Category: Self-Publishing

Joel Friedlander Offers Tips and Reasons for Booking a Blog

On Friday when I reviewed fellow blogger and book designer Joel Friedlander’s new book, A Self-Publisher’s Companion, Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish, I promised I’d publish the four questions I asked him about his experience booking a blog. (If you don’t know what that means, please refer to this post.) You see, [...]

Monday May 2nd, 2011 in Blogging, Blogging a Book, Repurposing or Recycling Material, Self-Publishing | No Comments »

Taking a Close Look at Joel Friedlander’s “booked blog”

A few weeks ago I fellow blogger and book designer Joel Friedlander if I might review his new book, A Self-Publisher’s Companion, Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish. I had a special interest in doing so besides simply helping him out with some promotion on both this blog and my other blog, How [...]

Friday April 29th, 2011 in Blogging, Blogging a Book, Repurposing or Recycling Material, Self-Publishing | No Comments »

I Did It! I Published on Smashwords and Amazon Kindle!

Yes, indeed, I did! I took one of my short books–a condensed version of what will one day be a full-length book, revised it, had a cover made for it, and formatted it. I then uploaded it to Smashwords and Amazon, and it is now available as an e-book in all e-reader formats. Whoo hoo. [...]

Wednesday April 27th, 2011 in E-Books, Self-Publishing | No Comments »

The Proofreading Process—An Important Step in Book Production

I’m constantly telling my clients that once I have finished editing their book they should next hire a proofreader. They don’t always understand why they must take this step or go to this expense. So, I was extremely happy when my friend and colleague self-publishing expert Sue Collier, coauthor of The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing, [...]

Friday April 22nd, 2011 in Self-Publishing | No Comments »

Don’t Forget the Essentials of Indie Success

I have read more articles and blog posts about why writers should become indie authors lately. I’ve written my share as well. (You can read them by looking in the self-publishing and e-book categories of this blog.) However, it strikes me that while these articles and posts, even the one I wrote yesterday that features [...]

Wednesday April 20th, 2011 in Author Coaching, Creating a Bestselling Book, E-Books, Platform, Self-Publishing, The Business of Writing | No Comments »

Multi-Media Course Offers Help for Newbie E-book Publishers

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m in the process of converting some of my short books, which have been available only on my websites as both print books and PDF-type e-book, into e-books that can be distributed more widely via Smashwords.com and the Kindle bookstore. I have one document converted and a cover almost finished by [...]

Monday April 18th, 2011 in E-Books, Self-Publishing | No Comments »

Amanda Hocking and Barry Eisler Chat about Publishing

Literary agent Ted Weinstein, who I have the pleasure of seeing each year at the San Francisco Writers Conference, has done us all a favor and gotten Amanda Hocking and Barry Eisler together to chat about publishing and their recent decision about how to publish their own books. They’ve compared indie publishing to traditional publishing–of [...]

Thursday March 31st, 2011 in E-Books, publishing, Publishing Industry, Self-Publishing, Traditional Publishing | No Comments »

Successful Indie Author Offers “New Rules for Success”

It’s always best to learn from those who have done something successfully. Here’s some great advice from an indie author who has not gone the e-book way but has achieved great success. Penelope Trunk is the founder of three startups—most recently, Brazen Careerist, a career management tool for next-generation professionals. Her career advice appears in [...]

Wednesday March 30th, 2011 in Self-Publishing | No Comments »

Hocking signs 4-book deal so she can be a writer

After I published this post yesterday, today I saw this article announcing that Amanda Hocking had, indeed, signed a four-book deal with St. Martin’s Press in New York, reportedly for $2 million. As she said in her blog, she’s a writer: “I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling emails, formatting covers, [...]

Friday March 25th, 2011 in E-Books, publishing, Publishing Industry, Self-Publishing, The Business of Writing | 1 Comment »

Will you pick yourself or wait to be picked?

In a recent blog post, best-selling author and marketing expert made this statement:”No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.” He was talking about the fact that authors and musicians are making millions without so-called “gatekeepers.”  and that the gatekeepers–”the pickers,” as Godin called them–are losing power. He stressed that most of us want [...]

Friday March 25th, 2011 in Blogging, publishing, Publishing Industry, Self-Publishing, Traditional Publishing | No Comments »