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...

Agency Model? The Real Danger for Authors

On March 1, 2011, Random House, the last holdout against the Agency Model for pricing ebooksbooks, caved. Random House joined other publishers by paying a standard fee of 30% out of author royalties to the distributor(s) of its e-books. The Agency Model for pricing e-book fees was signed onto last year when Apple debuted it’s iPad, and Apple began charging 30% for distribution of e-books...

How to Make an Ebook Index – 5 Tips

Authors, these are five things you need to know. Why? Because the indexer you hire to make an index for your ebook may not know them. Ebook indexing is a brand new field with few practitioners. Because of the technology involved, ebook indexing is not the same as print book indexing. If you are not familiar with what an ebook index looks like, please see my post on WordmapsIndexing.com,...