Sue Collier | November 3, 2011
There is a lot of information available on self-publishing today—there are blogs, books, and groups galore where authors can learn the ropes. Unfortunately, I still run in to authors who have made costly mistakes with their projects—blunders that could have been avoided. Here are some of the most common: 1. Setting unrealistic goals. In spite [...]
Sue Collier | June 6, 2011
I recently read a great list from LLReader by Shannon Yarborough, “My Own 10 Things You Should Know About Self-Publishing.” Shannon brings up a lot of good points, and I have some things to add to some of what she says that go a bit beyond just leaving comments at the blog site, so I [...]
Sue Collier | May 27, 2011
It happened again. I spoke earlier this week with an author who had recently “self-published” a nonfiction book, and she was particularly interested in reaching the library market. She directed me to her author website—which listed the book’s publisher as “AuthorHouse.” That re-routed our conversation immediately because I had to break the bad news to [...]
Sue Collier | March 11, 2011
I read an excellent post over on Matt About Business titled Online Options for Printing Your Self-Published Book. Consultant Susan Daffron explains in crystal-clear terms the options available to self-publishing authors for getting their books in print. She writes, “Unfortunately, many options for turning your manuscript into a book are expensive and some are out [...]
Sue Collier | December 21, 2010
I saw a tweet this morning from @iuniversebooks: “What is supported self-publishing?” it asked. I have been seeing that term—“supported self-publishing”—a lot lately, so I clicked on the link, which took me to a page on their website (surprise, surprise). Basically, the page was all about a service they provide called “supported self-publishing.” Here’s how [...]
Sue Collier | December 8, 2010
This post showed up in my Google alerts. It’s all about the inaugural “indie publishing contest” held in partnership by Author Solutions, Inc., the San Francisco Writers Conference, and San Francisco Writers University. <sigh> Here we go again. To start, we have “ indie book publishing leader Author Solutions.” Say what? Authors Solutions is NOT — I repeat, NOT [...]
Sue Collier | August 25, 2010
Just when the indie world was riding high in the wake of Seth Godin announcing that he will eschew traditional publishing for his future titles, we have this from Publishers Weekly: “We are returning to our earliest roots. PW dates to 1872, when it was first known as Trade Circular Weekly and listed all titles [...]
Sue Collier | August 16, 2010
I was reading a blog post yesterday on “Why Self-Publishing Hurts Real Writers” — I know, “real writers”? It was asterisked, but basically the post author’s explanation is that because he is Argentine he doesn’t need to be politically correct — and I had a long, incensed comment all typed out and ready to go. [...]
Sue Collier | June 30, 2010
So I read a post on self-publishing over a Kidlit today. I’ve commented there, but I couldn’t resist more pontificating. I’ll start by saying that I am not the average person who has no idea what lurks in slush. I spent many years in the trade, going through those very awful slush piles that blogger [...]
Sue Collier | June 21, 2010
Even as nontraditional publishing continues to grow—Bowker reports a whopping increase of 181 percent in 2009 over the previous year—there is still a stigma attached to self-publishing. I’ve read the articles, I’ve seen the tweets. There is still a pervasive belief that self-publishing is somehow “settling”—and probably your only option because you were rejected by [...]
