Vanity Publishers: A Quick Guide to Identify

Vanity publishers prey on the impatient, the lost, and the overwhelmed. They look for writers who don’t know what is standard, they use flowery words and “important" phrases to capture the “I can’t wait,” and they promise to do all the heavy lifting. It looks good. It looks promising. Until you peel back the plastic and discover…

Chapter Breaks & Scene Breaks

Knowing when to take a break is an important aspect in writing. Short stories do not have chapters, but they have scene breaks. Novellettes to novels have chapters and can have scene breaks. But what are these? As readers, we understand chapters. They act like stop signs, allowing us to breathe. As writers it's obvious…

Trim Size

Physical books come in a variety of sizes. Some are tall. Some are short. Some fit in the back pocket, and others lounge in bags. But what size should your paperbacks be? Typical Sizes The typical books I format fall under these sizes: 4 x 6” (154 x 102mm)4 x 7” (178 x 102mm)4.25 x…

ARC Team File Management

ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) teams are some authors bread and butter. It helps expands word of mouth, gives loyal readers the chance to be part of the "me first" movement, and can stack your release week with reviews. Building a solid team can be hard: finding people, handling the files, making sure they adhere to…

What Is Self-Editing

Self-editing gets thrown around, but what exactly is self-editing? We recognize it and define it in our own way. It seems logical, but for many, they don’t know where to begin or what it all entails. Each read through when we self-edit should focus on specific aspects. Structure Structure involves plot pacing and believability Readability…

Book Covers & What You Should Know

Book covers — I understand the fear that comes to first time writers who think covers will be some expensive part of the publishing process. Wrapped up in this fear is the thought "I can do it for cheaper, and it'll look good." The fact of the matter is, if you don't have graphic design…

ACX

Audiobooks are a huge market for a variety of reasons. It could be long commutes, travel, visual impairments, or the ability to multitask while doing mundane tasks. This post will cover cost, expectations, and things about ACX that you might not know of even after reading the FAQ and such. Length Audiobooks are generally 2x…

Professional Communications

Do you remember how school taught you how to write letters? Addresses on one side, familiarity greetings, and signing it with personal endearments such as “I can’t wait to write to you again.” If not, you probably didn’t do the pen pal project. Contacting freelancers and writing to submission editors for magazines, agents, and publishing…

Beta Groups and Facebook

Two questions I hear frequently follow each other. "How do I find beta readers and what do I do with them?" The short answer is "it varies." I know plenty of writers who have beta groups, street teams, ARC groups, etc. And for many writers, the easiest thing is probably a FB group to manage…

Approaching Book Bloggers

Book Bloggers can be your best friend or a headache that you tackle because you don’t know where else to turn for reviews. Some authors find the whole process intimidating and others find it a time-consuming sinkhole. Other authors find working with bloggers the magic that gains them new readers and valid/credible reviews. I hope…