What Time Of The Year Should You Publish Your Novel?

I’ve been getting quite a few hits lately from search terms such as “when do I self-publish my novel?” and “when does a book need to be published for the Christmas market?” I already pontificated on the issue of self-publishing for Christmas in this post, but that only dealt with one time of year. Now I’d like to talk…

Self-Publishing: It’s Not For Christmas

There’s a reason that the ‘airport novel’ or ‘airport paperback’ was defined as category of books all by itself. It’s the same reason that there are large bookshops in airports, and why newspapers publish pathetically useless holiday reading lists. It’s because on holidays, everyone reads more than usual: regular, occasional and infrequent readers alike. And…

What Makes Me Buy A Self-Published Book?

It’s summer holiday season. Therefore it’s self-published e-book time. I’m currently loading up to my Kindle. But what makes me choose one non-traditionally published book over someone else’s? It’s tough to know which marketing works, and which doesn’t; as a reader, I have to say that I find a lot of book marketing intensely annoying, and at best…

Is the Bestseller Dead?

In this post back in the wilds of 2013, I explored (with the aid of some lovely data. And maybe some pretty shoddy guesswork, it has to be said) how many books an author has to sell in the English-speaking world to achieve bestseller status. In most countries, a bestseller is defined only by what…

What is Assisted Publishing, Anyway?

One thing which keeps cropping up in my investigations into the world of non-traditional publishing is Assisted Publishing. Not quite self-publishing, but definitely not traditional publishing either. So what is it? For instance, people I’ve spoken to in the US have very different ideas of what Assisted Publishing is in comparison to those in Ireland or…

On Assisted Publishing, Self-Publishing, And Insanely Optimistic Feelings

NaNoWriMo Word Count: 3 and a half, approx, give or take 1,000 So, even in the twilight hell that is NaNoWriMo, I’ve been exploring different publishing methods lately, mostly through the efforts of some very talented Dublin-based authors and their publishing experiences. And the results of these investigations are absolutely inspiring. I am a total pessimist (I have…

New! Mathematical Mondays

…Exploring dubious theories by using real numbers to prove intangible arguments. Today: Why You Should Be Writing A Book The Formula (Where y= number of books read by a regular reader in 1 year and  P = population) How Many People Could Be Reading Your Book? I read between 20-40 books a year, depending on how long, literary,…

How to Buy a Book

I can hear them now. “That Tara Sparling one. She’s some tulip.” “Come again?” “She tried to tell me how to buy a book. Feckin’ cheek of her. What’s next? How to get up in the morning? How to breathe??” Look – I know it seems simple. But this is more of an inquisitive How…

5 Extremely Annoying Book Reviews

Those of us shopping for self-published e-books have very little to go on. Short synopses and sample chapters lie all too often. There isn’t even a proper book jacket to tempt you. So how do you make the decision to buy? We’ve come to rely on reviews. And reviews make bestsellers. 2 websites seem to have…

Print Vs E-Books…. FIGHT!!!! Part 2

In Part 1 we covered the smell of fiction; book exchanges in Asia; finding that important passage you didn’t notice was important at the time, and reading whilst asleep. But that only covers the obvious stuff. The fiction fracas continues. 5. Sun Factor Paper doesn’t care if that really annoying kid dive-bombing the swimming pool…