Book Promotion

Self-Publishing News: E-Lending, Big Deals, Book Pirates

In this roundup: As recently discussed here at SPR, we are inching closer to the day when self-published eBooks will be stocked by libraries. Consider using your author platform to promote your local library’s eBook lending policy and make friends with your local library ahead of time. Also, is landing a publishing deal for your self-published book one of your big dreams? Plus, tips on how to know if your eBook has been pirated, and what you can do if it happens.

Two items from TeleRead regarding eBooks and libraries. First, “ALA OITP releases backgrounder document on eBooks […]

2012-07-11T08:28:23+02:00July 11th, 2012|Categories: News, Resources|Tags: |

Self-Publishing News: Ebook Sales and Resales, Losing the Plot, Fighting for Libraries

In this round-up: the Smashwords July sale for either hemisphere, GalleyCat’s weekly lists of eBook sales ranks, new legal ruling in Europe on eBook resale, a lengthy opinion piece deconstructing why The Authors Guild among other things attempts to invoke sympathy for PublishAmerica, and a save-the-libraries campaign from The Bookseller.

Enroll Your Books in the 2012 Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale (July 1 – 31):

Here in the Northern hemisphere, it’s mid-summer. Readers everywhere are loading up their e-reading devices for summer beach reading and vacations. But what about the good people South of the equator, who are now in the middle

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2012-12-20T11:41:43+02:00July 3rd, 2012|Categories: News|Tags: , , , |

Gee, Thanks! – Ebook Promotion & Giveaways

Media Bistro has put together a list of places where self-published authors can promote their eBook at no charge. The list was culled from Kindle Boards:

We’ve collected more information about the sites in a simple directory below, linking to the submission pages for these eBook sites. If you are an avid eBook reader, these sites are great for finding new books to read as well….

Note that there is a difference between free promotion (regardless of price) and promoting a free eBook, so read carefully. Also check the comments section under the Media Bistro post for possible additional links.[…]

2019-02-03T08:55:55+02:00June 30th, 2012|Categories: Resources|Tags: |

Book Dreams and Schemes: Questionable Promotion Offers

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware has a warning for self-published authors about a couple of promotion “opportunities,” part of her series of posts on the topic.

The first of the “suite of services,” the Hollywood Book-to-Movie Treatment, costs a cool $3,299. For that, you get a 7-10 page “creative adaptation” of your book written by a screenwriter. Which screenwriter? What are his/her credits? Sorry, that info is not available. …

It hurts my heart, and my brain, to think that authors might actually shell out this kind of money for services that would likely net them zero results even if

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2012-12-20T11:42:50+02:00June 27th, 2012|Categories: Resources|Tags: |

Self-Publishers and eBook Authors Need a CHAMPION to Assist Them in Gaining Access to the Library Lending Process

Amazon’s entry into public libraries and their own lending process through the Prime program has just quadrupled the activity in ebook lending. With this rapid growth of the ebook lending process comes some inherent problems as everyone rushes to get a piece of the action.

At the top of the ladder are the traditional publishers, Amazon and Overdrive. They are the people that have the most control. Their motive is profit. At the bottom rung are the libraries and the authors.

I have discussed this issue with several authors recently and the sentiment is the same. “How do I make […]

2020-02-21T03:31:36+02:00November 30th, 2011|Categories: Features|Tags: , , |

An Experiment in Serial Fiction and Self-Publication

At the start of the year, I had an idea for a project. I wanted to write a serialized fiction story in pieces small enough to fit inside a single Tweet. One tiny chunk of narrative prose every day, slowly building an ongoing, real-time story for the audience to piece together.

Then every so often, I’d do something a bit more, something to enrich the story and experience — a full short story perhaps, or an in-character piece of music, or an audio play.

I had several goals in creating a project like this. One was to have a story […]

2014-05-06T10:00:57+02:00October 26th, 2011|Categories: Features|Tags: |

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Basics for Authors

Whether you’re self-publishing or you went the traditional route, you’ve likely been told that you need to have a blog and a website. But, if you’re like a lot of authors, independent and otherwise, you don’t get many visitors to your site.

Leaning a little about search engine optimization or SEO can help.

SE-what, you ask? Some strange computer virus?

No, nothing so scary. Let’s take a look at the basics.

What Is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is the art of making your site/blog seem particularly useful and important to Google, so it’ll list your pages higher than those of […]

2011-10-02T10:03:47+02:00October 2nd, 2011|Categories: Member Blog, Resources|Tags: , |

Beating them off with a Schtick

I’ve written a book with a schtick.

If I tell you that when I first drafted my collection of Christmas-themed horror shorts they were as a gift for my wife, who loves the holidays like no doe-eyed child ever did, and that I genuinely wanted to explore the notion of ‘giving’ creatively, while reveling in a mythology that is all too rarely untouched by serious genre writers, precisely because the associated tinsel-trimmed gimmickry makes them seem corny or hackneyed: you still won’t care. If I tell you these things they will only ring as excuses: as the book enters the […]

2011-09-01T12:27:24+02:00September 1st, 2011|Categories: Features, Member Blog|Tags: |
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