Created by Randy Ingermanson - "the Snowflake Guy"
America's Mad Professor of Fiction Writing

Can You Learn How to Plot Fiction?

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in Books, Fiction Writing Tagged:

What if you don’t know how to plot fiction? Is that a skill you’re just born with? Are you doomed if you don’t have it? Or can you learn?

Francisca posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

Hi Randy, thank you for helping aspiring writers. I decided to try to write short stories and I realized I had original ideas and a nice writing style, but my problem is I am not good at telling stories (never have been). So, I can imagine and describe atmosphere, dialogues, characters and all, but I do not know how to develop a plot as a sequence of events, twists, good endings and the like. My question: am I doomed or this is something that can be learned at a creative writing course?

Thank you in advance for your reply!

Best wishes!

Randy sez: I’ll keep this short. You’re not doomed, Francisca. You can learn how to plot fiction.

When I started writing fiction, I wasn’t good at any of those things you mentioned—atmosphere, dialogue, characters, or how to plot fiction. But I learned. You can too. All you need is a good book, and I can point you in the right direction. I’ll do that at the bottom of this post.

But first, a short digression.

One Book That Changed My Life

When I was in seventh grade, right near the end of spring semester, I wandered into a bookstore, planning to buy a book on how to be a better debater. But I came out with a book on chess. Don’t ask how that happened. An impulse decision. 

That book changed my life.

At the time, I knew the rules of chess, more or less. But I had no idea how to play well. 

However, the book I bought was an absolute masterpiece. The title was Winning Chess: How to See Three Moves Ahead, by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld. 

I took that book home and worked through it—21 chapters that explained each of the most common tactics in chess—the pin, the knight fork, the double attack, discovered attack, discovered check, etc. And each chapter had a number of example problems to solve.

It took me most of the summer after seventh grade to work through that book. By the time I finished it, I could beat all my friends. When I went back to school in the fall, I could beat everyone I played. Every time. 

I had no delusions of being a grandmaster. But that one book made me a much much much stronger player. 

The Power of How-To Books

That’s the power of the right book in the right hands at the right time. I still have that book. It’s in the bookcase right above my chair. I still think it’s an amazing book.

But it wasn’t just the book. I’ll bet most people who’ve read that book didn’t get the results I did. Because I put a whole summer into mastering the book. I worked really hard. And in short order, I learned a new skill. 

The right book plus some concentrated hard work can do wonders for you. That’s the larger lesson I learned. That’s why I say the book changed my life. It showed me that skill is not something you’re born with.

Skill is something you can learn. 

All you need is the right book, and the work ethic to master that book.

How I Learned How to Plot Fiction

When I started writing fiction, I knew the rules of spelling and grammar and punctuation. But I had no idea how to write fiction well.

Then I met a new friend at a writing conference, and he told me about a book he’d been studying, Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight Swain. 

So I bought the book and spent months mastering it. 

That book changed my life.

From that book, I learned how to write action, dialogue, and interior monologue, and how to put them together. I learned about scenes and sequels. I learned about beginning, and middle, and end. I learned how to plot fiction and write a compelling story. 

There’s more to fiction than just those things. But action and dialogue and interior monologue are core. Scenes and sequels are core. Beginning, middle, and end are core. Once you know how to do those things, you have a really solid foundation. And there are other books to learn the other aspects of fiction writing. 

Why I Teach Fiction

Not long after I published my first novel, I was asked to teach at a local writing conference. I decided to teach on the core things I learned from Dwight Swain.

I’ve been teaching those core things ever since. And every time I teach, I learn something new. Or I relearn something I’d forgotten. Teaching fiction makes me a better writer. And it’s fun to teach. So that’s why I do it.

I’ve often said that most of what I teach is stuff I first learned from Dwight Swain. That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I also teach stuff I learned from other writers—James Scott Bell, Larry Brooks, Orson Scott Card, and plenty of others. And I’ve certainly invented a few things along the way.

But it’s just a fact that nobody has made a bigger impact on me than Dwight Swain. Because Swain taught me the fundamentals of plotting fiction, which is essential. And that’s the very thing Francisca asked about above.

So in my recommendations of books below, Professor Swain comes first, followed by three of my own books that in various ways interpret and expand on Swain’s work.

Four Recommended Books

Here now are four books that will help you in various ways to learn how to plot your fiction:

Dwight Swain’s classic book, Techniques of the Selling Writer. Chapters 3 and 4 will teach you how to write scenes. 

Also my 2009 book, Writing Fiction for Dummies. This is a broad overview of everything I knew about fiction writing when I published the book ten years ago. 

And my 2014 book, How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method. This covers my wildly popular Snowflake Method of designing a novel. If your issues are getting the big picture right for your story, this book will teach you how it’s done.

And my 2018 book, How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method. This focuses on Step 9 of the Snowflake Method, in which you design the structure of your scene. If your problem is that your scenes aren’t working, this is the book for you.

There are of course many books on plotting, but these are the ones I’m most familiar with, so I’m sticking with these.

Got a Question for My Blog?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer the ones I can, but no guarantees. There are only so many hours in the day.

Coming, May 18—How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method

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in Books, Craft, Fiction Writing Tagged: ,

My new book will release in e-book format on May 18. The regular, everyday e-book price will be $4.99, but I’ve currently got it set up for preorder at a special reduced price of only $2.99.

Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Apple iTunes

The reason I’ve reduced the e-book price during the preorder period is so all my fans can get a price break. That’s good for you and it’s good for me, because it moves a lot of copies during the crucial launch period. And it’s working.

As I write this post, the e-book is #1 in three categories on Amazon:

  • Fiction Writing
  • Writing Skills
  • Screenwriting 

A paper edition and an audiobook version will be released very soon. I’m not able to time their release exactly, the way I can time the release of the e-book, but I’ve set the wheels in motion and both versions are grinding their way through the machine at Amazon. I’ll try to write a brief blog post when they go live, which should be within the next few days.

Here’s an excerpt from the very beginning of the book, slightly edited for this blog post:

Want to Write a Dynamite Novel?

Do you want to write a dynamite novel? 

I bet you do.

And I bet you can.

I’m here to teach you how.

Why do I think I can do that?

Because I’ve been teaching people how to write fiction for a long time. 

Tens of thousands of writers around the world are using my Snowflake Method right now to write their novels.

What Is the Snowflake Method?

The Snowflake Method is just a series of ten steps you can use to design your novel so you can get the first draft down on paper. People e-mail me all the time to say these steps work like magic to unlock their creativity. 

Please note: the Snowflake Method doesn’t make you more creative. 

Because you already are creative. 

The Snowflake Method just tells you what task to be creative on next.

You don’t have to use all ten steps of the Snowflake Method.

You can use any steps you like. 

You can ignore any steps you don’t like.

The ninth step in the Snowflake Method is to design each scene before you write it.

The Importance of Writing Dynamite Scenes

Why do scenes matter? Because the key to writing a dynamite novel is to write a dynamite scene. 

When I first started writing fiction, my scenes just weren’t working. Then I discovered Dwight Swain’s classic book, Techniques of the Selling Writer. That book had a couple of chapters that changed my life. They taught me how to write a powerful scene.

If you can write one powerful scene, you can write a hundred. And that’s a novel.

I’ve been teaching at writing conferences for many years, and I’ve critiqued manuscripts for hundreds of writers.

The #1 weakness I’ve found in beginning and intermediate writers is that they don’t write strong scenes. 

The absolute fastest way for most writers to take a quantum leap forward is to learn how to design strong scenes. 

Dynamite scenes.

In this book, I’ll teach you how. This is a short book, focused on just that one topic. You can blitz through it quickly and master scene design. You can.

As I said, I first learned how to design scenes from Dwight Swain’s book, Techniques of the Selling Writer. I’ve now spent decades mulling his methods, rethinking everything, trying to simplify, and adding new ideas. This book is one result of those decades of work. 

My one goal in writing this book is to teach you how to become an expert in designing powerful, amazing scenes that will move your readers’ emotions. 

Once you master scenes, you’ll be one giant step closer to writing powerful, amazing novels that will move readers’ emotions.

Let’s do this, shall we?

Turn the page to get started.

Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Apple iTunes

How To Be More Original

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in Books, Craft, Fiction Writing

As a novelist, it’s hard to be original. How do you learn to be more original, when it feels like your writing is too much like the books you’ve been reading?

H.B. posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I’ve been reading lots of YA recently (hunger games, divergent etc) and recently started writing my own novel. I am only a teenager, but I write in the hopes that I will edit my work and publish it when I’m older. Anyway the book I’m writing at the moment seems too close to other books I’m reading – it has attributes that are very similar to novels in the same genre but I’m not coping on purpose, it just happens as I’m writing! What should I do?

Randy sez: There’s an old saying that when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I suspect that the problem is that you’re reading books that are too similar to each other. You’ve read the Hunger Games series and the Divergent series, but those are quite similar books. Naturally, when you go to write your own novel, you’re going to produce something like the things you’ve been reading.

Solving the Problem

The solution is pretty simple, but it’s going to take some time.

Read more.

Read widely.

Read stuff you like.

Read stuff you don’t like.

The more you read, the more you’ll expand your horizon on what can be done as a novelist. That will keep you from getting into a rut.

Some Recommended Books

 I’ve tried to read at least something in practically every major category, even categories that I don’t particularly like. Here is a random collection of books that have helped broaden my horizons. It’s a very small selection from my library, but it cuts across all the main categories:

  • The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The quintessential fantasy series for adults.
  • The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling. The quintessential YA fantasy series.
  • Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card. An exciting science fiction novel about an earth-orbiting Battle School where pre-teen military cadets are groomed to save the earth from an alien invasion.
  • The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. A massive historical novel set in 11th century England about the building of a cathedral and the internal politics of a monastery. Most of Ken Follett’s fans think this is his best novel.
  • The Clan of the Cave Bear, by Jean Auel. A long historical novel set in ice-age Europe about a four-year-old human girl adopted by Neanderthals.
  • Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon. A time-travel romance novel set in 18th century Scotland about a British nurse in 1945 who falls in love with a Scotsman after finding herself unexpectedly transported to 1743.
  • Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. The quintessential historical romance novel, about a strong-willed self-absorbed young woman growing up during and after the Civil War.
  • The Chosen, by Chaim Potok. A literary novel about a pair of genius Jewish teen-age boys from rival religious communities who start out as enemies and become best friends.
  • The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. A dystopian futuristic novel about a young woman being used as a concubine in a world where most people are infertile.
  • The Godfather, by Mario Puzo. The quintessential Mafia novel about an organized crime family fighting for survival in the brutal New York underworld.
  • The Firm, by John Grisham. This was Grisham’s breakout novel about an ambitious young lawyer hired to work in a cushy law firm who discovers that his company is a front for a money laundering operation.
  • The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy. This was Clancy’s first novel about a Soviet sub commander who tries to deliver the latest submarine intact to the Americans at the height of the Cold War, with the entire Soviet navy in hot pursuit.
  • The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, by John LeCarre. In 1961, a washed up British spy is approached by East German spies hoping to persuade him to defect. In my opinion, the best spy novel ever written.
  • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle. The quintessential series of mystery stories and novels.
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. A non-linear story about a man with a genetic defect that yanks him back and forth in time—and the woman who loves him.
  • Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen. A classic romance novel about a young English woman who has the audacity to want to marry for love, and the three very different young men who pursue her.
  • Vampire Academy, by Richelle Mead. A bestselling YA novel about a group of young vampires in a special academy where they learn how to defend themselves against the evil Strigoi.

I could go on much longer, but this is enough for now. Most of these are classics in their category, and I’ve read almost all of them several times. These cover most of the major categories of fiction. Most of them are not suitable for children, but I will note that most of my writer friends were reading books not suitable for children at a very early age. And so was I. People who are destined to be writers tend to grow up fast and read books that would horrify their parents.

How to Be More Original

My opinion is that every novelist needs to read thrillers. And romance novels. And fantasy. And science fiction. And classics. And dystopic novels. And YA. And horror. And historicals. And mysteries. And religious fiction.

You don’t have to read a lot of books in a category you don’t like. But you should read at least enough to prove that you really don’t like the category. The goal is to learn what’s out there, and what can be done with the written word. My list above is tilted a bit towards thrillers and historicals, because that’s what I like.

Reading in a wide variety of categories is the best inoculation I know against the dread disease of accidentally writing like your favorite author.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer the ones I can, but no guarantees. There are only so many hours in the day.

My New Book on the Snowflake Method

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in Books, Fiction Writing

The cover art for my book How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method.Why are so many writers around the world using my Snowflake Method to write their first drafts?

Because it works!

Let’s be clear that different writers are different.

Some writers thrive on the “seat-of-the-pants” method. Stephen King is a pantser. So is Anne Lamott.  They write great fiction and SOTP works for them.

Some writers work from a highly detailed outline—a synopsis that may be 50 to 100 pages. Robert Ludlum was famous for his long outlines.  He was a great writer and outlining worked marvelously for him.

But some writers love the Snowflake Method—a series of steps in which you start with the germ of a story idea and build it out bit by bit.  Some writers’ brains are wired to work this way.  And many of them write great fiction.

About the Snowflake Method

The Snowflake Method doesn’t make you more creative. You already are incredibly creative.

The Snowflake Method just suggests where to apply your creativity next.  It makes Snowflakers more efficient in writing their first draft.

There is no one method that works for everybody.  The Snowflake is the method that has worked Xtremely well for me.  And it’s been thrilling to hear from so many writers around the world who say that the Snowflake works for them too.  The Snowflake page on this web site has been viewed more than 4 million times.  Every month, it gets about 50,000 more page views.

Several years ago, I heard from a writer in Nigeria who had visited my site that January and got inspired. By July she had written her manuscript (about Nigerian scammers), got an agent, and sold her novel to Hyperion. A couple of years later, that novel won the Africa Commonwealth Prize.

Your mileage will vary, of course. Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani brought a ton of talent, drive, and creativity to the table. The Snowflake Method gave her a simple path to follow to get her story written. But she had to walk that path.  You have to walk your own path, and it won’t be easy.  But the Snowflake Method is designed to guide you along the way, to shorten the path.

My New E-Book

I’ve been working really hard for months on a new e-book solely dedicated to the Snowflake Method, and I did something different this time.

I wrote the e-book as a story—about a young writer with a dream to write a novel.

All her life, she’s been doing what other people tell her to do, putting off her dream and being practical.

Now she’s tired of doing what other people want.

She wants to follow her dream.

But she doesn’t know how to get started.

She needs a little direction, so she decides to go to a writing conference.

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 1. You’ll see right away that this story is quirky, zany, and over the top.  As you get into it, I hope you’ll find that it goes deep into the art of story.

You’ll see that the story itself practices what it preaches.  In the chapter on Disasters, there’s a disaster.  In the chapter on the Moral Premise, there’s a Moral Premise.  The chapter on Reactive Scenes is a Reactive Scene.

My goal is to make learning simple and easy, by showing you a real live example of how it’s done.

Excerpt from “How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method”:

Chapter 1:  The Impractical Dream

Goldilocks had always wanted to write a novel.

She learned to read before she went to kindergarten.

In grade school, she always had her nose in a book.

In junior high, the other kids thought she was weird, because she actually liked reading those dusty old novels in literature class.

All through high school, Goldilocks dreamed of writing a book of her own someday.

But when she went to college, her parents persuaded her to study something practical.

Goldilocks hated practical, and secretly she kept reading novels. But she was a very obedient girl, so she did what her parents told her. She got a very practical degree in marketing.

After college, she got a job that bored her to tears—but at least it was practical.

Then she got married, and within a few years, she had two children, a girl and then a boy. She quit her job to devote full time to them.

As the children grew, Goldilocks took great joy in introducing them to the stories she had loved as a child.

When her son went off to kindergarten, Goldilocks thought about looking for a job. But her resume now had a seven-year hole in it, and her practical skills were long out of date.

The only jobs Goldilocks could qualify for were minimum wage.

She suddenly realized that being practical had made her horribly unhappy.

On a whim, Goldilocks decided to do the one thing she had always wanted more than anything else—she was finally going to write a novel.

She didn’t care if it was impractical.

She didn’t care if nobody would ever read her novel.

She was going to do it just because she wanted to.

For the first time in years, she was going to do something just for herself.

And nobody was going to stop her.

* * *

About the Book

The cover art for my book How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method.The first 18 chapters of the book are the story of how Goldilocks takes her dream from a wispy idea all the way to a very concrete plan for her story that she can write right now.

The 19th chapter is a quick summary of the Snowflake Method.

Chapter 20 shows the complete Snowflake document  which I used to write the book. A Snowflake about the Snowflake! Very meta.

I’ve just released this e-book on all the major retailers.

Amazon has a cool new tool that suggests the price that will earn me the most money. They suggested that I price the book at $5.49. But I rejected that suggestion.

My goal right now is to get my book into the hands of lots of writers, so I’ve slashed the introductory price to $2.99.

See the e-book on Amazon:  $2.99

See the e-book on Barnes & Noble:  $2.99

See the e-book on Apple iTunes:  $2.99

See the e-book on Kobo:  $2.99

See the e-book on Smashwords:  $2.99 (any electronic format, including PDF)

Please note:  Prices outside the US may not be exactly $2.99, but I’ve done all in my power to get them as close as possible to that price on as many retailers as possible.

Will There Be A Paper Edition?

Yes, there will be a paper edition very soon. I’ve submitted it to Amazon’s CreateSpace service and I’ve jumped through all the hoops. I’ve ordered the proofs of the paper edition, and they should be arriving shortly. It will take me a day or two to check through them, and then there’ll be a short delay to complete the process. I hope the paper version will be done within about a week. Paper costs more than electrons. At 233 pages, the book will have to be priced at $9.99. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.

The Death of “Self-Publishing”

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in Books, Indie Author, Publishing

It’s time to just say it. “Self-publishing” is dead. I’m not talking about the act of self-publishing a book. I’m talking about the phrase itself. “Self-publishing” now means two different things that are miles apart. It’s time to kill this useless phrase.

Barbara posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I am confused by all the different terms in current publishing. Like “indie publishers,” “traditional publishers,” “ebooks,” “ebook indie publications,” “small presses” “small publishers,” “independent publishers,” “print on demand,” “hybrid authors” and whatever it is that Amazon does.

I am former Washington, DC newspaper reporter writing a novel about the newspaper business. Though I have finished a first draft and am working one revisions, I am not quite ready to submit a manuscript yet. But I need to know what all these terms mean and how to go about deciding where I belong. Thanks always for your great blog and for answering my question.

Randy sez: Let’s start with the most confusing term of all—“self publishing.” This used to have a single meaning. But in recent years, it’s come to mean two massively different things:

  • Vanity publishing
  • Indie publishing

Let’s look at these and define them clearly.

Vanity Publishing

“Vanity publishing” means that you pay somebody to publish your work. You typically pay them a flat fee and with that money, they then hire editors, proofreaders, typesetters, graphic designers, marketers, and whatever else. They take care of the printing, warehousing, shipping, distribution, sales, etc. If there are any profits, they distribute them to you, usually taking a cut.

In vanity publishing, you do the writing and you take all the financial risk. The vanity publisher does all the other work and takes none of the risk. The profits can be divided up various ways.

It should be obvious that vanity publishing is wide open to abuse. When you are fronting the money and taking all the financial risk, the vanity publisher has little incentive to keep costs down or do a good job or give you a fair shake.

It is possible for a vanity publisher to give you a fair deal, but most professional authors, editors, and agents will tell you that vanity publishing is almost always a terrible deal for an author. David Gaughran does a great job of explaining why on his blog, so I’m just going to refer you to him. Here’s one of his articles to get you started.

Indie Publishing

“Indie publishing” means that you act as your own independent publisher. You write your book. Then you do all the tasks that a publisher would typically do, or else you find a specialist who can do the ones you can’t. These tasks are:

  • Editing
  • Proofreading
  • Cover design
  • Typesetting (for print books) or formatting (for e-books)

Indie authors often do all of the above themselves. Then they upload their finished book files to the various online retailers—Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, Google Play, etc. Or they may work with a distributor, such as Smashwords, who will deal with some or all of the retailers.

The key thing here is that the author gets a large percentage of the money—typically between 35% and 70% of the retail price of the book. The indie author takes all the financial risk and gets most of the rewards, so she has a high incentive to keep costs down and do a good job.

As it turns out, indie publishing can be a great deal for authors. The very best-paid indie authors are earning millions of dollars per year, and a surprising number are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. For a superb analysis of how much indie authors can earn, see the Author Earnings web site run by Hugh Howey.

Why “Self-Publishing” is Useless

“Self-publishing” used to mean essentially the same thing as “vanity publishing” and very few professional authors would have anything to do with it.

In recent years, “self-publishing” has also come to mean “indie publishing,” and a great many professional authors are doing it very successfully.

It ought to be obvious that “self-publishing” is a term that is too ambiguous to be useful. It needs to be thrown away.

We have two other perfectly good terms we can use instead: “vanity publishing” and “indie publishing.” So use whichever is appropriate, and nobody will be confused.

Let’s remember that there are some other publishing options. Let’s look at those.

Traditional Publishing

“Traditional publishing” means that you work with a publishing company that puts up all of the money to publish your book. They pay you some money upfront as an “advance” in exchange for the rights to publish your book for a certain length of time. They also pay for all the editing, proofreading, typesetting or formatting, printing, warehousing, sales, and distribution. They collect all the money earned and pay you a percentage as royalties.

In traditional publishing, you do all the writing and the publisher does all the other work and takes all the financial risk. You split the rewards with them.

What’s not to like with this arrangement?

Let’s be clear that this can be a great deal for authors. Until very recently, most of the really famous authors worked with traditional publishers and made great boatloads of money. There are a couple of thousand authors currently doing very well under this system.

The problem is that in recent years, the deal has gotten substantially worse for authors. Here are some of the friction points that authors have:

  • Advances have gotten smaller.
  • Authors are expected to do all or most of the marketing.
  • Royalties on e-books are low—typically 25% of the wholesale price of the book, which works out to about 12.5% of the retail price. This is very much lower than the 35% to 70% earned by indie authors.
  • Many publishers require option clauses that lock in an author to working with the publisher on the next book.
  • Many publishers require no-compete clauses that prevent an author from working with another publisher (or from indie-publishing) during a certain window of time.
  • Traditional publishing takes a long time to move a book from concept to final published book. It may take a year or two or longer.
  • Traditional publishers often can’t handle all the books that an author can write, and this is a huge problem if there are option clauses or no-compete clauses in place.
  • Traditional publishers decide what will be published and what won’t, and this often feels arbitrary and unfair to authors.
  • Traditional publishers hold all the high cards in negotiating.

There are probably other friction points, but these are the most glaring. These are the reasons why so any professional authors have simply walked away from traditional publishing and gone indie—they believe they’re better off on their own. These are the reasons why so many indie authors have refused contracts offered by traditional publishers.

Some authors use the term “legacy publishing” to refer to traditional publishing.

Hybrid Authors

“Hybrid author” is a term coined by Bob Mayer. It means an author who chooses to publish some books with traditional publishers and some books as an indie author.

Hybrid authors are looking for the best of both worlds, and this can be a reasonable choice. I’m a hybrid author, because I have some books still in print with traditional publishers, while all my current projects are in indie publishing.

Small Publishers

“Small publishers” are traditional publishers that are small—typically just a few employees. Small publishers often give better royalties on e-books. They may give more attention to new authors. I’ve worked with a small publisher, and it can be a sensible option.

Small publishers seem to be fading as more authors go indie.

E-books and Print-On-Demand

E-books are electronic books that are sold and delivered electronically. In some categories of fiction, most of the books sold are e-books.

“Print-on-demand” books are paper books that are printed and sold only when a customer orders a copy. Traditionally, publishers printed thousands of books in a large print run and then warehoused the books. This kept the cost per copy low, but if the books didn’t sell, that was a problem. The unit cost of a print-on-demand book is fairly high, but the risk is zero because you don’t print it until you’ve sold it.

Amazon has made it easy for indie authors to create and sell e-books and print-on-demand books. You can upload your e-book at kdp.amazon.com. You can upload your print-on-demand book at createspace.com.

Numerous other online retailers let you upload and sell e-books, including Barnes & Noble (at nookpress.com), Smashwords (at Smashwords.com), Apple (at itunesconnect.apple.com), Kobo (at kobobooks.com).

The publishing world is changing fast. Traditional publishing used to be the only game in town for authors who wanted a fair shake financially. Now indie publishing is an exciting option. Indie publishing gives authors some negotiating power with traditional publishers, because now they have the power to walk away.

Barbara, I hope that answers your questions. I won’t tell you what you should do, because every author is different. But now you know what your major options are. Good luck!

 

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer the ones I can, but no guarantees. There are only so many hours in the day.

 

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