We Are Not Gods: Talking with Elizabeth Ellen
Elizabeth Ellen discusses her new story collection, HER LESSER WORK.
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Posts Tagged: self publishing
Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living edited by Manjula Martin
Today in Rumpus Books, Elizabeth Stark reviews Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, edited by Manjula Martin.
...moreWeekly Geekery
Are cheetahs sprinting toward extinction? Chinese-American writer Ken Liu brings “silkpunk” to science fiction. Self-publishing coaches—the new sexy in a Fifty Shades world.
...moreProfitable Poetry
Rupi Kaur’s poetry collection, Milk and Honey, has sold almost half a million copies since its publication by Andrews McMeel Publishing last year, according to Anisse Gross in Publishers Weekly. While that is the company’s best selling poetry collection, it isn’t the only one that’s sold well: “We saw that there was this generation of young […]
...moreEverything You Ever Wanted to Know about Publishing
At Electric Literature, Lincoln Michel talks about the “taboo” topic of book sales, and offers some advice for writers: Writers should absolutely write with an eye toward art, not markets. Thinking about sales while creating art rarely produces anything good. But I’m still naïve enough to think that knowledge is always better than ignorance, and […]
...moreSelf-Publishing Vs. Traditional Publishing
Who hasn’t felt that awkward moment between laughing and crying when the question, “do writers make money?” pops up? Unlike movie-makers and musicians, exact figures for authors’ earnings have always been notoriously difficult to retrieve. However, with the advent of Amazon’s publishing arm, interesting figures determining just how much authors can make from self-publishing versus traditional […]
...moreSelf-Publishing Leads to Plagiarism
Self-publishing has never been easier, and that means plagiarism has never been easier. Thieves are using self-publishing services like Amazon to republish back catalog or out-of-print books to sell for a profit. In some case these “authors” change minor things like character names, but not always. The thieves are able to sell titles on Amazon for […]
...moreAmazon Unintentionally Rewards Scammers
Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited product offers readers an all-you-can-eat model for book subscriptions. The books are mainly self-published titles (and Amazon pays authors by the number of pages read). The model sounds great in theory—readers download books risk-free, encouraging discovery of new books. But since Amazon counts how far into a book devices sync to calculate payments, […]
...moreReading the Fine Print
Traditional publishers provide many services for authors, including fact-checking and obtaining permission for intellectual property. Self-publishing platforms don’t provide these services, and because of a recent court ruling, aren’t responsible for mistakes made by authors. The National Law Review looks at the landmark case, and how it removes liability for the publishing platforms: The ruling […]
...moreTo Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish
At the Guardian, Ros Barber explains why she believes self-publishing is not a valid alternative to traditional routes: Traditional publishing is the only way to go for someone who writes literary fiction. With genre fiction, self-publishing can turn you into a successful author (if you can build a platform, if you enjoy marketing and are […]
...moreFrom Self-Published Author to Publisher
Meredith Wild is a self-published author, a success story of Amazon’s DIY digital publishing revolution. Wild has been so successful, in fact, that she has since launched her own independent publishing house to handle her books and those from other authors. The New York Times profiles Wild and her publishing house, examining how this maverick is […]
...moreAuthor Dislikes Bad Review
A self-published British author disliked the online review left on Amazon by a Scottish teenager. His response was to travel the 500 miles from London to find her in a grocery store and hit her over the head with a wine bottle.
...moreAmazon’s Self-Publishing Scam Artists
Amazon’s self-publishing tools mean its never been easier to publish a book—and scammers have figured out how to churn out low-quality content to earn large amounts of money. The Washington Post (a company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos) takes the time to explore one such entrepreneur who has “written” more than eighty books. Turns out that globe-trotting polyglot Dagny […]
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
Athens, Georgia is home to a new radical bookstore, Bombs Away Books. The anarchist bookshop not only sells books, but is a DIY music venue featuring punk shows. A specialty bookstore dedicated to self-published authors is ready to open in Florida. P. J. Boox Bookstore in Fort Myers will be a standalone brick-and-mortar shop where […]
...moreReviewing the Absurd
Wired is launching a book review section—of absurd self-published titles. Jason Kehe will in fact be judging books by their cover, selecting the books he reviews for the regular column by browsing the blog Kindle Cover Disasters. The first title in the series is Moira, The Zorzen War, The Divided Worlds Book 3: If you’re […]
...moreWomen Benefit from Self-Publishing
There were more than 458,000 self-published titles in 2013, an increase of more than 437% since 2008. And when it comes to DIY publishing, women seem to be the bigger beneficiaries, reports the Guardian. An analysis of self-published titles by FicShelf reveals that 67% of the top-ranked titles were written by women.
...moreTooting Your Own Horn
Should writers retweet their own praise? Insofar as Twitter is a platform for self-promotion, sharing positive reviews seems logical—but when a publishing medium does double duty as a sphere of social interaction, this logic gets complicated: Twitter, as a public platform, is intrinsically performative (to pretend otherwise is disingenuous), yet the performative nature of it […]
...moreTraditional vs. Self-Publishing
If your manuscript is ready but you’re unsure how to get it out into the world, Electric Literature’s latest infographic might help—just follow the path to discover if you’re looking for a traditional publisher or whether you’re a DIY kind of author.
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The Rumpus Interview with Gina Nahai
Gina Nahai talks about her fifth novel, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S., Iran and Los Angeles, and the possibility of a long-sought-after peace in the Middle East.
...moreThe Scorpion Always Bites the Turtle
During Amazon’s skirmish with Hachette, one group that rallied to Amazon’s defense were the self-published authors who claimed that the Kindle allowed their overlooked voices a platform. Now, those authors find themselves sinking as the online retailer has turned on them with the Kindle Unlimited service, undermining their book sales. Kindle Unlimited provides Prime subscribers […]
...moreFor Whom Amazon Tolls
As the Amazon versus Hachette dispute drags on into its fifth month, Alex Shepard, over at Melville House, examines the conflict, and what it means for publishers and authors: Traditional publishers can’t do what Amazon does; Amazon can’t do what traditional publishers do (and no, the fact that bookstores don’t carry books published by Amazon is […]
...moreThe Freedom of Self-Publishing
Self-publishing has never been easier for writers with digital technology, particularly ebooks, allowing for new titles with little to no capital costs. Poets, after all, have a long history of self-publishing, explains Sarah Gonnet over at Luna Luna, in part because of creative freedom. For instance, Virginia Woolf began Hogarth Press to publish her writing. […]
...moreStraight out of Kafka
All for a novel? Eighth grade school teacher Patrick McLaw was placed on leave by the Dorchester County Board of Education and is currently being investigated by the County’s Sheriff, James Phillips, who explained—somewhat cryptically—that McLaw is at a “location known to law enforcement . . . [without] the ability to travel anywhere.” So far, […]
...moreGreat Book, Amateur Cover
Some of the best self-published books end up with amateur covers. While professional publishers consider every detail of book’s cover, like whether a font should be sans-serif or not base on genre, independent authors lack the experience to do the same. The Airship explains the process: All of this, every aspect, from font selection to colors to […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Richard Russo
Prize-winning writer and Authors Guild Vice President Richard Russo discusses publishing in the age of ebooks, the continued relevance of the Guild, and the Amazon-Hachette conflict.
...morePublishers Are Rich
Writers have been getting poorer, and it turns out publishers are partly to blame. The Guardian reports that while authors are expected to do more when it comes to marketing and promotion, and though electronic books have lowered costs for publishers, the beneficiaries of these savings tend to be the publishers rather than the authors: Nicola […]
...moreIn Defense of Publishers
The rise of digital self publishing has rekindled old arguments about the value of publishers. Authors often criticize publishers as merely providing packaging for their hard work. At BookRiot, Susie Rodarme explains the value of a good publisher: Publishers know books. They know the industry upside down and inside out. They don’t just provide a printing and […]
...moreLittle Book Amok
As authority disseminates across webs of increasingly smaller presses and publications, it becomes harder and harder for new authors to see their books on bookstore shelves, especially those of larger stores like Barnes & Noble’s. Unless, of course, they put the books there themselves: They haven’t yet asked me to stop desecrating their shelves with […]
...moreIn Defense of Literary Agents
The rise of self-publishing and smaller independent presses has left many writers questioning the value of literary agents and their fifteen percent commissions. The collaborative nature of publishing depends on these middlemen though, warns Bethanne Patrick at Beyond the Margins: …agents today do more than simply harvest a commission (if indeed they ever did only that). […]
...moreThe Authors Guild Expands
Award-winning author CJ Lyons will be the first self-published author to serve on the executive council of the Authors Guild. The Authors Guild is currently expanding to include representatives from indie books and self-publishing authors. Find out more here.
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