Category: Staff Articles

Writing advice and insights from the staff of Indies Unlimited.

Amazon Author Central: A Primer

Author Central LikefestIf you’re an author publishing on Amazon.com, Author Central is an essential tool to help you easily make changes to book data and improve readers’ ability to learn more about you.

If you’ve never used it, Author Central is where you create your Amazon Author Page. This is a profile page that includes a picture, a biography, and lists all the books you’ve published on Amazon. Amazon Author Central AC1_ProfileHow can a reader see your profile page? Usually readers find it when they’re looking at a book you’ve written and they click your hyperlinked author name. If you don’t have an Amazon Author Page, Amazon will give the reader search results for your name. If you do have an Amazon Author Page, Amazon will take the reader to it. The Author Page is a great chance to connect with the reader by showing them all the books you’ve written and a little bit of personality in your biography. Continue reading “Amazon Author Central: A Primer”

Writing with Collaborators: Interview with Author David Wood

Prolific Author David WoodQuite a while back, our own K.S. Brooks wrote about collaborating with the Evil Mastermind, Stephen Hise, on a book. I found the process to be really interesting, especially since the whole idea of collaboration is so completely foreign to me. For good or ill, my own process is totally internal; the only thing I might ask for help on would be physical details of the action (how a gun fires blanks, how to sail a sailboat), but nothing about the plot or the characters. I can’t even conceive of working with another person on a book; I have no idea what that would even look like. So I got to thinking about a friend of mine, David Wood, who collaborates with several other co-authors and does very well with it. Wanting to delve deeper into this mysterious process, I asked David if he would be willing to share his secrets of collaboration with us, and he graciously agreed.

MJB: David, I was going to count all your books and figure out how many are yours alone and how many are co-authored, and by whom, but I got overwhelmed by the numbers. Can you give us a quick breakdown of that? How many co-authors do you have, and how many books have you published with them? How many are your own? Continue reading “Writing with Collaborators: Interview with Author David Wood”

International Kudos for Indies Unlimited

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Advice website for independent authors receives thumbs-up from publishing journal

Chewelah, WA – 8/2/2017 – Indies Unlimited, a website that celebrates and supports independent authors, received a recommendation from a respected authority this week. No Shelf Required, a highly-respected online journal on all aspects of eBooks and digital content, touted Indies Unlimited as “that single, reliable resource … needed to help novice indie authors.”

This is not the first time Indies Unlimited has won critical acclaim. In 2014, it was listed in Publishers Weekly magazine as one of Six Great Blogs for Indie Authors.

“This was completely unexpected,” said K.S. Brooks, who administers the site and who is an award-winning author of more than 30 titles in her own right. “No Shelf Required columnist Peyton Stafford and I were discussing eBooks in libraries, and the next thing I knew, this article was in my inbox. I’m thrilled to death.”

No Shelf Required features contributions from book and library professionals and thought leaders in the United States and around the world. The article advised librarians, “if your problem is where to refer your indie authors, then your solution is Indies Unlimited. Here, they will find the help and advice they need to write, edit, publish and market their books without being taken advantage of by the many author scams that prey on indies.” You can read the entire article here: http://www.noshelfrequired.com/indies-unlimited-a-one-stop-source-of-reliable-information-for-indie-authors/

You can learn more about Indies Unlimited at www.IndiesUnlimited.com, and more about K. S. Brooks at www.ksbrooks.com.

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One Indie Author’s Techno-Terror and Promo-Phobia

anxious author at work laptop-868501__340It is an accepted truism that those of us with high artistic aptitudes often lack business aptitude and vice-versa. Many writers bemoan the necessity of and time spent on promotion. We want to write. Most of us do not enjoy the aspects of our craft that involve promotion, marketing and the non-creative side of our profession.

Let’s say that I am the poster-child for this problem. I have a website. When it was set up, (and I needed someone to do that for me) I promised myself I would post regularly on it. I don’t. We are told by those who know that we need an email list and a newsletter to let fans, friends and followers know what’s new, what’s coming and generally stay in friendly contact. In spite of repeated self-flagellation, I have not done so. Continue reading “One Indie Author’s Techno-Terror and Promo-Phobia”