Week that was: 1 Oct 2014

It has been a busy week in the world of self-publishing. A few links include some important changes to note:

Smashwords are now allowing books to be published through their online publishing platform without "Smashwords Edition" requirements in the copyright page. Smashwords have "updated the Style Guide to clarify that it's recommended but not required to include" in your ms when uploading to SW. https://www.smashwords.com/about/beta

Amazon is releasing their Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition with a year of FreeTime Unlimited. This is their pre-Christmas product release just in time for Black Friday and Ciber Monday - the biggest pre-christmas digital device sales season of the year. Why is this important - parents will be looking for new and popular digital material for these new Kids Editions in time for Christmas. It means more sales of your kids ebooks on Amazon. http://blog.laptopmag.com/fire-hd-kids-edition-specs-price
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LOR524M/

Amazon are also about to launch a new publishing platform that works a bit like a crowd sourcing platform. Authors are asked to submit their complete manuscript and if chosen, it will go live on the platform for readers to bid on the project to get it funded. Amazon will then complete the book and publish it on Amazon keeping the ebook rights for five years at a payout of $5000 to the author. Rights revert back if the author asked for it after five years or after the first year if it makes less than $500. I'm not really sure what I think about this, has the potential to shake things up in the publishing worlds again....
http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/09/22/amazon-publishing-crowd-source-next-books-now-recruiting-kdp-authors/#.VCsyjBZYdFf
https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=207604&start=0&tstart=0

David Gaughran talks about Author Solutions and its sticky fingers in sticky pies. If you don't know what Author Solutions is then read and learn. Basically it is a vanity printhouse that is duping authors into spending thousands to get their books publishing.

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/publishing-is-rotten-to-the-core/

Hachette Australia are accepting new full and complete YA manuscripts. More info here: https://www.hachette.com.au/articles/NextBigThingInYA.page

And for a quick laugh: How Do Kissing, Snoring And Other Things Sound In Different Languages? Coz you never know when this will come in handy with your latest ms! :)

http://www.boredpanda.com/different-languages-sounds-posters-james-chapman/

Over and out,

Joy Findlay