A-Z of Self-Publishing and Writing tips - K-M

Continuing in my popular series of Self-Publishing and Writing tips, today's subjects include Klout, Libraries, and Mondays, among other things. Yes, it's letters K-M.

Here we go:

K

Klout

Even after joining http://Klout.com and using it for a while, many people still ask the question, what is Klout? I have to admit I don't have a definitive answer. What I do know about Klout.com is that you can use it to connect your various social networking accounts and it will calculate a score for you to say how influential you are in terms of how many people actually seem to take notice of what you say on different sites.

I quite like the site. The way you use it is either connect through your Twitter or Facebook account and you can give +K 'rewards' to people based on what they are influential about and in theory you will also be given +Ks by people on the site. The thing I like about it is the way it helps with keeping in touch with people on Twitter. When time is limited you cannot always chat with people, but if you sent +Ks it's like a way of saying 'hello' and keeping in touch. Having said that, it is also hard to find time to use Klout!

I am not sure what Klout does to help promotion of work, but I would assume that the higher your Klout score is, the more visible you will be on the site and that way you may gain more followers on different social networking sites. I'd advise people to give it a try and see if it works for them. Some people like it and some people hate it.


Kindle

Kindle books are probably the most popular of all e-books. Amazon is the market leader. It took me a while to decide to convert my books into e-books. I love paperbacks and hardbacks and didn't think that I would ever get used to reading e-books. I gave in last year and bought myself a Kindle 3G. I have to say, I love it. Before buying the Kindle, I found that I was reading e-books anyway but reading them on my computer. I'd connected with so many indie authors and most of them were publishing mainly in e-book formats. Reading on a Kindle is so much nicer than reading on a computer screen. It's easier on the eyes.
If you're a reader who is wondering whether to purchase an e-reader, I would definitely recommend it. The price used to put people off buying e-readers, but these days, the fact that you can download so many free and low cost books means that the cost of the e-reader shouldn't really be an issue. Not that I am happy with the fact that we, as authors, are now in a position where we more or less have to give away our books, but the theory is that when we give away one of our books this should result in readers buying some of our other ones.

If you're an author who has so far only published in print, you are missing out on a wide audience. E-books are now outselling print books, and it's time for all authors to make sure they have their books available as e-books.

KDP Select Programme

All this talk about free books brings me on to the subject of the KDP Select Programme on Amazon. I have recently had great success with this promotional tool. I won't repeat it all here as those of you who follow my blog have already seen my post about my findings. Here's the link for those of you who may not have seen it: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...

To cut a long story short, I would recommend all authors to try it out. The main advice is that you should prepare beforehand. My blog post gives some guidance about that.

L

Libraries

It often gets overlooked that libraries are great places to promote books. I would advise authors to try to get their books into their local libraries. And, readers, if there is a book by an independent author that you want to read and you are a member of a library, you should order the book through the library. Word of mouth has always been the best way to sell and promote books. If someone reads a good book at a library, they might buy a copy for a friend, or even for themselves. They might tell a friend about it. In the UK, authors can register their books with Public Lending Right: http://www.plr.uk.com/ You will then get royalties paid yearly based on an estimated number of books lent from libraries around the country.
While I'm on the topic of royalties from lending, another L word 'Licensing' should be mentioned. In the UK authors can also join the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) http://www.alcs.co.uk/, If your books, or magazines and journals containing your work are available to be photocopied or scanned in schools, universities, businesses, public sector bodies or libraries then you may be entitled to a share of the income collected by the Copyright Licensing Agency. There is a one-off payment for membership of ALCS, but once you're a member you will receive payments twice a year based on the royalties for your books. I didn't think I had any money owed to me but I have been receiving payments from this organisation. It's worth joining. I am not sure whether these types of things exist in other countries, but if you're not a UK author, it may be worth looking into this.

Lending

For the reasons mentioned about (i.e. promotional) I would recommend that all authors allow their e-books to have the lending facility activated when uploading books onto Kindle. Kindle has a lending library for Prime Members so that books in the KDP Select Programme can be lent by members, but there is also a way that any Kindle books can be shared between Kindle users if the author has allowed lending. The key thing to remember is that we want our books to be read. There is no point writing something that no one ever reads. Bestsellers, in the old days, became bestsellers because people used to borrow books from friends and discover new authors. If you are a serious writer you will be writing more than one book, you can afford to make at least one book available for free. As far as I know the sharing facility means that the book will only be available on the lender's Kindle for 14 days, after that it will disappear. So, you may get a sale out of it if the person liked the book but didn't have time to finish it. More importantly, remember that when someone buys a paperback copy of your book, you have no control over how many times they lend that to their friends, so why should it be any different with e-books?

LibraryThing

http://www.LibraryThing.com is a website similar to Goodreads in that you can list your books there, you can set up giveaways, and join groups where you can chat about books. My advice to all authors is to join as many of these sites as possible. It may not always be possible to maintain a presence on all of the sites, but you can have an Author Page on LibraryThing, and keep that up to date with all your books. I have set up giveaways on that site in the past, and definitely think it's worth doing as it promotes your books to people who may not otherwise see them.

Likes

I'll just briefly mention this here as I think I already mentioned that it's useful to 'Like' Amazon Author Pages, when I was dealing with the letter 'H' in this series.

Readers, if you have favourite authors, you should go and 'like' their Amazon Author Pages, and Facebook fan pages. You should also make sure that when you read a book that you enjoy, you go to the Amazon page and click the 'like' button for that book. All of this helps with promoting books and authors.

Links

I think it's always a nice idea to include links on your author websites or blogs showing other authors' websites/blogs or book promotion sites. For example, take a look at the links page on my website: Maria Savva - Links

This is a way of helping to promote other authors' books. Indie authors need as much help with promotion as possible, so if you've read a book you enjoy, why not help promote it on your own site? Other authors are more likely to do the same for you if you help them. In this way you can reach a wider audience. I know that some blogs will swap links, so they will ask you to put a link on your website or blog and they will reciprocate. Again, this is a good way to build a wider audience.

M

MySpace

Is it worth having a profile on MySpace? I am not sure. I set up my profile a few years back when MySpace was still relatively popular and I did like the site. I have noticed that people seem to have chosen Facebook and Twitter as the main networking sites these days and MySpace has been abandoned by some. I still post links to my blog there, but have stopped actually blogging on MySpace. I don't use it much, but what I would say is that it's good to have a profile on as many sites as you can because in that way you can reach more people. There are some book groups on MySpace which I joined years ago and haven't visited recently, but many of them had large followings, so it's worth at least checking some of those out if you get time. I mainly try to keep the profile page up to date there, and post links to news about my writing as well as my blog.

Mention Monday

This is a hashtag on Twitter. So, on a Monday, you would type #MentionMonday or just #MM into your Twitter comment and then a link to a blog with the Twitter name of the person you are mentioning. This is a good way of directing people to interesting blogs that you have discovered. Readers, you could use it to support your favourite authors. Authors can also use it to support their fellow indie authors.

So, for example, if you wanted to mention my blog, you could tweet: #MentionMonday Check out author @Maria_Savva's Goodreads blog: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Morguefile

For those independent authors who like to design their own book covers and who also like making book trailers, I would recommend a great site full of royalty free photos that you can use, http://www.Morguefile.com. I usually make a point of contacting the photographers on the site and letting them know what I will be using their photo for. The idea of the site is that you can use the photos free for creative projects, including book covers, book trailers, etc. You will need to check the licensing agreement for each photographer as there are sometimes restrictions on the use. I have found it a very user-friendly site, and have used it for all my book trailers. The covers for my books, Fusion, Second Chances, and Love and Loyalty were taken from photos I found on Morguefile.






Most of the photos in my book trailers were also from that site:

Coincidences

The Dream

Second Chances

A Time to Tell

I hope you enjoyed this instalment. You can find the earlier posts in this series at the links below:

A-C: http://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/20...
D-F: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
G: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
H-J: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...