Here is my 2022 year-end breakdown of what I learned as an indie author this year as well as a full listing of how much I spent on services and how much I earned.

An Honest Review on Alexandra Fasulo’s new book: “Freelance Your Way to Freedom”.

What’s an NFC? NFC stands for “near field communication” and businesses are using them for everything from commerce, identification, and everything in between.

Here’s a simple example of an NFC use that’s related to indie author publishing. Buy a pack of 30 NTAG215 NFC Tags that are tiny stickers that you could put on the back of a bookmark. When a reader puts their phone against the bookmark, the phone reads the data on the sticker and opens up a browser to bring that person to a special webpage on your website where they can get a free book.

I thought that 2021 was going to be the year that we left the Coronavirus pandemic far behind us. I didn’t foresee variants, supply chain issues, or resistance to public health recommendations. When I look back at 2021, I realize now that the world has changed in ways that we’re never going back to again. To be honest, I’m still coming to terms with navigation through this part of the pandemic. This year hasn’t been easy for me.

Looking to use Vellum to create a large print edition of your book? The good news is that you’re only a few clicks away from achieving your goal. If you’ve not used Vellum before, be sure to read through my “Step-by-Step Instructions of How to Use Vellum to Make eBook and Print Files” post that will walk you through the entire process.

Need help in creating a print book in IngramSpark, but feel a bit overwhelmed? Don’t worry, I have you covered. I created four books earlier this year, but when I went back in to start a fifth, I decided to document the process to make it easier for me and for any other indie authors. Hope this documentation helps you!

Looking for a step-by-step guide on how to use Vellum software to format your books (both ebook and print)? You’ve come to the right place. These instructions are easy to use and also have screenshots to help you quickly format your book in Vellum for not only the Kindle format, but also for Google Play, Nook, and Apple’s iBooks.

I had visions of 2020 being an amazing year, but it turned out to be the most complex and challenging year of my life so far. The pandemic hit, protests broke out throughout America, and we chose a new President. On a personal level, I lost my job in July and started a new position in September. I wrote 7 books, published 4 of them, and will be publishing 2 others in January.

About 9 years ago I took the leap and starting writing and publishing my books. I love to write. To date, I’ve written 14 books with a 15th in the formatting stage. To make life easier, I decided to write down my process on how to create an ebook and thought I’d share.

In my travels, I’ve met many people who have wanted to write a book but didn’t know where to start or how to create the book and upload it to Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble.

Within just a few months, the coronavirus has not only threatened our very lives, but it has also brought to light a good number of societal problems that have left countless people at a disadvantage. Among the biggest concerns are economic ones. Millions of jobs have been lost, while multitudes of businesses have been shuttered. And if you’re among those who have lost their livelihoods at such a difficult time, no doubt, the repercussions are weighing heavily on you.

The sensible thing to do would be to give up. Stop writing, realize that I've given it the good old college try and move on to something else.

I'd gain a lot of time back in my life, could focus on other priorities and that would be that.

But I won't. I really can't.

I just don't want to give up writing books.

Like many other authors, I have a full-time day job that I love, and use the wee hours of the morning to write my books. I don’t have a lot of “free” time and needed a tool that would help me stay organized and productive.

I’ve been in indie publishing now since 2011 and have some solid experience under my belt. But I’ve not been able to clearly capture what my journey has taken to dream up and publishing 10 books. But now I can. I recently watched episode 7, season 2 (“Look, She Made a Hat”) of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon and knew that I had found two kindred spirits in show creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino. I’ve been a big fan of Sherman-Palladino since I first saw Gilmore Girls back in 2000. I love the family dynamic portrayed on screen, the witty dialogue and that precious made up world of Sleep Hollow where the freaks and geeks all go about their way.

If you’re new to my year-end articles, be sure to check out the previous years (especially last year’s as it’s a compilation of all that I’ve spent and earned since I started self-publishing back in 2011).

Another year has come and gone and I'm going to list for you all my expenses for my self-publishing career,  going through my year's business plan, share all my sales and then give a thorough breakdown not only of this year, but review the trends from my last three years of data.

I'm going way deep into the weeds on this one. Why? I've been an indie author now for six years and I want to share what I've learned with other authors—especially new authors who are just starting out.

If you're here to learn from the mistakes I made from my book launch, then you've come to the right place. My tale is not a success story. But I believe that to succeed, it's important to share our failures. Learn what worked and what didn't, adapt, be nimble and move on.

I wanted to share with you something different, so I've decided to tell the story of how my next book, Ahab's Daughter: The Werewhale Saga, came to be. The road to publication can be a long and twisted one with many struggles along the way.

I signed up for the paid version of Instafreebie back in October 2016. At the time, I had about 1,600 subscribers on my mailing list. I heard some great stories about Instafreebie and thought I would give it a try. For $20/month I connected the service to my Mailchimp account and I had a simple marketing funnel setup.

What's the biggest obstacle you're trying to overcome?

I'm curious. Write and let me know.

For me, I could probably write a book about all the challenges I've had to overcome. The question is a hard one because there are so many competing ones...

When I first started writing books, my wife must have been sick of me saying, "But I don't have enough time." I complained a lot. I worked full-time, we were raising two kids, there were chores to do, I wasn't getting enough sleep and I'd finish my book—only to realize that now the real work needed to get done. I had to figure out how to market the damn thing!

Kevin T. Johns of The Writing Coach podcast was kind enough to interview me on his January 27, 2017 episode of the podcast. During the interview, we talk about how storytelling helped me escape a challenging childhood without a father as well as wasting years waiting for the publishing industry to validate me as an author. I also talk through my long term approach to my publishing career, sharing my year-end numbers from 2016 and the challenges of earning money as an indie author.

I wanted to share the episode of the Self-Publishing Journeys podcast on which Paul Teague interviewed me about my "What I Learned about Indie Publishing in 2016: Full Sales & Figures" article that I wrote back in December 2016.

Based right outside of Philadelphia, I took the train up to New York and went hoping to find answers at Digital Book World Indie 2017. Truth be told, one of the main reasons why I went was to hear Data Guy talk in the Tight Insights: The Indie Universe Quantified session. I wanted to see his data on the big screen. I could have listened to him for hours (more on that in a bit).

Where did the year go? It’s already the end of 2016 and the world has gone through some difficult changes and I feel battered myself. Sales for the third quarter report from Author Earnings showed significant marketing share shrinking for indie ebooks. Was that due to the election in the US? Or top indie authors moving out of the indie publishing category, falling under Amazon’s press? Or is the downtrend a sign of more to come?

When I started writing my first Cinderella’s Secret Witch Diaries book back in 2009, I did not know much about the process of writing. I kept my process as simplistic as I could by using files on my local computer, Microsoft Word and then backed up all my files using Carbonite. I worked full-time and in the early morning hours (and eventually the few precious hours after my kids were asleep), I’d write, re-write, edit and eventually teach myself how to convert my books into .mobi and .epub format.

This week I'm happy to have Ellen Seltz as a guest on the blog. She's come up with a witty and heartfelt article about imposter syndrome that I can definitely relate. Enjoy!

My kids love the movie Kung Fu Panda. They love it so hard, they twitch like dreaming puppies in the fight scenes, subconsciously acting it out. We watch that movie at least once a month, to the point that I recently confessed on Twitter....

Hi, I’m Karen. For almost 40 years, I’ve been an imaginary writer.

Meaning, I spend lots of time imagining how great it will be when I finally write all the amazing stories that are locked somewhere inside of me. But not really doing that much, y’know... actual writing. Because words are hard. And it’s much more fun contemplating which studio I’ll license my film rights to, than writing anything film-worthy.

I have 6 published novels and one short story collection, along with two first drafts sitting at home and am nearly halfway through writing the first draft of a new novel that my wife and I are working on. So, where do all these ideas come from? What’s my creative process and how does an idea become a published book?