Celebrating Independent Authors
Writing advice and insights from the staff of Indies Unlimited.
Last month, we took a look back at where we’ve been and to look forward to where we’re going, and asked our minions to answer just a few questions about IU. Now, here is the last installment of our little eight-year anniversary brew-ha-ha. Continue reading “The Minions Speak: Indies Unlimited Celebrates Eight Years! Part Two”
Have you converted any of your books into audio books? Supposedly audio books are the “next big thing,” although I’m not sure who decides that. In any event, I have been converting quite a few of my books to audio and have been having a lot of fun in the process. I’m doing this through ACX, and I’ve written here before about how that process works.
One thing that I particularly like about ACX, as well as the meeting place they provide so authors and narrators can hook up, is that they continue to send promotional ideas via email. One such email introduced me to AudioBook Boom.
Here’s the deal. Continue reading “AudioBook Boom”
This week, Smashwords issued an email announcing a new feature: Presales. It’s a special, patent-pending feature available to authors who have books on pre-order. Here’s what the email had to say:
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could provide your most loyal readers the ability to purchase and read your next book before the general public?
And wouldn’t it be cool if ebook retailers gave readers the option to sign up for your private newsletter, rather than having your future relationship with the reader mediated by the retailer? Continue reading “A New Feature from Smashwords: Presales”
Here we thought the vanity press industry was on the ropes – what with PublishAmerica being sued out of existence and Author Solutions (and its eleventy billion imprints) having to resort to recruiting new authors overseas because aspiring authors in the US were on to them. Every now and then, though, one of them turns up again, like a bad penny. And so it is with PublishAmerica. Continue reading “The Late, Not-So-Great PublishAmerica”