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Ksenia Anske

November 21, 2015

Make your books discoverable

by Ksenia Anske


Illustration by Alessandro Gottardo

Illustration by Alessandro Gottardo

Illustration by Alessandro Gottardo

Illustration by Alessandro Gottardo

On the never-ending search for books that are indie and good I have stumbled on many authors whose writing I liked and WHOSE BOOKS I COULDN'T GET MY HANDS ON.

Reasons?

1. There are no books. There are some scattered short stories here and there, or some poems, or some snippets of flash fiction, but not an actual book that I can immerse myself in. I don't care if it's a book of poems or short stories. Bundle them up! I want to read it, and if I like it, I will talk about it and review it. Without a book for me to read and to boast about you're losing an opportunity to engage me. That's sad titties. For you, not for me.

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TAGS: marketing, books, discoverability


October 2, 2015

How do you find out about new writing?

by Ksenia Anske


Illustration by Daniel Stolle

Illustration by Daniel Stolle

Illustration by Daniel Stolle

Illustration by Daniel Stolle

For the longest time I had trouble finding out what was happening in the literary world. It seemed everyone knew about some new book or some new author or some new prize winner before me. Not that it bothered me much—I have such a long lists of classics to chew through that I didn't really care. But I'm now going through that list at a fair lick, reading about 100-110 books a year, and it's gotten to the point where: 

  1. I got tired of the oldish-sounding English and wanted to read something contemporary and not having to wade through the weirdly composed sentences and the archaic turns of phrases and having to put up with occasional misogyny and some puritanism here and there and constant references to religion or God.
  2. I got sick of reading mostly white males as literature seems to stand on the bones of white males and I've had about enough of that—I still love you, white males, my partner Royce including, but I wanted more women voices and black voices and gay voices and all kinds of voices.
  3. I have found authors whose voices I loved and I wanted to read more of their recent writing.
  4. I felt a new hunger, a hunger for more than just novels. I wanted to expand, to read poetry and essays and non-fiction.
  5. I was plain jealous of hearing all these news about new books from other people and I wanted to be at the source of the news too, to be the first to find out about this new book or that new book and to form my own opinion about it before reading someone else's opinion about it.
  6. I was feeling increasingly sad because I still haven't found a good source for news on great new indie books and I'm still upset that I don't know where and how to find them. 
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TAGS: reading, indie, indie writers, indie books, self-publishing, discoverability