J Philip Horne

May 2017

Going Wide, Part IV – Distributors

Part IPart II ~ Part III – Part IV

If you have decided to go wide and don’t want the hassle of managing individual accounts at every single retailer, or if you want to publish on Google Play right now while new accounts are frozen, you’ll use a distributor for at least some of the retail channels.

Let’s talk about the three prominent options: Smashwords, Draft2Digital, and Pronoun. Caveat #3 is a doozy, so make sure to read all the way to the bottom. …

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Six Question Saturday with A.R. Silverberry

Here’s our author for today’s Six Question Saturday!

A.R. Silverberry writes fantasy adventures for children and adults. His novel, WYNDANO’S CLOAK, won multiple awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Awards gold medal for Juvenile/Young Adult Fiction. THE STREAM, his second novel, was honored as a Shelf Unbound Notable Book, and was shortlisted in ForeWord Review’s Book of the Year Awards. He lives in California, where the majestic coastline, trees, and mountains inspire his writing. …

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Going Wide, Part III – Distributing Your Books

Part IPart II ~ Part III – Part IV

Now that we’ve talked about wide vs narrow and MOBI vs EPUB, I’d like to turn our attention to retailers and distribution channels.

You probably noticed at the end of Part II that I’d planned to cover the actual creation of MOBI and EPUB files in Part III, whether through an application or as an online service.

Two posts in a row on file types? What was I thinking? …

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Going Wide, Part II – File Types

Part IPart II ~ Part III – Part IV

Starting now in Part II, I’ll talk directly to you the author about the mechanics of going wide. (Don’t ask many how many parts there will be… I’m a pantster). It’s a pretty broad topic, but I think I can boil it down to a few base topics. I’ll start with the really exciting stuff… file types!

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Going Wide, Part I – Wide vs… Narrow?

Part IPart II ~ Part III – Part IV

There are roughly fifteen “I don’t mean this” jokes about going wide. None of mine are that funny, so I’ll jump right into the author-speak version of what going wide means: the distribution of an ebook across multiple retailers.

First things first. Why is this a question? Why would an author (and I’m focusing particularly on indie authors who have to make lots of decisions like this) go “narrow”, if going wide is an option? Why would an author purposefully choose to limit ebook sales to a single marketplace, when potential readers are distributed across many different retailers?

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A Land Sun-Kissed

Being a writer, struggling to find words for stories only to discover the real struggle is to find an audience, has its frustrations. In some ways, it winds up acting as a metaphor for all of life.

Here’s poem I wrote on the topic. It started as a vent. Where’s my audience? Where’s my success? As though I were owed these things. I’d like to think it became something a little more.

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A science fantasy early chapter book fairy tale?

Gentle reader, if you are familiar with my works to date (middle grade fantasy novels), what you will find below will make no sense. If you aren’t familiar with my novels, it still won’t make any sense.

Behold, the opening lines of A Boy Like You, a most unusual story I’ve been contemplating, but have only just started, and may never finish. …

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