Kobo has been orchestrating a writing competition for the past three years and their focus is to put the emphasis on new and emerging authors. To that end, the company has just announced they are taking submissions for the 2017 competition. There are three genres that will be open to Canadian writers; Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction and Nonfiction. Each winning author … [Read more...] about Kobo Announces 3rd Annual Emerging Writer Prize
Indie Author News
Amazon Launches Kindle Storyteller Award in the UK
Amazon has just announced a new writing contest in the United Kingdom called the Kindle Storyteller Award. There will be a £20,000 cash prize awarded to an authors who self-publishes their work between February 20th and May 19th 2016. Along with being awarded a cash prize at a central London ceremony in July, the winning author will be given a marketing campaign to support … [Read more...] about Amazon Launches Kindle Storyteller Award in the UK
Smashwords Pays Out Royalties and It’s NOT the End of the World
A number of authors opened their email inboxes yesterday to a pleasant surprise: the payment of old royalties from ebook publishing and retail site Smashwords. These royalties, typically within the one dollar to nine dollar range, had not been paid (in some cases, for years) because they didn't meet the minimum threshold for payment; it's important to note that a lot of other … [Read more...] about Smashwords Pays Out Royalties and It’s NOT the End of the World
Pronoun Announces Changes to their Royalty Rates and New Author Pages
Pronoun is a free self-publishing platform and they have just announced that they have increased the royalty rates for indie authors. They have also introduced a new feature to their website called Author Pages, which creates a simple one page website to hype up an upcoming title. Authors publishing their books on Pronoun will now be able to earn 70% for all books sold in … [Read more...] about Pronoun Announces Changes to their Royalty Rates and New Author Pages
Does Publishing Have a Future without Amazon?
With the end of a pretty rough year behind us and the first few weeks of 2017 under our belts, it's a good time to take a deep breathe and take stock of the state of publishing. There's perhaps no more comprehensive analysis of the current trends than the annual Smashwords Book Industry Predictions, written each year by founder and CEO Mark Coker. Before looking at Coker's … [Read more...] about Does Publishing Have a Future without Amazon?
Who’s Surviving in the Publishing Evolution? Indie Bookstores
With all the talk of digital revolutions and self-publishing turning mainstream, there's been a quiet player in the game who's seen an evolution of its own, but appears to be going strong. It's a strange paradox that everyone bemoaned the death of mom-and-pop bookstores under the competition from Barnes and Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, and even Walmart, and yet that same … [Read more...] about Who’s Surviving in the Publishing Evolution? Indie Bookstores
The Industry Finally Acknowledges Indies Are Authors
The gates have finally been thrown open, all are welcome here... Such is the dramatic sentiment now that indie authors have been given their very own day at one of the previously excluding events, Digital Book World. With the laughable and out-of-date self-titled proclamation, "DBW Indie Author: The First Conference For The New Professional Author," industry leaders are once … [Read more...] about The Industry Finally Acknowledges Indies Are Authors
The 2017 State of Self-Publishing
It's been twenty-two years since Jeff Bezos hung out the shingle on Amazon, and twelve years since his company unleashed the Kindle on the world. It was only three years later that the retail and publishing giant launched a platform that truly changed publishing, for better or for worse. From 2007 to 2017, a mind-blowing pace for evolution, much has changed about book … [Read more...] about The 2017 State of Self-Publishing
All Romance eBooks Closes Its Doors
As if 2016 hasn't taken enough from us--and as of only moments before the writing of this article, beloved actress Debbie Reynolds has joined her daughter Carrie Fisher in passing away--yet another book industry website has announced the closing of its doors heading into the new year. AllRomanceeBooks, a site loved by both authors and readers, made the following statement on … [Read more...] about All Romance eBooks Closes Its Doors
Authors Behaving Badly…This Time on Social Media
If social media has taught us anything, it's that you probably shouldn't be posting anything other than puppy pictures if you're in any kind of business or industry. From Cinnabon's well-intentioned flub at Carrie Fisher's expense to Sarah Michelle Gellar publicly mourning the wrong British music icon on Twitter, it seems like all of social media serves as nothing more than a … [Read more...] about Authors Behaving Badly…This Time on Social Media