What it takes to do it all

by benmweilertNo Comments
There are days I see the benefits of going with the traditional publishing route. When you are signed on with a publisher, they provide some of the hard work it takes to make a manuscript into a polished and publishable product. From editors to formatters to cover artists to distribution, these publishers have the resources to help an author be successful. But what about the self-published author? One of the common misconceptions about being an author (especially a self-published one) is that we only have to write. In reality, a self-published author needs to perform the entirety of the publishing process by themselves. Now, you may be asking yourself, “OK, you have to do it all, but what does that even mean?” Let’s start at the beginning of the process, and I’ll walk you through it. If you want to self-publish, you have many jobs to do. Many of the most famous authors have a research department (or person). These are the people...
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3 Simple Tips when submitting to an Anthology

by benmweilertNo Comments
Despite the almost ubiquitous availability of affordable self-publishing these days, sometimes it can be difficult to make your mark as an author. In fact, I would almost argue that the proliferation of self-published works has made it much harder to reach an audience of readers, as they now have a multitude of options when it comes to reading material. With this challenge in mind, one of the ways you can boost your name recognition is through anthologies. While you won’t have as much control over your written work as you would if you self-published a series of your own short stories yourself, the benefit of an anthology is being included in a book with a number of other authors who have fanbases who might be similar to the people you are trying to reach. In fact, someone might buy an anthology because they know one of the authors, only to find that they really like your story as well, thus increasing...
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Hometown Prophets

by benmweilertNo Comments
A few weeks ago, I was perusing some forums and came across a thread that essentially boiled down to this: “I’m pouring all of my energy into my art and my family and friends don’t care and don’t want to support me.” To be honest, this struck a bit of a chord with me as well. When you pick up a book in a store, do you know how long it took the author to write? Do you know how many revisions were needed to polish it into a publishable work? Do you know how much work it takes to get the word out? Granted, if it was sold in a store, there was probably a publisher helping the author to get to that point, but this just highlights the issue that independent and self-published artists face. Mainly, how do we build a base of people who would want to read what we’ve written? Of course, the first thought is that...
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