A bit of circular referencing led me to some very enjoyable reading today, beginning right here at selfpublishingreview.com. I had written a blog post about giving away my stories via Smashwords and Feedbooks, and one of the people commenting on the post was Moxie Mezcal. At the same time, I had come across a reference to an e-book called Broken Bulbs, by Eddie Wright, which sounded intriguing, and thought I had seen it on Smashwords at one time. I searched for it on Smashwords, and found it, discovering at the same time that one of the people who […]
The playing field of publishing has tilted, but it hasn’t leveled by any means. The vast majority of books sold still involve the cutting down of a tree and the passing through of some very tiny gates. But it is has tilted, and if you step back, and make a little director’s square with your hands, you’ll see that it is skewed in favor of those who understand the digital world.
There is no doubt that some of the Big Six (BS) will alter course to swing their mammoth tankers towards the unchartered waters of the social consumer. Others will […]
Simon Royle2011-10-08T17:23:23+02:00September 15th, 2010|Categories: Features|
When I started publishing my writing, I did not plan on becoming an ebook seller. I was focused on how to get my books printed, set up a website, and list them in Amazon. Then I noticed an option on a menu in Adobe InDesign. I used that software to design my books, but it also had a choice that said “make ebook”. This produced a PDF file with a resolution suitable for screen viewing and a clickable table of contents.
I remember looking at the “make ebook” option and thinking, “Who would want an ebook?” I then recalled a […]
To be an author is to get paid for writing. I’ve heard this often enough that I’ve become quite comfortable with not being an author. Instead, I am someone who makes up stories and gives them away for free on the internet. I have always wanted to do this, but until the past year or so, it was not a serious option. Now, thanks to the emergent convergence of e-books and e-readers and iPads and iPhones and Androids and all the other great stuff coming out, it is not only an option, but the perfect one for me.
I have a daughter. Last night we were playing around with the site GirlSense.com. On the site you can design different fashions and accessories, as well as buy the fashion creations of other users. I’ve seen other avatar makers in the past, but the amount of detail you can do on these clothes, bags, shoes, etc. is pretty amazing.
And it occurred to me that this will be the future of fashion. Visions of the future often put people in identical silver jumpsuits, as if we’ve “gotten over” our obsession with outward appearances. But fashion is a creative pursuit. […]
Henry Baum2011-10-08T17:11:32+02:00August 31st, 2010|Categories: Features|
Some people blow through a book in a day or two, while others take a couple of weeks or more. Many people just inhale them like a sweet breeze, one after the other, without stopping in between. I’m worse than that — I just forget the endings of books I enjoy. (Truth is, I don’t even finish books I don’t love.) To most avid readers, books are not only an unquestionable right, but they are taken for granted as a vital component of life.
It’s like when the tourists cruise through the Sistine Chapel, look up and say, “Look honey, […]
How often have we seen reclusive authors condescendingly sneering at the mob from the top of their ivory towers, smirking at the mere prospect of marketing their books themselves? Authors that feel entitled to being read by the sheer virtue of them writing, and who equate marketing with whoring themselves, something better left to the sycophantic merchant class?
To those, I would pertinently quote from the movie Gladiator:
LUCILLA: The gods have spared you. Today I saw a slave become more powerful than the Emperor of Rome.
MAXIMUS: The gods have spared me? I am at their mercy with
Dean Koontz has made the observation that novels are like annuities, earning income for writers over a lifetime. Well, that’s true for Koontz and a handful of writers who manage to keep books in print and on the shelves.
Given the constraints of shelf space, the product pipeline that requires a 30-day flushing of “out with the old, in with the new,” and the vagaries of sales numbers and warehousing, the publishing-industry model almost guarantees a writer will have NO books on the shelf in their old age, precisely the time when they need income the most […]
To be an author is to get paid for writing. I’ve heard this often enough that I’ve become quite comfortable with not being an author. Instead, I am someone who makes up stories and gives them away for free on the internet. I have always wanted to do this, but until the past year or so, it was not a serious option. Now, thanks to the emergent convergence of e-books and e-readers and iPads and iPhones and Androids and all the other great stuff coming out, it is not only an option, but the perfect one for me.
I have a daughter. Last night we were playing around with the site GirlSense.com. On the site you can design different fashions and accessories, as well as buy the fashion creations of other users. I’ve seen other avatar makers in the past, but the amount of detail you can do on these clothes, bags, shoes, etc. is pretty amazing.
Some people blow through a book in a day or two, while others take a couple of weeks or more. Many people just inhale them like a sweet breeze, one after the other, without stopping in between. I’m worse than that — I just forget the endings of books I enjoy. (Truth is, I don’t even finish books I don’t love.) To most avid readers, books are not only an unquestionable right, but they are taken for granted as a vital component of life.
