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Books and coffee traditionally go together quite well. Publishing through the Espresso Book Machine adds a new dimension. While it may be nice to grab a latte while browsing through the latest editions at your favourite book store, what about being able to order you favourite read to accompany your caffeine fix?
The Espresso Book Machine is an amazing piece of kit that can produce a single copy of a bound paperback book from a database in excess of three million titles in just five minutes.
This has tremendous implications for book stores and libraries seeking to provide a comprehensive back catalogue without having to outlay ever-tightening budgets on books that might only be asked for once in a blue moon.
But what are the benefits for authors and self-publishers? How does publishing through the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) compare with Kindle or Sony Reader or the Apple formats? On the surface, EBM seems to be simpler; if you submit your work online to the On Demand Books (ODB) website, it only needs to be in PDF format.
And if you are fortunate to be near one of the 57 locations, worldwide, that has an Espresso Book Machine, you can provide your book on a CD or flash drive and the helpful library or book store staff will upload your work for you. You should bear in mind that there will probably be a fee for doing this.
The Espresso Business Machine has been around for five years. So how has it performed? What issues have there been? ODB intend to have 150 machines in service by the end of 2012 and are using the sales and service teams of the Xerox Corporation to achieve that target.
Potential buyers need to know how well the revolutionary EBM has performed and authors need to have assurance that publishing through the Espresso Book Machine will offer an additional source of revenue.
Rick Anderson, who is a Librarian at the University of Utah, provides a convincing insight into the pros and cons of using the EBM through his informative blog post. Rick, in his own words, has shared his experiences in the spirit of “How We Done It Bad”.
It seems that once the machine has warmed up and the glue melted, it performs its book creating function well. And there are an incredible number of back titles available; the issue appears to be the number of new titles, or lack of them, available.
That said, Rick shares that a faculty member was able to find and print out an obscure 300 year old German script that he had been seeking for years.
The main issue that Rick brings to our attention is centered on the search facility; more specifically on the quality of the metadata that makes it difficult to narrow down the titles that fall within particular search phrases.
Given that the EBM is a relatively new piece of equipment and currently a sizeable investment, it can reasonably be assumed that the cost will come down in time. Also, teething troubles will be ironed out.
We at Double Head Publishing are definitely excited about this; we see publishing through the Espresso Book Machine as a revolutionary development for authors and self publishers.
If you feel inspired to write a book, even just one book, and you would like to consider this approach, just contact us and we can offer you all the training and support you will need.
You may find this hard to believe, but some people actually think you can automatically become an expert just by publishing a book. The truth is, however, publish as an expert first so the world can accept you as one.
Don’t look now but there’s a good chance the English language is being hijacked.
Words just don’t mean the same as they once did.
Take the word “expert” for example. An expert used to be a person who had spent years gathering knowledge, compiling theory, formulating perspectives, and reaching viable solutions.
“Expert” was an undeniable status attributed only to those who had proven they could make a contribution of thought plausible enough to improve and/or evolve the arguments in a particular field.
However the term “expert,” as it’s being used today, seems to have its proof of status in the mere fact a book was published with said expert’s name on it. In other words, it’s the act of publishing a book or document of any kind, regardless of its value or contribution to society that allegedly makes one an expert, not what’s contained in it.
So it’s not uncommon to see people using a phrase such as, “published author,” as a sort of marketing credential just to add authority to their sales pitch. Yet, what the unsuspecting admirers of status don’t realize is, a book was authored and published for no other purpose but to get the status so it could be used to gain admirers.
The problem is, it works. The big problem is that it diminishes the value of the word “expert,” as well as the true status of those who do the work and rightfully publish as an expert.
Now no one is suggesting all who use “published author” as a credential of expertise is doing so dishonestly. But because this marketing tactic is being taught so vehemently without clearly defined parameters, we seem to be reaching a tipping point where those with less and less expertise are gaining the visibility advantage.
Unfortunately, all it takes is for the public to actually open and read some of these widely published manuscripts, to get the idea that being an expert may not be all it’s cracked up to be, and everyone loses.
To publish as an expert means you have to be an expert first, before you publish. And your reason for publishing would be to share your expertise with the world. It’s the value of the contribution you make that determines the amount of credential, being a published author, affords you.
So don’t get caught up in this wave of hijacking nonsense known as, “to become an expert, publish a book.”
Become an expert first by doing the work, then you can publish as an expert and allow the world to bestow kudos on you for your efforts.
Less than two weeks ago we wrote a blog post entitled “How to Use SEO to Promote Your E-book”. Within four days of us posting, Google brought out their latest update, dubbed Penguin. So, following up from that post, we are asking the question, should self-publishers worry about Penguin?
The forums are awash with complaints of how search engine rankings have slipped for many sites. A number of companies who rely on their sites being listed in Google are reportedly going out of business. Petitions have sprung up calling for Google to reverse the update.
Self-publishers, as a whole, should not be drastically affected by the changes. If anything, they should find their e-books ranking higher in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) due to the sites using unfair Search Engine Optimization (SEO) methods losing their listings.
This assumes that the self-publisher only uses the e-book title as the main keywords. Any secondary keywords will be subject to the same scrutiny by Penguin as for other sites.
And as highlighted in the previous post, the only area, e-books can be optimized is in the on-line preview. If publishers follow the correct marketing procedures they shouldn’t have to worry about Penguin.
So, despite all that, what happens if you find your rankings diminished? Writers and publishers will also likely have their own websites which may have been subject to changes in the SERPs. Google has produced a feedback form for web owners to submit, should they feel they have been unfairly penalized.
There are also a number of actions that you can carry out in order to reverse the effect of the update. These guidelines should also be helpful when considering how you market future websites and E-book previews.
Most importantly, you should make sure your content is well written and detailed; avoid overuse of keywords. Link your site to a blog if you haven’t done so already. Keep the blog and the main site fresh with new articles of interest to your readers. Get rid of links that give the appearance of merely being swapped with little relevance to your site.
In fact, any two-way (or mutual) links should be discarded altogether. So should anchor text links that mirror exactly the landing text. Your home page should be updated frequently with fresh stories and, for example, customer reviews.
Use Google web tools to analyze your site. After all, they are free and whether we like it or not, Google is very much in the driving seat when it comes to SEO. Do not be tempted to purchase tools that claim to optimize your pages for Google rankings.
If in doubt, check out Google’s own SEO sites. Matt Cutts’ blog is an excellent resource and is widely quoted on many forums.
There are some technical tweaks that may be necessary, but that is outside the remit of this blog. There are a number of excellent SEO forums online, where expert help is usually available.
So, to summarize, in general, self-publishers should not have to worry about Penguin. Keep your reviews and your website filled with relevant, interesting content. Update your home page and your blog frequently, ideally daily. Use Google tools and resources. Avoid mutual links and shady link farms.
See you at the top of the Google rankings.
One of the hardest parts of writing is balancing predictability in a story line. When the reader can pretty much tell how your story will end, or even where it’s leading to at any point along the way, you have the makings of one boring book regardless of how dramatic it is.
There are only so many ways a story can go though, right?
It’s either going to be a happy ending or a sad one. Either the good guys or the bad guys will win the day.
Balancing predictability when there are only so many directions to take a story line can be a writer’s nightmare, no doubt about it.
So how do you keep people captivated and reading to the end when they’re already predicting in their heads, based on all the stories they’ve read before, where you’re leading them?
After all, you have to make the story somewhat familiar if you expect your readers to get the drift of the message you’re putting forward. And in order to do so, you automatically have to inject some predictability into where you’re taking them. Otherwise they’ll not make the connection, nor see the lesson to the moral.
Plus the most rewarding thing about writing fiction is when you can take an extremely far fetched scenario, and make it seem real. On the same token though, reality is very predictable.
So it seems we writers are strapped to formatting. If we wander too far off the beaten path of the classics, or we stray too far away from the archetypal standards, we risk losing the reader’s comprehension or we toss them into the void of predictable boredom.
What to do, what to do?
Well here’s a couple ideas . . .
One way of balancing predictability is to mask it in complexity.
One of my favorite writers is the late Robert Jordan, who took his very predictable “Wheel of Time” story, (in fact he tells you how it’ll end from the start), and made it so complex in scope, it was hard to tell where each scene left you in the course of the journey.
Sometime you’d think he was leading you to one outcome, and then he’d take you two steps back by turning an apparent solution into a new problem. Couple that with the sheer number of characters, factions, and the roles each played in the vast world he created, it was hard to see how everything fit together, let alone predict where it was going.
Similar to complexity, another way of balancing predictability is by adding more options than seems necessary.
Obviously, the more dimensions you inject, the less likely your reader will be able to pick the right one, which in turn forces them to wait to see how it all unfolds.
If your character can only go toward or away from an enemy for example, your reader will be able to pretty much predict how the decision will effect the outcome. But giving the character other options, especially if they’re riskier or more uncertain of success, will keep the reader guessing, if for anything, just because they’re there.
Anyway, how do you go about balancing predictability in your stories?
Naturally, there are many other ways than listed here. And we know this, because in spite of the thousands of years of human writing, there are still some highly intriguing, nail biting stories and novels being written today.
So we know you must have some of your own 
Generally recognised as one of the greatest authors of all time, Charles Dickens was inspired by real life. The young Dickens witnessed poverty and social injustice at first hand on the streets of London.
The second centenary of Dickens’ birth was celebrated in February 2012 with many events in London and worldwide. The BBC commissioned a new adaptation of “Great Expectations”.
A new book, “Dickens and the Workhouse” by Ruth Richardson, has revealed how in his greatest works, Dickens was inspired by real life.
Research carried out by Richardson indicates that there was a William Sykes who was a trader in the East Marylebone Street where Dickens spent his teen years. Sykes could have been the model for the thuggish Bill Sykes in “Oliver Twist”.
Richardson also believes that Scrooge and Marley, from “A Christmas Carol”, were characters inspired by Dickens’ neighbours. A sculptor who lived nearby was apparently mocked as being a miser, while within yards of Dickens’ Norfolk Street home the premises of two traders who were blessed with the names, Goodge and Marney, was situated.
Richardson also claims that a former hospital threatened with demolition is the inspiration for the workhouse in Dickens’ novel, “Oliver Twist”. Another example of how Dickens was inspired by real life.
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812 but had seventeen addresses in his first twenty one years. At the age of twelve he had to leave school and work in a boot blacking factory near present day Charing Cross railway station, in order to support his mother and siblings while his father was incarcerated in Marshalsea debtors’ prison.
At that time in his life, young Charles stayed with Elizabeth Roylance, a family friend, who appeared “with a few alterations and embellishments” as Mrs Pipchin in “Dombey and Son”, one of many characters demonstrating how Dickens was inspired by real life.
At the age of fifteen Dickens became a junior clerk with attorneys Ellis and Blackmore of Holborn Court, Gray’s Inn. He learned shorthand in his spare time then became a freelance reporter, covering civil court proceedings at the Doctors’ Commons.
During this time Dickens would have been exposed to many sorry tales of how the poor would be forced to go to law; stories that would later surface in his novels, chronicling the injustices of the legal system towards the poor and disadvantaged.
Later, he would become a political journalist, reporting on parliamentary debate as well as covering elections across the country. Dickens’ experiences in witnessing the hustings would serve him well when his first novel, “The Pickwick Papers”, was serialised in March 1836.
How much Charles Dickens was inspired by real life can be demonstrated following his surviving a train crash in which many passengers were killed or severely injured. He used his experience from the crash to write a short ghost story, “The Signal Man”, in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a train crash.
This story, in turn, was based on the real life Clayton Tunnel disaster, north of Brighton in 1861.
An interesting anecdote on which to finish shows that not only was Dickens influenced by real life; his works, in turn, influenced others.
In his novel, “Barnaby Rudge”, Dickens features a raven, which was in fact based on his own pet bird, named Grip. The American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, immortalised Grip in his own poem, “The Raven”.
It’s probably safe to say, the ultimate goal of any fiction writer is to create a legend. After all, writing an enjoyable story may be fine, but to write one that sticks, now that’s something else entirely!
So what makes a story a legend?
Well, one way a legend comes about is when a writer or storyteller takes the life of a real person, and exaggerates events to make the individual appear more heroic or amazing.
According to The “Legend of the Saints” by Heinrich Gunter, and many other reliable sources, legend making became customary during the early days of the Roman Church for example, when they would elaborate on the miracles preformed by their saints to make them seem more holy, or connected to the powers that be.
What then happens is, the story overtakes reality by being told this way over and over throughout the generations until it becomes the accepted narrative.
Of course, there’s other ways to create a legend without using real people or waiting generations before it sticks.
Because you see, the real key to being legendary is in getting the story to become synonymous with a common reference point.
A case in point might be if I said the word, “vampire.” Chances are if you’re my age, the name Dracula would be the first thing that popped in your mind, because Bram Stoker’s version of what a vampire is, became the reference all others copied for years afterward.
However, this also shows how a story doesn’t have to be old, or first to become a legend. Just ask someone a little younger than the days of Bella Lugosi playing Dracula on the big screen, and you might find Ann Rice’s Lestat is the big cheese among the coffin loving crowd. Or talk to a teenager, and it might be Edward from the Twilight series.
In any case, becoming synonymous is how to create a legend, and your story becomes synonymous by the amount of impact it has on the general populace.
But how then do you write a fictional story to have such a huge impact on people that it becomes a legend?
Just like they did in the old days with the saints, you make it seem real enough to be feasibly true.
Of course, nobody who buys books from the fiction shelf is going to truly accept what you write as a factual account. After all, that’s why it’s on the fiction shelf.
But it’s not necessary to make them believe it in order to create a legend. You just have to write it in a way that if whatever land, creature, or character you’re writing about was actually real, your story would be believable.
And once you get your readers to the point where they accept your version, regardless if it’s based on reality or not, you’ll have managed to create a legend, or at a least the makings of one. All that’s left is for them to start referencing it synonymously.
Don’t believe me? Google it! (synonym reference)
OK so you have made the decision to write your book. You appreciate that the Internet gives you the best chance to sell to your potential readers. You may even know how to use SEO to promote your e-book.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and has long been considered the dark art for attracting people to your website. SEO has spawned a growth industry of online marketing and has earned itself a bad name due to unscrupulous individuals looking to make a fast buck.
The concept of SEO is to get a particular website to rank highly in the Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERPs). This means when you are searching the internet for a specific item or person, you type in some words, known as keywords, in to the search box in order to find what you are looking for. The results will be listed on a page and you can look through each entry until you find the most relevant website.
Google is by far the most popular search engine. This gives Google such a high degree of influence that it can dictate what is acceptable or unacceptable when web owners optimize their sites to attract traffic.
Google has the power to penalize web pages or even ban them from its SERPs when webmasters are deemed to have unfairly gained an advantage over competitors’ sites by using illicit or ‘black hat’ methods.
So what has all this to do with authors of e-books? Well, in order to use SEO to promote your e-book, particularly on Amazon’s Kindle website, you will need to provide a preview or introduction to your book. It makes sense to include the most relevant keywords so it attracts the search engine spiders that trawl the World Wide Web to rank pages for the SERPs.
However, if you stuff your preview with so many keywords that it doesn’t actually make sense to human readers, two things will happen. Firstly, you will put people off from reading your preview and they will not be persuaded to buy your book; secondly, your book could actually fail to gain a listing in Amazon’s Bookshelf because it will be deemed as SPAM, in other words, a deliberate marketing ploy to attract the search engines.
Google has of late become even stricter in governing its Search Engine Rankings. In order to use SEO to promote your book you need to be aware of the restrictions that Google builds into its search algorithm in order to weed out blatant marketers.
The problem is that Google does not make public how their algorithm works or even how it has changed. The important thing to remember when you use SEO to promote your e-book is to make it humanly readable.
Think of one or two key phrases that people whom you wish to read your book may be searching for. Use those key phrases three or four times in the preview. But make sure that your narrative makes sense.
Do not include key words and phrases just because they are what people are searching for. By all means, use SEO to promote your book, but make sure that it makes sense when people read it.
One of our readers wrote to us asking how to do book research on a living person. So naturally, being the helpful sort we are, we’ll try to give him some good pointers while sharing it with everyone.
Obviously, whether you’re writing an entire biography or you’re merely doing an editorial piece on a living person for a newspaper or magazine, you’d best get your facts straight.
Living people sue, after all.
So you need reliable sources for your data, because any false information might possibly put a bad light on your subject, but it will surely ruin your reputation as a journalist or author and could cost you your life’s savings.
Naturally, the best source of information about someone would be to get it directly from the person you’re writing about.
“Bagging” an interview with a person of note could be somewhat tricky to pull off, but it isn’t impossible. All it really takes is asking. And after all, what’s the worst that could happen? They say no?
However, when doing book research on a living person, a first hand interview can’t be beat, so it’s worth the risk of rejection.
Alternatively, you might be able to contact someone who knows your subject personally. Again, this could also be a bit tricky because friends may not feel free to give you any information, or may simply say something like, “you’ll have to ask them yourself,” which puts you back to square one.
And of course, you’ll have to be tactful about your approach so as not to come off like a stalker or paparazzi. People tend to be more protective and suspicious when being asked about someone they know than they are about direct questioning pertaining to themselves.
If direct contact fails, your next line of approach might be to glean as much as you can about the person from their own words. Have they been interviewed before? Do they have any writing published on the Internet that might reveal something about them or their thoughts?
Looking into their genealogy might help in some cases too. Knowing where a person comes from, and the types of people who influenced their upbringing could shed some light on who they are now.
And as a last resort, look to reputable news sources such as journals, newspapers and magazines for any information you can turn into reference points. Just be sure they’re reliable, and don’t use them as your primary or only source.
Finally, to inject just a few words of caution when doing book research on a living person . . .
- Don’t go beyond what your book research gives you. Whatever information you can get on the person you’re writing about should determine the scope of your narrative. You can add your own perspective, but not your own facts.
- If your attempts at a first hand interview is rejected, pay attention to how it’s rejected. No may mean the person doesn’t want to talk to you, but it could also mean the person doesn’t want you to write about them. So be sure to get some clarity on what no signifies to them. Not that you’re obliged to honor their wishes legally, but having their approval or even their indifference could lower the risk of a law suit later on.
- And if you do get information from sources other than the person directly, verify, verify, verify. Wikipedia might be a good starting point for research for example, but it’s hardly reliable and seldom completely accurate.
Doing book research on a living person can be quite rewarding if go about doing it with the utmost respect for your subject. Respecting their privacy should trump any motive you might have for writing, because in the end, the respect you show will determine the amount of cooperation you’ll get.
Although the Kindle is the most popular selling e-reader, the ePub format is rapidly becoming the new standard in e-book publishing.
While Amazon seeks to protect its proprietary hold on the e-book market, other e-readers such as Barnes and Noble’s Nook, Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, Sony’s Reader and the Kobo range are collectively embracing the ePub format.
So, what is ePub? The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), a trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry, has been set up in order to establish a reliable and complete standard for e-book publishing.
The current release of the standard, ePub 3, was approved in October 2011. This latest version has been revised to enable publishers to include audio and video clips with the written narrative.
What benefit does the ePub format offer readers? There are thousands of titles, including books, newspapers and magazines, available in ePub format. Also there is a variety of e-readers, as listed earlier.
In addition to the hand-held devices, many free ePub reading applications can be downloaded for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and other platforms.
There are hundreds of free e-books available in the ePub format. It is possible to build a free library of all the literary classics.
For self publishers, the ePub format offers a chance to break into this developing market. Publishing in ePub is just as easy, if not easier, than creating your work in Kindle format, with the added bonus of a wider range of end user platforms.
ePub also has the advantage of being DRM-free. In other words, once the e-book has been downloaded, it can be viewed on more than one type of device. Amazon’s restrictive stance on Digital Rights Management has put off many publishers from making their works available on Kindle.
Self publishers, understandably, may be a little apprehensive when confronted with a new publishing format. We at Double Head Publishing can help with a range of training courses, workshops and, coming soon, a special report on the ePub format.
If you would like to know more about how Double Head Publishing can help you to publish your e-book in ePub or for Kindle, contact us through the Double Head Publishing website with details of your project and we will be pleased to offer you a no obligation estimate of the cost.
Creativity and time are seldom very good companions. Often, when you have the time to write, your creative juices aren’t flowing, and likewise, inspiration can hit you at the most inopportune times. So what do you do?
On the surface, there appears to be only two solutions:
- Force creativity
- Stop everything else you’re doing when creativity strikes and make the time.
But neither is really feasible, because forced creativity often lacks exuberance and flow, and it’s not always possible to drop all else if you have a job or need to tend to every day chores like taking care of the family.
Personally, I often get inspiration when driving long distances, which is obviously not a very good time to break out the laptop or a pad and pen. Yet at the same time, there’s so much to get inspiration from, as cars filled with families deep in conversation, people working on the side of the road, and interesting landscapes pass by my windshield.
Yes, trying to meld creativity and time can get somewhat frustrating, especially when time also tends to take recall away as one ages.
It’s tough, after all, when you can remember having a moment of inspiration, but can’t recall for the life of you what it pertained to.
But here’s an idea that might help when you get a brainstorm but aren’t quite in the right place or time to continue on with your story page by page:
- Use those creative moments to build structure to your story line by way of outlining, rather than trying to write linearly.
For example, say you get some inspiration about a new event or scene for your story line. Grab an index card and write it down. Add enough detail to remind you why you thought it would help your story and where it might fit in.
You can do the same for your characters’ personality growth too. Create a profile card for each character, and add to it whenever you’re inspired to do so.
This way your creative moments aren’t lost, and because they’re written down when they occur, going over them when you do have time to write out your narrative could re-inspire you to press on.
As allusive as the pair may be, creativity and time do cross paths once in a while. It may not always happen at the most advantageous moments, but if you use them wisely, they will still contribute to your story.
We show you how to create outlines for both fictional and non-fictional books in our courses. Just click on either course cover to the left to learn more.
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