This is my first year of publishing fiction – so I concentrated on building a big list and was very careful with what I shared. However, now that I’m focused on my books generating income, I’m prepared to promote other (talented) authors in my genre to my list, in exchange with them promoting my books
I have something to say and I feel it needs to be said, though I’m not sure what exactly it is. On the eve of publishing my first fiction, I’m coming to terms with the potentiality of failure, and it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever known. Maybe it’s because I just watched Me
This isn’t my first book conference, but I’m definitely an outsider here. The London Book Fair is the first book fair I’ve been to that’s firmly for publishing professionals. As a concession to the self-publishing authors who have won themselves a piece of the publishing pie, the London Book Fair has provided a whole...
Recently I posted an article/video called “The #1 Thing Indie Authors are Doing Wrong” – I didn’t expect much traffic but actually people have been sharing it quite a lot. So I watched my own video and I heard a lot of negativity. It’s frustrating, for me, and anybody who works in the publishing industry,
This month I published over 100 YouTube videos. I’m getting a little more confident, though I tend to ramble. In this one I discuss common self-publishing mistakes you should avoid that I see most indie authors screwing up. Here are some of the things I talk about. Ugly website Ugly book cover Spamming people Overprotective
This is a short post: I hear a lot of indie authors complaining about how everybody is against them. Reviewers won’t touch their book. They can’t get into bookstores. Everywhere they try to promote their book they hear things like “we don’t work with self-publishing authors.” That can seem like prejudice. It can...
This past month I’ve been thinking big and buying up online platforms related to publishing and book design. My little blog gets some traffic, and my book cover design business is doing fine – I just want to be a bigger player. A couple weeks ago I found a little blog network for indie authors
I’ve been noticing a trend for awhile. I’ve commented on it before. At first it was subtle. It began with the explosion of “Lifestyle Businesses” – a few guys quit their jobs and told everybody else, “Hey, you guys should quit your jobs too, it’s awesome!” They set themselves up as...
I’ve seen versions of this debate raging around the internet for several years. The short version goes like this: 1) Lightning source produces better quality books 2) Lightning source offers more professionalism and the right kind of discounts therefore 3) Even though it’s more expensive and a pain in the ass, you should go with
Book sales may seem like a mysterious void of uncertainty, but the truth is most authors fail for very predictable reasons. Luckily, if you’re doing these things wrong, they’re (mostly) easy to fix. 1) You have no reviews. Are you driving people to buy from an amazon page with no reviews on it? Good luck
What if I told you I could help you sell %500 more books in less than a month; that I had personal media ties; that I could get you top exposure everywhere and keep the momentum going to sell thousands of books for years to come? Obviously, such an opportunity wouldn’t come cheap. If I
I put out my self published non-fiction research book about a year ago. I did almost everything wrong. I’m starting to come to grips with what I should have done, which I’ve arranged in the following 3-step plan for those who can benefit from my mistakes. 1) Distribution. The book has to be OUT
