Goodreads offers some excellent advice for authors
Showing posts with label how to write and publish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to write and publish. Show all posts
Wednesday
HOW TO BECOME A WRITER
We spend a lot of time as writers trying to decide what to put on the page. We stare at the monitor screen and hope for a revelation, an epiphany or an idea that will lead us to the best writing we have ever done. Staring at the cursor as it hypnotically blinks at us rarely produces a word, let alone a sentence or paragraph. My suggestion is to get out of your chair, put on a pair of shoes and find a park that you can walk in - BY YOURSELF. No distractions but the birds chirping, water gurgling, breezes fluttering, leaves smelling and mind opening, Force a smile on your face, breath deeply and let your senses open to the expansion of creativity. If you have never tried it - what do you have to lose? This is as close to a guarantee as I can get, if you want to know how to become a writer, get outside on a beautiful day and let the world bring inspiration to you.
OPPORTUNITIES
A quote from one of the world's most successful thought leaders:
"If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you're not sure you can do it - say yes, and learn how later."
Richard Branson
Something to think about in this new world we inhabit as writers.
"If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you're not sure you can do it - say yes, and learn how later."
Richard Branson
Something to think about in this new world we inhabit as writers.
Thursday
PUBLISH A BOOK
Many of you have reached the point in your writing careers where you are close to finishing your own book. What to do next? You realize that conventional publishers are not breaking down your door with six figure cheques in hand and movie deals in their back pockets. You would still like to make your book available to the public and are considering self publishing.
Perhaps you are a bit apprehensive about what to do next. How do you go about publishing all by yourself? There is a hybrid route that will give you the power and control of self publishing, along with the rights and privileges of keeping what belongs to you in terms of money and future income. My friend, Kim Staflund, of Polished Publishing Group, has created an inexpensive webinar explaining an approach to bringing your book to a waiting audience that includes the support and professionalism of the legacy publishers, while you retain all of the rights of a self publisher.
You can access more information about her webinar by going here
I am looking forward to joining you for her webinar.
Perhaps you are a bit apprehensive about what to do next. How do you go about publishing all by yourself? There is a hybrid route that will give you the power and control of self publishing, along with the rights and privileges of keeping what belongs to you in terms of money and future income. My friend, Kim Staflund, of Polished Publishing Group, has created an inexpensive webinar explaining an approach to bringing your book to a waiting audience that includes the support and professionalism of the legacy publishers, while you retain all of the rights of a self publisher.
You can access more information about her webinar by going here
I am looking forward to joining you for her webinar.
Tuesday
BOOK WRITING AND PUBLISHING TODAY
Write, Publish and Sell your book - here's how.
Yes, Kim and I are going to present an all new Webinar in January 2013. We are currently working on details but will soon announce that we have decided (just today) that we owe it to our followers, especially those who have been unable to attend in person, this info packed presentation. Here's our original video presentation, but disregard any details about where, when or how long - we will announce that soon.
We are taking the full day workshop and distilling all of the highlights down to two fun and fact-filled hours that will have you ready to move forward. This will be a very focused and fast paced session that is designed to give you all of the steps necessary for becoming the author that lurks inside. If you have been wanting to bring your own book to the world - this will give you the information and inspiration to make it a reality.
Looking forward to seeing you in January 2013. Many more details to follow.
Yes, Kim and I are going to present an all new Webinar in January 2013. We are currently working on details but will soon announce that we have decided (just today) that we owe it to our followers, especially those who have been unable to attend in person, this info packed presentation. Here's our original video presentation, but disregard any details about where, when or how long - we will announce that soon.
We are taking the full day workshop and distilling all of the highlights down to two fun and fact-filled hours that will have you ready to move forward. This will be a very focused and fast paced session that is designed to give you all of the steps necessary for becoming the author that lurks inside. If you have been wanting to bring your own book to the world - this will give you the information and inspiration to make it a reality.
Looking forward to seeing you in January 2013. Many more details to follow.
Sunday
MORE ABOUT BOOK PRICING
I don't know if this is right or wrong - only time, or sales, will tell. I've been thinking about the pricing of my books for awhile and wondering if they should change to reflect changing times. Originally, pricing was based on production and distribution costs combined with the amount of effort, research, writing time and other stuff to determine how much I thought I should make per copy. All of that has changed.
I do agree with some friends in the industry that price should reflect the content and value to the reader to some extent, after all, how much is it worth to a reader to change their life? On the other hand, e-books are beginning to become commodities and after the initial costs of time for research and writing and the costs of design, editing and set up, there are no further costs for printing, distribution, returns, marketing, and so on. In other words, once the initial costs are covered, the author or publisher can sell unlimited copies without incurring further costs.
To some extent, the same is true for print-on-demand copies. The printer or supplier has a fixed cost for providing each additional printed book but the author has no extra costs over and above his original "inputs." It began to dawn on me that I don't care whether a reader wants a digital copy or a printed one. If I set my pricing so that my royalty works out to pretty much the same thing, regardless of format, then I could lower my prices and pass the benefit to the purchaser...so, I did. My net royalty on an e-book priced at $4.99 is almost the same for the printed version priced at $9.99. The extra cost to the buyer for the printed version goes to the printer who has to provide paper, ink, technology, labor and printing presses to produce it, but I end up with the same amount, which is perfectly alright with me.
Anyway - pretty unscientific and I'm sure there will be disagreement from traditional publishers but that's my logic on the reason for changing the prices of my books. It's nice to have the right to do so.
I do agree with some friends in the industry that price should reflect the content and value to the reader to some extent, after all, how much is it worth to a reader to change their life? On the other hand, e-books are beginning to become commodities and after the initial costs of time for research and writing and the costs of design, editing and set up, there are no further costs for printing, distribution, returns, marketing, and so on. In other words, once the initial costs are covered, the author or publisher can sell unlimited copies without incurring further costs.
To some extent, the same is true for print-on-demand copies. The printer or supplier has a fixed cost for providing each additional printed book but the author has no extra costs over and above his original "inputs." It began to dawn on me that I don't care whether a reader wants a digital copy or a printed one. If I set my pricing so that my royalty works out to pretty much the same thing, regardless of format, then I could lower my prices and pass the benefit to the purchaser...so, I did. My net royalty on an e-book priced at $4.99 is almost the same for the printed version priced at $9.99. The extra cost to the buyer for the printed version goes to the printer who has to provide paper, ink, technology, labor and printing presses to produce it, but I end up with the same amount, which is perfectly alright with me.
Anyway - pretty unscientific and I'm sure there will be disagreement from traditional publishers but that's my logic on the reason for changing the prices of my books. It's nice to have the right to do so.
Friday
BOOK PRICING
The science of pricing a book is evolving. In the good (?) old days, publishers decided what an author's book would sell for and they pre-printed it on the cover. They would often show different prices for different countries on the same label and assume that the exchange rate wouldn't change. All of this was tantamount to price fixing, but the bottom line was that the content creator had no control over what the reading public paid, and their own income was decided by someone else.
The internet has changed all of that, along with everything else it touches. As authors have begun to find new ways to connect with their audience, and new formats ( e-readers), they have taken pricing into their own hands. The old-line publishers are resisting the change, and in many cases they are keeping their author clients in check by maintaining an artificially high price for e-books. However, as bestselling authors from the legacy publishers discover the freedom and economic advantages of controlling their product ( that is, self-publishing) the pricing of books will begin to find a common ground.
Jackie Collins announced today that she is re-releasing one of her best sellers as an e-book at $2.99. I think we will find that the pricing will almost always be under $9.99 as we move forward. It is just a guess, but I think the "big guys and girls" will start offering their new releases around that price and the rest of us will begin to slot ourselves around that standard.
Once the Stephen King's, David Baldacci's, Dan Brown's and J.K. Rowling's break from the legacy publishers and decide to strike out on their own, the price formula will become much more obvious, to the great good fortune of the reading public.
The internet has changed all of that, along with everything else it touches. As authors have begun to find new ways to connect with their audience, and new formats ( e-readers), they have taken pricing into their own hands. The old-line publishers are resisting the change, and in many cases they are keeping their author clients in check by maintaining an artificially high price for e-books. However, as bestselling authors from the legacy publishers discover the freedom and economic advantages of controlling their product ( that is, self-publishing) the pricing of books will begin to find a common ground.
Jackie Collins announced today that she is re-releasing one of her best sellers as an e-book at $2.99. I think we will find that the pricing will almost always be under $9.99 as we move forward. It is just a guess, but I think the "big guys and girls" will start offering their new releases around that price and the rest of us will begin to slot ourselves around that standard.
Once the Stephen King's, David Baldacci's, Dan Brown's and J.K. Rowling's break from the legacy publishers and decide to strike out on their own, the price formula will become much more obvious, to the great good fortune of the reading public.
Tuesday
AN INCOMPLETE LIST
Writing a book is one thing but publishing/marketing/selling it is quite another. Planning, organizing, researching and writing are commitments that compete for our time and resources and there is soooo much information out there that we could spend all of our time reading the offerings of others and don't actually create our own book. I thought that regular readers of this corner might be interested in a list of people and resources that I have found helpful in the past year or so: this is incomplete and I have only included people's websites rather than email addresses for obvious reasons. In a few cases, I have recommended that you send me an email since the person does not have their own website that I know of. I will forward their contact information to you and yours to them. I should note that I have no financial arrangements officially or otherwise (except for one - can you guess?) with any of these people, but have found them to be reliable and honest.
Printers and Publishers
BlitzPrint www.blitzprint.com
CreateSpace (Amazon) www.createspace.com
Our Little Books www.ourlittlebooks.com
Polished Publishing Group www.polishedpublishinggroup.com
Editors
www.thewritesupport.com
send me an email for others
Cover Design
send me an email
Illustrators
Janice Blaine
Layout
send me an email
Distribution
Sandhill
E-Book and Digital platforms
Kindle Direct
Smashwords
Portrait Photographer
Insight Photography
Videographer
Jillian Lee
Word of Mouth and Relationship Marketing
Theresa de Grosbois
Workshop and Meeting promotion
send me an email
If you contact any of these organizations, mention my name. I doubt that you will get any discount but it makes me look good...maybe you too.
Printers and Publishers
BlitzPrint www.blitzprint.com
CreateSpace (Amazon) www.createspace.com
Our Little Books www.ourlittlebooks.com
Polished Publishing Group www.polishedpublishinggroup.com
Editors
www.thewritesupport.com
send me an email for others
Cover Design
send me an email
Illustrators
Janice Blaine
Layout
send me an email
Distribution
Sandhill
E-Book and Digital platforms
Kindle Direct
Smashwords
Portrait Photographer
Insight Photography
Videographer
Jillian Lee
Word of Mouth and Relationship Marketing
Theresa de Grosbois
Workshop and Meeting promotion
send me an email
If you contact any of these organizations, mention my name. I doubt that you will get any discount but it makes me look good...maybe you too.
Friday
WRITING YOUR OWN BOOK - what's holding you back?
What holds us back from completing our books? I suppose I might ask, "What holds you back from starting your book?" but that's for another day. Yes, I can feel your sense of relief...
Earlier this week, I had a message from Smashwords that My Secret Mother had been accepted into their premium catalog thus making it available in many more formats and places including the Apple store, the Sony store and Barnes and Noble, etc. This was great and gratifying news but there was another piece of news that I knew was coming but had hoped that somehow the book fairy would not notice or would magically fix it. The One Hour Author had not been accepted because it did not have an interactive Table of Contents. Now, if I'm telling the truth, I knew that would happen but hoped for something different.
I had glanced at the technical details of creating a Table of Contents in which the reader could switch from one chapter to any other with ease and move back and forth from text to TOC easily. This is one of the biggest selling features of a digital book or an e-reader but I anticipated a wrestling match with the technology.
This is not a new place for me as I have a love/hate relationship with the tech world and I live in dread of having to learn something new and make mistakes and redo it and on and on - it really tries my patience, something in short supply at the best of times.
Remember the ketchup commercial and the song "Anticipation" by Carly Simon. I feel a bit like the ketchup as I slowly make my way to the opening between me and technology. Anyway, the anticipation is far worse than the actual work itself. I set aside some time to get it started, followed the instructions that are detailed in the Smashwords publishing manual (it's free at their website) and started the dreaded process of formatting the book properly. It took about an hour, which includes the mistakes I made along the way.
Now, why didn't I just do that in the first place, you ask? I don't know - maybe I just anticipate this monumental struggle and want to avoid it. That doesn't work because eventually I have to deal with it anyway and the funny thing is, it's usually a much easier solution that I thought it would be.
My question to you is, where in your book writing process are you "anticipating" problems and avoiding solving them as you hope the book fairy will save you, too?
Go ahead and take a stab at it today - it may be easier than you "anticipated."
Please forward my blog to friends who might benefit - see you soon.
Earlier this week, I had a message from Smashwords that My Secret Mother had been accepted into their premium catalog thus making it available in many more formats and places including the Apple store, the Sony store and Barnes and Noble, etc. This was great and gratifying news but there was another piece of news that I knew was coming but had hoped that somehow the book fairy would not notice or would magically fix it. The One Hour Author had not been accepted because it did not have an interactive Table of Contents. Now, if I'm telling the truth, I knew that would happen but hoped for something different.
I had glanced at the technical details of creating a Table of Contents in which the reader could switch from one chapter to any other with ease and move back and forth from text to TOC easily. This is one of the biggest selling features of a digital book or an e-reader but I anticipated a wrestling match with the technology.
This is not a new place for me as I have a love/hate relationship with the tech world and I live in dread of having to learn something new and make mistakes and redo it and on and on - it really tries my patience, something in short supply at the best of times.
Remember the ketchup commercial and the song "Anticipation" by Carly Simon. I feel a bit like the ketchup as I slowly make my way to the opening between me and technology. Anyway, the anticipation is far worse than the actual work itself. I set aside some time to get it started, followed the instructions that are detailed in the Smashwords publishing manual (it's free at their website) and started the dreaded process of formatting the book properly. It took about an hour, which includes the mistakes I made along the way.
Now, why didn't I just do that in the first place, you ask? I don't know - maybe I just anticipate this monumental struggle and want to avoid it. That doesn't work because eventually I have to deal with it anyway and the funny thing is, it's usually a much easier solution that I thought it would be.
My question to you is, where in your book writing process are you "anticipating" problems and avoiding solving them as you hope the book fairy will save you, too?
Go ahead and take a stab at it today - it may be easier than you "anticipated."
Please forward my blog to friends who might benefit - see you soon.
Tuesday
HOW DO I WRITE MY BOOK?
How do I actually go about writing a book? I know that I have a great idea for my book but I am not sure about how to organize it, how to outline it, how to divide it into chapters or topics. I am not sure how to create a great title. I am not sure if I have the writing skills or enough unique ideas and thoughts to create a book. I know that I want to write a book, but I need some help and advice to get me started and keep me moving toward the finish line.
Help is at hand with our WRITE, PUBLISH & SELL WORKSHOP.
A few things that are covered in the WRITING portion include:
Yes, you can make a difference in the world, leave a legacy and enhance your credibility and recognition in your industry, in your city, in your world.
Join us for a fabulous day that will move your dream to a reality.
To see more about the workshop and the facilitators, watch our video;
Help is at hand with our WRITE, PUBLISH & SELL WORKSHOP.
A few things that are covered in the WRITING portion include:
- Blueprint
- "What's your book about?"
- Objective
- purpose
- topics
- must haves
- opening sentences
- Organize
- map boards
- targets
- field trip
- Know-How
- best selling titles
- expert status
- writing plan
Yes, you can make a difference in the world, leave a legacy and enhance your credibility and recognition in your industry, in your city, in your world.
Join us for a fabulous day that will move your dream to a reality.
To see more about the workshop and the facilitators, watch our video;
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