Ben’s Comments (group member since Oct 19, 2016)

Ben’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

Kay wrote: "Followed you Ben! :D"

Awww shucks :) I was already following you :)

Our latest author interview is with the lovely Rayne Dowell! Thanks for taking part Rayne :)

http://www.indiepublishinggroup.com/a...

If anyone would like to write a guest blog about anything to do with indie authors or writing, publishing etc. then write me at ben.jackson.writer@gmail.com I'll give you and your book a shout out in the article!

If anyone wants to get some more followers on Goodreads, then just comment below and follow everyone above you!! :)

Wrote a blog on Tips for Writing a Great Book Description!

http://www.indiepublishinggroup.com/t...

If anyone would like to write a guest blog about anything to do with indie authors or writing, publishing etc. then write me at ben.jackson.writer@gmail.com I'll give you and your book a shout out in the article!

Thanks all for the shares and continued support! This week we have the lovely and exciting Jennifer S. Alderson!

http://www.indiepublishinggroup.com/a...

If anyone would like to write a guest blog about anything to do with indie authors or writing, publishing etc. then write me at ben.jackson.writer@gmail.com I'll give you and your book a shout out in the article!

Nice work!

It's awesome!! Thanks so much Carole & Britt and all the helpers, it's very much appreciated!!

This week's author interview features the lovely Katharine Coggeshall

http://www.indiepublishinggroup.com/a...

If anyone would like to write a guest blog about anything to do with indie authors or writing, publishing etc. then write me at ben.jackson.writer@gmail.com I'll give you and your book a shout out in the article!

Alex wrote: "Carole wrote: "That's would make a good book, Ben. I think Little's Fart's toot would rival a big battleships!!
Hey everybody, going to start a new thread- Please bring your naval landing craft sto..."

It's early Alex, Carole probably hasn't had her first coffee yet! lol

LOL I just read Alex comment, and thought how could is that! Then scrolled through and saw my book! Awesome! Much love to Brit x and Carole x I hope a tv producer gets my book, buys the rights and makes a tv show.

Alex wrote: "I understand the principle of appearing on multiple blogs and increasing your web footprint, but I really struggle with blogging, I've had an idea for a blog post for a while now, the first one I'v..."

Commenting on blogs and blogging creates backlinks to your website, that's why I have 20-30 spammy comments I need to delete every day on Indie Publishing. It's a PAIN.

You did an interview on Indie Alex, and you did fine talking about yourself!!

I'm always trying to think of blogs to write. I just started one tonight actually while I was sitting here lol. Tips for writing a great book description. I started the author interviews on Indie and for everyone I post, two more authors want to do one. They take me about an hour to get into a format, add the links, add them to the website, add photos, do the SEO and then post.

My biggest problem is I have a full-time job, I work on Indie Publishing, I do all my own book stuff, and I'm a freelance writer on Fiverr. My biggest earner on there is writing blogs/articles, so I get sick of it.

Amy wrote: "Crikey. I'm about a book a year at best. But it's different. No illustrations and possibly more words. I can get a decent cover off Fiverr for £30 and they seriously do look good on the paperbacks...."

Don't waste money on Facebook ads unless you're ready to spend hundreds. Facebook is crap lol. I think that content is key. You can flog your books on Twitter and Facebook all day, but really who is seeing it, mostly other authors flogging their crap.

I think having a good blog/website is probably the best strategy. Do every author interview available. Write guest blogs for other people, write your own blogs. I write on Tumbler a bit, it then automatically posts to my Goodreads blog page and my Author Central page.

Those sites like reader's fav, bookworks, allauthor, etc are good too. You create a profile, upload your books, and you're done. All free. When I help other authors, I like to explain it like a footprint. Every time you get your name out somewhere, your footprint gets just a little bit bigger. Build a list of people willing to read and review your books, build a list of people willing to let you do author interviews or guest blogs. Go through the top reviewers on Amazon and write them an email. I have gotten a few people that review every book I write that way.

You don't have to spend a lot. Just on the basics. The foundation. Cover, Proofing, Formatting. Once you have those, you can do a lot for nothing.

It's hard Amy because I think there are so many different levels of Indie Authors.

There are people I wouldn't even consider to be Indie Authors that are just mass producing crap books and flooding the market.

There are people that are trying to do their best to be passionate about something they love and get the book out there and do a lot of hard work with very little capital.

There are others that are trying to build another income/business and have some money to invest and try different things.

I think as long as you know where you are, have a good attitude and have realistic expectations you're doing good.

I only do one book every six months because it takes me that long to be able to afford to pay for it lol children's books are quicker, but freaking paying an illustrator $20-40-60 per page is a killer. Summer sucks for book sales, and Christmas is coming so one more book before Christmas is what I'm aiming for.

I think Indies Authors face two major enemies, Big Publishing Companies with big budgets, and themselves, Indie Authors. We can't change big publishers, but we can change ourselves.

Some of the biggest issues are the amount of indie & self-published books hitting the market. There are a lot. Some are great, but I think a lot are just rubbish. Just copies of ideas regurgitated again and again for the cheapest possible price. They're flooding platforms like Amazon. Fake reviews float them for a little while, but eventually, they fall down. A lot of them are just going for page reads on KU.

Don't get me wrong, being an Indie Author is great, but I would sell any one of my books for the right price. What's the right price? I don't know, no one has offered.

Every book you put out needs to compete with professionally published books. They spend tens of thousands on marketing, a thousand on the cover, a thousand on formatting, a thousand on proofing, thousands on copy editing, thousands on arc copies and then they print off 50,000 copies and promote the hell out of them on Amazon etc etc.

If you make a book and spend $50 on it and throw it on Amazon, you have to be realistic about what's going to happen. You need to plan out a budget, plan your marketing and have realistic goals. In children's books on Amazon, there are over a million books alone. That's a lot of competition.

You have to invest a certain amount of time and money into every book if you expect to achieve anything. A few hundred dollars on a good cover will go a hell of a long way. Getting your book formatted professionally for another $100-200 so that every reader that reads your book on any device has a good experience goes a long way. You end up with a perfect copy of your book you can upload to any platform out there. Pay a proofreader to read & edit your book.

My wife works formats book to the same standard as any major publishing company in the world and charges about 1/4 of the price. It constantly amazes me that people will pay for $50 for crap formatting, or do their own formatting that's barely ok, when they could pay $150 and have perfect formatting. If you ever had any questions or concerns she would happily look at books and point out formatting errors that could be fixed if wanted and give you a competitive quote. Just message me whenever and I can pass on your details.

The old saying never judge a book by its cover sounds nice, but I haven't read a book with a crap cover ever, EVER. If it looks crap, or like someone chopped it up and made it themselves, I pass straight by.

I think each children's book I produce costs me about $500-750 without any marketing. I need to sell 175-250 paperback copies to make back my money. Kindle and other eBook copies I don't even count the sales are so low. If a book doesn't cover that investment, then it was a failure. I write my books to fit specific categories or markets. A book about hockey, or soccer, or doctors etc, because they're easier to market, people are already looking for them. My fav book is about a caterpillar that can do anything it wants, I LOVE IT! but how the hell do you find a category for that? It's hard. Real Hard. If you write about things people aren't really searching for, your job is that much harder.

Marketing is where you can really lose some money. I think all up I've invested about $300-400 in marketing & advertising, that's over 2 years and about 12-15 books. The rest has been blogs, author interviews, free directories and author listings, social media etc.

I don't know where the hell this was going now lol. I think often Indie Authors fall into this trap of being 'indie' they think that they have to do it themselves, go it alone and look down their noses at any other indie authors that pay for any professional services.

There are some extremely opinionated and judgemental indie's out there and some freaking fantastic ones (like this group) that offer suggestions, help, and advice.

If you love writing and consider it a hobby or past time, then write for the love and fun of it. If you are trying to build a business or career, then put aside your personal feelings and look at every aspect of your book as a business. Your book is an investment, you wouldn't try to sell any other product unless it was perfect and you wouldn't pay for a product that was shonky or crap, even if it was some indie/artisan/handmade product.

Anyway, end of rant or whatever this was lol

This week on Indie Publishing Group we have the awesome Glenn McGoldrick!

http://www.indiepublishinggroup.com/a...

If anyone would like to write a guest blog about anything to do with indie authors or writing, publishing etc. then write me at ben.jackson.writer@gmail.com I'll give you and your book a shout out in the article!

Erica wrote: "I saw that! Congrats!"

Thanks Erica :)

So, one of my books 'The Day My Fart Followed Me To Hockey' got listed on a BookWorks blog release for September, 'Back To School Recommended Reading.' It's not much, but it is always cool when you get a mention that you didn;t have to hound someone for! :))

https://www.bookworks.com/2017/09/bac... Check it out and share it around if you're bored :)

Anita wrote: "I just saw the post on my facebook page. Ben, what a great format and design for the interview. Thank you for presenting me in such a positive light. It was fun."

It was my pleasure! I try to make the author interviews look attractive, easy to read, and include links to the author's books and social media throughout :)

Carole wrote: "shared!"

Ha ha thank you Carole, were you just sitting waiting lol ...

Today on Indie Publishing Group we have the awesome Anita Dickason!!!

http://www.indiepublishinggroup.com/a...

If anyone would like to write a guest blog about anything to do with indie authors or writing, publishing etc. then write me at ben.jackson.writer@gmail.com I'll give you and your book a shout out in the article!