author platform

Common Ground in the Debate of Self v. Traditional Publishing

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This post by Jack W. Perry originally appeared on Digital Book World on 2/21/14.

A storm was created last week in response to Hugh Howey’s Author Earnings post. It was widely criticized by many but also praised. It started a lot of discussion.

Having read most of the back and forth, I did notice a few commonalities.

Some issues all sides generally agree upon:

1) Digital has demolished the distribution barriers to entry for self-publishing. Before digital a self-published author would have to pay to print and distribute books. That was an outlay of cash and inefficient. The author then went to indie bookstores to get distribution one book at a time. Hoping to eventually break through and signed a major deal. Today an author can upload their book and get instant distribution to the entire country. Sales can happen immediately. The goal may be to remain independent or to gain negotiating leverage with traditional publishers.

2) The data is incomplete and there is a definite need for more transparency. Amazon, B&N, Apple and Google don’t publically release sales data. There is no “Bookscan for ebooks” although Nielsen is working on it with PubTrack Digital. Self-published and the Amazon proprietary titles are generally felt to be under-reported if at all. This feeds into the debate of the size of self-published ebooks. By withholding the Kindle data, Amazon has created a massive hole in any analysis. Perhaps a company like App Annie could fill that void and be a resource of data and analytics.

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes four additional points of discussion, on Digital Book World.

 

20 Lessons I’ve Learned on My Way to Selling 500,000 Books

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This post by Christy Heady originally appeared on her site on 1/9/14.

1. You don’t need an agent, but having the right one is absolutely the best investment you can make.

2. Co-authoring a book is a great idea.

3. No matter what the publishing house offers in terms of publicity, you are your own publicity machine.

4. That means you must need to know personal PR and have a game plan.

5. Speaking in soundbytes is imperative. Too much dribble means no more interviews.

6. Create a competitive analysis spreadsheet that shows you where the bullet holes are among your competition.

 

Click here to read the full post on Christy Heady’s site.

 

What You Love Is Where Your Writing Platform Lives

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This post by Christina Katz originally appeared on her The Prosperous Writer site on 2/14/14.

Do what you love and write what you love — sounds like a pretty good plan, right?

But what if I also told you that doing what you love and writing what you love leads to growing a platform you love?

Even better news!

But wait, here comes the punchline.

The challenge is that precisely what a writer loves is almost never apparent…unless the writer has already done a lot of writing.

In fact, I’d say 99.9% of writers I have worked with personally have to write their way to a successful platform.

Rare is the writer who can accurately predict what her platform is going to look like ahead of time without some writing to predict it.

 

Click here to view the full post on The Prosperous Writer.

 

How to Promote a Book with Video

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This post by Dana Lynn Smith originally appeared on her The Savvy Book Marketer on 5/15/13.

Videos are hugely popular online, from grumpy cats and music videos, to breaking news and movie trailers. In fact, YouTube (owned by Google) has become the second most popular website worldwide.

Today I want to share with you practical, actionable information on how to create and use video to promote your book and yourself. First, here are a few of the ways that authors can use video:

• For nonfiction authors, content-based videos (where you discuss the book’s topic) can be very effective. You can even do a series of videos dealing with different aspects of your topic. Options include “talking head” video where you are filmed speaking about the topic, demonstrations of how to do something, a slideshow with voiceover, or a combination of these. Be sure to promote the book at the end of the content-based video and include your website link. You can also work in mentions of the book earlier in the video (“Here are some of the top tips for _____ from my new book ______.”) but be sure to provide useful content rather than just promotion.

• Video trailers (short commercial-style videos, similar to movie trailers) work best for novels, narrative nonfiction, and children’s books. Usually these include a series of images and text with music or voiceover in the background, with a promotion to buy the book at the end. Don’t forget the link to your website or a short link to your Amazon page.

• Children’s book authors can post videos of book readings or related activities for kids.

 

Click here to read the full post on The Savvy Book Marketer.

 

Anne Rice Owns the Bullies

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This post originally appeared on STGRB on 1/26/14.

We’ve been meaning to write this post for a while. Sorry we are so late in doing it.
In our last post on Anne Rice, we showed you how she has been lighting up the Amazon fora with her wisdom and advice for authors. We also mentioned her unfortunate encounter with the bullies:

Note her Warning to Authors at the bottom. Unfortunately, like everyone else who has braved the discussion threads of Amazon, Anne too has noticed the hostility and general contempt that the AFT (Amazon Fora Trolls) have for authors. In fact, we published some of her comments on this topic in our post, Words of Wisdom From Anne Rice.

So… do you think she got attacked for her warning? You bet.

Has she stopped posting and offering her advice to authors? Nope.

In fact, she has responded to the trolls with such sophistication and eloquence, it seems they don’t really know how to respond to her. She’s too smart and trolls tend to be … well … not so smart.

In our post today we’ll show just how smart she is. She was immediately able to see right through the Amazon bullies and make intelligent observations that get right to the heart of the matter and reveal these nasty people for who and what they are: internet trolls. What’s more, she managed to isolate all of the most well-known trolls who stalk authors and their books simply because they have nothing better to do with their time.

First we’ll show you her general view of the Amazon bullies:

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes many screenshots of exchanges between Amazon reviewers and Anne Rice, on STGRB.

A Tale Of Two Author Brands

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This post by Joanna Penn originally appeared on her The Creative Penn blog on 2/3/14.

Here’s an outline of my two brands and how they contribute to my business, as well as my recommendations if you’re thinking about these issues. I get a lot of questions about this topic so I thought I would address it head on 🙂

 

What is a brand anyway?

Whether you like it or not, you have a brand as soon as you publish a book, or you start tweeting, or blogging or anything.

It’s how people perceive you.

It’s the words and images that are associated with you and your books.

It’s the emotions and feelings you trigger in the person who notices you or something you put into the world.

Therefore, it’s important to control the perception of your brand.

You can do that by making sure everything you put out there in the world represents what you want people to see.

 

TheCreativePenn.com – and me as Joanna Penn

The site is aimed at writers, publishing industry folks, authors and people wanting to write and be creative entrepreneurs. I am always upbeat and I want to be a positive force for good 🙂 so I will only share what resonates with that. Of course, I have down days like everyone else, but I don’t share them here.

 

Click here to read the full post on The Creative Penn blog.

 

Death By Promotion

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This post by Heidi Cullinan originally appeared on her blog on 2/11/14.

Getting Real About the Costs to Authors and Readers in the Current Marketing Environment

My name is Heidi Cullinan, and I’m here to write stories and publish books.

I’m not here to market. I’ll do a little of that because one must, because there is no cultural bulletin board right now my books can exist at, especially not mine as I’m a bit niche and still largely in my own pond. I strive to lift awareness of not just my work but works like mine, the whole LGBT romance pool, but even that is not the main purpose of why I’m here. I like to thank bloggers with ad purchases and guest posts and ARCs. I’ve made a forum for fans to chat, and if you link/@ reply me on social media and I’m able to see it, I’ll do my best to reply or at least like your post. I don’t buy reviews. I don’t ask people to buy books on a certain day at a certain hour at a certain place to game the system. I don’t send mass invites to “events” on Goodreads or Facebook. I don’t add people to newsletters who haven’t asked to be, and in fact I try to parcel out sub-newsletters for the truly die-hard to get ALL THE DEETS and those who just want release dates to not be spammed. I don’t cold-email other authors and ask them for pimpage or, even crazier, give them book recs. I don’t copy other people’s work because I can’t think of my own stories or hump sideways on someone else’s work because I’d sure like to scrape off some of their overflow. I don’t run around to ten million social media sites making sure I comment on every blog post, every review, every single mention of my work. I don’t join every new social media site and work up a huge presence there. I don’t stick my nose into reader conversations unless invited, and even if invited, sometimes I might decline. Because I’m a writer. I write books. I try to write a lot of books. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I do.

You would think, you really would, that such a declaration would be rather like stating the obvious. Except every goddamn day that passes, I feel more and more like the last unicorn, and even though I can’t find anyone actually turning the screws, I feel more and more pressure every day to market, promote, to be a flaming brand across the literary horizon. It’s killing me, and I think it’s eating a lot of our souls.

 

Click here to read the full post on Heidi Cullinan’s site.

 

An Author's Guide To Acing Pinterest

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This post by Sima Thakkar originally appeared on the San Francisco Book Review on 12/11/13.

Pinterest is so much more than just a pretty interface. While the UI (user interface) does boast a beautiful display of amazing visuals that you can mindlessly scroll through all day long, Pinterest is an extremely powerful tool that can drive potential readers back to your website. And we’re talking masses. Ready to get started? Here’s a 5-step process to get your Pinterest author page up and running:

Step 1: Claim Your Username
Just like all your other social networks, you want to be sure to claim your Pinterest URL. Your Pinterest name will read as www.pinterest.com/username. Try to keep this username consistent with your Twitter and Facebook handle names, so your audience knows exactly where to find you.

Step 2: Complete Your Profile
Just like any other social media profile make sure you’ve uploaded your profile image and filled out all the necessary information including your website URL, links to your other social media profiles, and a short description.

Step 3: Create Interesting Boards

 

Click here to read the full post on the San Francisco Book Review.

 

12 Most In-Demand Content Types for your Website

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This post by Jeremy Powers originally appeared on 12Most on 2/5/14.

Business is all about giving customers what they want. On your website, your prospects expect an awful lot from you. Your visitors want proof you are trustworthy, human, and smart. At the same time, however, your web visitors want, DEMAND really, you keep them entertained, informed and engaged.

How can you keep visitors to your website engaged?

The best method to keep your customers and prospects interested is to make your content interesting. The tactic we are focused on today is diversity of content type. Here are some content types readers enjoy. I encourage you to make your website more interesting by using all of them throughout the year.

 

1. Video

There are many ways you can use video to engage your website visitors. Sam Fiorella covered some great options using video just last week. I don’t think you need to use video all the time, but you can consider video your secret weapon. Video can give your website a serious traffic boost. As an added bonus, your regular visitors will appreciate the new medium.

 

2. Infographics

Infographics have been talked about for some time as a great source of link-bait. For our purposes, I want you to forget all that SEO mumbo-jumbo, and I want you to just think about creating something truly unique for your visitors. A one-of-a-kind graphic can be a simple thing. Some of my favorite infographics are hand-drawn, and they are my favorites because they are so memorable.

 

3. List posts

What is a list post? Ummm, I want you to open your favorite article here on 12 Most. That is a list post. List posts can be done in a variety of ways. You don’t have to expand on each individual item, but I recommend it. The nice thing about list posts is that these posts tend to encourage reader comments. The posts are “scannable,” and easy to appreciate with minimal effort by the reader.

 

Click here to read the full post on 12Most.

 

Facebook Is About To Get More Friendly—Just Not To Brands

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Authors and publishers who use Facebook Fan Pages as part of their platform will want to read this article by Selena Robinson on ReadWrite.

Yes, Facebook is about to change its newsfeed algorithm yet again. Here are some highlights from the article:

Facebook went on to say that users weren’t as engaged with the service when shown more text updates from Pages. So Facebook is now telling Page owners that if they want their posts to appear in newsfeeds, they ought to feature photos or links.

The change is the latest in a slew of newsfeed tweaks that aim to put “higher quality content” front and center in the newsfeed. Facebook is trying to eradicate annoying memes and Upworthy-style articles by encouraging pages to share only interesting and relevant posts.

But Facebook’s algorithm changes also risk minimizing the exposure small businesses and brands can expect from the social network. Mark Cuban, billionaire businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team, pointed out last year that Facebook’s policy of charging pages huge fees for his team’s posts to reach more newsfeeds forced him to look for other outlets to share team updates.

 

Click here to read the full article on ReadWrite.

 

3 Book Marketing Projects to Tackle in 2014

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This post by Toni Tesori originally appeared on Duolit on 1/8/14.

This is my year.

No more excuses.

2014, I will OWN you!

Sound familiar?

The ringing in of a new year forces us to think about what we’ve achieved in the past twelve months — and how we can do things a bit better this time around.

After the fireworks die down and the champagne stops bubbling, we sit down and make those dreaded…you guessed it: New Year’s Resolutions.

The funny thing about resolutions, though? Their success could be determined by a simple coin flip!

That’s right, less than half of us will actually stick to our resolutions — and that means half of our author friends will end the year no better where they started, which makes us mega-sad. But why does this happen?

You start out with good intentions, right? January 1st brings with it plenty of motivation, but it is darn near impossible to keep up that drive for twelve months. To actually accomplish our goals, we need to add something else to our awesome motivation:

Motivation + [Focus] = WIN!

That’s right, Focus. Motivation without focus is like deciding to go on a road trip, but accidentally leaving the map and smartphone at home. You might eventually reach something really cool, like the Jimmy Carter Peanut Statue…but, without a plan, you’re likely to turn around after an hour or so when your trip starts feeling like a waste of time and gas.

Let’s be real: choosing where to focus your marketing attention is hard. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone just told you what you should do to promote your work?

Ta-da!

3 Book Marketing Projects to Tackle in 2014

 

Click here to read the full post on Duolit.

 

100 Tips to Be a Smarter, Better Twitterer

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This post originally appeared on the Computer Colleges site on 5/12/09.

1. Set up your profile: Give people a glimpse beyond what your tweets reveal.

2. Include a picture: Make sure you add a photo of yourself so that your tweets will be more personal.

3. Create a simple and short Twitter name: The longer your Twitter ID, the more space it takes up, and having a complicated name can make it hard for people to respond to or mention you.

4. Just do it: Don’t just lurk-jump into the conversation.

5. Make your profile link something that tells more about you: Share your blog, an about me page, or any other page that offers more information about the person behind the tweets.

6. Share photos: Post your photos on Twitter to shake things up a bit and add some interest to your stream.

7. Use proper grammar: Occasional abbreviations are passable, but make sure that your tweets are readable.

8. Use your real name: Build your personal brand by choosing your real name as your Twitter ID.

9. List your location: Many people use Twitter for local networking, so they’ll be more likely to follow you if they know where you are.

10. Learn the lingo: If you don’t know what DM, @, RT, and other Twitter symbols and words are, look them up or ask.

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes 90 more Twitter tips, on the Computer Colleges site.

 

How to Curate Your Facebook News Feed

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This post by Kurt Wagner originally appeared on Mashable on 1/19/14. The post explains recent changes to the Facebook news feed design, and what users can do to control the content shown there.

Baby photos. News articles. Selfies. Advertisements. Job announcements.

It’s likely your Facebook News Feed contains some combination of these, if not all of them (and likely other categories, too). That’s both the beauty and the curse of News Feed: It provides updates from all aspects of your life in one place, including those you may not care to see.

In March, Facebook announced a News feed redesign. Mark Zuckerberg told press, “What we are trying to give everyone is a copy of the best personalized newspaper in the world.” The redesign has since stumbled, but the goal of turning Facebook into a “personalized newspaper” remains strong. And Facebook could use your help.

Mashable sat down with Greg Marra, Facebook’s product manager for News Feed, to discuss how users can best curate the content that they see in News Feed. The easiest way to change what you see? Engage with content, says Marra.

“The basic interactions of News Feed are some of the most important signals that we get,” he explains. “Unfortunately, those interactions aren’t able to capture everything that we want to know, so we also give people additional controls to tell us things we can’t figure out just from normal usage of News Feed.”

Here’s what we learned.

 

If You Want to Stop Seeing Posts From a Facebook Friend…

If you’re cold-blooded, eliminating News Feed posts from an annoying friend or ex-flame is simple: Unfriend them. But many people don’t have the heart to completely eliminate someone from their Facebook life.

 

Click here to read the full article on Mashable.

 

How Social Media Influences Purchasing Decisions

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There’s a terrific infographic over at Alltop / Holy Kaw! that breaks down some very interesting statistics about how social media can influence purchasing decisions. This kind of information can be very useful for authors and publishers who use social media for promotion. Here are just a few of the facts included in the infographic:

71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals.

38% of Facebook users purchase an item after sharing or Liking it on Facebook.

50% of purchases inspired by social media exposure take place within one week, 80% take place within three weeks.

 

Click here to view the infographic on Alltop / Holy Kaw!

 

Invitation To Guest Blog For The Book Designer

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This post, by Joel Friedlander, originally appeared on his The Book Designer site on 1/12/14.

I want to make you famous.

Well, famous to a well-defined group of people; the readers of this blog.

As the world of self-publishing expands, it becomes more difficult for any one person to stay up to date with new services, advancing technologies, and the people who are making change happen.

At the same time I’m finding new ways to address the needs of indie book publishers by offering more and more choices for solid, well-constructed books.

This started with the articles on the blog that deal with
◾ Self-publishing basics
◾ Book design and production
◾ Distribution and discounting
◾ Marketing and platform building

It grew with the launch of my video-based training course for authors, the Self-Publishing Roadmap.

Now it includes the tools for authors at Book Design Templates, and will soon expand again.

However, this leaves me less time than ever before.

 

Write for The Book Designer

To accommodate all this growth, I’m looking for a few bloggers who would like to get “famous” by appearing on my blog. I’m looking for people who can make complex ideas simple, respond to what readers want to learn, and inspire writers to believe in their own publishing dreams.

 

Click here to read the rest of the post, which includes directions for how to contact Joel, on The Book Designer.