I learned some hard lessons in 2013, but hopefully I learned them well. One of the things I realized is: people really don’t get what a writer’s life is like. I’ll expound on that in a moment. First, let me tell you what else I learned:
– Sometimes, the people you meet online will have your back when the people you’ve known all your life, or at least met in person, are the ones stabbing you there. Sometimes your true friends are really your virtual ones. I’m so very thankful for my online Indie Author family.
– Of course, that’s not to say you should trust everyone you meet online. And sometimes the people you think you can trust turn out not to have your best interests at heart. There will always be cliques, and I will always be on the outside of them. But that’s nothing new to a loner like me, really. Sometimes it is surprising (not to mention sad) to discover who’s in the clique, though.
– People who respect you know that your time is worth something and they are willing to offer something in exchange for your expertise. Many authors I know need to learn this lesson. Continue reading “Writers Are Not Normal to Normal People”
Over the past year, we’ve run a lot of excellent tutorials here at Indies Unlimited. Many times, when dealing with queries, I’ll provide links to these tutorials to help authors who aren’t quite certain how to do things. It seemed to me that New Year’s Eve would be a good time to recap the tutorials which I seem to reference the most. 
Kindle Countdown promotions are not only confusing, but now it turns out you might not receive the 70% royalty promised by Amazon. No, I’m not kidding.
Okay, so maybe that sounds ridiculously simple, but I have noticed over the past couple of months that when people are trying to share a review, they share a link to their book. Which review on that page did you want people to see? Hopefully there aren’t any one- or two-star reviews on there. You realize this means that the folks you’re trying to impress aren’t seeing what you’re trying to impress them with, right? Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?