Posts
(Of the LET ME BUY AS MANY FAKE REVIEWS AS I CAN and tell the world reviews are the secret to success in eBooks.)
Here are
4 KEYS TO SUCCESS THAT WILL DEFEAT YOU:
1.) TARGET YOUR GENRE BEFORE YOU START:
a.) If you force yourself to write what is hot at the moment, by the time you finish your novel your genre may well have cooled to an Ice Age.
b.) You might Google “Google Keyword Tool.”
This tool will show you how many Google Searches your idea or genre is getting monthly, before you write your book. But that number will change come the completion of your book.
c.) Write what amuses you. You will have fun. It will show. And the reader will have fun, too.
2.) TITLE YOUR BOOK WITH SEARCH ENGINES IN MIND:
a.) Sounds good, but do you know how many eBooks with ZOMBIE as part of the title there are out there? You want to stand out as original not as a copy cat.
b.) Do you really want 50 SHADES OF LUST in your resume? Perhaps in your memories ....
c.) Search Engines are good to keep in mind when you list your categories and key words in your book description on Amazon.
(This is where the Google Keyword Tool should be used.)
d.) Remember THE KEY WORD that is hot today in titles may well be HO-HUM in only 6 months.
e.) MYSTERY, DANGER, HUMOR, ORIGINALITY
Those are the things that are eternal in good book titles. Wouldn't you pick up books with titles like
RIGHT TURN ON DEAD or THE MORTICIAN'S BRIDE.
f.) SHORT AND SNAPPY are guidelines for you to follow on titles, too.
3.) OTHERS HAVE BECOME MILLIONAIRES, YOU CAN, TOO! BUY MY HOW TO BOOK!
a.) Take that brown paper bag you brought home from the market and breathe into it slowly until you come back into touch with reality.
b.) Understand that anyone who has found the secret to making millions would be too busy making MORE millions to write an ebook telling you her secrets.
4.) YOU NEED A BLOG OR A WEB PAGE
a.) As an unpublished author, you need a blog/web page like a fish needs a bicycle.
b.) Having a internet presence is nice;
using your time to write three books before publishing the first one is Essential.
c.) Say lightning strikes, and readers love your book. What is the next sentence they speak after saying, "That was a great book"?
d.) "Man, I hope she/he has another book for me to buy!"
e.) In the year it takes you to write another book, their interest in you has faded.
Have an inventory of books for readers to gobble up after discovering you.
f.) AFTER you've published your first book, then put up a web presence that is humorous, helpful, and down-to-earth.
Yes, it used to be conventional wisdom to build an audience for your book by blogging first. But that wisdom has retreated into the convent of the past.
Now, when everyone is jumping up and down on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, screaming: "Look at my book!"
You must look Beyond What Once Worked.
g.) Readers go to Amazon or Google looking for a book and type in the Search Box the kind of book they want to read.
THAT IS THE TIME YOU WANT TO DIRECT ATTENTION TO YOUR BOOK!
i.) The person is in the mood to BUY.
ii.) The person wants to read the genre you write.
iii.) If you put the correct KEYWORDS in your category and Key Word sections in the book description of your Kindle book,
iv.) AMAZON or GOOGLE ( not your blog) will direct the reader with money in her hands and the desire to read to your book page.
HOW COOL IS THAT?
***
Hibbs, the cub with no clue, cannot wait to see this movie!
For those interested in Google Keyword Search, here is a great tutorial.
You will have to adapt it to your use of selecting keywords for describing your book on Amazon.
All very interesting Roland. There are so many ways to get noticed, but you have to find out what's right for you. Well, I've published short stories but not a novel yet, but I do have 5 novels in various stages of completion. I wouldn't publish anything that still needed editing. But I enjoy blogging, so there. Unpublished bloggers get annoyed when told they shouldn't be blogging. Says who? It's good writing/researching/networking practice.
ReplyDeleteHi Roland
ReplyDeleteI think blogs bring friendship but I agree they aren't good tools to find readers. I'm currently developing several series and will publish when I have more books in each. That way I can time the release of each.
Nancy
Denise:
ReplyDeleteI did not follow my own advise but blogged before I was published. However that was before KDP.
I figured if I waited to be published before I blogged, I might never blog.
And then, too, that was the time when the conventional wisdom was to blog to get noticed by agents and potential readers, too!
Rules change. We must all follow our instincts.
A book of short stories is still a book. :-)
All authors are free spirits anyway, right?
Nancy:
I think to have at least two books ready when you publish the first is a way to strike when the iron is hot.
Let me know when you publish them, and I will spotlight them!
And blogging friends are what saw me through my cancer surgeries!
I agree with Denise, 'Unpublished bloggers get annoyed when told they shouldn't be blogging. Says who? It's good writing / researching/networking practice.'
ReplyDeleteI'll continue blogging as long as it's enjoyable. Are you saying social networks are better for newbies or the unpublished? Not sure I agree with that, it sounds a bit elitist.
Blogging is fun and friendly, but I'm of the mind that it is selling to other authors, so if that is the only marketing an author does, then you have to be really really popular to actually make your money off the books. Blogging for sales could be disappointing, as many of my indie friends have discovered.
ReplyDeleteNot a bad way to spend your time, however. Who can't use more friends and connections to fellow authors. Social networking is important, and so is the committment to the craft. I learned a lot of good writing skills by writing blog posts.
.......dhole
I was told to get my butt online a year before my first book came out and network, as that would help when my book was released. (My own fault for not writing more, but I didn't intend to write more.) Blogging has certainly contributed to the success of my books.
ReplyDeleteD.G.:
ReplyDeleteDenise's "bloggers get annoyed when told they shouldn't be blogging" I can understand.
Blogging is fun. It connects us. It makes us feel not quite so alone when we are writing our novels.
WHEN WE ARE WRITING OUR NOVELS ...
Even Super-Blogger, Alex, is blogging less these days when he is writing his latest.
Many are blogging when they should be writing their novel.
It is a different cyber-environment today:
Blog tours no longer have the impact they once did. There are so many of them that none stand out.
Cover reveals are the same thing. Too many, like fireflies in a swarm.
I started my blog because it was conventional wisdom for an author to have one to gain an audience -- but that was before KDP.
We were waiting for an agent and publisher to pick us up. Why not use that time to garner an audience while we were in a publishing holding pattern?
Now, we can be our own publisher. The bane of all salesmen is to have a hot item but no inventory to sell.
To have another book able to be bought before you publish the first one is only sensible. To do that you must write novels. Any time spent blogging at that time is time that is more wisely spent writing that first and second novel.
We are a micro-wave culture. We want it NOW. I want to hit high sales with my first book and to do that I cultivate an audience who likes my blog posts. But after that first book is bought, and they want more -- there is none UNLESS I have written and published it.
I could be wrong, of course. I am only one mind. ANd I have been wrong in the past, and will be wrong again! :-)
Donna:
Most of us are singing to the choir. We will not succeed until we break out of the Author Ghetto, authors only selling to one another.
To do that I have no clue. I wish I did!
But JK Rowling had a core set of three books when the buzz really started, and those who gambled on her then had 3 books to read one after another -- it built momentum for her popularity.
Like you said, blogging is a warm, friendly experience. My blogging friends pulled me through my cancer surgeries. And I have loved interacting with my cyber-friends. I have loved creating a world of ghost authors and a haunted jazz club.
In essence, WRITING IN THE CROSSHAIRS is my blog-novel where I am the central protagonist.
But I have made sure to have a backlist of novels to be gambled on should visitors find my tales fun and entertaining.
And I get to be a creative writing teacher again! :-)
Good to see you here!
Alex:
Blogging is NOT a pyramid scheme, but it has some elements of it surely. When you began blogging, it was another time, rife with possibilities that now have become institutions.
You have become an icon due to your generosity, Arlee's A to Z, and your own widespread IWSG.
Now, the blogshere has exploded and yet become anemic at the same time. FACEBOOK and TWITTER have nibbled away at its uniqueness.
Cyber-Attention spans have shortened. And the cyber-waves seem to be awash with BUY ME's!
For the novice author new paths must be discovered to become noticed and bought. Old paths no longer lead where they once did. Seeing authors do what once worked but now do not is like seeing a puppy lick at an empty food dish that once was full. Contiuned licking will not make any food appear in it.
Your blog is immensely popular, and it, of course, contributes to your books' success. But new authors need to do something "novel" to bring like attention to them.
I wish I knew what it was. But having an inventory of books for readers to gobble up is an essential step in preparation.
Boy, did I stir up a hornet's nest. :-)
Blogs can be a tool for connecting with readers, but you have to be blogging about something that would attract readers. So you do need a web presence, just one that works. Keywords are more important for attracting people to your book, but having an audience already would help TOOOOONS.
ReplyDeleteJ E:
ReplyDeleteExactly! If we talk of only those subjects that interest writers, we will draw only them. We have to find some way to break out of the Author Ghetto as I call it. :-)