Stretching Your Ad Budget (Part 2) – Gaining Subscribers
By: Ginger | Posted on October 25, 2019
In part one of this series, we discussed using your ad budget to sell more books, but there are other goals that successful authors use advertising for, such as growing the core group of fans that they can reach regularly via their mailing list. Instead of spending your ad dollars on selling a book once to a random person, you can instead spend those same dollars to have that person join your list so that you can sell to them over and over again in the future – without any additional costs. That makes gaining subscribers one of the most effective investments you can make. In part one, we discussed the challenge of getting the most value from your advertising budget – and how important the concept of strategy was. Tactics are the specific things you do to achieve your goals – which platforms you use, for example – whereas… Read More >
The Most Important Part of Your Story Is the Dialogue
By: Hollie Jones | Posted on October 18, 2019
Writing great dialogue is just as important as creating the imaginary world or colorful characters of your book, and so it shouldn’t be ignored or rushed through. In fact, when done right, your dialogue will not only make your characters seem more authentic, but can help with the rest of your world building as well. Not convinced? Today’s guest author Hollie Jones breaks down why dialogue is so important and how, when done well, it can improve so many aspects of your story. I’m no great fan of silent movies, but I acknowledge that they offer value to the cinematic world. In the absence of the spoken word, the visuals step up to shape perception, with deliberate framing and subtleties in body language conveying the intended themes. But think for a second about what people remember of the classic movies — in Gone With The Wind, is it the pause… Read More >
Stretching Your Ad Budget (Part 1) – Selling Books
By: Ginger | Posted on October 11, 2019
As an independent author without a large publisher with deep marketing pockets bankrolling your book, how you spend your limited advertising budget is something you have to think carefully about. Not only do you need to consider how and where to spend your money, but what your overall marketing goals are in the first place. Sure, selling more books is the obvious one and certainly provides the most immediate results – but there are some longer term strategies that advertising can also be used for, such as growing your mailing list or promoting free copies of your book (which itself can increase sales). In this three part series, we’ll go over how to get the most out of your advertising dollar for each of these strategies, starting with the one all of us are most interested in – selling more copies! (And don’t forget to take part in the survey… Read More >
What Goes Into Choosing Your Genre?
By: Sloan Quinn & Katherine Stark | Posted on October 4, 2019
In your spare time you may read a number of different types of books for pleasure, but as an author, you need to focus on a particular genre to write in. For some, that’s a fairly simple decision, but for others it may not be so easy. So how do you decide? What factors go into choosing your genre, or your sub genre? There are many ways to do it, but in today’s guest post authors Sloan Quinn and Katherine Stark offer up a few ideas based on the process they used. Romance as a genre is huge. There are so many different sub-genres contained within it: paranormal romance, contemporary erotica, thrillers and romantic suspense, romantic comedies… the list could go on for ages. We both are newer romance writers: Sloan Quinn writes the Dirty series, enemies-to-lovers romances centered around the criminal underground in Philadelphia (where she went to college);… Read More >
Successful Writers Write
By: Ginger | Posted on September 27, 2019
Despite all the marketing and promotion suggestions that we’ve provided in the past, if we could only offer a single piece of advice that would apply to authors everywhere, it wouldn’t be anything to do with getting reviews, or how to market your book, or even about where the best places are to advertise. It would simply be to keep on moving forward. Keep writing that next book, keep to a publishing schedule, and eventually success will find you. There’s one reliable path to writing success – but it’s a lot of hard work! Whatever you do, just keep writing! When I speak to writers 1-on-1 with advice and tips on their advertising strategy, a lot of them are surprised by what I always feel is the most important factor – to just keep writing. Authors who write and publish on a regular basis are more successful than those who… Read More >
The Writing Craft: Dan Harmon’s Story Circle
By: Ginger | Posted on September 20, 2019
Looking for a new way to bring your stories and characters to life on the page? Dan Harmon’s “Story Circle” adapts and broadens the tried and true “Hero’s Journey” template to extend it for use with virtually any genre or story. Ginger takes us through how it works, and how you can apply it to your own novel planning process. Go from Pantster to Plotter with this invaluable template for crafting your stories. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the value of getting out there and interacting with your fellow writers. It’s gotten to the stage now in which my wife actively boots me out of the house on Thursday nights so I can meet with my writing group, and it’s done wonders for my mental health (and, by having me gone for two hours, hers too.) Last week, though, we had a session that really blew me away… Read More >
Getting Started With Facebook Ads
By: Ginger | Posted on September 13, 2019
There’s no denying that Facebook advertising gets results, but with so many options a lot of authors are left confused at how to begin or what types of ads they should be spending their money on. Advertising expert Ginger is back this week to help guide you through the options and give you some examples to help make the process easier to understand and get started on. Because after all, if you aren’t advertising your book, you’re unlikely to achieve the level of success you’re probably hoping for. Understanding Facebook advertising can transform the trajectory of your book – but only if you do it right. If the Russians can allegedly skew the results of the US election through the power of Facebook, you should be able to sell more copies of your books on ‘the social network.’ With nearly 2 billion active users, there’s perhaps no quicker or easier… Read More >
The Author’s Guide to Facebook
By: Ginger | Posted on September 6, 2019
One of the most important but misunderstood tools for an author to use is Facebook. Do you set up an account, or a page? What can you do with it once it’s set up? What do you post? If any of these things have kept you from using Facebook to promote your author brand, our resident advertising and marketing expert Ginger has the answers you’ve been looking for to get started. Don’t hold off on using this powerful marketing platform any longer! Facebook is a powerful tool for authors – here’s how to get started with it. Love it or hate it, but Facebook is here to stay – and as an author, it’s one of the most powerful tools you have for connecting easily, accessibly and meaningfully with your readers. In fact, as an author, if you don’t have an active Facebook page, you’re missing a trick – and,… Read More >
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Sticking with Amazon’s KDP Select, or Going Wide?
By: Ginger | Posted on August 30, 2019
One of the most frequently asked questions about self-publishing is whether or not to sell your books on Amazon exclusively, or to ‘go wide’, sending them out to a multitude of different online bookstores. There’s no one right answer, just like there is no one right way to write a book – so today Ginger is diving into the issue to give you some of the pros and cons – and also on what his choice is, how he made it, and some ideas on how you can decide for yourself. Of course, this is just one author’s opinion – and if you have one of your own, please let us know via the comments below. This is definitely a conversation that benefits the community most when we hear from many different sources… What are the benefits of ‘going wide’ when it comes to your books? So, let’s not beat… Read More >
Writing Groups – Fighting the Myth of the Hermit Writer
By: Ginger | Posted on August 23, 2019
Being an author is a solitary experience that only other writers truly understand, but it doesn’t have to be – at least, not all the time. There are benefits to socializing with like-minded people who share your passion of putting words together and understand everything that goes along with making that your career choice. As Ginger recently discovered, writing groups are a great way to get out there, and you may find that they inspire and energize you in ways you never considered. Writing is a solitary experience – but it doesn’t need to be. Make socializing with other like-minded people a priority, and your writing will benefit. I was recently watching a fascinating discussion between Stephen King and GRR Martin about the nature of writing, and King recalled an event at Radio City Hall in Manhattan, in which JK Rowling rolled her eyes after a discussion with her publicist… Read More >
