesting indeed to get spirit's take on this.

Angela Hoy says on her latest post, that she suspects the reason that Authorhouse, I-Universe and Lulu caved in was because there is a clause in their contracts (in Authorhouse and I-Universe's case anyway) that says that authors must pay $75 for inclusion on Amazon.com. They have therefore painted themselves into a corner with their own greed, since by failing to sign the Booksurge contract they would have left themselves wide open to being sued by disgruntled authors for breach of contract. I will have to check the Authorhouse UK website, but I believe I am right in saying that they also make a similar charge. Having had dealings with this company when I was looking for a suitable POD provider back in early 2006, I have to say that this would not surprise me, as they seem to charge for pretty much anything they can get away with, and more's the pity, they do ...

Angela goes on to say that "Lulu has third party service providers (that pay Lulu commissions) that offer Amazon listing enhancement services for a fee to Lulu authors. One Lulu author surmised on their forum, "Lulu will just have to supply Amazon with books..." So, perhaps they found themselves in the same bind as AuthorHouse.

The deadline given to some publishers was rumoured to be April 1st and AuthorHouse/ I-Universe and Lulu both announced agreements with Amazon on March 31st - the day before. This leads both Angela and myself to believe that Amazon may have had them both by the probverbial short and curlies. This is what you get though when you charge authors for something that happens automatically without you actually having to do a thing. Make no bones about it, if my publlsher leaves Lightning Source to do all the fulfilment direct with Amazon, then it is exactly the same with all these others too. They are then sitting pretty taking the authors hard earned cash for doing to put it politely, bugger all. I hear the sound of one thousand unseen chickens clucking as they come home to roost ...

Angela also confirms that there is as yet no word from Xlibris, as does my friend UK based author Marion Webb de Sisto, who because she is married to an American and has her largest market there, chose to publish with Xlibris.

I could write much more on this debate if I chose to, but I do have the questions to write for tomorrow, and it has been a long day, and so I am now going to sign off before I email Angela with the links posted on here tonight and hit the snooze button !

The Latest re Amazon.com

Breaking news from the Writers Weekly website regarding the Amazon debacle shows that the three largest print on demand providers within the United States have all bowed down and submitted to Amazons demands. In other words, all three Authorhouse, I-Universe and Lulu) have moved their printing for Amazon at least, from Lightning Source to Booksurge, in a move that will cost Lightning Source thousands of dollars in lost revenue. I cannot believe that they allowed themselves to be blackmailed in this way without even bothering to consult their authors, who as a result have lost valuable distribution through Ingrams, and in one fell swoop their best chance of becoming stocked in book stores throughout the United States.

This will have catastrophic consequences I feel for all involved in this dreadful situation, where one of America's largest corporations is effectively holding both authors and publishers to ransom. What a choice - book stores or Amazon. I know which I would prefer when I look at my sales figures, and thank goodness I live where I do and don't have to make that choice. I was hoping there may have been an email from Richard when I got home tonight, but no, there is still no official news as to how this will impact authors outside the US. At the time of writing my book is still on both sites, but for how long remains to be seen.

Amazon in the meantime, have released an official statement, which to untrained eyes, and those who do not understand how publishing works, will not mean very much, so I will explain here, in hopefully easy to understand terms that will help.

I copy the statement here in its entirety, with my own statements in bold throughout the text:

Open letter to interested parties:

We wanted to make sure those who are interested have an opportunity to understand what we're changing with print on demand and why we're doing so.

One question that we've seen is a simple one. Is Amazon requiring that print-on-demand books be printed inside Amazon's own fulfillment centers, and if so why?

Yes. Modern POD printing machines can print and bind a book in less than two hours. If the POD printing machines reside inside our own fulfillment centers, we can more quickly ship the POD book to customers - including in those cases where the POD book needs to be married together with another item. If a customer orders a POD item together with an item that we're holding in inventory - a common case - we can quickly print and bind the POD item, pick the inventoried item, and ship the two together in one box, and we can do so quickly. If the POD item were to be printed at a third party, we'd have to wait for it to be transhipped to our fulfillment center before it could be married together with the inventoried item.

Speed of shipping is a key customer experience focus for us and it has been for many years. Amazon Prime is an example of a successful and growing program that is driving up our speed of shipment with customers. POD items printed inside our own fulfillment centers can make our Amazon Prime cutoff times. POD items printed outside cannot.

Simply put, we can provide a better, more timely customer experience if the POD titles are printed inside our own fulfillment centers. In addition, printing these titles in our own fulfillment centers saves transportation costs and transportation fuel.

This is complete and utter rubbish. The truth is that Amazon have, according to Wikipedia, 10 distribution centers in North America alone; and 14 more abroad (one of which is based in Milton Keynes, the same town where Lightning Source are based - Lightning Source being the largest print on demand printer in both territories). Amazon though, for all their grand statements about saving time, money and fuel, do not print books at all ten of these sites. The majority of books printed by Amazon will then still have to be shipped back to the warehouse for distribution, which will cost just as much as if they had come from Lightning Source in the first place. This money saving rationale then is full of glaring great big holes and totally meaningless.

Another question we've seen: Do I need to switch completely to having my POD titles printed at Amazon?

No, there is no request for exclusivity. Any publisher can use Amazon's POD service just for those units that ship from Amazon and continue to use a different POD service provider for distribution through other channels.

Why though should the author and/or publisher be forced to do this? It effectively means that they will be forced to publish two different editions of the same book, one through Lightning Source and another just for Amazon using their own printer, Booksurge, thus incurring two sets of printing and publishing costs (the average Booksurge package costs $1000). Since Booksurge, Amazon's own printer do not offer distribution through Ingrams, the wholesaler through which 99 percent of US book stores source their titles, authors are being given a stark choice between online sales or sales through book stores. This is no choice and authors should not be placed in this position.

Furthermore, since Booksurge are based only in the United States (unlike Lightning Source), they are unable to offer distribution in the UK, so US authors choosing to print with Booksurge will not be able to access the UK market and vice versa. UK authors using Booksurge will be the mercy of fluctuating exchange rates and high shipping costs in order to buy their own books.

Alternatively, you can use a different POD service provider for all your units. In that case, we ask that you pre-produce a small number of copies of each title (typically five copies), and send those to us in advance (Amazon Advantage Program - successfully used by thousands of big and small publishers). We will inventory those copies. That small cache of inventory allows us to provide the same rapid fulfillment capability to our customers that we would have if we were printing the titles ourselves on POD printing machines located inside our fulfillment centers. Unlike POD, this alternative is not completely "inventory less." However, as a practical matter, five copies is a small enough quantity that it is economically close to an inventory less model.

What they don't tell you, and what the average book reader also doesn't know, is that in order to be accepted on to the Advantage Program, you have to offer Amazon terms of 55 percent discount (in other words, they buy books from you at 45 percent of the cover price). These are terms more usually offered to wholesalers, such as Ingrams, or Gardners in the UK, but Amazon are not a wholesaler - they are a retailer. You also have to join the Search Inside programme, whereby your book is scanned so that buyers can browse inside and see if it is indeed suitable for their needs. This violates the authors copyright and may result in lost sales rather than more sales as you are effectively giving your work away for free.

If this were not bad enough, publishers/authors also have to pay a set fee of $29.95 per year, PLUS shipping costs to get the books to Amazon, in addition to the 55 percent discount. Why though should Amazon be worried about that when they don't have to pay? To add the icing to the cake, I bet that like the wholesalers, they also reserve the right to send back books that they can't sell at any time within one year - guess who has to pay for these - yes, you got it, the author! They wrote the thing while Amazon get all the money !

Might Amazon reconsider this new policy?

Only if we can find an even better way to serve our customers faster. Over the years we've made many improvements to our service level for consumers. Some of these changes have caused consternation at times, but we have always stuck with the change when we believe it's good for customers. An early example: many years ago we started offering customer reviews on our website. This was a pioneering thing to do at the time. The fact that we allowed *negative* customer reviews confounded many publishers - some were downright angry. One publisher wrote to us asking if we understood our business: "You make money when you sell things! Take down these negative reviews!" Our point of view was that our job was to help customers make purchase decisions. It made sense to us to stick with the customer-centric position of embracing customer reviews, even negative ones.

Another example: a few years ago, we made the decision to offer used books, and to make those used copies available directly alongside the new editions. This caused significant consternation, but we stood by the decision because we were convinced it was right for customers. Sometimes a used book will do and it can sometimes be had at a significant cost savings relative to a new book. We stuck with the customer-friendly decision.

Our decision with POD is the same. Once a book is in digital format, it can be quickly printed on modern POD printing equipment. It isn't logical or efficient to print a POD book in a third place, and then physically ship the book to our fulfillment centers. It makes more sense to produce the books on site, saving transportation costs and transportation fuel, and significantly speeding the shipment to our customers and Amazon Prime members.

Only of course that isn't what these changes will mean - as like I said, Amazon have 10 distribution centres throughout the US, but just the one printing plant. It will not then make the blindest bit of difference to their service, transportation costs, or anything else for that matter. Even if by some fluke, they open another 9 print centres, surely this will cost a lot more than had they stuck with their current system in the first place. It does not make economic sense no matter how you look at it.

We hope this helps those who are interested understand what we're working to do and why. We believe our customer-focused approach helps the entire industry in the long term by selling more books.

If they really think this then they are seriously deluded. Those three publishers may have bowed down, but this is far from over. How many Authorhouse/I-Universe/Lulu authors I wonder will change publishers because of this, choosing book stores over Amazon. The author should not have to make this choice. Internet book sales may be rising, but Amazon and print on demand authors would be wise to remember than 90 percent of book sales are still made through book stores - the Internet market is a drop in the ocean compared to this.

Furthermore, I fail to understand how this is better for the customer either; if the majority of print on demand companies refuse to give in to Amazon's demands, then this will mean that their customers have access to less books. This is not better service but worse, as it means less choice.

Sincerely,

The Amazon.com Books Team

My parting shot then is a request that all readers of this blog boycott Amazon until further notice or until they see sense (whichever is the sooner) and that you also add your names to the online petition which can be found here.

Something for the weekend

It is always difficult not to compare yourself to others who have similar blogs to you, and I must admit that it has been at the back of my mind a to why so few people seem to post comments on here ! Is this an indcator perhaps that no one actually looks at this blog ? My fears have put firmly to bed though this week, as I have had several emails from people praising what I do here. In particular, this morning I had an email from one Jim Carroll, another writer it seems who came across my musings on Books and Tales. That in turn led him to my site, and then from there to this blog, which he says is a mine of information and very helpful and refreshingly honest. Well, I do my best ! Jim is also considering self publishing his first novel, and by the sound of it, has several more in the pipeline, but is unsure as to how to proceed, since he is moving to Australia in the New Year. I wish him luck.

To pick up then where I left off, on Wednesday I did some more ringing round and was delighted to secure orders from 2 more stores - again both Waterstones - Market Harborough (Leicestershire) and wait for this - The Trafford Centre in Manchester. I think I am correct in saying that Authorhouse writers pay something like £500 for this privilige. This sum buys them space for 3 months on the Authorhouse stand, where up to 3 copies of their book will be continuously displayed. The scheme extends to several branches, inclduding Oxford Street in London.

Of course the only problem is (and I have it on good authority that this has not changed) that the Authorhouse stand is not genre specific. Everything is lumped together on this one stand, which in Oxford Street at least, is placed slap, bang in the middle of the fiction area, This is great if you happen to write fiction, but as everyone knows, the majority of books written are actually non fiction, which need to be displayed in their own section relevant to their particular genre. Otherwise, how are people going to find them? Of course, when I mentioned this at the Authorhouse seminar I went to, in 2006, I was told 'oh well, people do browse the store though, so will find the books that way'. Not so! If you know you are looking for a particular type of book, you browse that section only, and if you do not find what you want, then you either go elsewhere, or you go and ask the sales staff where to find it. Perhaps most worryingly of all then, is that when I asked the staff in Oxford Street where the Authorhouse stand was, they were unable to tell me. Lesson - you don't need to spend £500 to get into these stores, all you need is a good product and to be able to get through to the right person at the right time, and sell yourself !

Thursday (yesterday) was as usual National Trust day, so I didn't do any book work, and then today (Friday) I am spending most of the day pricing up various bits and pieces for the St Michaels Mind, Body and Spirit Festival, which is this weekend. I shall be there with my books, and I am also, as an experiment going to bring along some batches of cards - quotations from the book, which I have printed out on Decadry business cards, and placed with a crystal, in some nice little shiny boxes from Clinton Cards. I will see how they go, and if they go well, then I may consider printing some more and selling them from website.

The Post Office is then calling, for me to go and get change for the weekend, so on that note, I shall sign off.

Finally decided

April 13

I have finally decided which POD Company is going to get their hands on my book. I have humming and harring over this for weeks, looking at various websites, talking to loads of different companies, trying in vain to get comparisons with the different services they offer. This has been no easy task as they all offer such different things. In the end it was between two companies - AuthorsOnLine Ltd and Authorhouse.

The AuthorsOnLine site is brilliant with all the information you need on what they offer, how much it will cost etc, etc. The one thing it didn't say though was print costs. These turn out to be 1p per page, plus 70p for the cover. The Authorhouse site by contrast is next to useless with no information whatsoever. They invite you to send off for a publishing guide to their services, which is basically of copy of what is already on the site! I then got several American style emails wanting to know all about the book, what my plans were etc and inviting me to a seminar. I thought I would go along, as nothing ventured, nothing gained, and it was last night at the Hilton Hotel in Paddington, London. Last week I rang them up to ask a load of questions re print costs, royalty structures etc, and was promised an email with the information. A week later I was still waiting, so I though go to the conference and find out there. There they promised once again to send the info, and despite my emailing to remind them, still nothing has arrived.

Authorhouse are a big multi-national company based in the UK and US, who say they have published over 30,000 books, and last year alone printed and sold 1.1 million copies. I suspect that these figures are exaggerated, since Lightning Source; their printer printed a total of 28 million books last year - meaning that in 1 in 28 books would have been theirs - a very high figure considering that Random House and other large mainstream publishers also use Lightning Source for their low selling titles.

They also made a big thing about the Waterstones package that they offer - for £700 you can get the book formatted, cover designed from a databank of images etc, plus 3 copies of the book in Waterstones, Oxford Street for a period of 90 days, on a special Authorhouse stand. I went to Waterstones en route to the conference last night, and was dismayed to see that the stand is slap bang in the middle of the fiction area. My book is non fiction, so how are people going to find it. They will not be looking in the fiction area for a book like mine, but the non fiction area.

With AuthorsOnLine there is no bull s******* and no rubbish. They know exactly where you are and they make no false promises and do not give you unrealistic expectations. They have the same distribution and pay more royalties. So really there is no comparison and no competition. Everything Authorhouse can do, Authors on line can also do, including, they say, sending copies to magazines like Nexus and Kindred Spirit.

I had a bad feeling about Authorhouse right from the start, and all the way up there, and while at the conference last night felt very uncomfortable and uneasy. Now I finally understand why. Coran and I will have a read through the book then this weekend, and then it will be on its way. It is finally happening, and I really will get to see it in print. I can't believe it is actually happening.

With a bit of luck it will be in print by the end of the summer - and you can all have a signed copy at our get together in the autumn. Needless to say I will also mention you all in the acknowledgements.

Can't wait to get it all done now I have finally decided. Not sure what I am going to do with myself though - it has been my life for the last five years, so will be very strange.

I have decided that I shall be issuing it under my own name of Pigsty Press, in honour of the Old Light Cottage, which used to be a pigsty. Have loads of ideas as to how to sell it - through the Authors on line site, and also of course our own. It will also be on amazon.co.uk and .com, plus you will be able to order it from book stores and libraries (will have to register for public lending rights, so I still get paid!). I would rather people buy it from the publisher or myself if possible of course, because that way I earn more, but sales are sales. I have already emailed Cygnus book club to see what their policy is regarding books that they sell, and am waiting for a reply. Review copies can be sent to Nexus, Kindred Spirit etc, and also Paradigm Shift. I can maybe write another article to go in the magazine as well. My friend Michele who lives in Canada can put it on her website, and maybe I can persuade someone to post on HP as well, recommending it. I can also of course sell it through St Michaels and all those on our mailing list. One idea I also had was to get the local paper involved, maybe with a competition where people write in and first one out of the hat gets a free copy. The rest could maybe send in a coupon or something for £1 off. There are all sorts of ways to promote it when I think about it, and now I realise why I sold kitchens for all those years also - to give me the confidence and the expertise to go out there and do all this! Exciting times ahead then .......

Enough of the sales pitch

April 6

It has been a busy and productive day. This morning I rang Authorhouse and had a long chat with them and asked them loads of questions about their service - what is included, what isn't, all about royalty payments, author discounts etc. They are supposed to be emailing me this afternoon with more details, but so far nothing. I am going to their seminar next week anyway, so any more questions I have can be asked there. The woman I spoke to will there so I can meet her in person.

Something they do is called the 'Waterstones package'. For a fee of around £700 your book can be added to the Authorhouse stand in Waterstones, Oxford Street. 3 copies will be on display for a period of 90 days (3 months). With Waterstones, decision making is done on a branch rather than national level anyway, so theoretically I could persuade the Manager of any branch to stock my book, if I offered a big enough discount and they thought they could sell it. I will certainly be approaching my two nearest ones, and may even try and do some talks and signings there. I will do the same with Borders, which I know are very local author friendly. The book though would so I am told, be given prime placement right by the door on the Authorhouse stand. Next week when I go to their seminar I will try and go via Oxford Circus so I can see for myself what this stand looks like and have a flick through some of their books to check the quality and what sort of prices they go for.

One thing this woman did suggest was getting an art student from the local university to design the cover, for maybe a small fee, or even free, in exchange for putting their name in the book. It may be useful publicity for them, and help them get work by adding to their portfolio. This afternoon with this in mind, I rang Kingston University Art department and had a chat. The students are all on holiday at the moment, and not due back until April 24, but she gave me the email address for the head of the art faculty and I can have a think over the next few weeks about what the spec will be, how I would want the work submitted, what payment (if any) would be offered etc.

I had the idea last night for setting up a Writers Circle at our local church, so knowing there is a trustees meeting tomorrow night, gave one of them a ring to see what she thought of the idea. She liked it, and is going to bring it up at the meeting tomorrow night to see what the others think. She mentioned that Cygnus book club are now doing publishing, so I gave them a ring. It seems that they have published 3 titles, all of which have been previously published, and are not not issuing new books. I also asked them about POD and whether they would stock self published titles. They asked me to email them with more details re the book etc, and the names of the publishers I am considering. It would be good if I could get my book into their catalogue, as I think it would sell really well. It depends what discount they buy them for - less than 50 percent and it would probably not be viable. I can only see what they say when they get back to me. Most book sellers would buy it for between 40 and 50 percent discount anyway (including Waterstones I presume), so you would have to sell an awful lot of books to make that Waterstones package worthwhile. I think I would sell more through Cygnus than Waterstones, since the catalogue is specifically aimed at mind body and spirit titles, and they have a huge circulation. All in all then an interesting and productive day. I am feeling knackered now though.

Going to Authorhouse seminar

April 5

This morning I booked a place for a free seminar held by one of the larger self publishing companies, Authorhouse. Their website and brochure is next to useless so thought I would go along and get a bit more information. It is at the Hilton Hotel near Paddington (London) next Wednesday night. It should hopefully be interesting.