Marketing

Quick Links: What Goes in a Press Kit?

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Do you have a press kit? You should. Where else can people find pictures you will let them use and more information about you. If you don’t have a press kit or just want to make sure the one you have is up to snuff, check out ‘s post at Digital Book World!

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What Goes in a Press Kit?

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As a self-published author (and these days, even if you’re a traditionally published author), you’ll likely be spending an insane amount of time on marketing. Having a robust press kit—specific to the needs of online marketing for authors—done in advance of your marketing push means maximum efficiency!

Sample Press Kit

Think of a press kit as a compilation album of your marketing materials, plus a few more goodies.

A sample press kit would have the following:

• An author photo at 300 dpi (high-resolution)
• Cover art at 300 dpi (high-resolution)
• Your book excerpt
• A sheet providing the various descriptions of the work (the one-line, the synopsis, etc.)
• An author bio (short and/or long, depending on the situation)
• Positive reviews (if you have them yet) and copies of any positive articles about you as an author or about your work

A digital press kit might “zip” all of these files into one folder for easy emailing and download. All of the above items are also things you will find in a typical list for a well-thought out author website, so you’re getting extra value out of assembling these materials and putting a press kit together.

About Those Marketing Descriptions

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Quick Link: Ten Crazy Realities About Writing a Sequel

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Do you write with the knowledge of a possible sequel in your head or are you one of those authors that waits to see if there is some success with your story and then worry about a sequel? I believe that you really have to think about a series or sequels just to get enough traction to gain a decent size audience.  What are your thoughts?  At Jenny Bravo Books, Jenny shares her experiences with writing a sequel.

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Ten Crazy Realities About Writing a Sequel

by Jenny Bravo

Friends, family, coworkers, and strangers who found me on Pinterest: here are a few things you should know before we dive into this post.

1. I wrote a novel. And as of last week, I wrote a second one. That Was the Year will be making its debut into the world in the near-ish future, so until then, you should probably check out These Are the Moments, aka novel #1, aka #TATM.

2. Writing a novel is a strange process. It’s kind of like giving birth, except from your brain. (Okay, that’s a weird analogy. Let’s pretend this didn’t happen.) If you’re looking for a place to start diving into your writing adventure, there are tips over here.

3. And the last thing you should know is that I need to go to sleep, but I wanted to write to you instead. I don’t know why you need to know that, but there it is.

Okay, let’s begin.

1. You still don’t know what you’re doing.

I’ll be honest with you: it was really hard for me to start this second novel. In this book, there were way too many possibilities of where the story could lead. But also? I didn’t know what I was doing. Maybe I’ll never know what I’m doing. I’ll just keep writing and pivoting and filling the pages.

So, don’t beat yourself up. The trick is to admit that you’re not an expert, then work like crazy to make words happen.

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Quick Link: Covers Can Make or Break a Book

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Yea yea yea. I know, covers are important and you have been told that many times here and other places. But Darren Beyer, at Indies Unlimited, isn’t just telling you. He is showing you with a real world example of what a great cover vs. a good cover can do. Ever hear of a little fantasy title called Game of Thrones?

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Covers Can Make or Break a Book

Guest Post by Darren Beyer

We are all visual learners. I understand the value strong visuals bring to the game. That’s why, when I launched my first novel, I decided to seek out the best cover artist, the perfect person to take my words and put them into a stunning depiction of a scene from my story. They say not to judge a book by its cover, but everyone judges a book by its cover — and that’s just human nature.

A Case Study in Cover Design

I recently began the cover process for my second book with artist Stephen Youll. I relish working with people who are at the top in their fields — Stephen fits that bill. What really got me was his story.  A number of years ago, a major publishing house came to him to take a crack at a cover for a book they were trying to bring to market. The first launch had failed, and they thought the cover had something to do with it.

The publisher knew they had a great book on their hands and gave Stephen a specific direction to follow. At the time of the launch, romance novels were among the most popular, and the publisher believed that putting a romance flare on the cover of this book would help it sell. The art shown to the right is what it went to market with — and the book met with the same lackluster response as it did in its first launch. What went wrong?

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Quick Link: Using Twitter to Make Powerful Connections as a Creative Professional

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Today’s social media post is all about Twitter, a great way to connect to people 150 characters at a time. Posting at Jane Friedman, Daniel Parsons explains the best way for authors to use Twitter.

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Using Twitter to Make Powerful Connections as a Creative Professional

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Today’s post is from Daniel Parsons (@DKParsonsWriter), author of The #ArtOfTwitter.

Finding an audience for your books can seem like an insurmountable task when you enter the publishing space with no prior experience. Thankfully, Twitter can help you become not only an engaged member of the community but—in time—an influencer with a loyal audience.

Four years ago, I joined Twitter because I was writing my first book, and every blog post on the internet seemed to be saying the same thing: authors need a social media presence. Starting out, I had one goal, and that was to get 3,000 engaged Twitter followers. Why 3,000? Well, I had heard that you only start to get interactions on every tweet when you hit that number, and publishers wanted authors with ready-made, interactive audiences.

A lot has changed in the last four years. For a start, I discovered self-publishing and decided that I preferred it to the traditional route. One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is my focus on Twitter. I now have 93,000+ followers, reach 500,000 people every month, and get over 200 interactions per day. My followers have helped me grab the attention of powerful influencers, got one of my stories 30,000 reads on the story-sharing site Wattpad, and landed me a job at a publishing house. Along the way, they’ve helped my tweets trend above those of A-list celebrities—beating the likes of Craig David and Ryan Seacrest in various hashtag games.

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Quick Links: Top Five Ways to Have an Awful Book Cover

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I see a lot of book covers during my day job and I can tell with one look who created their own book cover. It makes a huge difference in getting your potential audience to look at your book. So when I found this post by K.S. Brooks at Indies Unlimited I knew I found a kindred spirit. My personal pet peeve is #3 because very long titles make it very difficult to create sponsorship posts that look nice.  What are your hints for good book covers?

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Top Five Ways to Have an Awful Book Cover

by K.S. Brooks

I’m constantly looking at book covers as part of my “job” here at Indies Unlimited. On top of that, I run into authors posting their covers in groups all the time, asking for input. So I see a LOT of covers. And most of them all have the same issues.

What I find most ironic is that the same people keep posting book covers with the same problems. I don’t get that. Please allow me to make something perfectly clear. And I’m not just making this up to be difficult or bossy or right. I’m speaking from experience. I used to provide my own cover art to my small Indie publisher – and because of that, I’ve taken some lumps. But I’ve also learned some important things about book covers. I share this knowledge freely, to help my fellow Indie authors. Book covers are important. We all want to make a good first impression. Book sales count on it.

But I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t want to listen to my advice, but, silly me, I keep giving it in hopes that I can help someone, maybe… someday. What would happen if I started advising them to do the exact OPPOSITE of what should be done? Do you think maybe THEN they’d do the opposite just out of spite and end up with a decent cover? How about we give it a try? With that in mind, here are my top five tips for better book covers.

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Quick Link: Podcast – Marketing Your Book All the Way to the Bestseller Lists, with Jay Baer

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We are offering up something a little different today, a link to a podcast instead of a post. It is an interview between Chris Ducker and Jay Baer about book marketing that I thought was very interesting. Let me know if you like this or not.

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Marketing Your Book All the Way to the Bestseller Lists, with Jay Baer

In this podcast episode, Chris Ducker sits down with Jay Baer to learn exactly how to become a New York Times bestselling author! Get your notebooks ready!

Book marketing is a topic that has come up a lot for me lately. As many of you know, I’ve just wrapped a book, that has been traditionally published a while back.

Earlier this year, I interviewed Farnoosh Brock about her book on juicing, and her grassroots approach to marketing it – which worked very well for her. This time you will hear a different approach – a mix of old and new techniques, with some long-term brand building as the backbone.

In this interview, I talk with Jay Baer about his well-planned book marketing campaign, and we delve deep into how to become a New York Times bestselling author.

This is some very useful stuff, so get your notepads ready!

In this 50 minute episode, Jay and I discuss:

  • Why using unorthodox book marketing techniques can work in your favor.
  • How you can build awareness long before your book is released.
  • The criteria for hitting the NYT bestseller list.
  • How to utilize your community to make your book go viral.
  • Why hiring a publicist is still a good idea in the new business economy.
  • How to use re-targeting to your advantage.

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Quick Link: How Authors can Utilize Facebook Live

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Want a great tool to boost your social media reach and be able to interact with your fanbase? Alan Parks from Indies’s Unlimited gives a great tutorial on how to use Facebook Live.

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How Authors can Utilise Facebook Live

by Alan Parks

Almost every single Indie author that I know is on Facebook. Most of us spend time trying to sell our books to our friends, and many authors I know still insist on spending time copying and pasting a generic post to 20 or 30 Facebook groups and hoping that it will get them sales. STOP. There is a better way.

Facebook is still the best form of social media to use to sell your books, but you have to be smart. In recent months, Facebook has generously given us the best new tool for reaching and interacting with readers that we have had for years, and I haven’t seen anyone using it. It is called Facebook Live.

As authors, we hear a lot about algorithms. Whether it is Amazon algorithms or Facebook, all we hear is that these algorithms are working to stop people from seeing our posts/books. Facebook Live is different. If you have the Facebook app installed on a smart phone or tablet, you have the ability to use the live video to reach new and, crucially, different readers.

How to ‘Go Live’

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Quick Links – How to use Pinterest for Branding and Marketing

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Do you Pinterest? While not quite as popular as Facebook, Pinterest can be a great platform to add to your social media marketing plan, plus it is great fun! Over at Bad Redhead Media  where Melissa Flickinger has all the info on Pinterest and some great tips on how to really make it work for you. Do you have any great tips for managing social media?

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How to use Pinterest for Branding and Marketing by @melissaflicks

By Melissa Flickinger

Recently on #BookMarketingChat, we had the pleasure of discussing Pinterest with the brilliant Kate Tilton. Pinterest is an easy option for authors looking to extend their platform, build their brand, and connect with readers. Here are a few tips we chatted about to help you get started:

What type of boards and pins should I include? (I hear this question A LOT!)

  • The first thing I suggest is getting your list of keywords that you created for your author brand. Create boards based on those and add relatable pins.
  • Create a board for your blog posts, guest posts, featured articles and add pins that link back to your website.

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Quick Link: “Going Wide” – Gaining Traction on non-Amazon Vendors Part 1: The Upload Process

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eBook authors usually have a choice to be proprietary with Amazon, or go “wide” and try and get their books out to a bunch of different places. That is not as easy as it sounds but at Fiction University, Angela Quarles has some tips to make the choice to go wide a little easier.

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“Going Wide” – Gaining Traction on non-Amazon Vendors Part 1: The Upload Process

 By Angela Quarles, @AngelaQuarles

Part of the Indie Author Series

I see a lot of indies frustrated when they try to “go wide” by distributing to non-Amazon vendors, but then panic when they don’t see immediate results and pull their books back to being exclusive on Amazon. I wanted to tackle this topic because there are ways to get traction at these other vendors, but it does take time. But first, a primer on how to set up at the various vendors, because each can be confusing, and some extremely difficult (I’m looking at you Google).

Barnes and Noble

Like Amazon, B&N has its own name for the dashboard for uploading and managing your titles–NookPress. NookPress is relatively easy. On the first page there, you’ll want to click “Learn More” under the eBook Publishing graphic and then “Start Your Book” on the next page. Next it will ask you to sign in or create a new account. Once you’re inside and all set up, you’ll click “Create New Project.” It walks you through guided steps for setting up your project, as they call it. First, you give it a name, then you upload your manuscript (I upload an ePub), and then through pretty much the same questions as KDP. The only differences are:

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Quick Links: The 5 Most Common Mistakes Writers Make When Seeking Book Reviews

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Reviews are very important for all authors, but especially for indie authors. Good reviews help legitimize your writing and encourage other readers to check out your book. But getting reviews are very difficult.  At Live Write Thrive, Gisela Hausmann gives out tips to avoid stepping on your own toes when trying to get reviews.

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The 5 Most Common Mistakes Writers Make When Seeking Book Reviews

Today’s guest post is by top Amazon reviewer Gisela Hausmann. This content originally ran on the Huffington Post, and it is reprinted here with her permission.

The day before yesterday, I received an email asking me to review an indie author’s book. Somewhat ironically, this request email stated, “As you liked (title of book), you might also love my newest book, (title), because it’s in the same category as the book you already reviewed . . .”

I remembered the book I supposedly “liked.” I didn’t like it at all; I had awarded it with a negative review.

Obviously, this indie author made a mistake; most likely, because he rushed trying to find as many top reviewers as possible to whom he could offer his book “in return for an objective and unbiased review.”

Desperately Seeking Reviews

Seeking reviews from Amazon top reviewers is a common practice among indie authors. Since only about one percent of readers review the books they read, indie authors, who don’t have a huge marketing budget, try to build up the number of reviews their books receive by asking top reviewers like me to read and review their books.

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Quick Links: How To Best Optimize Your Blog Posts for SEO

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You have probably heard about SEO, and even know that it means Search Engine Optimization and that having good SEO means your site gets better traffic. However, SEO is a tricky thing, even for professionals. Over at Bad Redhead Media, Rachel Thompson shares some great tips on how to optimize your blog posts to get the most you can out of them. 

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How To Best Optimize Your Blog Posts for SEO

By Rachel Thompson

When I talk with authors about optimizing their blog posts for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), most look at me as though I’m speaking in tongues. And maybe I am: SEO is a different language when you think about it. Authors aren’t socialized to learn this stuff. It’s only through understanding the importance of book marketing, and how SEO fits into our author platform, that we realize, “holy shit, this optimization stuff truly does have an impact — maybe I should take it more seriously,” and so we do.

Well, some of us anyway.

What is Blog Optimization?

According to Hubspot:

When you optimize your web pages — including your blog posts — you’re making your website more visible to people who are looking for keywords associated with your brand, product, or service via search engines like Google.

Once I got serious about this publishing career thingy, I studied, took classes, hired a professional (Barb Drozdowich of Bakerview Consulting who is amazing) and switched to WordPress.org (from Blogger — if you’re an author, WordPress.org is, by far, the preferred publishing platform of the industry). My decades in Big Pharma didn’t prepare me for the enormity of the multitude of tasks required for online publishing, but it certainly helped me to embrace it.

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Quick Link: The Power of Instagram – Marketing Tips for Indie Authors

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Social media has to be a part of your marketing plan. But there are so many options and each option is not the same in terms of reaching new fans. Today’s offering by Penny Sansevieri at Writers In The Storm discusses how to use Instagram. Instagram is great, especially if you are looking to reach adults 18 – 30 ish.

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The Power of Instagram – Marketing Tips for Indie Authors

By Penny Sansevieri

Instagram has seen staggering growth since Facebook purchased it. And every day, more authors are beginning to use it, with great success, to engage their readers, build their fan base, and sell books. And here’s why:

First, it’s simple to use. Second, it’s not nearly as ad-driven (yet) as Facebook, despite being owned by them. Third, Instagram is visually-driven, so it’s much easier to engage someone than it is on Facebook. Plus, it drives far high per-follower engagement than Facebook or Twitter, 58 times and 120 times more respectively.

Anyone can create an Instagram account, and there’s lots of information available on how to do so. So I’m going to go beyond the obvious tips like adding a good profile picture, and remembering to add your bio and your site URL. This is certainly important, but it’s not going to drive goal conversion (namely building followers and selling books) to the level that most indie authors prefer. So I’ve pulled together some tips on how to develop innovative Instagram marketing for whatever it is you’re promoting.

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Quick Links: This is the Reason you Need Writing Goals and How to Implement Them

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So the writing frenzy of NaNoWriMo is over and the holiday craziness of December hit and I have already fallen off the wagon with my writing goals!  Good thing I have Rachel Thompson over at Bad Redhead Media to get me back on track!

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This is the Reason you Need Writing Goals and How to Implement Them

By Rachel Thompson

Most writers (myself included) find it difficult to stick to any kind of a writing plan, especially as the year goes by. Well, let’s make a plan right now, before the year starts. No need to wait until January with all that resolution crap. Let’s start right now, in December. If you did the #NaNoWriMo thing, then you’re done starting December 1 and you can breathe a sigh of relief — you can go back to writing All The Things. If you didn’t do NaNo and don’t even know what it is, cool: this post will focus on helping you meet all kinds of different writing goals (books, articles, blog posts, and social media).

Speaking of goals: let’s make them and meet them. Multiple studies have shown that if you make goals, you complete them. In fact, “over 100 separate studies in a wide range of experimental situations have come to the same conclusion: people who explicitly state when and where their new behaviors are going to happen are much more likely to stick to their goals.” (Source: James Clear)

You don’t have to share your goals with anyone (some say you’re less likely to succeed if you do). This is purely to get you going NOW.

This exercise is for you (and hey, for me, too — I’m putting my goals in writing right here and now so thank you). Let’s deconstruct.

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Quick Link: Selling Books on Social Media: 4 Steps to Less Wasted Time

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Want some help getting your social media responsibilities under control? (This is coming from someone who just spent way to much time on Pinterest.) Chris Syme has some great tips on how to make the most of your social media marketing over at Anne R. Allen’s Blog.. With Ruth Harris.

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Selling Books on Social Media: 4 Steps to Less Wasted Time

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. But how many social media channels are enough?

Even though it may be true that you have potential readers on every social media channel, it is a waste of your time and resources to try to connect with people everywhere. As the emphasis in social media marketing switches from number of fans (reach) to connecting and building loyal fans (engagement), it’s time to build a social media strategy around developing a troop of engaged followers that will help carry your valuable content to their friends.

It’s time to learn how to get more engagement with less social media.

Four Steps to Less Wasted Social Media Time

There are four key steps to building this new less is more strategy with social media marketing: find your audience, designate your primary channel, build your outpost channels, and upgrade your content quality. Before we dig into the four steps, let me define the terms primary channel and outpost channel.

What is a Primary Channel?

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Quick Links: How to Write (and Not to Write) an Author Bio

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At Fiction University, guest poster Gail Carriger writes on how to give your author bio a little pizazz and make it part of your marketing tools instead of something to just check off your to-do list. On a personal note, I am a big fan of Gail’s Parasol Protectorate series. If you like humor, steampunk, and a little romance check them out!

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How to Write (and Not to Write) an Author Bio

By Gail Carriger, @gailcarriger 

Part of the How They Do It Series

I still have readers who tell me they purchased my first book because they liked the bio. Sure, the cover got them to pick it up, and the description got them intrigued, but they bought it because of the bio. I think this is uncommon. I took a risk with my bio and it worked.

But first, here’s what most authors do…

Your Fill-In-The-Blank Author Bio

[Name] lives in [City] where she pretends to be a [pithy comment on boring day job] when she would rather be writing. She spends her free time [standard hobby] and [less standard hobby]. She also likes to [quirky and slightly off base skill – like fencing or black belt in some combat thingy ]. She lives with a [tolerant, saintly, long-suffering] spouse/partner and two [witty descriptor] [cats/children] and a [dog/garden].

So, that’s your formula.

Why would readers pick up a book written by someone who doesn’t have the imagination to come up with a unique bio?

My recommendation? Break from tradition.

How?

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