Goal setting for my upcoming releases has been something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve never set any defined goals with my book launches and the prospect of putting tangible numbers against sales or a desired royalty is a little bit terrifying.
But it’s necessary so I can market my books correctly.
So I created some some calculators to help me with the big picture. And when it comes to the nifty lil’ author tools I create, what’s mine is yours!
Good gravy. I JUST WANT TO WRITE BOOKS!!!
Have you ever said that as you get sucked into the rabbit hole of social media?
I get it. As authors, we love to tell our stories. We crave pulling those characters from our heads and hearts and getting them down on the page for our readers to enjoy.
But somewhere along the way we get pulled away from storytelling because so much of our success as an author depends on our ability to engage with readers and organically market our books to them.
So you’ve built yourself an email list of readers, fans, bloggers and book enthusiasts. Congratulations! I bet you’re ready and excited to start talking to them via email, aren’t cha?!
Well … not so fast.
Before you start creating your next great email campaign, there are a few things you should stop and think about first.
I wanted to take a moment and ground ourselves in some high level email best practices for authors. I’m not going to address list building today, because let’s be honest … there’s no easy, fast way to build a quality list that engages with you regularly and has the metrics to prove it. These things take time, strategy and mad patience for nurturing the relationship.
And that’s really what email is all about … growing and strengthening your relationship with your readers.
The following article was posted last year on the Indie Chicks Rock website, but there is a lot of valuable information that it’s worth repeating here. So if you’re a casual reader who has ever wanted to be a beta reader for an author you love, spend some time checking this out!
One of the most crucial parts of the writing process comes with beta reading. For authors, it’s anxiety-ridden. For the reader it’s exciting to get to read an early draft of a manuscript. And when beta reading is done well, it can be a lot of work.
All of us Indie Chicks have had our fair share of awesome beta readers … and unfortunately some not some awesome ones, too. So we wanted to share some candid thoughts with you on beta best practices. Oh hell, that sounds so corporate … let’s try that again…
So we wanted to share some candid thoughts with you on how you can avoid being a crappy beta reader and become an author’s best friend. 😉 Because let’s be honest … if you beta our book and really help us out, we’ll be begging to work with you again.
That’s much better. Let’s begin, shall we?
Updated March 12, 2018
Gather ’round author, dear author friends. Let’s chat about Book+Main for a few. I know many of you are wondering, I signed up for a Book+Main Author Account … now what?
Well, let me be one of the first to say, welcome to Book+Main, fellow author! We’re excited to have you onboard and look forward to getting your account verified.
If you haven’t already taken a few minutes to read through my How to Use Book+Main post, I would recommend doing that first to ground you in the below content. And I know that it’s long, but it’s worth the read if you’re considering the platform.
But before I start talking about the ins and outs and perks of being an author on Book+Main, there are a few very important things to keep in mind.
This isn’t Goodreads. It’s not Facebook. Nor is it Wattpad. And it’s certainly not Twitter either. It is not a place for giveaways and sale alerts. And all of this is a very good thing.
Trust me.
We already have an abundance of channels to help us tout new releases and sales and giveaways and run ads and blog posts and trailers and blitzes and promotions and takeovers and live videos and signings and audiobooks and book tours and virtual parties and paperbacks and everything else our little author hearts can dream up. (Phew! That was a lot for one breath.)
But what we don’t have is a safe and unsaturated place, just for our little bibliophile selves to eat our hearts out and devour scenes and discover new and unknown books and authors without any preconceived notion.
But at the intersection of Book+Main (did ya see what I did there?!) is that exact utopia. It is a content-based platform, and your stories are at the heart of it all.
I like to think of Book+Main as a little digital library, sitting on a peaceful cloud, with readers browsing through an anonymous card catalog based on subjects, where they get to read snippets hand-selected by the authors themselves.
Book+Main will give you the opportunity to match up with prospective readers in an unbiased environment. As an author, you control the content that they see. You decide which metatags to leverage to help them find you. You determine how to put your best foot forward.
You don’t have to fight an ever-changing algorithm. And you don’t have to worry about getting lost in a sea of dredge. It’s simply you and a sea of readers, waiting to connect.
Sound like something that interests you? It should! So read on to learn more about becoming a Book+Main Author …
The brand spankin’ new platform for bookworms, Book+Main, is finally live!! HOORAY! So now what?
For starters, it’s important to understand that the whole premise behind Book+Main is that authors are the content creators and the readers are the curators. There are no ads, no algorithms, and no spammy “BUY ME NOW!” posts. It was our founder’s vision to deliver stories in their purest form and get them in the hands of new readers. If that doesn’t excite your little book nerd heart, I’m not sure what will.
You’ve registered and logged in … and unsure of what it all means. There’s so much to discover, where do you even begin?
Well I’m here to help you make sense of this game-changing platform. Let’s dive in, shall we?
Author BL. Berry 