Belle Whittington

When writing your future bestseller you don’t want to have to waste too much time wondering if you should be leaving one space or two between sentences or worried that you’re committing other style faux pas. Here I’ve collected a writer’s set of FAQs about formatting (and formatting-related) issues that will help you navigate the basics.

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Posted on January 23, 2012 by  Jane Friedman

 

Andrea Costa Photography / Flickr

With more authors publishing independently than ever, I’m hearing more questions about rights and permissions. It’s a tough issue to navigate without having an experienced editor or agent to guide you.

I hope to provide some clarity on permissions in this post. Permissions is all about seeking permission to use other people’s copyrighted work within your own. This means you contact the copyright owner of the work (or their publisher or agent), and request permission to use the work. Most publishers have a formal process that includes paperwork, e.g., a contract to sign. Often, you are charged a fee for the use, anywhere from a few dollars to thousands of dollars.

Writing rules. Self-promotion drools. Isn’t this how most writers think?

But as long as you view your writing as art and your self-promotion efforts as the furthest thing from art, your chances of ramping up a successful 21st-century writing career are going to remain slim to none.
These days, there’s an art to writing and an art to self-promotion. From the moment you start putting words to the page, it’s never too early to start thinking about how you’re going to share them. And once you begin to see your writing and promotional efforts as equally artful, something wonderful starts to happen: You find readers.

Books aren’t written overnight—they’re developed one day at a time. And it’s the same with our platforms, which comprise all the ways we make ourselves visible to our readers. The idea that you need a platform might seem overwhelming at first. But if you consistently take small steps to put yourself out there, before you know it, you’ll have built a strong, sturdy foundation for your work.

So, if you’re the kind of writer who prefers being read to being unknown (who doesn’t?), here are 50 quick, simple ways to launch your platform into action. Think of each small step as a giant leap toward finding readers—and a fun, rewarding opportunity to share your hard-wrought words with others.

Listen & Learn

1. Find Your Keepers. Clarify the kinds of readers you want to connect with now, and you’ll be glad you did later. First, jot down a quick list of all the types of readers you’ve ever had. Now, decide which groups you want to stay connected with for the long haul, and make them your keepers.

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Post by Christina Katz

Here’s a riddle: How do you make your book a best seller on the Kindle?

Answer: Give copies away.

That’s right. More than half of the “best-selling” e-books on the Kindle, Amazon.com’s e-reader, are available at no charge.

Although some of the titles are digital versions of books in the public domain — like Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” — many are by authors still trying to make a living from their work.

Earlier this week, for example, the No. 1 and 2 spots on Kindle’s best-seller list were taken by “Cape Refuge” and “Southern Storm,” both novels by Terri Blackstock, a writer of Christian thrillers. The Kindle price: $0. Until the end of the month, Ms. Blackstock’s publisher, Zondervan, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, is offering readers the opportunity to download the books free to the Kindle or to the Kindle apps on their iPhone or in Windows.

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By MOTOKO RICH

Click here for a special message :-)

Wow!  This has certainly been a busy and exciting weekend for me!  Mary, at Book Hounds, has featured my doggie and me…and Cicada on her book blog today! :-)

Click here to pop over and take a peek at her terrific blog and today’s post!

Many thanks to my new friends over at Romancing the Book for including me as a guest on their totally awesome book blog!

Click here to see the post! Don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered to win a free copy of Cicada!

By now, most authors know what virtual book tours are or at least have heard of them.  They’re that wonderful marketing tool that should be a must have in every new book’s campaign.  With each new book I write, I’m making a game plan before the book is even published and a virtual book tour is the first promotional venue on that list.

While most of us know what they are, there are still a few new authors who might have heard of them but have no idea what they involve.  I give you my top 10 things you need to know about virtual book tours so that you will know what to expect.

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Post by Dorothy Thompson

Kath here. Please welcome Randall Davidson to WU. Randall is a cofounder of ProofreadingServices. Us, a proofreading company that offers manuscript proofreading. Randall was good enough to share his must-do proofreading tips and best practices with other writing enthusiasts.  Thanks, Randall! 

One of the hardest parts of writing is proofreading your own work. These 10 proofreading tips can help you learn how to distance yourself from your own work and discover your mistakes and issues with clarity.

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I remember when I first considered self-publishing my book. This was after I decided that I wasn’t going to believe in what people were saying about the stigma. When I began to trust myself, believe that I could produce a great book and have the success others were having; when I thought that self-publishing my book was the first step in this journey.

When you dream of self-publishing your book, you see it as the goal, as the accomplishment, as the first step for something great. Don’t be fooled, it is a big deal. Writing, editing, re-editing and editing again until you are done, is a big deal. Finishing the book and publishing the book is also a big deal.

For many of us, simply dreaming of that famous sentence: “If you build it, they will come,” is our end goal, so you work hard just building it.

But then, after you publish, you discover that building it is simply not enough. Building it will bring no sales. It’s nothing personal; it’s just that you are invisible–people have no clue you exist. You will even discover people close to you, people that you thought were listening every time you said you were writing the book, don’t know you exist as a writer.

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by vizkr

Welcome to the fourth annual Book Blogger Appreciation Week! It’s hard to believe this is the fourth year we’ve gathered together to celebrate the work book bloggers do and the community we’ve created, but it is! We hope you’ll join in for all the fun this year.

Everyday we have a topic provided that you can blog about. Come back here and add the permalink to your post in the Mister Linky below and then visit other bloggers! It’s a great way to get meet new bloggers and celebrate our community. You can find the full list of topics here. Want to add a BBAW button to your post? You can find them here. Be sure to check back throughout the day for giveaways, special guest posts, and awards announcements!

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By Myfriendamy

Your Online Book Launch: What You Need to Know

By Joel Friedlander

Okay, you’ve finished your book, filled out all your metadata, and gone through the publishing process. Soon, your book will become available for sale online. For many authors, this is a critical time in the lives of their books.

Why? When your book is new, it’s the natural time to do a book launch. In fact, it’s possible to re-launch a book any time there’s a reason to do so, but the vast majority of book launches are, appropriately enough, at the time of initial publication.

The idea of a book launch is to turn the publication of the book into an event. Events, by their nature, draw more attention from the public. Your event is one-time-only, happening live, and the more ways you can attract attention during the launch period, the more eyeballs you will attract to your book (and your other books, if you have related books in print already).

Let’s look at the elements that can go into a book launch. You won’t be doing all these things, so don’t immediately become overwhelmed. Think of this more as a menu of options you can choose from.

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The following article was written exclusively for CreateSpace by Joel Friedlander. Joel is the proprietor of Marin Bookworks in San Rafael, California, a publishing services company where he’s helped launch many self-published authors. He blogs about book design, writing and self-publishing at www.TheBookDesigner.com. Joel is also the author of the newly-published A Self-Publisher’s Companion: Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish.

A Guide to Reviewing Your Book Proof

When you publish your own book, there inevitably comes a moment of truth. This is a moment that you’ve been anticipating, waiting for, excited about. This is a moment of truth for you as both an author and a publisher.

The printed proof of your book arrives on your doorstep.

Until now, the book you’ve been creating has existed only in your word processing files, in the printouts you’ve been editing, in the layouts and typography on the screen.

Now you see the book for the first time, you get to hold it in your hands. There’s no denying that this moment has the power to move people, and rightly so. You’re on the edge of publication. If you’re like me, you’re both excited and a little frightened. But wait! Don’t push that “approve” button just yet!

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Does writing your second book require a completely different mindset? Love in Mid Air author Kim Wright tackled this question in a guest post on K.M. Weiland‘s blog Wordplay.

Wright argued that it is difficult to recapture the same feelings and passion an author felt while writing their first book. There’s also the possibility that the writer no longer writes exclusively for him or herself during the second book; their growing readership may influence them in some way.

Here’s more from her blog post: “But the biggest reason book two is hard is because the writer is like my grandfather’s bird dog—shaken, spooked, and just plain not right. Even the most successful debuts have moments that sting—bad reviews, declines in sales, that time you drove three hours to a reading and two people showed up. Like a veteran marathoner or a woman pregnant with her second child, the experienced novelist knows precisely how much it’s going to hurt.” What do you think? (via Elizabeth S Craig)

By Maryann Yin

“Ancient of Days” - William Blake

Self-publishing is often denigrated in some circles as a dominion of poor quality, but even among people who don’t sneer at it, what springs to mind when they think of self-publishing is usually genre fiction. People just don’t often think of self-publishing and literary fiction going hand in hand.

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Post by Nathan Bransford