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Book Marketing and Publishing Tips for Authors

eZine Issue #05  February 8, 2018
Publisher: Judith Briles


Practical Publishing Advice and Guidance for Authors

In This Issue

1.  Oh-Oh, Create Space Is Shifting Gears
2.  Hmmm … Microsoft is jumping into eBookland!
3.  Author Friendly Friday at Sea Last Week …
4.  HELP … Someone (or thing) has Pirated My Book!
         5.  Book Shepherd "Fun" of the Week …

This Week Under The Book Shepherd’s® Roof: WHEW! Last week I was "underground" on top of the water writing, writing, writing, creating 23 chapters for my next book. It’s what I call being in a "myopic focused" state—nothing … I mean nothing was going to pull me away. Holed up in my cabin and balcony on a ship for one week in the Caribbean, I only left it for an AM run for tea and granola brought back to the cabin; Noon run for a salad an iced tea, brought back to the cabin; and "time out" no earlier than 7 each evening for dinner and a break—my reward. Phone calls, emails, texts … NOTHING could pull me away! My next book, How to Create a $1,000,000 Speech is getting ready for its birthing. Don Sidle has completed the artwork for the new cover (Sheepie Girl in front of a mic with all her bling); interior art is done this week, and I turned it over to my editor for her eyes minutes on Sunday before I left the ship. Designed for my AuthorYOU Mini-series, it comes in at 33,000 words.

Back home, it was finalizing several books and prepping for this weekend’s MidWinter American Library Conference in Denver where I repping 25 books for several of my author’s. And of course, back to the phones, texts,
and emails.

This AM, I reviewed the podcast that will be live Thursday with Business and IP attorney Julie Bernard … you will get the nitty gritty on creating a prenup with publishing providers as well as future business associates and partners; how to create an Assignment Form to protect your intellectual property; how to avoid many of the common and repeated mistakes that newbie and ongoing authors do; and how to protect your ownership if you are participating in an anthology, compilation or collaboration for a book. It’s a great show, think of it as an author and publishing CYA how-to … listen in starting tomorrow.
How’s your week going?
1
Oh-Oh … CreateSpace
Is Shifting Gears

Amazon’s CreateSpace will no longer offer editing, cover design, or page layout services after April 20, 2018, and will not accept requests for changes to files after March 15. CreateSpace will still be a POD printer. I’ll write it one more time: CreateSpace will no longer be offering "editing" – cover design – and interior design services SOON.
If you used CreateSpace’s services in editing and design, you can revise your files up to March 14, 2018. After that date, it advises that the application files will be available for download indefinitely so you can be a DIYer or take them to a designer of choice for future revisions and uploading.

AND, it means authors who are doing the POD model for printing books need to make sure that they get professional help—editors, cover designers, and interior book designers.

If they don’t, their books are going to look like they were put together at the kitchen table—not a good thing.

The buzz has been for the past year the CreateSpace would disappear. I think it’s merging in under the Kindle umbrella and eBooks and Print books can be handled easier. But, until the Amazon gods decide exactly what they want us all to know. This is it for this week. You can start taking control now and move your files for March 15th if you want.

2
        Hmmm … Microsoft is    jumping into eBookland!

Interesting, Microsoft is rolling out eBooks to its 600,000,000 Windows 10 users.

Publishers Weekly reports: "Titles for the store are supplied via Ingram’s CoreSource digital asset management distribution platform, and the store offers publishers both agency and wholesale business models. Since the launch, a Microsoft spokesperson said, the site has seen double-digit monthly growth in traffic and purchases.

The store is designed exclusively for the users of Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system, on which more than 600 million devices run, though title pages of books in the store can be retrieved by search engines."

Read more here … this should be important to keep your eye on—600,000,000 is a wowsa number!
3 Author Friendly Friday at Sea Last Week …
Last week was an "on the sea" week for me … WRITING my next book. I was so ready—two computers and all my experience of speaking on the platform for almost 40 years ready to spill out words. Create a $1,000,000 Speech will be ready as "spring" kicks off.  Did you know that the fear of public speaking is known as Glossophobia? And that over 80% of the public suffers from it? And, did you know that speaking is the #1 way sell thousands of books? My new book will be a ready-set-go "how to" create and market the author—you. Join the minority and become a successful speaker—you will sell books.

 
Since one of the days was Friday, I experimented and offered my Author Friendly Fridays—a pick my brain format for my clients. Instead of calling in via phone, we did it as a Skype group—and WOOT, it worked! At 7 AM, Ron Beach, Carol McIntyre, Marian Hays and Suzanne Simpson called in with a variety of questions specific to them.
Ronald Beach – "What a great way to start the day. Thanks for a great call."
If you aren’t taking advantage of this, you are missing out. I do AFF on Fridays when I’m in my Colorado offices at 7 MT and again at 12 MT. You have two windows to participate in—ask anything about publishing, authoring or speaking. The cost is only $27 a month for my coaching in this manner. Details here:
4
HELP … Someone (or thing) has pirated my book!
You are now a "published" author; some sales are coming in; you are promoting it in every channel you can think of, and then an online OMG moment hits. It may be a not-so "Yo-Ho-Ho" time for you and your book. You’ve done an online search and discovered that your book is being sold by someone(s)o you have never heard of—someone(s) you never engaged in selling your book. Could there be pirates in your book’s midst?

Your book is now being sold and you are clueless as to how it got in his or her coffers.

·  Have your words been lifted … gulp … plagiarized and now is being published with someone else’s name on it?

·  Has it been snagged and being either sold with all moneys going to "someone" you have no idea about?

·  Is it being used as a "hook" to lure in an unsuspecting book buyer to pitch something else too, even directing them to naughty sites?

Again, you are clueless how your book landed there. Most likely, what has happened is that your book has been kidnapped … pirated: it has walked the infringement plank.

The last thing that most of us want to think about is that we need to "police" our work—to be on the lookout for someone (person or company) that has lifted our work and using it for their benefit. Yet, all of the need to be on the alert. Think of this as one of those post-publication duties added to the authoring To-Do list once the book is out.

For copyright protection,
if you’ve taken the steps to register your work, enforcing your copyright through the court system is a little easier–if it becomes a necessity. One of the challenges is identifying which part of your work has been copied.

My disclaimer: years ago, I took back the right of my book GenderTraps from a traditional publisher (one of the biggies—ok, it was McGraw Hill). One Saturday AM, I was doing a search on Google with a link I had been given to see what libraries my titles were in. The squirrel that I can be, I’m now wondering where else are my books and I started putting in Amazon Europe and other places. And aha … there was GenderTraps.
Now, I had never placed the book there; I had no information about foreign rights from my former publisher with a delightful email or letter saying that rights had been sold to France, Belgium, Germany or anything connected with the UK—in fact, I never got a dime from the publisher for any foreign right sales (typically an author would get 50%) … but golly, here my book was with a new cover, the same title and yes, my name was clearly on the cover and available in those countries. And printed in other languages. And … I hadn’t gotten a dime for it. I was not happy.

The letter I had clearly reverted all rights back to me from the publisher and was dated prior to any of these new publications. I had a decision to make.

Through Amazon Canada, I ordered a copy … yup, here my book was in French.
No, I did not sue the publisher—what I did do was have my attorney send a cease and desist letter. Why? To engage in a copyright infringement suit takes bucks—often very big bucks. In my case, I was dealing with a major publisher that had deep pockets and could sink me into legal fees. And, I would have to prove my damages—actual moneys lost and/or not received based on book sales in foreign countries and any advances to the publishers. As someone who had already published a dozen books with traditional publishers by that time, I knew that royalty statements could be challenging to figure out—previous experiences with publishers had occurred where not all sales were reported and I had to work hard to get what was due me. Sometimes, I didn’t succeed.

In other words, skullduggery exists. A suit could suck mega thousands of my moneys; the time involved plus the emotional drain wasn’t a path I wanted to go down.

Discovery of Infringement
Interesting, it’s often a "fan" who will bring it to your attention that your work has been zapped and an infringement is in play. What do you do next?  Good question. Here are four steps to take to protect you and your book:

1.  Notifying the author/freelancer/publisher that your work has been infringed upon and that you are protecting your copyright.

2. You may want to contact an intellectual property attorney if a significant amount of your work has been lifted and discuss the best way to proceed with the "alleged" words.


3. If your work has not been registered yet with the U.S. Copyright office, and the alleged infringement is significant, get it done pronto—if you do choose to pursue legal action, having your book formally registered with the Copyright office will increase the amount you can collect on damages if awarded…


4. Deal with book piracy. Matey … you’ve got a problem. You to either start putting energy into tracking your book and where it lands you or work with someone who will do it for you.

Book piracy costs publishing over $200 million a year–don’t let you or your book become a victim. Get help. Last year, I did a podcast on it via AuthorU-Your Guide to Book Publishing that is a benefit to all AuthorU members. Listen HERE.  

Discover the Bad Guys via Piracy Trace
It’s an automated platform that searches the entire web looking for copies of your work. With an always-on scanning approach, you can rest assured if it’s been copied, it will find it. There is a free 30-day trial… after that, to track one book, its $1 per month; up to 5 titles, $4. Your book may be on the plank with pirates! Start with Piracy Trace HERE.

Next … take the offender down!
You must create a Take Down Notice for pirated books! One of the critical notices to send to any website hosting company is the DMCA (stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Your next step is to go to IPWatchDog.com and download the sample letter. Do a copy and paste with your information, then submit it to any hosting company that is carrying your books and shouldn’t be. The clock starts to tick with a 24-hour window to remove your material.
One of the critical notices to send to any website hosting company is the DMCA oversight. With IPWatchDog.com’s sample letter, do a copy and paste with your information (do not change any wording in the sample letter—just sub in the title of your book and other related info for it; use the rest of the notice as is), then submit it to any hosting company that is carrying your books and shouldn’t be. The clock starts to tick with a 24-hour window to remove your material. Your source is here.  

As always, we authors need to be proactive: in marketing our books and in protecting them.

Do a search with the Piracy Trace tool linked above and see if your books are floating somewhere they shouldn’t be. Then, if they are, use the IP Watchdog tool and start the notification take-down process.

I bet many of you will be surprised. And, you are welcome.


5
Book Shepherd "Fun" of the Week …
As a kid, I loved watching the silly antics of my cats … One of the favs was Thomas, the falling down cat. Thomas was a big boy, a long hair grey—all 20 pounds of him. In the summer, I would take him to a clipper to reduce the amount of heavy fun he carried around. He came out like a lion and was embarrassed for a few days, then he would emerge and strut in front of all. Thomas loved climbing on top of our roof; snoozing and then he would roll off. He was a joy for 17 years in our lives. Kitty fun continues. Link


About Judith Briles
The Book Shepherd


Book Publishing expert Judith Briles, aka The Book Shepherd
®
has shepherded more than 1,000 authors and created 500 best-sellers and award-winning books. She knows publishing inside and out from both the traditional and independent sides. Judith is an advocate for authors within her blogs, podcasts and speaking engagements. What’s her pet peeve? Two words: publishing predators.
She hosts the podcast AuthorU-Your Guide to Book Publishing that generates over 100,000 downloads a month.

Her website is www.TheBookShepherd
Email: JudithBriles.com
Phone: 303-885-2207


The Book Shepherd® is a registered trademark.
 
 
 
 
 
 


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