Month: January 2013

The Big Picture is Worth a Thousand Blogs – Darwin and the Evolution of Publishing

January is a great time to read the blogs. All the Chicken Littles scampering around telling us which part of the sky will be falling on our heads this year. The laws of natural selection being what they are, most of these disasters will turn out to be minor, something unheralded will throw it all off kilter, and we will all go on existing as we have for the last several millennia. Which is not to say that we shouldn’t take an interest in evolution.

The publishing business at the moment is in a state that Charles Darwin would have found interesting, and his principles are going to dictate what happens next. It might be a good idea to settle down, take a sip of relaxing herbal tea (or something stronger if it suits) and look at this year’s Big Three predictions in the broader perspective: Continue reading “The Big Picture is Worth a Thousand Blogs – Darwin and the Evolution of Publishing”

Tomica Scavina Announces New Title

Author Tomica Scavina is pleased to announce the release of her new mystery novel, Kaleidoscope World.

A collector of kaleidoscopes and lousy relationships, Dahlia Kasper moves from New York to Barcelona and starts living in an apartment where her father was murdered when she was four. Her favorite kaleidoscope becomes a gateway to another dimension where she encounters a ghost of a famous physicist who tries to persuade her that reality is like a moth-eaten sweater – full of holes. He needs her to help him plug up these holes and save the world from vanishing, while the only thing Dahlia really wants to save is her sanity.

Kaleidoscope World was released on December 30, 2012 and is currently available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

Hey! What happened to my tags?

A Guest Post
by Aron Joice

I ‘m not sure about anyone else out there, but I find it challenging to keep up with Amazon and all its policy changes. Isn’t Amazon a store? Do brick and mortar retail outlets change their policies as often as Amazon? If so, I think their vendors would consider alternative outlets. We as Indie authors don’t have many options. Of course we can upload our books to Smashwords, B&N, Kobo (you can do this independently of Smashwords btw) and ilovebooks, however Amazon is still the meat and potatoes of the eBook distribution world.

Since Amazon changed my category to non-fiction (hello sorceresses are fictional), and didn’t say a thing, I often check my sales page. A few days back as I scrolled down the page to check the current details, I noticed the absence of my little bubbles. Oh where did they go? Not a one in sight. My tags are gone, how could they do this to me? I liked those tags, mini maps to roads linking to my genre. Poof, up in smoke and not even a mention from the big A. Okay, I suppose as a little Indie I should be keeping up with all of this somewhere, but where? I don’t mean IU, heck if it wasn’t for IU we’d all be out in the cold (bows and kudos EM). So I decided to write KDP and hear what they had to say and was surprised to receive a rapid-fire response. Continue reading “Hey! What happened to my tags?”

Be Your Own Graphics Designer

This is an ongoing, basic course in graphic design for writers.

The complete resume of my education and credentials in graphic design can be expressed in one word: Nada.

And that’s why it might be worth listening to me. You’re a writer, possibly a small publisher. Like me. You probably don’t have art talent, can’t afford expensive programs, don’t have the time to study books or school courses aimed at producing designers and artists. Like me. And, like me, you have very specific needs: book covers, logos, banners, website graphics.

And speaking as a non-designer who has done pretty well in creating those things, I am telling you that you can do it. Using free or cheap programs, without a lot of didactic learning. Using ingenuity rather than money or talent. And having fun. Continue reading “Be Your Own Graphics Designer”