Our friend Valley Haggard over at Life in 10 Minutes has just launched a hybrid press. The concept behind a hybrid press is different from an independent or even traditional press. With hybrid, the publisher acts as an assistant to the writer. For a fee, they will perform all the activities that transform your manuscript into a publishable book – […]
Film and TV production companies are increasingly turning to self-published authors to pick up potential screen blockbusters. The latest indie writer to get a call from Hollywood is best-selling thriller author Mark Dawson. Advanced negotiations are taking place with a leading TV production company that wants to snap up his Beatrix Rose series, according to a report in The Guardian. […]
The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, voted on Saturday to strip the name of Laura Ingalls Wilder from a popular children’s book award, months after a task force set out to consider the long-running scholarly discussion around “anti-Native and anti-Black sentiments” in the author’s work. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award honors […]
Can authors make a living as a writer? Is this another case for self-publishing and self-promotion? From Publishers Weekly: Median annual income of professional writers in the U.K. is now under £10,500, down by 15% since 2013, according to ALCS (Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society) research. That figure puts authors’ hourly rate well below minimum wage The earnings figure of […]
Audiobooks continued their meteoric rise in 2017, a new report issued by the Audio Publishers Association found, with another year of double-digit growth for both audiobook sales and title output. Total sales rose 22.7% in 2017, to an estimated $2.5 billion, over an estimated $2.1 billion in sales in 2016. Unit sales rose an estimated 21.5%, the APA reported. Sales […]
Is this a thing? Why Only Stephen King? If it were a larger library, would it be more interesting? Beginning today, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant users in the U.S.and Canada will be able to download a free “Stephen King Library” onto their smart speaker platforms, Simon & Schuster has announced. The library will recommend King books tailored to users’ […]
Very few, if any, authors look forward to writing the dreaded query letter. And honestly, who can blame them? After spending countless hours alone and staring at a computer screen crafting what will eventually become your novel, your baby, you have to condense all of that hard work into just 3-5 paragraphs. You have just ONE PAGE to get […]
Confession time. Half of this word really scares me. Also, it makes me a little angry, a little frustrated, and a little unsure about my ability to succeed as a writer. Here’s why: I’m not so sure that the skills needed to be a successful writer can cohabitate with the skills necessary to be a great entrepreneur, brander, marketer, social […]
If you want to get your work out in the simplest possible way at the lowest possible cost, consider Smashwords.com. You put your lightly-formatted Microsoft Word document into their engine and it converts it to Apple iBook, Barnes&Noble Nook, Kobe, Sony, and many other formats. Then Smashwords will distribute the eBook to all the different publishers AND take in all […]