Tag Archives: indie publishing

Mar 05 2015
8 Comments
Ask the Alien

Alien Jones Taking Your Questions

BEHOLD! The mighty brainy one, taking your questions and plugging your work!

BEHOLD! The Mighty Brainy One, taking your questions and plugging your work!

Alien Jones!  He knows all and is taking your questions!  Inside his genius alien brain lies the secrets of the cosmos, the mysteries of the universe, and the answer to all multiple choice questions (it’s B).

Moreover, bribery is not beneath him!  Ask him a question and he might plug your book, blog, or other project in his answer.

Notice how I said “might.”  In other words, if your book is called, “I Heart Nazis!” or some other such nonsense, then no, he won’t plug it.  He has standards.  Otherwise, he’ll do his best to send the Bookshelf Battle’s 3.5 readers your way.

How did aliens master space flight?  Who are the most powerful aliens? Which restaurant makes the best chocolate chip pancakes?  Why was the Dexter series finale so godawful?

Your questions can be serious and thoughtful or funny and snarky.  In fact, he prefers the latter.

By the way, He of the Amazing Gray Matter, posed the following question to me today:

ALIEN JONES:  Bookshelf Q. Battler, does it occur to you that maybe people are leery to have their works promoted on a blog operated by an anonymous blogger with a penchant for sarcasm?

BOOKSHELF Q. BATTLER: It does.  That’s why we have a guarantee.  If you don’t like Alien Jones’ plug for your work, he’ll pull it.  No questions asked.  No hard feelings.  Nothing to lose.  3.5 readers (eh, maybe a bit more even) to gain.  Just sent a private message to Bookshelf Battle on Twitter asking for Alien Jones to take your plug down.

Doesn’t get any more awesome than that, folks!  Submit your questions by midnight Friday to get your question in Sunday’s column.

Alien graphic courtesy of Marauder on openclipart.org

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Jan 23 2015
3 Comments
Self Publishing

Book Subscription Services

The Economist just published an article – “Spotify for Books.”  Naturally, it got me thinking about one of my favorite topics – self-publishing.

Netflix provides all the movies you can watch for a flat fee per month.  Hulu does the same thing for the latest TV shows.

Pandora provides streaming music.  If you’re willing to listen to a commercial after a few songs, you can listen for free!

Will subscription services take over books?  And if they do, what will it mean for authors?

As I read the myriad of self-publishing advice info out there, there seems to be a consistent strategy for success:  Write a lot.  Promote a lot.  Every additional book you put out, every blog post, every tweet, every thing is just one more “net” you’re putting out into the ocean of the Internet in the hopes of catching a “fish” i.e. another loyal reader.

Sorry readers, I didn’t mean to call you fish.  I meant it in the nicest possible way.

And usually, indie authors end up giving their work away for free or close to free just to promote themselves and attract readers.

So, won’t subscription services just steal those profits away?

Or, if the author gets a certain amount per download (usually if the reader reads a certain amount of the book), will that provide more exposure to the author?  The reader may not have been willing to pay for an unknown indie author’s work, but might read the work if it is available through a subscription…and then if they like it, maybe they’ll be willing to buy the author’s next book.

I don’t know.  It seems hard enough for new authors to make money that I worry about the growing subscription trend.  But then again, I suppose we’re in a world where we follow consumer demands.

What say you?  If you’re an Indie Author, will you put your work on subscription services?

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Dec 28 2014
5 Comments
Self Publishing

The NY Times Article Self-Publishers Are Talking About

Have I gained an interest in self-publishing too late?

After reading this New York Times Article, I’m thinking that I just moved to the Wild West at the tail-end of the period of discovery, after all the gold had been panhandled, all the saloon fights had been fought, and all the stagecoaches robbed.  Well, I never would have robbed a stagecoach anyway, but you get my drift despite my poor analogy:

For romance and mystery novelists who embraced digital technology, loved chatting up their fans and wrote really, really fast, the last few years have been a golden age. Fiction underwent a boom unseen since the postwar era, when seemingly every liberal arts major set his sights on the Great American Novel.

Now, though, the world has more stories than it needs or wants to pay for. In 2010, Amazon had 600,000 e-books in its Kindle store. Today it has more than three million. The number of books on Smashwords, which distributes self-published writers, grew 20 percent last year. The number of free books rose by one-third.

-David Streitfeld, NY Times, Amazon Offers All You Can Eat Publishing, Dec. 27, 2014

My thoughts, as a person new to this world, who has yet to hit the proverbial “PUBLISH” button on any self-publishing platform, but entertains thoughts of doing so one day:

1) 600,000 books in 2010 to 3,000,000 today.  Wow.  Kind of makes me wish I could hop in a time machine and travel back to 2010.

2)  On the other hand, is there anything that can be done about the glut of self-publishing?  I suppose we can’t start saying “You get to self-publish, but sorry, you don’t get to.”  After all, that’s what the Indie Market has always been against, isn’t it?

3) What do authors think about KDP Select?  I’d like to know.  If you’ve had experience with it, feel free to share.

4)  If you have any thoughts at all, feel free to share.

5) 600,000 to 3,000,000.  Sorry, I know I already said it, but I have still yet to pick my jaw up off the floor.

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