0. Recommended Books
-
"Becoming a Writer" by Dorothea Brande https://goo.gl/gpVap0
-
“Wake Up and Live” by Dorothea Brande
https://goo.gl/TyZ0hJ -
"On Writing" by Stephen King http://amzn.com/B000FC0SIM/
-
"Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White http://amzn.com/0205313426/
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"Building Your Book for Kindle" by Kindle Direct Publishing http://amzn.com/B007URVZJ6/
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"Lulu Content Creation Guide" by Lulu Press Inc. https://goo.gl/GjkNZ
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"Smashwords Style Guide" by Mark Coker http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52
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“Content, Inc.” by Joe Pulizzi http://amzon.com/B0141KT528
-
“From 2,000 to 5,000” by Rachel Aaron (http://amzn.com/B009NKXAWS )
-
“Story Grid” by Shawn Coyne
(http://amzn.com/B00WT7TP8A) -
“Reader Magnets” by Nick Stephenson (http://amzn.com/B00PCKIJ4C)
1. Writing Links:
A Plot Grid - http://calm.li/plotgrid
Table of Story Structures by Robert Carlson -
http://calm.li/storygridpix
Vonnegut's Shapes of Stories -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ
Six Emotional Story Arcs -
http://calm.li/sixplotarcs
Blake Snyder's “Save the Cat” -
https://goo.gl/99Piad
https://goo.gl/99Piad
Smashwords’ Mark Coker Annual Reports -
http://blog.smashwords.com/2016/04/2016survey-how-to-publish-and-sell-ebooks.html
Author Earnings 2016 Report -
http://authorearnings.com/report/may-2016-report/
Author Earnings Romance Report -
http://authorearnings.com/2016-rwa-pan-presentation/
Lester Dent’s Master Fiction Plot -
http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html
ProWritingAid – http://prowritingaid.eom
for all your line-editing needs.
2. Publishing Links
Print on Demand Publishers
As mentioned, you can get these produced more
cheaply through a short-run printer, but will have a higher cost and
a lot more books to sell. Print on Demand books never go out of
print, though. And you won't pay shipping (both ways) to keep your
book in stores.
Lulu.com - www.lulu.com/create/books
- tells you their printing costs.
Createspace.com (owned by Amazon) -
https://www.createspace.com/Products/Book/#content6
- tells you their printing costs. Basically a cut-rate way to get
your paperback into Amazon. Distribution is iffy and cuts into
royalties. Publishing through Amazon makes you subject to their
limits and qualifications of what you can publish there.
Lulu.com vs Createspace.com costs -
http://www.lugaru.com/lulucalc.html
This site gives you a comparison between the two. A little dated,
but looks fairly accurate.
You can also publish your book on each of these
partially to get to their pricing calculators - but the above link
gives you a roughly accurate idea.
IngramSpark - http://www.ingramspark.com/
Annual fees to maintain your Ingram connection and
also fees to revise your book (which neither Lulu nor Createspace
have.)
Lightning Source -
https://www.lightningsource.com/shippingcalc.aspx
A bit involved as a high-end POD publisher - also
gets into Ingram’s system. Compare their prices in bulk to CS and
Lulu.
3. Other Useful Links for Publishing
The Catalog Block - what you have on your
copyright page to get into libraries and wholesalers:
www.dgiinc.com/pcip/
Blogger.com –
every author should keep a blog. JA Konrath uses only this. No
maintenance overhead, no security worries.
4. Bibliography
"Becoming
a Writer" by Dorothea Brande
https://goo.gl/gpVap0
“Wake
Up and Live” by Dorothea Brande
https://goo.gl/TyZ0hJ
"On
Writing" by Stephen King https://goo.gl/tVAiKj
"Elements
of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
https://goo.gl/4GvE2s
"Building
Your Book for Kindle" by Kindle Direct Publishing
https://goo.gl/pckcDe
"Lulu
Content Creation Guide"
by Lulu Press Inc. https://goo.gl/GjkNZ
"Smashwords
Style Guide"
by Mark Coker http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52
"An
Open Office Guide to Publishing on Smashwords"
by Gregory Scott http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/252868
“Content,
Inc.” by Joe Pulizzi https://goo.gl/yLYAyK
“From
2,000 to 5,000” by Rachel Aaron
(https://goo.gl/vXuuEK )
“Reader
Magnets” by Nick Stephenson (https://goo.gl/KZ7EXs)
5. Additional References:
Formatting guides:
-
Cover sizes article - Mark Coker, Smashwords (https://goo.gl/ECEWV)
6. Key tip:
"Regardless of how they appear on the cover, title and subtitle must be correctly capitalized. The first letter of all words in the title and subtitle should be capitalized, except for the following words: a, an, and, for, from, of, or, the, to. The first and last word of the title and subtitle should always be capitalized."
Video: How to publish a book on Linux or
Windows – at no cost - https://youtu.be/90wJf1pmi-8
7. Get Scam Free
Visit this page for free education on scammers and
how to handle them: http://livesensical.com/scamfree/
(No opt-in required.)
8. Free tools
These three are all I use to publish my books.
They run on every commonly-known platform.
-
LibreOffice (a version of Openoffice) - reads and can save as Word documents. (http://www.libreoffice.org/download/)
-
Calibre – builds a library for your ebooks and holds metadata (http://calibre-ebook.com/download)
-
GIMP – to make covers. (http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)
Recording and editing your own audio (for
books, etc.)
9. Paid Tools
KDPRocket – to help you find the best
choice of keywords in your chosen genre (among other things.)
https://kdprocket.com/
KindleSpy – a nice in-browser tool to
help you see exactly what the competition is doing and download
spreadsheet-ready data (among other things.) http://www.kdspy.com/
10. Recommended Courses
Kindling by Geoff Shaw.
http://www.5minutepublishing.com/kindling/
Use “kdspy” as discount code
Nick Stephenson's Your First 10000 Readers -
http://www.yourfirst10kreaders.com/
Mark Dawson's Facebook Advertising Course -
http://www.selfpublishingformula.com/
Geoff Shaw’s Reverse Engineering Riveting
Fiction & Write Best Selling Books -
https://www.udemy.com/reverse-engineer-riveting-fiction-write-best-selling-books/
Geoff Shaw’s How to Succeed with Kindle Short
Reads -
https://www.udemy.com/how-to-succeed-with-kindle-short-reads/
Author Academy http://theauthoracademy.com
11. Related Sites:
Kindlepreneur.com
by Dave Chessom (http://kindlepreneur.com/)
Author
Marketing Club
by Jim Kukral (http://authormarketingclub.com/members/about/)