Want to split a castle with me? At least once a year I spend a few weeks at an exclusive writing retreat in a European castle... and one lucky author gets a free spot. Sign up to win! Want to make a living doing what you love? Join over 20,000 passionate creatives and turn your vision into a profitable business. …
Read More »Other Stuff
How to stop time – productivity and time management for creatives (write faster + defeat procrastination)
You’re early! These are just quick notes to myself… Deep work Mindset. Doing the important work first. Organized intent/awareness Deep work -Saying no (thesis research, refusal, defiance.) Bartleby the Scrivener, I’d rather not. -outsourcing Habits Triggers Rewards Sleep schedule Food Solitude Community/competition Supplements Tea Coffee (Bulletproof) Caffeine Water Lion’s Mane Gapapentin Kratom Marijuana Modafinil Ritalin “Men …
Read More »How to warm up a big email list (joint author giveaways)
How to warm up a big email list: A lot of you have been posting that you did a group giveaway and got a big email list but you’re not sure how to use it. Most authors will send one or two emails about themselves and their free book. You’ll get much better conversion if you share some other giveaways …
Read More »Why I don’t retweet other authors
I’m a big fan of helping indie authors – I don’t think anyone can call me selfish with my time or resources (I give away a lot of both, freely). But I also don’t retweet other authors very often. In fact, I actively purge my feed of book promotions or spam. And I unfollow authors who share them. Twitter is …
Read More »Fiction book launch strategies continued (Shearwater part 2)
I wrote a huge book launch post a couple weeks ago about the launch of my first ever fiction. I still feel exhausted, even though I haven’t done all that much in the last couple weeks. But now it’s time for part two: what happens after launch. Basically, I want my book to stay in the top 10,000 in the …
Read More »When should you give up on your creative dream?
Persistence is not noble. This is the issue where I divide from most other leaders in the field – most creative people tell you to just keep creating. Keep doing the work. Don’t worry if the market isn’t responding. Don’t worry if nobody gets it. If you feel inspired to create, just make what you want to. As long as …
Read More »How to be un-invisible (how to find your market and get famous)
After running Creativindie for over five years, I’m finally building up my autoresponder sequence… this is one of the emails. I’m starting to think towards my next non-fiction book, Paid to Create, and might use some of the same material there. A lot of writers and artists have trouble finishing the work. They get stuck in the production phase. They …
Read More »Book marketing tips for indie authors & self publishers
I talk a lot about book marketing on this site, but I’m not very organized… so I went through and picked some of my favorite posts. There’s a LOT of content here. For the most recent stuff, you should Click Here to search the site for new posts on book marketing. Also, you should grab Book Marketing is Dead on Amazon. …
Read More »Oops – I unsubscribed the wrong half of my email list
I was trying to unsubscribe people who never opened my emails, but screwed something up with Mailchimp segmentation. I was trying to clean things up, but made a big mess. I’ll try to figure it out asap! UPDATE: So I was using Mailchimp segmentation to try and get rid of some of the emails that never opened any emails; people …
Read More »Why using Kickstarter to crowdsource your book (fundraising for authors) is a bad idea
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 …
Read More »