There are many talented cover designers out there. How do you find a good one at an affordable price?

The first step is to find a variety of cover designers to choose from. One way is to simply use a search engine. Another is to browse for book covers you like; some of the professionally designed indie covers and small publisher covers will feature more affordable designers. Interact with the indie author community here at WordPress and over the course of a few months, you’ll discover a variety of cover designers.

Charles Yallowitz offered a creative suggestion: Contact a local art department. You may find an art student with graphic design experience looking for such an opportunity.

Another option is cover design help through CreateSpace or crowdSPRING, for example. Personal interaction with a single artist provides many benefits, but finding a variety of talent in one place has its own advantage.

https://www.crowdspring.com

Finding several designers is easy. The challenge is picking the right one for your book and your budget.

You can find premade covers for $10 and up, but chances are that this approach will result in a cover that doesn’t quite fit your book – and ‘not quite’ can make a significant difference. It doesn’t hurt to browse them, though; maybe you’ll get lucky. Or, if it just needs a small change to fit your cover, perhaps the designer will be willing to revise it for a small fee; it doesn’t hurt to ask.

It’s possible to find custom cover design for under $100, but many professionally designed covers run from $300 to $1500 (and up). Although I’ve made most of my covers myself, this year I have invested in a few covers at around the $300 price point.

I hired Melissa Stevens to design a few covers, and was very pleased both with the process and the results.

www.theillustratedauthor.net

Here are some ideas to help you narrow your search:

Visit the cover designer’s website. How professional is it?
Explore the artist’s portfolio. Do any of the images or techniques seem to be a good fit for your cover?
Check the designer’s previous covers out. Do any of these grab your attention? Do they follow the ‘rules’ of cover design (a good cover may break a rule, but as the author, you need some means of judging)?
Find some of these covers on Amazon. If the book is new, look at the sales rank; if the book isn’t new, the reviews may be more revealing of its prior sales rank (since this can change significantly over time). How much do you feel that the cover may have stimulated sales, if at all?
Note that books published by top publishers usually only mention the cover designer in small print on the back cover and on the copyright page, and not on the front cover.
What do your friends, family, and acquaintances think about the artist’s portfolio and previous covers?

When you’re ready to contact a potential cover designer, you should be prepared to exchange a few emails. This interaction will help you gauge the artist’s character, expertise, interest in your book, patience, etc. Here are some points to consider (first check the artist’s website, which may answer some of these questions for you):

Inquire about the artist’s background and experience (unless this information is posted on the website).
What techniques does the artist use? Graphic design usually looks much more professional on a cover; even though colored pencils, chalk, or paint can look good hanging on a wall, it usually makes a cover look amateurish.
Ask if the artist will use any clipart or stock images, and, if so, ask about copyright issues. You’d hate to invest money in cover design and then get sued for copyright infringement over any of the images used.
What use of the cover design will you be granted? This should be stated on the contract. If you have multiple editions (paperback, eBook), you want to clarify this. You probably want to post your cover on your website, may want to solicit feedback about it on your blog, etc. Generally, posting your cover on your websites should be good advertising for the designer, but you want to get permission first.
Will the artist display the cover on the artist’s website? This may not generate sales for you, but helps your branding slightly. When the artist features your cover on his/her website, it demonstrates the artist is proud of the cover.
You want to know to what extent you will be involved in the process. You may have a vision; even if not, you may still want to suggest revisions throughout the design. Realize that it takes a lot of work to design a cover, and much more work to make multiple revisions. Thus, many artists place a limit on the number of changes you can make for the price paid, and charge extra for additional revisions. You want to have this clarified up front.
Before you sign the contract, you’d like to have some idea of what you’re going to get. Perhaps the designer can describe his/her vision for your cover. Even better, request a partial mock-up showing something.
How long will the design take? The wise thing is for you to provide ample time for the cover to be made. I don’t believe in rushing art. Personally, I would prefer for the artist to put the idea on hold until the perfect idea comes.
How will the payments be arranged? It may be a good compromise for the author to pay a deposit up front and the rest when the cover is delivered; half and half is common. This way, the artist is compensated for his/her time, work, and effort even if the author changes his/her mind (which happens). You want the contract to include a provision for opting out; probably, the deposit (which may be half) will be nonrefundable, but if you’re dissatisfied with the result, you can walk away and not pay the remainder.
Note that some cover designers offer contracts and expect a hefty deposit, but not all designers do. This may depend in part on the process. If the designer does much of the work by hand, he/she is more likely to present a contract and expect a hefty deposit; but if the designer works mostly with stock images, he/she may be less formal.
You can try to negotiate a little. An artist might take a chance that once you fall in love with one cover, you might use the same artist for many covers. Instead of price, you might ask for something else, like a matching website banner. What I recommend is asking if you can receive a few of the images from the cover to help decorate the inside of your book, or maybe getting a few simple designs to help with the interior décor; such touches can help make the interior of your book (especially, the Look Inside) make a good impression, too. However, some illustrators won’t negotiate on price; but it may not hurt to try.
Of course, if you have any legal questions about the contract, you should consult with an attorney.

Get feedback from family, friends, acquaintances, and especially members of your target audience at various stages of the cover design. This will help you receive valuable feedback so that you can suggest possible revisions while at the same time helping to create a little buzz for your upcoming book.

Communication is very important. The artist is trying to carry out your vision, but can’t see inside your head. You must communicate your ideas clearly with the artist. Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion. Be honest. If there is something you don’t like, say so. Don’t fear hurting the artist’s feelings. (Well, have some tact. Don’t say, “That stinks.” Try something like, “I was hoping that image could look a little more…,” or, “I’m not a big fan of that…” Also, take the time to make encouraging and supportive remarks about the elements that you do like.) Communication and honesty are the keys to helping the artist pull of your vision.

There is one more thing to keep in mind: While it’s your cover, the artist wants to be happy with the cover design, too. If the author insists on some cover design element that the artist feels makes the cover look unprofessional, the artist may not want to showcase the cover on his/her website and may not want to have his/her name mentioned as the cover designer.

Finally, behave professionally in your interactions with potential cover designers. Your author image is a very important part of your branding.

From a marketing perspective, the two most important features of your cover are:

The cover makes it clear which genre the book belongs to. If your cover design fails to meet this goal, then most of the people who click on your book probably won’t be buying it.
The cover grabs the attention of your target audience. Not just making the genre clear, but attracting the target audience’s attention.

It’s also desirable for the title font to be clear in the cover. You can find various ‘rules’ of cover design and mistakes to avoid (for example, in the link below), and see if the ‘final’ cover meets this criteria (if not, at least have a good reason for not doing so).

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/cover-design-checklist/

For you, the author, there is one very important feature to keep in mind:

Ensure that the product is better than what you could have done yourself (unless you happen to have all the skills, but just didn’t want to invest the time).

Let me credit Melissa Stevens for reading my draft of this blog post and offering a few suggestions. She mentioned the importance of honesty from the author, the idea that communication between the author and artist is the key to successful cover design, and the point about cover designers who work primarily with stock images. The cover figures in this post were used by permission of Melissa Stevens.

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

Jul 19 2013

Should You Publish with an Imprint?

Every self-published author is faced with this decision. First, here is a little background on the imprint choice; we’ll return to the question in a moment.

The paperback author can select a free ISBN from CreateSpace or pay $10 to $100 for an ISBN from CreateSpace to publish using an Imprint. Another option is to purchase an ISBN directly from R.R. Bowker (the price becomes more affordable per ISBN if buying a block of 10 or more).

http://www.bowker.com

https://www.myidentifiers.com

The eBook author can leave the publisher field at KDP blank or enter an imprint there. Although some eReader services, like the Sony Reader, require an ISBN, you can get a free ISBN to use with your eBook if you publish through Smashwords (but you’re not supposed to use that ISBN for other eBook editions, like your Kindle edition).

Many authors publish both paperbacks and eBooks. Entering an imprint for the eBook while having the paperback publisher show as CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform kind of defeats the purpose of using the imprint. For $10 at CreateSpace, the imprint names can match.

Back to the question: Should you publish with an imprint?

That depends; there are advantages and disadvantages both ways.

Benefits of having CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform listed as the publisher:

CreateSpace is a positive name among many indie authors and their family, friends, acquaintances, and coworkers. There are so many indie authors that this number is very large.
People who like to support the self-publishing concept often buy CreateSpace books (or Kindle eBooks where the paperback lists CreateSpace as the publisher).
Readers who know your book is self-published are more likely to enjoy your book.

I entered CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform into the search field in Books at Amazon, and pulled up 300,000 titles. So many authors are content with this.

One of these authors is Amanda Hocking. She has been extremely successful; this label has worked for her.

Amanda Hocking’s Author Page

Benefits of using an imprint:

Some readers avoid self-published books.
The indie label can be a hurdle to get your book stocked in stores, reviewed by the media, etc.

If readers buy your book thinking it was published through a traditional publisher, but it looks very amateurish after they buy it, they are more likely to be frustrated with the experience. This places a premium on professional book design (cover, editing, formatting, writing, etc.) for the author who chooses an imprint. A traditionally published book, for example, has a very detailed copyright page, which most indie books lack. A simple feature like this could give the indie book away.

Note that bookstores and reviewers can clearly see that your book is print-on-demand from the printing number on the last page whether you use an imprint or not. There is a way around this. You can find another printer (i.e. not print-on-demand) to print a small number of copies of your book. The custom order will cost more money per book if you buy a small quantity, but the overall cost may be affordable if the quantity is really small (like 10 books). This way, like many publishers, print-on-demand (POD) will merely be one of your publishing channels. You can approach bookstores and reviewers more confidently with the non-POD edition of your book.

Indie authors who are clearly self-published have succeeded in getting their books stocked in bookstores. If your book looks professional and you have a professional approach, it is possible to overcome various publishing obstacles, including the CreateSpace label; but sometimes there is a flat ‘No!’ to CreateSpace and POD. On the other hand, if you go to the trouble to use an imprint and have some non-POD copies printed, but your book looks unprofessional (cover, copyright page, formatting, typos, etc.), all of this extra work may not open up any doors.

People can also search for your imprint online. If they don’t find a website for it, or if there are just a couple of books that use the imprint, this will reflect that the imprint isn’t a serious publisher. Most shoppers aren’t going to check out the imprint. (However, they probably won’t recognize the imprint; using an imprint certainly isn’t the same as publishing with a household name.) But a wise bookstore manager or serious reviewer might do a little research before investing in your book.

Of course, you must do some research on the imprint name. You can’t enter Amazon or the name of an actual publisher like Random House (or many other publishers you’ve never heard of).

The name you choose should sound authentic. It should fit the book nicely. (It will also show up in keyword searches, but if you just make the imprint name based on keywords, there is a good chance it won’t sound authentic or fit the book.)

Before you publish using your own imprint, consider these questions:

Will your cover look professional?
Will your front matter look professional?
Will your formatting be professional?
Will your editing look professional?
Will you be approaching bookstores, libraries, newspapers, etc.?
Will you be selling copies in person at presentations, signings, readings, etc.?
Will you make a website for your imprint?
Will you be publishing other titles with this imprint?
Do you expect a lot of support from the self-publishing community?

Personally, I’m proud to have my books wear the CreateSpace label. CreateSpace and KDP gave me my chance, and I’m very grateful for it. I’ve also met several fantastic indie authors. I search for self-published books when I look for books to read, and I’m happy to support good indie books. I’m glad to be part of the self-publishing community. If you’re going to wear the self-publishing label, wear it proudly. 🙂

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

Volume 1 on formatting and publishing
Volume 2 on marketability and marketing

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

Jul 17 2013

Comparing Book Marketing to Movies

Whether you watch a movie in the theatre or on a DVD player, it always begins with a few previews. If you don’t like these, you can try showing up a few minutes late to the movie or fast forwarding through it. (Ugh! But some of those clever DVD players won’t let you hit the skip button. Who’s in control of your own equipment? How do they get away with forced advertising like that? Do they really want you to be frustrated two hours before you go post your movie review online?).

The preview helps to create buzz for a movie.

You’re not going to put a preview at the beginning of your book, though. That’s the valuable Look Inside that will make or break a deal when potential shoppers check it out; advertisements aren’t going to entice sales. But you can offer a short sample at the end of your book: Readers who enjoy your book enough to finish it might appreciate this, as long as the sample is a tiny percentage of the overall content.

You can also make a video preview of a book and post it on your website, YouTube, fan page, AuthorCentral, etc. The preview can help you create buzz for your books.

Another thing you see at the beginning of a movie is the warning not to copy it, charge fees to let others watch it, distribute it, etc. Movies also indicate the title, star actors and actresses, director, producer, etc. in the beginning, and full credits at the end.

The book’s version of this is the copyright page. Movies put an insane amount of creativity and effort into such front matter. They have a clever way of making the opening credits very entertaining. Traditionally published books have very detailed copyright pages, sometimes with design marks; they look very professional.

No reader is thinking, “Let’s check out the copyright page to see what it looks like.” This is why most indie authors underestimate the importance of this page.

Every reader passes by the copyright page and other front matter on the way to the first chapter. Potential customers see this as they explore the Look Inside. The traditionally published book has a very professional looking copyright page, often with a few professional, simple, relevant design images. This shows the reader that the book is professionally done.

Indie books often just have one line indicating the copyright; several indie eBooks have this information in the back matter in order to increase the amount of content shown in the Look Inside. You can make your book truly stand out by having very professional looking front matter. If you have enough content (i.e. more than a novella), you’ll be able to include the copyright page in the front matter and still have plenty of content to show in the Look Inside.

The cover makes the first impression. The blurb makes the second impression. And the Look Inside is the last impression the buyer gets before deciding whether to Buy It or Skip It. Part of this Look Inside is a great beginning in Chapter 1 and part is the impression that the front matter makes.

Many movies get a lot of great marketing from previews in theatres and on DVD’s, movie posters displayed in theatres, word-of-mouth recommendations from the first wave of moviegoers, numerous movie critics, and advertising.

The big difference between books and movies is that if you go down to the theatre, there might be 10 to 20 new release movies to choose from or a couple hundred new release DVD’s to rent. There are many, many more books to choose from.

It takes a lot more money to produce a movie than to publish a book, and there are many more people involved. There are indie movies just like there are indie books, but there are many, many more indie books than movies.

What does this mean?

Advertising isn’t as cost-effective for books as it is for movies. It’s much more challenging to market a book – especially an indie book – compared to a movie. It’s more difficult to create buzz for a book. It’s not as easy to get book critics with a large following to review your book. You can’t just put up a book poster at the bookstore. You have to help your target audience find your book; it won’t just be among a few to choose from.

You can find reviewers. There are many bloggers doing reviews. Find some who reviews books similar to yours, and plan to wait patiently for what may be a very long turnaround.

You can spread the word about your book. Interact with people in your target audience. Memorable personal interactions where you don’t sound like an advertisement can leave a positive impression with members of your target audience. Figure out where to meet your target audience; the answer is quite valuable to you, so this is well worth contemplating.

A movie premier helps to stimulate interest and reviews. The book’s version of this is the advance review copy.

Don’t you hate it when you go to see a movie and the only good parts you had already seen in the preview? That’s why your book’s blurb shouldn’t give parts of the story away. An effective fiction blurb will create interest, arouse the reader’s curiosity, make the genre and content clear, but won’t reveal what’s going to happen. The blurb isn’t a summary. Wanting to know what’s going to happen can cause readers to buy the book and to keep reading once they’ve started.

Movies sometimes start out slow and build up. They can get away with that in the theatre sometimes. You can walk out if it starts out slow, but you’ve already paid for your ticket.

Books by unknown or little-known authors can’t afford to do this. If the book starts out slow, shoppers checking out the Look Inside are likely to pass on the book. The first chapter should create interest among the target audience right off the bat and run with it. Exactly how to do this depends on the genre and the audience; but if the first chapter doesn’t suit the target audience, they will probably shop for another book.

Other differences between books and movies lie in the content itself. You can do anything you want in a book. In a movie, you’re limited by the capabilities of special effects and a fixed budget. Movies automatically show, and telling can be a challenge (especially, conveying abstract ideas). Most writers naturally tell, but have to work on showing more and telling less. You can see everything that goes on in a book from any angle, but in movies a scene is viewed from a certain perspective, so one object may block another and lighting is a major issue.

What determines whether or not you’ll be discussing a movie with friends and possibly recommending it to others? Think about this when you write your book.

When you watch a movie, do you find yourself wondering how you would have written it as a book? When you write a book, do you find yourself wondering how it would look and sound as a movie?

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

Jul 17 2013

Authors: Dealing with the Downs

Sales inherently fluctuate. Even if over time sales grow, there will still be some day-to-day fluctuations. There are also seasonal effects – i.e. any given type of book tends to sell better during some months than others. The economy is a factor, too.

As long as there are some sale every week, there will be some periods where sales are slow and some periods where sales are better. There will be both.

When sales are peaking, you’re thinking, “Now that’s more like it.” But they often don’t stay that way. Even if there is long-term growth, there will be a few periods where sales decline. You can count on it.

When sales are in a valley, you’re thinking, “What happened to kill the sales?” Remember, there will be valleys even when nothing has changed. Don’t panic. Exercise patience. Sales may pick up in a few days. If it’s the end of the month, maybe sales will rebound next month. Some months are also better than others. A downturn in sales for a few days doesn’t necessarily mean that sales have stopped dead.

If sales decline and you also notice something else, like a bad review, your first thought is that the review killed your sales. But it could just be coincidence. Many times, a review doesn’t have the effect that we might predict. Be patient. Sales might just rebound in a few days.

Unfortunately, sometimes sales do decline. Sometimes, a book sells frequently for a short period after its release, and then sales decline. Sometimes, reviews do influence sales. Sometimes, there are external factors that we’re not even aware of – like a change in Customer Also Bought associations and other marketing recommendations online. (Sometimes, though, external factors boost sales, like a recommendation posted somewhere online that you weren’t even aware of; and more often than not, Customer Also Bought lists provide a sudden boost.)

But if you panic that sales are dying every time your sales go through a valley, you’re likely to be causing yourself a great deal of unnecessary anxiety. It can take a couple of weeks or more to properly project sales trends.

Similarly, don’t let each review – good or bad – determine your happiness. Try not to let other people govern your emotions. Hopefully, many of the reviews will be good. See if any critical reviews have merit that can help, then try your best to forget them.

Focus on your next book and on marketing. These activities will keep you busy. And these are the best things you can do to improve sales.

When you’re going through the downs, the worst thing you can do is react emotionally in public and ruin your image as an author – that can have a much worse effect than anything you had been worrying about. Avoid posting complaints: You don’t want customers or reviewers to see them and view this as unprofessional, and you don’t really want to bring others down by spreading negativity.

Sure, you want to receive comfort and support. Try to find private (i.e. not your blog or social media) ways to seek this, or strive to find positive ways to reach out. For example, ask for advice in a tactful way that focuses on encouraging suggestions instead of ranting about the issue. If you need to write a rant to help get it out of your system, keep it private (just as you would if writing in a diary).

Remember that all authors experience the ups and downs of sales and reviews (except for the rare author who has the ability to ignore these things).

Enjoy the ups, and ride out the downs. Keep writing and marketing, and these activities may help make the overall trend grow in the long run.

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

Jul 14 2013

What to Do When Sales S-T-I-N-K

There are tens of millions of books to choose from. Only the top couple hundred thousand are selling once or more per day on average.

Sometimes, an author pours much time, effort, and passion into a book, but the sales don’t come. It happens. Too often.

Faced with this situation, the author has three options:

Give up. (Wrong answer.)
Try again. (Last resort.)
Change it. (Pick me.)

There have been books that didn’t sell when they were released, but began selling after making some changes. So there is still hope! 🙂

After putting months into a book and possibly already investing some money only to see the book flop when it finally comes out, it’s important not to sink too much more time and money into the same venture: What if it flops again?

Consider changes that have the potential to make a high impact without too much additional time or expense.

What you should consider changing depends on why the book isn’t selling. If you can obtain honest feedback from your target audience, that may help to point you in the right direction.

Give your book a chance first. You can’t expect it to be a hot seller on Day 1. If a few weeks go by and sales are dismal, that’s different than just having a couple of sales during Week 1.

But if you’re not already marketing actively, it’s never too early to start that. (In the future, pre-marketing would be wise.)

If your book isn’t getting noticed:

Maybe the cover isn’t grabbing attention. Try a different design. You don’t want to invest a lot of money in the cover of a book that has already flopped once. But you can find some inexpensive options and you can also try changing it yourself. Ask for suggestions, search for stock photos, and browse covers to see what tends to grab your attention.
Are the keywords large and easy to read? Does the font seem to fit the content and create a little interest, without being difficult to read? Is the main image very large, and does it stand out well? Research common cover mistakes and ensure that your cover has avoided these.
Maybe the title doesn’t create interest. This is easy to change for Kindle eBooks, but requires disabling sales channels and republishing as a new title for print books because the ISBN is linked to the title. Sometimes, a different title and subtitle attract attention better. Ask for feedback on your title and subtitle.
The best thing you can do to get your book noticed is learn how to market effectively. Research marketing strategies and try them out. With tens of millions of books to choose from, it takes effective marketing to help customers learn about your book. If you’re already trying to market your book, try some different marketing tactics. Some strategies don’t work for some books and authors. If it’s not working, try something new. Ask for suggestions. But if the packaging or content have serious issues, you need to make some other change in addition to marketing.
Try a marketing promotion. For example, you can make your book free for a day if your book is in KDP Select; but just making it free won’t have much effect unless you also promote the freebie (e.g. maybe you can find some blogs relevant to your genre that sometimes announce freebies). Instead of making your book free, you could temporarily reduce the price; but again, that won’t help your book get noticed unless you also promote the sale. If you have traffic from your target audience at a blog, website, or social media, a contest might get some attention. But for a book that has already flopped, I wouldn’t do a promotion without also changing the packaging (see below).

If your book is getting noticed, but isn’t selling, it could be a problem with the packaging – i.e. a target audience mismatch. If the book is attracting the wrong audience, nobody will be buying:

A common problem is a cover that attracts the attention of the wrong audience. For example, if the book is science fiction but the cover doesn’t have any imagery to suggest this, whatever audience is attracted to the cover’s images probably won’t be looking for science fiction. It can be more subtle: If the cover looks like a hot and steamy romance, and the book is romance, but isn’t hot and steamy, that’s also a packaging problem. Browse top-selling books in your specific genre that are similar to yours to see what attracts the interest of your target audience. Ask for feedback. Try to find more suitable stock images. Reconsider your color scheme and its relation to your subject and genre. Consider investing a little money for a more effective cover.
Change the blurb. If you’re not happy with sales, change the blurb. Change it again and again. Try several times. Solicit feedback. Study other blurbs, especially of successful books from small-time authors and publishers. Remember, your blurb isn’t a summary and shouldn’t give the story away (then buyers feel it isn’t necessary to read it). The blurb’s main function is to attract the interest of the target audience. Arouse their curiosity so that they have to look inside. When sales pick up, that’s when you stop messing with your blurb.
Does your title send a unified message along with your cover? For example, if the title sounds like a mystery, but the cover looks like action, this may create buyer confusion. Packaging works best when the title and cover send the same, clear message about which genre the book is and briefly what to expect. Solicit feedback, and ask specifically about this issue.
Buyers see several covers in search results. Your book has just a few seconds to attract the interest of buyers in your target audience. A common problem is that the author is partial to an image on the cover because the author knows it relates to the story, but the shopper doesn’t know this. So if there is some image that really doesn’t belong on the cover – i.e. it’s not clear in three seconds that this image fits the genre and subject – then it may be hurting sales. Look, if sales stink now, it can’t hurt to try a different image, right?
Don’t underestimate the importance of browse categories. You want your book to be listed in highly relevant categories and nothing else. Find similar books that are selling well to see which categories they are listed in. Change your categories if needed. If Amazon has added extra categories to your book that aren’t a good fit, contact AuthorCentral and ask politely if they could please be removed, explaining that you feel they might create buyer confusion. This happens: A buyer clicks on a book hoping to read a romance, but sees both romance and action in the categories. “That’s not what I was expecting,” says the buyer as she walks away. If sales are slow, something isn’t working, so it doesn’t hurt to make a change and try it out for a few weeks.
You might as well explore a different set of keywords while you’re making other changes.

Sometimes, your cover and title grab attention, and your cover, title, and blurb are attracting the right audience, but the book still isn’t selling:

Give your Look Inside a close inspection. Does your book have a slow start? Do the opening paragraphs closely correspond with the genre? Are there spelling or grammatical mistakes? Are there formatting issues? Is there so much front matter that it takes a long time to reach the action (if so, try moving some of it to back matter)? Try to find what might be deterring sales from readers who check out the Look Inside. Better yet, strive to polish the Look Inside and revise it so that it attracts interest. Maybe revise the opening chapter so that it grabs interest and is a close match for the genre. Consider adding a few professional touches, like professional looking design marks (check out the Look Insides of several traditionally published books). Solicit feedback on your Look Inside, especially from your target audience.
Reconsider the price. Check out the prices of similar books that are selling well. At least, you could test out a new price for a few weeks and see how that goes. If you drop your price, advertise this on your blog, through social media, etc.; the sale may help to create interest. Price is usually not the main factor, unless the book is very short or way overpriced. Many authors change nothing but the price with no improvement. Save dropping the price (except for a temporary sale) for last. I would try everything else first before lowering the price (unless you are way overpriced, like a $9.99 nontechnical Kindle book). If your price is already low, consider raising the price (it might seem counterintuitive, but many people believe that you get what you pay for, and there are stories of authors who have raised their prices from 99 cents to $3.99 and actually started selling more books). Remember, it’s not just the number of sales that matters, but also the royalty. If you drop the price, you can actually sell more books but earn less money. At 99 cents, you have to sell 6 times as many books just to draw the same royalty as a $2.99 list price at KDP (since the royalty rate changes from 35% to 70%, if eligible – and the fees at 70% won’t be much if it qualifies for 99 cents).

Reviews could be a factor. But reviews often don’t have the effect that authors expect:

If you have no reviews, or if you have a small number of reviews that includes a bad review, your book might benefit from more reviews. But it might not. Keep in mind that nothing is better than the natural assortment of reviews left voluntarily by actual customers. It takes more sales to generate such reviews, which means effective marketing. You can hope to solicit reviews from advance review copies – free books given upfront to potential reviewers with no strings attached, where it’s clear that any review (good, bad, or ugly) is welcomed (don’t violate the customer review guidelines). A review from a blogger in your genre may be helpful (even if the review isn’t posted on Amazon). Sometimes, time and patience draw a few reviews that make a difference. Other times, you happen to get a couple of rave reviews, and sales don’t pick up at all. It happens.
If you have a small number of reviews, and they’re all good, buyers may be suspicious. If you just have good reviews, you have something to be happy about (that’s a problem many authors would love to have); focus on that. Keep marketing, and more sales will eventually draw more reviews. Hopefully, the new reviews will be good, too – because no author likes to receive bad reviews. Even if you don’t have any bad reviews (which would be sweet), once you have enough reviews, there will finally be a healthy assortment of opinions which helps to provide balance.
Does any criticism in any of the reviews have merit? For example, a review might complain of a storyline issue, or describe spelling and grammatical mistakes. If so, it might be worth reworking part of the story or finding an affordable editor. You can’t implement every suggestion made by every reviewer; you have to decide what has merit and what’s reasonable to change. Sometimes a critical review helps the author improve the book.
Commenting on reviews carries a huge risk. Especially, if you make the mistake of reacting emotionally or making more than one comment. Once you make a comment, the reviewer can simply ask you a question, which draws you into a conversation. Then suddenly there are several comments. If the reviewer becomes upset, the reviewer can get friends and family to leave reviews and make comments. Only the author’s image is at stake – not the reviewer’s image. Strive to look like a professional author; don’t ruin your author image over a review. If you get a review with wrongful criticism that kills sales, don’t do anything for a few days (this gives you time to calm down and think, and to see if sales are, in fact, slowing – if sales keep up, the best thing is to just leave it alone; reviews often have less effect than we expect). If sales died and you feel that there is nothing to lose, if you feel that a tactful comment might have an impact, if there are no sales, you might feel that trying this is better than nothing – but it must be tactful and you need to let go after that (don’t add more comments later). If the comment has no effect on sales and the reviewer doesn’t respond to the comment, go ahead and delete your comment; but if your is not the only comment on the review, don’t delete it – otherwise, there will be a note saying that the comment was deleted by the author (which means poster, as in author of the post, although shoppers may not interpret it this way). Most authors would advise you not to comment; and most others would say that you must be tactful and stop after the first. Besides, most shoppers will read the review, but not check out the comment. The better thing to do is marketing, trying to improve sales through marketing and promotions, try changing the packaging or content, and hoping that after weeks and months, some new reviews will help offset any bad reviews.

When I first published my conceptual chemistry book, sales really took off in the UK – better than in the US. This was really exciting, until I received my first review. It was a bad one. Often, a bad review has little effect; and sometimes a bad review actually improves sales. But when the only review is one or two stars, many customers won’t even look at the book. And when the review is really short and just vaguely states that there are many typos which could easily confuse the reader, it creates a lot of doubt in buyer’s minds. It sounds like the book is plagued with problems. And the review didn’t clarify whether the problems were typos, differences between American and English notation or vocabulary, mistakes in the content, issues with the equations formatting improperly in the Kindle edition, or what. So, of course, most buyers assume the worst. Sales had been frequent prior to this review, and then sales stopped dead. I’ve had other bad reviews, and most of those have actually improved sales. But this one was a doozy. Fortunately, I had several other books that were selling well (one benefit of publishing multiple books), and this book continued to sell in the US (fortunately, the UK review didn’t carry over into the US). Let me clarify that I have two different chemistry books with similar titles; the one with the blue cover is the far better book, and that’s the one I’m referring to here.

This review cut deep. I had already had about 20 versions of the completed file from plenty of editing. It’s not like the book hadn’t gone through many rounds of editing. I was shocked that anyone could think it was plagued with problems. I’ve read many technical works that are, in fact, loaded with mistakes. I also had a reputation for content knowledge and much teaching experience. And I wasn’t quite sure what the reviewer was complaining about, since the review was quite vague.

So here is my experience with such an issue:

I debated with myself over this for some time, then decided to try a single tactful comment. After all, sales were suddenly nonexistent. There was still some risk, however, because I had other books and a reputation to uphold. The reviewer didn’t respond (it would have been nice to receive a little clarification – but reviews are primarily there to benefit shoppers, not authors), so I removed my comment. Hindsight shows that this option wasn’t worth exploring in this case.
I re-read my book a few times. I did find a handful of silly mistakes in Chapter 2, and a couple of other issues. So I fixed those. Then I had an issue with the equations; I knew that they formatted better on a few electronic devices than others. So I retyped every equation and formatted it as text with subscripts and superscripts, in color, so that there wouldn’t be any problems with the Kindle formatting of equations. This took a great deal of time (every compound mentioned anywhere in the book was written with equation formatting, like H₂O), but now I knew the equations would all format nicely. I checked them repeatedly for possible mistakes. (Wish I had thought of this the first time, but I was focused on the paperback first.)
I revised the book, calling it a new edition in the copyright page, corrected the mistakes and some other minor issues, and reformatted the equations for the Kindle edition. I revised the blurb to mention that it had been updated and when (since the review is dated, this allows for logical deduction; and I didn’t want to call attention to past problems in the US). This led to a trickle of sales in the UK and a slight improvement in the US.
I visited AuthorCentral and reformatted the blurb to include bullets and boldface. This had a small effect, too.
Then I added a line near the top of the blurb describing my qualifications. That was the magic answer. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? (Well, I often put any relevant expertise into the blurb, but not often near the top.) Who had more credibility? An author with a degree in the subject or a reviewer who didn’t specify any credentials? Some UK buyers took a chance once I thought of doing this; the US sales improved, too. Eventually, with the sales, a couple of good reviews came, too. The main thing that worked in my case was revamping the blurb and exercising patience (it took weeks before the rebound came).

If things are really bad, you might need a fresh start. You could unpublish and republish later (wait at least 30 days). If you do this, you have to make some dramatic changes (otherwise, you shouldn’t expect any improvement the second time). Keep in mind that I’ve never unpublished and republished a book myself, so I don’t have direct experience with this. But I have seen others do this:

Note that your book may remain on AuthorCentral even if you unpublish. If it’s available in print, the reasoning is that some customers may have used copies to sell. So you probably can’t have a print book removed from your AuthorCentral profile. If your book is only available in eBook format, you could ask if this is possible, pointing out that nobody will have a used copy to sell.
When you republish, it’s possible for your old reviews to get reattached to the republished book. If this happens to the eBook, contact KDP and explain that you’ve unpublished, revamped the book (explain how), and politely request a fresh start. Keep in mind that the original reviewers may leave new reviews on the new book if they discover it.
You can try a new title, cover, and blurb. But if you had any buyers the first time, they might be frustrated to buy what they believe to be a different book that turns out to be the same book again (but if sales had been slow, it’s probably worth the risk and there weren’t too many buyers in the first place). You can also try changing the content, getting the book edited or formatted, and improving the Look Inside.

On the other hand, if sales are good to begin with, don’t fix what isn’t broken. Maybe you are wondering if sales could be great instead of good. But what if you change something and sales go south? It’s not easy to recover when sales slip. So if you’re content with sales, I recommend not changing anything now. If sales slip in the future, consider making your changes then. (Also, if sales are good to begin with, any drastic changes – like a new cover – might fool a previous customer into buying the same book again, which may frustrate the buyer.)

Finally, not every book idea has an audience, and occasionally there may be an audience, but it’s really hard to get the book to that audience. Repackaging and marketing can’t help every book. Some books have ideas that just don’t interest readers. Other books are so highly specialized and only interest a very narrow audience (many specialized books have a significant audience; I’m talking about an extreme case here). Once you have given it your best shot, if sales still don’t come, all you can do is start over. If that’s the case, next time do some research prior to writing your book. Try to find similar books to see if a possible demand exists for your book idea.

Remember, all books that had good intentions surely go to Book Heaven. 🙂

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers (Volume 2, now out, includes several marketing, pre-marketing, and packaging suggestions)

Jul 13 2013

Amazon Customer Book Reviews: Author Controversies

Most authors are customers, too.

As customers, we want to see actual reviews written by actual customers, find a variety of balanced opinions, and be able to trust Amazon’s customer review system.

As authors, we see the benefits of having more customer reviews. Of course, we always cross our fingers that the reviews will be positive. However, we realize that we can’t please everybody, and we know that what’s good for the customer is good for authors and publishers, too.

If the reviews aren’t balanced or if customers aren’t able to trust the review system, then the system isn’t benefiting anyone – customers, authors, publishers, or Amazon.

Authors write many book reviews. That’s because authors are readers, too, and nobody understands how important reviews are more than authors.

So it’s important for authors to understand what is or isn’t allowed, and why.

Violations can lead to deleted reviews, loss of review privileges, account suspensions, books being unpublished, etc.

(1) Review Swapping: Jack reviews Jill’s book and Jill reviews Jack’s book.

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t spell it out by saying, “Review swapping is not allowed.”

But it can be deduced from the guidelines (see References 1-3) as follows:

You’re not allowed to offer compensation for writing a review. If Jack offers to write a review of Jill’s book in exchange for a review of Jack’s book, then Jack is offering Jill compensation. This is a clear violation of the guidelines.

Amazon may catch it (perhaps through cross-referencing). If not, customers who observe it may report it to Amazon. There are stories of authors who have lost reviews and privileges.

What’s wrong with this? Doesn’t the I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-my-back idea seem unscrupulous? How would this look to a customer who noticed what was going on? It doesn’t matter that the reviews could, in principle, be written objectively. The problem is that the review is written with compensation in mind, which provides an incentive for writing an unbiased review. It’s the incentive that matters, not the intent (incentive is also much more clear).

It is possible for a review swap to come about in other ways. For example, Jack might review Jill’s book. Jill checks out Jack’s profile and discovers that Jack is an author. Jill reads Jack’s book and reviews it. They didn’t agree to scratch each other’s backs. But how would Amazon know the difference? It still looks like a review swap.

If another author reviews your book, you might feel like reciprocating. But then it will look like a review swap. Instead, pay it forward: That is, read a book by someone you don’t know, and review that book.

Of course, it’s possible for two authors to review each other’s books and not even know it, especially if they don’t use their real names on their review profiles. The chances of this happening accidentally, however, are very slim. It still looks like a review swap to Amazon.

There is yet another way for a review swap to come about. Jack is an author who knows Jill. Jack asks Jill to read and review his book. Jill does. Months later, Jill has written a book. Naturally, Jill wants Jack to return the favor. Doesn’t this still look like a review swap?

(2) Advance Review Copies: Dave gives out free copies of his book, hoping to receive some reviews.

This may be legitimate. This is the one exception to compensating reviewers: Authors or publishers may give one free copy of the book to each potential reviewer. Publishers often have mailing lists for advance review copies. Goodreads has a giveaway program to help authors distribute advance review copies for print books.

However, there are restrictions:

You must make it clear that you welcome all feedback – positive or negative. For example, you’re not allowed to give a free book in exchange just for a good review.
You can only offer one free book. You can’t offer products, discounts, entries into a contest, bonus material, etc. as an incentive for writing the review.
You can’t tell the reviewer what to write, tell the reviewer to write a review if the feedback is positive but just email you any negative comments instead, etc.
The book must be given free up front; it can’t be contingent upon writing the review.

Giving out advance review copies encourages more reviews. More customer reviews is good for everyone, but only if they are unbiased.

Note that such reviews won’t show as Amazon Verified Purchases. (There is a possible exception. For example, if your book is free through KDP Select and the reviewer downloads your book when it’s free, and the reviewer checks the box to mark it as an Amazon Verified Purchase.)

(3) The Friend and Family Plan: Jane asks her many family members and friends to review her book.

If all authors did this, most of the reviews would be biased. Amazon can’t say that it’s only allowed if the reviews are unbiased: How can Amazon tell, in general? They can’t.

So instead, Amazon has guidelines for what is or isn’t allowed:

Definitely, anyone who shares a household with the author isn’t allowed to review the book.
Close friends aren’t allowed to review the book. (What makes friends ‘close’? Good question.) This surely includes close family members who don’t live with the author, too.
Anyone who has a financial interest in the book isn’t allowed to review it: spouse, children, publisher, editor, cover designer, etc. (Even if the cover designer doesn’t receive a percentage of royalties, the success of the book may help the cover designer through referrals.)
Obviously, the author isn’t allowed to review the author’s own book.
You’re not allowed to post reviews on behalf of others. For example, if you sell a book to someone in person who has no internet access, if they ask you to review the book on their behalf, you’re not allowed to do it.

Amazon blocks and deletes reviews that are suspected of being on the friend and family plan. They may have a program that checks for common addresses, IP addresses, etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/05/amazon-removes-book-reviews

In addition to Amazon, there are external parties checking reviews. For example, there are people publishing research who are examining the writing style of multiple reviewers to see if they may have been written by the same person, scrutinizing books with many reviews but only a few sales, etc. There are published cases of review abuse that have been discovered and exposed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/23/historian-orlando-figes-amazon-reviews-rivals

(4) Dogs Eating Dogs: Bob slams the competition by giving them negative reviews.

Authors are not allowed to review similar titles. This very clear from the guideline that says you can’t review a book if you have a financial interest in it. So if Bob gives Eric a bad review and that bad review might improve the sales of Bob’s book, that review is in violation of Amazon’s policies. You’re not allowed to slam the competition.

Aside from being unscrupulous, it’s just plain foolish to slam the competition. Most books are more complementary than competitive. Customers usually buy multiple books that are similar (if not all at once, then spread over time). It’s usually not Book A or Book B; it’s often both. So if you do something to cause similar books’ sales to decline, it might hurt your own book’s sales through Customers Also Bought and other marketing associations.

You’re also not allowed to give positive reviews of similar titles, since a good review of a similar book might improve the sales of your book through Customers Also Bought lists.

(5) Paid Reviews: Cindy pays Jeff to write a review of her book.

This clearly violates the rule about receiving compensation, with one exception.

Editorial reviews, such as Kirkus reviews, may be paid for. These appear as editorial reviews, however, and not as customer reviews. There is a separate section for editorial reviews, and they can be added through AuthorCentral. Editorial reviews don’t necessarily need to be written by editors and experts in the field, as explained in Note 4 of Reference 3.

https://authorcentral.amazon.com

Note: All of the names used to illustrate examples (Jack, Jill, Dave, etc.) are all fictitious. These names do not refer to actual people. If there happen to be authors with those names who have done the things described (or have been accused by others of doing so or who may have done related or similar things), it is purely coincidental.

References

1. Kindle Direct Publishing Newsletter, May 2013, Volume 26, Featured Resource, “Q & A on Amazon’s Customer Review Policies.”

http://hosted-p0.vresp.com/816983/84997531d8/ARCHIVE

2. Amazon.com: Customer Reviews Submission Guidelines.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-help/customer-reviews-guidelines

3. Customer Reviews Guidelines Frequently Asked Questions from Authors

http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-help/customer-review-guidelines-faqs-from-authors

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

Jul 13 2013

Publishing Puts Prices in a Peculiar Perspective

You just published you first book. You’ve sold a few copies. You earn a royalty of $3 per sale.

Now you’re celebrating by shopping for a new toaster. The one you like costs $18.

But you don’t see an $18 price tag. No. You’re thinking: “I’d have to sell 6 books to pay for that toaster.”

So you get out your cell phone, go online, and check your royalty report. You’ve only sold 3 books all day. Wow. At this rate, it will take two whole days of sales to pay for that toaster.

Next you’re in the mood for a cup of coffee. You head over to the coffee shop. It costs $3 for the coffee you want.

They make the cup of coffee in a few seconds. What does it have? Beans, water, sugar, caffeine? You slaved over a book for months, and much more work and time getting it published. Yet one book equates to one cup of coffee. That hardly seems fair!

When you get home, you see that you just sold 5 books. You’re so excited! With the 3 you’d already sold, that covers the toaster and the coffee, with a little change to spare.

That’s when you discover the flat tire. The nail went through the side, so it has to be replaced. How much will that cost? 40 books. There goes a week’s worth of sales.

Fortunately, sales pick up. You sell a few hundred books that month.

Then your washing machine goes out. It costs 20 books just to get a repairman down to your house, then another 80 books to get it fixed.

Your wife wants a new necklace. Rack up another 150 books.

Car payment: 125 books per month.

Mortgage: 700 books per month.

Take the family out to dinner: 20 books. Another 4 books just for the tip! And 2 more books for tax!

So you dig 26 books out of your trunk and bring them to the waitress. Call it even? What if I sign them?

— Chris McMullen

Jul 12 2013

Research: The Author’s Success Tool

Authors can improve their books’ chances of success significantly by doing some research.

This research can take a variety of forms:

(1) Before writing the book, browse through search results to see what similar books are already on the market.

Are any of these books selling well? If not, this book may have very limited potential.
Is the market already saturated? If there are numerous books in the genre, yet several are selling well (especially, if this includes indie authors), then there may be room for one more. A category that has wide appeal can have numerous books and still not be saturated. But if there is a topic where there are many books, but there is little demand, that is a saturated market.
Can you compete with these other books? Are all of the top sellers from big-name authors and publishers? There may already be small-time success among similar titles to give you a little confidence.
What are the top-selling books doing right? There is an established audience for these books. Study these books to see what tends to attract this audience.
What are the ‘rules’ of the genre? For example, is it necessary for romance novels to have a happy ending, or what kinds of character flaws can the protagonist get away with? In order to have wide appeal, it’s important to understand the interests of the audience.
Is there a well-defined browse category for the type of book you’re writing? If there isn’t a category for the book, it will make it very challenging for shoppers to find it.
For fiction, study the kinds of plots and characterization that are successful in your genre. Those authors obviously did something right to attract readers.
For nonfiction, study the depth and range of the content and the way that the material is presented in successful books in this subject. If you can improve over what’s already been done, this may attract readers.
Learn what types of writing may attract readers, like showing more and telling less. Can you see yourself writing with an appealing style?

(2) All authors should do some research while they write:

Even fiction requires research. For example, if you’re writing a battle scene, research the weaponry to see what is or isn’t feasible; you can even find suggestions for effective ways to describe a battle scene. In fantasy, although you may defy the laws of physics to some extent, you still need to be consistent, so you must devise a viable set of rules; research can help with this.
Research names of characters. See what names are already in use, what meanings a given name may suggest to readers, etc.
Check your own storyline and characterization for continuity and possible contradictions. Your readers are likely to notice such issues.
Ensure that you’re using the right word, spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. In this digital age, it’s easy to find an explanation of when to use ‘effect’ or ‘affect,’ including examples of each, or whether the ? or ” should come first. Take a moment to check this. Or, if you’re writing is on fire and you just can’t stop, at least make a small note. For example, you might write <right word?> or <punctuation> in the middle of the paragraph to remind you to check on this later. Then you can search for <’s when it’s time to edit.

(3) Before you make your packaging, research the covers, blurbs, and Look Insides of top-selling books similar to yours.

What kinds of covers are readers accustomed to seeing in this genre? These are the types of covers that are attracting this audience. If the cover attracts the wrong audience, nobody will buy the book.
Look for important differences in cover design between similar sub-genres. For example, how do contemporary romances, historical romances, teen romances, erotica, etc. look different?
What color schemes are successful in this genre? Colors often have specific meanings. For example, a deep blue may be used with financial books to represent trust, while red is popular in romance because it suggests passion.
How long are the blurbs? How do the blurbs of top sellers signify the genre and arouse the reader’s curiosity? How much of the story do they give away? Studying effective blurbs can help you improve your own blurb writing.
Traditionally published books usually have very professional Look Insides. They often include a few professional touches such as design marks, their copyright pages are very detailed, and they generally are quite appealing to look at structurally. Study these models and learn from them. Also study how the pages are numbered (which have Arabic and Roman numerals?), page headers (e.g. title on the odd pages and chapter names on even pages), how the front matter is organized, chapter breaks (do they include space at the top of the first page?), header styles, etc.

(4) Research can also help when you seek professional help:

If you’re looking for a cover designer, visit their websites, check their portfolios, see what other books they’ve designed covers for, see how many of those books are similar to yours, see if the styles or features of the other covers appeal to you and fit with your vision, find those books and see if they list the cover designer on the copyright page. How are the other books that the designer made covers for selling? If those sales ranks are poor, maybe the cover won’t have as much an impact as you’re hoping. Find books with covers you like and see if their cover designers are affordable.
Research stock images if you’re designing your own cover. There is so much material out there, try not to settle for an image that isn’t quite right; your potential readers will notice this.
If you’re looking for an editor, find books they’ve edited (and verify this) and check if they meet your satisfaction (and try to get a second opinion if this isn’t easy for you to judge). Try to exchange a few written emails and find other samples of the editor’s writing (a blog, for example).

(5) Research can also come in handy when it’s time to make publishing decisions.

If you’re looking for a publisher, research the candidates. Check out their webpages, then check out their books – especially, books from an author who has a status similar to yours (i.e. new small-time author, indie author who has already published a few times, etc.). Compare royalties, any services that they provide (which you can verify), etc. The same research can help whether you’re self-publishing or seeking a traditional publisher or agent.
When self-publishing, research the browse categories and keywords. Type keywords into Amazon and check the search results. As you start typing, you will see popular keywords show up. You want keywords that are highly relevant for your book, which are reasonably popular, and where your book has the potential to become visible in the search results – all three are very important. Look for top-selling titles similar to yours in the search results to see which keywords they are visible under. When you click on those titles, you can also see which categories they are listed in.

(6) Of course, if you want to become effective with marketing, you must research this, too.

The first step is to research the many different things you can do to market your book. There are numerous possibilities. What you hope to learn is what is most likely to be effective for your specific book to reach its specific target audience.
You also want to research your target audience. The more you can learn about the kinds of readers for whom your book is a good fit, the easier it will be for you to gear your marketing toward them. Your blog, fan page, and email allow you to interact with readers directly, but beware they probably didn’t show up hoping to be part of a survey; you have to be tactful and indirect and keep such endeavors rare and unobtrusive. You might be able to find information about some audiences by searching online, or discussing this with your colleagues.
As you try different things, analyze your sales reports to see if you can find any correlations between improved sales and new marketing techniques that you’re trying out. It definitely benefits you to discover what does or doesn’t seem to be effective.
Find top-selling authors – especially, if have recently begun with a status similar to yours – and explore their blogs, social media, etc. to see if you can learn any of the secrets to their success. And have the sense to only try out ideas that seem scrupulous. 🙂

Note that sales rank can vary over time. A book might have a sales rank of 200,000 today because it just sold a copy, whereas it might usually be ranked in the millions. So monitoring rank over the course of a week can be helpful. Also, a book may have been a top seller a couple of years ago, but might be in the millions now. Check the publication date, too.

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

Hem

Jul 10 2013

Branding Sounds for Authors

Authors primarily strive to brand an image (front cover, author photo, or logo) and a few words (short title, author name, or strapline).

It’s important to realize that sounds can be branded, too.

When you say the words “ee eye ee eye oh” aloud, does the song “Old McDonald Had a Farm” come to mind?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_MacDonald_Had_a_Farm

If you say “fee fie foe fum,” chances are that you will think of the story “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_the_Beanstalk

The greeting “na-nu na-nu” was very well branded in the sitcom, Mork & Mindy, featuring Robin Williams as an alien.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_%26_Mindy

You may recognize “nyuk nyuk nyuk” from Curly of The Three Stooges.

Those are some sounds from the content. But there are other ways to brand sounds besides coming up with a unique sound that gains wide appeal.

Another way to brand a sound is with a slogan, strapline, title, or subtitle that has a catchy jingle to it.

The books in the Pinkalicious series all end with –icious.

http://amzn.com/0060776390

C I N: “Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin. You never come out the way you went in.” is a book with a title that features a catchy jingle.

http://amzn.com/1451539584

A widely popular book title that rhymes is The Cat in the Hat.

http://amzn.com/039480001X

Especially, with children, the word’s might just be silly, but fun to say, as in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

http://amzn.com/B0011EU0NG

Consider the possibility of branding sounds through your characters or in your titles, for example. When branding sounds in the title, you must also consider the target audience; childish noises, for example, probably work better in titles for children’s books than serious adult books.

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

Hem

Jul 6 2013

What Authors Need to Succeed

Here is a riddle for you:

What is a factor common among all sorts of authors, which can have a huge impact on success?

It’s something that all authors need, any author can have, but which can’t be bought.

Ponder this for a moment.

It’s not the drive to write; most authors have a natural inclination toward this.

It’s not a fantastic plot; most fiction writers can come up with a storyline, and it’s easy to research what kinds of plots attract readers. A good, complete storyline does matter, but it’s not a part of all writing.

It’s not great characterization; this can be developed over the course of time, along with a writing style that helps portray it. It is quite important in fiction, but not common to all authors.

It’s not the writing skills; the ideas themselves are more valuable than the technique, and there is editing help or writing development available, where needed.

It’s not an incredible cover; this is very important for many books, though not all, and there is cover design help available for authors.

It’s not a business plan; although researching a book beforehand, proper packaging, and ideas for how to sell the book can greatly enhance sales, authors need something else in order to carry this out. Much writing is also highly creative and artistic, where the best reading doesn’t come from words written in a business fashion.

It’s not an innate knack for marketing; this definitely helps, but marketing can also be learned, and there is an abundance of free advice to read up on.

It’s not money; there are many free marketing ideas to choose from, some of which can be implemented effectively.

It’s not good looks; readers are looking for stories or information, not buying a book hoping to date the author.

It’s not celebrity status; this is not realistic for everyone to have, at least when starting out.

It’s much simpler than that.

It’s often overlooked.

It’s incredibly important.

It’s something that comes from within, at least it can.

Give up?

Ready or not, here it comes…

Okay, I’ll hide the answer at the end of this paragraph, in case you weren’t ready to see it yet. It’s confidence.

That’s it!

There are two parts to this: Why is it so important for authors, and how can every author attain this?

(1) Why is it so important for authors?

Actually, it’s not just for authors. It’s many things in life.

For example, I see it all the time among physics students. When learning new concepts that seem strange or intimidating, many students proceed tentatively. They sometimes give up when they were proceeding in the right direction; they just lacked the confidence to keep going. They sometimes give up when they get the wrong answer, assuming that they solved the problem incorrectly, when all they did was make a simple mistake; they just lacked the confidence that the solution was correct to check it carefully. When you doubt your solution, you wonder if it’s worthwhile to check it over.

The top students tend to be much more confident. They carry out their solutions fully because they’re sure they’re solving the problems correctly. Instead of doubting their solutions, when they get the wrong answer, they check their solutions carefully. Confidence makes a big difference.

Are you more likely to give a good speech if you approach the podium timidly or confidently?

Do you want to hit a long drive down a tight fairway, sink a critical putt, strikeout a tough hitter, hit a homerun, or serve an ace? Confidence and positive visualization play a significant role in this.

Have you ever tried to do something mechanically, like turn a crank, pull a handle, or push a button on a device that’s new to you? If you’re tentative about it, sometimes it doesn’t work, and later when you ask for help, someone else does the exact same thing that you did, but it works. Why? You didn’t try hard enough because you approached it uncertainly. The other person was simply more confident.

There is also the danger of being overconfident, and breaking the device because what you did is wrong. The line between confident and overconfident is just as important as the line between tentative and confident.

Here are ways that confidence benefits authors:

You’re more likely to fully invest your time, effort, thought, and resources into a project if you have full confidence in it. If you’re going to do it, go for it. Don’t make finding a good cover or seeking editing help conditional upon success; strive for success in the first place, else it may be very hard coming.
The author who is confident in the book is more apt to market diligently and to learn effective marketing strategies. The author who is uncertain about the book worries that marketing may be a waste of time, and just pokes around at it, hoping, usually without much success.
Uncertainty shows up in the marketing itself. Speaking to others about your book, you must look both confident and passionate about your work. If you can’t sell your book to yourself, how do you expect to convince others to read it? Your confidence impacts others when it shows.
It takes confidence to do effective premarketing over the course of months, to strive to build buzz for your book, and to get neutral feedback. Premarketing can make a big difference.
You must be confident to exercise the patience needed to market successfully. It can take a year or more for effective marketing efforts to reach their full effect. It takes time for people to discover your book, to buy your book, to start reading your book, to finish reading your book, to recommend your book to others, to write a review, etc. And only a fraction who discover it will buy it, who buy it will read it, who read it will finish it, who finish it will like it, who like it will recommend it. It takes a lot of sales and a lot of time. You must be very confident to market diligently over such a long period of time, especially if you don’t see instant results.
At a reading or signing, the confident author charms everyone and looks the part. The tentative author is nervous and doesn’t quite seem to belong there. It’s your event, you need to own the place and function as a proper host. Nervousness versus confidence will even show in your speech and mannerism.
Positive visualization helps. It helps you maintain a positive outlook. You’re more motivated when you’re optimistic. You work more diligently toward the positive outcome when you are able visualize it. Positive visualization even helps you subconsciously; it’s subconscious to you, but you’re doing things that others can perceive through your behavior (e.g. nervousness may show up as being fidgety).
Authors tend to make a lot of mistakes (such as unprofessional behavior) when they behave out of fear. Confidence leads to more professional behavior, which is important for long-term success and positive branding.

But overconfidence is a problem for authors.

People are more likely to buy your book if you look like you believe in it; that’s confidence. People are less likely to buy your book if you come across as arrogant or if you brag about your book; that’s overconfidence.

The confident author will let people discover his or her book and then talk about it passionately until the subject naturally changes. The author who introduces his or her book to someone who isn’t expecting this is overconfident that anyone who hears about it in any context will buy it. People are more likely to show interest in things they discover than things that are advertised.

Be confident enough in your book to market it effectively, but try not to be overconfident.

We also tend to make more mistakes when we feel overconfident. If we feel too confident, we may not practice as much as we should or we may not give the matter enough attention.

(2) How can every author attain this?

It’s not easy for everyone to show confidence; some people have more trouble with this than others. But everyone can become confident.

It’s not just a matter of saying you’re confident. There’s much more to it than this.

Suppose you don’t know a word of Russian and suddenly wander down the streets of Moscow telling yourself you’re confident you can easily pick up on the language. Not gonna happen. (Maybe someone will speak English, but you’re not going to instantly pick up Russian no matter how confident you are.)

You can become confident through experience.

Again, this doesn’t just apply to authors. I see it with my students. The student who hasn’t practiced or studied enough definitely lacks confidence. The top students know they have practiced plenty and studied hard, so they show confidence. Then there are good students who worked and studied hard, but don’t show confidence; instead, they show much anxiety and make nervous mistakes. These students didn’t first convince themselves that because they’ve worked and studied so hard, they do know how to solve the problems. They had every reason to be confident. Maybe they have done poorly on tests in the past, and this prevented them from showing the needed confidence.

There is a way for students to overcome exam anxiety. One step at a time. Try to solve one small problem by yourself. Then work your way up to exam conditions. Start with self-check exercises, try practice quizzes, make a practice exam. Put yourself in positions where you experience exam anxiety, where it starts out easy and becomes progressively more challenging. It takes a will to find the way.

Authors can take a similar approach:

You become confident in your writing when you receive positive feedback. You might find friends, other authors, and family members to help give you this initial support. The next jump is feedback from neutral readers. If you discover that there is an audience who appreciates your writing, this lends you some needed confidence.
You have to learn to deal with criticism. When you receive neutral feedback, you may encounter this. If not, when you publish, you might receive it from reviews. You have to realize that no book pleases everyone. After a couple of days, examine the criticism for anything useful that may help you grow as a writer. If you make any changes that help you improve as a writer, this should give you confidence that your writing has improved. It will, if you just look at it this way. Once you overcome the emotions involved in criticism, this should give you the confidence that you can handle more criticism in the future. It’s very important to work toward this because fear of criticism creates all the problems of being uncertain. You can achieve this in small steps, if necessary. Find ways to confront criticism little by little, starting with friendlier situations.
If you need more confidence in your writing, try to learn the craft better. Reading classics can help you master the language. Sometimes reading good writing is better than working on mechanics because you’re not bored in the lesson – it just occurs naturally – and it also conveys a sense of style. Reading grammar and punctuation guides can help, too, even if just a little here and there. Practice writing in a journal every week, working on something specific. If you feel that your writing is improving, it will lend you confidence.
Get a good support group. Authors can feed off one another’s confidence and help one another overcome problems that arise. Emotional support can be quite valuable, too.
Learn about editing, formatting, cover design, marketing, or anything else that you wish you could be more confident about. The more knowledgeable you become, the more confident you become. If you feel tentative about marketing, for example, research it.
Research similar books. Read the top sellers in the genre. See what is common among their storylines and characterization. Research those authors to see what they’re doing to become successful. Learn what readers expect in the genre. The results of your research can help you become more confident in your own book.
In addition to learning more about marketing, take one step at a time. Start out with something simple that you feel comfortable doing, get it started, and see how that goes. Then try something new. Eventually, you will develop a following and feel that you’re making a concerted marketing effort.
Study the covers and blurbs of top selling books in the genre to learn the art of proper packaging. This will help you become confident that your book will attract the interest of your target audience. Also read up on cover design and blurb writing.
Exercise, eat right, and sleep well – all those things the doctors say you should be doing for better health. What? This can affect your ability to show confidence, too? And maybe some confidence will help you get a better night’s sleep.

You can do it if you work at it. Make it a priority to develop and show the confidence you need, while avoiding overconfidence. It is that important. 🙂

¯ A little bit of confidence is all you need,

To give people something that’s sweet to read. ¯

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

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Writing, Publishing, and Marketing Ideas

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