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Ksenia Anske

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


June 30, 2015

Market your book your own way

by Ksenia Anske


Photo by Rafael Mantesso

Photo by Rafael Mantesso

Photo by Rafael Mantesso

Photo by Rafael Mantesso

This will be ridiculously funny (I'll be mostly making fun of myself) and only moderately useful (more of a moral tale of what not to do). As you have seen, my second little book of tweets arrived, and I have screamed about it everywhere. Which was a good thing because it prepared me for marketing The Badlings, which should be ready this week or the coming week, and about which of course I will also scream everywhere, albeit louder. (Screaming equals marketing, by the way. Coupled with free hugs.) 

As you have also seen, there are a ton of tips and tricks floating around in the self-publishing universe that you can employ and that can make you dizzy (they make me dizzy, that's why I don't read them). At first I was trying all those tips and tricks, and I have just fallen into the trap of trying them again and have decided to write this cautionary tale for myself lest I forget it when birthing my next book (and I do, I tend to forget, which sucks).

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TAGS: marketing, self-publishing, promotion, giveaway, funny, dogs, hugs, do you even read these tags?


June 28, 2015

Pricing your self-published books

by Ksenia Anske


Are you ready of a long tearful saga about pricing your self-published books? You better be. Go get your popcorn, I'll wait. 

All done? Good. Let's proceed. 

This will be the opening of a can of worms, talking about pricing. Not very appetizing but necessary to suffer through. I wrote a little bit about this here, and now I'll expand on it more as there are so many little variants that even if you want to set the price for your book at a specific number, say, $4.99, you might not be able to. This stuff is something we don't think about when going into a bookstore and picking up a book from a shelf, but publishers have been breaking their heads over for years, and we self-published authors are braving for the first time on our own and suffering through the torment that comes with it. 

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TAGS: self-publishing, pricing, indie books, comparison


June 16, 2015

Distributing your self-published books: CreateSpace + IngramSpark

by Ksenia Anske


"Hi Ksenia. I'm researching which way to go with self-publishing and am veering toward CreateSpace. [I heard] you use them with your books but that you are looking at Ingram for libraries and bookstores. I didn't realize that you could use both, but what I liked about Ingram is that they have access to the bookstores. Did you get your own ISBN #'s? I've read that is the way to go. I'd appreciate any guidance you can give me."

Thank you for reaching out, Mandy. I suppose it's time I summarize my experience with both channels. It's been two months since I have pulled Rosehead and Irkadura from CreateSpace's expanded distribution channels and posted them on IngramSpark (Ingram's indie distribution arm).

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TAGS: self-publishing, distribution, Amazon, CreateSpace, Ingram, question, answer, how to


May 18, 2015

20 things I learned from writing full-time for 3 years

by Ksenia Anske


3 years ago on May 14th I opened a new Word file, called it Ailen's Song (the first title for Siren Suicides) and started typing. "Have you ever met a siren? No, not the kind you read in books about. Not the one with fish tails, sweet voice and green hair sitting on a rock somewhere in the ocean, luring in fishermen. No, a real siren. The one with white hair and skin. I think it’s called “albino”, you know, with red eyes and stuff. Have you seen one like that? Of course not. Cause if you did, you’d be dead. I know that for sure. My name is Ailen Bright, I’m sixteen years old, and I’m a siren." I typed another paragraph after this one and stopped. I have picked up typing the next day, May 15th, and that is the day I mark as the start of my writing full-time.

I have started and stopped working on this story 3 times, first in 2008 (5K words), then in 2009 (13K words), and finally in 2010 (20K words). On May 14th I happened to run into a friend who asked me when I would finish it. I came home and decided to give it one final try. This was try number 4. I didn't think I'd last more than a month.

I lasted 3 years.

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TAGS: writing full-time, things I learned, 3 years, writing, self-publishing


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