I am going to get a children's story published… PV

I'm losing my mind.
It has been almost three weeks sent I sent my manuscript in.  I know, I know, that isn't anywhere near enough time to have heard anything, actually, here were the given times (I will call the companies A,B & C because I'm hiding from them a bit and I sent them in using my real name, not that's it's a big stretch from my "adult" pen name):

• Publisher A: Our time frame for a response is up to twelve weeks
• Publisher B: We review each submission in the order that it was received and try to respond within three months.
• Publisher C: Submissions are usually processed within four (4) months.

It all began when I read on someone's blog that they heard back within a couple of weeks WHY? WHY? Don't tell me this!  Now every time my phone rings or I get a new e-mail I get excited and I now take a deep breath before opening the mail box.

Anyway, nothing to tell you of interest today.

I did also did the #PitMad thing but nothing.

Thanks for Reading

My Obligatory "Thoughts on Twitter" Post

I tweet.  Actually I probably tweet too much and of course I see a kazillion tweets about how to effectively tweet to get followers, and how to sell your products and yourself and yadda yadda yadda.  I DON'T CARE!!!!!

There.

What do I tweet about?

1. Writing.  It's why I joined in the first place.  I like to interact with other writers both about writing and day to day things.  I have learned so much about writing, publishing drinking wine from these great folks.
• #WritingTip when you are writing turn off spell/grammar check, they only slow you down. Editing and writing are two separate tasks.
• Just had a brain buster of a thought… mobi is to epub what apple is to android take that as you wish
2. Family.  I have two adorable kids and an awesome wife.  I love to share anecdotes, comical annoyances that I have.
• Given up on getting our daughter to sleep in her crib so we delegated the task to our 4y/o. Seems to be working! #ParentingTip
• She grasps the bars screaming hysterically unable to utter a word. She wonders what she did to deserve this. #NotPrison#TellThatToBabyGirl
3. One-liners.  I think I'm funny (I'm not offended if you disagree, lots do :D).  I toss these out when I feel like it.
• I hope there's no airports named after Bush "We are now landing in the bush…" (screaming passengers)
• Did you hear about the #Zombie outbreak in the Cannibal village? It was self contained.
4. Smart ass remarks.  Come on people, sometimes you just ask for them…
• Tweet: The fiance had all four wisdom teeth taken out this afternoon. Fun!
• Reply: @rainyofthedark fun? Oh you're sharing his pain meds ;-)
• Tweet: If you smoke a four leaf clover... a leprechaun will magically appear and eat a delicious bowl of Lucky Charms with you.
• Reply: @Jack_Wagon1 isn't that with a five leaf clover?
5. I also "run" two dailys, The Flash Fiction Daily and The Daily Mongerer

I talk to everyone of the people that I follow as if they are old friends, whether it's George Takei or @JSHyena.  I don't expect responses, retweets/etc.

What I don't tweet about

1. I don't do #FFs/#WWs/#MMs etc, I have nothing against them and I do occasionally read them and even follow people if you have a good reason why.  I don't like them because they take a hell of a long time to do and I like to bring attention to someone you should follow whenever I think of it.
2. I don't do a lot of marketing.  Sometimes I toss out links to:
•  my book: Why am I giving away my book?Exposure.How do I get that?You reading.What do I want in return?An honest review #FreeBookhttp://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Counting-Down-the-Storm/book-M_5sB8b0uEq_R7Ac23KFuw/page1.html …
• my blogs, (This one, Alphabet Wine)
• my music Noteflight - Dennis Leask's Home
3. My sex life, sorry
4. Everything I do/eat/drink or send a tweet from every site I visit on-line
5. I also very rarely ever curse, get too political or controversial

What I retweet

1. Funny stuff, if it makes me laugh I'm sharing, even if it is a bit off colour
2. Good tips, great sites, interesting articles

If you follow me I will follow you back unless you

• Are part of #TeamFollowBack
• Have not tweeted anything what-so-ever
• All of your posts are about 
• marketing
• Self help
• Inspirational Quotes
• Random Links
• Jesus or other religious dieties
• And if your posts start being or turn out to be like the above I unfollow

So, I'm not going to tell you how to Twitter and I don't want you to tell me either 'cause guess what, twitter is a Social Network and I am there to:

1. Be Social
2. To Network

Thanks for Reading

So what exactly are you doing for me Publishing Company?

The publishing industry has changed drastically over the past decade and because of these changes, authors must now carry the responsibilities of marketing, promotions and publicity for their books. This is a daunting task, and many authors fail, losing their publishing contract or possibly any future contracts. It’s a hard, cold fact … an author’s books must sell and sell well for the publishing machine to keep moving.

SORRY WHAT?
 I saw a post on Twitter from a publishing company that shall remain unnamed and saw the above written there.  I am thoroughly confused.  I'm sorry, if I wanted to carry the responsibilities of marketing, promotions and publicity for my books I would skip you guys altogether and self publish.

Now, to be fair this may be only one companies policy and as very few publishers are taking unsolicited manuscripts getting to the meat of what they offer in terms of author support is difficult.  The other "unknown" is if literary agents take care of this.

Why am I concerned about this?  Because I don't want to market and promote my book myself.  I'm not lazy, but I also don't have a degree in business, marketing and/or advertising.  I'm a writer.  What do I want to do?  Write.

Self publishing is great and kudos to all of the success stories out there.  I am not one of them.  I have made a grand total of $7.79 from e-book sales on top of the $700 or so I made from sales of the hard copies (which was about break even for my cost of printing).  With promotion and all of that I likely could do better but I want to finish my full length novel.

In my eyes a writer who has to do all the work to sell his book is akin to a race car driver having to do his own pit stops.

So, do I want a "Traditional" Publisher?  Well, sort of, I completely embrace e-books and new techniques of  publishing but at the same time I want to be sort of taken care of, given deadlines, told when and where to do signings and have someone else run ads for me.  This is what I am paying you <>80% of my book costs for.

So unnamed book company, if all you are giving me for my book is a small percentage of sales, a few bytes of data space and a bit of paper, no thanks.

Thanks For Reading

P.S.
Check out The Global 50: The World's Largest Book Publishers, 2012
Of note: #8 Random House posted revenue of almost $2.3 Billion last year.

Also of Note:
After writing this I happened to get a tweet from another publisher who will be named (Evolved Publishing) who sound like exactly what I will be looking for when the time comes.

I'm no longer supporting or selling on Amazon

I should just warn you that this is one of those "Opinion Piece" blogs from someone (me) who did about ten minutes of research and fired pretty much off the cuff.  There are likely ten million arguments out there against what I am saying and likely even more denouncing the Huffington Post piece I have used as the basis of this.  I don't care, nor do I want to get in an argument from someone with a different opinion.  If you don't like what I have to say keep it to yourself and just ignore me and at least give me some credit for being honest about my ignorance!

The saying "don't bite the hand that feeds you" doesn't really apply here as I have eaten nothing from Amazon and before I make a single dime from them I have decided to remove my books.  Why would I sell my wares at a site that I have decided to oppose?  I am taking a stand damn it!

I recently read an article on The Huffington Post (be informed read the article!) about how Kindle/Amazon is being bombarded with junk eBooks.  This isn't the first time I have read about this.  There have been a number of articles about this phenomena recently.  According to the article Nook, Smashwords and others aren't having the same issues.  Two reasons according to the article is that either there isn't enough users of these services to warrant bothering with it or they are taking actions to prevent it.

Here is a (possibly cynical) look at Amazons Policy, red notes are mine:

Publishing rights are the rights you need to publish a book. To publish a book for Kindle through KDP, you must have obtained all rights necessary to publish the digital book from the book's author and any other content creators, or, if you are the book's author, you must have retained all of the necessary digital book publishing rights. -this is good


If you are publishing a public domain book, keep in mind that the duration of copyright varies between countries, so ensure that you indicate your territory rights accurately. (If your book is in the public domain in one country but not another, you must identify you territory rights accordingly.) Books that consist entirely or primarily of public domain content are not eligible for the 70% royalty option -because it doesn't belong to you and you are likely selling loads of crap for cheap so Amazon needs to make as much money from you as possible.  If they thought your work may have some value added potential they'd likely have a category for such stuff so you could receive a higher royalty, but they don't encourage that. For full details, terms and conditions see the Pricing page and Terms and Conditions.

If your book is under copyright and you hold the necessary rights for this content, select "This is not a public domain work and I hold the necessary publishing rights."

So big surprise that Amazon won't pay the higher royalty rate to junk (provided that the person submitting it checks "This is public domain work".  Another part of the article talks about how these junk books sell for $0.99 which is also a low royalty area on Amazon, coincidence?  If you want to sell your original book at $0.99 you have to compete with Private Label Rights content (fancy name for junk/spam books).  I don't think Amazon has any desire to stop this practice.  The believe they have the corner on eBooks, and they likely do, most people are buying "Best Sellers" which is likely a very high percentage of Amazon's eBook revenue stream and the $0.65 they make from every $0.99 book that is sold is just a nice bonus.  Why would they bother changing it? To help independent authors?  I bet the majority of the money they make from $0.99 books are from these junk books so why would they limit this revenue stream if the majority of people aren't even buying them?  I would say that if it becomes a problem or this revenue begins to dry up they will just stop allowing self publishing through their site.  Of course this is all just conjecture, speculation and a hint of doom.

Here is the last line from the Huffington article:

"This is why email spam has become such a problem -- it costs nothing," she said. "If people can put out 12 versions of a single book under different titles and authors, and at different prices, even if they sell just one or two books, they can make money. They win and the loser is Amazon."

Really?  I can't see where Amazon is losing, they made $1.30 from those two books, more than the "author" made.
Here is an interesting blog from "Writer Beware™ Blogs!" with Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords.

Amazon has rubbed me the wrong way for quite a while and this is the final straw.  Support your favourite Independent authors through Smashwords, they format books for Kindle.  Go ahead and get your Nora Roberts and Suzanne Collins from Amazon, or better yet, if you haven't bought a Kindle yet, don't.  I ♥ my Kobo and many swear by their Nooks!

Thanks For Reading
D. Ryan Leask