ISBNs For eBooks Many authors choose not to buy ISBNs for ebooks, although under certain circumstances— especially with distributors—you still need them. Depending on which distributor you use, you might have to pay a small amount for that unique identifying number. I know that Smashwords and Draft2Digital offer them free. Bookbaby and eBookpartnership and a few others charge a small amount—Bookbaby charges $19, […]
Markdown Spices Up Your Writing Markdown was developed by John Gruber. Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). The above was taken from Gruber’s website. I shied away from trying Markdown for a […]
Don’t Ignore The Copy Editor If you’ve ever wondered what a copy editor can do for you, you’re not alone. It’s a decision that thousands of self-published authors face each day, and many of them choose not to engage a pro. I think that’s a decision made on budget and not on common sense. I’ve put […]
How Does Author Visibility Affect Book Sales? Before we get into visibility, let’s talk about invisibility and how great it is. Animals have been using invisibility in one form or another for a long time: moths, butterflies, snakes, caterpillars, chameleons, octopuses, lots of fish, and many others. (For a picture of an unbelievable stick caterpillar, check out […]
Will a Casual Profile Picture Doom Me To Mediocrity? When I first uploaded my profile picture on LinkedIn, I had a number of friends and associates tell me, in no uncertain terms, that I should use a different one. “Something more professional,” they said. I’m not one to ignore advice without checking, so I looked […]
Building a Library Presence With Smashwords and Overdrive There has been a lot of talk about Smashwords’ deal with Overdrive. Some people claim that indie authors have been relegated to an “indie ghetto” and that librarians won’t even be able to find an indie author’s books if they wanted to. Let’s examine that for a […]
Launch of A Bullet From Dominic I’m thrilled to announce the long-awaited launch of my new mystery book— A Bullet From Dominic, the sequel to A Bullet For Carlos, in the Blood Flows South series. A Bullet From Dominic features Detective Connie Gianelli and Tip Denton, with a special appearance by Hector “Ribs” Delgado, who you will recognize from Necessary […]
CreateSpace VS Ingram Spark Print Book Distribution Last week I did the first part of this comparison. You can view it here. This week concludes the post. Weighing the Other Factors Any time that you are comparing services and products, it turns out to be far more complex than you thought it was going to […]
CreateSpace VS Ingram Spark Print Book Distribution I’ve seen a lot of comparisons between CreateSpace (CS) and Ingram (either Lightning Source or Spark). In almost every instance I walk away thinking that it wasn’t a fair comparison. And almost every discussion I’ve seen tends to be the same. The one common ground is that many […]
Email Is Still the Best Marketing Tool This post is for anyone who needs to build an email marketing/subscriber list. I’m an author, so it is written from that point of view. I think that most authors are finally seeing the light and are starting to wonder, “how do I build an email list?” And […]
