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Posts by Amanda

Oct 8

13 Comments

Questions and Answers

Last week, I asked if there were any questions you had about “getting a book ready to head out the door.” You folks were awesome with the number of suggestions and questions you raised. I’m not going to try to answer all of them today. There were enough to make several posts. But I will deal with at least a few of them. Here goes. . . . Read more

Oct 4

23 Comments

What would you like to see?

While Jon is busy with school and work, I thought I’d take this chance to ask you for some very specific help. One of our regular readers has asked us to discuss “getting a book ready to go out the door”. I’ve got some ideas about the post but I’ve been doing this long enough that much of the process is now automatic for me. Because of that, I’m afraid I might miss something you might want us to cover.

Here’s where you come in. You’ve got the book or short story written, or close to written. You know it’s time to start getting it ready to leave the proverbial nest. What questions about the process or explanations would you want us to go over?

Leave your recommendations/requests below.

Thanks!

Oct 1

21 Comments

New Developments at Amazon

Let’s get a couple of things out of the way first. Every indie author out there owes Amazon a thank you. The company took a risk on us when no other major platform would. It wasn’t altruism that motivated them. It was profit. The corporate gurus knew there were readers out there who would pay good money to read books that did not fit in with what the traditional gatekeepers were letting out into the wild. Those same gurus knew there were any number of writers who wanted an option to traditional publishing and who would pay a very small percentage of their earnings (much smaller than the take trad publishers demanded) to have a sales platform available to them. For all that, Amazon hasn’t always made the right move. Because of that, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts–as readers and as writers–to two of the latest announcements to come from the KDP side of the company. Read more

Sep 17

22 Comments

Open floor

My apologies, everyone, but things are exploding–figuratively if not literally–here at Casa Verde. It is all part of life as a writer and life with an aging parent. Today’s challenges include working to finish the final edits on Betrayal from Ashes, which goes live the beginning of next month, as well as dealing with helping my mother get ready for what will be her last driver’s license renewal. Needless to say, this is an emotional day for her and a bit of a worrisome one for me.

So I’m leaving it to you guys to basically run the blog for the morning. Tell us the latest news you’ve heard from the publication front. Give us ideas for topics of upcoming posts. Or simply post kitten pictures to make me smile. (puppies are good too)

Sep 10

36 Comments

Keeping up with the times

Over the last few days, I’ve been part of a discussion with some other writers in my area about publishing. Specifically, about whether or not traditional publishers are keeping up with the times. One of our group still holds out hope that traditional publishing will return to its glory days, bookstores  will once again show up in major numbers and they will have their books prominently on display. Unfortunately, the latter isn’t going to happen, at least not the bookstore culture of the last several decades. Locally owned indie bookstores are popping up, but they are more speciality stores, catering to a very set customer base. Unless B&N manages to adapt, it isn’t long for the world. So what about traditional publishing? Read more

Sep 3

31 Comments

Resist! Resist!

First of all, my apologies for being late this morning. Life at Casa Verde is undergoing changes. Nothing major, just things that will require some changes to my normal schedule, at least in the short term. The good part of this is I had half an hour in the car already this morning, time to consider what I wanted to blog about.

As most everyone who follows MGC knows, the Dragon Awards were handed out this weekend. After years of being told by a certain part of fandom (or should I say Fandom?) to get our own award, they decided it was time to invade the Dragons because–duh–we finally had our own award. I’m not going to go into the gnashing of teeth and the walis of outrage that have been sounding since the awards were announced because the usual suspects didn’t win. Instead, our own Brad Torgersen, David Weber and Tim Zahn (among many other worthy recipients) won. So kudos to them and to all who voted for books because the books were good reads and not because of who they were written by or what their “message” was. Read more

Aug 27

26 Comments

Don’t Be A Jackass

Last week, Sarah wrote about status, achievement and diplomacy. I’ll admit, she was much nicer about it than I would have been. It is something she and I have talked about a great deal over the years of our acquaintance. The discussions usually begin with something along the lines of “Can you believe. . . .” and relate to some author’s antics on social media. Read more

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