self-publish

10 Things Authors Learn The Hard Way…

by

This post by Diane Hall originally appeared on BDAILY on 5/25/15.

Writing workshops and books, professional advice, even Google, won’t answer every question an author may have. Some knowledge can only be gained by personal experience. The following list stems from genuine reports by authors I’ve either spoken to or worked with, across the globe. Individual points are not meant as sweeping statements; there may be a good portion of authors who have different outcomes and opinions. Nevertheless…

No one but you cares as much about your book

Agents, publishers and publicists – and especially readers – don’t have the same emotional investment as the author of a book. They might just as easily prefer another book on the same subject, or easily forget your title altogether; with over 14 million books to choose from, that yours will be the best, most unique book they’ve ever come across is unlikely. Dump the ego, and work on enticing them to look at your book in the first place. Help them to make their buying decision, don’t just assume that once seen, automatically sold.

Traditional publishing is not better than self-publishing

Yes, TP has a lot going for it, but it also has its downsides. Sacrifices to become a TP author may include your book no longer being recognisable to you, little control over the book’s aesthetics, a long, long time to market and vastly reduced royalties. That’s not to say self-publishing doesn’t have any cons; TP and SP are essentially just different ways to publish that should each be thoroughly investigated.
 

Read the full post on BDAILY.

 

The Perks, Pitfalls, and Paradoxes of Amazon Publishing

by

This article by Nina Shapiro originally appeared on Seattle Weekly on 11/4/14.

Amid a boycott and bicoastal culture clash, Amazon has created a new model of publishing. Where does that leave authors?

One day in 2012, Megan Chance, a historical-fiction writer from the Kitsap Peninsula, arrived at Amazon.com’s South Lake Union headquarters for a meeting. The retail giant’s sleek new campus was bustling with software engineers of various nationalities, marketing mavens, and MBAs. The floor Chance visited, though, was practically empty. “There were, like, four people there,” Chance recalls. “It was bizarre.”

The two-decade-old online retailer was still getting a relatively new and little-understood division going—one devoted not only to selling books on the vast digital platform it had created, but also to publishing them. With the frenetic speed of a start-up, Amazon Publishing had in a few years launched a series of imprints devoted to different niches: mystery, romance, historical fiction, science fiction, and more. Now, the company’s fledgling imprint devoted to her genre, Lake Union Publishing, wanted to publish Chance’s latest work, Bone River, a novel about a 19th-century ethnologist who develops a mystical connection to a mummy.

Chance, in her early 50s, was at a low point in her career. She had spent two decades writing books that languished on bookstore shelves, caught in what she believed was a “vicious cycle” common to the publishing world. She had sold her first book to Hachette, which saw enough promise in the work to give her a big advance. The book sold poorly, though, and the publisher paid for a smaller print run the next time around, according to Chance. Those numbers weren’t great either. After that, she says, Hachette “was done.” She moved on to another publisher, where the downward spiral continued.

She was ready again for a new publisher with Bone River, but the New York publishers she approached didn’t bite. “Come back to us when you have better numbers,” she recalls being told.

 

Read the full article on Seattle Weekly.

 

Why Self-Publishing Authors Must Think Like a Publisher

by

This post by Stacey Aaronson originally appeared on The Savvy Book Marketer on 3/18/14.

So many authors write for their love of writing or their desire to share their story or message, but if we want to sell books, it’s important to treat publishing like a business. In today’s guest post Stacey Aaronson discusses the mindset of thinking like a publisher.

After working with over twenty independent authors over the past two years as their editor, book designer, and publishing partner, one glaring issue has come to light:

The majority of self-publishing authors don’t realize that they can’t merely think like a writer; they must think like a publisher—if, that is, they want to sell books.

The thing is, it’s not easy for writers to shift into this mode of thinking—and I would venture to guess that most writers don’t even know they should be thinking this way before they even begin a manuscript. As a writer myself, I confess I didn’t consider the publisher’s mentality until I became a book production professional in the indie publishing realm, so I know firsthand how foreign it can seem.

But here’s the unsavory truth: the various self-publishing portals that have opened the door for would-be authors to get a book into readers’ hands are great, but many writers are running to upload all degrees of manuscripts—from the languishing and rejected, to the unedited and poorly designed—without honoring the legacy of traditional publishing. In short, thousands of substandard books are entering the literary marketplace because a multitude of writers are sadly stuck not only in ego mode, but in the belief that producing a book is somehow not a craft and an art. If we don’t want to destroy the reputation of books altogether—and if we want to reap a financial benefit as an author—this mindset has to change.

 

Click here to read the full post on The Savvy Book Marketer.

 

62 of the Top Writing Articles from 2013 (That Can Help You in 2014)

by

This post, by Brian Klems, originally appeared on Writer’s Digest on 1/2/14.

Over the past year I posted articles on this blog that covered everything—from grammar to writing better characters to getting published and more. Here’s a cheat sheet linking to what I consider the 62 best articles that can help you reach your writing goals. I broke it down into categories, as you’ll see below. These articles can help you no matter what phase of the writing process you are in. My goal is to help you move your writing career forward, and, by making this easy-to-reference guide, you’ll have a chance to bookmark it and have a one-stop place to help you have a successful year of writing.

Here’s to your best year of writing yet! ~Brian

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on Writer’s Digest. It includes links to 62 WD articles on everything from craft to marketing.

 

How To Make Your Own Free Book Cover In MS Word

by

This post, by Derek Murphy, originally appeared as a guest post on Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn on 10/20/13.

Caring about fantastic book cover design is one of those non-negotiables for all authors.

Derek Murphy of Creativindie Covers is a brilliant designer and has designed a number of my own book covers. But although I personally believe in paying professionals, I’m also aware that some people want to have a go themselves, or need to because of budget restraints. This post is for the avid DIY-ers!

Most indie publishing experts will warn you against making your own book cover, with good reason: the cover design is too crucial an element to self-publishing success to take lightly.

Making your book a bestseller is hard enough without an ugly cover sabotaging your efforts.

However there are many reasons why you may be tempted to give it a shot anyway:

◾ You want to play with cover ideas so you know what you want before hiring a designer

◾ You want more control over your cover design

◾ You’re launching a small project, a short ebook or guide, and you don’t want to invest too much

◾ You’re writing a series and don’t want to pay full price for each cover design

So I’d like to share with you something I’ve been working on for a few months: the secrets of designing a bestselling book cover in Microsoft Word, and then I’ll give you some easy-to-use Word templates so you can get started quickly.

This will be a ‘crash course’ in the minimal skills you need to create a winning cover in MS Word

You’ll learn how to use Word to blend images, add layers and transparency, use font effects and space letters (kerning), strip background, and the general principles of cover design.

These instructions are for MS Word 2010, so they won’t work for everyone, but if you have an older or newer version of Word, the process will be similar. This is a long post, so you should bookmark it. You can also download a PDF version of these instructions and the source files of the cover we’re building so you can follow along; click here to get those. Ready? Let’s begin.

 

Finding and choosing the right pictures

The quality of your book cover will mostly depend on what pictures or art you use, and how well they fit together, so in this section I’m going to teach you what kind of art works the best, where you can find royalty free images, and where you can get cheap Photoshop work done (if you need it).

The RULES for picking photos:
1) Simple is better
2) Needs to cause immediate emotional reaction
3) Not too busy or too many colors
4) Don’t use a GREAT picture: use the overlooked one
5) Blend and match colors

You can use a color wheel to find complementary colors (opposites/across from each other). Blockbuster movie posters usually use orange and teal (a lot of my book covers do also).

Green and purple can work also.
Unfortunately, Christmas ruined red and green, but red still goes well with black or white.

Too many colors can be distracting, so try to go for one or two main colors (if the whole background is blue, you could use yellow text to stand out…)

 

What kind of images should you choose?

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on The Creative Penn.