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.

Series vs. Serials

What is the real difference between a series and a serial? Is one merely a subset of the other? Perhaps the difference is largely semantic. Or maybe the lines have blurred a bit.

I like to try to make the distinction that a series is a set of books with the same main character or characters, with each book representing a self-contained story. With a series, it doesn’t matter much whether you read the books in order. There is no over-arching story. Nothing carries from one book to the next. The characters may not even age. My favorite example of a series is the Doc Savage books. Continue reading “Series vs. Serials”

The Idea Graveyard

graveyardThe road to success is paved with the bones of failure. We try to keep things fresh here at Indies Unlimited by introducing new types of features from time to time.

Not all of these features catch on. Some do well at first, but sort of fizzle out as they go along. That’s the thing about innovation – you never know what’s going to work until you try it. Who would have guessed that putting sleeves on a blanket would make somebody a bazillionaire?

In the mean time, the makers of Jello have rejected all my ideas for meat and vegetable flavored gelatin. Come on! Who wouldn’t rather have their Brussels sprouts in a jiggly form served up in a dessert cup? Think, people! But, I digress…

Never discouraged, I have brought that same spirit of innovation and enterprise to Indies Unlimited. Sometimes my blog partner, K. S. “Kat” Brooks, is a bit more cautious.  She did, in fact, talk me out of “Indie Author Death Match.” Otherwise, we do tend agree on most everything else. But, as my father used to say, you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few heads. Not everything worked: Continue reading “The Idea Graveyard”

NewsBites: News from the Indieverse

NewsBitesFriends, neighbors, fans, and fellow writers, it is time once again to gather ’round the smoldering tire-fire of Indieland whilst I regale you with tales of derring-do, tom-foolery, and other doings of note.

Tonight’s NewsBites contains SNARK™, a non-nutritive truth varnish used in the news distilling process to enhance the crunchiness and flavor of information. Now, from around the corner and across the globe, here is some stuff that happened: Continue reading “NewsBites: News from the Indieverse”

Are Author Interviews Worthwhile?

Interview ShowWhen we first started Indies Unlimited, one of the regular features here was the author interview. Authors love to be interviewed. Unfortunately, not a whole lot of people love to read author interviews. We like to do stuff that moves the needle, so to speak. Once we realized the interview features were not getting a lot of views and did not seem to be moving books for authors, we discontinued the feature.

Not to say interviews don’t work at all or ever, but the return on investment is often quite small for both the interviewer and the subject of the interview. Continue reading “Are Author Interviews Worthwhile?”