On Monday, October 3, author/publisher David Kudler will read from his new teen novel Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale at the Left Coast Writers monthly salon. In addition to sharing sections of the book, he will discuss the process of publishing his first novel. The salon takes place at Book Passage in Corte Madera. Copies of the book will available, and he will be signing as well. Continue reading Signing: Risuko Author David Kudler to Read at Book Passage
Tag Archives: independent publishing
Avast! Piracy and the Self-Publisher
I just had a conversation with a friend about the issue of piracy. I thought I’d share this post on the subject I wrote for Joel Friendlander’s TheBookDesigner.com:
I hear from a lot of authors — traditionally and self-published — who are panicked to find their work being stolen. “I just did a Google search,” they’ll moan, “and found a site that’s giving my book away!”
I take a deep breath, pour myself some (metaphoric) rum, and prepare to repel pirates — but mostly imagined ones.
Napster
It’s true: as long as there has been a commercial internet, there have been sites and apps that operated to “share” intellectual property illegally, to indulge in what is colorfully known as piracy.
Everyone remembers Napster: it was a peer-to-peer (P2P) app dedicated to sharing MP3 files across the internet back at the height of the so-called dot-com boom at the turn of the twenty-first century. The music industry did its best to shut Napster down by attacking its servers, its founder, and its users, and it did eventually force it out of business in 2001. But this didn’t stop P2P sharing; it simply moved the sharing on to other vectors — Limewire, BItTorrent, and many more.
However, a funny thing happened, also in 2001, that made music sharing less of an issue to the musicians and music companies: the launching of Apple’s iTunes (along with the iPod) made it easy actually to buy music through legitimate channels. Some folks still shared music online — but far more bought the music and downloaded it legitimately. iTunes became to music what Amazon has become for books: a way for even the smallest label to reach an audience and make some money. In some cases a lot of money.
Self-Published eBooks
Interview: Risuko author David Kudler talks writing
John Byrne Barry, award-winning author of political and crime thrillers, interviewed Risuko author David Kudler for the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association web site on the day of Risuko’s release.
In the interview, Kudler discusses the writing process, including:
- what it’s like to write the first book in a series,
- how to balance leaving your readers wanting more with leaving them satisfied,
- where he falls on the “plotting vs. pantsing” spectrum,
- what inspired him to write the teen historical novel,
- and much more.
Continue reading Interview: Risuko author David Kudler talks writing
Help Launch Risuko — Kickstarter Campaign
Help launch Risuko — support us on Kickstarter!
You can reserve your copy of Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale now and help support Stillpoint Digital Press’s publication of this exciting new teen historical adventure novel!
Author David Kudler has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help make Risuko the best book it can possibly be.
In the Picture: Prepping Images for Your Ebook
Last month I discussed how to clean up your manuscript to prepare it for ebook conversion. This time I’m going to be looking at how to do the same thing with images.[1]
There’s one big difference, however: where the advice that I gave you about getting your text squeaky clean was equally valid for preparing to convert your words to either print or ebook format, these suggestions are ebook-only.
What’s the difference?
Well, in either case, you’re going to start by finding the perfect picture to go with your words. You’re going to crop the picture (cutting out any extraneous bits) and enhance it (or get someone who knows how to do so) so that it looks beautiful.
However, there are two enormous differences between the image files you want to use in an ebook and ones you’re going to get printed on paper:
- In a print book, color is expensive, while in an ebook beautiful color costs (essentially) the same as black and white.
- On the other hand, in print, you want the image file that goes off to the printer to be as high quality (that is to say, large) as possible, while in an ebook, every kilobyte costs you (I’ll explain how below).
Continue reading In the Picture: Prepping Images for Your Ebook
MS to Ebook: A Cleaning Guide
This is the third installment in my series of posts about ebook creation. Like the others, it was originally posted on Joel Friedlander’s wonderful resource for indie publishers, TheBookDesigner.com
Over the last couple of months, I’ve been talking about just what an ebook is, and four basic methods for creating them.
This month, I’m going to get a bit more into the nitty-gritty — how best to prepare your manuscript for conversion.
Whichever of the methods you use to create your ebook, it’s essential to have the original file be as clean as possible.[*]
What do I mean by that?
Basically, it comes down to one thing: Continue reading MS to Ebook: A Cleaning Guide
Which Ebook Format Should I Choose, ePub or PDF?
I was asked recently which file format was better, ePub or PDF. (Just as well that the Kindle-only mobi format was left out! It’s easy to convert from an ePub file anyway.)
Which is better depends on what purpose the file is going to serve. Continue reading Which Ebook Format Should I Choose, ePub or PDF?
Everything Amazon Slides
Here are the slides from my presentation with Ruth Schwartz on Everything Amazon:
It was — as always — a great meeting! If you have any questions about any of the slides, please comment.
ETA: The URL for CreateSpace (slides 8–12) should be http://createspace.com, not createspace.amazon.com.
All Things Amazon
Along with Ruth Schwartz, I’m going to be offering a presentation at the monthly meeting of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Assocation ambitiously titled All Things Amazon!
Come join us in lovely Novato — the meeting is from 9:00–4:00, but our presentation is from 11:00–12:15. (There are going to be break-out sessions in the afternoon.)
Here’s the blurb: Continue reading All Things Amazon
What IS an Ebook?
Recently, I was honored to have been invited to post on Joel Friedlander’s The Book Designer on the subject of ebooks — a subject I love talking about, having been designing ebooks since 2010. (In this industry that makes me practically an old-timer.) This is the first of a monthly series of posts on the subject. It was originally released here.
There are lots of very complex questions when it comes to ebooks:
- text and image formatting,
- different file formats,
- various workflows for creating ebooks,
- and much more.
Defining “eBook”
For this post, before we get into the more esoteric issues of ebook design and publishing, I’d like to start by defining the subject: just what is an ebook?
This may sound like a very simple question to answer, but it isn’t as straightforward as you might think, and being able to answer it correctly will make many of the thornier issues of creating ebooks just a bit easier.