Ksenia Anske's Blog, page 64

Finding great photos for your blog

Photo by Trini61

This has been requested by several people, and it never actually occurred to me that indeed I have developed a certain process in finding great photographs for my blog and have finessed it over the last year, but didn't think it would be worthy to blog about. But now that I do think about it, it is worthy of a blog post, because it involves copyright issues, and other things that are often ignored, because it's very easy to just Google an image and post it on your blog. My pos...

How to self-publish a book, PART 2, or the second 4 circles of Hell

Photo by Joel Robison

Right. To continue from the 1st part of this post, on the first 5 circles of Hell of self-publishing, and to borrow from Dante's Inferno analogy once more, here come the second 4 circles of Hell, and I have switched them around a little. Why? Because while prepping the post, I have stumbled across this huge issue that needed its own circle, namely, pricing. How to price your book? This is a whole can of worms, so I will bundle distributing into one circle, and pricing int...

How to self-publish a book, PART 1, or the first 5 circles of Hell

Photo by Joel Robison

The fact that I'm writing this blog post means that I'm still alive, although how I am alive, I don't know, because the journey to self-publish my trilogy Siren Suicides has not only taken away my soul, but my also my sanity, my sleep, the ground from under my feet, the... do I need to continue? What a beast. I did quickly publish Blue Sparrow, the little book of my tweets, but it was nothing, nothing, compared to publishing not 1 novel, but 3! So, as promised to many man...

ROSEHEAD excerpt, Draft 2

It's my tradition to post excerptsfrom each new novel draft. I started writing 2nd draft of ROSEHEAD last Monday and should've done it then, but have completely forgotten. Don't kill me, because I'm cheating. I'm prepping a big huge humongous blog post (to come out after this one) on everything I learned about self-publishing, how to do it, how much it costs, etc, and there seems to be little else that can occupy my brain at the moment. So... I will throw in a twist. My boyfriend suggested th...

Tips on writing series, or how SIREN SUICIDES grew from 1 book to 3

Photo by Leah Johnston

I've only written one box/thing/bundle/whateveryoucallit of the series, just off the bat, just so you know. SIREN SUICIDES grew from 1 book to 3 via 5 drafts, well, 7, if you count 1 full pass done by my editor Colleen M. Albert, and then 1 final one by me after that. Many folks asked me to share the wisdom on writing series. As such, I don't know how much wisdom I have, but I did learn a few things from writing this beast over the course of 1 year, and I think next time...

What to edit in first draft, or how to write second draft

Photo by Ksenia Anske

This was a hot topic when I asked on Twitter what people wanted me to blog about next, and since I'm in the process of editing 1st draft of ROSEHEAD (or, in other words, writing 2nd draft), it fit perfectly. Plus, of course, people saw me blasting a picture of my board with sticky notes and were wondering what's written on them (gibberish, mostly, I tell you, and maybe some nuggets of sense here and there). Anyway... here you are, sitting, all happy with yourself for havi...

Write first, research later!

Photo by Ana Luísa Pinto

Recently, out of multiple Twitter conversations, this topic about research bubbled up to the surface, with many heated opinions on it, that all came down to the following questions. Should I do research before starting on a novel? Should I do research while I'm writing my 1st draft, or 2nd draft, or what number draft? Should I not write at all if I haven't done research? How much research do I need to do, when, how, why, and can someone hold my hand, please, because I'...

Choosing fonts for your self-published book

Photo by Joel Robison

I know it's a boring blog post title, but it's such an important part of your book and it's overlooked by so many indie authors, that I've got to chime in and give you a summary of hours and hours of my research that went into picking fonts for SIREN SUICIDES and involved crawling on all fours across the vast lands of the Internets and the Blogs and other peculiar places where information resides nowadays, includingmarvelous posts on fontsby marvelousJoel Friedlanderwho k...

Editing process, or how to make your book readable

Photo by Joel Robison

This week I have finished reading and doing final tweaks to the final edited copy of SIREN SUICIDES, my first novel that grew from one book to three. In light of this, I've been asked to blog about the whole editing process, what's it like, how to go about it, and other beautiful stuff like this. I'm by no means a seasoned author with over twenty novels written, so I'll tell you what I learned over this year, because it took me one year to write all three books. I can't a...

How I plan to make money

Photo by trini61

This topic has been voiced by many people over the course of the last year, ever since I wrote about quitting my job and giving my books away for free. Many people have asked me how I was able to do that, how do I live now, if I'm making money or not, and if I'm not making money, how can I afford to live and how do I plan to make money. Then a couple weeks ago a fellow indie writer Ron Vitale aka @ronvitale finally asked me this question point blank, requesting that I share my...