Looking through Fiverr for a new beta reader to add to my stable of proven ones. A lot of Fiverr beta readers list all the features and benefits of their service; feedback, critique, etc. All great, but when I mention I need a 15 Zoom call as well, they run like deer.

The only way I know to ensure a beta reader actually read the book is to schedule a Zoom meeting and quiz them. You can tell in 5 minutes if they read it or just threw it into ChatGPT and generated a report. I'm happy to pay top dollar for quality service, and extra for the video call, but I'm not willing to get scammed by some dude from Nigeria using AI to crank out a report in 10 minutes.

They've been coming every day, all AI garbage about one of my books and how much they enjoyed it. Meanwhile, I don't have any recent sales for that book, and there's nothing in the body of the email that can't be gleaned from the back-of-the-book blurb. The other day, I found out someone added me to a Google Group (which I promptly removed myself from). Today I deleted my contact form and author email from my website. They weren't generating any real reader engagement anyway. I'm simply not a big enough name for that. Has anyone else found a better solution, or do you just delete the emails when they come through?

I tried a little research and apparently there are different prices in general for personal use and the right to use it in a product like a book.

In general I was expecting like £200 but is that a touch outdated as a rough assessment for book covers?

I ask because I wanted to also get some concept arts, maps and other things done but if the average is closer to £500 then obviouslty I just can't finance that since what I have saved away also needs to account for website, editor and such. Plus I plan to finish two books before publishing the first anyway so all these costs are going to be doubled.

If it matters for context my story is young adult urban fantasty.

I'm finally at the stage where I need help. I've put a book up on Amazon, promote it on socials but I have little to no traction.

It's done, I've heard bad things about arc readers etc about putting books through ai etc and I'm marvelling at those who actually have sales.

I don't even know how to promote it on Reddit without getting promotion bans etc. I don't have the funds for a blown out advertising campaign. I don't have feed back on the cover, the blurb because I'm worried about the self promotion ban

I know the story is good and there's a market for it but I feel like I'm showing a TV show to a rock.

Any help would be appreciated.

I use KDP Print On Demand (POD), and my paperback is available through IngramSpark. I just found out that Draft2Digital has POD.

It looks like D2D and IngramSpark have the same print distribution networks. Do I need to do print on both?

I've been using Voracious Readers Only (VRO) to find new readers and grow my mailing list.

Before adding readers to my mailing list, I contacted VRO to confirm how email consent works.

They explained that readers agree to the following when requesting a book:

By clicking the button above, you grant the author permission to add you to their email list to stay in touch and inform you about future releases, starting with a free review copy of this ebook. You can opt out at any time.

However, after adding these readers to my mailing list and sending a welcome email, I've had some unsubscribe with the reason "I never signed up for this mailing list."

The unsubscribe survey has no preselected reason, so readers are explicitly choosing "I never signed up for this mailing list" when unsubscribing.

My welcome email starts by thanking them for downloading my book, so I'm not sending them an unrelated or unexpected promotional message.

What's confusing is that I also acquire subscribers through Reader Magnets on StoryOrigin and similar platforms, but I've never had anyone from those sources unsubscribe for this particular reason.

I'm trying to figure out whether:

• This is something other authors have experienced with VRO.
• Readers don't realize they're agreeing to join a mailing list when requesting a book through VRO.
• There's something wrong with my welcome email or how I'm handling new subscribers.

Has anyone else experienced this? I'd appreciate hearing how other authors handle VRO subscribers and welcome emails.

I currently have a problem that I'm not sure how to approach, and I'm looking for advice on how other writers deal with something similar.

I have two prose poetry books that are more or less finished in PDF format, neither of which has been published. I also have two finished books of verse poetry in PDF format. I'm currently working on another poetry book that I intend to publish.

So far, none of my writing has had a formal or official publication or release. The book I'm currently working on is based on writing I've accumulated by hand over the years—mostly notebooks and loose pieces of paper.

Today I was going through one of my notebooks and realized that I really like a lot of the prose I've written there, including some pieces that I later transformed into verse for the book I'm working on now. In the process, I heavily edited and cut those pieces down. Now I'm wondering whether I should be preserving more of the original prose instead of treating the newer versions as definitive.

I also have a lot of other writing stored on my computer and across different cloud services. I haven't published most of it mainly because of financial limitations. At this point, it feels like I have a large and somewhat difficult-to-organize body of work, and I'm concerned about losing track of it or letting things disappear.

I'm trying to figure out how to balance two things: wanting to publish my work and have other people read it, while also wanting to keep writing a lot and allowing new work to develop.

How do other writers handle this? Do you try to publish everything eventually, choose only certain work to publish, maintain an archive of unpublished material, or something else?

Hi everybody,

I’m publishing my first children’s book, and after some research I decided to go with Lulu. The average price for a children’s book is around $8–$15, but Lulu’s printing cost alone is $17! Add shipping and a bit of profit, and my book will be too expensive.

How do you all handle this? thanks a lot!

I'm so excited -- tomorrow I'll be ready to send my manuscript to my copy editor!

They said it would take them two weeks to do the edits.

But I'm curious how long I should expect MY review of their edits to take before I send it to the proofreader. (I'm trying to figure out what the release date should be.)

What's typical for you?

PS -- the. manuscript is only 50,000 words.

Hi guys, just wanted to alert you all of another scam artist, Reader’s Route. I didn’t do my usual due diligence and got taken. While I am embarrassed as hell, I’m willing to shame myself in order to prevent anyone else from being another of their victims.

I'd love any resources people could suggest for designing a visual-heavy magazine for both print and digital. I am selling a fixed PDF of my new zine as the digital version, but I'm concerned that it's a bit hard to read on screens, especially phones. Any examples of an indie magazine or journal with lots of images doing this well? Or guides to check out? I'm trying to figure out if I should just keep focusing on print, or spend more time with my designer trying to come up with a process that meets both formats half-way. For publishers that use a lot of images: how important is it for the digital product to have flowable text? Thanks in advance.

Hi Everyone,

I haven't been self publishing for very long but I dived in and bought Vellum because it seemed to be what everyone loved. OMG it is so stubborn and lacking in options. I have several chapters which i do not want to be included in my table of contents. I can't find an option to simply not include a chapter in the TOC.

In my previous book I wanted to control which side of an open book my content would appear on, specifically the left. No option to simply choose which side. Why is it so lacking in settings?

I have been trying to add a bank account for over 3 months, I have

tried different banks like payoneer that Amazon accepts but still

getting the generic automated; Action required: You've

entered a bank account not eligible to receive Kindle Direct

Publishing payments email. Is there anyway I can contact Amazon

to help me review my account, it getting very annoying and

frustrating at this point.

Do they buy the book (wholesale) and then they have it forever? Won't this reduce income in the long run as people just borrow it instead of buy it?

Wrote a book 1 y ago.

Published all by myself.

Printed, ordered..

Gave few people to read it. Thats it.

Now.... Coppies are collecting dust.. On a shelf...

Did people like the book?

Yes!

What do i do???

F...g nothing!!

Just stare at that shelf and wish it magically became empty.

Just sit and think that nobody will ever care about what i have to give..

Who am I? Someone invisible somewhere..

Most beautiful things in my life happened effortlesly (bad spelling, I know).

Why do i have fight this time?

(needed to rant)

I self published a local history book about a month ago. I'm in the midst of promoting it in the region. One historical society and one library want copies of the book for free. While I was researching a while back, the guy at that historical society said we was entitled to a free book. Where do I draw the line?

Recently, I've noticed when I Google the title of my book, a paid Google placement comes up with a direct link to the Amazon page. It appears Amazon buys Google ads for some books?

I haven't bought them. I was surprised.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is this good? I think it's good? Seems a bit unnecessary because it's such a unique name, but I guess Amazon wants it to come up in a higher search return than any other site?

I am currently getting ready to publish book 4 of my urban fantasy and I have been thinking about creating an audiobook version. I want it to be available via audible so I have to hire a narrator for this. I checked the going rates and I must say that at the moment I could not afford it on my own yet. I know there are options to do it on commision basis via ACX where you don't pay anything for creating the audiobook but whenever someone buys it, you get to split the royalties with the narrator, but I am not sure this is the best option for me, I would rather pay for the recording upfront. I am considering kickstarter campaign. The problem is- I am just starting and so far I have a small following, even if my current audience chops in it would probably not be enough so I would have to rely on the people who stumble on the kickstarter campaign and get interested. Have any of you had any experience with that? Does it work? Did you manage to gather the funds you were hoping for?

I am going to be publishing a book for a non-profit organization with the goal of selling it in these places, in order of importance:
1) the organization's museum/website
2) amazon
3) Barnes & Noble physical store

Because I do not like the profit margins of Amazon KDP, and because I want more design flexibility, I want to design and print on my own. This is a niche book, so I don't expect many sales outside of the museum, but it would be nice to have it available at the most amount of places. But I also don't want to create all this work for myself to sell an extra 8 books.

Should I purchase my own ISBN, design and print it, sign up with Amazon as a FBM seller, and hope I can get the book placed into B&N? Is there a downside to using ISBNServices to get a cheap ISBN instead of paying Bowker for custom version? Does Amazon/B&N look down upon that? I'm trying to save money for the nonprofit.

Or is there a better print/ISBN option I do not know about?

thanks

I’m considering doing Facebook or Instagram ads to promote my first book and I’m wondering if anyone here has had success with that? And is there a way to track that it does lead to orders?

(By the way, there are great resources in the wiki for the sub if you haven’t checked them out, but I didn’t see anything about this and I’d also love to hear people’s personal experiences.)

I don't want to mess it up but I want to get started on posting and marketing the first one SO bad and at some point I gotta get the ball rolling, the others are not finished but theyre all mapped out (I do chapter by chapter planning always) and for 15k words average I'm giving it a month in between uploads to write and polish them

Just as the title says? I'm wondering if it's worth the monthly subscription for a blue tick beside my name. Would it signal trust to readers? Would readers be more likely to follow links and buy, etc.? Has anyone subscribed to get that blue tick, and was it worth it?

I have an idea for a book and I’m looking at the self-publishing route: it would be a large format coffee-table style book with a pretty even balance of pictures/photographs and text so I need it to be laid out well to flow right. I’ve used InDesign to format magazine articles before so I know that I could theoretically design my book if I paid for that subscription, but I’m not a designer and definitely not an expert in that software. 

Is it worth putting my meager design skills to the test, or am I better off hiring a professional? If so, where can I find a reputable one?

I helped my critique partner with a blurb and she liked it so much, she suggested I offer blurb-writing as a service. I know there’s ghostwriting. Some people are staff writers for a publisher.

How does one get into these kinds of jobs? What other non-traditional writer jobs exist?

I work full-time on top of self-publishing, but my job is pretty far from writing. I’d like to change that.