For Writers

Welcome to my blog for writers. Here you’ll find posts about the a business of writing and publishing. Look around, ask questions, and learn!

Tax Season Is a Time to Keep Cool: A Writer’s Guide to Missing 1099-MISC forms and Unpaid Royalties

person doing taxes

It’s tax season here in the United States, and questions popping up on many author boards is, “What do I do if my publisher didn’t send me a Form 1099-MISC?” and “Can I deduct unpaid royalties as a loss if my publisher closed?” This article covers who needs a 1099-MISC, what to do if you don’t get a 1099-MISC or get one that’s wrong, and how little the IRS cares about your unpaid royalties. It also discusses reporting publishers you suspect of tax fraud. …Read more

How to Track Book Sales — Even When You’re Not the Publisher

Image of book pile to illustrate tracking book sales

In this article, I evaluate sales tracking systems that are free to any author with an ebook on Amazon, paying special attention to Pronoun and NovelRank. Why these two? I’ve used both of these for a while because they’re user-friendly and can be used by any author whether they self-publish their ebooks or work with a traditional publisher. I also touch on tracking sales of print books—a much more difficult endeavor.

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An author’s review of PayHip as a venue for selling ebooks

An overview of the PayHip platform for selling digital e-books directly to readers, with a look at its benefits and drawbacks compared to retailer ebook stores like Amazon. The platform is fairly easy to use, but it can be cumbersome to manage sales. It’s up to the author to decide whether the higher proceeds from each sale are worth the extra work. …Read more

Samhain is closing … again

It’s been a crazy two months, hasn’t it? Torquere, All Romance, and now Samhain closes. I’d been rooting for them to keep things going after they revamped last year. As a writer, the frustrating thing is not knowing what percentage of these closings are due to poor business acumen, and what are due to Amazon’s … Read more