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Social Media & ePublishing with Sean Cranbury at Canadian Authors Vancouver

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Canadian Authors Vancouver Meeting, March 12, 2014

Social Media & ePublishing with Sean Cranbury

by Nancy Tinari

On March 12, 2014, Canadian Authors Vancouver had the privilege of hosting Sean Cranbury, creator of Books on the Radio, as the guest speaker at their monthly meeting.

Cranbury overwhelmed his listeners (in a good way) with his energy, his humour, his obvious love of books, and his expertise in the subject of ePublishing and the role social media plays in it.

About Sean Cranbury

Cranbury began his presentation by summarizing his experience in books and publishing. His career in books started out in the late ‘80s when he worked for an independent bookstore, Chapman Books. He subsequently also worked at Sophia Books and the Virgin Megastore in downtown Vancouver.

One of his key achievements was starting the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series in 2010. In February 2010, as most people will remember, Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics. Cranbury realized that no literary events had been planned to celebrate the talent of Canadian writers during this world-class spectacle. So he started the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series, which showcased the work of 44 writers over four weeks during the time of the Olympic competitions.

Cranbury also created Books on the Radio, a radio show that airs on the Simon Fraser University (SFU) station CJSF 90.1 FM. You can find more information about Books on the Radio and the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series at www.booksontheradio.org. On Twitter, use #BOTR.

Cranbury also works with the Surrey International Writers’ Conference (SIWC) and put in a few plugs for that event during his presentation. SIWC is an international literary festival where writers can meet other writers as well as agents, editors, and marketing experts. Writers can sign up for 15-minute blue-pencil sessions with an agent to pitch their book. You can find SIWC at www.siwc.ca . This year’s conference takes place October 24–26, 2014, with master classes on October 23. The conference hosts a writing contest that includes several categories and cash prizes; submissions are $15 each. You can read more about the contest at http://www.siwc.ca/writing-contest/2013-writing-contest-rules .

Cranbury’s rave about the Internet

Very early in his presentation, Cranbury raved about the Internet. He said something like, “It’s the biggest achievement of mankind since the invention of language.” According to him, the Internet is ending the traditional business model.

Piracy

Most people and businesses talk about piracy of content—in whatever medium, whether it is the written word, music, photography, etc.—as being a huge problem. Cranbury energetically opposes this view. He believes the books that are shared the most online are also the ones that sell the most! Sharing is what sells books: online sharing generates enthusiasm and has the potential for exponentially-growing publicity.

Cranbury gave us a whirlwind oral tour through topics relating to self-publishing and social media that lasted just over an hour. He only had time to touch on each subject for five or ten minutes, but it was clear that he could easily provide an hour or even a day-long seminars’ worth of information on every topic. I will briefly mention some highlights of his talk.

Social media platforms: which to use?

Cranbury emphasized the power of social media throughout the evening. At the beginning of his talk, he asked if any audience members had heard about a recent forum on Canadian literature that took place in Montreal. Only one audience member was aware of this forum. When she volunteered that she had learned about it through a post by a Facebook friend, Cranbury leaped in, saying, “Aha! That’s how it happens!”

However, it  was reassuring to learn that he doesn’t think it’s necessary to use every platform out there. His advice was to use the minimum number of tools necessary to do the job. He recommended Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress. For book lovers, Goodreads is also helpful. Someone in the audience asked Cranbury about using Google+. He said it is used only by select groups; you can ignore it unless you’re  interacting with these groups.

The key idea is to use social media to build relationships that will help you in your work. And even though he is keen about the Internet, Cranbury acknowledges the irreplaceable value of meeting others in person.

Self-publishing

This is a huge topic, but Cranbury specifically mentioned the website http://pressbooks.com/ for Do It Yourself (DIY) publishing. This company was started by Hugh McGuire. Cranbury quoted a recent tweet by @hughmcguire; it was something like this: “The distinction between ‘the internet’ & ‘books’ is totally arbitrary, and will disappear in 5 years.”

Pressbooks.com is a one-stop publishing platform. It is free unless you get the premium version that will give you custom templates, cover design, editing help, or access to a distribution network. The free service will allow you to produce online file forms (ePubs) for various devices. However, Cranbury stressed the need to have a properly-designed book; you can’t just plug your Word file into the site without formatting it carefully.

I did some research by looking at the Pressbooks website. It is a nicely organized, simple website that is easy to navigate. The site includes some guidance and links to extra help for writers who are proficient with software and want to do everything themselves. The free version includes a choice of three templates plus the option to individualize templates, but it does not include editing or cover design. Paid versions of the service are available, varying in price between $300 and $700, depending on the length of the manuscript and the number of images included. A custom design option allows you to create a unique in-house style, but this is expensive! It costs $2,500 or more to have a theme built from scratch.

You can also pay for a distribution network. Cranbury stressed that this is extremely valuable for writers. Starting at $99, authors can have their book listed on the databases of the books giants for distribution into Kindle, iBooks, Nook, and Kobo.

Print On Demand

Cranbury mentioned the growing availability of POD. There are machines all over the world that can print your book.

Soundcloud.com

Cranbury is a big fan of this site. It’s an audio-sharing site, and you can get a free account that allows you to share a few hours of audio a month. Soundcloud is mainly a music site. When I explored it briefly, I was overwhelmed by the choice of music available. The site offers new musicians great exposure, but Cranbury pointed out that it can be a great tool for writers as well. You can do readings from your book to generate publicity. Also, you will attract new followers by catering to an audience that prefers to listen to content rather than read it. Podcasts are very popular, and people can listen while driving or doing other activities that can’t be mixed with reading.

Again on the subject of piracy, Cranbury offered a fascinating tidbit: “More vinyl records are being sold now than ever before in history!” They come with free, sharable MP3s. This demonstrates, again, the value of sharing.

https://soundcloud.com

Internet listening posts

Cranbury talked about metrics briefly, and stressed the importance of finding out how people are looking at your content, who they are, how long they spend on various pages, etc. One example of an Internet listening post is Google Alerts. This is a great way of following the topics and people you want to keep updated about. You can use your own name as an alert to see what people are interested in about you and your content.

Responsive design

Ensuring that your content looks good on all types and sizes of reading devices) is critical.

Thank you

Thank you, Sean Cranbury, for a most entertaining and informative evening!

Sean Cranbury can be contacted at the following:

e.seancranbury@gmail.com 778-987-8774

 

Printing and marketing a quality self-published book: an evening with Craig Shemilt of Island Blue Print Co.

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On Wednesday evening (October 9, 2013) Canadian Authors Vancouver meeting attendees had the privilege of meeting Craig Shemilt of Island Blue/Printorium Bookworks. Shemilt’s family has been in the printing business for over 60 years, and his expertise in the rapidly-changing printing and publishing industry was evident.

Island Blue Print Co. is now 101 years old. Printorium Bookworks is the book printing part of the business. (You can visit the website here.) The company produces books for about 200 Canadian publishers and 3,000 independent authors.

How can self-publishing authors end up with a professional-quality book? Using a friendly, no-nonsense style, Shemilt gave CAA writers a wealth of simple but critical tips about preparing their books for printing:

1)      Professional help: Pay for the services of at least two professionals: a designer and an editor. Your book’s success will depend to a large extent on its appearance, especially the front cover, back cover, and spine. Bookstores will not sell a book that isn’t edited.

We wouldn’t judge a book by its cover, would we?

Shemilt had our full attention when he said that a book placed in a bookstore has only fifteen seconds to capture a potential buyer. He broke it down this way:

  • Unless it gets a special display, the only part of the book that can be seen is its spine. The title has 1.5 seconds to grab the buyer’s attention.
  • Next, the buyer looks at the cover and takes three seconds to reject the book or look further.
  • Next, the buyer spends 10.5 seconds reading the back cover before deciding whether to open the book and investigate its contents.

2)      Formatting:

  • Use single pagination, not spreads.
  • Remember that page one (and all odd-numbered pages) will be on the right side of your book.
  • All images must be 300 dpi or they won’t look acceptable when printed.
  • Use 10-12 pt type; 14 or 16 pt for children’s books.
  • For full-colour pages, add an extra ¼” the entire way around the actual page size so the colour will be sure to “bleed” right to the edge. Otherwise your pages will print with a white line somewhere at the edge.
  • The “gutter” side of each page (the inside) should have a margin of at least ¾”. The outer side of the page should have a margin of at least ½” but 5/8” is the more standard size.
  • Most books look better with a larger margin at the bottom than at the top.
  • Shemilt emphasized that the size of a book can greatly increase the cost of printing. 8 ½ x 11” size is fine in portrait orientation, but a book this size printed in landscape orientation costs a lot more to print because it can’t be done on Printorium Bookworks’ equipment. Shemilt advises authors not to design a book beyond 8 ½ “ wide unless they expect to sell their book for a premium price that will cover the much higher cost of printing.

3)      Other steps before printing:

  • Include a copyright page. If you’re not sure what should be on it, just look at a traditionally-published book and copy the copyright page (laughs inserted here).
  • Get an ISBN number. It’s free. There is a lot of information to fill out in the application, but you don’t have to get every detail about your book perfect—you can edit the information later. You can apply for an ISBN number through the “Design and Layout” area of Printorium’s website.
  • Most designers have the proper software to create barcodes for a book’s cover. They will charge about $25 to add a barcode to a cover. It’s not a good idea to download free barcodes because they often don’t print clearly enough to work.
  • You should use the most recent software to convert your book to a PDF for printing. This process flattens all the transparency levels in your document and, very importantly, embeds all fonts. Island Blue’s printers don’t have every font that exists, so if you have an unusual font it needs to be embedded or it won’t print looking the way you expect.
  • Don’t steal fonts—these fonts will not print.

Digital vs. offset printing

Printorium Bookworks does only digital printing. Shemilt explained the differences between offset and digital printing:

  • Offset printing becomes more economical than digital printing when the run numbers exceed about 1,500 copies.
  • However, digital printing has several advantages over offset printing. It allows independent authors or small publishers to print very small numbers of books at a time, allowing authors to manage cash flow and reduce risk. Printorium Bookworks will print as few as twelve copies of a book. (Shemilt noted that very few self-published books sell more than a thousand copies.) Moreover, Shemilt’s company can get proofs to an author only 2-3 days after receiving a print-ready file. One hundred books can be printed in five days. By contrast, offset printing takes six weeks to three months.
  • Digital printing produces a very high-quality book. Printorium Bookworks uses paper according to publishers’ requirements, typically 60 lb or 70 lb recycled paper. They print with carbon black toner, which prints a pure black colour as opposed to the blue-black or brown-black choices of offset printing.

Should you produce an e-book version of your book?

Shemilt mentioned that many people (himself included) still love books as physical objects to look at and be comfortable reading. However, he recommends making your book available in both printed and e-book formats. The e-book market is growing rapidly. In the summer of 2013, e-books represented 26% of book sales; some experts think that number will rise to 50% by the summer of 2014.

Files need to be converted to ePub, Smashwords and PDF formats for e-book publication. Many people learn to do the formatting themselves, but Shemilt recommends hiring a designer who’s an expert in this. They will charge roughly $200 to do the conversion and will save you weeks of time.

Marketing

Island Blue book mark

Craig Shemilt says bookmarks (rather than business cards) are a writer’s best marketing tool.

Most writers who self-publish are aware that writing is only the first step of the process. Shemilt went over the subject of marketing very quickly, but made these main points:

Google to find out more about your competition and the markets they’ve found. What is your book related to? Use your research to know how to target your potential readers.

Lots of places besides bookstores sell books these days. Market your book to a wide range of stores, depending on your topic or niche.

Readings don’t have to take place only at bookstores or writing festivals. Legions and weekend markets are two other places Shemilt suggested. He emphasized that you should select the sections you read carefully to keep your audience in suspense and make them want to buy your book!

Social media is a mandatory part of marketing these days: Use LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Create a website or a blog for your book.

Bookmarks are a writer’s best marketing tool! Give them out like business cards—people use them.

Resources

Visit the Printorium website at www.printoriumbookworks.com . It tells you everything you need to know about printing; you can even download a copy of the Printorium Printing Guidebook.