You’ve finished writing. You’ve gotten comments from editors and beta-readers. Now, it’s time to publish your book. Unfortunately, you can’t upload the original Word document. Well, you can, but your book will look terrible. The online retailer might reject the file. Formatting your book property is hard. I’ve published 12 and I still run into…
Since I read mostly books by indie authors, I’m still coming across covers (and websites) that just break my heart. In the post What Makes a Good Book Cover, I talked about cover design. Unless you have the funds to keep hiring a designer or you know someone, you’ll probably need to design more than…
Bad writing isn’t the only way to pull readers about out of a story. Bad formatting can as well. You put a lot of work into your story. You should present it as if it’s your pride and joy. I use InDesign to format my books. I know most people use Word. Some use Scrivener. Here…
Authors have to write and market their books, both of which are full-time jobs. Indie and small press authors often do all of that along with formatting their books, designing covers, researching keywords, updating their books…..on top of having a full-time job because most writers can’t make a living off of their books. Being an author,…
Why do you need a marketing plan? Because you want people to read your book. You need a clear idea of what you want for your book and how you’re going to achieve it. I’ve tried winging it for the past..several years. I’m not seeing any results from it. Since I want my books to…
You can’t just use social media. You have to examine it. Watch for any new trends. I’m noticing more people are putting hashtags in their Twitter bio. Some articles about Twitter profiles say don’t do this while others say it’s okay. I think the profile looks more attractive without the hashtags. In the past, if…
Book Marketing and Branding How to Run an Instagram Influencer Campaign Email Newsletters vs. Content Notifications: A Head-to-Head Comparison Why Book PR Needs Lead Time. Lots of it. How to Use Facebook Groups to Get More Traffic and Traction for Your Blog Horror/Fantasy/Sci-Fi Creepy Reads for Halloween 13 romantic horror movies On Building A World…
People will judge a book by its cover, and it’s interior. I touched on this in the post What Does Your Cover Say? How do you escape the DIY look most self-published books have. Well, you can hire a professional cover designer. For some, that’s not realistic. I don’t have the money to keep going to…
As you might know, Amazon KDP allows authors to setup pre-orders. Publishing professionals have been singing pre-orders praise for ages. All those sales take effect on the books release date and the Amazon rating shoots up. I was so sure I’d do pre-orders for Chains of the Sciell until I leaned you can’t do it through…
Bad formatting makes it hard for me to enjoy the story. I don’t mean the odd hiccup like a sentence with too many spaces between the words. I mean obvious formatting issues. Book design is one of those things you don’t notice when it’s done right, but it screams at you when it’s done wrong….
