Self-Publishing – Page 4 – Catholic Writers Guild

Self-Promotion…or the Strangest Place I’ve Ever Sold A Book

December 12, 2011/0 Comments/in Self-Publishing/by Ellen Gable Hrkach

Since a self-published author doesn’t have a publisher to promote them, it’s important to take every opportunity to promote oneself. Keep copies of your books in your car, always have business cards or book marks in your purse or wallet and…don’t be afraid to talk about your books.

I’ve sold books to the insurance man, the animal control officer, at family functions and churches. I’ve sold books to people on the beach and at the grocery story.

But the strangest place I’ve ever sold a book was at a local club/bar.

Now, I never go to bars or clubs, but this particular night, my husband was performing with his jazz fusion band. During one song, he actually plays two different guitars (photo).

That night, as I watched my husband perform, I noticed a tall fellow swaying to the music and staring at my husband. When the song finished, the band took a break. The tall man ran off in the direction of the stage. I followed close behind. He spoke to my husband with the adulation of an adoring fan.

“Man, you’re the best guitarist I’ve ever seen! The way you play those two guitars…it’s just incredible! You’re better than Mick Jagger,” and he went on to list three or four other famous guitarists.

Now, my husband has enough humility for both of us, so, seeing me, he didn’t respond to the praise. Instead he replied, “This is my wife, Ellie.” My husband’s newest fan turned to me and said, “Your husband is the most incredibly talented guitarist I’ve ever seen or heard.”

“Isn’t he amazing?” was my response.

“He sure is.” We chatted for a few moments, then, out of the blue he said, “He’s so good, you should write a book about him.”

I’m sure I burst out laughing. “Well, actually, I have written a book. It’s a novel called Emily’s Hope and it’s loosely based on my life…and my husband is a major character in the book.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Do you have any copies with you?” (As I said before, self-published authors should always be prepared.) So I responded, “Of course.”

Admittedly, this 40-year-old tipsy man probably was not the target audience for my first novel. And…my husband felt I took advantage of a fellow who was drinking, and perhaps I did. But, well…a sale is a sale.

Humor aside, I’ve often wondered about this fellow who walked into the bar to have a good time and walked out with my novel in his hands. I hope he’s doing well.

Ellen Gable Hrkach is the vice president of the Catholic Writers Guild. She is the award-winning author of In Name Only, a Catholic romance and now an Amazon Kindle bestseller (top 100 Religious Fiction). Her new book is Stealing Jenny which is a contemporary pro-life suspense novel. Her website is www.ellengable.com. She and her husband and five sons live in Pakenham, ON Canada.

The Personal Approach to Marketing Your Self-Published Book

September 12, 2011/2 Comments/in Self-Publishing/by Ellen Gable Hrkach

Because self-published authors don’t have a publishing company to help them promote their work, it’s important to take the initiative in marketing. Connecting with your fans on a personal level is a great way to market. This can be done through attending conferences as well as interacting with them through your blog, facebook or other social networking.

Face-to-face interaction, however, is one of the most effective ways to market. If you have the budget, time and freedom to do so, I highly recommend attending conferences as a vendor and/or book seller. Readers and potential customers appreciate the opportunity to speak with an author and to have their books signed by the author herself.

For the first six years of my career as an author, most of my book sales occurred at live conferences (see photo) I attended as a vendor. (Now, Kindle sales make up 80 percent of my writing income). I typically attend four to five conferences a year. I normally sell anywhere from 30 to 100 books per conference (depending on the length and attendance of the conference.)

The goal of any author is to find those readers who will not only buy your first book, but will keep coming back for your future books. Attending conferences is a great way to have interested readers coming back for more.

For example, I have attended the Journey to the Father Youth Conference as a vendor every summer since 2005. The JTTF attendees, workers and volunteers know me and most importantly, there are many at this conference who will not only buy anything I write, they will buy excess copies.

Another approach to personal marketing is to always reply to a comment on your blog, on Facebook and/or Twitter. This develops a rapport with your readers and you can also make a lot of great friends too!

One last approach to personal marketing is to participate in Skype or teleconference calls with book clubs. This is a fairly new (and ideal) way to connect with many readers at once.

The personal approach to marketing can help to promote your books to those readers who will return time and again to purchase your books.

Ellen Gable Hrkach is the vice president of the Catholic Writers Guild. She is the award-winning author of In Name Only, a Catholic historical romance and now an Amazon Kindle bestseller (top 100 Religious Fiction). Her new book is Stealing Jenny, which is a contemporary pro-life suspense novel. She can be found blogging at Plot Line and Sinker. She and her husband and five sons live in Pakenham, ON Canada.

E-Books: The Future of Self-Publishing Part II

August 8, 2011/0 Comments/in Self-Publishing/by Ellen Gable Hrkach

Last month’s post focused on the advantages of making your books available on Amazon Kindle. This month, I’m going to talk about the practical considerations, like e-book conversion, pricing etc.

Some Practical Considerations

Create a Quality Book
If your book has not been edited and polished, it will probably not gain a large audience. This is a hard point for some self-published authors to hear, but an important one. Refer to my post on Editors and Humility.

Converting to Kindle
If you are a self-published author, you can either convert your books for the Kindle (using trial and error like I did) or use a conversion service. These services, however, can be very expensive for something you can do yourself. And…although this process can be very tedious and tricky, especially if there are photos involved, once you go through the conversion process once or twice, it will be less challenging.

Smashwords has an excellent free guide for converting books into many different e-formats:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/download/52/1/latest/0/0/smashwords-style-guide.pdf

Determining price: I had no idea what price I should set for my Kindle books. Initially, I set it at 6.99 looking at similar books. I sold one or two e-books a month and the ranking was coming in at about 400,000. Six months later, I decided to experiment and set my book prices lower, to 2.99. After all, Amazon offers 70 percent royalty, so I would still receive $2.05 per book.

A few weeks later, I checked the ranking and just about fell off my chair. One of my Kindle books, In Name Only (a Catholic romance) was regularly ranking in at about 40,000 out of a million books (not best selling status, but certainly pretty good) AND my print books were now also selling. Now, In Name Only is regularly in the top 100 of Religious Fiction Books.

If you have several books, pricing one of the shorter books (or even a collection of short stories) for .99 will gain you more fans and entice them to buy your other books.

Here are some other considerations for setting the price…

1. Your ebook MUST BE priced less than the print equivalent (and I’m not just talking about a dollar or two less). Potential customers expect this, because they know your production costs (paper, printing, shipping, middlemen) are less. Even famous authors should follow this. Consider Nelson DeMille’s novel “The Lion.” The Kindle price is 14.99, but the paperback, hard copy price is 9.99. While perhaps DeMille’s publisher can get away with this sort of price jacking, relatively unknown self-published authors cannot.

2. While in principle, a longer book deserves a higher price than a shorter book, if you’re unknown, setting it at a lower price will gain you more sales because the reader knows he or she is getting a bargain.

3. Consider the likely market of your book, and the cost of competitive books, then price accordingly. Experiment with different prices.

Smashwords (www.smashwords.com) is another e-book publisher, and they offer your e-book in many different formats, not just one.

Whether you’re a first-time author or an established writer, there are many advantages of putting your book on Kindle: you can receive more exposure, make more money, sell more print books (without financial costs of printing) and gain more fans. E-books are the future of self-publishing.

Questions? Feel free to contact me at info (at) fullquiverpublishing.com

Ellen Gable Hrkach is the vice president of the Catholic Writers Guild. She is a freelance writer and award-winning author of three novels and one non-fiction book. Her new book is called “Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship.” Her website is www.ellengable.com She and her husband and five sons live in Pakenham, ON Canada.

Discover Your Cover

June 13, 2011/0 Comments/in Self-Publishing/by Ellen Gable Hrkach

A book’s cover is the first thing a prospective reader sees so it is important that it be professionally created. If it is poorly designed or if it is too simplistic, it can turn your reader away. I know of some self-published books in which the story and writing were pretty good, but the covers screamed “Self published!”

In these days of digital printing and e-copies, a good cover also needs to look interesting in thumbnail.

With traditional publishing, the author may not have much say regarding the cover. However, with self-publishing, the author has 100 percent responsibility for making sure the cover is professionally created.

I cannot stress enough the importance of hiring a professional cover designer. In my case, my husband is an artist and he has designed all my covers.

Some self-publishing websites also offer cover design services. However, if you want a professional looking cover and not too simplistic, it’s better to hire a cover designer. Ask fellow authors for recommendations. Do an online search. Cover designers are as diverse as authors. Look for a designer whose portfolio includes covers which are professionally done and thematically in line with your book’s topic.

Once you’ve hired a designer, it’s important to work with him or her to create a cover design which sets the mood for your book and intrigues a prospective reader.

Two things an author should realize with regard to good cover design is that:

1) one of the most important things about a cover design is the composition
2) artistic/visual composition is probably one of the things authors/writers know the least about

Look for books which have interesting designs and ask yourself:

What’s the theme?
Why does the layout work?
What’s the emotion?
What’s being represented?
Do the lines, color and composition support the theme?

A book’s cover is a marketing device. Professionally produced covers will not only enhance your book, they will also help in marketing it to prospective readers.

Ellen Gable Hrkach is an award-winning novelist, freelance writer and vice president of the CWG. Her new book is called “Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship.” She blogs at Plot Line and Sinker. She lives with her husband and five sons in Pakenham, Ontario Canada.

A Self-Published Author’s Best Friends

May 9, 2011/2 Comments/in Self-Publishing/by Ellen Gable Hrkach

Nowadays, because it is so easy to publish your own book, first-time self-publishers often don’t realize that many people are involved in the production of a good quality book: editors, cover designers, proofreaders, copy-editors. Writing a book is only one step in a long process. It’s important for self-published authors to embrace the virtue of humility during this process.

First, a bit about…Editors

Hiring an Editor was the single best thing I did with regard to self-publishing. I cannot stress enough the value of hiring a good editor, especially if you’re going to self-publish.

One of the most common mistakes of self-publishers is to think they do not need an editor. All authors need an editor.

While it may be helpful to ask your writing buddies to give you feedback on your work, a professional editor (who doesn’t have any emotional investment in your relationship) will likely give you feedback which is more honest.

I use two different editors: one for overall editing (characters, story etc) and one for copy-editing (grammar, sentence usage, repetitive wording etc). I also use several of my friends for proofreading my manuscripts at various stages. I wouldn’t have been able to publish quality books without these editors.

With regard to humility, it is extremely important to humbly consider constructive criticism regarding your manuscript. If you think it is the best book ever written, but you refuse to accept any and all criticism, or if you attempt to defend every piece of criticism that comes your way, it is unlikely that your book will reach its literary potential.

Years ago, as an inexperienced novelist/self-publisher, I realized the need to employ an editor. It seemed like an huge expense at the time ($200) but, as I said, it was the best thing I ever did.

I was humbly taken off my high horse when my editor handed me a nine-page critique of (what I considered to be) the final draft of my first novel. The criticisms were harsh and to the point. I was crushed. “How could she say all these horrible things about my novel?” I asked my husband. Instead of letting me cry on his shoulder, my (humble) husband suggested that I take every piece of criticism, humbly step back and discern whether there was any merit to it. After prayerfully reflecting on each point, I eventually agreed with 90 percent of the critique. Then I spent the next two years editing and re-writing.

Hiring good editors and embracing the virtue of humility will help you to become a more proficient writer so that you can self-publish quality books.

Next month: The Importance of a Good Cover

Ellen Gable Hrkach is an award-winning novelist and editor of the soon-to-be published “Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship.” Her blog is called Plot Line and Sinker. She lives with her husband and five sons in Pakenham, Ontario Canada.

Self-Promotion…or the Strangest Place I’ve Ever Sold A Book

The Personal Approach to Marketing Your Self-Published Book

E-Books: The Future of Self-Publishing Part II

Discover Your Cover

A Self-Published Author’s Best Friends

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