Smashwords Levels The Playing Field With Pre-orders Smashwords continues to offer authors more tools to help them compete with the big publishers. Pre-orders have long been inaccessible to indies. We’ve been forced to sit on the sidelines and watch with envy while traditional publishers touted their up-and-coming releases. If you’ve ever wondered how to sell […]
Status Update on Mystery Books I had promised to have the sequel to A Bullet For Carlos out by now, and I don’t. Sometimes writing doesn’t go as planned. I had one book last year that really messed up my timing, and it delayed everything. I am pleased to say that I finished A Bullet […]
eBook Distribution—Which One to Use? Last year I wrote a post comparing the pros and cons of using Smashwords or Bookbaby for ebook distribution. At the time they were the primary contenders for independent authors who wanted to get their books distributed to multiple platforms. A lot has changed in the industry since then. We […]
Creating a Successful Mystery Book When you talk about creating a mystery book, there is one huge looming question that needs to be answered first—what kind of mystery book are you talking about? A cozy mystery is different than a hard-boiled detective, and a police procedural is quite different than a thriller. Each one of […]
The only books writers buy are advice books: how to write, how to edit, how to create dynamic plots. The list goes on and on. But writers do not buy fiction books. Excuse Me While I Dodge Stones I know. I hear all the writers screaming. I buy books. A lot of books. I understand […]
Why Do I Need A Copy Editor? The online bookstores are overflowing. Bowker Identification Services estimates there will be more than 300,000 new books published in 2013. Along with all of that new reading material comes a significant increase in the number of complaints from reviewers citing mistakes in those books, and most of the […]
What Do Your Characters Look Like? Have you ever seen a movie where the characters look nothing like what you thought they would from the book? It’s a little disappointing isn’t it? And it makes it more difficult for that character to win the audience over if they start out with a negative. The question […]
Every now and then I do a post to give thanks to the huge number of wonderful people I’ve met since I started on this publishing journey. These are people who go out of their way to help others, usually strangers, and they do it out of the goodness of their heart. Literary agents are often […]
Decisions About Independent Publishing The best part about being an independent author is you get to make all the decisions yourself. Nobody tells you what to do. You decide on the story, the characters, pick your own book cover, hire your own editor, choose fonts, all of it. It’s a great, wonderful feeling. But there’s […]
Mistakes Show Up in Many Ways Imagine buying a new computer only to discover that the percentage key doesn’t work, or that five pixels on your screen aren’t working. Or how about a new refrigerator, and the first time you have guests over you discover the ice maker taps out after half an hour. (I’ve […]
