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If
you ever want time to pass quickly, just line yourself up with writing
a monthly column or take out a mortgage bigger than your wallet can
handle. The months will fly by in either case. I had reached a point
where I was going to give up writing this column because it was taking
one weekend a month from my writing schedule. I haven’t really written
fiction for a year, and it is time to get back to it. That meant that I
couldn’t continue spending myriad hours agonizing over every word that
worms itself into my nonfiction writing.
Then I came up with an idea,
which I ran by Bonnie Calhoun. She gave me a thumbs-up. This column’s
content will be changing radically, but I need your help. Since this is
a column about self-publishing, I decided to, at least most of the
time, bring news from the self-publishing world to the readers at CFOM.
What does this mean to you if you’re a self-published author?
First, if you release a new book
that is newsworthy and its contents are fictional and Christian, send
me a blurb about your book, and I’ll consider it for inclusion in the
next monthly column. Or if you want to recommend a self-published book
that was written by someone else―even if it is a not a new release―send
it to me. If you know of an organization that helps self-published
writers, let me know about them. The new format will start in January
2011, so send any blurbs that you want to share to
scaramouche9999@yahoo.com
with CFOM BLURB in the subject line. Thank
you in advance. Hopefully I’ll even be able to announce my newest book,
Silver Wind, which I
hope to finish in early December.
One of the key tools readers use
to decide whether to purchase or even read a book is the book review.
Getting good reviews is almost imperative for a book to enjoy success.
How does a self-published author find people who will be willing to
write a review? In some cases, reviewers have a disclaimer on their
Websites indicating that they don’t review self-published books. Sound
familiar? Is that enough to cause your frustration level to register on
the Richter scale? The irritation is enough to engender desires of
telling people who discriminate against self-published authors to “go
to Halifax in the winter time and take a long walk off a short dock.”
Self-published
writers need a large bevy of close friends to provide a bumper crop of
reviews. For those like me who suffer from a dearth of willing guinea
pigs, the alternative is to find those people who review books for fun
and blog about what they read. I bring you good news. There are
reviewers who work with self-published authors, some exclusively, but I
have a friend, Christy Pinheiro, who wrote a book listing all such free
reviewers she could find.
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The
e-book is only 99₵ to
purchase, or you can get it for free just by blogging about it. The
full title is The Official Indie Book Reviewer List: A Handy
Reference Guide for Self-Published Authors and Small Publishers.
You can find it at http://www.stepbystepselfpublishing.net.
This little
book (or is it a large booklet?) contains a wealth of information. You
not only get a list of the reviewers but all of the relevant facts
concerning that reviewer. So you can find a particular reviewer’s
policy on e-books, preferred genres, unacceptable genres, and a
multitude of other criteria without having to go spelunking for that
information. The number of followers for the reviewer’s blog is also
provided, so you can concentrate on the bigger audiences. In perusing a
few of the providers, I noticed that few advertise specifically for
Christian books. Some reviewers have Christian/religious/spiritual
books on their Unaccepted list.
By the way, Christy also wrote a
book explaining how to self publish your work: The
Step-by-Step Guide to Self Publishing.
I pray you had a wonderful
Thanksgiving and that you have a blessed Christmas and spiritually
prosperous New Year. And may writer’s block never darken your doorstep
in 2011.
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