Why self-publishing ain't necessarily always a bowl of cherries & why I won't be using Smashwords again...

I am the first sing the praises of self-publishing. After all it's got me to where I am today. Never before has it been easier for a writer to get his or her work into the hands of the people that matter: the readers. It has democratised the publishing industry and has empowered writers more than anything else in recent memory.

Having said that, it ain't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. There are pitfalls to it.

If you're a writer who already self-publishes or are thinking of self-publishing, then my recent experience might be worth reading about for the sake of having a balanced view, if nothing else:

On Tuesday April 30th, two of my remaining self published books Life... With No Breaks & Max Bloom In The Cornerstone suddenly went free at Amazon UK. This took me by surprise as it had nothing to do with me. I emailed them and they came back to tell me that both books were being offered for free at the Barnes & Noble Nook UK store - and therefore Amazon had price-matched, as is their policy on such occasions.

This was a bit of a shocker as I had unpublished all ebook versions of my books at stores other than Amazon way back in the middle of March.

...or so I thought.

I had published my books via the Smashwords platform, who distribute ebooks out to external retailers like Barnes & Noble. Once I'd unpublished at Smashwords in March though, my ebooks should have been removed from sale at the Nook UK store.

Only they weren't.

What's more they were being advertised as free, despite me never having priced them as such.

Hasty emails were sent to Smashwords. Who I didn't hear back from for two days.

I then emailed the owner of the company who promised to look into it. A further three days passed with no resolution. The ebooks remained at the Nook UK store for free and the price match stayed at Amazon UK.

This of course meant I was selling no copies of either book.

Eventually, Smashwords did get the books removed from the Nook UK store... a whole week after I'd asked for their removal. Yes, in an age of lightning fast digital communication it still took seven days to get two books removed from one website.

I can upload or remove an ebook via Amazon KDP within twenty four hours without fail.

The practical upshot of all this was that I lost over £1000 in revenue at Amazon UK all the time the books were price matched to free. That's a grand down the crapper through no fault of my own.

If this had been the first incident like this it wouldn't have been so bad, but back last year a similar lengthy and erroneous pricing glitch via Smashwords led to Love... From Both Sides being removed from sale for a day by Amazon for violation of their Terms and Conditions. Then the year before that, my short story Feedback was also price matched to free by Amazon because one of Smashwords external retailers had it incorrectly priced at free for over a month.

Now, I am sure many writers have had a trouble free experience of using Smashwords and enjoy using the platform without hassle. I am only stating the problems I have had with them - problems that have led me to take the decision not to use their publishing platform again.

How can ebook retailers like Smashwords and Barnes & Noble hope to compete with Amazon when they allow these kinds of issues to exist? And take so long to have them resolved when they do crop up? If you want to threaten Amazon's dominance you at least have to provide an efficient service.

While being a traditionally published author does throw up its own issues from time to time, at least this kind of thing doesn't happen. If glitches, pricing problems or errors crop up with the 'Love...' books I have a publishing company who will handle the task of getting them fixed.

Cautionary tale over folks, normal service will resume shortly.

Places where you can pre-order Love... And Sleepless Nights in paperback

Hi folks,

Love... And Sleepless Nights is out on Thursday June 6th, so I thought I'd give you a rundown of where you can pre-order a copy of the paperback online right now... if it takes your fancy.

Here - in no particular order - are links to the retailers I've found that are stocking the book for pre-order:

AMAZON

SAINSBURYS

WH SMITH

WATERSTONES

Get Max Bloom In... The Cornerstone FREE at Amazon during Easter

Until Easter Monday you can download my comedy fantasy adventure 'Max Bloom In... The Cornerstone' for absolutely free at Amazon.

Just click the link here in the UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bloom-Cornerstone-selling-fantasy-ebook/dp/B00520I8V6

Or here for the USA and other countries:

http://www.amazon.com/Bloom-Cornerstone-selling-fantasy-ebook/dp/B00520I8V6

A fast-paced, hilarious fantasy adventure from Nick Spalding, the best selling author of the smash hit romantic comedy Love... From Both Sides and its sequels Love... And Sleepless Nights & Love... Under Different Skies - all available now.

A great book will transport you to another world... literally, if you're not careful.

On a gloomy Thursday afternoon, Max Bloom enters his local library in a last ditch attempt to stave off an epic case of teenage boredom. Among the hushed stacks he discovers The Cornerstone, an ancient book tucked away on a dusty, forgotten shelf. Opening the cover, Max is instantly transported to an alternate dimension full of things intent on killing him - thus avoiding boredom with remarkable success.

He meets a beautiful girl called Merelie (brilliant), who tells him he could be a Wordsmith, a sorcerer able to craft magic from the written word itself, one strong enough to save both their worlds from the Dwellers - hideous monsters from beyond the universe (not so brilliant).

This all sounds completely unbelievable. The kind of thing you'd read in a fantasy novel. But The Cornerstone doesn't lie... and the danger is very real.

In a world threatened by monsters, where books are worshipped and powerful magic exists, Max Bloom must make a choice: close The Cornerstone and run home - or trust Merelie, become a Wordsmith, and save two worlds from certain destruction... 

Nick Spalding speaking at the London Book Fair 2013... whether you like it or not.

Are you a writer?

Are you planning on self publishing?

Would you like to come and meet a best selling author, who can provide you with wise and effective advice that will assist you to a successful career in the publishing industry?

Sorry, can't help you with that one.

If, on the other hand, you want to meet a complete twat in a badly fitting shirt and tie, who will spout bullshit at you for an hour, between cracking bad jokes and going on about how much he likes boobs, then by all means come and meet Nick Spalding at the London Book Fair on Tuesday, April 16th.

Yes, it's your chance to berate me in person for any spelling or grammatical errors you may have come across while reading one of my books.

I'll be doing an interview and a Q&A session in The Author Lounge's Seminar Room at 2pm on Tuesday, April 16th. Then I will hang around like a bad smell outside for a while afterwards, talking to to anyone who manages to successfully corner me by the pot plants.

I'll also be the referee in a wresting cage match between the representatives from Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing and the team from Kobo's Writing Life platform. It will be a no holds barred / no disqualification match, with a win by pinfall or submission. The winner will go on to face the Apple iBooks team at the Frankfurt Book Fair in the autumn.*

So, if you are a writer, or just fancy surrounding yourself with book industry types for the day, why not come along to the fair and meet yours truly?

Here's some links in the form of images culled from the internet without seeking copyright permissions. Give 'em a click:

*This may not be entirely true. I may have just dreamt it.

Can I ask you a favour? Price-matching at Amazon.

Hi folks,

Got a favour to ask if you have a minute and wouldn't mind helping me out...

The Love... From Both Sides paperback is currently priced £4.89 at Amazon UK. I'd like it to be the same price as it is in store at Tesco - £3.85, so everyone pays the same price for it, if they buy it in a shop or online.

Amazon will probably price-match, but to do this they need to know from customers that the book is priced cheaper at Tesco.

So, if you have an Amazon account and wouldn't mind giving Spalding a helping hand, could you navigate to the Love... From Both Sides paperback page at Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Both-Sides-Nick-Spalding/dp/1444768174

Scroll down to the Product Details section:

Click on 'tell us about a lower price' and fill in the form as below before clicking Submit Feedback.

Thanks very much and have a lovely rest of the weekend, whatever you're doing with it :)

Nick.

A new cover for Max Bloom In... The Cornerstone.

For the plain and simple reason that the old one doesn't really work as a thumbnail when you look at it online. It's a nice cover, but when it's small it's a bit hard to make out what the hell is going on, and isn't as eye-catching or descriptive as it could be:

Hence the change to the following:

Now, I'm not claiming this new version is wildly original. In fact, the picture of a magic book could be considered something of a cliche. However, when you get right down to it a cover should be as simple, descriptive and eye-catching as possible.

Max Bloom In... The Cornerstone is essentially a book about a magic book, so the cover of the book is now a magic book.

Book. Book. Bookity. Book.

It's also more brightly coloured than the old one, which will hopefully catch the eye of the browsing reader.

I have no idea whether this is a worthwhile experiment or not, but I like to have a change every now and again, so why not do it with a book that's currently not blowing the doors off sales-wise?

Only time will tell if the alteration was a good idea or not...

Nick Spalding: experimenting with self-publishing so you don't have to.

Advice for authors

I've added a new page to the site for any self-published writers out there who are looking for a bit of advice:

http://spaldings-racket.blogspot.co.uk/p/advice-for-authors.html

Rather than risk giving bad advice, the page is full of links to forums and blogs that feature people better able to offer constructive and helpful insights into self publishing than I am :)

Love... From Both Sides at number 33 in Tesco book chart

Walked in to Tesco Saturday and had to take a picture of this:

It's not every day you outsell a Lee Child novel. Especially one with Tom Cruise looking constipated on the cover.

The first few days after a book launch...

Hi folks,

Sorry it's been a wee bit quiet on the Spalding front in the past few days. After all the fun and games of launch day last week I've taken a few days off to chill out and let my nerves return to some semblance of normality.

It turns out launching two books on the same day amounts to quite the recipe for stress - what with driving to every local Tesco and WH Smith to hunt for copies of the paperback*, and relentlessly checking my Amazon rankings on a minute by minute basis. It's a wonder I didn't suffer a prolapse of some kind.

I may have sold a fair few books last year, but that by no means guaranteed that anyone was going to like my latest effort. And launching the first book to the paperback crowd was never going to be a sure fire thing, no matter how many copies I manage to flog on the Kindle.

But happily for my neuroses, bank balance and continued career as a writer, the launches both seem to have gone very well.

Love... Under Different Skies has eleven five star reviews as I speak at Amazon, and is selling well at the various online ebook stores. Love... From Both Sides has done swimmingly in paperback as well. It's got some terrific reviews from The Daily Mail, Closer & New magazines, and various respected book bloggers on the Internet. It also appears to be selling well, though paperback sales are a little harder to track than ebook sales. The various branches of Tesco and WH Smith I've seen it in certainly seem to have shifted a few copies, and Amazon appear to have temporarily sold out... so not too shabby thus far :)

So what's next?

This coming week I fully intend to start the next Spalding book. This one will be a completely new concept. I'm going to give Jamie and Laura a bit of a break... they need it, quite frankly.

You'll be introduced to a brand new couple soon, who have some of their own hurdles to get over. Unlike Jamie and Laura, they've been together for years, and this new book will partly be about what being a good decade into a relationship is like. (Clue: less effort, more calories).

So there you go... six books on release, with another one coming this summer (...with any luck. I haven't experienced writer's block yet, but that doesn't guarantee the bugger isn't lurking upstream somewhere).

In the meantime, hope you enjoy the books that are out (you can pick up Cornerstone for just 77p at the moment) and hope you'll like the new one when it eventually gets done.

All the best,

Nick.



*Yes, tragically sad, I know. But it's the done thing when you publish your first book, and I'm not one to go against tradition. Besides, it really was quite an emotional moment seeing my book on display in the branch of WH Smith I've been shopping in for decades. I would have rolled a tear, were it not for the slightly strange looking gentleman standing next to me in an ill fitting suit, who was examining a copy of Fifty Shades Freed with what I considered to be an unwholesome degree of concentration.

Here's a picture (of the book, not the weird bloke. If I'd have snapped him I might have ended up in a fight, or worse... with an invite back to his place).

OUT NOW! Love... From Both Sides & Love... Under Different Skies

Well, the day has finally come. My two new books are unleashed to the world today (in paperback and ebook respectively).

Love... From Both Sides is available to buy at all good book shops.

Love... Under Different Skies is available to buy as an ebook at all online retailers.

If you do decide to buy either one, both, or all three books in the trilogy, I very much hope you enjoy reading them.

Thanks to all the Coronet team at my publishers Hodder & Stoughton for getting the books to print, thanks to my friends and family for all their love and support, and (most importantly) thanks to each and every one of you for buying the books and liking my work. I wouldn't be here without you folks and your support is very, very much appreciated!

Best wishes and happy reading,

Nick.

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