The Newest Publishing Industry–YOU!
By Jeanne Kisacky | November 15, 2015 |
The transformation of publishing as a result of the proliferation of e-books and self-publishing is an inescapable topic these days. As well as making every writer face the devil’s choice of whether to go traditional or go independent, this transformation has also created a new spinoff industry–you—the writer and author. Providers of author services are a growth sector of the economy.
As the director of advertising on Writer Unboxed, I’ve been thinking about how the development of author services further changes the job of being an author, adding responsibility for being an educated consumer of those services, but also what it means for blog owners.
Writing advice and advisors have always been around, but now, as well as ‘how-to write’ guides, there are DIY manuals for designing your own cover, formatting your own book, editing your own book, managing your own promotion. If you don’t want to go the full DIY route, you can buy a bunch of author-targeted software or you could hire some help–book cover designers, editors, book promoters, book formatters, packaging agencies, book advertisers, booksellers, marketing advisors, story ‘doctors’, indexers. The list could go on.
Many of these services have existed for a long time, but the providers traditionally worked directly with publishers. Some of these services are brand new, a product of the new e-book revolution.
All of them would like to gain your attention. Yes yours, because you, dear Writer Unboxed reader, are their niche market. Their intended clientele. Their bread and butter. And, yes, sadly, in some instances, their mark.
As with any industry, many of these service providers offer a valuable service and expertise, care about their reputation, and operate according to above board business practices. As with any industry, where there is money to be had, some of the service providers are out for the money. By whatever means they can get it.
Gaining your attention, let alone your patronage, is not easy. In a business where the standard legend is that all it takes to get published (and make millions) is to crank out some content, generate a file, and put it up for sale at one of the on-line booksellers, these author service providers not only have to reach their prospective clientele, they have to convince them that hiring a service provider is more valuable than DIY’ing it. Most people know when they need a lawyer. Not everyone knows when to hire a developmental editor, content editor, copy editor, or proof reader. Whether to hire a book packager or software that will generate the proper format for an ebook ‘automatically’ is equally unknown. That means even legitimate service providers have to be aggressively persuasive about the need for their services. That can make their promotional tactics more extreme–promising more for less or using gimmicks to get the prospective client’s attention.
For the author, this makes it absolutely critical to do due diligence before hiring any service provider or buying any service product. Ask for referrals from previous clients. Ask for a sample of work before you buy the whole package. Be clear about what services are and are not being provided. Advertising is a means of getting your attention, it is not a contract, a promise, a certainty.
Writer Unboxed is front and center in this developing industry of author services. On a daily basis it delivers, for ‘free,’ high-calibre content on writing and publishing to an unusually active and involved writerly community. Since keeping a blog the size and complexity of Writer Unboxed up and running is far from ‘free,’ it also, on a daily basis ‘delivers’ that community to the author service providers who choose to advertise on its website. The advertising revenue offsets the cost of keeping the blog running. Win-win, right?
Over the last few years, as the Writer Unboxed readership has grown in numbers and in community, the ad sales have shifted. When we started running ads roughly 4 years ago, advertisers were mostly authors advertising their books. In the last year we have sold the majority of ads to services or product providers targeting authors rather than sold by authors. Given the developing nature of the author service provider industry, this can cause some worry.
So far, Writer Unboxed has been both lucky (we have not gotten many ad inquiries from advertisers who did not seem on the up and up) and selective (we have not encouraged advertisers who were clearly not of interest to our readership). That in itself has gotten rid of a number of dubious ventures. But the times are changing. Costs are going up. Ad inquiries for access to you—authors in need of services—are increasing. This is a good thing.
Unless you work for a blog owner who worries about community as much as content. Then, you might lose sleep wondering if a website has any responsibility for the legitimacy of what is advertised. Or is it simply a financial decision—maximize ad revenue in any way possible and let the buyer/author beware?
I don’t know the answer. I just know that ads turn a relationship based on hard-fought and hard-won community into one based on money, and money changes everything. The more money, the greater the change. Given the frontier nature of the growing author services industry, it is going to be a wild ride the next few years.
So here are my questions to you readers: Do you research author products and services before purchase? Do you in any way associate an ad and its products with where it is advertised? Are there websites where you ‘trust’ the ads more than others?
When the ‘tiny coffee’ option was first introduced, I posted that I would not be using the tiny coffee app, but I have changed my mind, with a slight twist. Any coffee you buy from this post goes directly to Writer Unboxed to support the blog. [coffee]
Photo Credit: “Delaware State Fair.” Author Lee Cannon. From Wikimedia Commons.
Jeanne Kisacky trained to be an architect before going back to her first love–writing. She studied the history of architecture, has written and published nonfiction, and has taught college courses. She is the author of Rise of the Modern Hospital: An Architectural History of Health and Healing, 1870-1940.
I think I would be disappointed if WU didn’t vet service product ads to authors.
That said, I also believe it’s the site owner’s right to choose how to run their own site, within the laws of course :-)
In general, I’m extremely wary of any services from anyone I don’t know, have a relationship with, or have an extremely trustworthy referral for.
Can there be a followup article that explaining “the times are changing. Costs are going up” ?
All this of course from a one person blog shop with no set schedules or commitments. So I realize my pov may not even be close to what this site needs, or its owner(s) want to go.
All the best, always :-)
Felipe- Thanks for posting your expectations about vetting ads. I think I deep down knew that, but it’s good to ‘hear’ it in writing from a reader. It’s an interesting idea to have a blog post about the costs of running the blog.
A “blog post about the costs of running the blog” would be neat :-)
You asked good questions. As a writer, I have learned to be leary of services offered to authors, even legit ones. At first, I was more inclined to trust providers advertised on well-known sites, such as Writer’s Digest. But I quickly learned that the majority of what they, and a number of other sites/people do, is offer services to writers. Deciding whether I truly need those services is my responsibility, and now, I ignore almost all writer-targeted advertising, here or elsewhere.
As a blog owner, I am still debating whther to allow ads on my site. But if I were to do so, I would probably vet the service providers who wanted to advertise with me. Scammy ads do not speak well of a site/publication where they appear, and like Felipe Adan Lerma, I would be disappointed to see them on WU.
As an avid reader, DIY-type, and not-wealthy writer, I’m much more likely to purchase books than author services.
All that said, I really appreciate WU, and want to see you guys successful and supported. And thanks to the aforementioned not-wealthy status, I’m not in much of a position to help with that. So if ads keep the site running and the awesome content flowing, hurray them.
Meagan- thanks for your reply. Ads are a dilemma for blog owners of any size. I am still struggling with what to do with the shifting nature of the advertisers on WU. When authors of books were the main advertisers, there was no moral dilemma. I’ve also wondered why the shift–whether authors were targeting a different audience, or whether our ad offerings were not a good match for authors wanting to advertise their books. There was a discussion at WU a while back about whether to offer a simpler ad format for book ads–basically an author would have paid a small fee, and we would post the book cover (then there’s no need for graphic design fees), but we’ve never tried that. If there’s interest from our readers in such book advertising, I’d love to hear about it.
Jeanne, I’ve often been tempted to advertise on KU. A “small fee” ad format would be something I’d take a very good look at :-)
Most beginning authors are a little leery of putting out good money and getting – what? – in return.
I’ve been chatting with another author on Goodreads, and he is SO proud of his ‘publishing contract’ – an obvious vanity publisher which cost him a pretty penny, I’m sure. But he says he won’t be writing any more books. Huh?
Not being a fan of advertising in general (yes, I know business makes the world turn), I see ads as a high-energy person waiting to make promises and deliver whatever they think I need. I can’t cope with that. Every time I check an ad or a service out, I quietly back away and go do it myself. That I can handle.
Speaks to a lifetime of experience with salespeople and their promises, and it’s cynical – I know that.
I also know that the right person could save me a lot of time. It’s a tossup, because now that I’ve learned to do most of the things having to do with the technical aspects of self-publishing, the next time will be easier (crosses fingers tightly and chants).
But the PROCESS of finding the right person… As an extreme introvert, I dread that.
No easy answers
Alicia – yes as a fellow introvert, I have amazed myself at what I was willing to do in order to avoid having to interview a number of different service providers. It sounds like you approach all ads, no matter where they are, with a healthy suspicion.
Suspicion is healthy.
But mostly I thought I should try to do everything myself; then I would know how hard it was and what I could expect from someone more knowledgeable and what I would need most.
So far, as a former scientific programmer, I haven’t found anything too hard (Phew!), and even the time put in hasn’t been excessive considering I was starting from scratch.
But I was already suspicious of the offers pouring into my inbox, and the topper were the people who sent me several emails in the week after I received my copyright notice from the Library of Congress – wanting to ‘publish my book for me.’ Dorrance in this particular case – and their ‘terms’ are something I would reject out of hand – because I’ve taken the trouble to educate myself on the self-publishing and writing blogs.
It’s hard to tell the sharks – they market themselves so much more glibly.
And several blogs I used to visit have shifted into very commercial sites – and I stopped finding them useful.
Maybe, if you need a lot of ad revenue to survive, it’s time to close up a blog. Unless the money is your prime objective. I understand the pressures – but have found in the past that everything I check from those sites sets up red flags. Maybe I see boogeymen behind every tree.
One thing I’m certain of, regarding WU – Money is the absolute farthest thing from the prime objective. If it had been, this space would look very different from what we get here daily – all due to the energy, time, talent and wisdom of dozens of extraordinarily generous people. The ads are only a small offset to the dollars out of pocket it takes to continue to deliver an ongoing, virtually promo-free, community-oriented atmosphere to WU. I hope I never see the day that those costs make WU “close up.”
If only a few more of those with the means, who have come to not only appreciate but rely on useful, supportive and encouraging daily content would bother to click on the “help” button, or even the buck-a-month donation button in the top right sidebar, it might make Jeanne’s quandary disappear entirely. Just a thought.
First off: Mmmmm, carnival corn dogs. Now I’m thinking second breakfast.
Really interesting post for interesting times, Jeanne. The ad question is a particularly tricky one for WU, as T and Kath always shied away from overt promo here – if you thought you were coming to promote a book, you’d better have some substantive content to offer, or take your tinker cart elsewhere. Which made that atmosphere and dynamic a natural course over on the group page.
I understand why folks have high expectations, but I don’t envy you the job of vetting them. Over on the group page, it’s all very black and white. If it even has the faintest whiff of being promotional, it’s gone. But it wasn’t always that way, and it wasn’t easy when it wasn’t. Years ago, when we were MUCH smaller, we allowed members to share their own content, but we (the moderators) had to weigh that content’s worthiness to the membership. This scenario did not last long, simply because it was untenable (and exhausting!).
I still feel there has to be an element of buyer beware. And I’m sure WU readers are savvy enough to understand that taking someone’s ad dollars does not necessarily equate to an endorsement. But I hope you find a smooth way to navigate a thorny issue, Jeanne.
Vaughn – Ha, I’ve never met a corn dog I didn’t like, but what I really want to know (based on that picture) is what the heck is ‘Fried Kool-Aid’?
Thanks for the generous comment — I know that you of all people have lived through similar moral dilemmas, and yes, it is exhausting. There is also a worry that if we get too selective, then there goes even our respectable, responsible advertising clients. But if we don’t get too selective, the problem is equally hairy. I’m glad you managed to find a solution for the Facebook Page that avoids most of the dilemma (though not all of the work. I’m working towards that with the ads, but it’s a different field.
As a do-it-yourselfer, I have long mistrusted any ‘publisher’ who offers services for money. I’m an old-timer who has run the gamut of large publisher (Doubleday 1964) and small independent (Storyteller – now defunct), and now Independent DIY through CreateSpace. I have been delighted with CS because it didn’t cost me a penny. But I had to learn the whole schtick from self-editing to formatting to uploading to cover design… You get the picture.
But – as an old-timer – I started with the rules firmly embedded in my brain. The first rule of seeking a publisher: The writer does not pay the publisher, the publisher pays the writer.
Today’s young writers do not seem to know this rule. Yesterday at a writers’ fair I congratulated a young writer on her novel, then checked the publisher. Friesen Press. I then asked her how much THAT had cost her. She blushed. She whispered something in the thousands.
Well, we get what we paid for. It was a quality book. She was proud of it, and rightly so. But we all know, in today’s open market, she will probably never regain her costs.
Now, Friesen Press is one of the better ones. Very expensive, but I see they deliver. There are others out there – I dare not mention names – who take the writer for a long ride, with new charges every step of the way. One writer I know has paid upwards of $15,000 for a single published book, no marketing, and no distribution.
Writer Beware.
Lynraa, I’m of the same era that distinguished between vanity presses (who the author paid) and publishers that paid the author, and agree that the latter arrangement is vastly preferable. But the times, they are a-changing. Even university-affiliated non-profit, academic publishers now often require payments by authors to subsidize the costs of publishing. It makes the job of being a writer/author much more difficult and much less well-defined.
Whether I’m reading the newspaper or I’m on the Internet, over the years I have trained my mind to ignore the ads and stay focused on why I was on the page to begin with. That said, I recently went looking for a graphic designer for a book cover, and I was having trouble finding one. Maybe because I never look at the ads!
Then I saw a recommendation from someone I’ve come to respect on WU. I didn’t end up using that company, but I did find keywords on the site that helped me do a proper google and find a designer I ended up signing with.
Do your own research no matter where a name pops up. If you take a good look, you can figure out pretty quickly if someone is reputable, does quality work, and is charging a fair price. What swayed me in the end (besides their beautiful work) was that the designers go out of their way to help writers by providing useful information for getting published beyond the book cover.
Carmel, I admire your ability to focus on what you are visiting the page for. I am all over the map with being distracted on webpages. I’m glad you found a reputable book cover designer and especially glad that you found them through WU. That you found the designer through the blog content, and not the ads is interesting. Many many advertisers have asked to buy a ‘post’ — essentially they would pay WU to put their ad copy up in the blog space, so it would look just like blog content. We have avoided that, but at the cost of giving up some lucrative offers.
Thanks, Jeanne for a honest article on WU’s advertising. This is one of the things I like about WU, which is bringing issues like this up.
To answer your questions;
Do you research author products and services before purchase? I always research products and services and get opinions from websites not associated with the company. Even this does not keep me from getting scammed.
Do you in any way associate an ad and its products with where it is advertised? I would like to think the website allowing the ads would screen the information and company, but I know this is not always the case. Also, some blog posts can get scammed by the companies, too.
Are there websites where you ‘trust’ the ads more than others? No. There are websites, such as WU, where I trust the content (the reason I go there). I do not trust ads.
I have been trying to find someone to edit my book and lost money (thankfully not a lot). I paid a company for a book design and lost that money without getting anything. These were all from websites and blog posts who claimed these people were reputable. I’ll keep trying to find someone honest, but it is not easy. I will be cautious of any ads.
Stanley B. Thanks for your honest responses! I struggled with this post–because it was walking a fine line between honestly posing the dilemma and sounding like alternative fundraising. Your reply gives me hope that the honesty came through. I’m sorry, however, that you lost money on service providers.
You must be reading my email inbox. A few months ago, I clicked on a couple ad links and now I’m on I-don’t-know-how-many lists.
I agree wholeheartedly that due diligence is critical when shopping the internet. However, the problem I’ve encountered with researching on the internet is that you leave a trail, as most ads require your email address before you can get past the slick, enticing promises to the nitty-gritty: what their service actually costs. Being a semi-retired with a modest budget, the first thing I want to know is the cost, because it doesn’t matter how helpful a service might be if I can’t afford it. As much as I resent wasting money, I’ve come to resent people who waste my time even more.
I now have the same attitude toward unsolicited email ads as I once did toward phone solicitations: I hang-up (delete) immediately. And, when I see ads that pique my curiosity, I no longer go past the point of no return of providing my email address.
Recently, I read (in a Gallup survey, I think) that 80+% of Americans indicated they wanted to write a book. That’s a very large market of novice writers just ripe for the picking, and I imagine a good portion of them are retiring baby-boomers. That stat was also a cold splash of water, as I realized that most of us wannabes have far bigger egos than we have talent and ability. (I hope I’m not in this group, but am now prepared to deal with it if I am). The message I took from this survey: I’m the target, so be very careful when I encounter people or services that begin with, and rely on, a lot of flattery to keep me (meaning, my wallet) engaged.
There are a couple of things about all this I’ve found amusing. First, for all the talk about how little money there is in writing, from the fees that some of these services expect, you’d think that most writers are raking it in. Second, the ads that tout the expertise of some ‘bestselling’ author I’ve never heard of–and I used to own a bookstore–only to discover that the book(s) that sold a million or so copies is a book about writing, or some aspect of publishing and promoting.
I’m, obviously, pretty jaded by now. But, one thing that would be helpful to writers like me is some idea of what fair market prices are for various services (flat rate, so much per hour, etc.).
CK Wallis – I hate those sites where you have to enter your email address in order to see the content you were following. I have not yet given any of them my address, but the inbox and websites I visit are certainly full of offers based on what I search for, which is another kind of creepy.
I think a “Guide to Literary Services and Publishing Resources”, particularly if it could give cost guidelines, would be a good companion to the existing guides to literary agents and writer’s markets. I’ll add that to the list of good books to write when I ‘have the time.’ :-)
Great post & comments, Jeanne! Like the others, I too am cautious with ads. The question of my advertising on WU seems off the point. I assume readers of WU are writers. That’s not the audience I would willingly pay to reach. While I hope writers are among my readers, a broader market is where I’ll advertise.
Walter–Thanks for the gracious comment. I admit that WU readers are definitely writers, and I struggle with whether or not that means advertising books on WU is advertising to the wrong market. I’ve found (from reactions from our advertisers of books) that it can actually be quite a helpful place to post, because writers are also readers, and when they read something they like, they tend to talk about it. So it’s not good at targeting a specific readership, but it isn’t completely off the mark. That said, every author has to try to reach readers, not necessarily other writers.
Jeanne–
It’s interesting to me that you’ve decided to “pay it forward” to Writer Unboxed by giving them any coffee money that comes your way. What you’re doing is exactly what I proposed in a comment, when the idea of buying coffee for WU posts was introduced (or, in the case of globe-trotting Porter Anderson, Campari earnings). After all, contributors get their name in the paper, so to speak. That seems payment enough to me, especially for contributors who are promoting themselves as experts offering services to writers.
But I have yet to see a contributor or an ad for a service that I am much in need of: not editing, book cover or book formatting, not marketing, etc. What I am looking for is someone who has figured out how to offer a management service for social media for authors. I have come to realize that I can’t do it myself, and need help.
So: if anyone in the Writer Unboxed community knows of someone who manages social media marketing on a fee-for-service basis, I would appreciate learning from them through my email address.
Barry, I remember your post regarding the coffee money, and obviously I agree with you, but I’m also financially able to do so. But I also know that writing the posts is a time commitment, and if you go by the mantra that writers should get paid for what they write, it does become a gray area. Yes, they are getting paid in publicity, but publicity doesn’t pay the rent, or buy the coffee. I think that each blogger gets to decide their own strategy regarding the coffee money is a good thing.
I’m hoping that you will get some responses on your social media manager request!
Hi, Jeanne. Catching up on WU posts . . .
You raise difficult questions. Although I mistrust ads for writers’ services and prefer word of mouth, there is a tiny part of me–and I hadn’t realised it was there before now–that assumed ads here in WU-land could be trusted. Of course now you’ve unearthed that sneaky assumption, I see how unfair it is to expect WU to provide the level of time and energy required for vetting.
Perhaps the best solution is to find a way to tell us, and remind us often, that ads here are not vetted.