Lela Michael | Self-Publishing Review

Eyeballing: Project Gutenberg Launches Self-Published Ebooks Project

A new social community for self-published eBook authors was announced yesterday:

From Project Gutenberg, the first producer of free eBooks, now comes the free Author’s Community Cloud Library, a social network Self Publishing Portal. This portal allows authors to share their works with our readers as well as allows readers to provide comments, reviews and feedback to the authors. Every eBooks has its own detail page with ratings and Wall for displaying reader comment.

There is no charge for using this service and registration is not required for reading or downloading the publications or comments. However, registration is required to

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Lela Michael2012-12-20T11:46:12+02:00July 5th, 2012|Categories: News|

Review: Feast or Famine by Augustus Cileone

As a child, Michael Accordo longs for a balanced diet. As a young man, he seeks to balance mixed signals from his parents, his religion, and his culture in general.

The novel is structured as though we are reading a transcript of reflective conversations recorded in 1987 between an adult Michael and Ambrosia, a close friend. While Ambrosia is a psychiatric professional, she is not officially his therapist. This softens the story a bit so it doesn’t devolve into self-help pseudo-memoir territory.

Michael begins his reflections in the 1950s with a focus on food as it relates to his family […]

Lela Michael2012-07-03T17:15:40+02:00July 3rd, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Literary Fiction Book Reviews|

Self-Publishing News: Ebook Sales and Resales, Losing the Plot, Fighting for Libraries

In this round-up: the Smashwords July sale for either hemisphere, GalleyCat’s weekly lists of eBook sales ranks, new legal ruling in Europe on eBook resale, a lengthy opinion piece deconstructing why The Authors Guild among other things attempts to invoke sympathy for PublishAmerica, and a save-the-libraries campaign from The Bookseller.

Enroll Your Books in the 2012 Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale (July 1 – 31):

Here in the Northern hemisphere, it’s mid-summer. Readers everywhere are loading up their e-reading devices for summer beach reading and vacations. But what about the good people South of the equator, who are now in the middle

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Lela Michael2012-12-20T11:41:43+02:00July 3rd, 2012|Categories: News|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Book Promotion Articles, Smashwords Tips and Articles|

Say When: Publication Readiness

As a self-publishing author, you are Chairman of the Publishing Board and Chief Operating Officer, deciding for yourself, by yourself when to hit the publish button. But what informs your conclusion that today is The Day?

One of the biggest chores is to tidy up first. Author Deborah Niemann comments on the trials and tribulations of proofreading with lots of help:

One thing that will never cease to amaze me about writing a book is how many mistakes there are in the galley, even though the author has read and revised multiples times, and a professional editor has read and

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Lela Michael2020-02-21T06:11:30+02:00July 2nd, 2012|Categories: Member Blog|Tags: Book Editing Tips|

Permission to Delay: Writing Under Pressure

Self-published authors set their own writing goals. If you fail to write according to your schedule, you answer only to yourself. There may be outside pressure from people who mock your claim to be a “real” writer, but the biggest pressure is internal. The toughest person to answer to is your own self.

Over at Cecile’s Writers, Cecile worries about not writing when she’s worried. In a post titled “Why Bother?” she confronts her lack of output:

And why not? What’s keeping me? I can find countless excuses: I need to work extra hours; I need to spend

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Lela Michael2012-12-20T11:45:07+02:00July 1st, 2012|Categories: Member Blog|

Gee, Thanks! – Ebook Promotion & Giveaways

Media Bistro has put together a list of places where self-published authors can promote their eBook at no charge. The list was culled from Kindle Boards:

We’ve collected more information about the sites in a simple directory below, linking to the submission pages for these eBook sites. If you are an avid eBook reader, these sites are great for finding new books to read as well….

Note that there is a difference between free promotion (regardless of price) and promoting a free eBook, so read carefully. Also check the comments section under the Media Bistro post for possible additional links.[…]

Lela Michael2019-02-03T08:55:55+02:00June 30th, 2012|Categories: Resources|Tags: Book Promotion Articles|

You Too Can Be a Local Author: Ebooks in Libraries

For self-published authors, public meet and greet options may be slim, depending on how many bookstores are left in your neighborhood. Now, there are new opportunities on the horizon. From Library Journal:

The San Mateo-based Califa Group, which is the largest library network in California, has made major strides in its project to create an ebook ownership model along the same lines as the Douglas County Libraries in Colorado.

If you publish with Smashwords, your eBook could one day be in a library in one of two ways:

Under the deal with Smashwords, a four-year-old rapidly rising self-publishing platform

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Lela Michael2012-07-03T13:53:05+02:00June 28th, 2012|Categories: News|Tags: Smashwords Tips and Articles|

Book Dreams and Schemes: Questionable Promotion Offers

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware has a warning for self-published authors about a couple of promotion “opportunities,” part of her series of posts on the topic.

The first of the “suite of services,” the Hollywood Book-to-Movie Treatment, costs a cool $3,299. For that, you get a 7-10 page “creative adaptation” of your book written by a screenwriter. Which screenwriter? What are his/her credits? Sorry, that info is not available. …

It hurts my heart, and my brain, to think that authors might actually shell out this kind of money for services that would likely net them zero results even if

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Lela Michael2012-12-20T11:42:50+02:00June 27th, 2012|Categories: Resources|Tags: Book Promotion Articles|