Indie publishing resources

I try to keep my blog mostly to inform my readers, but I know that some of them also harbour dreams of writing. All I can say is what are you waiting for??? Nobody's going to give you a green light to publish your book - you have to believe in yourself.

That said, there are lots of great resources out in the interwebs for newbie writers like me and I mention some of my favourites on my website. Apparently you don't count as a seasoned writer until you hit 1,000,000 published words - I'm currently on about 710,000 so another couple of books for me before I'm an old pro (hmm, that doesn't sound right, does it??).

It's no secret that I love Smashwords and I think that its founder Mark Coker (or St Mark as I like to call him) is very generous. He offers three free ebooks for aspiring indie authors (some of these are available in other languages):

•  Smashwords Style Guide: The Smashwords Style Guide has helped thousands of authors produce and publish high-quality ebooks. This free guide offers simple step-by-step instructions to create, format and publish an ebook. It's required reading for any author who wants to distribute their book via Smashwords to major ebook retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel.
• Smashwords Book Marketing Guide: This free book marketing primer provides authors easy-to-implement advice on how to market their books at Smashwords and elsewhere. It starts with an overview of how Smashwords helps promote your book, and then provides 30 simple do-it-yourself marketing tips. The book is useful to all authors, even those who don't yet publish on Smashwords.
• The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success: The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success reveals the best practices of the most commercially successful self-published ebook authors. This ebook is a must-read for every writer, author, publisher and literary agent. Learn over 25 best-practices you can implement today at no cost. These secrets will help you become a more professional, more successful writer and publisher. Share the secrets!

There - I've done my bit to share the secrets!! Hope this might be helpful to someone one day.

Mailing list

A lovely reader suggested that I set up a mailing list for readers who wish to be alerted via email when a new book is published. It wouldn't be used for any other purpose.

So if you'd like to be kept informed this way, please send me an email at: jdn.author@gmail.com with the heading Add to mailing list and I'll add you to it (all very high tech, I know!). 

Heller's Punishment approved for distribution

Heller's Punishment has finally been approved by Smashwords for inclusion in its premium catalogue and distribution to retailers. It should be shipped out to many retailers, including Barnes & Noble and iBooks, either Thursday or Friday. Then it is up to the retailer how long it takes to be included in their catalogue. I'll keep updating as it appears in retailers.

UPDATE 1, 25 March:  HP has been shipped to iBooks, Kobo, Sony and Diesel, but so far only appears at Diesel. For some reason I don't understand, HP has not shipped to Barnes & Noble yet.

UPDATE 2, 29 March: HP has FINALLY been shipped to Barnes and Noble - now we'll just see how long it takes for it to appear there. Not appearing at iTunes or Sony yet, but now available at Kobo.

UPDATE 3, 2 April: Okay, that's it! I'm officially ripping my hair out in frustration about just how long it's taking for HP to get onto iBooks, Sony ebooks and B&N. I can only think that they are being overwhelmed with material from Smashwords and it's taking them much longer to upload books once distributed. To avoid this delay in the future (and indeed now), the only thing I can suggest is to learn how to download the darn things from Smashwords itself. At least my books are published there immediately, and a few minutes after I press that 'publish' button, it's magically available for sale. Obviously, you do have to set up an account with Smashwords - instructions here. Instructions for downloading onto every conceivable type of ereader from Smashwords are here. This includes Kindle, Kindle Fire, Kindle apps, iPhone, iPod, iPad, PCs/Macs (PDFs or online viewing), anything using Stanza or Adobe Digital Editions, Sony reader, Nook, Kobo reader. I've personally used html for online viewing and also I use Adobe Digital Editions to check the epub versions. And I'm happy to answer any questions I can about downloading at SW.

UPDATE 4, 9 April: Sadly, HP still not up at either B&N or iBooks. Read that another author is still waiting for books published in January and February to appear on iBooks :-(

UPDATE 5, 15 April: Still waiting for HP to be released at B&N and iBooks :-(

UPDATE 6, 23 April: Unfortunately, sill nothing to report.

UPDATE 7, 27 April: Heller's Punishment is now available at iBooks!!!

UPDATE 8, 12 May: My publishing information on Smashwords was telling me that HP shipped to B&N on 28 March. Now it's saying that it isn't currently shipped. When I queried this changed status with Smashwords, they told me that just because it says it hasn't been shipped doesn't necessarily mean that it hasn't been shipped. It may be being reshipped (even though I've made no alterations to it). So now I have no idea if HP has in fact ever been shipped to B&N or not. Very frustrating.

UPDATE 9, 12 May (again): Smashwords have just put up this piece of general info which might explain the B&N issue:
Our tech team is busy ironing out some distribution issues between B&N and Kobo. At B&N, several shipments failed or partially failed over the last two months. As of this evening, the team is completing an audit and will soon reship titles. If your book is showing as shipped but has not appeared there yet (and ironically, this affects my latest ebook too, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success which should have appeared at B&N a month ago. Yes, I can laugh at myself.), this is probably the reason. At Kobo, this week we reshipped several thousand titles, and will ramp up reshipments next week. If all goes well, missing titles should reappear soon.

UPDATE 10, 13 May: Good news - Heller's Punishment has now been shipped to Barnes & Noble again. Hopefully it will appear there soon.

Blood Feud

I've commenced work on the third Tess Fuller adventure, to be titled Blood Feud. I hope to have it completed in a couple of months.

Pirated Blood Ties taken down

Hooray! Amazon have taken down the pirated version of Blood Ties. 


Thanks to everyone who helped me in this. I especially want to give a big shout out to my friend RJ Parker, a successful Amazon author of true crime books, who really went into bat for me with them. Thanks RJ, you're a champ! :-)


UPDATE 1, 16 March: Finally received an email from Amazon advising me that they'd actioned my request and had taken down the pirated book (a week after they'd already done it!).

Heller's Punishment published at Smashwords

Heller's Punishment has now been published at Smashwords (available in multiple ereader formats, including Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Sony ereader, etc).

Book 4 in the Heller series. In her latest adventure, rookie security officer Tilly Chalmers has three new assignments to cope with - chaperoning a devious addict to a rehabilitation clinic; live-in security for a strange and isolated religious cult; and protecting a national TV host in a damaging court case. On top of all of this, she must also somehow manage her growing feelings for her boss Heller, and decide on what to do about her love-rat ex-boyfriend’s demands to rekindle their relationship.






I'll update as the book is approved for distribution in Smashwords premium catalogue and when it hits B&N and iBooks and others.


UPDATE 1, 9 March:  Anyone too impatient to wait until it is distributed to other retailers can find instructions on downloading to their own ereader from Smashwords.


UPDATE 2, 20 March: Heller's Punishment is still in the queue to be approved by Smashwords for distribution, so it hasn't gone anywhere yet. This is the longest they've taken to approve one of my books. I hope it will be soon.


UPDATE 3, 21 March: Heller's Punishment now approved by Smashwords. Please see new post above where I'll update its progress as it makes its way to different retailers.

Warning: Blood Ties pirated at Amazon

I don't have ANY of my books on Amazon yet, but one of my lovely readers brought to my attention that Blood Ties is currently for sale there for $5.99 by someone calling themselves JD Nixon.

This is NOT me putting up Blood Ties for sale. Please do NOT buy this book from Amazon. I will be contacting them to ask them to take it down.

Blood Ties has always been a free book available only from Smashwords, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, Diesel and Sony.

I'm disgusted that someone could take a person's hard work and try to profit from it.


UPDATE 1 - 2 March: Okay, email sent to copyright section of Amazon. Let's see how long it takes to get a response. Some lovely people have jumped to my defence on Amazon and left reviews warning potential buyers that the book is a pirated version. Thanks for that - it might stop unsuspecting buyers being ripped off by a fraud.


UPDATE 2 - 2 March: Becoming very angry. This stinking pirated book has, since receiving 3 one-star reviews all pointing out that it is a fake, actually JUMPED in sales ranking from 260,000 to 71,863. Can someone please explain that to me, because it is beyond my understanding :-(  Please - don't give this person your money! You should have had this book for free! But if you have bought it, demand a refund from Amazon immediately. They are also profiteering from this fraud.


UPDATE 3 - 4 March: Two days since I sent my email and not a word from Amazon, not even an acknowledgement email. That's two extra days that they have allowed their customers and me to be ripped off by this person.


UPDATE 4 - 9 March: All resolved. See post above (a very happy JD)