From Kristine Kathryn Rusch:

Just when I thought it was safe to get back into the water…

I’m editing a lot these days. I only edit short fiction projects. Anthologies, anthology series (Fiction River), the occasional nonfiction book, and some magazines. I’m also consulting with the fine folks at WMG Publishing, because they’ll be handling the contracts for the revival of Pulphouse next year. Dean’s vision for Pulphouse includes reprinting some of the older stories, which means we have to deal with estates.

Too often, estates mean agents.

But even some lazy-ass living writers give their agents control of everything. It took me one year—one year—to get my hands on a non-fiction reprint that I wanted for a project of mine. The centerpiece for that project was an editorial written more than 20 years ago by a writer who had forgotten they had even written it. This writer, a friend of mine, doesn’t do email, and mostly stays off-line. (I know, I know.) I didn’t know about their tech phobia when I started into this, and had sent five different emails before I asked another editor friend how to reach this writer.

The editor advised snail mail.

Before I resorted to that, though, I called. The author and I are friends, after all. On the phone, the author told me that their agent handles everything. I do mean everything. The author—one smart cookie otherwise—can’t be bothered to concern themselves with touching anything to do with business. I had no idea this author was an Artiste, but I guess I know that now.

I also know why most anthologists refuse to reprint this author’s work.

I was pretty excited about this non-fiction project when I started it. I missed the publication window because of this agent and this writer. Fortunately, my publisher pushed the deadline back. We’ve pushed it back again, and again, and again. And frankly, I’m not feeling it any more. I have completely soured on the project.

The big bad agent, by the way, negotiated a horseshit deal for the writer that essentially gave me more rights than I would ever need. I offered the usual fee, which the agent did not negotiate up (although he could have). By that point, I was too pissed to give a break to these people. The amount of money—on publication, if there’s a publication—to the agent and the author will be negligible.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) isn’t the elephant in the room; it’s the monster under the bed. We are afraid of it, and we hate it, but how much do we know about it? Let’s get our flashlights, look under the bed, and learn how it all works by watching an actual EPUB be encrypted! Knowing a bit about DRM will help our colleagues and customers better understand what might (or might not) happen to their books, and to make better decisions about such matters.

Click here to see video: https://booknetcanada.wistia.com/medias/c7niumno11

Download the presentation slides here.

Free webinar for writers:

I’m in!

What Every Writer Should Know About Web Technology

by Jeff Goins | 19 Comments

From Jeff: This is a guest post by Seth Leonard. Seth operates sparkmy.com, a complete guide to building and expanding your online presence. You can follow him on Twitter: @sethleonard.

It’s tough to be a writer. Finding inspiration and finding work do not always come easily. As newspapers fall out of print and books go digital, technology feels like yet another hurdle between your words and your audience. You may feel like your craft is held back by technology, but writers have an advantage.

Photo credit: Flickr (Creative Commons)

You are uniquely positioned to bridge the digital divide. So before you leave the tech to someone else, or worse, stay offline, here are three things every writer should know about web technology:

Read more…

https://goinswriter.com/web-technology/

As you probably already know, Twitter is where I spend most of my time online. My day starts with Twitter and ends with Facebook, but as a Twitter fan woman, Twitter is my darling amongst the social media I use.

To help you start the year right, I decided to create this list of my top contacts and purveyors of information in 140 characters or fewer. I hope  these individuals, experts, and entities soon become your favorites too.

Note: The list is organized alphabetically, not by ranking.

read more… http://www.socialmediajustforwriters.com/indie-authors-follow-these-40-on-twitter-in-2017/

We authors often discuss how to promote individual novels.|

We know about running advertising campaigns, building mailing lists and websites, pricing and discounting, and so on. But trying to promote a series of novels is a different beast — you need to convince readers to buy multiple books and make a bigger time investment. So how can we best promote a series of novels?

Here are some ideas to help you market your series. As a case study, I’ll use my science fiction series Earthrise. I began releasing Earthrise novels eight months ago. Since then, using these techniques, I’ve sold nearly 150,000 copies. In addition, readers have read nearly 50 million Earthrise pages in the Kindle Unlimited library.

Using the strategies outlined in this article, you can achieve similar — or even better — sales. While Earthrise is a science fiction series, you can apply these techniques to other genres as well.

Read more: https://insights.bookbub.com/promoting-series-keep-readers-hooked/