Pinterest: the next Facbook or Twitter?

The photo sharing website has garnered 12 million followers in under a year. How this works – you ‘pin’ a picture of something you like you to your page. You can repin or like, share via Facebook, twitter, and so on.

Potential uses for Pinterest: if you have a great recipe you want shared, take a great picture of it. Works for travel agents as well.

How it might help writers: the cover of your book gets shared, building a buzz around your book. Worth a try, imo.

http://pinterest.com

Amazon: Support International Authors!

Sarah Billington from Melbourne, Australia is petitioning Amazon.com to pay international authors by PayPal instead of international cheques (checks in American English) because the banking fees are cutting into royalties. She’s shooting for 10,000 signatures, has about 292. Help her (and us) out – share this on FaceBook, your blogs, tweet.  And sign her petition. Click here for details.

Too Short to Be A Novel, Too Long to be a Short Story

If you write fiction but it is too long to be a short story, and too short to be a novel, what’s a writer to do?

You take advantage of Kindle Singles. The Globe and Mail has a story on how to go about this. Click here to check it out.

B&N Declares War on Amazon; Readers Tell Writer What to Write

I’ve not been posting as often as before mainly because I’m readying my book for publication. Hope to have out mid-March. Should any of you wish to write a review of my book (for which I’ll be extremely grateful — click here for the synopsis), feel free to ask for a complimentary copy. Now to more interesting matters.

Barnes & Noble will not stock books by Amazon Publishing, Amazon.com’s publishing imprint. Click here for the story.

According to an NPR story, and I quote:Dominque Raccah, CEO and publisher of Sourcebooks, is experimenting with the “agile publishing” model — which allows authors and readers to interact as the book is still being written.

“You really are publishing into a community already,” Raccah says. “So what you are going to be doing is developing that book in front of that community, having the community interact with the author to develop the book [and] provide feedback.”

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Not sure what I feel about this model.

KDP Select: Damnation or Salvation

Amazon’s KDP Select seems to inflame passions on both sides of the divide. There are authors who hate that Amazon forces on you a 90-day exclusivity clause (you have to have your book down from absolutely everywhere, including your own website), vs. those who’ve built name recognition and moved to the top of the heap.

Check out Carolyn McCray’s experience in Publishing Perspectives. Click here for the article.

Why I Chose to Decline Contract from a Mainstream Publisher

Before I declined the offer (more on this later), I talked to a few authors published by different mainstream publishers. They wrote good books which disappeared without a trace because they were not promoted like the big name authors. I decided to see what I could do on my own, so I’m self-publishing.

I know the word ‘self-publishing’ seems to imply that your work is sub-par.

But my unpublished manuscript was shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia prize for unpublished manuscripts.

And I’m paying for a professional edit of my book, I’ve commissioned a book cover, I’m paying a book formatter – in short, doing everything a mainstream publisher would do.

In addition I’ll be doing the promoting, which they might not do for a mid-list author like me. And I’m not closing the door on mainstream publishing – in fact my ‘almost-publisher’ and I parted on very good terms, with them being open to considering my next book.

I’ve embarked on a journey that is exhilarating, scary, probably unprecedented. Lets see where this takes me.

Click here for my guest post.

 

 

 

 

Barnes and Noble not to Stock Amazon Books

According to a Business Week article, Barnes and Noble has decided not to stock  books published by Amazon.com. The article, unfortuantely, does not discuss what happens to the hapless author while the two giants battle it out. Click here for the article.