Jason Matthews's Blog, page 6

Kindle Unlimited Amazon’s Newest KDP Select Program

Amazon has a new subscription program for books enrolled in KDP Select and U.S. readers called Kindle Unlimited. Books already enrolled in KDP Select are automatically placed in the new program, though authors can opt-out if preferred. Readers pay a $9.99 monthly fee for access to unlimited books (that are enrolled).

From their email;

Today we are excited to introduce Kindle Unlimited-–a new subscription service for readers in the U.S. and a new revenue opportunity for authors enrolled in KDP Select. Customers will be able to read as many books as they want from a library of over 600,000 titles while subscribed to Kindle Unlimited. All books enrolled in KDP Select with U.S. rights will be automatically included in Kindle Unlimited.

KDP Select authors and publishers will earn a share of the KDP Select global fund each time a customer accesses their book from Kindle Unlimited and reads more than 10% of their book-–about the length of reading the free sample available in Kindle books-–as opposed to a payout when the book is simply downloaded. Only the first time a customer reads a book past 10% will be counted. (I’m confused–doesn’t that last sentence seem to contradict the first sentence in the paragraph?)

KDP Select books will also continue to be enrolled in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) available to Amazon Prime customers in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Japan where authors will continue to earn a share of the KDP Select global fund when their book is borrowed. KOLL borrows will continue to be counted when a book is initially downloaded.

For July, we’ve added $800,000 to the fund, bringing the July fund amount to $2 million.

Learn more about Kindle Unlimited. Visit your Bookshelf to enroll your titles in KDP Select, and click on “Manage Benefits” to get started.

Best regards,

The Kindle Direct Publishing Team

For an indie author, it’s hard to bite the hand that feeds you, but you also notice when a monopoly grows ever stronger. Is this move “ultimately” for a reader’s benefit, the author’s, Amazon’s, some combination or does it benefit everyone? I’d ask some Big 5 publishers, but I have a feeling they’ll decline to respond.

Share any thoughts in the comments.

–

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Keywords for Amazon Authors: Best Choices for Titles, Categories, Text, Description and more

Keywords can be an indie author’s best friend. When used wisely, they help a book come up in search results at Amazon; when not used wisely, a book is destined to only be found via word of mouth.

We had a great webinar training authors to use Amazon’s internal search engine while cross-checking at Google’s Keyword Planner for making smart decisions on keyword choices. We also identified where those words must come up in your KDP dashboard, book’s title, categories, text, description and more.

The webinar was recorded and is still available. It explains:

- What metadata is and how it helps readers find your book.

- How to select the right keywords for your book titles, description, categories, tags and internal text of your book.

- How to use both Amazon and Google’s Keyword Planner for wise decision making.

- How to enhance blog posts and social media mentions like Twitter and Google+ using the same process.

This webinar has been made available to authors here: http://soniamarsh.com/store/products/metadata-keywords-best-choices-for-book-titles. 75 minutes of useful tips, price $15.

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Indie Authors’ Take on Amazon vs Hachette

Below is an overview of the publishing situation between Amazon and Hachette (plus other traditional publishing houses and their authors). Very good stuff written by Hugh Howey and other prominent indies that many authors agree with, including me. The situation affects publishers, authors and most importantly, readers.

Dear Readers,

Much is being said these days about changes in the book world, but not nearly enough is being said about the most important people in our industry.

You. The readers. Without you there wouldn’t be a book industry.

We owe you so much, and we are forever in your debt. Thank you for reading late into the night. Thank you for reading to your children. Thank you for missing that subway stop, for your word of mouth, your reviews, and your fan emails.

Thank you for seeking our books in so many ways—through brick and mortar stores, online, and in libraries. Thank you for enjoying these stories in all their forms—as digital books, paper books, and audiobooks.

We wanted this letter to be brief, but the topic is complicated. There is so much misinformation to correct, we wound up taking it point-by-point.

But for those readers with limited time, here is the crux of our message to you:

New York Publishing once controlled the book industry. They decided which stories you were allowed to read. They decided which authors were allowed to publish. They charged high prices while withholding less expensive formats. They paid authors as little as possible, usually between 2% and 12.5% of the list price of a book.

Amazon, in contrast, trusts you to decide what to read, and they strive to keep the price you pay low. They allow all writers to publish on their platform, and they pay authors between 35% and 70% of the list price of the book…

…continue reading this article…

(There is also a petition to sign if you support the indie author-reader-Amazon revolution that is happening.)

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Sell More Books with MetaData-Keywords-Categories Webinar

courtesy https://flic.kr/p/sWw2P

Metadata and keywords confuse many indie authors. You might ask, “What exactly are they? How should I use them? Which ones should I pick?”

In simplest form, these things help readers find your books. Search engines (like the ones at Amazon and Google) use metadata, keywords, categories, tags and more to determine what your book is about. Used wisely, authors greatly increase the chance of readers finding their books by subject matter.

If you don’t know how the use them wisely or how to maximize their potential, you’re not helping readers to find your books. That’s something to address.

There’s good news:

Plenty of simple things can be done right now to help your books do better with Amazon and Google searches.

How can I use metadata and keywords wisely? In book titles and descriptions, in boxes where you choose keywords and categories, in tags, the actual interior text, and also blog posts and social media mentions. Everything written in your book and about your book is a part of the metadata world of marketing.

Are most authors savvy at this? No, they’re not. That’s bad for them, but it’s good for you if you’re savvy or willing to become savvy.

Is it difficult? No, it’s actually pretty easy and makes a lot of common sense once you understand it.

On July 11th, Sonia Marsh and I are hosting a metadata and keywords webinar for a limited number of authors so we can answer questions. We can help you find the best keywords, categories, tags and more so your books will be found easier.

The result–your book is found easier–readers sample them–you sell more ebooks.

This is a limited space webinar for Friday, July 11th at 9am PT (12pm ET) where we’ll shed light on the subject and answer your questions. Click here to join.

About the Instructors:

Sonia Marsh is an award-winning author who sells her own books at Costco, REI, and other retail stores. Sonia is committed to helping authors avoid common mistakes. She offers “gutsy” book coaching to authors, as well as Webinars and Workshops.

Jason Matthews is a novelist, blogger, speaker and self-publishing coach working with writers around the world. His specialties include building author platform, selling at major retailers, social media, blogging and SEO.

Join us for this limited space webinar and get your metadata in order. Price $15. Have a question? Ask here in the comments.

–

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Indie Author’s Take on Google Play: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This article first featured at The Book Designer.

The official name for interested authors is the Google Books Partner Program. It launched in Dec. 2010 as Google Editions, then became Google Ebooks, then got engulfed in the massive Android supermarket known as Google Play. How would I describe the experience of uploading and selling ebooks there? It reminds me of a movie title: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good

They actually sell ebooks. Over the past two years I’ve sold more with Google than at Barnes & Noble or Kobo. That was a pleasant surprise since Google doesn’t depend on book sales to stay afloat or make a dedicated device for reading as the others do. My prediction is for sales to continue to grow though I’m no Vegas-insider.

Purchases can be made in forty-four countries with ongoing expansion. That’s quite an audience. In thirty-six of those countries, authors (called partners) can upload ebooks. In twenty of the thirty-six, Google will pay partners with direct bank deposits (EFT) as is the case for North America and most of Europe. Otherwise payments are with wire transfers.

Search-ability is Google’s forte. They scan your entire document and factor that into the world’s largest search engine. I’ve tested this by copying random sentences from deep within my books and pasting them into a Google search. For example, try this sentence in a search: Mara reminded me of the pictures I had seen of Rose.

Lo and behold, the Google book result appears at the very top of the list, and not one other retailer shows up further down. It also works with character names and subject matter, though for popular search terms you may have to scroll down a few pages. This is especially helpful for authors with rarer subjects or names within their books. Remember that Google searches can be tailored just for book results (though the example above is a general Web search).

EPUB files on Google Play support enhanced ebook features (EEBs) such as embedded audio and video. They also support fixed layouts and give advice on how to implement the HTML code for that.

Perhaps the best reason to publish there: less competition exists from other indie authors at Google Play than at Amazon and other retailers. Smashwords, a distributor that sends ebooks to major retailers and library channels, doesn’t ship to Google Play. Neither does Draft2Digital. The only way I’m aware of is to upload directly. This eliminates a lot of indie authors assumedly for the bad and ugly reasons listed below.

The Bad

Uploading there is challenging. It’s as if the book store engineers decided to reinvent the wheel without taking a peek at how Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords and other retailers handle the art of receiving cover images and interior files.

You’ll need to upload interior documents as EPUB and/or PDF files. Google recommends that you send both types since they offer two display modes: original pages and reflowable text. Providing the PDF will ensure that readers can view the book in its original layout, while the EPUB will allow a more customizable experience. Many authors are unfamiliar with EPUB, working in MS Word and uploading that or saving it as HTML Web Page Filtered. There are free and paid solutions for making EPUB conversions including Calibre, Sigil, 2epub and others. You can even download and save an EPUB file if you’ve uploaded MS Word directly at Kobo or Barnes & Noble, which they convert to EPUB for their devices.

Unfortunately there is no preview mode, which irks me. Amazon has an amazing previewer, and the others have made dramatic improvements in this arena. The only way to preview your book at Google Play is to wait until it has processed and then view the sample.

Price gouging at Google Play is about 23%, which means they’ll reduce whatever price you set it at. Remember to bump up your price by at least 23% or be subject to Amazon price matching to match their lower price.

There is little customer support although it has gotten better. An email to support leads to this automatic reply: Thanks for contacting us. We’ll follow up with you only if we need more information or have additional information to share. (Feels like they’re copping attitude.) In the past I’ve waited a week or more for a response. Recently I tested the service with an email and got a reply within a few hours when I included a screen-share of the problem, which is recommended. Tip: include screen-shares in correspondence to entertain bored Google Books employees.

The Ugly

Royalties are 52%. When comparing that to the industry standard, like 70% at Amazon, it’s a bummer. Of course you could always bump the price just a bit higher to split the difference. Not a great royalty, but still worth doing if more sales platforms are better.

It feels like a wild-goose chase searching for info to accomplish things. I’ve reread tutorial articles many times only to find myself back at the starting point, wishing Google allowed comments following the article that likely would help me solve issues. Instead they just offer a rating system if the article was helpful or not. To understand my frustration, play around at their Help Center for awhile: https://support.google.com/books/?.

Worse than that, it’s a serious chore to get the book’s description and author bio to have proper formatting, even using the simplest formatting. The description may look awful once posted as this one did:

It appears the best way to make formatting behave it is to retype it on the editing page, which is annoying if you have multiple books and all that stuff is already written. For the 99% of us who want to copy and paste the info from elsewhere, it’s necessary to hit the remove formatting button in the description box and then manually re-enter the formatting such as for paragraph returns and bold type. The remove formatting button is highlighted in the yellow circle below:

I had to play around with multiple formatting changes for the description and author bio boxes, then wait about six hours to see how those changes appeared, then repeat until everything was acceptable. It took five days and over a dozen attempts, which is either embarrassing for me or a sign that Google needs to fix this.

Another ugly aspect, and this may be improbable, is the off-chance Google might dump the whole book program. There’s a trust issue with Google that doesn’t exist at other behemoths like Amazon. Google has scrapped plenty of programs as they did with Reader, Wave, Videos, Buzz and more. These dead programs are referred to as the Google Graveyard, and their numbers rise as Google experiments with software and the convenience of really deep pockets. My concern for selling ebooks is that they don’t make a dedicated e-reading device. In the past they had a partnership with the iRiver Story, but that device didn’t integrate into the formation of Google Play, and the iRiver has since been discontinued. Who buys Google books? My guess is people who read on cell phones and various tablets. Does Google really want to compete with Amazon, Apple and others for the long term? We’ll see. The fact that they are selling ebooks and making money on each sale suggests they won’t dump the program. But if they did, it wouldn’t be a shock.

The Verdict

What kind of author should upload to Google Play? Those willing to go the extra mile, knowing it’s a bit more technical, less intuitive, far more annoying, and the risk/rewards are still embedded in a gray area. Selling ebooks there may turn out to be a prosperous alternative or a total waste of time. (Sadly, I just described myself.) If you’re interested in getting started, visit this link: https://play.google.com/books/publish/signup.

And if you have any advice or comments, as always please share them in the comments.

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7 Item To-Do List for Amazon Author Central Profile

I work with a lot of authors, both published veterans and newbies to the Indie scene. When gathering information about them, one of the first places I visit is their Amazon Author Central page, where writers can customize a personal profile and also get excellent data on book sales, author ranking and answers to support questions. Think of it as your Amazon social media page.

Surprisingly, many authors haven’t created one, and this is true for newbies and veterans alike. In those cases, clicking on their name at the book’s product page simply leads to a search engine result showing a list of books that may have been written by that author or someone with the same name. It’s a wasted opportunity when an interested reader can’t discover more about you. Every author page should be filled out entirely when possible. How do you that? Visit Amazon Author Central to get started.

1. List all of your books.

Click the Book tab and then Add More Books where you can search by title, author name or ISBN. Then check This is My Book. Add each one so they will be displayed under your profile page. In some cases the print or audio version may show up differently than the Kindle version depending on the publisher, so double-check that you have identified all of your books in every version.

2. Click the Profile tab and fill out a great biography.

Add interesting details about you or awards your books have gathered, but don’t ramble. My advice is to keep it short and sweet. If possible write the essentials within roughly 300 words or less so readers won’t have to click the Read More button once it’s posted. It seems obvious that people would click the Read More button but you can’t rely on the obvious, and if an important detail (like your website) falls below the default area, some people will never see it. While HTML code is not supported, you can still copy and paste a URL for your website, a smart thing to do.

3. Add Photos.

The main author picture should be a close-up of your face with red-eye, cropping, etc. fixed beforehand with a photo touch-up program like Picasa. You can add up to 8 photos, which gives ample opportunity to share shots of you alone, with the family or pets, on vacation, having fun and more. Each picture tells a story so why not get 8 awesome photos in there?

4. Add your Twitter feed.

Now your latest tweets will show prominently at the top. Might want to limit the chit-chat-with-friends variety of tweets if you do.

5. Add your Blog feed or RSS feed.

This is normally as simple as copying your blog’s URL and adding either /feed (for WordPress blogs) or /atom.xml (for Blogger) as the suffix. You can also click the feed icon at your blog and then copy and paste the URL from your browser. Once that’s done, your Amazon Author page will display the titles and first lines from the three most recent blog posts with working hyperlinks.

6. Add Videos.

You can upload 8 different videos, each less than 10 minutes and under 500MB of data. Preferably these should be about your books or you as an author, in an interview, etc.

7. Create Author pages for other Amazon nations.

Unfortunately this is not done automatically at present time, but you can manually do this for other Amazons, especially the one for the UK. I also do this for Germany, France and Japan because English is a very common second language. The good news is you don’t have to translate those sites because Amazon has the exact same format for each one. If you keep the US version open in a different window, it’s easy to follow the same routine for all of them even if you don’t speak German, French or Japanese. Keep an eye and ear open for future countries added to the list. For extra tutorials and links to the existing foreign Author Centrals, see this blog post and video explaining it step by step.

Plenty of support information can be found by clicking the Author Central Help tab.

Do you have other tips or ideas? Please share them in the comments section.

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Ebook Authors Need Tech Love to Succeed

This article first appeared at The Book Designer.

“Knowing what you know now…”

I work with new writers online and at events. They ask a myriad of smart questions including this one: how would you publish differently if you did it all over again? As the saying goes, hindsight is 20-20. I’d do dozens of things differently than the blind assault to digital publishing I debuted with.

But that’s true for most authors. This industry has evolved so much in just a few short years; even the “experts” have had to learn the ropes on the fly. You’ve probably heard most of the common answers that follow I wish I had:

been more involved with social media
blogged sooner
invested in a great cover
done more market research
worked with a professional editor or two
learned more about SEO (search engine optimization)

Here’s another answer you may not have heard as much, but this would have helped me immensely and is still true for many writers today:

embrace the functions and technologies writers can use in their books

There’s a common dilemma in this digital author business: most writers are of advanced age, and the technology they need to succeed is easier learned by the younger crowd. This is a generalization of course, but I see a lot of frustration behind threads of gray hair when discussing issues related to blogging, social media, converting documents and more. The tech learning curve is something we all experience since nobody knew anything about this stuff several years ago. That’s when Amazon introduced the first Kindle (circa 2007) and the ebook revolution really took off.

Let’s back up further for a moment–what is writing? It’s story-telling and sharing information. It probably began with oral tradition, moved into hieroglyphics, saw the rise of alphabets, then the printing press and finally the computer age. Publishing has evolved at a snail’s pace compared to what’s happening today. Most industry insiders were astonished how fast ebooks became mainstream while also changing the paradigm of authorship and how retailers sell books. It’s reasonable to assume the near future of ebooks may be far more elaborative than they are today: hence the need to embrace the recent tech and also contemplate the unknown.

Those are the two sides to this coin: making the most of what’s currently available and keeping an eye open for the next wave. Let’s talk first about what’s available now. Your ebook should or can have:

Active links for navigation in the Table of Contents and/or an NCX file. It’s wise to also have links to locations within the book like a References page.


Links to your primary social media pages, website and blog so readers can connect with you. If you have a Facebook “Like’ page for the book, a link needs to be in there.


Pages for About the Author and your Other Books with direct links to them.


Links for leaving reviews (e.g. the Amazon review page for your Kindle version).


A sample chapter of another book, especially if part of a series, with a link to buy at the end of the sample.

Notice how most of this current stuff involves simple hyperlinks. That’s not going away, but much more is entering the picture. Let’s talk about that now with a disclaimer: while it would be impractical and perhaps foolish for most authors to attempt to put all of these elements into their ebooks, these are possibilities worth considering. Some authors and books are suited for these things better than others.

Enhanced Ebooks

What is an enhanced ebook or EEB? Amazon has some newer titles called Kindle Edition with Audio/Video. Apple iTunes and Barnes & Noble both list it as the Enhanced Edition, and they’re a few dollars more than the regular ebook. Most notably they have a range of audio and video additions embedded into them, but much more can be done including photo albums, pop-up graphics, maps, animations, even instant messaging with other readers. EEBs don’t work on older devices, like basic Kindles, but the newer tablets and smart phones are fine. At present time making EEBs gets into apps verses ebooks, which is more difficult for the average indie author to do without outsourcing. This might change in the near future as solutions should appear for anyone who wants to make EEBs, so it’s wise to start thinking about additions that might benefit your books. (Google Ebooks has a brief HTML tutorial for authors familiar with making their own EPUBS – https://support.google.com/books/partner/answer/3316879?hl=en&ref_topic=3238502, but most authors will need to hire out for this.)

Pricing comes into the picture. The more data that goes into a digital file, the more the retailer needs to charge for storage and distribution costs. In some cases, it may still make economic sense to link a reader to an external website for watching a long video as opposed to embedding a short one.

This concept also gets into “enhancements” verses “distractions,” what readers really enjoy verses what marketers think they might want. In either case, authors should get feedback on what readers appreciate rather than adding a multitude of audio and video effects just because it’s possible.

Interactivity

Interactivity is a part of enhancements and takes it a bit further. Instead of just seeing and hearing more than text and pictures, interactivity engages the reader to participate with the story or information. It can also be with other readers and the author too. Common examples include children’s and educational books, where readers are asked questions and answers are shown. But there’s a huge realm for creativity here. For example, mystery authors could incorporate surveys along the way getting a feel for who the readers think the murderer is. Teen Romance authors could include a social media page discussing which characters should fall in love and why. Non-fiction authors who teach could add a forum for readers to ask questions and get answers in real time from forum members or even the author. Alternative endings are also an option, which could be done in any ebook today, even a basic Kindle. The author can give the reader a choice of plot direction for a happy, romantic or surprise twist ending. The possibilities are endless.

Book Clubs

Most authors would love to break into book clubs. I’ve visited six in person to discuss my novels but still haven’t yet done one online. Since there are online book clubs all over the world, it’s possible to join in on their discussion. My recommendation would be in a Google Plus hangout, and this could be done with Skype as well.

Multiple Authors

Writing collaborations are about to take a huge leap thanks to programs like Google Docs, where multiple people can contribute, comment, edit and more in live time from anywhere online.

Events Calendar

An events calendar can be uploaded to your ebooks, even without enhancements. Since it only takes a few minutes to upload a new version, once a month you could update an ebook with a chapter called Monthly Events that lists where you’ll be. If your book is successful, you could also host a weekly “book club” get-together with a link to your Google Plus page.

These are just a few ideas for what can be done today and what might be just around the corner, more about getting you to think of options than to go into details for implementing every single one. Perhaps you have even better suggestions. Please share them in a comment.

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Book Marketing Challenge 2014

This year’s book marketing challenge is underway, your chance to reach new readers across the globe.

“The Book Marketing Challenge will provide you with access to hands-on, interactive training, on a wide variety of online book marketing strategies. You’ll also have opportunities to develop wonderful new friendships with other authors and our guest experts!” – D’vorah Lansky

During the Book Marketing Challenge, you’ll have access to workshops, expert interviews, articles, action steps, hot tips, special gifts, and opportunities to expand your online presence.

Claim your free access pass and connect with authors, publishers, and book marketing experts who are dedicated to bringing their message to the world and showing you how to do the same.

Join us for this hands-on, interactive program and:

* Develop Your Author platform

* Learn how to build a list of thirsty readers

* Discover ways to create multiple income streams with your book

* Access specific book marketing strategies that deliver results

* Find out the most powerful ways to reach more readers, globally



Register for your Free Access Pass and get started today.

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Smashwords Defines Indie Author Manifesto

Mark Coker of Smashwords has released an Indie Author Manifesto, right in line with my beliefs and those of most writers I work with. See the highlights below or read the entire blog post here.

We indie authors believe all writers are created equal, that all writers are endowed with natural creative potential, and that writers have an unalienable right to exercise, explore and realize their potential through the freedom of publication.

I hold these truths to be self-evident:

I am an indie author
I have experienced the pleasure and satisfaction that comes from self-publishing
I have a right to publish
My creative control is important to me.  I decide when, where and how my writing graduates to become a published book. 
Indie does not mean “alone.”  I choose my partners.
I shall not bow beholden or subservient to any publisher. In my business relationships, I seek partnership, fairness, equity and mutually aligned interests.
We indie author comprise diverse writers unified by a common purpose to advance, empower and celebrate writers everywhere. 
I am a professional.  I take pride in my work, and I strive to improve my craft to better serve my readers, myself, my fellow indie authors and the culture of books
My writing is valuable and important.  This value and importance cannot be measured by commercial sales alone.
I celebrate the success of my fellow indie authors, for their success is mine, and mine theirs. Together we are pioneering a better future for books marked by greater quality, creativity, diversity, choice, availability, affordability and accessibility.

What are your thoughts? Please share them in the comments section.

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Write More Books or Create More Content?

This article first appeared on The Book Designer.

I remember feeling liberated after publishing my first novel on Amazon and Smashwords. Almost miraculously, within the first hours of release a few sales happened. This came after years of investing time, effort and money to get the novel written, so those initial sales exhilarated me enough to share the news with anyone who would listen.

During a phone call that evening, my dad said, “Now you can sit back and watch the orders roll in.”

He’s right, I thought. Those books are going to sell themselves.

I’ve been wrong countless times, but that moment was a milestone in the bad assumption department as I later realized a continual marketing effort would be required to sell my book, even in discouraging amounts. It’s not enough to write a great book, unless yours is so hypnotically contagious that everyone insists it’s a must-read. You will also need to market well or suffer the author’s greatest fear: obscurity.

Eventually advice from writing sages enlightened me of the secret to selling books, and I was not thrilled to hear it: write more books!

Um, okay, easier said than done, especially when the first one took several years. Anyone who’s written a full-length book knows how taxing it is. Those three little words, write a book, roll off the tongue with ease but performing the task can be a Herculean effort. An author may feel spent after producing one, two or even three books, and then she is told to produce another. Is there ever an end to it?

Unfortunately the rule of thumb says no; an author must continue to write new content. This has always been the case, but the advent of digital publishing has taken it to a higher level. Every year the total number of authors and books grows exponentially while the number of readers remains primarily the same. To stand out from the crowd, an author needs a larger platform and more books. Reminiscent of the cliché, best of times and worst of times, Dickens’ opening paragraph for A Tale of Two Cities perfectly illustrates the indie author dilemma.

But wait, there is some good news or at least advice that’s more pleasant, and a clue exists above. Instead of only focusing on writing more books, think about creating new content. While I agree that having multiple books is paramount, creating new content is a close second and has hidden benefits. Let’s discuss some less intimidating projects to accomplish that goal.

Here are some non-full-length-book examples of writing new content:

short stories
blog posts
guest blog posts
articles and essays
novelettes and novellas

And hey, if you have more books aching to be expressed, by all means go ahead and write them. But you may want to mix it up, do other projects simultaneously that are faster and also help you market existing titles while the next book comes together. Think of it like an athlete cross-training to get stronger overall, even though he excels in one sport.

Most authors have short stories that were written years ago. If you have a few and they’re just sitting around doing nothing, those shorts are wasted opportunities for content and marketing. Why not get them on Smashwords and then Amazon for free? Ebook readers download freebies far more often than they pay for books, and when readers discover a good author they often pay for the next book on the menu. I don’t have many short stories on Amazon, but the free ones I have there get downloaded in bunches, and sometimes those readers buy my other books. At present time, Amazon won’t let you set a price for free (the minimum is 99 cents), but they have a price-match guarantee. Since Smashwords does let you price a book for free and distributes to Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, etc, then Amazon will price-match your book to free as well. (You may have to ask a few people to click the Tell Us About a Lower Price feature at Amazon to get the switch made, and still it might take a few days or longer but usually works.) All you need is to format those shorts stories and get a simple cover made. The results may be a pleasant surprise.

Blogging is a fantastic way to create new content. Blogs provide a venue to write about anything, and you can update them whenever you have time. I’ve written more words in blog posts than in all my books combined—they’ve been the driving force for strangers around the world to find my articles and then books. Blogging also gives literary freedom. Many of my successful posts have been on topics that aren’t my specialty, like things I find interesting about the National Football League. However, for topics that are a specialty, like self-publishing on a budget, a blog is ideal for regular articles. Perhaps the subject matter of your books could be the foundation of your blog. The other nice thing about blog posts is that people will find you via search engines for a range of new keywords.

If maintaining a blog feels like too much commitment, write “guest posts” for other people who have blogs on similar subject matter. Or you can submit articles and essays to online publications like Ezine Articles or Technorati.

What are novelettes and novellas? They’re longer than short stories and smaller than novels. Novelettes are usually 8K to 20K words, and novellas go from there to around 50K words. It’s all subjective, but many readers prefer shorter works these days as reading time is scarce. Amazon has created Kindle Singles where authors can submit these shorter works for review and price books between 99 cents and $4.99.

It amazes me how often authors forget to do this—for all of the content you create, remember to include:

links to your website and/or social media
links to your paid books

Whether you’re writing more books or creating new content, procrastination will still creep in. It’s an odd thing: have you ever noticed how hard it is to start writing, but once you’ve begun it feels wonderful? The timer sounds reminding you to get going, but you may find yourself cleaning doorknobs, rearranging a closet, doing anything other than sitting at your desk. At moments like these remind yourself, I always feel better as soon as I begin writing—it’s the starting part that is so hard.

I make an effort to write new content one hour a day—that’s it. Not a lofty goal compared to most authors, but this is actually a mind-trick to get the juices flowing. One hour is mentally easy to commit to, and once the hour has passed I usually keep going. And even if only one hour of writing happens, it’s amazing what comes together by the end of a month. If you have another day job and a tight schedule, make a goal to write for 20 minutes. That amount can lead to surprising results in just a few months. A mountain can be climbed one step at a time, even with baby steps, and books can be written a few paragraphs at a time.

Tips to help with creating new content:

Write content that supplements your books especially in a blog.
When writing on other subjects, use keywords wisely.
When releasing new content, let readers know via your social media channels and email subscribers.
Encourage conversations. Pose questions, even if it’s aimed at broadening the topic in a humble way. What have I missed? Please share your input.
List all of your books in the beginning and at the end of your books.
The digital versions should have working links, especially the Amazon Kindle version. For other retailers, you can link to your website, blog or social media page. Make it easy for readers to find your books with one click if possible.
Include the first chapter of the next book in a series at the end of your book, and also include a link to purchase.

What are your ideas on this? Share them in the comment section.

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