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How to Sell Books in Your Local Community

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Often times when writers dream of becoming bestselling authors, we picture worldwide success, with our novels translated into dozens of different languages and adapted into major motion pictures. One of the most important things to keep in mind, though, is that learning how to sell books is a process that starts small and, usually, starts locally.

Your Book Marketing Depends on You

Learning how to sell books is an extremely important skill as an author.

If you are a traditionally published author, you may have a team of people who will help you with marketing, but even then, it is mostly up to you to sell your work. If you are a self-published author, it is completely left to you.

Selling locally is a great way to start because it gives you an in-person advantage. You can be far more personal with people than you can ever be online, which gives a greater sense of who you are and what your books are like.

4 Ways to Sell Books in Your Community

Not sure how to sell books to the people in your local community? Here are four things you can do to get started.

1. Set up an event at your local bookstore

As scary as it can be, you have to take the first step when it comes to promoting yourself. If you wait around for someone else to invite you to an event or ask you to do a signing, you may be waiting around forever.

Take the initiative to send an e-mail or walk into your local bookstore and ask if they would consider hosting a book signing or a presentation/Q&A.

Whatever event you have in mind, make sure you have a clear idea of what it will be so you can properly pitch it. Remember to always be polite and offer the suggestion in a way that will show the bookstore how it will benefit them, as well.

Especially if it is an indie bookstore, talk about how you can promote the location and urge your readers to purchase books through them. The event should be mutually beneficial.

2. Create promotional material

There are a variety of websites you can use to create catchy posters and business cards for a relatively inexpensive price. If you are not comfortable with doing the graphic design yourself, consider asking an artistic friend for some help (make sure you pay them for their time, return the favor however you can, or at least take them out for a cup of coffee afterwards).

Once you have said posters, go to your local library and coffee shop and ask if it would be all right to hang them on their community boards. Wherever you can, put one up.

It might be a good idea to include a QR code on the post that goes to your blog or someplace where readers can easily purchase your book.

Business cards are a must, as well. Make sure they have your name, headshot, and links to your website and social media pages. Whenever you meet someone new in your community, give them a business card. It’s a great and easy way to keep in touch with new friends and let them know about your books.

3. Go to events in your community

One of the best ways to get your community connected with your book is for you to connect with your community.

Whenever there is a local, bookish event, try to attend it (and take your business cards with you!). Authors love to chat with other writers and going to a signing or release party is a great way to start networking.

Others who are attending the event are likely to be big readers, too. Talk to them! Ask them what kinds of books they like, if they’re long-time or recent fans of the author hosting the event, and so on. Once you get into a conversation, you can mention your own book and maybe even swap contact information.

Events at bookstores are not the only ones you should attend, either. Go to classes at your local library or an open mic at a coffee shop. You never know who you’ll end up talking to or who might be interested in buying your book.

4. Write an elevator pitch

These are a must for any book. Any person advising you on how to sell books will eventually tell you to write an elevator pitch.

Simply put, an elevator pitch is, as the name suggests, a pitch for your book that you can relay in the time it would take to ride an elevator with someone. It should be short and snappy, no more than a few lines.

Not sure how to get started writing your elevator pitch? Condensing your book into a one- or two-line premise is a great place to start.

After you’ve written your pitch, rehearse it until you can repeat it in your sleep. This way, when you chat with a fellow reader/writer at an author signing and they ask the inevitable question, “What’s your book about?” you won’t have to stammer and desperately search for the right words.

Writing a glowing description of your book can take days and endless revisions. You don’t have to think of it on the spot.

With an in-person pitch, though, you have to think on your feet. If you’re like me and you don’t like coming up with something on the fly, it would be a good idea to write and revise an elevator pitch you can easily memorize and repeat with a smile.

For an example of what this should look like, here is a pitch I wrote recently for one of my novels:

Lila, an immortal witch, falls for Melody, a mortal witch hunter. The two end up on the run when the demon Angelique decides Lila would be the perfect addition to her team in the upcoming apocalyptic war against humanity.

The pitch should introduce your main character(s) and the antagonist/conflict.

How to Sell Books in Person

Selling books locally is a lot different from networking online, but it comes with several advantages. People are more likely to buy your product if they feel like they have connected with you on a personal level. Plus, getting to know your readers (or potential readers) is such an important part of being an author.

And remember, it isn’t a big deal if you don’t make a sale right away. Sometimes you make a friend first, and maybe later that friend will become a customer, and a long-time fan.

How do you promote your work in your community? Do you have any other tips for how to sell books in your local community, or strategies that have worked for you? Let us know in the comments.

By The Magic Violinist
Source: thewritepractice.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

How Long Should A Book Be? Word Count Guidelines by Genre.

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A constant complaint I hear from agents, editors, writing teachers, and reviewers is that they see too many manuscripts with inappropriate word counts.

If you’re getting a lot of form rejections or simply silence from agents, reviewers and editors, this may be why.

Word count guidelines have been trending down in the last decade. Most editors won’t look at a debut manuscript longer than 100K words—a little longer if it’s fantasy or a non-romance historical. They were not so rigid ten years ago.

Now publishers—and many readers—won’t take a chance on any long book by an unproven author.

While readers will happily plunk down the big bux for an 819-page book by George R. R. Martin, they’ll turn up their noses at a book that long—even if it only costs 99c—if it’s written by Who R. R. You.

I know the “accepted wisdom” in the indie world is that if you self-publish, you can write whatever the heck you want and people will buy it. But that’s no longer the case. The wrong word count for your genre red-flags you as an amateur, and most readers don’t have time for amateurs.

Not when there’s so much professional-level stuff being self-published.

A decade after the beginning of the “Kindle Revolution,” too many readers have been burned by self-published bloated rough drafts. A reader is not likely to pick up a book that screams “I’ve been writing this in my spare time for the last 8 years and I refuse to rewrite and would never let an editor tamper with my genius.”

So don’t be that guy.

Word Count Guidelines By Genre

Word counts are generally agreed to be the count provided by MS Word’s “Word Count” tool. Some extremely old-school agents prefer that you use the formula of 250 words per page (double spaced, 12 pt. font) and calculate it yourself, which seems a silly waste of time, but always check agent websites for guidelines.

For debut authors, following these rules will seriously improve your chances of traditional publication and/or establishing a readership, no matter how you publish.

In other words, get famous first and break the rules later.

If you are a household name, you can publish a compendium of your shopping lists from the past two decades and your publisher will happily promote it and people will buy it.

Unfortunately, that’s not true for the rest of us.

Here is a summary of current word count guidelines. This is a composite taken from a number of publishing industry websites, so nothing is set in stone. Take these as target word counts.  Some publishers will accept longer or shorter books, so always check the website of an agent or publisher before you submit.

Note I say these are for “debut” fiction. Once you have a loyal fan base, you can break the rules with abandon.

Word Count Guidelines for Debut Fiction

Picture Books—text: 500-1000 words (32 pages is ideal.)

Middle Grade fiction—20K to 40K. (Yes, we all know about Harry Potter. And when you’re as famous as J.K. Rowling you can write MG tomes, too.) “Upper Middle Grade” can be a bit longer.

Young Adult fiction—25K to 80K.

Chick Lit—60K-75K.

Cozy Mysteries—55K-70K. (BTW, Agatha Christie’s mysteries sometimes came in at 40K words. I think we may be going back in that direction.)

Fantasy—90K-110K. Definitely down from the epic tomes of yore. Self-publishers can get away with more. Fantasy readers like big books and they cannot lie. 🙂

Historical fiction—80K to 110K+. (You can still wax verbitudinous in this genre.)

Literary fiction—65K to 100K, trending away from the higher numbers. “Spare and elegant” is the mark of literary chic these days.

Standard Mysteries and Crime Fiction—70K to 100K.

Romance—55K-75K. For subgenres of romance, check publishers’ guidelines. Word counts for specific romance lines can be very strict. Some historicals can be longer, although Regencies tend to be short.

Science Fiction—75K—100K. When there’s world-building involved a book generally needs to be longer.

Thrillers—80K to 100K.

Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance—70K to 90K.

Westerns—50K-80K.

Women’s Fiction—70K-100K. The women’s fiction family saga has gone out of fashion recently, but they’re generally on the longer end.

Around 80K seems to be the magic number for most adult fiction. So if your ms. goes way over that, it may be time to put on your editor hat and get ruthless.

Word Count Guidelines for Nonfiction

Nonfiction books have shrunk drastically in the last decade. A study done last spring showed that the average length of a nonfiction bestseller has dropped 42% in the last seven years.

In 2011, the average length of a best-selling non-fiction book was 467 pages, but that dropped to 273 pages in 2017.

Nonfiction books get queried in the form of book proposals, so you don’t submit a complete manuscript (except for memoir, which you query like a novel.) That’s probably why word count guidelines for nonfiction are so hard to find. I’ve also found wildly different word count suggestions between agencies.

So treat these as word count “guestimates.”

Biography—80K-110K. These can be pretty long. Especially if your credentials are good.

Commentary—40K-60K. Not much info out there about word count guidelines for political and other opinion books. If you have appeared on cable TV news, you can probably get away with more verbiage.

Humor—20K-40K. For humorous memoir, follow memoir guidelines, and for funny novels, follow fiction guidelines, but for books like John Hodgman’s The Areas of my Expertise, Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys or the classic 1066 and All That, (only 128 pages and still in print after 80 years) keep it to 40K words or less.

Memoir and Narrative Nonfiction—40K-70K. You’ll probably want to prune a memoir if it goes over 70K. Books in this genre tend to get bloated without heavy editing. Remember you can write many memoirs about different aspects of your life.

Self-Help & How-To—20K-50K. In the age of ebooks, these are getting shorter all the time. My publisher had me cut my book The Author Blog down from 40K.  (And these days some ebook how-to’s are only 3500 words long.)

Travel and Nature—40K-70K A lot of these books blur boundaries with memoir.

What if Your Ms. Doesn’t Fit Word Count Guidelines? 

With both fiction and nonfiction, it’s best to err on the side of brevity these days. To quote Chuck Sambuchino, editor of the Guide to Literary Agents:

“Agents have so many queries that they are looking for reasons to say no. They are looking for mistakes, chinks in the armor, to cut their query stack down by one. And if you adopt the mentality that your book has to be long, then you are giving them ammunition to reject you.”

If your word count goes over the limit:

  • Consider splitting it into two books.
  • Or a trilogy. You’ll triple your income. 🙂
  • Are the extra words in there for world-building? Consider cutting some details and putting them on your blog.
  • Do some ruthless editing. Are you repeating yourself? Can you say something with one word instead of ten?
  • Can you condense some of those conversations with indirect dialogue?

If your word count is under the limit:

  • For literary fiction: Flesh out characters.
  • Thrillers: Weave in another subplot.
  • Crime fiction: Kill off a few more victims.
  • Or…maybe you’ve got a novella.

Novellas are hot.

Yes, old-school Big Five publishers (and Bookbub) still aren’t much interested in novellas, and some agents will reject on low word count alone.

But readers love them! Jane Austen fan fiction authors have been practically minting money with 140-page or less “Pride and Prejudice variation” Regency novellas in the last few years.

And forward-looking agencies like Fuse Literary offer “assisted self-publishing” for their authors to write novellas in between big novel releases. Their Short Fuse Publishing produces digital-first novellas in a number of genres.

For more on the popularity of the novella, check out Paul Alan Fahey’s post for us on the subject. Next June we’ll have a post from actress and bestselling author Mara Purl on the difference between writing a novel and a novella.

What about you, scriveners? Do you have a problem keeping to word count guidelines? Do you tend to write over or under the standard word count? Have you ever turned a long book into two or three?

By Anne R. Allen @annerallen
Source: annerallen.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

How to Write a Book in 100 Days

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Let’s start with the obvious: You don’t know how to write a book. I’ve written seven books, and I don’t really know how to write a book either. I have a process that works, sure, but with writing, as with many things in life, it’s always when you think you know what you’re doing that you get into trouble.

So let’s just admit right now, you don’t know how to write a book, and definitely not in 100 days, and that’s okay. There, don’t you feel better?

How to Write a Book in 100 Days 2

There’s this one moment I think about all the time. I had just finished work—I had this horrible desk job at the time—and as I was getting ready to go home, I felt this urge come over me to become a writer. I had felt like I wanted to become a writer before, for years actually, but in that moment, it was all-consuming. Have you ever felt like that before?

And so, instead of going home, I got out a blank piece of paper, and I stared at it. I stared at that blank piece of paper for a really long time. Because I was looking for a book. If only I could come up with the perfect idea, if only I could write a book, then I’d finally feel like a writer.

But I couldn’t think of anything, or at least nothing worthy, and after staring at that blank piece of paper for an hour with nothing, I gave up. In that moment, I felt like I was further from my goal to become a writer than I ever had be. I was so discouraged.

I was discouraged because I didn’t know how to write a book.

Honestly, I might still be there today if I hadn’t had a few lucky breaks and several mentors to teach me the process of how to write a book.

13 Writers Who Finished Their Books in 100 Days

You might say you’re not able write a book in 100 days. You might worry that you’re not able to write a book at all. But I don’t believe that. I honestly believe that everyone can write a book, and I’m not just saying that. I believe it because I’ve done it.

In fact I wrote my first book in fewer than 100 days. I wrote my latest book in just sixty-three days.

I’m not alone, either. I’ve worked with hundreds of other writers to write their books, too. Here are just a few:

Fall 2017 Cohort

These writers are just a few who finished their books in our Fall semester of the 100 Day Book program.

Stella Moreux had been “marinating” on an idea for her “southern fried” fantasy novel for more than three years, but it wasn’t until she signed up for the 100 Day Book program that she seriously started writing it. “I won’t mince words when I say this was hard,” Stella says in her post about the writing process. “However, I would not trade this experience for anything. I survived and finished! The 100 Day Book Program is a challenge but worth it!”

Jodi Elderton had written short stories, but never a novel, and with almost two jobs and young kids, she worried she never would. But she says, “This program made it doable, if you stick with it.” By the end, she finished her novel and said to her writing community, “We made it!” Read Jodi’s full story here.

Rita Harris had an incredibly hard year. After committing to writing her novel, she says she had a marriage breakdown, sold her house and moved, and then had a health scare. Any one of those things could have derailed her writing process, but she kept going, motivated by the writing team she had surrounded herself with and the accountability she agreed to. Despite everything, she finished her book, “something which I doubt I would have had even without the life challenges I faced during the course of my writing if I had not enrolled in the program.” Read her story of determination here.

Karin Weiss‘s novel, A Roaring Deep Within, had been languishing half-finished for years. When she began the process, she thought it would be easy, mostly rewriting, but the process proved much more difficult than expected. What saved her was the writing community in the 100 Day Book program. “I found there a ‘writer’s community,’” she says, “that was available night and day that gave me support and motivation to keep going when my energy dragged, or when I felt discouraged at a tough point in my writing.” Read more about how Karin finally finished her novel-in-progress here.

Spring 2017 Cohort

These writers are just a few who finished their books in our Spring semester of the 100 Day Book program.

Sef Churchill decided to write her book in 100 days “on an impulse one Thursday night.” She followed our process, and by Sunday had committed to an idea. How did it go? “Now I have a book,” she says, “a book which before that first Sunday, I had not even dreamed of.” Check out the 10 lessons she learned about the book writing process.

Ella J. Smyth wrote two of her Romance novels (two novels!) in a little over a 100 days. She talks about her experience, and the power of accountability, here.

Nathan Salley set aside one day a week to write his book, and in that restricted amount of time he was able to finish his book in less than 100 days. You can read about Nathan’s experience (and his next steps into publishing) here.

When Margherita Crystal Lotus told me her sci-fi/fantasy mashup novel was going to be over 100,000 words, and that she was going to do it in 100 days, I had a few doubts she would be able to finish it in time. But she did finish in time, a few days early in fact. And now she’s about to publish the finished book. You can read more about her novel The Color Game here.

Kira Swanson rewrote her novel, which she finished in NaNoWriMo, expanding it from a 70,000-word first draft into a 100,000-word second draft. She recently pitched it to agents and had five of them ask to see the finished manuscript. You can read more about her novel revision experience here.

100 Day Book Challenge Performance

Sandra Whitten was feeling lost and unprepared in the midst of her first book. But after she signed up for our course, she began writing every day for the first time and finally finished her book. You can read more about Sandra’s experience here.

Fran Benfield said that before she signed up for our program, she was “drowning in a sea of words” (I can relate to that feeling!). But she did finish, and found her voice through the process. You can read about how she wrote her memoir here.

Uma Eachempati had been wanting to write about her father’s experience as a prisoner of war during World War II for years. She finally finished it in August, writing it in less than 100 days!

Doug Smith told me he had been thinking about his idea for a novel, Phoenix Searching, “for more years than I care to admit to.” By following our process, he finally finished his novel in May! “What I thought was a long shot,” he says, “turned out to be totally doable.”

These writers have finished their books in less than 100 days, and the reality is you can too. You just need to have the right process.

How to Write a Book in 100 Days: 5 Steps

What did these writers do differently? How do you actually write a book in 100 days? There are five steps:

1. Commit to an idea.

Having an idea is easy. Committing to an idea isn’t, especially if you’re like most writers I know and have dozens of them!

The first step to writing a book is to commit to executing—no matter how you feel about your writing during the process, no matter how many new ideas you come up with in the meantime, no matter what other important things come up. You have to commit to finishing no matter what.

2.  Create a plan.

I’ve found that the people who have planned are much more likely to finish their books. A plan doesn’t have to look like a detailed outline, though, so if you’re not into plotting, that’s okay.

Here are a few things your plan should include:

  • Word count. How long will your book be? (Here’s a word count cheat sheet.) Divide that by how many days you have to write: e.g. there are about 71 weekdays in 100 days.
  • Intention. Where will you write each day? How long will you write each day? Visualize yourself writing there for that long.
  • Publishing and Marketing process. Not because you need to know that now, but because by thinking about it and visualizing it, you improve your chances of actually getting there.

If you think through each step of your book, from your initial idea through the writing process to the publication and marketing of your book, you’ll be much more prepared when the writing goes wrong (because it will).

3. Get a team.

Most people think they can write a book on their own. Most people think they don’t need support or encouragement or accountability to write a book. And that’s why most people fail to finish their books.

That was me. I used to think that I could do it own my own. Honestly, I thought I had no choice but to do it on my own. And I failed again and again and again.

Don’t be most people. The great writers throughout history wrote in the midst of a community of other writers. You need a community, too.

A team might look like:

  • A writer’s group
  • A writing course or class
  • An editor or mentor

When you get stuck, as you inevitably will, it’s your team who will help you get unstuck. Don’t start writing your book without one.

4. Write badly every day.

Your first draft will not be perfect. Far from it. You may not be able to stand how bad your writing is. Your sentences might come out as deformed monsters. Your story or logic might go off on strange tangents. You may feel like everything you write is stupid, shallow, and boring.

Write anyway.

It always starts out like this. Writing is iterative. Your second draft will be better than your first. And your fifth draft will be better than your second.

Write badly all the way to the end. You can fix it later.

5. Get accountability.

I had been writing my latest book for two years, two unproductive years of feeling bad about myself all the time for not writing. This was my seventh book. I should have known how to write a book by now. I didn’t.

It took two writing friends calling me out (see step 3) for me to finally realize I needed to take drastic measures.

And so I wrote a check for $1,000 to the presidential candidate I disliked the most (this was during the 2016 election), and gave it to a friend with orders to send the check if I missed my deadline. I’ve never been more focused in my life, and I finished my book in sixty-three days.

Pretty good accountability, right? Most writers need deadlines and accountability to stay focused and do the hard work of writing.

You Can Try to Do This on Your Own, But You Probably Won’t

Have you ever tried to write a book and failed? I have. Many many times over. My biggest mistake was trying to do it alone.

Honestly, it wasn’t until I hired a coach and found a writing mentor that I finally finished my first book.

If you want to write a book, I would love to help you. Right now, for a limited time, you can join the 100 Day Book program. Over the course of 100 days, I’ll guide you through the writing process, and by the end of the 100 days, you’ll have a finished book.

So many writers have finished their books in this program (including the writers above), and so can you. If you want to join the program and finish your book in 100 days like the writers above, you can sign up here.

Have you finished writing a book? What was the most important thing that enabled you to finish? Let us know in the comments!

By Joe Bunting
Source: thewritepractice.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

Story is Conflict

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If a story were a bus, conflict would be the driver.

Conflict steers a story, moves it forward, reverses it, stops it in its tracks, and slows or accelerates the pacing.

More importantly, conflict keeps readers glued to the page. Readers want to see how the characters will deal with conflict. Will they find solutions to their problems? Overcome their challenges? Resolve their issues?

Stories contain conflicts large and small, from an impending threat that would wipe out life on planet Earth to minor scuffles in which characters can’t agree on what to have for dinner. When well crafted and worked deftly into the plot, any kind of conflict can be interesting. 

Conflict is Difficult

Conflict makes life difficult for the characters, providing obstacles for them to overcome and challenges they must face head-on. It’s obvious that conflict is at the heart of any plot: the hero must overcome the antagonist or the central story problem. But the core conflict often looms over the many smaller conflicts that are peppered throughout a story, obscuring them.

Let’s look at Star Wars: A New Hope as an example (spoiler warning!). The story is set amidst an epic conflict between a rebellion and an authoritarian regime. The story’s hero, Luke Skywalker, finds himself caught up in this conflict as he sets forth on a journey to become a Jedi knight. Conflict abounds in the story: Luke’s uncle won’t let him go to the pilot academy; the new droid runs away and Luke must find it; the sand people attack Luke; his farm is raided by Stormtroopers who kill his aunt and uncle; Luke gets assaulted by strangers in the cantina; he embarks on a friction-riddled relationship with the smuggler Han Solo. And those are just a few examples of conflict from the first act. Conflicts large and small thwart Luke and his companions along every step of their journey all the way through to the end of their story.

Some conflicts are more challenging than others, but this constant onslaught of conflict makes the characters’ path through the story’s events challenging — and interesting. Some conflicts result in failure; others lead to success. Ultimately, the payoff is worth it: Luke begins learning the ways of the Force, rescues the princess, and joins the rebellion to help them destroy the Death Star. Victory is sweet.

Conflict is Everywhere

The conflicts in Star Wars range from interpersonal (friction between Luke and Han Solo) to physical (the scuffle with patrons in the cantina) to internal (Luke faces an internal struggle in which he must choose between joining the rebellion or remaining on his uncle’s farm) and environmental (Luke and his companions get trapped in trash compactor on the Death Star).

When looking for more conflict to bring into our stories, we need look no further than the plot, characters, and setting that we have established.

  • The plot, or events in the story, provide conflict by creating challenging situations for the characters.
  • Characters are perhaps one of the richest sources of conflict. From love triangles to minor arguments to major blowouts, relationships are fraught with friction.
  • The story world, or setting, often provides ample conflict — from major events, such as natural disasters, to minor inconveniences, like a leaky roof, a story’s setting can present plenty of conflict for the characters.

Conflict is Story

Every conflict heightens readers’ engagement, because in large part, we read to see how the characters will resolve the many conflicts that arise throughout a story — the big ones and the little ones.

That doesn’t mean you should stuff your story with conflict just for the sake of doing so. Each conflict should move the story toward its ultimate conclusion. You might find dozens of opportunities within a story where two characters might disagree with each other, and these conflicts could be interesting. But how do they contribute to the characterization, the plot, and the themes — or do they? Conflict is good for story, but it needs to have purpose or meaning. It needs to support the story.

How do you approach conflict in your stories? Do you focus on the central conflict and let other conflicts arise naturally? Do you find yourself going off on tangents based on minor conflicts? Share your experiences with story conflict by leaving a comment, and keep writing.

By Melissa Donovan

Source: writingforward.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

5 Reasons Goodreads is a Book Marketing Staple

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Goodreads has mixed reviews at best when I chat book marketing strategies with authors at conferences, but I really want 2018 to be about maximizing on YOU, on using what makes you unique to sell more books, and Goodreads is a great platform for achieving that goal.

And while Goodreads has gotten a bad rap for being where books go to get slaughtered by reviews, that’s honestly not fair.

Good books and engaged authors get great reviews on Goodreads. See how that works?

So it’s time to buck up and start using Goodreads to your advantage!

Be an engaged author on Goodreads. I promise you, a good book paired with genuine engagement on…

 

And here are 5 tips to get you motivated:

It’s Not Typical Social Media

Social media is generally one of the biggest book marketing hurdles for authors that I talk to.

They either don’t have time to juggle all the platforms they signed up for, or they’re completely confused about where to start and how to keep it going.

So I suggest they focus on Goodreads.

I never recommend being on social media just to check it off your list.

If you’re not good at it, or you don’t put in the time but send people there via your website or email marketing, you’re risking doing more harm than good.

Goodreads is for readers and authors, so if you’re suffering from an aversion to social media, let Goodreads be where you focus your attention.

High Quality, High Volume Users

Another great benefit is the volume of high quality, targeted users.

Goodreads has 65 million members and counting, and guess what? They all love books!

Honestly, as authors, we couldn’t ask for a better opportunity.

Maybe your ad dollars and content on other social sites may be getting lost in the shuffle. Reach avid readers on Goodreads, guaranteed.

Groups That Get Real Engagement

Targeted reader groups are gold when it comes to book marketing and engagement,.

Talk about a captivated audience!

But here’s a dose of reality. I’ve dabbled in groups on other social sites, both personally and for my authors, and they are tough going.

Starting from scratch is never easy, and sometimes it’s really not necessary.

The reader groups on Goodreads are established, active, and users trust them. Use this to your advantage.

You Can Find the Right Readers

An extension of your group activity should be a focus on your genre as well.

And your goal shouldn’t be to sell your book but to prove you’re also a fan of your own genres (you are right?), this kind of book marketing is more about networking, and it will take you far, I assure you.

If you become “one of the diehards” in your genre groups on Goodreads you can almost guarantee your fellow groupies will support you by checking out your next release.

Participate in a genuine way. You will be genuinely rewarded.

It Can Be a Great Alternative to a Website

If you don’t have a website, or you don’t have one that you can update easily or frequently, Goodreads can be a great alternative.

You have a great section for a bio, you can create and announce events, run giveaways, host author Q&As.

You can even host your blog on Goodreads. And to make “blog” seem less scary, just think if it as regular fan and follower updates on your work, your writing schedule, giveaway promotions and release announcements. See? Fun stuff!

The Takeaway

Goodreads can be daunting, but it’s gotten a bad rap with authors and that really needs to stop.  If you need help with this magnificent tool or any other book marketing tool, contact me!

Besides, if you wanted everything to be easy you wouldn’t have decided to become a published author in the first place – because this book marketing stuff isn’t for the faint of heart – but the more you jump in feet first with these strategies, the easier they become to execute.

If you’re an author already on the Goodreads train, I’d love to hear how you’ve incorporated it into your book marketing in ways you’ve really benefit from!

Source: amarketingexpert.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

Five Things Your Characters Need

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Many writers and readers will agree that the most important element of any story is its characters. There are certainly exceptions: some plot-driven stories are quite compelling and successful. However, readers form their deepest connections to stories through the characters by developing relationships with them and caring about what happens to them.

Naturally, we want our characters to be realistic. We want them to resonate, to come alive in readers’ imaginations. We work to give them distinct voices and personalities, extensive backstories, and vivid descriptions. We do all of this so readers will develop an emotional bond with our characters.

All of these aspects of characters make them seem more like real people. But there are five essential things that often get overlooked, and these are the critical ingredients of the characters’ function within a story.

1. Goals

What is the point of any story if the protagonist isn’t working toward a goal? It can be a simple goal, like getting into the best college or falling in love. It can be a meaningful goal, like making a deep and lasting personal transformation toward becoming a better person. It could be a momentous goal, like saving the planet.

Almost every story involves a goal at the heart of the plot. The main characters on the protagonist’s side are working toward this common goal, but things get interesting when they each have their own personal goals too.

Let’s imagine a story about a team of mercenaries on a mission to take down an enemy combatant. That’s the central plot, the common goal shared by the main characters. But what if the enemy once saved the life of one of these mercenaries back when they were serving together in the military? What if that mercenary feels an obligation to return the favor? Things get infinitely more interesting.

When characters have a combination of common goals and personal goals, there are more opportunities for conflict and challenges, and a story becomes more dynamic.

2. External Conflict

It’s only interesting to watch characters work toward a goal if achieving it is a struggle. The external conflict might be the cause of the goal (aliens are invading, so we must save the planet). But external conflict can also interfere with the goal (the protagonist wants a promotion, and her best friend wants the same promotion). External conflict can also change the goal (a high school graduate was about to study engineering at college, but now he must fight in the front lines of a war, and he wants to survive).

An external conflict is often the driving force of a plot. But characters can experience external conflicts independent of the plot. Consider a mystery story in which the plot’s external conflict is a serial killer on the loose in a big city. Meanwhile, the lead detective on the case is dealing with his own external conflict…his teenaged daughter is being stalked by a creepy kid at school, which is distracting the detective from the serial-killer case.

External conflicts make it difficult for the characters to achieve their goals, including the central goal of a story’s plot and the characters’ individual, personal goals.

3. Internal Struggle

An internal struggle pits personal values, goals, conflicts, or challenges against each other. A scientist developing a cure for a devastating disease stumbles upon a formula for a virus that would cause a pandemic. The company she works for is actively working to produce biological weapons. Her goal is to cure this disease, but her moral compass urges her to keep the formula secret, lest it be used as a biological weapon.

Internal struggles force characters to make difficult choices. They often must choose from bad or worse options, and the right choice almost always involves a meaningful sacrifice. Often the right or best option is unclear: there is no correct choice, only a personal choice. What if the scientist’s best friend is suffering from the disease she’s trying to cure? What if she has learned that as soon as the right biological weapon is available, her company will engage in biological warfare? Now the internal struggle intensifies — the character is forced to choose between her best friend’s health and the possible decimation of large swaths of the population.

Most protagonists engage in internal struggles, but other characters can struggle internally as well. Our story gets even more interesting if one of the scientist’s coworkers discovers that she’s hiding a formula from the company. This coworker is close friends with our scientist but is also loyal to the company. He struggles internally with with whether he should protect her secret or rat her out.

4. Strengths, Skills, and Assets

In order to survive the challenges that a story throws at its characters, they must possess strengths, skills, and assets. These can be personal strengths like fortitude or loyalty, or they can be skills and abilities, like hand-to-hand combat or hacking. Material assets, such as personal wealth, are also useful in many situations.

Characters must draw upon their strengths, skills, and assets to work toward their goals and overcome the external conflicts and internal struggles that they face.

Most authors are good at giving their characters strengths, skills, and assets, but sometimes they aren’t spread around enough. The protagonist will be an almost perfect human specimen while their teammates will contribute little to achieving the central goal. Characters’ strengths, skills, and assets shouldn’t make them superhuman, and each character should make a positive contribution to the cast’s efforts.

5. Flaws and Weaknesses

A character can’t truly be human (or human-like) without flaws and weaknesses. As the saying goes, nobody’s perfect. Characters must reflect this truth. But more importantly, characters’ flaws and weaknesses often provide essential story fodder in the form of setbacks. In a political thriller, a senatorial candidate’s weakness might be a secret from his past, which, if exposed, would destroy his career. In a romance, if the protagonist’s flaw is that she’s indecisive, she might let the love of her life get away because she can’t make up her mind.

Flaws and weaknesses interfere with the characters’ progress toward their goals and provide much-needed setbacks for the plot and subplots. We want to see our favorite characters succeed, but success is sweeter if it comes after a few failures, and failures are often caused by the characters’ own flaws and weaknesses.

Some authors struggle to give their characters flaws and weaknesses (especially the protagonists). It’s understandable. We can be protective of our characters, almost as if they were our children. We want them to be strong and successful. But weaknesses and flaws make characters relatable and give readers something to cheer for — we want to see the characters overcome these setbacks.

Connecting Characters with Story

Ideally, all these things (goals, internal struggles, external struggles, strengths, and weakness) will tie in with the central plot and be woven through the story’s subplots and themes.

Do all characters in every story need these five things? No. The protagonist certainly needs them. One of the other main characters might get a goal and a weakness but no internal struggle. Another might get an internal struggle and a goal but no notable external conflict. Every character is different, but wherever possible, providing characters with these elements will intensify and strengthen a story.

By Melissa Donovan
Source: writingforward.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

Building an Author Website: The First Step to Publishing

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If you’re like most writers I know, you probably dream of getting published. But as I’ve worked with writers for the last six years, I’ve found that most are woefully unprepared for what publishing actually takes, and this means that either they never figure out what it takes to get published or when they finally DO get published, they find themselves disappointed with the process and with how many books they sell.

How do you prepare for getting published though? There are several steps, but the first step is building an author website. In this article, I’m going to share a step-by-step guide to building a simple author website yourself that will support all of your publishing efforts.

building

Why Building a Website is the First Step You Should Take BEFORE You Get Published

As book sales move more and more online, a website where you can develop a relationship with your readers is essential. It doesn’t matter if your book is being published by a big traditional publisher or if you’re self-publishing. You need a website.

Why is having an author website so important? Why not just focus on free and easy platforms like Facebook and Twitter for your book marketing efforts?

  • Social media doesn’t sell books, but an email list does. You might think email is an old school way to sell books and that it can’t possibly work, but the numbers say something very different. In fact, 66 percent of people say they have made a purchase because of an email they received compared to only 20 percent of people who have purchased something from a Facebook post and six percent from Twitter. I’ve been watching this trend for years, and every statistic I’ve ever read has shown me that email is far and above the best way to get your audience to buy your book.
  • The best place to build your email list is on a website.
  • How then do you build your email list? Through your website. In fact, a simple, single-page website with an email opt-in form is enough to completely change your publishing success.
  • You OWN your website. You don’t own your social media following. Facebook does. Twitter does. Instagram does. And they can change the rules any time they want, like when Facebook changed their algorithm to only show a fraction of people’s posts. Or when Instagram did the same.

“But I’m Not Tech Savvy”: Why Anyone Can Build an Author Website

If the idea of building a website is intimidating to you, though, it shouldn’t be. I’ve built over a dozen websites and helped other writers set up a few dozen more, many in just a few hours, and even though I’m pretty savvy, it doesn’t mean you have to be to setup a simple author website.

Anyone can set up a simple author website in just a few hours if you know the right steps and don’t get overwhelmed by all the options out there.

At the same time, when I built my first website, it took me weeks because I was doing it on my own, with no one to guide me through the process. My hope is that this guide will make the process simple enough that anyone can build a website.

10 Steps to Building an Author Website

If you read this article from start to finish and follow each step, you will have a great author website.

1. Choose Your Platform

You have many options when it comes to building a simple author website, but there are only three that I recommend.

Self-Hosted WordPress. My personal favorite is a self-hosted WordPress website (which is very different from a free WordPress.com website). I’ve been building websites on WordPress for almost ten years, and it combines ease, flexibility, and full control over your site.

You have to pay to host your website if you choose this option. That costs about $50 a year through Bluehost, which is the hosting company I recommend (you can click here to setup your WordPress website through Bluehost). Note that this includes a domain name, normally $12 a year. This is the least expensive, highest value option available.

WordPress has a number of free themes that allow you to quickly change the entire look and feel of your site. You can also purchase a paid theme (we use Divi at thewritepractice.com, and it’s amazing). Choose Self-Hosted WordPress (via Bluehost).

(HINT: I usually go with the Basic plan, paid yearly, with no add-ons. Bluehost and any other hosting service you choose will likely pitch you several add-on services for an extra cost. Personally, I always say no to all of them.)

Squarespace. If you’re not going to get a self-hosted WordPress, then Squarespace is a great second option. They have beautiful design and make it incredibly easy to set up and get started. Squarespace costs $12 a month to get started, about three times more than a self-hosted WordPress website, but they include a lot of features under that price. Choose Squarespace.

WordPress.com (free). Not to be confused with a self-hosted WordPress website (e.g. WordPress.org), WordPress.com is like the free, “light” version of a self-hosted WordPress website. If you want to get started quickly and for free, this can be a good option. I would still recommend Squarespace over WordPress.com—and a self-hosted WordPress website over both—but this can be a way to ease yourself into building an author website. Plus, it’s fairly easy to export and transfer to a self-hosted WordPress website when you’re ready to up your game. Choose WordPress.com.

Which Website Platforms to Avoid:

  • Weebly. I’ve see a few good author websites built on Weebly, but most look clunky.
  • Wix. Every author website I’ve seen built on Wix looks like it’s from 2005. Plus, their branding will be on every page. You should be advertising your writing, not your website platform.
  • GoDaddy Site Builder (or any host’s native site builder). Hosting companies are good at hosting, not creating software for building websites.

2. Register Your Domain Name

A domain name is the URL where your website lives, e.g. joebunting.com. When people type it into their browser, they will arrive at your website. All three of the platforms I recommended above allow you to register a domain name through them, but you can also register through a third party like Google Domains or Name.com (although I do recommend registering through the platform you choose above).

Your domain name is one of the first branding decisions you make as you build your website. The challenge is that as the Internet expands, more and more domains are registered and the best ones become scarce. How do you find one that’s both available and right for you? Here are a few important tips:

  • Look around before registering. Your first choice for a domain may already be taken, so it’s important to search before getting to far into the website building process. You can use Google’s Domain Search tool to quickly look through different domain options (HINT: Once you find your perfect domain, don’t register it on this tool. Instead, register it through the platform you chose above. You can always transfer domain names, but it’s an extra step that can be a little complicated.)
  • Use your first and last name (e.g. johngrisham.com). If it’s available, that is. If you write under a pen name, then your pen name would be the domain name, and if your name is difficult to spell, then you might consider writing under a pen name. If your name is not available, you can use a .me, .us, or .net domain, but I wouldn’t use .org unless you write religious or service books. I would not use a middle initial in your domain name. You can also append a word to the end of your name, like joebuntingwriter.com or buntingbooks.com. Not as good as your author name, but it can still work.
  • Don’t use your book title as your (main) domain name. Because what will you do when you write another book. It’s fine to have a simple landing page or a basic website for each book you write (like this one), but not for your main author website.
  • Don’t include dashes in the domain. Adding a dash in between your first and last name is an easy way to get your name if it’s already taken, but it makes it a little harder for people to find you. Plus, in my opinion, it doesn’t look very good.

Other Domain Search Tools:

This handy tool:

https://www.bluehost.com/web-hosting/domaincheckapi/?affiliate=joebunting

3. Find a Few Author Websites to Model Yours On

Before you get deep into the design process, find a few author websites you like to model yours on. Here are a few author websites I recommend checking out:

As you look at their sites, take notice of the main elements of each site. Here are some of the most important elements:

  • Header. The image, logo, or name at the very top of the site. Don’t be overwhelmed if you have no idea how to make images look as awesome as the sites above. These authors all have design teams, but you can easily make simple but awesome looking images with a free tool like Canva.
  • Featured Banner. Often authors will have an image with their latest book featured as the first thing you see when you visit their site.
  • Email/Newsletter Sign Up Form. This is the most important section of the site, since your email list is the main way you develop a relationship with your readers. Building your email list is the number one best marketing step you can take for your writing. I really like Brad Thor’s site especially because his newsletter sign up form is above the fold.
  • Menu. This is where you’ll get an idea of the main pages. You’ll almost always find an About page, a Blog, a Books page, and a Contact page.
  • Endorsements and Reviews. Do they have any featured endorsements from well-known authors or reviews?
  • Social media channels. Do they link to any of their social media profiles? Which channels do they feature, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest?

4. Install WordPress

From here I’m going to assume you’re setting up your website with Bluehost on WordPress. 

After setting up your new Bluehost account and registering your domain (see steps 1 and 2 above), it’s time to install WordPress on your domain.

1. If you haven’t done so already, after you sign up for Bluehost, you will be able to register your domain (see steps 1). If you missed this step, you can also register afterward from the Bluehost dashboard so don’t worry.

Author Website Bluehost Install

2. On the Bluehost dashboard, click install WordPress.

Bluehost WordPress Install

What’s really happening here: When you sign up for hosting, you’re basically renting a computer, just a computer that’s set up to broadcast to the internet. Your domain is kind of a like a folder on that computer, and when you install WordPress, you’re basically installing an application on that folder.

3. Click continue WordPress installation.

4. On the next page, select the domain you registered earlier in the dropdown. Leave the directory form blank.

Building an Author Website: WordPress Installation

5. Enter your login credentials. Next you’ll be asked to create login credentials (username and password) for your new website. These are really important to keep in a safe place, but you’ll also get an email with them.

6. It will install for a few minutes. After it finishes, visit your new domain’s wordpress admin screen, e.g. yourdomainhere.com/wp-admin. Make sure to bookmark this page for the future.

That’s it! You did it! You now have a new website! Congratulations!

5. Familiarize Yourself With WordPress

WordPress is fairly easy to use once you find your way around, but it can sometimes be intimidating to new users. Here are a few things to take note of:

Dashboard

This is your home base, where you can see your website’s back end at a glance and access all your settings and pages.

Admin Header Bar

At the top of your screen is an admin bar with a few helpful buttons.

  • + New. Creates a new post or page.
  • Edit. If you’re on a post or page you want to edit, you can click the edit button here to make changes.
  • Home / Dashboard button. If you’re on the dashboard, you can click this to get to your website’s home screen. If you’re on your website, then you can click this to go to your dashboard.

Dashboard Menu

This is the main way to create pages and access all the settings on your site.

  • Posts & Pages. Posts are for your blog and usually include comments. Pages are for site-wide pages, like your About page, Books page, or Contact page.
  • Appearance. There are several menu items under this that control the appearance of your site:

Theme. Change your theme here. We’ll talk about themes in a moment.
Customize. Depending on your theme, you can preview some appearance customizations here.
Menus. The menu on the front of your site is created and controlled here.
Widgets. These are things that appear in your sidebar, like an email sign up form or an image of your book cover and link to your book’s Amazon/Barnes and Noble page.

  • Plugins. One of the things that makes WordPress so great is the huge community of developers building free and paid plugins to extend your site’s functionality. I’ll mention which plugins I recommend in a moment, but this is where you will install, activate, and configure them.
  • Settings. There are a few settings you should configure at the start.

General. This is where you can change your site name and tagline, choose your time zone, and set your email address. You can leave these as the default, but I would change your time zone.
Writing. This affects how the page and post editor looks. You don’t need to change anything here.
Reading. This affects your homepage and how many posts display on your blog. We’ll come back to this screen in a moment to set your homepage, but you don’t have to do anything now.
Permalinks. This affects the URL structure, and I would highly recommend changing it to “Post Name” setting.

Plugins I Recommend Installing

There are a few plugins that are essential, in my opinion.

  1. Jetpack. Gives you great features like visitor stats, hacker protection, and spellcheck.
  2. Akismet. Blocks spam comments. Connect with your WordPress.com account and choose the free plan.
  3. Sumo. Allows you to easy add sharing to your posts and pages, that thing that floats on the side of your post with sharing icons. Also gives you powerful email subscription tools. It’s free, but you have to create an account with Sumo after you install.
  4. Contact Form 7. Create a contact form here and then copy and paste the shortcode that it gives you onto a new page that you create and title Contact.

Advanced

  1. SEO by Yoast. Analyzes your pages and teaches you how to write so that Google can better find your website. Very cool!
  2. Google Analytics by Yoast. Google Analytics is the best free tool for tracking your website users. First create a free account here, then connect to your website with this plugin.

6. Choose Your Theme

Themes drastically affect the way your site looks, so finding the right one for you is important. However, there are so many great free and paid themes it can be overwhelming. Here are a few I recommend.

Free Themes for Author Websites

PageLine. This free theme gives you a huge amount of control over every element of your website, and the best part is that you don’t need to know any code to use it. You can download it here or install it from your Appearance > Themes page.

Recommended Themes for Author Websites

You get what you pay for, people always say, and while that’s somewhat true for blogs, I think you can go a very long way with a free theme. Personally, I used PageLines for this very website for years. BUT there are a few things free themes aren’t the best at. They tend to be slower to load, for example, and not as feature rich as some paid themes. Plus, the two themes below are really cool.

Divi. If you prefer a “What You See Is What You Get” editor for your website, Divi is amazing. It allows you to edit font sizes, colors, spacing, and more all from the user-facing side of your site. After using many different themes for years, this is the theme we settled on for The Write Practice. You can get Divi here.

Tribe. A premium theme built by author Jeff Goins, this theme gives you what you need to build an author website and nothing else. Perfect if you want something simple but functional. You can get Tribe here.

Custom Themes. Alternatively, you can hire a web designer to build you a custom theme. This is a great option if you don’t have an eye for design and/or don’t have the time to do it. Designers cost anywhere between a few hundred bucks to $1,000 for an experienced designer to $3,000+ for a high-end designer.

7. Create Your Header

Headers can be a simple logo, like ours on The Write Practice. Or an image of the author’s name like Elizabeth Gilbert’s site. Or a full width image like Gillian Flynn’s site.

Building an Author Website: Elizabeth Gilbert's Header

Building an Author Website: Gillian Flynn's Header

You can hire a designer for this, but it’s easier to create these on your own with Canva than you’d think. Here’s how:

  1. Before you can start, you need to find out the dimensions your header needs. This is determined by your theme, so check your theme’s settings. For reference, Elizabeth Gilbert’s header is 308 px wide by 29 px tall (px stands for pixels, which is the most common unit of measurement for websites).
  2. Go to Canva.com, create a free account or log in with your Facebook account, and then select “Use custom dimensions” (see screenshot). Building an Author Website: Creating a Header on Canva
  3. Enter your dimensions (e.g. 308 by 40, since Canva doesn’t allow dimensions smaller than 40).
  4. Create your logo! I recommend keeping it simple for now with just your name on a white background.
    Building an Author Website: Creating a Header with Canva 2
  5. Last, download your image (preferably as a PNG file) and then upload it into your theme!

8. Add Your Core Pages

After you install your theme, don’t obsess over the design right now. It takes a long time to get a website looking the way you want it to, but for now just focus on getting the broad elements setup. Your number one goal, remember, is to build your email list, so getting the simplest website possible to start collecting email addresses is ideal.

Home Page. Your website will default to displaying a blog, but for your author website, I recommend creating a custom home page. Take a look at Step 2 for the elements you’ll want to include here: for example, a featured book image (which you can create with Canva), email list sign up form (which we’ll talk about next), endorsements/testimonials, and link to your blog. A good model for this to start is Jeff Goins’s home page, because it’s fairly simple, text based, and doesn’t require a lot of image design work.

About Page. One of your most visited pages, this is where you’ll share a short bio. As you write your About page, remember that new readers don’t care about you; they care about themselves and the books they like to read. Don’t write out your full life story. Share only the information your reader will be interested in to discover whether or not your writing will be a good fit for them.

I like Brad Thor’s About Page as a good model for this, especially his strong brand tagline: “Brad has been called ‘the master of thrillers,’ and ‘America’s favorite author.’ His bestselling novels have been published in over 30 countries.”

Books Page. Simple a page with images of all your books and links to where readers can buy them. TIP: Embed Kindle instant book previews so readers can start reading your book right from your website. Here’s how.

Contact Page. Give readers the ability to contact you by creating a page with a contact form. Start by installing the plugin Contact Form 7 if you haven’t already. A “Contact” menu item will appear on your dashboard menu. Create a new contact form or use/edit the default one that’s pre-installed. Copy and paste the shortcode into a new page that you title Contact.

Editing the Menu

Depending on your theme, the menu on your site may automatically add each page you create. Either way, it’s a good idea to create a custom menu so you can have more control over what the menu includes. Here’s how:

  1. On the dashboard, go to Appearance > Menu.
  2. Click the button to create a new menu.
  3. Add the pages or custom links you want (e.g. Home, About, Books, Contact).
  4. Click the box to choose where the menu will appear, usually primary menu or secondary menu.
  5. Save it and then go to your homepage to make sure it looks like you want it to.

9. Set Up Your Email List

Your email list is one of the main reasons you’re doing all of this, and your newsletter signup form could be considered the most important element on your website.

First, you have to choose an email newsletter provider. Here I usually recommend Mailchimp, because it’s free for your first 2,000 subscribers. Mailchimp is a great company, and a very friendly service. That being said, personally I find it to be a little clunky and hard to use. We use Convertkit, and while I highly recommend them for authors, it’s a paid service and it can be pretty expensive. Your email list is a good place to invest, though. This should be one of your first upgrades.

Assuming you’re using Mailchimp, you can learn how to create your first email list and sign up form here.

10. Celebrate!

You did it! You created your author website! And if you followed these instructions, it should have only taken you a few hours of work.

Next, you can learn how to write the perfect blog post or simply rest in the glow of your accomplishments!

Do you have an author website? Share a link in the comments so we can see what you’ve created! 

Have a question or did you get stuck? Before you leave a comment, try Googling it or asking your hosting company for help. If you’ve already done that, feel free to leave a comment!

By Joe Bunting
Source: thewritepractice.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

90 SITES TO ADVERTISE YOUR BOOK

1 Reply
First Edition Design eBook Publishers

Great post of resources!

January 9, 2013 · by · in Books, Publishing. ·

kindleAs far as I’m aware, this is the most comprehensive list of book promo sites anywhere on the internet. The list was compiled from various online sources, most notably – Rachelle’s Window (go there and thank her! 🙂 she also lists Alexa rankings for the sites) and my own research. As of posting this on August 10th 2014, all the links below are working. Note that I can’t guarantee that the sites themselves are still working, that the forms lead anywhere, or that you will actually get anything for your money.

Majority of these sites advertise books when they’re free, as part of KDP Select or Smashword promo. If you want to promote a paid book, you usually need to pay extra.

If you think I’m missing something, let me know in the comments.

As always, you can express your gratitude by purchasing one of my books 🙂

 

. URL Free Ad Paid Ad Comments
. 100 Free Books Guaranteed no longer accepted
. Addicted to eBooks Guaranteed registration required
. Ask David Guaranteed
. Author Marketing Club Membership + listing
. Awesome Gang Guaranteed $10
. Bargain eBook Hunter – now Hot Zippy Guaranteed
. Best Indie Books $8-$60, free to premium members Requires registration
. Book Blast Guaranteed  Must be deal, not free
. Book Canyon Guaranteed
. Book Deals Daily $5 $5+
. Bookpinning Guaranteed “Pinterest for Books”
. Book Worm Empire $5-$15 also do paid reviews
. Book Daily Membership + samples
. Book Goodies Guaranteed
. Book Goodies $5
. Book Goodies $25
. Book Goodies For Kids Guaranteed Children only
. Book Matchers Listing + search service
. Bookish Must ask by e-mail
. Book Tweeting Service $29+
. BookBrowse $2-7 pm
. BookBub Various options. $60+ probably most effective right now. Novels only.
. BookBub $40+ May also post deals from other sites
. BookSlut $175-$450
. Daily Free Books Guaranteed $7.5
. Digital Book Today Not guaranteed 4 stars minimum
. Digital Book Today Various options, $30+
. eBook Daily Deals Guaranteed
. Eat Sleep Write Book plugs from $50+
. eBook Impresario $20+
. eBooks Habit Guaranteed
. eBooks Habit $10
. eBooks Grow on Trees $20-$60
. eFiction Finds Guaranteed $5+
. eReader Cafe Guaranteed
. English Books XTME $9-$30 No longer guaranteed. ForAmazon.de
. EReader News Today Not guaranteed Very limited selection, 4 stars minimum
. Fire Department $50
. Fiverr $5 per service individual people advertising your book
. Flurries of Words $4+
. Free Books Hub $5
. Free Digital Reads Not guaranteed 4 stars minimum
. Free eBooks untested
. Free Kindle Books Not guaranteed 4 stars minimum
. Free Kindle Fiction Not guaranteed
. Free Kindle Fiction $5
. Free Kindle Giveaway $10+
. Freebooksy Not guaranteed $50
. Frugal eReader Not guaranteed no longer accepted
. Frugal eReader $50+
. Frugal Freebies $3-$8
. Fussy Librarian Guaranteed
. Good Kindles $7
. Goodreads custom budget largely ineffective
. Hot Zippy Not guaranteed $15 own several other websites
. iAuthor UK £0.6 per click
. iLove Ebooks various options, $25-$300
. Indie Author Anonymous $5-$10
. Independent Author Index Membership + listing $19 one-time fee
. Independent Author Network Membership + listing $25 one-time fee
. Indie Book Promo Guaranteed Four options, $25+ or small options, $8+
. Indie Promotor various options, $25+
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Can You Include Song Lyrics in Your Book?

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By Jason Boog on October 30, 2013 3:42 PM
Originally on GalleyCat!

recordplayerHave you ever quoted song lyrics in your book? Music can set the mood, evoke a certain setting or channel a particular emotion.

However, writers need to be aware of copyright issues surrounding music in books. We caught up withCopyright Clearance Center‘s author and creator relations director Christopher Kenneally, discovering the key questions authors should ask before including a song. Kenneally explained:

Consider not quoting the song. Lyrics, like all creative expression, are copyrighted. Copyright gives the author or creator the exclusive right to republication of the work. Any writer who wishes to quote lyrics, or for that matter, passages from another’s book, must obtain permission first. It’s probably worth asking how necessary or vital such quotation is to any particular creative work.

Kenneally added:

If it’s used to set a mood or establish a period, it’s easy enough to refer to song titles, which, under U.S. law, are not copyrighted. However, some novelists and short story writers – Ann Beattie is perhaps the most famous example – find it essential to quote from song lyrics as a way of establishing credible characters or settings.

We posed the same question about self-published books, and received this answer:

Just because you’ve made yourself the publisher, doesn’t mean you have the right to make up your own copyright law. Self-publishing has, in many respects, freed authors to express themselves as they wish. But it has also added greatly to their responsibilities. Today, self-published authors must not only write, but also market, sell and obtain rights permissions.

Finally, Kenneally explained the steps authors need to take to get permission to use song lyrics:

For any permission request, the first step is to identify the copyright holder. This is not as easy as it sounds. Look for the copyright symbol on the CD sleeve and the name of the publisher. However, in an increasingly digital world where downloads are more common, this sort of “metadata” is not always immediately available.

If you contact the publisher, don’t expect a fast reply. He or she will usually need to contact several different rightsholders who may be on tour or (as it happens in rock) have recently climbed the stairway to heaven. Do expect that for all but the most obscure artist, the reuse fees may be significant. If you run into a roadblock, there are organizations that will provide assistance. Such “content management organizations” include ASCAP, BMI, as well asCopyright Clearance Center.

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