The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide

The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide provides practical advice for authors and publishers on how to market their books. Although the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide was originally written for the benefit of authors who publish and distribute their ebooks at Smashwords, the suggestions included in it are universal.

The guide begins with a short summary of how the Smashwords platform assists an author’s marketing, and then continues on with over thirty book marketing tips any author can employ, and that cost nothing to implement other than the investment of time: "Some of the tips require only a couple minutes of your time, yet will reap dividends for years to come. Other tips require a greater ongoing investment of your time and attention. Do the easy things first."

Direct link to PDF: The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide

Mark Coker is founder of Smashwords, an ebook publishing and distribution platform for indie authors, publishers, literary agents and retailers. His is co-author of Boob Tube, a novel that explores the wild and wacky world of Hollywood celebrity. He also wrote the The 10-Minute PR Checklist.

The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide
by Mark Coker

Lost Children: A Charity Anthology

A collection of 30 flash stories from around the world, The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology is now available for purchase! All proceeds go to two children's charities to support exploited, neglected and abused children PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children and Children 1st Scotland.

The anthology is now available for purchase on Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble.

Stories featured were sent by writers from the USA, Poland, Hong Kong, Portugal, India, Scotland, England, Canada, and one told by a Lost Boy of the Sudan to his teacher. Authors included: Susan Gibb, Sam Rasnake, Nicolette Wong, Susan Tepper and many more - the whole list is up at: The Lost Children blog.

About the book + the editors
The project began as a flash fiction challenge when Fiona Johnson and Thomas Pluck donated to the two charities, over at Ron Philips' Flash Fiction Friday and Fictionaut. 30 of the best stories were chosen to be included in this anthology, edited by Fiona, Thomas and Ron.

Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Only $2.99 (all proceeds go to charity)
The e-book is available at Amazon, Barnes&Noble and Smashwords in various formats.

PS: For Smashwords, you don't need to register and simply can pay via paypal and get access to multiple formats, including pdf. (the Ed just tried, works well).

I’m Here Right? - Josh Rank (Deckfight)

Josh Rank moved to Atlanta from Wisconsin after college. He didn’t have a job, he didn’t know much about the South. What he found is included in this chapbook of first-person essays: I'm Here Right? Stuff on selling meat from the back of a truck, witnessing a takedown at the jail, getting hit by a car and more. All in Josh’s deadpan, but forthright style.

The chapbook is available in various free pdf and e-book formats.

Josh Rank blogs at These Things I Know and occasionally writes music reviews for the indie music webpage Deckfight. An interview with him is up at LCB: Interview with writer Josh Rank.

Deckfight Press
Deckfight Press is part of Deckfight and is into chapbooks of the pdf and epub kind. Recent chapbooks include: "A Patchwork of Rooms Furnished by Mistakes" by J. Bradley, "Firehouse Neckbrace" by Josh Spiler and others - here's a Deckfight book list.

Josh Rank: I’m Here Right?
chapbook, 37 pages

A quick guide to Book Publishing Services (Lulu, Smashwords, Createspace, Issuu...)

This isn't news: the digital revolution changed the way books are produced, and also the way they are read.

Print on Demand (POD) makes it possible to create single copies of books, which allows to publish books for smaller and special audiences. Parallel, e-readers make it possible to read e-books in a new, leisure way.

Together, this leads to a growing range of publishing formats, and publishing services, which are especially interesting for small presses and for authors.

Below is a list of service providers, with examples of printed books and e-books that are featured in the blueprint book blog.



Lulu
Lulu is a company offering publishing, printing in various sizes, and distribution (including e-books).
Since their founding in 2002, Lulu has published over 1.1 million titles by creators in over 200 countries and territories and adds 20,000 new titles to their catalogue a month.
links: Lulu webpage, wiki-page
examples: "lulu"-books in this blog (print books + e-books)
cover: if you want to publish a book at CreateSpace, here some advice for creating the book cover

CreateSpace
A publishing/printing/distribution service that provides free tools to help self-publish and distribute books, DVDs, CDs etc. on-demand at CreateSpace and via Amazon.com. (CreateSpace belongs to Amazon, thus the listing, which only works for Amazon.com, no other countries)
link: CreateSpace
examples: CreateSpace-books in this blog
cover: if you want to publish a book at CreateSpace, here some advice for creating the book cover

Smashwords
An ebook publishing and distribution platform for ebook authors, publishers, agents and readers that offers multi-format ebooks, ready for immediate sampling and purchase, and readable on any e-reading device.
link: Smashwords
examples: Smashword-books in this blog
how-to-guide: Smashword Style Guide + Marketing Guide

Issuu
Issuu is a digital publishing platform that delivers full-color reading experiences of magazines, catalogs, and newspapers.
link: Issuu
examples: Issuu-books in this blog

Related links: Red Lemonade, exPress tutorial, Wiki-Pages 

• Advice+Example: How to prepare a book cover for print-on-demand services like CreateSpace
• Red Lemonade: new experimental service: full texts online + print books (example)
• exPress: print to e-book workflow tutorial advice from Folded Word
• General information: Wiki: Print on demand  / Wiki: E-book

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Other blueprint How-to posts:

- How to create an own google map

- How to create an automatic paper.li newspaper

YB issue 4: Windows

Looking in and looking out: "Windows" are the focus theme of YB #4. The issue features poems by J. Bradley, Jessie Carty, Brittney Corrigan, Risa Denenberg, Kathleen Kirk, Daniel Romo, Nic Sebastian, Elizabeth Kate Switaj, Troy Urquhart, Helen Vitoria and Megan Williams. There are also reviews by Melanie Moro-Huber and Nic Sebastian. And last but not least, a photo gallery by Dorothee Lang; "8 x8" - eight photos of eight countries.

As a new technical + animal "window", this issue of YB comes in a new design, is also available as Kindle edition or as pdf, and is presented by a tejón. (yes.) -  YB issue 4: windows

Here's what (guest co-editor) John Riley says about #4: "Windows are full of space and questions without answers, and each of these poems is wise enough to know this. There are no attempts at answers here, only the exuberance that comes from reveling in the uncertainty. So raise the curtain, undo the latch, and escape into the doubt. We promise you won’t leave satisfied."

For more windows, visit the YB blog - it will continue the theme by hosting "Window Gazing" posts with photos and artwork by various writers and artists, as well as whimsical windows and other information. Included so far are blog windows to Baltimore, Dallas, Denton, Baden-Württemberg, Slovenia, Rudersberg and Portugal.

About YB:
YB is an online journal of new poetry. The YB founder and editor is Rose Hunter. YB issue 4, the Windows issue, is co-edited by Sherry O'Keefe and John Riley, with art work by Dorothee Lang. Kindle edition by Sherry O'Keefe. Issues 1-3 of YB are online here: ybjournal.blogspot.com.

YB issue 4: windows
theme issue
e-book (free pdf + kindle version)

related links: theme issues + anthologies, poetry, e-books + pdf-versions

Pooh in Meatspace - Mel Bosworth

"Scifi, humor, fantasy, humor and romance, adventure thrillers, humor and satire" - all this and more is Mel Bosworth's Pooh in Meatspace, a story once published in a place that doesn't exist any more, and now brought back to inner and outer space as an e-book.

The story in a moonshell: When Captain Sheera and Billy discover that a Santa Claus Machine has been built on the moon of Moop, they have no choice but to investigate. Soon, they learn that the machine's builder is none other than Billy's childhood friend Drake, thus spurring a cosmic reunion filled with love, hate, violence, chocolate pudding, Cannabis sativa, old cast members of Baywatch, and an electrical storm.

The e-book is available at Smashwords: Pooh in Meatspace.

For some thoughts on e-books, technology, and the world at large - for example:  "Technology is fascinating and fun, the internet, too, is fascinating and fun. Sometimes mind-numbing. Sometimes the quintessential time-suck. Both things. Technology and the internet." - visit Mel's blog entry "fun, fascinating, and probably completely unnecessary". Hint: you might also find a Pooh coupon code there.

Mel Bosworth is the author of the fiction chapbook When the Cats Razzed the Chickens (Folded Word Press, 2009) the novella Grease Stains, Kismet, and Maternal Wisdom (Brown Paper Publishing, 2010) and the novel Freight (coming 2011 from Folded Word Press). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in elimae, PANK, Per Contra, Wigleaf, BLIP Magazine, Annalemma, decomP, Dark Sky Magazine, >kill author, Emprise Review, and Night Train, among others.

Mel Bosworth: Pooh in Meatspace
ebook, 20 pages
available as Kindle, Epub, Pdf, rtf, PDB etc. file

author talk: for more about Mel Bosworth, writing and technology, visit the author talk with him: "Mel Bosworth + Jessie Carty on breathing, writing, the internet, scares, yielding, boxes, greed, + red, black and white."

related links: e-books, time+space