Tonight, Wade Finnegan will be hosting once more. This is something that all of the co-hosts of the show fully support and endorse. We hope that you will join us in encouraging Wade to continue his streak as show runner so the rest of us can goof off. That allows us to focus on trying to think of things that will either make us appear to be witty, charming or funny. Now, if we can just get Wade to take over writing these articles…
We have a ton of news stories for the night. Seriously. If you printed them out and dipped the pages in lead, I’m sure it would weigh at least a ton. See, if Wade would take over writing these posts, you wouldn’t have to endure corny jokes like that.
Breaking News: People still like to save money!
Recently, books from big name authors have been aggressively discounted. Guess what? A lot of people have been picking up these titles. The discounting has extended beyond just e-books. I’ve picked up a few Audible versions of Stephen King titles from Amazon because of these discounts.
Here’s a bonus article on this that examines how this trend is impacting retailers.
Has this been hurting self-publishers? The data seems to indicate that it has. Sales are down. I know it’s hard to swallow, but people continue to prefer the familiar. They want the brand name and the product that has established a level of trust for them.
How should you respond? Well, that’s the question isn’t it? Traditional publishers offer known authors and marketing budgets that they can bring in to play at any moment. If they (or Amazon) are willing to enter into a price war, then, you need to figure out another way to stand out.
One such way would be to release multiple titles a year. Traditional publishing is an entrenched model. It takes a long time to set those gears in motion. You are, probably, a company of one person. Use that to your advantage. Do what they can not or will not do. Currently, most traditionally published authors only release a single title a year. So, see what you can do to release at least two titles a year.
I also think it’s worth noting that the current price war may not be forever. It might be temporary. Time will tell.
Is Africa the Next Big Market for eBooks?
There is a perfect storm happening in Africa right now. Last year, saw worldwide internet adoption rate rise 566%. Africa was the exception to this statistic. Internet adoption in Africa experienced an astonishing 3606% jump. Cell phone usage has never been higher in the country and continues to climb. In addition, there is a company called WorldReader that is donating thousands and thousands of e-readers to children and people who want to read. Entrepreneurial individuals are setting up digital publishing companies in the areas of romance and crime fiction to ensure that they will be ready for the opportunity.
Now, we just need to get Amazon and the other retailers in there.
Kobo changes royalty threshold for UK and Japan.
A post on the Kindle Boards says the following: “In the process of loading a new title, I now see that Kobo pays 45% for any title below 3.20 US. For example, if you load a title at 2.99 US dollars and let it auto-price for the UK, you get only a 45% royalty instead of 70%. For Japan, the 45% percent royalties start at 3.03 US dollars.”
Better double-check your Kobo prices.
Facebook wants to be a newspaper. Users want more LOLCats.
Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Cox, Vice President of Product, have a vision for Facebook. The articles says that Mark Zuckerberg envisions a Facebook that is “the best personalized newspaper in the world.” He wants a design-and-content mix that plays up a wide array of “high-quality” stories and photos. Unfortunately, the people who actually use Facebook don’t respond to these type of stories. Instead, they click on articles that were shared from sites like Buzzfeed and UpWorthy or the latest meme.
The Sky is Falling.
Ah, everyone’s favorite pass time. Let’s focus on how everything is horrible and we are all doomed to failure. Can we get David Wright in here to write the reset of this post. Okay, there are a lot of articles on this topic. Some of these are brand new and were not available until earlier today. Here they are:
Digital Book World has done a series of articles to ‘prove’ that there is no money in the self-publishing game. You’re better off going with a traditional approach if you care about actually getting paid for your writing.
The article is divided into three seperate parts. They are linked below:
Part One. Part Two. Part Three.
This series of articles examines the motivations for choosing one path over the other and presents the results of their survey.
Jeremy Greenfield gives his opinions on the data.
Mr. Greenfield spends his time in this article opining on the fact that the only people making money are the traditionally published authors and a few outliers who self-published.
He goes down the list of qualities that Malcolm Gladwell iterated in his book Outliers. Great book, by the way.
Hugh is the first one to really mention some of the problems with the survey put together by Digital Book World. Namely, it’s a self-selecting survey. Their data only reflects the information that was volunteered to them and the survey doesn’t even begin to consider the slush pile… listen to the show tonight, I’ll bring it up during the conversation.
Jane Friedman posts an article on her blog examining Hugh Howey’s response.
This article does a good job of digging into some of the ideas contained in Hugh’s original article as well as documenting some of the Twitter conversation between Hugh Howey and Jeremy Greenfield.
Google Launches the Play Store in Five New Countries.
Google has expanded Play Books support to five new markets today. This eBook store is now accessible to users in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. The latest expansion comes around the month after Google Play Books support reached South Africa, Turkey and Switzerland. The total number of countries, where Play Books are accessible, currently stands at 44 countries.
If you take that traditional deal, will your non-US readers hate you?
It happened to J. Michael Sullivan. He signed a traditional deal with Orbit Books for his immensely popular fantasy series. The series was originally self-published and available world-wide. That changed when he sold the “World English” rights to Orbit. His contract prohibited him from distributing those books to English speaking countries because Orbit owned those rights. The fans did not take this well. The article says: “…Sadly, Michael felt the wrath of a number of angry readers from countries where his self-published books were once available and were now not… Some accused him of “not caring” even, evidently thinking Michael had sold them out…”
The problem has been resolved, but it took quite a long time to work out. So, before you sign away those rights, think about your fans and how they may react. I’m talking to you Eric Guindon.
Wow, John, I’m impressed. This is a fantastic wrap up of the articles we’ll be doing. Great job. In fact, it’s so good nobody really needs to hang around and watch us now. . . . O-O
Trish McCallanThat’s great. That just means we all get the rest of the night off.
This episode of the Self-Publishing Round Table brought to you by Hunter Black, star of Confessions of a Monster Hunter. Have you hunted a monster today?
😛
Eric Guindon Like the cover Eric.
Howdy all
Greetings!
keithallenauthorEric GuindonCheers, thanks Keith 🙂
BuddyGottHeya Buddy, how’s it going?
Eric Guindon BuddyGott Good, thanks. How’s it going, Mr. G.?
shroudbetweenHowdy to you too, Scott 🙂
Eric Guindon shroudbetween Scott!
Greetings.
BuddyGottEric GuindonNot too bad. Christmas music not driven you mad yet?
Going live anytime now.
sryeagerHeya Steve, welcome aboard.
Hello, everyone. Enjoying the heat wave here in Minnesota. The temperature actually got above zero.
Eric Guindon BuddyGott Hard to say. Been mad for years anyway.
maryeihla*shocked* -10 celsius here.
maryeihla I’m only a state away…been loving those negative double digit temps lately…
maryeihla Best be careful with that tropical weather! Might get sunburned!
BuddyGott Eric Guindon Herrow fellas. Nice to see everyone =)
Missing livelink on the post here…
BetterOffUnDave was hilarious this week
Where’s Uncle Carl?
Loving John’s facepalm Spiderman action figure
Eric Guindon Same here
People who go outside get kidnapped
keithallenauthor That’s why you need to take a decoy you out with you
WASSSSUP YA’LL
shroudbetween keithallenauthor That would be a good looking clone
billdowis Wassup Bill
The video isn’t showing on the website. I am switching back over to google+ to watch the video
Hey Guys, Google changed hangouts. I just fixed the post. If you refresh, you’ll see the video feed.
billdowis Bill!
billdowis I just fixed the post. If you refresh, you’ll see the video feed.
billdowis Got it now. Start over?
jlward COOL. I am watching tonight!
Eric Guindon I just fixed the post. If you refresh, you’ll see the video feed.
…free cartoons? Well, I didn’t need a social life…
Dave’s Adventures From The Dungeon
children in jeopardy, a family cartoon by Dave Wright
Wade Finnegan: Awesome person!
Thanks for the invite, Carl!
Where’s Carl? Did being on my show exhaust him too much?
RolandDenzel Howdy Roland =)
BuddyGottThat’s exactly what happened, Buddy. He said that he is still recovering from beard envy.
BuddyGott I have to watch that yet, rumor has it that it was laugh inducing.
BuddyGott Once you go Gott, you never go back.
jlward BuddyGott Beard envy rears its ugly little head again… tsk…
Does Crissy’s lower third say that her book is 99.99 for a limited time?
billdowis A bargain, if ever there was one.
billdowis To be fair, that book doesn’t exist 😉
Wait…what is Realm Keepers?
Wade, I appreciate you being the president of my fan club. Just a friendly reminder – your dues for 2014 will be due soon.
billdowis Never heard of it
Crissy can get Johnny and Sean to justify her price.
billdowisThe worst part is she’s only getting 33% royalties on that…
I heard an interview on Podcast Answer Man and the guy Cliff was talking to said that internet access in Africa is actually FASTER than a lot of internet connections in the US because it is really starting up and they don’t have to upgrade a bunch of old hardware and networks,
maryeihla Well played, madam.
maryeihla of course she only gets 30% over $9.99…
billdowis That actually makes a lot of sense.
What she doesnt tell you is that when you buy it you automatically get signed up for a 99.99 monthly service unless you cancel before the trial period is over.
Does anyone else keep getting “Africa” by Toto playing in their head? Just me? Okay.
BuddyGott Little known fact, Buddy: I bless the rains down in Africa.
BuddyGott Well I do now….
billdowis It’s like The Beam over there
shroudbetween BuddyGott Scott, I heard that about you.
America had a nice run. HAHAHA…we are so yesterday.
BuddyGott shroudbetween There’s nothing that a million men or more could ever do…
Hello there!
We have fiber as well up in my freezing plains
Carl Sinclair Sinclair!
Carl Sinclair Finally we can get started.
billdowis We are so WWII =P
Carl Sinclair wassup Carl!
billdowis Carl Sinclair Bill Dowis as I live and breathe.
keithallenauthorWhat kind of speeds do you get, Keith? Our lowest speed here is 100 megabits per second. You can get 1 gig a second for another 40 bucks a month.
There are like 5 real Norwegians and a bunch of irish dudes pretending.
Carl Sinclair http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35_VR59DEMc
So two Norwegians and a pollock walk into a library…
Carl Sinclair hi, carl
Wade Finnegan is the best host I’ve ever seen.
Who is gone?
Carl Sinclair There’s lots of Norwegians in Minnesota. I’m married to one.
Route it through Africa
Carl Sinclair Just don’t tell me the guys from A-ha aren’t really Norwegians. My heart will break.
Glad your organised and reading the whole articles.
Eric Guindon maryeihla 98 degrees here.
jlward keithallenauthor We only have 30 down right now…but yeah there are plans all the way up to that 1gb speed. I’m just too cheap.
Dave is the master of Lego Marvel
What’s up Dave’s butt? A pixelated apple tree.
Pound him good. Pound him real good.
billdowis What’s what he said?
keithallenauthor jlward in what plains is this? Canada?
crissymoss keithallenauthor jlward No. I’m in the tropical Dakota.
Everyone tweet your game invites and requests to ZCBolger
What does the fox say?
billdowis wa-pow-pow-pow-pow pow pow
billdowis Ring dingdingding dingding ding!
Idea for new social media site: SPRTBook
BuddyGott gross.
BuddyGott Is that for adults only?
BuddyGott Myface
keithallenauthor crissymoss jlward Lol, I lived in North Dakota for six years. We had dial up for the longest time.
Carl Sinclair BuddyGott SPRT on Carls face????? WTF
Facebook is turning into My Space, so does that mean Google+ will eventually turn into Facebook?
billdowisHave you guys seen the ‘what does the spleen do?’ parody?
BuddyGott The avatar for the site will just be my picture. MyFace will be epic. I’m still working on releasing my troll based social network, Trollster.
I prefer Twitter over Facebook and I am still getting into G+
billdowis Carl Sinclair BuddyGott And that’s when the roundtable got awkward.
BuddyGott
“Buddy has sent you a SPRT Request”
*accept*
“You and Buddy are now SPRTing”
maryeihlaI think so.
maryeihla G+ is awesome.
billdowishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEi_4Cyx4Uw
maryeihla I hope not…I like G+. I’d rather it not turn into a rotting cesspool.
shroudbetween BuddyGott I kind of love that.
Garrett robinson is starting a fake news site too.
billdowis Yeah I think that’s a damn cool idea. Trying to come up with a story for it.
Eric Guindon billdowis LOL I saw that yesterday.
billdowis So all that talk about Realm Keepers wasn’t real? It’s not a real book after all, phew, I was wondering.
billdowis Oh yeah. I’d messaged him about that. My latest story would lend itself to that sort of format so well. I think it’d be fun.
I love Facebook.
Instragram is Twitter for people that cant read.
billdowis Who has time to read.
Carl Sinclair billdowis NOBODY. This is the digital age. Fuck that reading shit.
billdowis for kids who can’t read good
billdowis And Twitter is for people with short attention spans.
RolandDenzel billdowis There’s a center for that…
RolandDenzel billdowis There should be a good looking school for those poor kids.
maryeihla billdowis what? I wasn’t paying attention
Facebook pages are definitely worth the time and effort.
Facebook wants you to pay for promotion of posts and run marketing paid campaigns.
Carl Sinclair or encourage you to post something that people will share. Good content shows up in feeds the more it’s shared
Both – they want anyone to pay to promote anything of note.
I just imagined David driving around in a late 80’s econoline van..
RolandDenzel Carl Sinclair That is why a lot of pages will share something and encourage people to like or share based on something in the post. I have even seen some pages tell users to share the post on their page to save it “for later refereence.”
RolandDenzel Carl Sinclair They still want you to pay. You can get some decent attention for not that much money really. I ran a test one for $5 a day for 3 days and got quite a few likes and views on some posts. People I have never heard of, all wanting fantasy and book content.
This all sounds familiar…Who are those two guys that tell people to rely on their own pages and not rely on FB and Other pages?
You can select more or less to see of people’s pages, but the more good content you post, the more your posts will show in other people’s feeds. If no one likes, comments or shares, then your posts slow down
keithallenauthor with supersoakers filled with chloroform.
keithallenauthor That’s his decoy vehicle.
damn. I could never get numbers,
RolandDenzelAgreed. You have to please the people to please the algorithms.
Hi, does this napkin smell like cloroform?
There are plenty of self-publishers who don’t make much at all. There are plenty of trad authors who don’t either.
Such a stupid survey. If you’re a traditionally published author you have already been selected to BE PAID to write.
1 billion each AFTER taxes
…and hybrid authors make more because they get tired of the speed of their publisher and self-publish their other stuff
I still think it’s weird that Howey makes exactly 2million dollars and no cents, every month.
Carl Sinclair holy shit, carl sinclair came out of hiding
There is a difference between 1 Billion Dollars and 1 Billion Rupees.
http://janefriedman.com/2013/12/12/writing-on-the-ether-120/
billdowis From the state of the US economy, I’m not sure there is much difference anymore. ; )
maryeihlaI linked to that in the post above. It’s a great article.
Carl Sinclair billdowis lol. I think you are almost right.
I’d give up all of your souls to have a book published by Tor. Just because I’ve always loved that publishing company.
So is Dave writing decoy books now?
Everytime you write a book a kitten gets AIDS.
Carl Sinclair my soul is already accounted for
billdowis It’s the number one killer of domestic cats.
billdowis My friend has a cat with cat aids, it’s no joking matter. It’s a real disease.
Carl Sinclair billdowis He probably got it from one of Dave’s books.
billdowis Carl Sinclair My guess would be Yesterday’s Gone.
RemarkableReads Carl Sinclair Wait…you have a soul???
Bigfoot Porn…It’s huge… lol thats what she said.
BuddyGott RemarkableReads Carl Sinclair I subvert it with humor and zc bolger references
Carl Sinclair billdowis Yesterday’s Gone-orrohea
Crissy..dont act like you havent read it.
I’m about to hit publish on a book called, “Life in the Dungeon”
I’m going to post this now so I don’t forget. If you want in the after party, comment here.
keithallenauthor Carl Sinclair billdowis hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Carl Sinclair Bigfoot porn I assume?
billdowis My erotica pen name is “Extra Pepperoni”. I write mainly pizza delivery fantasy pr0n
There is that other guy who just published a couple of months ago. He made it big with a smart release and promo and got signed by Amazon almost immediately. I can’t think of his name.
Carl Sinclair da wearmouth first activation
Carl SinclairWho was that?
jlward I am gonna be heading to bed. Gotta get up too early tomorrow. Let me know if there are any hangouts this weekend.
RemarkableReads Carl Sinclair That’s him.
“your stupid unicorn book” was my favorite part
Clone Porn
Goodnight everyone, say hi to your mom’s for me.
billdowis It’s not gay. Just the cutting edge of masturbation.
Carl Sinclair See ya Carl!
jlward Carl Sinclair DA Wearmouth
jlwardI’m in for a short while.
night night
Carl Sinclair see ya buddy. have fun in the dungeon down under
Carl Sinclair to my mom’s what?
RolandDenzel Carl Sinclair You decide.
All right guys… see yo all later.
Carl Sinclair RolandDenzel my mom is dead. that’s not funny. it’s a real thing 😉
Okay, so, Eric Guindon is the only one who wants in on the after party.
jlward I can’t still out at a place.
jlward Me too, please
jlwardBecause I love talking to myself 😛
RolandDenzel Carl Sinclair Awkward…
jlward I really need to go about getting a mic and camera…I’m sure I’m missing out on something epic
keithallenauthor jlward You’re not, honestly.
See you all next week. Sorry about tonight… things going on.
Carl Sinclair RolandDenzel It sounded funnier when I wrote it. I hope she doesn’t strike me down…
Carl SinclairkeithallenauthorjlwardAlthough it might be epic if you did join – you’ll need to bring the epic with you 🙂
Carl SinclairCheers Carl, take care.
Carl Sinclair RolandDenzel So far, so good.
jlward Can’t tonight. Have fun everyone. Great show =)
Eric Guindon Carl Sinclair keithallenauthor jlward It follows me like a plague
200 comments. First time in a while. Goob job guys.
Carl Sinclair I’m so proud of us.
keithallenauthorCarl SinclairSee all you had to do is kick Carl off for the week and the comments come flying in. I’m kidding. Great show.
Carl Sinclair You’re too kind.
My ears perked up when I heard Norway, so I went and did a bit of reading. They’ve made an app for Apple/Android devices for the library system. The app allows people to read whatever they want, whenever they want from the library system. At the moment, it’s on trial in 3 different cities, with plans to roll it out further later on.
As you mentioned in the video, Norway has a different focus to the US. The focus here is on people’s welfare and happiness, so they want as many people to read as possible. Books will be read for free, but libraries did that already anyway. There aren’t too many people that visit a physical library any more, so this is a logical step forward.
Before anyone freaks out too much, Norwegians mostly prefer to read in Norwegian. Unless your book has been translated, you don’t need to worry too much. Some people will read in English, but the majority won’t.
SimonCantan Worried? Someone translate my books to Norwegian! I want my books in libraries, and in front of readers!