Recommendations and Salutations (...from the Peach State)

Oh man, it's been a while, yeah? You can check out my website for the details, but to make a long story short: I've moved around a lot and finally wound up in Georgia. And now I'm back to work on this blog, my site, and my books. Rock on, right?

I have bussied myself with college work lately and came across at least two books I thought might tickle your writing fancy: The Indie Author Guide  by April L. Hamilton and Merchants of Culture by John B. Thompson. I figure it's a great way to roll out a new post after such a long time, and, give you guys some great information.

Now, the first one, The Indie Author Guide, is a great resource on not just self-publishing in a new world of web and mass media; it's also a great way to learn about formatting, advertising, and it even has snippets of publishing history. I love this book because it's very down-to-earth and written in plain language. It's easy to understand and packs tons of useful information for someone new to self-publishing. It even gives you suggestions on how to go about getting things like a book cover made and so on. It gives you the pros and con of using create-a-space and other sites for tangible copies of your book, and, ebooks sites like Amazon as well. It also tells you how to work the math on making the money you want for which site to go with. I would say this book is a like a user guide to self-publishing; perhaps even a simpler version of the next book I'm suggesting.

Merchants of Culture reads more like a technical book with tons of historical info about publishing, agents, the induction of the paperback, and more. At some points it can be a very mathy book, but it gives you unparalleled insight into the vast innerworking of the publishing industry--information you might not need, but is very helpful to have nonetheless. I was required to read this entire book for one of my classes; at first I wasn't for it at all. The book gave me a headache at moments; however, I do not regret reading it. I know more about publishing now than I ever did. I highly suggest it, even if it takes you a few months of on and off reading to get through. You won't regret it--at all.

Both of these books can be purchased on Amazon or likely at any other online retailer. Seriously, do yourself a favor and grab them. I promise you won't regret it.