A blog is a webpage meant to create engagement through sharing opinions, allowing anyone to offer a comment on the original comment for all to see and comment on, in turn. Unlike a static webpage that merely conveys information, a blog invites feedback. The interesting part of blogging is that it’s an integral part of the Internet these days, and the Internet, as we know, is a visual medium, so…where are the visuals?

On my other blogs, I always add pictures to go with my writing. I don’t do so much here, as the writing stands on its own, pretty much. Pictures could be added, I just don’t know that they would be worthwhile or helpful. We all know what books look like. We all know what pens and pencils are. We’ve all seen pictures of haggard writers melting over a keyboard. You get the drift. Pictures added to this blog post would be superfluous.

Now, video…that would be fun, wouldn’t it?

Well, I’m pleased to announce that videos are coming. No! — Videos are here! The Internet has caught up with the book marketing world. Some of you may already be aware of this new, exciting, visual way to get your book out there. It’s called a book trailer, and it works much the same way a movie trailer does because it’s video preview of your book, made by you and distributed by you (if you’re in charge of your book, as you should be.).

Wikipedia describes a book trailer thus: “A book trailer is a video advertisement for a book which employs techniques similar to those of movie trailers.”

This article by Jane Y. Kim describes a video film series, where more than one author participated in a group discussion that was offered at a small independent bookstore in Colorado, to an audience of about 50. The unique part of this story is that one of the authors had passed on months earlier——but the audience saw him, nonetheless, and had a chance to listen to him read from his book, all because the trailer was made months earlier. Kim goes on to say that, “Out of the Book, produced by Powell’s Books, a prominent used bookstore in Portland, Ore.,” is on the same track and offers free 30-minute shorts of writers and their works.

This is obviously a growing trend, and self-published authors can embrace it easily. You only need a webcam and a few minutes. You can practice to your heart’s content, if you like. But when you get it right, when you get that 10 minute video done, complete with some readings from your work, you have just created a connection to your readers. They see you, they hear you, they can feel the energy and passion you bring to your work, and that can sell more books than a dozen press releases.

Future Perfect Publishing, a blog about “Exploring new trends and possibilities in book publishing” says the book trailer “may supplant the venerable book cover.” This after stating that covers are the most important marketing tool authors have – a cover, you know, is worth a thousand words. Oh, wait…that’s a picture, but a cover is a picture. And a video is… a moving picture. Which do you think is going to be more powerful to viewers???

If you are eager to see a book trailer that works, hop over to Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog and watch the popcorn trailer. I call it that because it’s about Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies. The author, Richard McKenzie, does a popping-good job showing readers why they should buy his book. He’s a bit dry but, since his book is about hidden truths in marketing and he demonstrates the popcorn truth so well, you definitely get a feel for whether or not you might want to buy this book. It’s definitely a cut above a review online.

Sooooo —– do you have a book trailer in you? Yes? Great! Now, where are you going to display it? And how are you going to get my eyeballs to look at it?

Well, that’s a story for another day. Stay tuned.

Those of us from the old guard are turned off by this. But is it time to let go of our preconceived notions of how to communicate? Oh, sure, we still believe that a book, a business book, has to have a message. It has to present the author’s expertise and experience in such a way that the reader will enjoyably, pleasantly, easily learn something from it. Not for a casual beach afternoon read, business books are serious content, written and consumed for the value of its message. It is expected that the content of a business book will be put to good use by the reader. Therefore, it should be on paper, in chapter format, with a nice, easy index, right?

Maybe not. The world of Web 2.0 is fundamentally changing the way we communicate.

In between the spaces of those heavy business books, in between the paragraphs and the chapters, a world of intelligence exists that shuns the dry, chart-driven business book of yesteryear. The new communication tools, complete with their cryptic acronyms, and their ‘real-time’ information sharing, are at the foundation of this new communication. And though we are not ready to throw out all our old communication tools – the Strunk and White grammar books, the thesauruses, the dictionaries – those of us from “yesteryear” are slowly gravitating to a Wikipedia-like world of writing. Today’s writing engages the reader not only on the printed page, but on the web. It’s called social networking, and major media sites are participating, college students are participating, high school kids are participating, and the whole world is participating. If you think you can continue to write without participating, you are wrong.

Let’s look at Twitter. Twitter is a social media, web-based, mobile-phone based, networking, chatting, connecting tool. The people who use Twitter learn to speak in sound bites. Links are shortened by the tool, so if you have a link to a credible source or an expert article (or your recent blog post), the tool will shorten the link for you, allowing you to share with your Twitter network. These networks can be as small as a group of 10 or less, or as large as up to one thousand. I have not heard of any over a thousand but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they exist.

My network on Twitter is a business-focused group of people. We exchange relevant marketing content. Some of my connections Twitter from conferences via their mobile phones or their laptops. How great is that? I’m not at the conference, but I know what the keynote speaker just said, and I know who else is there. It’s a valuable way to get information on a real-time basis.

With social media, like blogs, you can be part of the conversation on a more natural level. You can write whole paragraphs to get your point across. You can ask questions and request an email response. On a blog, through the connections you create by posting, by commenting, and by sharing links, you can create content for your book – in a way that is not possible on a tool like Twitter. On a blog, your writing can inspire readers to share their thoughts on improving the chapter you just posted. Do not be afraid that sharing your book on your blog will deter readers from buying the book when it comes out. Look to Robert Scoble and Shel Israel and Naked Conversations. That book was written entirely on their blog. And it still became a bestseller.

If you’re writing a business book you need to not only be aware of the new tech tools, the social media of blogs and Twitter and Facebook—–you need to be participating. Without your participation, the content in your book, advising entrepreneurs and small business owners, will be out of date before the first printing. With your participation, you can update your book’s content over and over and eventually put together your sequel – all to your readers’ Twittering delight.

That trip was outstanding, not only because we got to shake hands with Michael, but because it helped clarify and confirm the fact that self-publishing isn’t just a means to an end – a way to get a book printed. It’s a business—one that authors need to invest in with time, energy, and money. If you choose to self-publish your book, be aware that you are actually going into business for yourself.

Putting fingers to keyboard is just the beginning. One step beyond the beginning is when you hire the professionals to help create the book – the editor, someone who knows page design, the cover designer, and the person creating the index. Your next step is to chose your method of publishing: You might choose POD; you might decide to create your own publishing imprint; or you might just print several thousand books at once, to carry in the trunk of your car and sell at seminars or events. All these tasks are imperative to your new business’s success.

Not many new authors are aware of how much work is involved in being your own CEO. Since the old-fashioned way of being published involves writing and sending content off to an editor at a big publishing house, you don’t have to worry about the page layout, or what font to use, or whether or not you have widows and orphans in your writing (a widow is a last paragraph line carried to the top of the next page, rather than staying with the paragraph it belongs with, an orphan is the first line of a paragraph stuck at the bottom of a page, rather than starting on the opposite page, where it belongs – sometimes, these terms also refer to single words left hanging on a line). When working with Random House or Simon and Schuster, you write, they edit; you compose, they make changes at will; you create, they question. The work involved is not even half of the work of running your own business, which is what self- publishing is all about.

Being your own boss, running your own business does have its advantages. This story of a self-published book that made it big and got picked up by a mainstream publishing house (while giving the author a contract for book two) is one of the true success stories. Do read the entire post – there’s a caveat at the end; hint: It cost the author five figures of her own money. But we can assume she’s happy. She got the big boys to pick up and publish her work.

A site called Green Tentacles has a great post on the publishing business, both from the viewpoint of going traditional and from the viewpoint of being self-published. I especially like this paragraph, “Some self-published authors are very hands-on, handling their own press releases, registrations (ISBN, copyright, UPC bar code, etc), fulfillment, and distribution. Other self-publishers contract third parties for such services, to varying degrees.” The site goes on to note the pitfalls of being in business for yourself, as a self-published author. We’ve discussed those before: not being taken seriously because the world still looks down on us; being lumped with vanity presses, those printers who publish anything for a price; and having to do all your own PR. I especially like this line of advice, “There’s no secret. Just hard work.”

Therefore, if you’re really ready to do the work, if you want to maintain control over your work (choosing your own cover, your own page design, your own font, and how your index should appear), you should self-publish. Consider your options (print on demand is just one, and it allows for very short print runs, instead of boxes and boxes of books in your basement or garage), do your research, and open the door to your new business.

To get a better feel for how to start your publishing business, you might check out Writing World. This article, Basics of Self-Publishing, outlines what I’m talking about quite nicely. The writer gets to the nitty-gritty by starting with, Choose a company name, followed by, Register your name. All in all, she offers nine bits of good advice and a link to a business section on her site, which has a multitude of other links for more outstanding business advice.

Is there success in becoming a business owner by choosing to self-publish? There is if you have the right focus, if you recognize where you need to hire help and where you have the skills necessary to carry out the tasks on your own. Don’t forget the investment of time, money, and dedication. Without all three, you risk failure. With all three, you are on the path to success.

As Michael Gerber, author of the E-Myth says, “In E-Myth terms, a writer is a technician. A technician doesn’t create a business, an entrepreneur does. A writer must develop the entrepreneurial ability to see more than simply what they’re writing about.”

I’m not going to get into Twitter or Facebook or MySpace, right now. Those are social media sites that generate a vast amount of UGC meant to share information and conversation. What I do want to propose is that user-generated content is nothing more than self-publishing. If you write a blog or comment on a blog or post to your Twitter page, you are creating UGC. It’s yours. You’re sharing it with the world, but it’s still yours, published openly, on the web.

People who recognize the value of UGC – beyond the journaling some folks do, beyond the comments to political blogs, beyond the fashion sites, etc. – are now considering UGC as worthwhile information to put into a book. The people determining this are the bloggers themselves, and even some publishers. Bloggers are being approached by publishers to put their words into print. They get to by-pass the slush-pile and go right to signed contract.

Granted, that’s still rare. But bloggers being published in print, isn’t. A company called Blurb is here to assist bloggers wishing to turn their posts into print publications. According to the Blurb homepage it’s as simple as, “Download, create, and share & sell.” They say, “Your blog. Automatically slurped into a real book.” The details are worth exploring and the pricing is in line with other printing options. The key here is that this is user-generated content, gone digital.

Today’s technology gives consumers control of their work, their world, and their words. The elitists among us may still cling to the old world view that only a Random House or a Simon and Schuster can publish a “real” book, but we are leaving them behind. These shortsighted folks are more into vanity publishing than 21st Century writers – it’s pure vanity that drives them to court the “respectability” of a dead-tree publishing company.

For those writers who are living in the 21st Century, Blurb is one choice. Another is to tap into expert bloggers like Denise Wakeoff and Patsi Krakoff who offer something called “Blog to Book”. They not only work with bloggers wishing to create a published (print) product, they offer a guarantee: “Our Guarantee: We provide our educational programs, ebooks, blog training materials, and expertise in digital form. We want to be fair. If you honestly feel our program isn’t what you expected and needed, we will return your money upon your request within ten days after purchase.” I know these ladies, and I know they can offer this guarantee because they’re that good.

On the other hand, Ranse Parker will tell you that self-publishing using print-on-demand is an option. He doesn’t blog, but he did self-publish his novel. According to this article in Happy News, his book idea came to him in a dream. His family bought into his desire to fulfill that dream and helped support him in the effort. “The manuscript and major editing were completed after four and a half years of work,” he tells us. “Queries were sent to a few dozen reputable agents and publishers. No one was interested. Self-publishing seemed the next best course of action.” POD was his choice.

“What’s unfortunate,” he says in the article,” is that because of [the official policy of reputable media refusing to review self-published books] all self-published books are dismissed arbitrarily without any other consideration… I find it somewhat ironic that the first thing the book related media does is judge a book by its cover.”

Parker created his own publishing company to assure inclusion in Borders and B&N. This does not negate the fact that his book was self-published. This does not negate the fact that the content in the book is as much user-generated content as any blog post or any Twitter note. No one sent Parker a contract or paid him an advance to write the book. Parker took the initiative to publish his book and to find a way to defeat the vanity press system that still thinks only big companies can produce good work.

User-generated does not have to mean “badly produced.” Blurb knows it. The Blog to Book experts know it. You know it. When your book is ready to be published, will you go the vanity route—or take charge and self-publish?

On the road to interpretation, fiction writers have it easy. Fiction writers create worlds out of sheer imagination, and readers are allowed to contribute their own imagination at will. Fiction writers are happy to nudge the creative centers of the reader’s brain and engage them in the story to the point that readers lose themselves in the narrative.

Not so with non-fiction. In non-fiction, especially business books, readers are looking for facts, statistics, and concrete evidence. People who buy business books expect writing based on truth and reality, not invention or fabrication, not mystery or innuendo—just the facts, ma’am. Tell me what I need to know. Show me charts. Cite government stats or university research or company surveys or experiments. Make me believe you know what you’re talking about through concrete evidence.

Let’s look at two non-fiction books, one about the environment and one about marketing.

Diane MacEachern recently published her “green” book, Big, Green Purse, about saving the environment. It’s about teaching others to embrace shopping methods that are environmentally friendly. Her tagline explains it well: “Use your spending power to create a greener world.” Diane also writes a blog, where she connects to her readers on a personal level, communicating her real-life, personal story in a more engaging manner. This book is fact-filled, but…wait…it’s also personal and engaging. The ‘stories’ are real, about real people and real events, shared to bring the reader into the writing. The window for “misinterpretation” is small.

And MacEachern’s book is written in first person, mostly: “I’m not advocating we stop cleaning our houses,” MacEachern says. “What I am suggesting is that we need to live in our homes, not sterilize them. Just as important, we shouldn’t upset nature’s sink in order to clean our own.” (Chapter 7, p.188) She wants the reader to read carefully, she wants her to participate in the message, all the while crafting supporting content that satisfies the reader’s need to believe what she’s reading is truth, not fiction.

On the other hand, Michele Miller and Holly Buchanan, in The Soccer Mom Myth, create character personas to help the reader relate to their business book. For instance, in Chapter 16, “The World Inside Your Door – How Personas Help Create Powerful Customer Experiences,” they showcase different, specific personality types. And each type or persona they discuss is based on women that you have likely encountered/will encounter in your own mission to sell to the female market, complete with intimate details on how they dress, their age, even how many children they have, and whether or not they are ‘working mothers.’

To make the reader feel at ease with the factual content, their writing uses storytelling the same way a fiction writer uses storytelling. Character development of personas is a routine part of fiction writing, the better to invent believable scenarios that the reader can relate to. In this book, personas are introduced to help the reader connect to real concepts of marketing to real women–not just any women, but specific types of women—described in specific details that are easy to visualize and to relate to. In other words, personas are another technique for keeping the “misinterpretation” window small.

This tells us that with fiction and with non-fiction, the author can engage the reader by providing emotional details or by startling her with a clear, detailed description or by providing a set of interesting, vivid facts. By borrowing some writing styles normally associated with fiction to pump up your non-fiction book, you bring more correct interpretations, more life, and more excitement to the dullness of “just the facts, ma’am” writing that too often invades business books.

In The Soccer Mom Myth, Miller and Buchanan show the reader how women feel and think and how they react to marketing. Miller and Buchanan personalize their message with insight and sincerity. “Ah, yes, I know someone just like that…” the reader says to herself as she reads about the different personas of women described by the authors.

Allowing yourself to embrace fiction writing styles and concepts in your business book can lessen the chance that your reader will misinterpret your message. Clarity does not have to mean just dull or boring facts. Leave that to scientific journals.

For instance, at O, The Oprah Magazine, Jill Seelig is listed as the publisher. She is responsible for much of what goes in the magazine, not Oprah. And she is likely in close contact with Oprah’s best friend, Gayle King, who is the editor at large of the magazine.

No, that doesn’t mean Oprah is totally hands-off. This FORTUNE article explains the Oprah phenomenon better than any other I’ve read, and in it admits that she’s as confused as we are, sometimes (the article is from 2004 – but still relevant today, I think). What has Oprah got to be confused about? Maybe about what to do and how to do it, which proves that—Oprah is human, the most endearing quality anyone can have. Her confession in this article also shows why she, like the rest of us, relies on trusted assistants. These are the people who read the books we send to Oprah. They are the ones putting together a successful magazine, and they are the people who know that there is more to being on a TV show watched by millions, than just being newsworthy. These are Oprah’s “village” – the ones in charge of putting together her show and magazine. These are the people you have to please, to get on Oprah.
Susan Harrow, also quoted in my article last week, suggests creating an online press kit. Her advice on this can be found on the Marketing Sherpa site.

She recommends, “…creating an online press kit so producers can access it immediately if they are interested in your pitch.” Some of the things that should be in the kit are:

• Your bio
• Questions to ask you
• Streaming video
• Samples of product (chapters of your book will work)

Now, if it turns out that Oprah receives your book (via a friend, a producer, or via your blog or your online press kit), and if it turns out that Oprah likes your book, she will share it with her staff and if THEY approve you, you may get a call. That’s when you can start worrying.

It’s a sure bet that one of the first concerns Oprah’s producers are going to have is whether or not you are newsworthy and whether or not you look good on TV (yes, looking good on TV counts, it’s a visual medium; if you don’t play well to the cameras, it could be, probably will be, a problem).

Understand this – “looking good” is subjective. You don’t have to be Cindy Crawford, or Britney Spears, or Gwenth Paltrow, or George Clooney, but it doesn’t hurt. If you’re an average gal or guy, create some video and test yourself. Being clean and neat is the first step to being presentable and looking good. A professional haircut is a must. A new suit or dress, helps. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Smiling is crucial—so if you don’t like your smile, fix it.

If you pass those hurdles, then it’s time to get serious. Because, before you step foot on Oprah’s stage, before you melt as you hear her introduce you to her audience (in TV-land and in the studio), before you hear that thunderous applause announcing that you’ve made it, no, really, you’ve MADE it…you have a lot of work to do.

Now, speak into the microphone. Excuse me, I didn’t hear you. Say again? This is more important than you can imagine. If you cannot speak, slowly, with clear enunciation, Oprah is going to give a sigh and put your book away. When being interviewed, one of the things many new authors do that jeopardizes not only the interview, but possible sales of their book, is to talk too fast or use street jargon.

Be clear. Be specific. Know what points are critical for your book, and learn how to make eye-contact. Practice with a mirror, with friends, and with colleagues. Take a Toastmasters’ course. If you’re lucky enough to get radio or Internet interviews (podcasts), use that as your testing ground. Get feedback. I always recommend that my authors imagine making eye contact, even if they are only looking in the mirror.

While all that is going on, while you’re grooming yourself for television (let’s hope it’s for the Oprah show), you need to do a few more things. You need to call your webmaster. Once it’s announced that you’ll be on Oprah, your website is going to get hit hard! Be prepared for that increase in traffic.

The last thing you want is to have your site crash, because your hosting company isn’t prepared for that huge influx of traffic. It’s also a good time to make sure you don’t have any dead links. Is your navigation simple and easy to follow? If you’re selling your book on your site, is it easy to buy? It better be.

Next, make sure you and/or your publisher are ready for the book sales. It could be in the millions. As noted in my last article, Oprah is a powerhouse for product sales, especially books. Every place that your book is distributed needs to know you’ll be on Oprah. Not only will you lose sales if you don’t give these people a head’s up, you’ll lose face.

People will be upset that they cannot get your book in a reasonable amount of time. Let’s imagine how that will affect your chances of ever getting on…any TV show, let alone Oprah, for your next book. Hmmm…

IF, IF, if you believe you can get on Oprah, start now, today, developing a complete PR plan for local and national media. Which TV station do you want to give this scoop to? Get that anchor or reporter on your side as soon as possible. Newspapers and magazines will be calling, also. Write down all of them. No, not all of them will call. But, why not be prepared for all of them, anyway?

Once again, have your talking points rehearsed. Keep them by the phone. Memorize them, without losing the ability to be flexible and discuss your book from a different angle at any moment—–you can never predict what the reporter calling will ask you. Try to remember this: it really isn’t about you…or your book. It’s about the reader and Oprah and the audience. Don’t get too full of yourself. Lose the “me, me, me…” and focus on the “you, you, you…” and “them, them, them.”

So, are you ready? I think I hear the phone ringing . . . .

It’s knowing that if Oprah endorses you, you will be successful. Certainly, that’s the expectation, isn’t it? The truth is a bit trickier—–because success comes at a price, and if you’re not prepared, you will go from overjoyed to being overwhelmed.

Let’s face it; everyone wants to be on Oprah. That’s a fact of life. But if you’re an entrepreneur, a speaker, or an author, your hunger for the Oprah Factor is almost a physical thing. You think, feel, eat, sleep, and dream Oprah. Certainly all the authors I talk to, whether they publish with us or not, say, “This book is good enough to be on Oprah.” I never disagree with them, because I believe in aiming high.

Seth Godin’s advice, written on his blog back in August of 2006, says to forget Oprah. He wrote the post for aspiring authors, and it’s nice to see that he advises authors to self-publish because after all, he’s done it very successfully, so he knows what it takes. In that post of advice, he says that self-publishing, via small presses, your own publishing company, or a POD firm, is “keeping control” of your book. It’s number seven on his list of 19, and begins like this, “Think really hard before you spend a year trying to please one person in New York to get your book published by a ‘real’ publisher. You give up a lot of time. You give up a lot of the upside. You give up control over what your book reads like and feels like and how it’s promoted.”

But even before you get to that great advice, his #6 bit of advice—which is relevant to our Oprah discussion—is: “Resist with all your might the temptation to hire a publicist to get you on Oprah. First, you won’t get on Oprah (if you do, drop me a note and I’ll mention you as the exception). Second, it’s expensive.”

When I read that, I nodded in agreement. It is darned hard to get on Oprah! As a publicist I’ve worked with has said, “Oprah is a tough nut to crack!” But I also disagree with Seth. I think you should aspire to being on Oprah. If you work to get your book noticed by Oprah’s producers, who will put it into Oprah’s hands, you just may get noticed in lots of places elsewhere, and you might achieve the fame and fortune you desire, in a smaller than “being on Oprah” way. So let’s look at the Oprah Factor and how it’s helped some other folks, both authors and non-authors.

Mireille Guilano, author of the bestseller French Women Don’t Get Fat (Knopf, 2004), was on the Oprah show back in May 2005. I can’t tell you how many extra books sold because Oprah held her book up on her show. But I can tell you that I watched that show, and here’s what I remember Oprah saying when she held the book up, “You’ll sell a lot of books now, oh yeah, a lot…” (no, that’s not verbatim, I’m remembering it…but it’s stayed with me for three years, so I’m confident it’s pretty close to verbatim). I think I remember it because Oprah was kind of bragging. Rightly so, some might say.

If there is any doubt that Oprah can sell books, this article from February this year, about Oprah’s most recent book club offering, Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, will put that to rest: “About 3.5 million copies of Eckhart Tolle’s spiritual self-help guide have been shipped since Winfrey announced her selection four weeks ago. The book has topped the bestseller list on Amazon.com virtually from the moment Winfrey’s choice was revealed and is the fastest-selling pick ever at Barnes & Noble, Inc., according to a statement issued Thursday by Winfrey.” It doesn’t get better than that! The article doesn’t mention that the book was already a bestseller, which it was, but that’s not the point. The point is, Oprah Winfrey sells books and other ‘stuff’ just by mentioning it, or including it in her “Favorite Things” shows, which she does in November.

For instance, looking at a company that says they owe their success to being on her show, We Take The Cake, a bakery that does mail-order pastry, was featured on an Oprah show in 2005, and they have a complete page of media results, listing all the media attention Oprah generated for them. The CNN article includes mentions of other businesses that were favored by the talk show queen, companies that went on to major success. In that article, We Take The Cake says, “Oprah saved our business . . . Our sales for 2004 were around $450,000, and at the end of 2005 our sales were $840,000.” Sweet!

That puts things into perspective a bit, I hope. The article also mentions the pitfalls of being on Oprah—the way an appearance or mention can create havoc, even while it’s bringing fame and fortune. You have to be prepared, so next week we’ll discuss how to be prepared to handle the results of being on Oprah.

To close today, here are five tips, summarized, from Susan Harrow, author of The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah: (all 10 tips can be found at the link below)

1. Watch the show. (For freelancers, this is the same advice your mentors give you about submitting material to publications: read the publication more than once.)

2. Visit Oprah’s website. Become a member. Get tuned in to what Oprah’s doing now.

3. Learn how to push Oprah’s hot buttons. Don’t know what they are? Refer to #s 1&2.

4. Be hot. Your pitch has to grab Oprah’s producers – by the eyebrows! If you can make their eyebrows go up (in a good way, in a ‘We need to do this story!’ way), you increase your chances.

5. Don’t pitch your book. Pitch an idea that Oprah can embrace. Include video and your book. Be newsworthy and visually appealing. After all, Oprah’s show is TV, not radio.

So, there you have it. The Oprah Factor, also known as the ‘O’ Factor. Seth Godin says it’s unattainable. I say, Go for it! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Just don’t obsess over it. While you’re working on being one of Oprah’s chosen ones, you may garner the right attention locally, or even nationally, and not need Oprah after all.Stay tuned for what to do when you actually get on Oprah. It’s what I call the “OMG! Factor” because there is a WHOLE LOT to do when Oprah calls.

(As a short aside – back in 2004, when my company, WME Books, was just getting off the ground, we were in discussion with BookSurge to partner with them on producing POD books overseas. We wanted a POD partner with a presence in Great Britain, India, and several other countries, and BookSurge fit the bill. Those talks did not go far because they were already in talks with Amazon, and once Amazon purchased them we lost contact. The person we dealt with left the company, and repeated attempts to engage someone new, there, failed.)

Onward to 2008, and Amazon’s decision to rule book distribution—that’s my take on it. Amazon surely doesn’t need the extra income that will be generated by forcing POD publishers to print with BookSurge, so my only conclusion is that they want to rule book distribution. Angela Hoy, of course, is keeping up with this issue, (see her latest post on the subject here) and last week PODy Mouth got into the act with a good post, also. To date, she and Angela have the best information on this. Both include a note on how to contact the Attorney General’s Office of Washington State.

SPAN (Small Publishers Association of North America) has also weighed in on the subject. You can read SPAN’s statement here. In an email to members, the PMA, The Independent Book Publisher’s Association, said, “This policy imposes a significant financial burden on tens of thousands of small and independent publishers who can least afford it…Without the opportunity to benefit from competitive pricing, small publishers risk, at best, an expensive and needless overhaul of their manufacturing process, and, at worst, the loss of their livelihood.”

But this post is not totally about Amazon. It’s also about other book distribution options. No one can predict where the Amazon fiasco will end up, certainly not you or I, nor any supporting orgs, nor bloggers. Therefore, let’s move on to an article that caught my eye this week and has me thinking out of the Amazon box, so to speak.

Self-published authors and POD authors are never guaranteed distribution in any online or offline bookstore, the way most traditionally published books are. We have to be not only our own marketing department, but our own distribution department. That means finding our own ways to get our books out there, in front of the audience we wrote it for, by being intelligent (researching our options), clever (making friends with local bookstores, who can also introduce us to non-local places we could get our books noticed) and crafty (inventing new ways to move our books). This article is about a new way to move books, regardless of who your publisher is.

On April 5th, Michael S. Rosenwald of the Washington Post wrote this article, which I find fascinating, “The Changing Bookstore Battle.” In it, Rosenwald describes the future (maybe?) of book distribution – sans Amazon, and even Barnes and Noble.

Now, I’m not foolish enough to think Amazon or Barnes and Noble are going away, or that they will not still dominate the book selling universe. But I am willing to step out of my box and say, “Wow. I have other options. My authors have other options. Amazon and B&N are NOT the only way to go.”

Here’s the inside scoop: Rosenwald discusses the ‘demise’ of Borders, even noting that B&N is interested in purchasing the failing bookstore. I don’t have feelings about that, one way or another, just yet. What I am excited about is the solution Rosenwald presents: distribution at big box retailers—yep, the Costcos, Wal-marts, and Sam’s Clubs of the world. We all know they have book sections, but who knows how to get books on those shelves or in those bins? Well, someone knows…and a quick phone call to each store might open some doors. And, according to Rosenwald, Costco routinely holds book signings!

“Because there is a romantic quality to books,” Rosenwald says, “– curling up with them on the couch on a rainy Sunday afternoon is an eternal exercise in passing time — people often forget that books are a business, too, with price tags, economics, marketing, competition, growth, stagnation and all the other trappings of commerce.”

That’s why it’s imperative that all authors—not just self-published authors, not just POD authors, but all authors—know all their options. To explore distribution as a business focus, not a vanity task (how many stores can I get my book into). It’s encouraging to see new avenues open up and to have options for book distribution beyond the bullying arm of Amazon or the restricted focus of Barnes and Noble. There is a certain sense of gratification knowing we have options, new options, in our book distribution goals. The challenge is in pursing those options, diligently, persistently, and proactively.

As we all know, self-publishing and POD are challenging, in and of themselves; the road to success is full of potholes and bumps, put there by those who would see us fail. The challenge of making it at the Costcos and the Wal-Marts is just another bump in the road. It only takes one of us to show these stores we’re serious, we produce quality work, and our authors are worth it, to create a booming opportunity for all the rest of us.

If you’re a self-published author, especially if you’re using print-on-demand (POD), you’re probably aware of the story circulating the Internet alleging that Amazon.com is using bullying tactics. Those are the nice reports. Other reports and comments allegedly accuse Amazon of trying to create a monopoly, which violates anti-trust laws.

How is Amazon.com supposed to be doing this? Well, Amazon has decided, allegedly, that authors and publishers using POD (especially those who print through Lightning Source, purported to be the largest printer of POD books around) should begin using BookSurge to print their books. BookSurge is Amazon’s POD arm.

If you do not port your titles to BookSure and/or sign up to have all your future books printed via BookSurge, Amazon has announced, allegedly, that it will remove the “buy” button from your book’s Amazon page. To date, a number of publishers have already had this happen.

I received news of this through Twitter. A good friend posted a link to Angela Hoy’s detailed note about this issue, and I hopped over to read it. Angela said, “Some Print on Demand (POD) publishers are privately screaming “Monopoly!” while others are seething with rage over startling phone conversations they’re having with Amazon/BookSurge representatives.” She claims we’re all afraid. But that doesn’t seem to me to be the case, as over 80 blogs have been taking Amazon to task over this and continue to draw comments from loyal readers and followers.

Over at Publishing For Profit, the idea is that Amazon is doing this for “. . . a whole bunch of possible reasons, including the recent trend toward non-trade discounts on some types of books sold through LSI/Ingram, a grab for vertical integration and larger market share in an evolving marketplace, or a misguided bit of executive hubris.”

That’s a mouthful, if you ask me.

I wrote about this on our publishing blog, and it just seems to me that Amazon knows it’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room and that it can run the POD world if it chooses to do so. It seems that they don’t really care about the little guy. What they seem to care most about is making profits and, if they can lean on small press publishers and self-published authors, they will.

Over at Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends blog, she writes, “Amazon May be on Receiving End of Internet Justice” and goes on to say, “The news hit the Web a few days ago. Authors and smaller publishers that rely on print-on-demand technology as part of their business models, are not amused. In fact, they’re outraged, and the Internet is abuzz with the issue. Isn’t it ironic that a company that owes its growth and market power to the Internet may see the other end of Internet justice, as word-of-mouth spread by the Internet turns against Amazon?”

Anita links to Pearlsong Press, which writes, “Bully on the Block?” They say, “Some in the industry are referring to it as an ‘offer you can’t refuse.’ Terms like ‘strongarm tactics’ and ‘bullying’ are also being used.” The Pearlson Press article then goes on to explain how POD changes the dynamics of publishing, especially at the money end. According to them, “More than 50 percent of all academic presses utilize print-on-demand printing,” citing The Wall Street Journal. And they say that, “Even the big commercial publishing houses use print-on-demand technology to print ‘backlist’ titles.”

Overall, many writers and bloggers agree that Ingram has a hand in this, somehow. It’s the largest wholesale book distributor I know of, and it carries Lightning Source books for many POD publishers. Ingram and LS are definitely joined at the hip. Certainly Lulu, one of the biggest POD firms in the country, uses Lightning Source, as does Angela Hoy’s POD company, Booklocker. And yet, Lulu CEO Bob Young has not chimed in on this issue. I went to the Lulu forums and read notes from authors begging him to join the fight, but so far I have only found a WSJ quote saying something about publishers needing to comply if they still want to sell via Amazon. Say what, Bob? Even the Lulu blog is silent on the issue.

Let’s end with some quotes from this blog, Self Publishing, where the post is very articulate and pointed: “A New Amazon Mandate? Say it ain’t so, Jeff.” (Angela Hoy is keeping a list of sites that post on this. Today, March 31st, she says April 1st is the cut-off for many POD publishers. Either they comply, or their books lose the “buy” button.) Morris Rosenthal at Foner Books (the underlying company for this Self Publishing blog) says, “What’s troubling about this and other stories I’ve heard of from Lightning Source publishers is that BookSurge reps have had the gall to hide behind the claim of better serving Amazon customers.” And then, “By allegedly attempting to strong-arm publishers into using Booksurge, which is a losing financial proposition for many publishers compared to staying with their current printer, Amazon may well make a few more books available for Prime shipping…But Amazon is a huge corporation with plenty of room for mistakes, and I’d like to believe that some rogue operators in their publishing division have been overstepping their responsibilities.”

One can only hope.

To join in the conversation and to support small presses that use POD, hop over and check out this petition to put a stop to this ridiculous policy: “Stop the BookSurge Monopoly”

Dee begins her post with a stat that will make you stop and think: “An estimated 45 trillion pages are printed annually around the world, as of 2005.” She goes on to say, “In 2006 alone, there were approximately 30,700 printing companies in the USA alone, and these companies accounted for about $112 billion in revenues that same year.”

Wow! Those numbers certainly put the industry into a new context, don’t you think? When an author achieves publication, whether through self-publishing using POD, or through an established traditional publisher, he or she is not thinking about how much paper will be used, maybe even wasted. Unless she’s writing a book on ‘green’. I discussed the remainder issue (what happens to books not sold) in more than one previous post, and it applies here because many remaindered books are ground into pulp. Kudos to those publishers who recycle—and darts at those who do not!

In 2005, Fast Company published this article, “Is Print Doomed?” where Jeff Jarvis, former print editor and now a consultant and blogger over at BuzzMachine.com said, “Print is not dead. Print is where words go to die.”

Ouch! Did he really say print is where words go to die? Yep. He went on to accuse print of being a one-way activity, as opposed to the Web 2.0 world, which engages readers and creates a multitude of conversations and connections, as those of us who blog regularly know. Reading a printed book is, as Jarvis accuses it of, most often a solitary pursuit.

The article at Fast Company wasn’t merely a platform for Jarvis to spout off about the death of a tradition. It was a discussion between two opposing ideas, Jarvis on the side of “print is dead,” and John Griffin, who is President of the National Geographic Society’s magazine group on the other, respectfully disagreeing. Griffin says, “Actually, print is where words go to live – we’re still reading the ancient Greeks. On the other hand, I question the life span of blogs.”

I do not want to get into a fight over the value and lifespan of blogs vs. print – they each have their place, and blogs are not going away any time soon. I side a bit with both men, knowing that print will never go away—we all like the touch and feel of a book, or a magazine, and they’re easier to take with you to the beach – but I also know that digital is where we’re at NOW and where the coming generations will be looking for their content. I have further thoughts, for another day, on the future of libraries and bookstores. Today, let’s get back to the History of Print, as noted on Dee Barizo’s site.

The article on Cartridgesave has some outstanding pictures of early print plates. The Phaistos Disc is beautiful. According to Dee’s citation, linked here, “The Phaistos disk was discovered in 1908 in southern Crete.” They say it likely dates from about 1700 B.C. and is two-sided. The site speculates that it may have been mass-produced.

Dee’s article is really exciting, if you’re into history. She discusses several other print discoveries, with a good representation of Gutenberg, whom we all consider the Father of Modern Print. Gutenberg invented movable type…not the blogging software, the printing press. One wonders if, in twenty years, children will wonder how a man living in the 15th century could invent a content management system for the Internet—but I digress. The printing press gave way to the lithograph print in 1796. Wikipedia describes this as, “…a printing process that uses chemical processes to create an image.” The pictures on Dee’s site and at Wikipedia are just beautiful. Though they are in color, actual color lithography was not invented until 1837.

It would take far too much paper, and far too much of your time, to continue reporting on Dee’s story, along with citations and such. She was thorough in her research. Hop over to her post and read it for yourself. She has great links, great pics, and thought-provoking content. I find the history of language—which I consider the history of print to be part of—fascinating. Don’t you?

I encourage you to read the full article because at the end, there is information on 3-D printing and how it is going to change the healthcare industry. For instance, “Studies are currently underway to see if 3D printing could help in actually producing real tissue and organs using living cells as the building blocks, and allowing them to slowly grow to form 3D structures.” Gives you goose-bumps, doesn’t it?

Now, there’s a print book waiting to be published. If we did it in POD, we could update on a regular basis, without having to sacrifice a lot of paper.