Blogging

Nick Russell on November 10th, 2011

I wrote my mystery novel Big Lake back in 1998, and the only people I showed it to were my secretary and my wife, who both encouraged me to publish it. But even though I had made my living as a newspaper editor and publisher, and had done some magazine work from time to time, [...]

Continue reading about What Do You Have To Lose?

Nick Russell on October 15th, 2011

Since I talked about freedom of speech in yesterday’s Bad Nick Blog, I decided I’d go ahead and post some thoughts on freedom of the press as well, because a lifetime in the small town newspaper business taught me that it is probably one of our least understood rights. For our purposes, the press is [...]

Continue reading about Freedom Of The Press

Nick Russell on August 23rd, 2011

All of my life, I have believed in setting goals, both personally, and in business. I have always felt that if you don’t have a goal, how can you know where you are going, and which path to take to get there? I also believe that goals have to be specific. It’s easy to say [...]

Continue reading about The Importance Of Setting Goals

Nick Russell on August 4th, 2011

This week I received my first electronic payment from Amazon for my Kindle e-book efforts, covering sales made during the last 10 days in May. It was only $107.53, but that’s money I didn’t have before. I now have five e-books available on Amazon’s Kindle bookstore, as well as a sixth book, The Step-by-Step Guide [...]

Continue reading about How I Sell E-Books Q & A

Nick Russell on July 29th, 2011

As self-publishers, we often think of our books as our children, After all, we created them – they come from inside of us. And just as with our children we love them unconditionally, and tend to overlook their flaws. Unfortunately, this can be a mistake. Because just as with children, some grow up to be [...]

Continue reading about Know When To Hold & Know When To Fold

Nick Russell on June 9th, 2011

I uploaded my mystery Big Lake to Amazon’s Kindle program on Sunday, May 22, and by noon May 25th I had sold 100 copies. By the end of the month, sales topped out at 169, or an average of almost 17 books a day. Within a couple of days of uploading Big Lake, I uploaded [...]

Continue reading about Looking At The Numbers

Nick Russell on May 31st, 2011

I have made my living as a self-publisher for most of my life, and if I have learned one thing, it is that the writing is only part of the business, and it’s the easiest part. As in any business, self-publishing requires a knowledge of finance, marketing, and customer relations, just to name a few [...]

Continue reading about You Need Inventory

Nick Russell on April 18th, 2011

Writing your book is the easy part, in my experience. Marketing is where the real work starts, and most successful self-publishers I know spend more time on their marketing efforts than they do in the writing process. // As you may already know, I sell very few books through traditional bookstores. I use Lightning Source [...]

Continue reading about Book Marketing Tips and Resources

Nick Russell on April 14th, 2011

In addition to advertising revenue, don’t forget the power of your blog as a marketing tool. We hold two RV rallies a year for our subscribers, and as soon as I announce the dates in my RV blog, registrations start rolling in. When I announced in my RV Blog that we now have T-shirts made [...]

Continue reading about Your Blog As A Marketing Tool

Nick Russell on April 10th, 2011

The newspaper industry is currently in a transition state. Just as you once purchased a pound of coffee, and now the container only holds about 13 ounces (for the same price), over the years newspapers have been going to smaller paper sizes to save money. A lifetime ago, when I was a greenhorn youngster just [...]

Continue reading about Downsizing The American Newspaper