SPRT Weekly Round Up – 22 December 2015 | Self-Publishing Roundtable

Amazon Still Cracking Down

Amazon’s review policy has been causing some headaches of late. Not allowing reviews to be posted that have been made in exchange for money or other ‘gifts’ or reviews that have been made by people who have a connection to the author (you’re Facebook friends for example). Amazon have changed the review guidelines page: Customer Review Creation Guidelines.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602680

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/12/16/amazon-to-take-action-against-abusive-reviews/

Soon to be Famous

Librarians and libraries are looking to help indie authors with the launch of the Soon to be Famous Illinois Author Project. With the traditional publishing world charging the libraries $85 for an eBook and then forcing them to purchase the book again after a set number of reads, they have turned their attention to books made free through Amazon, Smashwords or Barnes & Noble. Currently this is only open to books written by Illinois resident authors, but this is a cool concept that hopefully other states will get involved with.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/elgin-courier-news/news/ct-ecn-soon-to-be-famous-st-1216-20151215-story.html

NEWS BYTES

How Indie Authors Can Use Preorders to Crack the Bestsellers Listrders to Crack the Bestseller Lists

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/pw-select/article/68748-how-indie-authors-can-use-preorders-to-crack-the-bestseller-lists.html

Business Musings: Author Earnings

http://kriswrites.com/2015/10/07/business-musings-author-earnings/

Scammers are Preying on New and Aspiring Authors

http://goodereader.com/blog/indie-author-news/scammers-are-preying-on-new-and-aspiring-authors

Global Audiobook Trends and Statistics for 2016

http://goodereader.com/blog/interviews/global-audiobook-trends-and-statistics-for-2016

HOW-TO DO-TOO

How to Approach Authors in the Wild