Lead Story | Self-Publishing Review

Operation Concrete: An Interview with Richard Galbraith

Concrete Operational by Richard Galbraith (and others) is the most ambitious project ever covered by Self-Publishing Review. In fact, it might be the most ambitious project I’ve ever seen of its kind, self-published or not. It combines a novel, art book, and CD in one package, all centered around a single story – a plausibly prophetic vision of the future. About the novel:

Germany Germany, a man who was free, a man who loved, now an instrument in their machine. They have turned him into the very thing he hates, what he and everyone he loved fought against, the

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Henry Baum2011-10-08T17:15:21+02:00November 4th, 2010|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Social Media Won’t Sell Your Books

Many social media gurus will tell you a Twitter feed can cure cancer. Maybe I’m uninformed and this is true – I can’t be sure.

One thing I do know is that social media sites were not created to sell books simply via their existence. This originally started out as a post focused on video, but I bloated it out to social media in general, because it really has to tie together in a nice big bow.

I’m going to lay out a bit of my thinking and rationale about this topic with regard to indie writers using these channels […]

Brian Spaeth2011-10-08T17:10:03+02:00October 4th, 2010|Categories: Lead Story, Resources|

Jane Friedman, Long-Time Publisher of Writer’s Digest, Talks with Self-Publishing Review

I first met Jane Friedman sometime around June, 2001, when she called to tell me that my novel Acts of the Apostles had won the Writer’s Digest National Self-Published Book Award for that year (in the “genre” category: a juried competition with 324 entrants, ahem; I digress).

That call took place pretty early in Jane’s 12 year career at F+W Media (and pretty early in my self-publishing career, now that you mention it.) Her talent was obvious and she rose quickly. In 2008 she was named the publisher of Writer’s Digest, the No. 1 resource for working writers. In her […]

John Sundman2017-03-24T09:26:42+02:00August 25th, 2010|Categories: Lead Story|Tags: Writing Tips|

Tune in Tokyo: A Review and Interview with Tim Anderson

Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries is the true-life tale of a slacker, gay, viola-playing, sardonic English teacher making his way through the wilds of Tokyo. You know you’re in for a good read when the promo materials for the book are funny. A lesson to writers – your promo materials can do a lot.

The memoir is about culture shock, the sometimes absurdity of Japanese culture, but it’s mostly about Tim Anderson’s unique lens into his experiences. The book is confidently and reliably funny. The humor doesn’t have a 100% success rate, but there are so many quips that […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T17:19:29+02:00August 18th, 2010|Categories: Book Reviews, Interviews, Lead Story|

SPR interviews Mark Coker of Smashwords

Smashwords is a service for helping small and self-publishers format ebooks in diverse formats (for example: kindle, epub, PDF, Palm) and distribute them through diverse retail channels (for example Amazon, Apple, BN, Kobo, and Smashwords itself). A few weeks ago I sent Smashwords founder Mark Coker a note asking if I could interview him for my site Wetmachine & SelfPublishing Review. He said yes; I sent him some questions about the current & future state of book publishing, and he answered. His replies appear below the fold (cross-posted on Wetmachine yesterday).

I found his answers interesting and direct, and I […]

John Sundman2011-10-08T18:00:59+02:00August 5th, 2010|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|Tags: Smashwords Tips and Articles|

Web Presence Checklist

You’ve spent months, perhaps years, writing your book. Did you do so for it to die in obscurity? Why then does its web presence not reach beyond the Lulu Marketplace? Why then doesn’t it even show up upon typing its title on Google? Why then does its Amazon’s sales rank sag below the 4 millionth mark? If that sounds anything like you, keep reading, for I’m about to list all those opportunities to broadcast your title and reach your target audience that you’re missing out on. To the extent that they’re inexpensive, easy, and of course applicable to your book, […]

Muriel Lede2011-10-08T17:26:53+02:00July 14th, 2010|Categories: Lead Story, Resources|

Kickstarting My Book: Why I Chose to Crowdsource

The Story

I had a problem. After several months of work, I was finally ready to publish the second edition of my novel, A Life Transparent. The details were in place, the cover design tweaked, the revisions made. All of this was set up for a re-release in anticipation of the book’s sequel early next year.

I picked CreateSpace as my printer and publisher. I’d read good things. Their integration with Amazon was tantalizing, and the free ISBN was a perk. There was low cost involved, and I wanted very badly to get away from Lulu, whose rates spiked […]

Todd Keisling2020-02-21T07:53:48+02:00June 15th, 2010|Categories: Lead Story, Resources|Tags: Social Media|

Feedbooks: A Primer

Amid all of the discussion about the multiple ‘walled gardens’ being set up to push DRM-ed ebooks to devices, a Paris-based team have been steadily building a system to push books anywhere and shipping more books than Apple in the process.

Of course, the books are free so the comparison is dodgy, but let’s put the figures out there: in the first 28 days of iBooks, Apple distributed 1.5 million ebooks while Feedbooks distributed out 2.6 million ebooks to iPads, iPhones, PCs and Android devices.

They describe themselves as “a cloud service for digital publishing/distribution” and if you are interested […]

mrchrn2011-10-08T18:35:31+02:00May 26th, 2010|Categories: Lead Story, Resources|