Another little success

I'm thrilled to be a part of this listing of 50 top travel blogs to follow

Great Travel Blogs Every Traveler Needs to Follow

http://www.artfulclub.com/top-travel-blogs/

Do check out these blogs, as I will be doing, and thanks to Frank Lee for including www.piarastrainge.com

Coming soon to my website...

Yep, it's that time of year again where I see a holiday in my sights - and lots of lovely spare time - and I immediately get thinking about how I can improve my website!

So that will be a total redesign then hahaha! No, just kidding - I do have some new things to launch, but I'm not planning to revamp my whole layout.

Watch this space over the summer...

Selling books with social media

Photo credit Shutterstock

In my last post I got you thinking about the 4 Ps of marketing and how you can use these in relation to your overall marketing strategy. I also advised that social media should not be the "be all and end all" of your strategy. To wrap up my Self Publishing series, I'm going to finish with a post on the smart way to sell books with social media without bamboozling your audience.

You need to grab their attention with creative blog content. Imspirational, enticing, entertaining - these buzz words should be loitering in your mind when you compose... People browse and skip about all over the place when surfing the web, often forgetting their original purpose for being there! If your content has great visuals and short, snappy bitesize chunks of information to draw the reader in - and more importantly so they remember you - then you're a quarter of the way there.

Once you've drawn them in and gained a following, you need to work to maintain and grow that readership. Spread out from your social media to a more personalised form of contact like having a sign up on your website for a monthly email newsletter.

If you don't already know it, marketing, like writing, is a long term project. You can't have a website and blog, even social media accounts and not use them for months on end if you're in this business seriously. You can never hope to sell any books if you don't first build, engage and maintain your readership over a sustained period of time (and I'm talking years!) You have to build a relationship with your audience so they get to know you, like you and trust you enough to want to invest their time in reading your work.

Social media is your platform to express yourself, not a platform to spam millions of people with "Buy my book. It's great!" You know why I love Twitter - because the mutual promotion is magic. I've heard it described as social karma. You take the time to promote others and they will promote you. Don't underestimate the value of word of mouth over social media.

The basics of marketing your eBook

A lot of people going into self publishing believe all they have to do is shout about their eBook 24/7 on social media and the sales will come rolling in, but social media is just a tool to help you sell, not a complete marketing strategy.

Using the 4 Ps, you can review your performance and work out your strengths and weaknesses in your marketing strategy. Remember, you are competing with thousands of other titles on the Internet. You should be regularly asking yourself "How do I compare?" and making sure you are fulfilling your audience's needs so they keep coming back to sample your work.

PRODUCT
Quality - cover design / formatting / editing
Formats - is your eBook available on all of the main platforms?
Is it a series? Could it be a series? Should it be a series?
How does the word count, structure etc compare with your competition?

PLACE
Do you know where the majority of your audience shops online?
Are you offering your book there and maximising all of the tools available to you?

PRICE
Don't cheapen yourself and your work, but don't out price yourself out of the market either.
Keep experimenting with price until you find what works and don't be afraid to try free or discounted promotions.

PROMOTION
What is your USP - unique selling point - or hook for your eBook?
Have a marketing plan in place with clear action points and time scales.
Utilise your favourite social media.
Research book bloggers to review your book.
Consider doing a blog tour.

Self publishing mistakes

It stands to reason we would eventually end up discussing self publishing mistakes, but it's ok to make mistakes as long as you are learning from them.

Nobody is going to get it right first time because the online world of publishing is constantly evolving.

All of these points I've covered in depth in individual posts within the Self Publishing series, so here are the headlines again:

• DO spend time learning about yourself and your goals, the audience you would like to write for and the book you want to produce

• DO invest in a professional edit and book cover design

• Marketing online is more cost effective, but focus on one or two social media strategies first and give them time to prove themselves before moving onto the next best platform

• DON'T put everything into one book, there has to be more so you are able to build your brand

• Never reuse an ISBN

• DON'T do a massive print run unless you have a solid marketing strategy in place to sell those print copies

Writing for life

As we near the end of this mammoth self publishing blog series, here are a handful of useful pointers to summarise what we've been covering over the last few months:

• The online publishing world is changing daily

• There is no secret (and easy) formula to success

• In my humble opinion, Amazon is the best place to start your self publishing journey despite its quirks

• Write a fabulous first book

• Then write many, many more great books

• With self publishing, your writing really can be tailored more to what you actually want to write, rather than writing for markets and trends

• You will never just be able to write - the time and effort you used to spend sending out zillions of query letters and first chapters to agents and publishers has been replaced by marketing and promotional activity

• In my humble opinion, Twitter is the best place to start building your fanbase

• Take the time to engage and connect with your audience

Websites for eBook promotion

Today I'm going to direct you to some great posts which list a host of websites for promotion of your eBook/s across the pricing spectrum:

Savvy Writers & eBooks online

ePublish a Book - this is a 6-part series

The value of free

The immediate value of selling your eBook for free is that you'll most probably get a fair few downloads, which naturally results in great and instant exposure. Then, continuing with the "pushing sales" theme, keeping the price at 99p will ensure those downloads actually earn you some real bunce.

By just tweaking this winning formula, however, you can get a much better deal for yourself which will pay dividends long term. Pricing at £2.99 after the free book promo will give you 70% revenue from each sale (verses 30% from a 99p sale) whilst also attracting an audience that is more likely to read your book (rather than downloading simply because it was "cheap" and storing it on their device for "later"). You'll break even faster and be attracting the right kind of reader.

Research proves that not all free and 99p books are read - I can testify to this with my own reading habits - impulse buys - but most books priced at £2.99 are because the potential reader has taken a look at the book, read the blurb and the first few pages. They are immediately showing more of an interest in you and your work and are willing to invest that little bit extra.

I've gone into the maths in this earlier post, but the point is to make sure you put a serious value on the time, effort and work you've put into your eBook. Don't pay hundreds of pounds to run an ad campaign for exposure to promote your free eBook!

Learning from an expert

I was reading an interview with John Locke, who sold a million eBooks in five months on the Kindle platform a few years back now, and I wanted to share two things I pulled from it.

He advised we should set ourselves small but achievable goals to help us in marketing and one of his suggestions was to start with securing five 5-star reviews for a current title in, say, a month. Then build it up. Little steps.

He also suggested creating soundbites about our books and writing life to be used to promote ourselves and our work whenever and wherever we're out and about and asked. Having these little details pre-scripted in our head will mean we're always capable of making the most of every opportunity to promote ourselves.

Expanding and nurturing your readership

The final reason to try self publishing is because there's the opportunity to earn more over time (higher percentage of royalties on a like for like digital rights contract) than you would with a traditional.

Of course, for this to happen, you have to be prepared to be in the business of writing and marketing for the long, long haul.

Personally speaking, the biggest motivation for me is when someone really appreciates my writing and tells me so. I believe looking after my readership is an investment. How then, can you expand and nurture your readership to keep the momentum going?

First of all, you need to connect and engage with your audience on a regular basis - and I'm not necessarily talking about public speaking engagements like book signings, book readings and About The Author events - all of which are important - but there are little things you can be doing as well.

• Give away free books in promotions as we've just been discussing using KDP Select
• Include links to your other titles and your website in your books
• Keep producing great stories
• Have an author platform on your favourite social media sites - Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Google+ and write a blog to share yourself
• Keep the above presence continuous and not just before you launch a new book!
• Secure reviews and learn from them to grow as a writer and improve your craft

Tips for using KDP Select

When KDP Select was first launched, obviously less available titles meant more sales and profits for the enrolled books. Now the market is flooded and competition is red hot, so the recommendation algorithms and bestseller lists are not as effective.

However, to get the most out of KDP, you need to view it as a tool to be used within a broader marketing strategy, and not as a one-stop solution for all of your marketing needs.

If you are planning to use this program, here is some helpful advice to ensure you get the most out of those free days:

• Removing your titles from other platforms will take a while, so plan to get this in motion well in advance of your KDP promotion

•  Most websites where you can either advertise for free or pay to promote your Kindle eBook/s will require 48 hours notice to add your title/s to their promotional lists for a specific date

•  Shout about your promo on Twitter and set up events on Facebook and Goodreads at least one week before

• I've already mentioned not to pick the first of the month for your free day/s, but don't pick weekends either - and especially not bank holidays

•  Try to get as many reviews for your chosen title/s before the promotion begins. This a requirement from many of the websites that you'll be attempting to advertise on 48 hours before

•  Include a page at the back of your eBook requesting a review on Amazon from your readers. Add your website too

• Set up a mixture of tweets to use every couple of hours during your promotion. This should vary between quotes from the book, reasons why people would like to read your book for free and other tempting material. Oh, and hashtag!

• Be prepared to be stuck to social media during your free promo days and respond to people right away to keep the momentum going

So in conclusion, should you enroll in KDP Select?

If you just have the one book, it might be better to publish across multiple platforms and sell it on your website for maximum exposure.

If you have a few titles, it would probably be useful to try KDP for one of those and see how it performs. The idea of enrolling just the one title is to expose new readers to your work. If they like the freebie, they may consider buying your other books. Then you could continue the rotation.

KDP Select may also be the ideal platform to launch a new project or kickstart a title whose sales are slow.

You have to decide on your objective for selecting KDP. Are you trying to establish your expertise? Do you want to broaden your audience? Are you looking to increase your sales? Are you trying to make the Bestseller lists? Would you like to secure more reviews?

Don't try to do all of these at once in one promotion. Pick one objective and see how you fare. Remember, it's all about experimentation!

The benefits of KDP Select

What do you get for granting exclusivity to Amazon during those 90 days?

Within Amazon's marketplace there are many cross promotional sales opportunities giving your eBook greater exposure. Here's an overview of these:

• Bestseller lists for both paid and free Kindle eBooks in every category. With the lists running side by side on the website, this means if you reach the top of the chart during your promotional free days, you'll be appearing right next to the top paid book.

• When you buy an eBook on Amazon and reach the order page, they identify similar purchaser's purchases.

• Your book/s will be listed in all of the places showing available library books within the Kindle Lending Library.

• When viewing an eBook's promotional page, Amazon displays a list of other eBooks you may be interested in.

And finally, something worth considering if you have concerns that the exclusivity for 90 days is too limiting - don't forget there are free apps out there allowing people to read Kindle books on any device, so you don't have to own a Kindle to download from Amazon's Kindle marketplace.

KDP Select for beginners

Number nine on my list of why you should try self publishing is any contracts with Amazon / Lulu / Smashwords are for as long as you want and there's no pressure to earn back the advance that you would normally get with a traditional publishing house. As soon as you break even against your own outgoings invested to get the book published (which will be smaller than an advance), you start profiting!

We've been focusing primarily on Amazon, so we're going to continue with that for the moment and take a look at the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select service and how you can get the most out of it.

What is KDP Select?

This is Amazon's service for indie authors and self publishers where you enroll your book/s for 90 day cycles. When 90 days is up, you choose whether to go again. For each 90 day cycle, there are five days available where you can offer your eBook for free. You control these five days. You can either run a consecutive free one to five day promotion, or choose up to five separate days throughout the 90 day period.

Amazon demands exclusivity while eBooks are enrolled in KDP Select. You won't be able to sell your eBook or give it away anywhere else online or offline. They won't even allow you to give away review copies!

When I received my Kindle, I had one month's free Amazon Prime membership and took advantage of it. Prime customers can borrow one eBook per month for free and they choose from KDP Select eBooks. You, the author, get paid if someone borrows your book (only a quid, but hey, it all mounts up).

Why give my eBook away for free?

If you can get your head around it, the point of giving away books is to ultimately help you sell more copies. This is a tough strategy to run with when you've got little or no cash flow and just starting out in the business, but don't underestimate the power of word of mouth. Use your free book as a stepping stone in your overall marketing plan. Shout about your promotion. It's also a great way to secure those all important reviews.

Tactics for KDP Select

And now for a few tactical moves for the KDP beginner:

• Don't offer your book free on the first of the month - everybody already does that!
• Keep the free promotion running for at least two consecutive days so it has a chance to gather momentum.
• Ahead of your KDP promo, plan the promotion for your promotion. Put the word out on social media, writing sites you contribute to, book sites and to fellow bloggers.

6 strategies for better exposure on Amazon

A fortnight ago we were talking about how to get noticed in the Kindle store amongst the millions of listings.

Today's post follows on from there with six strategies you can apply to your book as soon as you get it loaded up on to Amazon.

1) Use keywords in the title and subtitle for your book
Make your book more discoverable with keywords

2) Choose the most appropriate categories when you publish
Selecting Browse Categories

3) Create guides and lists relevant to your own book
Create a So You'd Like To guide
Create a Listmania list

4) Update your signature in your personal profile to tell the world what your areas of expertise are

5) Post reviews of other related books and products - but be subtle about your own expertise and don't link to your book or website. Your signature appears here giving you additional exposure

6) Channel all of your online book sales to Amazon because the number of recent sales appears to be an important factor in the way Amazon ranks search results

Tablet and eReader domination!

Just looking at some old tablet and eReader stats as we start to build up to Christmas 2013...

During Christmas 2011, 1.3 million eReaders were sold with Amazon accounting for 92 per cent of the market share.

One in 40 adults in Britain received an eReader for Christmas.

61 per cent of Kindles were received by women (from a YouGov poll of more than 2,000 people).

Over 55s were twice as likely to receive an e-reader as 18 to 23-year-olds.

A survey by the Data Conversion Laboratory revealed that 63 per cent of publishers intended to publish an eBook in 2012.

A tablet was being bought every second in December 2012.
 

Factoring Amazon and the Kindle into your marketing strategy

It's hard to believe we've had the Kindle for almost six years. With it came an entirely new industry, an entirely new concept and the capability for the self publisher to reach millions with their work.

If you are struggling with the number of eReader devices and formats and wondering which to take on, it might be best to just focus on Amazon and the Kindle platform for the moment. That's what I'm doing. Smashwords, Kobo and the other big distributors can come later. Amazon still has the lion's share of the market, so it's wise to concentrate your efforts in the place you're likely to get the highest return.

We'll be taking an in depth look at Amazon's KDP program over the next couple of weeks.

Introducing enhanced eBooks

You say enhanced eBooks to me and I get very excited. The possibilities!!! Rich media. Alternative endings. Interview audios. Videos. Photographs. Interactivity like never before! For the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit, HarperCollins released an e-version with recently discovered Tolkien recordings and his own book illustrations, and Penguin has updated Pride and Prejudice with movie clips and instructions on the dancing.

But before we get lost in all of the hype, it's time to get down to the realism because the main problem with enhanced eBooks is they are not economically viable to the little author like you and me. You also have the concerns that embedded multimedia interrupts the reading experience and these interruptions take away from the reader's ability to imagine the story and characters. Maybe.

The art of merging sound, movies and images with text is constantly evolving and mastering the new technology will take practice. You won't necessarily need coding knowledge as there are apps for non coders to create enhanced eBooks.

Check out these sites:

Trapdoor
For an example of one of their enhanced eBooks created through an app, have a look at this

Storify

Blurb Mobile

Urturn previously Webdoc

This article gives you more information on creating enhanced eBooks

While I will probably dabble in enhanced eBooks more for fun than anything, I do agree with the sentiments of Seth Godin when he says, "Sure, there will be experiments at the cutting edge, but no, they're not going to pay off regularly enough for it to become an industry. The quality is going to remain in the writing and in the bravery of ideas, not in teams of people making expensive digital books."

Showcasing writing sites

Number eight of why you should self publish is because the technology and social media is there to be exploited!

Rather than forums, I'm more a fan of what I've dubbed showcasing sites - online writing communities like HarperCollins Authonomy, Stories Space and Write On where you can get ideas out there and receive instant feedback and be motivated in the process. Interaction, whether through networking or through social media and writing communities, is so important when you spend hours, days and months writing alone. It's too easy to withdraw and lose confidence when you don't see or talk to anybody.

And who knows - you may even be talent spotted like Leigh Fallon or E. L. James!

Self publishing marketing on a shoestring budget

We all need a little helping hand every now and then, so here is a great post by The Writing Bomb on how to sell more eBooks on a shoestring budget.

The featured magic website is www.fiverr.com

There are some downright bizarre things on there, but if money's tight and you want to continue with those all important book marketing and promotional experiments - give some of the suggestions in this post a whirl.

Getting noticed in the Kindle store

Today's post has my thoughts on how to get your work noticed in the Kindle store.

Build up a back list so you can showcase all of your work to your readers and give them lots of choice. I wrote one book and when my readers wanted more, I had nothing for them! I wasn't ready with my second book so I'm going to have to start from the ground up once again.

Be clever with your pricing. Don't just think the 99p pricing model will solve all of your problems. Take a look at my earlier post about the pros and cons of the 99p strategy.

Think about branching out into audio versions and foreign rights to offer even more choice.

If you're writing a series, consider selling the complete work once all the books are finished and on sale. You can offer a cheaper price for a limited time, or price the complete set higher and include additional material.

Reviews! Include a review request in the back of your printed copies to remind your readers to leave feedback. A quick word on reviews - bad ones are all part of the business BUT DON'T RETALIATE as you'll destroy your credibility - possibly forever. I've learned not to engage at all on negative topics relating to my work. Let the non constructive criticism wash over you, but do read the constructive negative reviews and try to learn from them.

I'm wary of forums as they are a haven for nasty people to gang up on others. It's up to you, but don't waste your time defending yourself.

Be active on Twitter. You all know it's my favourite! Read about my Twitter journey here:

Getting started on Twitter

Twitter tit bits Part 1

Twitter tit bits Part 2

Social media mistakes to avoid

Social media techniques for newbies

The great thing with Twitter is the community feel to it whatever your areas of interest. There is a fantastic mutual promotion going on constantly whereby we retweet each others content and posts so, not only do we reach our own fans, but we reach each others fans too! And remember the 90/10 or 80/20 rule - either way, spend much more time engaging with people in proportion to the time you spend promoting yourself and your work.

Have a Facebook page hmmmmmmm like forums I'm not sure about this one either. It works for some people but I've not stumbled upon a winning formula for me yet.

While we all just want to write every day, all day, you do need to schedule in some time during your day for marketing and promo stuff. Your book might well be amazing, but if no one knows about it, you won't sell enough copies (or any) to fund future writing efforts.

Take advantage of Amazon's sneak peak "Look Inside" feature. This is usually 10% of the book. Perhaps also offer a longer online sample of your book in PDF format on your own website where you can end on a cliffhanger in the story. Hopefully people will be enticed enough to buy the book to find out what happens.

As well as time for marketing and promo activities each day, work on self improvement - you and your work - and having the confidence to talk about your writing life and your work. Most of us are shy, retiring types at heart, so try recording and / or videoing yourself and playing it back, or talking to yourself in the mirror when no-one's around.