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As an author, you should create a blog to promote your brand, portray your image and deliver your message. Creating a blog, writing articles, and promoting them produces it’s own unique set of challenges for most authors. Few writers are trained, at least initially, in building a web site. Even more difficult is the concept of SEO for blogs for authors. SEO is Search Engine Optimization. That simply means designing your blog and writing your articles so that Search Engines such as Google and Bing (and hundreds of others) send traffic your way. Primarily, you want to optimize your blog for Google, and ensure your content is excellent so people want to read and share it.

Why should you create an author blog?

You own the blog, and can write whatever you want without fear of tripping some social network censorship trigger. You can safely write about anything as long as you don’t violate the usually loose terms of your blog hosting company and the law.

A blog gives you a “home” on the internet, a place where you can be found, your message can be delivered, and all your other works center around.

Your blog serves as the center of your branding strategy. All posting to social media should be in the form of excepts from and link to materials on your blog.

Your blog is the primary component of your author platform, which is the method you choose to reach your audience. By combining your blog with your email list, videos (possibly a podcast) and other elements, you create a powerful branding, marketing and even selling engine.

All roads to your brand should lead to your blog which is under your control and promotes you.

A blog is a type of website that contains articles, photos, links to videos, and other information about one or more subjects. An author blog specially promotes the ideas, concepts, stories, and materials of an author.

You’ll face several challenges faced when you create and maintain your blog and the associated articles and other materials:

Learning how to use WordPress, a theme, and plugins.

Making the blog friendly to search engines.

Using keyword and phrases to rank first in search engine results for them.

The remainder of this article explains the concepts of SEO for blogs and how they pertain to an author blog in particular.

So get your cup of coffee or tea, sit back, relax and read this article. There is a lot to go over, so allow yourself some time. Be sure to take notes and don’t be afraid to try some of these techniques on your blog.

What Does SEO Cost?

There is a huge number of applications, web sites, books, blogs, seminars, courses, and everything else under the sun to help you with SEO. Some of these products and services are extremely well done, some are okay and serve the purpose, and others are just a flat waste of money and time. I’ve spent the better part of six months looking at many different products, and in this article I’ll present some of the better ones for your evaluation.

Since authors, especially when they are just starting out, don’t generally have a lot of money to spend, I’m focusing on free or very inexpensive products, services and resources.

There are some SEO tools that cost thousands of dollars a month and others that are completely free to use. For the purposes of an author blog, the free tools will work just fine, although a few more manual steps may be required.

What are the minimum costs?

About $50 for paid blog web hosting. Always use paid web hosting. This gives you access to support from the hosting company, which you will need when things go wrong.  Also, paid hosting tends to be faster, does not include advertisements, and is generally a better experience for you and your visitors. Finally, and this is vital, free hosting services do not allow you to install plugins, and those are essential for SEO.

Around $10 for a domain name. Note that web hosts include the first year of a domain name for free with their hosting package.

Optionally, you might want to get a premium theme for your blog, since these include support and tend to be faster and look better than the free versions.

That’s it. That’s all you have to pay for to get your blog set up and working. You can find just about everything else you need for free. So, as you can see, you can set up your blog on a budget.

What is a Brand?

Your brand is the way you present yourself to the world. You can either define, cultivate and promote your image or brand, or others will, de facto, define it for you.

It’s very possible to create a blog that portrays more than one brand. My blog, for example, discusses all of my books, which are about a wide variety of subjects as well as the writing and related services that I provide.

For example, ff you write western novels, like Louis L’Amour, then your brand is an author of western fiction. You could narrow this down even further to western fiction focusing on the Arizona area in the mid-1800’s if you’d like.

In general, you should focus your brand as narrowly as you can, because that makes it easier to identify your audience and define your message. This doesn’t mean you must limit your books or the theme of your blog to a single topic. It’s just the overarching image that you portray to the rest of the world.

Once you’ve determined your brand, you can work on what it should look like.

Colors

Fonts

Styles

Shapes

Types of images

For example, an author focused on World War II in the Pacific could include images of ships, Marines, airplanes and so forth from that era.

It’s a good idea to spend a little bit of money at this stage and hire a graphics designer for a couple of hours to get some advice. I like to use local business because then I can sit down in front of them, spread out pieces of paper, and we can brainstorm together.

You can also take a look at your competition to see how they show their brand.

Who is Your Audience?

Once you’ve defined your brand, ask yourself, “who is my audience?” Since this article is aimed at writers, your audience is presumably readers of your works,

The more precise you can be at defining your target audience, the better you will be able to write articles, create promotions, and so forth that communicate with them. This will make your promotions and sales efforts more effective.

Trying to target “everyone” or “all businesses” makes it difficult or impossible to reach your readers. On the other hand, if your audience is “people who watch Star Trek”, you’ll be able to focus your blog and articles, and, more importantly, create promotions that actually reach those people.

Find a Good WordPress Host

One of the most important factors for SEO is the speed of your blog. Google, and other search engines, dislike web sites and blogs that are slow.

If you want the pages and posts on your blog to be featured high in the rankings, preferably on the first page for several search terms, you have to ensure that your pages load in under 5 seconds. The faster they load, the better. We’ll talk more about speed shortly.

If your blog is frequently down or getting errors, then Google won’t be able to index your pages, which means they may not appear in the search results at all.

Advertising, which is normal for free or cheap hosting, encourages people to leave your blog. Google keeps track of how long visitors remain on each page, so if they leave quickly, Google takes that to mean the experience for the reader was poor. As a result, your ranking could suffer.

Finally, all web hosts occasionally have problems, and sometimes  you might do something on your blog that causes it to crash, perform poorly or not work at all. In those instances you want a web host with good customer support. Free hosts do not provide support.

If you only purchase one thing, pay for your web hosting. I’ve had excellent luck with Siteground, but there are others out there that also do a good job.

How to Set  Up Your Blog for SEO

Use WordPress for your blog. Why?

It is specifically designed to handle many of the concerns of SEO.

There are tens of thousands of themes and plugins available to support anything you need.

WordPress is easy to learn.

There are many courses available. If you want to find a few good ones, go to Udemy and search for “WordPress”,

Most web hosts, including Siteground, have a simple, automated way to install WordPress on the host. Use that method to get it done without hassle.

We’re not going to talk about how to set up WordPress itself as that’s beyond the scope of this article. I’ll write a future article to talk about that.

Google Analytics

Optionally, you can set up Google Analytics in order to find out about your visitors and what they do on your site. If you’d rather not confront this now, go ahead and skip this section.

To set it up, head over to Google Analytics. Create an account if needed. Note there is a lot to Google Analytics, and it can be quite confusing. All you need to do is create an account and link your website to it. Once you install the Yoast SEO plugin, it will take care of the rest for you.

Go to https://ift.tt/J2AkKr and click on Access Google Analytics at the top on the right.

After logging in, click on Admin at the top.

In the Property column, click on the drop down and choose Create a new property.

Fill in your website details.

If you want the tracking code, it’s under Property. Click Tracking Info -> Tracking code

You’re done for now. Later, you’ll connect to Google Analytics from the Yoast SEO plugin. This plugin will ensure that the Google Analytics codes are on every page of your blog so your statistics are accurate.

The full procedure is described in this Google help file.

Permalinks are a Vital Component for SEO for Blogs

Go into the Settings -> Permalinks option and set the “Post name” option. This is the best for SEO purposes.

Plugins You Will Need

Plugins are modules (applications) that you install into WordPress to add functionality. Over time, you’ll probably add a dozen or more of them to change the look of your blog, add features (such as book pages), improve SEO or adjust performance.

What is an SEO Plugin? These are plugins specifically designed to help your site be more attractive to Google and other search engines.

These are my recommendations for free WordPress plugins to help you with SEO, plus a few that work well for authors.

Slimstat Analytics – Get the statistics you need to get information about who is accessing your blog and what they are looking at. This does not require or use Google Analytics.

WordPress SEO by Yoast – Install the free version of this plugin, go through the configuration screen, and your blog will be well optimized on a site level for SEO.

WP Smush It – Optimizes the size of your images, making them as small as possible, to speed up your blog.

Remove Query Strings From Static Resources – Get rid of some extraneous junk (query strings) that are not needed. This will speed up your site.

Is Yoast Premium worth it? You’ll have to decide if the price for the premium version of Yoast SEO is worth the cost. I bought it for the redirection feature, which helps prevent 404 errors when the URL for a page has been changed.

Some other plugins that you’ll find useful include:

Comments – wpDiscuz – An extension to the WordPress commenting system that works well.

Contact Form 7 – A simple contact form plugin.

Fancy Author Box – Replaces the author box on posts with a nicer one.

MooBerry Book Manager – This is a great plugin for authors that lets your define a page of information about each of your books. It takes care of formatting that nicely and even defines the schema (a way to organize and define data) to make your books known to Google.

TinyMCE Advanced – Expands the editing capabilities of posts and pages.

WP Revisions Control – Lets you purge old revisions. Otherwise, they tend to remain and build up to unmanageable amounts.

WP-SpamShield – A lot of people use Akismet, which comes with JetPack (a toolbox of several dozen plugins). I prefer WP-SpamShield as I’ve found it is more effective and has less overhead.

I recommend against the following plugins:

Akismet – WP-SpamShield is better.

Jetpack – A toolbox with lots of different uses, but the overhead is high.

Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights – Connects directly to your Google Analytics account to give your great statistics of your blog traffic. Free version doesn’t have the statistics needed.

WP-Statistics – This plugin has a lot of functionality, but it caused my WordPress to crash. I tried it a year before, when I was on a different web host, and they recommended against using this plugin as it caused problems among their users.

Make sure the following is true for any plugins you install:

Positive reviews. There are always bad reviews, but the majority should be positive. Look over the reviews as sometimes an older version of a plugin received negative reviews due to a problem which has been fixed.

Still supported – Do not install anything which has not been verified as working for your current version of WordPress.

Create Great Content

Now we come to the “secret” for successful blogs.

If you want your blog to succeed, create good content.

Assuming your hosting is fast and your blog has been set up properly, the most important thing you can do is create good content. In fact, not just good content, but fantastic content that people want to read and share with their friends.

This is true with your blog as well as your books and anything else you write. All of your content must be incredible.

Think of these questions before and while you are writing:

Does this reinforce my brand?

Is it appropriate for my audience?

Does it solve a problem (or problems) for your audience? Does it teach them something? Does it provide good entertainment?

Is it something that will be shared by your audience?

When you are finished, have you done the best job possible?

Is the grammar and spelling perfect?

By creating great content, people will want to read it, share it and come back to see what else you’ve done. Search engines take note of traffic patterns, including clicks coming from social media such as Facebook, and assume that if people remain on your site they like your articles.

Conversely, if your content is bad, people will not stay as long, and Google will downgrade your pages and posts.

Stop Selling

While you can (and should) sell your books, services and products from your blog, your articles should give high-quality information that helps your audience solve their problems, entertains them, or provides some other service for them.

Don’t sell in your articles. Instead, freely give information.

Don’t mistake this to mean you shouldn’t sell your books, products and services on your blog. Your blogs should be written to freely give excellent value at no cost. Other pages in your blog can be used to sell if you like. For example, the pages about your books and products will obviously be sales oriented. However, an article about your characters or topics shouldn’t sell.

Keywords

In the good old days, all you needed to do was stuff your page with all of the keywords that you wanted to be listed for in the search engines. There were many sites where each page consisted of a short article followed by invisible (hidden with shading and coloring) lists of hundreds upon hundreds of keywords.

That technique no longer works. In fact, that will get your site booted from the index.

Today, search engines are much smarter, and they are getting more intelligent all of the time.

Your safest course is to use 100% white hat SEO. This means create good content with key words and phrases used naturally (organically) within the text, image tags and so on. Don’t try to fool the search engines using any spammy techniques. Period. The safest strategy is to assume you will be caught if you attempt to use subversive, black hat SEO techniques,

So what are the SEO keyword best practices you need to follow?

When you write an article, determine the main phrases and words that apply. For example, the keyword for this article is “SEO for Blogs” and “Optimize your Blog for Google”. Those keywords appear in the title and within the text a few times (no more than four or so). That’s what’s great about the Yoast SEO plugin – it will tell you the optimum number of times to include your keyword.

Now figure out a few dozen other keywords and phrases related to your topic. You can use LSI Graph for help.

These tools will suggest a list of phrases that you can use in your text. By doing this, you tell your readers and the search engines more about the topic of your article.

Additionally, these are what are called Long Tail keywords, meaning they are short phrases occasionally used for searching. The idea is that it’s virtually impossible to rank highly for a single- or two-word phrase. There’s just too much competition. However, you can rank highly for longer phrases, and you can include a lot of those phrases within your article. That’s one reason why longer is better – you can include more long tail keywords.

As of this writing,

“SEO” gets 110,000 searches per month

“SEO for blogs” gets 210 searches each month.

“how to optimize your blog for SEO” has 27 searches per month.

This article will never rank on the first page (or even the 100th) for SEO. There are thousands of sites trying to rank for that keyword. However, it can rank for “SEO for blogs” and “how to optimize your blog for SEO”, and for those, the article will probably appear on the first search page.

The idea is to get on the first page for as many long tail keywords as you can without making the article read awkwardly. For a 2,000 word article, get 50 or 60 keywords that get 30 or so searches each month.

if you need more ideas for keywords, you can search the following places to see what people are talking about in relation to your subject.

Facebook groups

LinkedIn groups

Quora

Answers

Ask

Forums and blogs related to your subject

Keep Your Blog Constantly Up-To-Date

It is vital that you put out excellent quality content on a regular basis.

I write one major article of 2,000 to 4,000 words every week, and a smaller, 300 to 600 word article every day.

In addition to adding new content, you need to be updating and modifying older articles. Information changes and your site needs to reflect that as well.

One thing you can do that will have a great effect is to cross-link your articles. Older articles can be modified to reference newer articles with similar information and vice versa. This gives your visitors even more value because they can find additional information if they want.

SEO On Page Optimization

What is on page SEO? This is everything that you do that is contain on the page of the article (post) on your blog.

The topic of on-page SEO is huge, and could take up a dozen books all on it’s own. Because of that, we’re only going to hit the highlights here.

We’ve already discussed the need for great content, but it bears repeating because that is the most important factor.

if you have great content, you’ve done much of the work needed for good results in the search engines.

For your text, keep the following in mind.

Put your main keyword or phrase in the first and last 100 words of your article.

Include that keyword a couple of times in the rest of the article (depending on the length).

Research long tail keywords that make sense for your article and use them liberally throughout.

Include the keyword in your page URL.

Include the keyword in your meta description.

Your page should include one (and only one) H1 tag (you’ll see this as “heading 1” in the style menu of the WordPress editor.) Include your keyword in that header. Generally, in most themes, the title of the article is used as the H1 tag so you don’t have to worry about it.

Use H2 through H6 tags (“heading 2” through “heading 6”) to break your article into subtopics. Ensure these are in the correct sequence. For example, H1 is followed by H2 is followed by H3, and not H1 followed by H3.

Never skip headings.

Links Internal and External

Include links to external sites as needed. Authors should always cite their sources, so follow the same rules when you write articles for your blog. Of course, you don’t bother with the style guidelines from APA, MLA or CMS. Just link to the web page you used as a source.

Internal links are just as important. You should reference your other blog posts and pages as needed to support the topic of your article.

Ensure your links work and don’t lead to dead air. Google will drop your site in ranking if it detects too many broken links, internal or external.

You don’t have to check manually. You can use the free utility at Broken Link Check.

Image SEO

Include images that help your readers understand your content. Infographics are excellent, and videos also work well.

Rename the filenames of your images before you upload them to something that makes sense. For example, I took a picture with my camera and the image was called DCS2456.jpg. I renamed that to “closeup image of my flower garden with honey bees.jpg”. This gives the search engines more context about the image.

Include ALT and TITLE tags that describe the image when you upload it into WordPress using the media center.

By naming the image and including the ALT and TITLE tags, you give Google and other search engines the information they need to understand what the image means and how it relates to your article.

Before uploading, compress your image so it is as small as possible. For jpg files, for example, you can set the compression or optimization level when you save it.

Video SEO

By including video in your blog, you can increase the amount of time your visitors stay on your page. People like videos, especially if they are well made or funny.

How to effectively use video for SEO purposes is a subject for a future article.

However, by including  video you make your blog more attractive and more favorable to Google.

Off Page SEO

What is off page optimization? This is links from other web sites and blogs to articles and the home page of your own blog. The act of getting those links is called link building.

Links to  your site tell Google that other people believe your content has value. In other words, links give you credibility.

Google and other search engines absolutely love links; after all, that’s the whole purpose behind the web – to link information together. Get as many high-quality links as you can, but be careful not to do it all at once. Take your time, a few links a day at the most. More than that might cause Google to get the idea you are using spam techniques to get those links.

What is a high quality link? These are links from sites that:

Do not engage in spam techniques.

Do not contain malware.

Have high quality standards for their content.

Have high traffic.

Links to information sources for the most part.

Has a good presence on social media.

The best links are from authorities in your niche. For example, an authority link for a writing blog would be a link from Writers Digest or from the blog of a well-known author or speaker.

Other link building tips include:

Get an account on Help A Reporter out and submit regularly. You’ll get picked up by a few reporters and earn links back to your site.

Get to know people in your niche and, after they begin to know, like and trust you, ask for links to your site.

Win awards for your writing.

Get a column in an online newsletter.

Become a speaker for a conference or event (they will list a link to your website in most cases.)

Join local groups in your city and get your profile added to their membership directory.

You get the idea? You have to spend time creating content for other people. This is almost always done without compensation.

I typically spend an hour a day building links to my site.

Things you should avoid like the plague:

Buying or selling links.

Link exchange farms.

Paying for blog comments, forum comments or other spam techniques.

Anything else that seems the least bit spammy.

You will get some spam links to your site, but as long as the majority are legitamate, you’ll be fine.

Guest Blogging

One of the best ways to get inbound links to your blog is to write guest blogs on other sites. If you happen to get a guest post on a high traffic site you can gain an incredible amount of traffic. Once you have a few of these, especially if the sites have high authority, then Google will take notice and raise your site up in the rankings.

Guest blogging is one of the best, fastest ways to get high quality inbound links.

How do you get the chance to guest blog?

Your site has to be of exceptional quality that gives good value. This will be attractive to other bloggers.

Your writing has to be very good.

If you have influence or are well known in the industry of the blogger, you’ll have a better chance of being granted a guest blog appearance.

You will need to ask for the opportunity. This requires that you do a little networking, get to know the blogger and let them know you before you ask them for the favor.

While high-traffic authority sites are the best places for guest blogs, you can start by asking other authors in your niche for the opportunity. This will give you practice nad build a few links back to your site.

How long should you make your guest post? You can ask the blogger for direction, although they’ll usually answer it’s  up to  you. Just make sure you deliver extremely high quality work that’s as long as necessary to make the point. By doing this, you build your reputation and work your way up to higher traffic sites.

Blog Commenting

One very effective technique, if you do it correctly, is to comment on blogs within your niche.

When you do this, always read the article fully, understand it, and give an intelligent comment in the blog. Usually there is a place for you to include a link to your site. If not, include it within the text of your comment.

Never leave comments like:

Great job.

Fantastic article.

I know what you mean.

And so on. Leave a few sentences at least, and a few paragraphs if you have enough to say. In other words, ensure you provide some value to the blogger.

Never purchase blog comments. That is spamming.

Only include one link in your comment.

Never leave negative comments. Like the old saying goes, if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.

Forums Related to your Brand and Message

It’s a great idea to find forums that are related to your brand or niche. This should be a part of your normal networking habits.

Read these forums regularly and get involved in the conversations. You’ll meet people, which may lead to guest blogging opportunities, link exchanges, and even paid writing jobs. That’s all a normal part of networking.

Ensure you know the rules for the forum. Some allow links, some don’t, and others only allow them under certain circumstances. Follow the rules of the forum. If links are allowed, use them sparingly.

If the forum has the ability to create a signature, use that space for a link to your site.

Don’t spam forums. Post intelligent comments, link only occasionally, and take part on conversations.

Leverage your Social Media Accounts

Being active on social media is a very important factor in your efforts to get traffic to your blog.

Create a Facebook page for your brand and use that to deliver your posts to your Facebook audience.

Post links to your articles (on your blog as well as guest posts elsewhere) on your Twitter feed. Additionally, share the love and post links to posts of interest on other blogs. Use hashtags to spread the word out even more.

Always post a link to every page and post to Google+. I’ve found that Google adds anything posted to Google+ more quickly than otherwise.

Post links to your articles on LinkedIn.

Join groups (or communities or whatever they are called) on the social media and become part of conversations. This will expand your professional network and you’ll find many others who will be happy to help you. Keep in mind that you should give at least twice what you receive.

By doing this,you’ll gain organic traffic directly from social media, and you’ll also build a network of people of similar interests who can help you on your journey.

Google considers social media traffic a very important part of determining the importance of your page. This is a factor in ranking  your blog on search pages.

Check your Blog SEO

Check your site occasionally using the following tools.

Broken Link Check

OnPage.Org

SEO Site Checkup

All of these may be freely used, although they also have paid versions. For most author blogs, the free ones work fine.l

You may find that you get a lot of errors when you first run these tools. Just fix a few at a time until your site is pristine.

The more your site is in compliance with these tools, the more likely it will be that it is indexed and ranks well.

Conclusions

Does that sound like a lot of work?

No one ever said blogging is easy. In fact, you may find building your blog and getting traffic to take far more time than it did to write your book. SEO for blogs requires constant effort.

Allocate some time each day to create new content, build your professional network, and drive traffic to your blog. You definitely need to ensure you optimize your blog for Google, but you shouldn’t depend on Google to send you traffic.

Always engage in white hat, ethical SEO. If it seems even the least bit spammy, don’t do it. The search engines have become very intelligent about finding spam, and if they determine your site is trying to fool them, you’ll be lowered in rank or banned entirely. And that won’t help your traffic at all.

The most important fact to remember:

Excellent content is the cornerstone of blog SEO. If your content is of bad quality, your site will not rank well. On the other hand, if your content is fantastic, people will want to read and share it, and that will make your site rank.

I hope this article helps you in your journey to get your blog notice, and that SEO for blogs is a little clearer now.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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Once you’ve decided that you want to write a book, and that you’re going to have it ghostwritten, you need to find a ghostwriter.That’s not as easy as it sounds, and the process of finding a good one can be quite challenging. Just as with any major project, such as building a house, you need to find the most qualified ghostwriter – which is not the same as the cheapest one.

Remember, your name is going to be on the cover. If the book is not well written, it’s a reflection on you.

A well-written book that pin-points your brand can be used to increase your income and your credibility.

On the other hand, a bad book that is filled with grammar and spelling errors, doesn’t read well, does a poor job of portraying your message and brand and is poorly organized will make you look like an amateur.

To get the best book possible, follow the guidelines below.

Set your goals

Before you start looking for a ghostwriter, understand your purpose for writing a book.

Proving your competence, authority and demonstrating your expertise

Explaining your history

Defining your ministry

Making a bestseller

Explain your scientific theory

And any number of other reasons

If you understand your goals, you’ll be able to better judge whether or not your ghostwriter can help you.

For example, if your goal is to create a bestselling cookbook, and the ghostwriter has never written a cookbook nor created a bestseller, you might want to look elsewhere.

Be clear about what you want from your ghostwriter

Before you contact a ghostwriter, write up a page with your goals. Do you want to reinforce your brand? Build your reputation? Is there specific information you want to include? Do you want to include illustrations or photos? Do you prefer giving interviews or write up notes? Do you want to talk to the ghostwriter in-person or is the telephone or Skype (or a similar tool) fine?

You can change your mind later, but if you go into the selection process with at least an idea of what you want, you are far more likely to get a positive result.

Ask to see other works that the ghostwriter has written

If they cannot show books that they’ve ghostwritten (these are often under non-disclosure agreements), ask to see some of their own that they have published. If they cannot produce either, find a new ghostwriter.

Review their sample works thoroughly

Do they read well? Are there grammar and spelling errors? Are they in a logical order? If this was YOUR book, would you feel proud of it?

Check their website

Ensure their website is complete, finished and up-to-date. It should have articles, and there should be regular (several a month) updates with new information. An unfinished web site is not acceptable and indicates your book may not be finished. A poorly constructed or amateurish website can be a sign of what kind of book you’ll get from them.

Check references

If their website lists other books they’ve ghostwritten, call those authors and ask them questions about your ghostwriting company. Also, ask your ghostwriter for references who will be willing to talk to you.

Interview the ghostwriter

Ask lots of questions. Find out about their process. Are you comfortable with how it works? Are they rude or easygoing? Do you enjoy talking to them or was it a chore? Did they know he answers to your questions? Did the answers make sense?

During the interview, you should expect from the ghostwriter:

Speaking to you with respect

Respect for your brand and your message

A frank discussion of their rates and payment terms (and any other contractual issues)

A discussion of their process

Solid references and/or samples of work they have done (which may be their own books due to non-disclosure agreements)

If they have more than one writer on staff, ask to interview the one(s) that will be assigned to you.

Look over their contract

Make sure you have an early termination clause and that the payment is in phases. Usually you’ll need to pay 25% up front, and this is non-refundable. However, the WHOLE amount should not be at risk. You should also be able to terminate the project any time you want without penalty (except what has already been paid.)

Find out their rates

Read this article for a discussion as to what kind of pricing you can expect from your ghostwriter. Beware inexpensive or cheap writers – this is a sign of a lack of self-confidence, newness to the industry or amateurishness. Professionals understand their value and charge accordingly. On the other hand, amateurs are not confident in their skills and tend to price themselves on the low end.

You’ll have to decide, do you want a professional ghostwriter who will deliver an excellent book you will be proud to call your own? Or do you want to wince every time someone mentions your book?

  Well, there you have it. Take your time to find the right ghostwriter for your needs.  Make sure you are thoroughly comfortable with them, their terms and their style.

Click here to contact The Writing King to discuss your project today!

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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Unless something special is planned, I write at least a couple of thousand words for my books each and every day. This is in addition to paid activities, blogging, emails and promotion. The idea is to always make progress on the next book, as that’s important to maintain momentum and build up a following.

Three days a week, I set aside most other activities and write 10,000 words towards completing a book. It takes dedication, willpower and resistance to temptation, especially from the internet, to be able to do this. There’s always something else that seems more fun, and the excuse of “writer’s block” is constantly available. However, regardless of distractions and excuses, it is possible to write that many words in a single, 8-hour day.

Set the Goal of Writing 10,000 Words

Setting goals is important, and before I go to bed for the evening I jot down my goals for the next day. Some of these are business related (finish a proposal), others have to do with writing (proofread 6 chapters of new book) and some are personal. Once I’m done with the list, and I have to be careful to keep it achievable, I put a number beside each one indicating priority, from 1, must complete, to 4, optional. This tells me what I need to work on first.

It’s important not to stress out too much if the goals are not met. They are intended as a guideline, not as a straightjacket. Setting goals adds focus to the day and helps to prevent distractions from appearing which don’t align to my longer term objectives.

Eliminate Distractions

Distractions are the bane of anyone who works from home. There is always something else to do, something to look at, or someone to talk with. Simple phone conversations can chew up hours out of a day, answering emails a couple hours more, and playing on Facebook and other social media ties up even more time. If not controlled, these other, unproductive activities can easily consume the good portion of a day.

To write 10,000 words in a single, 8-hour day, you have to eliminate and ignore distractions.

Create a work space in your home and make it clear to everyone in the household that when you are in that space, you are not to be interrupted except for urgent, life-threatening emergencies. You’ll have to enforce this to make it work, and sometimes others will not be happy with you for not giving them attention. Nonetheless, to achieve your goal you must set enforce your limit and space.

Turn off the cell phone and other distractions. Don’t just put it on vibrate, because you will still know when it is ringing. Either turn it off or put it in another room, far away from you.

Ignore the temptations of the internet. Sure, I know how much fun it is to “just look at the news for a minute” or “scan Facebook”, but don’t do it. They can drag you away from your goal for minutes or even hours.

Do not answer emails, social media and other messages. During your productive time, make an effort to ignore all emails and other messaging. Believe it or not, you lose hours each day just reviewing and answering and getting caught up in related activities as a result.

Eliminate any other distractions. As you identify other things that cause you to deviate from your writing, tune them out or turn them off.

Write in Chunks

I’ve found it is best to divide up my writing day into smaller chunks of time. This allows me to schedule short breaks for stretching, snacking, answering email and so on. I set a timer for 45 minutes and write for that length of time. When the timer goes off, I reset it for 15 minutes, which is the length of the break. This seems to work very well, and vastly increases my productivity. Additionally, it gives me a chance to stretch and get on the exercise bike for a few minutes, which is better for the back and the body.

Don’t Edit as you Write

You’ll never be able to write 10,000 words in a single day if you attempt to multi-task editing and writing. When you write, just write. Don’t go back and change words, delete sentences and restructure things. Save that for another day. You’ll find that by just writing all in one shot, you’ll get far more done. Then you can edit the whole thing at once, with a clearer picture of where you are going with it all.

Explore Dictation Software

Dictation software has allowed me to improve the speed of my writing by over three times. It is far faster to speak than it is to type, at least for most people. For some, dictating their works to the computer works wonders, and for others it is a meaningless distraction.

Reward Yourself

Once you’ve successfully completed writing 10,000 words in a single day, reward yourself. You’ve done well, and you deserve to be rewarded for your efforts.

  I’m interested in your writing experiences. Please share them in the comments below.

 Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

| Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest |

There is no doubt that using social media can be entertaining, enjoyable, and supportive of connections between friends and family scattered all over the world. For example, I use Facebook to maintain friendships, some of them very close, with people clear across the United States, in South America and even places as far away as Romania, Russia and Saudi Arabia. There is much to be gained from interacting online with so many people.

From a business sense, social media can be used to create bonds with people over time by sharing information, accepting input, and creating dialog. When managed properly, this can help establish a brand, personal or corporate, and keep it moving to higher levels of engagement and understanding. This, in turn, can lead to higher profits and a better informed buying public.

A decade ago, in the years of Yahoo and AOL, my late wife was chronically ill, depressed and unable to easily leave the house. I introduced her to those far more primitive social media networks, and before long she had hundreds of friends whom she could communicate with all day long. She became happier and more involved in life because she had real friends who cared about her. Hers was a social media success story, showing much of the good that these sites can accomplish.

Unfortunately, there is a downside to spending too much time on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and other social media sites.

Social Media is a Time Black Hole

There is no doubt that social media can be addicting. In fact, I have lost whole days out of my life happily posting, responding discussions, arguing, uploading videos and photos and have a great time eating up the hours.

To keep social media under control, I set a timer for 45 minutes once each day. That is all of the time I allow myself to spend, both personal and business, posting and communicating on the various sites. Otherwise, it’s too easy to lose hours each day without producing a damn thing.

There is a second, “softer” timer. If I find myself getting upset in any way by what I read on social media, it is time to put it down and go do something else.

Trolls

A troll is a person who drops into or starts discussions on social media for the purpose of stirring up trouble. Often they are the cause of changing perfectly rational discussions into violent, curse-filled mud-slinging hate-fests which spill over into the real world. I’ve seen trolls stir up so much trouble that physical fights have broken out, shows have been canceled, and lives have been ruined.There are several types of trolls you’ll run into from the insulter to the debater to the Grammar Nazi – all of them are at best irritating and at worst malicious.

The problem with trolls is they are often not obvious to the casual observer. They drop into a conversation, make a seemingly-innocent remark to start tempers going, add a few other choice comments here and there, then sit back and watch the tempers flare and the discussions become heated.

For whatever perverted, secret reason, trolls take great delight in causing people to be upset, unhappy and angry. If confronted, they will seemingly sprout angel wings and claim they were completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Keep in mind that Lucifer also had angel wings.

Political Rants

Nothing heats up the internet and social media like politics. I’ve seen more friendships destroyed over politics than anything else on the web.

Sometimes it all starts with a MEME (a graphic overprinted with an almost always inaccurate statement), video or link to a story about some politician or other. A claim will be made about that politician, and before long virtual blood will spill and unfriend buttons will be pressed.

I’ve learned, on Facebook and LinkedIn at least, to hit the “Unfollow” or “Hide” buttons frequently so I don’t have to be involved in any of that. There is no constructive purpose to getting involved in any political “discussion” on social media.

Misinformation

We all love little tidbits of information, and the internet is a great source for knowledge – most of it false. If you have more than a few friends or connections, you will find your wall cluttered with MEME’s, videos, links and discussions about the most absurd lies you can imagine. You can always count one someone to jump all over these obvious untruths with a link to snopes, a comment or two saying snopes is “owned by the media and thus lying”, claims of ignorance, and an argument over whether or not the so-called fact is indeed a fact.

You can also count on some ignorant person demanding that you “prove” what they posted is a lie.

My advice is to simply assume that if something is posted to social media it is an outright lie. If you care, then go do your own research and figure out the truth for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

  What experiences have you had with social media? Use the comments below to tell us your opinions.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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Have you written a book and self-published it on Amazon? Do you want to know how to leverage that book to make some extra cash for little to no cost?

You can easily create an audiobook using any book you have published on Amazon, and better yet, you can even do it for absolutely free. This is done using ACX.COM, which is owned by Amazon.

I decided to give it a try

Over the past month, I’ve been busily creating an audiobook for each of the 15 books that I have published on Amazon. Six are done, and six are in production as of this writing.

Believe it or not, this is not an expensive process. Here’s the breakdown for each book:

Existing book – You need to have produced a book on Amazon.

Creating the audio – Take a 50/50 cut on royalties with the actor (the person speaking the book) and there is no cost.

Book cover – You will need a book cover specifically made for your audiobook.

That’s all you need to create an audio book.

Creating the Audiobook

First you use the ACX interface to find your book in Amazon’s database. Once you’ve found it, fill in some information, then search for a producer (actor) and ask them if they want to help you with the book. You can offer a 50/50 cut or pay for their time.

if you don’t want to split the royalties with the actor, you can record the audiobook yourself.

Creating the Book Cover

The cover needs to be 2400 x 2400 pixels at 72 DPI (minimum) and in JPG format.

You can create it yourself in a graphics program or find someone to do it for you. Fiverr.Com is a great resource to find people who will do this for a $5 gig (job.) Most of these people will give you the source file (PSD) for an extra $5. Be sure to select this option. If you don’t, you will have to keep going back to the same person to get changes done. If you have the PSD file, you can make changes yourself, if you have Adobe Photoshop, or you can send the PSD to someone else.

Upload the cover to ACX and you’re done.

The Process

The whole process is very simple.

Select your book.

Upload a short sample.

Offer it to a producer.

Once the producer accepts, they will submit a few minute long audition.

Accept the audition (or ask for changes.)

The producer will create the first 15 minutes.

Accept it or ask for changes.

The producer will complete the audiobook.

Listen to it all and ask for changes as needed.

You can add the cover any time until you submit the audio to ACX.

Once the audio is the way you want it, submit the audio to ACX.

They will perform a short review of the audio, and either reject or accept it. If they reject it, they will tell you why and you can fix the problem and resubmit.

Once accepted, a few days or weeks later the audiobook will appear on Amazon, alongside your Kindle and/or paperback version.

You will receive 25 codes to use to give copies of the audiobook away for free to get reviews.

You have no control over the price of the audiobook. This is calculated by Amazon.

That’s almost literally all there is to the whole process.

Now get to marketing your book, and watch the money roll in.

Leave your thoughts about audiobooks in the comments below.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

| Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest |

How do you stay on TOP OF MIND for your customers?

Be active on the top SOCIAL MEDIA platforms: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and specialized ones for your niche. Make regular posts on topics relevant to your customers, readers, and followers. Use posts that you handcraft, not automated messages.

Center your MESSAGE around your blog, using it to reinforce and expand on how you can help others.Ensure your blog is self-hosted. You own your blog and can use it how you please.

Create excellent CONTENT. Write and publish original content, fantastic that draws your customers to you. Don’t create medicare content. Everything you post – articles, graphics, videos, slideshows and so on – should be as good as you can make it so you become known for excellent.

Practice ENGAGEMENT regularly. Answer questions, comment on content that you feel your customers will find useful. Get your followers and customers used to knowing that you are always there, always available and always looking out for them.

Be a CONNECTOR by carefully selecting people on social media who you can help and who can help your customers. Seek out those on your social media platforms who are willing to pitch in and help when needed.

Be a HELPING CONNECTOR by introducing your connections to each other to help them with their needs. Show you honestly care by introducing people to others who can be of value.

Build VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES where you help people have relationship where the members benefit each other. Groups of motivated people can achieve many times the results of individuals to achieving common goals.

Become an INFLUENCER by using your content and connections to work together to achieve their goals. Help others get to their goals.

Be INSPIRING by embracing the positive and forsaking the negative. You empower those things where you have focused your power. Ignore the negative to avoid giving it power. Put your energy and talent towards good, positive endeavours.

MOTIVATE your connections with your content and your actions. Get them to DO and BE more because of your words and actions. Help your connections become better at what they do. Get them to move out of their comfort zones.

GIVE. The more you give, the more people will think of you.

What do you think? Did I forget anything? Please share your comments below.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

| Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest |

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie

Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age?

My name is Richard Lowe, Jr. and I am 58 years old.

Where are you from?

I was born in northern California, lived most of my life in Southern California, and in 2013 moved to Florida.

FA little about yourself (ie,  your education, family life, etc.)

I was an Air Force brat, born in a small community in northern California, near where my father was stationed. My mother often spoke of the good times she had at the Nut Tree restaurant, eating dates and drinking soda pop. Eventually, the family found its way down to San Bernardino, a dusty city at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains in California. My dad left the Air Force and became a graphics artist civil servant working out of Norton Air Force Base.

I have quite a few great memories of childhood in that dry, hot and dusty city. I sheltered from the heat in a tree house that my dad and I built together. Everything changed on the fateful day in 1967, when I was dragged into a library kicking and screaming by my mother. She had determined that I needed to experience a library – that it was time for me to become a reader. The screaming stopped as soon as a librarian gave me a cookie and took me on a tour of the whole building. I fell in love with the librarian and with books, and before long I checked out as many as a dozen a week. As I grew older, I read every book that I could get hold of.

In junior high school, I ran across a book carefully stored in a box that my grandmother had left with the family for safekeeping. That book was called Stranger in a Strange Land by an author name Robert Heinlein. I read that masterpiece in a weekend, and soon discovered other authors such as Isaac Asimov, Jack Vance, and John Campbell. After pouring through those books, I decided I was going to be an author when I grew up.

Life got in the way of my dreams, as sometimes happens. The family moved to Lake Arrowhead and my parents open an art gallery in Blue Jay village. A few years later, they opened a larger store in Lake Arrowhead Village and sold arts and crafts.

For me, the pressure of high school college, a full-time job, and eventually marriage and family got in the way of my dream of becoming a writer.

In 2005, my wife passed away and I decided that grief was something that I wanted to get out of his quickly as possible. I became a photographer and photographed every national park in the western United States. From there, I was introduced to some dancers, and became a very well-known performance photographer in Southern California. During those eight years, I photographed over a thousand women, did 1200 performance shoots, and photographed over 300 Renaissance festivals, Civil War re-enactments, and other similar events.

For 33 years, I worked in the technology field, first as a vice president of a computer consulting company, then as a senior designer, and finally settled down to a job at Trader Joe’s as their computer operations director. I worked at Trader Joe’s for 20 years, managing a team of eight people and varying numbers of consultants to keep their operations working well.

In 2013, I decided it was time for me to finally pursue my dream of becoming a writer. I left my job at Trader Joe’s, moved to Florida, and settled down to become a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and author. Since then, I’ve written and published 63 books of my own in my name, a number of others under pseudonyms, ghost-written 22 books, and written several hundred articles for blogs and publications. I’ve also written over 300 LinkedIn profiles for business leaders, ambassadors, government officials and others.

Tell us your latest news

I’ve created a new series of courses called Fiction Master Class which are designed to help writers improve their abilities and careers.

For the past few months, I’ve been interviewing 1 to 2 authors per week as part of a podcast designed to showcase their talents and abilities.

And I just finished writing my 22ndghostwritten book.

When and why did you begin writing?

I’ve written most of my life, generally for work related projects such as technical manuals, articles for technical magazines, and so forth. In 2013, it was time to change direction, and writing seem to be the natural place to put my talents.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I first considered myself a writer when I published my first best-selling book, Focus on LinkedIn. I sold over 10,000 copies and became an Amazon Kindle bestseller, in the top 100 for several days. That was my third book.

What inspired you to write your first book?

My first book was a labour of love. I always been interested in computer security, and I decided to take my knowledge and help others understand how to make the computer secure. The book didn’t sell well, but that didn’t matter. I just wanted to write all of that down in a very well done book.

Right now, I’m working on a novel called Peacekeeper, which is based about a million years in the future. This will be my first science fiction novel, and I expected to be between 80,000 and 100,000 words long. I’ll focus the rest of the answers about my book on this one.

How did you come up with the title?

Peacekeeper is the name of a type of fleet of spaceships designed to keep the peace, hence the name of the book.

Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging?

I tend to write in a casual or business casual format.

I can work in any genre, from romance to science fiction to mystery to nonfiction. I haven’t found anything yet that I can’t write.

How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Absolutely none of this book is realistic or based on experiences of anyone I know.

To craft your works, do you have to travel? Before or during the process?

No.

Who designed the covers?

Haven’t designed the covers yet.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Yes, the book is about how big governments can be ruthless and enslave people, and how eventually the people revolt against their masters, regardless of the cost.

Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?

My favorite writers are J.R.R. Tolkien, Mike Resnick, Robert Heinlein, Jack Vance, Winston Churchill, L Sprague DeCamp, Arthur Hailey, Alan Dean Foster, Robert Aspirin, and Fred Saberhagen.

What strikes me about their works is they are all well plotted, faithful to their genre, have strong characterization, and the stories tend to be solid.

Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author.

The Alliance of Independent Authors

Do you see writing as a career?

Writing is my career for the rest of my life.

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

Nope.

Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?

I learned that writing is easy for me. I can literally right between 10,000 and 12,000 words every day.

If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

For the Peacekeeper book, the admiral would be played by Milla Jovovich.

Any advice for other writers?

If you’re writer you have to write and get published. So don’t make any excuses, don’t stop, don’t accept any failures, just right.

Anything specific you want to tell your readers?

Hope you enjoy my books, and please let me know what you think of them.

What book are you reading now?

I’m working on a book called Peacekeeper, which I mentioned earlier.

Do you remember the first book you read?

I remember the first adult level book I read was Stranger in a Strange Land. One of the early books I read was also Narrow Land by Jack Vance

What makes you laugh/cry?

I laugh every day, because life is supposed to be fun.

Is there one person, past or present, you would love to meet? Why?

I think I’d like to meet Isaac Asimov. He is one of the most prolific authors ever, and he had a way of making difficult understand subjects simple to comprehend. He is one of the reasons why I decided to become a writer.

Do you have any hobbies?

I’ve got several hobbies. First of all, I’m a photographer, I collect amethyst and quartz crystals, miniature fantasy figurines, stamps, movies, and books. These days, my life mostly centers around writing since that’s my passion.

What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?

My favorite movies are the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Godfather 1 & 2. To me, these are among the most well-done movies of all time.

I’m enjoying watching The Expanse, and can’t wait for season four.

Imagine a future where you no longer write. What would you do?

I’d probably be a photographer, because I’m a creative person and that’s just a different kind of creativity.

You only have 24 hours to live how would you spend that time?

I have no idea.

What do you want written on your head stone?

I don’t want a headstone.

Do you have a blog or website readers can visit for updates, events and special offers?  

https://www.thewritingking.com/

https://www.fictionmasterclass.com/

All my books are at https://www.coolauthor.com

(Originally published in Author Interviews)

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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As you get into conversations with other self-published authors (whether or not they have already been published), you’ll almost certainly get into a discussion about ISBN numbers. An ISBN number is a number assigned to a specific version and edition of a book to enable it to be uniquely identified.

When you publish your book on Amazon in paperback, you have the choice of using the default ISBN number, purchasing one from them, or buying your own. Paperbacks require ISBN numbers. You can also specify an ISBN number for Kindle eBooks, but it is not required.

Why should you get an ISBN number for your Book?

Selling to libraries – To get your book into libraries, you will need to purchase an ISBN number – at least if you want them to purchase your books. Some libraries will accept free donations of self-published books by local authors, but giving away free copies gets to be old real fast. After all, most of us write books because we want to sell them and make a few dollars. You must have your own ISBN number and publishing imprint to get an LOCC number, which many libraries require. You get these through the Library of Congress website. Libraries also purchase eBooks, and they allow these to be borrowed. You will get a small fee each time someone borrows the book. You’ll need to get your own ISBN numbers for this purpose.

Sell in bookstores – Bookstores will not generally stock self-published books, and one of the clues is using the ISBN numbers provided by Amazon and other platforms. If you want to have a chance to be on bookshelves, you need to get your own ISBN number with your imprint (also called a publishing company). It’s still difficult to get self-published books on bookstore shelves, but you don’t have a chance unless without assigning your own ISBN number.

Makes you the publisher – By including your own publishing imprint, which is the name of your “publishing company”, Choose this imprint wisely, including a keyword for example, and you’ll slightly boost your search rankings on Amazon.

More professional – This is a small point and won’t matter to most self-published authors. However, using your own ISBN numbers and publishing imprint makes you look more professional.

Gets listed in “books in print” – Purchasing an ISBN number and filling in all the fields in the ISBN database (Bowker in the US) automatically lists your book in the “Books In Print” database. This is used by bookstores and libraries, as well as search engines.

Send copy to the US Library of Congress – If you want your book to be included in the Library of Congress, you must assign your own ISBN number and get an LOCC number.

What are the reasons against getting an ISBN number for your book?

Avoid the expense – In the United States, ISBN numbers are costly. A single number costs $125, although you can purchase a block of 100 for $500 (as of this writing). You can avoid this expense for most self-published books.

Online booksellers such as Amazon do not require you purchase an ISBN – If you are only going to sell on Amazon and similar sites, you don’t need an ISBN number of your own unless you want one.

Conclusions

Purchasing and assigning ISBN numbers to your self-published books may make sense depending on your requirements. If you want to sell through book stores, attract libraries or simply like the idea of being a “publisher”, then go ahead and spend the money. If you are just publishing and selling on Amazon and similar platforms, than you may want to avoid the expense.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

| Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest |

An ISBN number is essential to properly classifying your book, so that book sellers can find it and the information about it.

Do you need an ISBN number?

Should you use the ones supplied “for free” from the various self-publishing companies?

What does an ISBN number do, anyway?

Let’s being by defining the purpose of an ISBN number. These are 13-digit codes which identify books and similar products. These are required by booksellers, libraries, distributors, and others to uniquely identify an edition of a book. An ISBN number includes digits which let the bookseller know which publishing company published the book.

If you intend to sell a paperback or hardcover book an ISBN is essential. Bookstores and distributors require an ISBN, and generally won’t carry a book that does not have one.

Each edition of a book requires a different ISBN. For example, if you published a hardcover and a paperback version of the book you would need two numbers. You do not necessarily need an ISBN number for ebooks, although it can make the ebook appear more professional or official. Significant changes to a book are considered a new edition and require new ISBN numbers. Minor alterations, such as correcting grammar or typographical errors, do not because these are considered reprints. In addition, changing the cover of a book does not require a new ISBN number.

The ISBN number and the bar code are two different things. The bar code is purchased separately from the ISBN, and allows scanners at bookstores to identify the book being purchased. The bar code may also include other information such as the price of the book. If you are not going to sell your book in bookstores, you do not necessarily need a bar code.

When is an ISBN number NOT required?

If you purchase an ISBN number, it can be expensive. In the United States, a single number costs $125 although a block of 10 or 100 cost significantly less per ISBN. Before you spend that money, there are times when you don’t need one.

For an e-book, if you’re only publishing it on your website or selling it on Amazon, you don’t need an ISBN number. Amazon uses ASIN numbers to internally track books, and for them that takes the place of ISBN numbers.

When is an ISBN number needed?

Paperback and hardcover books require ISBN numbers.

ISBN numbers group your books together under your publishing companies name. If your e-book doesn’t use an ISBN number, it appears as published by something like “Amazon Digital Services LLC”. by using your own ISBN number, you can list your book under your imprint of your publishing company name (or any other phrase that you like).

Taking advantage of other publishers requires an ISBN number. Amazon is not the only market, and there are other publishers such as iBooks, Kobo an Barnes and Noble. to publish your book under these platforms requires an ISBN number.

An ISBN number causes your eBook to rank higher on Google because Google lists books that appear in Bowker’s Books in Print in its search engine. note that for your book to be listed in this database you need to fill out the form at Books in Print. It’s not listed just because you purchase an ISBN number.

Some countries require ISBN numbers for eBooks.

if your eBook is going to be sold to libraries, then you will need to assign ISBN numbers.

How To Get An ISBN Number

For more information about ISBN numbers see the Bowker website, which is the only supplier of these numbers in the United States. Other countries have their own ISBN suppliers.

You can use the freely provided ISBN numbers from your platform if you want. However, if you ARE going to purchase one yourself, then get your own from your country’s ISBN supplier.

What Does An ISBN Number Cost?

In the United States, the cost of an ISBN number is significant. You can buy them singly or save quite a bit of money by purchasing a pack of 10 or 100 (or more if needed).

How much does it cost to get an isbn number for a book? In the US, a single ISBN is $125, 10 of them cost $250 and 100 cost $575.

Most publishing platforms such as Amazon offer free ISBN numbers with significant limitations on their use. Generally, if you purchase your own ISBN number, you can move the book to any publishing platform you want; using one from the platform means you cannot move that edition of that book.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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Is there an author whose works you enjoy? Do you rush to purchase a book by that author as soon as it is released?

Do you have a friend who is an author? Perhaps your friend is struggling to get their book (or books) known so they can sell.

Writers are artists, and like any artist, they pour their heart and soul into their creations.They have something they want, no need, to tell the world, and their chosen method is the written word.

Every author, again like all artists, receives countless criticisms, sometimes from friends, family, and perfect strangers. Virtually all of these people will claim they are “just trying to help”, and most of them are actually just being malicious.

Do you have a friend who is a writer? Are you interested in helping them in some way, even some small favor? You can do any of the following, and you will have the writers eternal gratitude:

Like their Facebook page. This is an easy and no-cost way to help them out.

Leave a comment on their blog and facebook page..If the writer has a blog, leave a comment or two on some articles This helps immensely because search engines recognize comments as engagements. Pages that have engagement will rank higher, and that helps the author. Facebook does the same thing with Facebook pages.

Share posts from their blog on your social media. Whenever your writer friend writes a new article, share it on your wall on Facebook, the newsfeed on LinkedIn and anywhere else appropriate. This also helps the writer’s blog rise higher in the search engines.

Share their book on your wall on Facebook and other social media. This is a big one. Share the link to their book on your wall, with a short, to the point positive comment. This helps to promote the book, and also gives a little positive reinforcement. So you get two for the price of one!

Buy their book. One of the very best gifts you can give to your author friend is to purchase their book. Authors often don’t sell very many copies (the average self-published book sells less than a hundred copies) and one additional purchase can mean more than you can imagine.

Read, or at least skim, their book. Once you’ve read their book, tell your writing friend about how much you enjoyed it. Better still, write a quick post on their Facebook wall telling everyone what you found good about their book.

Refrain from any, and I mean any, negative comments. An author gets more negative comments about their writing than you can imagine. Amazon reviews can be terrorizing (but not as bad a YouTube reviews) and comments from friends and family can cause immense emotional pain. Sometimes a malicious comment, even a small one, can stop a writer from writing for days, weeks, months or even years.

Write a great review of their book. In order for a book to sell on Amazon (or any other book storefront), it needs reviews, lots of them. Yet to get a lot of reviews a book needs to be selling lots of copies. It’s a catch-22 that’s difficult to escape from. So, whenever your friend publishes a book, buy it and give them a good review (but only if you can honestly do so – never lie about it.)

Write positive, reinforcing comments on social media. How come everyone, and I mean everyone, seems to leave “happy birthday” comments, but no one seems to write “congratulations” when an author publishes a book? When your friend publishes their book, congratulate them. After you’ve read the book, write a comment on their wall telling them how much you enjoyed the book (if you didn’t like it, find something good to say.)

DO NOT give them a report on every frigging spelling and grammar error. Don’t worry, there are plenty of others who will not hesitate to point out every missing comma and every single misspelled word. Don’t be one of those people (unless you were asked to proofread.)

If you REALLY want to help your author friend, volunteer to proofread their book or even just a chapter. Be cautious with this one, as you must be willing to give positive critique. If you don’t know how to do that, don’t volunteer. The art of giving critique that actually helps instead of harms is not something known to the average person.

Ask them to let you know when their next book is being released. Ask by posting the question on their Facebook page.

Most important of all, do one or more of these things without being asked. As soon as you see they’ve published something, share the Amazon (or other) link on your Facebook page, saying something like “My friend just published a book!” You have no idea how much it will mean to your author friend.

By far the best things you can do, if you do nothing else, is to write a positive review on Amazon (remember, you can ask the author for a free copy if you can’t afford to buy it) and to share the book on social media. Just by doing these two things, you will be giving your author friend a tremendous boost.

Do you have other ideas for helping writing friends? Leave them in the comments below.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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Having trouble writing? Here’s my list of some common mistakes that writers make.

Not being a writer – This is the number one mistake that writers make. If you are a writer, then you had better be writing. You cannot publish what you don’t write. Don’t talk about what you are going to write, don’t discuss your ideas before writing them, and don’t spend endless hours trying to find people to purchase your work. Just write: query letters and articles. Write them fast and furious. That’s what a writer does.

Not writing constantly – If you call yourself a writer, then you had better be writing. In fact, you should be writing constantly, every single day if you can. What do you write? Write an article on something, anything, that you feel you can write about.

Giving into writer’s block – You can defeat writer’s block. You are a writer, so write. Can’t write? Just start writing and don’t worry about what comes out.

Re-writing too many times – Some writers like to edit and rewrite an article over and over again. Personally, I write a pretty good article the first time and one quick edit usually finishes it up. Some people need a few more edits. But don’t over edit. Your job is to communicate words and concepts on paper, not edit them to death.

Not editing enough – No matter how good your first drafts are, be sure and look it over at least once for spelling mistakes and grammar errors.

Plagiarizing – It’s perfectly okay to get ideas from other articles, books, movies, and even television shows. It’s not okay to steal another writers work, and it’s also not acceptable to paraphrase an article. You can quote from other sources (this is called “fair use”) but you cannot make other’s work your own.

Talking about your idea before writing it – I know of very few people who can talk about a concept with another person and then successfully write later. Writing is communicating on paper (or on a computer), not talking about what you want to write.

Asking people if your writing is “okay” – If you are taking a class in writing, then this is a fine thing to do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother trying to get criticism from anyone except a professional editor. Before I learned this lesson, I stopped writing more articles than I can count simply because of others tearing my work apart. Now, I don’t ask for or accept criticism on my works, unless it’s from a professional editor to whom I am attempting to sell one of my articles. It is acceptable to get criticism from one’s agent, as that is one of the tasks that an agent is paid to do.

Worrying about what to write about – Don’t worry about what to write: just write. That’s what writers do, they write. There is no need to waste time to find a subject or something that will sell or anything else. Just pick something you know well and write about it.

Not using query letters – If you really want to get your articles published, you need to be sending out dozens of query letters every single day. How is this done? Simply pick up your most recent copy of Writer’s Market, pick a magazine or other publisher, think of an idea they might be interested in, and write a letter pitching that idea to the magazine (or other) editor. Be sure to follow the guidelines given by the magazine (you can get this from Writer’s Market, on the web or by sending a request to the publication). You may only get one bite out of a hundred, but if you don’t ask you won’t get any at all.

Why use query letters instead of writing articles? Writing an article can take a significant amount of time. It’s wise to find an editor who is at least marginally interested before taking the time to write a full article. Query letters must be written fast and often to be effective.

Writing in someone else’s style – You are a unique individual with your own talents, faults, goals, objectives, abilities and characteristics. You also have your own unique writing style. Be yourself when you write; if you are someone else (and you write like someone else) you will never make the big times. This does not mean you shouldn’t experiment with different writing styles; it means you should make each style your own as you write. (Of course, ghostwriting is an exception to this).

Asking other writers for advice – This is fine if you are taking a class taught by a writer. In most other instances, unless the writer is a good friend, you have to understand that other writers are competitors. Unless they are very ethical, it’s very likely they may be trying to discourage you or move you away from their own preferred market.

Keeping poor records – Create a record-keeping system and stick to it. There is little more embarrassing (or time- wasting) than sending out the same article twice (or more) to the same editor who rejected it the first time.

Not treating writing as a business – Keep good records of expenses and income, and treat it all as important and vital. You have to pay taxes and you may need to account for any money. Also, expenses (and even your home office) are often write-offs on taxes.

Not checking facts and doing proper research – Getting a fact wrong now and again won’t kill you, but it does effect your credibility. Get major facts wrong too often, and you may find that you cannot sell anything anymore.

Not handling copyright infringement – If someone steals your work without compensation, handle it fast and efficiently. Talk nicely, then not so nicely, then call in the lawyers. You own the copyright, so enforce it.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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When I write a story or novel, there’s usually secrets that the reader doesn’t know, or something I’m not saying. I asked a group of authors for their secrets.

Do You Hide Any Secrets In Your Books That Only A Few People Will Find?

Here are their unedited responses.

Click on a photo to go directly to the author’s Facebook page.

Kyle Waller

I think it’s safe to say every author hides some secrets or references to other things we like in each of our novels- for me it’s a sort of personal stamp and another little connection I can form to my work- plus- if I ever meet a fan who understands the inside references, they’re an automatic super-fan. For example, I’ve got references to the Elder Scrolls Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, Nightwish, the Bible, plus other novels in the series that are yet unpublished. Plus, it’s simply fun to add personal touches like that just because we can.

Facebook: Kyle Waller

  Bjørn Larssen

It’s one of my favourite things to do! I got somewhat overexcited in the first drafts, and only realised when my editor started pointing out things she didn’t understand. I’m about to finish Storytellers, which is set in Iceland, and I allude to Norse cosmology, but in such ways that if you know – you know, and if you don’t – you won’t miss anything. (Much.) Some of the names have a hidden meaning. There are a few short quotes from song lyrics I love, but if you don’t know the song it won’t harm your experience either. But I have to admit one of my dreams is to hear from an excited reader asking me “is [the thing] really what I think it is?”.

Secrets are one of the main themes of Storytellers. The original tagline for the book was “Is there really such a thing as a secret?” – if you’re the only one who doesn’t know all the darkest details of your life are widely discussed by everyone behind your back, do you still even have a secret? Most of the questions are answered, but some of them in more than one way. Who even knows which version is true? Only I do…and hopefully a reader or two.

Blog: www.bjornlarssen.com

Sydney Segen

My book, Hope After Trauma and PTSD, features true stories about trauma and deep brokenness in people’s lives. The story contributors shared honestly and openly so other people in similar situations would know they’re not alone. Usually, those vulnerable details are what a writer tries to protect. But I couldn’t. The book demanded those very personal details that would connect with readers’ lives.

So my challenge was to protect personal information, which was the very information we had to share. Ultimately, I protected the contributors’ privacy by changing names, dates, locations, and other facts that might identify a particular story writer. I made two exceptions, both for contributors who wanted their organization’s name known so others could inquire about their services.

I also went to great lengths to avoid using my last name. The name was from a previous marriage, and by using it, some people would have recognized certain details in the book. To protect privacy and avoid litigation, I legally changed my last name. It was time for a new name to match my new life. I didn’t have a family name to fall back on, so I created a name. “Segen” means “blessing” in German. I’ve had many blessings in life, and my heritage is German. There was another, almost humorous reason for the name: A website domain was available for it, SydneySegen.com. As is so often true, important decisions are both matters of the heart and also of practicality.

Facebook: Hope After Trauma and PTSD; Truth Be Told Website: SydneySegen.com

Blog: http://sydneysegen.com/blog/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1984917153/

  Sherry Linker

There’s always some truth to everything I write, so people who know me, past or present, may certainly pick up on a location I’m describing, a personality or even a phrase I use in my writing. My favorite author is Stephen King I read “The Talisman” by King and Peter Straub every summer…it’s my tradition. In this novel there’s a memorable character named Wolf and one of his repeated phrases is “Right here and now.” Sometimes I will sneak that phrase in as a nod of sort to other King fans. Placing secrets in our writing is not only fun for the readers, it’s fun for the writer as well!

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Christopher Kaufman

In my book The Phantastic Zoo, the young characters hear nourishing stories from The Phoenix, The Mermaid and The Dragon. Secrets to living life with imagination are delivered with power and grace. To your question, these are things I wish to be discovered which I hope everyone hears and learns from. However, my books have a great secret. Beautiful audio albums are an integral part of the overall experience. All folks have to do, if I haven’t handed them one personally, is to email soundartus for the secret coupon code, then they can download the album or free. The album is filled with glorious fully developed symphonic music, voice acting and sound design. Not everyone downloads their album!

Website: soundartus.com

Robin Leemann Donovan

Hide things – who me? Hell yes, I’ve hidden a ton. So, you’re asking me to give it all up now? Let’s see where I can begin. Book one, Is It Still Murder Even If She Was A Bitch?, was written after a small group, lead by one of my business partners, who had a fairly public breakdown, tried to stage a coup and throw the other two of us out of our company. There are numerous veiled references to the details of the coup, e.g. wanting financial gain without having to invest, etc. One of the less savory characters in the book has the combined name of two of the conspirators. I could go on, but that would be too much of a spoiler alert. Let’s just say the murder victim will not be sorely missed. And suffice it to say the coup was unsuccessful.

In book two, I Didn’t Kill Her But That May Have Been Short Sighted, a great deal of the back story consists of true events from my early days in advertising. Although they’re not exactly hidden, the reader would never know fact from fiction. The inspiration for the murder victim actually did all of those obnoxious things. The events leading directly up to the murder, however, are all carefully crafted fiction. The hidden part consists of numerous little character traits and foibles that paint a startlingly accurate picture of my victim, right down to the physical description. Once you know the facts, you would never question the accuracy of the fiction. The portrayal of B.J. comes from years of watching and listening to her inspirations’ unprincipled behavior.

In book three, I Don’t Know Why They Killed Him He Wasn’t Really That Annoying, the major hidden message lies in the treatment of one of my former partners. He had joined the company shortly after “the coup” and was fine for a few years. Then had his own version of a breakdown. He’s featured in the first two books as my valued partner and legendary smart ass, Donny Miller. He makes an excellent foil to my protagonist, Donna Leigh. By the time I started writing this third book, the inspiration for Donny’s character had exited the company in a most contentious fashion. Throughout the book, there are references to his departure that are in reality private jokes.

Reading through my response I arrive at two conclusions: I have actually hidden quite a bit (and this is only the tip of the iceberg) and it’s unhealthy to be my business partner if you’re a man.

Website

Donna Leigh Mysteries

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Helen Prochazka

Last century, I wrote a series of high school mathematics text books for Australian students which I self-published in the pre-digital era and which were eventually published by McGraw-Hill. This century, two of these volumes formed the basis of my 376-page magnus opus, a glossy coffee table book about mathematics.

The rather amusing description of The Mathematics Book by one bookseller was: “This smart, stylish, sexy how-to-do-it-book, with more than 2000 problems, plus clever insights into the ideas, people, romance and history of all things maths, will have you banging out equations and solving problems like a modern-day Fibonacci. The aim is simple: to demonstrate that anyone and everyone can do it!”

But the big secret is… the book is also my personal memoir!

Within its pages, usually disguised, are references to my life’s journey. Friends, family members, students, my former husband and others who have been part of the journey are memorialised in some way. So are all my pets and numerous other furred and feathered creatures including Ilsa, a friend’s rescue goat that I adored, who passed away three weeks ago.

Many feature as characters in word problems and worked examples. While people may not like mathematics they are always so delighted to be part of a mathematics problem!

And it always a joy for me, to turn to some random part of the book and be reminded of a significant event or someone special.

Facebook

Website

  Lionel Snell

When I started writing I constructed a story around an elaborate cabalistic framework and devised characters by fragmenting my birth chart into aspects and all that – great fun. And then I scuffed over the structure so that nobody would notice what I done until they started searching for clues, and then would begin a journey of discovery.

Since those early experiments I have more often done the opposite: Into a serious non-fiction text I would sometimes plonk a short personal message to a friend. The idea is that, what fun it would be to be reading a book and suddenly discover that, at one point, the author is speaking directly to you in person.

How silly of me!

Website

 Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

| Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest |

Writing has changed my life dramatically. It’s given me a purpose for living and let me fulfill my passion while making an income.

I wondered how writing has affected other people, so I asked a few of them:

How has writing changed your life?

Here are their unedited responses.

Click on a photo to go directly to the author’s Facebook page.

Kyle Waller

Writing changed my life because it saved it from a knife dancing too close to my throat in my own hand. Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, I mean every word. No, I won’t redact it because it’s the truth. I should not be alive to write this, my Depression should’ve been the end of the story back in 2009 when I was thirteen. Writing is one of the things, one of my core passions, that kept me going. The days were dark, but the nights of solace by a candle and a dimly lit computer, creating my universes, my characters and fashioning a world from nothing- it was serenity in a sea of entropy- my one saving grace. I shouldn’t be here to tell you about my novels coming out that bring Mental Illness into the spotlight, but here I am. I share this all freely because we lose people every, single, day, that we don’t need to. Everyone knows someone who battles with Mental Illness… I will tell my story, the world will hear it, and if it saves but one life, then all the effort is worth it. In short: I write because I do not have a choice.

Facebook: Kyle Waller

Clare Flynn

Unexpectedly it has provided me with the income I’d been hoping my pension would bring. So I’ve not needed to draw my pension. I realise this is unusual and I’m very grateful. I wake up each morning happy and raring to go. I love writing and telling stories. I particularly love getting emails from readers telling me how my books have affected them. Sometimes I wish I’d started this long ago – but I have no regrets and I loved my previous professional life. But I don’t have time to do all the painting I planned!

Website: Clare Flynn

Chris N Jerri Schlenker

I started writing in retirement. It has grounded me and given me purpose in that I hope my writing is touching lives in a positive way. I strive for my writing to be inspirational. One of the best compliments I ever received was from a lady telling me they were reading my book Sally to a bedridden relative and it was giving her such pleasure. She was recounting her own past to them. Writing about Sally was one of my main reasons for beginning my writing journey. Sally lived from 1858 to 1969, born into slavery. I met her when I was 8 in 1961.

  Bonnie Dillabough

This is an interesting question, since from my standpoint I can hardly remember a time when I wasn’t writing. So has writing changed my life? I do know this. That I can’t imagine a life without it and my imagination is pretty active.

When I was 8 years old I wrote a 28 line rhyming poem entitled, The Christmas Alphabet, which I then performed for the church Christmas party. I was particularly fascinated by poetry and music, so it seemed a natural thing to write songs. I was never the one to count the number of words in my assigned stories in school, since my stories always exceeded the minimum number of words.

In high school I was named the Poet Laureate of the school in my freshman year. My winning poem was featued in a yearly publication called “The Albatross”. In my senior year I wrote a musical play based on the stories of Dr. Seuss.

Over the years I have written newspaper articles, stories, plays, songs, blogs as well as many reports and whitepapers.

How has writing changed my life? From a young child it enabled me to indulge my creative flights of fancy. It allows me to express things that I can do in no other way. It allows me to organize my thoughts and draw the pictures that my lack of artistic talent wouldn’t allow otherwise.

It gives me great satisfaction to see my words on paper and makes me happy when my words have a positive impact on someone. It allows me to keep a record for my children and grandchildren.

And, now that I am finally writing a novel, it allows me to hopefully give others the joy I feel when reading books by the authors I love.

Website

Jo-Anne Blanco

Writing has always been a part of my life, one way or another. As a young child, teenager, student, then as an English language teacher and university tutor travelling and working around the world, I had always written stories, essays, and diaries of my travels, although I never published anything until last year. Writing is part of my being, part of myself; the epic historical fantasy series I am currently writing has been over a decade in the making. My father’s illness and having to give up my teaching career to become a full-time carer led to me taking a correspondence course in creative writing, which in turn gave me the courage to embark upon the novel writing I always wanted to do. The greatest way in which writing has changed my life is that it has helped me develop this new courage to put my work and myself out into the world like never before.

Before I published my first novel, I had no internet presence, no social media accounts. I never posted on internet forums or the like. I was never afraid to travel the world, to go backpacking in the remotest areas, or to live and work in countries where I knew no one and didn’t speak the language. Yet I was still chronically shy, deeply insecure, and lacked confidence in myself and my abilities. Writing and publishing, networking and making contacts, and gradually reaching readers and reviewers who like my work is helping me overcome my insecurities to become a more confident and complete person. I am now acquiring new computer and tech skills of which I was previously unaware or which I believed I would be unable to master. I love my work, I love my book series, I love my protagonist and her supporting characters, and I love that the new-found confidence writing and publishing has given me is finally allowing me to share them with the world.

Website: jo-anneblanco.com

Bjørn Larssen

Writing saved my life. I used to work as a blacksmith until spine injuries ended my career. The pain was so excruciating that despite maximum doses of painkillers I could still only sit in one position…which luckily allowed me to use the laptop. I started working on my first novel on January 1st, 2017. Since then the pain has largely disappeared, but I will never be able to forge again. If it weren’t for the writing, I don’t know whether I would be around. It allowed me to escape my body and immerse myself in stories.

It doesn’t end there. When the pain allowed me to get on a plane, I visited Iceland for research for a few days. I did not expect to fall in love with the country to the point where I spent all of April 2018 there, made friends, saw as much as I could, and became determined to move there one day. Because there is so much left to be seen. Writing gave me a reason to live, and then showed me how fantastic life still can be despite the fact I can’t work at the forge anymore. What was my plan B became a huge part of my life. I am finishing the first novel, drafting the second, outlining the third. Two years ago I thought this was it for me. Now? I have to go on living, I am busy, there are so many more stories I’ve got to write!

Blog: www.bjornlarssen.com

Stephen Schneider

So far, writing hasn’t changed it much other than keeping me busy and a lot of free time being taken up with writing, I haven’t published yet but am close

Website: sa-schneider.com

Christopher Kaufman

That’s a difficult question to answer. I have been writing and composing music all of my life. It is what my life is. The question might be, how would ‘not’ having been a creative artist changed my life? However, I would then have no answer because it would not have been my life at all!

Website: soundartus.com

  Robin Leemann Donovan

I’ve always been a control freak, working hard to maintain a tight reign on as many aspects of my life as possible. When I started writing my first novel, I designed a process and built a timeline, allowing myself little leeway. As the writing progressed it became evident that I was not controlling the process, rather the process was controlling me. I would often find myself at points in the plot where I didn’t know what would happen next, yet I kept writing. I would often look back and be surprised at what had been written, sometimes an event that didn’t exist a few minutes earlier, and sometimes a memory from deep within my brain that found its way out and onto the page. That is probably why writing novels is one of the most relaxing things I do. I let myself go and let my subconscious take over – and I love the freedom it gives me.

Website

Donna Leigh Mysteries

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Paty Jager

I don’t worry as much anymore. I know that sounds strange, but early in my marriage my husband was a truck driver. Every time he’d be gone for several days, I’d have accident scenarios running through my head all day long. If family were coming to visit, I’d have visions of bad things happening to them. When I started writing, all of that went away because I had an outlet for my imagination.

Website Blog Facebook Page Amazon Pinterest Twitter Goodreads

Lionel Snell

I was quite good at writing stories at school – until I went for maths and higher maths at A level. My writing went to pot, because I had been drilled in a system of communication where every statement can only be a logical deduction from the previous one. Different from science – where the initial statement has to be one that is objectively ‘true’ and the final story also has to ‘prove’ itself by producing results under laboratory conditions.

In writing there is much less logical constraint and, in fiction writing, the initial statements do not even have to be objectively true. In that sense, maths is more like fiction, because you often begin with a statement that is pure fantasy, such as ‘consider a perfect circle’ – where the atomic structure of matter says that there can never be such a thing as a perfect circle. But writing, like science, does need to ‘prove’ itself – not under laboratory conditions but in the reader’s mind or life.

So if I write: “Let us create a garden as they did in Findhorn, by consulting the local devas” then I am starting like a mathematician, not like a scientist (who would require proof that devas ‘exist’). But, unlike a mathematician, the final test would be whether the reader liked what I wrote and, above all, whether following my idea and acting ‘as if’ devas existed resulted in a really super garden.

That is the way I learned to write, and how it changed my life.

Website

Wendy Jones

For me writing was a lifesaver, or at least saved me from dying of boredom. Terminal boredom. I took early retirement on health grounds. For someone who worked every hour God sent, this was a bit of a shock. I started writing a book and my life changed completely. The first book was a step on my future journey. Little did I know just where that journey would take me.

In the past four years I have published nine books, edited two and have another coming out in the next two weeks. I have written books for adults, young adults and children, spoken at national and international conferences, started my own crime conference, Crime at the Castle, and present a radio show. I am also the President of the Scottish Association of Writers, secretary of the Society of Authors in Scotland, webmaster for the Association of Christian Writers and Scottish convenor of the Crime Writers Association. I have made friends too numerous to mention and I can honestly say I am no longer bored.

Website

Amazon Author Page

Twitter 

Facebook

Roz Morris

To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve always written, so you might as well ask what I did before I breathed. When I was at school, I wrote, but nobody else did so I thought I was peculiar for enjoying it. Later there was a phase when I wrote but thought I wasn’t doing it ‘properly’ because I did not have the means to become an author. And then, reader, I married an author. Suddenly every new person I met had a book they were writing. That was what I needed.

So I don’t think writing changed my life. I think my life gradually caught up with the writing.

Where to find me – Twitter @Roz_Morris

Website Book

Sydney Segen

As I drove to work one morning in Southern California, time suddenly stood still. An ultra-bright image of dazzling skies flashed in front of my eyes, and a compelling idea popped into my brain: I would start writing children’s novels. Weird? Yes. But it did happen, and I did quit my day job, and I did become a writer.

My career careened among fascinating clients: Zondervan Publishing House, San Diego Zoo, American History Museum, Scholastic, Aneuser-Busch, Inc., The White House, and more. I’m still having so much fun that it’s hard to believe people actually pay me to have a good time. Of course, there were times with no work; I took a ten-year hiatus to work at the University of California; life happened, and I wrote my way through it. Writing not only changed my life, it became my life. And now that I’m old, I just won’t quit.

Facebook: Hope After Trauma and PTSD; Truth Be Told Website: SydneySegen.com

Blog: http://sydneysegen.com/blog/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1984917153/

Helen Prochazka

There are so many ways that writing has changed my life. I love that being an indie author has:

Enabled me to start a new career that can be a global one… in a job that has no retiring age.

Taught me patience and persistence… especially when dealing with software and technology.

Given me the intense pleasure of achieving a long term goal… then realising the work doesn’t stop when the book is published.

Shown me that the days of being an introverted quiet achiever are over… I need to put myself out there to succeed.

Allowed me to discover that I could write poetry… The Mathematics Book contains 14 mathematical poems.

Taught me to be humble in the true sense of the word… and learn to accept compliments graciously.

Given me the opportunity to fulfil my childhood dream of working as a graphic designer… albeit an unpaid one.

Let me interact with indie booksellers… and finding that they are passionate big dreamers just like indie authors.

Exposed me to new people and ideas, even when home alone… it’s akin to travelling.

Provided me with a chance to make a difference… particularly to maths phobic adults!

Facebook Website

Brenda Haire

Writing has changed me and my life in so many ways. My book, Save the Butter Tubs!: Discover Your Worth in a Disposable World is a very personal journey of discovering my worth through writing my grandmother’s story. I absolutely feel I am doing what I was called to do. My goal is to help others discover their worth and transform their lives and legacy.

There was a significant time in my life where I felt absolutely worthless. I still have days, moments where I have to remind myself of whose I am and that He has called me to something bigger than myself. My worth isn’t determined by what I do, it is determined by my Creator. Just like the value of a Van Gogh painting isn’t determined by whose house it hangs in, but by the creator.

I believe that our gifts are the way our soul expresses itself and I am thankful to be able to fully express myself through my writing, speaking, and coaching. For the first time, I feel fully alive! I am doing things I once only dreamed about!

Brenda Speaker, Coach, Author of Save the Butter Tubs: Discover Your Worth in a Disposable World

http://www.BrendaHaire.com http://www.facebook.com/brendaahaire http://www.instagram.com/brendaahaire http://www.twitter.com/brendahaire http://www.pinterest.com/brendaahaire

Walter Boomsma

Writing has changed my life by making me a clearer thinker and a better communicator. But I also think it works both ways. Good thinkers and communicators are destined to write. Good writers are destined to become better thinkers and communicators.

http://wboomsma.com

      James Lawless

It has made me more sedentary and sometimes gives the feeling that while you are analyzing life, you are not always living it.

Website

        Erin McIntyre

Writing has added a new dimension to my life and reinvigorated my childhood imagination. It may take away most (okay, all) free time when not at the day job, but it’s certainly worth every moment. Knowing I’ve built a world for others to lose themselves in is the greatest reward and fills me with a true sense of accomplishment.

Facebook

  Bronwen Griffiths

Writing has given me a purpose in life and even though I often write about difficult social issues such as war and refugees, writing has made me a happier person. Perhaps it’s because writing enables me to immerse myself in the subject and find resolution – which sometimes cannot be found in ‘real’ life.

My website is at: www.bronwengriff.co.uk

Here you can find my blog posts, flash fiction and poems.

  Dixie Maria Carlton

How has writing changed my life? This is a question I ponder from time to time. Usually when I’m talking with others about the difference between being a professional speaker or thought leader, and a professional writer. As a writer, I’m able to locate what’s really in the deeper recesses of my mind and bring those thoughts and ideas to the front, and either share them or refine them.

Writing affords me the opportunity to explore topics of non-fiction and to develop my story telling skills in fiction. I get to get things out of my head and into something tangible what ever it is that I’m writing at any time and for any reason. When you consider the popular idea of doing that which you love and would do without reward because it is an integral part of who you are, for me, I realise that quite simply, I am a writer.

Now, I’m blessed to work in a way that helps other writers to bring their words to life, for the benefit of others. To explore their stories and how best to share them. What a privilige, what a joy that is!

www.authorityauthors.com.au

  Carol Cooper

For a start, I have a notebook to hand at all times, even by my bed, in case an idea pops into my head. However, the most significant changes have been in my working routine.

As a writer, I’m able to work for myself and pick my hours, deadlines permitting. I can choose my workplace too. All I need is a bit of quiet and comfort. Writing is the ultimate portable occupation, especially if, like me, you use pencil and paper for the first draft.

But it’s not all lounging about on a comfy sofa waiting for inspiration to strike. Writing is, as the saying goes, ten per cent inspiration and ninety per cent perspiration, and I believe in working at it just as in any other job.

There’s also been an effect on those around me. As a doctor, I’m used to complete strangers describing their symptoms. Now that I’m also a writer, people seem compelled to share their life story, begging me to include at least some of it in my next book. I haven’t yet, but maybe one day I will…

facebook author page (fiction) Carol Cooper’s London novels https://www.facebook.com/onenightatthejacaranda/ instagram https://www.instagram.com/drcarolcooper/ website www.drcarolcooper.com blog Pills and Pillow-Talk twitter @DrCarolCooper

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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Thanks for contributing to this week’s Roundup.

Roundups are great way for a group of people to co-promote. By aggressively sharing the Roundup article, you help people find you on the Internet, and you also help your fellow authors. What could be better than that?

Contributing to these weekly roundups is an easy way for you to help build your following over time.

Here are some quick tips to help you maximize the value of the Roundup. By performing a few simple actions, you can gain new followers, create some buzz about your books, and perhaps even make a few sales.

Review your answer to the roundup question and let me know if anything needs to be corrected.

Please add a comment to the end of the round up article. Perhaps you can clarify some point of your answer or add to somebody else’s answer. An important reason to add a comment is that you will be notified if anyone else comments on the roundup. This gives you an opportunity to find new people who might be useful to you. Feel free to answer any questions or address any comments in the comment section.

You can use the buttons at the bottom of the article to post the roundup to your social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. It’s best to put some introductory text in the post explaining to your social followers what the article is about and your contribution to it. if you tag me where possible, I can respond to your post as well. be sure to tag anyone you specifically would like to see your contribution. Posting to social media gets people to the article so that they can read your answer, and possibly click through to your website or Facebook page.

Where the rules allow it, post the article to any groups that are applicable.

You’ll also see a button where you can send the page via email. If there’s anybody specific that you want to get a copy of your post, you can use this button.

if you have an email list, you can send a link to the article to it.

To help other authors, if you want, go ahead and like their Facebook page if they listed it in the answer to their question. This is a great help to other authors because the more likes a page receives, the more Facebook shows off that page to others.

If the authors listed links to their blogs, you might go ahead and read an article or two and leave a comment on their blog to help them out.

My intention is to publish these round of questions weekly.

If you contribute to answer regularly, you’ll find that you gain readers and followers over time. Besides, I think it’s fun to contribute to read everybody’s answers.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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Goals.

We all know we should set goals, but why? What makes setting a goal important? And why would writers need goals anyway?

Sure, every new year it’s common practice to do what are called New Year’s resolutions, which are basically setting goals for the coming year. Many of us set goals such as how much weight we want to use, how much money to make, or what habits we want to stop.

How often have you kept your New Year’s resolutions?

If you are anything like me, I’m quite serious about keeping them for a week or two, maybe a month. After that, life gets in the way and I tend to forget about them. That doesn’t mean the goals weren’t important, it just means that other things got in the way.

That’s why a lot of my goals appear as part of my resolutions year after year.

The Importance Of Goal Setting

A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envisions, plans and commits to achieve.[1] People endeavor to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. – Wikipedia

Simply put, when you plan for the future, you are setting a goal. It doesn’t matter if you’re planning what to get someone for Christmas, how much weight to lose or to get a project done or a milestone met. Any time you decide you want to do something in the future, to achieve an end result, you’ve set a goal.

But why do you set goals anyway?

To Define An Objective

Defining an objective, to be achieved in a certain time, gives you something to shoot for. it creates a way to focus your attention on something that you want to get done.

To Be Able To Filter Tasks

If you’re like most people, you get hit all day long with potentially hundreds of different tasks. This could be anything from washing the dishes to working on a particular paper to writing a memo to digging a ditch. Sometimes the number of things to do can get so large that it becomes overwhelming – it’s not possible to get everything done in a day when you consider all of the social media distractions, family life, work life, and everything else going on.

Setting goals give you away to filter through all of those activities to determine which of them you need to do to make progress toward your goals. Those that don’t help you reach your goals can probably be discarded or at least lowered in priority.

To Keep You Motivated

By setting a goal, you make yourself accountable to achieve it. you have a responsibility to meet those targets that you need to accomplish to achieve your goals. Without goals and their associated time frames and milestones, it can be easy to get distracted and procrastinate.

To Measure Progress

Having a definite goal that you measure your progress towards the goal. For example, if I decide to lose 20 pounds within six months, I know that I need to lose a little over 3 pounds each month. This lets me measure how well I am doing against the goal. if I find I’m not losing enough weight, I can quickly make adjustments to my exercise or diet so that I can meet the target.

Why Goals Are Important For Writers

Goal setting is especially important for writers and other creative people.

Sometimes it can be difficult to focus on writing. There is always something else to tempt away from creating stories or articles.

Social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter and other places is always there and often contains apparently fascinating conversations and communications. It’s easy to get distracted by the vast amount of social media noise that occurs every hour of every day. Setting goals can effectively lower the importance of being distracted on social media and raise the importance of writing.

For example, as I write this article, I’m noticing messages posting on my Facebook wall or my LinkedIn page. The temptation is to go check those out. Somebody might have something important to say. Lord only knows what I might miss – who knows, maybe somebody sneezed inappropriately.

Family life can also serve as a distraction. Setting goals for your writing can allow you to differentiate and focus in spite of all of the chaotic things that tend to go on in families.

You get the idea?

My Writing Goals

One of my goals is to write a minimum of 8,000 words every single day. I write a couple of articles for total of 2,000 words, 2,000 words for clients, 2,000 words for my books and stories, and 2,000 words for my training books. That’s a lot of words to write six days a week! I tend to write about 2,000 words an hour, and then spend another hour reviewing, proofreading and massaging those words until they are ready for publication or sending to a client. That works out to eight hours a day of solid productive time (with a few minutes here and there for breaks).

I also need to promote, since I’m a freelancer, and to sell my books and training products. I allocate about four more hours each day for promotion and marketing activities.

These are actually tasks that I do to meet my goals.

I try to work on four ghostwritten books at a time. this gives me a good, steady income, and that requires writing about 2,000 words for my clients every single day. That works out to about 50,000 words a month.

Another goal is to publish one short Kindle eBook each week. Those are between 10,000 and 12,000 words long each.

Because I like to help other authors, I produced one training book each week on a different subject. That works out to about 12,000 words a week.

Finally, I write guest posts and various articles for my own blog, on Medium, and for other websites in order to build up my presence on the web and on social media. That takes up the rest of my writing goal each day.

Don’t worry, I don’t overwork myself because I take every Sunday off entirely. No writing or anything related to writing is done on Sunday.

These goals and the targets I set for my production might seem to be a bit aggressive. However, writing is my passion and I have things that I want to accomplish a regular basis in order to maintain an income, and build a presence and reputation in my field.

Your Goals

Obviously, you will come up with their own goals. Perhaps you already have.

You want to finish one book this year? Get it published and out into bookstores and on Amazon? Then figure out how many words per day you need to write, edit, proofread and so on. Remember all of the other tasks associated with self-publishing including promotion, marketing, building a presence, networking, and so on. Define tasks to meet your targets, and then start doing them. Don’t let anything stand in your way and you’ll meet your goal.

Do you want to be a freelancer and produce writing for clients? in that case, many of your goals will be driven by the client. What do they want, when do they need it finished, and what quality do they need? These are all questions that you will need to asked to define goals that pertain to each client. Don’t forget that you need to do promotion and marketing to get new clients – and that needs to be done every day, all the time.

Regardless of what you want to accomplish, set realistic goals, and then work to meet them. If you find you can’t meet them, they figure out why and take corrective action.

Are your goals too aggressive?

Are you allowing yourself to get distracted?

Are they the right goals?

Have your goals changed?

Are you running into difficulties meeting your goals because of lack of knowledge, experience or training?

Whatever the reason you’re not meeting your goals, you can find a solution. Just take a good, objective look as to why, and then come up with a way to handle it. If the goal is too aggressive, then change the goal. If distractions are causing you not to meet your goals, then figure out a way to cut down distractions. If the goals are wrong, they make new ones.

You see how that works?

Conclusions

Setting and meeting goals is one of the most important ways to keep yourself on track to become an accomplished and successful writer.

Goals are a tool designed to help you. They’re not a straitjacket, and they shouldn’t be onerous.

Make sure you leave time to enjoy life.

If you define good goals and accomplish the tasks needed to achieve them, you’ll gain the happiness associated with doing what you set out to do.

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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Every entrepreneur should self-publish a book, because having a book is the new business card. If you want to stand out, you need to show your expertise. Publishing a book is not just putting your thoughts on a blog post. It’s an event. It shows your best curated thoughts and it shows customers, clients, investors, friends and lovers what the most important things on your mind are right now. – James Altucher, Why Every Entrepreneur Should Self-Publish a Book

Why should you, an entrepreneur, write a book? To elevate your business and your reputation far above the rest of the pack. By writing a book, you plant your stake into the ground, effectively saying, “I know what I’m doing, and this book is the proof!”

[infographic below]

Authors are among the most respected people in the world. Publishing a book establishes your credibility about the subject at hand. Of course, this assumes the book is well written – a poorly written book will have the opposite effect!

I wrote my own book, Focus on LinkedIn, which gave me tremendous credibility on that subject. The book even became an Amazon Kindle bestseller, rising to #54 for a day out of all Kindle books, which gave me even more credibility. At a recent trade show, people I’ve never met introduced me as “a bestselling author of a book about LinkedIn.” This helps increase sales on my freelance consulting services, and firmly established me as a serious LinkedIn Branding Expert.

Credibility – Establish your credibility by writing a book. By being the author of an entire book about your subject, you explicitly say, “I know my stuff so well that I literally wrote this book about it.” Ensure you provide useful information – background, history, your story and so on.

To further establish your credibility, include references to other materials, not written by you, to back up your claims and substantiate your information. Make sure these references are in themselves credible and primary sources. Do not reference weak sources such as Wikipedia or other Wiki-type sites. They are widely regarded as unreliable sources.

Authority – By the mere fact of having written and published a book, you establish that you are an authority on the subject. Authors are perceived as experts, and this creates opportunities for speaking, interviews, and so on.

Establishes you as the expert – This goes right along with credibility and authority. You wrote a book, so you are the expert. Let’s say you have five companies offering coaching services in the same niche or market. Your book gives you an advantage over the others competing against you.

Lets you tell your story – You’ve got a story to tell. How did you get to where you are today? When and how did you start your business? What barriers did you overcome? Your customers, prospects, suppliers and others will all be interested in finding out how you became so important that you wrote a book.

Makes it easier to get media coverage – When you ask for coverage from the media, you can add that you are the author of a book about your subject. This helps getting interviews, makes press releases more powerful and helps land you mentions in the various news outlets such as HARO.

Gives people something to talk about – Leave your book around your office, in your lobby, and bring it with you to speaking events, networking events and so on. You’ll find it becomes a conversation piece. Use it to get people talking about your book.

Explain why you wrote it

Tell them why you are the expert

Explain what it is about

And you can give them a copy, making a great show of signing it with a personal note. You can bet that book will be saved, and as you get more famous they will show it off to their friends and coworkers.

Basis for other services and products – Many books are used as the basis for selling other services and products. With a book, you can easily coach people on the same subject, teach classes in your local university, college or other school, give speeches at networking and other events, and so on.  You can also use it to establish your credibility for recommending products, or even creating your own.

Gets you speaking engagements – Once you write and publish a book, and even when it’s in process, you can use it to get speaking engagements, interviews and appearances on podcasts. When you ask to appear, mention you are the author of your book. This gives you instant credibility and immediately makes you an authority on your subject. You’ll find that having a book of your own makes it far more likely that you’ll get accepted whenever you ask. You may even find yourself being asked to appear as well.

Helps with taxes – Since you created your book for business purposes, remember that you can write off the entire expense. Every penny that you spend is tax deductible.

Ghostwriting services

Travel expenses

Research expenses

Costs of making illustrations

Costs of book covers, proofreading and anything else related to your book

Just remember to get a W4 form (or the equivalent if your business is outside the United States) from anyone you work with and pay $600 or more. Those W4’s should all be sent to your accountant, along with the amount spent, when you do your taxes.

One caution though: generally, you will not make more than a small amount from selling your book on Amazon or even in bookstores. You will almost certainly not make back anywhere close to your investment from book sales alone.

But that’s not the reason to write a book. Your book is your brand, your credibility and your authority. Any sales of the book are like frosting on the cake.

Can’t write a book yourself because you’re not a writer or don’t have the time?

Hire a ghostwriter to do it for you! Contact The Writing King for a free consultation today.

Click here to contact The Writing King to discuss your project today!

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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How can I promote my book?

That’s the question I get asked the most by many authors.

I put that question out to a few authors in my network, and here were the responses.

Click on a photo to go directly to the author’s Facebook page.

Alex Klaushofer

The best thing I did to promote my first self-published book was to seek endorsements from people with authority or expertise in the area I was writing on: https://alexklaushofer.com/author-books-nonfiction/author-secret-life-god/

Whereas the other tip very much relied on my experience of traditional publishing, this was a new idea that occurred to me only after I’d self-published a book. Although my work isn’t very commercial, the midterm pubs have definitely scooped up some readers who wouldn’t have bought the whole book.

Website: Alex Klaushofer

Jo Ullah

The best thing to promote my book was ARC readers. When I won Kindle Scout my book was released before publication date to readers who had voted for it. Some of those then wrote reviews which were put up with my novel on Amazon with the pre-order info. These reviews made my book hit the ground running.

Website: Jo Ullah

Clare Flynn

It’s always hard to pick one thing but I’m going to say the best thing I’ve done to promote my books is writing the next book. As well as offering a larger body of work, each book can lead readers to the next one, courtesy of back matter. This is true even when you don’t write a series. But it’s not enough to just slap out lots of books – you need to lavish care and attention on each one. Eventually readers will start to recognise what makes your books different and special and you will start to create fans. Then when they write to you, always write back – treat them as valued friends. Last month one new reader worked her way through my entire eight novels reviewing each one in succession. That kind of following is pure gold!

Website: Clare Flynn

Kyle Waller

I’d say the best thing for me in terms of promoting my book is sheerly networking and partnering with fellow individuals who share like-minded goals. For me, this is particularly easy with my ambition to erase the stigma surrounding mental illness (as those who also wish to do so are abnormally more so passionate than most people about their goals). Many of the pieces are still being formed, but in time, the exposure from upcoming documentaries and people who’re interested in erasing the stigma who also have extensive marketing experience will prove to be an invaluable asset.

Facebook: Kyle Waller

Mike Sahno

Best thing I’ve done to promote my books: customized blog tour. I reached out to bloggers and reviewers in both the U.S. and U.K. to create a blog tour. It kicked off on my book launch date. The resulting increase in conversions led to my largest spike in e-book sales.

Website: Mike Sahno

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MikeSahno

          Alison Morton

I think the best approach to marketing is threefold: persistence, not pestering, being open-minded and flexible and making a plan. You are not going to please everybody with your wonderful book, so while promoting it, pull back when you are not getting anywhere and move on to the next step in your plan.

Roma Nova site  Alison Morton’s Writing Blog Facebook author page Twitter: @alison_morton Goodreads Alison’s Amazon page

  Carol Cooper

The best thing I ever did to promote my novels was to build up local interest. This worked best for my second novel, which I named Hampstead Fever, after the part of London in which I live, and where the book is set. Local press covered the launch in Hampstead, and that created demand in local bookshops including Waterstones. From there, I was able to interest other bookstores further afield, including the flagship Waterstones in Piccadilly, London. It snowballed, and I was able to get a sought-after front-of-store promotion in WH Smiths travel bookstores.

Blog Facebook page Carol Cooper’s London Novels Twitter  Website

James Lawless

I think a physical book launch helped most but it takes a lot of effort. I launched my novel Finding Penelope in a bookshop and the bookshop stocked it thus enhancing sales and publicity.

Website

      Dixie Maria Carlton

You have to tell stories… in order to get the kind of customers you MOST want to do business with, you need to connect with them, in a way they can fully relate to. This is where sharing the stories of who you are, what you do, and the reason for your why is so important. Ad to that the examples of success experienced by your other customers through case studies and testimonials. Those experiences are the intangible but highest value parts of your brand.

Website

Jean Gill

Five days after release for pre-order, Life After Men, co-written with Karen Charlton, has a #1 tag as an amazon Hot New Release so the question is, what worked best? We drew up a publishing and launch calendar, clarifying who would do what and when. All promotion and publicity worked backwards from the date we would have a final cover, so booking our wonderful cover designer, Jessica Bell, in advance, was crucial. Assuming everything is in place re quality, the one factor I’d highlight is metadata. It really is worth spending time on categories, keywords and book descriptions, with understanding of how readers search. I emailed amazon.com and amazon.co uk separately with my ten chosen categories and that works much better than the measly two big categories you’re offered in the KDP publishing dashboard! If, like us, you’re publishing ‘wide’, the same principle applies to the different interfaces of each distribution site. Boring but important!

Website

Helen Prochazka

The best thing I have done so far is to build relationships with booksellers, the educator’s community and anyone who buys the book directly from me. I am fortunate that several dozen booksellers around Australia stock The Mathematics Book and if they have any special requests such as a signed copy, I do it. The power of them handselling the book (One bookstore in my home town has sold more than 500 copies of what is a rather unusual book to be their No 1 non-fiction bestseller for almost 3 months. Even Bill Bryson didn’t knock it off!)

Facebook

Website

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

| Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest |