I’ve never put much thought into personal branding – I had a bunch of stuff I liked, but I couldn’t put them all together in way that made sense. My first header logo was a dumpster fire. I’ve had to learn to withhold enthusiasm, and add more space, because less is more. I’ve always focused
I talk a LOT about best practices for author websites and your Amazon page, but people keep ignoring me. I know this because I review author platforms and websites almost daily, to help authors find places they can improve conversion. Conversion is IMPORTANT. Amazon and Google are keeping track of how long people stay on
Quick Answer Pronoun shut down in 2018 because free book distribution is not a viable business — here’s what replaced it. (Updated May 2026.) What’s Pronoun and what does it matter? Today was supposed to be the day I share testimonials from students and start wrapping up my course launch – but instead it’s...
A few years ago I started collecting quotes and book marketing tips from publishing experts – I put them up online and divided them into topics for easy navigating, but forget to tell anyone about it. Someday I’ll organize the content into a book or course, but for now it’s all free. If any
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
I made this infographic to help authors figure out their author websites. If you like it, share it on Pinterest/Twitter/Facebook/Everywhere! Derek MurphyDerek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and has spent over a decade helping authors write, publish, and sell books through Creativindie...
Today I’m stalking authors. I want to get my giveaway for YA authors shared more widely. So I’m chasing hashtags on Twitter and finding YA author lists and communities and direct messaging people. Normally, I wouldn’t do that: but I’m sharing a contest that will benefit YA writers, rather than promoting my own books, so...
Quick Answer A great book subtitle tells readers exactly what they’ll get, includes your main keyword, and is under 10 words. The title of this post is a little too violent, but it exemplifies the purpose of this post: your subtitles and taglines need to engage readers. Firstly: a subtitle is usually what goes on a non-fiction...
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
For a lot of authors, “book marketing” still means something like advertising or publicity. In other words, you put something in front of people that tells them about the book, and that they should go buy it. Here’s why that doesn’t work: People need repetition before they notice, then take action. So they’ll need...
Below are some of the books I read in 2014 and found useful. [ReviewAZON name=”1″ id=”6″ display=”multiinlineasins” asins=”B004XR57PE,B00IS884QS,0984655123,B007SYTLVA,B007IJLGUY,0615796796,B00PXHHPWQ,0981875637,159963421X,0615909205″ trackingid=”creativindie-20″ country=””...
Recently this blog wandered into uncharted territory. I thought I knew something about blogging from a handful of earlier blogging failures. I had a plan and knew a lot about how to do things the right way, some of which I’ve implemented into Creativindie. But because it’s not my main business or a source of
