Creativindie Experiments in self-publishing, productivity and building a creative empire

Today I chatted with Michelle Madow and Leia Stone about their recent book launches – since we all launched a book on 1/26th, it’s been fun to see how our different marketing choices, platform and audience has impact the success of our books.   Here’s a list of topics we cover: Pricing – free, 99cents, 2.99? Summary description (keywords, categories) …

I used Kickstarter on my first non-fiction book. I very barely succeeded raising less than $1000. Here is how it works: you basically promise a copy of the book and any extras. You give bigger/more fun prizes depending on donation amount (these aren’t really “donations” – people expect to get something in return). You can include personal stuff like “10 …

Hitting #1 in the Free categories on Amazon isn’t that hard. It’s not a big deal. It doesn’t qualify you as a bestselling author. Hitting #1 in the Paid categories is harder, but not that hard. I did it today with 64 sales. I’m a bestselling author on Amazon right now. And some of my books are bestsellers semi-often. But that …

Free book launch cheatsheet: This was my first ever book launch, and I’ve learned SO much since then… click here to download my companion workbook for the Guerrilla Publishing book… it has all my best book marketing strategies and some step by step book launch timelines you can use.   Firstly – this isn’t actually my first book or book launch, …

For a couple years I’ve been telling authors to publish like a business: put out a “minimal viable novel” and get some feedback before betting the farm. Finish 5 chapters before writing the whole book. If you can’t get real readers to love the first 5 chapters, writing the rest is a waste of time. And spending thousands of dollars …

I have something to say and I feel it needs to be said, though I’m not sure what exactly it is. On the eve of publishing my first fiction, I’m coming to terms with the potentiality of failure, and it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever known. Maybe it’s because I just watched Me and Earl and the Dying …

One of the things I see a lot of authors doing, is asking people to “like” their Facebook page. That’s an immense waste of effort. First – you’re asking for a favor, something you should never do. Even if it’s “I’ll like your page if you like mine.” Second – getting other random authors or friends to like your page …

I made a big mistake with my author website, which I rectify in this video: I chose a “clever” tagline for my website that wasn’t clear, didn’t have any keywords, and didn’t offer my ideal readers the benefits they’re looking for. In this video I talk about branding, keywords, search visibility, getting and keeping traffic, and making sure you’re offering …

Last week I went through my manuscript one last time and sent it out to beta readers; I’d already gone through it a dozen times, and I thought it was pretty clean. I assumed there’d be a handful of typos (there always are), and that the beta readers would catch them (they usually do). However, while usually I had one …

After years of helping authors design, publish and market their books, in 2016 I’m focused on publishing my own young adult fiction. Since I’m building a network of powerful young adult book blogs and review sites, I wanted to share my platform with other young adult authors who are having difficulty getting visibility or connecting with teen readers. I’ll also …