This Simple Fix Can Double Your Direct Sales
By: Ginger | Posted on November 14, 2025
More and more authors are taking control of their careers by selling books directly to readers. For many, it’s both exciting and liberating, but it can also feel overwhelming. Even after you’ve built your store, created your landing page, and started running ads, you may find the numbers just aren’t adding up. Visitors click through, but sales don’t follow. Often, the problem isn’t your copy, cover, or price. It’s something far simpler that most authors never think about. In this week’s post, Ginger reveals one of the biggest hidden obstacles to successful direct sales, and what you can do about it. Slow-loading pages can derail your sales before a potential reader even sees your offer, with every second of delay leading to a steep drop in conversions. The good news is that once you know how to test your site’s speed and pinpoint the issues, the fix is simple. This… Read More >
Tips for Writing Time Travel into Your Novels
By: Ginger | Posted on November 7, 2025
Few story devices have captivated readers and writers quite like time travel. It’s a concept that lets authors rewrite history, explore alternate futures, and question the very nature of fate and consequence. But whether you’re writing sci-fi, romance, or historical adventure, there are certain “rules” of time travel that need to be defined to keep your story from crossing the line between “believably unbelievable” and simply “unbelievable.” In today’s article, Ginger is helping us master the art of writing time travel by exploring the core models most often used in books and movies and how they can be adapted for your own stories in consistent, engaging ways. You can play with paradoxes, experiment with immutable, mutable, or branching timelines, or use time itself as a lens for character growth and emotional depth. When used well, time travel fiction can transform any story, regardless of genre, into something unforgettable. In a… Read More >
How To Write Killer Marketing Copy for your Books
By: Ginger | Posted on October 31, 2025
Regardless of your skills as an author, writing effective marketing copy is another skillset entirely. For indie authors, short-form copy isn’t just a marketing extra anymore, it’s an essential part of getting noticed and selling copies. Every word in your ad headline, email subject line, or BookTok caption fights for attention, and when done right, those words can make a reader stop scrolling, click through, and ultimately buy. But writing that kind of tight, high-impact copy requires shifting your mindset from storyteller to strategist. In this week’s post, Ginger breaks down exactly how authors can master that shift. As he explains, the goal of marketing copy isn’t to sell the book, it’s to sell the next click. From dissecting the anatomy of great taglines to understanding each platform’s character limits, Ginger takes us far beyond generic “copywriting tips.” This is a hands-on, author-specific guide to writing punchy, persuasive lines that… Read More >
Tips for Writing the Perfect Book Blurb
By: Ginger | Posted on October 24, 2025
For many authors, writing a book blurb feels harder than writing the book itself. Condensing 60,000 words into just a few paragraphs that actually sell the story is one of the toughest challenges in self-publishing. That’s because a blurb isn’t just a summary, it’s sales copy. It has to tease, entice, and convince a distracted shopper to click the buy button. That’s why this week, Ginger is breaking down exactly how to turn your book description from forgettable to irresistible. From mastering brevity and shaping your blurb like a miniature story arc to choosing power words that spark emotion and curiosity, Ginger’s process is designed to create blurbs that convert. You’ll learn how to research your genre’s conventions, apply proven frameworks, and even test your copy for performance. By combining instinct with strategy, you can turn your book’s description into your most persuasive marketing tool. Over the years, I’ve worked… Read More >
Is Optimism the New Black?
By: Ginger | Posted on October 17, 2025
In this week’s blog, we’re stepping back from the usual focus on writing tactics and marketing tips to explore the emotional current running through today’s stories. Over the past few years, there’s been a clear shift away from the dark, brooding tone that dominated popular culture in the early 2000s toward a more optimistic view. From Superman’s warmth to a lighter, more playful Bond, audiences are beginning to favor heroes who face challenges with heart instead of cynicism. As Ginger argues below, this change reflects a world that’s grown weary of grit and craves something that feels good again. For self-published authors, that shift isn’t just an observation but an opportunity. Readers are hungry for stories that lift them up, and tone may be the most powerful way to deliver that experience. Whether you write romance, fantasy, or thrillers, Ginger’s look at this cultural turning point shows how weaving hope,… Read More >
Use Retconning to Fix Your Series Without Losing Readers
By: Ginger | Posted on October 10, 2025
Every author dreams of crafting a flawless, seamless series, but reality often has other plans. When you’re deep into a long-running story, inconsistencies happen: forgotten side characters, contradictory timelines, or plot twists that don’t age well with later books. That’s where retconning comes in. Rather than rewriting history, a smart retcon lets you reshape mistakes into meaningful story arcs that feel intentional and even strengthen your worldbuilding. In today’s blog, Ginger explores how authors can use retconning to repair, refresh, and even reinvent their series while keeping readers engaged. Drawing from pop culture, literature, and his own experience, he shows how to fix past errors gracefully, turn inconsistencies into new layers of intrigue, and use the flexibility of self-publishing to your advantage. If you’ve ever looked back at an early book and wished you could tweak the past without breaking the present, this article is for you. In the world… Read More >
Should Self-Published Authors Trust AI to Edit Their Manuscript?
By: Ginger | Posted on October 3, 2025
For many authors, the question of whether to use AI to edit their manuscripts goes beyond convenience or cost and touches on bigger, more ethical concerns. Does leaning on AI undermine the craft of writing? Does it take work away from human editors who depend on those jobs? And can a tool built on machine learning ever be trusted with something as personal as your story? If you’ve wrestled with these anxieties, you’re not alone. This debate isn’t just technical, it’s deeply tied to the values and identity of the author community. Still, it’s easy to see why the question keeps coming up. Editing is one of the most time-consuming and expensive parts of publishing, and AI tools promise quick, affordable help with everything from proofreading to stylistic polish. Yet even if they prove useful, they aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why Ginger is breaking it all down in today’s… Read More >
Lessons from Ironheart: Why Flawed Characters Create the Strongest Stories
By: Ginger | Posted on September 26, 2025
When it comes to storytelling, nothing hooks readers faster than a character who feels real. And despite being buried under a pile of negative pre-release hype, Marvel’s Ironheart proves this point beautifully. Instead of presenting a flawless heroine, the series leans into their arrogance, mistakes, and bad decisions, letting those flaws drive the story. The result is a character arc that’s engaging, relatable, and far more powerful than the “perfect heroine” trope we too often see. For self-published authors, this a crucial reminder that readers prefer growth over perfection. In today’s blog, Ginger explores how the writers behind the Ironheart show achieved this, and how we can add these same elements to heroes and heroines of our own. Because giving your characters space to be messy and fail is the single best way to create stories that connect with your audience. I really enjoy the Marvel superhero movies and films,… Read More >
Why do you want to write a book?
By: Ginger | Posted on September 19, 2025
In a world consumed by TikTok scrolling and YouTube binging, it is a wonder that anyone still chooses to spend hours reading a book. Yet despite how instant gratification has chipped away at our attention spans, book sales are thriving. In fact, this resurgence in reading seems to be fueled, at least in part, by a hunger for stories that go deeper than short-form social content ever could. Still, content creators have endless ways to reach audiences instantly with content that takes a fraction of the time and effort to produce than writing a single book. This seems to beg the question: why write a book at all? That’s exactly what Ginger explores in today’s blog as he considers why books still matter, why readers continue to embrace them, and how understanding your personal motivation as a writer can help you find both an audience and lasting fulfillment in your… Read More >
Defending the Sweet Escapism of Gendered Fiction
By: Ginger | Posted on September 12, 2025
Fiction has always been a place where readers escape into exaggerated realities, whether it is the brooding alpha male of a steamy romance or the suave secret agent bedding beautiful women between missions. Yet when it comes to gendered writing, the criticism is far from equal. Male authors are often mocked for objectifying descriptions, while female authors are rarely called out for creating impossibly perfect heroes with toxic traits framed as desirable. This week, Ginger makes the case that both sides are guilty of indulging in fantasy, and that is exactly the point. These books thrive not because they are trying to reflect everyday life, but to give readers the thrill of sweet escapism. So instead of tearing down gendered fiction, he argues that we should recognize it for what it is and celebrate the joy it brings to millions of readers. In last week’s article, I dove into the… Read More >
