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Writers: Working with Louise Cusack

Category Archives: The Publishing Industry

Kindle Scout: Reader-powered publishing

05 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by louisecusack in Getting Published series, The Publishing Industry, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

amazon, Amazon publishing, books, Kindle publishing, Kindle Scout, literature, publishing, Unpublished Manuscript, writing

scoutpreview

If you’ve never heard of Kindle Scout, don’t feel bad. Until last week, I hadn’t heard of it either, but it’s shaping up to be a game changer for indie authors, as well as traditionally published authors who have a book they just can’t sell, like my unpublished novel SILK (above). SILK is book one of a fantasy romance series that I’ve been trying to sell for years, and I’d love to see it gain a wider readership than I can manage with self publishing, so I’m giving Scout a shot.

HOW SCOUT WORKS: Any Amazon customer can go to the Kindle Scout website (you can see my book on their website here: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/GDATHRYHT8YR) and without needing special logins beyond their normal Amazon account, they can scroll through lists of unpublished books that authors have uploaded and nominate any three. If a book that they nominate is selected by Amazon for publication, the reader receives a free copy as a bonus for supporting the author.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR AMAZON: Publishers are getting savvy about ‘author platform’ and a great book is often not enough to get you a publishing contract. In the Kindle Scout model,  Amazon is not only assessing the popularity of your book excerpt and cover, they’re assessing your social networks (which should equal new readers for them if they publish you). In the “campaign stats” for your book, you can see where the page traffic is coming from. Here are my stats at day 4 of my campaign:

campaignstats5dec2016

I’ve got over 1000 Facebook friends on my personal page, and I called in favours to get shares of my post about SILK there. I also have a Facebook Author page with 1200 Likes, so I’ve boosted that post on Facebook over the next few days to those followers who I hope will take the time to check out the book and nominate it. So my traffic from Facebook is looking good so far. I imagine that as my campaign progresses, the traffic from Kindle Scout will slow as all the habitual ‘scouts’ have looked at SILK and either chosen it or not. However, for all I know there could be hundreds of new ‘scouts’ turning up on the Kindle Scout website every day, so I look forward to assessing that as I go.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU: The end result of your 30 day campaign is that if your book is wildly popular, Amazon may offer you a 5 year contract with a $1,500 advance and 50% eBook royalty rate for worldwide publication rights for eBook and audio formats in all languages. (Authors retain all other rights, including print.) You’d also receive ‘featured Amazon marketing’ which I’m guessing will make your novel far more visible on the Amazon website!

HOW DO AMAZON DECIDE? No one’s quite sure at this stage, but is seems clear that the number of  nominations you receive and the breadth of your social networks play a role, as well as the feedback readers have given on your book when they nominate it (screenshot below):

telluswhatyouthought

HOW DO YOU SUBMIT? The website is simple and the upload is easy but read all the instructions before you start. You’ll need certain answers beyond the blurb and bio, so I found it easier to create a document to list all my answers so I could cut-and-paste them during the submission process. That helps ensure your answers don’t go over the character count limit because if they do, they’ll be cut.

You need to submit a proper book cover as well as the completed and proof-read manuscript in Word format (even though only the first 5000 words are shown to readers). My 5000 words ended 87 words short of a cliffhanger, so I emailed and asked if they could extend the sample that much and they did it immediately, which was great customer service.

Once you’ve uploaded all your bits and pieces, Amazon takes up to 2 days to decide if your work is of sufficient quality to be accepted. If it is, they email you with details and a link to a preview of your campaign page so you can let them know if there are any details you’d like changed (as I did with my excerpt).  Your 30 day campaign usually starts within 48 hours of that acceptance email, so that gives you time to get your “Please nominate me” emails and Facebook posts ready to go. Once your book is live on the Kindle Scout website, you can go to town, calling in all favours and trying to get your book into “Hot and Trending” for as many hours a day as you can manage! Here’s how mine went in the opening days:hottrending5dec2016

Pretty good so far, but 30 days is a sustained effort, and I’ll be away from my computer over Christmas, so I’m giving it my best over the next fortnight and hoping momentum will sustain it after that.

So, that’s where I’m at with it so far. If you’d like more info on Kindle Scout or how I’m going, please feel free to email me mail@louisecusack.com or pop a comment in below about your experiences with Scout if you’ve already tried it. If you’ve got a book in the bottom drawer gathering dust, it could be a good option for moving it forward!

 

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A self publishing adventure

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by louisecusack in Getting Published series, The Publishing Industry, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

creative writing, erotica, motivation, psychology of writing, romantic comedy, romcom, self publishing, writing

DigitalPublishingTalkFeb2012Most of you will know me through this website as a writing mentor and teacher, but I’m also a writer. I began my career with fantasy twenty years ago, being published in a Harper Collins anthology, then with a fantasy series published by Simon & Schuster. Since then I’ve been published by the Pan Macmillan imprint Momentum Books, and I’ve dabbled in self publishing backlist titles. But my main focus as an author has always been traditional publishing.

For the last 2 years, however, I’ve been writing books in a romantic comedy series and trying (unsuccessfully) to crack the US market with the opening novel. I quite understand why it’s a hard sell. It involves infidelity which isn’t common in romance novels, and the combination of erotica and romantic comedy is also relatively new. Unfortunately, even well published authors can become demoralized, and when my rejections hit double digits, I found my enjoyment in the work and my motivation were slipping. All my reader feedback on the series, however, was positive, so at the start of the year I took the plunge and decided to self publish these books, and since then I’ve been excited, bewildered at times, but ultimately optimistic.

My reason for blogging this is that I’d like you along for the ride. I’d like to share my experiences with you if you think they’ll help your own writing career. There will be highs and lows, tips and tricks, pitfalls. Hopefully you’ll work out whether self publishing is a road you want to go down, and which path you want to take!

Here are the opening 4 books of my Husband Series (along with a quote I was kindly given by Romance Writers of Australia mate Amy Andrews who’s already a big seller in this genre):

HusbandSeriesAmyQuote

To begin, I’m releasing book one Husband Sit exclusively on Amazon Kindle (where 80% of romance novels are purchased) so I can access their pre-order function, and I’ve set the book at .99c US until its release date of Feb 17, at which point it will revert to $3.99. That’s my incentive for people to BUY NOW! My goal is to see a shirtload of sales go through on release day, which should bump the book up the charts. If a book reaches the Amazon best seller lists in the top #100 it develops a momentum of its own. So if you’ve got .99c US to spare, feel free to pre-order. I won’t complain about you being part of the experiment!

I’m also part of a few Valentine’s Day book hops (promotional opportunities where readers win prizes) and you’re welcome to join them as guests to see how they work. I’ve never done them before so I’m looking forward to finding out myself. Just click on either of the links below and join:

PageCurlValentineBookHop   KindleBookReviewValentine

To complete my promos, I’ve got my own Facebook Release Day Blitz party organized for Feb 17 which you’re most welcome to join. My beta readers are coming and they’ve invited friends. It’s on Facebook so you can wear pajamas! Just click on the picture below and then when you’re on the Facebook event page, select GOING. Facebook will remind you when it’s on.

ReleaseBlitzForHusbandSitFacebook

If you’ve got ideas for me, please share. I’m busily finishing book two so I can upload it in draft form on Amazon before book one goes on sale. That will allow me to set book two on pre-order. I want people to be able to finish Husband Sit and love it so much that they immediately click on the link in the back of the book to pre-order Husband Stay.

My longterm goal is to have twenty books in this series, and the first four will be released this year. Wish me luck!

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Writers: using a Research Assistant is easier than you think

03 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by louisecusack in The Publishing Industry, Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

fantasy, fiction, historical, process of writing, research, research assistant, writers, writing

HeatherGammage

This is me mock-strangling Heather Gammage!

Why do writers create historical or fantasy settings that require research, when they hate researching? I have no clue, but I do it myself. It’s one thing to swan over to Rome and Florence to research the Medici at the time of the Italian Renaissance, but when I get home and realize I’ve forgotten some details, I often resent time spent sourcing those bits and pieces.

If you’re like me, help in the form of an on-call research assistant could be easier than you think. Today I’ve invited Brisbane research assistant Heather Gammage (who I’ve worked with – hence the mock-strangling photo) to describe what she does for authors. Heather has a BA in history with a minor in Classical languages (Latin). Her specific “field” is in the medieval, but she admits to a fair to middling knowledge of other eras and is an expert in tracking down hard-to-find references and facts.

So without further ado, here’s Heather:

Thank you, Louise, for inviting me to write about why I love being a research assistant.

I have written stories since I was a small girl. My original inspiration was Enid Blyton and the Trixie Belden books. My very first book was, essentially, a Trixie Belden rip-off I wrote at seven years old–the names of the teenaged detectives were different, and it was set in Australia, but it was clear where my ideas came from.

At the same age, I used to set myself assignments from the encyclopaedia on various things that piqued my interest. One week, I’d be reading about dogs, the next, I’d be copying lines out about the government of Indonesia. They were not brilliant, by any means (and, again, were mostly plagiarized), but looking back, it’s clear that the “research is my life” moniker I jokingly adopted on an online gaming forum in the early 2000s was based in more fact than I realized. Even more recently, I came to the conclusion that, while I love story-making and writing, what I really love about writing is the busywork leading up to it–the research; the world-building and the diving into dusty libraries for things I do not know. Perhaps that is why Trixie, the girl detective, resonated with me as a child.

I still write (and I have workshopped my fantasy novel with the fabulous Louise), but the practicalities of my current life circumstances and my university studies don’t allow me to seek publication–yet. Meanwhile, as a part of those studies, I applied for the 2012/2013 Summer Research Scholarship with The University of Queensland as a research assistant to Dr Kim Wilkins. I was thrilled when I was accepted! Over that summer, I worked with Kim on the research for her book Ember Island (published under her moniker Kimberly Freeman in 2013) as well as referencing and fact checking for her Year of Ancient Ghosts. Ember Island was set in modern and 1890s Brisbane, a fictional prison island based on St Helena Island, and also the Channel Islands (Jersey/Guernsey). As Kim worked on draft one, she asked me to research the things she needed for her historical setting–which varied from trade routes into Guernsey to how a rich boy would dress in 1890s England and Brisbane to how many inmates were on St Helena’s and what the guards were paid.

It dawned on me that I was doing two of the things I loved most, and being paid for it, and oh-my-god-wouldn’t-it-be-fantastic-to-do-this-forever. I could apply all of my very “bitsy” work and life experience: parenting, horses, painting, writing (in fiction, for games, and for academics), referencing in a range of different styles, research, history, small business ownership, gardening, retail, western martial arts, birth experience, arts admin, teaching, Latin, gaming and beta testing, web writing — I am a jack of all trades from work and experience over the years, but there is nothing that screams “hire me!” for one particular job.

But, surely, don’t all authors love researching? Who would hire me? Kim had always done her own research, and done it very well; the research assistant work was due to her publishing time constraints.

Then, in early 2013, I took Dr Kim’s writing class as an elective for my degree, which was, quite suitably, a “doing research for writing” course. As a part of this course, Kim asked other authors to speak at the lectures about how they approached their research. One author mentioned that she despised the research process.

Despised it? Really?

A whole tonne of pennies dropped on my head.

Since then, I have done work for other clients, as well as Kim, and as my undergrad studies end mid-year I will increase my hours to allow for full-time bookings. I absolutely love working with clients on their research as they write and edit their books, and my current rate is $40 an hour which clients pay in advance, usually buying a block of my time to use as they require it. Quite apart from the vicarious thrill of seeing an author’s writing before it is published, my authors ask me questions, often, about subjects I know very little to nothing about (my specialty is the medieval period and Western Europe, but I have researched as widely as 1890s Queensland, 1990s Victoria and London after WW2). So, I am always learning, always searching. My job is to make the process easier on the author, and they can focus on story, while I focus on accuracy (as far as practicable, and to an author’s requirements). It’s win-win.

Thanks so much for sharing today, Heather. I can hear a whole batch of authors out there on the Interwebs thinking How do I get her to work for me! If that’s you, Heather can be contacted at: heathermgammage AT gmail DOT com, and if you’d like to see what Dr Kim has to say about her beloved research assistant, you can read Kim’s blog On Having a Research Assistant.

If you’d like more info, or want to ask a question, please drop that into a comment below and either Heather or I will respond. Thanks for reading!

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How publishers want writers to behave (professionally)

11 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by louisecusack in The Publishing Industry, Uncategorized, Writer's Self Sabotage, Writers out in Public

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

author, behaviour, professional, publishers, publishing, self sabotage, writers, writing

Harlequin Enterprises is the biggest publisher of romance in the world, and when their Australian digital-first arm – Escape Publishing – puts out a blog to let writers know how publishers would prefer them to behave, it’s sensible to take notice!

Click on the link below to find out how to interact professionally with a publisher, and note the actions that sabotage a writer’s reputation so you can ensure you’re not doing any of them yourself.

EscapePublishingBlog

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Guest Blogging on self publishing

19 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by louisecusack in The Publishing Industry, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

amazon, Amazon kindle, eBooks, Goddess & the Geek, kindle, Marriage & the Mermaid, self publishing, Sex & the Stand In

Today I’m a guest on Marianne de Pierres’ blog, discussing how I self published my backlist of romance stories as ebooks. You can click on the image below to read the article:

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Workshop Wednesday: How to self publish an ebook

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by louisecusack in The Publishing Industry, Uncategorized, Workshop Wednesday series

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

amazon, book covers, eBooks, editing, KDP, kindle, kobo, nook, promoting your ebook, publishing, self publishing, smashwords, writing

Welcome to this week’s Workshop Wednesday where indie author Patrick O’Duffy is generously sharing his expertise to help you self publish an ebook.  Self publishing is a fabulous option for established authors who can’t sell a particular project, or who want to self-publish their backlist, as they already have a readership who are likely to buy their ebooks.  It’s also a great option for unpublished authors who don’t want to go the tradition route, or who haven’t been able to find a publisher or an agent (although they would need to do more work in marketing to create a readership for themselves).

Firstly, here’s a little about our guest today: Patrick O’Duffy is tall, Australian and a professional editor, although not always in that order. He has written role-playing games, short fiction, a little journalism and freelance non-fiction, and is currently working on a novel, although frankly not working hard enough. He loves off-kilter fiction, Batman comics and his wife, and finds this whole writing-about-yourself-in-the-third-person thing difficult to take seriously.  And the blurb of his novel The Obituarist (which I’ve read and loved!): Kendall Barber is a social media undertaker with a shady past who’s returned to the equally shady city of Port Virtue. Now a new client brings with her a host of dangers, just as Kendall’s past begins to catch up with him. Can he get to the bottom of things before it’s too late, or will he end up as dead as his usual subjects?

I can highly recommend The Obituarist (and I’m not a crime reader!).  It was sharp and funny and had great twists.  Do buy it.  So without further ado I’ll introduce Patrick and let him fill you in on how you can publish your own ebooks.

Patrick O’Duffy: I’m writing this blog post from Nanuya, a Fijian island four hours north of Nadi. The water is crystal blue, the sky limitless, the beer cold and the sand warm.

I’m not saying this to rub it in that I’m having a good time, but to say that even this far from the rest of the world, and armed only with a tiny laptop and a little internet access, I could still self-publish an ebook and put it up online for sale in less than five minutes.

It’s not difficult. You can practically do it while snorkelling. Or at least just beforehand.

Self-publishing (or ‘indie publishing’) in ebook form is rapidly outpacing traditional print publishing. Success stories like Amanda Hocking and EL James have become bestsellers with their independent ebooks, and tens of thousands of other authors have also put their own work straight onto virtual shelves.

How do you do it – and how do you do a good job of it? It’s a process I’ve tackled several times now with my books Hotel Flamingo, Godheads and now The Obituarist, and I’ve learned a couple of things that I hope others will find useful.

Where to do it

The number one source of indie ebooks on the planet is Amazon, via their Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) operation. KDP allows you to create an ebook and list it alongside titles from major publishers in the world’s largest and best-known online bookstore. The drawback, of course, is that Amazon only creates and sells ebooks for the Kindle, with no provision for other file formats – so readers with Nooks, Kobos and other devices need to look elsewhere.

The other major outlet is Smashwords, a site devoted solely to indie publishing. Not only does it create ebooks in all formats, it also acts as a distributor to other major ebook markets. That alone is enough to recommend it; publishing through them takes away 90% of the work of getting your ebook into online stores. On the downside, Smashwords lacks the market presence of Amazon, and the material they publish isn’t always as polished.

So which should you choose? Well, you shouldn’t – publish through both! It doesn’t take much more effort and time, and using both sites will get your work into every major ebook store.

How to do it

Start with your final, fully edited manuscript. Don’t skimp on the editing – the world is full of badly-written, completely unedited ebooks. Be better than that, and don’t be afraid to pay for a professional editor’s services. It’s worth it.

Next, check the formatting of your Word file to make sure that it fits the guidelines of the website. And it should be a Word file, not another file format; the conversion software will either reject a different format or convert it in strange and horrible ways.

You also need a cover, and it’s worth paying a designer to create one for you rather than make it yourself. It should be a high-resolution JPG in a 6 x 9 format, and it should be readable in both colour and e-reader greyscale.

Once you’ve done all that, just create free accounts on the sites of your choice, upload the file and start the conversion. You should have an ebook minutes later!

What to do next

The first thing is to check the ebook for conversion errors, which are almost inevitable. The conversion software may introduce errors like line breaks, font changes and random italics. Fix these up and upload the corrected version, and be prepared to do this a couple of times until it’s right. These errors won’t stop people from buying your book, but they might stop them from buying your next book.

You should also determine a price for your ebook. Most indie ebooks cost between 99 cents and $4.99; look at what books of similar length and genre sell for as a guideline. You don’t want to overcharge for your book, but you also don’t want to undercharge; readers often assume that very cheap books are that price because they’re not worth anything.

Finally comes the hardest part – finding your audience and promoting your ebook to them. There are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of indie ebooks on the market, and you need to let readers know that yours exists and is worth reading. Most authors do this through social media sites such as Facebook, Goodreads and Twitter, all of which are essential tools, as are word-of-mouth, personal blogs and good reviews from satisfied readers. Self-promotion is a never-ending job for an indie author, but the important thing is to avoid boring or annoying readers with repetition or constant calls for attention.

And then it’s time to write another book. And another. Keep improving your craft, keep developing your skills, stay focused on writing the best books you can and putting them out for your audience. Because if you write well, if you try hard and you genuinely engage with your readers, they’ll keep reading your ebooks – ebooks that you’ll find are easy to produce for them.

Go on. Give it a try. Give it your absolute best shot. And see what happens.

Louise: Thanks so much for that Patrick! Invaluable advice.  If anyone has questions for Patrick, or comments on your own experiences as an indie publisher, please post that as a comment below.  We’d love to hear from you.

Other Workshop Wednesday topics: Deep Point of View and Writers working with the Media

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My new blog at louisecusack.com

08 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by louisecusack in The Publishing Industry, Writers out in Public

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

blog, books, eBooks, fantasy, lost world, Louise Cusack, publishing, reading, romance, romantic adventures, social networking

I have a new blog with information for my readers at www.louisecusack.com.  My Shadow Through Time fantasy trilogy is being re-released this month as eBooks by Pan Macmillan and I’ve blogged on the amazing journey the series has had in the ten years since it was first print published by Simon & Schuster Australia and selected by the Doubleday Book Club as their Editor’s Choice.

If you’re a lover of “romantic adventures in lost worlds” then I invite you to explore the new website and consider subscribing to my blog there.

Happy reading!

Louise Cusack

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Writers Online: Authenticity vs Spin

13 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by louisecusack in The Publishing Industry, Understanding Ourselves as Writers, Writers out in Public

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

authenticity, blogging, books, censor, censoring, debate, facebook, goodreaders, google+, social networking, spin, twitter, vs, writers, writing

I was chatting to a girlfriend this morning about authenticity, and we were discussing the challenge of sifting through recommendations on the internet when you’re looking to buy a product.  Some are obviously written by genuine customers giving their honest opinion, but some look so effusive you have to wonder if the person or company who’s selling the product has snuck in and posted it themselves, then maybe gone to their opposition’s product and posted a bad review!  But wait, it gets worse than that.  My girlfriend told me there are people called Reputation Specialists who are paid to go around the internet posting good reviews and comments about their clients.

I mean, really?

For politicians, sure.  They need all the spin they can buy.  But do businesses and celebrities need to pay someone to blow wind up our (collective) skirts?  Whatever happened to earning respect and letting your actions speak for themselves?  Colour me naive, but authenticity means something to me.  And I have to admit that as a new author I imagined all I needed to do to sell billions of books was write good ones.

Then a little over twelve months ago it became apparent that I also needed to rack up quality time on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Google+ and blogging, because authors are encouraged by their publishers to be ‘visible’ across social networking platforms.  And it’s actually beneficial on a couple of levels.  Writing is a solitary profession, so social networking helps me feel like part of the online community, plus it keeps my writing muscles toned in short bursts.  But after the discussion with my girlfriend this morning, I had to wonder if all my comments and conversations online were also creating ‘spin’?

While I’m blogging and tweeting, am I the authentic ‘Louise’ online that my family and friends know and love, or am I projecting an image – Louise The Author?  And if so, is that okay?  Is it fine to censor out the occasionally grumpy Louise, the silly Louise, and the overtired-and-might-say-something-she’d-regret Louise?  Or should I let those parts of me have just as much social networking time as the rest?

Is self-censorship really just spin-by-omission?

Or are the things we post on our Facebook pages a product in themselves that we tailor to fit the readership, hoping they’ll attract people to our writing?  And if so, is that a bad thing?  Is it possible to be authentic and offer only part of yourself to the public?

If your answer to that is “Yes,” then I’d like to ask you why we bother to be authentic at all?  Why not just create a persona and project that?

I have no answers to these questions.  On a good day I try to be just me, like I am today, some insights, some confusion, lots of hope.  On other days I don’t think the ‘me’ I’m feeling is good enough to be out in public, so I censor.  It’s an imperfect method, but perhaps within that framework I really am being authentic.

Or maybe I’m deluding myself.  Would love to hear others comments on this.

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Enhanced Features for eBooks, help or hindrance?

02 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by louisecusack in The Publishing Industry

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

apps, books, children's fiction, eBooks, enhanced features, enjoyment, literature, pleasure, psychology, publishing, reading, scent, writing

A recent Publishers Weekly article on enhanced eBooks for children has got me thinking about the whole concept of  eBooks which might feature “original music; the story is read by the author and, much like all of these apps, the illustrations—all based on the artwork in the print titles—on each screen can be manipulated to make sounds or animated with the touch of a finger.”

Now these particular eBooks are designed for children and will likely encourage very young readers to keep at it until they understand how to use their imagination to fill in the blanks.  As well as the added features: “All releases will feature dedicated Web sites, interactive games, read-along functionality, animation and many other in-app activities for the young reader.  Adam Royce, v-p, digital content development at Penguin Young Readers, said the apps offered an “enhanced reading experience and interactive features that are true to the reading experience.”

I take issue with that last phrase, and you’ll see why below, but I’m not so much worried about what’s happening for very young readers, I’m worried that these new developments will bleed into adult fiction where publishers are already looking at “enhanced reading experiences”.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m reading (print book or eBook device) at some point I stop being in this world and I get into “the zone” where I don’t even remember I’m lying on the lounge any more because I am the character and I’m living the story.  Inevitably something happens to plop me out of the story and then I remember it’s ‘just a book’ but prior to that I was somewhere else, in the land of the story, using my imagination to hear wind whispering through trees or see sunlight sparkling off water or smell the salt tang of the ocean.  And in fact, if I’d had to stop reading to experience someone else’s idea of what that sunlight looks like or what that ocean smells like, I’d immediately plop out of the story and remember that  it wasn’t real.

Now I don’t know about you, but I never wanted that to happen when I was a kid.  I was desperate to stay in the story (Alice in Wonderland, Magic Faraway Tree, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie), for the characters to be real, and for the magical settings to be somewhere I could inhabit for as long as possible.  I’m sure the same thing happened to kids reading Harry Potter, and I know for sure (because I interviewed a heap of them) that teenager girls reading Twilight lived so thoroughly inside that created world that they’d often get mildly depressed when they returned to ‘real life’ because it couldn’t compare with the sparkle of Edward’s attention.  For the period that they were reading, they were Bella, and he loved them.  I seriously doubt that would have happened if Twilight had come packaged with werewolf howls and assorted interactive buttons.  Maybe as an audiobook, but even then I doubt it would work as well as simply reading the text and letting your own vivid imagination create the sensory experience, with nothing to jerk you out of the story and back to reality.

To me, there’s nothing “true to the reading experience” about adding anything that distracts the reader from being inside the story, because I believe the reader’s imagination is the greatest factor in bringing a story to life – not clever graphics or sounds or even smells and tactile experiences when they work out how to deliver that.  And I’m not a Luddite.  I’m more than happy for eBooks to overtake print if people want to read on a device.  Whatever the reader wants, so long as it doesn’t get in the way of them dropping into the world I’ve created.  And I believe “added features” get in the way, so I’m hoping they stay at the very youngest end of the market where they may entice a bored toddler to keep with a story.  But once a reader grows up, I really just want them to have text on the first run through.

I do love the idea of the dedicated websites with extra features on them, but only to be used after the reader has finished creating the story inside their own mind.  Otherwise we might end up with a generation of children not being able to use their imaginations to fully create the world a writer has sketched out for them.  I’m worried about what that means to their enjoyment of story, and also what that means to the creative development of their brains.

As always, I’m really happy to kick start the discussion with my opinions and see what everyone else has to say!

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Paperbacks vs eBooks – dawn of the Slow Book movement?

21 Sunday Aug 2011

Posted by louisecusack in The Publishing Industry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

books, debate, eBooks, kinaesthetic, literature, paperbacks, passion, pleasure, reading, scent, slow book movement, tactile

Yesterday was National Bookstore Day in Australia, and like a lot of authors around the country I turned up at my local bookstore to say “Thanks for selling our books.”  My Dymocks here in Bundaberg were particularly pleased because I came bearing chocolate mud cake, but the more important message was that authors care.  With the demise of bookstore chains and the pressure from eBook sales (which continue to soar) there’s a lot of gloom and doom surrounding the future of bookstores.  There’s also a lot of talk among writers about how that affects us, and to be honest, from what I’ve heard recently at the Romance Writers of Australia conference from #NYT best selling authors, print publishers and eBook publishers, they all say the same thing: authors who write a good story will be fine.  The format for delivery of our stories is changing, but the demand for good stories remains strong, and whether the format is print books or eBooks, we’ll still make money.

So that’s the writers side of the equation, but from a readers perspective things have a different slant, and as we writers need to understand our audience (and most writers are readers too), this bears looking at.  You’d have to be deep in first draft to have missed the wave of grief (and outrage in some quarters) at the idea that print books may soon become as challenging to buy as an LP record.  I doubt that will happen, but if it does, those readers who perceive the world in a tactile/kinaesthetic way – myself included – will be the hardest hit.

The loss of a container for story which I can hold and caress (a book) will upset many of the rituals I have around reading that give me such pleasure.  I do understand that eReaders are super efficient and freely admit I use one myself on occasion.  Their publicity was true in my experience – as soon as I drop into the story I completely forget that I’m holding a machine in my hands instead of a book.  I’m “in” the story and the format for delivery is no longer important.    I even have Kindle for mobile on my smartphone so if I get stuck waiting somewhere I’ve got something to read.  They do have their place and I’m not denying that.

But being “in” the story isn’t the only pleasure I get out of reading.  Anticipation of the reading experience is important to me too, the same way anticipating catching up with an old friend for coffee (or a new man for dinner) can create excitement and pleasure long before the actual meeting takes place.  I’m also not ashamed to admit I feel happy just standing in front of my bookcase looking at all the multicoloured spines, remembering the thrill each book has given me.  Plus, I adore covers!  There’s nothing nicer than revisiting a great cover and remembering the characters and the world that author created.  Even reading a back cover blurb can evoke a spurt of happy memories.

Then there’s the coffee table beside my lounge where I sit when I’m on a writing break.  I always have a couple of books on the go, and they sit there with their enticing covers, waiting for me to come back, feeding that delicious anticipation every time I glance their way.

And don’t get me started on the smell!  There is nothing more fabulous than the scent that drifts up as you open a new book for the first time.  And as the paper ages the scent changes, the same way a baby’s milky-sweet scent gives way to the school-lunchbox smells of ‘children’ and the musky hormones of a teenager.  Books grow.  For those of us who adore books, they can be even more potent a thrill-trigger than the smell of the first-picked strawberry of the season, or that first sniff of the ocean when your car reaches the esplanade.  The pleasure pathways in my brain that are triggered by the scent of books lie dormant when I use an eReader, and to say that’s disappointing would be an understatement.

Reading should be an experience that’s rich with the texture and tradition of pleasure.  And I ‘get’ that we’re living in a fast paced world, but when the pendulum swings too far towards rat-on-a-wheel, you end up with rebellions like the Slow Food Movement that send you back to savouring the process of what comes before you eat the meal.  I’m sure there will always be a market for printed books, but I’m less certain that I’ll be able to drive down the road and walk into a book store if Amazon and the Book Depository keep snagging all the trade.

So if you’re a reader like me who loves the sensual experience of a printed book “to have and to hold”, act now before it’s too late.  Go into your local bookstore, introduce yourself (particularly if you’re a writer) and buy your books there.  I’m sure they’d be happy to order in anything they don’t currently stock.  I’ve recently become hooked into the completely addictive YA series by Kelly Armstrong that starts with Bitten, and was delighted to find book two on their shelves when I went in with my mudcake.  So I bought it!  Easy, and now it’s sitting on the coffee table saying “Read me!  Read me!” every time I walk past.

And I love that too.  More than I can say.

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Welcome Writers!

I'm Louise Cusack, an Australian author of fantasy and romance published by Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, and Pan Macmillan. I also mentor and tutor other writers like yourself. Please avail yourself of the resources on this website, and happy writing!

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