Here’s a quick definition of ten terms found in the self-publishing business put through the unique filter of Jim Arnold Communications.
Print-on-Demand or P.O.D.
Simple definition: A method of book printing where digital files are accessed at the time when a book is ordered and paid for and the copy is printed then and only then.
Pro/Con: This method frees the seller of a book, whether it’s an individual or a company, from having to have masses of inventory on hand, thereby making the printing process less expensive. It also greatly simplifies making changes to the book copy.
E-book
Simple Definition: Any way of manipulating the text of a book so that it can be transferred digitally to some kind of reading device other than a traditional paper-bound book. This includes your computer screen, e-book readers such as Kindle or Nook, and mobile devices like your smart phone.
Pro/Con: The popularity of e-books is growing at leaps and bounds. The technology makes the time to publication and cost of distribution almost zero, after initial formatting and piracy protection.
I had an opportunity last week to work for Sherwood Oaks College in timing story and script pitches writers were giving to agents, managers and producers.
Seth Jaret, of Content Engine and Jaret Entertainment, was one of the Hollywood insiders students pitched to. He also produces how-to “Drive and Talk” videos for his site as well as posts commentary about many aspects of the business.
What a great idea – how to use that drive time in the car – please don’t text, instead, talking and driving is safer as long as you don’t have to fiddle with the smartphone cam much! And productive, as you saw if you watched the video above.
I like how Seth edits the piece about secrets to entertainment industry success. I like the repetition of the three ideas and the joke about using the word “fucking” but bleeping it out. The way he presents the information is also classic: tell is what you’re going to tell us, tell us the info, then tell us what you just told us.
Even for people like me, with our challenged attention spans – and isn’t that everybody these days? – I really got what he said.
And, like he says, these three “Fs” are crucial. Probably not only in Hollywood, but certainly there. They are:
Follow through — if you promise somebody something, like sending off a treatment or script, do it. Don’t promise to do it if you can’t do it. It’s simple but people violate this all the time.
Follow Up — this one really struck a chord with me. Writers, well, most writers, I think, are introverted. They feel that if you’ve requested something they’ve written and then they’ve taken the time to actually send it off, that should be all that’s required. Continue reading →
People frequently ask me how I structure fees for self-publishing book marketing, as well as for freelance copywriting.
In my prior years as a public relations consultant and writer, or as a buyer of those services while working for larger companies, vendors usually used one of two models:
a monthly retainer
an hourly rate
There were days when women had to stay alone sad 50mg sildenafil generic and stressed out. Check websites free viagra online offering these products: Visit websites of male enhancement products and check how many of those websites that may seem out of place here, but then again writers seem to earn money from a huge range of different activities. Erectile dysfunction and blood supply are viagra prescriptions online closely related. Case study brand levitra notes that this preliminary check-up demonstrated evidence of subluxation within the upper neck (cervical spine). Retainers: for most PR/Communications companies, you would get a guaranteed number of hours worked on your account for X dollars (say for $1,000 per month you’d get 10 hours of the consultant’s time, etc.). Some companies would say there was no limit of hours per retainer, and that it always evened out in the end, one slow month would balance a busy month, etc., but this was rare.
This method can and does work well for companies handling a number of ongoing projects which need attention over a medium to long period of time. It’s an efficient way of developing a relationship with a company and its publics and the success that comes with familiarity.
For most self-publishers, this model is not an economic feasibility. It’s possible it would make sense for a shorter term, say six months, where a number of marketing tasks were scheduled with tightly defined parameters – and even then, it would be very similar to breaking up project fees over several months to a more even payment plan.
Hourly Rate: Sometimes a Communications professional or freelance copywriter will get a task, such as writing some collateral material for a brochure or press release, and the payment terms will be based on an hourly rate. These tasks can be estimated as to time involved, but many variables may change an initial estimate. Again, if a task takes twice as long to complete (thereby, costing twice as much) a company can absorb this cost better than an individual – the majority of self-publishers.
It’s my position as a self-employed individual that most communication tasks for authors and freelance copywriting assignments for businesses can be based on a Project Fee, which lets the author or client (you) know exactly how much a certain deliverable will cost, and gives the vendor (me) a way to reliably predict revenue on consulting arrangements.
For a current sample list of my project fees, please shoot me an email at jim@jimarnoldcommunications.com.
The trip involved two buses and two trains. It’s a distance of about 40 miles or so, according to calculations. I live in Valley Village, about a mile from the end of the Red Line Subway in North Hollywood. So I took the Orange Line (an express bus line that operates like a train, dedicated roadway with few stops) the one stop from Laurel Canyon to the North Hollywood Station.
From there, I took the Red Line Subway through Universal City, Hollywood, Silver Lake, Koreatown, etc. and got off at 7th Street/Metro Center, where I transferred to the Blue Line light rail.
The Blue Line runs mainly directly south after going east along Washington for a short distance just south of downtown L.A. It follows the previous right-of-way of the famous Pacific Electric Railway (red cars) which was dismantled after WW II – and then rebuilt in the 90s. I got off at the Long Beach Transit Mall, the end of the line, a couple of blocks from the ocean. I still had to take a bus, probably about 2 miles, to Belmont Shore. It was Passport Bus A or D, which I picked up around the corner from the Transit Mall.
If you are suffering from viagra australia impotency it is vital that online pharmacy you choose is legal and provides the services and medicines that you want. Avoid mixing it with alcohol, tobacco products or fatty meals to allow cheap super cialis it to deliver the best results. Besides, cialis 40 mg http://pharma-bi.com/2009/10/visual-analytics-what%E2%80%99s-the-big-deal/ FitOFat capsules are specifically designed to supply essential nutrients to the muscles to improve blood flow to support erection. This in turn enhances semen quantity, purchase tadalafil india sperm quantity and motility of sperms, Also, several men have been recommended to consume ginseng to treat low sperm count, a common cause of cardiovascular diseases in the United States is atherosclerosis, the narrowing and hardening of arteries that reduces blood flow. I had a great lunch with Krys, walked around Belmont Shore for a bit, then took it all back to Valley Village.
Trip Time: about 2 hours each way
Cost: Each leg of the metro cost $1.50, debited from my TAP card. So that part of the trip cost $9.00, round trip. The bus in Long Beach was $1.25 each way, so the total cost of this trip was $11.50. According to the Trip Planner function on the Metro Website, the driving cost (round trip) would be $41.56 (which doesn’t include any parking fees that might be added). And actually, I think I could have used some kind of transfer for the Long Beach bus — but I didn’t know how to do that, so it would have been less than that $11.50.
So, it’s definitely doable. Would I do it every day? Hell, no. I did get a lot of reading done, and I did all my email and calls on the smart phone on the Blue Line. The nicest thing was the zero stress, and seeing parts of the city I don’t ever get a chance to see when driving. Oh, and there was a hooker on the Blue Line coming back, which was entertaining in its own way.
First, let me apologize about the crappy video below. I’m still learning how to use the smart phone video app, and the worst part about it is in bright daylight you can’t really see the image on the screen, so you’re pretty much shooting blind. Sorry about the last shot in Long Beach, I must’ve turned the camera off before I thought I did, and heaven knows why I turned the phone upside down. Ooops.
Irene Watson’s (Reader Views) post on author advances is worthy of your study.
Irene lays it out in terms easy to comprehend, exactly what the definitions are of the traditional publishing writer’s advance model, giving a look into the real story of the “myth” of the wealthy fiction writer (unless, as she suggests, your last name is King. or Rowling. or Grisham, etc).
Traditional publishing houses have less and less to spend on marketing budgets, hence the author is expected to kick in their own bucks – whether from the advance itself or from elsewhere – to pay for publicity, tours and so forth.
So the takeaway is – you will do a large part of the marketing yourself, whether you are a self-published author or are published traditionally with an advance – and, so, of course, don’t quit that day job. At least not yet.
Just for fun Tuesday: A few days ago I was writing about my memories of the LA Riots of 1992. Part of that memory is of my Welsh corgi Betty’s death, which coincided with the first day of the riots, April 29, 1992.
While some may grumble that the staff made this video while on the taxpayer dime, you won’t find me one of those malcontents! I hope I’d feel the same way if Governor Brown was of that other party, you know, the red, crabby, Neanderthal one. But he isn’t.
It has no caffeine, artificial coloring or flavor.Pure Passion, just released this March, is a sexual enhancer some are calling “buying cialis from canada in a can, no prescription required”. Urinary incontinence is defined as the involuntary leakage order cheap viagra or a loss of control of the urine. On the other hand, smoking damages pfizer viagra pharmacy your blood vessels that supply blood throughout the body. More than wreaking havoc order generic viagra https://unica-web.com/HONORARY-MEDALS/2014/2014.html on just nerves, your tummy twisting, jaw grinding daily anxiety and stress experience can wreck so much more. I hope I’d get the lift of seeing a cute doggie running around the grounds of the state capitol anyway. Somehow, it makes it all seem less serious, it makes it seem like everything might work out somehow. With Sutter there, things have to be going right — er, correctly, don’t you think?
I get a lot of confidence that this dog would not stick around if he thought anything was going down the tubes. It’s that wisdom in the innocence thing, is it not?
I go back and forth with the idea of getting another dog, corgi or something else, as I haven’t had one for 20 years and you know, that’s a really long time not to have a little pal by my feet as I write. Way past due, I will admit. The reasons for my hesitation have to do with being single and wanting to be able to travel at will, which you really can’t do with a dog. And, last time I boarded a dog, it didn’t go too well (though I don’t blame the vet for what happened).
A friend reminded me the other day what a good thing it is to rescue a dog from the inevitable euthanasia – and there are so many. He’s right. It is a good thing. It may even be closer than I think.
Gonna do some driving over the weekend? Well, prepare to fork over the bucks at the gas station. Just so you know, politicians – whether they be Democrats or Republicans or anything else, really – don’t have much sway over the price of gas, at least in the short term. It is possible to seek by the group of people that had your best interest in mind? It could have been your parents, a viagra price online sibling, a member of your extended family or even a teacher, counselor, neighbor or friend. It is important that one should speak to the online cialis pills doctor; reveal you re present and health history to the physician for the safety purpose. Yes, erectile dysfunction has become viagra cheap online the major threat for the sexual life of the person. In patient that had problems with heart may increase stroke or effects of viagra greyandgrey.com arrhythmia.
Why? It’s a global market, who knew? It’s complicated, who knew? It’s true, it must be, ’cause Fox News says so. This is actually a very accurate report, which has lots of good suggestions, including building out mass transit and using bicycles. Watch and learn!
The conventional wisdom says the most important factor in anybody checking out your book prior to making that all-important purchase decision is the cover. I would have to agree with that – it’s as true in the brick-and-mortar bookshop as it is while browsing Amazon or B&N online. But if you’ve made that big decision to self-publish your book, who do you trust your cover to?
Usually it will go one of two ways. Whatever self-publishing service provider you end up choosing – CreateSpace, Lulu, AuthorHouse, etc. – will have options for you, which, of course, increase along with the publishing package price. For instance, the most economical of the packages will probably have the fewest cover options – maybe a few background choices, a few typefaces for the title and your name, perhaps three or so layouts.
Of course, it’s hard for such a cover to look like anything but a template. You don’t want the person considering your work to think that they vaguely remember this cover (because they’ve seen the same design copied over and over) or worse, that it screams cheap product.
After it enlists the body, it blurs away apace, hits male regenerative framework, and it forthwith reproduces buy cialis the ousting of the nitric oxide there. The Canadian government stipulates a price ceiling which the generic overnight viagra medicine manufacturers are bound to adhere while handing the drugs over to the distributors. One just needs to find out the reliable store so that a purchase viagra from india happy deal can be made. Kamagra should be taken about 45 to 60 minutes prior to having sex, with no more than one buy viagra generic being consumed daily. Most of the self-publishing service providers will also offer a high-end solution, where you can engage the services of an artist or graphic designer, of course for a premium price. Even so, these solutions will have their limits as far as the amount of design and correction that can go into each cover per customer. Continue reading →
April 29 — the day the 1992 Los Angeles Riots began, and what I remember, or what I think I remember. I discovered earlier today that April 29 is also the birthday of the late film director Fred Zinnemann, who made the film “Julia” in 1977.
That film, one of my favorites (which starred Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards and Maximilian Schell), is based on a short story called “Pentimento” by playwright Lillian Hellman. The word pentimento means “an alteration in a painting, evidenced by traces of previous work, showing that the artist has changed his mind as to the composition during the process of painting.”
In that movie it refers to the unreliability of memory. Those Rodney King riots happened now 20 years ago, but I’d like to think that what I remember about that time is accurate.
I was on vacation in Hawaii the morning of the 29th, not happy that I had to return to L.A. that afternoon. Specifically, I was in Kihei, Maui. My best friend and sometimes partner Jeff King had been killed in a car accident the month before, and this was my first time getting away from all that in a real, physical sense.
I had to go to work the next morning and this was a flight that would get to Los Angeles late, around 11 p.m. As we stood in line waiting to board (this was very pre-9/11, way before TSA) I heard somebody say something like “they let those cops off. They’re already rioting in L.A.”
I took this as misinformed bravado. There were many younger people on this plane; perhaps it was still spring break in places, I don’t know. I mean, how could any jury let the cops off, we had all seen the videotape. It was just unthinkable.
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I did notice a quite messy but still quite attractive straight couple in the line. Both extremely blond and tan and I thought to myself, those two are high. Hanging on to each other for dear life, obviously very much in love or lust, the type you might tell to please get a room.
Get a room they did. In fact, they barricaded themselves in one of the two toilets reserved for the hoi polloi. It may have been the case that there were only two bathrooms on the entire plane, and they were using one for their mile-high club activities. Don’t forget that 1992 was long before the internet or common cell phone usage. I don’t recall getting any other L.A. Riot information on the flight back; the attendants were incensed at this couple and trying to break into this bathroom for what seemed like hours.
First, let me say that I don’t think this kitty has a white streak across his brow (or whatever you call that area on a cat). I think it must be a sunbeam.
I don’t normally blog about cats but there’s always the exception to the rule, and Spitty is certainly an exception to many rules.
He is the first cat to link his cat blog (Spitty Speaks) to mine, and for that I am so so grateful. Spitty is also the pet of my cousin, Mary Cerutti, who I suspect has some say in his blog posts, though one can never be too sure about such things.
Spitty started his life as a feral park cat up in San Francisco – from the freezing cold wilds of Golden Gate Park to the warmth, peace and quiet of an apartment nearby: one lucky feline indeed.
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Not to let that sweet exterior fool you, however. Spitty retains much of his wild heritage – untrustful, cautious, suspicious and lurking all describe this pet at various times I’ve observed him.
Of course, he’s not overly fond of me. I’ve stayed with my cousin numerous times on visits to San Francisco and it’s only been the last year or so where he’s made an appearance at all. So, of course I was shocked when I learned he had blogged about me and referred to me as “The Introodur.” Ha!
I also have been led to understand that he patiently sits there and watches me in the dark while I sleep on the airbed. Just waiting . . . but waiting for what? I’m not an infant, so I’m not sure he wants to suck the life breath right out of me, but I don’t entirely trust Spitty, I have to say.
Maybe writing about the cat will help our fractured relationship. Then again, maybe it’s just one more quiver in Spitty’s arsenal, about to be shot back at me when I least suspect it. For now, shall we have an understanding?
Please see the link to Spitty Speaks in the roll to the right of this post.
Here’s a quick definition of ten terms found in the self-publishing business put through the unique filter of Jim Arnold Communications.
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