Visiting the source of Sam

Tags

IngramSpark, paperback, POD, print-on-demand, Samuel Plank

Yesterday I had a Grand Day Out at the Ingram premises near Milton Keynes.  Months ago – I forget how – I came across the interesting fact that Ingram (a book distributor and now parent company to IngramSpark, the print-on-demand service that I use for my Sam Plank books) runs open days.  You go along to their offices/factory and they give you a talk about their services, a tour of the printing bit and a sandwich lunch.  I really, really wanted to see the printing bit and my husband, being a production engineer, is always up for touring a factory, so off we went.  And I can highly recommend it as a day out.

The Ingram people we met were, without exception, extremely helpful.  The open day I chose was geared specifically to IngramSpark clients – they also do days for people who use their more commercial printing services – and we were a mixed bunch, from one chap who said at the outset, Manuel-like, “I know nothing”, to those of us who had been through the POD mill and were vaguely familiar with most of the steps.  That said, I did learn quite a few new things – for instance, I had always steered clear of IS’s Global Connect option but have now signed up, ready for the orders to come flooding in from India and China.  And the printing process is a marvel to behold, from the giant rolls of paper (they have stocked up, given Brexit…) to the wonderful Infinitrim machine that grabs a stack of books in its mechanical arm and then – whoosh! – trims them all with a guillotine blade.  (If I were the manufacturer I would have called it the Triminator and persuaded Arnie to advertise it.)  And exactly as promised, the books are indeed printing on demand: you see them coming out of the Infinitrim and each book is different – it’s not a “print run” in the traditional sense but the fulfilment of thousands of orders for individual books.  There is even a Tardis-like structure waiting to come into service to speed up sorting and packing the books after printing.  (No photos: we had to sign non-disclosure agreements and pinky-swear to secrecy.)  And the sandwiches are delicious.

Joking aside, I found the day useful for two main reasons.  Firstly, we were shown all the paper types and cover finishes and trim sizes, so now I know what’s on offer.  And secondly, we met the staff who will be the ones answering any IS queries – and they were so generous with their time that I feel confident that any POD problems I might have will be dealt with promptly and kindly.  In these days of webchats with robots and emails to help departments that go unanswered for days, that’s something to be celebrated.

Self-publishing makes you smile – proof!

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agent, awards, cover, Faith Hope and Trickery, IngramSpark, London Book Fair, self-publishing, The Selfies

Apologies for the radio silence: it has been a mad fortnight.  Entirely my own fault, as I work alone and am in charge of my own diary, but everything except the absolute essentials of work and survival shopping/cooking have been on hold – apart, that is, from attendance at the London Book Fair.  For the first time ever.  And as an award shortlistee (is that a word? perhaps nominee is better)!

Of course I had heard of the LBF (as I thought it was trendy to call it, until I heard the old pros talking simply of “London”) but had never really felt entitled to attend before.  And to be honest, much of the show – fascinating though it is to wander around – is intended for publishers and booksellers and agents, looking to schmooze each other and make deals.  If you were an author looking for an agent or a publisher, it would be a handy place to do some research; you can see at a glance which “lists” would welcome your work, and with the lure of a (vastly overpriced, as always at these events) coffee and pastry you might even be able to set up a meeting or two.  I simply enjoyed seeing all the stalls and fantasising about being “author of the day” at an LBF of the future…

But back to the award.  As regular readers will know, I was – amazingly and thrillingly – chosen as one of eight shortlisted entrants for the inaugural Selfies Award, created to recognise writing and publishing professionalism in the self-published world.  I am told that more than fifty entries were received, so getting down to the final eight – and as a part-time author – pleased me enormously.  We were an entirely female shortlist, and it was a delight to meet the other seven authors on the day.  We were all a bit giddy by 4.30pm when we were shepherded onto the low stage of the little theatre set up in the “Writer’s Block” area of the fair, and we each had to announce our name and our book title.  I didn’t win but was consoled by the fact that both the winner (Jane Davis, with her book “Smash all the Windows”) and the runner-up (Jane Steen, with her book “Lady Helena Investigates”) were just the loveliest women.  I entirely forgot to take any photos myself but I hope that the award sponsors IngramSpark (through whom I publish the Sam books) won’t mind me borrowing this one from their Twitter feed:

That’s the overall winner Jane Davis being announced and the runner-up Jane Steen on the right, with the biggest smile in the universe!  (You’ll also spot the purple book cover of “Faith, Hope and Trickery” on the banner behind us – so many people complimented me on that cover.)  Look how happy we all are – that’s self-publishing for you!

Keep buggering on

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Amazon, BookBub, Gardners, IngramSpark, Kindle, marketing, promotion, Waterstones

I’m a big fan of Winston Churchill – one of life’s great over-achievers (soldier, journalist, politician and artist) – and in particular his repeated exhortations to just stick at it, variously “Never, never, never give up”, “If you’re going through hell, just keep going” and, of course, “Keep buggering on”.  I too am one of life’s plodders: I’m not given to flights of fancy or flashes of brilliance but I am a great sticker-at things – including the marketing of self-published books.

I try – some weeks more successfully than others – to do at least one marketing activity per week.  I keep a list of ideas and suggestions in a little notebook and when I have time I try to cross off, or make a little advance on, one of them.  They vary in size and complexity – from “contact events person at local Waterstones” to “get to grips with how Amazon ads work” (there’s a project…) – and, as with pretty much all marketing initiatives, it’s all but impossible to know which will bear fruit and why.

On my list at the moment are these:

• Once the IngramSpark versions of my books are finalised [nearly there – paper proof copies are on order] update all the ISBNs on Amazon and elsewhere
• Wait several weeks – it seems to take about six – for the IngramSpark catalogue to update in the Gardners system so that bookshops can order the books, and then think of ways to get them to do that…
• Contact events person at local Waterstones – no point doing this until they can order the books (see above)
• Consider running a BookBub promotion – general consensus in the indie writing community is that this is a good idea but hard work as you need to jump through dozens of hoops before BookBub will take you on
• Consider releasing a “box set” of the first three Sam titles in Kindle format – this has been recommended by a writer friend
• Get to grips with how Amazon ads work

Today I have asked for a quotation from my cover designer to create the new image I would need for Amazon for a box set.  And now I am going to read some of the thousands of blog posts out there which discuss Amazon ads and the black magic that seems to underpin them…  It’s not glamorous and it’s not much fun, but then neither was being sent to Bangalore with the Fourth Queen’s Own Hussars in 1896 – if Winston can keep buggering on, so can I.

Shades of Forgery

Tags

Amazon, cover, CreateSpace, Fatal Forgery, IngramSpark, KDP, POD, print-on-demand, review

Matters are moving forward at a sedate pace in my quest to use IngramSpark as well as KDP for my print-on-demand paperbacks.  The cover of “Fatal Forgery” has been suitably tweaked to accommodate the slimmer spine of the IS edition (because IS uses thinner paper stock and over nearly 300 pages – 150 thicknesses of paper – it makes a difference), and I have today received my proof copy from IS and am happy with it.

I am now working out my next steps, which will involve (scarily) un-publishing my current KDP paperback and then republishing it with the new ISBN that I bought for the IS edition – all paperbacks of the same title, regardless of who actually prints them, must have the same ISBN.  This would be simply an administrative thing – unpublish then upload the files again – except that I am not sure what will happen to all the lovely reviews on Amazon that are associated with the current KDP paperback.  I certainly don’t want to lose them, so I’m investigating if/how I can get the reviews carried over to the “new” paperback.  It may be simple (if the reviews are associated with the title) or it may be awkward/impossible (if they’re associated with the ISBN).  Who knew that writing the darn book was by far the easiest part of the process?

On a related subject, it has been very interesting to compare the look of “Fatal Forgery” as produced by the different printing presses:

On the left is the original version, printed by CreateSpace in (I think) South Carolina.  In the middle is the version that I now get from KDP (who took over CreateSpace, and moved the printing for UK authors to Wroclaw in Poland).  And on the right is the IngramSpark version, printed in (I think) Milton Keynes.  They all use the same cover file from the point of view of colour – it’s only the trim dimensions and spine width (and spine print size) that are different.  And yet, how different they look!  The cover designer said this about the trio: “The one on the right appears to be slightly closer to how it was intended than any other.  Somewhere between the one on the left and the one on the right (but closer to the right) would be as intended by me.  The one in the middle is much too bright.”  Thankfully very few buyers will see the difference as they won’t have all three versions, but I thought you might find it interesting – and it certainly shows that being too precious about precise shades of colour when designing a cover might not be worth the fuss!