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How to Rock a Free Day Promotion for Your eBook

Today’s guest post is by author K.B. Jensen (@KB_Jensen).

If you are an indie author on Amazon, as part of Amazon’s Kindle Select Program, you can use five free days to promote your ebook in exchange for three months of exclusivity. Many traditional publishers are increasingly doing free promos as well, and the competition is growing with thousands of free ebooks available every day. So how do you stand out?

First, here’s what not to do

While it’s tempting, marketing your free days to family and friends, predominately on Facebook or Twitter, is a bad idea. These are readers who are more likely to pay for your book. Ideally, you should be marketing to new readers who’ve never heard of you before.
I do not recommend doing a free day promotion close to your book’s launch, because you don’t want to poach paid sales from yourself. Friends and family can definitely help spread the word after they’ve read your book, however.
Do not sit back and expect the free downloads to roll in without doing any advertising. I’ve heard from two authors who’ve run free day promotions without advertising, and heard crickets in response.
Don’t wait until the last minute to advertise your free day promotion. I recommend approaching book discovery sites four to six weeks before your promotion, so that you are more likely to get a slot.
Carefully evaluate ebook promotion sites. Be wary of any sites that guarantee downloads or look like possible scams. If its sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You don’t want to get flagged by Amazon for violating their policies.
Do not run a promotion without any reviews on your book. Reach out to your early readers and ask for reviews. It may seem like a catch-22, but readers likely won’t give your book a chance if it has zero reviews, and many book promotion sites won’t pick it up without solid reviews to start.

The Top Ebook Promotion Site

A quick explanation for those new to ebook discovery and promotion sites: basically, readers sign up to receive recommendations for discounted or free ebooks in their favorite genres. The sites then regularly offer recommendations. The best sites curate their lists and offer a limited number of highly rated books.

The king of book discovery sites is Bookbub, and for good reason. The site has more than 10 million book fans on its email lists. It selects only 10 to 20 percent of books that apply for a featured deal; the key to acceptance is having strong reviews and lots of them.

I recently advertised my literary novel, A Storm of Stories, on Bookbub, where it reached #8 in the top 100 free books in the Kindle Store and #1 in free contemporary fiction short stories and literary books with 18,069 downloads on Dec. 30. The ad cost $301 but went straight to my target audience. After the promotion, A Storm of Stories reached #5 on the paid bestseller list for literary short stories. The book had about 18,000 pages read in a week on Kindle Unlimited, as well as a spike in paid sales—not bad considering the book’s genre, literary short stories, and that it was around the New Year’s holiday.

Bookbub provides handy pricing information and subscriber stats. You can also find more information about their submission guidelines on their site.

But what do you do if you don’t have enough reviews to get Bookbub’s attention? There are several other players out there with growing email lists of readers hungry for free books.

Other Places to Promote Your Free Ebook

In November, I ran a smaller book promotion for A Storm of Stories and garnered 3,468 free downloads and more reviews. I saw a modest spike in paid sales and Kindle Unlimited pages read, as well after the promotion was over. Here are some of the sites that were worthwhile for me.

Freebooksy has more than 368,000 registered readers across categories. It has 110,000 subscribers in the literary genre and costs $60 to advertise a literary book, for example. You can also submit for editorial consideration for a free slot. It’s one of the best-looking sites for free ebooks, in my opinion.

Ereader News Today is another one of my preferred sites to promote a free book on with a total of 200,000 subscribers and 135,000 in the literary fiction genre. It cost $40 to advertise a free literary book.
Another one of my favorite sites is the Fussy Librarian. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to promote on the Fussy Librarian, during either of my recent promotions because I wasn’t early enough to book a spot. The Fussy Librarian has 122,000 email subscribers. In the literary fictioncategory specifically, it has 97,118 subscribers and costs $16 to advertise a promotion. It’s one of the best values out there for advertising a free book. As a result, its calendar fills up quickly. The Fussy Librarian is also unique in that readers get to choose not only the genre, but the level of violence or profanity in the books they get suggested.

Some of the smaller players I used

I advertised on Booksends.com and EreaderIQ, which claim to have well over 150,000 active readers together. Booksends has 16,000 readers in the literary category.
I also liked BookRaid, which charges based on clicks, with a maximum of $20. While they politely declined to release subscriber numbers when I contacted them, they did tell me that my book had 450 clicks during my promotion.

EbookSoda cost $15 and has more than 22,000 subscribers, with 4,000 literary subscribers.

Ebook Betty has more than 24,000 subscribers on its email list and had an option to advertise for $18.

Overall, the two recent free promotions boosted my Amazon rankings and visibility, and increased my reviews from 47 with a 4.2 star rating to more than 72 reviews with a 3.9 star rating.

Weeks after the Bookbub promotion, A Storm of Stories was still in the top 100 bestsellers in the literary fiction short stories category on Amazon. Ultimately, stacking promotions can help you hit the bestseller lists for your categories, increase your reviews and help you find new readers.

The Totality Effect: Thoughts for a New Year

Photo by Deborah Springstead Ford

Today’s guest post is by author and editor Melanie Bishop (@melbishopwriter).

It was Annie Dillard’s essay, “Total Eclipse,” that inspired me to travel last August to the path of totality. Where we live, Prescott, Arizona, I could’ve seen a partial eclipse—70%. Having experienced both, Dillard says, “Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of one.” Whatever it would cost me to get somewhere in the path, it was worth it to me. How many chances do we have in our lifetimes to experience the truly phenomenal? I wanted to fall out of that plane.

I decided on Casper, Wyoming, and invited a close friend in Montana, Deb, to join me there. Her dog Eleanor would accompany us. Despite all the warnings about over-crowded campgrounds, and hotels booked a year in advance, Deb felt sure that we could pull off the road and camp, see the eclipse next morning, and head back to her place in Montana the same afternoon.

In order to replicate the experience Annie Dillard wrote about, we wanted to be away from buildings and concrete, to see the changing light playing on plants and hills, not on cars and humans, parking lots and church steeples. Deb had good instincts about all this—she knew the area and knew that if you just turn down some of these roads, you’d get into remote countryside rather quickly. We were barely outside of town, on Hwy. 26, when we found a dirt road, pulled in, and saw maybe half a dozen other vehicles, spaced at least fifty yards apart. We picked our place far from everyone else, and parked. It was still a couple hours till it would begin. We walked and spoke to some other visitors. We threw the ball to Ellie. We connected one guy who had an extra pair of eclipse glasses to a guy who had none. One man we talked to said he was concerned we maybe weren’t in the path, because there were so few cars here. Where were the crowds? Deb assured him this spot was in range.

Photo by Deborah Springstead Ford

More cars rolled in over the next couple of hours, but at most, there were a dozen, and when I say they were spaced far apart, I mean that we felt comfortable squatting down to take a pee by our car. Each group of spectators had their own private viewing area. From ours, we walked to a little rise, and accompanying valley, and we unfolded one chair and rolled out one Thermarest. Deb positioned her tripod and camera. Ellie didn’t know what we were up to, but whatever it was, she was on board.

Using my flip phone as my timepiece, waiting for the moment when the first tiny chip would be scraped from the sun, a text came through, from a close friend, Andi, who’d flown from Massachusetts to Georgia. “Waiting for the eclipse!” it said. She and her husband smiled into the camera. I got the sense then of just how shared this experience would be—perhaps the most people ever in our country, engaged simultaneously in the same activity, the same motivation. In a year that had felt so very divisive, republicans and democrats never more distant from each other, this Great American Eclipse was above all that. Oblivious to Donald Trump, political discord, and human folly, the eclipse unified us.

The whole process would take some time: about 80 minutes of partial eclipse on either side of the full eclipse, which would last two minutes and twenty-seven seconds. As we waited, the last half hour before totality, I pulled a photocopy of Dillard’s essay out of my backpack, and began reading aloud to Deb. It was my third time reading it in as many weeks, but it warrants multiple reads. If you’re talking about what’s been written about a total solar eclipse, this is the essay you’re talking about.

Photo by Deborah Springstead Ford

Every few minutes, I’d put on my protective glasses and look up, to see a larger and larger bite removed from the sun.

As the time grew closer, the temperature dropped from 78 to 66 degrees. And then, the quality of the light changed.

“Look at your shadow!” I called out to Deb.

The sun was high in the sky—a mid-day sun, so the shadow it cast was distinct and semi-accurate in size. But because more and more of that sun was being obscured, the light surrounding us had turned to dusk. Normally, late day shadows are elongated, like tall, skinny giants. But at sundown, there’s no observable shadow at all. This was the light one gets at sunset, combined with the shadow one gets at high noon. And the pairing was freaky. I moved my arms up and down. I turned to the side, I kept looking at my shadow, Ellie’s, and the shadows cast by the grasses. Mesmerizing.

Then Deb called out, “Mel, look to your left! It’s coming.”

And Totality rushed over the landscape like a wind. We were inside the umbral cone. Glasses no longer necessary, everyone looked up. A collective gasp. A group of college-age girls chanted Oh my God, Oh my God. There were shrieks and whoops. Where the sun had been, there was now a black disk in the sky, surrounded by a halo of sparkling light. I’d read that the reason there’s any light coming out at all is because the surface of the moon isn’t smooth—light comes through crevices to create what they call Bailey’s Beads, and the diamond ring effect.

Deb said, “The horizon! Look!” All around us, 360 degrees, was the pink and violet of sunset.

It is freakish, false, impossible even, this everywhere sunset, this trick of the sun disappearing behind the moon for 147 seconds. It seems the kind of thing one would go back to tell her people, and they would scoff, and she would insist, thereby becoming the village idiot, the one who swears she saw the sun blotted out as though by ink.

Two minutes and 27 seconds sounds brief, but when you are paying absolute attention that whole time, it can be quite adequate, can even seem generous. The rare light, the black coin in the sky, the rapidly cooling air, the pink horizon on all sides, the unbelievability of it all—I will just say it made one want to frolic.

***

When it was over, people began packing up, and we did, too. Weird, because there was still a miracle unfolding above us—for another 80 minutes, the partial eclipse of the sun—but as Annie Dillard said, “One turns at last even from glory itself …”

The spectacle we’d witnessed was the kind that might’ve sent earlier humans into a panic, that the world they knew was ending. But we humans and one canine of 2017 just got back into Deb’s Red Ford Escape, and escaped north. We were ragged from not enough sleep, but our senses were all hyped up.

***

It was 24 hours later, on a hike—Woodbine Falls—that I started noticing the totality effect. The Stillwater River is beautiful and rare, but there was also something new about the way I was seeing. A visual crispness. An easily accessed joy.

Back in Arizona, this continued. Normal things looked abnormally stunning to me: the shapes of clouds, the depth of the sky, the nightly palette of the sun departing. I was under a spell.

What I learned from the total eclipse was this: What wasn’t phenomenal? Everywhere I looked, something grand was there for the taking. Hills, grasses, rocks, trees, flowers, birds, butterflies, bees, a ripe tomato on a backyard vine. It only required showing up, opening all five senses, observing, noticing. The lesson was about standing still, anywhere, anytime. Give it two minutes and twenty-seven seconds, and something noteworthy will occur. Noteworthy just means worthy of noting. Everything is worthy of that. Even the mundane deserves our attention.

A couple weeks after my return to Prescott, Arizona, I was kayaking on Watson Lake. I paddled way across the lake toward a cove in the granite rock formations. I went in search of the Great Blue Heron I’d seen before, but on this day what I saw was sunlight bouncing off the water and onto the granite, mimicking the way flame looks in bright daylight. Colorless, this light danced and licked at the rock’s surface. Curious, I paddled myself closer, and it was as though someone had poured lighter fluid and struck a match. How does the light do that?

I kept my kayak in that spot for a full five minutes, watching. Five minutes is nothing, right? But it’s twice as long as the total eclipse. How often do any of us stop and observe anything, exclusively, for five full minutes? Even 147 seconds is time enough to be uplifted by the boundlessness of your own fascination.

It wasn’t a permanent change, but the totality effect stayed with me a short while, a string of days, like the fading tail of a meteor. Like the time it takes to fall from a plane to Earth. Like the margin where the sun’s corona peeks out from the craggy surface of the intruding moon, forming briefly, a gigantic diamond ring in the sky. (I mean, seriously, holy f*ck.)

For a smidgen of time after that, every single thing sparkled.

Photo by Deborah Springstead Ford

Is Writing Being Devalued by Giveaways and Cheap Ebooks?

Increasingly, at writing conferences and in the mainstream media, I observe growing unrest surrounding the proliferation of free and cheap literature, particularly ebooks. The reasons for sharp discounts and giveaways are legion (and some reasons are better than others), but regardless of the reason, I see greater peer pressure on and shaming of those who are seen to “devalue” literature in our culture.

Whole books have been written on this topic, as it’s an anxiety affecting creators in diverse fields. Some describe the phenomenon from a neutral and even historical perspective (“how have we ended up here?”), some are more activist in their approach (“fight and resist”), and still others are pragmatic (“here’s how to play with the hand you’ve been dealt”).

Given my position as a business consultant, I tend to focus on the last of these: how can a writer be competitive in the current environment and make a living? How can you reframe the problem as an opportunity and move forward? As someone who gives away much of her advice for free, on this blog, I am well versed in the power of free, and its disadvantages. And I’ve commented on strategic use of free here.

In my latest column for Publishers Weekly, I address this question again.

What Does 2018 Hold for Writers?

This year, I was delighted to contribute to a round-up by Carol Tice on what trends to watch (or ignore) in the freelance writing marketplace in 2018. I specifically discuss paid email newsletters and Medium. (Some of the other trends covered include video content, fact checking, content marketing and SEO, and artificial intelligence.)

Tice’s is one of many publishing roundups that survey the coming year in terms of industry change and trends. Over at The Hot Sheet (my paid newsletter written with Porter Anderson), we rounded up some of the more notable pieces authors should look at, including:

This 2018 book-manufacturing outlook predicts shorter print runs and ultra-fast turnarounds. Julie Greenbaum at Book Business magazine speaks to major US book printers for their insights. Significant drivers of their business include the emergence of Amazon same-day delivery; demand for smaller, digital runs—in part to minimize inventory; and a “murky” outlook for K-12 materials.

Editors at Scholastic predict the top five trends in kids’ books for 2018. They mention (with examples of forthcoming titles): “more books will celebrate strong female characters”; “the demand for kid-friendly nonfiction will grow”; iconic series and characters will return in new stories; “magical creatures will take children to new worlds”; and books will feature more hands-on activities to educate children about STEM fields.

Written Word Media collects ten predictions for 2018 from the indie author community. Among the more notable claims is that book marketing will become more expensive due to increased advertising costs on Facebook and Amazon; thus we’ll see greater experiments in connecting directly with the reader.

Joanna Penn has a round-up focused on the self-publishing landscape and possible changes ahead, with links to various news sources and trend reports that affect many areas of retail (e.g., voice search and voice assistants).

Related: I’ve also been enjoying Kristine Rusch’s overview of what happened across publishing in 2017. (Here’s the installment on Big Five traditional publishing.)

I haven’t seen any truly ground-breaking predictions or observations for 2018. It’s the usual grab bag of think long-term and be prepared for change. If I were pushed to make a bold prediction, it would probably relate to a change in ebook royalties or terms for indie authors using Amazon KDP, but I have no basis for making that prediction—other than a belief that Amazon will always tighten the screws on its publishing partners.

A Love Letter to Midwest Writers Workshop (Why It’s Worth Saving)

Midwest Writers Workshop 2017 / photo by Gail Werner

TL;DR: Over 15 years, I have watched the Midwest Writers Workshop fulfill its mission to nurture writers. While others may not or cannot forgive them for a recent terrible incident, I am able to forgive. I will continue to speak at the conference, and help it grow and evolve into a stronger organization.

(For those who need a summary of what happened, Google can assist you.)

Update (Jan. 20, 2o18): Midwest Writers Workshop has been canceled for 2018. Its future remains uncertain.

Early in my publishing career, in 2003, my boss at Writer’s Digest emailed me with a link to a writing conference in Muncie, Indiana, at Ball State University, known as the Midwest Writers Workshop. Her appended note: “Lunch keynote speaker is TBD. Suggest yourself.”

I had no experience as a conference speaker, nor much writing and publishing experience, but my boss wanted to see Writer’s Digest have a presence at such events. And I was the type of employee who did as she was told, despite the fact I thought it was a brazen approach that would be met with rejection (or silence). These people didn’t know who I was, nor should they. But the Writer’s Digest brand was a known quantity, and the director responded positively, granting me the keynote slot.

I still have the presentation slides I used that day, but the talk was nothing special. Surprisingly, I felt natural and at ease. It helped that I was originally from rural Indiana and had gone to high school in Muncie—but it was more than that. The welcome and the warmth from the organizers created an environment that just felt good to be in. After 2.5 days together, everyone was like family. (I also got to meet and have dinner with George Plimpton, who was the closing keynote, but that’s a story for another time.)

To my surprise, MWW invited me back the following year. And the year after that. And again. I have spoken every year at MWW for 15 years. Their evolution during this time has been remarkable. MWW started inviting agents and editors to hear pitches; they added a Ball State internship program; they were pushed by faculty and advisers to become more diverse, and still work on this, just as literary agencies and traditional publishers do. Occasionally, I’ve suggested they shouldn’t have me back every year—I must be a boring and tired messenger by now and I’m not needed. But the conference values continuity, and that feeling of family was not a fluke I experienced that first year. They have loyal writer-attendees who return season after season, very much in the spirit of a reunion.

Indeed, I am deeply fond of MWW and appreciate its mission to foster and formalize a writing and literary community in the Midwest, a mission I believe is invaluable to the region and country at large. As a child and teenager who grew up in a remote corner of Indiana, without writing groups, bookstores or a literary culture of any kind, that makes it more important and special to me, a much needed light.

MWW is not without its flaws or challenges, of course. In the last few years, as they’ve become more independent of Ball State, they’ve faced difficult decisions about strategic direction and administration. These questions remain largely open, and I’ve specifically been advising them on how to pursue additional income to sustain the organization. But it never occurred to me, until last week, that there might be a future entirely without Midwest Writers Workshop. It’s for that reason that I’m writing and publishing this love letter.

My career, almost in its entirety, has been spent in service to writers and the writing and publishing community. I’ve attended hundreds of conferences over the years, and while they all have wonderful success stories (and their own special qualities), Midwest Writers has always been the event I go “home” to each year, to hit my own reset button and remember why I do the work that I do. I’ve watched writer-attendees from my very first years flourish into full-time authors, who then return as faculty—and sometimes join the committee. There is a strong tradition of giving back, of helping another writer up the ladder. The spirit is one of generosity and warm-heartedness.

Given that tradition, it’s why recent events have been so painful to watch unfold, as they are not characteristic of the event, its leadership, or its legacy. It would be a significant loss to have Midwest Writers forever remembered in such a way. While the people who have been most deeply hurt may not be able to forgive what has happened, I am able to give it another chance. Like every organization, MWW can improve and become better. It has exhibited its capacity to change in the past, and many more writers can yet benefit from it in the future—and I include myself among them.

Optimizing Your Books for Amazon Keyword Search

Today’s guest post is by Penny Sansevieri (@bookgal) and is excerpted from How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon: 2018 Edition.

Even though many experts talk about Amazon keywords, categories, and pricing, few experts mention this important fact: Amazon is more a search engine than a store. In fact, Amazon is the “Google” of online buying.

But there is no instant, magic formula when it comes to ranking on Amazon. There’s a lot of shortcut software out there, and keyword apps, but there’s nothing like good, old-fashioned hard work to make your Amazon page soar. Much like ranking on Google, people are always searching for shortcuts, but they rarely work.

When you want your website to rank on Google, you have to think through what keywords you want to rank for. It’s the same at Amazon. 
There are approximately one billion ebook titles and three million print books on Amazon, and, yes, you can still be on page one or claim the number-one title. 
Why? Because most people aren’t aware that Amazon is its own search engine.

The more searchable your book is, the more often it’s going to come up in searches, and consequently, the more you’ll sell. Part of making your book searchable is understanding how to set your categories and keywords on Amazon (and related metadata), which is accessible to any indie author who has their book on Amazon.

When optimizing your title on Amazon, you’ll focus on three areas:

Metadata: Keywords, keywords, keywords—Amazon loves keywords, and applying that knowledge skillfully will help you achieve better ranking.

A good book cover: While Amazon may not ding you for a bad-looking cover, your potential readers most certainly will.

Reviews: Reviews help with the visibility of your page and your ranking on Amazon—even if your book is a few years old.

This post is all about setting your keywords.

Keyword Strings at Amazon

When we talk about keywords, it’s important think in terms of keyword strings, because that’s how people search. Consider the last search you did on Google. Did you hop over to the search engine and pop in one keyword like mystery or romance? Likely not. You probably plugged in a string of keywords like, “most romantic weekend getaways,” or, “best mystery dinner theaters.” Whether you’re talking about Google or Amazon searches, they both respond better to keyword strings as opposed to single keywords.

You’re allowed up to seven keyword strings when you upload your book to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I suggest you come up with a minimum of fifteen keyword strings while you’re doing research so you can swap them out and/or use them in your book description, product page blurbs, enhanced book description, review pitches, and so on.

It always helps if you know the keywords and keyword strings your audience tends to use. If you don’t know, you’ll want to start by testing some keywords on Amazon to find out what seems to work well for your book, subject matter, niche, or genre. I suggest by starting on the Kindle/ebook side of the Amazon website. Not every search is created equal, and searching for “mystery and suspense” on the main Amazon site instead of digging down into the Kindle department specifically will net you different results.

How to Research Keyword Strings at Amazon

When you reach the Kindle Store, click “Kindle e-books.” And then select whatever genre you’re in. For this test, let’s use, “Mystery, Thriller & Suspense.”

Once you’re there, you’ll see this screen:

Right under your genre, on the lefthand side, you’ll see more drop-down lists, such as, “Moods & Themes.” I suggest starting with one from this list—just make sure your book fits into this segment of your genre. Once you’re there, just start typing in your keywords into the search bar. While you’re keying it in, Amazon’s intuitive search will start to drop down suggestions. Not all of the suggestions will be ones you’ll use, but they’re certainly a good start.

Ideally you want your keyword string to match the following criteria:

Make sure you’re only using keyword strings. Do not settle for single keywords, because consumers don’t search that way. You wouldn’t Google with just the word, “Suspense” either.
Don’t assume Amazon’s recommendations are the exact right ones for your book.
Once you have collected Amazon’s suggestions, you’ll want to pop over to those pages and see what kinds of books are listed on the results page, and what their sales rank is. We’ll discuss this more in a minute.
Be sure to check and see if there are a number of free books cluttering the first page of a particular keyword string search. Let’s say you’re looking at “Suspense mystery books.” You notice lots of books on free promotion, which will always be at the top of the list. Don’t bother to look at their sales rank, because it’s not an accurate depiction of how this string is actually doing. Instead, keep going down the list until you find a book that isn’t on a pricing promo.
Don’t worry if the search string includes books in Kindle Unlimited. It won’t affect your results.

Amazon’s search function will drop down suggestions much like Google does. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to use it. 
Take a look at the screenshot below. I’ve typed in “selling books,” and Amazon’s top suggestions for this particular keyword string are:

This is where things start to get really interesting, because these search suggestions from Amazon will show you what’s trending with their consumers. And if you click on one of the search terms, like, “Selling books on Amazon,” it will take you to the page below where you’ll see another technique for increasing visibility: Several of these authors have included the popular search term in their title, which also helps with their ranking.

If you’ve already published your book (and likely most of you reading this are in this boat), then don’t worry. There are a lot of other things you can do to help spike your book sales that don’t involve changing the title, at least on the cover. Subtitles with keyword strings can be added to product pages. But if you haven’t put a name on your book yet, you may want to seriously consider using this method to find and use trending Amazon keywords or keyword strings!

Let’s look further at how you can determine if a keyword string is right or wrong for your book. First you need to check out the sales rank of the top books that show up in the keyword string search. For example:

Sales rank indicates a book’s sales in relation to other books’ sales. A book ranked #1 has sold the most. So a high number on the sales rank line isn’t good. A book ranking #88,453 means that 88,452 books are selling better than it. A great high-sales rank is normally #10,000 or less.

But this also depends to some degree on the genre, niche, or subject matter. For example, a sales rank of #13,000 may not seem great. But for some of my own nonfiction, it means they’re selling pretty well. In some cases I’m doing $500-plus in book sales per month at that sales rank. However, when I look at that #13,000 rank in fiction, the sales are often lower. Anything you’ve heard about how sales rank works should be taken with a grain of salt, because the numbers can vary depending on the category (genre, niche, or subject matter).

That being said, you want to look for keywords that support two things. First, you want to look at whether the search term produces a lot of results. The number of books for each particular search term is located at the top of the page. See the arrow below:

Let’s say you have a military romance book, so you go onto Amazon and type in, “Romance and military.” If you click on the first few titles, you’ll see they have a high sales rank. The general rule about the ideal number of books for each particular search term is that you want a low number so you have a better chance of getting to number one.

While that’s true up to a point, there’s something else you should consider. For some categories, you may find a small number of books, but the sales rank on the books is pretty high, generally in the one hundred thousands. This means that, yes, there are a small number of books under that search term. But it also means they aren’t selling.

The flip side of this is when you think, “Okay, I’ll put my book in there and get to the number one spot with little or no effort.”

I thought that, too, and I shifted a romance book into a narrow keyword string. The book fell like a rock in the rankings, which points us back to this important thing to keep in mind: Even if Amazon suggests the keyword string, you still need to do your homework to make sure it’s the right choice for you.

Quick side note: At the time I ran my search for “romance and military,” the first few titles weren’t great with regard to sales rank. The covers weren’t stellar, either. In most cases they could have been better. So why do such titles rank so high if the covers aren’t great? I’m betting the authors tinker with the keywords in the titles. Sometimes you’ll find the book titles and subtitles have a lot of extra words added. So look closely when you search … but don’t discount a good cover. In most cases, your cover greatly contributes to whether someone clicks on your book. When you find a book with a good cover, click on it and take a look at the sales rank.

More Unique Ways to Search Amazon

Let’s say you wrote a romance novel, and you’re trying to find out what your potential readers are searching for. Head on over to Amazon and type in, “Romance and,” and see what pops up. For example:

These are autosuggestions based on your keyword plus the word, “and.” Now let’s take this a step further. Let’s add the beginnings of another letter to this, creating a search string that looks like this: “Romance and c.”

Fiction authors, particularly romantic fiction authors: take a page from the Hallmark Channel and make sure to incorporate the search term “Romance and Christmas.” All you have to do is flip through the TV listings to see that, starting at Thanksgiving, Hallmark goes all romance-and-Christmas all the time. It’s big business for them, and it should be for you too.

If you decide to change your keywords, be sure to add them to your book description and maybe even incorporate them in your title if your book’s not on the shelves yet. And be sure people are actually buying the books in the search results using the keywords you’re considering.

If you found this post helpful, you can learn more in Penny Sansevieri’s How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon: 2018 Edition.

The Secret of Great Memoir: The Mature Self

Today’s guest post is an excerpt from The Memoir Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Brainstorm, Organize, and Write Your Unique Story, from C.S. Lakin. Content warning: A memoir example in this post portrays sexual violence.

Voice is like your fingerprint. Each of us has a voice when we speak aloud. We have a style of speaking, our own unique vocabulary and syntax and inflections.

When we write, we also adopt a voice. In fiction, each point-of-view character has a unique voice, which permeates both the narrative and dialogue. In nonfiction, the writer’s voice sets the tone and style for the entire book.

When we consider penning a memoir, we can (and should) carefully choose the type of voice that would best suit the story we are telling.

Setting the Tone for Your Memoir (Avoid Complaining)

Voice is different from tone, but the two are connected. If you plan to write a humorous memoir, the tone will be funny and light (though you can have dark humor too), and the voice would need to fit that tone.

Your story may be one of very painful, dark, or terrifying experiences. But that does not mean your tone should be dark—nor that your voice should be heavy, somber, or depressing.

The tone of your memoir might be serious, lighthearted, angry, sad, thoughtful—or the tone may vary throughout the telling. But writers should avoid sounding whiny or looking for sympathy. Readers will naturally sympathize with your story if you present it in a way that doesn’t annoy them. Just as in real life, no one wants to spend hours listening to someone complain.

Take a look at some lines from Ted Nugent’s God, Guns & Rock ’n’ Roll:

Let’s get one thing straight: I’ve hinted long enough—I love guns. The more, the better. The more shooting, the better. The more ammo, the better. So, logic would cause one to surmise that ol’ Hunka Ted would just go crazy for machine guns. It’s so true. Oh, the very pronouncement of the word sends shivers up my backbone, and my right index finger begins to vibrate uncontrollably. With much pride, I proclaim I’m an extremist! How else could I author “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” for God’s sake?

Or this, from Nick Offerman, star of the comedic show Parks and Recreation:

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Where do I begin? I supposed we’ll do a chronological thing and start you off with some of the early years, a taste of the vintage stuff.

Or this, from Issa Rae’s memoir The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl:

When dealing with people who pose so-called questions [about your hair] even as they judge you, here are some foolproof responses. . . .

Opinion: “It’s so soft. I wasn’t expecting that.”

A backhanded compliment I receive often, it always begs the silently self-posed question, “What exactly were you expecting? Did you expect it to prick you like cotton plants, or to feel rough like gauze tape?” This usually comes from friends I’ve let touch it, or whom I’ve asked to braid my hair, or from chatty hairstylists. The only response I’ve been able to muster is a curt, “I know, isn’t it?”

Opinion: “Can I touch it?”

. . . A simple, “Are your hands clean?” not only infantilizes the request, but it also sends the message that our hair isn’t the sheep exhibit at the petting zoo.

If you’re going for a high entertainment factor, you’ll want to make sure your voice reflects the personality and humor needed.

Ask: Who Am I Writing This for and Why?

While author Diane Johnson said, “Pain plus time equals comedy,” that doesn’t mean that we will find the hurts or abuse or suffering we may have gone through as humorous. What it implies is that distance gives perspective and, well, distance. We need to have sufficient distance in order to tell a mature story.

This is very important to ponder.

If your memoir is to be a serious account that reveals a lot of pain, hurt, abuse, or other heavy emotions, keeping in mind why you are writing your story and for whom will help frame the question: What voice and tone do I want to use?

Heavy, painful subjects, of course, shouldn’t be made light of. Or should they? Humor can take the edge off serious topics so that they are approachable.

Your memoir is not a journal in which you rant or vent. It’s not a means to inflict vengeance or pay back to those who’ve hurt you. If you need to rant, work through your pain, or deal with your anger, that’s what counseling is for. If you feel you are unable to distance yourself from those feelings, you may not be ready for memoir writing.

You are bearing witness, not wallowing.

Getting Readers to Care

To get readers enrapt in your story and caring about what happened in your life, your voice needs to be engaging, clear and concise, and conversational. You aren’t writing a textbook or a doctoral thesis.

Imagine yourself sitting with a friend at your kitchen table, just chatting and sharing stories. If it helps, picture that friend as you write the chapters of your memoir, anticipating the questions she might ask and what details she’d want to know. Maybe even consider the funny or poignant remarks she’d make, which could really be your own insights into your past.

When you write your memoir, the reader should feel spoken to—not lectured but included.

The Mature Self as Narrator

Yes, your story is about you, but it helps to separate yourself as the protagonist or main character of your story and the “you” that is the author.

Doing this helps give you perspective and distance, which is needed to craft your memoir. Can you picture yourself standing on a hill or across the street, watching what is happening to you in a particular scene you want to write about?

Of course, we don’t want our memoir to be straight facts without commentary, emotion, or elaboration. That would drain all the power out of our story. We do need to evoke emotion, but how do we do it without getting all emotional ourselves in our narrative?

Here is where the mature self comes into play—the secret of great memoir. We have to write our story, the events of our life, from a future perspective. From now.

Now brings with it maturity, wisdom, insight, and grace. The mature self speaks from that place of distance but not detachment.

This will take some thoughtful effort and time. Before you write any scene or chapter, you have to consider what you’ve learned and what perspective you want to offer on the situation. You have to accurately convey what you were feeling at the time without expressing those feelings now.

Take a look at this example from Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Here she is a young child, listening to the radio with a crowd gathered in her grandmother’s store—the fight between Joe Louis and Primo Carnera, as the announcer declares Louis seems about to lose:

My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man running through slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful.

. . . This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost, we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than the apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.

We didn’t breathe. We didn’t hope. We waited.

Notice that Angelou doesn’t rant here. She is sharing the perspective of herself and her people in a powerful way, as the mature narrator. Sure, you can reenact scenes showing yourself emotional then—angry, raging, crying—but that’s something different from narrative voice, the mature self that is documenting the events like a historian.

You may choose to add in emotional commentary, in the present or now as you share those past events. But, again, you want to be careful. Perhaps the most beautifully crafted and “careful” (think: full of care) passage of Angelou’s entire memoir is when she describes being raped by her mother’s husband at age eight.

He released me enough to snatch down my bloomers, and then he dragged me closer to him. Turning the radio up loud, too loud, he said, “If you scream, I’m gonna kill you. And if you tell, I’m gonna kill Bailey.” I could tell he meant what he said. I couldn’t understand why he wanted to kill my brother. Neither of us had done anything to him. And then.

Then there was the pain. A breaking and entering when even the senses are torn apart. The act of rape on an eight-year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel can’t. The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator cannot.

I thought I had died—I woke up in a white-walled world, and it had to be heaven. But Mr. Freeman [her rapist] was there and he was washing me. His hands shook, but he held me upright in the tub and washed my legs. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Ritie. I didn’t mean it. But don’t you tell . . . Remember, don’t you tell a soul.”

Angelou could have gone into much greater detail, and attached much emotion to this horrific incident. But by speaking from a distanced, almost detached, mature self, she brings that power and grace to the moment that is too horrible to imagine. In a way, she protects her readers without minimizing the account. It remains heartbreaking. That takes thoughtful writing. She is telling the truth in a way that makes it easy for readers to read.

But Angelou wrote: “Easy reading is damn hard writing. I am trying to tell the truth, not everything I know, but the truth.”

Tell the truth, but not everything you know. Filter your experience through the eyes and mind of your mature self. Step back and leave your anger curbside.

I like what author Toni Morrison says about avoiding writing from a place of anger:

Anger . . . it’s a paralyzing emotion . . . you can’t get anything done. People sort of think it’s an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling—I don’t think it’s any of that—it’s helpless . . . it’s absence of control—and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers . . . and anger doesn’t provide any of that—I have no use for it whatsoever.

The mature self tells the truth, but truth isn’t the same as facts. Truth is something deeper.

Morrison also says: “The crucial distinction for me is not the difference between fact and fiction but the distinction between fact and truth. Because facts can exist without human intelligence but truth cannot.”

So as you think about your voice, consider your audience. Consider the tone you want to adopt. And, most importantly, consider how to write from the mature self. That is the way to present yourself and your story honestly and with integrity.

What kind of tone and voice have you appreciated in memoirs? What strategies have you used in your own? Share in the comments.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out The Memoir Workbook.

 

How to Start Blogging: A Definitive Guide for Authors

Photo credit: M i x y via Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-SA

This Thursday, I’m teaching a 2-hour online class for writers, in partnership with Writer’s Digest, on how to blog effectively. In honor of the occasion, I’ve extensively updated this 101 post.

This will be a strange way to begin a guide to blogging, but I want to save you time, trouble, and heartache: The average author does not benefit much from blogging.

Yet blogging is still recommended to authors as a way to market and promote. Why? Because blogging does work, if certain conditions are met. The problem is that few authors meet those conditions. This post will delve into what it means to blog successfully and in a meaningful way for an author’s long-term platform and book marketing efforts.

For clarity: I define “blogging” as publishing material to a site that you own and control—usually your author website. Blogging is sometimes conflated with online writing for other websites or blogs, but that’s not what I’m discussing in this post.

What it takes to become an effective blogger

If you approach blogging as something “lesser than” your other published writing, you’re more likely to fail at it. While blogging can be less formal, less researched, and more geared for online reading or social sharing, to do it well requires the same kind of practice and skill as crafting a novel. You get better at it the more you do it, but I see many authors give up before they’ve put in enough hours to understand the medium. Furthermore, to stick with blogging for long enough for it to pay off, you have to actually enjoy what it means to blog, and how online writing can be different from print.

If you treat blogging seriously, all the writing or content that you generate for your blog can have another life, in another format or within another publication. For example, the best of my blog content is condensed into a book, Publishing 101. That required a lot of editing and reformulation (online writing can’t be dumped into print without a lot of revision), but it reflects the value and depth of what appears on my blog.

Blogging is often straightforward for nonfiction writers, less so for novelists

Nonfiction writers and experts have it easy: their subject matter lends itself to blogging, especially if they’re teaching workshops or regularly interacting with their target readership. Such writers probably know off the top of their head the questions that get asked most frequently, the topics that are most popular, and the problems that surface again and again. This is invaluable starting fodder for a successful blog: knowledge of one’s audience. 

Fiction writers can have successful blogs as well, especially if they’re able to focus on a specific topic, theme, or subgenre—in other words, a particular cohort of readers. But I find it most difficult for unpublished novelists to gain traction with an author blog; only after the novelist has built a name for herself does a blog readership tend to develop. With nonfiction authors, the opposite is the case: blogging can help build a platform that leads to a book deal.

This is why advice about blogging can be so contradictory and confusing: much depends on what genre you’re writing in and who you’re writing for.

To confuse matters further, in the literary/MFA community, there’s a concept known as literary citizenship, which I like to describe as “marketing and promotion lite.” It involves discussing books, writers, and things that surround the literary community that you want to see flourish. It could mean interviewing other authors, reviewing or talking about books that you’ve read lately, or otherwise featuring or focusing on other people in the community. This is a key way for an unpublished fiction writer to begin building a network of contacts that’s useful upon publication—in other words, it’s useful for building an author platform.

Consistency is critical for effective blogging

There are two types of consistency: frequency and subject matter.

Frequency: To gain any kind of momentum, you should commit to two posts a week. Some people may be able to get by on one post a week, but you’ll struggle to gain traction. Ideally, starting out, you should shoot for several times per week. The longer you blog, and the more of an audience you build up, the more you can ease back on frequency.

Subject matter: Think about this in terms of your headlines for your blog posts. If you look at a month’s worth of your blog headlines, they should convey a strong message about what you cover on your blog and who it’s for. A potential reader should be able to easily tell if they’re going to benefit from reading your posts on an ongoing basis.

Unfortunately, authors can have trouble staying focused and disciplined on one topic or subject matter, often because they get bored or they think readers will get bored. But again, it’s hard to gain traction if you’re switching it up all the time and not consistent in what you offer.

If you’re interested in blogging, but worry about the time commitment, then consider creating a multi-contributor blog, where several authors in the same genre (or targeting similar audiences) band together. That helps reduce the burden as well as increase the size of your audience starting out—since more people will be marketing and promoting the blog.

It takes patience to build a readership unless you’re already well-known

People may have to see you talking about your blog on social media for months before they actually click through to read a post—or before they even become aware that your blog exists. This isn’t necessarily through any fault of your own; there’s an incredible amount of noise around us, and enormous demands on everybody’s attention. If you make a continual series of impressions over a long period of time on the same topic, then it starts to click: “Oh, this person is blogging, and they’re regularly covering this topic.” Some writers assume, “Oh, everybody knows I’m blogging because I posted about it,” but no. That’s not the case, and that’s why consistency is so important.

The more time you spend blogging, the more value you build for readers over time and the more they find you. Your efforts snowball.

Also realize that only about 10% of your readers (or even fewer) will make themselves known to you or engage with you on your blog, so it takes a while before you reach a tipping point, where there’s a concrete indication of growing activity or interest.

What should you blog about?

If you’re at a complete loss when faced with this question, maybe you shouldn’t blog; I discuss why here. Sometimes I’ve told authors that the best bloggers are those who weren’t told to go do it. This is a little harsh—I think people can learn to love it—but blogging isn’t an activity authors should be dragged into, kicking and screaming. Nor should you feel like it’s a burden to come up with ideas; ideally, your problem is too many ideas.

Do think through how can you bring your own voice or perspective to a topic, theme, or subject matter without repeating what’s already out there. This is easier said than done. It took me 18 months to find the right angle—to realize I do best when I focus on business advice and digital media topics for authors.

The most successful blogs have a very focused angle and appeal to a very specific audience. This makes it easier to attract attention and build a community around common interests or perspectives.

No one should blog in a vacuum

Before you start a blog, identify the other key people already blogging in your area—the influencers. Start reading and sharing their content, and comment at their blog. Eventually, if possible, you should guest blog for them. See the other bloggers not as competitors, but as community members who may eventually become supporters of your work. If your blog is high-quality, and generates conversation, they’ll be likely to recommend you or send you traffic. So identify the notable community players, or the people who you’ll want to build relationships with over time.

Choose the right blogging platform

The best platform to use is whatever you use for your author website—do not be tempted to build your blog somewhere else. You want everything under the same umbrella for search engine optimization and long-term marketing strategy. So, for example, if you have an author website on SquareSpace, then start your blog there; don’t start one over at WordPress or Blogspot.

If your website platform does not support blogging, then it may be time to switch platforms. I talk about the basics of author websites here.

If you don’t have an author website, or if you’re doing a multi-contributor blog, then I recommend using WordPress. It’s well-supported, continually developed, and runs about 20% of all websites today. Here’s my step-by-step guide to hosting your own website or blog, which doesn’t take longer than 10-15 minutes.

Before you launch the blog

Before you start, consider the following.

Blog title and tagline. There are no hard-and-fast rules here, but it should be clear to new visitors what your blog is about and what they’re going to get from it. If your blog title is metaphorical, clever, or not clear about the blog’s subject matter (or if it’s just under your name), add a tagline that tells and sells the angle. Even Michael Hyatt, who is very well-known at this point, has a tagline: “Your Leadership Mentor.”

Readability. If your blog is meant to primarily be read, then don’t hamper readability by making the text too small, too tight or (worst of the worst) white type on a black background. Be aware that ads or a hard-to-navigate layout can also hamper readability and drive readers elsewhere.

About page or bio. If your blog content is interesting, people will want to know more about the person behind it. Don’t make them search for this. Create a separate page, and be sure to include a way to contact you.

Comments. You should develop (if only for yourself) some kind of policy on how you’ll handle or moderate discussions. Will you approve every comment before it goes live? Will comments be automatically published if they’re not spam? An open commenting policy that doesn’t require sign-in helps you get more comments, but you’ll want to make sure you’re receiving email alerts when new comments are posted, just in case you need to delete anything spammy or inappropriate that gets through. Fortunately, major blog platforms (like WordPress) help you streamline your comment system to automatically eliminate spam activity. If you have any trouble, then install Akismet, the industry-standard plugin to eliminate spammy comments.

How to craft quality posts that get read and shared

Quality can be a squishy term; much depends on what your audience or readership considers “quality” or what kind of content is engaging to them. The better you know your audience, the better your posts will be.

However, here’s how to ensure that your posts are more likely to be engaged with and shared.

Don’t be afraid of length. Somewhere along the line, people started thinking that ideal blog posts are 500 words, even less. That’s simply not true. In fact, when it comes to search ranking, Google looks at the substantive nature of the content and will rank your content lower if it appears shallow. Social media is typically better for quick shares, brief commentary, or short statements—or anything that doesn’t merit more than 100-200 words. The most successful posts at this site are regularly longer than 2,000 words. However, the longer the content, the more readable it needs to be, which brings us to the next point.

Improve scannability. Most people skim online content and make a very quick judgment call as to whether it merits paying closer attention. If so, your content may be saved for later—or readers will slow down and read the content from beginning to end. To make your content easily scanned, add subheads, plenty of paragraph breaks (one-line paragraphs are acceptable), bulleted lists or numbered lists, bold lead-ins—whatever it takes to make your posts more easy to grasp and see if it’s valuable.

Add at least one image. You’ll notice that I always begin posts with an image. Psychologically, this typically improves the perceived value of the post—plus these images get pulled and used when the post is shared on social media. It’s OK if the image isn’t directly related to the content; it can be metaphorical, as long as it’s attention-grabbing or colorful. Blending in is the opposite of what you want. (You can find plenty of free-to-use images at VisualHunt.)

Ask a question at the end. If you want to get people active in the comments, you’ll do better if you end the post on a question, where you ask people to share something specific about their knowledge or experience. Active comments are generally seen as a good thing because it increases the time people spend on your content, which is a signal of engagement for search engines and thus contributes to better search ranking for your blog.

Your post headlines are critical

If people saw only your post headline (e.g., on Twitter), would they feel compelled to click on it? Remember, the headline is often the only thing people see when they’re surfing online and looking at search results, so it’s one of the biggest factors in whether your post gets read. Here are a few considerations:

Is the headline specific and clear? There’s very little room to be clever, cute, or abstract with blog post headlines. Plus, for search engine optimization, you need to be thinking of what keywords might belong in that headline that will help people find your post.

Is the headline intriguing or provocative? I’m not advocating clickbait headlines, but it doesn’t hurt to create mystery, intrigue, or play on people’s curiosity. You cross the line into clickbait when the headline doesn’t deliver on the promise made, or if the headline is overly sensationalized to get clicks.

Does the headline offer a benefit? All of us have limited time and energy to consume content online, so we’re always thinking WIIFM? (What’s in it for me?)

Here are some actual blog post headlines that I helped an author improve, to be more specific and attuned to keyword search.

Original headline: Total Randomness, Mostly Related To Books That Aren’t Mine

Improved headline: My Summer Reading List: Books I’ve Loved (and Books Still Waiting)

Original headline: Turn, Turn, Turn

Improved headline: What If You’re Dreading the Change of Seasons?

Original headline: Wanna Have Coffee?
Improved headlnie: Overcoming the Obstacles That Prevent You From Meditating

Create cornerstone content

Cornerstone content refers to any article, post, or page at your site that draws new readers to your blog consistently, usually through search or by referral from other sites. Cornerstone content often is a comprehensive, definitive piece that tackles a frequently asked question, issue, or problem—or features a very popular author or thing in popular culture that is searched for often.

The cornerstone content on this blog can be seen right under “Most Popular Posts”—each one points to my 101 posts on how to get published.

Sometimes, cornerstone content might be a manifesto or download in PDF form. Chris Guillebeau is well-known for 279 Days to Overnight Success that drew thousands (if not millions) to learn about his blog and his message.

If you’re a nonfiction writer, then this probably comes naturally: Put together a 101 guide, FAQ, or tutorial related to your topic or expertise—something people often ask you about. (My most visited resource on this site is Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published.)

If you’re a novelist, this strategy may take some creative thinking. Consider the following:

If your book is strongly regional, create an insider’s guide or travel guide to that particular region. Or think about other themes in your work that could inspire something fun: a collection of recipes; a character’s favorite books, movies, or music; or what research and resources were essential for completing your work.
Create a list of favorite reads by genre/category, by mood, or by occasion. Tie into current events or “look-alike” media whenever you can; for example, if you write romance and you know your readers love The Bachelor, create a list of books that fans of the show would enjoy reading.
If you have a strong avocational pursuit (or past profession) that influences your novels, create FAQs or guides for the curious.

Having even one piece of cornerstone content greatly reduces your burden to attract readers to your site through brand-new content. If it does its job, the cornerstone piece will bring a steady stream of new readers over a period of weeks and months, some of whom will become loyal followers.

If you’re very serious and strategic about this, I recommend reading How to Increase Website Traffic.

Make it easy to browse and share your posts

Some blogs have such a minimal design that it’s difficult to see the bigger picture of what type of content the blog offers. Even though there are benefits to a minimalist design, I get more engagement by having a sidebar that offers tools to navigate the history of my blog and the hundreds of posts that live here.

Calendar/archive. People new to your blog may want to dig around in your older posts. Make it easy for them to do so by offering a post calendar or archive.

Category search. Blog content should be organized into 5-10 different categories that are of high interest to your audience. For example, if people read an interview or book review on your site that interests them, they may want to browse all previous interviews or book reviews. Make this easy by categorizing the posts correctly and making the categories visible with posts.

Most popular posts. For new readers of your blog, it’s helpful to have a consistent box or sidebar that tells readers what your most popular posts are.

Sharing functionality. Make it easy for people to share your posts on Facebook, Twitter (or just about anywhere else) by adding sharing buttons to the bottom of your posts. This functionality is usually built-in to most blogs.

Improve your content’s discoverability through search engines (SEO)

Search engine optimization really requires its own post. However, you’ll be doing a good job with your SEO if:

You use WordPress or Squarespace, which are already optimized for search.
You make sure each post is categorized and tagged appropriately.
You think about how readers would search for your content, and incorporate those search keywords into your post headline, post subheads, and more. If your site is self-hosted, then install WordPress SEO by Yoast, which will give you both the tools and education you need to optimize your content for search.

If your site is self-hosted, then you should have Google Analytics installed. If not, get started today—it’s a free service and easy to set up. After Google Analytics has collected at least 1 month of data, take a look at the following:

How do people find your blog? Through search? Through your social media presence? Through other websites that link to you?
What search words bring people to your site?
What pages or posts are most popular on your site?

By knowing the answers to these questions, you can better decide which social media networks are worth your investment of time and energy (at least as far as blog promotion is concerned), who else on the web might be a good partner for you (who is sending you traffic and why?), and what content on your site is worth your time to continue developing (what content will bring you visitors over the long run?).

Create lists or round-ups on a regular basis

A very popular way to make people aware of your blog is to link to others’ blogs. If you can do this in a helpful way, it’s a win for you, for your readers, and for the sites you send traffic to.

In the writing and publishing community, weekly link round-ups are very common. (See Joel Friedlander and Elizabeth Craig.) You can create such lists or round-ups on any theme or category that interests you enough to remain dedicated, enthusiastic, and consistent for the long haul—at least six months to a year, if you want to see a tangible benefit.

Run regular interviews with people who fascinate you

Believe it or not, it’s rare to come across an informed, thoughtful, and careful interviewer and interview series (or—not just someone looking to fill a slot or post generic content based on pre-fab questions).

Think about themes, hooks, or angles for an interview series on your site, and run them on a regular basis—but only as frequently as you have time to invest in a well-researched and quality interview. Such series also offer you an excellent way to build your network and community relationships, which has a way of paying off in the long run.

Be a guest blogger or interviewee on other sites

Whenever you guest or appear on other websites, that’s an opportunity to have multiple links back to your own site and social network accounts.

A meaningful guest post means pitching sites that have a bigger audience than you, but they should also have a readership that’s a good match for your work. If you need a strong introduction to guest posting how-to, visit this excellent Copyblogger post. If you’re not the type to write guest posts, then consider proactively offering yourself up to be interviewed as part of other bloggers’ interview series.

Whenever you make an appearance on another site, always promote the interview on your own social networks and create a permanent link to it from your own website.

Above all: You need patience

Here’s what my blog traffic looked like in its early years.

December 2009. This is when I started using WordPress on this domain. I posted 3-4 times per month.

Mid-2010. This is when my traffic reached about 100 visits a day.

January 2011: I began a weekly series at my site, unrelated to writing and publishing, that featured mother-daughter interviews.

July 2011: This is when I began regularly blogging about writing and publishing at JaneFriedman.com (rather than at Writer’s Digest).

After about two years of consistency, I reached about 60,000 visits per month.

Most people I meet who blog either aren’t committed, or give up too soon, before gaining momentum that builds on itself. It’s true, however, that some people should give up, because they’re not producing the right content or the best content for their audience.

Looking for more? This week I’m teaching a 2-hour online class for writers, in partnership with Writer’s Digest, on how to blog effectively.

The Deadliest First Page Sin—Plus a Critique of Two Novel Openings

Today’s guest post is by author and writing professor Peter Selgin, excerpted from his new book, Your First Page.

I read them all the time. Stories where scenes disappear before my eyes, where the point of view is as slippery as a greased tadpole, where authors play hard to get with vital statistics: stories that should be memoirs, and memoirs that should have been stories, not to mention stories built on the quicksand of cliché.

While there are seven deadly first-page sins I commonly encounter (which I detail at length in my book Your First Page), there is one that’s most deadly of all: default omniscience.

A story or a novel is as much about how it’s told—by means of what structure, through what voice or voices, from which viewpoint(s)—as about what happens. In fiction, means and ends are inseparable: method is substance. You may have all the ingredients—a plot, characters, dialogue, description, setting, conflict—but if they aren’t bound by a specific, consistent, and rigorously controlled viewpoint, you have nothing.

In workshops I’ve been known to write across the whiteboard:

NO POINT OF VIEW = NO STORY

I’m not talking minor gaffes and glitches. I mean errors so deep-rooted no line-editing can set them right, blunders that call into question not only the author’s grasp of a particular moment or scene in a story, but fiction’s primary purpose: to render experiences.

Fiction’s stock in trade is human experience, and experience is subjective: things don’t just happen; they happen insofar as characters feel and react to them. Subjectivity requires a nervous system. That no two nervous systems respond identically to stimuli gives fiction its raison d’etre.

To be authentic, fictional experiences should pass through a subjectivity filter. They must be sorted and sifted either through the sensibility of a character or characters or that of a so-called “omniscient” narrator — one who, to a variable extent, shares their nervous systems and perspectives on events. Unless this subjective filter or narrator has been created and is firmly in place, what’s conveyed to the reader isn’t experience, but information.

An example:

Hank could have passed for Lila’s grandfather. His white mustache added to his years, yet he kept himself trim and thought himself as t as the younger fathers. He was nuts about Lila, who still loved him, though lately she’d grown distant. She was no longer his little girl; in fact, she secretly wished that he would act his age. She especially hated it when he pretended to pull coins and other things out of her ears. Why was he so goofy? But all adolescent girls pass through a phase where they hold their fathers in mild contempt.

At first glance, nothing seems wrong with this paragraph. But on closer inspection problems arise. While the first sentence (“Hank could have passed for Lila’s grandfather”) is neutral-objective, the second sentence (“thought himself…fit”) shifts us into Hank’s personal, subjective viewpoint. Though the third sentence seems to dip into Lila’s feelings about him, the thought expressed by it could still be from Hank’s viewpoint. However, unless we assume that Lila’s secret is not a secret, the fourth, fifth, and sixth sentences plunge us fully into Lila’s consciousness. With the final sentence we get yet another shift in perspective, to an omniscient, generalized view of all adolescent girls’ relationships with their fathers.

The cumulative result of all these subtle and not-so-subtle shifts is that as a reader I am never clear whose experience I am getting. The point of view isn’t solid; the filter is loose or distorted, hence my ability to share the experiences offered by this passage is curtailed. I get all the information necessary to construct an experience, but constructing an experience isn’t the same as having or inhabiting one. It’s the difference between groceries and a meal.

For readers to inhabit our stories we must first somehow inhabit them ourselves. And yet we authors don’t really live in our stories, nor can we be expected to, since we’re obliged to sit at our desks in front of our computers. This is why we have to create narrators. The narrator lives inside the story; he (or she or it) is our emissary to the world of that story.

Notice I said we have to create the narrator. Narrators don’t create themselves, nor should they ever be confused with their authors, from whom they exist separate and apart. Nor should authors second guess or in any way intrude upon the narration. When they do, they violate point of view; the narrative filter is detached, displaced, or destroyed. Experience degenerates into information. We call the result author intrusion, and it blurs and finally dissolves the fictional dream.

Point of view can never be incidental or accidental. It’s as fundamental as the choice between present and past tense, or formal and informal diction, or dramatization versus summary and exposition.

Of all problems plaguing amateur works, none is more common, or more fatal, than mishandling of point of view. Typically, the problem results not from a chosen viewpoint being violated (though this, too, happens frequently), but because no viewpoint has been properly established to begin with, so there’s nothing to violate.

Example: In a story about a waitress named Linda, we read, “People didn’t think Linda was as pretty as she used to be.” Arguably, this could be Linda’s own view of things. If so, it’s a harsh view, presented with the blunt objectivity of a Gallup poll. Earlier in the same story we’re told, “Linda was a waitress and an alcoholic; everyone knew that.” Here, too, the perspective could arguably be Linda’s. But it’s a fairly lame argument, since alcoholics—those in the throes of their addiction, anyway—are generally the last people to label themselves as such. Since this pronouncement is made early in the story (first paragraph, third line), readers can’t be blamed for taking it not as Linda’s subjective opinion, but as an omniscient narrator’s objective verdict.

Ultimately, though, this turns out to be Linda’s story, presented to us, by and large, from her perspective. And so I’m thrown by those moments when the viewpoint turns objective, with statements like “Lately, people had been all too concerned about [Linda]” (presumably these are the same generalized people who think Linda’s looks aren’t what they used to be). Or is this Linda’s subjective viewpoint wearing an omniscient, objective mask? At the very least it’s confusing. At worst it’s inauthentic and unconvincing.

Again, the problem here goes deeper than a minor lapse or two. The problem is that the author hasn’t embedded herself sufficiently by way of her chosen narrator into her character’s psyche, or into any particular mindset. Had she done so, none of these lapses would have occurred. They would have been impossible. The italicized phrase is important, since there has to be that mediating presence between author and story. The author’s job is to convey the experience of the narrator; hence, it is the narrator’s experience that matters, not the author’s experience, which comes down to sitting at a computer.

Another example: In a story where eight-year-old Aidan takes his first plane trip to France, the author sabotages his POV strategy (and his story with it) in several ways: first, by straying into passive constructions (“It was the longest plane trip that Aidan had ever been on”) that locate the viewpoint beyond the character’s personal, subjective experience (as opposed to “Aidan yawned and shifted in his seat; he’d never been on such a long plane ride before”), then by drifting into an equally inadvertent omniscience (“They [Aiden and his kid sister] knew they had better behave themselves”), and finally by sliding into diction that yanks us abruptly out of Aidan’s eight-year-old psyche (“The only dietary adjustment [italics mine] was having to eat goat’s milk for breakfast,” as opposed to “Aidan spat out his breakfast: his mother served it to him with goat’s milk. It tasted like his armpit.”). In each instance the author has failed to become Aidan, to plant himself and the reader along with him by way of a realized and engaged third-person narrator firmly in Aidan’s psyche, to see, feel, think, act and react with him.

By resisting such immersion and commitment, by insisting on mixing our own ideas and sensibilities with those of our narrators and the characters whose experiences they convey, we keep readers at a vague, inconsistent distance from the worlds we want them to inhabit. The resulting experience in this case is neither Aidan’s nor Linda’s—nor that of a rigorously omniscient narrator, but what I call default omniscient: omniscience without plan, passion, or purpose, that fails to offer us a consistent, clear, reliable filter. It does the opposite. It muddies things up.

Does this mean we shouldn’t create omniscient narratives or narrators? Of course not. It means only that we should do so knowingly. Does this mean we must restrict ourselves to a single perspective or point of view? Not at all. Almost anything we do in our fiction, no matter how outrageous or experimental, can work if done consistently and with authority.

But too often writers simply neglect to make this most crucial of choices. They assume that point of view isn’t important, or that it’s something that can be fixed later on — which is like getting a flu shot after you’ve caught the flu.

Let either your characters’ or your omniscient narrator’s perspectives serve as the organizing principle of your stories, the source of every idea expressed in your narratives. Nothing should reach the reader that hasn’t passed through this point of view filter.

Point of view is the rock on which fiction is built; it can’t be added or subtracted any more than a canvas can be added to a finished painting. Remember: NO POINT OF VIEW = NO STORY.

First-Page Critique: Raising Expectations
First page

She stretched out lazy in the hot night. She wasn’t particularly interested in the colorful display overhead but her attention kept returning to the diffused splash of color reflecting on the water’s surface. With each splash followed another loud BANG as the fireworks exploded in the night sky. She closed her eyes and couldn’t remember a Fourth of July this humid for years. It was hard to tell the smoke of celebration from the haze of summer.

“Kate, catch,” a voice called out. She didn’t hesitate. Her instincts hadn’t slowed much despite the weather. She nodded her thanks and held the cold can up to her forehead momentarily before opening it and drinking greedily. She’d have to be careful how many of these she drank, she reminded herself.

She returned her attention to her own private celebration, aware of the sounds and the laughter going on around her but lost in her own thoughts. One firework explosion dragged into the next one. She’d never been much of a fan of the Fourth. She wasn’t even sure how Neil had convinced her to come out here. Her thoughts were interrupted with the presence of someone sitting down beside her. The warmth of another body so close felt like a personal intrusion and she wanted to move away but decided against it to avoid giving the wrong impression.

“Quite an impressive display,” he said.

“Sure,” she responded but clearly she wasn’t as impressed.

“Are you having a good time?”

She looked up into his face and saw the glow of blues and reds reflecting in glittery showers in his glasses. The brightness in contrast hid the expression in his eyes but she was fairly certain she knew what was going on behind the mirrored celebration. The vibration of her phone saved her from lying as she excused herself and got up to put distance between herself and Neil, probably much more than was necessary.

She sighed once she was satisfied that she’d allowed herself enough privacy and looked at the display number on the phone. It wasn’t one that she recognized but that wasn’t important right now.

Analysis

The first page of a novel can and ideally should accomplish many things. It may tell us something of the nature and background of the characters whose dramas we’ll experience with them, or it may describe the setting or settings in which those experiences are to occur and that may even give rise to those experiences (as the dust bowl setting of The Grapes of Wrath gives rise to the Joad’s and other sharecroppers’ struggles).

A first page also forges a tacit understanding between reader and author as to how the material is to be presented, in what voice, by means of what technique and style. First Person? Omniscient? Subjective? Epic or Lyric? Based on a book or story’s first page, the reader forms certain expectations. Assuming they are met, said expectations will give rise to consternation, disappointment, or—assuming the reader has an appetite for surprises (which appetite will likewise be whetted  or not  by the first paragraphs)—amusement.

Ideally, though, whatever else a first page accomplishes, it holds out the promise of a story. And since stories are always about one thing — people — a first page that successfully evokes character[s] goes a long way toward not only making, but keeping, that promise.

Here, the author introduces us to Kate, who, on a muggy Fourth of July evening, lies stretched out (on the grass, on a chaise lounge?), aware of but not all that interested in the fireworks exploding in the sky overhead, and whose mental reflections are rendered as splashes of color diffused over the surface of a body of water (lake? ocean? river?).

And though the fireworks and their reflections are lovingly and capably described, beyond her being jaded about both the Fourth of July and Neil (the boy watching them along with her), what do we know or learn about Kate?

The answer to the question points to the weakness of this otherwise nicely written opening. The answer: very little. How old is Kate? What is her relation to Neil? Why — since she seems indifferent and even hostile to him — did she accept his invitation to the fireworks display? What town are we in, in what part of the country (we assume it’s in the United States, since people don’t celebrate July Fourth elsewhere). We learn more about the fireworks, the weather, and Kate’s mood than about who these two people are and the nature of their relationship and situation. That Kate’s feelings are expressed negatively, in terms of what doesn’t preoccupy or interest her (fireworks; Neil), makes it all the harder to get a handle on her.

In the penultimate paragraph Kate’s cell phone vibrates, rescuing Kate and her readers from this anti-scene that seems to fulfill no other purpose but to be interrupted. Possibly the phone call will present us with something more dramatic or to the point; perhaps the fireworks display is merely a setting for—and the set-up for—the phone call. If so, the author might want to front-load the scene:

They were watching the fireworks display when Kate’s phone vibrated.

From there, the author might go on to establish that Kate’s mind isn’t on the fireworks or on the boy watching them with her, but on that phone call, one she’s been longing for or dreading. By being even more specific, the first sentence might thrust us more deeply into the crux of a story (“Kate was watching the fireworks display with her fiancé when the casting director called.”).

By means of a cunningly chosen first sentence, readers might enter this story with just the right expectations raised, with curiosity and tension, rather than with a series of bored sighs set against a backdrop of colorful explosions.

First-Page Critique: False Suspense vs. Generosity
First page

The road train floated towards us above a hot blue lake across the road — a dead straight road away to the horizon. The monster was wavering across the water and I couldn’t decide whether it was really swaying or just the mirage trembling. It looked exactly like a boat with a cresting bow wave ahead of it.

We’d left early that morning, and perhaps by then I was a bit mesmerized by the road because I had a delusion that we were sitting still while a tunnel of bush streamed past us.

It was looming — closer and closer — its second trailer swinging over the double white line. There was a small white shape in front of it. The truck was frustrated, trying to find a clear section long enough to pass a caravan lolling along well below the speed limit. It had its overtaking indicators on. It couldn’t pass — surely it’d seen us. I braced myself for the collision — the smashing, shrieking, grinding impact of a sideswipe. Its shock wave buffeted me, and then it pulled out to pass behind.

The fright jolted elusive memories. Tormenting images from a film out of focus. The smell of burning oil. Someone screaming: get us out, get us out. Hot metal ticking. Simon’s face, greying, blood oozing from his ear. Rhythmic blue lights and sirens bouncing off buildings through the towns. And the next day, when Langston told me Simon had died, my disbelief that I had no memory of the last twenty-four hours and how the crash had happened.

A year later — and I was traveling east on the same road. Setting my mind to the four thousand kilometer drive across Australia. I’d heard people say they could do it in forty hours or so, but this wasn’t a speed trial — I just had to complete the crossing. I’d made the decision to leave Perth, move to Sydney. The removalist’s doors had closed on our things, I’d packed Alice, our bags and the last bits into the car and now I felt that I had finally reached a point of no return.

Analysis

Though the term is more familiar in Australia, a road train (or “land train”) is a truck pulling two or more trailers in tandem. In this effective opening, the road train becomes a source of anxiety and terror looming on the wavering horizon, “floating toward us above a hot blue lake across the road” — like one of those B-movie monsters from the 1950s, The Blob or Empire of the Ants. No longer simply a conveyance transporting innocent merchandise from point A to point B, here the road train becomes Yeats’ vast image “arising out of the desert sand … moving its slow thighs…slouch[ing] toward Bethlehem to be born.” The narrator finds it scary, and so do we.

In fact, the truck is only a truck — but still a source of fear and anxiety as it bears down on the protagonist in her car “like a boat with a cresting bow wave ahead of it.” We are in Australia, somewhere in the Outback, presumably. As one of the road train’s trailers swings over the double white line, the narrator braces herself for the inevitable collision, for “the smashing, shrieking, grinding impact of a sideswipe” — which, of course, doesn’t come.

Instead of being smashed to death, the narrator is jolted into the past, into a memory of another violent disaster. Evocations of fire, screaming, hot metal ticking, “blood oozing,” of sirens wailing and emergency lights flashing off of buildings. The memory is vague yet vivid. We learn that someone very close to the narrator — Simon, possibly the narrator’s husband — died in “the crash.”

Then the flashback ends and we return to that wavering stretch of highway — the same road, apparently, where Simon met his fate a year earlier. She is traveling from Perth to Sydney, a distance of over 4,000 kilometers, or over forty hours, traveling “with Alice [her daughter?], [her] bags, and the last bits [of her life] in her car.” The rest of her belongings are in the hands of “the removalist,”  the Australian term for a moving contractor.

A successful opening depends almost entirely on the ratio of information provided versus questions raised. Provide too much information, and you mitigate suspense; provide too little, and you cross the line from suspense to confusion and/or frustration.

Beginning authors tend to err on the side of confusion/frustration. They withhold too much information, making it hard or impossible for readers to follow — let alone to appreciate  — what’s happening. They trade in false suspense: suspense that asks not “What’s going to happen?” but “What am I reading?”

More experienced and confident writers tend toward generosity rather than stinginess. They aren’t afraid to make things clear, to give us all or most of the information we need to understand what’s happening in any moment or scene, making it easier for us to wonder — based on what we already know — where things are going, what’s going to happen next.

Generosity takes confidence: you have to believe that you have a good story to tell, and that the more you give, the more readers will want. If beginning writers often play hard-to-get, it’s because they aren’t so sure.

With this opening, the writer achieves the perfect balance of information vs. suspense. Though little is spelled out, much is conveyed. A mother whose life has been shattered by tragedy, hoping to leave that tragedy behind and begin a new life, travels along a desolate stretch of desert highway. Will she make it? The road itself becomes a hazard, a portent, a metaphor for the journey that has just begun — and which, with its wavering mirages and hazards, is bound to be treacherous. This is a strong opening.

If you found this post helpful, I highly recommend Your First Page by Peter Selgin.

A Look Back at 2017 Publishing Headlines: 5 Issues Raised for Authors

Photo credit: Clarissa Peterson via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA

As one of the editors of the The Hot Sheet, produced in collaboration with journalist Porter Anderson, I regularly read and report on publishing industry developments that affect writers. Looking back at the key stories we covered in 2017, these are the headlines that stand out and raise questions for me in the new year.

Barnes & Noble’s Challenge: Return to Community Bookselling

At the end of November 2017, Barnes & Noble released their latest earnings report. The news was entirely predictable: the store’s losses grew, driven by a 6.3 percent decline in comparable store sales against last year. (Absence of a new Harry Potter book makes up half of that decline.) The declines have been going on for six or seven quarters now, with more declines expected. Still, B&N has been meeting its profit goals as a result of cost cutting.

Keep in mind that B&N’s performance is not necessarily indicative of overall book retail health. Print book sales as tracked by BookScan in 2017 show that the industry is not suffering the same rate of decline as B&N. Therefore, B&N is losing market share, likely to Amazon.

On the ebook side, Nook devices and its associated ebook retail business has been dwindling since at least 2014. In acknowledgment of Nook’s failure to compete against Amazon’s Kindle or even Apple’s iBooks, Barnes & Noble’s chairman, Len Riggio, told investors last month, “There is no business model in technology” for the chain. That immediately led to speculation that the business would be sold off—but to whom? And might Barnes & Noble partner with an ebook retailer if Nook is sold? Barnes & Noble has lost about $1.3 billion on the Nook business in the last six years, according to Fortune. At its peak, Nook enjoyed sales of nearly $1 billion a year. Currently it has sales of about $150 million a year. Many people inside and outside of the industry think it’s time to pull the plug.

The latest earnings report came with the CEO’s assurances that Barnes & Noble would begin to emphasize its core business: bookselling. Given that the store is seeing declines not just in book sales, but also in sales of other types of merchandise—and in foot traffic—it’s not surprising to see a renewed focus on books. Apparently, the thinking is that returning to Barnes & Noble’s heritage, as the CEO Demos Parneros put it, will save the day: “We’ve done recent research that reinforces and validates that, and we want to be the best at selling books. Our publishers are right there with us. They’ve been great partners. Our booksellers shared feedback with us and we know it’s the right decision,” he said during an investor call.

As many authors are aware, today’s Barnes & Noble hasn’t always been the most community-friendly store, and its bookseller attitudes and flexibility can vary greatly depending on location. Independent bookstores have been more successful at offering value and inspiring loyalty in customers that are helping them survive. Will Barnes & Noble truly be able to act more like a bookseller across diverse communities? And should they?

Successful Canadian bookseller Indigo has plans to expand into the US next year, and its emphasis is distinctly not on bookselling; Indigo calls itself “a cultural department store, offering a “joyful, addictive omni-channel experience as well as the ultimate community for book lovers.” That means the stores sell a variety of gift and lifestyle merchandise; about 40 percent of their store sales are non-book items, and those sales have been increasing by the double digits. (Print book sales have been falling.)

Complicating matters, Barnes & Noble plans to shrink its stores—carrying less inventory while improving discovery. Parneros said, “Our goal is to get smaller. We want to actually have a better store, even though it’s a smaller store.” They’re planning for about 40 to 50 percent smaller stores—sometimes even smaller—in terms of square footage.

In an article worth every author’s attention, Nathan Bransford interviews industry consultant Mike Shatzkin, who spells out the grave impact the loss of B&N could have on trade publishing, which was built on the ability of big publishing houses to put books on shelves. “That’s what they can do that authors can’t do for themselves and, up until now, Amazon couldn’t do for them either,” comments Shatzkin. Smaller trade presses would be hurt worse by a B&N collapse, since they have fewer mass-merchant outlets (such as big-box stores, which trade mostly in bestsellers) for their books. Big publishers would find it less efficient but doable to launch trade books only through the disparate network of indie bookshops; smaller presses would have a harder time. Should Amazon Books (Amazon’s physical stores) keep ramping up quickly, then all publishing roads would, finally, lead to Seattle.

The Self-Publishing Market—and Service Market—Shows Signs of Maturity

Author Kristine Rusch has covered this topic at length and in depth, mainly from the perspective of a crowded indie author market. I’m particularly interested in how the services market for indie authors is evolving, and who might survive over the long term.

In fall 2015, Pronoun launched as an ebook distributor that rolled up several startups, including Vook, Booklr, and Byliner. It’s been 100 percent free to authors, which raised serious questions about its sustainability. And, indeed, after two years, it announced it would close in January 2018.

Yet the closing of Pronoun did feel sudden, given that it was so recently investing in new partnerships and functionality. But it never got around to implementing an actual business model for author services. Because its owner was Macmillan (a big New York house), perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Pronoun had a short life under its umbrella.

Fortunately, self-publishing authors have other major reputable distribution services to choose from—including Smashwords, Draft2Digital, PublishDrive, and StreetLib. While none offer the same incomparable deal as Pronoun, they offer fair terms and solid functionality; the first two options have a strong presence in the US market and appear very stable.

It’s hard to say which self-publishing companies, services, and distributors are most likely to survive in the years ahead, but those that aren’t squarely focused on genuinely understanding and serving the author market (with a supporting business model) are in danger. There’s not really a quick buck to be made and authors are more savvy than they’ve ever been. It’s exceedingly difficult to launch a new self-publishing service company that stands out from the crowd and earns the trust and respect of authors. For most traditional or legacy publishing companies, the work is not worth the potential revenue. This is why Author Solutions’ white label service has been so attractive to traditional publishers (as long as they turn a blind eye to the ethical implications): it offers the profits without the headaches via Archway (Simon & Schuster), WestBow (Thomas Nelson), and Balboa Press (Hay House).

In what is likely a surprise to no one in the writing and publishing community, the latest statistics from Bowker reflect a continued increase in the number of self-published titles in the US market—about 8 percent between 2015 and 2016. And here I offer the same caveat as always: Bowker is an agency that issues and counts ISBNs in the US, which is not the same as measuring the size of the entire self-publishing market. Many authors self-publish without obtaining an ISBN. But Bowker’s report is important because it’s one of the very few consistent and reliable data points we have. Furthermore, it breaks out the number of ISBNs used by specific self-publishing service providers—and that is where the real story gets told.

Last year, Amazon’s free print-on-demand service, CreateSpace, was the big leader in ISBN count and was seeing significant growth year on year. Other services, such as Smashwords and Author Solutions imprints, had experienced declines. Here’s how things have shaken out over the last year.

CreateSpace now has nearly 80% of the market—and they continue to grow. They issued more than 18% more ISBNs in 2016. I often hear speculation in the indie author community that Amazon will push indie authors using CreateSpace to the new KDP Print service. The sheer size of the CreateSpace business, along with its continued growth, make that unlikely, but we’ll see.

CreateSpace’s competitors are down. After several years of growth, Lulu’s 2016 count was down about 12% to around 75,000 ISBNs, compared to CreateSpace’s 500,000 or so. After growing significantly from 2010 to 2015, Blurb is down by 31% and issued about 23,000 ISBNs in 2016. Also, while not a CreateSpace competitor, Smashwords issued 8% fewer ebook ISBNs than in 2015 (about 90,000 total).

And what of Author Solutions? One big takeaway from last year’s report was that the overall Author Solutions business is declining; it saw a 40% drop in ISBNs between 2010 and 2015. This was welcome news to many in the writing community, who see the company as predatory, with high-pressure sales tactics and questionable, overpriced services. In 2016, there is yet another shift. Print ISBNs declined by 6%, but ebook ISBNs grew by a whopping 175%.

The biggest Author Solutions imprints are Xlibris and AuthorHouse, followed by WestBow (affiliated with Thomas Nelson). The ebook title growth came from these largest imprints, but also from ebook releases across smaller ones. Because Author Solutions print releases declined overall, an obvious question arises: How and why did Author Solutions release so many ebooks? Furthering the mystery: in the overall self-pub market tracked by Bowker, print book ISBNs are up overall between 2015 and 2016—through all services—and ebook ISBNs are down. But not for Author Solutions. It is a curious situation.

Wattpad Works Its Way to Profitability

At the opening of the Sharjah International Book Fair’s program for publishing industry leaders, Wattpad was mentioned admiringly, something of a first. The president of the International Publishers Association, Elsevier senior vice president Michiel Kolman, told several hundred publishers, agents, and rights specialists, “The vast volume of content uploaded weekly to platforms like Wattpad is staggering.” He added, “It’s also proof that—thank goodness—young people aren’t just slumped in front of Netflix. They’re also writing.”

This year involved a series of important developments for Wattpad, including:

A partnership with one of the Big Five publishers, Hachette, to produce 50 audiobooks based on Wattpad stories. The first titles became available in summer 2017.
A pay-to-play option that removes advertising from the website and apps. Wattpad Premium charges $5.99/month or $59.99/year, but free access remains for all—just with ads.
Chinese online retail giant Tencent invested $40 million in Wattpad as part of a $50 million venture capital deal, valuing Wattpad at $400 million.

Wattpad generates $20 million per year in revenue in advertising and licensing, a figure that’s growing by some 100 percent each year. Years ago, Wattpad co-founder Allen Lau mildly scandalized an audience of trade publishers at a BookExpo conference by telling them that the way to monetize Wattpad would become apparent in its own good time. Clearly, the time has arrived, and it involves partnerships (where publishers offer book contracts to platform authors), Wattpad Studios (which continues to roll out new Hollywood development deals), and the advertising play (Wattpad Premium).

There’s a keen awareness among the company’s leadership that the writers (who always retain the rights to their work) are the foundation of everything the platform does. Currently, Wattpad offers earning opportunities for writers with strong followings who are designated Wattpad Stars; also, Wattpad Futures allows readers to “pay” their favorite Wattpad writers by watching videos inserted between chapters in stories. Wattpad is well known for identifying popular writers and stories on its site by evaluating its platform’s usage data.

Wattpad’s roster of partnerships grows ever more impressive; aside from Hachette, they’ve had publishing or promotional partnerships with HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks. They’re also moving briskly into broader entertainment deals, including partnerships with TNT and Universal Cable Productions. The Toronto-based company recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, and its recent initiatives have clear income attached. Founder and CEO Allan Lau, when interviewed, still emphasizes Wattpad’s original mission, telling Publishers Weekly in December 2016, “We help writers form a fan base.”

Given the comments from Kolman, I’m curious to see how Wattpad’s reputation evolves and what new programs it may launch to attract writers.

Is Traditional Publishing Losing Its Ability to Launch Blockbusters—and How Much Does It Matter?

In 2016, there were reports of a “dry spell” for new novels on the bestseller list. While 2016 marked a fourth straight year of volume growth for traditional publishers, with the industry up by 3.3 percent, the growth came from coloring books and nonfiction print backlist in self-help, plus JK Rowling’s The Cursed Child.

In 2017, the story is similar. Publishers Weekly article reports, “Despite the lack of a hot new title in the first nine months of 2017, print unit sales for the period were 2 percent higher than in the comparable timeframe in 2016.” And that growth is once again driven by backlist. The bestselling title this year is a poetry book released by Simon & Schuster in 2015, Milk and Honey by Instagram poet Rupi Kaur. Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said that Kaur’s young fans are buying the physical object because they “want to own something that is connected to the person they like online and … because they can share it.”

And, once again, nonfiction is outperforming fiction in 2016. That’s in part because Kaur’s poetry book is classified as nonfiction for the purposes of these reports. Adult fiction sales would be doing even worse this year if it weren’t for two backlist bestsellers, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and 1984 by George Orwell.

The absence of a traditional publishing blockbuster can be keenly felt and observed in financial results; for example, when Scholastic didn’t have a Harry Potter book in the first quarter of fiscal 2017, as it did in 2016, total revenue at the company declined 33 percent during that quarter. And of course the effect of such titles isn’t limited to publishers’ bottom lines; bookstore sales declined nearly 11 percent in August (compared to the prior year) because of the absence of a Potter book.

That said, the story coming out of Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2017 is that traditional publishers are feeling buoyed by the recent years of growing print sales and the leveling-off of ebook sales—never mind that print market share and growth is dominated and driven by Amazon. Amid the political noise—which is seen as a primary culprit in publishers’ difficulty to break out new titles—the major trade personalities signaled their belief in the strength of print books, with Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle referring to a “massive stabilizing effect on physical retail.” Brian Murray, HarperCollins’s CEO, told the Wall Street Journal that “screen fatigue” is shoring up print’s dominance. Of course, it’s rare to hear anyone note Amazon’s retail hegemony. They talk format much more than sales channels—as when Reidy said she sees younger readers showing a fondness for print, referencing Rupi Kaur’s Instagram-based poetry book.

Ebook Sales Are More Robust Than Mainstream Media Seem to Realize—Because of Amazon and Self-Published Work

When Simon & Schuster’s Reidy was asked about self-publishing at Frankfurt Book Fair in October, she said that independent publishing is “huge” and has “taken away some consumers” from the trade in the US market. She was referring most specifically to the romance market.

Independent publishing in the US is strong partly (or mainly!) because of Amazon, of course. If you look at the universe of Amazon US ebook sales, self-published work constitutes about 40% of unit sales. Michael Cader of Publishers Marketplace estimates (drawing on industry figures as well as stats from Author Earnings), “Over 86% of all self-published ebooks sold are estimated as sold through Amazon. … Traditional publishers are capturing just over half of paid ebook downloads [at Amazon], while self-published authors are above 40%.” Summing this up later, he says publishers “captured 80% of the [ebook] dollar sales” in 2016, “but only about 53% of the unit sales.”

But these figures do not factor in Kindle Unlimited and other “borrows” in the Amazon market. As Cader writes, “The larger hole in the ebook market is measuring the growing influence and size of Amazon’s proprietary and promotional markets, in which subscription and member ‘reads’ and ‘borrows’—sometimes inexpensive and sometimes free—take the place of one-at-a-time download sales.” And there, it’s believed that self-published work accounts for about 60% of KU reads and other borrows. The remainder is made up of titles from Amazon Publishing and the Kindle First promotional program (which offers Amazon Publishing titles only). Cader writes of Amazon’s proprietary e-reading programs, “[They] could be moving more units than all of the competitive stores together. It also means that Amazon Publishing … is on its own close to the size of the entire non-Amazon market.”

Kindle Unlimited is becoming an increasingly important and contentious platform in the author community, as scammers continue to find ways to game the rankings and thus the page-read payout system. In a series of posts throughout 2017, indie author David Gaughran detailed his frustration with scam operations that impact the free-book charts at Amazon, plus click-farming schemes that can send a title from the depths of anonymity to the number-one spot in paid Kindle rankings—thus increasing its visibility and KU page-read payouts.

The effect these hacks can have on Amazon’s system are tantamount to security breaches; they’re not taken lightly or discussed by Amazon in public. A big question yet to be answered is how well Amazon can prevent fraudulent and unethical activity while not mistakenly taking down honest authors in the process.

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