When to Start Marketing Your Book

How about an information overload?  One quick search on the internet for tips on when to start marketing your book and you'll get hundreds of different answers.  The more answers you get, the more questions that come up.  Launch week?  Hard launch?  Soft launch?

I prefer to stick with the easy answer when it comes to marketing my books.  I start immediately.  It doesn't matter if I have written one word or a complete novel.  It is never too early to start marketing yourself as an author and your work.

When writing, I keep two notebooks handy.  One for notes regarding the story itself, and another just for marketing ideas that pop into my head.  I try to market during every stage of creation, but it really gets easier once I have my cover art designed.  There is just something about having a visual that makes it easier.

So, what sort of marketing can you do before your book is finished?  Well, let's see.  You can build your followers on Twitter and Facebook, you can blog about the current progress of your work, you can update your website to show you have a new project underway, and you can tell everyone you know about your new book.

What about after the book is published?  All of the above, plus more.

See why it's a good idea to get started early?  What are some of your favorite marketing methods?

How It Works: Publishing to Kindle

Leap on the hottest writing fad and discover how to post your content to Amazon.com’s Kindle platform.

The publishing market has changed, and as writers we need to learn how to change with it. The trend has changed from conventional books to the eBook and Amazon is in the lead. The retail giant just recently reported that Kindle books have officially surpassed paperbacks for the first time. Leap on this fad by publishing on Kindle.

How To Get Started
Amazon makes it easy to start. To start with you will have to have an Amazon Direct Publishing account. If you are an Amzon.com customer, you'll be able to even use the same email and password. You are going to be required to key in your name, address, and tax information. You can expect to also be asked the most crucial question which is how you want to be paid.

Revise
No degree of publicity or promotion can improve a badly authored and edited book. Publish only your best possible story that has been read numerous times by many people. A part of the preconception attached to self published titles is the inferior quality of the copy editing. Do not be part of that problem. Make an effort to edit your book extensively.

Create Your Cover
In spite of all the warnings, people do judge a book by its cover. Sure, you are able to design your own or hire someone to do it for you, but don't forget that this is different than print. Your cover must jump out from others on a page, that’s a little different than sticking out on a shelf. Your mission is to make your cover so interesting that consumers just have to click the title and discover more. (Hint: Try out potential cover designs on your blog or website and allow your readers choose the best one, the answers will amaze you.)

Upload Your Content
Kindle Direct Publishing makes it simple and easy to add your content by accommodating many document formats such as .zip, .doc, .pdf, .epub, .txt, and .mobi and .prc. Pick your format and add your book and cover where advised. It couldn’t be easier.

Publish Your Book
Publishing to Kindle calls for little or no effort once your content is uploaded. You are going to be asked about digital rights management, royalty preferences, book price, and a description of your book. There is a question as to the best price for Kindle books, but most self published authors agree that sales are better when books are listed below three dollars.

Publicize Your Book
All that is left to do is for you to promote your writing. This may be as uncomplicated as telling your friends and family or it may be as complicated as a ten page marketing and advertising plan. The thing is that the financial success of your writing is based not only on the caliber of the writing, but also that amount of effort you put into getting the word out. And you thought the hard part was writing the novel!

Now that you know the basics to publishing on Kindle, why don’t you get started living the life of a Kindle author?

Welcome to the Indie Author Guide!

I've started this blog to share my experiences as an indie author. I'm not one of the overnight success stories, but I haven't done bad.  I'm just starting my journey into life as a published author and decided to write about my experiences on this blog.  It will be much more casual than my professional blog http://www.danamichelleburnett.com/blog.html. 

So, how did I come up with the blog name?  Well, I like the term "indie author".  I'm not against "indie publisher" or even "Kindle author", but I guess it's just me, but I like to avoid the term "self published author".  There is a whole image that goes with that term that doesn't even fit into the modern world of publishing, but it's still there.

I released my first Kindle book in November 2010.  I had no previous book deals.  The most work I had done was in a few literary magazines.  Though I am extremely proud of that work, it wasn't going to pay any bills.  I wrote and published a few short stories up until I took over the family home decor business NanasAtticStore.com.  At that point, I pretty much kissed writing good-bye.

I distracted myself with learning about decorating for a few years, then the nuts and bolts of running a business, and finally internet promotion.  That's when writing came back into my life.  To promote the home decor site, I submitted articles to article directories.  Bit by bit, my business (and me), gained a following based on my home decorating articles.  One customer sent me an e-mail stating that she wished there was a book with all of my articles.  The light bulb went off.

After a little bit of research, I discovered the Kindle platform and Createspace.  After some small success with Home Decorating for the Real World, I decided to dust off some of those stories gathering dust in the back of my filing cabinet.  It was fun to revisit characters and fine tune the stories after so much time.

That pretty much brings us up to date.  I released my first fiction novel Ghost Country in December.  I'm still in the trial and error process of book promotion while still working on developing more stories.  It struck me one day that this is the life of the modern writer.  Gone are standard publishing contracts and the old way of thinking.  A writer today has to be not only the creator of excellent stories, but a cut throat editor, cover designer, marketer, and business person.  Ahh, the life of the indie author.