Self-publishing

Nick Russell on March 16th, 2012

Lately I have read several comments by other e-book authors saying that they have given up promoting their books because it is too much work and the payoff is just not worth it. Those people are authors. But they are not entrepreneurs. It is okay to just be an author and write your books, if [...]

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Nick Russell on December 10th, 2011

Nobody was more surprised than I was to learn that my mystery, Big Lake, had risen to number 23 in the Paid Kindle store, number 4 in Bestsellers in Mysteries & Thrillers, and even more amazing, it was listed at number 76 on the New York Times Kindle Bestseller List! The book has been in [...]

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Nick Russell on November 22nd, 2011

I’ve always been a firm believer in setting goals, and then working out a plan to achieve them. And more often than not, if I set realistic goals, plan right, and work that plan, I accomplish them. Sometimes I even exceed them. And once in a while, the results blow me completely away. Last month, [...]

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Nick Russell on November 20th, 2011

The good news is that Amazon revolutionized the world of publishing when it introduced the Kindle e-book reader and began its Kindle Direct Publishing program, which has allowed authors and self-publishers to bring out their e-books in a quick and easy format. This has been a win-win for everybody but the big traditional publishing houses. [...]

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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, [...]

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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 [...]

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Nick Russell on July 14th, 2011

After reading the article Blogging For Bucks on my main self-publishing website, a reader wrote to ask what makes a good blog post, and how to get reader comments in response. Some of my blog posts that I never expected to do much have gotten numerous responses, while others that I considered to be excellent, [...]

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Nick Russell on July 7th, 2011

No matter what your subject matter, from non-fiction niche material to mysteries or historical romances, every writer’s toolbox should contain many of the same things. These include a computer with word processing software (which is standard equipment these days), a decent printer, an up to date dictionary, a good style guide (I still rely on [...]

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Nick Russell on May 22nd, 2011

As I wrote in my last blog post, The Rules Have Changed, I am taking some first steps into e-book publishing, and I will be sharing my progress in blog posts here. I’ve spent a lot of time reading and researching publishing my books for the Amazon Kindle recently, since Amazon is responsible for the [...]

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Nick Russell on May 16th, 2011

I had a conversation recently with a young man who complained that agents, editors, and publishers won’t give him a break. He said he has sent his autobiography to “at least” six or seven agents and two different large publishing houses, and has never even received the courtesy of a reply. I asked him if [...]

Continue reading about It’s Okay To Read Fantasy, Just Don’t Live It