Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 109

Great Interview between Joanna Penn and April L. Hamilton and How I Actually Increased Sales

Today is one of those days where I have two topics I really want to post on. So I think I will. Forgive the length. I know it's much too long. I made a divider between the topics mentioned in the subject line.


I just listened this great podcast/blog post over at The Creative Penn. The link will take you to Joanna Penn with April L. Hamilton. For anyone unfamiliar to April L. Hamilton, she's a huge advocate of self-publishing, and she was the one who told me about CreateSpace at a time whe...

Google Alerts

I found this article this morning on Google Alerts and thought you might like to check it out. I did learn about Google Alerts at the writer's conference, but this article goes into more depth than what I learned.

I went to http://www.google.com/alerts and signed in. Then I inserted search terms that I wanted to follow, like "ruth ann nordin" and "ruth nordin". I did do a search for my book names but then I got everything out there with those titles or even one of the words in those title...

Thoughts on Small Publishing (based on a Victoria Strauss article I read today)

I've actually thought about starting a small publishing company. One of my good friends recently started one, and judging by the post on Victoria Strauss' blog, she is doing things right.

But also by reading through the post, I have thoroughly decided that I do not want to start a small publishing company. All I kept thinking as I read it was, "This looks like a headache waiting to happen." I'd rather just help my friend with it than take the reins. She has a business degree and a lot more ...

Ask the Agents (From the Writer's Workshop)

I know this is long, but since I'm working on my audiobook, I'm going to post the whole thing so I can focus on the edits for the audio. :-)

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At the HACWN conference, I got the chance to take a workshop where three agents answered questions from the writers attending it. The three agents were Mary Sue Seymour, Terry Burns, and Les Stobbe. Terry and Les were published authors before they became agents, and Mar...

An Invite to be a Part of a WordPress Blog where Self-Published Authors Can Congregate

My friend and I thought it might be fun to start up a blog on WordPress for self-published authors or anything thinking of self-publishing. Anyway, I thought I'd offer anyone who's interested to take a look and see if they want to join. I wrote this at the bottom of the post I made today to sum up our idea:

"Stephannie and I would love to have other authors (whether you are thinking of self-publishing, have done both self-publishing and traditional publishing, or are already self-published) t...

You Can Make A Kindle Version of Your Book

I didn't know this was possible to do for free. Someone was charging $200 for this service. I've uploaded my documents up to Amazon for making Kindles, but if anyone wants to make a Kindle to sell off their website or to offer a free ebook or even a sample chapter, then this might be useful to you: http://jwordsmith.wordpress.com/2009/...

Oh, Smashwords will also convert your file to a Kindle, but unlike Amazon, I can't see a preview.

Making a Living Writing -- What I Learned at the Writer's Conference

Not many people will make a living writing books. The key is to find things that you are good at and combine them. Some things you can do in addition to writing books are editing, writing short fiction, writing magazine articles, ghostwriting, etc.


Writing Short Fiction and Magazine Articles:

1. Make money. In the time it takes from when you start to write a book to seeing it in print, it can take an average of six years. While this time passes, writing short fiction and articles can pad y...

If you Like Self-Publishing, Does that Make You "Anti-Commercial Publishing?" and other stats to give you hope

I'm posting again right after this because I promised something from the writer's conference, and this is not it. But I came across a comment (not on my blog; this is elsewhere) and I have to get this out of my system so I can focus.

The comment was on someone else's blog and it went something like this: "All those predictions that self-publishing will do better this year is from the anti-commercial publishing crowd."

Don't you just love the way this is worded? We are not pro-self-publishing;...

Buy My Book! Buy My Book! When You are Just a Royalty Check....

This post is written from my perspective as a reader.

You've seen it before. The "so and so wants to be your friend. Will you be their friend too?" message in your inbox. This person is an author. The first inclinaiton of course is to say yes. After all, it's hard not friend someone who asked to be your friend. But just what kind of friend are you getting? Is this person genuinely interested in you or do they view you as a royalty check?

You know that you're only wanted for a royalty chec...

Develop a Relationship with Your Readers

I think this is one of the most beneficial things an author can do, and it's not just because you want them to buy your book or more of your books. It's amazing how much a reader can offer. I mean, on one hand, we (as authors) are offering them something to read, but I've learned that they have offered me much more than I've ever given them.

Anyway, I guess every author feels like their readers are the best ones on the planet. :-) At least, I feel like I have the best group of people who r...