Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "e-books"
Win a bundle of books by BestsellerBound authors!
This month, BestsellerBound.com is running a fabulous contest. You could win a bundle of 5 e-books by 5 different authors, and there are 5 bundles of e-books up for grabs, each containing different books. Among the books you could win are my own novels, The Dream and Second Chances.
For more details about which titles are included in the bundles and how to enter, please visit author Darcia Helle's website, at the following link: http://quietfurybooks.com/bsbgiveaway...
The contest will run throughout the month of April.
Good luck!
For more details about which titles are included in the bundles and how to enter, please visit author Darcia Helle's website, at the following link: http://quietfurybooks.com/bsbgiveaway...
The contest will run throughout the month of April.
Good luck!
A-Z of Self-publishing & Writing tips: D-F
Welcome to the second instalment of my series, in which I highlight a few things I have learnt over the years about the self-publishing journey.
I hope the series will be useful to aspiring writers and those who are having a hard time navigating their way through the often confusing self-publishing process.
The first part of the series was featured on author K.B. Walker's blog: A-C Writing and Self-publishing tips
So here we go:
D
Dialogue & Description:
There is a view that you should not include too much dialogue in your fiction. This is a view that, frankly, I don't believe in. I write character-driven fiction that contains a lot of dialogue, and I like it that way. When I'm reading books, I also like a lot of dialogue; when it's done correctly, it helps move the action along and also entertains more than a paragraph of prose ever could. That said, you should not include too much dialogue to the exclusion of other description. I think that description in a novel is also an important part of it. I really believe that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to how much dialogue and how much description you include in a novel, the important thing is that you write in a way that makes it easy for the reader. Writers will find their own style, and some will include a lot of description, some more dialogue. Where there is more description than dialogue in a novel, it can result in a slower paced book. Books with more dialogue are often quicker to read.
The important points when constructing dialogue in a novel, are as follows:
1. Make it clear who is speaking. So, for example, where there are two men talking to each other, if you say 'he said' a few times, this could result in confusion. Perhaps, have one of the men mention the name of the other within the dialogue once or twice, or mention the name of one of the men, e.g. 'said James.'
2. Vary the writing, i.e. don't keep saying, 'he said', or 'she said' every time a character finishes speaking. Add other things, like, 'he swept his hand through his hair as he spoke', or 'she avoided his eyes'. In this way you are 'showing' your reader what the characters are doing as they're speaking. An example:
One way of doing it:
'How much is this vase?' asked John.
'Fifty pounds,' answered Bobby.
'That's expensive for a vase.'
'It's rare... an antique,' said Bobby.
Another way:
John picked up a blue vase with a floral design.'How much does this cost?' He asked.
Bobby eyed him up and down as if trying to work out how much he could afford to pay. He narrowed his eyes and said, 'That's fifty pounds.'
John's eyes widened. 'That's expensive for a vase.'
'It's rare... an antique,' said Bobby as he wiped a stain from the top of the shop counter, avoiding John's stare.
Okay, so that's a basic unedited paragraph, but I hope it highlights what I mean about trying to make the dialogue interesting.
3. Make the dialogue realistic; i.e. if your story is set in a certain part of the country where people have an accent and a certain way of saying things, you should really include that within the dialogue.
I do know of writers who have done quite well writing a whole short story only using dialogue and nothing else. So, it is doable. I suppose the point I really want to make is that you should never listen to anyone who says there are hard and fast rules for this type of thing; as with any creative pursuit, use your own intuition, and make sure you feel happy with the writing you are putting out there.
Digital publishing:
Any new writers would be forgiven for being confused by all the various ways you can publish e-books online. This is very much the digital age when it comes to publishing. More e-books are sold than print books these days, so if you are serious about your writing you do need to consider having your books available in digital form as well as print.
There are number of sites available for publishing your books as e-books. Some of them are listed below:
1. Amazon Kindle - probably the most popular, and most widely read. I sell the majority of my e-books via Amazon Kindle. It's relatively easy to upload your books onto Kindle yourself and you don't even need an ISBN number to do that. Your book will be available more or less worldwide and at a price you choose. I don't think any serious writer can get away with not publishing their books on Kindle.
2. Smashwords.com - This is a great site for indie writers. It allows you to upload your book and it will be converted into most digital formats, so it's available for download to most (if not all) e-readers.
3. Barnes and Noble (B&N) - Nook. This is also a popular reading device. If you publish through Smashwords, your book will be available through B&N. Or, you can upload to B&N directly (although when I last looked at that you can only upload directly if you have a US address or bank account).
4. iBookstore - the iPad is becoming more an more popular. Uploading your books onto the iBookstore can be done direct. I am told that if you produce a document on Pages (on a Mac) you can convert it into ePub and upload very easily onto the iBookstore. I haven't tried that yet, and believe there may be some restrictions for anyone outside the US trying to publish on there. I did get a few of my books converted free by Lulu.com, so they appear on the iBookstore.
E
Editing
This is a biggie. Ignore this at your peril.
You MUST make sure that before you publish a book of any type, it has been edited, and in most cases this means that someone other than the author has looked through it with a fine-toothed comb.
By 'someone', I mean someone who has knowledge of grammar, spelling, syntax.
I can't stress how important that is.
In the past few years, I have read hundreds of indie books, and about 98% of them have had problems associated with the fact that a good editor was not used... It's frustrating. I know that when you're a writer starting out you will be very keen to publish your work. You will love it, you will feel accomplished when you write a whole novel, you'll show it to a friend or two, maybe your mum and dad, they will all tell you it's great. Then you publish... then you learn. This is the road most authors take on the journey. We all make mistakes.
I can give an example from my own publishing journey. I know that I published Coincidences too soon. I should have sat on the story, re-read it, edited it, and waited until it was perfect, but I was keen to publish and a less-than-perfect version is out there in hardback. My second edition is as near as what I would say is perfect (in my opinion), but my reviews from the older version are still there on Amazon, and will live with me. The first version was good, but not great. We should all be aiming for great books before we publish them. At the time I published Coincidences the first time, I was sure it was perfect and would become a best-seller, but that was over 12 years ago and I have learnt so much since then. There is a lesson in that to aspiring writers: just because you think your book is the best thing since sliced bread, it may not be :)
In conclusion, it's okay, and not the end of the world, if you've published a less-than-perfect book, but we must always be striving for perfection, so either do what I did with Coincidences and rewrite it until you're happy with it, or try to edit your work before your publish it to avoid all that.
Try and use an editor who comes recommended by someone else. With my soon-to-be-released novel, Haunted, I used the editing services of Susan Helene Gottfried. I am quite confident with my writing by this stage of my writing life, but I spent so many months editing Coincidences that I wanted to hand over the hard part of the publishing process to someone else. I'm glad I did, because I now have someone's comments on my book that will make me think from the perspective of a reader when polishing my work.
It's also important to have proof-readers. But I can deal with that subject in a later part of this series.
F
Formatting
This follows on nicely from the part above about digital publishing.
Self-published writers are expected to wear many hats. They are artists, writers, entertainers, now marketers and editors, and the digital age has required them to be able to be computer-literate and format their books into a version that can be accepted on e-book seller sites.
There are guidelines that you can follow on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords and other sites that will enable you to upload books yourself to the sites. I found I was limited with what I could do as I have a Mac computer and until recently most sites were not very user-friendly for Macs. I was lucky enough to have a good author friend who helped me with formatting. I won't mention her name in case she's inundated with requests for help LOL.
Formatting is a big issue in publishing. I read a lot of Kindle books and notice that most of them have formatting issues. This is partly due to the fact that the book is being converted from one file type to another. It can also be due to the fact that Microsoft Word is quite a basic software system not capable of functioning well for this type of usage (an IT expert told me this.)
There is help and there are resources you can find on the Internet if you find that you are stuck and need help with formatting.
If you want to go it alone, self-published without using another company but just require formatting help, I would recommend, eBookBuilders: https://digitalebookformatting.wordpr... I am told that this company will produce the best quality formatted ebooks for your requirements. I am probably going to use the company for my next e-book. It would be peace of mind to know that the product I am publishing will be the best it can be.
Facebook
One of the features I have recently started using on Facebook is the Author Fan Page. So, I've set up a page separate from my own personal page, and use that for promoting my books. I think all authors should have a fan page. It makes sense, because then you can post personal stuff on your own page and project a more professional image on your Author Page. It's quite easy to set up the page. You go to your 'home' page and click on 'Pages' then there should be a link for 'start a new page', or something like that. You build the page as you would your normal Facebook page.
I found that getting people to 'Like' the page can be a struggle, but I was invited to a Facebook Event yesterday, where people were swapping 'Likes' and it was very successful. I ended up with 315 'Likes' of my page. When people 'Like' your page, they will see whatever you post in their news feed. So, the more 'Likes' you have, the better.
Friendly
I'm just going to tag this on the end because I believe that now we are in the e-publishing world we are all much more accessible on the Internet. A big part of what we do as self-published writers is marketing. That's marketing of our book, but also be aware that you are also marketing yourself as a brand name. It's important that you are friendly in your approach to readers and fellow indie authors. There is nothing more off-putting than an author who obviously just wants to sell you his or her book, but just as obviously, doesn't want to know anything about you...
Get to know your readers and have a circle of fellow writers that you can chat with. Writing is a lonely business, but with the advent of the Internet and all the various social networking sites, it can also be a lot of fun.
That brings me onto another word: Fun You should have fun as a self-published writer, enjoy what you are doing and this will come across to others. If you are not happy, you should perhaps not be self-published. Being a self-published writer is hard work, it's something that won't bring immediate results, and there are many things that can drag you down. This is another reason why it's important to have fellow authors you can chat to.
Here's another F word: Forum Join a writers'/readers' forum, liked Bestsellerbound.com, that I mentioned in my last post (Under B).
Look out for my next post in this series. Coming soon...
I hope the series will be useful to aspiring writers and those who are having a hard time navigating their way through the often confusing self-publishing process.
The first part of the series was featured on author K.B. Walker's blog: A-C Writing and Self-publishing tips
So here we go:
D
Dialogue & Description:
There is a view that you should not include too much dialogue in your fiction. This is a view that, frankly, I don't believe in. I write character-driven fiction that contains a lot of dialogue, and I like it that way. When I'm reading books, I also like a lot of dialogue; when it's done correctly, it helps move the action along and also entertains more than a paragraph of prose ever could. That said, you should not include too much dialogue to the exclusion of other description. I think that description in a novel is also an important part of it. I really believe that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to how much dialogue and how much description you include in a novel, the important thing is that you write in a way that makes it easy for the reader. Writers will find their own style, and some will include a lot of description, some more dialogue. Where there is more description than dialogue in a novel, it can result in a slower paced book. Books with more dialogue are often quicker to read.
The important points when constructing dialogue in a novel, are as follows:
1. Make it clear who is speaking. So, for example, where there are two men talking to each other, if you say 'he said' a few times, this could result in confusion. Perhaps, have one of the men mention the name of the other within the dialogue once or twice, or mention the name of one of the men, e.g. 'said James.'
2. Vary the writing, i.e. don't keep saying, 'he said', or 'she said' every time a character finishes speaking. Add other things, like, 'he swept his hand through his hair as he spoke', or 'she avoided his eyes'. In this way you are 'showing' your reader what the characters are doing as they're speaking. An example:
One way of doing it:
'How much is this vase?' asked John.
'Fifty pounds,' answered Bobby.
'That's expensive for a vase.'
'It's rare... an antique,' said Bobby.
Another way:
John picked up a blue vase with a floral design.'How much does this cost?' He asked.
Bobby eyed him up and down as if trying to work out how much he could afford to pay. He narrowed his eyes and said, 'That's fifty pounds.'
John's eyes widened. 'That's expensive for a vase.'
'It's rare... an antique,' said Bobby as he wiped a stain from the top of the shop counter, avoiding John's stare.
Okay, so that's a basic unedited paragraph, but I hope it highlights what I mean about trying to make the dialogue interesting.
3. Make the dialogue realistic; i.e. if your story is set in a certain part of the country where people have an accent and a certain way of saying things, you should really include that within the dialogue.
I do know of writers who have done quite well writing a whole short story only using dialogue and nothing else. So, it is doable. I suppose the point I really want to make is that you should never listen to anyone who says there are hard and fast rules for this type of thing; as with any creative pursuit, use your own intuition, and make sure you feel happy with the writing you are putting out there.
Digital publishing:
Any new writers would be forgiven for being confused by all the various ways you can publish e-books online. This is very much the digital age when it comes to publishing. More e-books are sold than print books these days, so if you are serious about your writing you do need to consider having your books available in digital form as well as print.
There are number of sites available for publishing your books as e-books. Some of them are listed below:
1. Amazon Kindle - probably the most popular, and most widely read. I sell the majority of my e-books via Amazon Kindle. It's relatively easy to upload your books onto Kindle yourself and you don't even need an ISBN number to do that. Your book will be available more or less worldwide and at a price you choose. I don't think any serious writer can get away with not publishing their books on Kindle.
2. Smashwords.com - This is a great site for indie writers. It allows you to upload your book and it will be converted into most digital formats, so it's available for download to most (if not all) e-readers.
3. Barnes and Noble (B&N) - Nook. This is also a popular reading device. If you publish through Smashwords, your book will be available through B&N. Or, you can upload to B&N directly (although when I last looked at that you can only upload directly if you have a US address or bank account).
4. iBookstore - the iPad is becoming more an more popular. Uploading your books onto the iBookstore can be done direct. I am told that if you produce a document on Pages (on a Mac) you can convert it into ePub and upload very easily onto the iBookstore. I haven't tried that yet, and believe there may be some restrictions for anyone outside the US trying to publish on there. I did get a few of my books converted free by Lulu.com, so they appear on the iBookstore.
E
Editing
This is a biggie. Ignore this at your peril.
You MUST make sure that before you publish a book of any type, it has been edited, and in most cases this means that someone other than the author has looked through it with a fine-toothed comb.
By 'someone', I mean someone who has knowledge of grammar, spelling, syntax.
I can't stress how important that is.
In the past few years, I have read hundreds of indie books, and about 98% of them have had problems associated with the fact that a good editor was not used... It's frustrating. I know that when you're a writer starting out you will be very keen to publish your work. You will love it, you will feel accomplished when you write a whole novel, you'll show it to a friend or two, maybe your mum and dad, they will all tell you it's great. Then you publish... then you learn. This is the road most authors take on the journey. We all make mistakes.
I can give an example from my own publishing journey. I know that I published Coincidences too soon. I should have sat on the story, re-read it, edited it, and waited until it was perfect, but I was keen to publish and a less-than-perfect version is out there in hardback. My second edition is as near as what I would say is perfect (in my opinion), but my reviews from the older version are still there on Amazon, and will live with me. The first version was good, but not great. We should all be aiming for great books before we publish them. At the time I published Coincidences the first time, I was sure it was perfect and would become a best-seller, but that was over 12 years ago and I have learnt so much since then. There is a lesson in that to aspiring writers: just because you think your book is the best thing since sliced bread, it may not be :)
In conclusion, it's okay, and not the end of the world, if you've published a less-than-perfect book, but we must always be striving for perfection, so either do what I did with Coincidences and rewrite it until you're happy with it, or try to edit your work before your publish it to avoid all that.
Try and use an editor who comes recommended by someone else. With my soon-to-be-released novel, Haunted, I used the editing services of Susan Helene Gottfried. I am quite confident with my writing by this stage of my writing life, but I spent so many months editing Coincidences that I wanted to hand over the hard part of the publishing process to someone else. I'm glad I did, because I now have someone's comments on my book that will make me think from the perspective of a reader when polishing my work.
It's also important to have proof-readers. But I can deal with that subject in a later part of this series.
F
Formatting
This follows on nicely from the part above about digital publishing.
Self-published writers are expected to wear many hats. They are artists, writers, entertainers, now marketers and editors, and the digital age has required them to be able to be computer-literate and format their books into a version that can be accepted on e-book seller sites.
There are guidelines that you can follow on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords and other sites that will enable you to upload books yourself to the sites. I found I was limited with what I could do as I have a Mac computer and until recently most sites were not very user-friendly for Macs. I was lucky enough to have a good author friend who helped me with formatting. I won't mention her name in case she's inundated with requests for help LOL.
Formatting is a big issue in publishing. I read a lot of Kindle books and notice that most of them have formatting issues. This is partly due to the fact that the book is being converted from one file type to another. It can also be due to the fact that Microsoft Word is quite a basic software system not capable of functioning well for this type of usage (an IT expert told me this.)
There is help and there are resources you can find on the Internet if you find that you are stuck and need help with formatting.
If you want to go it alone, self-published without using another company but just require formatting help, I would recommend, eBookBuilders: https://digitalebookformatting.wordpr... I am told that this company will produce the best quality formatted ebooks for your requirements. I am probably going to use the company for my next e-book. It would be peace of mind to know that the product I am publishing will be the best it can be.
One of the features I have recently started using on Facebook is the Author Fan Page. So, I've set up a page separate from my own personal page, and use that for promoting my books. I think all authors should have a fan page. It makes sense, because then you can post personal stuff on your own page and project a more professional image on your Author Page. It's quite easy to set up the page. You go to your 'home' page and click on 'Pages' then there should be a link for 'start a new page', or something like that. You build the page as you would your normal Facebook page.
I found that getting people to 'Like' the page can be a struggle, but I was invited to a Facebook Event yesterday, where people were swapping 'Likes' and it was very successful. I ended up with 315 'Likes' of my page. When people 'Like' your page, they will see whatever you post in their news feed. So, the more 'Likes' you have, the better.
Friendly
I'm just going to tag this on the end because I believe that now we are in the e-publishing world we are all much more accessible on the Internet. A big part of what we do as self-published writers is marketing. That's marketing of our book, but also be aware that you are also marketing yourself as a brand name. It's important that you are friendly in your approach to readers and fellow indie authors. There is nothing more off-putting than an author who obviously just wants to sell you his or her book, but just as obviously, doesn't want to know anything about you...
Get to know your readers and have a circle of fellow writers that you can chat with. Writing is a lonely business, but with the advent of the Internet and all the various social networking sites, it can also be a lot of fun.
That brings me onto another word: Fun You should have fun as a self-published writer, enjoy what you are doing and this will come across to others. If you are not happy, you should perhaps not be self-published. Being a self-published writer is hard work, it's something that won't bring immediate results, and there are many things that can drag you down. This is another reason why it's important to have fellow authors you can chat to.
Here's another F word: Forum Join a writers'/readers' forum, liked Bestsellerbound.com, that I mentioned in my last post (Under B).
Look out for my next post in this series. Coming soon...
A-Z of Self-publishing and writing tips: T
I'm only covering the letter T today, because I found that I almost wrote a novella about how to use Twitter! (see below). There are also a few other things beginning with T mentioned.
T
Twitter:
I have found Twitter to be an invaluable resource for promoting my books. I know that some people hate it. I don't claim to be an expert, but in the past couple of years I have built up just over 12,000 followers. I'm not sure if that's a good number or not, but it seems like a decent amount to me. I haven't bought any followers from anywhere either; these are just people who follow me and I follow most of them back.
I think Twitter works best when you follow a few rules:
1. Always follow people back when they follow you (unless they are spammers or some other kind of lunatic).
2. Thank people for RTs (re-Tweets) when you can, or alternatively you can RT something that they have Tweeted. RTs are always welcomed, as these help with promotion.
3. Interact with your followers. By this, I mean, if someone asks you something, you should respond to them (again, provided that they are not a spammer or a lunatic).
4. To build up your following to begin with you need to follow people. This may seem obvious to most people, but there seem to be those who think that people will just follow them. If you're Lady Gaga, or someone like that, you would be right to think that you don't really need to follow people to have them follow you; otherwise, I think you should make some effort, or you'll be left with hardly any followers and Tweeting to yourself.
5. Use the hashtags. This does come with a warning though. For example there is #FF for Follow Friday, where you list people who you follow, that you would recommend to others. For writers there is #WW Writer Wednesday, where you recommend writers that you follow.
The WARNING is this: Twitter is on the lookout of for spammers. They seem to be unable to get rid of real spammers, (you know, the ones who send you DMs that say 'have you seen this pic of you lol,' or 'someone is saying real bad things about you in this blog' with a dodgy link), but Twitter does hone in on people who mention lots of other Twitter names in their tweets, or people who use the reply function often.
My account was recently suspended because I did a lot of #FF mentions on one particular day. I was informed that the reason my account was suspended was that I used the 'mention' and 'reply' functions too much. I did eventually manage to get my account back, but it was very annoying.
So, #FF and #WW are a good way to get more followers and to keep your followers, as long as you don't overdo things. Try to vary your tweets on days when you're doing these types of mentions so that your account won't look like a spammer's account.
6. Trending topics are a good way to get your account noticed. What I mean by this is that on the left hand side of the page you'll see the list of popular topics on twitter i.e. those that lots of people are tweeting about. If you can join in with one of those topics, you should see that you gain a few more followers. For example, I recently joined in on one that was #SongsThatMakeMeCry and noticed that I got quite a few new followers on that day. Whether it was a coincidence or not, I can't be sure.
7. If you have something that you want to promote on a particular day and need help with RTs, I find it is a good idea to RT other Twitter users on your Twitter feed randomly, i.e. those that you wouldn't usually RT, and this will usually result in those people Tweeting something for you.
8. Something that is off-putting is where someone is always Tweeting about their own stuff and not about anything else. Unless you are very famous, this tactic will not work, and will result in you losing followers.
9. You can use justunfollow.com to find out who unfollowed you, and who is not following you back. This enables you to unfollow them. A word of warning here though. Twitter also doesn't like people who follow a lot of people on one particular day, or unfollow a lot of people on one day as this could be seen as the action of a bot. Be careful, and try to limit the following and unfollowing, and spread it out a bit.
10. You can use Hootsuite.com to schedule Tweets to go out from your Twitter account at times when you won't be able to Tweet e.g. when you are sleeping or working. There is a free version which I use sometimes, and find it particularly useful when I have a special promotion going on so that I can reach all time zones. There's also a version you can pay for that does other things, like clean your house for you (just checking that you are still concentrating!). No, actually, I don't know what the paid-for version does, but it probably allows you to schedule more Tweets in advance and other such stuff. You can find out on the website.
11. There are ways of getting more followers by joining certain groups. For example, there are groups here on Goodreads where you can list your Twitter name and others will follow you back. I have also joined the World Literary Cafe's Twitter Follows group. Here's a link where you can leave your Twitter name to be followed by others, and you then follow them back: http://www.worldliterarycafe.com/cont...
12. The aim on Twitter is build up a following so that when you Tweet about your work it will reach a wider audience. Where you RT other people's Tweets they are more likely to Tweet yours, so you reach an even wider audience each time you tweet.
13. Tweet about things you enjoy and you will find like-minded people to connect with, which makes the whole Twitter experience all that more interesting.
14. There are daily or weekly papers that you can set up to automatically tweet from your Twitter account, where you help promote other Twitter accounts. This will result in more RTs for your own work, and it helps to keep your account active when you're away from the Internet for a while because the paper will Tweet from your account daily or weekly, depending on your settings. Go here, and log in with your Twitter account to set up your paper: https://paper.li/ - It only takes a few minutes and it will post the paper to your account automatically (as long as you request that in the settings), so once you've set it up, you don't need to do anything else to maintain it.
15. BookBuzzr on Freado.com allows you to set up tweets that link to samples of your writing. These will be tweeted daily or weekly, depending on your preference.
16. A hashtag that is useful for writers for promotion is #SampleSunday, where each Sunday you can provide a link to a sample chapter of your work. Other authors who take part in this will RT that for you.
If anyone else has any Twitter tips, please feel free to list them in the comments section below.
Triberr
I am quickly mentioning this only because I know that some of my indie author friends swear by it. I haven't worked out how it works, but if you have time, it might be worth having a look into. http://triberr.com/
Tumblr
I have a Tumblr.com account but don't use it often as there are just too many networking sites to keep up with. It is quite a popular site, though, and is another way you can spread the word about your work. You can also blog from that site. It's similar to Twitter in that you follow other users and they follow you back, but there is not a restriction as to the amount of words you use. You can post videos and photos there too.
Time
Time management is very important as a self-published author. When you self-publish, you do your own promotion, and most of your own editing, so this can lead to very little time to do much else, especially as most of us also have full time day jobs.
It's important to make sure you have time for the things that are important in your writing life. I haven't come across the secret formula for creating more time, but if somebody else does, please let me know.
Try to find a balance that works for you and find ways to organise your time so that you don't work around the clock and burn out.
I would suggest finding one or two networking sites that work for you and devoting the promotion time to those sites. Have a realistic schedule for your blog, maybe run a series, like this one that I am doing, so that you have something that people might want to keep up with and will follow the blog, so you don't have to worry about losing followers if you're away from the blog for a few days or weeks.
If you find that you don't have enough time to write, think about what you could do less of to make more time. For example, I have had to cut down the amount of book reviews I do so that I can keep up with my own writing. Having said that, it's important to keep reading other people's work because the more you read the better your own writing will be. Reading is great for fuelling our imagination.
One way to make more time, is to use an editor for your novels, so that you spend less time having to read and re-read your own work.
It's all trial and error, but find the balance that works for you, and concentrate your time there. It's more productive to have one good blog where you can promote and keep your readers up to date, than to have multiple blogs and lessen the impact of those because you don't have time to promote them.
Networking with other writers helps with time management because you can have a support network. Usually other authors will help to promote your books if you do the same for them; so at times when you're not around on the Internet the chances are someone else will be tweeting something about your work.
Also, as mentioned above, apps like Hootsuite are great for helping with time management because you can schedule promotion for when you're not around. Wordpress blogs have a similar scheduling system, so you can set up posts days or weeks in advance.
I have to say, I find managing my time one of the most challenging things about being an indie author. If anyone else has any tips, please leave them in the comments section below.
Trailers
Book Trailers. Just like Twitter (and Marmite) some people love them and some people hate them.
Personally, I think anything that can positively add to your book marketing campaign is a good thing. I like book trailers. I can't say that I've ever bought a book because of a book trailer, but maybe I might have found out about a book because of a book trailer. So it all adds to promotion and exposure for your book.
I make my own book trailers, and you can find them on my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/MariaSavv...
One of our Bestsellerbound.com members, Magnolia Belle, makes book trailers.
Here's a promotional video for the book trailers she makes: http://youtu.be/RUGFeenMKcs
She made a couple of trailers for our Bestsellerbound Anthologies. Here's a link to one of them: http://youtu.be/kIWsIIKyobI
I've recently found out about an innovative company, Red 14 Films, that makes cinematic book trailers. They believe that book trailers are a great marketing tool. Here's a link to their website where you can view some of the trailers they have made: http://red14films.com/
Also, at the moment they're running a contest where you can win a free 30 second cinematic book trailer. You just have to subscribe to their website to enter. There'll be a raffle in March to choose the winner.
Targeting your readership
I think one of the most important things for any writer is to find a target readership and focus on promoting to that group. It's harder for writers (like me) who write in many different genres, but if you only write in one genre, you can use this tactic effectively to find a following.
There are many different websites that promote one type of book; for example, some sites only promote romance, others are set up to promote science fiction, etc. You should use Google to find such websites and blogs and try to get your books listed.
I'm going to promote my crime fiction novel, Haunted, on a website this week Fantastic Books Publishing. They are doing a spotlight on Crime Fiction on the 28th February 2013, so it will be interesting to see what result that achieves in terms of book sales.
Targeting a specific audience does work. For example, I recently promoted my novel, Second Chances, on EReader News Today (ENT), in their 'Bargain Books' promotion. They have a huge following of readers who are looking for bargain e-books; so I lowered the price of the book to 99 cents and it was promoted on the site for a couple of days (ENT takes 25% of your total royalties for sales over the 2 day promotion). The result was 140 sales overnight, and another 50 sales since the promotion ended. Okay, the royalties on 99 cents (given that you only get 35% of that from Amazon) is not great, but the exposure is a good way to find a new readership. Here's a link if any authors want to try it: http://ereadernewstoday.com/bargain-k...
Similarly, for a short term boost to sales, and to make your book more widely available to an audience who might not otherwise try it, the Amazon KDP Select free promotion days can be good.
I hope you'll find these tips helpful!
T
Twitter:
I have found Twitter to be an invaluable resource for promoting my books. I know that some people hate it. I don't claim to be an expert, but in the past couple of years I have built up just over 12,000 followers. I'm not sure if that's a good number or not, but it seems like a decent amount to me. I haven't bought any followers from anywhere either; these are just people who follow me and I follow most of them back.
I think Twitter works best when you follow a few rules:
1. Always follow people back when they follow you (unless they are spammers or some other kind of lunatic).
2. Thank people for RTs (re-Tweets) when you can, or alternatively you can RT something that they have Tweeted. RTs are always welcomed, as these help with promotion.
3. Interact with your followers. By this, I mean, if someone asks you something, you should respond to them (again, provided that they are not a spammer or a lunatic).
4. To build up your following to begin with you need to follow people. This may seem obvious to most people, but there seem to be those who think that people will just follow them. If you're Lady Gaga, or someone like that, you would be right to think that you don't really need to follow people to have them follow you; otherwise, I think you should make some effort, or you'll be left with hardly any followers and Tweeting to yourself.
5. Use the hashtags. This does come with a warning though. For example there is #FF for Follow Friday, where you list people who you follow, that you would recommend to others. For writers there is #WW Writer Wednesday, where you recommend writers that you follow.
The WARNING is this: Twitter is on the lookout of for spammers. They seem to be unable to get rid of real spammers, (you know, the ones who send you DMs that say 'have you seen this pic of you lol,' or 'someone is saying real bad things about you in this blog' with a dodgy link), but Twitter does hone in on people who mention lots of other Twitter names in their tweets, or people who use the reply function often.
My account was recently suspended because I did a lot of #FF mentions on one particular day. I was informed that the reason my account was suspended was that I used the 'mention' and 'reply' functions too much. I did eventually manage to get my account back, but it was very annoying.
So, #FF and #WW are a good way to get more followers and to keep your followers, as long as you don't overdo things. Try to vary your tweets on days when you're doing these types of mentions so that your account won't look like a spammer's account.
6. Trending topics are a good way to get your account noticed. What I mean by this is that on the left hand side of the page you'll see the list of popular topics on twitter i.e. those that lots of people are tweeting about. If you can join in with one of those topics, you should see that you gain a few more followers. For example, I recently joined in on one that was #SongsThatMakeMeCry and noticed that I got quite a few new followers on that day. Whether it was a coincidence or not, I can't be sure.
7. If you have something that you want to promote on a particular day and need help with RTs, I find it is a good idea to RT other Twitter users on your Twitter feed randomly, i.e. those that you wouldn't usually RT, and this will usually result in those people Tweeting something for you.
8. Something that is off-putting is where someone is always Tweeting about their own stuff and not about anything else. Unless you are very famous, this tactic will not work, and will result in you losing followers.
9. You can use justunfollow.com to find out who unfollowed you, and who is not following you back. This enables you to unfollow them. A word of warning here though. Twitter also doesn't like people who follow a lot of people on one particular day, or unfollow a lot of people on one day as this could be seen as the action of a bot. Be careful, and try to limit the following and unfollowing, and spread it out a bit.
10. You can use Hootsuite.com to schedule Tweets to go out from your Twitter account at times when you won't be able to Tweet e.g. when you are sleeping or working. There is a free version which I use sometimes, and find it particularly useful when I have a special promotion going on so that I can reach all time zones. There's also a version you can pay for that does other things, like clean your house for you (just checking that you are still concentrating!). No, actually, I don't know what the paid-for version does, but it probably allows you to schedule more Tweets in advance and other such stuff. You can find out on the website.
11. There are ways of getting more followers by joining certain groups. For example, there are groups here on Goodreads where you can list your Twitter name and others will follow you back. I have also joined the World Literary Cafe's Twitter Follows group. Here's a link where you can leave your Twitter name to be followed by others, and you then follow them back: http://www.worldliterarycafe.com/cont...
12. The aim on Twitter is build up a following so that when you Tweet about your work it will reach a wider audience. Where you RT other people's Tweets they are more likely to Tweet yours, so you reach an even wider audience each time you tweet.
13. Tweet about things you enjoy and you will find like-minded people to connect with, which makes the whole Twitter experience all that more interesting.
14. There are daily or weekly papers that you can set up to automatically tweet from your Twitter account, where you help promote other Twitter accounts. This will result in more RTs for your own work, and it helps to keep your account active when you're away from the Internet for a while because the paper will Tweet from your account daily or weekly, depending on your settings. Go here, and log in with your Twitter account to set up your paper: https://paper.li/ - It only takes a few minutes and it will post the paper to your account automatically (as long as you request that in the settings), so once you've set it up, you don't need to do anything else to maintain it.
15. BookBuzzr on Freado.com allows you to set up tweets that link to samples of your writing. These will be tweeted daily or weekly, depending on your preference.
16. A hashtag that is useful for writers for promotion is #SampleSunday, where each Sunday you can provide a link to a sample chapter of your work. Other authors who take part in this will RT that for you.
If anyone else has any Twitter tips, please feel free to list them in the comments section below.
Triberr
I am quickly mentioning this only because I know that some of my indie author friends swear by it. I haven't worked out how it works, but if you have time, it might be worth having a look into. http://triberr.com/
Tumblr
I have a Tumblr.com account but don't use it often as there are just too many networking sites to keep up with. It is quite a popular site, though, and is another way you can spread the word about your work. You can also blog from that site. It's similar to Twitter in that you follow other users and they follow you back, but there is not a restriction as to the amount of words you use. You can post videos and photos there too.
Time
Time management is very important as a self-published author. When you self-publish, you do your own promotion, and most of your own editing, so this can lead to very little time to do much else, especially as most of us also have full time day jobs.
It's important to make sure you have time for the things that are important in your writing life. I haven't come across the secret formula for creating more time, but if somebody else does, please let me know.
Try to find a balance that works for you and find ways to organise your time so that you don't work around the clock and burn out.
I would suggest finding one or two networking sites that work for you and devoting the promotion time to those sites. Have a realistic schedule for your blog, maybe run a series, like this one that I am doing, so that you have something that people might want to keep up with and will follow the blog, so you don't have to worry about losing followers if you're away from the blog for a few days or weeks.
If you find that you don't have enough time to write, think about what you could do less of to make more time. For example, I have had to cut down the amount of book reviews I do so that I can keep up with my own writing. Having said that, it's important to keep reading other people's work because the more you read the better your own writing will be. Reading is great for fuelling our imagination.
One way to make more time, is to use an editor for your novels, so that you spend less time having to read and re-read your own work.
It's all trial and error, but find the balance that works for you, and concentrate your time there. It's more productive to have one good blog where you can promote and keep your readers up to date, than to have multiple blogs and lessen the impact of those because you don't have time to promote them.
Networking with other writers helps with time management because you can have a support network. Usually other authors will help to promote your books if you do the same for them; so at times when you're not around on the Internet the chances are someone else will be tweeting something about your work.
Also, as mentioned above, apps like Hootsuite are great for helping with time management because you can schedule promotion for when you're not around. Wordpress blogs have a similar scheduling system, so you can set up posts days or weeks in advance.
I have to say, I find managing my time one of the most challenging things about being an indie author. If anyone else has any tips, please leave them in the comments section below.
Trailers
Book Trailers. Just like Twitter (and Marmite) some people love them and some people hate them.
Personally, I think anything that can positively add to your book marketing campaign is a good thing. I like book trailers. I can't say that I've ever bought a book because of a book trailer, but maybe I might have found out about a book because of a book trailer. So it all adds to promotion and exposure for your book.
I make my own book trailers, and you can find them on my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/MariaSavv...
One of our Bestsellerbound.com members, Magnolia Belle, makes book trailers.
Here's a promotional video for the book trailers she makes: http://youtu.be/RUGFeenMKcs
She made a couple of trailers for our Bestsellerbound Anthologies. Here's a link to one of them: http://youtu.be/kIWsIIKyobI
I've recently found out about an innovative company, Red 14 Films, that makes cinematic book trailers. They believe that book trailers are a great marketing tool. Here's a link to their website where you can view some of the trailers they have made: http://red14films.com/
Also, at the moment they're running a contest where you can win a free 30 second cinematic book trailer. You just have to subscribe to their website to enter. There'll be a raffle in March to choose the winner.
Targeting your readership
I think one of the most important things for any writer is to find a target readership and focus on promoting to that group. It's harder for writers (like me) who write in many different genres, but if you only write in one genre, you can use this tactic effectively to find a following.
There are many different websites that promote one type of book; for example, some sites only promote romance, others are set up to promote science fiction, etc. You should use Google to find such websites and blogs and try to get your books listed.
I'm going to promote my crime fiction novel, Haunted, on a website this week Fantastic Books Publishing. They are doing a spotlight on Crime Fiction on the 28th February 2013, so it will be interesting to see what result that achieves in terms of book sales.
Targeting a specific audience does work. For example, I recently promoted my novel, Second Chances, on EReader News Today (ENT), in their 'Bargain Books' promotion. They have a huge following of readers who are looking for bargain e-books; so I lowered the price of the book to 99 cents and it was promoted on the site for a couple of days (ENT takes 25% of your total royalties for sales over the 2 day promotion). The result was 140 sales overnight, and another 50 sales since the promotion ended. Okay, the royalties on 99 cents (given that you only get 35% of that from Amazon) is not great, but the exposure is a good way to find a new readership. Here's a link if any authors want to try it: http://ereadernewstoday.com/bargain-k...
Similarly, for a short term boost to sales, and to make your book more widely available to an audience who might not otherwise try it, the Amazon KDP Select free promotion days can be good.
I hope you'll find these tips helpful!
Guest Post: When Indie met the establishment! by Laxmi Hariharan
**Today, I'm featuring a guest post from a fellow author, Laxmi Hariharan, about the The Literary Consultancy's upcoming conference: 'Writing in a Digital Age', which takes place next weekend in London.**
When Indie met the establishment!
Cut to twelve months ago—as a just born Indie, I listened to Kate Mosse (author Labyrinth) talk about how she was not on Facebook, Twitter or any of those necessary evils, which help Indie authors like myself build a platform. On a panel discussion she made it very clear that she preferred not to have her peace of mind destroyed by social media chatter, in order to really focus inwards and write. A fellow author confessed how she was beyond the point of being a social media junkie—she stayed connected even when she took her dog for a walk. It was clear to me that as a writer and a marketer I needed to find the sweet spot somewhere between the two. I needed to become a spider—a black widow?— an arachnid who sat square in the entre of a 720 degree social network web, and controlled everything that went around me, not the other way around.
It was about choice. I absolutely had the right to decide when I wanted to dip in and went I wanted to unplug. Isn’t that being an Indie author was all about.
Exercising your right to be read, to be seen and heard unadulterated by veils. Just one of the many insights I gained from attending the writing in a digital age conference, held by TLC. I will be back at the 2013 instalment of the same, as part of the storytime sessions, talking about where I am twelve months on—wiser, more confident, and in the throes of completing Return to 7 Islands (#2, Bombay Chronicles.) If you are wondering whether to go Indie or if you are Indie and pondering what next, then this is where you want to be. You will get the chance to meet fellow Indies as well as published authors, publishers, and agents too (some of them are really nice too, I promise.)
Writing in a Digital Age, June 7-8, London. Tickets on sale till June 6th.
Laxmi Hariharan is a content branding strategist and award winning author of epic fantasy. Find her at LAXMIwrites
When Indie met the establishment!
Cut to twelve months ago—as a just born Indie, I listened to Kate Mosse (author Labyrinth) talk about how she was not on Facebook, Twitter or any of those necessary evils, which help Indie authors like myself build a platform. On a panel discussion she made it very clear that she preferred not to have her peace of mind destroyed by social media chatter, in order to really focus inwards and write. A fellow author confessed how she was beyond the point of being a social media junkie—she stayed connected even when she took her dog for a walk. It was clear to me that as a writer and a marketer I needed to find the sweet spot somewhere between the two. I needed to become a spider—a black widow?— an arachnid who sat square in the entre of a 720 degree social network web, and controlled everything that went around me, not the other way around.
It was about choice. I absolutely had the right to decide when I wanted to dip in and went I wanted to unplug. Isn’t that being an Indie author was all about.
Exercising your right to be read, to be seen and heard unadulterated by veils. Just one of the many insights I gained from attending the writing in a digital age conference, held by TLC. I will be back at the 2013 instalment of the same, as part of the storytime sessions, talking about where I am twelve months on—wiser, more confident, and in the throes of completing Return to 7 Islands (#2, Bombay Chronicles.) If you are wondering whether to go Indie or if you are Indie and pondering what next, then this is where you want to be. You will get the chance to meet fellow Indies as well as published authors, publishers, and agents too (some of them are really nice too, I promise.)
Writing in a Digital Age, June 7-8, London. Tickets on sale till June 6th.
Laxmi Hariharan is a content branding strategist and award winning author of epic fantasy. Find her at LAXMIwrites
The Literary Consultancy's Conference 2013: Writing in a Digital Age
I have just come back from a two-day conference at the Free Word Centre.The conference was organised by The Literary Consultancy, in partnership with The Times Literary Supplement.
I am very grateful to my fellow indie author, Laxmi Hariharan, for telling me about the conference and arranging a press pass for me so that I could attend the event.
I enjoyed the conference and learned a few things that I am sure will help in my ongoing publishing adventure. Highlights for me were:
1. The keynote speech by Audrey Niffenegger (author of The Time Traveler's Wife). I picked up a signed copy of her novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, which I am very much looking forward to reading.
2. Steve Bohme's statistics about book sales (Bowker Market Research).
3. The speech by Robert McCrum, an associate editor of The Observer, about his perspective on the change in the contemporary book world.
4. Audience Storytime, where we heard from some independently published authors about their experiences with self-publishing.
5. Canon Tales: Stories Behind the Book, where we heard from various industry professionals about their love of literature and their hopes for the future of literature.
I'm going to be reporting back on what I learned at the conference in a short series on my blog in the coming weeks. There was a lot of information about how the book world has changed with the digital revolution. There were discussions about self-publishing, editing, what works best for marketing both traditionally published and self-published books.
It was well worth attending the conference. I met a few fellow writers who I will be keeping in touch with too. All in all, it was an enjoyable experience, and an informative and entertaining couple of days.
I have taken some comprehensive notes of all the speeches and discussions and will be writing about those soon.
Notes from The Literary Consultancy's conference 2013 - Writing in a Digital Age: Statistics
At The Literary Consultancy's recent conference, Writing in a Digital Age, there was a panel of experts looking back at the past year and developments in publishing. The panel included Steve Bohme of Bowker Market Research. He presented some very interesting statistics about how and why people buy books and e-books.
From interviews with the book buying public, Bowker has discovered the following:
1 in 8 books purchased in 2012 in the UK were e-books and this trend seems to be on the rise.
The figure changes to 1 in 6 of those were purchased for 'own' reading, which shows that when people buy as gifts it's more usual to buy the paperback or hardback copy.
In percentage terms, 13% of all books sold in the UK in 2012 were e-books, and in some genres it was higher. For example, for romance, crime, classic fiction, and true crime it was 20%.
The type of market where e-books have made little or no impact have so far been illustrated books, which only made up between 0-5% of the market.
So far it has been straight text e-books that have been gaining popularity.
Self published books
2% of all 3 million books (all formats) sold in the UK in 2012 were self-published. The figure is higher for fiction books, and hardly any children's books.
Of all e-books sold in 2012 in the UK, 1 in 8 were self-published (for adult fiction the figure is higher: 1 in 7).
Certain genres were more significant: Crime, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, humour.
Interesting statistics were them given as to how people discover books. The most popular ways were:
1. Familiarity with the author
2. Browsing in shops
3. Word of mouth
4. Request e.g. in a shop or library
5. Browse online (half as much as in shops)
For e-books, it is slightly different:
1. Repeat purchase from same author
2. Browsing online
3. Word of mouth (1 in 9)
4. Seen book on bestseller list
5. Read book before (so for example someone may have already read the paperback and then goes on to buy an e-book copy)
For self-published e-books, here's how they're discovered:
1. Browsing online
2. Have read another book by the same author
3. Recommendation/review - online
4. The book is in a bestseller list
5. Word of mouth
From these statistics, it was concluded that social media itself is not a massive driver... unless of course a recommendation of the book is seen on a networking site like Twitter or Facebook.
The initial data that Bowker has for 2013 seems to indicate that 7% of books sales may be influenced by following an author on social media.
When asked where people first saw a book, the answers for all books were that the reader was browsing for a book in particular. But for self-published books it was that a book was recommended, or they were browsing by subject.
When trying to find out why people buy a book, the results were as follows:
The determining factors for all books were:
1. Subject
2. Author
3. Price
4. The book is part of a series
5. Blurb
6. Gift
7. Because of a review
For e-books it is similar to the above, although another determining factor will be that the reader has read an extract from the book.
For self-published books, the order of priority changes when people were asked why they buy a book:
1. Price
2. Blurb
3. Subject
4. Extract
5. Author
6. Series
7. Review/Recommendation
So this seems to indicate that if a self-published book is cheap enough it will sell.
Pricing statistics for self-published e-books was then discussed. The results of the survey show that if a book is priced £2 or over it needs more promotion if it is to sell. The most popular price for e-books was just under £2.
Other statistics were that most book buyers are females, and it is older females who are more likely to buy self-published books, as they are the most avid readers.
For self-published books 3 in 5 are bought by people who read every day.
These statistics are perhaps not surprising to those who are involved in publishing, especially self-published writers, but they definitely give food for thought.
As publishers, whether traditional or self-published, it is important to know what type of things drive potential sales so that we can build a marketing strategy around that.
I'll be posting some more notes from this interesting conference soon.
From interviews with the book buying public, Bowker has discovered the following:
1 in 8 books purchased in 2012 in the UK were e-books and this trend seems to be on the rise.
The figure changes to 1 in 6 of those were purchased for 'own' reading, which shows that when people buy as gifts it's more usual to buy the paperback or hardback copy.
In percentage terms, 13% of all books sold in the UK in 2012 were e-books, and in some genres it was higher. For example, for romance, crime, classic fiction, and true crime it was 20%.
The type of market where e-books have made little or no impact have so far been illustrated books, which only made up between 0-5% of the market.
So far it has been straight text e-books that have been gaining popularity.
Self published books
2% of all 3 million books (all formats) sold in the UK in 2012 were self-published. The figure is higher for fiction books, and hardly any children's books.
Of all e-books sold in 2012 in the UK, 1 in 8 were self-published (for adult fiction the figure is higher: 1 in 7).
Certain genres were more significant: Crime, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, humour.
Interesting statistics were them given as to how people discover books. The most popular ways were:
1. Familiarity with the author
2. Browsing in shops
3. Word of mouth
4. Request e.g. in a shop or library
5. Browse online (half as much as in shops)
For e-books, it is slightly different:
1. Repeat purchase from same author
2. Browsing online
3. Word of mouth (1 in 9)
4. Seen book on bestseller list
5. Read book before (so for example someone may have already read the paperback and then goes on to buy an e-book copy)
For self-published e-books, here's how they're discovered:
1. Browsing online
2. Have read another book by the same author
3. Recommendation/review - online
4. The book is in a bestseller list
5. Word of mouth
From these statistics, it was concluded that social media itself is not a massive driver... unless of course a recommendation of the book is seen on a networking site like Twitter or Facebook.
The initial data that Bowker has for 2013 seems to indicate that 7% of books sales may be influenced by following an author on social media.
When asked where people first saw a book, the answers for all books were that the reader was browsing for a book in particular. But for self-published books it was that a book was recommended, or they were browsing by subject.
When trying to find out why people buy a book, the results were as follows:
The determining factors for all books were:
1. Subject
2. Author
3. Price
4. The book is part of a series
5. Blurb
6. Gift
7. Because of a review
For e-books it is similar to the above, although another determining factor will be that the reader has read an extract from the book.
For self-published books, the order of priority changes when people were asked why they buy a book:
1. Price
2. Blurb
3. Subject
4. Extract
5. Author
6. Series
7. Review/Recommendation
So this seems to indicate that if a self-published book is cheap enough it will sell.
Pricing statistics for self-published e-books was then discussed. The results of the survey show that if a book is priced £2 or over it needs more promotion if it is to sell. The most popular price for e-books was just under £2.
Other statistics were that most book buyers are females, and it is older females who are more likely to buy self-published books, as they are the most avid readers.
For self-published books 3 in 5 are bought by people who read every day.
These statistics are perhaps not surprising to those who are involved in publishing, especially self-published writers, but they definitely give food for thought.
As publishers, whether traditional or self-published, it is important to know what type of things drive potential sales so that we can build a marketing strategy around that.
I'll be posting some more notes from this interesting conference soon.
Notes from The Literary Consultancy's conference 2013 - Writing in a Digital Age: 5 Key Stages of Self-Publishing (Part I)
At the recent TLC Conference in London, there was a Digital Masterclass on the 'Five Key Stages of Self-Publishing', in association with SfEP (Society for Editors and Proofreaders) and ALLi (The Alliance of Independent Authors).
I'm going to split this into two separate blog posts because there was a lot of information given.
**********
Dr Alison Baverstock, Course Leader for MA Publishing at Kingston University, made the following points:
1. Take care
It's very easy to self-publish a manuscript and the sites that you upload to won't check the content, the quality of the product.
She warned that negative responses to books can hurt and be damaging for a writer.
2. Think about the objectives.
There are many different formats you can publish in. Consider the flexibility of formats.
3. Think of an e-book as a scroll.
A digital book is flowing text. A reader can change the font and font size, as well as line spacing.
She went on to say that there is no restriction on the length of an e-book. With e-books, she says there is a much more level playing field between indie and traditionally published books because no one can really tell who published it.
She says it's best to make e-books widely available.
4. You don't have to do it on your own.
There are various supports out there. Guides to formatting.
On Smashwords.com, for example, there is a free style guide.
She mentioned BookFlower a website where you can easily format your books on your own.
There was a demonstration of that website, and it does seem very easy to use to convert a document into an ePub.
Dr Baverstock also recommended the book Let's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should, by David Gaughran.
She also recommended Jutoh.com
She gave a few tips for effective distribution:
The aim is to drive traffic to your book. Social media is useful. She recommends trying one thing at a time; changing one variable at a time to see what works and keep a record to learn from.
In regard to the question as to how much to charge for an e-book, she stated that we often underestimate how much people are willing to pay. The presentation of the book is important. We should not look at price in isolation. There are other factors that influence the decision to buy a book.
5. Gain vital market information
Whether you're self-published or published by a traditional publishing house, authors need to get involved in media/marketing. Publishers have become more reliant on authors for this.
Wendy Toole, Chair of the SfEP, stressed the importance of editing.
She said that at least 2 of the following should be done before publishing:
1. Get a manuscript assessment/critique
2. Developmental/structural editing
3. Copy edting
4. Proofreading
She said that it's best to use SfEP members, and also recommended TLC's services. She said you could also use someone who has been personally recommended to you by another author whose books are well-edited.
It was also stated that it's best to get your manuscript into the best shape possible before sending to an editor as this will save time and expense.
***********
In Part II of this part of the series, I will tell you what the speakers said about cover design and font type, and also pass on some tips from an author who switched from traditional to self-publishing.
I'm going to split this into two separate blog posts because there was a lot of information given.
**********
Dr Alison Baverstock, Course Leader for MA Publishing at Kingston University, made the following points:
1. Take care
It's very easy to self-publish a manuscript and the sites that you upload to won't check the content, the quality of the product.
She warned that negative responses to books can hurt and be damaging for a writer.
2. Think about the objectives.
There are many different formats you can publish in. Consider the flexibility of formats.
3. Think of an e-book as a scroll.
A digital book is flowing text. A reader can change the font and font size, as well as line spacing.
She went on to say that there is no restriction on the length of an e-book. With e-books, she says there is a much more level playing field between indie and traditionally published books because no one can really tell who published it.
She says it's best to make e-books widely available.
4. You don't have to do it on your own.
There are various supports out there. Guides to formatting.
On Smashwords.com, for example, there is a free style guide.
She mentioned BookFlower a website where you can easily format your books on your own.
There was a demonstration of that website, and it does seem very easy to use to convert a document into an ePub.
Dr Baverstock also recommended the book Let's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should, by David Gaughran.
She also recommended Jutoh.com
She gave a few tips for effective distribution:
The aim is to drive traffic to your book. Social media is useful. She recommends trying one thing at a time; changing one variable at a time to see what works and keep a record to learn from.
In regard to the question as to how much to charge for an e-book, she stated that we often underestimate how much people are willing to pay. The presentation of the book is important. We should not look at price in isolation. There are other factors that influence the decision to buy a book.
5. Gain vital market information
Whether you're self-published or published by a traditional publishing house, authors need to get involved in media/marketing. Publishers have become more reliant on authors for this.
Wendy Toole, Chair of the SfEP, stressed the importance of editing.
She said that at least 2 of the following should be done before publishing:
1. Get a manuscript assessment/critique
2. Developmental/structural editing
3. Copy edting
4. Proofreading
She said that it's best to use SfEP members, and also recommended TLC's services. She said you could also use someone who has been personally recommended to you by another author whose books are well-edited.
It was also stated that it's best to get your manuscript into the best shape possible before sending to an editor as this will save time and expense.
***********
In Part II of this part of the series, I will tell you what the speakers said about cover design and font type, and also pass on some tips from an author who switched from traditional to self-publishing.
A few giveaways at Bestsellerbound Recommends!
We currently have some great giveaways taking place on the BestsellerBound Recommends blog.
2 e-book copies of The Recluse Storyteller by Mark W. Sasse (8 days left to enter!)
Go here to enter: http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...
4 e-book copies of Immortal Bound by Jennifer Sage (10 days left to enter!)
Enter here: http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...
A pair of Victorian-style earrings, by author Moriah Densley! (13 days left to enter!)
Enter here: http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...
Keep an eye on the blog as we often have giveaways running.
Good luck!
2 e-book copies of The Recluse Storyteller by Mark W. Sasse (8 days left to enter!)
Go here to enter: http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...
4 e-book copies of Immortal Bound by Jennifer Sage (10 days left to enter!)
Enter here: http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...
A pair of Victorian-style earrings, by author Moriah Densley! (13 days left to enter!)
Enter here: http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...
Keep an eye on the blog as we often have giveaways running.
Good luck!
