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indieBRAG Battles BBBR!

Geri Clouston
What is BBBR you ask? I will explain but first let me share some facts that will come as no surprise to most of you: Bowker, an industry research group, reported that 458 thousand books were self-published in the United States in 2013, an increase of 17% versus the prior year, and 437% versus 2008. In contrast, the number of traditionally published books has remained basically flat at 305 thousand for the past five years. A quarter of the top 100 bestselling Kindle books on Amazon.com in 2012 were self-published via KDP, according to a spokesperson for Amazon. And this trend is expected to continue. I could go on but clearly there is an inexorable shift occurring in the publishing industry away from traditionally published books toward their indie counterparts. That's the good news for all of us who care about quality indie books and their dedicated authors. So what's the bad news? Well, the operative word in the preceding sentence was 'quality". Unfortunately, as we have seen first-hand at indieBRAG, up to 90% of all indie books are poorly written and edited. Or, as one traditional publisher said somewhat inelegantly, "the overwhelming majority are terrible—unutterable rubbish." Which brings me…

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Celebrating Your Children With Reading

Geri Clouston
With the ever increasing pull of technology we find great efficiencies and learn faster but are we struggling to teach our children the fine art of reading? And are they getting enough of that joyful silence where they steal themselves away and get lost in a great reading adventure. For the members and followers of IndieBRAG, reading is everything we are about, but even for us the struggle exists. Our children and grandchildren play with smart phones and tablets and get use to the immediate gratification that comes with rote learning. And it's quite amazing to see them tackle technology; preparing themselves for a world that we can only begin to imagine. But learning to read is hard work and takes the time and patience that is hard-won in our fast paced lives. Here are a few tips from our team and friends. Make consistent time to read. The easiest way for us all to turn off is to find a chunk of time and turn it into a ritual. Light a fire, make some snacks and encourage the children in your life to slow down and grab a book. Be a good example. Our children aren't the only ones…

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Oh My, Too Many Books!

Geri Clouston
  I just spent the day cleaning out my bookshelves- too many books for too little space. It seems I've kept every book I ever enjoyed – not sure why. I probably should have been giving them to my local library, or selling them in a garage sale, but I didn't. In my defense, I kept them all because I thought I might want to read them again one day. But since I kept buying more books that I couldn't wait to read, this didn't ever, or rarely ever, happened. So my shelves are overflowing with my treasures –beautifully bound classics, historical fiction (lots of these), fun reads, tear jerkers, bodice rippers (I admit it), even a few non-fiction books (memoirs, biographies and travelogues, oh my)...all books that I just could not give up. However, life moves on and things change; now I only buy and read books on my Kindle. They are much less expensive and I can take as many books as I like with me everywhere. I don't have to get sore arms holding a heavy book up in front of me in those dreadful airplane seats (never on take-off or landing, of course, except when the…

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The Acknowledgement Page May Be The Last One I Read

Geri Clouston
In the vein of the comment by Gloria H. I would like to add that there is another trap that all too many self-published authors fall into: it is the verbose, sometimes grandiose, and self-serving acknowledgement page, or even worse, pages. (I am using a male author to make my point but it applies equally to both sexes.) These invariably start off with something like, "I want to dedicate this book to my wife, Margie, who has put up with me for what seems like an eternity; my seven kids who are too numerous to name here but they know who they are; and the rest of my family, especially my aunt Rose and her Thursday night bridge group; also, my golf partner, Hole-In-One Harry, and the rest of our foursome at the club; and finally, my office wife, Darlene, who always made sure there was hot coffee waiting for me on those mind-muck mornings when I stumbled in to work after pulling an all-nighter. To all of you, I want to say thank-you for your support, your steadfast faith in me, and your encouragement..." Blah. Blah. Blah. Arguably, even worse was one indie thriller author who used the acknowledgement page to thank John Grisham and James Patterson, for the inspiration they provided that enabled him to write his book. Please! We know that you don't know these men, and you know that we know you don't know them; therefore, to credit them for inspiring you is not only the height of presumptuousness but just plain stupid. All of which says that whenever I read an acknowledgement that is greater than five or ten words, I shudder at what I will find on page one. So my advice to you who are about to self-publish a book is that unless you have written a mystery that cleverly incorporates chaos theory and you want to thank your professor at M.I.T. for his advice and guidance, just say a few words of thanks to your spouse, or your parents, and get on with your story! – Bob C. *The comments, advice and opinions expressed here are those of members of our reader group. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the owners, management, or employees of indieBRAG, LLC.

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Readers Thoughts!, Writers, Readers & Self Publishing

Your Cover Never Gets A Second Chance To Make A First Impression

Geri Clouston
Respectfully, I have a word of cautionary advice for all you self-published authors who want to have your book read by a wide audience. It doesn't matter how good your tale is, it may not get read if you don't put the same degree of effort into designing the cover that you did into crafting the story. Bland and boring covers lacking in visual appeal, or those that give no indication of what I am about to read, turn me off before I even pick it up off the bookstore shelf, or read the description on-line. I guess I feel that if the cover isn't well-conceived perhaps the story won't be either. As a result, I may have passed up some good books that just didn't get my attention. A great example of a book with a compelling cover is one of the BRAG Medallion recipients listed on this website. It is Richard Dennings's The Last Seal. The book's cover portrays London burning, which is a central plot line and without having reading a word it captured my attention. – Gloria H. *The comments, advice and opinions expressed here are those of members of our reader group. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the owners, management, or employees of indieBRAG, LLC.

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Readers Thoughts!, Writers, Readers & Self Publishing

I certainly appreciate the love affair with a good book

Geri Clouston
  Get with the times- I certainly appreciate the love affair with a good book - I have shelves full of them. BUT, like it or not, "the times, they are a-changin" (actually have changed). To not have your book available as an e-books is just crazy. We have reached a point where more people are buying e-books than print books and the gap will only get wider. Let's face it, fewer and fewer people are willing to spend $15- $30+ on just any book. This is not to say that you shouldn't publish a traditional book. When I love a book, I want it on my book shelves – somehow a library with only a Kindle or Nook on the shelf just doesn't do it for me! The initial cost of a n ebook reader is quickly recouped when reading books that cost $0- $10! Also, both amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com offer the opportunity to "sample" a book at no cost – no more being disappointed by a book that cost you in both time and money. ebooks authors, ebooks. According to AAP Publishers February 2011 Sales Report For February 2011, e-Books ranked as the #1 format among all categories of Trade publishing (Adult Hardcover, Adult Paperback, Adult Mass Market, Children's/Young Adult Hardcover, Children's/Young Adult Paperback). These statistics come from the trade publishers so we can assume that if you add self publishing to these figures they will be much higher! GJC *The comments, advice and opinions expressed here are those of members of our reader group. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the owners, management, or employees of indieBRAG, LLC.

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Interrupting a Great Story

Geri Clouston
When I think about why I love to read, I think about getting so lost in the story that I can't hear the teakettle whistling or even feel the need to reach for a cookie. Perhaps the story has the kind of dialogue that lets me see the characters in full animation sparking words and phrases back and forth like a tennis match. Sometimes the author is such a wordsmith that the village comes to life with stores, sidewalks, children, and a mountain behind and I just know that I've been there. If the writer is exquisite, the words flow like poetry, oozing out like oil paints to wrap my soul in time and place. When the story captures me, it flows and I am carried away to other places, other times, and it is brilliant. I don't like to have a great story interrupted, especially by the author themselves. Unfortunately, the best writers can be ruined by bad formatting or poor editing. Recently I read an e-book that was written by a true wordsmith, a writer that pushed the story along with the best dialogue and turned a phrase with pure poetry, a story-tellers dream. The grammar was perfect, but the dialogue was set up with odd punctuation marks that forced me to remember when a character was talking and who it was. The other problem was the writer's love affair with historic authenticity, to the point that there were footnotes at the bottom of each page. If I had been reading a paper book, I could have stayed with the flow of the story, but the e-book formatted on my Kindle in such a way that the footnotes usually ended up in the middle of the page and often in the middle of a sentence, so my eyes would have to jump over the footnote to continue with the thought. Good story floats imagination and poor grammar or distracting format can build a dam in the middle of the strongest river. - Bethany

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