#SelfPubHelp: Top 3 Pieces of Self-Publishing Wisdom

Recently a friend put me in touch with a friend of hers who just self-published his first novel (Hi, Adam!), and in the course of our email exchange, he asked me what my top 2 or 3 bits of self-publishing advice are. Tough question, but fun to ponder, and as I wrote back to him, I thought, I should really share these on the blog, so here goes!

1. Don't join Kindle Select and thereby cave in to Amazon's exclusivity demands. This is controversial advice, and to understand why I offer this advice, you can read more about some of the downsides of Kindle Select here, or get a copy of The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing for a more complete picture. That said, I strongly recommend you distribute your ebook via Smashwords, so that you can get it into Barnes and Noble, iTunes, Kobo, etc. Smashwords is free to authors, has good royalty rates, and is an all-around great company. If you uploaded a word doc (saved as a filtered webpage) to KDP, you can use basically the same file with a few tweaks on Smashwords. Also their blog is useful to follow for news. Further, I think it's totally worthwhile to do a print book via a print-on-demand option like Createspace. It's easy and cheap (very nearly free) to make a POD book, so why not?

#SelfPubAdvice #BookMarketing: Getting Reviews

In this post, an excerpt from The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing. Links to sites referenced in this post can be found under the resources tab above.

There’s not much you can do to get readers to review your book aside from politely asking them, which you should do. There are, however, lots of ways to pay for reviews.

Thanks to the culture of online reviews, high profile reviews no longer have the power they once did. It seems to matter more that you get lots of reviews than it matters who wrote them. This is good news since the New York Times probably isn’t going to review your book.

Basic options for paid reviews:

#SelfPubAdvice: Planning your book launch

In this post, an excerpt from The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing.

Your book launch is your first step towards establishing your book’s discoverability, so it is worth doing some careful planning. While we indie authors don’t have the resources of a publishing house to place ads in the New York Times book review, get reviews in glossy magazines, and throw parties with jumbo shrimp and champagne, we do have friends and families who want our books to succeed, and we can count on them to be excited when we set our books loose on the world.

Things that help your book launch:

#BookMarketing for Indie Authors: Preparing for Author/Book Fairs

In this post, some general tips about setting up an eye-catching table at book and author fairs.

Let me tell you about the first time I had a table at a book fair.

I was representing The Worcester Review at the book fair of the Mass Poetry Festival. I had never done any events like that before, and I was completely unprepared. I showed up with a box of back issues, an envelope of one dollar bills for change, some flyers about The Worcester County Poetry Association and a sign that I made in Microsoft word and printed out on my 8.5 x 11 paper on my home printer, which only printed in black and white. I got to my table and discovered that it was a ratty old folding table with a cracked and blistered top. I had no tape to hang up my sign, nor any way to prop it up. I had no book stands to prop up my books, so I had to lay them flat on the cruddy table. My display was pathetic.

Since then I've upped my game. In fact, at my last author fair at the Worcester Public Library a fellow author with whom I've traded publishing advice over the years suggested I blog about some tips for author events, so here goes!

My Table at the New England Authors Expo. Vertical signage, book stands, postcards, and a banner. Looking sharp ;)

#SelfPubAdvice: Turn your book into an audiobook!

In this post, an excerpt from The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing on creating audiobooks.

Audiobooks are a fast-growing segment of the book market thanks to the ease of listening to books via smartphones and tablets. Did you know that you, little old you, you the indie author, can turn your book into an audiobook for a total cost of ZERO DOLLARS?

For real. You can turn your book into an audiobook and sell it at Audible, iTunes, and Amazon, and you don’t have to know thing about audio production, and you don’t have to spend a single penny to do it. Here’s how:

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog for self-publishing resources. 

A little bit about me:

I am the author of two novels (see sidebar) and one guidebook for self-publishing.

My life as an indie-author had its roots in blogging back in 2011. Once I began publishing my fiction in 2012, I kept blogging as a way to stay in touch with readers. A lot of my entries had to do with self-publishing, as that was what was on my mind, and I had valuable information to contribute to discussions of self-publishing. Rule one of blogging: Provide valuable information, right?

The problem, of course, is that the audience of readers seeking advice on self-publishing is not really the audience of my fiction. Yes, there's some overlap--writers are readers, too; but, I recently started to think that if my blog is part of how I reach casual readers of fiction, all of my talk of the books business might not appeal to them.

And so this new blog was born.

What you can expect to find here:

• Updates about changes in the self-publishing landscape.
• Advice about how to handle common dilemmas self-publishers face. 
• Reflections on my experiences marketing my books.
• Any new information I come across that I think can help you.

We indie authors must stick together!

If you want to make sure you never miss an update:

• Sign up for my Email newsletter (and get a free gift!)
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• Follow me on Twitter and message me with the hashtag #saneselfpub, and I'll follow back

Stay tuned for updates!

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