Aaron Shephard gives us an interesting post today about a new category of books designed to use Kindle Unlimited to rip off readers’ minds. A post on spam books I’m not surprised, nor concerned. But for your edification, it’s happening. It’s a natural outgrowth of the marketing mentality which puts sales above everything. What do you think? I don’t think it really matters, unless I accidently buy one of these pieces of junk.
Continue reading →writing in English class, silviac I’ve talked many times over the years about needing an extended keyboard. Creative Pro has a good article about the two Enter keys and their different functions in InDesign. But this is just the beginning of the advantages. The numerical pad on the right must be used for keyboard shortcuts for styles. Applying styles by shortcut is a major factor in production. It can cut your formatting times by 75% or more … Continue reading →
Book business has a good article today entitled: Are content curators becoming more important than content creators? In many ways they are, especially in niches for non-fiction. For example, on my companion blog, Reality Calling, it’s main purpose has become the curation of Christian speculative fiction. These books are hard to find because the major book sites like Amazon, Nook, iBooks, and Kobo have no way to effectively search for them. So, my constant book reviews provide a way for … Continue reading →
Get off your lazy butt—it’s a jungle out there! The only way to beat the leader is to be better at what the leader does. I was reading yet another excellent article this morning from Mike Shatzkin about the current state of affairs in traditional publishing. He makes good points, which also apply to indies and self-publishers. We need to keep our head in the game. Amazon earned their place in publishing They are dominant in ebooks, not … Continue reading →
As most of you know, I do not listen to or produce podcasts. The same is not quite true with videos, but I’m just starting there. But I found this link today and thought some of you might be interested. Like this infographic? Get proven online marketing advice from Copyblogger Media that will give you an unfair business advantage.
Continue reading →I decided to post this. It’s part of my new book, Practical Font Design Streamlined. I found as I was recording the videos for My Udemy course, Practical Font Design, that I had gradually developed a new, much faster, and more efficient workflow for designing fonts. It takes what was in the original three editions of Practical Font Design to a whole new level. This post is going to offer some pieces which will be referenced in the new book. … Continue reading →
To the left, you see the cover of a book I wrote which includes some of this information. Marketing your book seems too difficult. One of the major problems is the book title. Many things go into writing a book title that works. But it is an issue I’ve been pondering recently. The basic questions are: Who are you & what is your book? If you are like the rest of us, you’ve discovered (or soon will) that your … Continue reading →
There’s a supposedly new player today: Gatekeeper Press I know very little about them—just heard about them. But, it’s an interesting concept. As you know, I am basically against paying publishers anything without a very good reason. My books teach you how to publish for free, and I still think that’s the best route to go—IF you are willing and IF you are able. So, why do I mention Gateway Press? This just seems like another competitor … Continue reading →
I just read an excellent article in CreativePro called Are you a creative professional or a hobbyist? The article is talking about graphic designers, but it equally speaks to authors and writers. The dividing line is the tools you use Every day I see questions on FaceBook, Google+, and the author groups and forums in which I participate. They are all basically the same. How can I do this or that without bothering to learn how? It’s usually written with … Continue reading →
Joel rarely writes for his blog any more, but it is a treat when he does. Today’s article is an excellent example of why his blog is so good: clean, concise, and useful. We can boil down the advice to the following: Fiction authors are unknown Fiction is marketed to a much wider audience who is initially unknown by the author. The new author needs to work very hard on becoming known. Giving away books is essential as … Continue reading →