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    How to Best Organize Your Book Ideas

    I’m constantly learning new ways of organizing my thoughts and content, so today I want to share with you three possible solutions that will help you to organize your book ideas without losing your mind. Specifically, if you’ve been thinking about writing a book, you probably have dozens of ideas about what you want to put in that book. You probably have stories to share, concepts to explain, and practices to teach, but maybe you aren’t yet clear on how—or if—they all fit together. Try the following methods and enjoy a clearer path forward!

    Mind Mapping

    Mind MapI honestly have no experience with mind mapping, but I’ve met too many authors and other business professionals who swear by it to not mention it here. The basic principle is simple: It’s a system of using visual notations to help you brainstorm the parts of your book and then figure out how they connect to one another. Mind mapping hinges on the relationships between ideas, which is a crucial element for organizing any good book outline. You can do this manually on large pieces of paper, drawing your idea representations and the lines that connect them, or you can use mind-mapping software.

    Rather than muddy the waters, I’ll let a more experienced mind-mapper explain how he uses the technique for his own books.

    Scrivener

    highres-scrivener-logo-2Writing a nonfiction book is like working through a puzzle. You know what the end results should look like, more or less. You have tons and tons of pieces. From a distance, you can tell that some pieces group together while others are probably from completely different parts of the picture. But you still need to figure out how they all fit together. Unlike a jigsaw puzzle, writing a book often involves extra pieces that may not ultimately fit in the book at all, and hidden pieces that you don’t yet know you need! Sounds complicated, huh?

    Scrivener makes it less so. I’ve been using Scrivener for about a year now and I still haven’t scratched the surface of this powerful tool. But for beginners, one of the best features of this program is its ability to capture your thoughts on “index cards” that you can then move around on a virtual “corkboard” to your heart’s content. I absolutely love this feature, which makes it much easier to organize your book ideas.

    • It enables you to easily capture all the various ideas you have, even if you don’t end up using all of them.
    • You can start to see, at a glance, where your ideas have common threads and may fit together in one chapter.
    • Similarly, you will start to see where there are gaps and where you need to add some connective tissue.
    • Drag-n-drop capability allows you to keep moving your “cards” around until you find a flow that feels logical and easy to follow.

    Even better, as you start to draft your book, Scrivener’s “corkboard” feature attaches your drafted chapters and sections to its appropriate “card,” so you can continue to play with your book’s organization even as you write it.

    The Old Fashioned Way

    Some of you may find it strange to use a program that reproduces the experience of using index cards or sticky notes when you can just do it the old-Sticky Note Mind Mappingfashioned way and actually use index cards and sticky notes. And, of course, this time-honored method works just fine! Here’s how you do it right:

    • write down all of your ideas on cards or notes
    • get yourself a flat surface such as a corkboard (best for cards—don’t forget tacks) or white board (best for stickies)
    • start by arranging your cards/notes in groups of ideas that seem related to you
    • as your groupings become more solidified, start moving the groups themselves around so that you can see the flow of one chapter or section to the next, and then the flow of ideas within each chapter/section

    Though this method has produced great results for a lot of people, there are some real downsides to keep in mind.

    • Do you have a dedicated space for your board? If not, playful pets and curious children may unravel all your hard work in minutes.
    • Do you have a large enough surface so you can see what’s on each card/note at a glance? It can be harder to organize your thoughts if you can’t see them all at once.
    • Do you have the dedication and attention to detail to make sure you keep your draft consistent with your card/note arrangement? One of the big benefits to using software tools is that it can correct for human error…like if you move a bunch of ideas into different groupings and forget to adjust your board to match, and now you’re adding redundant ideas or losing the thrust of your argument in the shuffle.

    Of course, these methods are great for helping you organize your book ideas, but what if you simply can’t see the forest for the trees? It can be challenging to know what does and doesn’t fit into a book. You don’t want your reader to wade into a confusing hodge-podge that fails to engage her and lacks a coherent promise! To make matters more complicated, when you write a book designed to showcase your expertise and attract your ideal clients, you need to be very deliberate about the overall book concept. You want to choose the idea that’s going to best help you accomplish your immediate goals. Not all ideas are created equal, and while you may be itching to write on one topic now, it may be more strategic to write a different book first.

    If you’re overwhelmed with ideas or aren’t sure which book concept is right for you and your business right now, I can help. About every two months I’m enrolling members in my Idea to Outline program, which gives you six weeks to walk along with me on a process similar to the one I use to help my ghostwriting clients choose and then flesh out an idea into an effective book outline. Get more details and schedule your free Discovery Session today.

    Ally Machate Book EditorFounder of The Writer’s Ally, Ally E. Machate is a bestselling book collaborator, award-winning editor, and expert publishing consultant who loves using her insider knowledge and experience with the publishing industry to lead serious authors toward success. She and her team live to help make great books happen, whether that means showing a writer how to improve a manuscript, get an agent, or self-publish; or coaching an author on growing her platform to sell more books. Since 1999, she has supported hundreds of authors on their publishing journey and takes pride in serving as their books’ best ally.

    Print Books, Ebooks, and the Self-Publisher

    We’ve all heard and read multiple stories and interviews sounding the death knell for print publishing. Self-publishers especially are bombarded by those who suggest that, with the low threshold and speed to market of ebooks, you shouldn’t bother spending the time and money that can go into creating a print edition. It’s true that creating a print book can have more and higher costs associated with it than an ebook, but not as much as you might think. Consider this comparison of possible outlay for services:

    PRINT EBOOK
    book editing book editing
    cover design cover design
    interior design formatting
    ISBN purchase ISBN purchase (?)
    file/account set-up file/account set-up
    printing —
    distribution distribution

    Of course, for an ebook you only need a front cover whereas a print book requires the addition of spine design and back cover design. Hiring someone to format your ebook is likely to be less expensive than hiring an interior layout designer. And there are some good, free tools out there, like Smashwords’ Meat Grinder, that will help you do the former for free, whereas many times DIY for the latter immediately brands your work as that of an amateur.* Similarly, some point out that to publish an ebook on the Kindle platform you don’t need to purchase an ISBN—Amazon doesn’t require one.

    However, if you intend to publish an ebook to any other platform besides the Kindle store, most experts agree that you will need that ISBN to help distributors and purchasers distinguish between the different editions of your book. And many in the know suggest that you should use an ISBN in the Kindle store regardless. The major cost difference, then, perhaps comes in with actually printing the book. However, if you use Print on Demand (POD) services, even that cost is mitigated—in a POD model, you only pay for the book when it’s ordered. Let’s say for example you’re selling a book through CreateSpace on Amazon. Instead of paying up front to print and warehouse your book, for each customer order CreateSpace simply pays you a “royalty” that takes the printing cost into account. Easy peasy.

    According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, Americans still overwhelmingly prefer print books to ebooks. In fact, only 5% of those participating in the survey responded that they read ebooks, but no print books, last year. That’s up from 2% in 2011—growth, to be sure, but certainly not the overwhelming turnover of “dead tree books” that some sources would have you believe. Only 4% of participants were “ebook only” readers. Does this mean you shouldn’t bother with ebooks at all? Not so fast. As of 2012, ebook revenue represents approximately 23% of the total book market. Though last year saw a slowdown in growth, it’s clear that ebooks are here to stay. After all, Pew research also reveals that last year saw increases in both the number of Americans with e-readers and the number of Americans who have read an ebook. Not only would it be foolish to overlook digital formats, in some cases, it may make sense for you to publish an ebook first and then follow up with a print edition—the complete reverse of what most publishers do. So how do you decide?

    Putting an ebook version out first (or only an ebook version) may be a smarter route for you if:

    • you have a minuscule to nonexistent budget
    • your target audience is always on the go or is very into gadgets (i.e. heavy tablet, smartphone, and e-reader users)
    • your book is of the type that needs frequent updating to stay relevant
    • your subject ties into a trend or current event that is rapidly fading from memory
    • you want to tie your release into an upcoming event or anniversary and have very little lead time
    • you don’t have an existing audience and need to keep the price point low to attract readers
    • you want to make a lot of money and have the time and energy to market relentlessly online (it takes a lot of copies at $0.99-$2.99 per book to earn a living) 

    On the other hand, print first may be the best route for you if:

    • you speak in public frequently on a subject related to your book
    • you intend to give your book out as a supercharged “calling card”
    • you have a large enough platform to get your book into brick and mortar stores
    • gift shops or other specialty stores feature big in your distribution plans
    • your target audience is more traditional or less tech-savvy
    • you have an established audience who will tolerate a higher price point
    • you care more about profit than the number of sales or the size of your audience
    • you plan to use your book to attract high-end clients to your business

    Don’t forget, when it comes to self-publishing, there is no one way to achieve success. You need to create a plan that best suits your unique product and your unique situation. For some, it will be a choice between one edition or another. You could also choose to publish only in one format or publish in all formats simultaneously. Regardless of which format you go with first, I encourage you to follow up with the other as soon as time and budget allow. Why not get as many sales from as wide a readership as you can?

    *If you decide to DIY, I encourage you to check out Joel Friedlander’s book design template packages. Created for use with MS Word, these kits come complete with instructions and templates for print, digital, or both. You can’t beat the price, and the results will be far better than single-spaced and Times New Roman.

    Ally Machate Book EditorFounder of The Writer’s Ally, Ally E. Machate is a bestselling book collaborator, award-winning editor, and expert publishing consultant who loves using her insider knowledge and experience with the publishing industry to lead serious authors toward success. She and her team live to help make great books happen, whether that means showing a writer how to improve a manuscript, get an agent, or self-publish; or coaching an author on growing her platform to sell more books. Since 1999, she has supported hundreds of authors on their publishing journey and takes pride in serving as their books’ best ally.

    How to Use Goodreads to Sell More Books

    With 18M members and growing, authors ignore Goodreads at the peril of their own books. At this year’s BookExpo America, Patrick Brown, Director of Author Marketing for Goodreads, offered advice on how to make this accessible and fun platform work for you. Here are some of his best insights and tips, combined with a few of my own, to help you sell more books using Goodreads.

    (FYI, you’d need at least $5,000 per month to work directly with Goodreads’ author marketing team, but Brown suggested those authors wishing to hire pro help should look into Author Buzz as a good alternative for smaller budgets.)

    Know Your Goal

    As with any effective marketing campaign, you must know your goal before you can plan a good strategy for achieving it, let alone measure your results. When marketing a book on Goodreads, your primary goal isn’t to sell books, since members don’t purchase books directly on this platform. Instead, your primary goal is discoverability.

    Brown suggested that the key to a successful Goodreads campaign is to accumulate reviews, especially early in a book’s life. Why? Because the more reviews you get, the more you:

    • help readers discover your book (they will see their friends adding it to their shelves, noting they’ve read it, and posting reviews in the News Feed or notifications—this is “social discoverability”)
    • get people to read your book (as with any review-driven service, good reviews encourage potential readers to take a chance on your book, esp. important if you’re a new author)
    • encourage visibility, and thus discoverability, for your book beyond Goodreads (the platform integrates with several social media engines such as your blog, Facebook, and Twitter, so Goodreads activity regarding your book becomes visible to readers’ Friends and Followers as well). As Brown says, “What happens on Goodreads doesn’t stay on Goodreads, and that’s a good thing!”

    Kickstart Your Discoverability Process with Giveaways

    Everybody likes to win free stuff, and readers are no exception. Authors who have tested the Goodreads Giveaways program seem overwhelmingly pleased with their results, if a quick Internet search is to be believed. And it’s free for you, too! So why not run your own giveaway?

    One drawback is that the program only accepts print books right now, though it is exploring ways to include digital titles as well. For those of you self-publishing, the exposure a giveaway provides could be worth the money spent on inexpensive POD editions. (With POD thresholds so low, why wouldn’t you make a print version available? The ebook market grows every day, but still less than 5% of U.S. book buyers are reading digital books exclusively according to a recent study by Bookboon)

    Brown strongly encourages authors to run their giveaways pre-pub and at publication for a powerful one-two punch. The trick here is that during pre-pub giveaways, the people who added your book to their “to-read” shelf will automatically receive an email from Goodreads announcing the book’s publication.

    The more books you give away, the more your to-read adds multiply. But don’t just give away a bunch of books at once, suggests Emlyn Chand of Novel Publicity & Co. (read her full post on Goodreads giveaways for more great tips and insights) Instead, give away one at a time but run multiple giveaways to boost the overall number of readers exposed to your book.

    Best Practices for Giveaways

    One of the secrets to a successful Goodreads Giveaway is to carefully build anticipation and awareness. For Tracey Graves’ novel Covet, Brown’s team offered an early cover reveal with the announcement that if 1,000 people added the book to their to-read shelves in one week, the publisher would release the first three chapters of the novel. This promise prompted 829 people to add the book to their to-read shelves in just one day, and three months prior to publication 5,500+ people had added it thanks to the revealed chapters, with more doing so every day.

    In an example of an on-pub giveaway effort, Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life garnered 1,500 adds to members’ to-read shelves after seeing their friends do it (social discoverability) while another 1,350 added it after receiving recommendations from friends or seeing their friends rate the book (and much of these early recommenders and reviewers either won free copies of the book or heard about it through the giveaway).

    Study other giveaways to learn what’s working and what you might want to adapt to suit your needs. You can peek under the hood of any book by clicking on “stats” over on the right-hand side of any book’s profile page.

    goodreads-ss-book-2

    Other Tips for a Great Giveaway

    • make sure your author profile is fully fleshed out with engaging copy
    • start early (Brown recommends 3-6 months pre-pub)
    • give it time (Brown recommends at least one month, though Emlyn Chand makes a good case for much shorter giveaways in her post on the subject)
    • offer more books to get more reviews (approx 50% of readers will follow through with posted reviews)
    • run multiple giveaways (as noted previously, consider running at least two, one pre-pub and another at launch, and consider running a new giveaway for each free copy rather than offering multiple copies during one giveaway)
    • mobilize your existing fan base to help promote giveaways (Goodreads offers special widgets you can put on your blog and other profiles to help get the word out)
    • take advantage of the helpful tips and tools offered through the Goodreads Author Program

    For more information check out:

    www.slideshare.net/goodreadspresentations

    Have you tried running a Goodreads Giveaway? What did, or didn’t, work for your book?

    Note: This is the second installment in my series, BEA 2013: What I Learned and Why You Should Go. To read the introduction and other posts in this series, click here.

    Ally Machate Book EditorFounder of The Writer’s Ally, Ally E. Machate is a bestselling book collaborator, award-winning editor, and expert publishing consultant who loves using her insider knowledge and experience with the publishing industry to lead serious authors toward success. She and her team live to help make great books happen, whether that means showing a writer how to improve a manuscript, get an agent, or self-publish; or coaching an author on growing her platform to sell more books. Since 1999, she has supported hundreds of authors on their publishing journey and takes pride in serving as their books’ best ally.

    Protecting Your Ebooks with Digital Rights Management (DRM)

    In order to thrive, ebooks need to become like MP3s: Regardless of where they buy it, consumers want the ability to read their ebooks on whatever device they choose. Apple has carved out a niche akin to a consumer cult, where no one cares about the restrictions of proprietary file formats, and Amazon seems to have taken a page out of their book. But this may not last long. Rumors abound about Amazon supporting the EPUB format on Kindles, so this may all be a moot point soon.

    In the meantime, self-publishers planning to release a digital version of their books must consider how or if DRM fits into their production and sales plans.

    What’s DRM?

    DRM stands for digital rights management. Basically, DRM (provided through a number of software products) controls how you can share your ebook from user to user and device to device. Proprietary formats typically have this built in; DRM is what keeps you from being able to share your Kindle purchases with 100 of your friends, for example. More open formats like EPUB are either DRM-free or you will be asked to subscribe to the DRM policy of each sales outlet through which you make your ebook available.

    So, if your ideal reader bought an EPUB version of an ebook from some random place online, she could read it on a number of devices including the Apple devices (assuming whatever DRM the publisher used had such open permissions). However, if she purchased an EPUB version of an ebook via iBooks, Apple’s own DRM (FairPlay) would restrict her from reading that ebook on any other device.

    There are three basic DRM systems currently in use: Adobe DRM, Amazon Kindle DRM, and Apple FairPlay DRM. Ebooks in any one of those DRM systems are incompatible with the others.

    You need to decide at the outset if you’re going to use DRM or not as some distributors (such as Smashwords) won’t support it and others (such as Amazon) have their own.

    Who Cares?

    My advice is to forget the DRM when you have the option to forgo it. It’s more important to make your ebook as widely accessible as possible than it is to restrict the fraction of people who will abuse your generosity by sharing the ebook with others—besides, digital publishing pioneers like Cory Doctorow and Seth Godin have already shown the great benefit from free distribution and how it can lead (a bit counter-intuitively) to plenty of income. Even some forward-thinking major publishers like Tor/Macmillan are going DRM-free.

    The more I read about DRM, the clearer it is that the cons outweigh the pros for most self-publishers. For one thing, it can be very expensive to implement on your own (there are no extra costs to “turn it on” as an option when you publish directly through such outlets as Kindle Direct Publishing, however). And it isn’t hard to find workarounds if you’re a dedicated pirate, so you’re hurting your potential readers more than hindering thieves with a DRM restriction—after all, it only takes one successful pirate to make a DRM-protected ebook available for free to the whole world online. DRM software suites are also notoriously buggy and, if the multitude of blog posts, forums, and other anecdotal evidence online are to be believed, are responsible for an awful lot (some claim the majority) of customer service calls made to device manufacturers and ebook sellers. More and more users report that they won’t buy ebooks with DRM just to avoid the aggravation. It’s also easier to sell your ebook via shopping cart systems on your own website if you don’t use it.

    Bottom line: It’ll cost you more to publish the ebook and may cost you readers. That math makes no sense to me. What do you think?

    Ally Machate Book EditorFounder of The Writer’s Ally, Ally E. Machate is a bestselling book collaborator, award-winning editor, and expert publishing consultant who loves using her insider knowledge and experience with the publishing industry to lead serious authors toward success. She and her team live to help make great books happen, whether that means showing a writer how to improve a manuscript, get an agent, or self-publish; or coaching an author on growing her platform to sell more books. Since 1999, she has supported hundreds of authors on their publishing journey and takes pride in serving as their books’ best ally.

    Q: Do I need an ISBN for my ebook?

    For a long time, the majority of self-publishers didn’t bother to purchase an ISBN for their ebooks. This was in large part because the Kindle store didn’t require one (and it still doesn’t, though most other ebook sellers do). However, times have changed. A big effort has been made by those of us working with self-publishers (I’ve heard this repeated frequently at conferences and on teleseminars over the last year) to better educate folks, so more and more self-published ebooks now feature unique ISBNs.

    The fact is, if you have more than one version of your book available—versions meaning different editions or formats—it becomes very difficult for book buyers to know what they’re ordering, especially from distributors. When you publish a book, you want to make it as easy as possible for purchasers, so sales are most certainly lost when a buyer cannot tell at a glance which version is which in an online catalog. Peter Mathews, Publishing and Editorial Manager at book data provider Nielsen Book, has noted that those titles in Nielsen’s top-selling 85,000 titles with complete data records sold 70% more copies on average than those with incomplete metadata. “Incomplete” metadata means those listings without ISBNs and other types of information.

    Besides the practical reasons, there’s also image to consider. Self-publishers already struggle against negative stereotyping—many see self-publishers as unprofessional amateurs who would rather do things cheaply than correctly or the best way possible. Why reinforce that sad image by skimping on perhaps the most basic element of a new title’s creation?

    My advice is to give a unique ISBN to each format you use, because until all e-readers equally accept EPUB or another universal format, the end-user needs to know easily and clearly which version they’re purchasing. The only exception would be if you are only publishing a Kindle version of your ebook. No one can get confused between versions if there’s only one available, though for the reasons I’ve already discussed, it may be worth your while to purchase an ISBN anyway. My mantra: If you’re going to self-publish, don’t handicap yourself right out of the gate. Take the time, energy, and/or money to do it right!

    You can get your ISBN the same place all the big publishers do: Bowker sells them individually or in blocks of ten. Since one ISBN costs $125 while ten will run you only $250, you’ll want to purchase a block if you’re publishing in more than two different formats. I’ve also heard of ISBN resellers who offer individual ISBNs for lower costs, such as Publishers Services, which offers a $55 ISBN/bar code package. I like the price, but have no experience with this vendor personally, so be sure to do your homework before you buy.

    Ally Machate Book EditorFounder of The Writer’s Ally, Ally E. Machate is a bestselling book collaborator, award-winning editor, and expert publishing consultant who loves using her insider knowledge and experience with the publishing industry to lead serious authors toward success. She and her team live to help make great books happen, whether that means showing a writer how to improve a manuscript, get an agent, or self-publish; or coaching an author on growing her platform to sell more books. Since 1999, she has supported hundreds of authors on their publishing journey and takes pride in serving as their books’ best ally.

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