Category: Self-Publishing

Self-Publishing

Self-publishing Ripple Effect Marketing

Think of self-publishing book marketing as a marathon, not a sprint. Plan the journey, prepare to work, pace yourself, and not become discouraged when you the bear jumps on your back. Your second wind is right around the corner.

Unlike blockbuster books like Harry Potter, which sell 90% of their copies in the first 90 days of release, an independently published book is often the opposite – not surprising since titles like Harry Potter make up a percent of a percent of all books published. It takes time to build awareness. Sales may start slowly, but can climb over time if you persistently market your book.

If you’ve yet to nail down a specific marketing plan, I suggest starting in your own hometown. Build a Tribe. Attract the interest and readers of people in your inner circle before you focus on your neighborhood. Then, focus on your neighborhood before concentrating on your city. Next your state and region, etc. This is known as the ripple effect.

It applies to both online and traditional marketing tactics.


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Self-Publishing

Self-publishing Guest Post – Ask the Book Doctor

Q: Please give general guidelines of word counts for short stories, novellas, novelettes, and novels. What is the minimum length for a short story? I have several that are only a few hundred words long. Are they short shorts?

Also, what is “dark fiction?”

A: Short stories have no minimum or maximum, but some publishers or contests have preferred lengths or maximums, so check with the publications or competitions where you plan to send your stories. A few hundred words may be considered a short-short, yes. Flash fiction might be even fewer than a hundred words.

The recommended length for a novel is between 50,000 and 100,000 words; anything under that word count might be considered a novella or a novelette; the two terms mean the same thing. Anything over that length might get a manuscript rejected, or a publisher might request that the manuscript be cut down to 100,000 words or under, to save on printing costs, unless you already have a strong following.

When you think of dark fiction, think of vampires, werewolves, serial killers, things that go bump in the night, Stephen King, horror, skinheads, Bram Stoker, zombies, evil, bloodthirsty beings, and the like.


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Bobbie Christmas, book editor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at http://www.zebraeditor.com.

Book Promotion, Book Reviews, Self-Publishing, Viral Marketing

On Self-published Book Reviews

Every Saturday I post self-published book reviews on this blog. What you won’t find in those is critical review in the vein of James Wood or the New York Times book review. (I am a fan of both.)

The reviews posted here are not intended to be on par, mimic, or compliment a James Wood. The reality is book marketing is changing as fast as book publishing – exponentially. As Stephen Marche noted in a recent Esquire, “…written criticism — literary, music, and movie reviews by trained professionals — has never been less relevant. There is no Lester Bangs to announce to the cool kids that the Doors actually suck.”

Learning to view this as neither good nor bad, but instead different, is the key. It’s not a fight anyone is going to win, after all. For those literary buffs out there, I encourage you to read some James Wood. And I hope you find our book reviews here at the very least a good resource for learning about new titles and relevant niche reads.


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Self-Publishing, Viral Marketing

The Future of Publishing

In her end of the year address, Simon & Schuster CEO, Carolyn Reidy had this to say of the book market, “The US bookselling market has been truly lackluster, and year-on-year sales at most of our major customers have declined significantly … the lower sales volume attributed to the soft marketplace was impossible for us to overcome.”

But is the marketplace soft? Have book sales truly declined? Or, as Seth Godin would suggest, has the marketplace, instead of going soft, changed radically?

Self-published author, Keith Knapp, has nearly dominated the Kindle store sales rankings for months. As Knapp points out, it’s not easy to get readers to pick up titles from authors they’ve never heard of. But here is an example of an author adapting to the changing market to find success, in spite of disliking the practice of marketing itself.

As Seth identifies, “Competition and the market are like water. They go where they want.”

I encourage you to take two minutes and enjoy this video, The Future of Publishing.



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Cheers.

Self-Publishing

Self-publishing Tidbits

News today broke of yet another Author Solutions partnership between ‘self empowerment’ publisher, Hay House. As you may recall, this comes after similar partnerships over the past year with Harlequin and Thomas Nelson, which brought on quite a bit of criticism throughout the industry.

Like it or not, self-publishing proves again to be on the move, as reported in a recent New York Times article: “But times have changed, and radically. Last year, according to the Bowker bibliographic company, 764,448 titles were produced by self-publishers and so-called microniche publishers. (A microniche, I imagine, is a shade bigger than a self.) This is up an astonishing 181 percent from the previous year.” Be sure to check out the comments section, beginning with the insightful first response.


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