Self-Publishing Overview

This week I’m recommending the tips and news portion of the year end Sell More Books Show. It’s an overview of what’s been happening in publishing and self publishing over the last year. If you’re new to marketing your own work or thinking of self publishing at some point, it also serves as a great introduction to both.

The Sell More Books Show podcast issues every Wednesday. Between the two of them, the hosts write and sell fiction and have extensive experience in copywriting and digital commerce. The show typically starts with listeners’ answers to the previous question of the week and some ad reads for patrons of the show. I like hearing the ads because it helps me evaluate what sorts of tag lines for books do and don’t catch my interest.

The meat of the show comes it two parts — tips of the week and news of the week. The former are tips from various authors and self publishers, culled from blogs and other shows, on writing and marketing. The news portion covers developments in the publishing industry as a whole, both indie and traditional publishing. The word “news” is interpreted fairly broadly, as it sometimes includes musings from authors in on-line communities that strike me more as commentary and conjecture than fact (okay, I admit it, I’m old enough to still think of news as information that’s vetted and fact-checked and separate from commentary).

On my first listen of this podcast, some of the sound effects (such as burbling when there’s what’s called a lab segment) and the hosts’ nicknames (“Jazzy Jim Kukral” and the “Bad Man Bryan Cohen”) put me off, as I thought there might not be much substance. But I find I typically listen to the entire show when I tune in, though it’s often almost an hour, as there is plenty of helpful information with just enough chatting and joking to get a feel for who the hosts are.

Click here for the episode. (Scroll down half a page or so to get to the Play button.) If you want to skip the preliminaries, move the counter to 9:50 to start with the tips.

Best wishes for a good weekend and a happy, safe, and peaceful New Year.

L. M. Lilly

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