SCHEDULE. IT’S DONE!​

​Your weekly writing and platform-building scheduleA few notes before you start building your author platform:

• If you’re waking up early before work to get in your 2 hours, I’d say start by writing — that way if you’re in the flow, you can always keep going. If you’re doing your 2 hours after work, you might want to “wind-down” with the platform stuff; then do the writing afterwards once you’ve de-stressed.
• I always thinks it’s smart to choose 2 social media sites to concentrate on at first. I’m using Twitter and Facebook for this example, but you could substitute with Pinterest, G+, etc.
• Reading is something we’re hopefully doing all the time. But you gotta find time outside of these 2 hours for that!
• Keep things flexible. You might end up spending an extra 20 minutes on your interview responses one day, which cuts into time to submit work for publication. Oh well. You’ll get back on schedule the next day!

Week 1Monday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: revision
• 30 minutes: schedule tweets and Facebook updates for the week

Tuesday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: revision
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 20 minutes: prepare 2 submissions

Wednesday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: revision
• 20 minutes: interact with book forums, book-recommendation engines, GoodReads, etc.
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments

Thursday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 20 minutes: seek out reading opportunities at bookstores, libraries, etc. (or plan your book-launch party!)
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 30 minutes: write a blog post for your own website

Friday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: write a guest post for another blog
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 20 minutes: website maintenance (updates, respond to blog comments, etc.)

Week 2Monday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: revision
• 30 minutes: schedule tweets and Facebook updates

Tuesday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: book distribution maintenance, Amazon Author Central profile, accounting, etc.
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 20 minutes: start writing the copy for your monthly email newsletter

Wednesday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 15 minutes: revision
• 15 minutes: review newsletter copy and email it to your list!
• 20 minutes: interact with book forums/book-recommendation engines, GoodReads, etc.
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments

Thursday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: prepare for your reading (press release, logistics, etc.)
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 20 minutes: seek out guest blog opportunities

Friday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: write a blog for your own website
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 20 minutes: update website (make sure your website is media-friendly)

Week 3Monday

• 60 minutes: do an interview (by email, phone, or in-person) for a blog, podcast, TV show, radio, etc.
• 30 minutes: calm your nerves from the interview — drive back home
• 30 minutes: schedule tweets and Facebook updates

Tuesday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: revision
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 20 minutes: prepare 2 submissions

Wednesday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: revision
• 20 minutes: interact with book forums/book-recommendation engines, GoodReads, etc.
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments

Thursday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 20 minutes: seek out PR and promotional opportunities (interviews on TV, radio, podcasts, blogs, magazines, etc.)
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 30 minutes: write a piece of flash fiction for your blog, or shoot a quick behind-the-scenes video for fans

Friday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: join or maintain relationship with online writing group, author association, or sign up for a writing conference
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 20 minutes: website maintenance (make sure your blog looks pro)

Week 4Monday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: revision
• 30 minutes: schedule tweets and Facebook updates

Tuesday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 30 minutes: revision
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 20 minutes: prepare for your reading — which is coming up on Thursday!

Wednesday

• 60 minutes: writing
• 40 minutes: do a dress rehearsal for your reading
• 10: make sure everything is set for the reading
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments

Thursday Night

• 120 minutes: give a great reading! (Oh, and be sure to get it on video)

Friday

• 60 minutes: edit the video from the night before
• 30 minutes: post the video on your blog, YouTube, and share on social networks
• 10 minutes: respond to social media comments
• 20 minutes: WILD CARD! (do whatever you didn’t have time for earlier in the month)

This is just an example of one way to do it, but I’d love to hear from you: does this schedule look anything like your daily writing and platform-building routine? How have you started building your platform as an author? What’s worked? What’s been a waste of time? Let us know in the comments section below.

By building your author platform before your next book launch, you can harness the power of potential buyers, industry contacts, and your entire web community.

The “author platform” is a fancy buzzword folks in the book business use to talk about an author’s fan engagement, their social media and web presence, the size and dedication of their readership, and their connectedness to other authors, bloggers, critics, agents, publicists, publishers, etc.

By building your author platform BEFORE your next book launch, you’ll be able to harness the power of all those potential buyers, all those industry contacts, and your entire web community to increase your chances of success. After all, the only thing worse than not publishing your book is to publish it and get ignored entirely.

So how do you build your author platform?

One day at a time, of course. Just like writing, building an author platform is hard work; it takes daily dedication and organization. But the benefit of that labor is your writing will actually have an audience!

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to assume a few things about you (if any of these assumptions are incorrect, adjust accordingly):

You are not a full-time author yet, but you’re building towards it (i.e. you still have a day job)
You have other personal or family commitments that prevent you from spending every waking hour on your writing goals

You are able to set aside 2 hours a day (M-F) for your writing and platform-building work

Only Monday to Friday? Well, at times the drudgery of this platform-building is gonna feel like a “real” job — so you deserve a weekend. If you can sneak in a few extra hours to write on Saturday or Sunday, that’s great, but leave the author platform stuff for the workweek.

Five Tips to Improve Your Bookselling Efforts
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The reward of holding a copy of your published work is indescribable. But it’s just one of the many exciting milestones in your journey to self-publishing success. One key objective in your publishing journey is selling your book successfully. Here are five tips we think may help improve your efforts to increase book sales.

Build up your image as an author and a brand

Book buyers and readers gravitate to books—and authors—that appeal to them. The more you project yourself in a way that holds their attention, the more you gain their trust. Highlight the fact that you are now a published author. Add that to your email and forum signature lines. Don’t forget to add your website or social media profiles to here, as well as to your press release boilerplates. These may be small things, but they’re the building blocks to a positive image.

A quality 3rd-party review is important to successful bookselling

An honest and well-written 3rd-party review is invaluable. A positive review from a respected book reviewer will make your book stand out, improve its marketability and enhance your title’s, as well as your, reputation. Don’t be afraid to invite readers and indie reviewers to evaluate your book. Published reviews on sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other bookstore bolsters the credibility of your book encouraging new readers to part with their money knowing that they will get a good read in return.

Librarians are your best customers—and allies

Librarians are savvy, well-informed book buyers. They are the favorites of the traditional publishing houses, small presses, and self-publishers. If librarians like your book and trust your brand, they will likely become some of your most effective bookselling allies. Their participation and support are valuable aids to your bookselling activities—sponsoring book signings, readings, meet-and-greet affairs, and Q&A activities at their libraries. So be sure to visit your local libraries and befriend your librarians.

Use your social media networks to connect and sell your book

While Purpose Publishing carries all the titles of its authors in its online bookstore and through its partnerships with Amazon and Barnes and Noble, one of the most effective ways to sell you book is through social media networking. Generate news, book-related updates, and positive reviews through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and to the other online communities you belong to. Social networks are also great places to meet fellow authors and find new opportunities for selling your book.

To Your Success,

MG

Humans are highly visual creatures, and this holds true when we are reading. We don’t see the images in the book, we form them in our minds. Pack in brilliant verbal imagery and your readers will enjoy and remember your book.
Drawing powerful verbal imagery is a skill that defines natural-born writers, but it can also be learned. Here are five things to think about with respect to using the power of the pen to draw images.

1. Be aware of visual imagery
The first step is heightening your awareness of verbal imagery and how it works. When you read a new book, or write, take note.

We think of words as words – black ink on a white page. But they are more: they paint colorful pictures from the action, people, and settings of a story world. Check it out for yourself. Take a paragraph from any book you are reading and do an image “density test.” Count all the images that form in your mind as you read along. Is it a large and diverse number?

It depends on what you are reading, but in many books, it’ll be each sentence, or even each phrase — e.g. “Silent, he nodded and looked out the window at the windmill by the still lake.” That sentence evokes four images – a man nodding, a window, a windmill, and a lake scene.

Here’s the opening sentence of Ransom Riggs’ Library of Souls:

The monster stood not a tongue’s length away, eyes fixed on our throats, shriveled brain crowded with fantasies of murder.

How many images do you get from that? Almost every word is a new one. How does the image density of your writing compare?

2. Actively write in imagesMany authors say they see events unfold in their own minds and then they write them down. This is a great way to get visual writing. You can heighten this by purposefully engineering memorable images into your work.

Whether or not you remember the details of any of the Godzilla movies, you know what Godzilla looks like. What’s the single most memorable image from the Jurassic Park movie franchise? Is it the T. Rex sniffing out the kids in the car?

Often, it’s a useful technique to render an abstract idea into symbolic imagery to give it punch or make it easily understood and memorable. The scar on Harry Potter’s forehead is a brilliant example. It represents his past, his link with Voldemort, and his fate. Harry just has to show it or touch it in pain for readers to know something big is about to happen.

3. Keep the quality of your visual imagery in mind when you edit
If you can’t form an image about what is being described, likelihood is you probably don’t know exactly what is going on. So how would a reader know?

Have you ever tried editing expressly for visual content? Doing so can bring surprising rewards. You might find new ways to express abstract ideas. You might clean up some fluffy or confusing text. You might be inspired to add creative details.

If you read a phrase or sentence and fail to clock an image, you might find that it wasn’t fully imagined. Editing to improve visual interest is often about making abstract things more concrete. This is ubiquitously thought of as a good thing in terms of writing advice. Why say “his car got keyed,” when you can say “his usually pristine black Porsche 911 had an ugly, uneven scar that stretched from the driver’s side mirror to the tail light.” The second one is not only a stronger image, you wince harder. Why say “I fell in love” when you can give a few examples of blushing, tripping because you’re distracted, and sitting with your head in your hands daydreaming and get your “show don’t tell” out of the way too?

Great writing is about giving a reader enough detail to let them see the world you are presenting – without overdoing it. At best, they need some wiggle room to see your story world as they want to.

4. Understand why key types of information work better as a picture
Some things just work better visually. This is because they depend on having all the knowledge at once, on some form of complex structure in space or time, or the linkages between entities. Such information clusters are hard to render in words – no matter how many you use or how artfully you arrange them on the page.

Think about a map or a family tree. These are common images printed in books – words just can’t do them justice – or fit into equal space. If you do need to describe difficult images, it’s about getting out the most important information first – the structure and the types of connection. Then come the relevant details, which a reader can now map onto a visual framework they are holding in their head.

On a map, it’s about how features are related to each other in space that matters. A mountain pass leads to a valley with a river that flows to the sea upon which sits City A, and between that and City B lies a desert. Same with dynastic or familial relationships, and the whys and where different characters appear in the timeline can be critical to your story.

5. Use imagery to your best advantage
We all know the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” The trick of images is that they present all their information simultaneously. You might want to linger over The Mona Lisa to take in her finer details and soak in the mood, but it’s all there as you lay eyes on her.

Now imagine the many words it would take to describe The Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile to give detail equivalent to seeing her in person. It’s likely not possible, no matter how meticulously you picked your words, how artfully you ordered them, or how many you allowed yourself.

So, flip this and use the power of visual imagery to your advantage. Humans have a huge range of cultural images. Save 1,000 words every time you use an apt image. Think of a man who builds his wife somewhere to live. If you say, “he built her a Taj Mahal,” you have an image that cost only two words and you’ll know loads about their lifestyle and tastes: opulent and privileged and over the top. It’s 1,000 words of worth for only two – using an image. “She smiled as enigmatically as the Mona Lisa.”
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Purposefully pack your writing with attention-grabbing visuals and your writing will be memorable. There won’t be any incomplete ideas or passages full of filler. It will be more fully realized and accessible to the reader.
 
To Your Success,
MG

For business leaders, writers, and everyone in between, allowing yourself to be human, and vulnerable, goes a long way toward establishing trust. That doesn’t make it easy.You’ve been a business professional for quite a while now and have learned a lot in your time as a leader in various organizations. Your years of experience and education and your expertise and innovative ideas are what other impassioned leaders need to attain the success you’ve achieved. But do the people you serve know who you really are? They know you are a leader, but do they realize you’re human and no different from them when the veil is pulled back? Have you ever considered that the only way to establish a genuine connection with others is to be vulnerable?

Wearing my nonfiction book coach hat, I speak from experience. It wasn’t until I got real about my true self and who I really am that I began to attract a sustained influx of clients. Because I chose to be vulnerable, it encourages my clients to do the same and it’s one reason they want to work with me. It isn’t easy, but I propose it could be necessary to the success of your business — and your book.
 
As Brené Brown teaches in her TEDx talk, “The Power Of Vulnerability,” the gateway to intimacy is via being vulnerable about your imperfections. If you try to sugar coat your story, you miss out on the sense of connection with another human being that you can only attain when you’re letting someone see your warts and your big ugly tail. Every time you expose those imperfections — even because of those imperfections — you gain trust (or as Brown calls it, you “put marbles in the jar”). Over time, the intimacy you feel with other people depends on how many marbles are in your jar.
 
What business leader doesn’t want to establish trust amongst her staff and the customers her business serves? When trust is established with your subordinates and counterparts, success in all of your departments is guaranteed. People want to work with and for someone they trust and can relate to. The beauty of vulnerability is its ability to establish a connection with people from all different walks of life. People can connect with someone who knows how to get real.

David K. Williams, author of The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning: Tying Soft Traits to Hard Results, describes vulnerability in business in this Forbes magazine article: “Vulnerability is a natural condition of the work that we do — it isn’t a choice but a consequence. To declare oneself ‘not vulnerable’ would be inauthentic and would leave a leader living in a perpetual state of denial and stress. So it’s better and more courageous for every leader to acknowledge the fact that vulnerability is there.”
As a business leader, you don’t need added stress to your life. Let go of your pride and expose your vulnerability.

Showcase your vulnerability through writing
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You know deep down that you are a true leader. Writing a book not only helps to establish yourself as an expert, but it’s another way to expose your vulnerable side. Business leaders write books for a number of reasons:

• They have something to share that will benefit others.
• They want to leave a legacy that will impact the future.
• They see others struggle and have learned how to overcome obstacles.
• They want to showcase their businesses and their paths to success.
• They want to expose themselves as “real people” to their audiences.

 
In business and in life, trust is a must.
 
To Your Success,
MG

Writing enough text to fill a book is one thing but weaving it all together into a story with a strong arc, purpose, and impact is another. Here are some lessons that might help you in your writing process — whether your own book is an “accident” or not.


​Writing that much prose is one thing, but weaving it all together into a story with a strong arc, purpose, and impact is another entirely. Here are some lessons I’ve learned along the way that might help you in your writing process — whether your own writing is an “accident” or not.

Consolidate
First, copy and paste everything into a single word processor document, in the best narrative order you can determine at the time. Having everything in one place will feel like an important milestone — your work will seem more like a cohesive book-in-progress and less like a collection of fragments, scenes, and vignettes.

Edit at will
As with the initial drafting of any book,  use what minutes you can find in between other activities to clarify the language, put pieces together, or review something you wrote months or even years ago. Sometimes that means searching for a particular scene or experience that’s been caught in your memory and reexamining how it fits into the overall story. Other times, it will mean scrolling randomly through the document and working on whatever paragraph catches your eye and the mouse falls on. Focus your time on what I can do right now to get yourself closer to the finish line, knowing you’ll get to it all completed real soon.

Label and shuffle
With tens of thousands of words and dozens of narrative episodes, keeping track of everything can be a challenge. To help, start labeling significant portions of your story with unsexy and utilitarian titles like, “Argument about green vs. black tea” and “Weird surveillance grocery store encounter.”
Will the chunks I’m currently defining end up as chapter partitions in the final novel? Probably not. But for now, functional titles help you know, quickly and efficiently, what the landscape of my work-in-progress looks like.

Having well-labeled portions of text also helps you put things in the best order for any narrative. Does a certain scene play better in the second third of the book? Does a character’s backstory suddenly become more resonant when presented after a traumatic incident involving an ex-lover? Cut-and-paste is a wonderful thing, and you use it to experiment with all sorts of structures and event orders.

Save versions-in-progress
After significant editing sessions, you  save a new version of my document with a title like “Draft_v2.0,” Draft _v2.1,” and so on. This way, you can always go back and see previous manifestations of my ideas, as well as what I originally wrote on my phone. Having copious backups makes you more comfortable experimenting — you always know you can revert to a previous version if a creative risk you take doesn’t work in the end.

Fill in the gaps
If you discover that additional text is needed to make the story flow (and this will happen quite often), it’s always fun to return to writing mode. Either on the spot with your laptop or on your phone the next time you have a free minute, add the words, sentences, or paragraphs the story needs to smoothly flow and then go right back to editing mode.

Be patient and stay focused
It can be overwhelming to look at a 60,000-plus-word document, completely unedited, and realize it’s up to you alone to get it all in order. Try to stay micro-focused as you work, polishing only whatever sections are in front of your eyes at the moment and losing yourself in the task at hand. Just as the crafting of the original text happened gradually and organically, so too will the acts of compiling, editing, and revising.

Keep the big picture in mind​
At this point, YOU know where your characters begin, the struggles and triumphs they go through, and where they will end up physically, circumstantially, and emotionally when the story concludes. You’ll want to keep this whole arc in mind as you’re editing, compiling, and reordering. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, the big picture influences everything from word choice to plot adjustments and acts like glue, helping to stick the entire story together as a cohesive narrative.
 
To Your Success,
MG

What does 2018 have in store for authors? Last year we predicted which publishing trends would impact indie authors and how. Many of them materialized and some of them will hold true into 2018. Here is the list of the top 10 trends in publishing that will impact indie authors the most, with specific guidance on how you can best navigate them.

1) Indie authors will continue to grow ebook share

Traditional publishers will continue to price their ebooks above market and will focus on print and audio sales in 2018. They will also continue to focus on their go-to franchises and signing authors who have a built-in audience (celebrities, politicians, successful indies). Indies will continue to fill the void by publishing high-quality, affordable ebooks and writing to niche audiences (something blockbusters cannot do as they require mass appeal). Bestselling romance author, Rachel Van Dyken says, “2018 is bound to be a year for books and a year for readers! Trends come and go but one thing I see coming back in a huge way is sci-fi and fantasy romance. Contemporary will always do well but I think readers are starting to get overwhelmed with the same old rom com with the similar fonts, colors, and titles. I say bring on the other genres—a great palette cleanser for 2018.” As authors like Rachel continue to stay ahead of the curve by innovating on content and design, and become ever more sophisticated at book publishing, readers will continue to shift ebook market share to indies.

What this means for you: Indies have an edge over traditional publishers with both content and pricing. Indies can leverage this by experimenting with pricing and running short-term free  promotions on their titles. As an indie author you can serve readers who are thought of as “too niche” for publishers. Figure out who your audience is and how best to serve them with your writing. Be true to who you are as a writer and don’t try emulate the bestsellers that trads are putting out.

2) Marketing will become more expensive

As we predicted, 2017 saw increased costs on Facebook as more brands and authors used the platform to market their products. We anticipate this trend will continue into 2018 to the point where Facebook ads will no longer make sense for authors with single titles. Returns may still be there for authors with series or multiple titles, but the ROI will be thinner. Unfortunately this trend will not be limited to Facebook ads. Amazon Ads (AMS) will continue to gain in popularity, driving competition and increases in costs on the platform. Authors’ primary marketing challenges in 2018 will be trying to find marketing tools that are time and cost efficient. “Anyone who thinks we are heading into a period of calm after the choppy waters of 2017 is going to be disappointed,” says author and blogger David Gaughran. “Current trends will continue, ramping up all throughout 2018. This means more involved marketing campaigns will be needed to make a dent in the charts: considerable multi-pronged efforts with PPC ads, reader sites, newsletter swaps, and social media push. I don’t think Facebook is going out of fashion at all, I think the game is changing there considerably and authors will either adapt a new approach, or start to see very poor returns.” The upshot of this is that authors will have to spend significantly more time on marketing to maintain the results they saw in 2017.  “As indie publishing becomes more competitive and requires more and more business and marketing skills, I expect to see all successful indies outsource a major part of their marketing efforts — including the planning — to professional freelancers or agencies. Those who don’t will almost certainly experience burnout”, says Ricardo Fayet, CMO at Reedsy

What this means for you: Authors with large catalogs are going to have an edge over authors with single or smaller catalogs as they are able to spread their marketing costs over multiple titles and will get better ROI from read-through. If you are running a successful author business, 2018 may be the year to hire a marketing assistant. If you’re early in your indie author career, focus on becoming more prolific in your writing or adding additional titles to your existing series so you can compete in the marketplace.

3) Email marketing will be tested

Email marketing has always been the most cost-effective marketing tool available to authors. The reach and response you get from email compared to the cost of sending an email is still unbeatable. 2017 saw indie authors turning to email marketing and aggressively building their lists. 2017 was the year of group giveaways and email list swapping. Indies were delighted at the performance of email and used it more aggressively. The side effect has been reader fatigue – lower open rates and lower performance. This trend will continue into 2018 as indies are stuck between rising costs on platforms like Facebook and the growing unsubscribe rates on email. Director of Marketing at Draft2Digital, Kevin Tumlinson says, “To combat newsletter fatigue, authors are starting to become far more personal with their readers, simplifying newsletters to plain text, removing graphics, and refining their copy to something softer than a marketing pitch. The author’s personal empowerment will start, in part, with a more personalized email newsletter.”

What this means for you: Despite some decline in email performance, your email list is still your most valuable asset and you should treat it as such. Authors who respect reader preferences and send compelling content will continue to reap the rewards of email marketing. Experimentation will be the name of the game in 2018 as authors retool and re-think their email marketing strategies.

4) Everyone will talk about going “Direct to Reader”

Due to the increase in costs mentioned above, 2018 will be the year that everyone talks about “connecting directly with the reader”.  This will be true for traditional publishers and indies alike.  “As we move into 2018, there is a lot of interest from authors wanting to build their own store and their own platform. We think more authors will start dipping their toes into direct sales and owning the relationship with their readers, and we see a lot of them using exclusive content and bargains for their true fans. That will only grow as we move into the new year. Our data shows that readers are willing to pay for exclusive content and great bargains. It’s not all about free anymore.” says Damon Courtney, CEO of Bookfunnel. Bestselling author and creator of The Self Publishing Formula, Mark Dawson says, “One development that I am very excited about is the ability to use Facebook’s Messenger platform to reach readers in a way that cuts through the noise of email. I’ve been experimenting with both a chatbot on my author page to build a subscriber base on Messenger that then allows me to send broadcasts with delivery, open and click rates two or three times higher than can be achieved with email.” While writing might always have been seen as a solitary activity, storytelling itself has always been about a collaboration between the story-teller and the listener; or, to put it another way, the writer and the reader. We are continuing to see more opportunities for writers to connect directly with readers, particularly through digital publishing, as well as authors collaborating in ways that transcend simple co-authoring or multi-author promo bundles,” says Mark Leslie Lefebvre, former Director of Self-Publishing & Author Relations for Rakuten Kobo, Inc.  Going  direct to reader will mean different things to different authors and includes everything from chatbots to email marketing to launching a store to having in-person events with readers.

What this means for you: It will be easy to get distracted by all the Direct to Reader chatter in 2018. Many indie authors are already connecting directly with readers due to the nature of being an indie author. Focus on the activities that you know work to communicate and engage with your readers. Pick one new Direct to Reader idea to experiment with in 2018. Learn from the community by staying informed on what other authors are trying and what’s working.
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5) The Audiobook market will grow and be shaken up

Audiobooks were the fastest growing segment in the publishing industry last year. For traditional publishers audiobook sales mitigated declines in ebook sales, and trad publishers are bullish on audiobooks going into 2018. Audible (owned by Amazon) still has the lion’s share of the audiobook marketing but others are trying to make inroads. 2018 may well be the year when we see new and existing players disrupt the established order. Audiobooks.com was acquired by a media group in 2017, Apple’s exclusivity agreement with Audible ended last year and more players are getting into the mix with Kobo launching their own audiobook subscription service in late 2017. Findaway voices launched in July 2017 giving indie authors an alternative to ACX and an efficient way to distribute their audiobooks to multiple retailers. All this combines to give indie authors more control and more opportunity over their audiobook catalog. Kelly Lytle of Findaway Voices says, “Digital audiobooks will remain the fastest growth area in publishing with sales increasing 30% to 40% or more. The dynamics—ease of access for consumers, lifestyle habits, increased market competition, new selling models—have all synced up to create significant staying power. It should surprise nobody when the market size of audiobooks surpasses eBooks in a few years. In 2018, we expect to see independent authors empowered to capitalize on this explosive growth. Indies will take advantage of wide distribution (domestic, international, and public library), realize the advantages at key retailers of setting prices to meet consumer demand, and benefit from more discovery tools created to connect authors with their audiences outside traditional audiobook credit models.”

What this means for you: Producing an audiobook runs into the thousands of dollars or requires giving up significant royalties and is still a significant investment for authors. New authors who find the price tag too steep are best off focusing on building their catalog of ebooks first. Authors who are looking to invest in their publishing business should definitely have audiobook expansion on their list for 2018. All authors should keep an eye on the market and look to support audiobook retailers and production companies that are author friendly.

Publishing Trends Summary

There you have it, the 2018 publishing trends we predict will shape publishing in the coming year. We recommend reading each point but if you’ve skimmed down to the end for the summary it reads like this: Indie authors will continue to steal ebook share away from traditional publishers as readers continue to purchase books that are competitively priced and that cater to their specific genre tastes. Audiobooks will continue to be a bright spot for the publishing industry at large. Amazon will continue to be the thousand pound gorilla with more authors flocking to Kindle Unlimited despite other retailers trying to compete. Amazon will not be without its challenges as it continues to battle scammers and faces backlash from affiliates as Amazon diminishes its payouts. Marketing will be the primary challenge for everyone in 2018 as costs on platforms like Facebook and Amazon Ads continue to climb. Indies with large backlists who focus on multi-pronged marketing campaigns will be the winners. Indies will experiment with new ways to connect directly with readers though success in these areas will likely take multiple iterations and time.
 

WHY DOESN’T MY BOOK SELL?
Imagine this: Your book is done, you’ve had your launch party, and it’s up on Amazon.

But no one buys your book.
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Don’t believe that would happen to you? Think again.

I’ve seen this story over and over again from disappointed writers. They’ve done their research, we’ve published the book, and followed all the steps. Their books are available for purchase — but when their sales are in the double or even single digits, that doesn’t feel like success.

If no one buys your book, it’s likely not because your book isn’t good (I’ve seen plenty of bad books that sold thousands of copies). It’s because you’re missing the most important things you need to publish your book successfully.

What does it take to publish successfully? I’ve found you need five things:

1. A piece of great writing. You want to publish something worth reading, a book readers won’t want to put down.
   
   
2. An audience of readers. Actually, publishers don’t find these for you. No matter how or when you publish, you will need to find the readers who will love your book.
   
   
3. A cartel to support you. A cartel is an agreement among competitors. Instead of fighting with other writers over an audience, create a cartel of writers to reach an even larger audience. Don’t hate, Collaborate.
   
   
4. Feedback. Writers don’t write in a vacuum. You need feedback to help you make your writing the best it can be, and your cartel is the perfect team to help you prepare your writing for publication.
   
   
5. A launch plan. Successful launches don’t just happen. You need a plan, a strategy to leverage your audience and your cartel to send your book out into the world (and sell a lot of copies!).
   
   

Here’s the painful truth: every time you publish without these five things, you actually get further from your goal of publishing success.

But when you write a book you believe in, get feedback to make it the best it can be, gather your cartel and your audience of readers, and plan a brilliant launch, you can release your book into the world with confidence.

Why? Because you’ll actually sell books — and best of all, readers will read them.

To Your Success,

MG
​
Excerpts from Joe Bunting, The Writer’s Practice, August 2017

ELEVATOR PITCH: DO YOU HAVE ONE?

What Makes a Great Elevator Pitch? Do you even have one? Should you? YES! YES! YES!

Every elevator pitch is different, but they should matter to your reader! So they should have emotional appeal (don’t rule out “scary”). They should be helpful and insightful. And most of all, they should be timely. 

Everyone Loves a Good Story
 Stories are a good way to build rapport with your audience. Let’s take a minute to explore how this is true. If you are into any reality tv shows – from America’s Got Talent to American Ninja Warrior and beyond – you’ve seen this in action. They tell an emotional backstory about a competitor that makes you root for – and remember them – because now you’ve got emotional skin in the game. And this person is memorable. If you’re an author, you’ve already told a story in your book. Now it’s time to make the story compelling. I recently spoke at the Kept Woman of God Conference and many were surprised by the humor. A friend shared with me that her friend said to her, “I knew Michelle, but I had no idea that she was that funny.” It’s part of the pitch. It’s part of my story. Of course, many of my friends know I have a tendency to lace our conversations with something funny but everyone who’s ever met me wouldn’t know that. What do you want people who don’t know you to know about you? That’s your elevator pitch should answer.
​
Essential Elements of a Powerful Elevator Pitch

We just talked about what makes an elevator pitch great – and now are the elements you need to make it powerful:

1. Concise: Make it short, sweet, and to the point.

2. Clear: Use simple, compelling language everyone can understand without thinking too long. 

3. Passion: If you’re not passionate about your topic, how can you expect anyone else to be?

4. Visual: Use words that paint a picture in your reader’s mind.

5. Stories: Don’t forget to tell the story. 

6. What’s the worst that could happen? What will people miss out on by not buying your product, reading your book, or using your service?

Now, here’s how to Craft Your Killer Elevator Pitch

 • Write it down: Start by writing the story of your service, book, or product in two paragraphs or less. This will get the juices flowing. If you’re an author, this will be excruciating. Because I’m asking you to take your 100,000-word book and whittle it down to two paragraphs. But I promise you it’s worth it to get to the key elements of your book.

 • Make a list: Write down 10 to 20 things that your product, service or book does for the reader. These can be action statements, benefits, or book objectives.

 • Record yourself: Next, read it out loud and record yourself to see out it sounds. It’s pretty much a sure thing that you won’t like your first few attempts. And that’s ok. Only rarely will the first thing you write be effective. 

 • Rest: In other words, don’t rush this. Let it rest at least overnight. Your elevator pitch is the most important thing that you will be creating in your marketing package. So ensure that it’s just right.
 Finally, remember that you should try to be different from everyone else to get attention. And try to shock your consumer. Unusual facts are quite effective. I did that in the beginning of this piece when I said that goldfish are eclipsing us in terms of attention span. This works well for authors who write fiction. 

 And don’t worry about what other people think. To be memorable you’ve got to take chances. We admire the risk takers, because we wish we could do the same thing. And a good pitch gives you a way to take the chance and be different. Because if you – and your message – don’t stand out, you won’t get noticed in our 8-second world.

No matter what anyone will ever tell you, always be ready to tell your story!

To Your Success,
MG

​Want to write a great book? Use these 10 questions to get ideas for any kind of story, whether a spy thriller, a romance novel, or a memoir of your personal life. Let’s see where your story leads you!
 
1. DOES YOUR STORY TAKE PLACE IN TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS? Of the nine bestselling novels of all time, all nine are set in two different worlds. Think Harry Potter’s Muggle vs. Wizarding world. Or A Tale of Two Cities’ stable London and revolutionary Paris.
 
2. DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE SCARS? We all have scars. To be a writer, Stephen King says, “the only requirement is the ability to remember every scar.” Tap into your own scars to unlock the scars in your characters.
 
3. DOES YOUR STORY INVOLVE DEATH? Good writers don’t turn away from death, which is, after all, the universal human experience. Instead, they look it directly into its dark face and describe what they see on the page.
 
4. IS YOUR MAIN CHARACTER AN ORPHAN? Think for a moment about all great stories about orphans in literature and film. Orphans are uniquely vulnerable and thus have the most potential for growth.
 
5. ARE THERE GHOSTS? What do Edgar Allen Poe, Ron Weasley, King Saul from the Bible, Odysseus, and
Ebeneezer Scrooge have in common? They all saw ghosts! Everyone wonders about the afterlife. Have fun with it!
 
6. WHAT IS YOUR CHARACTER AFRAID OF? Your character’s biggest fear is your story’s secret weapon.
Don’t run from it, write about it.
 
7. DOES YOUR CHARACTER COME INTO AN UNEXPECTED FORTUNE? Not all fortunes are good. Sometimes discovering a fortune will destroy you.
 
8. DOES YOUR CHARACTER BUMP INTO HIS OR HER SOULMATE? Literally, bump into. In film, this is called the “meet cute,” when the hero bumps into the heroine in the hallway, knocking her books to the floor, and forcing them into conversation.
 
9. IS YOUR CHARACTER ON A JOURNEY? Is that journey interrupted by disaster? Who hasn’t been longing to get to a destination only to be delayed by something unexpected? This is the plot of Gravity, The Odyssey, and even Lord of the Rings.
 
10. DOES YOUR CHARACTER RUN INTO THE PATH OF A MONSTER? Monsters, whether people who do monstrous things or scaly beasts or natural disasters, always reveal what’s inside a person. Let your character fall into the path of a monster and see how they handle themselves.
 
You probably haven’t considered all of these questions when thinking about your story, but it’s a great way to even get your juices flowing. So, let your imagination takeover.
 
To Your Success,
MG

As indie authors, we all want to sell more books. And I’ve learned over the years that this is the biggest struggle of all authors. How do I sell more? So, I decided to spend even a little more time sharing some more great ways to get noticed and get more sales.

6. Do more videos: Let’s face it, video is big and only going to get bigger in the New Year. If you don’t have a YouTube channel, you may want to grab one and repurpose any of your social media videos and put them on YouTube! 

 7. Develop Superfans: Make your fans feel special. Maybe you want to create a VIP reader group on Facebook where you give them early access to books, gift card promos, contests, and exclusive content. 

 8. Start an email list! It’s a great way to stay in front of fans and on their radar. Consider including a letter in the back of your book that invites your readers to join. Or, offer a free copy of your book for your email subscribers and run ads on Goodreads, Twitter, and Facebook!  

 9. Network with other authors: Join online groups, go to writer events, or join local author groups. Networking with other, similar authors is not just good business, but it can help you brainstorm new ideas, and most likely expand your knowledge!

 10. Host an event at your library: While bookstore events can be great, libraries are often big, missed opportunities to connect with serious readers.

So take some time to review these ideas and factor them into your marketing plan.  If you haven’t built one yet, it’s time to get started! With a roadmap in place, you’ll stay focused and on task with your book marketing efforts… and maybe just maybe you’ll have the next bestseller! 


Republished with permission Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO Author Marketing Experts, Inc.
https://www.selfpublishedauthor.com/node/476

As indie authors, we all want to sell more books. And so, I want to share with you several ways that you can make the most of your book promotion efforts. As I’m sure you’ve learned a successful book marketing plan is made up of a range of actions that build on one another, and it’s wise to vary your efforts to get the most bang for your investment – whether its time or money, or a combination thereof. So with this in mind, here are some of the top ways that you can sell more books this year.  

 1. Be consistent: Whatever you do, do it consistently. So often indie authors try to do more than their time and bandwidth allow.  Fix this by picking the things you know you can do consistently and forgetting the rest. Trust me, you will make greater strides if you remain consistent in your efforts. 

 2. Price your book to sell:  How does your book stack up to its competitors? Your book should be priced competitively to sell well. 

 3. Do an eBook promotion: You really can’t do too many of these – and you don’t need to give away your books for free all the time. Even discounting your book by $1 can generate a big surge in sales.  

 4. Refresh, repackage, or reboot your older books: As your older books continue to age, consider refreshing your bookshelf by re-releasing older books, or even breaking older books into smaller ones and creating a new bundle. 

 5. Get creative: Now more than ever, we need to get creative with our book marketing efforts, whether we’re pitching to bloggers and media or working on our social media. Consider using any and all book tie ins, no matter how off the wall.  One example that I’ve used before is how I used a presidential election to make a romance novel into a bestseller. 

Take some time and consider these options and know there are many others. But you have to start somewhere. We exhaust our family and closest friends when we release the book. So, we have to capture the eyes and attention of others to help us share our message to a greater audience. Deciding what you want to do and giving it a try is a good way to get started on your roadmap. With a roadmap in place, you’ll stay focused and on task with your book marketing efforts… and maybe just maybe you’ll have the next bestseller! 

 
Republished with permission Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO Author Marketing Experts, Inc.
https://www.selfpublishedauthor.com/node/476
​

Reality check: Do you have what it takes to make your blog a book? Publishing a book takes effort, so before you start, ask yourself.
​
Congratulations! Your blog’s been doing well for a while now: you’ve built a fan base, carved out a niche, and looking back on your articles, you’ve produced tens of thousands of words. So why not publish a book?

You’ve already got credentials as a seasoned blogger, and putting your work together in a book will bolster your reputation. Your readers enjoy what you write, and they’ll be pleased to have it bound together as a book.

But publishing a book will take more effort than maintaining a blog, so before you start, do a reality check: Do you have what it takes to make your blog a book?

Take inventory. Let’s say you blog about “The World of the Fennec Fox.” You’ve been telling your fascinated readers all about this little nocturnal bugger with the unusually big ears running around the Sahara of North Africa. The fennec fox community knows and loves you.

While not every book with good content succeeds, several factors can work to your advantage.

• Readership. You’ve started building readership with your blog. It’s a lot tougher if you aren’t starting from a strong reader base.
• Recognition. People recognize you as an expert on the fennec fox, so they’ll be more likely to buy your book.
• Community. Are you well-known and active in the larger fennec fox community? Do they recognize you as someone who always offers value? If so, you’ll get more than readership: you’ll get active support.
• Comments. If you have an active comments section, you’ve got the beginnings of an audience.

Of course, there will always be competition. A book has the best chance in the market when it offers unique value. It needs to say something that others aren’t saying in a way that makes it stand out.

The economics of self-publishing
Self-publishing is an entrepreneurial activity. Keep that in mind at all times. Create a simple spreadsheet or ledger, keep good financial records, and record all your income and expenses.

There are degrees of “do it yourself.” If you do it all, you have to set up an e-commerce site that makes downloads available and collects payment for them. This can be the same site as your blog, if you have appropriate software and a payment processing service.

Should you consider crowdfunding?
You might want to consider crowdfunding your book. A crowdfunding campaign gives you advance publicity and helps create (and gauge) the level of interest in your project. Of course, if you run a successful campaign, you’ll also have money to produce and market your book in advance of publishing.
Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and GoFundMe are three of the more popular crowdfunding platforms, and each has its own approach. Kickstarter offers an all-or-nothing model, where you receive nothing and your supporters’ money is refunded if you don’t meet your specified goal. Indiegogo gives you the option of “flexible” or “fixed” funding – the flexible option lets you proceed whether you meet your target goal or not. GoFundMe doesn’t require you to set a target.

Running a successful crowdfunding campaign requires planning, effort, and an engaged community. Let your supporters know in advance what your target goal is, when the campaign will start, and how long it will run. You need the support of your core following to contribute money and spread the word.

Setting the right premiums are a big part of a successful campaign. All contributors over a minimum threshold should get an eBook, while higher-level supporters might get acknowledgment in the book, a mention on your website, personalized thank-you cards, and signed copies of the book.

You can get as creative as you’d like with your rewards, but you have to remember that when you start a crowdfunding campaign, you’re accepting an obligation. If you meet your funding threshold, you have to come through – don’t launch a campaign unless you’re sure you can deliver the book and the premiums.

Editing
You can’t just create a book completely on your own and expect it to sell. However good you are at writing, you can’t be your own editor. At a minimum, you need a skilled proofreader, but you should seriously consider employing a good copy editor. A copy editor doesn’t just check for spelling and grammar mistakes, she makes sure your writing is the best it can be. A copy editor will catch repetitious passages, excessive use of the passive voice, and much more.

Copyright questions
Your blog might include quotations, images, lyrics, comments, and guest contributions – perhaps some borrowed from other blogs and places online. When you’re selling a book, potential copyright violations will get more scrutiny. You’ll have to be mindful of Fair Use and contributors’ rights.

People who let you post articles and other content on your blog haven’t necessarily given you permission to include them in a book. You need to ask them and get clearances. They may be thrilled to have their content included, but if they say no, you do not have the right to include their content in your book – even if it’s intended as a giveaway.

Cover design
Whether traditionally or self-published, you’ll be competing with a host of other books, so yours needs to look as attractive and professional as possible. Like it or not, people do judge a book by its cover, and yours will appear on your website, on online retail stores, and everywhere your book is promoted or sold.

Book marketing
As a self-publisher, you’ll also have to be a self-marketer. Harness the resources you already have: the place to start is your blog. If anyone will be interested in your book, it’s the people who already read your material.

Once the book is published, write a blog entry alerting your readers of the great news. Thank them for their support with a discount code. Put a conspicuous, permanent link to buy your book on the home page, along with an image of the cover.

If you have a mailing list and newsletter, promote your new book: give your newsletter readers a distinct discount code. As a general rule, spread discount codes around as much as you can, and tailor each for your different promotions so you can track sales and determine which avenues are working best.

Social media promotions will be a big part of your strategy. Again, use the cover image, and be persistent but NOT annoying. The key with social promotions is engagement. Make your posts read like part of a conversation, not an ad. Talk about what’s in the book and what it was like to create this work. Invite responses.

Time to publish

Turning a blog into a book is a lot of work, but you’ve got the content and a reader base, so you’re off to a good start. It takes planning and commitment: you need to figure out how you’re going to proceed before diving into the deep end. You also need to recognize that the work does not end when the book goes up for sale.

It’s a challenge, but you’ll have the reward of being a published author, and that alone should boost your recognition in your field.

To Your Success,
MG

Some of the best fiction writing is inspired by personal experience, but putting too much of yourself in your writing can hurt your cause.
​
Writers must be brave. A writer must put herself out there and expose herself emotionally. Even fiction writing requires a writer to dig deep and expose her innermost thoughts to the public. Writers need to be ruthless and take the story where it needs to go, putting fears, worries, inhibitions, and biases on standby.

If you are writing something based on aspects of your personal life – say an honest, first-person account of an extraordinary event – this holds true on a deeper level. Those tapping their own lives for inspiration are obliged to give up the most private and difficult details of every situation to benefit the story. It is often the most raw and demanding details that readers enjoy most.

So how do great writers strike the balance of injecting enough self to suitably excite the reader without whipping up mundane and trite sludge, effectively destroying a work through self-indulgence? It comes down to which parts of ourselves we are inserting and why. Some details are core to the genius of a work, others should never see the light of day. To leave any of these flagrant signs of the self behind in a final draft is like a surgeon who sews up a bandage inside the patient’s belly. It serves no one.

There are many ways unwanted parts of us get stuck in our writing, and here are five ways to avoid it negatively affecting your work.

Remove your notes
As we write, we move from trying to understand our subject to expressing it for others. Along the way, it is common to write in short-hand, to deposit mental notes to ourselves before we write the sentences intended for readers. We start by building scaffolding, designed to serve us and eventually be removed. It is, by definition, temporary. Left in place, even vestiges of this skeleton make a manuscript appear unfinished, at best. At worst, it’s like a building that has been restored but remains ensconced : you only get hints of the beauty underneath.

Remember, your vacation photos are for you
We all know the stereotype of the overenthusiastic photo-snap, boring friends and family to death with the 1,000-slide vacation presentation. What is exciting to you, because you were there and it is your life experience, may be the perfect sleeping elixir to someone else.
Writers risk a similar fate if they overestimate the importance of their personal experiences. Is your story truly gripping because it offers insight into a core aspect of the human condition, or it is just of raging interest to you because of your particular circumstances, beliefs, or interests when it happened?

This is a hard question to answer, and it will rule out many potential ideas. If an idea passes our own filter, it then rests with others to determine if it passes the “vacation photo” test. Rare vacation photos are truly exceptional. We love saying to our vacationers, “That one is so good it could be a postcard!” and really mean it. This is the reaction you need from your readers. Apply the same “Is it too me?” filter to each chapter, section, paragraph, sentence, and word as you move towards the finish line. Shards of left-over self, necessary for preparation and cooking, are critical to remove before eating, as they drastically dilute the overall flavor.

Judge the story, not the truth

If you are writing fiction based on experience, you must know when to stick with the truth and when to let loose the creative juices and pump up the fiction. Sometimes truth overshadows the potential for a better story in the translation of reality-inspired events. If the true order of events occurred over a few months, but would be ten times more extraordinary and compelling for the reader if they occurred in a single day, make the retrofit. Do it with gusto and glee. Stretch.

We need to draw inspiration from real life where it helps and drop it when it hinders. Test and retest the logic of the story. See where you can raise the stakes. See where you can accelerate the pace. Dreams never occur in real time. They are snapshots of action over longer periods. Good books are too. Take the time and make the effort to make your story fiction.
See the forest for all the trees

Even if 100 percent fiction, writers are often so close to their work they fail to see the forest for the trees. In this case, self is restricting the scope and breadth of the work. This is where working with a writers’ group, getting feedback from willing readers, or turning to a professional editor will pay off.

Sometimes such narrowness is a critical and legitimate phase. All authors have to start somewhere. In an early draft, a writer might be so busy building the description of one side of an intersection they forget the other sides. This is just part of getting to the finish line. The sin is leaving such gaps for the reader to fall into. Such oversights are also evidence of too much self. An author needs to be able to look at the story the way readers will. Readers aren’t mind readers: they can only work with what is on the page.

Acknowledge the dual roles of self in writing

It is often the role of an editor to remove the unwanted remnants of self from a manuscript. The best authors will take on this challenge themselves and not spare their own feelings by completely removing the unwanted parts of self from their writing.

The paradox is that writing comes from self, and yet sometimes self has to be purged from the final product for readers to find it fulfilling and finished. Such a polished feel is a key part of the reader’s perception of a book being professional and high quality. There are no fingerprints on the mirror showing the artist was there working, just a clear reflection of the world the writer is trying to create.
 
To Your Success,
MG

6 things to consider: contemplate yourself as a writer.

How much time have you taken – in between frantically cranking out stories – to consider what kind of writer you really are? We can considerably improve our writing, and our writing goals, by stopping to think about what makes us tick as writers, identifying when we are at our best, and defining our strengths and weaknesses. Once you identify your strengths, you can build on them. Once you acknowledge your weaknesses, you can fix them.

Here are six things to consider that will help focus your thinking on your internal development as a writer – regardless of the project you are working on at the moment. Whether you’ve yet to write a book or you’ve written a dozen, you will keep evolving as an author. You’ll always be learning if you keep your mind open.

We all write differently
​The first task of a writer is to understand that we all write differently. You need to find your own processes, your own joys and pains, and keep them in mind while you absorb the experiences and lessons of others. Ask yourself these types of questions when you contemplate yourself as a writer.

• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• What makes you work best and what stops you from working?
• Why do you enjoy writing?
• Do you have a special routine you enjoy or do you need to develop one?
• Do you write in spurts and then go silent until the words well up again?
• Where do your ideas come from?

​
How to fail
Once you decide to take writing seriously, you need to learn enough of the rules so you can do your best. Your knowledge of convention will evolve over time and as the words flowing from your fingertips compound. You don’t need to learn all the rules at once: the more experience you gain as a writer, the more rules you will become aware of and actively use. You’ll know when and why to use them and when to ignore them or break them in clever ways that lend novelty to your efforts.

More important, do you believe the secret to great writing is magic or rules – or some kind of balance between the two?

Many great writers have internalized the entire rule book to the point that they draw on it effortlessly. What is the role of exceptions to rules, and how important is this in great writing? Do you know when to use ’em and when to break ’em?

What makes a book?
If you are serious about writing, your next big task is to get stories down on paper.

1. Concept
2. Premise
3. Attention to detail
4. Time
5. A catapult
6. Self-confidence

Do you already have all six, or do you still need to work towards them? If any are missing, how do you go about getting them? Are you good at seeing the big picture or are you a details person when it comes to writing?

Embrace your inner plotter and pantserTo go beyond your concept, you’ll need a plot. You’ll write it either as a plotter (someone who outlines and scripts), a pantser (someone who writes by the seat of his pants), or a combination of the two. Finding the balance that works best for you is essential, although you may find it changes over time and from project to project. Are you a plotter or a pantser or some clear combination of the two? What do you think works better and why? This is a perennial debate among writers, and the fact is there are different ways to get there in the end. You might even be a quilter – one who pieces together the parts of your story.

Take yourself outAs you go deeper into writing, you come to the crucial task of self-editing. Here it pays to really know yourself and especially your weak points, so you can shore them up. Key to this is to figure out how to put the right type of “self” into your writing and remove any unnecessary aspects of self that will reduce the reading pleasure of your readers.

Why have you written what you’ve written? Is it all for you, all for your reader, or a combination? Have you left in parts of “self” that were just notes for you, or scaffolds upon which you built that you forgot to remove? How do you find such “only for yourself” traces in your fiction so you can erase them when the time to do so arrives?
 
To Your Success,
MG

LITERARY AWARDS. A few Sundays ago, I watched the Oscars. I don’t think I’ve watched in many years I’ve only gotten the recap the day after on who won. But this year, I sat through and watched intently. It was interesting to see the forerunners won in some cases and be gracious in others. But I think the thing that stuck out the most were the number of people who have been in lighting, sound, sound effects, music, directors and the like win for the first time. There were more than a few gray/white haired experts that took the stage for the first time as a winner or that were nominated. I remember specifically one man who ran his fingers through his silver hair as he spoke saying he’s been in the business for over 50 years and this was his first time nominated and winning.

So, it made me think about authors. How long have some of you been authors and have you ever entered your book in an award contest or even nominated your work for an awards? At the Oscars, the Academy makes the selection and such is the case with most literary awards. But this year I want to motivate and push each of you to select at least one award for which you’ll enter your book or have your book nominated. Do you think your book has what it takes to make the awards list? And I’m going to make it easy for you. Take a look at the short list below of upcoming book awards and check out the requirements for entry. You’ll be surprised at how important what you’ve written is, but also how worthy it is to share with more than just your local market.

Make sure you let us know if you enter and we will surely share it! So, take the action and enter. You can’t be awarded if you don’t enter.

To Your Success,

MG

 
ILLUMINATION BOOK AWARDS
 
The Illumination Book Awards are designed to honor the year's best new titles written and published with a Christian worldview. Award categories range from Bible Study and Devotional to family-oriented subjects like Education and Children's Picture Book. The purpose of the Illumination Book Awards is to bring award recipients the credibility and publicity they need to further their book marketing and sales success.
The 2018 Illumination Awards are now open! Click HERE to request entry info or to ask a question.




ILLUMINATION WEBSITE
ENTRY FORM & GUIDELINES

2017 MEDALISTS
MERCHANDISE STORE
 
http://illuminationawards.com/2017Illumination_Book_Awards_Guidelines.pdf

21 EMAIL IDEAS FOR AUTHORS
What is the biggest reason why authors aren’t using email marketing to build a fan base and stay connected:
​
“I don’t know what to write about.”
Many nonfiction and fiction authors don’t have ideas for content they can offer in their emails—like juicy tidbits that tie into their expertise, topic or books. Yet at publishing conferences, they hear speakers and book coaches recommend that they build an email list. Most authors have no clue ​

Here are some examples of authors who are using email to stay in touch with their fans. I’ve included some fictional examples, too, so you can see how email can be a powerful marketing tool for authors in any genre.
​
For a Freelance Writer
Freelance writer Elizabeth Cottrell writes about four key topics at her blog at Heartspoken.com: “the connection to self, to others, to nature and to God.” Two important topics are the importance of handwriting sympathy and thank-you notes. In her emails, she can share:

• A short template for a sympathy note.
  
• 3 things NOT to say when sending a sympathy note to a friend who has lost a loved one. (Example: “You’ll eventually get over this.”)
  
• Her favorite three websites or Pinterest boards where people can find inspiration for writing thank-you notes.

For a Children’s Educational Curriculum Writer

Author Rosemarie Pagano created a fun vocabulary series called FAB VOCAB for kids, designed to teach students about unusual words. She created a character named Robin Bird to make learning fun and easy to understand. She has a weekly blog series called FAB VOCAB and she’s creating “The Worm Whisperer” series, all about good worms, bad worms and yucky worms.

She told me about these three ideas can share:

• A “word of the week” and the history of the word, with a download link to a printable image the child can hang on a wall or collect in a “FAB VOCAB” index card box. She can cross-promote from the blog to the email tips and vice-versa. 
  
• A request for students to send her a word they find interesting, gross, confusing, etc. What a great way to engage readers!
  
• A monthly “word search” diagram that challenges students to “find the word” hidden in a word puzzle she will create. Note: Rosemarie is creating a lot of her own content. But you don’t have to do everything yourself. In addition to your own content, you can link to other people’s articles, blog posts, etc. 
  

​
For a Children’s Fantasy Author
You’ve written a book for children, about a secret forest inhabited by fairies. Share:

• Instructions on how to make a fairy costume. These don’t even have to be your instructions. You can link to someone else’s.
  
• The 5 most famous fairies in history, and a short explanation of their origin (the Tooth Fairy, the Sugar Plum Fairy, Tinkerbell…)
  
• Your favorite online stores for games, costumes, puzzles, books, calendars, posters and music about fairies. 

For a Contemporary Romance Author
​A romance author can write:

• Do’s and don’ts for online dating. 
• Her favorite three places in Denver for a fun first date. She can use this same idea for other cities in future emails.
• The benefits of marrying late in life. 

For a Gluten-free Cookbook Author
Your book is about how to make gluten-free desserts. You can share:

• A funny story about the biggest mistake you made when learning how to bake gluten-free. (Readers love this!)
• The following week, ask readers to submit their funniest story to you with permission to share them with your other readers. 
• Your three favorite foodie TV shows, even if they aren’t about gluten-free cooking.For a Murder Mystery Author

You write about murder mysteries. You can share:

• An interview with a forensics expert.
• A character, a scene, a chapter or a sub-plot you created and then decided to eliminate from one of your books—and why. 
• Facts about the most puzzling real-life murder mystery of all time, with a link to a book, video or podcast about it.

For a Relationship Expert
You write about murder mysteries. You can share:

• You write about how to create healthy relationships that lead to a lifelong marriage. You can share:
• An example of a celebrity marriage that has endured for many years—and why. Offer their tips and your own.
• How TV shows like “The Bachelorette” harm young people.
• A mistake you made in your own marriage, what you learned from it, and how your readers can keep from making it.
  
  

To Your Success,

MG

You’re Not Insane, Stop acting like it…
​
Authors sometimes don’t want to hear what works in creating a successful book campaign—campaigns that include the creation, the marketing and the sales of a book … they would rather keep doing the same thing … the thing that has produced no results. Which is usually sitting on their still. Or if they did try “something” and it didn’t work, that they then choose to sit on their buns because nothing else will work. Or, if they had cost overruns in creating the book (and just who is responsible for that?—yes, dear author—look in the mirror), they refuse to do anything to support/market their book once they have all those books sitting in the garage.

Stop the Insanity … And please, pass me the barf bag so I can continue …

Great—you’ve got a book. What’s next? What’s next has to be marketing and selling of it. What’s next is teaching it and you how to connect with others. What’s next is telling the world. What’s next is to stop rationalizing, making excuses and justifying why you can’t market it. What’s next is for you, dear author, to commit—recommit—to your book and yourself.

“I’m tired.” So … we all are.  The creation of a book can lead to Book Fatigue Syndrome—I get it, you need a rest. Take a week or two off … but then, it’s back to work.

“I’ve already committed so much money, I can’t put another penny on my credit card …”  What were you thinking in the first place—that if you just held a copy of your finished book that the world would flock to the stores, the Internet, your website, your front door, you ,to get a copy? Get over it—you need expert marketing help … starting right now.

“I just want to write …” This is so yesteryear. No author gets to do the ostrich bit these days. Part of authoring is connecting with potential and ongoing book buyers. It means marketing, marketing, and more marketing.

“I hired the wrong person …” Yep, it happens. Lick your wounds—determine what went wrong in the process—then get back to work.

“I don’t know how to do all this social media stuff…” Welcome to the crowd … but there are those out there that do … and guess what—they are part of the book marketing campaign—your book marketing campaign. Your book budget.

Too, too many authors abandon the book ship early in the process. And what do they do? Many start another book—maybe a variation of what they just did. And what will happen when they finish? Most likely, abandonment. In effect, you’ve become an unfit author/parent. What are you thinking? Stop the insanity. Today. Now.

To Your Success,
​
MG