On March 1, 2011, Random House, the last holdout against the Agency Model for pricing ebooks, caved. Random House joined other publishers by paying a standard fee of 30% out of author royalties to the distributor(s) of its e-books. The Agency Model for pricing e-book fees was signed onto last year when Apple debuted it’s iPad, and Apple began charging 30% for distribution of e-books via its iBookstore. Barnes & Noble and Amazon to some degree, followed Apple’s lead regarding ebook distribution fees. Where the ebookstores disagree most now is on pricing e-books.

Print books by tradition are sold by wholesaling them to retail stores who then can price the books at the retail price they choose. Ebook pricing is quite different. E-books aren’t sold by wholesaling a limited number of copies. Instead, ebookstores are setting retail price categories for e-books. Amazon and Barnes & Noble have set a maximum retail price of $9.99 for their e-books and encourage authors to publish for even less than that.

Apple, on the contrary, has encouraged a minimum retail price (the DOJ’s alleged Agency Model price-fixing) for its e-books by allowing publishers and authors to set their own prices. Apple’s e-book prices can be above Amazon’s $9.99 minimum and Apple charges the same 30% fee for higher-priced ebooks. All ebookstores encourage authors to publish at particular prices by the way each store sets their fees for distribution of e-books.

The Agency Model – what is it?

The Agency Model would have had all retail sellers of e-books taking a standard cut of 30 percent. Google, however, didn’t agree with that amount. Google’s One Pass services said it would charge only ten percent. Google claimed 10% covers all its costs in serving digital content. Google fixed its minimum cost per “copy” of an ebook title at an even lower than Amazon did! How, you might ask will Google make money? The answer is: as it always does, by advertising. Google ads are a lucrative business for both the sellers and the hosts of those ads.

Apple and the publishers who signed onto it claim the Agency Model is the superior way of pricing ebooks. The Agency Model allows publishers and authors to charge what they choose for their ebooks. But what about the pricing of used e-books? Can you resell them? Apparently not. Like music, sharing of digitally downloaded books isn’t allowed. Digital books appear to be “leased” from the distributor. You buy the right to read the book and maybe make multiple copies for personal use.

This means far less freedom for book lovers. That includes libraries, some of which have had to buy the print copy of an ebook before they could loan out an ebook version to a patron for the library’s typical two-week or one-month book-borrowing period. I like reading e-books. Some have a lot of nice features that print books don’t have. But personally, I just can’t quite warm up to a world where librarians can’t buy new ebooks from publishers and readers can’t browse and pay less money for used e-books!

There is an even more disconcerting change taking place because of the ebook world. The book as an “object of art” is vanishing. Just as with MP3s, there is no physical object representing the book in digital form. The only limitation to the e-book is the programming needed to display it on an eReader. That isn’t insignificant, but unlike mp3s, e-books appear to have the potential to equal or even surpass print books in quality. E-books could possibly replace print books altogether.

Because of the invention of ebooks, books are becoming “virtual”:  they will someday be as vaporous as a holograph of a painting. Of e-books one could echo Helen Mirren’s Prospera, “Now my charms are all o’erthrown, And what strength I have’s thine own,…” Indeed, I wonder if the book industry, like the music industry, isn’t going to “pay” dearly by creating a leased digital product that cannot ever drop in price.

Is Agency-Model pricing bad for authors?

This is your real question isn’t it? I would say “No,” not for the short-term. As a writer, you have no vested interest in the used book market: used-books bookstores may keep your reputation alive, but you don’t make any royalties from them.

Moreover, traditional publishing provides authors with 10% royalties and often discounts print books to retailers at 50 percent. Hence the lower cost of e-books when the publisher only needs to give a distributor 30 percent of the retail price of a book. If you are a self-publisher it is even better. Because of Apple, you get to keep 70% of the price for your book

However, book pricing, like all pricing, is a matter of supply and demand. Usually, as demand for a good goes up and supply stays the same, the price for the good will go up. But ebook distributors offer an infinite supply of their goods. It costs ebookstores nothing to keep and distribute an infinite number of copies of an e-book, yet they charge publishers and authors the same 30% for each copy sold.

As a result of agency model fees, the price of your e-book can never go up even as demand increases. Nor can it go down. You make the same amount (i.e., 70% of retail price) on the “margin,” i.e., on the last unit sold, as you did on the first unit sold. The marginal unit cost of zero is why a minimal price needs to be set for all e-books. Publishers and authors need to recoup their ebook production costs even if their ebooks do not sell more than the average number of copies, or most will never publish a second e-book. This is a waste of creative talent. Many other countries support their  writers’ efforts by using fixed book price agreements.

Because ebooks have an approximately-infinite supply, successful ebook authors could offset the standard agency price model by selling their ebook at a discounted price through non-agency venues or even via their own websites. But Apple does not want publishers or authors to be able to sell against its iBookstore pricing; it doesn’t allow short-term sales at lower prices for its e-books. Nor does it share most of its customer data with publishers. Amazon and other big ebookstores have adopted this practice too. Only Google demurred. With the advent of its One Pass Service, Google promised to share customer datawith publishers.

What’s really bad about Agency-Model pricing

For published authors not sharing customer data may not seem like a big deal. Presently a published author of a print book can’t get access to information about buyers of their book from their publisher. So Apple’s arrangement is not very different. Apple will give publishers and authors data only from customers who have “opted in” to give consent for their information to be shared. Amazon and Barnes & Noble certainly aren’t sharing customer data either.

In the print book world too, only bookstores have access to information about who buys print books. As a result, a published author does not have the data to market an ensuing book to the audience for their first book. I’ve always thought publishers were extremely short-sighted not to understand that a mailing list of customers is a prime marketing tool in the hands of an author! Amazon, Apple, and other ebookstores also actively discourage authors from using their websites and their own customer data to sell their books.

“Cross-selling,” i.e., selling an additional product to people you have previously sold something to, is much easier to do than starting from scratch. Publishers and bookstores instead, rely on their own reputations to sell books, rather than on their authors’ “sweat equity”. The downside is that if an author switches publishers, the the new publisher has to start marketing that author from scratch all over again.

Apple, however, understands the immense potential for profit from cross-selling the titles of future e-books via its iBookstore. Apple and the publishers of subscription magazines and newspapers have been battling over that very issue for the past couple of years. Each has vied for possession of the names and addresses of of the customers who buy e-newspaper or e-magazine subscriptions. These publishers understand that Apple’s monopoly over customer data useful for cross-selling would make Apple more powerful than they are.

If you are a book publisher or the self-publisher of an e-book, you should be just as concerned about your customer data as magazine and newspaper publishers are!

Apple is now facing a lawsuit for use of mobile phone app personal data. Apps are how Apple publishes e-magazine and e-newspaper subscriptions. Apple’s grab for customer data appears to be driven by greed as well as shortsightedness. Apple’s platform for books, the iBookstore, would enable Apple to collect revenues from advertising, both general and “targeted” (i.e., recommendations to readers about similar books).

Publishers and authors of e-books, on the other hand, will be left with no such opportunities to make more money from their e-books  other than the Agency-model royalty – unless – authors litter the pages of their e-books with ads or resort to accepting product placement in their e-books. I shudder to think of it!

Right now e-books seem like the icing on the cake for publishers and self-publishers alike. In the future, however, e-books are likely to be an authors’ bread and butter. In the new world of digital publishing, authors now bear much of the burden for promoting their own book(s). If authors don’t take care, Apple, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble will be eating their cake and the icing while authors again get the leftover crumbs.

NOTE: For my opinion about why a minimum price needs to be set for ebooks, please see “The Apple Conundrum” by Nancy K. Humphreys at Huffington Post.

Why do we need editors?

An indexer I know refuses to ask clients to put her name in the books she indexes even though that is a great way to market indexing services.

“Why,” I asked.

“Because editors always crap up my work.”

OK! Here’s what I have to say about that.

I’ve been a published writer since I was age twelve. Changes editors made to my work was my main gripe as a writer. But I’ve changed – for two reasons:

Self-employment

Being in business for yourself means your first priority must always be getting new clients. You don’t get a weekly or monthly paycheck when you’re self-employed. And, as a book packager I met a book fair once told me, “You have to reinvent yourself every three years.”

Clients come and go; your interests change; or you get sick of being typecast. Whatever the reason, you must sell your services constantly when you’re self-employed. The up-side of that is that you get in the groove by doing it every day. You can sell your services without even thinking. If you’re an employee, on the other hand, you have to gear up like crazy whenever you are laid off or find you need to move on to a new job.

Also, If you don’t like a client and/or they don’t like you, you can walk away without losing your job. Now that is what I call real “security”. It’s a lot harder to walk away when you are an employee and have only one paycheck coming in.

So when I write an index for a book I ask for my name to be put on the page with the index itself because that is the place it will be noticed by the most people. If not on the page titled, “Index,” then I like to see my name in the front of the book, with my website listed also. That’s my way of advertising for new clients. The nice thing is: it’s free!

Blogging

As a blogger, I’ve realized that editors are people with real skills that writers need. In particular, they can help me pare down my content in ways I would never think of. Blog posts have to be short, much shorter than the kind of writing I’m used to doing with articles or short stories.

Also, I’m old enough to see that everyone in this world needs to feel useful in some capacity. That is how most of us connect with others. Our first question when meeting a new person is “What do you do?” not “Who are you?” Editors, I’ve come to see, are people too. They are people just like me. They want their work to be valued.

In addition, perfectionism is a mean goddess. She requires hours of one’s time as payment for her blessing. Writing is as natural to me as breathing. With so much left to write, I understand now that I really don’t have the time to try to make my writing perfect. In fact, if I did make my posts perfect, I’d have to go back to being “pissed off” at editors who make revisions to my work. Life is too short and precious for that!

On the other hand, you don’t want to be the writer whose writings the editor hates to see coming because they will need to change so much of what you wrote. There’s a sweet spot somewhere in between those two extremes.

That’s why whether I’m writing for a publisher or self-publishing my own posts, I do my best, and I leave the editor a little something to do. That’s not hard, because after all, none of us are actually perfect and certainly not me! (Or should the last word in that sentence be “I”?)

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

The value of brick and mortar bookstores

For the past few years my partner and I have spent at least one day a week hanging out at Barnes & Noble. Looking back, I can see that we learned more from a 3-hour stay at a bookstore than we ever learned on the Internet.

That’s not to say I haven’t learned anything on the Internet. I have. But in the same amount of time it takes me to read a post, I can check out the table of contents, skim the index, and get right to the section of a book that has the exact information I seek.

And have you noticed even Amazon is now talking about building a brick & mortar store?

Do you believe that free is always best?

Bookstores are organized; the Internet isn’t. And here’s the problem with this difference. Most of us are parasites, finding what we need at the bookstore for free (or perhaps for the price of a decaf mocha grande), and then heading to the Internet to buy the item. What if brick and mortar bookstores charged us to get in? Would we pay? How much?

What if the online Encyclopedia Britannica (now about to cease publishing its centuries-old print version) were to charge a subscription price for using it? Would we all turn up our noses and stick to Wikipedia with its, stubs, essays by amateurs, inaccurate information, out-dated entries, and lack of any index?

And what about those $1 ebooks? How many of them have you tried to read?

Pricing your book and/or your services

In any case, here’s what I want to say about a great book I found at B&N, No B.S. Price Strategy. It was written by Dan S. Kennedy and Jason Marrs and published by Entrepreneur Press in 2011. The table of contents basically sold me the book. I didn’t even bother to look at the index.

Here are three of the basic price strategies these guys explain in the book:

• WAG (wild-assed guess)
• Industry norm
• Client-dictated

I’ll bet if you are like me, you’ve used “industry norm” and/or “client-dictated” sometime in your career. And I’ll bet if you are like me you’ve been totally disgusted with the results. As the authors warn, these are not the tactics used by successful entrepreneurs.

Nor is sitting around waiting for a month, two months or even longer for payment. Here is what the book says about payment: The rich get paid in advance. Are you getting paid in advance for your services? For your book?

Here are some of the other basic strategies in the chapters in this book:

• Cost-plus – methods that involve calculating costs and then adding some amount for profit
• Skimming (the cream off the top – by selling an attribute other than price)
• Sequential skimming (starting at the top and then lowering the price as demand declines)
• Penetration – setting a low price for fast sales (and spending a ton on marketing)
• Target Return – the method technical investors use when they project profits by charting the likely path an investment will take over a specific period of time.

NOTE: Nowhere in these chapter headings do you see the method that seems to be popular with many service providers and ebook authors today:

• Start at the bottom and work your way up

Truly, have you ever tried to raise your price when you started out keeping it low? How do you explain that to your customers? How well do they respond to it?

Inside No B.S. Price Strategy are links for both authors. I would skip Dan Kennedy, but I strongly recommend you check out the one for Jason Marrs. He offers five free sessions, one each week, where he covers 39 specific strategies for pricing. His sessions are audio-only and ten minutes maximum. That means you could literally become an expert on pricing over your lunch hour. Now that’s what I call a real deal.

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

If you take the lowest bid you get for an index you may be missing out on term consistency in your index. Why is this the case? And why is it important?

Expertise of the indexer

Taking the lowest bid may mean you don’t get the most consistent index. As with other professionals, not all indexers have the same expertise. I discussed the topic of choosing an indexer in my last post, “Term Consistency and Book Indexing“.

Although some indexers choose to charge the same average rate for all books, most experienced indexers ask to see pages from the book first before they give you an estimate. That’s because there are a wide variety of factors that can affect the price for an index. For a list of those factors, see my page at WordmapsIndexing about Cost Factors For Indexes. Consider these cost factors as they may apply to your book.

Address any cost factor that applies to your book with the indexer you are thinking about hiring to do your index. For example, if your book is on a topic with special terminology, you’ll want an indexer who totally understands that terminology. While a general undergraduate degree may be fine for some book, you may need someone with a major in your subject, work experience, or even a Master’s degree in your subject. It all depends.

Expect to pay a bit more for special expertise from an indexer if your index needs it. Now on to why term consistency is important. This week let’s look at the first of three costs for indexing that involve term consistency:  cross-references.

Cross-referencing of headings in an index

Indexes without any See or See also cross-references are usually inferior indexes. Here is why.

Readers don’t always use the same word to find the same concept. You can’t index a book about hell without using synonyms for the beings associate with the Christian idea of hell: Demon, Daimon, Devil, and Satan. Nor can you index a  book about writing fantasy stories without synonyms for the beings found there: Aliens, Beasts, Creatures, and Monsters. the indexer must create cross-references among these synonyms.

How does an indexer go about putting See cross-references in an index?

To avoid making the reader look in four different places in the index for information about the same topic, most indexers will choose one term from either of the two batches of synonyms listed above. The indexer will use  one term and make See cross-references to it from the other three or four terms in the index, e.g., Daimon, See Devil; Demon, See Devil; and Satan, See Devil. The term the indexer picks may be the one most-used by you, the author in the text. Or the indexer might pick the term they think most readers will use to find that subject.

Now, if there are just two terms that are synonymous, the indexer might want to use both terms in the index, and make a See also cross-reference from each one to the other, e.g., Satan See also Devil along with Devil, See also Satan. It all depends on the book and the indexer.

However, if the way two or more similarly-defined words are used in your book is not quite synonymous, then each word will need to be its own main heading and the indexer will need to create See also cross-references pointing to the other similar word(s).

The important thing to understand here is that the indexer must make the reader aware when you’ve used synonyms or near-synonyms in your book when discussing a topic. Readers who look in the index will find the discussion(s) of that topic even though they started their search by looking under different words in the index. In other words, the bee can take more than one path to the honey.

How does an indexer go about using See also cross-references in an index?

A book about fantasy writing can’t be indexed fully without making See also references to more specific instances of the main topics in the book. For example let’s say Beasts are a main topic of your book. If you frequently talk about dragons, a specific kind of beast, and/or mention lots of different kinds of dragons, these can be listed separately under a new main heading, “Dragon,” in the index.

If dragons aren’t listed under the main heading, “Beasts,” the indexer sure as heck must include a See also cross reference like this one: “Beasts. See also Dragons”. Otherwise the reader who looks under “Beasts” may never realize information about dragons can also be found in your book.

Now why is this important? I’ve done research at a college library that indicated students who look in one place and find only partial information on a topic stop right there. They do not look further for the information that is missing. They assume it just isn’t in the library catalog, or in this case, in your book.

The immense importance of cross-references in indexes

Books that have indexes that omit cross-references will cause the reader to miss much of the information that you, the author, have devoted your time to providing the reader with. Nor will readers be able to go back and find something they recall reading about in your book.

For a prime example of the frustration this can cause a reader,  read any of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad book series and then go back and try to find something you read in it. Famous as he is, Kiyosaki might have far more sales of his book, especially among college students,  if he had simply provided an index his books. But he doesn’t. Kiyosaki’s antagonism toward education, i.e., his “Poor Dad,” is understandable, but not forgivable when you are the reader of one of his books.

Even books with very specific topics or genres need cross references. For example in a cookbook, some people will use the term “butter lettuce”. Others will use the term “Boston lettuce”. What if one reader looks under “cakes” and another looks under “desserts”? Cookbooks almost always must have See and See also cross-references.

Even an introductory textbook should have a real index. I’ve seen introductory math books and even an advanced text about physics where the index included only the definitions of terms. An index is not a dictionary! In index is not a glossary! One of the main purposes of an index is to gather together all of the different aspects of a topic in one place.

Badly-indexed textbooks where only the definitions of terms are indexed appear to assume that students will merely memorize those definitions. Surely most teachers would rather their students understand the concepts being taught. This is why an indexer should index examples and discussions that may further explain a concept. An index should also capture any comparisons of one concept with another in your book!

Cross-references are an important part of terminology control in your book. The amount of cross-referencing needed for your book is a significant consideration for the indexer when determining the cost of doing an index for a book.

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

A term is a word or a phrase. A word or a phrase can have a variety of meanings. In addition, there’s the connotation (implied meaning) as well as the denotation (explicit meaning) of a word.

Term consistency in an index is an art which involves making choices such as these:

(1) Should the indexer list synonymous terms separately in the index and make See also cross-references between (or among) the closely related terms?

(2) Or should the indexer choose one term only for purposes of indexing and make See cross-references to that term from the term(s) not used in the index.

Term consistency is a subset of vocabulary control which in turn is a subset of quality control in indexing. Term consistency is important to the author for several reasons that I’ll cover in this and the next three posts about indexing. We begin with the issue of how much expertise in the terminology of a specific subject an indexer needs to create a competent index.

Term consistency and choosing an indexer

Indexers debate the issue of whether or not we should have any subject expertise in order to index a book. As “first readers” of the books we index there is a feeling by some indexers that if we can’t understand it, neither will the audience.

While that’s true in a lot of cases, it isn’t always. This response assumes that the audience will be the same for all books. And that isn’t true.

Demographic factors, such as age, educational background, work experience, cultural and national origins, knowledge of the subject of the book, and the reader’s reason for wanting to know what’s in the book can all affect the ability of readers to make use of our indexes.

If the indexer does not share enough traits in common with your book’s audience or at least know something about your audience, your index may not be quite as useful to your audience as it could be.

When to choose an indexer with special expertise

The problem for an indexer is that it is sometimes difficult to know if we do have enough expertise to index a book until we’ve read the book. And then it’s a bit too late! But usually we have some sense of our own limitations.

For example, I would never agree to do an advanced medical textbook for students. I just don’t know medical terminology well enough to see the relationships among terms used for diagnosing diseases, discussing treatments, or the tools that doctors and nurses use.

In a similar vein, I agreed to become the indexer for very technical economics books published by a think tank in Michigan because I have a Master’s degree in economics from one of the best colleges in the US.

When I said, “yes,” the editor thanked me at length. He then told me, “Our last indexer just indexed words. She didn’t have a clue about what the words really meant.”

When to compromise about expertise

Sometimes it’s just a truism that no one can know as much about a subject as the author or authors of a book.

For example, for years I indexed the Black Music Research Journal (BMRJ) for Columbia College in Chicago. My qualifications were extensive experience and training in music and music appreciation, I also had a bit of knowledge of cross-cultural experiences from being a womens studies librarian for several years.

But the Black Music Research Journal is an amazing compendium of information about African culture as it has spread throughout the world with the “diaspora” of black people in previous centuries. Politics, geography, history, anthropology, literature, religion… you name it, these articles covered all those subjects and more in addition to music from every part of the world. I doubt there is any one person who excels in all of these fields.

Yet, I did wonder often whether not being an African-American meant I was missing a lot of important things in the Journal. I comfort myself with the knowledge that my predecessor appeared to be absolutely oblivious of the existence of women in black music.

I introduced a number of headings to the BMRJ index related to black and non-black women that this indexer had simply not even seen. He even failed to index the women who were major subjects of some of the articles!

When to not worry about term consistency

Indexers usually have a college background. For most trade books aimed at a general audience you don’t really have to worry about whether the indexer will understand the terminology of your book.

In addition, indexers are quick learners. We can easily pick up the terminology in a new subject area. We will also do research outside of the book if necessary, but most of us prefer not to have to do this – it takes time, and for us, time is money

Also, some fields are just so broad and so full of individual discovery that an indexer will do well to just to know that basics about indexing that field.

For example, if you have created a cookbook of American cuisine, the important thing you want to know from the indexer, (besides whether they like food!) is whether they know the traditional means by which cookbook indexes are to be structured.

Beyond that, every cookbook indexer usually learns something new when we index a cookbook. That’s because knowing how one chef does things is no guarantee we’ll know how any other chef works.

Surprises and learning about new things are one of the benefits that make us become indexers in the first place.

Three tips for finding your indexer

(1) Make sure you identify who the audience or audiences are for your book. Let the indexer know the details about who you believe will want to read your book. If you have a primary audience and a secondary one, mention that too. This information will help an indexer gauge our ability to index your book.

(2) Help the indexer decide if we can index your book by offering to send us a few pages if we say they might be interested in working on your book. Do this so we can see what we may be getting into. If you haven’t finished writing your book, describe it and ask us if we think we would have the right background to do it.

(3) Don’t assume an indexer will have mentioned everything about their background in a directory of indexers or on their web site on LinkedIn! Indexers often have varied subject interests, many of which we lacked the space to mention or we just didn’t think of it as something an author might write about!

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

Let me answer the question, Does my book need a catalog record? with another question: Why do libraries need classification?

If you’ve ever taken biology in school, you’ve learned about the classes used to classify all living beings. These are called kingdoms (Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea and Bacteria).

Classification is the science of breaking things down into “classes,” i.e., very broad subjects, then arranging those classes into some kind of order, and then — subdividing each class into narrower and narrower categories within each class.

Say, does this sound familiar? Isn’t that what indexers do? You bet it is!

Indexers “chunk” the content of a book into broad classes of information that we call “main headings”. These main headings can be specific names of people, places, things, or concepts. Main headings are the main “subjects” of discussion in a book.

In a book index, the broad classes, i.e., the  “subjects,” are arranged in alphabetical order. Then these classes (subjects) are subdivided into smaller “subclasses” that fall within the topic of the main heading. The smaller chunks of information, the indented terms under the main headings in a book index, are called the “subheadings.”

In short: indexing is a form of classification of all human knowledge

Difference between a book index and library catalog?

Obviously a book contains a smaller “domain” of knowledge! That’s a big difference. A library catalog is a much bigger project than a book index. The librarians’ domain is all of the human knowledge that exists anywhere at any time.

In addition, human knowledge exists outside of the medium by which it is transmitted. A book is just one way to transmit knowledge.

For example, in an article titled, “The worlds oldest profession: indexing?,” published in the December 2011 issue of  the Society of Indexers’ journal, The Indexer, I talk about the oldest index in the world. This index is said to have been inspired in ancient, prehistoric China by markings on the backs of turtles!

There are many other ways of transmitting knowledge besides what we call a book. Now we are creating new ways of sharing information with all kinds of “digital” books, i.e., app books, audiobooks, ebooks, enhanced ebooks, illustrated (fixed-format) ebooks, and instant-download PDF books.

Similarity between a book index and library catalog?

Yet, there is a parallel between book indexing and what librarians call “cataloging” of books. Cataloging is the process by which a book is described and listed in a library catalog. Cataloging takes place because librarians have developed systems of classifying and organizing large amounts of data in diverse kinds of materials.

Here’s the similarity: classification is a part of the of cataloging library books.

Classification is what is behind the “call numbers” you see on a library book. It’s also behind  the “subject headings” attached to each book that you can search for in a library catalog. Classification is used by both indexers and librarians in organizing human knowledge so that we all can find things in a book or in a library.

This is a very close connection, and it goes back as far as we can see. The first preserved index in the world, the Chinese book of changes, or I Ching, was also the first classification system. The I Ching was a systematic analysis of human society for the purpose of governing in times of war and peace.

Modern library classification systems arose when human knowledge expanded beyond the point where a few scrolls, clay tablets, or books sufficed to encompass all of human knowledge.

In the United States, for example, Harvard University was the first library in what became the United States. Harvard’s initial collection of 400 books arrived on our shores in 1638. Today Harvard has the fourth largest library in the world; Harvard’s libraries now house 15.6 million volumes.

Why get a catalog record for my book?

If you want to sell your book to libraries, getting a catalog record is vital! The key question is not why get a catalog record, but how to get a catalog record. That’s because there are four different ways to get a catalog record for your book.

I examine these  four ways in Chapter five of my new book, Marketing Your Book to Libraries: An Insider’s Guide for Librarians. Depending on how you publish your book and market it, you may decide to choose one method over another to get a catalog record for your book.

Just be aware that cataloging, processing, shelving, circulating, and re-shelving and occasionally repairing a book, costs libraries far more than the book itself! And be aware that a librarian or staff member supervised by a qualified librarian is the only one who can create a catalog record that will be accepted by other librarians for use in their libraries.

What does a catalog record do?

A reason that cataloging of books is so important to librarians is because the classification of books is what enables librarians, library staff, and patrons to actually identify what book titles are in the library. Classification is also what empowers librarians, library staff, and patrons to quickly find where those books are in the library when they want to use the book, show the book to others, and/or borrow it.

(Note: I once worked in an big city library where we had no access to a library catalog that we could use for finding any of the thousands of books in our reference area! We had to rely on our own knowledge of library classification instead.)

As  with an index, classification empowers readers in a library to “browse” among many discussions on the same topic. Classification will let a reader browse virtual shelves in a library as well as actual ones.

For example, here is the Library of Congress’ online catalog. You can input  a call number for a book into one of the “Call Number Browse” boxes, hit the search button, and see all of the other books “shelved” alongside that book. The Library of Congress began with 3,000 books, and it now houses 33 million volumes. That’s the the largest library collection in the world!

Most libraries in the US are responsible for too large a domain of human knowledge to use either the alphabetical order that indexers use for subjects in book indexes or the keyword order that bookstores use for arranging books on their shelves.

This means that if you want your book to “fit in” to the complex classification systems that libraries use for finding and shelving books, you need a library catalog record for your book!

Can’t I sell my book to libraries without a catalog record?

Yes, indeed, you can! There are small libraries that do not use either of the two traditional library classification systems most American libraries use. They will take and house a book without a catalog record. And there are special collections within all kinds of libraries in this country that will buy and keep non-cataloged books too.

The problem is that these non-cataloged materials will be housed separately from the cataloged ones. They may be put in boxes kept on an out-of-the-way shelf or room. Or they may be put in file cabinets. And the only person who knows they are there is the librarian or library staff member who curates those books.

A recent survey of public library patrons showed that 50% of regular patrons will buy other books by an author that they discover at the library. In addition, word of mouth is the best way to publicize your book.

This is why you need a catalog record! If you want many libraries to acquire your book and make it possible for a lot of library patrons to read it and spread the word about it, get your book cataloged!

Now up on Authormaps.com: “Does Your Book Need PCIP?” [a prepublication catalog record]

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Today’s post is a guest post by Julia Schopick, a former client of mine who is successfully selling her self-published book to readers and libraries via radio talk shows.

About Julia

Julia Schopick is the author of the Amazon.com best-selling book, Honest Medicine: Effective, Time-Tested, Inexpensive Treatments for Life Threatening Diseases, and creator of the award-winning blog, HonestMedicine.com. She has been a published writer and a public relations consultant for more than twenty years. When her husband Tim Fisher became ill in 1990 with a cancerous brain tumor, Julia became his medical advocate and began writing on topics relating to health and medicine. Her articles and columns have been published in numerous publications, including American Medical News (the AMA publication), SEARCH (the newsletter of the National Brain Tumor Foundation) and Alternative and Complementary Therapies.

Julia’s work and essays have been featured in many other publications, as well, including the British Medical Journal, Modern Maturity and the Chicago Sun-Times. Her mission is to use her writing and public relations skills to inform the world about effective, time-tested, inexpensive treatments for life-threatening diseases through her website, her presentations and her book, Honest Medicine—and overall, to empower people in their health choices.

Julia has appeared on numerous radio programs nationwide, including the very popular Coast to Coast AM and Dr. Ronald Hoffman’s WOR710AM show, Health Talk. Her book has gotten some wonderful reviews, and she has been interviewed on The Atlantic’s website. Honest Medicine has received glowing testimonials from several integrative physicians, including Julian Whitaker, Jacob Teitelbaum, David Brownstein, Jeffrey Dach and Ronald Hoffman. To learn more about her media appearances and book reviews click here.

Honest Medicine is available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. It is also available as Kindle and NOOK ebooks.

(1) Julia, how did you get into online radio talk shows as a way to promote your new book, Honest Medicine: Effective, Time-Tested, Inexpensive Treatments for Life Threatening Diseases?

 Nancy, actually I have appeared on many standard radio shows, as well as on Internet radio shows. For me, the fact that radio would be the best way for me to promote Honest Medicine was a “no-brainer.” I’ve been a public relations consultant for over twenty years, so I know the advantages of each medium, and knew that my book is one that requires more than 3-minute sound bites to tell the complete story, since the subject matter I cover in Honest Medicine is rather complex. Radio allows me to do that, while television does not. On my media page, there are several examples of the radio shows I’ve been on, with links, so people can listen to them.

(2) What kinds of success have you had? Has radio promotion “worked” for selling your book?

Radio has been amazingly successful for me. The best so far has been Coast to Coast AM, the national late-night radio talk show. After that appearance in May, 2011, my book shot up to #49 (out of all 8 million books) on Amazon.com. In addition, it was #1 in two categories and #4 in a third. I was so amazed that I took a screen shot of those two events. And, I sold 1500 copies in that month alone. But other shows have helped too. My book has been an Amazon.com best seller since its publication in early 2011. Much of its success has been due to radio. (I have also had some really good book reviews, and a Q&A with me was featured on The Atlantic’s website. But nothing has worked as well for me as radio.)

(3)What kind of negative experiences have you had?

A great question. Actually, I am usually very comfortable on radio, and even if the host or hostess has not read my book, I have no trouble steering the conversation. But I did have one awful experience and I hope that, by telling about it here, I can help other authors. I’d rather not name the show or the host here, but he (I will say that it was a man!) was in favor of only alternative/natural treatments and is known to be very much against anything that smacks of Big Pharma. When I spoke with his producer beforehand, I told him that I was worried that perhaps this show might not be a good fit for me for this reason. I explained that one of the treatments in my book, Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN), is a very non-toxic generic drug manufactured by a few pharmaceutical companies. I also explained that it (like the other treatments in my book) has never made a lot of money for any pharmaceutical company. The producer said that, in that case, he was sure it would be fine.

Well, it wasn’t. Obviously, the producer hadn’t communicated this to the host. The first question he asked on air was, “I understand that one of the treatments you write about is a treatment for autoimmune diseases. Can you tell us about it?” So I told him about Low Dose Naltrexone: how it is a very low-dose, off-label use of a drug that was FDA-approved in 1984 as safe at a much higher dose for another use than is now used for autoimmune diseases. I told him about how the late Dr. Bernard Bihari discovered that, at one-tenth the FDA-approved dose, it successfully treats patients with lots of autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, lupus, Crohn’s disease, etc.

Well, the host literally FLEW at me, and said he wasn’t interested in any treatment that wasn’t natural. It went downhill from there.

I want to stress here that I think I did the best possible thing under the circumstances: I did NOT try to defend myself. I just let him talk. . . and talk. . .and talk. And he did. But I think this whole experience could have been avoided.

I learned my lesson. I actually hadn’t liked this host for years. But two friends of mine had independently (and without my knowledge) approached him about me. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I followed up and went on the show. It was a mistake. The lesson I learned was, “Follow your gut.” With radio, there is another caveat: “Listen to the show beforehand, to make sure it is a good fit for you. And if it isn’t, stay away, no matter how many people tell you otherwise.”

(4) What are the main things you’ve learned from your experiences with radio shows and podcasts?

As I said when answering the last question, “Follow your gut,” and “listen to the shows before you approach them about being a guest.” Many shows are archived online, so you can listen to them to see if there is a good fit.

I’ve also learned how to be a good guest. First, prepare questions and answers for the host. Here is a PDF of my Q&As. Most hosts and hostesses, unfortunately, will not read your book, but there is a much better chance that they will read your Q&As. One professional consultant told me that I should refuse to go on any show where the host hasn’t read my book. But that is ridiculous. Most of them simply won’t read your book. It is a special gift if one does. So you have to be the leader. You have to have several directions you are prepared to go in. Have your own agenda, too. You can always say, “That’s a great question, but first, I’d like to talk about. . . . .” Remember, the best radio interviews are conversations between the host/hostess and you. Enjoy yourself.

(5) How do you recommend other authors approach promoting their books via radio?

Before you even decide to use radio as a promotional medium, carefully assess whether or not you will shine in that medium. Are you articulate? Are you a “talker”? And probably just as important—if not more so—is your book one that radio audiences will want to know about? In other words, do you have information that is important to a lot of people? My book, Honest Medicine, features treatments that are lifesaving for patients with many life-threatening diseases, including multiple sclerosis, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, liver disease, some cancers and epilepsy. I name these diseases here so that you can see that—when all the diseases are combined—there is quite a large audience out there who will resonate with the information in my book. If it were only about MS, or lupus, or even Crohn’s disease, I would have decided on an entirely different approach: one that included only very targeted publications and podcasts—publications and podcasts dealing with the particular disease profiled in the book. But, because my book deals with several treatments and several diseases, radio is an excellent promotional medium for me.

In addition, my book also has an underlying message—patient empowerment—which is applicable to a huge audience. So that’s another reason why radio is a great choice for me.

And because I’ve been a public relations consultant for so many years, I am able to navigate my way through the shows and prepare appropriate messages for each.

I am thinking of conducting webinars or teleseminars for authors, to help them decide which medium is best for them, and how to access that medium. I’ve had this in mind for some time.

(6) Please tell readers a bit more about your book and plans for your future.

Nancy, this is another interesting question. I feel that I am at a crossroads. I am considering several avenues. I’d like to keep teaching people about these treatments I write about, and about the fact that they must think for themselves and not just follow their doctors’ advice. To that end, I am considering conducting webinars or teleseminars—for which I would charge a modest amount of money—through which I would interview experts on topics contained in my book. I think that Jim Abrahams and Dr. Burt Berkson would be fascinating people to interview. I would also interview Jacqueline Young, widow of Dr. Bihari, the first to use LDN for treating autoimmune diseases. She has some amazing true stories to tell.

I am also considering giving more speeches. As a result of my appearance on Coast to Coast AM, I was invited to speak at the Cancer Control Society’s annual convention in Los Angeles over Labor Day weekend (2011). It went really well and you can be see it on You Tube. Although I don’t really like to travel (who does, these days?) for the right opportunities, I would definitely be available!

I am also considering starting to write about other treatments that—like the four I write about in Honest Medicine—are low cost, non-toxic and lifesaving, and that work for life-threatening diseases. I have ideas for two such treatments now: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for brain injury and stroke; and EECP (Enhanced External Counterpulsation) for angina and heart disease. So, I may start writing about these treatments, and others like them, for my website, HonestMedicine.com, with the possible intention of publishing a new version of my book within the next few years. That book would be about SIX lifesaving treatments your doctors may not know about!

Thank you, Julia for this information. I especially appreciated your distinction between the use of radio and TV talk shows for promoting one’s book! Nancy

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, please sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

Today’s post is from my partner for the “Sell More Books” sale on Wordmaps, Barbara Techel. We’re selling my book, Marketing Your Book to Libraries: an Insider’s Guide for Authors and Barbara’s book, Class Act: Sell More Books Through School and Library Author Appearances together for a 25% discounted price.

Barbara Techel is the award-winning author of the Frankie the Walk ‘N Roll Dog book series. She has shared her story of hope and inspiration about her dachshund, Frankie, who is in a wheelchair, with thousands of children and adults since 2008.

To date they have made over 325 appearances in Wisconsin and many more via Skype to classrooms across the US and Canada. Barbara is also a speaker and publisher. Barbara and Frankie are avid volunteers as a therapy dog team. They routinely visit a local hospice community, hospital and senior assisted living facility, where they “walk their talk” about the inspirational nature of perseverance in the face of challenge.

Since before her first book was published, Barbara has worked tirelessly to promote her books and the positive message they embody. She has garnered coverage for her story from local, regional and national media through these efforts, and continues to develop and refine her marketing message and approach. Class Act is her first book about what she’s learned, but not likely her last.

How to Set Up Author Virtual School Visits

Skype is showing real promise for schools and authors to connect.  Making this connection via Skype or other video conferencing software is called a virtual school visit.

It’s no secret that school budgets are being squeezed tighter each year which is limiting what schools can do for added beneficial curriculum. Authors may have a limited budget and time constraint to do in-person visits, so with the advance of technology, and software such as Skype, this is gaining positive speed as an option that is a win-win for all involved.

Having an author visit in-person certainly creates an impression that a virtual visit may be more limited in its impact. But if done right, you can absolutely leave an everlasting, positive experience when using Skype or other video conference programs.

Depending on how many students take part in the virtual visit, if small enough, it can provide a very interactive session. With a small group, and the help of the teacher or librarian, an author is able to ask questions with the students raising their hand and being called on. Question and answer time works well with a small classroom and gives each student the learning opportunity of approaching the webcam to ask their question.

A large assembly can still work well too if all the details are worked out prior to the visit. This may require the majority of the staff to take part in the visit to watch for any behavior issues so that they can be quietly corrected. With a large group, each classroom may want to come up with one question and choose someone to ask it of the author. But with a little thoughtful planning, a virtual visit can work for any size group.

Virtual visits typically last anywhere from 10-to-60 minutes and depends on the age of students. Authors will also want to work with the school in determining their needs. Do they want a presentation, a reading, or a workshop?

So you may be thinking, “What do I charge?” As of the writing of this article, fees range from free to $500. The average charge is $150-$200 which is for a 45-60 minute program. If you offer a 30-minute program you may need to adjust your pricing. Many authors will work with each school on an individual basis to determine the school’s budget and a price that works for both the school and author.

How to promote your author appearances

Once you determine your fee and programs you will offer, you will want to promote yourself as an author offering Virtual visits. A wonderful resource to get your name out there is a network called, “Skype an Author” (http://www.skypeanauthor.wetpaint.com). It was started by author Mona Kirby and Library Media Specialist Sarah Chauncey. This website connects K-12 teachers and librarians with authors who offer Virtual visits. As an author, you can set up a profile page just by signing up.

Setting up Google alerts such as “Schools using Skype,” “Libraries using Skype,” and “Skype in the Classroom” will help you discover schools embracing this technology. You can then design an email or postcard mailing campaign to pitch your program to schools doing Virtual visits.

Just as doing in-person author visits, doing Virtual visits takes practice, organization, and some technical skill. When I first began offering visits via Skype I gave out ten free sessions to help work the bugs out.  Not only did this give me practice, but also helped with gathering testimonials for my program.

If the school has a techie person on hand that always helps the school and the author feel a little more at ease should they encounter a challenge. But having done quite a few Virtual visits, knock-on-wood, I have not had any major glitches, and I don’t consider myself a techie person… just an author eager to share my message!

So embrace technology as a real positive as an author, and a wonderful avenue in which you can share your books with virtually anyone in the world!

Barbara Techel

Thank you, Barb, for this terrific information on how to use Skype to sell books to libraries, schools, and other places!

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, please sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

The answer to this question is that we don’t really know. At present there is no central source of statistics on the number of books libraries buy or on how much money they spend on books each year. However, here are two other ways of estimating the importance to you, as an author, of libraries as a market.

First, Publishers Weekly, the chief journal for the publishing industry, has just featured an article with the title “Survey Says Library Users Are Your Best Customers”. This is how the survey came about. RR Bowker company’s PubTrak Consumer gathered the data used in Library Journal’s (LJ) new quarterly publication, Patron Files. Here’s what Publishers Weekly reported about public library users:

“LJ editors have been amazed by the strength of the findings so far – including the degree to which libraries are boosting book sales. ‘Our data show that over 50% of all library users report purchasing books by an author they were introduced to in the library.’”

That was a total surprise to me. But then I thought about the times I’ve bought books, both fiction and non-fiction, by authors I came across at the library. It makes sense. And the support of libraries for book-buying extends beyond print books to ebooks as well!

Believe me, this wasn’t always true. The first American college library at Harvard began with a collection of four hundred books, sent to Cambridge, Massachusetts by a clergyman in England, named Harvard, in the mid-17th century. And here we come to a second way to guesstimate the size of the library market.

A longitudinal look at library book-buying

When the library opened (for a short period each week) Harvard didn’t have a librarian; instead the books were chained to the shelves to keep them from “walking off”. 200 years later, book circulation at Harvard was still a hot issue when the famous American essayist, Henry David Thoreau, a former student, complained in his writings about being unable to get a library card from his alma mater.

I came across these anecdotes about our early libraries while working as a research assistant for Dr. Wayne S. Yenawine, Dean of Syracuse University and later, of my alma mater, the University of South Carolina School of Librarianship. Dean Yenawine had published a well-known book on library design. When I met him, he was pursuing two of his favorite topics: the history of American humorists, and the history of American university libraries.

The Dean himself began his library career at the Air Tactical School at Maxwell Field in Montgomery Alabama. This was the Army Air Corps center for military education. Later it became the Air University for the Air Force when the Air Force was created before World War II.

When the name changed, the library at the Air University was charged with developing professional leadership for the entire US Air Force. The library collected research materials: books and journals, and maps and microfilm. In 1946 Dean Yenawine was brought in from the University of Georgia to build the library. The nucleus of the Air University library consisted of 10,219 books and bound journals. Within two years, Dr. Yenawine increased that number to 12, 551 books, an increase of 20%.

By 1980, a year before Dean Yenawine died, the Air University had nearly half a million (i.e., 485,000) total items in its library catalog, and it was having severe space problems in housing them. (Source: Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: The Air University, Volume 32 United Kingdom.)

Today, the Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center at The Air University is the premier library in the Department of Defense. It currently holds over 2.6 million items, including 429,000 monographs (i.e., books) and bound periodical volumes.

That was an increase from 12,551 bound volumes to almost half a million bound volumes in just 60 years! That is an average acquisitions rate of nearly 7,000 new volumes every year. The majority of these bound volumes would be books.

How large is the library market?

Going back to Harvard, the tiny college collection with just a few hundred books back in the mid 1600s – Harvard now has the largest university library in the world. It is the fourth largest library in the U.S. Currently Harvard libraries house 15.6 million volumes. During the academic year, 2008-2009, the Harvard library spent $27.5 million on books and other library materials.

Over the 375 years since Harvard was founded, that would be an average acquisitions of 41,600 volumes a year. Nearly forty-two thousand bound volumes a year, the majority of which would be books, is quite a market!

Of course, the average number of books bought each year by the Air University’s Library and Harvard is a very rough figure. Book buying has grown exponentially over time, not by a set amount each year. But a few years ago when the statistics were available, they showed all US libraries combined were spending around 15 billion dollars each year on books. Given that a million book titles are published in this country each year, it’s no surprise our libraries spend billions of dollars.

The library market is clearly bigger than Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all of the other online bookstores combined.

Librarians buy all kinds of books, new and old, published and self-published, print or digital. Librarians buy whatever they think their patrons will want to read. Because libraries serve all kinds of organizations and different local communities throughout the US, every library is a bit different than any other.  The trick in selling a book to libraries is to identify the right libraries and the right librarians to sell your book to. Then make sure they know about your book.

This is the objective of my new book, Marketing Your Book to Libraries, and Barbara Techels’ new guide, Sell More Books Through School and Library Author Appearances, both currently on sale as a package on this site.

We had such a success selling our books together in October that we are continuing the sale for the rest of the year. If you are ready to sell your book to the largest book market in the United States, please check out our Sell More Books page on this site.

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com.

For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

Leverage your library to help sell your book. There are many ways you can get the word out about your book. Librarians can help you do this.

Librarians promote books that they purchase so their readers will find a book each reader wants to read.

Keep in mind that you can strategically partner with a local librarian to promote your book in their library through an author appearance and/or providing promotional materials about your book to use for display. Many libraries periodically put up displays and are looking for new ideas.

Research and develop your book

When starting your book, check your library for materials on book marketing and business planning. Utilize business, publishing, and tax planning information at the library when creating and selling your book.

See what else is being published on your topic. If you find a competitor, notice if their book is in the library, or if it is checked out. How many copies of that book did the library buy? What does the library catalog tell you about that book? Note where your book might be shelved in a library.

Make sure you have a unique title for your book. Ask a reference librarian about databases where you can look for books in print or soon to be forthcoming in print. Find out if anyone else has already used your title.

Get your book mentioned in journals librarians read

Special Librarians read Information Outlook:The Magazine of the Special Libraries Association. Search this magazine and you may find a librarian who is interested in and writing about your topic.

Reference Area Librarians read and write articles for Reference & User Services Quarterly (RUSQ) [formerly titled RQ].

Online Searchers and Internet Specialists at the library read Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals published by Information Today, Inc.

Librarians read the general news magazine, Information Today, along with other magazines relevant to libraries also published by Information Today, Inc. (ITI).

You can find these magazines at larger libraries. Ask for them if you can’t find them. They might be on a librarian’s desk!

Promote your book at the library

• When you’re done with your book, use a room at your local library for a book publishing party.
• Offer to give a book talk at your local library or at nearby school libraries. Ask if you can sell your book afterwards.
• See if you can display your book at a nearby library that bought it. Get visual at the library.
• See if you can use an area of the library for your brief “book trailer” video for promoting your book on You Tube!

These suggestions are excerpted from my new book, Marketing Your Book to Libraries: An Insider’s Guide for Authors, available at Authormaps.com. In it you’ll find out much more about librarians and the tools they use to select books to purchase. Even if you are just beginning to write your book, get started on marketing it today!

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.