Category: fiction

Trees and Kids (from Teachers Change Lives 24/7)

[I’m a publisher and I read all the mail that our readers send. Sometimes (not very often) we have a story or a section of a book that brings lots of spontaneous letters of joy and praise from readers. “Trees and Kids” is the hands-down winner. It’s by Jim Burgett in his 2007 book (in […]

Wednesday January 7th, 2015 in ancillary publishing, articles, digital publishing, e-publishing, editing, English teachers, fiction, Jim Burgett, K-12, K-12 administrators, K-12 school boards, K-12 school districts, law and the school board, new school board members, niche publishing, novel writing, product development, publishing, school board, school board members, school board president, school superintendents, self-publishing, writing | Comments Off

Find a new, streamlined website domain among 600 choices!

Trying to find a grabber website domain ending in “.com” that contains less than an arm’s length of letters is a near-fruitless treasure hunt. You probably can’t use “.org” and will anybody come if it ends in “.net”? The hunt is over. Last February, the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), an international […]

Saturday November 29th, 2014 in article selling, article writing, articles, book title, digital publishing, e-publishing, editing, fiction, first draft, K-12 school boards, newsletter writing, niche publishing, open publishing, product development, publishing, school board, second draft, self-publishing, seminar promotion, seminar title, Seminaring, small publishers, webmarketing, writing | Comments Off

Where self-publishing and ebooks stand in late 2014

(1) “Ebooks have grown exponentially and reached a healthy balance by 11/14,” says Mark Coker, head of Smashwords in a no-nonsense delivery at BAIPA (Bay Area Independent Publishers Assn) on Nov. 8. Here is a much-abbreviated summary of Mark’s very enjoyable 10-point presentation. When Mark began Smashwords, about it 8 years ago, ebooks accounted for […]

Wednesday November 19th, 2014 in articles, Blurb, digital publishing, editing, fiction, iBook, iPad, Kindle, Lightning Source, LSI, Lulu, niche marketing, niche publishing, Nook, novel writing, open publishing, pre-testing, publishing, small publishers, Smashwords, webmarketing, writing | Comments Off

14 key ebook publishing tips

Mark Coker started Smashwords when a quarter of 1% of U.S. books sold were ebooks. Now it’s 35% of the total, and he’s a top spokesman in the field. Last year Smashwords authors sold ebooks worth $30-million at retail. Last Saturday (11/8/14) Coker spoke to BAIPA (Bay Area Independent Publisher Association) in Novato, CA (near […]

Tuesday November 11th, 2014 in book title, digital publishing, e-publishing, editing, fiction, novel writing, open publishing, product development, proofreading, publishing, self-publishing, Smashwords, webmarketing, writing | Comments Off

Are you selling your ebooks to libraries?

Last week this blog was the core item in my newsletter. I had so much response from it I’m sharing it as a (long) blog too. Two questions: (1) Why would you even care about selling your books to libraries, much less their lower-priced digital versions? (2) And what’s so different about it anyway? Don’t […]

Tuesday June 24th, 2014 in digital publishing, e-publishing, fiction, Lightning Source, LSI, niche publishing, Nook, open publishing, pre-testing, product development, publishing, self-publishing, small publishers, Smashwords, webmarketing | Comments Off

Non-fiction books should shout with benefits and authority

What do you want your book to do? Probably (1) get bought–or at least read; (2) make you money; (3) if self-published, get snagged by a “big house” and do more of [1] and [2]; (4) establish you as an “expert” or “authority” in its topic field; (5) get potential readers to want to know […]

Monday June 2nd, 2014 in ancillary publishing, article selling, article writing, articles, Blurb, book title, digital publishing, e-publishing, editing, empire building, fiction, freelance articles, iPad, Kindle, Lightning Source, LSI, Lulu, Nook, proofreading, publishing, self-publishing, small publishers, Smashwords, writing | Comments Off

Writers: ideas for creating top-selling nonfiction books

I think of top-selling two ways. The most obvious is to sell more copies of your book than any other book like it in the market. If you sell 10,000 copies of the book, you outsold a person who sold 5,000. Duh. The less obvious way is to measure the effectiveness of your book’s sale. […]

Monday April 21st, 2014 in articles, Blurb, book title, digital publishing, e-publishing, editing, empire building, fiction, iPad, Kindle, Lightning Source, LSI, Lulu, niche marketing, niche publishing, Nook, open publishing, pre-testing, publishing, self-publishing, small publishers, Smashwords, speaking, webmarketing, writing | Comments Off

25 blogs about Kindle, Nook, Create Space, LSI, Smashwords

I was asked what blogs I had about “open” publishing. Here they are, below, and I’m certain there are more too so if you have a specific word or topic you are hunting for, please type it in the search box to see if it pops up! The publishers mentioned in the blogs are Kindle, […]

Thursday March 13th, 2014 in 1 Shopping Cart, articles, Blurb, digital publishing, e-publishing, fiction, iPad, Kindle, Lightning Source, LSI, Lulu, niche publishing, Nook, novel writing, open publishing, product development, publishing, self-publishing, small publishers, Smashwords, travel writing, writing | Comments Off

How to convert your book file into ePub format—fast and free!

So here you are with a dandy book that millions of hungry readers want to buy and hide on their tablets, readers, or computers—but you can’t get it from Word (.doc or .docx) or other formats into .ePub. You probably want to use .ePub to post your book with an “open” publisher like Kobo or […]

Monday March 10th, 2014 in articles, Blurb, digital publishing, e-publishing, editing, fiction, iPad, Kindle, Lightning Source, LSI, Lulu, Nook, novel writing, open publishing, product development, publishing, self-publishing, small publishers, Smashwords, webmarketing, writing | Comments Off

2014 tax tips for writers and publishers

For years I spoke about tax tips for writers/publishers in my “How to Sell 75% of Your Freelance Writing” and “Writing Travel Articles That Sell” seminars in CA. Since I often had taxfolk in the audience (even the IRS auditor I was requested to visit every six years or so), I had to keep up […]

Thursday February 13th, 2014 in 1 Shopping Cart, articles, Blurb, digital publishing, e-publishing, fiction, Gordon Burgett, iPad, Kindle, Lightning Source, LSI, Lulu, Nook, open publishing, product development, public speaking, publishing, self-publishing, small publishers, Smashwords, speaking, travel writing, webmarketing, writing | Comments Off