Self-publishing resource guide

Self-publishing, the Slush Pile, and Print Books

by Sabrina Self-Publishing

Self-publishing may be the new slush pile. In the past, the slush pile has been the pile of unsolicited manuscripts sent by aspiring authors in hopes of being picked up by a publisher. Now, some publishers are looking to pick up books that have already proven to be successful. They offer authors bigger advances and [...]

Marketing Indie Books

by Sabrina Marketing

Marketing can be a tricky aspect of self-publishing. On the one hand, there’s really no limit to the amount of money you can spend doing it, but there are a lot of ways to be ineffective. Below are a few guidelines I’ve learned from experience and heard about from other writers on creating effective marketing [...]

6 Tips to Successfully Crowdfund a Project

by Sabrina Funding

Crowdfunding is hard. To do it successfully, and to be like the high profile projects on Kickstarter, Indie Go Go and other platforms and raise thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars means treating the crowdfunding process like a full-time job. Here are some tips I’ve learned the last couple years, both from experimenting with crowdfunding [...]

What Self-Publishing and Internet Marketing Have in Common

by Sabrina Information

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For those of you who don’t know, ClickBank is an affiliate marketing website. People can sign up to either sell their information products, or to promote products and receive a cut of the sale. Recently I was looking through ClickBank’s site, and I stumbled across their tips for Internet marketers. Many of their tips can also be [...]

Writing for the Holidays

by Sabrina Marketing

I’ve heard this from several writers, especially ones that self-publish children’s books: write books that revolve around a holiday. With St. Patrick’s Day coming up, I thought I’d post about it.

What Do Authors Want?

by Sabrina Future

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Digital Book World hosted a webinar a while back, called “What Authors Want.” The webinar was meant to promote DBW’s survey of 5,000 authors. The survey was submitted to the Writer’s Digest community (whose writers tend to be female and over 35, and write fiction), as well as SFWA (mostly male fiction writers), Romance Writers of America (mostly female writers), and [...]

E-Books in the Global Marketplace

by Sabrina EBooks

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Last November, I attended an interesting webinar co-hosted by BISG and DBW, called E-Books in the Global Marketplace. Though this post is a little late, the information is still relevant, and I think it’s worth sharing some of the findings.

Book Discoveries and Recommendations

by Sabrina Information

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For self-publishers, after writing a book, the next biggest step is making people aware that it exists and is worth reading. But in such a saturated market, it can be hard to get your book discovered. Here are three book recommendation tools. Word of mouth is still the most effective way to make a book [...]

KYS Realm and Transmedia, the Future of Storytelling

by Sabrina Future

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Technology lends itself to new creative forms of storytelling. One example is transmedia, a new technique of storytelling that involves enhancing the experience through multiple platforms, such as books, videos, and even live events. The Elements Club is one such transmedia series, where every few months a new segment telling the tales of a quirky, yet [...]

More Resources for Digital Publishing

by Sabrina Information

I’ve extended my blog to include a large, hopefully helpful, list of resources that cover all aspects of digital publishing: agents, analytics, apps, associations, blogging, coding, contests/awards, design, distribution, ebooks, editing, entrepreneurial, funding, internships, jobs, legal, magazines, marketing, metadata, news, reading, reviews, self-publishing, startups, trends, video, webinars, and writing. (If I’ve missed anything, please let me [...]

Polishing a Self-Published Book

by Sabrina Design

I read a couple really helpful articles on Digital Book World that can help indie authors. The first gives some tips on how to design a cover optimized for Amazon, and all the other retailers where readers only see a thumbnail image. The second article gives a list of front matter and other tips on [...]

Promoting a Self-Published Novel

by Sabrina Self-Publishing

I recently decided to be more active on Quora, and today I stumbled across a really great question by a self-published author. The question was, “What are some ways I can promote my self-published novel?” There were some really great responses. One answerer recommended YouTube book trailers, Facebook pages, and Twitter handles. The Facebook page [...]

Dealing With Negative Reviews

by Sabrina Marketing

Last summer, I dealt with my very first negative review. It was for the first book of my publishing company, a collection of flash fiction, and I had given the book away for free on LibraryThing in hopes of getting more reviews. Now, even though this was not my book in the sense that I [...]

Why Traditionally Published Authors Are Going Indie

by Sabrina Publishing

Read my first Huffington Post article, about traditionally published authors who have been publishing their own books. I’m thankful to have been able to interview such a talented and interesting group of people! Click here to read it. (Also posted on IndieReader and The Passive Voice).

Smashwords: An upgrade to help indie authors sell better ebooks

by Sabrina EBook Conversion

On the last day of 2012, Smashwords made an exciting announcement: authors can now directly upload epubs to the site. This might not sound like a big deal, but it kind of is. According to the Smashwords blog, as of December 31, 2012, Smashwords became “the world’s largest distributor of ebooks from self-published authors and [...]

The 13th Cycle has been published!

by Sabrina EBooks

The 13th Cycle cover

My novella, The 13th Cycle is now available on my website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords. Thank you to everyone who helped me write this book! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Find out more below: “The 13th Cycle” by Sabrina Ricci on Ganxy

How Readers Discover New Books

by Sabrina Marketing

A while back I attended an interesting webcast hosted by Digital Book World, titled “How Social Networks and New Media Are Changing the Ways Readers Discover New Books.” One thing I’ve learned from past webinars is that social media doesn’t really affect book sales. And according to the webcast, publishers only impact 7% of overall [...]

Featured: Write or Read

by Sabrina Information

My startup Write or Read, which will help self-publishers become more successful by giving them insights into who reads their books and why they like them, is featured on FounderDating! Click here to read it. Also we’re launching the alpha soon, so stay tuned for updates!

A Maya Thriller

by Sabrina EBooks

Some of you probably already know, but I’m working on my first novella! It’s a thriller about the Maya Calendar, and I’d appreciate anyone who can check it out (also, following my link will lead you to an AMAZING video with dinosaur puppets. Ok, maybe not amazing, but definitely entertaining!). Click here to see it. [...]

An Interview With Kate Policani

by Sabrina Marketing

A while back, I had a great opportunity to interview Kate Policani, author of Don’t Judge a Book By Its Magic. She shared some valuable experiences and gave advice on how to be successful at self-publishing.

Trends in Publishing (Part 3)

by Sabrina EBooks

Book publishing trends 3

Part 3 of 3 of my Trends in Publishing post, which covers trends in metadata and collecting publishing data. From the original post: “While researching my thesis project for my M.S. in publishing at NYU, I came across several interesting trends that I think will affect publishing. In fact, I’ve already seen some of these [...]

Trends in Publishing (Part 2)

by Sabrina EBooks

Book publishing trends 2

Part 2 of 3 of my Trends in Publishing post, which covers subscription websites and gamification trends. From the original post: “While researching my thesis project for my M.S. in publishing at NYU, I came across several interesting trends that I think will affect publishing. In fact, I’ve already seen some of these at work [...]

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