From The Publisher: Graciously Critical
How To Look Back To Move Ahead When I was sixteen years old and had recently experienced my first real romantic heartbreak, my stepmother gave me a greeting card from illustrator Mary Englebreit which read, “Don’t look back, you’re not going that way.” That beloved card found a home everywhere I’ve lived. The message resonated […]
Leaving Money On The Table: Is the Tax Office Getting More than Their Fair Share?
As your author business grows, it becomes more complex. In addition to books, maybe you’ve added a class, or merchandise, or make appearances and sell books at events. Making sure you have somewhere to accurately record all of your income and expenses will simplify your life come tax time. Needing a tool for my own […]
Consider The Bigger Picture of Business
Often as creatives, we want to stay in our creative worlds and not worry about the minutiae of the business side of things. It requires leaving our happy places and doing tedious things like accounting and spreadsheets. And worrying about money. In some circles, I’ve heard people say that it’s “selling out” to worry about […]
Cover Your Backside: Creating a Full Wrap for Print Without Tears
There’s nothing quite like holding your book in your hands—an actual printed copy whose pages you can flip. For fiction authors choosing exclusivity for e-books through Kindle Unlimited, print is an easy way to dip your toe into the wide marketplace without losing those page reads. For nonfiction and children’s book authors, print often makes […]
Help Us Find Featured Subjects for 2022
When we started planning the magazine issues for the first two years, we decided we wanted to tell the stories of different indie authors each month. After meeting so many innovative, smart, and creative people over the past few years, we knew we would never run out of stories to tell. Foremost, our featured subjects […]
Explorers and Tour Guides
In over two decades of entrepreneurship, there hasn’t been a single successful person I’ve known, followed, or interviewed that hasn’t admitted to doubting themselves at some point. Call it what you will. I’ve distilled the many names I’ve used over the years down to ‘imposter syndrome’, ‘existential crisis’, and ‘plain old doubt’. It’s the voice […]
Making Money Moves: How Merch Sales Can Help Grow Your Brand
How to Use Merchandise Sales on your Website to Make Money and Grow Your Brand In today’s economy, it’s a given that relying on a single stream of income is risky business. For authors, that means looking at your books as content and finding ways to slice and dice your creative work into other methods […]
Normalizing Fear and Pushing Through
Distribution, especially with the growing number of avenues available to indie authors, is an important decision for any author, no matter where you are in your career. As I’ve progressed through my author adventure, my decisions surrounding distribution have changed and adapted to fit my growing skill set and bandwidth for added complexity of my […]
September 2021
Editing is a Process That Many of us Love to Hate.
I’ve found that the right editor makes the process much more enjoyable and profitable. The right editor makes your words shine while keeping your voice. Mine makes me sound like me, but better! If you’re looking for an editor, I recommend our advanced article this month, The Perfect Polish. Finding the editor that’s right for […]