June 13th, 2013 by Will Entrekin

Doing Business As

Former USC classmate and fellow indie author Danny Gardina–author of the novel The Last Night and the collection The Lookout and Other Stories and founder of Kings Men Press–wrote in with a question about my last post, and LLCs, and how to set one up.

The easy answer: go to a lawyer.

No, really. I’ll tell you a bit about what I did (as I understand it), but ultimately, get thee to a lawyer. I’m not advising you to do anything (besides go to a lawyer). I’ve heard of people doing it online, clicking a button and paying $99, but I wouldn’t recommend it, mainly because a website can’t listen to your goals, understand your needs, and advise you accordingly. It’s obviously cheaper than going to a lawyer, but, well, as with so many other things, you get what you pay for.

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June 5th, 2013 by Will Entrekin

Why You Don’t Need an ISBN (And What You Should Invest In Instead)

Lately, I’ve been trying to focus my energies less on discussing disadvantages of the corporate system and more on taking fuller advantage of being independent. I’ve been focusing a lot on Exciting Press–trying to fill readers’ Kindles and iPads and Android devices with the very best stories we possibly can.

Which is why, last night, when Bibliocrunch’s Miral Sattar highlighted last evening’s Twitter #indiechat with Bowker to me, I intended to avoid it. Miral and Porter Anderson both highlighted Bowker’s product manager, LJN Dawson, as well as touted Bowker’s new “self-publishing services.” I saw some of it–I was on Twitter, decompressing–but didn’t figure to participate until a tweet from the Bibliocrunch account pulled me in. No one had yet mentioned that authors no longer need ISBNs. No one had mentioned how incomplete Bowker’s tracking data actually now is.

So I thought I would. Long and short: as an independent author publishing digitally, you’ll do better ignoring any of Bowker’s offerings–including its “self-publishing services” and investing instead in founding your own small press as an LLC and legal entity.

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May 29th, 2013 by Will Entrekin

The One True Way of Indie Publishing

First: apologies for the headline. It’s totally a grab for attention. If you want to bail now knowing I was attempting deliberate manipulation, no one would hold it against you, but before you go, consider that’s what everyone else is doing lately, and know that, for the record, I would state that there is no “one true way” of anything–nor that I’ve ever read anyone else make that claim about independent publishing (or “self-publishing,” as corporate publishing and those associated with it tend to call it). I’ve read independent authors note that they’ve had positive experiences with places like Kindle Direct Publishing and Smashwords, and even encourage others to do so–often while noting the disadvantages of signing that corporate contract that so often gives away so many rights with little in the way of remuneration or benefit.

I think, sometimes, that such authors focus so much on being positive about the experience that others feel they have to highlight the disadvantages of not having corporate support for one’s book, and that’s fine. But sometimes I think that goes overboard, or maybe doesn’t consider the entire situation, and I think it’s important to.

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April 30th, 2013 by Will Entrekin

The Challenge of Poetry

Today–the last day of National Poetry Month–is the final day you’ll be able to get my poetry collection Bite Your Lip & other poems free at Amazon for Kindle–whether that Kindle is your Paperwhite or your iPad or your Android phone or whatever you’re using these days to read. Bite Your Lip & other poems contains 16 different pieces, some of which I wrote way the hell back in my undergrad days but more that I wrote far more recently, and even includes poems about both Doctor Who and Barack Obama. You can get it here.

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April 17th, 2013 by Will Entrekin

A Different Indie Success Story, or: Exciting Press By (and Beyond) the Numbers

I started this post as another press release in the same style and tone as the ones announcing when Exciting Press has signed authors, but I realized as I wrote it that it required a different approach. I need to tell a story, here, because while “self-publishing success stories” have become a common enough meme in publishing, I see fewer and fewer people pause to consider what success means, and I think I need to.

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September 13th, 2012 by Will Entrekin

Star Wars, The Dark Knight, and the Myth of the Hero

A few weeks ago, my soon-to-be wife and I went out to a local mall to catch the final installment in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. I’d mostly looked forward to the flick, but only “mostly”–I didn’t enjoy the same rush of breathless anticipation I saw many others experience. I largely avoided most discussion of the movie, as I didn’t want either the storyline or the experience to be ruined, but I went in with hopes higher than I perhaps should have, for a very simple reason: I hoped watching the final installment and seeing the full story would cast new light and understanding on the second installment, The Dark Knight, which I’d found problematic for several reasons.

Sequels are notoriously difficult movies to make–it’s the rare sequel that turns out to be better than its predecessor. And where sequels are difficult, second installments in trilogies are nearly impossible. The few shining examples–The Empire Strikes Back, for example–only highlight how difficult it is to make a proper second installment.

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August 16th, 2012 by Will Entrekin

The True Cost of Independent Publishing (and How to Do It Free)

When publishing is a button, pretty much the only thing you really need to buy for access to that button is a computer, and chances are you don’t even really need a great one at that.

I published my first book, a self-titled debut collection no longer available, in 2007 during my first full year studying writing at USC. Back then, I had a Hewlett-Packard laptop, and I wrote the entire collection and laid it out in Microsoft Word. I used Photoshop for the cover.

I’d already had experience publishing by then; for the three years before, I’d been assistant editor of two nursing journals. I’d used programs like Quark Xpress and Adobe InDesign. Working knowledge of those two programs was not just helpful but integral to making that book back then.

That’s no longer true, because publishing has changed so much. Honestly, I can’t imagine why anyone would want a PDF for digital publishing, which means several of those programs are no longer useful (a PDF is arguably necessary for CreateSpace, which I think is the best POD service available).

So you want to publish. What do you need?

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August 14th, 2012 by Will Entrekin

Blog Block

So there went three months.

Funny thing: I never stop writing. Haven’t stopped now. Been busy. Since April, Exciting Press has published like a dozen titles. Some mine, most not. And that’s on top of the fact that I moved in late July, but spent all of June and July doing so (June was packing, July was preparing the new house to be lived in). My fiancee and I purchased a house we have to reno a bit, so that’s meant new floors and new paints and new fixtures.

It’s been a lot of fun work I’m proud of. Few things are as empowering as installing a new ceiling light fixture.

And when I get busy, blogging’s always the first thing to go. Probably because I hate the word (“blog”? Blech), but also because it feels like it requires way more effort to be way more ephemeral. Even the sites that attract millions of readers every month require new posts every day (if not every hour), which means older stuff falls by the wayside and disappears from immediacy. And given the choice, I’d rather focus on what doesn’t. The Prodigal Hour won’t fall by the wayside. It may languish in obscurity and one day be forgotten, but it’s a novel, whole on its own and always ready to be discovered.

Every time I start to think I want to post something, I lose interest or over-analyze it. I posted a lot about publishing and Amazon and Kindle and marketing, but those things are really only of interest to other authors, not readers. Those things are probably utterly boring to readers.

And I loathe the idea of boring people, and that’s why I stop.

Which I suppose is why I’ve begun to concentrate more on actually getting work out there. I’ve always liked the aphorism that one could be known by one’s work, and honestly, if I could be known for writing and Exciting Press, that’s all I’d want. I could talk more about craft and fiction and writing, but then, do I want to be known as a great writer, or a great teacher of writing?

Of course: why not aim at both?

Maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll ignore it. Again. Because there’s always renovation, and another story to code. Right now we’re fixing up the house while planning our wedding. And then there will come the holidays and the honeymoon. We’ll see.

I updated the look and the feel here, wondering if that’ll help encourage direction forward. And by that I mean help me figure out what I want to do with this site, if anything at all.

May 16th, 2012 by Will Entrekin

Is Kindle the Best New Market for Short Stories?

Over the past week, I’ve quietly updated two Exciting Press titles, my short stories “Blues’n How to Play’em” and “A Song for Bedtime,” the latter of which began its life as “Struck by the Light of the Son.” Both had been included in the Sparks anthology I published with Simon Smithson in December 2010, and both later became the first standalone stories published by Exciting Press.

Both have taught me a lot about the market for short stories, and why Kindle might just be the best way to target that market.

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May 14th, 2012 by Will Entrekin

“It Doesn’t Appear to Be Available for Kindle, Sadly.”

It’s amazing how much a simple sentence can change. Nine words. Nine simple words. How much and what it has changed . . . well, those things remain to be seen. But they’re the words that made me a no-longer-just-”self-published” author, and they’re the words that brought one of my favorite novels–as well as several others by its author–into the digital realm.

They’re the words that ended my review of Nick Earls’ Perfect Skin, and, in some part, they’re the words that are the reason I can link that title to the page on Amazon where you can purchase Perfect Skin for your Kindle (at the time of this writing, it’s still in process at Barnes & Noble, but you’ll soon be able to purchase it for Nook, too).

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May 11th, 2012 by Will Entrekin

How to Make Free Downloads into Sales

When the free promotion for The Prodigal Hour translated to decent sales, I was impressed. Enough that I started to consider free promotions more strategically with the desire to use them both better and more deliberately, and I think that doing so is increasing sales.

In fact, I’m sure of it. Sales have increased, bit by bit, every month. Not by a whole lot, yet, but considering where they started, they’re building steadily and seem on pace to continue to do so.

So how?

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May 9th, 2012 by Will Entrekin

Two Big Factors That Enhance Kindle Select Free Promotions

The other day, I talked a bit about my experiences using KDP Select as both an author and a publisher. I noted that I didn’t think timing made much difference and noted some things that hadn’t caught on in the way others had, but I’ve noticed some things I think do, and have some theories about some other elements besides.

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