Amy Ellis's Blog, page 3

Lady Business. Why aren't we hearing about it?

I should note that this post isn't very publishing related. Publishing is a very female industry.

As I start the preliminary steps for my major project (!!) I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading a lot of information about online start up businesses, self-publishing, and entrepreneurs. I've gotten a ton of great advice about how to approach my project from a business standpoint. How to make it a viable business and how to draw users to my site. These are important things to me. G...

The Most Stressful Week I've Ever Had (AKA Some Serious Learning Experiences About Publishing)

My postgraduate education is slowly winding down. Today was my final day of class and the weight on my shoulders is slowly lifting its burden. I've only got two assignments standing between me and my major project and I am ready to finish them up and move on. It has been quite the journey but I am so ready to start a new chapter of my life (preferably one with a salary...)

Yesterday, my group and I presented our Digital Strategy project to Liz Marchant from Pearson Education. We pitched a new...

Grad School Has Taken Over My Life!

Anyone visiting my website in the past few months has probably been thinking, "wow, this girl hasn't blogged in months! She is the worst author, writer, whatever ever!" And you are absolutely right! I am a terrible blogger. I know this about myself. I am so sorry. However, in my defense, I am a week away from finishing my final semester of postgraduate studies and this semester has been crazy hectic since day one. I haven't had time for weekly summaries because I've been crazy busy.

Here's a q...

Happy Indie Book Day! Free Books for Everyone!

Well I completely disappeared for a month and a half but with good reason: This semester has been BUSY. The work has been constant from week 1 and I also just recently started my first work experience placement at Osprey Publishing in the marketing department. Between coursework, writing, and work experience, I am swamped but in a very great way.

However, I could not let Indie Book Day pass without posting a blog with links to FREE copies of all three of my YA novels. Yep. All of them. Comple...

Lunchtime Digital Publishing Seminar with Liz Marchant from Pearson

I'm a bit late in posting this write-up but I've been buried under a ton of research for a very, very exciting Major Project idea but on Wednesdays the publishing department at Oxford Brookes is hosting Lunchtime Digital Publishing Seminars with speakers from several different publishing houses. (Everyone is welcome, btw.)

The speaker this week was Liz Marchant from Pearson who presented a presentation on Digital Publishing from and Educational Publisher which was fascinating.

The main point sh...

Grad School Weekly Wrap Up: Semester 2 Week 1

The semester started up in full swing this week and I am back to reality (and blogging!)

My courses this semester seem really interesting and so far I'm glad I chose them. Here's what I learned this week:

Digital Publishing Strategy 

The first week of class was mainly going over the course expectations and the history of technology in publishing. Yes, that even included the CD ROM books that caused a lot of companies to go completely bust... However, during the seminar portion of the class...

Cool Writer Tool: WordKeeperAlpha

I was so excited when I stumbled upon this great tool for writers that I just had to share immediately. Seriously, I'm on a five minute Pomodoro writing break and am spending my time blogging about my new favorite tool: WordKeeperAlpha. 
Since I started self-publishing, I became obsessed with numbers. Sales numbers, sales income, and ESPECIALLY word counts because there would be no sales without an ever-growing word count. Last year, after I got into the habit of tracking word counts duri...

Building a Portfolio and Gaining Experience

I thought having a lot of downtime between semesters would be really great (and it really is sometimes...) but as the days have started dragging by with infinite slowness I've decided it's high time to start creating a large portfolio for myself. You know, professional development and all that. 
While I've been applying for work experience, I haven't had much luck (the two I got hired for seemed to have... fallen apart... before I could even start. Just my luck.) so I decided that I shoul...

Amazon Pricing and the New EU VAT Situation

I haven't talked much about my self-publishing experience on here since it all got put on the back burner for university but I figured I'd make a post about the new EU changes that are happening.

I hadn't paid much attention to it until I got an email from Amazon last night while I was half-asleep and I worried that my prices had gotten pushed below the 70% royalty threshold which, considering my royalties are how I'm hanging on financially at the moment, is a pretty big deal. This is a snippe...

And So the Major Project/Dissertation Prep Begins...

Sorry for going MIA on the grad school updates front but the last three weeks of school were suddenly insanely hectic. I was traveling up and down 4-5 days a week to meet up with my groups for projects that were all due the same week and life just got difficult. In addition to that, our lectures became mostly guest speakers who were happy to share information with upcoming publishing professionals but weren't so keen for us to blab about our new learnins' online. Therefore, no blog posts.

Alas...