Bibliocrunch Twitter #Indiechat for Self-Published Authors: My Takeaway

I participated in a great Twitter conversation hosted by Bibliocrunch on Tuesday called #indiechat. We ended up discussing all sorts of topics, but the main conversation centered around how to ask book bloggers for reviews on their sites.

On Blog Book Tours

A "blog book tour" is an online, promotional event during which an author schedules "appearances" on a collection of blogs related to authors, writing, the subject matter or genre of his/her book, etc. It's a great way to get people talking about your work, and it can be more effective (and less expensive!) than a "real world" book tour.

@emmalarkins You DO have to be careful who you use. I got a blog tour request today for a genre I don't blog about. Not okay. #indiechat
— Julie (@JulieHeartBooks) April 3, 2013

@emmalarkins I use tribute-books for my 'review' tours #indiechat
— lmpreston (@LM_Preston) April 3, 2013

For my tour I send a nice email to the bloggers on my list and directed them to the tour media page I had set up for them. #indiechat
— Alicia Kat Dillman (@KatGirl_Studio) April 3, 2013

My Goals for Early 2013 and a Great Goal Infographic

Well, now that I've let the cat out of the bag with my big self-publishing/Kickstarter announcement, I'm excited to share my rough overview for the year. It's always interesting to post these things publicly, and then to come back and see how time and work reshape them.

Without further ado, here are my Goals for 2013:

1. Get better at recognizing (and accepting) failure. In the past, I've been scared to admit when something doesn't work out according to my plan, instead hoping that no one will notice. But you can learn a lot by owning up. I've already got a start on this - last summer, my ambitious Prancing Laggard video game humor project fizzled unceremoniously, and I'm working on passing on the reins.

2. Get better at celebrating (and rewarding) victory! Success is great, and sharing it with the world makes it just a little bit sweeter. The people in my life WANT to be a part of my big wins. I should let them!

3. Give - and accept - help. I've been pretty good at lending a hand when asked, but when it comes to my own projects I sometimes try to go it alone when working with a team would make things so much better. I want to not only accept offers of assistance where it makes sense, but also take initiative and ask for a hand.

4. Crowdfund and self-publish my first novel, Mechalarum. This one will involve a billion and one mini-goals and mini-steps to achieve. It's daunting to even try and keep the whole thing in my brain at one time. But as long as I keep focusing on one little piece at a time (like, say, this blog post), I'll continue to make progress.

5. Make wonderful products with the Knodes team. Writing fiction is awesome, and I'm excited that I'll be bringing my novel into the world soon. But that doesn't mean that I want to give up my inspirational, new day job. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll always have more than one big thing going on in my life. It's invigorating - and overwhelming - to have so much going on at one time.

6. Figure out how to maintain a healthy lifestyle while living in the city. This might be the hardest resolution of all to keep. I do get some exercise just by walking around the city, but it doesn't quite balance out all of the time I sit staring at a computer screen. I'd love to multitask some of my socialization time to make sure this gets done.

7. Have fun!

I like that I have a mix of concrete tasks and conceptual goals to work towards. However, this only covers what's going to happen until around June - after that, I have no idea where my life will take me.

And finally, here by way of OnlineEducation.net, is a great infographic for helping you work on your goals. It's a great representation of why writing your future vision down is so important.

Interview with R. S. Guthrie on Community Fridays

Welcome to Community Fridays! During this weekly event, I interview authors, editors, publishers, and pretty much anyone else who I can get my hands on from the writing and publishing community. Hope you enjoy, and feel free to suggest new participants. Check out current and past interviews here. Only have a minute? Click here for interviews at a glance.

Today's guest is R. S. Guthrie, a writer exploring different publication types and an activist promoting the use of writing to make a difference.

Your embrace of the philosophies of both self-publishing and traditional publishing struck a chord with me. Many people are vehemently for one side or the other. Can you explain why you think some books should be self-published, and others traditionally published?

This is a great question! I think traditional publishing still carries with it a (somewhat deserved) badge of prestige, whereas self-publishing carries with it a bit of a stigma. Whether we all want to admit it or not, the sea of self-published books is wide, deep, and in spots, a bit smelly. It is like everything else in life: nothing comes without cost. The problems with going the traditional route, other than potential rejection after potential rejection, I see as primarily twofold:

1. The time to publication. In this market, unless you are well-known, you might as well be an indie. The uphill marketing battle is nearly the same (and requires nearly as much work on your part). That said, getting more books out there is pretty important. If you have to wait a year and a half for your book to be released, you could be falling behind.
2. You likely lose some, if not all, rights to your work. This means your publisher can demand changes, controls price and distribution, and takes a cut. You can't just sign up for a promotion or drop the price of your book for Christmas. Not unless you obtain the permission of your publisher.

If your work is good enough for the traditional route, it may be worth it to go through the time and heartache to have it published by a known publishing house. I certainly wouldn't go through all that for a no-name publisher. Both options mean a ton of marketing work for the unestablished author. I think more and more the self-publishing route is becoming the better option, but showcasing your needle in a nearly indefinite stack of needles is a huge challenge.

On your blog, you talk about the difficulty of finding good books based purely on ratings. What do you think is a better way for readers to discover good, new authors?