To begin with, let’s make one thing clear: first chapters SUCK. The best first chapters in the world still suck – for writers, that is. The simplistic beauty of killer first lines and blockbuster beginnings, which hook the reader in several different ways, will usually cause their writers to collapse in a puddle of headachey sweat, eyes rolled back,…
Tag: self-publishing tips
Authors! Your Cover Font Is Killing Your Book
Whilst most of us will judge a book by its cover, I very often judge a book cover by its font. This might sound odd to some people: perhaps it is – you can let me know if that’s the case. But more often than not, it’s the typography on a book’s cover which tells me whether…
What Puts Readers Off Self-Published Books?
Oh, we’ve come a long way from What Makes People Buy Self-Published Books last week, ladies and gentlesirs! Brace yourselves now, as we enter the dark side of book marketing: the things which make you REFUSE to buy self-published books. And we’ve all experienced this to some degree. Self-publishing often gets a very bad rap. If…
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…
Tara Sparling writes 