Features

Articles, how-to’s, opinion and tips and tricks in the self-publishing arena

Amazon Has Some REAL Good News and They Have Some Great News for e-Textbook and eBook Users

What do you want to read first?

Ok. We will start with the REAL good news.

Amazon has announced changes to their Kindle software. First they are going to display page numbers. This is a feature that academic Kindle and ebook users have been asking for since e-textbooks and ebooks started to appear. It has raised a large page numbering controversy and a lot of misconceptions.

The Nook does this and the iPad does that. Both for the most part use device page numbers and not physical book page numbers but who’s keeping track. (PDF versions are an exception.)[…]

2019-02-18T12:23:14+02:00February 9th, 2011|Categories: Features|Tags: |

Self-Publishing: Some advice for emerging writers.

The slushpile, Tor, the Flatiron Building, New York City, New York, USA.JPG
Creative Commons License photo credit: gruntzooki

I’ve been seeing a lot of conversation going on lately about self-publishing and how it relates to emerging writers. This is a topic that I’m quite interested in, having both considered the possibility of self-publishing and applied the term ’emerging’ to myself and my writing. So I thought I’d take a moment and explore my own thoughts surrounding the subject and give some advice on how to make the best of the current scene.

Broadly speaking, I’m in favour of self-publishing as a thing. As far as I’m concerned, the more options an artist has to distribute […]

2011-02-08T19:34:06+02:00February 8th, 2011|Categories: Features|

Is Google the future of eBooks?

As I’ve mentioned, I love my Kindle (I really do), but I’m not crazy in love with the Kindle store. I went to download a book the other day, and and it seriously took me like fifteen minutes to pull the trigger. The problem wasn’t the $9.99 I was paying — I would have gladly paid more for a physical copy. The problem was that if I pay ten bucks for something I want it to me be mine. I don’t want it to be locked in some device that I may or may not still have […]

2011-02-03T10:45:57+02:00February 3rd, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|

What Makes the Top Selling eBook Authors Tick?

Sometimes when I am Google Reading in the World of the eBook Author, I come across a post that takes me back in time. A post that brings back memories of my early business career. Oh, the world of Peter Drucker, Parkinson’s Law and the Peter Principle.

Daniel Hall did that with a blog on the Selling Books blog site: USING THE “LONG TAIL” IN WRITING AND MARKETING YOUR BOOKS. Selling Books  is a great marketing blog for eBook Authors.

The essence of his post was the story of the longevity of a digital book.
First. eBook sales […]

2020-02-21T03:35:51+02:00February 3rd, 2011|Categories: Features|Tags: |

Every ‘No’ Not A Roadblock

The R-word just won’t go away. I’m talking about rejection. Writers know it well.

As an independent author, rejection is just a painful part of the game. I didn’t mail my manuscript to a hundreds of publishers like other authors, but I did mail it to several over the years. And, well, you know the rest.

However, my story is a little different because I finally got a “nice” rejection from a major publisher. And when I say nice I just mean the editor liked my book, but those with the decision-making power did not. The one who liked my […]

2011-01-28T23:10:28+02:00January 28th, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|

A Note from the New Guy

Hello, everyone.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a few days now, but prior commitments have kept me from it. Now that I’m here, I want to take a moment to introduce myself directly.

Name’s Todd. I’ve been involved in self/indie publishing for the last 7 years. I had my first taste of it in college, when I interned for my university’s under-funded literary journal. That same year I raised money to do a very limited, offset run of my first short story collection. In ’07 I utilized Lulu’s services to release a novel; in ’10, I utilized […]

2017-03-24T09:52:21+02:00January 16th, 2011|Categories: Features|

Ads in eBooks

Even though it’s an idea in infancy, writers and readers are already appalled at the prospect of ads in books, but it is as inevitable as rain.

As soon as the dream of making riches as a writer fades from public consciousness (and Stephen King quits featuring bestselling writers as characters), then only a peculiar, suspect group will still be writing. For every Joe Konrath, there are 100,000 people selling a book a week or one a month. I have books ranked all up and down the scale so I have a pretty good idea of what a ranking […]

2011-10-08T16:36:27+02:00January 7th, 2011|Categories: Features|

The Time Is Now: Independent Publishing 2.0

Independent writers have the opportunity of a lifetime. We are on the cusp of a revolution in breaking open the audience for our work. Millions of e-readers were opened under the tree, and all of us writers are standing on the sidelines watching and hoping and wringing our hands that our work will be chosen to be downloaded.

And we need our shit to be good. Really fucking good. Like so good, that grandma may actually break her 40-year streak in reading crime novels and read your anthology of shorts. We have this opportunity to kill the conventional publishing machine […]

2011-10-08T16:37:38+02:00January 7th, 2011|Categories: Features|
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