Free Publishing Advice

I’m sure we’ve all experienced it: we spend hours learning a skill or process, invest thousands of dollars in the education, given up free time and sleep. At the end of it all, we have a deep understanding of the complete process.

Then somebody comes along and asks to pick our brain. If that wasn’t bad enough, they want it for free.

I’ve been guilty of this myself! Now that I understand a little bit more about what somebody may have invested in their knowledge, I don’t expect information for nothing.

Before I got started in independent self-publishing, I spent years working on my writing craft. In fact, I have a degree in Creative Writing. And I’ve invested two years learning everything I could about self-publishing. I’ve spent upwards of $10,000 on classes; fought my way through every in and out of formatting; and figured out how to get titles noticed on Amazon.

Why should you care, though?

Because I want to give you some publishing information for free.

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Words Tell; Pictures Sell

If you read or write a blog, you know that images can make all the difference in engaging readers, attracting their attention and conveying the message. And if you read traditionally published books, fiction or non-fiction, you know that they don’t have many images in them.

081913-images
This was to keep publishing costs as low as possible, both in ink and in number of pages used. With self-publishing books, both print and digital, the rules of including images are changing.

Why do you want to have images in your book?

Humans are visual creatures. We are attracted to bright images. They keep our interest and our focus. And in an eBook, they break up the monotony of page after page of print.

When you’re thinking of adding images into your book there are five factors you need to keep in mind:

1. Limit your image file size
Amazon.com charges authors a file delivery cost (70% commission structure only) that goes up based on the total file size of the eBook manuscript. Adding in images will increase the total file size and increase the file delivery cost.

Your images should be clear and recognizable, but also optimized for minimum file size.

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Review Karma

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-five-stars-quality-product-illustration-image30594258

One of the really cool things about Amazon.com is their reviewing system. For any product that you’ve purchased (from Amazon or elsewhere) you have the ability to write a review of that item.

This is true for eBooks as well.

There is mixed statistics about the impact reviews have on book sales. Many indie authors swear that reviews lend credibility to a book and directly increase sales. Other authors aren’t so certain.

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In The News: POD Publishing Is A Game-Changer

How Print-On-Demand Is Transforming Self-Publishing

By Natalie Burg

These days, everyone’s an entrepreneur. That includes creative professionals, such as artists, musicians and authors, who used to be considered nearly the vocational opposite of businesspeople. Not anymore. Thanks to the advent of self-publishing, crowdfunding and e-commerce, indie artists of all kinds are launching their creative careers as solopreneurs.

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Pick The Right Name – 5 Name Websites

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-stack-name-tags-badges-blue-red-hello-my-image32351935

We all know how tough it is to get just the right name for a character.

  • Does the name convey the subtle meanings we want?
  • What does the name mean?
  • Where in the world is it from?
  • And in the case of some names, How do I pronounce it?

One of my first sales of a short-story, back before I got OFF the Dead Tree Publishing hamster wheel, featured a Japanese character. Not to put too fine a point on it, the story really isn’t about Japanese culture at all; it’s a sci-fi story that blends computer programs and origami. All I really wanted was a name that I could verify as being Japanese and male and I was off!

But for most of my main characters, I take just as much care and effort into their name as I do into crafting any other aspect of my story.

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Why Traditional Publishing Isn’t Fair

In this article it has come to light that publishing super-star JK Rowling conducted a very interesting experiment:

She published a book under a pen name, using a traditional publisher.

It didn’t make a huge impact.

Let’s think about this for a moment:

(C) JK Rowling

Copyright JK Rowling

I’m pretty sure that anything that JK Rowling writes is as good, or even better, than her writing in Harry Potter.

So why didn’t the book have huge sales and massive followings and become a household name?

Because traditional publishers are risk-adverse, especially for “new” authors. While they may publish a book by an known, the amount of marketing effort they’ll give that book is limited at best.

And why is this a good thing for independent self-published authors?

First off, we have to understand that any book written by someone as well known as JK Rowling would be launched through a media tsunami with press releases, a news junket, author interviews and a book tour.

 

Very few authors receive this red-carpet treatment so we start out with an unfair disadvantage.

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Author Story: Rick Polito

In my career as an author and now as a publisher, I’ve heard too many stories of authors who have given up on their manuscript. They got too many rejections. It just couldn’t be sold. It wouldn’t make enough money in the mass market.

For every story that you hear of the “overnight” success of an author who finally had a book published after twenty or thirty rejections there are hundreds of other authors who had to abandon the dream.

Does this mean that they were inferior? Or that the dream was inferior?

Nope. It simply means that at some point an author has to look at her time and say: I believe in this story but I have to live my life as well. I have to work or write another project or take care of my family or… Whatever. It’s time to stop pursuing a publishing contract.

And then there’s one Colorado author who realized that you don’t have to chase a publishing contract to have wild success. You can take matters into your own hands.

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