Kelly Schuknecht – Page 54 – Self Publishing Advisor

Alternative Marketing Methods, Book Marketing, Book Promotion, Book Promotion Strategy, instagram, Kelly Speaks, Marketing Your Self-Published Book, Social Media Marketing

An Indie Author’s Social Media Primer | Instagram

Another week, another new social media platform. You might think we would have run out of new ideas and methods for digital connection by now, but the list of possibilities only seems to keep expanding––and in some cases, though not all, the platforms are enduring. Instagram is one of those platforms, and it may just turn out to be one of the most useful ones there is for the self-published author looking to dive into the whole marketing-by-networking process.

It’s not that Instagram doesn’t have its fair share of detractors (believe me, it does)––but then, which social media platform manages to keep all of its users happy, all of the time? There are journalists out there who firmly believe that marketing your books through social media is an endeavor bound and doomed to fail; they are, however, in the minority. And a lot of authors, like indie poet Mirtha Michelle, have found promotional success after creating authentic and dynamic relationships with their fans. “I don’t try to be anything I’m not,” she writes. “I’ll post pieces of who I am.” All social media platforms present opportunities to connect in this way, but Instagram in particular has found a dedicated and loyal user base––industry professionals are beginning to recognize that Instragram’s model of encouraging its users to post images of day-to-day activities is something we can rely on to stick around, unlike some other quote-on-quote “faddish” platforms.

So, what is Instagram? To tell you what it is, we first have to clear up the biggest myth of all––that is, what it isn’t:

Debunking the Great Instagram Myth: “It’s all cats, lattes, and what you had for breakfast.”

Instagram is one of the most streamlined social media platforms out there, in part because it has been engineered almost exclusively for “mobile” use––that is, as an app for smartphones. Users snap a picture on their smartphone’s built-in camera of what’s going on around them, edit it to look artsy or gritty or incandescently pretty using one of the app’s “filters,” and then post the picture for their friends, family, and other followers to “like” and comment on. Users have only to scroll through their feeds with the swipe of a thumb to view all of the pictures taken by all of the people they follow. Ease of use and the built-in appeal of a visually-driven interface makes Instagram an engaging digital space, and it has evolved to allow users to post short videos in addition to their pictures.

Instagram is generally, in my experience, an upbeat place––rife with photos of waterfalls and meadows overlaid with inspirational quotes, self-aware embarrassing selfies, and the ever-evolving memes. Everyone has figured out how to tweak it to best represent their lives and interests: hikers, climbers, birdwatchers, and other lovers of the outdoors post their daring feats and snaps of dawn over this or that lake; artists post videos of their works-in-progress as they go; cooks and bakers post snapshots of their (artfully) dirty countertops; and authors post quotes, snapshots of their bundled manuscripts, and tantalizing glimpses of their laptop screens. There are plenty of cats, and lattes, and half-eaten breakfasts to be found if you follow folks who are prone to disorganization, but most Instagram users are part-way through the process of developing a personal “brand”––and many are more interested in showing you who they are than in showing you what they eat. Follow these people––these authors.

Top 5 Best Practices:

1. Go for the gut. Instagram is about intimacy. Remember that, if you remember nothing else about this post. Your followers on Instagram aren’t interested in posts that keep them at arms-length; the whole reason they follow you is that they want an “inside look,” to “go behind the scenes” of your life, even if you’re just a moderately successful accountant from Atlanta. Posts that show a glimpse of your heart and your goals as a writer, or a slice of a rough day, are more likely to engage your fans. If you don’t care about the content of a photo, that’s a good sign that they won’t either.

2. Think regular, but not too regular. You don’t have to sit down and block out a schedule for the next six months, but it is a good idea to plan a regular post––perhaps once a week––that your followers (your readers!) can count on seeing pop up in their feeds. It’s also a good idea to allow plenty of room for spontaneous posts that reflect your mood at a given moment, and those all-important surprises that transform a day into an important day. Just don’t clutter up your followers’ feeds with repetitive or blasé posts that tempt them to keep scrolling and scrolling past all of your hard-won new content!

3. You’re in the inspiration business, so share yours. ‘Nuff said, really. One of the fastest ways to a reader’s heart is to talk with them about the backstories to the works they love best. Reading is about imagination, and inspiration, and participation––every bit as much as writing––so time spent sharing how and why you create what you create … is time well spent. Show your readers the emotional or physical worlds that they encounter in your books––snapshots of the real café you frequent that inspired the one in your latest novel, or the skyline of the city in which your novel is set, or a landscape overlaid with a quote that you turned to when facing your greatest discouragements––or that your characters turned to when facing theirs.

4. Use the hashtags and @username functions. I think I’ve about over-talked the importance of hashtags elsewhere (especially in my Twitter primer two weeks ago), but I cannot overstate the fundamental utility of these built-in functions. Findability remains key on any platform, including Instagram, and despite its visual nature it’s just as entrenched in metadata as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. People will still find you (and you, them) using keyword searches and hashtags, and they’ll respond to your material if they receive notification that you called them out by name. Host giveaways! Post a weekly “top fan” award! Use the system, above all, to interact with those all-important followers!

5. Don’t posture. All social media platforms are saturated with posts that the average user will find narcissistic and annoying, and although we can most definitely argue the merits of positive self-image and self-affirmation, it’s best not to turn your Instagram feed into a continual parade of any one type of content, especially the kind that forgets that connection requires conversation. Keep your pictures diverse, in nature and editing and subject, and your Instagram followers will feed on your creativity, your (carefully curated) spontaneity, and your interest in them.

Most Overlooked Feature:

The “Direct Message” function of Instagram, hands-down! You can send a private or semi-private message to up to fifteen followers at once, and although this feature won’t exactly broadcast your news and message to the general public, it will most definitely help build that sense of intimacy that I mentioned in point #1, above. You can use a DM to announce giveaway winners, or to surprise and delight a few select followers with bonus material! A DM feels much more intimate, and meaningful, than a picture any one of a hundred thousand people can see––and on Instagram, intimacy directly translates to lasting engagement with your fan base. Together, you and your followers can finish this sentence: “A picture is worth a ______________!”

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.

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

An Indie Author’s Social Media Primer | Twitter

“There’s a lot more to using social media for book promotion,” I wrote last week, “than simply knowing the names of the most popular sites or even how to set up an account with and update each one.” Twitter is no exception. This social media platform is often described as a “microblogging” website, a descriptor which implies that Twitter users manage their feed and profile content the way they would a blogging website––only in smaller chunks. This is only partially true, in that some Twitter users who also have blogs may use the same parameters to manage both platforms, or in that some Twitter users treat the site as a tool for unspooling narrative.

If you spend any quality time on Twitter, however, you’ll rapidly discover that terms like “microbloggers” or “microblogs” only describe a small fraction of the feeds out there; some users compile data and statistics while others use their feeds to start conversations, and still others mostly neglect their own feeds while spending their time watching other peoples’. Back in 2013, Steve Faktor deconstructed and described ten types of Twitter users in a 2013 Forbes article that still, for the most part, holds up beautifully. For the indie, hybrid, or self-published author, Twitter can be a minefield––rife with potential rewards for the daring and discerning user, yes, but a minefield nonetheless. This is, in part, because the fundamental operating assumption out there about Twitter––that is actually preached by its own PR team––is that it is awash with activity, engagement, and avid disseminators of information. This is simply untrue.

Debunking the Great Twitter Myth: “If I tweet regularly, followers will appear.”

Twitter, like any other website, has its active users and its passive users. Many people set up Twitter accounts and then forget about them, or never really learn how to use them, or find that the website isn’t as cozy and endearing as it was made out to be. (Lady Gaga doesn’t respond to every tweet her followers tag her in? What?! And your most engaged followers turn out to be spambots? Uh-oh.) It’s actually rather difficult to “break into” the Twitter community, which largely relies on name-recognition and a blend of appealing content, interactivity, and incentives to keep people coming back and checking their feeds. As Faktor writes in his article, “Of the billions of tweets sent, 71% get no response, only 36% are worth reading, and a majority is generated by a tiny fraction of users.” This isn’t to say that it’s pointless to try and become “Twitter Famous,” but it is important not to tie your entire book-promotion strategy back to a mythical welcoming Twitterverse. “Twitter is a personal announcement system,” Faktor tells us, “that captures the collective pulse of a world screaming for attention––or revolution, or discounts, or Kanye.” There will always be an element of unpredictability, as well as social utility, to what “makes it big” on Twitter.

So, how do we ensure that our time on the site isn’t wasted in producing content no one will ever read?

Top 5 Best Practices:

1. Set it up––all of it––correctly. Most Twitter accounts are “dark,” which means they’re either in hibernation––that is, they’re only rarely updated, if ever––or were never set up properly and are therefore the amputated leavings of someone’s digital footprint. Your first task is to make yourself “findable,” which means that you use every detail of your profile––picture, avatar, short biography, and yes, even your Twitter name or “handle”––as a marketing opportunity. A polished photograph of you and/or your book, a tagline that includes keyword-rich phrases that will show up in search engine indexing, and a distinctive yet readable handle (I.E.: neither “jane-doe17” nor “sweetROMANCEauthor4u”) will go a long, long way toward rendering you findable.

2. Set yourself a daily and weekly Twitter task. In addition to being findable you have to be visible. If you are competing with other Twitter users who are selling similar products (READ: books) and therefore producing similar content, then you absolutely must differentiate yourself from these other users. Celebrities can get away with taking a haphazard approach to what material they post and when and how often, but you can’t. Set yourself a routine, and stick to it––and you’ll develop a dedicated group of followers who know they can rely on you to produce, week in and week out, something that they wish to read. Whether this means you post a link to a longer blog post every Monday, a revived “From the Archives” post every Tuesday, a “What I’m watching or reading or listening to now” post every Wednesday, or something else each day of the week is up to you. Make sure you respond to all (legitimate) direct messages and public tags (when someone else uses your Twitter handle to mention you) on a set schedule, also, and that way your followers will know you care!

3. Use a third-party website to schedule your tweets. There are plenty of options out there, these days, and it doesn’t matter which one you use so much as the fact that you are willing to use them. (I personally have used the very simple TwitterFeed website, but I recommend looking at a couple before you decide. Kristi Hines over at KissMetrics has reviewed quite a few of them, and several look like they show promise. But first: What does it mean to “schedule” your tweets? It means that you write them all at once, but spread out when they actually post to your feed so that other people can read and respond to them. You can go on vacation, for example, and rest easy knowing that your Twitter feed will run smoothly in your absence, without interruption. The best part of scheduling your tweets is that you can develop better personal time-management skills––you can write all of your tweets for the week on a Saturday night, and that frees you up to chase as many bunny trails and respond to as many questions and maybe even spend more time offline than you would otherwise.

4. Listen to your followers, and don’t overdo it. A lot of people, including myself, are tempted to give up Twitter because it can quickly devolve into a hot mess of confusing data, links, conversations, and other disconnected tidbits. There’s quite literally way too much to keep up with going on at any point in time on Twitter––we live in a restless world, and everyone wants to announce their place in it. Don’t be afraid to trumpet your own fine product (READ: book), but be aware that an effective tweet isn’t always a simple declaration of “here’s a thing you should buy.” An engaged and interested follower will be far more likely to plonk down the money for your book or ebook than someone who just sees that “here’s a thing” tweet without any context. Especially if that tweet is buried amidst a whole bunch of other content that isn’t interactive, and isn’t encouraging them to enter your world in a personal and fun way. Before you know what constitutes “too much” and “just right” for your followers, you have to listen to them. Don’t pile on tweet after tweet without pause, without taking a breath, and without waiting for followers to retweet, reply, or “favorite” your last tweet. Don’t waste your time; time is a precious commodity when it comes to shaping your digital identity. Save it for tweets that matter––and that speak to what your followers actually respond to.

5. Remember to incentivize. Incentives can be tangible (like a giveaway or a discount), or intangible (like special “insider” or “behind-the-scenes” content), but they perform at least two vital functions: they make your followers feel valued, and they keep your followers coming back for more. One of the greatest failings of the “here’s a thing” tweet I mentioned above is that there’s absolutely nothing to it that hooks a follower and reels him in. There’s no privilege or sense of inclusion or outright benefit to someone reading that tweet, much less deciding to follow through and buy your book. Twitter, at its best, is a conversation. At its worst, it is a one-sided conversation.

Most Overlooked Feature:

Twitter’s most overlooked feature is its hashtags. I’m not saying that people don’t use hashtags––believe me, they do, and they do and they do and they do and they do––but they rarely use them effectively. The best hashtags will group related tweets together so that when you click on one (like #weneeddiversebooks), all tweets with that particular hashtag will show up in a separate but continuous feed. If the hashtag is too common (like #love, for example), far too many tweets will show up and it will turn into a big bowl of nonsensical mishmash. If the hashtag is too specific (like #ramennoodlesareforqueens), then it’s unlikely that anyone else will ever tag their tweets with that same hashtag––and while that can definitely be useful, if you are up for the challenge of starting your own hashtag movement, it effectively excludes everyone else from the conversation. (And, well, there goes the “social” part of “social networking.)

The current trend is, of course, over-tagging. (There’s even a hashtag for that!) You can end up with a hilarious Jimmy Fallon & Justin Timberlake skit, but you can also end up with a whole lot of confused or disinterested followers. (In real life. The skit is hilarious.)

Build your own hashtag(s), absolutely. Build them wisely. And shape them, as you do all of your Twitter habits, to structured and intentional ends. I have every confidence you can use Twitter effectively to promote your book(s)––but it’s not the only way to do so, and we’ll be examining many other ways as the Wednesdays roll around!

Book Design, Book Marketing, Book Promotion, Book Promotion Strategy, Cover Design, Editing Your Self-Published Book, Kelly Speaks, Marketing Your Self-Published Book

Self-Publishing & Merchandising : A Book’s Interior Design

When we speak of books, we mostly speak of them as one of two things: an object, made up of surfaces and contours and textures, or as a vehicle for ideas. We rarely pause to consider the interior design of a book, unless of course it is a book that draws attention with smart graphic design and accentuation. What readers and producers of comic books, graphic novels, and illustrated fiction take for granted, the prose community has by and large neglected; that is, when we crack open the cover of a new book by Hugh Howey or Rachel Swaby or Sarah Taylor, we forget that every letter on those pages, every jot of ink and swathe of white space, has to be carefully arranged in order to make for a pleasant––and submersive––reading experience.

For the self-published author, a book’s interior aesthetic can spiral out of control quickly. This is because a self-published author is not, generally speaking, a renaissance man with phenomenal powers of writing and artistry and graphic design. A beautiful cover may seem like a more worthwhile use of a self-published author’s limited time. Though there may be the rare exception, the average person who chooses (or is required by circumstances) to bypass traditional publishing also lacks the legion of highly specialized editorial staff who comb through manuscripts and ARCs looking for even the tiniest flaw––an orphan sentence, a snafu in line spacing, you name it. And believe me, even though we don’t tend to think of readers as detail freaks, they have a sensitive nose for anything that feels “off.” Your job as a self-published author is to keep your reader reading your book, not caught up in the intricacies of its design. For that reason, a book’s interior should look as polished as possible.

Here are a few tips:

1. Choose your typeface carefully.

Whether you decide to opt for a serif or a sans-serif typeface, make sure you know what it will look like on whole blocks of text at once––pages and pages of text. Also keep in mind that while sans-serif fonts have a sort of “cool” factor and are often evocative of popular science and science-fiction––and therefore add a dash of visual interest as well as genre resonance––serif fonts are actually easier to read at length. That’s what the serif tags are there for, to help your eyes track seamlessly from one letter to the next. Still, your choice will come down largely to preference (mine is for Monotype Bell and MVB Sirenne, both of which read well in multiple sizes, as well as in italicized passages and headings).

2. … And about those headings?

Not every book uses chapter headings on every page. Take a look at the books in your genre, to get a feel for what’s normal there. I’ve found in my collection that there’s a tendency toward headings in nonfiction and certain chapter-driven science fiction pieces, but that for the most part, fiction sticks with simple page numbers. Also keep in mind that your inclusion (or exclusion) of headers and the positioning of your page number will affect your margins. It’s absolutely essential that you leave extra white space on the edge of the page with a page number or heading––both of these things are considered extensions of your typewritten page, and they affect the eye as such.

3. Margins do deserve the attention, I promise.

Take a look at the nearest book. (In my case, it’s Howey’s Wool.) Compare the inside margins of the pages (the ones adjoining the binding) to the outside margins (the ones your thumbs touch as you flip pages). In the standard book, the standard traditionally published book, those inside margins are significantly larger. This is to allow the book’s binding to curve as you crack open the spine, letting the pages curl away and yet remain readable. It is not uncommon for self-published authors to forget this tiny detail, and for the book to suffer for it. If I have one piece of advice for authors looking to format their own books, it’s this: Don’t sacrifice your margins––for anything. Yes, it’s cheaper to pack in more words per page, and so to save on printing fees. But I promise, more people will want to buy your book if they pick it up and it feels gracious, spacious, and easy to read. It’s wise to aim for about 12 words per line of text––this is the standard in traditional publishing, for good and time-honored reasons.

4. Justify your paragraphs.

Take a moment to modify your text alignment from “left” to “justified.” This means that your text still begins at the left-hand margin of the page, but that it’s right-hand side also ends at its respective margin, creating a smooth visual block of text, all the way from the top to the bottom of any given page. Leaving that text simply aligned “left” will create a jagged line along the right-hand side of the page, wherever the words leave off. You want to check your kerning line to line before you release it to the printer, in order to ensure each page looks perfect, of course––that’s par for the course.

5. Leave no blank right-hand pages.

The first page of your book is going to be a right-hand page, and the first page of content––not the title page, not the copyright information, not the dedication––will be “Page One” and should be marked such. (Page numbers should only appear once the content of your book begins, and not before.) Every succeeding chapter should begin on a right-hand page, even if the previous chapter ended on a right-hand page. The solution is to leave a blank left-hand page, which you can utilize for illustrations, quotations, or other related material. The point, however, is to play to a kind of “psychology of reading,” which asserts that readers find it easier to begin new thoughts if there’s that reliable visual cue there. Blank pages should be left entirely blank, including of page numbers and page headers.

6. Go easy on illustrations, graphics, and other addendums.

It’s easy to get carried away inserting pictures into our books––after all, a picture is worth quite a few jots of ink, right? But there are a couple of dangers to watch out for here, as with everything else related to design. First of all, your images need to look every bit as polished as your text. If you’re inserting inexpert photographs, clipart, or hasty sketches, they’re going to negatively impact the reader’s opinion of your book’s quality. (We do judge ideas based on their presentation, for better or worse.) Secondly, they need to be important. If they’re not somehow integral to a reader’s understanding of your book, then they don’t need to be there, and they shouldn’t be there. Illustrations, like your words, have to work to earn their keep. And finally, your images need to be high enough in resolution that they hold up and read well at different scales, both large and small, and on multiple platforms, including tablets and e-readers. If readers can see pixellation, they’re likely to dismiss a book as amateurish.

And last but not least:

7. Fresh eyes are vital.

The best advice I ever received from a writing instructor was to work until I thought a piece was done, and then to walk away for days, preferably a week, and then to return for a final (or quarter-final) evaluation. Invariably, coming back with fresh eyes led to me spotting weaknesses and glitches and errors that I would never have seen otherwise. It’s also important to remember, as a self-published author, that there’s a promotional benefit to showing early readers advance copies of your book, with a plea that they give you feedback on what’s working and not working, in terms of design as well as content. Their advice will help you tweak your book to perfection, while also spreading the word that you have an upcoming publication on its way!

[ NOTE: If you’re looking for the first blog in this post, a general overview of merchandising for self-published authors, you’ll want to look here. If you’re interested in reading up on extras and special editions, take a look at my second post in this series. For last week’s post, on book cover and jacket design, follow this link. ]

I’m realistic, or I like to think I am. This topic is bigger than just me and my own thoughts. I’d like to open the floor to you, dear reader. If you have any thoughts to share on the topic of merchandising, or questions you’d like answered, send them my way via the comments box below! I want to hear from you, and I love nothing more than a good excuse to do a little research if I don’t know something off of the top of my head. Jump on in!

Alternative Marketing Methods, Book Design, Book Marketing, Book Promotion, Book Promotion Strategy, Cover Design, Kelly Speaks, Marketing Your Self-Published Book

Self-Publishing & Merchandising : Book Cover and Jacket Design

So here’s the thing: you’ve written a book. Now you have to sell it. But you’re going to self-publish, and you’re just self-conscious enough to do a little field research, so you drop on by your local indie bookstore, and you start thumbing through covers to see what you like and what you don’t like … and you start noticing a pattern. The self-published books on the shelf are, for one thing, pretty thin on the ground, and they’re also often less … attractive. What’s going on here? And how can you prevent your own book cover and jacket from fading into the background? Here are five tips to designing a standout, quality book cover or jacket.

[ Right now, I’m just going to deal with the outside of your book––and I’ll save the design components of the inside for next week. ]

1. Design with an awareness of genre.

Some of your greatest assets––and, potentially, stumbling blocks––as a book designer are the legacies of bygone books and the expectations of current readers. Designing a book specifically to fit in may not be the wisest move––it may remain undiscovered by blending in too well––but there are enormous benefits to paying attention to the visual brand of your book’s genre. Just think about it! We know in a flash––in less than a tenth of a second––and with great accuracy whether A, B, and C are all of a set in those popular web-based IQ tests. We will absolutely know if a book “fits” with its shelf-mates in the bookstore, because we can pause and linger and physically pick up the books involved.

Bold and blocky typefaced titles that occupy almost the whole of a book cover scream crime fiction; slim and minimal sans-serif fonts speak of literary nonfiction; distressing alludes to zombies and post apocalyptic literature; and a hand-lettered style hints at popular romance or young adult novels. (John Green, I’m looking at you.) There are, of course, a great many exceptions across all genres, but the clues are there: aside from title fonts and their size and placement, every genre has a long legacy of embedded symbols, imagery, and dynamic organization. Silhouettes, guns, and blood splashes are easy to place in the crime genre, but do you notice the color balance in a Nora Roberts book cover? How about the placement of carefully curated quotes on a nonfiction book, above or below the title? Or the fact that nature guides will often crowd out the author’s name altogether in favor of a full-page still shot of a bluejay, or a slice of Sydney Harbour? Before you settle, browse the aisles––and the Kindle store. If you’re going to depart from your genre’s expectations, then do so knowingly, with every keystroke. You may be setting your book up to stand out, but you may also be removing it from the visual radar of every reader who’s looking for a book in your genre.

2. Design with an awareness of spatial dimensions.

No, I don’t mean the astral plane, or the multiverse. I mean you should examine the balance between text and image, busy and clean, light and dark. Often a book cover will look radically different at different dimensions––say, as a physical book and as a thumbnail on the Kindle store––and seemingly small design choices can make your book look either extraordinary or extraordinarily terrible when the size of the image changes. Keeping your book cover design free of unnecessary clutter––shapes and colors and forms that you don’t need to convey important information––is essential. I can guarantee you that the titles leaping out at you as you’re scrolling through Amazon are the ones keeping their design simple enough––and uncluttered enough––that they appear beautiful, even as a tiny, 60 x 90 pixel thumbnail. Again, browsing what’s out there is your best guide to designing a great book cover yourself.

3. Design with an awareness of industry requirements.

By this I mean, particularly, to watch your back cover. You need to display your book’s EAN barcode somewhere on the cover, preferably without squashing or crowding the design. You’ll need to include an author photo and biographical snippet (“John Doe works as a marine biologist at Eckard College. He lives in Tampa with thirty mollusks and one delightful parakeet”). You should also include the book’s genre or category, a readable price, and contact information. The category may prove problematic, if your book is indeed cross-genre, but keep in mind this isn’t about smashing your book into a preconceived category, but about making your book findable for your readers. If you’ve ever heard of a keyword search, your book’s category performs many of the same functions.

4. Keep it legal.

“Don’t steal other people’s artwork” sounds a bit strong, but this is essentially what you’re doing if you utilize an image on your book cover or jacket that you don’t have permissions for. As you design your book, you absolutely must ensure you use only your own images, images you obtain by payment or permission, or images under the Creative Commons license. Creative Commons can become complicated to work out after the fact, if you just pluck something off of a Google image search, but there are many fine websites out there that are dedicated to providing nothing but Creative Commons photographs. Take a look at Stock.xchang (now FreeImages.com), Wikimedia Commons, Free Pixels, Fotolia, Image Base, Abstract Influence, and Flickr’s Creative Commons page (easy to find by clicking “Learn More” on their website). Basically, there’s no excuse for taking someone else’s image if it’s not on a Creative Commons license … there are so many legitimate options to choose from! (And if you really want, well, that image, then you should go to the necessary lengths to ensure you have the artist’s permission anyway, right?)

5. Make it yours.

One of the most commonly-heard questions in the self-published community is: “Should I pay someone else to design my cover, if it’s really so much work?” Ultimately, the answer is up to you. Will it significantly improve your quality of life by reducing the stress of learning new technologies and softwares and managing a writer’s life on top of all of that? Possibly. Never underestimate the power of a professionally-designed cover, especially in a world saturated with marginally acceptable self-published covers.

On the other hand, will releasing the design process into someone else’s hands also take creative control out of your own hands? Often, yes, it will. Always remember where you draw your line in the sand––at which point you’re comfortable surrendering the artistic direction of your book. If you want or need a designer, that’s great! Just make sure to do a little research, and to make sure you choose someone who chooses you back––and chooses to get on board with your vision for your book. That way, no matter who is out there shaping your visual brand, you can be confident that it will reflect … you!

Advocacy in Self-Publishing, Alternative Marketing Methods, Book Marketing, Book Promotion, Book Promotion Strategy, Contests, Kelly Speaks, Marketing Your Self-Published Book

Self-Publishing & Merchandising : Extras & Special Editions

Last week, I launched a new blog series on the ins and outs of merchandising with a quick definition. (“Simply put, merchandising is any and all practices and methods which boost product sales in a retail environment.”) And definitions are great and all, but we’re here to talk shop. To get under the skin of merchandising, to inhabit the world of successful merchandisers, we have to tackle each and every aspect of the process–in depth. This week, we’ll be taking a closer look at two of these aspects: “extras,” and special edition releases of your books.

What are “extras”?

“Extras” are anything you send out into the world related to your work that is not (quite) your book. Or at least, it’s not your book as most people know it. They’re the fiddly bits, the sweeteners, the “guess what I got this week?” element of book marketing. The no-frills approach to book sales is to put your book, and only your book, into the hands of your ideal readers. But we all know the process is more complicated than that, if we want to make profitable sales.

Identifying our ideal readers is one complicated conglomerate of issues unto itself, and connecting the dots between book and reader yet another (seemingly) hopeless tangle, and transforming the market so that more readers become ideal readers is … well, you get the picture. The creation, distribution, and controlled availability of “extras” is one highly effective way to unpick some of these knots. Why? Because they make your ideal readers feel privileged and affirmed in their good taste, while also serving as a siren call to new readers–a declaration that you, the author, are willing to go the extra mile to bring others alongside you, into the world of your book. And I’m not just talking about fictional worlds, here: every good book is a world unto itself, a universe even, that enwraps its readers in a shared sense of wonder, urgency, or belief.

“Extras” come in every possible form we can imagine, and sometimes figuring out what “extras” suit our books and our needs best is the larger task. But simply identifying them can be a challenge, too, so here is a short list of some of the more effective extras that leap to my mind:

creating swag, like bookmarks or postcards or tee-shirts, etc, to give away or raffle off at book readings and signings;
putting together a regular newsletter, physical or digital, to distribute to eager readers;
orchestrating giveaways, scavenger hunts, and other participatory contests to boost interest;
offering limited-offer “buy a physical book and unlock free digital content” sorts of specials;
publishing select chapters online for free, using interactive services such as WattPad; and
hosting quizzes, ask-and-answer sessions, or other author-centric material online using social media networks such as Tumblr.

(This is just to name a few.) As you can see, many of these “extras” fall into two loose categories: the physical fiddly bits, and the digital fiddly bits. It’s worth noting that, while focusing our talents into bundles that seem all of a kind–say, pairing a digital “extra” with an ebook release, or a physical “extra” with a physical book launch–may be an effective use of our time, it may not be the sole best way to boost our sales. Many readers who are highly engaged on social media will treasure a physical book or a physical “extra,” while many readers who hold fast to their physical libraries are ready and willing to branch out and experiment, if they’re invested in you, the author, and your vision of your world. Strategic cross-fertilization may be the best approach, so make sure you’re providing “extras” on both sides of the digital/physical divide–if possible.

Oh, right, I mentioned special editions too.

That’s right–I haven’t forgotten. The reason I save this second aspect of merchandising for after my discussion of “extras” is simple: many of the same rules apply. We’ve written about releasing special editions, whether ebook editions or other kinds of editions as a kind of promotional venture, before. We’ve even written about releasing special editions for holidays and for Kindles, respectively. The simple distillation of all of these prior posts might be to say: “The more editions we put out there, the more accessible our books, the more people who will hear of our books, and the more books we will sell.” The parallels between special editions and “extras” are fairly clear–just substitute “extras” for “editions.”

The key to successful merchandising for the self-published author is to make our readers feel special! We can make this happen with strategic bundles of “extras,” or by releasing new editions of previously published books. Both of these merchandising methods are built upon creating and distributing new access points to our works. Generating special offers that are limited in some way–in respect to time or quantity–whether on swag or giveaways or special editions–heightens the competitive edge to what we’re offering, and makes our books a topic of conversation. We want to balance ubiquity of our works–making it is available to as many people as possible–with an urgency to acquire it in certain incarnations or circumstances.

Next week, I’ll be examining merchandising through book and jacket design. I’d like to open the floor to you, dear reader. If you have any thoughts to share on the topic of merchandising, or questions you’d like answered, send them my way via the comments box below! I want to hear from you, and I love nothing more than a good excuse to do a little research if I don’t know something off of the top of my head. Jump on in!

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