TweetDigging for experts to guide us in the new worlds of self- and indie publishing I belatedly discovered some excellent resources. First, you can listen online to podcasts of three excellent panels on self-publishing presented at the Commonwealth Club of California in 2010:
Tutorials from the Trenches: 1. Options, Directions and Resources. What does it take to publish a book, and how do you choose which route to follow? Discover your options, from traditional to cooperative to true self-publishing, with industry experts who’ve done it themselves. (Lisa Alpine, Peter Beren, Carla King, and Paula Hendricks)
• 2. The Nuts and Bolts of Making Books. What does it take to publish a book, and how do you choose which route to follow? Discover your options, from traditional to cooperative to true self-publishing, with industry experts who’ve done it themselves. (Joel Friedlander, Lee Foster, V. Vale, Paula Hendricks)
• 3. Book Sales and Marketing. Bookstores are closing; newspaper book reviews are almost gone; and online options can be overwhelming. What’s an author or publisher to do? (Scott James, Elizabeth Block, Teresa LeYung Ryan, and Paula Hendricks)
(Click on the links to listen online; right click and save the mp3 file to your computer; or go to Joel Friedlander's site both to listen and to see the names and affiliations of those speaking (one of them being Joel, on whose site I discovered this series).
If you find it easier to read than to listen, check out MediaShift: Your Guide to the Digital Revolution, with PBS host Marc Glazer, which features a series of Carla King's articles about self-publishing, under the label BookShift. Here are the stories and when they appeared:
• Self-Publishing, Author Services Open Floodgates for Writers (3-1-10).
"Lisa Alpine, a member of my Wild Writing Women group, is a book-birthing coach and author of the upcoming anthology, "Exotic Life: Laughing Rivers, Dancing Drums and Tangled Hearts." She advises using Lulu or CreateSpace only for printing cheap proofs. "Proofs can cost up to $75 from print companies, but I upload my latest PDF to Lulu, click the print button, and get a copy of my latest experiment in the mail for under $10," she said. "It's an affordable way to learn, to play with the design, fonts, even the order of my stories."
• The Pitfalls of Using Self-Publishing Book Packagers (3-25-10)
• How to Pair Smashwords and Scribd for Ideal E-Book Strategy (Carla King, BookShift (5-3-10)
• Want Your Self-Published Book in Stores? Weigh the Options (6-10-10)
• 2010: The Year Self-Publishing Lost Its Stigma (12-29-10)
• The Advantages of Middleman Services for Self-Published e-Books (3-18-11)
• The Easiest, Cheapest, Fastest Way to Self-Publish Your Book (4-7-11, Carla King on using Smashwords to create your own eBook and CreateSpace to self-publish your own print book).
• Carla also speaks on the first of the three panels at the Commonwealth Club: Self-Publishing: Tutorials from the Trenches
I know. Way too much to take in.
Tutorials from the Trenches: 1. Options, Directions and Resources. What does it take to publish a book, and how do you choose which route to follow? Discover your options, from traditional to cooperative to true self-publishing, with industry experts who’ve done it themselves. (Lisa Alpine, Peter Beren, Carla King, and Paula Hendricks)
• 2. The Nuts and Bolts of Making Books. What does it take to publish a book, and how do you choose which route to follow? Discover your options, from traditional to cooperative to true self-publishing, with industry experts who’ve done it themselves. (Joel Friedlander, Lee Foster, V. Vale, Paula Hendricks)
• 3. Book Sales and Marketing. Bookstores are closing; newspaper book reviews are almost gone; and online options can be overwhelming. What’s an author or publisher to do? (Scott James, Elizabeth Block, Teresa LeYung Ryan, and Paula Hendricks)
(Click on the links to listen online; right click and save the mp3 file to your computer; or go to Joel Friedlander's site both to listen and to see the names and affiliations of those speaking (one of them being Joel, on whose site I discovered this series).
If you find it easier to read than to listen, check out MediaShift: Your Guide to the Digital Revolution, with PBS host Marc Glazer, which features a series of Carla King's articles about self-publishing, under the label BookShift. Here are the stories and when they appeared:
• Self-Publishing, Author Services Open Floodgates for Writers (3-1-10).
"Lisa Alpine, a member of my Wild Writing Women group, is a book-birthing coach and author of the upcoming anthology, "Exotic Life: Laughing Rivers, Dancing Drums and Tangled Hearts." She advises using Lulu or CreateSpace only for printing cheap proofs. "Proofs can cost up to $75 from print companies, but I upload my latest PDF to Lulu, click the print button, and get a copy of my latest experiment in the mail for under $10," she said. "It's an affordable way to learn, to play with the design, fonts, even the order of my stories."
• The Pitfalls of Using Self-Publishing Book Packagers (3-25-10)
• How to Pair Smashwords and Scribd for Ideal E-Book Strategy (Carla King, BookShift (5-3-10)
• Want Your Self-Published Book in Stores? Weigh the Options (6-10-10)
• 2010: The Year Self-Publishing Lost Its Stigma (12-29-10)
• The Advantages of Middleman Services for Self-Published e-Books (3-18-11)
• The Easiest, Cheapest, Fastest Way to Self-Publish Your Book (4-7-11, Carla King on using Smashwords to create your own eBook and CreateSpace to self-publish your own print book).
• Carla also speaks on the first of the three panels at the Commonwealth Club: Self-Publishing: Tutorials from the Trenches
I know. Way too much to take in.