it impossible for things that worked in the past to work. can i push back on that? >> that's a very -- it's hard to -- almost a self-evident question in the sense that if you're going to work through the system and the system is entirely corrupt and impervious to popular pressuring it's hard to see our popular pressure can work the system. the other lessan ol' dollarocracy, the one that drives a lot of our book, is that the crisis of our political system today is it's been colonized bit corporations and large money. they dominate it. and jeff cohen puts it, the range of debate in american politics extends from ge to gm, we have a system, the republican toes the right and the democrats are behind them. and there's permanent stagnation no unions, declining incomes, collapsed infrastructure.

there's a huge number of people who want to participate, who are really looking for solutions, and that's the great tension that drives our politics. that means to some extents they might have some affect on these candidates but the system is rigged, but also means that the people who benefit by this political system know they're in the minority, and that's something we should keep in mine. the strong purr to make it possible for the top one-tenth of our population to spend unlimited amount on campaigns and effect the vote, the expression is, they can't win a fair fight. all the polling shows -- young people are alienated from that view of the world. they want real solutions. they're not in the traditional cold war think that my generation was raised in, and there's a real opening there, and that has people very scared. that's why they want to spend money and suppress the vote. they can't win a fair fight.

and i think that should keep us -- that's should keep -- we are the majority, we really are. i would add to that just one of the things, the solution, i think, politically -- and "occupy" showed this -- nonviolent peaceful demonstrations have to become a much larger part of our politics. john and i joke about this a lot. i don't think people in power are that scared by twitter campaigns. scott walker jokes about them. but they are scared to death looking out the window and seeing 100,000 nonviolent protesters. it's a freedom in our first amendment. and even "occupy --" remember the absurdity of it. the "occupy" movement, and bobby jindal's response to barack obama's "state of the union" address, talked about how republicans care about addressing inequality, two demonstrations were unheard of from a republican for 30 years. >> the second "occupy --"

politician who was listening to activist in obama were saying, they don't believe in the electoral system and they're not going to vote. the point i always make, when you surrender to despair and pessimism, and the system is rigged-ism, what are you saying to our brothers and sisters who fought for over a century for emancipation of slaves, fought and died? that are you saying to the women and some men who fought for almost a century for the vote for women. the cliche, by now a cliche, that the moral arc of the universe is long but benz towards justice, is also a truism, and power is a very mysterious thing, and where the pressure point will be revealed are only evident to us in retrospect, and smart people will keep on trying to find

those and we'll try to follow them. >> i love your question. it's a question i want to have. in every room we go into. we never -- we have been across this country, from the -- all up and down the east coast, midwest, california next week, and we never go into a room where people say, boy, we don't like your ideas. we think your analysis is wrong and we think your proposal to fix things are wrong. that's not what we hear. we hear, we agree with your analysis, agree with your ideas. we just don't think we can do it. so i like the odds on that. i look that we have gotten to that point where there's an awful lot of people who recognize it's a crisis and recognize necessary fixes. now the question is, can we get that last step, that last mile, if you will? >> its that that kind of gandhi quote. >> just to say that the proposal

that we make are structural changes. we recognize there are deep divide on issues like guns, issues like reproductive rights and all sorts of other issues, and people are well organized to battle on those issues. what we argue is that many of the structural changes we propose in an honest debate can find left-right coalitions that are unexpected. across the country, legislatures have voted to overturn citizens united. runs voted with democrats inch maine, to 30 republicans voted with the democrats. have a republican cosponsor for a constitutional amendment, walter jones from the carolinas, and saying, the conservative republican this has to happen. we have to have fair fight. our argue. is that our job is so toe say we can have differences but we ought to have a politics that

works and isn't just about big money and it's neatable during the shutdown fight, thought republican members of congress getting up talking about bailouts for corporations and complain about this -- maybe there was some cynicism there i'm not sure. but what i will tell you is i think there's an immense about of space and we have not begun to occupy that space to make those demands for the structural changes. it's time to do that. it's time to say that a conservative republican and liberal dem caught ought to be able to agree that everyone should be able to vote, that elections should have meaning, and that the vote ought to matter more than the dollar. and i'll debate anyone on that issue and we might have some fu there one final thing to note. when constitutional amendments have been proposed north all of them get passed. the era still isn't on the books. i like to think i'll leave to see it aid to our constitution,

equal rights amendment. but you know what happened as the equal rights amendment was proposed and advanced? we got title 9. we got appreciations for women in the work place, and so the bottom line is that when we aim high for real fundamental reform, sometimes we get a lot of other things along the way, and at this point we need all of those other things along the way. >> great. i'm afraid from the dyas that's going to bev have to be it but there's going to be a book-signing and i'm taking my chair's prerogative to ask one last question. will you sign my book, while we think them for their incredible work. [applause]

next, an overview of the current status of the u.s. self-publishing industry, featuring input from the organizer and presenters at the fifth annual self-pushing book expo. this is half an hour. >> new york city. a place most of the u.s. publishing industry once called home. but in recent years, the prominent publishing houses have consolidated, and self-pushing has exploded into a lucrative industry in its own right. new york is now home to the self-pushing book expo, which celebrateed its fifth year in 2013. >> hand in hand with the economy

was there were a lot of editors a lot of book designers that were out of work and free lansing a lot, and so as a result these little cottage industries started to spread, from 2009 until now the number of companies that have started because of self-publishing, to me, is really amazing. the growth of these sort of -- just many companies now going to be bigger companies and companies that are now like middle men that help authors design which book designer to use and editor to use. so a lot of people -- a lot of traditional people who lost their jobs in the economic turndown, found new life with self-publishing because now they are catering to that segment of the industry and it's growing,

and they have a need. >> according to an 2013 report, 391,000 self-published titles were created in 2012. 40% of which were electronic books. the number of self-published titles jumped 422% between 2007 and 2012. industry leaders include create space, which had a greater than 3,000% increase in titles over a five-year period. smash words, which has become number two in the industry in four years. and lieu lieu, -- lulu, a greater than 800% increase in 2007. book tv spoke to diane mancher, the founder and organizer of the self-publishing book expo, about how the industry has grown so fast. >> i think just the sheer number of books theme are self-publishing is tremendous now, and i think that they've

have a lot more available to them than authors ever had before. now there are things like crowd funding, and things like kick start or publish, where people can raise money on their own. to do the things they really need to do to publish -- we like to say to publish smarter, and i think a lot of people now -- the more they sort of learn, the more they realize that there are things they can too themselves. i think before that a lot of them were going to the self-publishing company, whichever company, and purchasing the packaging. i also think now there's a lot of traditionally authors who are becoming hybrid authors. they're still publishing traditionally and choosing to self-publish on their own. so, i think it's a mix but i think just the sheer numbers come from the idea that people are starting to learn how to do it right, turning them out

quicker, writing them better, finding an audience, and a need. now there's tee manned. >> miss mancher also explained how the annual expo has reflect the greg of the self-publishing industry and assisted it. >> in the beginning we really had to reach out to find speakers. to find exhibiters. to find causes. now when -- people are coming to us and saying, can we speak? and we would like to be an exhibiter and can we take a table and what does sponsorship entail? so the tables have kind of turned because i think that people recognize, there aren't a lot of shows like this. does a very nice job with theirs. it's part of the bigger bea.

and they're separate enough time-wise so that one doesn't infringe on the other but other than us and them and -- there's some small ones that pop up and some that internet only and things like that. it really isn't a lot out there. so, i think because of that, we have benefited year after year after year, and i think now people sort of look to us as being kind of the show for self-publishing, and that's a nice thing, some where it's going to go in the future, who knows. first and foremost what we do is try to come up with ideas for the panels. what do we think these authors could benefit from? and in the beginning, it was sort of easy because we just went through the basics in our own heads, both having inhouse experience, long enhouse

experience, we thought, okay, definitely need material, definitely need help with their covers, they definitely need distribution, you know, sort of very simple. you can go through the basics of publishing and that's what they needed. and we used a lot. we leaned a lot of friends and colleagues over the year on the traditional side and said, you know, would you please come and talk? i have very good friends in the industry and people rose to the occasion, anybody i asked to do a publicity panel, marketing panel, people said, sure, we'll do it. and then we also got lucky in that whatever sponsors we had the first year, they had panels and that's how we came up with our panels. in the beginning we had something like 15 or 16.

this year we're up to 18. >> the expo's key note speaker was judith kerr. she gave a room full of aspiring best-selling authors her perspective on the self-publishing industry and advised them how to make a success of self-publishing. here's an excerpts of her address. >> before i talk about our publishing program i want to -- self-publishing is not a new trend. the timeline of publishing. we can see in the paint little of the caves in southwest france as a form of self-publishing. that 17,000 years ago. these drawings are pigment on rock, represent animals, rituals, symbols and signs, so that fellow tribes people that

were permanent but not portable. then came the manuscript of the middle ages. like these beautiful gospels from 8700. they were produced by monks, self-published. these were inked and a describe would produce one book at time for one customer. usually a rich patron or for somebody in the church. permanent and only slightly portable. in 19 -- sorry -- in 1439, journalists who were the media experts called the first technology entrepreneur invented a moveable. -- printing for the catholic church. because i couldn't write them out by hand fast enough because they were selling to fast in 1454 gutenberg used his moveable type to create the first bible. this is abhorrent movement when

the book was no longer a single object. the publication of multiple company copies of the book became a business enterprise, requiring capital for the production and market for distribution, the cost of each individual book was -- increased the distribution of books. books became permanent, and affordable. and portable in 1517, martin luther -- was very angry about the catholic church. it was printed on gutenberg's recently invented press and sold 300,000 copies. this was history's first best seller. the power of the book to spread ideas led to the reformation and the enlightenment. the next big step wasn't until 1949. a teenager -- a teacher named angelo ruth from spain, invented

and patented the first electronic book. her intention was to decrease the number and weight of book that her pupils had to carry to school. with the creation of -- with the creation of publishing companies that printed and sold books in the modern era, self-publishing continued. but it became comparatively expensive and cumbersome. fast forward to the word processors, printers, computers, and now the internet with many self-publishing platforms now available there are no or very little barriers to entry. anyone can write and publish a book. but the important thing is that no matter what form it takes, publishing is still communication from a writer to a reader. publishing requires specific skills.

writing,ed didding, designing, proofreading, marketing, selling, imagining budgets and communicating with the leaders. when you self-publish you have to do all these things either yourself or hire someone to help you with them. in fact you'll find hundreded of people at this expo who have created businesses around providing these services. the important question to ask yourself is, which one too you want to do? which one does you not want to do, which ones are your particular skill? before we continue, a little about by publishing group. we have ten separate imprints, which you see on the screen. since -- as karen said, we have published over 260 "new york times" best sellers out of 1,000 titles published since our inception. here's some of our authors:

atria has value. aviate important to always state your intention you. should always begin as you need to proceed. atry a began with the idea that -- it's the pleural -- plural of atrium, which is open to new idea. we want to create an environment where authors can grow and flourish and do things with books that had creative meaning and purpose in peoples lives. we wanted to be able to build a bridge between the writer and the reader in the same way the ancient city of atria was connected to the ocean by a series of canals. we also asked what was atria doing that wasn't're being done? we looked at the gaps and where when market opportunities

presented themselves we had too think about, what would we be good at developing and publishing. atria self-published authors. queen of queen, taking dirty was a very opportunistic self-published book that presented itself to us. wrote an article for minnesota newspapers about stain removal, and published a little book. it came to our notice. we then took it over and republished and it started a category for her, and we have sold over -- sold over two million copies of these books. i don't think you could actually publish this book in the same way today because all this information is now available on the internet. so when once you needed to -- a book as a source for some information, you now -- having that information free exists elsewhere. something to think about. those of you who may not know

that vince went -- started by self-publishing term limits. he was working as a bartendser in minnesota when he published the first novel. henry has published ever since very successfully. we have 80 books in print and unfortunately vince passed away earlier this year. then is an interesting store. she wrote steamy stories to pass the time after her children went to bed. she started putt copying them and mailing them to her girlfriends. they loved the stories and had her to send them more. she came to our attention and we republished addicted. the movie will be out next year and it's still in principle. >> m.y. rhodes has gone on to

write hard cover historical fiction for us. atria introduces in the office in 2012 there was a sudden explosion of self-publishing numbers that were selling by hotcakes. the ebooks best sell earlies was filled with self-published authors who are are called inty office. we have signed some of them which you see on the screen. what question does we ask when we're looking at self-published authors? which projects have the largest potential or do the projects have a larger potential than i already been realized and can atria add to that process that will make them more valuable. what does the author want? do they want to continue to self-publish and have title control and title control over the way they're book is designed

and sold or focus the attention on developing their writing skills while allowing a team of designers, marketers, and sales people to contribute to their experiences and skills to the book's publication. without sharing trade secrets we look for authors with a great ability to telecom pelling stories. is there a satisfying restitution due you like the casualties. hate them? are you exposed to? are are you engaged in their conflict? is there a clearly defined narrative in many of the self-published authors have a talent for keeping the reader glued to the page. the next thing we look at is how many readers we have used on the internet. we mew when he brought jenny's beautiful disaster, she had already had 2,200 reviews, mostly two and a half to four and a half stars. we look at what people are san diego reviews, not just the number. it's very important. is the passion with which the

reviews are written -- other readers are obsessed with the characters? we also look at how many fan oses on facebook, how many twitter followers, are they interested in reading groups and writing groups. what are the bloggers saying? in building our indie list we lad to be faster and much more flexible, we have had to be open sometime wiz publish the ebook first and sometimes we publish the ebook and trade paperback edition simultaneously, and occasionally we had hard cover editions. we're there to support and build the readership by doing things that are ease eastly done by a publisher, like getting distribution into physical stores, libraries, et cetera, but we are not here to try to

mess with things that made them successful in the first place, strong and intimate connection to their readers, and a deep sense of what their readers want from their books. when you self-publish you're essentially writing your own business and taking on the multitude of time-consuming responsibilities that come along with that. signing with atria allows authors to focus on the writing. we're also able to provide worldwide distribution throughout english lange -- lange countries. a good way of thinking about making a transition from an author who is self-publisher to published. think about twitter going public. good decisionmaking. the most important thing any publisher or any thaw -- author

can do is make good conditions i like to tell the story. the other day one of our editors became an american citizen and we decided to have a celebration cake for her. we wanted to surprise her and asked here to come at the end of the meeting. the cake was in the middle ol' the table, and halfway threw the meeting, one of my staff said, do you know what kind of cake that is? she said it's an ice cream cake. and -- which was going to become obvious. so, because -- so i use this example when i want to know i've got all the information i need to be able to make a good decision, i say what kind of cake is this? told me everything i need to know. so you need to know everything you can possibly. and that is about asking the right question.

>> i teach -- in my everyday work with the editorial staff. the six questions in publishing are: what -- if you're publishing yourself or by traditional publisher, you must ask yourself these questions and find the answer that satisfy you because if you're -- whatever you do, you want to sell books to the best of your ability to make sure you have considered everything and it has not melted on the table. why this book? this is all about the editorial quality of the book. is my story interesting? does it have good characters? is it well-edited? if hey proofread possibly, is there place in the marketplace for it? is this the best book for me? these days when you put a book up on amazon, for example, and you get a bad reviews you can always take it down and rewrite

and it pay attention to what the critic ares saying. but in a publishing house all those things take place -- the editorial process and the selection process that we go through is about having people who you know, who are clearly identified, and who have a lot of experience in a world -- in a particular category making those decisions. who will read it? is your book -- start thinking about who your readership is going by. a woman age 25 to 45? college students? teenage boys or is it other african-american interests? is it for readers of -- make sure you have a clear idea. once you have identified your readers, you can now find ways of communicating with them. you are not just shouting to everybody on the street.

you're saying, hello, hello, you there in the red sweater, want to talk to you. how will you tell people about the book? this is where publicity and marketing come into the picture and there are primary vehicles. some examples here, traditional advertising on the blackboard, pin board, ad walls, author tours, publicity on television, many, many things, but always there will be a limit to what you can do. you will have a limited amount of options available to you because it is for everyone and you have to decide what is the best way to communicate to your audience? so is my reader, my 25-year-old college student, going to be reading this blog so, therefore, i can be -- there's chance of communicating with them? marketing also runs the gambit of getting posters into windows,

creating fun giveways, thing you can think of that will bring your book to someone's attention. think back to the little pencil that dick simon attached to the acrossword puzzle. how many can you sale? this is the crucial question that everybody should ask because all your financial decisions are going to be based on this premise. do i want to sell ten books to my ten friends or die -- do i want to sell a book to a million people and at what point will you consider to your book to have been a success? very important to have points of success look the way so you don't get miserable. i can tell you that from experience. at what point you need to look at the reviews, can what could be a realistis expectation of your book.

based on 0 who you identified as your readership. ...if you hire peopled to advertising in marketing for you or put an ad in the newspaper, make sure that investment has some way of returning itself to you in fiche book sales, so always ask yourself how many books will i sell? why will you sell this many? not just because it's the best book you have written. some publishers look at history, of course, but you can't see the past looking over your shoulder, but you can by looking in the mirror seeing what's behind you. we'll, for example, publishing a second book in seven years, she writes once every seven year, she writes one every seven or years. but we knew that we had soldhe over a million copies and that

gave some indication as to whatw to rex pact.kings onlin are different ways of looking ate these books you wou see on the online resources. how many people are there in th audience, what conversations are taking place on twitter and ispu it a trend in the topic and howr many people are jumping into the the books that you are going toh sell have some merits. >> it requires under the research, but it's very valuable >> should i sell it in a fiscal form and to want it to be solveb in the book's core marketsublhed available, do i want to see it published in spanish language in the north american market andrel

other languages are countries these are all things you should consider in the book. b >> i hope that i have been ableh y. give you a little insighttoda into the last publishing today. there are many different models of publishing and the question is what kind of author july wano to become a do you want to be,to what are you good at and what ir the model that is most suited for you? traditional publishers during the traditional publishers is not for everyone just as self publishing is not for everyone. find a model that suits you best. always ask. thank you. [applause] >> it's crafted to assist the self publishing author to give exactly what judith advises.

ask themselves the right questions and to the right audience. >> what we try to tell people is when you decide to publish you can't just think of yourself as an author that has written a book but you have to think of yourself as an actor will publishing company because that is really what you are. the one thing that we stress the most is defining your goal. some people have a very simple goal. the businessman who wants to extend their platform, so they want to write a book, they want it to be available on speaking engagements and that is their goal. some people want to write their family history, publishing copies to give to their family, and some people want to build a leadership. we try to tell people first and foremost define the goal.

what is it that you want to accomplish in this book? and once you do that, think about how you are going to go about doing that, how is that going to happen. we have seen from editing, distribution, media, social not working. there are so many to this and what we try to tell people is you have to think about all this and what they are doing now is looking at it as a business and they are saying to themselves you know what? i could use the services of a good editor and i could use great -- i think i could do some of the social media itself. a sort of breaking it down so that they can determine what they can do on their own and what things they need help with, how much that is going to cost

and budget themselves out that way. and those fighting the are the more successful ones. >> another component to salles publishing success is the quality of the content. >> the best thing i think is from 29 until now, the quality of the book has changed astronomically. it's from another world. >> to organizations have contributed to informing the public about the quality of the self published writings. >> it is the world's largest online community for reading and sharing stories of. we come and not so many words used newspaper readers and writers. they can't go on to the wattpad and applaud their work for free, and then the readers can go on line and read them for free. >> at the moment we are sitting at 2ll