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Think Like a Publisher 2013: Chapter 6: Sales Plans
This chapter is a pretty extensive revision of an early version of Think Like a Publisher. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put this chapter and the next few here on the web site. I didn’t in the 2012 version, but now figured why not, a good discussion can always help if anyone is interested in having that discussion on the topic of this chapter. And honestly, this chapter tends to scare people something awful. So hold on. Think Like a Publisher 2013 is an updated version of the book from about a year ago, including some of what has changed and what I have learned over the last year or…
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Think Like a Publisher 2013: Chapter 5: Return on Investment
This chapter is brand new to any version of Think Like a Publisher. I’ve honestly been afraid to tackle this issue for some time, but think I might have a handle on it. Keep something clearly in mind as I talk about this: An indie publisher is still a publisher, the same as any traditional publisher. Think Like a Publisher 2013 is an updated version of the book from about a year ago, including some of what has changed and what I have learned over the last year or more. And some new chapters such as this one. I’m sure in another two years I’ll do a fourth edition. Every few…
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Think Like a Publisher 2013: Chapter Four: Production and Scheduling
Here we go again. It’s been over two years since I wrote the first version of Think Like a Publisher. And a year since I updated it into a 2012 edition. Stunning how time goes by. Since I wrote those first chapters for the first volume, Scott William Carter and I have taught three workshops by the same name, plus an advanced workshop helping indie writers make more money from their books. And in the fall of 2012 Allyson Longuiera and I taught a Print on Demand workshop to help writers get their books into print and learn how to sell them. We are doing the full POD workshop again…
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Think Like a Publisher 2013: Chapter 3: Projected Income
Here we go again. It’s been over two years since I wrote the first version of Think Like a Publisher. And a year since I updated it into a 2012 edition. Stunning how time goes by. Since I wrote those first chapters for the first volume, Scott William Carter and I have taught three workshops by the same name, plus an advanced workshop helping indie writers make more money from their books. And in the fall of 2012 Allyson Longuiera and I taught a Print on Demand workshop to help writers get their books into print and learn how to sell them. We are doing the full POD workshop again…
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Think Like a Publisher 2013: Chapter Two: Expected Costs
Here we go again. It’s been over two years since I wrote the first version of Think Like a Publisher. And a year since I updated it into a 2012 edition. Stunning how time goes by. Since I wrote those first chapters for the first volume, Scott William Carter and I have taught three workshops by the same name, plus an advanced workshop helping indie writers make more money from their books. And in the fall of 2012 Allyson Longuiera and I taught a Print on Demand workshop to help writers get their books into print and learn how to sell them. We are doing the full POD workshop again…
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Think Like a Publisher 2013: Chapter One: The Early Decisions
Here we go again. It’s been over two years since I wrote the first version of Think Like a Publisher. And a year since I updated it into a 2012 edition. Stunning how time goes by. Since I wrote those first chapters for the first volume, Scott William Carter and I have taught three workshops by the same name, plus an advanced workshop helping indie writers make more money from their books. And in the fall of 2012 Allyson Longuiera and I taught a Print on Demand workshop to help writers get their books into print and learn how to sell them. We are doing the full POD workshop again…
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Traditional Book Publishers…
Why To Avoid At All Costs… I am going to make this post simple and very clear. This will hurt some of you who still believe in the 1980’s myth of traditional publishing being the best path. I am not sorry. First, a short story. Ten years ago I met a writer at a conference that was all excited about finishing a novel and getting the novel to an agent. (I had known this beginning writer from a few years before. Very promising writer.) A name writer at the conference who was still lost in traditional publishing had provided an introduction to this baby writer to an agent. Make note,…
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Day Job Thinking
DAY-JOB THINKING VS LONG-TERM THINKING (I first published this post back in 2015 or so. Had a couple of conversations that reminded me of it, so I went looking, updated it, and put it here on this fine Friday evening.) Day-Job Thinking goes like this: I need a certain amount of money to make my bills this month and a day job gives it to me in a “secure” fashion. Nothing at all wrong with that thinking. Nothing. We all have to live and make bills and eat and all those sorts of things. This is survival thinking, folks, plain and simple. So again, nothing wrong with that kind of…
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Your Likes Have Nothing To Do With It
I Know, Hard to Believe… I have talked about apps a few times here, got some great comments and ideas. And numbers of writers are already on the chase in different ways. Thanks for those comments! And I talk all the time about electronic publishing and how readers are reading. And how so much of the world is reading on their phones now. Clearly a trend of the future that I don’t see changing. But if I only published in ways that I personally read or like, I would never publish electronically, only paper. And I would never think of gift cards or apps. Why? I don’t read electronically and…
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How to Think About a Challenge
New Year Is Coming… And many writers, me included, are starting to set up challenges to help us reach goals with our writing. But the question is how to make the goals large enough to be challenging and yet not set up for failure. So let me tell you how I do it, since I have started and backed off a challenge twice now that I will be starting for the third time on January 1st. I do not consider the two first false starts as failure. Not in the slightest, actually. They were learning. So that is point one… Never think about failure. Just think positive about the challenge…