Category self publishing

Nov 22 2013

Too Many Clicks: Driving traffic to your book’s detail page

Too Many Clicks

If you’re selling a book, you want to drive traffic to your book’s detail page. Ideally, you want traffic to get there in a single click.

Any extra stops along the way are a sales deterrent, even if they are relevant to your book.

Example:

  • Authors are tempted to drive traffic to their author pages at Author Central.
  • It’s better to drive traffic straight to your book’s detail page.

Why?

Fact: Amazon sees much more activity on a product’s detail page when traffic is driven directly to the detail page.

How do I know?

I learned this firsthand from Amazon’s marketing department. We were discussing advertisements and whether they should link directly to a book’s detail page, an author page, or some other page that highlights the series or imprint.

The author page is a valuable tool:

  • It helps to lend you credibility.
  • The author photo helps with your branding.
  • Readers can find all your books in one place.

However, you don’t want it to be the first stop for a new customer.

Why not? Because you don’t want to risk your author page being the only stop.

What you really want is for customers to make it to your book’s detail page. So send them straight there. Then they are less likely to get lost on the way.

Customers like convenience. A single click is convenient.

What’s one more click?

  • More time. Who has that?
  • More hassle. Who wants that?
  • More risk of internet issues. Everyone has that.
  • More distractions for the customer. Ooh, what a pretty flower!

This all sounds reasonable, yet that author page stills tempts you.

  • You don’t know which book the customer wants, so you want the customer to see all your books.
  • You don’t want to sell just one book. You want to make it easy for customers to find all your books.

Those are all good reasons, but the fact that you will lose customers along the way should make this decision very simple.

Your book’s detail page is a better sales tool:

  • An effective blurb will engage customers better than your biography.
  • Your blurb is more informative than a list of thumbnails.
  • Customer reviews receive consideration from shoppers.
  • You have to click to Look Inside. That’s too many clicks.

One click to your author page. Two clicks to your detail page. Three clicks to Look Inside.

Three clicks and you’re out!

Still stuck on that author page. It’s not doing anything that your detail page is doing.

  • The customer still sees your author photo and biography on your detail page.
  • Your other books will show up in the Customers Also Bought list on your detail page.

Think about the customer’s path to your book:

  • Make it easy for the customer with a direct link to your product page. One easy click.
  • Pick the most relevant book. Direct new readers to your most reviewed, bestselling book relevant for them, or to the first book of a relevant series. Direct fans to your latest book.
  • Include a link to your book at the bottom of your page. If the potential customer reaches the bottom of the page, don’t make the customer scroll back up to find the link. If it’s handy to link to your book higher up on the page, it’s okay to do it a second time at the end to provide this added convenience.
  • Are there too many links to choose from? You want the link to your book’s page to be easy to find.
  • Does the customer have to click on an image? If so, is this clear? Not everyone will think to do this.

It’s not just your book, but any website you’re driving traffic to. Ask yourself if there are too many clicks? Nothing beats one easy click.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Psst. You can get there with one easy click. 🙂

Connect with me through social media: Facebook page, Twitter

Check out Read Tuesday (a Black Friday event just for books): website, Facebook page, Twitter

Nov 20 2013

Updating a Book at CreateSpace or Kindle Direct Publishing

Update

Today I will share my experience of updating books at Amazon. I recently updated Volume 1 of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers at CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). The paperback now includes a comprehensive 18-page index, and both the paperback and eBook include minor updates (such as mention of recent changes at CreateSpace, Amazon, and Kindle and correcting a few minor typos).

If you need to revise your interior or cover file at CreateSpace, first study your sales rank history (you want to know the time of the sales, not the time that the royalties report) to help choose the time where you’re least likely to sell books. Your book will be unavailable for sale while the new file is being reviewed, so you don’t want it to interfere with sales (unless your revision is more urgent, then you just have to do it immediately).

It takes approximately 12 hours for your files to be reviewed. The biggest concern is how Murphy’s law will get you:

  • One way is for CreateSpace to make changes to your cover, even when you didn’t change the cover file and it had been perfect. The best thing to do is resubmit your files for review and hope the next reviewer doesn’t make changes to your cover. This is another 12 hours. But if you call, they put in a request to research the problem, and this can take a couple of days (and may not even resolve the problem). There is, unfortunately, a worst-case scenario where your book is offline for several days. You just have to cross your fingers and hope it doesn’t happen to you. Let me add that this rarely happens, so most likely it won’t be an issue. I didn’t mean to scare you. Just prepare for the worst, then if something does happen, you won’t be surprised by it.
  • Another way is for you to make a minor revision, which winds up causing major changes to the layout of your book. You see, revising a phrase on page 3 could cause a crazy page break on page 8. Take the time to scroll page by page through your book in the Digital Proofer to ensure that there aren’t any crazy layout problems and you might be able to avoid this problem.
  • Then there is conservation of typos, whereby you introduce a new typo in the process of correcting others.
  • Finally, there is the Doh! moment when you click Approve Proof and suddenly remember something else that you should have done.

Very often, your book is again available for sale in 12 to 24 hours after uploading the revised file.

A crazy thing is that you can actually order the paperback directly from Amazon after the revision and receive the older version. This evidently happens when they already have your older version stocked in their warehouse (e.g. if there was a returned copy to resell or if they had ordered some in advance to stock up).

What I like about KDP is that your previous edition remains available for sale while your new eBook is in the process of publishing. This way you don’t miss out on any sales in the meantime.

I put a note on the copyright page indicating when the eBook was last updated. This way, when I viewed the Look Inside at Amazon, I knew I was looking at the updated version.

I like the way the Look Inside turned out. The Look Inside when viewing on a PC is the greatest formatting challenge. I went into the HTML in my effort to perfect this. The indents look large on the PC, but that’s because I set them to a percentage instead of a value in inches. That way, the indents will look fairly reasonable from a cell phone to an iPad.

Another thing to consider is updating the description. I updated the paperback description from CreateSpace, using the basic HTML that’s allowed to create linebreaks, boldface, italics, and bullets. I used Author Central to do this for the eBook. The paperback description begins with a note about the new index that has been added.

The paperback was ranked around 14,000 on Amazon, but has now dropped down to 45,000. It’s amazing what a 16-hour window of no availability can do to sales rank. On the other hand, the eBook edition jumped up to 40,000 from the 100,000’s. I guess when the paperback wasn’t available, people decided to go with the eBook (ordinarily, I sell many paperbacks for each eBook that sells).

For those who may have purchased the original paperback without the index, there is a free index available in PDF format online: https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/index-for-a-detailed-guide/

Now I need to work on an index for Volume 2.

Volume 1 eBook: http://amzn.com/B00AA5CJ7C

Volume 1 paperback: http://amzn.com/1480250201

Volume 2 eBook: http://amzn.com/B00CSDUP66

Volume 2 paperback: http://amzn.com/1484037243

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing), Facebook page, Twitter

Check out Read Tuesday (a Black Friday event just for books): website, Facebook page, Twitter

Nov 19 2013

Zoink Swoosh Cachink Psst Gurgle Splat Buzz Thunk

Sound Effects

How do you feel about words that are created to mimic sound effects in fiction?

You’re reading along, the words are flowing nicely, the story has a smooth pace. Then, without any warning. BAM! There comes a word, all by itself, disrupting the flow, shaking things up for you as reader as much as it is for the characters.

I like it. However:

  • This device loses effectiveness the more it is utilized.
  • The spelling and sound need to agree with me.

It isss posssible to have a high frequencssy of sssuch sssound effectsss, but the sssituation mussst call for it. For example:

  • It may accentuate a character’s unique speech pattern.
  • More use could appeal to young readers (think Dr. Seuss).

When I say that the spelling must agree with me, I don’t mean that it has to follow some standard spelling. A new sound effect word may be refreshing.

What I really want is to agree with the way it sounds.

Don’t give me a rirr rirr when it’s more of a ree-ro ree-ro.

On the other hand, you also have to be reasonable as a reader. If you can say, “Okay, maybe it could sound like that,” you need to accept it.

As with the spelling of a character’s name, there is an aesthetic property associated with the way the letters of the sound effect are selected and arranged. For example, a swoosh is a smooth, unassuming sound effect, while a thunk is hard and abrupt.

Sometimes it’s unnecessary to devise a new sound effect. For example, if two objects collide, why not go with one of the words already in use, such as bump, clunk, thud, or splat?

Is it useful to emphasize the word with CAPS, italics, boldface, or color? The sound effect already stands out because of its unique spelling. Very often, it appears as a single-word sentence. If it already stands out readily, perhaps added emphasis isn’t necessary.

What are some of your favorite sound effects?

Clink clink gurgle gurgle biff biff pau.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing), Facebook page, Twitter

Check out Read Tuesday (a Black Friday event just for books): website, Facebook page, Twitter

Nov 17 2013

Show & Tell

Show Tell

One of the ‘rules’ of writing is:

  • Show; don’t tell.

First, I’ll ‘tell’ you what this means:

  • Showing, rather than telling, can provide a more vivid understanding to the reader.

Now, let me ‘show’ you what this means:

  • “My daughter was upset because I refused to give her ice-cream,” tells you how my daughter reacted.
  • “When I refused her request for ice-cream, my daughter crossed her arms, spun around on one foot, and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her,” shows you how she reacted.

There may be times where it is more appropriate to tell rather than to show:

  • Showing a very minor point may detract from the storyline.
  • Showing may lose its effectiveness or seem tedious if done to an extreme.
  • Main points stand out better when just these are shown.
  • Telling can help make a quick transition between different scenes. For example, “They had an uneventful journey.”
  • A good balance between showing and telling may help achieve the proper rhythm and pace.
  • Telling is often more concise than showing. Imagine how long a typical novel may be if everything were shown rather than told. Readers want to feel like the story is making progress.
  • Telling may be more appropriate for technical writing than showing.

It may be better advice to say:

  • Balance your showing and telling.

But it isn’t the phrasing of the rule that matters. What matters is understanding the distinction between showing and telling, learning how to do each effectively, discovering when to do which, finding the right balance, and making the story and wording flow well.

I have a little riddle for you:

  • What do you get when a novelist takes showing to an extreme?

Spoiler alert: The answer is coming now. If you’re going to exclusively show, you might as well not write a book at all. You might as well film a movie.

Many people who love to read often remark that a book is better than the movie. (Partly, this is because a movie is over in two hours, but a novel involves several hours of reading.)

A movie inherently shows a great deal. So if showing is better than telling, shouldn’t a movie be better than a book? Maybe not:

  • Too much showing reduces the role of the audience’s imagination. A book is better at cultivating the reader’s imagination.
  • Too much showing limits the creative freedom of the audience. When fewer specifics are given, the audience has more freedom in visualizing people, places, and things to their liking. Once they are shown a detail that they don’t like, they feel stuck with it.

A good balance between showing and telling can help provide the best of both worlds.

An interesting point arises when you consider book covers. If the main characters appear on the covers, the reader is shown very specifically how those characters look:

  • Does this hamper the reader’s imagination and freedom in visualizing?

Maybe. But it may be a necessity in genres where this is common, like romance. A cover that clearly depicts the genre can be a valuable marketing tool. If readers are accustomed to seeing the characters on the cover in a given genre, a cover that doesn’t do this may suffer through many fewer sales.

At least, if the characters are depicted on the cover, those characters are apt to appeal to people who purchase the book. So while readers may not be able visualize the characters in their own fashion, they will probably be okay with it.

I also come across this issue of show and tell when teaching physics:

  • Very often, showing is a more effective teaching tool than telling.
  • However, many valuable thinking skills are developed through telling—for example, the ability to reason abstractly and to synthesize information.
  • Students prefer to be shown, but if they never experience processing information they are told, they won’t develop some of these other valuable skills.
  • Examples show students how to solve problems. Some students ignore theory, concepts, and proofs, focusing solely on the examples. When they do this, they miss out on important learning elements.
  • It’s better to be able to solve hundreds of different problems by understanding the underlying technique than it is to memorize hundreds of different solutions. For example, understanding how to apply conservation of energy can help a student solve hundreds of different physics problems. The student who must rely on a very specific example as a guide will struggle with many of the problems.
  • Some skills are difficult to show. Many laboratory, reasoning, and application skills must be learned by trying.

As with writing, a good balance between showing and telling may provide a better learning experience in some ways.

Similarly, there may be some benefits to reading writing that is more abstract, showing less, telling more, and requiring more thought from the reader.

It depends on what you’re writing and who your audience is. An enjoyable read for a popular audience should make things easier on the reader. There are audiences who like things more abstract, for which there should be less showing and more telling, with more opportunities to puzzle things out.

Effective writing meets the needs of the specific target audience.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing), Facebook page, Twitter

Check out Read Tuesday (a Black Friday event just for books): website, Facebook page, Twitter

Nov 16 2013

Publishing a Book Is Like Applying for a Job

Want Ads

In many ways, publishing a book is like applying for a job:

  • You scour the want ads searching for a job opening, and you scour the Writer’s Market and other lists searching for agents and publishers.
  • Self-publishing is like starting your own business. Writing is a business, if your books are for sale.
  • A prospective employer first looks at your resume and cover letter before deciding whether or not to contact you. A prospective agent or publisher first looks at your query letter and book proposal. A prospective reader first looks at your cover, title, description, and sample.
  • Contacts and social media can help you meet employers, find head hunters, discover training opportunities, get resume help, be referred, and become part of a support network. In the writing world, contacts and social media can help you meet other writers, connect with editors and designers, learn publishing and marketing tips, discover agents and publishing opportunities, get writing help, and give and receive valuable support.
  • Referrals from contacts, supervisors, and previous employers can be quite valuable. For authors, word-of-mouth referrals, book reviews, and recommendations are golden.
  • A product or service needs to be highly marketable and effectively marketed in order for the business to succeed. Books similarly must be marketable and effectively marketed.
  • Ultimately, valuable skills sets and experience are necessary for any job. Writing and storytelling skills and experiences thus serve authors. The writer is a craftsman.
  • At a job, customers pay the employees’ salaries; without the customers, the company would go out of business. In the publishing world, readers pay the authors’ and publishers’ salaries.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing), Facebook page, Twitter

Nov 15 2013

Promote Your Kindle Countdown Deal or Select Free Promo (or Other Book Sale)

On Sale

The writer who carves a masterpiece out of words and publishes the book faces a new challenge:

  • how to help the target audience discover the book

As there are millions of books to choose from, this is no easy task.

One way to try to help stimulate sales is to put the book on a temporary sale, e.g. through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

  • Amazon has a new Countdown Deal available for books enrolled in KDP Select. This allows for a temporary reduction in price and shows customers how much they are saving and when the sale ends.
  • The older KDP Select free promo option is another alternative. (Note that you can’t mix and match Countdown Deals and free promos for the same book in a given 90-day enrollment period.)
  • Books that aren’t enrolled in KDP Select can still have a temporary price reduction by simply republishing at the new list price.

Everyone likes a sale. It’s great to save money.

But there’s a catch: The sale won’t attract buyers if customers don’t know about the sale.

You still have the problem of discovery. Just putting your book on sale through a Kindle Countdown Deal, KDP Select free promo, or other temporary price reduction isn’t enough:

  • A temporary sale, all by itself, probably won’t help much with getting your book discovered.

Nevertheless, a temporary price reduction can be effective if you succeed in spreading news about the sale:

  • Instead of just promoting your book, promoting that your book is temporarily on sale may generate more interest. That is, it can help make your marketing more effective.
  • Any promotions that you do to spread the news about your sale may be amplified by people in your target audience who become interested in your book.
  • If people develop interest in your book, the looming deadline may help to generate sales.
  • Sales that you may generate as a result of placing your book on sale can help improve your book’s visibility through sales rank, customers-also-bought associations, and customer reviews.

(Note that KDP Select free promos generate a free rank instead of a paid rank, but any subsequent sales once the free promo ends will help boost the paid rank.)

It all comes down to getting your book’s sale discovered by your target audience.

The usual marketing strategies—blogging, Twitter, Facebook, press release, building buzz, interacting with your target audience, readings, guest blogs, etc.—can help with discoverability. Instead of just promoting your book, you’ll be promoting the temporary sale of your book, which may help to generate more interest than your usual marketing.

Also, if you’ve been branding an image, prospective buyers who may have been considering your book might be sold when they see that your book is now on sale.

However, you probably want to use this golden opportunity to try and go beyond your usual marketing reach. For example, you might want to consider if a low-cost advertisement may be cost-effective.

Don’t focus solely on projections for how many people may view your advertisement. It’s also important to consider:

  • What fraction of the people who view your advertisement are in your specific target audience? They are more likely to make the purchase, appreciate your book, and leave a review.
  • How marketable is your book? Will the cover and blurb make the genre clear and appeal to your specific target audience?

If you have a highly marketable book in terms of both packaging and content—i.e. it will both attract and please a significant target audience—then it may be worth advertising at a site that can show your advertisement to your specific target audience.

One popular site is BookBub, but there are other options, like Ereader News Today, Kindle Books & Tips, Book Gorilla, Book Blast, and Pixel of Ink. You want to learn about stats to help you with your decision. For example, the BookBub pricing page provides data for subscribers by genre, average downloads, and average sales. There are also sites to help you promote seasonal events. For example, check out Read Tuesday, designed to help stimulate holiday sales.

With a Kindle Countdown Deal or temporary price reduction, you earn royalties during the sale. Your hope is that these immediate sales and a possible increase in sales following the sale will recover your investment and then some, but as with any investment, there is always a risk.

In contrast, a KDP Select free promo doesn’t yield any royalties during the sale. Here, the hope is that if you succeed in creating interest for your book during the promo, then enough people will read the book (only a percentage who download it for free will eventually read it, and some will be from outside your target audience) and recommend it to others. That’s a big IF, and it doesn’t always work out that way. A successful free promo can lead to a significant improvement in sales, but not necessarily (it was more common in the early days of KDP Select, but still happens now; a highly marketable book and an effective promotion improve your chances).

A nice feature of the new Kindle Countdown deal is that any sales made during your promotion improve your paid sales rank, whereas your sales rank slides during a KDP Select free promo.

Publishing Resources

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles on publishing and marketing by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

 

Nov 13 2013

New Electronic Stats Display 8000

Electronic Stats

 

Check out the new Electronic Stats Display 8000:

  • Instant real-time display.
  • Works 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week.
  • Includes international wireless connection.
  • Display multiple stats from any website.
  • Fully customizable display.
  • Programmable sound effects.
  • Translate to any of 36 different languages.
  • Built-in energy-saving AI circuit.
  • Online gaming provides odds and allows user to place bets.
  • Available as mounted wall unit or portable handheld device.
  • Optional holographic projector produces 3D images up to billboard size.

Features described for fully-loaded luxury model, and are optional upgrades on other models. Offer void everywhere and anywhere else prohibited by law. Please allow six to eight centuries for delivery.

Nov 10 2013

Changing Your Book Up

Change Up

If you publish a book, chances are you will encounter a variety of reasons to consider making changes:

  • The blurb is quite challenging to write, so we often wonder if we should try to improve it.
  • It’s nearly impossible to edit a hundred thousand words and catch every single typo. Even if you edit extremely well, you usually encounter a couple of stragglers somewhere down the line.
  • As we’re human, occasionally we make a big oopsie. If so, you want to fix that as quickly as possible.
  • Nonfiction material can quickly become outdated. Revisions can help keep it up-to-date.
  • Reviews sometimes provide suggestions that have merit. You’re thinking about applying this helpful feedback.
  • An idea may occur to you, which you hadn’t thought of before. You’re wondering if it would make your book better.

Depending on the occasion, it might be best to make the change right away or it might be best to wait:

  • If you have an embarrassing or significant mistake, you need to take care of that promptly.
  • At Kindle, your present edition will remain available while you’re revised edition is in the process of publishing, so you don’t have to worry about losing sales in the meantime. So once your revision is ready, there is no reason to wait.
  • At CreateSpace, your book will be unavailable for about 12-24 hours while your file is being reviewed. So if the changes can wait, it would be a good idea to pick a day and time where sales may be relatively slow. Study your sales rank history at AuthorCentral for help planning this, and also consider what marketing you have going on and coming soon. Sometimes your book can be back online in less than 12 hours. However, even if you make a minor change to your interior file, your cover file can get changed for the worse (even if you don’t change your cover), and it can take several days to fully resolve this. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst-case scenario.
  • Most things, including your blurb, author photo, biography, and book files probably shouldn’t be changed when sales are going well. If sales start to drop off, that may be a better time to change things up and see if they help or hurt.

I’ve revised several of my books and blurbs in 2013 (and I’m still not finished with it). For me, it has been a year of revisions. I have a few projects that I wanted to complete in 2013, but which I have yet to begin, because I have spent so much time making revisions.

It started with one of my math workbooks. I had a request from a parent that would help one of my math workbooks better meet the needs of parents, so I devoted some time toward this. At about the same time, I also updated a couple of the covers of my math workbooks. Those I was able to improve without making the cover look significantly different. (I have a couple of other math workbooks that I’d like to give a makeover, but I haven’t because I don’t want anyone to accidentally buy the same book twice.)

Next, I made numerous revisions to my conceptual chemistry book. I completely revised thousands of symbols that were originally typeset as equations, realizing that they would format better as text with superscripts and subscripts. This was extremely time-consuming and took several edits. I have about 40 different versions of the eBook file, and dozens more of the paperback editions. I’ve never edited anything this much before, and hope to avoid such extensive editing in the future.

I’ve updated my self-publishing books a few times because every time I make a revision, something new seems to come out. My original (i.e. 2009) self-publishing book needs a major overhaul. I’ve been wanting to do this for a couple of years, but it needs so much work, I generally put it on the backburner and work on something else. I plan to finally do this by the year’s end.

Presently, I’m adding indexes to my new (i.e. 2012/2013) self-publishing books (i.e. Volumes 1 and 2 of the “Detailed Guide”). It’s amazing how much work is involved in making a thorough index. And it’s thorough; it may add another 20 pages (with two columns) to the book. I hope to have the index for Volume 1 finished today or tomorrow. Then I have a list of revisions to make, like mentioning the new Countdown Deal, but this should be quick and painless.

I’ll be combining Volumes 1 and 2 into an omnibus edition. I hope to have it out by Read Tuesday. Then I can get back to the major overhaul of my original self-publishing book.

I have some other minor revisions that I’ve made (correcting a few typos that I’ve discovered here and there), and a couple of covers that have some printing variations that could use a fix.

I’ve changed many of my blurbs extensively this year. In most cases, this had a very significant improvement on sales, often immediately. It’s amazing what boldface, italics, bulleted lists, and splitting a long paragraph up into shorter paragraphs can do.

How about you? Have you had any fun with revisions this year?

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing), Facebook page, Twitter

Check out Read Tuesday (a Black Friday event just for books): website, Facebook page, Twitter

Nov 10 2013

The Publicity Paradox

Double Edged

Do you remember the days when you first applied for a job? Scouring the want ads, preparing resumes and cover letters, going to job interviews.

It seemed like everybody wanted you to have experience. The only problem was that you didn’t have any. You may have thought, “How will I ever get experience if I need experience just to get hired?”

Publicity suffers from a similar seeming paradox: You may feel that publishers, agents, publicists, editors, bookstores, reviewers, and even the media want you to have publicity before they will help you get more publicity. That’s great if you’re a celebrity.

Breaking through as a new author is a challenge. You’re an unknown. There are too many uncertainties. How will people react to your storytelling, characterization, and writing? How good is your idea? How will you handle the pressure? How effectively will your market your book? How well will you follow through with your commitments? How much help do you need? How professional or amateurish are you? How much do you need to learn about writing, editing, formatting, marketing, publicizing, social media, and making connections? And most importantly, how will you go from being a nobody to becoming an author with much publicity? Ah, if you only had that publicity (among your target audience) to begin with, that would help to make the risk so much more worthwhile.

How do you get publicity when you don’t have it to begin with?

If you had publicity, it would lend you credibility as an author; it would lend your book credibility, too.

If you credibility, it would help you gain publicity.

If you could lay an egg, you could make a chicken out of it.

If you could make a chicken, it could lay an egg for you.

It’s like you’re on a deserted island with no chickens or eggs, but you desperately need one or the other.

Baaak! Baak, baak, baaak!

I see a similar hurdle for Read Tuesday, a Black Friday type of event just for books.

If we had authors with more name recognition, it would greatly improve the publicity that we could receive from the media, internal promotions, paid advertisements, etc.

If we had more publicity, it would help us attract authors with greater name recognition.

However, Read Tuesday has a big advantage. There are many indie authors who are experiencing the challenges of marketing their books firsthand who have been very supportive of the Read Tuesday event. This has helped to give Read Tuesday much initial support, and we are fortunate to have the participation of some authors who have achieved some modest levels of success (e.g. top books in their categories at one time, or ranking at around a thousand on Amazon for a limited time in paid sales). We also have a couple of small publishers who will be participating.

(We are fortunate to have every author who has agreed to participate, no matter how big or small—everybody is vital to our success, all participation is valuable, and each author is much appreciated. I wish for every author to have a successful Read Tuesday.)

Read Tuesday also has something to offer. An author with name recognition could gain increased exposure from the Read Tuesday promotional efforts, as the Read Tuesday publicity and promotions would feature this author’s name.

On the other hand, would the author who has risen to the top want to come back down and play with the small fish? Would he or she remember his or her roots? Would he or she support his or her fellow indie authors? Surely, it’s much easier to say what you would do if you get there than it is to do it when you’re sitting at the top.

The thing is, all indies have the same advantage that Read Tuesday has. There is a very large readership that supports indie authors. Why? Because there are hundreds of thousands of indie authors and hundreds of indie publishers, and their friends, family members, acquaintances, and coworkers raise this number to the millions.

Although some people try to paint a poor image of self-publishing, there are millions of people who support it. “This book was published with CreateSpace, was it? My niece published a book through them.” The books that have serious issues aren’t hurting anyone, while the large number of very good indie books and the growing number of successful indie authors show that indie publishing has much potential.

Ultimately, what the reader wants is a professional book. Whether or not the book is traditionally or indie published is secondary. A book that looks professional, pleases the target audience, and is discovered by the target audience can gain much support.

Read Tuesday also has the opportunity to help indie authors promote their own books. The event itself is far more popular than any single participating author. By promoting Read Tuesday in addition to the author’s own book, Read Tuesday has the potential to help authors market their books.

It can be a win-win situation for any author, tiny name or big name. Every author’s participation helps to improve the credibility and success of the event, and the event can help any author promote his or her own book in conjunction with the event.

Back to the publicity paradox. What you have to do to break out of the paradox is start small, work hard, be wise, be patient, market effectively and diligently, keep writing, and spread outward.

You gradually build a following, increase your number of connections, gain a little exposure, and build a little publicity. Continue writing and you’ll have a few books out.

The better your books are from cover to cover, the more they will help you grow your following, connections, exposure, and publicity. The better your marketing efforts, the more they will help you grow your sales.

Eventually, you may achieve some small measure of credibility and publicity. Once you finally get your foot in the door, you have the chance to run with it. Once you have a little credibility, it will help you gain publicity, and once you have a little publicity (with your specific target audience), it will lend you credibility.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing), Facebook, Twitter

Read Tuesday, Facebook, Twitter

Nov 7 2013

Build an Effective Author Website + Press Release (2-in-1 Post)

Free author resources at the Build Book Buzz website: http://www.buildbookbuzz.com.

Today I will show you a highly instructive example of how to build an effective author website. It’s actually the website for a former publicist, so it’s no surprise that the website excels at attracting the target audience.

We can learn a lot about how to attract our own traffic by studying the many cool features on this website. Also, there is an abundance of free content on this website, like how to prepare and distribute a press release to create book publicity.

In this way, we’ll learn two things at once:

  • how to attract your target audience through a website
  • how to prepare and distribute a press release

The website is called Build Book Buzz. This is the website that former publicist Sandra Beckwith uses to attract her target audience—authors who need help with book publicity (both traditionally published and indies). She no longer provides book publicity services to authors, but now helps many authors save thousands of $$ by teaching them how to do it themselves.

I will describe various features of her website, showing how they help to attract her target audience. This will be instructive if you check these features out as I describe them. Try to think of ways that you might be able to utilize similar features to attract your target audience.

Here is the link to her website: http://buildbookbuzz.com. Check it out.

Tip #1: The website name is geared toward the content, not the author. You know what the content is about instantly.

Tip #2: The homepage identifies the target audience and attracts their interest immediately. Notice how the website doesn’t mention who is offering this content (i.e. you don’t learn that it’s a former publicist’s website or who the former publicist is) until further down the page.

Tip #3: Nothing is for sale on the homepage. The homepage is geared around free content relevant for the target audience. It doesn’t look like an advertisement for a book, it doesn’t look like a fan page or biographical record, and it doesn’t look like a blog. Valuable free content that will interest the target audience is what will attract your audience to your website.

Sandra does have books and services that she sells, but none of these appear on her homepage. Think about this.

Tip #4: Visual branding. Study the images. The images aren’t the same, but most follow a similar blue, yellow/gold, and white theme, and feature a picture (not always the same) of an open book. Making the images slightly different helps you see that it’s not the same image, so you don’t ignore it. Having them all uniformly styled helps with the visual branding, and shows you that you’re clearly on the same website. Notice that they follow the three-color rule. The cover images look 3D, which helps to make a good visual impression. The information in the booklets is clear from the keywords that stand out in the title.

Tip #5: The homepage offers a free booklet. The content will interest the target audience. The offer appears first at the top to attract interest, and is repeated at the bottom so if you’re sold when you get there, you don’t have to scroll back up to the top.

Tip #6: The free booklet offer is a clever way to build an audience for an email newsletter. This helps to populate an email newsletter database (note that you must provide an unsubscribe option).

This is worth considering:

  • How do you get an audience for a newsletter? Offer a free booklet to sign up.
  • How do you get your target audience in the email list? Make a booklet that has content relevant for your target audience.
  • How do you get your audience to discover your booklet? As part of a content-rich website geared toward your target audience.

Tip #7: I recommend signing up for the email newsletter. (I did.) Why? Two reasons:

  • The emails you receive will provide a sample of how to use an email newsletter effectively. Although your content will be much different, there is much to learn here.
  • If you have a book that you’re trying to market, this content is relevant to you.

Tip #8: The website is easy to read. There isn’t a busy, distracting background. There is effective use of color with the text.

Tip #9: Free content. See the Tips page (each page can be found by clicking on the index at the top of the website). There are a variety of free PDF files of interest to the target audience. It’s a content-rich website, and much of it is free. This attracts the target audience.

Tip #10: Check out the PDF files on the Tips page. I highly recommend these in particular:

  • See the tips for writing a press release (book announcement). These are invaluable. A press release is critical for news publicity, and has a specific formula for its preparation.
  • Also see the tips for writing a tip sheet. Like the press release, this is something you need to help create news for your book.

The other tips on the Tips page are also worth exploring.

Tip #11: There is a blog on this website, but it really functions primarily as an author website, and the blog is just one of many components; it’s definitely not a website that was built around a blog. The blog, like the rest of the website, is content rich and free. You can probably find a lot of valuable information here.

Tip #12: Let’s jump ahead to the Press Room page. When you prepare the press release for the news about the publication of your book (if you haven’t already done so, you want to do this), you should add a Press Room page to your website.

Study the two press release examples on this page. They show you how to structure and format a press release. When you study the tips for how to write a press release, you should also re-read these two examples. This page also shows you how to format a Press Room page.

Tip #13: Check out Sandra Beckwith’s e-book, Get Your Book in the News. This is a detailed guide that spells out the formula for how to prepare a press release. I bought a copy, read it, and relied heavily upon it to write my press release for Read Tuesday. I recommend it.

Tip #14: Finally, check out the other pages. There are a couple of books and services offered that aren’t free. Note that there is an abundance of free content, but also some paid content. The paid content is different from the free content. Also, the free content is complete. It’s not a free sample; it’s free content.

There is ample free content, so you don’t feel disappointed or frustrated. If you don’t buy anything, you still feel that the website was highly useful.

The free content is very good. This gives you the sense of trust that you need before moving onto the paid content. The taste of the free content makes you consider the paid content. Note that the paid content also has a satisfaction guarantee.

I recommend that you take advantage of the free content on the Build Book Buzz website. There are a lot of valuable, yet free, resources there.

I was not asked to write this post. I was not asked to promote the Build Book Buzz website or any of its goods or services. I discovered this website, found much of the material useful, and thought it would be handy to share it. I did contact Sandra Beckwith to let her know that I would be writing this post.

I hope you found something useful. 🙂

Sandra Beckwith is a former national award-winning publicist who now teaches authors how to promote and publicize their books. Get free tips and subscribe to her complimentary Build Book Buzz e-zine at http://buildbookbuzz.com. Connect with her on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing), Twitter, Facebook

Learn more about Read Tuesday, a Black Friday type of event just for books: website, Twitter, Facebook