Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sometimes self-publishing authors are advised that they need to purchase a Standard Address Number (SAN) for their book released in the United States. Be wary of such advice, especially if it comes from a salesperson. A SAN is a seven-digit identifier used to identify an address, usually for a publisher or an associated company, such asContinue reading “No Need to Purchase SAN for Self-Published Book”

A great way to promote your book by reducing your workload is letting others guest blog on your site. Hosting a guest blogger offers a couple of benefits to your site. Most obviously, it frees you from having to come up with another blog entry. More importantly, though, it exposes others to your blog and website, as theContinue reading “Promote your book by hosting guest bloggers”

Since writers are close to their work – the universe for the story that is in a writer’s head always is larger than the universe for the story that is on paper – they often may not recognize that a passage needs to be revised. Because of this, a troubled paragraph or chapter may go unrecognizedContinue reading “I Refuse to Give Up on My Writing Because I Haven’t Explored Every Possible Way to Revise It”

Many writers don’t enjoy promoting, or “marketing” their books. Besides being antithetical to the artistry of writing, promotion is time consuming, reducing the number of hours available to write. Of course, for self-published writers, marketing is essential to ensure their book sells. Without some promotion, their title likely is to be lost among the more thanContinue reading “Contemplating Concerns Over Marketing Your Book”

When self-publishing an ebook, you’ll likely run into a couple of terms about the “format” that your manuscript must appear in, specifically terms like EPUB and MOBI. While you need not be too concerned about how to create documents in either format, knowing the difference between the two can help you better understand the ebook creationContinue reading “Lone Ebook Format Dominates Industry”

To make a story more compelling, consider structuring it around an internal flaw in the main character. An internal flaw is some personal trait that makes a character less than perfect – perhaps being quick to anger, possibly suffering from jealousy or envy, maybe believing his outlook on the world is the only correct one. AsContinue reading “Center on internal flaw for compelling story”

One of the big problems with ereaders is that they lack the ability to translate fancy symbols used to make bulleted lists in Microsoft Word. The result is that a bullet point ends up being a letter or set of numbers, which looks unprofessional and can confuse readers. The first rule to follow is to neverContinue reading “How to Create Bulleted Lists in Ebooks”

When promoting your self-published book, the social media tool LinkedIn ought to play an important role in the marketing strategy. Further, knowing when to post can maximize your efforts. According to a number of studies, the best time to post on LinkedIn is Tuesdays through Thursdays, either at noon or at 5-6 p.m. Of course, theseContinue reading “Best time to post on LinkedIn”

One of the elements of a self-published book that shouldn’t be overlooked is the author’s photograph. While the photo often is a thumbnail or even smaller, it can subtly affect a reader’s decision to purchase your book. A blurry or a pixelated photo suggests (rightly or wrongly) that the rest of the book is unprofessional; aContinue reading “Pay attention to your author’s bio pic”

You may have noticed during the past few weeks the written version of this blog has posted ideas for science fiction stories based on novums – inventions or hypothetical concepts that SF writers inject in their tales to show how such an imagined world might differ from ours. The novum might be an mechanical device likeContinue reading “How to build a story from a SF novum”