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Publishing Industry Status Report: Important Stories for Authors in 2017

photo by Annick Press

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Traditional Publishers in 2017: Holding Steady with Print Backlist and Audio

BookScan, which tracks US book sales, recently released a report showing that print sales are still increasing this year—up by 2.6 percent compared to the first half of 2016. More specifically, retail book sales (dominated by Amazon and chain bookstores) are up 4 percent, while mass merchandising book sales (such as Walmart and Target) are down 8 percent.

Ebook sales figures are not yet available for the first half of 2017, but early reports show a decline once again. Ebooks overall have lost about $1 billion of their value as a format for traditional publishers since 2013, when they peaked at $3.24 billion. In 2016, they declined to $2.26 billion, a 16.9 percent drop from 2015.

A few of the top print books for the first half of 2017 include the poetry book Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (notable because it was first self-published), Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Camino Island by John Grisham.

Of particular note: Traditional publishers are experiencing strong backlist sales and soft frontlist sales as compared to last year. Frontlist sales are new titles, so publishers are experiencing some trouble getting new titles to break out (politics may be a distraction—see this AP trend article). BookScan’s list of top 10 print books for the year includes only one title published in 2017: Camino Island by John Grisham. Half of the list was published prior to 2015. (However, the folks at Publishers Marketplace noted on Twitter that this is not atypical. Last year it was two at this time; in 2015 it was three; in 2014 it was one.) Publishing industry vet and book marketer Pete McCarthy also noted on Twitter, “Marketing backlist is the ‘Moneyball’ equivalent of trading for a veteran you know can hit. Frontlist is drafting a high school pitcher.”

Audio continues to be the darling of the industry, jumping 18.8 percent in 2016 over 2015. And in the first quarter of this year, preliminary figures indicate almost a 30 percent increase over the same quarter last year; the Association of American Publishers says this is the third year in which audio has seen double-digit growth. But it’s still a low overall percentage of the market: in 2016, downloaded audio represented 1.2 percent of the market, according to the AAP.

Barnes & Noble Does Fine on Profits, But Not Sales in Fiscal 2017

Barnes & Noble’s outlook hasn’t been a rosy one over the last couple years, and their revolving door for CEOs hasn’t helped. (The latest CEO, Demos Parneros, took his position at the helm after a 30-year run at Staples.)

The good news is that B&N met their profit goals; the bad news is that full-year sales were down 6.5 percent from the prior year. Since B&N sales encompass many media, not just books, it’s helpful to look at earnings in the book category alone. Unfortunately, the decline is about the same—6 percent—partly due to lower sales of coloring books and juvenile titles. And they expect the sales decline to continue in 2018.

In Publishers Lunch (paywall), Michael Cader summarizes how B&N management, in an investor’s call, said they would address the challenges: launch a series of tests. Cader writes, “A lot of those tests focus on store layouts, ‘starting with space productivity,’ adjusting categories that are in decline and those that are growing.” That means: look for reduced space in areas of underperformance, including the Nook and music DVDs.

Always remember that B&N’s performance is not necessarily indicative of overall book retail health. As noted above, print book sales as tracked by BookScan show that the industry is not suffering the same rate of decline as B&N. Therefore, B&N is losing share to its competitors (Amazon).

In an article worth every author’s attention as B&N struggles, Nathan Bransford interviews 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.

Starting with the premise that B&N sells two-thirds of the books sold through bookstores in the US, Shatzkin’s points include:

Smaller publishers 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.

Amazon Probably Has About 70 Percent of the Ebook Market

Earlier this year, Michael Cader of Publishers Marketplace published a four-part series on the state of the publishing industry as told through various statistics. In that analysis, he offered the following market share analysis for ebook retailers:

Amazon: 71 percent
iBooks: 14 percent
Nook: 9 percent
Google: 2 percent
Other: 4 percent

If you look only at the universe of Amazon ebook sales, Cader believes that self-published work constitutes about 40 percent of unit sales. However, he also estimates that publishers capture about 80 percent of the ebook dollars because of their higher pricing.

Cader also shows that self-published work accounts for about 60 percent of Kindle Unlimited 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.”

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Social Media for Authors: The Toughest Topic to Advise On

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of author websites and their role in an author’s online presence. However, I’m asked about social media far more often.

Of all the topics I teach, social media is the most vexed. Even in a small class of writers, I find varying skill levels and experience, and a mix of attitudes—and these two factors play a strong role in what people need to hear or learn. I believe a successful social media strategy is driven by one’s personality and strengths, as well as the qualities of the work produced—leading to a unique approach for each writer. And that approach will likely change over time because as one succeeds, one’s platform grows and the audience changes; and strategies often have to shift when your readership expands. (Not to mention the tools themselves change over time!)

So, social media can’t be treated as this static thing—you can’t just learn a formula and you’re done. It’s in flux and there’s always more to learn. For me, this is part of what makes it fun and prevents boredom. For others it’s what makes it intolerable. Because social media is widely considered essential to book marketing and promotion, yet it’s constantly changing, it’s become a burden and source of anxiety for beginners and advanced authors alike.

I’m hoping the following principles—regardless of your skill level or experience—will make it feel a little less anxiety inducing.

Your social media following grows mostly when you produce more work.

It’s a fundamental rule of author platform development: it grows out of your body of work. As you produce more books (or more stories or content of any kind), you are likely to grow your audience or reach more readers. And this in turn naturally leads to more followers on social media.

It is exceedingly difficult to create a social media following when you’re not publishing work and being discovered through that work. However, there is a workaround—the next point.

Use social media to micro-publish or to share your work.

This is a principle partly from Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work. You can use social media as a creative outlet and share bits and pieces of whatever you’re working on—or the entirety of what you’re working on. For example, Roxane Gay posted on Tumblr about her health and diet and soon found people wanted more, more, more—which led to her memoir, Hunger. Rupi Kaur shared her poetry on Instagram, then self-published her book Milk & Honey, and now it’s one of the top-selling books of 2017 from Andrews McMeel. A decade ago, Scott Sigler recorded himself reading chapters from his novel, and distributed a podcast through iTunes, leading to a print/ebook readership and a traditional book deal.

There are hundreds and thousands of examples of authors being playful, creative, and experimental online and on social media—of showing or sharing their work—which can lead to reader growth and payment for that work. Note that this principle follows straight from the first: you’ll see social media growth when you produce work for people to experience or read. But too often “serious” writers are trained to see social media as a distraction, as meaningless, as a low-class or even dumb way to publish, partly because it rarely involves payment.

As with so many things, social media is whatever you make of it. Treat it as dumb, and that’s what it’ll be for you.

People break social media “rules” all the time and succeed.

There are countless case studies and reports about how often you should post, what networks you ought to use, how to create effective images and titles, where and how to schedule for optimal reach, and even the ideal number of words or characters in your updates.

You don’t have to follow or learn any of it—unless you want to go work for a corporation and become a social media manager.

All you have to learn is what engages your people and is workable for you. And that takes time, patience, and curiosity.

I admit there are many ways to undercut yourself (such as posting too many hard sells that cause people to tune out), and there are a few best practices that help increase engagement.

But before all these best practices comes something much more fundamental: being a curious and interested human being, who can communicate in an engaging way. Writers are pretty good at that. But they forget they’re good at it when they’re filled with pressure or anxiety about results, or feel burdened with this thing they feel isn’t part of their “real” career as a writer.

And that I think is the driving force behind why it’s so hard to teach social media. It works best when you can see it as play, as a natural extension of your work. As soon as you carve it out as the “marketing and promotion” part of work/life, your results may be lackluster. People can tell when you’re only around because you’re trying to get something out of them. The more you try to make social media “pay,” often the less it does. Demands that it must be used or mandates for a certain type of use crushes the spirit and direction of creative and fulfilling activity.

So what can I possibly say to writers to help them become better at it? Well, first, don’t take it all so seriously. Look for what you enjoy. Have a spirit of questioning and discovery. Follow a daily routine that works for you. Sustainable and meaningful social media practice isn’t so different from getting your “real” writing done.

What’s More Important: Author Websites or Social Media?

In 2013, I observed a conversation on Twitter where a publisher said they didn’t believe in author websites “for a lot of authors”—that social was a better place for authors to spend time from a marketing perspective.

It bothered me, and I ended up writing a blog post about it, exploring why a publisher might think this—rightly or wrongly.

Since then, I’ve taught countless conference sessions and webinars about author platform development, content strategy, marketing and promotion, and long-term best business practices. Hands down, the No. 1 thing I’m questioned about is social media—by the unpublished writers, advanced writers, and well-established career authors. I don’t mind fielding such questions, but I find social media the most difficult topic to teach effectively, and I’ll have a separate post about that tomorrow.

On the flip side, I rarely field questions about author websites, aside from technical ones about what service to use or other fiddly details related to domains, hosting, and WordPress sites. I believe this happens for a few reasons: Website design and development is a more technical area, plus few authors actively engage on their site with readers. It can be something of a “set it and forget it” thing. Who’s really looking at an author website that much anyway, especially one without a blog or active updates?

Meanwhile, everyone you know is likely on Facebook—it has 2 billion users and it’s the No. 1 app in the world. Many visit daily (hourly!).

Yet social media is ephemeral, volatile, and out of your control. The content is visible now, buried tomorrow. Your account could be shut down. You could be limited in who you reach over time. You might have to pay money to get the same level of engagement as a few months or a few years ago. It’s not so great at organic discoverability, meaning it’s hard to get seen by an entirely new audience who doesn’t know you … unless you run ads or you can motivate your friends and followers to share and repost things (make things “go viral” as we once used to say).

But yes, social media is still where most readers spend considerable time, even though it tends to inspire love-hate feelings and remains a primary area of complaint and unhappiness in some people’s lives. But it’s necessary, right?

I may be in the tiny minority of people who happen to think social media isn’t 100% critical for an author’s online presence. Yes, it makes things much more difficult if you refuse to use it, and I don’t like it when writers spurn it out of some kind of literary peacocking—believing that it’s “beneath” them to market themselves on social media.

But effective marketing and promotion (and platform building) does exist beyond and separate from social media. These days, I get more noticeable results from my website and blogging efforts, email newsletters, and in-person networking than I do from social media. Not that I want to give up social media—quite the contrary—but I could walk away from Facebook and still earn a living. Not so with my website—it’s absolutely fundamental.

So I want to make a case for why investing more time in an author website—focusing more on this aspect of your platform, branding, and overall messaging—could have a lasting impact on your brand and reach.

Being more discoverable through search

Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook: these four companies are sometimes referred to as the “four horsemen,” companies that have near total dominion over our digital lives and incomparable, data-driven insights into our behavior. I’m willing to bet that every reader of this blog has a relationship with at least one, if not all, of these companies.

Of these four, authors are well aware of the power of Amazon and Facebook in book marketing and sales. Apple may be an interesting player in the future, but I’m setting them aside for this post. Google is the one that authors tend to ignore or discount, but shouldn’t.

Google controls the search market, as well as a significant portion of the digital advertising market; in terms of its dominance of the latter, it’s rivaled only by Facebook. (Together, the two are considered a “duopoly” in digital advertising.)

If some part of your site or blog ranks well in Google, it can equate to a living, assuming you know how to monetize traffic or have something to sell. This is why so many businesses pay money for search engine optimization; even minor increases in ranking can hugely increase product visibility and a customer base.

Imagine if you write Navy Seal romances, and Google connects your name to the genre. Here’s what the results look like (today, at least):

See those covers—and see it dominated by one author? Suzanne Brockmann benefits greatly from Google identifying her with this set of keywords. How or why did this happen? It’s likely a combination of things, such as keywords and metadata associated with her books at Amazon, Google, Goodreads, and her website. All together, Google has received a strong signal that ties together “Navy Seal romance” and Brockmann’s books and her author name.

Indie author Derek Murphy has discussed such optimization; in his case, he’s trying to rank for something like “mermaid romance.” Currently, his book is third in search results for that keyword phrase.

You can strengthen your signaling to Google through your author website, blog, social media accounts (particularly Goodreads), and Amazon book description by being consistent in the keywords you use to describe your work. Help connect the dots for Google about who you are and what you write so that it can send the right prospects to you. These are often going to be new readers—readers you didn’t have to advertise or beg for.

What would happen if you not only built a site that strongly associated your author name with your category, genre, or work’s themes, but you also posted content on those themes? Large publishers have spent considerable time and energy in the last few years building out such sites and content. For example, if you try running a search for “Navy Seal romances,” you’ll find a publishers’ website in the results (Heroes & Heartbreakers), featuring a blog post that rounds up titles from Macmillan authors with Navy Seal characters.

Offering the media (and influencers) the official story on you and your work

Anyone who wants to formally review your work, interview you, report on what you’re doing—or just find out more about you—is most likely to Google you and look for your official website. The more professional their purpose, the less likely they are to seek you out on social media. This is especially true for librarians, educators, booksellers, and journalists. You do not want to make these people guess at your official bio or how to contact you. Nor should they have to scroll through dozens of Facebook or Twitter posts to identify your latest book or when it released.

If your website makes a bad impression, these people may decide against coverage or offering you an opportunity. Or they may hesitate because you simply don’t look like you’re serious. (I judge people on their website all the time; I know I shouldn’t for all things in life, but I do. And it affects whom I choose to do business with.)

Here’s a short list of people who ended up at my website, read my bio, and contacted me with an opportunity: the National Endowment for the Arts, National Public Radio, reporters for The New York Times, the National Press Club, the Virginia Quarterly Review (who later hired me full time), and of course nearly every writing conference that’s ever asked me to speak. It’s true that some of these organizations may have first heard about me on social media. But my website builds confidence and gives them a specific way to reach out.

Securing high-quality email newsletter subscribers

About 99% of all my email subscribers are website visitors, which is common with nonfiction authors or those who blog.

Novelists may find that most subscribers come from giveaways, contests, social media, or other opportunities not related to the author website. Still, any reader who ends up at your website, and then subscribes to your newsletter, is likely to be among your most high-quality fans, especially if you didn’t have to bribe them to join.

Also, at your website you’re better able to run A/B tests on email sign-up forms or pop-ups, and see what marketing copy or what combination of copy/image/giveaway results in the highest rate of sign ups. You can use this knowledge in other places and contexts.

Understanding what social media use is effective

If you don’t have Google Analytics installed on your website (to analyze your site traffic), that’s your homework today. Do it. It’s free. And even if you can’t interpret the data, eventually one day, when you can, you’ll be glad you installed it long ago. That’s because Google Analytics can’t see into your past traffic; it can only count forward from the day it’s installed.

Analytics will show you how social media affects your site traffic, and what sites are most effective at sending you readers, and which readers are your most valuable (e.g., those who sign up for your email newsletter or spend the most time reading your site). Analytics can help identify what works or not (such as guest posts, social media campaigns, collaborative efforts, and more).

Monetizing the audience you have

Hard selling on social media (“buy my book!”) isn’t effective if done frequently. If you want to ask people daily to be a patron, support your crowdfunding project, enroll in your online course, buy your book, etc, people may soon tune you out or unfollow entirely. I rarely use Facebook or Twitter to ask for a sale; instead, I save that for my website or email newsletter where people are highly engaged and interested. (On social media, however, I will share useful content or a blog post, which may lead people to my website, and then there’s a related upsell or something for sale.)

So what’s more important: your website or social media?

For me, it’s obviously my website, but that’s partly because this blog is important to my platform. Thankfully, you don’t (or shouldn’t) have to choose between having an author website or participating on social media. Nurture both. Choose to make your website a proud and strong showcase for your work and what you want to be known for, and don’t expect social media to always be the hub for all your branding or reader discovery. You’ll be stronger if you have a multi-faceted approach, especially if and when social media fails you.

Secrets to Developing the Best Title for Your Nonfiction Book

Today’s post by Jody Rein and Michael Larsen is excerpted from the fifth edition of How to Write a Book Proposal, published by Writer’s Digest Books.

“A good title is the title of a successful book.” —Raymond Chandler

One New York editor said to Mike, “If the title is good enough, it doesn’t matter what’s in the book.” Everything Men Know About Women proves her right. The book sold more than 750,000 copies. Its 120 pages are … blank!

If you’re pitching your book to agents or editors, the perfect title for your book will define your subject and grab their positive attention. It should be a label they can confidently share with colleagues in editorial board meetings and use to convince the powers-that-be to release money to acquire your book. You don’t want to offer agents or editors a string of titles to choose from; pick the one you think is best. (You can share the others later.)

In How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Guy Kawasaki tells the story of how nobody at a private boys’ school signed up for a course called “Home Economics for Boys.” The class filled up immediately when the school changed the name of the course to “Bachelor Living.”

The title and subtitle of your promotion-driven book must work together to entice readers to make a purchase. Titles are short, simple, visual, metaphorical, and resonant, creating an emotional response. Titles grab the gut. Titles sell. Subtitles are straightforward, designed to clearly express what your book will do for readers. They might define a desirable activity or skill to be learned, a systematic approach to learning it, and, perhaps, a time within which the reader will acquire the skill.

The following title/subtitle combinations effectively tell and sell. Emulate them to develop a great title for a prescriptive or platform-driven book.

The 90-Second Fitness Solution: The Most Time-Efficient Workout Ever for a Healthier, Stronger, Younger You by Pete Cerqua with Alisa Bowman (Atria/Simon & Schuster)

Black Belt Negotiating: Become a Master Negotiator Using Powerful Lessons From the Martial Arts by Michael Soon Lee with Sensei Grant Tabuchi (Amacom Books)

Smart Women; Foolish Choices: Finding the Right Men/Avoiding the Wrong Ones by Connell Cowan and Melvin Kinder (Signet)

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin (HarperCollins)

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brené Brown (Hazelden Publishing)

You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less by Mark Kistler (Da Capo Press/Hachette)

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth (Scribner/Simon & Schuster)

Narrative nonfiction and memoir titles

“There are many paths to success in publishing; some come easily, but most require blood, sweat, and tears. And a really great title helps a lot.” —Laurie Abkemeier, literary agent

Memoir titles can be metaphorical and even mysterious but must still grab the heart and head—and occasionally the funny bone. Some memoirs have wonderfully wacky titles. Memoirs are almost always subtitled “A Memoir” or “A Memoir of XXX.” Notice how each of the following successful memoir titles expresses a concept that is personal to the author yet at the same time evokes a sense of place, time, or experience that is universal and recognizable.

Girl Walks Out of a Bar: A Memoir by Lisa F. Smith (SelectBooks)

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls (Scribner/Simon & Schuster)

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (HarperCollins)

Boys in the Trees: A Memoir by Carly Simon (Flatiron Books/Macmillan Publishers)

Bettyville: A Memoir by George Hodgman (Penguin Random House)

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson (Penguin Random House)

If we wrote a book about historical narrative nonfiction subtitles, here’s what we would call it: Narrative Nonfiction Subtitles: The Fascinating Behind-the- Scenes Tale of Those Never-Ending, Keyword-Laden Phrases that Editors and Authors and Agents Discuss Endlessly and in the End, Nobody Ever Reads.

Titles of historical narrative nonfiction works are evocative but less personal than those of memoirs. Their subtitles are often a mouthful. That’s because they must educate the reader about the book’s subject matter—which often is a little-known event—and why the subject itself matters and why the approach is relevant. For your proposal, don’t spend too much time wordsmithing the subtitle, which the publisher will undoubtedly change. Aim for clarity, and remember to describe not only your topic but also why it will be meaningful to readers today. Some popular titles in this category include:

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (Penguin Random House)

The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earth by Alan Cutler (Dutton/Penguin Random House, reissued by Author Planet Press)

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown (Penguin Random House)

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair at Changed America by Erik Larson (Penguin Random House)

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach (W.W. Norton & Company)

The titles for biography and other information-driven literary nonfiction are more straightforward, often focused on the “tell” over the sell. Ron Chernow didn’t need anything fancier than his title Alexander Hamilton to secure a spot on the New York Times best-seller list, a Pulitzer Prize, and the world-changing attention of Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Profanity Soapbox

Every subject area, from parenting to cooking, now boasts a few books with profane titles. It’s so common that the shock value has diminished considerably and, in our opinion, left in its wake a society that’s a little more accepting of rudeness and cheap laughs. Even though, okay, some are pretty funny.

10 Prompts for Great Titles

For inspiration, ask yourself these questions.

Does my title compel people to read the copy that follows? Example: Guerrilla Marketing for Free: Dozens of No-Cost Tactics to Promote Your Business and Energize Your Profits by Jay Conrad Levinson (Mariner Books)
Does my title capture the essence of my book with a memorable image, symbol, or metaphor? Examples: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Random House), Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger (Da Capo/Hachette)
Does my title sell a solution rather than a problem? Example: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead by Brené Brown (Avery)
Does my title carve out a unique spot in the marketplace? Example: The Only Negotiating Guide You’ll Ever Need: 101 Ways to Win Every Time in Any Situation by Peter Stark and Jane Flaherty (Crown Business/Penguin Random House)
Does the title of my book match the title of the talks I will give about the book? The same title for both creates synergy.
Does my title use or co-opt proprietary nomenclature? Glennon Doyle Melton, author of bestsellers Love Warrior and Carry On, Warrior, is on her way to being forever associated with the word warrior.
Can I brand my book and my attitude with a catchy metaphorical or tangentially related phrase? Two perennially best-selling examples: Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive: Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate, and Outnegotiate Your Competition by Harvey Mackay (HarperBusiness/HarperCollins), What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers by Richard N. Bolles (Ten Speed Press/Penguin Random House)
Can I use a variation of my title for other books? Series like The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman (Northfield Publishing Company) show that the right title helps create enduring brands.
Does my title capture how my book will benefit my readers? Will it inform them, enlighten them, entertain them, persuade them, inspire them, or make them laugh? Example: Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (Ten Speed Press/ Penguin Random House)

Does my title use wordplay to help make it memorable? Try out these techniques. Rhythm: If Life Is a Game, These Are the Rules by Chérie Carter-Scott (Penguin Random House); Alliteration: Amazeing Art: Wonders of the Ancient World by Christopher Berg (HarperCollins); Verbal and visual puns: $ellmates: The Art of Living and Working Together (one of Mike’s favorite ideas that needs a writer); Wordplay: Tongue Fu! How to Deflect, Disarm, and Defuse Any Verbal Conflict by Sam Horn (Griffin/St. Martin’s Press); Two contrasting or opposing phrases: Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray (HarperCollins); Humor: I’m Not as Old as I Used to Be: Reclaiming Your Life in the Second Half by Frances Weaver.

If you found this post helpful, I highly recommend How to Write a Book Proposal, Fifth Edition by Jody Rein with Michael Larsen.

Creation and Doubt Are Conjoined Twins

All writers have to find a way to deal with the internal negative voice that tells them their work is crap and not worth pursuing. Or, as I often like to say, the game of conventional publishing success is far more psychological than you might think.

Some of the most famous writing advice in the world is about managing inner conflict. Anne Lamott, for example, is well known for the “Shitty First Drafts” concept (from Bird by Bird): She gives you permission to write poorly as a way of getting around that negative voice—or to just accept that your stuff isn’t that good. But no worries, you’ll make it better.

Or Steven Pressfield, in The War of Art, discusses his concept of resistance. He argues that the negative voice you hear is the result of fear, and that “the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”

In the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, Devin Murphy finds inspiration to continue his creative struggle in the journals of John Steinbeck, who was extremely critical of himself. Murphy writes:

I kept reading the journals until I found a line that seemed most apt for summing up all these criticisms he launches. “The gray birds of loneliness hopping about.” This it seems encapsulates his inner hydra of self-hate, a genius poet of vile perched on his shoulders.

Read Murphy’s full essay, The Gray Birds of Loneliness.

More from Glimmer Train this month:

Writers Aren’t Who They Think They Are by David Ebenbach

Beesting, Kneecap, Lozenge by Dan Murphy

Writing Secondary Characters That Pop—And Sell More Books

Photo credit: berta devant via Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-SA

Today’s guest post is an excerpt from Write Naked: A Bestseller’s Secrets to Writing Romance by Jennifer Probst (@jenniferprobst), published by Writer’s Digest Books.

If you are writing a series, secondary characters are critical to its success. That’s a big statement, but I’m going to try and back it up.

Secondary characters have always been important in books. Authors use these characters to broaden the seams of the story and add depth with layers of conflict, drama, or humor. Think of the hero or heroine’s best friend, siblings, parents, co-workers, etc. Sometimes secondary characters have their own storyline as part of the book, and other times they are only in the story to help make the main characters shine. Series have become extremely popular, and secondary characters are now in the spotlight. Readers enjoy trying to spot the next potential hero or heroine, and imagine him or her as the protagonist in the author’s next book. If you properly set up the ending to your first book, you can get a reader to hit the preorder button for the next book, based on the power of your secondary characters.

That’s good stuff.

I try to determine the next leading man or lady in a series all the time. When I was gorging on Nalini Singh’s Psy Changeling series (which is up to book seventeen at the moment), I became obsessed with trying to figure out which secondary character would be next. I couldn’t click the buy button fast enough. She also had me wait a long time for one of my favorite couples, but I was determined to read each book in order and get there in a natural way.

You must be skillful in sketching out your supporting characters. They must be interesting, but not so interesting that they overshadow the main storyline. Sawyer Wells, a secondary character in my novel The Marriage Mistake, became a bit too big for his britches. Suddenly, I was writing him into every scene, until I remembered whose book it was. I quickly backed up, deleted some of his starring roles, and when he threw a tantrum, I promised him his own book.

He agreed and stepped back gracefully.

But even characters you never think of as leading men or women can surprise you. In Christina Lauren’s The Wild Seasons series, a secondary character called Not Joe became so popular, the authors decided to write an exclusive story featuring him entitled, “A Not-Joe Not-So-Short Shorts,” which was only available in the book Wicked Sexy Liar at Target. Readers hunted down the book in order to snag this special short, showing how secondary characters can boost a series and also create amazing marketing power.

In Searching for Perfect, I wrote about a nerdy aerospace engineer whose older brother, Connor, taught him all the wrong things about women. He was awful and chauvinistic. Connor was the antihero of any romance book. Even my editor sighed when she read the book, and told me Connor would never have his own story.

That was okay, because I had no intention to continue his tale.

Until my readers began e-mailing me in droves, asking for Connor’s story. I was stunned. Why would they want to read about him? I made him unappealing! He had no story to tell! I went along, writing my other books, until I realized Connor had dug into my brain and offered me a challenge. Could I transform this antihero into a romance hero? Was it even possible?

I took the challenge and wrote his story, Searching for Mine.

It was one of the most satisfying books I’ve ever written, because I had to reach deep to find all the good stuff, and it challenged me as a writer. It ended up being an emotional story that readers really loved.

Give secondary characters a secret

In my Searching For series, which features twins, I made Isabella the bad girl. She wreaked havoc on characters, and my readers weren’t too sympathetic. But they still begged for her story, because she was intriguing. When I finally wrote Searching for Disaster, I challenged myself by taking Isabella out of the depths of drug addiction and into the starring role of her own love story.

Perfection doesn’t exist. If you are writing a perfect secondary character, make sure you surprise the reader with what lurks beneath that perfect surface. The junk is what makes a secondary character—really, all characters—interesting, and inspires the reader to try to figure out what can come next. You want readers to buy the next book.

Invoke sympathy

Invoking sympathy is another great tool for readers to bond with secondary characters. In Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ book Breathing Room, Tracy is the hero’s ex-wife who moves in with him in Italy. The situation is precarious, and most readers won’t take kindly to embracing the hero’s ex in a romance novel, but Phillips makes it work brilliantly by evoking sympathy. Tracy is pregnant and struggling to save her marriage. She’s desperately in love with her husband who doesn’t want the baby. Here’s a sample:

Who are you? she wanted to ask. Where is the sweet, tender man I fell in love with?

… “You shouldn’t have come here,” she said when they were gone.

He finally looked at her, but his eyes were as cold as a stranger’s. “You didn’t leave me any choice.”

This was the man she’d shared her life with, the man she’d believed would always love her. They used to stay in bed all weekend, talking and making love. She remembered the joy they’d shared when Jeremy and the girls were born. She remembered the family outings, the holidays, the laughter, the quiet times. Then she’d gotten pregnant with Connor, and things had begun to change. But even though Harry hadn’t wanted more children, he’d still fallen in love with their youngest son the moment he’d slipped from her body. At first she’d been certain he’d fall in love with this one, too. Now she knew different.

Immediately, I am transfixed with Tracy’s problem and am rooting for her. This was a daring way to create a secondary couple, but it works to strengthen the entire story arc.

Carefully seed your plots

Because series are a huge part of the market now, when creating the first book, make sure you sketch out who will appear in your follow-ups. Yes, there are always surprises, but you should know there will be either three, four, or more characters planned in the series. Give the reader a hint of what’s to come, tease them with ideas of the hero or heroine’s match, and firmly keep all your secrets in your back pocket until they shine in their own book.

With my Billionaire Builders series, I sketched out three estranged brothers, planning to give them each their own book. I also planted a lot in the first book, paving the way for their individual stories, while leaving room for surprises along the way. For instance, after the death of their father, the brothers are brought together to run the family business—a customized building company. Each of them experienced betrayal at the hand of another, and now they need to face the past and try to heal in order to save the company. I incorporate the sibling conflict with the mystery surrounding their mother’s death, which is not fully solved until the final book. This keeps pulling the reader forward to discover the secret.

I also created a secondary character who had a previous relationship with one of the brothers. I hint at their conflicted past, but when her daughter is written into the story, I realized my final book will reveal the real father. Once again, this pulls readers into the next book in the series.

Surprises lurk at every turn, though. My surprise came when a young, sassy female walked into book two, and I realized she’d eventually need her own story. This would bring the series to at least four books. I hadn’t planned for that, but I left room for the unexpected. The novella will be released this year, and hopefully bump up sales for the final book.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out Write Naked by Jennifer Probst.

MailChimp Alternatives for Authors

Photo credit: -Ant via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC

Today’s guest post is by Ricardo Fayet (@ricardofayet) from Reedsy.

When authors ask me for marketing advice, one of my first questions for them is: “Do you have a mailing list?” Too often, the author will say no. So my first piece of advice tends to be: Sign up to MailChimp and set up your mailing list.

At least, until recently. As I was writing our latest Reedsy Learning course on how to set up and grow your author mailing list, I decided to do a bit of research on the other mailing list service providers out there. I wanted to see if it’d make sense for authors to go for an alternative service.

Surveying the author community

As a first step in my research, I decided to run a quick survey among Mark Dawson’s Facebook community to see what percentage of authors there used MailChimp — and what service providers the others opted for, instead.

While it was a small sample, it showed that MailChimp was getting some serious competition from two main services: MailerLite and ConvertKit.

Before we get into the heart of the matter and see what MailerLite and ConvertKit offer that Mailchimp doesn’t, let’s take an in-depth look at the leader in email marketing: MailChimp. We’ll use Mailchimp’s features as a basis for comparison with the other two.

Option #1: MailChimp

You’ve probably heard of MailChimp, the market leader, already. As a disclaimer, I should say that they’re the ones we use at Reedsy—so it’s the platform I’m the most familiar with.

MailChimp does pretty much everything you’d want a mailing list service to do:

Create different lists and import subscribers
Create signup forms to add to your website, blog, etc.
Create email campaigns to send to your lists, and design each email with images, social sharing buttons, or even custom html
A/B test your email content and subject line
Segment your list’s subscribers into “groups” and “segments”
Set up “automation workflows,” which send emails automatically to your subscribers when they match certain triggers
View and analyze data such as open rates, click rates, engagement level per subscriber, etc.

Now, these features are (for the most part) also available on MailerLite and ConvertKit. So what makes authors prefer MailChimp?

Mailchimp’s pros

MailChimp has by far the best interface when it comes to creating and designing your emails. Its “email editor” is both powerful and user-friendly, letting you seamlessly drag-and-drop images, gifs, text, buttons, footer content, etc. Moreover, because MailChimp is the most widely-used email marketing service in the world, pretty much any service out there integrates with them: WordPress, LeadPages, Facebook Ads (via Zapier), webinar platforms, book giveaway platforms, etc. These integrations are what truly sets MailChimp apart from the competition.

Mailchimp’s cons

Now, if Mailchimp was perfect, everyone would be using it and this piece wouldn’t exist. We’ll explore its flaws more in-depth as we take a look at the qualities of the competitions.

Pricing: MailChimp offers a “forever free” plan that covers all of their features (including automations). The caveat: it’s limited to 2,000 subscribers. Beyond 2,000 subscribers, you need to start paying — and as your list grows bigger, Mailchimp’s monthly charge can get quite heavy.

The main drawback with this approach, though, is that Mailchimp determines your number of subscribers by simply summing up the total subscribers of your different lists. So if you have a subscriber on two different lists, it’ll get counted twice.

Automation triggers: The other limitation of MailChimp has to do with automation workflows and the options for triggering them. You can trigger emails based on list activity (e.g. “opened campaign X,” “finished automation Y,” etc.) or subscriber data (when a subscriber updates their preferences). But you can’t, for example, trigger an email to subscribers who clicked on a particular link in a previous email.

Takeaways: Of all the email marketing service providers out there, Mailchimp can by far give you the best functionalities and user experience when you’re designing your emails. However, their pricing can be prohibitive as your list grows, and their segmenting and automation-triggering options are somewhat limited.

Option #2: MailerLite

MailerLite came a close second in my survey, so let’s try to see why MailChimp is losing market share to them among authors. The first and foremost reason is…

Pricing: As I mentioned, the main criticism MailChimp receives is that it can get quite expensive when your list gets big. Not only is MailerLite much cheaper (hence their name?), they also won’t double-charge you if you have the same subscribers in two different lists.

MailChimp pricing

MailerLite pricing

As you can see, while MailerLite’s pricing is more limited than MailChimp’s (1,000 subscribers versus 2,000), MailerLite gets a lot more advantageous as your list grows. At 30,000 followers, for example, MailChimp charges you $215 per month. With MailerLite, it’s $95 per month.

Features: As its name indicates, MailerLite is like a “lite” version of MailChimp. You’ll have a lot less integrations with other services (though they do have a WordPress plugin), and will also have to sacrifice some automation and design possibilities.

But unless you want to create really intricate email templates or require complex automation workflows, this “lite” version might actually be easier to get to grips with. Their automation interface, for example, offers less trigger options, but is much easier to use.

Also, MailerLite seems to constantly be adding new features. For example, they recently made it possible to “tag” subscribers in your lists based on their actions (“clicked on link X in email Y”). Incidentally, this feature used to be one of ConvertKit’s biggest competitive advantages.

Takeaways: MailerLite is a good option if you have a big list and want to save on costs. Personally, I’m a big fan of MailChimp’s user interface, and much less attracted to MailerLite’s. But many other authors have expressed contrary opinions, and I have to recognize that, feature-wise, both services are fairly similar.

Recommended read: Why we switched from Mailchimp to Mailerlite by Roman Drits

Option #3: ConvertKit

As we’ve so far seen, MailChimp and MailerLite are fairly similar. ConvertKit, however, offers an altogether different option. It’s targeted at “professional bloggers,” i.e. people who often have different products to sell, offer classes, do webinars, etc.

ConvertKit is therefore much more powerful when it comes to list segmentation and automation workflows, but has a much more simplistic approach to email design.

Better segmentation and targeting: The one feature ConvertKit users seem to love most is the ability to “tag” subscribers based on their actions: “clicked on X link,” “downloaded Y infographic,” “attended Z webinar,” etc.

This makes it very easy to then design ultra-targeted email campaigns and automations. For example, let’s say that you set up a preorder for an upcoming release. Then you send an email to your list to let them know about it — with a link to preorder the book. You can tag the people who clicked that link, and email just them when the book launches to ask them for an honest review.

Analytics on sign up forms: If you’re a nonfiction author or blogger offering lots of content for free to generate signups, then you’ll want to be able to build and test lots of different signup forms.

That’s another one of ConvertKit’s strengths. You can easily generate signup forms, embed them anywhere on your blog with the WordPress plugin, and then track their conversion rates directly within the ConvertKit interface.

Simpler, more reliable automations: The more signup forms you have, the more automation workflows you’ll need to greet your new subscribers. ConvertKit probably has the most powerful and user-friendly interface when it comes to building automation workflows. It allows you to choose between a whole range of triggers and actions (many of which aren’t available through MailChimp).

Very limited design options: As we’ve seen previously, both MailChimp and MailerLite offer a feature-filled email template tool that lets you design your email with images, typography, social media buttons, etc. ConvertKit’s email template tool, in comparison, is incredibly simplistic. In the words of their founder:

We’re pretty opinionated here at ConvertKit. We ran a bunch of tests and found that simple emails that look like they were written by a human perform better than fancy template emails. Because of that we don’t have a fancy drag-and-drop template building like MailChimp. If that’s important to you, then stick with MailChimp.

Pricing: As opposed to MailChimp or MailerLite, ConvertKit doesn’t have a “free forever” plan. Their first plan starts at $29/month, and once your list grows beyond 5,000 subscribers, you’ll need to negotiate a custom plan. Like MailerLite (and unlike MailChimp), ConvertKit won’t count a subscriber twice, even if you’ve got that subscriber in different lists.

Takeaways: ConvertKit was built with a very specific target market in mind: professional bloggers. If you have many opt-in incentives and each requires a different automation, or if you need more trigger options in your automations, then give ConvertKit a try. They have a 30-day refund policy.

Recommended read: Why we switched from Mailchimp to ConvertKit by Donnie Lawson

Have you switched email service providers? What has your experience been? Share in the comments.

Emotional Etiquette for the Writer Seeking an Agent

Photo credit: namaste04 via Visualhunt / CC BY-NC

Today’s guest post is by author Kristen Tsetsi (@ktsetsi).

I recently watched Adult World, a movie about a young female poet struggling to get published. In one scene, her roommate, not really a writer, learns something she wrote will be published. The poet forces back her stunned envy (and certain anger at the injustice of it all), manufactures a smile, and congratulates her. Obviously, this is the right thing to do, because she has someone else’s feelings to consider. But now and then I’ll see guidelines online for writers that discourage perfectly private, internal envy, anger, indignation, etc., directed toward other writers, or toward agents (or publishers) rejecting work. But that hardly seems realistic, nor is it fair to ask humans to stop being human. It’s hard enough feeling terrible without feeling terrible about feeling terrible, so I’d like to propose amendments to those guidelines:

Do not envy another writer’s success for too long.

Maybe you’re 38 or 52, and the fourth book you’ve sent to agents is, as with the first three, getting rejected all around. Yet, some 18-year-old’s first-ever attempt at writing not only got a killer publishing deal, but it’s being adapted into a movie.

Of course you want to latch onto a shred of confirmation that this 18-year-old lottery winner doesn’t have EVERYTHING. You’ll find it, too. A tiny crack in their future: as the writer of the book that someone else adapted into the screenplay that will star famous, good-looking people other people actually care about, the kid who got the killer book deal will have pretty crappy seats at the Academy Awards (ha!).

Embrace that hypothetical victory. And when the rage heat drains, think about how excited you would be if you were that 18 year old. Then remember that the universe is one of chaos and randomness, that art is subjective and has nothing to do with “fair,” and that there are many reasons (or no reason at all) for any person’s success or failure. Then get back to that synopsis you were writing and remember there’s room for both of you.

Do not complain, “They just don’t understand my work,” for too long.

Your book is too subtle for them, you’ll tell your trough of spaghetti. Or it’s too complex. Too layered. Such successful satire that it breezed right past them. Embrace that! Blame the unseeing agents.

After that, think about what you’ve written…go over the characters, their conflicts, the story’s high points and narrative arcs, but do it critically. If there’s a sticking point, or if you see that it is, in fact, a confusing jumble, fix it. But if you’re still happy with your work, think about your query and whether it did a decent job selling the story. If the agent rejected the full manuscript, consider the possibility that it simply wasn’t the rejecting agent’s taste, continue believing your book is “too” something that just needs the right agent, and then get back to that synopsis you were writing for the agency you’ve been putting off because they require a $%!& synopsis.

Do not put down others’ writing in order to elevate your own for too long.

Yes, you’ll visit Amazon and click “Look Inside.” You’ll read the first page of that 18-year-old’s novel, and you’ll snort, “Mine is so much better!” You’ll wail into your spaghetti. Who wouldn’t do this? Maybe yours is better. Maybe it isn’t—but if you’re trying to sell it, you must of course believe your work is just as good or better. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be approaching agents, would you? Close the Amazon page when you finish reading the sample (better yet, buy the book—maybe you’ll like it), forget the other writer, continue believing yours is good enough, period, and get back to that synopsis you were writing.

Do not hate your own work if theirs is better than yours for too long.

Maybe you looked inside on Amazon and discovered the 18 year old is a genius. The word choices, the assonance, the metaphors—brilliant! You hate that kid! Of course you do. You also now very much hate your own word choices, your personal disdain for using metaphors, and your lack of poetic aptitude. You will never be as good as that 18 year old, you cry onto your last sauce- and tear-soaked linguini noodle. And maybe you won’t ever be as good—in the same way. But! Maybe instead of writing astounding metaphors, you set a scene like no one else. Your words might not be multisyllabic, but they’re “right.” Your cadence may not be poetic, but your chapter could occupy someone’s thoughts for the rest of the day.

King is no Chopin; Chopin is no King. Get back to the synopsis you were writing and remember there’s room for both of you.

Do not express any of your natural, reflexive “everyone else is awful” feelings in a blog post, or to people who don’t know you very well and love you. It’s just a bad, bad idea.

* And don’t assume I’m writing any of this from experience. I’ve never felt any of these things, because I am a good person. (See? Ridiculous.)

The Challenges of First-Person POV

Today’s guest post is by James Scott Bell (@jamesscottbell) and is excerpted with permission from Writing Voice: The Complete Guide to Creating a Presence on the Page & Engaging Readers, from the editors of Writer’s Digest.

There’s no quicker way to intimacy with a lead character than first-person point of view (POV). Seeing a story through that character’s thoughts and perceptions is the fast track to empathy and identification. But numerous challenges also come with this POV. One of these is the natural limitation of being stuck in one perspective throughout the story.

Maybe you want more flexibility in your plot. If so, there are ways to break out of that “boxed in” feeling you might get with first person.

Time Delay

A detective on the trail of a killer corners him in a dark apartment. He takes several tentative steps. A shot rings out. The detective feels hot blood coming from his chest.

If you were writing in third-person POV, it would be easy to cut away from a scene of high tension for another scene with a different POV character (in this case, say, it’s the detective’s partner, lounging at a coffee shop). This is a great page-turning technique, leaving the reader to wonder what happened at the apartment.

A first-person novel, however, can’t cut away to a different POV scene. So instead of a physical cut, try time delay. First, end the chapter on a note of high tension. Then begin the subsequent chapter not with the next thing that happened, but with the narrator playing a little game of “You’ll have to wait.” In keeping with the same story line:

I hear a shot. And a jolt to my chest. And hot blood staining my shirt.

[Next Chapter]

When I was six, my father taught me a valuable lesson. “Son,” he said …

After this digression, which can be a full-on flashback or a short remembrance, get back to what happened at the end of the last scene.

Imagination

Lawrence Block’s Hope to Die begins like a crime novel written in third person:

It was a perfect summer evening, the last Monday in July. The Hollanders arrived at Lincoln Center sometime between six and six-thirty …

Four paragraphs later, however, we learn this is a first-person narration. The narrator is using his imagination to describe details he didn’t personally witness:

I can picture them, standing around on the second floor at Avery Fisher Hall, holding a glass of white wine, picking up an hors d’oeuvre from a tray.

Still further on:

Though, as I said, I can’t know this, in my imagination they are walking home.

The narrator then describes a double murder, complete with what might have been in the minds of the victims. It works just as well as a third- person description would.

Dreams

Dreams are a great way to reveal interior dimensions of the first-person narrator and illustrate the stakes she confronts. When the character is under tremendous stress, a dream can create a vicarious, emotional experience for the reader.

Two caveats: Dream sequences should be used only once unless dreams are an integral part of the plot or the character’s life. And the description of dreams should be relatively short. Janet Fitch strikes the right tone in White Oleander:

But that night I dreamed the old dream again, of gray Paris streets and the maze of stone, the bricked blind windows … I knew I had to find my mother. It was getting dark, dark figures lurked in cellar entrances. I rang all the buzzers to the apartments. Women came to the door, looking like her, smiling, some even calling my name. But none of them was her.

I knew she was in there, I banged on the door, screamed for her to let me in. The door buzzed to admit me, but just as I pushed it in, I saw her leaving from the courtyard gate, a passenger in a small red car, wearing her curly Afghan coat and big sunglasses over her blind eyes, she was leaning back in the seat and laughing. I ran after her, crying, begging.

Yvonne shook me awake.

Secondhand Reports

A first-person story can take us to scenes that happened outside the narrator’s perception by having another character recount the events. Done right, the secondhand scene can hold just as much drama as any other scene.

There are two ways to do it. First, the secondary character—in the following examples, let’s call him Sam—may simply tell what happened in his own voice, becoming, essentially, another first-person narrator.

[Sam:] “I opened the door and went in. I smelled gunpowder, and I knew it was bad. My first thought was, is the guy still in here? Am I going to get one in the gut?”

You can make that a long section of narration or occasionally interrupt with the main character’s voice:

[Sam:] “I opened the door and went in. I smelled gunpowder, and I knew it was bad. My first thought was, is the guy still in here? Am I going to get one in the gut?”

[Main character:] “Why’d you go in in the first place?” I asked.

The other way to go is to have the secondary character begin the account, then switch to a third-person style, without technically leaving the first-person POV:

[Sam:] “I opened the door and went in. I smelled gunpowder, and I knew it was bad. My first thought was, is the guy still in here? Am I going to get one in the gut?”

With the next paragraph, switch to a third-person feel:

Sam heard a noise and decided he’d better get his own gun ready. The room was dark. A flash of neon seeped through the window shade …

The narrator’s voice continues to tell us what Sam’s account is. The readers will go with it.

There’s no need to feel overly constrained by first-person POV. Write with a passion to open up readers to your lead character’s inner life. Then use these techniques to open up your plot.

If you found this article useful, I highly recommend taking a look at Writing Voice: The Complete Guide to Creating a Presence on the Page & Engaging Readers, from the editors of Writer’s Digest.

6 Common Sense Steps to Secure a WordPress Website

Today’s guest post is by Nate Hoffelder (@thDigitalReader) of The Digital Reader, who offers WordPress services for authors.

For a platform that powers a quarter of the websites in the world, WordPress is surprisingly insecure. The default settings leave a site open to being hacked a half-dozen different ways.

And hackers know that. They are always looking for WordPress sites with lax security that the hackers can take over and expand their bot army, but you don’t have to be their next victim.

I almost was that next victim. In 2012 I was targeted by a botnet that attacked WordPress sites. I never lost control of my site, but I did spend quite a few hours fighting them off. I had to learn the hard way that securing a site before you encounter a problem can prevent a lot of panic, but you don’t have to make my mistake.

Here are 6 steps you can take to make your WordPress website more secure.

1. Install a firewall plugin

Most people wouldn’t dream of browsing the web without anti-virus and firewall protection, so don’t you think that your website needs the same protection?

There are over a dozen legit security plugins for WordPress, and I recommend All in One WP Security. I like this plugin because it covers more security options than can be listed in a single blog post, including everything from blocking spambots to protecting your database and file system.

If you look for advice on making a WordPress site more secure, you will find posts listing dozens and dozens of steps you should take. Most of those steps can be completed simply by setting up this one plugin.

2. Disable old user accounts

Did you set up another writer as an author, editor, or admin for your site years ago, and then forgot about it? Did a web designer help you set up your site with an account?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, then you should immediately reassess and possibly disable those accounts.

Each account you set up on your site is another way for hackers to get in and engage in mischief, and that is why you should limit access to only those who truly need to access the site.

A good rule of thumb is to only give users the bare minimum of permissions to complete their assigned tasks. If someone is just uploading an article, then they don’t need to be an editor or admin (they can be a “contributor”), and if a user no longer needs admin access to your site, then you should change their status to “subscriber.”

Note: If a person is a past or current contributor of content to your site, do not delete the account; this might delete their posts as well! Just adjust their permissions if needed.

3. Use a strong password

Everyone used to say that you should use a long and complex password consisting of letters, numbers, and symbols. The security expert that first proposed that rule no longer believes it is a good idea, but you still need a strong password. The current rule of thumb is that passwords need to be long enough that they’re hard to guess but also simple enough that you can remember them.

You won’t be able to remember K5^KB@sUv0YasF9u, but you could easily memorize “Battery Horse Staple Correct”, a password that is actually harder for computers to figure out by guessing.

4. Delete any unused plugins

Plugins are a great way to add new features to your WordPress site, but they also add potential security problems. Over half of the WordPress security bugs listed in WPScan’s vulnerability database were found in plugins, and that’s why you should always take care to use only the plugins you absolutely have to have.

Disable and remove plugins once you no longer need them. This will not only make your site more secure, it will help your site run faster.

5. Run regular security scans with Sucuri

Here’s a thought that will keep you up at night: It is entirely possible for your site to be hacked and for no one—not even the firewall plugin—notice.

This is why I regularly have my site checked with at least two different security scanners. First I have my firewall plugin run a security scan, and after that’s done, I run Sucuri’s site scanner to double check that everything is okay.

6. Maintain regular backups

You need to do all you can to keep hackers out, but you also have to plan for the worst. Sites get hacked all the time, and it could happen to you. That’s why you need to make sure that your site is being backed up on a regular basis.

Many hosting companies automatically backup sites on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Check to see if yours offers this service. If the answer is no then you should install a plugin like BackupWordpress, and then set it up so that it makes weekly backups of your entire site (this includes both files and the database).

Your turn: What steps have you taken to secure your WordPress site?