Author: Lynne Cantwell

Lynne Cantwell grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan. She worked as a broadcast journalist for many years; she has written for CNN, the late lamented Mutual/NBC Radio News, and a bunch of radio and TV news outlets you have probably never heard of, including a defunct wire service called Zapnews. But she began as a fantasy writer (in the second grade), and is back at it today. She currently lives near Washington, DC. Learn more about Lynne at her blog and at her Amazon author page.

Indie Author as Cash Cow

wealthy authorAs you know, Laurie Boris and I met up at this year’s Self-Publishing Book Expo in New York a few weeks ago. Meeting Laurie was pretty freaking awesome. But I’ll be honest: the event left me with a bit of a sour taste.

It wasn’t because of Mark Coker, who delivered a timely and useful keynote speech (much of which he later recapped on the Smashwords blog). What gave me heartburn was the exhibit floor, which featured a whole bunch of companies that would love to help indie authors succeed – for a price. (Laurie has already touched on this in her report on the event.) Continue reading “Indie Author as Cash Cow”

Indie Publishing: Our Dirty Little Secret

be quietI’ve been attending the annual World Fantasy Convention for several years now, and it’s been interesting to watch the evolution of attitudes about indie publishing there. In 2011, traditionally-published authors were quick to dismiss indies as vanity-published hacks. (I won’t quote chapter and verse; we’ve all heard it before.) In 2012, as I reported back then, the convention organizers put together a panel discussion on indie publishing. That panel was less dismissive of indies – although there were still a couple of “slush pile” comments – and even featured one of the honchos from Kobo Writing Life, which had just launched that summer.

I couldn’t afford the trip to Merrie Olde England for last year’s convention. But this year, the big event was practically in my backyard. So I went with my ears perked up to see what, if anything, had changed over the past two years. Continue reading “Indie Publishing: Our Dirty Little Secret”

NOOK Press for Print Books

Nook Press logo newThis week, NOOK Press announced it would begin “publishing” print books.

There’s a reason why I put “publishing” in scare quotes. For indies, the news isn’t as big as one might think at first glance.

First, the good news: NOOK Press will indeed turn out a print book for you, in a variety of trim sizes and cover types – including hardback, which CreateSpace doesn’t offer.

NOOK Press also provides a handy-dandy formatting guide, which looked pretty comprehensive to me when I skimmed it: covering everything from headers and pagination, to what the heck front matter and back matter are, to how to size the spine. And it actually appears to be written in English, not typeset-ese, which I thought was a problem when I originally looked at Lulu’s directions.

Now, the bad news. And there’s a lot of it. Continue reading “NOOK Press for Print Books”

Kindle Scout

kindlescout logoAmazon, in its continuing quest to come up with innovative ways for us to sell books, has created a program called Kindle Scout. Think of it as a cross between the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards and regular ol’ KDP. As with KDP, you upload your book and cover image (with a few tweaks to your info that I’ll get to in a sec), and the Zon puts it up on their site for you. But as with the ABNA, there’s a crowdsourcing component, and a prize at the end – in this case, a $1,500, five-year contract with the Zon’s new Kindle Press.

Say what you will about it, but I think Amazon’s heart is in the right place with this one. Two of the hardest things for an indie author to do are to get noticed in the Zon’s giant slush pile and to grow your fan base. Kindle Scout is all about helping you market your work. Continue reading “Kindle Scout”