All posts in category My Indie Publishing Experience

My First Goodreads Giveaway

Goodreads GiveawayWhen I first learnt about Goodreads Giveaways, I thought it was a great idea, a wonderful way to get your book into the hands of new readers. So far, I still do see it as a wonderful avenue for writers to explore.

If you’ve never participated in this option in Goodreads, let me share my experience (so far) with you.

Only paper copies of books (hard cover, paperbacks) are permitted in giveaways. I didn’t mind this restriction since I had planned to release a paperback version of Shadows in the Stone. Obviously, paperback giveaways cost more to do than eBook giveaways.

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by Diane Tibert on November 4, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in My Indie Publishing Experience, Shadows in the Stone
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Posted by Diane Tibert on November 4, 2012

http://dianetibert.com/2012/11/04/my-first-goodreads-giveaway/

Making the Biggest Impact in the Shortest Amount of Time

Social networksA friend of mine is a little overwhelmed by all the things writers need to do to market a book in this ever-expanding, ever-changing publishing world. To be honest, I am too most days. It seems each month there is a new social media being toted as the next best place to…to find readers who will buy your book. Blogging, Facebook, Goodreads, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Shelfari…and the list goes on

My advice to her was to choose two social media platforms and do a great job on them, instead of exhausting her time and energy promoting herself poorly through six different venues. Aim for quality not quantity. This is particularly important if you have never used a social medium before. Start small and slowly build a web presence.

When writers feel comfortable on two networks, they can branch out into a third if they feel it’s right for them.

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by Diane Tibert on July 4, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in My Indie Publishing Experience, Writing Business
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Posted by Diane Tibert on July 4, 2012

http://dianetibert.com/2012/07/04/making-the-biggest-impact-in-the-shortest-amount-of-time/

The Man Who Reads Obituaries

Diane Lynn McGyver -The Man Who Reads ObituariesLast night I published a short story to Amazon.com. The Man Who Reads Obituaries is about 3,700 words long. It’s new and hasn’t been published anywhere up until now. This time around, I thought I’d try something different. I’d give Kindle Direct Publishing Select a try.

KDP Select is a program that locks a book into one distributor: Amazon.com. When you enrol, you can’t sell your book from any other site (Smashwords, B&N, Apple, etc.), including your own website. You can advertise the book on your website, but you can’t sell it directly to the customer.

Many people opt in to the program, hoping to get their book into as many hands as possible. The benefits are obvious:

 

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by Diane Tibert on June 26, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Diane Tibert on June 26, 2012

http://dianetibert.com/2012/06/26/the-man-who-reads-obituaries/

Stock Photography: Should you use it for your book cover?

All the pictures on my blog have been captured by me unless otherwise stated. The photos of me were usually taken by my children. The obvious photos—such as those of Spiderman, Bionic Woman, John Wayne, Gerard Butler—were grabbed from the Internet.

That’s not to say I don’t have pictures of famous people in my stock pile. The one of Grandpa Jones was taken on a visit to Nashville. In my younger years, I was a concert nut, and gathered pictures of Alabama, Rod Stewart, Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson, Reba McIntyre…and the list goes on.

I’m a fanatic for taking pictures, and with a digital camera now in my hands, it’s easy for me to shoot a hundred pictures in 30 minutes a few times a day. And I take pictures of everything, including what others might think is a little strange…like those mushrooms above. When I visit historic places such as Signal Hill (St. John’s, NL), Fort Anne (Port Royal, NS) and Anne of Green Gables’ House (Cavendish, PEI), I take hundreds of pictures. You just never know when you can use unique one for the cover of a book…like those mushrooms above.

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by Diane Tibert on June 22, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in My Indie Publishing Experience, Writing Business
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Posted by Diane Tibert on June 22, 2012

http://dianetibert.com/2012/06/22/stock-photography-should-you-use-it-for-your-book-cover/

Do readers care if you’re traditionally or independently published?

Diane Lynn McGyverThe debate rages on. Which is better? Being published by a traditional company or publishing your own work?

Your answer will depend on where you are in your publishing career.

Many times, travellers on one route are looking down at the other, but there’s no reason for this. We’re all in this together, and one path is right for some while the other trail is right for others.

Unfortunately, mud-slinging has become a popular sport these days between publishers (large and independent) and between authors (both traditionally published and self-published).

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by Diane Tibert on June 17, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in My Indie Publishing Experience, Writing Business
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Posted by Diane Tibert on June 17, 2012

http://dianetibert.com/2012/06/17/do-readers-care-if-youre-traditionally-or-independently-published/

Use Other Blogs to Improve Your Blog

Diane Lynn McGyverI’m in the middle of a revision, but I’m not talking about a novel…well, that’s happening, too, but that’s not the topic for this post. Since I had a review of my Writer~Dreamer~Publisher blog, I’ve been implementing many of the suggestions to make it more user-friendly, less cluttered and…more popular.

This is why readers—the ones before the major overhaul—have noticed the change; it was recommended by a reviewer. My hope is that new visitors will be able to find what they need faster, getting them in touch with the information they want without searching through more than a year’s worth of blog posts.

As I implement these changes, I’m also on the look-out for other things to improve my blog. I do this by taking note of how other people—writers in particular—set up their blog and websites (which sometimes don’t look like blogs but are the cover for them). If I like it, and it fits my theme and it makes a reader’s visit more enjoyable, I add it.

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by Diane Tibert on June 15, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Diane Tibert on June 15, 2012

http://dianetibert.com/2012/06/15/use-other-blogs-to-improve-your-blog/

Writing a Back Cover Blurb

In all honesty, writing a blurb for the back cover should be the fun part of creating a novel. We get to be splashy, to the point, mysterious and brief. But often, writing a blurb—a summary for a book—becomes an anxious time for a writer. How can they dramatically and effectively tell their story (without giving away the ending) in two hundred words?

Don’t sweat it. You can do it. And there’s a formula to help you.

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19 Comments
by Diane Tibert on June 11, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Diane Tibert on June 11, 2012

http://dianetibert.com/2012/06/11/writing-a-back-cover-blurb/

Writing an Author Biography

I recall the first time an editor asked me to write a byline for a magazine article. It was a frantic time. What could I say about myself in a few short lines?

After much thought, frustration and drafts, I came up with something like this: Diane Lynn Tibert is a freelance writer living in central Nova Scotia.

I know…pretty boring. I honestly didn’t know how to write a byline or create a biography. From the examples I seen in current newspapers (this was 1998), most of them were this simple. Being new to publishing, I was a little weary of being too different from the rest.

After having a few articles published, I added another line: Her work has appeared in Saltscapes, Canadian Gardening and East Coast Gardener.

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14 Comments
by Diane Tibert on May 14, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Diane Tibert on May 14, 2012

http://dianetibert.com/2012/05/14/writing-an-author-biography/

Front and Back Matter Matters

Front Matter

The front matter of a book is the material on the pages between the front cover and the first word of the novel. It contains the title page, the table of contents (if there is one), the copyright and publishing information and the dedication.

The title page contains (The minimum a title page should contain is the title of the book and name of author):

…Book Title

…Book Subtitle (if there is one)

…Name of Author

…Publisher

…Place/Year published

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by Diane Tibert on May 7, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Diane Tibert on May 7, 2012

http://dianetibert.com/2012/05/07/front-and-back-matter-matters/

Calculating the Price of Ebooks

The publishing world is changing quickly, making it difficult for authors and publishers to accurately judge the value of an electronic book. When ebooks first became available, there were no numbers to crunch to calculate their price. Should they go for free because they’re not permanent (in the same sense as a printed copy), or should they be priced the same as their paper counterparts?

Now with several years of ebooks behind us, a general pricing by publishers is taking shape. It’s aided by the facts more readers have devices to read ebooks and ebooks are becoming more popular. Have you looked at the price of the ebook version of the recent paperback you just bought? I did. The paper copy cost about $15.00 whereas the ebook cost $10.99.

Browsing Chapters online, I found many ebooks selling for more than ten dollars, some more than $30. Wow. I never thought electronic books would sell for so much, but then, this is a whole new world for books, authors and publishers. They—we—are learning as we go.

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3 Comments
by Diane Tibert on May 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Diane Tibert on May 3, 2012

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