The Business Of Being A Writer

I have a notoriously faulty memory, to the point where I will call family members on their birthday, not to congratulate them but to talk about some mundane subject I had been meaning to call about. Diaries rarely work, normally they end in some hidey hole I don’t find until I move house. So I have taken to writing things on my hand with pen in a bid to appear organised, and on occasion, prompt my memory. Today’s reminder came in the form of BC.

After rejecting several meanings, both religious and otherwise, I finally remembered what it stood for: Business Card. Writers rarely think of what they do as a business, that every person they meet, from the pretty girl behind the counter of the cupcake store, to the editor who gives them 2 mins to pitch their novel, is a potential champion of their book, their information and a possible link to media coverage. For indie authors this can be vital, because most people will keep a business card over anything else given to them. They are terrific promotional tools because they are inexpensive. They are also terrific icebreakers and informational aids.

A business card has to have a specific purpose, and as a published/self-published writer I would recommend you have two. One specifically for your e-book or book, and the other for you as a writer and (if writing non-fiction) an expert. My business card’s purpose was to establish myself as an expert writer and e-book specialist and to recruit Joint Venture partners to help me sell my e-book. You will remember from my previous posts, that a Joint Venture partner is part of your army of promoters. They do not promote you to get that pleasant fuzzy feeling inside; they will promote you in exchange for you giving them part of the profits. If you give them money to help they will move heaven and earth to promote you through social media, on t-shirts, in song... You take advantage of the people they know, to become more widely read and recognised.

The result of my efforts is below:

On the front of the business card I have the cover of my e-book – simple and eye catching, done by a professional cover designer, not my next door neighbour’s two year old. I have the name of my e-book and a six word pitch or ‘silver-bullet’ that tells people exactly what the book is about. It is short and concise and does not include the entire storyline of my novel or dramatic and unnecessary words like ‘stupendous’ and ‘so funny it will make your socks fall off!’. It gives my name and expertise along with my phone number (more relevant if you are recruiting your promotion army in your own country), email, blog and the webpage where I currently sell my e-book. The colours of my information match the colours of my book cover.

On the back of the card I have my pitch once more, along with my websites and my social media information (Twitter, and when it’s up and running, Facebook will join the party). The most important feature of this whole card is the QR code. This code takes the scanner not to the ramblings of my blog but to my e-book page with my whole pitch including bonuses, extras and samples. At the bottom of the card it tells smart phone users where they can download a QR code reader if they don’t have one. If they don’t have a smart phone, they can manually look up the websites printed next to it.

A business card specifically for your book has just as much potential, with the QR code going to a Youtube video of your book trailer, or to three sample chapters of your novel. The best part is you can change which web address your QR code points to. So if you hand out a card and three months down the track you decide you may have been a little racist in your first trailer, you can direct the person to a different trailer with a couple of clicks in your QR code generator. On a business card for your book you want to have the name of your novel, the publisher’s name if you have one, your 6 or 7 word pitch, the cover image, your contact information and your book’s website. Have your own author website and pick only one of the websites that sells your novel, you don’t want your card crowded with the sites of all your sellers in letters no-one can read.

There are ads all the time on ebay promoting 250 free business cards and all you have to pay is postage. So no more excuses! While your e-book may be digital, your promotion should not be restricted to the screen. There are so many networking opportunities out there, conventions, festivals, talks and courses that you cannot afford to hand people your information on a piece of scrap paper.

My recent novel a comedy set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain, is available at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co/the-grand-adventures-of-madeline-cain. You can also purchase E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-Book Success at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co/e-book-revolution-the-ultimate-guide-to-e-book-success.

“Why It’s A Book Soundtrack, My Dear Watson.”

Have you ever read a book and been jerked out of the story? You are right at that scene where a well dressed member of the opposite sex is sweeping you - I mean the character - off their feet when you brother’s well timed fart beside your ear pulls you from the fantasy. Or a car back fires as you imagine a plane flight, or a leaky tap just won’t stop dripping when your main character is in the desert, or the tree that your character has been talking to so earnestly suddenly speaks with your child’s voice asking you when dinner is ready. Is the sound track of life keeping you out of the moment?

It may have been, until now. Due to some very smart thinkers your e-book can not only keep you in the moment, it can enhance it. The company Booktracks is currently creating synchronized soundtracks for e-books, with the music embedded into the book. The technology is designed to play the ambient music (a sad song during a gloomy chapter or horns during a dashing attack) and sound effects at the individual’s reading pace. It is not an audio book, no one is reading the story to you, it is trying to make the story come alive through music. It provides a similar function to a movie sound track. Can you imagine watching Pirates of the Caribbean with no music and just the dialogue? It would be like watching a very drunk man stagger about in a fancy dress costume in the middle of Sydney’s CBD, completely lacking in atmosphere and class.

This company has taken interactivity to a whole new level by immersing and enhancing the story rather than detracting from it with flashy videos or pictures. Booktracks were commissioned to enhance ‘The Power of Six’ by Pittacus Lore, the sequel to ‘I Am Number Four’. But they have also taken several copyright free classics such as Sherlock Holmes (currently available for free) and created ‘booktracks’ for them.





Another e-book which includes its own soundtrack is Moxyland by Lauren Beukes who worked with African Dope Records to produce a soundtrack for the book. Though not as advanced as the Booktracks technology it has been praised as very effective by readers/listeners of the e-book.

Imagine the sorts of things an indie author can do with this. It can go a lot further then ambient music of the right tone, it can add to the character and a reader’s connection to them. For example, if your main character is a musician, you can have snippets of the character’s original music embedded in the story. Rather than imagining the creative process of the character, the reader is hearing it! Using a full version of Adobe Acrobat you can embed multimedia, such as music, yourself. Or if that’s too tech for you, you could recommend a playlist of songs for your e-book that a reader could listen to as they read your story.

So consider, what can you add to your e-book that will drown out the sound of that pimple face kid next door massacring Blues Brothers with his new saxophone?

My recent novel a comedy set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain, is available at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co/the-grand-adventures-of-madeline-cain. You can also purchase E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-Book Success at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co/e-book-revolution-the-ultimate-guide-to-e-book-success.

A Writer's Money Isn't Just In The Books

It’s not many a writer who would admit that comic book companies are the geniuses of our industry. No seriously. They have the whole demand scale figured out. Not only do they mass produce paperback copies of their stories but they have television shows, movies, yearly conventions in every major city in the world, they have lunch boxes. They have toy figurines of the hero, the side kick, the villain, the villain’s hairless cat, and let’s not forget the sidekick’s landlady. And depending on when they’re made, how rare they are, and whether or not the buyer has resisted temptation and left the figure in its original packaging, the villain’s hairless cat can go for several hundred dollars when first sold and several thousand dollars years later. This my friends is marketing genius, realising that the money is not in the paper bound book, but in the other entertainment opportunities we can provide the audience based on the story.

Indie publisher Richard Nash talks most eloquently on writers needing to expand their scope from the novel to further interactive opportunities like workshops, Q&A sessions, memorabilia, exclusive dinner parties, your own board game or selection of swim wear (well you never know) and endless other possible endeavours depending on your genre.

Slowly authors are coming to the realisation that they can create a fever around their work by allowing it to move outside the written word. One such author is Garth Nix, a world renowned fantasy author with books published in Australia, US, UK and a dozen others. Like many well known authors, he could have just stuck to his paperbacks and still made fairly reasonable money. But clearly Garth is also a savvy business person and saw the opportunity to deliver something more to his fan base and make some extra cash as a consequence. Garth is best known for his Abhorsen (or Old Kingdom) Trilogy and he has leveraged the books’ popularity to create another sort after product.

“In these books there are necromancers who raise and control the Dead using seven named bells. These evil necromancers and Dead themselves are opposed by a family called the Abhorsens who use their own versions of the bells to make sure the Dead stay in Death and do not trespass into life. I thought it would be great to have silver charm versions of these seven bells.”
– www.bellcharms.com

Garth has created Stirling silver bell charms for a charm bracelet based on the core idea in his fantasy series. Each ‘bell’ has its own individual mark, for each bell has its own name, and you can choose from not one, but three different finishes. ‘Bright’ which is brightly polished; 'Ancient' which is a duller finish and ‘Black Handle’ for those evil necromancer types. The charms range from $39.95-$45.95 each. Garth has further increased the rarity (and hence the value) of these charms by identifying whether the charm was done in the first casting, in the second casting etc making the first casting the most valuable in later years. Cleverly, Garth built up the excitement of his readers by announcing his intention almost a year before the charms were finally ready. Furthermore, within the website he refers people to buy his books if they want more information about the bells and their uses, ensuring further sales of his novels as well.

So if comic book publishers are selling action figures (or very expensive evil cats) and fantasy authors are forging bells out of silver, what could you create from your words?

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Are You Missing Out On A Publicity Goldmine?

The power of a simple reading should never be underestimated. Hearing the dulcet voice of another verbally caressing your prose seems to add another dimension somehow. As much as we try to deny it, some little part of our inner child is still fascinated with the daring escapades of talking shoes or pink elephants rendered vividly to life by a story teller’s fairly dodgy accents and high-pitched voices. The simple act of giving voice to something that is normally just in our head - particularly comedy which always reaches its true potential when performed – deepens our attachment as voices and sounds are added to the pictures of our imagination. And creating a clever video round your e-book could see it sky rocket to the most talked about digital file (or stapled pieces of paper) of the year.

In one of the best pieces of book marketing I have seen this year, Text Publishing, released a video of one of Australia’s most iconic children’s show hosts reading an adult picture book called ‘Go The F*** To Sleep’. Text appear to have followed every bit of advice I have given to you in this blog to the letter. They launched their book via the video below, a simple reading of a very comic adult book. The book is funny by itself, but synopsis and traditional marketing can only go so far and the book more than likely would have had a slow build. But Text went and found further comic fuel to add to the fire. They hired Noni Hazlehurst, the host of the iconic Australian children’s show, Playschool. This wonderful host who gently led children through cheerful songs, and squeaky clean picture books for well over two decades, is reading the book as though to an audience of children, making innocent side comments as she swears at the end of every page.

Just a quick warning, if you have sensitive ears, this video contains some swearing...


Go the Fuck to Sleep - read by Noni Hazlehurst from sswam on Vimeo.

Not only is it comedy gold, but a publicity goldmine. All they did was advertise it to their mailing list, and promote it on their social media. In almost 6 hours it got posted 66,258 times on Facebook before it got removed by YouTube for ‘harmful content’. But from there it didn’t matter, as soon as they placed their video on other video sharing sites (Such as Viddler or Vimeo) fans of the reading quickly passed on the link to the new video. Though Text would have hired Noni you will notice that this major publishing company chose to use all free avenues in placing their video online, and promoting through email and social media. This is because these avenues really work, and if you are still ignoring them as an indie author you may as well go the f*** to sleep.

While this book has already seen great success in the US through Samuel L. Jackson’s reading of the book, it’s worthwhile noting that different approaches and personalities will work better for some countries then others. Noni is a perfect choice for the Australian version of the book, however the majority of the US and UK wouldn’t even know who she was. As a traditional publisher, Text only publishes in one country, Australia, so it works for them. However, as an indie author if you want to reach several countries at once it is worth while playing on common comedic elements and topical subjects.

One of the best examples of an author using videos to reach their audience is John Greene, a YA author who posts little, fast talking and hilarious videos on YouTube every week with his brother Hank, to reach out to his audience of readers. You can check out his videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers. They talk about subjects important to their readers (self confessed 'nerds'...), and to themselves and more importantly, they have fun doing it!! The statistics for each video speak for themselves. Not only do these videos sell John's current books without him ever referring directly to them, but when his next book comes out, all he has to do is mention it once and it reaches hundreds of thousands of watchers, and is shared by hundreds of thousands of watchers.



The above reading is how it’s done my good writers; this is how you promote an e-book successfully. So time to add some life to your book. Go forth! Discover your goldmine.

Pay With A Tweet: Why Give Your E-Book Away For Free?

Free can be a very tricky thing. One cannot deny that free is fabulous for the receiver, they have no risk. It’s like Christmas without having to give thought to what you should give back, or being invited to have tea with the Queen without having to perform a single act of bravery or without aging to the point of spontaneous decomposition. For an indie author, giving away your work for free is about the only way you can guarantee a glance at and perhaps a curious download of your novel which otherwise would be an Arthurian legend. You know, a completely immoveable sword stuck fast in stone until the golden hand of Arthur (or luck) comes along. In the writing world this golden hand of luck is also known as the occasional reader who will pass their enjoyment of your novel onto their friends.

Why would you give away something for free, on the off chance that that person will remember to tell their friends, their relatives, their pet goldfish? This question has stopped many an author in their promoting tracks. People are forgetful creatures, and if they are like me, they download the free copy (just so they don’t forget the name) add it to the end of the 20 book long queue (which constantly gets updated with new books from favourite authors) and by the time they get to reading it, telling their friends in a visible, public way, is the last thing on their mind. Hence authors get caught in this Catch 22. Free is how you move forward, but people are notoriously lazy and absent minded, and unwilling to pay for an unknown book from an unknown author.

You can save the applause for later, but I have found a fantastic strategy that allows free and promotion in one neat package without 500 downloaders nicking off with your work, never to return. I am talking about the wonderful website, Pay With A Tweet. Basically you can create a button for your webpage, Facebook page, blog, or author profile that allows people to download your product (and in our case, e-book) for the price of a tweet. The reader can change the tweet to whatever they wish (from your cool, entertaining, carefully worded one), but they cannot change the link that leads to that Pay With A Tweet button. Therefore, to get your free novel, they have to tweet about it first. Even more exciting, the creators of this facility have also developed a pay with a Facebook status option as well.

Twitter is a phenomenon whose social power has barely been tapped. Twitter is used by every well known company, department and personality in the world. NASA has Twitter feeds for several of their projects and tweets have even come from outer space. The LA Fire Department spread information about the 2007 fires via Twitter because the news channels weren’t fast enough, and that could mean a life saved or burned. The general public see social media as a way to ‘keep the bastards honest’ as we say in Australia, meaning keeping big companies honest on everything from the quality of their service to their offer of a free product. As such a tweet or Facebook status from a friend is seen as a true testimonial of a product or group to their trusted circle. Pay With A Tweet can help authors in an unprecedented way, allowing them to take advantage of the ‘free’ phenomenon, and get a guaranteed promotion from it at the same time.

Imagine the possibilities! This is how you integrate readers in such a way they become part of your campaign. It is a tool people will use over and over again and willingly tell their friends about it in exchange for what you have, their entertainment. One press is currently using the Pay With A Tweet website in a great way. Keyhole Press have several books for sale at an average price of $12.99 OR you can pay with a tweet. What is a person going to pay? The money, or get $13 of value for the price of a measly tweet? I can readily believe that readers will promote before they read without a thought, because they don’t have to pay for it. Then the viral marketing truly begins. Keyhole provide no synopsis, no genre, just a brief, 10 page pdf excerpt of the file. Just enough to give the reader adequate confidence to go ahead and Tweet for the download.

From there you can easily track the URL to see how many people have Tweeted your book to the world, all because you gave a reader something for free. Instead of paying with money, your readers are paying with social advertising. And you didn’t even have to buy them a drink to introduce yourself.

Why Not Join My Weekly Introductory E-Book Webinar At 8:30pm?

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The Pyjama Money Bender

There are a lot of things you can do in your pyjamas. Sleep… write, read, make dinner, eat dinner, have a party with a bunch of eight year olds, take out the garbage, go to the local store for a snack, impersonate John Lennon, sleep… It had never occurred to me that you could sell things in your pyjamas (other than more pyjamas) let alone books. Ten years ago connecting with someone on the other side of the world, in real time, without the ten year lag between sentences, was only dreamed about. But a lot has changed in ten years (not in the least pyjama fashion) and one particular piece of technology has got me hotter under the collar then a paedophile at a Wiggles concert.

You may have heard this little word I have been bashing about for the past several months, Webinars, the future of reader/writer communication. A webinar sales presentation reaches out and talks directly to the audience, entertains them, answers their questions and demonstrates the presenter's personality and style, unlike a website or e-book store which are impersonal and static. You can do them from home, they cost you almost nothing to set up, you can make money with them easily, they work in any market and you can do them in your Pyjamas.

I have something very special for you in this blog post, an excerpt from my interview with the webinar guru himself, Steven Essa. In this extract we talk a bit about what webinars are and why they are the internet marketing tool of the hour for e-books.

Listen below for some great info.



If you are smart, you will do whatever you can to catch his special webinar for authors.

In this live, once off webinar, not only will you be trained in how to set up a webinar but you will also learn the biggest reason why people fail or succeed online. Also, you will learn why unsupported e-books and products DON’T work.

And Steven is doing this for free. That’s just how awesome he is!

It's true, this webinar is only going to be run once and it’s free! Steven is a busy man and I am honoured that he has found the time to talk to us about how to run a webinar. If I could make a quarter of the money he does selling my e-books, I will be a happy woman.

No matter what genre you're in… Webinars are the FASTEST-growing, most profitable means to market yourself to a local or global audience…

Join Steven and myself for a very special webinar that could make the difference to your e-book success this year.

When: Wed June 15th
Time: 8:00pm-9:30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (Sydney)

Click here to register!

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/973353286

Social Glue: An Unusual Publishing Perspective

When I ask the question, “What is publishing?” many people reply with the same three answers.

1) Publishing is the act of taking a well edited story and printing it to paper for people to read.
2) Publishing provides carefully crafted novels for the reader’s enjoyment.
3) Publishing is a vehicle for countless rejection letters and grey hairs.

All these descriptions are soulless (and more than a little bitter...). Publishing has been streamlined in the past several decades making it hard to imagine it as anything other than some utilitarian entity a writer must pass by to be heard. The paper we print our words on has become cheaper and cheaper, and the size and shape of novels are altered for no greater reason then they fit into a box better.

Yet publishing is much more than just a way to get your words out there, it is a connection. Not just a solitary writer, putting pen to paper to be distributed. Not just a reader who blocks out the world with your words. Books allow a point of dialogue, a shared experience when you are not even reading in the same room, the same continent, the same country as the person you are discussing it with.

This is learnt from the wonderful Richard Nash whom I interviewed. A wealth of advice and ideas, I promised I would share some of what we talked about on the blog. In this interview extract Richard talks about his view of what publishing is; a social glue that binds society and is not limited to words on a page.



THIS WEEK: How can you make a novel more than words on a page? How can you make that connection between reader and writer? In my next blog post I will be uploading some fantastic snippets of my interview with Webinar Guru, Steven Essa. No matter *what* genre you're in… Webinars are the FASTEST-growing, most profitable means to market yourself to a local or global audience…

WANT TO HEAR MORE OF RICHARD’S FANTASTIC ADVICE? Why not register for one of my weekly webinars? I will be speaking live and in detail about the 5 Fast, Simple secrets to E-Book Success which includes many a juicy idea gleaned from my interview with Richard. Please join me to discover how you can create a massive following and increase the success of your e-book tenfold, allowing you to free up time to live, write and create whenever you want to.

Register NOW! In the blue box on the top right of the page.

Exploring Other Platforms

If you haven't heard of the Institute for the Future of the Book then you better mark the Institute on your list of must read websites for writers. The Future of the Book US, The Future of the Book UK and The Future of the Book Australia have some fantastic blog entries and projects aimed at exploring the future of the written word in today’s digital world. Having been a fan of If:Book (as it is known) for a while, I was flattered to be offered a position of guest blogger on the Australian site to rehash my QR Code knowledge. Feel free to check it out:

http://www.futureofthebook.org.au/news/qr-codes-more-opportunities-then-you-can-poke-a-smart-phone-at/

Next week I shall also be posting some great tid bits from my interview with the heads of If:Book UK and Australia, Chris Meade and Simon Groth, on the future paths of the written word.

I am also very excited to share with you my first published piece in the Australian literary journal Voiceworks the 'Pulp' edition. It is, naturally, a reflection on how e-books have been received in my area of the world. A brief excerpt is below:

One would think the main lesson to be learnt in a digital publishing seminar is how to self-publish a novel using zero mullah and one internet connection. Or many publishers might say, learning how to satisfy one’s vanity by forcing drivel onto the literary stage. Yet the main lesson I learnt was not how to force a dull book to the top of the bestseller list, or even to rudely extend various dexterous appendages towards the publishing community as my book debuts on Amazon. What I learnt was that young writers have hope. A blind, unyielding faith that their work will be picked up by a publisher, sooner rather than later, and that their words will become famous. This stems from the belief that their work ‘speaks for itself’ and is capable of storming the tightly held gates of the publishing houses with the mere touch of a single word. By ignoring this seductively lofty voice in my head, I discovered that like most of the world’s faithful, young writers were calmly cocking the trigger and shooting themselves in the foot.

My first clue came from the seminar room of the South Australian Writers’ Centre itself. Trickling down the walls like some colourful Matrix code were book covers mounted on plaques, one hundred and ninety-seven in total. Each cover proudly declared the success of a South Australian author. On closer inspection it became clear that many I had never heard of, never seen in a bookstore, never spied in a local library. Only three names jumped out of the covers: Sean Williams of Star Wars, sci-fi and fantasy fame, Gillian Rubinstein (also published under the alias Lian Hearn) and finally Mem Fox, author of the beloved children’s book Possum Magic. These three names had several covers clinging to the beige wall. However the majority of the names appeared only once on the wall and, presumably, only once in the bookstores.

At the time I gave little thought to the limited success of an author. Alone in the large room, the evidence all around me, it should have been clear how few of the lucky get published more than once. Fewer still can afford to drop mundane day jobs and be supported solely by their words.

Bare minutes was all it took for the second clue to turn disinterest into curiosity and finally to understanding. Patrons began slowly to fill the room. The term ‘slowly’ is not used to denote time, but rather to denote age. I was surrounded by a sea of salt and pepper, bowling ball shine and meticulously dyed, shoulder-length locks. Every person who entered that room – short, tall, stout or rake thin – was over forty. Later I would find that at twenty-three I had been the youngest person to attend the seminars (twelve in total around Australia), beating the pants off the next youngest in his early thirties. The audience had been doing the publisher dance for years and by the looks of it they were willing to try something, anything else. This was also my first inkling that as a young writer, if I kept following the norm, I might be in a spot of bother.

The article is continued in the most recent edition of Voiceworks, 'Pulp'.

http://www.expressmedia.org.au/voiceworks/index.php/current-issue/

THIS WEEK: Words of wisdom from indie publisher Richard Nash.

Why Not Join My Weekly Introductory E-Book Webinar At 8:30pm?

Register NOW! In the blue box on the top right of the page

Writing Communities: The Publishing Industry’s Attitude Adjustment

The attitude in publishing for a long time has been similar to a king lording over his domain. A select few courtiers (or writers) are chose to fawn in the king’s presence for the right of publication, and then the king distributes chosen edicts (Novels) to a large number of readers who are expected to abide by (read) the edicts the king chooses to give. Now this does not mean the king is evil, just that the system has been in place for so long that the king knows no different. Then the revolution comes along, chops off the king’s...power and suddenly we all become like scattered ants scrambling around for some sort of organised path back to the hill.

It’s the old story of power to the people and while it has seen this industry flip out like a teenager in need of an attitude adjustment, it has also developed some fantastic new start ups that recognise the power of communities. I have blogged extensively about the importance of communities, both in increasing exposure for your e-book as well as being an invaluable tool for the workshopping of your work before you publish. One start up has caught my attention in the past couple of weeks, and that is the Red Lemonade community run by the Cursor platform, the genesis of one fantastically bright indie publisher, Richard Nash.

Nash, for almost a decade, was the publisher for the iconic indie Soft Skull Press. He has been noted as the number one Twitter user for changing the shape of publishing and has spoken extensively over the past year about the need to connect readers and writers together in more ways than just the simple reading of a sheaf of pages stuck together with a smattering of glue. Red Lemonade is the first publishing community launched on the Cursor platform allowing writers to upload manuscripts, participate in writing groups and readers to give feedback, make comments or annotate. The only thing it appears to be lacking is the ability to draw cartoons in the margins.

All these elements are invaluable when making sure you have a quality product to release to your market. The community also acts as a conduit for publishers to search through comments and discussions for manuscripts they wish to publish. If that is the sort of avenue you are more inclined to pursue rather than self-publishing, then this site is doubly for you. As with any community you need to make sure your manuscript fits in with the sort of genres that participants are interested in. Red Lemonade is a publishing community of fiction and highly narrative non-fiction. As stated by Nash, “We avoid labelling what we do but it tends to be risky, socially charged, misbehaving stuff. Red Lemonade is for the writers other publishers are afraid of.” So attempting to post your paranormal romance involving vampire rabbits is not recommended at this stage. However, it is worthwhile signing up for the Cursor mailing list as there are already plans in the works for the release of other communities powered by Cursor, for example communities dedicated entirely to science fiction.

For the moment - who knows how long - the entire thing is absolutely, 100% free. So strike while the iron is hot!

I had the privilege of interviewing Richard several weeks ago about his innovative approach to e-books and the future of our industry from a publisher’s perspective. I will pull out some golden bits of information from it for my next blog post; however, to sate your appetite a section of the interview regarding this new community is below.



WANT TO HEAR MORE OF RICHARD’S FANTASTIC ADVICE? Why not register for one of my weekly webinars? I will be speaking live and in detail about the 5 Fast, Simple secrets to E-Book Success which includes many a juicy idea gleaned from my interview with Richard. Please join me to discover how you can create a massive following and increase the success of your e-book tenfold, allowing you to free up time to live, write and create whenever you want to.

Register NOW! In the blue box on the top right of the page.

Final Thoughts On 31 Day Blog And New Beginnings

This has been an epic block of blogging and I would like to thank all of you for joining me on the initial journey. It’s wonderful to see such excitement around the blog. Those of you who have read from day one will agree with me that the enemy of a writer is the veil of obscurity, our words slowly collecting dust as they are transferred from one slush pile to another. Though initial doubts about the digitisation of our industry cloud our thoughts, one thing is clear. Publishers do not know the minds of every reader, and they cannot afford to put all of us in print. E-books have so many benefits, and the internet is a medium in which we can connect on a whole new level while making more money than a traditionally published author ever did. And by far the most appealing aspect? Authors have the ultimate creative control.

Next week I will begin sharing some pearls of wisdom from masters in the writing and e-book industry, who were kind enough to cave into my pestering about an interview. I accosted successful e-book authors, publishers, editors and internet marketers so the coming posts will be a wealth of information.

And of course there will be the webinars I shall be hosting. If you missed my first round of webinars two weeks ago, now is another chance to catch the presentation. I will be speaking live and in detail about the 5 Fast, Simple secrets to E-Book Success and giving you some fantastic internet resources to help you on your way. During the webinar I will cover each segment of this four week blog in one full, live hour. Please join me to discover how you can create a massive following and increase the success of your e-book tenfold, allowing you to free up time to live, write and create whenever you want to.

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Webinars: The Ultimate Way To Connect With Anyone Anywhere On The Globe And Generate Massive Sales

There has never been a greater time in history for people to personally connect with someone on the other side of the globe. Your readers could be at a cafe in a busy street, on a beach in the Caribbean, or sitting in front of the computer wearing their girlfriend underwear, it doesn’t matter, as long as they have an internet connection they can communicate with anyone in the world. Never before have authors been so accessible yet very few of us are taking advantage of this.

Traditionally, connecting with your readers meant you had to be in the same geographic location as them either on a book tour or other organised writing event. You smiled until your face hurt, signed a couple of books and forced yourself to laugh through badly delivered jokes. And while this blog has given a myriad of strategies on how to create a reader experience through words, videos and recordings, these are in some small way still distanced from the reader. It is generic, there for anyone to find. Words take on different meanings when you cannot hear the tone or see the facial expression of the person. This is unfortunate because as authors, most of our convincing is done through the written word. And as such the powerful emotions your novel synopsis is supposed to invoke can be lost in translation and a sale along with it. In this digital age we have the power to interact with a reader personally, why should we settle for the outdated way of doing things? Enter the Webinar, your rocket powered jetpack to the other side of the world.

Connecting ‘face to face’ with your readers is still the best way to sell a book. A website or a synopsis is almost like trying to cold call your readers, they don’t know who you are, and if your wording doesn’t get the correct meaning across it’s goodbye sweet cheeks. A webinar gives you the opportunity to have this face to face interaction with multiple people around the world at the same time! Basically a webinar is a web based seminar that allows people to hear you and at the same time you can either be showing a PowerPoint or show a live screen demonstration direct from your computer screen to theirs. Listeners can type in questions and make comments allowing you to connect with them personally without you leaving the comfort of your home. Readers love this interaction and being able to hear the writer speak to them directly. GoToWebinar is one of the main platforms for conducting a webinar.

For fiction authors you can run Q &A sessions, talk about writing in your genre, and even teach about it, or do readings of your newest novel. At the end of the webinar if you wish you can sell your latest book to the listeners for a one day only special webinar discount price. For non-fiction authors you can take the webinar, and your profits much, much further. Not only can you charge a higher price for your novel in a webinar, but webinars have an almost 10% conversion rate in comparison to a website which only converts 1% of its visitors. As I noted in an earlier blog post, you can either sell just your e-book, or your e-book with a set of interviews, or your e-book with a home study course or even your e-book with 12 weeks of personalised coaching from you (which you can conduct through a webinar). By giving people multiple ways to learn in addition to reading your e-book you create a whole new reader experience.

There is a fine art to selling a non-fiction e-book and any associated experiences. As with all of the marketing I have talked about, you cannot make your webinar into one hour long sales pitch. Droning on about how good your product is will have your potential readers throwing in the towel in disgust and the webinar will be empty before you’re even half way through. Then you are left talking to yourself, and that’s just a little sad. You have to have your ultimate goal in mind and structure your presentation so it leads naturally into your offer at the end. Firstly you need deliver a big promise, what are your listeners going to learn? What is the benefit for them? Remember if you tell them you are going to teach them how to do something, you better do it! Or you will have as much chance making sale as finding a golden ticket in a Wonka Bar. Then introduce yourself, tell people how you got to the point you are now, let them relate to the emotions that led you to seek out and learn this information. Provide some statistics on why this information is so important and give general evidence on the trend.

Then you need to deliver good solid content and information. The best way to teach it is in steps (3, 5, or 7) so you can break it down into a sequence people can follow. You really need to deliver your butt off here, and give as much information as you can in 40 mins. Be the Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie of the webinar world, make them swoon! There is only so much you can talk about in 40 mins and it will barely touch the tip of the iceberg where your e-book is concerned, so don’t feel that ‘giving away’ your tips will lose you any sales. The greater the quality of information, the greater the credibility, the more people you will convince to go further with you. There is no need to be nervous when giving your presentation. One reader’s experience varies greatly from the next but the best way to deliver a good talk to all is by pretending you are talking to 12 year olds. No one will ever complain you main it too simple to understand. Use stories to help illustrate your point rather than just instructing. Draw the listener in. At the conclusion of your information section summarise the steps. Remember people are coming home from work, school or university and they are choosing to spend their time with you instead of watching the TV or making out or any other the other million and one things they could be doing. Be entertaining.

There will always be at least 10% of crowd who want to go further and faster with what you have. It is at this point that you let them know that if they would like to learn more you have an e-book or a course etc. You need to make this offer irresistible. You need to give more value then you are getting in return. Offer something unique whether it’s personal attention, a weekly critique of their writing, or just something that your competitors aren’t offering. Or even just something you can do better. As always a guarantee is great, it eliminates the perceived risk to the buyer so they are more inclined to purchase. This is similar to how you would give a book away for free to attract readers. However, this way, you see some immediate money and if you have a worthwhile e-book that delivers it is unlike you will have to refund any of it.

Though writing is a creative outlet we must realise that if we wish to make money, it is also a business. Webinars are a fantastic way to make sure your business unique. Just by being accessible and offering an extra service that other people don’t, it automatically puts you above your competitors. You are beating them back with the strength of your little finger alone. Readers want to connect. And people will give you money, if you give them what they want.

WHAT NEXT: Though I will no longer be blogging every day this is not the end of the revolution! This blog will continue to analyse the world of e-books as it rapidly progresses. New strategies, interviews and opportunities will be gracing this space and your inbox (if you have registered). Good luck to you all on your e-book journey. Please keep me up to date on your progress.

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If You Want To Charge The World For Your E-Book, Then You Better Make Sure You Deliver

Two things make writing exceptionally hard. One is beginnings. How in god’s name do you begin? You have the info, you have the idea, you want to entertain and instead you just stare at that blinking cursor frowning furiously. Each day of this blog I have frankly dreaded that cursor; I think it may be haunting my dreams. The seconding thing is pricing. How much are you worth? And how much is reasonable at the other end? We have tested our prices (or you should be currently doing so) to find that optimum point where we make the most money for the number of sales. But it’s lower then we wanted, so now what? You CAN sell your book for a higher price, but if you want to make a comparable number of sales you must add so much extra value that the price seems not reasonable, but so ridiculously low the reader feels like they are ripping you off!

This ploy will work better for non-fiction authors, children’s book authors and already established popular authors. For those of you just starting out in fiction the previous discussions on short stories and creative interaction with your readers would be the best avenue for you. Also recording yourself reading your novel as an audio book may be a good way to justify a higher price for your e-book. However, if you can think of a way to apply this strategy in another way for emerging writers I would love to know!

For non-fiction one of the best ways to add value is to interview experts in your field. In this way not only are you adding to the information present in your book, but you create an alternative way for someone to learn the information. Most experts will let you interview them because it is basically free publicity to the niche they are in. They can be leading people in your community or someone with authority in a particular area. When interviewing others you must make sure that the quality of their answers is high, don’t let them just glide through! If something needs further explanation butt in, get details or ask for specific examples. The more credible you interview, the more credible your e-book. There is no need to get too fancy however; you have written the book so technically you are an expert in your niche. As such you can organise a friend to do a series of interviews with you on the different sections of your e-book. Give extra tips, tell stories that your reader can relate to. Some people learn better through listening rather than reading so this way you are appealing to all the senses. Depending on the number of interviews your e-book could go from $2.99 to $30, $50, $90 quite comfortably.

Is there a step that you can actually show your reader how to do? Humans identify much better with visual cues than description. Using software called Camtasia you can actually record what you are demonstrating on your computer screen and add that video as another element of your e-book. If you are a travel writer why not take a series of short education video clips that focus around your niche, if it’s world foods you can have a clip of you eating fried scorpion in Beijing, or ‘take’ your readers on walking tours around the city you are describing. Homework exercises and home study programs around your books are another way to add value to your book. If you offer enough value in your home study course and email/phone support for reader questions, you could charge into the hundreds for something that started as a simple e-book.

To make your offer completely irresistible and the best value e-book your reader has bought, ever, is to provide an iron clad guarantee. Give them a complete 30 day money back guarantee, no questions asked (except maybe how could I improve this, what was your biggest issue). This, like a free e-book, completely eliminates the risk for the reader leaving them no reason not to buy. If you have put up a good quality product very few people will take you up on the refund. Mainly because of how much quality you have delivered, partially because people are lazy! If you have 1 in 3 people asking for their money back you know you need a little improvement. By asking those customers for their feedback and how you can get better, you can build up the quality so that only 1 in 10 asks for a refund, and that’s just because they’re tight bastards.

Children’s book authors can add all kinds of value with extra activities. Pages of illustrations that parents can print out for the children to colour in, cut out activities where they stick things together, dress up paper dolls or animals, provide illustrations and allow the child to create a story, construct diorama’s, join the dots, find the words, you can add as many as you like. You do not have to worry about the cost of printing all these activities because your story is an e-book, the parents who buy the book can deal with that side of things and print what they find most interesting.

For established and popular authors the ways to add value are immense. Not only can you make the audio book available for download with the e-book but you can record yourself reading passages, interview other major authors you know in the field, do a home study course teaching people how to write for a certain audience or genre, conduct Q & A sessions through webinar, make copies of your public appearances available for download, add bonus short stories, novellas, ‘deleted scenes’ that didn’t make the edit. The amount of value you can add is only limited by your imagination. Applying Cory Doctorow’s method of creating limited edition copies of your work is another avenue you can pursue.

While endings are seldom easier then beginnings, if you want your ending to include selling your e-book for an above average price, you have to make the experience worth more than the money paid by the reader. These extras only have to be created once, and if it brings in the extra money you want then surely it’s worth the effort.

TOMORROW: FINAL POST of this fantastic 31 day blog and boy is it a doozy! Webinars: the ultimate way to connect with your readers and make an incredible number of sales.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

Would You Promote My Book? Pretty Please?

I’ve always like the idea of my own personal recommendation army, which spreads the word of my work through the cosmos in a supernova of goodwill. But the reality is that though good will is great and will get you recommendations here and there, it’s money that really talks. You want as many people selling/recommending your book as possible and the more incentive you provide, the more people who are willing to promote your product. Money makes the world go round, hell it almost costs you for a sneeze these days, and if you offer readers a cut of the profit to promote your novels, they will look after you guaranteed. Your readers will move heaven and earth to promote you on their site, promote you to their social media groups, on their t-shirts, in their front yard, in song - anyway they can if you just make it worth their while.

To start with I would recommend you offer at least 50% of the profits from you sale to your affiliates. Calm down no need for that stunned fish look. The fact of the matter is, your readers have connections and you need to motivate them to actively seek out those connections in relation to your book. Simply saying, “Would you promote my book? Pretty please?” is not a large enough motivator and you are deluding yourself if you think you are going to get more than one brief mention in their Facebook status. If you are a Smashwords author you are already a part of this affiliate cycle. Though you can opt out, Smashwords authors when they first publish their book allow affiliates whether they are other authors, publishers or just people in the market place looking to make some money, to send people to the author’s Smashwords books for an 11% commission if they help make a sale. Either way, you will sell more e-books this way then you would on your own.

But you want to stand out from the crowd, you want people to rave about you, and the more mullah you offer, the greater the enthusiasm of the rave. So by ‘juicing’ the affiliate percentage (as Smashwords terms it), you are making your novel a more sought after product to sell. Also, if you can provide your affiliates/readers with marketing material for the novel on your blog or website, you make this deal a no brainer. They don’t have to come up with the description, they don’t have to come up with the tweets, they don’t have to try and summarise your work so it appears enticing to their friends, they don’t have to compose the promotion emails to send out, nor do they have to do any work at all. If you provide all the writing I have directed you to do in this blog as material for them to use in promotion AND you give them 50%, then it’s just a matter of where do they sign?!

There are 3 very simple steps to getting a good affiliate program going. The first step is to have somewhere that the reader can sign up to be an affiliate. While in the long run it will be better to set up your own affiliate opt in and payment system, this costs money and a bit of professional computer coding. However you can make use of systems already in place, such as Clickbank and Smashwords. Both these sites accept the money for you so you don’t have to organise your own payment system. Clickbank is where you can advertise your e-book so that affiliates can easily sign up, get their own personalised link and start promoting. This is probably more helpful for non-fiction authors who are selling their e-books along with enticing extras. You cannot take your Smashwords produced files to sell through Clickbank though, so you will either have to just sell the pdf format (which you can easily make by downloading a free pdf converter off the net) or pay to have someone convert your book into other e-reader formats for you. Smashwords is probably a more viable option for e-books in general. So make sure that you have the link to join up to the affiliate program at Smashwords handy. It’s important to note that Clickbank does not withhold tax from your affiliate, so it doesn’t matter what country they are from they get the full amount. But Smashwords takes tax out which could deter non-US affiliates. It’s up to your which one you prefer to use. For the rest of this post, we will just use Smashwords as an example.

The second step is to make sure you ‘juice’ your affiliate percentage on Smashwords (and you can also do this in Amazon) to at least 50%. Step three is to let your readers know that they can actually get a cut of the sale if they recommend/promote your e-book to others. Do this on your website, at the end of your synopsis, on your author page and on the last page of your e-book. You need to provide them with a simple list of instructions on how to do this. Give them the link to the Smashwords (or Amazon/clickbank) affiliate sign up page. Then give them the URL for your Smashwords e-book or author page. At the bottom of the page will be their affiliate link. Then give them the link to your marketing material and they will be ready to promote you to the cosmos! Even the little green guys will know about your existence within months.

But do you know the greatest affiliate marketing ploy? Allowing affiliates for the first several months to keep 100% profit of the sales they make (minus the commission to Smashwords). That’s right, I said you are giving them EVERY CENT to promote your e-book. This is the ultimate viral marketing. It is like giving your book away for free, however rather than waiting for people to find you in the search engines you have an army of money hungry readers actively finding your target audience and sending them direct to you! There are no other e-books for the new reader to look at, only yours. By telling your reader that once they buy this book they have the right to promote and sell it AND keep all the profits, you not only increased your rankings in the best sellers list, but you have recruited a soldier for your recommendation army. Later you can decrease their percentage to a more profitable level for you.

Convincing affiliates to sell your e-book takes advantage of viral marketing and not only your own social networks, but all of your affiliate’s networks too! The quicker you get the word out about your e-book, the sooner you will reach the success you are aiming for. All because you went a little further then saying, “Pretty please.”

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: Want to sell you e-book for more than the norm? It’s time to add extra value.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

Advanced Techniques For Generating Demand

We all like to think we are special. It may not necessarily be the case, but we continue to be undeterred. We like to think we have something to bring to the table, something unique, our slightly off colour humour, our beehive hairdo, pulling off the underwear outside the pants look. But when every single person in your field is using the exact same mechanism as you, printed words, it is a lot more difficult to prove just how special you are to everyone else. Oh yes, of course you will eventually prove it with your words, but the reader has got to get that far first. In a world were first impressions count, how do you convince people within the time span of 2 mins (max) that your book offers something no-one else’s does? With a digital product you just can’t slap a piece of fur on the front cover to appeal to the senses, you can’t add shimmery gold lettering to dazzle the eyes. It’s about features. So the question is, how can you generate demand? Promising to complete a particular humiliating dare and stream it on YouTube if you get over 10,000 downloads MIGHT get you started, however, I’m going to say it’s not going to sustain you in the long term. Just a hunch.

To truly succeed in producing an e-book, you need to generate demand and make your novel unique. Cory Doctorow is a master at this. Simultaneously, his novel With A Little Help, can be downloaded as a free e-book, purchased as a $15 POD paperback in four different cover designs, or as an audio book download or CD. In addition he created 250, limited edition copies of his book each with their own individual features such as special end papers, illustrations, and SD card with digital specials such as the full text and audio of the novel. Each copy he sells for $275. By making his work special (and determining that there was a significant fan base for his work) he was able not only to generate a significant sum of money, but connect with his readers on a different level creating a fever around his words. But imagine taking that further and having one special edition made that had the only available copy of a certain story. What would that retail for? $2000? $5000? $10000? The above is particularly important for popular and established authors with large fan bases. By releasing such limited editions you are not only making more money, but you are creating a rarity and a fever around your work.

Authors and even publishers can take this further with the lowering costs of print on demand. Customising books to include a personal greeting from one person to another is a fantastic way of making your book unique (and allow you to retail it for more). It could be of a personal nature with a message from the gift-er to the gift-ee, or it could be of a corporate nature. By corporate I mean you could customise a particular book for a company by including the company’s logo and a greeting from them on the front page of the novel (anything from a Merry Christmas to a Hope You Enjoy Your Flight). For a publisher this could be a fantastic marketing ploy, allowing companies to customise a greeting for the start of a highly anticipated novel to give to their clients several days before its release. The company would, of course, pay for the exclusive pleasure.

Why is generating demand important? Other then increasing your profile, it also allows you to charge more money for your novel then if it was just a simple e-book. We will go into more detail with this on Monday in the second to last post of this 31day blog.

So, I challenge you. You think your e-book is special… Prove it.

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: How to recruit an army of readers to sell your work.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

Creative Ways To Interact With Your Audience: Enter The QR Code

In ye olden days, writers hawked their tombs of bound paper, kept whole by glue and string, to the masses who gathered at ye olde book traders to hear them speak and sign their flowing prose. In this digital age if you are someone like Cecelia Ahern, backed by a large multinational publisher like HarperCollins, you can place a specialised glyph (or picture/character) within the pages of your book. When your reader goes to the publisher’s unique author website, they show the glyph to the webcam and get instant access to a whole new virtual world inspired by your stories.

While many indie authors can only dream of having such a creative interaction with their audience, there are still achievable ways you can foster your author/reader connection. As mentioned before you can upload your own video trailers to YouTube and even encourage readers to upload videos of themselves acting out the scenes (whether it be for a competition or just for fun). If you have the patience to do a bit of extra formatting you can even add illustrations to your work. Stick figures are always popular...

Another fantastic way to interact with your audience is through podcast. Scott Sigler is the king of this particular method. Scott created the first podcast only novel in 2005. Today, by giving away his self recorded audio books as free, serialised podcasts he has gathered a massive following for his work. A large slab of his following was formed BEFORE he was traditionally published. You can think of a podcast as a more modern version of the early serialised radio fiction, without the fake British accent. By serialising the e-book not only can you gather a following, but later when it is complete you can sell it or give it as a bonus with your e-book (to entice people to buy and also to justify a higher priced book).

Subscription websites also offer a great chance for indie authors of children’s books. These sites allow a parent to record a video of themselves reading a children’s book (selected from the list) on their webcam. This recording can then be played by a carer to the child while their parent is away. This allows your reader to add a personal touch to your work.

The final strategy for the day centres around QR codes. Now if you don’t know what a QR code is don’t worry too much. Just accost any teenage girl with a mobile phone or harassed looking business person with a blackberry and they will be able to tell you. Just be prepared, anybody with a touch screen smart phone will look at you like you have grown antlers... and possibly fur. A QR code is a 2D barcode, generally square in shape that can be read by barcode apps (on desktops and mobile phones) and camera phones. You may have seen them on various promotional posters, on the side of Pepsi cans or on ads in the subway. When someone scans the barcode with their phone it takes them to a website which can contain additional information, videos, or coupons for discounts. An example of one is shown below. If you have a smart phone, scan it and your phone will be directed to a video I did for the Sheila Hollingworth interview. If you don’t already have a barcode app on your phone go to the website http://percentmobile.com/getqr using your phone and download an appropriate one for your model.

How cool is that? This type of interaction between an author and a reader has never been done. Ever. But it is being used to generate thousands by large corporations, and the best part is, you can generate your own QR code for free. How do I know about QR codes? I have been studying internet marketing for well on 6 months now. Imagine having one of these scannable codes at the beginning of your e-book that leads to a video of you thanking your reader for making the purchase, or providing a discount for the next novel in the series. Or better yet, what about a series of QR codes throughout an e-book or series that unlocks extra short stories or podcasts of a chapter. Put them on business cards so people can scan them and see a trailer to your book. If you are in a major city why not set up a treasure hunt by scattering posters with the code around the streets so that readers have to physically visit each code to unlock the next part of the story. The interactive possibilities are immense, you can set up an endeavour very similar to HarperCollins without paying even a thousandth of what they did to set it up.

This sort of reader interaction is what will set indie authors apart in this coming digital climate. Perhaps it’s time you gave up ye olde book trader for something more modern...

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: How customising your book to be unique can generate huge demand for your work.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

Put That Dog Down! You Want Raving fans, Not Rabid Ones!

Creating a community is similar to creating a hippie commune. You gather a bunch of like minded people together, give them a task to keep them occupied, ration the weed, and appoint yourself mayor to ‘supervise’. Hmmm, no that’s not quite right. Let’s try again. Creating a community is like being the dictator of a faceless reader army. You train them to eat, drink, read and crap exactly as their told and then whip them into such frenzy they rip the other authors’ poorly entertained armies apart! Nope, that’s not it either. Sigh.

Finding the right way to truly connect with a community is hard, yet there are little touches you can add to engage your readers giving them a sense of place and a feeling they are part of something greater then themselves. A community doesn’t evolve by handing your novel over and taking a lazy back seat, nor does it evolve by you donning a Hitler moustache and trying to dictate how your work should influence a readers thinking. Though contradictory in some regards, reading provides a social opportunity for discussion of literature. Smart writers help cultivate that discussion.

Fantastic sites such as Copia exist where people can discuss the books they are reading with their friends. It’s kind of like a book club mashed with Facebook with a little bit of e-book store added into the mix. This is a site that is barely a year old but has so much potential for creating a community. Readers can add notes to the margins of books, highlight text, and discuss their favourite aspects of the e-book with other readers in the community. Similar to Facebook, you can start your own groups, whether they are for book clubs, fans of a particular genre or around the books of a particular author… such as yourself perhaps? Are you starting to see the potential? This is the future of the book club. You can search for people who read in the niche markets that you are aiming for. From there you can recommend your book to them, invite them to join your groups or ‘follow’ them. You can answer the questions readers add in the margins of the book and fans can discuss your work with other fans. You can point your readers to these Copia groups so they can become part of your wider community without you having to deal with the reality of setting up your own forums or discussion boards. Guiding readers gently to these experiences gives you another link to their life, and the more links you have the more likely they are to keep coming back to you.

Some authors have already grasped this concept of community and merged it with fan fiction. The basic premise is that the author starts a large discussion board with various character scenarios based within their world, and let their readers imagination take its course. As part of the conditions for readers to participate, they allow the author to use elements of their fan fiction in the author’s actual novels (for free and no monetary reimbursement) however the reader’s name will be acknowledged in the book dedication. So not only does this create a community around your work allowing the readers to step into your story and create, but it also adds an element of excitement for the reader. Not only is their idea deemed worthy by the author but they are also elevated above other readers for their effort AND they have their name in print.

Cory Doctorow is one fantastic example of how to make writing a more interactive experience. If a reader finds a typo in one of his books, on the next print run he fixes the typo and puts a footnote on that page in the next edition thanking the reader for spotting it. Not only does this acknowledge the reader and give them the excitement of appearing in the next edition of their favoured author’s novel, but it improves the quality of the e-book and makes each print run unique. An author should take every opportunity to make their book as unique as possible.

Not only is it your job as an author to engage, but it is also to facilitate an environment where your book takes on a life of its own. It's time to loosen that death grip you have your reader in, seriously, it makes you look desperate. The more creative you are with your experience, the greater the buzz that will surround your work. Don't go too over board though, you want raving fans, not rabid ones.

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: Creative ways to interact with your audience, how to go further with your words.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

Go Viral With YouTube

The internet is like one large incestuous family. The amount of apparently separate companies owned by Google is just mammoth. There is a fair amount of monopolising going on; however, this is something savvy authors can take advantage of. Not only is the Blogger website owned by Google (and hence why I would choose it over Wordpress any day) but YouTube, the world’s second largest search engine, is owned by Google as well.

YouTube videos rank very highly on Google (favouritism much?) and because Google owns YouTube it applies a little bit of parental bias to the site. So if you can pack the title of your video, the title of your upload file (yes Google even checks the words there), the description and the tags full of all the relevant keywords relating to your e-book and target audience, chances are your brief little video will get higher rankings in Google then any website you create. Place the web address for your e-book download in the first line of the description and you have another fantastic link in the marketing chain for Google to find.

Several blog posts ago I spoke about the power of having a YouTube video or audio of yourself welcoming people to your site and giving a quick pitch for your e-book. But YouTube can be used for so much more. You can produce your own video trailers for your novel, or have your fans create videos of them acting out scenes from your novel. You can make your book an interactive experience by record yourself reading snippets of passage from your book. Then place a hyperlink (as in the web address to the video) in your e-book text, so readers can click on the link and actually hear you presenting that excerpt to them.

YouTube is also the best chance that you will ever get for your work to go viral. By that I mean someone watches your video and is so hugely entertained that they email the link to all their friends and post it on Facebook. Those friends then view the video and tell their friends and the effect snowballs. Cast your mind to all the entertaining ads we see on TV that don’t have anything to do with the product being sold but stick in our head like glue. Or all those Jackass style videos that fill the Funniest Home Video Show. These are the sorts of videos that people pass on to their friends and you can make these types of videos your own. Videos of kids having tantrums while you zoom up on the mother’s harassed face can be turned into golden moments. All that’s needed is a simple voice over near the end of the video proclaiming, “If only I had blown Harry off for a night of reading (insert novel title here).” And you have viral comedy attached to your e-book.

While it’s best to tailor these videos to the interests of your niche, if you entertain enough people - whether it is with a crude video of a man crushing his genitals as he leaps over a pole or a woman who slaps people every time they swear - your e-book success could skyrocket more quickly than you ever imagined.

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: How to connect with your community and create a raving fan base.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

Facebook and Twitter, The Gateway To Thousands Of Readers Interested In You!

It’s a surprise that we haven’t all turned into light hating golems after spending so much time on the internet. 1.9 billion of us online and over half of us perched on the edge of our seats throwing virtual cows at friends and poking random strangers. Social media is a phenomenon that has gripped an entire planet across an amazing breadth of ages and interests. If you haven’t yet seen the statistics on how many people are using social media, check out one of my previous posts with this great YouTube video. Social media is how you connect with people, who think the same way you do, across the globe within milliseconds. It is the most powerful tool to connect with people on the other side of the world who would normally never get the chance to read what you have written.

Many people um and ah about whether or not they should use Twitter or use Facebook or either. But in the time that you take to research and have an in depth conversation with other writers, you could have just set up a Twitter or Facebook account and road tested it. Social media is not something to be afraid of; we are not connecting with Martians in space. It is also going to be how we communicate in the future. If e-books are a digitisation of reading, then social media is a digitisation of communication. They both go hand in hand and if you want to be successful online you are going to have to brave one or the other. You can sit on the fence all you want, but while you do, the rest of the world is powering ahead. Let’s go through some great ways to get started on Twitter and Facebook, and how you can target the right audience.

TWITTER: Setting Twitter up is as easy as typing in your name, email, and creating a user name and password. You can set up your profile with a little bio and picture and also add your website URL into the mix. Even publishers have discovered the opportunities provided by Twitter, for a video of their discussion at the 140 Characters Conference click here. On Twitter you send out what is known as a Tweet, which is a text based post or comment of up to 140 characters in length (links to websites are included in the 140 characters). The principle is similar to a blog except here you need to be more precise and entertaining; building up curiosity is the key. As I noted before, it is important that only 30-40% of your tweets are for promotion, the rest needs to be building up credibility, connecting with followers, sending people to interesting sites and being an entertainer. However, with this sort of entertaining you don’t have to contend with stage fright!

While you can have great fun on Twitter, chatting between friends, being on top of the news and trends, or just swapping ideas with people, you must make sure that you target who you are following. There is no point connecting with a brass band lover in New Orleans, or an exotic dancer in Russia, if you are trying to sell an e-book on scuba diving around the world and they are in no way interested. Here is where the leg work kicks in. While social media is fantastic for connecting, you cannot wait for your readers to discover you, you need to seek out your readers and interest group and show an interest in them first. You want to follow people who will, a) follow you back (so that they see your Tweets and hence your promotions) and b) who have an interest in the genre of your e-book. The best way to do this is to Google experts or popular authors in your niche to see if they have a Twitter account. The people who are following them are most likely fans of the expert/author or of their work. If you then follow the people following this expert or author, the majority of the time they will follow you back. Another avenue is to go to search.twitter.com and type in the keywords that relate to your target audience and niche (as harped upon countless times in my previous posts!). The search will then come up with hundreds of users who are typing those words into their tweets. You can then contact them through what is called a Direct Message, and request that they connect with you on Twitter, and perhaps check out your new e-book. If the people who are following you are not interest in your genre, they are about as much use as a tutu without a ballerina.

FACEBOOK: The set up process for Facebook is exactly the same, the only difference being that you have to provide both an email and a phone number to verify you are a real person and not a faceless automaton. Facebook, however, allows you to do a whole host of extra things such as add interests (or your keywords) to your profile page, your philosophy, your bio. These are not restricted to 140 characters like they would be in Twitter. Be careful with your personal information, I wouldn’t recommend sharing things such as address or phone number. However, you should make sure that you have all your websites listed and an email, separate from your personal one, where people can contact you. Being aloft will not get you the following and sales you desire, you must connect with people and give them every opportunity to connect with you.

As with Twitter, you use the search function at the top of the page to search for groups or ‘pages’ that are based around your keywords and the interests of your users. There may be several groups and pages with the same name or phrase but each one will vary in the number of people who like a page, or have joined a group. Join the groups or pages with the highest number of users so you can reach more people, make your presence known by posting on the ‘wall’ of these pages. Think of them as just another forum board. The people who participate in these pages will have an interest in your niche and hopefully your e-book. The more you participate on these pages, the better known you become. Start inviting people to be your friends, who interact with you on posts. You can search out the fan pages of authors who write in similar genres to yours, or the pages of experts in your field and make friend requests to people who also like those pages. You can also create fan pages around your novel; on these fan pages you can provide people with you carefully written synopsis and discussions about your novel, or tips on a topic that interests them.

It is amazing how social media absorbs peoples’ lives, and if you can find a way to contact those who care about what you write, on a platform with almost 200million users, you will be laughing so hard relatives may just have to call for the straight jacket.

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: How YouTube can be used to promote your e-book virally and increase your Google ranking.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

The Power Of Recommendation: Contributing To Your Community

If you don’t have a notebook, buy one. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, short, fat, large, thin, pretty, recycled, a couple of old envelopes stapled together, whatever. No I will not be getting you to write lines. Today we are delving into the world of blogs, forums, discussion boards and groups. Chances are that for every niche out there, for every genre you can think of, there is at least one community built around a love for that topic. People who like to wear funny hats, check. People who feel going commando is a better option, check. People who enjoy dancing like Mr. Bean, check. People who watch Tom Cruise movies obsessively, check. Chances are you have found several while researching your market. One of the best ways to directly communicate with your audience is to participate in these communities. It also helps boost the popularity of your sites with Google. Aha! Now I have your attention.

Studies have shown that 78% of people trust the recommendation of their friends or trusted community members over advertising. By becoming a part of a trusted community (or several, hence your need for a notebook to keep track of all your user ID’s and passwords) your words hold sway. If you make a significant contribution to the community, a relevant comment, post or question and then finish your contribution (sign off) with a link to your website or e-book, participants of those communities will be more inclined to click on your link. This is another case where you must stop selling your novel upfront. Get people to opt in on your website (through your sign off link) so you can follow up and convert them into readers at a later date, or send them unobtrusively to your book by making the link easily accessible. If you are not a contributing member for the community, and are merely promoting your e-book, more likely than not, you will be banned from the site. You will be seen as SPAM, not the meat product of highly dubious origins, but a person who fills up a person’s email or website with ‘junk’.

The best way to find groups in your niche is just to Google your genre and the words ‘forum’ or ‘discussion board’ or ‘group’. There are Google groups, Yahoo groups, Kindle boards, discussion forums on blogs and websites. Look up authors or experts in your genre, and see if they have fan sites created by themselves, their publisher or fans. Generally there are discussion boards and forums present on these sites that you can contribute to. Target the online communities where your readers connect. As I said, make sure you contribute to the community then sign off with your name and below that the link to your website. Your comment can be anything from recommending books, discussing the traits of a fictional character, the merits of a theory or just agreeing and adding to the response of others, any of these are valued.

This is also a great way for authors to tune into the trends in their genre. You can find out what people want to read, what questions they are asking, what they need. Non-fiction authors can ask questions about the problems and frustrations of their potential readers and hence find out how much time they should devote to different sections of their novel. A non-fiction author can even show people how to turn their hobby into a business. Fiction authors can find out what sort of traits their readers want in their heroes, who are their favourite bad guy’s and why do they prefer this mystical dragon over that one. The opportunities are endless.

The added plus of posting on forums and communities is this can get you higher up the Google ladder. By placing the link to your e-book or website at the end of each post or comment you are creating what is called a back link to your site. The more back links your site has across the World Wide Web, the higher up in Google your site appears. Google rankings also depend on other factors, but back links are a major factor. That is why it is so important to place the link to your e-book in every online activity you do. But for this to work well, don’t provide links to multiple sites or e-book stores that stock your book, send everyone to one, centralised place (this is where websites and blogs come in handy) or e-book store. It takes a LOT of back links to make a dent in the Google ranks, so every post counts!

But don’t just concentrate on the technical side of things, have a little fun! Make some jokes, entertain, educate, and engage. If we don’t find enjoyment from our work them what’s the point? Certainly not to pretend you love base jumping when the thought of climbing two stairs to the front door makes you faint.

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: How social media can increase your fan base by thousands within a few short months.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

Consider The Humble Short Story As A Way To Increase Your Number Of Fans

We are living in a world of entertainment bites. When we are bored on the commute to work, waiting at the doctor’s surgery or stuck in rush hour we want something that passes the time and resolves itself quickly. We are addicted to fast pace storytelling and like a drug, once addicted we keep coming back for more in larger quantities. If you can tap into this addiction and become an entertainment bite ‘pimp’, you can quickly and easily build up a fan club for your work. Readers get a sense of your writing style, your characterisation, or your expertise from these little snippets of entertainment. Put in links to your full length e-book at the end and suddenly you are getting more downloads and readers. When I talk about entertainment bites I am of course talking about short stories.

If you have never thought of short stories as a marketing and connective tool think again. Publishing giant HarperCollins has already jumped in there with both feet, branching out into short stories as a way to tap a large part of the population who does not have the time or the interest to read a full length novel. Several short stories by authors such as Tobsha Learner, are already available through Amazon and Kobo retailing for a cheap but profitable $1.47. Self-published authors need to take part in this emerging trend where current technology such as iPhone’s play a significant part in our readers lives. In this arena we have the advantage; we do not have the overhead costs that HarperCollins has to cover. We can sell our short stories for anywhere from 20 to 50cents or give them away for free, and draw the readers into our world.

Short stories can be anywhere from 500-2500 words in length. They generally leave an unanswered question or a curiosity at the end. Within the piece you must be able to swiftly sketch the situation and come to the point. There are fewer complexities then in a novel and the story focuses on one situation or scene, or for non-fiction it focuses one section of theory or opinion. By having your short stories link to the world of your e-book, exploring extra bits of information that were not included in your novel, you can use these pieces as a promotion of your e-book by creating interest and anticipation around your larger work. It is also a great opportunity to explore characters who only feature in a minor way in your e-book. It gives the reader a little thrill of discovery, another piece of the puzzle.

If you only have one e-book and not a series, free short stories can be just as effective in boosting your sales as giving away the first book in a series for free. If you can entertain, move or engage your reader with a shorter, cheaper work, you will connect with your readership on a level that many writers do no manage. You reach a larger portion of the population and can hopefully convert them to join those of us who reader longer works for pleasure.

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: how participating in online forums and communities can increase the number of readers for your e-book tenfold.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.

The Road To Free Traffic Is Paved With Articles

As a writer, writing should be our passion recounting everything from 5 inch goblins storming a giant’s castle, detailed to-do lists, to describing in exact, colourful language why your friend is such an arse in his latest Facebook photo. So I know you will just jump at the chance to write another several pieces of mastery in article form. No, don’t look at me like I’m a slave master with a whip. If you want free traffic, you’ve got to put in the effort, anyone who tells you they’re where they are today for free, must be fresh off the funny farm.

The main goal of the internet is to provide information and entertainment; this is what people search for. So to get free traffic you need to give away some of your knowledge or provide a little entertainment. The more you teach others what you know the more information they want from you. What you need is to give them good quality information, or a well written entertaining analysis so that the reader will visit your site. Don’t be lazy and just write one, flog this method for all it’s worth because very few writer’s know these avenues exist. Once you have written several articles complete with an about authors section - including your web address - you publish them on sites such as ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com. These websites allow people who want content for their newsletters or blogs (generally for their own gain) to use your article, but only if they use the entirety of the article, which includes you author information, e-book name and website address. These articles get sent out potentially to thousands of people.

You want each article to be at least 300-500 words. For fiction authors you can do reviews on other books in your genre, you can do articles on events, news or trends in your genre or even a how to write for genre xyz or audience xyz. For a non-fiction author commenting on themes in your book, or giving away tips and information are the best way to go. The article needs to be similar to how you have written the content for your website, it needs to be very clear on what the benefit is for the reader and make sure that it is based on their interest. For non-fiction it needs practical information that can be used straight away by the reader. It should NOT be a sales pitch for your e-book. No one will use your article if it is, only the insane give free advertising for nothing. It needs to stand on its own as a helpful bit of information or entertainment; it has to deliver if you want people to use it for their newsletters.

If your information or tips are from your e-book it can also be a great way to advertise without obvious promotion. In the about author section you can note that the article was taken from the new e-book XYZ and for more information they should visit your website (don’t forget to put your website address there!!!). You about author section should be concise, giving your name, the genre and second pitch for your e-book and an invitation to check out your website for more information, or more enticingly, to check out your website for free samples.

All you need is for several newsletter ‘publishers’ to include your article in their newsletters for people to start visiting your site. If you find you just can’t do several in one sitting, break it up into manageable chunks and write one a week and you will get all the traffic you need without paying a cent.

One extra avenue for your articles is to submit them to Digg, where people can rate articles based on their content and entertainment value.

So time to check out of the funny farm and get to work!

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: Consider short stories as a way to rapidly increase your fan club.

You May Have The World’s Greatest Book But, If No One Reads It, Then You Have The World’s Greatest Paper Weight

What do you have more of, time or money? I suppose another more pertinent question is, how much of a cheap skate are you? Because this is going to impact how you try to get traffic to your e-book pages. Unfortunately traffic (aka the number of people visiting your e-book download pages) is not organic, it does not grow on trees, it does not magically manifest from a spaceship in the sky like Captain Kirk, and it most certainly does not occur in any significant quantity from you sleeping on the job. Traffic has to be worked for, like everything else.

There are three types of traffic; paid, borrowed or free. While I am going to spend a little more time on the ‘free’ option (yes I did just see how much your eyes lit up. See how well the word free works?) in another post, I will briefly explain the others here.

PAID: So you have the mullah but not the time. Understandable, we are all time poor in this day and age, too many distractions coming at us from all angles. You can do paid advertisement in many ways, through Google Adwords, Yahoo!, Windows Live Search, Project Wonderful, the list goes on. Basically you advertise on these sites and every time someone clicks on your ad you pay anywhere from cents to your first boarn depending on how far up the list of ads you wish to appear. The more money you pay per click the higher up your ad appears. When a searcher types the keywords you have selected for the ad into a search engine, your ad appears. This is where researching your keywords and knowing your competition comes in. If you can advertise for keywords that have lots of people looking for them, but not many people selling with those keywords then you will save a tone of money. And we are all, really, penny pinchers at heart.

There are a couple of effective tips you can use to make the most of your money and a greater number of readers. Google Adwords allows you to rotate through up to 9 different ads (different headlines) at no extra cost. This is a fantastic option, because Google will tell you which ad gets the most people clicking on it and you can eliminate any ad which isn’t drawing your readers in. I discussed in a previous post how to set up headlines for your website and novel to entice readers. You need to think of your ad as one big headline. You don’t need to sell your product in the ad; you just have to get the reader curious enough to click. You need to keep them short and sharp. Rambling is not effective. If you are a non-fiction author think about the 9 main benefits of your e-book and turn those into ads. Make a clear promise to your reader, what is in it for them? And you can, as always, make it irresistible if you offer something for free whether it is a sample or your whole book. Also try using your keywords in the ad. If your reader has typed in ‘Ninja Secrets’ they are more likely to click if they see those words in the first line of the ad.

For tools like Project Wonderful, where you just advertise on specific sites, you need to decide how long you want to show your ad for. If you advertise on one site for three months, constantly, the visitors will get use to the ad being there and they won’t see it. Once you go chameleon and blend into the background, it doesn’t matter what your ad contains. It could include a photo of naked women doing the CanCan on the back of a pink elephant and it wouldn’t make a difference. So it’s important to do it in a pattern where you advertise for several weeks, then remove the ad from the site for several weeks and repeat.

BORROW: Also known as joint ventures. Here is where you do your shady deal with the crazy man in the alley. Well, not quite. What you need is someone in your field - if you know the person it makes it easier – who has a large database of people they can contact. Then you do a deal with them to split the profits of your sales if they email their database about your e-book. This works better for non-fiction authors. On the other side of the coin you can look at this as writers helping writers. If you have a fellow indie author in the same genre whose novel you have read and would recommend, you can collaborate and borrow each other’s readers/traffic. Put their synopsis in the back of your novel and have them do the same for you. Then every reader who finishes your novel, full to the brim with praise for your prose, sees the ad to the book. Because they liked your book so much and it is in the same genre as yours, they take your recommendation to purchase the other novel. It is a win-win situation for both authors.

FREE: Three for free! The first two I shall mention briefly as I will be covering them in more detail in later blog posts. The first is social media, that topic you have all heard so much about. By connecting with people in your niche through such sites as Twitter and Facebook you can generate large amounts of traffic through promotional posts. It is always important to balance the promotion with sincere participation within your community, with promotion only taking up 30-40% of what you write. The more you engage with your followers, send them to funny links, and help inform them on your topic, the more impact your promotions will have. The second is writing articles on your topic. This is a great way to get promotion without having to do the leg work. My lips are sealed on the details for this is tomorrow’s blog post.

The third and final way to get free promotion and traffic is by creating a press release. Ever wonder how the footage of a budgerigar riding a surf board got on the 6 pm news? Or how every newspaper seemed to be present when Richard Branson was making one of his ‘surprise’ stunts? Most articles in a newspaper are there because someone sent a press release to an editor. If you can make your e-book news worthy (do not make your business the focus that will get you discarded faster than a publisher rejection) then you can get free publicity. There are three ways you can do this. A) Do something good for others (charity). B) Make announcements that affect a lot of people. Or make an announcement that will intrigue a lot of people. C) Have a strong and clear view on a news topic. If you have a strong opinion and can back it up, say it in a press release. Editors love opposing sides of a story so keep a close watch on internet sites related to your niche. A press release is similar to a synopsis, it must intrigue and excite, tell the story quickly and concisely and provides contact information if an editor would like more info on your release.

Pick at least one of these methods of traffic generation to start. Do not leave your book out in the cold unsupported!!! Because the fact of the matter is, you can have the world’s greatest book, but if no one reads it, it becomes the world’s greatest digital paper weight.

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: How writing short articles can draw massive traffic to your e-book download page.