by Penny Sansevieri, @bookgal

The following is an excerpt from Penny Sansevieri’s newly released book, How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon – 2020 Updated Edition! Learn how to turn Amazon into your 24/7 sales machine!  

Whether we’re talking about Amazon or any other e-tailer, book descriptions are more important than most authors realize.

Too many times I’ll see blocks of text pulled from the back of the book. In theory, it’s not the worst idea. However, it may not be the greatest idea if your book description isn’t strong, to begin with, or if the book details are just slapped up on Amazon—or Barnes & Noble, iTunes and so on—without giving an eye to things like spacing, bulleting, shorter paragraphs, and boldface.

In this section, we’ll discuss some ideas about book descriptions specifically, and then review some tips you may want to consider in order to enhance your own book description for maximum effectiveness on Amazon.

When it comes to book ads, designing creative that’s enticing is more than half the battle. Your ad image plays a huge role in whether readers are driven to click on your ad and, hopefully, go on to purchase your book. Because of this, you’ll want to ensure you’re designing ads that readers want to click.

The idea of creating your own ad images may be daunting, especially if you don’t have a background in graphic design. That being said, there are many design tools out there to help you get the job done. There’s something out there for everyone, no matter your artistic capabilities.

If you’re having trouble deciding on what tools to use to construct the perfect ad image, look no further. We’ve compiled a list of book ad design tools you can use to create your next ad.

read more https://insights.bookbub.com/book-ad-design-tools-author/

The post Six First Income Streams Recommended for Bloggers appeared first on ProBlogger.

This post is based on episode 198 of the ProBlogger podcast.

If you’ve been blogging for a while but haven’t started monetizing your blog, you might be wondering what income stream you should add first.

This can be a sticking point, whether you’re a new blogger or have been blogging for a while.

There’s no one “perfect” income stream to start with (though I’ll be making a recommendation at the end of this post about the one that suits most blogs).

What you pick will depend on your topic, your audience, and more.

read more https://problogger.com/income-streams/

by Daniel Brotzel

Finishing a book sounds like hard enough work when there’s just one of you. Can working with someone else really help? Yes! says Dan Brotzel, who’s recently launched a novel he wrote with two pals. Here’s the why and the how…

Collaboration down the ages

Co-writing is actually nothing new, and in some areas of writing, it is very common. Shakespeare, as part of a dramatic troupe, had many collaborators, and a work such as the Iliad would have been shaped and polished over generations by many hands.

read more https://www.sfwa.org/2019/09/collaboration/

A university press publishes a wide range of nonfiction, from interdisciplinary titles to those with more trade appeal. But with such a wide range of subjects, it can be challenging to find the core audience and drive sales for each title. So how does a nonfiction publisher find the readers that are right for their books — and how do they market to those readers?

For NYU Press, one tactic they regularly use is running price promotions for their titles! To gather more insights, we interviewed their marketing team about how they use price promotions to reach readers and boost sales and revenue for ebooks and print. They also offer advice for nonfiction publishers navigating the digital landscape!

read more https://insights.bookbub.com/university-press-boosts-nonfiction-book-sales/

An author newsletter swap can help you reach more of the right readers while building relationships with other authors in your genre.

“The value of swaps comes not just from selling books, but connecting with other authors to forge relationships, and getting in front of other readers. As a community, it helps authors network and I know my readers love my recommendations each week,” says frequent swapper and novelist Kirsten Oliphant of createifwriting.com.

With a newsletter swap, you and another author agree to promote each other’s books in your email newsletters. (If you haven’t started a newsletter yet, this book promotion opportunity is an excellent incentive to do so.)

Ideally, it will help sell a few books, too. Whether that happens depends on several factors that include:

• The strength of your swap partner’s recommendation.
• How well your book is packaged and presented.
• How closely aligned your partner’s email subscribers are with your ideal readers.
• Whether the swap hits inboxes when recipients are looking for something to read.

What’s involved with an author newsletter swap? Let’s dig into it.

Every successful author is both a creative and a business owner. Creative coach Margaret Olat shares tips for how to not lose sight of your creative side while working hard for your author brand.

Raise your hands if you’ve seen an ad for a new webinar promising you a financial breakthrough by doing three things differently in your creative business.

With the meteoric rise of social media and digital marketing, artists and writers alike have been able to make bold predictions about business growth, study past successes and failures, understand consumer behavior, and market themselves accordingly.

Life became seemingly easier because everything we need to do to “make it” has been simplified and numbered in steps.

But somewhere along the way in modern marketing, we’ve have been conditioned to think about success only in terms of metrics and funnels. Instead of the warmth we’re used to feeling when interacting with our audience, this feeling has been replaced with uncertainty, insecurity, and anxiety. As a result of this, our creativity is stifled and what previously felt like joy now brings judgment.

This isn’t a post to crucify writers who use social media platforms or ads to drive revenue. Rather, this post serves to highlight the conundrum that has resulted from digital marketing and ways to redeem our craft.

To thrive as a creative in a society that’s always hustling, here are 5 important questions you need to answer while evaluating your marketing efforts.

1. Am I resistant to sharing my message?
2. Do I have an evergreen brand?
3. If I’m doing the right things, why am I not seeing any results?
4. How will I get better at my craft?
5. What can I do to make an impact today?

READ MORE https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2019/07/31/author-mindset-how-to-thrive-as-a-creative-in-a-society-thats-always-hustling/