Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2017 18:39:34 GMT
Truths that I have figured out.
Over the years, through study, listening to others in the profession, and trial and error, I have figured out several things I things that I feel are true statements. At least, for me and my journey.
1. I’m convinced that an author makes a living on their back list. The more books on the back list, the better the income. For this to work, the stories need to be clean (as correct in format, punctuation, and grammar as possible). The cover needs to be eye-catching. The back blurb containing a strong ‘hook’. The first paragraph must hook the reader and the story needs to move forward.
This means the ‘voice’ of the author need to be active. Passive writing is boring because it doesn’t engage the reader. It doesn’t allow the reader to step into the story and become part of it. Passive writer puts the reader outside the book and never becoming ‘one’ with it.
2. Productivity is paramount to building a back list.
This is an area I fall short on. And one that I need to improve on to become an effective writer and marketer. I learned this from experience. Each time I had a book go live my ranking on Amazon rose. With Cosmic Shift I actually hit a #2 spot in some categories. It only lasted a couple of hours but seeing it felt good. Cosmic Chaos never went as high but I think it’s because I used a promotion for Shift and by the time Chaos came around the promotion (giving the book away free for a short amount of time) had already passed its window of effectiveness.
This is an area I can improve on. Ideally, something should be going live every three months. I can’t write a full-length novel in 3 months but I can do the scene cards and get a rough draft in three months IF I am consistent in maintaining a daily writing schedule. I need to figure out a way to use my time more efficiently.
If I can come up with a way to get a shorter piece out, or perhaps some non-fiction articles (which I really like writing) I could get my name visible on a more regular basis. I’m not comfortable writing short stories but I have some planned for Lucky Donovan’s books. And I want buzz before her book comes out. I’m not sure what the word count will be for her stories. I want to start with her beginning. And each story will bring her closer to the contemporary times her books will take place in. If they fall in to the 10,000 to 15,000 word category I might be able to release them as a single. 5 of them released every six months (alternating with longer books) could take me two years, at least, into the future.
3. Website is where I need people to be. Regardless of any social media I do, the ultimate goal is to funnel readers to my website. This means my website is where I need to focus more of my online energy. I need it to be active, inviting, and informative about me and my books. There are several things that go with this.
a. Mailing list. The mailing list is the foundation of my promotion and marketing goals. I need names, and email addresses. I need people on that mailing list who come to my website because they like what I stand for and enjoy my work. I’m not sure how to accomplish this but I need to do it. I might examine the websites of some of my favorite authors and see how they handle newsletters and mailing lists.
I’ll try to find the information I obtained from a publicist and forward them to you. It’s a lot to read but also educational and mind blowing. I learned a lot from him and it didn’t break the bank to hire him. He helped me realize that I’m doing the right things; I’m just not doing them on a big enough scale. I haven’t figured out how to enlarge the scope of what I do but then, I’ve been buried the last year by worry and grief. Too much stress and not enough me. I’m throwing all that off and getting back to the work.
b. Newsletter
I don’t think a newsletter has to go out every week, or even every month but I think it probably should go out at least quarterly. The newsletter is where you talk to the people on your mailing list. Where you keep them informed of what you’re working on and a tentative date when work will become available. They need to feel like they are a valued part of my world. I appreciate them. I’m grateful when they buy something from me. Without them, I don’t have an income. Somehow, I must figure out how to have an inviting, informative, entertaining newsletter that is short, and welcomed when the reader sees it in their inbox. This is a daunting objective.
c. SEO Optimization The web designer who created my website told me SEO optimization wasn’t needed. He was wrong. His reasoning was my name and product would be a known entity for readers to come to my website. He didn’t think a word search would make my site more visible. That’s wrong.
Where I find SEO Optimization helpful is writing blogs. When I write a blog, the SEO app tells me how many times I hit the tags that I choose. I know I’m explaining this poorly but when I write the blog, put a title on it that fits the blog, get the green checks across the board what this tells me is the search engines will raise my blog higher up. Make it more visible. The higher we can raise our blogs, the more likely we are to be found by the casual web surfer.
It also tells the search engine that I’m a legitimate site. It gives me credibility to the search engines which, again, raises me higher in the rankings. Ideally, when I type my website name into a search I want to see the top hits my site. The more times I see it, the more visible I am to the people browsing the web.
4. Social media: I don’t think a person needs to spend a lot of time on social media. I think they need to figure out what they are good at and then work it. I tried Goodreads and concluded that Goodreads is not my friend. They exist for the reader, not the author. I’ve thought about making my Amazon author page more active but just haven’t spent enough time over there to know if it’s an effective use of my time.
I spend most of my time on Facebook. It’s where I started and have the most followers. I will continue to work Facebook. I’m making good contacts there.
I’ve tried Twitter. The only use I’ve found for it, and it’s valuable, is to funnel readers to my website when I put up a new blog or have news that needs shared. I need to understand hashtags better and use them more often.
I’ve done Pinterest and I will continue to put stuff on Pinterest as appropriate. It doesn’t require any work from me and people take pins from my site almost daily. I found out if I pin from my website, (if I understand how Pinterest works) the website goes with it. I think it has something to do with giving credit to the original poster. I hope that’s true because I pin my book covers from the website. If I’m wrong? Well, I still get to share me and the better people know me, the more apt they are to buy from me.
I signed up for Instagram but I have not used it enough to know what it does, or even how to use it. I might, or might not, give it some time but time is what I’m short on. I have a feeling if I’d learn to use it, it would be effective. I have people following me on Instagram all the time. I should be taking advantage of those followers. I just need to think of capturing images with my phone and posting them. I think I need to explore this more.
5. I’m sure I have more ‘truths’ but my mind has stopped working for the moment. I’ll post this and, hopefully, it will open up discussion so we can swap ideas back and forth. I really think it’s time to forget the ‘rules’ and forge our own path. And those paths probably won’t be side by side. We have different strengths, different weaknesses.
Ideally, we keep our strengths, and strengthen our weaknesses. Part of my problem is not having enough experience to see the scope of possibilities. The PPWC helps because it exposes us to writers and industry people who have a lot more knowledge and experience. Those face to face meetings are beyond valuable. I really want to get on the teaching side of the table.
I put in a proposal for a workshop and tweaked it last year. So far, no takers. I will try to come up with a few new ideas and see if something clicks with them.
I’m also playing with the idea of volunteering to help. I’ve avoided doing that because I didn’t know how to manage Joshua and volunteer work. It’s hard to navigate when I don’t always have both hands free.
I really don’t attend for the learning to write any more. I attend for the business side of writing. I want to know more about publishing/marketing/promoting. I think my work is competitive with authors following a traditional route and think if I was thirty years younger I’d probably already have an agent. I do feel discriminated against. I try not to dwell on it but I’ve worked hard and have very little to show for the time, energy, money, and effort I’ve devoted to this career. Sometimes, it just sucks.
I’ll add to this as I think of things. And I’ll find time sometime this week to pull up the info from the promoter and forward it to you. I think you’d find it interesting reading.
Over the years, through study, listening to others in the profession, and trial and error, I have figured out several things I things that I feel are true statements. At least, for me and my journey.
1. I’m convinced that an author makes a living on their back list. The more books on the back list, the better the income. For this to work, the stories need to be clean (as correct in format, punctuation, and grammar as possible). The cover needs to be eye-catching. The back blurb containing a strong ‘hook’. The first paragraph must hook the reader and the story needs to move forward.
This means the ‘voice’ of the author need to be active. Passive writing is boring because it doesn’t engage the reader. It doesn’t allow the reader to step into the story and become part of it. Passive writer puts the reader outside the book and never becoming ‘one’ with it.
2. Productivity is paramount to building a back list.
This is an area I fall short on. And one that I need to improve on to become an effective writer and marketer. I learned this from experience. Each time I had a book go live my ranking on Amazon rose. With Cosmic Shift I actually hit a #2 spot in some categories. It only lasted a couple of hours but seeing it felt good. Cosmic Chaos never went as high but I think it’s because I used a promotion for Shift and by the time Chaos came around the promotion (giving the book away free for a short amount of time) had already passed its window of effectiveness.
This is an area I can improve on. Ideally, something should be going live every three months. I can’t write a full-length novel in 3 months but I can do the scene cards and get a rough draft in three months IF I am consistent in maintaining a daily writing schedule. I need to figure out a way to use my time more efficiently.
If I can come up with a way to get a shorter piece out, or perhaps some non-fiction articles (which I really like writing) I could get my name visible on a more regular basis. I’m not comfortable writing short stories but I have some planned for Lucky Donovan’s books. And I want buzz before her book comes out. I’m not sure what the word count will be for her stories. I want to start with her beginning. And each story will bring her closer to the contemporary times her books will take place in. If they fall in to the 10,000 to 15,000 word category I might be able to release them as a single. 5 of them released every six months (alternating with longer books) could take me two years, at least, into the future.
3. Website is where I need people to be. Regardless of any social media I do, the ultimate goal is to funnel readers to my website. This means my website is where I need to focus more of my online energy. I need it to be active, inviting, and informative about me and my books. There are several things that go with this.
a. Mailing list. The mailing list is the foundation of my promotion and marketing goals. I need names, and email addresses. I need people on that mailing list who come to my website because they like what I stand for and enjoy my work. I’m not sure how to accomplish this but I need to do it. I might examine the websites of some of my favorite authors and see how they handle newsletters and mailing lists.
I’ll try to find the information I obtained from a publicist and forward them to you. It’s a lot to read but also educational and mind blowing. I learned a lot from him and it didn’t break the bank to hire him. He helped me realize that I’m doing the right things; I’m just not doing them on a big enough scale. I haven’t figured out how to enlarge the scope of what I do but then, I’ve been buried the last year by worry and grief. Too much stress and not enough me. I’m throwing all that off and getting back to the work.
b. Newsletter
I don’t think a newsletter has to go out every week, or even every month but I think it probably should go out at least quarterly. The newsletter is where you talk to the people on your mailing list. Where you keep them informed of what you’re working on and a tentative date when work will become available. They need to feel like they are a valued part of my world. I appreciate them. I’m grateful when they buy something from me. Without them, I don’t have an income. Somehow, I must figure out how to have an inviting, informative, entertaining newsletter that is short, and welcomed when the reader sees it in their inbox. This is a daunting objective.
c. SEO Optimization The web designer who created my website told me SEO optimization wasn’t needed. He was wrong. His reasoning was my name and product would be a known entity for readers to come to my website. He didn’t think a word search would make my site more visible. That’s wrong.
Where I find SEO Optimization helpful is writing blogs. When I write a blog, the SEO app tells me how many times I hit the tags that I choose. I know I’m explaining this poorly but when I write the blog, put a title on it that fits the blog, get the green checks across the board what this tells me is the search engines will raise my blog higher up. Make it more visible. The higher we can raise our blogs, the more likely we are to be found by the casual web surfer.
It also tells the search engine that I’m a legitimate site. It gives me credibility to the search engines which, again, raises me higher in the rankings. Ideally, when I type my website name into a search I want to see the top hits my site. The more times I see it, the more visible I am to the people browsing the web.
4. Social media: I don’t think a person needs to spend a lot of time on social media. I think they need to figure out what they are good at and then work it. I tried Goodreads and concluded that Goodreads is not my friend. They exist for the reader, not the author. I’ve thought about making my Amazon author page more active but just haven’t spent enough time over there to know if it’s an effective use of my time.
I spend most of my time on Facebook. It’s where I started and have the most followers. I will continue to work Facebook. I’m making good contacts there.
I’ve tried Twitter. The only use I’ve found for it, and it’s valuable, is to funnel readers to my website when I put up a new blog or have news that needs shared. I need to understand hashtags better and use them more often.
I’ve done Pinterest and I will continue to put stuff on Pinterest as appropriate. It doesn’t require any work from me and people take pins from my site almost daily. I found out if I pin from my website, (if I understand how Pinterest works) the website goes with it. I think it has something to do with giving credit to the original poster. I hope that’s true because I pin my book covers from the website. If I’m wrong? Well, I still get to share me and the better people know me, the more apt they are to buy from me.
I signed up for Instagram but I have not used it enough to know what it does, or even how to use it. I might, or might not, give it some time but time is what I’m short on. I have a feeling if I’d learn to use it, it would be effective. I have people following me on Instagram all the time. I should be taking advantage of those followers. I just need to think of capturing images with my phone and posting them. I think I need to explore this more.
5. I’m sure I have more ‘truths’ but my mind has stopped working for the moment. I’ll post this and, hopefully, it will open up discussion so we can swap ideas back and forth. I really think it’s time to forget the ‘rules’ and forge our own path. And those paths probably won’t be side by side. We have different strengths, different weaknesses.
Ideally, we keep our strengths, and strengthen our weaknesses. Part of my problem is not having enough experience to see the scope of possibilities. The PPWC helps because it exposes us to writers and industry people who have a lot more knowledge and experience. Those face to face meetings are beyond valuable. I really want to get on the teaching side of the table.
I put in a proposal for a workshop and tweaked it last year. So far, no takers. I will try to come up with a few new ideas and see if something clicks with them.
I’m also playing with the idea of volunteering to help. I’ve avoided doing that because I didn’t know how to manage Joshua and volunteer work. It’s hard to navigate when I don’t always have both hands free.
I really don’t attend for the learning to write any more. I attend for the business side of writing. I want to know more about publishing/marketing/promoting. I think my work is competitive with authors following a traditional route and think if I was thirty years younger I’d probably already have an agent. I do feel discriminated against. I try not to dwell on it but I’ve worked hard and have very little to show for the time, energy, money, and effort I’ve devoted to this career. Sometimes, it just sucks.
I’ll add to this as I think of things. And I’ll find time sometime this week to pull up the info from the promoter and forward it to you. I think you’d find it interesting reading.