I am just about finished with rewrites on my fifth novel (the first four are still in various stages of development, along with the sixth and seventh) and I’m now approaching the point where there’s little writing or editing left to be done with it. And in all honesty, I’m really happy with the way it’s turning out. My beta readers, for the most part, seem to have enjoyed it, too. By the end of March, it should be ready to go. Read the rest of this entry »

Internet Famous is finally available in print, through Amazon.com. Currently, they’re selling it for full price ($24.99), but I’ve heard through other authors that once it’s also available through other bookstores, Amazon will most likely discount that to compete. Of course, it could take up to five more weeks for other bookstores to start carrying it, so if you don’t want to wait, you’ll have to pay full price. Read the rest of this entry »

Self publishing is generally thought of in terms of a few different options. A good portion of self published authors end up turning to vanity presses. Some authors choose to have a small print run of 500 or 1000 books (or more) done by a local printer. Others opt to use a POD service (like CreateSpace or Lulu) to publish their book. And still others just go the ebook route, making their book available through the Kindle or sites like SmashWords.

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Well, I’ve got more to post this week than I have for the past couple. First of all, I’m planning on launching the new book website prior to June 1st if all goes according to schedule. Stay tuned here or follow me on Twitter for the latest updates.

Publishing Renaissance had a great post about how indie authors need to take some cues from the indie music and movie industries, titled Finding Our Defiance. Mentioned in that article is an article by Henry Baum titled The Last Stigmas of Self-Publishing, which I thought deserved it’s own mention here.

Wil Wheaton was featured in an article in The Washington Times on self-publishing, Self-publishing finds commercial niche in digital age. Definitely worth a read.

I had another article on authors who tweet (this time it’s nonfiction authors) go up on Mashable today. Go check it out and please retweet it if you find it interesting.

And, last but not least, Nathan Bransford has his usual roundup of even more publishing news on his blog.

Hope everyone in the U.S. has a great Memorial Day weekend! And I hope everyone not in the U.S. has a wonderful regular weekend!

Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time researching self publishing in an effort to make sure I’m well informed as I proceed with self publishing my own book. One of the things I see over and over again are statistics about how self published books sell so poorly. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week I’m going to do a roundup post with the week’s news, any particularly popular posts on this blog, and links to any articles I’ve written elsewhere. To me, this is a cleaner way of presenting relevant information, rather than posting a short post or four every day with newsworthy items.

CNN had some great coverage on web and Print on Demand publishing.

The Guardian covered the #queryfail and #agentfail extravaganzas, and the comments section brought out a lot of great information on self publishing.

My suggestion for one of the best writing how-to books, Between the Lines by Jessica Morrell, was featured on Editor Unleashed in their “The 10 Best Books for Writers” post (it’s the 4th one down). Other books on the list include Stephen King’s On Writing and Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell, both of which I also own.

Writing Forward had a couple of excellent articles this week: Writing on the Go and How Poetry Writing Improves All Other Writing. I wrote poetry in high school and at this point I’m glad I lost all those notebooks (or burned them…whatever).

Nathan Bransford has a great rundown of other publishing news for the week, as he does every week.

This isn’t exaclty news this week, since it was published last August, but it’s still worth reading. Novelist Paulo Coelho finds the perfect alchemy of print & digital from the Guardian talks about how using the Internet and even releasing books for free online boosts sales.

If you’ve been reading this blog for long, I’m sure you already know I’m planning on self publishing a nonfiction book in the coming months. Self publishing has a long history of being ridiculed and looked down upon, so why in the world would I decide to do this to myself? Couldn’t I find a traditional publisher? Why in the world would I risk the future of my writing career by self publishing the first book I ever publish? Read the rest of this entry »

This article is a technical look at setting up a template in Adobe InDesign. It is not a beginner level tutorial and expects you to have some familiarity with InDesign. I’m including this here because when I was looking for information on setting up book templates I found tutorials severely lacking. Starting from scratch seemed a bit daunting and was discouraging at first. Hopefully this tutorial will make things easier for others doing the same thing. Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m currently writing a non-fiction book (details on exactly what this book is about will be revealed within the next month or so, once I’m a bit further into the project). When I first got the idea for the book, I planned on writing up a proposal, an outline, and a couple of sample chapters, and shopping it around to agents and publishers. It’s a long process, finding an agent, and sometimes an even longer one to find a publisher. Read the rest of this entry »