Member Blog | Self-Publishing Review

Kindle Me!

I am a book nut. Really! I love books; the smell of a fresh off the press book, printer’s ink, the smell of a leather binding, crisp pages and glossy covers with artwork that is fresh and presents the theme of the book to entice the reader even further than the “back of the book” blurb.

I also hate books; old yellow brittle pages on a book barely 10 years old, peeling laminate on paperback covers or dust jackets that can’t handle use and rip easily. Dust on library shelves that, once disturbed, can send you into a coughing seizure. […]

Boudica Foster2011-11-01T11:59:20+02:00November 1st, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|

Library eBooks: Is the eBook Ecosystem Affected by the Amazon Library Lending Process?

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

The Inhabitants
In the ebook jungle, the traditional publishers are indeed the king of beasts. They control the prices and the access to the ebooks. Even the authors who create the content have little say. If publishers don’t want you to borrow one of their titles, you can’t. If they want you to wait for a title, you wait.

The next level of […]

James Moushon2019-02-18T12:17:54+02:00October 28th, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|Tags: Amazon, Smashwords|

Jim Beck (Black Rooster Creations) Interview

1. How did you come to self-publish? Did you try to get published traditionally?

I came from the screenwriting world, and quite frankly, I was a bit fed up with all the blockades set up to stop talented people from succeeding. I see it every day. I had a stack of screenplays and outlines of stories that everyone seemed to enjoy, including managers and producers, but I wasn’t a schmoozer, which makes it harder to break in. After several close calls with success, a friend suggested that I switch to writing novels. I did some research and decided to self-publish […]

Jim Beck2014-05-05T22:35:09+02:00October 27th, 2011|Categories: Interviews, Member Blog|

How Digital Became the Self-Publishing Beacon of Hope for Comics

By Wesley Craig Green – a writer of comics & movies, occasional entrepreneur, pop culture junkie, and lover of all things 70s.

Till only a few years ago, making a successful go at self-publishing (by “successful”, I mean having a growing audience which actively supports your work) was not the norm. For every Jeff Smith, there were a hundred self-publishers who put out anywhere from one to five issues of their self-publishing creation before they either ran out of funding or drive. This isn’t to say they or their book(s) were a failure. Far from it. It just means the […]

Guest Post2019-03-06T09:13:35+02:00October 26th, 2011|Categories: Member Blog|

Because You’re Not Worth It (Or, Why Friends Don’t Ask Friends To Work For Free)

I used to find this quote inspirational, but now it just seems puzzling…

“One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film.”

– Stanley Kubrick

Not to pick an undebatable point with one of the greatest creative minds in recent history, but having produced a novel (yes, produced – more on that later) it’s fairly clear that all the author traditionally does is put the words together pretty. Write the manuscript. What usually follows in the process is turning it over to proofers and editors, lawyers who vet the prose […]

Kian Kaul2020-02-21T07:18:07+02:00October 19th, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|

Let Your Readers Guide You – They Whisper, So Listen Closely

When I published my first book, “Chasing the Runner’s High”, Amazon had two royalty plans for ebooks published through their Kindle Direct Publishing program. One paid 35% and one paid 70%. It looked like a no-brainer. Who wouldn’t prefer to get 70% of the price of each book sold instead of 35%? The main restriction was that I had to set the list price of my ebook between $2.99 and $9.99 to qualify for the 70% program.

Amazon controls about 70% of the ebook market. They set the rules and everyone else follows. So there are a lot of […]

Ray Charbonneau2011-10-10T12:40:42+02:00October 10th, 2011|Categories: Member Blog|

Author Willow Polson Says Hello

As with everything on the interwebtubes, I discovered SPR through a series of clicks. I saw that a fellow author, R.J. Keller, had “Liked” my Facebook page for Triune, and she was a mutual friend with fellow author Rob Kroese of Mercury Falls fame, so I looked at her website, which brought me to Backwords Books, which led me here. I love how all this stuff works, and I can see the writing on the wall (no pun intended).

Traditional publishing is either one big gentlemen’s club or the Cretaceous Period, or perhaps both in the form of a […]

Willow Polson2011-10-09T09:33:38+02:00October 9th, 2011|Categories: Interviews, Member Blog|

Review: Von Lagerhaus by Dave DiGrazie

A group of strangers traveling through a surreal afterlife learn about themselves and each other as they seek a mysterious man named Von Lagerhaus.

One minute Rawanzel Johnson was in a Buffalo, N.Y., crack house, getting high, the next she was shivering next to a two-lane road in the middle of a mysterious pine forest. Soon she runs into Karen, a pretty television journalist from North Carolina who says that moments ago she’d run a red light and somehow ended up in the woods. The two find a note on the ground from someone named “G. Von Lagerhaus” welcoming them […]

Kirkus Reviews2019-01-23T12:40:27+02:00October 8th, 2011|Categories: Member Blog|