At first, the idea of having a file system seems ludicrous, maybe even pretentious. You’re writing short stories, maybe sketches. A couple of printed pages. Maybe keeping a notebook. Not much of a threat to your sanity, right? A year of steady writing, however, and the situation has changed. You have a file cabinet, notebooks […]
As you may have guessed, I’m writing “The Career Indie Author” in chunks. I already have a tentative table of contents written, and every time I have a spare moment, I sit down and hand write several pages of content. Building your indie publishing company takes time, and although the “CIA” covers a lot of […]
Tracking your work with the help of calendars, notebooks and lists is probably one of the most neglected aspects of being an author, and yet I don’t think we can live without them. We certainly can’t write effectively without them. I can hear the criticism in my head by now. Malcolm Lowry, for example, wrote […]
Late at night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I was thinking about the Career Indie Author and wondering ‘Who the hell is going to buy this book? Why would they?” Admittedly, it’s not the best question to ask when you’ve already written 43,000 words, but better then than when it’s published, right? So […]
Back in 1980s, Amy Dacyczyn began fulfilling her dream of having a large family and living in a pre-1900 New England farmhouse with an attached barn. She married a man who was in the Navy and who shared her dream, learned to scrimp and save, cut corners where she could, and succeeded. Then she started […]
Recently, Sarah Dimento lamented that she found herself stuck writing the first draft of her novel. Worse, she was stuck on the first chapter. For a month. She’s stuck in a familiar trap. She feels stuck about what she’s writing. She wants to do a good job at it. She doesn’t want to write crap […]
Being an indie author does not demand that you know everything about your profession before you publish your first book. Pastry chefs know how to make the desserts. The counter jockey at the fast-food joint knows everything about making hamburgers, running the french-fry machine, and running the cash register. Nobody expects a surgeon to operate […]
Now that I’m running Peschel Press, I’ve discovered a need to automate as many of my processes as possible. There are tasks that have to be done on a regular basis. There’s the monthly sales report, the half-yearly payment of sales tax revenue, the weekly checklist of tasks that need to be done. None of […]
When setting up your indie company, some questions will probably be easy to answer, such as how should you set it up? Probably the best rule of thumb is: the least complex you can get by with, and as the laws in your area require. When you’re just starting out, when it’s just you and […]
Words are important. Finding the right words to express your thoughts clearly is vital. But finding the right words that your audience gets is paramount. Here’s what I mean as it pertains to thinking of book marketing as watering holes. A common subject for writers and book marketers is the “don’t be afraid to market […]