So when will we start to see REAL ebooks appear on the market? You know the ebooks that take advantage of their digital environment. Ebooks that have been rendered to improve the reader’s ebook experience. As the number of ebook devices explodes into the book reader’s world, the readers are going to expect more. This [...]

My usual blogging direction is toward the ebook author and the self-publishing world. With this blog I take a left turn and explore the Amazon Library Lending Process and how it affects the ebook ecosystem.
The Jungle [...]

There is something happening in the publishing industry right now. Something seismic. Regular men and women – children even! – are beginning to self-publish. The internet has given them the keys to a once gated empire – and the gatekeepers are not happy. There is a system in place for writers, a proven process that [...]

Baby Steps First
Starting to self-publish your ebook or even thinking about it can be a daunting task. A little help before you start will save you time and help you in publishing your ebook in all the right places.
When I published my first book, I had no idea where to go or what to look [...]

Do you really want to be an old time author and publish your book traditionally or do you want to be an eBook author and self-publish your content on-line? That’s the question.
An old time author! Are you one of them? You know the traditional author that has beat his head against publisher’s front doors for [...]

The giant fell face down in the snow and slid down the slope a dozen feet. He lay still, not moving for a few seconds. Then he let out a roar. He lurched to his feet and wiped snow and blood from his eyes. He looked up at the form of Anabar streaking away from him. The giant growled and headed back up the slope, his eyes locked on Anabar. His rage gave him the energy to charge up the steep incline, stomping his feet deep into the snow with each step. His speed increased as he pounded up, a grizzly bear chasing its prey. So focused was the giant on getting to Anabar, he failed to notice the cracks appearing in the snow around him.
Anabar felt the snow beneath him starting to slide, and then something dropped down the slope from above, uncoiling like a dark snake as it neared him. He saw it was a rope, and he dove for it, as the entire mountain seemed to vibrate under his feet. He caught the rope and pulled it close to his body. The snow accelerated down and away from him and he gripped the rope, his fingers turning white from the effort.

For over a year now, I’ve been publishing my ebooks through Smashwords, an online company that specializes in allowing indie authors to format and upload their digital books to be sold on different platforms, including the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes and Noble Nook, and the Sony Reader. Although I’ve experience a [...]

This week, Mark Coker posted a new entry to the Smashwords blog detailing the rise of self-publishing and discussing the broken model upon which big publishing is built. From the article:
If authors – the beating heart powering Big Publishing – lose faith in Big Publishing, then big publishing as we know it will die. [...]

So, why do free eBooks exist? Why would any person go to the trouble of typing so many words on a page, then spend money to create a cover for that electronic book, only to give it away to people with no expectation of a monetary reward?

It’s because we need reviews.

Hello. I’m Ravis. I write a lot of stuff that could nominally be called horror–because I love horror and other genre fiction–and some stuff that falls under whatever the currently trendy term might be for contemporary lit that’s based in the real world, yet contains elements of the fantastical. I recently self-published  an e-novella called [...]