Publishing Companies are making transitional changes, and discoverability of Website content is key to growth. Laura Austin reports on 3 ways Publishing Companies can increase website traffic in 2012.

In the style of so many 90s TV shows, the short story is making a comeback, and if you think Captain Planet is cool as hell, you ain’t seen nothin’. While huge publishers like Random House, and… booksellers, Amazon, are now discovering something most of us have known for years (that short fiction is the greatest writing there is) there are a bunch of publishers out there who have been promoting the form for longer than I’ve been alive.

How do we organize our bi-monthly BookMachine tweetups alongside full time jobs? Well, doing this has only become possible in the last few years, and all thanks to social media. We spend just two to three hours a week on promoting our events. Here are the top five free tools that help us out: (this post was originally published on www.publishingtalk.eu on August 10, 2011)

I’ve been producing Kindle-ready ebooks for a while now. Through a process of trial and error (sometimes it’s been a trial, and I’ve made lots of errors…) I’ve realised that the whole experience needn’t need tooooo difficult, provided you keep a few basic do’s and don’ts in mind…

Printed books will never really go away. They’ll be superseded by e-books, sure. They’ll become a minority interest. They’ll be treated as relics of a bygone age, one where you had to actually leave the house to, y’know, get stuff.

But just as vinyl records have survived in the sweaty-but-carefully-dust-gloved hands of music geeks, and cinephiles are ignoring the convenience of watch instantly video streaming in favour of the hi-def glories of a decent Blu-Ray restoration, there will always be an audience, however small and specialist, for a nice binding and a dog-ear, ready and waiting for publishers to peddle their wares.

Alternatively, publishers could decide they’re not content to punt such simple pulp-and-ink pleasures, and instead chuck gimmick after gimmick at the reading public until something sticks. Either way. Here’s five of the latter.

1. I’ll start with the obvious: being nice matters.

Events are a lot of work for booksellers, and much of that time will be unpaid. Often, the bookseller will have  liaised with some of (or all of) the following: your publicist, your agent, your publishers’ rep, a wholesaler, librarians, teachers, head teachers, parents, the venue staff, and local newspapers/media. And, of course, you. Bookshops make money from events, but not that much when you consider the time put in. If booksellers like you, they will hand-sell your book; if they don’t, it’ll go in the returns box the morning after.

We all know that training is good for us, whether that be joining a gym or learning a new skill, but if you already work in publishing and have already studied publishing, should you still do additional courses?

Here are five reasons to do vocational training…