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 >
Author Spotlight Interview: Kristen Echo
By: Hidden Gems | Posted on July 23, 2019
In our continuing series of author interviews, we’re chatting to Canadian romance novelist Kristen Echo – the talent behind the hockey-themed Puck Battle Series, and the steamy Single Dad series. With more fast-paced, emotionally intense romance on the way, it’s great to be able to catch up with Kristen and find out what motivates her to write, publish and entertain with her richly-imaginative stories. HG: First off, who is Kristen Echo? I know a bit from your author bio, but how would you describe yourself to readers who are only discovering you for the first time? KE: What you see is what you get with me as a person, and it’s the same with my books. I’m a voracious contemporary romance reader and avid sports fan. I love reading steamy scenes with passion so hot it sizzles off the pages, and I strive to write love stories that often make… Read More >
Making Sense of Amazon Advertising
By: Ginger | Posted on July 19, 2019
Amazon Advertising – until recently known as Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) – is an increasingly important part of any self-published author’s strategy but many authors are confused by how it works and how to interpret their results. Fortunately, Hidden Gems advertising expert Ginger is here to walk us through the basics – how to get started, what some common problems mean and how to solve them, and how to make it all work for you! The ability to have your book displayed as a clickable link on the product page of similar authors – presented to Amazon customers already searching for books to read – is a game-changer. However, Amazon Advertising has a notoriously steep learning curve, and successful advertisers need to keep a constant eye on their campaigns. In this post, we’re going to try to answer some of the more common questions would-be advertisers have, and help translate… Read More >
Using Amazon Ads to Sell Your Novel
By: Liam Clay | Posted on March 22, 2019
These days, advertising is an integral part of any book launch and not something any self-published author can ignore. We’ve covered the topic of advertising in the past, but one of the things we didn’t go into in details was Amazon’s advertising platform (formerly called AMS). Luckily, Liam Clay recently spent time learning their system and testing it out, and in today’s guest post he shares what he’s learned. Are you an indie author with a recently completed debut novel? Then chances are good that you either have, or are about to, place your book on Amazon. The question then becomes, what next? Because if you think that strangers are going to start buying your book en masse without any further action from you, I urge you to think again. I say this because two months ago, I was in exactly the same position. Watching tumbleweeds roll through the ghost… Read More >
Mastering Your Mind & Life: Overcoming the Hurdles to Writing – Part One
By: Ginger | Posted on January 25, 2019
Anything that gets in the way of putting words down on paper is destructive to a writer’s career, but if you find yourself in this boat you can at least take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone. Most authors go through it at some point, but the successful ones find a way to overcome these mental and practical hurdles. In the first of a four part series, Ginger lays out a plan to get you focused on writing and clear your path to success! “He was always trying to work. Each day he would try and fail. He laid the failure to Paris, the town best organized for a writer to write in that there is.” In my last post, I mentioned that I’d been on a bit of a Hemingway bent recently – and that quote from A Moveable Feast – in which Hemingway describes F. Scott… Read More >
Kindle Select – Are Page Reads Good or Bad for Authors?
By: Ginger | Posted on December 14, 2018
Since the introduction of KU, authors have argued about whether it’s a good deal or not, given the ever fluctuating payouts and Amazon exclusivity they paid as a price for participation. On one hand, it does seem like more and more authors are going wide, but on the other hand, the KU program continues to grow and authors like Ginger have an overall positive experience with it. Here are some of the pros and cons about the program, as well as how Ginger has used it to enhance his own career as a writer. Amazon pays self-published authors on it’s KDP Select program in two ways – royalties from book sales, and a share of ‘page reads’ from Kindle Unlimited subscribers. But is the fluid and unpredictable nature of the Page Read payout a good thing, or a bad thing for authors? When I first moved to America, two things… Read More >
5 Female-Focused Memoirs like Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’
By: Hidden Gems | Posted on December 4, 2018
Looking for an uplifting, witty and personal memoir? Here are five recommendations just like Michelle Obama’s top-rated ‘Becoming.’ Michelle Obama’s memoir of her life before, during and after life in the White House has become 2018’s best-selling book – with over a million hardback copies sold in the first two weeks alone; surpassing its predecessor, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, by racking up more hardback sales in the first ten days of release than Wolff’s book managed in the entire ten months since it was released. With a resume that includes graduating from Princeton and Harvard Law, a celebrated career in law and public service, plus crushing it in Carpool Karaoke, it’s perhaps not surprising why so many people gravitated towards Obama’s eminently-quotable book. Yet it’s just the latest in a series of really fantastic female-focused memoirs released in recent months – and here are five more that might interest… Read More >
Ginger’s Guide to Marketing & Advertising Your Books: Part Four – PROMOTIONS
By: Ginger | Posted on November 30, 2018
Hitting ‘publish’ on your book is the biggest step in the road towards self-publishing success, but only the first one. In this final part of his four-part series, self-published author Ginger gives a top-level introduction to how to promote your book, using paid and free methods, to get as many potential customers to see it as possible. Last week, we nearly broke the website with a massive post about advertising your self-published books – and we barely scratched the surface! In fact, as reader Erin Wright pointed out, there were other advertising opportunities we hadn’t even explored in that post; like Bookbub. We’ll be revisiting options like that in both the original post and future ones – so stay tuned, and don’t be shy about letting us know what you think we missed! Today, though, we’re going to be looking at the adjacent avenue to advertising: Promotions. There’s some crossover with promotions… Read More >
