Benjamin’s Comments (group member since Dec 14, 2017)

Benjamin’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

I own a small press and we have many titles, and I'd be interested in hearing your proposal! Check out our titles at www.notapipepublishing.com to see if any jump out at you!

Thank you! And bummer. I have a lot of paperwork to do.

Hmm. I just uploaded a new book and received an email letting me know when it became available for pre-order, so some of their systems are still working.

Thanks! Shared with my Creative Writing classes!

Ben, clapped and shared on twitter from @notapipepub
Maybe the authors I work with will see it and think, "Yes, my editor is helpful," and not, "Why is my editor reading that when he should be editing my novel?"

I've never understood why more authors don't blurb and review more books. I had the hardest time getting blurbs for my first self-pubbed novel. That was among my motivations to start a small press, Not a Pipe Publishing. Now we all blurb and review one another's books. Sure, it takes some time, but if you can write a good review or blurb and get your name and title on the back of someone else's book, it's basically free advertising that will show up right where your most important potential customers are located: standing in bookstores!

We'll be looking for reviewers and blurbers for new titles this year. If you are interested in getting an email about a book to see if it sounds like something you might be interested in reading, blurbing, and reviewing, please send me an email with your name and the place where you'd be posting your review (Goodreads? Amazon? Your blog? All of the above?) and we'll send you links to the books in .mobi for Kindle, .ePub, .doc, and .pdf so you can choose the format you like to read best. I never encourage writers to swap reviews (Bad idea. You will eventually find yourself in a compromising position writing a review that's overly generous because you feel beholden to someone who has written or may write a glowing review of your work. Don't swap) but building up those relationships with other authors you respect might put a foot in the door to get you a review when they have a huge hit and can have more pull if they like your work. We all know we're all in this together and it's not a zero-sum-game (more readers reading books is better for all of us. We're not competing. We're getting people in the habit of reading and thus helping one another) so if you can take time away from your own writing (that's the hard part) to read and review a great author's work, I promise our company has vetted all these novels and only chosen the best to publish. I look forward to hearing from many of you at [email protected]

Great idea! I think I'm following all of you now. I also tweet out links to good reviews of my books, and I give shout-outs to the writers of those reviews, so ... just sayin'. ;)

Have you seen Oprah's speech at the Golden Globes yet? I'm not trying to be glib; go watch it. You will feel inspired. Of course, feeling inspired is temporary. I suggest some concrete successes to look back on. I'm biased because I'm a publisher and we're looking for some short fiction to publish on our blog right now, but maybe that would help you know you are the real deal once people are reading your work and enjoying it. If you think you might be interested, here are the details: http://bit.ly/2Ce3kzt

Publishing Opportunity! Fellow authors, our publishing company, Not a Pipe Publishing, has accepted Kamila Shamsie's challenge to make 2018 "The Year of Publishing Women." It's an exciting project, and it's already getting a lot of buzz. In early February there will be a big write up about it in The Oregonian, and we'll be doing some TV and radio soon, too. We'd like to be promoting you, also! Not only are we publishing nine novels by seven amazing authors, but we'd like to publish short fiction to our blog each week and then collect the best short stories in an anthology at the end of the year. If you or someone you know (Sorry, guys. Women only this year) might be interested in submitting a story, here's the place to do it and all the information:

http://bit.ly/2Ce3kzt

Feel free to share this post to any other writing group on in your own feed to spread the word about this opportunity!

Yes! We (our small indie press) can always use good Beta Readers. Send an email to Not a Pipe Publishing and we'll send you a great book to check out that is scheduled to be released late this next summer so your feedback could make it better!
[email protected]

Thank you all! Yes, that's consistent with my expectations and experience; better to be there to sell them myself. If anyone find an exception to this rule, where some fee-for-service offer turns into books in readers' hands or on boorstores' shelves, please share those!

Judy and Denise,
I'm curious how their promotion at the Frankfort Book Fair works. Do they charge a significant amount beyond the membership fee to have your book displayed there? Judy, did you have your book displayed? Did it result in sales? I've heard of promotions where people pay a considerable amount of have their books hidden on tables covered with books at these big fairs and trade shows, and they get nothing out of it. I've done some trade shows myself with on-again-off-again success, so I'm always looking for better ways. If theirs succeeds in getting books into people's hands, I will certainly join the IBPA, but if not, my marketing dollars are scant and need to be targeted carefully.