Tag: author advice

Find the resonance in your characters – Thea Atkinson

Author Thea Atkinson

I hate running. I really do. Some runners anticipate a good run with eager legs. Not me. I hate every step, each landing of foot on the pavement, every breath I drag in and expel in quick, uncoordinated bursts.

I’m not a good runner either, but two years ago something happened that sent me out into a frigid March morning in Nova Scotia, wearing cheap sneakers and raggedy sweatpants.

My husband had his first real and frightening MS event then. You need to understand: the 23 years I’ve known this man, he’s been a hearty and hale, strapping, no-holds-barred, forearms-like-Popeye’s fisherman. In Nova Scotia, no less — that means he fishes for lobster in the dead of winter. Think Deadliest Catch on a smaller scale but no less dangerous. Continue reading “Find the resonance in your characters – Thea Atkinson”

The Why and How of E-Book Piracy by Arline Chase

Preface:  The other day a Google alert informed me that my first novel, Lust for Danger, was mentioned on a site called 4shared.com.  I clicked through to discover that they were offering my novel as a free download.  I immediately emailed my Indie Publisher, Write Words Inc., to notify them of this issue.  Within a couple of days they’d managed to get the site to take my book down.  Honestly, I never thought this would happen to me.  But it did.  Arline Chase – owner of Write Words, Inc. – will explain why, and how, pirates steal our titles.  

Without further ado, here is industry veteran Arline Chase:

I can’t speak to how pirates get hold of every title, but I can mention some of the ways they are able to “find” material to give away and why they do it.

Some publishers, not me, but some, put the PDF up at Bowker’s Books in Print when they register the ISBN. As a protection to our authors, Write Words does not send the whole PDF there, or to Google’s “search inside the book” or anywhere else except sales sites where we actively participate. Bowker’s security is good, but no Internet Security is infallible.

Authors get tons of spam all the time. One ploy is to offer “free advertising” to authors by e-mail and ask them for one free copy to use for promotional purposes. If the author sends them ONE PDF book file by e-mail attachment, they can then give it away hundreds of times and they can claim to have your permission to do so as it was sent willingly. I don’t know that this is how they got your book, but it DOES happen. A Lot. You would also get lots more “offers” from them to buy advertising on line. Continue reading “The Why and How of E-Book Piracy by Arline Chase”

“Ed’s Casual Friday!” he said.

Holy Hand Grenades, you mean my second “Casual Friday” post is slated for Friday the 13th? Geeze, that seems like the kind of thing I should have cleverly incorporated into a topic…if I had looked at a calendar before I actually wrote the post. So let us pretend I did. In honor of Friday the 13th, my thoughts on something really scary: Dialogue Tags! (cue thunderstorm noises)

DialogueFirst off, I should say that what follows is of course my opinion. I’m not trying to tell anybody else how to write, and yes, our individual literary foibles may indeed be part of what gives each of us our own “style.” However, believe me when I say that there are certain things that are going to look like mistakes to a large number of readers, even if a writer is doing them on purpose. James Joyce made up grammatical and narrative rules as he went along, and some people think he’s a genius for doing so. He’s also rarely read nowadays outside of Lit grad courses. Just saying. Continue reading ““Ed’s Casual Friday!” he said.”

Help us help you

by K.S. Brooks and Stephen Hise

We indie authors need all the help we can get to spread the word about our writing. We don’t have an army of agents and publicists at our disposal. We don’t have a big publishing house pushing our books onto the front shelves of every remaining brick and mortar store in the world.

Still, we don’t have to bear the burden alone – we have each other. We use social media to build networks and connections. We learn from each other and we teach each other. We help each other.

I established Indies Unlimited for the express purpose of helping indie authors. We provide a number of different types of features that can showcase you and your writing (e.g., interviews, guest posts, sneak-peeks, video book trailers, etc.). We also get a ton of page views here, and that number is trending consistently upward. The exposure you get here can be very beneficial to you.

You want help and Indies Unlimited wants to help you. This should be easy. Some people make it difficult. Below are some things that will facilitate that process – and keep us from wanting to kill you. Continue reading “Help us help you”