Self Publishing

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Comment by Forrest Casey on May 27, 2013 at 5:04pm

The publishing world has changed dramatically...not only because of technology but because there are so many stories to tell (both fiction and non-fiction) in addition to the fact that people are more business savvy these days! Thank the heavens for self-publishing...because there are some excellent books out there from indie/self published authors..had these people followed the traditional methods of publishing...their works might have never been known! Always remember...the purpose in publishing a book is to have people read it and they can't read it if they do not know about it...so stay strong and continue...there are readers for every book!!!

Comment by Shari B (Hill) Yetto on April 28, 2013 at 8:58pm

My second book will be out soon. Just waiting for the editing then off to be printed. Blessed Be! Look for "Things Pagan's Should Know"

Comment by Neil Ostroff on March 21, 2013 at 12:12pm

The sacrifice

 

Spring is here and once again the oncoming nice weather will test my resolve to finish my latest novel. I find it especially difficult to keep focus when it’s a beautiful, sunny seventy-degree day outside. But as an artist I must ignore the temptation to enjoy the outside. When I am working on a first draft (as I’m doing now) I find that I can only concentrate on creating original material when I’m sitting at my desk. Something about that particular space and mindset unlocks my imagination greater than any other. In a way, I’m a slave to my own setting.

 

I have no problem revising second or third drafts from anywhere in the world; on plane, sitting on my deck, or being in a hotel room; but that first draft must always be written in this particular space. I guess it’s where my muse likes to hang out.

 

Despite a brief attack of writer’s block (my first ever), and several trips to the hospital (It’s all chronicled in my blog), the first book in my planned dystopian series is coming along. I reached 25,000 words yesterday which is just a few thousand less than I had planned in my timeline. The story is coming together well, the characters are shaping up nicely, and the futuristic setting is awesome. Now, if I only had a title for the work.

 

This is the first book I’ve ever started without having a title in mind. Perhaps, that’s because I have been thinking about the plot of this one for so long that the words and story came onto the page before I even had a solid idea of what to call it. I had a few titles in mind, but when I searched Amazon I found that there were already books that had those titles. As a writer, I highly recommend that you search Amazon so that your book title is unique in the world and therefore easier to find when googled. I’ll keep my thinking cap on until the right one hits me.

 

As I stare out my office window at the beautiful day I am going to be missing, I can’t help but wonder if all this sacrificing is worth it? Will I go to my deathbed regretting the time I spent writing rather than enjoying the wonders of nature? Will I grow old and angry that I didn’t take advantage of every nice day offered out to me? I don’t think so. For long after I’m gone my books will still be here and readers will be able to enjoy my stories. In a way, I’m sacrificing a few beautiful days to immortalize myself in the human condition.

 

So, I’ll lower the shades to keep sunlight from stinging my eyes and get down to the business of finishing this first draft. I may miss out on the day, but the joy I get typing away at my keyboard greatly offsets it.

 

My blog: http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

Comment by Neil Ostroff on March 8, 2013 at 1:40pm

The virtual bookshelf

There is a riding wave of enthusiasm and excitement among indie authors that finally, after centuries of struggle, we can now put our books out there on the virtual bookshelf for the world to see and for all eternity. What an incredible concept that a hundred years from now someone might happen upon one of my books and my characters would rise from the ashes of time and thrill a new reader. Or is it?

What is the likelihood that a future individual will happen upon one of my books? If you do the actual mathematics, it doesn’t seem likely.

Ebooks have only been around for a few years and their rise in popularity is growing at exceptional and exponential levels. When I first started publishing in the virtual world, getting my books noticed was as easy as posting descriptions on social networks and threads. If you were lucky enough to afford a promotion on a popular reader’s website, you could draw dozens if not hundreds of new sales. Ereaders were a novelty that the next generation had to have and ebooks were golden jewels.

Well, the reading population bought both books and devices, and they bought them by the millions. You would think that is a good thing for indie writers like me, having a new audience who have a lifetime to discover my works?

With the new wave of ereaders also comes a new wave of writers. Writers who have discovered how easy it is to publish a book and try to sell their work. Many of these indie books are coming onto the market too soon. In a rush to get published, many writers are neglecting the basics of grammar, and characterization, and the importance of details in the setting. These quickly written books are coming on the market raw and unreadable, and flooding it in the process. Many novice writers are spamming the once mighty reader’s websites giving the legitimate indie authors little exposure and the art form a tarnished reputation.

It is true that the virtual bookshelf will exist as long as humanity and the internet do, however, being discovered on that bookshelf is soon going to be like trying to find a specific grain of sand placed somewhere on the largest beach on Earth. What can possibly set apart the great writers from the wannabe’s: Marketing? Promoting? An incredible tale?

I believe the only saving grace for the gifted writer will be word-of-mouth. Only if you write a great story will absolute strangers tell other absolute strangers about it. Like all things great, it will rise above the garbage and shine like a diamond. And there will be a lot of garbage out there, I predict billions of books.

As I continue to see mediocre books flooding the market (many free or at a price insulting to the art form) I can only wonder how long it will be before I, too, drown in this oncoming sea of mediocrity. Writers whose works are truly gifted are getting lost in a flood of new titles. A virtual bookstore where anyone can sell your work is truly a Godsend to the true storyteller, however, with virtual unlimited shelf space there may soon be more books than readers who care to read them.

ALWAYS WRITING - http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

Comment by Neil Ostroff on March 4, 2013 at 11:23am

Breaking Writer’s Block

 

I woke up this morning momentarily gripped by a fear and uncertainty that has plagued me as of recent. Would today be like yesterday and the day before and the day before? Would I spend the next fifteen hours walking around my office in a daze trying to rip free of this chain of boredom? Would today be the day I finally break this horrible bout of writer’s block?

 

For twenty-five plus years, I’ve woken each morning with my head crammed full of ideas. Imaginary characters start to converse with me and I find my thoughts drifting to other worlds and possible dimensions. However, for the last few days these comforting and familiar figments of make-believe have vanished.

 

 I’ve never experienced a block before and find it both terrifying and strangely liberating. Being a writer is like waking up every morning for the rest of your life with homework to do. There’s always a chapter to be edited or a scene that needs tightening; a continuous mental itch to put down your thoughts that doesn’t ever get scratched or go away. To not feel that itch is as strange as cold-turkeying an addiction; like a smoker not being able to huff his first cigarette of the morning, or an alkie denied his early-afternoon sauce. I literally had restless tremors.

 

The first two days of my block was bearable, and my creative writing time was spent marketing my other novels (which is not necessarily a bad thing) and my usual marketing time was spent trying to find my creativity. Day three of my block was when I got scared. I spent two hours staring at the same page in front of me. My newest dystopian novel (the one I’d been averaging 1,500 words a day) was stuck on the glowing computer screen like a dead fish in mud.

 

Television and video games rarely exist in my life. Perhaps, that is the main reason I write. I’d rather create my own stories than watch someone else’s imagination unfold on the screen or become a pretend animated character in a programmer’s virtual reality game-world. I create my own virtual realities. I can disappear at will into a character of my own choosing and creation. That’s probably why I’m so sad that the ability went missing.

 

I find days without writing exceedingly long, believing hours have droned by only to realize the day isn’t even half over. I don’t know how normal, non-writers find enough stuff to do to fill the time (I know, those with kids are cursing me right now). Only after I’ve put in a good three or four hours of writing can I start my day feeling like I’ve accomplished something, and by then I’m racing against the clock to get my normal, human life activities done.

 

Happily, this morning I awoke with the tingles of creativity again sparking in my mind and the dreaded, creative dead-weight lifted. After four days of not “feeling it” my thoughts are again sharp, my worlds have returned, and my characters are speaking to me.

 

Stephen King describes the breaking-writer’s-block emotion best in his book ON WRITING. After years of drinking and drug addiction, Mr. King finally got sober, only to realize with this new sobriety he had lost his creativity. Finally, slowly, over a period of a few months, he found the beat again and the joy. He describes the feeling as this;

 

“I came back to it (writing) the way folks come back to a summer cottage after a long winter, checking first to make sure nothing has been stolen or broken during the cold season. Nothing had been. It was still all there, still all whole. Once the pipes were thawed out and the electricity was turned back on, everything worked fine.”

 

It’s time to continue with my novel.

 

http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

Comment by Elizabeth Ritch on January 12, 2013 at 6:42am

Hi all! I am new to the network and to self-publishing; having published my first book just recenty! I am excited to be here and wish everyone great success!

Comment by Neil Ostroff on November 28, 2012 at 12:58pm

Absolute fun!

I’m at the absolute most fun time in the novel writing process for me. The plot of IMAGINATION is complete and tight and coherent. The characters have all been fleshed out and the settings are all detailed. Now, I spend the next few days reading fast and tweaking the tiniest details. Once that is complete I give one final, very quick read and send it off to my editor/formatter. I just contacted my cover artist and we are about to begin the process of designing a cover. I have a tagline for the book and now just need a pitch. I’ll be working on that next week. If everything works out the book should be available nationwide by Christmas. Then I’m going to take a few months break, maybe rewrite my previous novel WASTED, but mostly concentrate on marketing and promoting. Up until the last two months my sales were steadily increasing every week and I was getting a lot of attention on blogs and writer’s sites, but ever since I became “obsessed” with finishing my latest book, my sales have dropped for the others. I must admit it is hard to see the numbers go down, but alas, I know that it is my own fault for not keeping up with the level of self-promotion that I had maintained the last eighteen months. It’s always tough as a writer to juggle the joy of creating with the drudgery of promoting. Don’t get me wrong, some people love the limelight and all the attention thrown upon them when promoting. I personally like nothing better than curling up in front of my computer on a day when Mother Nature intended for us to stay indoors and live in the worlds I create in my mind. But that’s just me.

http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

Comment by Howard Boger on November 6, 2012 at 3:31am

This is my first self-published book. The one thing I am learning at the outset is that you have to promote, promote and promote some more. The main thing is not to give up or get discouraged. To the victor goes the spoils.

http://outskirtspress.com/newyorkroommates

Comment by Neil Ostroff on October 23, 2012 at 12:12pm

How to blog

 

When I first started blogging I wrote about the dumbest things. I wrote egotistical articles about how cool I was to write books and have people admire me; basic self-serving crap. Then I started into the indie revolution in book publishing and my content changed. I spent a few months blogging about the nuts and bolts of writing, editing, designing a cover, and publishing an ebook from scratch. And lo and behold, I started getting followers. As I continued to blog every other day about the indie publishing world I got even more followers and my hit meter started to fly off the charts. One post got over 14,000 hits. I began to realize what posts got the most reads. Posts that incorporated a bit of my personal life, mixed with the actuality of the book publishing market, and usually sprinkled with a little universal anecdote at the close. I’ve found that using your blog strictly as a marketing tool for your works isn’t enough. Readers bore quickly of the day to day self-promotion and want to LEARN something from the blog. I try to impart a bit of my twenty-five years plus experience of publishing stories, books, and poetry into each post to save writers from making the same (sometimes costly) mistakes that I have made in getting to the level of selling books on a daily basis. So my advice to new author-blog owners is to post from the heart about your writing and publishing experiences and don’t spend every word promoting your own material. If the articles you write are good, talent will come across on your posts and you will get resultant book sales. My blog is my web presence, my introduction of myself to my readers, and my way of telling the world about my life. Keep your content interesting and followers will come. The kinds of followers you want. The kind that are interested in you.

http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

Comment by Jack X Crawford on October 6, 2012 at 10:03am

So far, my latest novel is selling more Kindle copies than my soft cover edition. I believe it's due to the price and ease of reading on a mobile device.

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