Self-Publishing Snapshot

25 Jan ’12 By 8 Comments

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I took a snapshot of this graphic by Alan Grundy while perusing Delta’s inflight magazine over the weekend. You know, during that time where they make you turn off all your electronic devices for take off and landing.

iPad off. Delta magazine open. Ironic that I was reading an ebook.

Let’s address a few of it’s points today.

Aside from the personal investment of time, MS Word, and Adobe InDesign, my hard costs have been paying for a good editor ($400 per title, á la Sue Kenney), and CreateSpace’s Premium service (as opposed to their regular free service, which nets better royalties) at around $39 per title. Granted, this is for physical copies (CreateSpace), not ebooks. Spearhead absorbed my cover design costs by my team, but that would have been another $400 roughly (had I not done it myself) and hired it out. But again, that’s for a full print cover, not the smaller single page needed for ebooks; average cost for a good design is now under $150. And finally a conversion service (unless you want to deal with the headaches of doing it yourself). I’m using streetlightgraphics.com (who also do covers) for under $80/title for a package of Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords formats.

So I’m well under half the cost of the statistical average.

From all my study I have to say the price points listed above are not only correct, but where a self-published author (of any breed) should list. Remember, ebooks are forever, and that’s a very long time to sell on a global market. We’re trading price point for sheer volume to a world that will soon have a billion e-readers in their hands (Amazon’s Kindle is about to hit India).

As for the number of authors hitting the NYTBS list? Let me just say, who cares! The industry model has changed. The selling power of a legacy published book is usually 6 months with its peak lasting for less than 2. Recently I spoke with a friend who had his book hit #1. It lasted for a few weeks. Then it was gone. How many royalty checks did it earn? Yes, a nice big one. And then what? Nothing. The publisher has kept the rights, and it’s overpriced as an ebook, selling only a few copies a month (of which he sees next to nothing).

Much like Dave Ramsey’s “status symbol of choice” being the paid off mortgage, authors are finding keeping their world-wide rights at 70% forever is the highest status symbol they can get. Already my CreateSpace sales of The White Lion Chronicles are earning an extra $75/week for my family; I’m expecting the ebook sales, due out next month, to exceed that.

When my most recent royalty check came in from my legacy publisher my dad happened to be with me. It was a $700 check. He was really happy for me. Then I told him what it would have been had I sold the same number of books through CreateSpace or Kindle Direct Publishing (numbers I’ve sold on your at my own merch table).

$6,500.

And the crazy part is, it wasn’t name recognition that sold those numbers with my publisher. It was me and my hard work (et all, Wayne). I should know. They had no budget for 4th quarter marketing and made me submit a list of what I was going to do. (Actually they only ever had $500 for first quarter marketing).

Time to feed my family, not a pig. Of course, I’m about to eat the pig anyways. ch:

Filed Under: business, culture, geek, marketing, Spearhead Books, writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Life-Themes and Leadership Tips

22 Jan ’12 By 3 Comments

While it seems the subjects of “age” and “getting older” are the brunt of many jokes, we would be remiss if we didn’t reflect on the fact that God invented the process. As such, there are some incredible benefits.

One of which is seeing life-themes emerge.

Although Jennifer and I have certainly had some highlights leading worship for thousands of people, that’s not the context God places us in most often. Rather, it’s is ministering to rural churches that are on the verge of “epoch” change.

A life-theme emerges: encouraging people that the idea that God likes to do big things in seemingly small places.

It’s a joy to fly home from a trip utterly spent. And my time here at Hope Community Church in Marlette, MI will be no exception. This place is in the midst of transforming their town for Jesus, and further, their county. In one year they’ve already moved from one building to a bigger building, and are transitioning to two services in less than a month.

Two tips to seeing a local church have a massive impact through word of mouth:

1.) Love your community. Every person on a church’s leadership team must be sold-out, head-over-heels in love with their region. If they’re not, they need to get the Father’s heart, step out of leadership, or move. People in a region can smell hirelings that are not 100% committed to a locale, and as a result the church will never grow. As my Senior Pastor once asked me, “Are your feet planted?”

2.) Love whoever God sends you, and whoever God sends you to. I just heard a story last night where a church leader did a mailing but told his secretary not to include the addresses of a trailer park. That is so anti-Christ it made me sick to my stomach. Yet we all have a little if that in us and it needs to be confronted. Loving the unlovely will spark revival every time: it’s what Jesus did for each of us.

Hope Community’s people clearly love their community and are walking testimonies of Jesus’ tangible love. I’m thrilled to be here for their one year anniversary weekend. My sincere congratulations to Pastors Paul & Erin Rohling. I’m behind you 100%.

So if you’re ever in Michigan’s thumb, you’ll be blessed to visit a powerful church touching God’s heart. ch:

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Filed Under: #heavenmeetsearth, culture, leadership, marketing, travel, worship Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

New Life Media: Staff Training Week

10 Jan ’12 By 9 Comments

One of my latest co-creations is coming to life today. I do wish I could enjoy it a little more – 15-hour work days for a week straight leaves the sensory capacitors a little numb – but I’m thrilled regardless.

New Life Media is a marketing firm specializing in public image design, and is the brain child of master designer Jason Clement, business guru Kirk Gilchrist, marketing sensation John Cobb, and myself – master guru of sensational something or otherness.

While the company’s website won’t be public for another week or so, we have employee orientation and training all this week. We’ll be unwrapping new iPads, playing with toys, trying on apparel, talking tech and design, smelling new business cards, and diving into our sales strategies and delivery models.

As with any new for-profit venture, I get fired up about having the ability to employ people (something I’ve learned I can do much better than the government, thank you very much). One of my greatest joys in life is to help provide income earning positions that fit with peoples’ dreams. It’s truly a privilege, and I’ve fallen into it by sovereignty, not on purpose.

Many good things await New Life Media. And many organizations will be better for her existence. Here’s to another Kingdom business birthed for God’s glory. ch:

UPDATE 5:54pm ET – What a fantastic first day for all involved. I’ll be posting pics tomorrow. Lots of laughs, and lots of good content. Very proud of our new staff. Thank you Travis, Kristen, Nina, Rebekah, Candy, Theresa, John, Kirk, Jason, and Jamie for doing our office build out! Peace.

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Read for FREE at Spearhead Books

23 Dec ’11 By 2 Comments

One of the reasons I love Spearhead Books so much is because I can do things as an author that a legacy publisher would never allow me to do.

Like let people read my entire book for free whenever they want online:

Rise of the Dibor

The Lion Vrie

Athera’s Dawn

To those of you who’ve been wanting to try my books out, go ahead. They’re all yours. (And please make sure to “like” our Facebook page here!).

And to those of you with a more critical take on this, begging for an explanation, let me break it down.

Contrary to popular belief, people don’t like to steal. In fact, as a race, we tend to have a very hard time accepting anything for free. We tend to want to reply with a gift of our own. A thank you of sorts.

The mere fact that something is offered for free does two things:

1.) It fuels the spread of content socially.

2.) It increases revenue.

The first point is easy to understand. But how does the second work? By giving readers the opportunity to give back.

In my free PDFs of The White Lion Chronicles (which can only be read online at SpeatrheadBooks.com), there are 3 ads all giving readers multiple levels of financial action that help me keep writing books.

And people tend to click on them.

Starting around Thanksgiving, I started posting a chapter a day of Athera’s Dawn (Book 3) right here on my site. A lot of people were shocked. How can you do that? The real question is how can I not? Statically, people read the first five chapters and then opt to purchase the print edition (*based on page visits and click throughs). I expect the number of sales to increase significantly once the e-book versions are made available as the price points are substantially lower (as they should be).

So read up! And don’t forget to help me keep feeding my kids. ch:

Filed Under: books, marketing, news, Spearhead Books, writing Tagged With: , , ,

Rewards Hang Above

18 Nov ’11 By 6 Comments

For dreamers, graphic designers, and visionaries, it’s not too often you can quantify something you produce.

It’s the “feel” or “emotional response” a project stirs in people – not a physical building that you’ve built, corn field you planted, or cabinet you crafted.

But when things go into print, something happens. Holding a book in your hand, feeling the card stock between your fingers, or – in this case – seeing the billboard looking down on 110,000 cars per day, that’s pretty rewarding.

Thanks to my team mate, Jason Clement, for rocking this sign. ch:

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Filed Under: business, culture, marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

What’s Your Rewards Program?

14 Nov ’11 By 10 Comments

I got a benefits card from Starbucks in the mail today. I’m now a Gold Card carrier. Nice envelope, nice packaging, and nice things to say about me. (Though automated).

Here’s the crazy part: Starbucks isn’t even close to being my favorite coffee.

Part of the reason I got this status – based on how many times a customer orders – is that a church I ministered at gave me a loaded Starbucks card as a gift. Free coffee. Score. (Thanks Mocha Dragon).

But there was also this idea floating around in the back of my mind that if I order enough, I get benefits for my patronage.

Never underestimate the power of providing benefits. Such a program can attract people to be patrons even if you don’t provide their favorite product. There’s power not only in the type of benefits you provide, but also in the sense of community that you create. Because people want to belong.

The interesting thing is that Starbucks didn’t create the idea of a rewards program. And while some church goers would consider it blaspheme if their church had a benefits program, the simple fact is, God started it.

Psalm 103:2 says, “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” And Hebrews 11:6 adds to it by saying, “…And He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”

God has a rewards program with benefits.

Sounds way too capitalistic for those occupying Wall Street at the moment. But the truth is, while salvation is offered freely, favor is costly. It demands loyalty, patronage, and consistency.

There are even particular rewards and benefits disseminated in direct proportion to our level of patronage. And while the idealist would say, “You should seek God simply because He’s God” – and I would agree – there is the reality that people are human, and sometimes we don’t see the goal, only the benefits. And if that’s what it takes to drive certain people forward, I’m all for it. Because eventually they’ll get the point. Or they’ll run into the Rewarder.

Unless, of course, you offer a terrible product. In which case I may stop using my Gold Card when the free money runs out. ch:

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF:

Q: What rewards do your friends get from knowing you? Do certain friends get different benefits? Based on what?

Q: What retailer or business do you frequent because they have a great reward program? Are you willing to pay more, or put up with something you don’t like, because of their program?

 

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