Odds & Ends

Thought I’d address a few things that popped up in the comments.

From Vanity Press:
How would you classify iUniverse?
Same as the others, in general. If I decided to go that way, however, I’d probably use lulu.com, because they are upfront about being a print-on-demand service and don’t pretend to be a real publisher.

The point was made that there is a way to use these services correctly. Absolutely! But you have to know what you’re doing and have realistic expectations. These types of presses are great for, say, people who do lectures and seminars on a small interest topic or who have an online customer base or some other way to drive customers to the sites. For example, someone like Hope Clark, or someone who tours and does lectures on a specific health issue, or a private school who publishes their own curriculum…basically, someone whose information has a limited audience, but who can push people interested in that topic to their website.

just clearing Dr. Phil’s name on this one here…
Didn’t mean to imply that he put any stock in the $3 million dream. But he did refer to them as a “publisher”.

*Industry buzzwords. Does LDS Publisher wish to address them sometime?
Like what?

From Contemporary/Historical Label Researched:
The problem with trying too hard to make a story contemporary is that in just a few years, it falls into the “fuzzy” space.
The life span of your average novel is 2 to 3 years, so most of the time, a contemporary novel will go out of print before it goes out of date.

From Where to Get a Review:
Will Utah papers do an article/review if you aren’t a Utah resident?
Depends on the book and the publisher. Talk to your publisher about it.

For a local paper, do you contact the editor and ask for someone to do an article/interview or write one and submit it yourself?
Find out who writes the book review columns. Find out if the paper has guidelines for what to send. (Some do, on their website.) Send them a copy of the book and press release that has enough information that they could write the column directly from that. Some papers will use your release verbatim, with their byline. Others will cut and paste as they want. (If you really want them to love you, send them the info in both hard copy and on a CD in Word and as a text file.

5 thoughts on “Odds & Ends”

  1. Sorry I wasn’t clear about the buzzwords.

    So many publicity/marketing sites talk about the importance of branding yourself and having a platform. First, can you define brands and platforms, and second, are they important to you and your colleagues in making a decision as to who will get a contract and who won’t? Are brands and platforms significant in the LDS marketplace?

    Thank you.

  2. The life span of your average novel is 2 to 3 years, so most of the time, a contemporary novel will go out of print before it goes out of date.

    This is certainly a valid point. I guess most people read books while they are still in print. I’ve really got to get caught up on my reading!

  3. One last thing regarding PublishAmerica: if any of you guys haven’t heard of the hoax regarding the book Atlanta Nights, check out it’s Wikipedia page.

    Basically, a group of authors, who were annoyed with PublishAmerica, got together and wrote the worst possible book: someone wrote a basic plot outline, and then randomized the chapters (so nothing is in order), and then each of the authors wrote their designated chapter without consulting the other authors. The result is hilariously awful. Characters die and come back to life, characters change race and gender. One chapter was written by a computer program.

    Publish America, of course, offered them a contract.

    (You used to be able to download the whole book for free, but I can’t find the link anymore. Too bad, because it was awesome.)

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