Author Archives: Andrew

About Andrew

Writer, editor and publisher including: former principal for the Davies Literary Agency; editor and publisher of The Western Australian Year Book for a number of years; and editor and writer for Afterlife - the Magazine for Atmosphere users.

When submitting to a publisher don’t: submit your partner’s manuscript without seeking their approval

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Picture of manuscript submissionAfter last week’s posts which dealt with the relatively heavy topic of eBook earnings I thought it might be time to try something a little lighter. As a result this is will hopefully be the first in an irregular series entitled: When submitting to a publisher don’t:. In this case don’t submit your partner’s manuscript without seeking their permission!

Now you might think this warning isn’t really required, but it has actually happened to me. In the case in point I received a short, illustrated manuscript suitable for a parent to read to a young child. I liked the story, and the illustrations, but wasn’t sure if we were the best fit for the book .

When I emailed the author I discovered than not only was he not aware that his partner had submitted the manuscript without telling him, they had also commissioned the artwork without his permission and he hated it. Probably made for rather a chilly conversation over the breakfast table the next day. I do have to say, however, that I felt it was rather sweet of the partner to have that much faith in their partner’s work. But the bottom line remains: don’t.

Did the average eBook really earn just $297 in 2012?

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income-graphicAs a small publisher this is obviously an important question: both for us, and for our authors. The question being, of course, how well is an author doing compared to their peers.

Unfortunately this information is difficult to obtain, as from the publisher’s perspective it is often commercial in confidence. Alternatively the information may rely on a small, non-representative sample of self-disclosing authors. What information is around seems to indicate, however, that the goal of earning enough to get a cookie and a mug of chocolate each week on the royalties from eBook sales is probably going to be well beyond the experience of the average author.

Back in May 2012 The Guardian ran an article with the headline ‘Stop the press: half of self-published authors earn less than $500’. The article was based on a survey of 1,007 self-published writers that was originally published by the website Taleist.  Unfortunately I was unable to view the results from the original survey from the Taleist site due to its age, so this information is gleaned from the Guardian article.

What the survey shows is that  the average amount earned by self-published authors in 2011 was just $10,000, with half of those responding making less than $500. While self-published superstars such as Amanda Hocking and EL James raked in enormous sums of money (Hocking attained sales of $2.5 million), the overall figure  is significantly skewed by the top earners, with less than 10% of self-published authors earning about 75% of the reported revenue, and half of writers earning less than $500.

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To illustrate or not to illustrate? A question.

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Frontier IncursioRecently we nominated Leonie Rogers’ Frontier Incursion for the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Benjamin Franklin Digital Awards. The Awards were established to honour the best in Digital Book innovation with nominees being judged on 5 criteria:

  1. Content,
  2. Use of Platform and Technology,
  3. Innovation,
  4. Design, and
  5. Overall Reaction.

As a publishing award rather than a literary award we knew it was a bit of a long shot and unfortunately we weren’t successful. What was interesting, however, was the feedback we received from the judge about how they believed the book could be improved.

When I launched Hague Publishing it was with the intention of producing well edited eBooks, with a fast load, and a clean appearance. A book where the words did not get in the way of the story, but in fact supported that reading experience. Despite the failure to win the Award, it reassuring to have the judge recognise that the goals I had set myself had been achieved. It was also pleasing that the judge had enjoyed the story, particularly liking ‘the plot elements of genetic engineering and people-cat empathy’.

However, the suggestion that the book would benefit from the addition of internal illustration is not one that I would necessarily support. From a purely publishing perspective the use of internal illustrations would significantly add to the costs of production. While from the reader’s perspective illustrations would slow load time and chew up valuable storage space if they are like me and tend to leave previously read books on their eReader. It also raised the question of whether it would actually add any benefit to the reading experience.

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Just how many eReaders IS enough (Part 2)

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Following on from last week’s blog where I asked the question, ‘Just how many eReaders do I need’ I thought this week I’d turn my attention to ‘Just how many eReaders does the world have?’. To answer this question I’ll be looking at:

  • How many (and what type) of eReaders are getting sold globally?
  • What is the market for eReaders compared to the traditional paperback?
  • How are tablets impacting on ‘traditional’ eReader sales?
  • What’s happening in Australia?
  • Are our own sales at Hague Publishing typical of the wider picture?

How many (and what type) of eReaders are getting sold globally?

In November 2012 Digitimes Research estimated that global shipments for 2012 would reach 9.82 million e-book readers, down 57.3% from 2011. Digitimes suggested at that time that because of “increasing competition from 7-inch tablets and large-screen smartphones, global e-book reader shipments will continue falling to 8.2 million units in 2013, 6.5 million units in 2014 and five million units in 2015”.  However recent figures put out by the Pew Research Centre paints a completely different picture of final 2012 sales, and I discuss this further below.

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Just how many eBook readers IS enough (Part 1)

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Once, a couple of years ago, I thought one would be enough, a couple of months ago it was six (although that was between two people), but then having seen the latest Amazon new Kindle Paperwhite it’s now definitely seven.

However, this is not so much a blog about why you should get the new Kindle Paperwhite, but rather why my wife and I ended up with six eReaders between us.

200px-Nook1Firstly, a little bit of history. The first Nook came out on 30 November 2009 and my wife was immediately interested in it. Firstly as a way of prolonging the day before we’d have to get a bigger house to store all the books we have, and secondly to make it easier to read the enormous fantasy tomes she was starting to get into. One problem, however, they weren’t available in Australia.

On the other hand we were going to America so I got dragged into a couple of Barnes and Noble stores while she talked to the sales person about the Nook. I have to admit it wasn’t that much of a trial, a whole room of history books – I was in heaven.

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eBook covers: part 3 – The developmental process

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In the final part of this series on eBook covers I want to get a little bit ‘arti’ and move away from the technical stuff I’ve been talking about to date. So in this blog I want to walk you through the process we followed in getting to the final cover.

Firstly the artist. David Lecossu, a French freelance Concept Artist/Illustrator who worked for the videogame company ‘Gameloft’ and who works now for clients like Applibot Inc, Fantasy Flight Games and Catalyst Game Labs. David approached us in February 2013 to see if there was any work. At the time there wasn’t but when we were looking for an artist for Shelley’s “Lights Over Emerald Creek” we approached him to see if he was still interested.

The original specifications I provided him were slightly more detailed than usual, see the following

Shelley was imagining a highly realistic, but magical pic of a girl sitting in a wheelchair. We see her from the back. Her long blonde hair hangs down her back. It is night. The wheelchair is on the banks of a creek. Tropical palms can be seen, and in the distance, blue-black shadows of mountains are silhouetted against a starry sky. Above the girl’s head is a ball of weird, magical light. It’s about the size of a football but the glow is much bigger. It is a brilliant blue/white and radiance drenches her. The light is a portal, but at the moment of the picture, all we can see is that some unearthly light is over her head. Further along the creek, two smaller lights, the size of tennis-balls, one blue and one orange, hover just over the water.

We then had to negotiate over price. Our initial offer was for $150 but David’s base rate started at $300. Given his credentials we decided to pay his rate. We have since increased our base rate to $250.

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eBook covers: part 2 – Appearance and typeface

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Last week I blogged about what size you need to get your artist to provide you to meet distributor requirements. This week I’ll be talking about the additional requirements you need to consider, including how it displays as a thumbnail, and ensuring that it works in black and white. I will also be supply a helpful html page that you can download to your computer to see how your cover works at various sizes.

This time I’ll be using the cover of Frontier Incursion by Leonie Rogers. The design is by talented Australian artist and illustrator Emma Llewelyn.

The first picture shows the cover of Frontier Incursion in all its glory. The typeface used for the text is Vani. Looks good doesn’t it.

 

Frontier Incursion Colour 200x300

Frontier Incursion Colour 200×300

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