A couple years ago, I told people I planned to write fiction, and give away a bunch of short, free books, to see which performed the best. Now that I’ve actually put some out, though not exactly as intended, I’m able to start seeing some interesting things happen. Firstly, though all are pretty similar, in The 3 secrets to book...
I started publishing fiction this year, and I’m still just getting my feet wet. After the first 3 months in KDP, and after a bunch of work, effort, time and money spent promoting my book launches, I’ve gotten really lazy (in my defense I was finishing my PhD) and I wanted an easier way to The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a...
For several years I’ve been thinking about holding writing retreats or author-training events in beautiful, inspiring locations around the world. Now that I’m finally finished with my PhD (wahoo!) I’m ready to get started. Ideally I would sell spaces and split amazing AirBnB rentals, to at least pay for my own costs -and I...
I’m not a big believer in print marketing materials, nor writing/author conferences (to promote your books) because: It’s a lot of time, money and effort and requires you to manually hand out your materials (and usually to other authors, not readers!) There are much better ways to market books, for much less money. I’ve been...
So my books are doing pretty good; I’ve moved Shearwater to permafree and got over 5,000 downloads this month. But that made me realize I was probably missing a MAJOR opportunity to connect with those readers, so I checked my back copy (the material at the end of my book) and found it seriously wanting. The 3 secrets to book marketing...
I see a lot of authors asking for feedback between a few cover design choices. This always has mixed results, since people on Facebook don’t know anything about book cover design, they probably aren’t your target market, they probably aren’t ideal readers of your genre, and they aren’t designers. So what inevitably...
Recently I wrote a post about how it doesn’t make sense for me to market your books for you (or even hire virtual assistants to help you do it). But that doesn’t mean VA’s aren’t crazy useful, if you hire your own. Authors always complain about book marketing because they just want to focus on The 3 secrets to book...
All rules are meant to be broken, and I won’t swear that I never use these fonts (I even included some in my genre-based lists of fonts you CAN use). But you can only break the rules if you learn them first. If you’re not a designer, steering clear of these overused (and gag-worthy) fonts The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a...
People sometimes ask me if I will market their books for them in exchange for a profit share. This seems like a good deal to them; I’ll earn more than I would otherwise once their book takes off, and they don’t need to pay me upfront. Win-win. But the truth is, almost nobody will ever The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a...
I talk SO MUCH about book cover design, but I thought it would be easier to just see all the important stuff in one simple book cover design checklist. So before you publish (or if you see someone’s hideous cover and want to gentle encourage them to make a better one) please share and use The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted...
I’m finally getting ready to start building the 21 Day Author Platform, a step-by-step process of building a profitable author platform in just three weeks. So I put together this roadmap/infographic that outlines the whole process. I might be making a “prepublishing checklist” or something like that too – but a lot of...
Today someone involved with a prestigious writing retreat requested to join my Facebook group, then immediately spammed us with a last chance offer to join an expensive online writing course. Technically, she was offering something that could have appealed to writers, so I felt bad for deleting the post, but on the other hand… you The...
