Category Archives: Self Publishing

Promoting your book on Goodreads with listopia

Posted by geoffwakeling on

I’ve not had a huge amount of success on Goodreads. I don’t like the interface, I find the forums troublesome and I really don’t read enough to be actively participating in book discussions. Mostly, I find that you have to use passive promotion on Goodreads; that is, instead of going around saying ‘Here’s my book‘, ‘Read my book‘, ‘Look at my book‘, you have to participate in forums about other subjects and let users find your work by themselves. Of course, a few plugs here and there in the appropriate forum threads never hurt, but overall, Goodreads is a place for readers to discover books, not have them thrust upon them.

A new area of passive promotion which I hadn’t even realised was available until last week is the listopia option. This Goodreads area is a place where people can add their favourite books to current lists, or start their own lists to organise great reads into easily found categories. It also offers an ideal place for you to add your book, utilising lists that you book falls into to spread your novel across as many pages as possible and, therefore, in front of as many eyes as possible.

Listopia is easy to find, and easy to add your book to. One word of warning, it’s probably best not to start adding your books to the ‘Best books Ever written‘ or ‘Best Indie Books‘ categories. In fact, it’s probably best to stay clear of any ‘BEST’ lists because this is for the readers to decide upon, not you. However, you can add your book to any other list that is appropriate. For example, I’ve put Inside Evil into ‘British Fantasy Authors‘, ‘Fantasy Books Set in Two Worlds‘, and ‘Science Fiction & Fantasy Titles for 2012!’ I’m not making assumptions by adding my book to these categories, I’m just telling readers what they can expect to find.

Whether or not this process will help Inside Evil get added to many more shelves I have to find out. But, placing it in as many places as possible surely can’t help gain more exposure.

Genre blogging and how it helps you sell ebooks

Posted by geoffwakeling on

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit of a blogging whore. I can’t help it. I’ve had so many blogs in my lifetime that I can’t even write them all down. In addition to running this author blog, I have a gardening one for my landscape company, I’ve just started a new one about my Second Life bookstore attempts, and I have many old and languishing websites that are long forgotten.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading with increasing interest about the reasoning behind genre blogging; that is, writing about your novel’s genres and interests, rather than about the writing process itself. It does seem obvious when you think about it. If I blog about how to write novels, ways in which to promote books and my own self-publishing story, then I can expect to attract other authors who are interested in, or going through, the same process. If I blog about Inside Evil or my other books, I’m likely to attract only my current fans or those who are specifically looking for more information on my books.

However, if I blog about fantasy, science fiction and other subjects that have inspired the books, then I’m more likely to attract new readers who might give my books a go because they have similar interests. 

I’ve increasingly been thinking about blogging in my genre and how to go about it on this blog. Writing about fantasy and science fiction is no hardship for me at all – I’m more than happy to gush about Mass Effect, LOTR or Blood & Chrome for HOURS. But, these subjects are such a dramatic split from this current blog that it just didn’t sit right with me.

Would I offend current readers of this blog by posting material that they really weren’t interested in? Would new readers looking for the latest gaming update or cinema release really be drawn in by other posts about writing?

I don’t think so.

As such, I’m attempting to breathe some life back into my old blog, The Modern Hermit. I’ve had this blog running for several years, and despite not having posted on it for nearly a year, I still get more hits a day on that site than I do here, largely because the back-list of articles and keywords. The blog certainly has a different tone than here, with completely different subject matter and a far more informal, even cursing voice sometimes, but it draws readers. Readers that could become book buyers.

Today I’ve updated both the themes for each blog to tie them together, as well as adding a new page on The Modern Hermit about my writing. It means that if those interested in fantasy and science fiction material are interested, they can easily find my work, but that I can keep the realms of writing and genre blogging separate from one another.

I think my little tip here is that if you feel that two subjects don’t fit alongside each other on a blog and you run the risk of repelling the very viewers that you’re trying to attract, listen to your instincts. Instead, create two blogs with the same themes, the same look, sister sites you could even call them. Then encourage cross reading for viewers, but ensure that should they want to do so, bloggers only need read the items that interest them.

How to sell eBooks in Second Life

Posted by geoffwakeling on

I’m always looking for new ways to sell books. I haven’t yet managed to get that snowball effect with my novels, and am far from getting that crucial 1,000 sales on Amazon, so at the moment it’s hand selling all the way. Not that I mind, it’s nice to actually talk directly to most of the people who buy my stuff, but it takes up a lot of time – time that I’d rather be using to write.

I’ve been in Second Life for a number of years now, doing little bits and pieces here and there. I’ve always believed that it would be a great place to sell books, especially ebooks as, like Second Life, they’re virtual. There are some large readers and writers communities online, and if you could just access these groups, you’d have a great audience to reach out to.

But, just what is Second Life?

Second Life is, simply put, a virtual world where you can build anything. Think of a computer game where you take the role of the main character and adventure through levels to complete quests, and in the case of MMO’s (million multi-player onlines) make friends, build guilds and journey through the game together. Now think of a platform where the developers haven’t created the world in which you land, but have left it up to you to create. We won’t go into the extreme complexities of building, but suffice to say users have created some stunning and creative places to visits, from New York and London replica’s, to fantasy lands with waterfalls, mountains and secret forests to explore.

How can Second Life help sell books?

Like all online worlds, Second Life has an economy. Lindens (L$) can be bought for real life dollars so that you have money to buy commodities in-world. Lindens can also be pulled out of the game and into real life accounts, and this has enabled many people to make their entire living through selling items and services in Second Life. So, in theory, you could sell books for Lindens in Second Life and then draw the money out into your account.

BUT, with linking to Real Life items, the process is made even more simple. 

My Second Life bookstore

About four weeks ago I created Best Books (Inside Evil readers will realise the significance), a Second Life book store that would contain Real Life books. The premise is simple; Second Life residents browse Best Books and can find a range of novels, read the samples, learn about the author and then follow a purchase link to buy on Amazon. I met with many people that said it might not work, I learned that Amazon had once been in Second Life in an attempt to do a similar thing and that it wasn’t cost effective. However, over the past few weeks, I’ve sold four books. That’s more than I’ve sold at Kobo, or Smashwords, or Barnes & Noble, or Diesel. In addition, because I’m using my affiliate Amazon account, I made some affiliate money off the sales too! It may only be four, but those are new readers, a new audience, and any one of them could be the individual that blogs, writes, tells 1,000 friends about my book.  Anyone of them could start that all important snowball.

How can I help you sell books in Second Life?

The best thing about my new venture is that YOU, authors, can take advantage, even if you have no interest in getting into Second Life yourself. Best Books currently costs a minimal amount to run, and I hope to be able to fund the SL venture on the money earned from affiliate sales. This means that the cost to advertise your book in-world is a big, fat, ZERO. Yep, I’m charging nothing. It’s FREE.

I already have several authors interested in participating, with my view to building Second Life’s best and biggest eBook store. As I gather more books and attract more readers, I want to hold book readings too. There’s also the opportunity for book signings, with people being able to visit Best Books, talk with the author and request a Authorgraph right then and there.

GET INVOLVED

If you’re an author and are interested in getting involved in the venture, please don’t hesitate to contact me through my email address: geoff_wakeling@hotmail.com. If you want to visit me in-world, then please feel free to hop on this link and head to Best Books. Otherwise, just email me and we’ll talk about how it works and what I need. Generally, all I’ll require is cover images, blurbs, your samples (the same as Amazon’s preview), book genre, author picture and biography…the same media pack that you’d normally supply book reviewers with.

In Summary…..

If your books sales are streaming in, then it’s unlikely that you’ll need to advertise in Second Life. However, no matter what your sales figures may be, I always think it’s important to reach out to new readers and possible audiences.

Can you sell your Real Life books in Second Life? Yes, I’ve proved it, I’m selling copies of Inside Evil and The Tower of Souls already and I’m quite surprised by it.

So, if you want another avenue to get noticed, to showcase your work, and to help drive up your sales, then get in touch and lets build this virtual bookstore!

A surprising new book

Posted by geoffwakeling on

You may have read an earlier post where I talked about how to promote books on Squidoo. I’ve become fairly addicted to Squidoo over the past few weeks, and whilst I am yet to actually note any sales as a direct result of my marketing there, I am having fun. In addition, creating a lens about how to write a great vampire novel seemingly triggered a creative thought process in my brain, and now I started a new book!

With it being NaNoWriMo this month, and the fact that I haven’t really got off the starting block with the third Inside Evil book, I’ve been a little worried. I’ve failed at NaNoWriMo for two years running, mostly because I just haven’t sat down to write, rather than attempting and failing miserably. I have no interest in writing a vampire story, it’s really not my thing, but my Squidoo lens talked about the importance of bringing something new to a genre, of putting your stamp on it, of creating a new tale with one or two features that are original. Finding originality in literature is incredibly hard these days as most things have already been written. Then, choosing to write in a small genre, such as vampires, makes the task even harder. But it got my brain thinking, and last night I had a flash of inspiration for, uh-oh, a zombie story.

The inspiration occurred to me yesterday, and I decided to write some notes and shelve the idea for a while. After all, I’m in the middle of writing TWO book series. Plus, I’ve NEVER wanted to write about zombies. However, as I was working at a gardening client’s today, the novel just wouldn’t leave me alone. Ideas were coming thick and fast, and I’ve just ended up writing a 3,000 word first chapter for the book! I don’t have time to write a full length novel, not when I’ve got other series in motion, but a short 20k/30k novella might be OK. So, it’s decided, this NaNoWriMo I AM going to participate. I’m going to write my first ever short story. I’m going to take a leaf out of Hugh Howey’s book, and throw a short out there and see if it gains traction. If it does, I’ll write more. If it doesn’t, I’ll be happy that I completed NaNoWriMo for the first time and crafted my writing skills a little more.

I’m excited! I’m off to write!

How to use Squidoo to promote your ebook

Posted by geoffwakeling on

When it comes to marketing, I’m a firm believer of promoting in as many places as possible. The internet makes this quite easy as you can sign up to article websites and PR providers all over the place, helping to spread your author name and novel titles. Increased exposure helps to build both branding and awareness, and so getting as many mentions across the Internet is a GOOD thing.

I should say before I continue, that Squidoo is no quick fix or easy way to promote your ebook. Like most other platforms, it requires time and patience, and if you’re looking to only invest a couple of hours on squidoo and reap huge benefits, then you’re probably wasting your time. It’s probably not the best way to market a book, and I’m also fairly new to the website so I’m not a pro either. It’s a huge time sap too, and I’ve been spending hours on there over the past few days when I could have been doing better things. However, I like to take a time out between writing books to formulate plans, and squidoo has been quite fun to use, hence this post. In addition, recent reports listed by the site showed that it was the 64th most visited website in the US, and gained 2 million hits in just one day this year, so there is big potential to attract readers.

BUT, what exactly is Squidoo?

Simply put, squidoo is a website where you create articles (called lenses) about specific topics using the platform’s ready built webpages and modules. Think Ezine Articles, About.com etc. Anyone can join, anyone can build, and the best feature is that anyone can earn money from their Amazon modules. Amazon modules that can point directly to your books.

HOW can it help me promote?

The best way Squidoo can help you promote your books is by building an online encyclopaedia of your work. You can create lenses for your books, link these to lens of your characters, or places, or book themes. Think Wikipedia, but a wiki for your work created by you.

So far I’ve created an Inside Evil lens, The Tower of Souls lens and several others. I’ve linked them together. I’ve added Amazon links, a poll of favourite characters, a simple cast list and a ‘Did you know?‘ section.

 

The more ‘likes’, comments, tweets etc that you get for a page, the higher it’s visibility becomes. And, of course, in the same way that you should be commenting on blogs, responding to tweets, and pasting FB marketing material to promote your book every day, a few updates on your lenses can work wonders. Once you’ve spent the time creating, you can simply check in every day, update, respond to comments and factor the time into your marketing schedule.

EARN points and level up

Whilst Squidoo isn’t a game as such, you do start at level one and earn points as you go. These points are equal to expertise, and each time you level up, you unlock new features for your lenses and additional ways to climb up the community ladder. It’s a fun side to squidoo, and you’ll keep wanting to earn points like mad just to see what’s waiting. You can breathe a sigh of relief when you reach level 85 as that’s the top, but as I’m currently only 22, there’s a fair way to go.

BEWARE,  it’s a time suck

Like many social platforms, Squidoo is a total time suck and isn’t for everyone. You need to enjoy the experience of making lenses and taking part in the community if you’re to benefit at all. Looking at it only as a promotional tool probably won’t work. In addition, you’ll probably need to create more lenses than just your book ones, and this means that you need to actually enjoy using the website. I’ve created lenses in Pets,  Entertainment and How To as a way to draw traffic to my profile and build my squidoo presence.

I’m not advocating that squidoo is about to be a ground-breaking new promotional too, but I’ve enjoyed using it over the past couple of days. If it proves successful, I’ll drive traffic towards my books whilst earning commission on their sales (and any other items I add to my Amazon modules). If you have some spare time, then take a look. You can find my profile HERE, and start exploring this world of virtual squids.

Inside Evil paperbacks are here!

Posted by geoffwakeling on

As you’ll know from my ‘Making paperbacks with Createspace‘ blog, I’ve delved into realms that I never thought I would as an author. The digital age has really opened up the world of publishing, and I thought I would be happy having my books online as ebooks. That was, until I held the beautiful crisp paper and stunning covers in my hands and put my own works on the study shelves.

It’s taken a while to get the proofing correct and for CreateSpace to accurately link the Kindle versions with the paperback copies. This is largely due to an author name discrepancy that I talked about here. BUT, the good news is that you can now buy both Inside Evil and The Tower of Souls as books that you can actually hold in your hands!

Of course, paperbacks are more expensive than ebooks, and both my novels aren’t any different, making buying a digital version far cheaper. Also, I’m fairly sure there are large shipping fees and delivery periods for those buying in the UK. So, if anyone in the UK does want a version, I’ll be selling Inside Evil and The Tower of Souls at £6.74 and £8.99 respectively from my own batch. Just holla if you want one.

It is a glorious thing to hold an actual paperback in my hands though, and even though its probably very self serving, I’m glad that I decided to delve beyond the simple ebook niche.

Correcting my author name

Posted by geoffwakeling on

I’ve learned a lot in the past seven months of self publishing. Oh, how daunting everything seemed way back in April, and now I have two novels on Amazon shelves and another on the way. However, if there’s one thing I haven’t been careful about, it’s my author name. Continuity is key when you’re developing a platform and creating a brand for yourself, so your author name should also be constant. Unfortunately, in my case, this isn’t true, and it’s got me into quite a pickle.

If Joanna Rowling suddenly published a new Harry Potter book, you might think that it was fan fiction. After all, she is known as J.K. Rowling by millions of people around the world, and it always seems a little odd to hear her called Joanna. Likewise, if an S. Myers released a new fantasy novel, it wouldn’t be instantly obvious that it was the same Stephanie Myers who wrote the Twilight Saga.

Having been attempting to upload my books to Kobo, and hence going through the manuscripts again, I realised that there was no continuity with what I called myself. I was Geoffrey Wakeling here, Geoff Wakeling there, and G. Wakeling on the front cover. It might seem like a small issue, but it’s importance has been highlighted with my recent creation of paperbacks via CreateSpace. My kindle books are listed on Amazon as written by Geoffrey Wakeling. However, my CreateSpace novels are Mr. G. Wakeling, and that has led to some confusion over linking.

From now on, I really need to start paying attention to keeping continuity and will be going through all my literature to correct my author name to G. Wakeling. Call me what you like, and I’ll respond as long as I know that it’s me you’re talking too. But, creating a constant author name is vital if you’re to create that all important branding and it seems that I’ve not been nearly careful ensuring in creating my author name platform.

Making paperbacks with CreateSpace

Posted by geoffwakeling on

I never imagined that my self publishing journey would take me to where it has. OK, I’m not a millionaire, I’m not even earning a living off my books, but back in March I had nothing published – at all. Then, I discovered this world of eBooks, and I was hooked. Later, I heard about CreateSpace; this company that would print actual paperbacks. It souned too hard, too complicated, something I would explore….eventually. Now I have explored, and I’m overjoyed.

One of the reasons that I’ve been put off developing paperbacks in the past is a) my personal confusion and b) the higher costs that readers have to pay. $2.99 is a very good price for a book, in my opinion, and so I have no qualms pricing an eBook of Inside Evil at this level. However, to pull back paperback costs means that Inside Evil has to be at least $10 for me to even make $1 profit on it. Would people pay this for my book? I didn’t know.

Whilst I’m still in the dark as to whether people will actually buy at a paperback by an indie author at that price, my paperback copy of Inside Evil arrived today and I’m OVER THE MOON. It seems far more real to hold an actual book in your hands. See the print, see the cover, turn the pages over with your fingers. And, far from my huge concerns, creating the paperback was VERY easy.

 

 

 

Making Paperbacks with CreateSpace

The formatting issue was my first concern when it came to producing a paperback, and I thought I’d never be able to get the book outline correct. However, CreateSpace makes this very easy to do. Whilst  you can go through all manner of preformatted options and templates, I’ve found that using a current Word .doc of your manuscript is the best way. Here’s what I did:

1. Used the Word .doc of Inside Evil that I use to upload to Smashwords. Don’t worry – CreateSpace will send you an email saying that you’ve got all manner of formatting issues, but this is normal. I chose the 5′ x 8′ template for my book, meaning that my .doc was completely wrong. However, after you’ve uploaded, CreateSpace will offer you the option to download a template. DO THIS. You will find that the template includes your manuscript but with the CreateSpace formatting. You can then make alterations to your document in line with the formatting required.

I’ve found this method to be a lot easier than trying to pre-prepare any document. Remember, if you’re uploading a Smashwords ready file, take out the Smashwords copyright blurb at the front of the book. Also, if you have hyperlinks in your eBook, remember to take them out. As many times as a reader presses that link, it won’t open if it’s on paper. ;)

2. Having made the inside of your book beautiful by using the easy process above, it’s time to do the cover. There are MANY tutorials on the web which show how to make extremely good but complicated covers. If you have some cover art ready made, use the CreateSpace online cover editor.

If you scroll through the template options that they give you, there are a few blank ones that you can use. Simply update your information for the spine, use your cover for the front and utilise Photoshop, or something similar, to make a back cover. You might have to make a few corrections so that no text spills into the gutter lines but CreateSpace makes this very obvious so you know when you’ll need to change something. Your back cover also doesn’t have to be complicated – at all – and all I did was to overlay a black raster layer on top of my front cover, cut through to create a few lines of colour, and add the same text that I use for my sales copy.

*Note* – CreateSpace GIVES you a free ISBN and sorts out the barcode image on the back of your book. Don’t stress, they do it for you! :D

3. After you’ve done your interior and cover, you’re pretty much done. The team of reviewers will look at your work, after which point you have the option to order a Proof copy or just proof online. I was tempted just to proof online, but ORDER A PROOF COPY. Here’s why:

- Because I’d used my Smashwords .doc, I’d forgotten to put my headers and footers back in. Therefore, Inside Evil had NO page numbers.

- My About Author section still said ‘ebooks’, when it should have said ‘books’.

- You need to check your cover prints correctly. Just because it looks great on your computer screen doesn’t mean it will be perfect on the book.

- Your ebook font size and spacing may need changing. My font is size 12, with spacing set at 1.5 lines. Whilst this is OK, I’m trying another proof with normal spacing. This will reduce the number of pages, therefore making it cheaper for readers to buy. It’ll also look better.

- Holding the first ever printed copy of your book is AMAZING. I have no page numbers, an author error and PROOF written across the last page, but I love it.

Using CreateSpace is really easy to make your paperbacks, and I highly encourage it. Now that I’ve done a first proof of Inside Evil, I’m going to make a few changes and get another proof done. I’ve also spent today getting the The Tower of Souls ready for publication. Will I sell any paperback copies? Who knows. Will I love having MY books on MY real bookshelf? Yes.

How to market your ebook in your email signature

Posted by geoffwakeling on

I’ve been marketing Inside Evil in my email signature ever since it was available for sale. There’s nothing like a subtle sales pitch for getting the attention of people, and if you include a link to your books in an email, you may find that people will naturally click the link and take a look. After spending a few minutes placing the link, you’ve got a marketing plan that keeps on working (as long as you send emails, of course), and whether you’re emailing friends, family or new associates, you have the chance to make a sale or at the very least, stir some interest.

I always just used a text link in my email – it’s easy and simple to do. I use hotmail most of the time, so adding a little piece of text and including a hyperlink to my Amazon page seemed obvious enough. However, for no specific reason at all, I decided today that it wasn’t enough. OK, so people might look at the link, but it didn’t exactly leap out of the page.

After dabbling around in hotmail I realised that, much like on a website, I could use HTML to actually put in a sales image containing a specific sales link. All you need is to create your banner, have somewhere available to upload your image to the web so that it has an URL, use some rudimentary HTML, and off you go.

Firstly, I created a quick sales image that would be sure to catch people’s eye when they get an email from me:

You don’t want it to take up too much space, so this image is just 150px x 700px.

Secondly, I uploaded the image to this website’s media centre so that I could get an URL for the picture. This is important because hotmail doesn’t allow you to upload an image into your signature directly. However, it does offer HMTL, which means that you can link to an image anywhere on the web.

Thirdly, I used a simple piece of HMTL code to paste the image and link into my signature:

<a href=”http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JIH0EU” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://geoffreywakeling.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/sig.jpg” border=”0″ width=”700” height=”150“></a>

You can see that the red text indicates where the image links to. I thought about linking directly to my Amazon author page but thought I’d try a direct Inside Evil link first. It’s easy enough to change around, so I can alter it at my preference.

The blue text indicates where in my wordpress directory the image is held. This doesn’t have to be your blog, it could be photo service such as Photobucket, but your image must have an URL.

Finally, the green numbers show the size of the image so that you can set your picture to your own dimensions.

I have no idea where this will work, but it’s sure to be more eye catching than a simple written signature link with a hyperlink installed. Now, when people open my email, they’ll (hopefully) be drawn towards the covers and want to find out more.