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Indie Scene Magazine - Submissions Needed
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Rosen
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Feb 12, 2013 07:27AM
That sounds interesting Michael but I would want to balance it with an article from somebody who feels authors should not embrace piracy, so that it doesn't appear that the magazine endorses copyright theft.
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How about an article on Britain's five top indie authors? (Who are they, anyway?)
HahaHow about interviews with 5 indie authors who want to BE the UK's top 5.
Top of my head, the 5 GR / KUF authors who are often to be seen in top 10 are Steve, Jon, Talli, Rosen and David.Alaxandra, you'd not get that number below 500, let alone 5 of them :)
Anyway, I have a launch quiz for it ................As long as I know when the launch is lol.
Haha yes:)Lots of good ideas:) Very excited.
Launch date hasn't been decided yet Joo.If I was really one of the UKs top 5 indies, I'd throw a party!
Well I don't notice any other names regularly being in the top charts, so you must be top 5 :D
I have over 10 titles - gives me an unfair advantage!
I suspect that a general rule might be that the value of the reward is inversely proportional to the cost of entry
Adam, there was in interesting thread on here about awards a few weeks ago. Did you see it? I think it's been deleted now.I have quite a lot to say about awards people have to pay to enter (same principle as vanity publishing) where winners are selected by judges (i.e. gatekeepers so same principle as traditional publishing) to represent indie authors.
However, so many sites are offering those types of awards that I'm afraid an honest article will alienate many of our target audience.
I will, however, be bigging up the Indie Book Awards, which were free to enter, selected by readers, and followed a rigorous nomination process with careful fraud checks.
And I came second in my genre so I think they're brilliant awards :-)Seriously though there was an interesting thread where experienced people basically said, 'don't waste your money'
I did do a blog on the topic which was sort of tied to the thread and which covers much the same ground.
http://jandbvwebster.wordpress.com/20...
I've just put together the first article and it's looking lovely (if I do say so myself).Keep them coming folks.
Also, I'm open to distribution ideas. I'm hoping that the magazine will appeal to people outside of the usual circles but one way I was going to make this happen was an iPad newstand app. Unfortunately that is prohibitively expensive.
How have I missed this thread before? Your sample looks great, Rosen, and the ideas coming out are definitely something I'd like to read.Are you thinking of including articles on writing itself? How to construct stories, where to write, finding inspiration, how to write books on your smartphone (the latter of which I do - A LOT). That sort of thing?
I'm including some articles for writers but I'm trying to find content that appeals to readers too.Hopefully readers will pick it up for the short stories and reviews, and then discover authors.
Great idea, I agree that it ought to be predominantly for readers. Looking forward to the first copy and seeing what's in store. Perhaps that'll jog some inspiration in me and I can send you some possible contributions.
Ooh - what about, rather than a bog standard interview with an author, two interesting authors in conversation with each other...?
Contributions welcome. If you plan to write one please PM me with your title and I'll check for clashes.
Rosen wrote: "Contributions welcome. If you plan to write one please PM me with your title and I'll check for clashes."Happily, always like to check that articles/post/blogs are appropriate before going ahead and writing them. :)
Rosen wrote: "Ooh - what about, rather than a bog standard interview with an author, two interesting authors in conversation with each other...?"Now that, I really like!
Who should I ask? Stu seems one obvious choice, since Tollesbury Time did so well.
Rosen wrote: "I've just put together the first article and it's looking lovely (if I do say so myself).Keep them coming folks...."
Just to say I've seen it as well, and Rosen is right, to does look really good. She is one talented lady.
I'm seriously looking forward to the whole magazine!
Rosen wrote: "Who should I ask? Stu seems one obvious choice, since Tollesbury Time did so well."I definately agree with Stu, not just because Tollesbury did so well but also because he's err...just a little bit bonkers.
I think the conversation idea is inspired.
Thanks, Jim.Stu and Ian is a neat idea but people might think we've put them together because they're brothers and not because having two authors in conversation is a feature in itself. Might be more affective to put together two authors who wouldn't usually be chatting.
Agree it should be reader-focused.Are you going to use that software that allows you to turn pages, zoom, etc? (3dissue.com etc.)
Kindle has a channel for magazine sales, btw - though will this be free (at least to begin with)?
Polls would be another good thing to have.
So what would a reader want to know?
- book reviews
- author spotlight/interview (reader perspective)
- author list (by genre, add in birth country for British emphasis/theme)
- writing (some readers may be interested in writing so a small part of the mag could focus on this area - a sort of writers' workshop)
- new releases from British indie authors
- maybe something about ereaders, related apps, etc. (I think a lot of people still don't realize they can read Kindle books on a non-Kindle device)
- polls, quizzes, contests, give aways, etc.
- map of British Isles pinpointing author birth/residence
- ads ;)
- recommended indie books (?)
- yearly book award?
Does anybody know how to publish to the Kindle newstand? That would be ideal.Great suggestions there.
- book reviews
Got that.
- author spotlight/interview (reader perspective)
A conversation between two authors is in the pipeline. Also, we have an article from Joo's interrogations - I believe her original questions were proposed by readers.
- author list (by genre, add in birth country for British emphasis/theme)
I'm not sure that a plain list would be particularly engaging in itself. Any ideas to extend this suggestion?
- writing (some readers may be interested in writing so a small part of the mag could focus on this area - a sort of writers' workshop)
I've got a couple articles of the publishing process, another on writing ITSELF could be useful.
- new releases from British indie authors
Got that.
- maybe something about ereaders, related apps, etc. (I think a lot of people still don't realize they can read Kindle books on a non-Kindle device)
Great idea. "10 ways to read a Kindle book" perhaps? Any takers?
- polls, quizzes, contests, give aways, etc.
A couple people are submitting quizzes. I'm going to phrase getting short stories into future issues as a competition. I'm got an article on where to find giveaways.
- map of British Isles pinpointing author birth/residence
I have the indie map I prepared, made from book covers. However, due to spacing issues, some book ended up miles from their locations. Perhaps a new map with a few author details in boxes around the edge and lines to pins representing each. Could be tricky on an A4 page though.
- ads ;)
That's for the second issue! Let's lull people into a false sense of security first. ;-)
Incidentally, authors and nloggers submitting articles are getting automatic ads.
- recommended indie books (?)
- yearly book award?
I've got a page summarising the indie book awards.
- author list (by genre, add in birth country for British emphasis/theme)Could you split this between issues? So do an author list by genre or British region. Then readers wouldn't get bogged down by an enormous list. You could use 'check out our list of British sci-fi writers next time...' or 'In the next issue, discover the latest indie authors living in Manchester...'
- maybe something about ereaders, related apps, etc.
Great idea. "10 ways to read a Kindle book" perhaps? Any takers?
Love this idea too. I read on my iPhone Kindle app..not a Kindle in sight for me! Not sure I could come up with 10 though.
Can't think of much else. I was wondering about a word search for indie author names but I am not sure that would work.With the author list- why not pick a county a week or something. Could even be the county the interviewed author is from. Maybe even stats so and so comes from Yorkshire - there are X number of authors listed in Yorkshire. Or something like that, althouh how one goes about finding that info.
Or even by Genre. So this week Romance on the moors, in Heathclife country there are X authors and the readers who love them.
Next week, Crime in Midsomer? You haven't seen anything yet the West of England abounds with Thriller and Crime writers.
Or something like that.
This is just GR indies yes? Or all that people are aware of?
I think the map-based author "list" could work - remember you can zoom in on mags usually.
A map based list limited to a genre would probably be most practical.
I'd say the aim would be to include all British indie (fiction?) authors in time?I suppose the question is does it need a full list in every issue or a partial list in each (by county). As I said above, regions might be better as if you add up all the counties in England alone (let alone Scotland, Wales and Ireland & islands) that's a LOT of issues ;)
So, instead, home counties, west country, north wales, south wales, east anglia, etc...
Thinking as a reader, whilst it might be nice to occasionally get a list of indie authors, it isn't something I want to read every month or whatever. Far better to be on a website somewhere with a link from the magazine.From the readers point of view the list might be marginally more interesting than a page torn at random from a telephone directory, but probably only marginally .
If writers are mentioned it might be a case of covering those who've done something unusual.
But seriously there are an awful lot of us. I'd say that having us all write articles saying how wonderful we are and buy our books would kill of the magazine pretty quickly.
On the other hand if we submitted stuff, whether it was a short story or a piece on how you dealt with a scene or came up with a plot idea, then I think that would be worth reading
Rosen, I've submitted my article "How Wonderful I am and Why You Should Buy My Books".^ Oh, scratch that .... ;)
How about something like this?http://www.indie-book-bargains.co.uk/...
D.M. You seem like the leading authority of British authors by genre. How about you send me your list of fantasy authors with 20 words about each author and their connection, and a county to point them to. Then I'll add them to the map.
Would that suit you, please?
I'm kicking off with fantasy as an extra incentive...
Hey, I never knew there were so few of us, and me with the only piccy! ;)Looks great, but I think that you'd not fit many authors on the map with the boxes that size. A bare minimum would be 20, though 50 would be better. Or should some criteria be set? If we limit it to residence then those born in the British Isles but living abroad would excluded.
Do we intend to make it Britain or British Isles, as atm you have the RoI missing.
Should we require that they have to contact us in order to be added? First come, first served. This would help as it would mean they put the bio and pic together for us.
I can post an announcement and have them contact me to be included.
Agh! Don't talk to me about Britain/British Isles distinctions! When I first created the 'Indie Map of the British Isles', I carefully checked the definitions and chose 'British Isles' to be welcome to RoI.BIG MISTAKE!
They were outraged that I chose to use such a Brit-centric term, informed me that nobody in Ireland considers Ireland to be part of the British Isles and the only reason that I do is that I'm British and like to think I own everything.
Ouch.
I'm tempted to make it UK only just to avoid that whole minefield.
As for how many authors to include in the article, it's a trade off between being inclusive and being interesting. The less text about each authors, the less interesting the page will be to readers. Engaing the reader is key.
Perhaps it would be best to pick 8-10 authors with an interesting connection to somewhere on the map, making sure to include a mixture of authors that readers will recognise and new ones to introduce them to.
Unfortunately, I'm having to make a lot of decisions that involve selecting small samples from a mass of books and authors, because of the magazine format.
I'm not very comfortable with having to take this approach as it's a form of gatekeeping (and therefore contradicts being indie) but if we make the magazine as enticing as possible by using some of our strongest examples, it will drive traffic to the wider indie network, benefiting those who aren't mentioned in this particular issue.
Wherever I'm having to make decisions that involve selecting a sample, I'm providing links to further reading on the web.
Oh dear re the Republic of Ireland. Don't they realise we need a term that covers all of us? :) OK, just UK then - will provide the map with more space. But what happens if Scots breakway from the rest of the UK??? ;)
Yes, I guess providing a link to BIF etc. will then allow further exploration by an interested reader.
Of course, I don't know where many authors live in terms of counties so I'd have to contact them anyway.
I will choose the ones who are most prominent, although I think an author can only be on one map even if he/she writes in different genres...
Another question I had on BIF was the definition of an indie author. I think self-published must be the key: they have PoD books or ebooks that they published (though some paid services may have been used).
I'm sure you'll be a great gatekeeper, though I'm less sure that I'm a prominent author and worthy of inclusion! Maybe I should move somewhere interesting (Giant's Causeway or something) and live as a hermit, or write my books in hot-air balloons...
I agree, each other should only be featured once.Thank you very much for your help.
Definition: any author whose work has been published by themselves or a small, independent publishing house.
People who've paid to have books published (I mean full on 'vanity' packages, not just the odd edit here and there) are indies but will be played down because that's a stereotype we're all striving to get away from.
You must be included! You're contributing!
The best thing to do when the Irish get uppity about these things is to tell them bugger off.Works wonders every time, and I offer the fact that I don't have any Irish friends as proof of that.
OK on the definition of indie (though not necessarily of self-published!).I'll get back to you when I have some replies. How much can I say regarding the magazine?
I don't think I've shared any classified info with you, so say as much as you like. Thank you very much.
D.M. Andrews (GoodReads Author) wrote: "OK on the definition of indie (though not necessarily of self-published!).I'll get back to you when I have some replies. How much can I say regarding the magazine?"
where do we send our replies?
Shock! Horror! Probe!Jim, you're not on the my list! :)
You can post in the "Authors Only" thread and I'll add you: http://britishindiefiction.blogspot.c...
I've yet to write the invite but will be in contact!
Have we any cartoonists in our group? I know we have at least a couple of very talented illustrators...
