Brian Stephens's Blog, page 7

Creating A Cover for Createspace Books

There are two ways in which you can create a book cover for a Createspace book. You can either use the built in templates that Createspace provide or you can design your own using a photo-editing package like Photoshop or a desktop publishing program such as PagePlus. There are free versions of photo-editing software programs
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Publishing Books That Sell

Why Amazon are offering advice on getting a book Published?  Clearly Amazon are more than happy to publish your book as an independent author, but they are also interested in high quality writing that will be taken up by the public and sell in the millions. Selling books after all is one of Amazon’s primary objectives.
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Amazon Advice For Getting Your Book Published & Bought

Why are Amazon offering advice on getting a book Published? Read on to find out. Clearly Amazon are more than happy to publish your book as an independent author, but they are also interested in high quality writing that will be taken up by the public and sell in the millions. Selling books after all
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CreateSpace for Print On Demand – How Hard Can It Be?

I decided to find out how hard it is to prepare a file for upload and then to publish a paperback book using CreateSpace. I thought there cannot be a lot more to it than publishing on KDP (or Smashwords for that matter). Well essentially I was right. The tricky parts are getting a nice
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Samantha Ford Is Getting Ready to Publish Her Second Novel

Author of the 5 star rated The Zanzibar Affair – Samantha Ford – has her second, long awaited, novel rapidly approaching its publication date. But she needs some help deciding which cover image has the most appeal. You are invited to participate in a poll to help her decide which cover image she should use
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Are You Making the Most of Goodreads?

Goodreads has just  become one of the most important social media sites for writers and author on the Internet. Why? Because now it is owned by Amazon, the biggest distributor of books on the planet. So why did Amazon buy Goodreads and why do they intend to let the site run itself independently? Those are
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The Smashword’s Summer/Winter Sale

It is the height of summer in the Northern hemisphere and the depth of winter in the Southern hemisphere, but either way you can benefit from the Smashword' summer/winter sale. All these great books listed below are currently available via the Smashwords website in multiple formats offering up to a 50% discount. Check out these great titles and cash in before the end of the sale at midnight on the 31st July 2013.

Don't forget to select your book of choice and use these individual links to access your book to find the summer/winter sale  special discount code at the top right of the page:
Fiction

Expat Living in Rural France - Still Life in the Old Dogs
Expat Living in Rural France - Still Barking
The Zanzibar Affair - A High Society Love Affair
Lonely Mirrors - A Tragic Wartime Romance
The Carcassonne Affair - A Mystery Thriller
The Voice of the Tiger - A Military Romance
The Mobius Twist - Alien Abduction
Cages of Smoke - An expat adventure story
A Tale of Two Tuscan Cats - A Lovely Children's Story for Cat Lovers
Tuscan Cats Get Into Mischief - the sequel to a Tale of Two Tuscan Cats
Jersey's Secret Assassin - A Fast Moving Action Thriller

Reference

Web Marketing & SEO - Google DOs & Google DON’Ts

Jewels of French History Books, The Lauragais Story
How to Write a Book or Novel, An Insider’s Guide to Getting Published
Website Design Guide for Private and Business Users - Concepts and Techniques Demystified For Beginners
Growing and Caring for Tomatoes, An Essential Tomato Growing Book


This sale takes place every year and gets bigger year on year as more and more authors offer their books at discounted prices during the sale period. So if you live in the southern hemisphere you can curl up on the sofa for a winter read in front of the fire and if you are in the northern hemisphere you can find a shady spot away from the heatwave and cool off reading a favourite book or two at a special discounted price. So what are you waiting for, find your book and get downloading straight away. Before that price goes back up.

The Smashword’s Summer/Winter Sale

It is the height of summer in the Northern hemisphere and the depth of winter in the Southern hemisphere, but either way you can benefit from the Smashword’ summer/winter sale. All these great books listed below are currently available via the Smashwords website in multiple formats offering up to a 50% discount. Check out these
...read more

When is a Book Promotion Not a Book Promotion?

A book promotion is not something to be taken lightly i.e. you cannot just reduce the price or make your book free without first thinking about what you want to achieve through your book promotion and how you are going to communicate to potential purchasers that you are actually doing a book promotion. Neither should
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Published Authors Can’t Afford to be Shrinking Violets

There is a natural tendency for many writers to shy away from blowing their own trumpets, but if you are a published author and you want to sell some of your books, then you really cannot afford this luxury. Being a published author and inconspicuous is a contradiction in terms. All the best marketers of
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