Tag: self-publishing

Four Ways to Know if Your Self-Publishing Contractors are Good for You

For my Self-Published friends – we’ve all had some horror stories! Here’s four ways to find, pick, and work with the best self-publishing support staff people around!


By Daniel Ottalini

What happens when a freelancer and an author work together.
What happens when a freelancer and an author work together.

Hi all! There’s been a lot of press recently about small publishers and self-publisher

support staff – ie formatters, editors, cover artists, designers, small publishers, other freelancers, etc – leaving their hard-working clients in the dust and disappearing with authors’ hard earned money. In lieu of that, I thought long and hard about some ways that authors can tell if who they’re working with is the real deal, or a real stinker. Continue reading “Four Ways to Know if Your Self-Publishing Contractors are Good for You”

Do You Need a Glossary?

Do you need a Glossary? – Tips and Tricks for the Self-Published Author on creating a helpful glossary.


Hey there all you self-published writers!

Got a big book you’re about to bring out?

Does it have…

  1. A million characters to keep track of (Ala Robert Jordan, Tolkien, or Martin?)
  2. Words in another language (Real, made up, modified – this is me!)
  3. obscure military, technological, or scientific terms?
  4. a PhD worth of terminology?
  5. A fantasy world of made up locations, animals, magic, etc?

Then you, my dear compatriot, probably need a glossary.

Some simple rules to follow when creating a glossary.

  1. Follow my Significant Other’s rule – if she doesn’t know what it is, the average reader won’t (I.E. Better to leave it in than keep it out of the glossary)
  2. Add the humor or additional backstory – the glossary is a great place to add sneaky extra bits of information, backstory, or other fun, world building tidbits.
  3. But be careful – don’t say it is one thing in book one, then something different in book two.
  4. Find some examples from great fantasy books to help you out.
  5. When in doubt, ask your editor or beta readers to underline or identify the words they didn’t know to help you out!

There you have it! I hope this helped! Glossaries can really make your book much more approachable, and people will love finding those hidden ‘easter eggs’ in the back of your book (but never tell them where to look, it is more fun to find them on your own!)

Antioch Burns sent to publisher!


Hi all,

Antioch Burns has been sent to the publisher after several rounds of revisions and checks and what seems like an inordinate amount of time checking for everything. Woo! Now to move on to Iron Tribune. Just wanted to let everyone know :-).

As always, look me up on Facebook and follow me on Twitter for the latest information on the Steam Empire Chronicles. I’ve more active there than here!

– Daniel

What is your novel worth?

For my self-published friends: What exactly is your book worth?


Hi everyone,

Sorry for the lack of postings/tweets/facebook messages, I’ve been stuck without my main computer! It died about two weeks ago and I’m still in limbo with it. I could replace the hard drive, but at this point, It may make more sense to simply get a new computer. Not sure yet.

Anywho, onto my main post.

As self-published authors, we are always facing the latest push to devalue our work. The average pricing for an ebook dropped roughly 50% this last year, according to a recent study. (I’ll find the source, but heard it on the radio!) So even the main stream publishers are facing pressure to reduce the price of their work. Understandably, there is pressure on self-published authors to get our work in ‘under the wire’ so to speak, at a reduced price, because hey, everyone likes a deal, right?

Consider what goes into making a book: Time + Money + Effort = Finished Product. You spend hours writing, revising, fixing a novel. Then you probably spend money sending it to someone else to be edited, revised, tweaked. You spend money on getting good cover art because, hey, people DO judge a book by it’s cover. You put in effort to promote, to network, to do all the legwork yourself or with only a few volunteers.

Face it: You, the self-published (or small-published) author works incredibly hard for your money. Why should you not ask people to pay for your work? And not just a pittance either. $0.99? for a full length novel?

If you spent $1,000 crafting your novel, and you sell it for 99 cents, using Amazon’s algorithm (i.e – 35% of each sale is yours), you would have to sell 2800 copies of your novel just to break even. Before any advertising & such. I once heard a quote somewhere that said the vast majority of self-published authors never sell more than 50 books.

Sell your novel for 1.99, you make 66 cents each book – you’ve cut the number of books needed to break even down to 1500. Already you’re doing a lot better. Up it to $2.99, and now you’re making 70% of each sale, 2.09 – now you only need to sell 478 novels sold.

If you truly think your work is only worth 99 cents, then sell it for that amount. Sometimes people ask me why my novella isn’t 99 cents. Because I don’t think it is worth that. Will I reduce the price in the future? Maybe. It is a short novella. But true fans will buy your work, regardless of whether it is 99 cents or 1.99 or 2.99. A true fan will not ignore your work because it costs a dollar more. Then it is simply someone who is out looking for 99 cent books, not someone looking for you.

So what is the point of this? Readers believe that everything should be cheap or free. But quality has a price. If you want readers to come to you because of the quality of your work, price it accordingly.

Thanks for letting me rant 🙂

Here’s what some other people have said…

Related articles

 

Five Ways to Become a Better Self-Published Author

Five Ways to become a better Self-Published Author


Hi all,
Before I published Brass Legionnaire, I stumbled across many a website stating that you had to do this or you had to do that as a writer, author, self-publisher, etc etc etc. I think the best one I’ve found has to be here, as the sheer hilarity and slightly mocking tone both annoy you and make you realize that yes, you do need to do those things.

But that post is merely about being a better writer. I think it takes a special type of person to be a self-published writer/author. So I threw together a list on how to become a better self-published author – as always, take with a grain of salt. I’m not the best, but I certainly have some hard won experience on it by now.

Continue reading “Five Ways to Become a Better Self-Published Author”

Visualizing your World (Strategies for Story Design)

Visualizing your World using Sketches and Drawings to help create your Self-Published Story!


Hi everyone,

It’s almost the beginning of summer break, and I am totally ready to go! Buckling down and working on the novel & novellas this summer is going to be one tricky component. Now that I have two books out, I feel even more inspiration to keep writing.

One thing I wasn’t expecting was other people to think me an expert on writing! I got an email (to my school account, no less!) from one of my former students. This child is 10 years old, and already writing his own book about the Vikings. He sent me a good twenty pages or so of typed story. Now, as you might expect, it was full of your standard typos and inconsistencies. So what did I tell him to do?

I told him to sketch out his story.

I’m not an amazing illustrator, but I am a very visual person. I can write something much better if I doodle or sketch it out beforehand. Think about all the benefits that creating a visual plan or representation of your story can bring!

IMG_0033IMG_0032First, it can bring perspective. Writing is all about being able to accurately describe what is happening to your readers. Many of our favorite writers are able to write about and build their worlds with beautiful prose and writing. However, it helps to have a blueprint, so-to-speak.

Second, you can create additional parts of the story – for example, as you’ll notice from these sketch I’ve created for Antioch Burns, that there is a battle in the story. In the past, I’ve written primarily from the point of someone in the thick of battle. But drawing this picture helped me to rearrange my plan and adjust what I was going to do.

IMG_0034Finally, doodling or sketching can help you sequence and organize events in the story. I know some writer buddies of mine who draw an illustration for every chapter. It’s easy to rearrange if you discover the story has a week point or doesn’t make sense in the current order.

Hope that helps you all! I know doodling helps me (It’s also good to pass time when you are bored in staff meetings!) P.S. Don’t forget to check out Brass Legionnaire and Copper Centurion. Just got some great new reviews! (5 and 4 star!) There’s even one from France (on amazon.co.uk)

Enjoy! Ciao!

Hmm…smells like we may have struck… Copper! Copper Centurion, that is!

It’s Copper Centurion publishing time! woo woo! Tomorrow the ebook is available! Learn more, plus a bonus viewing from Roma Areonautica!


Hi everyone!

I know, I know. “Posting again, Daniel?” YES! I am very excited because I just spent the last hour or so plugging in various forms and cover arts and uploading epub documents. But you see, I have other fun things for you, besides reminding you that Copper Centurion will be available tomorrow, May 1, 2013. It’s a big day for me, personally, as I have successfully continued down the road to being a self-published author, but also a personal milestone, as I have made the (exhausting) journey once again.

So here’s the bonus material! I’ve got two covers for Roma Aeronautica below, and I’d love some criticism and comments on the covers. I won’t share which one I prefer, because that might skew the results! Roma Aeronautica 1

So here they are! Help me pick! The differences are in the background, but I’d love to hear what you think!

Roma Aeronautica 2

 

 

 

 

 

So I hope you liked those, and I can’t wait to share Copper Centurion with all of you! Here’s the links to the current sites! For Amazon and Barnes & Noble or Smashwords. I’ll be trying something new and publishing direct to iTunes this go-around, but I don’t have that ready yet. 🙂 Ciao!

Six Days & Six Reasons to read Brass Legionnaire (Before Copper Centurion)!

Six Days and Six reasons to read or revisit Brass Legionnaire!


Six reasons to read or revisit Brass Legionnaire BEFORE getting Copper Centurion next week!

  1. You won’t know why all these Romans have airships
  2. You’ll be confused as to why Julius Caesar is only 18 years old in the 1850s
  3. You’ll be concerned that the Romans are invading Scandinavia. What did all those blonde haired – blue eyed people do to them?
  4. You won’t know what a Mechaniphant looks like.
  5. You will miss out on all the world building – like how Romans deal with trash.
  6. Did I mention it’s a five-star rated, award winning novel with a unique premise that’s barely been touched by mainstream authors? Oh, and there are no vampires, I promise!

Get it today and join the legions! You still have enough time to explore it and get ready for Copper Centurion! See you tomorrow for the five days posting!

It’s Coming…. Seven Days

It’s coming in seven days…. Be ready.


One Week until Copper Centurion’s Ebook Copy is released.

One Week until the high-flying, mechaniphant riding, assassin chasing, barbarian fighting, political intrigue, and seat-of-your-pants adventure ebook novel is yours to purchase!

With just seven days left, here’s seven new locations introduced in Copper Centurion.

  1. Copendrium – (Copenhagen, in our time)
  2. Volcano Island – (Gotland Island)
  3. Sundsvall – (Sundsvall, Sweden)
  4. Nortland – (A feudal nation occupying all of the Scandinavian peninsula, as well as Finland and parts of Northwest Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland)
  5. Midgard – An invented capital city and fortress built from the living rock of a huge mountain in central Nortland.
  6. Viken Rivers – The Indalsalven rivers and tributaries
  7. Copendrium Cafeteria – don’t know what the Officers eat? Want to hear some juicy gossip? The Cafeteria is the place for you. (Just don’t try the greens, they’ve been there all week)

Be. Prepared.

Carpe Diem!

 

 

Made it through the CreateSpace Process – Again!

Copper Centurion is uploaded to Createspace, and I’m still looking for Blog Tour Hosts – Prizes are available!


Hi everyone,

Just finished uploading Copper Centurion’s Files to Createspace, so it should be available on the release date! I had forgotten how finicky Amazon’s Print-On-Demand engine can be sometimes. It was yelling at me about the illustrations, when even my illustrators were telling me that it shouldn’t be. Grr. Any who, Did you know that there are only 17 days until Copper Centurion’s debut? I’m so excited! I’m still looking for people willing to help me out with a blog tour. Considering that I’ll be giving away a Nook or Kindle device (my choice) if I get more than five people, you’ll want to be in on it! Plus, did I mention you get free ebook copies of Copper Centurion (and Brass Legionnaire, should you want that as well!)

So what am I looking for?

  1. Someone willing to do a book review OR
  2. Host me as a guest blogger in May! (I’m flexible in terms of time) OR
  3. Do an interview with me

That’s it! If you’re looking for great blog content, let me know, I’d love to visit your site! I’m particularly good in the ares of self-publishing, using kickstarter, or steampunk discussions.

I hope to hear from you! Leave a message below if you’re interested in signing up for the tour!