by J.U. Scribe

It’s been over a year since I published my book, Before the Legend. This past year I’ve learned so much about self-publishing and marketing. Although I’m thankful for the little successes and milestones I was able to reach, there were several things I wish I could have done differently before and after self-publishing my book. The first three in the list are things I already knew before publishing but underestimated while doing this process. Here are my top 7 things you want to do before you self-publish.

It’s National Reading Month, which is my favorite time of year, since I am a bookworm. We’re a club with specific characteristics and one thing is certain: bookworms find other bookworms. They simply must, so they can find out about more cool books.

Bookworms have been devouring books for as long as they can remember – for story, for new worlds and new ideas. Their To Be Read piles are taller than a small child. Their favorite authors and characters become friends.

If you are a bookworm, there are things that I know about you that I don’t know about the other readers I meet:

1. I know you read odd things in odd places.
If you are stuck somewhere without a book, you will begin reading any words available – shampoo bottles, food labels, billboard signs. Whatever. Books and magazines are preferred, but in a pinch, any words will smooth your soul.

If so, you’re not alone.  Many authors hate writing blurbs. However, a good blurb will give your book its best chances for a sale.

Even with the best cover, a bad blurb will send potential readers running away screaming, never to return. On the other hand, a good one lets the reader know why they should be interested in the book and piques their curiosity without giving too much away.

It’s worth the time spent learning how to write a good one.  A blurb is great to have for many reasons. You use it for your book page, for your ads, and you can use it on any handbills/bookmarks/etc, in full or in part. You can use it author interviews, query letters, back cover matter, ads in the back of your books, you name it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve copied and pasted mine, or parts of…

Many thanks to Lucinda E. Clarke for the below guest post.

You can visit Lucinda’s website HERE.

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SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?

Asked that question when I was five and my answer was ‘Yes’ – asked again at school leaving and the answer was still ‘Yes.’ But you know how it is, life gets in the way and I took the ‘family approved’ route and became a teacher. Five countries and almost two decades later, I fell into writing almost by accident and was commissioned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation to write for radio. This led to scripting for television, then major corporate companies, government departments, and all points in between. From 1985 until 2008 I earned my living by writing, producing and directing videos and broadcast programmes.

I was a writer for hire. On Monday I would be scribbling for an international food company…

Outside of the American Midwest, most people would not expect to find exceptional library design in Kansas City, Missouri. If they went to downtown Kansas City, however, those people might be surprised.

Back in 2003 and 2004, the Kansas City Public Library Board of Trustees decided to transform the Library District Parking Garage into a giant Community Bookshelf. The “shelf” contains 42 different titles suggested by local book lovers from poetry by Langston Hughes to works by Plato. Each of the book spines is around 25 feet tall and 9 feet wide.

I don’t normally consider parking garages to be beautiful, but with the creation of this Community Bookshelf, the folks in Kansas City have made something extraordinary. You can see a few images of it below.

I suppose it would be difficult to convince the library board in my city to do something similar, but I would love to see…

Microsoft Word is powerful software and generally the Indie author’s friend, but sometimes its intuitive automatic tweaking can cause headaches that can take days to get to the bottom of, and at other times lead to giving up on certain looks we want for our books altogether. Non-fiction books in particular regularly have bullet lists in them, and if you have lots of bulleted lists in any particular book you can end up with dodgy margins, among other unattractive changes.

It’s common knowledge among self-publishing authors that Word generated bullet lists and Kindle books are not the best of friends. The easiest ways around this are to either to manually insert bullet symbols at the beginnings of each sentence of the list, or to create the lists as images in software built for the purpose, or to use Canva or some similar online image creation site. Here’s an example of…

Today as I revised my novel, I noticed something that should have leaped off the page during past reviews, but didn’t. I am having a love affair with ‘ing’. These ‘ing’ words are all over the place.

I stopped the revision process and did some research on ‘ing’. I remembered reading somewhere, that the overuse of ‘ing’ words was not a good thing.

Opportunities to overuse the ‘ing’ word are boundless. There are nouns, adjectives, verbs, and even verbs masquerading as nouns called gerunds, all ending in ‘ing’.

So what’s the big deal? What’s wrong with ‘ing’ words?

The overuse of ‘ing’ words mark you as an amateur – Don’t be alarmed if you see more than a handful on one page. Do take a closer look if you see more than a handful in a single paragraph.

While wrapping a soothing sling around the fledgling’s broken wing, Diana was humming, dreaming of her prince charming…