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Book Writing & Publishing Tips from a Creativity Alchemist
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How I made $18,000 in 48 hours with my first course launch (with no webinar and no affiliates)

How I made $18,000 in 48 hours with my first course launch (with no webinar and no affiliates)

Even though I don’t consider myself an expert at doing online courses, I did pretty well with my first one. So this is an (epic) case study explaining everything I did to make 5-figures with my first course launch – without any affiliates promoting it for me, and without doing any webinars. I hope it will be

Derek Murphy marketing, online course 1944

How to build and grow an email list (my recommended email subscription service + free course on email marketing)

Whether you’re an author, artist or entrepreneur, you’ve probably heard “the money is in the list.” Building your email list gives you direct access to your clients, customers and fanbase. For the past several years I’ve used Mailchimp, and I continue to do so despite it’s problems (which I’ll discuss...

Derek Murphy 159
How to win Nanowrimo – 8 tips for smashing success!

How to win Nanowrimo – 8 tips for smashing success!

It’s almost November, which means Nanowrimo (national novel writing month) is coming. The rules are simple – start and finish 50,000 words of a new project in 30 days. Although it’s supposed to be fiction, many people use the momentum for non-fiction or to edit previous projects. As I mentioned in this article I wrote

Derek Murphy how to win, nanowrimo, writing tips 151
How to get your content shared by famous authors with book giveaways

How to get your content shared by famous authors with book giveaways

I’ve blogged before about the book giveaways I’ve been running – they work well and build a targeted list quickly – but the added value in book giveaways is that the authors you include are likely to share your giveaway with their following. This week I put up a new giveaway, and got Lauren Kate

Derek Murphy kingsumo giveaway, listbuilding for authors 130

You don’t have a traffic problem…

I just learned something new from Ryan Deiss and I’m putting it here in case I forget it. It’s a simple rule to online business that rings true for me. “You don’t have a traffic problem.” What you really have is a problem with motivation and conversion. If you knew that you’d get $10 per visitor

Derek Murphy entrepreneurship, online business, traffic generation 88
How to discover your personal strengths and apply them to your brand and business

How to discover your personal strengths and apply them to your brand and business

Since I started Creativindie I’ve been running it as a personal blog. Sure I try to get some traffic, and want people to sign up on my list, and maybe eventually hire me or buy something… but it’s been sloppy and haphazard. However, since I’ve decided I want to be writing fiction full-time, that means

Derek Murphy business, creativity, marketing, sales 71
If your Kindle Unlimited page reads suddenly tanked, it’s probably because of this…

If your Kindle Unlimited page reads suddenly tanked, it’s probably because of this…

In several groups this week, a lot of my author friends started reporting worst-ever months and a drastic drop in income due to a sudden drop in page reads. For authors in Kindle Unlimited, page reads could often be as much as half the income generated from Amazon Kindle. Today, I saw a *hypothetical* explanation

Derek Murphy page reads 551

Why Amazon is deleting book reviews: understanding Amazon’s new review policy and how to get back deleted reviews

UDPATE – also read this: Are advanced reader copies (ARCs) for book reviews illegal (against Amazon’s terms?) Amazon has been doing review purges for some time, but today was a massive glitch, with many authors seeing ALL of their reviews disappearing – both indie and traditionally published authors lost hundreds of reviews at once...

Derek Murphy book reviews 1175
Why pantsers are elitists and how it’s killing their book sales

Why pantsers are elitists and how it’s killing their book sales

In the writing community, there are two basic ways of writing books. Pantsers just write, not knowing where they are going to end up. Plotters go into it with an organized plan and chapter outline. Neither (I believe) is inherently better. However, I do think:A) it’s much easier to finish a book if you plot it

Derek Murphy finish your book, pantser, pantsing, plotting, writing 666
The creative war between writers and editors (and how to call a ceasefire)

The creative war between writers and editors (and how to call a ceasefire)

I recently watched the movie “Genius” – which is about Thomas Wolfe and the editor who got him into print. The topic is a fascinating one, something I’ve discussed in previous posts, but fleshed out in more romantic detail in the movie. In short: “genius” is the pure, uncivilized, manic, raw, passionate...

Derek Murphy editing, writing 387
Writing contests (2016) – win a free writer’s retreat!

Writing contests (2016) – win a free writer’s retreat!

  RESULTS: The winner is Lauren Smith, who writes historical romance (and an upcoming dragon shifter). Thanks everyone for entering, I’ll link to your articles and try to drive some traffic. I plan to do more writing contests like this in the future!   For the past 10 years I’ve been helping writers publish and

Derek Murphy writing contest, writing retreat 0
61 brilliant quotes & tips from writers on how to write, publish and promote your book.

61 brilliant quotes & tips from writers on how to write, publish and promote your book.

A few years ago I published a book called Write, Format, Publish, Promote. It’s a little outdated, so I just went through and fixed it up a bit – I’m going to make it permafree, to get lots of downloads and widen my funnel (free books are a great way to reach your target audience).

Derek Murphy 492
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Book Writing & Publishing Tips from a Creativity Alchemist
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