lulu | Self-Publishing Review

What Self-Publishing Isn’t

Here are four things I keep hearing about self-publishing. Unfortunately I don’t believe any of them are true.

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 […]

Roland Denning2011-05-12T15:00:27+02:00May 12th, 2011|Categories: Features|

Do Publishers Have a Purpose in the Digital Age?

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, […]

Mick Rooney2011-04-28T10:06:05+02:00April 28th, 2011|Categories: Features, Lead Story|

My First Self-Publishing Experience

To introduce myself, my name is Ashly Lorenzana. I’m twenty-three years old and I live in Portland, OR where I’ve worked as an escort for over five years. Over these last several years, I kept a personal journal/blog about my life in general, both as an escort and a drug addict. I never thought anything of it, until I was contacted by a local published author (who wished to remain anonymous) who asked me if I’d ever considered publishing it. Surprised, I wrote him back and said no, it was just my silly journal. He told me he was even […]

Ashly Lorenzana2011-04-28T10:01:14+02:00April 28th, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|

How To Go Bankrupt Thanks to Really Great Reviews

This is a story about book returns. It’s also a story about the bookstore system and what’s not working. You’ll also hear how success can crush the self-publisher.

It’s not my story. I didn’t go bankrupt—but I could have. What I aim to do here is tell you my experience of publishing well-reviewed books and what you might do in this ever-changing publishing world to get ahead.

Here I can’t get into is how to write a really great book. Let’s assume you know what you’re doing, and once you write the great book, you hire a professional editor and […]

Christopher Meeks2011-04-18T16:41:51+02:00April 18th, 2011|Categories: Features, Lead Story|

Interview: Theresa Moore

1. How did you come to self-publish? Did you try to get published traditionally?
When I was a teenager I started writing short stories and did not think about getting published until I was about 18. I studied up on the principles of publishing and sent my first manuscript off to an agent. After that I started getting rejections, but real life got in the way and I put it aside. I spent about 20 years doing something else, which never made me happy. Then I started writing again when I joined a fan club, and have been writing ever […]

Theresa M. Moore2011-04-08T18:52:28+02:00April 8th, 2011|Categories: Interviews|

We’re All Indie This Together – a reply to Dan Holloway

Dan Holloway wrote a very interesting piece questioning the ‘success’ of indie authors. I have a lot of respect and affection for Dan’s work, but he left me scratching my head at one point. For a start, I’m not really sure what ‘indie’ writer means. Nor am I convinced by his distinction between ‘mainstream’ and ‘edgy’.

The concepts of ‘underground’ or ‘counter culture’ or even ‘alternative’ don’t really apply today – there are just various levels of distribution. To quote from Mark Fisher – ‘alternative and ‘independent’ don’t designate something outside mainstream culture; rather they are styles, in fact […]

Roland Denning2011-04-08T14:57:05+02:00April 8th, 2011|Categories: Features|

How to get your book reviewed – by avoiding book reviewers.

To have a chance at selling your book on amazon or online, you need reviews. Lots of them. And if you’re like me, you hate pushing all your friends and family to review your work (is it really fair to ask them?) and leave comments. So most authors do this:

1) Search online for book reviews, indie book reviewers, self-published book reviews, how to get book reviews, etc.

2) Email or contact those reviewers asking them to take a look at their books and comment.

Here’s why that doesn’t work. First of all – those few sites that offer […]

Derek Murphy2013-05-27T15:49:08+02:00April 3rd, 2011|Categories: Features, Lead Story, Resources|Tags: Book Marketing Advice and Tips, Book Promotion Articles, Book Reviews|

Self-Publishing Killed the Vanity Press

Jane Friedman makes this very interesting point:

Right now, Author Solutions is the biggest self-publishing/POD service company in the world. Over the last decade, they’ve bought up the most significant competitors, such as iUniverse, Xlibris, and Trafford. Their growth has been astronomical and reported on by outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Inc. magazine.

To keep growing their business, they’ve been soliciting and establishing partnerships with traditional publishers, to set up new self-publishing brands that they exclusively service, such as Harlequin’s Horizons and Thomas Nelson’s West Bow. They’ve also started an author education arm.

[…]

Henry Baum2011-03-25T21:59:58+02:00March 25th, 2011|Categories: Features|

UK Unpublished Review

In 2005, David Buttle, a financial accountant, began to look at the development of ebooks long before many publishers and authors acknowledged their significance. He decided to set up UKUnpublished, with the idea of producing ebooks in an attempt to make them a more popular medium. With the advent of DRM (Digital Rights Management) by traditional publishers and a developing and complex medium, he shelved the project. He began to look again at self-publishing and the growing number of authors he was hearing of, frustrated with paying high service fees to so-called self-publishing services. He revisited his UKUnpublished project […]

Mick Rooney2017-02-12T09:07:08+02:00March 16th, 2011|Categories: Publisher Reviews|Tags: Subsidy Publishing Articles|

Pyjama Press Review

The Pyjama Press was founded by Irish photographer Steve Walsh and is predominantly based in the UK and France where he spends much of his time. Offering a wide variety of publishing and design services, from book publishing, website design, editing, critique, mentoring and consultancy, the Pyjama Press deals with book projects submitted on an individual basis. Walsh identified an untapped potential for an author solutions service on the continent of Europe and set up a workshop in Talmont sur Gironde with professional artist, writer and editor, Avenda Burnell. So taken by the beauty and historical location, a collection […]