Your Self-Publishing Services Options

There are several good reasons why many authors prefer to self-publish. First, they are able to retain the rights of their work. Next is, they take full control of their content and the marketing of it and lastly, they are able to retain the revenues from the sold books.

Considering that there are many writers now who would like to self-publish, we’ve listed below some self-publishing services to choose from:

Blurb

A popular self-publishing platform for photography-based books (full color and black and white). Blurb lets their user to create, self-publish, promote and sell their books. The author can also set their own prices, therefore, they’re able to select their very own profit margin.

CreateSpace

If you would like to take advantage of Amazon’s popularity, you probably would like to choose CreateSpace which is part of Amazon group of companies. CreateSpace is not just for book authors but are also perfect for filmmakers and musicians. Authors are also allowed to choose their own royalty when they publish via CreateSpace. After your book is uploaded on CreateSpace, it will be available on the market within hours and you get between 35% and 70% of sales.

Lulu

One of the best services the Lulu can offer to users is their free consultation . Yes, they offer free consultation for your books. They also have paid services like ISBN purchasing and distribution, book design, and formatting. Authors can also set their profits by choosing their own royalties and Lulu gets a small portion from your sales.

Smashwords

Smashwords will publish anything and they only need your manuscript and you’re good to go. Plus your work gets available in various formats like ePub, mobi, PDF, etc. With smashwords, authors and publishers also get the highest return which is 85% of the sales.

For more list of Self-publishing services, check out Wikipedia’s list.

What self-publishing services are you using?

Share on the comments below.

 

 

Questions to ask your Literary Agent

If you want your book to get published on a traditional publishing house, take note that you need a literary agent to represent you and your book. However, getting accepted by a traditional publisher is as hard as getting a good literary agent. Someone that will truly be interested in you and your book and won’t just be looking into the money that’s in your pocket.

In order to get to know your agent really well, you need to ask him few questions. Questions that you consider very important when it matters to this business. In case a literary agent has a website, try visiting his website and read some details provided on his website. Some information that you wanted to know about them are sometimes available on their website particularly in the “About” page.

Here are few important questions that you have to ask to a literary agent.

How much experience you have as a literary agent?

First of all, you need to know how much experience they have as a literary agent. That will include the years and their specialties. Just like an author, literary agent also have their very own specialties when it comes to book genres that they can handle very well. See to it that he is the right agent for your book. Established agents usually have more connections and will be able to find a good place to introduce your book.

Do you work in an agency or you work independently?

Before you commit to an agent, make sure you know who is going to handle your book. Some agents, especially those that are working with big agencies will let an assistant handle the work rather than doing it themselves. However, if you work with an independent agent, he’ll be able work on your book personally.

Are you a member of Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR)?

It’s good to know if the literary agent you plan to work with is member of certain Association like AAR, a nonprofit organization for professional literary agents. If an agent is a member of AAR, he must follow it’s requirements and adhere to its bylaws and ethics. Therefore, he is a very ideal agent to have.

Writing Tools Used by Your Favorite Authors [infographic]

Who doesn’t know Stephen King’s epic story “It”? or J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series? I bet you’re familiar with these stories and perhaps, you’ve had read these famous books. But did you know that these famous authors are using old-fashioned writing methods to create stories? Yes they do!

Despite the latest technologies available today, these writers still love and appreciates the traditional methods of writing.

Here is a very interesting info-graphic from NinjaEssays that reveals the traditional writing tools used by our favorite authors.

 

Top-writing-tools-of-famous-authors

Are you also using the old-school method of writing just like these top talents? Share your comments below.

 

 

 

Amazon is Killing Their Authors Softly

For many of you, you know that I am not the biggest fan of Amazon and their recent moves.  If you haven’t seen, Amazon has been quick to remove well earned reviews, but won’t budge in removing reviews that are clearly in appropriate.

One example for me personally was when someone had actually commented in their review that they hadn’t read the book, but didn’t like the cover so they gave it a 1 star.  Clearly this has no value and doesn’t belong in the reviews.  However, after contacting Amazon and asking them to remove the review since it clearly wasn’t correct and should be seen, they replied to me saying that they understand my angst against the review, but that they didn’t want to get involved or start removing reviews.  Really?

Won’t Get Involved You Say?

Well Amazon, why then did you remove a couple of my 5 star reviews?
Yep…I noticed.  I had 76 5 star reviews and then a couple of days later, it was 72.  So, tell me how your “aren’t getting involved?”  Oh and by the way, I never work to get reviews illegally.  I understand all the rules and regulations, so don’t tell me that the review violated something of yours.  Ridiculous.

KU Changes?

writeBut if that wasn’t bad enough, Amazon has now made a change to their KU policy.  Instead of paying authors based on the number of downloads a book gets, we will now be paid based on the number of pages someone reads.

Are you for real?

So, I now have to convince people to not only download my book, but also read it all the way to the end?  That’s pretty ridiculous in its own.

Now, at first I had hope that this wouldn’t be  a problem.  After all, I am a decent writer – at least I hope right – so, it shouldn’t affect me…wrong.

Since the KU change occurred, I have now lost over $1000 in revenue. It’s as if we authors not only have to provide a book that makes sales, but also gets read. Do you know how many legitimate books I have on my shelf that I haven’t read yet?  Should I have to pay for those books only when I read them?

So, first, Amazon doesn’t protect me from erroneous reviews that don’t help and now they just hit me with a bogus change that will have dramatic effects on my business and lifestyle.

Time for Diversification

Its times like these that I am happy that ebook platforms like Kobo and iTunes are still around.  Because of this, i will now be pushing and leaning more on them.  Kindle can’t be the only platform out there and as self-publishers, we need to understand this.

I intend to revolt in my own way and remove certain books from Amazon KDP to place/focus mainly on Smashword’s services.   Granted, I am not as powerful as many and it probably won’t make a dent, but…I’ll have peace of mind knowing that I did my part to send a small message to Amazon.

Understanding Your Audience

In freelance writing, a diverse and anonymous readership presents a distinctive dilemma to content authors. The stage from which an author communicates with readers determines good results in online writing.

Below are the explanations that demonstrates the importance of writing for your audience as the surest approach to flourish in content writing:

1. The information you deliver will not work without having any apparent concept of what the audience seek in the article. Your improvement and quality in content material advancement depends on approval of audience. Authors will need to be knowledgeable with all the choices, concerns, apprehensions and pursuits of their own audiences as the initial stage when it comes to composing successful information. Sad to say, countless authors dictate content for their audience and fail to produce long-term links with the latter.

2. The terminology you can use when creating your content articles and stories relies on your target audience. Terminology in this situation signifies both the unique linguistic setting of concept and the different techniques by which a specific group conveys itself. Teenagers, elders, diverse genders, different socio-economic organizations and professionals have distinctive ‘languages’ that the content creator must recognize. Understanding the audience signifies communicating their language and reasoning from their viewpoint. Aside from communicating literally and on social websites with your audience, you need to go through the things they like to fully grasp their notion and actions.

3. The amount of elegance in the language you use for audience may vary. To give an example, when composing for your target audience, you need to determine whether to use complex phrases or basic phraseology that a cross-section of audience recognizes. This will guide you to provide the correct information to the appropriate target audience. Additionally, the level of research of a subject matter is well-informed by the amount of comprehension of your viewers. One example is, if composing written content for kids, you only deal with simple information and not complex or in-depth matters. For adults, however, you will cope with the similar subject matter exceptionally, thinking of this audience can tackle such content material.

A different explanation you must be well-versed with your audience is its ever-changing mechanics. Social media continues to convert individual’s conduct therefore demanding that you employ your target audience on a regular time frame. Important and unpredicted occasions also occur every day and produce novel styles which you must be familiar with. Except if you separate the concerns that change your readers’ believing you could not generate essential information. You must explore with your audience, hearing to and feeling just like them, as this is the undeniable affirmation that you are publishing for these people. That is why you must invest time deciphering your audience and all its features instead of hurrying to create unnecessary information.

Certainly not neglect that sensational term ‘audience’ for it will open up countless gates that for now stay sealed. Understanding the audience in all its delineations enables you to gain from online freelance writing. As long as your audience is weird to you, your content material will be less relevant.