I wanted to give everyone a heads up about Mitch’s Win (which I renamed again from Clayton’s Win). I’ll have to delete Clayton from the timeline on the Nebraska books to reflect this change.
There is a lot going on behind the scenes with the self-publishing situation (for all authors). I won’t go into it here because I try to keep the more business side of what I do for the Self-Published Author’s Lounge (SPAL). There’s so much new stuff cropping up that I haven’t been able to fully grasp it, which is why I haven’t made a post about it on SPAL yet. I know some of you read both this blog and SPAL, so you’re probably wondering what I’m talking about. I plan to write a post over there soon.
So anyway, for this blog post, this is what I finally decided to write…
It’s obvious that it will be to my advantage to find a publisher for some of my new books. Therefore, I plan to convert Clayton’s Win back to Mitch’s Win and make Mitch’s Win a Montana book. I have three more ideas that have stemmed from Mitch’s Win, so I can have a series to present to a publisher if they would like a series.
If it turns out I can’t find a publisher for Mitch’s Win, I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I can’t go with a publisher who won’t let me keep my vision for my book. Depending on the publisher, authors are asked to change quite a bit or can keep content as it is. Each publisher is different, but given the nature of my books, I seriously doubt I can find a big publisher. Big publishers (the ones who put books in bookstores and grocery stores, etc) can afford to do more than a small publisher with promotion. I occasionally get questions about paperbacks, but I don’t think a small publisher will make a paperback possible and I can’t make a paperback once I hand over my book to them. I also won’t control price. There are always pros and cons to every situation, but with things going as they are, I believe the smart move is to find a publisher for some of my future books.
After talking with authors who have gone with big publishers and small publishers, I think the best chance I have in keeping my books the way I want them to be will be the smaller ones. There are some things I just can’t compromise on. That is why I went into self-publishing to begin with. My aim is to go with a small publisher.
We’ll see how it all plays out. I won’t even have anything to submit until next year.
Ruth Ann Nordin's Author Blog 
This is an interesting turn of events. Now I’m really curious about what’s going on in the indie world. So far, I’ve been happy with self-publishing, but if things are going to be made hard for indies, then who knows what’s next?
Amazon’s been messing with algorithms again (making it hard for people to find free and $0.99 books) and now they want books in Select if you want 70% on books from $1.77 to $7.12. The Dept of Justice ruled that agency pricing is wrong, which means traditionally published books are now going to have lower prices, which is good for consumers but will make it harder for us to sell books. I’m wondering if Amazon will make a move (down the road) where only books in Select will get 70% at the $2.99 to $9.99 price. If so, my income will be cut in half, which will make it harder to keep writing. I’m thinking if I want to successfully compete, I need to have a publisher to build credibility as an author.
This is all speculation. I don’t know what Amazon will or won’t do. I also can’t sign up with a publisher just to have a publisher. The contract has to be on conditions I can live with.
I got that email, too. I’m not sure Amazon will go further with this, but we’ll see. They’re trying very hard to make KDP Select look good for authors. But I want my readers to be able to choose where they buy my books. One thing Kait Nolan mentioned on her blog. If Amazon entices more and more authors to go to KDP Select, maybe there will be less competition on B & N. 🙂
Amazon might not go further. It’s hard to say this early. I won’t be surprised if they do. That’s true about B&N. I think in the long run, authors who don’t go exclusive will be a lot better off.
Hi there. I found this publisher who sends me mails on regular basis about there services. How good they are I had no idea. But here is the ling to check it out.
https://www.bookbaby.com/howitworks
Thanks for the link. It looks like a different version of Lulu. I just checked out their info page and they are a self-publishing company. This is fine if you don’t want to do formatting, book covers, etc yourself. But it wouldn’t be the same as submitting a book to a publisher. To build credibility, you’d need a publisher who has a submission process, does all the cover art, editing, formatting, etc with their money, has a promotional arm that aims for your target audience, and pays royalties on a timely basis. If you have to pay money, it’s not credible to readers who judge the quality of a book on how it’s published. As much as I’d love to say self-publishing doesn’t have a stigma associated with it, the truth is, it does and will probably always be that way. The stigma might be a problem if traditionally published books lower prices comparable to self-published books. Why buy Ruth Ann Nordin book at $2.99 if you can buy a Nora Roberts book for the same price? (Not saying traditionally published books will go that low, but if it’s within the same range, what’s the incentive to buy a cheap book from a self-published author when you could pay for a book you know has passed through a vetting process?)
I look for amazon to eventually push the exclusivity, but I sell four (or more some months) times more on B&N than I do amazon, so it wouldn’t be a huge impact for me.
Good luck with a publisher! will say a prayer for you 🙂
(That sounded wrong – i meant it in a good way, LOL!)
I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon pushes for it. I don’t know how much I get from B&N compared to Amazon (since I’ve never paid that much attention), but B&N is a good portion of my income. Right now I’m glad I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket. That’s a dangerous position to be in. I’m glad you’re doing so well on B&N!
LOL I know what you meant. And thanks. 😀 But even if it doesn’t work with the publisher, I will publish the book myself. After all the time I’ve had to think over things, I realized it’s much more important I write books the way I want to rather than have credibility. Some things aren’t worth proving my worth as a writer to other people who are difficult to please anyway.
The publishing company I signed with is a small publishing company. They keep your vision of your book just the way you had it. They do the formating and bookcovers their selves but you can also pick the pictures you see fit for your bookcover as well. They also, do the promoting as well our books are on Kobo, Bookstrand, amazon, barnes and noble,itunes, and etc. You can check out the website to see if it fits for you at http://jkpublishingbooks.com or jkpublishing on facebook they answer all of your questions. I was looking for updates for Bound by Honor Bound by Love when I noticed your post.
Thanks for the link! I appreciate it. 😀 What I like about small publishers is that I have a better chance at staying true to what I envision the book to be. It’s why I self-published to begin with. I think there’s more publishers out there now than there was back in 2008 and 2009 when I submitted a couple of my early books and learned I had to change too much of the story (which I wouldn’t have been happy with).
I got the edits back the other day for Bound by Honor, Bound by Love. Today I’ll start on them. I figure around October 1st, I can have the book out on Amazon, B&N and Smashwords. It’ll take longer to get it on Kobo, Sony, Apple and Diesel. I let Smashwords upload for me to the other channels.