Latest News in the Indie World - January 27 2014

Let's see a show of hands who is tired of all this winter crap?  I have never seen it this cold.  I would give anything for a day with above freezing temperatures. 

What's the latest news in the world of Indies?

Theresa Ragan, author of Taming the Mad Max, was interviewed at GoodBooksToday.com about how she sold over 800,000 books. What I find interesting about this interview - several things actually - is the fact that she tells us not to put a lot into promotional efforts until you have 3 other books published.  I was on the fence about that until I reread what she said and the key phrase is "a lot" of promotional effort.  I'm not sure what she means by a lot and I figure she means money-wise figuring it'll take three or four books out until you see some decent sales.  What I also find interesting is the reasoning behind this.  If you have more than one book out there, the promotions going into the recent book will help those on the back list so that makes sense.

If you are self-pubbed, do you still need a professional editor?  Let me tell you, I have the best editor ever.  Her name is Cheryl Malandrinos and if ever you are in the market for an editor, let me know and I will put you in touch with her because she is the cream of the crop.  I would send her chapters after I had done my best going over it and over it and still she sent me back a pageful of edits.  And have I learned anything from the experience?  Omg I wish I could count the ways.  Grammar, character development, you name it.  I found a video that explains the value of a professional editor.



Now this last one talks about the illusions of traditional publishing and goes into briefly about hybrid publishing.  Hybrid publishing is where you are not only published traditional, but self-published as well.  Gotta love Bob Mayer.  In this article, he tells it like it is. "Where does all this lead?  To a place in the middle.  With small, agile, hybrid publishers that focus on the content producer (writers) and the content consumers (readers), while working with the distribution channels and focusing on discoverability. Most importantly, where the creator of product and the consumer of the product are placed foremost, not the middle-men."