Posts Tagged With: ebooks

Another awesome free eBook about self-publishing …

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

You may recall that post I wrote about the “Free Marketing Tips” eBook. Well, today’s post is about the same author, Mark Coker, who started Smashwords and has written yet another eBook about self-publishing that has some very useful information for anyone who has ever, is currently, or will ever self-publish.

The eBook is called “Secrets to eBook publishing success”. Here’s a link to the download page. And it’s totally free, so if that isn’t reason enough to read it, then I don’t know what is!

There’s lots of useful info in there. I’ll share some here so you get the idea (note: these are quotes directly copied from the eBook):

  • 80% of your book’s success will be determined by the quality of your book. The other 20% is distribution, marketing, and luck.
  • A good author name is simple to remember, and simple to spell. Avoid cutesy spelling, because this can make it difficult for readers to find you.
  • Think of each book you release as a fish hook in the ocean. When you network them together with simple mentions and hyperlinks at the end, the fish hooks form a net. Each book becomes a subtle yet powerful advertisement for the others. Each gives you the opportunity to reach new readers.
  • (Giving your eBook away for) free works best if you have a deep backlist or if you write full-length series.
  • Ebooks are immortal. They never go out of print or lose distribution unless the author or publisher willingly decides to remove a book from distribution. Your sales can start off small then gradually build over time as readers start discovering and enjoying your books.
  • Your book is your most effective marketing tool. Write a book that touches the reader’s soul and the reader will market your book for you through online word-of-mouth and reviews.

There’s loads more information in there. Again, here’s the link to download the eBook.

Fun time!

Categories: Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The Versatile Blogger Award + 100 followers!

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Candace Knoebel was kind enough to nominate me for the Versatile Blogger award! Thanks so much! I like winning things. And I like blogging! So this is, quite literally, a win-win.

But before I get into the nitty and gritty of the award, I just wanted to shout out a THANK YOU to all my followers – I hit 100 today! Woo! That’s 100 people more than I knew three months ago when I first started blogging. You guys are awesome, and I’ve loved my time here on WordPress thus far, so thanks again for reading, following, and supporting 🙂

On to the Versatile Blogger award!

Step One: Share 7 things about yourself

Okee dokee. Here goes!

1) My head is super sensitive. By that I mean that if I put my hair up in a ponytail (even a low one), it starts to give me a headache within minutes. The only solutions I’ve found thus far are leaving it down, clipping it high up, or doing a french braid.

2) I keep a book of Sudoku puzzles in the bathroom. I bought it in South Korea, and I have stopped doing the puzzles because I don’t want to have to throw out the book. Sentimental value and whatnot.

3) I have recently developed a crush on Alex Pettyfer. My celebrity crushes usually last about three days or so–but man, it’s going to be a brutal three days.

4) My jedi teddy bear guardian has now been joined in his security detail by Tibbers, the five-foot tall bear I bought at Costco.

5) I really enjoy K-Pop, and I wish that English musicians would cover K-Pop artists’ songs, because A) K-Pop songs are awesome, and B) I want to be able to understand the lyrics!

6) Today I found my door unlocked, and became convinced that someone had broken into my apartment while I was in the bathroom. I proceeded to grab two knives from the knife block and stalk around the apartment yelling, “I’ve got two knives, intruder! I suggest you leave before I find you, because it won’t end well for anyone involved!” I never did find the intruder, so clearly my bluff worked.

7) People talking in movie theatres drive me absolutely insane. I usually just get up and move, but sometimes I will turn to my friend and do the passive-aggressive, “Do you think these people sitting behind us will EVER stop talking? It’s so annoying!” and hope the chatterboxes hear. It’s not hard! Just keep your mouth shut! Ack.

That took a turn for the dark. Let’s lighten things back up.

Step two!

I hereby nominate … hmm …

Clotildajamcracker

Keri Peardon

and

Tania L Ramos

Congrats!

Now all y’all gotta do is accept the award, thank the person who gave it to you (me!), share 7 things about yourself, then pass the award along to as many people as you like (the official rules suggest 15).

Happy blogging!

Link of the day!

Erm, this one’s a bit racy, so I’ll provide a link instead of just showing you the image. It’s Game of Thrones related, btw.

http://www.memecenter.com/fun/139647/game-of-thrones-memes

Categories: Blog-related | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Be Still — Book Review

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Me with my copy of Be Still!

The Book

“Be Still”

The Genre

Romantic Drama

The Author

Tania L. Ramos. This is her second novel, which is self-published through iUniverse. Check out her blog and her website for more information!

The Plot

Plastic surgeon Jack Silver thinks his life is perfect – until he loses his daughter and wife in a series of tragic events. A decade later, Jack discovers that he is dying. He desperately wants to reconnect with his estranged son Travis, but Travis wants nothing to do with his father. Enter Dr. Christina Amity, Jack’s protégé and dear friend, who strives to help father and son work out their issues before Jack’s disease claims him. But even as Christina and Travis grow closer, Jack finds himself inching towards death, drawn by what he thinks is the spirit of his dead wife. Will Jack make peace with his son before he rejoins his wife and daughter in the afterlife? Will the emotionally-damaged Travis ever find love? Read Be Still to find out!

The Review

Let me start by saying that, despite the genre of this book being the polar opposite of what I usually read, I really enjoyed Be Still. The plot was engaging and well thought out, the characters relatable and believable. It’s a tragic story that’s at the same time uplifting, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes the romance/drama genre.

I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t the hugest fan of Jack Silver. He basically gives up on living after his wife dies, withdrawing from the world and from his son, all of which really irked me. I have a hard time connecting with parent characters who emotionally abandon their children. At the same time, I totally understand why he did what he did because his plot arc was beautifully written, so even though I didn’t really like the character, Tania still got me to sympathize with him.

On the other hand, I loved Travis and Christina. Their romance is sweet, and realistic, and flawed, because when does love ever go smoothly? I actually found myself caring more about Jack because I was seeing him through Travis and Christina’s eyes, and it was bittersweet because their shared grief over his impending death is one of the things that brings them together.

I quite enjoyed Tania’s writing style. It flowed nicely, and it was very easy for me to lose myself in the story. One criticism I would make is that the description sometimes got a little flowery, but for all I know that’s the norm for this genre of writing. It certainly didn’t detract from the story, it just made me pause and think, “Goodness, that’s a lot of adverbs”.

The Rating

4 out of 5 stars, plus an “Awww!” factor of 8 puppies.

Remember that blog tour I mentioned?

If you have an excellent memory, you’ll remember that I’m participating in a blog tour next week – the blog tour of Tania L Ramos, to be specific, aka the author of Be Still! Whoa. Crazy coincidence, right? Anyway, here’s a reminder of the blog tour dates:

July 19 – http://katherinenader.tumblr.com

July 20 – http://nerdybookreviews.wordpresscom

July 21 – http://freebies4myfamily.blogspot.com/

July 22 – http://davidmcgowanauthor.com/

July 23 – https://michelleproulx.wordpress.com/ ((ME!))

July 24 – http://www.youtube.com/user/tramossnvvc/videos ((video blog))

Tania is also holding a sweepstakes right now, which can be viewed on her Facebook page. Basically, for every 100 books she sells by August 30th, she will donate a copy of her book to a high school of the winner’s choice. It only works for U.S. schools (something about foreign policy), and she promises to donate a book even if she doesn’t hit the 100 books sold mark. And if you’re poor like me and don’t want to buy a copy, you can still go to the Sweepstakes tab on the Facebook page and enter anyway.

So come back next Monday for my leg of the blog tour!

Tania will be writing a guest post about … about … okay, we really don’t know yet. If you have any ideas, sound off in the comments! She’s a self-published author, so maybe you have some questions you’d like her to answer? Just relay them in the comments section here and I’ll forward them to her.

Cute and addictive game:

http://www.silvergames.com/nyan-cat-lost-in-space

Categories: Book Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

I’ve finally submitted my manuscript!

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

This image has nothing to do with the post. I just like it because it’s awesome.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s official. I have finalized the manuscript for Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It. It is written, edited, revised, and submitted to iUniverse via their incredibly complex submission form.

So what does this mean?

Step One: Editorial Evaluation

To quote Rebekka, my iUniverse “Check-In Coordinator”:

Your project is now ready for its Editorial Evaluation. Your project will be assigned an Editorial Consultant and you should hear from them within 2 – 3 weeks (once your Editorial Evaluation is finished). It’s helpful for you to understand that the Editorial Evaluation is a general overview of your manuscript, which focuses on key industry-standard areas, based on your genre of book. Some of these might include: point of view, grammar, plot points, etc. At the end of the Editorial Evaluation, you will receive a 10-15 page form, which highlights areas of possible improvement in your manuscript and gives you pointers regarding how to make your manuscript more marketable.

Now, my hope *fingers crossed* is that there won’t be many suggested changes. I hope this because I have had approximately 15 people read the manuscript and made a zillion revisions based on their suggestions, so there really shouldn’t be all that much left in the book needing fixing.

Of course, these are professional editors reading the manuscript, so they’ll probably catch something or suggest something that my myriad proof readers missed. I’m cool with that. As long as they don’t tell me to “re-write the entire book” like one super-helpful reader did (*sarcasm*), I’m good.

While I wait for the Editorial Evaluation …

I bite my nails and hope it turns out well! No, seriously, I will probably get back to editing the sequel to Imminent Danger. When last I checked in on it, it was titled Interspecies Relationships and How to Make an Already Complicated Situation Worse. As that is somewhat of a mouthful, the title will be one of the first things I change.

My big thing with a sequel is making sure it’s as good (or nearly as good) as the first book. Because is there anything worse than reading a sub-par sequel to a book you love? Famine is worse, probably. Poverty. Child soldiers. Slavery. But you get my point!

And what is there in store for us, your loyal blog followers?

I just switched to “FAQ” mode. Whoops. Anyway, I really want to start posting excerpts from the book, which y’all may or may not read at your leisure. That won’t happen until the Editorial Evaluation gets back, however, so until then … expect pretty much the same. Random thoughts on writing, links to various photos/videos that probably no one but me enjoys, etc.

Woo!

Thanks, as always, for letting me ramble on. Speaking of Ramble On, that song has an entire verse about Lord of the Rings. Talk about awesome.

Right. So that’s my news, as well as my random link of the day. Happy Thursday!

PS: Can I even say PS in a blog? Right. Moving on. Does anyone have an opinion on vlogs? Good? Bad? Annoying? Would anyone watch an unknown author ramble about her publishing experience for 3-4 minutes? I won’t force you to watch any vlogs if you say yes.

Categories: My Works | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

8 Things I Learned from my Proofreaders

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Me at the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, South Korea. Note my whimsical attire.

I don’t know if you remember, but a few weeks back I wrote a post about my super awesome book editing kick-off party. Three weeks later (also known as yesterday), we had the book editing wrap-up party. Merriment was had, alcohol was consumed, and many suggestions were made about how to make my book the best it can possibly be. A lot of them were very specific to my book, but I thought I’d share some of the more general wisdom here with you.

1. For a traumatic event to be believable, the character’s reaction has to fit the situation. Obviously ever character will react differently to a traumatic event, but never underestimate the impact of a good emotional breakdown. Or several.

2. Use the 5 stages of grief. To remind you, those stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The 5 stages of grief are used in everything from high-brow literary fiction to bad TV sitcoms, and there’s a very good reason for that.

3. Blue-raspberry jello tastes delicious with cinnamon sprinkled on top.

4. Check your facts. Otherwise you run into the embarrassing situation of a reader telling you that something you wrote was totally, unbelievably wrong.

5. Your characters can’t take everything for granted. Having your character encounter an enigmatic person or a ridiculous situation and grow accustomed to the oddity is fine, but make sure they are appropriately incredulous at first. Even if it’s something as simple as them asking, “Wait, why are you helping me?”. They don’t even need to receive a response – it’s just human instinct to question what we don’t know or understand. Unless you’re writing about something non-human, in which case you can do whatever the heck you like.

6. Be careful when you write about religion. People get really worked up over religion, and you don’t want to mess with that unless you have a very good reason for doing so.

7.  Too much or too little description of the love interest is bad. You want to give just enough description to let the reader form a picture in their mind of the character, but not enough that there’s no room for them to let their imagination run free. That’s a problem that book-to-movie adaptations run into all the time. A character is way over-described in a book, like: “6 foot 3, short blonde hair, emerald green eyes, straight nosed, full lips, broad forehead, square jaw, muscular, faint scar on the shoulder blade, etc.”, and then fans get all riled up when a hipster brunette is cast in the role.

8. Don’t let conflicting opinions weigh you down. People disagree all the time, and I guarantee that they will find things to disagree about when reading your book. The best advice I can give is to listen carefully to all sides of the argument, then make an informed decision on how to proceed based on your own opinions. This might annoy the people you’re disagreeing with, but ultimately it’s your book, and you get veto power.

Once I get all my proofread copies of the manuscript back, I’ll sit down for the FINAL EDITING ROUND, because I’ve been working on this book for six years now and it’s quite about time that I get it published and move on with my literary life. If anyone has any editing advice for me before I start the FINAL EDITING ROUND, or wants to weigh in on the post, or on my whimsical outfit, I’d love to hear from you!

Around the Interwebs:

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Free Marketing Tips eBook link

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

Greetings, blogosphere. Today’s post will be a short one, as I’m off to my cousin’s graduation this afternoon and then home for Father’s Day weekend.

As usual, I was wandering around the internet looking for interesting things when I came upon this free eBook on Smashwords.com. It’s called Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, by Mark Coker, and it’s very informative. Basically, he goes over 33 tips on how to market your eBook. I was hesitant about downloading it, because I figured it would just be promotion for Smashwords, and it was, but it also had some pretty great ideas for marketing. I’ll share two or three of the tips below, and then I encourage you to go download the eBook. It is, after all, free!

Tip #1: Update your email signature. Your email signature is one of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal, yet few authors take advantage of it. Most of us send emails to dozens if not hundreds of people each week, and each of these people (often friends, family, business associates, fans) represent potential customers for our book. By updating (or creating) an email signature, you’re providing email recipients a low-key, unobtrusive path to discover and purchase your book. Nearly every email program and service allows you to create a single email signature file, usually a simple text file, that then automatically appends to every email you write.

Tip #18: Invite other Authors to Post to your Blog. If you operate your own blog, invite your favorite authors to write guest posts for your blog. This is a great way to offer your fans interesting new content that increases the value of your blog. It also helps fans of the other author learn more about you.

Tip #26: Create a reader’s guide at the end of your book. You’ve probably seen these in print books: Publishers append short discussion guides for reading clubs and book groups at the ends of their books. Make it fun and easy for a book group to discuss you book. While most of us like to read books in private, we enjoy talking about books with our social circles, both online and offline. If you create a reading guide, be sure to advertise it in your book description with a simple statement such as, “Contains a helpful discussion guide for reading groups.”

Tip #27: Insert sample chapters from your other books. The last page of your book is valuable real estate. Your reader just loved your book, and they want to read more from you, so give them more book samples to read at the end of your book.

He also lists a variety of top eBook listing sites that you can put your book on for maximum exposure at the end of the document. A lot of them deal with free eBooks, but some of them list normal eBooks as well.

So check out the eBook — again, here’s the link to the site where you can download it for free.

And now for something completely different:

Categories: Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

When Big Time Authors Self-Publish

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

I just found this article at Publishers Weekly that talks about how Terry Goodkind, best-selling author of the Sword of Truth series, is self-publishing his next novel. It makes me wonder what a famous, successful author like him is doing self-publishing a book. I mean, I would probably die of happiness if I were to get traditionally published, but Goodkind is walking away from it. And the more I consider the matter, the more it makes sense. Here’s my reasoning:

1. He already has a fan following. As such, he can be pretty much assured that anything he publishes in the Sword of Truth series, people will buy, myself included.

2. He has the money for marketing/publicity. Self-published authors are generally 9-5ers trying to write on the side, and don’t have the funds to launch international marketing campaigns. But Goodkind, and other big-time authors, do have the time and money to do that kind of thing. His publishing house probably could get his book into more stores, place advertisements in better locations, but as per #1, he already has a huge fan base. They’ll find out about the book regardless of how limited the marketing campaign is.

3. He’ll get higher royalties. This one is a no-brainer. When an author self-publishes, they set the price. Traditionally published authors usually get between 5-15% royalties — good if you’re in the 15% range, terrible if you’re down at 5%. If you’re self-publishing, you obviously make way more, plus you decide how much the book goes for. I guess he’ll be losing the prestige of having a traditional publishing house’s logo on the spine of his book, but he’ll probably survive.

4. He has complete creative freedom. I’ve heard horror stories of editors ripping apart books and sewing them back together in pathetic imitations of their originals. I have no idea if this is true — probably not, let’s be realistic. However, that doesn’t change the fact that self-publishing allows you to write whatever the heck you want, regardless of what anyone else (or society in general) thinks. My only problem with this is that some authors do need to be reined in by editors, Goodkind included. He has a tendency to get very preachy, and I’m worried he’ll just go crazy with the rants once there’s no one there to stop him. Of course, for all I know, he’s been deciding what goes into his books for years, and the publishing house has just been crossing their fingers and hoping things worked out.

5. He’ll get a lot of attention for self-publishing. Traditional publishing houses are worried about self-publishing, because it cuts into their profit margins, and will do so more in the future. Once a decent amount of big time authors join the self-publishing bandwagon, I don’t see things going well for publishing houses. Since self-publishing doesn’t happen that often right now, Goodkind should get media attention for his decision to self-publish based on that fact alone, regardless of how well his book actually sells.

Looking at it this way, it seems crazy that big time authors wouldn’t try out self-publishing. On the other hand, there are many excellent reasons to stay with traditional publishers. So I guess it really comes down to individual choice.

What do you think?

Imagine you’re a big time author, and you’re planning to release a new book. Would you consider self-publishing?

Image cred: http://www.fanpop.com/spots/sword-of-truth-series/images/684599/title/cover-art-faith-fallen-photo

Categories: Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

eBook Pricing – A Conundrum

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Michelle Proulx
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How much is a good story worth?

If you’ve been following recent news, you’ll know that several major publishing houses (Harper Collins, Apple, etc.) are being hit with an anti-trust lawsuit regarding their attempts at fixing eBook prices. See here for an explanation of the issue. The problem is that self-published authors are selling their books at $2.99 or less, and publishing houses feel that this is devaluing eBooks. They are worried that people will stop buying their higher-priced, best-selling novels in favour of mass-consuming the self-published books that are flooding the market. The obvious solution would be for publishing houses to simply price their eBooks lower in order to compete with self-published authors… but it isn’t as easy as that.

I had always believed that eBooks were overpriced – it costs nothing to produce an electronic file, after all, so why should I pay $14.99 for it? But then I read this article. When you print thousands and thousands of books, the cost of printing only amounts to a few dollars a copy. That’s why you can find $5 books on the discount shelf at your local book store, because they really don’t cost that much to actually print. So why are books priced so high? Because of all the overhead costs the publisher must pay – author advances, marketing fees, etc. All these things still have to be paid for, whether you’re making a print book or an eBook. The only difference with an eBook is that you’re saving those few dollars that would have been used for printing. So in that respect, eBooks could logically be priced almost as high as print books. And most of them are fairly costly – usually half the cost of the print book’s list price.

But then you get the difference between owning a pdf file, and having in your hands a real, heavy, paper-cut-inducing book. Yes, eBooks offer the advantage of being able to carry around your entire library in your back pocket. But if I had $15, I would rather spend it on a real book. I’m proud of my book shelf, and I love being able to just plop down in front of it and peruse the book spines for my next read. Not to mention that I like to share my books with my friends, but I don’t think I’d want to share my eBook reader.

At the same time, eBooks are growing in popularity, and publishers do need to turn a profit. If they only charge $2.99 for their eBooks, I imagine the profit margin must be nearly non-existent for the author. Apparently some authors are actually walking away from book contracts because publishers refuse to let them retain their e-rights to their books, because they’ve realized that it’s far more profitable to sell eBooks on their own terms. Amazon Kindle, for example, offers a 70% royalty rate if you price your eBook between $2.99 and $9.99. Who wouldn’t want that?

But then with self-publishing, you get eBooks priced as low as 99 cents. Initially I thought that this was a fantastic idea, because if you are trying to build up a readership, what better way to get people to buy your book than by selling it for less than a dollar? A single cookie costs more than that, especially if you get one of those delicious gourmet ones. But then I remembered a book sale I went to a few years back, where I bought maybe fifty books for about $50. If the cover even mildly intrigued me, I bought it. But how many of those books have I read since then? Maybe a quarter, if that. Maybe eBooks need to be priced a little higher – say, $2.99 – in order to make it worth the reader’s while to actually open up the file. It’s hard to discover new authors if you never read the books that they write.

What do you think? What’s a good price for a self-published author’s first book? I’ve been leaning toward $2.99 – a bit more than 99 cents, but still less than a Starbucks latte. Would you pay $2.99 for a story from an author you’ve never read?

Funny and relevant comic — click here!

Categories: Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , | 12 Comments

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