Digital Pubbing

Exploring the ins and outs of the publishing industry

Self-Publishing

Marketing Indie Books

by

Marketing can be a tricky aspect of self-publishing. On the one hand, there's really no limit to the amount of money you can spend doing it, but there are a lot of ways to be ineffective. Below are a few guidelines I've learned from experience and heard about from other writers on creating effective marketing campaigns. Create Videos. Videos give people excuses to send … [Read more...] about Marketing Indie Books

6 Tips to Successfully Crowdfund a Project

by

Crowdfunding is hard. To do it successfully, and to be like the high profile projects on Kickstarter, Indie Go Go and other platforms and raise thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars means treating the crowdfunding process like a full-time job. Here are some tips I've learned the last couple years, both from experimenting with crowdfunding myself and … [Read more...] about 6 Tips to Successfully Crowdfund a Project

What Self-Publishing and Internet Marketing Have in Common

by

For those of you who don't know, ClickBank is an affiliate marketing website. People can sign up to either sell their information products, or to promote products and receive a cut of the sale. Recently I was looking through ClickBank's site, and I stumbled across their tips for Internet marketers. Many of their tips can also be directly applied to self-published authors, or … [Read more...] about What Self-Publishing and Internet Marketing Have in Common

What Do Authors Want?

by

Digital Book World hosted a webinar a while back, called "What Authors Want." The webinar was meant to promote DBW's survey of 5,000 authors. The survey was submitted to the Writer's Digest community (whose writers tend to be female and over 35, and write fiction), as well as SFWA (mostly male fiction writers), Romance Writers of America (mostly female writers), and perhaps a … [Read more...] about What Do Authors Want?

Book Discoveries and Recommendations

by

For self-publishers, after writing a book, the next biggest step is making people aware that it exists and is worth reading. But in such a saturated market, it can be hard to get your book discovered. Here are three book recommendation tools. Word of mouth is still the most effective way to make a book go viral, and many people recommend books via email (this may be because … [Read more...] about Book Discoveries and Recommendations

KYS Realm and Transmedia, the Future of Storytelling

by

Technology lends itself to new creative forms of storytelling. One example is transmedia, a new technique of storytelling that involves enhancing the experience through multiple platforms, such as books, videos, and even live events. The Elements Club is one such transmedia series, where every few months a new segment telling the tales of a quirky, yet loveable, cast living … [Read more...] about KYS Realm and Transmedia, the Future of Storytelling

More Resources for Digital Publishing

by

I've extended my blog to include a large, hopefully helpful, list of resources that cover all aspects of digital publishing: agents, analytics, apps, associations, blogging, coding, contests/awards, design, distribution, ebooks, editing, entrepreneurial, funding, internships, jobs, legal, magazines, marketing, metadata, news, reading, reviews, self-publishing, startups, trends, … [Read more...] about More Resources for Digital Publishing

Polishing a Self-Published Book

by

I read a couple really helpful articles on Digital Book World that can help indie authors. The first gives some tips on how to design a cover optimized for Amazon, and all the other retailers where readers only see a thumbnail image. The second article gives a list of front matter and other tips on how to make a book look more like a traditional publisher made it.  … [Read more...] about Polishing a Self-Published Book

Promoting a Self-Published Novel

by

I recently decided to be more active on Quora, and today I stumbled across a really great question by a self-published author. The question was, "What are some ways I can promote my self-published novel?" There were some really great responses. One answerer recommended YouTube book trailers, Facebook pages, and Twitter handles. The Facebook page could be used to run contests … [Read more...] about Promoting a Self-Published Novel

Dealing With Negative Reviews

by

It was for the first book of my publishing company, a collection of flash fiction, and I had given the book away for free on LibraryThing in hopes of getting more reviews. Now, even though this was not my book in the sense that I did not write it, I did spend a lot of time working with the authors, and I was proud of them and the work they did. I also made sure the book went … [Read more...] about Dealing With Negative Reviews

Smashwords: An upgrade to help indie authors sell better ebooks

by

On the last day of 2012, Smashwords made an exciting announcement: authors can now directly upload epubs to the site. This might not sound like a big deal, but it kind of is. According to the Smashwords blog, as of December 31, 2012, Smashwords became "the world’s largest distributor of ebooks from self-published authors and small independent presses." And now that authors … [Read more...] about Smashwords: An upgrade to help indie authors sell better ebooks