This post was first published here on November 27, 2013. Prior to the invention of the Internet, writers holed up in their attics, alone and palely scribbling, fantasizing about an elusive publishing contract. They spent sunny afternoons deep in the bowels of libraries flipping through the card catalog and paging through thick reference books. Scribes developed callouses on their fingers. They sported perpetual ink stains from writing draft after draft on paper they wadded and tossed in bins. They longed for someone, anyone, to talk to about their passion. They were isolated introverts with impossible dreams, often in desperate need of a critique group or at least someone to help with plot snags or elusive titles. Then some smarty pants invented the electric typewriter, which led to the personal computer, which led to the Internet. Writers were able to research from the comfort of their living rooms while still in their bathrobes. They could draft and revise a hundred ti...

At my age, I often get hit by nostalgia. I remember the way things used to be. That can be good or bad, depending on my mood and what triggers a memory. I miss the people who are no longer with me. I remember past events, sometimes with joy, other times with sadness. Also, I remember when printed books were the norm and e-books were a fledgeling child, struggling to gain recognition. When my first two books, the mystery, Two Wrongs and romantic comedy, Girl of My Dreams , came out in e-book and print form through the publisher, Hard Shell Word Factory, I hardly paid much attention to the e-book editions. The major consensus of the reading public was a real book had to be on paper, which readers could smell and feel, and delight in seeing the cover and turning the pages. Well, in the past few years, that attitude has significantly changed. Multitudes of readers have gravitated toward e-books, instead of the printed format, and their numbers appear to be growing. E-books do ha...

It's September, which signals the final phase of summer. Summer used to be the time of entertaining kids and finding ways to keep them busy. Instead of focusing on kids, this summer I've been focusing on writing and publishing. I have three non-fiction books out with a publisher. Earlier this summer I decided to do an e-book. To do that, I set up my own company, High Canyon Books. At this point, the company has only one client, me.  Angel Sometimes is now available as an e-book on Amazon. My plan is to next get it ready for printing. Then I'll work on putting it up on other sites via Smashwords. You may take a different path. I have a good friend who went print first, then Amazon. She has been a wonderful mentor and learning partner. You can check out her book on Amazon. I've hired a publicist to help once it's out in print. I keep using the word "I", but I've had a lot of help from friends, both online and in the real world.  If you'r...

In a world wherein so much appears to be bizarre, insane, and beyond rational explanation, Secret Agent Reginald Dipwipple knows the insider truth: the world is incredibly incompetent. This is the world he operates in, fighting the good fight against terrorists just trying to make a living through mass intimidation. It is a world wherein words are weapons when they contain too many syllables. A world wherein computers have personality, geeks are cosmopolitan, and blondes are smart enough to deceive. A world of acronyms utterly indecipherable to the uninitiated: HUMINT, MASINT, GUTTER, USSR. A world where crises cause comedy. With today’s language, is it any wonder crisis happens? Who can understand what anyone is really saying? I ask you. I downloaded this book to my Kindle because the topic really resonates with me. Click here to read more about Tongue-tied With Stomach Knots . This month at the Blood-Red Pencil we take a look at changing language in many areas of our lives, fro...

Thank you to Dani for inviting me to talk about my self-publishing experience. Going the self-pub route had not been my original choice. I had what I thought was an awesome idea for a young adult novel—two kids realize they’ve been living inside To Kill a Mockingbird for the past five years, and they undertake an adventure through great literature to find their real home and parents—and I wrote it. My agent loved it, I mean dropped the “F” bomb on the phone with me she loved it so much, but she couldn’t find a home for it. Publishers gave us positive feedback but said that ultimately, they couldn’t sell teenagers on classic literature. Now, I’ve traditionally published seven mysteries, with the eighth coming out in October. I also serve on the national board of the Mystery Writers of America. I’ve got some hard-earned publishing knowledge, and I’d been hearing the same buzz as everyone else: self-publishing is big. It’s huge. It’s the future. You can write a book and quit your job c...

By Dani Greer, Chief Red Pencil It hasn't been very long since the traditional publishing model meant printing a hardcover edition of a new book, then following that with a low-cost paperback edition, and maybe, if the publisher was really sharp, making an e-book available on the heels of print. In today's rapidly changing publishing environment, all three versions of the book are usually published simultaneously, or at least within very narrow time-frames. This gives readers all the options quickly, and multiplies the opportunities for sales. In the past year, a growing number of publishers have started printing new titles in only e-book version first, presumably capitalizing on the success of indie authors who have discovered the potential of feeding the e-reader market. Later, if e-book sales proved successful, the door might remain open for a print run, particularly if libraries and schools demanded the title for their shelves. But fast disappearing are the days of larg...

In the case of e-books, Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a type of technology, also known as a digital lock, employed by publishers to control how an e-book is used after it has been purchased. But digital copy protection has been around in software and gaming circles for much longer than in the publishing industry, and it is from these sectors that the greatest criticisms, and lessons learnt, can be found. Firstly, the point of DRM (and the benefits of using it) is to protect your e-book from unauthorised sharing, copying, or resale – in other words, it protects your copyright. Or does it? According to critics who have been through the same issue in the gaming and other software industries, DRM is ridiculously easy to crack (i.e. hacking for negative purposes), and is also a target for crackers who enjoy the (albeit apparently slight) challenge of disabling a digital lock . The worse news, however, is that once the digital lock on your book has been cracked the file is usually ...

Susan Malone is our guest today sharing some great tips for converting books for reading on electronic devices. So this month we’re talking about technology, and everyone who knows me would hoot about me writing on the topic.  Being your basic neo-Luddite, I’m lucky to get my Word program going without glitches!  But one of the wonderful things about being in this business so long, is knowing exactly who to call in for help. Doris Booth, CEO of Authorlink , constantly stays on the cutting edge of technology, specifically technology that applies to books of all sorts. While we were both speaking at the Harriett Austin Writer’s Conference at the University of Georgia last year, I had the pleasure of attending her session on e-book conversions.  Most of it of course was like Russian to me, but a few points really caught my attention.  So I contacted her again to get the scoop of what writers truly need to know before diving into that vast sea.  First off, do be ...

The Corner Cafe: A Tasty Collection of Short Stories is free to download this weekend. The Blood-Red Pencil bloggers who have stories in this e-book would love it if you downloaded the book, and shared your comments at the review page on Amazon. Help us reach #1 at Amazon! Here's the link: http://www.amzn.to/Cornercafe Thank you~

Ever since the e-book revolution began, the price of the books has generated significant debates. Should an author price the book low - perhaps $0.99 - to take advantage of all the bargain hunters, or does that devalue the book. If it is only a dollar, it must not be any good; or certainly not as good as one priced a bit higher. That type of mindset is nothing new. People have been associating quality and value to higher priced items since forever. There is a reason that Roman royalty wore all that gold and jewels. It told everyone how important and powerful these people who could afford such luxuries were. What is interesting with e-publishing, especially for those going indie, is the impact that lowering the price of a book can have, or even offering it free for a short time. Last year in March, I offered my suspense novel, One Small Victory , as a free read for a week to celebrate Read an E-Book Week. It had over 30,000 downloads and made it to the top ten on a number of best-se...

Our once-a-month guest, Terry Odell has some great reasons for going indie. Thanks Terry. Be sure to stop by next week to hear from Morgan Mandel, who also embraces indie publishing in a big way. Indie publishing is, according to Angela James, Carina Press editor, "the new black." Although I've never been much for fashion, this is one trend I'm happy to follow. Of my nine novels, I've indie-published eight titles. Only two of them would qualify as indie books, since the other five are back list titles, previously released by several different publishers. However, since the rights have reverted to me, they're now mine. And number nine will be on its way this summer. Indie publishing creates new opportunities for authors. Why did I decide to go indie with mine? Each one had its own reasons. 1. Blurred genre lines . When I tried the traditional route with my mystery, Deadly Secrets , the comments I got included things like, "great writing, great voic...

More and more writers are opting out of publishing via the traditional route: author to agent to publisher to reader. They’re now cutting out the agent and publisher steps and going straight from author to reader. Doing that means authors will have to take on more of the work themselves. Some may opt to hire experts to help: an editor, someone to lay out the book, a cover artist, a printer to produce the book. Even if the writer plans to go straight to e-books and bypass print books, there is still much to do: the layout of the book, a cover artist, an editor, and learning how to create an ebook. And in either case, the author must be prepared to promote the book. On a listserv I follow there’s been a lot of talk about Kindle and raising your stats and sales by offering one book for free. For many authors, that seems to be working. If you don’t have a backlist, it doesn’t work as well, though. So, how do you promote? The same way authors have always promoted. Book tours help. The...

If you follow The Blood-Red Pencil, chances are you recognize the name Morgan Mandel. She posts here. I thought, this being the month of love, I’d ask her about writing love. How does love play a role in your latest book, Forever Young: Blessing or Curse ? The heroine, Dorrie Donato, already knows how to love, as evidenced by her strong feelings for her husband, Larry, and her devastation when he dies. She not only recalls the physical bond they shared, but also how they connected on so many other levels. When he’s gone from her life, she feels the loss immensely. She also experiences other forms of love—that for her mother, and her best friend. Another central character, Roman Remington aka The Angel Man, dubbed so because of his hunky blond-haired, blue-eyed angelic appearance, has never known love. He finds it hard to imagine the concept. His homelife was less than idyllic, with his father running out on his mother, and his mother showing no warmth for her son. Through i...

It’s great to be back on Blood-Red Pencil as a guest. For the last year as a full-time novelist, I’ve been focused on writing, publishing, and promoting. When my fiction readers started commenting about how much they enjoyed my blog and my nonfiction articles, I took notice and added a few ideas to my to-do list. After mulling it around, I decided to combine the best of my nonfiction—including all the blogs I wrote about my journey to become a full-time novelist—into a book. I thought my readers would enjoy getting to know more about me, and authors would find the writing, editing, and promotion advice helpful and inspiring. Most of the blogs I wrote for this site while I was a member were included as well. The title was easy. I named the book after my blog and personal motto, Write First, Clean Later . I adopted the slogan in early 2008 when I was laid off my editing job with an educational publisher. Since then, I’ve penned five novels and published eight, in addition to writing hu...

In keeping with our August theme of  "Back to School",  I thought I would offer some tips for those wanting to learn more about publishing and marketing e-books. This post is not going to be about how to format a book for the Kindle and other reading devices. Nor is it going to go into the details of editing and design and cover art - although all three are important and an author would be wise to make sure all three are professionally done. There are a number of resources available to take an author through those processes.   The ABCs of e-book format conversion: Easy Calibre tips for the Kindle, Sony and Nook By John Schember     How to Publish Your Own Amazon Kindle Ebook By Tony Bradley, PCWorld Or you can go directly to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) which also has information about CreateSpace for self-pubbing books in trade paperback.  For Barnes and Noble, their publishing arm is PubIt, and there are easy directions for forma...

We live in the days of Kindle. There's no denying that e-book readers have much to offer; users can carry thousands of books around with them. Cost of production is virtually eradicated. And the trees saved…well, as I said, there are many good reasons to invest in an e-book reader, and use it regularly. But here's another thing. The most popular e-book readers--like Kindle--don't support graphics. Users are offered a few simple type options, and a range of sizes, and that's pretty much it. The thinking is that this reduces file size, I think, and is supposed to enhance reading efficiency. It also strips books of their visual elements--their illustrations, their page layouts, and their font stylings. Does this matter? Well, yes. Quick now, which of these words is the "holiest?" Which of these was written by someone in tie-dye and a medallion, which by someone wearing barrettes, and which by men laying the foundations of a nation? A book's design--...

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...

By Brenna Lyons, guest blogger from EPIC (Electronic Publishing Internet Coalition) A lot of readers state that e-books should be sold for pennies, “because the money preparing the book was already spent on the print release and there is no physical printing and shipping involved.” In their mindset, that means there are no additional costs to preparing the e-book for sale, and therefore, a book should cost little or nothing in e-book. There are a lot of holes in this theory. For one thing, not all publishing ventures produce the print version first. Most indie presses either produce the e-book version first or the two concurrently. Even in NY conglomerate, lines like Carina Press and Spice Briefs (both Harlequin ventures) produce only the e-book version. If there is print, it will come later. That means the costs of producing the book fall solely or primarily on the -ebook version. Assuming the print version was indeed produced first, this line of thought disregards the fact t...