I am penning this article as I have seen some blatantly ridiculous evidence of some indie authors taking something that “inspired” them and turning that inspiration into one of the following categories of books: 1) A “cash in” book on a current trend. ie. The endless vampire teen romance books aimed at targeting Twihards (No offense to Twihards, just an example). This is the least of all evils as although it can be mind...

I recently posted about Legacies and what we will leave behind. That leads me to this topic, motivation. If we’re not motivated and driven, how will we achieve anything that we want to leave behind? One of the hardest disciplines to master is that of motivation and self-discipline. As writers, it is very easy to fall into the trap of “doing it later”, “I will…”, “One day…”, “When...

I don’t usually write articles about non-fiction books, but in this case… it’s worthy of spreading the word. Let’s take a quick ride in the mad scientist’s DeLorean and jump back into my history, I wrote and later published my first fantasy novel in November 2009. Not a bad feat by any means, but I then continued to attempt to “promote” it online. To give you a bit more of an idea about my skillset, I...

I remember when I finished the final draft of my manuscript and was ever so excited to be publishing my novel. Like a child on a sugar rush, I felt fantastic! That was until I got the requirements from my publisher that I need to write a book synopsis. Suddenly without warning, the sugar drained out of me and I was thinking to myself… “How the heck do you write a synopsis?!?” I did not even know where to begin and I am...

I have found that a lot of Author’s are confused or ill informed of how to make a good website to promote their book, themselves, and moving toward new technologies that embrace socialising. Most of what I have written below is learnings from my skillset, trial and error, feedback, learning from other IT professionals and other authors, and doing a lot of research. “I just want to sell books through my site” – (many...

Your book’s finished manuscript is before you in all its glory. Take a moment to celebrate what you have done, as you have achieved what 95% of writers never can. The question I asked myself at this point was, what now? The bad news is, you have a lot of work ahead of you. Everybody has their own methods for making their manuscript publishable. What does “Publishable” mean? To me, a book is not publishable until it is as free...