Category: Business of Writing

Newsletter Signup Tactics

Business of Writing, Promo Tips, Uncategorized

 

facebook_df4bedecf1-compressorby Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Writers read a lot about the importance of our author newsletter.  Industry expert Jane Friedman explains it well in her post “Email Newsletters for Authors: Get Started Guide“:

“Emails can’t be missed like a social media post that disappears in readers’ feeds as more posts follow it. You truly own your email list, unlike Facebook or Twitter accounts. And if you use people’s email addresses with respect (more on that in a minute), those addresses can become resources that grow more valuable over time.”

I was a slow adopter to email newsletters, unfortunately.  I couldn’t believe that readers really wanted to hear from me in their email inboxes.  Once I finally realized the value of newsletters and that readers were volunteering to hear from me, I had a good deal of catching up to do.Continue reading

Distributing Free Books

Business of Writing, Promo Tips, Uncategorized

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by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

It used to annoy me when I’d read about how important it was to offer a free book to readers for newsletter signups or as rewards for newsletter subscribers.

The advice was all well and good, but it rarely got into the nitty-gritty of it.  How exactly were we supposed to give away these freebies?  Surely I wasn’t expected to monitor signups and send out individual emails to subscribers?

The same problem would arise when I’d be invited to participate in group giveaways or when I’d need to submit advance review copies.

How was I supposed to share these files with subscribers or reviewers without manually sending them out?Continue reading

Metadata Tools

Business of Writing, Tools for Writers

 

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by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Those who’ve been reading my blog for a while know that I’ve had something of a bee in my bonnet lately over metadata.   When I first heard about metadata, it sounded like the most boring (and confusing) thing I’d ever heard of.  I became curious as I continued hearing more and more about it.  I attended a couple of talks on metadata at a couple of different conferences.  I read slideshows on it from conferences I hadn’t attended.

And then I decided that the topic of metadata was actually pretty interesting and useful after all.  To me, it’s a way of making my books visible to readers.  In that way, it’s useful in the way that a card catalog used to be useful at the public library.  Carla King wrote a great article for BookWorks called “Mastering Metadata: the Key to Marketing Your Books,” if you want a more detailed explanation of its helpfulness.

Then I realized at some point in the process that my own metadata, or the way I label the bits and pieces of my books, was wildly inconsistent.  I might be Elizabeth Craig, I might be Elizabeth Spann Craig, I might be Elizabeth S. Craig.  That doesn’t help my visibility on a search engine….surely I’d bring in better results if I listed myself one way all the time.Continue reading

Images in Posts and an Amazon Anomaly

Business of Writing, Promo Tips

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by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

A note today on what I’ve been working on images in our social media posts and a question for trad-pub to self-pub authors regarding Amazon.

First, the relatively new importance of images on our posts.  Any posts.

I’ve heard for a while that images are vital for visibility.  That can mean getting a really solid book cover design to make your book more salable, but it also means that blog posts and other social media posts get more visibility with a good image attached.

Although I was aware of this for years, I had one big thing  standing in my way…my horrid design skills.  Fortunately, that is no longer a problem.  My design ‘skills’ are just as horrid as ever, but I’ve got free design help through Canva and DesignFeed  . Now I can fake it better.

One of Twitter’s updates appeared to focus on images in its feed–automatic grabs of images on some posts (I’m assuming posts that have the appropriate image size for this type of automatic sharing).  I share a lot on Twitter, but I never deliberately attach photos through TwitPic or whatever the app is…images just upload themselves, which saves me a lot of bother.

I’ve noticed over the last few months that it’s true that posts with images are shared more and get more impressions than Twitter posts with text only.  Even articles I’ve shared that related to poetry, which never used to get shares now get lots of retweets and clicks.  The only thing that’s changed is the fact that Twitter is lifting images to accompany the article.

Second, an oddity with Amazon. Continue reading

Why Free is Still a Smart Marketing Strategy for Fiction Writers

Business of Writing, Uncategorized

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by Jason Kong, @storyrally

If you’re wondering whether not charging for selected stories is benefiting your promotional campaign, you’re not alone.

With all the free writing flooding the internet, it’s harder to stand out. Even if someone downloads your free eBook, your fiction is competing with all the other stories on that person’s digital reader.

Given the ubiquity of free, it’s reasonable to question whether the market is saturated, thus reducing the effectiveness. I, on the other hand, believe free still works.

Let’s take a closer look on why that is.Continue reading

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