By Scott King Writing book descriptions sucks, but it doesn’t have to be hard. If you can write a whole dang novel, you have it in you to write a quick, simple description for a back cover, a pitch, or online stores. Book descriptions are a marketing tool to sell your books and establish reader […]

By William C. Tracy Congrats! You’re an indie author! You’ve written a book, (hopefully) had critiques and edited it, put it all together, and thrown it up on Amazon. Time to watch the money roll in, right? Well, not exactly. Amazon books don’t sell themselves. Especially in these waning years of the golden indie author […]

by Rachel A. Rosen It’s a good time to be Weird. There’s a plethora of new titles and an explosion of microgenres targeted to specific tastes. Looking for post-capitalist solarpunk utopias? Poetic meditations on fungi? They’re out there. And the traditional publishing industry is—agonizingly slowly—platforming BIPOC, queer, and trans creators with unique lenses on our […]

by J. Scott Coatsworth In the middle of 2022, I broke my arm. And not just a simple fracture—my orthopedic surgeon said it looked like it had exploded. Thus began a difficult (and still in progress) recovery. I won’t go into the gory details—suffice it to say that for about six weeks, I was unable […]

By Anthony W. Eichenlaub Your time has value. That’s it. That’s the lesson. If you’re looking to save a few minutes, you can skip the rest of this article and just keep that one thought in mind. Your minutes have worth, and how you spend them is as important as how you spend your money. […]

by Colin Alexander Almost by definition, writers love to write. We also tend to fall in love with our words. What we put on the page paints the exact picture of the idea we have in our minds, and all of our readers will see the same.  It could not be done any better. This […]

By Kelly McClymer Do you dream of seeing your indie book in your local library catalog? You are not alone. Many a traditionally published author shares your dream. Here are a few hard facts: Libraries generally purchase hardback library editions (volumes that have had the spines reinforced to hold up for multiple reads). Shelf space […]

By Scott King ‘Tis the season for selling. No matter your holiday affiliations, now is the time to be selling books, so let’s recap what you can do to help boost sales this holiday season. Start with your cover. It needs to be the best you can afford to appeal to your target demographic, and […]

By Anthony W. Eichenlaub Whether it’s the one-two punch of a duology or the sprawling epic of multiple loosely connected trilogies, there is no doubt that science fiction and fantasy readers love series. For an author, series can be amazing. Good sales on the first book can lead to good sales on the second, third, […]

by Kelly McClymer Your book is finally for sale after all your hard work getting it ready. You love your cover (or you don’t). But the sales aren’t where you thought they would be. Or your reviews mention the book didn’t meet their initial expectations.  Now come the questions: Is my book bad? Is my […]