published on 2010-09-07
Whilst at the Kingston Publishing Conference I was particularly interested and inspired by a talk from Andrew Therkelsen. He is a qualitative researcher who addressed the questions of book design, cover choice and creating that author brand, which is something important to self-publishers who want to make a go of it commercially. Here are a few of the main points from his talk.
published on 2010-09-06
At the weekend I delivered a presentation at the Kingston University Publishing Conference. This year their title was: ‘Self-publishing: Last resort or heralding a new era of author participation?’ I also stayed beyond my presentation to listen to other speakers covering marketing, the way the publishing industry is adapting to the new market and digital publishing. There were lots of questions from a very enthusiastic audience, who were extremely keen to figure out the best option for them.
published on 2010-08-27
The X Factor is back… whether you love it or loathe it, it does provide an interesting (and yes, often false and contrived too) insight into the way people view their talents and passions, and the lengths to which they will go to follow their dreams. Writers may not have to get up in front of publishers and readers to sing their hearts out, but there will come a point for most writers where they need to sell themselves to either a publishing professional or to their audience directly. Here are a few tips they might like to take from the X Factor.
published on 2010-08-23
Yes - we've added Lightning Source as a printer to CompletelyNovel., so they join Antony Rowe as one of the printers that you can use when you publish with CompletelyNovel. It also means that we have printing in the US too. Here's the press release on the matter....
published on 2010-08-17
We’re now up to the forth instalment in our Elevator Pitch series. We took to the elevator with writer Tony Judge who has published Sirocco Express on CompletelyNovel. The idea is you have just a couple of minutes to get over the essentials of your book and sell it to the publisher standing in the elevator next to you. Let’s see how Tony gets on!
published on 2010-08-12
If you've heard a bit about cloud hosting and wondering how it could relate to the publishing industry, you might want to nip over to the "Future Book Blog":http://www.futurebook.net where I have just published an article called "Sometimes it's good to have your head in the clouds":http://www.futurebook.net/content/sometimes-it%E2%80%99s-good-have-your-head-clouds. There's an explanation of what cloud hosting is and what I think the potential is for the book publishing industry, and it has lots to do with a project that we are working on at the moment. Any opinions very welcome!
published on 2010-08-11
CompletelyNovel will be making an appearance at the Self-publishing Conference at Kingston University, which is being held on 3 and 4 of September. As our members, if you list CompletelyNovel.com as your institution when booking tickets you can get a discount of £40 on the ticket price! Here’s more information on the conference and what we’ll be doing there.
published on 2010-08-09
July was a busy month for us – we’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes to create some great new features over August such as site credits, better promotion tools and personalised journeys to help guide you through publishing and getting the most out of CompletelyNovel. Here’s a quick overview. I’d love to know your thoughts, feedback and any ideas you have around this.
published on 2010-08-06
A ‘heads up’ that the Brit Writers Award are now accepting submissions for BWA Unpublished 2011. The official deadline is 5pm (UK time) on Friday 25 February 2011, but they are closing the competition once they receive 20,000 submissions. The organisation behind the Awards is offering £10,000 to the overall winner which is not a small amount! This year was the first year that they put up the prize and it was won by a children’s book author called Catherine Cooper. You can check it out here at www.britwriters.co.uk You can submit up to three pieces of work for a fee of £10.95 (including VAT). But apparently entry is free of charge for entrants who have declared their association to a BWA member school, business or community organisation by using that organisation’s unique BWA membership number. Did anyone enter the last competition – would be interested to hear your experience of it and whether you would recommend it. Also, if you have any opinions about these kinds of competitions, we’d be keen to hear them!
published on 2010-08-06
Last year we ran a project called 24 hr Book. with the SYP, Spread The Word HQ and if:book and the fabulous award-winning author Kate Pullinger. You can now check out the video made by Sasha Hoare which gives a flavour of the event. A team of writers including Sarah Butler, Kati Rynne Aoife Mannix, Dean Atta, Cath Drake, Ben Payne, Chris Meade, Toni Le Busque, Saradha Soobrayen and Shamim Azad worked with Kate and a team of editors to create the fabulous story A Vauxhall Chorus, set in an allotment in South London where a body is found! We’ll be doing another 24 Hour Book Project early in the next year to keep an eye out and we will let you know how you can get involved. We’re going to be introducing a very exciting international element to it….we can’t wait!
Discuss: Cloud publishing books:
I agree with Heidi, a very interesting article Anna. I see things are moving on quickly from prev…
Discuss: Cloud publishing books:
Thanks guys – we’ll be sending out updates as we go. Oli and Vince are really busy with developme…
Discuss: Film of the 24 Hour Book Project:
Yep – the next one is likely to be much bigger and so it will undoubtedly be harder to keep it al…
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