While bookstore events can be great, local libraries are often big, missed opportunities to connect with serious readers all over your state.

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I’m sure most of you have heard the news by now, but if you haven’t, Amazon has announced some major changes to its KDP Print program. Only two days after I was telling people in this blog’s comments that I wouldn’t even consider moving to KDP Print from CreateSpace until Amazon addressed its two most glaring issues, the company announced it had. On top of that, it addressed my major problem with CreateSpace, thus making it a whole lot more likely that I will soon be moving over.

Problem #1: No Physical Proofs (Solved)

The first problem with KDP Print concerned its means of proofing your manuscript. Well, you can now order printed proofs from KDP. Proofs allow you to review a physical copy of your draft paperback prior to publication.

Note, however, that the process is a bit more cumbersome than the one CreateSpace uses. Specifically, here’s how you…

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by Laura Peters

All writers go through periods where the creative juices dry up and then so does the cash flow. It’s not always easy to ensure a regular income as a writer so it’s useful to have a few extra tips up our sleeves, for those moments where we need to make a little extra cash. Here are a few tips, with writers in mind, on how we can make a little extra money in those moments when things dry up a little.

According to Forbes somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 ebooks are published every year in the United States alone.

Imagine being just one of them and not having marketing behind your books? Nothing sells itself.

I stopped marketing for a month, SALES STOPPED. Why? because in most cases if you do not market a product you will not sell that product. I also experimented with pricing. I actually get 10X as many page reads on KDP with a 99 cent book as I do a 2.99 book. Which I thought was weird. But the increased page rank from the extra sales o the 99 cent book probably drives the views needed to get more KDP Page reads.

It’s like any other product in the world. Nothing sells without marketing.

by Richard Risemberg

Do you love subordinate clauses? I know I do. And how about assonance and alliteration, rhythm and rhyme? Let’s face it: they can be as tasty as chocolate.

But would you make an entire meal of just…chocolate? (Okay, whoever said “yes” please leave the room now!)

Consider this a meeting of Overwriters Anonymous. My name is Rick, and I used to write overelaborate sentences. Clever and musical they were; there was just too much of them. Frankly, my dependence on brilliant phrasing destroyed my relationship with my early novels, and we haven’t seen each other in decades. The words just got in the way of the meaning after a while, exhilarating though they could be.

by Ruth Harris  on Anne R Allen Site:

Shhh!

Secrets.

Everyone has them.

Every book must have at least one because secrets are the jet-powered engine that propels fiction forward. Ever notice how many blurbs in the daily BookBub email include the word secret?

Secrets provide motivation, plot, character, even a setting (a haunted house, anyone?) From Madame Bovary to Carrie, from Rebecca to Big Little Lies, from thrillers to romance, from mystery to women’s fiction to sci-fi, every story revolves around a secret.

Secrets ripple outward and can produce unexpected consequences a writer can take advantage of. Secrets need to be protected, denied, defended, and excused. This means they will have predictable (and unforeseen) consequences. These consequences will affect the people who guard them, excuse them, or wilfully blind themselves to their existence.

People with secrets are good at keeping them—until they’re not—or else until some…

Following the closure of CreateSpace’s eStore, Amazon has now delivered a further blow to the company. This makes it all more likely that all of CreateSpace operations will eventually be rolled into KDP Print.

In a surprising statement, Amazon announced its decision to move CreateSpace out of paid author services such as professional design and editing:

After a thorough review of our service offerings, we’ve made the decision to discontinue Createspace’s paid professional editing, design, and marketing services. We will work closely with impacted employees through this transition to help them find new roles within the company or assist them with pursuing opportunities outside the company.

Amazon Statement

Even though most Indie authors I know prefer to use their own resources for such services, CreateSpace’s design and editing services were in direct competition to book publishers such as BookBaby and IngramSparks. Still, Amazon says the latest round of layoffs…