This Week in Indie Publishing

New Platform Connects Self-Published Authors With Readers

Elaine Pofeldt Contributor

It’s not easy to promote a book, and for self-published authors on a tight budget, it can be especially challenging.

Reedsy —a U.K.-based publishing startup that connects authors with editors, designers and marketers who can help them with their projects—has announced a new service to help them called Reedsy Discovery. Reedsy Discovery, which launched today, will let readers know about books its expert reviewers have recommended every week. Those who join are able to look through curated “bookshelves,” preview chapters and connect with other readers. Reedsy Discovery will also issue a weekly newsletter of top books in popular genres and books curated by trusted reviewers. It will also offer a leaderboard where readers can vote on their favorite titles.

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Is Book Database TaleFlicks Authors’ Best Path To A Film Or TV Deal?

In the era of Peak TV, a mind-boggling number of TV shows and films are being produced across a huge variety of platforms. Netflix alone released over 700 original TV shows and movies last year at a cost of $12.04 billion, and they’re still going strong, aiming to grow their content budget to $17.8 billion in 2020. Books are a great source of the IP producers need to create their new shows, so it stands to reason that everyone from Wattpad to traditional publishing companies are looking for ways to get in on the profitable book-to-film-slash-TV pipeline.

The book database startup Taleflick aims to fill that need: Launched in August 2018, the service provides a searchable library of fiction, novels and short stories alike, for the purpose of connecting authors with film or TV producers. TaleFlick charges authors $88 per title per year for the service, however, raising the question of what makes this database appealing to producers. What makes it go beyond a pay-to-play collection of the authors most desperate to see their work on screen rather than more deserving authors? Extra curation is the answer, according to CEO Uri Singer, who explains more about what makes TaleFlick more than just a database: “Original content is evaluated for best on-screen potential. The best content is curated for studios and producers. The content providers will have access to service providers to increase their on-screen potential.”

Read the rest of this story HERE.

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How you can write, monetize & publish your first novel

No matter what your background or cultural backstory is, it’s highly likely you have some kind of tradition of storytelling. Part of the human experience is the desire to communicate it through stories — so it’s highly likely you’ve got some kind of tale brewing inside your mind. Learn how you can become a professional writer, self-publish your own eBook and monetize your story with this eBook Self-Publishing Bundle. It includes twelve courses and acts as a comprehensive guide to getting you practicing your craft, executing it and finally, monetizing it enough to let it act as a form of passive income or even a full-fledged career transition.

First, you’ll learn the mechanics of writing, including how to get your story idea off the ground. Discover exercises and writing prompts to help you get the practice you need and how to be a more productive writer strategically by tapping into new content ideas. These courses cover everything you need to get you to start putting a pen to paper (or help you start typing away) by helping you understand where to harvest ideas, how to explore plot points, how to develop a consistent writing schedule and even learn grammar and style tips to develop your own unique voice.

Check out the rest of this story HERE.

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Indie Sci-Fi Authors Are Upending Traditional Publishing, And It’s Turned Into A War

It was only a matter of time before extreme leftist science fiction professionals aimed their fire at the independent author group 20BooksTo50K, a community dedicated to helping authors with the business of writing. The Facebook group boasts more than 28,500 members, and their annual conference is the largest independent writing conference in the world.

The book industry establishment is identity politics-obsessed, an angry brigade who seized control of the traditional publishing industry years ago. Publishers and editors berate independent authors regularly via blogs and social media, such as Tor Books’ Teresa Nielsen Hayden rambling on Twitter about how an independent No. 1 bestseller on Amazon is “not a bestselling author by any definition of the term used by readers and booksellers,” or the president of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), Cat Rambo, calling a sci-fi blog post cheering on independent self-publishing “egregiously stupid” in the comments of sci-fi gossip site File 770.

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535 viewsMar 4, 2019, 09:01am

3 Big Trends In 2019 Indie Books, According To Publishing Startup Reedsy’s CEO

Publishing startup Reedsy wants to surface the next hit indie book. It’s launching a new service today, Reedsy Discovery, aimed at promoting only independently published books. Users who join it will be able to connect with a similar-minded reading community, previewing chapters and browsing recommendations.

The service will have a huge pool to draw from: A little over one million titles were independently published in the U.S. in 2017, compared to the traditionally published 300,000 titles. Granted, the number of undiscovered winners in that million is likely pretty low. With Discovery, Reedsy is betting a mix of human curation and machine learning algorithms can pick out the biggest gems while supporting a more welcoming community than that of, say, Amazon’s automatic recommendation emails. 

Read the rest of this story HERE.