by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Wed Mar 27, 2013
A developmental editor helps you shape your book. Rather than focusing on a line-by-line edit (though some developmental editors also do this), the goal is to focus on the structural organization of the book – does the narrative flow coherently? Are there plot holes? Are terms explained appropriately for the audience?
A developmental editor will help you trim areas of your book that are too long, and punch up details that need highlighting. They are sometimes called “book doctors”.
But do you really need a developmental editor?
Most books need another set of eyes to objectively review the content. It’s a rare author who can write a perfect book without feedback. A developmental editor doesn’t re-write the book, but helps its evolution, in the writer’s own voice.
by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Wed Mar 20, 2013
No publisher has an unlimited budget, and that is also true of self-publishers. Determining the format of your publication affects the overall cost of publishing, so it’s important to minimize your risk.
Ebooks and print books have different costs associated with them. While ebooks are cheaper to distribute because there are no physical shipments, professional-looking ebooks require additional investments that print books might not: in special formatting, adding multi-media (and clearing the rights for them), proofreading specifically for the digital product.
by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Mon Mar 18, 2013
Most of us, even English majors, make grammatical mistakes. The difference between a copy-edited book and one that has not been copy-edited is enormous. Copy-editing doesn’t change the substance of what you’re writing about. In fact, it enhances it – clarifying meaning, correcting distracting mistakes.
A good copy editor will adjust your punctuation and spelling, question whether or not you really want to use jargon, make sure you’re using the right terminology, and keep you from embarrassing errors of usage. He will keep your language consistent from page to page, and ensure that you capitalize names properly.
by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Tue Mar 12, 2013
The ISBN was invented in the 1960s, when British bookseller W. H. Smith began computerizing its distribution system. It became an ISO standard in 1970, and now the ISBN forms the backbone of the book supply chain around the world. Certainly there are plenty of books published that do not have ISBNs. Proprietary publications that are not traded, for example, don’t require ISBNs. Books that are sold in “walled garden” environments don’t require ISBNs. So why use them?
by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Tue Mar 5, 2013
DRM stands for Digital Rights Management – the controls that you (or an ebook vendor) place on your content regarding copying, printing, and sharing. Traditional publishers encode their ebooks with DRM to prevent piracy of the file.
The debate as to whether or not this actually works is heated and ongoing. But as a self-published author, you’ll have to decide if you’re going to put DRM on your ebook files or not.
by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Tue Mar 5, 2013
So you release your book into the wide, wide world, and people read it. Then what?
There are going to be some things that you, as the author and as the publisher, cannot control. You can’t govern people’s responses to your book. You can’t fully control the information about your book that’s on store websites. You can’t totally control where the booksellers in a physical store place your book.
by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Tue Mar 5, 2013
Marketing has changed a great deal since the days of Mad Men. Advertising agencies used to be able to essentially tell consumers what they should buy – broadcasting the message over mass media (television, which used to be 3 or 4 channels, and radio, in newspapers and magazines).
But media itself has changed radically in the last 15 years. The World Wide Web, cable television, satellite radio have all contributed to a fracturing of the “mass” audience. Messages now have to be tailored to these fragments, rather than broadcasted to the whole. And – particularly on the Web – these fragments tend to talk back.
by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Tue Mar 5, 2013
It’s one thing to decide to publish digitally – it’s entirely another to choose what form of ebook you’re going to publish. Each format has a lot going for it. And frequently publishers (and self-published authors) choose to publish in several digital formats, rather than confining themselves to just one.
The most popular ebook format is, in fact, one of the oldest: the PDF. It renders reliably on just about any device. It also can duplicate the layout of a print title. And it’s widely used in the academic market.
Amazon Kindle is the next most widely consumed. It’s a proprietary format – it only works on Kindle devices or through Kindle apps. And Amazon controls their Kindle platform in much the same way Apple controls iTunes – it’s a “walled garden” .
by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Mon Mar 4, 2013
As the Dowager Countess says in Downton Abbey about the telephone, “Is this an instrument of communication or torture?” Social media can certainly be both. Let’s break down the different tools in the social media toolbox, and then talk about ways they can be used, and ways they can be (however inadvertently) abused.
by Laura Dawson
Bowker | Sun Mar 3, 2013
Traditionally-published authors have distribution and a publisher's marketing services. The biggest fight for a self-published author is getting her book noticed - leveling the playing field.
"Discovery" is more than a catch-word. There are several tools that can help raise your book's visibility.
1. Metadata
