Articles, how-to’s, opinion and tips and tricks in the self-publishing arena
One thing to avoid “image desperation.” That’s when a novice publisher is so desperate to have an image, any image, that he or she will “make […]
When, a few years ago, I started writing a book, friends would ask me what it was about. I’d say it was about a lot of things – a world where no one believes in anything, conspiracy theory, drugs, the lost dreams of the Sixties and Seventies – but that wasn’t what they wanted to hear. They wanted to know what the story was. In truth, there wasn’t much of one. I thought I could write a novel based on ideas rather than character and story.
I may have been extraordinarily naïve, but it took me a while to come […]
I published my novel, “Dead Spell”, myself and not necessarily because I had to, but because I wanted to. It’s niche genre fiction and has found its home in the horror community at large. Some of the reviews have been beyond my wildest dreams awesome and from their content, I can tell I really reached my readers on the intended deeply emotional level.
I’m a huge fan of the independent publishing movement, if it’s done right. Writing is a craft that one hones over years and years of practice and persistence. It requires a commitment to quality and form and […]
There’s a common belief among writers that the route through New York and then to America’s bookshelves is the best way to build an audience. Certainly, there are plenty of advantages to letting someone else worry about all that paperwork, especially when they are earning most of the money.
But I don’t think we can automatically assume that being on store shelves is going to grow your audience better than self-publishing. In fact, I believe the exact opposite. I believe anyone wrapped up under contract for the next […]
Penguin discovered the power of the cover in the late ’90s when the company hired several graphic artists to design new covers for its Modern Classics series. The experiment proved a huge success with the under 25 demographic. Sales soared.
In the March, 2006, meeting of the Association of American Publishers, Marcella Smith, director of small press relations for Barnes […]
1. Self-publishing is a way of opening the doors to the weird and the wonderful that otherwise wouldn’t be published.
Everyone knows that the easiest thing about self-publishing today is the publishing bit. The hard part is the selling. But here’s the rub: Self-publishing favours the familiar. It favours non-fiction over fiction, genre fiction over the literary.
Genre is giving people what they expect, literary novels are about giving people what they don’t expect. (I’m not making value judgements here, I enjoy […]
As the ebook industry progresses and the major players compete, it seems we are headed in several directions at once. Self-publishing authors are confused where to start with all the various formats and devices and platforms to publish on.
The major players are bent on keeping control of their domain as they clash with each other for control of the industry. You have Amazon and Barnes and Noble in a struggle for control of the online distribution business and the sale of low end ereaders.
Then you have Apple and the ipad and ibooks positioned a notch-up in price.
Following […]
The opening day seminar debate last week at the London Book Fair asked the provocative question: ‘Will publishers in the digital age soon be irrelevant?’ It was always a debate destined to be a little heated. It isn’t just provocative but also suggests there is an alternative destiny for the book publishing industry to the one envisaged by many commercial publishing houses.
The debate was hosted by Susan Danziger, CEO of DailyLit and organizer of the Publishing Point, and moderated by Michael Healy, executive director of the Book Rights Registry. Richard Charkin, executive director of Bloomsbury Publishing and Andrew Franklin, […]