This week I’m launching my new program, Guerrilla Publishing – which I’ve built over the last year while travelling full-time. I made a free “Bookselling Bootcamp” challenge while staying at the 5 star Regent Hotel Montenegro (I wanted to be comfortable going into Nanowrimo, and I also did a 2-week sugar fast). But I realized I hadn’t published anything on my …

  Porto and Harry Potter This month we’ve been travelling through Portugal, seeking out JK Rowling’s favorite writing spots for inspiration. Rowling started planning Harry Potter in Porto, and it’s easy to see the connection. The university students wear black capes, and Porto is home to the “most beautiful bookstore in the world” – Livraria Lello. You may not know this, …

Last week I got the chance to chat with literary agent David Fulgate. I always appreciate David’s advice on publishing because, even though he makes his living representing traditionally published authors, he recognizes that in some cases it’s better for authors to self-publish. The insight I gained from him a few years ago was this: Unless you’re getting an advance of 100K …

There are some interesting discussions that are happening right now. I’m going to massively paraphrase the situation as I understand it, without naming any of the main players involved.     The story goes like this: Some people are cheating by uploading large collections of recycled content and getting people to click through to the end of the book, or …

UPDATE: Amazon got rid of Createspace altogether, so KDP print is your only option now. Sometimes it will flag things for issues, several times, but if you keep uploading it, the document might get approved (still buggy, as of 2019). Also, the cover generator rounds to the nearest 10th page I think, so it’s not as accurate as other tools. Also, …

Last night I searched for how to fix a boring book, because I was stuck and frustrated. I’ve been procrastinating for weeks and just couldn’t get into the flow… which is totally normal when you’re in the middle of the book and realize you don’t have enough story to get to the end. I was inspired by Chuck Wendig’s article, …

I asked illustrator Jessica Warrick to help me out testing print quality between Lightning Source and Createspace for her new book, 50 Happy Things. Previously, I’ve always heard that LS has slightly better print quality, but I haven’t recommended it because it’s a pain to work with and the assumed benefits aren’t really worth it.   HOWEVER, in this side-by-side …

I’ve been doing more research for one of my books that isn’t selling well. I used K-lytics to get the data for the teen and young adult category. http://k-lytics.com/teen-young-adult/ They list all the bestsellers of the genre, keywords, categories, etc – you could do the research yourself but I like the easy format they provide. I read through the 100 …

I talk a lot about writing books that sell, but I don’t always take my own advice. Out of the 5 novels I’ve published, most do pretty well with no promotion – but I’ve been having trouble keeping the rank up on one. There are reasons – mostly it’s a less popular mix of genres, so it’s harder to get …

  Exclusive Bonus: Want to make a living with your writing? Download my FREE book launch checklist and discover the step-by-step publishing roadmap I use to launch bestsellers.   2017 The Creative Writers’ Workshop Memoir Workshop Who is it for? The workshop is for those who wish to tap into their life experiences and memories, turning their life incidents into a creative …