My Self-Publishing Bookshelf

What good is it to have a blog if you can't share with the world your first granddaughter? She was born on labor day.

On the writing front my commitment to writing each day has been a failure. I did start the piece I hope to enter into the upcoming Writers Digest contest but just can't seem to find the time now that the school year has started. I will recommit myself starting tomorrow.

Years ago I picked up a book titled, Alone With All That Could Happen, but never got around to reading it. It has a collection of essays about the craft of writing. So far the book has been fantastic not only for me personally but also for new ideas in the classroom. Some sections go right along with what I've been telling the kids.

Last week I was not specific about the books I have read lately on the subject of marketing and self-publishing. I wasn't sure exactly what to say and wanted to take the week to reflect on the three titles. Plus my post was quite long. Anyway, the first book I read was titled, The Kindle Publishing Bible, by Tom Corson-Knowles. Good book with some great tips and ideas on the entire process of publishing and marketing. This is the author who suggests that the writer publish and make edits afterwards which was the only idea I disagreed with as I explained last week. This author has many different titles on the subject and I plan on using his ideas on the real techy stuff. I will be reading more of his titles and reporting to you at a later date.

The next book I read on the subject of self-publishing was titled,  This Book Will Fail: The Truth About a Self Publishing Industry in Denial. Noah Murphy, the author, seems to have a very negative view of the self-publishing industry. If you are contemplating suicide please DO NOT READ THIS BOOK! This man suffers from not understanding that it is necessary to be a professional in the publishing industry. The traditional publishing industry spent tons of money to build and create new authors and still there were times when, even with their platform, a new writer didn't take off. I felt this guy was more upset that he didn't just automatically become successful and on top of that didn't even seem to think he needed to do anything or spend any money to get there! Murphy lives in that world where everybody gets a trophy and we all deserve to win just cuz we tried real, real hard (even when we didn't!). I had to immediately start a new book, any book, just to keep from slitting my wrists after reading how depressing our future is. You may want to have large quantities of alcohol available if you decide to read this book.

The third book by Michael Thomas was, Amazon Kindle Sales Secrets Exposed! The 7 Tips Every Amazon Kindle Author Needs to Know (that Amazon DOESN’T want you to know!). This was another good title to read for anyone interested in self-publishing. These ideas will be useful and I plan on taking many of his marketing tips to heart. This book gets REAL techy with how to find out what internet sites are sending people to your book and how to track which ones become actual sales. Really cool information especially for since deciding on going the self-publishing route means you are in business for yourself.

My editor is working hard on the hope that I can enter my book into the self-publishing contest Writer's Digest has for ebooks. There's a good chance the deadline may not make this possible but I continue to pray each day for this opportunity. No matter what happens with the contest the book should be coming out soon. I have decided, at least at this very moment, that I will also come out with a paperback version of the book as well. After hours and hours of research it seems to make sense. For those of you who DO NOT have a kindle and still want to read it in ebook form remember that you can download the kindle app to almost any device. Click here to find out more information. My wife has the Kindle App on here tablet and reads a book just as easily as I do on my (and I LOVE it) Kindle Fire 8.9.

Until next week...

God Bless