In this rapidly changing industry, writers must adapt on a near-daily basis and continuously search for new ways to reach new readers. In that mode, I’ve decided to re-brand my Detective Jackson series by listing Secrets to Die For as the first book and creating a new cover for it. The old cover was never meant to be the final product, but that’s another subject. Read more →
Watching your digital book sales climb is exhilarating. Seeing them fall is heartbreaking and confusing. “What changed?” you ask yourself, feeling panicked. Did I slack off too much on blogging? Or forget to post in the forums? Did I take this success for granted for 24 hours? Frantically, you try to recreate the right combination of effort and luck that made it happen. 
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A question from my ex-publisher stimulated me think about the pay structure in traditional publishing. The question she asked was: Why couldn’t you sell all those books when you were still under contract? Many factors came into play at the same time to quickly boost my e-book sales. Pricing strategy, volume of books, and massive effort all played a part. But one of the biggest issues Read more →
I’ve been debating whether to offer one of my books for free on Kindle, temporarily, as a promotion. I know other authors have used the tactic successfully. And I’ve given away hundreds of print books and done so happily.But I keep talking myself out of doing a free Kindle e-book. Why? Read more →
Novelists are learning to be marketers. We Twitter, and blog, and send out e-newsletters. But branding is a little elusive. It goes hand in hand with platform, a concept that’s also a little squishy for novelists. Still, the branding basics can be tweaked and put to use for book promotion. Here are the fundamentals, which I made note of long ago.
- Have enough passion about your brand/product that you appear alarming. Read more →
Tip of the Week: Be ready for an encounter with the media. I read this tip recently and decided to act on it. So I made up some disks that include:
- bio
- head shot jpg
- book cover jpgs Read more →
I’ve had so much great feedback on SECRETS TO DIE FOR I’ve decided to give away a few more copies. This time you have to earn it by coming up with a great name for one of the characters in my next novel, which I’ve just started outlining. Here’s what I know about the characters so far: Read more →
The buzzword in promotion is platform. Agents and editors want their authors to have a brand, a tagline, an expertise that sets them apart from everybody else. For nonfiction writers, this concept is fairly straightforward. If I’m writing a book about training cats to line dance, then I must establish myself as an expert cat trainer—by blogging, giving talks to cat therapy groups, and writing articles for publications focused on all things feline. But how does a fiction author establish a platform/brand?
