I’ve referred to author platform a lot on this blog. Especially lately, with the industry in such a state of churn and evolution. But I’ve never properly defined what an author platform is. So today, let’s nail down exactly what I mean by “author platform”, and pull together all the reasons why you need to […]
What is an Author Platform and Why You Need The Best You Can Build Read More »
In June last year, I went on a bit of a tirade here on PIFW about preceding participle phrases. I also dumped upon readers on Medium. But my distaste for this sentence structure goes back a long way before I said so publicly. And it turns out, I’m not the only writer/editor who abhors preceding
The World’s Worst Sentence Structure Revisited Read More »
A short post today, as it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and everyone is focused upon green beer. As I’m allergic to alcohol, I focused upon the four leaf clover, instead. When commercial fiction was controlled by the traditional publishers, it was pretty much accepted that breaking into the business required a large slab of luck. You
Cultivate Luck For Yourself Read More »
I’ve been skirting around AI for weeks, referring to it indirectly and implying that it would become increasingly important that we indies deal with it in the near future. In my prediction post for 2023 (that wasn’t really a prediction) about the year ahead, I did grasp the nettle…a little, and very gently. And I
Yeah, I’m Gonna Go There. So should you. Read More »
A quick post today, which bounces off my post earlier in the year, “What Your 2023 Business Year will Look Like…Maybe“ Anne R. Allen, who is an expert in author blogging, recently ran a post on her site, “Why Blogging is Essential in the Era of Fragmenting Social Media.” The very last point in her
Fracturing Social Media Read More »
Last year, Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson ran a Kickstarter project that raised $42 million USD. $42 million is a very nice payday, but it’s an outlier, not a common outcome of publishing Kickstarter projects. However, Brandon Sanderson’s success drew attention to crowd funding in a way that made most of the indie publishing industry sit
You Can’t Afford to Ignore Crowdfunding Read More »
A somewhat new indie author said to me recently, “I know either Draft2Digital or Smashwords can distribute my books. Is there any other big distributors I should consider instead?” I’ve never tackled on this blog the various distribution options indie authors have. At first glance it doesn’t have anything to do with productivity. In fact,
Who Gets to Distribute Your Books? Read More »
In January, I generally like to post about goals for the coming year, goal-setting, and motivation. But I’ve come across a bunch of articles and reports lately that speculate on what 2023 and onward might look like for indie authors, and realized that goal setting is useless, if you don’t have a good idea of
What Your 2023 Business Year will Look Like…Maybe Read More »
This is Part 4 of an informal series about Pen Names. See Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4. A PIFW reader reached out to me a couple of days ago, asking questions about pen names, branding and genres, and in particular, how they impact the Amazon algorithms. My response to him
Pen Names – 2022 Update. Read More »
Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Katherine Rusch call life derailing events “life rolls”. It’s a useful name for a whole host of troubles: Sickness, death of loved ones, disasters, accidents, divorces, getting fired… We’re writers of fiction; we can easily imagine what life rolls might look like. When you’re hit by a serious life roll,
How to Get Back to Writing when Life Has Completely Derailed You Read More »
