Image via Wikipedia For most people, “becoming a writer” means first and foremost getting published. And really, getting published for pay. That first sale is a watershed moment for the fledgling writer, a moment of validation that you have something to say that other people want to hear. These days, getting published is less and […]
Every author should belong to Amazon’s affiliate program, Amazon Associates. With Amazon Associates, you can create a link which includes your unique tracking ID to a book (or any product) and get a percentage of the purchase from anyone who clicks through to Amazon from your link. You can create links to any product on […]
Although using a simple spreadsheet to track submissions can be perfectly adequate, the seams can start to unravel as you build up more and more entries. There are several good, free programs that can help you track not only your submissions but also prospective markets and the fate of your work from inception to publication. […]
The simplest way to track submissions is using a spreadsheet program like Excel. You could also use an online spreadsheet like Google Docs. Create a new spreadsheet and put the following as column headers: Title of Piece | Length | Genre/Type | Query or Submission? |Market Submitted to | Market’s Address | Pay | Date […]
I recently published an academic book (Anthropology at the Dawn of the Cold War: The Influence of Foundations, McCarthyism and the CIA, since you asked) and one of the tasks I was responsible for was creating an index for my book. Yes, I could have asked them to send it out to a professional indexer, […]
I got a pleasant surprise yesterday — a big fat envelope from ByLine Magazine containing a check and a couple of copies of the April 2008 issue with an article by me featured on the front cover! I hadn’t known the article was accepted for publication, so it was a real surprise indeed! The article is called […]
PDF, the Portable Document Format, is a standard created by Adobe for circulating formatted documents over the web. Using Acrobat Reader or some other PDF reader (I like Foxit Reader, which opens much faster than Acrobat Reader and seems to work just as well), the recipient views your document exactly as it appeared on your […]
Unless you’re Stephen King, your e-book isn’t going to sell itself. You’re going to need to get out there and market it a little. First of all, make sure it’s featured prominently on your site. Write a post about it, making sure to use all the important keywords you think people doing a Google search […]
OK, you’ve written an e-book, fixed all the typos, formatted it nicely, and are ready to go. Now what? How do you get it to an audience? Well, that depends on your ultimate goal. Are you planning to give your e-book away, or do you want to sell it? Let’s look at both options separately.
Once you’ve written your e-book manuscript, you need to get it into shape for release. While there are e-book creation programs out there that will turn your e-book into a self-contained executable program, I advise against this. First of all, they rarely look all that good, and they force your reader to use a software […]
