Press Kits are Hard Work, but worth it.

Phew! Just spent the entire day with my twin sis, Tasha, creating press kits. Up till now we've always generated information about our books and ourselves as needed for particular promotions, usually from the Wittegen Press website. However, looking round during the A to Z, and after prompting by author, Chris Votey, who we're working with for some up coming blog posts (keep an eye out on all three blogs for more info), we decided it was time we created some permanent information in downloadable format. Thus followed about four hours of collating data and spinning words.

We decided to use Google Docs (Google Drive) to host our Press Kit, because it makes it really easy to share with just a link, plus we can both edit the directory as needed in order to add new books as they are released. Compared to MS Word, a Google Doc has its limitations, but the press kit isn't supposed to be a wonder in formatting, so there was plenty of functionality to compile the information we needed. Plus we have the inbuilt added security of the kit being on Google Drive and therefore in multiple locations should something happen to one of our hard drives.

When it came to the contents of the press kit, we went with the kind of kits we'd seen from other authors, both via the A to Z and before: author bios, book blurbs and pictures to go with the information, plus, since we run our own publisher, we also have information on Wittegen Press and our logo up in the pack. We decided to duplicate all pictures, a small size inside the documents with the text to keep the docs small and larger higher quality versions downloadable individually for use on websites/blogs.

The book blurbs and pictures were just a matter of cut and paste from the website, so the most difficult bits by far were the author bios and the equivalent for Wittegen Press. I find it quite hard to sum myself up in a couple of short paragraphs, which is why working with Tasha helped, because we both had insights into each other that we used in the bios. As we developed the bios, we also considered how each line would come across standalone, to allow easy editing if shortening was required.

I expect I shall be tweaking my bio ad infinitum, but the important thing is I now have something that I am happy to share quickly and easily with any interested parties, an elevator speech about myself and my publisher that I think conveys something interesting and engaging about me as a writer and as a professional in the publishing industry.

Lists and blog hops and promo - oh my!

A couple of weeks ago, I started looking into list makers for blog hops, since Tash and I are embarking on organising some regular community-building fun stuff for Fantasy Boys XXX. So I thought I'd share my conclusions so far.

First, I went to take a look at the most popular linked list tool, Linky Tools. Looks like an excellent product, only problem for me, it costs $2 a month. Not much, I know, but for a cash-strapped writer, that's at least 3 sales and since I'm at the start of community building, I couldn't justify the expense (yet).

So, I went looking for free tools.

Last week, Tash and I launched our first Drabble Cascade on Fantasy Boys XXX - a bit of fun challenging folks to write drabbles (100 word pieces) inspired by a word of the week supplied by one of our readers. Naturally, since we want folks to join in, we needed a tool to collate all the drabble posts and we decided to use Simply Linked. It's, as its name suggests, a very simple tool, allows you to create a user, create lists with that user and then gives you javascript to paste into your site so folks can join the list. Great! It did exactly what it said on the tin!

However, after using it for one week, I began to see a few problems for extensive use of this tool:

1. The only embed option is javascript, and several of our entries were from LiveJournal, which strips out scripts, so they couldn't show the linked list. This would also be true of WordPress, I believe. Blogger, however, is fine with javascript.
2. The list owner cannot reorder items in the list - this became a problem, because I decided, as an after thought, that having a link to the main drabble information post would be useful in the list, and I could not put that entry at the top of the list unless I deleted the other entries.
3. There is no notification when folks join the list, so I had to keep going back and checking the list manually so I could go and comment on people's entries. This is okay with just one list to check, but, since we'll be running one Drabble Cascade a week, this would soon get out of hand.

So, I went searching again, and for week 2, we're going to be trying out Listly. This is a social media site which allows anyone to create lists on any subject they like and have folks add items to the list. It has notifications, ability to change the order of list items, and it has multiple embed options, including an iframe for places that don't allow javascript. Brilliant! It fixed all the Simply Linked issues.

However, there are 3 drawbacks I've come across while setting up our first lists. 

1. Unlike Simply Linked, a list cannot be set to non-editable, so if you have a fixed term event, like a blog hop that happens on a single day, you cannot prevent anyone from adding more items to the list after the fact. This is not a problem for the Drabble Cascades, because we want folks to carry on adding as long as they want to.
2. This is a major drawback. Listly has a free and a premium version, and in the free version, any list that is created is instantly live, anyone can see it and interact with it. This is a problem for those of us scheduling posts on our blogs in advance that we want to go live as the day ticks into being while we're asleep in bed. Not even the premium version offers scheduling of lists going live (I don't think, although finding the help on Listly is somewhat problematic). What this means in practice is, I can create my list for a Drabble Cascade in advance, but what would have been invisible unless I embedded the list in a post for Simply Linked, is instantly public on Listly. My solution: create the skeleton of the list and embed it in the scheduled drabble post, but leave out the pertinent piece of information, the inspirational 'word of the week'. That will appear in the blog post and, later on, when I get out of bed on the day of the drabble cascade, I'll update the list with the word of the week.
3. When you add an item to the list, because of the reading of the page being added, you cannot add a blog post that is in 'scheduled' mode, because, of course, it does not exist at that moment in time (this is something you can do with Simply Linked, because it does not use any more than the url). This means that, as a list owner, I can't pre-add the FB3X blog entries for the cascade to the list until they go live, which would be useful, but is not a show stopper.
4. [EDIT] Another drawback with Listly that wasn't immediately obvious, because I was already logged in on my browser (doh!) is that you have to have a Listly user to add to a list - this is not very different from giving your email addy to the other list services, but you do have to have either Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn accounts. We've asked folks to feedback on this requirement to see if they're happy to create a Listly user to be able to join in the Drabble Cascades. [EDIT END]

So, in short, neither solution is perfect, and we have yet to try out the Listly list in practice, but, for free services, both of them are pretty good. I'll follow up and report on how well we get on with Listly.

EIN vs ITIN - EIN is a world less painful!

I thought I'd share this, since I've been dreading having to apply for my ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) and then some nice person pointed out that if I am an indie author publishing my own books in the UK (and other nations), I can actually apply as a sole trader for an EIN (Employer Identification Number), rather than an ITIN, which is a whole lot easier than applying for an ITIN.

Taking a step back to explain this - if you are getting paid by Amazon, Smashwords, Google Play or anyone else based in the US and you are not in the UK, you will get slapped for 30% tax from the US IF you don't give your 'payer', i.e. Amazon, a completed W-8BEN form with an ITIN on it or an EIN (link to w-8ben and instructions for w-8ben).

I found two very useful resources online:

This has an example form for amazon (ignore the ITIN, use EIN)

and

this gives you a step by step guide to filling the 8W form in for Amazon, Smashwords and Createspace.

The second set of info gives you an extra bit of the form to fill in, because, the withholding percentage is different for different types of royalties, which is listed in the instructions. The first example direct from Amazon does not list this, but (and this is my supposition, so don't take my word for it) it might apply if you wanted to spread your tax payments for royalties over more than one year, which authors are allowed to do in the UK, rather than just looking on them as standard self employment income.

Registering as self-employed in the UK is really easy, just go online to hmrc.gov.uk and follow the links for registering.

I had my EIN within 10 minutes and I'm currently filling in all my forms. I will update this post if I have any follow up problems.

EDIT: having been through this with Amazon and just got my 0% withholding, this is the best example form to copy for them, just use your EIN, rather than an ITIN:  W-8BEN for an individual Amazon