This is a reprint from DeepMagik's site here.
5 Sites You Need to See If You Want to Self Publish
October 10, 2013
Nice video this week. An interview with Mette Ivie Harrison. You can watch it here. She goes over the publishing world. In this post I’m going to add some links and information about the other route…self-publishing.
Here are the 5 things you need to know about self publishing.
1. Here’s a bit of the first post, it’s from a site called copy blogger. This first article is “21 things you need to know about self publishing”. I liked this one and thought you might too.
1. Reality check
At the time of this writing, the amount of money households spend overall on reading materials is going down.
In 1994 (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics) the average household spent $165 on reading materials. In 2011, adjusted for inflation, the average US household spent $115. How come? Because there are many high-quality, free things we can read. So we spend our entertainment dollars elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the number of books being published each year rises at a steady 6% per year.
So we have less demand and more supply. Which means prices and incomes go down. You can use this to your advantage.
How? Publishers aren’t reducing the prices of their books. Actually, they tend to raise them with inflation to keep fueling their bloated machines.
So you can instantly gain an advantage by reducing prices, given the facts I’ve laid out above.
2. Audience first
If you have no readers, nobody will buy your book. Fortunately, that’s not a Catch-22. You build your audience by giving, giving, giving, giving, before you finally ask them to pay $4.99 for your book.
You write blog posts. You write tweets. You build a Facebook fan page. And on and on. The next several points are about building your platform. If you are not willing to do this, then your spouse will read your book and maybe your parents. Maybe. Your kids will not read your book.
That’s a taste of it. Read all of the 21 tips if you liked how this began. I personally think this site is awesome. I mean tip #3 is If it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead. Funny way for them to give you a tip. Check it out.
2. The next post is on How to Blog a Book. It’s a great blog about the possibility of changing your book idea into a blog. But it also just gives great information about writing a blog. And Brandon strongly recommends having a blog so this one is one you dragons should take a look at.
My Critique of His First Post
You can imagine my critique.
You don’t have a plan for the blog or the book.
Your post had formatting errors.
Your post needed proofing before hitting “publish.”
You haven’t determined the focus of the book.
The post title doesn’t tell the reader what the post is about.
The title contains no keywords to help with discoverability.
The post contains no keywords to help with discoverability.
You haven’t used any subheads to help readers scan for content.
I don’t now what this story have to do with anything?
What is the focus of the blog itself? Does it have a long-term plan?
You can write.
He wasn’t too pleased.
Again, very amusing. And it has great information. Could be of some help. Read a lot of good content about writing at How to Blog a Book.
3. The Worlds Greatest Book. This is a site and guy that works on your work. Below is an example of his work.
Writing is Design: Avoid Bland Pronouns and Boring Verbs
October 3, 2013Dave Bricker 17
As a graphic designer, I see numerous parallels between the values that create engaging imagery and the values that create engaging prose. So many designs fail because the designer arranged elements on a page without questioning their purpose, hierarchy, or relationship to the intended message. Good writing is characterized by the same conscious application of order, balance, tension, tone, spirit, relevance, and clarity as good design. As a designer might scrutinize a page to evaluate margins, kerning, and font choice, a writer can search for style patterns that illuminate weak, lazy, or formulaic writing and missed opportunities to create stronger prose.
See his site here.
4. The Write’s Guide to E-Publishing. Cool site with lots of articles about all kinds of stuff centered around writing. Take a look at an example author.
I wouldn’t touch those readers with a 10 question poll
July 13, 2013 By Bufo Calvin
I wouldn’t touch those readers with a 10 question poll As the readers of WG2E know, the landscape has completely changed for independent authors since the release of the Kindle in late 2007. Prior to that, there were virtually no independently published books on Amazon’s bestseller lists. When I recently checked, 24% of the top [...]
You can see the rest of them at The Writer’s Guide.
And finally the last one, number five.
5. This one is one of my favorite sites. It’s called Write to Done. Here’s an example.
Top 10 Blogs for Writers 2012 – The Winners
Written byMary Jaksch
Email
When we asked you to nominate your favorite writing blog as one of the top 10 blogs for writers, we got a huge response! Great to see how passionate readers are about their favorite writing blog.
As you’ll see there are some previous winners, as well as some talented new bloggers in the top 10 of 2012.
This article in particular is a best of for sites like I’ve listed above. Lists and lists are great. They help, so get to reading them. They will improve every aspect of your writing, but also, they will improve the way you *think* about writing.
Thanks Dragons,
In the comments let me know any other great sites you guys and gals know of and also let us all know how great the interview was. We all look forward to hearing you.
-d
About DeepMagik
Fumbling through this Hitchhiker's Guide trying to get to Arrakis... aka Have Spice Will Travel
Find my book and my blog at www.DeepMagik.org
5 Sites You Need to See If You Want to Self Publish
October 10, 2013
Nice video this week. An interview with Mette Ivie Harrison. You can watch it here. She goes over the publishing world. In this post I’m going to add some links and information about the other route…self-publishing.
Here are the 5 things you need to know about self publishing.
1. Here’s a bit of the first post, it’s from a site called copy blogger. This first article is “21 things you need to know about self publishing”. I liked this one and thought you might too.
1. Reality check
At the time of this writing, the amount of money households spend overall on reading materials is going down.
In 1994 (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics) the average household spent $165 on reading materials. In 2011, adjusted for inflation, the average US household spent $115. How come? Because there are many high-quality, free things we can read. So we spend our entertainment dollars elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the number of books being published each year rises at a steady 6% per year.
So we have less demand and more supply. Which means prices and incomes go down. You can use this to your advantage.
How? Publishers aren’t reducing the prices of their books. Actually, they tend to raise them with inflation to keep fueling their bloated machines.
So you can instantly gain an advantage by reducing prices, given the facts I’ve laid out above.
2. Audience first
If you have no readers, nobody will buy your book. Fortunately, that’s not a Catch-22. You build your audience by giving, giving, giving, giving, before you finally ask them to pay $4.99 for your book.
You write blog posts. You write tweets. You build a Facebook fan page. And on and on. The next several points are about building your platform. If you are not willing to do this, then your spouse will read your book and maybe your parents. Maybe. Your kids will not read your book.
That’s a taste of it. Read all of the 21 tips if you liked how this began. I personally think this site is awesome. I mean tip #3 is If it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead. Funny way for them to give you a tip. Check it out.
2. The next post is on How to Blog a Book. It’s a great blog about the possibility of changing your book idea into a blog. But it also just gives great information about writing a blog. And Brandon strongly recommends having a blog so this one is one you dragons should take a look at.
My Critique of His First Post
You can imagine my critique.
You don’t have a plan for the blog or the book.
Your post had formatting errors.
Your post needed proofing before hitting “publish.”
You haven’t determined the focus of the book.
The post title doesn’t tell the reader what the post is about.
The title contains no keywords to help with discoverability.
The post contains no keywords to help with discoverability.
You haven’t used any subheads to help readers scan for content.
I don’t now what this story have to do with anything?
What is the focus of the blog itself? Does it have a long-term plan?
You can write.
He wasn’t too pleased.
Again, very amusing. And it has great information. Could be of some help. Read a lot of good content about writing at How to Blog a Book.
3. The Worlds Greatest Book. This is a site and guy that works on your work. Below is an example of his work.
Writing is Design: Avoid Bland Pronouns and Boring Verbs
October 3, 2013Dave Bricker 17
As a graphic designer, I see numerous parallels between the values that create engaging imagery and the values that create engaging prose. So many designs fail because the designer arranged elements on a page without questioning their purpose, hierarchy, or relationship to the intended message. Good writing is characterized by the same conscious application of order, balance, tension, tone, spirit, relevance, and clarity as good design. As a designer might scrutinize a page to evaluate margins, kerning, and font choice, a writer can search for style patterns that illuminate weak, lazy, or formulaic writing and missed opportunities to create stronger prose.
See his site here.
4. The Write’s Guide to E-Publishing. Cool site with lots of articles about all kinds of stuff centered around writing. Take a look at an example author.
I wouldn’t touch those readers with a 10 question poll
July 13, 2013 By Bufo Calvin
I wouldn’t touch those readers with a 10 question poll As the readers of WG2E know, the landscape has completely changed for independent authors since the release of the Kindle in late 2007. Prior to that, there were virtually no independently published books on Amazon’s bestseller lists. When I recently checked, 24% of the top [...]
You can see the rest of them at The Writer’s Guide.
And finally the last one, number five.
5. This one is one of my favorite sites. It’s called Write to Done. Here’s an example.
Top 10 Blogs for Writers 2012 – The Winners
Written byMary Jaksch
When we asked you to nominate your favorite writing blog as one of the top 10 blogs for writers, we got a huge response! Great to see how passionate readers are about their favorite writing blog.
As you’ll see there are some previous winners, as well as some talented new bloggers in the top 10 of 2012.
This article in particular is a best of for sites like I’ve listed above. Lists and lists are great. They help, so get to reading them. They will improve every aspect of your writing, but also, they will improve the way you *think* about writing.
Thanks Dragons,
In the comments let me know any other great sites you guys and gals know of and also let us all know how great the interview was. We all look forward to hearing you.
-d
About DeepMagik
Fumbling through this Hitchhiker's Guide trying to get to Arrakis... aka Have Spice Will Travel
Find my book and my blog at www.DeepMagik.org
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