Whether you’re an author or in some other business, email is (or should be) a key component of your marketing communications. Many authors have substantial social media followings, and that’s great. But you still need to build and maintain an email list. Don’t be totally dependent on the whims of any social media platform as [...]
Can You Really Blog a Book? The often-heard advice goes like this: Start blogging and after you’ve written a sufficient number of blog posts, combine them into a book. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? It’s not. Full disclosure: I’ve suggested this approach to people who want to write a book without hiring a ghostwriter but find [...]
Imagine a platform with more than 120 million readers and no ads where you can publish whatever you want and get paid for it. It's not a fantasy–it's Medium. I was first introduced to this platform in 2019 by someone who asked me to write an exposé about a sleazy seminar company and publish [...]
If you're writing a book, don’t be a one-trick pony. Early in my writing career, when I was freelancing for magazines and before I had the opportunity to write my first book, I was at a writers conference where I heard an editor with a major New York publishing house say this: We don’t want [...]
As a self-publishing consultant and citizen, I was interested in the story about Catherine Pugh, the former mayor of Baltimore, who pled guilty to federal conspiracy and tax evasion charges in November 2019. Here’s the lead paragraph from the Associated Press report of her sentencing: The disgraced former mayor of Baltimore was sentenced to three [...]
Book reviews are an essential element of any book marketing plan. This guest post by Desiree Villena provides some great tips for getting those reviews. Whether you’ve written a brilliant new novel, a life-changing self-help book, or an innovative volume of business advice, you’ll need a plan for getting it into people’s hands. And regardless [...]
It’s an exciting time to be a self-published author, but mistakes can doom your book. One of the most common mistakes self-publishers make is sloppy proofreading. Errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, word usage, and so on are one of the primary reasons for negative book reviews and returns. A good proofreader will catch and correct [...]
When I had the privilege of speaking to the Space Coast Writers' Guild about mistakes self-publishers make, I shared some predictions about what would change for self-publishers in the 2020s. One of the most important trends we’ve been seeing and that will only get stronger is that authors are becoming increasingly empowered. Traditional publishers no [...]
One of the most common questions prospective clients and aspiring authors ask me is, “How long should my book be?” It’s an important question with a simple answer: It depends. Your book needs to be long enough to accomplish its purpose. For some books, that could be as few as 5,000 words; for others, it [...]
Have you heard that books are the new business card? That’s a bit of an overstatement. In fact, though electronic contact lists have replaced Rolodexes for most of us, traditional business cards are going to be around for a long time. Still, if you have a book, giving away a copy of it (instead of [...]
