Indexing – Plan to Do-It-Yourself?

If you are not an indexer, I beg you – don’t try to index your own book – even if you do have a PhD! Yes, you know your subject better than anyone else. After all you’ve written a book about it. Yes, you are just as intelligent as any indexer. But do you know how to index a book? “But why not?” you ask. “Because indexing is an art”. The importance of failure...

Largest Libraries of the Future

We’ve seen The Littlest Libraries of the Future. Now, what do the largest libraries look like? And what will changes they’re making mean for books? Check out this short video from Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago. Careful! One glimpse of these new-fangled library stacks may give you vertigo! The Mansueto library in Chicago houses three and a half million books...

Littlest Libraries of the Future

About two years ago, a “Free Bookstore” opened near me. Needless to say, I’ve been there even more often than to my local library. This year there’s a new trend. When my college alumni magazine, “On Wisconsin,” arrived this winter it contained an article titled “It’s a Mailbox…It’s a Bird House…No, Wait, It’s a...

The Invisible Publishers – Small Presses

Small presses are not new, at least not small presses devoted to print books. Nor are they “vanity” presses. The small press and little magazine publisher has always been around for the “literati” – those artists, intellectuals, and just plain “punks” who had something significant to say that mainstream culture had little or no interest in....

What Happened to Karen’s $100,000 Advance?

I know a successful author who got a $100,000 advance from a New York publisher, but ended up in the hole! She had self-published a previous book, but she was making no money on it because of storage costs. Now she has brand-new options that didn’t exist five years ago. Here is her experience and how I helped her learn about better options for her book. Karen’s story Karen knew...