Summer’s finally moving into our neighborhood, late but welcome. In the book world, self-publishing seems to be moving toward becoming a legitimate part of the larger publishing world. This is interesting, and I think you’ll also find this week’s articles interesting. Book marketing, indies as the new trads, the continuing surge of e-books, marketers to watch out for, and another author goes “e”. It’s all good, enjoy.

Randy Susan Meyers on Huffington Post
From Writing Quietly to Screaming “Buy Me!” — Promoting a Book
“This is the uncomfortable truth. If you want to follow your fantasy of writing and publishing, then you gotta shake that booty. You must learn how to sell . . . without coming across as greedy, crazed, or so entranced by yourself that people back away in horror.”

Bob Mayer on Write It Forward
Indies “vs” Trads: The elephant in the room
” The reality is that indie is becoming trad if you examine what’s going on with those indie authors who have broken out. Think about it.”

Mark Coker on Smashwords
Three Year Retrospective, and a Look Ahead
“A forest fire is about to consume the dead wood, and out of the ashes will spring forth a new and vibrant publishing ecosystem offering unprecedented diversity of literary riches more magnificent than anything ever imagined. This is inevitable.”

Victoria Strauss on Writer Beware
Book Marketing Methods that Don’t Work
“Most email campaign services, in other words, are the equivalent of dropping your book announcement off the top of a building, and hoping it lands in front of someone who might be interested.”

Michael N. Marcus on Bookmaking
E-books can cannibalize the sales of p-books, but you can still make more money
“If any of you writers, especially self-publishing writers, have been reluctant to take the plunge into e-books, plunge.”

Blog Notes

This week I posted my 600th article on TheBookDesigner. It was the video interview with Brian Felsen of BookBaby.com.

The first video interview I posted, with Sally Collings in April had a major glitch. It was supposed to be split-screen video, but “operator error” cut me out of the scene.

In the more recent video, I once again tried for the split screen. In the end, it was just Brian and I never appeared, which made some of the interview a bit odd. At least I didn’t have to put any apologies on this one. But still.

Video is really fun, even for a newbie like me, and I hope you’re enjoying the Saturday Q&A videos also. Video is a powerful way of teaching and I’ll be doing a lot more of it. Hopefully, I’ll get the interview right next time.

Photo by Victoria Peckham