One of my favorite quotes goes like this: ”Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
Ambrose Redmon said that.
Fear is an impulse, or like the tattoo on my arm says, “Fear is the mind killer.” Frank Herbert said that. In Dune. So you can’t stop being afraid, but you can fight fear, you can control it.
I don’t think I ever told you how I became a writer. Or if I did, it was long ago. Continue reading
Self-publishing isn’t for everyone. There are writers who are great at their craft – but they would fail if they’d self-publish, simply because they weren’t cut out for this. You can learn, from your own mistakes, from reading other self-publisher’s blogs, but the truth is that there’s no recipe, no universal formula. And there will never be one.
What’s maybe ironic is that it’s not the writing that makes the difference. Oh, far from it. Continue reading
When I decided to self-publish my first novel in January 2011, I knew nothing about the book industry, about marketing, about promoting my work. I didn’t have a blog or a Twitter account or even a Facebook fan page. Also, even if we’re talking about 2 years ago, the whole self-publishing gig was still young, yet yo achieve the popularity it now holds among readers.
In the next months I tried to learn as much as possible about self-publishing, especially by following the blogs of those who were doing better than I was, or those who simply appeared to know what they were doing, because I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Continue reading
A lot of self-publishers are approaching social media with the vague hope of it being a sort of wonder solution to marketing and promoting. They’ve been told that social media sells stuff. But I think that they don’t understand how social media actually works.
Social media, social networks, in a way the Internet, can be defined as a continuous flow of INFORMATION. Also, social media enables easy access to ENTERTAINMENT. And lastly, social media is a way for people to interact with each other. Continue reading
If you’re somewhat interested in self-publishing, odds are that you’ve read John Locke’s How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! Of course, odds are that you’ve also read about the real “secret” behind his success as a self-publisher.
But what really upset me was his genuine belief that he’s dealt some kind of deadly blow to traditional publishing, or that people are tools who should be used for marketing purposes. You know, talking monkeys with credit cards glued to their backs.
When you first self-publish, it’s easy to get caught up in an avalanche of new words. You build an author platform, you promote, you post giveaways, you send ARCs, you tweet, you blog.
You’re constantly searching for a target audience, making up marketing plans. You’re slowly turning into a business man. Sometimes you might even talk like one. Heaven forbid you actually start dressing like one.
Whether you like it or not, Self-Publishing is a business. So how much money can you expect to earn if you self-publish? Continue reading
This week I’ll be writing a few posts about self-publishing. Of course, the trickiest part is actually selling the book.
But what really sells a book? What marketing tool? What recipe to follow? Is there a recipe?
Well, let’s analyze one of my favorite novels, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, and hope that I’ll be able to offer some insight as to how people decide to buy a book. Continue reading
The most important thing you should know about self-publishing is that it’s not as easy as some people might think. Indeed, we’ve seen self-publishers conquer top spots on the New York Times Bestseller list; we’ve seen self-publishers land seven figure book deals after selling hundreds of thousands of books on their own. We’ve seen it all. But it’s not that easy. Continue reading
A few years ago getting your book published was a pretty straightforward process. You wrote a book, you revised and polished, and then you sent out your manuscript to various agents and publishers. And you got rejected. Over and over again until someone accepted your book. Then you got paid an advance. If you got lucky, and your book sold, you actually made a bit of money on top of that initial paycheck. Few writers adventured into self-publishing (and those so called vanity presses) – at the time it was considered a somewhat promiscuous activity to self-publish.
Now things have changed. Considerably. Continue reading
This is a very short post. Self-published author Catherine Ryan Howard will be posting a lot of advice on selling and marketing self-published books. If you’re not already following her, it’s about time you headed over there. She offers some pretty good insight into what works and what doesn’t, and, well, she has the experience to prove it. You might wanna start from the beginning.