I see a lot of indie authors begging for reviews (and feeling stupid for it). I hate begging for stuff. I hate asking friends and families for reviews, giving out ARC copies, and then knowing specifically who should be but isn’t reviewing my books. Trust me, I’ve been there. But I stopped that nonsense years
When I talk about what authors or artists need to do to sell their work and earn more money, a common response is “It’s not about the money for me. I’m in it for the joy of creating.” This is what I hear: “I don’t care if anyone likes my work.” A lot of creative
Most authors (and lots of small business owners) spam. They kind of know they shouldn’t, but they do it anyway because they’re desperate for sales, and they might convince themselves that they’re NOT spamming, so here’s a short guide. If someone asks for your opinion or advice, or they put out a general call for
This week a bunch of projects came together quickly, including this one, which I started last November. I had the story, courtesy of Suzanne Gochenouer and the art is by Donovan Scherer It took a few hours to format, then design the book covers, and then upload to Amazon. 24 hours later it’s published. I really think this
About a month ago I became obsessed with making some adult coloring books. The first few are nearly done (will be one Amazon in a few days), so I can start talking about them. This one is a memorial coloring book for the 2016 presidential election. I’m still thinking of putting it on
This week I wrote and published 3 adult coloring books, with several more in the works. This is one of my favorites. It’s a very different kind of adult coloring book. There are no lines. It’s more like a guided set of self-actualization exercises, which asks you to imagine and draw specific scenarios. I’m giving 5
Now available on Amazon! (Free in the US store, or you can download a PDF below). Since I started writing fiction, I learned my design skills and art background make me really good at visualizing scenes. I even developed some mental tricks for creating powerful, resonant scenes that stick in people’s minds. I started thinking
I got a negative review today. It’s not bad; actually it’s pretty good for a negative review… because it’s complaining about how I’m choosing to publish, while admitting the writing is good and she’ll probably buy the next book. Negative reviews like that are probably better than positive reviews. People...
Yesterday I sent out an email about how I published 4 books in 3 months. I didn’t write them all in 3 months, they were all half written already and I finished them. Still, I got some skeptical comments, for example about how I skipped the editing process (oh the horror!). But I also got
For the past 2 years I’ve been procrastinating on my PhD program. Classes were hard, but I finished my credits with a high GPA. That’s not the problem. One of the requirements for graduation is submitting an article to a peer-reviewed journal and getting it published. This was a major hurdle for me. In part,
This video is about some of the major platforms you can use to market your books – and how to use them (without being annoying or spammy). I also talk about repurposing content, using LinkedIn Pulse and Medium, answering questions on Quora, Reddit and Facebook, and using Goodreads to show up #1 in Google for
These could easily be three separate topics but I’m lumping them together because they form one branch of my marketing efforts… repurposing your content. Let’s say you wrote a great blog post and you want more traffic. Turn your blog post into a Powerpoint (I hate Powerpoint actually, I use Google Slides). Then make a
