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Better Than Bookstores: 8 Great Places to Sell Your Book
Isn’t a bookstore the best place to sell a book? No! First-time authors want to see their books in a bookstore. They dream of walking into Barnes and Noble and seeing their book on a display table at the front of the store. But frankly, bookstores are the worst places to sell a book—any book—and…
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How to Organize Your Book
How to do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you write a book? One chapter at a time. Confession time. When I first started writing books I would just sit down and write. It’s a method that worked well for me in my early years as a newspaper reporter. The…
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Increase Your Credibility: Why You Should Write a Book
If you’re in business you need a book. There are many great reasons to publish a book—to influence, to teach, maybe even to preach. But there are very specific reasons to write a business book. Twenty or thirty years ago educators and pundits declared the death of the written word. Television and movies had made…
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10 Tips to Finish Your Book During Nanowrimo
Have you made your Nanowrimo resolutions yet? If you aren’t familiar with this peculiar acronym or its importance in the writing world, Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s kind of a combination of New Year’s and Lent: you make a resolution and see if you can stick with it for an entire…
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Five Do’s for Writing a Best Selling Book Description
What’s the first thing that sells a book? The cover. What’s the second thing? The book description! Writing a best-selling book description is a very different skill than writing a full-length, 100-and-something-thousand-word book. I’ve noticed over the years, that the authors with the longest book word count often have the most trouble summing up their…
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10 Tips to Finish Your Book Before Summer Ends
Way back in May you set a goal: I’ll finish my book before the end of summer. Now, the unofficial end of summer, Labor Day, is almost here, and it’s only a month until the official start of autumn on Sept. 23. And you’re looking at your computer wondering where the time has gone. Have…
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10 Tips to Finish Your Book During Nanowrimo
Nanowrimo starts Thursday! Are you ready? Have you made your Nanowrimo resolutions yet? If you aren’t familiar with this peculiar acronym or its importance in the writing world, Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s kind of like a combination of New Year’s and Lent: you make a resolution and see if you…
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Who Is God When We Hurt? A Pastor-Caregiver wrestles with grief, loss, faith & doubt By Beth Scibienski
I’m sorry. It reads like Multiple Sclerosis. There is treatment. Go see the neurologist. He will know what to do now.” With those words, Beth Scibienski’s life changed. Pete, her husband, had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In Who is God When We Hurt, Beth, a newly-ordained pastor at the time of her husband’s diagnosis,…
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CreateSpace is Ending, But Don’t Panic! How to Migrate to KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing)
In the last few days, I’ve had lots of panicked phone calls, texts, and emails from authors about an email from Amazon they received on Aug. 28. It has thrown people into a panic, but don’t worry. Amazon is NOT stopping the printing of your paper books and they will still list them for sale…
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Gig Worker or Small Business Owner: Which Author Are You?
I recently read a very interesting article in Vanity Fair about today’s gig economy. If you aren’t familiar with the term, the gig economy refers to independent contract workers who do short-term jobs for low fees and no benefits. Sounds kind of like an independent author, doesn’t it? Well, it can be, if your attitude…
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Deadlines: Meeting Them, Missing Them, and Getting Back on Track
I began my career as a reporter on a daily newspaper. That meant that I had a deadline at 11 a.m. every day. Every single day. Six days a week. If I missed too many deadlines I would get fired. Meeting or missing a deadline was, quite literally, the difference between eating and not eating.…
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Podcast: Great Book Marketing Tips for Authors
Smith Publicity recently hosted a podcast with our favorite marketing expert, Noelle Stary, of 20 Lemons Marketing. Whether you are a new author or an old hand, there’s something for you in this podcast. Listen to the conversation
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How to Help Your Readers Write the Right Review
By Nora Phoenix One reason why readers may not leave a review is because they don’t know how to write one. As much as we writers like to talk about reviews, we rarely talk about what a perfect review looks like. We are so focused on getting reviews, preferably good ones, and how to…
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What to Think About Before Using a Pen Name
By Noelle Stary, Marketing Strategist, 20 Lemons LLC It has always impressed me how authors come up with such in-depth, detailed stories. How they build the worlds for the backdrop of their story, how they build the depth of characters. But sometimes there is a conflict between the story written, and the perception the author…
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8 Publishing Trends for 2018
Publishing, particularly self-publishing, is one of the fastest changing industries today. Techniques that worked five years ago, three years ago, or even just last year, are quickly becoming passé as readers become more market savvy and more overwhelmed by the onslaught of advertising, particularly from digital sources. So what are the top trends for authors…
