Month: October 2013

Legal Advice: You Get What You Pay For

Image courtesy of:
Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Occasionally, indie authors will need to contract with a service provider – an editor or a cover designer or a tour operator. Or two or more authors might decide to band together in a partnership to provide, say, an editing service, or even a small press. Particularly if you’re starting a business, you’ll need to file some forms with the government. You could just shake hands and assume that everyone involved will be trustworthy and fair – yeah, right – or you could have a lawyer draw up the proper paperwork.

But it’s expensive to hire an attorney. And besides, they’re right up there, in terms of trust, with used car salesmen and members of the U.S. Congress (a lot of whom are lawyers, so there you go). So it’s understandable that indies – who are notoriously frugal – would want to avoid paying some shys—uh, that is, a fine, upstanding member of the bar – to handle simple legal matters. Continue reading “Legal Advice: You Get What You Pay For”

Word on Da Street Publishing?

Thank you for finding Indies Unlimited.

Here at IU, we do our best to provide helpful information to indie authors of all levels. Our goal is to provide the knowledge they need to make intelligent decisions about writing and publishing. We are not, however, a watchdog site, nor do we try to be. There are other sites out there, such as Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors, which dedicate their resources to identifying scammers.

Despite all the efforts to make authors aware of predators looking to make money off of them, the best tool is actually knowing how to spot a scam. That knowledge will enable authors, no matter how often the scammer changes its name, to avoid being taken advantage of.

Thank you again for finding Indies Unlimited.

– The Admins

Busting the Pantster vs Plotter Myth

We humans seem to thrive on dichotomies. Descartes kick-started the mind/body dichotomy with his famous thought experiment in which he concluded ‘I think, therefore I am’.

In the last century, psychologists came up with the nature/nurture myth, and spent decades trying to work out what was more important to the development of a human being – nature, in the form of genetics, or nurture, in the form of social conditioning.

In recent years, science has busted both those myths. Human beings are neither mind, nor body, they are both, and their development depends on both their genetic heritage, and the effect of conditioning on that heritage.

Yet we, as authors, still insist on classifying our creative style as either pantster or plotter. And I have been as guilty of this as anyone. Ever since I first heard the term ‘pantster’ I’ve considered myself to be one. In fact, I couldn’t understand how anyone could sit down and outline a story from start to finish. Worse, I secretly felt that Plotters must create very predictable storylines.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

The truth is we are both Pantsters and Plotters, or at least we should be. Continue reading “Busting the Pantster vs Plotter Myth”

Gift Baskets for the Holidays!

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