7 pitfalls to avoid in writing your first novel
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could simply sit down with your laptop or notebook and write your novel from beginning to end without any problems? Imagine waking up every morning with excitement to get a few more pages down and every week seeing the pages add up and the book coming together as easy as creating a favorite dish in your kitchen.
Have all the right ingredients? Check.
Have the oven on? Check.
Have the time to prepare it? Check.
When it comes to cooking, you’ve done it a hundred times and this time will be no different. You can already see the dish coming out of the oven and you know the pleased responses you will get when you set it on the table for dinner.
Just imagine what it would be to write a novel like that?
Have a good plot? Check.
Have time to write every day? Check.
Know exactly what you are going to do and how to do it? Check.
So what is the big difference? Why are you not on your 10th and 15th novel by now? Why are you still struggling with everything?
Perhaps there is more mindset to this game of writing than meets the eye.
Maybe you are thinking too much and doing too little.
After all when it comes to cooking you simply do it. Sure, you might have a few fumbles with a new recipe but it never stops you from getting something on the table every night. With this thought in mind, here are 7 mistakes that may be stopping you up from whipping up your next, juicy novel!
1. Thinking your book has to be perfect the first time.
2. Not starting because you don’t know where to start.
3. Quitting because the project seems too big, too hard and too complicated.
4. Stopping because you had no idea it would be this much work!
5. Hating everything you write and hating everything you write…
6. Feeling you were and are stupid to ever think you could write a novel! For heaven’s sake, what were you thinking?
7. Giving in. Giving up. Quitting.
Lucky for you there are ways to get rid of this mental crud very easily.
Apply these quick and easy remedies to each of the negative lemons and start drinking another cold, refreshing glass of lemonade. Your novel will get done. It will be the best you can make it. And when you are done with the first one, you will start on the second and the third and the fourth. You are a writer and nothing will stop you.
Let’s go!
1. Celebrate that your book does not have to be perfect to be wonderful! Think of it is as your first born. No matter how red, wrinkled and scrunched up looking that first triumphant finished book is, nothing is going to stop you from keeping it and acknowledging it as your own. You may have other books, better books, but this is your first and worth loving.
2. You don’t have to know where to start to start. Start anywhere and you are on your way. Write the end first if you want. Write what comes easy and flows. Keep writing.
3. No quitting. Simple as that. Don’t allow that option. It’s up to you to throw in the towel or not. Just refuse to do it. The book doesn’t have to be Shakespeare but for your own good it does have to be done. Lots of writers write first books that never get published. But they had to write that first one. So do you. Don’t quit.
4. Of course it’s a lot of work! But prop yourself up with visions of how wonderful it will be to actually be a published writer. Everything looks like a lot of work if you look at the whole project from start to finish. Instead, break it up into small enough, day-sized pieces and it’s doable.
5. Okay, on this one I can’t say that you will love everything you write, but I do know that as writers, we are not good judges of our own work, especially in the beginning. I do know that every day that we write we get better. It’s a learned skill and it does improve with practice and perseverance.
6. Of course you are not stupid! You are brave and wonderful to follow a dream and make it come true. When it comes to being a writer, it is up to you to make that dream come true. If you are a spiritual person pray about it and ask God or the Universe or whatever power above you that you can connect with to help you fan your talent into its most perfect state.
7. Same as # 2. Just don’t do it. Adapt, refocus, switch gears a bit, but don’t quit. Just keep at it and it will happen. The magic happens when we stay around long enough for it to germinate and grow!
How many words should a picture book have?
This is a question that many beginning writers have. How long is too long? And how long is not long enough? While every book can be an exception, you are far better staying within suggested guidelines for book length if you want your book to be accepted by publishers, parents and young readers.
Every book type has its own recommended length based on the age of the reader, education and book type. Obviously a thick paged picture book for a 3-year-old is going to be vastly different from The Mouse and the Motorcycle, a book for a ten year old to dig into for the first time.
Picture Books: Targeted for 2 to 8-year-old kids, this type of book typically has between 400 – 800 words. There are 5 basic types of picture books.
1. Young Picture Books aim for the 2 to 5-year-old. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. Many of these books are written in rhyme or in a simple sing-song meter that is catchy and fun. Word count is between 200 and 400 words.
2. Basic Trade Picture Books as seen in most stores will typically have a standard set of 32 pages. These books are geared for children between the ages of 3 and 8 years old. Each page often has only one line to keep it simple and easy for a young child to follow. The word count to aim for with this type of book is usually between 500 and 600 words.
3. Novelty Books include pop-ups, puzzles, pull-tabs and other interactive features. In some cases, these books will have no words at all, such as for the very small child who likes to feel the fluffy cotton tail of a bunny or push the squeaker for a duck quack. If the book offers more complicated instructions such as for creating an origami bird or a fashionable paper doll, the word count can extend as high as 1,500 words.
4. Picture Story Books for older children between the ages of 6 and 10 include more text with each picture. These books can have as many as 1000 – 3000 words and may have pages without a picture. These books along with the chapter books (below) are for the child who is beginning to read and can follow word concepts without pictures. Often a parent or teacher might read the book aloud and then it is lovingly read again and again by the young reader.
5. Chapter Books are those magical books that transition the young reader from pictures to text. The chapters are short and simple with only an illustration or two per chapter. These books are for readers between the ages of 6 and 10 and can have as many as 3,500 words. Children often read these books completely on their own. Chapter books are often good for serials as children delight in one story and want more.
Word count is very important to writing books for young children. Publishers know this and often won’t even look at a book submission that is too long. Too many words are a warning sign that the author does not know how to write for the age group and that the book has not been edited seriously enough.
First time authors need to do everything possible to ensure their book gets a chance. Be professional and not emotional. Authors who think that their story is so good that a few extra hundred words won’t matter will find their manuscript on the slush pile. One glance. One look. Toss it.
Self-publishing authors will find that parents can be as critical an evaluator in making decisions for book length as any editor. The actual process of why they reject a book may not be as obvious to them but in most cases extra words mean the book is aimed at a higher level of reader than it is marked for. Take word count seriously and work within the accepted guidelines for the age group you are writing for. It’s only one point in writing a picture book, but it is an important one.
Want 15% of $26,000,000?
We’ve all received advance-fee fraud emails claiming that if we just allow the deposed King of Tannu Tuva to deposit $26,000,000 into one of our bank accounts temporarily, we’ll be able to keep 15%. At some later point we’ll be asked to lend $5,000 (the advance fee) very temporarily to allow the transaction to go forward. Ever wonder why the fraudsters don’t make these emails more believable? Why they claim to be from Nigeria when most people (correctly or incorrectly) believe that Nigeria’s the source of most scam emails? Why they don’t tell less farcical stories about why they need our help? Why they offer such absurdly large amounts of money for otherwise readily available, inexpensive banking services?
Because they only want to get responses from the very gullible. They want the somewhat gullible to weed themselves out, so the scammers don’t have to waste months in email and phone conversations with people who will, at some point, before sending any money, figure out that they are being scammed.
There are two powerful marketing principles here: First, marketing skills can be used for good or evil. (Please, use your marketing prowess only for good—to connect people with amazing books and services that offer them real value.)
Second, your marketing should not just attract people you want to engage, but also repel people you don’t want to engage.
Anyone in any business is familiar with prospects who take up ton of times but never buy, or customers who are endlessly difficult to deal with. You want your marketing to actively repel these types of people. This principle is especially important if you are marketing using a blog and social media. There are followers who comment frequently, demanding lots of answers and attention, without any intention of ever buying your books or service. There are followers who try to steer your following in directions other than what you intended, like to their competing books and services. You want your blog and social media presence to actively repel these types of followers.
The bottom line is: Good marketing attracts your best prospects and repels your worst prospects at the same time.
15 ways to market your book for less than a dollar
What’s stopping you from selling more books?
In most cases, it’s not money.
Authors tend to think that only if they had more advertising dollars they could turn their book into a bestseller. The truth is it’s more often an author’s mindset than an author’s checkbook that gets those books rolling out the door.
Spend your money on making your book the best it can possibly be. This includes a great cover, powerful editing and revising, tweaking, rewriting, editing, and revising again and then, when your book is perfect from the opening page to the end, you can use the following simple ways to get your book into the hands of avid readers.
1. Create an email signature and use it for every email you send out. Simple emails are often overlooked when it comes to book marketing, but personal notes actually have more influence than you think. When you include a simple link to where your book can be purchased, this informs your family, friends and contacts without being pushy or invasive. It’s there at the end of your note, no big deal. Most of your friends and acquaintances probably already know that you have written a book, give them a chance to explore further without pressure.
2. Once a week tweet some news about your book on Twitter. It doesn’t have to be a “buy now and get one free” sort of thing. Simply leave a comment about how your book is doing, what a friend said about it, or “Great news! The Browser Bookstore is now carrying my book!” As with all tweets, keep it short, interesting, and friendly.
3. Print off a postcard on your printer and mail it to someone. You don’t have to buy special postcard stock. Simply get a piece of 8½ x 11 card stock or heavy construction paper that will print. Divide the page into four equal sections and write a bit about your book. Include something of interest about it—a quote, a testimonial, a review. Then, add a link to where it can be purchased. Find an address to send it to and apply a stamp. In fact, if you don’t want to use a computer, you can simply handwrite your message for an even more personal approach.
4. Create a flyer for your book and keep them with you as you go about town. You can post them on bulletin boards in grocery stores, senior centers, and activity centers, and leave one in a barber or beauty shop.
5. Change the phone message on your answering machine to include a line about your book. “Hi, you have reached Joni Author. I can’t come to the phone right now; please, leave a message. Check out my new book, The Storms of April, on mywebsite .com, and let me know what you think!”
6. Get another piece of paper and create some simple bookmarks. Homemade ones will attract more attention. You can use a stick figure if you are not much of an artist. Include basic information about your book and then pop one into a library book or even in a magazine in a doctor’s office or clinic.
7. Don’t forget that word of mouth begins with you! Tell people about your book. Carry your book with you and if someone comments about it—tell them it’s yours! Have something fun or interesting to say about it that will create interest.
8. Take a picture of your book and post it on Facebook. If you are not a Facebook user ask a friend to do it for you.
9. Post a notice on Craigslist. It’s free and you can include a picture, information about your book, and offer to autograph it if you want.
10. Sell it on eBay! Lots of booksellers and authors do this. It costs nothing to place an ad and you might be surprised and make a few sales. If nothing else, you are giving exposure to your book.
11. Join online author groups and include your book title in your bio. If allowed, add a picture of the book cover.
12. Join an author support group and when it’s your turn to talk it can be about “your” book of course! Fellow authors are quick to support one another and even if they don’t buy your book, they may give you great leads as to how to promote your book.
13. Offer to give a free talk at a local school, church group or organization looking for speakers. The more people you meet and greet, the more exposure your book gets. Talk about how your book came to be written, the struggles, the joys and anything else of interest. If permitted, you may be able to sell your book at the back of the room.
14. Contact your local college, high school, senior center, etc. and offer to teach a course on writing. You may or may not be paid for it, but the exposure of having your book mentioned in the curriculum catalog or on the events board is great free advertising!
15. If you have a blog you can periodically mention your book to your followers. But even if you don’t, you can always read other book blogs and leave a comment.
When it comes to book marketing, being creative can get surprising results. Once you start the wheels turning in your brain for ways to spread the word about your book, opportunities will appear as if by magic. Be bold, daring and go for it. Nothing happens unless you do something! And once you do a little something, bigger opportunities often open up.
7 author marketing tips for books that appeal to women
There are as many ways to sell a book as there are people who write them. The one thing that is common among all book selling approaches is that you match the right book with the right buyer.
If your book is written typically for a female reader it makes sense to direct your book selling efforts to the places that women tend to congregate. The following seven tips are perfect for locating new readers for books written for women.
1. Women’s magazines. As a writer, try to get an article published in a women’s magazine. While it may be difficult to get accepted in the beginning by the top magazines in this field (Better Homes & Gardens, Good Housekeeping and Woman’s Day), it is still well worth your time to get published in smaller outlets that reach out to women. Work your way up by starting with magazines that have smaller circulations and you can increase your odds of breaking into the field. Once you have a few successes, it is an easier step up to try for the top ones.
2. Blogs for Women. The best thing about tapping into women’s blogs is that many, such as 5minutesformom.com , are open to guest posting. One way to find out is to search online for the name of the blog and add “+ guest post” in the search query. This will tell you in a second if the blog accepts guest posts. Most blogs that do accept guest posting will have guidelines to follow that make it easy to create a post that will be a perfect fit.
3. Women’s Clubs. Once your book is published, it’s a great idea to get a few speaking engagements for spreading the word about your book. Start by connecting with women’s groups in your local area including garden clubs, church groups, women’s book clubs, volunteer organizations or women’s community groups listed by meetup.com.
4. Shops where women shop. This one makes so much sense but many authors do not think about this simple strategy. Where are the places that women in your book target group go to buy things? Whether it’s a store for food, clothing, hair, or pedicure nail art, try to start up a conversation with the owner if it’s a local place and ask if they would be open to selling your book (with commission perhaps) in their outlet. Offer a free book for the owner and leave a free readers copy on a table with coupon and information for purchasing inside.
5. Women’s Holidays: Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Christmas are all great book gifting holidays. You can go the quick and easy route by spending a few advertising dollars or come up with a fun and informative three-to-five minute radio talk geared around the holiday and get on the radio. Submitting an article to your local newspaper that focuses on unique gifts for the woman in your life is another way to get great media coverage around holiday time.
6. Women’s Conventions. These are wonderful places to make book selling connections. If you are lucky enough to be a speaker, you will be able to connect to potential fans, but even as an attendee, you can meet other women and make a friend or two that could lead to book marketing opportunities. Women love helping other women. Find ways to help out and you will have a golden opportunity to slip something about your book into the course of conversation. One source to find women’s conventions is at eventsinamerica.com. There are 56 women networking events listed for 2014.
7. Women Authors. Don’t forget your comrades in writing! Put aside your fears about competition and instead think of ways to team up with fellow authors to create a bigger splash. Get together and brainstorm ideas and possibilities. Listen to what other authors have done and what works and what doesn’t in your area. Find out where other authors have successfully held book events and what they have done to sell books. Be generous in sharing your own successes and failures as it will generate reciprocal sharing.
Once you start thinking in terms of connecting with your female readers, more ideas will come to mind. When they do, write them down and be open to trying them out. If no one else is doing it, it may be the perfect opportunity for you. You’ll never know unless you try.
5 book marketing lies that stops authors from selling more books
Fiction authors are good at lying. Little lies and big lies that haven’t a speck of truth in them. Authors have no qualms filling their books with lies. They sugar coat their heroes with such virtues of talent, smarts and good looks that ordinary mortals step off the sidewalk to let them pass. Make way for superman and wonder woman! They describe their villains as malicious, scurvy folks that can be killed off with no more remorse than slapping a buzzing mosquito.
Imagination is what authors call it, of course. No one thinks of an author as a liar. That is much too crass and negative a word to describe such literary flights of fancy. Creative flow and artistic license is a nicer, digestible term. And people buy those lies; they love them. Who can stop with just one? They slap down money on the counter and walk off with the latest novel and can’t wait to escape into the lies and deception of the author’s latest creative endeavor.
So author lies are not all that bad in a novel or short story. But when authors hold onto lies as truth or cling to fears (false assumptions appearing real) as fact, serious problems develop. A lie, whether told to oneself or told by another, can be very damaging if the lie is believed and changes how one acts, believes and feels. The remedy for a lie is to expose it for the falsehood that it is.
Here are five lies about book marketing that many authors believe. These lies hold authors back from selling more books. When these lies are accepted as truth, they cripple every action the author wants to take to put their book on the best seller list. These lies about book marketing keep authors from making more money, getting more fans and, worse of all, stop them from writing more books.The good news is that once an author recognizes the lies that are stopping them from selling more books they can move boldly forward.
1. If my book is really good, I do not have to market it.
Many authors believe that good books should simply be discovered. Word of mouth should spread the news of the book like wildfire once a single person reads it. If my book were really, really good, I wouldn’t have to do anything at all to promote it. In fact, promoting my book demeans it and demeans me.
The truth is that 99.9 percent of every book is helped with promotion. Good book promotion builds the trust and credibility of an author and creates more fans. The more popular the book, the more popular the author becomes. The more books that sell, the more publicity dollars major book publishers put behind it.
2. Authors who promote their books have more talent, time and money than I do. They don’t have families to support, bills to pay or a full time job that takes up most of their day and saps most of their energy. Book marketing is too hard and takes too much money.
The truth is that book promotion can be as simple as telling a friend about your book or mentioning it on a Facebook post. You can spend as little as five to ten minutes a day promoting your book and get results over time. The most important thing is that you do something at least several times a week.
And yes, you should be prepared to spend some money to promote your book, but it doesn’t have to be a lot. You don’t have to put an ad in The New York Times or hire a publicity firm, yet spending a few dollars to create a nice website, sending a few postcards and buying a tank full of gas to go to a book event shouldn’t be overlooked.
3. Authors who are constantly telling others about their books are egomaniacs. They are only out to promote themselves. They are not nice, ordinary folks and they wish nothing more than to toot their own horn on every street corner.
The truth is that all kinds of people become authors — introverts and extroverts. A few are pushy, in-your-face types but many authors are more comfortable hidden away in a room with a typewriter. I rather imagine authors who are introverts far outweigh those who enjoy crowds and cameras.
4. My book is not good enough to compete with other books in the same genre. Maybe this is true. Possibly your book would be better if you did more research. A few more rewrites and editorial changes might be good. Perhaps your book would benefit from tighter narrative, shorter descriptions and more gripping sentences.
But the truth is there is a time for every fledgling to leave its nest. Baby birds don’t develop wing muscles until they start flying. Get your book out there and see what response you get from actual readers. If you publish your book digitally, you can easily do that fifteenth rewrite while it is selling.
5. If my book is over a year old, it is too late to do anything to market it. No one wants a year old book. The only way I can sell my book is to write a new one and just chalk this one up to experience.
The final truth is that people buy books because they enjoy them and want to read what the author has to share. Maybe your book is not a classic, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t be enjoyed by new readers ten or even fifteen years after it is originally published. Popular authors such as John Grisham get new readers of their old books every year. William Shakespeare, by the way, is still selling well several centuries later.
5 great places to give a book reading
Today when most people think of book marketing the first thing that comes to mind is social media — building a mailing list and getting likes on Facebook and tweets on Twitter. But surprisingly, the old fashioned methods of connecting face to face with live book events are as important as ever.
In fact, the connections made in person are stronger in many cases and can make a deeper, lasting impression. Shaking hands with a person, making eye contact and sharing a few minutes of conversation will create a more memorable bond than online connecting.
Definitely, it takes a bit more effort, and for the introverts among us, it may seem like a stretch out of the comfort zone. However, in many ways, meeting people in person can be a lot of fun and provide valuable feedback and encouragement that is limited when sharing 140 characters on Twitter or a three sentence photo comment on Facebook.
While it can take up to six months to build significant online connections, you can give a presentation to a small group for one hour and create relationships that will be remembered for years. There is a reason that politicians running for office spend long hours shaking hands with as many people as possible. One handshake is probably worth a hundred dollars in advertising spent online!
Most of us can recall connecting with someone in a one-time only, face to face encounter that may have lasted less than a minute, but we can recall every second of that minute years later.
Even casual personal meetings are more likely to be shared with friends both online and offline. Think about it. Many of us would naturally share at the dinner table about talking with a stranger in line at the airline counter but not even think about relating a Twitter connection or Facebook conversation.
Book events such as a simple reading do not have to be complicated, take a lot of preparation time or follow-up. And here is an important factor to consider; even if your book reading is not well attended the advertising of the event can be invaluable. For instance, if you offer to do a book reading at your local coffee shop at 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon, you might have only half a dozen people stay around to listen. But most likely the coffee shop will advertise your event on their calendar, write it up on their chalk board and even allow you to leave flyers about the reading at the checkout.
If you arrange to do a reading at a hospital, school or public library you may get free radio advertising for the event simply by sending a public announcement news release to local radio stations. Offering to give a book reading at a local church will probably mean you get exposure in their church bulletin and perhaps even an announcement during the service.
Plus, every book event you create makes an instant newsworthy bit to share online. Get a friend to take a picture of you while you are doing the reading and share that on your blog, Facebook and Google Plus.
To give you a few ideas to get started, here are five great places to give a book reading. Not every book will lend itself to every venue but you should be able to find at least a few to get you started. Once you cover the places in your immediate neighborhood, you can venture further afield. Use the exposure of one event to encourage other places to allow you to give a book reading. Create a scrapbook of places you have given a reading and share that with those in charge of event planning.
1. Local Churches. While you can certainly target the whole congregation, you might want to narrow it to a specific group such as women’s club, men’s club or youth group. Many church groups are always on the lookout for something new to spice up an ordinary meeting.
2. Retirement Communities. Great place to find an audience for 15 to 30 minutes. Simply call the residence and ask to speak with the activity director. Most of them have a monthly Calendar of Events and are always scrambling to find a new twist to the regular monthly activities.
3. Schools. When starting out you may not be able to present to the whole school but even presenting to a single class creates a fun event. If your book has a historical background, you may tie it into a history class as well as a creative writing class. Business books will connect with classes in marketing, advertising and networking. From grade school to college, there should be places for you to make a relevant tie-in.
4. Bookstores. While it is getting harder and harder to find a mortar and brick bookstore, they are still out there and one of the things that makes customers shop at them instead of online is just such events as book readings!
5. Local fairs and community events. Drop in at your local Visitors Center and check out what is going on. While you may not want to pay for your own booth at an event, perhaps you can find someone who would love the extra exposure of having an author present a reading during the day.
What authors need to know before starting a crowd funding campaign
First-time authors as well as seasoned ones have successfully raised money through crowd funding. Campaigns have been funded that were as simple as $150 to pay for an inexpensive cover design and as complicated as over $49,000 to publish a coffee table book with glossy, colored pages. The main crowd funding sites used are Indiegogo, Kickstarter and Pubslush , although there are countless others.
Whether the amount is small or large though, crowd funding for a book has some hidden benefits that might be equally or perhaps even more important than raising money to pay for book printing and marketing costs. Consider these:
Benefit No. 1: Connecting with new readers.
Benefit No. 2: Getting your book known on a wider platform.
Book marketing is about finding readers who will be attracted to your book enough to read it. Once you have shared the book with family and friends you must find new readers who will be willing to take a chance with your book. One brilliant way to find these new sources is with a crowd funding project.
Crowd funding provides a platform to rally friends and supporters to your cause and encourage them to spread your message. Create a 1-2 minute video introduction, offer a few perks and special benefits and now you have a vehicle for friends to share with friends.
Indiegogo in a recent study showed that only 3-5 percent of people responded from a typical mailing list. If your fan list is quite small that might mean very few will buy your book. But if you can persuade “those” few to tell their friends and their friends to tell their friends you can create a momentum.
Unfortunately, creating a successful funding program is not as simple and easy as it may look. A typical crowd funding campaign lasts between 30–60 days but before you hit the “Go” button many important things have to be in place. Most successful campaigns require five to six months of building a solid networking base of social media contacts and creating publicity materials for the crowd funding project.
Plan for Success
Here is an important fact that you must take into account. The first 25 percent of your goal starts with your own fan base. This means letting your friends, family and fans know what you are doing and building up excitement about your projects weeks before it actually starts. The magic doesn’t just happen. You have to build it, breathe into it and support it as you would in lighting a new fire. Unless you start with some dry paper and small kindling the big wood will never catch. This is why it is so important that you make your inner circle aware of your project from the beginning stages.
Campaigns that get their first donations on day one have the best chance of reaching their goals. A recent Indiegogo study showed that 85 percent of successful campaigns all received at least one donation on their first day. To ensure this happens, important ground work must be done. Friends and supporters must know about your project, be excited to commit with a donation and believe in it enough to share with their own circle of friends.
Once a project shows momentum it will rise on the charts and begin to be noticed. The faster and hotter you can get that to happen the probability for greater exposure will increase. Remember you only have 30-60 days to get this to happen. So it is of the utmost importance that you have people who will commit in the beginning.
It’s Up to You
Many crowd funding projects fail simply because the ground work has not been done. The percentage for actual funding goals reached is less than 50%. In many cases, this is because people only find out about the project in its last days. That’s too late! The biggest mistake is to think that simply creating a crowd funding project will attract people to donate. The reality is that there are thousands of crowd funding projects going on every day. How will yours get noticed unless you get the word out? It’s up to you.
Besides family, friends and fans, you should try to connect with key influencers who might have interest in your project. For a book, this might be other authors who have their own significant fan base, or it might be local and national radio stations that will interview you during the span of the campaign. It might mean working with your local newspaper for a story and asking church and organization groups in your area to give you a promotional plug during the campaign. All these things must be set up before the campaign begins and then rolled out carefully day by day through the length of the campaign.
Create a Video
You absolutely must have an introductory video. It should be short, no longer than two or three minutes, outline your project and provide reasons for people to support your book project. Make sure it connects on a personal level, with a touch of friendliness, earnestness and passion. Make it as professional as you can, but most of all, remember if you do not show enthusiasm for your project, no one else will! So let your own conviction shine forth with an explanation of why you wrote your book, what your hopes for it are and why it will benefit the reader.
Find the Perks!
Finally, you must have a series of gifts called “perks.” These are a graduated list of gifts that donors will receive according to the amount given. For instance, a personal thank-you email might be the gift for $5, a pre-release ebook for $10, and the opportunity to name a character in your book for a donation of $250. The important thing to remember here is to match the gift with the targeted donor. What would they like to receive? What would encourage them to give more to receive more? Be creative!
A successful crowd funding campaign can start your book on its way to bestseller success. Not only will you get the necessary funding to publish your book, but the friends and support you build along the way will be invaluable for every book you create.
Should you hire a ghostwriter?
A huge percentage of the American population wants to write a book. The numbers are staggering, something like 88 percent or higher. And with today’s technology, it is easier for most of these people to actually write a book and publish it themselves.
But here is the situation. Not everyone who wants to write a book should, at least not if they plan to sell it in bookstores. Writing for one’s family is a very different case than writing a book so that it competes with bestselling books on Amazon or sells to the general public.
Even though you may have a great story to tell, you may not have the technique to write it in a way that captivates the reader and draws them deeply into the drama you want to share. Recognizing that fact does not mean you “shouldn’t” write your own story, but it might be helpful to look at a few other ways to get your book published.
The easiest way is to work with a ghostwriter. The story remains entirely yours. It’s your name that will be on the cover and you have complete approval of your story, but the actual writing and plot structure is done by a professional writer. Major celebrities, business people and just plain folks with an interesting story will hire writers to help them in the actual writing process.
Working with a ghostwriter does not mean the “ghost” creates the story. In the case of a business book or nonfiction book, the writer collects the information from the author through series of interviews, recordings and gathered information such as letters, articles, photos and various material that is relevant to the book.
Fiction books written by a ghostwriter can be entirely written from scratch or the author can supply the story idea, character development and plot outline and have the ghostwriter take it from there. Some authors are no more than a brand name such as the famous Nancy Drew mystery books that were written by five different ghostwriters.
If getting your message out in a timely and professional manner is important then it may make more sense to hire a ghostwriter rather than struggle through years of learning and perfecting the writer’s craft. In some cases, people who hire ghostwriters are perfectly capable of writing a great book themselves, but they don’t have the time to do it.
Many different factors come into play when hiring a ghostwriter. Time and expertise are the big ones but so are such things as health, age, business and family commitments. It may make more sense to get a book done quickly when the market is hot for the topic than waiting until all the stars line up to create a writing schedule.
Writers who have English as a second language in most cases will not write as well as those who have English as their first language. But finding a great writer involves much more than looking at what country they come from and what language they speak. Professional writers should have invested as much time and expertise in their field as educators, doctors, lawyers, and scientists.
Finding a professional writer that writes in the genre that you want your book written is another important factor to consider. A business ghostwriter may write a bestseller on marketing but flounder completely when writing young adult fiction. Medical writers may trip over writing a book on social media. Take the process of hiring a ghost writer as seriously as if you were hiring a financial adviser. Both can have critical outcomes if the selection process is not carefully considered.
Once the decision is made to hire a ghostwriter then it’s time to get serious about how much you are willing to commit financially to the project. While you can go to places like Elance.com and Guru.com and hire a writer for as little as a penny a word, you will get a book that is written at a penny a word. Try putting it on the market and you will be doing your business more harm than good.
Expect to pay a professional ghostwriter as much as $100 to $250 a page and up. If you cannot afford that amount, consider working with the ghostwriter to split royalties, name recognition or make payments. If your book sells even as few as ten thousand copies you will easily make back every penny you put into it. If it sells 100 books tops then even a $5000 investment is wasted money.
Of course, there is more to creating a bestseller than a well-written book. Book packaging, marketing, promotion and timing all play decisive factors. But those elements only come into play after the book is solid enough to stand on its own. Even if you can afford to pay for a full page spread in the New York Times (some estimates are $150,000) and sell a few books simply from advertising, once it’s discovered that the book doesn’t deliver, the fallout will be worse than not writing a book at all.
Conclusion: If you want to “be” a writer more than simply get an important message out, then ghostwriting should not be considered. On the other hand, if the message is more important than how it’s delivered, hiring a ghostwriter may be your best solution.
Why authors should use Google Hangouts on Air
Google Hangouts on Air is a type of video call that operates like your own private television broadcast talk show. You can have up to ten people participating on the call with as many as 5,000 live viewers submitting questions via text chat. Once the show is completed an automatic YouTube video is published.
For authors, this can be a great way to build up weekly or monthly content as well as deepen connections with your target audience. A recent article on Forbes reported that the reach of video “over white papers, case studies, even live demos with reps” was significantly higher in how audiences choose to absorb new content.
Getting Started
To get started doing your own Google hangout on air, you will need to pick a topic that offers valuable content to your target audience. Offer a tutorial on a subject such as photography, business, cooking or create an “interview with an expert series.”
Cookbooks are great for hangouts on air. Simply present a program on how to make a recipe from your book. Set up a webcam in your kitchen and create a show!
Business books offer great content for a weekly video broadcast. You can offer your own material or bring in guests to reach out to a broader audience. As your audience grows, you can bring in bigger and better experts which will significantly impact how your audience views your own expertise!
If your work is fiction you can talk about your book’s characters, background, theme or setting. Talk about the research that went into creating your book, the struggles to get characters to behave and the joy of finding answers to problems that arose during the book’s creation. You can invite other authors that relate to your audience to be guests on your show. Readers love discovering new authors and the benefit to you is that every author you showcase will happily share being on your program to their own audience.
With a hangout on air, you can offer to do a unique presentation to a book group or study club. Instead of showing up in-person which means travel, time and expense, they can either watch you as a group or from their individual locations. Once you find a book study group, invite one or two members to be guests on your show. They won’t have to drive to your own private studio to be on-camera with you but can simply tune in as with a video call on their laptop.
The big benefit of Google Hangouts on Air is that even if a group you present to has only a few “live” viewers, once your program is published on YouTube it will continue to reach new people in your target market every day.
Once you have created a few programs, you can create a special video page on your website which will enrich the content you offer. Bundle two or three videos together as a “free giveaway” for new subscribers. Include a link in your email signature to one of your best videos .
Every video you create can be tagged with related keywords to your book audience. Once the video is published, broaden its reach by sharing it on your favorite social media sites. Posting a video on YouTube is an instant win, as well as tagging it for Google Plus and Twitter. If you have a Pinterest site, you can create a unique board with your videos.
Google Hangouts has an upside and a downside, and they are one in the same. That is this…
Google hangouts is pretty new.
Downside: People are not yet familiar with how they work, how to create them and even how to participate with them. The learning curve is a bit steep but there are lots of free tutorials, mentors, tutors, classes and master groups that can help you get going.
Upside: If you want to get into the latest social media blitz before it tips – this is it! Google handles over 80% of all search engine traffic. Hangouts on Air is Google’s new brain child and they are putting all their guns and warships into winning this latest social media front. If you are a new author with little traffic and few followers, Google Hangouts On Air might be your winning ticket to pushing your book to the top.