Category: Guest Posts

I Hate Strong Female Characters

Sabrina ZbasnikGuest Post
by S.E. Zbasnik

Like nonplussed and literally, the phrase “strong female character” has come to mean its antithesis. When people hear it, they picture a full fleshed out woman with her own wants and desires. What they get is a woman in a mini skirt and thigh high boots that occasionally punches people.

But, that strong female character cannot actually save the day. Her entire existence is for the main male hero. She may be spunky, and sassy, and is always met beating up some guys; but the second she teams up with MMH (main male hero) she abandons everything in her life to help him on his quest. She may even get captured and forget how to fight, allowing the MMH to do all the cool stuff while she waits around in a metal bikini. Continue reading “I Hate Strong Female Characters”

An Intro to Cold Coffee Café

Charlie RayGuest post
by Charlie Ray

As hard as it is to write a book, it’s even harder to market it once it’s written. Advertising your book is time consuming, and can be expensive. There are, however, a number of ways to promote your work without having to spend too much time or money.

In fact, I recently discovered a site that allows you to promote your work widely, and, while there are promotional packages for a fee, you can also promote your work for free. Cold Coffee Café, Cold Coffee Press Site, allows you to set up a blog site where you can put links to purchase your books, book trailers, excerpts of works in progress, or just about anything else you’d like. Go here to sign up. Getting up and running is easy, and in the end you’ll have a personal page on the Cold Coffee Café site as well as links to other authors and author services. Continue reading “An Intro to Cold Coffee Café”

When is FREE not free? Answer – when you do a Free book promotion.

Pete Barber
Pete Barber

Guest post
by Pete Barber

On May 17th, 2014 I offered my self-published technothriller, NanoStrike, free for five days on Amazon. My novel was downloaded 39,000 times. Perhaps my experience can help others.

Step one–I freshened up my novel, which I self-published in 2012 but never promoted. I retitled, recovered, rewrote, and reedited. If you’d like to know why, I recently wrote a blog post about this for Big Al’s Book & Pals.

I withdrew the old novel from all distribution channels except Amazon, waited two weeks, updated the title and cover on Amazon, then enrolled in KDP.

I was ready for my promotion. Continue reading “When is FREE not free? Answer – when you do a Free book promotion.”

The Persistence of Self-Publishing Stigmas and How To Transcend Them

LorraineDevonWilkeGuest post
by Lorraine Devon Wilke

While out on my journalistic beat covering certain aspects of the Amazon/Hachette debate,  I’ve had occasion to discuss the prevailing attitudes of some who continue to frame self-publishing as “the realm of the subpar,” as one snarky commenter put it.

It seems, despite impressive statistics, celebrity authors, economic boosts to the industry, and overwhelming acceptance by readers (who don’t give a hoot who publishes the books they like), self-published authors and their books remain marginalized in a variety of ways. Most larger newspapers and magazines will not review them, certain books sites (i.e., Oyster, ”Netflix for books!”) won’t carry self-published titles; book conventions have tucked self-published authors away into back rooms (reminding one of the card table at family dinners!). One journalist went so far as to say self-published books could “never” be on a par with those put out by publishers, and even other authors sniff about the “lesser” quality of self-published books.

And as much as we indies can raise a ruckus about the unfairness of all this, there’s just one problem: in some ways, they’re right. The freedom to self-publish has not always translated into an impeccability in how it’s done, and that has led to a book table, so to speak, flush with… hate to say it… “subpar” product. Continue reading “The Persistence of Self-Publishing Stigmas and How To Transcend Them”