Self-published authors, who like me, have the misfortune to reside outside the US know all too well of the handicaps and barriers that they have to accept, or break down along the route to getting their books self-published and promoted.

There are issues such as extremely high shipping costs, and excessively long delivery times for POD books and higher minimum royalty payments that are only payable by check to non-US accounts, and not electronically as they are for US accounts.

Even when they overcome issues such as these, further hurdles and worse, firmly closed doors await them along the way in trying to broaden their markets and promote their books. Yes, self-publishing an ebook on Kindle KDP might be easy and available to almost everyone, but after that things can get a little more difficult. Only for Americans is it a walk in the park.

I recall how shocked I was when I discovered that Barnes & Noble’s Nook Press was only for Americans, which has since been relaxed just a little now to include a very small handful of other countries. What? As a major competitor to Amazon Kindle, it was a nasty surprise to find out that I was geographically excluded. Okay, the workaround was to publish with Smashwords, who then aggregate to B&N, but it was clear that B&N did not think that authors in the rest of the world were really worth bothering with. B&N is clearly only for Americans, and stuff the rest.

Amazon’s Createspace treats international authors with disdain.

Then there is Createspace, an Amazon company, but it never feels like it to me. In my case, I am still paid by check, (on three different currency based markets, £, $ and Euro) and have a ten times higher minimum royalty payment threshold than if lived in the US, (on all three markets) and the postage and shipping charges on my POD orders are so staggeringly high that is cheaper to order my own books retail from Amazon US.

Note: Createspace, at long last, after only 12 years of waiting, now pays me by EFT.

The example below shows my cost price of $3.89 from Createspace, but when the book is shipped the total cost is $18.27 per copy if I want it delivered in a week. If I am prepared to wait 2 months (yes, 2 months!) for delivery, the per delivered book price is still close to $9.00. My book is listed on Amazon for $13.95, and normally with free delivery! Can you believe that it is cheaper and quicker for me to buy my own books retail from Amazon than from my own POD supplier, who happens to be Amazon?

Yet if you use Createspace in the US, shipping costs are negligible, so this is not an issue at all. But cheap, it seems, is only for Americans.

However, and get this, my POD books are NOT produced in the US, but in Europe. So in fact, they are produced closer to me than they would be if they were produced in Seattle and posted to Denver! Unfair? Most certainly. Okay, my example is for one copy, but believe me, it doesn’t get much better for volume orders. Shipping 100 copies only reduces the per unit shipping cost by about 45%, which is still way in excess of the wholesale book price.

$14.38 to ship a $3.89 book? If you are a non-US self-publisher, you can forget all about using POD.

The Amazon no-go zones.

Onto less illogical matters. A couple of years ago I tried to use Kindle Publishing for Blogs as a means of book promotion, only to find out after completing my registration, that the service was available only for Americans. Okay, so US authors could promote themselves through publishing their blogs on Kindle, but again, bad luck if you weren’t American.

In the long years since I self-published my first book, I have hit so many doors that are closed to non-US authors and self-publishers. Book promotion sites, self-publishing platforms plus a few US based book bloggers and book tour services, who without shame, forthrightly said that they are not interested in anything but US titles and authors, all add up to making it very difficult to compete. The rest of the world counts for so little? Were William Shakespeare, George Orwell, Jane Austen and Douglas Adams all American?

Then there is the IRS.

All this is, of course, is on top of the hoops that non-US authors have to go through to get an IRS TIN or EIN number to avoid getting hit by 30% of their earnings being lost to US withholding tax. Yet even when a non-US author gets an EIN or TIN and is officially recognised by the US IRS, it does not necessarily mean that life gets easier. Ok, the IRS recognises that you can now legally do business in the USA, but that doesn’t mean that Amazon does. As I discovered to my chagrin yet again very recently.

Yet even when a non-US author gets an EIN or TIN and is officially recognised by the US IRS, it does not necessarily mean that life gets easier. Okay, the IRS recognises that you can now legally do business in the USA, but that doesn’t mean that Amazon does. As I discovered to my chagrin yet again very recently.

Kindle’s latest innovation, Kindle Scout, (1) looked like a great opportunity to me, so I went to Amazon’s Kindle Scout web page, which asked me to log in with my Amazon KDP account. Great, I’m in. Then I read all about how I could submit a book under the program.

But, after navigating through pages of links to be able to read the fine print in the FAQs, I discovered that once again I might have a problem, with this small entry in the Kindle Scout FAQs.

Who can submit to Kindle Scout? 
Any author who is 18 (or the age of majority in the place they reside) or older with a valid U.S. bank account and a U.S. Social Security number or Tax Identification number can submit.

I am an adult and I have a US tax identification number, but I do not have a US bank account. A small matter I thought, but worth checking. So I sent an email to Amazon asking for clarification.

Amazon’s reply:

At this time, only adults with a valid U.S. bank account and a U.S. social security number or tax identification number is eligible.

BANG! Another US-only door slammed firmly shut for non-US self-publishers. And they couldn’t even get their grammar right in their email! Sure, there is no mention that non-US authors can’t use Kindle Scout, but as one needs to be a US citizen or resident to be able to open a US bank account, it’s just another way of slamming the door on non-American authors without bluntly saying so.

There are no borders for Amazon, so why are there barriers for authors?

One might think that the obstacles that non-US self-published authors face can be explained away as a rights issue. But self-published authors have, and grant publishers such as Amazon global rights to their books, so there are no geographic boundaries whatsoever at play here. Amazon sells books and ebooks in a globalised market. By way of proof, another Kindle initiative, Kindle Singles, has no restriction at all on non-US authors. So why is there on Kindle Scout?

Yet another Amazon Kindle product, Kindle Unlimited is geo-protected as Amazon states:

Q: Is Kindle Unlimited available to customers living outside the US? 
A: Kindle Unlimited is currently available only to US customers on Amazon.com. Customers in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Mexico and Canada can sign-up for Kindle Unlimited in their local Amazon marketplace. 

Note: Kindle Unlimited is now available in more countries, but unfortunately, not mine.

Bad luck if you live in Belgium, The Netherlands, South Africa or Australia, which by the way, does have its own Kindle Store. While this is a subscription service to rent ebooks, it is a penalty for non-US self-published authors, who are not given access to cheaper reading.

Globalised opportunities for Amazon, but not for authors.

Globalisation is not what it seems when it comes to Amazon. Ask all the Amazon workers in fulfilment centres in Ireland, who while they work for the giant there, don’t even have a Kindle Store in their country, which has a rich literary history and culture. And no, Ireland is not part of the UK, so Amazon UK doesn’t count.

Yes, it is okay when you are a US multinational corporation to pay the bare minimum of income tax in any country of your choosing, such as Ireland, and then legally but not morally, avoid your US tax obligations. Yet in return, offer nothing in the way of services to the countries that offer such havens. There are no national borders for Amazon, so why do Amazon and other US companies use borders as an excuse to penalise thousands of authors and readers?

It seems that self-publishing is designed in most part for Americans and the American market, but on the other hand, international tax avoidance and cheap labour is a border-free opportunity for all US corporations such as Amazon.

If Amazon can operate freely in a borderless world, why can’t it at least offer the same for their self-published authors on KDP and allow non-US authors the same opportunities as their American counterparts? Surely it’s not that difficult.

As currently, it feels like bias and an unfair lockout.

Anyone who has read my blogs over the years will know that I am an avid supporter of self-publishing and that I have found ways to overcome many of the obstacles faced by being a non-US self-publisher. But if I was to offer advice to a new non-American author considering taking the same path it would be to get an IRS number, publish only in ebook form on KDP Select and forget about the rest. It’s not perfect, but it’s easier than fighting un-winnable battles. Self-publishing is run by big US companies and they have every right to make the rules, no matter how unfair they may seem.

But if I was to offer advice to a new non-American author considering taking the same path it would be to get an IRS number, publish only in ebook form on KDP Select and forget about the rest. It’s not perfect, but it’s easier than fighting unwinnable battles. Self-publishing is run by big US companies and they have every right to make the rules, no matter how unfair they may seem.

So if you are not an American self-published author, all you can do is accept the handicaps and make the best of what you can get. But if you are an American self-publisher however, perhaps you should understand that you get access to all the advantages, which are not always available to others.

*Update (1): Kindle Scout is now available in a handful of countries.

This to some this might sound like a very long moan. But to be fair, is all of what I have listed, fair?

The post Is Self-Publishing Only For Americans? appeared first on The Vandal - Derek Haines.

I have to kill a book. It’s a dog.

It’s not easy to come to the conclusion that a book you have painstakingly written is a failure, but sometimes you have to take it on the chin, let it go and decide to kill a book.

I made this decision after watching one particular book of mine fail at every turn. No amount of free ebook giveaways or promotion helped the poor darling, so I made the decision to unpublish it, and file it away under experience.

By some weird coincidence, though, when I finally got up the courage to hit the kill buttons, both Amazon’s KDP and Createspace sites were down! They are never down, are they? I wondered if this was some kind of weird omen. Perhaps I was being foolhardy.

However, I let all these spooky omens and portents go and took the rational view that Internet sites, even Amazon’s, do fail from time to time, as do books.

What went wrong?

The biggest disappointment with this book was that it was apparently so bad that it didn’t even get any bad reviews. Being criticised is one thing, but being ignored is worse.

My fault here was in trying to write in a genre that was not natural to me, and worse, having a female protagonist, who in the end was extremely shallow. The story revolved around her strained relationship with her father, but I think I missed the strained part and completely failed to construct any form of conflict.

As all writers know, conflict is vital to any story, so I failed, miserably.

Of course, I should have known this after I had written the book, but there are times as a writer when the obvious is very difficult to see in sixty or seventy thousand words of blood, sweat and tears.

In fact, I think I have often gotten it all wrong after writing a new book, as those which I thought would struggle have sold quite well, while others I was sure would do well, didn’t. It only proves how poor a judge writers are of their own writing.

What is to become of my failed book?

I could tear it apart, do a complete re-write and fix my basic mistakes, but I have the feeling this would be a waste of time, as there really are times to admit that it is impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

So this poor book is to be filed, but not forgotten. Well, forgotten by the world for sure, but not by me. I will keep the manuscript as a reminder of what not to do, each and every time I write a new story. At least, it will retain some value in that respect.

The post Time To Kill A Book appeared first on The Vandal - Derek Haines.

Why you should have multiple Twitter account.

One radical difference between Twitter and other social media sites is the ability to have multiple Twitter accounts. So is this a good thing or an evil marketing ploy to deceive other users? Well, before I get started, let’s look at what the Twitter Rules say about this.

Serial Accounts: You may not create serial accounts for disruptive or abusive purposes, or with overlapping use cases. Mass account creation may result in suspension of all related accounts. Please note that any violation of the Twitter Rules is cause for permanent suspension of all accounts.

So it’s clear you can have multiple accounts as long as you don’t become ‘serial‘.

When I started out on Twitter, I began of course with my personal account @Derek_Haines and ran along quite happily. Then, sometime later with the release of a new book, I created @VampireAgatha with the view to promoting the book My Take Away Vampire.

Now, this account pretty much runs by itself so it’s fair to say it is an ‘automated’ account. The surprise for me was that I had expected perhaps a small number of followers for what is logically an impersonal account, but to date, it has over 35,000 followers.

A little later when it came time to release another book, I created @Febthe5th for my book February The Fifth. Following exactly the same set-up as my earlier book account, it has attracted over 40,000 followers. Again, with no personal input, by using automated postings related to the book and of course its author. Me.

So what’s the attraction for followers to my additional and robotic accounts?

Well, I’m still hunting for a definitive answer but I have a few ideas. One is that a lot of users are almost addicted to increasing their follower count and will add any account that follows back.

Then there are those who follow accounts that are related to their field of interest. For both of these additional accounts, the interests are logically books and reading. Then there are those who follow these accounts but may not be interested but simply forget or don’t bother to unfollow. Whichever is true, it means that these two accounts attract followers and their Tweets get read.

The next question is of course whether these accounts are effective. The answer is a definite yes. They serve to promote the two books so why would I stop? However, they also serve in promoting myself and my blog as both are clearly mentioned under the account profile for each of these accounts.

The decision to create multiple accounts is not for everyone as it does take some time to set them up, maintain and programme these accounts. But from a marketing perspective, they are well worthwhile and perfectly legitimate under the Twitter rules.

The post Why Have Multiple Twitter Accounts? appeared first on The Vandal - Derek Haines.

If you’re a self published author, get ready for some disappointing news.

Your usefulness is coming to an end. Yes, you have all worked very hard for very little return in building an empire to be exploited by multinational enterprises, but sadly, your job is almost done and it’s time now for you to be given the ‘boot’.

It all started with the Amazon’s KDP Select program that offered ‘manna from heaven‘ in exchange for granting Amazon exclusivity to your ebooks. And yes, it was very nice for a few months, until the rules were changed. Without notice of course.

You see, the problem was that self published titles were just way too popular, so their ‘weighting’ on bestseller lists had to be reduced. From 100% down to 10% of their value.

Yet even after this dramatic change, these pesky self published titles managed to claw their way to the top of bestselling lists. Not something that would have pleased the Big Five I’m sure. So more work needed to be done.

The next move came with the massive deletions of reviews on self published titles. No, not the paid reviews by registered Amazon reviewers working on Fiverr, but those nasty reviews written by pesky self published authors who actually read a book and honestly posted a review.

Clearly Amazon believed that this was just not right that authors should be allowed to review books, even though major publishers have wrought  the book review system for decades and habitually use well known authors to write book reviews. But what’s a little hypocrisy when an end needs a means?

If these measures weren’t enough to ‘kill off’ these pesky Indies, then came this new move.

‘Add to all this the unexplained changes in Amazon’s algorithms that keep the books in the KDP program from competing with publishing house titles as best-sellers.’ Source: http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2012/11/15/velvet-rope-a-dope/

My understanding of this last change was to preclude self published titles from appearing alongside major published titles in the ‘Customers Also Bought’ widget on Amazon book pages. Judging by my own ebook sales, it has worked spectacularly well, as my unit sales dropped off a cliff.

So what happens after the destruction of self publishing?

To fill the new void that is going to be created by ‘killing off’ the Indies and genuine self published authors, the Big Five are offering their own self publishing services. Simon & Schuster are the latest to offer this …..

This is not self publishing. It is old fashioned vanity publishing that charges anywhere between $1,500 and $25,000 to publish a book, with little chance of success. In fact it is a very old fox in new sheep’s clothing – Author Solutions and Author House.

My advice has always been, do not walk away from them, run away! Vanity publishing has such a bad reputation, but as it has now been renamed and re-marketed as self publishing by the Big Five, everything is ok. Right? Wrong!

If you’re a self published author, the message is clear, and get ready for more bad news in the near future. All your free ebook giveaways were for nothing. You were all just way too popular for the good of the publishing industry, who are now struggling to afford their champagne lunches every day.

But boy, did you help sell millions of Kindles. Well done. But you’ve served your purpose, now pack your bags and get the hell out of publishing!

Of course, I could be completely wrong about all this.

The post Self Published Authors Get Ready, You’re Being Dumped appeared first on The Vandal - Derek Haines.

Publishing in ebook and paperback

If you are in any way connected to books, reading, writing on the Internet there is no escaping the range of debates about self-publishing. However, what has got lost is that self-publishing is not solely about Amazon, Kindle and ebooks. While it is super simple to ‘clack’ out a Word document and upload it to Kindle Direct Publishing, then see your ‘book’ published 24 hours later, this is not what I define as self-publishing.

The book still lives. No one has killed it as far as I can ascertain, so if you are serious about publishing your book, why not do it well. The months, or in some cases years you’ve spent writing it, deserves a bit of extra effort on your part to give it the best chance it has of success. So why not consider the following inexpensive and free services that will give wider and better market potential.

Certainly, publish with Kindle. That’s a ‘no-brainer’, but when you have finished there, publish your book on Smashwords as well. It takes a bit longer (as it is a little bit more fussy about quality formatting than Kindle), but the effort is worthwhile because your book can be distributed to Apple, B&N, Sony, Kobo, Diesel and a few other online retailers. Apple iBooks is a very popular format now, so why not get your book onto people’s iPads? There are a number of other online ebook publishers, but I find that Kindle and Smashwords enable me to reach just about any reader.

Then what about a paperback version? You don’t need to pay a Vanity Press and have books filling your garage. Once again there are a number of POD (Print On Demand) publishers who offer an inexpensive way to publish. While authors will have their preferred paperback publisher, I can only say that I have used Createspace for most of my books and have been extremely happy with its service and quality of the books.

But the main reason I stay with them is that they are part of Amazon and as such offer a distribution system that works for me. There are some costs involved, but they are minimal. Yes, you pay for each copy of your book you purchase, and there is a charge for expanded distribution, which I highly recommend.

What is the cost to publish a book? In most cases, I spend less that $100 to have a book published this way. This includes the worldwide expanded distribution charge and about 20 initial copies shipped to me. In my mind, this is great value, and by having a real book listed alongside your ebook versions, it not only gives choice to a potential reader, but also differentiates you as an author. Don’t forget that ebooks are not yet popular worldwide, and paperbacks still sell well in these markets that are not serviced by Kindle and Apple’s iBook Store.

The post Self Publishing Your Book For Everyone appeared first on The Vandal - Derek Haines.

One lesson I have learned since I began publishing my writing is that there will be those who somewhat like or tolerate what I do, those who love what I do and then well, there will always be those who really hate every single word I’ve ever written. And of course, they very often want to tell the whole world in no uncertain terms what they think.

The best litmus test for reviews for me is Goodreads. A social media site dedicated to books and reading. No matter where a reader has sourced one of my books from – Kindle, Nook, Paperback, free or pirated – they can add their ten cents worth.

As a habit, I always click the ‘Like’ button for any review I receive on this site. Good or bad. What I don’t do though is ‘flare’. By which I mean that I never defend my writing when I receive a real ‘killer’ type bad review. Acknowledge yes, but never argue. Even for the likes of one particular reviewer who I just noticed today who seemed to hate one of my books (a free one I might add) and has proceeded to post his review a number of times!

Pleasing all of the people all of the time is an impossibility, and with my rather eccentric view of the world, only some will understand where I am coming from. Probably even fewer will have an idea of where I am going. But my writing style is my writing style and I am saying what I want to say and how I want to say it. In my mind, this is what writing is all about.

My beliefs and passions are very close to me, and although often expressed from an abstract or obtuse angle, every book I have sent ‘out there’ has had a message. I love the underdogs, the losers, the oppressed and hard done by. Probably a product of my disillusionment with the fairness of our society. Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea.

It goes without saying though, that I prefer the great reviews. However, at the same time, the bad reviews are necessary I believe. Why? Because it gives prospective readers a balanced view. When I myself see nothing but glowing reviews for a book or writer, I get suspicious. After all, I just can’t read Amanda Hocking but I don’t think any review by me would lessen her popularity.

If you’re a writer, you have to accept the good with the bad. So long as you are writing what you believe in. That’s all that is important.

The post You’re Either Loved Or Hated appeared first on The Vandal - Derek Haines.