Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "tips"
New series on my blog: A-Z writing & self-publishing tips
I'm going to start a new series on my blog: my A-Z of Writing and Self-Publishing Tips. The first post from that series can be found on author K.B. Walker's blog.
Here's a link to the blog, where I have posted A-C, including tips about apostrophes, blogs, and writing contests.
http://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/20...
Enjoy!
Here's a link to the blog, where I have posted A-C, including tips about apostrophes, blogs, and writing contests.
http://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/20...
Enjoy!
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...
KDP Free Promotions - a few things I have learned
This blog post is really for the benefit of authors who may not have promoted their Kindle books using Amazon's KDP Select Programme, but who may be wondering whether it's worth doing so. It will also be beneficial for readers who want to learn how they can help support their favourite authors when there is a free promotion going on.
There is a bit of controversy surrounding the whole KDP Select Programme. Indie authors and their books definitely benefit from promotion by a massive online retailer if they take part in the Programme, but the question remains: do the benefits of this type of promotion outweigh the detrimental effect? The result of KDP Select is that there are now millions of free books flooding the market. When will readers find time to read all of these books? Is it a fad? Will readers get bored of these promotions when their Kindles are full to bursting? Will actual sales of books diminish as a result?
I'm going to ignore the controversy for the moment, and tell you a bit about what I have learnt from my own experience of the KDP Select Programme. Right now, I'm thinking that, yes, maybe this promotion has helped me because a lot more people now have my book on their Kindles. Whether they ever get around to reading it or not is another matter. For now, I prefer to believe that they will read it, love it, and buy the rest of my books -- yes, my imagination is still working ;)
Here are some tips for those of you who are thinking of doing one of these promotions:
1. The first time I did the promotion, back at the end of July, I didn't know about all the websites and blogs that promote free books... I think I only tried to get listed with Pixel of Ink, as that was one that I heard has a big following. I now know that there are many similar sites, okay not all of them have a large following, but they are growing each day.
Here's a handy blog post I found about the list of sites that will promote your book. It also has a list of Facebook pages that you can post to. Bear in mind that going through this list takes a while, so don't leave it until the last minute! http://katrinaparkerwilliams.wordpres...
2. I was told about the benefits of Hootsuite by a few of my author friends. I used the free version during my promotion to schedule some Tweets on Twitter during the night when I couldn't be online. This service will send the Tweets out at any time you choose, so you can market your book taking into account different time zones.
3. Readers can help their favourite authors by posting links to the free books on their Facebook pages and other social networking sites and by tweeting and retweeting links on Twitter. I think it's important to have a more or less constant online presence during the promotion to get the most benefit from it.
4. Set up a Facebook Event for your free day and invite your FB friends and ask them to invite their friends. Everyone loves a freebie, so it's a good way to get extra promotion.
5. Goodreads allows you to set up Events. I did that for my first free promotion but not for the second one as I ran out of time! But I think it's also a good way of letting more people know about your free book.
6. Another tip I heard was that in the days following the promotion you should keep your book at a low price as there will be readers still seeing your book on the bargain ebook sites and if it's priced low there's more chance they will buy it. After my first promotion I priced my books at $2.99 and had quite a lot of sales in the month after the promotion. This time I've reduced the price to 99 cents to see if this will mean even more sales. In the past couple of days I have had more actual sales than I would usually have in 2-3 months, so it seems like a good tactic.
As indie authors we are always looking for ways to help more people hear about our books as our resources are limited and we cannot afford expensive advertising. I think Amazon KDP Select is a way to help promote and kick start sales. Whether those sales continue, I think will be based partly on luck, and partly on continued marketing after the promotion.
Good luck to all authors out there who are considering using KDP Select.
Here are some stats, from my promos:
In my first promotion, which was a 2-day one (and bear in mind that I didn't promote on the free sites), I had just over 1,700 free downloads of Coincidences.
This time, it was a 3 day promotion and I had just over 13,800 downloads.
The majority of the downloads in my first promotion were in the UK (about 1,400). On the second promotion, the majority of downloads was in the Amazon.com site (over 10,000).
I did the first promotion - 2 days - on the weekend Saturday & Sunday.
The 3 day one, I did on Sunday-Tuesday, as I had heard that weekdays are better for downloads. The Monday was the day I had most downloads in the Amazon.com site, over 6000.
Coincidences went to #1 in the UK free Kindle store in the Drama Category, and #5 in the top 100 free Kindle books
On Amazon.com, It went to about #18 in the top 100 free Kindle books, and went to #1 in two of the free Kindle store categories: Drama, and Theater.
I hope this information will help.
Remember, if you missed the free promotion for Coincidences, I am leaving it at 99 cents/77p for the next week or so. US/India:http://www.amazon.com/Coincidences-eb...
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coincidences-...
There is a bit of controversy surrounding the whole KDP Select Programme. Indie authors and their books definitely benefit from promotion by a massive online retailer if they take part in the Programme, but the question remains: do the benefits of this type of promotion outweigh the detrimental effect? The result of KDP Select is that there are now millions of free books flooding the market. When will readers find time to read all of these books? Is it a fad? Will readers get bored of these promotions when their Kindles are full to bursting? Will actual sales of books diminish as a result?
I'm going to ignore the controversy for the moment, and tell you a bit about what I have learnt from my own experience of the KDP Select Programme. Right now, I'm thinking that, yes, maybe this promotion has helped me because a lot more people now have my book on their Kindles. Whether they ever get around to reading it or not is another matter. For now, I prefer to believe that they will read it, love it, and buy the rest of my books -- yes, my imagination is still working ;)
Here are some tips for those of you who are thinking of doing one of these promotions:
1. The first time I did the promotion, back at the end of July, I didn't know about all the websites and blogs that promote free books... I think I only tried to get listed with Pixel of Ink, as that was one that I heard has a big following. I now know that there are many similar sites, okay not all of them have a large following, but they are growing each day.
Here's a handy blog post I found about the list of sites that will promote your book. It also has a list of Facebook pages that you can post to. Bear in mind that going through this list takes a while, so don't leave it until the last minute! http://katrinaparkerwilliams.wordpres...
2. I was told about the benefits of Hootsuite by a few of my author friends. I used the free version during my promotion to schedule some Tweets on Twitter during the night when I couldn't be online. This service will send the Tweets out at any time you choose, so you can market your book taking into account different time zones.
3. Readers can help their favourite authors by posting links to the free books on their Facebook pages and other social networking sites and by tweeting and retweeting links on Twitter. I think it's important to have a more or less constant online presence during the promotion to get the most benefit from it.
4. Set up a Facebook Event for your free day and invite your FB friends and ask them to invite their friends. Everyone loves a freebie, so it's a good way to get extra promotion.
5. Goodreads allows you to set up Events. I did that for my first free promotion but not for the second one as I ran out of time! But I think it's also a good way of letting more people know about your free book.
6. Another tip I heard was that in the days following the promotion you should keep your book at a low price as there will be readers still seeing your book on the bargain ebook sites and if it's priced low there's more chance they will buy it. After my first promotion I priced my books at $2.99 and had quite a lot of sales in the month after the promotion. This time I've reduced the price to 99 cents to see if this will mean even more sales. In the past couple of days I have had more actual sales than I would usually have in 2-3 months, so it seems like a good tactic.
As indie authors we are always looking for ways to help more people hear about our books as our resources are limited and we cannot afford expensive advertising. I think Amazon KDP Select is a way to help promote and kick start sales. Whether those sales continue, I think will be based partly on luck, and partly on continued marketing after the promotion.
Good luck to all authors out there who are considering using KDP Select.
Here are some stats, from my promos:
In my first promotion, which was a 2-day one (and bear in mind that I didn't promote on the free sites), I had just over 1,700 free downloads of Coincidences.
This time, it was a 3 day promotion and I had just over 13,800 downloads.
The majority of the downloads in my first promotion were in the UK (about 1,400). On the second promotion, the majority of downloads was in the Amazon.com site (over 10,000).
I did the first promotion - 2 days - on the weekend Saturday & Sunday.
The 3 day one, I did on Sunday-Tuesday, as I had heard that weekdays are better for downloads. The Monday was the day I had most downloads in the Amazon.com site, over 6000.
Coincidences went to #1 in the UK free Kindle store in the Drama Category, and #5 in the top 100 free Kindle books
On Amazon.com, It went to about #18 in the top 100 free Kindle books, and went to #1 in two of the free Kindle store categories: Drama, and Theater.
I hope this information will help.
Remember, if you missed the free promotion for Coincidences, I am leaving it at 99 cents/77p for the next week or so. US/India:http://www.amazon.com/Coincidences-eb...
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coincidences-...
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!
