Category: Business of Writing

KDP Reports

Business of Writing

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

On Monday, I’ll be picking up on my blog series ‘making life easier as a writer.’  But today I wanted to point out something new (still in beta) on the KDP dashboard in case you’ve missed it (and I know lots of you probably noticed this earlier than I did!)

KDP is rolling out their new reports section and my first impression is that it looks really helpful.

I’m one of those authors who absolutely hates doing metrics on ads or tracking sales. I know it’s something important but delving down into spreadsheets and the business aspect has always been something of a drag.

I love that Amazon is making this easier.  For one thing, I like to keep track of which series sells better. For another, I like to see which individual books seem to sell strongest in a series…and try to figure out what the magic formula was so that I can duplicate it again.Continue reading

A Basic Author Website

Business of Writing

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I remember when I first decided to go online and set up a website.  I was reluctant to do it because of ‘imposter syndrome‘.  I also had no idea what I was doing and it ended up being a one-page deal that didn’t have the information it should have had on it. I don’t think anyone actually visited it.

Writer and writing coach/consultant Dan Blank recently addressed the imposter syndrome part of the equation, stating that “many people are nervous about claiming their identity as writers. ” He also said that the tech aspect of the chore may make some writers procrastinate setting up a site.

The setup and the ‘why’ aspect of websites for writers is something I’m not planning on covering in this post, but you can find very helpful information from industry expert Jane Friedman in her articles:

3 Reasons to Have a Website if You’re Unpublished 

Building an Author Website on WordPress: How to Start Smart

and

Before You Launch Your Author Website: How to Avoid Long-Term Mistakes

If you want to set up an author website of your own, here are what I consider to be the basics that your site should cover:

Homepage: A page that quickly sums it all up.  Who you are, your genre, the cover of the book you’re currently promoting (if you’re published), and maybe snippets of your best reviews.  I’d also include a newsletter signup link because the sooner you start collecting emails, the easier it is. I use MailChimp, which is free for up to 2,000 subscribers.  If you’re not published, a simple bio, photo, and note about what you write and are currently working on would work well.  I’d still include a newsletter signup on the page since it won’t do any harm and will give you a head start when you do get published.

Who you are more in depth (About Me).  This is where you post your author bio. I think a headshot is a bonus and can also help readers connect with you as a person.

How to contact you (Contact Me).  Sometimes I go to these pages and find only a contact form.  At least the author offers a way to contact them, but it would also be great to find social media links providing information for finding the author online.

What you write (Books).  It’s best to list a genre so that readers have more of a sense of what exactly you’re writing. If you’re unpublished, this could be the genre of your work in progress.  I think it’s best to be as specific as possible with genre.  There are many types of mysteries, for example, so I list that I write ‘cozy mysteries’ so that a reader knows exactly what to expect (i.e, not a thriller).

If you want to have only a couple of pages on your site (if you’re currently unpublished, for example), you could have the ‘about me’, ‘what you write’, and the newsletter link on your home page and the contact info (email, social media links) on a separate page.

If you have an established online presence, what do you recommend for a first website? Or, if you’re new, do you have any questions?

Author Website Basics: Click To Tweet

Photo on Visualhunt

Why Speculative Fiction Is Needed Now More Than Ever

Business of Writing

by Emmanuel Nataf, @EmmanuelNataf 

When people think of speculative fiction, they might conjure images of sentient robots, talking dragons, dystopian societies, supernatural beings, elaborate subplots, and other staples of the stories that can be classified as “speculative.”

But speculative fiction is also an important place to explore social, political, and economic issues. The loose boundaries of the genre allow authors to address those issues and ask “what if?” — resulting in worlds different from our own in significant and specific ways, which often reflect or comment on aspects of actual society.

Now, with technology progressing so quickly (and leading to rapid social and ethical changes and dilemmas), it’s critical to use speculative fiction as a means of thinking about the future. Here’s why speculative fiction is needed now more than ever.

It can question the status quo and imagine how society could function differently

Nichelle Nichols is the actress who first played Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek — a groundbreaking role because she was one of the first black women to be featured in a major television series. During the first year of the series, Nichols was tempted to leave the show to pursue a career on Broadway. But none other than Martin Luther King Jr. convinced Nichols to stay, urging her to recognize how her role on Star Trek provided a role model for black children and women who were sorely lacking any public representation.Continue reading

Formatting Book Descriptions for Amazon

Business of Writing

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Just thought I’d share a tool that I’ve found really helpful lately.  It’s also free, which is especially nice.

Dave Chesson from Kindlepreneur is the tool’s creator. It wrangles book descriptions on Amazon’s website.  If you’re like me, you don’t want the print on the description too small. You want spacing between your paragraphs.  And maybe you want some things in bold (a teaser, for example), or in italics. This tool helps with all that.

I’ve experimented with other book description tools before and still found I had issues.  Or I’d try to put in the HTML codes myself and, well, I’m not a coder.

I’ve had no issues with this tool.  I copy-paste my book description from a Word doc into Notepad or another plain text editor (or you could just type it into the generator, word by word). Then I paste that directly into the generator box.

I particularly liked creating a larger font.  I keep my book descriptions pithy and they look better in a bigger font size.

I was so happy with the way the descriptions looked that I went back through and changed all of them.  :)  Yes, this took a little while, but I was pleased with the results.

Have you used Dave Chesson’s resource before?  What tools do you find yourself using regularly?

A Book Description Generator Tool from @DaveChesson: Click To Tweet

7 Thoughts About Collaborating Successfully on a Novel

Business of Writing, Uncategorized

By Dan Brotzel, @brotzel_fiction

I met my two collaborators, Martin and Alex, at my local writing group. By coincidence, it turned out that we all lived in the same road.

As we got to know each other, I decided to share an idea. It had struck me that a writer’s group is itself quite a promising set-up for a story: all those fragile egos, all those different personalities hungry for publication, all the different sorts of writers and writing — from epic verse to steampunk, in our case.

Originally I’d thought the idea might make an interesting short story, but over time — and as my friendship with Alex and Martin grew — I started to think how much more fun it would be if we wrote something longer, together.

So I put the idea to them, and they ran with it. After a few meetings in our local pub, we had thrashed out a set of characters —  we would each run 2 or 3 — and a broad structure. We knew it was to be a novel in emails, building to some sort of explosive climax, and that was enough to get us started. And so, Kitten on a Fatberg — now to be published by Unbound — was launched.

Part of the fun of the project was the element of blind collaboration. We set up a dedicated email account for the book, and each of us began firing off messages, in character. So every few days you’d go into the inbox to read an email from one of your co-author’s characters, which talked about some terrible thing that your own character had just done at the last group meeting.

You would then fire something back from your character attempting to explain or justify their behaviour — and taking great pleasure in dropping someone else’s character in it, and so on. There are 8 main characters in the book, which means lots of scope for feuds, alliances and even romances in various combinations.

Over time, the direction of the story became clearer, and we starting meeting to shape the narrative to its conclusion in a more conscious way.

The whole thing took about two years. The experience was hard work, complicated at times, but always great fun.

Here are a few things I learned along the way about how to collaborate successfully on a long-haul writing project such as a novel…Continue reading

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