The Self-publishing World

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All things self-publishing!

How did you discover indieBRAG?

Bob Clouston
Often times in B.R.A.G. Interviews we ask our authors how they discovered us. In September Stephanie at Layered Pages asked award winning author Justine Avery how she discovered us. Here is what she had to say: "I discovered indieBRAG by relying on a Google search to lead me to award programs or other recognition offered for independently published books and authors—if there were any at all.   I was so glad to find there are organizations, readers, reviewers, etc. devoted to discovering, critiquing, honoring, and publicizing indie books.  And indieBRAG is and does all of these!" -Justine Avery  To read the full interview, click here. Be sure to check out Justine’s interview with her husband, film director Devon Avery here       About Author If you love where storytellers Neil Gaiman, Edgar Allan Poe, Roald Dahl, O. Henry, and Ray Bradbury take you, then you have a new name to learn and love… Professionally, Justine Avery first traversed the murky corporate world of writing and designing technical documents to navigate through writing countless travel stories, reviews, personal essays, and articles. She is now the multi-award-winning author of numerous short stories and novelette-length works. Personally, she has been writing since first…

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award winning books, In Praise of indieBRAG, The Self-publishing World

Halloween – My Favorite Holiday!

Geri Clouston
       Gwen Dandridge                                                                                                                            The Stone Lions The Dragons' Chosen Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. When you have kids, the holidays take on a life of themselves, morphing into some other worldly sucker-up of time and energy. Halloween  was the best, I could let loose all my creative instincts and cheaply. A couple of us in our neighborhood designed and built costumes, each of us trying to outdo the other. I was single then and living on the east coast: working part time, going to school part time and broke. The end of October there was often chilly. Some of my first designs involve creating structures in which to place a child rather than dressing my children up in store bought outfits.                            …

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Authors' Chat, award winning books, Halloween, teen books, The Self-publishing World, Writers, Readers & Self Publishing

Three Axioms

Bob Clouston
Martha Kennedy Award winning Author of BragMedallion Honorees, Martin of Gfenn and Savior As a writer, I’ve learned a few pretty obvious lessons, but, as I have the learning style of a crash test dummy, I had to discover them for myself. It comes down to three axioms. Axiom 1 — Give your ardor time to cool before submitting your work. While it’s cooling… Axiom 2 — Get help with proofreading, solicit comments and help from friends, then hire a professional editor. Axiom 3 — Stay true to your work. ********** Axiom 1 — Submit in haste, repent at leisure.  OR…Don’t do anything with your manuscript while you’re in love with it. Love is blind. In 2005, when I finished (and proofread [see Axiom 2]) the initial, complete 500 manuscript pages of Martin of Gfenn, I was so INFATUATED with it that I couldn’t see that it was an overwritten, error-riddled, repetitive nightmare. Four years later, looking at it with clearer eyes, I saw the full horror of my prose. Unfortunately, I’d already queried every possible agent. I decided (as the revised book was exponentially better than the unrevised book) to query them again. Yes, this is the biggest “NO!…

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Mozambique’s typical food & Amani’s River

Geri Clouston
Foodie Lit: A genre of novel and memoirs filled with food stories and recipes Each month, I'll share the magic of a good Foodie Lit read and one of its recipes.  Cooking and recipes in novels or memoirs take us into the mind of the character or narrator and brings us into the book's kitchen to see, smell and share the lives within. Here's to cooking and reading together! Susan Amani's River and Collard Greens! In Amani’s River, an intense well-written historical novel by David Hartness, we are taken inside the mind of Aderito, a 10-year old American who travels with his father and mother to Mozambique. Aderito's father wants to help his family, caught in the brutal violence of the  Mozambique civil war, which raged from 1977-1992. Aderito becomes an unwilling child soldier in this civil war. A quiet studious child, Aderito is transformed into a murderer after his kidnapping by the Renamo rebel forces, fighting against a repressive government forces.  Both forces were accused later of war crimes. Beaten, starved and drugged, Aderito thinks, “This felt as if it were the end.”  But it was not. Memories of his former life fade. “Mixed with emotions, I felt the moral thing to do was tospare his life... However, the thing expected of me was to show my manhood and kill him for…

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Authors' Chat, Food for Thought, The Self-publishing World

What would stories about Pirates be without a bit of RUM?

Geri Clouston
Our indieBRAG Food Blogger, Susan Weintraub shares Rum and Cake to go with great pirate books - The Sea Witch Series by Helen Hollick What could be better! Pirates Rum Cake Susan Weintrob, Indie Brag and everydayhappyfoods.com Blogger Pirates had limited amounts of fresh meat, greens and insect free supplies.  Rum was one thing that there was a lot of !  I picture this cake appearing at the pirates’ table. Rum helped preserve the cake and the pirates! Sharing this cake at my South Carolina table felt right with so many pirates that populated this coast in the 18th century.  Pirate’s Rum Cake should taste fantastic at your table as well!   Pirates Rum Cake Modified from Yummly. Kitchen Nostalgia. CAKE 2 cups flour ⅓ cup cornstarch 1½ cups sugar or ¾ cup Stevia 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 5 eggs ½ cup vegetable oil ½ cup milk of choice (cow’s, almond or soy) 1 tsp lemon juice ½ cup rum 2 teaspoons vanilla ¼ cup dry breadcrumbs RUM BUTTER SAUCE: ½ cup (125 g) unsalted butter or dairy free margarine ¼ cup water ¼ - ½ cup sugar or ¼ cup Stevia ¼ - ½ cup rum ½…

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Foodie Lit, The Self-publishing World

A Success Story!

Geri Clouston
A Self-Published Sleeper: Author of 'The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep' Speaks The originally self-published Swedish children’s book The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep may seem to be an overnight sensation, but its success, claims author Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin, is actually the result of a slow build over roughly five years. According to Ehrlin, the sudden spike in international sales for the book—which Random House Children's Books bought for seven figures in August and released on Friday—is thanks to a perfect storm: word-of mouth praise driven by e-book giveaways, coupled with Amazon U.K. providing entrée to consumer media once the self-published book had taken off. During a phone interview with PW from the New York City office of his new publisher, Ehrlin, 37, who received a B.A. in psychology from Jonkoping University in Sweden, has no formal training in pedagogy or any direct experience working with children. But he has worked with adults, as a communications expert and management coach, and said the idea for writing Rabbit about five years ago and self-publishing it in 2011 in Sweden was driven by his experience working with this group. Rabbit marks Ehrlin's third foray into publishing. In 2006 he self-published…

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Mystical Mystery Bundle

Geri Clouston
Three BRAG Medallion Honorees have created a Mystical Mystery Bundle April 21 – 26, 2015   The first Mae Martin Psychic Mystery Obeying her mother’s warning, Mae Martin-Ridley has spent years hiding her gift of “the sight.” When concern for a missing hunter compels her to use it again, her peaceful life in a small Southern town begins to fall apart. New friends push her to explore her unusual talents, but as she does, she discovers the shadow side of her visions – access to secrets she could regret uncovering. Gift or curse? When an extraordinary ability intrudes on an ordinary life, nothing can be the same again. The Mae Martin Series No murder, just mystery. Every life hides a secret, and love is the deepest mystery of all. The First Lie – Virginia King Selkie Moon Mystery Series, Book One Selkie Moon is a woman on the run. In a mad dash for freedom she's escaped her life in Sydney to start over again in Hawaii. But her refuge begins to unravel and she's running from something else entirely. A voice in a dream says that someone is trying to kill her. Not that she's psychic, no way. But…

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WHAT WE ARE AND WHAT WE ARE NOT!

Geri Clouston
Recently, there have been a few comments made on various web forums that refer to indieBRAG as a paid review service. We are not and we would like to correct any misunderstanding of what we are and what we do. As the late four-term senator, ambassador, and sociologist, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." So here are two key facts about indieBRAG: FACT: We are a quality standards certification service for the self-published book industry. All books brought to our attention are subjected to a rigorous selection process. Books that are selected to receive our B.R.A.G. Medallion are actively promoted, while the names of the authors and titles of books that are not chosen are kept strictly confidential. The reason that we record a “5 Star review” at amazon.com, or on similar websites, is because that is the only way we can announce the award on those sites. FACT: We do charge a non-refundable $20.00 processing fee that covers ebook acquisition and administrative costs, and the expense of maintaining our website. While we would never be so presumptuous to compare ourselves to the prestigious Pulitzer Prize Award, the…

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The Self-publishing World

Can An Author Have It Both Ways?

Geri Clouston
Along with the ease of self-publishing came the ability to publish cheaply, and this may be one of the biggest problems with self-publishing today. Some of the disadvantages of getting a traditional publishing house contract are a loss of control and much lower royalties. The publisher chooses a cover they think will sell and they edit a book, including copy, line, and development editing. Even so, I have to say that not all traditionally published books are edited to perfection, or to the author's satisfaction, despite the fact that the publisher uses professional editors. Most self-published authors love the higher royalty percentage but often don't want, or can't afford, to hire the appropriate professional talent to make their book a quality product. I think it is accepted that in most cases an indie author simply can not properly edit their own work. Being so close to it, an author often sees what they think is there and not what is actually written on the page. Catching spelling mistakes is hard work (let's hope I didn't miss any in this blog), and in many cases, they fall in love with their own words. This makes it very hard to remove words,…

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The New International Author Fair

Geri Clouston
  The Business Of Books The first of the International Author Fair series organized by Authoright kicked off in London Friday February 28th. Its mission: to equip authors with the commercial, technical and political knowledge of where things are in the business of books and where they are going. The event is a sure sign that the industry is coming to terms with change and realizes it needs to create some kind of structure amid the new trends led by Amazon and indie publishing. Indeed, according to the panel chaired by the genial Porter Anderson around 75% of books could well be self-published by the year 2020. But this is not 2020 and the real challenge in today's changing world for both for writers and readers, is recognizing and sorting out the junk from the good stuff. There is apparently an awful lot of self-published books that really are not up to standard, consequently much of the discussion was about means of professionalizing indie publishing. I was surprised, though, that nothing was said about book approval platforms such as indieBRAG, which constitute a filter for the reader and a pedestal for the writer who is serious about their work. Workshops,…

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