KKR’s latest column talks about subsidiary rights, but her discussion of how she was scammed by a major agency reminds me of a lesson you can’t teach too often when judging literary agents: Whenever you’re dealing with someone you don’t personally know, be cautious. Trust, but verify. In fact, “trust, but verify” is useful when […]
This is one question that we’re taught to answer, whether it’s formulating the idea for a book or marketing a book that’s already published: Who is your audience and how do you find readers for your books? It’s not an easy question to answer. You want answers that work for you, which means you have […]
If you’ve never run a business before, if this is your first book you’ve published, if you’ve read enough success stories and heard come-ons from book marketers that promise a steady income or best-seller status, then we need to talk about expectations. Writing is fun. Creating a story is a blast. Putting words down on […]
There’s no lack of information and advice when it comes to how we should live. The Greek philosophers asked that question and Romans such as Marcus Aurelius left behind works that considered how best we should behave. Today, we are beset by how-to books that promise us the path for maximum production, to hone our […]
Agatha Christie caught a break early in her career when her second novel “The Secret Adversary” was syndicated in American newspapers. Yes, American newspapers published fiction – real fictional stories in addition to the usual collection of fake, pseudo-fake, trendy, and actual facts. American newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American newspapers […]
While English is a dominant language, getting your novel translated into another language can open new markets for your business. This is especially true if your book has something that appeals to that country’s readers. It may be that the story is set in that country, or an historic event plays a big role in […]
Getting book reviews soon after the publication is useful. Amazon’s algorithms seem to take the number of reviews into account to determine which works to promote (although sales probably have a greater impact). The number of reviews is also a benchmark by BookBub in deciding which sales to publicize. As for readers, the jury is […]
It’s getting on late Sunday and I’m not sure if I’ll have enough time to get another installment of the Career Indie Author written. We spent most of last week in Rochester, N.Y., enrolling our son in the university. It’s been the culmination of more than a year of planning, researching, executing, and sheer bloody […]
At PlanetPeschel is my review of “Pride’s Children: Purgatory,” an unconventional romance novel by my fellow commenter at “The Passive Voice,” Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt. I had been promising to review it, and had a draft on my desk for several weeks, but now she’s dropped the price of the Kindle book to $2.99 for a […]
Authors and social media. You hear it all the time: You need a platform of fans to attract a book deal. You need fans following you on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and SnapChat. You need to be online every day, meeting the public and selling yourself and your books. We have been told that for years. […]