Quotation for the Week of February 28

"Money doesn't always bring happiness. People with ten million dollars are no happier than people with nine million dollars."
-- Hobart Brown

Writing for Immediate, Primary and Secondary Audiences

A guest post by Rick Holton

Most business writers strive to understand their audience and to determine whether it is friendly or hostile to their message. It is also important for people in your organization to distinguish between immediate, primary and secondary audiences.

Your immediate audience is the person or persons to whom your communication is addressed. Your primary audience is that person’s colleagues or associates, or anyone else to whom the addressee might potentially show your communication. Your secondary audience is anyone who will potentially be affected by your communication.

Say the Director of Procurement at a small private college asked you to prepare an energy supply plan in which you are to consider the technical, economic, and environmental implications of using a variety of fuels to heat the campus.

Your immediate audience is the Director of Procurement. Your primary audience comprises the college president and anyone on the college staff who is involved in technical, economic, and environmental decision making.

Your secondary audience consists of students, faculty, alumni, and local residents. Furthermore, should the college make a controversial choice based on your recommendation, other members of the secondary audience might include lawyers, the press, and the general public.

Although you have many different audiences to think about, you must without fail satisfy the needs of the person receiving your communication.

If you know, however, that the person receiving your memo may well show it to certain other managers, you will probably want to keep that fact in the back of your mind.

And if you know that your memo could be leaked to the press or could become a matter of public record, you will certainly want to choose your words carefully so as not to give the general reader an incorrect impression of either you or your company.

People in your organization can use this simple tip to make sure they’re sending the right message to the right audience and that their communication has no unforeseen consequences.

Rick Holton is owner of The Holton Group, which specializes in business writing and consulting.

Quotation for the Week of February 21

"Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency."
-- Raymond Chandler

Surviving Social Media

According to Fox News (yeah, I know--quit laughing and keep reading), the human brain can only handle 150 Facebook friends.

Well, actually this is the opinion of Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University. Dunbar conducted research showing that even though social networking sites let us maintain more relationships, the number of meaningful friendships we can sustain is the same as it's always been.

I thought about this when I saw this post called "I Can't Stand Social Media Either" on Anne Wayman's blog, About Freelance Writing.

I will definitely have to check out those links she mentioned. Because I swear, if you try to do everything, you risk doing nothing but social media. Which is fine, if you want to become a social media consultant, but if you have other work to do, it can be problematic.

Of course, writers have always needed to balance marketing time with actual work time. That hasn't changed, but the nature of our marketing has.

Plus, if you think about it, how much time do you spend on Twitter or Facebook versus email? I don't know about you, but my email still takes more time than just about anything.

I guess the bottom line is this. You can only do what you can do. Use the social media that seem to work best for you. Everyone will have a different notion of what that is. Don't let the choices overwhelm you. Just try things out and see how it goes.

And don't forget--you are entitled to a real life. :)

Quotation for the Week of February 14

"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis."
-- Margaret Bonnano

The Great Kindle Smackdown

With all the talk about the price of e-books and what they should be, I thought I'd do a little market research on this issue. In truth, I started doing this research after seeing someone (the name doesn't matter) post on a blog a set of (somewhat loose) criteria for achieving success with fiction published for Kindle.

The blogger's three criteria were as follows (reworded slightly, to fit the format): 1) have a good-looking cover, 2) set the right price (the right price being anyone's guess; however, in this case, $1.99 was deemed acceptable) and 3) have "an established reputation . . . as a writer."

Okay, then. These three things presumably are what will assure you (in the blogger's words) that your "Kindle editions will do real well." (What does "real well" mean? Who knows? Naturally, "real well" could mean different things to different people. But let's table that discussion.)

The blogger (who we'll refer to as Author Y) has Kindle editions of backlisted books that have been selling pretty well. Author Y said that another author (who we'll refer to as Author X) who'd put books up on Kindle would probably do "real well," because Author X and the book met the three criteria.

Let's test these criteria, shall we? And throw in another author for comparison--Author Z.

Now, whereas Author X does indeed have an established reputation (and lots of kudos from folks in the publishing industry) and Author Y has had a long career in the writing business and markets a lot by blogging, Facebook and Twitter, Author Z has no traditional publisher, hardly any reputation to speak of in the business and markets e-books like crazy to readers. Oh, and Author Z's books are priced at $.99 per download (one tiny dollar less than the other two).

Let's compare the numbers (the Kindle Store rankings in weekly averages over the course of a month, for simplicity's sake), between these authors. (And, during the last week, I threw in a bestselling author--Author A (as in A-list? get it?)--whose books sell for the usual $9.99, just for kicks.)

Week 1 Avg. Rank: Author X #14,821 - Author Y #1,334 - Author Z #880

Week 2 Avg. Rank: Author X #20,632 - Author Y #1,294 - Author Z #1,072

Week 3 Avg. Rank: Author X #17,030 - Author Y #1,152 - Author Z #382

Week 4 Avg. Rank: Author X #6,762 - Author Y #1,163 - Author Z #307 - Author A #24,255

Hmm. I think the numbers speak more loudly than words here.

Since Authors X and Y both charge the same price ($1.99 per download), then either Author X has a really lousy cover or that reputation part just doesn't hold water. I would suspect the latter, given that a New York Times bestseller is doing far worse than any of the others.

This all leads me back to the issue of price. Look how well Author Z is doing selling e-books at $.99 per download. Author Z is in fact kicking these other authors' asses in the Kindle Store. This is sans awards, big-time reviews, traditional publisher, etc. So, is the lesson here that it all comes down to price? I don't think so, because Author Y (who markets through blogging and social media) is outselling Author X (who's doing--I don't know, never heard of Author X before this).

Could it be the difference here comes down, not only to price, but to marketing? Because Author Z has marketed relentlessly.

I don't know, but if I were an author putting my backlist on Kindle, I'd set a really low price and not rest on my reputation.

Which reminds me--the New York Times confirms what I've been saying all along about readers' reactions to raising e-book prices so soon. Creating a big, stupid rift between authors and readers in the bargain.

Yeah, thanks MacMillan. I won't say I told you so.

Quotation for the Week of February 7

"I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific."
-- Jane Wagner

How Much is an E-Book Worth?

Given the recent hoopla over the question of the prices for e-books and who should determine them, it seemed appropriate to sum up a few of my own (semi-educated) views of the subject.

This all came to a head recently, when MacMillan tried to set prices on its Amazon e-books higher than $9.99. Amazon objected. Now, depending on which source you read, either Amazon threw a hissy fit and removed MacMillan's "buy buttons" from the order pages when the publisher refused to lower their prices or MacMillan demanded that Amazon either agree to their price or remove the buttons from their site.

Which is the truth? How should I know?

Anyway, Apple added another complicating factor by giving publishers carte blanche on pricing e-books sold for the new iPad.

There's been a lot of hand-wringing over all this. (Literary agent Nathan Bransford does a nice job summing it up.) Kindle readers have been blasting MacMillan as a bunch of greedheads and accusing the publisher of thinking they're stupid. Authors (at least with MacMillan) have been siding with the publisher. I'm sure there are exceptions to both of these statements, but by and large, that seems to be the consensus.

I've criticized MacMillan for trying to charge too much for their e-books and been told the issue isn't the price, but MacMillan's right to set it.

Okay, let's examine each aspect of this multi-sided affair.

First, Amazon probably wants to keep e-book prices low, so they can sell Kindles. Even if it takes a loss on e-books, it still makes money on Kindle sales and assures itself a healthy market share by providing buyer incentives (i.e., cheap e-books) to get one.

As the publisher, MacMillan wants to set its own prices, so it can cover its costs (which should be relatively low) and maintain the value of e-books. (I'll get back to the latter point in a moment.)

Meanwhile, Apple (who's going to have to hustle to catch up with Amazon and convince buyers to pay twice as much for iPads as Kindles), is out there going, "Yoo hoo, publishers! We'll give you what you want."

Which still leaves us with the question: how do you value an e-book?

I think it comes down to two concepts: reader perception and the notion that "content is king."

In his post, Bransford throws in a bit at the end about customers. What do readers want? What about the cheaper alternatives to higher-priced e-books? In other words, what price for e-books will the market bear? Naturally, he has no clear answer to that one. No one does.

But let's get real. When you come down to it, now is not the time to be charging an arm and a leg for e-books.

Frankly, the entire argument for keeping e-book prices low is laid out quite well by Joe Konrath.

So, what about this notion of content being "king"?

That's the good news for authors. We create the content. By having Amazon and other digital platforms on which to publish it, we can eliminate the publisher as middleman.

At some point in the future, e-books may become the norm, while print books get bought and sold by a smaller market of collectors.

When we reach that point, e-book prices should rise (assuming basic supply and demand rules eventually kick in) and they shouldn't be based solely on production costs.

If people want stories, they should be willing to (as Harlan Ellison put it) pay the author. Stories add value to people's lives. They entertain. So, an e-book's value depends on much more than overhead or production costs. It should, to a large extent, be based on the benefit it provides readers.

Is that a subjective standard? Of course, it is. But, for some reason, no one's talking about this.

Here's the thing--a book (print or electronic) is more than just words in paper and ink (or pixels). They convey ideas--whether we're talking about stories, memoirs or cookbooks. Someone had to work pretty hard to create them. And that's what e-book authors should be compensated for.

Say what you will about writing being a passion. Even passionate people have bills to pay and mouths to feed. Along with that, it takes time, talent (or, at least, a modicum) and patience to write.

As Konrath has pointed out on many occasions, it's the content that counts, regardless of the format. Without the writers, you have no story. Without the story, you have no book. Without the book--well, there you are.

Meanwhile, e-books are still a small (but fast-growing) market. So readers still perceive that they should be cheaper than print books, based on the relatively low production costs.

So, fine Harper Collins--go and renegotiate your prices with Amazon. See if your e-books sell in our current publishing environment.

Go on, authors--do 1,000 standing ovations for MacMillan. Clap as long and loud as you like. Then, keep on clapping while you watch your e-book sales drop even further.

Meanwhile, those of us who hold our own rights will decide how much to charge based on what the market will bear.

My humble opinion--right now, the market won't bear $12.99 and up. But someday . . . it just might.