Marketing

Quick Links: How to Create a Monthly Social Media Calendar

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Social media is key in connecting with readers and helping them to find your book. But each social media outlet you add increases the time needed  to manage it, as well as adding one more thing to track.  Angelina M. Lopez posts at Writers in the Storm on how to tame the social media beasts with an organized monthly calendar.

~ * ~

How to Create a Monthly Social Media Calendar

May 25th, 2016
My brain on social media
My brain on social media

Angelina M. Lopez

You’ve hit that mid-year lull, haven’t you? That time when, instead of creating social media posts with an objective, you’re posting a lot of cat videos. Instead of planning goal-oriented posts that express your personality, appeal to your fans, and move you closer to your business goals, you’re re-sharing the tired memes from your friend’s feed.

It’s all right. The annual social media calendar we created in January can get a little dusty midway through the year. Today, we’ll clean that calendar off and give it new life in your monthly social media calendar. A monthly social media calendar allows you to know what you’re going to post EVERY DAY!! It helps you balance promotional posts with fun and personal ones, it insures you’re talking about themes and topics important to you and your audience, and it focuses you so that your social media posts are moving you toward your goals.

And the time investment for this ease and focus? Only about two hours at the end of each month. Here’s how to build your own monthly social media calendar:

Step 1: Write down your list of topics from your annual social media calendar.

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: Book Pirates—ARRGH! Have Pirates Stolen your Book or Blog?

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Perhaps a reader has messaged you to let you know a book they read is a lot like yours or perhaps you found your title on a torrent list, thank goodness Anne R. Allen is here with wise words on how to manage.

~ * ~

Book Pirates—ARRGH! Have Pirates Stolen your Book or Blog?

By Anne R. Allen

Piracy has become big business in the age of e-publishing. If your intellectual property is available on the Web—in ebooks, blog posts or other web content—chances are pretty good you’re going to be pirated at some point. If you have a Google Alert on your name and book titles (and you should) you’ll get notices of this stuff pretty much every week.

You can sign up for Google Alerts here.

Mostly I get alerts on sites that use snippets of our blog posts to lure customers to buy fake medications, dodgy hair products, or knock-off sunglasses.

Then there are the torrent sites that offer my books for free.

Torrent Sites

“Torrent” sites are websites that use a protocol called “BitTorrent” for free file sharing. They’ve been around since the 90s. They were invented for sharing (often stealing) music files. But they’ve branched into ebooks now.

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: Why Authors Need To Know About Book Sales Cycles

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Among all the other things an author needs to know is that book sales follow a fairly predictable cycle. This is very important for your marketing plan and helpful for when to pick your book launch. Thank goodness C.S. Lakin on her Live Write Thrive site has some timeless advice for dealing with the books sales cycle.

~ * ~

Why Authors Need to Know about Book Sales Cycles

May your sales look like this...

May 26, 2016

For this week’s Throwback Thursday, we’re looking at an excerpt from The Cycles of Book Sales by Anthony Wessel, a book industry veteran and founder of DigitalBookToday.com:

I read indie authors’ blogs about the lack of sales in the past months. Most indie authors have only been through one or maybe two holiday seasons. A book is a product. Just like with most products there is a sales cycle on a year-to-year basis.

Readers are still buying books in the same cycle as they always have. Just on a different medium.

Trend Lines Are Pretty Much the Same

The book industry has sales trend lines that have been consistent for the past forty years. Sales are relatively flat on a week-to-week basis for forty-six weeks out of the year. Slight sales increases are seen on the minor sales holidays. This means approximately the same number of books is being read in any given week compared to the previous year. The marketing efforts of authors and publishers generally do not increase the total number of books that are purchased. The marketing effort is to get the consumer to purchase your product (book) instead of the competitor. A great example is the car industry.

Sales boom for six weeks (holiday season). During the last ten days of the holidays, retail bookstores would often have sales for a day that would equal what they would do in a week during the rest of the year.

The digital book sales for the 2011 holiday was different. People received a lot of Kindles/tablets under the tree. The only problem was that they had no books on them to read. The result was a Christmas sales season that happened in January, February, and March for ebooks. This was very reminiscent of the PC computer days of the ’80’s and ’90’s. Families would get PCs under the tree and then would have to go out after December 25 to purchase software.

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

In The News – E-books: a twist in the tale

by

In The News – Articles Of Interest For Authors

While we celebrate the indie publisher here at Publetariat, we still like to keep an eye on the publishing world. I am just glad for every author’s success! The Bookseller‘s editor, Philip Jones, breaks down the Publishers Association annual market report for those who are interested.

~ * ~

E-books: a twist in the tale

Marketing Mix Signpost With Place Price Product And PromotionIf the book market made sense it wouldn’t be so much fun. This week we are celebrating a 0.4% rise in physical book sales and an 11% drop in consumer e-book sales.

Today the Publishers Association releases its annual market report, The PA Statistics Yearbook that tracks the invoiced sales figures for all the major publishers in 2015. There are plenty of known knowns: physical book sales were up (just about), digital content sales were down (just about). Print fiction sales were up; digital fiction sales were down. Colouring books and vlogger books supercharged non-fiction.

The tone set by the report is upbeat. The UK publishing industry is in good health. It’s little wonder that everyone seems so cheery: print is back, digital did not kill us. The mood at the British Book Industry Awards on Monday evening was one of huge optimism and celebration. There is relief too (particularly as 2016 has got off to such a strong start) but also a sense of a sector thumbing its nose at all of those who have talked down publishing for the past half-decade.

There are still some that think traditional publishing is about to fall off a cliff: but if so they should pay particular attention to these statistics. The percentage changes may be small, but the significance is not. The digital transition has not been straightforward, but neither has it eroded sales. The digital market was in its infancy in 2009 when UK publishers recorded home sales of roughly £1,950m. In 2015 the equivalent number is £1,890m. A net loss but not a huge one, and more than made up by growth in export sales over the same period. In total UK publishers generated sales of £3.3bn in 2015, a nudge ahead of 2009’s pre-digital figure of £3.2bn.

Publishing may yet be hit by all sorts of body blows, but digital so far has not been one of them.

Read the full post on The Bookseller

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: Starting an Email Newsletter: Why to Do It and Which Service to Use

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Email lists are marketing gold. Think about it. Someone found what you were saying interesting enough to trust you with their contact information and want to know more.  at Jane Friedman talks more about why you should start one, and how. For my paying day job as a software engineer/internet specialist I am quite familiar with the different types of mail services, but right now my favorite is Mailchimp.  They are very respectable and work really hard to help beginners and experts alike. Mailchimp stays respectable as they make sure subscribers are not spammed. Because with great power comes great responsibility and no one likes a spammer. 

~ * ~

Starting an Email Newsletter: Why to Do It and Which Service to Use

Posted on

by

Email conceptToday’s guest post is the first in a series about growing an email list, by author Kirsten Oliphant (@kikimojo).

More and more authors now talk about the importance of growing an email list of readers. But I also hear from many people who are totally frustrated with email, from growing the list size to increasing open rates.

Often people start a list without knowing exactly why or what to do with it. (This is exactly how I started my first list four years ago, by the way.) Email can be your most powerful asset as an author, but you need to be intentional if you want results.

In this series, I’ll walk you through some of the places people get stuck to help you get the most out of your list. To start, let’s take the conversation back a few steps to discuss why email is important.

The Why of Email

With new social media platforms cropping up every month, email seems a little redundant—or even oddly ineffective, since it doesn’t have the same reach; you may have 200 email subscribers and 2,000 Twitter followers. We also know just how crowded our inboxes are. I delete plenty of emails per day without even opening them. So why spend time or money on an email list? Here are a few significant reasons.

Email Is Permanent

Social media is a fantastic tool for authors. We can connect with our readers in ways that were not possible even ten years ago using Twitter or Facebook or Pinterest. The problem is that we don’t control the connections. We are subject to each platform’s changes and algorithms. My Facebook page, for example, typically shows the posts I write to less than 10 percent of my followers.

There is no algorithm on an inbox (usually!). You have access and control that you have on no other platform. You can download a spreadsheet of your email subscribers and their emails at any time. In that sense, you own your list—something you can’t say for your Facebook likes or Twitter follows.

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: Secrets to Turning Your Facebook Page into an Epic Marketing Tool

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

More marketing tips today, dealing with one of the largest social media platforms out there – Facebook. Penny Sansevieri, guest posting on Writers In The Storm, gives us some excellent tips on how to turn up the volume on your Facebook marketing.

~ * ~

Secrets to Turning Your Facebook Page into an Epic Marketing Tool

Penny Sansevieri

ThumbFinal_4.9.15May 9th, 2016

According to a recent New York Times article, users spend an average of fifty minutes on Facebook. Fifty minutes! And though this number includes Instagram and the Facebook Messenger app, you can bet that the lion’s share is still spent  on their main platform.  Now more than ever it’s really important to turn your Facebook Page into something that isn’t just getting you likes, but making you sales as well.

I don’t know about you but I sort of have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, when it works it works well but when it doesn’t work, well… crickets. The challenge is that Facebook is always changing and as it does, our strategies need to change as well. Whether you have a strong Facebook page, or want to try and up your engagement on an existing page let’s have a look at some of the new and exciting features Facebook offers.

Facebook Livestreaming

In the past few months many of you have probably seen the little icon for the new Facebook Live, which gives you the opportunity to do livestreaming video right onto your Facebook page. To start a livestream, open up the status bar as though you were going to write a new post and click the little head with the circles around it. This will push you into a cue to start your livestreaming. You will then be prompted to name your video feed and choose your audience, meaning you can choose to Livestream to everyone, or just selected followers. Once you do that, you’ll click the button to go Live and voila, you are now broadcasting to your Facebook audience.  Also important to note, you can save the video if you decide you want to share it later – so perhaps add it to your YouTube channel, etc.

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: What I Learned from Launching My First Best Seller

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Yesterday we learned what not to do, today we look at lessons learned from a successful book launch. Jeff Goins at The Write Practice tells us what he figured out from his positive experience.

~ * ~

What I Learned from Launching My First Best Seller

by Jeff Goins
best practiceToday’s post is written by Jeff Goins. Jeff is the best-selling author of four books including, The Art of Work. His award-winning blog, Goinswriter.com, is visited by millions of people every year. Get his free book marketing cheatsheet here.

So you want to launch a bestseller. Great. Every writer does. But the truth is, before you can launch a best-selling book, you have to write a best-selling book. Here’s what I mean.

When my recent book, The Art of Work, became an instant bestseller, people asked me how I did it. They wanted to know the secret marketing tactic or promotional strategy I used. And those were the wrong questions to ask.

For the longest time, I wanted to be a best-selling author. I built my tribe, learned how to market, and assembled book launch teams. But it never happened. What was I doing wrong?

After four books, I finally did get a book on the bestseller lists. But it had nothing to do with timing or practice. With my fourth book, I actually learned how to write a book I believed in that would sell well. And any writer can do this, if they understand the process.

Just a couple quick notes, though, before I begin:

  1. This process works for writing nonfiction. I’m not a fiction author, so I can’t speak to that. This works for writing how-to, advice, self-help, memoir, business, and just about any other form of nonfiction.
  2. This is not about how to game your way onto a bestsellers list. I tried that. It didn’t work. This is about how to write a real bestseller, a book that continues to sell tens of thousands of copies every year.

3 Lessons I Learned from Launching my First Best-selling Book

So with that said, I want to share with you my process, what I learned from watching other authors succeed and then applied to my own writing journey. I wasted years trying to figure this out, but hopefully you won’t have to do the same. Here are three things I learned from launching my first best-selling book:

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: How I Failed at Promoting my Novel with Amazon Advertising

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Sometimes the best lessons are not the ones where you succeed but the ones you fail at. Those are the ones that you learn the most from, which means it isn’t really a failure, just a learning curve. Eliot Peper over on Reedsy.com shares his lesson’s learned with marketing through Amazon advertising. What tips do you have for getting the most bang for your dollar?

~ * ~

How I Failed at Promoting my Novel with Amazon Advertising

May 12, 2016
Eliot Peper
This was when I realized, I was no Katniss Everdeen.
This was when I realized, I was no Katniss Everdeen.

At Reedsy, we like to stay on top of new marketing opportunities for authors. We covered Product Hunt Books when they launched. Advertising on Amazon (via Amazon Marketing Services) is not “new”, however it is still, largely, an untapped resource for authors. In this guest post, indie author Eliot Peper explains how he tried it out, and what the results were.

Marketing is a fraught subject among novelists. It’s often seen as outside of our purview and some look down on those who aggressively market their own work, seeing promotion as a corruption of the creative process. Historically, many authors outsourced their marketing to publishers along with other responsibilities like printing and distribution. But technology-driven changes within the industry are forcing authors to become ever more involved with marketing their books, whether because they’re self-publishing or because their publisher demands it.

But novels are not a straight-forward product to promote. I read about 50 books a year and I don’t think I ever bought a novel because of a banner ad. Book PR firms have an abysmal track record. Most growth-hacking strategies borrowed from the tech industry simply don’t apply well to fiction. At the end of the day, there’s a single factor that determines a book’s financial success: word-of-mouth. Most often, we buy a book because a trusted friend recommended it.

Some indie authors, like Andy Weir and Hugh Howey, have achieved blockbuster success without investing much direct effort into marketing. Others, like Mark Dawson and Nick Stephenson, have engineered semi-automated systems that introduce their stories to new readers and hopefully inspire additional word-of-mouth. My own activities fall somewhere in between these two extremes. When I’m writing and editing a book, it’s a purely artistic process. But once a book is published and out in the world, I look at it through a commercial lens just like any other product.

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: Which Social Media Channel Sells The Most Books?

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

If you are an author, you know the importance of social media. Especially when it comes time to try and generate exposure and sales for your books. So this article from on Bad Redhead Media will be of interest to you. She breaks down the different social media options and gives a few hints too.

~ * ~

Which Social Media Channel Sells The Most Books?

By

vector-social-media-illustration_GJGhCnBO_L“Which one social media channel will net me the most book sales?” an author asked me recently during my new weekly #BookMarketingChat (join any Wednesday on Twitter, 6pm pst/9pm est simply by typing in the hashtag).

Well, it’s not that easy. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just go to say, Facebook because that’s the EASY button, and violá! They will come, we will sell, and yacht-life, here we come. Alas, it just doesn’t work that way because well, a few reasons.

Let’s deconstruct.

YouTube:

Across the board, YouTube has the highest conversions and the all-important measure, purchases. Yet, how many authors do you know (including myself) who utilize YouTube? And of those who do, how many are gaining the bulk of their sales from YouTube? Probably not a lot, with of course, the occasional notable exception like John Green.

Facebook: 

No surprise here, given that 1.6 billion people use Facebook, worldwide. What this means for authors is that somewhere in that mix is your demographic. In fact, Facebook was the first social network to surpass 1 billion monthly active users (Source: Statista.com).

How do you find readers? That’s the tricky part, as we are not allowed to use our personal accounts for financial gain (yea, we all agreed to that when we signed up for our accounts), so we have to reach our readers via an author page — tricky, Facebook, tricky — and the only way to get people over to our page is to pay to boost posts, or promote our page — aka, advertising. Still, I love interacting with people on a personal level, which is what the personal account is for, not ‘selling,’ so there’s that.

Use your author page to sell and interact, your personal account to build relationships. Keep the two separate. If you don’t, you risk Facebook shutting down your account (and believe me, it happens ALL.THE.TIME.).

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: What Self-Pubbing Authors Need to Know about Getting the Best Book Cover

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Your cover is one of the first things that a potential reader will use to decide if they want to read your book.  Writer, writing coach and blogger Lauren, over LaurenSapala.com gives it to you straight on how to get the best book cover. My personal tip, if you are not a graphic designer trained in covers, don’t do it yourself.  It shows.

~ * ~

Marketing for Writers Who Hate Marketing

What Self-Pubbing Authors Need to Know about Getting the Best Book Cover

20 April, 2016

bookshelf-with-books_fJDBXRLu_LLauren Sapala

Studies have proven again and again that humans make purchasing decisions based on emotional factors. This probably happens most frequently in the glittering online jungle known as Amazon.com. I read recently that Amazon is the only search engine people use with the mouse in one hand, and a credit card in the other. For me, a regular Amazon customer, I don’t even need my credit card. The site has my payment information recorded and it’s as simple as one click to send a new book to my Kindle.

If you’re a writer, and a reader, I know this is true for you too.

Emotional decision making + split-second purchasing power =

You better have a damn good book cover.

Too many self-pubbing authors have book covers that get lost in the deluge of 99 cent Kindle deals. The cover might be too generic, too bland; it doesn’t stand out when potential readers are skimming through hundreds of titles. Or the cover is too bright and the colors are all wrong; it comes off as gaudy and garish and turns off otherwise loyal fans of a genre. The key is balance. Your book cover should speak volumes with one fantastic image, and draw in die-hard followers as well as those readers who didn’t even know they were your audience.

Read the full post on LaurenSapala.com

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: How to Save Money and Do Online Book Publicity Yourself

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Jane Friedman always has some good posts, and I know this is going to be a big hit.  This guest post from author and publicist Fauzia Burke has a lot of great information for authors who are trying to get their book noticed. What are your online book publicity tips?

~ * ~

How to Save Money and Do Online Book Publicity Yourself

Helpful hint, it goes faster if you use all your fingers and put the laptop down.
Helpful hint, it goes faster if you use all your fingers and put the laptop down.

Fauzia Burke

There are two ways to go about getting attention in the media: one is to hire experts to help you reach the media, and the other is to do the legwork yourself.

I’ll be honest: publicity is not rocket science. If you are committed to the process, you can do it yourself. It will take you longer, and you will certainly spend many hours chasing opportunities, but you’ll save money. When you hire a PR expert, you are hiring them for their time, expertise, and contacts. Unfortunately, results are not guaranteed. Trust me—that fact is as frustrating for us in the field as it is for you.

There’s another thing to consider, and this may be difficult to hear: if you are self-publishing your book, you will probably get fewer reviews than if you were published by an established publisher. This is simply the truth. I totally understand the reasons to self-publish, but it’s important to be aware of the implications of that decision on your publicity prospects. It definitely means that you’ll have to focus more time on guest blogging and interviews.

Focus on Online Opportunities

If you decide you want to do the publicity work yourself, focus on the internet. Traditional media (newspapers, magazines, TV, radio) require great contacts and long lead times. It’s easy to make mistakes, and you certainly want to avoid those when it comes to publicity.

For busy authors, online publicity will be a lot more effective. Online publicity, however, is not for everyone. It takes patience and a thick skin, since you may face rejection and silence.

Read the full post on Jane Friedman

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: Making Changes to a Published Book

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

One of the nice things about eBooks is that it is very easy to make changes, especially if you are self published.  On Elizabeth S. Craig‘s site, she discusses the different times you would want to update your eBook.

~ * ~

Making Changes to a Published Book

Work In Progress Sign Held By Construction Workerby Elizabeth S. Craig

One of the things that delights me about self-publishing is the ability to go into a published book’s files and make changes.For my traditionally-published books, I can’t do a darn thing with the files.  I’ve alerted both Penguin Random House and Midnight Ink to reader-reported problems with both digital and print files that have resulted in missing pages, duplicate pages, and–in one particularly horrifying example–a completely different book from a  completely different author that Penguin Random House implanted in the last half of one of my mysteries. Problem at the printer? I’ve no idea, but I knew that the chance that I could get it fixed was iffy.  I ended up sending these readers signed copies of the book from my personal stash at home.

For my self-published books, I’ve made changes to the finished files quite a few times and for different reasons.

Changing a cover.  I’ve learned that the most important thing we can do to brand a series is to have covers that clearly show a connection between the books. I had one book in my Myrtle Clover mysteries that definitely didn’t look like the others.  There was nothing wrong with the cover, it just didn’t fit in.  I was in-between designers and couldn’t really articulate to the new designer what I was looking for.

Finally I decided to make a change.  I contacted my current cover designer, Karri Klawiter and asked her to recover the book for me (which she did…new cover is above). Once I’d changed it, I wished I’d taken care of it earlier because I had no issues at all involving customer confusion.  That’s mainly due to the fact that Amazon will not allow us to purchase the same book twice without alerting us that we already own the title in question.

But there were several things I did to try to avoid reader confusion. For one, I  didn’t announce it on my newsletter,  or call attention to it in any way.  And on Amazon and my website, I noted that the book had a new cover.

Read the full post on Elizabeth S. Craig

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: Media Kits for Writers: A Beginner’s Guide

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

What is a media kit? Do authors really need one? (Spoiler alert YES!) Over at All Indie Writers you can find out everything you need to know about media kits. A big thanks to for writing such a great post!

~ * ~

Media Kits for Writers: A Beginner’s Guide

April 18, 2016

note-lite-media-icon_My9kt6Id_LJennifer Mattern

One of my current projects is assembling a new media kit.

As you might know, I have a background in public relations. So I’m keenly aware of the importance of earned media, and have been securing coverage for my clients for quite some time. While I’ve also secured my fair share of coverage for myself, with changing professional ambitions in my future, doing even more of that is going to be essential.

That’s where a media kit can come in handy.

I have a rather diverse business on the publishing side of things, so I plan to create a new site to host this (along with other information about me and my various projects). This way I can link to it from all my blogs, author sites, and freelance sites — though pen name author sites will get their own when appropriate.

Right now I’m in the process of digging up my media clips because I haven’t done the best job maintaining a list of them over the years. It’s a fun process where I’m discovering some pretty significant citations I wasn’t even aware of (mostly in relation to my public relations work).

But is it worth the effort? Do writers really need to have a media kit?

Let’s explore media kits for writers and how they might be helpful to you in various types of writing and publishing work.

What is a Media Kit?

A media kit, in its simplest sense, is a collection of information that tells members of the media why they should care about you. It answers questions such as:

  • Who are you?
  • What have you done or accomplished?
  • Why are you newsworthy?
  • Why are you an expert source I should cite or interview?
  • How can I reach you if I want to cover, quote, or interview you?
Read the full post on All Indie Writers

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Links: 5 Signs It May Be Time to Publish a Print Book from a Kindle Version

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Have you ever wondered if you should create a print book, now that your eBook is doing well? Shelly from ShelleyHitz.com  walks us through some of the flags that will let you know that it is time.

~ * ~

5 Signs It May Be Time to Publish a Print Book from a Kindle Version

April 18, 2016

Woman sitting at the table with laptop and booksWhen is it the right time to publish a print book from a Kindle version?

When you publish a book I typically recommend you publish a Kindle book first. Why? Because it is so much easier. It’s an easier process, it’s less expensive, and it just simply gets you used to the process of publishing, getting something out there, testing the market, see how it does, and then see if you want to invest in a print book. But, what do you do then when you do want to publish a print book?

Sign #1: Your Book is Selling Well

The first thing you want to look at is, what are the sales for your Kindle book? Is it selling well? So that’s the first sign you may want to publish it as a print book, it is selling well.

We love sales right? Woo-Hoo!

One of the biggest things that authors write me and ask me about, “how can I sell more books?” One of the things is, if your Kindle book is selling well, if you then repurpose it into a print book guess what? You’re most likely going to increase the sales of that book because there’s going to be people that want both versions. So, that’s the first sign.

Sign #2: Your Customers Are Asking For It

The second sign is customers are asking you for it. I have customers that will write me.

As a matter of fact, just this week I had somebody email me and say, “is your book, Marketing Your Book on Amazon, available in print?”

Currently it’s not, but if you’re starting to get a lot of customers and a lot of people asking you, “is this book available in print?” Guess what you should do? You should probably make it available in print.

Read the full post on ShelleyHitz.com

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: Why You Need To Brand Yourself As An Author, And Exactly How To Do It

by

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Branding and marketing. Ugh! Writing can be an introverts dream, but if you want success you have to be able to deal with both marketing and branding. What is the difference? Stephen King has a brand. You know what to expect when you see a title with his name underneath. Marketing is what you do to promote yourself.  At Standout Books, has a great post about both. Oh and “bête noire” means something you don’t like doing. I had to look it up.

~ * ~

Why You Need To Brand Yourself As An Author, And Exactly How To Do It

by Robert Wood

Branding is the bête noire of the modern author, an often frightening necessity that can mean the difference between worldwide recognition and total obscurity. It’s an aspect of business that has grown more and more important as social media has become the norm, and the days where it was a possible route to success rather than an outright necessity have ended.

If you think that all sounds a bit gloomy, you’re not alone. This is the attitude with which most authors approach their branding and marketing. Cultural norms can take a long time to catch up to economic realities, and many authors long for a time when they didn’t need to deal with the marketing side of publication. It can feel like a difficult job that you shouldn’t have to do, but there is another way to look at it.

Building a brand doesn’t have to be an awful task, in fact it can be an incredibly creative endeavor. Not only that, but it can put you in total control of your financial future. There are a lot of advantages to establishing your own brand, but this is perhaps the most immediate: you become the boss.

How brands work

A brand is more than a mark of quality; it’s a simple, direct expression of the many things customers can expect from a product. Eugene Yiga put it fantastically when he said:

Broadly speaking, a brand is a set of hooks the mind uses to organize its experience of a commercial offering.

These ‘hooks’ are the concepts that customers associate with your brand, and they’re surprisingly varied. Stephen King has one of the strongest, most effective author brands in the world; the hooks on which readers hang his work include ‘high quality’ and ‘horror’, but also include less definable features such as his individual style and the specific feelings readers experience when they engage with his work.

Read the full post on Standout Books

~ * ~

If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.