Features

15 Places for Authors to Write a Guest Post

Places to Blog

Blogging is an essential part of book marketing. It’s always a bit mystifying to hear authors say, “I don’t know what to blog.” You’re a writer! It’s part of the job. If readers like the way you put together a post, they’ll be more likely to check out your book.

However, blogging can also feel like writing into the wilderness, especially if your site gets scant traffic, which is usually the case for new writer’s sites. If your blog (or book) is hurting for viewers, a good practice is to post on a blog with a built-in audience.

CreativIndie has […]

Lysa Grant2018-05-10T06:45:25+02:00June 30th, 2017|Categories: Features, Resources|Tags: Author Blogging, Book Marketing Advice and Tips, Book Promotion Articles|

How To Get The Best Paperback Cover You Can With CreateSpace

Many authors have bemoaned their CreateSpace paperback quality, i.e. print cover results in forums. But there are certain tricks of the trade that are right in front of your nose that would have given you a perfect result. Here’s a quick rundown of some easy to grasp techniques when choosing your print options with CreateSpace.

Do your interior first

Remember that you need your page count before you do your cover, because you need to know how wide your spine is! When you download your template, you will need to input the exact number of pages. Remember the interior is […]

Cate Baum2020-02-21T05:43:40+02:00June 22nd, 2017|Categories: Features, Resources|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Book Cover Design Tips|

Seven Steps To Maximum Exposure For Your Self-Published Book

It’s a very competitive market out there. Here are some more direct tips from SPR’s marketing team to get your book sold and seen.

Good cover design

The one greatest tool for your book marketing is a professional book cover. Without it, you will fail online, you will fail on a book stand. People do judge a book by its cover. A professional cover won’t break the bank, but it will cost a few hundred dollars. It’s essential you budget for this expense in your marketing costs. This expense, plus editing, should be the absolute essentials when self-publishing. Frankly, people

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Cate Baum2020-02-21T05:53:07+02:00June 13th, 2017|Categories: Features, Resources|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Book Marketing Advice and Tips|

Essential Knowledge For Every New Self-Publisher

Self-publishing can be equally exciting and overwhelming. On the one hand, it’s the best opportunity for most of us to realize our dream of publishing a book. Who wouldn’t be excited by the thought of expressing their ideas creatively and hopefully making some money in the process? There’s a heck of a lot to learn. Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur takes a look.

Writing a book is only part of the process. To experience success, self-publishers must be effective in many different areas, including marketing and strategy.

It can be tricky to know exactly where to focus our limited time […]

Dave Chesson2019-02-03T09:38:04+02:00April 25th, 2017|Categories: Features, Member Blog|Tags: Book Promotion Articles, Dave Chesson Articles|

The Brontë Sisters – Self-Publishing Pioneers

Did you know the Brontë sisters were pioneers in self-publishing? In this look at their lives, vanity presses, underhand dealings, and ripoff merchants play in their rise to literary legend.

Patrick Brunty was an Irish clergyman from humble beginnings. Subtly changing his name over time to “Brontë,” meaning “the sound of thunder” in Greek, to suit his loftier academic leanings, he had married and had six children, with Charlotte (1816–1855), Patrick Branwell (1817–1848), Emily (1818–1848) and Anne (1820–1849) surviving the deaths of their mother from cancer and their two older sisters Elizabeth and Maria from suspected consumption.

Patrick had […]

Cate Baum2017-04-24T08:54:40+02:00April 24th, 2017|Categories: Features, Success Story|

From George Eliot to JT LeRoy – The Female Author Problem

It’s Post#MeToo. And woman writers are still a niche.

Amazingly, we still seem to be using the term “female author” or “woman writer.” Amazon has a category, “Women’s Fiction.” There are a lot of niche prizes out there for “Women Authors.” None for “Men Authors.”

Being a woman still “poses issues” for those marketing fiction, and it seems to be not going away. Instead, women seem to have accept their Etsy, craftsy, whimsical lot, we’re buying knitting needles, pastel-colored cake mixing machines, and romance novels like it’s 1952, and we’re facing what can only be called a backpedaling down into […]

Cate Baum2018-10-28T07:33:20+02:00April 4th, 2017|Categories: Features|Tags: Women's Fiction Book Reviews|

How Authors Can Use Amazon Smile to Raise Money For Charity

When it comes to charity, we’re adept at giving online, especially when it doesn’t cost a dime to support your favorite cause. Amazon Smile is a tool that authors can leverage to sell books at the same time as making some money for just about any organization there is.

Amazon Smile is a subdomain of Amazon that sells exactly the same products, but gives users the opportunity to choose a charity to support.

“AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you. When you […]

Cate Baum2020-02-20T13:30:15+02:00March 28th, 2017|Categories: Features|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Book Promotion Articles|

3 “Great” Book Marketing Ideas That Were a Waste of Money

Indie author Duke Diercks talks about Facebook Ads, digital marketing, and how he “stalked” Adam Sandler…

If you’re paying attention, I put the word great in quotes. That’s because perhaps I alone thought these ideas were great – at least one of them anyway!

Here’s the deal: as a newly self-published author, I was eager (read: desperate) to get my book noticed. I also have a background in digital marketing so I am familiar with certain online advertising avenues. Immediately, I came up with two ideas to get some exposure: