A prominent literary agent recently told me that unless an author receives a hefty advance of $100,000 or more most publishers will do virtually no promotion, leaving it to authors to create and exploit their own platforms via social media and networking connections, workshops and webcasts.

If you’ve been living under a social media rock and haven’t heard of the LendInk incident, here’s a brief rundown.

LendInk was a website that facilitated Kindle ebook lending, matching would-be ebook borrowers with ebook owners. All of this was perfectly legal, involving legitimately purchased ebooks, lending options provided by Amazon, and lending terms set by publishers (whether the book was self- or traditionally published).

FundsforWriters.com has listed contests for thirteen years, and we’ve reached a point where many sponsors send us contests. If the entry fee is over five percent of the first prize, I scrutinize the contest harder. If it’s over ten percent, I decline the request.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Widely-discussed book news this week: Amazon UK’s report that ebook sales have outstripped the sales of all print formats combined.

According to unaudited figures released by [Amazon UK] on Monday, sin…

The other day, on one of the online writers’ discussion groups I frequent, someone asked a couple of questions about the list that I thought it would be instructive to answer here: why do we include agencies on the list if they’re not currently active?

The word has gone out that Kindle publishing is a great way to make money fast. Churn out a short novel or how-to text with series potential, follow up quickly with a sequel, price the ebooks at $.99 or $2.99, enroll in Amazon’s KDP Select program and go for as many downloads as possible during your five free days. Then sit back and enjoy huge monetary success.

Last March, word went out that self-publishing giant Author Solutions Inc (owner of AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Xlibris, Trafford, WordClay, Palibrio, and several others, and contractor for the self-pub divisions of several major publishers) was looking for a buyer.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Would you like to be a guest blogger for Writer Beware?

To vary our subject matter and present differing points of view, we publish occasional guest blog posts on subjects relating to publishing, self-p…

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

You may have noticed that there were no posts last week. Apologies! I’ve got a humongous workload, and have had to cut myself off from the web almost entirely in order to deal with it. 

I thought I…

Following on my last post about how authors can waste money on promotional strategies, here are some more cash-sucking “opportunities.”