Publishing Basics: The Language of Publishing

So you've finally finished your book and found a publisher who will present your book to the world. What you might not realize is that, especially in the indie publishing world, your publisher will need your input on a number of aspects in creating a real live print edition  or eBook. You're now swimming in the publishing end of the pool and it’s important to understand the language of publishing. Every industry has its own list of arcane wording and acronyms. Being able to “speak publishing” will not only save you and your publisher time, but you will be able to demystify the publishing process. While the list below isn’t exhaustive, it will give you a good basis in which to communicate with your publisher.

• 300 DPI: Images and photographs are not only measured by length and width, but by resolution or Dots Per Inch (DPI). Think of each image as being made up of single points of color. The more points you have in an image, the higher the resolution. Most of what you see on the web are images that are somewhere in the 72 to 150 DPI range. While these images can be used for eBook publication (if you hold the rights or permission to use an image), images for print editions require at least a resolution of 300 DPI. Large images can be shrunk down to create a higher resolution from a lower resolution source file. For example if your original is 72 DPI, but is 3000 by 5000 pixies, you can shrink the image for a higher resolution. This method will result in a smaller print size and the image may be too small for publication. There’s no magical way to make a small low resolution image fit for print, so if you’re going to have images in your book make sure they’re of a proper resolution. Well there are a few magical ways to make lower resolution images higher resolution, but you're not going to get a quality image calling on the magic of Merlin's beard.
• Alpha (or Beta) Readers:  These terms can be slightly interchangeable, but the gist is that an Alpha or Beta reader is someone you've let read your book before sending off your final manuscript. Technically speaking, an Alpha Reader get your first draft. Usually you owe, or will owe, this person a few beers for looking at your unpolished work. A good Alpha Reader is someone who really doesn't care for you as a person and is willing to give a brutally honest opinion of your work. A Beta Reader is someone who gets your polished manuscript before you send it off to an editor. Both sets of readers need to give you an overall impression of your book, look for continuity issues, factual errors, and basically anything about your book that looks hinky. Once again, don't get your mother to be an Alpha or Beta Reader. She'll love anything you write and will probably not give you an objective opinion.
• Bar Codes: A book's bar code is exactly the same thing as you see on items in your local grocery store. In the case of a book, the book's ISBN and pricing information is embedded in the bar code instead of a box of cereal's Universal Product Code and pricing information (UPC). Here's a world of caution, if a website, cover designer, or anyone else is going to charge you to create a bar code, they're ripping you off. There are tons of free tools online that can create high resolution bar codes with pricing and ISBN information embedded in those little lines.
• Billing Cycle, Billing Terms, or Credit Terms: This is an accounting term that refers to once a publisher cuts an invoice to a vendor or distributor, how long that vendor has to pay up. Usually billing terms are worked out between publishers and vendor before a sale is made. This gives the vendor time to sell books in order to cover the price of the invoice. It's a standard practice in business to offer credit terms and it's not uncommon for publishers to offer 60 to 90 day terms to their vendors. This trickles down to authors who generally have to wait until vendor invoices are paid to see their cut of book sales.
• BISAC Subject Heading: The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has created a more or less industry standard for applying topics to books. We use this system and the majority of our vendors do as well.
• Bleed: The amount of printing that goes beyond the edge of a page before that page is trimmed. Most printers require some bleed on covers and interiors of books. So if your publisher says, “We can’t have that element out that far on a page”, it’s because of printer’s bleed requirements.
• Brick and Mortar: Traditional retail stores that sell books.
• Color Shift: What you see on screen is not always what you get when it comes to printing a book. Different presses interpret colors of their own accord. Usually the difference between what you see on a calibrated monitor and what pops out of a press is minimal. However, there can be differences and a proof copy of your book should show any color variations.
• Content Editor, Copy Editor, Line Editor: Once again there are differing definitions of these different types of Editors, but here's the broad strokes. A Content Editor is the first Editor in the process who is interested in how your story flows, factual errors in your text, unresolved plot lines, etc. A Copy Editor is someone who generally proofreads, checks the syntax, word usage, and flow of your text. A Line Editor is more interested in polishing your verbiage and making sure your language has a constant flow and tone. If you're speaking with an editor, make sure exactly what you're getting for contracting that person. The definitions of these different types of editors aren't set in stone and many editors perform multiple tasks. Once again, find out precisely what services you'll be getting from an editor and it doesn't matter what their title is.
• Copyright: This is a huge ball of wax that this article will not do justice . Basically, a copyright is a legal term that identifies your work as belonging to you. We suggest that you check out the US Copyright Office’s website for more information about copyright basics. Remember that anything you write has an inherent copyright, but registering that copyright with the Copyright Office will assist you in legal proceedings should someone use your works without your permission. Also remember that anything (text, photos, etc) found on line were created by someone and you’ll need permission to use that work by the creator.
• CYMK: A color specification system that uses four basic colors: cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y) and black (K). The CYMK color system is generally used in full color printing. The vast majority of images seen online or taken by digital cameras are part of the RGB (red, green, and blue) color system and have to be converted to CYMK should a printer require that system.
• Distributors or vendors: These are businesses that sell books at wholesale to retail outlets. Here’s how the traditional supply system works. Publishers sell books to distributors. Distributors sell books to retailers. Retailers sell books to the end consumer. In the digital marketplace, in some instances the need for distributors as diminished over the years as publishers are selling their books directly to retail outlets.
• ePub: The most common file format for eBooks. Like the old VHS and Beta video formats, eBooks have different file formatting options. ePub is currently the most ubiquitous format and a number of online marketplaces utilize eBooks created with it.
• Gross Profit: The total earnings for a good or service without consideration of cost. For example if your book retails at $10 and you sell 100 in a month, your gross profit is $1000.
• ISBN: International Standard Book Number. Every print book has to have an ISBN per the gods of publishing. There’s no way around registering an ISBN for a print book and there are a number of brokers that deal in individual ISBNs and bulk ISBN sales.
• Layout: How elements of a book look on a page. This generally refers to the internal design of a book.
• Leading: (Pronounced like the metal and not someone who directs the efforts of others...) Leading is the spacing between lines of print. The term comes from a time when type was hand set and strips of lead were used to separate lines of text.
• MOBI: Amazon Kindle’s eBook format. For some reason Amazon decided to create their own eBook format and all books found on for the Kindle use their proprietary formatting.
• Net Profit: The amount of money made on a good or service after expenses are applied. For example: a book is sold for $10 and the cost of printing and delivery is $4.50. The net profit is $5.50.
• Orphan: A single line of a paragraph at the top or bottom of a page. This can also be known as a widow. Having a orphan or widow on a page is generally a no-no and should be avoided if all possible.
• Perfect Binding or Perfect Bound: Most of the soft cover books you see on shelves use glue to stick the cover stock to the pages and the pages to each other.
• Print on Demand: This is a printing/inventory model that is rapidly taking over the publishing industry. Print houses store a digital file of your book and when an order is placed, a book is printed and delivered to the customer. Print on demand offers a vast flexibility for publishers and does away with the need of warehousing tons of books. In most print on demand models, the cost of printing is covered by the purchase price of the book.
• Proof: Refers to a pre-publication copy of a book. Proofs can either be physical or digital copies of your book. Dependent on your project, digital proofs can be just fine to work from. However, if you’re book has images you might be better off seeing how the digital images translated into print.
• RGB: See CYMK above. 
• Royalties: An author or publisher’s compensation for selling a book. This can also be called residuals. Usually an author or publisher makes a percentage of net profits on each of their titles sold.
• Trim or Trim Size:  The actual size of a publication or book after the bleed is cut.

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Cosmic Publishing Truths from the Southern Kentucky Book Fest

This weekend the Grave Distractions team headed up to the Southern Kentucky Festival of Books hosted by Western Kentucky University. We spent two days picking our way through writing classes, panel discussions, and author's tables. Friday was set aside as a writer's conference with volunteer authors discussing everything from making credible settings to social media. Saturday's scheduled events were centered around various author's panels and their works. No matter which type of event our team members attended, two questions were always posed: "What what kind of advice would you give someone who wants to break into writing?"and "Should get my book out there by using on-demand publishing?"

The answers to the first question ran along the lines of: "Never give up" and "Do whatever it takes to follow your dream". While I applaud the authors that gave these words of encouragement to those wishing to publish their works, there was a bit of a duplicity in the answer to on-demand publishing. We heard the following answers: "No literary agent will pick you up if you self publish", "Self publishing is great if you want to sell to your family and friends", and "It's hard to do and is expensive to do. Plus you can't get into bookstores because you need someone else to sell your book to them." There's no real need to attach the names of the authors to these quotes. (Our goal here is to be instructive and not to fling mud at anyone specific...)

It's quite hard for me to believe that someone that would tell you to follow your dream and then turn around and quash a very viable form of self expression. On-demand publishing is neither expensive nor difficult these days. The markets are wide open for anyone to publish their work. So why would these reputable authors attach such a stigma for using a self-publishing avenue?

The answer is simple, the publishing world is rapidly changing and some authors aren't willing to include aspirants into their ranks without going through the same publishing trials they went through. The syndrome is much like your grandfather telling you that, "Back in my day we walked to school in the snow with no shoes." In the answers we heard this weekend from authors there was a twinge of bowing before the high altar of literary agents and large publishing houses to get your story to the public.

I say no more! The only barrier that anyone has to publishing a book now is the will to do so. Your thoughts, your story, and your experiences are just as valid as those who have gone the traditional publishing route. The difference now is that the major publishing community has competition, and that competition is you. They are faced with a flood of thoughts and ideas from the common man. The situation is quite like the Age of Reason. Any person could pen their ideas and have a local printer translate their words in a medium that could be distributed to their neighbors. From that time we have works from of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and John Locke. By the strictest sense of the term, these three men self-published and their words changed the course of history. 

So I thank those authors from this weekend's book festival for reminding me that the ultimate form of the freedom of speech is self-publishing. They were correct in saying the road for those wishing to do so is difficult. It is a hard process to craft a book and then promote it using your wiles. But, never let it be said that it cannot be done.

Grave Distractions Publications to Provide Services for Green Hills Press

Grave Distractions Publications is happy to announce an arrangement with Green Hills Publications has been achieved.   The team at Grave Distractions will be providing support for the works of authors Dr. James T. Baker and Dr. Francis Martin.  It is our goal is to bring the works of both men into the realm of on demand printing as well as the ePublication format in order to expand the readership of these gentlemen's superior works.

Dr. James T Baker is a respected historian and professor at Western Kentucky University.  Along with his historical texts, Dr. Baker is an accomplished fiction author.  Grave Distractions has been tasked with preparing Holidays with Sundae, Dogs to Men, and Quest for on demand traditional prints and various eBook formats.  Along with those titles, Dr. Baker has three previously unreleased manuscripts in which we are eagerly looking forward to bringing to readers in both print and eBook format.

Dr. Francis Martin is the head of Green Hills Publishing and has also authored a number of titles.  His works primarily deal with various religious topics and grief counseling.  Dr. Martin is busy developing previous works for rerelease.  We will keep you informed to Dr. Martin's progress and his scheduled release dates.

The team at Grave Distractions is excited to present these author's works to a wider audience of readers.

Filed By; Part One

I received an interesting e-mail from my rep at the File By website   the other day.  My rep, Maggie, had been going over my account and noticed some things that I could do to improve my web presence.  She had offered her cell phone number for me to contact her if I needed any assistance.  I might not have thought that so unusual if I had a premium account with Filed By.  With economy laced with dignity being the mantra of any small business, I have a free account with Filed By.  The thought of getting customer service via a free website account intrigued me. 

For those not familiar with the Filed By site, it is like an IMDB for authors.  At the free level, they give authors a page that includes: a bio, a couple of links, a video post, listing for your book, and integration with Google Books preview function.  The site is slick looking and has a better presentation than the Author's Den site or other similar sites. The site has expanded features for $99/year and up for premium account holders.

I chatted with Maggie for about 30 minutes about my book and Grave Distractions.  She had some helpful suggestions and invited me to stop by their Nashville offices.  All the while, there was no talk of an up sale to a premium account for me.  This was purely a customer service call.  Refreshing that change that an internet business model remembers what a simple phone conversation can do for their business.  From that alone, I think I'll be a member with Filed By for quite a while.

I'll follow up when I make my visit to the offices sometime in the next week or so...

New Direction for the Grave Distractions Blog

Up until this point, the Grave Distractions Blog has been the official blog for my book Skullduggery: 45 True Tales of Disturbing the Dead.  That still holds true, but there will be additional components to this blog that bear some explaining.

When I registered the ISBN for Skullduggery, I was asked for the name of the publisher.  Since I was self-publishing, I really didn't have a publisher's name to list. I have thought of eventually starting a publishing company that assisted folks like me who just needed a little help.  Many of those wishing to self publish and take advantage of on demand printing might have all the pieces of the puzzle except one or two.  It might be internal layout or the book cover that seems outside of the author's reach.  Why not find the right person in the freelance world to make your publication happen?

Thus, Grave Distractions Publications was born.  To date, we have one other book in the publication process and in negotiations to do four more.  This blog will now be more bent towards the self publishing process.  The editorial board at Grave Distractions invites you to learn more about the company at www.gravedistractions.com

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest

For all of you out there that have unpublished or self-published novels hoping to attract the attention of a major publisher, here's your shot.  Amazon has partnered with Penguin Press to look for the "next big thing" in print.  For more information you can visit the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest page at the high lighted link.

If you're thinking about entering, get your pencils sharpened, the contest ends on 7 Feb 2010.  There are also a few hoops you'll have to jump through when submitting a book:

• Submissions are to be works of fiction and can be entered in the general or young adult categories.
• Novel lengths are to be 50,000 to 150,000 words
• Submissions must be made in specific Microsoft Word formats or a rich text format with other formatting requirements.
  
• Along with the full novel, aspirants must enter a 300 word "pitch" and the first  3,000 to 5,000 words of your book.

For more information about entry requirements, check out the How to Enter link.  If you're thinking about entering, there is a catch.  By entering, your work is basically locked up by a "first to publish" agreement with Penguin.  This means you cannot publish your work until after 30 June 2010 if you enter the contest.  The up side to all of this is that the Grand Prize is a publishing contract with Penguin and a $15,000 advance.

So what are you waiting for, get writing....

Adventures in Self Publishing: Open Source Bliss

I like to think of my effort to get Skullduggery published as an economy with dignity venture.  One area that writers, musicians, graphic artists, or any other creative type get sucked into is that of spending tons of money on software.  Having the tools you need to compete in a digital world is essential for success, but does it have to be expensive too?

The answer is a resounding no.  The land of open source software is out there waiting for you to plug into and save money on software.  I've either been using a majority of open source programs for this project and a few others I've been involved with.  For those of you not in the know, open source software are programs people have agreed to license for free and allow the public to have access to the code.  The theory is that using the unlimited talents of the public, these software platforms can grow and evolve into better products.

The down side is that most open source doesn't look as slick as, or have 100% of the capabilities of their corporately made counterparts.  You're making a time versus money judgment call when going the open source route.  You might have to search a little for the particular plug in or add on to make the open source package you're using sing the way you want it to.  Or you might have to get creative and work around the limitations of the program you're using.  If you're on a shoestring budget, the trade off is generally worth it.
 

Let's look at one of my favorite open source programs, Gimp.  No, not the gimp from Pulp Fiction... The Gimp is the open source world's answer to Photoshop.  The latest version of Photoshop C4 runs a suggested retail of $699.  Since I'm not a technical guy, I can't speak point by point on the capabilities of Gimp versus C4.  I do know that I can manipulate photos with Gimp to suit my needs and still have $699 in my pocket.  With a ton of filters and the ability to open up anything from a TIFF file to a PNG, I'll keep my $699 in my pocket.  Gimp is a little clunky on working with text and layers, but with a little trial and error even these weaknesses can be overcome.

Here's some other open source favorites of mine.  Download one and take it for a test drive.  Just remember when you hit the big time, at least contribute to the software platform that help get you there.

Audio:
Audacity is a audio editor and multi-track mixer.  For bashing together music and speech for video or podcasting purposes it works.

Desktop Publishing:
Scribus will take a little getting use to, but you can do all the basics of text manipulation.  Exporting to PDFs can be problematic if you're editing back in the full Adobe version of Acrobat.     

Office:
Open Office mimics it's Microsoft counterpart fairly well from what I've heard.  I had a full version of MS Office already and didn't need to go the open source route here.  If you don't have basic word processing or spreadsheets, I'd jump right in.  Another option is Google Docs.  Let's just say that's an option of last resort, even when going on the cheap.

Web Site Tracking:
Goggle Analytics can give you more information about your website's traffic than any human would ever need.  Don't pay someone for information you can get for free.

There are plenty of other types of open source programs out there.  A quick Google search could save you a ton of money.  Just be smart and do some testing on the open source package you download.  You don't want to get half way through a project and realize that you're not going to be able to finish because of a software limitation.  It still is true you get what you pay for, but in the case of open sourcing you can come out ahead of the game.