At Ooligan Press, we use KDP to upload our upcoming titles and our ebooks. It is a fast and easy way to publish a title that seemingly doesn’t have much screening process. After creating a couple of KDP pages for our upcoming titles, I thought to myself, “That’s it? I just have to click a box that says ‘this was not written by a computer’ and I’ll be able to sell it?”
When you’re editing a manuscript, there are an abundance of reasons why you might want to pose a query. For example, if you’re copyediting, you may want to point out a spelling you’ve found that’s inconsistent, ask for clarification about ambiguous wording, or find out more about an author’s intended meaning, just to name a few. Although the best method of query writing may vary by author based on what they respond well to, there are a few best practices when it comes to writing effective author queries.
A well-crafted sales video doesn’t just tell potential readers what the story is about, it makes them feel the story before they’ve even turned the first page and helps them get established with the author on a personal level. This is a step-by-step guide on how to create a compelling video to capture readers early on.
Ooligan strives to handle every manuscript with care and to take into account every aspect, and angle, of the potential of each one that comes our way. It is an anxious time waiting for a publisher to get back to you about your story that has been worked on for years. That is not something that we take lightly.
Blogs were put on hold for about a year while the website was being updated. Since all of the managers in Ooligan Press are part of the book publishing master’s program at Portland State University, the life expectancy in any given position of the press is also about a year. That is to say, I had never even written a blog post for Ooligan Press when I was put in charge of managing them. But that’s ok. As someone smart once said, “Confusion is a Learning State.” I learned how to manage blogs, and I can teach you as well.
If you have ever looked at the production timeline for a book, you know how overwhelming it is. If you haven’t seen one before, imagine an intense excel spreadsheet with a hundred different deadlines, many of which can’t be adjusted or lenient. When you first see it, you might think, “How on earth do I navigate this?”
Recently, I embarked on a mission to sell foreign translation rights to Croatia for one of our upcoming releases Supersymmetry. What seemed like a straightforward task quickly turned into a deep and enlightening dive through the complex world of foreign rights management.
In order for us to perform our proofreading, Isaac had to teach us these industry standards which opened up many students’ eyes to the complexity of comics. Who knew the letter I could cause so many problems?
The press kit should give a grand overview of the book itself but in the most condensed way possible. It’s important to touch on themes and highlight the very best of the book and its author. These things all add up, and scoring reviews is great publicity for us and helps us sell more books.
Tabling at an event comes with all sorts of factors to consider, many that you need to get a head start on. Working with a new venue, however, is a whole different ball game. In starting fresh somewhere new, there’s only so much you can figure out in advance.