Wednesday waffles

The world on Wednesday is "business as usual" -- meaning, orderly chaos. Since I'm still blogging in the vacuum, I'll restrict myself to an update, and let you get back to your life!

If you've been following the CreateSpace situation in the last couple of days, you'll be interested to know that we are STILL WAITING for any intelligent response from Customer Service. At this point, we've been waiting for six days, with a jammed, gridlocked shopping cart and no ability to publish a new project -- with Christmas looming just weeks away, and the whole CreateSpace-Amazon "process" taking a month!

For the backstory on this:
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/hiccups-in-create-space-process.html
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/tuesday-morning-blues.html

As Queen Victoria was heard to say on more than one occasion, "We are not amused."

We'll keep you posted.

And speaking of being posted: it just hit us (like the proverbial load of bricks) why the USPS parcel rates have shot up ... the carbon tax applied to airlines. When you ship a person (say, 60kg) from the US or UK to Aus or NZ (say, 10,000km), the tax converts to around A$275. That's A$6.25 per kilo of weight, per one-way trip. Parcels make one-way trips. And this is pretty much EXACTLY what the USPS price rise measured.

Duh.

Okay: grin and bear it -- it's for the planet. So -- so long as the megabucks raised by the carbon tax are spent on planting trees, restoring river systems, cleaning up waterways, enforcing "carbon reinjection" in the oil and coal-to-liquid industries ... fair enough. Get a Mel Keegan novel shipped to Australia, and you probably paid to plant a couple of trees. And that's cool. Puts the additional cost in a different, more acceptable light.

(The other possibility is that the carbon tax funds will be used to prop up corrupt governments and mega corporations which are too rich to begin with. This is not so cool, but only time will tell which way this particular barrow-load of manure is going to hit the ventilators.)

In other news, AUSTRALIA opened overnight ... and the critics are just short of getting out the pistols and taking pot-shots at each other: they're so widely divided, the movie is either phenomenal or rubbish, depending on who you listen to.

I'll have to wait till I see it. It opens here momentarily; the critics' preview was last week, and Aussie critics were just as divided as the Americans. Here's the best roundup of the US critical voice:
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,26278,24709251-5013560,00.html

By the sounds of it -- and being cautious and charitable -- AUSTRALIA looks like it's been fractionally overcooked, with some CGI effects here and there that don't quite work, and if you don't like Nicole Kidman, you're going to find 165 minutes of her tough to endure. To balance all that out, Hugh Jackman is verrrrry nice eye candy, and from what I've seen of the trailers, there's a lot more CGI stuff that does work than doesn't ... and the scenery, panoramic and color saturated as it is, will be advantaged by the big screen.

I'll hold my tongue on the subject till I've seen it.


Last note for today: We're putting the finishing touches to the 2009 Mel Keegan Calendar, which will be produced be Lulu.com -- NOT Zazzle, because Zazzle.com is way too expensive on calendars. I'll be posting again with a "show and tell" about this project, which should be available for Christmas ... Lulu being a helluva lot faster than either CreateSpace (who don't do calendars anyway) and Zazzle.

Ciao for now,
MK

Independent publishing: USPS rates will hurt foreign sales

This time last year, you could ship a book -- say, a copy of The Swordsman, or Fortunes of War, or The Deceivers -- from an American POD printer (namely, Lulu.com) to a client in Australia or New Zealand for US$8.50. And also, this time last year, the exchange rate was US$1 = .93c, or thereabouts. Costs were close to one-to-one, and shipping was affordable.

Recently, however, this has changed, and it's all down to rising oil prices and crashing markets!

Aussie and Kiwi readers: have you bought a book from Amazon.com lately? Have you noticed that it costs about US$15 to ship virtually anything? Have you run the conversion to get this into local currency?! That's about A$21 to ship a skinny little paperback. Ouch.

When you're an indie publisher concentrating on the Internet as your marketplace, you're extremely sensitive to changes in postage rates -- and horrifically vulnerable in this area. Your e-store is the place you do business, an all the "hard goods" shipping out of that store are going to be carried by USPS, Royal Mail, Australia Post and so forth.

So, when postage rates rise, the impact on your prices is a hefty wallop. And when postage rates rise enormously -- as they have in the last year -- all you can do is whimper quietly and lick your wounds in private.

With THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE coming out next week, we're looking at ways to get copies into the hands of Australian readers at a decent price, and it's not possible. The book will be US$22.50 ... it's a big book. The font is NOT large, you're NOT paying for white space. There's no way to compress the book into less pages. You're stuck with a big book -- which is fine and dandy ... until you come to ship it.

Earlier in 2008, Lulu.com offered several different options for international shipping. They now offer two. US$14.91 is their "economy" rate for shipping to Australia (!), and it's a few dollars more for their priority rate.

We went to the USPS website and looked at prices ... and y'now what? Postage, packaging, and about a dollar for "handling," and -- yep, that's what it costs. The kneejerk was to say that Lulu is getting into the old "postage ripoff" game, which is way too popular with any number of eBay shippers. However, for US/Canada readers, they're not. BUT --

Dont blame Lance Armstrong: he no longer rides for USPS. His parcel-delivering days are long behind him. Which is probably a good thing. Delivering big parcels on a racing bike must have been hell.


Here's the rub: Lulu.com signed with a digital printshop in Victoria, Australia (not Canada), and books ordered in Aus and NZ are printed down here ...

And the whole thing gets nasty when you realize they're hitting you up for international shipping, at US$14.91 = around A$20, on a book that's going to be shipped out of MELBOURNE.
If you happen to reside inside the state of Victoria, as a helluva lot of people do, the 750g package should go, intrastate, for something like A$10 -- including the padded bag and the buck for someone to pack it and do a post office run! We went to AustraliaPost.com and checked.

We're contacting Lulu.com about this, but we've talked to them before about it, and no one had an answer, months ago. That time, the discrepancy cost us something like A$75 on a bulk shipment! You just grind your teeth and pay. The argument at the time was that we had been caught in the transition between shipping ex-USA and shipping out of a digital printshop in Australia. Uh huh. Well, the system is well worn-in now; there's no transition to get caught in. American postage rates have shot up -- and there is no excuse we can think of for billing Australian customers for a round-the-world service they don't get.

If or when we get an answer about this, you'll read it on this blog!

Till then, I seriously advise Aussie and Kiwi readers against ordering from Lulu.com -- because you're paying for postage you're not getting.

Your alternatives -- and this is especially important as THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE is published -- are:

* ebooks, which will set you back only US$10 ... no delivery fee and instant gratification. You can be reading the book five minutes after shunting some dollars over from your PayPal account. (You can also use any credit card.)
* Amazon.com, where the price is actually the same ... but at least they'll ship it around the world for you, so you get what you pay for -- and also, you get the US-printing quality, which is higher than the quality of the product issuing from the Australian digital printshop. (The Aussie printer uses paper which is too light, and the strikethrough is very noticeable. Strikethrough is where you can see materials printed on the other side of the paper. Thicker paper minimizes this, but the Aussie printshop doesn't use it. One wonders why.)

One thing we do NOT recommend for Aussie and Kiwi readers is that they shop at the CreateSpace e-store -- because CreateSpace's idea of overseas postage is (!) US$26 for economy, and US$40 for regular!! In fact, their 'economy' is the USPS Priority service, and $40 is something like FedEx. Sure, you'll get your book faster (ten days on average), but it'll be costing you US$48.50 = A$75, which is utterly absurd.

Once again, we'll be contacting CreateSpace about this -- making them aware of the fact that they're locking out foreign sales -- but what can be done about it, who knows? It all depends if CreateSpace is willing to negotiate. If Aussie and Kiwi sales represent about .05% of their overall trade, they probably don't give the proverbial stuff.

Once again, when we learn something (if we ever do), I'll report on it here.


The classic Aussie postman -- "postie" on his postie bike. Don't blame the postman for the price of postage. It might have something to do with George W. ...


In the meantime ... Aussie and New Zealand readers, I really do suggest you look at ebooks as an alternative. You'll be able to order THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE on paper from Amazon.com in January (the process takes too long for it to be available for Christmas, sorry; we only found out about this relatively recently, with too little time for us to do anything about it). But you need to be aware of what ordering via Amazon, from downunder, will cost. $22.50 for the book ... $15 postage. US$37.50 is going to convert out to something like A$57.50 -- and again, this is utterly absurd.

The ebook will be US$10, which is about A$13.50.

What's to be done about all of the above? I have no idea. Barack Obama probably has no idea. Having Superdude deliver the mail would be an option, but he might not go for it...


The price of foreign postage is directly related to the cost of jet fuel, and the price of oil ... and you also have the carbon taxes that are being slapped on, in the interests of the environment. Things are going to get expensive -- it's already happening. Luxury goods and imported goods are going to slither out of the reach of most people -- this also is happening.

A little while ago I blogged about how the global financial meltdown is affecting sales not only for me but for everyone, everywhere:
http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/pod-publishing-online-sales-and-2009.html

...and what's happening with shipping costs certainly plays a major role in this picture.

If Nostrakeeganus were to make a prediction as per where we'll be in 2010, I'd say -- reading ebooks. There's a ten billion dollar fortune in it, for some Chinese entrepreneur who can come out with the equivalent of a Pocket PC for A$250, something that reads ebooks just fine, and where you only have to buy the gizmo one time. I'd buy one ... and don't get me wrong, I love real books. I love hardcovers. But I can afford to buy maybe two or three in a year, and the rest are going to wind up being an assortment of electrons, pixels and push-buttons.

If anyone were asking me, I'd say it's unavoidable, and my serious, sober recommendation to Australian and New Zealand readers is to embrace the technology ... learn to like it. Get an ebook reader -- always supposing our hypothetical Chinese entrepreneur can come up with something for a nice, comfy price we can afford. At A$250, I'd buy one today, and promptly stock up on all the reading I've skipped for the last few years because books, in this country, are so expensive, it's foolish.

Sorry to be the bearer of ill tidings this morning. I'll be back with something humorous tomorrow!

Cheers,
MK

The Postman knocked three times

A very quick second post for today (and it'll have to be quick, because we just got home from "doing lunch" for my birthday, and I, uh, need to take a nap. [grin; ain't days off grand?]

Parcel Post delivered while we at lunch: the proof copy of the CreateSpace issue of NOCTURNE is here and ... gorgeous. The quality is tip-top in every way, and because this issue is printed in the US, where they have access to the "right" paper stocks, the book is also as big as you'd expect a 450pp trade size paperback to be.

(The Australian issue, via Lulu.com's Aussie digital partner, is printed on much lighter paper, which not only makes for significant strikethough*, it also makes for a very noticeably thinner book. Which also means it's lighter to mail, of course -- and when you remember that Australia Post charges by the 500g (more than a pound), every ounce (27g) you can save is an extremely Good Thing.)

* Strikethrough is the unfortunate tendency of what's printed on the reverse side of the page to be visible on "this" side. The thicker, or darker, the paper is the less strikethrough you get. The lighter papers can be aggravatingly transparent.

Today or tomorrow, we'll give NOCTURNE the "nudge" at CreateSpace, opening it for sale both there and at Amazon.com ... which means, in 15 days you'll be seeing it at Amazon.

Nice one.

And now for that post-luncheon birthday nap...

POD publishing, Amazon, and gay books

A few days ago I mentioned some "breaking news" about Amazon.com ... specifically, about Keegan going to Amazon in 2009. Several people have been asking, "What's the deal with that?" So I'll tell what I know here, today -- and leave the bottom line open, because Amazon is a whole new learning process, and we're still working on it.

For writers who are marketing their own books, Amazon.com is a field of opportunity: the chance to get exposure in front of a marketplace 1000 times larger than any readership you could ever hope to drive to your own website, even if you end up buying traffic (which is a proposition with limited intelligence -- but advertising makes the world turn, so what the hey).

However, until fairly recently, exposure on Amazon came at a price many writers were either unwilling or unable to pay. Set-up costs with companies like Lightning Source (http://www.lightningsource.com/) , Booklocker (http://www.booklocker.com/) and Booksurge (http://www.booksurge.com/) were heavy enough to be a major pain, even if you only had one book to publish...

But with 20 books on your list, you're up to something like a $30,000 outlay for the setup costs, before you've printed or sold a copy!

Established writers (like Keegan) who would like to pick up their own reprints, using Amazon as the future marketplace for books that have been already been professionally printed and distributed, might not be able to invest so much. Contrary to popular misconception, working writers do NOT get well paid, do NOT sell hundreds of thousands of copies, and frequently shore-up their budgets with part-time work. (Shall I pay the mortgage this month, or pay the set-up costs for a book that was professionally published 10 years ago? Gee, let me think...)

If you're interested, here's a direct quote from Writer's Weekly:

Booklocker.com: $492
Deduct $175 if submitting your own cover. No hidden fees. Includes everything. Books are usually on the market in less than a month. No extra charge for graphics. 35% royalties based on list price for public sales; 15% royalties based on list price on wholesale/bookstore orders. Added Bonus: Returning authors are only charged $99 setup fees on their second and subsequent books.

iUniverse: $699.00 (includes 5 "free" copies)
Warning: They own your files after creation and you have to pay $300-$1500 to get them back if you leave their service! They charge extra for photos/graphics (included above) and never allow more than 50 graphics/photos in a book. No expedite service. Turnaround is 3-4 months. NOTE: IUNIVERSE IS NOW OWNED BY AUTHORHOUSE. SEE THAT COMPANY LISTED BELOW.

Lulu: $838.00 (Deduct $450 if submitting your own cover. Lulu now charges directly for many services they previously farmed out to other companies.) [KEEGAN'S NOTE: setup is actually FREE; Lulu charges for services only if, and when, a writer takes them up on the offer. If you fly solo, setup at Lulu costs nothing ... which is why they're so popular.]

Xlibris: $1323 - (includes 5 "free" copies)
Does NOT offer ebooks! Charges expedite fee of $349 (included above) for publication in 2 months instead of 4-6 months. Charges $10 per image; $20 per table.

AuthorHouse: $1467
Charges extra for photos/graphics ($10 per image after first 10 - included in cost above). Expedite fee ($500) is for publication in 30 days instead of 6 months - included above. Claims ownership of files you pay them to create.

Trafford: $1852
IMPORTANT - Does **not** include full distribution! Choose the $2297 package if you want that. NOTE: This company is based in Canada.

***Prices based on least expensive package offered by each publisher on similar offers targeting U.S. authors. Fees include setup, original cover design, print proof, ebook creation, up to 25 interior photos/graphics, an ISBN, barcode, a listing on the publisher's website and distribution by Ingram, all within 6 weeks.

NOTE: Many companies offer perks that others don't, some try to upsell authors on extraneous services, and a few even claim ownership of files the author has paid them to create! Study each publisher and contract carefully before making your choice

[Source: http://www.writersweekly.com/ ... go there for full details; it's quite a horror story, if you're an established writer with a long backlist.]

For writers in CNAs (Counties Not America), the situation is worse, because most short-run printshops, like the above, won't even deal with non-US writers. The reason is obvious: shipping costs and times. Short-run printers are already expensive on a per-copy basis; add postage, and the per-copy price goes haywire ... then, add months for economy-rate delivery times around the world! Some US-based short-run printers won't even deal with Canadian writers.

Companies like Lulu.com came along a few years ago, letting us kinda sneak in through the back door ... at a price. Lulu isn't really expensive, when you consider the job they do (they earn every penny), but their manufacture prices are high enough that if one were to put the Lulu product on Amazon, the list price would be shocking. For a Keegan book, you'd be looking at something like US$43 + shipping, which would put tiny amounts into my bank account ... not worth the work involved, always supposing you would sell any books at that price, which I seriously doubt.

(The reason is, Amazon is stockist, distributor and marketing agent; therefore, their cut is a whopping 55% of the list price. Copies printed elsewhere also have to be shipped to them, so you're paying USPS, as well as the Lulu.com's manufacture price. Ouch.)

Now, back in March 2008, Amazon dumped the cat among the pigeons, big time, with the calm announcement that ALL books sold on, or through, Amazon.com, would be printed by BookSurge, or their "buy" buttons would vanish off their pages. True enough, books' buttons vanished overnight. There was hell to pay:

http://writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/004597_03272008.html

Turns out, Amazon purchased BookSurge in 2005 and were trying to monopolize the POD marketplace through a cushy kind of payola: every indie published would use their short-run printer, BookSurge, or be kicked out of the marketplace. You could hear the screams for miles.

The trouble was, BookSurge was one of those with a hefty set-up fee. I recall looking at my backlist and thinking, "Hmm, to get this lot onto Amazon, I'll be out of pocket $26,000 before I sell a copy. Well, we just won't go there."

There was a lot of yelling and screaming in Groovetown, and the practical upshot of all this was, Amazon quickly added another business to its Group of Companies. They bought a Lulu clone. Seriously. They added CreateSpace to their group:

https://www.createspace.com/

Smart stuff. CreateSpace offers FREE setup, DIY upload, and (get this) better prices than Lulu by a yard and a half. In fact, their prices are so much better than Lulu, the price difference covers most of the stiff Amazon share ... and because CreateSpace is a POD workshop, they don't have to ship copies to the Amazon warehouse ... they track orders and ship direct. So you're not paying USPS either.

The only downsides to CreateSpace is that they charge a one-off US$39 as a kind of "pro registration fee" per book, to make that book eligible for the low manufacture cost. So, a writer with a large backlist will be out some small amount for the whole collection; and (to this point) they don't seem to have digital partners around the world, so that if an Aussie or Kiwi were to buy a book direct from the CreateSpace e-store, the price would be shocking. Fortunately, we can leave the Lulu store in place and direct Downunder customers there, so it shouldn't be a problem ... just some extra work on webpages.

Net result? Mel Keegan is going to Amazon in 2009, and the books will be the same price they have always been via Lulu.com. And you gotta like that.

In fact, the transfer is already being made. We've put the CreateSpace process to the test, and it's virtually the same as Lulu. The only thing you have to do to the old Lulu files (all PDFs) is give the cover layouts a nip, tuck, push and shove.

The good thing is, DreamCraft habitually saves every little thing, so the original covers for the first book which went to Lulu, 10 months ago (THE SWORDSMAN) were simply opened and adjusted.

Incidentally, if you're wondering how the hell to do this, and lusting after the software to make it work, and thinking it costs a fortune -- get into Serif. The whole thing is done with Serif Page Plus 10, a $40 download ... which comes highly recommended by DreamCraft -- I might as well run the commercial, while I'm here (yes, it's an affiliate link. You could do worse than order your Serif via this link since you got the red-hot tip here!) ...

Serif plays a major part in all the artwork appearing on this site, and wrapped around the Mel Keegan books. DreamCraft and Jade have sworn by Serif for over a decade. This software is used to set type for the books and ebooks, as well as designing covers, webpages, and a lot more:


Heavy on my mind while we were going through the process was, "is CreateSpace gay-friendly, or not?" Now, we knew Amazon is gay-friendly, because their marketplace carries loads of gay books. But where were they printed, by whom, and how?

At this stage, it looks like the process is going to be smooth. We're waiting for delivery of the pilot (proof) copy of THE SWORDSMAN, but it should be good quality; for godsakes, it was made by Amazon's POD partner. And not a syllable has been said about the book being gay; indeed, "gay" is one of Amazon's categories (a selection you have to fill out when getting the book into their system -- the Amazon Advantage system. Find the link on the foot of their pages).

So, cross your fingers here: THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE could easily by making its debut on Amazon.com.

In fact, to these ends, we've actually kicked back the release date of the book to Thanksgiving, to allow for the transition.

If you're a POD publisher or a writer with a decent backlist, a door might just have creaked open for you, as it has for Keegan. Check back on this blog occasionally, because I'll be writing about the process as we go. (You can also do an RSS feed thingamajiggy).

And now -- back to work!

Cheers,
MK

Merrie Solstice!

As the title says, Merrie Solstice to all. As I was saying a few days ago, it's Christmas dinner tonight, pork and applesauce, the works. It's midwinter, cold and dark (or at least as cold and dark as it ever gets in Australia; all things are relative), and 'Chrissy' in winter sounds like a good idea to me.

Seems to have been a good idea to many other people, loooong in the past. Every culture appears to have a 'magickal childe' who was born at, or near, the solstice of winter (which was a great reason for having a party) -- among them, Horus, and Mithras, and the pagan archetype whose name is lost in the mists of antiquity. Little wonder that when the church began to ovehaul the ancient world in its own image, they set the birthday of their particular messiah at midwinter: most cultures were already accustomed to partying to mark a special date.

(Interestingly, they seem to have fudged the actual date to make it fit ... there were flocks in the fields in Palestine on The Big Night, if you recall. Turns out, after September it was too cold to have your flocks out by night, with or without shepherds to watch them. So it's a safe bet Christmas Eve should actually be September 24, and kids should be ripping the wrappings on the 25th. Which is a lot more information than you needed, I suspect. Intresting, though. Curious, the things you learn when researching for a new book. Much will be revealed in the haunted house novel I'm working up right now.)

A few items of news on the website front:

The ebooks are all transferred to Payloadz now, and Payloadz.com be doing the file management. Payloadz is one of those providers who hit you up for the $5 or whatever, then prepare the download page for you. The page stays viable for something like 48 hours, I believe. If you have any problems with the new system, let DreamCraft know , and if all else fails, leave a message on the blog here. Payloadz has been massively recommended to us, but this *is* the first time we've taken it for a spin. We're hoping to avoid teething troubles, but if it does happen, we'll catch it.

The Vampyre novels (NOCTURNE and TWILIGHT) are back in the pipeline. Proof copies are on their was from Lulu.com and should be here by the end of the week ... the big news there is not that we finally fixed the font 'issues,' but that Lulu now has an Australian printshop partner. They're using a Melbourne digital printshop, and the work is very good. I'd give the local product about 95%, if the American print product is 100%, and the differences are, really, trivial. The paper stock is the same off-white color as used in the US shop, but it's lighter (80gsm rather than 90), and the cover stock is slightly different. Colors are just as vivid, but it's a tiny fraction lighter. However, this might be a Very Good Thing, becuse of the way Australian postage rates are calculated.

Is it still the same in the US -- postage is calculated incrementally in 'brackets' of just an ounce, or a few ounces? Down here, Australia Post uses brackets of 500g (more than a pound), and it's so easy for a book to tip over into the next bracket which means, literally, you're paying for a kilo's worth of postage while you actually weigh 503g. Not good news, esp. with postage rates rising all the time. I have an intuition the Aussie digital print shop which has partnered up with Lulu.com only in the last few weeks, is using lighter stock to stay on the lean side of the Australia Post schedules. In which case, 'go team, go.'

Many thanks to all who have supported this effort via Lulu.com's online boostore and our own bookstore on Mel Keegan OnLine ... the new website is still a week or so away from making its debut, and book sales are rising. We're extremely optimistic.

The members' zone has been fully redesigned and recut ... and it's moving. You'll need to 'sign up' afresh -- but the new system is 100% automatic. Click a link, and an autoresponder pings you back an email with a URL to bookmark. Takes seconds. Nothing to remember, no passwords to lose. The new system works much better than the old. The words 'instant gratification' trip off the tongue.

A few things remain to be done before the site goes up, but we're actually ahead of the job, for the first time in living memory. Looking good.

Merrie Yuletide to Aussies, Kiwis and our visitors from South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia ... Happy Summer Solstice to all from 'up over' in the north!

Cheers for now,
MK