Author Friendly

Gatekeeper Press provides full-service publishing and a la carte services for authors. They offer a wide and varied distribution network to protect you against possible distribution outages. They also offer lowest-cost printing I’ve seen in an on-demand service, and you’ll learn why. In this episode, we walk through the publishing process from editing, design, and distribution. You’ll learn how long each step takes so you can schedule your book launch.

What kind of editing does your book need? JoEllen Taylor takes us through all the different kinds of editing: copy editing, line editing, and content editing. We talk about character and story editing, structural editing, narrative arc, editing tools, common editing problems and misconceptions about what editors do. She also has tips on how to hire an editor.

Fictionary's software appears magical and in this episode, you'll learn how Stanley (who is also an editor) figured out how to transform her story analysis spreadsheets to create Fictionary with the help of her co-founders. It's a family business with her husband, who watched her wrestle with the spreadsheets while they were on a long sailing journey, and her brother, who works in software and is also an author.

Laurie McLean is the Director of the San Francisco Writers Conference, a literary agent, Founder of Fuse Literary, and a former Silicon Valley marketing and PR professional. I asked her to talk about the February 2019 conference and the return on investment for the money and the time for this or any conference. You’ll learn what makes the San Francisco conference different and how to get the most out of the sessions, exhibitors, and the agents, other participants, pre- and post-conference workshops.

Angela Bole is CEO of the Independent Book Publishers Association, a non-profit membership organization for self-publishers and independent publishers that provides resources, education, advocacy, connections, and tools for success. We discuss the role and responsibilities of the publisher, no matter whether it’s you as an author who is self-publishing, or if you’re publishing via a hybrid publisher or even a traditional press, and why publishing standards matter.

In this addendum to my interview with D2D Marketing Director Kevin Tumlinson (episode 12), he announces D2D Print.

Book descriptions are one of those things most authors find difficult to do... or difficult to do well. It's not our fault! We're good at writing, and copywriting is a completely different skillset. You need a great book description to win more book reviews, write better ads, find more subscribers, recruit additional fans, and sell more books. Bryan can teach you how to write book descriptions as well as Facebook and Amazon ads that sell your book, or you can just hire the BPF team to do it for you.

Smashwords began in 2008 as the first ebook distribution company for self-publishers and remains the world’s leading ebook platform. Smashwords has evolved not only to help authors get your books distributed to the online retailers but to market your ebooks with features like the series manager, preorders, author interviews, coupon codes, special deals, and audiobooks. You’ll learn about all these features in our conversation and also how to use Smashwords to create your book.

Scribl is an ebook creation, publishing, and aggregation service with some very innovative marketing features. One of those is called CrowdPricing ($CP), which helps authors attract more readers by allowing reviews to determine the price of the book. Another is called Story Elements, which lets you categorize your book in a more granular way so readers can find stories with the elements they like to read about. .

BetaBooks solves the problem of managing comments from critique partners and early readers by centralizing them in a browser-based platform they invented for their own use. In this episode, co-founder Paul Kilpatrick and I talk about the different ways to use BetaBooks and how beta readers are essential to your book and author marketing.