A positive perspective on self-publishing

This video is dedicated three people: first, to Kira Blaco and Naomi Hamilton, who are excited about the idea of self-publishing a novel, and to Will Hadcroft, who has recently taken the bull by the horns and done it. There is every reason to be excited, and I hope a little of my enthusiasm rubs [...]

The value of free ebooks – Part II

I made the decision to release Chion as a freely downloadable ebook on 13 September. In the 54 days between then and now, the novel has been downloaded 262 times. If you think that means 262 lost sales, think again. Only 28 of these downloads occured through my website. The other 234 happened over at [...]

Self-publishing Q&A for The Writer Magazine

Freelance writer Jocelyn Kelley got in touch with me recently to help with an article she’s writing on self-publishing for The Writer Magazine. Her questions brought up some interesting topics, so I thought I’d share my responses with you …
It is well known in the publishing industry that self-published titles do not get mainstream reviews. [...]

The value of free ebooks (here’s Chion, gratis!)

I’m coming around to the way of thinking that giving something away free is a good thing.
Against this attitude is the notion that every free gift is a lost sale. More than that, given the ability of computers to copy and share data with the greatest of ease, every free gift could mean countless lost [...]

The Sloan plan for world domination

With the aid of Google Maps, Photoshop, and my own extensive record-keeping, I’ve put together map of every location in the world that I’ve sent a book to. The US/Canada side of the map is accurate right down to the estimated position of the reader’s town/city within his State (if you squint hard enough). On [...]

A book cover experiment – Part II

On January 16 I invited readers to take part in a little book cover experiment. To reiterate: I asked you to visit Locus’s 2006 Cover Art Gallery and pick the ten most attention-grabbing book covers from the 557 on display, and we’ll see what we can learn from the results. Here are the three guinea [...]

Affordable cover art for your self-published novel

We self-published authors are on a tight budget, and we have to cut a few corners in the business of getting our books into print. More often than not, one major corner we cut is the cover: we can’t afford to pay a professional graphic designer, so we use our limited Photoshop skills to design [...]

12 popular writing mistakes

I’ve read quite a few small press and self-published novels now, and I’ve noticed certain mistakes of punctuation and grammar cropping up. Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style has a great chapter listing many more common errors. But from my own reading, here’s a list of the most popular blunders I’ve observed, listed in [...]

Self-publishing: Avoiding the pitfalls

The following might conjure up feelings of nostalgia in some readers (others will just be plain confused):
It’s dark. You can’t see a thing.
What now? inventory
You are carrying a box of matches.
What now? light match
The match flickers into life.
You are in a dusty cellar. Cardboard boxes are stacked against the west wall. A rickety staircase leads [...]

A book cover experiment

Locus is featuring a gallery of science fiction artwork from books and magazines published in 2006 – 528 works in total. Since we had a recent discussion on the blog here about what makes up an effective cover, I’d be interested in doing a little experiment with you folks (if you can spare ten minutes).
Take [...]

Effective editing

I’ve just finished editing my second novel, Chion, so I thought I’d share with you my thoughts on what I think is the best approach to the gruelling task.
1. Distance
If you choose to jump into editing your manuscript straight after you’ve written it, you won’t be able to spot all the mistakes. The problem is, [...]

Fiction Idol?

One of the common gripes that self-published authors have is that bookshops won’t stock their book. Even though the title is properly ISBN-registered and available through the usual bookshop ordering process, the stores won’t buy it. As a self-published author myself, I’m going to say something that might surprise you: Fellow authors, there’s a good [...]

An affordable POD paperback? Surely not!

Yesterday I set up an account with Lightning Source, the printing company that almost all print-on-demand publishers use. Lack of funds at my end has prompted me to take the POD approach with Chion, rather than opting for a traditional print-run. The downside is that each copy of the book will cost slightly more to [...]

Chionophobia at the proof-reading stage

Got the ball rolling again with Chionophobia. After investing the whole of Saturday and most of Monday, I’ve completed my major edit. You know, any professional authors out there will have to pardon my ignorance, but I’ve never really put into proper practice the terms “rewrite” or “second draft.” What exactly is a rewrite? Is [...]

Podcast fiction

I’m feeling inspired by a bloke called Scott Sigler, the pioneer of the “podcast novel.” Audiobooks have been around for decades, of course, and they were never very popular, but I can’t help thinking that the current interest in iPods and podcasting might fuel interest in the format (you can hardly walk down a corridor [...]