Frances Caballo's Blog: 10 Twitter Tips Writers Need to Know, page 44

Free Book Promotion Sites for Indie Authors

My List of Free Book Promotion Sites

I recently promoted my book Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day for free and researched and used a couple of free book promotion sites. I thought I’d share my research with you and list others that authors I know have found helpful in the past.

Books Butterfly

I’ve heard that the Top 200 Push or the Pure Wild Card or Super Slot options are the best. Those options range from $80 to $120.

Some of the benefits are that Books Butterfly has 241,788 email subscribers, and they have more than 170,000 Twitter followers.

My thoughts: Considering the size of the email list, the pricing seems fair. What you don’t know is how many of those readers prefer romance or historical fiction or science fiction let alone nonfiction.

EReader News Today

To qualify for EReader News Today, review these restrictions:

Your books need to be available on Amazon.com. They also promote book deals that are available at Barnes & Noble/Nook, Google Play, Apple iTunes and Kobo.
Your books must be priced at $0.99 or be on sale.
Your books are required to be a full-length book, in other words, at least 125 pages. There are exceptions for children’s, nonfiction, and cookbooks.
You can’t run two promotions within 90 days.

Also, EReader has further considerations:

The cover must appear professional.
EReader will look at your reviews to see how well readers have liked it.
Your book must be professionally edited.
The larger the discount, the better chance you’ll have at your book being accepted.
EReader won’t post erotica, pornography, books that contain controversial subject matter, or books that may be considered offensive to any race, gender, or religion.
EReader does reserve the right to deny a book.

My thoughts: A Goodreads group that I belong to gave this service a high rating, and I plan to use it for a book I’ll release near the end of the year.

Fussy Librarian

To be considered:

You must have ten reviews and a 4.0 rating on Amazon, 11 to 19 reviews and a 4.0 rating, or 20 reviews and a 3.5 rating.
If you have ten reviews, they should be split between Amazon’s various stores — such as the U.S. and the U.K. Reviews must be from Amazon.
You book needs to be priced at a price of $5.99 or less on the day of the promotion.

My thoughts: I like the fact that this service accepts ebooks priced at $5.99. However, it might be difficult for some authors to get reviews from the U.S. and the U.K. And some indie authors have a hard time getting reviews. But Fussy Librarian is a solid outfit and one that I’ll consider with future books.

BookSends

BookSends has these minimum book requirements:

Your book must have at least five reviews with a high overall average score, and an attractive cover.
You must offer a discount of least 50% off the full price, and it must be less than $3.
You may submit one book at a time.
BookSends won’t feature the same book more than once every 90 days.
You need a planned sale price of less than $3 and at least 50% off full price.

My thoughts: I used BookSends and spent $100. It was easy to sign up for it. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell whether this service helped more than the posts I added to social media or the emails I sent but I suspect that it did.

FreeBooksy

Here are some tips:

Use for free and bargain books between the price of $0.99 and $5.
You can feature the same title every 30 days.
Unlike some services, they accept permafree books, short stories, books with no reviews, and erotica.
They look for well-written and well-formatted books.
FreeBooksy reaches more than 150,000 readers.
FreeBooksy has several features including a free Facebook app to add to your Facebook author page.

My thoughts: I haven’t used this service, but I like the fact that I don’t need to offer my book for free, and I like the Facebook app feature.

The eReader Café

It’s great that this service is free but its list is just 80,000, a paltry number compared to other services.

eReader Café does offer a Book of the Day list, and that costs $35. The services notes the best-selling genres (romance, mystery, thrillers, contemporary, Christian, Historical, memoir) and indicates that the bestselling price point is between $0.99 and $2.99.

My thoughts: If you’ve written a book in the genres they specify, this service might be worth trying once.

ReadCheaply

Here are some guidelines:

Your book must have good reviews and “substantial positive acclaim.”
Your discount needs to be at least 50%.
You’ll need to write an “enticing” summary to be accepted.

My thoughts: There are different pricing structures for different genres, ranging from $25 to $100. Their email reaches 70,000 subscribers, and they accept 23 genres. I think there are better deals out there.

ebookbooster

This service will submit your book to more than 45 sites for just $35. For $25 it sends your book to 25 websites.

My thoughts: I think this service is a no brainer and quite a deal.

FreeBookService

I learned about this service from Howard VanEs, a book marketing consultant. He says that the Executive package, at the cost of $379, is worth every penny.

What I know is that for $379, FreeBookService will send your book to 15,000+ worldwide readers over a 24 to 48 hour period. The company offers lower packages and for $1,499 you can promote your book when it costs $0.99. That promotion will last 72 hours.

My thoughts: This is a pricey service especially considering the small list counts, but some people swear by it.

Reading Deals

For $29, Reading Deals will submit your free and bargain-priced ebook to its list of 35,000 readers and tweet it to 120,000+ followers.

My thoughts: I thought this service was a good deal and used it, and I would use it again. It came highly regarded from a marketing consultant I know.

In addition to the sites I researched, these can also be valuable and worth trying:

BookBub Featured Deal
BookBub Ads
Just Kindle Books
Kindle Nation Daily
BargainBooksy

Several years ago, Kate Tilton published an exhaustive list of resources. You’ll find that information on her blog.

How do you promote your free books?

Frances Caballo is an author and social media strategist and manager for writers. She’s a regular speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference and a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com and blogger and Social Media Expert for BookWorks, and blogger at Bowker’s Self-Published Author blog. She’s written several social media books including The Author’s Guide to Goodreads, and Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, finding new readers, and selling more books. Her clients include authors of every genre and writer conferences. Not sure how you’re doing online? Sign up for my free email course.

Practical Tips for Marketing Your Books on the Social Web

 

Conversations with Frances continues in November with Jane Friedman, who has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in digital media strategy for authors and publishers. She’s also the former publisher of Writer’s Digest and is an all-around book marketing expert. This webinar is not to missed. You’ll have an opportunity to ask Jane any question you’d like too. So register today for this upcoming interview.

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Indie Author Weekly Roundup October 14, 2016

This week’s Indie Author Weekly Roundup is longer than most but that’s because it is completely  chock-full with information you need at your disposal. I hope you enjoy this week’s selection!

And don’t forget that …

The next episode of Conversations with Frances features Jane Friedman. Jane is a columnist with Publishers Weekly, a professor with The Great Courses, and she’s been a keynote speaker at several writers’ conferences. She speaks regularly at industry events such as BookExpo America and Digital Book World, and has served on panels with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund. On November 1 at 11 am Jane will share her thoughts on book launches. She’ll also be available to answer your questions. Join us on November 1st.

Indie Author Weekly Roundup

Time Management Tips for Busy Authorpreneurs from BookWorks: “You know what  you’re supposed to do—write your book, start a blog and website, and turn to social media to help you market everything you’ve created. But where do you start? Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram? And how can you write your next book if you now need to spend time writing blog posts, posting social media updates, and chasing after Likes and followers?”

4 Easy Things You Can Do If You Don’t Want to Market Your Book from Writers in the Story and by Penny Sansevieri: “If you’re an author who just wants to write, you’re not alone. I talk to authors every day who hate the idea of marketing and are not even sure where to begin. I definitely can understand. Marketing is always changing, and it isn’t easy, especially if you still have a full time job and want to focus on writing your next book. However, if you don’t market your existing title(s), no one will ever know what you have.”

How to Create an Author Brand from the the Alliance of Independent Authors: “Communicating an author’s brand is especially challenging when you’re an indie author not bound by the constraints of traditional publishing to stick to a specific genre. Australian author, poet, book designer and musician Jessica Bell describes how she rose to the challenge of branding her work – by branding the author rather than the books. Thanks to Jessica for sharing this detailed case study of the process that went into branding her self-published collection of books.”

10 Things Every Writer Should Know About Amazon Publishing from Writer’s Digest: “This guest post is by Catherine McKenzie. McKenzie is a bestselling author of popular fiction. She has captivated readers all over the world with her absorbing characters, engrossing storytelling, and unflinching treatment of love, loss, forgiveness and redemption – universal themes that affect the human condition. Her five published novels, Spin, Arranged, Forgotten, Hidden, and Smoke are all international bestsellers and have been translated into numerous languages. Smoke was named one of the Best Books of 2015 by Amazon.”

When Should You Write for Exposure? 5 Questions to Ask  from Jane Friedman: “One of the easiest ways to get a round of vigorous applause at a writing or publishing event is to condemn those who ask (or expect) writers to work for “exposure” rather than dollars.”

7 Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School from via CopyBlogger and by Jonathan Morrow: “I think most good writers listen to the way English teachers want them to write and think, “This isn’t real. It has no feeling, no distinctiveness, no oomph. You’re the only person in the world who would willingly read it. Everyone else would rather chew off their own eyelids than read more than three pages of this boring crap.” And they’re right.”

Jane Friedman Shares 7 Things An Author Should Do from the Alliance of Independent Authors:”Your author website is your hub for marking and promotion activities and lets the world know what you do and why you do it. In less than an hour you can choose and buy a domain name, and start hosting your own website, which becomes your online business card.”

Quote of the Week

Frances Caballo is an author and social media strategist and manager for writers. She’s a regular speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference. In addition, she’s a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com, blogger and Social Media Expert for BookWorks, and blogger at Bowker’s Self-Published Author. She’s written several social media books including The Author’s Guide to Goodreads and Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, finding new readers, and selling more books. Her clients include authors of every genre and writers’ conferences. Not sure how you’re doing online? Sign up for my free email course.

 

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Joanna Penn on Book Marketing and How to Write a Novel

I recently interviewed Joanna Penn for my new webinar series Conversations with Frances and decided to share that video with you today.

Joanna Penn Interview

For those who are unfamiliar with Joanna, she’s a New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author and a nonfiction author. She’s written 20 books and sold more than 450,000 books in 74 countries and five languages. She’s also an international professional speaker and award-winning entrepreneur and was voted as one of The Guardian’s UK Top 100 creative professionals in 2013. In addition to writing, she’s developed numerous courses, including How to Write a Novel.

Although it always seemed to me that Joanna catapulted to the top of the indie author chart, in her words, “Things start slow and build up over time. … I had nothing when I started. I’ve done everything myself. That’s me on Twitter; that’s me on Facebook.”

She built her career one book at a time, as we all do.

Joanna shared some of her productivity tips on the show. One tip involves her loose-leaf notebook. In her Filofax she schedules all her priorities six months in advance. These include podcast interviews, first drafts, edits, etc.

“Use a diary or schedule … Take your writing business as seriously as you would anything else,” Joanna said.

I asked Joanna about her theory of social karma. She said, “You get what you give. This is important in the community. It depends on the energy you put out.” If you want book sales, buy books. If you want book reviews, leave reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere.

We also had a chance to discuss her How to Write a Novel course, which I plan to use to get back to my novel writing. Joanna explained that she’d spent the last ten years reading books about writing. For the course, she couldn’t cram in everything she knew, so she provided the minimal amount of information people need to write their first, second, and fifth books.

I say she still included a lot of information that I can’t wait to delve into.

“You need to know about genres, productivity, character, plot, story structure,” she said, and there’s plenty of information on these topics in her course, which happens to be quite comprehensive.

Through the course, she wanted to “help people see that the creative process is a journey and it’s a process, and we all go through similar issues.”

To learn how to write great dialogue, Joanna said she devoted time to reading screenplays and reading her dialogue out loud.

I had an opportunity to ask Joanna her feelings about the role that intuition plays in the creative life. She likes to think of intuition as curiosity. “What are you drawn toward?” Follow that curious bent and see where it takes your writing.

Whereas Joan Didion and her husband collected story ideas in a box, Joanna prefers the modern way: her smartphone. And on the topic of series, she says authors who write series make more money. But if you don’t write in a series you can always give away a short story to entice t prospective readers and persuade them to be interested in your books.

Joanna had much more to say so be sure to watch the video.

Frances Caballo is an author and social media strategist and manager for writers. She’s a regular speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference and a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com and blogger and Social Media Expert for BookWorks, and blogger at Bowker’s Self-Published Author blog. She’s written several social media books including The Author’s Guide to Goodreads, and Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, finding new readers, and selling more books. Her clients include authors of every genre and writer conferences. Not sure how you’re doing online? Sign up for my free email course.

Practical Tips for Marketing Your Books on the Social Web

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Indie Author Weekly Roundup October 7, 2016

Welcome to the Indie Author Weekly Roundup. This week you’ll find posts on how best to market your books plus other great resources. Don’t miss Joel Friedlander’s interview of Dana Kaye and the list of twelve resources that authors need to be aware of. My post for Joel Friedlander discusses numerous services you can use to promote a book as well as my impressions of them. I hope you enjoy this week’s selection.

Free Book Promotions: Are They Worth It? by Frances Caballo and from Joel Friedlander of TheBookDesigner.com: “The continuing controversy among self-published authors is whether you should sign up for Kindle Direct Publishing’s Kindle Select Program and use the free promotion feature. The secondary questions are:

Is it worth it to be exclusive?
Are the free promotion days that tend to entice some authors – and readers – worth it?

There seem to be almost as many opinions on these controversies as there are, well, books. So what’s my take?”

Are book promotions worth the exclusivity of KDP Select? Click To Tweet

Marketing Books From the Customer’s Perspective from Book Business: “What is the process you follow when you go to a store to buy something? You probably go to the most convenient place (bricks or clicks) and peruse the assortment available. You may search for a particular brand if you are aware of it. If not, you look at the prices to compare the value of the items to your needs. Then depending on the strength of your need compared to the available choices you decide to buy or wait.”

Publicity for Authors: My Interview with Dana Kaye from Joel Friedlander: “Dana is known for her innovative ideas and knowledge of current trends. She frequently speaks on the topics of social media, branding, and publishing trends. Since she just released her first book after spending years promoting other people’s books, I took this opportunity to spend some time with her to talk about publicity, branding, and marketing for indie authors.”

Dana Kaye on publicity, branding, and marketing for indie authors Click To Tweet

Are You a Push Marketer or a Pull Marketer? by Chris Syme and from Jane Friedman’s blog: “The era of push marketing began with the advent of TV commercials. Brands had a message they wanted to get across and they put together ads informing consumers about the benefits of their products. Their products were at the center of their messages, not the consumers’ needs. They were the sources of information and we trusted them. They created an inflated need for their product and we bought in. Basically, selling was based on hype.”

Your Guide to Picture-Perfect Instagram Book Marketing by Penny Sansevieri and from BookWorks: “First, Instagram is easy to use. That’s a plus in anyone’s book! Also, since it’s not as ad-driven as Facebook (at least so far), it’s more budget-friendly if your marketing budget is limited and you prefer to allocate those funds elsewhere. It’s much easier to capture someone’s attention on Instagram than on Facebook because it’s so visual. In fact, it drives 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more than Twitter. If you like statistics, you should really like these numbers!”

12 Self-Publishing Services Authors Should Beware  from Alliance of Independent Authors: “The following twelve services are commonly used to pad self-publishing packages, either as an add-on service or a bundled feature with questionable value to the author. Please note that these services are not inherently bad. However, they deserve extra scrutiny when their price tag is concealed among other bundled services.”

Quote of the Week

 

Frances Caballo is an author and social media strategist and manager for writers. She’s a regular speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference and a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com and blogger and Social Media Expert for BookWorks, and blogger at Bowker’s Self-Published Author blog. She’s written several social media books including The Author’s Guide to Goodreads, and Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, finding new readers, and selling more books. Her clients include authors of every genre and writer conferences. Not sure how you’re doing online? Sign up for my free email course.

Practical Tips for Marketing Your Books on the Social Web

Are you stifled by social media? Do you want to learn how to use it with ease and be more efficient at it? Check out my free social media course.

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Books Lingering on Bookshelves? Try These 18 Book Marketing Tips

Do you want to sell more books? Every author does. I know that I do.

The truth is, we can never sell enough books, right? It would always be great to be able to sell another 1,000 books, or 100,000 more, or maybe even 250,000 more. Or even 100 more.

Indie writers regularly contact me wanting to know how they can maximize sales of their books. Some of them dream of the day when their writing can support them – a lofty goal.

If you look at the great success stories of today’s indie authors, they support their careers with writing nonfiction or teaching courses. Look at thriller author Joanna Penn as an example. She has sold almost 500,000 books around the world and in five different languages.

She’s also a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and was voted one of The Guardian UK Top 100 Creative Professionals in 2013. Also, she has a successful podcast, The Creative Penn.

For all her success, her additional endeavors — courses, nonfiction books, speaker fees — also support her business. The same is true for novelists Mark Dawson and Nick Stephenson.

My point is that to make a living on your writing is possible yet a difficult goal to attain.

Some think that social media in and of itself will sell all the books they want to sell. (Mistake.) Others think reading gigs or guest blogging opportunities will do it.

The hard truth is that there isn’t an easy answer. If there were one, I would share it here. Honestly.

And there isn’t a pill that will suddenly make you a capable marketer. The truth? It takes a lot of work to make it in the publishing business.

But, hey, please don’t let me discourage you. That isn’t the point of this post. What I’m trying to say — perhaps not so eloquently as I’d hoped — is that to sell books as an indie author you need a comprehensive plan.

Ready to roll up your sleeves? Keep reading then.

To sell books as an indie author you need a comprehensive planClick To Tweet
So You Want to Be an Indie Author?

Maybe being an indie author is one of the toughest jobs in today’s market, especially if you hope to make it a full-time career. (On the other hand, teaching sounds a lot harder but for the sake of this post, let’s say that being an indie author is the toughest.)

After you undergo the grueling process of writing a book and paying for editors and designers, your have to put on a new hat, that of marketer.

If anyone thinks that writing a book is tough – and a lot of people do – marketing a book is just as hard.

An 18-Point Checklist of Book Marketing Tips

Book marketing requires a multi-prong strategy that consists of the following:

Purchase your ISBN numbers. Don’t buy them from Amazon or BookBaby. If you use the cheap ISBN numbers that publishing companies sell, they will be the publisher of your books. When you buy the numbers from Bowker, you are a publishing company and your company’s name will appear in the book.
Hire a web designer to build an author website using a quality theme.
Self-host your blog on your website. Don’t use Blogger or WordPress.com. (Note: WordPress.com is separate from WordPress.org, which I do recommend.) Commit to blogging at least once a week.
Include on your website the options to sign up for your newsletter and your blog. Make sure that you capture the email addresses from both of these sign-up forms. Your best fans will subscribe to your blog and newsletter, and once you have their email addresses, you can communicate directly with them. Make sure that you offer something for free to entice signups.
Define your audience. Before you can even begin to market your book, you need to clarify exactly who your readers are. If you say everyone, you’re marketing to no one because your audience is too widely defined. Let’s look at some examples. Michael Hyatt knows the age, sex and income level of his ideal audience. If you write nonfiction, Twitter and LinkedIn are musts for you. If you write romance novels, you’ll want to use Facebook and Pinterest. If you write young adult novels, I would suggest that you use Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. My point is what you write will determine your reader demographics. It’s best if you have your reader in mind as your write your book.
Once you know where you’ll be spending your time online, regularly start posting. On Twitter, post a minimum of three to five tweets and retweets daily. Post at twice daily on your Facebook page, Google+ profile, and LinkedIn account. Use Pinterest several times a week.
Make a commitment to your readers by allocating time every day to be social: Like, share and comment on their posts too. Always endeavor to share valuable content that your readers enjoy.
Ask your designer to create a cover for you before you finish your book. I usually nail down a cover six months or longer before I release my books. And I let my readers and Facebook fans and friends select the best cover from a sampling of three. By doing this, you will build momentum for your book.
Talk about your book in your social media posts. You could write, “I just finished my first draft of ________!” or “I’m sending my manuscript to the editor today!” This messaging will also help to build momentum.
Join Goodreads, review books, add your blog posts, join a group, and organize several giveaways.
Some authors sign up for the exclusive Kindle Select Program to offer their books for free. There are numerous blog posts about how doing this can boost sales. I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t always work but it can. (I recently did a free promotion and was pleased with the results.) Know that you have options. What you can do instead is forego Kindle Select and schedule several days on a quarterly basis when you lower the price of your eBook to $.99 or $1.99. Then promote the sale price on social media, websites devoted to publicizing $.99-cent books, on your website and in your newsletter. In addition, apply to BookBub.
Communicate with your newsletter subscribers on a monthly basis, always providing them with information they need and want to know.
To entice readers to sign up for your newsletter, offer the first chapter of your book for free. Or, if you serialize your novels, offer the first book of your series for free. Include that offer on your website and in the initial pages of one of your books.
Create a book trailer or hire someone to do this for you.
Make sure you have your book available as an ebook, paperback, and audiobook. Over time, create box sets.
Hold contests and announce your awards.
Purchase Facebook advertising.
Write another book. Yes, second books improve the sales of first books.

Most of all, be patient. Book marketing isn’t easy, but it’s always worth the effort. During those periods of burnout, you may want to hire a virtual assistant to carry the load for a while. Just don’t give up!

What is your favorite strategy for boosting book sales?

 

Frances Caballo is an author and social media strategist and manager for writers. She’s a regular speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference and a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com and blogger and Social Media Expert for BookWorks, and blogger at Bowker’s Self-Published Author blog. She’s written several social media books including The Author’s Guide to Goodreads, and Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, finding new readers, and selling more books. Her clients include authors of every genre and writer conferences. Not sure how you’re doing online? Sign up for my free email course.

Practical Tips for Marketing Your Books on the Social Web

 

Join Joel Friedlander and me on October 4 at 1 pm PDT for Conversations with Frances.

Joel is a master blogger in the publishing field. His blog consistently makes it onto Writer’s Digest’s top ten blog list and TheBookDesigner.com is considered one of the best in the industry. During this chat, he’ll share some of his secrets and clarify the differences between nonfiction and fiction blogging. I’m certain we will delve into other topics as well so be sure to join us for a rich and lively discussion October 4 at 11 am PDT. Register here. And learn more about Joel here.

 

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Indie Author Weekly Roundup September 30, 2016

As an indie author, what steps are you taking to sell more books? How to sell more books is the continual question for authors and so I hope this week’s indie author weekly roundup will provide some answers for you.

And …

Don’t forget to sign up for next Tuesday’s Conversations with Frances when I’ll be interviewing blogging and self-publishing expert Joel Friedlander. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to ask him anything you’d like as well. So join us October 4 at 11 am.

Indie Author Updates

10 Things Authors Need to Stop Doing on Social Media Immediately from Digital Book World: “Almost every author has been told at some point, “You gotta get online and promote.” But only a small percentage of authors have actually been coached on social media best practices, resulting in hundreds of authors using social media completely wrong and turning readers off rather than attracting them. If you are guilty of any of the following social media practices, for the sake of your readership, please stop immediately.”

4 Mistakes Every New Writer Makes (and How to Avoid Them) from Jeff Goins: “As a writer, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. After five books, more than a thousand blog posts, and over a decade of blogging, I still mess up. And making mistakes is a good thing, because it means I’m still writing. If you’re not messing up, then you’re not doing your work. You’re not pushing yourself to the utter limits and testing what you’re capable of. You’re just playing it safe.”

If you’re not messing up, then you’re not doing your workClick To Tweet

13 Easy Blog Ideas for Novelists from Chris Well: “It can be tough for novelists who want to use a blog to gain new readers. Most advice for blogging authors is only practical for nonfiction authors. So, what can a novelist blog about to build a crowd of the right kind of readers? Glad you asked! Here are some suggestions…”

Incorporate Goodreads into your marketing plan Click To Tweet

How to Make the Most of Goodreads Giveaways by Penny Sansevieri and from Digital Book World: “Authors looking to boost book promotion efforts should consider incorporating a presence on Goodreads. It’s an established site filled with potential to really boost book marketing plans. In fact, some authors have elevated this to an art form and have become Goodreads rock stars.  Once you’ve established yourself on Goodreads, adding Goodreads giveaways to your marketing plan is a solid next step.”

Note: To learn more about Goodreads, pick up The Author’s Guide to Goodreads: How to Engage with Readers and Market Your Books

Six Authors and a Translator: Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize Shortlist – Two on List Are from Independent Publishers from Publishing Perspectives:

The six titles that are shortlisted are:

• Mona Awad for her novel 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, published by Penguin Canada

• Gary Barwin for his novel Yiddish for Pirates, published by Random House Canada

• Emma Donoghue for her novel The Wonder, published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

• Catherine Leroux for her novel The Party Wall, published by Biblioasis International Translation Series, translated by Lazer Lederhendler

• Madeleine Thien for her novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing, published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada

• Zoe Whittall for her novel The Best Kind of People, published by House of Anansi Press Inc.

Quote of the Week

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Feeling Stressed? Too much To Do and Not Enough Time? Slow Down!

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” Michael Altshuler

I joined a new gym recently, and the first class I took was a Qi Gong class.

I’ve got to tell you it was such a relief to step onto that wood floor and almost immediately have someone tell me that all I could focus on was my hands, or my feet, or the energy between my hands.

You see, during the day, my mind races. I have to update my social media, my clients’ channels, write for my blog, write guest posts, ask people to be on my webinar series, schedule the webinars, create images, prepare for sessions I teach, approve logos, learn how to record video, read tons of other blog posts, write books, and on and on.

Yeah, I’m sort of busy. I swear that some days I could use every second of each of the 24 hours of a day just to accomplish my task list.

You probably feel the same way, right? It’s what life is like in 2016, eh? Maybe life in the 1800s was like that too. It seems to be a continual problem.

I wake up early and do my best to turn on the computer by 5:30 am and start work. I’ve got to tell you that on most days, by 5 pm I’m wasted.

No, not that kind of wasted. I’m tired, and my brain is fried. Sometimes I don’t even have the energy to read. (I’m being honest.) It’s that my eyes, after  staring at the computer all day, just want to rest.

So what can you and I do to slow down or focus our energies differently so that we feel productive and can attain our goals without feeling by the end of the day that all we want to d0 is plop on the couch and not think anymore?

Pay attention to your breathing and how you're sitting Click To Tweet
9 Tips for When You’re Feeling Stressed and Need to Slow Down

One thing you can do is to join a gym. I’ve always belonged to gyms, but I usually did my own workouts. Gradually, I felt bored with my regular routines. So I joined a a different gym that offers a variety of classes – water exercise, Qi Gong, Yoga, Fit & Flex. I especially enjoy the water exercise class. Somehow it feels so healing.
Start using a timer. I wrote a book, Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day and sometimes I follow my own advice, and sometimes I forget to. When I adhere to the formula, I can get a lot down. So get the book or borrow a copy from a friend and stick to the program. That’s what I’ll be doing.
I just signed up for a course on meditation. I’ve taken it before but felt as though I needed a refresher course. If you don’t want to meditate, spend a few seconds breathing in the morning. Even when I do that simple act, my priorities for the day somehow magically fall into place.
Pay attention to your breathing. There is a syndrome called computer anxiety. It can leave us practically hyperventilating as we work. If you find that you are feeling anxious as you work, stop, take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and repeat the process two or three times. You’ll feel better.
Pay attention to how you position your body. If you don’t have an ergonomic setup, get one. It needn’t be expensive. Get a good chair. (I use a ball chair.) Make sure that your elbows are bent at a 90 degree angle, and get an ergonomic mouse to protect your hands from carpal tunnel.
Scan your body from time to time. Are your shoulders raised to your ears? Mine sometimes are. Are you curving your neck? Where are your feet? Make sure your body is comfortable and do what you can to prevent shoulder and neck aches.
Establish a list of goals. Don’t be unrealistic and you can be lax with some of the due dates. I did this at the beginning of the year and it helps to keep me focused and set my priorities. You don’t want to be overambitious and overextend yourself. I’ve overextended myself in past careers trying to meet unrealistic goals and I’m here to say that there’s a price to pay for working 50- to 60-hour weeks, and the price isn’t worth it. Be realistic.
Learn to say no. Okay, this is a real struggle for me, but I’m vowing to get better at it. You see, whenever someone asks me to write a guest post, I answer, “Sure!” Well, that’s got to change. I now have three monthly writing commitments, plus my own blog where I publish posts twice a week. I vow to say no to any more requests.
In addition to taking the Qi Gong class at the gym, I promise to check out the Yoga class.

Okay, I vow to slow down, focus on my priorities, and take better care of myself. Does anyone else?

Establish a list of goals Click To Tweet

About the Author: Frances Caballo is an author and social media strategist and manager for writers. She’s a regular speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference and a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com and blogger and Social Media Expert for BookWorks. She’s written several books including The Author’s Guide to Goodreads, and Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, finding new readers, and selling more books. Her clients include authors of every genre and writer conferences. Not sure how you’re doing online? Sign up for my free email course.

Practical Tips for Marketing Your Books on the Social Web

You’ll find cheat sheets and my new four-step strategy to controlling your time on social media in my newest book: Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. In eleven chapters, you’ll:

understand the new formula for saving time
learn how to become a more effective and efficient marketer
find cheat sheets for vocabulary and hashtags
learn about the apps that will best help you save time while using social media.

So start learning how to save time online.

 

The post Feeling Stressed? Too much To Do and Not Enough Time? Slow Down! appeared first on Social Media Just for Writers.

Indie Author Weekly Roundup September 23, 2016

This week’s Indie Author Weekly Roundup includes six posts. You see, I just couldn’t cut the list any more. Each post is chock-full of information that indie authors need to know to be successful in today’s market. And that is the purpose of this blog; to help you attain your goals.

On another note, if you missed Wednesday’s webinar with Joanna Penn, well, you missed a real treat. She revealed great tips that have helped to fuel her success. We also discussed her new course, How to Write a Novel. I’ve reviewed the course and plan to use it when I return to my novel. it’s awesome.

My next webinar will feature Joel Friedlander. The date for that webinar is October 4.

Indie Author Updates

Unusual Ways to Promote Your Book from Alliance of Independent Authors: “Each month we step away from mainstream marketing ideas and highlight creative, fun and sometimes downright wacky ideas that our members have dreamed up to help promote their self-published books to more readers. Here’s September’s top tips, with thanks to all the authors named (and the one who prefers to remain anonymous) for generously allowing us to share them here.”

Getting Ready to Launch a Book? Start with These 5 Questions by Andrea Dunlop and from Jane Friedman: “First: a reality check. If you include self-published titles, somewhere around 4,000 books are released every day. Bestselling authors are outliers on the level of Hall of Fame baseball players. I don’t say this to discourage you, only to encourage you to set more realistic standards for yourself.”

The Publishing Industry in 2016: A Status Update by JaneFriedman: “Several times per year, I write up a summary of the latest industry developments that have meaning for authors. The latest one was The Myth About Print Coming Back and Bookstores on the Rise. Here’s the picture now developing.”

Longer Tweets Are Here: All You Need to Know About Twitter’s 140 Character Update from Buffer: “Twitter has just made a big change to the way tweets work … Twitter is cutting back on what types of content will use up its 140-character limit. Now, @names in replies, media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls) and quoted Tweets will no longer be counted against the valuable 140 characters that make up a tweet. This allows for richer public conversations that are easier to follow on Twitter and ensures people can attach media to tweets without sacrificing the characters they have to express themselves.”

The 5 Pillars Of Rapid Email List Growth from Adan Connell: “You know the importance of building an email list. After all, it’s one of the best ways to encourage your audience to keep coming back to your website. But what can you do to speed up the growth of your email list? Below I’ll show you the 5 pillars of rapid email list growth.”

Never Say Never: Do You Always Have to Follow Writing “Rules” to Be a Successful Blogger? from ProBlogger: “‘Never,” exhorts George Orwell in his prolific essay Politics and the English Language, “use a long word where a short word will do.’ This etymological edict claims many adherents, and who amongst us has not wrestled with that great literary conundrum of word choice? Whether you blog, pen fiction, nonfiction or anything at all, finding the right words and writing style is essential. But how to do it? And are these rules written in stone?”

Quote of the Week

When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world, and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You’re being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed. – Neil Gaiman

 

About the Author: Frances Caballo is an author and social media strategist and manager for writers. She’s a regular speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference and a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com and blogger and Social Media Expert for BookWorks, and blogger at Bowker’s Self-Published Author blog. She’s written several social media books including The Author’s Guide to Goodreads, and Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, finding new readers, and selling more books. Her clients include authors of every genre and writer conferences. Not sure how you’re doing online? Sign up for my free email course.

The post Indie Author Weekly Roundup September 23, 2016 appeared first on Social Media Just for Writers.

Do you have a unique blogging voice?

Before I talk about how to find your unique blogging voice, I want to remind you about the premiere of Conversations with Frances this Wednesday at 11 am PT. My first guest will be the awesome Joanna Penn. We’ll talk about marketing and her new program, How to Write a Novel. I am so thrilled to be presenting the series and to have Joanna as my initial guest. Wow! Be sure to sign up now and show up early. Seating will be limited.

I spoke with Joel Friedlander recently about quite an assortment of topics.

He tenderly broached one issue with me during our conversation: I don’t have a blogging voice.

Well, hmm, he happens to be right.

The first drafts of my posts are far different from my final drafts. I’m a tad snarky, familiar, and I break a lot of grammar rules.

The final draft, consequently, turns out a tad, well, sterile. It’s as though I’m back in the newsroom doing my best to write an objective article on a topic I have strong feelings about.

So as I ponder this issue I can’t help but turn the question around: Have you developed your blogging voice?

Let’s look at a few examples.

Arlene Miller, a grammarian and aka The Grammar Diva, has a clear voice.

She’ll end sentences with multiple question marks.
She uses exclamation marks throughout her posts and her books.
She’ll even use an ellipsis, which she tends to edit out of my books, by the way.
Most important of all, she’s funny.
She doesn’t take herself too seriously.

Now let’s look at Rachel Thompson. The salient feature of her voice is that she’s snarky, and that’s a compliment because while I shy away from that voice, she fully embraces it.

Joel Friedlander from TheBookDesigner.com is casual, friendly, and helpful. If you were to meet him at a conference, you’d find that his writing voice matches his personality.

Joanna Penn’s style is complete honesty. I’m not saying that the above writers are dishonest. No, not at all. But who else posts pictures of themselves hiking with walking sticks?

Call me crazy but I think part of Joanna’s success stems from her well-written books and her open nature. She’ll post pictures of herself with her husband on Facebook. She talks about her struggles and triumphs. She even posted her income. That’s full disclosure. And I think that other indie authors appreciate that level of honesty and will support her even more because of it. I find her open nature endearing, don’t you?

6 Tips for Finding Your Blogging Voice

How can you and I find our blogging voice? Here are some suggestions:

Be original.
Imagine you’re writing for one person. Write a detailed page about that reader, including age, gender, reading and drink preferences, etc. (I wish mine would like martinis, but I suspect she would rather spit out a martini than swallow one.)
Read your post out loud. Does it sound like you?
Write about what you’re passionate about.
Mix it up until you find your groove.
Always be honest.

If I’m brave, in the next few weeks I’ll be experimenting with my blogging voice until I find one that fits. Let me know what you think along the way, eh?

About the Author: Frances Caballo is an author and social media strategist and manager for writers. She’s a regular speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference and a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com and blogger and Social Media Expert for BookWorks, and blogger at Bowker’s Self-Published Author blog. She’s written several social media books including The Author’s Guide to Goodreads, and Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, finding new readers, and selling more books. Her clients include authors of every genre and writer conferences. Not sure how you’re doing online? Sign up for my free email course.

Don’t forget to join Conversations with Frances this Wednesday at 11 am PT.

 

 

 

 

The post Do you have a unique blogging voice? appeared first on Social Media Just for Writers.

Indie Author Weekly Roundup September 16, 2016

This week’s Indie Author Weekly Roundup is rich with social media advice. I hope you enjoy this edition.

If you haven’t signed up for my webinar with Joanna Penn, do so now. I will debut my new webinar series, Conversations with Frances with Joanna as my first guest. It promises to be a lively discussion as we talk about marketing and her new program, How to Write a Novel. Join us!

Not Sure How to Approach Social Media? CARE about Your Readers via Jane Friedman: “Among all the rules you’ll find online—the 80/20 rule (only 20 percent of your posts should be about your books or blog posts), the admonitions against using social media as a bullhorn, the warnings about over-automating—there’s also an unspoken tenet. This tenet isn’t a rule that comes up on the blogosphere. Instead, it’s more of a system of approach; to describe it, I use an acronym that I created while preparing for the San Francisco Writers Conference last February.”

Fact: 78 percent of Americans have a social media profile Click To Tweet
Indie Author Updates

Pinning Away Pinterest Social Media by Ronel Janse Van Vuuren: “I had this nagging suspicion that my social media skills are a bit lacking. So I signed up for an email course through social media strategist Frances Caballo’s blog while I was there reading yet another great article. I knew that I was wasting valuable writing-time managing my social media platform. Yet I didn’t know how to fix it on my own. (Yeah, misspelling the title of this blogpost could’ve worked well here…)”

Selling Books on Social Media: 4 Steps to Less Wasted Time from Anne R. Allen and by Chris Syme: “A mind-boggling 78 percent of Americans have a social media profile. And a little over half of them are on more than one channel. It is a given that authors can develop loyal audiences and sell more books with the help of social media.”

How Will an Author Platform Make You a More Successful Author? by Rachel Thompson: “Every day I hear prickly, sometimes even angry authors, discussing the evils of book marketing: ‘Blogging is a waste of time. I could be writing.’ ‘Social media doesn’t result in sales, so forget it. Not worth it.’ ‘Author platform is just a dumb term some bean dip in a suit made up. Next year they’ll call it something else.’  Oh, dear. Let’s deconstruct.”

Indie Authors: How to Harvest the Epic Marketing Power of Facebook by Penny Sansevieri: “Do you know how much time people are spending on Facebook each day? 50 minutes, according to a recent New York Times article. 50 minutes! Instagram and the Facebook Messenger app are included in that timeframe, but you can bet that the lion’s share is still spent on Facebook itself.  It’s more critical than ever to make your Facebook Page work for you by pulling in sales as well as likes.”

5 Important Facebook Metrics and How to Improve Them by Stacey Marone and from Convince and Convert: “You have now seen the light and brought your business to social media platforms. You have a well-populated Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, and a great Pinterest board. You have taken all the lessons to heart about maintaining these social networks by keeping them updated, responding to all comments and inquiries promptly, and following followers.”

People spend a whopping 50 minutes on FacebookClick To Tweet
Quote of the Week

 

About the Author: Frances Caballo is an author and social media strategist and manager for writers. She’s a regular speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference and a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com and blogger and Social Media Expert for BookWorks, and blogger at Bowker’s Self-Published Author blog. She’s written several social media books including The Author’s Guide to Goodreads, and Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, finding new readers, and selling more books. Her clients include authors of every genre and writer conferences. Not sure how you’re doing online? Sign up for my free email course.

Practical Tips for Marketing Your Books on the Social Web

Free now through Sunday.

What if you no longer had to worry that social media marketing would take hours, leaving you with less time to focus on your writing?

Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day provides a formula that authors can follow to help them save time online without losing their effectiveness or impact.

Now, for the book itself: the tips get better and better as the book progresses. Just the big list of apps that you can use to schedule posts is worth the price of the book! And one of the best points made at the very beginning of the book is that nobody needs to be on every social media platform, and that it’s worth the time to find out where your target audience does their socializing to decide what platforms you should try establishing yourself on. Amazon Customer

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