Great writing prompt from Poets & Writers

Creative Nonfiction Prompt

Compose a table of contents for your life. Include titles, subtitles, sections, and chapters that outline a period--or the entirety--of your life. Once you've finished the table, write a brief summary for each section.  I challenge five of my  blog readers to do this exercise, and then post a comment here to let others know about it:  Was it fun?  Too hard?  Extremely motivating? Let us know if you at least started this, by September 30, 2012, and, as a Friend of Poets & Writers, I'll let them know how we did it too. I'm starting mine today, Helen

New York Times article on self-publishing

There's an informative update on self-publishing and digital books here: The Joys and Hazards of Self-Publishing on the Web:

In particular, note:
The single toughest part of self-publishing is getting attention for your book. Nearly 350,000 new print titles were published in 2011, and 150,000 to 200,000 of them were produced by self-publishing companies, said Kelly Gallagher, vice president of Bowker Market Research, which conducts an annual survey of new books.

Same stuff I've been telling people for five years now.

Housework can wait

This note from someone I just met last week really made my day. If you question why and whether you should keep blogging, let this be your motivation:

"I enjoyed reading your blog and I bookmarked it.It motivated me to make time to work on my writing today and put off the housework until tomorrow."  

Ebooks: Who buys them?

Every time I write an article about publishing or conduct a workshop, I have to give people the bad news. Having an ebook is not an end in itself. It is not automatically going to turn a profit by tomorrow.

The truth of ebook succcess is the truth of all bookselling success, and in fact all selling success. You have to know where your customer is, and know how to reach them. Here is an insightful graphic from Smashwords, a reputable, successful ebook production and sales avenue. Smashwords and Bookbaby are probably the two best places to look when you want to achieve ebook sales success. (click image to enlarge).

Four Smashwords authors make NYTimes bestseller list!

I've been a fan of Mark Coker and his firm, Smashwords, since 2007 when I uploaded Release Your Writing  to their service to publish an ebook and inadvertently crashed their server. It takes a great guy to talk to me on the phone and take over the project.

Look how far Smashwords has come as a superstar for uploading and distributing your books.
Here is an excerpt from their blog today:

Take a look at the August 5 edition of The New York Times Fiction Ebook bestseller list, out yesterday.  Lightning struck multiple times this week.

Congrats to Colleen Hoover (Slammed at #8, Point of Retreat at #18), R.L. Mathewson (Playing for Keeps at #16), Lyla Sinclair (Training Tessa at #17) and Bella Andre (If You Were Mine at #22, Can't Help Falling in Love at #23, and I Only Have Eyes for You at #24).

All the credit for these results go to the authors who wrote the books, the readers who purchased them and the retailers who connected these books with readers.

I'd like to thank each of the authors above for allowing Smashwords to play some role in their distribution strategy.  Some of them use Smashwords to reach most of the major retailers, and some use us to reach only a few.  You can find each of their books at Smashwords by clicking the title above, or find them at your favorite ebook retailer.  Show them your support because they're opening doors for every indie author.

It's a big deal to see a single Smashwords author on the New York Times Bestseller list, let alone four in one week.  A year ago, it was unheard of.  A year from now, it'll be more commonplace.  Tomorrow's global bestsellers are at Smashwords.  Maybe the next bestseller will be the title uploaded to Smashwords two minutes from now, soon to be visible at the top of the Smashwords home page.  Or maybe it'll be one or more of the nearly 9,000 new titles uploaded to Smashwords in the last 30 days.  Or uploaded three years ago.

Care to try the EL James strategy?

The New York Review of Books has an interesting article by Emily Eakin on how the author of 50 Shades of Grey grew into such a success without a publicity campaign, formal reviews or a huge endorsement. How did EL James do it? And can you do it too?

Read the full NYRB piece here -- in essence plan to take a crash course in the magic of word of mouth. 
The author's work originated as "fan fiction, a genre that operates outside the bounds of literary commerce, in online networks of enthusiasts of popular books and movies, brought together by a desire to write and read stories inspired by those works.* (EL James real name) "Leonard’s excursion in the genre provided her with a captive audience of thousands of positively disposed readers, creating a market for her books before they ever carried price tags. But fan fiction is inherently collaborative and by convention resolutely anti-commercial, attributes which make its role in the evolution of her work both highly unusual and ethically fraught."

The NYRB is a long, thoughtful piece - worthy of your time if this genre is relevant for you.

Books sure keep life interesting... 

This is what I wrote in the front flap of Release Your Writing: Book Publishing Your Way:

Attract a publisher if you can, but if not,

don’t wait your life away….

Publish your book yourself.

Things have sure changes since I published that book, but the message remains as true today. We've seen the publishing world move from a few big firms, to strength in numbers with indie publishers, ebook creators, and individuals who achieve high sales through self-publishing on their own. 

I continue to say there's never been a better time to be a writer, and to get published. 

In fact, today mainstream Penguin Books announced they are purchasing Author Solutions - which is a conglomeration of Author House, iUniverse, Trafford in Canada, and Xlibris, 

Why would Penguin buy up the top POD firms? Because self-published books increased 60 percent in 2011, over the prior year, according to Bowker's statistics. Penguin was eager to acquire  the firm to "gain skills in customer acquisition and data analytics that will be vital to our future," said Penguin chief executive John Makinson.

Five ways to focus... follow link

One way freelancers make it at the end of each month is by knowing their billable time reaches the desired goal. But when tech distractions pile up, it becomes difficult to focus on what you’re doing. And Monday turns to Friday while you’re still plugging away at an assignment that shouldn’t take five days. For many of us, that wasted time turns into lost revenue.
Read full post at Freelance Zone ... 

Amazon power...

Author of Flat-Out Love, Jessica Park, is a major cheerleader for the power of Amazon to help Indie authors reach great sales levels on their own.

She wrote a (very) long article at IndieReader.com --- here's the take-away you'll appreciate.

"Because of Amazon and other sites, I’m making enough money that I can continue writing. I’m averaging sales of 3,500 books a month, not including the month that Amazon featured Flat-Out Love in a list of books for $3.99 and under. That month I sold 45,000 Kindle copies, and sold over 10,000 the next month. Those numbers are insane to me. Absolutely insane. The fact that I continue to sell well a year after the book’s release is humbling. Yes, I wrote a book that has earned me excellent reviews, so I take credit for that, and I worked myself to death finding bloggers to review my book (God bless my loyal bloggers who took a chance on me!), but I have to credit Amazon with giving me such a strong platform with such overwhelming visibility."

Read more, much more, in her full article at IndieReader entitled "How Amazon Saved My Life."  You, too, can put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and get everything working for you and for your book.

Helen Gallagher

A Ray Bradbury quote: one in a million

Sharing this with you from Loren Rhoads' blog at RedRoom, quoting Ray Bradbury in Zen and the Art of Writing::

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing
how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

                                                                            

Digital Publishing Virtual Summit

It's not to late to join in on this Digital Publishing Virtual Summit, packed with workshops to answer all your questions. It runs through June 21, online, This is a no-charge way to learn more about how to create, publish, and sell your book (or another digital product.


Direct Link: http://www.bookmarketingalliance.com/schedule/


Listen live or get a full access member pass to download the MP3 recordings for $97. (which is a great way to listen to the archives during your summer road trip.)

How clever publishers are using ebooks

 
Net Galley is an exciting company distributing digital titles to the media and to reviewers. They delivers secure, digital galleys to professional readers. I'm able to log-in, request any galley from a publisher, and receive it. I also track what I have read, alert the publisher when I'm finished, and avoid the long delay receiving print galleys or ARCs by mail.



Now, during Book Expo America, Net Galley has distributed an ebook with exciting excerpts from over 30 new works that will debut in Fall 2012. The book was put together by Publishers Lunch, and allows reviewers an opportunity to read excerpts and prep reviews now, well in advance of publication dates.Among the new works, I know you'll be glad to see a new Barbara Kingsolver title, Flight Behavior, and the fall-over laughing Does This Church Make Me Look Fat? by Rhoda Janzen. Those are definitely the first two I'll be reading, followed by, oh gosh... a dozen others!

The entire thing was conveniently made available via email, for a quick download to read on my computer or Nook. And how large is this Fall 2012 preview? It tops out at 624 pages; powerful yet weightless.

A fabulous use of digital books and technology.

Helen Gallagher

Guest post by Rita Jean Moran

A chance to enjoy the perspective of another blogger with this guest post:

Hi, my name is Rita Jean Moran, and I am the author of The Library Kids book series (www.thelibrarykids.com).  I also have my own blog, ritajeanmoran.blogspot.com, where I post many articles on:  mysterious places I have visited, ancient history, and places to visit with your family.  My books are for children and adults and I want my blog to be family-friendly as well as interesting.

I would like to thank Helen Gallagher for teaching a wonderful seminar on Power Blogging for Authors and Writers.  She did a great job and had many fresh ideas regarding blogging.  I liked her tips on morguefile.com for finding free graphics that you can use as well as her tips for increasing traffic to your blog by guest blogging.  

             

My blog audience is growing.  What I’ve found out is how powerful a blog can be.  You are one person in a world of about 7 billion people and you can have a voice to the entire world with a great blog.  My statistics tell me that people from all over the world are viewing my blog.  I’ve had hits from America, Russia, Germany, Canada, India, England, France, South Korea, Italy, Latvia, Australia, Georgia, Croatia, Greece, Spain, Norway, South Africa, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica, Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, Denmark, Romania, Dominican Republic, Israel, France and Moldova.  With a blog you don’t even have to know the languages of other countries because the viewer may even be able to convert their view on their web browser to their own language. 

            

I’ve found that mixing up great graphics with interesting articles attracts a lot of attention.  Using a good short title and readable font for your articles also helps.  I tend to use many of my own pictures but I can also get some really good ones from Wikipedia that are public domain.  You need to be very careful not to violate copyrights and you should site sources when necessary. 

Once again, thanks Helen and I hope some of your viewers come and visit my blog at ritajeanmoran.blogspot.com.

Show us your bio...

I have a new post on Freelance-Zone.com today on the importance of using a strong bio for yourself as a writer. When you write an article, pitch an idea to an editor, or create an author bio, it follows you everywhere. Make sure yours has some zing. Click here to read the full post at Freelance-Zone. Learn how to go beyond the ordinary, and even post your bio in the Comments section for a little free PR.