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Book Giveaways – Do They Make Any Sense? By Florence Osmund

Geri Clouston
You want me to do what? Offer my book for free? Just give it away? I would never do that. I put too much work into writing it and spent a small fortune on editing, cover design, and formatting. And what would people think—that I put such little value on my book that I’m willing to give it away? Nope. Not me. That was some of my earlier thinking. I’ve since changed my attitude. Let me explain how giving away books makes good business sense. KDP Select My experience with book giveaways is with Amazon’s KDP Select program for Kindle e-books. When you enroll your book in KDP Select, you have access to certain promotional tools including free book promotions where you are allowed to price your book for "free" for up to five days during each 90-day enrollment period. The book then also qualifies for Kindle Unlimited (an e-book subscription service) and the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. The main caveat is that as long as your e-book is enrolled in the program, it is exclusive to the Kindle Store—you agree not to sell it from any other venue. I personally don’t have a problem with that, but some people…

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Words of Wisdom , ,

Attention Mainstream & Indie Authors

Geri Clouston
Some Lessons to Learn About Self-Publishing There is no question that the poor quality of the vast majority of self-published books has tainted the well and made all self-published books the target of criticism. We all wish that weren’t the case; however, the good news is that many in mainstream publishing have begun to notice that there are a small but growing number of self-published books that deserve attention. They are in every way as good as traditionally published books and many are better. Evidence of this was provided in the awards ceremony at the recent 2015 Historical Novel Society Conference, where three awards were presented: I think this proves two things: First, the best of indie books are competitive to mainstream published books. And second, indieBRAG is finding and supporting great self-published books. In conclusion, it is YOUR job as a self-published author to do the work to make your book the best that it can be. If you do, it is OUR job to do everything we can to shine a light on you and your book.  

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Words of Wisdom , ,

Reviewing Historical Fiction – what every Indie Writer Should Know

Geri Clouston
Helen Hollick - author, editor of Historical Novel indie books and author of 3 B.R.A.G.Medallion Honorees- shares her wisdom with us! It is all very well writing an historical novel – doing all that research, checking and re-checking to ensure no factual errors or anachronistic bloopers creep in, (like the narrative in a Medieval novel proudly announcing; “she froze, like a rabbit caught in the headlights,”) but what happens after you have finished the editing, sorted the formatting and finally got your book into print? You want it to sell, of course. The best way to do this is by word of mouth. Create a buzz, get people talking about your novel. Easier said than done though! A good way to get started is obtaining an Indie B.R.A.G medallion and gaining some genuine honest, reliable, reviews. Which is where I come in. I am an author – traditionally published with my Historical Fiction in the US, but my nautical fantasy adventure series, the Sea Witch Voyages are Indie Published (and all have B.R.A.G. medallions). But for this article, my other role is the primary one: I am also the Historical Novel Society’s Managing Editor for Indie Reviews. We welcome indie…

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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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The Self-publishing World , , , ,

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

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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Readers Thoughts!

A Word of Thanks to indieBRAG readers

Geri Clouston
We are all authors of our own life's story, dutifully crafting each chapter, sometimes in harmony with a disciplined plot line, but more often than not simply reacting to the accidents of fate that appear without warning at the end of one chapter or the beginning of the next. And although few but our family and friends will share in the unfolding tale as we live each sentence and paragraph that does not diminish the importance of having been here; of living and loving, of laughing and crying, and yes, eventually, dying. Millions of us get up each day to write the next chapter in the book of our lives without fanfare or promise, but there are some, perhaps braver than the rest, perhaps more egotistical, or more likely simply afraid of being forgotten, who are not content to let the mark of their having passed this way to be etched solely in the minds and memories of those who loved them. Instead they seek to leave a more permanent imprint, however tiny and insignificant it may be, upon the collective narrative of mankind. Most don't write the story of their own lives, because these would be dry or tortured…

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The World of Reading , , , ,

2014 indieBRAG SURVEY RESULTS

Geri Clouston
READERS SURVEY: PART ONE Over the past two weeks I have shared with you highlights from indieBRAG's Second Annual Survey among Authors of a B.R.A.G Medallion book. I would now like to present the key findings from the Reader Survey, and compare the results to 2013 where relevant. I will provide these results in three parts, beginning today with the Reader Survey: Part One.   READER SURVEY: PART ONE Overview As was the case with the Author Survey, participation in this year's survey among our readers declined versus last year. Specifically, it dropped to 15%, which compares to 25% in 2013. While we were disappointed by this lower participation rate, the sample was still large enough to provide some useful, albeit directional, findings. The results I will present in Part One and Two reflect the readers' general views and preferences unrelated to their roles as indieBRAG reviewers. In Part Three, I will highlight several key findings that pertain directly to our readers' experiences in reading indieBRAGsubmissions. Preferred Format for Books Like last year, a little over half of our readers prefer reading an eBook. Only ten percent prefer trade paperbacks while forty percent read either. Very few readers favor mass…

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Words of Wisdom

READER SURVEY: PART THREE

Geri Clouston
READER SURVEY: PART THREE In this Blog I will conclude my summary of the key findings from the indieBRAG 2014 Reader Survey. The results presented here reflect the views and preferences of the respondents in their roles as members of the indieBRAG reader team. Based on their experiences reading self-published books for indieBRAG, 80% of our readers believe that the best indie books are as good as the best traditionally published books, while 20% say they are even better. This finding has not changed versus last year. Factors Affecting Attitude Characteristics of Self-Published Books Advice to Self-Published Authors As we did in the Author Survey, we asked our readers if there was one piece of advice that they could give to self-published authors what would it be? This concludes my review of the significant findings of the 2014 indieBRAG Reader Survey. I hope that you have found these results, along with those from the Author Survey, interesting and informative. However, as I said at the beginning of this series of Blogs, the level of participation in both the Author and Reader Surveys dropped markedly this year versus last year, and we are currently considering whether or not to discontinue the…

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Words of Wisdom

The indieBRAG Survey Results

Geri Clouston
AUTHOR SURVEY: PART TWO Thanks for joining us for the second part of our Friday Blog on the indieBRAG Survey-                   Robert In this Blog I will conclude my summary of key findings from the indieBRAG 2014 Author Survey. Type of Social Media Used. Observations: • As in 2013, virtually all of our authors use social media to promote their SP books and this is done across a broad range of social media types. • Having a website, Facebook page and being on Goodreads continue to be the most commonly used types of social media. • The usage of Twitter while still strong at 72%, dropped from 79% a year ago. • The percentage of authors having a Pinterest page jumped dramatically to 49% versus 36% last year. • Conversely, the number of authors who write a blog dropped markedly from 86% last year to 68% this year. Types of Reviews Read Observations: • All respondents say they read book reviews on amazon.com and over 60% say these reviews can Always or Usually be trusted. • Almost as many authors read reviews on Goodreads but the percentage who trust them is a…

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The World of Reading

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