“Indie” Energized

“When Writers Are Unleashed…”   Photo: Google Images

Last week I went to two Los Angeles writing events. Two very different kinds of writing events. The first was a panel of literary agents and managers, some of whom had snarky things to say about self-publishing: “Self-publishing produces so much dreck”… “You still can’t sell a book to a mainstream publisher without an agent”…”People in New York think people in LA don’t read”…”Before you self-publish, have you even thought about how you’re going to promote it?”…”99 percent of self-published books end up selling one hundred copies,” and, “A self-published book will never re-sell to a real publisher unless it has three zeroes after it.”

Ouch! Bummer. I left with my shoulders drooping.

I was in that other world once, the traditional publishing world (back when my first books were published), but for the past three years, self-publishing has been my life. I started my own publishing company in 2010, published and marketed a friend’s memoir, am completing the last chapter of my own book called The Therapist Writer: Helping Mental Health Professionals Get Published (I’m a licensed psychotherapist), and I plan on “indie” publishing it within weeks. I love self-publishing. But it is a very different world indeed.

It’s not that the agent folks on the panel were wrong. They made valid points. But they weren’t inspiring. They were disheartening. They were just another set of book industry gatekeepers explaining to the great unwashed how the rules of the ivory towers work, translated as “only one percent of writers today have a chance of breaking through the first gate and having their work read by one of the agents on that panel.”

Ah, if only this panel of agents had been able to Skype the second writing event I attended that week, the monthly drop-in writers group that I run at a local Barnes & Noble. No drooping shoulders there. Instead, there were fifteen excited, highly energized writers, many of them older, some traditionally published in the past, a few still trying that route, talking eagerly and with hope about their future projects, their creativity suddenly released anew — all thanks to the Internet, the digital revolution and the self publishing phenomenon.

One group member, an actor as well as a writer, picked up his Kindle and read from the first of his self-published family fiction trilogy. Meanwhile, he passed around copies of his newly designed book covers, done by a graphic artist friend. When he finished reading, we applauded — right there in Barnes & Noble. (Remember when you had to be quiet in bookstores?) Then a woman read one of her hilarious senior romance short stories. She is turning one into a screenplay and is contemplating self-published others as a collection.

A fellow psychotherapist, new to the writing group, told us she was there because she realized that after many years of working in her specialty, she is now considered an “expert” with a lot to say, so she wants to write a book. We brainstormed fresh angles on her topic which has already been written about a lot. Then there was the retired vet, a group regular, who has written 19 novels and finally dared (with much prodding from the rest of us) to upload one of them to Smashwords. He sold three copies the first day — his first ever sales. More applause.

And you ask, “Have these writers even thought about how they are going to market these books?” Are you kidding! They are laser focused on marketing. Take, for example, the woman who wrote a tofu cookbook which also includes a family story and inspirational quotes. She spiral bound copies (buying her own spiral machine) and sold 5000 copies to various health food stores, pharmacies and about twenty other kinds of stores. How’s that for “three zeroes” after the number, Mr. Agent Man?

And as for exhibiting creative “outside the box” marketing ideas, look again at the above-mentioned senior romance writer who has done a series of readings in lingerie shops?  Or the retired teacher and poet who recently gave a talk on his writings and was approached later by a man in the audience who exclaimed, “Gee, I wish my father did stuff like that.”

Towards the end of the meeting, a shy woman reached into her purse and pulled out a  copy of her children’s mystery book. As she passed it around the group, she told us: “The cover of the sequel is in the same style, just a different color. And here’s the bookmark that goes with it,” she added. She looked wonderfully happy. When our meeting time was up, we all stood up — but people kept on talking, getting referrals from each other for editors, proof-readers, book cover designers, and suggestions for clever marketing approaches.  As we were finally dispersing, a woman ran up: “I saw your sign. I couldn’t help eavesdropping. I’ll be here next time! I wish you met every week!”

Now, which meeting would you attend for a little zap of inspiration?

Copyright (c) Sylvia Cary, LMFT

Authors Love Being Top Dog

Authors Are Top Dogs in Self-Publishing
-- Photo by Sylvia Cary

So here I am, waiting patiently in the car while my owner trots inside to buy a book.  How quaint is that!  How old-school. She’s the only dog owner I know who still buys the real thing.  (Guess there’s one in every crowd).  Much as I love chewing on traditional  books, self-publishing is way more cool. Self-publishing has  chased away all the gate-keepers (and do I hate gate-keepers) down the street.  Self-publishing has made them “redundant,” as the Brits say. And guess who’s in the driver’s seat now?  Guess who’s free to roam?  Guess who doesn’t have anybody yelling “no!” at them or, worse yet, “not for us?” Ya got it, pally! Self-published authors!  And if you think for one moment that self-published authors are going to give up all that fun without a fight, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

If only I could talk.

When I think about how my owner could self-publish her own story (and she’s got one, believe me!) or do an e-book instead of paying money to read someone else’s story, it kills me. Doesn’t she get it? Doesn’t she see the fun she’s missing? And don’t even breathe on me about what those naysayers are bow-wowing about, trying to scare off indie authors by telling them  that self-publishing is  a house of cards about to tumble down.  I’d like to take a rolled-up newspaper to those party-poopers  (excuse the pun).  The good news is that author Nathan Bransford barked right back at them in his March 7th blog (www.nathanbransford.com) when he told them, “Get used to the self-publishing boom. We’re just getting started.” Go, Nathan! (He’s just got to be a dog owner).

If only I could talk.

Obviously, Nathan got a good whiff of the self-publisher’s spirit. He knows being a Top Dog author is just too damn much fun, along with the hard work, to pass up. When self-publishing guru Dan Poynter says 81% of people feel they’ve got a book inside them, well I say it’s the same thing for dogs.

If only I could talk.

But it won’t be long. This is strictly on the QT, but I’ve been working on this little project out back in my dog-house.  It’s  called “the iPaw.”  Someday every dog will be able to tap out his or her story. Someday every dog will have his day.

Someday this car will be mine.

copyright Sylvia Cary, LMFT

Middleworld — Where the Publishers are Neither Too Big Nor Too Small

Miniature Story Book -- photo by alphadeltago's photostream, Flickr

Okay, so here’s the situation. You’re a therapist writer. You’ve decided to write a book. Maybe it’s on a mental health topic; maybe it’s on something else. You’ve done your homework. You know your subject matter, your genre, your angle, your goals, your audience. You may even have completed a few chapters. That’s all good.

Then somebody comes along and throws you a curve by asking you a simple question: “How many actual books are you going to be able to sell to your primary audience?” Gee. I didn’t expect that question.  In my case, I know that the primary audience for the book I’m writing (The Therapist Writer) is mental health professionals who want to write. But exact numbers?  I realized I needed to get my numbers act together.  As my GPS says…

Calculating… Calculating…

After a lot of Googling (which wasn’t helpful), and some phone calls to mental health organizations (many refuse to disclose membership numbers), I finally consulted a copy of the Occupational Outlook Handbook 2010-2011 (the new edition covering 2012 is due out soon), and I came up with a total of “700,000″ mental health professionals in the U.S. with an expected growth rate of 15% by 2018, bringing the total number of therapists to 805,000 by 2018. And since I’ve always heard that in the fund-raising world a 1% response to a fund-raising letter is average, I threw that number into the mix…

Calculating… Calculating…

The number I came up with (1% of 805,000 mental health professionals) was 8,500 potential book sales over the next couple of years. (Anyone with a better set of numbers please let me know!)  In my world, 8,500 sales isn’t bad.  But in the world of traditional publishing (think New York), 8,500 is lousy. It’s small potatoes. Without at least 25,000 fans panting to buy my book, my chances of getting a New York agent to broker a book deal with a big time trade publisher are slim to none. So forgetaboutit. It’s just never going to happen. My book is far “too nichy” for that world. Now what?

As a therapist writer, this could happen to you. Not to be mean, but I’m afraid that book you’re working on about Sandtray Therapy just isn’t going to be a hot item at Random House. Then, is your only alternative self-publishing? That’s certainly an option, maybe even a good one in some cases, but don’t throw in the towel just yet. There’s a whole middleworld of publishing houses out there known as “the independents,” or “small presses,” or “academic publishers” or “university presses” that are still considered traditional publishers, same business model, and they might be just perfect for you.

According to Los Angeles literary agent Paul S. Levine, the publishing world is roughly divided into two parts. Half of the book business is controlled by the “Big Six” global publishing conglomerates (Random House, Harper Collins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Hachette (and a slew of imprints under the umbrella of each). The other half, Levine states, is made up of some 56,000 smaller publishers or “independents” which he defines as “those who publish three or more books in one calendar year.”

Also mixed in here are the academic/university presses, some 100 of them that publish anywhere from a few book to 100 books a year, many on specialty topics (archeology, history, music, biographies, politics, music, theater, dance, art, baseball, gardening, health, sports, travel, school texts, nature, interior design, pop culture, writing –  and many areas of  psychology.) Because everything is topsy-turvy in the publishing world these days, some of the university and academic presses have had to go mainstream and put out commercial books, so they’re not just printers for stuffy books anymore. If you’re afraid your book isn’t stuffy enough for them, this should come as good news. You may have a shot.

Why Are the Independent Presses Worth Looking Into?

For today’s writers, one of the best things about the small, independent presses is that many of them don’t insist that you have an agent, which is rare in the “Big Six” world. That’s one huge gatekeeper out of the way! You can send in material (such as a book proposal) unsolicited, without prior permission. These publishers are more open to niche topics and if you do hook up with one of them, they’ll give you more personal attention and help you make your book “perfect.” On the downside is time and money. This all takes time and there’s not much money for advances or marketing. If you’re in a big hurry to get your book out there for upcoming workshops, seminars and conventions, then self-publishing, using print-on-demand technology, might work better for you.

Best Resources

The two best resources for finding out about the independents, small presses, academic publishers and university presses are these annuals: 1) the 2012 Writer’s Market (check out their “Family Tree” chart showing the conglomerates and their imprints), and, 2) Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents 2012. Writer’s Market refers to these houses as “small publishers” and defines them as those publishing ten books or less a year; Herman calls his list of 500 or so presses the “independents” and defines them as publishing one book a year on up. He has a separate section for “university presses,” whereas Writer’s Market mixes the academic and university presses in along with other publishers, but has a separate section for the “ten and under” small presses. There’s a lot of cross-over so it can be confusing. Writer’s Market also highlights “new listings” which might be worth looking into because they may be less inundated with material from other writers — so far.

What to do in Middleworld

If your book is “too nichy” for an agent and the “Big Six,” but you’re not up to self-publishing (which is exciting but a lot of work), look at the publishers in Middleworld:

• Look through the two directories mentioned above;
• Read the sections for “small,” “independent” and “university/academic” presses;
• Put checks by the publishers that don’t require agents (Basic Books and WW Norton do require agents; Adams Media and Guilford don’t);
• Come up with a list of about 15 publishers that appeal to you and seem to have a strong presence in your subject area;
• Check out each pick with www.writerbeware.com and www.preditorsandeditors.com just to be safe and make sure they’re not flakes;
• Go on each of the 15 web sites and see what their writer guidelines say. You may have to hunt for them — try “Contact Us” or “Submission Guidelines” or “Authors” or “Writer Guidelines;” or “Submissions;”
• Don’t deal with any so-called “publishers” (vanity presses in disguise) that use words like “subsidy,” “co-publishing,” “joint venture.”  That’s the dark side of  self-publishing which is another conversation;
• Send off whatever the publisher asks for — and don’t wait by the mailbox. They’ll answer eventually. In the meantime, keep educating yourself about publishing; keep networking with other writers, and keep writing.

A Panel of One: Dan Poynter Updates Writers on Latest Publishing Changes & Opportunities

Self-Publishing Guru, Dan Poynter, Updates a Southern California Writers Group on the Latest Publishing Industry Changes -- Photo: Sylvia Cary

Whether you’re a therapist writer or any other kind of writer, you know it’s important to  keep up with what’s going on in the ever-changing publishing industry.  Since we can’t all be at every writing-related event in our area, I thought I’d share some things I learned at the latest meeting of IWOSC (Independent Writers of Southern California) in my own area.

Now usually on the last Monday night of the month, IWOSC presents a panel of four to six experts on topics related to writing and publishing, but this time things were different. This time it was a panel of only one — that one being Dan Poynter, a man who probably knows more about the publishing game than anyone else on earth. He flies 6000 miles a week, speaking to book-writing hopefuls and conversing with publishing experts in every nook and cranny of the globe. He spends 40% of his time in the air, at airports, and in other countries. It’s no wonder that whenever he opens his mouth to speak about publishing, writers listen.

Poynter opened his talk with a catchy little definition of self-publishing that you might want to put up on your fridge to inspire you:  ”Self-publishing, when you’re doing it right, is when your passion center meets your profit center.”

But publishing wasn’t originally Dan Poynter’s primary passion. Sky-diving was his first love. One day in 1972 somebody took him for his first sky dive “and I was hooked,” he says. If he hadn’t been taken on that jaunt, he never would have known how much he liked it — and he might never have ended up in the publishing field. Today, he advises parents to “do something new every weekend with your kids; open them up to different kinds of experiences and eventually they’ll find something they want to pursue.”

After Poynter got into sky-diving (including a  jump into the north pole), he realized that there were no parachute manuals. He wrote one, became a publisher, published it and sold it through parachute schools, parachute shops, parachute catalogs, and parachute magazines — but not through bookstores. Even back then he realized, “Sell to your own tribe. You have to go where your audience hangs out.” Marketing a book was harder in those days.  “Today, because of the Internet and search engines, we can find our customers and our customers can find us.”

In 1973, Poynter discovered hang gliding. He fell in love again. And again, when he realized that there were no manuals on the subject, he spent four months researching it and came out with the first book on hang gliding. The book took off. “It was the right book at the right time, just when everybody was crazy about hang gliding and there were articles on it in every magazine.” He marketed this book the same way he’d marketed his parachuting book — he sold them in hang gliding stores, hang gliding schools, hang gliding magazines and hang gliding catalogs. “Your book has to be the first one,” he says. “If you have the second book you’re out of luck.” Initially, when he left copies in stores on consignment, management was skeptical. Then, when the books sold out, he started to get calls for more: “You have to show them there’s a market.”  Also, thanks to his naïveté at the time, he sent a copy of his hang-gliding book to the Library Journal and asked them to review it.  He had no idea that getting a book reviewed in the Library Journal is a feat the equivalent of parachuting into the North Pole. But the Library Journal actually did review the book and as a result of that review he sold copies to 1200 libraries.

By 1974 Poynter had earned enough money to move back to California from a colder clime (he’d come to hate cold) to a big house on a hill in Santa Barbara. He has since authored over one hundred additional books.

Publishing is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up. The large publishers are downsizing, the traditional brick and mortar stores are going out of business, readers have fallen in love with ebooks, “and we’ve been losing three independent bookstores a week for the last twenty years.” Publishing industry professionals who are still resisting all these changes are, in Poynter’s words,  “in denial,” And the changes are having a huge impact on every facet of book publishing — literary agents,  distributors, book printers, book reviewers — just about everyone that the industry touches. Even the area of “foreign rights” is changing. Someday, authors will have their books translated into other languages on their own and sell them on Amazon or on their own Web sites. “Tolerate books stores, but don’t pursue them,” Poynter says. “Bookstores are lousy places to sell books. New York publishing still thinks it’s all about bookstores, but they’re wrong. The winners are going to be authors and small publishers who go with the flow and adapt to what’s inevitable and embrace the changes. In the past, everyone followed the Big Six publishing conglomerates. Now, the Big Six are following us!”

Poynter predicts that the abandonment of the “New York” publishers and gatekeepers will continue, and magazines (and along with them book review space) will continue to disappear. “1989 was the peak year for the magazine industry. Magazines were thick with ads. Now they’re getting skinnier and skinnier. Look at Newsweek. It’s losing millions. Most newspapers will disappear in five years. The only four likely to survive are the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Most book reviews will be done online by book bloggers.”

While these changes are opening up all kinds of exciting opportunities for writers, Poynter warns that writers also need to be wary of scammers. “Avoid Vanity presses. Do your due diligence. And if you are about to do business with a company, first go online and type in Google + the name of the company + scam (or rip-off) and see what comes up.

Poynter ended his presentation with a reminder: “87% of people don’t like their job. One million people call in sick every day. But we, as authors and publishers, are respected and have a passion for what we do. There will be a growing need for entertainment (fiction) and information (non-fiction)…” – and that means work we love! So for the hundreds of  writers, publishers and guests sitting in the audience listening to this most impressive “panel of one,” the future is looking pretty good.

Tips on How to Prepare for a “Gemütlich” Book Signing

Book Soup on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood - All Book Soup Photos by Sylvia Cary, LMFT

Are you a traditionally published celebrity author planning a book-signing in a mega bookstore?  I described just such an event in my last post — “How to (Almost) Get Thrown Out of Barnes & Noble.”  It was about  attending the Regis Philbin signing for his new book, How I Got This Way (HarperCollins, Ent.)  If you’re an author in this kind of scenario, you’re probably not going to need my tips. Chances are you’ll get all the necessary prep work  done for you — by your publisher, by your publicist, by your “people” and by the book store itself. They’ll even make sure copies of your book are in stock.

The rest of us, however, the smaller potatoes, have to do most of the footwork for book-signings on our own, including getting the gigs — which will usually be in small, independent bookstores.

Before I continue, a little backstory. When I became my own “indie” publishing company (Timberlake Press), I published Charlie & Me, a memoir by Harriett Bronson, first wife of the late actor Charles Bronson. Her book tells of their 16-year marriage, high-profile divorce, and her life post divorce as the “Ex Mrs. Famous” who reinvents herself as a radio talk show host.

"Charlie & Me" by Harriett Bronson. The cover is Harriett and Charles Bronson's 1949 wedding photo.

On January 6th, just weeks after the Regis Philbin book signing, Harriett and I had our own little book-signing at Book Soup on Sunset in West Hollywood.  It’s a gemütlich (one of my favorite words) little place — warm, cozy, congenial, pleasant, and full of interesting things. Book Soup is how I’d like my living room to look.  Such bookstores are gems and, sadly, too many are disappearing. Hopefully, this one will stick around for a long time.

This was our first book-signing for Charlie & Me (unless you count the one we did at an old-folks home where three people showed up in wheelchairs and fell asleep). The signing went well.  I talked a little about publishing, made a plea to support small bookstores, and introduced Harriett. Harriett spoke about her book and admitted that even though she’d been a radio talk show host, speaking in front of real human beings terrified her. When it was all over she had a moment of clarity:  Some of her fear about public speaking had gone away.  It had been a “growth” experience for her, which often happens to “indie” authors doing book-signings for the first time.  It stretches them and makes them stronger. It’s a gift.

So for all you therapist writers and other new authors out there planning to brave your own DIY book-signings, here are a few tips to make things easier:

• While you’re still writing your book, attend at least ten different kinds of book-signings, from mega stores to gemütlich shops to specialty stores. Note what you like and don’t like. If you can afford it, buy a book. Remember, support the bookstore. They are precious!
• When your book is published (or before), return to these same bookstores and inquire if you can do a book-signing there. You’ll feel more comfortable approaching them since you’ve already been there and bought a book. Some may actually say yes!
• If a bookstore says yes, immediately order your books — at least 25-40 of them. Find out what financial arrangements the bookstore requires. Some may want 40% to 50% of sales. The author will be stuck with what doesn’t sell, so go right out and arrange for another book-signing since you’ve already got the books!  Consider doing signings in other venues — libraries, stores, organizations.
• Visit the bookstore in advance, see the book-signing area, take some pictures, ask if you’ll have a table or a lectern, find out if they have a microphone. If they don’t, bring your own – or prepare to shout.

Harriett Bronson Signs "Charlie & Me"

• Start publicizing your book-signing. Don’t ask people to come to a “book signing.” That makes them feel pressured to buy your book. Instead, offer them a little presentation, a mini-lecture or mini-class, a Q & A and refreshments. After our Book Soup event, people hung around the refreshment area and talked, which turned out to be the most fun part of the evening.
• Get a poster made for the book store window. A printer can enlarge one of your flyers to 16 x 20 inches and mount it on cardboard or Styrofoam so it won’t bend over.  Ours was in the Book Soup window for over a week. There’s heavy pedestrian traffic in that spot — i.e.,  good marketing.
• Find out what publicity the store does for author events. Many have a newsletter, a website and an email list and heavily advertise upcoming book-signings. Appreciate that this means thousands of eyes will see information about your book, which is really valuable publicity. In addition, send out an announcement to your own personal email list. If you’re a therapist and you’ve written a book in your field, you probably have contacts that are already interested in your topic.  Other people you know may show up just to support you. Harriett’s dental hygienist popped in just to say hello and buy a book on her way home from work — which reminds me of the story of a now-famous mystery writer who says that nobody showed up for her first book-signing until the very end of the evening when a woman arrived and asked if she could have a cookie.
• People love handouts (as well as cookies!). Give them something to take home with them. We printed 100 “one-sheets” (an overview of the book) plus 100 bookmarks which had the book cover on one side and the author’s picture on the other — along with “blurbs,” snippets of reviews, plus contact and purchase information. The bookstore let us leave some bookmarks behind to keep by the register for customers to pick up. (The staff at Book Soup was the best.)
  

  Harriett Bronson with Irwin Zucker, President of Promotion in Motion and Founder and President Emeritus of the Book Publicists of Southern California

• Again, unless you’re a major celeb like Regis Philbin, don’t expect a big fuss, big lines or big sales. It’s not going to happen. You’ll learn from each signing how to do it better and how to sell more books in the future.
• When it’s all over, thank everybody and help clean up. We had plastic water bottles to gather up, crumbs from goodies, scrunched up napkins and small plastic cups with wine left in them sitting on top of books — so be very careful not to spill on the merchandise.
• Finally, write a thank you note. Keep the relationship friendly. You may publish a second book and want to go back there.

Copyright (c) Sylvia Cary

How to (Almost) Get Thrown Out of Barnes & Noble

Regis Philbin with Harriett Bronson at His Barnes & Noble Book Signing Event in Glendale for His New Book "How I Got This Way"

They say experience is the best teacher, right? So recently my friend Harriett Bronson and I decided to attend the Regis Philbin book signing event at Barnes & Noble in Glendale for his new book How I Got This Way. Harriett is a former talk radio host and the author of the memoir Charlie & Me about her 16-year marriage to the late Hollywood actor, Charles Bronson. We figured the experience of seeing what a major celebrity book-signing felt like would help Harriett prepare for her own book-signing event (on a smaller scale, of course) coming up on Friday January 6th at 7 pm at Book Soup on Sunset in Hollywood.  Y’all come down!

First a little back-story: Harriett and I have been friends since the mid-80s when we met on a writing project. She and Bronson were already divorced by this time. She was working on her memoir, and over the years I tried to help her shop it to New York agents and publishers but they weren’t interested, feeling that Bronson, even though still alive, wasn’t popular enough anymore to warrant such a book. We shelved the project. When Bronson died in 2003, we tried again. No luck. Then, when the whole Internet/digital/self-publishing revolution burst forth on the publishing scene, we jumped on the bandwagon. I became a publishing company (Timberlake Press) and published Harriett’s book, Charlie & Me, in early 2011.  This “indie” book publishing experience has been quite an adventure for both of us–scary and exciting at the same time.

Harriett Bronson and I (Taking the Photo) Wait Patiently for the Crowds at Barnes & Noble to Thin Out So She Can Say Hi to Regis, Get Her Book Signed and Get a Facebook Photo!

One more detail: Harriett has known Regis Philbin since the ’70s. She even pays tribute to him in her book: “He’s the first person to utter the words ‘talk radio‘ to me. I’d never heard of talk radio. Regis suggested I check it out. I did. I loved it. And I ended up being a talk radio host for 9 years–all thanks to Regis. He has been a friend ever since and even plugged my book on his TV show causing Amazon sales to spike for a day! I wanted to attend his book-signing to say hi and thank him in person for plugging my book.” As Harriett’s publisher, my agenda was to take mental notes on book-signings and get a good photo of Harriett and Regis together for Harriett’s Charlie & Me  Facebook page.

So how hard could this plan be? We figured we’d just zip over Barnes and Noble, pop in, wave hi to Regis, soak up some “famous author vibes” at a cellular level, snap a couple of digital pictures — and then dash out for lunch. Half an hour tops, wouldn’t you think?

Well, Lesson #1: Everything takes longer and is harder than you think. Why haven’t I learned this by now?  As celebrities go, Regis is huge and he drew a huge crowd.  You can’t just pop in and say hi to a huge celebrity doing a book signing even if you do know him. Lesson #2: Don’t arrive on time. Like the airport, arrive an hour early. The line was already around the block and up two long escalators and down a long hall. The hired  Security Guards, who came off like Secret Service, were everywhere. You’d have thought a presidential candidate was signing. And there was another line at the register just to buy the book. We stood in that line first and Harriett got her little orange wrist-band (“This is a wristband event” it stated on the B&N website) proving she’d bought the book. Lesson #3: Buy the book in advance so you can skip this line.

Halfway up the second escalator, Harriett, still recovering from a broken toe, was experiencing some pain. Lesson #4: Wear comfortable shoes. I got out of the line and went over to a Security Guard, explained about Harriett’s physical discomfort, and asked if we could jump ahead to where there were seats. The Security Guard kept repeating the same phrase: “I’m sorry, Ma’am, you’ll have to step back in line.” I repeated my request, hoping he’d offer some kind of solution. He hit REPLAY again: “Sorry, Ma’am, you’ll have to step back in line.”

Another Security Guard joined in. Then a third: “We’re sorry, Ma’am, you’ll have to step back in line.” I pointed to Harriett, explained that she was in some discomfort and couldn’t stand in a line for another hour or two–of course hoping they’d volunteer to let us jump ahead. No such luck. Instead, we got the same answer, “I’m sorry, Ma’am, you’ll have to get back in line — ” then it came — “or we’ll have to have you removed from the store.”  I was incredulous. “You’d actually have us thrown out of Barnes & Noble?”  One of the Security Guards repeated the threat in case I didn’t get it the first time: “If you don’t step back in line, we’ll have Security remove you from the premises.”  I could just picture it — being dragged out liked members of Occupy Barnes & Noble.

I walked back over to Harriett and we had a little parley:  Should we dare play the “Regis is a friend of mine” card? — but we quickly ruled that out when someone else tried it and got slapped down: “Four hundred people here say they’re friends of Regis. Please step back in the line.” These boys play rough!  So instead we decided to throw ourselves out of Barnes & Noble, go eat lunch somewhere nice and come back later when the crowd had thinned out (which looked as it might be dinnertime) and the “soup nazies” (as we were now calling them) were completely worn out and much less vigilant from dealing with other “out of line” characters just like us.

So we picked a restaurant across the walkway from Barnes and Noble and sat at an outside table. The place was nearly empty. (Everybody must have been at the book-signing!) We had a perfect view of the book store and could see the people as they walked by the window on the third floor with their books for Regis to sign.

After a leisurely salad, we looked up into the Barnes & Noble window again and saw that the crowd had started to thin out. We paid and went back into the store, up the two escalators, past the Security Guards (who were glaring at us — “Watch those two!”) until we finally got near the throne room. Then we were there — facing the signing table.

When Regis saw Harriett he said “Harriett!” and stood up and came over to her and gave her a hug. (We so hoped the Security Guards were all watching!) Harriett re-introduced Regis to me (I’d been on his show once decades ago pushing my first book), they had a brief chat, and when Regis saw my camera he put his arm around Harriett and flashed a big Regis smile so I could get my photo of them together — and then guess what? My digital camera froze: “Memory card full.” I knew I’d have to delete a picture in order to make room for a new photo, but what photo should I delete? “Take the picture!” Harriett was saying to me between clenched teeth. I started reviewing photos I could delete. “Hurry up, Sylvia!” Regis was saying, his smile fading. He was exhausted from hours of signing. His hand probably hurt. His “people” were pulling at him. “Hurry up!” By now I was so rattled I couldn’t remember how my camera worked. Finally, I deleted something — blindly — I don’t even want to know what I picked. Then Snap/Flash! I got the Facebook picture. “Whew!” I said in a loud voice. When a nice B&N staffer offered to use my camera to take another picture of Regis and Harriet and me, I said no. I couldn’t go through that photo deleting thing again. Lesson #5: Follow this advice I got from my daughter, Jessica, a collector of soap star autographs:  “Always make sure you have a working pen and film in your camera. Celebrities don’t like to wait.”

By the time Harriett and I left Barnes & Noble we were exhausted. “It’ll be just our luck,” I said to Harriett as we headed for the parking garage. “We’ll become famous authors but they’ll never let us in Barnes & Noble again.”

Now, more than a week later, and fully recovered, we’re starting to make plans for Harriett’s  Book Soup signing on Friday night January 6, 2012 at 7 pm, 8818 Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood.  We promise you, no long lines, no “soup nazies,” just come and listen to Harriett talk about being “Mrs. Famous” by being married to Charlie Bronson, find out what he was “really like,” look at photos from the Bronson family album, have some refreshments, ask questions about Harriett’s book, or her radio career, or about the adventure of “indie” publishing, and all that good stuff. It’ll be fun. 310.659.3110. Free parking behind the store via Nellas St.  It’ll be an experience!

The Ebooks Are Coming! The Ebooks Are Coming!

A Lovely Little Local Book & Author Fair. Will These Still Exist When Ebooks Take Over the World?

“Ebooks are the future.” –  Dan Poynter, self publishing guru

Dan Poynter has been predicting that ebooks are the future for years. He has compared hanging onto the idea of paper-only publishing to still manufacturing buggy whips. It’s so yesterday. “Every paper book has to be an ebook,” one insider said at a meeting I attended on book promotion, “and to argue against it you are shooting yourself in the foot.” Another added: “Ebooks! That’s where the industry is going. You can’t stop it!”  Harsh? Maybe. But probably true.

So last week, with all these warnings and predictions dancing around my head, I drove  north from Los Angeles to Camarillo to attend what I’m sure will one day be regarded as just another relic of the past — the Ventura County Book & Author Fair, a delightful all-day event with speakers, panels, and authors at tables selling books and handing out chocolates. And, of course, exchanging publishing and self-publishing stories with humor and enthusiasm.

Touching Books

The minute I walked across the patio from the Senior Center and entered the exhibit hall, I felt a surge of relief. The book fair looked like every other book fair I’d ever been to and I liked it. Nothing had changed. Buggy whips galore! And what I was most struck with was how everybody loves to touch books.  And so do I. I saw people picking up books, caressing books, flipping through books, rubbing the spines of books, smelling books, looking at the tables of contents, studying the front covers, reading the back covers. And even buying books.

Touching Books -- So Hard to Resist!

A Book Fair Without Books?

Then a question popped into my head:  If things are going all-digital, can you have a book and author fair with just ebooks? What will it look like?  What will it feel like?  Will it look like Brookstones or Comdex? I went around to different book display tables and asked authors how they felt about the idea of an all-ebook book fair. Most had the same response:  ”Oh, the horror.”  The idea of a world without touchable books seems unthinkable. I asked myself, would I be willing to drive an hour to a book fair just to touch the latest hardware? Sniff a power cord? Scroll through words on a screen instead of flipping through a real book? And leave my fingerprints on somebody else’s ebook reader? Are we having fun yet?

After returning from the book fair I emailed a therapist colleague of mine in Bakersfield, Sue Speake, LMFT, who has almost finished writing her own book — and has her heart set on seeing it in print — the traditional way. When I asked her what she thought about an all-digital publishing world, she had the same reaction — resistance: “What about colleges or public libraries, bookshelves at home, book markets and peeking at the end of the book to see what happens? What about trading books with a friend? What about donating the book you’ve finished reading to the senior home or schools? We must have real books…WE must!”

“Panic Nook”

Somehow I suspect that those of us who are book lovers and book touchers will manage to stash away a supply of books in a nook or cranny somewhere for that fatal day when you just can’t buy a real book anywhere. We can pull up a standing lamp, screw in an incandescent light bulb from our secret stash under the kitchen sink, pull an afghan over our knees and enjoy caressing our way through one of our favorite relics of the past, keeping our place with an actual paper bookmark, and we can take comfort in the fact that as long as we have our own little panic nook — at least total ebookgeddon isn’t today.

Self-Disclosure and the Therapist Writer

My Cat, Diamond, Deciding If She's Ready to Self-Disclose

As a book doctor for therapist writers, one of the first questions I get asked is, ”Can I write about my patients?” (I’ll be discussing this is a future blog). The second question I usually get is, “Can I write about myself?” What they’re asking is, is it okay for therapists to write memoirs, essays, personal narratives and opinion pieces in which their thoughts, feelings, views, likes, dislikes and even problems might be exposed?

In other words, self-disclosure.

In Therapy World, self-disclosure — loosely defined as sharing personal as well as professional information with patients or in print — has been a hot topic for about a hundred years. Back in Freud’s day, self-disclosure was a no-no. Therapists were advised to remain “blank screens” so that whatever a patient thought he or she knew about the therapist was really just a projection of the patient’s own stuff. Even today, there are traditionally trained therapists who cringe at the idea of revealing anything personal to patients — even the fact that they write. This keeps some therapists from writing at all and keeps others from writing the things they’d like to write if they weren’t therapists. One mental health professional I know told me she deliberately holds back from touching on anything personal in the monthly column she’s required to write for her job because her patients might read it. As a result, her column is generic and dry. She has thirty years of clinical experience to share — but she doesn’t. I find this sad.

But things have changed in Therapy World. Many influences have come along to loosen therapists up and make them a tad more human — the humanistic psychology movement, the feminist movement, cognitive behavioral therapy, new 12-Step groups for just about everything, and a general cultural shift from secretiveness about personal things to “letting it all hang out” — sometimes to a fault! Keeping a balance here is a constant challenge.

What Works Best?

While I’m all for self-disclosure, there are limits. In a clinical setting, it’s one thing for a therapist to show her humanness by disclosing that she, too, like her patient, has a learning disabled child. It’s quite another for the therapist to reveal the details of a fight she had last night with her husband. That’s a dreaded “boundary issue.” That’s just plain TMI.

In both therapy and in writing, some things work and some don’t. According to an article published by the American Psychiatric Association, the kinds of self-disclosures that work best in a clinical setting (and, I believe, also work best in writing) are those, as the article points out, that are about “specific behaviors or life experiences — addiction, bereavement, parenting, divorce, trauma or physical illness…The therapist may disclose past issues as part of the ethic of sharing. Such disclosures alleviate the patient’s shame and embarrassment, provide positive modeling, normalizing the patient’s experience and provide hope.”

I agree. For example, a therapist colleague of mine published his memoir about his personal experience of bipolar disorder and his recovery. He now specializes in helping bipolar patients and their families. He believes that the timely and appropriate disclosure of his own illness and how he recovered (medication plus therapy) is a great asset to the therapeutic process. Ditto his book. Many of his readers, as well as patients, find inspiration in his self-disclosures: “If he can beat the problem, then I can beat it, too.”

A few years ago I edited a memoir by a businessman who was successful enough to be able to retire comfortably at 45. His “self-disclosure” in his book was that he’d grown up in backwoods Tennessee poverty. The book details the choices he made and the actions he took to deliberately break himself out of the cycle of poverty that had had a stranglehold on his family for generations. The book is more than just his personal story. It’s an inspirational story for many others stuck in a similar situation. They, too, can vow: “If he can do it I can do it.”

Self-disclosure is a complex issue that I can only touch on here, but when it comes to therapists self-disclosing in their writing, I think the benefits far outweigh any possible problems. Here’s a little check-list to help you think things through.

Self-Disclosure Check-list for Therapist Writers

• Know yourself and your motives for self-disclosing;
• Remember you have a right to self-disclose — and a right not to;
• Do no harm to yourself: Don’t self-disclose what can bite you;
• Do no harm to others: Tell your own secrets, not those of anybody else;
• If you think the above 4 items are too restrictive, consider writing a novel;

After you have written what you really want to write — and I say go for it! — then here’s one more item for your checklist:

• Sleep on it.

Copyright – Sylvia Cary, LMFT, The Therapist Writer

Shape-Shifting Small Bookstores

The X-Factors of Small Bookstore Survival

A Small Bookshop in Amsterdam - Photo Taken by MorBCN's Photostream via Flickr from Yahoo!

Not being a bookstore insider, I get my information about what’s going on with bookstores the way many of us do – by reading about them or taking myself on little “class trips.” A few weeks ago I went to witness the closing of my local Borders store, took a few photos and blogged about it. Since then I’ve been tracking online articles about small bookstore closings — one after another, I’m sad to say. According to one of my favorite news sources for such things (www.TheBookseller.com), there have been 2000 independent bookstore closings in Britain since 2005, including Notting Hill – The Travel Bookshop, made famous by the 1999 movie starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. Efforts to save Notting Hill, led by celebs, have apparently failed. This story is being repeated globally as bookstores (many with a resident cat) are closing — in Canada, Japan, Australia, the U.S. and other places. Three famous independents here in Los Angeles that have met this fate are Dutton’s Bookstore, The Mystery Bookstore and the Bodhi Tree, closing this Christmas.

Predictions

If you love bookstores (and I do), then the predictions that accompany these store closings are depressing.  Dan Poynter, the self-publishing guru who travels around the world a number of times each year and has his finger on the pulse of publishing, predicts that within a few years, all publishing will be online. John Biggs, a blogger and gadget geek for TechCrunch, is quoted as saying, “I love books but they’re not going to make it past this decade…The time to pivot is now and it’s clearly already happening.” In a February 2011 article in USA Today called “Is There Hope for Small Bookstores in the Digital Age?” reporter Bob Minzesheimer forecasts that shelf space for print books will decline 50% in next 5 years and 90% in 10 years. Another article, “The End of Bookshops,” predicts that bookshops will be “wiped out in only five years.”  So it’s looking more and more as though somewhere between 2011 and 2021, your local Barnes & Noble may consist of nothing more than a café with an espresso coffee machine sitting next to an Espresso Book Machine (EBMs can print a book from a digital file in just minutes) with digital access to millions of books (if you still insist on paper), including the Encyclopedia Britannica which has also gone digital.

The Comfort of Community

Each bookstore closing triggers deep emotional reactions from staff and patrons, many describing themselves as “heartbroken,” “distraught,”  “crestfallen,” or “angry” over having their gathering places wrenched away from them. Earlier this year 200 upset customers picketed to protest the closing of a Barnes & Noble store in Encino, California. I ran a writers’ group there and we lost our home, then settled elsewhere, and now that’s up in the air.

It’s not that any of these people are being denied access to books. They’re being denied access to the human connection and the comfort of community they’ve become used to, and they’re also being denied access to potential dreams hidden away in all those books, yet to be discovered. Haven’t you ever bought a book just to have it? Maybe not even to read right away, but because you sense there’s something in it you might need to know someday? How will one stumble across such precious volumes if there are no more bookstores? The co-owner of one U.S. bookstore, which has no immediate plans to shut down, was quoted in one of the articles I read as saying, “There are customers who would start crying if we said we were closing. People are hungry for human contact, and so when we create a place where like-minded individuals can gather, it’s going to work.”

Surviving Bookstores Shape-Shifting

Before you get too discouraged, consider this: Yes, thousands of small bookstores have gone out of business, but thousands more have survived.  Not only that, but new ones are actually being opened. What’s going on? Don’t they read the papers?  Are they in massive denial? But I saw this with my own eyes when I went to the Flintridge/La Canada (California) Bookstore and Coffeehouse to see their Espresso Book Machine (see my July 31st blog about this great gizmo) and learned that the store had just been rebuild and expanded (after a truck had driven through it!). I remember thinking, “How refreshing! A new bookstore.”

My Own "Small Bookshop" of Writing Books

A booksellers meeting this year in Washington, D.C. (again, according to articles I’ve been reading) drew 500 people, 25 of them considering opening new bookstores, which is significant. The American Booksellers Association reports that after membership slid from 4000 down to 1750, it’s creeping up again and is now at 1800. Bookstore survivors are brainstorming like mad, trying to figure out the best things to do to stay in business.

Small Bookstore “To Do” List

Here’s part of an evolving “To Do” list for small bookstores looking to thrive:  take advantage of the mega bookstore closings * hook in to the growing “support local businesses” movement * make sure book-buying is a pleasant experience * hold events, groups, classes, talks * let the supermarkets use their floor space to stock the best-sellers and magazines * stick to unique books and niche topics * sell both used and new books * partner with local POD authors and carry some of their books * market locally * have a welcoming café * open up later and stay open late * put your entire inventory online * market via social media * offer services that customers can’t get elsewhere * sell some gifts and toys, but don’t become a gift store or toy store that sells books * sell personalized children’s books * do a radio pod cast with authors and an audience *  have volunteer “interns” to assist and learn about the book business * have free writing classes to help grow new authors * and, finally, smile and stock really great books!

The Mystery of Survival

I don’t know if the dire predictions about the death of bookstores will actually come to pass, but what I do know from being a psychotherapist for twenty-five years is that when it comes to “recovery,” there are mysterious x-factors in the mix that we can’t explain. So don’t count the bookstores out yet.

Copyright Sylvia Cary 2011

“Why E-books are Hot” — Mark Coker Speaks on the Success of Smashwords

Mark Coker, Founder of Smashwords, Speaking About E-Books at the Writers Guild in Los Angeles

E-book publishing is an exciting new opportunity for writers, including therapist writers. According to Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords (an e-book publisher and distributor), e-books are hot. E-books are profitable, portable, affordable, compact, easy to purchase, and available by the thousands. Sure,  some authors are only making enough for a dinner a month, others are making enough for a car payment, a house payment or their kid’s college tuition. For still others, just getting published for the first time works. It depends on your goal.

Last week Mark Coker spoke two nights in a row to enthusiastic audiences of writers at the Writers Guild (WGA) West in Los Angeles. On the first night he was on a panel, E-Publishing: Self-Help for WGA Members. On the second night he did a solo presentation, How to Produce, Publish and Distribute an E-book, sponsored by Northwestern University Entertainment Alliance (NUEA). “Self-publishing has been a dirty word until five or six years ago,” Coker said. “Now it’s got respect.”

Coker’s Backstory

Coker began his solo presentation with the story of how he got into the e-book publishing business.  Some years ago he and his wife, Lesleyann Coker, a former reporter for Soap Opera Weekly Magazine, wrote a novel called Boob Tube, a behind-the-scenes look at the world of TV soap operas. They had a top literary agent who submitted the book to publishers, “and we got rejected by every publisher twice. I was disappointed that a publisher had that power to slam the door in my face.” He made a study of what’s been going on in the publishing field and concluded that traditional publishing is broken–losing money, still doing business the way they’ve been doing it for 150 years, ignoring the digital revolution (including e-books), publishing only the familiar, and financially unable to take chances on new writers. As a result, “millions of writers are going to their graves unpublished”

Coker’s solution was to start Smashwords. In 2008, their first year, the company published 140 e-books. As of September 2011, they’ve published 73,500 e-books.    “Today, anyone can be published in minutes and start selling world-wide,” he said, “and you need never have someone tell you no again.”  Smashwords charges nothing, but takes a 15% commission on sales.  That doesn’t mean every book is a good book. “We get too many books that aren’t ready for prime time. But now it’s the readers, not the gatekeepers (such as agents) who decide what’s worth buying. Bad books will sink.”

How Smashworks Works

It’s quite simple, Mark Coker said, “You upload, distribute and get paid.” A Word file is uploaded into what Smashwords calls the “meat grinder.” Coker warns, “It’s very important to follow instructions or you get hamburger.”  (He stressed the importance of a professional-looking cover, whether you DIY or hire an artist). Smashwords automatically turns a file  into nine different e-book formats and distributes it to such retailers as Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Sony and Kobo. “We work with everyone except Amazon, but are hoping to do so in the future.” The author keeps all rights and sets the price of the book. Authors are finding they can make more money selling e-books for 99-cents or $1.99 than many traditionally published authors are making on their print books. And because e-book distribution is global, authors are reaching millions of English speaking readers in countries like India, Australia and the UK. “So if you have stuff (you’ve written) gathering mold, you can bring it to life. Screenwriters are taking scripts out of drawers, turning them into novels and putting them online.”

“Obscurity is a bigger risk than piracy”

Coker concluded with tips for authors on how to facilitate e-book success: “Don’t practice paranoia,” he said, especially about piracy. Low prices can discourage piracy, while codes to prevent piracy can be easily cracked. Some authors, he said, are even uploading their books to pirate sites as a marketing tool to broaden distribution! Coker’s other advice includes tips such as: write a good (typo-free) book; write another good book (multiple books sell); set your expectations low (most authors don’t make much money); “pinch your pennies” (don’t spend a lot to get published); “know your self-publishing objective” (platform building, revenue stream, or both?); distribute your book widely; give some books away; earn your readers’ trust (“trust is everything”); “be patient” (let your e-book find its audience); “start your marketing yesterday” (the moment you decide to write a book); join social media “as a participant”; and join writers groups online.

Coker predicts that within two years, the number of e-books sold will exceed the number of print books published, and within four years, e-books will earn more money than print  books.  To contact Smashwords and download two free How-To e-books, www.smashwords.com.