Category: Staff Articles

Writing advice and insights from the staff of Indies Unlimited.

Reaching New Readers With SoundCloud

soundcloud-iconIndie musicians and their fans might already know about SoundCloud, an online audio distribution platform that launched in 2007. You can listen to and share tracks on their website or with the free app version for mobile devices. What’s in it for indie authors, you might ask? How about a chance to reach new readers?

After I heard a Mash Stories podcast featuring a reading of a brilliant short story by former IU staffer David Antrobus, I stole — well, borrowed — the idea to share audio recordings of my flash fiction. But I don’t have high-tech sound editing skills or expensive equipment, so I came up with a way to make and post recordings on my own. Continue reading “Reaching New Readers With SoundCloud”

Interview with James Thomson from eBookBooster

ebookbooster logoA couple of months ago, our own Bob Hammond wrote a post discussing some promotional sites for authors he found to be ineffective. Shortly after that post, James Thomson, from eBookBooster, one of the sites mentioned, contacted IU to express his concern, and to see what he could do to make Bob’s experience better.

I’ve used a lot of promotional sites over the past few years. A couple of them do offer refunds if the author doesn’t see results, but most — understandably — don’t. I was impressed by James’ willingness to reach out, and began an email correspondence with him regarding his services. Given James’ willingness to engage and work towards a happy resolution, I thought it only fair to give him the opportunity to better explain the services he offers, particularly since his services are a bit different. I’ll let him explain.   Continue reading “Interview with James Thomson from eBookBooster”

Amazon Giveaways: Now with Ebooks!

Amazon book giveawayAbout a year ago, Amazon instituted a cool feature that allowed anybody who sold anything on Amazon to set up a giveaway on the product page. Unfortunately for indie authors, digital content wasn’t one of the things you could give away. That meant you could set up a contest for free hard copies of your book, but you couldn’t do it for eBooks.

That’s now changed. Last week, KDP announced eBooks may now be used as prizes in Amazon Giveaways. As usual, the Zon is rolling this out to Amazon.com (US) first. So right now, contestants must be residents of one of the fifty U.S. states or the District of Columbia. The person running the contest must have a valid Amazon.com account and a credit card with room to pay for the prizes to be given away. (Yes, sorry, you need to pay for the prizes upfront.) That would seem to indicate that non-U.S. residents can set up a giveaway, but I’m not 100% sure; in any case, your pool of winners is going to be limited to U.S. residents. Continue reading “Amazon Giveaways: Now with Ebooks!”

Writing Sleight of Hand

writing suspense magic-184447_960_720One thing I think most of us writers aspire to is being able to surprise our readers. After all, if the reader knows from page one what the outcome will be — boy gets the girl and they live happily ever after — that doesn’t make for a terribly interesting or suspenseful book. On the other hand, I believe we owe it to our readers to not blindside them. What I mean by that is throwing in a curve ball that has no relation to anything else in the book. Somewhere in there is a happy medium where the reader can be surprised, shocked, maybe delighted by the twists in the plot, but when they think back, they can see the germination of that plot twist. It was there all the time, just under the radar. It fits and it makes sense.

I’ve noticed there are two ways to do this. Continue reading “Writing Sleight of Hand”