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005 – You Are Watched by Editors and Agents – How to Make Them Like What They See

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Yes, Big Brother exists in the publishing world. More than you know. Editors and agents have their eye on you. We explain where and how you’re being watched, and the specific ways you can look fantastic on “camera”.   Links mentioned in this episode: AdvancedFictionWriting.com AuthorMedia.com

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008 – Where to Start Marketing Your First Novel

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You’re finished! You’ve typed, The End and you’re thrilled. (So are we. Congrats.) But now comes the marketing. So where exactly do you start? (Whether you have a contract or not.) We tell you exactly the places to begin, and trust us, it’s nearly painless.   Show Notes: Strengths Finder  AuthorMedia.com

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015 – How Google Works And Why Some Authors Rank Better than Others With SEO Expert Tony Tovar

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So today Thomas is  joined by SEO expert Tony Tovar, CEO of Inbound Mastery Questions Answered in this Episode: Why is it important to rank well on Google? How does Google work? So does the person with the most links win? So what is Pagerank? So how do I get more links pointed at my […]

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018 – Why Some Great Books Go Unsold While Some Poorly Written Books Fly Off the Shelves

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Talking Points: Why do people buy books? Entertainment An substitute to boring evening Education Smart and Sophisticated Writing doesn’t matter. Some Assembly Required Make a Promise & Over Deliver Escape (Sci-Fi & Amish) One persons escape is not another person’s escape. Amish and SciFi are both escape but for different people. This is why Amish […]

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019 – The #1 Killer of Good Book Covers & Websites: Design By Committee

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Talking Points What is Design by Committee? Something that everyone likes is typically something no one loves. Compromise leads to bad design. A camel is a horse designed by a committee. Think of a recipe. If you try to accommodate everyone’s preference you end up with catsup and peanut butter on ice cream. How do […]

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020 – To Brag, or not to Brag, that is the Question!

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I know, you’re wondering where we’re going with this. You’re probably saying, “Isn’t that the Novel Marketing podcast is all about?” Yes, it is, but in this episode, we’re going to tackle the age old question, should you promote yourself, or find someone else to do it for you?

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021 – Queen Esther, Staggered Marketing & Why Waiting to Ask Can Boost Book Sales

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Talking Points: Esther Story: Esther Had a Tough Marketing Position Not in favor with the King Had a big ask. What does she do? She offers value and invites the King to a banquet in his honor. At the banquet does she offer her big ask? No, she invites him to a second banquet. It […]

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022 – 12 Ways to Get More Facebook Fans

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In this episode we are going to talk about Facebook. And more specifically, how to get more Facebook fans. Why Facebook is still important: Still the biggest social network (after email) Publishers pay attention to Facebook, particularly your PTAT score. 12 Ways to Get More Fans: Create sharable content particularly photos. Put a Facebook like […]

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027 – How to Create an Elevator Pitch So Good That People will Stop the Elevator to Hear More

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In this episode we’re going to talk about the legendary elevator pitch … and how to create one that does exactly what an elevator pitch should do. Talking Points: What is an elevator pitch? Sentence – High concept, the hook Paragraph – Radio Pitch / Back cover copy … Page – Short Synopsis Why do […]

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028 – Book Rollouts Vs Book Launches With James Scott Bell

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A  popular marketing strategy is to put together a huge launch even focused around the launch date of the book. You are not a fan of the big fan of that strategy. Why not?   Walk us through the marketing techniques you used for your last book.   Tell us about your experiences with book […]

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029 – How to Start a Mastermind Group

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Talking Points: What is a Mastermind Group? Started with Benjamin Franklin’s Junto and then was recently popularized by some New Age Gurus. But you don’t need to be a New Ager to benefit from a Mastermind Group. Benefits of a Mastermind Group Encouragement Wisdom – Learn from the mistakes and success of others. Networking – […]

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035 – The Upside and Downside of Free Books

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Is free a dirty word? Should you give your book away? In this episode, we talk about these questions and more. Talking points: Intro: Free isn’t a dirty word, but it’s not the cure for every marketing problem The Upside of Free or deep discounts Exposure Rooms experiment Perma Free Books in a series The downside of […]

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036 – 7 Differences Between Published and Unpublished Authors

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What are some key differences between published and unpublished? This episode is based on Thomas’ broad observation of writers, and one of his most controversial blog posts of all time. Talking Points: Difference #1 – Consistency Published authors wake up early and write every day. They put their big rocks in first. Unpublished writers write […]

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037 – Trolls, Haters, and Critics Oh My – How to Handle Negative Feedback as an Author

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In this episode, we talk about a cold reality of being a writer: there will be people who end up hating you and what you write. They’ll post false reviews, stir up untrue controversy, and try to systematically take you down. So what do you do about these people?

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041 – How to Create A Breakthrough Author Brand Step 1 – Look in the Mirror

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Branding is often one of the most confusing topics under the umbrella of marketing. In this episode, we look at the first step of creating a breakthrough author brand. Other Episodes in this Series: Step 1 – Look in the Mirror (Who am I) Step 2 – Look at Your Readers (Who are my readers?) […]

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042 – How to Create A Breakthrough Author Brand Step 2 – Look at Your Readers

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Branding is often one of the most confusing topics under the umbrella of marketing. In this episode, we return to look at the second step of creating a breakthrough author brand.   Other Episodes in this Series: Step 1 – Look in the Mirror (Who am I) Step 2 – Look at Your Readers (Who are […]

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043 – How to Create A Breakthrough Author Brand Step 3 – Look Through Your Readers

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In this episode, we once again return to branding, often one of the most confusing topics under the umbrella of marketing, to look at the third step of creating a breakthrough author brand. Other Episodes in this Series: Step 1 – Look in the Mirror (Who am I) Step 2 – Look at Your Readers (Who are […]

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044 – Writing for Your Website – How To Craft Pages That Readers Actually Want to Read

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Since you only have 7 seconds to convince the average visitor to stay on your website, your content must be good enough to capture and hold their attention. In this episode we explore how to write a webpage that people will give their scarce time to read. Show Notes CopyBlogger The Noun Project

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045 – Five Keys to Working with Book Stores, Before You’re Published and After

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Some say bookstores are only interested in promoting the best-selling authors. While that’s not true, getting their focus will take some tricks and techniques. In this episode, we cover five keys to getting the attention of physical, walk-in bookstores.

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048 – The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Sign Books

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Book signings are likely the most personal connection you’ll have with a reader. Because of that, it’s an important opportunity that could either leave the reader with a memorable experience, or could alienate a new friend. In this episode, we discuss the right way to sign books, so you give your readers an enjoyable moment they’ll remember.

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049 – How to Use Crowdfunding to Fund Your Next Book Advance

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In this episode we are going to talk about how independent authors can use crowdfunding to promote and pay for their next book. What is crowdfunding? Mary DeMuth’s Story Marci Seither’s Story The Adventures of Pearley Monroe.” Benefits of Crowdfunding: Get money now, deliver the book later. Test your idea. See how much demand there […]

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051 – Bestseller Marketing Tactics With Brand Manager Kevin Kaiser

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Quick Links: GetThisBook.com 1000 True Fans KevinKaiser.co Transcript Thomas Umstattd Jr.: So in this episode, as you’ve probably figured out, we’re going to be talking to Kevin Kaiser. And for those of you who don’t know who Kevin is, Kevin is a marketing guru, one of the guys I respect the most in terms of […]

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052 – To Book Trailer, or Not Book Trailer … that is the question

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Book trailers are an interesting animal. Some people swear by them and claim they’re an extremely effective marketing tool, some say they’re a waste of time and money. Listener question from Elizabeth Jane Kitchens author of  The Beast’s Enchantress “What’s your opinion of book trailers? Are they worth the effort? Should they be like movie […]

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053 – How to Throw a Facebook Party for Your Book Interview With Nadine Brandes

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Show Outline: Here’s the run-down on how I threw the FB Party: What is a Facebook party? How do You prepare? How did you promote? What prizes did you use? How to you run a Facebook party. (Jim) I had a core group of people (~30) on a launch team who committed to attending and […]

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055 – Finding Readers Through a Book Scavenger Hunts With Robin Lee Hatcher

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Robin is the best-selling and award winning novelist of seventy books. Seventy! As you can imagine, she doesn’t hurt for publishers wanting to partner with her. She started in the general market and wrote for publishers such as Leisure Books, HarperPaperbacks, Avon Books, and Silhouette. In 1997, she felt a call to write stories infused […]

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058 – Powerful Marketing Lessons from Taylor Swift

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Show Notes: She is involved in her own marketing. She’s transparent, which builds familiarity and trust She uses every channel — differently She says “no” when her brand is devalued Her product is inspirational and unexpected She makes smart partnerships She’s a master at maintaining magic and mystery in her brand Links: Original article 60 […]

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060 – Q&A Extravaganza & Big Announcement

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Question from Jen Q: I really enjoyed this podcast, but I’m curious as to how aspiring writers are supposed to use Facebook and Twitter differently? Question from J.T. Stoll   Author of The Rift I’m an indie fantasy author and trying to figure out how much time to dedicate to putting together blurbs for my […]

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061 – Marketing 101: The Five Ps of Novel Marketing

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1) Product (Book) This is the most important P. Good marketing helps a bad product fail faster. The question is not “is this book good” the question is “is this the kind of book people would want to buy and then read” Every product has a life cycle. This is particularly true for fiction. Old […]

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061 – Marketing 101: The Five Ps of Novel Marketing

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1) Product (Book) This is the most important P. Good marketing helps a bad product fail faster. The question is not “is this book good” the question is “is this the kind of book people would want to buy and then read” Every product has a life cycle. This is particularly true for fiction. Old […]

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063 – Six Proven Methods for Creating Maximum Impact at Writing Conferences

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Intro Paragraph: Unless you have a multi-book contract (and we’re talking 4+ books) you need to be constantly marketing yourself to publishers. Even if you do have a long term contract you need to be marketing yourself because someday that contract will end and (let’s say this quietly) they might not pick you up again. […]

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063 – Six Proven Methods for Creating Maximum Impact at Writing Conferences

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Intro Paragraph: Unless you have a multi-book contract (and we’re talking 4+ books) you need to be constantly marketing yourself to publishers. Even if you do have a long term contract you need to be marketing yourself because someday that contract will end and (let’s say this quietly) they might not pick you up again. […]

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063 – Six Proven Methods for Creating Maximum Impact at Writing Conferences

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Intro Paragraph: Unless you have a multi-book contract (and we’re talking 4+ books) you need to be constantly marketing yourself to publishers. Even if you do have a long term contract you need to be marketing yourself because someday that contract will end and (let’s say this quietly) they might not pick you up again. […]

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064 – How to Market Yourself to Readers Who Don’t Like You

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  Talking points Marketing ourselves in every moment/editors and agents and readers are watching, wear, dress, speak, what you say, don’t say … how open, how closed off … James’ writing conference story Thomas’ Courtship Story Not Everyone Has Ears to Hear Don’t Respond in Kind What did James do wrong? Nothing. Personality styles The […]

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064 – How to Market Yourself to Readers Who Don’t Like You

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  Talking points Marketing ourselves in every moment/editors and agents and readers are watching, wear, dress, speak, what you say, don’t say … how open, how closed off … James’ writing conference story Thomas’ Courtship Story Not Everyone Has Ears to Hear Don’t Respond in Kind What did James do wrong? Nothing. Personality styles The […]

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065 – 7 Tips for Effective Email Newsletters

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Public Service Announcement: Respect Spam is in the eye of the beholder. Creepy / Charming (thin line in between) Permission   Tip 1 Provide consistent value. New Book Announcements News (Progress Updates) Ask for Feedback Reader Stories Reader Art Reviews for other books Advice Discounts (Run your own BookBub) Laugh Encouragement Blog Curation   Tip […]

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065 – 7 Tips for Effective Email Newsletters

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Public Service Announcement: Respect Spam is in the eye of the beholder. Creepy / Charming (thin line in between) Permission   Tip 1 Provide consistent value. New Book Announcements News (Progress Updates) Ask for Feedback Reader Stories Reader Art Reviews for other books Advice Discounts (Run your own BookBub) Laugh Encouragement Blog Curation   Tip […]

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066 – Can Writing Contests Be A Powerful Marketing Tool?

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Some people say contests are a tremendous marketing tool, some say they’re a waste of time … we’re going to explore the pros and cons of contests … let me ask you, Thomas … Talking Points: Pros if you’re unpublished Feedback Learning how to handle negative feedback/critique Many editors and agents take notice if you […]

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066 – Can Writing Contests Be A Powerful Marketing Tool?

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Some people say contests are a tremendous marketing tool, some say they’re a waste of time … we’re going to explore the pros and cons of contests … let me ask you, Thomas … Talking Points: Pros if you’re unpublished Feedback Learning how to handle negative feedback/critique Many editors and agents take notice if you […]

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066 – Can Writing Contests Be A Powerful Marketing Tool?

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Some people say contests are a tremendous marketing tool, some say they’re a waste of time … we’re going to explore the pros and cons of contests … let me ask you, Thomas … Talking Points: Pros if you’re unpublished Feedback Learning how to handle negative feedback/critique Many editors and agents take notice if you […]

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067 – How to Keep Your Inbox @ Zero And Have More Time to Write

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A lot of authors are addicted to checking email. Poor email habits hold many authors back from success because it wastes time and zaps mental energy. If you can learn to do email better you will have more time to market your book and more mental energy to write. Talking Points: Authors are not great […]

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067 – How to Keep Your Inbox @ Zero And Have More Time to Write

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A lot of authors are addicted to checking email. Poor email habits hold many authors back from success because it wastes time and zaps mental energy. If you can learn to do email better you will have more time to market your book and more mental energy to write. Talking Points: Authors are not great […]

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067 – How to Keep Your Inbox @ Zero And Have More Time to Write

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A lot of authors are addicted to checking email. Poor email habits hold many authors back from success because it wastes time and zaps mental energy. If you can learn to do email better you will have more time to market your book and more mental energy to write. Talking Points: Authors are not great […]

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068 – Where to Spend Your Marketing Money

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Today we are answering a listener question from Name Erica Borgerson Website http://www.LazyGirlGuides.com Book Title The Lazy Girl Guide to Healthy Eating & The Lazy Girl Guide to Fitness Question So, since you don’t really recommend spending money doing a book trailer to promote our books, what would you mention us spending money on? You […]

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068 – Where to Spend Your Marketing Money

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Today we are answering a listener question from Name Erica Borgerson Website http://www.LazyGirlGuides.com Book Title The Lazy Girl Guide to Healthy Eating & The Lazy Girl Guide to Fitness Question So, since you don’t really recommend spending money doing a book trailer to promote our books, what would you mention us spending money on? You […]

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069 – How to Stand Out When Your Name Fits In

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Question from Samantha Johnson Book Title The Beginner’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening How do you stand out when your name fits in? When your name is something super-common, it’s next to impossible to find unique domain addresses, and Google Alerts are ineffective because there are so many other people out there with the same name. […]

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069 – How to Stand Out When Your Name Fits In

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Question from Samantha Johnson Book Title The Beginner’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening How do you stand out when your name fits in? When your name is something super-common, it’s next to impossible to find unique domain addresses, and Google Alerts are ineffective because there are so many other people out there with the same name. […]

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071 – How To Find a Good Editor

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Talking Points: Kinds of editors: Developmental editor (Successful authors) The macro edit Line edit editors Beta reader editors Copy editor (Grammar Nazi) Proofreaders (Details person) Places to find an editor: Writers’ Conference (Ask the faculty for recommendations. They will likely recommend fellow faculty who you can talk with. 15m consult) Recommendation from a successful author […]

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071 – How To Find a Good Editor

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Talking Points: Kinds of editors: Developmental editor (Successful authors) The macro edit Line edit editors Beta reader editors Copy editor (Grammar Nazi) Proofreaders (Details person) Places to find an editor: Writers’ Conference (Ask the faculty for recommendations. They will likely recommend fellow faculty who you can talk with. 15m consult) Recommendation from a successful author […]

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072 — How to Grow Your Email List from 0 to 10,000

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Listen to our other podcasts 065 – 7 Tips for Effective Email Newsletters 062 – 7 Ways to Avoid the Spam Filter 057 – What to include in an Author Newsletter   Public Service Announcement: Avoid MeMail. Spam is in the eye of the beholder. Listen to our other episodes on email to learn how […]

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073 – How to Double Book Profits Through Affiliate Revenue

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Talking Points: How Affiliate Programs Work Percentage of Gross sales 2%-8% Cut of the cart Pay monthly Tracking Amazon’s Affiliate Program Pro: Easiest to Sign Up For Pro: Easiest to Use Pro: Largest Customer Base Pro: Cut of the cart brings in a lot of extra $$ Con: Not Available in all states Barnes & […]

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074 — The Enclave Files #2

Talking Points: Videos (Great for helping authors shorten & practice their pitch, bad for selling books) MyBookTable (Forced us to get every book on every platform. Getting all our books on iBooks was a bit of a project) Email (Tried weekly and went back to monthly) SumoMe Contests KingSumo PermaFree BookBub Results:   Doubled the […]

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075 – How To Become a Career Writer Part 1: Think Like a Business

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Think Like a Business: Delegate  Determine what your time is worth. Only do what only you can do. Read The Four Hour Workweek Build a Team Writing Assistant  Ways to pay Editor Literary Manager Webmaster Investors (You need to invest in your own book) Agent CPA  How to Become a Business You are already a […]

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076 – How To Become a Career Writer Part 2: Make Maximum Money on Your Book

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Tips for Making the Most on Your Book: Publish Prolifically. (Each book boosts sales for your other books) BUT DON’T OVERDO THIS: too many choices are not a good thing… Write Quickly (Quality + Speed = Excellence). Perfection is a trap. Write Consistently Write Early (There is a scientific reason for writing first thing in […]

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076 – How To Become a Career Writer Part 2: Make Maximum Money on Your Book

Tips for Making the Most on Your Book: Publish Prolifically. (Each book boosts sales for your other books) BUT DON’T OVERDO THIS: too many choices are not a good thing… Write Quickly (Quality + Speed = Excellence). Perfection is a trap. Write Consistently Write Early (There is a scientific reason for writing first thing in […]

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077 – How To Become a Career Writer Part 3: Make Maximum Money with Your Writing Skills

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  75 #1 Think Like a Business 76 #2 Make Money on the Book 77 #3 Make Maximum Money with Your Writing Skills Use Your Writing Skills As an Editor Pays faster. The editor is the first and sometimes only person to make money on a book. Creating a course to teach writing to other […]

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077 – How To Become a Career Writer Part 3: Make Maximum Money with Your Writing Skills

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  75 #1 Think Like a Business 76 #2 Make Money on the Book 77 #3 Make Maximum Money with Your Writing Skills Use Your Writing Skills As an Editor Pays faster. The editor is the first and sometimes only person to make money on a book. Creating a course to teach writing to other […]

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078 – How To Become a Career Writer Part 4: How to Make Money With Your Knowledge & Celebrity

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Your Celebrity Fabio Story Publisher Avon Books estimated his image increased sales by as much as 33% when he appeared on the cover with a woman; 45% when he appeared alone. Each photo session would get Fabio in about 16 cover poses that artists could reuse for multiple covers. He’s on more than 2,000 book […]

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078 – How To Become a Career Writer Part 4: How to Make Money With Your Knowledge & Celebrity

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Your Celebrity Fabio Story Publisher Avon Books estimated his image increased sales by as much as 33% when he appeared on the cover with a woman; 45% when he appeared alone. Each photo session would get Fabio in about 16 cover poses that artists could reuse for multiple covers. He’s on more than 2,000 book […]

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078 – How To Become a Career Writer Part 4: How to Make Money With Your Knowledge & Celebrity

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Your Celebrity Fabio Story Publisher Avon Books estimated his image increased sales by as much as 33% when he appeared on the cover with a woman; 45% when he appeared alone. Each photo session would get Fabio in about 16 cover poses that artists could reuse for multiple covers. He’s on more than 2,000 book […]

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079 – How to Write a Crazy Cool Author Bio

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(James) In this episode we’re going to talk about creating a crazy cool bio. Intro Paragraph:   (Thomas)Today’s topic comes from Samantha Johnson author of The Beginner’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening. She asks: (James)I discovered the Novel Marketing podcast a few months ago, and since then I’ve listened to nearly all the episodes in the […]

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079 – How to Write a Crazy Cool Author Bio

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(James) In this episode we’re going to talk about creating a crazy cool bio. Intro Paragraph:   (Thomas)Today’s topic comes from Samantha Johnson author of The Beginner’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening. She asks: (James)I discovered the Novel Marketing podcast a few months ago, and since then I’ve listened to nearly all the episodes in the […]

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079 – How to Write a Crazy Cool Author Bio

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(James) In this episode we’re going to talk about creating a crazy cool bio. Intro Paragraph:   (Thomas)Today’s topic comes from Samantha Johnson author of The Beginner’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening. She asks: (James)I discovered the Novel Marketing podcast a few months ago, and since then I’ve listened to nearly all the episodes in the […]

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081 – 7 Website Visitors Every Author Needs to Thrill

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Curious Cathy She has a lot of questions. She is coming to your website for answers. How to thrill: Blog Posts Answering her (Reader) Questions Contact Form Add Kindle Instant Preview of your book Book Buying Betty She Wants to buy your book and browse your backlist. How to thrill: Make book covers clickable Buy […]

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081 – 7 Website Visitors Every Author Needs to Thrill

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Curious Cathy She has a lot of questions. She is coming to your website for answers. How to thrill: Blog Posts Answering her (Reader) Questions Contact Form Add Kindle Instant Preview of your book Book Buying Betty She Wants to buy your book and browse your backlist. How to thrill: Make book covers clickable Buy […]

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083 – How to Get an Agent, Part 2 With Special Guest Rachelle Gardner

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Last episode we talked about getting an agent from Thomas’ and my perspective, in this episode, we’re going to talk about how to get an agent from the agent’s perspective. So we’d like to introduce you to one of our favorite people and an outstanding literary agent, Rachelle Gardner. Talking Points: Great writing, great platform, […]

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083 – How to Get an Agent, Part 2 With Special Guest Rachelle Gardner

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Last episode we talked about getting an agent from Thomas’ and my perspective, in this episode, we’re going to talk about how to get an agent from the agent’s perspective. So we’d like to introduce you to one of our favorite people and an outstanding literary agent, Rachelle Gardner. Talking Points: Great writing, great platform, […]

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084 – How to Create A Breakthrough Author Brand Step 4 – Look in Your Reader’s Mirror

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We thought we had said everything we wanted to say about branding. We were wrong. Initial Branding Steps Step 1 – Look in the Mirror (Who am I) Step 2 – Look at Your Readers (Who are my readers?) Step 3 – Look Through Your Readers (What do my readers say about me?) Outline   Questions: […]

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084 – How to Create A Breakthrough Author Brand Step 4 – Look in Your Reader’s Mirror

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We thought we had said everything we wanted to say about branding. We were wrong. Initial Branding Steps Step 1 – Look in the Mirror (Who am I) Step 2 – Look at Your Readers (Who are my readers?) Step 3 – Look Through Your Readers (What do my readers say about me?) Outline   Questions: […]

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085 – How to Sell More Books with MyBookTable 3

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What is MyBookTable? WordPress Plugin Sell More Books New Features in the Free version MyBookTable 3 Updated Look MyBookTable book pages have been redesigned to be prettier, more mobile-friendly, and conversion-optimized. If you prefer the classic look, don’t worry– you will still have it as an option. New, Easier Interface As MyBookTable has grown more […]

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085 – How to Sell More Books with MyBookTable 3

What is MyBookTable? WordPress Plugin Sell More Books New Features in the Free version MyBookTable 3 Updated Look MyBookTable book pages have been redesigned to be prettier, more mobile-friendly, and conversion-optimized. If you prefer the classic look, don’t worry– you will still have it as an option. New, Easier Interface As MyBookTable has grown more […]

085 – How to Sell More Books with MyBookTable 3

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What is MyBookTable? WordPress Plugin Sell More Books New Features in the Free version MyBookTable 3 Updated Look MyBookTable book pages have been redesigned to be prettier, more mobile-friendly, and conversion-optimized. If you prefer the classic look, don’t worry– you will still have it as an option. New, Easier Interface As MyBookTable has grown more […]

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086 – How to Pick Your Genre

In this episode, we are going to talk about how to choose your genre When You Don’t Want to Choose John Grisham Stephen King Pen names Hedgehog Principle Passions Skills Need$ Passion Tests Movie Test – What kinds of movies do you like to watch? Throwing Book Across the Room Test – (When you keep […]

087 – Website Hosting for Authors

What is Web Hosting Web hosting is where your website lives on the internet. It is like rent for your website. It is important because if your site goes down people can’t find you. Why is web hosting important? Agent Hack Story Bad hosting can ruin your reputation. Viral Blog Post story Kinds of Web […]

089 – How To Use the Power of Video to Engage More Readers

Intro Paragraph: In case you haven’t noticed, using videos as part of marketing is exploding. USA Today, everywhere else as well. So how do we as authors get on this train and use it to engage readers more deeply? Talking Points: 1. Why Video? YouTube-the greatest running backs in the NFL They want to get […]

089 – How To Use the Power of Video to Engage More Readers

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Intro Paragraph: In case you haven’t noticed, using videos as part of marketing is exploding. USA Today, everywhere else as well. So how do we as authors get on this train and use it to engage readers more deeply? Talking Points: 1. Why Video? YouTube-the greatest running backs in the NFL They want to get […]

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089 – How To Use the Power of Video to Engage More Readers

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Intro Paragraph: In case you haven’t noticed, using videos as part of marketing is exploding. USA Today, everywhere else as well. So how do we as authors get on this train and use it to engage readers more deeply? Talking Points: 1. Why Video? YouTube-the greatest running backs in the NFL They want to get […]

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090 – Q&A Extravaganza #7

  Q Cadel Sterling says, “I found a local, self-published author, with a really cool sounding book premise, and I bought his e-book and told him I’d review it. It stinks. Just awful. Painful to read. So, what do I do now? Hide and pretend I never read it, or honestly review it honestly-knowing agents […]

091 – What The Election Can Teach Us About Copywriting for Your Book

Intro Paragraph: So don’t worry. This post isn’t going to be about the insanity we all just went through. Yeah, I know … whew. But the campaign season that just ended can teach us a salient point about our own copywriting. What works, what doesn’t. Talking Points: Trump didn’t win the election, Clinton lost it. […]

091 – What The Election Can Teach Us About Copywriting for Your Book

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Intro Paragraph: So don’t worry. This post isn’t going to be about the insanity we all just went through. Yeah, I know … whew. But the campaign season that just ended can teach us a salient point about our own copywriting. What works, what doesn’t. Talking Points: Trump didn’t win the election, Clinton lost it. […]

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091 – What The Election Can Teach Us About Copywriting for Your Book

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Intro Paragraph: So don’t worry. This post isn’t going to be about the insanity we all just went through. Yeah, I know … whew. But the campaign season that just ended can teach us a salient point about our own copywriting. What works, what doesn’t. Talking Points: Trump didn’t win the election, Clinton lost it. […]

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092 – The Guaranteed Way to Become A Bestselling Novelist

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Sign up for the 5-Year Plan to Become a Bestselling Author Show Notes: (James) In this episode, we are going to talk about something different than we usually do. The vast majority of the time we talk about what you need to do with your marketing to heighten your chances to become a bestselling author. […]

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092 – The Guaranteed Way to Become A Bestselling Novelist

Sign up for the 5-Year Plan to Become a Bestselling Author Show Notes: (James) In this episode, we are going to talk about something different than we usually do. The vast majority of the time we talk about what you need to do with your marketing to heighten your chances to become a bestselling author. […]

092 – The Guaranteed Way to Become A Bestselling Novelist

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Sign up for the 5-Year Plan to Become a Bestselling Author Show Notes: (James) In this episode, we are going to talk about something different than we usually do. The vast majority of the time we talk about what you need to do with your marketing to heighten your chances to become a bestselling author. […]

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092 – The Guaranteed Way to Become A Bestselling Novelist

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Sign up for the 5-Year Plan to Become a Bestselling Author Show Notes: (James) In this episode, we are going to talk about something different than we usually do. The vast majority of the time we talk about what you need to do with your marketing to heighten your chances to become a bestselling author. […]

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093 – What Authors Can Learn from Bad Super Bowl Ads

  Intro Paragraph: Expensive, but the REACH is unparalleled. 1967 the cost was $42,000 for a 30. Today 5 million   Spending that kind of money means you have to create a great ad   Talking Points: Seahawks   One of the biggest TV shows in the world   If you have the money, it […]

094 – How to Use the Ancient Power of Discipline to Accomplish Your Goals

In this episode we are going to talk about discipline … we’re already through first quarter and are rapidly moving toward the finish of the first half of the year … and there’s an ever so slight possibility that some of your goals and resolutions for 2017 have slipped into the abyss of business and […]

094 – How to Use the Ancient Power of Discipline to Accomplish Your Goals

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In this episode we are going to talk about discipline … we’re already through first quarter and are rapidly moving toward the finish of the first half of the year … and there’s an ever so slight possibility that some of your goals and resolutions for 2017 have slipped into the abyss of business and […]

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094 – How to Use the Ancient Power of Discipline to Accomplish Your Goals

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In this episode we are going to talk about discipline … we’re already through first quarter and are rapidly moving toward the finish of the first half of the year … and there’s an ever so slight possibility that some of your goals and resolutions for 2017 have slipped into the abyss of business and […]

The post 094 – How to Use the Ancient Power of Discipline to Accomplish Your Goals appeared first on Author Media.

095 – 7 Reasons Why Your Book Should Also Be An Audiobook

This episode is based on this blog post at Author Media. Reason #1: The Size of the Audiobook Industry is Nearly a Billion-Dollar Industry. Reason #2: Book Mavens Listen to Audiobooks. Reason #3: Audiobooks Protect You From the Oprah Effect. Reason #4: Audiobooks Boost Paper & eBook Sales. Reason #5: Audiobooks Give You Access to […]

095 – 7 Reasons Why Your Book Should Also Be An Audiobook

This episode is based on this blog post at Author Media. Reason #1: The Size of the Audiobook Industry is Nearly a Billion-Dollar Industry. Reason #2: Book Mavens Listen to Audiobooks. Reason #3: Audiobooks Protect You From the Oprah Effect. Reason #4: Audiobooks Boost Paper & eBook Sales. Reason #5: Audiobooks Give You Access to […]

095 – 7 Reasons Why Your Book Should Also Be An Audiobook

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This episode is based on this blog post at Author Media. Reason #1: The Size of the Audiobook Industry is Nearly a Billion-Dollar Industry. Reason #2: Book Mavens Listen to Audiobooks. Reason #3: Audiobooks Protect You From the Oprah Effect. Reason #4: Audiobooks Boost Paper & eBook Sales. Reason #5: Audiobooks Give You Access to […]

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095 – 7 Reasons Why Your Book Should Also Be An Audiobook

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This episode is based on this blog post at Author Media. Reason #1: The Size of the Audiobook Industry is Nearly a Billion-Dollar Industry. Reason #2: Book Mavens Listen to Audiobooks. Reason #3: Audiobooks Protect You From the Oprah Effect. Reason #4: Audiobooks Boost Paper & eBook Sales. Reason #5: Audiobooks Give You Access to […]

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096 – How to Turn Your Book Into An Audiobook

Put it in your Contract If you are traditionally published, make sure the audiobook is written in. Publishers only pay for audiobook production for books they believe. Record Yourself/You become the voice talent … Advantages to doing it yourself- You know how your characters sound You know the nuance of your words You know the […]

096 – How to Turn Your Book Into An Audiobook

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Put it in your Contract If you are traditionally published, make sure the audiobook is written in. Publishers only pay for audiobook production for books they believe. Record Yourself/You become the voice talent … Advantages to doing it yourself- You know how your characters sound You know the nuance of your words You know the […]

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096 – How to Turn Your Book Into An Audiobook

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Put it in your Contract If you are traditionally published, make sure the audiobook is written in. Publishers only pay for audiobook production for books they believe. Record Yourself/You become the voice talent … Advantages to doing it yourself- You know how your characters sound You know the nuance of your words You know the […]

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097 – Major Mistakes You Might Be Making With Your Author Name

Your Name The middle initial can get you in trouble Radio and TV interviews Who do people know you as? Radio and TV Who do you think of yourself as? Jim/James on Facebook Stephen King/Steve King What should people call you? Can be a positive What if you have a common name? Pseudonym Middle name? […]

097 – Major Mistakes You Might Be Making With Your Author Name

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Your Name The middle initial can get you in trouble Radio and TV interviews Who do people know you as? Radio and TV Who do you think of yourself as? Jim/James on Facebook Stephen King/Steve King What should people call you? Can be a positive What if you have a common name? Pseudonym Middle name? […]

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097 – Major Mistakes You Might Be Making With Your Author Name

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Your Name The middle initial can get you in trouble Radio and TV interviews Who do people know you as? Radio and TV Who do you think of yourself as? Jim/James on Facebook Stephen King/Steve King What should people call you? Can be a positive What if you have a common name? Pseudonym Middle name? […]

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098 – 7 Tips for Best Selling Author Portraits

Why your Author Portrait is important. Americans put a lot of importance on how someone looks. A bad portrait can ruin a good book cover. It is not about being objectively pretty. It is about having a good photo. We are relational. We want to buy from someone we know. Tip #1 Hire an Actual […]

099 – Three Marketing Mindsets We Suggest You Adopt For the Rest of 2017

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Just a little over halfway through the year, it’s that time where many of us do an inventory check … and look at what we need to adjust for the rest of the year. We’re not going to call these second half resolutions, because these are not have tos … so you don’t get to […]

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099 – Three Marketing Mindsets We Suggest You Adopt For the Rest of 2017

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Just a little over halfway through the year, it’s that time where many of us do an inventory check … and look at what we need to adjust for the rest of the year. We’re not going to call these second half resolutions, because these are not have tos … so you don’t get to […]

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10 Branding Blunders Authors Make (and how to avoid them)

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It’s no secret that readers do not connect with a publisher’s brand. Most readers don’t even know who published the last book they read. That’s because readers connect with the author’s brand. 

Traditional authors with strong brands receive big advances and marketing support from their publishers. Independent authors with strong brands make enough money to provide strong marketing support for themselves, and they make a small fortune besides. 

But authors with weak brands get ignored by publishers and readers alike. 

Branding is important for almost all authors: fiction, nonfiction, published, unpublished, indie, and traditional. Unless your business card says “ghostwriter,” having a strong author brand is critical.

Most authors have weak brands because they fall prey to one of the ten classic branding blunders that will torpedo their brands. 

If you have struggled for years, feeling ignored and unnoticed, you’ve probably blundered in building your brand.

What are the most common branding blunders, and how can you avoid them?

Blunder #1 Creating a Brand “For Everyone” 

Beginning writers often believe their book can be used or enjoyed by everyone. The intent is generous and inclusive. But when I hear an author say they’ve written a book “for everyone,” I know they haven’t thought about how to sell their book or who will buy it.

The thinking goes like this: “There are billions of people in the world. Surely some of them will want to read my book.” Unfortunately, that is false. Billions of people don’t know who you are, and they don’t care about you. When you die, they will shed no tears. 

Traditional authors who maintain this line of thought don’t receive contracts. Indie authors who think this way only sell a few copies of the book they spent years writing. 

How to avoid Blunder #1: Define your ideal reader or niche.

The Saturday Evening Post was a magazine for everyone. It went out of business long ago. 

Meanwhile, Onion World, a magazine for people in the onion industry, is still alive and kicking. Onion World is not a magazine for farmers. It’s for onion farmers. Since they’re not trying to thrill or inform everyone, they can specifically thrill the onion farmers. On the other hand, The Saturday Evening Post tried to be for everyone and ended up being for no one.  

Many writers want to be The Saturday Evening Post, but the path to success in the 21st century is to be more like Onion World.

Blunder #2: Not Knowing Your Target Reader

Readers don’t want to read a book written for someone else. They want to read a book written specifically for them. 

If your beta readers say, “I think people would like this book,” your book is dead. Instead, you want them to say, “I think Sally would love this book.” 

There are no people, only individuals. If readers can’t think of a single person who would like your book, then they won’t be able to think of a single person who would love your book. Groups don’t buy books. Individuals do.

How to avoid Blunder #2: Focus! 

Less than 1% of the population reads the most popular book of the year. Less than one percent. Most authors never reach more than .001% of the population. That may sound disheartening, but you can still make a living serving an audience that size. The key is to discover which 0.001% to target. 

If you are not faithfully writing for a small niche, how can you earn a following at all? If the 20 people reading your blog or short story don’t want to talk about it, how can you get 200 people to talk about it?

If you want readers to spread the word about your story, book, or brand, you must thrill them. A great way to thrill your readers is to focus. If you have sold fewer than 10,000 copies of your book, try to focus on writing to one person. Find a real-life human being to serve as a representative of your whole market.   

Once you identify your target reader, get to know that person. Follow her on social media. Take her out for coffee, and ask her about the books she’s reading. Learn to thrill this individual, and you will be on your way to thrilling a crowd.  

Blunder #3: Picking a Bad Author Name

The most memorable element of your brand is your author name. It’s on all your book covers and at the top of every other page. Each book you write will have a different title, but they will all have the same author name. Your name is the glue that connects your books. 

Choosing an author name is one of the most important steps in developing your author brand. You’d think authors would spend a lot of time thinking it, but it’s easy to underestimate the importance of your author name and just use the name you have. 

Depending on your given name, that might be a good idea, but it could also be a blunder. 

One common mistake is to use a name that is too similar to another author’s name. 

I talked with one Christian author who wrote sweet romance. She almost lost a speaking engagement at a church because they thought she wrote erotica. She didn’t, but another author with the same name did, and she had some explaining to do.

There are three Thomas Umstattds currently living. One is my dad. His Austin CPA firm is named after him and is located on a major highway. In Austin, he is more famous, but outside of Austin, I am more famous. 

How do we avoid confusion? He goes by “Tom G. Umstattd, CPA,” and I go by “Thomas Umstattd Jr.” 

Look how different we made our names. I never use my middle initial, and I always use the “Jr.” He uses the middle initial, adds CPA at the end, and goes by “Tom.” 

We have the same name, but we present different versions of the name to avoid confusion. 

Using your middle initial is generally a mistake in the author world because people tend to leave it out. That’s why my dad also goes by “Tom.” The difference between Tom and Thomas helps people avoid confusion. 

My son goes by Tommy. If he were an author, he could go by “Tommy Umstattd” or “TG Umstattd” if he wanted to distinguish himself from his grandfather and me. 

The biggest blunder would be for him to publish under the name “Thomas G Umstattd.” “Thomas Umstattd” and “Thomas G Umstattd” are too similar, especially since readers usually leave out the middle initial. Readers would get us mixed up. 

How to avoid blunder #3: Research.

Before you start building a brand around your given name, do some research.

Do other authors use that name? Is the domain name available?

Research the domain name availability at InstantDomainSearch.com. I buy my domains at NameCheap.com (Affiliate Link). Authors who own “their name dot com” have a big advantage over those who don’t.

I have a couple of episodes detailing how to choose a good author name:

In those episodes, James L. Rubart shares how his middle initial has caused him trouble.

Blunder #4: Building a Generic Brand

No one sets out to have a generic brand, but many authors end up with one anyway. Genre novelists often struggle with this blunder, but it can happen to anyone.

If you write Amish, military sci-fi, or romance, it’s easy to allow your genre to eclipse your author brand.

I’ve read some great fantasy books, but I have no idea who the author was. I enjoyed the books, but there was nothing distinctive about the author (or the story for that matter) to help me remember him or her. It was just another dragon book I enjoyed and forgot about.

How to avoid blunder #4: Develop the courage to be yourself.

Be Yourself
To avoid building a generic brand, develop the courage to be yourself, and allow your quirkiness to show. If you are too buttoned-up and corporate, you become forgettable. When we say “everyone is unique,” we mean that everyone is different. In other words, “everyone is weird.” The more you hide your weirdness, the more generic your brand becomes.  

If all the other authors in your genre are cussing online, and you don’t cuss, then don’t cuss to fit in. Be different, and readers will remember you.

Show Your Personality
You can avoid being generic by allowing your personality to show. 

  • Develop a clear voice in your writing. Master the fundamentals of the craft so you know when you can break the rules and get away with it. 
  • Write a letter to your reader at the end of your book that shows a bit of your personality. 
  • If you write nonfiction, incorporate personal anecdotes to illustrate your points.

If you want a distinctive brand that readers will remember, discover how you are different from other authors. Then allow your readers to see how you are different. 

Blunder #5: Building a Strange Brand

Blunder #4 and Blunder #5 are like gutters on a bowling lane. Going too far in either direction leads to failure. While you don’t want to be generic, you also want to be too different. 

If all the other authors in your genre write in English and you write in Mandarin, readers won’t read your book. That’s an extreme example, but it illustrates the point. 

Authors tend to build a strange brand when they write in a genre they have not voraciously read. 

It also happens when an author writes for an audience they don’t belong to.

For example, if you are no longer an evangelical and write about how evangelicals are terrible people, evangelicals will find you too strange and will be repelled by your brand. 

If you want to write a romance for readers who don’t like romance, but you don’t read romance, you’ll face the same challenge. 

Each tribe of readers has its own set of expectations. You need to know those expectations. It doesn’t mean you have to meet every expectation for the genre, but when you violate an expectation, you want to do it on purpose. 

I recommend authors read at least one book in their genre every month. 

Your brand should cause readers to say, “This author is one of us,” but it also needs to be intriguing. You don’t want to be so weird that you are no longer “one of us.” On the other hand, you can’t be so similar to other authors that you become generic and forgettable. 

How to avoid blunder #5: Know your reader.

The only way to find this balance is to get to know your readers. Meet them for coffee in real life.  Ask them questions in your emails. Learn what they love.

Blunder #6: Embracing Style Over Substance

Writers often leave a branding workshop with visions of beautiful websites, eye-catching fonts, and striking design. But those workshops are usually taught by graphic designers. They focus on the services they sell rather than the elements of an enduring brand.

When you build a website, you may be tempted to spend more time on the style than the website’s words and substance. Readers don’t visit your websites because of your pretty fonts. They visit your website because you offer the substantive content they want. 

If you are curious about why readers visit author websites, what they want, and how to thrill them, I have a free course on how to develop an amazing author website. 

Logos, fonts, and colors may remind people about your brand, but many successful author brands don’t have any of that. “Steven King” has a different typographical treatment on every book, and yet he has a strong brand. Why? Because the substance of his brand is strong. He writes the same kind of book over and over at a consistent level of quality. 

If you are in a conference workshop where the speaker spends more time talking about business cards that match your website than about identifying your reader’s expectations and surpassing them, stand up and leave that session. The speaker doesn’t get it.

How to avoid blunder #6: Write the content your readers want.

Build your brand on substance rather than style. For an author, this means consistent, quality writing. Authors with the strongest brands have consistently met and surpassed reader expectations with their writing. 

You don’t have to ignore fonts and colors, but you can only answer those questions after you have first answered the more important questions about who you write for and what they want. 

Blunder #7: Picking the Wrong Shelf

You know an author has a strong brand when two things happen: 

  1. People know about the author.
  2. When they hear the author’s name, they know what kind of books the author writes.  

Building a strong brand requires discipline. You must continue writing the same kind of books, ideally in the same genre or family of genres. Most authors don’t think this rule applies to them, and most of them are wrong. 

A handful of authors can write in multiple genres, but those books usually sell to the same readers. 

For instance, Tricia Goyer, who I interviewed on the podcast last week, writes in various genres. But she can sell all her books at homeschool conventions because she’s created her own micro-genre. She writes all kinds of books for homeschoolers.

When a reader walks into a bookstore, they must decide which shelf to visit first. To choose a genre is to choose where you’ll be shelved and who your reader will be. 

My wife and I love to visit bookstores. We enter the store together, but I head straight to the comic book section while she heads straight for the children’s section. The books in these sections are alike in that they use images and text to tell a story. However, their readers are very different.

The comic book aisle tends to be full of old nerds like me, while the children’s section is filled with kids and moms. When you pick a shelf, you are also picking a price point. Books shelved in the comic section average around $30.00 per book. Books on the children’s shelves sell for around $9.00 each.  

If some of your books are on the children’s shelf and some are on the comic shelf, you are reaching entirely different audiences who have different expectations. If you tune your brand for one, you will turn off the other. The violence that makes a comic book exciting would make the mother of a toddler very angry. 

How to avoid blunder #7: Learn about the genre’s readers.

Discover who reads the genre you want to write and how much money they normally spend on a book. Then choose your shelf accordingly.

Blunder #8: Changing Genres 

Picking a shelf means picking a dance partner. Don’t make your target reader sad by dancing with everyone else in the room. Or, as they used to say, “dance with the one who brung ya.”

Each time you change genres, you set your brand back five years. It is like giving up on a video game and starting over at the beginning with a new save file. If you change directions in your writing every five years, you won’t get anywhere with your brand. 

Now when I say don’t change genres, I’m referring to what you publish. Authors going through the Novel Marketing Five Year Plan course are encouraged to explore all kinds of writing. They experiment with short stories that they don’t usually publish. 

Before your first book is published, you can change directions at any time. But once that first book is published, readers will expect your second book to be like it. Each book you publish limits your options with the next book you publish. The more books you publish in one genre, the more you become identified with that genre.

That’s one reason the 9th Commandment of Book Marketing is, “Thou shalt not publish thy first book first.” There is a reason we don’t let six-year-olds get married. When you start writing, you don’t know enough about your craft, your reader, or the market. It’s hard to choose a genre with so little information. Some authors never recover from the first book they published. It is very hard to deviate from the reader expectations you set with your first book.

How to avoid blunder #8: Establish a new pen name and brand.

Now, you’re not actually limited in what you write. You can write under a pen name for a different kind of book, but that also means building a new brand. The pen name acts as connective tissue connecting that new kind of book with the other new kinds of books you plan to write.

If you write thrillers under your real name, your real name connects your thrillers to each other. If you write romance under a pen name, the pen name connects the romances and keeps the brand separate from the thrillers.

Some authors can write in multiple genres under several pen names. But building a brand for each pen name is a lot of work. I only recommend that strategy after you have successfully built one strong brand. After you know how to do it, you will be able to do it again. 

In most cases, changing genres just sets you back.

Blunder #9: Focusing the Brand on the Author

Since you are your brand, shouldn’t you be the focus of your brand? Some authors think so, but they’re wrong. Successful author brands focus on the reader! Otherwise, your brand is just a snake eating itself. 

I once asked an author how she chose the colors for her book cover. She said they were the colors used on the printed program at her father’s funeral, and they meant a lot to her. But her readers didn’t attend that funeral, and those colors meant nothing to them. 

It doesn’t matter if you like your book cover or website. Focus on creating a website and cover that your readers like. 

Readers don’t care about you. They care about themselves. 

How to avoid blunder #9: Care for your readers.

Now, don’t waste time and energy saying, “Those readers are so selfish. They should care about me!” Instead, you take the first step toward selflessness. Care for your readers. Your readers will pay attention when they find out you care about the same things they do. When you consistently care about your readers, you will find that they start to care about you in return. 

These first nine blunders will prevent you from becoming famous. When the news about you and your writing spreads, it spreads quickly. But it only spreads if you avoid the first nine blunders.  

One branding blunder remains. If you have successfully side-stepped all the previous blunders, built a strong brand, and become famous, there is one blunder that will cause it all to vanish.

Branding Blunder #10: Scandal

When readers say you are “one of us,” they expect you to follow the same rules they follow. When you chose a shelf, a genre, and a target reader, you are also choosing a moral code.

You can’t write “for everyone” because we don’t all follow the same moral system. If you present yourself as a Christian who writes for Christian readers, those readers expect you to follow the Christian sexual ethic. A photo of you on a yacht with your mistress will alienate those readers. 

If you write for vegans and post a photo of your lion hunt in Africa, that scandal will horrify your readers. On the other hand, if you write for big game hunters, that same photo is the price of admission. 

Once you know who you write for, you will understand whose opinion matters. The only people who can cancel you are your own readers. If Amish readers don’t like your violent space marine stories, who cares? They don’t currently read your books anyway, so it doesn’t matter if they swear they’ll never read your books. 

In fact, the more they talk about how much they dislike your space marine books, the more attention you’ll gain, and that could actually boost sales. 

J.K. Rowling’s book sales increase every time she gets canceled. Her tweets don’t alienate her core readership, but all the attention reminds her readers that’s it’s been a long time since they read a Harry Potter book. 

How to avoid blunder #10: Live with integrity.

Live your life in secret as if your readers were watching because they are. You can’t hide. Everyone has a camera in their pocket, and a photo can spread around the world before you get back from your yacht or your hunting trip.

Avoiding a scandal is more than simply avoiding the sins of your community. It also means following the expected behavior. 

If you write for a Christian audience, join a church and attend on Sundays. If you write for Apple fans, buy an iPhone. If you write sci-fi books, read other sci-fi books. If you write football romance, read romance books and watch football. 

If you think you’ve committed one or more branding blunders, don’t worry. I have worked with many successful authors who’ve blundered on their way to building a brand. Branding is a process, and it takes time to build a strong brand. Be willing to put in the work and prioritize your reader, and you too can build a powerful brand. 

By avoiding these blunders from the start, you’ll build a strong brand faster than you ever thought possible.  

Speaking about spreading the word, I want to tell you about my new course.

Sponsor

Obscure No More

If you want help building your platform, this course provides instruction for every step. 

Obscure No More is currently in beta release. A limited number of beta students will go through the course as I make it. Three of the modules are live, including the module on branding. 

My courses on podcasting, Search Engine Optimization, blogging, and PR are included with Obscure No More, and I plan to add other courses over the next few years. 

The full course will be released in the fall of 2021. To date, there are six beta spots left.  

Once the beta spots sell out, the price will increase dramatically. Some of my advisors have encouraged me to make the course a subscription plan for $49 every month. We’re also considering a $1500 one-time payment. We may offer both options. 

But right now, you can get the course for a one-time payment of $495 or 12 payments of $49. It comes with free lifetime updates. Use the coupon code “beta” at checkout or click here to activate the coupon code automatically. 

Featured Patron

This podcast is free to you, but it’s not free to produce. A team of people works hard to bring you each episode. I host and record, William Umstattd edits the audio, and Shauna Letellier crafts the blog post version. 

Most importantly, Novel Marketing listeners like you keep the show on the air by becoming patrons at Patreon.com/NovelMarketing. Patron levels start at $3 a month and come with a bonus episode every month. 

Our featured patron today is Eloise Whyte author of Soul Inspirationz

Gain a new relationship with Jesus as you trust him to be your confidant, healer, and life-giving friend.             

You can become a Novel Marketing Patron here.

If you can’t afford to become a patron, but you still want to help the show, you can! Just share this episode with one person you think would find it helpful. 

The post 10 Branding Blunders Authors Make (and how to avoid them) appeared first on Author Media.

10 Decisions You Need To Make After You Decide To Indie Publish Your Book

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You’ve decided to self-publish your book. Congratulations! You’re about to begin an exciting journey. 

Now there are nine more decisions to make before you’re published! Some of these decisions will affect the rest of your career, and you don’t want to make the wrong decision.

 But never fear! This article will help you make good choices. 

If you are trying to decide whether indie publishing is right for you, this is an episode that may be helpful. If you’re already planning to publish independently, you can’t afford to skip this post.

To give you two perspectives on these decisions, I interviewed Chautona Havig, an indie author who has written over 80 books and hosts the Because Fiction Podcast. She knows the indie publishing process inside and out, and she will help you avoid the pitfalls.

Decision #1: Book Size

Thomas Umstattd, Jr.: The first decision you need to make is what size of book you want to publish. 

The most common formats are 6 x 9 inches and 5.5 x 8.5 inches. The ideal length for a paperback book is 200-250 pages. If your book is too short, consider the 5.5 x 8.5 size. If it’s too long, consider going with the larger 6 x 9-inch size. 

A 200-page book is the sweet spot where you tend to make the most money and have the happiest readers. For every additional page beyond the 200-page mark, the cost of your book increases. When you’re printing your book on-demand, which indie authors do, the cost of printing goes up faster than the cost of the book. 

People expect to pay more for longer books, but they don’t expect to pay much more. The cost of printing a 450-page book is almost twice that of a 200-page book, but you can’t sell it for twice the price.

Warning!

If you are writing a series, you are committing to this format size for the rest of the series. If you want your books to look good on the shelf, consider keeping the same format for all your books. 

Chautona Havig: You may want to consider which size is more important to your reader. Some readers don’t like my 6 x 9 books, even though that’s the size I started with. Some hate it. Consider whether you want to make more money per book or sell more units. 

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation:

Pick whichever size gets you closer to 200 pages. If your books tend to run long, consider the larger format. If your books tend to run short, consider the smaller format. 

Decision #2: Print-on-Demand or Offset Printing?

Indie authors can choose offset printing, which is the same technology that traditional publishers use. You can print 5,000 copies of your book for $1-2 per book, depending on your printer. 

Print-on-Demand (POD) costs $3-4 per copy, which makes offset printing sound like a good decision. 

However, there are many hidden costs with offset printing, like warehousing, distribution, fulfillment, and shipping. The upfront cost of offset printing for 5,000 books at $3 per book will cost you $15,000 upfront. If you can’t sell 5,000 books, you may never recover your costs.

The upfront cost of print-on-demand is almost nothing.

Chautona: A friend of mine printed 3,000 copies of her book with offset printing. She’s a speaker, and she knew her book would be easy to sell, so she chose offset printing. But 3,000 books require a lot of boxes. You need a place to store those books. You need a big garage or a warehouse to store them.

Thomas: I know an author who did a Kickstarter campaign and raised $25,000 and presold a bunch of copies. She was able to offset print with the Kickstarter money. If you want to offset print, do a Kickstarter campaign first to see if there’s a demand for your book. If you sell all the books in your garage, that’s a win. But most of the time, the author cannot sell all the books because they overestimated the demand. They end up with hundreds or thousands of unsold books. It also ties up a lot of capital. 

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation:

For your first book, I recommend choosing print-on-demand. Offset printing is too risky and complicated for your first book. 

You can always offset later if your book is a hit, but print-on-demand is dramatically simpler. The print-on-demand machines are in the fulfillment centers. You don’t have to worry about warehousing, fulfillment, or shipping. All those complexities are taken care of by the print-on-demand companies. 

But if you already have several books on Amazon and are curious to learn more about offset printing, listen to episode 215 Print on Demand vs. Offset Printing for Indie Books. 

If you choose print-on-demand, you have two companies to choose from. 

Decision #3: KDP Print or IngramSpark?

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Print and IngramSpark both provide print-on-demand publishing. Other companies resell books from these two companies, but you don’t need to pay a middleman more money just to sell you one of these two options. 

Ninety percent of indie authors choose to publish through KDP Print (formerly known as CreateSpace) and IngramSpark. 

Chautona: I have used both, but I tend to be exclusive to KDP. I recommend people start with KDP because it’s easier.

IngramSpark is more expensive. If you upload your perfect book to KDP and a reader finds a missing quotation mark in your book. It’s easy to fix. You fix the typo on your computer, upload your new file to KDP, and within hours the error is fixed.

 With IngramSpark, it will cost you $25-$50 to do the exact same thing, and it may take several days for the change to go into effect. There’s a charge for changing the cover and a separate charge for changing the interior. 

Start easy with KDP Print because you need to know what you’re doing before you deal with IngramSpark and all their fees.

Thomas: If you’re a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, some of those fees are waived.  

Pros of KDP Print:

  • KDP is easier. All your print books and ebooks will appear in a single dashboard connected to your Amazon account. 
  • KDP Print makes it easier to advertise your book on Amazon. If your paperback isn’t through KDP Print, Amazon won’t let you use their paperback marketing tools. 

Pros of IngramSpark

  • IngramSpark gets you into more indie bookstores because many indie bookstores hate Amazon and won’t stock books from Amazon under any circumstances. 
  • IngramSpark has more options for book shape, size, and paper type, which are good for children’s books and specialty books. Standard fiction books don’t necessarily need those features.

Some authors publish books with both companies because they can use KDP Print for Amazon orders and IngramSpark for non-Amazon orders. 

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation: 

For your first book, go with KDP Print only. Make it easier on yourself. You can change later, but for your first book, don’t use IngramSpark.

Chautona: I recommend you get three books under your belt before you use IngramSpark. Until you’ve hit most of the snags, Ingram can be overwhelming. 

Decision #4: KDP Select or Wide? 

This is the biggest decision. 

When you publish with Amazon’s KDP, you have two choices. You can sell your books exclusively through Amazon through their KDP Select program, or you can publish wide, which means your books will be for sale on Amazon and many other online retailers. 

Amazon, being the 800-pound gorilla that it is, wants you to publish your ebook exclusively with them in their KDP Select program. As an incentive, they give you twice the royalty if you are exclusive to Amazon. 

They also give you more book marketing and promotion tools within Amazon. You can offer your book for free from time to time. They allow you to do free countdown deals, and most popular for novelist, they allow you to be in Kindle Unlimited (KU), Amazon’s Netflix of books. 

Kindle Unlimited has a lending library. Readers pay a monthly $10 subscription fee to check out books from the KU library. Readers can then check out any book in KU for “free.” 

When they read your book, you get a piece of their $10 monthly subscription fee. 

You must decide if you want to sell exclusively through Amazon to get access to these marketing tools and be included in KU, or if you want to go wide and sell through iBooks, Kobo, and various other online retailers.

Chautona: I recommend an author agree to be in KDP Select for one quarter. When you agree to the program, you agree to exclusivity for 90 days. 

 In those 90 days, you can see what KDP Select does. KDP Select is easy, and it’s a great way to get discovered in the KU Library. Many of my readers have found me through KU. They search for “Christian Fiction,” and they see all my books. It doesn’t cost them anything extra to try out a new author, so it’s a great way for readers to discover new authors.

Many readers think that authors don’t get paid for books in KU, which keeps some readers from joining KU. But authors do get paid for every page a reader reads. 

Thomas: KU pays authors per page-read. If someone checks out your book and then returns it without reading, you get no money. If they read the whole book, you get paid for every page. 

On the other hand, if they buy your book in the Amazon store and don’t read it, you still get paid.

KDP Select rewards authors who write books people finish. 

In general, indie authors exclusive to Amazon through KDP Select make more money and sell more books. 

I have an episode with Joanna Penn, who is an advocate for publishing wide. She makes a good case for why you may want to publish wide and not sell exclusively through Amazon. If that’s appealing to you, listen to How to Develop Multiple Streams of Money from Your Writing Career with Joanna Penn. 

On the other hand, Lacy Williams makes a good case for why you should sell exclusively on Amazon through KDP Select in episode 230, What Indie Authors Need to Know About Kindle Unlimited with Lacy Williams.

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation: 

For your first book, choose KDP Select and sell your ebooks exclusively through Amazon. You’ll get access to their exclusive marketing tools. You can change your mind later, but the process is much simpler and more profitable if you stay inside the Amazon sandbox for your first book. Signing up to sell in other bookstores is unlikely to generate enough sales to justify the hassle.

Chautona: I was wide for a long time. We noticed the wide sales start to dwindle, and I started losing money. I surveyed my readers and learned 93% of them used Kindle in some form. At that point, it was crazy for me not to be in KU. You must know your audience, and you can only know them once you have them, and you have to start somewhere. I agree that starting in KDP Select with the marketing advantages and the KU Library is a great choice for your first books.

Decision #5: Publish an Audiobook or Not?

If you listen to Novel Marketing, you know I am a big fan of audiobooks, and they are growing in popularity. In 2021, nearly every traditionally published book has an audio version. If you don’t publish an audiobook, your book may look self-published to someone who otherwise wouldn’t know. 

Pros:

  • You reach more people. 
  • You reach audio exclusive readers like me!
  • You reach more influential people. CEOs and Influencers listen to a lot of audiobooks.
  • You reach more men.
  • Publishing an audiobook is an indication you are financially committed to your book. 

Cons:

  • If you publish your audiobook for free, which you can do, you’ll split the royalty with the narrator, and you may make less on each audiobook sale than on your paperback sale. 
  • Requires you to pick a narrator, which is difficult and stressful. 
  • If you don’t split with the narrator, narrating an audiobook yourself will be expensive and time-consuming.

Chautona: I have become an audiobook fan. I listened to 120 books last year. 

In 2013, I hired two narrators, and it was expensive to pay them upfront. Those audiobooks have just barely earned out what I paid. 

Sometimes you have to view it as a long game where you can’t expect an instant ROI. For audiobooks, I don’t expect to make a lot of money right away. Audiobook listeners are binge readers who need the next one right away. 

Choosing a narrator is scary, especially if you want them to record a series. They become the voice of your characters. Last year, I hired an amazing narrator for a new series. I created my own royalty share, where I pay for half up front, and then we split the royalties. That way, we both have skin in the game. We’re getting the books out faster, and we’re getting sales faster. 

ACX narrators are getting more expensive. The good ones are less willing to do the royalty share. I started with ACX, and it was a good experience, but I now prefer working with Find A Way Voices. Your book gets out there so much faster. Find A Way Voices allows your book to be on Scribd, Audible, and Chirp.

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation:

  • Go with ACX.com and do a royalty share with the narrator for the first book. 
  • Don’t spend a lot of money on your audiobook until you know you have an audience.
  • Find A Way Voices is great, but ACX is simpler for your first books. 
  • As you get more advanced, you can hire a narrator and pay them upfront. 

Decision #6: Publish a Hardback or Not?

Amazon is rolling out a new program that allows indie authors to self-publish a hardback via their print-on-demand services. If you’re reading this in the future, you may have this option when you sign up, but as of this writing, publishing a print-on-demand hardcover is by invitation only.

I don’t see any downsides to offering a hardback option. Having a $25 hardback makes your other versions look cheaper, and some readers will want that $25 hardback no matter what. It’s like the $100 bottle of wine at the end of the aisle. It’s there to make the $30 bottle look cheaper.

The other option is to have hardback books printed offset in a big expensive bunch. I generally don’t recommend this unless you are doing a crowdfunding campaign to presell those hardback copies. Printing a limited-edition hardback can get readers excited if you’re an established author. Signed and numbered copies of a limited-edition will allow you to demand a higher price.

Chautona: Your biggest fans will want a hardback.

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation:

Publish a hardback if you can do it via print-on-demand. Otherwise, hold off unless you are doing a Kickstarter campaign for your book. 

Decision #7: Do Your Own Typesetting or Hire it Out?

You can’t just publish a Microsoft Word document. You have to convert your Word document into a typeset PDF for printing on paper and a typeset ePUB file for ebooks. 

Option #1: Do it yourself with Vellum.

If you plan to write a lot of books, I recommend using the Mac software Vellum. With a few clicks, it turns a well-formatted Word document into a PDF and ePUB. If your Word document is not well-formatted, Vellum makes that easy to fix. 

Vellum costs $249 one time.

Sometimes writers even switch from PC to Mac just to use Vellum. That’s a great move because Mac computers are now faster and cheaper than PCs because they no longer use the slow, expensive Intel chips that PCs use. 

Another option is to rent a virtual Mac for $1.00 per hour at MacinCloud. 

Chautona: You open your book file in MacinCloud, and you can format a book in less than an hour in Vellum. For $1.00 per hour, it’s like having two laptops, one Mac and one PC. It’s like someone has a screen share on their computer, and you take over. 

I still recommend that you learn to format your book in Word. Get the Smashwords guide on using Microsoft Word. Make sure you know how to use Word because once you learn headings and styles, Microsoft word becomes wonderful.

Dave Chesson is building a new program called Atticus, which promises to do what Scrivener and Vellum do for the Mac. It should be available soon.

Option #2 Hire someone else.

Many of your fellow authors already use Vellum and may be willing to typeset your book for you. If you plan to publish only one book, it will be cheaper and easier for you to hire someone else to typeset your book, and you will have one less thing to worry about. Typesetting used to cost $500 if you paid someone to do it with InDesign. If you’ve formatted your Word doc well, you may get a freelancer to do it on Vellum for $50-$100.

Warning: Make sure you get the Vellum file from the freelancer in addition to the PDF and EPUB file.

I heard of an author who had a bad typo in his book. It turned a word into a bad word that changed the meaning of the sentence into a dirty joke. This would not have been a huge issue in some books, but this was a Christian book. It was hard for the author to fix the problem himself because he didn’t do the typesetting. To fix the typo, he had to get the book re-typeset by the freelancer he hired. 

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation:

Buy Vellum. If need be, buy a Mac. You can get a Mac Mini for $699, which is faster than PCs twice its price. A modern Mac Mini should last you 10 years, which brings the cost down to just $70 a year or $0.20 a day. 

Mac in Cloud is willing to sell you an hour of Mac usage for $1.00 because it costs them as little as $0.008 to loan you that Mac during that hour. That’s a hefty profit margin for Mac.

Decision #8: Should You Offer a Pre-order?

Many factors affect whether a pre-order period will be a good strategy for your book. We explore the pros and cons of the pre-order strategy in Episode 149, How to Setup Pre-Orders for Your Indie Book.

The more pre-orders you get, the more Amazon’s algorithm will like your book, and the more books they will keep “in stock.” Since it’s print-on-demand, they’re not actually “in stock,” but a high number of pre-orders will affect how quickly Amazon fulfills those orders. 

Amazon doesn’t count your pre-order book sales toward its bestseller list on the day your book comes out. It counts pre-orders sales on the day the sale is made. 

If 365 people buy your book each day throughout the year, your book will show as having one sale per day. 

If you can get all those people to buy your book on release day, you’ll be higher on the bestseller list, and it will show as having sold 365 copies in one day. Some people go with the algorithm strategy. Others want that bestseller strategy.

Chautona: I use both strategies. For most books, I don’t do a pre-order because I do want the launch-day buzz.

When people have to wait longer for a book, I will do a pre-order because it stirs excitement, and readers spread the word. I run the pre-order for six weeks.

When I run a pre-order, I drop the price at least one dollar through launch day. When people follow you on Amazon, they’ll get a notification when it releases, and they immediately buy the book. 

Sometimes I put a book on pre-order just to make sure I hit my own deadline. If you don’t meet the pre-order deadline, you go to Amazon jail for a year. 

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation:

For your first book, start your pre-order four weeks before your book’s launch date to make sure you have plenty of time to get your Amazon page exactly right. Don’t put your book up for pre-order until your book is completely ready. Don’t risk going to Amazon jail for a pre-order.

If this is your second book, listen to our pre-order episode to better understand the strategy and the algorithm. 

Decision #9: What kind of company will I form? 

I am not a lawyer or a CPA, and neither is Chautona. The following advice is general education, not legal or tax advice. Talk to an actual lawyer or CPA for specific legal guidance on your situation. 

I did study business law in college, and I have formed a few companies myself.

Every indie author starts a business. Some do it on purpose, and some do it without realizing it. You don’t become an employee of Amazon when they pay you royalties. Amazon pays you like you are a publishing company and not an employee. You don’t get a W2, benefits, or paid time off from Amazon because you are not an employee. You are a business.

Option 1: Sole Proprietorship

You have several options for forming a company. If you do nothing and just enter your Social Security Number, you effectively form a sole proprietor. A sole proprietorship is easy and cheap, at least upfront. In the US, if you say you’re a business, you are. 

But sole proprietorships have no liability protection. If you get into a car accident, someone could sue you and take ownership of your book. 

Or if you write about another person in a negative light, someone could sue you for libel and try to take away your car. 

If you’re writing fiction, you don’t have a high risk for liability, but that doesn’t mean there is no liability at all. The liability risk can be higher for nonfiction. 

Option 2: Limited Liability Company (LLC)

Many authors form a Limited Liability Company (LLC) for liability protection. An LLC can make you look more professional since your LLC can have a company name, and some authors like to have their books indie-published under their company name. Your LLC owns your books and keeps them separate from the rest of your activities. 

An LLC can also help with managing your intellectual property after you die. Once you die, the copyright lasts for 75 more years. This means you may have descendants who are not born yet who may be managing your copyright. If you are not careful, your book could be lost to history before it gets a chance to enter the public domain. 

Forming an LLC offers potential tax advantages for authors. You get to choose which chapter of the tax code you want to apply to your business. To learn more about LLCs, how they are taxed, and how it affects authors, check out our course, The Tax and Business Guide for Authors, taught by my dad, Tom Umstattd, CPA, who has worked with authors for nearly 40 years.

Forming an LLC is more complicated than a sole proprietorship. It will take some money and a bit of work to set it up.

Option 3: General Partnership

My business law professor told us horror stories about general partnerships. They have the liability downsides of a sole proprietorship and include “joint and several” liability with your partner. That means, if you coauthor a book with someone else and don’t legally define your relationship, you could be considered a general partnership without having done any paperwork. In that case, if your partner/coauthor had a car accident, you could potentially lose your house as a result of their accident, even if you were not in the car. 

My business law professor made us swear never to form a general partnership on purpose and to be careful not to get into one by mistake. I want to pass that advice along to you. If you are working with someone else on your book, form an LLC and define the relationship with a contract. Everyone loses when general partnerships go to court. 

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation:

If you’re planning to write more than one book, I recommend forming an LLC before publishing your first book. You can do it fairly easily through LegalZoom.com, which charges as little as $79 to help you set up your LLC.

Chautona: I agree. If I could change three things about my author career, I would start an LLC first, have a separate Amazon account for my author business, and seek out professionals who know the indie author business, which is easier to do now than it was in 2009. 

Decision #10: Should You Register Your Copyright?

By law, if you create it, you own the copyright. You are not required to file that copyright in order to own it. If you jot down a poem on a napkin, you own the copyright for that poem.

In terms of US law, registering a copyright doesn’t seem that important. 

However, you can register your copyright with the United States copyright office for $40-$100, depending on what kind of copyright you buy. In exchange, you get a government document that states you own the copyright. That’s it—a piece of government paper. 

For a long time, I did not recommend that authors register their copyright. I didn’t feel it gave them any protection they didn’t already have. I thought it was a waste of time and money because if you are in court, you have already lost financially, even if you win. 

However, I have changed my mind about registering the copyright. 

US law is not the only law you have to worry about as an indie author. There is a higher law that applies even if you are outside of the United States. 

Amazon law. 

Big tech companies are now so powerful that governments pay them taxes rather than the other way around. When Amazon wants to set up a new headquarters somewhere, it demands that the local government pay taxes or “incentives” to Amazon. Amazon wanted New York to give it over a billion dollars in “incentives” to build a headquarters in the state. 

These companies can cancel a sitting US president, and nothing can stop them.

Indie authors end up in Amazon court all the time, but there is no courtroom where you can face your accuser. There’s just a murky haze of customer success representatives from around the world who may or may not have the authority to resolve your issue. 

If someone else claims that they are the author of your book and claims to own the copyright, and they register that complaint with Amazon, Amazon may pull your book from their store, thinking you are the plagiarizer! If that happens, the faux author will receive money from the sales of your book. 

What is the best way to prove you own your book? Register your copyright, take a picture of that piece of paper, and send it to Amazon. Amazon puts a lot of stock into registered copyrights.

Many authors don’t register the copyright because they want to save money and avoid the hassle.

Chautona: I 100% agree. I have that piece of paper for my traditional books. But if you get into a multi-author book set and it disbands, it will be difficult to show Amazon you own the copyright because it was originally under someone else’s name.

Thomas Umstattd’s Recommendation:

Spend the money and register the copyright. 

 Sponsor

2021 Book Launch Blueprint 

Chautona: I spent $1,100 on a different book launch program. It was money well spent, but I was still floundering. When Thomas came out with the Book Launch Blueprint, I told my husband I was going to spend more money because I knew Thomas and Jim would do a good job. Interestingly, it was mostly the same information, but the way Thomas and Jim laid it out was so doable. 

The people launching books in the group are doing amazing work. Thomas, Jim, and Mary really nailed how to make it accessible. It doesn’t feel daunting like that other program. The Book Launch Blueprint is fun. 

Thomas: If you’re interested in joining us, registration for the 2021 Book Launch Blueprint ends on April 9, 2021. 

Novel Marketing patrons save $100 off the price of the course. There’s a link on Patreon to activate that discount. 

Featured Patron

Amanda Wen author of Roots of Wood and Stone  (Affiliate Link)

Garrett Anderson just wanted to clean out his grandmother’s historic farmhouse before selling it, but his carefully ordered plan runs up against two formidable obstacles: Sloane, who’s fallen in love with the house, and his own heart, which is irresistibly drawn to Sloane.                                                                                                    

You can become a Novel Marketing Patron here.

The post 10 Decisions You Need To Make After You Decide To Indie Publish Your Book appeared first on Author Media.

10 Reasons to Delay Your Book Launch  

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Clicking “save” on the final version of your book is a phenomenal feeling.

You’ve worked on your book for years, and you’re ready to share it with the world. But be careful. You are at great risk of making one of the classic blunders. 

According to The Princess Bride, the first classic blunder is getting into a land war in Asia, but the second, and only slightly less well-known, is launching your book as soon as it is finished. 

Prematurely launching a book is like having a baby prematurely. 

If a friend sent you this blog post, it means they love you and want your book to succeed. Your friend wants your book to have a happy, healthy birth. 

One of the best ways to give your book a great start is to delay your launch.

If you’re traditionally published, your delay is built in. You have no choice but to wait. Use your season of waiting to prepare for your book’s launch. 

If you’re publishing independently, you get to choose when you launch. 

In this article, you’ll learn the ten most important reasons to delay your launch. Your delayed launch will give you time to do the following:

1. Time to Build Anticipation 

Do you remember waiting for Christmas as a kid? The weeks leading up to Christmas were some of the happiest weeks of the year. 

Why? 

Your happiness didn’t come from the presents because you hadn’t received them yet. Your happiness was due to the anticipation of the presents. 

Anticipation is an amplifier. It makes good things better and bad things worse. 

The anticipation of Christmas day is often better than opening presents.

The anticipation of a difficult conversation is often worse than the conversation itself. 

Building anticipation among your readers requires time. If you upload your book to Amazon as soon as it’s finished, you have no time to feed a reader’s longing, anticipation, and excitement for your book’s arrival.

Taking the time to grow anticipation will greatly increase your chances of hitting the #1 New Release status in your Amazon category on launch day. That is worth waiting for!

2. Time to Finished Editing

The quality of the finished manuscript determines the success of your book. But bestsellers are not made on the blank page during the first draft. Bestsellers are uncovered during editing. 

The back and forth with your editor requires time and focus, especially if you’re editing your first book. Some professional authors can edit and market their books on the same day, but that discipline only emerges after an author has published at least half a dozen books. 

Many authors throw themselves fully into the editing process, as they should, but they ignore the marketing entirely. That strategy works if you don’t launch your book right away, but too often, the author’s excitement supersedes reason, and she publishes too soon. That author will spend the next few years trying to get people to buy her book. 

Sadly, once a book is a few months old, it’s old. Tens of thousands of new books have been released since then, and the magic of being a New Release on Amazon has worn off. Some authors, like Brandon Sanderson, make more sales during the preorder window than during the remaining lifetime of the book. 

It is difficult to breathe new life into an old book with additional marketing. It is possible, but it’s hard and expensive. A strong launch requires patience and preparation. If you wait and prepare, the rest of your marketing will be easier.

3. Time to Print and Send ARCs

One way to build anticipation is to selectively release finished copies of your book to influential people who get to read it before it launches. 

These early copies of your book are called Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs). You’ll need time and money to print and ship ARCs to influencers. You must also allow time for the influencers to read the book. 

Sending digital ARCs is faster, cheaper, and less effective. While book reviewers are happy with a digital ARC, most influencers expect a physical copy. A booktoker or bookstagramer can’t make a good video or photo with a digital ARC. They need a beautiful physical copy to display in their video on TikTok or a photo on Instagram. 

As soon as you finish editing your book, get started ordering and sending ARCs because this stage of your launch progresses slowly. You’ll have to wait for your printer to print and ship copies. You’ll spend time individually packaging and shipping those copies to your influencers. Then you’ll have to wait for the influencer to read the book and create their post or review. Start this process as soon after editing as possible.

Where do you get the money the print and purchase the ARCs? Well, you’ll have to save for it.

4. Time to Save Money

The word “save” has been distorted by department stores. When you buy a $100 pair of pants for 60% off, you don’t save $60. You spend $40. You walk out of the store with $40 fewer dollars than you walked in with. 

Saving money actually means not spending the money you currently have so that you can spend it in the future. Before credit cards, most people saved up for big purchases. 

If you delay your launch by nine months and save $500 per month, you’ll have a marketing budget of $4,500. That is a bigger budget than most traditionally published books are allotted. A $4,500 budget could give you an edge on authors who rushed to launch. 

5. Time to Polish Your Website

Another reason to delay your launch is to make time to polish your website. If you already have a website, you probably have a long list of tweaks you’d make if you only had the time. 

If you delay your launch, you will have the time! 

Improving your website while waiting to launch allows you to include all the info about your upcoming book on your website. 

If you need help with your author website, take my free course. It will help you turn your website into a place readers want to visit and share.

6. Time to Grow Your Email List

The size of your email list predicts the success of your launch. If people won’t trust you with their email address, why would they trust you with their money? 

We talk a lot about email marketing on this show. Growing an email list and building trust with your subscribers takes time. You can’t rush it. 

Creating a reader magnet, building a landing page, and embedding a form on your website to collect email addresses all require time—as in weeks, not hours. Imagine how much easier it would be to complete those tasks if you set aside time for them after you’re done working through edits from your editor. 

You’ll have more mental bandwidth to devote to marketing tasks when you’re not under the gun with editing.

7. Time to Set Up Media Interviews

Podcast interviews are currently one of the best ways to promote books, but podcasts have long lead times. 

If you want to be interviewed on the Christian Publishing Show, you’ll have to wait several months for the interview date and then several more months for the episode to air. 

Some podcasters have dozens of episodes recorded and in the queue. Even if they dropped dead today, pre-recorded episodes would keep posting for months. 

Not all podcasters work that far in advance. If you were a guest on the Novel Marketing Show, your episode could air in a couple of weeks. But sometimes, it takes us a month or more to schedule an interview time that works for the host and the guest.

Your launch delay gives you time to schedule media interviews. Podcasters and broadcasters can easily turn down a guest who wants to get booked right away, but it’s harder to say no to a guest who can wait six months for their interview. 

8. Time to Recruit and Train Your Launch Team

Your launch team, or street team, is an integral part of your launch. A launch team is comprised of your most dedicated fans who want to read your book as soon as it comes out and then spread the word about it.

It takes time to develop fans, set up a launch team application, vet applicants, organize the group in an online forum, and train them for the tasks that will make their fandom most beneficial to your book’s release. 

9. Time to Plan an Amazing Launch Party

You can throw a digital launch party or an in-real-life launch party. 

If you host an in-person celebration, invite people early and remind them often about the party. 

The easiest launch party is an all-day open house at your home on a Saturday. You won’t have to reserve or pay for a venue. You’ll just have to tidy up and maybe offer refreshments. 

Invite everyone you would invite to a wedding. Then spend some of your saved money to hire house cleaning or catering help. 

10. Time to Get Training

If setting up a launch feels overwhelming, it may be because you feel rushed. It may also be that you lack the training. The best way to decrease book-launch-overwhelm is to learn how to launch and find out what mistakes to avoid. 

In my course, Book Launch Blueprint, you’ll learn how to make all these preparations. We’ll provide templates, examples, and coaching for you as you plan each step. We make launching your book as easy as it can be. 

Sponsor

Book Launch Blueprint

If you Google “How to Launch a Book,” you’ll get over 500 million results. That’s a problem.

Why?

Because how do you know which sites will give sage advice and which ones are wannabes?

You can’t afford to spend your time (or money) on programs built on wishful thinking. You need proven strategies that will launch your book into the stratosphere successfully.

That’s precisely why we created the Book Launch Blueprint.

The Book Launch Blueprint is a 28-day, interactive course developed by Novel Marketing host Thomas Umstattd Jr. (that’s me!) and Christy Hall of Fame author James L. Rubart.

You will learn exactly what you must do to make your book launch a resounding triumph.

Learn more at BookLaunch.fun

Featured Patrons

New March Patrons:

  • Patricia Cameron
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You can become a Novel Marketing Patron here.

If you can’t afford to become a patron but still want to help the show, you can! Just leave a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, or Audible. 

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What a MM group is. Wikipedia: “A mastermind group is a peer-to-peer mentoring concept used to help members solve their problems with input and advice from the other group members. The concept was coined in 1925 by author Napoleon Hill in his book The Law of Success. Hill says the idea is, “The coordination of […]

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The post 117 – How to Plan a Successful New Year with Tracy Higley appeared first on Author Media.

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The post 117 – How to Plan a Successful New Year with Tracy Higley appeared first on Author Media.