Lead Story | Self-Publishing Review

40+ Free Tools for Authors

This post is designed to give you a concise, yet comprehensive preview of most important free tools you can pick up to publish and promote your e-books. I hope it will help you discover those which best fit your author profile and personal needs.

This list is planned to be a one-stop place with all what’s available for free and worth getting your attention. For info about updates of this post, please follow or add me to a list on Twitter.

The most obvious choices, like blogging platforms or social media networks, are not included. I wanted to focus […]

Piotr Kowalczyk2011-10-13T00:21:37+02:00June 8th, 2011|Categories: Lead Story, Resources|

My Realities or “How to Market Your Book or Watch it Die”

Today is my new novel’s publishing day, so I thought I’d write about the marketing it took to get here.

I won’t bullshit you. The publishing industry is changing fast, and what to do is confusing. Like a bar magnet, the industry has two strong poles: traditional publishing and self-publishing. If you’re antsy for what to do, skip over the following history. If you don’t know the history, it’s worth reading and understanding. A few months back, I wrote about marketing a literary book. This is more inclusive.

HISTORY

Traditional publishing is the way things have gone, more or less, […]

Christopher Meeks2011-05-18T12:41:48+02:00May 18th, 2011|Categories: Lead Story, Resources|

Do Publishers Have a Purpose in the Digital Age?

The opening day seminar debate last week at the London Book Fair asked the provocative question: ‘Will publishers in the digital age soon be irrelevant?’ It was always a debate destined to be a little heated. It isn’t just provocative but also suggests there is an alternative destiny for the book publishing industry to the one envisaged by many commercial publishing houses.

The debate was hosted by Susan Danziger, CEO of DailyLit and organizer of the Publishing Point, and moderated by Michael Healy, executive director of the Book Rights Registry. Richard Charkin, executive director of Bloomsbury Publishing and Andrew Franklin, […]

Mick Rooney2011-04-28T10:06:05+02:00April 28th, 2011|Categories: Features, Lead Story|

How To Go Bankrupt Thanks to Really Great Reviews

This is a story about book returns. It’s also a story about the bookstore system and what’s not working. You’ll also hear how success can crush the self-publisher.

It’s not my story. I didn’t go bankrupt—but I could have. What I aim to do here is tell you my experience of publishing well-reviewed books and what you might do in this ever-changing publishing world to get ahead.

Here I can’t get into is how to write a really great book. Let’s assume you know what you’re doing, and once you write the great book, you hire a professional editor and […]

Christopher Meeks2011-04-18T16:41:51+02:00April 18th, 2011|Categories: Features, Lead Story|

Free Tools For Authors From Ebook Friendly

Some of you already know that I founded Ebook Friendly – a special kind of e-bookstore addressed to those readers who are aware of distractions the web brings and want to avoid them at the stage of browsing for books. Because reading is all about being focused, opposite to Internet – which is all about being distracted.

Reader friendly interface is one part of the proposition.

As a self-publisher I also want to make this site a place where great books from self-published authors can be easily discovered. There is no better way to do it than help the […]

Piotr Kowalczyk2011-04-28T10:06:45+02:00April 15th, 2011|Categories: Lead Story, Resources|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Book Promotion Articles|

How to get your book reviewed – by avoiding book reviewers.

To have a chance at selling your book on amazon or online, you need reviews. Lots of them. And if you’re like me, you hate pushing all your friends and family to review your work (is it really fair to ask them?) and leave comments. So most authors do this:

1) Search online for book reviews, indie book reviewers, self-published book reviews, how to get book reviews, etc.

2) Email or contact those reviewers asking them to take a look at their books and comment.

Here’s why that doesn’t work. First of all – those few sites that offer […]

Derek Murphy2013-05-27T15:49:08+02:00April 3rd, 2011|Categories: Features, Lead Story, Resources|Tags: Book Marketing Advice and Tips, Book Promotion Articles, Book Reviews|

Mark Coker on the Downfall of Big Publishing

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. By “Big Publishing,” I’m referring to the old, pre-self-publishing system embodied by the Big 6 New York publishers, in which the publisher serves as the author’s judge, jury, gatekeeper and executioner.

If Big Publishing approves of your book, they acquire it. Post-acquisition, an author can

[…]

Todd Keisling2011-03-05T11:12:08+02:00March 5th, 2011|Categories: Features, Lead Story, News|Tags: Smashwords Tips and Articles|

An Author Interview: Zoe Winters

Zoe Who?

A few years ago I took some time off from writing and publishing. When I returned to the scene in early 2009, I found the landscape had changed. Self-publishing was more accepted. The stigma was starting to wear thin.

I joined Twitter, realizing that it was an excellent way to link up with like-minded folks. If you’re a Twitter user and you dabble in publishing, it’s only a matter of time before you cross paths with Zoe Winters. Her name kept popping up in my feeds, so I decided to follow her and see what she’s all about. […]

Todd Keisling2017-03-24T09:18:43+02:00February 1st, 2011|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|