SPECIAL WRITER’S SEMINAR YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS

This is the time to register for a very special “hands-on” Writer’s Seminar.

TOPICS:

1. Publishing Your Book Locally and Globally by Val Waldeck. 

• How to get your book written quickly.
• How to get it published locally at minimum cost.
• How to get it published globally with Amazon at no cost.
• How to get it published in the Amazon Kindle store at no cost.

2. How To Prepare Your Book For Printing by Clive Thompson

• Book format and what programme to use.
• The Pro’s and Con’s of designing your own book.
• Adding colour sections: Cover / photo gallery / graphs.
• How to prepare PDFs to match Printer Specifications.

VENUE:  Westville Conference Centre, 18 Burlington Drive, Westville, Durban.

TIME:  09h00 – 12h30

COST:  R390 pp. But register before May 11 and get a R40 discount! Pay only R350.

Download the REGISTRATION FORM here:
http://pilgrimpublications.biz/durbanregistration2012-05.pdf

ENQUIRIES:  val@valwaldeck.com

Publishing Perils in the Digital Age

By DAVID STREITFELD

These are uncertain times for many established writers, as the case of the Hawaiian novelist Kiana Davenport shows. Until recently she had a deal with Riverhead Books, a literary line that is a division of Penguin, for a Civil War novel, “The Chinese Soldier’s Daughter.” Ms. Davenport received an initial $20,000 advance for the tale, which was scheduled for publication next summer. That wasn’t enough money to survive on, so the writer cast about for another source of income, and self-published a book of old stories on Amazon. The result: Her novel has been canceled, the publisher wants its money back, and her publishing career is in jeopardy.

I gave a brief account of what happened in an article published Monday, but some of the reaction was frankly disbelieving. Would a publisher really cancel a novel and demand its money back under these circumstances? Many writers seem to be successfully bridging the gap between mainstream publishers and self-publishers; perhaps there are additional elements at play here. Ms. Davenport and Penguin officials declined to be interviewed. But the correspondence between lawyers backs up the writer’s tale as outlined in her blog.

Publishing contracts have not evolved as fast as the self-publishing opportunities for writers, making this case somewhat murky. But much of the commentary I’ve seen comes down harshly on Ms. Davenport for supposedly violating her contract – as if these agreements were always ironclad and any deviation was punished by cancellation. There was little sympathy for a mid-list writer adrift on the digital seas, and no mention of what a publisher’s responsibility is to a writer during the years it takes to produce a new book.

Here’s the back story: Ms. Davenport took some award-winning old stories off the shelf and published them as an e-book, something many professional writers are doing with material they cannot get in print any other way. “Cannibal Nights,” which appeared in July, was her second e-book of short fiction. Downloads were modest.

Penguin learned of the new work and got upset. In a brief letter
that Penguin’s general counsel, Karen Mayer, sent to the writer, it said the publication of “ ‘Cannibal Nights’ by Amazon violates the ‘next-work’ representation, the no-compete provision and the option clause.” Penguin also said Ms. Davenport had thereby demonstrated her “unwillingness to work in good faith with us” toward publication of the novel. The letter ended by saying the writer had 10 days to repay her advance “to avoid legal action.”

Penguin stated in mid-September that this was “a straightforward matter involving the publisher’s right to publish the author’s next work. It is being handled by the lawyers.”

Jan Constantine, a lawyer for the Authors Guild, wrote a letter to Penguin on behalf of Ms. Davenport. She said that the stories had been offered to Penguin 15 years ago and turned down, that Riverhead had already seen the novelist’s next novel and said it was not interested at this time and that a self-published e-book was hardly competition to the novel but might even promote it.

“In fact,” Ms. Constantine wrote, “the marketplace experience has shown unequivocally that eBooks by Ms. Davenport which are available on Kindle and elsewhere would most likely lift sales of her books since she is building a fan-base by her online presence. Any expert in the publishing world would support that conclusion.”

Penguin was unpersuaded. It had no further comment Monday. Neither did Ms. Davenport’s lawyer, Donald David.

Oct. 18, 2011.

Amazon.fr Kindle Store (www.amazon.fr/kindle)is happy to announce to publishers and authors the ability to make their books available worldwide with the use of Kindle Direct Publishing (http://kdp.amazon.fr). This free and fast way will not only put the manuscripts on Kindle but also on Kindle Cloud Reader and on free Kindle reading apps on Android, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Windows Phone, PC and Mac.

Although the “fr” is used because of Kindle Direct Publishing’s launch into France, these books will be read in the US, the UK, Germany, and more than 100 other countries. Payments will be made in US dollars, Euros, or British pounds. Authors will continue to own the rights to their books, which is an important factor to them.

John Locke, for one, jumped on the bandwagon early and has sold more than one million Kindle books through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). He and many others should give encouragement to authors and publishers everywhere to consider this amazing opportunity.

Also launched on October 7th was the Amazon.fr.Kindle Store to service France, Belgium, Monaco, Luxembourg and Switzerland with a selection of more than 35,000 French-language Kindle books.

Source: Technology