Tag Archives: Kobo

Quantum Crystal by Rob Shackleford

Quantum Crystal

Is humanity evolving?

Today, millions suffer from Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Traumatic Stress due to warfare, car accidents and violence.

In response to this global epidemic, pioneering medical researchers develop a new treatment that is seen to produce outstanding results. Dubbed the ‘Quantum Crystal’, the treatment is soon rolled out for many of the maladies that affect modern humanity.

But is this treatment all it is purported to be, or are deeper changes under way?

‘Quantum Crystal’ examines the efforts of victim support group, The Staff, to rollout the Quantum Crystal to a deeply divided humanity and the inevitable violent opposition to change.

Amazon

Smashwords

Author Bio Two

An English-born Australian, Rob Shackleford has lived in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, with a varied career that has included Customs Officer, Scuba Instructor, College Teacher and management roles in too many places.

With degrees in the Arts and Business, he is mad keen on travel, Scuba diving, Family History, martial arts, astronomy, and playing Djembe and Congas. Despite that, he is actually not that boring. Rob is father of two and has made his green escape with his lovely lady into Australia’s Gold Coast hinterland.   

Other Books by Rob Shackleford

Traveller Trilogy

Traveller Inceptio

If you were sent a thousand years into the past, would you survive?

After the accidental development of the Transporter, university researchers determine that the device sends any subject one thousand years into the past.

Or is it into a possible past?

The enigmatic Transporter soon becomes known as a Time Machine, but with limitations.

An audacious research project is devised to use the Transporter to investigate Medieval Saxon England, when a crack international team of Special Services soldiers undergo intensive training for their role as historical researchers.

The special researchers, called Travellers, are to be sent into what is a very dangerous period in England’s turbulent past.

From the beaches of Australia to the forests of Saxon England, Traveller – Inceptio reveals how Travellers soon learn that they need more than refined combat skills and modern technology to survive the trails of early 11th Century life. First Two Chapters here …

Writing “Traveller – Inceptio”

“Traveller – Inceptio” is my first novel and, like any first novel, is the result of years of writing, rewriting, editing, and then leaving it to sit and mature, or rather for me to mature, so I could go back and write new chapters and make adjustments. Originally titles “Traveller”, Traveller – Inceptio was rebranded to make the book name stand out more.

To keep the historical components accurate I had to engage in considerable research. In so doing I have tried not to become too engrossed in the historical minutiae of Saxon or Gabi Gabi Aboriginal life but have attempted to look at what it was like to be a person living there and then. If I have made errors, these are a lapse in my research or understanding and are not meant to be malicious or lazy. I welcome scholarly and cultural input and corrections so I can better understand the rich tapestry of human history where I dip my toes on occasion.

While writing Traveller I have the deepest gratitude for friends and family for their encouragement, input, and correcting my many spelling and grammatical errors. The inspiration for Traveller came when I was sitting on a beach one day and observing the many resorts that proliferate around Australian beaches. Thinking how the world has changed over twenty years then led to speculation of changes over the past two hundred years since the European settlement of Australia. So – why not 1000 years? The world was such a different place.

The cover is an image of a Saxon saex or knife as created by Artist Blacksmith and Bladesmith Owen Bush of Kent in England. I am grateful for his generosity in permitting the use of his image. View his impressive work at http://owenbush.co.uk/  

To describe the attempt to professionalise the writing process, this book has been physically published, professionally edited, rewritten and shortened, republished in electronic format, and recently proofread. Phew!

I hope you find Traveller Inceptio to be an enjoyable read. 

Traveller Inceptio eBook Links:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

 

Traveller Probo 

Traveller – Probo is the inevitable sequel to Traveller Inceptio and the second of the Traveller series.

Traveller Probo

Would you survive if sent one-thousand years into the past?

Development of the Transporter saw highly trained researchers, called Travellers, successfully sent one-thousand years back in time to early medieval Saxon England.

Traveller Missions now mean enormous national prestige and the recovery of valuable lost artefacts and knowledge, so nations vie for the use of the Transporter and more daring Traveller missions are planned.

As the study of History becomes hotly contested, politics and power soon come into play.

To study lost peoples and civilizations, Special Forces researchers have to be even better trained, better equipped, and prepared to put their lives on the line.

While Michael Hunter continues to build a life in Saxon England, the tragically injured Tony Osborne finds his resurgence in a mission to ancient Turkey, and Professor Adrian Taylor seeks to better outmanoeuvre his contentious colleagues.

From the misty shores of New Zealand to the shining splendour of the ancient Byzantine Empire, it is soon learned that sending modern researchers into the past is not without its rewards, and pitfalls.

Traveller Probo eBook Links:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

 

Traveller Manifesto 

Traveller – Manifesto is the final novel for the Traveller Series.

Traveller Manifesto

Traveller Manifesto is Book 3 of the Traveller Trilogy, the explosive final sequel to Traveller Inceptio and Traveller Probo.

To use the enigmatic Transporter and send Special Forces trained Researchers back a thousand years is now the biggest game in world politics.

But not only politics, as academics scramble to outdo each other and harness prestige in the increasingly influential field of History.

As Professor Taylor is rescued from Byzantine Rome, a heavily-armed US Traveller team explores Mississippian Cahokia to experience a situation beyond even their control. Michael Hunter and Tatae flee Giolgrave in the hope of finding safety from modern interference. But at a terrible cost.

And something seems to be happening in Israel, resulting in the creation of a high-profile investigation team to uncover if there is a clandestine Traveller mission operated by the US and Israel.

From the windswept mountains of Wales, to the hills of Cahokia and the dusty wadis of the Negev, researchers find that to visit the past may not necessarily provide the answers they seek.

Amazon

Smashwords

 

More about writing the Traveller Series

When we examine the history of humanity one thousand years in the past we find many human populations were experiencing massive change and population migration. Migration meant populations coming into contact and the inevitability of violent conflict. This resulted in the extinction of cultures and races.

The people of the time were often not people we of the 21st Century would like to visit. Over a surprisingly wide segment of the globe, any strangers risked becoming victims of cannibalism or ritual sacrifice. The Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and indeed many locations would be just too dangerous for a 21st Century researcher to visit.

 

Rob Shackleford Social Media Links

Rob Shackleford Author Website

Rob on Facebook

Rob on Instagram

Rob on Twitter

Rob on LinkedIn

Goodreads

 

 

Are you a New Author?

 

 

DID YOU KNOW?


Writers Beware is one of t
he first websites all new authors need to read before they look for a publisher or at self-publishing. Along with this you should read ‘The Ultimate Author Checklist.’ an great PDF full of information from an excellent Marketing website.

Both websites are excellent resources for authors. Writers Beware informs and keeps us updated of things we need to be aware of. It lists Vanity Press and all the ongoing scams which are ripping us off due to writers not doing their research correctly. It is also continually updated. What a lot of writers do is Google publishing or ask in writing groups we belong to. The problem is Vanity Press know how to use SEO’s to their advantage and Writing Groups get a lot of Scammers in them or people who say they know what they’re doing when they don’t.

The Checklist is more about setting yourself up as an Author, getting social media working for you, making or paying for a website and so much more. We give this PDF out to our clients no matter how far along they are in their journey.

SEO’s (just in case you don’t know what they are.)

Search Engine Optimization. Part of this is keywords businesses use to get their sites and adverts in the top spots on Google and other types of search engines. Because it is at the top, you are more than likely to go and click on them, and they have you… unless you know the ropes of what they are offering, which is why research is important part of life.

Many of you will use your own keywords during your publishing and marketing days to help readers find and buy your books. Publisher Rocket is great for finding good Keywords for your genre. (It was formerly known as KDP Rocket.)

Costs

The first thing you need to be aware of is the cost of publishing. Many say it is FREE!  It isn’t. Uploading a manuscript and book cover to KDP and other distribution websites is generally FREE, though some do charge fees. (Ingram Spark and Lulu). All Vanity Press businesses will charge you large amounts of money. Not only that, they also charge BEFORE they do any work on your manuscript. You will also be asked to sign a contract which you need to read and understand. A lot of these contracts give them copyright of your manuscript in all types of publishing, be it eBook, paperback or hardback. Each one will cost you more money to produce. If you wish to get out of the contract, they can take ninety days or more to hand back copyright. You will need the associated paperwork to prove to distributors like KDP that the copyright has reverted back to you.

Vanity Press

The main worry about Vanity Press is they don’t do the work they promise. They don’t pay out the royalty; they charge you for storage of books they print, some expect you to buy copies in their hundreds and of course you pay for freight, which they charge more for than they should. I know of one person who did their own freight, and it came out $400 cheaper… This is why WRITERS BEWARE is a must read.

Another thing you all need to remember… When you have work done in your home, building a deck, car maintenance etc… You don’t pay them until they have finished the work. You pay AFTER the work is finished. NEVER pay a contractor in the writing world until you have approved the work they’ve done for you, unless it is a deposit, which many businesses use these days, so they don’t get scammed by clients. Sadly, this does happen and has happened to my business.

Research

Research every contractor you work with. Seek out the details you need by asking the right questions. Get to know what those questions are by reading blogs. Ask for sample edits from various editors and find which one you feel more comfortable working with. Do the same with graphic designers and illustrators for book covers and images you may wish to use. There are certain things contractors need to know to do their job correctly.

This is a post I wrote a while back about Fiverr and Graphic Designers...after all you get what you pay for!

Editing

Do they edit in the English Language you use—British, American, Canadian, Australian, etc?

Do they edit in your genre?

What type of editing do they offer?

Line Editing, Copy Editing, Beta Reading, Proofreading?

How much experience do they have?

Do they have qualifications, or have they learnt on the job?

Do they have good reviews (ten or more good ones)

Graphic Design

Do they buy stock photos?

What DPI do they work with?

What type of file do they save too?

Are the fonts they use for commercial usage?

Proof of purchase of any fonts and stock photos?

You can use photos you have taken as long as you can prove they are yours.

Reverse check any sample images they give you. (some lie or steal other peoples work)

Ask other Authors and check out their covers.

Check reviews (ten or more good ones)

The last thing you want is to be sued by a photographer or font designer for copyright infringement.

Formatting or Interior Book Designer

As well as being an Author Consultant, bringing contractors together to build books, I also work as a formatter, and turn manuscripts into a professional files to upload on KDP and other distribution websites. There are many formatting apps around now, though many are not as professional as people seem to think. Pick up a paperback printed by a traditional publisher, and you will see what I mean. Look at how it is set out, how tidy it is. If you are contracting out for formatting, you will be paying more than $10 to get a professional finish. Note the differences between eBooks and print books. There are quite a few, including page numbers- which don’t start on the first page of the manuscript, header and footers, endnotes/footnotes, images and in eBooks Alt Text for images so people who are sight impaired can read the image.

Technology Growth

Technology is advancing in leaps and bounds, changes and updates happening all the time. If you’re not a techy person, then you do need to research every detail about producing a book. It is hard work if you want a professional outcome.

Always remember paperbacks and hardbacks need to be justified with a line spacing of 1.15 cm at the most. Indents shouldn’t be more than 0.5 cm. Learn how to use STYLES in WORD if you write in WORD. If you use an app, you still need to make sure these things are correct. This means you need to learn to use the app correctly, watch the videos, or talk to someone who knows what they’re doing. Keep yourself updated with the changes.

Websites and Social Media

Most authors have websites, though these only work if you use them, share the posts, and have a marketing plan. You need to know about SEO’s and keep your website relevant. Post at least once a week. Talk about your books and yourself, about your writing, how your muse helps or hinders you. There are plenty of ideas out there which you can write about.

Social media also seems to be slipping to the wayside, especially Facebook with all their rules and regulations, people getting banned for weeks or months. I’ve noted a lot now use Instagram and TikTok, if you’re not camera shy like I am. You can get Book Trailers made for YouTube or you could read one of your books on video and share the links.

Marketing

An excellent resource for Marketing is ‘The Ultimate Author Check List.’ It is brilliant, and even I still need to finish reading the document and put things into place. Marketing will cost more money and this should be the only one going cost with your books. If you are a techy person, you maybe able to make Teasers and Adverts to use, remembering each social media website has criteria your advert needs to fit.

Once again, be careful of scammers, especially from those who approach you! Most are dubious. I like to work with people who have reached out to me or have read a review. Word of mouth is a wonderful thing. Don’t forget to leave your contractor a review, especially if they fulfilled all the criteria of the contract.

We welcome questions in the comments area. We are happy to help new authors find the right way to go for their needs. Meanwhile, be careful out there.

Happy New Year and Welcome to 2021

Happy New Year to all our followers and friends. It has been a wow of a year with many of us working from home. The toll on the human race is still growing though with vaccines, perhaps we can beat this virus and the many strains. Please be safe and take care of each other so we can grow and help each other. We are lucky to be based in New Zealand, where though we are on level one, our lives are closer to normal than it is for many other countries around the world. Be careful out there.

Thank you for continuing to be with us over 2020 and on into 2012. We look forward to sharing your work, books, interviews, educational articles and helping out clients – past, present and future. Let’s get those manuscripts built into books and uploaded to distribution platforms.

We have a great team here at Plaisted Publishing, our contractor list just keeps growing. If you know a small business contractor who works in Editing, Graphic Design or Marketing, please contact us. We’d love to help you help our clients and grow each others businesses. 

This year we will be introducing you to our contractors, each with their own expertise in a certain area of publishing. You will get to know them and what they can do for you if you are planning to publish a book. We do Interior Book Design in house and have over six years experience in Fiction, Non-fiction, Anthologies, Memoirs, Poetry, Children’s Picture Books and Family History Books/Family Reunion Books.

We also off help with Family History Research and have twenty years experience gathering information for various books we’ve made over the years for reunions and birthday celebrations. If you’d like to talk to us about Family History, please contact us here or email at plaistedpublishinghouse@gmail.com

We are also looking for Content Writers within the publishing world. If you write educational material for Independent Authors, please contact us, we’d be delighted to hear from you. It is important for us all to continue to learn and grow in the publishing world with the ever changing technology we use.

We will also be opening a page to favourite weblinks for educational purposes. If you know of a great website please email us the link and we’ll check it out prior to posting the link on the page.

At present we are updating out website. We will have a library of all the books we’ve assisted with over the last six years along with a list of Author Names. Eventually we hope to also add a profile of each author as well and send those links out to each client so they can share and celebrate each others work.

Our magazine has been on hold for the just over two years now. We hope to re-establish the magazine with a new title, new and easier layout with less formatting work involved. We hope this magazine will be every two months. Here is hoping all this scheduling will work. By the end of this year, we may need a PA…

Distribution Platforms we use
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
Lulu
Ingram Spark
Smashwords
Draft to Digital

Looking into using
Kobo
Barnes and Noble (Nook)

Here is hoping for a wonderful year. Take care and be safe. 

Claire Plaisted
Business Owner

Publishing Confusion – Part Two. Author Brand

Author Brand! What is it?

Who likes Nike, Adidas? Who’s your favourite Movie Star, Poet, Author?  The first two are BRANDS which people love. The Second are people who can be turned into BRANDS and generally are. So, how do they do this? What does it mean to have a BRAND

If you get a big enough BRAND you can sponsor others, the same way Nike and Adidas do. They are MARKETING MACHINES, but how did they do it? How did they get so big and noticeable? It’s a bit of give and take. The big businesses sponsor the big names in sports and movies. If a movie star loves the shoes, clothes, drink…whatever the business sell, then the public will buy and support the person being sponsored which in itself supports the MARKETING MACHINE. It continually circles around, making money. 

As authors and publishers we need to do something similar. The trouble is getting your foot in the door. How is this achieved. Well it’s time to ask some of the Independent Authors who’ve made a success of their books. There is one lady I know you’d all love to chat with. Sadly she is busy heading for a deadline right now though Jami Albright has given me permission to share how she went about her first book launch, which also shows how she used her BRAND to her advantage.

Find Jami’s Podcast HERE. Other details are below. This Podcast is mainly about a Book Launch, though it shows the process she went through to get SALES and REVIEWS, both an important part of how we use our AUTHOR BRAND.

 

This article was written by Jami Albright in 2017. Jami has since released another three books in her series.

The minute you decide to sell your book it stops being your baby and becomes a product. A product that needs to be launched into the world. Which, frankly, is a dubious task when you consider that there are millions of books on Amazon alone, not to mention the other platforms such as, Kobo, Apple iBooks, Google Play, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

Did you hear me, people? Millions!

So how do you launch your book so it will sell, but also stay sticky in the Amazon rankings and therefore, continue to sell? We have to have a plan. A launch plan.

On April 11, 2017, I released the first book in my Brides on the Run series into the top 3000 in the Amazon paid store and had 50 reviews within the first three days. Eleven weeks later (as of this writing) my book is still ranked in the top 5000 and has over 200 reviews. It’s sold 1100 copies, and has 700K pages read in Kindle Select/Kindle Unlimited.

My little book has made over $5000, y’all! (I’m a Texan. We’re excitable.)

When I was asked to write this article about my book launch, my first thought was, Surely, there’s someone more qualified than me to talk about this subject? Because, while I’ve done well, other indie authors are knocking it out of the park with their numbers. But like most of you, I’m a part-time writer with family responsibilities, and a day job, who’s doing everything I can to figure out this indie publishing thing. What I’m trying to say: If I can do it, you can do it.

My launch plan began months before I put my book on Amazon. I started by understanding my genre and making sure my book met the expectations and conventions of that category. How did I do that? I read books like the ones I wanted to write. I familiarized myself with the tried and true tropes that readers want, and then worked very hard to make sure I delivered on those expectations. You can choose to write outside of the parameters of a genre, but know that you are going out on a limb to do it. And you might find yourself alone on that limb with your determination to be unique and no audience. Readers come to a genre knowing what they want. If you disappoint them because you decide to break convention, they will not be happy. They’ll then share their displeasure by leaving a nasty review.

The same is true of covers. When choosing a cover for your book, check out the top one-hundred best sellers in your genre. Are there themes, colors, and fonts that are used to signal that the book is a YA fantasy or a cozy mystery? I’m not telling you to copy those covers, but you should use them as guidelines for your own design.

I write romantic comedy. In the rom-com sub-genre there are three camps as far as covers go. One camp is full of sexy, shirtless guys. The second is illustrated covers with quirky characters, and third features women in flirty skirts, that only show their legs. My book didn’t fall neatly into any of those styles. It’s kind of a combination of all of them. It took several iterations, but I came up with a compromise that I think works. It’s flirty, quirky and sexy, just like my book.

A reader should be able to look at your cover and tell immediately what kind of book it is. If your cover and your content don’t match, then you’ve confused the reader. And a confused reader is one that moves on to the next book by another author.

In addition to a great cover, you also want a blurb or book description that hooks the reader. If you don’t know how to write good copy, learn, or pay someone to do that task for you. Bryan Cohen’s How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis is an excellent resource on the subject. If done well your cover and blurb can sell your book for you.

Before we move on, one more quick word about covers. Put down the mouse and step away from Photoshop. Now! You should not be making your own covers unless you have an extensive background in graphic design. There, I said it. Someone had to.

Hire a professional cover artist. A good cover can cost as little as $25 for a pre-made all the way up to $3000 for an artist commissioned cover. Mine cost me $200, it would’ve been less, but much to my designer’s annoyance, I kept changing my mind. The two most important things you will spend money on are the cover and editing. You should have someone other than your mother or your high school English teacher edit your books. You need a professional editor. Period.

I know these things cost a lot of money, and if you’re like me, that money isn’t in your budget. But it’s important, so important that I worked odd jobs to make extra cash and, ultimately, sold plasma to pay for it all. Was it hard to travel thirty minutes to an unfamiliar part of town, sit for hours in a small room filled with people I didn’t know, and get stuck with a needle twice a week? Yes. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I have a book I’m proud of. A book that looks professional on the inside and out. A book I paid for with actual blood, sweat, and tears. Damn right, I’d do it again.

Now that I’m off my do whatever you have to do soapbox, I should say that you can sometimes barter with an editor to get the services you need. Or find a graphic design student that has experience and wants to build their portfolio. Or just wait and save up until you have the money.

I know you want your book out yesterday, but we’re playing the long game. Smart, professional authors don’t rush something to market that isn’t ready because it will hurt them in the long run.

To re-cap, we need to know our genre expectations, have a fantastic cover that we don’t make ourselves, a well-written blurb that hooks readers, and professional editing and formatting.

Finally, I can’t encourage you enough to get involved with the indie community. Once I realized that indie publishing was the route I wanted to take, I immersed myself in learning everything I could about the business of self-publishing. I listened to podcasts, I got involved with Facebook groups geared toward publishing and marketing, I went to the Smarter Artists Summit, and I tried my best to be a good community member and make meaningful connections with other indie authors. Little did I know how those connections would be a driving forces behind my successful launch.

In the beginning, I had very little to offer other writers other than encouragement. I could share posts, give moral support and be a friend. So can you. It requires a little effort, imagination, and courage, all things you have because you’re a writer.

How do you feel? Do you think you’re ready to release your baby… um… product into the world?

Jami Albright

Running From A Rock Star
www.jamialbright.com
jamialbright1@gmail.com


Please continue to read our blogs for the processes about Author Brand and Book Launches, and please remember the first step to building your book is RESEARCH

Our next article will cover Social Media and Website Building. What to expect, what you need to do and learn. Much of this also depends on your budget. Can you afford it or are you willing to LEARN what’s needed to get your BRAND working for YOU.

 

Ghostly Writes – Interviews

Introduce Yourself and where you’re from.
Mary R. Woldering From Euclid, Ohio USA

Tell us about your writing journey?
I’ve always been a storyteller. Now I am a chronicler of dreams and visions. I began to publish my writings at 65, so technology is still a great unknown.

What is your story about?
Three ghosts in a haunted mansion. One is a demonic spirit trapped in a staircase, another is an angelic young girl trapped in an upper room. The third is the spirit of the witch who trapped them, returning to finish her work.

Why did you choose this topic/genre?
The story is based on some paranormal research my friends and I did in 1970 combined with stories we had heard about these spirits. I always wanted to write the story as it was, in part, an origin story for one of the characters in my Children of Stone series

Why publish in the Ghostly Writes Anthologies?
It was suggested that I do that by another contributor.

Share your experiences of helping each other in the Ghostly Writes Group.
I doubt I’ve been much help, but Mara Reitsma has helped me.

What other Anthologies have you participated in and for what reason?
Dreamtime Dragons 2017 – again, it was suggested that I write a story for that group

What scares you the most? A Snake or a Spider? Why?  If something else, tell us about it.
Spider more than snake, but large jumping and flying insects like moths or cicadas  or flying cockroaches upset me from my childhood. They would crawl across my ceiling in the house we rented and one night one fell on me.

What is your favourite part of Halloween?
Giving out candy and frightening passers by

How do you celebrate Halloween?
Same as above

Share your favourite Halloween celebration from your childhood.
Getting candy as a child. Later on it was communicating with spirits

LINKS

Amazon:
https://amzn.to/2DMvkKJ

Page/Group:
https://bit.ly/2ubYwv1

Author Page:
https://bit.ly/2x1PZJe

Website:
https://www.maryrwoldering.com/

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/maryrwoldering/

Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7398194.Mary_R_Woldering

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ChildrenofStone

What you need to do to sell your books on Amazon – by Derek Haines

Just Publishing Advice is a great website written by Derek Haines.  Generally I reblog the good stuff…like this. This time I have to share instead.  Enjoy the read and You’ll find the rest on their website with many more interesting articles.

https://justpublishingadvice.com/what-you-need-to-do-to-sell-your-books-on-amazon/

You can’t sell books. You can only bring your books to the attention of book buyers.

The most difficult task for all authors is maintaining consistent book sales.

There is a catch 22 that applies to most new books. It is that you need book sales to get book reviews, but you need book reviews to get sales.

Then you need to get enough regular unit sales to keep a good sales rank, so you can sell more copies. It is a fact that the top-ranking books in a genre, sell far better than lower ranked books. And by a huge factor.

Can you answer some of these questions?

What can I do to give my books the best chance of sales success?
What are my niche genres?
What are my best performing keywords?
How can I make my book more visible?
How can I get potential book buyers to notice my book?
Who are the best book retailers for my book?
Is my book price too high or too low?

 

Are you having trouble answering these questions? Here are a few tips to help you improve your book sales potential.

Does your book get an A grade pass on these three fundamentals?

These three elements are key to selling books online.

Your book cover

You know you need a great book cover and probably have one. But have you considered that the colour or font might be a problem?

Look at the top ranking books in certain genres. You will see that there is often a commonality about colours. For instance, science fiction books are generally dark, and very often blue.

For romance, pastel colours are predominant. For mystery and thriller, heavy and dark, with black shades are common.

What about your title font? Romance titles use a lot of fancy script fonts, whereas mystery and suspense use bold san serif fonts. But paranormal and fantasy often use fine serif fonts.

Compare your cover with the 50 top-selling titles in your genre. See if you can make your cover better suited to what readers expect.

Your manuscript

Yes, you checked it one hundred times. But check it again now. Is it totally error and typo free?

If it has been some time since you published, it is a very good time to revisit your book and make sure it is perfect.

Your book description

Did you write your book description in a hurry when you published?

Your book description is second only to your cover in attracting reader interest. Make sure it contains hooks that will instantly gain interest or intrigue.

It should scream, please enter! Also, why not write three versions and then you can test which one works best?

Like a book cover, compare your book description with bestselling books. Can you get a few clues from them to improve yours?

Do you know your niche genres?

When you published, did you quickly choose your two broad categories? Romance and Fantasy? If you did, your book is lost amongst thousands of other similar types of books.

You need to drill down through the categories to find two niche categories for your book. It will have a much better chance of being found by buyer search. It will reduce competition and help you to rank better and sell better.

Again, check top-selling books in your genre and look at their categories. Here are two examples of a good niche.

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Spies & Politics > Espionage

Another way to get your book into a niche category is to ask Amazon. Yes, you can ask Amazon to add a specific category to your book.

Your search keywords

Did you do any keyword research? Do you have a list of your book’s keywords? Have you checked if they are performing well?

Your seven search keywords on Amazon, and sometimes more on other retailers are vital for getting book sales. It is because these keywords are how people will find your book when using retailer search.

Your keywords can also be used on your blog or website to help get organic traffic from Google.

So they are very, very important!

One mistake new authors often make is that they select seven individual words, thinking that a keyword must be singular. This is not true.

A keyword can and should be a short phrase. Think about your book and make a list of seven keyword phrases related to your book’s story that you can use. Then test them by using them in Google search.

Good keywords often use only verbs, adjectives and nouns, so avoid prepositions and conjunctions. Short questions can sometimes work too. But you don’t need to add a question mark.

Examples:

 

Italian love story
Where was she killed
Hot tropical island adventure
Dark days long nights

Online book retailer visibility and discoverability

Can tick off all the tips so far in this article? If you can, you will be a long way towards getting your book seen more often. You will start to attract online book buyers and readers who have an interest in your genre.

Getting your book looking right and in the right place is the very best you can do.

Book buyers make the decision. But make sure you give them the best means to find your book and every reason to consider buying your book.

Outside the bookstore

You can help your book a lot by listing it in narrow niche categories and using solid keyword phrases. It helps your book discovery in online bookstores such as Amazon, iBooks, B&N and Kobo.

To promote your book more broadly, you will need to leverage the Internet. Your two best avenues are your website or blog and using social media as best you can.

One overlooked avenue to gain a lot of potential readers is Google. To give you an idea of how powerful Google Search is, I can give you the example of one book that was listed on our book promotion site in 2016.

During an SEO upgrade of our site, we began adding sub-titles where possible in an H3 tag and in the SEO title.

This book had gained some traffic during the time it was listed. But after these two simple SEO improvements, it began ranking quickly on Google.

What did we change? The title and author could not change, of course. But by adding the sub-title, “Japanese Love Story” as a keyword, it soared.

As I mentioned before about keywords, it obeyed the rule of only adjectives and nouns.

Apply strong keyword phrases and add them to your title. Also, add them to H2 or H3 tags, as well as your SEO title and description. For your blog posts and web pages, it is the best way to get your book discovered organically.

For social media, the best lure by far to gain clicks to your book is your cover. Images are the most powerful means of attracting attention on social media.

Find other powerful images you can use for your blog posts. It will add variety when you share on Facebook or Twitter. Make sure that they are connected to your book’s theme. This will stop you from blasting your cover all the time.

For Google Search, keywords and text rule. For social media, images rule. That’s the rule.

FOR MORE ON THIS ARTICLE

Uploading your Self-Published eBook to Lulu

Welcome to the world of LULU Uploading.  As promised here is the second installment about UPLOADING…This time it’s for eBOOKS.

WE start with picking what we wish to publish, of course this time it is the ebook we wish to do. So follow the images and I’ll explain what is what as you scroll through them.

You picked the ebook now it is time to think about if you wish to do this for FREE or need to ask for help.  This of course depends on how proficient you are at formatting and if you can format the way LULU need you to. 

One think I have noticed with ebook distribution sites, they all have their own styles of formatting. Some are easier than others. Once in the know…it becomes easy.

This blog is about how to publish your book for FREE and we would hit ‘MAKE YOUR EBOOK’ Tab to continue.  

Meanwhile. If you need any assistance and a guiding hand you can ask for some professional support  from LULU – who will handle the heavy lifting for you.

The choice is made and you are starting a NEW PROJECT. It’s time for the TITLE and AUTHOR NAME.  It also asks what you wish to do with your project. Most people want to sell their books and this is the recommended route to take. After your choices are made click save and continue.

Next you get to choose your ISBN for your book.  You can pick the FREE LULU ISBN which can only be used on books you distribute via LULU. 

If you are uploading to another site, it is likely they will offer their own FREE ISBN.  If you have already purchased a set of ISBN then use them.  There is a link on the below image on how to purchase your own numbers. 

If you don’t wish to use an ISBN then you WON’T be able to distribute through LULU retail channels.

Below is shows the FREE ISBN for my book which they will email to me.  Since you haven’t yet uploaded your manuscript, now is the time to add the ISBN to your copyright page and save it again.

DO NOT UPLOAD YOUR MANUSCRIPT UNTIL YOU HAVE SET UP YOUR CHAPTER HEADINGS IN ACCORDANCE WITH LULU RULES.  YOU CAN ALSO DELETE YOUR CONTENTS PAGE HYPERLINKS…LULU WILL MAKE THIS FOR YOU.

Choose you manuscript and upload. You will see the BAR below turn and orange-yellow.

Once it has uploaded it will show the document as below.  If you have to make amendments later make sure you delete this file first on the X

Remember back to when you organised the HEADINGS in your manuscript.  Well this is what LULU do. They show you the list for your contents table which you can adjust by changing the headings.  When you do the HEADINGS you can use HEADING 1 – 3 ONLY You will also need to change the style to what you wish to see, making sure you embed the fonts as well.

Most Authors will also have their own BOOK COVERS by this stage in the process. If you do then you will need to upload the cover during this next stage.  Having your own BOOK COVER means you can use any Theme, they are technically irrelevant though you still need to choose one.  As you can see I stayed with the gold one with my name in the bottom right corner.

Click onto Backgrounds & Pictures. You can see where you can change the colour and edit the image.  If you have a BOOK COVER already made you will need to EDIT the IMAGE. If you need to build your own you can ask for professional help from a LULU Cover Designer.

Once again LULU have a criteria for the BOOK COVER.  This is where you will USE A DIFFERENT FILE – as shown below. Or you can accept this image and proceed to building your own cover.

Since you have clicked ‘Use a different file’ this new box will appear asking you to either upload your cover from your computer or browse the LULU GALLERY.  When you upload your own file make sure the sizing is correct or….

Before the ‘OR’   The file will upload the same way as the manuscript did…One the bar has finished loading you will be asked to ACCEPT or TRY AGAIN due to sizing requirements.

As show here…The first time I uploaded my BOOK COVER the requirements weren’t met, meaning they rejected my file asking me to alter it and upload it again.

Once the BOOK COVER file meets their criteria you will see the image – like shown below. Now you can ACCEPT the file and move on to the next stage.

Now you can see your cover you will need to click on TEXT. If you have a ready-made cover you will need to take out the TITLE and AUTHOR information as shown below.

If you have built your cover here then you can now edit your TITLE & AUTHOR name, give them the font, size and colour you wish them to have.

Once you have done, click SAVE and CONTINUE to go to the next stage.

You’ve nearly finished now. Unlike Kindle, Createspace & Draft to Digital where you describe your project at the beginning. With LULU you do this towards the end

Fill in the blanks. On my children’s book this is what I choose to go with. You can change this at any stage.

My children’s story is all about adventures in the Insect world in a Country Garden. It is suitable for ages 3 upwards though parents, grandparents, siblings etc would need to read to the younger children.

Fill in the description which you would usually find on the back of a PRINT Book. This will show on your AUTHOR PAGE and in the LULU Shop. I choose the Standard Copyright License though there are quite a few you can look through and choose from.

YES YOU MADE IT…IT’S TIME TO REVIEW, DOWNLOAD THE INTERIOR, CHECK THE FORMATTING, SEE IF IT ALL WORKS CORRECTLY. IF NOT THEN YOU HAVE SOME WORK TO DO, OTHERWISE IT IS TIME TO PRICE YOUR BOOK

DISTRIBUTION TIME – PLEASE REMEMBER IF YOU HAVE UPLOADED YOUR EBOOK ELSEWHERE THEN UN-TICK IT HERE.  ALSO REMEMBER YOU CAN GET YOUR BOOKS DISTRIBUTED VIA INGRAM SPARK WITH LULU

Make sure your LULU website is in the country where you live. Then pick the price and how much royalty you wish to make. Tick the boxes you need and hit REVIEW PROJECT. 

Next is the eBook Distribution Terms and Condition. Read them and ACCEPT if you wish to publish.

The next slide shows your REVENUE excl taxes. Once you are satisfied you have what you wish go to the last TAB – SAVE and FINISH.

CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE PUBLISHED

 

This is all from me for now. I hope it helps.  I will be making a post on how the HEADINGS work next week. Meanwhile enjoy the read and please SHARE.

GO WIDE WITH REVIEWS – Amazon Reviews

This blog post is from Anne R Allen and dated 22nd April 2018.  It is all about Reviews, what is happening with the end suggesting we go WIDE with our REVIEWS.

To me it makes perfect sense. Here is her link so you can find more informative posts.

http://annerallen.com/2018/04/amazon-paid-reviews/

Authors Beware: Amazon Gets Medieval on Paid and Traded Reviews

by Anne R. Allen

 

 Amazon’s paid review crackdown may have punished “over a million” innocent customers.

My inbox has been bursting with unsolicited emails for the past few weeks. I must be on a new list of “easy prey” circulating in the the author-scamming community.

Several sleazy guys with dodgy language skills have hit me with nasty ones. They use the classic “negging” approach perfected by the “how to pick up girls with low self-esteem” folks that hang out in the rape-y sub-basements of Reddit and 4Chan.

These emails will “analyze” the Amazon buy page of one of my books—always assuming I’ve only written the one—mansplaining how I’m too stupid to know it’s overpriced, too short, has a bad cover, a bad sales rank (even when it’s a bestseller) and of course, has an insufficient number of reviews.

(BTW, for those who don’t believe me when I say books are getting shorter, Porter Anderson and Hugh Howey both gave my “shorter books” post a nice mention at Writer Unboxed this week.)

The emailing creeps have no idea I’m with a small press, and they’re actually dissing my publisher. But I can imagine this approach is pretty effective on self-publishers, especially relative newbies. Some judgey stranger offering unpleasant criticism in your morning email can shake an author’s confidence.

And they’re counting on that. Once you’re feeling vulnerable, they pitch bogus or wildly overpriced services, “break into Hollywood” scams, worthless interviews, and that old warhorse, paid Amazon reviews.

In May, I’ll address the problems of the overpriced interviews and other scams.

But when I started to research the paid review business this week, I ran into a bunch of new dramas and draconian changes. So I decided to devote this post to the latest Amazon review horrors.

DO NOT Pay for Amazon Customer Reviews!

One email notified me that I’d failed to get “enough” reviews on my new Author Blog Book. But I could get 25 Amazon reviews from him for only $900!

Dude, here’s the reason many of us “fail” to get tons of Amazon reviews anymore: scammy review-sellers like you.

This is because Amazon fights paid review violations with robots, which are wrong more often than not. And they’re scaring off real reviewers.

In 2016, the Zon changed their TOS to require reviewers to be Amazon customers and forbid any payment—including free products or gift cards—to reviewers of anything other than books. (Book reviewers can review free books as long as they disclose.) This was supposed to crack down on the rampant gaming of Amazon’s review system. For more, see my 2016 post on Amazon’s New Review Rules. 

But many innocents lost reviews too. Some long-time reviewers decided to review only on their own blogs. There’s a lovely review of my Author Blog book on Mark Tilbury’s blog the “negging” guys won’t see, but it gets Tweeted a lot.

A review on a blog is useful, and can be quoted in Amazon’s “editorial review” section, which often has more clout with readers.

But Amazon has recently made more draconian changes. The guidelines have been modified again, and so have the punishments.

It used to be that customers violating Amazon’s TOS were banned from SELLING on Amazon, but the new policy bans them from BUYING.

Your account will be deleted. No warning. No explanations.

If you feel the need to buy reviews, the legit ones (like Kirkus) may be valuable to you as “editorial reviews” and can provide quotes for advertising, but paid reviews in the “customer review” thread are a very bad idea. No matter what the “neg” guys say.

Amazon’s Review Police-Bots Deleted “Over a Million” Innocent Customers’ Accounts this Month.

Amazon’s latest police-bots are out for blood: if they even suspect you of breaking the rules, your account gets deleted with no warning.

Suddenly Fire TVs don’t work. Alexa is silent. Books you’re in the middle of reading…gone. No Amazon streaming TV. Your account no longer exists. No refunds. No apologies.

In late March, these mindless thug-bots deleted innocent customers’ accounts by the 1000s (“over a million,” according to some.)

There’s a rumor this came from a hack designed to discredit Amazon as a part of recent political attacks the company, but Amazon hasn’t acknowledged a hack.

The victims got this explanation:

“The account has been deleted for one or both of the following reasons.

  • Your reviews were posted in exchange for compensation, such as gift cards to purchase the product, product refunds, review swaps, or free or discounted products, and/or
  • Your account was used for commercial purposes.”

Digital Trends investigated.  Amazon’s explanation:  “Amazon has taken action against bad actors and those who have violated our community rules.”

You can read victims’ laments in the Twitter thread  #AmazonClosed. They don’t sound like “bad actors” to me:

“My account was closed…but I quit reviewing last year when Amazon changed their TOS!”

“Amazon closed my account after 15 years. Prime member, Kindle books, gift card balance. Need answers.”

“RUDE reps, supervisors and all sticking to the same script.”

No apology for a month of lies and customer service failures.”

“student couldn’t use an audiobook she needed for her history class.”

“Closed my account, but are still charging my card for Prime.”

Some accounts have reappeared. But plenty have not.

Facebook groups have formed to file class action suits, so this drama will unfold in the courts. You can read more at Business Insider, and EdSurge. But for some reason, this hasn’t made the major news outlets.

Amazon’s Robots Do a Lousy Job of Policing Paid Reviews, but Don’t Put Yourself in Their Crosshairs

Nobody knows if any of these 1000s of people actually traded or bought reviews. Or if they’d ever reviewed anything.

But we can be pretty sure that if you DO trade or buy reviews and you’re caught, your career—as well as your shopping—is over on Amazon.

So don’t listen to the negging and send those review-sellers to spam. Even if they seem legit. ANY compensation for an Amazon review—no matter how “fair”—can get you the boot.

Amazon’s Escalating Scam Problem.

The paid review problem isn’t the only scam-policing that Amazon’s robots have got wrong.

Real Reviewers Are Leaving Amazon.

The most recent crackdown doesn’t only involve draconian punishments for suspected paid reviewers.

Amazon is also banning reviewers from posting in more than one Amazon store. It used to be reviews could be posted in the US Amazon store as well as Canada, UK, Australia, etc., so a UK reviewer could also post a review on Amazon.com, where it had a potential to increase a book’s sales and get it into Bookbub and other newsletters.

But since overseas review farms have been abusing this practice, Amazon is now requiring that reviewers spend the equivalent of $50 per year in eachAmazon store, every year. (That’s a big change from requiring a one-time purchase of $50 or more from any one Amazon store, which was the rule instituted in 2016.)

So honest reviewers, who are working for free, are now supposed to pay to play. And pay a lot.  According to reviewer Barb Taub, “In the name of discouraging ‘fake’ reviews, [Amazon’s] new policy requires reviewers like me to spend $50 on Amazon’s US site and even more, £40 on Amazon UK. before I can share my review.”

Book reviewers like Barb Taub have had enough. The comment thread on her post shows exactly why it’s so hard to get real Amazon reviews these days.

Some examples:

“After trying multiple times to submit it, only to be rejected without explanation, I have given up.”

“If it’s too hard to post reviews on Amazon, I’ll just post them on my own blog and call it a day.”

“I can’t help thinking this policy change wasn’t well thought out. It just sort of appeared with very little fanfare.”

“I’ve been a loyal Amazon reviewer since 1998 (it’s tells you when you became a customer) and yet they decided to pull all my reviews….When I emailed them on the matter they quite rudely told me they didn’t need to answer my questions, it was final.

“Meanwhile, the fake reviews carry on getting posted……”

Driving away real reviewers just opens up the market for the fake review farms where neg-guy hangs out.

It’s Time for Reviews to “Go Wide.” 

Read the Rest HERE

by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) April 22, 2018

Book Reviews with Amazon…Yeah Right!

Why oh why is Amazon making it even harder to put up reviews for authors.  First they curtail your reviews because you supposedly know the author or you publish the author or help them publish.  Now Amazon is telling you to spend over $50 to actually put a review in place. That would be a years worth of books to me.

WHAT….  Yep you head me right. It seems they don’t want Indie Authors to be reviewed. If this really is the case then why are we all still selling through them?  Why aren’t we using Lulu or Ingram Spark. Why aren’t we using Draft to Digital or Smashwords…they both do Mobi aka Kindle files. I’ve not seen or heard of Barnes & Noble or Kobo refusing your reviews so why is Amazon? What is their problem?

I have heard about biased reviews – nope I won’t give one to anyone let along an author I would call a friend.  In fact I’m more inclined to be harsher on them than someone I don’t know. I’ve heard about paid reviews and farmed reviews. I wouldn’t use either. So coming down on people who are in the same social media group, chat on the odd occasion doesn’t mean they are great friends, after all social media is all about making connections. I mean you chat with your fans don’t you?

HERE IS THE ELIGIBILITY

Eligibility

To contribute to Customer features (for example, Customer Reviews, Customer Answers, Idea Lists) or to follow other contributors, you must have spent at least $50 on Amazon.com using a valid credit or debit card in the past 12 months. Promotional discounts don’t qualify towards the $50 minimum. In addition, to contribute to Spark you must also have a paid Prime subscription (free Prime trials do not qualify). You do not need to meet this requirement to read content posted by other contributors or post Customer Questions, or create or modify Profile pages, Shopping Lists, Wish Lists or Registries.

Maybe it is time we all left reviews about Amazon
and how bad they are getting!