Marketing

Quick Links: How to Use BookBub to Boost Sales of Self-Published Books

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Bookbub is one of the bigger options out there for book marketing.  at Self Publishing Advice Center shares her tips on how to utilize Bookbub and the advantages and disadvantages that they offer.  For an alternative approach you can also try BookGorilla and Kindle Nation Daily. Full disclosure, I do work for both of those sites but have no reservations recommending them. 

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How to Use BookBub to Boost Sales of Self-Published Books

MarketingBy Jane Davis on June 11, 2016

Award-winning English author Jane Davis shares her successful case study of using book promotion service BookBub to market her literary novels.

Why BookBub?
Jane Davis used BookBub to boost the sales of her novel with the fewest recent sales
There’s little doubt about it, BookBub is the Holy Grail of ebook advertising. I have heard them talk about their huge successes in promoting romantic fiction and sci-fi, but I write literary fiction. Would it work for me?

With BookBub, you don’t simply hand over your cash. You apply for an advertising slot and wait to hear (a) whether your application is accepted and (b) when it will run. They had turned me down twice in the past, but I hadn’t been prepared to give my work away before. My sales figures had never been so low at the beginning of 2016. I knew I had to break the pattern.

Given the date 13 March, I chose to promote A Funeral for an Owl. With only four purchases in the quarter leading up to February 2016, it was my worst performing book. At the same time, I hold great affection for its characters and the story – despite the fact that it lost me a publishing deal!

What does a BookBub ad cost?
Two factors influence the price of a coveted BookBub slot. One is genre. The other is price (either 99p/99c or free). My BookBub ad for UK, US and Canada cost £215 (Literary, free). BookBub also offer advertising in India, but Amazon declined to price-match for that region.

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Quick Links: How Authors Can Get More Fans and Book Sales with Less Social Media

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You know you need social media as part of your overall marketing strategy, but there are so many different types of platforms. There just isn’t enough time in the day to really utilize them all.  At Digital Book World, helps you to use your social media time wisely.

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How Authors Can Get More Fans and Book Sales with Less Social Media

By: Chris Syme

June 20, 2016

My brain on social media
Social Media is NOT Pokemon. You don’t need to catch them all!

Expert publishing blog opinions are solely those of the blogger and not necessarily endorsed by DBW.

A mind-boggling 78 percent of Americans have a social media profile. According to Statista, 2.72 billion people will be social media users worldwide by 2019.

It is a given that authors can develop loyal audiences and sell more books with the help of social media. But as numbers of users rise, the pressure to “be on every channel” also rises, as authors succumb to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

Even though it may be true that you have potential readers on every social media channel, it may be a waste of your time and resources to try to connect with people everywhere.

It’s Not About Numbers Anymore. It’s About Engagement

Internet users have an average of five social media accounts (Global Web Index), but they do not engage on them equally or use them for the same purpose. Numbers do give us information about social media, but numbers can be deceiving, as their meaning can shift with time. For example:

• In the pre-algorithm world of 2011, the race was on to build up as many fans on social media as possible. The more followers you had, the more people would see your content, as Facebook was yet to become the first social media channel to institute an engagement-choking algorithm.
• In 2016, numbers are a function of baseline reach as they have always been. But today, three of the major five platforms (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) have engagement algorithms that restrict reach. Because of the sheer volume of online information, users have cried out for a better way to see the information that’s important to them. The result: constricting engagement algorithms. Today, your fan and follower numbers are only a baseline. The effectiveness of your content to get fans to like, share, comment and click will determine how many people actually see your content.

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Quick Links: The Legal Side of Writing for Anthologies

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I have posted before about my love for anthologies, as a great way to find new authors. It is a great way to get your work in front of more people, and for the reader you get a bunch of great stories, usually at a bargain price. Susan Span from Writer’s Unboxed discusses the legal side of anthologies, and what you need to watch out for.

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The Legal Side of Writing for Anthologies

Be careful, cause friends don't let friends sign shitty contracts.
Be careful, cause friends don’t let friends sign shitty contracts.

June 20, 2016

By Susan Spann

Anthologies offer writers an excellent platform for shorter works and create opportunities for reader cross-pollination. When managed and published properly, anthologies have many benefits and relatively few drawbacks for authors. However, authors do need to ensure–before submitting or signing a contract–that the anthology publisher is offering industry-standard contract terms and proper legal protection for the contributing authors and their works.

Today, we’ll review a few of the legal traps and pitfalls authors should beware (and avoid) when contributing work to an anthology:

1.   Contracts Are Not Optional.

Every anthology should use a professional, written publishing contract (or release) containing industry-standard terms for anthology publication. If the publisher is taking only non-exclusive rights, and not limiting the author’s right to reprint and re-use the work in any way, a simple release will often suffice, but even this should be in writing. (Note: The author should always retain the copyright and subsidiary rights to the work, as well as the right to re-publish in other contexts. Also, the author should never have to pay the publisher any money or be required to purchase copies of the finished anthology.)

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Quick Link: Checklist for redesigning your book cover – and maximising the marketing opportunities

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Fair or not, people will judge your book by it’s cover, and if it has been a while since you looked at your cover perhaps it is time for a refresh. Roz Morris at Nail Your Novel has some great reasons why you should redesign your book cover and tips to make the redesign work even harder for you.

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Checklist for redesigning your book cover – and maximising the marketing opportunities

The key to good design, is to know what you are doing. Hiring a professional is a good investment.
The key to good design, is to know what you are doing. Hiring a professional is a good investment.

I recently changed the covers of my Nail Your Novels … and got myself a nice long to-do list as a result. But as well as refreshing the look of the books, a redesign is also a chance to smarten up the covers’ marketing potential. Here’s how.

Don’t miss the opportunity to tweak your sales wording

I’ve already blogged about changing the cover design to target readers effectively (the last time I changed the cover of book 1, as it happens). But revising the book doesn’t have to stop at the visuals. Since you published the title, have you had any standout reviews? Work them into the redesign – on the front as a teaser or the back as part of the sales blurb.

Indeed, could you add punch to the back cover copy?  Sometimes reviewers sum up our books much better than we can ourselves. A reader who really got the book might have written you a brilliant logline. Search your reviews in case.

If you have an ‘about the author’ paragraph on the back, should you update it? Perhaps you’ve published more books, or won a prestigious award.

What about your author photo? My Nail Your Novels had three different author photos according to the years they were published (and the hue of my hair), but with this reboot I decided to use a new image to make them look more current and uniform.

I also found I had room on the back for miniatures of the other books in the series – a good visual way to let readers know they’re part of a set.

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Quick Link: Facebook profile, Page, or group? An author’s primer

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Facebook is a strong tool in the author’s marketing toolbox. But did you know that there are three different types of Facebook pages you can create? Build Book Buzz explains the differences and how to tell which one is best for you.

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Facebook profile, Page, or group? An author’s primer

ThumbFinal_4.9.15Of all the social networks you can use to help promote your book, Facebook might have the most potential for a few reasons.

First, it gives you several ways to interact with your target audience. Second, it reaches a wider range of people than other social networks, and those users spend a lot of time on the site. Third, it offers affordable advertising options that, when implemented properly, can be effective.

For that reason, it’s important to understand the three primary ways you and your book can have a presence on that social network:

Profile
Page
Group
Do you have a Facebook profile, Page, or group — or any combination of the three? I’ve noticed many authors using the three interchangeably, as if they’re all the same.

They aren’t.

And when you’re unclear about whether you’ve got a profile, Page, or group, you’re going to be equally unclear about how to use each to its fullest potential.

If you’re confused, you’re confusing others, too
For example, an author recently emailed me about an online discussion. She thought she had seen it here on this blog; could I direct her to the right link? I clarified that it was in the Build Book Buzz Facebook group. Since she’s a member, I suggested she go to the group and scroll down to find it because it was recent.

Minutes later, she replied that she couldn’t find it.

I suggested using the group search box.

It didn’t take her long to come back and say that searching didn’t uncover it either.

That’s when the proverbial light bulb went on over my head.

“Are you searching the Build Book Buzz group or Page?” I asked.

“Whoops,” she replied. “I was on the Page.”

A profile, Page, and group all serve different purposes. Here’s a quick primer on each.

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In The News: Timberland libraries now offer access to self-published books

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Libraries get more offerings for their patrons, authors get more exposure.
Libraries get more offerings for their patrons, authors get more exposure.

In The News – Articles Of Interest For Authors

While this is a local news item, I am sharing for the information on Self-e.  Self-e is a free program for authors and small publishers to get their books into local libraries. The Olympian is just one news organization that is highlighting the opportunities this presents for authors.  Anyone out there tried Self-e? If so let us know your results.

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Timberland libraries now offer access to self-published books

By Ben Muir bmuir@theolympian.com

  • SELF-e is a website that lets libraries distribute the work of independent authors
  • It helps authors who don’t have publishing houses increase their visibility
  • It increases the library’s offerings for patrons

There are two ways to publish a book these days.

The first is through the six prominent publishing companies that are still the recommended route to maximum exposure.

The other is through independent publishing, an approach authors take when they haven’t signed with an agent or a publishing house, but still want their work to be read.

And there was no middle ground until SELF-e became the compromise.

SELF-e is a website that lets libraries distribute the work of independent authors, and offer an array of genres and content for subscribing patrons.

The Timberland Regional Library system has joined thousands of other libraries across the country in providing SELF-e offerings, said Timberland public relations specialist R.J. Burt.

“One of the barriers for writers is being recognized enough to be picked up by a large publishing house,” Burt said. “Libraries have broken down that barrier for writers, so they should certainly use it.”

How it helps local authors

Publishing on SELF-e is not only free but effortless, said Kim Storbeck, a library collections development specialist. After authors upload a book to SELF-e, there is a vetting process that takes roughly a week.

Read the full post on The Olympian

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Quick Links: Anthologies: How They Can Advance Your Writing Career

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I love anthologies as a way of finding new authors. Alex J. Cavanaugh discusses how anthologies can help writers and has tips to make your anthology experience successful.  Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris has the full details.

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Anthologies: How They Can Advance Your Writing Career

Anthologies - where too many chefs makes awesome sauce!
Anthologies – where too many chefs makes awesome sauce!

by Alex J. Cavanaugh

Anthologies are an excellent way for a writer to break into publishing. They can also do a lot to expand the audience for your existing titles. Blog ninja and Master and Commander of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, Alex J. Cavanaugh, has edited several anthologies, and gives us the skinny on how they can help your career. 

Anthologies offer something for everyone – the authors, the readers, and the organizing team.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group recently released its second anthology, Parallels: Felix Was Here. Previously, we’d put together The IWSG’s Guide to Publishing and Beyond.

Comprised of short essays from various IWSG members, the Guide was put together as free gift to our members and to any writer seeking assistance. The second anthology was the result of a yearly contest and offered the authors royalties. Both were a huge undertaking for the IWSG team to put together.

But the anthologies embody what the IWSG is all about – offering support and providing opportunities for writers at all levels to achieve their goal of being published. When you’re in an IWSG anthology, there’s a sense of family. All the winners become friends and offer support for each other. Watching that unfold is worth any amount of effort.

So, for anyone considering submitting to an anthology, putting together one, or even reading such a collection, I offer these tips and advantages.

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Quick Link: Eight things booksellers would like self-published authors to know

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Ever thought about trying to get your book into a bookstore or hold an event? Niki Hawkes at The Independent has some tips for you that booksellers think you should know. There is also a podcast along with the story.

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Eight things booksellers would like self-published authors to know

By Niki Hawkes

We want YOU to sell your book!
We want YOU to sell your book!

Self-published authors are sometimes ill-prepared or don’t know what to expect when they approach booksellers about selling their titles, signing events, policy, etc. To be successful in pitching their books to booksellers, self-published authors should have a sense of the resources available to booksellers, what is appealing to them, and how to approach them. Here are eight things booksellers would like self-published authors to know.

Making sure your title is available for bookstores to order is an important first step

Bookstores don’t have access to all titles, and corporate stores like Barnes and Noble can’t sell your title unless it’s in its system and available from one of its distributors. Independent bookstores are much more likely to accept copies you bring from home, but each one is different, so it’s important to do some preliminary research. The more available your book is, the easier it will be to make sales.

Before setting up a book signing, do research on how to get your title accepted into the bookstores you are considering.

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Quick Links: The Author’s Guide to Book Marketing: Part 2

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When should you start a marketing plan? Before you have even finished or started your book. A plan is just a map of what you want to accomplish and how to get there. shares some good tips on how to create a basic marketing plan over at Digital Book World.

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The Author’s Guide to Book Marketing: Part 2

By:

MarketingIn part 1 last week, we discussed the two basic questions that should drive any author’s marketing strategy. Below, we show how to turn that strategy into a workable plan.

Step 1: Set your tactics

Using all you’ve learned above, list every way in which you’ll reach your reader around publication. A classic marketing framework may look like this:

• Paid (marketing you pay for): Digital ads, flyers, tchotchkes, etc.
• Earned (marketing you have to earn): Book reviews, features, interviews, social media influencer outreach, events, bookstore adoption, etc.
• Owned (marketing you own or can build): Website, email list, social media presence, promotions, etc.

These are all the tactics that will support your strategy. Be as exhaustive and creative as you can.

Step 2: Build your schedule

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Quick Links: Indie Publishing Paths: What’s Your Reader Retention Plan? Part Four

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In on going reader retention series, Jami Gold at Fiction University, focuses on what is needed for a great excerpt. Your cover and your excerpt are the two main things potential readers will look at to pick your book out of the myriad of choices out there, so it is really important to get them right. 

One hint that I can add, that comes from one of my paid jobs producing a daily newsletter, make sure you have a one or two sentence synopsis that captures the essence of your story then build on that.  Very similar to the “elevator speech” this gives people an easy way to promote your book the way you want it. Especially if space is limited.

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Indie Publishing Paths: What’s Your Reader Retention Plan? Part Four

 June 2, 2016

By Jami Gold, @JamiGold

 Part of the Indie Authors Series

If I was someone really important I don't know that I would want to take elevators, from all the people trying to speech me.
Elevators – hunting grounds for people trying to improve themselves. “You… must… hear… my… speech!”

In this Indie Publishing Paths series, we first focused on how to decide which path will work best for us. Once we know our goals and priorities and are ready to put our book up for sale, we need to decide on:

The second phase of our indie publishing journey is to figure out how best to increase our chances for success along our chosen path. Whatever our goal, we’ll have a better chance of success if we can hold onto our readers from book to book.

So far, in the second part of this series, we’ve covered our options for…:

One of the options we discussed in Part One of this Reader Retention Plan phase was including an excerpt of our next book at the back of this book. Let’s take a closer look at when including an excerpt might be a good choice for us—and when it might not.

What’s the Purpose of an Excerpt?

We’ve probably all heard that we sell this book with the packaging (cover, back-cover blurb, etc.), and this book sells the next book. A teaser excerpt, typically the first chapter of book two placed at the end of book one (and so forth), takes that sales idea to a literal level.

Just as a reader is most interested in our work (as they finish this story), we include a teaser of the next story. An excerpt—if done well—can hook our readers enough to click on our buy link and purchase our next book right away.

Sounds great, right? So why wouldn’t we always want to include an excerpt of the next book?

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Quick Links: What to Do When No One Shows Up To Your Reading

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A lot of prospective authors are held back by fears like “what if no one likes my work”. So what if you hold an author event, and no one show up? Embarrassing, right? How do you deal, besides with lots of wine and Hagan Daz? Literary Hub‘s Matthew Norman survived such an event and gives us his tips for keeping our chins up and our spoons down.

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What to Do When No One Shows Up To Your Reading

Matthew Norman on the embarrassment of confronting an empty room

May 31, 2016
By Matthew Norman
Bipartisan empty seats!
Bipartisan empty seats!

A few days after my first novel Domestic Violets was published, I was scheduled to do a reading at the Barnes & Noble at Johns Hopkins University near my house in Baltimore. It’s difficult to describe how happy I was. I was officially a published novelist, which, at the time, represented the accomplishment of a lifelong dream, and I was about to do my first reading at an esteemed university. Things were good.

I charted my route to the bookstore on my phone, which was just plain silly. It was four miles from my house and had driven by it no less than 15 times in my life. To prepare, I selected a passage and read it aloud over and over, to no one. I spent an embarrassing amount of time picking out my outfit. I wanted to look like a writer, because, of course, I was a writer, but I didn’t want to look like I was trying to look like a writer. Slightly disheveled literary indifference was the goal, so I ultimately chose jeans, one of about 20 nearly identical blue-ish button-up shirts that I own, and a brown corduroy blazer. Sneakers would have been too carefree—too boyish. Instead, I opted for some brown, reasonably casual boots. I didn’t shave.

I got there absurdly early. My phone told me the trip would take about 12 minutes, but I allotted 45 just in case some sort of catastrophe struck along the way. I sat in my car for a while watching people come and go. Whenever someone entered the store, I wondered if he or she was there to see me read.

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Quick Links: How to Prepare for Self-Publishing – Covers Design

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A great cover is like a great outfit for your book. And like a great outfit, the cover should look good close up as well as far away. It is also the first thing a potential reader will judge you on. In a sea of titles, a quality cover will stand out and speak to your reader about the wonderful story within.  At Digital Book World, shares her tips for self-publishing authors on how to have a great cover.

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How to Prepare for Self-Publishing: Cover Design

By Catherine Dunn

Getting professional help is always a good option
Getting professional help is always a good option

Good cover design is the single most obvious way of making sure your book stands out on the shelf and looks professional.

Do Your Research

Look at your competition, both in hard copy and online. What looks professional and what looks bad? Why? Make your own list of some pitfalls to avoid and features that you like.

Think About the Ebook Version

It’s important to remember that something that works well in hard copy might not look so good as a thumbnail. A great design, though, should work in both formats.

A detailed background and delicate colors can get swallowed up at thumbnail size. That doesn’t mean you can’t use them at all, but you need to make sure that the overall design still works on a small scale.

What Type of Book Is It?

One piece of advice that I’ve heard over and over again is to make sure your cover design correctly conveys the genre of your book. You might not want your work to be pigeonholed, and you probably want it to look different from the competition, but you need to put those feelings to one side. Readers use some basic visual cues to decide whether they think they’ll enjoy your book or not. Embrace a healthy dash of cliché. If you’ve written a romance, the cover needs to say “Romance” loud and clear so that your intended readership will pick it up and have a look at the blurb.

This aspect of cover design has a big impact on completion rates. If people think they’re getting a cozy mystery and it turns out to be gory dystopian sci-fi, they’ll put the book down without reaching the end. They might only read the first chapter. If you’re publishing an ebook, this kind of thing can be tracked, and makes your book look poor when it might be a fantastic dystopian sci-fi novel! You might even get bad reviews if the content doesn’t match readers’ expectations.

Read the full post on Digital Book World

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Author Tools: Self-Publishing: How to Promote Your Book With One Easy Photoshop Technique

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Author Tools – things to help you get your writing done

If you don’t have Photoshop, GIMP is a free and well respected alternative. at The Write Life shows you how to make your book(s) stand out and look professional for promotions. I would not recommend using this type of image as a replacement for your book cover at places like Amazon

though.

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Self-Publishing: How to Promote Your Book With One Easy Photoshop Technique

You can also get away with a jpg background file..
Hint: You can also get away with a jpg background file, like this mock up I made – Publetariat Editor

May 25, 2016

By Alicia Rades

Are you looking for eye-catching images you can use on social media, in newsletters, and elsewhere online to market your self-published books?

Do you also have Adobe Photoshop on your computer?

Then you’re in luck!

Photoshop mockups are Photoshop files that use smart objects to allow you to easily insert your book cover into the photo. In the end, they’ll turn out like this:

Read the full post on The Write Life

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Quick Links: Twitter For Writers – More Proof That It Works – Updated

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With only being allowed 140 characters, many writers put their social energy into other areas than Twitter. But Twitter can be a great way to meet other writers, find out great resources, and yes – even sell books.  At BooksGoSocial Book Marketing Blog, goes into great detail on how to use Twitter and what tools are available to help manage your Twitter accounts.

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Twitter For Writers – More Proof That It Works – Updated

Laurence O’Bryan

 vector-social-media-illustration_GJGhCnBO_LTwitter has hundreds of millions of  daily users worldwide. It is both a way to engage one to one with people and a way to broadcast information. Writers use it every day for both. Search for #amwriting on Twitter and you will see some of the activity writers are engaging in on Twitter. Some of it is broadcasting. Some of it is looking for engagement.

If you use it consistently you will get noticed. It’s not a magic wand, but it does reach readers.

Twitter sells books too. On this page you will see actual Tweets from real people who have bought books because of Tweets, and a table showing thousands of people going to book pages on Amazon as a result of book promotion Tweets, all tracked by an independent hit tracking service. You can also see other comments at the bottom of this post from people whose books sold more because they were Tweeted about.

There’s a lot of misinformation around about the value of Twitter for writers. Much of it is written by writers who struggle with how to use Twitter effectively. Often it’s assumed that one or two Tweets to your followers is enough and that if that approach fails, it’s because Twitter isn’t effective at selling books. That adage about workmen blaming their tools comes to mind.

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Quick Links: Creating Promotional Material That Works: Swag

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Authors are trying everything to get their book noticed. One great way is free stuff. You want to make sure that you are using items that work. Over at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University, Marcy Kennedy gives some great information. Editor’s note – Marcy mentions Moo.com as a resource. I want to add that I love them. Their quality is amazing and they have so many diverse products that you can do creative things with. I am not paid by Moo or get any affiliate income, I just love using their services.

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Creating Promotional Material That Works: Swag

 By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy

Part of the Indie Author Series

Promoting with fireworks is out of most people's budget - but really cool
Promoting with fireworks is out of most people’s budget – but it would be really cool!

Over the last two months we’ve looked at writing a tag line for our books and writing our book description that goes up on retailers and on the back of our book.

This month we’re going to talk swag. Swag is physical items related to our book/series. It could be bookmarks and postcards, mugs or magnets with our book cover on it, or even jewelry based on something worn by our characters.

Authors sometimes confuse swag with things like candy that many also hand out when doing book signings or attending conferences. The defining quality of swag is that it’s a “permanent” physical product and it’s directly related to our books in some way. So candy with a custom wrapper doesn’t really qualify. People will eat the candy and throw the wrapper away. It won’t be something others see and comment on. Disposable items usually aren’t a good investment.I polled a few other authors for this post to see what’s worked for them when it comes to swag and what sites they like the best.

The secret to what swag works seems to be know your personal business model.

For authors who want to be able to quickly adapt, swag can be a bad idea because it leaves you with a lot of outdated products.

“I have not done bookmarks for a very long time,” said multi-genre author Pauline Baird Jones. “Because I need to be nimble and flexible, my covers sometimes change, so then I lose the money spent on bookmarks. I think bookmarks work better for authors who do a lot of events, such as signings. Most of my sales are online, so it’s not cost effective for me to do a lot.”

However, for authors who’ve built up a street team to help them spread the word or who want to do launch events, swag can be a great way to build audience excitement.

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