Publishing a book can get quite expensive. A good cover designer can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, and the editorial costs alone can set you back even more. While there are many important expenses, there are also many ways to spend money and get nothing useful back. For example, take the Bowker SAN. This costs $150, and is basically a way for you to list your physical address in a Bowker database – something you can do with your … Read More »

Reviews are a big deal for all authors. Whether they’re publishing with Simon & Schuster or self-publishing a few thousand copies, early reviews can make or break a book’s long-term success. There are exceptions, of course. Novels like For Whom The Bell Tolls, To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Handmaid’s Tale all had bad reviews but went on to be classics. Yet for the overwhelming majority of books, reviews are the key to notoriety and sales. The online review has … Read More »

With a COVID-19 vaccine in the works, it looks like we will shortly be able to go back to holding public events. Here are a few tips to help you get started. Book fairs and other local events can be a great way for authors to connect with readers and make new fans. They are immensely valuable. But at the same time it can be hard for first-timers to get the most out of an event. That was certainly true … Read More »

  It’s quite the cat and mouse game—a user tries to get their post seen, Facebook changes how things are seen, user finds something new that works, Facebook changes, user updates, Facebook changes. Over and over. Well, they’ve changed things yet again. It’s easy to get frustrated at all of this. But frustration doesn’t get your post seen. Try to think of it as a game. How can I outsmart the all-knowing Facebook? How Facebook Decides What to Show its … Read More »

Often when writers hear marketing, they turn and run screaming. Well, maybe not literally, but the word definitely causes anxiety for many. Questions abound: What do I do? When? How do I do it? How much time will it all take? Do I have to? Here is a quick answer: You will get out of marketing what you put into it. No marketing, no sales. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend every waking minute with a megaphone shouting … Read More »

As a book author you have likely sent out information on your new book to book reviewers, beta readers in the hopes of a testimonial, and press/media releases to magazines, newspapers, radio, TV, and internet sources. In this short article, I’d like to show you how to make the job easier for the media to use your material and give you a higher chance of getting your release published. 1. Make the media’s job easier; get the information about your … Read More »