Getting book reviews soon after the publication is useful. Amazon’s algorithms seem to take the number of reviews into account to determine which works to promote (although sales probably have a greater impact). The number of reviews is also a benchmark by BookBub in deciding which sales to publicize. As for readers, the jury is […]
It’s getting on late Sunday and I’m not sure if I’ll have enough time to get another installment of the Career Indie Author written. We spent most of last week in Rochester, N.Y., enrolling our son in the university. It’s been the culmination of more than a year of planning, researching, executing, and sheer bloody […]
Authors and social media. You hear it all the time: You need a platform of fans to attract a book deal. You need fans following you on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and SnapChat. You need to be online every day, meeting the public and selling yourself and your books. We have been told that for years. […]
If you want to give someone the heebie-jeebies, pull out a camera and ask if you can take their picture. If you want to see them collapse in a sweat, tell them this will go on the back of their book. In fact, there’s nothing that’ll force you out of your comfort zone more than […]
While you’re setting up your company, you should think about the need for an author pen name. A name conveys an image or meaning. It tells the reader something about you that may not be accurate: your nationality, gender, intellectual level, even suggest the type of books you write. Would you expect “Brad Thor” (his […]
Remember the Far Side “Cow Tools” cartoon? It showed a cow, standing up before her display table that showed a bunch of sticks and lumps. In his book, Gary Larson wrote that the panel caused a lot of confusion among his readers. They thought the tools had a purpose, and they couldn’t figure it out. […]
This is a Career Indie Author post that won’t go into the book, because it’s about basic story editing. This came about after reading a genre novel that was by someone who’s written a half-dozen of them. I hadn’t read anything by him before, but the description snagged my interest so I threw a couple […]
I’ve been exercising to The Author Biz podcasts, and heard about an author who I wanted to check out. I listened for her name, and her character, and when I was done I hit the Google. Forty-five minutes later, I had this column on author website mistakes for the Career Indie Author. Because this author’s […]
Writing and designing a book ad is intimidating, but it might not be as hard as you think. After all, you write stories, right? You use your imagination to invent characters and situations. You have the ability to revise your story, to eliminate ineffective and useless words and make the rest more effective. You even […]
We all need Hemingway’s shockproof bullshit detector, but it’s vital when you’re running your own business. Career indie authors have so many options to promote themselves and their books that they have to develop the skills to determine if the poke they’re being sold really contains the pig, or a bag of busted balloon. Today’s […]