Getting your book into local shops is a good strategy. Here is a post about how to get book shops to take your self published books.
It is a good idea to pay particular attention to the section on how not to do this job. Always remember that you are dealing with another human being. Thinking how you would react in their shoes is a very useful approach.
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This is a subject that causes trouble all the time. People like to control the way their book looks. Well, that is perfectly reasonable, after all the effort you have put into it. With a hard copy, you can control exactly how the book looks, especially if you have a patient printer working with you.
The key things to remember are:
Your goal when you have finished in Word is NOT to make it look pretty. It is to make a file that:
This post explains how to prepare your file to convert to an ebook. If you do not follow this sort of advice, your book will look very odd, with random spaces in it. Following the same routine will also help with preparing a printed book.
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We all know what it means, but a lot of people are unsure about whether to use “just deserts” or “just desserts”.
This is a thorough post about a confusing phrase: just des(s)erts.
And once you know which word you want, then you might hesitate about the spelling. This is easy. The double s in dessert stands for “sweet stuff”, which is always found in a pudding, but is much harder to find in a hot dry place.
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Are you planning a book?
Planning is a useful process, giving you direction, helping you stay on track, and letting you see how far through the process you are.
Some plans are reasonably standard. You can pick a template, and adapt it to your needs. Book planning isn’t like that for most of us. The creative process isn’t always that tidy.
So while this post about how to calculate your book’s length before writing has some useful points, you need to take it with a pinch of salt. Particularly with obvious points, like the mid-point should be 50% of the way through.
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It is time we had some word history. This time there are some classic muddles:
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Any marketing bod will tell you that branding is important.
The trm brand coves all sorts of different things, but one of the main visible aspects is a consistent image. It is useful if people can tell it is you at a glance. It will catch the interest of your fans.
Many authors spend ages finalising their book design, but pay little attention to the rest of the campaign.
This post explains how to pick up elements of your book design and use them in other ways, to reinforce your brand.
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This week, I’ve found a piece about whether you should make an audio book of your work.
And if you agree that the answer is yes, here are some links to previous posts to help you create one:
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This week, we have a reminder that we should focus on the customer.
The trap is that it is too easy to forget that we are very similar to everyone else.
An idea may be fascinating, special, or original.
That is not the point.
We need to think about whether others will notice that difference from the crowd in the split second before they move on.
Get right back into the competition with the knowledge from this post.
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This week, I’ve come upon a rather unusual post about typos.
Well Ulysses is an unusual book, for all sorts of reasons. O that basis, I suspect it is perfectly reasonable to have some unusual typo stories about it.
Is Ulysses is a book you have read? I must say, I haven’t got that far yet. One day, perhaps.
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In all the discussion about self publishing, the main focus is usually about novels. The theory seems to be that everyone has a novel in them.
Occasionally there is a discussion about non-fiction.
So this post is particularly useful due to the rarity value.
How To Self-Publish and Sell Poetry in the Digital Era.
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