Author: Zintegra

Articles on Writing

Whenever you feel stuck with your article writing and are facing the typical writer’s block, you should go with the ‘brain dumping’ method where you write as fast as possible without thinking twice. Just write down everything that comes into your mind, and this will help the break writer’s block that you may be experiencing. […]

Whenever you feel stuck with your article writing and are facing the typical writer’s block, you should go with the ‘brain dumping’ method where you write as fast as possible without thinking twice. Just write down everything that comes into your mind, and this will help the break writer’s block that you may be experiencing. As you write down this content, the spelling, grammar and punctuation will not even be considered during this process. You will be utterly astounded by all of the content that you come up with what you have put all of your article content into written format. Later on, you can use re-structure and proof read this article to make it presentable.

Getting an ISBN That Identifies You as the Publisher of Your Title

One agency per country is designated to assign ISBNs for that country and must maintain a bibliographic database of titles published in that country. For the United States and its territories, R.R. Bowker is the official ISBN agency. R.R. Bowker is the publisher of Books in Print, the premier database for the publishing industry.

Since the US publishing industry is very large, R.R. Bowker has entered into agreements with a handful of companies to submit official applications on behalf of the self-publishers and authors with whom they work. These companies have agreed to provide special programs under which an ISBN can be assigned by the US ISBN Agency. These companies may also offer other programs and services that do not include such an ISBN. Please read all terms and conditions carefully before making your decision about the right program or service for you.

Why does this matter?

The ISBN identifies not only the specific product to which it is assigned, but also the publisher to be contacted for ordering purposes. If an ISBN is purchased from a company other than R.R. Bowker or through the special programs of the companies listed here, that ISBN will not identify you as the publisher of your title. This can have implications for your business in the publishing industry supply chain.

Companies that will submit certain
ISBN applications to the US ISBN Agency

  • Aardvark Global Publishing Company
  • Bethany Press
  • Espressio
  • FilmMasters
  • Instantpublisher.com
  • Lulu.com
  • PPC Books
  • Publisher Services
  • RJ Communications
  • RKD Press
  • Signature Books
  • WordClay

Self-publishing a book

Note to readers: I originally published the article back in 2008 and have updated it a few times, most recently on June 13, 2012. This article primarily addresses self-publishing a print book, though many of the tips apply to e-books as well. For specific information about publishing an e-book, see my companion article, “How to self-publish an ebook.”

A few years ago I wrote a book. A novel. “Knife Music.” Contrary to what you might think based on my day job, it’s not a cyber-thriller, though it is a mystery/thriller with a medical/legal slant.

Its short history is this: I worked on it for several years, acquired a high-powered agent, had some brushes with major publishers, then, crickets.

I could have tried to go for a small publisher, but I was told mine was “a bigger book” with more commercial aspirations and prestigious small publishers were interested in more literary tomes. I also learned that many small publishers were being wiped out by the “self-publishing revolution,” a movement that’s not so unlike the “citizen journalism” or bloggers’ revolt of recent years that’s had a major impact on mainstream media, including this publication. The basic premise is anyone can become a small publisher. You call the shots. You retain the rights to your book. And you take home a bigger royalty than you’d normally get from a traditional publisher–if you sell any books.

Against the advice of my agent, I began perusing the big self-publishing companies’ Web sites and evaluating what they had to offer. Then I started poking around blogs and message boards to get customer testimonials. What I found was a veritable minefield with roads that forked in every direction and very few clear answers.

After much deliberation, I chose BookSurge, a print-on-demand (POD) outfit that Amazon owned along with the more no-frills POD operation CreateSpace. In 2009, after I published, Amazon merged BookSurge and CreateSpace under the CreateSpace brand name, so when I say Booksurge going forward, you should think CreateSpace. For those new to self-publishing, it’s worth noting that CreateSpace is considered a subsidy press or author-services company. The key to these companies is that books are printed only when someone orders a copy; neither author nor publisher is forced into buying a bunch of books and having to hawk them.

Royalties are better than what “real” publishers offer, but there are caveats, and true self-publishing pros prefer to cut out the subsidy press (which takes a cut) and go straight to a POD printer like Lightning Source to maximize profits. But I was less concerned about making money from this venture and more interested in putting together a well-packaged product that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to sell and some strangers might be willing to buy. If I did it right, I thought, and managed to get it some attention, some “real” publisher might come along and discover what a gem those 20 some odd publishers had passed on.

Well, thanks to a little publicity courtesy of Apple and a rejected – then accepted – free iPhone app, four and half months after I self-published “Knife Music,” my agent sold it to The Overlook Press, an independent publisher that put the book out in hardcover in July 2010. A few months later it came out as an e-book and did very well, rising to as high as No. 4 on the Kindlebestseller list. Later this year Overlook will publish my second novel, “The Big Exit.”

As I said, that’s the short story, and many things have changed — particularly for the e-book industry — since I first wrote this column back in December 2008. But most of what I learned along the way and what I picked up from other people who’ve also self-published, applies more than ever. As always, feel free to add your own experiences to the comments section, and thanks to all the readers who’ve e-mailed in the past.

1. Self-publishing is easy.

Self-publishing a print book is easy. Self-publishing an e-book is even easier.

Since this article is mainly about self-publishing an old-fashioned print book, here’s the skinny on what it takes to put together such a book:

You choose a size for your book, format your Word manuscript to fit that size, turn your Word doc into a PDF, create some cover art in Photoshop, turn that into a PDF, and upload it all to the self-publisher of your choice and get a book proof back within a couple of weeks (or sooner) if you succeeded in formatting everything correctly. You can then make changes and swap in new PDFs.

After you officially publish your book, you can make changes to your cover and interior text by submitting new PDFs, though your book will go offline (“out of stock”) for a week or two. Companies may charge a fee (around $25-$50) for uploading a new cover or new interior.

2. Digital, not print, is your best bet.

The first thing I tell authors who tell me they want to publish a print book is that print should be their secondary focus. I’m advising people who have text-based books (no graphics, illustrations, or photos) to test the self-publishing waters with an e-book before moving on to hard copies. It’s much easier to produce an e-book, particularly when it comes to formatting and cover design. And you can also price a digital book for much less than a paperback, which makes it easier to sell (the majority of self-published print books cost $13.99 and up while the majority of indie e-books sell in the $.99-$5.99 range.

All that said, you can, of course, do both print and digital easily enough.

Once you have your book finalized in a Word or PDF file, it’s relatively easy to convert it into one of the many e-book formats — or just offer it as a download as a PDF. There are several e-publishers geared to “indie” authors, including Smashwords, BookBaby and Lulu, to name just a few. And needless to say, Amazon’s CreateSpace steers you toward uploading your book to the Kindle Store via Kindle Direct Publishing.

Note: Please see my article “How to self-publish an e-book” for more information on e-book creation.

3. Quality is good.

I can’t speak for all self-publishing companies, but the quality of POD books is generally quite decent. You can’t do a fancy matte cover (yet), but the books look and feel like “real” books. The only giveaway that you’re dealing with a self-published book would be if the cover were poorly designed — which, unfortunately, is too often the case.

4. Since self-publishing’s so easy, everybody’s doing it.

One of the unfortunate drawbacks of having a low barrier of entry into a suddenly hot market is that now everybody and their brother and sister is an author. That means you’re dealing with a ton of competition, some of which is made up of hustlers, charlatans, and a bunch of people in between.

The growth of indie publishing in the U.S. has been huge over the last couple of years. While that growth has started to level off as fewer writers have unpublished novels in their closets to publish, you can still expect to go up against thousands of other motivated indie authors.

5. Good self-published books are few and far between.

Again, because the barrier to entry is so low, the majority of self-published books are pretty bad. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say less than 5 percent are decent and less than 1 percent are really good. A tiny fraction become monster success stories, but every every few months, you’ll hear about someone hitting it big (for those who don’t know already the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy was initially self-published).

6. The odds are against you.

The average print self-published book sells about 100-150 copies — or two-thirds to three-quarters of your friends and family combined (and don’t count on all your Facebook acquaintances buying). I don’t have a source for this statistic, but I’ve seen this stated on several blogs and as a Publishers Weekly article titled “Turning Bad Books into Big Bucks” noted, while traditional publishers aim to publish hundreds of thousands of copies of a few books, self-publishing companies make money by publishing 100 copies of hundreds of thousands of books.

7. Creating a “professional” book is really hard.

Barrier to entry may be low, but creating a book that looks professional and is indistinguishable from a book published by a “real” publishing house is very difficult and requires a minimum investment of a few thousand dollars (when all was said and done, I’d put in around $7,500, which included about $2,500 in marketing costs). You wonder why “real” books take nine months to produce — and usually significantly longer. Well, I now know why. It’s hard to get everything just right (if you’re a novice at book formatting, Microsoft Word will become your worst enemy). And once you’ve finally received that final proof, you feel it could be slightly better.

8. Have a clear goal for your book.

 

This will help dictate what service you go with. For instance, if your objective is to create a book for posterity’s sake (so your friends and family can read it for all eternity), you won’t have to invest a lot of time or money to produce something that’s quite acceptable. Lulu is probably your best bet. However, if yours is a commercial venture with big aspirations, things get pretty tricky.

9. Even if it’s great, there’s a good chance your book won’t sell.

If your book is really mediocre, don’t expect it to take off. But even if it’s a masterpiece, there’s a good chance it won’t fly off the shelves (and by shelves, I mean virtual shelves, because most self-published books don’t make it into brick-and-mortar stores). In other words, quality isn’t a guarantee of success. You’ll be lucky to make your investment back, let alone have a “hit” that brings in some real income. Don’t quit your day job yet.

10. Niche books tend to do best.

This seems to be the mantra of self-publishing. Nonfiction books with a well-defined topic and a nice hook to them can do well, especially if they have a target audience that you can focus on.Religious books are a perfect case in point. And fiction? Well, it’s tough, but some genres do better than others. Indie romance/erotica novels, for instance, have thrived in the e-book arena.

Note: If it’s any consolation, the majority of fiction books — even ones from “real” publishers — struggle in the marketplace. That’s why traditional publishers stick with tried-and-true authors with loyal followings.

11. Buy your own ISBN — and create your own publishing house.

If you have market aspirations for your book, buy your own ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and create your own publishing company.

(Credit: www.isbn-us.com)

Even if you go with one of the subsidy presses for convenience’s sake, there’s no reason to have Lulu, CreateSpace, iUniverse, Xlibris, Author House, Outskirts, or whomever listed as your publisher. For around $100 (what a single ISBN costs) and a little added paperwork, you can go toe-to-toe with any small publisher. Lulu.com sells ISBNs, other self-publishing companies don’t. The complete list of sellers is here.

Note: Most self-publishing operations will provide you with a free ISBN for both your print book and e-book but whatever operation provides you with the ISBN will be listed as the publisher.

12. Create a unique title.

Your book should be easy to find in a search on Amazon and Google. It should come up in the first couple of search results. Unfortunately, many authors make the mistake of using a title that has too many other products associated it with it — and it gets buried in search results. Not good. Basically, you want to get the maximum SEO (search engine optimization) for your title, so if and when somebody’s actually looking to buy it they’ll find the link for your book — not an older one with an identical title.

Note: On a more cynical note, some authors are creating titles that are very similar to popular bestsellers. Also, some authors use pseudonyms that are similar to famous authors’ names so they’ll show up in search results for that author. Check out this list of Fifty Shades of Grey knockoffs.

13. Turn-key solutions cost a lot of money.

You’ve written your book and God knows you’d like to just hand it off to someone, have a team of professionals whip it into shape, and get it out there. Well, there are a lot of companies that will offer to make just that happen — and do it in a fraction of the time a traditional publisher could. But those “packages” range anywhere from a few thousand dollars to upward of $25,000.

These folks can potentially put together a really nice book for you. But I’ve also heard a lot nightmare stories where people come away disappointed with the process and feel ripped off. You can do a search in Google for the companies you’re considering and find testimonials — good and bad — from authors who’ve used the services. Proceed with caution.

14. Self-publishers don’t care if your book is successful.

They say they care, but they really don’t care. You have to make them care.

15. Buy as little as possible from your publishing company.

Self-publishing outfits are in the game to make money. And since they’re probably not going to sell a lot of your books, they make money by with nice margins. That’s OK. Some of the services are worth it — or at least may be worth it. Way back when, Booksurge/CreateSpace used to have something called Buy X, Get Y program that paired your book with an Amazon bestseller. It was pricey ($1,000 a month) but in a special sale I bought 3 months for the price of 2 and ended up being paired one month with John Grisham’s new novel, which put the thumbnail image of my book in front of a lot of people. Alas, BookSurge/CreateSpace has since discontinued this program because traditional publishers were upset that shoddy self-published books were being featured on the same page as their books. It was good while it lasted and it helped me sell dozens, if not hundreds, of books.

Personally, I’d never work with CreateSpace’s in-house editors, copy editors, and in-house design people. That doesn’t mean they’re bad at what they do (I’ve seen some covers that are well-done). But if you can, it’s better to hire your own people and work directly with them. Ideally, you should be able to meet with an editor, copy editor, and graphic designer in person — and they all should have experience in book publishing.

Down the road, I suspect you’ll see more self-publishers offer high-end programs that pair you with a former editor from a major publishing house. It’s also worth mentioning that Amazon has become a publisher itself, with several imprints that it’s either bought or created. Amazon is in the process of developing a new hybrid model for publishing that aims to take the place of traditional publishers, which it sometimes refers to as “legacy” publishers. You can see a list of Amazon’s imprints here. With its flagship Encore imprint, it selects certain “exceptional” self-published titles from “emerging” authors and brings them under the Amazon umbrella so to speak. It’s a good gig if you can get it.

16. If you’re serious about your book, hire a book doctor and get it copy edited.

OK, so I’ve just told to avoid “packages” from publishers and yet I’m now saying you need editing and copy editing. So, where do you go? Well, before I sent my book out to agents, I hired a “book doctor” who was a former acquisition editor from a major New York publishing house (like most editors he worked at a few different houses). He happened to be the father of a friend from college, so I got a little discount, but it still wasn’t cheap. However, after I’d made the changes he suggested, he made some calls to agents he knew and some were willing to take a look. He was part of Independent Editors Group (IEG), a group of former acquisition editors who take on freelance editing projects for authors.

While I didn’t use his copy editor (I used a friend of a friend who currently works at a big publishing house), he and other editors in his group can suggest people. To be clear, this isn’t going to be a better deal than what you’d get from a package deal with a self-publisher, but these people are experienced and are going to be upfront and honest with you. They’re not just pushing your book out to move it along the line on the conveyor belt, though they are trying to make a living. (Warning: they don’t take on all writers).

By no means is IEG the only game in town. There are plenty of good book consultants out there, including Alan Rinzler, who has an excellent blog and straddles the line between being an executive editor at an imprint of John Wiley & Sons and providing services to private clients. And there are plenty of others.

17. Negotiate everything.

CreateSpace and other self-publishing companies are always offering special deals on their various services. There isn’t whole lot of leeway, but it doesn’t hurt to ask for deal sweeteners — like more free copies of your book (they often throw in free copies of your book). It also doesn’t hurt to ask about deals that have technically expired. In sales, everything is negotiable. Remember, these people have quotas and bonuses at stake. (For their sake, I hope they do anyway).

18. Ask a lot of questions and don’t be afraid to complain.

When I self-published, I paid an extra $300 fee to be able to talk directly to a live person on the phone for customer support. Companies like Lulu and CreateSpace have complete DIY options and require no upfront setup fees. That’s great, but when you’re dealing with a superbasic package, you’re most likely going to be doing customer support via e-mail or IM, and get very little hand-holding. It’s nice to be able to call up and complain (in a nice way, of course) directly to a live person on the phone, so take that into account when you’re examining your package options.

19. Self-publishing is a contact sport.

The biggest mistake people make when it comes to self-publishing is that they expect to just put out a book and have it magically sell. They might even hire a publicist and expect something to happen. It’s just not so. You have to be a relentless self-promoter. Unfortunately, a lot people just don’t have the stomach or time for it.

What’s the secret to marketing your book successfully? Well, the first thing I advise — and I’m not alone here — is to come up with a marketing plan well before you publish your book. The plan should have at least five avenues for you to pursue because chances are you’re going to strike out on a couple of lines of attack. It’s easy to get discouraged, so you have to be ready to move on to plan c, d, and e (and the rest of the alphabet) pretty quickly.

These days there’s a lot of talk about a “blog strategy,” and many well-known authors do virtual book tours where they offer up interviews to various blogs. You probably won’t have that luxury, but you can certainly research what blogs might be interested in your book and prepare pitches for them. There are social media campaigns to wage, local media angles to pursue, organizations to approach, and all kinds of out-of-the-box gambits you can dream up. None of this will cost you a whole lot — except time and perhaps a little pride.

Then there’s the stuff you pay for. And it’s tricky to judge what’s a good investment and what’s not because the results vary so much from book to book. A friend of mine who has a “real” book from a traditional publisher experimented with placing $1,000 in Facebook ads targeted to people in “cold” states (his book is called the History of the Snowman and it does very well around Christmas). He’s still trying to figure out what impact the ads had, but Facebook does have some interesting marketing opportunities. Google AdWords/Keywords is another popular option. And a number of self-serve ad networks are popping up, including Blogards Book Hive, which allows you to target a number of smaller book blogs for relatively affordable rates.

The author MJ Rose has a marketing service called AuthorBuzz that caters to both self-publishers and traditional publishers. She says the best thing for self-publishers is a blog ad campaign–it starts at about $1,500 for a week of ads (the design work is included) and heads up in increments of $500. She says: “We place the ads in subject-related blogs, not book blogs. For instance, if it’s a mystery about an antiques dealer, we don’t just buy blogs for self-identified readers — who are not the bulk of book buyers — but rather I’ll find a half dozen blogs about antiques, culture, art and investments and buy the ads there and track them.” Rose claims she can get your book in front of at least a half a million people with that initial investment. She also says that you can’t really spend too much, you can just spend poorly.

I agree. However, I can’t tell you what impact a week or month of ads on blogs will have on your specific book’s sales. There are simply too many variables.

Bonus tip: When it comes to self-promotion, there’s a fine line between being assertive and being overly aggressive in an obnoxious way. It also doesn’t impress people when all you tweet about is your book (the same goes for your Facebook and Google+ posts). As one friend told me, the state you want to achieve is what she likes to call “comfortably tenacious.”

20. Getting your book in bookstores sounds good, but that shouldn’t be a real concern.

You may have always wanted to see your book in a bookstore but bookstores aren’t keen on carrying self-published books and it’s extremely difficult to get good placement in the store for your book so chances are no one will see the three copies the store has on hand anyway. Furthermore, your royalty drops on in-store sales. Some of the self-publishing outfits offer distribution through Ingram. CreateSpace offers its Expanded Distribution program for a $25 a year fee. It uses Baker & Taylor, as well as Ingram, as well as CreateSpace Direct to make your book available “to certified resellers through our wholesale website.” You also get distribution to Amazon Europe (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.es, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, Amazon.de).

21. Self-published books rarely get reviewed — for free anyway.

Yes, it’s true. It’s very hard to get your self-published book reviewed — and the mantra in the traditional publishing world is that reviews sell books. But that’s changing a bit. People didn’t take bloggers seriously at first and now they do. And what’s interesting is that reputable book reviewers such as Kirkus and more recently Publishers Weekly are offering special reviews services geared toward self-published authors. In the case of Kirkus Indie, the author pays a fee to have the book reviewed (around $400-$550, depending on the speed) and a freelancer writes an objective critique (yes, they do negative reviews) in the same format as a standard Kirkus review. (You can also submit books that are in an e-book-only format).

As for Publishers Weekly, it offers something called PW Select. While you can submit your book for review for a fee of $149, only about 25 percent of the book submissions end up being reviewed. But for a lot of folks risking that $149 is worth the opportunity of getting into the PW door. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the review isn’t favorable.

A third option is BlueInk Review, another fee-based review service targeted at indie authors.

22. Design your book cover to look good small.

Traditional book publishers design — or at least they used to design — a book cover to make a book stand out in a bookstore and evoke whatever sentiment it was supposed to evoke. Well, with Amazon becoming a dominant bookseller, your book has to stand out as a thumbnail image online because that’s how most people are going to come across it. If you’re primarily selling through Amazon, think small and work your way up.

23. If you’re selling online, make the most out of your Amazon page.

I’m a little bit surprised by how neglectful some self-published authors are when it comes to their Amazon product pages. I’ve talked to self-published authors who spend a few thousand dollars on a publicist and their Amazon product page looks woeful — and they’ve barely even looked at it. I ask, “Where are people going to buy your book?” They don’t seem to realize how important Amazon is. True, some people market through a Web site or buy Google keywords to drive traffic there. But you need to have your Amazon page look as good as possible and take advantage of the tools Amazon has to help you surface your book (“Tags,” Listmania, reader reviews, etc.). It may not have a major impact, but it’s better than doing nothing. You should check out Amazon’s Author Central to get some helpful tips.

One tip: Make sure your book is put into five browsing categories (it’s only allowed five). It helps to categorize your book to readers and also will make your book look better if it’s a bestseller in those categories. Way back when I self-published, no one at BookSurge suggested this to me; I had to figure it out on my own. (Again, they don’t care, you have to make them care).

 

The manifestation of categorizing your book.(Credit: Amazon)

 

24. Pricing is a serious challenge.

The biggest problem with going the POD route is that it costs more to produce one-offs of your book than it does to produce thousands. I remember that you could buy my book — it was a paperback — from BookSurge for $5.70. It was about 370 pages. Now, if I went ahead and had the thing printed up directly through an off-set printer — and ordered a few thousand of them — I could probably cut the cost of the book in half, and maybe even a little more. But I’d have to pay the upfront fee to buy the books and then I’d have to figure out a way to sell them (this is how vanity presses used to work — you had to agree to buy a few thousand books).

To get a rough idea of how much money you can make selling your book, you can check out CreateSpace’s royalty calculator. Today, setting the price at $14.99, it looks like I’d make about $3.70 per book I sold. If you have a longer book, you’ll have to set the price even higher to make money.

Overall, compared with what traditional publishers pay out, royalty rates for self-published books are actually quite decent. But the fact is, to compete against top-selling titles from traditional publishers, your book should be priced $8.99 or $9.99, and that’s simply not possible if it’s longer than 250 pages.

Many of the self-publishing operations have their own online marketplaces where you can offer up your book and get a significantly better royalty rate. Lulu.com, for instance, touts its own online store, which is well designed and has a big audience. But you obviously have access to a much larger audience on Amazon, which is the first place people generally go to look for a book when they hear about it.

The trick, of course, is making people aware your book exists. I could write an entire piece on the tricks authors pull to get their books to surface better on Amazon. Amazon Author Central and Google are your best friends for helping to discover ways to better surface your book.

25. Self-publishing is a fluid business.

Self-publishing is a rapidly evolving industry with lots of competitors that are constantly throwing out new information. Publishers are continually upgrading their facilities, infrastructure, and pricing, and what I — or other pundits say today — could be wrong just a few months from now. A few years ago, Amazon was only offering 35 percent royalties on e-books. Now it’s at 70 percent for books price $2.99 and higher. What does next year hold in store?

Please comment. And please share any insights into specific self-publishing companies or the industry in general.

More: How to self-publish an e-book

 

 A while back I wrote a column titled “Self-publishing: 25 things you need to know,” which was mostly about how to create and sell your own paper book. After folks asked me to do something similar for e-books, I created this article, which has now been updated a few times.I begin with one caveat: The whole e-book market is rapidly evolving, and a lot of self-publishing companies are offering e-book deals bundled into their print book publishing packages, which makes them harder to break out and evaluate. It’s all quite complicated, and in an effort to sort through the confusion, I’ve decided to offer a few basic tips and present what I think are some of the best options out there for creating an e-book quickly and easily. As things change — and they will — I’ll do my best to keep this column up to date.

 

Tips:

 

  • It’s gotta be good: The same rule applies to self-published e-books as it does to print books. You have to start with a good product if you have any hope of selling it.
  • Create an arresting cover: When it comes to e-books, everything starts with the cover image. Creating an eye-catching, professional-looking cover that also looks good small (it has to stand out as a thumbnail image, since it’s being sold online) is easier said than done, but it can really make a difference in terms of sales. Ideally, you should hire a graphic designer who has some experience creating book covers. From a production standpoint, an e-book cover is easier to create than a cover for a print book (you just need a JPEG with decent resolution), but it shouldn’t look out of place among traditionally published e-books. I can’t tell you how many bad self-published covers are out there.
  • Price your e-book cheaply: You should sell your e-book for $5.99 or less. According to research done by Smashwords, an online e-book publishing and distribution platform for authors, publishers, agents, and readers, $2.99 to $5.99 yields the most profit for self-published authors, and although 99 cents will get you more downloads, it’s a poor price point for earning income (see Smashwords’ presentation on pricing here). On the other hand, Lulu, one of the bigger online self-publishing operations, says that authors who price their e-books in the 99-cent to $2.99 range “sell more units and earn more revenue than those in any other price range.”It’s important to note that Amazon’s 70 percent royalty for authors only applies to Kindlebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99; otherwise, the rate kicks down to 35 percent). As for going free, well, Smashword data indicates that free e-books get about 100 times more downloads than priced e-books.
  • Avoid any outfits that don’t let you set the price: This is one of the cardinal rules of self-publishing an e-book. You must be able to control the pricing of your e-book. If you want to sell it for 99 cents, then you should be able to sell it for 99 cents.
  • Marketing is all about creating awareness for your e-book: I don’t have any secret marketing tips to offer, but what I can say is that you can’t sell a book if no one knows it exists. Most of book marketing is simply about creating awareness and you need to do that however you can, whether it’s through social media or blogging or passing out fliers on a street corner. (I made a business card for my book, which I pass out if someone seems interested in hearing more about it.)

 

E-book publishing options:

Here are the three big questions to bear in mind with e-book creation: first, what is the easiest and most cost-efficient way to produce an e-book? Second, where will it be distributed? And third, how much of a cut do you get? With those in mind, let’s take a look at some of the more high-profile options available currently. I’m limiting it to these options because I want to keep this as simple as possible.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
This is Amazon’s e-book publishing platform, and if you think you’re going to sell a lot of e-books, you should figure out a way to upload your file (book) directly to KDP and avoid using any sort of middleman or e-book “aggregator” that takes a cut of the profits. If you’re a true DIY person, you can create your own cover (though if you’re not a professional designer, it’s better to hire a pro) and format your e-book from a Word file using free software tools such asMobipocket eBook Creator or Calibre. Mobipocket Creator allows you to create an e-book with a table of contents and convert it into Amazon’s proprietary e-book format, AZW (MOBI, the file output by the program, is the same as AZW). You can start with a Word file, which then gets converted to HTML, then MOBI. (Check out the Mobipocket eBook Creator guide at the company’s Web site).

If you don’t want to go the total DIY route, you can pay someone a few hundred dollars (or less) to format your e-book for you, but you’ll still need to come up with a cover. J.A. Konrath, who’s had a lot of success in the self-published e-book space and has written an excellent primer called “How to Make Money on eBooks,” recommended Rob Siders atwww.52novels.com. You can also try Ray Fowler atrayfowler.org. And Smashwords’ founder Mark Coker maintains “Mark’s List,” which is a list of low-cost e-book formatters and cover designers with pricing starting at about $50. You can get the list via instant autoresponder by e-mailing list@smashwords.com.

Amazon offers a 70 percent royalty rate for authors, but some rules apply (see the complete list of terms). This is the same royalty that Apple offers iPhone/iPad app developers and authors who sell e-books via its iBookstore store. You can upload your e-book directly to the iBookstore, but you have to fill out an application and it’s a bit of a process. That’s why authors tend to use an “aggregator” like Smashwords or Lulu to get into the iBookstore (see complete list of Apple-approved aggregators here). Even though the iPad supports most of the leading e-book stores (Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Kobo), getting into the iBookstore is becoming more important as Apple continues to sell millions of iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches.

That said, Amazon is offering incentives to authors to offer their works exclusively on Amazon. This program is called KDP Select and it comes with some key perks. Here’s what Amazon has to say:

 

 KDP Select is a new option that features a $6 million annual fund dedicated to independent authors and publishers. If you choose to make a book exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, the book is eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and you can earn a share of the fund based on how frequently the book is borrowed (click here to see how payments are calculated). In addition, by choosing KDP Select, you will have access to a new set of promotional tools, starting with the option to offer enrolled books free to readers for up to 5 days every 90 days. Authors and publishers can enroll a single title, their whole catalog or anything in between within KDP Select.

 

The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library allows Amazon Prime members to “check out” your e-book for free (members can only check out one eligible title per month). Obviously, being able to offer your book for free to thousands — or potentially million of customers — increases the odds you’ll “sell” more books. And what’s nice is that even though people may not being paying to download your book, you’re still getting paid — and pretty well, according to Amazon.

“Every time a customer borrowed an independently published book in March [2012], the author earned $2.18,” said Russ Grandinetti, vice president of Kindle Content, in a recent press release. “That’s more than many authors earn when their books are sold.”

I can’t tell you how long Amazon will continue offering this deal — and what future payout rates will be — but I do know plenty of indie authors who are choosing the KDP Select option and not publishing on other platforms because they think it makes the most sense both in terms of number of sales (or downloads) and earnings. Kindle still has the largest market share with about 60 percent of the e-book pie (Nook is at around 25 percent, Apple 15 percent, and others are left to pick up the crumbs).

Of course, not everybody feels KDP Select is the way to go. Smashwords’ Coker, who’s also the author of the free e-book “Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success” (it’s worth checking out), thinks authors should shy away from KDP Select and has written an article explaining why.

Needless to say, Coker has a vested interest in you not going exclusive with Amazon. But he’s also well-regarded in the indie book world.

 

Smashwords
Smashwords, one of the e-book pioneers and largest distributors of self-published e-books, with more than 125,000 titles from over 40,000 authors, is very much a DIY operation. You bring your Word file and cover image, upload it into the company’s “Meatgrinder” tool, and in a matter of minutes, you create your e-book in just about every format you’d want. You can then sell that e-book on Smashwords.com or have the company distribute it to most of the major e-book sellers, including Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore, Apple’s iBooks, Sony, Kobo, and Baker & Taylor’s Blio and others. Smashwords also has deals in place for having its authors’ e-books distributed to libraries.

As for the Kindle, well, Smashwords says it’s still waiting for Amazon to update its KDP intake systems so it automatically can ingest Smashwords titles as other retailers do (the 200 or so titles that Smashwords has loaded into KDP have been loaded manually). Amazon encourages authors to upload directly through KDP, so I wouldn’t count on this happening anytime soon.

Smashwords offers a free style guide for formatting your e-book. Although Smashwords encourages authors to keep things simple, you can still create a professional-quality e-book with Smashwords that includes a linked table of contents, NCX navigation, and custom paragraph styling. A couple of years ago, I created an acceptable-looking e-book in about 30 minutes after making some tweaks (usually they involve spacing between chapter breaks) and reprocessing my file three times. If you follow Smashwords’ guidelines, you can end up with a professional-quality “reflowable” e-book that looks as good as what many of the big publishers are putting out and reads well on any screen size.

Smashwords prides itself on not charging you for creating your e-book and taking only a small cut of author’s royalties (see Smashwords’ overview ). Though the cut is small, it’s still a cut, but that’s the price you’re paying for the convenience of having your book distributed on a wide array of platforms and having Smashwords track your sales.

Coker has chided me a bit for disparaging the middleman. He’s quick to point out that a good middleman partner (distributor) saves you time, helps you reach retailers you can’t reach, and helps you centrally and efficiently manage distribution and metadata updates (change your price or book cover and the change propagates out to all retailers).

Lastly, it’s worth noting that Smashwords provides free ISBNs. I’m not going to get into a full on discussion of ISBN, which is “a unique identifier” associated with your e-book, but most companies provide a free ISBN for your e-book or roll the price up into a package. Smashwords has a good quick guide to e-book ISBNs that you should take a look at.

 

Authors should think globally from day one. — Mark Coker, Smashwords founder

 

Some distributors are more transparent than others about disclosing exactly what cut they take from your sales. Smashwords considers itself especially transparent. As soon as you upload your book, you get a dynamic pie chart that estimates how the pie is split at each price point across the different sales channels.

Smashwords operates its own e-book store, where authors earn 85 percent of the net sale (what’s left after credit card fees are deducted). That works out to between 60 and 80 percent of the list price, depending on the book’s price (for more info on author earnings and payment schedules, see Smashwords’ FAQ).

For books distributed by Smashwords to its retail network of the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel and Baker & Taylor’s Blio, the author earns 60 percent of the list price, the retailer takes 30 percent and Smashwords earns 10 percent. The cuts work essentially the same for overseas sales, though in countries that impose VAT taxes, the VAT often comes out of the purchase price before the percentages are applied.

As far as international sales go, Coker says they’re growing rapidly. Apple’s in 32 countries already and Amazon, Kobo, B&N and Sony are all expanding their global operations. Coker says that 45 percent of its Apple iBookstore sales are from outside the U.S.

“Authors should think globally from day one,” Coker says. He predicts that the market outside the U.S. for indie English-language e-books will soon be larger than the U.S. market. Indie book growth is slowing in the U.S., he says, but fledgling international e-book markets are on the cusp of entering their exponential growth phases.

BookBaby
BookBaby, the sibling of CD Baby (Brian Felsen is the president of both operations), has a slightly different business model from some of its competitors. Instead of taking a cut of your royalties, it makes you pay a fee of $99 upfront, then charges you a yearly fee of $19 per title you have in its system. It also offers print publishing services.

I haven’t used BookBaby but I spoke to a customer service representative at length and was impressed with her responses. When I asked about what advantages BookBaby had over Smashwords, she didn’t knock her competitor.

“Smashwords is great,” she said. “But BookBaby is for someone who wants a little more hand-holding through the process.”

Smashwords’ Coker concurs and told me that he’s sent people who wanted more hand-holding to BookBaby.

Of course, you’ll have to pay a bit more to get that hand-holding. There’s a Premium package that runs $199, as well as cover design services (the customer service rep recommended going with the $279 Deluxe option).

BookBaby offers distribution with all the major e-book sellers (see list here) and offers anAuthor’s Accounting Dashboard to track and analyze sales data.

In all, BookBaby seems like one of the better indie e-book operations out there. If you only sell a few books, that $99 entry fee (or $199 if you go with the premium package) may not seem like such a great deal. But if you sell a lot, you’ll quickly recoup your investment.

Barnes & Noble’s PubIt
Barnes & Noble’s PubIt self-publishing operation offers similar features to Amazon’s KDP, but the two platforms do have their differences. Barnes & Noble has set the PubIt royalty rate for authors at 65 percent of the sale price for titles priced $2.99 and higher. The rate falls to 40 percent if you choose to go lower than $2.99 or higher than $9.99, with B&N setting 99 cents as the lowest allowable price and $199.99 as the highest. (For books priced under $2.99 or over $9.99, you actually earn more by distributing your book to B&N through Smashwords, which pays 60 percent list for all prices 99 cents and up.

B&N’s 65 percent is close to Amazon’s 70 percent royalty, but not quite as high (Amazon also has pricing restriction to get its highest rate). PubIt includes a free conversion tool that takes your Microsoft Word, TXT, HTML, or RTF files and automatically converts it to an EPUB file, which you then upload to Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore (alternatively, of course, if your e-book is already an EPUB file, you can just upload it directly through PubIt). Barnes & Noble allows you to preview how your content will look on one of Barnes & Noble’s e-reading devices using the Nook emulator.

Barnes & Noble says that going forward it will offer some unique features and is looking for ways to tie-in the Nook’s in-store Wi-Fi streaming features and feature local self-published authors in stores specific to each location. For reference, here’s a look at the PubIt FAQ page.

Lulu
When you publish a print book at Lulu — and a lot of people do — you also have the option of just publishing an e-book. Lulu e-books are distributed to Apple’s iBookstore, Lulu.com, and Barnes & Noble (Nook).

The main benefit Lulu offers in the e-book realm is that it’s one of the designated aggregators for Apple’s iBookstore.

It appears that Lulu doesn’t charge you anything to create an e-book (it offers an EPUB conversion tool and eBook Creator Guide), but like some competitors it offers fee-based premium services.

Lulu has greatly improved its royalty terms in last 18 months. As far as I can tell from its royalty calculator tool, Lulu takes a 10 percent cut of your net earnings from Apple’s iBookstore and B&N’s Nook Book Store. That’s good.

It’s hard to say what advantages Lulu has over competitors like Smashwords but at least the royalty rates appear to be the same. Weirdly, I found the Lulu Web site to be straightforward yet convoluted at the same time. For instance, I couldn’t figure out whether Lulu distributes your e-book to any retailers beyond Lulu.com, Apple, and Barnes & Noble. From what I saw on the site, it appears they don’t.

Click here to check out Lulu’s e-book creation options.

Booktango

Author Solutions, one of the largest self-publishers in the U.S., has entered the DIY e-book market with Booktango. Whether Booktango should be called an “e-book generating app” or “self-publishing platform” is hard to say, but it basically provides a free and simple way to upload your manuscript, edit it for proper formatting, then automatically serve it up to various e-book stores, including Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and iBooks.

On the surface, Booktango, which bears the “beta” tag, looks fairly slick and should improve as the company adds more features. The ability to have WYSIWYG formatting capabilities is nice (even on the iPad) and you can either upload a cover image of your own choosing or design one using some provided templates. All in all, it looks like a perfectly decent way to get your e-book formatted and distributed to all the major e-book stores quickly. Like its competitors, Booktango also manages your e-book sales — it rolls them all up into one account — and you can have your royalties sent directly to your checking account.

Booktango is free to use, but the company is working off a freemium model and provides additional fee-based services, such as copy editing, custom cover design, and marketing packages.

Booktango’s Web site advertises a “100 percent royalty,” which is misleading considering you get that rate only from the e-books you sell on the Booktango Web site and Booktango charges a fee for each book you sell (30 percent of the list price — the same as Amazon). For other outlets, Booktango takes 10 percent of your net profits, resulting in a “90 percent royalty,” which is also misleading because the net profit in its sample royalty rates seems smaller than it should be. Honestly, Booktango’s royalty rates don’t look too good and can’t match its competitors’ rates.

However, in an effort to attract authors Booktango is offering a true 100 percent royalty rate until July 4. And the Web site says that if you publish an e-book with Booktango by July 4, you’ll retain that 100 percent rate for the life of that book. That means if you make a sale through Booktango’s e-book store, you’ll get the full amount of the sale (I’m not sure if credit card fees are deducted or not). You’ll also get the full 100 percent net of the sale when selling through other e-booksellers (Apple, Amazon, and others will take their 30 percent cut, of course).

Since the service is so new I can’t vouch for it, but Booktango’s limited-time 100 percent royalty offer certainly has some appeal.

iBooks Author
A lot of people ask me about creating children’s books or other types of graphically rich books and e-books. I can’t say I’m an expert in this area, but when you’re dealing with graphics and images, the self-publishing equation becomes more difficult and expensive (formatting costs tend to go up as you add more images). However, Apple’s trying to change all that with iBooks Author, which allows you to build multitouch interactive e-books that you can upload and sell in the iBookstore and view in the iBooks2 app on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

The software program is a free download for Mac owners and using it is not so different from creating a PowerPoint presentation. It’s not perfect, but overall it’s pretty impressive, and Apple will undoubtedly continue improving it with updates.

You work from a selection of templates and can add multitouch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, 3D objects, and more. When you’re done, you then have to fill out an applicationto create an account before you can upload your creations to the iBookstore or iTunes U (Apple has billed iBooks Author as a multifaceted tool for creating everything from textbooks to cookbooks to picture books, and anything else you can think of).

If you can’t find a template you like, there are already third-party vendors, includingibooksauthortemplates.com, selling additional templates. (Yes, Apple’s spurred another cottage industry).

When iBooks Author launched, some people were upset by the fact that your project can only live in Apple’s e-book ecosystem and nowhere else. So it goes. At the moment, the iPad is far and away the best-selling tablet and represents arguably the biggest market for graphically rich color e-books, not to mention the best way to view them (particularly on the new iPad’s Retina display). Yes, Amazon has sold a lot of Kindle Fires and the Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color andNook Tablet have found their way into a lot of homes. But the iPad’s still king, and Apple’s calling the shots here.

I don’t have a problem with that and think it’s great that Apple offers iBooks Author for free. But the one thing that does bother me is Apple’s failure to provide a free ISBN for your e-book. Instead, it tells you to get your own and provides a link to Bowker’s Identifiers Services page. Bowker’s charges $125 for a single ISBN or 10 for $250. The price drops to single digits when you buy thousands of ISBNs as other self-publishing outfits do. (You can buy a single ISBN for less than $125, but I’d prefer not get into all that). In short, it’s patently absurd that Apple’s making its authors pay $125 for ISBN number, and I think it’s deterring a lot of people from publishing an iBook directly with Apple.

Apple’s the exclusive publisher here. It needs to provide free ISBNs to its authors. If Smashwords can afford to do it, so can Apple.

CreateSpace, iUniverse, Xlibris, AuthorHouse, and other POD self-publishing outfits
Most of the large print-on-demand self-publishing operations offer some sort of e-book conversion service and distribution — and sometimes it gets bundled into a print-publishing package (these companies usually charge a few hundred dollars for converting your e-book). In some cases, this can work out OK for authors who don’t care about extracting as much money as they can from each sale and don’t want to work with a separate company to create an e-book once they’ve uploaded their PDF file for their print book. For those who don’t think they’ll end up selling a lot of copies of their e-book, this can be a fine arrangement, but just beware that in many cases you can’t set your own price and more money is being taken out of your net profits than should be. Again, you should strongly consider avoiding companies that don’t let you set your own price.

Scribd
Scribd.com offers one of the fastest and easiest ways to get an e-book or even a short story up on the Internet, though Scribd isn’t a serious player yet as far as e-book sales go. After you create an account, you simply create a PDF of your book with the cover image embedded in the first page of the PDF and upload the PDF to Scribd.

Its online software quickly converts your document into a file that can be viewed on a PC, iPad, or other portable devices. You can also choose to allow people to download your file for viewing.

Scribd has added HTML5 coding, so your document can easily be read on the iPad via the Safari browser (this allows you to use Apple’s finger-based, pinch-and-spread touch zoom controls). Currently, the majority of documents posted to Scribd are free to view or download (it’s a great way to post samples of your work), but you can sell your work on Scribd as well. (If you want to see an example, I posted a free excerpt of my own book to Scribd. Alas, I should have made my cover larger so it didn’t have a white border, but so it goes).

 

In sum

 

To be clear, there are other ways to go about self-publishing your e-book. For example, I haven’t talked about such outfits as Ingram Digital, Overdrive, or LibreDigital, because they’re geared toward larger publishing or self-publishing operations rather than individuals. To help focus your decision-making process, I’ve tried to stick to what I consider the important players right now.

I should also say that everybody comes to the self-publishing process with a different agenda — and a different book –and some e-book self-publishing options will appeal to you based on the type of book you have (aside from the iBooks Author reference, this article is slanted to publishing more text-based e-books rather than books with lots of illustrations or graphic images, such as children’s books). For those who are publishing an e-book as an experiment or “just to get it out there” and who are less concerned with making money and extracting every last dime out of a sale, aggregators offer a convenient solution to get your book in a variety of e-book stores and roll up your sales into one single record that you can easily track (most companies pay out earnings from e-books within 60 to 90 days; Amazon is 60).

It’s also worth noting that you can mix and match and go direct with Amazon (KDP), uploading your own file and managing your account, and then use an aggregator such as Smashwords for additional distribution to other e-book stores. At this point there are no hard and set rules and, as I said in the beginning, the e-book market is very fluid, seeing significant changes almost every month. As always, please feel free to post your opinion in the comments section, particularly if you’ve had experience publishing your e-book already and can share your observations with others. And remember, Google is your best friend for the finer parts of self-publishing, such as converting a Word file to a PDF.

Editors’ note:This story has been updated a few times, most recently on June 1, 2012, since it was originally published on July 27, 2010.

 

 

Articles

Smalltalk

Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the “new world” of computing exemplified by “human–computer symbiosis.”[1] It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, […]

Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the “new world” of computing exemplified by “human–computer symbiosis.”[1] It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, Adele Goldberg, Ted Kaehler, Scott Wallace, and others during the 1970s.

The language was first generally released as Smalltalk-80. Smalltalk-like languages are in continuing active development, and have gathered loyal communities of users around them. ANSI Smalltalk was ratified in 1998 and represents the standard version of Smalltalk.[2]

Smalltalk-80 is a totally reflective system, implemented in Smalltalk-80 itself. Smalltalk-80 provides both structural and computational reflection. Smalltalk is a structurally reflective system whose structure is defined by Smalltalk-80 objects. The classes and methods that define the system are themselves objects and fully part of the system that they help define. The Smalltalk compiler compiles textual source code into method objects, typically instances of CompiledMethod. These get added to classes by storing them in a class’s method dictionary. The part of the class hierarchy that defines classes can add new classes to the system. The system is extended by running Smalltalk-80 code that creates or defines classes and methods. In this way a Smalltalk-80 system is a “living” system, carrying around the ability to extend itself at run time.

Since the classes are themselves objects, they can be asked questions such as “what methods do you implement?” or “what fields/slots/instance variables do you define?”. So objects can easily be inspected, copied, (de)serialized and so on with generic code that applies to any object in the system.

Smalltalk-80 also provides computational reflection, the ability to observe the computational state of the system. In languages derived from the original Smalltalk-80 the current activation of a method is accessible as an object named via a pseudo-variable (one of the six reserved words), thisContext. By sending messages to thisContext a method activation can ask questions like “who sent this message to me”. These facilities make it possible to implement co-routines or Prolog-like back-tracking without modifying the virtual machine. The exception system is implemented using this facility. One of the more interesting uses of this is in the Seaside web framework which relieves the programmer of dealing with the complexity of a Web Browser’s back button by storing continuations for each edited page and switching between them as the user navigates a web site. Programming the web server using Seaside can then be done using a more conventional programming style.

When an object is sent a message that it does not implement, the virtual machine sends the object the doesNotUnderstand: message with a reification of the message as an argument. The message (another object, an instance of Message) contains the selector of the message and an Array of its arguments. In an interactive Smalltalk system the default implementation of doesNotUnderstand: is one that opens an error window (a Notifier) reporting the error to the user. Through this and the reflective facilities the user can examine the context in which the error occurred, redefine the offending code, and continue, all within the system, using Smalltalk-80′s reflective facilities.

Another important use of doesNotUnderstand: is intercession. One can create a class that does not define any methods other than doesNotUnderstand: and does not inherit from any other class. The instances of this class effectively understand no messages. So every time a message is sent to these instances they actually get sent doesNotUnderstand:, hence they intercede in the message sending process. Such objects are called proxies. By implementing doesNotUnderstand: appropriately, one can create distributed systems where proxies forward messages across a network to other Smalltalk systems (a facility common in systems like CORBA, COM+ and RMI but first pioneered in Smalltalk-80 in the 1980s), and persistent systems where changes in state are written to a database and the like. An example of this latter is Logic Arts’ VOSS (Virtual Object Storage System) available for VA Smalltalk under dual open source and commercial licensing.

Smalltalk-80 syntax is rather minimalist, based on only a handful of declarations and reserved words. In fact, only six “keywords” are reserved in Smalltalk: true, false, nil, self, super, and thisContext. These are actually called pseudo-variables, identifiers that follow the rules for variable identifiers but denote bindings that the programmer cannot change. The true, false, and nil pseudo-variables are singleton instances. self and super refer to the receiver of a message within a method activated in response to that message, but sends to super are looked up in the superclass of the method’s defining class rather than the class of the receiver, which allows methods in subclasses to invoke methods of the same name in superclasses. thisContext refers to the current activation record. The only built-in language constructs are message sends, assignment, method return and literal syntax for some objects. From its origins as a language for children of all ages, standard Smalltalk syntax uses punctuation in a manner more like English than mainstream coding languages. The remainder of the language, including control structures for conditional evaluation and iteration, is implemented on top of the built-in constructs by the standard Smalltalk class library. (For performance reasons, implementations may recognize and treat as special some of those messages; however, this is only an optimization and is not hardwired into the language syntax.)

Most popular programming systems separate static program code (in the form of class definitions, functions or procedures) from dynamic, or run time, program state (such as objects or other forms of program data). They load program code when a program starts, and any prior program state must be recreated explicitly from configuration files or other data sources. Any settings the program (and programmer) does not explicitly save must be set up again for each restart. A traditional program also loses much useful document information each time a program saves a file, quits, and reloads. This loses details such as undo history or cursor position. Image based systems don’t force losing all that just because a computer is turned off, or an OS updates.

Many Smalltalk systems, however, do not differentiate between program data (objects) and code (classes). In fact, classes are objects themselves. Therefore most Smalltalk systems store the entire program state (including both Class and non-Class objects) in an image file. The image can then be loaded by the Smalltalk virtual machine to restore a Smalltalk-like system to a prior state. This was inspired by FLEX,[12] a language created by Alan Kay and described in his M.Sc. thesis.

Other languages that model application code as a form of data, such as Lisp, often use image-based persistence as well.

Smalltalk images are similar to (restartable) core dumps and can provide the same functionality as core dumps, such as delayed or remote debugging with full access to the program state at the time of error.

Squeak is a modern, open source, full-featured implementation of the powerful Smalltalk programming language and environment. Squeak is highly-portable – even its virtual machine is written entirely in Smalltalk making it easy to debug, analyze, and change. Squeak is the vehicle for a wide range of projects from multimedia applications, educational platforms to commercial web application development.

Noteworthy uses of Squeak

  • Etoys is a powerful script-based environment to learn science and math by encouraging exploration and experimentation.
  • Pharo is a Squeak fork that focuses on web application development. The Seaside development team does its development work on Pharo.
  • Cuis is a free Smalltalk-80 environment originally derived from Squeak with a specific set of goals: being simple and powerful.
  • Seaside is a web framework for developing complex dynamic web applications which by leveraging the Smalltalk strengths considerably ease the web application development.
  • Aida/Web is the web framework used to make this site.
  • Scratch is a new programmable toolkit that enables kids to create their own games, animated stories, and interactive art — and share their creations with one another over the Net. Scratch builds on the tradition of Logo and LEGO/Logo, but takes advantage of new computational ideas to make it easier to get started with programming (lowering the floor) and extend the range of what kids can create and learn (raising the ceiling).

See our Projects page for more!

The Squeak community is friendly and active. Here is a short list of resources that you may find useful:
www.surfscranton.com/architecture/KnightsPrinciples.htm

www.squeak.org
is the main web site of Squeak. (Do not confuse it with www.squeakland.org which is dedicated to the eToy environment built on top of Squeak but whose audience is elementary school teachers.)

www.squeaksource.com
is the equivalent of SourceForge for Squeak projects.

wiki.squeak.org/squeak
is a wiki with up-to-date information about Squeak.
About mailing-lists.
There are a lot of mailing-lists and sometimes they can be just a little bit too active. If you do not want to get flooded by mail but would still like to participate we suggest you to use
news.gmane.org
or
www.nabble.com/Squeak-f14152.html
to browse the lists.
You can find the complete list of Squeak mailing-lists at
lists.
squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo
.
Note that Squeak-dev refers to the developers’ mailing-list, which can be browsed here:
news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.smalltalk.squeak.general

Newbies
refers to a friendly mailing-list for beginners where any question can be asked:
news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.smalltalk.squeak.beginners
(There is so much to learn that we are all beginners in some aspect of Squeak!)
IRC.
Have a question that you need answered quickly? Would you like to meet with other squeakers around the world? A great place to participate in longer-term discussions is the IRC channel on the “#squeak” channel at
irc.freenode.net
. Stop by and say “Hi!”
Other sites.
There are several websites supporting the Squeak community today in various ways. Here are some of them:
•
people.squeakfoundation.org
is the site of SqueakPeople, which is a kind of “advogato.org” for squeakers. It offers articles, diaries and an interesting trust metric system.

planet.squeak.org
is the site of PlanetSqueak which is an RSS aggregator.
It is good place to get a flood of squeaky things. This includes the latest blog entries from developers and others who have an interest in Squeak.

www.frappr.com/squeak
is a site that tracks Squeak users around the world.
Dolphin Smalltalk, or “Dolphin” for short, is an implementation of the Smalltalk programming language by Object Arts, targeted at the Microsoft Windows platform.

The last major release was Dolphin Smalltalk X6, which comes in two versions:

  • Community Edition (free)
  • Professional edition (commercial) currently in version 6.02

Dolphin is notable for its integrated development environment. The toolset of this Smalltalk dialect include an integrated refactoring browser, a package browser and a WYSIWYG “view composer”. Dolphin Smalltalk deviates from the convention of the Smalltalk MVC framework with a model-presenter-view framework.

The free community version may be one of the richest free programming environments for the Windows operating system because of the nature of the tutorials and sample applications and the rich class libraries. Other Smalltalk dialects for Windows include Smalltalk MT and the Smalltalk dialects from Cincom.

Speech synthesis

Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech; other systems render symbolic linguistic representations like phonetic transcriptions into speech.[1] Synthesized speech can be […]

Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech; other systems render symbolic linguistic representations like phonetic transcriptions into speech.[1]

Synthesized speech can be created by concatenating pieces of recorded speech that are stored in a database. Systems differ in the size of the stored speech units; a system that stores phones or diphones provides the largest output range, but may lack clarity. For specific usage domains, the storage of entire words or sentences allows for high-quality output. Alternatively, a synthesizer can incorporate a model of the vocal tract and other human voice characteristics to create a completely “synthetic” voice output.[2]

The quality of a speech synthesizer is judged by its similarity to the human voice and by its ability to be understood. An intelligible text-to-speech program allows people with visual impairments or reading disabilities to listen to written works on a home computer. Many computer operating systems have included speech synthesizers since the early 1990s.

Overview of a typical TTS system

A text-to-speech system (or “engine”) is composed of two parts:[3] a front-end and a back-end. The front-end has two major tasks. First, it converts raw text containing symbols like numbers and abbreviations into the equivalent of written-out words. This process is often called text normalization, pre-processing, or tokenization. The front-end then assigns phonetic transcriptions to each word, and divides and marks the text into prosodic units, like phrases, clauses, and sentences. The process of assigning phonetic transcriptions to words is called text-to-phoneme or grapheme-to-phoneme conversion. Phonetic transcriptions and prosody information together make up the symbolic linguistic representation that is output by the front-end. The back-end—often referred to as the synthesizer—then converts the symbolic linguistic representation into sound. In certain systems, this part includes the computation of the target prosody (pitch contour, phoneme durations),[4] which is then imposed on the output speech.

Here is a non-exhaustive comparison of speech synthesis programs

Festival offers a general framework for building speech synthesis systems as well as including examples of various modules. As a whole it offers full text to speech through a number APIs: from shell level, though a Scheme command interpreter, as a C++ library, from Java, and an Emacs interface. Festival is multi-lingual (currently English (British and American), and Spanish) though English is the most advanced. Other groups release new languages for the system. And full tools and documentation for build new voices are available through Carnegie Mellon’s FestVox project (http://festvox.org)

The system is written in C++ and uses the Edinburgh Speech Tools Library for low level architecture and has a Scheme (SIOD) based command interpreter for control. Documentation is given in the FSF texinfo format which can generate, a printed manual, info files and HTML.

Festival is free software. Festival and the speech tools are distributed under an X11-type licence allowing unrestricted commercial and non-commercial use alike.

Text to Speech engine for English and many other languages. Compact size with clear but artificial pronunciation. Available as a command-line program with many options, a shared library for Linux, and a Windows SAPI5 version.

eSpeak is a compact open source software speech synthesizer for English and other languages, for Linux and Windows.   http://espeak.sourceforge.net

eSpeak uses a “formant synthesis” method. This allows many languages to be provided in a small size. The speech is clear, and can be used at high speeds, but is not as natural or smooth as larger synthesizers which are based on human speech recordings.

eSpeak is available as:

  • A command line program (Linux and Windows) to speak text from a file or from stdin.
  • A shared library version for use by other programs. (On Windows this is a DLL).
  • A SAPI5 version for Windows, so it can be used with screen-readers and other programs that support the Windows SAPI5 interface.
  • eSpeak has been ported to other platforms, including Android, Mac OSX and Solaris.

Features.

  • Includes different Voices, whose characteristics can be altered.
  • Can produce speech output as a WAV file.
  • SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) is supported (not complete), and also HTML.
  • Compact size. The program and its data, including many languages, totals about 2 Mbytes.
  • Can be used as a front-end to MBROLA diphone voices, see mbrola.html. eSpeak converts text to phonemes with pitch and length information.
  • Can translate text into phoneme codes, so it could be adapted as a front end for another speech synthesis engine.
  • Potential for other languages. Several are included in varying stages of progress. Help from native speakers for these or other languages is welcome.
  • Development tools are available for producing and tuning phoneme data.
  • Written in C.

Lua and SciTE

SciTE is a SCIntilla based Text Editor. Originally built to demonstrate Scintilla, it has grown to be a generally useful editor with facilities for building and running programs. It is best used for jobs with simple configurations. SciTE is currently available for Intel Windows (XP or later) and Linux compatible operating systems with GTK+. It […]

SciTE is a SCIntilla based Text Editor. Originally built to demonstrate Scintilla, it has grown to be a generally useful editor with facilities for building and running programs. It is best used for jobs with simple configurations.

SciTE is currently available for Intel Windows (XP or later) and Linux compatible operating systems with GTK+. It has been run on Windows 7 and on Fedora 12 and Ubuntu 10.10 with GTK+ 2.20. Here is a screenshot of SciTE.

You can download Scintilla and SciTE.

There are some extra configuration files that can enhance SciTE for various languages and APIs.

Questions and comments about SciTE should be directed to the scite-interest mailing list, which is for discussion of SciTE and related projects, their bugs and future features. This is a low traffic list, averaging less than 50 messages per week. To avoid spam, only list members can write to the list. New versions of SciTE are announced on scite-interest and may also be received by SourceForge members by clicking on the Monitor column icon for “scite” on the downloads page.

There is a Scintilla project page hosted on Get Scintilla at SourceForge.net. Fast, secure and Free Open Source software downloads

Lua’s name is not an acronym. It is properly spelled as “Lua” or occasionally “lua”, but never “LUA”. See lua.org/about.html for the whole story.

First of all work your way through the Programming in Lua, it should take you a day or two to get the gist of Lua. The book is free online. Besides it is the best tutorial out there on Lua,

Also: If you’re purpose is Lua for World of Warcraft (probably not but just in case) you can check out this tutorial

And: Here is a tips and tricks thread on StackOverflow, might help give you some ideas of what to expect from Lua

Suggested Programs/Exercises:

Since you’re initially looking at Lua for web development try to understand and improve the Data Description example in PIL. It’ll give you a few good ideas and a nice feel for the power or Lua.

Then you might want to try out playing with the Data Structures chapter, although Lua has a single complex data-type, the Table, that chapter will show you Lua-like ways to make a table do anything you need.

Finally once you begin to grok metatables you should design a class system (yes with Lua you decide how your class system works). I’m sure everyone that knows Lua has made a dozen class systems, a good chapter to get you started on a class system is Object-Oriented Programming

And if you got time and know C or something like that (C# and Java included) try extending an application with Lua, but that’ll take a week or two to do

 

gpg4usb

To say it straight in only one sentence: gpg4usb is a very easy to use portable-application, which combines a simple text-editor with a GnuPG-frontend to write, encrypt and decrypt your text-messages and files. gpg4usb should work on almost any computer you’re working on, should it be a Linux-machine or even one with a Microsoft-OS running. Almost […]

To say it straight in only one sentence: gpg4usb is a very easy to use portable-application, which combines a simple text-editor with a GnuPG-frontend to write, encrypt and decrypt your text-messages and files. gpg4usb should work on almost any computer you’re working on, should it be a Linux-machine or even one with a Microsoft-OS running.

Almost the only thing required is an available usb-port you are allowed to access. With this application you can write safe and encrypted messages anywhere you are: should it be an internet-cafe, at work or somewhere else on holiday… and you always have the encryption-keys available for usage!

The usage of gpg4usb should be highly self-describing, since the user-interface and all the options it offers are clear cut: Simply execute the binary on your usb-pendrive and start typing e.g. the Mailtext you want to be encrypted. If you’re done, choose the right gpg/pgp-key for the person you are writing to and hit the encrypt-icon at the top of the application-window. The resulting encrypted text you can save as a text-file to send it as mail-attachment, or copy it directly into your mail-user-agent or webmail-website. To make sure, you can read this message by yourself afterwards, encrypt it for the recipient and to yourself at the same time – if you want, you can mark as much keys as you want to encrypt for.

You want to add a gpg/pgp-key to your mobile keyring? Nothing’s easier than that: just hit the crypto-menue-entry and choose Import Key from File or Import Key from Editor. This means that it’s possible to import an ascii-armored pubkey via file-dialog, or via copy&paste into your editor-window. If you find a key e.g. on a website, just copy it, paste it into the gpg4usb-editor and hit Import Key from Editor – that’s it, and the key shows up on your keyring!

Pasted from <http://gpg4usb.cpunk.de/about.html>

Download

You can get our latest Release v0.3.2 by clicking the download link below. Since v0.2.4 the included executables are upx-compressed by default.

Filename Size* sha1
gpg4usb-0.3.2-1.zip 14.8MB / 18.6MB efeeaeff2883ded6abfe6378113c219e5e897bb0

* Size zipped / unzipped

Just download the zip-File and unzip it onto your usb-pendrive. Then simply change into the folder gpg4usb at your usb-drive, and execute the binary in there:

start_linux or start_windows.exe – should be easy to determine, which one’s yours ;)

Since gpg4usb is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), you can use it on as many machines as you want. Copy it, modify and redistribute it, give gpg4usb to as many people as possible! 

Pasted from <http://gpg4usb.cpunk.de/download.html>

TDD by Example con Python 3

Después de leer Test Driven Development- By Example (Addison-Wesley Signature Series) me quedo un sensación mixta de intranquilidad. Seguí los ejemplos del libro, la primera parte usando C#; aunque el libro usa Java y la segunda parte con Python 3.1, haciendo algunas adecuaciones al código del libro. De hecho, primero lo intente con IronPython para […]

Después de leer Test Driven Development- By Example (Addison-Wesley Signature Series) me quedo un sensación mixta de intranquilidad.

Seguí los ejemplos del libro, la primera parte usando C#; aunque el libro usa Java y la segunda parte con Python 3.1, haciendo algunas adecuaciones al código del libro. De hecho, primero lo intente con IronPython para seguir con el tema de .Net, pero con Python 3.1 y IDLE me fue más fácil hacer trabajar el código.

TDD es una técnica avanzada que en su expresión ortodoxa no es seguida ni por el mismo Beck. Es fácil caer en callejones sin salida y el desarrollador debe tener un plan top-down  implícito basado en su experiencia y dominio técnico. Por otro lado su aceptación y referencias de éxito son evidencia de su validez.

La primera parte del libro me pareció incompleta, llena de manitas de puerco, visión nocturna, multiplicaciones por el número que pensaste, y conjuros de magia negra.

la segunda parte es de más alto nivel de abstracción pero muestra claramente los fundamentos del marco de xUnit. El uso de Python aquí parece apropiado ya que permite desarrollar la estructura básica de xUnit de manera clara y directa.

En resumen, Test Driven Development- By Example es un buen libro para desarrolladores expertos.

Referencias

Test Driven Development- By Example (Addison-Wesley Signature Series)

http://dinsdale.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/

http://docs.python.org/3.1/tutorial/index.html

http://www.python.org/

http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/Python

http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/

http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/Section/Browse-Titles-for-Code-Downloads.id-105127.html

http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/Python-Create-Modify-Reuse.productCd-0470259329,descCd-DOWNLOAD.html

http://pybites.blogspot.com/

null nil

Language null true false Java null true false Python None True False Objective-C nil, or NULL, or [NSNull null], depending on context YES NO C NULL anything except 0 0 Lisp NIL T NIL Objective-C is psychotic. It’s a Smalltalk dialect built on top of C (and for the most part, it got the good […]

Language null true false
Java null true false
Python None True False
Objective-C nil, or NULL, or [NSNull null],
depending on context		 YES NO
C NULL anything except 0 0
Lisp NIL T NIL

Objective-C is psychotic. It’s a Smalltalk dialect built on top of C (and for the most part, it got the good bits of both and left out the bad bits). Obj-C lets you instantiate arrays like [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"Hello", @"World", nil], using nil as an end-of-array marker because C’s varargs implementation doesn’t know how many args you passed. So it has this extra “null” object that’s not really null.

extended traceback printer

The standard Python traceback module provides very useful functions to produce useful information about where and why an error occurred. Traceback objects actually contain a great deal more information than the traceback module displays, however. That information can greatly assist in detecting the cause of your error. There is a Python recipe that, while not […]

The standard Python traceback module provides very useful functions to produce useful information about where and why an error occurred. Traceback objects actually contain a great deal more information than the traceback module displays, however. That information can greatly assist in detecting the cause of your error.

There is a Python recipe that, while not an interactive debugger, makes it easier to debug Python scripts within SciTE.

Here’s an example of an extended traceback printer you might use, followed by a usage example.

import sys,traceback
defprint_exc_plus():
    “””
    Print the usual traceback information, followed by a listing of all the
    local variables in each frame.
    ”””
    tb=sys.exc_info()[2]
    stack=[]
    
    whiletb:
        stack.append(tb.tb_frame)
        tb=tb.tb_next
    traceback.print_exc()
    print“Locals by frame, innermost last”
    forframeinstack:
        print
        print“Frame %s in %s at line %s”%(frame.f_code.co_name,
                                             frame.f_code.co_filename,
                                             frame.f_lineno)
        forkey,valueinframe.f_locals.items():
            print“t%20s = “%key,
            #We have to be careful not to cause a new error in our error
            #printer! Calling str() on an unknown object could cause an
            #error we don’t want.
            try:                   
                printvalue
            except:
                print“<ERROR WHILE PRINTING VALUE>”
        
try:
        iflen(sys.argv)>1:
                length=len(sys.argv)
                foriinrange(1,length):       
                        sys.argv[i–1]=sys.argv[i]
                delsys.argv[length–1]
                execfile(sys.argv[0])
except:
        print_exc_plus()

ISO/IEC 27001

ISO/IEC 27001, part of the growing ISO/IEC 27000 family of standards, is an information security management system (ISMS) standard published in October 2005 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Its full name is ISO/IEC 27001:2005 – Information technology – Security techniques – Information security management systems – Requirements. […]

ISO/IEC 27001, part of the growing ISO/IEC 27000 family of standards, is an information security management system (ISMS) standard published in October 2005 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Its full name is ISO/IEC 27001:2005 – Information technology – Security techniques – Information security management systems – Requirements.

ISO/IEC 27001 formally specifies a management system that is intended to bring information security under explicit management control. Being a formal specification means that it mandates specific requirements. Organizations that claim to have adopted ISO/IEC 27001 can therefore be formally audited and certified compliant with the standard (more below).

Most organizations have a number of information security controls. However, without an information security management system (ISMS), controls tend to be somewhat disorganized and disjointed, having been implemented often as point solutions to specific situations or simply as a matter of convention. Security controls in operation typically address certain aspects of IT or data security specifically; leaving non-IT information assets (such as paperwork and proprietary knowledge) less protected on the whole. Moreover business continuity planning and physical security may be managed quite independently of IT or information security while Human Resources practices may make little reference to the need to define and assign information security roles and responsibilities throughout the organization.

ISO/IEC 27001 requires that management:

  • Systematically examine the organization’s information security risks, taking account of the threats, vulnerabilities, and impacts;
  • Design and implement a coherent and comprehensive suite of information security controls and/or other forms of risk treatment (such as risk avoidance or risk transfer) to address those risks that are deemed unacceptable; and
  • Adopt an overarching management process to ensure that the information security controls continue to meet the organization’s information security needs on an ongoing basis.

The key benefits of 27001 are:

  • It can act as the extension of the current quality system to include security
  • It provides an opportunity to identify and manage risks to key information and systems assets
  • Provides confidence and assurance to trading partners and clients; acts as a marketing tool
  • Allows an independent review and assurance to you on information security practices

A company may want to adopt ISO 27001 for the following reasons:

  • It is suitable for protecting critical and sensitive information
  • It provides a holistic, risked-based approach to secure information and compliance
  • Demonstrates credibility, trust, satisfaction and confidence with stakeholders, partners, citizens and customers
  • Demonstrates security status according to internationally accepted criteria
  • Creates a market differentiation due to prestige, image and external goodwill
  • If a company is certified once, it is accepted globally.

While other sets of information security controls may potentially be used within an ISO/IEC 27001 ISMS as well as, or even instead of, ISO/IEC 27002 (the Code of Practice for Information Security Management), these two standards are normally used together in practice. Annex A to ISO/IEC 27001 succinctly lists the information security controls from ISO/IEC 27002, while ISO/IEC 27002 provides additional information and implementation advice on the controls. The domains covered by ISO 27002 include

Organizations that implement a suite of information security controls in accordance with ISO/IEC 27002 are simultaneously likely to meet many of the requirements of ISO/IEC 27001, but may lack some of the overarching management system elements. The converse is also true, in other words, an ISO/IEC 27001 compliance certificate provides assurance that the management system for information security is in place, but says little about the absolute state of information security within the organization. Technical security controls such as antivirus and firewalls are not normally audited in ISO/IEC 27001 certification audits: the organization is essentially presumed to have adopted all necessary information security controls since the overall ISMS is in place and is deemed adequate by satisfying the requirements of ISO/IEC 27001. Furthermore, management determines the scope of the ISMS for certification purposes and may limit it to, say, a single business unit or location. The ISO/IEC 27001 certificate does not necessarily mean the remainder of the organization, outside the scoped area, has an adequate approach to information security management.

Other standards in the ISO/IEC 27000 family of standards provide additional guidance on certain aspects of designing, implementing and operating an ISMS, for example on information security risk management (ISO/IEC 27005).

The ISO 27001 adopts the process model “Plan-Do-Check-Act” (PDCA) which is applied to the structure of all the processes in ISMS.

BS 7799 was a standard originally published by BSI Group[1] in 1995. It was written by the United Kingdom Government’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and consisted of several parts.

The first part, containing the best practices for information security management, was revised in 1998; after a lengthy discussion in the worldwide standards bodies, it was eventually adopted by ISO as ISO/IEC 17799, “Information Technology – Code of practice for information security management.” in 2000. ISO/IEC 17799 was then revised in June 2005 and finally incorporated in the ISO 27000 series of standards as ISO/IEC 27002 in July 2007.

The second part of BS7799 was first published by BSI in 1999, known as BS 7799 Part 2, titled “Information Security Management Systems – Specification with guidance for use.” BS 7799-2 focused on how to implement an Information security management system (ISMS), referring to the information security management structure and controls identified in BS 7799-2. This later became ISO/IEC 27001. The 2002 version of BS 7799-2 introduced the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle (Deming cycle), aligning it with quality standards such as ISO 9000. BS 7799 Part 2 was adopted by ISO as ISO/IEC 27001 in November 2005.

BS 7799 Part 3 was published in 2005, covering risk analysis and management. It aligns with ISO/IEC 27001.

Plan (establishing the ISMS)
Establish the policy, the ISMS objectives, processes and procedures related to risk management and the improvement of information security to provide results in line with the global policies and objectives of the organization.
Do (implementing and workings of the ISMS)
Implement and exploit the ISMS policy, controls, processes and procedures.
Check (monitoring and review of the ISMS)
Assess and, if applicable, measure the performances of the processes against the policy, objectives and practical experience and report results to management for review.
Act (update and improvement of the ISMS)
Undertake corrective and preventive actions, on the basis of the results of the ISMS internal audit and management review, or other relevant information to continually improve the said system.
An ISMS may be certified compliant with ISO/IEC 27001 by a number of Accredited Registrars worldwide. Certification against any of the recognized national variants of ISO/IEC 27001 (e.g. JIS Q 27001, the Japanese version) by an accredited certification body is functionally equivalent to certification against ISO/IEC 27001 itself.In some countries, the bodies that verify conformity of management systems to specified standards are called “certification bodies”, while in others they are commonly referred to as “registration bodies”, “assessment and registration bodies”, “certification/ registration bodies”, and sometimes “registrars”.The ISO/IEC 27001 certification,[2] like other ISO management system certifications, usually involves a three-stage external audit process:

  • Stage 1 is a preliminary, informal review of the ISMS, for example checking the existence and completeness of key documentation such as the organization’s information security policy, Statement of Applicability (SoA) and Risk Treatment Plan (RTP). This stage serves to familiarize the auditors with the organization and vice versa.
  • Stage 2 is a more detailed and formal compliance audit, independently testing the ISMS against the requirements specified in ISO/IEC 27001. The auditors will seek evidence to confirm that the management system has been properly designed and implemented, and is in fact in operation (for example by confirming that a security committee or similar management body meets regularly to oversee the ISMS). Certification audits are usually conducted by ISO/IEC 27001 Lead Auditors. Passing this stage results in the ISMS being certified compliant with ISO/IEC 27001.
  • Stage 3 involves follow-up reviews or audits to confirm that the organization remains in compliance with the standard. Certification maintenance requires periodic re-assessment audits to confirm that the ISMS continues to operate as specified and intended. These should happen at least annually but (by agreement with management) are often conducted more frequently, particularly while the ISMS is still maturing.

Asset Management

The asset management domain deals with analyzing and attaining the necessary level of protection of organizational assets. The typical objectives of the asset management domain is to identify and create an inventory of all assets, establish an ownership on all assets identified, establish a set of rules for the acceptable use of assets, establish a framework for classification of assets, establish an asset labeling and handling guideline. Asset management, broadly defined, refers to any system that monitors and maintains things of value to an entity or group. It may apply to both tangible assets such as buildings and to intangible concepts such as intellectual property and goodwill.

An asset is anything that has value to the organization. Assets can include infrastructure (e.g. buildings, store houses, towers etc.), physical assets ( computer equipment, communications, utility equipment, heavy machinery), software assets ( applications, software code, development tools, operational software etc.), information (database information, legal documentation, manuals, policies & procedures, organizational documents etc.), services ( transport, air conditioning, communications, utilities etc.), people (management, skills, experience etc.) and imperceptible (reputation, image etc.).

Asset management is a systematic process of operating, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of assets cost-effectively. Organizations need to identify all assets and create and maintain security controls around them. For each asset a designated owner needs to be made responsible for implementation of appropriate security controls. When creating an asset management policy the organization needs to define the scope of the policy (which parts of the organization are covered under the policy), responsibility (who is ultimately responsible for the policy), compliance (is compliance mandatory or not, what are the guidelines to follow), wavier criteria (on what basis can someone ask for a waiver) and effective date (from when to when is the policy applicable).

  • Typical policy statements for Asset Management include:
  * All assets shall be clearly identified, documented and regularly updated in an asset register
  * All assets of shall have designated owners and custodians listed in the asset register
  * All assets will have the respective CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability) rating established in the asset register
  * All employees shall use company assets according to the acceptable use of assets procedures
  * All assets shall be classified according the asset classification guideline of the company

Asset management comprises of all the activities associated with ongoing management and tracking of assets some of which are as follows: asset discovery (physical & logical), create & maintain conclusive software library, create & maintain conclusive hardware stock, configuration management, physical asset tracking, software license management, request & approval process, procurement management, contract management, assessment on ISO 27001 and PCI controls, supplier/ vendor management, re-deployment & movement, retire & disposal Management, compliance to laws if applicable etc.

Asset Register

The asset register documents the assets of the company or scope in question. Typically all business functions are required to maintain an asset register of their business units. The asset register is required to contain, at a minimum, the following information about the assets: the asset identifier, the asset name, the type and location of assets; the name of the function and process that uses this asset, the asset owner, custodian and user and the CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) ratings of the asset. Organizations can choose to additional information into the asset register as necessary for example for IT assets can have IP address as part of them etc.

For all asset registers, a primary person responsible for the asset register needs to be identified. Typically the business unit head or director is the owner of the asset register and recognized functional heads identified are asset custodians. The asset owner is accountable for the comprehensive protection of assets owned by him/her. The asset owner may delegate the responsibility of applying the relevant controls for the maintenance of the assets to an individual/ function referred to as the ‘asset custodian’. It is the responsibility of the asset custodian to implement appropriate security controls that are required for the protection of information assets. It is the responsibility of all employees and third party staff to maintain the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the assets that they use.

Asset Classification

Assets need to be classified in order to provide an appropriate level of protection for a certain category of assets. Information assets need to be classified in terms of its value, requirements and criticality to the business operations of the company. Typical company classification guidelines follow restrictive principles. Some of the common classifications criteria which are used by companies are given below:

RESTRICTED: The restricted level of asset information pertains to highly sensitive information to the company; which when disclosed would cause substantial damage to the reputation and competitive position of the company in the market. Its unauthorized disclosure could adversely impact its business, its shareholders, its business partners and/ or its customers, leading to legal and financial repercussions and adverse public opinion. Examples of restricted information are details of major acquisitions, divestments and mergers, business and competition strategy, sensitive customer, competitor, partner or contractor assessments, intellectual property information, law enforcement and government related information.

CONFIDENTIAL: This category refers to asset information that relates to individuals or is otherwise restricted only to authorized users, but if disclosed outside the company would not harm the organization, its customers, or its partners. This classification applies to any sensitive business information which is intended for use within the company. Examples of confidential information include customer information, negotiating positions, marketing strategy, personnel information, internal company memos and presentations.

INTERNAL This classification refers to asset information that is potentially available to all personnel within the company, but is not public. This can also include information that is restricted to a group or project within the company, but is not designated as “Private” or “Restricted.” Examples of internal information include product design information, system documentation, company employee details, company organizational charts, minutes of department meetings.

PUBLIC This classification refers to asset information that has been published or obtainable from a published source, e.g. the Internet. Example of public information include published marketing material, company public statements or announcements, published company performance information, published job vacancies.

Asset Labeling

All important and critical assets to the company shall be labeled physically / electronically as per the information labeling and handling procedures of the company. The asset owners are required to ensure that their assets are appropriately labeled (marked) for ease of identification. This may exclude information classified as ‘public’. For each classification level, the handling procedures should include the assets introduction; secure processing, storage; transmission and destruction. Classification level must be indicted wherever possible for all forms of physical / electronic information that are sensitive in nature. For example: subject of email stamped with “Confidential” etc.

Por empezar fuerte el curso hoy quiero compartir un enlace de gran interes para los dedicados al mundillo de la gestión de la seguridad entorno a la norma ISO 27001.

Dentro de mis protocolos de seguimiento de las normas 27001, 27002 y las publicaciones o comentarios entorno a ella utilizando las alertas de Google, hoy quiero compartir un par de enlaces que proporciona en un documento PDF una traducción no ofical al castellano de las normas ISO 27001 e ISO 27002.

Aunque los enlaces no aparecen refereciados en ninguna página principal de esta Web, Google la enlaza al buscar sobre controles de la ISO 27002.

Dado que puede ser de interés para el público hispanohablante disponer de una versión en nuestro idioma, comparto la url que Google proporciona por si es del interés de todos.
Ambos documentos aclaran que su uso es autorizado sólo para fines didácticos, objetivo que comparte también este blog.
Las urls donde se encuentran son:

TQM tea

Uploaded on Apr 11, 2009
A Total Quality Management training video produced by final year MEng students at the University of Edinburgh. The aim of the video is to explain the main principles of TQM in a tongue-in-cheek style to improve the tea makin…

Uploaded on Apr 11, 2009

A Total Quality Management training video produced by final year MEng students at the University of Edinburgh. The aim of the video is to explain the main principles of TQM in a tongue-in-cheek style to improve the tea making process in a tea shop business.