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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2020 16:15:30 GMT
[...] or at least to be fair, but KDP and Lulu use INGRAM GROUP, which I believe is owned and operated by Ingram Spark, is it not? Why use a middle person? In my case obviously because IngramSpark does not offer 4.25" x 6.87" pocket book size, even though they would clearly be able to process that...  Too bad. I'm surprised they don't. They do everything else. |
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2020 16:20:28 GMT
You can work the system. Always upload to IS when it's free. It was free October to March 21st. That's a lot of months. And, always choose Return/Destroy with 55% discount. They expect it; you give them no reason to hesitate. They order one, two, if it sells they order more. Even after offering all that you still make the same as at KDP, except bookstores don't buy the same way individuals do. They are fearless. They need to stock their store, they need variety and abundance and it is not seen as money out of their pockets. Miss Maggie,
That was kind of what I was getting at after reading the Lulu example of Retail versus Wholesale.
The example on Lulu Press shows selling there nets the self-publisher a royalty of $12.40 selling on Lulu and $4.00 everywhere else.
I set my royalties as close to $0.75 a pop for "Everywhere Else" and maybe sold three copies in seven years. The closest I've seen to a Wholesale Discount at Lulu is the Bulk Discount, which ain't great. static.lulu.com/create/volume-discounts
I do believe I can do better at Ingramspark with Return/Destroy and 55% discount because I'm not having to price my work to the point it becomes noncompetitive.
Yes, I was agreeing with you and enjoying the math details, and letting you handle it since you're better at it than I am. But I got a hint that you wete going to use KDP instead of IS, and I was trying to give an extra push. Simply because I want you to do well. Maybe I'm losing track of posts because I'm using my phone rather than PC, but I think overall we're saying the same thing. |
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2020 16:21:59 GMT
By the way, for the ones interested: The IngramSpark coupon code INGRAMSPARK2020 is now apparently valid until 30 June 2020: www.ingramspark.com/blog/ingramspark-promo-codes-available-now"Stipulations: Valid for print and ebooks until June 30, 2020. For free title setup, code must be applied at time of title setup. The code is not valid for refunds on previously submitted books. Please note that this promo code cannot be used in conjunction with a free ISBN." Ohhhh that is amazing news! I would have never thought to look. Thank you! |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on May 23, 2020 16:24:20 GMT
If you want to be a publisher, be a publisher. Act like them, do like them; perfect books, edited, superb covers, honest, professional, catchy description, 55% discount to bookstores, return option, no constant change in book files. No shortcuts. Anything less is a desire to fail. Which unfortunately I've noticed in self-publishers. Almost apologizing for existing, and not caring their cover isn't perfect. Or their interior has errors. Make it perfect. Everything perfect--within your means. As Ron Miller has pointed out there are vanishingly few people who can take on all roles and do them at a professional level.
If you have five typos or minor errors in a 140,000 word book, that's a rate of 0.0035714% which is acceptable. If you have five typos on the first page, not acceptable.
I won't say a book is ready for release / publication before I've gone through to find typos, after the work has cooled down enough for editorial objectivity. I won't submit a book for traditional publishing without doing a thorough "bug hunt".
Do what you're good at, hire out the rest as you have to, and pay attention to the details.
Due diligence pays off in the long-run.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2020 16:32:05 GMT
If you want to be a publisher, be a publisher. Act like them, do like them; perfect books, edited, superb covers, honest, professional, catchy description, 55% discount to bookstores, return option, no constant change in book files. No shortcuts. Anything less is a desire to fail. Which unfortunately I've noticed in self-publishers. Almost apologizing for existing, and not caring their cover isn't perfect. Or their interior has errors. Make it perfect. Everything perfect--within your means. As Ron Miller has pointed out there are vanishingly few people who can take on all roles and do them at a professional level.
If you have five typos or minor errors in a 140,000 word book, that's a rate of 0.0035714% which is acceptable. If you have five typos on the first page, not acceptable.
I won't say a book is ready for release / publication before I've gone through to find typos, after the work has cooled down enough for editorial objectivity. I won't submit a book for traditional publishing without doing a thorough "bug hunt".
Do what you're good at, hire out the rest as you have to, and pay attention to the details.
Due diligence pays off in the long-run.
I agree with all that except typos. You're allowed one. In the entire book. If you're Colleen McCullough, you're allowed five. She earned her stripes long ago. We are under a microscope, and cannot afford to give people reason to doubt the quality of our books. What I do is edit digitally, order a book, reread it line for line, find things every time, mark the book with pen, go back and make the edits in the digital file, reupload and send it off to distribution. Vaya con Dios, and I cross the screen, so badly do I want to succeed. |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on May 23, 2020 16:34:29 GMT
Miss Maggie,
That was kind of what I was getting at after reading the Lulu example of Retail versus Wholesale.
The example on Lulu Press shows selling there nets the self-publisher a royalty of $12.40 selling on Lulu and $4.00 everywhere else.
I set my royalties as close to $0.75 a pop for "Everywhere Else" and maybe sold three copies in seven years. The closest I've seen to a Wholesale Discount at Lulu is the Bulk Discount, which ain't great. static.lulu.com/create/volume-discounts
I do believe I can do better at Ingramspark with Return/Destroy and 55% discount because I'm not having to price my work to the point it becomes noncompetitive.
Yes, I was agreeing with you and enjoying the math details, and letting you handle it since you're better at it than I am. But I got a hint that you wete going to use KDP instead of IS, and I was trying to give an extra push. Simply because I want you to do well. Maybe I'm losing track of posts because I'm using my phone rather than PC, but I think overall we're saying the same thing. We are, as you've noticed I'm just using different providers to target different types of buyers. While I'll try for freebies at IS, I'm not going to worry about it, since the business I eventually build will be left to whichever of the kinder who takes an interest in it.
As funds permit next year I'm also going to do due diligence by getting at least one review for each of the three books I'll be releasing again [three reviews total], just like the real publishers do. Nothing says good professionally edited work like a professional reviewer not finding a crap-ton of typos and logical inconsistencies while finding a professional grade cover that isn't interchangeable with fifty-umptysquidlyzillion other books. If the reviewer also has a visceral reaction to my work and has to wipe a tear or two away during the tragic parts, even more better.
**** Update ****
Miss Maggie,
If you or anyone my published work should find typos in my work I hope you or they let me know. I keep a file for each book, and the last time I revised one I think I took care of two in one book and one or two in another.
An unedited rough draft doesn't qualify, because it wasn't edited it will have bugs to hunt [and it took me about a week to get through the MS I submitted to Baen].
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2020 16:36:51 GMT
Yes, I was agreeing with you and enjoying the math details, and letting you handle it since you're better at it than I am. But I got a hint that you wete going to use KDP instead of IS, and I was trying to give an extra push. Simply because I want you to do well. Maybe I'm losing track of posts because I'm using my phone rather than PC, but I think overall we're saying the same thing. We are, as you've noticed I'm just using different providers to target different types of buyers. While I'll try for freebies at IS, I'm not going to worry about it, since the business I eventually build will be left to whichever of the kinder who takes an interest in it.
As funds permit next year I'm also going to do due diligence by getting at least one review for each of the three books I'll be releasing again [three reviews total], just like the real publishers do. Nothing says good professionally edited work like a professional reviewer not finding a crap-ton of typos and logical inconsistencies while finding a professional grade cover that isn't interchangeable with fifty-umptysquidlyzillion other books. If the reviewer also has a visceral reaction to my work and has to wipe a tear or two away during the tragic parts, even more better.
I'm saving for a Kirkus review. They are steep.😬 |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on May 23, 2020 16:49:36 GMT
We are, as you've noticed I'm just using different providers to target different types of buyers. While I'll try for freebies at IS, I'm not going to worry about it, since the business I eventually build will be left to whichever of the kinder who takes an interest in it.
As funds permit next year I'm also going to do due diligence by getting at least one review for each of the three books I'll be releasing again [three reviews total], just like the real publishers do. Nothing says good professionally edited work like a professional reviewer not finding a crap-ton of typos and logical inconsistencies while finding a professional grade cover that isn't interchangeable with fifty-umptysquidlyzillion other books. If the reviewer also has a visceral reaction to my work and has to wipe a tear or two away during the tragic parts, even more better.
I'm saving for a Kirkus review. They are steep.😬 The three major ones, total cost for all three was $1145 last time I checked. But whether it's all three or just one, it means a professional has read it and vetted it in that sense because they normally won't release a bad review without the client's consent.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2020 20:12:14 GMT
I'm saving for a Kirkus review. They are steep.😬 The three major ones, total cost for all three was $1145 last time I checked. But whether it's all three or just one, it means a professional has read it and vetted it in that sense because they normally won't release a bad review without the client's consent.
This would make a great new thread titled Paid Reviewers. When I have the money I'd like to come back and find it easily. |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on May 23, 2020 22:13:07 GMT
The three major ones, total cost for all three was $1145 last time I checked. But whether it's all three or just one, it means a professional has read it and vetted it in that sense because they normally won't release a bad review without the client's consent.
This would make a great new thread titled Paid Reviewers. When I have the money I'd like to come back and find it easily. Perhaps Herr Benziger will put a folder for "Recommended Services" under the "Services Offered".
The reason I collected those links and saved them in a Word doc was because a company I can think of offered a package of all three reviews for the bargain-basement price of $3899, even though self-publishers can do the same thing themselves for the exorbitant price of $1145.
I believe the Blueink review costs about $325.
Yeah, when I start researching I tend to dig deep, to include Better Business Bureau complaints and so on. I also freely admit I can tend to be a smartass.
Now because there's something in the air, time for a shot, a beer, and contemplation of what I don't want to eat since I feel "meh" due to sinuses or whatever. Flipping weather, 100 Fahrenheit one day, mid-90s the next, and looking forward to mid-80s tomorrow -- Sprummerall sucks.
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alain
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Post by alain on May 24, 2020 9:54:50 GMT
I thought maybe an image says more than many words:  Quote from my initial post: Does anybody know other self publishing sites/services similar to lulu that also offer a classic Pocket Book size of 4.25" x 6.87"?
[...]
What makes 4.25" x 6.87" special is that the ratio of width and height is the golden ratio 0.618...
4.25" x 7" is only a difference of 0.13" in height (3.3mm) but it destroys the largely unconscious message of harmony inherent in the golden ratio...
Imagine the photo above with the book 0.13" (3.3mm) higher... it would no longer be beautiful. What I tried also was the slightly bigger 4.37" x 7" that IngramSpark also has, either by blowing up or by adding more white around the existing design. The result was not all that bad, but in comparison all the magic was gone. Also, the book as printed at Lulu has 60# paper, while IngramSpark only offers 50#, so the book would be thinner, which again destroys the harmony, given I already planned for 250 pages. The text inside is about 9 words per line, 23 lines per page, 244 pages after the usual preambles, so all in all 9 x 23 x 244 = ca. 50'000 words. 50 is also 250 / 5, the golden ratio is related to 5-pointed stars, the planet Venus (goddess of beauty) returns every 8 years to almost the same spot in the sky, and in between stations at the 5 corners of a 5-pointed star. In those 8 years, also sun and moon return about to the same spots, which is why the precursors of Venus/Aphrodite in Mesopotamia, Inanna and Ishtar, were depicted with the symbols of sun, moon and Venus (as 8-pointed star). 8 years are 99 = 50 + 49 lunar months. The Olympics in ancient Greece were alternatively every 50 and 49 lunar months (i.e. approx. every 4 years). When you ask the Chinese I Ching oracle, you start with 50 yarrow stalk sticks and put one aways right at the start to get 49. The USA has 50 stars on its flag, and it started with 13, also a number symbolically strongly related to the same themes. My parents died earlier this year, my mother Jan 2, after a breakdown on Friday the 13th of December and after which she did not eat any more. My father was still quite fit at the time, but lifted my mother at night to help her to go to the backroom, injured his back heavily, had an operation in late January, which went wrong, plus other issues with no chance for real recovery showed and he decided to go; actually they had promised each other only to leave together, which was legally not possible, so he was also gone on Feb 19th. Now, the day I got the two proof copies of the book, early in spring, I also got the official documents from the local district court that confirmed me as their sole inheritor. This links the two books and my two parents closely together, and also to "heritage". I had already started to design the book cover in January 2019, and that was far from an easy birth, in retrospect also somewhat influenced by death approaching, even though my parents had still been on holidays in the USA in May 2019 and even on 12 December 2019 my parents would go out to town and live normally. This may explain why this book is for all that it appears bound to be 4.25" x 6.87" on 60# paper. How I will distribute it in the end will be decided when the book is ready, which may be even this year, but most likely will only a few more years into the future. Maybe IngramSpark will allow this format then, or maybe there will be some other way, that is still open. Maybe if I ordered quite a bunch in advance, that would be possible, maybe directly via LightningSource, I don't know. And the book "industry" is moving, not sure where. In any case, it is unlikely that book stores will return to past times where they had more than just a handful of books besides apparel like bags and so on (at least where I live, maybe that is different in the US). But sure, for other future book projects I would almost certainly start with IngramSpark, with a size they have. But the above is not the usual book project, why may exactly be why it has a real chance. A bit like Cindy Crawford's mole. About 30 years ago I had a book on typography which said something along "you should know the rules and follow them strictly, but for each design also break one or two of them". Anyways, not like I would understand it all, as writer and artist if you are not driven and go with that flow, what else would you do. PS: I actually do have another book in mind, which I might do in 5" x 8", since that is a size that both IngramSpark and Amazon KDP offer today (Lulu does not) and of all the sizes that IngramSpark offers this is one of about three that comes somewhat close to the golden ratio: 8" / 5" = 1.60, 5" / 8" = 0.625 (Pocket size in comparison: 6.875" / 4.25" = 1.6176, 4.25" / 6.875" = 0.6182; the golden ratio would be 1.61803... resp. 0.61803...) But I learned quite a few things in this thread, thanks everybody! |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on May 24, 2020 12:21:23 GMT
You might want to plan for 252 pages overall, since 250 / 4 = 62.5 and the total page count divided by 4 needs to be an even number. Lulu will add two blank pages to make that happen.
**** Edit ****
Alain,
If you click the link and scroll down to "Why Are There Blank Pages at the Back of My Book?" you'll notice it's part of the formatting.
You could also go for 248 pages, but either way some ratios won't be exactly what you hope for which is kind of how life goes.
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alain
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Post by alain on May 24, 2020 15:32:45 GMT
My source pdf has 252 pages with the two last pages completely empty, so for readers it would be 250 pages. The last printed copies I got had four more empty pages (more precisely the very last page was not completely empty, but had a small barcode of the printer at the bottom), but that does vary in my experience from books I published previously, in accordance with what Lulu writes at your link above. Interestingly Lulu's new "Book Creation Guide" does not say anything about the number of pages having to be divisible by 4 (nor 2) any more: www.lulu.com/publishing-toolkit => Download "Book Creation Guide" I presume empty pages would be added automatically as needed, but not tried out. IngramSpark writes "The final page should be blank. If there is no blank page, we’ll add one for you.". I presume with "final page" they mean front+back. www.ingramspark.com/blog/file-requirements-for-print-booksAll in all, I guess there are some global standardization processes regarding book printing going on behind the scenes, which may also have put some pressure on Lulu to upgrade their software. In a few years, maybe authors will simply need to create standardized PDFs for interior and cover (with appropriate metadata embedded), have them validated at first automatically and then by any certified approval agency, and then authors can choose their wholesale/retail prices and choose who they allow to distribute/print their books, elimimating some middle-persons. |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on May 24, 2020 16:13:27 GMT
I have no need to check the Lulu Press download as I have a different business strategy in mind.
The divided by part dates back to how many pages at size X were to cut from a printing sheet of size Y, and the other numbers used to determine that are 8, 16, and 32. Some standards have been in place for a very long time, and the divided by 4 is pretty easy to follow whether Lulu Press says to do so now or not.
Your total page count is front and back of the piece of paper at size X including blank pages.
The interior PDF is already pretty standard with margin sizes and trim sizes designed to keep the cutting machines from taking too much even if slightly out of synch, the allowable tolerances. You also have to embed fonts, which is standard. This is true regardless of which service you choose even if some of the size offerings are slightly different.
As for cutting out those in the middle who simply add cost without adding value that's already possible, it's simply a matter of choosing to do so and adapting one's expectations. Those who do the approving are checking the cover and interior files to make sure the self-publisher is intelligent enough to follow the instructions to format and upload a book that will print correctly.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2020 16:17:03 GMT
This would make a great new thread titled Paid Reviewers. When I have the money I'd like to come back and find it easily. Perhaps Herr Benziger will put a folder for "Recommended Services" under the "Services Offered".
The reason I collected those links and saved them in a Word doc was because a company I can think of offered a package of all three reviews for the bargain-basement price of $3899, even though self-publishers can do the same thing themselves for the exorbitant price of $1145.
I believe the Blueink review costs about $325.
Yeah, when I start researching I tend to dig deep, to include Better Business Bureau complaints and so on. I also freely admit I can tend to be a smartass.
Now because there's something in the air, time for a shot, a beer, and contemplation of what I don't want to eat since I feel "meh" due to sinuses or whatever. Flipping weather, 100 Fahrenheit one day, mid-90s the next, and looking forward to mid-80s tomorrow -- Sprummerall sucks.
Not a bad idea. I kept thinking as I was reading your previous post, wouldn't it be good if Cameron could give reviews and get paid that money instead of them? Oh well. |
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