August 2015 – Page 3 – Self Publishing Advisor

Weekly Self-Published Book Review: Prisoner of Belief

Book reviews are a great way for self-publishing authors to gain exposure. After all, how can someone buy your book if he or she doesn’t know it exists? Paired with other elements of your book promotion strategy, requesting reviews is a great way to get people talking about what you’ve written.

When we read good reviews, we definitely like to share them. It gives the author a few (permanent) moments of fame and allows us to let the community know about a great book. Here’s this week’s book review by Midwest Book Review:

Prisoner of Belief

John Van Dixhorn

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN:9781478736318

Synopsis: “Prisoner of Belief: One Man’s Odyssey to Reclaim His Soul – From Evangelical Minister to Searching Psychologist” is the personal story of John Van Dixhorn, a man who fights for his soul against the crushing power of religious orthodoxy and evangelical zealotry to become a modern man in the modern world. Raised by rigid Calvinists, Van Dixhorn became an evangelical minister, a successful pastor with prosperous churches. But intellectual honesty and emotional longing led him to challenge his faith, his church, his family, his friends and his vocation…and to eventually leave the ministry and become a secular psychologist. To live this life and write this book takes courage. “Prisoner of Belief” is a memoir of a courageous man. Through the numerous sharp and painful (and sometimes very funny) anecdotes, we begin to realize what it means to confront all the significant figures and forces in one’s life, from self, to mom, to brother, church, faith, ideology, Jesus, and finally to God…and the world-view that holds all this together in one neat theological package. Van Dixhorn provides enough historical background so that otherwise obscure theology may be understood. As a psychologist, Van Dixhorn takes us deeper to see how doctrine affects emotional life, how belief affects our psyche, our sexuality, and our sense of self. As Van Dixhorn leads us through his life, we learn so much from this honest and courageous story.

Critique: Told with extraordinary candor and unusual insight, “Prisoner of Belief: One Man’s Odyssey to Reclaim His Soul – From Evangelical Minister to Searching Psychologist” is exceptionally well written and organized. A fascinating reveal of the power of the human spirit to emancipate itself from the strictures of custom, tradition, orthodoxy, and repression, “Prisoner of Belief” is an informed and informative read, making it highly recommended and an enduringly valuable addition to community and academic library American Biography collections. It should be noted that “Prisoner of Belief” is also available in a Kindle edition ($9.99).

Here’s what some other reviewers are saying:

A courageous story of the meaning of religion, personal events, and trying to find one’s true vocal. I had long ago abandoned Christianity, so I had no personal ax to grind as I read Dr. Van Dixhorn’s memoirs. Though, it was unsettling to learn of the elitist attitude of fundamentalist religious groups and their views of the secular, non-christian population.
Dr. Van Dixhorn capture genuine personal struggles through out his life as a child, in seminary school, and as minister trying to live Evangelist life.
As one seeking life’s simple truths, the book satisfies my needs. For those wanting a crash course of seminary teaching and the duality of the bible, you will find plenty of food for thought. And for those struggling with your religious briefs, this is a great place to start your journey.

– Amazon Reviewer

Conversations with a Self-Publishing Writer, Royalene Speaks, stress

Conversations With A Self-Publishing Writer: 08/14/2015

WHY SHOULD I PUBLISH? Part II

Last week I started our conversation by comparing a couple concepts between Traditional Publishers and Self-Publishing Presses. One particular piece must be added before other things are shared. I’m referring to the author’s stress levels during any publishing process, and how people deal with people during this specific “life event.” Yes, having one’s book published is definitely a “life event.”

If you’ve been writing for very long you’re aware of the birthing experience of placing words on a page—many pages—and reaching the point when you’re willing to let someone else read it—some-ONE. That is a big step with even steeper steps that follow that may include a critique/support group, then possibly an agent (or two) and finally the folks at the publishing house or self-publishing press. Each of these steps are milestones of accomplishment and there are no ways around them if you want to see you book in print. So let’s talk about the specific stress elements you’ll be facing.

Because writing begins as a solitary endeavor, we have the ability to agree (and disagree) with how our projects are coming along. Self-editing is a particular skill that we all have but is dangerous to totally rely upon. Thus, the value of connection with a writers support group. I’ve enjoyed fellowship in three amazing groups.
- The first one took me by my toddler-writing-hands and gently fed me concepts and skills that will be with me forever.
- The second was my writing/editing team at my place of employment where we developed magazine articles. This band of writers honed my abilities and further developed my appreciation for defining words before using them haphazardly.
- The third (and current) group is my rock. These writers not only encourage me, they also hold me to task in reaching for and completing my dreams.
- The stress felt in each of these group-settings is healthy stress—exciting and filled with people who become forever-friends.
WHEN your book is complete and that manuscript sits upon your desk it is time to DECIDE which road you will take to get it published.
- Will you seek an agent to “sell” your book to a traditional publisher?
- What percentage of your royalties will they take? 10%? 15%?
- Will you approach traditional publishers on your own? What royalties will they pay you? 20%? 30%?
- Does your book demand being in the hands of readers quickly—thus leading you to self-publish?
- Which self-publishing press will you select? How much money will be needed to self-publish?
- Weighing the pros and cons of this publishing decision-making process is, indeed, stressful. However, no one can make this choice for your book but you.
THEN comes more decisions about…
- Exterior cover (front and back)
- Interior design (headers/footers, introduction or preface, etc.)
- Hardback or softcover/paperback
- AND…marketing…(a discussion for another day).

There is a buzz-word that has appeared in the self-publishing world…Indie-Authors…short for Independent Authors. I like the sound of it. It speaks to me of pioneer days when independent dreamers crossed the plains and wrote of their dreams and adventures—much like we do today sitting in our writing rooms and allowing our imaginations (and research) the place to create great stories. Yes, I recommend self-publishing…becoming an Indie-Author and directing the players on my stage of book production and book release into the world. ⚓︎

ABOUT ROYALENE DOYLE: Royalene has been writing something since before kindergarten days and continues to love the process. Through her small business—DOYLE WRITING SERVICES—she brings more than 40 years of writing experience to authors who need “just a little assistance” with completing their projects. This is a nice fit as she develops these blogs for Outskirts Press (OP) a leading self-publisher, and occasionally accepts a ghostwriting project from one of their clients. Her recent book release (with OP) titled FIREPROOF PROVERBS, A Writer’s Study of Words, is already receiving excellent reviews including several professional writer’s endorsements given on the book’s back cover.

Royalene’s writing experience grew through a wide variety of positions from Office Manager and Administrative Assistant to Teacher of Literature and Advanced Writing courses and editor/writer for an International Christian ministry. Her willingness to listen to struggling authors, learn their goals and expectations and discern their writing voice has brought many manuscripts into the published books arena.

Alternative Marketing Methods, Book Promotion, Book Promotion Strategy, Kelly Speaks, pinterest, Social Media Marketing

An Indie Author’s Social Media Primer | Pinterest

We’re not the first to write about the ways in which you can use Pinterest to help market your book, and we won’t be the last. Why? Because books are first and foremost a tangible object with incredible visual (and tactile) appeal, and Pinterest is a social media platform designed and built to showcase beautiful things. Emphasis on “things.” Pinterest is often described as a kind of digital bulletin board, and whether or not you actually use bulletin boards in real life, it is a powerful tool for collecting objects–most of them real and actual physical objects–together into one easy-to-access-and-modify place. It may not have been specifically designed for books, but Pinterest is definitely a book-lover’s dream … and a haven, too, for self-published authors.

How does Pinterest work? Users create profiles, find and follow their friends, and have the freedom to tag these friends when “pinning,” not to mention respond to or “re-pin” these friends’ “pins.” You can create just one Pinterest “board,” or many. You can even determine which ones are public and which ones are private, and invite your friends to pin to your private boards with you! (As with every other social media platform, Pinterest has created its own semi-exclusive vocabulary.) Depending on whether you’re using the mobile interface on your smartphones or other smart devices, or whether you’re using the desktop interface on your computer or laptop, these pins are displayed tiled across your screen in a visual “feed.” So far, you’ll note that Pinterest provides many of the same services as any other platform–like Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter–only with a more visual twist. In fact, I would say that Pinterest resonates with Instagram the most, since both of these mediums were designed exclusively to showcase visual content, and as such have attracted users of a more artistic bent.

So, how does the indie, hybrid, or self-published author take advantage of Pinterest? First, we have to address a certain … stigma … that Pinterest has acquired.

Debunking the Great Pinterest Myth: “Isn’t it mostly just recipes and wedding ideas?”

Forbes has published an article on it. So has the London School of Economics. And a whole host of marketing professionals (such as SiteLogicMarketing). In the United States, yes, some 83% of Pinterest users were female–but in the UK? That number drops to 44% female. And even in the predominantly female American user base, many big brands are making use of Pinterest to market meaningfully to men. In her Forbes article, Michelle Greenwald writes that Pinterest’s emphasis on “lifestyle” makes it prime territory for companies to “[add] brand value and [communicate] all the ways the brand can fit into its customers’ lives.” Yes, wedding companies and Etsy entrepreneurs and watercolorists have a good handle on the marketing potential of Pinterest, but so too do companies like Bit9, Go Pro, ESPN, IBM, and GE. When push comes to shove, purchasing a new washing machine or scoping out a new piece of tech is just as much a lifestyle-building decision as collecting ideas for bridal bouquets.

Top 5 Best Practices:

1. Take advantage of your own cover art. Your book is beautiful. Own it! Throwing together a Pinterest board that features your own book’s cover art should be amongst the first things you do with Pinterest as an author; the existing visual impact of your book is simply too great a resource to waste! You can fill the board up with illustrated quotations from your book, or perhaps photographs of your book in various locations–out “in the field, in its natural habitat” so to speak. And don’t forget about your book trailer, if you have one!

2. Put together an “inspiration board.” What inspires you when you’re writing? Art? Music? A really well-executed NPR interview? Set the mood for both you and your readers by putting together an inspiration board that features images, sounds, and atmospheres that evoke the world you’ve created within the pages of your book. You know those playlists that authors will put together to go with their books? An inspiration board is kind of like a playlist, only the content can be much more varied (and usually, much more visual!).

3. Pin contests and giveaways. There are all kinds of giveaways, contests, and sweepstakes running on Pinterest at any given moment, but often the most exciting ones involve books! Consider offering ARCs (Advance Reading Copies), singly or in bundles, to your readers via a Pinterest contest–and to enter, perhaps challenge each contestant to pin a picture of themselves holding your book in their favorite reading nook or space. This kind of contest turns into loads of free marketing for you, in part because it requires creative thinking and engagement on the part of your readers, and in part because for every person who enters and pins a picture, dozens more of their friends and family will be exposed to your book as it crops up in their Pinterest feeds. Just be sure you know how to navigate the fair use guidelines and contest requirements as stated by Pinterest!

4. Never underestimate the power of similarity. Those “if you like this, why don’t you try this?” ads are on to something, and Pinterest-savvy authors are taking note. One of the best things you can do on Pinterest is to dedicate a board to books that resonate with yours. Pin books (or book covers, with their Amazon listings linked in the descriptions, to be more specific) of the same genre, or featuring characters you like, or that employ plot devices that somehow exist in conversation with those you use. What purpose does this serve? As with any social media platform, you have to do a little creative manipulation to make yourself “findable” by your ideal readers. The more links you generate, the more connections you make easily accessible, the more people will find you and follow you on Pinterest. And don’t be afraid to “send” pins to or otherwise get in contact with other pinners whose interests resonate with your own; the worst thing someone can say is “no, I’m not interested in featuring your pin on my board of recently self-published historical fiction novels” … but they might be eager to pin it! You won’t know until you ask.

5. Don’t be afraid to set up or convert to a “Business” account. That’s right, Pinterest is doing its best to make it easy for you to build your brand! There are certain advantages to using a Business Profile as opposed to a Personal Profile, including access to analytics and other platform-specific tools that help you track what pinning activities are proving successful, and how to focus your time, energy, and attention where it’s going to do the most good.

Most Overlooked Feature:

If you haven’t heard of your “source page,” then you’re missing out! Pinterest sends out notifications when users re-pin your pins, but often these notifications don’t actually tell you how many users are pinning directly from your page and how many are re-pinning from other peoples’ feeds or from Pinterest’s built-in “suggestion” algorithms. Your source page is pinterest.com/yoursite.com, so if your username was “selfpublishingchampion,” your source page would be pinterest.com/selfpublishingchampion.com. Hop on over to your source page to see which pins are or are not performing well on Pinterest–it’s a good sign if users are pinning directly from your site, since that means they’re more likely to have seen more than just the one pin; they will have seen more of the content surrounding your book!

I hope you’ll join me in building this Social Media Primer! If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or contributions, please use the comment field below or drop us a line at selfpublishingadvice@gmail.com. And remember to check back each Wednesday for your weekly dose of social media know-how. ♠

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.

from the archives, Kelly Speaks

From the Archives: “Self-Publishing Success for The Shack”

Welcome to our new Tuesday segment, where we’ll be revisiting some of our most popular posts from the last few years. What’s stayed the same? And what’s changed? We’ll be updating you on the facts, and taking a new (and hopefully refreshing) angle on a few timeless classics of Self Publishing Advisor.

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[ Originally posted: June 14th, 2009 ]

You can’t walk through WalMart or browse through an online bookstore without catching a glimpse of The Shack. This 256 page novel was written by William P. Young, a former salesman, and self-published with the help of two business associates. Once copied and bound at Kinko’s, The Shack is now a New York Times Bestseller.

Published under an imprint, Windblown Media, created by Young and two former pastors, The Shack had a $300 marketing budget. The three embarked on a viral marketing campaign (word-of-mouth, church-to-church, blog-to-blog) to get copies out.

The moral of the story: as a self-published author, you’ve got to know your readers, discover how to reach them and start spreading the word.

Not every self-published author aspires to be like Young, and for those who do, the chances may be one in a million. However, The Shack proves that traditional publishing is not the only path to success for authors.

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Back in 2009, when The Shack was still a relatively recent publication–and international phenomenon–we posted this tiny little blog as a kind of preface for a future blog series on viral marketing. (See those posts here, here, and here.) Little did we know just how big of a deal The Shack was going to become–after it was picked up by Hachette, it had sold more than 1 million copies as of June 2008, and 10 million copies as of January 2012. Long before it was a commercial success in the hands of a big publishing company, however, The Shack was already doing splendidly.

We already know the story–how William Paul Young wrote an early version of The Shack and showed his wife, who told he needed to share it, so he made 15 photocopies that ended up circulating amongst their friends and their friends’ friends until Young felt compelled to ask the question: “Should I make a serious attempt at publication?” And how he approached a pastor, Wayne Jacobson, for his advice–and then they ended up starting their own publishing house (Windblown Media) to print and distribute the book. The rest, as they say, is history.

Only, that isn’t … quite … everything. While The Shack certainly saw more bookshelves than it would have otherwise once it had the might and heft of Hachette behind it, that isn’t to say it wasn’t an enormous self-publishing success long before it became a commercial success. Before Hachette took it on, The Shack had a marketing budget of only $300 dollars–an amount which paid for its website and little else. Young, Jacobson, and fellow pastor Brad Cummings covered the initial printing costs and footed the bill to create Windblown Media by maxing out 12 personal credit cards. Together, they sold the first 1,000 copies directly from that $300 website, and sold the initial print run of 11,000 copies in around 120 days. Their second print run of 22,000 sold out in fewer than 60. Their third print run of 33,000 was gone in 30 days. All of these books were sold through simple word-of-mouth and the book’s website. Donald Hughes of ChristianWritingToday.com writes that despite some legal disputes over the division of funds, “these men were present at a Christian self-publishing miracle, one that brings hope to many Christian authors.”

If we’re going to talk about the legacy of The Shack, the language of faith and miracles seems on point in more than one respect. The book is deeply religious in content, yes, but its impact can provide inspiration for authors of all faiths and creeds (or lack thereof). And even now, all these years later, The Shack is still moving copies. It’s even being adapted into a movie with a big budget and a Hollywood cast headed up by A-listers Sam Worthington (of Avatar fame) and Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer (of The Help … and many other films). The Shack is what it is because it found its ideal audience, and because its author was unafraid to write the book he really wanted to write–not just the book that publishers and agents wanted him to write.

We wrote about Young and The Shack back in 2009, but in 2015 this truth remains the same: The Shack is lauded as “intriguing,” “thought-provoking,” and “compelling” because self-publishing gave it a platform that traditional publishing did not; in choosing not to eradicate what made his book different and counter-cultural, Young made a deliberate choice not to give in to the industrial forces that erase authors from their own publishing experience. If you take anything away from Young’s story, it’s to create the book that you need to create, in your voice, and to deliver it to your readers the way that you want it to be read. ♠

news from the self publishing world, self publishing news, Self-Publishing Week in Review

News From the Self-Publishing World: 8/10/15

This week in the world of self-publishing:

How a Shy Former Avon Lady Became the Queen of Self-Publishing

This article shares the story of Donna Mabry, who, at the age of 72, has the top nonfiction Kindle Direct Publishing book of all time. A seamstress and former door-to-door salesperson nearing retirement age took a job sewing costumes for a Vegas show, and the stories she heard backstage inspired her to trade in her Singer for a laptop. This success story shows the possibilities available to self-publishing authors and will inspire you to self-publish your own manuscripts as well as to get creative in your marketing efforts.

Is Amazon’s New Self-Publishing Pay-By-Page Policy Good For Writers?

Facing negative feedback, Amazon is changing the way people pay for their books by creating a by-page payment system. This article explains Amazon’s latest self-publishing policy. The idea behind the new policy of pay by the page is simple: authors will get paid simply for the number of pages actually read. It’s intended to provide writer’s an incentive to produce quality books and to give authors feedback on their work. As an author, understanding the pros and cons of this new policy is a must because it could impact your work and income.

Want to Succeed in Self-Publishing? There Are No Shortcuts: Tips from an Indie Author

In this Publisher’s Weekly article, successful self-published author Lou Kasischke shares his top self-publishing tips. The tips include there are no shortcuts, awareness is key, and bring your book to market. Learning from authors who’ve already been through the publishing process is a great way to improve your own craft and success.

Outskirts Press Launches Google Books Preview Program for Self-Publishing Authors

Outskirts Press is now helping self-publishing authors take advantage of Google Play’s increasingly popular Google Books bookstore. The self-publishing service provider recently launched its Google Books Preview Program. This is an important service for self-publishing authors because by some estimates, of July 2013 Google Play recorded more than 50 billion downloads.The Google Books Preview Program is an easy, inexpensive and effective way to get a book before a worldwide audience of avid readers.

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry.This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Tuesday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

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