Sarah R. Yoffa's Blog: -sry's Goodreads Blogosphere, page 11

TUESDAY TIP #Shelfari #BookExtras Editing a Book's Description #pubtip #selfpub #howto #indie

Last week I began a little miniseries on Amazon/Shelfari's "Book Extras" feature for Kindle books. These handy little enhancements are only applicable through the Amazon Kindle Store (your book's page), the Shelfari web site and of course, inside the Kindle eBooks themselves.

Click here to review how to create your Amazon Author Central account, a prerequisite to setting up a Shelfari Author account. Then let's dive in after the jump-break and start setting up sections of your eBook in Book Extras. I'll start with the Description field, since that's the first one on the page (and since it'll already be populated from when you entered your book in the KDP Dashboard).



As I said, you must already have an Amazon Author Central account in order to setup any of your Book Extras on Shelfari. You have to log into Author Central first and get to your Book Extras through Author Central. For some weird reason, whenever I go directly to the Shelfari site and just log in and go to my book page, the changes don't propagate to the book's page on Amazon.

It's easy enough, though, just log into Author Central and click the link for the "list of your books" (see screen shot below)




You should then see a list of your books with their basic stats (sales rank at the moment--isn't mine hilarious? I never give out the URL for the book so it's amazing it's sold even one copy never mind one a week which is about what it does right now in the completely absence of promotion beyond the occasional link from this blog)



Assuming your book(s) appears correctly, click on the one you want to work on (in my case, just the one shown here). I click on the title for Dicky's Story to get to the next screen.

NOTE: If the book(s) shown are not yours, then your Author Central account might not be correctly set up. Be sure you logged in with the correct email address (the one you attached to your Author Central account and the one that is attached to your KDP account, which are hopefully, the same email address).

The next screen shows me my book with 3 tabs:
Editorial Reviews (which yes, you can actually edit here from Author Central)Book Details (which no, you cannot edit from anywhere)Book Extras

On the Book Extras screen at Author Central, you'll see your Book Extras, but NOTE: You cannot edit Book Extras here.

For some reason Amazon prefers to have you do the editing of Book Extras content over on the Shelfari web site. They will link you directly to where you need to be though. Just click the link shown in the following screen shot:




The first screen you see on Shelfari will be your book's page already clicked to the Book Extras tab. You'll already be logged in (because you logged in at Amazon's Author Central and the two accounts are linked) and your book's sections might already have some fields populated--such as, the description.




Now here's an exciting and convenient little trick. You can edit the description here, without having to republish your book on KDP! Such a pain to have to "republish" (and wait the 12 to 48 hours for it to propagate through) when instead, you can just tweak the text right here and it will appear, if not instantly, in less than 12 hours. Usually about one hour, I've noticed.

To edit the description, just click the "EDIT" button next to the section heading. The content will now appear in a text box, which you can edit. After you make the changes you'd like, I suggest you tick the checkbox to be notified whenever this section is updated (e.g., by someone else, not you)  and then click "save changes."



That's it. The changes you've made should just show up on the book's page in the Kindle Store. Because this was the "Description" field, the new text will also show up anytime someone browses the Kindle Store and runs across your book. Quick, easy, and best of all, side-steps republishing the whole book just to tweak the text.



What's Next....
Next Tuesday I'll go over how to create (or edit) a "Character" field for the people in your book. Hope to see you then!

MONDAY MARKETING Branding Law 12 (for Indie Authors) Law of the Generic #branding #positioning #promo #indie #pubtip #IAN1 #WLCAuthor

  some image rights reserved by Paulo BrandãWelcome back to my marketing series on Branding (for Indie Authors). Over the course of this series, we're talking about the marketing activity called "branding" which many Indie Authors do not actually understand. I'll define the term for you below but you may want to review some of the earlier entries in this series here. Refresh your memory on the definition of branding as follows:

A brand is an idea in the mind of the consumer whose power lies in the ability to influence purchasing decisions.

That's a lot more than picking a snazzy theme of artwork for your book covers or selecting the same fonts to use for your book title or Author Name. In fact, the font matters less than the name it displays. Far less.

As an Indie Author, your brand is you , your Author Name (even if it's a pen name, as discussed in Law 9, the Law of the Name and Law 10, the Law of Extensions). You can also brand a collection (or series) of books if they are tied together by delivering a common "Reader Experience." You have to do a lot more than merely give them themed titles or subtitles, though. Click through the jump-break to learn more about the Law of the Generic and branding a book series.





Naming a Series
The Law of the Generic states "One of the fastest routes to failure is to give a brand a generic name."  In the Indie Author business, it's easy to see how this translates to the branding of a series of books or even the category you might create for your new genre (your new brand). Choosing the brand name is going to be a challenge. No question. Some of the best ones are already taken--and generic names are tempting. After all, the more generic you make it, the more books you can slide in under that umbrella brand after you've created it, right? Wrong.

In Immutable Law of Branding 9 (Law of the Name), I warned you against thinking the name of your book (title) was to be your Author Brand. A book title is a short-term, product-level name. The long-term, brand-level name is your Author Name. Think of the name you choose for a series of books (three or more) as a medium-term, brand-level name. It will only last as long as the series, but it will be a brand you can return to for that series (and all of the books in that series) again and again. As always, let me illustrate the point with one of the most-successful examples around.

J. D. Robb (one of Nora Roberts's pen names) has published the In Death series of romantic suspense novels. Check this ordered list of them and notice the cover art. It's not the same, and you'd never know they were related (in a series) if they weren't on a list together--or if you didn't know the series was called   the In Death series.Her latest In Death release just won the Romance Writers of American RITA (like Academy Awards for romance novels) for the Romantic Suspense genre.

The In Death books are all subtitled "An Eve Dallas Novel" and even more importantly, they are all written by J. D. Robb, so readers can guess what they'll get if they buy the book. The stories are all going to be set in the same time (the future), same city, have the same basic scenario (female cop "saves the world" and still feels like a wife/woman at the end of the hard day's work) and deliver a similarly suspenseful-but-not-too-edgy Reader Experience. The In Death series is kind of a fantasy series set in the future and depicts utterly unrealistic scenarios of how real cops behave but readers who are fans--and the fans are downright avid about this series!--know what kinds of stories these are before they buy them.

The In Death series is a brand. Readers are buying the brand, not the individual books. It doesn't matter what adventure Eve Dallas goes on, or what kind of plot the new release has, the readers want to visit her world, her life, her challenges and read what J. D. Robb has to say in Eve's voice. In fact, many readers buy the In Death series bookes sight unseen--pre-ordering on Amazon! As is evidenced by the brand new release in the series just having swept away the 2012 RITA for the genre.

So how did Nora Roberts / J. D. Robb create this "In Death Brand" for her series? You won't like the answer. It involved a lot of hard work on her part. She wrote the same kind of book, using the same character (and not changing her personality at all ) and created the same kind of challenge for her--repeatedly--making it seem like it was new and fresh and different. Oh and she wrote these books quickly, consistently and exceedingly well (in terms of staying "true to the brand" each time).

Not all writers can be prolific like this or consistently deliver the same Reader Experience. Some writers are not good Authors in that way. Some writers like to try something new and different and fun--for themselves--each time they write a book. Nora / J. D. is exceptionally good at writing the "same" story in an all new and fresh sort of way. That's why her brand has been so successful.

Even if you don't like romance novels, I highly suggest you study her mastery of the craft by reading some of the Nora Roberts trilogies (her Irish trilogies, and she has a few, are quite solid in terms of texture of the settings and authentic-feeling characters; they may or may not feel authentic to actual Irish people but to Americans, her Irish characters "feel" Irish. Likewise, her Chesapeake Bay series was best seller list for a very long time for good reason.  Read her work to study it, to learn how she "built" the worlds in her books and you'll understand how she branded each series, strengthening her brand each time she released a new book. She chose to try something new and different at the series level, not the book level (lower) and not the brand level (higher). She kept her experimentation with her craft in the midrange of the branding effect.



Finding Your Brand's "One Word"
This is one of the hardest tasks ahead of you as an Indie Author. Your "one word" has to describe your brand by identifying the one common attribute across all your products (all of your books). To find it, look for the one regular word, taken out of context, which can be used to connote the primary attribute of your brand--or the attribute you desire to continue writing into future products.

For Nora Roberts, I'd say her #1 attribute is character-centered stories, but that's too generic to use as her band so I'd say she's the "relationship" writer. All of her stories are about regular people who have interesting relationships we (her readers) can identify with but her characters' relationships always take some turn that makes the character's life first a challenge, then better and richer. Always. And always as a result of the relationship.

The moral of the story, if you will, of a Nora Roberts book is that when you invest in a relationship--any relationship--your life will get better. That's not a bad moral to promote, eh? Oh, and a Nora Roberts book always has a happen ending. That's not a bad Contract with the Reader to honor, is it? Her books aren't easy to write, I'm sure, but it's easy to see why she made the choices she did for "standardizing" without resorting to a "generic" approach.

Look for the one regular word which, taken out of context, can be used to connote the primary attribute of your brand

For J. D. Robb and the Eve Dallas books, it's easy to see why she defined the brand as In Death--someone's always dying when you're a homicide cop. That's your life: looking into death. She turned the Law of the Generic on its head, though, by making In Death a successful brand. I should note, it took her a few years and a several books into the series before she gained any traction--and this is from a woman who (at that time) had over 200 million books in print! Now, she has over 400 million in print. Halfway through her journey she spawned off a new brand to allow the writer in her a little creative freedom and leeway. If you're just starting out, allow yourself three (3) or more years to see any kind of success in establishing a brand through the use of a series name. Just keep working. It'll come.

If you're wondering about how much of Nora / J.D.'s success was due to spawning off a new pen name, refer back to my discussion on Immutable Law of Branding 10 (Law of Extension) to see why she didn't (at first) even leverage her Nora Roberts name to market the In Death series, when it was struggling to launch. She let J. D. Robb stand on "J. D. Robb's merits" and Robb's alone. It worked. I wouldn't put it past her to launch a third career. She's got a couple of other pen names out there already (e.g., Jill March and Sarah Hardesty)



What's Next....
Tomorrow's Tuesday Tip will be another entry on Amazon/Shelfari Book Extras and how to use them. Please refer to last week's introduction to learn how to setup your own Shelfari Author account (you need an Amazon Author Central account first!) so you'll be ready to start using Book Extras to enhance your next book.

Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow.

Last update to Dicky Cartooning Before Reissue!

I'm pretty sure I'm about 98% done here. There are 3 areas I still want to clean up on this:

[image error]

(click to enlarge image)


1) fringes on the bottom of his shirt (the Tallit Katan)

2) his shoes are like The Joker in a Batman cartoon (LOL) and I swear I did NOT copy clown shoes but now that I have the rest of him done....hmm

3) the Keepah looks too simple or missing something but I don't really want to add trim the way I did on his shirt (I thought I would) and I think I already added too much shading trying to make the fabric "fold over" itself...I need to do something but I'm not sure what.

My goal is to get the cartoon tweaked and the cover done by July 31st so I can update the book no later than August 1st--the hoped-for reissue date! I still haven't decided on a layout, font treatment or what else, if anything, I'll do to make this a cover not just a character sketch but I have two whole days to think about it! Pleeeenty of time (haha)

-sry
@webbiegrrl

Coming Home to the Final Stretch of #Cartooning Dicky still FREE at http://bit.ly/DickyStory #Jewish #inspirational #RomCom #Smashwords

Tah-dah!!

Updated as of middle of "Christmas Day" (in July)


(click image to enlarge for detail)


Getting so close now! I've added trim to his shirt, at the bottom of the sleeve and hem and will probably add some of the same kind to the collar but I'm still not sure how (or even *if*) I want to do the front closure...might just leave it plain, like "hidden velcro" or something. You never know, this story is set in the future after all ;-) hey, that's my excuse and I think I'm sticking to it (get it? stickin? velcro? Yeah, I'm a little slap-happy after working at the pixel level on this guy).

I am actually close enough now that I can believe it's possible to have this done for a relaunch on August 1st! He just needs to be holding a keepah (the hardest thing for me to draw is fabric, could you have guessed?)

Once I get him drawn, the fonts will take minutes and that's it! Well, I'll probably reconsider the hardback option since I've had well over 100 requests for one and now, I'll have halfway decent cover art to put on it ^)^ I might even start marketing the book *gasp* What a concept! 

Don't forget that Dicky's Story is free all this month at Smashwords. Until midnight (Pacific Time) on July 31, 2012 you can get your FREE copy by clicking here  (http://bit.ly/DickyStory). As a "paying" customer (use the "SSWIN" coupon code to "pay" $0.00 for it),  you'll be entitled to a free update when the new artwork is released.

TUESDAY TIP: #Shelfari #BookExtras How to Get Started #howto #indie #pubtip

A while back, I did a 2-part Tuesday Tip on Shelfari Book Extras. Part 1 introduced what the general reading public thinks these suckers are, exactly, and Part 2 talked about how I felt Book Bloggers could get involved in using them for free publicity (for themselves and for the sake of the book, in a symbiotic relationship).

Because the #1 response I got from Book Bloggers and Authors alike was "Oh yeah, I'll have to look into how to use those" and pretty much no one did, I've decided to do a little mini-series of Tuesday Tips on how to use Book Extras. Today, I'll start with the basics: setting up the account and making yourself an official Author.


To use Book Extras, you'll need to have a Shelfari account. If you have an Amazon Customer account, then you have, or can have, a Shelfari account. When you log into your Amazon Customer account, Shelfari will automatically create an account "for" you. Just one little problem (which I alluded to in Part 1): if you're an Author, it'd be nice to have a Shelfar Author account, not merely a Shelfari user account. So there's a little step you have to take first, before logging into Shelfari and letting it "helpfully" create your account "for" you however it deems fit.



1) Amazon Author Central
Yep, you must have an Amazon Author account set up at Amazon's Author Central.  If you haven't already setup your Author name in Author Central, do that now. You should probably use an email account that is tied to your Author account with KDP (see NOTE below for why) but you don't "have to" do that; you just need to have an existing account in Author Central. Log into Amazon Author Central here:  https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/home

Amazon will search its vast storehouse of author names and come up with what it "thinks" is you by showing you a book or books by that Author Name. NOTE: This is why I said use the same email address you did for KDP. It'll give you a chance to accept or reject the suggestion but it's pretty fool-proof if you use the same address. You'll see your book and just click the "this is me" button to accept it.

At that point, you'll need to log into your email and click a link to confirm you're you, but then your Author Central account will be created. That is, it will exist, as shown in the following screen shot for my new (yep, brand spanking new) Author Central account for "Sarah R. Yoffa."




Setting up your Author Central account and your Amazon Author Page is another Tip (or three) for another Tuesday (or series of Tuesdays). Don't click anything else at your Author Central account for right now, not even the highlight link in the screen shot ((grin))




2) Amazon Shelfari Authors
Now that you have an Author Central account, you can log into Amazon/Shelfari using that same email address. Shelfari will search the same vast database at Amazon and now "find you" because you have an Amazon Author Central account. In fact, Shelfari will automatically link your Amazon Author Central account to its new Shelfari Author account for you.

You still have to customize your Shelfari Author account (upload a photo, set your customized username--you can only do it once so do it carefully!) but you can start using your Shelfari Author account right away to access and edit Book Extras in your book even without setting up the profile data. Your profile avatar--assuming you upload one--will have a little blue "Author" ribbon over the bottom right corner ( ) to indicate to all Shelfari users that you are an official Amazon Author. Here's a screen shot of my Author proflie for "Sarah R. Yoffa" :
 


Yes, again, I just created this account yesterday. Why hadn't I done any of this before? Because I had created everything for "Sarah, The Webbiegrrl Writer" and apparently, Shelfari will not let me use that to be "Sarah R. Yoffa" as well. This is a great example "in action" of what I warned of in this week's Monday Marketing blog: be very careful what name you choose and how you use it. One little change can make you a whole new Author to the publishing world!

If you did these steps "out of order" or decided not to bother creating an Amazon Author Central account first, he's how the difference shows up on your Shelfari account.



Please note that because "Webbiegrrl Writer" is not an Amazon/Shelfari Author she has no little blue ribbon ( ).

To be an authentic Amazon Author on Shelfari, you must first have an Amazon Author Central account.

Webbiegrrl Writer has the ribboned purple Legs I have on my @webbiegrrl Twitter account. I've got the avatars backwards from how I do it on Facebook (I use grey Legs for Webbiegrrl and purple for my real name) so I'll probably switch the images before you see this. Just to keep you on your toes :)




3. Configuring Your Shelfari Author Account
The next step is to flesh out details about yourself in your Shelfari Author Account. Be sure to search for and add all of your own books to your Shelfari shelf, Click the "edit your profile" link to add data about yourself and your Author brand. This is for your brand and not merely a place to list your book titles and links. Don't open your "hello" conversation with your potential fans with a link and sales pitch. That's a definitely turn off and says nothing good about your brand.

You can follow people (like I started to do with "Sarah, The Webbiegrrl Writer") but you don't have to and so far, I see zero value-added to following people on Shelfari. I've already gotten spammed there a few times by total strangers who see I'm an Author--even though "Webbiegrrl Writer" is not a real Amazon Author!

3 Basics to include:

a) Upload a photo avatar and make it something that matches either your Twitter or Amazon Author photo.

b) Write at least 25 words about yourself (not your books, you) It's only about a paragraph long; a little longer than Twitter but shorter than Goodreads. Brand yourself here. Be sure your bio paragraph is uniquely you and not just a boring list of accomplishments or staccato sales pitches.

c) Be sure to mention your web site, blog or Twitter/Facebook links in the bio blurb - giving a reason why people should care to go yet somewhere else. Can they get something there?



What's Next....
Next Tuesday, I'll do a Tip on how to start setting up your Book Extras for each of your books, working through one section a week, then I'll probably revisit the entire discussion of how Book Bloggers and Readers can get involved in your book--literally--through the use of Book Extras.

Next week's Monday Marketing blog will be Immutable Law of Branding (for Indie Authors) Law 12: the Law of the Generic. Specifically, we'll talk about how to be "less" to all people and "more" of just one thing: you.

MONDAY MARKETING Branding Law 11 (for Indie Authors) Fellowship #branding #positioning #promo #indie #pubtip #myWANA #IAN1 #WLCAuthor

  some image rights reserved by Paulo BrandãWelcome back to my marketing series on Branding (for Indie Authors). Over the course of this series, we're talking about the marketing activity called branding and how it applies to our Indie Author business model.

The ideas are the same as in any other sales situation. You create a brand to sell products, the same way a store creates a category to sell brands. 
For example, all brands of cereal are typically sold on the cereal aisle (or category) of a grocery store. All Thriller novels (theoretically) are in the Thriller category of a book store.

So what happens when you follow the Law of Category (Immutable Law of Branding 8 or Immutable Law of Marketing 2) and Law of Leadership (Immutable Law of Marketing 1) and spawn a new subgenre of Thriller that is uniquely you? To find out what happens next, click through the jump-break.



Competition Strengthens a Brand
Choice stimulates demand, though that might sound counter-intuitive on the surface. When customers have choices, they make comparisons. When there are no choices, how can a customer know yours is "better"? There needs to be another brand--a competitor--against which to compare it....and thus do the customers (not the brands) create a competition. Competition broadens a category by attracting yet more brands to enter it while allowing each individual brand in the competition to stay focused. And so we return to the original conclusion: competition strengthens a brand.

Now, of course, this only holds true if you're building and maintaining your brand according to the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (for Indie Authors) and the 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (for Indie Authors) -- of which I've only covered half so far. The important Laws to learn and use, however, have been discussed already. Let me review.

To strengthen your brand in the midst of a competition, you simply need to focus (Immutable Law of Marketing Law 5) your message down to one word (or concept) so that you can apply the Laws of the Mind and Perception (Immutable Laws of Marketing 3 and 4) to claim a position in the mind of the consumer. When you do, you'll find that your brand narrows and as a result of narrowing, gains strength (Immutable Laws of Branding (for Indie Authors) Laws 1 and 2, Expansion and Contraction).

If you see a new category with a heated competition waging as a chance to violate the Law of Extension (Immutable Law of Marketing 12 or last week's Immutable Law of Branding 10), then you are about to deliberately weaken your brand in order to gain temporary and immediate market share in the new market. You cannot--and will not--maintain this new position. The smart thing to do is to apply the first 2 Immutable Laws of Branding we learned (Expansion and Contraction) to narrow your focus and be just one thing to all people.



Can There Ever Be Too Much Choice?
Short answer? Yes. The long answer, however, is no. The more brands, flavors and varieties there are in a category, the more likely the category is to suffer a bout of confusion and chaos. Consumers won't know what the differences are between one brand and the next, so the per-capita consumption of all products will go down. Why? Again, we turn to the Immutable Law of Marketing (for Indie Authors) Law 3 (Law of the Mind) and my Positioning series where it became clear that consumers prefer to have a "simplified mind." That is, they want to keep their selection process simple. If there's too much information to sort through, they won't bother. They'll just discard it all, collectively, and look for another category in which to shop, one with more distinct choices for them to select.

Chaos is not always bad, though. In fact, in Immutable Law of Marketing 17 (Law of Unpredictability), we learned that in the midst of chaos is when you'll find the "Golden Moment" to launch a new category and claim the top rung of the product ladder in the new category. Then what?

Remember Immutable Law of Marketing 8 (Law of Duality): every market is a 2-horse race.  You only need to worry about one other major competitor. If you settle at the top--or even in #2 position--be happy and invite others to join your new category. There can never be too much chaos--on the ladder beneath you! Just keep your top rung position by focusing and narrowing and strengthening your brand, permeating all of your marketing messags with your brand and expanding the rest of the category with the chaos of others. Your focused, strong brand--by comparison--will become a clear and easy choice. The leader "by default."

And this is the crux of this week's Law of Fellowship. Inviting others to join you in your category will only benefit your sales.



How The Law of Fellowship Works
Take the area of any large US city where the car dealerships are located. You probably know exactly what area I mean no matter what city you're in (possibly even if you're outside the US) because they all "seem" to cluster together. That's not accidental. They know that competition will drive sales, so they co-locate on purpose. Take the street or block in any city (or even small town) where restaurants are lined up, one after another. They're doing the same thing. They  know that competition will drive customers into their dining rooms. Why does this work?

First of all, in the physical world, a group of similar businesses will, collectively, attract more customers to the same geographic area as a lone business would. Each business benefits from their competitor's customers coming to the area in the first place. For Indie Authors, this translates to the "also bought" lists eTailers use to suggestively sell "like kind" eBooks after a consumer makes a purchase.

Second, because consumers can easily comparison-shop, they will--and by comparison shopping, they feel they are getting the best deal (not getting ripped off by anyone). For Indie Authors, this means if the consumer has a specific price-point in mind or wants a long book or short book, they can easily comparison-shop an entire category on most eTailer sites.This is why "tagging" and correctly categorizing your books is so critical to the correct branding and marketing of your Author Brand. If your books are not all branded in the same way (same type of book--not merely the same cover art style), then they will not end up clumped together in the same category to be shopped "collectively" by readers who browse categories.

Please note: readers who use dedicated eReading devices (like Kindle or Nook) have reported that their #1 method of finding new books is to browse categories.

Third, being co-located with your competition makes it easy to keep an eye on them and know what marketing strategies they're using--and then you know how and when to counter them! For Indie Authors, this translates to the sales rank and Top 100 lists we all watch like hawks--but do you know what to do when you see who's on the list above you? Now you do. Apply the Immutable Law of Marketing 8 (Law of Duality) and claim the next rung up on the product ladder in your category. Use the Immutable Laws of Marketing (for Indie Authors) Law 14 (Law of Attributes) and Law 9 (Law of Opposites) to distinguish your brand from your competitor's.

Remember, you might choose your own category but the product ladder is created, managed and owned by the consumer (Immutable Law of Marketing (for Indie Authors) Law 7: Law of the Ladder). To get onto a new rung, you must change your marketing strategy so that the market message will persuade the consumer to move you--to a new ladder or a new rung. The key will almost always lie in narrowing your focus and strengthening your brand. Be "less" to all people and "more" of just one thing: you.




What's Next....
Tomorrow will be another Tuesday Tip and next week in the Branding Series, I'll look at Law 12: Law of the Generic. Review the last sentence of this week's Law and you'll have a head start on what to do to avoid making that mistake!

If you own a Kindle and would like to receive this blog on your Home screen--delivered via WhisperNET--just subscribe at KindleBlogs by clicking here or searching the Kindle Store for the "Webbiegrrl's Writings" blog. The first 14 days are free (two Monday Marketing blogs and two Tuesday Tips) and then it's just 99c a month. Of course, you can always follow me
Thanks for stopping by!

Dicky's Story FREE for just one more week!

If you weren't already "invited" to the event, please consider yourself invited by reading this! :)

Click here to read the full event text or just click through to the book page to download your FREE copy right now!

http://bit.ly/DickyStory

Please tell everyone you know about this limited-time offer. Once I finish this new artwork, the book's going back to full price--that is, an increased full price of $5.99--so get it while the getting's good! (If you "buy" at Smashwords using the free coupon code, you'll be entitled to a free upgrade to the new version after it's released)

Thanks!

-sry
@webbiegrrl

TUESDAY TIP Payments and Promos

Today's Tuesday Tip is a roundup of all the recent news and changes that have been going on at Smashwords and in the payments arena of eBooks generally. If you're keeping apprised of the news at the Smashwords Blog, you won't find anything new here. If you haven't had time to keep up, I can relate and I'll summarize for you. Click through.

Giving it Away Free
Everyone loves free gifts and readers are no exception. It's not quite Christmas in July, but we're getting there! And if you have a book distributed through Smashwords, then you know that this month is the annual Summer/Winter Sale. It's a site-wide blowout sale where tens of thousands of books are on sale and millions more readers than usual come to the site to find and download them! If yours isn't already entered into the promo, I strongly advise you do that right now.

Go to Smashwords.com and log into your account, then go to https://www.smashwords.com/dashboard/sitewidePromos to enroll one or more of your titles. Your discount coupons will be generated for you. You can make your book free (100% off) for the rest of the month or just a limited time--that's what I'm doing, the "limited time only!" option.

To change the discount amount, just remove the book from the promo (prior to July 31st) by simply returning to this link and clicking the radio button on the far left for the "regular price" option. Then you can enroll it again at a new discount rate and a new coupon will be generated. Or just leave it at one discount rate for the rest of the month. Since soooo many readers are coming through the site this month, however, I really do advise you to avail yourself of this unmatched opportunity to get your book in front of all those eyeballs. When you give it away "free" with a coupon code during the promo, each such "free" sale is still a sale. My SciFi book has been rising on the "best seller" lists at Smashwords--not just in its SciFi category!--because I've been giving it away as much as I can. Those best seller ratings at Smashwords won't disappear once the book goes off promo (unlike with the KDP Select enrollment). Moving large numbers of books increases your sales rank and that, in turn, makes your book more visible to new paying customers.

Oh, and just in case you wondered, there are still those random users who either don't remember or don't know how to enter the coupon code to zero out the price--they pay money because at that point, they've already decided they want the book and they don't want to go away without it.


The Great American FREE Library System
In case you didn't hear already, Smashwords negotiated a deal a few months ago with Baker & Taylor to distribute eBooks to American libraries. Here's the original news release from Smashwords:

March 2, 2012 - Smashwords today announced a two-part distribution agreement with Baker & Taylor that will expand distribution of Smashwords ebooks to the Blio e-reading app and online store (reaches millions of devices) as well distribution to public libraries via Baker & Taylor's Access360 library platform.  The Blio e-reading app comes pre-installed on millions of personal computers from major manufacturers.  This is also our first full foray into the public library market.  The Access360 platform was launched last year and is now being rolled out to several libraries.  More at the Smashwords Blog.

If for some reason you don't want your books distributed to Baker & Taylor, you've got until Monday to opt out.  I don't recommend opting out.  We always give you at least 48 hours advance notice before activating your books at a new channel.  Both Blio and Access360 are relatively new, so I would expect low sales at first.  Remember, every incremental sale represents a sale you would not have earned otherwise.

And now, 3 months later, Mark's negotiated us another great library deal, though only available to the top sellers at Smashwords (so give your book away now and get that sales rank to go up!)

June 26, 2012 - Smashwords plans to sign a deal with Califa, a consortium of California libraries, to purchase the top 10,000 best-selling Smashwords ebooks. Califa is establishing their own ebook aggregation service to provide ebooks to participating member libraries.  Library Journal caught wind of the planned deal (it was a surprise to see it leaked so soon), and reported it [on June 26th].

In preparation for this and other library initiatives, sometime in the next few weeks we'll add a new pricing option to Dashboard: Settings that will allow Smashwords authors and publishers set special pricing for libraries.  In my flash survey last week completed by 150 of you (thanks!!), 24% of you said you'd offer your books for free to any library that wanted them, 32% of you said you'd offer libraries lower pricing than retailers, 29% of you said you'd price higher than retail, and 10% said you'd price the same.

To support your wishes, sometime in the next few weeks we'll create a new pricing option for you that will allow you to control the price at which libraries purchase your books.  Once the Califa deal gets further along, I'll share more specifics.

I can hardly wait for all of this to start happening! Sadly, I was not one of the 150 selected to be surveyed (I wish I had been!) but I would have said I'd offer my books for free to libraries. Why not? I'm a big patron of the Great American Library System and use it as a sort of "try before you buy" method for finding good books I want to read again and again (versus those I struggle to finish). I love the no-risk method of borrowing a book from the library.

As an Author, I love that I get paid for that book but lots of people get to read it for free . No one has to steal or pirate it, I don't have to "sell" a bazillion with a coupon code to make it free, and anyone who likes the book is likely to buy their own copy from Smashwords. Well, they will if I put a link in there to do that and foreward-thinker that I am, I've already added links to the back matter of my book!




Work the System
Last but definitely not least is the June 29th announcement Mark shared for romance authors to get reviewed (and possibly selected for purchase) by ALA (American Library Association) members, which is basically all libraries across the USA.

June 29, 2012 - Review opportunity for romance novelists with forthcoming releases.  Back in the dark ages of publishing (two or three years ago), most major magazines would not publish reviews of self-published titles.  This is now changing with some of the more forward-looking magazines.  Library Journal, the bible of book acquisitions for librarians (there are nearly 10,000 public libraries in the US), now considers self-published romance titles for review consideration.  The reviews appear online-only in their "Xpress Reviews" section.

At the American Library Association conference in Anaheim last weekend, I met with Bette-Lee Fox, the managing editor in charge of romance reviews.  She welcomes review inquiries from Smashwords romance authors, publishers and literary agents.  She kindly shared their review criteria, which I will embellish here with my own recommendations I think you can apply to virtually any book review pitch.

Be sure to click through to the Smashwords >> Site Updates page to read the enumerated steps Ms. Fox provided to us. Mark's right, this is a great little checklist for soliciting reviews anywhere! It's also an amazing opportunity of access he's provided us Indie Authors, who otherwise, would have no access to the Great American Library System.



What's Next....
Next Monday will be a new entry in the Branding (for Indie Authors) series. We'll dive into Law 11: Fellowship. Given the Indie Author community is already pretty supportive, this one should be a piece of cake, right?  ^)^

The Ongoing Saga of Cartooning Dicky: One hand down, one to go! http://bit.ly/DickyStory #Jewish #inspirational #romantic #comedy #ebook #free

So last October (yeah, in 2011) I started trying to cartoon a new left hand for Dicky. I'd done this one but wanted to "tilt" the hand up to give it more expression. So finally, after 9 months, this baby is done. Compare it to the October version. Doesn't it look better with his hand up? Yeah, pretty much the same but I like it better. Click the image to see a larger version.

But wow! It takes me foooorrrreevvvverrrrrr to cartoon! I'm not bad at it, but I sure take a while. Part of the problem is I am a compulsive perfectionist. Another part of the problem is I'm not cartooning as much as I am drawing - big difference is that in cartooning "less is more" rules every line and stroke whereas in drawing "devil's in the details" can make or break your art. Anyway, I might have to do some more "stress marks" on his shirt but I'm going to keep it simple, like this, for the sake of expediting this cover art.

All I have left now is to draw a bent right arm with a right hand holding a sort of half-crumpled keepah (the little black skullcap he's holding in Chapter 20 when he hears the little voice, not his own, and turns his head like this ^)^ I do so like that I have actually drawn the instant in that scene! So kewel to finally get one image out of my head. Only took me 51 years (haha) Okay, I drew my first picture (not counting writing my name 100 times on the wall in multiple colors of crayon at age 3) around at age 4 or 5 so probably only 40 some odd years to get here but still.... wow.

Not a clue if I can get that right arm done. Once I do, I slap some "fun font" text on there and I'm good to go with a new cover and re-release of Coming Home (Dicky's Story) . At that point, when I relaunch, the price is going up to $5.99 so get it now while the getting's good. For the month of July, it is FREE at Smashwords, as part of the annual site-wide Summer/Winter blowout sale. I hope you'll get a copy either free or for pay. It's a fun, fun story of a Jewish faith walk. Not your usual "Inspirational Romance."

MONDAY MARKETING Branding Laws 9 + 10 (for Indie Authors) Names + Extensions #indie #pubtip #promo #selfpub #branding

  some image rights reserved by Paulo BrandãWelcome back to my marketing series on Branding (for Indie Authors). Over the course of this series, we're talking about branding as it applies to our business model but the ideas are the same as in any sales situation. You create a brand to sell products, the same way a store creates a category to sell brands. For example, all brands of cereal are typically sold on the cereal aisle of a grocery store. All Thriller novels (theoretically) are in the Thriller category of a book store.

The difference for our industry, of course, is that your brand should be a narrowly-focused idea that will sell your products and only your products (your brand does not sell all Thrillers, only your Thrillers).

A brand is an idea in the mind of the consumer which has the power to influence purchasing decisions.
After reading the above definition of branding, you might think a brand is merely a book cover--or series of book cover designs tied together by a graphic theme. I'll grant you, a themed book cover will, in fact, "influence purchasing decisions" and create "an idea in the mind of the consumer." Book cover artwork, however, is not branding. Today's look at two Immutable Laws of Branding will examine how the name on the book cover influences purchasing decisions more than the artwork . Click through to get started.




Law 9: Law of the Name
When you're just starting out, you probably feel overwhelmed enough choosing a title for your first book.  Deciding whether or not to use a pseudonym (pen name) seems like over-complicating things for no good reason. The fact is, these are both important decisions--and they will both affect your brand's power.

The name you choose for a standalone novel, its title, is going to impact how that one novel is received by the buying public regardless of all the other marketing choices you make (the blurbage, the cover art, the tagging or categories selected in the eBookstore in which you place your work).

The book's name is a short-term, product-level decision.
Your book title might even be the same as five other books in different genres but the fact it is yours, not theirs, will distinguish it as a unique product. So your book title, combined with your author name, will affect sales ability at the product level.

If you're writing a series, even if you label the book as part of the series "Book Number of Series Name," the book title just doesn't have the power to extend beyond that one volume. It is your author name--or brand--that will sell the series.

The author name is a long-term, brand-level decision.
So choosing a pen name (even if it's your real name) is going to imply certain things before the prospective customer has even read your book blurbage or judged the cover art. Just seeing your authorial name will immediately mean something to them.

Granted, your name might mean "new author I've never heard of" or it might mean "same person who wrote that other book I read last month." The author's name will hold meaning because it will be checked by a reader. Readers don't buy publisher's names or book titles; readers buy author's names. Readers buy brands of books just like they buy brands of any other product.

When a reader sees a familiar author name, they know what kind of book it is and can already be halfway to deciding whether or not to buy it. Some customers actually buy any book, sight unseen, by certain authors because they know they'll enjoy what that author has to say, no matter what. The power of that brand name is strong. That kind of branding is very long-term and has impacted the author's sales as effectively as possible. That kind of influential power comes from having a consistent and narrowly focused brand.

When a reader sees an author name they do not recognize, your branding can influence them because (excuse the pun) their mind is an open book. You can write anything you like on it during that first impression. Make it a good one. Make it a deliberate message, not a random remark or misplaced sales pitch.

Deliver your brand message everywhere, all the time, without fail.

I'll grant you I'm still not doing this, myself, so "Do as I say, not as I do." :) Sometimes, I'm just me, not my brand, so let me use an example from the romance novel market of someone who has successfully crossed subgenres and strongly branded herself under two names making millions of dollars doing it. I'm talking about Nora Roberts (which is, actually, a pen name, by the way).

Under the Nora Roberts name, this behemoth of a prolific author writes Contemporary and/or Category Romance. She practically defined (or redefined) the entire category (which is not a bad thing to do according to Immutable Law 2 of Marketing (for Indie Authors) or according to last week's Immutable Law 8 of Branding (for Indie Authors) both of which are called the Law of Category).

Nora Roberts defined her brand of Category Romance as the extremely easy-to-read, fun and carefree story about first love with sweet first kisses and no explicit sex. She either uses euphemisms or (more often) fades to black for the sex and focuses instead on the relationship. It's a Classic Romance Story (now); she set or reset this to be the standard by doing it so phenomenally well--and often. That is, she's well known for being incredibly prolific.

A "Nora Roberts Romance" is just plain fun to read and will have memorable characters. Actually, they have remarkably unique and different characters, given how many of these things she's written (over 400 million books in print worldwide as of 2012). A "Nora Roberts" is going to be easy to pick up and put down and pick up again, without struggling to figure out "where was I?" so her books are particularly appealing to those seeking a 5-minute escape.

Under a totally different name, J. D. Robb, she writes Romantic Suspense (sometimes categorized "paranormal" by libraries and book stores because it's set in the future). The J. D. Robb stories are dark detective stories with a lot of edge and melodramatic suspense or "danger" (in quotes because we know in The End, the Hero and Heroine will always survive). The characters have sex which appears on the page and is not always described entirely with euphemisms (occasionally she uses a graphic slang term). The J. D. Robb stories are hard to put down unfinished although they suck you into the story, the In Death series of J. D. Robb books are definitely not books to read for a "5-minute escape." They're appealing to those who like to read at bedtime--and love having a book keep them reading through the night. Or for a rainy weekend when you have to sit inside for hours anyway.

This woman has so strongly branded herself under each name -- separately -- that some readers might not even realize the two names are the same person. In fact, several people I've mentioned this to have told me they had no idea. She absolutely sticks to one style or the other without ever connecting the two "genre" writers. She successfully changes her "voice" for each of the pen names. This segues nicely into the next Law of our Branding (for Indie Authors) series.




Law 10: Law of Extension

I'm combining this law with Law 9 because for our Indie Publishing business, crossing into another genre is both easy and hard--and it is akin to a line extension for a widget maker like, say, an automobile manufacturer. Just like for them, it is the fastest way to kill brand strength.

What is it that's so destructive? When Chevrolet builds a luxury sedan and also builds a utilitarian pickup truck, they have done what's called "line extension." They "extended" their brand (the Chevrolet name) to include both types of product (luxury sedan and pickup truck). Now a "Chevy" no longer means one or the other and in fact, that specific automobile manufacturer has had to do battle on multiple fronts, separately, in order to make these line extensions work.

When an author creates a mystery novel and separately, under the same name, writes a romance novel, is it line extension? Yes. The author isn't writing a cross-genre book, but rather, attempting to cross the genre lines with their one brand. Line extension weakens a brand. Rather than trying to take one pen name and stretching it across genre lines, weakening your brand in both categories, create a new pen name for each type of story you want to write.

Check out this article by Dean Wesley Smith on why you would ever create a new pen names for a new style of books. He kind of glosses over the branding reference saying "make all the stories and pen names under that name seem similar in covers and look, yet be different enough from book to book." In actuality, remember, the covers and look of the book are not branding; it's the "stories and pen name" part that will brand you. He nailed it when he said:

"So writers, help your readers find a book they will enjoy because they read an earlier one like it. I know it’s alien for writers to think about helping out readers, but the more you do, the more fans you get and the more readers over time. It really is that simple."

One other reason Dean gave for choosing to write under a pen name cracked me up--but also illustrated in not-so-many-words precisely the power of branding your name. He said "Your real name is Stephen King. Let me think… Oh, yeah, That name is taken.  Write under a pen name."

Look, it worked for Nora Roberts / J. D. Robb. She didn't create a whole new pen name for no good reason when she spawned off the "In Death" series under the J. D. Robb name. She did it very much on purpose. She's able to tell her prospective readers--simply with the mention of her pen name--what kind of story they are about to see even though a lot of people (not all) know she is both Robb and Roberts.

J. D. Robb readers know, without a doubt, there will be a mystery in the plot, there'll be some kind of dark secret revealed, it will instigate some kind of dangerous situation and our Heroine will have to make the world right again (The J. D. Robb stories are predominantly about a married female cop in the future who routinely "saves the world.")

So what would happen if J. D. Robb wrote a light, airy, contemporary romance with happy-go-lucky characters who had sweet first kisses and never a care in the world? Her readers would probably throw the book at the wall for one thing, then assuming they knew she was also Nora Roberts, they might scream, Oh, Nora! What have you done?! They also might never bother buying another J. D. Robb OR Nora Roberts book. They certainly wouldn't automatically assume they'd like the book, based on the name, the way they did before she pulled this theoretical "bait and switch." She would have LOST READER TRUST, and if you're new to the publishing industry, having the trust of your readers is everything.

If you decide to use a pen name to brand yourself in a specific genre, it's important that you brand that name consistently. You have to consistently deliver stories which fit one specific and focused description--your brand. If you don't, you cannot possibly hope to "enter the mind" and claim your "position" on the reader's product ladder. It's not about the plot of this one book. It's about what kind of plot it will be in the larger picture of fiction writing in the world.



Leveraging the Name for the Extension
This is the #1 mistake a lot of Indie Authors make. If you build your audience expectations up around a pen name and then try to leverage the power of that name for other things (forex, selling other genres you've also written), you dilute the power of the brand very quickly. It can all but disappear overnight--more easily than becoming an overnight success, that's for sure!

Extending your brand, after you've built it up, is akin to demolishing a building after laying the last brick.

You can promote "another author" without claiming ownership of the work--that's the whole point of having a pen name. I'm not necessarily saying you have to keep it "super top secret kill-you-after-I-tell-you classified." I'm saying, don't claim to be "Brand A" and then in the same breath, point out, "Oh I'm also Brand B." That simply dilutes both of your brands. Give a little space and separation.

Follow the Nora Roberts / J. D. Robb model of success. It's worked for her for over 400 million books (As of 2011, her novels had spent a combined 861 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, including 176 weeks in the number-one spot.) Strong branding can work for you, too, from your first sale to your 100 millionth.


What's Next....
Tomorrow is yet another Tuesday Tip and because it's "that time of the month" (i.e., payment processing time) I'd like to have a word on business decisions related to payments, how you get them--or don't--and from where. I'll also recount a few recent developments happening over at Smashwords.

Next week I'll move onto Branding Law 11 (for Indie Authors): Law of Fellowship, which is an "extension" of last week's Law 8: Category (haha, get the pun?)