Sometimes it feels like the publishing industry is besieged with scam artists and con merchants, eager to part the unwary storyteller from their cash with promises of quality and exposure. Crafted with not an once of substance, these promises seduce the writer into believing that their novel is special, and that against all evidence to the contrary, their novel will sell by the bucket-load. Once an Indie Author has been around the block, however, it becomes easy to go too far down the road of cynicism, and respond to every new opportunity with the worn refrain: “What’s the catch?” Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Cashing in on ICANN”
Author: Chris James
Chris James is an English author who lives in Warsaw, Poland, with his wife and three children. He has published three full-length science fiction novels and is currently writing a series of short story volumes inspired by characters in songs from the rock band Genesis. For more information, please visit his website or Amazon author page.
Indie News Beat: Special Report
Is Amazon about to create a used e-book market?
If you enjoyed giving your books away on free days in KDP Select, then you’re going to love Amazon’s next idea: to allow copies of “used” e-books to be bought and sold second hand, as with physical books. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Special Report”
Indie News Beat: Is this really the future of storytelling?
If we are to believe the forecasts, the future of books and storytelling is inextricably linked to the increasing inter-connectivity of our world. A future beckons in which it will be bad manners to read a book alone, without sharing every character, every plot twist, and every page with your friends, your family, and that odd-looking homeless person on whom you took pity and to whom you gave your small change on the way home from the office. It all sounds perfectly hideous to me, but that’s what the experts say is going to happen.
In the kind of news story that makes me consider a lobotomy to be a prudent, forward-looking lifestyle choice, CBCNews in Canada claims that ‘Social reading is the next phase of e-book revolution’. The article is bookended with misplaced references to Al Jolson and, inevitably, Guttenberg, and after a few figures on the growth of the e-book market in Canada, we are introduced to Bob Stein, who is a ‘digital pioneer’. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Is this really the future of storytelling?”
Indie News Beat: (Re)Stating the Obvious
Our first stop this edition is at Publishers Weekly, and their report on the highly-trailed “Author (R)evolution Day” earlier this month. That rather pretentious title at once makes me suspicious, and I didn’t have to read far before slamming into a trite platitude. Step forward Kobo’s Mark Lefebvre with this message for struggling, self-published authors: “Don’t wonder how you will get discovered – think about what you are going to do to deserve being discovered.” Yeah, thanks. And the conclusion? That we have to adapt to changing social media, and of course we shouldn’t forget the importance of word-of-mouth recommendations. Really, Holmes, you astound me. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: (Re)Stating the Obvious”