Celebrating Independent Authors
You may have recently received an email from Draft2Digital telling you that they’ve added a new marketing tool for authors. I’m always curious to try new marketing tools, so I decided to take a look.
I initially had a hard time finding where to go but, after a few tries, discovered that once signed in, you need to go to My Account and select Universal Book Links (see screenshot below). Continue reading “Draft2Digital’s Reading List Carousel: A Tutorial”
I never dreamed of writing a children’s book — didn’t think it was my style. Well, a little ducky changed that. Her name is Sevy, and she caused me a whole heap of trouble as a duckling. I’d posted her exploits on Facebook and everyone kept urging me to write a children’s book. Okay, I did. The print version had its headaches with formatting, bleed, and such, but it’s out there. The eBook, however: I could never get the formatting right for some reason, so I ignored it for a couple of years.
Enter the mighty Amazon and the Kindle Kids’ Book Creator. This is a free download that you can pluck from the KDP login page. There’s also a short (video) on the KDP website that’s pretty helpful.
Once you have it downloaded, open it up, kick the tires and take it for a test drive. There’re two simple prompts at the bottom: Open an existing book, or, Create a new kids’ book. Continue reading “Kickin’ It with Kindle Kids’ Book Creator”
Smashwords is sort of an enigma. Loved by many, hated by many, and yet still many more who just don’t know what the heck to do with it. And what in god’s name is a meatgrinder, right? Well, despite all the hiccups people have, I’ve been finding Smashwords to be quite awesome lately. Let me tell you why. Continue reading “Getting the Most out of Smashwords”
Ever be cranking along on your work-in-progress (WIP) without a care and suddenly realize that your timeline is all discombobulated? Juggling numerous characters with a different point of view (POV) in each chapter has finally caught up with you. Don’t you hate it when that happens? I know I do.
This kind of thing is bound to occur, especially if you have characters who whisk off to far-away lands – which means you need to incorporate the gaps created by lengthy air travel as well as time zone changes. What a mess!
Here’s a handy little tip for you which costs nothing. In fact, it’s so simple that it may strike you as stupid initially, but sometimes simplifying is exactly what’s needed when a project goes out of control. Continue reading “Tips: Book Planning”