[note: Sorry if you're getting this in your RSS feed twice. We've updated the website so I have to re-post a few items.]

Hello! Today I'm happy to present a guest post by my former Author Boot Camp student Emily Eddins, whose book Altitude Adjustment just hit shelves and sites. It recently hit the Top 5 in New Releases for short bios and memoirs. 

Here's a free look at the first chapter! Click to download or open and read about how she attacks Wolf Blitzer.

Today she's here to share 10 Great Tips she learned during the self-publishing process. Independent authors take note! 

Top Ten Pieces of Advice for Independent Authors

My book, Altitude Adjustment, hit the market this summer. It is a series of “laugh-out-loud funny” vignettes about life in a ski town in California. It took me a really long time to get from writing to publishing – ten years, in fact. Along the way, some of the essays that make up my book were published in literary journals. This helped me gain credibility as a writer. I did this with the help of the very awesome Writer’s Relief submission service. Check them out if you would like to publish with literary journals to build your resume.

While I eventually published three of the pieces in different literary journals, I originally created them as part of a collection. I wanted to send them out into the world that way. Rather than spend the next five years looking for agents and publishers, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge as an independent author. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way.

1.Keep your budget in mind before you hire a company to publish your work. Weigh the pros, cons and costs of having a self-publishing company print your work for you, upload your e-books for you, etc. Decide whether you have the tech savvy to do it all yourself, or whether you need help. If you are buying services a-la-carte, they can add up. Estimate how many books you think you can sell.

2.Do your research before you hire a company. Check with the Better Business Bureau and other authors who have used them to see if they come recommended or have had problems delivering a satisfactory product in the past.

3.Pad your schedule with extra time. I originally thought it would take me around six months to put my finished product out into the world. Due to printing problems and other delays, the reality was closer to nine months.

4.Err on the side of caution when timing your media releases and book launch. Due to a printing problem, I had brick and mortar stores lined up to buy books that the printing house temporarily delayed. Some media was launched before bookstores were able to get the books in stock, thus affecting my ability to maximize book sales to my target audience. I should have played it safe and waited to schedule media until my books were all in house.

5.Leverage your own network for book sales. Ask all of your friends and family who love you and want to help to forward your Facebook page, Amazon link, etc. Get in touch with anybody you think might be able to help spread the word, like former teachers such as @sethharwood who asked me to guest blog!

6.Understand how on-demand printing works. In some instances, large book dealers like Amazon order a small batch of your book right when it becomes available. Until those sell out, they can be sent to prime customers within two days. After that, books can take 1-3 weeks to ship and send.

7.Find a publisher and printer near your brick and mortar stores. My publisher is in the mid-west, and my printer is in Tennessee. This added to shipping delays to the brick and mortar merchants carrying my books, who are all in California.

8.Don’t be afraid to ask your local bookstore to carry your book in the Local Authors section. Everyone I have asked was happy to do it!

9.Don’t get mired in the glitches. Shit happens. Don’t be surprised when it does. If your Twitter link doesn’t work right or your Nook book randomly disappears from the Barnes and Noble website, get into problem-solving mode, but don’t get down in the dumps.

10. Celebrate! Bask in the love of your friends and readers who connect to what you’ve written. Congratulate yourself for achieving your dream. You’ve worked hard!

[From Seth: Also throw a release party and have a great time!]

Thank you Emily for stopping by!

Back in June, I did a panel at LitQuake's Digi.Lit conference called "Do You Read Me? Author Branding and Marketing."

Its description is as follows: Digital authors grapple with the familiar challenges of cutting through the clutter. In this session, you can learn tips and strategies from the experts on how to promote your writing to a digital audience, and how to build the right identity to best can attract readers to your work.

Click here to download or listen to the complete talk. Enjoy!

 And MAN, did I get Zen up on it. What the crap? Anyway, maybe it's funny or helpful, I hope. (Maybe both!) If you want to jump to where I start speaking, it's around the 22:30 mark. Just saying. The payoff of listening for you if you're not a writer: I drop a number of hints about the content of the new Jack Palms thriller. You with me? Get it in your ear!

Many thanks to the other great authors/speakers on the panel: Elise Cannon, moderator, Nina Amir, and the wonderfully awesome and insightful Jane Friedman.

What can I say? Once in a while I have to try something different. Last night I ended up doing a liveblog of the NBA Finals' last game. Starting midway through the third quarter. Enjoy it.

I'd definitely be interested to know what you thought, so please leave a comment after.

3^rd Quarter

6:35 Patty Mills full-on blows by LeBron James. Finishes with layup. James has scored 3 points since 1^st Quarter.

The good folks at Thomas & Mercer purchased a promotion for In Broad Daylight today (April 25) on the site BookBub. Have you heard of these guys? Do you BookBub? They're basically a promotional site for books with a big following. They're similar to the Kindle Daily Deal, but are not a part of Amazon.

On Twitter alone, @BookBub has 97.5k followers. Today they tweeted:

FBI agent Jess tracks a killer in @sethharwood’s IN BROAD DAYLIGHT—$1.99 for #Kindle readers! t.co/qHKDPH6TkC

— BookBub (@BookBub) April 25, 2014

So that's something. They also have an email list that goes out to a ton of folks. Today I found out I was on it for Thrillers. Huzzah! What's followed is another awesome ride up the charts. At the time of this posting, I'm in the top 100 Best Sellers in the Kindle Store. It's 9:30. What's next?

That's right! There I am next to Nora Roberts! Woo ha! And they must mean 6 days in the top 100 TOTAL. Well, well. It's all good to me. Enjoying the ride! 

Want to help out? Just tell somebody you know will like In Broad Daylight. It's actually just $1.99 for the rest of April, so they have a little time. You can also ReTweet the above tweet or share this post on Facebook. Here's BookBub's pitch: 

Perfect for fans of Stieg Larsson and Karin Slaughter: FBI agent Jess Harding returns to Alaska to track a sadistic killer under the ceaseless midnight sun. Now she must find a way to crack the secrets of the northern wilds — before the hunter becomes the hunted.

As I'm sure you've now heard, I recently waded deep into Kurt Vonnegut land/world to write my recent novella As Much Protein as an Egg. I have a short story coming in the same vein soon as well. But what you may NOT know is that yesterday marked the 7-year anniversary of the great writer's passing. It got me to finally post what I've been meaning to for a few weeks. I encountered the following quote in his non-fiction collection PALM SUNDAY, published in 1981. Boy, did he hit the nail on the head. Read it, see what you think, share your thoughts. I'm eager to know what you think:

I am a member of what I believe to be the last recognizable generation of full-time, life-time American novelists. We appear to be standing more or less in a row. It was the Great Depression which made us similarly edgy and watchful. It was World War II which lined us up so nicely, whether we were men or women, whether we were ever in uniform or not. It was an era of romantic anarchy in publishing which gave us money and mentors, willy-nilly, when we were young--while we learned our craft. Words printed on pages were still the principal form of long-distance communication and stored information in America when we were young.

No more

Nor are there many publishers and editors and agents left who are eager to find some way to get money and other forms of encouragement to young writers who write as clumsily as members of my literary generation did when we started out. The wild and wonderful and expensive guess was made back then that we might acquire some wisdom and learn how to write halfway decently by and by. Writers were needed that much back then.

It was an amusing and instructive time for writers--for hundreds of them.

Television wrecked the short-story branch of the industry, and now accountants and business school graduates dominate book publishing. They feel that money spent on someone's first novel is good money down a rat hole. They are right. It almost always is.

So, as I say, I think I belong to America's last generation of novelists. Novelists will come one by one from now on, not in seeming families, and will perhaps write only one or two novels, and let it go at that. Many will have inherited or married money.

Yes, he wrote this in 1981 or likely earlier. What do you think? Is it true? 

Sure looks to me like he knew what he was saying.

Writing the Crime Fiction or Thriller Novel: Practice Makes Plot Perfect with Seth Harwood (4/26 & 5/3)