Controversy as ebook retailers remove self-published erotica titles from their sites

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eBook retailers (Amazon, B&N, WH Smith) are seemingly overreacting to a few news reports and are unilaterally removing explicit, though perfectly legal, content from their sites. There’s no obvious coherent approach being taken, with self-published material targeted over “established” titles.

The fuss will either die down eventually, or alternatively niche e-tailers will spring up to fill the gap, as there is clearly a demand for this type of material. To reiterate, the “clean-up” is about “protecting” the public’s sensitivities (or, more accurately, protecting e-tailers from bad publicity), rather than removing illegal material from bookstores.

Do you read self-published books differently?

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Catherine Ryan Howard asks whether readers look at self-published books differently from the traditionally published, whether consciously or subconsciously

How to submit your ebook to NOOK Press

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Bibliocrunch has a great step- by- step guide to submitting your ebooks to NOOK Press

Successful self-publishers also need to be business owners

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“The most successful self-publishers invest in their businesses, hiring experts to fill skill gaps and that’s building a thriving new service infrastructure in publishing.”

Female readers drive 59% increase in self-published titles

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According to Bowker, 71% of self-published books in the past 12 months were bought by women, with romance titles the most popular category, followed by literary fiction.

More than 80% of last year’s self-published ISBNs came through just eight self-publishing houses. Amazon’s CreateSpace had the biggest year-on-year increase, followed by Smashwords, Lulu and, in fourth place, the Random House imprint Author Solutions.

These figures refer to self-published books with an ISBN, so are likely to be an under-estimate of the overall DIY market.

The gatekeepers of publishing

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Superb essay by Kristine Kathryn Rusch on the self-appointed gatekeepers of publishing and why things improve once the small-minded minority who want to “preserve standards” are removed (or bypassed)

One author’s decision to self-publish

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Linda Nagata on why she decided against taking her latest book to a traditional publisher and went ahead by herself.

The New Old World of Publishing

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How authors need to adapt in the new ‘old’ world of publishing. Joanne Sprott makes the point that writers today can take advantage of both the models from the past (creating a fan base through subscription and crowd funding ahead of publication) and the tools of the present and future (social media and other aspects of expanded instant communication) to share their stories.

UK Self-publishing Conference announced for 2014

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The second annual Self-publishing conference in the UK will take place on March 30th 2014

Tech news: ePubCheck tool updated with several enhancements

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Michael Kozlowski of Goodereader reports that the ePubCheck tool has been updated with several enhancements, including tests for content accessibility markup, CSS issues that might affect presentation quality, and tests for specific script usage patterns that require security consideration that will help publishers and indie authors create exceptional, accessible, EPUB 3 content.