Tag Archives: writing

My Experiences (So Far) as a Self-Publisher

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Making it up as I go along.

I’m in the middle of my third self-publishing project since October and, of the three projects, this is the most challenging. But what’s more interesting, perhaps, is what I’ve experienced and learned along the way.

Project One: The Test


This is actually the revised cover for this book; the first one was just too awful.

The first project, Making Movies: A Guide for Serious Amateurs, went remarkably well, despite the twists and turns along the way. From the start, I’d wanted to publish the book in both ebook and print formats. I built an InDesign CS3 template and used it to lay out the book. The text and illustrations were already written; they’d been published online and I got rights back for them. I struggled a bit to create the epub and Kindle mobi formats I needed to publish the ebooks on the iBookstore, Amazon.com, and BN.com, but with the help of an excellent Lynda.com course by Anne-Marie Concepcion, I succeeded.

I took a wrong turn with the print edition of that book. For some reason, I thought MagCloud would provide a good solution. MagCloud is a print on demand (POD) printer which also sells through its website. The quality of MagCloud’s work is excellent — they print in full color and the work really does look good. But they’re also terribly expensive. My 64-page book cost 20¢ per page to produce, making it far too costly for its size. It would not be possible to sell at a retail price that included a cut for me. And, frankly, the book that resulted didn’t have the kind of look and feel I wanted.

Clearly, I had to either give up on the idea of printing the book or find another POD printer.

So the first book, which was done as a sort of proof of concept to see if I could actually get a self-published title out there, was a limited success.

Finding a New POD Printer

I had already done some research on POD printers. I did not want to go with Amazon’s CreateSpace service because it was acting as a publisher instead of a printer.

There’s an important distinction there:

  • A publisher pays an author a royalty percentage on every book sold — even if the author buys the book.
  • A printer charges the publisher a fee for each book printed; the publisher earns money based on the difference between the book’s selling price and the amount it cost to print.

I felt that the CreateSpace percentage was not very generous; they were obviously set up for self-publishers who needed a lot of help with manuscript preparation. I didn’t need help. I’ve been preparing camera-ready book pages since my first Visual QuickStart Guide back in 1995.

CreateSpace also offered a free ISBN for those who didn’t have them. That’s a huge stumbling block for many self-publishers. Apparently the prices for ISBNs have risen to cash in on the self-publishing craze. Fortunately, I set up my publishing company, Flying M Productions (formerly Giles Road Press) back in 1994 and have all the ISBNs I need. So that didn’t attract me to CreateSpace, either.

Finally, I just wasn’t willing to jump into bed with Amazon.com — unless I had to.

Lulu wasn’t an option. Too costly and I’d heard rumors that Amazon.com wouldn’t sell Lulu books. (Wish I could remember where I’d heard that so I could link to source for you.)

I wanted a more professional-level POD printer, one that worked with real publishers and not the average self-publisher. What I wound up with was Lightning Source. This is a real printer, one that assumes you know what the hell you’re doing. Best of all, they’re part of Ingram, the company that catalogs books for resellers and libraries. Publishing with them would automatically get my book listed for sale in all retail outlets. They had a great deal of flexibility with book sizes and styles, from small to large, from softcover to hardcover, from black and white to full color.

And their prices were reasonable.

As a test, I redid my Making Movies book as a black and white title, redesigned the cover, and sent it in. The proof came back looking great and the book cost about 1/4 what it did through MagCloud. I was very happy. I’d found my POD printer.

The Logo

I had developed a series of books — Maria’s Guides — and I felt that I needed branding to go with it. So I started looking for a designer to come up with logo.

I already blogged about my Elance nightmare. My advice: don’t waste your time.

A friend of mine, learning of the problem I had with Elance, mentioned on a list she subscribes to that I was looking for a designer. I was contacted by one. I looked at his Web site. I liked what I saw. We chatted back and forth. We came up with a budget. I signed a contract. I paid him 1/3 up front. And then the trouble began.

He’d spend days laboring over what should be a simple task, like choosing a font I liked. I loaded up a bunch of fonts, picked about 10, and sent him samples in a PDF. He then proceeded to make sample “word marks” using four fonts I didn’t have. I liked only two of them; buying those fonts would have added another $150 to the project budget. I told him to pick one of my fonts and that I’d send him the typefaces to work with. He did so, grudgingly. Two weeks gone.

Then it was time to come up with the graphics to go with the word mark. No matter what I suggested, he pushed back, telling me I was wrong. I was getting pissed off very quickly. Finally, I emailed him, told him to keep my 1/3 deposit, and to forget the project. I never heard from him again. I’m beginning to think that’s how he earns a living: 1/3 of a job at a time.

Maria's Guides LogoIn the end, I took one of the fonts I liked and threw together a simple graphic word mark. It would have to do for now.

My Deal with the Devil

I guess it was around Christmas time that Amazon announced a new program for its customers. If you were an Amazon prime member and you owned a Kindle (not another device with the Kindle app), you could borrow ebooks for free.

This freaked out a lot of authors and publishers — at least at first. After all, if people could read our books for free, how would we sell books and make money?

It soon became clear that only a limited number of publishers would allow Amazon to use their titles this way. My publishers were not among those participating. Amazon had obviously used this well-publicized offer to get more people to buy Kindles.

Of course, when publishers made it clear that they weren’t interested because there wasn’t any money in it, Amazon stepped up to the plate and created the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select program. They’d put $500,000 in a special account each month. Publishers that put titles into the KDP Select program and allowed Amazon Prime members to borrow them for free would get a cut of this big pie based on the percentage of borrows their books got. So suppose there were 1000 borrows during the month and a publisher’s book accounted for 16 of them. The publisher would get 16/1000th of the $500,000. Of course, the numbers would be much bigger than that and the percentages much lower. But the potential for sales was there.

Of course, there was a catch: you’d have to give Amazon an exclusive on ebook sales. That means it could not be sold as an ebook anywhere else. And you’d have to commit for three full months.

A friend of mine who self-published the novel Soléa, decided to give this a try. Since my book sales weren’t exactly stupendous, I figured what the hell? I’ll try, too.

So I took the book off the iBookstore and BN.com. And I turned off the PDF ebook option on MagCloud. And I enrolled Making Movies into the KDP Select program.

That’s when things started getting weird on my sales reports. The report would show sales with an average selling price of 9¢ per copy. (I’d priced the book at $3.99.) When I contacted Amazon about that, they said it was due to price matching. I responded that (1) they had an exclusive on the title, so there was no one to match with and (2) the book had been (and would again be) available at the same price everywhere; no one discounted it. I’m still waiting for an update on that.

And then there was the positive sales with the negative royalties. WTF?

Oh, and about Amazon’s royalty percentage…the 70% is only for sales in 6 countries that, for some reason, have favored status. If you sell to any of the other countries in the world, your rate drops to 35%. I’m still trying to figure out how they can justify that.

Needless to say, when the 3 months is up, my book will be yanked out of KDP Select so I can get it back in the iBookstore and BN.com. And no, none of the other titles will ever be part of KDP Select.

Project Two: Fine-Tuning the Process


I fine-tuned the cover design to make the book name larger.

My second project, Sorting Excel Data: The Basics & Beyond, went more smoothly. Encouraged by what I’d read about InDesign CS5.5 and its ebook publishing features, I upgraded. I ported my InDesign template to the new version, fine-tuned it, and wrote a 114-page book with dozens of illustrations.

The writing took about four days and went very smoothly. I felt good about the template design, especially since I watched the CS5.5 version of Anne-Marie’s Lynda.com video and adjusted my template to take advantage of new features.

Once the InDesign file was done — including title page, copyright page, table of contents, and index, I was ready to publish. I budgeted two days: one for the print edition file submission and one for the ebook file submissions to Amazon.com (Kindle mobi), Apple iBookstore (iBooks epub), and BN.com (NOOK epub).

I had the print edition’s files, including the cover, submitted before noon. After lunch, I knocked off the three other submissions. It went that quickly.

The iBooks edition was available first. It appeared in the iBookstore less than 2 hours after submission. The Kindle version appeared the next day. The NOOK version appeared the day after that.

I got my proof from Lightning Source a week later. I approved it the same day.

At this point, I felt that I had the process down to a science. Only a bit more fine-tuning and it would be perfect.

Project Three: The Challenge

I knew as soon as I heard about iBooks Author that I wanted to do a book about it. I downloaded the software the same day. I learned it over the next two days.

I spoke to one of my publishers about doing a book. They were interested — at first. Then they got spooked about the EULA that everyone is whining about; I addressed some of those issues in this blog post. By the time they confirmed that they weren’t going to do a book about it, I was already 1/4 into my own book. You see, I never really thought we could come to an agreement on the book, so I’d started writing it for Maria’s Guides.

This is going to be a much longer book — likely 200 pages. I’m about 1/3 finished now. Although I’m trying to stick to the basics, I don’t want to disappoint readers by leaving important information out. So it will be quite a complete guide.

I’m thinking of changing the dimensions of the printed book to bring it more in line with trade paperback titles I’ve written in the past. This won’t affect my ebook editions, however. It won’t even delay them; they’ll go out first — likely sometime next week.

There will be a “multi-touch” version of the book available for iBooks readers. That’ll have a separate ISBN and likely more multimedia content. I’ll do that after the print edition goes to the printer.

Motivation…and Uncertainty

The real challenge, however, is motivation. As I’ve aged, I’ve developed a remarkably short attention span. I get bored with any project that takes more than a week or so to complete. Normally, there’s an editor out there, waiting for the next chapter. This time, there isn’t. It’s just me. I’m the author, the editor, and production person, and the publisher.

No one — except me — will know if I slack off and put this project aside.

But the worst part about it is the complete uncertainty. When I write for another publisher, I get an advance on royalties. If the book doesn’t sell well, they don’t take that advance away. In other words, I’m compensated for my work no matter what.

Not so with self-publishing. You only get paid when your work sells.

So I could be working my ass off on a book that no one will buy. A book I’ll never make money on.

It’s a terrible gamble, one that nags at me. In the back of my mind, I’m constantly wondering if I’m wasting my time.

But to help prevent me from slacking off, I’ve publicly announced the book — not only here but on a variety of other places. I’ve had potential readers contact me, telling me that they’re waiting. They’re motivating me to finish.

So I’ll finish.

And maybe in a few weeks or months, I’ll blog an update to this story to let everyone know what else I’ve learned.

iBooks Author and Apple’s “Evil” EULA

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My response to the negative commentary.

iBooks Author IconI need to start by saying how surprised I am at the negative opinions regarding Apple’s EULA for its free app, iBooks Author (iBA). In general, the concerns can be broken down into two main areas:

  • If you plan to sell a book created with iBooks Author, you can only sell it through Apple’s iBookstore. Apparently, some people think this is Apple’s attempt to claim the rights to the content. So not only are they accused of “forcing” publishers to pay their normal 30% commission, but they’re being accused of making it impossible for the same content to be published elsewhere.
  • Apple has the right to reject any work submitted for publication on the iBookstore. This is making people accuse Apple of censorship. It’s also raising concerns about publishers spending hours preparing documents that they might not be able to sell at all.

This is typical anti-Apple fear mongering, being spread primarily by people who haven’t taken the time to look at the software, see how it works, and see some of the amazing documents it can create. I was pretty much ignoring all of it until today, when I read a post by Liz Castro titled “Ten reasons I can’t recommend or use iBooks Author.”

My Response to Liz’s Comments

I greatly respect Liz. Her HTML Visual QuickStart Guide was a major learning tool for me as I began developing websites. She has been working with ebooks for a while and should have a lot more insight on ebook publishing than I do. So when she came out so strongly against iBooks Author, I had to read what she said.

And sadly, I didn’t agree with a lot of it.

I composed a lengthy response to her 10 points. Unfortunately Blogger (her blogging platform of choice) does not accept more than 4000 characters. So I cut it in half and the first half was lost. Fortunately, I’d composed it in a text editor (so I could see her points as I addressed them) so I still had a copy. I reposted it. The result on her blog, however, is a disjointed mess.

So I thought I’d present my response here.

If you haven’t read Liz’s blog post, please read it first and come back. I’ll quote pieces of it here, but you really do need to read the whole thing to get her complete point of view.

And please don’t think this post (or my response on Liz’s blog) is an attack on Liz. It’s not. I still respect her and her opinion. I just think that she and so many others are missing the point of iBooks Author. And it really saddens me that they’re going on the offensive to attack Apple when I don’t think Apple deserves it.

1. Apple has the final say in what can be sold on the iBookstore.

I see Apple’s approval process as a GOOD thing. Right now, there’s nothing stopping anyone from publishing any crap they want as an ebook and distributing through services like Amazon Kindle. This is a far cry from publishing as we’ve known it, where only authors and works approved and edited by an experienced, professional publishing company team would be published. Apple’s review process helps weed out the crap and make its library of content more valuable to iBookstore shoppers. While some folks might be fearful that Apple will not approve their work, I’m not — and you shouldn’t be either. People who can turn out quality work should have nothing to worry about as far as the approval process goes.

Now there is some concern over Apple using this power to censor content. For example, perhaps they refuse to publish a book that says negative things about Apple or its founders. (Remember how they pulled all of a certain publisher’s books out of the Apple Store after they published an unflattering biography of Steve Jobs some years back?) I’m not terribly worried about that, but I do admit that it is a possibility. Obviously, if there are documented examples of Apple not approving something that should be approved, I’d be willing to revisit this point. For now, however, I don’t think it’s an issue.

2. It’s not at all clear how far Apple’s control of an iBA book’s content goes.

I’m certain that Apple’s ELUA does not cover the content of an ebook. For them to do that would be akin to taking copyright. I have every intention of continuing to publish my own ebooks on Kindle, NOOK, and other distribution methods/formats, as well as in print using Print on Demand. I do, however, plan to create special iBooks Editions that showcase the special features. I have absolutely no concerns about Apple trying to stop me from publishing the same content in other formats elsewhere or taking action once I do so.

3. It’s not at all clear that Apple’s exclusivity benefits kids, schools, or teachers.

No argument there.

(You need to understand that I have little or no interest in developing for the K-12 educational market, mostly because I know nothing about it. Best for experienced educators to approach that market.)

4. iBA ebooks will work only on iBooks on iPad.

I think this point gets to the reason why the exclusivity doesn’t matter. If you use iBA, you are automatically accepting the fact that what you create with it will only be usable on one platform. So where else would you sell it if not the iBookstore? Yes, this does make more work for publishers who want to take advantage of the capabilities of iBA and continue to publish elsewhere — I understand completely that this will increase my workload and I have accepted that. I think others will, too.

I don’t agree that Apple wants control of the content. They’ve created a proprietary file format — that’s all. I addressed this point earlier.

As for iBooks not supporting traditional epub — that would be a serious error on Apple’s part. I already prefer Kindle for ebooks because of its multi-device flexibility. If Apple removed flexibility from its ebook reader app, they’d only make it less attractive. I can’t see Apple being that stupid.

I do want to point out, however, that if a book I considered buying on Kindle was available as an enhanced ebook in the iBookstore for a similar price, I’d probably buy it in the iBookstore. I see that as a competitive edge for publishers willing to do that extra work.

5. It fragments the ebook ecosystem and requires new publishing tools and workflows for publishers.

Agreed — this new tool will increase the amount of work we need to do to get our content on multiple platforms.

Right now, my workflow is pretty simple: create in InDesign, export to epub for iBooks and NOOK, convert to Kindle. This is a very smooth process for me. Once I finalized content in my latest ebook, for example, I sent it to my POD printer and submitted it to Amazon, Apple, and NOOK all in one day.

When iBA came out, I immediately began converting that title to iBA format. I’ve put more than 12 hours into the process and am only half finished. I see at least 3-4 days of extra layout work for each of my titles. Is it worth it? Well, until I get a title out there and see how it sells, how will I know?

6. Apple’s iBookstore currently serves only 32 countries.

Apple’s iBookstore may serve a limited number of countries, but let’s all consider how Amazon, for example, handles royalties. If a book is sold a country other than the six or so on a special list, your royalty rate drops from 70% to 35%. Apple doesn’t screw around with the royalty rate. It is what it is. I don’t know about you, but I write and publish in English only and don’t see a huge international market for my work. So this is a non-issue for me.

7. Apple iBookstore is not that great.

Agreed. Apple’s iBookstore isn’t as good as it could be. I think that’s because of its limited market. As I mentioned earlier, even I prefer Kindle — and I’ve been a loyal Mac OS users since 1989! Apple could certainly get more people using the iBookstore if they introduced apps for more platforms and allowed cross-platform synchronization. More users would result in more reviews, more recommendations, etc. But I do agree that the whole system needs to be revamped to make it easier to use.

8. It’s bossy.

I think this is a silly point.

9. It’s unnecessary.

Not sure what you mean by this one.

10. Books are special. This is about books (for teaching our children!) which in my opinion should not be controlled by any company or government.

I really don’t agree with your concerns on this given everything I’ve said above.

A Few Parting Thoughts

I’ve read a lot of what people are saying about Apple’s “evil” EULA for iBA and although there are plenty of valid points, I think the software and its ability to create amazing books really makes most of those points moot.

I say embrace iBA as a tool to set your work apart from the competition and attract new readers. At least on a trial basis. Rather than get angry about this free software’s limitations as far as distribution goes, consider the new market it opens for you by providing an easy to use tool for taking ebooks to the next level.

Remember — technology continues to move forward. This may be a great tool for today, but who knows what will come up in a month or two? Perhaps new epub standards will emerge with universal support, making something like iBA completely worthless.

That’s my two cents, for what it’s worth.

Amazon’s Bribe to Publishers: KDP Select and the $6 Million Fund

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And why I’m giving it a try.

I published my first real ebook back in the end of October: Making Movies: A Guide for Serious Amateurs. I built the book in InDesign, spun off a color print-on-demand version through MagCloud, and then painstakingly prepared ebook formats for the iBookstore, Amazon Kindle, and Barnes & Nobel Nook. Within a week, it was widely available and actually began to sell.

The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library

Not long afterwards, Amazon.com sent a chill through the publishing industry by announcing that Kindle owners who were also Amazon Prime subscribers would be able to borrow books — for free — from Amazon.com. The program is called Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and its an obvious ploy by Amazon.com to make its Kindle hardware more attractive to readers. After all, you must have a Kindle — the actual device and not a Kindle app on an iPad or computer — to borrow the books for free. So for those readers who don’t need all the features of a real tablet computer, this program makes a Kindle a bit more attractive.

I immediately questioned one of my publishers in its private Facebook group:

As an author, I’m wondering how Peachpit’s participation in this program (if they do participate) will impact royalties.

After all, I don’t earn royalties from borrowed book; I only earn royalties on purchased books. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one thinking about this. The Mac Observer published a piece titled “Amazon’s Lending Library Raises Publisher & Author Hackles” that explored the program and responses to it in some depth.

In the Facebook group, the publisher’s response was quick and to the point:

[Publisher Name] is not participating.

I found this reassuring. The reason: If readers knew they could get my books for free, they might stop buying them. If they stopped buying them, I would not be able to earn a living. Pretty simple, no?

So I saw the program as a threat to my livelihood and was glad to hear that my biggest publisher was not going to participate.

Fast Forward to Last Week

On Thursday, I got an email message from the Kindle Direct Publishing service. That’s the service publishers use to get their ebooks for sale on Amazon.com. It started like this:

We’re excited to introduce KDP Select — a new option dedicated to KDP authors and publishers worldwide, featuring a fund of $500,000 in December 2011 and at least $6 million in total for 2012! KDP Select gives you a new way to earn royalties, reach a broader audience, and use a new set of promotional tools.

It went on to say that if I opted to include my book in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, I could get a cut of a monthly $500,000 fund based upon the total number of times my book was borrowed. Of course, Kindle owners would be attracted to these books because they were free to borrow. And now I could get a royalty payment on a borrowed book.

It seems like win-win-win:

  • Amazon wins because it gets more books in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, thus enhancing the value of the Kindle and Amazon Prime programs.
  • Kindle Owners with Amazon Prime memberships win because there are more books available to borrow for free.
  • Authors/Publishers win because they actually get paid when people read their work.

I thought long and hard about why I might not want to give this a try with Making Movies.

The only drawback for me as a publisher is that I had to give Amazon.com the exclusive right to sell/loan my ebook for at least three months. I could not distribute an ebook version of the title anywhere else — not on Apple’s iBookstore, not on Barnes & Nobel, not on MagCloud, and not even on my own website or blog.

I looked at the sales figures from all the places my book appeared. I’d already sold more copies with Amazon.com than with all of the other retailers combined.

It was a pretty easy decision.

So today I enrolled Making Movies in KDP Select.

The way I see it, three months is not a very long time. If I fail to bring in enough royalty money during that period to continue allowing Amazon to have an exclusive on my ebook, I’ll drop out of the program.

And I know of at least one other author who has enrolled his title: Andrew Dambe with his novel Soleá. (I started reading it; it’s a neat book.)

It’s worth a try, right?

Spam from a Wannabe Guest Blogger

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You have to know how to read before you can write.

Today, I received the following e-mail message, sent to me via my blog’s content form:

Subject: Guest Blog Post on Tech Gadgets

Message Body:
Hello,

My name is [redacted], and I found your blog on a consumer electronic blogroll.

I would love to contribute to your blog by being a guest writer and focusing specifically on technology gadgets. Getting the best deal on tech gadgets like TVs, computers, or smartphones takes some serious strategy. We all know that products like the iPhone get launched at $500 and, within a few months, sell for nearly half the price, but do all electronic goods follow this pattern? When’s the best time to buy? This article gives you the insider secrets, so you can get your gadgets at rock bottom prices.

Are you interested in my writing an article for you?

Thank you for your time and best regards,

[redacted]

Blog Content Guild – 1015 Bee Caves Woods Dr, Suite 102 – Austin, TX 78746

About the Blog Content Guild:
The Blog Content Guild is an organization that provides blog writers with the opportunity to make a living writing about products and services. The writers then work to place their writing on other blog sites that are relevant to those product and service offerings.

(Please let me know if you don’t want to receive any more emails from me or others at the Blog Content Guild.)

PS – I love your website aneclecticmind.com

Screen Door by CharlieUnderstand that I’m in a foul mood this afternoon. I went out to run a few errands, leaving our new dog, Charlie, in the condo’s small walled-in patio. When I returned 40 minutes later, he greeted me in the parking lot. He had escaped by tearing down some metal mesh and squeezing through the back gate. He then tried to get back into the apartment through the screen security door, tearing the screen to shreds from the outside.

So getting a request from someone wanting to be a guest blogger really pissed me off a lot more than it normally might have.

Why would it piss me off at all? Well, he contacted me using the form on my Contact page. And that page has a section with a heading that says:

Guest Bloggers

This is a personal blog. It does not accept guest posts.

What’s more is that the first paragraph under the Contact Form heading says:

First, read the above. All of it.

So this clown used a form on a page that says I don’t accept guest posts to ask me if I would accept his guest post.

I guess when you’re spamming every blogger who you can find a contact method for, it doesn’t really matter whether you a get clear indication in advance that your request won’t get a positive response. After all, spam is spam. Does it really matter whether you target the right audience?

Of course, I just had to see what Blog Content Guild was, so I looked it up. The first item on a numbered list on their home page explains what they do:

We work on behalf of companies who want to increase the buzz in the blogosphere

In other words, advertisers pay them and their bloggers to write blog posts about their products. They basically sell advertisements disguised as objective advice or product review blog posts — just the kind of misleading crap people with low moral standards are willing to publish to turn a buck.

I composed a typically nasty response:

Wow! You’ve already amazed me with your complete inability to read; I don’t have very high expectations about your ability to research and write intelligently about a topic. But then again, writing original, objective content is probably not something folks at Blog Content Guild do.

Maybe if you would have read the information on the Contact page where you found the form you used to contact me, you’d see why you’re not likely to ever write a post on my blog.

But then again, I’m sure your query to me was just one of dozens you fired out to the blogosphere today. Spam, pure and simple. I’m sure you spend more of your time composing and sending spam than writing actual content.

I didn’t send it. I figured that if he really loved my website so much, he’d see it here when he returned to read the latest new content.

Or not.

Autorotation Explained

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A primer for non-pilots.

One of my pet peeves is finding inaccurate information in works of fiction (or non-fiction, for that matter). You can argue all day long that fiction is fiction and the writer can write whatever he wants. After all, fiction, by definition, is a made up story. That gives the author license to make things up as he goes along.

I agree that it’s fine to make up the story, but unless it’s a work of science fiction or fantasy (where it might be acceptable to change the laws of physics), it’s not okay to make up the details of how existing things work. I explored this theme in my post “Facts in Fiction,” and picked apart the work of a bestselling author in “Dan Brown Doesn’t Know Much about Helicopters.” Both posts were triggered, in part, by basic errors about how helicopters work that appeared in works of fiction.

The Question

“Facts in Fiction” was also triggered by an email message I received from a writer looking for facts about how helicopters fly. Oddly, I just received another one of those messages not long ago:

I’ve recently been writing a novel in which I have to describe the sound a helicopter makes, how they fly and things along these lines.

But there is a section of my book where a helicopter runs out of fuel and begins to drop. However, below them is a forest and they crash into the canopy. But in order to minimize damage the pilot uses autorotation to make the helicopter somewhat stable. I don’t want to be an ignorant writer that makes stuff up at the expense of fact. I’ve looked up autorotation but it’s still not clear to me- would you be able to help me out with how a pilot would initiate autorotation (in simple terms!)

Again, I applaud this writer’s desire to get it right. The aviation community certainly doesn’t need yet another work of fiction that misrepresents basic aerodynamic facts.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty clear that this writer does not understand how helicopters fly. This is common among non-pilots. Some folks think that the rotor disc — when the blades are spinning — works like a giant fan that keeps the helicopter in the air. Other folks — well, I don’t know what they think. But very few seem to realize that like airplanes, helicopters have wings.

Yes, wings. What do you think the rotor blades are?

Helicopters are rotary wing aircraft. This means that they have wings that rotate.

The Real Question

Although this writer seems to want an explanation of “how a pilot would initiate autorotation,” he has a bigger misunderstanding to clear up first. It all stems around these two phrases:

…a helicopter runs out of fuel and begins to drop.

and

…in order to minimize damage the pilot uses autorotation to make the helicopter somewhat stable.

The problem is that if a helicopter ran out of fuel and the engine quit (assumed), the pilot has only about 2 seconds to enter an autorotation to prevent a catastrophic crash. You don’t enter an autorotation to “make the helicopter somewhat stable.” You enter an autorotation to maintain a controlled glide to the ground that, hopefully, concludes with a landing everyone can walk away from.

Or, put it another way, in the event of an engine failure, the pilot must perform an autorotation if he wants to survive.

So in order to answer the question this writer asked, I need to first address his misunderstanding of how helicopters fly and what autorotation does.

How Helicopters Fly

Let’s start with something most people do understand — at least partially: how an airplane flies.

An airplane has at least one pair of wings that are fixed to the sides of the fuselage. The wings have a specific shape called an airfoil that makes lift possible.

When the pilot wants to take off, he rolls down the runway, gathering speed. This causes wind to flow over and under the airfoil. After reaching a certain predetermined minimum speed, the pilot pulls back on the yoke or stick which lifts the airplane’s nose. This also changes the angle of attack of the relative wind on the wings. That change produces lift and the plane takes off.

Obviously, this is an extremely simplified explanation of how airfoils, relative wind, and angle of attack produce lift. But it’s really all you need to know (unless you’re a pilot).

A helicopter’s wings — remember, they’re rotary wings — work much the same way. But instead of moving the entire aircraft to increase the relative wind over the airfoil, the wings rotate faster and faster until they get to 100% (or thereabouts; long story) RPM. Then, when the pilot wants to take off, he pulls up on a control called the collective which increases the pitch or angle of attack of all the rotor blades. That change produces lift and the helicopter takes off.

It’s important to note here that when you increase angle of attack, you also increase drag. Whether you’re in an airplane or in a helicopter, you’ll need to increase the throttle or power setting to overcome the increased drag without decreasing forward speed (airplane) or rotor RPM (helicopter).

Rotorcraft Flying HandbookIf you’re interested in learning more about lift and how helicopters fly, I highly recommend a free FAA publication called Rotorcraft Flying Handbook. This is a great guide for anyone interested in learning more about flying helicopters. You don’t need to be an aeronautical engineer to understand it, either. If the text isn’t enough to explain something, the accompanying diagrams should clear up any confusion. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

What Happens when the Engine Quits

Things get a bit more interesting when an aircraft’s engine quits.

On an airplane, the engine is used for propulsion. If the engine stops running, there’s nothing pushing the airplane forward to maintain that relative wind. Because it’s the forward speed that keeps an airplane flying, its vital to maintain airspeed above what’s called stall speed — the speed at which the wings can no longer produce lift. To maintain airspeed, the pilot pushes the airplane’s nose forward and begins a descent, thus trading altitude for airspeed. The plane glides to the ground. With luck, there’s something near the ground resembling a runway and the airplane can land safely.

On a helicopter, the engine is used to turn the rotor blades. If the engine stops running, there’s nothing driving the blades. Because it’s the spinning of the rotor blades or rotor RPM that keeps a helicopter flying, its vital to keep the rotor RPM above stall speed. The pilot pushes the collective all the way down, thus reducing drag on the rotor blades — this is how he enters autorotation. (The helicopter’s freewheeling unit has already disengaged the engine from the drive system, so the blades can rotate on their own.) The reduction of the angle of attack of the blades starts a descent, trading altitude for airspeed and rotor RPM. The helicopter glides to the ground. With luck, there’s a clearing or parking lot and the helicopter can land safely.

It’s extremely important to note that as long as the pilot maintains sufficient rotor RPM, he has full control of the helicopter all the way down to the ground. He can steer in any direction, circle an appropriate landing zone, and even fly sideways or backwards if necessary (and he has the skill and nerve!) to make the landing spot. So to say “the pilot uses autorotation to make the helicopter somewhat stable” shows complete ignorance about how autorotation works.

About 30 feet above the ground, the pilot pulls back on the cyclic to slow his forward airspeed. The resulting flare trades airspeed for rotor RPM, thus giving the main rotor blades extra speed. That comes in handy when he levels the helicopter and pulls the collective full up — thus bleeding off RPM, which he won’t need on the ground — to cushion the landing before touching the ground.

The point that needs to be made here is that helicopter engine failures and autorotations don’t always end in a crash. In fact, with a skilled pilot and a suitable landing zone, there’s no reason why it should end in a crash. So in the example presented by this writer, the helicopter doesn’t have to crash at all. It could have an engine failure and safely land in a clearing.

And here’s another newsflash: every helicopter pilot not only knows how to perform an autorotation, but he’s tested on it before he can get his pilot certificate. He’s also required to prove he can do one every two years during a biennial flight review. And if he’s like me, he’s tested annually by an FAA inspector for a Part 135 check ride.

Writers: Do Your Homework!

It’s good to see this writer trying to get the information he needs. But in my opinion, he went about it all the wrong way.

It’s been over a month since I got his emailed request for information. I never replied by email; this is my reply. Has he written his passage without the answers to his question? I have no idea. He never followed up.

But wouldn’t it have been smarter to simply talk face-to-face with a helicopter pilot? Any helicopter pilot could answer these questions and set him straight. Helicopter pilots aren’t so hard to find. Flight schools, tour operators, medevac bases, police helicopter bases, etc. Not only could the writer get his questions answered by someone who knows the answers from experience, but he could gather a wealth of information about helicopters, including their sound, why they don’t usually take off straight up, and other operation aspects. And if he visited a flight school or tour operator and had some extra money to spend, he could even go on a flight to see what it’s like from the inside of the aircraft.

Emailing a blogger who happens to write a lot about helicopters and complain when novelists get it wrong [hand raised] is downright lazy.

And despite what you might think, writing is not a job for lazy people.