A Publishing Checklist: What To Do When You Self Publish

This month, one of my favorite mystery writers, Elizabeth Spann Craig, shared her checklist of things to do when she publishes a book: Release Activities for the Reluctant Promoter.

I was SO happy to read Elizabeth's post; I did the Scooby dance. I love checklists, I'm always forgetting something, and it never occurred to me to print out a publishing checklist and tack it to the back of my office door.

So, without further ado, here's Elizabeth's checklist for self published books. By the way, for your traditionally published authors, do head over to Elizabeth's blog, she has a checklist for you as well.

Elizabeth Craig's Indie Publishing Checklist

Publishing

1. Upload your book to the online retail stores of your choice. For me, that means: Smashwords, Kobo and Kindle. Elizabeth Craig puts her book in Nook as well, but I let Smashwords take care of that for me.

2. Create a POD version of your book. Two great services for this are CreateSpace and Lightning Source.

3. I check Smashwords to make sure there were no issues with the upload and the meatgrinder didn't choke on my manuscript. I keep checking back until I see my book made it into their Premium Catalog.

4. Elizabeth Craig creates an audiobook version using Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX).

Marketing

1. Update website.

Put a thumbnail of your cover up and link it to a book page on your website with a larger image and an excerpt from the book as well as links to everywhere folks can purchase a copy. If you get a great review, don't be shy about putting that up as well!

2. Update your social networks.

- Blog about your new release. This is one of the main reasons authors need to have blogs! It's a great way to let your readers know you've written another book.

- Tweet about it. Tweet your blog post and let all your Twitter followers know you've released a wonderful new book.

- Facebook. Elizabeth Craig posts a publication announcement on Facebook.

3. Amazon Author page. Don't forget to add your new publication to your list of books.

4. Goodreads. The wonderful folks at Goodreads will want to know about your latest book. (By the way, if you don't have an author account on Goodreads drop by their Author Program page and get one.)

5. LinkedIn. I don't use linked in, but if you do it's a good idea to update it.

6. Update bios. I haven't done this lately and probably should. Remember to keep your bios up to date, including the photo!

7. Tell your newsletter subscribers about your new book. Perhaps tell them a bit beforehand and offer them a promo code to either get free copies, sale copies or something cool like a mug or t-shirt.

Promotions

1. Goodreads Giveaway. Elizabeth Craig writes, "Once I’ve got CreateSpace live, [I] order copies for a Goodreads giveaway." This probably deserves another blog post and, of course, a link on your website.

2. I've mentioned this, above, but you could let your newsletter subscribers know in advance about your book coming out and perhaps have some sort of a giveaway.

3. Many authors find blog tours productive. If you don't have time for a blog tour, you can always write a few guest posts.

4. Some authors use Amazon's Select program to promote their books. I've written about that here and here.

As Elizabeth Craig says, the number one thing you need to do when releasing a book is keep writing!
Best of luck, may all your book releases be smooth. Cheers!

Photo credit: "London: Tower bridge and the Thames" by Caroline under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Amazon Is Acquiring Goodreads

Amazon is acquiring Goodreads.

This news shocked me. I hope the wonderful book culture that has developed over at Goodreads doesn't change.

Why Goodreads Wants To Join Amazon

Otis Chandler, Co-founder of Goodreads, says he is excited about the development. He writes:

1. With the reach and resources of Amazon, Goodreads can introduce more readers to our vibrant community of book lovers and create an even better experience for our members.

2. Our members have been asking us to bring the Goodreads experience to an e-reader for a long time. Now we're looking forward to bringing Goodreads to the most popular e-reader in the world, Kindle, and further reinventing what reading can be.

3. Amazon supports us continuing to grow our vision as an independent entity, under the Goodreads brand and with our unique culture. (Exciting News About Goodreads: We're Joining the Amazon Family!)

The folks over at The Verge point out that ...

Amazon already owns Shelfari, a social and information network described as a "community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers." Together with Goodreads (as well as its own lightweight / somewhat anemic kindle.amazon.com social notes network) Amazon will soon own the major online recommendation and commentary engines for new and old books. (Amazon to acquire Goodreads, a social network for book recommendations)

I guess, also, Goodreads represents a wealth of data on readers preferences and reading habits.

This story is still developing so stay tuned for further news.

(Thanks to +Andy Goldman for mentioning Amazon's acquisition of Goodreads.)

Question: What do you think about this merger? Will it be good or bad for readers and writers?

Other articles you might like:

- Janice Hardy Teaches Writers How To Be Their Own Book Doctor
- How To Write Description
- Mark Coker, Founder Of Smashwords: Six Ways To Increase Book Sales

Photo credit: "The dawn of freedom - digital-art" by balt-arts under Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivs 2.0.

How To Get Honest Book Reviews

"workstation" by striatic under CC BY 2.0

Tonya Kappes has written a fantastic article on how to get honest reviews for your books. It's a must read. I'll summarize her points, below, but Tonya's article is one you're going to want to read and bookmark.

1) Do a Goodreads Giveaway

I've never tried this, but Tonya has. Hold a giveaway, get requests, then send a copy of your book to the winners. The winners promise to give an honest review of the book, AND you might get reviews from the people who didn't win but went ahead and bought your book anyway.

2) Create a press kit for each of your books

A press kit should include:

- your bio,
- a head shot,
- the cover of your book,
- the blurb for the book,
- a summary of the book, and
- all the links to where it can be purchased or downloaded. 

 The easier you can make things for potential reviewers, the better.

3) Amazon: Ask top reviewers to review your book

Tonya thoughtfully gives the link to a list of Amazon's Top Customer Reviewers. She cautions that you'll want to read each biography carefully to find out which people might like reading the sort of book you've written. Chances are a person who hates horror books, even if they agree to read your zombie novel, won't like it.

4) Announce your book launch to your community

Your loyal readers are going to want to know you've come out with a new book and chances are some of them would love to write a review of it.

As long as authors make it clear they want honest reviews, good or bad, I don't see anything wrong with this.

#  #  #

I love Tonya's tips! Great ideas that (hopefully!) don't take a lot of time to do. :)

Once again, this information is from Tonya Kappes' excellent article How To Get Reviews For Your Novel.

Other articles you might like:
- Book Review Blogs That Accept Self-Published Work
- 5 Ways to Spot a Trustworthy Amazon Review
- What to do if your book isn't selling: Tips from Johanna Penn

Tips For First Time Writers

I've started reading Ed Robertson's blog, Failure Ahoy!, regularly. Ed meticulously tracks the performance of his books in response to various promotions on Amazon and, now, Barnes & Noble. Many would keep this information to themselves thinking it could give a competitive edge, but in true Indie spirit Ed shares his findings with the community.

So when Ed published a post giving advice for first time authors I read it with interest. Here are some of his tips:

The new sweet spot for ebooks is $3.99
99 cents, then $2.99, used to be a good price point for ebooks but now an ebook sold for 99 cents has gained something of a stigma and even, though to a much lesser degree, $2.99, since that is the lowest price a writer can sell their work for and earn a 70% royalty. IMHO this thinking is wrong but with marketing sometimes it is all about perception.

That said, making your book free for a time (see below), or lowering it's price to 99 cents as part of a promotion, can be a good strategy.

Join Kindleboards
Ed cautions that you might not see any gain from this for a few months but that, for him at least, joining the Kindleboard community was a good investment of his time.

Join Goodreads
The folks over at Goodreads are mighty nice and I enjoy the community. Ed writes:

It's probably worthwhile to get your book listed on GoodReads. I am not intricately well-versed in how Goodreads runs, but if you have librarian status, or know someone who does, you should be able to add your book easily. If you can't, it's no big deal--someone will get to it eventually--but Goodreads seems to be a fairly important part of developing your book's infrastructure, a concept I'll get to in a bit.

Free is your friend: Enroll your book in Amazon's KDP Select Program
If this is your first book you have no reviews, no 'also bought' recommendations. In short, no one has the foggiest idea who you are. Ed writes:

But perhaps the most important thing you can do after hitting publish is this: make your book free. Right out of the gate. Give away the hell out if it. Schedule it for a two-day run, sit back, and see what happens.

"What happens" probably won't be much. I think it's vitally important to set the right expectations at this stage, and for most beginning authors, the reality is you're going to sell very little right off the bat. In concrete terms, you're doing very well if you're selling 1/day. Many brand-new books from first-time authors with no platform can easily go days or weeks or even months between sales. A month from now, your sales column might consist of a number between 1-9, and that is perfectly okay.

At this phase, that means every single sale is a success. Every sale means someone stumbled over an unknown book and thought it looked interesting enough to pay money for. Do you know how hard it is to make that happen? Remember: 1,504,243 ebook titles and counting. As a brand-new book, the only place you're showing up is in the new releases list and in keyword searches, and even then, anyone who found your book is either obsessive or almost superhumanly dedicated to finding new books, because they probably had to dig through dozens of pages before they happened upon yours. In terms of its present visibility, your book may have a "Buy" button on its page, but in many ways it still hasn't really been published.

So cheer every day you do get a sale, but try not to be surprised or disappointed when you don't. It's probably going to be some time before your book starts traveling down some of the main avenues to discoverability.

And that's why we're going free right off the bat--to try to kickstart a couple of these avenues.

If you are a new author (or just feel like one!) I highly recommend reading Ed Robertson's article in its entirety:  I'm New to Indie Publishing and This Is Awesome and Terrifying, Part 1: Releasing Your First Book.

Other articles you might like:
- Book Promotion: Where's The Line?
- John Locke Paid For Book Reviews
- 8 Ways To Become A Better Writer

Photo credit: Mrs Logic