Techie Tuesday: All Eyes on E-Publishing

The amount of information available on e-publishing has exploded in the last few months. The Indie market is alive and well and becoming a more respected option, particularly for the mid-list authors that feel they are stagnating elsewhere.

Below is a More Cowbell Mash-up of Links that informed me or made me think about e-publishing, with indie publishers or on your own. Enjoy!

 

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is writing posts on the current state of publishing that light my hair on fire.  Here’s my Friday reading from last Friday, in the order that I read them:

• The Business Rusch: Writing Like It’s 1999
• The Business Rusch: Advocates, Addendums and Sneaks, oh my!
• The Business Rusch: Royalty Statements Update
• The Business Rusch: Surviving the Transition (Part One)

Some How-To Guides:

• An Author’s Guide: How To Publish An Ebook On A Budget – This book was free yesterday on Kindle…it might be still. I downloaded it and will be sure to blog on it when I finish it.
• Writers In The Storm, my group blog, has a Publishing On Amazon series going by Lyn Horner. These are hugely informative step-by-step posts.

Thoughts on E-Publishing:

• Working Together To Renovate Publishing – The WANA Plan by Kristin Lamb (this blog was actually my introduction to Kristen…and if you read this blog, you’ll know she’s been PIVOTAL to my writing career in the time since)
• I Was Wrong, Konrath Was Right by Bob Mayer
• J.A. Konrath’s blog – the man who helped pioneer the indie wave, in his own words
• The Case for Self-Publishing – in the New York Times last Friday
• When Anything Can Be A Book by Amy Shojai

New publishers coming into the market:

• Amazon just launched its 5th new imprint – Amazon: The Book Industry “In a Box?”
• Avon Impulse – Avon’s Ebook Imprint
• Carina Press – an E-sister to Harlequin
• Media Bistro’s eBookNewser offers great information on all things “E”

I’ve come to believe that writers are poised at the edge of a brand new ocean of opportunity. Just as social media has made even the most notable celebrities accessible, e-publishing brings the dream of being published closer than many writers ever thought it could be.

After months, even years, of rejection authors have the option to chuck the way of traditional publishing and go it alone, with just themselves and the vast marketplace of the internet for company.

No one really knows the rules of this new game so we’re all learning together. It’s true that J.A. Konrath, Amanda Hocking, Bob Mayer and many others are way out in front of everyone else, having jumped on the bandwagon long ago.

What’s also true is that they are holding the torch high in order to light the way for the new crop of writers who wish to follow in their footsteps.

Have you considered the indie market or are you already e-published? What made you decide to go that route and what advice do you have for the rest of us?

Don’t forget, I LOVE hearing from you! Between now and mid-June, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat for the June Let’s Meet Up (for Training) Contest. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. Everyone who did not win a spot in the May webinar will be entered in the June webinar. Same thing for July. There are thirty spots left for the taking and I want to see one of them go to everyone who wants one!

Till next time,
Jenny