April 5, 2024

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Book Marketing

Steer Clear of Pay-to-Play Book Media

Indie author, you thought you were in the clear because you chose your own editors and designers and uploaded your books and didn’t get caught in hybrid or vanity publisher fees. Or maybe you did. Either way, there are more sharks waiting for you: it’s called Pay-to-Play Media and Marketing. Pay-to-play means hiring a company or individual to ‘guarantee’ your brand a mention in a publication, for a fee. There are all kinds: paid reviews, paid upfront (higher than $99) book awards, book fair stands, video trailers, ‘blog reviews’, pay-to-play magazine articles, book ad setup, and even high markups to ….

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March 21, 2024

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Book Marketing, Book Writing

Engage the World in Your Book Creation to Get Traction

Sometime in the 1990s I went to see a band called TISM and had a rockin’ good time. This is Serious Mum is an anonymous, energetic rock band which riffs on social themes and is quite out there. Now what the actual has this got to do with book creation, you might ask?  Three things: Bring the energy to your Category of One Now let’s bring that kind of vibe to these thoughts on trend waves and involving the world in your book creation. This is a radically different thing than writing a book you like and putting it up ….

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March 1, 2024

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Personal Branding, Selling eBooks and Media

The Benefits of Organic Traffic for Authors

You may have heard of doing work to ensure better ‘organic’ traffic on Google, i.e. natural, unpaid traffic. There are certainly many benefits for book authors to capitalise on SEO for their book or author website. (Though this article is not about search engine optimisation). People will generally find your website through a combination of their remembering your author name and/or book title. An especially rare keyword might also work. Google isn’t the only source of free visitors; there is also Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. However, these folk mostly won’t click through to your website to find out more. ….

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February 8, 2024

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Book Design

3 Book Creation Apps to Bring Your Writing Dream to Life

Dear Googlers, I know you’re prone to expecting a magical tool that whips up your book merely from thinking the thought “this is my idea for a book”. So let’s adjust expectations. There are a few software book creation apps but, like a Ferrari, they require a fairly good driver. Unlike a Ferrari, a couple are free, so we’ll start with those. 1. Reedsy Editor Online Tool The top online book creation tool for hobbyist self publishing authors is Reedsy Editor. I wrote a review on Reedsy already, which goes into the pros (easy to use, free) and cons (unable ….

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January 30, 2024

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Book Writing

If You Use ChatGPT for Book Writing, a Word to the Wise

Last week I bought a Kindle book about mastering your own Public Relations. Firstly, if you use a title along those lines, you will attract people wanting to DIY their brand publicity/PR and expecting some handy tips. Let’s see where the use of ChatGPT all went wrong. There were some real entrepreneur stories of success in the eBook, and these were the ideas I wanted to be taken deeper into. When the author used some survey results, the arguments were not fleshed out. It was simply the numbers. Yet later on, a reasoning came for a different survey set. Many ….

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January 12, 2024

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Book Writing

AI and Systems to Improve Our Writing Habits

Sometimes we need a little help to make a new habit. When writing a book, the practice of “writing and researching” needs to become habitual. That’s why reminder apps are so useful. On Google Workspace Marketplace, you’ll find “Intelligent Apps”. When I saw them all, and this Calendar AI assistant, I was “mind blown”. Of Reclaim.AI, one user said, “Overall I think a lot of people dread the idea of mapping out their goals, passions and more menial time obligations, and what Reclaim can offer is the ability to take the guess-work out of when to DECIDE to do something.” ….

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