Not self-publishing—independent publishing

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I am not a self-publisher, because I did not publish my books by myself. I was part of a team of talented, dedicated, professional, skilled and very giving people, to whom I am indebted and grateful.

You know by now that my new book, Army of Worn Soles, will publish in e-book form on June 22, 2014—less than a week from the day this post goes up on the blog.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been busy with all sorts of not just last-minute details on the book itself, but also with advance promotion and publicity. I’ve been answering questions, and learning, from those answers. A question that has come up (however, not as frequently as I expected) was about “self publishing.”

I prefer the term “independent publishing,” simply because I think it’s far more accurate. I don’t publish any books by myself.

Publishing any book calls upon a wide range of skills:

• writing—creating the story or the information for the reader
• substantive—“story editing,” a review and critique of the overall worth of the manuscript, whether it’s complete, or there’s too much material, and whether the basic ideas make sense
• copy-editing—ensuring it’s clear, grammatical, logical?
• proofreading—looking out for spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes and silly little errors in logic (like setting the opening of a chapter on a spring morning and ending, without indicating any passage of time, with a winter night)
• design—of the cover as well as the interior
• layout—setting up the interior according to the design, and making sure that the whole book follows the same design
• manufacturing—transferring from manuscript to e-book or print format with the highest fidelity to the final manuscript and the highest production quality affordable.

Each of this is a major task requiring specialized knowledge, and no, I don’t attempt it myself. I can do many of them, but not all—not well.

And I have always said, “You can’t edit your own stuff.”

The team

When it comes to publishing my books, I call upon a supportive team. For Army of Worn Soles, that team included:

• Fred Brooke, Alan McDermott, Russell Blake and Cinta Garcia de la Rosa as pre-readers
• Rebecca Dickson as my stalwart editor
• David C. Cassidy as cover designer
• a large team to help promote the cover and excerpts, whom you are meeting through other posts on this blog.

Army of Worn Soles, like my other books, is a truly collaborative effort.

No, I do not self-publish. Army of Worn Soles, and all books I write, followed a cooperative publishing model, one promoted and supported by Independent Authors International. Like those published by the Big Five commercial publishers, are the result of a team of talented professionals applying developed skills to producing a quality book.

 

Book promotion steps to take before you publish

 Guest post by David Small, the Wandering Promoter

This Monday blog features guest blogger David Small, author, international hockey coach and entrepreneur. His new book, The Wandering Leader, launched on Valentine's Day and is already climbing the Amazon bestseller lists in non-fiction.

David hails from Kenora, Ontario — I town I spent many summer weeks in as a youth. It's not exactly known as a hotbed of literature, and it's been literally decades since I crossed paths with anyone from Kenora. I couldn't resist asking him to blog about his approach to self-publishing and his success in promoting his book — lessons we can all use. 

Over to you, David: 

A couple weeks ago I published my third book called The Wandering Leader. This book is about leadership, world travel, and chasing happiness. I define a “wandering leader” as someone who is in a leadership role, but doesn’t have all the answers. They sometime have to improvise or fake it until they make it. As JRR Tolkien said; “Not all that wander are lost.”  Sometimes I feel the same when I am promoting a product. I fake it until I make it. 

I want to share with you my marketing blueprint for how I ended up going from a nobody, to landing on the Amazon bestseller list. Hopefully my experiences in marketing and promoting my book will help you, or give you some ideas to promote your own products in the future. 

Pre-launch required reading: Platform by Michael Hyatt (hyperlink address: http://amzn.to/1jbgH3n ) 

3 weeks before launch week: write down different ways you can generate exposure during your launch week. Here are examples that I used during my launch week: 

• launch team (very important)
• media interviews/Press Releases
• podcasts 
• guest blog posts
• images and social media production
• promotions and giveaways.

If you don’t know an exact date your product with be available across all retail channels, it’s okay to let it be live on some channels and wait for all other channels to come live. You don’t need a big “pre-launch” or “official launch day” — just pick a day on the calendar. You’re the boss. 

2 weeks before launch week: Start to research blogs and podcasts that are in your field. For example, my book is about leadership, so I spent time researching podcasts and blogs in leadership, management, or coaching. I contacted about 30 podcast producers and 30 blogs. Aim for about seven to ten agreements in each category. This will drive traffic during your launch week. Ask that the post or cast be published during your launch week with links to your site or book. 

1 week before launch week: Talk to your book launch team. This is one of the most important ways for you to get exposure. These are friends, family members, and people you know who have a social influence. I was lucky to have NHL hockey players that I used to coach who were willing to help me during my book launch. One NHL player tweeted about my book and instantly 30,000 people saw it. That’s great, personal exposure. Offer to buy a copy of your new book (or whatever your product is) for anyone who helps you during your book launch week. 

Send out a press release to local media. They often like to do human interest pieces. Get on your local radio station to talk about your book and your goals. 

Book launch week: Start your promotion. Don’t spend money on click advertising; instead, buy cool prizes from companies you love and give them away to people who buy your book. I am a big support of Star Alliance air network, so I gave away travel vouchers (fitting because my book is about travel). This cost me approximately $400, which was the most I spent on advertising during my entire book launch. 

Give yourself a target to hit during that week, and a deadline to hit it. This creates a sense of urgency with your buyer. People like to support a race or goal. If you ask your friends and family to buy your product and you think they’re going to drop everything and do it, you’re wrong. I have some family members that I love dearly, but who have never gotten around to buying or reading any of my work. People just don’t really care. If you ask them to buy your book within a given week, so you can reach your sales goal, they’re more likely to do it. I said I want to reach 500 sales within the book launch week. 

Learn about the bestseller list. The Amazon bestseller list can really help you out (if your product is available on Amazon.) This list is updated hourly, and looks at overall popularity, as well as sales within the not-so-distant future. Because I asked people to order my book during book launch week, it put my book sales up to a high point during the first week of availability. Then in the second week all those sales landed it on the Amazon Top 100 list for the categories the book is published under. Being on the Top 100 list is huge because it gives people another reason to get off their butts and buy your book. You can ask them “help me reach the #1 best seller on Amazon by ordering a copy of my book today.” This gives your buyer a sense of urgency and a feeling like they’re a part of your success. I had 136 clicks and 127 orders in 24 hours. This in turn shot my book up to #7 on the bestsellers list. Which then gives you even more fuel to light a fire under your customers’ butts. If you’re that close to the #1 spot, people will get crazy and buy four or five copies of your book in hopes you’ll keep jumping up the list. 

My book passed authors like John Maxwell, Dan Millman, Tony Robbins, Dale Carnegie, and Dr. Phil in the category Books > Self-Help > Success. I used their names to grab attention in my social media campaigns and keep people interested. I also reengaged my book launch team for a second round of social media sharing with the target to help the book get to the #1 spot. 

For my book launch team, I created a guide and a hidden page on my website for them to use as reference. There I put sample tweets, images with quotes on them, link short codes, and excerpts from the book. People are busy, so make it idiot-proof for them. Copy and Paste and they’re done.  

When you’re promoting a new product, don’t get discouraged when people don’t leap up to buy it. Be genuine. Use your relationships and personality to ask people to buy it, but don’t harass them or spam them (until you make the bestseller list, then spam everyone you know — the higher you climb up the list, the more likely people are to help.) Good luck! 

How have you promoted your product launches? What worked for you or didn’t work for you? 

About the guest blogger:

David Small is the author of the bestselling book The Wandering Leader. In this book, David explains how leaders don’t need to be perfect, but they should get things done. He focuses on seven areas of leadership that everyone can grow in; career, financial, social, physical, spiritual, intellectual, and family. David has been a professional ice hockey coach for over a decade and is an officer in the Canadian army reserves. David has guest lectured and been a keynote speaker at leadership events around the globe. 

Visit his:

• Website and blog 
• Book page on Amazon 

Three biggest mistakes that new authors make

A guest post by author consultant Barb Drozdowich

I’d like to thank Scott for inviting me to share some thoughts today. 

I’ve published four books focused at helping authors. They cover a variety of subjects and basically represent needs that I see in my day job,  teaching authors Wordpress and helping them with various social media issues.

Let me start by saying that I love working with authors every day! They create the books that feed my soul and my world would be pretty empty without them. 

I often say that I think that it is sad that we expect authors to be jacks of all trades. Most of the authors that I meet do an incredible job of creating magical stories that we lose ourselves in. It’s not enough, however. As you all know, authors are now expected to wear all the book promotional hats. 

Unreasonable.

That being said, we need to get on task. What do I feel are the three biggest mistakes that new authors make?

In my opinion, the first mistake that many authors make is they do not start building their author platform far enough in advance of publishing their books. 

Ideally, authors should start working on their platform when they start writing their book. I’m not the only one to think this way. The blogosphere is filled with similar advice.

The platform: where the author begins the journey to success.
Photo by Matt Cornock used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 3.0 Unported License.

I’ll take this advice one step further and suggest that your author platform consists of more than a blog, a Twitter account and a Facebook account. You want to make it as easy as possible for readers, both new and old, to find you. Google is the world’s largest search engine and because of that, Google+ must be part of your platform. You don’t need to understand the specifics of why, just know that Google+ will play a significant role in being found easier in Google searches.

The second mistake that authors make is ignoring the importance of presenting a professional face to the world. 

The look of your blog and the cohesiveness of your branding across your books and your various social media platforms is very important in today’s book selling world. The attitude of “I’m just not very technologically advanced so people need to take me as they get me” doesn’t fly. This sort of author often has a blog that looks like a thrift store.  It has sidebars stuffed with mismatched graphics and no discernible way to easily buy their books, or follow their blog. 

If you want to be taken seriously as an author, you need to find a way look professional. Look at your site. Without scrolling down, can readers follow you on all your social media and buy at least one of your books? Isn’t that one of major reasons why you have a blog?

The third mistake that authors often make is not asking for qualified help for things that they don’t understand. 

Authors take writing classes or go to writing retreats, but are reluctant to get help with the other aspects of publishing a book. Because of that reluctance, they try to do everything themselves, or they ask for help without qualifying the help.  

I find that people who look for help, don’t ask the right questions. It seems logical that you would ask whether a putative consultant knows enough to help you with your particular question — but it’s more important whether that person understands the unique needs of an author? A blog can be a technological wonder, but if you can’t use it, what good is it? 

If you are spending hours struggling with your blog or another part of your author platform, when are you writing? Isn’t it worth your time to get a few hours of instruction or a few hours of help so that you can spend more time on your next book?

Technical help doesn’t need to be expensive and it isn’t hard to find. What may be difficult to find is competent technical help. With the explosion of indie publishing, many people are hanging out a shingle and waiting to take your money. Choose carefully and ask a lot of questions!

Today’s book-selling world is global. You are selling your books to people around the world — not just the people you meet at your next book signing. Make sure that you are prepared to market your books to the world.

Barb Drozdowich

Social Media and Wordpress Consultant Barb Drozdowich has taught at Colleges and Universities, trained technical personnel in the banking industry and, most recently, used her expertise to help dozens of authors develop the social media platform needed to succeed in today’s fast evolving publishing world. She owns Bakerview Consulting and manages the popular Romance Book blog, Sugarbeat’s Books.

She has written four guidebooks in the Building Blocks to Author Success series: 

• The Ultimate Goodreads Guide for Authors
• The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers
• Book Blog Tours: An Essential Marketing Tool for Authors
• Go Global: Building an International Author Platform that Sells.

Find Barb:

Bakerview Consulting  |   Barb Drozdowich   |  Sugarbeat’s Books

Facebook  |  Twitter  |   Google+

Goodreads  |   Amazon Author Page 

Plunging The Bones of the Earth into Kindle Select

I’ve decided to take the plunge.

Creative Commons. No, this is not me.
Thanks for asking, though.

I’ve enrolled my novel, The Bones of the Earth, into Amazon’s Kindle Digital Publishing (KDP) Select program.

I’ve resisted this for some time. In fact, the first time I heard of Kindle Select, I objected to it. At the same time, though, I understood why Amazon structured it the way it did.

KDP Select is a marketing program, as well as a method for Amazon to reinforce its dominance of the digital book market. An author or a publisher who has published a book on Amazon’s Kindle store can choose to enroll it in the KDP Select program, which gets the book included in Amazon’s Kindle Lending Library. This allows member of Amazon Prime to borrow the book, free of charge. The author/publisher gets a share of the fund that Amazon sets aside to reimburse them for these free book loans. Lately, that fund has been around $600,000 per month, divided among all authors in the program according to how many times their books get borrowed.

Authors can also set five days out of every 90 during which their books can be downloaded for free. Otherwise, you cannot set your book for a free download on Amazon, unless you go through some tricks by setting your book for free on other sites (like Smashwords, Apple’s iBookstore,Kobo, Barnes & Noble’s Nook Book Store, the Sony e-bookstore or Diesel, to name the few that I know of) and hoping that Amazon matches their price. This has not always worked for me.

The catch

The downside to KDP Select is that Amazon demands exclusivity. If you enroll your e-book in Select and the Lending Library, you cannot distribute it through any other retailer, paid or not. If you do, and Amazon finds out, they’ll not only refuse to pay you any royalties on that book, they may withhold your royalties on all your other title sold through Amazon. They may even bar you from the Kindle digital publishing system entirely.


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This exclusivity applies only the digital books. Authors and publishers that have joined Select can still sell printed books any way they wish — or can.

I can understand why Amazon did this. It dominates the e-book market, and it’s not a charity. It’s a business. I’m not a lawyer, but I doubt this qualifies as an anticompetitive tactic. No one has to join the Select program. You can still sell books through the KDP system as well as every other digital channel you can find, and Amazon will still sell your e-books for you. And Amazon still provides lots of free tools for making e-books in the first place.

A large number of authors have signed up for KDP Select, including several that I know through social media and some that have even written guest posts on this blog. Obviously, they’re not that worried about the exclusivity clause — or they feel that the benefits of lending royalties plus increased sales more than offset the downside.

Many have written that the majority of their sales have been through Amazon, anyway, so they weren’t really losing much.

For my part, Amazon accounts for about half my sales; the other half is mostly through Smashwords, with a few other sales from the other e-retailers.

Select results




Rob Guthrie's magnumopus is now out!

 Some authors have found Kindle Select works. Those were RS Guthrie’s words on his blog, Rob on Writing. “Each of the past three or four times I have run one or both of my books free on Amazon, I have seen a nice increase in sales post-freebie,” he wrote in April.
In February, author Russell Blake (who guested here in December) reported on his blog:

Last month, I dipped my toe in the water by making The Geronimo Breach free for three days. During that time, I saw about 12K downloads. Not too shabby. Then, when it went back to paid, a funny thing happened. After languishing for the first day, it shot like a rocket, finally hitting #165 in the paid Kindle store.

So, it does work. Of course, both Guthrie and Blake outsell me by orders of magnitude. But the potential is there.



At time of writing,
number 6,554 Paid in
Kindle Store  — not shabby at all.



Do I really want to give my books away for free?

Of course not. I put a lot of work into them: planning, writing, re-writing, editing, re-writing again, throwing parts out, filling in plot and characterization holes. I engaged editors and designers, and I had to pay them. So no, I don’t want to just give them away.

But we all appreciate that free promos and cut-rate special offers help drive up sales, too. Free is a promotional tool that I’d like to be able to use.

Also, there are some multi-author book giveaway promotions that I’d like to participate in — but again, you have to be a member of Kindle Select.

Mostly, I want to experience that paid sales spike after the free promos. I understand that it’s only a temporary spike. At this point, I’ll take temporary.

As of July 12, ##431,700 Paid in Kindle Store. Let's see if we can boost that to the low hundred thousands, at least.

I promise to blog about my experiences regularly. I’ll keep you all up to date on my progress.

Guest blogger: The 5 reasons why I am a failed writer

This week's guest blogger is marketing marvel Jens-Petter, owner of the SlyMarketing blog and company and author of Make Google Love You. He's writing not only about the best and worst he's ever done as a writer, he's giving us some really useful tips on how to market your books. Following is some of the best, most practical advice I've ever read. Over to you, Jens-Petter!

I say that I'm a failed writer because I can't seem to finish what I'm writing.

I am a solo entrepreneur with a marketing business, and I have written a novel and a short story for the Kindle. I am fairly successful in business with several big clients and a popular blog, but I still haven't published my novel or the short story.

I love writing, but my first hurdle was to choose the right language. I write in Norwegian and in English. I am a better writer in Norwegian, because I am Norwegian, but I have a much bigger audience when I write in English. And that's why I started my marketing blog in English.

I am still not sure if it's such a good idea to keep writing in two different languages or if I should focus on one. But since I believe that one of my strengths in marketing and writing is experimenting and I'm not really in a hurry to get things published, I've decided to keep writing in both languages for now.

The 5 reasons I am a failed writer

I have been thinking a lot about why I haven't been able to publish my novel or the short story. I've come up with five main reasons. Let me just tell you the reasons first, and then I'll tell you how I will market my novel and short story.

 

1. I don't have a goal

I write because I love to write. I want people to read what I have written, and I love feedback. And I work to become a better writer. But I don't have a goal when I write.

I am telling a story. I want it to be entertaining, but do I want my readers to cry, to learn something, or to never forget about the main character?The truth is that I don't know. I just write without having a single goal for the story or how my readers should

react.

I believe writers should have a main goal with everything they write. Do you agree?

 

2. I don't focus

When I started writing my novel, I thought that I wouldn't do anything but write for a year. I believed that was what authors do. I'd lock myself inside my office and just write.

I did write for a long time, but I kept doing so many other things that were not part of my main projects. And I kept creating new projects, instead of writing and finishing the novel and the short story.

I believe that writers should focus on one project at a time, and finish it before starting new projects. Do you agree?

 

3. I am terrible at editing

I write from the beginning of the first sentence until I'm finished. That's it. I know that as soon as I've finished writing, I will be really just at the beginning. Most of the time it's all about the editing. And the first draft is more or less just the foundation of the story. But I am having a hard time to remove anything from the story. I can add a lot, but since I have a hard time removing anything, the story becomes more and more complex.

I have come to realize the importance of editing, but removing is still a huge obstacle for me. I'd love your thoughts on this — what part of editing do you struggle with?

 

4. I write alone

I love the solitude of writing and I love the social part of the online world. My marketing experience is mostly part of the social world, where I have teamed up with lots of brilliant people who are helping me out. I get the experience of people from all over the world, and we share marketing advice. This has been all positive, and I wouldn't have been able to start my business if I didn't have this team of supporters behind me.

I believe that I shouldn't have been doing all my writing alone. I should have teamed up with other writers and I should have told them about my projects, and we should have shared opinions and experience. I am sure it's a myth that authors should be all by themselves when they write. I do my best work when I get feedback and when I am having conversations with people. If I could start all over again, I would find a mentor and a team of like-minded people to help me out. I understand the power of collaboration and I would have done my share.

Do you write alone, or have you teamed up with other writers? I'd love to know if other people are part of your writing process.

 

5. I write what I love, not what people will buy

One of my friends is a painter. I believe he is a brilliant painter. I love the way he paints, but the reason he doesn't sell any of his paintings is that he only paints what he loves to paint. And at the time I am writing this, he loves to paint aliens and blood. I believe that if he would have looked more at what people are interested in buying rather than what he loves to paint, he would be making a career as a successful painter.

I am not saying that he should only look at the market, but the market should be part of what he's doing. And the same goes for my writing. It took me a long time to adjust my first novel from a story that I wanted to write, because I thought that it would be an interesting project, to a story that would actually sell. I have added elements of both.

Adjusting to the market is important if you're going to make any money from writing. I know that money isn't really the issue, but if we're going to be able to write every single day and make writing part of who we are and what we do, we need buyers. And that brings me to my last point.

How to market fiction books

Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. I think of marketing fiction books in the same way: it's a three-step process.

The beginning

 Research who your audience is. Find out where they are, and what you should be doing to reach them. It's usually not that hard.

Do a pre-launch phase. Think of how movies are marketed: they've got trailers and movie previews at the movie theatres. Create book trailers and add them to your blog, to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The point is that you should build expectations. It's not hard at all. You can hire a brilliant person to do it on Fiverr for only $5. Add some text, and she'll add the effects and the audio.

Use the trailer to drive traffic to your blog, and build an email list of people who are eager to read your book. Let them know that they'll get it before other people, or make a promise that they'll get it cheaper. The pre-launch phase should be no less than 30 days. It takes time to build expectations.

The middle 

 When you're launching your book, you should first send emails to the people on your list. They should be waiting for your book. Write guest posts on related blogs, the blogs your audience reads (which you learned during the research part of the pre-launch phase). You should write many guest posts, and they should be about the process of writing your book. Add things about your new book (you could do this during the pre-launch phase as well). Create press releases and submit them to the local press (it's fairly easy to get reviews in the local press) and to the large PR sites (such as?).

You should get testimonials from people who've read your book. Publish all the testimonials to your blog — the more the better. Ask your readers to publish the testimonials on sites like Amazon.com, which will give your book a higher ranking.

The end

The last part of the launch should be about building relationships with your readers. Relationships are one of the most important parts of marketing. Ask your readers for feedback, and get more testimonials. Build a community. Let them know about you. Tell them how you write, give them more background on the story, and why you wrote it and what your inspiration is.

It's important that you add to your blog regularly, and that you build your newsletter email list. Communicate with your fans and they will spread the word about your awesome books.

Jens P. Berget is a Norwegian author and entrepreneur. He is currently writing his first novel, and he has started his own marketing business, while he continues to live off his passion.

Jens' blog, http://slymarketing.com/, will host my guest blog, as well. Check it out!