Celebrating Independent Authors
Megan Alexander is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In the case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.)
Without further ado, here’s the winning entry:
Continue reading “Megan Alexander Wins Flash Fiction Challenge”
Last week, we talked about the functionality enhancements by Amazon so that folks can install a ‘Look Inside’ preview directly onto their blogs. This week, I’m going to show you how to do that.
Before I begin, a disclaimer: this tutorial will only work on WordPress blogs that include sidebars and have the option to display images. [Sidebars are narrow columns that can appear on either side of the main posting area]. I have used my own blog for the screenshots and it has two sidebars with pictures of my books displayed in the second sidebar [see below]:
Continue reading “Amazon’s New ‘Look Inside’ Feature for Blogs and Websites [Part Two]”
Print books are a different animal than eBooks in many ways. For one thing, length matters very little for eBooks; you can upload anything to KDP, from a pamphlet to a short story to a 200,000-word historical romance, and the only thing that matters to them is the size of the electronic file (and that’s only so they can ding you for transmission costs).
Print books, however, have certain other considerations when it comes to length. For one thing, if your book is shorter than 130 pages, CreateSpace won’t let you put any text on the spine.
I ran into this when I published A Billion Gods and Goddesses last year. The first draft came out to only about 100 pages. I was dismayed. What’s the point of having a brag shelf if your name isn’t on the spine of every book, right? Anyway, I asked for advice in a writers’ group on Facebook, and got a ton of great suggestions. Then I thought up a few more. And oddly enough, the changes don’t scream, “Added to pad out the page count!” In fact, they make the book look more like…a book.
A few of my solutions are only applicable to nonfiction. But if it’s your novel that’s a little thin, read on – you can adapt most of these ideas to fiction, too. Continue reading “Stretch Your Content: How to Get Your Paperback a Spine”
We hope you’ve got a big shopping cart, because here comes a bunch of eBook bargains just for you! That’s right, here at Indies Unlimited each Thursday, we make it super easy for you to find hot free and 99 cent eBook deals. Make sure to tell your friends to come on over to Thrifty Thursday and check ’em out!
Readers: look in the comment section below. If you see one you like, click over and buy it. How easy is that? (If you don’t see the book covers, adjust your browser’s adblock settings.)
Authors: if you have a book priced at 99¢ or less (that’s right, post your free eBooks here, too!), follow the instructions below and post it right in the comment section. Got more than one bargain book? Go ahead and post them all if you like, but only one book and ONE link per comment please! Continue reading “Thrifty Thursday: eBook Bargain Bonanza”