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Bowker Self Publishing Report: 2012

by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Tue Nov 12, 2013

A new analysis of U.S. ISBN data by ProQuest affiliate Bowker reveals that the number of self-published titles in 2012 jumped to more than 391,000, up 59 percent over 2011 and 422 percent over 2007. Ebooks continue to gain on print, comprising 40 percent of the ISBNs that were self-published in 2012, up from just 11 percent in 2007.

“The most successful self-publishers don’t view themselves as writers only, but as business owners,” said Beat Barblan, Bowker Director of Identifier Services. “They invest in their businesses, hiring experts to fill skill gaps and that’s building a thriving new service infrastructure in publishing.”

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Video Logs of Self Published Authors

by Bowker Publishe...
Bowker | Tue Nov 12, 2013

Recently Bowker released statistics on self publishing over the past 5 years, which were also the topic of a presentation at Frankfurt Book Fair. 

Looking at these statistics, one might think that self publishing is a new phenomenon.  However, we have put together some videos that show self published author experiences over the past 30 years.  The difference now is the ease of the process as well as the mass volume that an author can sell in a short period of time. 

In addition, these authors tell several different ways that self publishing leads to traditional publishing either through obtaining a book contract or starting a company that publishers other authors. 

Enjoy!

·        Hugh Howey

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How to Self Publish in Germany

by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Tue Oct 29, 2013

Via Joanna Penn, a podcast with Matthias Matting, who has just finished translating his book "How to Self Publish in Germany" into English. If you are interested in selling your book overseas, in other languages, this guide will help you understand some of the pitfalls of publishing into another culture. While many factors of the book market in Germany are similar to those of the US, there are some distinct differences (such as the fact that more Germans are book consumers than are Americans, or the fact that German law governs book pricing).

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WH Smith and Bad Categorization

by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Mon Oct 21, 2013

As the publishing world knows in altogether too much detail, WH Smith (the UK bookseller) has closed its website because it has discovered some self-published erotica books that were classified as children's books. 

There's no word on when Smith estimates re-opening. As it is, they are losing millions of dollars in lost sales. But it turns out the problem runs even deeper than one of bad metadata. It seems that many of these self-published authors were deliberately mis-categorizing their books. 

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Opportunity Is Knocking: Why Authors Should Go Print

by Allison Horton
Bowker | Thu Sep 19, 2013

Once upon a time, self publishing print books was a costly and risky endeavor. Minimum orders, inventory risks, and lengthy lead times were not self-publisher friendly. Then, print on demand came along. POD creates one-off and entire print runs of bookstore-worthy hard copies from a “print-ready PDF” hours after an order is placed (i.e. when you place an order with the printer or when a customer purchases a copy on Amazon).

The ease and affordability of digital publishing makes for a great starting point for self publishers, but there are plenty of reasons to go print as well. To name a few...
 

Not everyone has an e-reader

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The Value of Subject Codes

by Bowker Publishe...
Bowker | Tue Sep 3, 2013

Are subjects important?  Will incorrect subjects on an ISBN have a big impact on its distribution?  This is a very broad question that can either be answered with a word ("yes") or a dissertation.  We will try for something in between.

Just as providing correct title, author, publisher, and pricing information is important, correct subjects are important if you want your book to be properly represented in the marketplace.  They are an integral part of providing well-formed metadata about an ISBN. Leaving book discovery to keyword searching and title scanning alone is not enough because keywords often retrieve "false positives" and because the subject of a book is not always self-evident from the title: "Orange is the New Black" is not about fruit or color theory, and "The Glass Castle" is not about architecture. 

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How to Create Visibility through Your ISBN Metadata

by Laura Shabott
Bowker | Tue Aug 27, 2013

Your ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is a key tool to getting discovered by the people who buy eBooks. What is it really? This 13 digit number is used by the publishing industry to organize all printed, audio and digital books worldwide. The specific facts that a self-publishing author provides to register a title’s ISBN with Bowker are its Metadata.

Let’s look carefully at the information required for Section One of an ISBN registration using different published works as examples.

Section One: Title and Cover

1. Title: Confessions of an eBook Virgin

2. Subtitle: What Everyone Should Know Before They Publish on the Internet

Make sure these fields are EXACTLY the same, including upper and lower case, as what is seen on your cover and cover page. 

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ISNI: A New Identifier for People (and Organizations)

by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Thu Aug 15, 2013

In addition to being a registration agent for ISBNs, Bowker is also a registration agent for ISNI. This is a new identifier - the standard was published in 2012 - for people and organizations. The mission of ISNI is (from the ISNI website):

  • Assign to the public name of a writer, artist, performer, researcher, publisher, etc. a persistent unique identifying number in order to resolve the problem of name ambiguity in search and discovery.
  • Diffuse each assigned ISNI across all repertoires in the global supply chain so that every creative work is unambiguously attributed to its creator or publisher wherever that work is described.

By achieving these goals the ISNI will act as a bridge identifier across multiple domains and become a critical component in Linked Data and Semantic Web applications.

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How To Fill Out All Those Metadata Forms: Titles

by Suzanne P. Franks
Bowker | Mon Aug 12, 2013

Congratulations!  You have written your book!  That was a major achievement.  Your next step will no doubt be to list your title with various website services to increase its exposure.  You will be filling out forms with questions you may have never thought about before.  Some guidelines about what to include would be beneficial about now. Here’s a list of best practices for formatting your title on the web:

1.       Use mixed case for capitalizing your title, unless there is an acronym involved.  For example, The Ocean at the End of the Lane would have mixed case but SEAL Team Six would have the acronym in all capital letters.

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Top 5 Apps for Authors

by Carla King
Bowker | Wed Aug 7, 2013

Authors these days are more than authors. Our days are fragmented with tasks that more resemble those of publishers and marketers, journalists and speakers. We must not only write, but edit, organize, blog, friend, tweet, connect, converse, advise, recripocate, share and share again.

These five apps (and I mean “apps” beyond the mobile-only kind) help me streamline these tasks so that I can spend more time actually writing and sell more books.

1. BIT.LY: EFFICIENCY AND ANALYTICS

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