Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 124

Have Trouble Getting That Book Done? Try Doing Less.

Today’s guest post is by author and coach Ginger Moran (@gingermoran). She’s hosting a free session on Wednesday on how to get your book done.

I’ve been writing my fourth novel, my sixth book—and it’s going slowly. I’m trying not to succumb to that huge, overwhelming “I have to write a whole book—yikes I can’t do that” freak-out that is the surest way not to write a book. Instead, I look to achieve the state Brenda Ueland sees as the object of writing when we are wrestling with our project:

“I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten—happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.”

Here are the best techniques I know for achieving this deeply satisfying state:

1. Break the task down into small steps.

There are countless ways to defeat ourselves, but the biggest and worst is to make the task too big and then feel daunted before we ever start. Anything you’ve ever completed and felt satisfied with was a big job—and you got there by following small steps.

I have now run the Women’s 4-Miler twice, much to the astonishment of everyone, myself most of all. I don’t think I ever ran, even as a child—too much of a dreamer to just bolt somewhere. So when I decided I was going to run the race for the first time in my 50s, I took the training seriously. It involved regular practice runs, adding a little faster pace and longer distance each time. The first day had us running one lap, with walks between the jogs.

It took two months, but I did manage to run the race, all four miles. Well, shuffled might be a better description. But I did keep going at a run-like pace.

Writing is exactly the same. If you are daunted by your writing goals, break them down into smaller pieces until you hit the size that is doable.

2. Exercise self-care.

I worked with a client who was under a very tight deadline for getting her book done and then her father died. She was determined that she was going to finish the book anyway, but she was weeks behind by then.

My question to her: how are you going to take care of yourself?

She came up with a rigorous schedule of writing—and an equally rigorous one of walks, snacks, yoga stretches, naps, and strategic, timed phone calls to her support team. She hit her deadline.

Set up a schedule that includes writing, of course, but also rest, meal breaks, a chance to socialize, and time to exercise. When you are in the middle of a big project, rather than seeing that as a reason to skip the self-care, try adding more breaks.

3. Know that writing happens in separate sections.

We often make the writing much harder for ourselves by confusing one part of the process with the others. There are four parts:

Conceive: not having any idea what you’re writing, but you know you want to write something.
Create: writing the total rubbish first draft that is so bad you can’t bear to look at it but you know there’s something there.
Craft: taking a hard look at the draft and seeing what is right and what is wrong and fixing it.
Connect: helping the book into the world through choosing a publishing path and beginning to market it.

Many writers stop themselves by piling one part of the process on top of the others—thinking they need to edit while they are writing the terrible first draft, for instance. Or thinking they must know the exact destination of the book before they really know what kind of book they have. Or putting the book in front of the eyes of critical readers before it has actually taken form and is too tender to be shown.

Separate out the sections and write iteratively—staying largely within one section of the process at a time.

Keeping my eye on the prize and then watching what is right in front of me, back to the prize, back to the next tiny step—this is how this book is getting done, just like happily stringing beads on a summer day.

If you enjoyed this post, consider joining Ginger for her free online session on November 2 at 12 p.m. Eastern: From Confusion to Confidence: How Successful Writers Get Their Novels & Memoirs Done and the 3-Step Process to Use So You Can Too.

Balancing the Art of Writing with the Business of Publishing

This fall, I once again participated in the ALLi Indie Author Fringe Festival, which is a day-long series of online workshops for independent authors. My sessions usually focus on the nuts and bolts of digital media, but this time I dug into the more psychological side of the writing life—how to bring together the art and business sides of our career in a way that doesn’t feel like a bad marriage. Here’s a direct link to the video; it’s a 30-minute talk.

Other sessions that you may find useful:

Key Clauses Indie Authors Need to Watch for in Traditional Publishing Contracts
How to Hitch Your Digital Marketing to the Bottom Line
Best Writing and Self-Publishing Tools for Authors
Should Indie Authors Go KDP (Amazon) Exclusive or Go Wide?
Tax Matters for Indie Authors
EU VAT: Pay Attention or Pay a Fine

View all sessions here; if you watched any that were particularly helpful, let me know in the comments!

3 Things Your Traditional Publisher Is Unlikely to Do

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Years ago, when I still worked for a traditional publisher, I wrote a blog post about the No. 1 disappointment of all published authors: the lack of marketing support from their publisher. This was back when social media was still a fringe pastime, limited mostly to MySpace. So if your publisher wasn’t investing in marketing or publicity, you probably had few available tools to market and publicize your work outside your community—unless you had funds to hire a publicist or a national platform of some kind.

Today, some form of online marketing by both author and publisher is essential for all titles, and while traditional forms of marketing and publicity are still key—everyone wants a mix of online and offline exposure to maximize word of mouth—publishers’ launch efforts may be focused primarily or entirely on online channels. It tends to be more efficient, targeted, and cost effective.

Yet authors still have very traditional ideas of what their publisher ought to do to demonstrate support for their book, even though where and how books get sold has changed dramatically in the last decade. Here are three things that you may want or expect your publisher to do—but are very unlikely to happen.

1. Send you on a national book tour

This is probably the biggest author disappointment by far, judging from the message boards and discussion groups where I see new authors unleashing their anxieties and questions.

Here’s why publishers won’t send you on a tour: book events are among the least cost-effective ways to sell books. You may get very low turnout at multiple venues and sell not more than a handful of copies at each event.

The big reason to tour across many cities is usually to secure media coverage and reach the many more people who don’t attend the event—the more times and more places that people hear about your book, the better. Unfortunately, as most of us are too well aware, local media isn’t what it used to be and the opportunities for book coverage have diminished, which further deteriorates the value of touring.

That said, events help authors network and build relationships with booksellers that pay off over the long term. But the benefit is rarely tied to selling books in the short term unless you have a marquee name that can draw a crowd.

All this isn’t to say a publisher won’t assist or support you in setting up local or regional events, or even with more extended efforts that you wish to plan. But don’t expect them to set up or fund a multi-city tour to places where no turnout is guaranteed. It risks everyone’s time and resources.

If you do want to pursue events on your own, be aware that they’re more effective if they go beyond just a reading, and go beyond just bookstores. Think about all the organizations, businesses, and schools that might benefit from a visit or workshop; think about the places that might pay you to visit and speak. Also consider if there are other authors you can partner with—this almost always increases the reach of the event and the size of the audience.

2. Invest in your book as much as their lead authors for the season

It’s very easy for authors to fall into the comparison trap. You look at the other books releasing from your publisher or imprint during the same timeframe as yours, and you see more time and attention devoted to them. Why aren’t you getting the same treatment?

Publishers divide their list into A titles, B titles, and so on. Some titles (especially those where the authors received six-figure advances) are likely to get the most support, attention, and investment. These are the A titles, and they appear at the front of the publisher’s catalog with full-page or full-spread treatment.

If you’re not an A title, then you receive some kind of standard or baseline treatment that all authors receive, with the publisher ready to respond if there’s a quick win somewhere: a starred review, a celebrity mention, some kind of uptick in attention that can be capitalized on.

Anything but an A-list title isn’t likely to receive major or national advertising or a huge publicity push to major media outlets. However, the “standard” attention your book receives isn’t exactly worthless. It likely still involves creating advance review copies of your book, sending it out to important review and media outlets, offering giveaways or doing targeted advertising, and so on. It’s just not going to be the sales and marketing focus of the publisher unless it picks up momentum in some way or gains enthusiasm in the marketplace.

Which brings us to the most important thing that you can do as an author: Figure out as far in advance as possible what your publisher’s plans are for your book—but not in a confrontational way. Proactively let them know at least six to nine months prior to your publication date what you plan to do to support your book. They can then suggest ways to support and expand on what you’re doing, and fill in the gaps where you don’t have as much marketing or publicity strength. The more you see it as a team effort, where you both take initiative, the better off you’ll be in the end.

Furthermore, you want your publisher to know what you’ll do to support your book before they start pitching their major accounts, such as Barnes & Noble. Bookstore and wholesaler orders are placed before the book releases, and those orders are affected by the marketing and publicity plan the publisher presents and commits to. Your efforts are part of that plan and can’t very well make a difference if your publisher doesn’t know about them. Don’t wait until the weeks before launch to figure out your plan; by then, most of your publisher’s marketing and publicity plans—the ones with the most potential to affect bookstore orders and national promotion and placement—are concluded.

3. Market and publicize your work after the initial launch period has passed

Once you’re aware that your publisher’s most important efforts and planning happen before the book is released, it starts to makes more sense (maybe!) why their post-launch activities may be minimal. The plan that was decided upon months ago has already been set in motion, so it’s mainly about coordinating, following up, and building on any momentum that has been created.

Unfortunately, the large majority of book launches involve some sales, some reviews, but nothing outstanding that would motivate the publisher to invest more resource. For authors who haven’t prepared or thought about the launch, this is when panic sets in, especially if they expected more from the publisher. While publishers do a lot of marketing and publicity work to the industry itself (booksellers, wholesalers, libraries, reviewers, media), this work tends to be invisible to the author. For better or worse, these industry-facing activities may not produce the sales everyone wants, or they may not meaningfully affect how many readers hear about the book.

Each publisher and imprint is different in terms of its strength and ability to reach readers directly, but it’s almost always done through online channels (Goodreads, social media, advertising on literary blogs and newsletters, and so on). But few publishers will continue to put forth such efforts beyond a three-month window after the publication date; they’re doing their best to support initial sales through stores and create a positive track record. Then they have to move on to the next season of titles.

Authors can and should continue to reach readers directly the months (and years) after publication through whatever means they have available to them—whether online or offline. More than half of any book’s sales is likely to be through Amazon, and continued sales over the long term is affected by one’s rating and reviews there. Try to worry less about how much your book continues to remain stocked in a Barnes & Noble or nationally, and focus more on ways to perennially get attention and word of mouth for your book to the audiences most likely to buy it.

For more on book marketing and publicity, check out these other articles:

Book Marketing 101
How to Find and Work with a Book Publicist Successfully
A Former Book Publicist’s Advice to Traditionally Published Authors
I also highly recommend How I Prepare for the First Meeting with My Publicity/Marketing Team

Building a Believable Chain of Events in Your Novel

Photo credit: Woody H1 via VisualHunt.com / CC BY

Today’s post is an excerpt from Troubleshooting Your Novel by Steven James (@readstevenjames), from Writer’s Digest Books.

A game of billiards begins with the cue ball striking the racked balls, which then scatter across the pool table. After that, the players take turns trying to clear the table by pocketing another ball (either stripes or solids), all while keeping the cue ball out of the pockets.

We all understand that the game must start somehow. Normally that happens when one player hits that cue ball to break the triangle of racked balls. And from then on, every time a ball hits another, that contact results in an effect.

It’s the same with a story.

One opening event causes things to splinter apart for the main character in your novel. After that, there’s a chain of events that are all linked and caused by the ones that precede them.

A story moves from choice to consequences, from stimulus to response, from cause to effect. This happens on the macro-level, as the results of each scene set the stage for the next, and on the micro-level, as every action and every line of dialogue affects what comes next.

Cause: One ball strikes another.

Effect: That ball rolls across the table.

An event’s effect on a character should be immediately evident to readers. Even if the character is trying to ignore or repress a response, he’ll be impacted somehow. He must be. If he isn’t, readers will lose trust in the story’s believability.

Every action should be justified by the intersection of setting, context, pursuit, and characterization. They all need to make sense. They all need to fit.

If you have to explain why something just happened, you’re telling the story backward.

Fixing Causality Issues

Causality is closely related to believability and flow. If an event has no cause, readers will find the scene unbelievable. If there isn’t a strong enough stimulus to cause a certain event, it’ll seem contrived.

Neither unbelievable nor contrived events serve your readers or the story.

When you write a scene that doesn’t follow from cause to effect, you create a gap that requires readers to ask, “But why didn’t he …?” and requires you to explain what just happened.

And most of the time, that’s the opposite of what you want.

If a story moves from effect to cause, rather than from cause to effect, the flow will be disrupted. For example:

Reggie crossed through the kitchen and opened the cupboard. He was starving and wanted some canned ravioli.

Note how action occurs (Reggie crossed through the kitchen and opened the cupboard), and then an explanation is given for why it happened (he was starving and wanted some ravioli). This is backward. Rather than driving the story forward, the movement of the narrative stops as the author backtracks to explain. The sequence would be better cast like this:

Reggie was starving and wanted some canned ravioli. He crossed through the kitchen and opened the cupboard.

Here, action moves from cause to effect. There’s no need to explain afterward why Reggie opened the cupboard. The narrative flows naturally. Too often, novelists show an event and then explain why it happened. This disrupts the pace and disorients readers. Unless you have an overwhelming contextual reason to reverse the order, show the action and then the result—in that order.

Here’s another example of how not to do it:

Suzanne stepped into the shower. She needed to relax. As the water washed over her, she thought of the time she nearly drowned when she was nine. She let the water rinse across her skin. Finally, shuddering, she hastily toweled herself dry after turning off the faucet, and tried not to think about that traumatic day at the lake.

As it stands, most of the events in this paragraph happen out of order and sometimes inexplicably. (For instance, Suzanne remains in the shower instead of leaving it right away when the painful memory returns.)

Here’s the edited version:

Suzanne needed to relax, so she stepped into the shower. She let the water rinse over her, but it made her think of the time she nearly drowned when she was nine. Shuddering, she turned off the faucet and hastily toweled herself dry, trying not to think about that traumatic day at the lake.

Written in this way, no follow-up explanations are needed for why she does what she does. The actions make sense and move the story forward, and readers don’t have to ask why things are happening.

Study your story. Can readers see how one ball affects the movement of the others? If not, try reversing the order of events so they string together causally. Move the narrative forward, action to reaction, rather than action to explanation.

Does everything in a story have to be connected?

Unless your novel centers on the absurdity of life, every subsequent event (after the initiating one) should follow naturally and logically, otherwise the story won’t be cohesive.

Analyze every scene, as well as every paragraph, to weed out cause-and-effect problems. Pinpoint the connections between events. Does each action have an appropriate consequence? Does the emotional resonance of a scene fit in congruently from the actions within that scene? Do realizations or insights occur a er the event that caused them (as would naturally happen), or do I have things in the wrong order?

Does this scene move from cause to effect? If not, why not? Can I tweak the story to show the natural flow of events rather than stop after they’ve happened to explain why they did?
Does context dictate that I reverse the order to effect to cause? Rendering the story this way will force readers to ask, “Why?” Do I want them to do so at this moment in the book? Would lack of clarity about the character’s intention help readers engage with the story at this point? If it won’t, how can I recast it?
What will I do to ensure that each ball rolls naturally away from the one that just hit it, both in action sequences and in dialogue?

If you enjoyed this post, I highly recommend Steven James’ book Troubleshooting Your Novel.

How to Network Effectively (Even If You Hate Networking): Start Close to Home

Today’s guest post is by author Deanna Cabinian (@DeannaCabinian).

If you’re anything like me, a small part of you (or let’s be real, a large part) hates networking situations with a passion, especially forced networking situations. There is nothing I dread more than a “networking night” that results in 200 people standing around a room talking to the same two people for the duration. One of the reasons I love writing is because it’s solitary by nature; ultimately it’s just you and the keyboard and your ideas manifesting themselves on the page. But if you want to actually sell books and have people read them, you have to meet other people and tell them about it. Since my debut novel, One Night, was released a month ago, I’ve discovered what the best networking strategies are for people who hate networking.

1. Let family and friends know about your book, in whatever way you see fit.

In my case, I sent all my friends and family members an email. I asked them to sign up for my email list if they were interested in getting further updates from me. One of my uncles, who is very cerebral and who I assumed would have zero interest in my YA novel, bought the book and read it. A few weeks later he cc’d me on an email that he sent to 25 of his closest friends. In the message he told everyone how much he enjoyed the book, wrote a thoughtful, multi-paragraph review, and encouraged them to buy it. It just goes to show you never know who is going to be your biggest advocate.

2. Tell your colleagues about the book.

But don’t shout it out during a company-wide meeting. Tell your boss in your weekly one-on-one. Send the people you aren’t as well-acquainted with a polite email. Tell them you published a book and provide a link for them to read more about it. From my experience this leads to a spike in sales and unexpected connections.

When I told one colleague about my book he connected me with one of his best friends—who happens to be the executive editor of a major review publication and a published author. Meeting up with my colleague’s friend didn’t get a me a review, but it did get me other leads to bookstores and professional organizations I can promote myself to. Plus, he’s become a mentor of sorts who is happy to answer my publishing-related questions and give me career advice.

3. Go to as many writing or literary events as possible without any expectations for what might happen.

Of course, if someone asks about your book mention it, but don’t go into it with the idea of “I must make a sale.” I went to an Indie Author Day event at my local library recently and didn’t find it particularly useful since I’d already published my book and had done research for a year leading up to publication. As I was leaving the event another attendee asked, “Did you get anything out of that?” I told him no, not really. His next comment was, “You know what is useful…” and proceeded to tell me about a local writing group I’d never heard of that hosts guest speakers and workshops on a regular basis.

4. If a reader takes the time to contact you, thank them and ask how they heard about the book.

I have found this to be a good way of gauging the effectiveness of my marketing efforts. What’s working and what isn’t? Was this money and time well spent? Nothing is better than direct feedback from readers. And when your next book comes out, they’ll remember you as the author who took the time to email them back. Hopefully they’ll buy your new book without having to think about it.

How have you gotten past your dislike or fear of networking events? Let us know in the comments.

How to Use Reddit to Market Your Books (Carefully)

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

Authors who want to get their books in front of a large number of readers often pay good money to do so; that’s what book promotion sites like BookBub, Freebooksy, Bargainbooksy, or BookGorilla are all about.

Free exposure can come through social media, but online reader communities such as Goodreads are designed for users to discuss books they read—not for authors to promote books they write. If you just post a message about your book in these communities, it will be perceived as spam and removed (and rightly so!).

But what about online spaces where readers gather … but not because they’re readers? Reddit is an online community where you can get your book in front of hundreds of thousands of readers for free. That is, if you have the right strategy.

Wait, what is Reddit?

Though it’s been around since 2005 and boasts close to 250 million users globally, Reddit isn’t as mainstream as sites like Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook. Still, Reddit is currently the No. 11 most-visited website in the US.

So what’s the concept? First, all Reddit discussions are segmented into subject-specific threads called “subreddits.” Within each subreddit, users submit posts. These can be link posts (link to an external website or blog post), text posts or image posts. Certain subreddits only allow certain types of posts; for example, the infographics subreddit, r/infographics, only allows image posts.

Users upvote, downvote, and/or comment on posts. The more upvotes a post has, the more visible it will become in the “hot”, “rising” and “top” categories of the subreddit. If a post gets a crazy amount of upvotes, it can even show up on Reddit’s main homepage, which aggregates the top posts from across all subreddits.

Reddit’s demographics and tone

Now, before you venture into the Reddit world, there is one important thing you need to be warned about: it is quite a special crowd. If terms of demographics, Reddit’s users are vastly skewed toward a younger male audience, based on a Pew Research Center study of 2013. This research doesn’t take under-18 internet users into account, who in all likelihood make up a substantial percentage of Reddit users.

Reddit is what you’d call a more “aggressive” social network, where opinions are expressed in a very direct way, and where harsh (but fair) comments are valued above everything else—except humor (well, “Reddit humor”). So before you start posting in subreddits—and especially before you start mentioning your books!—try to immerse yourself in a few conversations and spend a bit of time familiarizing yourself with the atmosphere of this peculiar social network. It might not be the right place for you.

How to fit Reddit in your book marketing plan

If you tread carefully, Reddit can bring a massive boost to your book marketing efforts and overall book exposure. Let’s take a look at a couple examples.

Eliot Peper, Cumulus: Eliot Peper is a novelist based in Oakland, CA, who released his novel Cumulus—a dark, gritty cyberpunk thriller set in a near-future Bay Area—in May 2016. On its first day out, Cumulus simultaneously made the front page of Reddit and hit #1 on Amazon in the cyberpunk category. How did that happen? Eliot shared some insights with us.

First, he did not post it on Reddit himself. Someone spotted the review of Cumulus at Ars Technica and posted it to the /r/books subreddit; from there it took off, getting over 2,000 upvotes and 300+ comments. You’ll notice that the first comment on the post has even more upvotes than the post itself (and represents the “Reddit humor” I mentioned earlier).

Though Peper didn’t make the original post, he capitalized on its success by reposting Cumulus to other subreddits, like /r/cyberpunk, where he received a fair amount of upvotes as well.

Danny Flood, Hack Sleep: Danny Flood is a five-time Amazon bestselling author and self-proclaimed life and business hacker. He wrote a good post on how he managed to place five #1 best-selling books on Amazon in five weeks. Quite interestingly, his strategy relies heavily on newsletters, Facebook ads, and … Reddit1

He generally runs a free promotion on his books when launching them, which allows him to post his book on several “free books” subreddits, such as /r/freeEBOOKS, /r/KindleFreebies, and /r/shamelessplug.

Then, he looks for a subreddit relevant to his book’s theme (for example /r/GetOutOfBed for his book Hack Sleep), and cross-posts it there as well—but only after checking the rules of the subreddit and the type of posts that tend to do well on it. (Cross-posting means posting a link on a subreddit that points to a Reddit post on another subreddit.) For example, the screenshot below is of a post on r/GetOutOfBed that links to the original Hack Sleep post on r/KindleFreebies.

Your Reddit book promotion checklist

If you want to try and get some Reddit-love on your next book, consider a strategic approach using the following steps:

Step 1: Identify your target subreddits. Run a Reddit search for keywords related to your book’s themes, genre or motifs, and compile a spreadsheet of subreddits where your target audience is likely to hang out. If you don’t know who your target audience is exactly, read this.

Step 2: Stick to the rules. Subscribe to the subreddits you want to reach and take a look at their rules and top posts. Identify what type of post works best in each subreddit (link, text, image, cross-post, etc.).

Step 3: Interact with other users in your target subreddits. Spend a few weeks interacting with users on each subreddit. Post relevant (non-promotional) content, comment, upvote, etc. Basically, become part of the community before you introduce them to your book. In some ways, this is the most critical step in using Reddit for book promotion, as the site’s users are extremely sensitive to perceived “outsiders.”

Step 4: Identify optimal posting times. Every subreddit is different. Some are very active in the mornings, others in the evenings. Try to post during the subreddit’s highest-volume use. You can use the RedditLater website (free) to identify the optimal posting time for each subreddit.

Step 5: Publish an honest and/or funny post when your book is out. You can either post it yourself, or have a friend (who is familiar with Reddit) do it for you. I recommend the first option, especially if you’ve followed my advice in Step 3. Make sure your (or your friend’s) tone matches that of the subreddit.

Step 6: Answer comments as they come in. Not all comments will be nice, so keep cool and answer with humor where you can. If your post gets downvoted a lot but receives a lot of comments, it will still get some exposure in the “controversial” category.

Step 7: Cross-post to other Reddit channels. Instead of posting the link to Amazon in every subreddit, post it once and then cross-post on the other subreddits. This will be perceived as slightly less spammy (and it shows you know how Reddit works).

Popular subreddits you should look at

There are close to 1 million subreddits on Reddit. Most of them only have a handful of subscribers, but that’s still a lot of ground to cover if you want to find the ones most relevant to your book. If you’re a fiction author, we’ve compiled a handy spreadsheet with all the popular subreddits (1,000+ subscribers) in every main fiction genre. You can access it here. If you’re a nonfiction author, try running a Reddit and/or Google search for your book’s theme, or ask us for suggestions in the comments below!

How to Run Short-Term Social Media Campaigns

Today’s guest post is an excerpt from Sell More Books with Less Social Media by Chris Syme (@cksyme).

A short-term marketing campaign is a series of strategies designed to reach a goal in a defined period of time, and include projects such as book launches. A short-term campaign has four definite phases: planning, pre-launch, launch, and follow-through.

Campaign marketing is often misunderstood. Sometimes people believe a short-term campaign is a waste of time because, well, it’s short. However, if you build awareness going into a campaign, the momentum can boost your results, and a follow-up will keep your campaign on the horizon. Without the four stages, your campaigns may just be seen as a rude interruption.

Before we dive in, let’s look at some of the characteristics of campaigns.

You can break posting frequency rules during a campaign.

If your fans see you as a friend, they will cut you some slack during short-term campaigns. If you have a one-day event and let your fans know, you can post more often on your social media outlets promoting the event without danger of losing loyal fans. People know you are going to sell at some point, and they don’t mind you doing so provided you are giving them enough valuable content to balance out the selling.

Campaigns can reap benefits besides sales.

If your campaigns have contests or giveaways, you can tie participation to an action such as commenting, using a hashtag, or asking people to like a post that promotes your email sign-up. Contests can bring new fans to your page or increases email sign-ups for free books. Just make sure to follow the contest rules on every social media channel. Book launches also give you opportunities to promote other books, especially if they are part of a series. Think creatively about how you can use a campaign to help reach other long-term goals.

Campaigns need above average value for maximum impact.

“What’s in it for me” should be evident to your fans. I have one client who runs two thank-you campaigns every year with a goal of increasing her social media numbers—one around the December holiday season for her Facebook group and another in July for fans of her Facebook page. The two events have multiple prize packages given away around a theme where participants have to take a social action (comment, like a post, add to a Pinterest board, etc) to enter the daily giveaways. It’s the highest time of engagement on both of her pages.

Campaigns that have a successful pre-launch have a better chance of success.

Campaign success is accelerated if you step on the gas pedal leading up to the launch. It’s all about momentum. Build anticipation before an event and people will be primed to take an action. The pre-launch phase needs to be short in proportion to the entire campaign length. I’ve done successful book pre-launches that were only ten days out. The key to success is planning.

The Four Phases of Short-Term Campaigns

1. The Planning Phase. When planning a short-term campaign, start with a calendar. I suggest you plan all your launches and short-term campaigns on an annual cycle, if possible. Whether you have a planning calendar application or just use a spreadsheet or Word doc, an annual plan makes sure your campaigns will not overlap and burn out your fans. They need a break from selling messages. However, that doesn’t mean you never sell anything outside a campaign. Since campaigns elevate the noise level on your social media channels, you need to give people spans of time to feel normal before you start again.

After you have chosen your campaign dates for the year, work backwards on the calendar to know when planning and pre-launch phases should begin. This might sound daunting at first, but using this system will reap rewards once you get started. Using a calendar to book your campaigns will help ensure that your marketing is manageable.

Your planning phase is the most important of all phases. If I am doing a book launch, I start working on the planning phase three months or more ahead of time. Even though I usually don’t start a pre-launch until a month before the launch, I design, write, and put together everything I will need during the planning phase. I will spend chunks of time here and there to get the work done so I can keep writing, blogging, and doing life. Once I have a template for a campaign, it is easy to judge how long tasks will take the next time. The first time is always the hardest.

During your planning phase you will put together all your graphics, draft all your email blasts, put together a book page on your website, send inquiries out to potential reviewers, secure endorsements from influencers, enlist a launch team, and have all your tactics scheduled on the calendar for pre-launch, launch, and follow-through. Just remember that the calendar is a work in progress; stuff happens and you’ll have to rethink the timeline.

How much time you spend on planning is dictated by the size of your campaign. If you’re just starting out, I recommend keeping it simple.

2. The Pre-Launch Phase. A pre-launch starts anywhere from ten days to one month or more before a book launch. Keep in mind this phase is about building momentum. There are a number of proven strategies authors have used during pre-launch, including giveaways and contests on social media channel, preorders, guest appearances on other author blogs, email blasts, and so on.

If you’ve prepared well, the rocket should take off smoothly. Once you push the launch button, the phase becomes more about monitoring and gauging feedback to see if adjustments need to be made in what you’ve already set up.

3. The Launch Phase. Here are some examples of launch phase activities:

Fulfill your guest blog and podcast responsibilities on the launch calendar. Promote your appearances and publicly thank your hosts afterwards.
Mail out prizes awarded during pre-launch.
Monitor ads and promotions to track upticks in sales, making allowances for a promotion’s life. For instance, tweets have almost no extended life. Even when they are shared, their life expectancy is still low. Repetition and well-written posts are the keys to more life. Podcasts, guest blogs, and interviews have more life because they are not necessarily accessed in real time.
Check to make sure review team members have posted their reviews and send personal thank-yous to those that have.
Adjust the frequency of planned social media posts if necessary.
Check up on your social media street team to make sure they have plenty of content and images to share. Set up a website page ahead of time where they can download content.
Be present regularly on your social media channels to answer questions and thank fans for their support.
Keep writing and doing life.

Be mindful of all the new followers, subscribers, and loyal fans you have gained. If your launch went as planned, you should have heightened engagement and increased numbers on your social channels and email list in the two or three weeks following the launch. By the time your follow-up starts, your social media posting frequencies should have returned to normal, but now you need to add another piece to your marketing mix: introducing yourself to new followers.

4. The Follow-Up Phase. Remember that new followers need nurturing to stay invested, so have some “wow’ content ready for the follow-up period. This is also a key time to show value to your loyal fans so new followers can see how much you appreciate your supporters. If you have done giveaways during the launch, I recommend sending a written thank-you note with each gift you mail out, asking winners to post a picture on your Facebook page or group when they receive their goodies in the mail. I also recommend using a mix of content during this time that may include the following tactics:

Produce short video thank-yous to dedicated fans who helped you launch your book. You can use your phone to produce these and post them on your Facebook page and also on Twitter. Make sure you tag the person in the video so they see them.
Don’t forget to thank those people who hosted guest posts and podcasts with a public shout-out on social media and a link recommending their blog.
Review excerpts from fans are good post-launch social media. You can drop these into Canva templates and make them into an image.
Give shout-outs on your social media channels to new followers.
If you made social media cover photos promoting your book launch, change the cover to reflect that the book is now the latest release.
Remind your advance reader team to post reviews.
Stay vigilant when replying to messages on your primary social media channel.

At some point during the follow-up, business will return to “normal” and you’ll probably be well into writing your next book. Just remember, your work is not done. In his book 20,000 Days And Counting, author Robert Smith says, “You never really cross the finish line. Accomplishing a big goal (like writing a book) isn’t the finish line, it’s the new starting line.”

If you enjoyed this post, I recommend taking a look at Chris Syme’s Sell More Books with Less Social Media, now available in print and also available for pre-order as as a 99-cent ebook.

9 Tips to Building the Book Cover Design You Always Wanted

by Patrick Gage Kelley | via Flickr

Today’s guest post is from book cover designer Joshua Jadon (@joshuajdesign).

Your book cover design is what draws people into the story you crafted from only a blank page and an idea. It is likely the image that your readers will most associate with your story, so let’s look at nine ways you can start building the cover design you always wanted.

1. Decide if there’s a central image in your story that could be used.

If you have a recurring symbol or image throughout your story, consider a creative way to incorporate it into the cover. Whatever imagery you thought was profound enough to make it into the pages will be profound enough to grace the front of your book cover.

2. Look for metaphors.

Maybe your theme is about failing and trying again. Why not represent that on your cover? Let your background be a crumpled piece of paper, flattened smooth again for a fresh start. You can help your readers immediately reflect upon the theme of your novel before they even start the first page.

3. Focus on just one image.

Don’t let yourself get carried away by trying to represent by all the symbolism in your story or every theme you want to represent. Sometimes less is more, and that definitely applies to your book cover design. Use space wisely, and err on the side of caution with simple imagery and keep the focus on just one image. You don’t want to overwhelm or confuse.

4. Hire an artist to help.

If writing is your primary strength, then consider hiring a professional artist or designer to create a one-of-a-kind artwork for your front cover. That way, you get a unique book cover with creative flair that you envisioned and commissioned.

5. Choose colors that represent your story.

Is your story a dramatic thriller? Consider bold red, sinister black, and deep ocean blues. Is it a read best suited for a beach day? Waves of cool blues and jade greens can wash over your cover to give a laid-back feeling. There’s a science to color psychology that you can capitalize on for your cover design.

6. Contrast creates eye-catching covers.

If you’re struggling to come up with a color scheme, consider taking it all the way back to black and white. Simple, classic contrast helps a cover pop, and is timeless and classic. Monochromatic color schemes can be a great way to let your fonts and words remain at the forefront of the reader’s attention, while the image becomes part of the background.

7. Don’t forget the importance of text.

Just as you need to choose a color that represents your story well, you need to choose a font that matches it. Is your audience mostly women? If so, you may prefer a scripted font with feminine flair. Men often prefer simple, bold text that is easy to read. Your audience is the biggest factor in the success of your book sales, so make sure that your cover incorporates elements that will appeal specifically to that audience.

8. Reviews are important.

Did you snag a great review from a well-known person in your field? Put it on your cover! Even if it means simplifying your book cover design in other aspects, it’s well worth it to have the popularity of another individual verify the quality of your story or content. Their name on your cover, especially if you’re a first-time author, lends credibility.

9. Add a subtitle or a teaser.

Give readers a quick glimpse of what they’ll find tucked between the covers of your book with a short subtitle or a teaser. This takes less time to read than the synopsis on the back of the book and can draw readers in immediately. Make sure the text is smaller than your title, but still clear. It shouldn’t jump out at readers at first, but should be easily read.

Authors: What do you think contributes to an effective cover design? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Visit designer Joshua Jadon at his blog or on Twitter (@joshuajdesign).

How to Make Money from Your Website or Blog

This month, I’m proud to have a feature in Writer’s Digest on how to monetize your website and blog. I cover eight approaches that can be mixed and matched:

Reader support (donations)
Affiliate marketing
Advertising and sponsorships
Native advertising
Digital product sales
Consulting or coaching
Online courses
Digital subscriptions

I’ve experimented with all of these over the years; today this site focuses on monetization primarily through affiliate marketing, digital product sales, consulting, and online courses. I also collaborate on a subscription product (The Hot Sheet) and have accepted sponsorships and native advertising in the past.

There’s no single monetization formula that works for all, but one of the first steps is at least understanding the full range of options and tools out there. Another critical factor is learning what good online writing and blogging looks like.

To read my feature article, you’ll have to download the issue or find it at a newsstand near you. And if this is an area that interests you, there’s still time to register for my 4-week class, Make Your Online Writing Pay.

Thinking of Running a Facebook Ad? Proceed with Caution

by United Nations Photo | via Flickr

Today’s guest post is from Martha Conway (@marthamconway), award-winning author of Thieving Forest and Sugarland.

For the past year or so, I have been hearing about the effectiveness of Facebook ads around the social media water cooler. As an author with three novels published and a new one scheduled to be released next year, I try to get the word out about my work as much as possible.

I’ve tried Amazon ads and Google ads with very limited success (neither one paid out, but they increased awareness of my books—I hope). The conventional wisdom in book publishing is that ads aren’t an effective way to increase sales unless the author is mega-successful already, and my experience with Amazon and Google advertising seemed to confirm that.

However, I couldn’t ignore the many people I respected who seemed to think Facebook ads were worthwhile. And I told myself that perhaps the Facebook platform was more controlled, and possibly more targeted, than Google. So I took the plunge.

Wow. What a roller coaster ride. I went from thinking This is the greatest piece of promotion I’ve ever done to thinking I might as well have burned that fifty dollars in my backyard Weber.

It wasn’t all bad, because I figured out where I went wrong after a few days and adjusted my ad settings. But if it weren’t for my husband, who works in the advertising industry, I probably never would have figured it out.

To start with, I’ll go through how I set up my ad campaign—an ad for my latest novel, Sugarland. After that I’ll pinpoint where I went wrong, so others can avoid the same mistake.

Facebook is pretty good at walking newbies through the process of setting up an ad campaign. Once I selected “Create Ad,” I was immediately taken to a page that asked, “What’s Your Marketing Objective?” I chose “Send people to your website” (i.e., the Sugarland page on Amazon).

Then I created a custom audience, trying to make it as specific as possible, which I had read was good practice. I targeted an audience who was in and around the Chicago area, as my novel takes place in Chicago, 1921. I limited it to women (who generally buy more novels, especially historical novels); I set the age from early twenties and up; and I targeted those with interest in mysteries, literature, fiction, jazz music, reading ebooks, and a few other interests and behaviors.

I also set my daily budget and set a schedule for seven days.

So far, so good. But there was one more step in the Facebook campaign specs process: to choose my ad’s “Placement.” Here is where things went seriously wrong.

As you can see by this graphic—a screenshot of the “Ad Set” page where you set your preferences—Facebook really encourages you to select the “Automatic Placements” choice.

Not only is it specifically recommended, but there is also a kind of advertisement for it right in the category box (“New! Automatic Placements”). The description sounds good: “Your ads will automatically be shown to your audience in the places they’re likely to perform best” and “We’ll optimize delivery to show your ads to your audience in the best-performing places.” So I selected that option.

It turned out that this was the wrong move, but more on that later.

On the next screen I uploaded an image for the ad, wrote the headline and a few words of text, and I was good to go.

The first day and a half was exhilarating. Almost immediately I was getting a far greater number of clicks (users who clicked on my ad and were taken to the Amazon book purchase page) than I believed possible. The ad went live late on the evening of September 5, and on September 6, the first full day of advertising, I received 166 clicks in one day. To give you some context, most of my Amazon or Google ads received only about 100 clicks over the course of one week.

Not only was the number of actual clicks enormous, but the click-through rate (i.e., clicks divided by impressions) was 5.34 percent, whereas my ads on Amazon or Google typically had click-through rates of 0.46 percent. Here the Facebook click-through rate was over ten times higher—to industry experts this would be a red flag, but I just thought it was great.

Checking my Kindle sales page for that day, however, I saw that, for all those clicks, I had sold only two books. Not great, but the ad campaign had just begun.

On September 7 my ad received 157 clicks, and on September 8 it got 172 clicks. Of course, each of those clicks cost me money (approximately $0.12 per click), but hopefully they resulted in some sales. If these ads performed as well as Amazon ads (and Amazon is able to calculate approximate sales their ad campaigns generate), I would expect at least five book sales each day.

But I didn’t get that. Nothing like it. Although in August Sugarland had been selling something like two or three books per day, by some fluke of circumstances there were zero sales on September 7 and September 8. Not a one.

I had been crowing to my husband about all the clicks I had been getting (500 by the end of day three!), and at first I rationalized the lack of sales—they just hadn’t shown up yet on my sales page for some reason. But by the end of day three I admitted that, as remarkable as all this activity was, it hadn’t resulted in any real purchases. My husband and I took a look at my “Ad Management” page on Facebook, and after some digging he figured out that most of my ads, and the resulting clicks, were showing up on something called “Audience Network.” Neither one of us knew what that meant.

To make a long story short, as we dug further, we realized that Facebook was showing my ad primarily on mobile devices. According to my husband, mobile devices have a much higher click rate while not delivering equally high purchase rates. There are a lot of guesses as to why. One possibility is that because of mobile devices’ small spaces, fingers slip and click when they don’t mean to. (I’ve certainly done that.)

But the other possibility is a bit more ominous. Some games on mobile devices use something called “incentivized ads.” An incentivized ad is when a user has an incentive to click on an ad because in doing so they will get something in the game they are playing—a cloak that allows a character to fly, a weapon, a cool piece of armor.

Incentivized ads are generally frowned upon by companies such as Facebook, and they most likely have a policy against them, but apparently these kinds of ads are hard to trace back. Most companies, Facebook included, will sell my ad to another party who will place it on some platform; or the second party might even sell it a third time to someone else. When my ad is finally placed on a device where a user can see it, it may be a long way from where I initially set it up.

And here I was thinking that my ad would only be seen on Facebook pages! Not so. My ad could be placed anywhere, on any device, on any page, where a pair of human eyes might see it. That is, unless I specify Facebook as the only platform used for my ad.

After we figured this out, I changed my settings in the “Ad Management” page to exclude mobile devices and specify only Facebook.  Remember the “Automatic Placements” that Facebook recommends you select? Don’t select it! Here is what you do instead:

As you are setting up your ad specs, go to the “Ad Placement” selection. Under devices, choose “Desktop Only,” which renders the Instagram and “Audience Network” platforms ineligible. Alternatively, you could stay with “All Devices,” but then unselect “Audience Network.”

Once I did this, the click rate aligned with Amazon and Google ad click rates—about twenty clicks per day. Although I sold a book or two, the end results were not discernibly better than my Google or Amazon ads. However, the education was invaluable.