Now that I’ve had the opportunity to let the knowledge I absorbed from today’s workshop digest, I think I can finally relay what I learned from it. The presenter, Robert G Johnston is the self-published author of Vinland The Beginning http://www.vinlandthebeginning.com and Vinland The Ragnarok http://www.vinlandragnarok.ca/ – novels based on the Vikings arrival in Canada.
His presentation was excellent, well organized and thorough. Robert’s willingness to share his self-publishing journey which is just recently finding its place in the e-book world, is a demonstration of his commitment to helping fellow writers.
It WAS a good workshop. It was informative, interesting and encouraging. I find a lot of people in the ‘field’ don’t like to talk numbers. Robert was very open to questions and although no one can offer absolutes he did give ideas with variances, which translates to possibilites. It was a good day.
Sounds positive – and positive is what it’s all about. Reading expectations are changing – the business of publishing needs to follow – and authors need to embrace those changes.
And there are the constants no matter what media you’re talking about – print or e-book.
You need a thoroughly edited product, one that is well laid out and properly formatted for the market you’re targeting, a good cover maybe even better with e-books because they’re not on the shelf at your local booksellers where customers can pick them up and leaf through them, and a good story, and they have to catch a potential reader’s eye by their thumbnail sized image amongst all the others on the website.