authors

About three years back Amazon started beta-testing a new author portal called Amazon Author (not to be confused with Author Central). That new portal officially launched this past week with a somewhat confusing name and a new address.

Amazon’s author portal used to be at authorcentral.amazon.com, but it has now been replaced by a new portal at author.amazon.com. Along with the new address, the portal has a new look and new features.

I heard about the launch via the KDP support forum:

We’re excited to announce an upgrade to Amazon Author Central! With this update, we’ve made several key improvements:

• You can now manage your Author Page, claim your books, and view your reports for multiple marketplaces from a single Author Central site with a single account.
• An updated, modern look and feel makes it easier to search for titles, view your reports, and update your page.
• Amazon Author Central is mobile friendly, and works well on a phone, a tablet, or a computer.

If you already have an Amazon Author Central account, you can sign into Amazon Author Central with it and start using it right away. If you don’t have an account but have published a book, sign up today!

One key difference between the new and old portals is that now you can manage your author profiles for all Amazon sites from this one portal. Before you had to login to a different portal for each country-specific Amazon site (Amazon.de, for example).

Speaking of which, the author portals on each of Amazon’s country-specific sites have also been updated with the new features, so if for example your preferred language is French, you can continue to use the French-language portal.

So what can you do with it?

For starters, you can upload language-specific bios, and you can also quickly check what your author profile looks like on each of Amazon’s sites.

BTW, if you have not uploaded the alternate bios yet, you should go do it now. I just noticed that my bio is only showing up on Amazon’s sites in English-language markets. (I had to re-upload a copy of my bio and tell Amazon it was in French in order to get the bio added to Amazon.fr, and I will have to repeat the process if I want to have my bio on other Amazon sites.)

You can no longer create a custom author page URL or list your public events, but you can claim all your books, and you can see customer reviews. Amazon will also tell you your books' current sales ranks, and they give you access to Bookscan (print book retail stats for the US market).

All of this is available from a clean and pleasant interface.

Have you tried it yet?

 

A newly launched WordPress plugin has presented me with an opportunity to mount a soapbox and recommend better work habits.

I was just reading about a plugin that removed distractions while writing in WordPress. Writers are constantly searching for ways to remove distractions while they are writing, and while Iceberg sounds like a really useful plugin, you should not use it with your WordPress site (and not just because it costs $49).

The thing is, you should not be doing original writing in your WordPress site. Instead, you should write and edit elsewhere, and then copy the text to your site so it can be laid out and published.

From WPTavern:

Iceberg features a minimalist editor with four color themes, the ability to create a custom theme, and a set of typography controls. In switching to Iceberg, there is not much missing much from the default block editor that would be necessary for writing. Users can drag and drop media into Iceberg and the backslash command works to trigger the block inserter. It also includes a Table of Contents, word and character counts, reading time, keyboard shortcuts, and support for emoji.

While this plugin sounds interesting, I think anyone who wants a distraction free writing app should look for one that is separate from their WordPress website.

The thing is, if you get in the habit of doing your original writing in WordPress, you will get out of the habit of creating an independent backup of your work. This means that if your website crashes and has to be restored from a backup, you might lose your work.

This happened to me recently, and while I did recover my work, this painful experience has taught me that I should really be writing posts elsewhere, and then copying the text to my blog for publication.

That is the safe (and smart) thing to do.

P.S. Backups are important, but it can also be a nuisance, which is why I put a system in place so that all my working files are automatically backed up to Google Drive.

 

Sunday, 16 February 2020, was the day that I became a real author.

I have been a writer for over a decade now, but Sunday was the day that I learned that one of the workbooks I had uploaded to KDP had been pirated and was being sold on a pirate site.

I didn’t really care that it had been pirated; my blog posts have been pirated so many times that I have grown a thick skin. Furthermore, the workbook was a lead magnet I had uploaded so I could learn how KDP worked.

But since I was filing DMCA notices Sunday night; I thought this would be a good opportunity to share my process and explain the most effective way to deal with piracy.

For starters, the primary way you fight piracy is by filing a DMCA takedown notice.

A DMCA notice was originally named for a provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which required tech companies in the US to remove online content when they were informed that the content infringed on a trademark or copyright.

Since then it has become a common term on the internet. Most web companies will respond to a DMCA notice, including companies in countries not covered by the DMCA. They do so more because it’s SOP in the industry than because they have a legal obligation to do so (depending on where they are based, they might not have any law that requires compliance).

But where to send the DMCA Notice?

Well, that will depend on where you found the pirated ebook.

You might find the pirated ebook in an ebookstore, or in a cloud storage service, or on a pirate site, and each requires a different approach.

Did you find the pirated ebook in a legitimate ebookstore like Play Books, the Kindle Store, etc?

If that is the case, then you need to file a takedown notice with the retailer. Here are the relevant pages for the larger ebook retailers.

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Kobo
• Google
• Apple

Be sure to fill out the form for each pirated ebook  you find. Be thorough, and precise. Many of these companies get millions of notices a day, and if they can deal with your notice by rejecting it because you missed something, they will.

TIP: If you don’t see the name of the company you need to contact, you can find their contact info by googling their name plus "DMCA". If that doesn’t work, try their name plus "copyright".

Did you find the pirated ebook on the Internet Archive, The Open Library, or the National Emergency Library?

The Internet Archive has not posted any instructions on how to file a DMCA notice in The Open Library or the IA’s main site because they do not accept DMCA notices for those sites, but they have posted the following instructions for getting your pirated ebook removed from the National Emergency Library:

Authors who do not want their books in the National Emergency Library should send an email to info@archive.org with “National Emergency Library Removal Request” as the subject line. Please include each URL of the book or books you would like to have removed. Please allow up to 72 hours for processing as we are a small team.

Good luck with getting them to take action; the IA has a history of ignoring complaints.

Did you find the pirated ebook on a legit file-sharing site or cloud storage service?

If that is the case, then you need to file a DMCA notice with the service that is hosting the file. Here are the submission pages for the major cloud services:

• Scribd
• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• MS OneDrive

Again, if you don’t see the name of the company you need to contact, you can find their contact info by googling their name plus "DMCA". If that doesn’t work, try their name plus "copyright".

Was the pirated ebook on some obscure site?

This is where things get complicated.

My rule of thumb is to only send takedown notices to companies that I can trust will respond. This is why I will send a notice to, say, Google, but not a pirate site like the late eBookBike.

I do not bother sending notices to pirate sites because they rarely respond. In the ten years I have been a blogger, I have found they often ignore DMCA notices because they know they can get away with it. A lot of the time they are in a different legal jurisdiction, making it difficult to pursue legal action, and  even if you did have the tens of thousands of dollars it would take to sue them, you will be throwing your money away for little benefit. The pirates know this, which is why many pirate sites will simply ignore you.

Also, a lot of pirate sites are only pretending to have your book. This type of site is usually running some kind of con (it varies). Since this type of site doesn’t have your ebook, it’s not worth your time even talking to them. What you should do instead is file a DMCA notice with Google. Ask Google to remove from its search results any pages on the faux pirate site that mention your book. You can do that here.

So how do you send a DMCA notice to a hosting company when you don’t know their name?

This is going to require a little investigative work.

The first thing you should do is open a new browser tab, go to www.whois.com/whois/, and enter the pirate site’s domain.

With most sites this will give you a page full of technical and contact info about the site.

The section you need to look for is the "nameservers". This can contain anywhere between one and 4 entries, and the reason we are looking at it is because the entries will give us a clue about the hosting company.

For example, the site that pirated my ebook uses Cloudflare’s nameservers.

To be clear, this pirate site is not hosted by Cloudflare (it’s just using CF’s services).  This detail is not strictly relevant, however; what matters is that I can send a DMCA notice to Cloudflare.

I do not know where to send the notices, exactly, so what I do is google Cloudflare and DMCA. This often turns up a good result, so you might want to try a similar trick if you are in my position.

This trick does not always work, however. Some hosting companies use obscure names for their nameservers, and when I encounter that I either have to ask for help in a forum for web techs, or spend a few minutes looking up obscure technical info. If you need a place to ask fro help, may I suggest one of theWordpress or web developer groups on Facebook. Also, if you ask me I will be happy to help you figure out the answer (this is fun for me).

But most of the time googling for the hosting company’s DMCA page will give me a link to the page, and what I do next is fill out the form on that page.

Again, be sure to fill out the form for each pirated ebook  you find. Be thorough, and precise. Many of these hosting companies get millions of notices a day, and if they can deal with your notice by rejecting it because you missed something, they will.

What’s next?

After you have sent the DMCA notices, you’re going to need to follow up. You will need to be persistent in making sure that each notice is complied with, and that each pirated ebook is removed.

A couple years ago I had a problem with a pirate scraping my blog. I ended up having to send dozens of DMCA notices, and I had to repeatedly follow up because the hosting company, LeaseWeb, kept falling for the pirate site’s lies when it claimed to have removed the pirated blog posts.

What was particularly frustrating about that incident was that I had to file DMCA notices with three different divisions of the company in three different countries. Then I had to yell at the three different divisions to get them to follow through.

That was frustrating, but I did finally manage to put an end to that particular piracy issue.

Addendum

If this seems like too much work, here’s a list of companies that can fight piracy for you – if you pay them enough.

• Muso Project
• Digimarc Guardian
• DMCA Force
• OpSec (formerly Mark Monitor)

BTW, you might also want to consider engaging Heather Cassaday. She’s a virtual assistant who works with authors, and this is one of the services she offers. (She tipped me to my ebook being pirated.)

So as you may know, my mother is on my Amazon account. (There is a point to this anecdote, trust me.) We mainly use it to read ebooks; I sideload SF ebooks while she reads free romance novels.

This worked out well for us (since long before Amazon had any sharing options) because our reading interests didn’t intersect, and because I could use Amazon’s system to email tech docs from her job to her fire tablet.  Or at least this did work out well until yesterday, when I got an email from Goodreads, congratulating me for finishing a romance novel.

It seems that when I set up my mother’s new Fire tablet, Amazon automatically re-connected my Goodreads account with my Kindle account. I had set the accounts so that my Kindle reading activity would not be uploaded to my Goodreads account, but Amazon overrode my wishes, and now my Goodreads account public profile says I am currently reading four romance novels and have finished another two.

I have since disconnected my Goodreads and Kindle accounts, but I was inspired today to write about default Amazon security settings that authors should change to protect their privacy.

Update: In light of revelations that Amazon shares your Alexa utterances with contractors, I have expanded this post with a 7th suggestion.

Update (12 February 2020): I just added instructions on how to stop Amazon from tracking what you are doing on Kindles and Kindle Fires (don’t worry, this will not affect your reading activity).

Let’s start with Goodreads.

1. Disconnect your Kindle & Goodreads accounts

An author who writes children’s books probably doesn’t want the non-child-friendly novels they’re reading showing up on their Goodreads profile. Goodreads doesn’t have many account level privacy options,  so really the only way to  solve this is to separate your Goodreads account from your Kindle account.

Note: If you use your Amazon account to log in to Goodreads then you will first need to set up new login credentials, otherwise your Goodreads will be deleted.

I just changed this setting on my mother’s Fire tablet by going in to the settings menu, opening the accounts menu, and selecting the social networks option. I was presented with options for Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads, and I made sure to disconnect all three.

Note: I could not find any similar setting in my accounts on the Amazon website or the Goodreads website; while the setting might be there I could only find it on the Fire tablet.

Once that is done, let’s do something about Amazon  tracking your web browsing.

2. Clear Amazon tracking cookies

When you first visit Amazon’s website, the retailer installs a cookie on your device. As you navigate around the site, that cookie reports your activity back to Amazon.

Here’s how you can stop that from happening.

Visit Amazon.com, and select the "browsing history" option from the menu bar.

Select the "manage history" option on the right, and then when the new menu options, click the toggle button to disable tracking. Also, click the "remove all items" button, to clear your history.

That will stop Amazon from tracking your browsing on its site. It won’t stop Amazon from tracking your other activity – if you have an Echo, for example, Amazon records everything you say to it.

3. Delete your Alexa recordings

If you have been following smart speakers in the news then you probably know that they listen to everything. What you might not know is that Amazon records everything you say to Alexa and stores an audio recording of every voice command you’ve issued, not just in the device itself, but on Amazon’s servers.

You can play back all of the recordings in the history menu on Alexa.amazon.com, and if you like you can delete the recordings one by one. But if you want to delete all of the recordings, the best way to do that is to visit the "Manage your content and devices" page on Amazon.com. Any Alexa apps you have registered, as well as the Echo smart speakers, will be listed on this page.

You can select each one, and delete the recordings associated with the app or device. If you use Alexa on a Fire tablet, you can also delete those recordings from this page.

I just deleted the recordings related to my Echo Dot. The confirmation said that my request was received, not that the files were deleted. There’s no way for us to tell that Amazon actually followed through, unfortunately, so we’ll just have to take their word it.

And while I was at it, I disabled the option to order from Amazon using Alexa.

4. Disable Alexa’s voice purchasing feature

I have heard far too many stories about pet parrots or small children using Alexa to place orders at Amazon, and that is why once I decided to take steps to enhance my privacy I made sure to go in and disable this feature.

You can disable this feature by going to the relevant settings menu on Alexa.Amazon.com, and clicking on the toggle button to turn it off.

Okay, so this technically is not a privacy setting, but disabling this feature is still a good idea.

5. Remove your public Amazon profile

Even though you might never have rated a product or posted a review, Amazon automatically created a public profile for you that lists a lot of what I would describe as personal and private info. This won’t include your buying history, but it does include any biographical information you’ve provided as well as your comments, ratings, the authors you follow on Amazon, your public wish lists, and other interaction with Amazon.

You can control what Amazon reveals about you by going to your account page on Amazon.com, scrolling down to the "Ordering and shopping preferences" section, and selecting the "profile" option

This will bring up a new menu showing your public profile. If you select the edit option near the top of the screen, you will be taken to a menu where you can edit the content on your profile and its privacy settings.

I decided to hide everything from my profile, but you also have the option of being more selective.

On a related note, I also decided to hid my shopping and wish lists.

6. Make your wish lists private

When you created your last Amazon Shopping List, did you check the privacy settings?

Those lists have a default setting of public, which is great if you want to share them but not so great if your shopping list is filled with sex toys.

If you’re not sure about the privacy settings of your Amazon Lists, go to Amazon.com, click on the Accounts & List drop-down menu, and then select either "Shopping List" or "Wish List." This will bring up the "Your Lists" page. If you look on the left side of the screen you will see a list of your lists and their privacy levels.

If you see a public list that should be private, select the list and then click the 3-dot menu icon and then select the "Manage List" option.

This will bring up a menu where you can change the privacy status and other details.

7. Stop Amazon from sharing what you say to Alexa with contractors

Amazon has admitted to not only recording what you say to Alexa but also sharing those recordings with contractors. If you’re reading this post then I am sure you will want to stop Amazon from sharing your info, and here’s how you can do that.

Visit the Manage my Content & Devices page on Amazon, and select the option of Alexa privacy. Then, on the Alexa privacy page, Scroll down to the section labeled "Manage How Your Data Improves Alexa". Click the arrow.

On the next page you will see a blue toggle next to a label that reads "Help Develop New Features". Click the blue toggle to disable this feature and enhance your privacy. You may also see one or more blue toggles in a section labeled Use Messages to Improve Transcriptions. Uncheck those blue toggles as well.

It’s not clear that this will stop Amazon from sharing your recordings, however. According to Bloomberg, Amazon said "people who opt out of that program might still have their recordings analyzed by hand over the regular course of the review process".

8. Disable Tracking on Your Kindle Fire or Kindle

This slipped my attention when I first wrote this post, but Amazon tracks everything you do on your Kindle ereaders and Kindle Fire Android tablets. You can disable this tracking on devices that run the latest version of the firmware, but not Kindle apps or older devices. This means that at least two-thirds of users cannot take advantage of this option, but some will be able to.

Here’s how.

Go to Amazon.com, click on the Accounts & List drop-down menu, and then select "Manage Your Content & Devices". This will take you to the page where you can manage your devices, apps, and the content on them.

When you are in the MYC&D menu, select the option for "Privacy Settings".

In the next menu, click the "Manage Settings" button under Amazon Devices Privacy. This will take you to the menu you can manage the privacy settings for each applicable device.

You will need to select the devices one by one, and disable each type of tracking one click at a time.

You might find that some of your devices are listed here but do not have any settings you can change. Those are the devices that need to be updated before you can  manage the device’s privacy settings.

And of course, any devices not listed are going to be running software so old that you can’t stop Amazon from tracking what you are doing. (You also can’t stop Amazon from tracking what you are doing in the Kindle and Audible apps.)

Komando, Business Insider

 

Book fairs and other local events can be a great way for authors to connect with readers and make new fans. They are immensely valuable, but at the same time it can be hard for first-timers to get the most out of an event.

That was certainly true for me. I didn’t used to exhibit much (meeting new people is stressful) but lately I have been working to overcome my limitations. Over the past few months I have been exhibiting more and more, learning as I go, and I have picked up a few tips I would like to share with you so that you can benefit from my experiences.

The following post is a mix of mistakes I made at my first trade shows and tips inspired by my time as a volunteer at the Fredericksburg Independent Book Festival on Saturday.

Update: I added to this list in April, May, and November 2019. Now that I have a few more cons and festivals under my belt, I can see more ways to improve.

If you have tips you learned the hard way, I would love to read them in the comments.

Plan in Advance

It’s taken me longer to figure this one out than I would care to admit, but if you invest time in planning your activities at an event, it will pay off in spades.

And when I say you should plan your activities, I don’t just mean write out a schedule or make a list of what you need to bring. What I now do is write what are essentially business process documents that lay out every step of every activity. I have a doc for networking, and another one for being an exhibitor. I have a doc for doing a presentation, and another for media interviews.

Bring a Camera

This one is on me.

I realized, about ten minutes after I started talking to authors on Saturday, that I had neglected to bring any way to document my day. I had left my camera at home, and forgot to charge my smartphone that morning.

Don’t make my mistake; bring your smartphone so you can show your fans what you’re doing.

While I am rather camera shy myself, I also know that as a fan I follow the activities of my favorite authors. Fans are interested in this kind of personal detail, and you will make them happy when you share it.

In fact, your fans will want to meet you in person.

Chocolate

After exhibiting at five events I can confirm what we had all suspected for years: Chocolate is the one sure-fire way to get people to approach your booth.

If you spend ten dollars to buy a large mixed bag of chocolate, you will make dozens of new acquaintances (you will also have something on hand to keep your blood sugar up). Just make sure that you put the chocolate in an attractive bowl, and periodically refresh it throughout the day.

BTW, if you forget to bring chocolate, and your event is located in a hotel, check to see if there are any mints or other candies set out for attendees.  You can put those in a bowl on your table, and achieve almost the same effect as chocolate.

Signs

You are only one person, and you can only carry on one conversation at a time. (Even if you have several people staffing your table, the same limitations apply.) One way to make up for this limitation is to have several inviting signs ranging from a banner hanging behind your table to smaller 8.5 x 11 signs sitting on your table.

Just remember, these are signs, not hand outs, so be sure to keep the content simple. I limit each sign to just one headline for a single topic, and I phrase the headline like a directive: "Sign up for my mailing list", for example, or "Enter a raffle for a free X!", or "Ask me about my free service Y".

There are many options, and 8.5 x 11 signs can be printed at home, so there’s no reason not to try several ideas until you find the ones that work the best.

Schedule

That’s why you should tell your fans about your events in advance so they can meet you at the event. In the weeks leading up to your first event, be sure to announce both on social media and via your newsletter that you are going to be at a book fair, show, etc.

You might even want to set up an event schedule on your author site so your fans can plan ahead and make sure they have room in their schedules.

Mailing List

All the authors I met at yesterday’s book fair brought books to sell, and they all came prepared to talk about their books, careers, and other topics, but do you know what I would have done?

I would have found a way to continue the conversation after the event. To wit, I would have brought a tablet so I could let attendees sign up for my mailing list. (Coincidentally, this is something I only thought of after my first trade show.)

Trust me, if attendees like the genre of books you write, they will want to sign up for your mailing list. There were five or six authors at Saturday’s event that I wanted to connect with later. I would have signed up for their mailing lists if they had offered the option. Instead, I had to type their names into my smartphone.

Flyers

Do you know what would also be a good way to continue the conversation after the show?

Bring flyers that you can give to attendees. Seriously, it is SOP in almost every industry that exhibitors have flyers to hand out to attendees. This is one of the better ways to get an attendee more info so they can decide whether to follow up later.

Authors can adapt this practice by having 4” by 6” flyers printed either at a local print shop or online. The flyers can talk about an author’s latest book, the main characters, or the series. You can even have more than one flyer printed, tailoring each one to a specific topic.

On the other hand, flyers are rather expensive ($0.50 to $1 each) compared to the price of most indie-published ebooks, so authors should probably run a cost-benefit analysis first to see whether the flyers are worth the investment.

Flyers, redux

Here’s something I had to learn the hard way: If you’re going to talk about a product (not your activities, but something that has a specific name) then it would really help to have a flyer to give out to those who are interested.

Canopy

The usual advice on prepping for an event is to do a dry run. Set up your table, make sure all the signs can stand up on their own, and that your displays do not look cluttered.

That is all great advice, but based on what I saw on Saturday I think that when prepping for an event authors should make sure that they also go out in their backyard and set up the canopy they are going to bring to the book fair.

The standard collapsible canopy is really easy to set up once you know how, and all it takes is watching one Youtube video and setting it up one time in your backyard to learn details like there are four specific spots where velcro on the canopy’s cloth attaches to velcro on the metal frame (attach the velcro and the cloth will be lined up correctly). Also, you can tell the frame is properly assembled when the bracing “clicks” into place.

I helped set up a couple dozen canopies on Saturday, and I can tell you that a little bit of prep time can mean the difference between getting the canopy set up in 90 seconds and struggling with it for half an hour (my first one took me half an hour to set up, yes).

As a rule, you should put a similar amount of time into setting up your displays in advance, but in my experience the canopy was the one thing that authors needed help with the most.

Swag

Sure, bring books to sell, but don’t stop there. An attendee might not want to buy your books (some of us prefer ebooks) but they might be interested in buying merchandise related to your books.

Remember, one of your goals is to break even or turn a profit from today’s sales, so if you can offer posters, collectibles, bookmarks, or something else that might interest an attendee, and it’s related to your books, you should  seriously consider selling it at your table.

eBooks

I for one would really like to buy ebooks from the authors I meet at cons, but very few authors are equipped to sell them. Here’s a post that will give you more info on how to sell ebooks at an event.

***

Here are a few of the things I learned the hard way; how about you?

What did you learn at your first public events?

Google Docs is a popular word-processing tool that lets you access your documents and files from any internet-connected device. I for one have found it to be immensely useful as an editing tool; I like to review a Doc on my iPad, and then make changes on my laptop before sending the updated Doc to my collaborators.

Google Docs makes it easy to work with people both near and far, but do you know how to use it to its full capacity?

Go beyond just editing a doc and leaving comments with these 14 Google Doc hacks and add-ons.

Translate a Doc

Google Translate is one of the more useful features in Chrome, but few people know that Google Docs has the same integration.

If you frequently work with documents in another language, you can translate the docs into English or another language by selecting the Translate Document option in the Tools menu.

The translation is handled by GTranslate, so it’s going to be far from perfect, but if you need to translate a multi-page PDF this is still a better option than opening the PDF in Chrome and translating it there.

Insert a Table of Contents

If your doc gets long enough you will need a tablet of contents. Google Docs can make one for you almost automatically. Simply choose where you want it to go and Google Docs will automatically create the TOC based on the headings in the doc.

You can find the table of contents option at the bottom of the Insert menu.

Add words to your Dictionary

Is there a word that you use all the time that isn’t found in the standard dictionaries?

Why not add it to your own. like many word processing  apps, Google Docs lets you assemble a custom dictionary. simply right-click on the word and then choose the relevant option from the pop-up menu.

You can also tell Google Docs to automatically fix the words you frequently get wrong. I, for example, misspell "believe" all the time.

Go to next/previous Typo

Google Docs makes it easy for you to quickly correct your errors. There are a couple keyboard shortcuts which let you jump from one typo to the next.

To find the next typo in your doc, press Ctrl + ‘ (apostrophe). And if you want to find typos earlier in the doc, press Ctrl + ;.

Google Docs also has a spellcheck feature that allows you to quickly skim through the spelling errors in a current document. Just select the Spell Check option in the Tools menu  to use it.

Export as Epub

Not only can you edit a doc in Google Docs, you can even export it as an Epub ebook. You won’t be able to edit it after you export the file, but that’s okay because you can always export another copy of the doc after you’re done editing it.

You can find the export option under the File menu. Check out the Help Center for more information.

List Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are a productivity hack that is guaranteed to boost your typing speed. Almost all word processing apps have them, but who can keep track of them all?

I know I can’t, and that’s why I made sure to memorize the shortcut which brings up a list of all the keyboard shortcuts in Google Docs: Ctrl+/.

Create custom Shortcuts

If you have some special symbol you use all the time, Google Docs has a way for you to enter the symbol without cutting-pasting it and without entering the HTML/ASCII code every time.

The Preferences menu gives you the option to set your own shortcuts. These aren’t shortcuts that let you execute actions or change settings but are instead shortcuts that swap out one piece of text with another.

For example, if you type (c), Google Docs will replace it with ©.

Recover an older version of a Doc

We all make mistakes sometimes, and Google Docs has us covered. It keeps a record of the changes you make to a doc, and you can use this revision history and even restore an older version of the doc.

To access revision history, open a Doc and then select the "See revision history" option under the File menu. Google has more info in this support doc.

Remove Formatting

I’m sure you know that copying text from a web page or from one app to another can introduce all sorts of funky formatting problems. This can make for an ugly doc, and the problem only gets worse if you combine multiple sources.

Luckily for us, Google Docs has an option to strip the formatting from a piece of text. Simply highlight the text in question and then press Ctrl+I. (FYI: Gmail has a similar feature.)

Type with your Voice

One of the lesser known features in Google Docs is voice typing. You can use this feature to capture ideas, compose a letter, or even write the next great novel – all without touching your keyboard.

You can find voice typing under the Tools menu. Once enabled, a pop-up with a microphone icon will appear. You’ll need to click on it to speak, and once you do you can add punctuation and line breaks, and even correct typos – hands-free.

Read this support doc to find out more about voice typing.

Install Add-Ons

All of the tricks mentioned so far are core features of Google Docs, but they’re really just the beginning of what you can do with Google Docs.

You can expand the core abilities of Google Docs by install add-ons that add features, tools, and export options. My current favorite add-on is a consistency checker, but that is just one of the possibilities.

Publish to the Web

Google Docs is part of an office suite, but did you know that in a pinch it can create a website? No, really!

There’s an option in the File menu for "Publish to the Web" which lets you make a doc publicly accessible with a URL and everything. It won’t look much like a website, but if all you want is to share the info then this is a viable option for a poor man’s website.

You can even unpublish the doc when it is no longer needed.

Publish to WordPress

But why settle for simply publishing a doc as a pseudo webpage when with a little more work you can have the real thing?

There are several Google Docs add-ons which will let you export a doc as either a post or page on a WordPress site. You’ll need to install the add-on and you may also need to install Jetpack on your WordPress.org site, but once you do you should be able to export a doc as a draft page or post.

I have had the best luck with WordPress for Google Docs, but that add-on doesn’t work for everyone. Luckily there are several other options.

Offline editing

You might think that Google Docs only works online, but you would be wrong. There’s an offline editing mode which lets you access and edit your documents even when you have no internet connection, and then sync the changes when you’re next online.

There’s a catch, though. You have to set this up before you lose internet access.

Amazon’s Kindle is a great reading platform with a number of useful annotation features, but sometimes it’s not enough.

I recently updated my four-year-old post on Kindle annotation tools, and I realized it was time to do this post as well. Much has changed in the past couple years since this post was first published; Amazon has added new features to the Kindle platform and some of the tools I found then are no longer supported by their developers (in fact, one or two tools in this post were simply abandoned and had their domains snapped up by gay porn sites).

That older post focused heavily on Amazon tools like the email export features in the Kindle apps for iOS and Android (which are now available on the Kindle and Kindle Fire). This post covers just non-Amazon tools you can use to manage your Kindle clippings.

There are a wide variety of tools out there, including some as simple as the one that converts your myclippings text file into a CSV. (That sounds strange, I know, but if you use spreadsheets a lot then this would be a great first step.)

OneNote Clipper

Microsoft’s note-taking app has a tool where you can clip a webpage and import it into a notebook. Evernote has a similar tool, and you can use them to snag your notes and highlights by going to kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights and clipping the page.

To be honest, I don’t find either tool very useful; they grab the whole page rather than the key parts. A more focused tool would be better.

So I went out and found a bunch.

Evernote Exporter

This is a bookmarklet-based tool that is designed to take your my clippings text file and spit out an EML file you can import into Evernote.

It used to work, but no longer does. I like the idea, though, so I am hoping someone will take it over and get it running again.

Kindle to Evernote

K2E is a Chrome app that will automatically upload your Kindle Notes and highlights to Evernote.It costs $1 a month. I don’t think it’s worth it, but (to name one example) I can see how an author might want to use this type of automation with their beta readers.  This tool has not been updated since 2015.

Bookcision

This tool is installed as a bookmarklet, and you use it by clicking the bookmarklet while visiting the book’s page on read.amazon.com.

Bookcision will reformat the page so you have a cleaner view of your notes, and you can then copy them to notepad (Chrome users can also download them).

And if you are using macOS, you (might) have an alternative: Notescraper.

Calibre

Everyone knows that calibre is an ebook conversion and library management app, but sometimes some of its features are overlooked. For example, it can manage the ebooks on your Kindle – and it can also collect and organize your annotations.

And it’s not the only app with this feature.

DaleyKlippings

This is an open source software package that helps you import your Kindle’s “My Clippings.txt” into other programs. The system can be customized to output files in a wide variety of formats. This tool has not been updated since 2014.

KindleMate

Kindle Mate is a neat tool with rich features designed to sync, organize, import & export Kindle clippings (Kindle highlights and notes) and Kindle Vocabulary Builder words on your computer. This tool has not been updated since 2017.

Klib

This macOS-only app lets you import your notes from a myclippings file or from Kindle.Amazon.com. Once you have them you can manage them in the app, or export them in Evernote or Markdown formats. You can also use the app to open Kindle for macOS and read the note or highlight in the ebook it came from.

Clippings.io

This web-based service can integrate with your Kindle account and automatically import your notes (via a $2 Chrome extension). You can also automatically import the notes from your Kindle, or the the Kindle apps for iOS and Android.

Once you have the notes you can share them online, or export them in a variety of file formats. You can even automatically export them to Evernote.

Snippet

This service (which I first found as a Chrome extension) is a general purpose note and highlight manager.  It can import your Kindle notes, but it also has extensions for all the major (as well as Safari). You can use those extensions to clip web content and essentially make an online notebook.

Readwise

This is another annotation management tool. It just crossed my desk this evening, but I am told by its developer that Readwise uses a browser extension to automatically download your Kindle highlights from the cloud. It also works with Apple Books, Instapaper, Highly, and Medium (for articles), and other platforms.

UPDATE: This post is out of date. Amazon has updated its author portal.

KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) is widely seen as a self-publishing portal. This is funny both because publishers use it to manage their titles in the Kindle Store, and also because there is actually very little in the way of author tools in KDP – it is strictly a publishing portal.

Amazon does have an author portal called Author Central. This is where authors can upload their head shot, bio, and other details for their author page on Amazon.com. They can also use it to track the Amazon sales rank for their books.

Note: In December 2017 Amazon started beta-testing a new portal called Amazon Author. It is still in a closed beta test, so far as I know. I still don’t have access, and in fact most authors haven’t even heard of it. I will update this post if and when the new portal is opened to the public.

I recently set up my profile on Author Central, and here’s how you can set up yours.

The first thing you need to do is gather your materials, including:

• your head shot, and other photos you want to share
• any videos you want to share
• a brief bio (this post will help you write one)
• a link to your blog’s RSS feed
• a list of events you will be attending

Once you have everything, go to https://authorcentral.amazon.com. If you have already visited Author Central and created an account, log in. (Skip the next couple paragraphs, and the image.)

If you are visiting for the first time, click the "Join Now" button found on the right side of the page on Author Central. Amazon will take you through a few steps, including accepting the TOS and claiming the books you have listed on Amazon.com, etc. Once you have finished the steps, you should see a page with a "Welcome to Author Central" message.

Click on the "Author Page" option, and you should see a page that looks like this (only not filled it):

This is the page where you will upload your your photos and videos, link to your blog’s RSS feed, and list any public events.

At a minimum you should add a biography and a head shot, and then go to the "Books" page and make sure you have claimed all of your books that are listed on Amazon.com, because Amazon is going to take the information you provide and publish it on your author page on Amazon.com.

Mine looks like this. I uploaded two of my workbooks to KDP. I don’t really expect to sell any; I just did it so I could set up an account on Author Central and see how it worked.

 

Between its SEO, traffic analysis, and performance optimization tools (Search Console, Analytics, and PageSpeed Insights, respectively), Google supplies a number of key tools used by just about everyone who has a website.

Unfortunately, it can be hard for the non-tech-savvy to use these tools with their site. This is good for me but not so good for the average user, but now Google is trying to solve this issue.

I just heard in one of the Facebook groups where tech gather than Google is testing a new WordPress plugin that is designed to integrate Google’s services into self-hosted WordPress sites.

It’s called Site Kit.

The plugin will open to beta testers in early 2019, so we really don’t know anything about how well it works.

But I can tell you it is supposed to do is integrate four Google services into WordPress, making it easy for users quickly access info about their sites. Users will be able to look into Google Search Console and find out which keywords are drawing the most users to the site, check Google Adsense to see how much they are earning from adverts, examine their popular posts and traffic sources in Google Analytics, and see what Google PageSpeed Insights thinks about the speed of their sites.

These four different services can currently be found on four different websites, but after Google works the bugs out of Site Kit, WordPress users will have all this info at their fingertips.

If that sounds nifty, head over to the Site Kit to sign up for the beta. I did. I don’t know that I will be installing this plugin on any of my clients' sites, but I am curious to see what this looks like.

TBH I have pretty low expectations; Google has recently redesigned the Search Console and PageSpeed Insights websites to make them both more confusing and less useful (no, you didn’t read that wrong) and I fully expect that Google’s new plugin to be very bewildering for the average user.

And that is unfortunate because it would actually be pretty useful if Google would automate the steps required to integrate their services into WordPress. Yes, this integration would cost me a little business, but if it worked well then I can save time by using it on client sites.

If you write online for years on end there will come a point where you will end up with multiple old blogs and abandoned writing projects residing on various platforms across the web.

Just to give a personal example, I have a blog on Tumblr that I played with in late 2015 and early 2016, and I also have a humor blog filled with dad jokes that I still use from time to time. I plan to take Mike Cane’s approach of letting the old blog(s) lie fallow after I put down the keyboard and walked away, but  did you know we have another option?

One question I have been getting more and more from authors is how to move their old blog to their new site without mixing the old and new posts. Sometimes the author had switched genres or audiences, or perhaps they had decided they wanted to adopt a different blogging style but didn’t want to throw away all they had written before.

It used to be that you had to set up separate sites so you could keep the old and new content separate (see Rocket Bomber and its archive for an example), but lately what I have been doing is using the "Custom Post Type" feature of WordPress to set up a second (or third, or fourth) blog on a WordPress site just to act as an archive for an old blog.

I’ve used this trick three times in the past year to give a client’s site a second blog. In one case it was an archive for old blog posts, and in the other two cases my clients just wanted two separate blogs on one site. (BTW, I will soon be using this trick on The Digital Reader so I can continue to write posts like this one and yet keep them out of the main blog. TDR is a news blog, and the post you’re reading right now – while very interesting – doesn’t quite fit.)

The cool thing about this second blog idea is that you still get to use things like categories, tags, and featured images on the extra blog(s) – it even has its own RSS feed which readers can follow. But best of all, a second blog is relatively easy to set up. (Now, if you want to move posts from a whole other site, for example a Blogger or Tumblr blog, it is going to be a little more difficult to put them on the second blog on a WordPress site. But it can be done.)

To set up the second blog, I use a plugin called Custom Post Type UI to create the second blog (CPT UI does a lot more than just make a second blog, but that is the topic of another post). All I have to do is fill in certain key technical details, and click the blue button, and most of the work is taken care of for me.

Now, this plugin doesn’t work with all WP themes, but generally I have found that it is a quick and easy way to create a second blog.

How would you like to use two blogs on your site?

Word is circulating through KBoards and Facebook today that Amazon is testing a new site where authors can track their sales data. It’s called KDP Reports, and looks something like this:

I have no ebooks in the Kindle Store, so I can’t show you the site in action, but it does sound useful:

Welcome to the new KDP Reports beta! We’ll be adding more reports — including historical data for Sales, KENP Read, and Royalties — in the future, so stay tuned!

It would appear this site is intended to compete with the sales analytics tools like AKReport and Book Report.

Have you tried the new site? What do you think?

We have known for the past 18 months that Gutenberg was going to one day change just about every aspect of running a WordPress site from publishing posts to designing pages.

As I explained a couple months ago, Gutenberg represents a fundamental change in the architecture of the WordPress platform. This is WordPress’s New Coke moment and will either modernize the platform or send users fleeing to the competition.

Now we know when the Gutenberg is going to happen. Earlier this week the official word came down that Gutenberg will be released with the next major release of WordPress 5.0 on 19 November.

WordPress 5.0 will be focussed on merging the Gutenberg plugin into trunk. In addition, there are two related areas of new development:

• Updating the default themes to work well with the block editor, and creating the new Twenty Nineteen theme.
• Creating an upgrade experience to remove the Gutenberg plugin and offer the Classic Editor plugin.

Given the scope of this change, there won’t be any extra feature focuses. In order to ensure that we can keep the release schedule, minor changes, and bug fixes will only be included on a case-by-case basis.

I have written about Gutenberg a couple times, so I won’t repeat myself. Instead, I will discuss what I plan to do.

My current Gutenberg mitigation plan is to do my best to avoid it for as long as possible. Yes, I fully plan to build test sites in Gutenberg in the next few weeks, and I might even build new sites for clients, but I will not be using Gutenberg with existing sites because in its current form it could wreck perfectly functional sites.

Keeping a site up and running is more important than adopting the latest shiny tech, which is why I plan to install either the Classic Editor plugin or the Disable Gutenberg plugin on all of my sites and my clients' sites.

These two plugins can each restore the older editor interface, making it possible to continue to use plugins and other customizations that depend on the previous editor.

I will be installing and testing these plugins in the weeks leading up to 19 November, and I would recommend that you do the same.

Please let me know if I can help you with this.

More reading

• Gutenberg & You
• Gutenberg’s New Coke moment

If you Google author bios you will find a million different articles, each with their own recommendation. Be short and too the point. Use the third person. Simply say who you are, and give your publishing credit. Be formulaic.

A lot of this advice is good, but I also think it is incomplete.

I recently attended a Meetup hosted by Robin Sullivan, wife and business manager of fantasy author Michael Sullivan, where she covered the topic of author branding (the following post draws heavily upon her presentation). One of the points she raised was how to write an author bio. Robin argues that authors need more than just the one bio because they are going to be used for more than one purpose.

Authors need bios that can be used on social media profiles, Goodreads and Amazon author pages, and on the web. Since we are looking at radically different lengths, this essentially means multiple different bios.

Update: I’ve just been working on my Facebook profile. It has space two bios, one of which is 101 characters long.

• the Facebook intro bio: 101 characters
• the Twitter bio: 160 characters
• the podcast intro: 20 words
• the speaker bio: 50 words
• the Amazon/Goodreads profile bio: 250 to 400 words

Sidenote: Robin told me that the profile bio should be 800 words or more, but that’s actually longer than the examples she shared. I checked both of Michael Sullivan’s bios she provided and found that they were 247 and 387 words long. I changed the word count to reflect that detail.

I would recommend that you put all four bios on the about page on your author site so that anyone who is writing about you cam find it.

Of course, first you have to write them, but don’t stress too much because this is one of those things where you can start with "pretty good" and improve it over time.

You don’t have to put your entire life out on display, but you do need to concentrate on the things you want to be known for.  Your goal is to establish your brand, and consistently display it across all platforms (freelancers have the same issue, if that helps).

Try to define yourself in a single word or phrase. For example, Joe Konrath could be described as contentious self-pub evangelist, and anyone who knows Check Wendig would describe him as inventively foul-mouthed.

You should also try to answer the following questions.

• What’s your purpose, your cause, your belief?
• Why do you get out of bed in the morning?
• Why should anyone care?

I happen to be sorely in need of better-written bios, so why don’t I go walk us through the process of rewriting my bios.

Let’s start with my goal: I want to be known as the guy who can fix your website.

As a first step, let’s change that so it reflects why I do what I do: I want to be known as the guy who can I live to fix your website. (That sounds a little obsessive, but it is okay.)

With the exception of my long bio, none of my bios really make that point, especially my Twitter bio.

Twitter bio

I build #websites , and blog about #ebooks at The Digital Reader (@InkBitsPixels).

Not only is it too short, it’s out of date; I don’t maintain the second account anymore. The following bio might work better:

Speaker to websites. WordPress wizard. Slayer of bugs. Error code breaker. I know why tech goes thump in the night. Fixing your tech problem is my nirvana.

With its references to SF and fantasy, this Twitter bio is intriguing while at the same time explaining what I do and why. And according to LetterCount.com, it is 155 characters long. Add in 5 pound symbols to turn keywords into hashtags, and we reach exactly 160 characters allowed by Twitter.

While this might not be the perfect Twitter bio, it’s also not boring or stale. It is good enough for now, so let’s move on to the profile bio.

Amazon/Goodreads profile bio

The thing you should know about the profile bio is that it is long enough that you can use the one bio for a couple different purposes. Also, you will probably want to tailor your bio to each site you use it on.

I won’t link to my profile bio; it was written to serve a very different purpose. Instead, I want to show you a a couple examples.

On Amazon the bio is going to be displayed in a sidebar on the left side of the screen next to a column of books. That’s why in this situation Michael Sullivan’s bio focuses first on the author’s origin story before listing his bibliography, current projects, and contact info.

Over on Goodreads, however, an author’s bio is displayed at the top of the page, followed by the FAQ and a lit of the author’s books. That’s why Sullivan’s bio on Goodreads focuses first on the works he is currently promoting and second on the author.

You should read both, and compare/contrast.

Podcast / Speaker bio

Here’s the speaker bio I provided to Bookbaby for the Indie Author Con (FYI: I am on a panel!). At 54 words, it is perfectly workable but still rather bland.

Nate Hoffelder has been building and running WordPress sites since 2010. He blogs about indie publishing and helps authors connect with readers by customizing websites to suit each author’s voice. In his spare time, he fosters dogs for A Forever Home, a local rescue group.  You can find him over at The Digital Reader.

One problem with the above bio is that it is little more than a Dragnet-esque recital of the facts. That is not necessarily a bad thing (in fact, I think I’ll save this bio just in case I can use it again), but it doesn’t really tell you why I do what I do.

Let’s try again:

Nate Hoffelder is here to chew bubble gum and fix broken websites, and he is all out of bubble gum. He has been blogging about indie authors since 2010 while learning new tech skills at the drop of a hat. He fixes author sites, and shares what he learns at The Digital Reader.

The bold text is the podcast bio, while the full text is the speaker bio.

TBH I am not sure that my second bio is better than the first; I think I may need y’all to A-B test it for me. Which one do you like?

Edit: I have decided to combine the old and new bios, and add a new sentence:

Nate Hoffelder has been building and running WordPress sites since 2010. He blogs about indie publishing and helps authors connect with readers by customizing websites to suit each author’s voice. You may have heard his site, The Digital Reader, mentioned on podcasts such as The Creative Penn, Wordslinger, or Sell More Books Show. In his spare time, he fosters dogs for A Forever Home, a local rescue group.

I’d love to hear what you think; please leave a comment.

Between marketing, social media, ads, writing, and book formatting, there are a million and one skills authors and other creators need to learn over the course of their career. And to make matters worse, sometimes we don’t even realize we need to learn a skill or that there are free resources which can teach us that skill.

For example, I taught myself how to make blog graphics one brutal, error-filled, frustrating step at a time because I didn’t know there was a free course that could have saved me a lot of time and effort.

In the interest of saving you from repeating my mistakes, I have pulled together a list of courses that authors and other creatives can take for free. I actually came across a few of these courses earlier this week and found them so useful that I wanted to share my good fortune.

All of the courses listed here are free, and I will continue to add courses over time. If you want to recommend a course for inclusion please fill out the form at the end of this post. (This goes double if it’s your course; one other reason for this post is that I wanted to give experts who teach these courses a reason to reach out to me.)

For the most part these are video courses, and that may present accessibility problems. (Reedsy is the exception; most/all of their courses are text-based.)

Let’s start with the course platforms. If you can’t find the course you need in this post there is a chance you’ll find it on one of these sites.

Name	Details
Udemy	Along with Pluralsight, Udemy is a leading online learning platform. Udemy has an extensive catalog of free courses, including nearly 500 just in the marketing category.
Reedsy	Reedsy is a services marketplace where authors can hire freelancers, and it also hosts a number of free courses.
MIT Open Courseware	MIT maintains an extensive listing of free online courses. Alas, it is organized like an academic catalog, and thus frustrating to navigate.
The Open University	Over 900 free courses, including one on how to start writing fiction.
Coursera	From what I can see this is primarily a paid courses platform, but I found a bunch of courses where you can audit a course for free.
EDX	an aggregator of courses from dozens of schools
Owl (Online Writing Lab)	Purdue University offers the writing resources and instructional material from its writing lab as a free service.
name	details

I will add more online course platforms as I come across them, but for now here are the free courses you came here to find.

Free Courses

Name	Instructor	Topic	Notes
Pinterest Power	Summer Tannhauser	Pinterest	An intro course on how to market on Pinterest.
The Roadmap to Writing Successs	Rebecca Hamilton, Author Grow	Planning Your Author Career	an overview course
Lead Magnet Challenge	Maya, Blog Brand Hustle	better lead magnets for mailing lists	NA
Graphic Design Mini Course	Kristin, AppleCart Lane	Beginner graphics mistakes	a great course on how not to design graphics
Amazon Adverts for Books	Dave Chesson, Kindlepreneur	AMS	NA
Plan Your Novel	Rachelle Rea Cobb	developing a roadmap for your first novel	a course for bloggers who want to transition to book-length writing
The Perfect Year	J A Huss	book launches	subtitled "a successful book release strategy for authors"
Build a Brand Style Guide	Sarah Crosley, The Creative Boss	how to develop a style guide	NA
Self-Publishing Mastery	Iain Rob Wright	Intro to book publishing	NA
How To Build An Email List That Sells More Books	Chris Syme, Smart Marketing for Authors	building a mailing list	a 45-minute class
The Free Email Course	Kirsten Oliphant	building a mailing list	a 7-video course
Advanced Writer’s Toolkit	Susie May, Novel Academy	topic	details
Thriller Story Structure 101	Mike Dickson,  Fiction Formula	plotting, writing	NA
Thriller Outlining 101	Mike Dickson,  Fiction Formula	outlines, wriitng	NA
Pinterest for Business	Trina Krug	Pintrest marketing	An intro course on how to market on Pinterest.
Get Started as a Speaker	Grant Baldwin	public speaking	NA
Take Better Pictures	Image Maven	photography	NA
Why You Should Turn Your Facts into Fiction	Jessica Lourey	writing	NA
The Art of Writing Authentically	Jessica Lourey	writing	NA
How to Get More Twitter Followers	Kelsye Nelson, Gutsy Creative	Twitter	details
Master the Lost Art of Keyword Research	Authority Labs	website SEO	NA
How to Write an Email Sequence and Sell More Stuff	Abbi Friedman Perets, Successful Freelance Mom	mailing list	NA
Focus for Writers	Pauline Wiles	Productivity & Focus	Would you like your writing to flow, not flounder? Is your lack of focus holding you back? Join this free, 5-part mini course, delivered in bite-size email lessons.
TBD	tbd	tbd	tbd

I’d like to thank the many people who suggested courses on Facebook, as well as Kirsten of Create If for pointing me to her post on free courses.

If you know of a course not listed above, please let me know!

Fill out the form below, and I’ll add the course to the list.

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Course name' type=’name' required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Instructor' type=’text' required=’1’/][contact-field label=’URL' type=’url' required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Topic' type=’text' required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Details' type=’textarea' required=’1’/][/contact-form]

What do you call a group of 3 or more adults under 40? (a podcast)

Podcasts are now so widespread that they inspired me to write the above joke, but that prevalence is also a curse. There are so many podcasts in production right now that it can be difficult to find one with a focus on the topics that interest you.

With that in mind, over the last month I have been looking for  podcasts that cover book publishing. I have so far found ten nineteen podcasts, and gathered them into the following list. (Fun fact: I have been a guest on two of the podcasts, and have also been mentioned on at least five of them.)

This has been an interesting project for me because it helped me refine my thinking on podcasts.  As I see it, there are two ways to classify podcasts: industry and topic. The difference is that some podcasts cover a topic that applies to many industries, while others focus on several topics within a single industry.

Almost all of the podcasts listed below are industry podcasts, not topic podcasts. These are great podcasts, but one way topic podcasts may be better is they will introduce you to ideas from other industries, possibly inspiring out of the box solutions to your problems.

If you are looking for more podcasts to follow, that is worth keeping in mind.

Update: Over on Twitter Bonnie Loshbaugh tipped me to a list of romance-focused podcasts, and I have added three more podcasts to my list.

Name	Host	Frequency	Details
Wordslinger	Kevin Tumlinson	2 to 3 episodes per month	Kevin Tumlinson talks to authors and entrepreneurs to get their behind-the-scenes story. Tune in to a full hour of wisdom and insight from some of the most intriguing people on the planet. It’s all about the story here.
The Creative Penn	Joanna Penn	weekly	Information, inspiration and interviews on writing, self-publishing, book marketing, and making a living with your writing.
Sell More Books Show	Jim Kukral, Bryan Cohen	weekly	Authors, are you struggling to get the word out about your books? Discover the latest book marketing and self publishing news, tools and strategies.  Every week you’ll get helpful tips and ideas to make your book sales soar.
Frontmatter	Len Epps	weekly	In the Frontmatter podcast authors talk about their careers and their areas of expertise, making it a general interest podcast covering everything authors write books about, from startups to biology to software development and the future of labor.
AskALLi	varies	weekly	The “AskALLi Self-Publishing Advice Broadcast" is a rotating series of four monthly podcasts crafted to help you cut through the noise to get only the most up-to-date and important self-publishing advice.
Self-Publishing Formula	Mark Dawson, James Blatch	weekly	Two writers. One just starting out. The other a best-selling indie author. Join James Blatch and Mark Dawson and their amazing guests as they discuss how you can make a living telling stories. There’s never been a better time to be a writer.
Hear Us Roar	Maggie Smith	weekly	Each Debut Author Podcast is a conversation between our moderator Maggie Smith and a debut women’s fiction author.
Rocky Mountain Writers	Mark Stevens	weekly	Interviews with members of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and those involved in RMFW conferences, workshops and other writing-related events. Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers is a non-profit, volunteer-run organization dedicated to supporting, encouraging, and educating writers seeking publication in commercial fiction.
Written on the Edge	Jayne Lockwood, SA “Baz” Collins, Vance Bastian	weekly	Tune in for weekly discussions about LGBTQ storytelling in all genres and mediums. Our guests share personal accounts on living the artistic life and their personal experiences writing, crafting, and reading stories that explore the edges of what’s accepted and where storytelling should be headed.
Self-Publishing Authors	Cheryl Phipps, Trudi Jaye, Shar Barratt, Wendy Vella	weekly	Cheryl Phipps, Trudi Jaye, Shar Barratt and Wendy Vella are four writers (romance & urban fantasy) from New Zealand who podcast weekly about self-publishing. Especially for those new or curious about self publishing, our podcast is full of full of tips, resources and honest tales from the trenches!
The Story Studio	Johny, Sean, Dave	weekly	Stories turn songs into symphonies, events into memories, and lives into legends. In our crowded world, “knowing your story” cuts through the noise so you can make your mark — whether you want to sell more books, increase profits, or just make a difference. At Sterling & Stone, Story is our business. The Story Studio Podcast is where we explore ways we can all tell our stories better.
Self-Publishing Journeys	Paul Teague	weekly	The Self Publishing Journeys podcast is a weekly show for all indie authors. Show host Paul Teague interviews self- published authors about their writing journeys, passing on hints, tips and tricks along the way.
So You Want to be a Writer	Valerie Khoo, Allison Tait	weekly	Valerie Khoo and Allison Tait, both successful journalists and authors, bring you the latest in news, opportunities, trends – and gossip – in the world of writing blogging and publishing. Whether you love the creative inspiration of Elizabeth Gilbert, the life-hacking non-fiction of Tim Ferriss or the phenomena that is JK Rowling, you’ll find it here.
The Worried Writer	Sarah Painter	monthly	Hear how bestselling authors such as Mark Edwards, Miranda Dickinson, C.L. Taylor, Mel Sherratt and Julie Cohen write, and follow their top tips for getting the work done.
The Authorpreneur	Amelia D. Hay	weekly (?)	The Authorpreneur Podcast is a virtual writing and business coach for fiction writers, hosted by Amelia D. Hay. The podcast will teach you how to develop a story idea, create compelling characters and outline your novel. Learn how to write your first draft, revise your story, self-publish, establish your author platform, and reach readers in less than fifteen minutes a day. Every week, Amelia releases a Behind the Scenes Podcast Diary (BTS) where she shares an honest account of her journey to self-publishing her novels.
Create If Writing	Kirsten Oliphant	weekly	Kirsten Oliphant interviews experts to find out how they are building email lists, connecting through Twitter, and using Facebook groups. These practical episodes are balanced out with inspirational interviews from successful writers and bloggers who have made it big and want to share the struggles, the creative process, and tips for reaching your goals whether you are an author publishing books or creating an online presence through blogging.
The Bestseller Experiment	Mark Stay, Mark Desvaux	weekly	oin author and screenwriter Mark Stay with coach, entrepreneur and recording artist Mark Desvaux, as they discover the secrets to writing a bestseller and challenge themselves and you to write, market and self-published a bestselling book in just one year. Each week, they are guided by and interview million-selling, chart-topping authors, publishers on the inside, editors, agents, social media specialists, and many more big names who play a part in the bestseller process. From the writing to marketing, plotting to publishing, learn the secrets to help you write your way to the top of the charts.
Writing Excuses	varies	weekly	"Fifteen minutes long, because you’re in a hurry, and we’re not that smart."
Author Stories podcast	Hank Garner	weekly	AUTHOR INTERVIEWS, WRITING ADVICE, Several published per week.
Kobo Writing Life	varies	weekly	The Kobo Writing Life Podcast features exciting interviews with bestselling authors, tips on the craft and business of writing, and advice for successfully self-publishing. Millions of readers are waiting to discover your book – self-publish today at www.kobo.com/writinglife
OtherPPL	Brad Listi	weekly	OtherPPL features in-depth interviews with today’s leading authors, poets, and screenwriters.
Beautiful Writers Podcast	Linda Sivertsen	monthly	Each episode features an interview. Topics cover in-depth insights on the writing and publishing processes, from breakout successes to authors with staying power, featuring inspirational personal anecdotes, advice, and encouragement.
I Should Be Writing	Mur Lafferty	monthly	Tthis podcast focuses on providing encouragement, writing tips, and publishing advice to aspiring authors via success stories from authors releasing new books. The interviews focus on the goal of achieving traditional publication, so they only feature traditionally published authors.
The Manuscript Academy	Jessica Sinsheimer	biweekly	Features interviews with agents and editors, who share plenty of behind-the-scenes publishing insights. It’s part of #MSWL (Manuscript Wish List), which helps authors more effectively connect with agents and editors seeking projects like theirs, and includes plenty of query tips for authors looking to sign with an agent.
Helping Writers Become Authors	K.M. Weiland	weekly	HWBA covers a variety of topics on the craft of writing — from creating characters to outlining novels to polishing prose — as well as getting into the creative mindset, being productive, and writing mistakes to avoid.
SPA Girls Podcast	Cheryl Phipps, Shar Barratt, Trudi Jaye, and Wendy Vella	weekly	A weekly podcast on indie publishing tips, resources, advice, and real-life case studies. Some episodes dive deep into a specific topic, but most feature interviews with successful self-published authors or industry professionals.
Write or Die	Claribel Ortega	weekly	Often times in publishing we only hear about the quick sales and overnight successes – but for most of us, publishing is hard AF! This podcast shares those stories – the real, gritty, pull your hair out because it’s been years – stories of writers who didn’t give up despite it all, and are now living out their dream.
Print Run	Laura Zats, Erik Hane	weekly	This podcast’s aim is simple: to have the conversations surrounding the book and writing industries that too often are glossed over by conventional wisdom, institutional optimism, and false seriousness.
Shipping & Handling	Bridget Smith, Jennifer Udden	monthly	Join two literary agents as they discuss books, publishing, writing, fandom, and more!
The Creative Writers Toolbelt	Andrew Chamberlain	weekly	The Creative Writer’s Toolbelt gives practical, accessible that you can apply straight away to your own writing. Each episode explores an aspect of the craft, with examples. We also throw in occasional interviews with writers, editors, marketers and other artists.
JoinedUp Writing Podcast	Wayne Kelly	weekly	The Joined Up Writing Podcast is for writers and readers alike. It features loads of great interviews with authors, editors, publishers and anyone else who can help and inspire you on your Writing or Reading journey. Our main episodes feature long-form interviews packed with fascinating stories and insight. Our shorter ‘Epilogue’ shows are quick-hit ten minute episodes based on a bonus topic or question not included in the main interview.
Wine, Women, and Words	Diana Giovinazzo Tierney and Michele Leiva	weekly	A literary podcast that interviews authors over a glass of wine. We talk about their writing process, the books that we love and, of course, wine.
Go Publish Yourself	Robin Cutler and Justine Bylo	???	IngramSpark’s Director, Robin Cutler, and Manager of IngramSpark’s Author Acquisition Program, Justine Bylo, will be joined by experts throughout essential fields in the publishing industry to provide you with self-publishing resources in a new format. These short episodes are an easy way to gain quick insights for how to self-publish.
Stark Reflections	Mark Leslie Lefebvre	weekly	Perspectives and reflections on the writing and publishing life. Mark Leslie Lefebvre, a writer, bookseller, digital publishing advocate, professional speaker, and publishing consultant explores inclusive and collaborative opportunities for writers and book publishing professionals via interviews, discussions, and reflections about the industry.
DIY MFA Radio	Gabriela Pereira	weekly	If the DIY MFA website were a campus, the DIY MFA podcast would be the school’s radio station. Hosted by instigator Gabriela Pereira, this show emulates the traditional MFA speaker series where authors and industry experts speak to students about writing, but makes these conversations accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
The Career Author	J THorn, Hack Bohannan	weekly	The Career Author Podcast Becoming a full-time writer can be overwhelming. Join J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon as they help you improve your craft and find your audience, so you too can become…a career author. This is The Career Author Podcast.
The Fearless Storyteller	Ethan Freckleton	weekly	Join The Fearless Storyteller, as we explore the heart and soul of writing stories, songs, and scripts that sell—with the people who write them. Each guest has their own unique Hero’s Journey and insights into the intersections between limiting beliefs and success. Weekly episodes feature interviews, inspiration, and insights for writers of any level.
Webcomics Reviews and Interviews	Jamais Jochim	weekly	WCRI is a webcomic podcast devoted to the creation and monetization of webcomics. There are how-to shows on how to create, draw, write, and market webcomics, as well as reviews on webcomics. There are also interview shows with creators, businessmen and others involved with webcomics. In short, if you want to create and make money from webcomics, this is where you start. Potential subjects can e-mail jamaisj@gmail.com to set up interviews.
(your podcast)	host s	frequency	details

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