Features | Self-Publishing Review

e-Textbooks: How do they stack up against traditional textbooks?

I will start by stating that I believe e-textbooks are a great opportunity to improve the quality of education. But the players have to start thinking outside the box and stop resisting the new concept. E-textbooks should be a wake-up call to professors and students, publishers, authors and content providers.

I have been championing ebooks and ebook authors for a while how and listening to the educational community’s reasons for not adopting the new technology. Oh I know about the current pilot programs and the studies being conducted. Some schools are even being forced into using them because of their […]

James Moushon2017-05-26T05:27:19+02:00February 28th, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|Tags: Amazon|

The Other 90% of us

In a recent talk, the great novelist Margaret Atwood (link courtesy of teleread) said that approximately 10% of authors make their living by their writing. This seemed like a high number to me. It makes me wonder a) what is the definition of an author and b) what is the history of this percentage?

I assume that an “author” is a writer who has been published by one of the six subsidiaries of international conglomerates which constitute “literature” today, in which case, the fact that a mere 10% of their stable make money is not a bright reflection […]

tom lichtenberg2011-02-22T18:23:14+02:00February 22nd, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|

Self-publishing and social networking

The main advantage of self-publishing for me is that as the author, I have full control over the content, design, and marketing of my book. I also decide when it goes to press and I retain all the publication and subsidiary rights. Thus, I was free to penetrate a niche market in foreign romance, which a commercial publisher would have ignored. I also believe that my book had a greater chance of success because I was very committed to promoting it, more than say, a publisher who has hundreds of other titles.

In terms of sales, A Heart to Mend […]

Myne Whitman2020-02-21T03:58:11+02:00February 21st, 2011|Categories: Features, Resources|Tags: Book Marketing|

Indie Book Review: The Doom Guardian

This review features spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Say you go for a walk and find a milky-gray translucent pebble. It’s all knobby and cloudy and encrusted with dirt. If you take it home, wash it off, polish it up, and cut it, you may have a diamond. You may have some nicely cut and polished quartz. Just like with pebbles, a rough story makes it hard to tell if you’ve got a diamond or quartz in your hands.

The Doom Guardian is rough. When I review stories I make notes of the grammar errors, typos, formatting issues, and […]

Keryl Raist2011-02-19T18:14:29+02:00February 19th, 2011|Categories: Book Reviews, Features|

Amazon Has Some REAL Good News and They Have Some Great News for e-Textbook and eBook Users

What do you want to read first?

Ok. We will start with the REAL good news.

Amazon has announced changes to their Kindle software. First they are going to display page numbers. This is a feature that academic Kindle and ebook users have been asking for since e-textbooks and ebooks started to appear. It has raised a large page numbering controversy and a lot of misconceptions.

The Nook does this and the iPad does that. Both for the most part use device page numbers and not physical book page numbers but who’s keeping track. (PDF versions are an exception.)[…]

James Moushon2019-02-18T12:23:14+02:00February 9th, 2011|Categories: Features|Tags: Amazon|

Self-Publishing: Some advice for emerging writers.

photo credit: gruntzooki

I’ve been seeing a lot of conversation going on lately about self-publishing and how it relates to emerging writers. This is a topic that I’m quite interested in, having both considered the possibility of self-publishing and applied the term ’emerging’ to myself and my writing. So I thought I’d take a moment and explore my own thoughts surrounding the subject and give some advice on how to make the best of the current scene.

Broadly speaking, I’m in favour of self-publishing as a thing. As far as I’m concerned, the more options an artist has to distribute […]

Phill English2011-02-08T19:34:06+02:00February 8th, 2011|Categories: Features|

Is Google the future of eBooks?

As I’ve mentioned, I love my Kindle (I really do), but I’m not crazy in love with the Kindle store. I went to download a book the other day, and and it seriously took me like fifteen minutes to pull the trigger. The problem wasn’t the $9.99 I was paying — I would have gladly paid more for a physical copy. The problem was that if I pay ten bucks for something I want it to me be mine. I don’t want it to be locked in some device that I may or may not still have […]

mattyoungmark2011-02-03T10:45:57+02:00February 3rd, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|

What Makes the Top Selling eBook Authors Tick?

Sometimes when I am Google Reading in the World of the eBook Author, I come across a post that takes me back in time. A post that brings back memories of my early business career. Oh, the world of Peter Drucker, Parkinson’s Law and the Peter Principle.

Daniel Hall did that with a blog on the Selling Books blog site: USING THE “LONG TAIL” IN WRITING AND MARKETING YOUR BOOKS. Selling Books is a great marketing blog for eBook Authors.

The essence of his post was the story of the longevity of a digital book.
First. eBook sales […]

James Moushon2020-02-21T03:35:51+02:00February 3rd, 2011|Categories: Features|Tags: Author Branding|