There has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about ‘indie’ publishing and how many wannabe authors have jumped on the bandwagon and are happily uploading eBooks by the score. The books are badly formatted with sloppy editing and containing spelling and grammar mistakes in the hundreds.
This plethora of dross overwhelms the Reader, who is searching for a quality read.
The Author who has worked hard on editing, formatting and laying out a quality read, is buried in the slush.
What To Do....
The Reader starts to look for quality filters...word of mouth...book clubs and others to make navigating to the quality content easier.
The Author is stuck in the bind of having to market and promote like crazy, to get their name out there enough, so it stays in the readers consciousness long enough for the reader to click the buy button...while trying to write more quality content.
This month the Craic book project has stalled...due to unforseen family circumstances and so I have done no marketing on Craic. I have just checked the Google search on Craic and found some new bars have opened up in New Zealand with the name of my fictional rock band...hmm wonder where they got that name from....
What I should be doing...
How authors can effectively use Goodreads...and doing it.
Making sure I don’t commit any of the 7 worst mistakes of the indie author.
Checking out pet peeves of marketing and vowing to get better...
When I find time to write more quality content I should be looking carefully at my word choice...(warning this is a Chuck post...great... but his word images are not for the faint of heart.)
I should be reading quality craft books and practising finding my 'Aha' moment. (just bought two of James Scott Bells and am preparing to throw myself into the work as I have two manuscripts to rework, one to finish and one to start...I need more quality content to follow up Craic you see...)
In my quest for quality content to read and learn from I need to look at what others have done and how they have had the stars fall into line...
Grammar Girl springs to mind, along with this TED talk by Andrew Stanton on Storytelling. (the guy who wrote Toy Story and Finding Nemo...)
A couple of agents examine middle grade fiction and what they think authors need to be aware of.
Joel the book designer has a handy post on designing your book yourself... Lets not be sloppy out there!
The Horn Book (that august filter of quality work) has turned its sights on the picture book app and has a check list of what is a quality app and what is not!
I should be checking my author platform... finding where I should be, and BEING THERE.
Somehow I need to fit this in and stay sane enough to cope with the chaos of my home at the moment. So...if I am a little distracted beer/bear/bare/ with me and I will hopefully get it all together sometime soon when I find my Wonder Woman cape and magic bracelets.
By the way Craic is available on...
and Smashwords for ePub
It is a quality read....hehehe.
maureen
get your wonder woman costume here
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