For the next two weeks I am participating in a unique promotion, organized by Margi Prideaux, that showcases 20 environmentally themed eBooks on Instafreebie. Yes, these book are free to download. All you have to do is sign up for the author’s email list. To see the full list of books, click here. The promotion goes from today…
I wrote awhile back about the emergence of eco-literature. Since then, I’ve seen more publishers awakening to eco-literature, but I’ve long wanted there to be a website that highlighted and reviewed these new titles. So now we have EcoLit Books. EcoLit Books is dedicated to books with environmental and animal rights themes. And it’s devoted to gathering both…
As I’ve written about previously, categorizing The Tourist Trail has been no simple task. Although there are surprises, suspense, and plenty of action, I would not categorize the book as a “thriller” or “action & adventure” novel. But I also don’t feel that the book fits comfortably in the “literary fiction” category. After all, literary…
Despite the success of the Kindle and the iPad, many people still prefer the old-fashioned print book. Like me. I have a Kindle and yet I still buy print books. Partly out of habit. Partly because many of the books I buy are reference and tutorial books. I have a book on programming (don’t ask)…
Most people I know who have an iPhone and love ebooks, use the Kindle app. They don’t shop from Apple’s iBookstore. There are several reason for this: If you buy a book in the iBookstore, you have to read it on your iPad or iPhone or iTouch — and only there. With Amazon, you can…
I published The Tourist Trail a little more than six months ago. It’s been quite a journey and I’ve just gotten started. We writers like to think that the hard work ends once you send that final draft off to the publisher. In retrospect, that’s the easy part. So I thought I’d take a few…
I’ll admit that I was at a total loss for how to create a book trailer for The Tourist Trail that didn’t bore me (and others) to tears. In a perfect world, I would have booked a ticket to Patagonia and filmed Magellanic penguins doing their thing. But my book trailer budget was rather tight,…
Does self-publishing mean you’ll never have a chance at winning a book award? It certainly seems that way. The PEN New England Hemingway Foundation Award for First Fiction notes on its submission form — in bold type no less: No self-published books, electronic submissions, or e-books are eligible for consideration. Now I realize they’re trying to avoid…
A few days ago my web site was mentioned in the Amazon Author Central newsletter as an example of Amazon’s new Kindle for the Web feature in action. Here’s what it looks like on my web site (or you can just click the “Chapter One” link above): By pasting a text string supplied by Amazon,…
To be an indie author is to be (at varying times) an editor, a designer, a production manager, and a publicist. It’s not easy being an expert at so many things. So I devote a fair amount of my time learning from the experts. Fortunately, many of them publish blogs. And by experts I’m not…
It’s been more than a month since I published The Tourist Trail and I’m very happy with the response so far. The reviews have been amazing. And the sales have been much better than I expected, though I’m probably breaking even when you factor in the books I’ve given away. That’s right folks, book promotion…
Lately I’ve received a number of questions from fellow writers about the self-publishing process. While I don’t consider myself an expert, I’m happy to share the ups and downs of my journey. Just keep in mind that the list below is already a few steps too long given recent changes in the industry. Here is…
So I read via Foner Books that Publisher’s Weekly wants to charge $149 for us self-published writers to get a read. Not a review, mind you, just a read. If we’re lucky we’ll get a review. I’ve already ranted about how PW just doesn’t “get” us self-publishers. But now, sadly, PW wants to make a…
Yesterday, The Tourist Trail was featured on Kindle Nation. Kindle Nation is a newsletter/web site published by Steve Windwalker, who is an expert on the Kindle ecosystem — from self-publishing to pricing to sales numbers. If you’re an author or reader, his newsletters are a must read. Anyway, I woke up this morning and my…
The Tourist Trail is available on the Kindle, on the iPad, and, at last, in paperback (from Amazon and from me). Now the hard work begins. I don’t mean to trivialize the writing of this book. Four years went into it and countless drafts. But for the self-published, self-promotion is a steep uphill climb. It’s…