June 2011
25 posts
10 tags
Selling Tip: Captivating Book Descriptions
Your book’s cover and description are the two key factors that could cause a customer to either ignore you or open to chapter one. Let’s assume that you’ve already got an attractive book cover (if not, check out BookBaby’s eBook Cover Design service). But how do you create a compelling book description? While there’s no single tried-and-true method, one thing is for sure: You MUST capture the...
8 tags
Be Sure to Link Editions on Amazon!
Several of my books are available both as paperback and Kindle editions. My latest book, Selecting A Print-on-Demand Company: Comparing CreateSpace and Lightning Source for POD Self-Publishing is available in both a paperback and a Kindle edition. With my real job taking up more time and my second child graduating from Texas A&M and obtaining her first job as a Civil Engineer (proud father...
What's the difference between a cat and a comma?...
10 tags
Interview with Catherine MacDonald From...
Reviews are important. Customers often look at the average star rating, and the number of reviews a book has, before buying. But getting reviews isn’t easy. For my last several ebook releases, I gave away free copies to fans in exchange for reviews, but this is time-consuming and labor intensive. Now there’s an easier, quicker solution to getting reviews that doesn’t require...
8 tags
JK Rowling Will Self-Publish Harry Potter Ebooks
Yes, you read correctly. According to Wired.co.uk, the billionaire author is forsaking her print publishers and releasing her novels on her own. Whoa. A few years ago, I was critical of Rowling’s decision not to release ebooks of the Potter series. Piracy became the only way to get her ebooks, and those bootleg copies thrived. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the most pirated...
13 tags
How Self-Publishing Came of Age
What used to be seen as a last resort is fast becoming the most successful trend in writing. Alison Flood talks to the authors doing it themselves. Read the entire article here…
“The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire...”
– Neil Gaiman (via writingadvice)
Peace, Love, Cicadas Jr. Spaghetti Tank by... →
11 tags
5 Fast Facts on Book Publicity
After serving as the editor of Guide to Literary Agents for years, I figured I knew everything about the publication process. But when I released a humor book late last year (How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack), I quickly found that while I was well versed in what happens before a book is published, I had a lot to learn about what happens after a release. Here are five facts about how the...
9 tags
Notice to Appear
Once upon a time, years ago, there was a crazy author who spent a lot of time, money, and energy visiting forty different states in the US. He signed at over 1200 bookstores. He spoke at over a hundred libraries. He attended dozens of conventions and conferences. He went to many book fairs and literary festivals. He spoke at schools and universities. In short, he did what he felt he needed to do...
9 tags
Listen Free: The Future of Authorship and...
Yesterday, I was a guest on The Best People We Know Show with Deb Scott, on BlogTalkRadio. It’s already ranked #4 in popularity in the writing category. Listen for free (for 45 minutes) as we discuss:
Current trends in the publishing industry
The first baby steps you should take to develop your platform
The importance of patience and persistence
How to determine when it’s time to...
8 tags
5 Excellent Tips for Platform Building
This past weekend, I had the honor of keynoting the Writers’ League of Texas Agents Conference in Austin. During that weekend, I also had the opportunity to hear some wonderful advice from other publishing experts. Here’s some excellent online marketing advice I heard. All are direct quotes unless in brackets.
Read the rest of the article here…
Post by Jane Friedman
Update on Self-Publishing My YA Novel, "Cicada"
Howdy, Y’all!
Since the purpose of this tumblr is to share my progress on self-publishing my novels, I thought it was time to give a brief update on where I am at the moment.
The proofreader I hired (I found her on JA Konrath’s blog, and she’s listed on my Tumblr under Novel Proofreading) has returned my manuscript to me with mark-ups.
My cover art is complete.
My book...
Follow this Blog
Follow ishanella! :-)
5 tags
11 tags
Why e-Books Look So Ugly
As books make the leap from cellulose and ink to electronic pages, some editors worry that too much is being lost in translation. Typography, layout, illustrations and carefully thought-out covers are all being reduced to a uniform, black-on-gray template that looks the same whether you’re reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombiesor the Federalist Papers.
“There’s a dearth of typographic...
“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute...”
– Roald Dahl (via ryanoriordan)
10 tags
3 Publishing Trends Writers Must Stay Fn Top Of
This week marks the publishing industry’s largest trade show, BookExpo America. This is the first year since 2004 that I’m not attending, but in honor of that show, I’m offering up 3 key industry trends you should stay on top of:
Click here to read more…
Post by Jane Friedman
11 tags
6 E-Book Formatting Tools
Even with ePub becoming the standard format for eBooks, formatting an eBook can still be tricky. So we have put together a list of tools to help you make your books available in the eBook form.
Here is a list of six tools that can help you format an eBook into ePub and from common formats such as HTML and Word documents:
Read the rest of the article here…
Article by Diana Dillworth
