Self-publishing — and indie publishing — is growing up. Even venerable institutions like Publisher’s Weekly have come to terms with that fact.
According to an article in the Atlantic:
The literary trade magazine has announced that PW Select, its quarterly-turned-bimonthly guide to self-publishing, will go monthly in October—thus essentially doubling its critical coverage of self-publishing authors by the most influential journal in the industry.
This, by most accounts, is a fitting response to the not-entirely-shocking proliferation of self-publishing in the e-book era.
“It’s really become part of publishing—that’s probably the bottom line. It’s certainly not stigmatized in any way,” Jim Milliot, co-editorial director of Publishers Weekly, told The Atlantic Wire in a phone conversation this afternoon. “Most of the major house are looking at self-published authors now.”
Since several authors, including my friend Larry Correia, (and E. L. James, the author of the bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey) have turned their self publishing into traditional bestselling careers, it seems like the best way to become a traditional publishing success is to become an indie publishing success first.
Here at PJM we’re doing our best to help authors achieve that dream. [And Sarah would like to report that from her experience, it really does help.]
Submissions
We’ve changed the ground rules a little bit. To submit, we need TITLE, AUTHOR’S NAME, and a BLURB along with an AMAZON LINK. Sorry, we’re still not set up to deal with the other online bookstores. Send these to [email protected]. If you send an email to that address, you will receive an automatic reply with these guidelines:
- Include the TITLE, the AUTHOR’S NAME, and YOUR BLURB.
- Include the TITLE, the AUTHOR’S NAME, and YOUR BLURB. If you’re using a pen name, this is doubly important. The author’s name should match how you’ve put it in Amazon (you wouldn’t want to make it hard for your readers, would you? We didn’t think so.)
- Include a LINK TO AMAZON. Right now we’re having trouble with iTunes and B&N links but that should be temporary.
- Deadline for Friday is Tuesday midnight Mountain Time the preceding week. That is, if you want it in this Friday, we needed it by last Tuesday midnight Mountain Time. Alternatively, if you submit by midnight Mountain Time on Tuesday, you will appear nine days later, on Friday.
- No more than 2 books per author per week, and don’t resubmit a plug for at least a month. If you submit books in a series, make sure to plug them individually.
- Please submit a reasonably short blurb for each book. We’d been asking for 50-100 words, but the format we’ve arrived at gives us a little more room. Don’t go nuts, however.
- If you’re named after another author’s character, we need a signed note from the author or his/her heirs.
- It’s free, don’t complain about the service.
- Include the TITLE, the AUTHOR’S NAME, and YOUR BLURB. Yes, we can dig them off the page, but the easier you make it for us, the better we like it. Having to do a lot of hacking about makes us cranky. You wouldn’t like us when we’re cranky.
- The whim of the editors is law, even with respect to the preceding rules.
Without further ado, here are this week’s books.
10 Quick Craft Fair Bestsellers You Can Sew Using My Home Production™ Techniques
By Barbara Skolaut
The “Home Production™” techniques described in this book are ways to sew quality products, in quantity, quicker than the “cut one at a time and sew it up” method most sewers use. It will teach the sewer how to make quantities of sewn items quickly, using just one person (yourself), a home sewing machine, and a steam iron. Besides the techniques, an extensive list of resources is provided for sewing tools that are useful for this method of sewing.
Down to Earth
By Mackey Chandler
The United States of North America was cheating on their treaty with Home. Who better to send down to remind them of their obligations than a sweet young girl well liked by the public? They wouldn’t dare get publicly aggressive with her. Right?
Iron Magic
By T. M. Bridgeland
The wind blows from the sea to the mountains, bringing snow and rain in season, creating a paradise so enchanting that the first inhabitants named it ‘Eden’. This year Eden was invaded and sacked. The books were burned, and fanatics hunted and killed the few who still studied the old knowledge of magic. Maac-Kail, a young sorcerer, flees to the ancient city of Selzburg in search of allies strong enough to aid his people.
In Selzburg, a new power is rising. A local craft guild has uncovered an ancient book revealing the secrets of dark magic, long lost and nearly forgotten. Maac-Kail hopes to ally with these new sorcerers, though he distrusts the source of their power.
His plans go awry immediately, when a princess is abducted and circumstantial evidence points to him as the perpetrator. He reveals his magical power during his escape, shocking the sorcerers of Selzburg with his abilities. Now a wanted man, Maac-Kail still hopes to turn the sorcerers from enemies into allies. With the help of an abusive girlfriend, a small-time con-man, a street boy named Rat and a possibly possessed horse, he has to save the princess to clear his name, and gain the sorcerers’ aid against their common enemy.
The Mechanist
By Erik Robert Nelson
Essie Gray just wanted to be a thief. And she was damned good at it. Issington is a city under a century-long siege from the air. A curfew and blackout have driven many citizens underground for business and pleasure. Automatons originally designed for war patrol the dark streets of the city at night, now used as a means of keeping the uneasy domestic peace.
When a job goes horribly wrong, Essie finds herself on the wrong side of both the criminals she once thought allies and the law. Now Essie faces a difficult task: to find out what she stole, and who hired her. That may be a more daunting task than she realizes. With the criminals, the constabulary, and a major corporation leveraging power against her, the chance of success appears thin. But then she might find allies in unexpected places….
Bless the Bees: The Pending Extinction of our Pollinators and What We Can Do to Stop It
By Kenneth Eade
(Blurb edited for length.) They have been in existence for over 100 million years, but it has taken us less than 30 years to kill almost all of them off. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating 60% of the world’s food supply. Without them, the human race would face starvation. Since 1972, feral honey bees in the United States have declined 80% to near extinction, and domestic bees in the United States are down to 60%. Since 2006, the epidemic has been referred to as colony collapse disorder.Among the causes cited for this disaster are parasites, the decrease in abundance and diversity of wildflowers, insecticides and genetically engineered foods (GMO’s) that create their own synthetic pesticides which kill bees as well as other insects. There is more to this delicate 100 million year old evolution of pollination that just honey bees, who were not native to the United States, but imported from Europe and probably originally came from Africa. At least 4,000 species of wild bees are known to exist in North America alone. All of them are at risk, and this book will show you how you can make a difference in saving them, our food supply, and our planet as we know it. (50% of the royalties of this book will be donated to Bee Bay, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of bees and the environment.)
Kenneth Bennight
By Unlawful Combatants
Who should be treated as an unlawful combatant, that is, as a criminal, and who should be treated as a prisoner of war? This short story explores that question in the context of an 1850s-era Comanche war party that passes through a time warp to the present day. The Comanches encounter a family enjoying a Sunday afternoon at a rural river crossing and attack viciously. The State of Texas obtains a conviction for capital murder, but should that conviction stand on federal review?
Strange Worlds
By AUTHOR
In the future… a once great religion becomes a theme park – Christland; UPS delivers babies; a planet of Amazons hunts down an apostate; the U.S. government creates the ultimate soldiers – zombies; and God comes back to a world in need, hijacks a car and utters lines such as, “What the…”
How Beer Saved The World
Phyllis Irene Radford, Ed.
Beer is what separates humans from animals… unless you have too much.
Seriously, anthropologists, archeologists, and sociologists seem to think that when humans first emerged on earth as human, they possessed fire, language, a sense of spirituality, and beer.
Within these pages are quirky, silly, and downright strange stories sure to delight and entertain the ardent beer lover by authors such as Brenda Clough, Irene Radford, Mark J. Ferrari, Shannon Page, Nancy Jane Moore, Frog and Esther Jones, G. David Nordley, and many more!
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