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The novella begins by introducing the titular monolith of the book, a gargantuan bull from Kansas whose moniker quickly evolves from “Son of Carleton” to the ironic “Carlito,” to “Big Carl” and finally, to the ultimate compliment: “Carlos the Impossible.” By the time he’s been drafted for […]
1. How did you come to self-publish? Did you try to get published traditionally?
At the time that I was editing the first book of my series, I was querying agents for a good year. I’ve gotten good feedback, but not one agent had ever said, “Send me the rest of the manuscript.” And it had gotten to where I had, at the time, two and a half manuscripts, and about two rejections per chapter.
I gave myself a promise that if by my birthday I wouldn’t secure an agent, I would […]
I also hate books; old yellow brittle pages on a book barely 10 years old, peeling laminate on paperback covers or dust jackets that can’t handle use and rip easily. Dust on library shelves that, once disturbed, can send you into a coughing seizure. […]
My usual blogging direction is toward the ebook author and the self-publishing world. With this blog I take a left turn and explore the Amazon Library Lending Process and how it affects the ebook ecosystem.
The Jungle
The Inhabitants
In the ebook jungle, the traditional publishers are indeed the king of beasts. They control the prices and the access to the ebooks. Even the authors who create the content have little say. If publishers don’t want you to borrow one of their titles, you can’t. If they want you to wait for a title, you wait.
The next level of […]
I came from the screenwriting world, and quite frankly, I was a bit fed up with all the blockades set up to stop talented people from succeeding. I see it every day. I had a stack of screenplays and outlines of stories that everyone seemed to enjoy, including managers and producers, but I wasn’t a schmoozer, which makes it harder to break in. After several close calls with success, a friend suggested that I switch to writing novels. I did some research and decided to self-publish […]
By Wesley Craig Green – a writer of comics & movies, occasional entrepreneur, pop culture junkie, and lover of all things 70s.
Till only a few years ago, making a successful go at self-publishing (by “successful”, I mean having a growing audience which actively supports your work) was not the norm. For every Jeff Smith, there were a hundred self-publishers who put out anywhere from one to five issues of their self-publishing creation before they either ran out of funding or drive. This isn’t to say they or their book(s) were a failure. Far from it. It just means the […]
“One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film.”
– Stanley Kubrick
Not to pick an undebatable point with one of the greatest creative minds in recent history, but having produced a novel (yes, produced – more on that later) it’s fairly clear that all the author traditionally does is put the words together pretty. Write the manuscript. What usually follows in the process is turning it over to proofers and editors, lawyers who vet the prose […]
When I published my first book, “Chasing the Runner’s High”, Amazon had two royalty plans for ebooks published through their Kindle Direct Publishing program. One paid 35% and one paid 70%. It looked like a no-brainer. Who wouldn’t prefer to get 70% of the price of each book sold instead of 35%? The main restriction was that I had to set the list price of my ebook between $2.99 and $9.99 to qualify for the 70% program.
Amazon controls about 70% of the ebook market. They set the rules and everyone else follows. So there are a lot of […]