This month I published over 100 YouTube videos. I’m getting a little more confident, though I tend to ramble. In this one I discuss common self-publishing mistakes you should avoid that I see most indie authors screwing up. Here are some of the things I talk about. Ugly website Ugly book cover Spamming people Overprotective
This is a long post, because it’s about two very important things that are essential to your successful writing career. Part One Two things happened recently that you may not know about. Lewis Howes, pro athlete turned “School of Greatness” podcaster interviewed Anthony Robbins, to promote Tony’s new book, “Money...
I’ve written before about author websites but now that I’ve started making videos I can offer a more ‘hands-on’ approach. I volunteered to fix Randall Wood’s website, which was an eyesore: his books are already doing well but I knew he could be selling twice as much if he fixed up his website and his
Hands down, the best book marketing – virtually the only book marketing that is still effective – is growing your email list. To do that, you need a powerful optin offer. Optin offers have to be concrete, specific and give free value that your target readers desire. Recently I made a small change on mine:
Recently Nick Stephenson and Joanna Penn have been talking about “reader magnets” – or list building by giving people a reason to follow you (usually a free ebook). This isn’t a new tactic, I’m pretty sure I stressed it in Book Marketing is Dead over a year ago, but I still see very few authors doing
I’ve written a lot about book marketing. Some people read my books and learn how to do it right. Other people are lazy, so they just wait for any old offer to appear. Something I see being done far too often, is the invitation to write a guest post for a small blog with low
I don’t remember exactly how we decided to move to Prague; we were in Bangkok talking to Simon Whistler (Rocking Self-Publishing Podcast) and I’m tired of Taiwan – mostly because, I need to be surrounded with people excited about similar projects and there are extremely few self-publishers here. And now suddenly it’s...
This year I met a lot of people who are making Tshirts. Why Tshirts? Because creative people who can draw cool things have trouble selling just arts or prints. Tshirts are wearable art, and people like to wear cool/indie/artsy shirts that stand out. First I met the TeeSpring guys. TeeSpring is like Kickstarter – crowdfunding
I used to be a copious journal writer. I still am, but now it’s all digital in a text file, and I never go back through it. I can’t pick it up like I can with notebooks and flip through, rediscovering my younger self. Instead, as of 2014, I have Facebook’s “Year in Review.” At
I’ve known I needed to be using SlideShare for some time, but haven’t mustered the motivation to complete the labor intensive task of making Powerpoint presentations. If you’ve never heard of SlideShare, it’s like YouTube for Powerpoints. It’s automatically connected with LinkedIn, so you can publish your...
Earlier this year I spoke at the Author Marketing Live conference in Cleveland about book cover design and book marketing. Today Jim at AMC sent me the video – which is not publicly listed and not supposed to be given away for free – but he’s letting me share it with you. I’m an awkward,
Christmas is coming! You need to buy something that literary genius in your family will love, but they are so hard to please. You can’t go wrong with something that encourages them to finish their book, and tells them that you support and believe in their dream. Here are some gift ideas, ranging from silly
