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Welcome In this fragile new world of publishing there is one consistent player. Their role has changed completely in recent years. Yet at its heart, it’s just the same as it’s always been. The creative role, the author’s role. Their skill is in the creation of remarkable narratives, engaging stories, literary legacies that inspire and enrich our lives equally. When I wrote my first novel way back in 2004 the publishing world was a very different one indeed: there were no eBooks, social media didn’t exist and ‘tragic literary rejects’ resorted to vanity publishing. I had enthusiastically approached agents and publishers with my manuscript, a work that I had poured over for years, only to have the gate slammed in my face. ‘No one will buy this book’. ‘This isn’t the kind of thing people want to read’. ‘You’re a man. Women won’t buy your book about women’. I didn’t agree. I was determined to get my story out and I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me otherwise. Like Sylvia said (before she set herself to Gas Mark 5), self-doubt is the enemy of creativity. I’d heard about a new technology that had been embraced in the U.S. called Print on Demand. And it would let me sell my book on Amazon. If it wasn’t for Amazon, I would never have been able to share my book with the world. Where I had once been abandoned and rejected, there was now hope. I self published, designed an online brand and implemented an international marketing campaign. My book – Single White Failure – was born. When I approached the media, they didn’t care that I’d self published, they were just interested in my writing and what I had to say – my book was a comedy, looking at what it’s like to be the man that dates postmodern twenty-first century women. Before I knew it, the book was in the Sunday Times, Grazia, The Daily Mail, Canada’s Globe & Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald; I was interviewed on NBC’s Today Show in New York. I did more BBC radio interviews than I can remember and went onto cookery shows (that still remains a mystery). I even did a sell-out book signing at the London Book Fair with Joanna Trollope and the wonderful Adele Parks (thanks for being at the LAF, Adele!). The highlight though was when a total stranger emailed me from their holiday in the Caribbean to tell me they’d been in a beach bar where they’d found a well-thumbed copy of my book (my book!). Someone had scribbled on the cover ‘you MUST read this’. So she had, in one sitting. Even now that makes me come out in goosebumps. That’s why we write. Right? So it was possible. It was possible to do it yourself and get your book out there, in front of readers, into the mainstream. This was awesome. And I thought, back then, that there must be more authors like me. And so Authoright was born – a company founded to offer support, guidance and solutions to other authors. Things have changed so much since 2004. A decade on, we are entering a Golden Age for being an Author. I am excited and privileged to be a part of what publishing is today. Agents, publishers, self publishing companies and platforms are like tectonic plates, shifting and compacting to create a new topographic publishing landscape. To date, the author has been fairly insignificant in the business of publishing, an atoll in the South Pacific – remote and alone. But with a tidal wave of change in recent years
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we are already starting to drop the ‘self’ in self publishing. To us it’s now just publishing.
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these small land masses have converged; authors are combining forces, sharing knowledge, empowering themselves and one another. In short, the democratisation of the publishing business, largely through digital and self publishing innovation, has created a new continent. That super power is called Author. It seemed unconscionable to us at Authoright – where many of us are writers – that there was no dedicated conference for authors. And all authors at that. A conference that would look at the business of books from the perspective of the creative force behind the industry. There are plenty of festivals showcasing celeb writers that have ‘made it’ as well as good, reputable events that help novelists realise the book within them. But nothing innovative. And as the author becomes a power in the burgeoning new business of books, not just the talent, it is imperative that all writers begin to equip themselves with the commercial, technical and political knowledge of where things are and where they are going. Now that authors have won a seat at the table with the big boys, they have got to keep it. The change isn’t over yet. At Authoright, we have pushed for a deconstruction of the industry, which has happened, and it is ongoing. It will rebuild and it will be better than ever before. But we as writers need to look beyond this Golden Age and keep up to speed with what’s coming next. For example, at Authoright we are already starting to drop the ‘self ’ in self publishing. To us it’s now just publishing. We see the London Author Fair – the first in the International Author Fair series – as being a home for all authors, whether unpublished, self published, traditionally published or hybrid. Secondly, it will be an annual coming together of all the players in this new industry, a forum for open discussion, a sharing of ideas relevant specifically to the Author for the good of the Industry. With Author Fairs following in New York (Autumn 2014) and elsewhere in North America and Europe in 2015, we hope to bring disparate groups of novelists, biographers, poets, bloggers and playwrights closer together, enabling them to publish freely and fairly, for themselves and their readers, alone. Writers of the World Unite!
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London Author Fair O A New Story in the Telling Porter Anderson
Do not expect publishing people to teach you. They have little idea what their industry is anymore and they’re obsessed with lunch. I thought I was being funny when I said that two years ago to Jon Winokur, curator of Advice for Writers. Well, a funnier thing has happened on the way to Authoright’s inaugural London Author Fair at Covent Garden’s The Hospital Club: like something out of vaudeville, we’ve discovered we were looking the wrong way. At the time those thoughts were published – two years ago, on a Friday the 13th – many believed this condition of confounded leadership in the publishing establishment soon would pass. We were fixated on the publishing houses, impatient but indulgent, watching for them to take care of business. • The digital dynamic, surely, would be embraced; • Our publishing chiefs would sort it and regain their footing; • Our bookstores would sail high in cyber-kasbahs
of their own; and • The noble enterprise of publishing would ascend into the ether and sit on the right hand of Amazon the almighty – more efficient, more comprehensive, more egalitarian, more diverse. It was during this period that I began writing of Big Publishing as the industry! the industry! – because so many observers seemed more worried about the corporate apparatus than about books. Or the people who made them. Or read them. And as we stood about, waiting for the establishment to pull itself together, the storytellers had begun crafting a new narrative. In the UK, the Alliance of Independent Authors would be formed and Authoright would curate the first AuthorLounge at London Book Fair. In the US, agency pricing models would be largely undone and BookExpo America would create its first Author Hub on the floor of that trade show. Everywhere, ISBNs would begin to lose their traction as the undisputed universal identifier because
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many entrepreneurial authors didn’t want to pay for them and saw them as the instruments of gatekeepers. Tax loopholes that looked a lot like Luxembourg and an ‘authors-are-our-customers-too’ policy in Seattle would allow the Amazonians to clinch their dominance as the arch-enablers of digital self publishing. Kindle Worlds would legitimize fan fiction for many. Kindle Lending Library would presage new subscription efforts. Kindle Matchbook would introduce eBook bundling with print editions. ‘Author-services’ vendors would spring up, some of them large, some small; some of them legitimate, others not so much. In the States, literary agencies’ stances went from (a) “No, no, self publishing is not something that has anything to do with us” to (b) “Our clients do seem to be asking frequently about self publishing” and then to (c) “Well, you know, it’s just fine for us to assist our clients in self publishing, especially their backlists” and on to (d) “Actually, we’re really very impressed with your self published debut, might we offer you representation?”
New author-facing conference-and-context players arose, among them London Author Fair and its international series; PubSmart; The Literary Consultancy; Author Revolution Day; The Writing Platform; and uPublishU. These would be met by specific expansions in some of the oldest venues. The venerable Writer’s Digest vertical in the US developed a Los Angeles edition of its New York conference, first adding a ‘Self Publishing Day’ option, then a ‘Pro Day’ emphasis. London Book Fair would adjust its branding to Author HQ and create a Book and Screen Week to culminate in London Writers’ Day. Everywhere, programming for authors was evolving from the inspirational–motivational–aspirational to the vocational–professional–entrepreneurial. And as self publishing and hybrid publishing began producing their first outlier-success stories – writers commanding millions of unit sales, foreign rights and film options – one of them, the hybrid phenom Hugh Howey, established AuthorEarnings.com. Here is a controversial and pivotal moment that, as The Bookseller’s Philip Jones would write at The
According to founder Gareth Howard, the fist-and-quill logo is “a positive call to arms for authors.”
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FutureBook, “has moved the needle”. Howey’s rationale: To gather and share information so that writers can make informed decisions…[and] to call for change within the publishing community for better pay and fairer terms in all contracts…[because] Authors have suffered from a lack of organizational advocacy. Now we know that as we watched for publishing to get its great houses in order, our entrepreneurial authors were making off with some of Olympus’ fire. Those authors are now in direct contact with the readership. They’re spotted on the slopes of new business models and on the ramps of publishing startups’ mission statements. They’re carrying that flame’s warmth and its light in a fast-maturing dialog of mutual respect and rancour-free progress. They talk less about the failings of the industry! the industry! and more about the potentials of their own work. I’m especially pleased to be part of London Author Fair’s premiere because it is facing in the right direction. Its graphical branding includes that ‘Writers Unite’ fist-and-quill artwork, charming in its labour-movement militancy. Authoright’s Gareth Howard confirms to me that it’s “a positive call to arms for authors”.
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i’m especially pleased to be part of the london author fair because it is facing in the right direction.
Here is the mandate, per Howard: “By uniting, authors can become their own power, generate their own ideas, and shape the industry that sells their creativity.” In short, the oldest element of the business, the storytellers, can now drive the industry’s newest opportunities. There is much to learn. Our authors are unused to being in the driver’s seat. The front seat is crowded with competing voices and interests. Nobody likes to ask for directions. Intentions, plans, dreams and bright ideas are, like the authors themselves, all over the map. But as this creative network finds its footing and tests its muscle, its authors will learn to set the course and the agenda, in concert with each other, with the agents who serve them, and with their readers. Look who’s having the last laugh, and the first LAF, now. Porter Anderson is a publishing journalist who writes for Publishing Perspectives and Writing on the Ether amongst others, and hosts the weekly #PorterMeets interviews for The Bookseller. For more information go to www.porteranderson.com or follow him on Twitter @Porter_Anderson
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The Venue The networking hub of the fair. Rub shoulders with industry insiders, choose from a full line-up of intimate workshops and take advantage of complimentary refreshments at Blurb’s Author Cafe.
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CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
Lunch will be served from 12:50pm until 1:30pm.
Publishing professionals and content creators take on the industry’s big questions and ideas in our full schedule of seminars. Hear talks about authorial entrepreneurship, distribution, discoverability and more.
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Seminars Introduction to the London Author Fair Gareth Howard and Hayley Radford Official welcome to the first-ever London Author Fair by the fair’s co-founders, Gareth Howard and Hayley Radford.
Author Entrepreneur: Why Your Book is Your Startup Porter Anderson (Chair), Eileen Gittins and Gareth Howard All authors – self published, trad and hybrid – are required these days to work on their books with the same energy and commitment as if it were a business. This seminar will tell you why this is the case, and how you can master your own book startup.
The Business of Books Philip Jones (Chair), Prof. John Thompson, Holly Bennion, Simon Skinner and Suzanne Baboneau Writing is a passion, publishing is a business. So the quote goes. Here leading lights will discuss how the business nuts and bolts of publishing are changing, and how that affects you, the creative force behind the industry.
Agents of Change: the Evolution of the Literary Agent Porter Anderson, Oli Munson, Andrew Lownie, Hellie Ogden and Gordon Wise Agents. We all need one. Do we? Is it true that agents are now becoming publishers too? Our panel of leading literary agents will discuss how their role is changing and take questions from the floor.
Making Your Mark & Marketing Your Book Hayley Radford, Adele Parks, Julia Coblentz and Matt Cain Branding and marketing are crucial. And the responsibility for getting them right will often be left to the author. Our panel of experts will offer practical and creative advice to authors starting out based on their own experiences.
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CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
Content is King: What Can Publishers and Authors Learn from Other Industries? Gareth Howard (Chair), Kate Pullinger, Anya Saunders and Russell Harding TV, film and computer games industries are leading the way when it comes to exploring exciting and ambitious new ways of developing and sharing stories and ideas. What does the future hold for the book? And what can publishing do to keep up? Find out here!
Distribution: Why it’s so Important for Authors Sheila Bounford, Anna Lewis, Camille Mofidi, Darren Hardy and Ruth Jones Distribution remains one of the most critical yet mysterious parts of the publishing process for most authors. This panel will tell you everything you need to know in order to maximise your reach and drive book sales.
Discoverability and Connecting with Readers Porter Anderson (Chair), Gareth Howard and Patrick Brown The connection between readers and writers is stronger than ever. And with that the power of direct marketing from creator to consumer. But it’s a big wide web out there. How do you break through the white noise and reach your audience?
The Big Publishing Brain Storm: How can we get to where we want to be in 2020? Eileen Gittins, Patrick Brown, Adele Parks, Gareth Howard, Polly Courtney, Andrew Lownie, Piers Blofeld and Porter Anderson
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Picture This When American entrepreneur Eileen Gittins couldn’t find a publishing solution for her limited-edition photography book, she founded and funded a company to make it. That was nearly a decade ago. Today, Blurb is one of the most innovative publishing platforms around and Gittins a revolutionary in consumer-led content creation. Authoright’s Hayley Radford caught up with Eileen in the run-up to the London Author Fair. There’s a familiar saying which is universally, if unfairly, used to definite talent: those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach. In my experience, there’s an altogether more special third breed who not only ‘do’ exceptionally well but also have the capacity to teach and inspire others. Eileen Gittins is one such woman, a technological trailblazer who has already led a series of successful companies and now takes the helm at Blurb. A publishing platform that not only sets standards of aestheticism to which any publisher should aspire, California-based Blurb also presents an ethical, practical and fair platform for writers of all backgrounds, styles and genres. And like the best kinds of business, Blurb was born because its founder and CEO Eileen Gittins saw a gap in the market when trying to put together a book of her own. “After I had sold my second company I started to photograph again – and still do today – largely as a cathartic experience. In
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business, you work insane hours at an amazing pace and after that I honestly needed a creative outlet. So I assigned myself a project where I was going to photograph entrepreneurs, people that I had built these companies with, as a way to both stay in touch with them and thank them for their contributions, marking what a wild ride it had been. One by one they all agreed to take part and I set about photographing them. This was all fine art work, medium format, black and white, environmental portraiture. Along the way, they were all telling me their stories, and I was thinking ‘this is fantastic, why didn’t I know this about you when I was working with you!?’ Pretty soon I realised that this project wasn’t just personal work for me to reconnect, but it was actually a community project, because all of these people knew one another and were connected, at least by one degree of separation. I felt I just had to share it back with these people in a way that
honoured their contribution. And really, that’s where Blurb began. I thought I’d make a book – how hard can that be? This is classic, right, because the answer is ‘very damn hard!’ It was impossible in fact! This is back in 2005 and I just couldn’t believe that what I wanted wasn’t there. I’ve built internet companies, I’ve built e-commerce engines, I was one of those pioneers…how hard could it be to produce beautiful bespoke books, with a Print on Demand set up and an e-commerce back end? Finally, after a year of searching, during which I stopped working elsewhere, told my husband that I would be making no money – which was challenging since I was the chief breadwinner in the family – and I told him I’d be spending our money on this new venture. We agreed, I had a year. And literally a year later I had the finance in place and Blurb was up and running. The problem we were looking to solve – for anyone with something to say, with a story to tell, photographs
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
to share, their great opus to write – was a way to publish easily, with free tools, to let you lay out, design and produce your book.” Self publishing has blossomed in recent years, largely due to the twin consumer forces of digitisation and social media. Publishing platforms have worked hard to finesse their offerings, and Blurb is no different, fine-tuning their free online tools to provide the best user experience and end product for their authors. By watching how authors have also changed, in terms of their expectations, their ambitions, Eileen has ensured that Blurb has evolved in tandem. “When we started, photographs were very much the lingua-franca. People were using images as a way to communicate with each other. That’s only increased. Blurb was at the very beginning of that trend; digital cameras eclipsed film cameras for the first time in 2005. At that zeitgeist moment when the world of photography exploded and everyone had a camera phone
in their pocket, Blurb was there to enable these creatives to share their images. We saw a tremendous upswing in what we call personal books, those created entirely for self-expression. But regardless of what the pictures or illustrations depicted, or indeed who the book was intended for, the author always wanted to create something beautiful, something they could be proud of. A real book with all of the physical attributes of a traditionally published book. But at the time I wanted the author to be freed from all the constraints of having to make that book for sale, like having to have 500 copies of the book! That was the initial thrust of the company; that everyone should be able to publish. The first real change we witnessed was a behavioural thing, with the advent of blogs. By blogging, people were effectively publishing; posting and publishing their own work and the venue for that was entirely online. You could write and immediately start building an
audience. People felt empowered to put their thoughts out there and as that happened, consumers turned into publishers, publishers started to develop audiences of consumers, unaided by any traditional publishing industry, whether it was film, music or books. It was people to people and that behaviour really started in 2007. That was wave one. Wave two was that blogging became an industry in its own right and people could get paid for it. That behavioural shift became turbo charged with the advent of the e-reader and with devices such as the iPad. Instead of just having a website which is more difficult to curate – that’s why a magazine such as yours is so great – and curation is what’s so interesting and important right now. It needs to be easy so that the content is accessible to new readers. And so people organically started to want to self publish their work, producing books as a way of taking that curated content to the next level. We started to see authors publishing through
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we are deconstructing the industry so that the power is returned to the rightful hands of those who are authoring and creating the work in the first place. Blurb with much more focused intentions. Phase three at Blurb was authors really wanting to be able to sell books and make a profit through our platform. So we started to enable that in 2008. We had an advent of what was then called the accidental author, people who had created a book that they only ever intended for friends and family, realised that they had a great product on their hands with potentially a much broader appeal. And because the quality of Blurb’s print books is so high, they had a terrific product to work with. Our business model is to keep the publishing free. Our tools are free for the author to use, for layout, for design. If you use Adobe InDesign we have a plug-in for that. We’re now deeply integrated into the Adobe Lightroom, for the photography crowd. Finally, in around 2011, businesses started to find their way to Blurb. They wanted to tell the story of their company, or create either a portfolio piece or to memorialise an event or a launch in book form. A look book for a fashion brand for instance, for them to send out to their key buyers, beautifully presented. Increasingly these are purely information driven. Those attending the London Author Fair
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will be able to learn more about our new precision tools for authors. This is how Blurb is developing; everyone wants the professional quality our business model is set up to deliver. It’s so author friendly and that’s by design.” Perhaps the most pointed distinction between the traditional publishing industry and these new, self publishing super-platforms, is that their entire modus operandi is to serve the author. I rather doubt, if you asked a big six publisher what their primary role was in the trade, that they would couch it in such benevolent terms. But that’s where the market comes in; authors will decide who to publish with today based on their consumer experience and their own expectations – what will X afford them, rather than Y? – not because of a legacy or a heritage, which is largely rendered meaningless in this age of content, commerce and choice. By helping to bring books to life – a staggering two million and counting since 2006 – Blurb are contributing to a glorious creative explosive. “I can tell you that as the founder of this company it made me insane when I really studied the book industry to see that the person whose work it is, the creator
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of this whole fabulous book, was at the end of the food chain when it came to being remunerated for their brilliance. I thought, “We have to fix that.” It doesn’t mean that authors don’t need help and support. We are now morphing into the day when we are deconstructing the publishing industry. And Blurb’s piece of that is to provide the platform and the ecosystem – and that may include partnering with people, such as Authoright, who can provide great supplementary services. We are deconstructing the industry so that the power is returned to the rightful hands of those who are authoring and creating the work in the first place. People attending the London Author Fair may know Blurb and may know us for one particular type of thing, but as we move forward into 2014 and beyond, we are ourselves transforming and continuing to grow and extend, moving much more into the world of publishing.” The publishing industry as a whole is at a crossroads, and finding its true course over the next five years, let alone the next ten, represents a major challenge, one with which Gittins has some sympathy, but believes a more realistic, intuitive approach is needed. “Literally the publishing industry is imploding before our very eyes. For the last 200 years since books have been an industry in which the economic imperative has been inexorably tied to the qualitative, publishing hasn’t been very democratic at all, because many very, very fine books never see the light of day because economically they just don’t make sense given the business models of the publishing houses. They can’t see a return on their investment. That pressure has been increasing significantly over the last ten years. As the industry tries its best to squeeze out their margins through eBooks, one of the ways in which they’re doing that is by focusing on the bestsellers,
the blockbuster runaway hits. It’s the equivalent of Hollywood’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 12’, right? That’s just where they have to go in order to continue to prosper. Given their cost structure, this is a necessity but serves to drive them into a very narrow lane. There are two tragedies in publishing today. First is that the debut writer just isn’t seeing the light of day – we know it’s not happening as it should be. The second tragedy that’s happening at the moment is the tragedy of the mid-list author, people who historically have either never been published or published with modest success – oftentimes your first book is not the runaway hit. If you publish your first book and enjoy only middling success – which is entirely to be expected – your publisher is very likely now to lose interest, even the actual ability, to take on the next two or three titles, and grow your audience, your talent and your impact. It’s just not happening.” Some of the most interesting people working in publishing today are those who come from outside the trade, who are cutting their teeth in other industries and who come to the business of books unencumbered by a desire to keep sacrosanct a model of working that perhaps no longer completely fits our 21st century needs. Gittins is an authority in consumerism, in examining, listening to and responding accordingly to the tastes and needs of people, of unpublished authors. In Blurb’s case, those people are individual authors, those with a story to tell and, today. And rather than colliding with traditional publishing and working to disrupt it, Gittins believes in a more subtle, receptive but no less radical approach when it comes to revising Blurb’s groove within an evershifting publishing landscape. “I always work with two ‘D’ words in mind: democratise and deconstruct. People often use the
word ‘disrupt’ but oftentimes that can mean the death of what came before. I don’t know that that’s what everybody wants in publishing or that that’s the way it should be. Deconstruct is interesting because it implies choice, that you can mix and match something once you’ve taken it apart, to suit yourself. We are in that same space, deconstructing in order to improve. When you use Blurb to publish, there is no one saying, ‘you can’t do that’. It’s about experimentation and the technology enables you to tune your work. I think that we’re going to live in a world of hybrids. It’s not a zero-sum game. You don’t have to just publish through one publisher; why should you? You don’t have to always go indie. There may be times when a traditional publisher is going to give you an opportunity that’s extraordinary. So go for it. Why wouldn’t you? As long as you’re happy with all the issues surrounding rights, what you own and so forth. What’s happening now is that authors are getting the power. And as long as authors continue to have the leverage in these future negotiations, they will create more and more opportunities for themselves, for flexibility. We’re at the dawn of a power shift, from big companies to the author, aided by people like us.” Eileen Gittins is the Founder and CEO of Blurb, founding partner of the London Author Fair. Eileen will be speaking on the Author as Entrepreneur seminar at 10am in the Basement Studio as well as joining the Big Publishing Brainstorm, our last panel of the day. Find out more about Blurb at www.blurb.com
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NOOK Press, a self publishing platform that speaks your language NOOK Press, a division of Barnes & Noble, is bringing its fast, free and easy to use self publishing platform to ten additional countries. Beginning this spring, publishers based in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium will be able to upload and start selling their books everywhere NOOK devices and NOOK reading apps are available. The NOOK UK bookstore already has more than 2.5 million titles and with the addition of NOOK Press will offer a more expansive reading experience. The updated platform will be available in French, Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch as well as English and authors will be paid in their local currency. Come for the tools, stay for the great merchandising opportunities. As Barnes & Noble’s userfriendly self publishing platform, NOOK Press continues the bookseller’s tradition of connecting authors and their stories to millions of readers. This commitment to
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authors inspired NOOK Press developers to create tools for writing, editing and publishing eBooks that make it easy for content creators to take their work from manuscript to readyto-publish eBook all in one place. By removing technology barriers, NOOK Press helps authors focus on writing and reaching new readers. “What I love about NOOK Press is the ease of use and the intuitive tools,” says Barbara Freethy, a NOOK Press author who has sold more than a million eBooks through NOOK Press. “NOOK Press also offers authors great merchandising opportunities and instant access to detailed sales reports, making it easier than ever to expand your readership and sell self published eBooks.” Freethy is not alone as a self published bestseller: on average more than 15% of the Top 100 eBooks at BN.com are self published titles that launched through NOOK Press, and many of these titles go on to appear on
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NOOK Press offers authors the opportunity to self publish in over ten countries, with special promotions beginning in the UK in the spring.
the New York Times bestseller list. NOOK Press titles are actively merchandised across NOOK tablets and e-readers, on BN.com and NOOK.co.uk, through regular NOOK Book promotions and in customer emails and social media. Special NOOK Press-focused merchandising programmes, such as NOOK First and NOOK Press Presents, also surface great new independent reads to loyal book-loving customers. For UK authors, these merchandising opportunities offer a great non-exclusive way to have their work reach the larger US market. Plus, starting this spring, NOOK Press books will be featured in a new UK-only programme: Digital First. This new merchandising opportunity will present selected NOOK Press titles side by side with commercially published titles and will be featured prominently on NOOK.co.uk and on the integrated shops on NOOK tablets and e-readers. “The upcoming launch of NOOK Press underlines our continued commitment to bringing NOOK’s bestin-class digital reading experience to UK customers,” says NOOK UK Sales Director, Colin Eustace. “From our sponsorship of the Get London Reading festival, to our great prices on NOOK devices, we are focused on making reading affordable for UK customers, while delivering the very best content. With NOOK Press, we’re offering readers access to new voices and stories, and it’s another great reason to start reading with NOOK.”
What are you waiting for? Get started. What makes NOOK Press so easy to use? The process is simple: • Instant Access: The ‘Quick Start’ option lets writers try out the tools before they commit to becoming a vendor; all they need to sign up is an email address. ‘Live Chat’ offers writers instant support and personalised answers to questions at every stage of the publishing process. The service is available Monday to Friday between 9:00am and 9:00pm EST. • One-stop Service: Authors can write, edit, format and publish their work in one place with exclusive content tools all at no cost, and sell books to millions of NOOK customers within two to three days. • Easy EPUB Creation and Editing: With new content creation tools, authors can easily upload a manuscript just once, then continue to write and edit directly within NOOK Press, quickly and easily turning their work into a professionalquality EPUB file. • Integrated Collaboration: NOOK Press allows authors to safely and quickly invite their network of friends and editors to read and comment on any NOOK Press project in a secure environment. • Fast International Publishing: When authors
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by expanding our international platform, we not only celebrate and support the uk writing community, but bring a diversity of voices to our loyal readers on both sides of the atlantic. hit Publish, their books go on sale as a NOOK Book within 72 hours. • NOOK Press Doesn’t Make Money Until Authors Make Money: At NOOK Press authors enjoy a simple and competitive compensation model, with no hidden terms or fees. NOOK Press authors can price their titles between £0.75 ($0.99/€0.99) and £120.00 ($199.99/£120.00) and receive a competitive royalty based on the given price. For NOOK Press NOOK Books priced at or between £1.50 and £7.99 ($2.99 and $9.99/€2.50 and €9.49), authors receive 65% of the list price for sold content. For those priced at £1.49 ($2.98/€2.49) or less, or £8.00 ($10/€9.50) or more, authors receive 40% of the list price. NOOK Press authors will be compensated from the list price they set with no additional charges, regardless of file size. “We’re excited to make NOOK Press available to independent UK authors and publishers,” says NOOK Press General Manager, Theresa Horner. “By expanding our international platform, we not only celebrate and support the UK writing community, but bring a diversity of voices to our loyal readers on both sides of the Atlantic.” NOOK Press is everything authors need to self publish their eBooks to the NOOK Bookstore and BarnesandNoble.com. For more information visit www.nookpress.com
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The LitFactor PitchUp Event
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Authors who want traditional publishing deals know that the first step is to find a literary agent. But often that process is a shot in the dark – querying agents you think might like your manuscript and waiting weeks or months to hear back, if you hear back at all. That’s why LitFactor is so excited to be holding the PitchUp! event at the London Author Fair. We’ll be hosting some of the UK’s top literary agents, acquiring in all genres, in the PitchUp! tent to hear authors pitch their work face-to-face. All of the agents are keen to have more personal interactions with authors. “I see being part of agents’ PitchUp! at London Author Fair as a great opportunity to meet writers. Reading manuscripts behind closed doors is very much removed from contact with writers and the agents’ PitchUp! opens doors for a two-way dialogue. I’m hoping for an interesting day of reading, as each manuscript is uncharted territory,” said Yasmin Standen of Standen Literary Agency. Authors will have fifteen minutes to pitch their manuscripts and receive feedback from the agent. Any author who is coming to the London Author Fair is welcome to book a PitchUp! slot and take advantage of this face-to-face opportunity for free. And while each author may get only fifteen minutes of pitching, there are also ample opportunities throughout the day to interact and network with the agents, as well as to see some of them speak in seminars and workshops.
All of the agents attending the PitchUp! are actively interested in building their lists of author clients. “I’m excited to hear original pitches from debut authors at the event. I look after a growing list of exciting authors and I’m very keen to add to that list this year,” said Hellie Ogden of Janklow & Nesbit. An interesting pitch at the PitchUp! may mean a representation agreement for a lucky author. LitFactor is very excited to be facilitating these meetings. Our last event, the AuthorLounge at the London Book Fair 2013, was a great success, and we can’t wait to meet all of the authors who come out to the London Author Fair. Along with Yasmin and Hellie, Jessie Botterill of Janklow & Nesbit, Piers Blofeld of Sheil Land, Andrew Lownie of The Andrew Lownie Literary Agency, Meg Davis of The Ki Agency, Ajda Vucicevic of Luigi Bonomi, Laura West of David Higham, Jemima Hunt of The Writers’ Practice, Lorella Belli of The Lorella Belli Agency and David Headley of D H H Literary Agency will all be at the PitchUp! listening to author pitches and giving feedback. The PitchUp! tent will be running from 10am until 6pm on Friday 28th February. For more information on all of the day’s programming, and to get on the waiting list for a PitchUp! slot, go to www.londonauthorfair.com
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I look after a growing list of exciting authors and I’m very keen to add to that list this year. Hellie Ogden
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See Camille Mofidi of Kobo Writing Life discusss global distribution options for authors at the London Author Fair
It’s never been easier to become an internationally published author than with Kobo Writing Life. Launched by Kobo, a global leader in e-reading, in the summer of 2012, KWL allows authors to publish in over 60 languages across more than 190 countries. KWL users are allowed to directly upload their eBooks to be purchased by the millions of users on Kobo’s global platform. This way they can enter multiple markets, significantly increasing
the visibility of their works and the odds of gaining new readers. The KWL platform has been localised to English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch, creating a seamless purchasing and reading experience for users around the world. Kobo Writing Life distinguishes itself by being free, open and collaborative. Offering an extremely user friendly experience and free file conversion to EPUB, Kobo Writing Life aims to help independent authors to engage with fans on a global scale through a top class e-reading service, and puts all aspects of publishing (editing, formatting, sales reports, marketing and distribution) in the hands of the writers, helping them maximise sales. With eBooks, self publishing authors can reach a global audience today, reaching readers nearby just as easily as writers on the other side of the planet. So, what does it take sell your book in a foreign market? It all begins with a high quality product
in terms of editing, translation and cover design. A thorough marketing plan is also pivotal in order to figure out the best way to distribute and promote your book through the right channels in the targeted territories. Besides being a global online retailer and a self-publishing platform, Kobo prides itself in partnering with top class European bookshop chains such as Fnac in France, and Mondadori and Feltrinelli in Italy. These, along with many other bricks-and-mortar booksellers, offer Kobo books to their patrons. Kobo Writing Life is also extremely proud of its collaboration with bestselling author Lucy Kevin, who is also known as Bella Andre, in order to bring her ‘Four Weddings and a Fiasco’ series exclusively to French readers. This has been a successful tag-team effort to enter a new language market. It is the first time that a writer is partnering with an eBook retailer for the translation of her novel to a foreign market, while retaining her
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Article contributed by Diego Marano KWL UK Manager
own rights. Marie Laberge, a major FrenchCanadian author, decided to publish her backlist and front list on Kobo through Kobo Writing Life. She has numerous readers in Québec, but also in France, Belgium, Switzerland and more. In some of these countries, her books were out of print, but with Kobo, she can reach all of these readers with her eBooks. Once again, KWL took advantage of its local teams to promote her books on Kobo and
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with its partners. Authors interested in leveraging Kobo’s global presence in order to enter multiple markets will be given the opportunity to listen and speak to Camille Mofidi, Kobo Writing Life Europe Manager, on February 28 at the London Author Fair. Camille has been in charge of these international projects and is coming to London to share her expertise with the UK independent author community.
Kobo Writing Life allows authors to self publish in over 190 countries and 60 languages. The KWL dashboard makes monitoring eBook sales quick and easy. Find out more at www.kobo.com/writinglife
Kobo writing life allows authors to publish in over 60 languages across more than 190 counrties.
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Workshops
1 10–10:55: Editing
Helen Bryant, Founder Cornerstones Literary Consultancy
11–11:55: How to Market Your Book Hayley Radford Director of Marketing Authoright
12–12:55: Social Media Masterclass Ben Galley, Founder ShelfHelp
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10–10:55: Discoverability for Authors Patrick Brown Goodreads
11-11:55: Discoverability for Authors Patrick Brown Goodreads
12–12:55: Editing Ben Seales Editor eBook Editorial
1:30–2:25: Book Cover Design & Online Branding
1:30–2:25: Poetry Corner
2:30-3:15: Working with a Literary Agent
2:30–3:25: Pubslush: How to crowd fund your book
Sam de Ceccatty Cover Designer
Hellie Ogden, Agent Janklow & Nesbit
Dan Holloway Poet, Journalist & Blogger
Amanda Barbara VP & Co-founder, Pubslush
3:30–4:25: Book Tour Tutorial
3:30–4:25: How to Self Publish Professionally
James Wharton, Author and Author Consultant
Hayley Radford, Director of Marketing & Polly Courtney, Author
4:30–5:25: The Author Exchange
4:30–5:25: The Author Exchange
Polly Courtney and Ben Galley Bestselling Indie Authors
Adele Parks Bestselling Author
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10–10:55: How to Publish with Kindle Direct Publishing KDP and Authors
11–11:55: How to publish with CompletelyNovel Anna Lewis
12–12:55: How to Publish with CreateSpace CreateSpace and Authors
1:30–2:25: How to Publish with NOOK Press NOOK Press and Authors
2:30-3:25: How to Publish with Kobo Writing Life Kobo Writing Life and Authors
3:30–4:25: Working with a Literary Agent Piers Blofeld, Agent Sheil Land
4:30-5:25: The Author Exchange Roz and Dave Morris Bestselling Indie Authors
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The Internet for the Indie Author Ben Galley
I first entered the indie author scene in 2010, when the landscape of publishing was busy evolving from a single traditional path into an ever-changing junction of options and opportunities. I had just put the finishing touches to my debut book, The Written, and I was eager to unleash it on the world. Naturally, I headed straight for the traditional route: getting an agent, sending a manuscript to a ream of publishers, and then waiting patiently by the phone, hoping for a six-figure contract. The process didn’t sound that great to me, especially after researching what royalties and rights I could expect. But I knew no other route, except so-called ‘vanity publishing’, which was an expensive and outdated method. So I started Googling agents. And it was while I was Googling that I spotted an advert for something called ‘self publishing’. It all sounded a bit too good to be true. Publish my own books, sell them at major stores, on a global scale, and keep my rights and a huge portion of my royalties? Really? I stopped Googling agents immediately, and set about Googling how to be an indie author. With time, effort and a few mistakes, I finally boiled all my research down and built myself a method. A method that made use of the new technology the last decade has given us, whilst staying professional and
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affordable. Essentially, going DIY. It seemed I had a method that worked. The Written was published in both print and as an eBook, in just under a few months, to all major markets around the world, for a cost of around £400. I didn’t even have to leave the house. After publishing my second book, Pale Kings, I knew it was time to start to start sharing my method, to share the lessons I had learnt, so that other authors could publish in the best way possible, and avoid the various pitfalls like package providers and poor quality. In mid 2012, Shelf Help was born – a website full of honest and clear advice on writing, publishing and marketing. Through the site I’ve helped all sorts of authors publish their books, through the blogs and via the 1:1 sessions I offer as well. Helping other authors is something I’m very passionate about. In my opinion, self publishing is the best thing to happen to the book industry since the printing press, and I can’t help but shout about it. If any of you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen a few rants here and there…! The truth is, self publishing is a very hot topic. The landscape changes weekly, so there’s a need to keep the information fresh and ongoing. There’s a lot of rubbish flying around the internet about indie authors, so it’s important to stand up and make sure that the indie’s
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voice is being heard, that tips are being shared, and that people aren’t being led astray. That’s a big part of what Shelf Help does, and platforms like Twitter and Facebook are great ways of getting the word out. Let’s be honest, authors have flocked to social media like ants to a picnic. Myself included! I spend a lot of my time on Twitter, YouTube, Goodreads and Facebook. I use these platforms to share advice, follow the industry and ultimately to spread the word about myself and my books. Before the internet, authors were limited when it came to actually talking to fans. Letters and events were pretty much the only way a reader could contact their favourite authors. The majority of fans could only engage with the words on the page, and chat about it in the street. Then the internet came along. Suddenly, authors could build websites and converse via email with fans all over the world. We could have a digital presence
as well as a physical one. Geography was abruptly obsolete. We could post blogs and talk about what we’re up to, filling the gaps between each book release. We could take pictures of our coffee mugs and hordes of cats. We could even shoot videos of our events and adventures. Even when you’re asleep, your digital presence is working away. We’re 24/7 and global at the click of a mouse. Social media is a very important tool in your author toolbox, and along with your website it’s an integral part of your digital presence. Here are several reasons why: 1. If you were to hold a signing at your local bookshops, how many people do you think you could meet on a busy day? Forty? Fifty maybe? Social media sites like Twitter have millions of users. All of them are potential fans of your books, or subscribers to your content. All you have to do is connect with them!
Galley’s latest book, a published version of advice from his Shelf Help website, will be available in mid-February.
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self publishing is the best thing to happen to the book industry since the printing press and I can’t help but shout about it.
2. Brief and bite-size pieces of information go down very well in the age we now live in, with our busy lives and many data streams. Tweets and Facebook posts are easier to digest than a long blog post. So is a quick video update. This means we can post on the go, and very frequently too – keeping our fans close and in the know. 3. If social media has bred one thing, it’s a sharer. Sharing your own content and that of others is pretty much what social media is all about. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are literally devoted to it. What this means is that every interesting (and that’s the key word here) thing you post has the chance of being shared hundreds of times over, if you’re lucky. This is great for building fan-bases. 4. And lastly, every single platform I’ve just mentioned is completely free to use. And I could go on. Social media, as you can see, is a really useful way of a) staying in touch with your fans, even on an hourly basis, and b) making new fans. It’s more a question of why wouldn’t you use social media, rather than why would you. Although social media can be a struggle for those not used to technology or familiar with how it’s all supposed to work, I always urge authors to embrace it. The world of social media is just too important to ignore. However, there is a knack to getting it right,
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and that’s exactly what I’ll be discussing in the first of two workshops I’ll be running at this year’s London Author Fair: In the morning I’ll be holding a workshop on online marketing. I’ll show you the main ways of marketing yourself on the internet, using all the best Shelf Help tricks. By the end of the workshop, you will know how to effectively market yourself and your books whilst keeping it cheap, and most importantly, professional. I’ll be covering blog tours, reviews, websites, content marketing and, of course, social media. So if you are new to online marketing, or simply want some tips on how you might be able to improve your existing digital self, then this is the workshop for you. I’ll also be holding a second workshop in the afternoon, which will be a group Q&A session. You’ll be able to ask whatever questions you need to ask, and drill down into the detail of how best to publish your books I look forward to seeing you on the 28th of February! Ben Galley is the author of The Written, Pale Kings, and most recently Shelf Help, to be published in midFebruary. For more information, go to www.bengalley.com or www.shelfhelp.info. Follow Ben on Twitter @BenGalley
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
Find out how to self publish ebooks through Kindle Direct Publishing and print books with CreateSpace at the London Author Fair Article contributed by Amy Tipper
At Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and CreateSpace, we’re dedicated to helping authors succeed – whether success means selling 100,000 copies of their book around the world, or connecting with just a few readers who love their work. LAF is a great place to learn more about how to find this success and to get together with peers and industry leaders, and we’re happy to be a part of it. With KDP, authors can independently publish their books in Amazon Kindle Stores around the world – they keep control, can distribute globally in multiple languages, publish fast, earn 70% royalty, and it’s free. There’s also an option to enrol books in KDP Select – if you choose to make your eBook exclusive to Kindle
for 90 days, your book will be enrolled in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library where readers can borrow your book for free while you earn a share of a global fund. You can also choose between two great promotional tools: Kindle Countdown Deals, time-bound promotional discounting for your book while earning royalties; or Free Book Promotion, where readers worldwide can get your book free for a limited time. Distribution barriers are also coming down for authors who want to publish a print book. CreateSpace lets writers publish their books in print using print-ondemand technology, and because CreateSpace books are printed only when a customer orders them, it’s affordable and there are no up-
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Author Keith Houghton has used both KDP and CreateSpace to self publish his work. Meet Keith at the London Author Fair.
front costs for authors. Once it’s published and listed on Amazon, the book is available to millions of customers around the world. Authors like Keith Houghton, who will be attending LAF, have seen success publishing their books on Amazon using KDP and
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CreateSpace. “I love the flexibility that self publishing brings,” Keith says. “It’s changed my life completely – the high royalty rates mean that I am making ten times more as an author than I was in my day job.”
For more information on independent publishing at Amazon, come to see us at the KDP and CreateSpace booth, attend our workshops or visit kdp.amazon.co.uk and createspace.co.uk.
At Kindle direct publishing and createspace we’re dedicated to helping authors succeed.
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Reading Out and Reaching Out What All Writers Can Learn From Poets Dan Holloway I was a novelist several years before I was a poet. And a headstrong and opinionated self publishing novelist (at a time when it was very unfashionable to self publish) to boot. I had also spent years drifting around the music and art worlds, where those strong opinions on what made a successful relationship with an audience fermented and distilled, and performed, no doubt, other alcohol-based metaphors. By the time I launched my debut novel, Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, in 2009, and then launched the work of the literary/ experimental collective Year Zero Writers onto the world in February 2010, I had a very clear idea of what writers should be doing. For my launch, I worked with the brilliant local musician Jessie Grace, splitting the event between readings and songs, and I took a leaf out of the book of my friend James Rhodes, the pianist, and provided a visually arresting and informative programme. And for the Year Zero launch, we took over Rough Trade in Brick Lane, alternated writers and bands, and worked incredibly hard on creating collectible posters and programmes in conjunction with the American artist Sarah Melville.
It was only in the summer of 2011 that I realised this was less what writers do and more what poets do. At which point, I decided poetry was my natural home. Since then as a writer I’ve oscillated between poetry and prose, but I’ve always worked in close conjunction with people in other forms of the arts, and I’ve always made live reading an absolute cornerstone of what I do, from staging an all-day art and poetry installation with New York artist, writer, model and publisher Katelan Foisy to performing poetry to the music of electronica band To The Moon to a longterm collaboration setting my poetry to the images of Canadian photographer Veronika von Volkova and even running a successful touring show, The New Libertines, for the past three years. I am increasingly hearing people say, on the writing conference circuit, that live readings are essential to building a fanbase as a writer. What I want to do in my workshop at the London Author Fair is look at ways to make your readings and talks more engaging. I also want to look at how you can use collaboration with people in other fields of the arts both to push yourself
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Above: Dan’s limited edition postcards, produced in collaboration with artist Veronika von Volkova. Below: Poster for the launch of Year Zero Writers. creatively and to expand the community around your work by bringing new art and music lovers to your work, and by bringing new literary fans to the work of those who collaborate with you. Let’s face it, most of us don’t just love books. We love music too. And art. And film. And probably people who like the books we do overlap considerably with people who like the art and music and film we do. And that’s the case for our readers too. By collaborating with people in other arts whose works we love, both partners in the collaboration can bring wonderful new discoveries to their fans. Dan Holloway is an award-winning poet, novelist and performer. His latest collection, i cannot bring myself to look at walls in case you have graffitied them with love poetry, is available to download from his website, to buy as a paperback, and also forms the base for a set of beautiful limited edition postcards produced in collaboration with Veronika von Volkova. He is also a journalist, with a column in Words With Jam magazine and regular contributions to the Guardian Books Blog. His new book, Self-publish With Integrity, has been widely praised and offers writers thinking about self publishing essential advice on how to steer a path through the labyrinth of well-meant advice and self-appointed gurus and to retain their passion for words throughout their writing life.
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Next Month in New Edition
The rise of
Twitter fiction
March Happenings
March’s hottest Natasha Rocca Devine Plan your own literary party
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publishing trends
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