Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Authors Must Publish A Blog...

... or so I've been informed.  It makes sense since there are over a million books published annually just in English.  Anything authors can do to get the reader's attention is a good thing, except bitching about piracy or promoting DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Readers: Pay for the book.  Preorder if you can.  Write reviews, even if they're just short ones. Don't write mean reviews.  It means way more than you'd think even for popular, well established authors.  A mean review can ruin a budding author.

Authors: DRM just punishes your honest customers & does nothing to stop piracy.  I'm a computer guy.  I know these things.  If people can display it, they can steal it. Once stolen, it will likely be shared. Fact of life.  Write more & think of piracy as advertising; the cost of doing business.

I don't really feel like an author, though.  Sure, I've self-published a few books, but the one that is doing the best, Inkle Loom Design & Construction, is really just a woodworker's thoughts filling a void.  It had to be written by someone & it amazes me that no one had written one before.  The portable hobby looms have been around for about 150 years, after all.  You'd think in all that time... Well, it's my good fortune & has been a source of much joy.

I email a PDF to those who buy the Amazon version, a far larger number than I would have imagined, so get to chat with some great people that way.  One guy sent me picture of 4 looms he'd made for his kids & the local 4H group.  Fantastic work where he'd mixed maple & walnut for some stunningly pretty looms.  Another guy sent me a big thank you for the Oven Rack Tool Plans that he's making with Boy Scouts.  Good stuff & it gets even better!

I went to the local Kentucky Highland Renaissance Festival a couple of weeks ago & was talking to a friend.  Jess is in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) & was weaving on her Inkle loom when a gal walked up & asked about the loom.  Debra proceeded to tell us how she'd found a great book on the subject & sang its praises.  I was basking in the glow while Jess kept pointing at me.  Finally Debra stopped & looked at us curiously.  Jess told her I was the author.  The poor woman was embarrassed then & the praises became polite & reserved.  Well, it was fantastic while it lasted.

The book I'd most like acknowledged, Horses and Farms for Fiction Writers will likely never be popular among authors since realism in fiction doesn't seem to be a big concern.  It's something I appreciate & I've mentioned it in many book reviews, but it's trivial stuff & there's a lot more to writing a novel.  Getting the trivia right makes the novel, but most seem content with movie caricatures of both, unfortunately.

The other two books are just Instructables that I wrote as practice for publishing my 'real' books.  They're ebooks only, available at Smashwords.com, where the Instructables are free or Amazon. There the Instructables are a $1 since Amazon does nothing for free.  I recommend using Smashwords for the 3 woodworking books since a PDF version is available which is best for printing out to use in the shop.

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