We’re still deep into vacation time, “gone fishing” signs are out, and a lot of people desperately want to cool off. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot going on in the indie publishing scene, and this week there are reports of mob violence, experiments with e-retailers, photo books, book reviews and sprucing up your Twitter domain. Go for it.
Victoria Strauss (@VictoriaStrauss) on Writer Beware
LendInk, Author Activism, and the Need for Critical Thinking
“Ignorance and lack of investigation are also what lead writers into the arms of scammers. I encounter this every day in my Writer Beware correspondence.”
M. Louisa Locke (@MLouisaLocke) on M. Louisa Locke
My brief experiment going off KDP Select: At least I got this nifty blog piece out of it!
“The categories my books do show up in the Kobo store … contain a lot of books, with none of the sub-categories that the Nook has, which also makes it difficult for a book by a relative unknown such as myself to become visible in them.”
Mick Rooney (@MickRooney7777) on The Independent Publishing Magazine
Is The Photobook The New Self-Publishing Phenomenon?
“There are now a multitude of photographic book production services online and all of them appeal to Joe and Josephine Plumber … and not just artists and writers.”
Catherine Ryan Howard (@Cathryanhoward) on Catherine, Caffeinated
How To Get Your Book Reviewed: A Practical Lesson
“Think of it this way: if you were accused of being a good writer and put on trial, what evidence would the prosecution present? What evidence could they present?”
Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) on Jane Friedman
Build a Better Author Bio for Twitter
“Let’s assume you’re on Twitter because it’s part of your author platform—whether you’re in relaxed mode or professional mode. Have you written a bio that’s likely to attract followers or turn them away?”
Blog Note: eBook Cover Design Awards is Moving
But not moving very far. Starting in September this popular feature will move to Monday instead of posting on Sunday. It just seems like a lot more people will be able to enjoy the explosion of creativity, out of the box thinking and slightly snarky comments that comes with the monthly award post.
The best way to keep up with developments is to hook up with my Twitter stream, and you’ll get alerts about the eBook Awards every month as well as alerts for the Carnival of the Indies posts, too. Here’s the link: @JFBookman. See you there.
Photo by technowannabe
Wonderful blogs. I checked each of them out.
Thanks for taking the time to put these together. I’m finding them very informative and helpful. WRITE ON!
That Catherine, Caffeinated link about getting your book reviewed is really something that everyone should read. Reviewers are readers who are hammered with offers for books to review. Although we all tend to approach reviewers on a professional level, we sometimes forget that if we are lucky enough to get their attention, we have only seconds to make the same appeal to them, as we would a normal reading customer. The example Catherine places up for how to query a reviewer is spot on.
Joel, do you have any articles on what mindset to take when approaching the different people you contact along the way to self publication? Something that says when approaching an agent, say or do this, a publisher, say this, a reviewer should be approached like this.
I guess we all need to remember the audience we are talking to when we communicate.
Tracy,
You might have a look at these:
How I’m Going to Book my Blog—Getting Testimonials
How to Get Testimonials for Your Self-Published Book
Great posts–esp. the one about the twitter bio. Sometimes, you can write a whole novel, but it’s hard to write just two sentences about yourself!
Ilana, I’ve been wanted to write a post about Twitter bios so I was excited to see Jane’s. And I’ll confess that I spent almost an hour coming up with my latest version, I think it’s worth the time investment.