DEAR AGENT - Extract 1

I'm delighted to announce the 10-day countdown to publication of Dear Agent - Write the Letter That Sells Your Book! Dear Agent is my nifty, comprehensive ebook about that tricksy thing: the letter pitching your book and yourself to agent or publisher. Dear Agent will make a matching pair with Write a Great Synopsis - An Expert Guide, and once you've read them both, there will be no excuse for

DEAR CRABBIT: market the author or the book

Dear Crabbit
We had a brief Twitter exchange this evening. I asked: " Do you recommend focusing on marketing the writer...or the book? "

A bit more info: for the past 2-3 years, I've been blogging. Firstly as a way of promoting my (very) part-time coaching practice (I have a full time day job as well), and latterly as a way of promoting my writing (I've had a small paid writing gig with

How to be the perfect research student, part 2: content matters

Posted by Martin White and Jean Adams

In our first post on what research students can do to make their, and their supervisor’s, lives easier we focused on process. In this second, and final, instalment we address the product(s) of your endeavours.

1. Pay attention to grammar and style. Well written documents are easier to read and increase the reader’s confidence in your abilities. Grammar and style are not just window dressing; they are an essential part of good communication. You may find the BMJ’s house style guide useful.

Pay attention to grammar and style

2. Use sub-headings. They help you structure your text and keep related pieces of information together. They also help the reader understand where your argument is leading.

3. Be critical in your literature review. Try to go beyond just describing the literature, to critically interpreting it. This doesn’t necessarily mean providing a detailed critique of every paper you read. It means identifying the major knowledge gaps in the literature, identifying common methodological limitations, identifying limitations of existing theories, and suggesting reasons for all of these things. This requires you to think for yourself and put your own, personal stamp on your interpretation of the reading you’ve done.

4. Frame research questions, not aims and objectives. Try to state clearly the scientific rationale for your research, identifying the gaps in knowledge that you aim to fill, and then specify the question that needs to be answered to fill each gap. In public health, research questions tend to be preferred to null and alternative hypotheses.

5. Separate your methods, results and discussion. Methods say what you did. Write them like a recipe book, which others can follow. Reference established techniques. Don’t muse about which methods might have been better (reserve that for the discussion). Results say what you found. Don’t repeat what is in tables, figures or boxes in the text. Don’t veer off into discussion of the results. The discussion interprets your findings, sets them in the context of existing knowledge and discusses their strengths, limitations and implications.

6. Don’t confuse association with causation. Finding a statistically significant association between two variables does not necessarily mean that one causes the other. Be careful when you are writing not to imply causation unless you have good evidence of it.

7. Structure your discussion. Many people find the discussion the hardest section of their thesis, dissertation or paper to write. One way of easing the pain is to use the sub-headings suggested by Docherty and Smith (1999).

8. Don’t repeat yourself. Repetition is boring, insults the reader by assuming they didn’t read it the first time you said it, and is a waste of words. Read and reread your drafts to eliminate repetition.

9. Proof read. Once you have a first draft that includes the key points you need to cover, re-read and revise to hone your message. Consider each sentence individuallly and ask yourself if there is a clearer way to convey the idea. Think particularly about if you could use fewer words and less jargon.

10. Try to write your thesis with publication(s) in mind. In a PhD you can nest each distinct piece of work in a separate chapter, each of which will lead to a paper. If you structure these chapters like a paper, then your publishing challenge is made easier. For an MSc or undergraduate research project, try to structure your whole dissertation like a paper if appropriate.

The League of Extraordinary Booklovers

An interesting thing from Scottish Book Trust here. I'm not sure if I have time to apply, let alone do it, but I will fully support and tweet about it. Do consider signing up, all you passionate book-lovers!

Actually, having said I didn't have time, I'm now being carried away at the thought of all the books I want to recommend!

Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland

Today I'm interviewing Melinda DuChamp, writer of the recently released ebook Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland, currently free on Amazon.com.

It has, without a doubt, the best ebook cover I've ever seen. Besides being funny as hell, the cover art instantly announces the subject matter: a light-hearted erotic parody of a famous classic fairy tale.

Where did you get this cover?

Melinda: I'm a regular reader your blog, and I contacted Carl Graves at Extended Imagery, listed in your sidebar. The mushroom is actually real. There are a whole group of mushrooms with phallus in their names. Carl did a great job making it look fairytale-like. Rob Siders at 52 Novels did the formatting. I was very pleased with his professionalism as well. 

Joe: I've read the book. It is very funny, and also pretty hot. 

Melinda: Thank you so much! The original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was very funny for its time, and the story is a true classic; a girl goes into a magical world and meets talking animals and strange characters. But I'm not sure if all of the humor holds up today. Some of the jokes and the puns are no longer relevant. I tried to keep the same tone, albeit more adult-oriented. So there are some amusing rhymes, and lots of silliness in action and dialog, in my version.

Joe: But this is for adults...

Melinda: This is definitely for adults only. While I kept the clinical terms used to describe anatomy and physical relations work-friendly PG-13, the action is a lot more explicit than that.

Joe: Reading this at work would be... uncomfortable.

Melinda: Thank you! You're sweet.

Joe: I never read Fifty Shades of Grey, but I take it there are a lot of the same types of kinks described.

Melinda: Yes. Some bondage and spanking and toys and four-ways and other fun things. I followed the structure of Carroll's novel, and had Alice run into many of the same characters, but with a modern, erotic spin on them.

Joe: Melinda DuChamp is a pen name. What else have you written?

Melinda: I have over twenty years of experience writing professionally, in many different genres. Name a publisher, I've probably done something with them. 

Joe: How many novels?

Melinda: Over fifty.

Joe: Is this your first self-pubbed ebook?

Melinda: Under this pseudonym, yes. 

Joe: I assume you have some sort of following with that many books under your belt. Why use a pseudonym?

Melinda: My mother reads all of my books, and I decided this one was a bit too spicy for her.

Joe: I haven't read a lot of erotica, but I do have some old, dog-eared copies of Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty trilogy, which she wrote under the name A.N. Roquelaure. I found some of it arousing, and some of it extreme to the point of being a turn off. It went too far with the pain, in my opinion. You've got some BDSM stuff in Alice, but it is more playful than painful.

Melinda: Those are pretty raunchy books, and by the end of the trilogy Beauty had been beaten so many times I felt she needed to be taken to the ER! I wanted Alice to have an edge, and to be arousing, without the intense subjugation and pain that often occurs in many similarly themed erotica novels. Subjugation between consenting adults is fine, but I was never turned-on by being beaten or humiliated to tears. Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland has a lot of kinky sex in it, but I find the path to arousal and release more erotic than graphic descriptions of men and women being caned or whipped. But that's just one gal's opinion. Different readers have different tastes, and no one is right or wrong when it comes to their fantasies. 

Joe: Why did you start self-publishing?

Melinda: I've had shelf novels that never sold for various reasons, and it seemed like an obvious way to supplement my income. Now they have become my main source of income.

Joe: Would you go back to legacy publishing?

Melinda: I go where the money is. When my agent gets an offer, I listen. But the offer has to be serious to make me consider it.

Joe: So why call it Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland?

Melinda: I'm not above riding on coattails, and I don't believe Ms. James will mind, considering the inspiration for her trilogy. 

Joe: The tagline on the cover says "Inspired by true events." Care to elaborate?

Melinda: A lady doesn't kiss and tell. But I encourage readers to read Alice and pick out which scenes are based on fact, and which are completely made up.

Joe: Will there be a sequel?

Melinda: It depends how well it does. I've done many love scenes in my books, but never a full book of erotica. Alice was fun to write, and I do have some ideas for a follow-up, but this is a business, and I try to pay attention to what readers want. Only time will tell if they want more Alice...

Joe sez: This book really is hot, and it is currently free, so download it and support Melinda in her quest to keep secrets from her mother.

You can get in in the US and the UK.

Also worth noting is this ebook was only released a few days ago, and is already on the Top 100 free list in the UK, and close to the Top 100 in the US. It got there without any name recognition, publicity, promotion, marketing, or advertising. I tweeted about it earlier today, and got in touch with Melinda to request this interview after I'd read the book (my cover artist showed me the cover last week) but it was already at its current rankings before I did so.

It is apparently possible to make a splash and get noticed while being a complete unknown. All you need is a good cover, good book description, good book, and a good price ($2.99 normally, free until Monday.)

We'll see if these freebies lead to future sales. If they do, I may soon be writing Fifty Shades of Snow White...

DEAR CRABBIT - too old to debut?

Dear Crabbit
Is a 79-year-old debutant novelist (but a highly successful writer in other fields) deluding himself and wasting his time trying to get an agent or a publisher interested in his work, even if he’s fit, healthy and energetic, and has one novel completed and two well on the way? Or should he go straight into self-publishing? I’ve said “he” because I’m a man, but obviously it could

DEAR CRABBIT - what should I pay for in order to become published?

I have had three emails to Dear Crabbit that all follow a theme:

"Is it ok to pay a reading fee to an agent?"
No. In the UK, the Association of Authors' Agents forbids it.

"What should it cost to be published?"
Nothing! (Other than things you might choose to do to push the book. For example, many published writers nowadays hire the services of publicists, order our own promotional materials etc

This post would have been about bureaucracy, but it got caught up in red tape

Posted by Bronia Arnott

When your research is funded it is such a great feeling. You have spent hours toiling over your budget spreadsheet, having it rejected by the Institute finance officer, reclassifying your directly incurred and indirectly incurred costs. You have carefully crafted your theoretical argument and honed your methodological choices. You have even agreed to do another systematic review. And all that hard work has paid off; your research grant has been funded. Now that the money is finally in your hands you can do what you wanted. Right? You clearly haven’t worked in a University before, have you? 

If you had, you would have met the Director of the Institute of Red Tape: Mr Bureaucracy*. Mr Bureaucracy doesn’t care what your research project is, how much money you got, or who it was funded by; all that he cares about are rules and regulations. Before his promotion to Direction of Red Tape, he was Head of Health & Safety. The most impressive thing on his CV to date is his design of the Research Passport System.

I wouldn’t mind but I’m not asking to go out and buy a designer handbag with the money, I’m not asking to inflict torture on participants, I’m not even suggesting that my colleagues and I go on a round the world cruise; I’m asking to do what I said I would do and what I was funded to do. If I carefully researched the cost of an iPhone, made sure I put it into the right costings column on my grant application, and then the funding body agreed that we needed it so that we could develop a smartphone app to investigate mHealth then please, PLEASE, don’t tell me that a Nokia is just as good AND significantly cheaper.

Thankfully, all of the staff within my research institute who deal with finance and research governance are absolute stars and are not like Mr Bureaucracy at all. But if you do come across him please let me know; I need to speak to him about an iPhone.

*This character is entirely fictional, and any resemblance to any individual dead or alive is coincidental.

Working effectively with patients and public in research

Posted by Dorothy Newbury-Birch

I’m chair of the Engagement Strategy Group in my research institute. I’m not sure, like most things, how that came about, but I’m here and I’m on a steep learning curve. You see, like most of us, for a long time I thought that patient and public involvement meant that we should have a couple of lay people on our steering groups. And I was wrong, so wrong. It is so much more than that and if done properly can make your research much better in so many ways. I can only talk for myself but I’ve really started thinking about this differently, in particular, in relation to one of the trials I am the Principal Investigator (PI) for.

How not to do patient and public involvement in research

SIPS JR-HIGH is a pilot feasibility trial of alcohol screening and brief interventions in schools with 14-15 year olds. On the program management group we have a representative from the education department at the local council. He has expertise in alcohol and drug education in schools and we’ve met with him a number of times both at the project management group and separately to discuss the intricacies of the work. He’s a co-PI on the project and his input was invaluable to its success in being funded. He was also our link to getting the schools on board.

We have the Young Mayor (yes, North Tyneside has a Young Cabinet) on our Trial Steering Group, who we have met and spoken to a number of times. The Young Cabinet also looked over all our paperwork prior to submitting our application for university ethics approval. We also have a young person and their mum on the steering group. They were interested in the research, trialled our intervention and gave us valuable feedback. We've been to a couple of the schools a few times to trial the questionnaires and to ask them what they think of the information leaflets we’re using.

So what are my tips from my new found knowledge? Firstly, don’t just expect people to rock up to a meeting after sending them piles of paperwork and expect them to engage. Meet with them prior to the meeting; explain what is going to happen at the meeting. Talk through some of the issues and the paperwork and get their views. Explain to them that their input is important. Check to see if they need any help in coming to the meeting i.e car parking or childcare. Make sure you have spoken to them about financial reimbursement for their time. A great resource is available from INVOLVE which can help.

Secondly, have someone in the group meet with the person a few minutes before a meeting and have a coffee and introduce people as they turn up for the meeting. Have this person sit next to the lay member and explain things if necessary and encourage them to have their say if they want to. Don’t rush them away after the meeting; ask them what they thought and if they have any questions. Make arrangements to give them a call in a couple of weeks to chat through things if necessary. Work at their pace, don’t assume they can or can’t do things.

If you take these things on board, your research, I promise you, will be better and more fulfilling for yourself and the people we are doing the research with and for.

DEAR CRABBIT: agents recommending paid-for services

Dear Crabbit 

Below I have pasted the rejection I received from literary agent [redacted] yesterday having read my full manuscript. I am not in the slightest bit bothered by the rejection in itself.

What bothers me a great deal is the link she sent me to a service that will edit, provide a cover and convert the whole thing into a Kindle e-book for just under £1000! Surely I could hire a

How to be the perfect research student, part 1: process matters

Posted by Jean Adams & Martin White

Being a research student isn’t always easy. But nor is supervising research students. We have spent many unproductive hours ranting about the things that research students should, but don’t always, do to make their, and our, lives easier. Here they are in one easy list (in two parts…).

1. Prepare for meetings. Send an agenda of things you would like to cover in advance of supervisory meetings. Ask your supervisors if there are items they wish to cover too. If you don’t have anything you need to discuss, ask if the meeting should be cancelled. But remember, sometimes it’s good to touch base even if there's nothing specific to discuss.

Lisa Simpson: the perfect student?

2. Send documents in good time. If you've written something that you would like to discuss during a meeting, send it in advance – it’s hard to discuss your work without having had time to read, think about and comment on it. If possible, agree in advance when you will send documents so that reading can be timetabled into busy schedules.

3. Don’t send things you’re still working on. When you send documents for comment it should be on the understanding that you’ve done your best with them. They might not be the finished article and part of a supervisor’s job is to offer advice on how your best effort can be made better. If you ask for comments on something that you are still actively working on, chances are you will just get suggestions for things you were planning to do anyway – a waste of everyone’s time. An exception to this is getting comments on outlines, which can be useful to check you are on the right track.

4. Negotiate realistic deadlines. One way to avoid sending things that you are still working on is to be sensible when negotiating interim deadlines. If you find that you’re nearing the deadline but are not going to be finished in time, request an extension.

5. Say if your supervisor has got it wrong. Everyone makes mistakes – in designing studies, understanding the literature, interpreting data, and lots of other things. One of the joys of supervising is the new insights that students bring.

6. Use a citation manager (e.g. Endnote, Zotero, Mendeley). These help you store details on things you have read and automatically insert citations into your text. Some are free, others available via your university. On-line tutorials are available for whatever programme you choose.

7. Learn to use your software. A little pain getting to know your software will almost always pay off in the long run. As well as learning how to use your citation manager optimally, you should also learn how to get the best out of your word processor (in particular, the formatting options) and your data management package.

8. If you’re a PhD student, offer to supervise an undergraduate research project. This will help you to appreciate the art of good supervision and the frustrations of a student who fails to do any of the above!

9. Be proactive about the possibility of publication. Lots of our undergraduate, masters and PhD students have published papers based on the work they did with us. The main point of most student projects is to achieve the relevant educational objectives, but many are also worth publishing. This lets you share your findings with the world and gives you something extra to put on your CV. And who doesn't get a buzz out of seeing their name in print?

DEAR CRABBIT: how to use my 15 minutes with an agent

Here's a lovely positive question for Dear Crabbit!

Dear Crabbit

I am lucky enough to have bagged a 15-minute session with a literary agent at next month's Edinburgh Book Festival. My question for Dear Crabbit is: how could an aspiring author make best use of this time?

I understand that supplicants will be able to submit work to the agent in advance. I have a WIP but the first chapter won't

Harlequin Fail Part 2

Three authors have just filed a class action suit against Harlequin. Here's the full complaint.

It's about time.

For those who read a guest post by Ann Voss Peterson last month, you were aware Ann wrote a book that Harlequin published, and she made 2.4% royalties per copy sold. One of the reasons for this was:

First, while most of my books are sold in the US, many are sold under lower royalty rates in other countries. In this particular contract, some foreign rights and -ALL ebook royalties- are figured in a way that artificially reduces net by licensing the book to a "related licensee," in other words, a company owned by Harlequin itself.

Now I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure this means Harlequin contracts state they'll pay authors 50% for foreign and ebook royalties. This 50% is based on the amount they receive. But then they took those rights and sub-licensed them to another company for 6%, which means the author got 3% of the wholesale price, not 50%.

Confused? Here's an example.

Harlequin has an ebook it lists for $3.99. It sells that to Amazon at a wholesale price of $2.00. The author should make $1.00 for each $3.99 ebook that Amazon sells.

But instead of selling direct to Amazon, Harlequin sells the ebook to Company X for 12 cents. So the author only gets 6 cents. Company X than sells the same ebook to Amazon for $2.00, but because they are a sub-licensing company, they don't have to pay the author anything.

Sub-licensing is common. My publisher, Headline in the UK, sold book club rights to my novel AFRAID. The book club paid Headline a flat fee, and HEADLINE gave me 50% of that fee, according to my contract. The book club wasn't required to pay me royalties on each book club edition is sold. Just like Company X isn't required to pay authors anything.

This is all fine and legal. So why are authors suing Harlequin?

Because Harlequin and Company X are the same company.

In other words, it is sub-licensing the rights it holds to itself. Then it only has to pay the author 3% instead of 50%.

That's seems pretty shitty. It also doesn't seem like something a judge or jury will casually dismiss, even if Harlequin made sure it kept the two companies separate through an umbrella company.

No publishing company would ever sub-license rights for a paltry 6%, unless it was selling the rights to itself. Does Harlequin really expect a judge to believe that it sells a $3.99 ebook and only makes 6 cents? And according to the complaint, the 6% was not equivalent to the amount reasonably obtainable from an unrelated party, as required by the publishing agreements.

Ya think?

Hey, Harlequin! You poor dears are getting ripped off by sub-licensing e-rights for only 6%! How about I give you 9% for all of your e-rights sub-licenses? I'm a nice guy willing to help out, and you'll make more money!

What? You won't do it? Why not? I'm giving you a waaaaay better deal!

Do publishers have such a sense of entitlement, and do they believe that authors are so beneath them, that this is a fair and honest business practice?

Hopefully, not only will Harlequin have to pay its authors what it owes, but the judge will slap huge damages on the bastards.

Here's how Harlequin responded to the suit:

The publisher wishes to make clear that this is the first it has heard of the proceedings and that a complaint has not yet been served.

"Our authors have been recompensed fairly and properly for their work, and we will be defending ourselves vigorously," said Donna Hayes, Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of Harlequin.

Now that's not much for me to fisk. But it still reeks of bullshit.

this is the first it has heard of the proceedings

Huh? Again, I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that before a class action suit is filed, the plaintiffs and their lawyers approach the defendant and request to settle. That's Law School 101.

Our authors have been recompensed fairly and properly for their work

I'm not sure what Donna's definition of "fair" is, but I'll guess a jury won't think it is fair that a writer earns 6 cents on a $3.99 Harlequin ebook sale when that same ebook would earn a non-Harlequin author 70 cents on a 3.99 ebook.

In other words, Harlequin authors make only 9% of what the other authors make.

I suggest Donna Hayes back up her statement and stand by her words. Immediately, and retroactively, going back to when she was originally hired by Harlequin, she should take a 91% salary cut. Who cares what other publishing CEOs make annually? If Harlequin is fair in paying its authors 91% less than the rest of the industry, it should pay its executives accordingly.

If you'd like more info about the case, visit http://www.harlequinlawsuit.com.

Dear silly writer

At least once a week, I get an email from someone asking for free advice. I don't just mean someone asking a favour; or someone asking a simple question; I mean someone saying, for example, "Hi! I've written a book. Can you give me some advice about getting published?" Bearing in mind that this blog and my books are FULL of such advice, my internal responses to these emails are not really fit for

Seeing is believing: exploring qualitative methods beyond text and talk

Posted by Shelina Visram (with Ann Crossland)

In the run up to the recent UKCRC Public Health Research Centres of Excellence meeting, I received an email asking for volunteers to help organise and deliver workshops. One of the suggested topics – ‘The use of novel qualitative methods in evaluation research’ – immediately caught my eye. I’ve been involved in a number of evaluations and most have relied on qualitative methods. So I put myself forward and was glad to hear Professor Ann Crosland had volunteered too. We decided Ann should do the bits on using commonplace methods in novel ways and I’d do the bits on visual methods. Then we went our separate ways to work on the content.

That’s when I stopped and thought: how much do I really know about visual methods? Yes, I’ve used them in a number of projects but I’m certainly no expert. I wondered who would attend this workshop. Would they be expecting to explore the philosophy of creative methods? Should I be using words like epistemology and ontology? Or could I get away with showing cute pictures drawn by small children? I decided the most sensible approach would be to hedge my bets and do a bit of both (without getting bogged down by philosophy).

Picture drawn by a 7-year-old when asked “What things affect your health?” during the evaluation of a weight management programme 

Here comes the science… Qualitative research relies heavily on the things people write or say. If you’re a positivist, you might ask how we know whether this information is ‘true’, i.e. does it accurately reflect the ‘real world’? We interpretivists tend not to worry about those things and instead accept the existence of multiple realities and therefore multiple versions of the ‘truth’. However, we still assume that what people write or say is a reliable account of their truth. Yet we know that people have different capacities and motives for sharing information. During interviews or focus groups, participants are telling particular stories in a particular social context. To what extent can we use these stories to draw interpretations about their lives outside of that context?*

This is part of the rationale for using visual methods. We acknowledge that the information people provide verbally or in writing is only ever partial and cannot be taken at face value. Visual methods give us an alternative means to examine their beliefs, attitudes, experiences and ideas about themselves. These methods are particularly useful in exploring the routine of daily life that tends to go unnoticed. For example, how many of us could describe our journey to work in any great detail? Yet if we were asked to draw, map, photograph or film our travels, we would undoubtedly provide a far richer picture of the same journey. Other examples of creative methods include spider diagrams, clay modelling, body mapping, and something called Lego Serious Play which I am desperate to try (but maybe with Fuzzy Felts – remember them?).

Advantages of using visual methods include the fact that they are interactive, encourage free expression, and often generate unexpected findings. They are also inclusive, in that they don’t require participants to be especially articulate in speaking or writing in English. I’ve used drawing in a project involving children from 4-years-old and this helped to give them a ‘voice’ in evaluating a service. Challenges include the potential to generate vast amounts of data that can be difficult to interpret, although visual methods are generally used alongside interviews and focus groups. This helps to engage participants in the process of interpretation. There are also ethical issues to consider; for example, consent is required if others appear in photos or videos.

It can take a lot of time, energy and resources to use creative methods in any research or evaluation activity. But I would argue that they represent one way of overcoming some of the criticisms about the validity and anecdotal nature of qualitative research. And they’re fun too.


*For an in-depth discussion of this argument, read this book.

From middle-class to world-class

Posted by Peter Tennant

I enjoy watching tennis, use words like 'loo' and 'supper', and open my Christmas presents after lunch. In the UK, this makes me firmly middle-class. But much as I might protest (usually by wittering about my 'deprived' schooling), I know it's the truth. Why else would I feel so at home in academic research, a profession dominated by the middle classes?

Strawberries and cream at Wimbledon

On the plus side, this makes for some delicious bring-and-share lunches, what with all the Marks & Spencer nibbles, and home-made cakes (made, of course, with organic locally-sourced ingredients). But much as I enjoy free-range cupcakes, is it good for research, especially in a subject called 'public' health?

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair might have once declared that 'we're all middle class now', but the gap between the UK's rich and poor is arguably wider than any time since the Second World War. And where there are income differences, there are also differences in health status and health-behaviour. Which has left me wondering, are a largely middle-class community best placed to understand and empathise with the UK's most deprived, so often the 'public' we are trying to target in 'public health'?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that great work isn't being done by great people. And I'm not saying any researcher is actively biased. Anyone who's ever met a Scientist will agree; we are generally quite objective. After years of being drilled to act like a robot, some of us have even converted to running on petrol and oil, rather than continuing to rely on the inefficiency of food and water.* But even the most robotic researcher will find it harder to accept something, or even think to ask about something, that doesn't fit with their own experiences or world-view.

ERROR! ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE

Could this narrow demographic also (partly) explain why researchers find certain groups so hard to recruit? Or, to put it more bluntly, are UK public health researchers sometimes talking a different language? As an unhealthy person working in an Institute with the word ‘health’ in its name, I know how patronising it can feel:

“Post-exercise endorphins you say? I’m afraid all I get is wheezing, cramp, and a sensation of impending death”

I doubt it’s a coincidence that successful commercial organisations like Weight Watchers employ members of the local community, who have previously lost weight and maintained a healthy weight thereafter, to run their meetings. In other words, people who speak the same language. Could you imagine the same meetings being run by an average public health researcher?

1) LOADING WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAMME LESSON 001
2) INSTRUCT AUDIENCE TO “DO 30 MINUTES OF MVPA**”.
3) LESSON END

OK. Slight over-exaggeration. In fact, the best public-health interventions draw on detailed qualitative research (i.e. where brave researchers have ventured outside the ivory tower to speak to real members of the public) to ensure it addresses the needs and barriers of the target population. But I still think a bit more demographic diversity wouldn’t do the profession any harm.

*This sentence may contain factual errors
**MVPA, by the way, is public health research speak for 'Moderate or Vigorous Physical Activity'

DEAR CRABBIT: rejections again :((

Another question about rejections for Dear Crabbit. Oh dear, it's a stressful life being a writer! (Not meaning to sound glib - remember, I had years and flipping years of this.)

Dear Crabbit,
I read your post last week, (DEAR CRABBIT: encouragement from this rejection?) with interest. I am also in the process of submitting my first book, targeted to 7-9 year olds, to agents. So far, I've sent

Zero Sum

I've blogged about the so-called Race to the Bottom before, a few times.

The argument du jour seems to be that if publishers do collapse, then all the current bestsellers will have their ebooks available for $4.99 or less, and that will be the end of self-publishing. I've blogged about an eventual bestseller shift, which we can argue is happening, has happened, or will happen, depending on which stats you want to support.

But now I think it's time to put them together, as well as do some Q&A.

1. Ebook sales aren't a zero sum game. A sale of one ebook doesn't preclude the sale of another, because this is a burgeoning global market with hundreds of new customers introduced daily, and people naturally horde more than they need. 

Let's say there are currently 100 million ebook readers, and 1 million ebook titles on Amazon. In ten years, there will be billions of ebook readers (following the path of mp3s). But there won't be a corresponding 100 million ebook titles available--there aren't that many people writing ebooks, and never will be.

If I can currently sell a few hundred ebooks a day in the US alone, what will happen when ebooks become popular in India, China, Japan, Europe, Russian, and South America? There will be a bigger demand than unique supply, and I believe my position will improve.

2. Legacy bestsellers now may not be bestsellers in the future. If all Lee Child ebooks were $3.99, an avid reader could buy and finish them all in a month. Then what? Wait six months for him to finish another, and not read a thing until then? I think not.

Let's say the reader then went on to other bestselling thriller writers in the same vein as Child. How many current NYT bestsellers write series thrillers? I have no idea, but I'd guess a few dozen, tops. But does likign Child mean liking all NYT thriller bestsellers? I'm sure there are readers who love Child but don't like Brad Thor or Vince Flynn, but even if all an avid reader read was bestselling thriller authors who did a book or two a year, they would eventually run out of books to read.

BTW, I know a few avid readers. They lust for more authors to discover, and get excited when they read an unknown gem and find out that author has twenty more books in the series. I'm one of those types. I've read all Ed McBain, Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Robert B. Parker, and still managed to find new gems by Jeff Shelby, Brett Battles, Harry Hunsicker, and Jude Hardin, written in the same vein and style. 

If bestsellers like Child and Thor came down in price, it wouldn't matter to me much, because I already have read all of Child and I don't care for Thor. But if Child were $3.99 instead of $12.99, I can easily see myself buying his latest AND a few others. The money I'd save would be spent just the same.

Ever go into a store to buy a big ticket item, expecting to may more than you did? Let's say you research an over and find it for $699. When you go to the store, it is on sale for $499. And they also have a great toaster oven for $99. You probably wouldn't have bought the toaster oven originally, but now that you're saving money on the oven, the toaster oven becomes attractive.

If all ebook prices came down, more ebooks would be sold across the board.

3. The reason bestselling authors are bestselling authors is because of distribution. Nora Roberts is available EVERYWHERE books are sold. So, by default, she sells a lot, because readers wanting that particular type of book have no other choice--they buy her, or nothing.

When publishers collapse, Nora will have the exact same amount of shelf space and exposure as any indie author. Sure, there will be some name and brand recognition for a while, but that will fade when not being constantly reinforced by massive print distribution.

It also remains to be seen how Nora will price her ebooks when her publisher goes bankrupt. Will she stay at the $9.99 price point she's selling at now? If so, I predict fewer sales. If she does price reasonably, then the reader with $9.99 to spend can buy one of her ebooks and one of my ebooks with change left of.

The market is getting bigger. People with ereaders tend to buy and read more. And authors can make a very nice living selling 100 ebooks a day for $2.99 each. Across multiple platforms, on a global scale, I see this as not only possible, but likely for decent, prolific authors. 

And as far as bestsellers go, they tend to fade when distribution changes or dries up.

Mickey Spillane (whose books I love) has sold over 225 million books. 

Check his Kindle ranking now, only six years after his death. Lots of indies are outselling him. Even though Al Collins is doing a great job continuing the Mike Hammer series. 

Check ranks on some Louis L'Amour titles. He sold over 300 million books. Mediocre kindle sales.

Sidney Sheldon has sold more than Stephen King. Look at Sidney's rankings on Amazon these days. He also is still producing books after his death, via ghost writers, but he's nowhere near the powerhouse he once was.

Harold Robbins has sold 750 million books. More than twice JK Rowling. And many of his Kindle titles are less than $2.99. Check his rankings. Mine are better in many cases. One of the best selling authors of all time, but he isn't in the paperback racks anymore, and that means no more bestsellerdom.

4. There is already a tremendous abundance of choice, not only with media in general, but ebooks in particular. I believe Amazon has over 1 million Kindle titles for sale. Yet people still find me, and I was hardly a bestseller in print.

If bestselling authors all dropped their prices, I believe I'd sell more ebooks, not less, because more people would buy ereaders and have more money to spend on content. There's enough room for 300 cable TV channels, and four billion videos on Youtube.

Sure, some YouTube videos won't be watched, just like some ebooks won't be read. But quality does seem to eventually find an audience. Maybe not to smashing success, but authors don't need smashing success. They need 100 sales a day at $2.99 to live very well.

What do you need to do to reach that 100 sales a day?

1. Write good stories. As many and as fast as you can. They should be edited, proofed, and well formatted I use www.52novels.com for formatting, and they do better work than any of the Big 6. The more you have out there, the better you'll do.

2. Make sure you have a great product description and a professional cover. My cover artist, Carl Graves, has 24 new covers on sale on his website for $200 each. A bunch of them are awesome, and $200 is a great deal (he charges me $500). Check them out, first come first serve, at http://extendedimagery.com/predesignedcovers.html.

3. Find the sweet spot between price and quantity sold, where you make the most profit. Currently I'm $3.99 for novels, $2.99 for novellas (over 10k words) and story collections, and 99 cents for short stories. But this isn't set in stone.

4. Experiment with different ways to promote. Some things I've tried to varying degrees of success are giving away free ebooks to get reviews, announcing sales on ebook websites, having sales, making titles free for a limited time, partnering with different platforms, and guest blogging.

What don't I bother with?

1. Advertising. It doesn't work on me, so I don't use it on other people. That's a cardinal rule of mine. I only use something or believe it works if I do it as a consumer.

2. Social media. Occasional tweets of Facebook announcements are fine. At most, once a week. Maybe once a day if you have a new release, but end it after a few days. Otherwise people get sick of you.

3. Publicity. I've already blogged that getting my name in the press doesn't lead to sales. You probably don't need a publicist. 

4. Spamming. I have a newsletter, and use it a few times a year. I don't use it everytime I upload something new to Kindle. And I don't pimp my work on other peoples' blog or forums unless invited to do so, or there's a section for it.

I want to end this blog entry by telling writers: Don't Be Afraid. Yes, the future will be different. Yes, things will change. But there will always be a need for storytellers, and if you hold onto your rights, you'll be in a good position to exploit those rights no matter what the future holds.

Winners of Dear Agent giveaway!

And the two lucky winners of the first free giveaway of Dear Agent on this blog, chosen by random.org, the random integer generator, are... tarantara... Lisa Shambrook and Vee Frier!

Congratulations to you! I will need email addresses for the winners - please email me (n@nicolamorgan.co.uk).

And to the others: commiserations - but look out for more giveaways in the lead up to publication on Aug

NICE work

Posted by Linda Penn

Just being in that auspicious oak panelled room, breathing history, made me feel delightfully important, although I had done absolutely nothing to warrant the illusion. Then a nice NICE person suggested I might apply. ‘Well’, thought I, ‘no harm in applying, shy bairns etc.’ So I did. And I was eventually enrolled as a member of the NICE Programme Development Group (PDG) for: “Preventing type 2 diabetes: risk identification and interventions for individuals at high risk.” This NICE guidance was published last week, accompanied by a summary in the BMJ.

The National Institute of Health & Clinical Excellence

There is good evidence for prevention of type 2 diabetes, but evidence is not NICE guidance. Guidance may be based on evidence, but there is a huge chasm of reviews, discussion, expert testimony, drafting, comments, more reviews, debate, more comments, economics, considerations, redrafting, more redrafting, consensus and hard work; between literature and guidance. I am full of admiration for the patience and professional endeavour of the NICE team. I do not think I have ever listened so closely, or thought so carefully. ‘Do I have something to say? Is it really worth saying? Am I sure of the point and if so how can I comment in a clear, concise and constructive manner?’ The feeling that ‘This is important, it matters’ never really goes away. The guidance is published. So how did we do?

However good or otherwise, the guidance is one thing. The real importance is in implementation, but that’s a whole different story.

DEAR CRABBIT: agent touting on Twitter?

An interesting question has come from one of you.

Dear Crabbit
We hear all the time about how enormous agents’ slushpiles are. So am I right to view with suspicion an agent who uses Twitter to invite submissions, and/or one who is running a competition where the prize is representation? I don’t want my cynicism to stop me from pursuing a genuine opportunity but I’d hate to think I’m wasting

Dear Agent - FREE copies for you!

I'm delighted to reveal the cover of Dear Agent. *dances*

I hope you like it. Publication date is Aug 10th. And the only industry expert to have read it already has given ACE feedback - part of which you'll see if you squint at the cover.

Dear Agent is going to be the partner in crime to Write a Great Synopsis, and between them I hope they'll cover everything you need to submit a novel to an

From aged PhD to aged Intern

Posted by Lynne Forrest

I’ve previously blogged on why I’m doing a PhD in my forties and how I regard it as a career ‘second chance’, having not really quite got it together, career-wise, for the first 20 years of working life. As part of that spirit of positive thinking, when I started my PhD I decided I would embrace all the opportunities that came along. One of these was the chance to do a three month Internship, via my PhD funder the ESRC.

Now Internships don’t generally get a very good press, being pretty much regarded as a way for businesses to avoid paying someone a salary whilst offering ‘job experience’ that mostly consists of filing and making the tea.

However, I’d recently read that doing an internship was a good PhD career move. Also, as these were paid internships that were being offered by a range of high profile Government and charity organisations which required specific skills (of which tea-making wasn’t one), it seemed like a good idea. As a mature student, I didn’t need an internship to gain general work experience. I was looking for an opportunity to develop my skills base and gain experience in an area that wasn’t covered by my PhD.



The internship that I was interested in involved working in the Strategic Research Team at the Scottish Government conducting health research and translating the research into policy and practice. They were looking for someone with systematic reviewing experience, advanced quantitative skills and who had worked with large datasets, all of which applied to me. It seemed a perfect fit. And it was – they’ve offered it to me!

Although I’m very excited at this opportunity, the same age and status-related worries apply to doing an internship as to doing a PhD. However, for the most part, PhD students are treated similarly to staff in my department* and so I’m sure I will cope just as well as an aged Intern as I do being an aged PhD student. Unlike young interns I also have children, who are not best pleased that I will be away for 3 months. I’m hoping to negotiate flexible working hours and will be home every weekend, so I’m ignoring the emotional blackmail and guilt and am going anyway. It’s just too good an opportunity to turn down.

I think it’s going to be very interesting to be able to observe the reality of how the translation of evidence to policy actually works in a political environment and, indeed, to see how much policy is, in fact, evidence-based.

As well as the amazing career opportunity, the other positive for me is that I will be spending three months in Edinburgh, my home town. Having spent the past 15 years in Newcastle, I’ve latterly become terribly nostalgic for Scotland (getting all misty eyed over VisitScotland adverts and watching tartan and bagpipe-style programmes at New Year. I know. I need help). The reality of a few months in dreich Edinburgh over the winter may be just what I need to get over this.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how I get on….

*except that PhD students are required to ‘hot desk’. When I complained and got a proper desk it was on the understanding that I gave it up if someone ‘more important’ required it…

How to get the evidence message across

Guest post by Katie Cole

The mantra of “but there’s no evidence for it!” is one I’ve said or thought many times, both in my work, discussions with family and friends, or when shouting at the BBC Today programme.

But as an early-career academic, I’m increasingly aware there is a complex web of considerations when trying to translate evidence into policy, and that there are times when chanting our mantra may do more harm than good.

I recently attended a Royal College of Physicians/Alma Mata seminar on alcohol advocacy. At one point, a panel member suggested that social norms interventions to address excessive alcohol consumption on university campuses “sounded very promising” and policy-makers were considering it. I’ve looked into US research into these interventions: a national evaluation concluded that they are ineffective in reducing alcohol consumption. Whilst I could have made this point, I felt it was more complex than that. Don’t we need to test the policy in the UK drinking context to make a more robust contribution to the debate? Shouldn’t we seek to support policy-makers to integrate evaluations into pilots, or to finance full-scale trials?

Another challenge I’ve had was during a placement at a Primary Care Trust. I was involved in the Individual Funding Request process, where the PCT considers funding treatments and procedures not normally available on the NHS. I worked up a number of cases, looked at the evidence base and presented the case to a panel of clinicians and non-clinicians. In most cases, the evidence base was of poor quality: finding a case series for the exact condition and treatment in question represented a minor professional achievement. Usually, the case series found that, lo and behold, most cases improved, which often sparked disproportionate optimism that we had a justification for funding the treatment. In contrast, when I found a randomised controlled trial with only modest results, the panel were more inclined to propose not funding the treatment. Here I was challenged to explain the difference between the strength of the evidence base, and the strength of the effect size; whilst at the same time, acknowledging the difficulty of decision-making against a poor evidence base.

A final challenge has been in developing The Lancet UK Policy Matters website, which includes short summaries of the evidence underpinning a range of UK health-related policy changes. In developing the format of the summaries, we had to be very clear to authors that statements purporting the intended benefit of the policy should not be included in the ‘evidence’ sections of the summary – this was reserved for peer-reviewed research or evaluations. Our experience in guiding authors highlighted to us how meticulous we as professionals need to be in the choice of language we use when drawing on our scientific expertise.

Above all other lessons, these experiences have taught me that advocating for evidence in policy making is challenging, complicated and requires skill. It demands an understanding of the evidence itself – its strengths and limitations – but also of the policy making process. Whilst these issues can be difficult to reconcile, the above experiences have only strengthened my drive to communicate effectively with all actors in the policy making process.

Katie Cole co-founded The Lancet UK Policy Matters website with Rob Aldridge and Louise Hurst.

What does a proof-reader do?

What does a proof-reader do? You might think it's obvious: finds typos. And that's true. But it is also more complicated and more technical than that. After all, while some typos are clearly typos, others are stylistic traits and others are not typos at all but do require consistency.

Let me list some of the things my expert proof-reader found in Dear Agent (coming on Aug 10th!):

Places where

The joys of systematic reviewing

Posted by Dorothy Newbury-Birth

I’m often asked what my methodological expertise is. Hmmmm, expertise aye…..

Well, I love a randomised controlled trial – the more complex and difficult the better. But I have grown to love systematic reviewing aswell. As funding becomes harder to get, funders are looking more at systematic reviews and meta-analyses (and modelling) to get to grips with what research is already out there.

As with most things I fell into my first systematic review (which was actually a rapid review so not quite as difficult) on alcohol and liver disease. My role was to manage the team and I found the process fascinating. It was all about preparation and organisation.

I am the module leader on a 10 credit MSc module in Systematic Reviewing. The first thing I tell anyone who asks about how to do a systematic review is that it’s important to do get your team around you. You wouldn't do a trial without a statistician and a methodologist, so we shouldn’t do a systematic review without the necessary expertise. I’m sure I could come up with a half-decent search strategy but I know that our Information Specialists can do it much better than me. I could make a half-decent attempt at meta-analysis (I’ve been on a course you know!) but there are statisticians who can do it far better.

First thing's first: get your team together

So the first thing to do is get your team around you, and then work out what you want to know and how you’re going to do it. Write a protocol like you would for any research work. Importantly, scope the literature, find out what’s been done before. You really don’t want to get half way through and realise someone else has done the work that you are doing or, even worse, not find anything because your question is so obscure. Have regular team meetings to discuss progress. Divide the work into sections – writing the protocol; designing the search strategy; first sift of the data; second sift of the data etc. Draw a gantt chart and be realistic with it – ask other people for their advice on time frames.

Stay positive, lots of people will tell you horror stories of the process of carrying out a systematic review but that is really not the case. It’s like anything, if you go in negatively you will hate it, but if you are positive you will enjoy it.

Finally, be organised, use Endnote as your management tool and make it your friend, make it work for you.

Enjoy.

DEAR CRABBIT: synopsis for a trilogy?

Dear CrabbitI read 'Write A Great Synopsis' ( which I thoroughly enjoyed). I have a question regarding the submission. 

What of a trilogy? Do I include the synopsis for all three books and take three times the length to give the full outcome of the novel, or do I simply give the synopsis to the first book and no conclusion? Is it presumptious to give the synopsis for all three books, will it be

99 Cents

So is 99 cents a good price for ebooks? Does it devalue them? Are we in a race to the bottom where consumers will always expect cheap and free? Or are 99 cents sales smart ways to find new fans, climb up on bestseller lists, and lower rankings?

I've blogged about the race to the bottom before, and explained in detail why I believe the notion is wrong.

I've blogged about the value of ebooks, and how I discovered that low prices are best.

I've experimented with 99 cent ebooks and did well with it, hitting the Kindle Top 100 Bestsellers, then reverting the price back to $2.99 and making lots of money. I did the same thing two more times, and each time I cracked the Top 100, but didn't make as much.

Now it's a year later, and I'm trying it again. But rather than one ebook, I'm making all of my ebooks 99 cents for a limited time (as of now, until Monday July 9).

So if you wanted to stock up on Konrath ebooks on Amazon, Nook, or Kobo, now is the time.

Also, I asked my buddies Blake Crouch and Scott Nicholson to do the same thing.

Right we have over 100 titles at 99 cents.

Feel free to buy lots, tweet it, tell your friends and family. If an ebook isn't 99 cents, try waiting a few days. Some titles haven't switched to the new price yet.

When the sale ends, I'll be blogging about how many ebooks I sold, and if it was worth it.

Until then, here are some links:

J.A. Konrath

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/J.-A.-Konrath/e/B000BCH4EM/

BN: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/J.A.+Konrath

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=jack+kilborn

Blake Crouch

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Blake-Crouch/e/B001H6U8X0

BN: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/Blake+Crouch

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=blake+crouch

Scott Nicholson

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Scott-Nicholson/e/B001HCX30O

BN: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/Scott+Nicholson

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=scott+nicholson

How To Write - by Harry Bingham

Harry Bingham knows his onions when it comes to writing and publishing. Actually, for all I know he knows his onions when it comes to onions, too.

Recently, he proved his utter good sense by giving my Write to be Published a lovely write-up on his blog. And he's invited me back to the Festival of Writing in York to deliver some more crabbit advice - even more advice than last year. In fact,

How to improve your productivity: don’t read this blog

Posted by Jonathan Ling

One of my first office mates was Roger.

He was an older academic who had just been recruited by my department. As I helped him carry boxes of books into our room, I noticed that at the top of one of them was a book with his name on the cover. I was impressed – I was sharing my office with an author! I told him how great it must be when someone said to him: “I’ve read your book”. He agreed that it was a nice feeling, but what felt even better was when, having written a couple more books, he was able to say: “Which one?”

I’d never really thought about writing a book myself, until I was asked a couple of years ago to co-author a short textbook. It was on a topic I knew a bit about, but I’d never met the co-author who came from a university at the other end of the country. The editor suggested that the process would be reasonably straightforward and fairly speedy. As he had written several books himself I thought he obviously knew what he was talking about.

With hindsight I now realise he must be significantly more methodical in his approach to writing than I am.

I eventually finished my part of the book and it was published last year. Mostly by trial and error, I learnt a few things as I went along:

1. Have a writing routine. Take time out of every day to write. If you don’t block out a specific time each day to write (and stick to it), you won’t get anything written. It doesn’t matter when it is (I work better in the afternoons), just hang a “Do not disturb” sign on your door, or around your neck, and get going.

2. Don’t get side-tracked. See point 1. Your writing time is for writing – it’s not time for admin, catching up with emails, fitting in meetings or reading engaging and erudite blogs.

3. Seek feedback from your target audience. Unless it’s your diary, everything you write is for an audience. Think about who the audience is, and make sure they get a look at it. For a textbook, this was undergraduate students and other lecturers. For a journal article, most likely it would be fellow academics, as well as practitioners or policy makers.

Egg timer, by Martin Lopatka

4. When all else fails, get an egg timer. There were some parts of the book where I really struggled – topics I was unfamiliar with, that required lots of reading and which I wasn’t particularly interested in. But I just had to grind these sections out. In one of my more (possibly only) fruitful side-tracks, (see point 2), I came across the Pomodoro technique. In essence, this is just working on your chosen task for 20 minutes (no email, no looking out of the window – just work!) and then having a 5 minute break before another 20 minute session. Try it sometime – it did the trick for me.

Eventually, with the help and support of my co-author, editor and publishers, the book was finished, proofread and published. It is nice to have a book on the shelf with my name down the spine. But it was a huge amount of work, on something that’s not REF-able. So it’s not something I can see myself doing again.
Although, in my weaker moments I can’t help but think that one day it might be quite nice to say “Which one?” when someone tells me that they’ve read my book….

Turning the corner

Posted by Jean Adams

In university research there are two sorts of jobs: research jobs and academic jobs.

Research jobs are all about getting a particular research project done. Contracts are time-limited and you do research – collect data, analyse results, write reports. Academic jobs tend to be permanent and involve the classic triad of research, teaching and administration. The research bit is more about leadership than in research jobs – submitting grant applications, and supervising researchers employed on your projects. But there is also classroom teaching and student supervision. And let’s just not talk about the admin.

You can see why many people might aspire to an academic position - for the job security if nothing else.

Turning the academic corner

I wouldn’t be an academic if I didn’t now say “well, that’s actually a bit of an oversimplification, really – but it gives you an idea, doesn’t it?”.

Even before I finished my PhD I wanted an academic position. I wanted to ‘lead’. I wanted to teach. And after all those years as a full-time student (n=9), you betcha I wanted a nice, healthy pay-check every month forever.

I spent four years as a post-doctoral researcher before getting my first academic position. Less time than many, and for this I am very grateful. Now, a further four years on, it occurred to me recently that only now am I actually doing the job.

Although I knew all that stuff about the difference between research and academic jobs, when I first made the transition myself it seemed like nothing changed. Yes it was nice to stop getting those letters telling me that my contract was due to expire in three months. Yes it was nice to get a little bump in my salary with promises of more in due course. Yes it was nice to put “Lecturer in Public Health” in my email footer. But that was about it. My day-to-day job was pretty much the same. I analysed data, wrote papers, suggested ideas for projects to senior colleagues, shied away from any real responsibility.

And then I got scared. I wouldn’t be the “new lecturer” able to hang on the coat-tails of more senior colleagues forever.

And then I got more scared. I knew I had to get some grant funding, make sure my post-grad students flourished, and deliver good teaching. I tried to do all these things. But I didn’t seem very good at any of them. My grant applications were rejected. My post-grads seemed unable to tie down their research questions, let alone do some research. The big lecture theatre petrified me.

But, you know, it does seem true what they say. Once you’ve started, it gets easier; you just have to start. I got a little grant funded. Then I got another, bigger one. Then I got another. My post-grads are making their own, individual, journeys towards completion. I look forward to teaching seminars (although not preparing them) and whilst the big lecture theatre still scares me, I don't think it shows so much anymore.

So here I am just starting to think that I have finally turned the corner and might truly be doing the job I’m paid to do. And guess what? From August, they've promoted me.

Wedding Card

Masterpiece baru yang terinspirasi dari sebuah acara pernikahan salah satu dosen di Universitas Gunadarma yang bernama bu Rodiah yang menikah dengan suaminya Andri.

Pada awalnya saya bingung ingin memberikan hadiah apa, yang terlintas dipikran hanya membuat sesuatu yang berkesan, buatan tangan, tetapi waktunya terlalu mepet, karena saya baru tahu pernikahan akan dilaksanakan H-2.

Terlintas dipikiran saya untuk membuat wedding card, namun isinya belum tahu harus bagaimana bentuknya. Lalu saya bertanya kepada Riko Arfian bagaimana isinya, lalu ia menanggapi membuat ucapan dengan program python!. Nah, karena beliau mengajar python di kelas saya, cocok deh saya lanjutkan membuat poster wedding card, dengan layout menggunakan CorelDraw X6, untuk program pythonnya saya buat dulu agar tidak asal-asalan.

Setelah selesai semua saya buat ulang tampilan pythonnya di corel agar terlihat jelas, tidak dengan printscreen. Hasilnya seperti dibawah ini:

*Warna tidak maksimal karena WEB menggunakan format warna RGB, sedangkan saya menggunakan format warna CMYK

Exclusivity and Free

I'm back from a two week vacation, and today I'm discussing the merits and problems with exclusivity and free ebooks with Blake Crouch, and his brother Jordan.

Blake and Jordan have a new ebook horror-thriller out called EERIE, which is currently free on Kindle.

Download it. It's a great book.

For the sake of experimentation, EERIE didn't debut on Kindle. In fact, it has been available for several weeks.

Here are the Crouchs to explain why.

JORDAN: Blake and I shared a room for five years while we were growing up. Bunk beds, one closet, and a single dresser. When our father finished the basement, he built a second, even smaller bedroom with no windows and a door that locked, behind which my older brother disappeared and was never heard from again. Twenty years later we find ourselves sharing another space. This time, it's the page.

I guess it should come as no surprise then, that our first book together is about siblings trapped in a house. EERIE [free on Amazon today] follows an estranged brother and sister as they try to uncover the mystery of the violent presence that inhabits the upstairs bedroom.

Here's this pitch:

From newcomer Jordan Crouch and Blake Crouch, author of the Top-10 Kindle-bestsellers Run, Stirred, and Fully Loaded, comes Eerie, a chilling, gothic thriller in the classic tradition of The Shining and The Sixth Sense.

TRAPPED INSIDE A HOUSE

On a crisp autumn evening in 1980, seven-year-old Grant Moreton and his five-year-old sister Paige were nearly killed in a mysterious accident in the Cascade Mountains that left them orphans.

WITH A FRIGHTENING POWER

It's been thirty years since that night. Grant is now a detective with the Seattle Police Department and long estranged from his sister. But his investigation into the bloody past of a high-class prostitute has led right to Paige's door, and what awaits inside is beyond his wildest imagining.

OVER ANYONE WHO ENTERS

His only hope of survival and saving his sister will be to confront the terror that inhabits its walls, but he is completely unprepared to face the truth of what haunts his sister's brownstone.

Although I’ve been writing for close to ten years now, it’s always been as a personal outlet, not a serious professional endeavor. I’m really excited to say that’s about to change. This book represents a lot of firsts for me. My first novel, my first collaboration with Blake, and my first foray into self-publishing. So in the spirit of the blog, I'll talk about the experience with the collaborative process as the Newbie that I am.

I've read Blake's stuff for as long as I can remember: the good, the bad, and the humiliating high school creative writing projects. It’s not lip-service when I say that he’s one of my favorite writers. So, when the opportunity to work together presented itself in November of last year, it was an easy decision. We already had the basic idea for what would become EERIE, and over the next few months, we sequestered ourselves inside a Google Doc and hammered out the first draft.

If you've never used Google Docs before, here's what you need to know: it's a word processor that allows multiple users to edit the same page in real time. Like a big dry-erase board. As a collaborative tool it’s great, but for two brothers, it’s the creative equivalent of sharing a room again. There's nothing more humbling than watching a sentence you just carefully arranged disappear word-by-word and be replaced by another thought entirely.

That's the license we agreed to give each other. If something felt wrong or lacking or just plain stupid, strike it. Sometimes it hurts, but the price of collaborating is giving up a certain amount of control. Of course, that's easier said than done, and diplomacy did not always prevail. But on the few occasions when we resorted to the nuclear option, we always ended with something better than we had before.

Writing is an intensely personal endeavor. If you can make it work with someone else, it’s awesome. If that person is your brother, well that’s pretty special.

BLAKE: This was my fourth collaboration. I've written extensively with Joe, and then with Joe, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson, for Draculas. I collaborated with Selena Kitt on our short story Hunting Season. But this was different. My brother has been a writer for a long time and got a degree in creative writing from UNC-Wilmington. I'd always wanted to collaborate with him, because he's one of my most important sounding boards in the writing process. We finally hit upon an idea we were both very excited about, and though there were some speed bumps along the way, we persevered, and are immensely proud of the final product. It's essentially a monster-under-the-bed story, something that plays upon every child (and inner child's) greatest fear.

I've rambled on at length on this blog about collaboration, so I thought I'd share my experience on EERIE from the perspective of its publication.

With the dawn of KDP Select last December, exclusivity has become an increasingly divisive and provocative aspect of self-publishing. There are essentially five viable platforms--KDP, Pubit!, Smashwords, Kobo, Sony, and Apple (no, I didn't forget to mention Diesel. On the latter platform, I've sold a grand total of 1 book in my entire career, and I have a feeling that's more than most.)

NOOK

For EERIE's initial release, Jordan and I decided to try the Pubit! Nook First program. This is Barnes and Noble's interesting take on exclusivity wherein, by invitation, they offer you merchandising and promotion in exchange for releasing a new work straight to their platform for a 4-week period. After that period, you're free to publish everywhere.

I don't know what other writers' experiences with Nook First have been, but for the most part, Jordan and I were pleasantly surprised. We sold about 1500 copies of EERIE (@ $3.99) in May for Nook, which I know is far more than we would've sold on Barnes and Noble on our own. There were some disappointments, however. Despite huge sales on a handful of days, our sales rank was wonky. It never seemed to correlate to a corresponding low rank. Even on days where we sold 400 books, our rank never dropped below 2000. I have no doubt this cost us many, many sales, a good chunk of money, and kept the book from every appearing on the BN bestseller lists. A real shame, because the marketing triggers that Pubit! pulled worked in a big way. The tech just wasn't there to support them, and their tech support staff just couldn't be bothered to give a damn.

But that aside, Pubit! clearly has some real marketing power, and the smaller window of exclusivity (as opposed to KDP Select's 90 day commitment) is a definite plus. When Pubit!'s tech support decides to follow the model of Kobo and Amazon and treat writers as customers instead of entities to be ignored, Pubit! could become a force.

KOBO

Also in May, I had the opportunity to drop my best-selling title RUN into a Kobo promotion involving email blasts, coupons, and prominent placement on their landing pages. I could not have been more pleased with the results. RUN reached the top 10 on Kobo's overall list, stayed there for several weeks, and the rest of my catalog sold well in response. When you consider the size of Kobo's market share, the fact that I sold more books on Kobo in May than I did on Pubit! is astounding. It was only a few hundred dollars shy of beating Amazon for May, and it did beat Pubit! again in June. Even better, Kobo did not request exclusivity. Their writer-relations people are some of the friendliest, most proactive, responsive people in the business. Suggestions and requests I made last year were taken to heart. It's no secret that Kobo is on the verge of unveiling their own platform (Writing Life). If there is a company that could one day compete with the mighty Amazon, it's these guys. They're inventive, have far, far reaching plans to bring writers what could become the slickest digital publishing platform ever created, and they get that writers are customers. They listen. Best of all, my titles continue to sell and rank highly on Kobo's bestseller list, a month after the promos ended. I cannot say the same for Barnes and Noble. There is no other platform (aside from Amazon) where I've seen this level of "stickiness." If someone asked me what's keeping the majority of my titles out of KDP Select, I would have to say these guys.

AMAZON

KDP Select opinion pieces are a dime a dozen. Amazon is still, hands down, the most lucrative platform for me. Even though the transition from free to paid sales appears to have weakened as of late, success stories like Ann Voss Peterson and Robert Gregory Browne are convincing enough for my brother and I to roll the dice and drop EERIE into KDP Select. I say this as someone who has had great success with free titles: they still make me nervous. I get the excitement of giving away 70,000 ebooks. The prospect of making new fans. But free, in the long run, is dangerous. It sets a bad precedent and level of expectation in the minds of readers. Am I a hypocrite for saying this while EERIE is free? Maybe. But if all the platforms did away with free, I'd be okay with that. As writers, we cannot keep going to that well. It will dry up. Kindles may be able to hold a gazillion ebooks, but readers can't read that many. The key is not being downloaded. It's being read.

This post is not going to end with a definitive conclusion on freebies and exclusivity. I'm uncomfortable with both concepts, even as I play the game. My sense is that the people who survive and continue to do well selling ebooks will be those who experiment, take risks, and adapt. We've said it before, but what worked yesterday, may not work today, and the possibility of a game changer (like KDP Select) is constantly looming.

JOE SEZ:  I predicted that ebook retailers would seek exclusivity back in 2009. It's an obvious conclusion to draw when retailers compete. If there is a commodity that people want, and it is only available at one place, they'll shop at that place.

The author is the brand. I've lost count of the emails I've gotten from Nook and Kobo ereader owners who are wondering when Shaken and Stirred (both published by Amazon) will be available on their devices. That's one of the reasons my ebooks are DRM free--so readers can convert to other formats like epub to read on devices other than Kindle.

So how effective is exclusivity as a sales tool for Amazon? I've had people email me who bought a Kindle just to read Shaken. But how many more of my fans are annoyed because they own a different ereader that doesn't allow for a one-click purchase of Shaken? How many sales are lost?

My guess is: a lot. Shaken and Stirred have done well, but Blake and I have done better on self-pubbed projects.

For me to be exclusive with a retailer, I have to know the sales I'm going to lose will be made up for with increased sales on the exclusive platform. Long term, that's risky. After the big initial sales push, sales will even out, and years from now the lost sales will really rack up.

This is a related dilemma I'm having with foreign sales. My agent has been great in selling foreign rights to my self-pubbed ebooks. But do I want to give up future sales (which I'd have if I kept my rights and translated the ebooks on my own) for immediate sales?

I've been nudging Amazon for years to release titles in epub format. Let Nook owners buy my ebooks on Amazon. And let Kindles read epub format. I think that would make more money for everyone.

But until that happens, we're going to have retailers jockeying for market share, and one of the ways to do that is to have exclusive brands (ie authors).

A lot of people ask me my opinion about KDP Select, and I made it known that I have opted all of my titles out of it. I dislike Amazon's desire for exclusivity, because it limits my readership.

Back in January, it was possible for an ebook to be released free on the KDP Select, then bounce over to the Top 100 paid bestseller list. This is still possible, but a lot harder to do, and I'm not sure it justifies removing a title from other platforms to do it. I'm also not sure it does what Amazon wants it to do: lure customers to the Kindle platform. If Amazon wants to sell more Kindles, it should have as many ebooks in the KDP Select program as possible. But when authors like me opt out, that hurts readers.

A lot of people also ask me if it is a good idea to sign with one of Amazon's publishing arms. Blake and I hit the #1 Bestseller spot because of the push Amazon gave Stirred, something I haven't been able to do on my own. But was it worth the sales I lost on other platforms?

I don't believe so. 

If Amazon wants me back in KDP Select, they'll have to offer more. And if Amazon Publishing wants another book from me, they'll have to offer more. Exclusivity, and signing away rights, isn't how I see the future. Authors should be able to keep their rights, and exploit them in as many ways as possible.

I might be missing some important parts of this story. No doubt Amazon is crunching numbers, and they probably know how to find that sweet spot among ebook sales and freebies and Kindle sales and Prime memberships. But I know I'm not the only author they are disappointing, and in the long run that won't be good for them. 

Like Blake, I'll soon be doing a thing with Kobo, and I hope to replicate his results. I like that Kobo doesn't demand exclusivity. They want to please their customer base and make their website a worthwhile place to shop.

That's the line a retailer has to walk. Bringing new people to your online store (and ereader) while also making your current customers happy. Exclusivity might bring in new customers, but it will also irritate your current customers as more and more authors leave the platform.

Amazon is THE place to shop online. The shopping experience is better there than anywhere else. They make shopping easy, fast, and enjoyable. It's understandable that they want to sell more Kindles and Prime memberships. It's understandable that they don't want people buying Nooks or Kobos. But if KDP Select was non-exclusive, and Amazon sold epub, that would benefit all authors and all consumers, and irritate nobody.

It is in my best interest, as an author, to try as many things as possible, and for many platforms to succeed. I want the whole world to read my ebooks. And I don't care what ereader they read them on, or what store they buy them from.

Kobo gets that. Amazon sort of does. B&N, not so much.

As I've said in the past, the only two parties needed are writers and readers. The retailer who treats its writers and readers well will flourish. You do this by learning what these groups want.

So I'll make it real easy:

Readers want as many titles available as possible, without DRM, in multiple formats. They want to get ebooks with one-click. They want lower prices, and free ebooks. They want a fun, easy, fast place to shop. They want to have titles recommended to them, either by algorithms or other readers. They want to be able to contact and interact with each other, and with authors. They want to be listened to and have their needs and concerns met.

Writers want their work to be available as widely as possible, in multiple formats. They don't want exclusivity. They want to be able to interact with their retail partners and publishers easily and promptly, and to be treated well. They want high royalties, and the ability to control price (including the ability to make their ebooks free). They want data that can help them optimize their pricing and sales, and platforms that make accounting and joint-accounting a cinch. They want to be paid promptly. They want the ability to work directly and outside the box with retail partners and publishers and try new things. They want a stable platform where titles disappear immediately if removed and appear immediately if added, and where sales and rank are updated quickly and accurately. They want more bestseller list categories (like Top 100 Female Police Procedurals Priced at $2.99) and more BISEC categories. They want to be listened to and have their needs and concerns met.

A while ago I blogged about about active ebooks. Go read it. This is what authors want.

Blake, why the hate for freebies?

BLAKE: I don't hate freebies. But why will readers buy ebooks if there are more freebies to download than they could possibly read in their lifetime?

JOE: Because that's human nature. We collect. We horde. We buy more than we can ever use. That doesn't mean we reach a point where we stop buying, or acquiring. We all have To Be Read piles. Ebooks have made them easier to attain and manage.

BLAKE: More than we can ever use. That's what worries me. If a TBR pile is suddenly 1000 books instead of two dozen, and my book is #899 in the pile, what are the chances I will be read? If someone downloads my book for free, but never reads it, they won't become a fan and buy the rest of my paid catalog.

JOE: There are a few things happening here. First, there's a difference between being owned and being read. That difference has always been there (and I say "owned" instead of "bought" to include freebies, and even though ebooks are essentially a licence and not a purchase). We all own more media than we'll ever be able to experience. The whole concept of the "cloud" plays into this. Why own anything if it is all always available to access?

But the cloud is still a concept that hasn't entirely caught on. People do like to own media. More people will own us than read us. It'll always be that way. There's no guarantee a book owned will be read, even if that book was bought. Adding more choice to the equation doesn't matter. We've always had a lot of choice.

BLAKE: But if I pay money for that book because I heard about it and found it through reviews or whatever, the chance that I'll read it is better than if I just grabbed one of 20 freebies listed on Pixel of Ink.

JOE: We read what we want to read, free or not. I've bought $30 Blu-Ray disks that sit unwatched on my shelf for 5 months, and instead I've surfed YouTube for free for 90 minutes. But YouTube didn't stop me from buying. And I'll watch the Blu-Ray eventually.

That's a human mentality. We want to be able to access media whenever the mood hits. So maybe we'll stock up on freebies for a rainy day, and maybe that rainy day comes and maybe it doesn't, but I don't see it limiting or hurting sales.

We have paper bestsellers because of a lack of choice. Only so many titles can fit on the shelf at Costco. More choice is a good thing. 

BLAKE: You don't think there's a segment of customers, possibly very large, who have so loaded up their Kindles since Christmas and KDP Select came into being, that they don't actively shop anymore, because they have so many titles they want to read?

JOE: You've been to my house. How many books do I have? Video games? Movies?

BLAKE: You've got a few.

JOE: I've got tens of thousands. And this morning I was on Amazon and I bought 5 new Blu-Rays, two ebooks, and a video game.

My rule is: I only use marketing strategies that work on me. Which means I think a lot about my buying habits, and my media habits. While I'm sure there aren't many people out there with tens of thousands of books, movies, and games, I'm also sure the principle of what I'm saying is widespread: having enough doesn't inhibit acquiring more.

If someone gets your ebook for free, it doesn't mean you lost a sale. They may not read it, but they might never have bought it either. And people may be downloading a lot of free titles, but not reading them. Free, however, is a way for a customer to try you without any risk. Even if only a small percentage of freebies get read and make readers into fans, I believe that's still worthwhile.

BLAKE: So you think the free model is viable for the long haul? You don't think it trains people NOT to pay for books.

JOE: You know my belief on this. Eventually, all media will be free, and artists will be paid by advertisers. People can't be trained to pay more. That doesn't work. They'll get it for as little as they can get it for, and that ultimately means free. Rather than fight that, I'm happy to give consumers what they want. So I've made my titles free, I have no issues with file sharing, and I'm looking forward to a future where ads are in ebooks. But that's the topic for another blog.

My final point is: don't fight what the customer wants. If customers want free ebooks, give them free ebooks. So far it hasn't hurt my sales, and I don't expect it to.

Readers are very good at vetting, at finding what they want to read, free or paid. Our jobs as writers should be feeding those readers in any and all ways that we can. If you find readers, the money will follow.