Something's happening about shrinks.

Hi
I found this article and thought it would be of interest to authors. Do we jump to an easy label for our characters? Some TV dramas do, as it fits into the time slot. 

Is it better not to label the people with disorders in your story, but let the reader come to a conclusion as to what's wrong with the person?
What do you think?

Jumping to conclusions for a diagnosis.

Marketing your books - BookBot

Hi

There are exciting things happening with Facebook. Recently, they've launched a new product called a Chatbot. It's eary days yet, but the results people are getting are very positive.

What Is a Bot?

"Bot" is a generalized term used to describe any software that automates a task. Chatbots, which anyone can now build into Facebook Messenger, automate conversation -- at least the beginning stages of it."  

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-bots-guide

Authors are getting great results from BookBot Bob.

Enter Bookbot Bob and Bookbot Bill.

How does it work?

Bob is a new promo tool with a difference. It does not ask subscribers for an email address. Bob sends readers info about free blurbs + links, and Bookbot Bill sends info about discounted book blurbs + links, both right in Facebook Messenger. Readers decide which genres they want and the boys send them a book in each category. As simple as that. To sign up and check out Bob and Bill’s titles, go to the Bookbot Bob home page and click on the red rectangle that says “Hi Bob!”

FYI, Bob just added an email function for readers who wish to receive discounted pre-order books.

https://www.bookbotbob.com/bobpromo

You fill in the form and pay the small amount to book your slot or alternatively, you can support the crowdfunding campaign and get free promos forever.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-book-bots#/

BOOK BOT IS NOW CLOSED.

how to self publish your book and sell it

Hi

I'm not going to rewrite this article because I think it's that good. Take heed. Too many writers think their book is great after the first draft. Most books need loads of editing to make them great. 

Study the best selling writers in your genre. Take note of when they introduce the first conflict, introduce the players, how they introduce them, is there a mix of long and short chapters, how much dialogue there is on each page, and so forth. 

Also, take note of how many people they acknowledge as having helped in their journey to getting published. Some authors have dozens. Being an author is a group effort from yourself writing the book, to the editor/s, copy editors, proofreaders, beta readers, cover designers and the many social media sites where you advertise your book.

http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/blog/self-publish-book-amazon-kindle-kdp/

Saying goodbye to permafree or 70% royalty.

Hi All

I've just read this blog and though some of you may be interested in this post.

https://anaspoke.com/2016/10/31/saying-goodbye-to-permafree-or-the-70-royalty-or-both/

Saying goodbye to permafree. Or the 70% royalty. Or both.

Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus

Promoting and marketing

Only to see my sales tumble

The watched pot may never boil, but whenever I take my eyes off the sales charts for a few weeks, the algorithms bury my books in the bottomless pit of the millions of unknown titles. Even worse, when I run back to the kitchen and fan the flames with marketing, the download peaks last only a day or two. Just look at the Exhibit A:

Fyi, the companies responsible for the peaks you’re seeing are as follows:

5 October – I don’t know whom to thank for the 367 downloads as I’d applied for a number of free services and apparently got picked up by somebody without confirmation.

24 October – BookHippo featured author, 102 downloads for FREE.

25 October – BKNights with 226 downloads for $11.

29 October – My Book Cave with 117 downloads for FREE.

As you can see, the “normal” downloads between promotions are just 3-5 books per day. What makes this even more frustrating is that I’m trying to give the first book away FOR FREE. Not only that, the permafree strategy has been in place since May, and yet instead of the snowball effect, what I have is that proverbial boulder, freefalling back to zero the moment I stop pushing. Wait, it gets worse. I jumped into permafree hoping for 2% “buy-through” of the second book, but so far it’s been less than 1% with the second book priced at $2.99. And for whatever reason, my KENP pages for Indiot have completely disappeared. Here is the Exhibit B for the same time period:

This sucks big time, which means that I need to do something about it. Considering that I don’t want to “write to the market” or go on yet another cover redesign go-round, I’ve decided to change my pricing strategy. Radically. Like, smash it into pieces. Here are the two strategies I’m considering:

1. Make both books $0.99 and available only through Kindle Select. Promote both with paid ads.
2. Keep Shizzle, Inc as permafree and make Indiot $0.99 and promote only Shizzle, Inc as a freebie.
3. Make both books free. Well, not really, but what the hell, how do I get Isa to go viral? She is destined for the big screen. I’m even more convinced of that having just suffered through “No Stranger Than Love.”

I’m thinking of trying both strategies 1&2 in stages. For starters, I am about to run a Countdown Deal on Indiot, before I make it perma-$0.99. Then after a month or so, make Shizzle, Inc $0.99 as well. Wait another month. Finish the third book. Send it to a hundred literary agents. Give up on Isa and write something along the lines of “How To Sell A Ton Of Books Without Really Trying.” That has worked for some.

If anyone has any better ideas, I’m all ears. Thank you in advance.

I don't feel making your book free on Zon Select really does anything for your overall sales. Sure you get a surge in downloads but afterwards your book goes back to "normal" - you plummet to where your were before.

I'm trying Instafreebie and seeing some results in subscribers. I'll let you know if it makes any long term difference in sales when I launch my next thriller.

What are your thoughts on this?

Pre-orders on Smashwords and Amazon

Some of you may wonder what the hype is all about with Pre-orders. 

To put it simply. It's one of the best marketing tools an author has. 

Smashwords - you can list a pre-order up to one year in advance. Then market the hell out of it. One out of eight books on Smashwords is a pre-order and these books do far better in sales than the others.

With Smashwords you don't need to have even written the book. All you need is the basic metadata: title, description, price and categorization. 

On Amazon you can list a pre-order up to up to 90 days prior to the book's launch. On Amazon you need to upload a draft version of your book that is similar to the final version but may need more editing and proofreading. 

Amazon - You can upload a draft version of your cover and update both the cover and interior no less than 10 days prior to launch date. 

Amazon doesn't credit your accumulated pre-orders toward your first day's sales rank. But you already have a sales rank with pre-orders which is a head start on any other book launches on said day.

What you can do when you have listed a pre-order on your retailer of choice: 

1. Share direct hyperlinks to your book on social media. 
2. List your pre-order in your existing e-books.
3. Run price promotions on your other e-books  so you can drive more  readers to your pre-order. 
4. Organize a marketing campaign to create a buzz around your launch.
5. Offer your pre-order at a lower price before launch date. Urge consumers to buy now before the launch date when the price will go up.

All the best with your launch.

Proofreader not doing the job you want? Ginger.

Hi

I've been trialing Ginger Proofreader and grammar checker. I'm still using the free version. 

It did find a number of missed words and words like 'other' which should have been 'another' 'into' which should have been 'in'. Also, it found where I had typed grey instead of gray (US spelling). So, I would say that 50% of the time it was great. The rest of the time, Ginger was highlighting words or sentences that were already correct and suggesting new variations that were wrong.

I'll continue to use the basic free version for as long as I can but I'll not be buying the software anytime soon as I feel it still needs work by the developers.

I did read that a blogger purchased a basic version of Ginger for $30 which I will consider if it's still on offer. I couldn't find this offer so I'll stick with the free version for now. 

Here's the link if you want to try it out yourself:

http://www.gingersoftware.com/grammarcheck#.Vy_qsTB96Uk

How to format your Word Document for Createspace.

Here are some Microsoft Word formatting tips I learned when producing my manuscript for CreateSpace that you should consider when getting ready to publish your novel.

Font Size

Most people use 12 point font. I thought this was a very readable font size, but I learned later that the average font size for paperback book size 11 or 10.

To reduce your font size, select only the text in your manuscript you want to change. If it's too bothersome, you can select all Ctrl + A and go back and change your headings and title page later. Go to the Home tab, and click the drop-down-box with the number in it to select 10 or 11.

Font Type

Next, choose a suitable font style. You do not want a fancy font for the reading font of your novel. Fancy fonts are only appropriate for the book title, and maybe chapter headings.

You’ll need a serif font. Sans-serif fonts are suitable for websites, but serif fonts are more suitable for printed media, like books. Serif fonts have more curves in them, and tend to have little embellishments, like curvy “y”s.

I use Garamond. Use a common font that every computer can read.

To choose a font from Word, click on the Home tab and chose the font drop-down selector next to the font size. See image above.

Margins

You want your novel to take up less space on the inside margin, where the book folds, and more space on the outside margin to reduce pages. To avoid making some silly mistake, I recommend downloading this free template from CreateSpace.
 https://forums.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-1323:

  

Of course, you may already have a book file ready and formatted with images and fonts. You can easily edit your current Word file. To edit margins, to to Home > Margins > Custom Margins.

Paper Size

Novels come in all shapes and sizes. To make your book’s printing costs cheaper, I recommend using CreateSpace's default paper size–6″ 9″. This will give you a good sized paperback. I do not think it is too big. You can also try 5″ 8″, which will produce a smaller book in the hand, but this will increase the page size of your novel and increase the cost price.

From the same dialogue box, choose the “Paper Size” tab and change the size, as below:

Spacing

Here is where you will make your greatest gains in reducing the page count of your book. Most authors will be to use double spacing, or at least 1.5 spacing. Instead, choose 1.15 spacing. This will still make your book readable and easy to scan, but it will save you many pages to print.

Go to the Home tab. You’ll see a little icon in the lower right-hand corner of the Paragraph pane. Click it to open the Paragraph dialogue box. On the first tab–Indents and Spacing–go to the Spacing pane and manually type in 1.15 in the “At:” section, like so:

Tabs 

Finally, you can condense it even more by reducing the size of your tabs. The default tab (or paragraph indent, as it is called), of Word is about 1 inch. You can reduce this to 1/4 of an inch by dragging the top arrow in the ruler. (If you do not see the ruler in your document, enable it by going to View from the primary document tabs and checking the Ruler check-box.)

Inserting section breaks. 

Before you can number your pages you will need to ensure your title page and the acknowledgements are sectioned from the body of your manuscript so that your page numbers will NOT start at the first page. 

This you can do one of two ways. See screen shots below. 

• Click at the end of the sentence at the end of your first page/chapter. Or wherever you want a section break.
• On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Breaks.
• In the Section Breaks group, click the section break type you need. For a new chapter select Section break after this page. 

 NOTE: 
For title page: Ensure you are on the title page or the page that you want to section from the rest of the manuscript.For title page also select from the drop down box Select 'Apply to.' And select, 'From this point forward.'

OR

Inserting page numbers and or Headers
No need to get too fancy with these so keep the font at Garmond or New Times Roman.
Page numbering is done in Headers & Footers

• First you will need to be on the first page you want numbered which is not the title page.
• Click on Page numbering, which can also be found in the Insert tab for an older version of Word. 
• Click on page numbering and select where you wanted the numbering to appear. Usually at the bottom right. You can also change the font type if you need to. 
• Select continuous page numbering.

For odd and even numbering.

• Click an odd-numbered page, such as the first page of your document that you want to contain a page number.
• On the Insert tab, click Footer.
• In the Built-in format list, pick Austere (Odd Page).
• Under Header & Footer Tools, on the Design tab, check the Different Odd & Even Pages box.

 Headers are at the top and are centered.

Paper type:

I won't go into weight of paper as that's too complex topic for here and with Createspace you don't need to know this.

For a fiction book the usual choice is matt for the cover and cream for the internal part of the book.

And that’s all for now! Good luck with your publishing!

Tor open for submissions.

Just a quick note to let you know that Tor is open for submissions. However, do not submit if your book has been published elsewhere in any form.

http://www.tor.com/submissions-guidelines/

Another publisher bites the dust.

Robert Hale, after 80 years in publishing, has closed. Ten people are now looking for new employment. Crowood Press is taking over its imprints and lists. 

As the dominoes fall, a whole new world opens up to authors and the publishers if they can float along with the slipstream. It's going to get fast and furious and ugly. The stream will take no prisoners.

Those publishers that can't or won't adapt will fall no matter how big no matter how small.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/robert-hale-publishers-close-317841

Amazon sues reviewers for hire.

I've just read an article about Amazon suing reviewers for hire on Fiverr.com. It can be tempting to go that path when it only costs a fiver to hire someone to post a review when you are struggling to get some reviews on your ebook. 

Don't do it. Amazon will pull your paid positive reviews and may unlist your book and you can't do a thing about it.

These Fiverr reviewers don't even write the review. You are asked to provide a review for them to post. This starts to make all reviews suspect and people will start to disregard reviews. 

Amazon doesn't want that to happen as a certain percentage of books sold are because of the number of positive reviews that book has.

Amazon is the biggest book market on the web so keep anything you do on the web: keep it clean and keep it legal.

However, the big boys in publishing have been providing free books for reviews for a very long time. 

The question is will Amazon dare remove any reviews from authors the big boys represent?

Here's the link to the article:

http://consumerist.com/2015/10/16/amazon-sues-1114-individual-reviewers-for-hire/

New subscription models for Kindle Unlimited

Hi

I've just come across the interesting post by Hugh Howey.

http://www.hughhowey.com/subscription-models-literature/

The below is copied and pasted from his blog.

"

KU 1.0 Compared to KU 2.0

Here’s some math from the brilliant author Susan Kaye Quinn. It compares the old payment system to the new system.

Under KU 1.0:

98k novel = 414 pages* = $1.34 per borrow = 0.0033 pennies/pg
15k novella = 51 pages* = $1.34 per borrow = 2.6 pennies/pg
*the number on the product description pg

Under KU 2.0 (Assuming 100% page read):

98k novel = 553 pages** = 0.6 pennies-per-pg*** = $3.32 per 100% read
15k novella = 85 pages** = 0.6 pennies-per-pg*** = $0.51 per 100% read
**KENPC page count
***estimate from June

Under KU 1.0, most indies were making more for a borrow of a short story than for a sale (the exceptions are those able to charge $2.99 or higher for the sale of a 15k story). I haven’t seen a good argument to defend this part of the old system, or the fact that KU 1.0 was paying a third of a penny per KENPC page (which would be more like .0017 per print page).

Under KU 2.0, we can see what Amazon is trying to do with their per-page calculation. They’re trying to reward KDP Select authors for a borrow by paying the same amount as a sale. Holy crap. Really? Actually, the prices on my works are lower than average, and these borrow rates would pay me more than I currently make for a sale. But as someone else pointed out, these borrow payout rates are very close to what Amazon’s pricing tool recommends for works of this length.

That is, Amazon is funding their KU payout pool to simulate a paid sale for every borrow.

This is what it appeared they were doing under KU 1.0. The first borrow rates were coming in close to $2.00. That number slid over time, even as Amazon piled on more money. Why? Because authors realized they could maximize their income by splitting up novels and by concentrating on short stories. Kris Rusch and others (myself among them) have referred to this as “gaming the system.” That creates outrage among those who game the system. Guess, what? I game Amazon’s system every day. I do it with permafree, which exploits Amazon’s price-matching policy to get more free days than they want to hand out (only 5 per 90 day KDP Select period). And I’ve been serializing novels since before it was a thing. I’ve also been putting short stories into KU and profiting from it.

I guess the difference is that I’ve expected from the beginning that KU was broken and would be fixed. Someone dug up an interview I did ten months ago, when KU was only two months old, and I predicted Amazon would move to a per-page remuneration system. The old model was broken. The people who profited from that should be glad Amazon waited so long to fix it. Those who love to write short stories still should. May I suggest a bit of back matter? Or some constructive ways for us to help authors without screwing consumers?"

Is censoring holding you back?

Do you spend time worrying what your friends will think about your writing? Does that fear paralyze  what you really want to write? When you told a friend, did they look at you as if you'd grown another head.

Don't take any criticism personally or it will cripple you.

To be a great writer you need to write whatever it takes to make the story work. Let it all hang out. Its got to be real, its got to be passionate, its got to move your reader and connect with them.

Don't imagine that your first draft will do this but each draft will come closer. It needs to resonate with you and the reader. You need to own this shit. It's your story and you need to tell it your way.

So many writers worry that their mother or father will pick up their book and be shocked. Stop destroying your creativity and stop that voice in your head telling you that you can't write this or that. This is life as you imagine it, warts and all. Be honest, be genuine and readers will love that.

Sure there are risks you can't please all readers all of the time. Sometimes you will get negative comments from strangers or friends. You'll need to grow a tough outer skin and brush these off.

Enjoy what you do. When you create it's an exhilarating experience which is hard to beat.

A plagiarist - nightmare - don't let it be you

I read a disturbing article by John Doppler. We writers must be extra careful sending copies of our manuscript out for reviews to people we only know via an internet name. Convicted plagiarist Tiffanie Ruston not only stole Rachel Ann Nunes' christian story, she inserted sex scenes and promoted it as her own work. Then she used sock puppets to leave one star reviews for Rachel. To read more, click on the link below:

http://johndopp.com/plagiarism-sam-taylor-mullens-busted/

This person is a plagiarist. Tiffanie Rushton, a Utah schoolteacher.

What's at stake in the battle between Amazon and Hachette

The battle between Amazon and Hachette gets interesting.
Please click on the link below.

Amazon Just Revealed Exactly What's At Stake In Its Battle With Hachette --

How important is a book title?

I imagine it's very important.

I just came across Lulu's title scorer.

Lulu titlescorer

Enjoy.

It was interesting that some of the best sellers didn't score so well. The Secret didn't score very well, but we all know it's a runaway seller.

What makes people buy a self-published book.

Reblogged by me because this is a mine field of information that the self-published author can't ignore.

The findings surprised me (which surprised me, because I was surveying myself). I found that I knew what made me buy a self-published book when it was in front of me, but not what put that book in front of me, unless I was browsing by genre (e.g. today I feel like reading a romance set in Ulaanbaatar: therefore I will now search specifically for such a story).

It was still hard to know what put those books in front of my eyes in order to buy them; to quote one of the commenters on that post – this is the thorny issue of “discoverability”. How will we find these books in the first place?

So I did the unthinkable, and asked some other people. I surveyed readers and writers alike, in online groups for different fiction genres of crime, fantasy and general fiction,  and more than a few other people who just like to talk to other people about reading and writing. I asked them what factors influenced them most when buying books – particularly self-published books and any other books which aren’t pushed by the major houses.

Their answers were duly collected and poured into a spreadsheet, one rainy morning when I was in my pyjamas, and can be split into 2 camps. Some answers relate to discoverability; others to what makes people buy a book once it’s already in front of them.

In this sample, there are 72 answers. Some people cited more than one factor they considered before purchasing, so regardless of the order in which they placed these factors, I gave them all equal weight.

Having said that, it’s safe to say that in the vast majority of cases, if the cover was amateurish, or unappealing, the book would never have made it to the 2nd stage of vetting, be that the blurb or the sample.

Here are some lovely graphs with my findings. In case you didn’t know, I LOVE graphs. (Although take it from me, they’re hard to cuddle when you’re trying to fall asleep.)

First, we have the overall results:

Overall, by far the most important factors were cover, blurb and the sample (for some, this was the first few paragraphs, through Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature; for others, the full chapters from the e-Reader sample download).

Your cover might be gorgeous. Your blurb might push all the right buttons for the hungry reader. But if there’s a mistake in your first 2 paragraphs, or the reader doesn’t like your style, then it’s good night, I’m afraid.

Several of those surveyed said they had bought self-published books because they had seen other examples of the author online – either from their blog, commenting on other blogs, or articles in magazines or journals. They liked what they saw and then went to see what else was on offer. This is precisely what we mean when we talk about online platforms.

In the case of Twitter (which is the platform most likely to drive me mad when authors simply tweet endlessly “BUY MY BOOK!! SPECIAL ### OFFER!! BUY IT NOW ###  TODAY TODAY!!!!!! (hashtag exclamation point))) – a few people said that they liked to get a sense of the author on Twitter, and then maybe look up their book. So it wasn’t publicising the book on Twitter which sold books: it was the author being engaging on Twitter on a more personal level.

Facebook was more likely to remind those surveyed to buy the book of an author they already liked, rather than introduce them to a book for the first time.

Finally, it was cover, blurb and sample all the way. Reviews mattered, but in different ways. An interesting point, made by some of those surveyed, was that they looked at the worst reviews first – 1* or 2* reviews only – because they found it easier to ascertain whether they were authentic, and because they felt they got a better sense of the book from people who didn’t like it, rather than the people who said they did. (Or gave it 5 stars because they are the author’s Mammy. See here.)

Price was also an unusual issue. There were 2 distinct views: those who made impulse buys (without reading reviews or a sample) under a certain price, and those who would never bought books under a certain price point, because they had no faith that they’d be any good.

There were also good indicators on what turned readers off  self-published books. Another post will follow on that. I bet you can’t wait.

Time for you to weigh in: if you haven’t already had your say, is there something glaringly missing from the above graphs which makes your buying decision for you?

Jan Hurst-Nicholson | August 3, 2014 at 11:22 am

I’m surprised the title doesn’t play a bigger part in selecting a book, especially after reading this.

n 1928 the publisher E Haldeman-Julius was considered to be a literary Henry Ford who had perfected the art of merchandising the world’s classics. In the previous 10 years he had sold 100 million copies of his cheap reprints.

He believed that in order to sell a classic piece of literature, it had to have the right title. He believed that the title must have some connection with the three subjects which most appealed to the ‘reading masses’.

1. Sex

2. Self-improvement

3. Attacks upon Respectability and Religion.

His motto — By their titles ye shall sell them.

In 1926 8 000 copies of Victor Hugo’s play “Le Roi s’Amuse’ were sold. He re-named it ‘The Lustful King Enjoys Himself” and 38 000 copies were sold.

Theophile Gautier’s “The Golden Fleece” enjoyed huge sales when it was re-titled “The Search for a Blonde Mistress.”

Scopeenhauer’s “Art of Controversy” was a dead duck until Mr Haldeman-Julius published it under “How to Argue Logically.” And De Quincy’s “Essay on Conversation’ sold like hot cakes when re-titled “How to Improve Your conversation.”

Always, for obvious reasons, it has been necessary to keep the reader in mind. Any change in title must be validated by the actual contents of the book. The change must serve, not deception, but enlightenment; the change must advance some particular information as to exactly the book’s contents. It would never do to re-title Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, for example, unless the title were also to indicate that the tales were still in archaic verse.

He never altered the text in any way — just the titles. :)

http://www.masterkeymarketingwarriors.com/products/copywriting/haldeman-julius/FirstHundredMillion.pdf

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