In this Brave New Publishing World, Marketing Vital

Recently there was a discussion regarding the grass-roots revolution in publishing on a Yahoo group to which I subscribe. Don McCauley, founder of Free Publicity Focus Group (http://www.freepublicitygroup.com) and host of The Authors Show Radio (http://wwwtheauthorsshow.com) made the following comment. I reprint it here with Don’s permission. Imagine you own a hardware store. In the state in which you are located there are 200 MILLION other hardware stores. What would you do? Now imagine that…

Guest Artist: Laurie-Lynn Percy

It never fails to amaze me how many Canadians make all or part of their living in the arts. We write, we paint, we sculpt, photograph and choreograph, compose and create, sing and act. We can’t seem to help ourselves. By day we may earn our bread and shelter by serving the retail sector, tallying numbers, upholding justice and caring for the infirm. We may labour in the cold on construction sites, submit ourselves to…

Indie vs. Corporate Music Careers

An old acquaintance of mine, Heather Dale, posted this insightful article on her blog recently, and I thought the parallels between indie music and publishing were quite remarkably similar. A decade ago when I started writing a series of articles called ‘IndieTips’, I called the first one “Label or Independent?” But in the 21st century, that title is no longer appropriate: every working musician these days has (or should have) a record label. The correct…

Guest Author, Simon Rose

I’m pleased today to feature Simon Rose, Canadian young readers author, who was born and raised in Derbyshire, England, and now resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. As well as being an author, Simon is an advocate for literacy and the deaf child, helping to raise awareness in association with Deaf & Hard of Hearing Services in Calgary. He also offers a variety of services for writers as well copywriting for the business community and is…