Wednesday 4 March 2015

Now this is a magazine of the future.

Indie Writers rejoice. Here is one of the many new zines out to get those gadget driven readers and save the short story. It pays writers too!

‘Cracked Eye’
‘Cracked Eye’ and magazines like it are the future of magazines and the saviour of the short story. The editorial team understand that ‘busy lives force us to squeeze our relaxation and entertainment into small pockets of personal downtime’ People need a different way to read and ‘Cracked Eye’ offers it. ‘Every issue of ‘Cracked Eye’ has ‘stories, illustrations, cartoons, videos, audio-books, graphic novels and serials’ which sounds normal until you realise that all these things are ‘at your fingertips on all devices across all platforms, every month.’ Brilliant and beautifully put together. Have a look at the website and see what the team are doing. Readers can finish an entire story on a commute, view an episode of a graphic novel during coffee break, or listen to an audio-story at bedtime. This is the future.

The editors need short story submissions, 3,000 to 6,000 words for ‘Cracked Eye’. The team ‘welcome submissions from new and established authors, the only proviso is that we are seeking stories that are the best.’ Follow the editorial team’s suggestion and ‘download and read some of our current stories to get a feel for the type of material we like.’ The editors seek compellingly well written stories which entertain, excite and enthral Send a finished and well edited story as an attachment. In the body of the email include all contact details, a brief bio, any Twitter, Facebook or other platforms. Don’t forget a word count and put full name and contact email at the beginning or end of the story. No reprints or sim subs please. Use a standard publishing format, standard fonts such as Courier, Times, Georgia, Arial, or Helvetica and save the work as an MS Word or MS Compatible file.
Response time is 6 to 8 weeks. Payment ‘we pay fees to writers for stories we publish subject to contract.’


Details: ‘Cracked Eye’, website: http://crackedeye.com/writers;
email subs to: submissions@crackedeye.com;
guidelines at: https://crackedeye.com/writers





Monday 2 March 2015

Start here, Indies, if you want to succeed in the Brave New Indie World.

When I started having to become a 'business person writer' and help to sell our Writer's Choice books I found the most useful collection of information, practical, doable, and easy to use at Book Marketing Tools, website: http://bookmarketingtools.com
Sign up for their free email newsletter and recieve helpful information like the following which is from their last email newsletter to me. They are a real boon to the Indies. Thank you, Shawn and R.J.

• eBook Submission Tool - If you have run a free promotion, you probably know how long it takes to submit your books to the free ebook sites on the web. Hours, right? Not anymore, our eBook Submission Tool allows you to submit to 30+ free ebook sites in just minutes by giving you just one form to fill out, and pre-filling the rest of the forms. Awesome, right?
• Reading Deals Book Promos - Last summer we launched ReadingDeals.com to help authors promote their free and bargain books. We have continued to grow and grow our list of readers who want to hear about your free and bargain book promotions! We have free (not guaranteed) and low-cost (guaranteed) promotion options available for authors like you.
• Ultimate Author Checklist - We sent this to you when you first joined our mailing list, but maybe you forgot about it. We walk you through step-by-step for setting up your book marketing engine, including the passive steps that you just need to set up once, and the on-going promotional things you should be doing.
• Reading Deals Book Reviews - One of the biggest struggles we know people have is getting reviews for their books. With our connections to readers through Reading Deals, we created a review club that you can take advantage of. Upload your book to our system, and readers can organically choose your book to read and then leave a review for. Readers get free books, you get real, genuine reviews from readers. The best part is, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg like other review services that are outside of the budget of most indie authors!
• The Author Hangout Podcast - Our podcast contains over 13 hours of interviews filled with book marketing tips, ideas, tools, best practices, and more. If you haven't listened to The Author Hangout yet, you should definitely get started today. We have interviews with over 25 guests!
• Getting Reviews for Your Book Guide - We recently created a new guide that walks you through the steps to help you get more reviews. We explore a lot of free and low-cost options that you can use to get more reviews for your books, which helps give social proof which will convert more people browsing your book page into buyers.
• Book Marketing Tools Blog - Our blog has over 75 posts, interviews, guest posts, and guides filled with great book marketing, writing, and publishing tips and ideas to help you.

Our goal is to equip authors like you with the tools, education, and community to help you to sell more books. The above list is our group of tools and resources to help you! Be sure to use these to your advantage to sell more books, build your list of readers, and become a bestselling author!

-Shawn & R.J. from Book Marketing Tools
http://bookmarketingtools.com