Third edition of The Global Indie Author now available in Canada

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Well, after much trial and tribulation, the third edition of The Global Indie Author is out now in Canada. Readers can find it on Chapters/Indigo and Amazon.ca. By the way, that “Usually delivers in 3-5 weeks” declaration on the Amazon.ca website is nonsense; the book delivers in less than a week. The extended delivery time is just part of Amazon/CreateSpace’s strategy against competitor Lightning Source, which, incidentally, is covered in detail in the book. If you want to avoid supporting Amazon, buy from the Chapters/Indigo website, where the book is Read More …

Third Edition of The Global Indie Author is now available in U.S. and Europe

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The third edition of The Global Indie Author is out now in print on Amazon U.S., UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. All other territories coming soon! eBooks are also on the way. As mentioned in my previous post, the third edition features a new cover, new subtitle — to reflect the truly global phenomenon that self-publishing has become — and a great deal of new content (over 80 pages). The technical chapters have been completely overhauled to deal with the complexities of image handling, the increasing frustrations of font Read More …

Consumer desire: vastly more important than DRM

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On December 14 CNN Money published an article on the success of comedian Louis CK’s experiment selling his comedy special DVD from his website direct to consumers. In just three days CK had gross sales of $500,000, a successful venture that should, as the article notes, make media companies nervous. But what starts out as a fact-based story on disintermediation slips into speculation about the role that selling the units DRM-free had in CK’s success: He was worried about piracy, and he’s been pleading with his fans to not put Read More …

ISBNs and the self-publisher Part I: the ISBN system

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(This is modified text from The Global Indie Author.) The ISBN System ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. The rules and regulations governing the use and distribution of ISBNs are determined by the International ISBN Agency, based in London. The international agency allots ISBNs to national agencies, who in turn allot them to their publishers; thus, a publisher cannot acquire an ISBN from a foreign national agency: a British publisher, for example, cannot buy an ISBN from the American ISBN agency and vice versa. Publishers then assign their ISBNs Read More …