The Selfies awards, 2021 opportunities, and more
It's the end of 2020 and a year that will long be talked about in the history books. But it's not been all bad. While our hearts go out to those who have suffered from the lockdowns, many of us have been able to reconnect with a calmer, healthier lifestyle as we avoid the daily commutes and work from home. We may have even grown closer to our immediate families even though our distant ones have become harder to reach.
In similar fashion, while many small businesses are suffering, it has never been a better time to be a self-published author. Most self-publishing platforms are reporting significant increases in global book sales and many service providers, such as ourselves here at Utility Fog Press, have seen increased demand by new authors looking to publish their books. | | PublishDrive, a subscription-based self-publishing platform, has reported huge sales increases in some global markets. Especially Chile, India, Poland, and Singapore! As new global markets continue to come online, it seems only reasonable to expect this trend to continue.
As for genre, in fiction, they have seen the great sales increases, compared to last year, in Fantasy (70%), Historical Fiction (93%), and Romance (39%), with many of their sub-genres seeing greater than 1000% increases. While in Non-fiction, many wellness-related genres have seen large increases. Interestingly, one of the greatest increase in sales is in books about musical instruments (235%).
Just to keep it real a moment, they also report that most of the sales increases have come from selling to Libraries and Regional Stores or through Subscription Services (such as Scribd, Bookmate and Dreame). The takehome message is that it pays to diversify your distribution channels and many of the Amazon alternatives, such as Draft2Digital and PublishDrive, will deliver your book to these channels. | |
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For the third year in a row, The UK Selfies, sponsored by the London Book Fair and BookBrunch, are now open for submissions.
Deadline: Friday, January 1, 2021 Categories: Adult Fiction, Children's, and Adult Memoirs
The book must have been published between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020.
Best of luck to all who enter. |
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| Coming to Utility Fog Press in 2021 |
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| We won't tell you everything we have planned in the new year for UFP but, in conjunction with our other groups Indie Book Showcase and Campfire Stories, we are working on a few exciting ideas for published and unpublished authors that take advantage of some of the new online video chat developments to create online public spaces.
What we will share is that we will be offering regular office hours via video chat. If you have any writing or publishing questions, you'll be able to drop in and discuss them with us. The details will be announced in the January newsletter. We're currently favouring Fridays at noon, however, if you have any preference for day or time, please let us know by replying to this e-mail.
In the January newsletter, we will also start featuring independent authors and their books, local and global. So, if you'd like to be featured, or know of someone you'd like to see featured, please let us know. |
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| Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! |
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From all of us at Utility Fog Press, we wish you and yours
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| Stay healthy, keep active, and Write On! Edwin Rydberg Utility Fog Press | |
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