By Shelley Sturgeon
It’s Labor Day (or Labour Day where I come from) weekend here in North America. It’s considered a sort of final nod to summer as schools open doors again and many of us find our way, often begrudgingly, back to our normal routines on Tuesday. Does Labor Day signal a return to your routines as a writer and self-publisher? Did you take the summer off from working on your projects? You can tell us in the comments.
Hope you enjoy this week’s selection of articles.
Nick Thacker on Writehacked
3 Piracy Protection Tactics for Writers
“Imagine the infuriating feeling of finding a book you spent time and money creating on a piracy site. Sure, it’s somewhat flattering that someone cares enough about your work to pirate it.”
Frances Caballo on Social Media Just For Writers
On the Hashtag Anniversary Hashtags Just for Writers
“Last Wednesday was the 10-year anniversary for the Twitter hashtag and Twitter acknowledged it with the trending hashtag #Hashtag10.”
Sandra Beckwith on Build Book Buzz
6 free stock image sources for author blogs
“Here are a few of the best free stock image sources. Use the search box on each site to search for the types of images you should be using in your blog posts (for example, I typed “books” into each search box). That will help you determine which site might be the best for your blogging and social media image needs.”
David Gaughran on Let’s Get Digital
The Visibility Gambit
“Kindle Unlimited has received a fair bit of bad press over the last couple of years – some of it from me – but I want to balance that by looking at the positives.”
Molly Greene on Molly Greene: Writer
Say Hi to Bookbot Bob!
“Staying on the radar via book promotion is a never-ending author task, while readers are always searching for new titles to enjoy. And, because the quality and success of various promo venues rise and fall, we’re ALL on the lookout for the latest trend, exciting places where both groups can meet.”
Self-Publishing News You Can Use
By Amy Collins
Nook Press Terminating Accounts in Violation of B&N Policy
Last week, authors and publishers started receiving notices from Nook Press that their accounts were being terminated and that titles were being pulled for being in violation of B&N’s policy that states that they do not allow “Obscene or Pornographic material: This may include content that graphically portrays sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.”
What is odd is that they still have a bestselling category list page for EROTIC ROMANCE and a page listing bestselling DOMINATION AND SUBMISSION titles. These accounts and titles were pulled with no notice and authors only received canned, cut-and-paste responses to their emails asking why they were targeted.
Publisher’s Weekly confirmed on Wednesday that the terminations were happening to hundreds if not thousands of titles and they asked B&N to comment. All they were told is that B&N was just reacting to notification of titles that did not follow their guidelines. However, at this time, it does look as if many of the titles and accounts have been reinstated in response to the outcry from the publishing community.
Photo: Bigstockphoto.com
