Self-Publishing Blog Summary

It has been awhile sense I posted a summary of blog posts I have read and found helpful. To save you some time, here are the latest posts I have found interesting or helpful that relate to self-publishing.

From The Book Designer

Why Writers Must Self-Publish Their Books

From Your Writer Platform

Powerful Pictures Perform: How to Create Images That Grab Attention

To Blog or Not to Blog: Is It Really Necessary?

From Self-Publishing 2.0

Will Amazon Deliver Coal in the Stocking for Kindle Publishers?
Morris Rosenthal's monthly examination of KDP KOLL payouts.

From The Creative Penn

Writing Fast, Funnels And Calls To Action. My Lessons Learned From Write, Publish, Repeat.

Getting Maximum “Bang” for Your Book Description Buck: an SEO/ Author’s Perspective

The Newbie's Guide to Self-Publishing 

Death and the Self-Pubbed Writer

 

 

Must Read Book Promotion Posts, Blogs and Books for Self-Publishing Authors

There is so much to learn for authors who want to make the jump into the indie publishing world, to decide to self-publish their book, be it fiction or non-fiction.  I have read well over 100 books on self-publishing and an untold number of self-publishing blogs. 

To be honest, I have wasted a lot of money and time along the way and still have so much to learn. Some of the books and websites I have come across though are well worth the money and time I have spent and have helped me in my efforts to make this self-publishing venture worthwhile.

Anytime you create a list of anything, someone will disagree with your selections. Still, in an effort to share what I have found helpful to the authors who visit this blog and save them time and money, here is my list of sites, blogs and books I have found to be helpful, worth reading and worth spending money on.

Blogs to visit:

Aaron Shepard's Publishing Blog: Aaron is one of the most helpful experts in the field of self-publishing. His blog often deals with the actual nuts and bolts of using the tools available to create physically create a book for either POD or Kindle. Aaron also understands the business model an author needs to adopt to make self-publishing viable financially. Always worth a visit.

Newbie's Guide to Self-Publishing: This is J.A. Konrath's blog. I often disagree with his worldview and political philosophy. Often. But Mr. Konrath has a passion for encouraging authors to self-publish. He shares actual sales data, encourages authors, explains what is good and bad about traditional publishing and while a huge advocate of self-publishing, will offer caveats about that approach as well. Guest posts are a frequent feature and always interesting and educational.  You don't have to agree with Mr. Konrath about everything he writes, but you will always learn valuable information about self-publishing/publishing and often leave his blog feeling encouraged to press on in your efforts. Some topics of practical importance frequently covered: pricing, marketing and insider news.

Morris Rosenthal's Self-Publishing 2.0: Morris has a lot to say about publishing and self-publishing. He was one of the early adopters of print-on-demand and has written extensively about this business model as well as the inner workings of Amazon. Morris by education is an engineer and loves data and math. Morris often posts about trends in self-publishing based on data he collects. He writes about a wide range of topics, some of which may seem a little out there, but are always interesting.

The Book Designer: Joel Friedlander is the author of this blog. Topics range from guest posts to the nuts and bolts of book design and production with all kinds of topics related to self-publishing in between. Joel has a huge collection of information available on his website, you just have to take the time to work through it all. Joel is a professional book designer and the creator of Book Design Templates.

Book Promotion Sites:

I have visited a large number of these. Here is the one post I have found the most helpful. It's worth visiting and reading. Helping readers find your books is critical.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/how_to

It's not exactly an official book promotion site, but you will find an enormous amount of information about promoting books, self-publishing, copyright issues and just about anything else you can image related self-publishing. Check out the Yahoo Group pod_publishers.

Books:

Being an avid book reader and with the advent of Kindle and lower priced books, I have read lots of books on self-publishing and related topics. A large number of these I wish I passed on.  As the industry changes, the information you need to know changes.

Aaron Shepard's Aiming at Amazon was, and still is, the first book any author considering self-publishing should read. It outlines the basic business model most of us need to consider as well as the basic starting marketing plan to work from.

Authors who plan to incorporate print-on-demand into their business model should read two books that not only describe this technology but the business model based on this printing/publishing technology. Aaron Shepard is the author of POD for Profit, which details using Lightning Source to print books using POD and the business model involved. Morris Rosenthal, of Self-Publishing 2.0, is the author of Print-on-Demand Book Publishing, another must read if you intend to use POD as part of your self-publishing model.

For authors who want to take a do-it-yourself approach to getting books published on Amazon's KDP, Aaron Shepard has two books worth reading, particularly if you publish works of non-fiction. The first in this series is From Word to Kindle. This short Kindle book describes how to convert a book manuscript in a Word document to a Kindle ready file for upload to KDP for publication.

The second book in this series is Pictures on Kindle. If your book is going to include photographs, graphics or any other visual images, and you plan to do the interior yourself, this book is helpful. The prices is right as well as it sells for .99.

Finally, I recently stumbled across David Gaughran's Let's Get Visible: How to Get Noticed and Sell More Books. Let's face it, we all need for readers to find our books in order to get the reader to buy it! This book was interesting and helpful and I learned things I was previously unaware of. It was well worth the .99 cents I paid for the Kindle version.

                

Sites for New and Veteran Self-Publishers to Visit

I really appreciate every author, or individual considering taking the leap and becoming an author, who visit this blog. It has been an uphill struggle to learn everything I need to know to make this a successful business and like any endeavor worth engaging in, you can never afford to stop learning.

Many individuals have taken the time to share their experiences, both good and bad, in the field of self-publishing with the intent of helping me along and to shorten the learning curve for me. I feel an obligation to do the same.

There are certainly readers of this blog who probably get a chuckle out of my mistakes as they are more experienced in the field of self-publishing. Then there are the authors who are new to the game and I hope they learn information of value from reading this blog. The third group are probably authors who are at about the same state I am in the learning process.

So, in an effort to share sources of information, here are a few sites I visit regularly and I have learned a great deal from.

Aaron Shepard's Publishing Blog

Aaron is the author of Aiming at Amazon and the guru of self-publishing when it comes to the business model of selling self-published books via Amazon. He is also the author of POD for Profit and the creator of "Plan B" since Amazon has revised its dealings with Lightning Source. Aaron is just a treasure trove of information and views it as both a creative endeavor and a business.

Aaron has a realistic view of Amazon, how it works and what truly drives this company. In other words, he sees Amazon's good and bad points, of which there are both.

Morris Rosenthal's Self-publishing Blog

Morris is another of the leaders of the self-publishing movement and the use of print-on-demand as a business model for self-publishing. His book Print-on-Demand Book Publishing is another book self-publishing authors should read, even with the rise of the ebook. It describes the business model of POD for self-publishing. Remember, self-publishing is a business!

Morris writes about a lot of things on his self-publishing blog, ranging from understanding Amazon Sales Rankings, dealing with copyright violations, building an author platform and some just off the wall stuff that is really funny if you get his sense of humor. I have learned a lot by reading his blog and the archived posts.

Joel Friedlander's The Book Designer

This site is a great source of information about the design end of self-publishing as well as a wide range of topics that deal with self-publishing and publishing. Joel constantly provides new blog postings addressing topics both of interest and importance to authors who self-publish. Like Aaron and Morris, Joel views self-publishing as a both a creative and a business endeavor.

Joel also provides courses designed to teach new authors and veteran authors venturing into self-publishing learn the process and business of self-publishing. Joel also designs books as a service to self-publishing authors.

J.A. Konrath's A Newbie's Guide to Publishing

Konrath is a leader among the fiction authors who have become successful financially through self-publishing, primarily via Kindle ebook sales.

I don't always agree with his worldview on a range of topics, but I always come away from visiting his blog having learned something about the publishing industry. I write non-fiction and doubt I could ever write anything fictional worth publishing.

I have learned a great deal about the ebook explosion from his blog. Like the other three bloggers I have listed, Konrath views self-publishing as a business, and this from a very creative author. I have read many of his thrillers, particularly the Jack Daniels detective thrillers, and can attest Mr. Konrath knows how to spin a thrilling tale.

Michael Marcus's Book Making

I don't quite know how to describe this blog.  Sometimes I visit and exit the blog with my blood pressure about to come out my ears telling myself I will never visit again. I always do though and I am pretty sure if Marcus could see me turn red in the face he would get a good chuckle out of it. If you already read this blog, you know exactly what I mean. Marcus loves to yank a chain, anyone's chain.

Why do I go back time after time? Because as mad as Marcus can make me, he also makes me laugh and often he writes about issues that are both important and informative for authors who self-publish.  Perhaps I just need thicker skin.

Like the other sites, I learn from the information Marcus shares and that is what makes the site worth putting on your list of self-publishing blogs to read.

In all fairness, if you wind up on the sharp end of Marcus' wit, you might have done something to deserve it. Just as quickly has he can take a poke at you, if you have done something praiseworthy, Marcus will be one of the first to point it out. He will also take a poke at himself from time-to-time.

Also, Marcus likes The Rolling Stones, The World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band. So do I.

Kindle Nation Daily

All things Kindle. If you plan on making ebooks, Kindle in particular, part of your business plan, this site needs to be on your list of blogs and sites to visit. 

The focus of late is largely on books selling well on Kindle and the technology itself. While I am not trying to compete with best selling authors, it is a way to track what is going on with different topics and niches as well as changes in the technology. Something we all need to be aware of as authors who sell Kindle books.

If anyone knows of a site or blog that would be a good addition to this short list, please share it via the comment sections for this post.