by Stephen Campbell | Jan 27, 2015 | Podcasts
Think for a minute about the book you’re reading right now. How did you find it? If it’s an author you’ve read before, how did you originally discover her work?
The current word for how our work is found by readers is discoverability. As authors, we want to make our books as discoverable as possible, so they stand out from the millions of other books that are currently for sale.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Kristine Kathryn Rusch is an award-winning and USA today bestselling author who writes across multiple genres. She’s also a prolific blogger, a teacher, a business woman, and the author of DISCOVERABILITY.
In this episode, we talk about the different components of discoverability, and what we, as authors can do to put ourselves in the best possible position to have our books discovered by readers.
It’s both a thrill and an honor for me to have Kris as a guest on The Author Biz. Much of my interest in the fascinating business of publishing has come from reading the Business Musings articles she regularly posts on her website, KrisWrites.com. Her site is must read material for both traditionally published, and self-published authors around the world.
In this 60-minute interview, Kris and I discuss several aspects of discoverability, including:
- The genesis of her book, DISCOVERABILITY.
- The importance of what Kris calls Passive Marketing.
- The challenges of understanding your genre.
- Covers are important in three ways.
- The importance of branding for both you and your books.
- The use of pseudonyms as a form of branding.
- The different types of readers
- The importance of long-term planning to your business as an author.
- The importance of having a well thought out pricing strategy.
- Kris describes the components of a good author website.
- Fiction authors and blogging - should they or shouldn’t they?
- How to encourage word of mouth
- Kris and her husband, Dean Wesley Smith, offer a series of lectures and workshops designed for authors of all skill levels.
Click here to listen to The Author Biz no. 28
by Stephen Campbell | Jan 19, 2015 | Podcasts
Writing titles for blog posts and podcasts can be tricky. I could have called this How to Sell 1,000,000 books in your first 3 1/2 years. Or, how to write over 35 books in 42 months, and both would have been great “link bait” type titles, but neither would capture the value provided in this episode by Russell Blake.
Russell Blake
You see, Russell has discovered one of the great secrets to success as an author. Writing. A lot of writing. He calls that content creation, which is the part of his business where he’s most focused.
His most recent book, JET - Survival, is a great example the type of fast-paced thrillers he writes that appeal to sophisticated readers around the world. JET - Survival, is the 8th book in his bestselling Jet series.
He has several other series running as well and is currently co-authoring his second book with publishing legend, Clive Cussler. The first book they wrote together, THE EYE OF HEAVEN, debuted near the top of the New York Times Bestseller list when it was released in September.
As you’ll hear in the interview, the primary driver of Russell’s success is that he spends 85% of his time creating content (writing books). He spends the remaining 15% on things like quality control, marketing, sales, and writing for his blog, which is read by writers of all types.
In this 52-minute episode Russell and I discuss:
- His initial business plan
- His first, sub $20 Royalty payment and how long it took to exceed $1,000 in monthly royalties
- The genesis of his highly entertaining and bestselling Jet series.
- The value of experimentation
- Russell looks at his Author Business as two separate operations.
- His pricing philosophy.
- His social media strategy/philosophy.
- The value of word-of-mouth sales to his brand.
- The team that helps him to be so productive.
- The benefits of working with a publishing legend like Clive Cussler.
- The importance of knowing your value proposition
- The value of focus to success in any field.
Click here to listen to The Author Biz no. 27
by Stephen Campbell | Jan 12, 2015 | Podcasts
Have you ever posted a book on Amazon and wondered whether or not you’ve chosen the best keywords, and categories for your book? Do you have a small worry tickling at the back of your mind that you haven’t done everything you can do to optimize your book for the Amazon platform? If so, this episode should be of great interest to you.
My guest, Emilee Annine Moeller, is an actress, an environmental attorney, and a self-confessed Kindle Geek. She’s also the author of two Amazon non-fiction Bestsellers, EAT, PRAY, HCG and HCG DIET RECIPIES.
In addition to writing and publishing her own books, Emilee is the co-founder of KindleCoachPro.com where she coaches other authors how to self-publish and promote their books on Amazon. She has an amazing success rate helping her author clients hit the Amazon bestseller lists.
I had a blast and learned a lot in this 50-minute chat with Emilee. You can listen to it here:
Click here to listen to The Author Biz no. 26
by Stephen Campbell | Jan 5, 2015 | Podcasts
The dream: You write, edit and polish your manuscript to the point where it shines like a diamond, then send it to a big time agent who begs to represent you. She submits it to the big five publishers, all of whom want your book. There’s a bidding war and the winner pays you an advance that’s large enough for you to quit your day job and begin writing full time.
The fact: If you’re not already the star of a reality television program, this probably isn’t happening.
But what if there was another way to become a full-time writer? What if you could use your storytelling skills to earn money doing freelance work while spending the rest of your time working on your novels.
Chris Orcutt has been supporting himself as a professional writer for nearly 20 years, by doing just that, but not in the ways you might expect. He’s become a specialist in writing speeches and as you’ll hear in the interview, even screenplays for corporations.
He uses the skills he’s developed over the years as a writer, to help support his work as a novelist. And it’s working. In the past twelve months, Chris has published two books, including the latest in his Dakota Stevens Mystery Series, A TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION. In March of last year, he published the award-winning 100 MILES FROM MANHATTAN.
I really enjoyed this 48-minute interview with Chris. You can listen to it here:
Click here to Listen to The Author Biz Episode No. 24
by Stephen Campbell | Jan 1, 2015 | Personal, Success
I’ve heard more than one writer say that some of what we write is to clarify our thinking. This two-part series on my focus for next year is an effort to refine my thinking as the calendar turns to 2015. If you didn’t read the previous post, you can find it here.
Man plans, God laughs
–Yiddish Proverb
How many decisions do you make in a given day?
- Should I turn right here to miss the traffic light or keep going and hope it stays green?
- I planned to get up and run this morning, but I was up late last night. Should I hit the snooze button?
- My budget for the new car is $250 a month, but the navigation system is awesome, and it’s only $11 a month more. What’s $11 a month?
We make decisions ranging from the inconsequential to the life changing, every day. And for the most part we make them on the fly, with little thought. But what about the important decisions? How should we make those?
Decision filters based on goals have always worked well for me. Most of us use them, but we may not think of the decisions in terms of goals. Want to lose 10 pounds before your friends wedding? Skip the ice cream. Want to save money for a two-week ski trip to Aspen? Go to a less expensive restaurant on Saturday night with your friends.
But what about the goals themselves? What kind of decision filters do we use to decide on our goals?
For the past two years, my measurable goals have been non-existent. Oh sure, I’ve wanted to lose weight, mostly when I catch a surprise glimpse of myself in the mirror, or when my feet hurt after a run. Or, I wished I had the ability to write as quickly as those authors who crank out four books a year. But those are simply wants, not goals. They’re a stimulus reaction.
Deciding what you want to accomplish over the coming days, weeks, months or even years isn’t something that should be based upon what others are doing. These are the important decisions. The ones that require thought, and in my case they’re best made with a decision-making framework. The framework I’m using to evaluate my personal and professional goals are the three words I’ve chosen as my touch points for 2015. Simplify, Multiply and Monetize.
Simplify
I’d love to have a way to quantify the amount of time I wasted making decisions on things that meant nothing to me in 2014. Did I think the new iPhone was a significant leap forward, and if so should I get one? Should I buy a new computer? Is this to-do list program better than the one I’m using now? All these random thoughts require answers and the answers require decisions.
Time is an increasingly scarce commodity in our lives. Should we really spend it on things like evaluating the value of the latest phone/watch combination gadget?
Simplification for me in 2015 means limiting options, making fewer decisions, and saying no a lot more often than I say yes.
Multiply
Since time is limited, generating the best possible results in 2015 will come from multiplying my efforts. Spending an extra hour building a system or a template, which can be used multiple times is worth the effort. Doing something that can only be used once is probably not.
I’m in the creation business, but not everything needs to be created from scratch. As a quick example, a single blog post can be expanded to become a series of posts, which can become an ebook, that can be used as an incentive to get people to sign up for an email list.
Multiplication for me in 2015 means executing on creative ideas that can serve multiple purposes.
Monetize
There are two forms of investment in any activity - time and money. For the past two years I’ve spent both time and money learning the work I’m currently doing, but time is becoming scarce now. I need to be able to multiply (ah, there’s that word again) my efforts, which will require more money and that money should be coming from the work I’m doing now. Not the work I did five years ago.
Publishing rather than creating endless drafts is monetizing. Creating products that add value to the audience of The Author Biz brand is also monetizing. If writing and The Author Biz are to be businesses then I need to monetize the work I’m doing with each of them.
Monetization for me in 2015 means publishing and selling books, as well as the creation and sale of products and services through The Author Biz brand.
Will these three simple words make a measurable difference in what I achieve in 2015? Well . . . yeah - I think they will. There’s nothing magic about the words, but there may just be some magic when they’re used to make the decisions that determine what gets done over the coming year.
Thanks to Chris Brogan for the idea of using three words as a focal point for the coming year and thanks to you for indulging me with this bit of reflection as we move into the new year. And remember, if God laughs at your plans next year, you’re not alone.
