Contemplating my mortality and being obsessively organized, I have given considerable thought to what happens when I die. Having dealt with our parents’ deaths has reinforced the need to think about the logistics of dismantling the detritus of a lifetime. There are special matters that must be addressed upon a writer’s death. If you are a traditionally published writer, you have a contract with a publisher and an agent. In the digital age and with self-publishing, the list is a little longer. 1) How will your outstanding royalties be paid? Are they paid into a business account or a personal account? Will that account be closed? If the payments are direct deposited, the executor of your will must change the bank account information for payments. If the account belongs to a corporation that will remain intact, the payments can continue as is. 2) Who will you give access? If you self-publish, make certain you leave instructions as well as your sign-on and passwords fo...

At a writers' group the other evening, the question came up of Smashwords versus Amazon's Kindle store as places to post one's writing. As a Libra, I was happy to tell them it isn't an either/or question. I've self-published three collections of short stories, and I put them up at Smashwords AND Amazon. Here's why: A lot of people look no further than Amazon for their e-reading material, so it's a good idea to place your work there. Amazon has applications (apps) for most, if not all, reading devices including Kindle for PC, which emulates a Kindle reader on a regular computer screen. The downside is, self-published authors cannot, at this time, issue discount coupons or offer their books for free at Amazon. Smashwords will format what you upload to them and offer it for a multitude of reading devices, including the Kindle. If you're very careful with formatting your master document, you can choose to send your book through a variety of sales c...

With Borders getting into the act, there will soon be four platforms on which authors can self-publish e-books directly to readers. I summarized them for comparison and thought I would share my findings. Amazon: Digital Text Platform This venture has been around the longest, has a reported 76% of e-book sales, and publishes content directly to the Kindle bookstore. Authors can upload a Word, html, or PDF file, which Amazon reformats as mobi file. Or authors can create their own mobi files to upload. The latest requirement is that files have active TOCs. For books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, Amazon pays a 70% royalty. For everything else, it pays 35% of the list price. Authors can price their books however they want, but Amazon reserves the right to discount the book. To be in compliance with the 70% agreement, authors can’t sell their e-book cheaper anywhere else. Amazon pays monthly and deposits royalties directly into the author’s bank account. Most DTP e-books are purchas...