Here we are on Friday, the last day of my blog vacation. For today’s post, I’ve put together some of the shorter tips I received. If you like what these folks have to say, check out their blogs and their ebooks. Thanks!
Our first piece of advice comes from Ronnell D. Porter, ebook cover artist and author of The Trinity Saga:
One word: charity
Spread the word that you’re going to donate all of the money you make during book sales (be it a designated day, or an entire week’s worth) to a charity organization of your choice. For example, all of the money I earn in July is going to Breast Cancer research, and all of the money I earn in August is going to Save The Children. I think that people really respond to you when you’re trying to earn sales without making a dime from it. Food for thought.
Our next tip comes from Shirley Elmokadem, author of Body Trapped:
With my book, Body Trapped, I started a blog written by the main character Lee. This has now become a sequel to Body Trapped. It’s gradually building up followers. Make the titles of the blogs as interesting as possible.
I don’t know why but the blog entitled ‘I’ve cut myself shaving’ has had the most hits.
Another idea is having a competition. I have one on my blog. Write a film haiku, the best one will win a free copy of my Ebook.
Next up is Sean Bridges, author of Roll of the Die:
I’ve never found any short-cuts in the creative game. I know if X marks the spot, you can probably find somebody who hit it from every different direction, so there is no one right way to do this. But I’ve broken it down into six traits that every writer has to have in order to find success (and I understand that goal is different for everybody). Persistence, patience, luck, timing, talent, and connections.
Now I understand that everybody has various degrees of each, and I don’t know what the ingredient mix is, but I believe, in a never say never industry, if you’re missing any of these, you won’t make it.
The following advice comes from Colin Taber, author of The Fall of Ossard:
Are you using Twitter?
I’ve only started on Twitter, but already found 600+ followers, and the list just seems to grow by itself!
I’ve also built the basis of my readership, not through Kindle (I’m new to Kindle), but through Facebook adverts. Maybe you could look at carefully targeted advertising that promotes you on Faceboook (to build a following), but that splits the cost of (or covers the cost of) advertising by selling ‘sponsorships’ to authors to feature them in weekly interviews or such. You can set Facebook advert budgets very low from a few bucks a day.
Facebook advertising has delivered me thousands of readers!
* * *
That’s it for the week. Thanks for reading, everyone. I’ll be back with the usual e-publishing posts on Monday!
