The Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe – a book review

Okay, so as a writer of regional folklore and history I have learned the importance of research. If I’m attempting to write down a ghost story from any particular region the first thing I want to do is to make sure I’ve got all of the facts. Facts are ESPECIALLY important when you’re dealing with ghost stories – because if you don’t have a sturdy framework of facts to build on – where else are you going to graft and dangle all of that lovely ephemeral ghostly booga-booga? I try and make sure that I have at least two or three SOLID sources for a ghost story before I attempt to record it in one of my collections.

I approached YA writing the same way. Before I wrote my children’s picture book Maritime Monsters or my Middle Grade reader SINKING DEEPER I sat down and read about a year’s worth of children’s novels trying to get a handle on how other writers did their magic.

So now, as I begin to find my way in this brave new digital world of e-books and audio-books and hyper-plasmic-neutron books – (all right, so I made the last one up from an episode of Star Trek) – I decided to do some research.

So let me tell you about this nifty little e-book on writing e-books that I picked up a few weeks ago.

Let’s start with the cover, shall we?

 

Now what would Jeff Bennington tell you about the cover?

For starters he’d tell you that the use of complementary colors and the large bold font used on the title and author’s name were definitely pluses. He’d tell you that this particular cover looks great in a thumbnail – which is how your prospective reader is most likely going to initially view it before he makes his decision to buy your e-book. I expect he would be especially pleased with the way that this book cover boldly says just exactly what it is about. There is no great cosmic mystery as to what this e-book is about. This e-book is a guide to the universe for indie authors.

Speaking for myself I would say that both the cover and the title offered a sly wink and a tip of the hat towards Douglas Adams “Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as well as every “Complete Idiot’s Guide” and “…for Dummies” manual that has ever been written. It offers you the world and it actually delivers.

Jeff Bennington delivers.

That’s the kind of practical, bare bones information this guy will give you. He takes you through the steps of building an e-book. He tells you how he does it. He tells you what you want to avoid. He tells you how some other folks have done it.

The first section gives you information on why anyone might actually consider following the road of the indie-published author with clear-cut examples and crunchy potato-chip sized chapters on how he and other people have gone about getting into the business of indie e-book writing. In section 2 he gives you a crash course on how to be a better writer.  In section 3 he power-slams you into the deep end of the e-publishing business – and then, while simultaneously holding your head beneath said waters, baptising you in the one true indie writing way and simultaneously yodelling “My Country ‘Tis Of Thee” he hauls you into Section 4 – a quick wrap-up on how to make your indie career happen.

Will this e-book guarantee your ultimate success as an indie author? Will it assure you an easy road to millions of dollars in overnight royalties?

Of course not. No book does. But what it does do is to give you a quick, entertaining, educational and FUN course in what you ought to know about becoming an indie author while clearly pointing out about a half a billion mistakes that you ought to avoid doing in the first place. This is – in all honesty – one of the first e-book indie-writing manuals that I have read, virtual cover to virtual cover – but I learned an awful lot from it and furthermore there is a lot of practical reference material that I know I will refer back to – time and again.

So pick this up if you want to learn how to become an indie author – or, more importantly, how to become a more succesful indie author. Just click on the cover illustration for a quick link to Amazon to download it in Kindle format!

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon