Should Agents Publish? (Writers Beware!)

AGENTS, ERR... PUBLISHERS...?

The answer to this question is a resounding don't even try to argue with me NO!

How can I say this when so many have neat little answers? Because it is like having your lawyer be your judge. In the last few months I have seen the book agent turn tail and not only abandon all ethics of their business, but chase the money like so many drowning rats. Am I being to harsh? Maybe, but I have good reason.

First, your agent has a job. That job is to get you a book deal with a real publisher, and after that to get Sub rights and so on... This job is like having a partner in your corner helping you so you don't get screwed over by a big money-hungry-publisher. NOW, as they turn into publishers they went from your friend and partner, to something resembling a wolf covered in a sheep skin. They make a deal for YOU but with THEIR interest in mind, not yours.

I know, they are good people, they rock, they are nice and have done so much for you and... and... and. It is all the same. A lame argument. And I have seen them all. It is to HELP authors in this changing market. We just provide a service, well... we have a different publishing house, it is not the same... Oh, and we can make sure you have good editing! Don't forget we know the book business!

I am sure you can name a few more, but in the end it is all about the money. Agents are scared, they don't know where their job is going, what will happen as more authors realize that they don't really need agents outside of Sub rights.

*Note: I want to say, I have no problem with a EX-Agent publishing, but not both at the same time. If you want to be a publisher do it, but don't do both.

I work with some of the top agents in the country. You know what they do for me? They do their job, and bring me authors and work with my existing authors to sell Sub rights. But most the time they are not on a book deal as the author can talk to me direct. So they have to work harder, but we all do, it is a job after all.

Now my friends, yes I am talking to you the writer, the one who has stars in your eyes. The one who will take a bad deal because all you want in life is to be published, so you let all reason go out the window. If your agent wants to be a ePublisher ask yourself one thing... What do they know about publishing? Really... what?

They sell books to a publisher, they are in sales. They sell to one-five people at a publishing house. How does that mean they have any skill in selling to the public? To bookstores, to make sure your cover art is good? How can they sell to the public when all they do is sell to a corporation? They, I am sorry to say don't know what books will sell, they just know what books they can sell to a publisher.

I am not discounting their power and pull, but do you see how all of the agents doing this are only going E for the most part? Cuz they don't want to work at the print side of the business, the marketing and distribution. So the end result is a well edited book (MAYBE) with little to no marketing and a bad cover and one super excited author that thinks they will make it big cuz their Publisher is somebody.

So here is what you will get:

*Bad cover art 90% of the time
*Good to fair editing
*Out of touch marketing or no marketing
*eBook only or POD printing
*No print distribution
*Good in with Sub rights (maybe)

lets call a horse a horse. They want a piece of the pie, want to do as little work as they can and pool from the list of authors they have in their pocket, for some easy cash. This is WRONG! In so many ways. I know how authors think, they will jump at almost anything without thinking of the long term. Give away their book all in the name of being published.

So what should you do?

First, do not ever sign up with a agent/publisher. No matter how nice they are, deep down your best interest is not at heart. Second, if you are at that place, just publish on your own and have your agent look for Sub rights. Only pay them when they make a deal. But you hire someone to convert your eBook and do a cool cover. I know a host of cover art people, eBook converters and so on. Most any indie press or author can help you out for free. You can do it for a low price and why give them a % when they offer nothing you can't on your own.

Or... find a small press to work with. I work my tail off for my authors and even behind the scenes I am trying to do even more. But I am a publisher... Do I post all this because I am scared they will take all the good authors? Lol... NO... We are so busy we can't really take on any more new authors this year. I say this cuz I see so many of my fellow authors getting burned and thrown into this mess and I feel for them.

On a side note, please run from these little so-called publishers that are popping up everywhere. Bad covers and poor quality will kill your brand if you are not careful. Just be smart and ask around and don't ask authors, ask people in the business or ask your agent who is not a publisher. One of out agents we work with told me the other day, he said he would never get into publishing, he is an agent, he is good at what he does and will not sell out his clients like that.

I respect him and am glad we still have some agents out there that really do care about their clients and don't talk themselves and others into thinking that this is all okay.

Now to end thins I will say that I know of some publishers that are agents part time. But they were publishers first and the work they do as an agent is for another house and they never refer clients to their own house. I also know of agents that quit and started publishing houses, I have no problem with this, as they are not riding the fence but made a choice.

I could go on and on about this but I leave it to you. What do you think? Why do you think it is okay or not okay? Do you see this as a long term solution to publishing? Why do you think agents should publish? What do they know about publishing outside of selling a title? As a writer do you trust them? Should you trust them?

Cheers





Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

"John Locke is not a real published author unless I say so!" -The Big 6

*Warning Rant*

I woke up to this post on my Twitter feed and after reading it had to first smack my face, throw up and after all that read it again just to find out that yes, in fact it was posted by a real human. The Shatzkin Files posted this on John Locke.

Here is my take.

First off, this entire post is about what could have happened, might, maybe, but more important, DIDN'T. It is like a friend of a lottery winner trying to tell everyone else what they would spend the money or how it should be done.

We all know that JL has made headlines as the indie author that has sold one million eBooks. Now out of the woodwork come these talking heads that want to over think how he did it and what he should have done.

What is the goal of all this? To keep us thinking that the big publishers still have something to offer. He will run the numbers on a .99 book or a 9.99 book. How is that even in the same ball park? I mean, he sold the books he sold because of the price and his marketing. One without the other would not work as well and to compare what he would have made if he was with a big publisher is just stupid.

The fact they will never tell you is that JL would have never sold the books he sold if he was with a big publisher. No publisher would have taken him on, and even if he did get a deal they would not market him like he marketed himself. The price of his eBook would be to high and the small number he sold through them would put him out of print in 13 months.

So, I ask you, why are we trying to shove him into this box? Why not just say, good job john? Are we that scared to leave the old system? Is it that bad out there?

He was smart, he sold his books at a low price, built a fan base and made himself worth a ton of money. Now if a publisher wants him they will have to pay out the nose. It is not the money, I am so tired of all these talking heads and writers who just think of the money and how much the book is and what it cost and are you worth it and is your writing worth a buck and are you selling yourself short and is this a run on sentence?

Look, it is about FANS, let me say that again, FANS! If you build fans the money will come. He reached a million people and it doesn't matter if he gave out all those books for free! That group if they liked the book will come back and pay for the other books. I wonder why this is such a mystery in the publishing world.

So could he have made more money if he sold the books at 9.99? Well DUH, if he sells them at a higher price he makes more. Come on! But would he have sold a million? Nope. Not a chance, sorry but it wouldn't happen. Also, if he sold through a publisher for 9.99 he would make only 1.75 per book when he could do it himself and sell the book at 2.99 and make 2.10 per book. Lets do that math!

This blogger did at least say as much: Of course, if Locke himself sold the ebooks at $2.99, he’d be taking in six times more per book, or about $2.10 a copy.

But, either way, he seems to be leaving a lot of money on the table. Without a publisher’s efforts, he’s certainly leaving a lot of marketing on the table too.

The only thing here is the marketing he is leaving on the table. What marketing? Really, you think a big publisher is going to market you better? Come now, let us not be dumb. The only person going to market you is you. If they do anything it comes out of their royalty. Besides, why would they market him, he is a small fish, cuz we are talking all this before anyone knew who he was... You can't backdate your rules and treat him like a bestseller before he was. Now I would say he could get some marketing out of the publishers, but not before the million books.

And here is the meat of the matter: But if the markets are distinct, there is also some great potential reward. If there are people who only choose from the cheap books, there are also people who want to choose from the professionally validated books, the ones from the major publishers. The more you believe the markets are distinct, the more opportunity there could be for Locke in using what he’s done to launch himself independently as the springboard to a career as a published author with a major player.

This is what all the big publishers and the blind authors want you to think. That you are no good, you are sub par because you are not professionally validated.

Take that Amanda Hocking, Take that Vincent Zandri!

So we are fed the same lie. You are just a lame writer and have no value unless one of the Big 6 publish your books. Remember that when you see more and more eBook millionaires. Remember that when you read an amazing novel from a new author, that you the reader have no power, that you cannot choose who is a good writer or not, they choose!

It is the men on the hill that make the call, the publishers that decide if we are good enough. Well... what say you? Is it us the readers or them the publishers? You tell me.

Rant over.

Cheers

Let's talk numbers.

Unless you have been living under a rock you know that Vincent Zandri has made some waves and is selling like crazy on Amazon. I wanted to go over the numbers with you so you can see what is going on and to get the inside information most publishers and authors will never give out.

Here is what we IE Vincent did. First, he is active on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and other social media sites. He went on a blog tour for his book "The Remains" and the numbers did good but not anything to write the New Your Times about.

Next up was "The Innocent" for a blog tour. If you do not know what a blog tour is Google it. But in short, it is a tour of bloggers that review your book and post it all in a month time frame. Maybe one every other day or every day.

In January Here is what Vincent's books did. The Remains 100, The Innocent 50, Godchild 12. Now we see the next month after tour for Remains in February. The Remains 350, The Innocent 400, Godchild 30.

Tour for Innocent is on and here is what happens: The Remains 1000, The Innocent 22,000, Godchild 2,200. See how the tour one month after built this movement? Again, this is some skill and a ton of luck. These things cannot be planned but you do what you can and see what happens. With this Vincent ended the month in the top 10 on Amazon with The Innocent and in the top 50 for Godchild and top 150 for The Remains.

Now for last month. The Remains 7,000, The Innocent 80,000, Godchild 20,000.

I will take a moment to let this all sink in.

Hmmm, I like coffee, Coconut coffee. Yum.

Okay, we good?

These are not the exact numbers but very close and rounded. This does not include the UK or other eBook sites like B&N, just Amazon US. His print sales went up as well and we find that eBook numbers will tell us how the print book will do.

Now for these titles the price of the eBook on tour is set at .99 and The Remains is as 2.99. We changed The Innocent to 4.99 for this month as Godchild is now on tour. We are going to play with the numbers and see if the wave will hold. If it does well at 4.99 Vincent will make a paycheck that will be bigger than most publisher advances.

Vincent also has a new book coming out at the end of the month called "Concrete Pearl" This will add to his list and will also give us more to work with on the pricing cycle. We hope to run some on sale, get them up in the ranking and see if we can get more out of them at a higher price. I will let you know how it works at the end of the month.

The combo, Good Cover, Good Writing, Good Description and Good Marketing. Will it work for you? I don't know, but it can't hurt.

Airel (A New Adventure)

I post most of the time on things going on in publishing and eBooks. But today I thought I would do a little self promotion. I just released my first YA novel Airel. If you want something different and would like to get in the mind of a high school girl this is the book for you. Now, this might scare some of you away as reading a book from the POV of a teen can be scary. Not to mention two guys wrote it, but that should hook you right there, how did we write this book?

I wrote the book in the first rough draft form and have worked with Chris on editing in the past and we just clicked in our writing styles. He is so talented and has a way of capturing a scene. He was on track to do the edit on this novel and I had a friend tell me we should team up on a book as we both complemented each other. And there you go...

He took the draft and went through it with full control and creative freedom. After he was done I got it back and did the same. We did this a few times and ofter we were happy it went into editing.

Our editor on this is a gal names Sara. She is one of the top editors in the country and I was glad to be even able to work with her. She tore this thing apart and we went back and forth three times in heavy editing. We cut and added, mixed things up and the end result is what you have in front of you.

Some questions people may have:

Why did you have the Kreios part to the book, the different time frames and voice change? I wanted to make the part with Kreios feel and sound different. I would listen to different music on this part and even changed my "Voice" to give it the feel of coming from someone different. These parts were all there in the draft and Chris and I did not write different parts but both worked on it all, the voice change was planned and I hope it gives you a feel of moving into a different mind. This is something we love about this book, the way it moves and changes as you read. You get to grow with the characters.

How did you capture the mind of a teen girl? This was not as hard as it sounds. I grew up and all my best friends were girls. I have always been able to understand or at least know what was going on in their heads. Chris is just a girl so he helped by being himself... lol No, I do read a ton of YA and that helps along with having a great editor who kept us on track. It was so much fun I can't wait to finish the rest of the series.

This is the first novel I have Co-Written and I am super excited to be working with Chris on the rest of the series. Book two, Michael is on its way so have fun reading Airel and if you love it please leave a review on Amazon and B&N. Thanks

Cheers

Link to Amazon

Tagging your book and eBook on Amazon.

So, you want to tag... or you don't know what a tag is. Why tag? Tag... that is kind of fun to say... ooohhh, a feather.

I'm back.

On Amazon tagging is a way to make one book tagged or related to another book. It is when you see a title and below that book it shows other books people bought as well or recommended. This comes about by someone buying or tagging a different book to your book.

I know I sound like I am a simple minded person but I just want to be clear on what we are talking about.

Now, tagging is powerful, the more tags you have the easier you are to find. You can tag your book to another authors books. You can also tag another author to your book and so on.

The idea is to make the connection. So, if you write thrillers you want to tag your book to another thriller writer, and one who sells well. DO NOT TAG LIKE A CRAZY PERSON! If you tag to 2 or more authors it may dilute and you don't want water down your focus. Try just one or two authors and tag your book to theirs and theirs back too yours.

Yes this is legal.

And okay.

The other thing is you have to tag your print book and eBook independently. All tags will not carry across from print to E. You will need to tag your Ride-The-Wave author as well print and E.

Amazon also has sites in China, the UK and so on. All these sites are listed at the bottom of the page on Amazon. Just go alllllllllll the way down and click on where you want to go. You will need to tag your books in all these countries as well as they do not carry through.

All the sites will carry your print book but only the US, UK and Canada will have eBooks.

If you can't find where to TAG, just go to your book page and keep going down until you see Customer Tags.

If you still can't find where to tag... not sure what to tell you, find a 12 year old to do it for you.

Oh, and to tag all you do is type in your name on your big author's tag area, use your last name only, first and last and any other variations. On your book you do the same but his or her name, first and last etc... Click ADD and you are good to go. You will need to be logged into your Amazon account to tag, if you don't have an account you can make one. It is free and easy. Just try tagging and if you don't have an account Amazon will let you know and show you how to set up the account.

If you Tag it will help more people see your book by looking at another book. Thus you should sell more books, unless your book is crap, or if you have a bad cover or if you are just weird. Anything to help...

Cheers.

What NOT to do when you get a bad review! AKA THE GREEK SEAMAN

You knew this was coming.

First off, I am the king of bad reviews so I feel like I should say something on this huge train-wreck. With what Vincent Zandri is doing with his book The Innocent and how it has went beyond the tipping point, well this same thing works in the other direction. Here is the link to the Review so you can get some background: BigAl's Books and Pals:

And the you-tube: Video

After this show she is racking up bad reviews on Amazon and her Facebook page is being blasted. It looks like she has not been on her page yet and this storm is just getting going. I bring this up as a example of what not to do when you get a bad review.

Face it, not one of us want a bad review. It hurts and it is hard not to take personal. On the other hand, if you ask for one don't get mad when you get one. Just by writing a book and putting it on the market you are open to the good and the bad.

My first book had a ton of problems and is in editing yet again. But I understand what I lack and I am doing everything I can to fix the problems. I get some good reviews and some bad reviews but as long as the person is good about it I figure it is their right.

In this case Al did a great job in handling it and was very nice. He did not provoke her and we could go on and on about it. But let us learn... when we get bad reviews take them to heart. See if they are right and if you need to correct something do it if you can. But the truth of the matter is this: Your biggest fan is wrong and your worst enemy is wrong, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The next thing is understand a bad review may at times be just as good as a good one. A lot of people are scared to trust a book that has all 5 star reviews, they think most of them are friends or family and want to know the good and the bad. There was no comments on this review for a few days and it might have not done anything to hurt her but she kept pushing and once the people took up the fight it was on!

Lesson #3 is never be a jerk. No matter what try to be nice. If someone is going to blast you in a review don't lower yourself and blast back. Take it and use it. I have this blog and a following because of a bad review. My book was called the worst book ever and I was told in a review to never write again. Now I didn't listen, in fact I use it to reach out to others and if you know about what we do here you would agree that in a way she put a fire under me. It is all in how you use it.

The last thing is how things go beyond the tipping point. We have a few authors that have reached this point and once the snowball starts down the hill it will take on a life of its own. This is also going on here, but in a bad way. People are talking, it is being pushed across the internet and there is nothing she can do to stop it. Remember before you feel sorry for her, she did this, she opened her mouth and pushed... It is sad how bad it is getting for her but it is also sad that she did not have enough in herself to take the review and move on like an adult.

Here is the correct response: Thank you for the review, I will look into the formatting errors and have it re-edited. I am so glad you liked the main story and I hope once it has been worked through you can review it again and maybe we can move the 2 stars up to 5.

Problem averted.