Resources for Authors

Posted in author tips by heatherbwriter

When people find out I’m an author who originally published independently, they often ask me how they can get started. I therefore thought it would be useful to put a few suggestions together in a document. I’m reproducing them here on the blog in the hope that they might help other new authors.

KDP Select – This is the Amazon site for authors, which enables you to publish your book independently. The help pages https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200798990 have a wealth of information about the whole process and the way in which Amazon works. They can be explored from the menu on the left-hand side of the screen.

price-tag Price Point – I used to price my books at £1.99 as an independent author and that seems like a popular price for books published independently although some are priced at £2.99. For Amazon promotions books are usually priced at either 99p or free for a day. There is a qualifying period for how long the book would have to have been at full price before the promotion so it is best to check this out via KDP Select where you will find all the other details of how their promotions work.

Proofreading and Editing – This is really important before you begin to get your book out to a wider audience. Some reviewers are really picky, and they will find any excuse to give a bad review. You don’t want negative reviews of an otherwise great book just because of proofreading or grammatical errors that can be easily corrected.

Editors are useful for giving you an objective view of your book and pointing out things that you might have missed. Publishers usually appoint a structural editor, a copy editor and a proof-reader so the book goes through a series of checks and improvements research before it is published. If your budget is tight then I would say you need your book proofread as an absolute minimum.

NB You should also ensure that all text on your book’s Amazon page is proofread as this is the first thing the reader sees, and it could affect their purchasing decision.

David Gaughran – I can’t recommend this guy enough. He publishes books on Amazon (the Let’s Get Publishing series). These cover the entire journey from publication to promotion and advertising. He also has a blog at: https://davidgaughran.com/blog and publishes regular newsletters, which you can sign up to on the home page of his website.

Readers in the Know – When you run a promotion with Amazon you need to shout about it, and there are promotion websites specifically for this. Readers in the Know points you to numerous websites of this type but if you pay to join you can also promote your books on this site. The page with a list of promotion websites is at: https://www.readersintheknow.com/list-of-book-promotion-sites.

Sandra Beckwith – Similar website to David Gaughran but with a US bias

The Publicity Hound – Similar website to David Gaughran and Sandra Beckwith but with a US bias and not just for authors. NB These two are easy to find in Google search.

Amazon Exclusivity – In order to run promotions with Amazon you must publish exclusively with Amazon, but I think the advantages of doing this far outweigh the disadvantages as they have more than 80% of the digital market. Exclusivity is only for a limited period though and you can deselect this option once you reach the end of the qualifying period for your promotion – details are at KDP Select.

Going Wide – If you want to publish on more digital platforms e.g., Kobo, the easiest and quickest way to do it is with Draft 2 Digital (https://www.draft2digital.com/) which enables you to publish to several different platforms at once.

Trilogy Print Books – It is also possible to publish print books via Amazon. Their print publishing arm used to be called CreateSpace, but I believe it is all now done via KDP Select. However, as their print books are print on demand, they are expensive to produce so you have to set a high sale price to make any profit. For example, my print on demand books are priced at around £12.99 on Amazon whereas my books that have had a mass market print run are priced at around £7.99 or less. You used to be able to calculate price, profit etc. on CreateSpace but I’m not sure how this is now done as it was 5 years ago when I published my own.

Facebook Ads and Amazon Ads – It is also possible to advertise your books on Facebook and Amazon. However, to advertise your books on Facebook you will need to set up an author page first. David Gaughran’s articles often give details of how to do these things.

Social Media – You can also shout about your books on social media. I have a Facebook author page and a Twitter page, but other authors have other social media platforms such as Instagram.

I hope you find these ideas useful but apologise if any of them are out of date. Now that I’m with a publisher, most of this gets taken care of for me and it’s a few years since I had to take care of everything myself. Good luck with your publishing journey.

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24Jul2018

My New Office

Posted in Authors by heatherbwriter

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for some time. It’s now eight months since I moved house and I’ve set up an office in the back of the house so I thought I’d share some pictures with you. The room is actually a small conservatory which was lovely and cosy in the winter but has been too hot in the current climate. Fortunately I’m on Google Drive so I’ve been able to upload my work to the cloud and work on my laptop in a cooler part of the house.

Although I’ve had blinds fitted to all the windows in the office and a screen guard to stop glare from the sun, what I really need is a roof blind. It’s on my list of things still to do/buy in my new home and I expect that by next summer I’ll be sorted. Then, if it’s still too hot I’ll probably add a small air conditioning unit. Apart from that the only other thing I want to change is to swap the large cabinet for a smaller one as it dominates the room at the moment. However, that would mean yet another clear out and I’ve had enough of those for the time being.

I’m one of those writers who is happiest having a separate area of the home where I can work uninterrupted. There is always so much to do when you move house but at least for now I’ve got a work space which is comfortable most of the time, and which has the potential to be a pleasant, self-contained work area in the future.

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20Dec2017

A Message to Aspiring Authors – Don’t Give Up

Posted in Authors by heatherbwriter

As the end of another year approaches I thought it would be good to write a blog post which might give encouragement to other authors. I recently read a post about famous authors who were initially rejected but then went on to be successful. Most of us have heard of authors who were initially rejected but it’s always encouraging to find out more about them. You can read the post here.

It made me think of my own journey. Admittedly, I’m nowhere near in the same league as the authors mentioned in the above post but this past year or so has seen a big turnaround in my writing career. In August of 2016 I signed a contract with Aria Fiction at Head of Zeus, and subsequently published my first book Born Bad with them on 1^st July of this year. They have been excellent to work for and I’m looking forward to the launch of my second novel with them in March 2018, which is entitled Blood Ties and is already available to pre-order from Amazon.

So, back to the beginning. I started writing in 1999 when I began studying for a writing diploma with the Writer’s Bureau in Manchester although I had dabbled in a bit of poetry prior to that. The course was very comprehensive and took me until 2002 to complete.

As part of the course, students were encouraged to submit their work to agents, magazines etc. depending on the particular module being studied. It was during that time that I submitted the first three chapters and a synopsis of my first novel Slur to various agents except that, at that time, the novel was called Nightclubbin’ and had a chic lit feel to it.

Despite rejections I continued working on the novel and completed it. Then, becoming a bit disillusioned with the number of rejections I received, I put it on the backburner but swore I would return to it one day.

It actually took me 15 years before I eventually returned to my first novel. In the meantime I had changed the title and a lot of the plot and it became a crime novel.

I have documented much of the journey towards getting Slur published in previous blog posts entitled The Story of Slur and My Favourite Rejection Letter if you want to take a look. Throughout that period I read as much as I could about the craft of writing, the publishing industry (which has undergone many changes in that time) and how to promote your work.

Prior to publishing Slur independent publishing really took off and I decided to publish two parenting books. I had already drawn up an outline for one of them as part of the studies for my writing course, and I thought it had potential. It was called Kids’ Clubs and Organisations and I followed it with Great Places for Kids’ Parties.

Both of the books took up a great deal of time and effort especially the second one, which I published in colour. Unfortunately both books bombed despite one of them being featured on a well-known parenting site. They sold less than a hundred copies each, most of which were through public libraries and entailed a lot of effort in getting to the right people then sending the copies on. Apart from the library sales the books sold no more than a handful each, and left me feeling deflated after all the effort I had put in.

After I published Slur, I instantly saw a different reaction amongst friends and families and it was much better received than the two parenting books. Feeling encouraged, I went on to publish a further two novels, A Gangster’s Grip and Danger by Association, and the three books form a trilogy. I eventually made the decision to withdraw the two parenting books from the market, which I wrote about in the article entitled Why I’m Withdrawing my Parenting Books.

Despite being well received, Slur wasn’t a success straightaway. I held a promotion at the end of 2015, and made Slur free for a few days. I paid to advertise the promotion on various sites and, to my delight, this led to a dramatic increase in sales of Slur and the two other books in the trilogy. Subsequently the rank of the books improved on Amazon making them visible to more readers and also to publishers.

The improved rank only held for about six months, after which time the sales slipped again in a matter of weeks. I tried subsequent promotions but wasn’t able to emulate the success of the first one. Fortunately for me, however, the temporary improvement in rank had enabled my books to come to the attention of my publishers who approached me to discuss my work. This in turn led to me signing a three book contract with Aria Fiction in August 2016.

If you are an independent author and want to find out how to promote your books, there is a lot of information available on the Internet and in book form. In particular, I recommend Let’s Get Visible by David Gaughran as a very useful guide. Sandra Beckwith also has a very helpful website at: https://buildbookbuzz.com/ where you can sign up for a newsletter with lots of free tips on book promotion. You may also find the ALLi website useful at: https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/.

It has been a long journey to gaining that publishing contract but ultimately a very gratifying one. And it isn’t over yet. On 1^st March I will be publishing my second book with Aria, Blood Ties, which is already available for pre-order and is the second part of a trilogy. Then I’ll be publishing the third and final novel in the trilogy later next year.

Once the three books are published I have no idea what lies in store but I have many ideas for other novels and hope to continue writing and publishing books for many years to come. The future is a bit scary as I now depend totally on writing books for my income. However, the future is also tremendously exciting.

If you’re currently feeling disillusioned, having written a book or more and not yet seeing the rewards for all your hard work, don’t give up. Immerse yourself in as much information as you can relating to both the craft of writing and the promotional side of things. Then keep on going until you reach your end goal.

I’d like to end this blog post by wishing a Merry Christmas to all my blog readers and a very successful 2018.

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15Aug2017

My First Year with a Publisher

Posted in Authors by heatherbwriter

It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since I signed my publishing contract with Aria Fiction at Head of Zeus. A lot has happened in that time and the year seems to have flown by. So, I thought it was a good time to reflect on the past year and look ahead to what is in store in the future.

Progress so Far

At the time of writing Born Bad is currently ranked 82 on Amazon UK out of over 5 million books, and for the last couple of weeks it has hovered around the 100 mark. The highest rank it has achieved so far was 58 on two occasions. It has also received some excellent reviews. Needless to say, I am absolutely thrilled as it has exceeded all my expectations.

I am gaining a growing fan base which is wonderful to see. People are going on to read my other books as well as signing up to my mailing list and following me on social media.

At the moment I am polishing up book two so that I can send it to my publishers in a few weeks’ time, and it will soon be available for pre-order on Amazon.

What I’ve Learned

Working with a publisher means that there are lots of tight deadlines to meet. However, this is good for me as I am usually a massive procrastinator and it has made me become more self-disciplined with my writing routine.

It is wonderful to have the knowledge and support of a professional publisher which has been brilliant in terms of editing, marketing and promotion. Marketing encompasses a whole spectrum of activity from cover design to the book blurb and everything after that. At every stage it is specifically tailored to reach the target readership.

In terms of promotion, I have found that ads on large reader websites do work provided they are targeted, and this is one aspect in which my publishers have a wealth of knowledge and experience. A good publisher can also reach areas that I couldn’t have reached as an independent author e.g. the Amazon Summer Sale, which features only a few hundred books out of the millions available on Amazon UK.

Support

No matter what questions I have, my publishers are always on hand with help and advice. I am also connecting with other Aria authors who are a friendly, supportive bunch and I am discovering some great books that have been written by them. I still also keep in touch with some of my Indie author friends who have been very supportive over the years.

Future Plans

The second book in the trilogy will be published at the end of this year/beginning of next although it will be available for pre-order on Amazon long before that. The third and final book in the trilogy will be published next summer.

After that, I would love to work with Aria again provided we can agree terms. I have a lot of ideas for other crime novels which I am looking forward to writing in the future.

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31Mar2015

Why do you Love Being an Author?

Posted in Authors by heatherbwriter

During a recent email chat with an author friend we were discussing how frustrated we become when other work pulls us away from writing our novels. I commented that it was probably because other work didn’t give us the same sense of satisfaction as writing novels. This led me to thinking – just what is it about being an author that is so satisfying? So I thought it would be interesting to try to pin down some of the reasons:

Escapism – When writing a novel you can escape into your own world which can be anything you want it to be. That does beg the question – why is my writing world full of violence, bad language and warped characters, and why does that give me so much satisfaction? Hmmm!

Creativity – I gain a sense of fulfilment in having created something from nothing and I’ve no doubt it’s the same for other authors. Your book is like your baby that you feel proud of and it gives you that special feeling of having nurtured it from start to finish. A lot of us are familiar with the buzz of holding the print version of our own book in our hands or seeing it on the shelf in our local book store or library.

Reader Satisfaction – It’s lovely to receive feedback from readers and know that somebody has enjoyed one of your books.

Organisation and Planning – In the (non-writing) world of work, good organisation was always one of my strengths and I think that both non-fiction and fiction books require good organisation skills. You have to be able to plan the chapters, and carefully interweave the main plot and sub-plots. Organisation and planning are also important in achieving a good balance with the pacing of a novel. Because of my organised nature I actually enjoy these challenges.

Kudos – If I’m honest it’s always flattering when people take an interest in what I do although I also get a little embarrassed sometimes. Even though there are increasing numbers of people publishing books, it still attracts a lot of attention when you say that you have written and published a book.

Huge Potential for Financial Gain – Yes, there’s a golden carrot dangling on the end of that metaphorical piece of string. The trouble is, every time you try to grasp the carrot, somebody yanks the string and you find you’ve got a bit further to go until you reach your reward. But as long as we can see the carrot, we’ll keep trying to grab it.

I’m speaking for the majority of authors, of course. There are some who are already reaping large financial rewards, which provides further encouragement for the rest of us.

Now for the things I don’t love so much:

I don’t think I’m very good at the whole marketing and promotion thing. I’ve never been one for selling myself. I’d rather shy away and get on with my writing but I expect a lot of authors are like that, which is probably why we choose to do what we do.

The other negative aspect for me is that there aren’t enough hours in the day. This is another one that I often hear other authors complain about, especially independent authors. It would be wonderful if we could devote all of our working hours to writing and have somebody else take care of all the promotion, editing, proofreading and formatting etc. but for most of us that isn’t feasible.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one. What is it about being an author that you love or are there any aspects of being an author that you’re not so keen on?

Anyone fancy a carrot?

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