The technical side of getting your book ready to upload — without losing your mind Formatting is the part of self-publishing that nobody warns you about until you’re already deep in it. You’ve written the book. You’ve edited it. You feel done. And then you discover that uploading a Word document to a print-on-demand platform …
KDP, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital — here’s how to choose without regretting it later The first real decision a self-publishing author faces isn’t the cover or the price or the launch strategy. It’s the platform — and it’s a decision that shapes everything downstream, from where your book appears to how much you earn per sale to …
Introducing FluidScriptr — a new tool from Tin House Press for writers ready to take their stories further. You wrote the book. Now someone asks: is there a screenplay? It’s a question more writers are hearing. The lines between publishing formats have blurred — novels become series, memoirs become documentaries, short stories become short films. …
Without a publisher’s machine behind you, the strategy has to be yours. Here’s where to start. The self-publishing marketing conversation tends toward two extremes: breathless accounts of authors who went viral and made millions, and bitter warnings that without a publisher’s distribution you’ll sell twelve copies to family members. Neither is useful. The reality is …
The publishing industry will not save you. Here’s what actually works. There is a fantasy that many first-time authors carry into publication: the idea that once the book is out, the publisher takes over. That publicists make calls, reviews appear, bookstore events fill up, and the work of writing is replaced by the more glamorous …
Neither path is the right one. Both paths are the right one. Here’s how to think about it. The question gets asked constantly, in writing workshops and online forums and conversations at book festivals: Should I self-publish, or should I try to go the traditional route? It’s the wrong question — or rather, it’s the …
What consolidation, crisis, and a few stubborn independents tell us about the future of books In 2022, the Department of Justice blocked the proposed merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster on the grounds that it would harm competition — and, more pointedly, harm authors. The government’s expert witness argued that the merger …
A guide for writers trying to get published — without losing themselves in the process The rejection letter arrives, and you do what writers do: you read it once, close your laptop, and make tea you don’t drink. Then you read it again. Then you spend twenty minutes parsing the phrase “not quite right for …
