Lots going on here at the moment, but there’s always time to learn something from other people’s experiences, don’t you think? This week take a look at some good marketing habits, passionate platform building, advice from a publishing professional, and a look at the way e-book sales spike. Have fun.
Tony Eldridge on Marketing Tips for Authors
7 Weekly Book Marketing Goals You Can Adopt Today
“These seven weekly book marketing goals really are simple to execute and they can make an impact in your attempts to find readers for your book. But beyond that, they help you steadily build your book marketing muscles so you’ll be able to do bigger and greater things in the future.”
Christina Katz on The Empowered Writer
Ten Reasons To Love & Embrace Platform-building
“Here are ten reasons I love platform development and building that I want to share with you. These are also the reasons why I never tire of platform development/building and will never stop doing it.”
Roland Denning on Self-Publishing Review
What Self-Publishing Isn’t
“Both self-publishers and traditional publishers face the same problem: how to get attention for your book in a world where books outnumber readers. Similarly all authors, whatever route they choose to get the work to the reader, face the same problem: how to write something that captures the reader’s interest and imagination.”
Jane Friedman on There Are No Rules
Should You Self-Publish After a Near-Miss?
“Writers often ask if it’s wise or helpful to self-publish their work if they have “near-misses” with agents or publishers. There’s no one answer that works for everyone. But I’ll try to help you come to the right conclusion.”
Evelyn Lafont on Keyboardhussey.com
Reasons behind Self-Published Book Sale Spikes and How I was Wrong
“I’m going to discuss my April sales spikes today and why they’ve proved me wrong about something. Yes, I almost choked right there, but I said I was wrong.”
On the Book Launch Trail
Activity kept perking up for A Self-Publisher’s Companion.
I was excited to be hosted by Wayne Groner on his Your Memories, Your Book blog, where I contributed Plan Your E-Book as an Extension of Your Print Book.
And I travelled (virtually) to Johannesburg, South Africa to appear on Judy Croome’s Author on the Prowl blog with How to Boost Your Creativity With Freewriting.
P.J. Kaiser wrote a thoughtful and interesting review of the book on her Inspired by Real Life blog: Review: A Self-Publisher’s Companion by Joel Friedlander
And another review: Joel Friedlander’s A SELF-PUBLISHER’S COMPANION: EXPERT ADVICE FOR AUTHORS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH Reviewed By Karen Dahood of Bookpleasures.com.
On another note, several people have told me they’ve bought more than one copy, since they want to share the book with friends. That’s about the best thing you can tell either an author or a publisher, and it’s very gratifying to think the book can be useful to people navigating the publishing maze.
The power of self-publishing is growing almost every week. It is indeed an amazing time, and I’m glad we’re taking this trip together.
If you want to get a copy of A Self-Publisher’s Companion, here are the links:
A Self-Publisher’s Companion as a Kindle ebook
Trade paperback from Amazon
Trade paperback from Barnes & Noble
Photo by flickkerphotos
Dear Joel:
Just a note to thank you for another in a long stream of ongoing wealth of ideas and leads to pursue. Your blog and book have raised the level of awareness and discourse for all who want to write or self-publish a brand-building book.
BTW, I’m probably going to regret publicly ask, but where on your daily posts is the RT to Twitter link? I’m sure I’m overlooking it, but I’d like to RT your posts.
Roger
Roger, I use Sexy Bookmarks plugin, which is just above my photo at the end of the article. However, whenever a change is made anywhere on the blog, this plugin needs to be re-verified for some reason and if I forget (which happens) it disappears until I re-activate it. I’m planning on replacing it with much more obvious icons in the near future.
Excellent selection as usual Joel.
I particularly enjoyed the article on freewriting. It takes me back to my days when I did my MA in Creative Writing. One of our lecturers made us do 5 minutes at the start of every session. At first we thought it a chore but quickly we began to love it and we would come in with a scene or incident in our heads and freewrite about it for the 5 minutes and produce some amazing stuff that we could never have done in our normal thinking slow writing mode.
I also enjoyed the article on book sales spikes. I think online marketing is still in its infancy. If anybody could write the definitive and tested guide to online marketing other than become a recluse and blog, tweet and facebook your life away, they could sell millions of books on the subject.
Sign me up for that definitive guide, Chris, I could use it.