These articles concentrate on the business of writing. Use the menu on the right to get more specific or just browse them sequentially.
Webinar on Indie Author MagazineChris was on the Indie Author Magazine Webinar series last week talking about what Written Well does, his application of game theory to the self-publishing world, and how to make the best use of your keyword boxes on Amazon.
Building an ARC Team for ReviewsGetting reviews might be the single biggest determinant for how well your book sells. In all the studies I’ve seen, number of reviews has been rated highest for whether a reader will pick up a book by an unknown author. But it’s a catch-22. You need reviews for readers to take a flyer on an author they don’t know; but to get reviews, people need to read and review your book. The way around this conundrum is to use ARC — Advanced Reader Copies. The publishing industry has been using ARCs for years. They print uncorrected proofs, often missing some...
Kindle Trends ReviewSummary: Interesting data service with innovative visualizations and some truly useful info. Limited number of categories minimizes its usefulness. Cost: $15/month, or $10/month with coupon code INDYAUTHOR (if it’s still active). Kindle Trends is a fairly new service that sends weekly newsletters to your email with in-depth data about a number of genres. If it covered all the genres, it would be an immediate recommend, as you get a lot of data for the price, though as with most things data-oriented, it takes a fair amount of knowledge and work to massage that data into actionable plans. However, currently it...
Buying a Premade CoverSo, you need a cover for your book. It’s a big decision. You want something that you are proud of, but what you need is something that will sell. Assuming you have done your research (link to cover research video) and know what you are looking for, you might be ready to start looking at premade covers. But don’t forget, it’s not that hard to learn to DIY your cover (link to my making a cover with Canva video). Let’s start with the big question: Should I buy a premade book cover? If you aren’t going to design it yourself,...
Narrowcasting and NewslettersOriginally, I intended to write about Newsletters as a thing, but realized as I sat down that I needed to back up a step and talk about what I think is the future of indie publishing. That turned into a whole series of thoughts on vocabulary—and you need a good solid grasp on words to understand how to work in this field—and I realized that I needed to start here. Broadcasting In the old days, everybody knew the term broadcasting. You transmitted a powerful radio signal that could be picked up at a significant distance by anybody with the right...
What does Professional Mean?We talk about acting like a professional when it comes time to be a writer, but what does that mean? How do you get there?
Mind you, there are volumes of books that could be—and have been—written on the subject, including some of mine.
Do I Really Need an ISBN Number?Do you need an ISBN number to sell your book? This question comes up constantly. The answer is, unfortunately, it depends. An ISBN number is a unique number, attached to a barcode, assigned to a book that identifies it for SKU systems for inventory tracking. If you want your book to be sold “wide” meaning that it’s available everywhere, you might need one. Maybe. If you just want to sell your book on Amazon, they will provide a unique ISBN that only works on Amazon, and they won’t charge you anything for it. If you want to sell your book...
Market Report 4/3/24I have updated all the business reports in the genre guides. Let’s look at the headlines. Top Tier Genres Mostly Steady Most of the top tier genres stayed steady with a few exceptions: YA Still Promising Though the young adult genre itself stayed steady, growth in many of the SF and fantasy subgenres continued or held. If you’re looking at writing any genre, check for a YA subgenre and consider whether your book could be marketed there. Indies Dominating Norse Legends Top 100 List Big sales for indies in a niche category with a usual floor of 1k. Look at...
Using Vellum to Format Your BookThough there are other tools out there, Vellum is simply the best we have found for formatting your book. Let’s walk through formatting your book using this excellent program. Start Up Start Vellum and pick either New Book or Import Word File I picked new book just to look at a clean interface before importing a Word document. You can write your whole book directly into Vellum, but it lacks robust editing tools, especially change tracking if you are having critiqued or working with a coauthor. Better to write your book in something else and then import it. There are...
Email ListsThere is no other marketing tool as effective as a list of emails people have voluntarily given you. Besides the fact that it is proven out by every metric tested, it just makes sense: people gave you their email, so they are receptive to your pitch. They may even be anticipating it. Email lists have the greatest success rate of any other "advertising" and their cost-per-click? Absolutely free until you have at least 500 subscribers, at which point it is profitable to pay for the mailings you are doing.
