When the writing is done and it’s time to prepare your passion project for commercial distribution, it’s also time to fully enter the digital age. Becoming a published author means putting your brand name and contact information out on the world wide web for all to see. Obviously authors wish to attract buyers for their books,… Continue reading Scams Targeting Authors – Are You Prepared for the Risks?
Did you know you could wield that kind of power? Why wouldn’t you be able to? You create characters from ink, visually rich scenes from words, and send readers hurtling through time on your creative whims. Of course you control time and space—you have to in order for the reader to fully experience and appreciate… Continue reading Authors Control Time and Space
What is a Beta Reader? A beta reader is a person who represents part of your target market and reads your nearly completed manuscript with the expectation that their input will help you develop plot, theme, character, pace, grammar, and spelling. They help flesh out issues you couldn’t have caught during your self-editing rounds because… Continue reading Beta Reading Cuts Editing Costs
Social media offers the perfect way to communicate directly with customers. It is possible for your content to quickly go viral, reaching a huge audience in no time. You can, however, go viral for the wrong reasons, potentially alienating those who would have bought from you. Many social media mistakes are not so catastrophic, though,… Continue reading 6 Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Need to Avoid
What are the hallmarks of an amateur novelist? This is a question I get all the time and, of course, there are many answers: poor pacing, flat dialogue, a lack of believable character development. All of these things are a death kiss for any fiction writer. However, even if all of these elements are in… Continue reading Why Theme MUST be the Foundation of Your Novel by Martin Cavannagh
by L Dalton White So, my first novel was self-published—almost self-everything—and nothing happened. The second time around, I got a new editor, professional book cover and formatting. Nothing happened. The little I knew from an online course on book marketing wasn’t helping. Do it yourself wasn’t getting it done. I wanted something to happen. Spoiler… Continue reading Publishing with a Side of Self-Sabotage
By Katherine McDermott I used to watch Jane Fonda’s exercise tape and cheer her on from the sofa. Needless to say, I didn’t build any muscle or lose weight. Getting rid of passive voice in your writing is similar to getting up off the sofa and working out with Jane. Active, present tense… Continue reading Staying Active with Word Choices
At forty-two, I herniated my L4/L5 disc and life as I knew it was over. Prior to that, I had been that person…THAT MOM. You know the type: the go-to, never-say-no, initiator-and-follow-through-er, full-of-energy-and-ideas, you-can-count-on-me type of person. I wrote course curricula for a start-up camp at church (my brain child), then was director of the… Continue reading My Herniated Disc Prepared Me for the Overwhelming World of Self-Publishing
Social Networking sites can be scary places. When the world is connected, anything can happen, and it can happen quickly too.
That’s why I’m here to talk to you today. These days, anyone can fall victim to a social networking faux pas, and from hacks and leaks to rules and regulations, there’s always something that could go wrong and damage your reputation.
You know that feeling when you hear a song on the radio and even though you have never heard it before, you know straight away who is singing it? Perhaps you don’t even need to hear the voice—the music is so distinct, it could only be them. That same unique element exists in most professionals,… Continue reading Find Your Writing Voice – “Speak up, I can’t hear you!”
My God, I am so impatient. Maybe it’s the quest for perfection, never being satisfied. I often interrupt others, hoping they will hurry up and get to their point before I fall asleep. I walk too fast, often cursing the slow walking people in front of me as I make my way through a shopping… Continue reading Patience Will Make You a Better Writer
A high percentage of books the world reads are fictional. Stories created by the imagination with totally made up plots. Characters don’t even need to be human and the six headed animals or monsters can talk in any language of your choosing. There are no limits but the imagination. And the reader is happy with… Continue reading The Fiction of Non-Fiction
When it became easy to publish, people published crap. Buckets and boatloads of it. A gate was opened, which was previously closed to just anyone dreaming of becoming a published author. Whether because of budget or ignorance, people published within days of finishing writing and screamed from the rooftops, “Look at me, I’m published!” The… Continue reading Self-Publishing 101: First Impressions
Source: 10 Inspirational videos to help authors
We all know what it’s like to be a published author: six-figure advances, translation rights sales in forty countries, Spielberg himself calling your agent begging for a film deal. And yet that isn’t always the case. In fact, most writers feel a little hard done by when it comes to remuneration for their efforts. However,… Continue reading Tax Tips for UK Authors
Having spent many long, sometimes frustrating, months writing that epic, what happens when it is finally done? You had it professionally edited and proofread—maybe—and now it is time to unleash it on unsuspecting readers. It feels good to have the thing behind you, and you can now put to bed all those characters that haunted… Continue reading How to Get Over Writing Depression
Awesome post, Mary!
Does your website look a little tired and clunky? It doesn’t dazzle you anymore? Staring at my website one day, I know that feeling. After some procrastination—there are always other things to do—I finally decided something needed to be done. Had I known what I faced, perhaps I should have procrastinated some more. A good… Continue reading “Building Your Website” by Stefan Vucak
Originally posted on M.C. Muhlenkamp:
Decisions, like most things in life, come down to priorities. I remember reading a post by Nathan Bransford a long time ago where he said something along the lines of, no project or goal is worth pushing aside the most important people in your life. Nathan, please forgive me…
Think about how much time you spend on Twitter and what you are hoping to accomplish by using Twitter. One of the most important things that can happen for you is when someone else retweets for you, right? And for you, as you work to increase your network, you are looking for things to retweet… Continue reading Pin a Tweet?
Raymond Esposito kindly gave AHA permission to use his fantastic graph that illustrates the trends and statistics from a Smashwords survey from last year. Enjoy!
So, you are a newbie author and you’re awaiting the release of your book in the next three or four months (heaven forbid, if it’s a longer wait!) After you have wrung your hands and vented to your significant other about why publishers can’t seem to get their act together, you come to a major… Continue reading “Keep Calm and Promote!” by Adite Banerjie
What is marketing indie style? When you began the very personal journey that resulted in a manuscript you then felt compelled to share with the world, you probably didn’t anticipate how difficult it would be to let people know your book is available for sale. Marketing concepts and methods are relative to the consumer’s demands, not… Continue reading Marketing Indie Style
If you are self-publishing or starting a small press, you may wonder where to distribute online and what the differences are between eBook distributors. Is there an advantage of choosing one over another?
For many, publishing a book is already a complicated enough goal. At the same time, another goal to consider is to just break even on the real money you invested in the book. As I prepare to publish my book in April 2014, I am scratching my head at the different royalties offered by different… Continue reading Royalties – JF Garrard Breaks it Down
No longer is getting published dependent on a wish and a prayer. The traditional publishing houses and their gatekeepers don’t hold the only key anymore. Advancing technology has now made it possible for anyone with average computer skills to publish themselves.
Great article! Definitely browse this site too, very well done!
A Self-Publishers Guide to Metadata In the most basic context, metadata means “data about data.” What about when we talk about self publishing—what is metadata? When was the last time you went to the library, pulled out one of the card catalog drawers and rifled through the 3×5 cards printed with the information of each, individual book… Continue reading Getting Your Book Noticed by Ethan Risso
Tips for Running a Crowd Funding Campaign Initially when I first embarked on a Kickstarter project campaign for my first book, The Undead Sorceress, I assumed that it would be a simple task. After all, the media has covered stories about people getting thousands of dollars from crowds, so how hard can collecting free money… Continue reading Tips for Running a Crowd Funding Campaign by J F Garrard
Why were Tom Clancy’s first two books, The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising so readable? Many lowbrow literary critics wouldn’t think they were well written books at all, but then, you can’t please everyone. They sold over a million copies each, so they had to have something—and I’m not talking about having… Continue reading “Injecting Emotion Into Your Writing” by Stefan Vucak
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