Articles, how-to’s, opinion and tips and tricks in the self-publishing arena
Thank You SPR
Free eBook Promotions Can Be Pure Gold for Authors
Well it’s time for another Free Book Promotion. The last one pushed by mystery novel, Black Mountain Secrets, up the Amazon ranking ladder to number ten. But it was definitely a learning experience.
One lesson I learned was you needed more than a general goal of being a successful writer. Giving your work away for nothing had to have a purpose for me. I know some authors refuse to give their books away. Being a relatively new author, I needed to get my work out in the reader’s hands.
As I always do in this type of situation, I […]
Don’t Fear The Pirates
Damien Walter, blogging for The Guardian, explains why piracy not only need not be a concern for independent authors, it may be just what they need.
Genre writers exist, by and large, in the publishing mid-list, where mediocre sales might seem most easily eroded by the spectre of illegitimate downloads. SF, fantasy and horror are also the literature of choice for the culture of geeks most likely to share their favourite authors’ works on torrent sites.
This is not as much a problem as an opportunity, Walter explains:
[…]Novelist, blogger and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow
Be There
Photojournalists have an old saying: “f/8 and be there.” I have a very limited knowledge of photography, but as I understand it, this means that if you want to get a good photo, you set your f-stop (the aperture setting on your camera lens) to f/8 to make sure that most of what you’re shooting is in focus. At that point, your task is to make sure you are in place to get the shot when something happens. You won’t get a good shot of the mayor flipping off the city council or the cute kid shaking the president’s hand […]
Watch A Pro At Work
Here’s an opportunity to get a glimpse of a pro editor at work. This blog post from The New Yorker, in 2007, shows the development of Raymond Carver’s classic story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” in the hands of his editor, Gordon Lish.
[…]The following document compares the original draft of “Beginners” with the final version of the story, retitled “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” edited by Gordon Lish, and published in a collection of the same name by Alfred A. Knopf. Additions to Carver’s draft appear in bold; a
Guy Kawasaki On Artisanal Publishing
I recently read Guy Kawasaki’s book APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish Your Book, and it was full of extremely useful, practical information. It was also funny, engaging, and inspiring. A couple of months ago, Kathy Caprino talked with Kawasaki for Forbes.com.
Caprino writes:
[…]And if you’re considering self-publishing a book, make the first resource you read Guy’s new book APE: Author- Publisher – Entrepreneur – How to Publish a Book co-written by Shawn Welch. I don’t recommend resources lightly, but as one who worked in traditional publishing for years and had my own book Breakdown, Breakthrough
Working With An Agent
A recent guest post, by Melissa Foster, on Jane Friedman’s blog offered some interesting insights on agent-assisted self-publishing and Amazon’s White Glove Program:
With independent author success on the rise, the role of agents has taken a precarious turn for the unknown. Many agents are seeing fewer sales and lower advances (which equates to lower income), and are looking for ways to keep their heads above water. One path that some have taken is agent-assisted self-publishing.”Read more.
[…]Agent-assisted means different things to different agents. Some agents help an author self-publish, literally. This means they format
Hugh Howey’s Advice for Writers
[…]While working in a bookstore in Boone, North Carolina, back in 2011, a 36-year-old college dropout named Hugh Howey started writing a series of sci-fi novellas called Wool. His stories were set in a postapocalyptic world where all human survivors live in an underground silo, a microsociety where resources are so scarce that one person has to die before another can be born. Howey had already published a book with a small press, but he wanted to retain creative control, and