Member Blog

E-book services come and go. With the current state of the economy, even some of the biggest publishers and services are struggling to survive in the market. Scribd has just heavily reduced its e-book service. Oyster, at one point an industry giant, has just announced its complete closure.

For self-publishers, these e-book platforms are a saving grace for distribution, so committing to a service only to find that it’s gone under can be extremely frustrating! Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of services you can rely on to stay open this year and many more years to come.

Amazon’s Kindle […]

It’s an interesting time to be a writer. On the one hand, we have more opportunities than ever to make money online, either through freelance work or creating passive sources of writing income, and we have the online tools to help us do it. On the other hand, there is such an overload of online writing tools and services that it can cause choice paralysis and make it difficult to know which are worth using.

Some writing tools, such as grammar checkers and free book cover creation services, can assist the writing process and let you focus your time on […]

Choosing the right title for your self-published book is difficult. It’s been proven that your choice of title can have a significant impact on sales.

It’s worrying to think that after all the hours crafting your work it might still sink – all because of a few words on the cover!

This FAQ answers some of the key questions related to finding a great title for your book.

1. Does genre matter?

Many fans of specific book genres use a book’s title as an important factor when considering whether it is right for them. If you are writing within a […]

It’s a proven fact that the more time you spend writing, the better at writing you will become. Writers who write out of passion do not have a problem with this. They write each day because it is a necessity rather than a habit, effort, or obligation. On the other hand, some writers tend to have difficulty developing a daily writing routine. One thing that separates successful writers from unsuccessful writers is commitment. When one is committed to the task at hand, their chances of success increases exponentially.

If you’re struggling to form a routine of daily writing, try journaling.  […]

All the new and self-published writers know how hard it is to sell a book, it is not a new subject and one shouldn’t be surprised at all if this doesn’t catch your attention. But I am not only a new and self-published author but also a non-native-English writer and doesn’t even live in a country where people mostly speak English.

I actually live in Hong Kong, one of the most expensive metropolitans of the world where everything starts and ends with money, 95% of the population is Chinese origin, and due to the immediate impact of China’s huge influences […]

When you hear the word dyslexia, the first thought that comes to your mind may be some type of inversion such as reading backwards.

However, dyslexia is more than just that. Dyslexia is a disorder that refers to people with normal intelligence levels who have trouble reading. Though it affects about one in twenty people, the cause has remained somewhat elusive. For treatment, researchers have discovered that the most effective way for dyslexics to become more efficient at reading is to read more.

As such, the search for ways that have the potential to make reading easier for dyslexics has […]

When you see the word ‘adventure,’ you probably think of action, travel, and the outdoors. You don’t naturally think of writing. However, I beg to defer. 

I define adventure as something new, challenging, and perhaps frightening. In almost all cases, it’s all consuming. Deciding to do it and then executing it despite the fear is what makes it an adventure. And, writing a memoir has been an adventure to say the least.

My debut memoir, When All Balls Drop, started as journal entries. I know it doesn’t sound that adventurous, but it was my way of navigating all that occurred […]