Conversing with the British Library

As we all know in the self-publishing world physical copies of our work are really a vanity side of our hard labour. We are not likely to sell many paperbacks, with some authors selling 100 e-books for every paperback sale. That isn’t a lot. But despite the dismal sales of paperbacks, if you sell in the UK you are required to submit a free copy to the British Library for their records, called the Legal Deposit. This is a legal requirement. Or is it?

For starters let me explain what happened. I was reviewing my proof of my new release “Ghost Haunts” when someone reminded me of my legal obligation. And when I say reminded, I mean informed. I immediately went into detective mode to find out exactly what I had to do, when I found something interesting.

The legal requirement comes from the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. The act is fairly straightforward, but it is the wording in the act that got me thinking.

For instance the wording says it is the legal requirement for the publisher and distributor to provide the copy – not the author. Some people may think what is the difference with a self publishing author? But I got my ISBN from Createspace and the ISBN labels them as the publisher, not me. Also Createspace act as the distributor. So technically, under the legal description in these circumstances, I was not obliged to provide a copy to the British Library.

But I wasn’t content with my own reading of the act – I needed more information. So where did I go? Where else but the British Library deposit team!

So I called them and spoke to a very nice lady who said that it is indeed a very grey area and she wasn’t entirely sure, so she would call me back after speaking with her manager.

Within thirty minutes her manager called me back. She was also very nice and this is where I got some very interesting information. After explaining the situation and said I was unsure on whose responsibility it was to provide a copy. She stated it was a legal requirement to provide a copy within 1 month of publication to the British library and a copy each to the other five institutions that keep copies; within 1 year. That’s six copies! But, she relented and said that as the ISBN was provided by Createspace and they were technically the publisher on record, and they were also the only ones distributing – I was not required to provide a copy. And neither was Createspace as they are an American based company.

They were a little disappointed and said that they would still really like a copy of my book if I would be willing to provide it. So, feeling slightly sorry for them I spoke to them about the benefits of being part of the records. And to be honest it isn’t a great deal. Essentially if you place your book in the archive anyone can go in and read your book (but not borrow it) and some bookstores use the catalogue they compile from the records to order copies.

But then came the bombshell I was not expecting. The legislation is changing as of...

6^th April 2013!

That’s right; it’s not long until the legal requirement for authors publishing in the UK changes. And this one, in my opinion, is big!

From the 6^th of April, all books sold in the UK, whether digital, physical or both will have to be deposited with the British Library by the publisher. Now you may assume that makes no difference, but technically in e-book form, I am the publisher – not Amazon. So I would have to submit my book for the British Library records. But when I asked for more details about this, the manager couldn’t help me any further saying there has been a new department set up to handle this and she had no idea about it. So I thanked her and took a breather.

Then I searched the internet for the number for the other department. I found it pretty easy, and immediately gave them a call. There I spoke to a nice gentleman who was one of the team implementing and managing the new digital archive.

From my conversation with him I could ascertain a number of things. Firstly the legislation will take effect from the 6^th April 2013. After that date the preferred (notice the term preferred) method of submission to the Legal Deposit will be digital copies of any e-book that is sold in the UK for small to medium publishers; that includes self publishers, but not anyone who traditionally publishes with a large publisher. Much in the way which the copy is used will stay the same. The method of delivery will be done by an online portal (easier submission for authors and less costly) which they were just testing when I phoned.

I was also able to learn that a similar scheme was used in New Zealand, where it worked well. However traffic was apparently low.

At the end of the conversation I thanked the gentleman nicely for his information and hung up the phone realising that in a few short days – I will be obliged to provide a digital copy of my book.

What are your thoughts on the changes?

Of course my conversations with these individuals should not considered legal advice and you should gain your own in these matters. I am merely providing a summary of my conversations today. I have not mentioned any names as neither provided permission for me to share them (although both were informed I would write a blog post on this) – for the record I didn’t ask them for permission.

Three Author Promotion Websites to Look out for

We all know that marketing is one of the problems in which most authors, whether traditionally or self published, struggle with. What works for some authors, doesn’t seem to have any positive effects for another which makes it tough for authors to decide what avenues to pour their valuable time into. Add on to all the existing methods, new websites for promoting author’s hard work are opening all the time. Some will say that this can only benefit authors, but readers only have a limited number of hours per day to read. With limited time and readers divided between numerous sites, spending your time on the right site is so very important.

So what I wanted to do was to introduce three up and coming sites in which authors may not know of, but in my mind may help the author out in the future to gain valuable reader’s time. What’s great about these sites; they don’t care if you are a best seller, they are there to promote you.

AUTHORSdB.com

A lot of authors will probably know of this website, but in my mind it is still growing and is nowhere near the size of Goodreads or other social media – yet.

Authors Database is a huge database of authors from just about every genre. The author can create and edit a listing of their own and that listing can contain just about anything you could want to know about them. A personal bio, websites, blogs, facebook, twitter, linkedin, Goodreads, Google+ and a list of your books with a choice of their reviews really gives authors the chance to show off their best and connect with readers. But authors have the option of adding multiple media including photos and videos which can really set up a unique listing that can catch the reader’s attention.

Every week the website does a list of featured authors that are randomly selected and a special Author Spotlight which again is randomly selected; thus giving authors a chance of precious exposure to readers at any time. However with so many authors on the list, feature time will probably be few and far between. Yet the biggest advantage of the website is the number of links that it adds to your social media, making it easier for readers to find you when they are doing an internet search for your name. If you are pretty good at meta data this site could be gold for you.

The power of this website has certainly been demonstrated to me. When I recently added myself to their listed almost 10% of my blog traffic came from this website.

The Electronic Text and Literary Cloud

This is a very young site and is still in the beta stages at the moment, yet it could be a great asset for authors to list their books and readers to find their next great read. When I contacted the eTLC about doing this feature they sent me this blurb for their website.

The Electronic Text and Literature Cloud (eTLC) was established to help readers discover Indie authors. The majority of writing on this cloud is available in a digitalized format, which provides Indies with a viable medium to post their work. Our focus is self-published material since we believe it remains closer to the "vision" of the writer than work reshaped by publishers with "elusive" marketing goals. 

Currently, 325 works are posted on eTLC.  Fiction and nonfiction titles are separated into eighteen categories.  In addition to novel-length works, we welcome short stories and poetry.  All postings include cover art, product descriptions, and links to bookstores.  Most postings include links to the websites and/or the social-networking sites of the authors, and one or more book reviews.  In addition, more than half of the listings include sample chapters.

With the scope of information, the addition of sample chapters and good connectivity to your books across all sale platforms and to your own blogs, this site has the potential to develop into a good catalog for readers to use.

Bublish

As regular readers will know; I’ve done a couple of blog posts on Bublish. One was way back in September 2012 the other was in February when I went through their bubble creation process. I won’t go over those points again. This time I come back to view how I think it has done on my exposure. Well to be honest, I know my name has been thrown out a few times by the Bublish team that has gained me huge exposure. Each week Bublish tweets a line from my bubbles with links back to the excerpt and once a week I can find myself on their floating bookstore. That on its own is a great way to gain exposure.

However Bublish do weekly author interviews on twitter, something which I have not yet participated in, but have watched /read several of them and on a Friday they do a surprise feature on one of their authors. Both of these events are great for authors to interact with their readers – which is key for authors to gain a good fan base.

When you combine all the efforts that they do to promote you and the fact that they are only in their beta stages, Bublish has the potential to grow your fan base exponentially if used right by the author. For readers this is great for finding the next great author. Not only do you get to "try before you buy" but they can interact with the authors that has been rare before.

Do you have any other sites that are good for finding a good author? Have you got any experience with these sites? Leave your comments below.

Analysis of Bublish – A New Marketing Method that is Back to Basics

What is Bublish?

Bublish is a new social platform which authors and readers can interact. Authors can show off excerpts from their works and include behind the scenes information to give the readers a better perspective of their work. The main aim of the website is to recreate the brick and motor bookshop experience.

How does it work?

When an author signs up they can upload up to 30 books to their profile. These must be done in epub format (explanation will follow). One uploaded, the author can then choose segments to share with the Bublish community (i.e. readers) and attach some author notes to them. It’s these author notes that are the most interesting aspect of Bublish as they are unique and act almost like a director’s commentary on a DVD. These give the reader a unique and personal perspective of your book that readers on amazon or other retail sites won’t have. This in marketing terms is gold dust. No longer is your book just a collection of words strung together into a story that only once complete will readers fully appreciate, now your stories have personality in every excerpt that you decide to share.

Gone are the days where the reader had to endure the front matter of copyright notices and notes of thanks as part of their preview. Now authors get to choose what to show off, giving readers the taste of what is to come throughout the book, not just at the beginning. Also with ‘bubbles’ (excerpts) being unlimited per book, authors are not consigned to the usual 10-20% that a lot of online retailers insist on.

At the moment readers can read, share through social media and buy books right from a bubble. In the future, readers will be introduced to a variety of book bubbles from genres and topics they select when they join and introduce readers to new works that their clever systems think the reader might like based on their previously browsing history.

How does Bublish make money?

Bublish gains money from commissions on the sale of books it does through affiliates like Amazon. Although there has been talk of creating premium accounts, Bublish have stated that a thorough look through the economics of the publishing industry has shown that the selling of ebooks is the by far the best money maker. Hence in the meantime expansion of their commercial side would be through social commerce experiences rather than building premium tools. This is in my opinion a very sensible move. As an author; the feeling that someone would essentially pay for better exposure would undermine the basic concept of the website and would turn likely turn me away from using the service.

Why do you have to upload your entire novel / book to Bublish?

This question is one that had me concerned for a while. It wasn’t until I saw the process in place and was told of the security system in place that I felt reassured. Essentially publishing a bubble is very simple, but only because your entire book is already loaded onto your profile. It literally takes seconds. Also because it is in epub format it is already formatted for e-readers so readers can see what your book will look like on their kindle or nook.

Security was a big concern of mine, and rightly so in a time of torrent sites. However Bublish announced on a webinar that I attended that the security is incredibly tight as the books are stored on the Amazon cloud. They even shared a story that when their development team, which worked in another office, attempted to gain access the owners of Bublish got a call from Amazon on the mobile and home phone making sure the development team could access the data.

Even if a pirate was desperate to copy my work from my bubbles, people can’t highlight and copy the text direct from the bubble, leaving a determined pirate to type my book word for word. It certainly is not the easiest way for them to get a copy of my books.

So what are the positives?

The one thing that new and existing authors struggle with is exposure. This is where Bublish will work for authors. Without doing too much of work, Bublish will connect authors with the readers that have an interest in their book. Readers can be connected with authors that would normally be lost in the sea of self published books. By gaining exposure authors can gain new readers, fans and sales. Additionally Bublish have hinted at functions that would allow for authors to host special events with their readers – getting more connectivity between readers and writers.

The idea of the notes on the excerpts is an excellent idea and gives the books a more personal touch. Image if you could get the thoughts of Charles Dickens when you read the moment that Smike dies in Nicholas Nickleby? I know that I would love to have the thoughts of several authors when I read their books, and this platform will give readers that chance. For authors that personal touch helps give the book an emotional attachment to readers that increases their chances to selling the book.

With every new bubble that you post for a book, new content is added to the website. This content is considered new content by search engines, which better improves an author’s potential search ranking.

Future benefits of the site are immense; as it expands I am sure that new opportunities for author and readers will expand exponentially as well.

So what are the negatives?

As far as I can see, there are limited negatives for the Bublish platform. The idea of authors paying for extra promotional tools seems to go against the main aims of the site, but that is something that is not implemented at the moment and there are no plans in the near future to do so. Also the limited nature of the site at the moment, the single affiliate link, limited connection between author and reader are things that at the moment limit the effectiveness of the promotion. However to be fair to the site, it is only in its beta stages and is doing well.

Verdict

To be honest, I like the new website. It is a simple design yet effective in marketing. Authors can easily create new content and readers can share bubbles with just as much ease. In regards to their goal, I think that the team have achieved that experience of the bookshop to the best that the web allows, but at the same time improved upon it giving authors a brilliant platform in which to launch their work into the global literacy industry. With future developments in the pipeline I can expect the opportunities and the diversity offered to authors and readers to expand exponentially. So whether you love reading or writing I would suggest joining Bublish now.

I would like to thank Kathy Meis for answering my questions in relation to the Bublish platform and providing the image used in this article.

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