Every on-demand publisher offers you the world - the world of e-commerce and internet sales.
What they deliver is less than you expect, although technically what they advertise. Most use Ingram’s Lightning Source to print and distribute books. Ingram, in turn, feeds book information to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Borders and receives orders from them. The problem is the flow of information is slow and often needs prodding.
Six weeks after my book officially was released, Borders had a complete listing on its website, Barnes and Noble listed the book but said it was not available, and Amazon had nothing. When I wrote to ask if there were problems, my publisher answered it took 60 to 90 days to get books fully listed. I was also warned the listing could be variable when it first appeared while a retailer’s software stabilized.
No publisher mentions that lead time when it touts the speed to self-publish, and mine certainly didn’t advise me to wait three months before I started promoting my book.
Two weeks after my complaint, which may have led to some expediting with Ingram, Barnes and Noble had the book fully listed and available, and it was beginning to appear in Amazon. It took another week before both the hardcover and paperback were available, but there was no image of the cover.
My publisher prefers people buy books through its agencies, and offers price and royalty incentives to customers and authors. The reason is obvious. It needn’t split profits with a bookseller or wholesaler. It expends its efforts on creating book and author web pages, and leaves the other outlets to Ingram and the author.
However, even when it is in the publisher’s interest to have useful internet pages, I discovered more gaps between expectations and deliverables. When my book was officially released, my customer rep sent me an email telling me my web addresses, along with instructions for maintaining my pages.
The book site, which is used for ordering, was functional. Only, no one had bothered to enter a book description. That was my task. The rationale was that I could change it quickly, perhaps post a review when I received it. That’s certainly a valid reason for giving me control, especially when its web designers charge $65 an hour to maintain pages, with a $16.25 minimum charge.
The author web site was another matter. My biographical information had been dumped with no formatting. I was expected to enter HTML tags to restore basic paragraphing. While I was there, I tested the email link. Other writers said they had problems with that with their publishers.
You have a choice - bite the bullet and learn some HTML, or find a teenager who works for video games. Since all you really need do is identify paragraph breaks and bold or italicize words, you can do it yourself. You add codes before and after the words to be emphasized, and enclose the codes in angle brackets <>. The code for bold is "b" and for italics is "i". In addition, at the end, you include a slash / between the opening bracket and the code letter.
Paragraphs may be more complicated. For scientific style like this column, you only need the code "p" with brackets and not all websites expect the end code. For indented paragraphs, you type an ampersand (&) and "nbsp;" as many times as you want spaces, with no brackets.
Once you have professionalized your publisher’s websites and have complete listings in the commercial sites, you can let your friends know where to find your book. Be aware, however, that internet outlets are separate corporate entities from the physical stores, and the appearance of a book on a company’s website does not mean a store will order it. Your friends will have to enter the twenty-first century,.
Also be aware that your entries on rival outlets contain only the minimum necessary information to order. If you want to reach strangers you probably want the same kind of promotional materials found on your publisher’s site. For non-fiction, the most important are the book description and author biography. For fiction, the excerpt is your most powerful tool.
For non-fiction, you want to keep the entry short. Remember the person you are trying to attract is probably not going to read more than a paragraph. You want to let them know why they should buy the book, and provide evidence that you are the expert they should listen to.
Fiction readers may be more leisurely and are going to want to read your style. You should provide an excerpt short enough to read, but long enough to leave them wanting more. Your biography may not help, since many will be more interested in your characters than in you.
Each of the major on-line retailers has unpublicized tools to accept this information. However, you will have to add the HTML codes if you have more than one paragraph in your excerpt. Amazon provides a short list of key words that are essentially what you learned to improve your publisher’s website. Whenever asked, list yourself as the publisher’s contact.
I wrote each section in Word and added the codes, so I could cut-and-paste text that had been verified by my spell checker. I entered the information into an Amazon on-line form on Sunday. On Tuesday, the missing cover image suddenly showed up. Thursday, my text appeared. They warned it could take a week, and it took less.
Borders and Barnes and Noble use email. Include the same identifying information you use for Amazon, your ISBN number, the author’s name and complete title, then identify the text you want added like "excerpt" or "author bio."
I sent them messages the same Sunday I entered data into Amazon. When I checked the following weekend, Barnes and Noble had used the excerpt and table of contents, while Borders had used the description from my publisher’s website. Unfortunately, it ran it all into a single paragraph, so it read poorly and looks worse.
Professional websites are not enough. Potential readers must discover your web page. The webmaster I wrote to at my publisher said it does not do anything to make it’s site available to the major search engines; it simply waits for them to be found, which can take months.
I’m told you can register your sites yourself. Yahoo requires you first set up an account. I entered my information in Google, but three month’s later the publishers’ websites do not appear when I search on my name. I sent nothing to Yahoo or MSN. and my websites do show up on the first page of results. Unfortunately, more shoppers use Google.
Some of what you do to build the infrastructure to market your book is fun, and a lot of it is tedious. However, if you’ve gotten this far, have actually completed a book and managed it through the publishing process, you know you can do anything. And everything I’ve mentioned is free because it benefits the corporations as much as it does you - or that hungry teenager you’re bribing.
Websites where your book is offered
* Amazon.com
* Barnesandnoble.com
* Bordersstores.com
Addresses to post additional information
* Amazon on-line form at http://www.amazon.com/publishers
* Barnes and Noble, email to titles@bn.com
* Borders, email to Corrections@Borders.com
Addresses to register your websites
* Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html
* Yahoo at http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
* AltaVista at http://www.altavista,com/sites.search/addurl/
Useful introductions to the mechanics of on-line listings
Brown, Rebecca. "How to Get Your Book up on Amazon.com" at RebeccaReads.com.
Nassise, Joseph M. "How to Add Your Book to Online Bookstores" (2001) at authorsden.com.
Sipos, Thomas M. "Marketing through Amazon" (2001) at GreenTentacles.com.
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