Miral Sattar is founder and CEO of BiblioCrunch, an award-winning author services marketplace that matches authors with quality, award-winning book publishing professionals. She has worked in the media industry for 11 years (most recently at TIME) and her writing has been featured in PBSMediaShift, TIME, CNN, NY Daily News, among other media publications. Follow her on Twitter @miralsattar.
I get a lot of authors coming to me for self-publishing advice and these are some of the most common mistakes I’ve seen.
1) Having Vague Goals
You need to define your goals. Are you looking to get more readers? Or looking to sell books? It’s easy to get more readers if you’re a first-time author, but it’s harder to sell books.
2) Not Getting Your Work Professionally Edited
On Tuesday, February 18, Bowker and DCL co-presented a webinar called Assuming the Risk for Your Own eBook. The white paper that accompanies this webinar is available here, or at the DCL website here.
Topics covered included:
- Types of editorial processes - developmental, fact-checking, copy-editing
- Designing your eBook - for different devices and platforms
- Marketing best practices - courtesy of Sandra Poirier-Diaz of Smith Publicity
- Distributing your ebook to different vendors
In the world of self-publishing, one critical component that's been missing has been reliable data about how self-published books are selling. Last week, the self-published author Hugh Howey released some data on 7,000 ebooks on the Amazon bestseller list, from the mystery/thriller, romance, and science fiction genres. He posts his report here:
The other eye-popper here is that indie authors are outselling the Big Five. That’s the entire Big Five. Combined. Indie and small-press books account for half of the e-book sales in the most popular and bestselling genres on Amazon.
Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller's Futurebook blog, provides the following caution here:
Goodreads has really become a front and center social network for authors. First, with their new Amazon relationship, and now it would seem that they’ve doubled their readership to 25 million. Though many authors and publishers vowed to close their accounts after the Amazon merger, it seems that Goodreads is still going strong and still maintains its independence of Amazon. If you’re not on Goodreads or if you haven’t touched your account in a while you should consider this site and the benefits it offers.
There have been many success stories from Goodreads, authors who “got noticed” by having lots of activity there, mingling with other members, getting tons of reviews, and while success isn’t guaranteed on this site (or anywhere) Goodreads can really help you get a leg up on your promotion. So, how did the massive growth of this site happen?
When an author publishes a book in the traditional way, the publishing house assumes the risk - the costs of publishing - in the hopes that the book sales will recoup that investment and begin generating a profit. The publishing house is, in effect, taking a bet on the book that it will do well and warrant that investment.
But when authors self-publish, they are assuming that investment themselves. And there are some costs that new-to-publishing authors may not know to take into account as they begin investing in services to bring their books to market.
In a webinar sponsored by Digital Conversion Labs, Bowker’s Laura Dawson will explain how you can make your best possible eBook, ensuring a professional level product more likely to turn readers’ heads.
Publishers Weekly just ran a piece surveying the self-publishing landscape for 2014, in which they note that authors are seeing that writing is only the beginning of the publishing process.
"It’s almost been a giddy feeling about all the new opportunities, but I think we’ve reached a slightly more mature period,” says Beat Barblan, director of identifier services for Bowker. “We are seeing more authors who say they want to be an author beyond just a hobby, and recognize that they have to be much more entrepreneurial.”
Do you want to produce better books and sell more of them in 2014? Here are the Top Ten Things You Can Do To Be More Successful In Your Book Marketing.
People make a lot of books with Lulu. In fact, thousands upon thousands of titles are published to Lulu.com every week. While that’s a few too many books for us to read, we do know there are three things a writer needs to keep in mind to ensure their book is one readers will want to buy. If you’re among the writers preparing to publish a book this year, these three tips will be key factors in your success.
1. Know who your ideal reader is before you even start writing.
