The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe comes fully equipped with chewy morsels of advise from some of the best selling indie authors like Scott Nicholson, Joanna Penn, Blake Crouch, Richard Bard, Saffina Desforges, and many more. It also has practical tips on how to sell and market your books, including pricing strategies and marketing tips that I have never shared before. Of course you'll also get many of my most popular posts to encourage and inspire you in your indie adventure.Much of what is in this book was used in my strategy to bring Reunion into Amazon's top 100 (#55 US & #16 UK)
Here's an excerpt to wet your palate.
The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe
Introduction
The universe is filled with anomalies and mysteries from black holes to dark energy. For some authors who are new to publishing, getting their book in the hands of readers is equally baffling. In truth, writing a book from cover to cover is a huge task, but an even greater obstacle is finding your audience, and actually selling your book(s).
The Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe is meant to help any author whether he or she is traditionally or self-published. The book will encourage and inspire you, and offer marketing and selling tips that could improve your sales. If you're a writer and plan to publish your books yourself, this guide will help you navigate through the treacherous cosmos ahead.
At the core of this universe is a black hole, a black hole that is sucking readers away from you. The gravitational pull is over powering and it’s your job to find the strength and tools to get them back into your gravitational field. The journey is not for the faint of heart. The task is not for the weak and thin-skinned writer. This mission will take Flash Gordan and Luke Skywalker stamina.
At the core of this universe is a black hole, a black hole that is sucking readers away from you. The gravitational pull is over powering and it’s your job to find the strength and tools to get them back into your gravitational field. The journey is not for the faint of heart. The task is not for the weak and thin-skinned writer. This mission will take Flash Gordan and Luke Skywalker stamina.
I want to be clear from the very start, however, that the lessons in this book will in no way, shape, or alien form turn an automatic key to selling your books. The chapters that follow may help inspire you, coach you, and motivate you to go the distance, but they will not solve the problem of lackluster sales. They will, however, teach you what I have done and give you indie publishing wisdom, including tips and thoughts from some of the best selling indie authors out there.
Any author who has experience in this industry will tell you that there are many excellent books that just aren’t selling. There are many reasons why some books sell and others don’t, but overall, it’s about luck, effort, timing and a hundred other dynamics that come into play. This book focuses on some of the actions I have taken that helped me hit the Amazon top 100, but still, what worked for me, may not work for you. No empty promises here. This book is based solely on my experience, my blog posts, and lessons in indie publishing.
I’ve asked several other best selling authors to add their two cents; authors like Scott Nicholson, Joanna Penn, Blake Crouch, Robert Bidinotto, Ann Charles, Saffina Desforges, and more. Perhaps together we can offer you a few more tools to get you closer to finding the readers you hope to find in distant galaxies.
What I’ve done in this book is present my journey through stories, motivating analogies and many of my favorite blog posts from The Writing Bomb, my home base where I blog weekly. I’ve been down the road of self-publishing and what I call indie publishing. The difference, in my opinion, is that an indie author is one who is in complete control of his or her publishing project from cover design, pricing, editing, formatting and ownership of the ISBN. As an indie author you report to no one but your readers.
A self-publisher, in my opinion, is one who is published through a pay-to publish site such as Tate Publishing, Outskirts Press, Author House or anyone else who charges you to get your book published. Sadly, after all the hype, they own your ISBN, ultimately control your price, and charge ridiculous fees for the simplest of tasks. In this case, your title is self-publisher, but you are not actually the publisher.
If the journey overwhelms you and you insist upon paying someone to take over your book, I understand. I was there once.
Indie publishing is a daunting task and not for everyone.
What works for me might not work for you.
The Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe will show you how “simple” indie publishing can be. The word simple is in quotes because it really isn’t simple. It’s very hard. But you can do it and save your money for your marketing efforts rather than spend all your cash on publishing services. Getting an ebook published at ebook outlets is not the difficult part after all. Finding readers and selling to them is the biggest challenge.
In this book, I break down the most basic steps and show you what you can do before and after you hit the “publish” button. You’ll learn how to overcome critical marketing obstacles, set your price, schedule a blog tour, write the dreaded html code, give your Amazon author page sizzle, get ideas for free book promotion, and learn strategies that can boost your marketing efforts.
Much of what is in here has been discovered through hands-on experience over the course of four years. Trust me, I’ve been in your astronaut suit. I know how frightening it is to blast your work into space.
That’s why I blog about writing and the indie journey.
That’s why I blog about writing and the indie journey.
When it’s all said and done, if you get anything from this book, I hope you get inspired. The bulk of this work is what I call restroom reading; daily morsels of material that encourage and motivate you in your life as a writer, kind of like Readers Digest. If you purchase this for your Kindle, I appreciate that, but I’d suggest getting a hard copy, too. You’ll want to keep it handy for the moments when you feel like you aren’t moving and need a quick pick-me-up, or if you need a template when sending out a request for a review. Either way, I will make this available in print.
Now, time to get back to the control panel. We are ready for lift off in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…
I can't wait to share this book with you. I am only charging $3.99 in the early stage of release.
Print copies are available here.
Print copies are available here.
