author marketing and keywords

Use Keywords to help your Author Marketing

SEO, it’s not just for websites anymore. So, yes, you can use keywords and search phrases to help people find your author website and book. Your book’s title and sales page should already be thought about from the keyword perspective (something searchable placed in the title or subtitle). But what about your core topic website — and author marketing? If you choose to register your domain name as your core topic, this naturally will be easier. If it happens to coincide with your book, e.g. Gertrude Stein’s The Happiness Project, then that’s fine… if you have time. But if you’re short on time and intend on a series of books or products, you will want to focus on expanding your author visibility online. Author marketing is one of the hardest forms of marketing to do, and I should know because I have already…
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Five Ways to Make Better Book Profits

Here we are all for better book profits for non-fiction authors, with fewer costs; that’s what it’s all about, really.  So first we’ll knock off some easy wins and then move onto advanced methods. 1. Keep your Book Production Costs Low My first tip for better book profits is keeping production costs low in the first place. This may mean using a Book Design template and learning styles in Adobe InDesign*, or simply keeping production costs to a minimum by getting three editing quotes from editors with testimonials. The other way to save costs is to use Print on Demand, ordering a small number of personal author copies, like ten, rather than ordering in bulk from a printer (conceivably less per copy, but with a much higher risk). Making better royalties also depends on the LENGTH of your book and black-and-white versus full…
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ebook pricing

How to Price an eBook on-Site – Pricing Tests

When we think of an eBook these days, we might have two poor conceptions: one, a dime-a-dozen guide which is offered as a carrot to get opt ins, or two, a poorly-edited ebook cheaply made and thrown onto Amazon in the hopes of sales. So how do you create an eBook of worth and stand out when 1,500-odd ebooks are loaded on Amazon every DAY? And the pundits at Mill City Press are saying: “ebooks shorter than 50,000 words are generally expected to be priced under $2.99″(!) How do you get back your time and money, when the average self-published ebook is priced around $3, shared 70:30 with Amazon?  Many are wondering the same. The answer lies in finding the sweet spot in pricing, with a sales page or video page full of benefits and NO OTHER COMPETITION. Why Run Price…
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book marketing for authors review

5-Minute Book Marketing for Authors – by Penny Sansevieria

As a harried author/editor, I appreciate that ‘5-Minute Book Marketing for Authors’ uses a simple and fast-read format. Penny explains how to get great reviews, legal ones, on Amazon. If you have no email list at all, the first part of her advice might leave you despondent, however there are other options laid out for the intrepid author. I do feel that Penny, having been a multiple top-selling marketing author for many years, gives the depth of advice and honest opinions which novices seek. The book’s content is quite heavily biased to Amazon, which suits many, but I need an all-round approach. That’s why I enjoyed the chapters on author website, social media and newsletters. (I’m the kind of idiot that designs my own website, against the advice of Penny). I don’t do free eBook promotions as a rule, but after…
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Book results on Google

Connecting your Book Titles to You for Better Google Visibility

This post is about Google’s ‘Knowledge Graph’, aka beautiful author and book plates that show up in title searches. Yes, us authors always moan about having to buy an ISBN. Relax, you are going to love this secret I found out. Multiple book authors with ISBNs get the Google star treatment! The benefits of having your own ISBN at Thorpe Bowker: It is yours to keep up to date (not a publisher you can’t get hold of), you get to inform library suppliers and so help along sales, You can assign a library discount, discounts to retail, and You may be assigned a section by Google which matches your ISBNs to you and brings up a special box with all your books in it when someone does an exact title search on Google. I love that bit the most!  Find below…
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security for ebooks

Security for your eBooks

An enquiry came in today about ‘how do I keep my eBook secure?’ Let’s look at the various ways to help increase its security. The answer depends on whether your ebook is hosted by a retailer, e.g. Amazon or iBooks or Smashwords, or is in PDF form on your own website. The retailers, although letting buyers lend their ebook to friends for one week in the case of Amazon (optional), have digital security in place as much as possible. After all, they want their cut as well as giving you yours. You can also put a message in the front of the ebook, along the lines of “This book was distributed at Amazon, if you received a copy for free, this is not authorised by the publisher, so please return to Amazon to buy a copy”. Or some such. But… you may…
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