We're going to get back to the query critiquing shortly, but since there haven't been a great number of comments expressing interest so far, I may repost something new on that later this week. Meanwhile, I did get a couple of comments on an earlier post that indicated there might be some interest in another area - particularly e-publishing and print-on-demand services.
The internet has opened a whole new world of alternatives to traditional publishing. The Kindle product was one of the first to offer downloads of digital books for the reader. Since e-publishing has taken hold, others have joined the bandwagon including manufacturers of the digital reading devices (such as Apple) as well as a redesign of the publishing and distribution models that many major publishing houses are undergoing. Deals are being made and things are changing in the publishing world.
Also, for those who want an actual published hard-copy book produced, self-publishers have many alternatives from which to choose, including Lulu and CreateSpace, to name just a couple of the most popular. These are typically referred to as POD (print-on-demand) services which allow the user to make their creations available to the public with no up-front charges, and offer not only books but DVDs and CDs as well. Customers can place an order for your product on Amazon or other outlets and have the item produced and sent to them within a short time.
One of the most informative blogs on the net is that of Curtis Brown literary agent, Nathan Bransford. Hardly a week goes by that he doesn't post an update on what's happening in the e-book arena. If you'd like to stay informed, Nathan's blog is an excellent resource for timely and accurate data. You can subscribe by email and get a daily update.
Meanwhile, if you have ventured into this area as an alternative to traditional publishing, or you have any information you'd like to share about your own experiences in the e-book or POD world, our readers would love to hear it. Post a comment and let us know what you think, what you learned, what you know, or what you'd like to know about this new publishing medium that seems to be growing in popularity.
I'm listening.
I recently posted a collection of three humorous short stories on kindle and Smashwords. At this point Smashwords is distributing to all the major ebook outlets, including IPad. I am now preparing a second three story collection of horror shorts, after which I will actually announce the publication of said books and make a push to actually sell a few.
ReplyDeleteEbooks do not magically solve the problem facing every author except the huge ones, which is how to find buyers. But they do provide a simple and basically free (depending on editing and artwork costs) way to make content available.
I will be doing some blog posts soon about formatting books for kindle and Smashwords. If you follow the Smashwords formatting guide, it is pretty easy to get a book to look decent. The first time may take some effort to make sure you've done everything, but subsequent books may take mere minutes for the publishing process itself. However, there are a number of little documented quirks to the process that I have been figuring out, quirks which if addressed can improve how the ebook looks and behaves. That's what I'll be blogging about.