by Ruth Lunn | Jun 29, 2015 | Blog
You may have seen headlines recently regarding Amazon paying self-published authors per page read and been just a little bit worried. But worry not. Just to make it clear – this has nothing to do with e-book royalties. If someone buys your e-book, you will receive the...
by Ruth Lunn | Feb 12, 2015 | Blog
In a crowded market it’s difficult to get your book noticed. Particularly with ebooks where there isn’t even a physical printed book that you can actively show people or that can sit on a bookshop’s shelf. If your book is garnering a number of 4 or 5 star reviews...
by Ruth Lunn | Dec 8, 2014 | Blog
Having spent the last few years publishing other people’s books, we decided it was about time we published our own. And we’re very excited with the result! The book is inspired by true stories discovered on reddit.com of incredible people that most of us...
by Ruth Lunn | Oct 16, 2014 | Blog
When we heard about the story behind the story we just knew it had to be shared. One of the books we’ve published in the last month is a fictionalised account of policing in South Shields, Tyneside, in the 1920s, based on the memoirs of a serving policeman. The book,...
by Ruth Lunn | Jan 29, 2014 | Blog
I’ve touched on marketing in previous posts, and I’m returning to it because many new authors find this the biggest challenge of all. Short of advertising everywhere (do you want to take out a second mortgage?), it can be difficult to reach your target audience, and...
by Ruth Lunn | Oct 16, 2013 | Blog
This year’s Man Booker winner, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, is the longest novel to win the prize, at 832 pages. Robert Macfarlane, the Chair of the judges, doesn’t reckon its length will put off readers, saying, “length never poses a problem if it’s a great...
by Ruth Lunn | Oct 10, 2013 | Blog
Today is known as Super Thursday in the publishing world. This is the day when a huge number of books are released by publishers to bookstores in time for the Christmas market. Despite the steady drip feed of books being published throughout the year, today is simply...
by Ruth Lunn | Jul 16, 2013 | Blog
There’s something ever so delicious about selecting holiday reading. Some people choose long weighty tomes that they know just won’t get read in the busyness of day-to-day life. Others want something light – the classic beach read. Me? I tend to go...
by Ruth Lunn | May 14, 2013 | Blog
Last year was a bumper year for book sales, according to the Publishers Association, with total spend on printed and digital books rising by 4% to £3.3 billion in the UK. Digital spend was up by 66%, but physical book sales were down just 1%, and still represent 80%...
by Ugne Rinkeviciute | Mar 11, 2013 | Blog
I don’t know about other authors, but I just love doing festivals and signings. It doesn’t matter how many you do, someone always comes up with a question you hadn’t expected, or some new insight into how your book is read. There are some topics that come up more than...
by Ruth Lunn | Mar 4, 2013 | Blog
How do you decide what book to read or buy? Are you influenced by reviews in newspapers, magazines and online – or perhaps you go by what your friends are reading and enjoying, or the latest book your book club has chosen? Goodreads recently asked 1000 of its members...
by Ruth Lunn | Feb 18, 2013 | Blog
We get many enquiries from people who are unsure of the difference between self publishing and traditional publishing. It can be confusing, so here’s a short guide. Traditional publishing Traditional publishers take a percentage of each book sold, but because they...
by Ruth Lunn | Jan 30, 2013 | Blog
How do you compare a banana with a curry? Which is better? This was essentially the task facing the Costa Book of the Year judges, as they picked a winner from the five categories of books, having to decide whether a novel was better than a biography, a children’s...
by Ruth Lunn | Jan 21, 2013 | Blog
Increasingly traditional publishers are looking to find new talent among the self-published authors who are already achieving success, rather than taking a punt on a new author whose material is not market-tested. Hugh Howey, author of the Wool series, is one of these...
by Dan Brady | Jan 11, 2013 | Blog
Kindles are great. But did you know you can use your Kindle to read ebooks that weren’t bought through Amazon? If, for example, you’ve purchased and downloaded an ebook from somewhere other than Amazon, and you want to read it on your Kindle, here’s...
by Ruth Lunn | Jan 9, 2013 | Blog
We’ve had a surge of enquiries about book publishing in the first week of January – which does make us wonder whether New Year resolutions have anything to do with that. The manuscript that’s sat there for months (years?) – has the writer finally resolved to do...
by Ruth Lunn | Jan 7, 2013 | Blog
Following on from my last post, another stand out statistic from Amazon’s Bestselling Kindle books of 2012 list is that of the 100 listed books, 15 were self-published (at least originally). Wow – almost one in six! This is great encouragement for all you wannabe...
by Ruth Lunn | Dec 19, 2012 | Blog
Amazon has published its list of bestselling books of 2012, both print and Kindle editions. What caught my eye amongst the statistics is that many of them are not necessarily highly rated books. Which begs the question: how much notice do readers take of other...
by Ruth Lunn | Dec 13, 2012 | Blog
The chances are most people don’t notice typefaces and other elements of design in a book; in fact, very often, the fact that they don’t notice shows that the design is working – books are for reading, and nothing should impede that. A beautiful, readable book is the...
by Ruth Lunn | Dec 13, 2012 | Blog
An ISBN is an International Standard Book Number, 13 digits long (prior to 2007 ISBNs were 10 digits long). It is a product number that is used by publishers, booksellers and libraries for ordering, listing and stock control purposes. It enables the book industry as a...
