Title Reveal of the #POMI Sequel! Contest winner announcement.

Nicola Horner was the winner of the #POMI sequel word scramble for her guess:

A FATE WORSE THAN THIS

In the sequel to Pigments of My Imagination, Leo can't really imagine a Fate worse than this... 
Officially Pigments is out the 23rd, but it should be cropping up here and there before then!
AFWTT is out later in the fall. 

Nicola, please email here. Or find me on twitter at @angelakulig so I can get your address. 

Also, there are other winners to be had. Stick close! The next few weeks are going to be a little crazy.

Well Monday, We Meet Again

I only have 2 hours left of Monday, but I will go down fighting.

This is just a friendly blog to let you know I haven't died, just returned from a month long vacation (I went on vacation earlier than planned, and last minute)! I came back, then immediately did the Three Day Novel Contest. Since I write by hand, that meant I had to type it all after that. I can no longer feel my arms, but as soon as they get to tingling I promise to update you with the winners of the last contest, as well as title announcements, and POMI announcements, and so many announcements I have run out room on my board that holds all my post-its.

I am not sure this makes any sense at all but...

POMI Word Scramble#1**REVEAL SEQUEL TITLE**WIN BEFORE RELEASE

I have heard officially POMI will be done by this weekend. Look for an awesome release opportunity soon, but for now we are going to play a game! I have been going insane, waiting to tell you guys the sequel title, so here it is. Only problem is, all the letters are mixed up! You only get one clue, and it's this: The title is a turn of of phrase like Pigments of My Imagination/ Figments of My Imagination. It too is one word off, but instead of being the first word, it's the last one.

Whoever comments first with the right title wins--an ARC e-copy of Pigments before it goes on sale PLUS an autographed limited edition hardcover to be delivered sometime in September. (After I get back from vacation!) If no one guesses today, I will start adding letters in until someone does.

Since I know you love to win, you can also tweet about the word scramble for a chance at a $20 Amazon gift card. See rafflecopter below. Entry will close when the title is revealed.

Good news everyone! The POMI release date is coming soon.

My editor was eventually successful in prying my manuscript from my fingers for last time--and I should have the date for it really soon. I am so glad it's finally ready, but I might need a paper bag.

The eBook Apocalypse Part II: The revolving story of us versus them.

I have never met and indie/self published author that hated Amazon. I am sure they are out there, but for the masses there is love or respect for The Zon. There is a good reason for that, Amazon makes what we do possible. They get a lot of credit--good and bad--for allowing people to self publish, but let us be frank; they are the bread an butter for a lot of the independent publishers too. My co-op included. For reference, an indie publisher is any publisher outside the big six...*counts* er, five, publishers and their imprints (of which there are A LOT).

Penguin and Random House recently morphed into some type of megazoid publisher, that just leaves Hachette, Macmillion, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster.

The more I talk about Amazon, the more people I meet who hate my guts. They love to tell me how wrong I am, and if I miss commas. They love to tell me they hate what I am doing, but not any of them have been able to prove that I'm wrong. They just don't like me.

So far, these people have all had one thing in common. They are all committed to traditional publishing. And that's great! I am a firm believer that everyone in the "book industry" is on the same side, even if we don't like each other. (One day, I want to sell my book for half off at the Walmart too.) Oddly, these people tend to be the ugliest to me. Not all of them! Some are FAB! But the self published and the micro published have caught on to the fact that they are their brand. They know being a vicious bitch on social media will catch up to them--and quickly. Agented writers that haven't sold a book, and don't have fans, or a publisher to please probably aren't going to see the effects right away. But I am a firm believer in Karma.

I freely admit, there is all kinds of hostility, and it is on both sides. The thing is, when one gets on their platform and screams that Amazon is evil and shouldn't exist; the other group hears that they are evil--and that they shouldn't exist. It can't be both ways, and most people don't even try and pretend it is. They don't want Amazon to live, and they don't want indies to live either. It's nothing personal, except when it is. The traditionally published make more money in real books than indies and self published authors. It's because they have great distribution channels, and we don't. So if Amazon fell, they'd still sell books. But if Amazon never existed, then the waves of small presses wouldn't exist, and self publishing would still be completely laughable--though I am sure they still think it is. There would be no Amanda Hocking, no .99 Millionaires.


I revised this article four times, and almost always and three AM. I had to do that because of how quickly the publishing world changes; and because people keep pissing me off on the internet. In the amount of time it took me to run through this thing again, I am worried Barnes & Noble will have wheezed its final breath and this whole last bit will quickly become faction.

Just to recap: If Amazon fell, no more indies. There is no one ready to step up and fill their shoes, and I am not sure anyone would want to if Amazon was no longer there to compete with. The Nook branch of B&N lost millions of dollars last year, and the only one that has enough devices in hand to take on Amazon is Apple--and they had to go be taken on by the DOJ and lose. Read that article here.

BUT what would happen if Barnes & Noble shut their doors for good? You know, after systematically destroying most indie book stores. Like they have done. Well then other than the big box stores, as mentioned here, there really isn't anywhere else for them to go. Except for back online, where the playing field isn't at all in their favor. You can argue that their books are in some cases better edited, that they sometimes have better covers, but the thing that really speaks to be people is the almighty dollar. Most readers don't know that I might miss a comma in the next sentence, but they know if they like a story. They will see them side by side on Amazon, and if they have no idea who any of these people are, they are probably going to pick the one with the better price tag. There is less risk.

It helps that every day people are becoming smarter about publishing. A professional looking cover can go a long way.

You could even argue that all self published books are crap! But I am a capitalist. I believe that the market does a good job of weeding out the garbage. I also believe you are far less likely to pick up a lemon on Amazon than you are just browsing in Barnes & Noble. That is because on Amazon all the reviews are just there, you can read through the first part of book in both places but only one will get you looks from the teenager in the Starbucks if want to read a big chunk. You don't have to just look at the cover and read the blurb, at least I hope you won't.

With the stakes so high, it's no wonder we're all yelling at each other on Twitter. Still, I stand by what I said before--we are all on the same side. Do you agree?

Who I am, and what I do.

I have lots of new friends, fans, and followers and I am super excited about every last one of you! I just have one problem, I can't keep up with everyone. I try to talk to everybody who talks to me, and I do pretty good with that goal--only I feel like a lot of new people don't really know who I am or what I do so I wanted to take a moment and go over that. Somewhere along the line, people maybe started to think all I did as social media! I mean, I am good at Twitter, but not that good!

In case you missed it, my name is Angela Kulig. I write books. I have written books since just before I turned thirteen. My first book was terrible, but I like to think I have gotten a lot better since then--45 books later. These days I write mostly young adult, and middle grade. That's the boring stuff.

Originally, I published with a small indie press. Though I was more successful than a lot of people in this business, we parted ways last year and  after that I founded a publishing co-op with Author Larry Kollar. In the co-op I handle mostly marketing and book covers--because besides writing books those are the things I am good at. That's the boring stuff of my bio.

I am releasing two books in the very near future, but I am super tired of talking about me already. I want to talk about you. Please take a minute and introduce yourself, old followers and new followers. I want to learn about you too!

Barnes & Noble Hovers Close to Doom, APPLE Loses (Judge Rules in Price Fixing Case)

We interrupt this regularly scheduled eBook Apocalypse to bring you another one. Yesterday it was announced Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch had resigned the previous day, effective immediately. 

Looks like Barnes & Noble is headed for splitsville, but if Microsoft only purchases the Nook bits like it's looking, what is to become of the brick and mortar stores? It's interesting to me that Microsoft would want the Nook platform at this point considering it's losses last year were something like $177 MILLION. Yet somehow the store fronts don't look appealing with out the digital arm of it. 

The world is Bananas. Read the Bloomberg Article about BN here. 

I think it's safe to say at this point a Windows 8 based eReader is in our future, one way or another. 

In other eBook news,  Judge Denise Cote ruled today that Apple had violated anti-trust laws in wave of price fixing way back in 2010. Apple tried to reason that publishers wanted prices raised, and duh; of course they did. The judge replied that the plan had required  publisher participation, but that doesn't change the fact the laws were broken. (That's a fancy way of saying they are just as guilty). Read the PW article here.