Lead stories from SPR’s ever-growing independent book portal
Self-Publishing Review: The Brightest Moon of the Century has its origin in a story in Months and Seasons. Why was this the character you chose to write a longer work of fiction about?
Christopher Meeks: I’d already written a few drafts of The Brightest Moon of the Century by the point I […]
Self-Publishing Review: You were married to Philip K. Dick between 1973 and 1977. How did you two meet?
Tessa Dick: Phil’s lady friend at the time, Ginger, was breaking up with him. Phil was clinging to her, so she decided to introduce him to someone else at a beach party on the 4th of […]
In the interesting and heated discussion in the post about the future of ebooks, it was raised that the environmental benefits of ebooks are one of its major advantages. While there’s not a great argument to be made that reading a book on an e-reader is preferable to reading a printed book, the environmental impact is something that does make ebooks superior to the printed word. Some do argue that it’s easier to hold an ebook reader in one hand and searchability is something they can’t do without – but generally it’s a more pleasant experience to read, and […]
Eddie Wright’s excellent Broken Bulbs is a science fictional take on addiction – but what makes the novel so good is that it is not classifiable. Here he talks about writing a hybrid screenplay/novel and the ups and downs of self-publishing.
Self-Publishing Review: How did you come to self-publish? I mention in the review that it would be hard for Broken Bulbs to get published based on its length alone. Did you consider submitting to chapbook publishers?
Eddie Wright: Self-publishing seemed to be the only real option for me because of the length and unorthodox style of Broken Bulbs. […]
[…]… authors will perceive the immense advantage of giving their own manuscripts directly to the public without the expensive interference of the type-setter, and the often ruinous intervention of the publisher. All that a man of letters need do will be to pay some attention to legibility of manuscript, arrange his pages to suit himself, and stereotype them instantaneously, as arranged. He may intersperse them with his own drawings, or with anything to please
Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords.com, talks about his ebook directory and the future of ebooks. Check out Self-Publishing Review’s post about places to list an ebook for other ebook sites.
Self-Publishing Review: First, what is Smashwords?
Mark Coker: Smashwords is a digital publishing platform and online bookstore for self-published authors and their readers.
Authors upload their manuscripts as Microsoft Word files and then we automatically convert them into nine different DRM-free ebook formats, ready for immediate sale online. Authors set the price and determine the sampling percentage, and receive 85 percent of the net sales proceeds from their books.
SPR: […]
Big publishers, when they are trying to make a bestseller, put authors on a 20-city book tour. The idea is to create media buzz, so these combine media interviews and book signings, and are rather expensive. A self-published author, however, can do something similar without breaking the bank. It won’t be 20 big cities, but you will sell books if you do it right.
The first principle here is to combine book signings with travel you were going to do anyway. Our big three-part tour last year was structured around a family reunion, three science fiction conventions, and a high […]