Showing posts with label self-publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-publishing. Show all posts
1 November 2015
These days we all have to be so multi-tasked. When we first came to France 10 years ago I just wanted to concentrate on creative writing. Naively I thought I'd self-publish and wait for my books to sell. Wrong. The best writing in the world won't sell if no-one knows about it! So, when I finally achieved a book contract with Crooked Cat Publishing, I thought 'great' - now someone will do all the publicising for me, something I hadn't a clue how to do. Fast forward and I've learned that nothing is that simple. Nowadays all authors must be involved on social media. So it was with trepidation that I approached my recent Facebook Book launch day. Because part of 3rd Degree Murder was set in my favourite decade, the '60s, I thought it would be fun to follow my character Jenny through the university story by conflating my past life with hers via old photos and fab music videos like Chuck Berry singing C'est la vie say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell. But, my biggest fear: would anyone actually come to the event? Would my home wifi break down on the day? Conclusion: the wifi worked, many people came to the event and entered my university challenge quiz, and I actually managed to do what I never thought I could: deal with downloads on social media! Success. Yes, Chuck, it goes to show, you never can tell!
I'm NOT a celebrity - get me published!
Marketing
For those who have chosen a self-publishing route like Lulu, you may well be asking: well, if I can publish my book myself, what was the point in trying so hard to get a literary agent/publisher in the first place? The answer is one word: marketing. That's the most important difference. Your own personal agent has years of connections and contacts who can not only distribute your book in all those coveted bookstore windows, proofread and edit, get promotional articles printed in leading newspapers and literary magazines, promote your book to major 'Golden Globe'-type book competitions and TV programmes like Richard and Judy, but also get you, the author, a handsome 6-figure advance on future royalties.
But now, back to the real world. That elusive agent/publisher didn't want to know, so you must go it alone.
There are various on-line marketing techniques you can try.
1. Make yourself a free website (like this one) and add the Lulu icon to your book in a prominent position. Your bloggers can then simply click and buy your book quickly and easily directly from Lulu.
2. Advertise. A simply way is to add an automatic signature at the foot of all your emails, e.g. 'Hot off the presses, Olga Swan's new book 'Paradis' now available. Click on lulu.com/olgaswan to read a free preview."
3. For more sophistical advertising, you might wish to invest in various offers, like the one below. However, as with all advertising, there is no guarantee of sales. But you have to be in it, to win it. so nothing ventured...
4. Some offer a payable 'click' service. A click is when someone clicks on your ad in the sponsored search results on Google, Yahoo! or MSN. Your ad can be viewed over a million times, but is not considered a click until someone clicks on your ad to go the web site. For example, if your book is about how to grow roses, your ad might show on a web site dedicated to growing roses. What is a landing page? A landing page is where you want your customers to go. It can be your Lulu storefront or your Lulu content page. When someone clicks on your ad, they will be directly taken to your landing page. If you pay for this service, you will be asked to provide a few words that describe your book. You will eventually be sent a detailed report showing how many people visited your landing page each day as soon as your allotment of clicks has been delivered.
5. So, if you want to pay for one of these marketing techniques to boost sales, search your self-publishing website for 'marketing tools', and off you go.
6. There are other things you, yourself, can do. Contact your local BBC Radio Station, especially if your newly-published book is about local issues. I did just that and appeared on a BBC Radio WM programme, that was streamed all over the world (so my family could hear me live). Contact your local book store and ask them if they would be prepared to stock your book. However, most are not interested in POD because there are no sale-or-return possibilities. You would need to invest heavily by first buying a stack of 'author-discounted' copies yourself, then taking them around to any store that has agreed to sell them for you. Negotiation with the store manager over percentages is crucial in this case.
........So, that's all there is to it! Not easy, but if you are successful, the world's the limit as JKR discovered. My own feeling on JKR is that she was very very lucky. In this world you need to give the right message to the right person at the right time. But she managed it, so why not you? Good luck!
For those who have chosen a self-publishing route like Lulu, you may well be asking: well, if I can publish my book myself, what was the point in trying so hard to get a literary agent/publisher in the first place? The answer is one word: marketing. That's the most important difference. Your own personal agent has years of connections and contacts who can not only distribute your book in all those coveted bookstore windows, proofread and edit, get promotional articles printed in leading newspapers and literary magazines, promote your book to major 'Golden Globe'-type book competitions and TV programmes like Richard and Judy, but also get you, the author, a handsome 6-figure advance on future royalties.
But now, back to the real world. That elusive agent/publisher didn't want to know, so you must go it alone.
There are various on-line marketing techniques you can try.
1. Make yourself a free website (like this one) and add the Lulu icon to your book in a prominent position. Your bloggers can then simply click and buy your book quickly and easily directly from Lulu.
2. Advertise. A simply way is to add an automatic signature at the foot of all your emails, e.g. 'Hot off the presses, Olga Swan's new book 'Paradis' now available. Click on lulu.com/olgaswan to read a free preview."
3. For more sophistical advertising, you might wish to invest in various offers, like the one below. However, as with all advertising, there is no guarantee of sales. But you have to be in it, to win it. so nothing ventured...
4. Some offer a payable 'click' service. A click is when someone clicks on your ad in the sponsored search results on Google, Yahoo! or MSN. Your ad can be viewed over a million times, but is not considered a click until someone clicks on your ad to go the web site. For example, if your book is about how to grow roses, your ad might show on a web site dedicated to growing roses. What is a landing page? A landing page is where you want your customers to go. It can be your Lulu storefront or your Lulu content page. When someone clicks on your ad, they will be directly taken to your landing page. If you pay for this service, you will be asked to provide a few words that describe your book. You will eventually be sent a detailed report showing how many people visited your landing page each day as soon as your allotment of clicks has been delivered.
5. So, if you want to pay for one of these marketing techniques to boost sales, search your self-publishing website for 'marketing tools', and off you go.
6. There are other things you, yourself, can do. Contact your local BBC Radio Station, especially if your newly-published book is about local issues. I did just that and appeared on a BBC Radio WM programme, that was streamed all over the world (so my family could hear me live). Contact your local book store and ask them if they would be prepared to stock your book. However, most are not interested in POD because there are no sale-or-return possibilities. You would need to invest heavily by first buying a stack of 'author-discounted' copies yourself, then taking them around to any store that has agreed to sell them for you. Negotiation with the store manager over percentages is crucial in this case.
........So, that's all there is to it! Not easy, but if you are successful, the world's the limit as JKR discovered. My own feeling on JKR is that she was very very lucky. In this world you need to give the right message to the right person at the right time. But she managed it, so why not you? Good luck!
I'm NOT a celebrity - get me published!
Part 3.
O.K. You've sent your valuable mss around all the reputable AAS agents and been rejected. There are now several routes you can try: literary competitions, the vanity press, POD or self-publishing.
As an unpublished first-time author of fiction, you can do an internet search of literary competitions. Problems: some, like the current Amazon 09 competition, restrict residents of some countries, e.g. France! (I don't know why). The second is whether you are eligible if you have published other works in the self-publishing field. The rules are often ambiguous. The prize for the winner, though, is great: a contract by an established publisher.
The next thing you might want to consider is the vanity press. I wouldn't! The vanity press publishes books at the author's expense. Just remember: if someone wants money from you up-front - whether to read your mss or to publish it - they ain't legit! Unlike legitimate publishers, the vanity press makes its money from you, the author, rather than the paying public. So, what's the difference between that and self-publishing?
Self-publishing is the publishing of books by the author, rather than by established, third-party publishers. The key distinguishing characteristic of self-publishing is the absence of a traditional publisher. Instead the creator or creators fulfill this role, taking editorial control of the content, arranging for printing, marketing the material, and often distributing it, either directly to consumers or to retailers. All rights remain with the author, the completed books are the writer's property, and the writer gets all the proceeds of sales. Remember: there are many reasons why authors choose the self-publishing route. If you choose carefully, the process is free for all on-line sales, legitimate and offers an option for your customers to either buy on-line from your chosen self-publishing company or to order from Amazon and walk-in bookstores directly. To make you feel better, here are some best-selling authors who started off by self-publishing: William Blake, Virginia Woolf, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Benjamin Franklin, Rudyard Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, George Bernard Shaw....to name but a few.
So, if they did it, so can you.
Next week, I'll show you the mechanics of how to actually self-publish your mss with a reputable self-publishing company. Don't miss it.
O.K. You've sent your valuable mss around all the reputable AAS agents and been rejected. There are now several routes you can try: literary competitions, the vanity press, POD or self-publishing.
As an unpublished first-time author of fiction, you can do an internet search of literary competitions. Problems: some, like the current Amazon 09 competition, restrict residents of some countries, e.g. France! (I don't know why). The second is whether you are eligible if you have published other works in the self-publishing field. The rules are often ambiguous. The prize for the winner, though, is great: a contract by an established publisher.
The next thing you might want to consider is the vanity press. I wouldn't! The vanity press publishes books at the author's expense. Just remember: if someone wants money from you up-front - whether to read your mss or to publish it - they ain't legit! Unlike legitimate publishers, the vanity press makes its money from you, the author, rather than the paying public. So, what's the difference between that and self-publishing?
Self-publishing is the publishing of books by the author, rather than by established, third-party publishers. The key distinguishing characteristic of self-publishing is the absence of a traditional publisher. Instead the creator or creators fulfill this role, taking editorial control of the content, arranging for printing, marketing the material, and often distributing it, either directly to consumers or to retailers. All rights remain with the author, the completed books are the writer's property, and the writer gets all the proceeds of sales. Remember: there are many reasons why authors choose the self-publishing route. If you choose carefully, the process is free for all on-line sales, legitimate and offers an option for your customers to either buy on-line from your chosen self-publishing company or to order from Amazon and walk-in bookstores directly. To make you feel better, here are some best-selling authors who started off by self-publishing: William Blake, Virginia Woolf, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Benjamin Franklin, Rudyard Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, George Bernard Shaw....to name but a few.
So, if they did it, so can you.
Next week, I'll show you the mechanics of how to actually self-publish your mss with a reputable self-publishing company. Don't miss it.
6th November 2008
Now that the global excitement of the last few days has begun to die down, I look again to matters closer to home. Through our blurry windows, the rain outside continues to pour down by the bucket-load, washing in muddy channels down to the nearby river Aveyron. Yesterday I pulled my L.L. Bean raincoat from its hook and decided to join Him indoors and Bruno for a muddy walk down to see how high the river had reached. Several yellow inondation signs were leaning against the castle wall, ready to leap into action should the river burst its banks. Fortunately, when buying our house three years ago, we made sure our home was well out of the flood zone but you have to be prepared. The river was brown and raging in full flood, making me think of wild-water rafting. Not the time for Bruno (or us) to have a swim.
In this kind of weather, it's ideal for me to spend time writing. I've now finished my first children's novel called 'Rose' but still search for that elusive agent/publisher to represent me. In the meantime, I have self-published it on the YouWriteOn site (funded by the UK Arts Council) and it should be available for purchase by Xmas. (I'll publish the link as soon as I know it). It is the first of seven novels in which each girl has an adventure in one of the 7 modern wonders of the world. Rose goes to the Ancient Temple of Petra in Jordan, and because its motto is 'protection against enemies', timid Rose becomes strong and learns to love her own enemies. I've already started writing novel no. 2 in the series, called 'Clementine', who will be travelling to the Colliseum in Rome.
In this kind of weather, it's ideal for me to spend time writing. I've now finished my first children's novel called 'Rose' but still search for that elusive agent/publisher to represent me. In the meantime, I have self-published it on the YouWriteOn site (funded by the UK Arts Council) and it should be available for purchase by Xmas. (I'll publish the link as soon as I know it). It is the first of seven novels in which each girl has an adventure in one of the 7 modern wonders of the world. Rose goes to the Ancient Temple of Petra in Jordan, and because its motto is 'protection against enemies', timid Rose becomes strong and learns to love her own enemies. I've already started writing novel no. 2 in the series, called 'Clementine', who will be travelling to the Colliseum in Rome.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
