Joel Friedlander is always a wonderful resource. Today’s “Mailbag” covers some important questions about copyright and ISBNs, as well as some questions about vendors and formatting decisions. Check it out!
Category Archives: Publishing
Some Helpful Advice on Copyright, ISBNs, and More
Author Beware … Publishing Predators Are Breeding…
Thanks, Chris, for another important article. Here is my comment on this article at The Book Shepherd:
I’m amazed that so many people will pay these sums to be published when CreateSpace will do it for free. All you need is a Word file and a cover. Sorry, my CreateSpace book looks just fine. I suppose there are genius cover designers out there who could have done a better cover than DigitalDonna.com did for me, but I’d be surprised to discover them at a reasonable cost.I went with Ingram first; again, nothing wrong with the 22 books I purchased at cost ($168). At Ingram, you will pay $49 for publication, and you must, indeed should, buy your own ISBN, since if you choose CreateSpace first, they will own the ISBN. Three hundred dollars for 10 ISBNs you can use for your entire series is a lot less than the numbers being discussed in these comments.
I formatted my own interior, which cost me $20 a month for my subscription to Adobe InDesign. On my blog [this blog!], I’m doing a series on how I conquered InDesign.
Believe me, it’s not that hard.
I hope writers will use the funds they are paying for these services to find good professional editors and cover designers. And I second Judith’s point that being traditionally published does NOT mean that you will get stellar marketing. In the end, you will do that for yourself. Why not do it all?
(And I second a comment that recommended Smashwords. Not only will Mark Coker walk you through the ebook-creation process, he will publish your ebook absolutely free!)
What about you? Do you have any tales to tell about your publishing adventures? Help us all “beware.”
Article extract from Judith Briles on The Book Shepherd site:
Oh, what a tangled web they weave … publishing predators are breeding with the surge of authors now by-passing traditional publishing. Over half of books published today are by the self and indie publishers. Traditional publishers are taking notice and are now gearing up to offer their own “self-publishing” opportunities. Some, like Simon & Schuster, Hay House and Penguin, have had a “vanity press” relationship for years in place via Author Solutions (ASI). Expect to see all of this push into a higher gear–after all … there is money in wannabe author’s pockets.
It’s a never-ending story … the emails, phone calls, postings within the Author U Group on LinkedIn and my personal group on Facebook: Publishing with The Book Shepherd (join it) … and I’ve worked with several private clients and fielded numerous phone calls/emails from authors who have…
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Filed under book design for creative writers, business of writing, Editing your novel, indie publishing, Marketing books, Money issues for writers, Myths and Truths for writers, Print on Demand for fiction writers, Publishing, publishing contracts, Self-publishing, Writing, writing novels, writing scams
5 Legal Terms Every Author Should Know…
We never hear this enough! Thanks, Chris!
Extract from an article by Writer and Lawyer Helen Sedgwick:
What is the worst mistake an indie author can make?
A bad book cover? A poorly edited manuscript? A hokey website?
No. It’s losing control over your work.legal terms
Pause and Read the Fine Print
Your work is valuable property, just like your car or home. You wouldn’t hand over your car keys to a stranger you met on the internet. You wouldn’t let someone with a slick website move into your guest room. Yet, every day, writers click ACCEPT to contracts with self-publishing companies that take too much control over the author’s work.
Why? Because they can’t bring themselves to read the fine print.
If you are like most people, online contracts with all those legal terms look like 5000 words run through a blender. My goal is to show you where and what to look for, so you can…
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Great Advice from The Book Designer blog!
Joel Friedlander at The Book Designer
is always a wonderful source. This piece by Judith Briles (@mybookshepher) on “How to Avoid Book Publishing Blunders, Bloopers and Boo-Boos” has some up-front advice for all of us. I especially like the “writer beware” section on “pitch fests.” Briles says save your money!
My Inerview is up at Don Massenzio’s site. Go admire my sweet Paddy!
Check out my writer’s interview, now available at Don Massenzio’s site! This was a lot of fun to write.
Amazon Categories and Rankings? This Helps!
Here’s what I sometimes feel like as a marketer: Deer in the headlights!
Well, I bought the book. I’ll report back on how much it helped me in my goal to begin taking marketing seriously. In the meantime, this article on how Amazon rankings and keywords differ in helping me sell my books provided some really useful distinctions.Can you add to this advice?
Closed for business: Two big things that could penalize your Amazon author account (and how to prevent them)
Here’s help negotiating Amazon’s review process! So much mystery!
Make no mistake. If you have heard me speak before almost anywhere or read anything I have to say about writing, I emphasize one thing above all else:
“You can be as artsy as you want to be while you are writing your book, but once it is finished, it is a product. A product you must distribute and market in order for it to sell.”
There’s another part to this reality of writing as a business: the number one distributor of ebooks remains Amazon, and for most authors about 80% of their sales would disappear, should the online giant refuse to sell their work. Discoverability on Amazon is the number one trick authors, publishers, and book marketers are trying to crack. Of course, if it works on Amazon, the same method will likely increase sales on iBooks and Nook as well, provided an author even offers their books for…
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New Writers’ Comprehensive Reality Check!
Joel Friedlander at The Book Designer shares this comprehensive discussion of myths and truths for first-time novelists from Florence Osmund. I would argue that you CAN format your books yourself if they’re not graphically complicated (i.e., just text). Check out my InDesign Beginner’s Cheat Sheet series. But this advice is worth taking to heart!
Barnes & Noble to Start a Print Book Self-Pub Option?
Check out this article from Digital Book World about a new venture at Barnes and Noble to allow self-published writers to offer print versions in B&N venues, hopefully a step that will help keep them afloat. Chime in with your views on whether this new option is worth a look.
Are You Botching Your Dialogue?
This post from Kristen Lamb’s blog gives some good basic guidelines for using and punctuating dialogue. These principles can be surprisingly hard to master, so a good primer is always helpful. The one I see most often is the use of an action as if it were a dialogue tag. To add to Kristen’s list, I’d say, “Watch out for that darn Autocorrect in Word. If you have it turned on and you accidentally type a period instead of a comma after the dialogue, Autocorrect automatically capitalizes the next letter, so you end up with two punctuation gaffes, not one.
Thanks, Kristen!
Today we are going to talk about dialogue. Everyone thinks they are great at it, and many would be wrong. Dialogue really is a lot tricker than it might seem.
Great dialogue is one of the most vital components of fiction. Dialogue is responsible for not only conveying the plot, but it also helps us understand the characters and get to know them, love them, hate them, whatever.
Dialogue is powerful for revealing character. This is as true in life as it is on the page. If people didn’t judge us based on how we speak, then business professionals wouldn’t bother with Toastmasters, speaking coaches or vocabulary builders.
I’d imagine few people who’d hire a brain surgeon who spoke like a rap musician and conversely, it would be tough to enjoy rap music made by an artist who spoke like the curator of an art museum.
Our word choices are…
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Filed under correct grammar for writers of fiction, ebooks publishing and selling, Editing your novel, grammar rules for writers, indie publishing, Learning to write, Publishing, punctuation for writers of novels, self editing for fiction writers, Self-publishing, style for writers, Writing, writing novels
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