Stephen King once said: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time (or the tools) to write.” So why does this matter? Well for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that we always need to be learning and growing in our genre – when we don’t, our book promotion suffers, even at times growing stagnant. But also, it’s just good business. As a business owner, I am always getting to know my competition. Sometimes I network with them or support them in some other way.
Promoting Yourself as an Author: @metcalfwriter
Being an author nowadays is all about making yourself known, and here are six great pointers as to the most effective ways:
1. Be present – Everywhere! Get on all the social media sites so your readers can find you and interact. They want to see you and relate to you. They’ve already bonded with your writing, and you can help guide them towards your other books so they can love you even more!
Why Recommending (other) Books is an A-Game Book Promotion Strategy for 2019: @Bookgal
Reading Time: 7 minutesWhenever I’m being interviewed, or teaching a workshop or panel, the question invariably comes up about what I’m reading. “What’s on your nightstand?” The interviewer (or an audience member) will ask me. If you’ve ever been in this position to be asked this question, and didn’t know what to come up with – you’re not alone. Many authors I speak to make little or no time to read other books, which always surprises me. In some unfortunate cases, when asked what books they are reading, authors can only cite their own, which is a mistake. While I realize that book promotion likely takes up a lot of your time, reading will not only help you broaden your horizons, but help you sharpen your writing skills, too.
How to Choose Amazon Categories to Increase Your Sales: @TCKPublishing
Choosing the right categories on Amazon for you book or product can make a huge impact on your sales.
Why Choosing the Right Amazon Categories Matters
There are two reasons why you need to pick the best categories.
read more: https://www.tckpublishing.com/how-to-choose-amazon-categories/
How to Crowdfund Your Writing With Patreon: @LucyASnyder @WritersDigest
Patreon offers creatives a more sustainable model for crowdfunding—ongoing micro-payments from interested benefactors.
Many writers dream of quitting their day jobs and becoming full-time freelancers. And while that is achievable, it’s a difficult prospect for poets, playwrights and midlist fiction writers. Writing organizations such as the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America consider a minimum professional rate for fiction to be six cents a word. Many novels only receive advances of $5,000–$10,000. Think about your basic living costs. A book that took years to write may only cover rent for a few months. Making up the difference as a freelancer is challenging, to say the least!
The good news: Crowdfunding can fill that uncomfortable financial gap. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are great for funding specific projects such as novels, plays, anthologies and poetry collections. But if you’re seeking ongoing, monthly support for your creative endeavors, take a closer look at Patreon (patreon.com).
THE BIG IDEA
Launched in 2013, Patreon is conceptually the modern version of the old system whereby artists and writers sought out wealthy patrons for support—but the key difference is that popular Patreon creators are supported by dozens or hundreds of people rather than a single rich benefactor.
Identifying Your Ideal Reader (Podcast): @valerie_francis @timgrahl
Key Points From This Episode:
Welcome back to The Book Launch Show, helping authors launch and market their books. This week on the podcast we are going to dive into more with Valerie Francis. Valerie is a best-selling indie author, story editor, and creative entrepreneur who is trying to figure out her marketing strategy and how to build her platform as an author. One of the things that is very tough for writers of all backgrounds is figuring out who exactly you’re talking to and being very clear about that. It can be scary, it can feel like you’re alienating people that would be interested in what you’re doing, and you often feel like you don’t want to leave anybody out. However, narrowing down your audience is also a really important practice. So in this episode we walk through that and talk about how to do it, why it’s important, and truly work through our struggles on the topic. This is a really important episode and something that everybody who is trying to build a following really needs to be clear on. So stay tuned to hear it all!
read more https://booklaunch.com/identifying-your-ideal-reader/
5 Tips for Collecting New Readers and Connections: @KatyKauffman28 @EdieMelson
5 TIPS FOR COLLECTING NEW READERS AND CONNECTIONS
by Katy Kauffman @KatyKauffman28
A tiny enchanted forest greets me each morning. My mini winter wonderland doesn’t exist in my backyard, but on my great-grandmother’s antique pine dresser. Three white trees sit, not on snow, but on a sage green doily, and send out silver glints of light that catch my eye. The cheval mirror reflects other treasures on my dresser—ivory dogwoods, red velvet flowers lined with glitter, and a “Cinderella sleigh” as I call it, pulled by two silver-tipped reindeer that anxiously wait to take a princess to a ball.
The charm didn’t happen overnight. It’s taken years to collect a few treasures at a time. I can remember the places where I’ve discovered my treasures, including the Christmas Shoppe in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and the Biltmore mansion in Asheville, North Carolina. Finding just the right Christmas treasures and bringing them home is an investment of time and money. What special decorations have you collected over the years? Our Christmas collections develop with time and care.
Just like our platforms. As authors, we collect readers, and we also collect friendships. It takes time to find readers and build friendships with people we encounter through social media and our blogs. A beautiful “wonderland” of published books, speaking engagements, guest blog posts, and magazine articles doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and care. It takes hard work and God’s blessing. But it’s worth every hour we spend collecting our “treasures.”
So here’s a little advice from someone who enjoys collecting both Christmas treasures and new readers. See if these five tips will help you to invest in your own collection of readers and friendships as you build your platform.
7 Ways To Make Your Blog Shine: @evy_mann
The saying, “You only have one chance to make a good first impression” holds true in the blogging world. When someone visits your blog, you have between 0-30 seconds to grab your reader’s attention and keep them there.
What are some ways to make your blog shine and hold your audience’s interest?
These are the top seven elements I look for in a blog.
read more: http://www.almostanauthor.com/7-ways-to-make-your-blog-shine/
Your 2019 Book Marketing Plan, Month by Month
“Fail to plan? Then plan to fail.” What a HORRIBLE quote, but SO apt for authors who are trying to figure out their marketing strategies. Now is the perfect time to sit down and create a 2019 marketing plan. The problem for most of us is that marketing is such a big job. We get bogged…
“Fail to plan? Then plan to fail.” What a HORRIBLE quote, but SO apt for authors who are trying to figure out their marketing strategies. Now is the perfect time to sit down and create a 2019 marketing plan. The problem for most of us is that marketing is such a big job. We get bogged down in the enormity of the task and quite often push it off. It is easier to do things that we know and like, so marketing often gets delayed or even skipped altogether. But we can overcome this.
A Bite-Sized Marketing Plan to Avoid Overwhelm
My FAVORITE way of starting getting a handle on book marketing is to break it up into small, bite-sized pieces. If we take ONE aspect of marketing and add it to our publishing/author to-do list, THAT is perfectly reasonable. Just ONE thing…. Easy!
So I have created a list of ideas and activities that we can add, a little at a time. Just one small marketing focus each month. So that by the end of the year, we will have a fully fleshed out marketing plan underway!
read more https://www.bookworks.com/2018/12/2019-book-marketing-plan-calendar/
Strategically Plan Your Novels for Next Year
Is writing your career? Or is it a hobby you hope will someday turn into a financially rewarding line of work? Regardless of where you are on the spectrum of “becoming an author,” you need a plan for your business. And, believe me, treating your writing like a business will help you make more of it than just a time-sucking hobby.
Let’s turn 2019 into your year for publishing. First, you need a strategic plan.
Contents:
What is a strategic plan?
Think of your strategic plan like the GPS map on your smartphone. It shows you how to get from your current position to where you want to be in 2019.
read more: https://prowritingaid.com/art/813/strategically-plan-your-novels-for-next-year.aspx
How To Ebook 