Although Amanda Clay writes “genre fiction,” she agreed that most writing falls into one or more genres; so, the term is probably somewhat redundant. Asked about what she likes about writing romance suspense novels, Amanda cited putting her protagonists into difficult situations, creating villains, and human interaction. Amanda explained that a successful romantic subplot –
Read MoreBook Publishing
Blogging Books & Writing for Change with Nina Amir
Author Nina Amir was asked what has changed since the first edition of her book, How to Blog a Book, which is about writing a book and building a platform at the same time. Nina noted that Google is constantly changing its algorithms and requirements about indexing content. Consequently, the amount of content that needs
Read More
How and why to get book reviews
Carla King interview with Christopher Locke, Membership Liaison, IBPA Subjects covered The main subject of this episode is book reviews. IBPA prefers the term “author-publisher” because term “self-published” makes it sound as though au author do it all themselves; but, if they’re doing it right, they’re hiring people to help with the process. Trade reviews
Read More
Publishing in a Pandemic: Moving Forward with Both Traditionally- and Self-Published Books
by Aya de Leon When the shelter-in-place order hit Northern California, I was working on several different books. Two are with a commercial publisher and due out in December 2020 and fall 2021. Another was just about ready for my agent to shop. The other projects range from idea to outline to partial drafts to
Read MoreEmpowering Authors with Direct Marketing and Presales
Carla King interviews Smashwords, Mark Coker Subjects covered The biggest imperative for authors in 2020 is to build and own a marketing platform that they control. Retailers and social media platforms mediate the author/reader relationship, preventing direct interaction. A mailing list is essential for authors to have a direct relationship with their readers. While direct
Read More
Walter Mosley speaks on not picking a lane, fomenting change, and the publishing industry
Podcast Interview by Joey Garcia with guest Walter Mosley. When questioned about his thoughts on writers sometimes being told to “pick a lane and stay in it,” i.e., choose fiction or nonfiction—but not both—Mosley explained that notion is inherently a capitalist one. He added that even when artists are told that what they are working
Read More