Heather Hart's Blog, page 45

Book Marketing on a Shoestring Budget

Most of my followers know that I my latest book was about book marketing on a shoestring budget. But since its release, my publisher has been offering tons of great marketing suggestions to help authors market their books on a shoestring budget. Here's just a few:

If you're willing to give away a few free review copies, you can list it on their website (any Christian author, this isn't just for books that are published through them): http://www.bodyandsoulpublishing.com/get-free-review-co...

Giveaways

We recently ran a giveaway for one of the teen devotional books that I co-author with Shelley Hitz on Goodreads, and the results were amazing! Almost 500 people entered to win a free copy, and over 50 of them added it to their “to read” shelf. For the cost of the book, that’s some amazing shoestring budget marketing! I was also following a giveaway for a fiction book and it ended with over 1,500 entries and was put on over 500 “to read” shelves.
Giveaways in general are amazing ways to promot...

My New Favorite Author

Anyone who really knows me, knows that for as long as I have had a favorite author, it has been Lori Wick. Her books have always amazed me, and after reading every single one of them (at least a dozen times), instead of picking up new authors, I would simply re-read them all over again. The first book I ever read by her I picked up at Wal-mart at random one day. The cover drew me in, and while up until that point in my life I had hated reading, I couldn't help but make the purchase. Part of i...

Half Way There

It was brought to my attention yesterday that 2012 is officially half over, and all I can say is: "WOW!" This year has gone by so fast, I can hardly believe it. Even though I didn't set my goals until March, I still wanted to look at my progress to see if I will complete them by the end of the year. So here's the run down:

1 Year Goal: 
To establish my writing and formatting career and use it to glorify God.
Publish 1 book independently - I'm working towards this goal and believe that I wil...

Giveaway Announcement

Have you ever thought about marketing your book through giveaways? When we released our latest devotional book, "Teen Devotionals... for Girls! Vol. 2" this past April, we launched it with a giveaway. What we did was we sent an e-mail out to our list about the giveaway, as well as posting about it on various social media sites and blogs, and tons of people entered and shared about it as well. We offered one physical copy of the book, and several Smashwords copies. After the giveaway ended, we...

Faith Talk 101

My new book, "Faith Talk" is coming along great! I finally have a rough outline to share with you as well as the back of the book. Here it is:

We all fall short of being perfect, yet we all long to have true friends. A true friend is often defined as someone who tells you the truth, even when you don’t want to hear it. Well, I believe that the Bible is true – the written word of God, and I want to tell you about my faith – My hope is that despite your past experiences or presumptions, that you...

Fiction Errors

I took some time last week and immersed myself in fiction. In one week, I read 5 novels. It took a lot of time that I wasn't sure that I was really willing to give, but I learned so much! I normally write non-fiction, however originally I did write fiction (though I never published any of it), and I have been contemplating picking it up again (maybe for NaNoWriMo?).

The biggest thing that stuck out to me as I read was the importance of having a content editor. Even though each book w...

A Short Note on Reading and Writing

I've been noticing a lot lately about the differences between fiction and non-fiction. We all know that fiction is is made up, while non-fiction is fact. However, even the styles are completely different, yet when you have a fiction author, their non-fiction writing often reflects fiction. This isn't a bad thing, I'm simply intrigued by it.

It's the difference between captivating the readers attention with a story and keeping their interest with facts. Non-fiction readers want to learn, and wi...

Children's Audio Books

We've been listening to a lot of children's audio books lately. Not for any research that I had planned, but just because my four year old twins love them. They are totally into books (which I think is awesome) and I simply cannot sit and read to them all day long everyday, no matter how much I want to. So the best alternative is audio books. They have a copy of the actual book, and a CD that reads it to them. It originally started with the Toy Story 2 Read-Along set that we were given, but n...

Christian Survey

We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.~1 Thessalonians 2:8
While I am a mutlitasking author, when I really get into writing a book, it seems to consume me for a time. Thus, 1 Thessalonians 2:8 has started to become part of me. Am I really delighted to share the gospel with those that I love? What about my life? I know that I desire to, but thus far I know that I have fallen short. I'm...