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Articles about book / author promotion and marketing, and author platform.

5 Reasons You Should Do NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

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November is fast approaching so you need to know about NaNoWriMo!

National Novel Writing Month is November every year and the aim is to write 50,000 words in 30 days on a new piece of work. Basically, it’s a novel in a month. But don’t be afraid – no one gets to read your “novel” so it is basically a first draft piece of work. Here’s Nanowrimo in a nutshell.

You should do this because:

  • You have always said you wanted to write a novel, so let this be your first step. I felt like this last year (Sept 2009) and last week (Sept 2010) my thriller novel ‘Pentecost’ came back from my editor. Yes, I started ‘Pentecost’ in NaNoWriMo last year and now it is a 70,000 word novel ready for rewrites. Woohoo! I only managed just over 21,000 words in November and most of that was cut out but the idea sprung from Nano as well as a lot of the key ideas and plot. It catapulted me into a novel in 2010.
  • You need to understand how to write a first draft fast. I didn’t know how to write fast last year. I hadn’t learned about separating the creator and editor in my mind and so I agonized over my writing. I felt I had to create a perfectly crafted sentence before writing fiction. Then I was introduced to “Write or Die” and word count goals, and behold, a novel began (the first of many!) Nanowrimo is about quantity of writing, not quality so you are forced to get the words out. There are no blocks here!
  • You will learn a lot in 30 days of writing. Check out my NaNoWriMo posts from last year including videos of my progress and lessons learned. It is an amazing way to get into the nuts and bolts of writing a novel. I was stunned by how much I learned through the process of writing itself and then investigating as I went.
  • You will be part of a global community. Join in the hashtag #nanowrimo on Twitter or the blog posts from writers around the world. Check in at NaNoWriMo.org to see what other people are up to. Receive the brilliant encouraging emails that help you along every week. You can even join in live or online writing events. Thousands of people do this, it is a community writing month!
  • You can clean the novel up later, it’s just a first draft! The aim is to write, not to be perfect. So get the ideas flowing and you will discover that actually writing encourages the muse. You don’t need to sit around thinking – just write! Editing the novel comes later and that is a much more extensive process, but no one can edit a blank page.

NaNoWriMo 2009 changed my life. I can say that hand on heart. It gave me the courage to write badly and to start writing fiction, to put words on the page and to let the ideas flow. I have spent most of this year reworking those ideas, but that month started the process. Without it I may still be saying “I wish I could write a novel” or “I only write non-fiction”. If you have a dream to write a novel, I urge you to register for NaNoWriMo and get started on Nov 1st! (Click here for information)

PS. After saying all that, I have to admit that I won’t be doing NaNoWriMo this year as I have rewrites to do for Pentecost in order to have it ready to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards in Jan 2010. I did want to be ready but I am not pro enough to be able to complete a novel in 1 year yet! I hope you are still encouraged to join in.

Will you be joining NaNoWriMo this year?

 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Promote Your Book on the Goodreads Network

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With more than 3 million members, Goodreads is the largest social network for readers. The site is a terrific way for authors (especially fiction authors) to interact with their target audiences through the Goodreads Author Program.

Like other social networks, members join and set up a profile. But the emphasis of this site is on discussing books and sharing book recommendations with others. Members can create a catalog of the books they have read, are currently reading, and plan to read in the future; post reviews; create lists of books; start a book club; join a discussion group; or even contact an author.

To sign up for this free reader network, just enter your name, email, and a password on this page. I recommend setting up your own profile and book catalog and becoming familiar with the site before you get started with the author program.
See this page for details on how to upgrade your account to "author" status. Here are some of the things you can do to promote yourself and your books on Goodreads:

• Post a picture and bio.

• Share your list of favorite books and recent reads with your fans.

• Start a blog or import a feed of your existing blog.

• Publicize upcoming events, such as book signings and speaking engagements.

• Share book excerpts and other writing.

• Write a quiz about your book or a related topic.

• Post videos.

The Goodreads Author Program offers these promotional tools to authors:

• List a book giveaway to generate pre-launch buzz.

• Lead a Q&A discussion group for readers.

• Participate in discussions on your profile, in groups and in the discussion forums for your books.

• Add the Goodreads Author widget to your personal website or blog to show off reviews of your books.

• Advertise your book to the Goodreads Community.

The key to getting good results on Goodreads is to join in the conversation on the site and share with others.  One of the best ways to make friends on Goodreads is to be active in groups related to your genre or topic and to send friend requests to selected folks in those groups. But don’t overdo it – as with all social networks it’s important to observe proper etiquette. Read the guidelines for authors and be careful not to engage in activities that are considered spamming, such as contacting or friending everyone who has read your book or similar books.

Many authors find reader communities such as Goodreads to be more beneficial than general networking sites like Facebook. I recommend starting with Goodreads because it’s the largest, but there are a number of similar sites and some are geared to specific types of books, such as children’s books. See this list of virtual reader communities for additional networks to consider.

 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer.

Write For All You're Worth

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On Twitter, I try to retweet links of value to writers. Since I know many writers are constantly on the lookout for paying gigs, I follow @writersjobs and frequently retweet the help wanted ads they post. Mind you, @writersjobs isn’t actually placing any of these help wanted ads, they just post links to the ads on Twitter to provide an easy, centralized gig list for writers.

Today, I was disheartened and even a little sickened when this ad showed up:

Ghost writer needed to write 10 blog posts. Will pay $.01 per word for 200-250 word posts. You choose the topic. All 10 posts must be on the same topic. Topic must be legal and PG. Must be original posts – plagiarized posts will not be purchased. Looking for one writer. Long-term projects available for the right person.

Bring on the number crunching…

I think half an hour per post is a pretty realistic estimate of the time involved, if you count the time spent coming up with the concept, writing the rough draft, and editing and polishing. At a penny a word, the maximum-length blog post will net you—wait for it—two dollars and fifty cents. Write one more and you’re rolling in five dollars an hour; that’s about 40% less than minimum wage, and that’s before taxes, too. You can’t even argue that this is a resume builder, since it’s a ghost writing job: someone else is going to take the credit for your work.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Look, I know tough times call for desperate measures, beggars can’t be choosers, in times of crisis we all wear different hats, and lots of other cliches. But writing is a skill, writing well is a hard won skill, and even people who mop floors and flip burgers for a living are entitled to a minimum wage that’s mandated by law. Yet although this gig will obviously pay less than either of those jobs would, the person who’s hiring intends to be picky about selecting the "right person" for "long term projects".

The "right person" in this case is a fool who’s willing to be taken gross advantage of, but I have no doubt he or she is out there, writing an eager email to apply for the job this very moment. And it’s because of that writer that ALL of us, and our work, are being devalued faster than Detroit real estate.

Take a gig that pays minimum wage if you must, but do it knowing you’re earning no more than you would working fast food or retail at the entry level—less if you play by the rules and take self-employment taxes into account. If you’re good, you can and should command better pay. And "command" is exactly the right word for it.
 

This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author Blog.

Marketing Monday: Are You Wasting Your Time?

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It goes without saying, though obviously I’m going to, that I enjoy blogging. It’s a form of writing and writing is what I do. But I recently had to re-evaluate whether blogging was worth my time after reading The Blog Tyrant‘s post “Why Blogging is a Waste of Your Time.“

It all comes down to “why are you blogging?” At first I thought it would be a good way to make a little extra money, but I quickly found that a free blog doesn’t generate income (at least not easily). And I wasn’t willing to commit money to this endeavor as so many others have. I admire people like Darren Rowse of Problogger who have spent money on their blogs and have shown that you can make a go of being a professional blogger. I just don’t think that being a problogger is what I want to do at this time, though I do plan on using his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog eBook often.

I then decided it would be a better way to reach an audience and maybe help a fellow Independent Authors. The problem with this was that nearly all the advice out there says you must blog everyday. I believe having a blog is a great way to build an author platform, but I was finding myself working more on my blog and less on what I really wanted to do — write books. I rebelled and stuck with weekly postings. Still, I felt like this blog thing wasn’t working like I wanted.

Enter Blog Tyrant. I wasn’t convinced that blogging was wasting my time until I read these words:

Your goal is to make money online to give yourself a better life. Blogging might not be the best way to do that. It might be a distraction that you use because it is easy, available and popular. But perhaps you would be better off doing something else? [emphasis mine]

Perhaps my time would be better served by not blogging. How right he is. I am an Independent Author, not a ProBlogger. It’s time I began acting like that as I travel down The Road to Writing.

P.S. I’ll still be blogging. I just won’t be obsessing about it quite so much. :) What about you?

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road to Writing.

6 Tweets To Promote Your Online Fiction

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This post, from Bryce Beattie, originally appeared on his How To Self Publish A Book site on 9/27/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

I’m just going to assume here that you post fiction on your blog, and that you want more exposure for it. With that extra exposure, hopefully you’ll sell more books. Here’s five ways to promote your fiction using Twitter.

Oh, wait, before we get down to brass tacks here, let me just make sure you’re starting from the right spot. You need a Twitter account, and you need to make sure it is public.

One more thing – if you are looking to use your fiction as a way to gain readers and hopefully fans, you are almost always best off writing a serial of some sort. The hope is that readers will come back to find out what happens next.

Tweet #1 – Five Second Fiction

This is where you tell a whole story in a single tweet. And you don’t even have a whole tweet to do it, because you have to put #5secfic in your tweet. I’m pretty sure you get bonus points for working a pun into the story.

So that fans can discover your *ahem* longer pieces, make sure you have a link to your website/blog in your twitter profile.

Examples

#5secfic Bubba put down the wrench and put the baggie in his pants, giving new meaning to the term “Plumber’s Crack.”

#5secfic If only Jim had at least sent flowers he would still have a windshield and all of his left shoes.

Tweet #2 – Pimp My Story

Every Saturday, kira at EpiGuide puts together a digest of recent releases in of web fiction serials. To participate use the hashtag #pimpmystory when tweeting about your latest chapter.

Example

The Journey of St. Laurent: In Chapter 38, it’s finally time for UFOs vs Survivalists. http://bit.ly/dqCuzM #pimpmystory

For the complete skinny on “Pimp My Story”, check out the official rules: http://www.epiguide.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14866

Tweet #3 – Tuesday Serial

This is another way to promote the most recent chapter in your online serial. To participate here, sometime during the week tweet about the latest installment of your epic alien romance story using the hashtag #TuesdaySerial, then on the next Tuesday, go visit http://tuesdayserial.com/?page_id=1527 and submit your entry following the instructions on that page.

Example (of the tweet)

The redone and expanded Chapter 38 of The Journey of St. Laurent is up http://bit.ly/dqCuzM #TuesdaySerial

For complete details, visit: http://tuesdayserial.com/?page_id=7

Tweet #4 – Friday Flash

Here’s what you do. You write & post a piece of flash fiction (about 1,000 words or less) then you tweet about it using #FridayFlash. You can also submit it to the weekly collector: http://www.jmstrother.com/tiki-view_tracker.php?trackerId=2 (just click “insert new item”)

Example:

#FridayFlash A New Year’s Revolution http://bit.ly/9uM7Fo

Tweet #5 – Web Fic Wednesday

This one is a little different. This is one you can’t do yourself. You have to write something good enough for somebody else to tweet about it. They just put the hashtag #WebFicWed and a link to your site or a page with some of your fiction.

Every week, the #WebFicWed links are digested and posted by JanOda on http://www.ergofiction.com

Don’t be lame and start a new twitter account just so you can suggest yourself. Seriously. Although, I think it would be fair to mention somewhere on your blog/website “If you like this fiction, please tweet me for #WebFicWed”. I guess I’m not so awesome, because nobody had ever tweeted me up for this.

Example:

Check out J. Dane Tyler for #WebFicWed. Great short horror stories. http://jdanetyler.wordpress.com

New! Tweet #6 – Very Short Story

Thanks to Anke for pointing this one out.

Just like #5secfic, except you use #vss.

Example:

Jon looked down to see the laundry gnome dancing in his washing machine and burning socks. He closed the lid and went back to bed. #vss

Bonus Tweets.

Here’s another few general use hashtags that readers search for when discovering new fiction. Just sprinkle them in whenever you tweet about your stories.

#webfiction

#weblit

#fiction

#nanofiction, #microfiction, #TwitFic – like unto #vss & #5secfic

Now stop reading this and go write some fiction.

 

Self Publishing Success: A New Author Shares Her Journey In New Era Book Publishing

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This article, from Israel Vasquetelle, originally appeared on AwarenessMogul on 9/13/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with the author’s permission.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing author M. Louisa Locke. Her first novel, a Victorian era mystery, has managed to reach an audience despite not benefiting from the resources of a traditional book publisher. She’s not a household name, at least not yet, however, in the era of new media and the technology that makes it these channels possible, it’s not necessary to have a huge audience to find success.

Locke is part of a growing contingency of authors that have chosen to bypass the lottery-like odds that require the need to gain the limited attention of traditional publishers. Instead of chasing a middleman, she reaches a potential audience by utilizing the democratizing services of digital distributors and print on demand services that helped her to make her title a reality.

Traditionally, authors with aspirations of making it alongside bestsellers on bookshelves would need to convince gatekeepers of their potential to sell huge quantities. Obviously, only a tiny percentage of those considered ever garner a book deal. Once getting through that level of immense scrutiny, typically, for a new author, that means a small advance and a ticket on a waiting list that could last many months or years. Furthermore, for better or worse, the author’s words are subject to a barrage of changes and revisions by editors. If, and when the book finally hits the market, it will only receive the promotional resources of its publisher for a very short window of time. 

In many instances, the author also finds themselves investing their own funds and efforts to further promote the title. If an author is to realize income from the sale of the book, the revenue realized by the publisher first must offset expenses associated with the printing, packing, shipping, and marketing of that title. The publisher first has to recoup a bulk of their investment– including advance monies paid to the author– before the book’s creator ever has a shot at realizing further revenue. Even then, the potential of revenue in most cases is miniscule. This is because the author’s share is derived from a small percentage of sales. Because of this fairly standard model, only a small percentage of authors actually reap financial rewards from the sale of their product- beyond an initial modest advance. Without an impressive amount of sales, it may take quite a while for their next book to reach a bookshelf, if ever. Many authors understand these issues, however, continue to choose this route as a shot at reaching an audience and for the potential prestige associated with being a published author.

Due to changes in distribution and how people consume books, the publishing paradigm continues to change rapidly. Not too long ago Amazon announced that over 50% of its book sales are now coming from digital sales. This is great news for many authors that would never have a shot of having their books on the shelves of a Borders or Barnes & Noble nationally. Today, these authors can have their books sold right alongside the biggest-sellers on places like Amazon and B&N. And, its not just digital versions that are on these virtual shelves, physical books are now printed as orders come in. Technology makes it possible to forgo the need to incur the overhead of advance printing and then the shipping and storing for a book that may take months, if not longer, to sell. Even with these advances, sales aren’t going to happen effortlessly. Just making the content available doesn’t guarantee its consumption. Ultimately, the product has to be good and new authors must also be savvy marketers willing to participate in a variety of activities online to connect with audiences. For authors like Locke that fit that criteria, the opportunity for success is more of a reality than ever before.

Unlike the stories that we’re used to reading about the million-selling success of blockbusters, new stories will continue to emerge of a new type of media success that doesn’t involve immense budgets and multinational conglomerates. These individuals don’t have to recoup millions, hundreds of thousands, or in some cases not even thousands of dollars to be in the black. Many just have to reach hundreds or maybe thousands of interested readers. So, what is success in this new space? Everyone has a different definition, for many authors it’s simply making their work easily accessible by an audience and being fairly compensated for that consumption. Locke is realizing this achievement. In this interview, Locke shares her journey of publishing, technology, new media, and reaching an audience.

Can you discuss the premise of your book?

My book, The Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, is the first in a planned series of historical mysteries set in 1879 San Francisco and featuring Annie Fuller, a young widow who runs a boarding house. Annie supplements her income as the clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl, who gives business and domestic advice. When one of Madam Sibyl’s clients dies, Annie, with the help of a local lawyer, Nate Dawson, investigates his death.

From the beginning it was my intention to use the historical mystery genre to illuminate the late Victorian world of women and work. Maids of Misfortune focuses on domestic service, the most prevalent paid female occupation of the period, while Uneasy Spirits, the sequel I am currently working on, examines nineteenth century spiritualism and female trance mediums. Subsequent books in the series will concentrate on teaching, clerical work, and other common forms of paid work for women. These books will also investigate the Victorian gender system through the developing attraction between Annie and Nate. Of course, despite these historical themes, my primary purpose is to tell entertaining stories, with tension, romance, and humor.

As a college history professor, you obviously have a passion for the subject. Can you discuss what finally convinced you to write your book after being inspired so many years ago?

I actually had the idea for the book thirty years ago while working on my dissertation for a doctorate in history. I was reading a diary of a domestic servant who was complaining about being locked out of the house, and it gave me the idea for a locked room mystery. Ten years later, when I thought I would be stuck in the underpaid career of adjunct teaching, I wrote a first draft of the mystery. Then I was offered a full time job teaching at a local community college. This twenty-year career as a history professor was an extremely satisfying one, but it kept me so busy that I didn’t have the time to devote to writing and trying to sell the book.

However, I never gave up my determination to become a published author. I remained active in a writer’s critique group, I worked on rewriting sections of the book, and I kept up on trends in publishing. When I cut back on my teaching (instead of teaching 5 classes a semester, I only teach one), I knew I had to give my writing career one more chance.

I felt that Maids of Misfortune was a book that deserved to be read, and what I had learned about the new opportunities provided by self-publishing, ebooks, and print on demand technology convinced me that I didn’t have to depend on the traditional publishing route to make that happen. That was very liberating, and I have been pleased with my experience as an indie author.

There is a level of responsibility and control when you self-publish that is both terrifying and gratifying. I knew that I had to get my manuscript to the same level of professional writing as a traditionally published book–that was the terrifying part. At the same time, I had complete control over the text, cover and interior design, and marketing, and when the final product was finished and began to sell–that was very gratifying.

Your book falls into a unique niche due to it being a romance novel focusing on a Victorian era female sleuth. Can you discuss how your audience has managed to find you and your book?

At this point, I haven’t really positioned the book in the romance genre, although I do believe that fans of this kind of fiction would enjoy the book. This is simply because the romance in the book, while a strong part of the story, is subordinate to the mystery. In addition, there isn’t the explicit sex that readers of romances often expect.

Instead, I have concentrated on marketing Maids of Misfortune as part of the historical mystery sub-genre. To that end I contacted those websites that specialize in historical mysteries. For example, there is a site called Crime Thru Time and another called Historical Mystery Fiction that list mysteries by era. This is one way to make sure people who read this sort of fiction will find my book.

Amazon’s browsing capabilities may be the best way that fans of the historical mystery genre have of finding me. I specifically put the words "Victorian" and "Mystery" into my book title, and as a result, if you put in the words "Victorian mystery" into an Amazon book search, Maids of Misfortune consistently shows up on the first page, even when I hadn’t yet sold many books. In addition, Amazon’s "Customers Who Bought This Item, Also Bought…" programming very quickly began to list my book when people bought other better-known Victorian mysteries.

Perhaps most importantly, Amazon permits people to browse in its Kindle and print bookstores, and one specific sub-category is historical mysteries. At first, because of a computer glitch, my book didn’t show up under that path, but when this error was corrected, Maids of Misfortune started showing up as one of the top three bestsellers in this category on Kindle, and one of the top 100 in Amazon’s book store. Therefore, anyone looking for an historical mystery of any type is going to find mine, is going to see the 4 1/2 stars, the positive reviews, and the free sample. According to Amazon’s data, consistently 80% of the customers who click onto the product page for the print book go on to purchase it, and over 90% of the Kindle customers who click onto the book product page go on to buy the book. I think this is probably the main way I sell the book.

I know you have a blog, can you discuss a bit about how you connect with your audience there and on any other online platforms or social networks?

My blog, The Front Parlor, is the main place where I have chronicled my path as an indie author. I wrote a series of three long posts on "Why I decided to self-publish," and later addressed how I handled the lack of a professional editor in a series of posts entitled, "How to be your own best editor." These topics doesn’t necessarily translate into potential sales of my book, since people interested in this subject may not be interested in buying historical mysteries.

However, when I entered a contest on Publetariat, a site devoted to self-publishing, and won, this began to expose me to a much larger national audience. Once I became a regular contributor to this site and Maids of Misfortune began to be advertised on the site (as a consequence of winning the contest), I noticed an uptick in sales.

When I first published my book, I made an announcement on Facebook, and much to my pleasure a good number of old high school friends and acquaintances ordered the book. On the other hand, as of yet I don’t have an enormous number of Facebook "friends" so the impact of this has been rather limited (except I continue to hear about other people learning about the book through "word of mouth" from these first buyers).

I do use twitter, although again, like Facebook, my contacts are limited. I find twitter a great way to keep up on publishing trends, and I try to follow people who have shown interest in historical mysteries, which may have garnered me sales. I admire writers who make good use of twitter, but so far I haven’t figured out a way to use either twitter or Facebook efficiently or effectively. There are lots of "how to" advice articles on using social media to promote your books, but most of the suggestions seem to require a good deal of time (which takes me away from writing), or a kind of direct promotion with which I feel uncomfortable.

Can you discuss other ways that you build awareness for your book?

There are a good number of sites where readers hang out and chat about books, and I have just begun the process of joining and participating on these sites. Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari are the most famous. Each of these sites has smaller groups or forums that concentrate on different kinds of genre fiction–including historical mysteries. There are also specialized sites like the delightful romance fiction site, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and Historical Fiction Online, and KindleBoards. Every time I join in on a conversation on one of those sites, I am essentially introducing myself to new readers, who if they like what I have to say might check out my profile, see that I have published a book, and might eventually buy that book.

It is important to actually participate on these sites in an honest fashion rather than just joining to promote your book (readers are very touchy about this). I am a life-long reader and fan of mysteries and historical fiction (and devoted Kindle fan), so this really isn’t much of a hardship, but it does take time.

Have you reached out to press or new media outlets for coverage?

Standard print media outlets generally do not review self-published books or ebooks (or genre fiction for that matter). If my first book continues to do as well as it has, when I am ready to publish my next book I will probably contact my local paper, because at that point I will have an established track record, and they might be more likely to take me seriously.

In contrast, Internet reviewers seem more comfortable with the new trends in publishing, and there are an expanding number of bloggers who specialize in reviewing genre fiction. I queried 14 reviewers, got requests for review copies of the book from six, and eventually received four reviews, all positive. Traditional book publishers send hundreds of review copies of books out to reviewers, but I don’t know what kind of return they get on this effort in terms of reviews if the book isn’t by an established, best-selling author.

I did submit Maids of Misfortune to two contests for self published books as a way to garner press. I was a finalist in the historical fiction category in the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and this meant that my book was part of this organization’s promotional activities, including the distribution of their catalog at Book Expo America in New York. (The second contest won’t announce winners until October.)

Can you describe any promotional activities? I believe that I read that you offer a free ebook. How has that worked out in regards to building your audience and garnering sales?

I haven’t pursued the use of contests (with free giveaways), which is one promotional method that some authors are using, although one of the on-line reviewers gave away my book in one of her promotional contests.

What I did was write a short story, Dandy Detects, based on characters from my novel, and I offer that free on Smashwords (which because of its affiliations, means it is also free in the Barnes and Noble estore and Ibooks on the IPad.) Over 400 copies of this short story have been downloaded on Smashwords, which means 400 potential buyers of Maids of Misfortune. A number of people who have independently reviewed Maids of Misfortune on Amazon, Shelfari, etc., mentioned reading Dandy Detects first.

Unfortunately, as a self-published author on Kindle, I couldn’t offer the story for free, but have to charge 99 cents. Even so, I have sold over 250 Dandy Detects on Kindle. But, I got a chance to see the effectiveness of offering free material when Steven Windwalker on Kindle Nation Daily featured Dandy Detects as part of his "Free Kindle Shorts" at the beginning of July. Within two days I sold 187 copies of Maids of Misfortune, I hit the top of "movers and shakers" on Amazon, and this is when I started showing up in the top of the bestselling list of historical mysteries.

Are you involved with any offline activities such as book readings or signings? Have you sold books directly to your audience at such outings? If you haven’t, why not, and would you consider? 

Book tours and books signings are the traditional methods of promotion for most authors (with the mailing of book marks, post cards, and newsletters as a way to tap into an existing fan base–a base that I am just now creating). I haven’t pursued any of these activities as of yet. I am not convinced from what I have read, and from the experiences of my friends who have published traditionally that these methods are cost effective.

In addition, it is very difficult to get self-published books into traditional bookstores (who would be then willing to host a book signing). This is the main marketing advantage traditionally published print books have over independently published (or electronic) books. Their sales departments sell to bookstores, and then an author can book a signing with stores (who benefit because it brings traffic into the store).

Self-published authors can sometimes convince bookstores to carry their books on consignment (particularly if it is a local author with a certain local fan base). The local mystery bookstore in San Diego, Mysterious Galaxy, has agreed to do this for me. I will probably arrange a book signing with them when I launch my next book. I am also planning on writing to local bookstores in San Francisco (since my book is set in that city), and I hope that some of them will also be willing to carry Maids of Misfortune on consignment. If I am successful, I would try to arrange some book signings in that city.

For authors who publish ebooks, or print on demand books, (Maids of Misfortune is both), it is estores like Amazon.com, Smashwords, and Ibooks, not brick and mortar stores, that are important. And the data is quite clear-it is in estores where a steadily increasing percentage of books are now being bought. Therefore the marketing strategies that drive buyers to those sites and help them find my book when they shop in those ebook stores (Internet reviewers, social networking, fan sites, key words, etc.) make the most sense for me as a self-published author.

I do think I would consider doing a virtual blog tour, probably for the launch of the next book. Here you arrange to guest blog on a variety of blogs, which then helps promote those sites (since you advertise this on your own websites), but it also garners you potential sales from their readerships.

Can you discuss the publishing process? Can you describe your experience with the services that you used? Did you hire an editor?

The first step to self-publishing a book has to start with getting your manuscript in perfect condition. This means you want the reader to have no clue that it didn’t go through the whole traditional editing process-which doesn’t just mean no typos or grammatical errors, it means a high standard of writing, well plotted, and characters you care about. The most gratifying aspect of publishing Maids of Misfortune has been the frequent comment by readers that they didn’t want it to end, and they can’t wait until the next book. This is how I feel about my favorite books, and to have this said to me about my book is an immeasurable pleasure.

I didn’t hire an editor-although I think that most new self-published authors should, and I very well might hire one for future books. I had been working on this book literally for 20 years, I had gotten feedback from agents, editors, and my book critique group, I had rewritten it several times, and I had 30 years of correcting other peoples writing under my belt. In addition, I spent about four more months rewriting, with extensive cutting, polishing, and proofreading, and then I gave it to readers, and after their comments, I went through it one more time.

The next task was to get a cover designed-which was the one thing I paid someone else to do. I knew that I needed a cover that would show up well as a thumbnail-which is the main way most people will see it, but it was also important that it look completely professional for those people who bought the print book. I hired a local designer, Michelle Huffaker, who has subsequently become a good friend, and she did a terrific job.

I had chosen to publish Maids of Misfortune as an ebook with Smashwords and Kindle, and to produce my print book through Amazon’s print on demand division, CreateSpace. The main task to do this is to format the manuscript according to the requirements for each one.

Some people pay other people to do the formatting. I did it myself. I am not particularly tech savvy (my husband was my tech support) and it did require an attention to detail, but was not all that difficult. There are guides, how-to-books, and community forums to turn to for advice, but I depended on April Hamilton’s Indie Author Guide on Kindle, and a new print edition is coming out in this winter-I highly recommend it. For Smashwords you primarily had to produce a word document with all the formatting stripped from it so that their formatting program could work. For Kindle you need to create an html document. There was more to do to plan the interior design for the CreateSpace print edition (headers, chapter breaks, margins and gutters, etc), and it required a pdf document. However, once the files were created in each format, uploading the files and covers literally took minutes. Once I proofed each version and clicked "publish" the books were ready to be purchased in less than a week. Talk about instant gratification!

Are there other services that you considered using, but didn’t?

I might eventually publish an ebook with Scrib’d, but the benefit of Smashwords is that it produces a book that can be read on a variety of ereaders, including the Nook and IPad. Kindle is not only the largest market for ebooks, but through KindleAps, makes my book available on smart phones, the IPad, etc. In addition Smashwords provides the author 85% royalty rate, and now Kindle gives me 70% royalty rate-which is fantastic.

The other print on demand service I considered was LuLu, which provides a pretty comparable service and production cost to CreateSpace, but using CreateSpace gave me access to Amazon’s free shipping option for buyers, and the CreateSpace and Kindle support staffs-since they are both divisions of Amazon–were crucial to helping me solve the browsing path error I discussed previously.

What has the ratio of physical to ebooks sold via your selected online sellers?

At the end of the first four months, 54% of the books I had sold were ebooks, but the next four months 79% of the books I sold were ebooks. Since my ebooks are priced at $2.99 and my print books are $12.75, I am pleased that I am doing as well as I am selling print copies!

You generously revealed information about your first quarter sales. In a recent article in Publetariat.com, you shared that you’ve cracked the 1,000 sales mark. Can you discuss what activities you feel have provided the best results?

I believe a series of activities, cumulatively, have helped increase my sales.

In April 2009 three things happened. I became a regular contributor to Publetariat, I published my short story, Dandy Detects, and I changed my ebook price on Maids of Misfortune from $4 to $2.99. My total sales in March were 28; my total sales in April were 46. There are a number of people who have discussed how $2.99 seems like an important price point-that readers feel comfortable with taking a chance on a book at this price. I also noticed that occasionally for some reason Amazon discounts this to $2.39 and my numbers go up even more.

Then in May I began to get my first reviews on websites and got the book award, and my total sales in May were 80!

The trend continued upward, so that in June I sold 156 books. At the end of June I got the browsing path on Amazon fixed, and a week later the short story was featured on Kindle Nation Daily. In July I sold 490 books (three times what I sold the month before!). If you take away that 2-day bump, I still did well with 302 books sold. In August I have sold 330 books, averaging slightly more than 10 books a day, 75% of them ebooks. I figure that if I keep active on my blog, keep participating on other blogs and on the fan sites, I should at least be able to maintain that average. And with each new reader, there is the incalculable word of mouth factor to potentially increase my sales.

Would you have done anything differently?

The best way to answer this is to discuss 1) what I still hope do to continue market Maids of Misfortune and 2) what I plan to do differently for the next book.

1) As I mentioned earlier, I really haven’t pursued the traditional markets or marketing strategies. So I am committed to reaching out to more local San Diego books stores, as well as to San Francisco bookstores. I will be giving a talk at my college on my experiences with self-publishing, and I will talk to the college newspaper and other publications about doing interviews.

My intention was always to use my blog to talk about more than self-publishing, and I would like to begin to do a series of posts about writing historical fiction, and I think that will also make my blog more interesting to people who have read or might be interested in reading my book.

My author website is very practical-it is an effective place to find out about my book and short story and how to purchase them. But I would like to make the site a place where people who have gotten involved in the world of Maids of Misfortune would come to learn more about the characters, the time period, and the places that were featured in the book.

2) What I will do differently when I am ready to publish my sequel, Uneasy Spirits, is concentrate on truly "launching" the book with a lot more pre-publication activity. I will get reviews ahead of time. I will reach out to any stores who have shown interest in the first book and schedule launch parties and book signings. I will schedule a blog tour. I will encourage people who have bought the book to review it immediately and put those reviews on Amazon and Smashwords-something I didn’t do with Maids of Misfortune.

What’s your biggest lesson that you’ve learned from this experience?

I have learned if you have a good "product," in my case a well-written historical mystery, and you make the effort to use the new opportunities available on the Internet so that potential buyers will come across the book, look at the reviews, and sample the first chapter, that you can be successful.

Am I making a lot of money yet? No-although I am making $2 a book on my ebooks, and $2.77 on my print books-so the reader can do the math. . Could I make a living at this? Yes, in time if I produced 3 or 4 more books like Maids of Misfortune, and the ebook market continues to expand, as everyone predicts it will.

Without the option of self-publishing and ebooks, and these new ways of marketing, I am not at all convinced I would have gotten this book published, or if I did, that I would have been successful in getting enough books sold in bookstores before the dreaded return policy of stores kicked in. As a result, I probably, at my age (60) wouldn’t have had the motivation to continue to market the book, or write the sequel. And Annie Fuller and Nate Dawson and their world would not have been heard from, and that would be a shame.

 

 

Promote Your Book and Your Publishing Business with Bonus Materials

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Giving away free bonus materials is a great way to drive traffic to your website, encourage people to sign up for your opt-in mailing list, and promote your books and other products and services.

Having free resources and bonus materials on your website can draw visitors to the site, encourage repeat visits, and motivate visitors to recommend your site to others. You can also advertise your free bonus materials through your social networks, press releases and other promotional tools. Bonuses are effective for both fiction and nonfiction books.

Customers who have already purchased your book in a retail or online bookstore or checked it out at the library haven’t necessarily visited your website. A good way to encourage readers to visit your site is to include information within your book about bonus materials available at your website. For example, include a page at the back of the book or a message at the end of a chapter inviting the reader to visit your website for more information or a special bonus.

There are several ways to give away bonus material on your site. First, it’s important to encourage people to sign up for your opt-in mailing list so that you can continue to keep in touch with them and let them know about other books or services you offer. The best way to encourage opt-ins is to offer a free bonus to visitors in exchange for their name and email address.

If you have more than one bonus item to offer, you can make the others freely available. Some authors offer bonus material that’s exclusive to people who already bought the book. For example, you might offer downloadable worksheets from your book and require customers to enter a password (such as "the first word on page 47 of the book") to gain access. A more user-friendly alternative is to list a special URL in the book that links to bonus material that’s not found elsewhere on your website.

 

Bonus material can be in the form of downloadable documents or online resources. The key is to offer something educational, useful or entertaining that’s tied to the topic of your book. Here are some bonus ideas for nonfiction books:
 

  • Ebooks and special reports
  • Video and audio tutorials
  • Checklists
  • Quizzes
  • Case studies
  • Updated material from the book
  • Shopping guides
  • Teleseminars
  • Mini-courses via email

For a great example, take a look at the downloadable grocery shopping, food storage and meal planning tools on the Eat Clean Diet website.

Here are some ideas for giveaways suited to fiction books:
 

  • Short prequel or sequel featuring characters from your book
  • Historical profile for the time period that the book is set in
  • Profile of the location where the story takes place
  • Sample chapter from the book
  • List of other similar books (including yours) that readers may enjoy
  • Contests related to the story or theme of the book
  • Checklist for keeping track of favorite authors and books to read
  • Games, puzzles, or videos for children’s books

Downloadable documents can reinforce your brand and advertise your other products and services. For example, you can place an "about" page at the end of the document that promotes your other offerings.

Think about what type of bonus materials would be best suited to your book and how you can use those materials to draw people to your website, increase your opt-in list, and promote your other products and services.
 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith’s The Savvy Book Marketer.

Being An Indie Author And Self-Publishing With Zoe Winters (podcast)

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This interview was such fun! Zoe and I laugh our way through the serious but fun topic of being an indie author.

Zoe Winters is an independent paranormal romance author and has written the Bloodlust trilogy of novellas which have sold over 22,000 copies. She is also a passionate advocate of ‘indie authors’ and blogs at IndieReader.com on this topic.

 

 

In this podcast you will learn:

  • How writing inspiration can come from your obsessions and loves – whether that is Buffy or the Bible! How Zoe created a world of vampires and shape-shifters and other paranormal creatures. Write the books you want to read, don’t get hung up on what you “should” write.
  • What is an indie author anyway? Indie authors are self-publishing but they are reclaiming the word. It’s more like indie bands and indie film-makers. It’s about control and understanding how it all works, as well as self-esteem. Most indie authors do most of the work themselves. They pay for some services in order to make a professional book like editing and cover design, but use technologies like Print on demand and ebooks for distribution. Zoe recommends LightningSource as the best option. You do need to be a “publishing company” to be on Lightning Source as well as owning your own ISBNs.
  • Main distribution method for indie authors is online. The costs are down, you can reach an audience more easily. You can still do print as well as ebooks.
  • Once you’re selling well on Amazon, you’re in the system and the more you sell as you get recommended. Selling on Kindle and Amazon is the best way to sell. Use dtp.amazon.com
  • Get a professional editor for your work. Polish your writing and work with critique partners before you send it to the editor. Then they can improve it from there.
  • If you can, learn to do your own formatting. Smashwords style guide for Kindle. Perfect Pages by Aaron Shepard. Pro typesetting is not really necessary for a standard fiction text-based novel.
  • If you outsource, make sure you understand the contract. You can find professionals on Twitter.
  • Being an indie author is not for everybody. You need to be into keeping creative control. You also need to have a thick skin as there are many nay-sayers. You need to treat it as a real business.
  • How Zoe balances her time between writing and marketing after 2 years into indie authorship. It is difficult but you do need to focus on your writing as well as marketing. It’s good to build up a list of people who want your books and support you. There is a good community of people who are out there, doing their thing. Social networking is more about connection, not hard core sales. If people like you, they are more likely to buy your book.
  • On the Zoe Who? videos. Zoe wanted to take advantage of a video audience but didn’t want a book trailer or to put herself on the video. So she used XTRANormal.com to make some funny videos on self-publishing and being an indie author. Check them out on YouTube here.
  • How we feel about our first drafts and sending to editors. Zoe talks about “Save my Soul” and I talk about “Pentecost”. Most writers start with rough drafts and then it gets better with each revision. On putting the book out there when you have an audience already.

 

 

You can find Zoe at her website ZoeWinters.org and also at her blog.You can buy her books on Amazon.com here. She also writes at IndieReader and is on Twitter @zoewinters

 

 

Here’s one of the Zoe Who? animations – you can see more here.

 

 

This is a cross-posting from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 36:18 — 8.3MB)

What An Indie Hip Hop Act (Or Any Artist) Can Learn From This Self-Published Victorian Era Mystery Author

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This article, by Israel Vasquetelle, originally appeared on Insomniac Magazine on 9/19/10 and features M. Louisa Locke, one of our own Publetariat contributors.

Too many times, artists of all genres look only to their own immediate world for both creative and business inspiration. The problem is that those same ideas are recycled over and over again by many within that space. I remember when 50 Cent (and obviously artists before him) approached mixtapes as the ultimate way to saturate the market – one locality at a time. That was a phenomenal way for 50 and other artists to break in and make substantial names for themselves. The problem today is that nearly every rapper on the planet now has a mixtape.

Sure, this form of promotion and distribution can still prove to be a means to reach an audience, however, for the most part it’s noise. Today, mixtapes are a dime a dozen. Sometimes taking a step out of your immediate world, what every that may be, and looking at other forms of media can provide the most valuable insight. This is one of the reasons that for years I have continued to cover a variety artists and industry professionals’ stories of success within Insomniac. This has been done in hopes that their experiences will motivate others to find their own path to whatever they’re striving to achieve.

Maids of MisfortuneM. Louisa Locke recently published her first novel, a Victorian era mystery, and has managed to reach an audience despite not benefiting from the resources of a traditional book publisher. She’s not a household name, at least not yet, however, in the era of new media and the technology that makes it these channels possible, it’s not necessary to have a huge audience to find success.

Locke is part of a growing contingency of authors that have chosen to bypass the lottery-like odds that require the need to gain the limited attention of traditional publishers. Instead of chasing a middleman, she reaches a potential audience by utilizing the democratizing services of digital distributors and print on demand services that helped her to make her title a reality.

Artists seeking to get signed by labels should take a page out of this author’s playbook. With a little entrepreneurial spirit and the use of today’s technology, artists can reach their audience and maintain control of that connection. Until, this is something that was nearly impossible to achieve without a significant resources in the form of capital and a barrage of middlemen.Today, it takes talent, hard work and a bit of marketing savviness.

Traditionally, authors with aspirations of making it alongside bestsellers on bookshelves would need to convince gatekeepers of their potential to sell huge quantities. Obviously, only a tiny percentage of those considered ever garner a book deal. Once getting through that level of immense scrutiny, typically, for a new author, that means a small advance and a ticket on a waiting list that could last many months or years. Furthermore, for better or worse, the author’s words are subject to a barrage of changes and revisions by editors. If, and when the book finally hits the market, it will only receive the promotional resources of its publisher for a very short window of time.
 

Read the rest of the article on Insomniac Magazine.

10 Simple Steps To Increase Your Digital Influence

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This post, by Jeff Bullas, originally appeared on his site on 9/20/10.

What if you could shortcut the time it takes to be known as a thought leader or an expert or get elected to a position of authority and power or chosen for that important job that you want so desperately.

Just imagine when you wrote a book that it immediately sold in the thousands and maybe even appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Social media is sometimes viewed as just another way of communicating… and yes it is… but it is so much more than that if start to scratch its surface and dive in and start to leverage its power to spread your content globally and amplify the results. It can be used as a tool to promote your company and personal brand that can fast track results that can be astounding and the 10 people mentioned in this article I am sure would testify to that.

Social media is sometimes viewed as just another way of communicating… and yes it is… but it is so much more than that if start to scratch its surface and dive in and start to leverage its power to spread your content globally and amplify the results. It can be used as a tool to promote your company and personal brand that can fast track results that can be astounding and the 10 people mentioned in this article I am sure would testify to that.

There was a comment left on a post the other day and it was both expected and surprising.

“Why are cooperation, organization and collective action treated as new methods of achieving results … There’s nothing new to any of these interactions…the only “new” component is the current social networking apparatus (fb, twitter, etc.) and even these aren’t really new…and those are only variations on communications (primarily involving the internet) which we’ve been experimenting with now for more than a generation…but I worry about what we’re giving up for those advantages. I will worry even more if people unthinkingly give credit to social media for the achievements that would have resulted from their interaction without said media….”

Sure there are some problems with any new media with the fear of  the unknown or the concern with its possible diminishing of face to face interaction. The reality is that it increases real interaction both online and offline through reduced friction to keep in touch, be found and spread your knowledge and opinions in your niche.

I have found it facilitates face to face opportunities and intensifies my personal and professional interaction, engagement and collaboration and  it also breaks down barriers to communication by enabling multiple means to communicate and keep in touch that are both efficient and personal.

In fact my blog and my social media channels provide me with my own  multimedia printing press and marketing platform.

I think what excites most social media early innovators and adopters is the ease with which you can promote your ideas and opinions to large audiences without gatekeepers like traditional mass media costs and barriers that prohibited us sharing without getting permission from editors and journalists or power brokers.

The Influencer Project provides some more insights on what tips and actions you can implement to be digitally influential. Here are some thought leaders’ insights from the Influencer Project and I have added some actions you can implement or start to commence on your digital influence journey.

1. Hang out where your audience hangs out and get to understand them.

 

Read the rest of the post on Jeff Bullas‘ site.

When Dreams Become Expectations

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This post, by Nathan Bransford, originally appeared on his blog on 9/16/10.

There is a famous psychological study that shows that people who win the lottery and people who are involved in catastrophic accidents return to the same original base level of happiness after two years. People who make more than $75,000 are barely affected by further raises at all.

Success and fortune is normative. When we experience success, no matter how great, we first experience a blip of happiness, then we get used to it and start looking for what’s around the bend.

And for writers, as previously chronicled, this leads to the "If-Only Game." If I could only find an agent, then I’ll be happy. When you get that agent it becomes: If only I could find a publisher, then I’ll be happy. If only I could make the bestseller list, then I’ll be happy. If only I could have as many Twitter followers as Neil Gaiman, then I’ll be happy. We allow our success to be the new normal and aren’t satisfied even when we reach the next milestone because there’s always another milestone to be had.

But I think there’s another hidden danger for writers that can dampen writerly happiness: using our daydreams to get us through the tough times.

You know how it goes. You face a difficult time while writing, you don’t want to do it, you’re putting in such incredible hard work, and your mind starts drifting to your book being published and taking off and becoming a bestseller and being the next HARRY POTTER only more popular (don’t worry, we’re all J.K. Rowlings before publication) and sitting on Oprah’s couch and building A FLOATING CASTLE IN THE SKY TRUST US WE’LL BE RICH ENOUGH. And you use those dreams to power through the difficult stretches and redouble your efforts.

And that’s perfectly natural! No judging.
 

Read the rest of the post on Nathan Bransford’s blog.

Peeling Away The Layers Of Confusion

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When I first started researching the area of Self Publishing about three years ago, I was struck by the multitude of terms used both writers and publishers to define their own business. We can easily review many self publishing companies and rattle off terms like Vanity Publishing, Subsidy Publishing, POD (Print-on-demand) Publishing, Partnership Publishing and Independent Publishing. I’m sure many readers of Selfpublishingreview can list off a few others.

 
In the development of Self Publishing over many years, the above terms have not only merged, but indeed, the waters of distinction have become pretty muddied. I also have been guilty of interchanging the terms. It just seems that many Self Publishing companies (if I might call any publisher who offers one or more author services at a cost) are often all too eager to add to the confusion—combining romantic notions on the art of the writer with extravagant promises of notoriety and success—simply to promote a form of publishing were money flows to them and not the writer. Let me throw my two cents in on the above terms.
 
Vanity Publishers
 
These are the old timers of the business. Vanity in publishing has become like the ‘C’ word. To me, Vanity Publishers operate on the ‘bait and snare’ model of business. Get the customer interested enough; laud their work to high heaven; demonize traditional publishers; throw a veil of complexity on the publishing process; and like used car salesmen, don’t point out the scratches or the cracked chassis or the full costs until the customer asks how much to make the cheque out for and then hit them over the head with a baseball bat.
 
Sound pretty loathesome? Well, the reality is that many still operate this form of publishing business, and some of them have the highest turnover of self published titles every year. Brazen enough to even advertise four to five digit author fees! Vanity, to me, isn’t Aunt Maple wanting her life story published, nor is it some spotty college teenager thinking he has written ‘The Great American Novel.’ It is a publishing business set up to prey upon Aunt Maple’s and our teenager’s naivete, not their vanity. The vanity lies with the publisher smug and disingenuous enough to keep doing it.
 
Subsidy Publishers
 
Much of my attention two years ago was focussed on Subsidy Publishers in the USA. In the past year, I’ve started looking at UK and Irish Subsidy Publishers. What sets these Subsidy Publishers apart from Vanity Publishers is that, for the most part, they are upfront from the start about what they are offering, in effect—an author service, usually from submission through to design, production, print, final proof and the proverbial 25,000 online available booksellers and anything more is an additional paid add-on. The add-on’s are what is also known as the up sell. You will be emailed about ‘must have services’ which will help your book sell. Their contracts, rights, costs, editing, quality of production, promotion and marketing, if any, and other author services vary widely.
 
Like any serious purchase in life (and I believe a first book is as important as a first car or mortgage) research, shop around, ask a lot of questions, know the depth of service you are getting, talk to other authors who have used their services, and most importantly, be sure this is the right path to publishing for your book. Ignore the ‘Joyce, Whitman, Poe etc., self published’ spiel on the publisher’s web pages, as most of these tales have been debunked and are, at best, true, but this was a time when the common man and woman couldn’t read and hadn’t an arse in their skirts or trousers, and, at worst, blatantly false and misleading. Ignore their ‘listen to what our published authors said about us’ pages on their website.
 
Contact an author on their bookstore page through the web. They usually have web pages set up about their published books and will be far more candid about their experiences with the Subsidy Publisher. A good guide to a reputable Subsidy Publisher is one that actually advertises books on their publisher homepage. Remember, the vast majority of income for a Subsidy Publisher is made from author fees, not selling books!
 
Any author engaging with a Subsidy publisher who has not at first attempted the traditional route of agent/traditional publisher for their book is being very foolish. This has always been my first line of advice to an author. There is a vast wealth of knowledge to learn by pursuing this avenue at first call, pain and disappointment though it may bring.
 
Partnership Publishers
 
Again, this is any publisher who is upfront about a financial input from the author, but with the single significant difference from the Subsidy Publisher; a Partnership Publisher is also financially backing the author for one or more books, essentially, prepared to invest in the author and not just a book. It can also be referred to as ‘shared publishing,’ where there is a contract stipulating little or no advance, but a much larger percentage of royalties, sometimes up to 50%, far beyond the 6 – 12% royalties available from a traditional publisher’s contract.
 
You may be surprised to learn that in the past few years some larger publishers are creating imprints just for this kind of publishing. HarperCollins run HarperStudios, Troubador/Matador and also the London Press run a similar model in the UK, and I believe over the coming year, we are going to see an explosion of this kind of publishing from large traditional publishers caught in the trappings of economic recession, who, in spite of less well-informed observers and critics of traditional publishers, actually do believe in a philosophy of nurturing and investing in first-time raw talent. In the coming months, keep an eye on publishers like Macmillan, Faber & Faber and other such publishers who have strong online presence and are always testing the boundaries of what the publishing model is.
 
POD Publishers
 
I’ve been guilty of using this misnomer. All publishers can be POD Publishers if they are using digital and offset to define the method of printing. POD is a form of digital print technology first used in banking to print out customer statements. Someone saw the potential and introduced it to book printing. It allows publishers to print a single copy or short print run of a title in their catalogue without the need to use an offset print press. Offset printing has been the most common method used for the printing of books with a 2000+ print run. Like any product, the more produced in one run reduced the overall unit price. For the moderate self published books, the average is a few hundred copies, and offset is simply too prohibitive on unit price and storage for this amount. Many traditional publishers use POD (print on demand) to re-issue old back catalogue titles which would not warrant a sizeable print run to make them economical using offset printing.
 
You can bet over the next year that many large publishers will be using POD to print a lot of titles from their back catalogues as commissioning editors, and in particular acquisition editors, all stare with distain at their budgets and cut back on titles and quantities published and printed this year. Again, POD Publisher has become one of those terms which has arisen since the advent of publishers offering author publishing services. It is the tried and trusted method of digitally printing self published, low print-run books, and in fact 80% of Subsidy Publishers use exactly the same printer, Lightning Source, with huge printing facilities in the USA and UK. The remainder use other smaller digital printers, or have invested in their own machines.
 
Infinity Press is one of the few Subsidy Publishers who print in-house with their own equipment. With the advent of the Espresso Book Machine (EBM-a digital print machine, small enough to fit in a retail store), more and more Subsidy Publishers will probably have their own machines, or the buying customer will simply have their books purchased and printer in their bookstore.
 
Independent Publishers
 
All publishers who are not owned by a parent company are ‘Independent’ and make their own business decisions. This has nothing to do with the means an author chooses to achieve publication. If we were to draw a ‘family tree’ and list off all the publishers we can think of—you would probably find it a little disturbing to find out that many ‘publishers’ are often owned by the same large media conglomerate. This was very much an occurrence during the 1980’s and 1990’s, and even today, in the self publishing world, as companies like Author Solutions own Createspace, AuthorHouse, Wordclay and iUniverse.

(This article first appeared in selfpublishingreview.com)

 

This is a reprint from Mick Rooney‘s POD, Self Publishing and Independent Publishing.

Number Of Twitter Followers Is The Most Overrated Metric In Social Media

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This post, by Mack Collier, originally appeared on his site on 6/23/10.

Seriously, it’s total bunk.  I know because I spend WAY too much time tracking my referral traffic from Twitter, and the people that send that traffic here via tweets and RTs.

Two examples of how # of followers can be deceptive:

1 – Several months ago a member of Twitter with 70K followers tweeted a link to one of my posts.  I got a grand total of 3 visitors from that tweet.  I checked, and the guy was following 80K people.  When you try to follow everyone, you usually end up following no one.

2 – Last year, @ShannonPaul RTed a link to one of my posts.  Shannon had around 10K followers at the time.  Her RT led to an additional 600 visitors to my blog that day.  After Shannon’s tweet, a ripple affect started, as people within her network started RTing her tweet, which led to more RTs in their networks.  But the chain reaction started because Shannon was well-connected to her network.  They trusted her and the content she linked to (like my post). So even though Shannon’s network was 14% the size of the guy with 70K followers, her network sent 600 referral visitors, while the guy with 70K followers only sent 3.

This is why I think there is WAY too much emphasis placed on number of Twitter followers that a person has.  Especially when attempting to determine that person’s level of influence.  From what I’ve seen, it’s far more important to see how closely connected a person is with their Twitter network.  If you have a Twitter network of 150 close friends, your effective reach is likely much larger than a person that has 10,000 strangers following her.  I know that when certain people, like Shannon or @BethHarte RT a link to my blog, that I am about to get a flood of traffic.  Because Shannon and Beth are both highly connected to the people they follow.  Roughly 66% of their tweets are replies, so they are constantly interacting with the people that follow them.  That leads to stronger bonds and connections.

So if # of followers doesn’t count, how do you define influence and authority?

Read the rest of the post on Mack Collier’s site.

7 Reasons You Need A Facebook Fan Page

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Facebook Pages (also known as Fan Pages) look similar to personal Profiles, but they are designed for business use and they are a terrific way to promote yourself and your business. You can create a Page for your business, book, or even a character in a book. People join your Page by clicking the "like" button at the top of the page. (That button used to say "become a fan.")

Facebook Pages have several advantages over personal Profiles:

1.  You’re limited to 5,000 friends on your Profile, but there’s no limit on the number of people who can "like" your Page.

2.  Pages are designed for business use, so it’s more acceptable to be promotional on a Page than on a Profile.

3.  You can create multiple Pages to promote different products or businesses.

4.  You can send a message to everyone who has joined your page. Your message will show up in the Update section of each fan’s Inbox.

5.  You can create customized "tabs" or screens on your Page. For example, you can create a tab to promote your book and include your cover image, book video trailer and other content on that tab.

6.  After people join your Page, they will be directed to the Wall tab each time they visit the Page. But you can create a customized welcome screen for new visitors to land on. And each of the "tabs" or screens on your Page has its own URL that you can link to directly from outside of Facebook.
 

7.  You can use your Page to increase your email subscriber list, by adding an opt-in form and free bonus to one of the tabs. In the screenshot below you can see the Free Ebook tab that I added to my own Page.

FreeEbook

Learn how to create custom content like this on your own Facebook page in the August issue of The Savvy Book Marketer Newsletter. If you’re not already a subscriber, sign up now and you’ll receive exclusive access to the newsletter archives, including my tutorial, How to Create Custom Content on Your Facebook Page. You’ll also get a free copy of my ebook, Top Book Marketing Tips.

To learn more about how to use Facebook to promote yourself and your book, read Facebook Guide for Authors or The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing.

Have you already created a Facebook Page? Please share the link using the comment section below.
 

 

 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer.

Book Marketing: Use Your Email Signature Effectively

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You have probably heard this advice before, but have you done anything about it? What does your email signature say right now?

I get emails every day from people commenting on the blog, asking questions or telling me about their books which I love to receive and happily reply to. However, over 50% of those emails do not have any links in their email signature, and many have no email signature at all. Some have an image of a business card with no clickable links to their website or book for sale which is not very useful either.

How many emails do you send a day? To friends, your accountant, business colleagues, potential clients, potential readers and more. If your email signature is set up, you are constantly sending people your information and doing ‘passive’ marketing, spreading the word about you, your brand and your books. Use your email signature wisely and those people might click through and read more about your book/join your email list or contact you for business.

So, today’s book marketing advice is to sort out your email signature right now!

What information should an email signature contain?

To make sure people know who you are and can buy your books, you should include some of the following aspects:

  • Your full name, your business name and tagline if you have one, or an explanation of what you do. Don’t assume people know what you are about.
     
  • Your website and blog URL prefixed by http:// which makes it directly clickable (you should always use that prefix on the web for clickable links)
     
  • Your book titles and where people can buy them or find out more information e.g. Amazon.com links or specific pages of your website
     
  • A hook or offer for the reader that catches their eye if it is a topic they are interested in e.g. I mention my Author 2.0 Blueprint
     
  • Social media links including Twitter, Facebook and any other main site that is relevant (you don’t have to use them all!)
     
  • Address and phone details if they are relevant to how you run your business
     
  • Logo or picture of you or your books if you want to include them. This is not mandatory, but if you do include them, make sure you also include plain text links as well.

My basic email signature is shown above. It is an image here but as an email signature all the links are clickable.

I don’t use any fancy formatting or images right now but there are plugins and code you can use to make it look prettier. That is great but just get something basic up for starters and worry about formatting later. If people want to know more about you, they want the information right in front of them. They don’t want to search for it.

If you’re having problems with your email, try Gmail

Some people have problems with their email accounts and providers. It seems some of them make it very difficult to set up email signatures. If you’re struggling with email, I highly recommend using http://www.gmail.com which is Google’s own free online email service. You can set up a signature through the Settings page, and then the General area. There are also a host more benefits including easily searchable text, contacts and tasks integration and much more.

What do you include on your email signature now? Do you have any favorite tools for making it attractive?

 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.