Author: Stephen Hise

Stephen Hise is the Evil Mastermind and founder of Indies Unlimited. Hise is an independent author and an avid supporter of the indie author movement. Learn more about Stephen at his website or his Amazon author page.

Blaming Amazon Pricing Policies May Be the Wrong Call

Everybody knows the big publishing houses are scrambling. They reek with the stench of death. They can merge all they want. They can point at tortured data to reassure themselves all is well. But it’s pretty much over for them, and they did it to themselves by clinging to a ridiculously outdated business model. They became middlemen who added little to no value for most authors they signed.

There are lessons to be learned here. Experience is a great teacher for an apt pupil. Small publishing houses stand to reap some significant benefits, and to become the heirs to a new age of publishing if they will but pay attention and adapt. Unfortunately, it does not seem that many are doing so. Continue reading “Blaming Amazon Pricing Policies May Be the Wrong Call”

Indie News Beat: All the News that Fits

Welcome once again ladies and gentlemen to the Indie News Beat. No, Chris James is not back yet.

However, I want to assure our loyal IU readers that the Indie News Beat still contains a full serving of vowels and consonants. You may notice the zesty and slightly bitter flavor of some snark, but you’ll get used to it. It’s an acquired taste. So, from around the globe and down the street, here is what’s happening in the world of publishing: Continue reading “Indie News Beat: All the News that Fits”

Travel Tips for Your Vacation

I am given to understand that vacations are not completely extinct in some sectors of society.

Presumably, there are people who still travel for pleasure, and may even take their families along.

For writers, the challenges are many. It can be difficult to leave our characters at home, since they live in our heads.

The writer inside you will still be on. You’ll see people doing things and you will look for ways to incorporate or adapt some of those things into your writing. You’ll hear new words and phrases and possibly an interesting patois. There will be quirky mannerisms or speech tics. The scenery and settings will go into a mental file for later retrieval and use.

And, of course, the resort you go to will probably be run by a colony of vampires, or you will be drawn into some global political intrigue, or have to solve a murder case. The usual stuff. Continue reading “Travel Tips for Your Vacation”

Misadventures in Wordcraft

Say what?

Proofreading your own work is a good idea. You’ll catch some typos and maybe a few usage errors or verb tense disagreements. It is more difficult for the author of a piece to evaluate the clarity of his/her own work. After all, we know what we meant when we wrote it. That is probably going to cause us to see what we meant when we read it.

Sometimes, a sentence can be interpreted in more than one way. The results may be hilarious or just confusing. This kind of ambiguity can cause readers to pause, disrupting the rhythm of the story. Alternatively, they may misinterpret the meaning of the sentence and go forward with a key misunderstanding.

Getting more eyeballs on your manuscript will help. Brooks and I have three sets of eyeballs going over the draft of our WIP. When we are done, we’ll get it in front of some beta-readers. That doesn’t mean it will be perfect before we release it. Sometimes 100 people read and understand the sentence just as you intended. That doesn’t mean reader 101 won’t see the sentence in an entirely different way. If there is a way to misunderstand your meaning, there is always someone out there who will. Continue reading “Misadventures in Wordcraft”