As a member of Indie Scriptorium one of our duties is to write and publish blogs on aspects of writing, editing, publishing or marketing every three weeks. Two years later we are doing a review of our blogs with the idea of putting them into an anthology.
As we currently only have three members the task of blogging has proved to be onerous. We would love to have some new members but …. Coming up with a topic, doing the research, writing 500-1000 words that make sense can be challenging. Making sure the blog is professionally written, properly edited and provides valuable information can be time consuming.
Indie Scriptorium has posted over a hundred blogs in two years. We have a following of 70 people and occasionally get positive feedback with likes from Facebook. Friends from my writing groups have also said they read the blogs and find them helpful. Yay.
But is the time and effort worthwhile for a busy writer who would rather be working on their next novel or short story?
I was recently asked where I find the time to blog? I responded without thinking. Oh, it’s a pain but I actually get a lot out of blogging. And on reflection that is true.
Doing a regular blog means that I am constantly researching writing skills, how to edit, what steps do you need to do to publish a book do a cover and burb, write a synopsis and market a book. (I need to do more research on this topic) In addition I have learnt about the legal, moral and technical issues to do with writing.
Looking back, I’ve realised that blogging has improved my writing style, made me a better editor and critique partner, has got me two books published and will in the future get my books marketed. The blogs have been like a course in creative writing, done with good friends and we have people who find our efforts helpful. We also will have a book of blogs later in the year for people to buy in the near future. That’s enough good reasons to keep me going.
[After another debacle involving technology last Friday which sent the world into a tailspin, I have brought Elsie King’s “rant”, I mean, reflections on her tussle with technology, forward one week. It was my turn, but after my own wrangling with Windows 11 in the midst of the aforementioned debacle, while producing my art group’s newsletter, I had had enough for one week…so here’s Elsie’s take on technology. ~ Lee-Anne Marie Kling ]
Technology Roadblocks
I came to computing later in life. When I went to university, we didn’t have computers and had to do all our research in libraries from books or journals. I wrote my first novel on an electric typewriter. I probably bought my first computer when I was in my forties.
I started using computers at work, then got a home computer and I slowly got more confident at using one. Then came the smart phones, social media, Google, on-line banking and passwords, passwords, passwords.
Sometimes it feels you only have to blink and something new appears. We now have AI and everything is linked and we can talk to technology and get our heater turned on when we are on the bus home. It seems to me that younger people who grew up with technology fare better with these rapid changes, better than people who didn’t.
Technology makes so many things easier for an author. Research is amazingly fast, getting a book self-published to Amazon, a website on WIX or having an author page is complex but doable. However, technology can also cause so many problems for the unwary.
I have recently self-published my second novelA Suitable Bride. It should have been a joyous occasion but problems with the technology wasted my time and caused distress. My first problem occurred when I decided to get an author page on Meta (I still call it Facebook). I set up one, was happy with the result but then tried to publish my blog from my website on the new author page. Didn’t work.
I’ve never had problems before with uploading a blog to Facebook and I needed to blog to market my new novel. I tried to sort it out with Meta but had no idea what the first step was. I found out the new Facebook business page is set up for marketing and once they have you hooked, they won’t easily let you go. I googled, explored my Facebook account and got into a chat line but couldn’t find the delete button. After hours of wasted time, a friend suggested I try unsubscribing. Finally, back to my old classic Facebook page.
Tried again to get my WIX website blog onto Facebook. No luck. After many wasted hours I found a phone number. Yay a lifeline for the technologically challenged. WIX represented by Jerry in America proved to be magnificent. I’m on an Apple she was on a PC which brought in another level of complication but after an hour we got it sorted. However, a week later and another blog and couldn’t post it again. Back to WIX helpline when I have the time.
My third technology glitch occurred when I uploaded my novel to Amazon. I have previously published with Kindle Direct Publishing, and I have sold a few copies of my novel on-line. I have a wonderful ASIN link for my first novel A Suitable Heirhttps://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0CB52VT16
It works. Try it, just press the link and like magic you get to the Amazon page, and you can purchase my novel. Yay.
I was provided with another link for my second novel A Suitable Bride
And guess what? It doesn’t work.
I have no idea why? I have no idea how to fix it and finding help that doesn’t go round and round in a useless chat appears to be beyond Amazon.
IF ANYONE WHO READS THIS CAN HELP, PLEASE MAKE A COMMENT AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG.
Not being able to get usable links for my book means readers who want an e-book from Amazon can’t be linked from my website. I have been invited to release my book on various platforms but as I don’t have a usable link, I’ve put on-line marketing on hold and I’m concentrating physical book sales of author copies for family and friends.
You can get a print copy and an e-book through Draft2Digital whose links work worldwide. So, if you wish to order A Suitable Bride, please use the D2d link.
Thanks, Draft2digital because your link is working just fine.
Modern technology is brilliant and awful. When it works well it is time saving, easy and helps authors get their stories and ideas into print. When something goes wrong it is a time- wasting nightmare and definitely acts as a roadblock when trying to market your book. The services for getting help are difficult to negotiate and much of the language and instructions used expects a much higher level of computer competence than is available to this little black duck. I will keep on trying to sort this out, but it has been a series of roadblocks that is making my journey much more difficult than expected.
So, you’ve written your book, edited and polished it. It’s ready for the world to see. But how do you get your book out there, so that the world can see it? Rather than repeat the wisdom of many writers and bloggers who have come before me, I will summarise the avenues of publicity from my experience and research over the years. For more information, you can click on the links provided throughout this post.
Library—You may want money for your labour of blood, sweat and words, but your local library is a good place to start for making your book, if it is a hard copy, visible. There’s something about local authors and people who are interested in reading the world created by someone who lives in their community. If you are part of a writers’ group who meet in a local library, the library is only too happy to receive one of your books to put on their shelves.
In Australia we have Australian Library Services, an organisation who distribute books to libraries throughout Australia. One point to keep in mind when submitting your book to ALS, ensure that the quality of the printing is good, as a poorer quality book will not last the distance in the rigours of repeated borrowing.
Another point to keep in mind in Australia is that you are required to submit or register your book with your State Library and National Library. In the old days you had to trek into town to your State Library and deliver the book to them personally. Nowadays the National Library of Australia (NLA) has a website where you are able to upload your book for registration. I was interested to discover that NLA has been developing an online digital publication tool Trove where a treasure of historical and recent publications can be found. Another avenue where someone finds your book.
2. Family and Friends—never underestimate the value of family and friends to benefit from your book. Make the most of gatherings with loved ones or social outings to share your recent accomplishment (your book) in the hope that they will buy a copy. If not, your book maybe a handy gift for birthdays and Christmas.
3. Bookshops—Mainline bookshops and even small boutique ones can be a teeny bit snobby when it comes to accepting Indie-produced books for their shelves. Mostly, these sacred shelves are reserved for the books from traditional publishers. But, it’s worth a try. I had a friend who travelled down this footpath with her book and with perseverance and her gift of salespersonship, she was able to get the vendors of some big booksellers to stock her book. Even made some sales. She said the downside of having her books in the bookshops is that it can take some months for the books to sell, so no profit until they do. Added to that was that some bookshops sold the book and “forgot” to pay her.
4. Writers’ Fellowships or Genre Group such as Australian Society of Authors, or Romance Writers of Australia can provide support for your work and an avenue and ready audience to receive/buy your work. After all, if you are part of a Writers’ Group, they, who have helped you produce the book will only be too willing to receive a copy (probably free as they helped you, didn’t they). That being said, they have family and friends who may like a copy too and pay for it.
5. Online Publishing Platforms: eg. Goodreads, Smashwords, Amazon—I personally have published my books through Amazon. As the biggest online retailer, and the fact that I found uploading the book to Kindle and also the facility to have my books printed, made it a no-brainer for me. One thing to say, when publishing your book, you need to be patient and careful to read the proof copy to prevent typos and glitches from being published. Take the process slowly, don’t rush or panic. Engage the help of a friend if you feel wobbly about the whole computer-technical side of Indie publishing through a digital platform.
A website, Your Publishing Guide, has extra information that may help you choose which and how many platforms to use.
6.Blogging/Website offering your book as a PDF or link to your book—When I began my Indie publishing venture, a younger, more tech-savvy friend advised that I should have developed my blog or website months before publishing my first two books. They said that my book sales would have been better if I had had a “following”. Eight years down the track, so to speak, and with over five hundred followers, not sure if that’s true, but, hey, every little bit helps. And, every so often, I make a sale.
7. Word of mouth (always keep your “business card” handy…and a box of your books in your car)—most of my hard-copy books have been sold this way. People ask, “What do you do?” I answer, “I’m a writer.” Next I’m telling them about my book and offering my business card, and a copy of my latest book. And they buy the book.
8. Coffee Shops—often you see in coffee shops books in a little pile or on a shelf for customers to read when they are sipping their drink. Just the other week, Mary McDee and I spied a locally produced book on the shelf of our favourite café. Gave me an idea to offer one of my books to add to the pile.
I might add here, since it is more community than library, that it does no harm to add your book to the collection of books offered in a community library. You know, those book boxes that have popped up all over the suburbs on footpaths or next to community centres and the like.
9. Markets and Fairs—if you have more than one book on offer, or you collude with one or two friends who have published books, hiring a stall or table at a market or fair might work for you. My experience was that the sales were not forthcoming. At fairs, people are looking for cheap homemade and second-hand items, not brand-new books. Also, you need to cover the cost of the hire of the stall or table. Never-the less might be worth a try. I’d reckon that if you had a regular stall at a market, and had other creations to sell like art, cards, craft, clothes even, you may have more success selling your books.
10. Clubs as a guest speaker —ie Probus, U3A, church, Rotary. When you write and publish your book, this is what you sign up for. If you published through a traditional publisher, they would expect you to deliver on this sort of publicity. Most of my books have been sold through book launches (at church) and being a guest speaker.
11. Online Promotional Services —ie ISBN, Amazon advertising. I’ve noticed that the ISBN agency are regularly sending information and advice to me through email on how to promote my books. When you register your book with the ISBN agency, they require you to give a synopsis of the work and provide the book cover and blurb. Same with any sort of advertising. Ensure that your synopsis, blurb and cover attract the reader by being eye-catching and engaging. For some helps you can read Elsie King’s posts on “Publishing tips—Writing a Standout Synopsis” and her recent post on “Publishing Pointers—The Book Cover”.
12. Social networks —ie Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. All I can say about this is that it’s yet another way to lead potential readers to your book. The main advice I have read over the years of blogging, is that you need to stick to one platform and not get all tangled up with dozens of social media platforms. Go with the one that works best for you and then link the other platforms to that one. I have stuck with WordPress as it is a safe place and well regulated to keep out the likes of Trolls and Spammers. Then I have set up the links to Facebook, although I had to become an administrator of a new Facebook page. I had links to Twitter, but it never really went anywhere, and now has flown the coop.
I might mention here that I have an Author page on Amazon. Not sure about other people’s experiences, but I have found the page basic with very little scope for editing mistakes made by me. For example, it insists on calling me “Mrs. Lee-Anne”. Really? Bit strange in the 21st century.
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One thing I have learnt from my publishing adventure, is that I have made discoveries and have grown along the way. I have received some feedback that I need to spoon-feed my audience with a step-by-step guide on how to…whatever the topic is. However, in the words of a teacher friend of mine, “We learn by doing, not just hearing.” Besides, there are many step-by-step guides out there on the web and I doubt another one by me would make much difference for the tech-challenged. So, for all who have yet to launch into the world of publishing your book and distributing it, the best way of getting your book out there is by being bold and doing just that: have a go and get your book out there.
So, you’ve written your book, and maybe you’ve progressed as far as self-publishing the book on Amazon or Goodreads or some such platform for indie authors and their books. Then, you sit back and watch the royalties roll in. Except, they don’t.
You check on your stats and there’s nothing. Just one long flat line.
You check your book’s rating. It’s so buried under the weight of millions of competing books on the shelf, it doesn’t even have a rating.
This is not right, you think, my book is brilliant. It should be a best seller. Something’s wrong with the platform. You complain to the relevant platform on the community chat forum. And you discover you’re not the only one.
Advice comes in. Get reviews, they say. Easier said than done, these days. You discover that the heady days of the early internet when reviews were free and easy to come by, now are screened by certain seller platform’s review scrooges. Any hint of association in real life or friendship, and the review is banned. Reviews are also not published on such platforms that are well-known but remain not mentioned, if the reviewer has not bought more than $50 worth of goods from that selling platform.
So, again, the question, “How do we get our work out there? Noticed?”
Having been given this task to share with you my wisdom, I considered doing some research and conveying the wisdom of other, more successful experts in the field of advertising. I decided against that as “reinventing the wheel” so to speak, is not my thing. If you want to get your head around advertising, there’s plenty to offer on the internet.
Instead, I’ll share with you my journey with advertising and getting my books and paintings noticed. Here are a few pointers:
Word of Mouth—many, many years ago, my brother started up his own business as a mechanic. He never placed an ad in the paper (such were the times before the internet), yet his business grew. Satisfied customers recommended him to friends and family. I leant from this example the basic lesson of marketing, do an excellent job (key word here is excellent) and your business grows by word of mouth. This principle, then, I used when growing my tutoring business.
Networking—when I’m out and about, and I’m chatting with people, inevitably, they ask, “What do you do?” So, I tell them what I do. When this happens to you, make sure you have a few business cards handy, and some of your work/books handy. I’m not one for pounding the footpath and asking bookshops to consign my books, but I have a friend who has done just that with her book with some success. The thing is, is to be social, meet new people and don’t be afraid to show them your books.
Online presence—I think Indie Scriptorium has covered this particular aspect in detail. These days with the prevalence of the internet, look at having a blog or website as another avenue of networking. Just remember, building your online presence takes time, effort and some risk. But to get your book out there, if you are prudent and discerning, the risk is worth the reward of getting the fruits of your labour, your book, noticed.
Advertise—a friend who has their own business once said, “You need to spend money to make money.” Meaning that money spent advertising will be rewarded with sales. I also heard an advertising expert speaking on the radio once say that a person needs to be exposed to a product seven times before they notice its existence. Which means many times more exposure to buy the product.
At this present time, I have a couple of my books being advertised. I have Trekking with the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981 nominated for Prime Reading with Amazon, and I’m trialling The Hitch-Hiker with Amazon Ads. The Prime Reading has yielded some sales, mainly through the Kindle Lending Library, some nibbles, but no sales yet from the Amazon Ads for The Hitch-Hiker.
What I like about the Prime Reading is that it’s like a cat (generally, not my cat, but most other cats); they take care of themselves. I nominate, and the Prime Reading programme does the rest and I get some sales and royalties.It’s all done for me, and I don’t have any control over when and where the advertising takes place. Much like a cat.
However, the Amazon Ads is different. You could say, keeping with the pet analogy, it’s like a dog. You have to feed it—money and walk it—check on its progress and adjust your settings to how you want to advertise and how much you want it to bid for you to make the advertising happen. You have more control. With Amazon Ads, you limit the cost so that you don’t go over-budget, and you can regulate the pace at which the advertising occurs. You can have a fast-moving campaign, or one that moves at a slower pace. Much like owning a dog, depending on what breed of dog you have, I guess. Never owned a dog, actually.
The main takeaway is to get your work out there. If its hidden in a drawer, or file on your computer, waiting for it to be perfect, no one is going to see it. If its buried under a load of competitors on the internet, it’s up to you to take it to the next level and make it visible. Tell your friends and family, network face to face, and online, and advertise.
Stay tuned for future blogs where we will take a closer look at branding, digital platforms and getting yourself recognised.
Elsie King shares her trials and triumphs building a website
My original website, built on WordPress about four years ago, showcased my artwork. It was free, and I enjoyed creating it and adding to it. I wrote blogs giving tips on painting. The website appeared on Facebook and people regularly sent me friendly messages about my blog. Then Facebook became complicated and my website disappeared. After unsuccessful attempts to resurrect it, I just let it die a natural death. Facebook continued to send me messages with obscure recommendations, which sounded like I needed to spend money and time in order to revive my site.
This year I decided I wanted to create a new website using my pen name, Elsie King, which would put my books and artwork online.
I used WordPress thinking I had deleted my old website and I could create another one with a bonus of one year free. Big mistake. The algorithms remember everything. If you use the same e-mail address to sign up a second website, they will immediately give your freebee to the previous website and charge you $60 for the new one. Being technologically challenged, I pressed something and spent $60 on something that I didn’t sign up for. After several days of e-mails toing and froing, I convinced WordPress to give me a refund. WordPress had become a bit too complicated for this little black duck.
I researched lots of website builders and decided that WIX looked safe for the confused and unwary. The following steps helped me build a website of which I am proud as punch. I figure that if I can build a website anyone can, but it takes time and persistence. The following ideas helped me get started.
Have a look at the websites of your favourite authors or artists. This gives you a good idea of what you want to include and gives you a concept of a design.
Write up what you want to say. Have text for your home page and an about page ready to run. I put my bio photo and artworks in a file on the desktop for easy access. Prepare your first blog as well.
The WIX site allows you to play with designing a website and you can then delete what you’ve done until you get it right. Keep playing with the templates, drag-and-drop features, adding text, changing the fonts and layout, adding media and moving between pages. You can also make a menu and put information into the header and footer. The most important place to find in the edit area is the delete site button in the Site actions. You can create a trial site and delete then start again and again and again. I played with the site building for weeks.
While you are in play mode, use YouTube videos for guidance. WIX provides lots of tutorials and you can also access videos from experts. They have heaps of useful information. Be warned, some tutorials presume you know what they are talking about. I found I needed to find a tutorial presenter who didn’t talk too fast and use acronyms I didn’t understand. Also, have a paper and pen available so you can jot down the information. The pause button is a marvellous invention.
WIX suggests you pick a template and modify to your needs. I couldn’t get the hang of this and ended up selecting blank templates and designing my website to my satisfaction. I found this much easier.
Make sure you have an e-mail address ready to use and have sorted out your website address you intend using. I used www.elsiekingauthorartist.com which is long but suited what my website is about.
Once you have designed your website, you can publish. I paid for the premium plan so I don’t have adverts popping up all the time. You can pay with PayPal or a card. It’s about $200 for a year. Look out for 50% off offers to save money.
A website with an e-mail address is just the beginning for me. I will explore the ways to promote my website, link it to social media, dive into analytics and improve my SEO (search engine optimisation) and other stuff. I put this off over Christmas but I will do the research and report in the new year. Stay tuned for more on web sites in 2023.
Right Worldview — I like to think of the blogging community as a group, a world-wide group. Think of the local writers’ group you attend if you’re a writer. Then imagine that group spanning the globe comprising of every imaginable country and culture. That’s the breadth and beauty of blogging. But remember, each one of your potential followers are people, real people.
Right Mindset — Gathering those real people, followers takes time. Marketing likes to depersonalise the whole experience and calls those visits from readers “traffic”. They are not traffic, they are individuals who have searched for your particular topic of interest and taken the time to read it. When I first began blogging 7 years ago, one of my first international visitors was from the Bahamas. I imagined that person sitting on the beach sipping their mint julep, reading from their jewel-studded iPad, and dreaming of the Central Australian adventure I had written. Just one person but imagining that person made all the difference to me, that they had connected with my story.
Right Attitude — My first like (besides my faithful friends and mother) was a well-known Romanian blogger. He has written many posts on how to blog, so I feel, I don’t need to repeat his good advice in this article. The following is a link to Christian Mihai’s website, The Art of Blogging. My main takeaway from one article I read from there, was that if we don’t have the right attitude to blogging, if we are amateurish in our approach, we may spread our web of information wide, but we won’t touch many in a way that is meaningful or truly influential. And the reality about developing authentic relationships that change and grow us and others, is that they take time.
Right Timing — I think there’s enough on the internet about how to set up a blog and post, so, I won’t go into detail about that. Check out Wiki how for setting up a blog, or website. But what you need to do is be regular. Followers, once you get them, are creatures of habit and if you post once a week on a Tuesday, for instance, they will look for your post, once a week on a Tuesday. One of the frustrating things I found when I first entered the blogging community, was finding those bloggers who I liked. Some would seem to vanish into the vortex of the world wide web, never to be seen again. It took me a while to figure out that if I “followed” these bloggers, they would turn up in my “Reader Feed”. Other bloggers have mentioned that this is the reason they “like” posts. They then look at their “likes” to find their favourite bloggers again. Regular posting, I found, helped raise my profile in the plethora of websites and posts and make those blessed algorithms work for me. I knew that my blogs were rising like cream when I observed a reader emerging out of “Search Engine” in the stats of my post. When starting up my blog, though, I invited as many friends and family to follow my blog through email, and Facebook.
Right, Don’t Give Up — It’s three months into you’re blogging venture, and nothing; not a hump, nor a bump raising those statistics. ‘I don’t know,’ my mother said, ‘no one has visited my posts in ages. I think I’ll give up.’ And yeah, it seemed as though the WWW “gods” were doing everything in their power to squash my mother’s enthusiasm to continue. As they tried to do some years before with my blog. As they have done with a number of writer friends of mine who have set up blogsites or websites and then with a failure to thrive, they have silently let them slide into obscurity. Again, it takes time for your website or blogsite to gain traction. Just be patient.
Indie Scriptorium -- Self Publishing Collective 