Category: Guest Posts

6 Places To Find Public Domain Images For Your Books And Blogs

mercedes tabano IIGuest Post
by Mercedes Tabano II

If you’ve been using images for any length of time, you’re probably already familiar with what a creative commons license is. These licenses are good, but mildly restrictive. However, there’s something better than a creative commons license and that’s the public domain license.

Public domain images can be used for any purpose, including commercial, because their copyright has either run out or it was never copyrighted in the first place. With public domain images, you can modify, combine with other images and even use them as a logo for your book all without requiring attribution or compensation of any kind. If you turn the image into something new (by combining it with other images or altering it significantly enough), you can even get a new copyright on your altered image. So where do you find these images? Glad you asked. Continue reading “6 Places To Find Public Domain Images For Your Books And Blogs”

Introduction to Tumblr

Kat CantwellGuest Post
by Kat Cantwell

My mum – Lynne Cantwell, to you lot – mentioned that IU was looking for a post on Tumblr, since it’s such a black hole to so many Indie authors, but it’s becoming a ‘thing,’ of late. (At least, it is among people in their mid-teens to early 30s.) So I was asked if I could give a bit of a crash course.

Tumblr is this interesting and sometimes confusing cross between a blog and Pinterest (I suppose is the best way to describe it). While it can certainly be used as a blog, most people don’t go that route, because it’s not hard to lose text posts in what tends to be a very image-heavy medium. Tumblr is also mostly used to share things that other people post; I rarely post anything of my own, but I’m always reposting something that other people have (re)posted. Continue reading “Introduction to Tumblr”

Kirkus Clarified: Guest Post by Karen Schechner

Karen Schechner
Karen Schechner
Senior Indie Editor, Kirkus Reviews

Guest post
by Karen Schechner
Senior Indie Editor
Kirkus Reviews

In early January of this year, I chatted with Laurie Boris about operations here at Kirkus Indie, where I’m the senior Indie editor. That conversation sparked a lively discussion in the comments section, which gave me an opportunity to answer many of the great questions posed by Indies Unlimited readers. (Anyone curious about Kirkus might want to check out the original article.) One of the commenters on that original article recently contributed a new Indies Unlimited post titled “Kirkus Reviews: A Disparity Apparent,” and I just wanted to respond and correct some of the points made in that post. For quick reference, I’ve broken the response into bullet points. Of course, if you still have questions about Indie, you can always reach us at [email protected]. Continue reading “Kirkus Clarified: Guest Post by Karen Schechner”

Writers Are Ugly Actors

sophie jonas-hillGuest Post
by Sophie Jonas-Hill

If writers were better looking, they would be actors. Our skill set is very similar, they have to pretend to be a whole heap of different people, and so do we. In a way, we’re even more versatile because we don’t have the dead eye of the camera judging us and prescribing what we can be. We get to be anyone and everyone regardless of gender or ability or skin colour. Or we should be able to, anyway.

What ever character you’re working on, if they’re not coming to life then I’d heartily recommend taking a long look at the acting profession and try ‘being’ your character for a while, rather than writing them. Continue reading “Writers Are Ugly Actors”