This Week in the Blogs, June 9 – 15, 2018

by Shelley Sturgeon | Jun 17, 2018

By Shelley Sturgeon

Be sure to check back here next Sunday for our monthly Carnival of the Indies blog carnival post, and in the meantime, hope you enjoy this week’s selection of articles from some of the best writing and self-publishing blogs on the web.

Mike Shatzkin on The Shatzkin Files
Words-to-be-read are losing ground to words-to-be-heard, a new stage of digital content evolution
““Words-to-be-read” must now become a content category, along with still images, video, and audio. Audio includes “words-to-be-heard”.”

Margaret Broucek on BookBaby Blog
Creating a Book Trailer That Sells Books
“If you’re nearing the publication and promotional phase of your novel’s life, then you may be thinking of creating a book trailer — a short video to pique viewers’ interest in your story.”

David Wogahn on Authorimprints
Amazon KDP Print or CreateSpace for Paperbacks? 2018 Update
“The convenience of managing your Kindle eBook and paperback in a single account is undeniable. Using a single login, you can upload book files, access sales reports, create and manage AMS ads (Amazon Marketing Services) and manage book metadata using KDP Print. … But is using KDP Print better than using Amazon’s CreateSpace to produce your paperback?”

Kathy Rowe on Indies Unlimited
Selling Books in Odd Places… Farmers Markets
“I’ve sold books at some odd places: a military retirement, a winery (oh, that was a blast!), a flea market, work (to the surprise of friends who never knew I was an author), and the oddest yet: a farmers market.”

Debbie Young on Self Publishing Advice From The Alliance Of Independent Authors
Book Marketing: 7 Avoidable Rookie Errors for Indie Authors
“Any indie author who has ever self-published a book has been there: regretting the wisdom of hindsight highlighting an error of judgment that has hampered the marketing potential of their new book.”

Self-Publishing News You Can Use

By Amy Collins

Author’s Guild Announces New Relationship with Amazon

The Authors Guild has arranged a procedure with Amazon for resolving authors’ complaints with their Amazon book listings. Guild members have reported instances where the “buy box” for their books pointed customers to non-“new,” or non-royalty bearing copies sold by Amazon resellers as well as instances of infringing copies of their books sold by Amazon resellers. In addition, some authors have discovered customer reviews of their books that clearly violate Amazon’s own guidelines.

For the past year, The Author Guild has worked with to learn which issues represent legitimate use cases and which do not, and they have been able to get many of these issues resolved.

After discussions with Amazon, The guild will now be able to directly flag issues where Authors Guild members feel they are being harmed as authors (not as customers), and assist with communication with Amazon. Authors Guild members may now file complaints directly with the Guild. The Guild will review all of the author complaints to determine whether they raise problems that Amazon can or should address.