August Wainwright's Blog, page 91

The E-book Sky is Falling… Right?

Over the past few days, articles have popped up on the Washington Post and LA Times websites (which I’m sorry but I refuse to link to as a sign of respect to real journalists) where the authors of the articles lay out why e-book sales are “leveling-off” and “flattening”.

I thought I’d take a moment to shine a little light on the not-so-true and flat-out-wrong statistics that these various articles present.

First, I find it honorable that in most circles where writers are hanging out, when the n...

Updates and 2 Interviews of David Heinemeier Hansson

So I’ve been on a bit of a website break over the past few days working on something that I think is going to be HUGE for authors.

Some really great people are coming together to create an opportunity for authors that is unmatched in the marketplace right now.

I know that all sounds like a bunch of bullshit hype – and it might crash and burn before the public ever sees it – but the realization that we live in the age where a bunch of forward thinking nut-jobs can attempt to do what no publisher...

Is Your Book Cover a Cliché?

You want to know what the problem is with using stock photography for your book cover?

It’s THIS:

How amazing is that?Almost too good to be true.

This is the main issue with stock images – anyone can use them. And on the surface, each of these authors was probably either:

1. Outwardly happy with what their publishers did with the cover, since they really don’t have much of a say anyways

OR

2. Super excited when their cover designer came back with such a dark, foggy, noir cover for their super uniq...

The Remy Moreau Facebook Fan Page

For those of you who are readers and fans of my Remy Moreau mystery series of books, I’ve just finished creating a new fan page on Facebook.

Click for the Remy Moreau Facebook page

The Facebook page is where I’ll post most of the material that is specific to the Remy Moreau series and where I’ll interact with readers.

I want to keep the “selling” to a minimum on this site and keep the information relevant to helping other writers, so moving most of the Remy interaction over to Facebook should he...

How to Find Success as a Self-Published Author

I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone for the great response to the 50 Best Sites for Indie & Self Published Authors post. The reaction has been amazing and many of the writers and sites on the list have weighed in to say thanks. I’ve also learned about a few new sites that are worth a regular visit. Unfortunately, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed answering emails and spreading the word, so I haven’t gotten around to posting a new article for the last 2 weeks. No bueno.

Recently, I’ve been st...

The Indie 50 – The 50 Best Sites for Indie and Self-Published Authors

This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now and kept putting it off. Having now finished the list, I completely understand why I’ve been procrastinating for so long.

Trying to compile a list of relevant sites was hard enough. But attempting to get thatlist down to the final 50 sites turned out to be a massive endeavor; and I wasn’t even done yet – I still felt the need to try to rank the sites. How, or using what scale? Hell, I have absolutely no idea.

In the end, I decided the In...

Publication Day! The St. Mary’s Cipher

Volume 2 in the Remy Moreau series just went live over at Amazon. And for a limited time, from now until Sunday at midnight, I’m going to have both volumes, #1 & 2 in the series, on sale for only $0.99 each.

For the next 6 days only, you can download both books in the series so far for only $1.98. That’s more than 70% off the normal list prices.

Get Volume 1, ‘A Study in Sin’, here.

Get Volume 2, ‘The St. Mary’s Cipher’, here.

Here’s a brief description of volume 2 in the series:

Tim Fairling has...

US vs UK Book Covers

As I’ve talked about here before, the cover of a book has huge implications for how that book is perceived. It is probably the single most important aspect when marketing a book to a potential reader.

Readers are swayed by book covers, now more than ever. Head over to Amazon or Kobo or B&N, search through any category, and you’ll notice just how many of those little covers are jammed onto every single page.

What’s interesting is that, for at least some (if not most) traditionally published book...

How NOT To Use Social Media, Or How To Be The World’s Most Annoying Writer

If I was feeling like a particularly mean spirited a-hole right now, I would head over to Twitter, take a nice little screenshot, and paste my feed into this article. I would tell you to look at the twitter-ers listed, and notice the pattern of every single tweet. Then, I would say, “THE END”.

Or, I could head over to my G+ page, let the mouse meander its way up to the notifications section, take another screenshot, and let you digest the numerous unsolicited notifications, invites, and blog p...

A Study in Sin Excerpt

The night sky burned a bright red-orange as flickering embers floated above the dark tree line. Aiden Clery ran towards the glow in the sky, forgetting the fire in his lungs, focusing on the flames that lay ahead. Deep within his seared and black thoughts was what he knew to be the truth, what he fought not to acknowledge; that he was running towards death, towards destruction, and towards the inevitability that, with every step, his grip on goodness would loosen more and more, until there wa...