Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net It's all too common these days to criticize commercial publishers for their "deny-and-delay" tactics. But as someone whose books have benefited from the discipline of jumping through numerous hoops before they were published, and having read countless self-published books that haven't lived up to their authors' or readers' expectations, here are seven ways in which the disciplines required by those "gatekeepers"  can help you significantly boost your … [Read more...]

In Part I of this blog post I invited you to go into a physical book store to check out your "Neighborhood" -- those books that (hypothetically at least) represent your competitors. Here are activities 5 through 10 to complete the list, each of which can help you think about the look and feel of your book very differently: 5. Table of Contents (scope and structure): How has each author organized their material? Glancing on the back cover, the inside flap or the early part of the … [Read more...]

With her 1970 hit Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell sang: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” She was het up about paving “Paradise” to put up a parking lot; I feel that way today about losing the paradise of bricks and mortar bookstores. Living in Austin, we’re lucky enough to have Texas' biggest independent bookstore, Book People, plus various Half Price Books locations, not to mention a number of Barnes & Noble stores. As compelling as online sites are … [Read more...]