If you don't know, Jetpack is a plugin that adds a bunch of extra features to your WordPress blog. Those features used to be contained in a single subscription, but now they're available a la carte. With the goal of saving some money in mind, I started to wonder, What's the minimum Jetpack plan required to be included in WordPress Reader?
Book Marketing: Having Fun With Your Built-in Audience
I started self-publishing in 2004, and it took me a long, long time to figure out what most authors already knew: you don't market to friends and family. For one, they're often not your target cyberpunk-loving audience. Second, if they do buy your book, it will be because they either love you or genuinely enjoy your work. Either way, it's a limited audience, and your efforts (and money) are...
The Lifecycle of Independent Publishing as I Understand It (2021 Edition)
After independently publishing NINE books since 2004, I'm still updating the way I put out books. Here is my current process, pared down to the bare essentials.
Louis Sachar and the Literary IDGAF
For the first three years of his life, my son has enjoyed classic books like Goodnight Moon, The Pout-Pout Fish, and The Going to Bed Book. More recently, I've been trying to expose him to more mature books like The Ghost on Saturday Night, My Teacher Fried My Brains, and of course, the absolute best children's book in history, Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar. I can usually...
A Month with Novlr
NaNoWriMo is coming up soon, which means a new crop of writers will be looking for the right software to help write their 50,000-word opus. Enter Novlr, a web-based writing platform that is simple, clean, and eager to motivate you to reach your goal. If you're doing NaNoWriMo for the first time, Novlr is a great choice. But what about the rest of us? What about the seasoned amateurs who haven't...