Celebrating Independent Authors
In previous posts I covered the parts of the survey that are part of the publishing process, taking your book from initial draft to publication. However, I threw in a few questions not directly related to this process. In this final post I’ll discuss those questions and what, if anything, they might (or might not) tell us.
Reading the disclaimer in the original survey results post before proceeding is highly recommended. Continue reading “And the Publishing Process Survey Says: Part 5”
One of the things some authors do to promote their book is a “blog tour” which I’ve heard described as the modern day or indie equivalent of hitting the road for signings at book stores. The goal of such an undertaking is twofold. First, to get the word out that your new book exists (remember what Lynne Cantwell told us about effective frequency), selling some books while setting other readers up for future sales and second, to get a jump on the number of reviews on Amazon and other retailers. Some blog tours are review only, which helps with the second goal, but limits the number of bloggers willing to participate. Others offer different kinds of content for bloggers who are not willing to commit to a review. What these different kinds of content are will vary depending on who organizes the tour and the willingness of the author to create additional content. Interviews with the author, character interviews, and guest posts are examples of content frequently offered. Continue reading “When Is a Guest Post Like a Sausage Factory?”
In Part 3 of this series, I talked about cover design and content editing, what our recent survey showed about the process used by the IU readership, along with the financial implications of the various choices. This article will continue in the same vein, looking at other pieces of the process until I get up to 125-150% of my word limit. Let’s see how much we cover. Continue reading “Publishing Process Survey Says: Part 4”
In my last post I said I was going to milk this survey for as many posts as I could. Maybe we should start a pool on what that number will be. The first post has some disclaimers, cautioning against reading too much into a survey such as this (click here to refresh your memory). I also discussed the overall costs the respondents reported incurring in the production of their most recent self published book. Using the same method as I discussed then (assuming the actual cost to be the midpoint of the dollar range chosen on the survey), I’ve drilled down on each of the potential production steps to explore the costs using various possible methods. This post will cover two: Content editing and creation of the book cover. Continue reading “Publishing Process Survey Says: Part 3”