We’re big fans of editor Jane Friedman, her advice and candor, and impressed with her latest offering, a handy one-sheet about the primary paths to publication.

Prepare yourself – it’s a whole lot of information! Says Friedman in her blog post about the infographic:

“I spend a lot of time at writers conferences trying to clarify the pros and cons among the different publishing paths and the growing number of services available to authors. There is no one path or service that’s right for everyone; you must understand and study the changing landscape and make a choice based on long-term career goals, as well as the unique qualities of your work—not to mention your own strengths and weaknesses.”

Click on the jpg below to download the pdf version, and do be sure to read Jane’s blog with more great hints and insights…

Jane Friedman is the web editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, an award-winning national journal, where she leads online and digital content strategy. She also teaches digital publishing at the University of Virginia. Before joining VQR, Jane was the publisher of Writer’s Digest (F+W Media) and an assistant professor of e-media at the University of Cincinnati. Her expertise has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, Publishers Weekly, South by Southwest, Nieman Journalism Lab, and AWP. You can find her writing at a diverse collection of sites and publications (Publishing Perspectives, Digital Book World, IBPA Independent, and many more), as well as at her blog.

Thanks to award-winning marketing strategist Catherine Foster, executive publisher/CEO of BlueSky Publisher Partner for this guest post!

This is an exciting time to be an author because the playing field is finally leveled – you can get your book published! You don’t have to beg an agent to take you on and you don’t have to deal with those heartbreaking rejection letters. There’s no longer a stigma associated with self-publishing — in fact, many of my authors say it’s the very best option.

CreateSpace was the No. 1 print self-publisher in 2011 with 39 percent of the market, and Smashwords was No. 1 for e-books, with 47 percent, according to Bowker’s most recent information. However, while most readers no longer pay attention to where a book was published, authors should know they do pay attention to what it looks like.

The most important overlooked element is not the front cover but the back cover. That’s where potential readers will spend the most time deciding if they want to buy your book.

Browsers spend 10 to 15 seconds reading the back cover. If you want to keep their interest, you should follow these four basic rules of book marketing:

• Know your audience: You have to consider their point of view when you decide what to say on the back cover, and you need to know who they are in order to figure that out. This is your 10-second commercial, so be sure you give your audience what they’re looking for!

• Keep it simple: Many authors try to cram too much information on the back cover in the hopes that something will pique the reader’s interest. But too much information overwhelms browsers and their brain becomes sluggish. Rather than read everything, they read nothing and walk away. Treat the text on your back cover like poetry and keep the message condensed and poignant.
• Choose the right fonts: Certain font styles appeal to different audience demographics. Whether your audience is mostly teens or college students, middle-aged adults or seniors, they’ll respond differently to the looks of different type faces. Choosing small red fonts on your cover is the worst thing you can do if your market is the reader older than 55 because red is one of the hardest colors to read when aging affects vision. Also, your fonts shouldn’t blend in with the colors on your back cover, or the words lose value to the reader.
• Typos will kill your book sale: If your back cover has a typo, even a small one such as a redundant word or two words with no space between them, it will doom your book. Authors are indeed “judged like a book by its cover” and readers will assume that your book wasn’t edited and that it will be full of errors. One of the most frustrating things for readers is finding typos in a book. It dilutes the meaning of the content, distracts them from reading, and most importantly, makes the author look amateurish. Even if the only typo in your book is the one on your back cover, readers will make critical assumptions based on that one fatal flaw.  

Have your book professionally edited, cover to cover. No matter how good of an editor you are, you’re likely to read right over your own mistakes. There’s a reason surgeons don’t operate on themselves; the same is true for authors editing themselves.

Catherine Foster has been a marketing strategist for 25 years. She is the executive publisher/CEO of BlueSky Publishing Partner; founder and director of marketing for Blossom Marketing & Publishing; founder and publisher of The Positive Times Newspaper; and co-founder of The Positive Thinkers Network. She is a three-time recipient of the Ohio Business Woman of the Year by the NRCC for her outstanding business leadership and entrepreneurial spirit. Additional awards include the 2005 Ronald Reagan Award of Entrepreneurial Excellence and the 2006 Congressional Medal of Distinction.

With the new Google+ design comes new advantages for authors. Here are several hints on how to utilize and grow your Google+ presence:

1. The cover photo is bigger – real big! For info on sizes and proportion and even a free template download, CLICK HERE.

2. If you are an author with a book – make sure you add a book page. Just visit the “More” icon, select pages, and take it from there.

3. Visit the “People” icon to find folks you may want to add to your circles. And, while we’re on the subject, you can make circles for anything. So maybe a circle for literary agents, one for readers, one for family, another for friends, etc.

4. Spend some time playing around with the other menu icons, too. You can learn what’s hot, list an upcoming event (or find one), add or view photos, find communities and more.

5. Don’t forget to offer up content on your Google+ page, just as you would on Facebook or Twitter. Adding content, such as blog post links, gets you more attention. And the added bonus is that content on Google+ is indexed by Google, allowing folks to find out more about you and your work even faster!

Recommended Reading: What the Plus by Guy Kawasaki (Click the link to get it for just 99 cents on Kindle! Guy does a fabulous job outlining all the ways you can put Google+ to work for you.

Have a unique way you’re using Google+ to connect with readers? Tell us about it with your comment below!

There’s been plenty of buzz in the past few days over the Google+ redesign options. According the Google+ release issued May 15, “190 million people are now active in the Google+ stream, and 390 million are active across Google (+1’ing apps in Google Play, making video calls in Gmail, sharing videos from YouTube…).”

Their new redesign includes added features such as:

• A multi-column layout. You’ll see one, two, or three columns of content depending on your screen size and orientation.
• Awesome-sized media. Photos and videos can fill the entire width of the stream, making it easier to scan, and nicer to look at. (You may need to reload higher quality art to look good on the huge cover photo layout).
• Delightful animations. The sharebox bounces, the menus slide, and the cards flip and fade — just to name a few.
• You can always say hello, face-to-face-to-face. Whether you’re 1-on-1 or with a group of friends, you can always make a free video call to everyone you’re with via the new Hangouts stand-alone feature.
• The app is available in lots of places. You can download Hangouts from Google Play, the App Store, and the Chrome Web Store. It’s also part of Gmail and Google+.

Read the Google+ release and view the demo videos HERE, then check out what industry insiders are saying below. Which benefits do you see most beneficial as an author? On Tuesday, we’ll take a closer look at optimizing your Google+ book page…

Google+ Redesign: This Week in Social Media | Social Media …

www.socialmediaexaminer.com5/18/13

Social media news and new developments making social media marketing easier. (Google+ new design, Google Hangout app…)

Google+ Gets Big, Image-Heavy Redesign – Search Engine Watch …

searchenginewatch.com5/16/13

Google has revamped Google+. The new look and feel puts images front and center. While some new photo features and enhancements add some interesting functionality, the ridiculously huge cover photos are a bit hard for …

Google+ Redesigns Its Stream To Include Multi-Column Google …

techcrunch.com5/15/13

Google+, the social layer that Google introduced almost two years ago, has evolved quite a bit since its launch. Today, the company announced a complete redesign…

What Google was thinking when redesigning the new Google+ …

gigaom.com5/15/13

Google’s reworking of its social network, Google+ shows that the company has started to marry data with design and craft new experiences. Will that be enough to turn you and I into active participants? Who, knows, I am just …

Thanks to author Roger Harris for this guest post!

Great, you’re working on a manuscript… While you’re polishing up your prose with the help of an editor (highly recommended), don’t forget to start on marketing activities that will pave the way to successfully launching your book.

Building your author platform is the first step to find your readers. The goal is to create and launch a platform that quickly communicates your genre and entertainment value if you’re writing fiction, and your expertise and credibility if you’re writing non-fiction, such as a self-help guide.

Here are seven steps to building your own author platform:

• Build your bio – Succinctly tell people about you and your work, including credentials, credits and awards. Turn it into a one-pager to use in your book, whenever you pitch your book, in your publicity package, on Amazon Author Central and on your website.

• Author website – You need a hub, a place to connect with your audience, offer free information and excerpts of your book, and sell your book and other services. If you use a blog-based site, such as WordPress.org, which is easy to set up and use, you don’t need an expensive setup or a webmaster to update your site – you can get going immediately (but do know that you won’t control the real estate without your own domain name and hosting).

• Author blog – Your blog is an important place to connect, enlighten, entertain, and capture a following of readers interested in learning more about you, your topic and your books.

• A signup list – Create a list of future readers by offering a free excerpt of your work, a newsletter, eBook, or video/audio product on your website/blog. This allows you to start building a tribe of followers who are interested in your book or product. Check out Aweber or Mail Chimp to handle your lists, emails, autoresponders, and newsletters.

• Follow other blogs – Stay up-to-date with the latest information in the industry and to leave comments that establish your platform.

• Join professional associations – Seek out and join ones related to your topic, target audience or professional goals.

• Establish your expert status – Teach through workshops, online webinars, podcasts and/or videos, in-person speaking engagements, articles using tips from your book to industry publications and other print and online media sources. This provides you the ability to establish yourself as an expert, and market your book in the author’s information box.

If you’ve started writing, it’s never too early to start building your Author Platform. Download your Free Book Marketing Checklist on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/IndieAuthorCounsel.

Happy Writing!

R.R. Harris

P.S. Check out our summer sale on services at www.IndieAuthorCounsel.com.

Guest blogger Roger Harris is an editor/marketing adviser at Indie Author Counsel, a consortium of writers, editors and marketing experts in self-publishing. Here, he offers his first tip from his free giveaway – the Book Marketing Checklist.

Thanks to Winner Circle author Jeannette de Beauvoir for this guest post! (Graphic courtesy FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

The famous terror of the blank page (or computer screen!) doesn’t need to overcome your creativity. Here are some tips for getting started that will awaken your muse… and put the pen in her hand!

Your first mistake is starting with the blank page/screen. Any project takes planning, and writing a novel is no exception. So accept that you have to do some reasonably heavy lifting before you even get to the pivotal scene that’s been playing in your head.

1. That said, start by choosing your tools. Don’t worry: pen and paper are completely acceptable. However, if you’d like to make your life a little easier, I can wholeheartedly recommend using Scrivener.
2. Okay, now that you have your tools lined up, use them. One of the reasons I recommend Scrivener is that it gives you access to spaces where you can jot down your ideas (I use the corkboard feature for this). If you don’t already have ideas for your novel, then perhaps you should wait until some come to you; otherwise, this is the time for random thoughts about it. They could be anything from the color of the protagonist’s eyes to the final exciting scene to that one point that you think someone should make.
3. Next, create a character file. Create a file card (either real or virtual) for each character, and spend time with them. What’s the character’s backstory? What did he want to be when he grew up? What was Mom like? Where did your character go to school, and what was that like for her? What are his favorite foods? What’s her defining quotation? The list is only limited by your imagination. Why are you doing this? Because while people are often inconsistent in their thoughts and behavior, it’s up to you as their creator to make sure that these inconsistencies are neither sloppy nor haphazard. You need to know your characters inside out. Even if you don’t use a lot of this information, you need to have it.
4. The next most important thing to consider is your timeline. I cannot count the instances of timeline mistakes I’ve made (thank goodness for editors!), because, quite simply, we forget. Was Elizabeth born in July or September? Is she older or younger than her brother Joe? Did the life-changing accident happen when she was twenty or twenty-five? All these and more are waiting to trip you up, so make it easy on yourself and note it all down.
5. Let’s talk geography. It can trip you up, too. Use maps! They’re wonderful, and you can make them into pdfs and insert them into Scrivener for later perusal.
6. Finally, have an idea of the plot. Just a vague idea really is fine… you may find, as I do, that your characters take a strong hand in changing it. That’s fine. But have an idea where you’re setting out for before you set out, and it will raise your confidence level substantially!

So there you go. Follow these steps and you’ll find that the blank page isn’t quite so terrifying!

Jeannette de Beauvoir is an award-winning novelist, poet, and playwright, who also owns Customline Wordware, a company delivering writing and editing services to companies and individuals worldwide. More about her at www.JeannetteAuthor.com and www.customline.com.

Thanks to author (and WWW team member) Jacqueline Gum for this guest post, timely on the heels of our look at author scams and scoundrels…

Somebody has to show you how to walk before you do, but eventually you walk and then run. Independence needs direction. Never was this truer than today, particularly when it comes to marketing a book of any kind.

When I published my first book I was convinced that I’d done my due diligence… hell I even drove to Bloomington, Indiana to visit the publisher’s facility and meet my author rep face to face. Then I signed the check. It was a big one. Ultimately, it was a big mistake.

Turns out I’d exchanged a way too big bundle of cash for a small bundle of author services, like book cover design and interior formatting, a listing on Amazon and Barnes & Noble… but little else.  In most cases, a baby is a rewarding thing, yet in a world full of beautiful new babies, no one had shown me how to get mine the proper attention it deserved. Looking back, I realize now that my “publisher” was not an author advocate nor did they have any desire or impetus to partner with me for a successful project. My check had cleared.

So I embarked on a journey to find someone who was willing to show me – just show me – so I could do it myself. That trip turned out to be a long arduous one; a maze the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Man oh man… it’s the mother of all carnivals with a mile long midway full of hawkers. I’ll admit to throwing the ring around the bottle, but I wasn’t rewarded the giant stuffed animal I was shown… just a goldfish in a bag. (I’ve never heard of one thriving, have you?)

I was dejected and leaving for the parking lot, but somewhere, outside the fairground, I met Shari Stauch, founder of WWW. She took my arm and said, “Let me show you.” I looked around and saw that there wasn’t a stuffed animal in sight, much less a goldfish, so I bought a ticket on that ride…. one last one, I thought.

I’ve spent less money and seen more results. But most of all I’ve shed the shame of being scammed. Because let’s face it, in the end that’s more to bear than the hole in your pocket. The process of putting me back in control redeemed my dignity… and a whole lot more.

In the interest of full disclosure, somewhere in this process, she invited me on board and I am now a proud member of the WWW team. We discovered that we were united in our resolve to be a part of the solution. We’d like to foster the independent spirit and give fair warning of approaching hazard, so that writers become authors and authors deliver what they want to whom they want. Our dream is to help create win-win partnerships between writers and readers, authors and reviewers, book clubs, bookstores and most important, between each other.

So I hope you’ll join us, because even independence needs direction. I speak from experience when I tell you that when you enter The Winner Circle, it becomes a dignified process… as it should be. And if you’re looking for redemption like me? You’ll find it here, I promise.

Jacqueline Gum is the author of Confessions of a Corporate Slut and has recently completed another novel, The Accuser’s Burden. Her writing reflects contemporary questions of social injustice, which she also blogs about each week in her “Where’s the Justice?” themed blog. Jacquie is a member of the WWW team, heading research for legitimate author resources, including vetted book reviewers and book club contacts for our newly launched Winner Circle.

On the heels of our May 7th post on Scams and Scoundrels, we thought it would be useful to provide some tips to avoid some of the common traps we see new and aspiring authors fall into when seeking to publish and promote their work.

1. Search for what other authors and author advocacy groups have to say online. Chances are, if a company has dealt unfairly with authors, they’ve shared their experience to warn off others. Popular sites to look include:

• AbsoluteWrite.com: They have a Bewares and Recommendations Forum Board. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, you can use their search feature.
• Preditors and Editors: Especially visit their Warning List that offers two comprehensive lists of how to spot a scam publisher and a scam literary agency.
• Writer Beware: This site, from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) isn’t limited by country, genre, or publication history, and includes lots of information on everything from dishonest agents to dubious author services.

2. Ask LOTS of questions. Be prepared before you engage with your potential service provider. What will they provide? What’s the timeline? What are the costs? How do they expect to be paid? Watch for red flags like asking for all the money up front or vague answers about services.

3. Get it in writing. I was recently solicited by one of the many “International Who’s Who” scams. I let him go through his pitch, at the end of which he offered “a great lifetime deal” that was upwards of $700. I told the salesman that sounded just fine (ha) but that I’d need to see all of what he’d just said in writing. He told me they “didn’t do that.” I reiterated that I didn’t do business over the phone and would need to see the benefits in writing.

His answer? “Well, then here’s what you get – nothing.” And he hung up on me! I’m guessing I could’ve given him my credit card info and still been left wondering what benefits (if any) would ever materialize after he hung up.

4. Research the company’s website. You can learn a lot about a company from their own site:

• Do they include testimonials? Do those testimonials include names/emails or other contact info of the supposed clients? (We invite our clients to leave their own comments so the words are all theirs.)
• Is there adequate contact info provided, i.e. a physical address and a working phone number? Scammers will typically make sure it’s difficult to contact them once they’re done with you.
• Are service prices listed somewhere near the actual services on the site? Nowadays reputable companies will be as transparent as possible about their pricing. If you have to call to learn about the pricing, and it’s not in writing on their site, you have to wonder if they’re quoting you the same price they’re quoting others.
  The exception to this rule is editing services. While an editor should be willing give an idea of their price range, this CAN vary dependent on the level of work submitted; The good ones will ask for a sample of your work to properly evaluate the time they’ll put in, and they’ll mark that sample for you, too so you can evaluate THEM!

5. Here’s a trick publicists use to get intel on any bad customer relations that may be lurking out there online for a client. Type “company name sucks” into your search window and see what results come back.

In example, since Author Solutions is a hot topic among unhappy authors these days, we typed their name in and were shown quite a few articles and reports, including several negative comments at Ripoff Report, a pretty good indicator that at the very least they’re not satisfying customer complaints.

Think about it: If you had trouble with a company, wouldn’t you have to be quite disgruntled and unsatisfied to seek out places to complain about your experience? Big red flags.

6. Finally, before and after your research, trust your gut, not your ego. We know it can be flattering to have someone tell you you’re going to be a best-seller, and maybe you are. But if the offer seems to good to be true, it may be. Do your best to take all the emotion out of the equation and judge each offer strictl on its own merit.

And, keep in mind that agents and editors aren’t the only ones out to part authors from their cash. Website designers, publicists, social media trainers and other coaches need to be held to the same careful scrutiny. We welcome it; so should anyone who wants to conduct legitimate business with you!

Creator of Where Writers Win, Shari Stauch has been involved in publishing, marketing and PR for 30 years. She is a past producer of the South Carolina Writers Workshop (SCWW) Conference and current Co-Director of Programming for Words & Music: A Literary Feast in New Orleans. She is also the principal author of the WWW blog, and speaks at conferences around the country. The Where Writers Win team’s newest collaboration is The Winner Circle – vetted book review directories, book clubs and other cultivated resources for emerging authors. (Graphic courtesy FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Thanks to best-selling author Martin Crosbie for this guest post! (Graphic courtesy FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

There are things that occur organically when you’re a new, self-published author, and if you allow them to, they’ll help you succeed. It’s easy, you just have to stand back and let it happen. There are rules though; there always have to be some rules.

When I was trying to find readers for my first novel, I took a novel approach (sorry, had to do that). I emailed other self-published authors who’d had some success. I “friended” them on Facebook, bought their books, and on some occasions, gifted them copies of my book. And then I asked them questions.

You see, I thought I had a pretty good book. Beta readers were asking for more, the few reviews I had were all five stars and I believed in my work, but I wasn’t selling as many books as some other authors out there, and I wanted to know why.

Surprisingly, most of my fellow authors took the time to respond. Some of them just gave words of encouragement, but some of them gave me their time and made suggestions. And, the ones who are still part of my support system told me the truth. One of them in particular told me I had a um, in his words, “crappy cover and poor synopsis.” He said my cover wasn’t indicative of my story and the synopsis just wasn’t interesting at all. He was brave enough to tell me the truth and because of that I made some changes and almost immediately, I began selling more books. Needless to say, he’s still in my circle of colleagues today.

When you release your book, you’ll come into contact with other authors. You’ll meet them through Kindle boards, Facebook, Twitter, or they may just email you. There will be lots of them. In a fairly short time you’ll be able to determine whether they’re on the same road as you are, and that’s very important.

Writing is now my full-time career. Thanks to the success of my books I’m able to write for a living, so it’s very important to me that I’m surrounded by like-minded authors. That means I want to have authors in my circle who are willing to make the commitment to make this work. That’s where the rules come into play.

When it comes to helping you reach the next level in terms of the quality of your content and the way you penetrate the market you need to have people in your circle who will tell you the truth. There are lots of groups with members who’ll encourage you and tell you you’ve got a great product. That’s easy to find, but if you don’t have colleagues who are willing to tell you that you’re missing out on something, or that you’re approaching a situation in the wrong manner, or have a “crappy cover” then you may not have the right support system.

If you have the right people in your circle, you’ll have immediate access to what’s working and what isn’t in terms of promotions, access to their team of beta readers, critical responses to all the little things that come up during the creation and publishing of your work, and of course, encouragement. That comes because you’ve chosen authors who are on the same path as you are. Pick them carefully because you’ll rise or fall based on the feedback you get from them and just as you help them they’ll help you reach that next level.

How have you worked with fellow authors to build a support system for your writing or author marketing?

Martin Crosbie is the self-published author of the Amazon bestseller, MY TEMPORARY LIFE and the follow up novel, MY NAME IS HARDLY, as well as a collection of short stories-LIES I NEVER TOLD. His next self-publishing workshop takes place in Vancouver, Canada in September 2013. Details can be found here Bestseller-Lists-Secrets-Weekend

(Graphic courtesy FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

It was bound to happen in a once relatively quiet industry of readers, writers and thinkers. With the digital revolution came a large army of mercenaries, apparently keen to prey on the ever-fragile ego of an author.

Aside: It is in fact the scoundrel aspect of publishing (or rather author marketing) that birthed Where Writers Win. I grew tired of seeing authors pay thousands for a website they couldn’t even manage themselves, and more aggravated still when learning they had to pay someone every time they wanted to announce a book signing. I was floored by prices being charged to “manage” social media, when in fact social media is about being social, and most of it’s free, so, um… (And let’s be honest – does anyone go to a book signing to meet your typist?).

Nowadays I see people charging hundreds of dollars an hour to “coach” social media or help an author set up a Facebook page. I recently met an author who was thrilled that she got her website for “free,” but the “free” came with a $95 a month “hosting” pricetag, where it should be about $5. Sigh.

Okay, these aren’t all outright scams. But an author needs to stop and think about just how many books they’ll have to sell to recoup such “investments.” Sure, a Rolls Royce will get you to the theater. But so will more economical vehicles, without the buyer’s remorse.

Along came blog tours and I thought, here’s something we want to add to our service menu. Until we  discovered that again, this had too often become a predatory way to part authors from their cash, both from “paid reviews” on pointless sites, and exorbitant fees for organizing “tours” that are really just your review/interview appearing on a series of sites over a specified amount of time. There’s no “tour” involved, though for the price you could fly to Paris for a live book signing.

And so, sadly, we decided we didn’t want to be anywhere near blog tours, lest we get splashed by the invariable mud-slinging. They’re not all bad, true. But we see too many charging too much to put authors on sites that either A) don’t even match their genre and/or B) have little more following than the online reviewer’s friends and family. That frustration gave birth to the whole idea of the Winner Circle and instead establishing a vetted directory where authors could go out on their own and pitch the reviewers in their genre with some traffic and following, without paying someone a thousand dollars or more and wasting their time and money. Obviously it grew from there, but that’s how it all began.

But of course that’s all in what we call publishing’s “after-market.” Now we’re seeing harsher light shed on the scams and scoundrels within the actual road-to-publishing arena. Authors are becoming savvy to contests that are really just looking for lots of big entries with a tiny payout and no road to a published book. We’ve begun vetting contests, too, and weeding out those that are just a sneaky way to lure you into a publishing deal with yet another vanity press.

And speaking of vanity presses – yikes. We read a scathing post on May 4 from author David Gaughran, titled The Author Exploitation Business. I’m excerpting a bit of that article here, but I’d encourage you to click on the title link and read the entire post AND the nearly 150 thoughtful comments that followed. David says:

“Before the digital revolution made self-publishing viable on a wide scale, the dividing lines were easier to spot. Traditional publishers paid you if they wanted to buy the rights to your novel. Self-publishers were people who filled their garages with books and tried to hawk them at events. And vanity presses were the scammers, luring the unsuspecting with false promises and roundly condemned by self-publishers and traditional publishers alike.

“Today it’s very different. The scammy vanity presses are owned by traditional publishers who are marketing them as the ‘easy’ way to self-publish – when it’s nothing more than a horrifically expensive and terribly ineffective way to publish your work, guaranteed to kill your book’s chance of success stone dead, while emptying your bank account in the process…

“And it’s much harder to tell the scammers from the legitimate organizations when they are owned by the same people.”

Again, I urge you – especially if you are considering self-publishing and haven’t decided on a publisher yet – to read the entire article and the comments (some great ones there from other authors and even agents). And we’ll be linking the article to our social media as well. Because, while the brave new world of self-publishing is indeed opening up worlds of opportunities to many authors, self-education will continue to be your best defense against making a bad deal.

Have you been a victim of a scam or scoundrel in the publishing world? Do you have advice for aspiring and emerging authors? Sound off with your comment below. Together, our voices can shout louder…

Creator of Where Writers Win, Shari Stauch has been involved in publishing, marketing and PR for 30 years. She is a past producer of the South Carolina Writers Workshop (SCWW) Conference and current Co-Director of Programming for Words & Music: A Literary Feast in New Orleans. Stauch is a certified executive coach, an award-winning essayist and fiction writer, and author of four non-fiction books. She is also the principal author of the WWW blog, with new posts published on every odd day of the month, and speaks at conferences around the country. The Where Writers Win team’s newest collaboration is The Winner Circle – vetted book review directories, book clubs and other cultivated resources for emerging authors.