Artist, Jonathan Roberts

Guest Post by Jonathan Roberts

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now.

A map shouldn’t be pretty.

I know what you’re thinking – those posters of Middle Earth are gorgeous. Of course a map should be beautiful! But for worldbuilding purposes a pretty map is a Very Bad Thing. Beautiful things are precious, and we tend to want to leave precious things pristine and untouched. When we’re building worlds we need to break things, and often. So, out with any thoughts that we’re making a pretty map. We’ll be making a functional map. In fact we’ll be making many maps, one after the other. In exactly the same way that your notes are not the final manuscript, a map isn’t the final world. It’s a visual notepad, and you should be crossing things out, erasing sections and rebuilding from scratch as you go along.

So we won’t be needing photoshop today, we need a pad of scratch paper and a pencil. Ready? Right, let’s build a world.

First of all, think about the world you need to build. In many cases this is a defined area that’s much smaller than the planet you’re on. Very few stories truly span a globe, so let’s begin by cutting down to the area that the story explores. This keeps the work focused on a reasonable area, and means there will always be distant and mysterious lands to explore down the line.

In your tale there will be nations, city states or power centers of some form. Start by making a note of their relationships to one another. Are they at war? Are they aloof? Do they feud over resources or are they closely allied? Think over the things that make them stand out. Are they famous for their expansive grain fields? Their iron? Their navy? I’m sure you can see the theme here. Nations are defined by the geography they inhabit as much as we define the geography by the nation. A nation with a large navy needs sea access, but it should also have natural defenses like a mountain range that allows the nation to neglect other military forces in favor of its navy. Two countries at war need to be close, and need to have a means of attacking one another.

Focus on major terrain at this point–how much coastline and mountain range. Make notes about other terrain that comes to mind–the tulip fields of Alak’tor, the salt mines of Keshel. Those will come in useful later.

It’s now time to start our map. Grab a pencil and faintly draw in circles where your nations are. Nations that are allies or at war should be close. Those that rarely interact should be farther away, or have an insurmountable natural barrier between them. Drawing circles on a map may sound easy, but this stage can take a few tries to get the relationships right.

Stage 1: Circles. Yes, these are 6 interconnected nations!

But circles aren’t really a map. Let’s draw some coastlines. Think about which of your nations need large coastlines and which should be landlocked. Then let your pen wander. Really – avoid straight lines. Coastlines are jagged and broken things. If your line doesn’t look like it was plotted by a drunken ant, you’re doing it wrong.

Step 2: The coastlines. Keep them broken and randomized.

Now let’s lay in some mountains. Mountains tend to form ridges. Avoid the temptation to fill in whole blocks of land with mountains. Instead, lay them out in wavy lines. They often follow the edge of a coastline (think the Andes). From a story point of view, they form obstacles for your heroes and they create natural boundaries between nations, or between nations and the great unknown. Mountains also create boundaries between climates. So if you need a desert in one area and a jungle in the other, you’d better place a mountain range between them to stop the rain from the jungle getting to the desert.

Step 3: Mountains – they shouldn’t be pretty, inverted triangles do the job just fine.

Next up, we have rivers. Rain falls on mountains and runs downhill to the sea. It always flows to the lowest point – and there’s always one lowest point. This means that rivers don’t branch as they flow to the sea, they only join. So – no rivers going from coast to coast. At some point that requires water to flow uphill. No lakes that have two separate rivers leading to the sea – remember, only one lowest point leading out. Think of a river like a tree. There’s one trunk where it enters the sea, but a panoply of branches reaching towards the mountains.

Rivers are also strategically important. There’s hardly a river mouth in the world without a town on it and most great cities lie on a river. If you know where your cities are going to be, make sure there’s a decent sized river flowing through them. Equally, rivers make great defenses. It’s hard to build a wall all the way along your nation’s border, but it’s almost as hard to get an army over a well-defended river as it is to have them scale a wall.

Step 4: As rivers run to the coast they only join, they never branch.

Add some hills to the edge of your mountain ranges. Lay in some forest and see how it looks. Remember, don’t be precious. If you don’t like it, start on a new sheet of paper. Sketch another coastline. Turn it upside down.

When you’re happy with the terrain, go over the pencil lines with pen, and erase the pencil–including your nation boundaries. Scan and photocopy the map. Go away and have some food.

When you come back, try the following experiment. Ignore your previous nations. Look at the virgin world with a new eye. If you were founding a country in the world, where would you start? What would be the key strategic choke points? Look at the world as if you were playing Civ. Where are the resources you need to defend, what lands would you try to annex? Use some colored pencils to sketch in different nations and boundaries. Edit the rivers if you need to, move things around. You’ve got lots of copies of the map–experiment.

Once you have a layout you like, we’ll add cities.

Step 5: Hills and Forests, add them wherever you see fit. These are easily moved.

Cities are where they are for a reason. They don’t just appear up in the middle of nowhere. Population centers need food, water, trade and security. Rivers can provide all of  these, which is why towns and cities tend to spring up at river mouths. Locate your capitals in places that are easily defended and that have good transport connections to the rest of the nation. Place smaller cities in key locations, whether that’s in the heart of a mining community on the edge of a mountain range, at a key strategic river crossing, or a market town in the middle of leagues of prime cattle-ranching land. At this point, also mark in major fortifications.

Step 6: Place cities, towns and fortifications.

With these indicated it’s a simple matter to place the roads. These will connect the major cities, the main food producing regions, and any other major trade routes.

You now have a perfectly functional map! But remember, nothing is set in stone. Each time you run through this process your map will be better. Each time you sketch the map you’ll have new ideas. As you continue to write about your world you’ll come up with new thoughts on what terrain you should have, how two countries relate across their border, where a great wilderness needs to be. Redraw the map – it’s there for you. Both your map drawing and your text will be better for the relationship between map and story.

And when your manuscript is ready to go from draft to final, your map will be ready to go from sketch to illustration. But that’s a post for another day.

Step 7: Colored and finished!

If you want to learn about the art of mapmaking, then check out the Cartographers’ Guild, or my own tutorials.

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Guest Post by Michael Rothman

Certainly the first major milestone in writing a novel is getting the first draft complete. Oddly enough, this is sometimes the best time to take a step back from the manuscript and give yourself a little time away from it.

The reason I say this is because when you want to go through your initial self-editing phase, you probably want to approach the manuscript as a reader. Try to get a bit of a separation from the book.

Ultimately, you aren’t writing for yourself (or typically you aren’t), you are writing for an audience and you want to scrutinize your novel as a reader would. Given that, there are many folks who can speak much more authoritatively about the editing phases than I can, but suffice it to say that self-editing is a skill that should be learned by any aspiring author, but that shouldn’t be confused with not needing an editor.

This leads me to the first of the five topics I wanted to cover.

• Editors – the folks who find the booboos, clean up the scrapes in your manuscripts, and teach you lessons you didn’t know you needed to learn.

Despite my relatively fewer years in the industry, I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with some of the best editors in the industry, you know who you guys are [Betsy, Pat, Joshua]. Given that experience, I can say that without a doubt, any author who hasn’t put their manuscript through professional-level editing is likely doing their readers a disservice.

o Authors Behaving Badly

 How would you react if someone told you your child was ugly, and stupid? Not well I’d imagine.

Well, what do you think your reaction would be like when you toiled over a manuscript only to get it back from the editor awash in red ink?

Many people’s first reaction is to throw a fit, call the editor all sorts of names, and maybe throw the nearest object against the wall.

Let me recommend something a little different.

• Consider the feedback, let it soak in, don’t write that nasty e-mail you were about to write, and wait a day or two.

o Authors are a defensive lot. In many cases, they find it difficult to accept criticism of their work.

o Let’s be realistic and say that unless you’ve hired a complete cretin as your editor, they likely make a point or two you should consider.

o Had you really achieved perfection in your manuscript, you wouldn’t need an editor, people would be waiting for your golden words to spill out as you type them.

 Realize that you don’t know it all

• Something that sounds good in your head, oftentimes doesn’t sound nearly as good in the written form.

• Editors will point out things that you were otherwise blind to. Many times it isn’t because you’ve written something grammatically incorrect; perhaps the editor noted that using the word amazing five times in a single paragraph might be a touch overkill. A thesaurus is sometimes an author’s best friend.

• A professional editor is simply trying to improve your manuscript inasmuch as helping it flow better, sound better, and be more intriguing to the audience that you’ve chosen. For instance, I had an editor point out a certain scene in one of my current novels that might have been too much for the age group I was targeting. After a fair amount of consideration, I agreed with her. And that leads me to the next point about the author/editor relationship.

o It is the Author’s book, not the editor’s

 As an Indie author, you ultimately control the words in the book. When you are with a publishing house, some of that control is not absolute.

 If an editor gives you feedback, they are oftentimes giving you either specific items that they felt were wrong or inconsistent, or they were speaking in general terms. Either way, it is the author’s decision if and how they act on that feedback.

• If you generally agree with the editor’s comment, then by all means, go ahead and fix it.

• However, if you don’t agree with the editor’s comment, make the call that you feel suits the story best, because sometimes the editor simply isn’t right.

o I’d note that I probably take 80% of the editor’s comments and do “something” with them. They usually bring a unique perspective as a different kind of reader that is invaluable in assessing your writing and the manuscript as a whole.
o Editors are the ultimate teachers of writing lessons

 I’ve learned more about writing from having to deal with the editor comments than I’ve learned from writing entire novels. I can’t stress enough how important a good quality editor is. Find one and don’t let go.

• Book Covers

o As an Indie author, you will find yourself in a position to control how your novel is presented to the world. In real life, we say that a first impression is always very important. Well, your book’s first impression will inevitably be its cover.

Given that, unless you are artistically inclined, you will likely need to consult with someone on the creation of this cover. What typically happens in the publishing houses is that publisher engages with an artist and hands them the story or a particular section of the story and oftentimes a scene from the manuscript is pulled to represent the book.

Below is an example of just such a scene in my second book, Tools of Prophecy.

You’ll notice that it is a landscape picture intended to serve as a cover for a print book, so the portion on the right would be the front cover, and the portion on the left would wrap around toward the back. In this case, the scene is from a climactic portion of the story that was pulled from the finalized story material.

Clearly, for an e-book, you wouldn’t need the complete picture, but only the right-hand portion of this. Below is an example of the same illustration, but finalized for production purposes.

• ISBN Acquisition

An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is something you’ll inevitably have to acquire to sell your book. This is typically used to uniquely identify a book. Kind of like your driver’s license number uniquely identifies who you are, the ISBN number identifies what book a buyer or seller is dealing with. I’d note that even with a single title of a book (e.g. Tools of Prophecy) it likely has at least four different ISBN numbers. One for its paperback edition, another for a hardcover edition, another for a Kindle e-book, and another for a Nook e-book.

A very common purveyor of ISBN numbers is a placed called Bowkers. You can buy a single ISBN number from them, or 1000’s. The author’s/publisher’s choice.

• E-book formatting

One thing that isn’t obvious for most people is the need for special formatting in an e-book. Even though there are hundreds of articles that talk in detail about the formatting requirements, there are some software utilities that make things very simple, and I strongly recommend looking into them (especially since they are free.)

Look at one in particular; a software package called Calibre.

Another thing that I can comment on, that I’ve rarely seen mentioned in articles is the need for a manuscript (even when using Calibre) to be conscious of how they use fonts. For instance, I have on the title page, a font with shadow effects that I really like the look of.

However if I were to use it as-is, the Kindle/Nook platforms would make the title page look like garbage.

The trick for this is to take a screenshot of the font on your computer, and in the .doc file you use for your e-book creation, embed the screenshot of the title as a graphic. This way, the e-book viewers will read the content and not attempt to translate it in some funky manner. It will look like you want it to.

• Distribution methods

At this stage, you’ve written the book, you’ve gone through editing phases, and your hired gun of an editor has kicked you in the teeth and you’ve recovered. You have a cover that you don’t hate, and you even have an ISBN number, and the formatting of your book is complete. Pant…pant…pant… it’s been a long haul.

As an Indie author, I believe 90%+ of the volume you’ll likely see will come from e-book sales.

Why? Well, e-books are typically cheaper than print books, and in most cases, you’ll find it difficult to get print books in front of the noses of purchasers. Those are the facts as I see them.

Given that, I do have a few recommendations.

• I’m a huge believer in the Amazon venue of distribution. No, I don’t own stock, nor am I an employee, nor do I know anyone who is one. From what I can tell, I’ve see easily ten times the volume of material goods moving through Amazon compared to its nearest competitor. I’ve seen this with my own books, and I’d guess others see similar things as well. That being said, I’ll only mention the three most commonly talked about distribution venues. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Google is your friend for details on each of these things, and in the smash allotted, I’d look up the keywords I mention here if they are unfamiliar.Even though I have seen a very distinct majority of sales through Amazon, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take advantage of other venues. I would certainly use Amazon’s KDP service (Kindle Direct Publishing) for making an e-book available. Also Barnes & Noble’s PubIt service is their equivalent of the same thing, just a slightly different technical format, both of which are supported by the Calibre software I mentioned earlier.
• I’m personally not a big fan of Smashwords, though many people use it because of its simplicity. They take an extraordinary amount of money for services that almost anyone can do themselves – especially if you’ve gone through the trouble of getting an editor, cover artist, etc – I don’t personally see the advantage of using Smashwords for general purpose distribution. I would limit their use to target distribution areas that aren’t already covered by Amazon or B&N. In truth, you likely won’t be missing much if you don’t use them at all, but that’s strictly my opinion.

I hope this has been helpful, and if there are any questions, just let me know. As it is, I’m nearly double the word count that Joshua asked me to stick to–but I don’t always listen to my editors.

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Guest Post by Michael Rothman

 In this article, I plan on covering how an Indie author would go about taking an idea for a story, and cover some of the primary items an author should consider when they begin what might be a massive undertaking. Since there is a good amount of data that I’ll be covering, this article will be split into two bite-sized sections. The first covers topics such as knowing your audience, novel research, and realistic time allotment. All the things necessary when you consider writing that first draft.

The second part will cover the logistics of the publishing process: the author/editor relationship, creating of a book cover, acquiring an ISBN, and formatting of your manuscripts. I hope by the time you’re done reading the second article, you have a fair idea of what to expect, and sufficient pointers to get started on going from concept to completion.

For many would-be authors, the task of writing a novel may seem daunting. Let’s face the facts that 95% or more of the people who start writing a novel never finish.

“Why?” you might ask.

Well, I certainly can’t speak for most people — heck, I can barely speak for myself, but I do have a few opinions on the matter. A lot of this has to do with lack of pre-work and not realizing the investment of time that is required.

Let’s speak briefly about some of the things that a typical author needs to consider when they initially undertake the writing of a novel-length book.

• Initial Concept
  • Most books start with a concept, some kind of idea that makes the author go, “Hmm! I’d love to write a story around that.”
  • That’s usually the easy part.
• Who is your audience?
  • Some elements of what come next really depend on your audience.
    • Some people are confused about who they are writing for. Let’s realize that you are unlikely to write something engaging for a 2^nd grader that is also entertaining for a college-age student. Your novel is unlikely to target everyone, so keep in mind what the demographic of the typical reader is that you are shooting for.
    • The age of your audience affects some of the things you have to worry about as an author. For instance, if you are writing for young children, they might be quite forgiving that you don’t know the difference between an arc-welder and a brazing torch.
  • Understand that if you are writing for certain age groups, there are taboos.
    • The easiest example is the introduction of certain mature topics in a children’s book. For instance, if you are writing MG, the concept of alcohol use is usually a no-no. I’ve had people criticize my work because I had thirteen-year-olds holding hands and give an occasional kiss on the cheek, with lots of blushing tossed in. Most people in the United States don’t realize how puritanical their audience is.
  • Many caveats are cultural. Sometimes we can’t help but stumble into things that are considered rude in other cultures. For instance in Thailand, if you touch someone with your left hand, that is somewhat equivalent to sneezing in their face. It’s considered unclean and rude.
• Research
  • The older the audience, the more likely you are to have to research some things. Let’s face it, most of us aren’t experts in thirteenth century metalsmithing. However if you are going to write about someone who is a metalsmith, you can be guaranteed to find yourself being critiqued by readers who have been doing that stuff for forty years and feel you’ve maligned them in some core way by incorrectly describing the annealing process.
  • The thing to be certain about is your accuracy in the concepts you describe, and maintain a level of consistency across your story. If you are inconsistent, people will catch it and you’ll lose readers’ interest quickly. An example would be if Sonja’s hair is blonde in one chapter, auburn in the next, then back to blonde for the remainder of the story without any explanations. You’ll have readers harp on you incessantly. Rightfully so.
• Organization
  • Architects vs Gardeners
    • How you organize your story is a somewhat religious topic amongst authors. I’ve heard Brandon Sanderson use the terms architects and gardeners when describing how people organize or plan their stories, and I think that’s a very fair way of describing it.
    • As an architect, you tend to create an outline of sorts (the level of detail varies) which plots the inevitable storyline that you are creating. I find that this method is very useful for going through the mental exercise of where your story is going, and helps you avoid the pitfalls of writing yourself into a corner. Like Brandon, I happen to be one of these types, and can lay blame for my natural proclivity for it on my engineering background.
      

      Stephen King, gardener.

    • As a gardener, you start with a beginning and oftentimes a destination, and you grow the idea of your story more organically. You aren’t sure where it will take you, but you start writing and you continue to write until your story hopefully comes to a satisfying conclusion. I suppose the risk of this method of writing (which MANY people swear by) is that you are more prone to writing yourself into a corner. You might find a thread in a story that, once written, you realize doesn’t fit the rest of your overall book and either needs to be scrapped or rewritten.
  • As an architect, you’ll typically end up with a bunch of research, storyboarding, notes and miscellaneous fodder to begin the writing process.
• Doing it
  • Time
    • Most people don’t realize how much time it really takes to write a novel. It’s easily hundreds of hours, minimum, for an average 90,000 word novel. That’s why people oftentimes start, get a couple pages into it, maybe a chapter or two, then discover that they really enjoy fishing instead.
  • Real Life
    • Your real life must be able to support the time required for doing it. This means that family has to be supportive of your investing time away from them. Let’s not forget most authors have a day job when they are starting out. Heck, many authors have been publishing books for decades and never stopped their primary job.

Now that you’ve gotten to this point, as an indie author, there are several logistical hurdles and processes that you need to undertake to go from the first draft to a distribution-ready book. We’ll discuss those at length in part II of this write-up on Friday.

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Author, Jess Owen

A follow-up by Jess Owen to yesterday’s post on typography.

When I set out to self publish Song of the Summer King, I knew I wanted everything to look “traditional.” I wanted it to look polished and professional, like something put out by one of the Big Six. I invested in the artwork by hiring a freelance artist who’s well known for her fantasy, wild life and particularly gryphon artwork. I invested in an editor with a great track record who I believed understood my goals for the story. I had plans for a big Kickstarter fund raiser, and wanted to hire a printer instead of going POD.

With all that done, somehow, I still thought it was fine to slap some letters on the front in a free, “medieval-looking” font, and call it a day. Fortunately my friends had my back. Josh Essoe sent my cover art around for some critiques from some pros, and very honestly told me, “You’ve invested too much in this book not to get some professional lettering on the cover. Talk to Moses Siregar; he’s put the same kind of effort into his work.”

So thanks to the power of author friend networking, I contacted said successful self-publisher and he gave me the name of his typographer, Terry Roy. She seemed excited about the book, I liked her portfolio, and so she put together a package deal to not only do lettering on the front of the e-book and the hardback edition, but to handle the interior layout and format the books for printing and uploading to Amazon. And thank goodness she did.

I think sometimes we self-published authors think we have to do everything ourselves. But just as I would hire a professional to tune up my car, I now know the value of investing in professionals to wield their magic over my stories. It’s a matter of time, energy, and expertise.

I’m so happy with the final product and with the team that fell together to make it happen. I truly believe all writers need a master mind group to make their work really stand out, and I know for my book, I couldn’t have asked for more. Below you’ll find my cover before and after the professional typography and design.

AFTER

BEFORE

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Illustrator & Typographer, Terry Roy

Guest Post by Terry Roy

Many authors go on the extravagant hunt for the best cover art out there. And while cover art is an important part of creating an attractive selling package (your book), bad typography can ruin it. Without typography, it’s not a book cover. It’s just a photo, an illustration, a painting.

What is typography? Glad you asked! It’s the art of arranging letters and words attractively on a page. Whether or not that page is a book cover or an interior narrative page, a billboard on a highway or stamped on a grocery bag you take home from the market. Most professional graphic designers are trained in this. Many others creating book covers nowadays are not. If you’re hiring someone to do a cover (to me, this means the complete package), or add typography to the image you want as the background for your cover, make sure you look at their portfolio and like what you see. Forget the pictures. Make sure you like what you see even if the titles and author names were on solid color backgrounds. Great typography design can carry itself, images added or not.

I can write pages and pages on this, but to keep it simple, I’ll distill it to basics.

1. When you commission artwork or start your image search, remember you need to display large, visible type on top of it.
Too many people sacrifice the visibility of the book title or author name so they don’t cover up the art. In my opinion–that priority should be the other way around. The art shouldn’t interfere with the stand-out impact of the author’s name and the title of the book.

2. The typeface you choose for the title can set the mood and tone of the book from the start. Choose wisely.
There’s a reason that many thrillers, spy stories, and suspense novels use a simple headline font like “Impact”—it denotes urgency, demands attention. Distressed or goth fonts get used on gritty, post-apocalyptic stories or dark vampire stories. (Be careful here, many distressed fonts won’t “pop” without a lot of help and unless you are a bestselling author, you don’t want your title blending in with the background art.) Fancy script fonts with lots of loops and swirls remind us of romantic invitations–so we see some of that on romance novels. These examples are generic. But please, don’t just pick a font because you think it’s cool. It has to match the story, and feel right with the title. Font sites often give you the option of typing in your title so you can preview it as you scroll through pages of choices. Just try it—see how it changes the mood and tone with each new look. (I spend hours trying fonts on titles, like some people try on clothes.)

Art & Design by Terry Roy.

Make sure your font choice–or the font choice of your cover designer– is legal to use commercially.
Please respect fonts tagged “for personal or private use only” and do NOT use them on your book covers. Often fonts at free sites were created to emulate a copyrighted, restricted-use font face. It is NOT okay to use these fonts on your books or anything you put out for sale or download in a public marketplace. (“Bleeding Cowboy”, which I see on a lot of vampire or paranormal books, is a good example. Lots of people are using it, but unless they got a licensed copy, or written permission from the designer, they shouldn’t be.) Go to a site like Fontspace and use the “Commercial Use Friendly” filter in the search. That way, free fonts that are cool to use on book covers and other projects will show up, without tempting you with the Personal Use Only fonts.

3. Visibility and Readability.
Now that you have the right font for your genre and title, and another for your name (a simple, non-fancy font will do in most cases) the third important thing is to make sure it’s clear, sharp, and readable. Remember, in the online market for both e-books and paperbacks, the reader is either spotting you first in a tiny ad or a tiny thumbnail image in a New Releases list. Even if your cover art loses fidelity at thumbnail size, the title, at least (if not also the author name) should stand out sharp and clear. Color choice is important here. It’s hard to go wrong with the classic choice of black (offset by white), or white (offset by black) when you’re just not sure. No matter what color you choose, contrast with the background is paramount. There should be enough contrast to “pop” that title even in small sizes.

Now… go out there and practice! One final tip I’ll leave with you today: study the bestsellers of your genre from the big name publishers. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, copy one of these covers. Import it into your graphics program and make it a locked layer. On a layer on top of that, challenge yourself to duplicate layout of the title, authorname, and any other print. You don’t have to match the typeface exactly, just get one close enough. (In graphic design courses, students are often challenged to duplicate the layouts on ads and product packaging–it’s a great hands-on learning exercise.) Even if you don’t want to tackle your cover typography on your own, studying what’s hot from the big pubs in your genre can give you a better eye for getting quality work from the person you hire to do it for you.

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Guest Post by Natasha Fondren

The question I get asked most by my clients is this: “What else, other than the text, should I put in my book?”

POD books and eBooks can handle extra pages, images, color, fonts, and content without any cost (up to a certain point, and even with Kindle, it’s marginal). When you’re done writing your book, you want to add content that will first, sell your book, and second, sell your other books.

SELL THIS BOOK

In eBooks, the front matter serves only one purpose: to sell this book to your readers.

In bookstores, readers check out books in this order:

1. They catch sight of the cover.
2. They turn it over and read the back cover.
3. They skim through the appropriate ad pages at the beginning.
4. They turn to the first page of the text and read a bit.

With eBooks, it goes more like this:

1. They catch sight of the cover on the website.
2. They click on the title.
3. They check out the average rating.
4. They read the synopsis and maybe skim the reviews.
5. They download a sample.

It’s important to note that once they download a sample, they haven’t yet bought it. You still have to sell your book with the sample: the first 10% of your book.

CONTENT OF THE SAMPLE

In a traditional book, the opening consists of ad pages, half-title page, title page, copyright page, list of other books by the author, dedication page, epigraph, table of contents, and sometimes acknowledgments.

In an eBook, we want to get rid of everything that doesn’t sell your book because it takes up space in that first 10% of your sample. First, the half-title page, a holdover from printing processes, is completely unnecessary.

The copyright page will not sell your book, nor will it magically prevent piracy. Send it to the back. The acknowledgments, likewise, should be sent to the back.

The list of other books by the author will only sell this book if you have a long list that proves you to be an author who’s had some practice at this. When in the front matter, this list does not sell those books; it only tells the prospective reader that you’ve some experience under your belt.

This list is better at the end, after they finish the book, when they’ll be looking for their next read. Probably they’ve already seen on the website that you’ve written other books, if you have.

The dedication? As interesting as it is to you, it should only stay up front if it’s truly going to hook the reader into buying your book.

The table of contents is accessed through a menu button, so it’s unnecessary to put it up front unless it sells your book, as is the case in nonfiction (telling the reader what is contained in the book) or in some fiction, where the chapter titles are so interesting that they hook the reader.

So what does that leave?

1. Ad pages
2. Title page
3. Epigraph
4. Text

Ad pages go first, and these should be an invitation to the reader. While you should take advantage of this opportunity, do not let the ad pages dominate your sample; you want to sell your book to readers, then give them enough of your content to hook them into your story.

There are several potential items that can go in your ad pages (I don’t advise using them all!):

• Reviews: If you have some exceptional reviews from respectable sources, or some funny, tongue-in-cheek reviews, then put two or three at the beginning. More than that, and you’re crowding out your sample.
• Synopsis: Reminding the readers what the book is about is not only a good sales tool, but it’s also one of the ways the human mind learns: big picture to little details. When readers sit down to a book, they want to know what it’s about. While this information may be on the website, they may look at the sample days or weeks later.
• Excerpt: A short excerpt, maybe one or two paragraphs, can work really well. There is an art to selecting just the right paragraph or two–make sure to get lots of feedback from your friends!
• Letter to reader: This is a bit of an old-fashioned technique that I’ve only seen in romance books. It’s been used quite a bit, so it must have some effect. If you pick this, please make sure your note to the reader is super good!

The title page sets the tone for the book, so embed a nice font and have a care for the design. The epigraph, as well, can set the tone for the book.

The text should be inviting: a nice chapter header, a dropcap, possibly some styling in the opening few words all help pull the reader into reading your text. Book design is important!

A PROBLEM WITH AUTO-CONVERSION

If you upload a Word document or use a converter to make a Kindle book, then when a reader opens your book, it will open to Chapter 1, skipping all front matter, ad pages, and even the prologue.

If you hire a professional, they’ll make sure your book opens where you want it to–except the cover. On Kindle, the book generally refuses to open to the cover, unfortunately. (Please do write them and complain, though! Maybe they’ll change it!)

THE BACK MATTER

From the very second your reader reads the last sentence of your book, you need to sell your next book, or your backlist.
The back matter can contain:

Thank You: First up, it’s nice to thank your readers. Make it short and sweet; this is not an about-the-author page. Perhaps a sentence or two informing about (and linking to) what you’ve got in the back matter for the reader. For example:

“Thank you for reading Great American Novel! I hope you enjoyed it. A list of my other books is on the next page, and then the first chapter of my upcoming novel, Pulitzer Prize Novel, to be released in the spring of 2014.”

Second, offer a link to a very simple html sign-up form for your newsletter. (You do have a newsletter list, right?) This should be simple and ugly, easy enough for e-ink browsers to handle, such as my newsletter (free book on Indie Book Production coming soon to all subscribers!). Please note that this doesn’t have to be your only newsletter sign-up page, but for this purpose, you should stick to a sign-up page that can be handled by the worst of browsers.

A List Of Your Other Books: This can go before or after the next section.

Your Next Book: Like the sample, this should be in three parts:

1. An image of the cover.
2. A quick synopsis or blurb of the book that hooks the reader.
3. An excerpt–you can make this substantial, such as the complete first chapter or two.

Other Ideas: I’ve seen some authors put a miniature version of their website in the back, starting with a home page that links to each section of the content that follows. Remember, the page count is nearly limitless, so be creative and give to the reader, and hopefully they’ll give profits back to you!

AND THEN . . .

After that, you can put an about-the-author page, so they know who you are. And then, (finally!) all the stuff you took out of the front matter that doesn’t sell this book or your next book.

Natasha Fondren is the founder of the eBook Artisans. Whether you’re a traditionally-published author looking to make an out-of-print book available, an indie author releasing a self-published eBook, or a publisher looking to make a backlist available, the eBook Artisans^SM is passionate about making your print book or eBook a welcoming and beautiful experience for your readers.

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Author, Joshua Simon

There are many things an indie writer needs to consider when looking for an editor. Is the editor capable of providing you with the service you need:  content, line, or copy editing? Does the editor have reputable references? Based on the sample, does the editor’s style suit your own? Can you afford the editor’s service?

I think every writer needs to carefully consider each of the above questions during the selection process.  Though this topic is crucial to every writer, it is one that has been beaten to death.  So, I thought I would discuss what I feel every writer needs to consider after the selection process is complete. Below are my top Dos and Don’ts when working with an editor.

Dos:

1. Do agree to terms ahead of time.

Be clear on expectations before work begins.

Do you want only that content edit or were you also expecting a copy edit as well?

Do you want the editor to provide a second round of edits in order to proof read your work after you’ve made the previous suggestions provided to you?

Do you need the editor to help you with writing the back cover, marketing materials, a press release, and text for your website?

Most editors probably won’t do all of the above but some might if you’ve discussed the scope of work ahead of time.  Don’t expect an editor to provide extra services (no matter how little) for free after the agreed upon work is completed. Their time is valuable and they have other clients besides you.

2. Do meet your deadlines.

As I said, you are not your editor’s only client.  The time to schedule an editor is when your book is nearly complete, especially if you’re writing your first book.

Find out what your editor’s schedule is like and how long they think it will take to edit the book, and then plan accordingly. It is not unreasonable to wait weeks or months before an editor can start on your book. Expect the overall editing process to take several weeks or longer once the editor begins work. Variations will exist based on the length of the book, how good of a writer you are, and how many projects the editor works on at once.

As a side note, after you’ve had some experience in completing projects it will be easier to schedule an editor before actual completion.  Even then, I’d recommend giving yourself several weeks or even months of cushion.  It is much nicer knowing you’ve finished early and can get ahead on your next project rather than scrambling to complete something at the last minute and turning in shoddy work.

3. Do ask for clarification.

Any editor worth their salt will clarify questions you might have on their suggestions. Otherwise, how can you determine if it is a valid change?  If an editor is unwilling to communicate with you in this way after giving you the manuscript back, I’d question using that person again.

4. Do be prompt with payment.

But what happens if it costs more than I originally expected?  Too bad.

If you go to a car dealership and they give you an estimate for a brake job that later increases by several hundred dollars because things were worse than expected, can you get away with not paying them? Of course not. Can you imagine if your boss decided not to pay you promptly or not at all, and how that would affect your life?

For some editors, this might be their only source of income.  Therefore, don’t be late with their money.

If you decide their services were overpriced and not what you expected then the only thing you can do is not use them for future work.

5. Do remember that a suggestion for change is not a demand for one.

As the writer, this is your story.  You need to be satisfied with it more than anyone else. Make changes only if you agree it improves the quality of the work. If you can’t make that decision on your own, bring in someone else to give you a second opinion.

I rarely disagree with my editor, but there have been a few times I decided against making his suggested changes.  This is partly because I had received differing opinions from my beta-readers and partly because the change would affect later parts of the story in works he had not yet edited.

Don’ts

1. Don’t hand over a mess.

Your editor should not be the first person to read your manuscript besides yourself. Employ both alpha and beta-readers.  They will help you smooth out many problems long before your editor gets a hold of your story, especially in the way of content.  If nothing else, this step will help reduce the costs to you. The more time your editor spends cleaning up your mess, the more they will charge.

2. Don’t expect your editor to do all the work.

Your editor shouldn’t have to re-write your book. They will rewrite sentences as needed, but they aren’t supposed to write chapters or sections for you (unless you’ve agreed they will act as a ghost writer).

3. Don’t take it personally.

This is all a learning experience and a way to make you a better writer. I’ve improved significantly with each work I’ve turned into my editor, and a contributing factor to my improvement has been his feedback on each story.

Remember, an editor’s reputation will be held against the quality of your work as well. You don’t want an editor to blow smoke up your rear.  You want an editor to be honest about what is good and what isn’t so your story and characters can shine.

4. Don’t be a jerk to your editor.

Like everything else in life, be professional. If I really have to explain what this means then you probably have bigger problems to worry about than everything I’ve mentioned above.

5. Don’t lose sight of your ultimate goal.

You want a great book!

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Rhiannon Frater

An Interview with Rhiannon Frater

Rhiannon is a successful independent horror writer who found her way to Tor through an interesting confluence of events. She was kind enough to take time out of her weekend and sit down for an interview.

Joshua Essoe: How long did it take you to get the steam going in your career? Did you ever feel like giving up?

Rhiannon Frater: I’ve been writing since I was a little girl, so I guess it took all my life to get to the point where I am presently. The journey wasn’t just about getting a big break and a publishing deal, but also developing my voice and finding my genre. For a long time I thought I was going to be a mystery writer like Agatha Christie. I was rather surprised when horror ended up being my niche.

JE: Did you ever consider giving up?

RF: I did for about nine years. My husband helped me get back on track. Being an author is a very tough business. You have to have a thick skin, a good support system, and a lot of ambition along with the talent to write, of course.

JE: Of course. Take that one as a given and work on the rest! Who did you learn from, or are you self-taught? Did you take workshops to hone your craft?

I read a lot of books and wrote a lot of books to discover my writing voice. I have also learned a lot from reading the editing notes from my editor at Tor and my indie editor. I also learned a lot about plot structure and character development from being an avid fan of Alfred Hitchcock and Joss Whedon. I’ve been told many times that I write cinematically. Readers tell me that when they finish one of my books they feel like they just watched a movie.

JE: You started indie, you put your books out yourself and collected a following with your As the World Dies Trilogy. Eventually Tor took notice. What was the process you went through to produce your books? Did you hire professional editing, cover art, and book design?

RF: As The World Dies started out as an online serial. It gained a huge following, much to my surprise. The original fans were the ones who wanted to have the series published so they could have physical copies on their bookshelves. It was with their encouragement that I tried very hard to find an agent or a publisher who would be interested in my zombie epic. Instead, I was met with rejection. My husband approached me about self-publishing utilizing the new media. I was reluctant at first, but after a lot of research we felt it was the best way to go about it. A friend did the cover art, I formatted the interior, my husband did the layout of the full cover, and some friends helped with the editing. This was back in 2008 so there weren’t the resources available then that there are now.
I’ve learned so much since those early days. I now have an editor who works with Permuted Press edit my indie novels, I have a professional formatter, and my cover artists are top notch.

JE: I loved the updated covers that you and Tor released. How did things change when you signed with Tor? What are the pros and cons of Indy vs. trad publishing in your experience?

RF: Well, the purchase of the trilogy allowed me to quit my day job and give the full-time writing gig a shot, but what keeps me writing full-time are my self-published novels. I have only seen one royalty statement since the books were published by Tor, which is the norm with big publishers. It’s my monthly royalty payments from Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Audiobook Creation Exchange, and Createspace (trade paperbacks) that pays my bills and keeps me happily writing at home. So even though the bigger lump payments come from the big publisher, the more consistent monthly earnings are from my indie works.
Creatively, the indie side of things is much more in my court. I can write a very long novel with no worries of a word count restriction. I can write whatever I want to write next and not worry about writing a synopsis, summary, etc., to pitch to my editor. The interior design, cover art, and layout are things I have full control over with my indie novels. Tor has been really kind with taking my suggestions for the covers of the As The World Dies Trilogy, but they have final say.
Both publishing paths have pros and cons. I happen to enjoy doing both, that’s why I’m a hybrid author.

JE: You’ve achieved what many indy writers strive for, that big publisher staring you in the face and telling you you’re good enough. First of all, it must have felt amazing. Second, do you think it’s necessary? What do you think of the gatekeepers and what is your advice for new authors trying to decide what route to take, and what steps along that route?

RF: In my case it has definitely been worth it to traditionally publish. The initial advance money gave me the freedom to pursue a full-time career. I have also enjoyed the editing process with my editor at Tor. I’ve learned a lot from her. Because the books were published by Tor, Publishers Weekly reviewed The First Days and it received a Starred Review. Also, many people who have never heard of me gained access to my books because they were on the shelves of local bookstores.
What’s nice about self-publishing is that the books that Tor may not want can still find their way onto the e-readers and bookshelves of readers. Big publishers have to buy what they feel will sell to a wide audience. I may come up with an idea that they think is awesome, but won’t sell. Those books don’t die in the back of a writer’s closet anymore.
The best advice I can give up-and-coming writers is in the F.A.Q. on my website.

JE: How big a part is the social aspect to the success of a writer’s career? Did you go to cons, workshops, seminars, meet particular people, pitch, plead or beg?

RF: Everyone’s path to success in writing is different. I know of people who have taken every writing class offered in their area, traveled to workshops, seminars, etc.… They even know a lot of writers, agents, and publishers from constantly networking, but they don’t have a book deal. There are also people who write their first book, send it to an agent, and have a seven figure deal two weeks later. There is no set path. There is no magic key.
In my case I self-published, a producer saw the cover of my second book and thought the character looked like his wife, he bought it, loved it, optioned the series, and the next thing I know I have an entertainment lawyer referring me to a literary agent in New York. I had an agent by Thanksgiving, she pitched in January, and I had a deal with Tor in early March.

JE: That’s amazing. Your latest, Pretty When She Kills, came out last month. How is it being received, and what is your next big project?

RF: I actually returned to the old vampires. My vampires are scary and kill people, but holy relics and sunlight are deadly. The series has been gaining quite a fervent following since True Blood gave us back the scary bloodsuckers. The reviews have been really awesome and I hope the third book will bring a fitting end to the trilogy.
I’m wrapping up my latest project for Tor right now called Dead Spots. It’s a really bizarre horror novel that I absolutely love. Once I turn that in, I’m probably going to return to the Pretty When She Dies universe and write the last book in the trilogy, along with a side novella.

JE: What is Dead Spots going to be about?

RF: It’s a horror novel, obviously. Not vampires, zombies, or anything like that, but I’ll let Tor describe it.

JE: Sounds intriguing. I love the title. Now, for the serious. Complete this sentence: “Like I said…”

RF: …kill all the things.

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Guest post by Eric Edstrom

On December 24th, 2011, I clicked “save and publish” on Amazon’s KDP platform to launch my very first novel, Undermountain. A few hours later the book appeared for sale on Amazon.

Relief and satisfaction washed through me. I had realized a life-long dream, a biggie from the bucket list. I had done it. I’d written and published a novel.

I relaxed and smiled. No more pages of edits to go through, no irritating “track changes” issues to deal with from an editor, no more “when will your little book be out?” questions from doubters.

I’ve done this twice since then. In January of 2012 I published a little non-fiction ebooklet about writing lyrics for the Nashville music scene. And on July 1^st I released Afterlife, the sequel to Undermountain.

I don’t claim to be an expert. If anything, I’m an advanced beginner. But I do have enough experience to offer insights into what has and has not worked for me as an indie author.

1. Goodreads.

Although many authors fear Goodreads due to trolls torpedoing authors’ books, I’ve found a friendly and welcoming community there. I wouldn’t have half the reviews I have without them. There are a number of Goodreads groups (basically discussion forums) with dedicated topics for “Authors Requesting Reviews” or ARR. Join one, read the ARR rules, introduce yourself, offer up free copies, and be patient. And it’s pretty much a no brainer, give a free e-copy of your book to anyone who promises to review it. It worked!

2. Hiring editing and proofreading services.

I worked with two editors. The first one did an okay job, but mostly just pointed out that my book was crap. I rewrote a bunch of it and then worked with Joshua Essoe, who helped me beat it into shape. After that I hired a proofreader. Notice I’m not mentioning who did that. I should have done an extra proofreading round after that. It worked. Lesson learned: ask for references.

3. Sourcing cover art through Crowdspring.com.

This worked, but it made the cost higher due to Crowdspring’s listing fees. I listed a project there, set my price, and then waited for designers to submit concepts. I gave feedback and encouragement to some of them, and eventually chose the cover you see for Undermountain (which is awesome according to everyone). Since then I’ve worked directly with the artist on the sequels. It worked! Lesson learned: It’s cheaper to work with artists directly. Find unknowns on deviantart.com and conceptart.org.

4. Hiring services to prepare my manuscript to feed into Smashword’s infamous meatgrinder conversion software.

I did this for Undermountain because I was exhausted and couldn’t face reading Smashword’s style guide. I paid ebookartisandesign.com $50 to do it. It worked!

5. Preparing my manuscript for the meatgrinder myself for book 2.

It’s actually not that hard to do if you clear space in your calendar and mind to just do it. It worked!

6. Hire Createspace services to create the interior layout for the POD version of my book.

I got my POD book done and ready for sale. It worked . . . but I was extremely disappointed with the speed and quality of their service. Their mistakes added three weeks to the process.

7. Create the interior layout using Word for Mac.

I did a superior quality layout for my second book in about four hours by following a tutorial I found online. If you’ve done your own prepwork for the Smashwords meatgrinder, you have the perfect starting point, BTW. It worked!

8. Dictating the first draft.

Once I got over the idea that dictation wouldn’t work for me and just did it, I found that it was insanely fast and the quality was good. I wrote a blog post on this. It worked!

9. Reserving an editor time slot before the book has been written started.

I did this on my second book because I knew Joshua’s schedule was filling up. I treated this date the same way I would a deadline for any other editor. I worked backward from that to figure out my schedule. I worked forward from that date to figure out my launch date. As a result, I launched an awesome book on time. It totally worked!

10. Tweet spamming my book.

I couldn’t help myself at first. I was so proud of my book and thought all fifty-seven of my followers would rush to Amazon and buy it. I do tweet my buy links occasionally, but for the most part I’m trying to build relationships on twitter. I have no evidence that I’ve sold a single copy due to tweeting. Tweet spamming: Fail!

11. Being afraid to push my book.

I just got done saying I was a Twitter spammer, but in real life I wouldn’t bring it up with anyone. Fail! Lesson learned: You’re not selling your book so much as you are selling yourself. Some people are good at this, some are like me. I can say with 100% confidence that I never sold a book to someone who didn’t know it existed.

12. Advertising on Facebook.

Fail! I sold nothing. I’m not saying it couldn’t work, just that it didn’t work for me. Why? Because I had no idea what I was doing. Advertising is an skill, and to do it right you really need to A/B test everything and tweak headlines.

13. Amazon Select.

Fail! (for me) I gave away thousands of free ebooks. There was no post giveaway sales boost and I got only one review as a result (it was very positive, BTW). I think my absence from other platforms set back my growth there and my sales on the big A did not go down once I left the Select program.

14. Creating a printed version of my book to boost sales.

Fail! I’ve given away way more copies than I’ve sold of my POD book. From a return on time/investment standpoint, POD was not worth it for Undermountain. And yet . . . there is nothing in the world like holding that book. Now that I know how to do interior layout myself I will continue to do them. Lesson learned: when you hire your cover artist, make sure they agree to tweak final dimensions for the wrap-around cover and placement of back cover text, etc. The issue is that you won’t know the spine dimensions until you know how many pages the book will be. And you won’t know that until the book is finished and the interior layout is complete.

15. Create an awesome book trailer that will go viral, resulting in huge sales and movie options.

Fail! I did all the work on my awesome trailer myself. It was far more expensive than it had to be because I licensed stock video and sounds from istockphoto.com and pond5.com. I already owned Final Cut and had video editing experience, so at least that didn’t cost me extra. Lesson learned: having an awesome book trailer is its own reward.

16. Speaking to a bunch of eighth graders at a local school.

It worked! Many were very interested in buying my book. Lesson learned: Make sure your your POD book is ready. This may be different now, but not one of the 100+ kids in the audience owned an ereader at the time. Due to Createspace design services slowitude, I did not have any inventory on hand. Fail!

17. Ringing up sales by obsessively refreshing the KDP, Pubit, Smashwords, and Writing Life dashboards.

Fail! I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that this is ineffective. If it was, I would be the best-selling writer in the history of the world.

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This month we’re talking publishing in all its shapes and sizes.  Like many of you, I am an author struggling to reach that huge milestone of my first published workd.  I’m very optimistic this is the year it’s going to happen.  I’ve been writing for seven years, and although I have two novels I could self-publish, I’ve opted to sign with an agent and pursue a traditional publishing route, if possible.

Several people have asked me why bother?

With the advent of ebooks and the ease of self-publishing novels, why not just throw my manuscripts out into the ether like so many other people?  Maybe I could become one of those few to really succeed with it?

Maybe I should.  Perhaps I still will.  The publishing industry is going through very difficult times, and there are many people who argue an author is doing themselves terrible damage by signing a traditional publishing deal.

I’m not convinced it’s all bad.  First, I want confirmation from industry professionals that I’m really ready, that I’ve mastered the craft to the point where I can approach publishing a work with confidence that it can compete and not waste my time, or the time of my readers.  Having an agent say, “Yes, I love this manuscript and I believe it is written to a professional standard and is ready to submit to publishers” is a huge milestone in my career.

Now it’s no longer just me and my close circle of relatives and friends who think I’ve got what it takes.  I need that confirmation.  Without it, how do I really know I’m ready?  After four years and several drafts, I completed my first novel, a 300,000 word behemoth I was convinced was awesome.  Thankfully the e-publishing bubble hadn’t hit yet, so rejection letters from agents started piling up.  Eventually I progressed in my mastery of the craft to where I could recognize the novel’s flaws.  I made the hard choice to throw it away and re-start from the ground up, saving only some of the worldbuilding and characters.  The resulting novel is worlds better than the original, and that’s the one my agent accepted.

So yes, the first huge benefit of agents is that confirmation by the industry that I’ve at least got a shot at a deal.  Another undeniable benefit to traditional publishing is getting your physical book distributed to physical book stores, hopefully around the world.  That distribution has value, and especially for a new author, I’d love the help of a publisher in getting my book out to readers.  I know there’s still tons of work to be done to market it myself, but at least I’d have a physical product to sell.

We all know authors who have self-published, and most of them sell few copies, despite how well deserving their books may be.  So, a traditional publishing deal might help establish a reader base to build off of.  I know it’s not guaranteed, but it’s something worth investigating.

Another big reason I am still pursuing a traditional route for my first book goes back to my agent.  John Richard Parker with Zeno Agency knows the industry and players far more than I can since he’s worked with them for many years.  His expertise is invaluable, and even though we have not landed a deal yet, working with him has already brought valuable insights I could not have gained otherwise.

The other reason I’ve hesitated to self-publish is that after working for years on my books, I want them to be the best they can be.  I’ve read e-books that could have been great, but fell short of their potential because their authors failed to wait just a little longer and complete a rigorous editing process.  Landing a traditional publishing deal, and working with the professional editors there, will be wonderful when it happens.  I am eager to learn from them all I can.

With all this said, I am not ignoring other publishing options.  My YA fantasy novel, which my agent is reviewing now, is scheduled to be professionally edited by Joshua Essoe (see his post on editing here)  later this year after I complete a third revision.  If the traditional route falls through, that novel is a prime candidate to be e-published through an e-publisher like MUSA, or directly self-published after it’s fully vetted and ready to go.

And while I complete preparing my two novels for some type of publishing, I’m busy writing the next one.  I also plan to explore e-publishing for a novella and related short story I wrote.

It’s an exciting time to be an author, with so many options out there.  I encourage everyone to learn as much as you can about each avenue, and explore multiple options.  But whatever way you choose, make sure your finished product is the best it can be.  Anything less is nothing short of a tragedy.

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Well, Publishing Month is drawing to a close.  We’ve got just one week left to go.  Stay tuned for our  final Publishing Month guest bloggers, Brandon Sanderson and Gini Koch.

In the meantime, here’s 10 reads worth your time:

Rachelle Gardner talks about what to expect from your agent in Understanding Your Agent.

Also on the topic of agents, Red Sofa Literary lists some basic mistakes writers make when approaching an agent in How to “win” over an agent.

Lois H Gresh discusses the necessity of submitting your work in Rewriting Treadmills: Traditional Publishing versus ePublishing.

Philip Goldberg talks about the benefits of traditional publishing in Who Needs Publishers? We All Do!

Writers In The Storm discusses how a writer’s business needs should affect his choice of publisher with Gettin’ Busy With It.

Dean Wesley Smith dispells a few common myths in The Secret Myth of Traditional Publishing.

The Intern discusses Five Signs You’re About to Land an Agent.

At The Art and Craft of Writing Creatively, Cheryl Shireman guest blogs about the prejudice against indie writers with Dear Traditionally Published Writer.

Rainy of the Dark looks at Just What Percentage of Book Sales are eBooks?

Ashley Barron discusses lessons learnt during the indie journey with A Self-Publisher’s Dilemma.

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Moses Siregar III – So, You’re Considering Indie Publishing…

Nancy DiMauro and Colette Vernon - Women Writing the Weird: Publishing in an Anthology

Joshue Essoe – Editing Saved My Life. And It Could Save Yours

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We hope you’re enjoying our Publishing Month as much as we are.  We’ve had some great posts already from both Fictorians and guests, and there’s more to come, including Brandon Sanderson and Gini Koch.  In the meantime, here’s 10 reads worth your time:

Vickie Britton looks at Compiling A Short Story Anthology for Print or eBook Publication.

Rachelle Gardner discusses whether self-publishing and agents can mix in Self-Published Author Seeks Agent.

Laura Hazard Owen sums up the recent BookExpo America with 5 Things the Book Industry Will Be Talking About Next Week.

Victoria Strauss has a warning for those thinking about jumping into self-publishng with ePublishing Revo: It’s A New Electronic Publishing Service, But There’s A Catch.

Karen Schechner looks at how indie bookstores are responding to the growing self-publishing phenomenon in Working With Self-Published Authors.

Rich Adin asks Should Editors Certify That an eBook Has Been Edited?

Confused about creative commons?  Check out Matt Enis’s article Ebook Crowdfunding Platform Unglue.it Launched for an explanation.

Nail Your Novel muses about Where Will Self-Publishing Get Quality Control?

Dear Author lists some Publisher Experiments I’d Like To See.

Publishing Crawl discusses The Not-So-Secret Backdoor to Publishing.

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Guest poster S. James Nelson – Abandon All (Unreasonable) Hope

David Carrico – I Haven’t Given Up

Guest poster Laurie McLean – Literary Agents in the New Publishing Era

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Still to come in our Publishing Month: guest posts from writers Brandon Sanderson, Stephen Nelson, and Gini Koch, and literary agent Laurie McLean.  In the meantime, here are 10 reads worth your time:

Anne R Allen examines the different types of publishers in Who Are the Big Six? What Does “Indie” Really Mean”? Answers to Not-So-Dumb Questions You Were Afraid to Ask.

At Writers in the Storm, Susan Squires explains her own publishing options in Too Many Choices.

The Intern takes a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at The Publishers Weekly: The Deals You Don’t See.

Teleread crunches numbers in Amazon Price Bots Result In Unusually High- and Low-Price Books.

Mhairi Simpson talks about how Self-Publishing Is Not the Easy Way.

Still on the topic of self-publishing, The Huffington Post discusses The Changing Politics of the Self-Publishing Stima.

Nathan Bransford talks about how Traditional vs Self-Publishing is a False Dichotomy.

The Guardian examines writers’ incomes in Stop the Press: Half of Self-Published Authors Earn Less Than $500.

Interested in checking out some books by small or independent presses?  Take a look at Small Press Reviews.

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Guest post from David Dalglish – The Triumph of the Dalglish: How I Sold 2ook Novels While Not Knowing Squat

Nancy DiMauro – E-Publishing – Why I Chose It

Guest post from Jordan Ellinger – Coming Up In The Trenches

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