The Ambitious Author

What’s working for me now – February 2021

The only thing consistent is change. Even if you’ve been a published author for even a few months, you’ve probably learned that the best ways to reach readers continues to change and evolve, moving with the shifts in algorithms, developments in marketing platforms, and as new tools are made available to authors. I’ve taken a long hiatus from blogging about marketing, mostly because my writing…

Your Launch Team can be a fantastic way to help jumpstart your new book with quality reviews and strong word-of-mouth exposure. In fact, it’s one of my three favorite tools in a book release! I’ve shared my experiences with my team during a recent book launch in this post. (My team rocks, by the way!)

But keeping your Launch Team strong as you continue to release new books can take a bit of care…

The Doors are Open (for a short time). Open registration for book marketing group coaching. #amwriting #ammarketing

Just wanted to give you a head’s up that I’m putting together another small group for my Group Coaching Course!

I have 5 spots open, so let me know quickly if you’re interested! Since you’re part of the blog family, you get a 10% discount. 🙂

Below a little about the course, but you can see all the details HERE. 

Take your book marketing to the next level by learning the top 5 tools of book…

I’ve blogged in the past about the power of Amazon reviews, including nine solid ways to help garner reviews for your books.

As new resources come on the scene every day, let’s take a peek at three great waysto get your book in front of people happy to post an honest review on Amazon.  (By the way, I don’t receive affiliate compensation from any of these resources. I’ve just found them helpful,…

Ever wanted to see the big picture? All the options laid out so you can make an informed decision?

As I was coaching an author the other day, I realized that I haven’t written a blog post that covers my full email list building strategy.

So today, we’re going to remedy that!

In any marketing efforts, you want to make sure you’re doing things to reach both your Existing Readers and New Readers.…

A Few of My Favorite Tools…

For authors today, we have so many fantastic tools to connect with readers – tools not available even a half-century ago. Things like websites, email lists, social media, giveaways, and more!

I thought it might be fun to take a moment to look at some of these helpful tools, and I’ll share what I use and why.  (more…)

A True Story…

One of the less-glamorous aspects of growing your reader email list is Regular List Clean-up. Glamorous it may not be, but oh, baby, it’s more important than you might think!

Allow me to share a cautionary tale from my own recent experience. I’d been doing small clean-up in some of my email groups, but putting off going through my entire list. What do I mean by email list clean-up? Basically,…

You’ve heard me talk about launch teams several times, but I thought it would be helpful to share my experiences with my latest release. (This Treacherous Journey, released Feb. 6th, 2018.)

Before I began to prepare for this release, I had about 20 wonderful people on my launch team. I knew I wanted to grow the team for this new book, so about three months before the release date, I sent an…

If you’ve read many of my blog posts about growing your email list, you’ve probably heard me mention the website MyBookCave.com. As I talk to authors, it seems there’s a bit of “Angst-of-the-Unknown” syndrome associated with the site.

Since some of my favorite group giveaways have been run through the My Book Cave, and almost all of their services are FREE, they’re definitely a site for authors…

This year I’m doing different this year to promote my books…

One of my goals this year is to be more intentional with each book launch.

A nice part of being an indie author is that you can do a “soft launch,” which means you hit the Publish button on Amazon, then send a note to your email list about the new book and move on to write the next one.  It’s nice to have that flexibility, but honestly, it’s effective only in maintaining a ho-hum writing career.

As 2018 begins with a fresh dose of hope and a year full of possibilities, I’ve been working through my goals for the new year, and looking back on what worked last year and what didn’t. (I’ve also been reading an early copy of Michael Hyatt’s new book, Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals. I highly recommend it!)

One of my favorite studies each new year is…

Preorders are one of the best ways to launch your book effectively, but not every marketing tool works with preorders. Since I’ve been hard at work marketing my own preorder, I thought it might be helpful to share a list of preorder marketing steps that have been helpful for me.

I’ve organized these, starting with the MOST helpful tools to actually sell books: 

Announce the preorder to your…

Street Team, Launch Team, Influencers, ARC Team, or Fan Club—the name varies, but any author who’s launched a book with a strong Launch Team knows their value with a new release.

A Launch Team is basically a group of readers who are ready and willing (and eager!) to get the word out on the street about an author’s books. In exchange for free Advance Review Copies (ARCs), they post reviews, share…

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday this week (in America), I thought it might be fun to take a day off from the “business” side and have a bit of fun with this writing thing we love.

You know you’re a writer when:

…you have baby name websites saved on your computer.

…you make random odd expressions because you’re checking to see if you described them correctly.  (more…)

Unlock the Power of BookBub’s Free Tools

BookBub.com is best known for their Featured Deals. The ones that have skyrocketed more than one writing career and aided their fair share of bestseller campaigns.

But aside from the (admittedly pricey) Featured Deals, Bookbub offers other beneficial opportunities for book promotion. Some of them are even free!

Before we start:

Make sure you’ve done the following…  (more…)

If you follow any writing or book marketing blogs – or if you happen to love reading – you’re surely quite aware of how powerful a good cover can be! I’ve discussed the topic in several posts, including What makes an Amazon Bestselling Novel? and Finding Your Target Reader. I won’t drone on about the subject here, because I hope I’m preaching to the choir by now (pardon the cliche)! but I thought…

We’re deep in our blog series about sample launch plans depending on what type of book you’re releasing.

Today, we’ll cover a sample launch plan for your later-in-series book!

You can see the launch plan for a DEBUT RELEASE here and a 1ST-IN-SERIES or STANDALONE TITLE here. 

A later-in-series book is arguably one of the easiest types to launch, because you have the momentum of earlier books in…