Dear Blog Friends,
Wow! Thanks for all your support and advice. Right now it feels like I’ve been drinking from the fire hose. I’ve read a lot of different blog posts about people who have epublished. Here are some of the links I went to, many of which were provided by my partner-in-crime (and sister-in-law) Beth. Beth also researched and found for me an impressive list of reviewers and publicity people. Here’s a few of the links I’ve been reading on.
http://blog.deannaknippling.com
http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/
http://www.kristinekathrynrusch.com/
http://hauntedcomputer.blogspot.com/2010/09/debbi-mack-stumbling-into-indie.html
http://www.victoriamixon.com/advice/
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2011/05/book-publishing-questions-now-its-my-turn-to-ask/
http://writerunboxed.com/2011/05/05/the-flip-side-of-self-promotion/
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/10-nontraditional-ways-to-promote-your-book_b29220
I’ve also gotten advice from my stalwart and genki * agent, Kate, who gave me the link at the top and the offer of advice and assistance when I’m ready for it.
I’ve gone to all these blogs and read a lot about epublishing. I’m reading and looking into everything you’re sending me, rest assured. I’m full-on into research mode right now.
One of my goals for the week of May 2-8 was to get plugins installed on this website so that it will automatically tweet when there’s a new post, and on my other sites so that they will take these tweets and repost them. Hoot suite is supposed to do it, but SURPRISE! Not for self-hosted websites. The twitter plugin doesn’t work, and the comments offer no clarification. The facebook update, which is supposed to add an update when I post here, also doesn’t work. They don’t say why, just that it’s not working right now. Clearly, I am cursed.
My backup plan is my friend Gabrielle, who is not only terribly clever, but she owes me a small favor.
Meanwhile, I’m going to write posts about some of the other factors behind the creation of SEEING THINGS. I’m also going to start a new feature, “short fiction spotlight” so you can have some free fiction (not mine, not yet) to read.
Gushingly,
Kater
*genki is a Japanese word that doesn’t translate well. It sort of means “healthy” and sort of means “happy” and sort of means “energetic” and kind of means all three.
2 comments
I posted this link to Broad Universe awhile back. Just dug it out.
http://elizabethmccoy.dreamwidth.org/2120.html
It’s a comparison of Ebook royalities. On the face of it, it looks like one should go with a combination of Smashwords and Amazon. To cover the most formats and outlets and maximize percentage.
I also recently saw this on Shelf Awareness (a book industry e-newsletter):
“ScrollMotion and Smashwords will join forces to create individual mobile
applications for Smashword.s Premium Catalog of more than 30,000 original e-books for a variety of platforms, including Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7 and WebOS. Through the partnership, ScrollMotion will create, promote, merchandise and distribute Smashwords e-books as mobile apps across multiple application marketplaces such as Apple’s App Store, the Android Market and the HP App Catalog.”
The main thing about Amazon and Smashwords seems to be that neither makes books available through Google Books, and Google Books are the only ebooks one can buy right now through one’s local indie bookseller.
(Not to mention neither being available on the Nook, either.)
And I believe Google Books takes epub format, which is one of the formats one needs for Smashwords anyway. Don’t know anything about their terms and such.
(My personal line of how-I-look-for-ebooks seems to be evolving to go to local indie/Google Books first, then the Sony ereader store, then–only after reevaluating if I really want the book–go to Smashwords. Every reader’s process will be different, which is why I think publishers tend to make their ebooks available in all formats–though their economics are different from an independent author’s economics, of course.)