Business End

Articles about the business aspects of publishing and self-publishing.

5 Important Things That Authors Need To Know About Self-Publishing With Mark Dawson

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This is a great podcast to get your feet wet with indie publishing. There is a transcript if podcasts are not your thing.

5 Important Things That Authors Need To Know About Self-Publishing With Mark Dawson

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If you’re just getting started in self-publishing, there are some things that you need to know upfront in order to save yourself time, money and heartache along the way.

In this interview, I discuss the basics with Mark Dawson from Self-Publishing Formula.

In the intro, I discuss the first album produced entirely by AI as reported by Digital Trends. The article goes into how the artist, Taryn Southern, uses AI as a creative tool and also starts to question whether AIs can be trained with copyrighted material. The beginning of a new form of copyright discussion, for sure.

I talk about why it’s so important to capture ideas in the moment, because time moves on and things change, based on the map shop around the corner from me closing recently. Walking past that shop almost every day inspired Map of Shadows, so it’s sad to see it go. [You can see a picture of it here Instagram.com/jfpennauthor]

Read the full post on The Creative Penn!

Can Affiliate Programs Damage Your Reputation?

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We are all looking for ways to add more value to our lives and having money helps. Utilizing affiliate programs are one way of monetizing your online presence but it isn’t right for everyone and is a lot harder to get decent results than people realize.

Can Affiliate Programs Damage Your Reputation?

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Affiliate programs and referrals are an increasingly common way of monetizing your content. A company may ask you to recommend them on your podcast or website using a special link that identifies you. In return, you will receive a percentage of the sales that result from the referral.

It can be an easy and potentially lucrative source of income, but affiliate schemes can impact your personal brand when they turn sour.

When you endorse a product or service, you are staking your reputation on that endorsement. You have built up your readers’ trust, and you are telling your readers they can extend that trust to the company you’re endorsing. But if that company proves to be unreliable, the reader will lose confidence in your judgement, and it will be a long time—if ever—before that trust is restored.

So how can content creators be sure of who they’re tying their reputation to?

There is an element of risk in any endorsement, but carefully vetting affiliates can reduce that risk substantially. Below, you’ll find five basic techniques for appraising affiliate partners. These criteria can help you weed out the riskier propositions, and feel more confident that you’re partnering with a company that’s worthy of your endorsement.

Read the full post at Self Publishing Advice From The Alliance Of Independent Authors

The Vexing Conundrum of Amazon

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I usually root for the underdog and I believe that competition is good for the buyer. Even so, I have to admit I got sucked into Amazon. It’s isn’t their fault. They do what businesses do, try and be the best. None of the eBook competition put the effort in. When I ask clients about who sells the most books for them, it is Amazon.

The Vexing Conundrum of Amazon

 By Dario Ciriello
At some point or other, any indie author must wonder how they really feel about Amazon.

I freely confess I’ve been all over the board with my attitude towards this extraordinary organization.

Some few of us will remember that Amazon began as a bookstore, and just a bookstore: music, video, and software followed soon after. Twenty-four years after its founding, Amazon’s dominance of the book space is such that no indie author stands a chance of attaining any significant visibility, let alone success, without them.

Those of us who’ve “gone wide” with some of our titles, i.e., have chosen to make them available through several other online retailers, have probably noticed that somewhere between 70 percent and close to 100 percent of our sales come from Amazon. In fact, according to the 2017 authorearnings.com report, Amazon accounted for a whopping 83 percent of US ebook sales. With just 9 percent of market share, Apple iBooks is a very distant second place finisher.

Read the full article on Fiction University!

The Ultimate Guide to Book Trailers: How To Produce a Killer Book Promo Video

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Book trailers are a great way to get future readers interested in your story, especially if you do it the right way. With the algorithm changes on Facebook, you actually will get more results if you can use video to reach people.

The Ultimate Guide to Book Trailers: How To Produce a Killer Book Promo Video

By Julia Drake

Consider these stats: Video racks up over 22 billion daily views. It increases the organic reach of social media content by over 100%, compared to photos or text. It ranks toward the top of the first page in Google searches, is popular across demographics, and builds an instant emotional connection with your audience.

No wonder publishers and authors are increasingly leveraging video to tap into an exploding audience. But as much as a good book promo video makes that lasting first impression, a bad video is like a bad book cover—it cannot be unseen and can ruin a reader’s expectation of a book before they’ve even had a chance to crack into that first page. To help you avoid this pitfall, here are some key considerations and steps to successfully produce and distribute a book trailer that sells your work:

What’s the big deal with video?

Read the full post at Writer’s Digest

How To Write A Character Who Can Carry A Series

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I really believe that the best way to get noticed as an author is to have a series. But not all characters or stories are up to being series worthy. Here is a post to help you come up with a series worthy character.

How To Write A Character Who Can Carry A Series

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Construction working triplets by day, ballet dancing crime solvers at night!

Launching a series is golden. It’s that moment in Minesweeper when you hit the right square and a safety zone unfurls. You have eager readers for your next book. You have an agent waiting to read your manuscript. You have characters and backdrops for a long, long time. Or… do you?

It’s not easy to create a protagonist – or even a small cluster of central characters – who can keep readers’ interest and flex and grow through all the plot variations your series will take.

Characterization is already tough. We write characters and wonder if anyone will like them/care about them/appropriately loathe them/accept them as realistic. Creating a compelling series character is all of this and more. It requires a lot of foresight and (ugh) record-keeping. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to it.

Read the full post on Stand Out Books!

Sell More Books With These Critical Cover Rules

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Covers are so important. And really there is a lot more that goes into one than you might realize to make it look professional. Unless you have a background in art, graphic design, or other related skills you really should do yourself a favor and hire someone. Trust me, your story is worth it.

Sell More Books With These Critical Cover Rules

Almost every author that reaches out to me wants to sell more books, so you’re not alone. But surprisingly, aside from doing no marketing, the number one hurdle is often the book cover design.

Unfortunately this is a much more common problem for indie authors because we’re left to our own devices, we don’t have a publishing house making expert recommendations  to a team of in-house professional designers.

But indie authors don’t get a free pass, if you want to sell more books you need to take a hard look at your book cover, and determine whether it’s supporting your book marketing in all the right ways.

Everything should be easy to read

Read the full post at Author Marketing Experts

Comparing Print-On-Demand vs Offset Printing (Pros & Cons)

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If you ever decide that you want to publish your indie book as a print title, this post goes quite in depth on the differences between print-on-demand and offset printing. A must read!

Comparing Print-On-Demand vs Offset Printing (Pros & Cons)

by Jessica Ruscello

This is a guest post by Jessica Ruscello, a copywriter at Blurb, Inc. Jessica is also a writer, teacher, and photographer who makes her mark with empty coffee cups, ink spills, and red lipstick. She’s passionate about creativity, people, and the written word. She believes anything worth doing is worth doing beautifully. When not chasing the perfect sentence, she’s stalking Bay Area beauty camera in-hand, amazed and grateful that she gets to call San Francisco her home.

The last ten years—even the last five—have seen game-changing developments in printing technology. Even if print-on-demand has been around longer than that, we’re now seeing these digital machines produce exquisite quality. Advanced inkjet technology now creates pages and covers that are nearly identical to those created with traditional offset printing, offering incredible advantages to self-publishers.

How can you make sure you’re getting the most return out of it? Let’s find out.

Read the full post at Reedsy.

Is Writing Being Devalued by Giveaways and Cheap Ebooks?

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This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. I LOVE to read. And while I don’t have as much reading time as I wish, I do read fast and manage to do my part. I still can’t get through my to-be-read pile. Because of one of my day jobs I am constantly being exposed to a lot of titles. Some I end up deleting after a chapter or even a paragraph because there are so many good stories out there, why waste time on stories that are not going to thrill me. But having this large amount of decent content means I never get to authors I love and would have to pay more for their titles. On the flip side, I am currently reading a series that I got the first story for free in one of those anthologies and the story was so good, I had to buy the whole series right there because I was going to die if I didn’t know what happened next! What are your thoughts?

Is Writing Being Devalued by Giveaways and Cheap Ebooks?

by Jane Friedman

Increasingly, at writing conferences and in the mainstream media, I observe growing unrest surrounding the proliferation of free and cheap literature, particularly ebooks. The reasons for sharp discounts and giveaways are legion (and some reasons are better than others), but regardless of the reason, I see greater peer pressure on and shaming of those who are seen to “devalue” literature in our culture.

Whole books have been written on this topic, as it’s an anxiety affecting creators in diverse fields. Some describe the phenomenon from a neutral and even historical perspective (“how have we ended up here?”), some are more activist in their approach (“fight and resist”), and still others are pragmatic (“here’s how to play with the hand you’ve been dealt”).

Read the full story on Jane Friedman!

Benefits of being a hybrid author

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There are pros and cons to traditional publishing vs. indie or self-publishing. Why not do both? Pub Crawl has started an excellent series on just this question!

Benefits of being a hybrid author: When to self-publish and when to go the traditional route? Part One: Traditional Publishing

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Julie here! Today, I have Falguni Kothari as my guest on the blog. Falguni is a successful “hybrid author,” with both traditional and self-publishing experience. Her new book, MY LAST LOVE STORY (Harlequin/Graydon House), comes out tomorrow, January 23, 2018. This is Part One of a two part post, so be sure to come back tomorrow for Part Two. Take it away, Falguni!

Never keep all your eggs in one basket. The adage has become more of a philosophy I’ve adopted to navigate various aspects of my life, including my publishing career. So, what or who is a hybrid author? A writer who avails herself of all the publishing opportunities available to her, such as traditional, self and paid publishing, in various combinations, is a hybrid author. She is not turned off by the ever-shifting landscape of the publishing industry, but rather, she slams open doors for herself and charges across the altering, often turbulent publishing landscape, very much a captain of her own ship.

Read the full post on Pub Crawl!

6 Lessons Learned from a Year of 101 Rejections

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I admire author Natalie D-Napoleon. She read the same article I did about “Why You Should Aim For 100 Rejections A Year” but Natalie actually put it into practice even though she is a self admitted sensitive type.  Maybe there is hope for me after all! It is a really solid article with great tips and lessons learned, so I hope you will go read it.

6 Lessons Learned from a Year of 101 Rejections

By Natalie D-Napoleon

Earlier this year I came across an article by Kim Liao in which she explained “Why You Should Aim For 100 Rejections A Year.” As soon as I finished reading the piece I went to the folder in my email marked “Writing Submissions 2017” and for the first time in my life, I began to count my rejections rather than counting my acceptances. I had effortlessly amassed 53 rejections. I punched my fist in the air and whooped out loud. It was June and I was already halfway to 100 rejections for the year.

I am the sensitive type (of course, I’m a writer): I weep openly when listening to sad love songs or during Claire and Jamie’s various reunifications on Outlander, and I have cried in the past on my friend’s and husband’s shoulder when my writing has been rejected. However, before Kim Liao’s article, another woman had sent me on the journey of beginning to accept that rejection was less about failure and more about getting closer to your goals. In 2015, I attended the first BinderCon conference in L.A. BinderCon began as a “secret” Facebook group of women writers sharing contacts and information and grew into a movement and conference which supports women and gender variant writers.

At BinderCon 2015, Katie Orenstein, founder of The OpEd Project, spoke about the lack of representation of women in the media and the reasons why. As a former journalist and foreign correspondent, she had a perspective on being rejected that I could not fathom at the time. Orenstein opened my eyes to one impressive fact—that women submit their work less than men. She had the statistics to prove it and the acceptances and consequent higher representation of men in the media. In one generalized conclusion: When women and people of color get rejected, we take it personally. When white men’s work is rejected, they don’t take it as a measure of the worth of their work—they decide it simply needs to find the right home elsewhere.

Read the full post on Writer’s Digest!

Quick Link: Book Marketing: How to Skyrocket Sales of Your Book

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

I write because I love stories and find the act of writing to be very satisfying. It is not, unfortunitly, how I pay the bills and I doubt will ever be. I am ok with that. But if you are looking to make any money from your writing, you need to be able to market effectively.  (what a totally cool name!), at Self-Publishing School has a great overview of book marketing!

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Book Marketing: How to Skyrocket Sales of Your Book

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Just because you wrote a new book doesn’t mean that your book is guaranteed to sell. Even if it’s the next Great American Novel, it won’t be a success if it doesn’t get into the collective conscious of the public. This is why your book needs good marketing tactics to back it up.

Marketing takes planning, organization, and consistent action; it’s hard work. But the good news is that marketing is also about fostering connections and relationships, which can be rewarding to you and your fan base. And since you’re the one who knows your book from cover to cover, your backstory, your reasons for writing it, and who your ideal reader is, it’s your duty to put a plan in place to best connect with your intended audience and share your story.

We know, we know…you’ve put a ton of effort into writing, editing, and getting your book ready for publication that the thought of adding another layer of “work” is not the most appealing idea.

But realize that if you launch your book without a marketing plan, FAR fewer people will read it. It will hamper the success of the book you’re working on now, as well as others you plan on publishing in the future. So if you dream of becoming a New York Times bestselling author, or if you want your book to help you reach other lifestyle goals, a book marketing strategy is your essential key to success.

Read the full post on Self-Publishing School!

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: How to Build a Personal Brand While Staying Authentic to Your Craft

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

This is the hard part about being an author as opposed to a writer. You have to market yourself. That is hard, a lot of us (me included) have a hard time connecting socially on the web and think of marketing as a dirty word. At The Write Life, has some great information on how to help us so that we can reach others while still staying us.

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How to Build a Personal Brand While Staying Authentic to Your Craft

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You’re a writer, a change-maker, someone who influences culture — not a boring old corporate brand. You roll your eyes when it comes time to talk about working on your personal brand.

I get it; It goes against your anarchist, artist nature.

A few years ago after nearly two decades as an entrepreneur, I came back to my love: Writing.

About a year into my time at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, a classmate and I attended an all-day marketing for writers seminar. Somewhere around the second or third presenter, I was totally overwhelmed. I thought the hardest work I’d do as a writer would be the writing. I had no idea just how much the publishing industry had tightened its belt, and how much promotion was now in writer’s hands.

I wanted to create art, not be a one-woman marketing show.

Read the full post on The Write Life!

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Quick Link: Indie authors: Your Pub Date is Not As Important as You Think

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

In keeping with the “take care of yourself” vibe, I give you this article from award winning author Tabitha Lord at Writer unBoxed.

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Indie authors: Your Pub Date is Not As Important as You Think

by Tabitha Lord

The pub date: THE big day of an author’s life, right? All of the toiling, editing, revising and decision-making comes down to a fateful 24 hours — a speck on the calendar, but a very important speck.

Or so they say. But that’s not necessarily the case, at least, not for us indie authors.

We hear a lot about the all-important pub date as authors, but it’s important to parse whom the pub date really matters to and why. For traditionally published authors, a book’s success can largely hinge on early sales. Much attention is given to garnering pre-orders in hopes of pushing a book onto a bestseller list during release week and encouraging retailers to order more books.

Read the full post on Writer unBoxed.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

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Quick Link: KINDLE SCOUT –STEP INSIDE FOR A TOUR

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Have you tried using Kindle Scout for one of your titles? What did you think? I love it as a reader. (Because we all know I haven’t finished anything yet.) If you haven’t heard of Kindle Scout, or you wanted to learn more Debbie Burke from Kill Zone has an excellent article on the process. Check it out!

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KINDLE SCOUT –STEP INSIDE FOR A TOUR

By Debbie Burke

Kindle Scout is Amazon’s innovative program where readers “scout” for new books and vote for ones they believe should be published. Back in April, I covered the basics of Scout for TKZ. Since then, I submitted my thriller Instrument of the Devil and went through my own 30-day campaign. Today, let’s open the Scout door and take a tour inside.

SUBMISSION PROCESS:
To submit to Scout, Amazon requires a cover (at author’s expense), a complete, never-before-published, edited manuscript of 50+K words, a 45-character one-liner (logline), a 500-character book description, author bio, and a thank-you note to readers who nominated the book (more on this later).

After Scout accepts the submission, they select the dates for the 30-day campaign, and provide a link that shows the preview exactly as it will appear on the Scout site. The first 25 or so pages of the book are excerpted as a sample for readers to vote on.

Read the full post on Kill Zone

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

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Quick Link: Book Marketing: How to Get Your Self-published Books into Bookstores

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Indie publishers in brick and mortar stores? Yep, the post from the Self-Publishing Advice Center is more a cautionary tale of what not to do BUT if you join the Alliance of Independent Authors you also get a free (!) download of their book on how to get your title into stores!

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Book Marketing: How to Get Your Self-published Books into Bookstores

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The latest guidebook for indie authors in ALLi’s Successful Self-publishing Series has been written to answer one of the most frequent questions posed by self-published writers: “How do I get my book stocked in a bookstore?” – and the frequent supplementary query: “Is it even worth trying?”

Although most indie authors make most of their sales online, many writers would love to see their books stocked in bricks-and-mortar stores – the kind where we bought books when we were kids, before Amazon was even a glint in Jeff Bezos’s eye. But many of them fear it can’t be done.

At ALLi, we believe it is possible for indies to work effectively with bookstores, and many of our author members are doing so. We also believe it is the indie’s prerogative to choose whether or not to take that route, and no author should feel a failure if they don’t.

But to make the decision that’s right for you, you owe it to yourself to acquaint yourself with the facts, rather than be deterred by rumours or misinformation.

Read the full post on Self-Publishing Advice Center

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

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