Consider this the minimum necessary. Finished manuscript Converted files an EPUB file, for the Apple iBookstore a MOBI file, for the Amazon Kindle Store a PDF file, for sales from your own site Cover art, ideally separate files with best dimensions for each platform, else use 600 x 800 JPEG Information about your book, including the title [...]
Why (Illegal) Copying is Not the Same as Theft
I’ve been writing about copyright a fair bit lately – copyright terms and the public domain, arguments for and against the current copyright system in the U.S., and how the Republicans almost became the party of copyright reform. Whenever copyright comes up, so does piracy. I want to lay out, briefly, why copying is not [...]
How the Republican Party Almost Became the Party of Copyright Reform
The Republican Party recently created an amazing opportunity to become the party of copyright reform… and less than 24 hours later they blew it. Had they gone forward with their plan, they may well have have taken a substantial slice of the tech and maker communities away from the Democratic Party. These demographics tend to be [...]
Simon & Schuster’s Archway Publishing: high prices, dubious services, and the erosion of ethics in publishing
The Twitterverse and blogosphere are blowing up with news that Simon & Schuster has launched a self-publishing service. It’s called Archway Publishing. Although Simon & Schuster have lent their name to the partnership, it’s being run by Author Solutions, a large packaging company (not to be confused with Author Services, which is L. Ron Hubbard’s publishing [...]
Using Twitter Advanced Search to Find and Communicate with Potential Customers
I’ve begun experimenting with a marketing and outreach method based on Twitter. The goal is to find people asking questions related to my industry and then contact those people directly. Here’s how I go about it. First, I concoct a Twitter advanced search to identify people asking questions related to publishing. Second, I make a search column [...]
Copyright Reform – the Remix Argument
Previously I wrote about what could have entered the public domain in 2012 and I summarized some of the defenses offered for our modern copyright regime. Today I’d like to begin looking at some of the arguments in favor of copyright reform. “Good artists copy. Great artists steal” This is a quote commonly attributed to [...]
In Defense of Absurdly Strong Copyright Law
There aren’t all that many defenses of copyright as it exists today, but I’ll try to summarize a few of them here. Profit Motive argument The most prominent defenders of modern copyright are the huge studios and publishers, their trade groups such as the RIAA and MPAA, and politicians supportive of said groups. These groups believe that copyright exists [...]
In an Alternate Universe Lord of the Rings Would Have Entered the Public Domain on 1 January 2012
Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain recently published an essay called What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2012? The what-if scenario assumes the Copyright Act of 1976 was not enacted. That would mean all works from 1955 would now be in the public domain. This includes more than a [...]
Two Ways to Identify Killer Blog Post Headlines
A good title makes a big difference. Here are a couple of methods for choosing the best title from a handful of possibilities: Retweets The first method is to tweet possible titles and then judge their potential for virality from the number of retweets they receive. The thinking behind this is that headlines drive traffic, especially on [...]
How Much Self-Publishing Authors Earn in 2012
Perhaps the most interesting figure from the 2012 self-publishing survey conducted by Taleist is the average annual income authors earn from self-publishing. Out of more than a 1,000 respondents the average annual income was: $10,000 [1] If that seems like a decent amount of money, hold on. The median – the point at which half the [...]