Author collaboration

Like all relationships, author collaboration can be a wonderful time of sharing and helping each other or an absolute disaster.

It makes sense for several authors to work together on joint promo events like book signings, marketing, and sharing resources. But this can go downhill fast, if authors don’t respect each other’s boundaries. Pushing in on a conversation between an author and a reader to promo your own book is a major no-no, as is inviting yourself to someone else’s book signing/party after the event has been planned.

Giving each other blurbs and reviews can also be a great way to promo. But once again, things can head south fast if one person doesn’t keep to the timeline. If you don’t like their book and can’t honestly praise them it’s important to tell them immediately so they can arrange for someone else to do the review.

Always be polite, professional and show gratitude and good manners. Something that doesn’t work out today may be a good idea tomorrow. Even if it isn’t, remaining calm and professional is the way to behave. There’s no need to burn bridges unnecessarily.

Author collaborations are just like any other alliance. They take work to realize their full potential.


Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

An excellent article re self promotion

Over and over and over again all the studies show that the absolutely best promo for an author is to write another good book. Yet the vast majority of authors still spend many precious writing hours on every social media site known to mankind, trying to build a platform, struggling to make their brand stand out, and their name lodge in the minds of readers.

Facebook has many staff whose job it is to keep rearranging their algorithms so the way your fans see your messages is via paid posts, or only if they are among the 10% allowed see any given post. Amazon has much the same way of managing things so its own books always come up at the top of a search.

Blog hits, tweets, pins and so on don’t necessarily sell books. Oh a reader here or there might be excited by what she reads and buy something or download a free book, but they’re the exception. Not the rule. How many pairs of RayBan sunglasses have you purchased because that ad keeps turning up in your Facebook feed?

Social media is meant to be just that. Social. Talking to people, getting to know their pets, their gardens, their families, and also what book they’re writing. Building relationships takes time. Hours, weeks, months even.

Delilah Dawson has written two excellent articles about author self-promotion.
“There is no road map to success here. Most of the authors seeing the results I would like have either been writing for 20 years, have publishers dead-set on a bestseller and paying mad bank to help it happen, or wrote a book better than what I believe I'm capable of writing, and all I can do is keep trying to level up.… Let's write better books. Quietly.”

Read the articles here: http://www.whimsydark.com/blog/2015/4/13/please-shut-up-why-self-promotion-as-an-author-doesnt-work
http://www.whimsydark.com/blog/2015/4/14/wait-keep-talking-author-self-promo-that-actually-works

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Smashwords’ advice for Indie Authors

The full article is here, with links to download their slideshow.
http://blog.smashwords.com/2014/07/2014-smashwords-survey-reveals-new.html

But if you just want the headlines they are:

$2.99 and $3.99 are the sweet spots for most of the bestsellers. Free still works great, but it's losing some mojo.

Readers prefer longer ebooks.

Preorders yield sales advantage.

Series yield sales advantage.

Best-performing series have longer books.

Series that have free series starters earn more money for authors than series that do not.

Non-fiction earns more at higher prices.

Be cautious. Survey results are based on averages.


Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Help for Shy Writers

First the bad news. If you don’t promote your book, people won’t know about it, therefore it won’t sell as well as if you’d promoted it.

Now the good news. The number one thing that will make your book sell is by writing a second book.

However, you do need to make some efforts to tell people about your book. In today’s world you absolutely must have a website. There are very simple free ones you can manage yourself, or you can get a prettier one with a web person to manage it for you.

Facebook, Twitter, My Space, Google+ and all those other social networking sites help too. But remember the whole point of social networking sites is that you have to connect with people. Tell them about your wonderful, brilliant, amazing book. But also tell them about your garden, your cat, and whatever else interests you. Personally, I’d steer clear of photos of my children, or constantly naming them on the web. Many authors call them by an initial, or terms such as “Firstborn”, or “Boychild”.

You do need to watch that too much of your writing time doesn’t get sucked into social networking, but building links with your readers and potential readers is vital.

Guest blogging and blog hops are also good ways to meet readers, and blog hops have the advantage of other people helping you to drive readers to the promotion. Another advantage for shy writers is that you can prepare it all in advance and just have to go back on the day to answer comments, instead of sitting in a chatroom for hours on end generating conversation.

Finally remember that anything posted on the internet is there forever, so be sure to be in your “author” frame of mind when you post. Being rude to readers is something they may never forget, and you may never live down.

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.