ebooks
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The Future of eBooks: Werewolf Love Stories, 3 for a Dollar
Sometimes, I like to do market research about eBooks by acting like someone looking for deals. I did that the other day and the first challenge, as usual, was finding out where I could actually find eBooks on Amazon. They don’t make it as easy as it should be… but I don’t think Amazon is that…
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Publishers Are Testing Unknown Authors Digitally… What Does That Mean?
A lot of writers view self-publishing eBooks as a slog to the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not that we necessarily want to market all of our stuff and pump out eight books a year to make a living. It’s just what has to happen if publishers keep setting their sights on blockbusters. Well,…
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How E.L. James Promoted Fifty Shades of Grey
When it comes to promoting your self-published work, there’s no author that comes to mind as quickly as E.L. James, the woman who wrote Fifty Shades of Grey. There’s no doubt that this is a self-publishing miracle. Anything that sells paperback copies faster than the Harry Potter series has done something right. Here’s how James…
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A Video Game or an eBook?
You may have heard the term “enhanced” eBook lately. Maybe you’ve heard… from people like me, even… that eBooks are going to have to include more multimedia as people ditch eReaders and go for tablets. Well, the picture to the left is evidence of that effort: pulling in more stuff to immerse the reader in…
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eBooks, Blogs, and Redefining What It Means to Be an Author
I’m accustomed to reading grim things about the future of books. That’s what a lot of this blog is about: how writers can just keep it all going in this day and age. Now, I’m a hardened veteran of indulgent speculation concernign the demise of eBooks and literary novels and making a living by making art. But this piece, “The…
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How eBooks Can Save Journalism
At the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), Michelle Bachmann said a lot of things that weren’t true. She said she got the information from a self-published book, Presidential Perks Gone Royal. It’s written by a Republican lobbyist. Bachmann trusted a book’s facts. Nothing wrong with that. However, with the filters for publication down, lies and…
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The Internet Has Made Us All Entitled Content Thieves
This week, the New York Times closed another loophole that got around its notorious paywall. You know… the paywall. The thing ensuring that one of the last bastions of what Americans call journalism (even if it’s owned by someone with a dubious background at best) doesn’t have to depend on advertising revenue that directly influences its…
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Is KDP Select Worth It? (An Example From a Real Person)
Amazon’s KDP Select program has kind of been marketed as a Miracle Grow for Books. It seems that, whenever you Google something about KDP Select, you run into another article boasting about authors who got rich and famous from just using KDP Select and barely marketing their book at all. Like a lot of authors who are…
