Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "self-publishing"

I recently did an interview with fellow author Simon Royle, for his blog. Read all about my inspiration for my latest novel,Second Chances, the writing and publishing process, and some advice for aspiring authors:

IndieView Interview

I'm going to start a new series on my blog: my A-Z of Writing and Self-Publishing Tips. The first post from that series can be found on author K.B. Walker's blog.

Here's a link to the blog, where I have posted A-C, including tips about apostrophes, blogs, and writing contests.


http://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/20...


Enjoy!

Welcome to the second instalment of my series, in which I highlight a few things I have learnt over the years about the self-publishing journey.

I hope the series will be useful to aspiring writers and those who are having a hard time navigating their way through the often confusing self-publishing process.

The first part of the series was featured on author K.B. Walker's blog: A-C Writing and Self-publishing tips

So here we go:

D

Dialogue & Description:

There is a view that you should not include too much dialogue in your fiction. This is a view that, frankly, I don't believe in. I write character-driven fiction that contains a lot of dialogue, and I like it that way. When I'm reading books, I also like a lot of dialogue; when it's done correctly, it helps move the action along and also entertains more than a paragraph of prose ever could. That said, you should not include too much dialogue to the exclusion of other description. I think that description in a novel is also an important part of it. I really believe that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to how much dialogue and how much description you include in a novel, the important thing is that you write in a way that makes it easy for the reader. Writers will find their own style, and some will include a lot of description, some more dialogue. Where there is more description than dialogue in a novel, it can result in a slower paced book. Books with more dialogue are often quicker to read.

The important points when constructing dialogue in a novel, are as follows:

1. Make it clear who is speaking. So, for example, where there are two men talking to each other, if you say 'he said' a few times, this could result in confusion. Perhaps, have one of the men mention the name of the other within the dialogue once or twice, or mention the name of one of the men, e.g. 'said James.'

2. Vary the writing, i.e. don't keep saying, 'he said', or 'she said' every time a character finishes speaking. Add other things, like, 'he swept his hand through his hair as he spoke', or 'she avoided his eyes'. In this way you are 'showing' your reader what the characters are doing as they're speaking. An example:


One way of doing it:

'How much is this vase?' asked John.
'Fifty pounds,' answered Bobby.
'That's expensive for a vase.'
'It's rare... an antique,' said Bobby.

Another way:

John picked up a blue vase with a floral design.'How much does this cost?' He asked.
Bobby eyed him up and down as if trying to work out how much he could afford to pay. He narrowed his eyes and said, 'That's fifty pounds.'
John's eyes widened. 'That's expensive for a vase.'
'It's rare... an antique,' said Bobby as he wiped a stain from the top of the shop counter, avoiding John's stare.

Okay, so that's a basic unedited paragraph, but I hope it highlights what I mean about trying to make the dialogue interesting.

3. Make the dialogue realistic; i.e. if your story is set in a certain part of the country where people have an accent and a certain way of saying things, you should really include that within the dialogue.

I do know of writers who have done quite well writing a whole short story only using dialogue and nothing else. So, it is doable. I suppose the point I really want to make is that you should never listen to anyone who says there are hard and fast rules for this type of thing; as with any creative pursuit, use your own intuition, and make sure you feel happy with the writing you are putting out there.

Digital publishing:

Any new writers would be forgiven for being confused by all the various ways you can publish e-books online. This is very much the digital age when it comes to publishing. More e-books are sold than print books these days, so if you are serious about your writing you do need to consider having your books available in digital form as well as print.

There are number of sites available for publishing your books as e-books. Some of them are listed below:

1. Amazon Kindle - probably the most popular, and most widely read. I sell the majority of my e-books via Amazon Kindle. It's relatively easy to upload your books onto Kindle yourself and you don't even need an ISBN number to do that. Your book will be available more or less worldwide and at a price you choose. I don't think any serious writer can get away with not publishing their books on Kindle.

2. Smashwords.com - This is a great site for indie writers. It allows you to upload your book and it will be converted into most digital formats, so it's available for download to most (if not all) e-readers.

3. Barnes and Noble (B&N) - Nook. This is also a popular reading device. If you publish through Smashwords, your book will be available through B&N. Or, you can upload to B&N directly (although when I last looked at that you can only upload directly if you have a US address or bank account).

4. iBookstore - the iPad is becoming more an more popular. Uploading your books onto the iBookstore can be done direct. I am told that if you produce a document on Pages (on a Mac) you can convert it into ePub and upload very easily onto the iBookstore. I haven't tried that yet, and believe there may be some restrictions for anyone outside the US trying to publish on there. I did get a few of my books converted free by Lulu.com, so they appear on the iBookstore.


E

Editing

This is a biggie. Ignore this at your peril.

You MUST make sure that before you publish a book of any type, it has been edited, and in most cases this means that someone other than the author has looked through it with a fine-toothed comb.

By 'someone', I mean someone who has knowledge of grammar, spelling, syntax.

I can't stress how important that is.

In the past few years, I have read hundreds of indie books, and about 98% of them have had problems associated with the fact that a good editor was not used... It's frustrating. I know that when you're a writer starting out you will be very keen to publish your work. You will love it, you will feel accomplished when you write a whole novel, you'll show it to a friend or two, maybe your mum and dad, they will all tell you it's great. Then you publish... then you learn. This is the road most authors take on the journey. We all make mistakes.

I can give an example from my own publishing journey. I know that I published Coincidences too soon. I should have sat on the story, re-read it, edited it, and waited until it was perfect, but I was keen to publish and a less-than-perfect version is out there in hardback. My second edition is as near as what I would say is perfect (in my opinion), but my reviews from the older version are still there on Amazon, and will live with me. The first version was good, but not great. We should all be aiming for great books before we publish them. At the time I published Coincidences the first time, I was sure it was perfect and would become a best-seller, but that was over 12 years ago and I have learnt so much since then. There is a lesson in that to aspiring writers: just because you think your book is the best thing since sliced bread, it may not be :)

In conclusion, it's okay, and not the end of the world, if you've published a less-than-perfect book, but we must always be striving for perfection, so either do what I did with Coincidences and rewrite it until you're happy with it, or try to edit your work before your publish it to avoid all that.

Try and use an editor who comes recommended by someone else. With my soon-to-be-released novel, Haunted, I used the editing services of Susan Helene Gottfried. I am quite confident with my writing by this stage of my writing life, but I spent so many months editing Coincidences that I wanted to hand over the hard part of the publishing process to someone else. I'm glad I did, because I now have someone's comments on my book that will make me think from the perspective of a reader when polishing my work.

It's also important to have proof-readers. But I can deal with that subject in a later part of this series.

F

Formatting

This follows on nicely from the part above about digital publishing.

Self-published writers are expected to wear many hats. They are artists, writers, entertainers, now marketers and editors, and the digital age has required them to be able to be computer-literate and format their books into a version that can be accepted on e-book seller sites.

There are guidelines that you can follow on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords and other sites that will enable you to upload books yourself to the sites. I found I was limited with what I could do as I have a Mac computer and until recently most sites were not very user-friendly for Macs. I was lucky enough to have a good author friend who helped me with formatting. I won't mention her name in case she's inundated with requests for help LOL.

Formatting is a big issue in publishing. I read a lot of Kindle books and notice that most of them have formatting issues. This is partly due to the fact that the book is being converted from one file type to another. It can also be due to the fact that Microsoft Word is quite a basic software system not capable of functioning well for this type of usage (an IT expert told me this.)

There is help and there are resources you can find on the Internet if you find that you are stuck and need help with formatting.

If you want to go it alone, self-published without using another company but just require formatting help, I would recommend, eBookBuilders: https://digitalebookformatting.wordpr... I am told that this company will produce the best quality formatted ebooks for your requirements. I am probably going to use the company for my next e-book. It would be peace of mind to know that the product I am publishing will be the best it can be.

Facebook

One of the features I have recently started using on Facebook is the Author Fan Page. So, I've set up a page separate from my own personal page, and use that for promoting my books. I think all authors should have a fan page. It makes sense, because then you can post personal stuff on your own page and project a more professional image on your Author Page. It's quite easy to set up the page. You go to your 'home' page and click on 'Pages' then there should be a link for 'start a new page', or something like that. You build the page as you would your normal Facebook page.

I found that getting people to 'Like' the page can be a struggle, but I was invited to a Facebook Event yesterday, where people were swapping 'Likes' and it was very successful. I ended up with 315 'Likes' of my page. When people 'Like' your page, they will see whatever you post in their news feed. So, the more 'Likes' you have, the better.

Friendly

I'm just going to tag this on the end because I believe that now we are in the e-publishing world we are all much more accessible on the Internet. A big part of what we do as self-published writers is marketing. That's marketing of our book, but also be aware that you are also marketing yourself as a brand name. It's important that you are friendly in your approach to readers and fellow indie authors. There is nothing more off-putting than an author who obviously just wants to sell you his or her book, but just as obviously, doesn't want to know anything about you...
Get to know your readers and have a circle of fellow writers that you can chat with. Writing is a lonely business, but with the advent of the Internet and all the various social networking sites, it can also be a lot of fun.

That brings me onto another word: Fun You should have fun as a self-published writer, enjoy what you are doing and this will come across to others. If you are not happy, you should perhaps not be self-published. Being a self-published writer is hard work, it's something that won't bring immediate results, and there are many things that can drag you down. This is another reason why it's important to have fellow authors you can chat to.

Here's another F word: Forum Join a writers'/readers' forum, liked Bestsellerbound.com, that I mentioned in my last post (Under B).

Look out for my next post in this series. Coming soon...

Welcome to the third instalment of my series, wherein I intend to pass on some of the things I have learnt on my publishing journey.

I'm hoping this series will be of use to aspiring authors as well as established Indie authors. Readers may also find the insights valuable, in order to gain some kind of idea of what the self-publishing journey entails. It's not an easy road to travel, which is why I think it's beneficial that we all assist each other and try to enlighten those who may not be familiar with all the ins and outs.

You will find the first two instalments here:
A-C: http://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/20...
D-F: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...


I am only covering the letter G today as I have found many tips that start with this particular letter!

So, here we go:

G

Goodreads

I love Goodreads, and I'm not just saying that because I'm here. I discovered this invaluable website back in 2008 at the very beginning of my self-publishing journey and it has been a source of inspiration and assistance to me. I have met some of my best Indie author friends here. Back in 2008, when I was trying to find a way to promote my writing, I heard that a good way to get the word out was to have lots of reviews of your books. So I set about trying to find ways to obtain reviews. I contacted some Amazon reviewers, but then heard about something going on at Goodreads where authors would swap books and review each other's work. As I was out of work at the time, I had lots of time to read, so I thought this would be a good way to build up a following. While I would recommend book swaps as a way to get more reviews, I would also add a warning. There are some authors who will give you a high rating for your book in the hope that you will do the same. If you're like me, and only give honest opinions on books, you can run into some trouble. Some authors will be offended if you give them a less than glowing review of their book. So find out a bit about the author before you agree to swap books with them. Make sure you inform them from the start that you only give honest reviews. I had to start adding that to e-mails because of the unrealistic expectations I came across from less than professional authors. A good system is to agree that if you don't like the book you won't post a review. Then there won't be any backlash.

Anyway, back to why I love Goodreads. Through the book swaps, I discovered many great books and it made me realise that self-published fiction is just as good as the books you'll find on the best-seller shelves in shops. It opened up a whole new world of reading for me; up until that point, I'd been someone who was swayed by advertising to buy the books that were hyped up by publishing companies.

Some of the Indie authors I met on Goodreads way back in 2008 are still great friends and I enjoy their work immensely, for example, Julie Elizabeth Powell, and Quentin R. Bufogle.

Goodreads also has this blog facility, which I have found very handy as a tool to spread the word about my books. There are also many groups you can join where you can interact with readers and writers. In general, I have found the groups and forums on Goodreads to be more Indie-friendly than for example the Amazon forums. I am almost afraid to post anything on the Amazon forums because readers there seem to hate self-published authors... It's odd that people who claim to love reading and hang out on those forums can also hurl such abuse at creators of fiction. I have seen many an author criticised for mentioning his or her own book on those forums, and can only say that it offends my very soul to see that sort of behaviour. I can understand to some extent, the hate of spammy authors who will post links to their books everywhere without participating in any discussions, but the sort of abuse of authors I've witnessed on those forums is akin to bullying and seems to have its root in an innate hate for Indie authors that obviously stems from ignorance, and the unfounded belief that all self-published books are somehow inferior to those published by a mainstream publisher.

Sorry, I have strayed from the point again.

Other things I have found useful on Goodreads are the giveaway, recommend, and events functions. You can advertise a giveaway of a copy of your book, and as there are plenty of readers on this site, there are often thousands of entries. This generates interest in the books, as people are likely to add the book to their to-read list.

The 'recommend' link next to every book title is great, because you can recommend books you have read to your followers and thus help promote good books.

The 'events' link is great too as you can use it to let readers know about any upcoming book signings, KDP Free promotions etc.

To conclude, I would say that being a member of Goodreads has definitely been worthwhile for me and I'd recommend it to all Indie authors. When you join you'll be given a reader profile page, but can apply for an Author Page quite easily by following the links. Author pages are useful to have because as well as having a blog attached to them, there is also a section where you can add excerpts from your writing, so that readers can get an idea of your style.

Grammar

If you are thinking of self-publishing your own work it is important that you have a good grasp of grammar. If you don't, there are many books that you can buy to help you learn the rules. An editor is also a useful resource if you're not confident with your knowledge of grammar. It's very important for your prose to be grammatically correct (and I am aware that there are conflicting grammar rules that often make this an arduous task). The only instance where you can be excused for not following grammatical rules is within dialogue. Everyday speech is hardly ever grammatically correct, and I think good writing should reflect this. However, another warning here: don't make your dialogue so authentic to a particular district or country that your reader is left unable to understand it! I once read a book that was supposed to be written so that it reflected a particular slang, and I only got through about 16 pages before giving up. What's the point publishing a book that no one can understand? Our aim should be to have as large a readership as possible, so don't alienate your readers. It is still possible to write authentic dialogue without making it illegible. An example of this, is Scottish author Mark Rice whose stories are based in Scotland and the character dialogue is authentic but still easy to understand.

The main point about grammar that I want to make is that when a book is written as near as possible to correct grammar as you can get it, it will be so much easier for the reader to read. And clarity is what we should all be aiming for when we are writing. You don't want a reader to have to stop and think after reading each sentence trying to work out what you actually meant by that.


Giveaways

Many authors say they don't like giving away their books because they have worked so hard writing them. It is very true that authors work very hard on their books.

But my view is that you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don't give some books away. Every book you give away is an advertisement.

As mentioned above, Goodreads allows you to set up book giveaways. You can then use the giveaway as a marketing tool, and a way for more people to find out about your book. After all, everyone loves getting something for free. The success of the Amazon KDP Select programme is testament to that.

Other places you can set up giveaways are LibraryThing.com, Rafflecopter, and even when you're invited for an interview by a blogger or another author, you should also offer to give away a book or two. I have personally found the Goodreads giveaways a great way to promote a book.

On BestsellerBound Recommends (the new blog from Darcia Helle, myself, and J. Michael Radcliffe), we can set up a giveaway for Indie authors. Check out the submissions page for details!

In today's instalment, I will be providing more tips for indie authors and there is some useful information for readers of indie books about how they can help their favourite authors.


H

Honesty

This is a hot topic at the moment. Everyone knows that reviews can influence readers when choosing a book to read. Recently, an indie author was accused of writing reviews for his own books under a pseudonym, and he owned up to it http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...

I am sure that many writers do this and I can see why they would be tempted to do so, but I would advise against it. Not only for the reason that you can get caught, but because I believe that honesty is important, in life, and in how we promote ourselves and our work.
There are some authors who are so keen to get great reviews for their own books that they do something similar to the above in that they write glowing reviews for other authors' books in the hopes of getting a great review in return. This again is dishonest and not something I would recommend.
I believe that you should be honest in your approach to your own writing and promotion, and in your approach to reviewing other authors' books. That is the only way that the indie book industry can prosper. There are many trashy, badly edited, and frankly, rubbish books produced by indie authors because of the ease of publishing these days. It does no one any good if we go around giving 5 star reviews to such books. It will only bring down the standards in the industry and lead to critics finding more ways to find fault with us as a group.
In the same way, if an author gives his or her own book 5 stars and a glowing review, using a pseudonym, when in fact the book is full of typos, how does that help promote the indie book industry as a whole? If you are so sure that your book is great, you should be willing to send it out to others for reviews. There is no need to review your own book in this way.
Having said that, I have nothing against an author reviewing their own book under their own name. This is a nice idea, because it gives the reader something extra from the author, and these days, with all the social networking sites, readers are interested in getting to know the authors as well as the product.
Honest reviews are great, even when they are not glowing reviews. Most authors will admit, sometimes reluctantly, that they learnt something from an honest critical review that helped them improve their writing. I take into account every criticism in reviews of my books and see how I can approach my next book in a way that could maybe avoid this criticism. I'm talking about reviews by normal people here, not the ones by the trolls whose only mission appears to be to upset people with nasty one star reviews. Authors can safely ignore those types of reviews.

Okay, I'm off the point here, so to conclude, I do believe that when it comes to promoting your writing as an indie author honesty is the best policy. It will reflect well on you and on the industry as a whole. It will help the books that deserve recognition to find that and it will help those authors who may need assistance in fine-tuning their work to be able to do so.


Helping others

I truly believe that the best way to promote yourself as an author is to help other authors. For example, you could do reviews, if you have time, or you could host the authors on your blog, interview them, etc. By doing this you can build up a following of readers who are looking for new reads and because you are an author they may also consider reading your books.
On my blog, I have been promoting my favourite authors and books for a while now, and I do find that it helps to build up a following for the blog. It also keeps the blog interesting and varied. You don't want to be talking about yourself and your books all the time, after all.

Here are a few tips for authors and readers as to how you can help indie authors:

Review books that you've enjoyed reading. This is perhaps the most important and best way you can help your favourite authors. Amazon is the biggest retailer for eBooks these days, so an Amazon review would be fantastic. You don't have to be a professional reviewer to review a book. You can just write a couple of lines saying why you liked the book. All and any positive reviews are always gratefully received by an author. I cannot stress this enough. So, if you've read a great indie book recently but haven't reviewed it on Amazon, go there now... come back here and read the rest of this post later! Go!

Amazon is not the only place to leave reviews. As we all know, you can leave reviews here on Goodreads and as there is a large population of readers here, that is a fabulous way to help an author. You can also join sites such as Shelfari and LibraryThing where you can list all the books you've read, and leave reviews.

Barnes and Noble is also a big bookseller, so leave a review there too.

I suppose to cut a long story short, I am saying you should review your favourite books wherever and whenever you can.

Tag and Like the books on Amazon

You will see under the title of every book on Amazon there is a 'Like' button. So, please go there now and make sure you click that button for every great book you've read recently. This helps enormously because Amazon takes account of how many 'Likes' a book has when it decides which books to promote.

Similarly, on the book page, after the reviews, there is a list of 'Tags' associated with the book. The more times a book has been tagged the more visible it will be on Amazon. Usually there are already tags listed for the book, but where you find no tags, you should add your own. These are just words that are associated with a book that help readers to discover it. So, for example, if you've just read a mystery book, you could add the tag 'mystery', and when customers are looking for mystery books the book will show up in the list if it has enough tags to make it prominent.

Amazon Author Pages
While we are on the subject of Amazon, most authors have their own author page there. This page has a 'Like' button on the top right hand corner. Make sure you go there and Like all your favourite author pages.

Tell your friends

If you've read a good book, tell your friends. Word of mouth helps to promote books. Amazon has links on each book page allowing you to post to Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Make use of these.


I

Indie writer

What does it mean to be an indie author? Readers may be confused, so I will take a bit of time to explain it. I know that before I started publishing my own books I had no idea of what was involved in the self-publishing process. I mainly bought books that I found on the bookshelves in my local bookshop. None of those were indie books. Most of the bookshops you'll find on your high street (unless they are independent bookshops who make an effort to stock books by independent authors) will only stock bestsellers or books that are published by traditional publishing houses. There is a reason behind this which is logical. They are a business and they want to sell books. Books that are being hyped with big advertisements posted everywhere are more likely to sell. So, if you want to help your local independent author, you need to go to independent, smaller bookshops, the kind of places that are open to stocking books by local authors that are trying to make a name for themselves. Indie books are also easy to find on most Internet stores like Amazon and Barnes and Noble these days.

Being an indie author means that you are self-publishing your books, so you are independent of a publishing house. The tools used to publish books these days are readily available on the Internet and this has led to a surge in people publishing their own books. Is this a good thing?

Readers may be told that the reason a writer will publish their own work is because they cannot find a traditional publisher willing to publish them. This is often far from the truth.

Many authors (and I'm one of them) like the freedom that comes with self-publishing. It would take a lot to entice me to agree to have my books published by a publishing house. For one, publishing house like books to fit within a certain word count, they like their books to easily fit into a category/genre, they don't like things that are outside of the norm. And, most importantly, they take a big slice of the royalties. Many big name authors are turning indie these days. For artists, the ability to keep control over our work makes self-publishing an attractive alternative. It's a choice that a writer makes these days rather than being forced into it because they can't find a publisher.

Readers should bear in mind that when you buy indie books you are supporting the artist. The work is independently produced by the writer. They are typically people who are driven by a passion for writing, and determined to get their books published because they have a story to tell, or they like to tell stories. By buying indie books, you can be sure that the money you spend is going to the artist and not to a publishing company. It's very much like supporting a small business rather than going to a large superstore.

The quality of the books produced by indie authors will vary, which is why there has been a lot of hoo-hah about people being able to publish their own works. The fuddy-duddies will tell you that an independent book can never be up to the standards of large and established publishing houses. However, I see no reason why indie books cannot be just as polished and just as good as those published in the traditional way.

I have read many indie books over the past 3-4 years and have found that many are well written and well edited. There are those that fall below the standards you would expect. It's important to have a way to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. People should not turn against indie books just because they've read one that doesn't quite come up to scratch.

There are reasons some of the books are not very well edited. For example, it may be that this is the debut novel or first book written by the author and they were so keen to see their masterpiece in the shops that they didn't take the type to polish the manuscript before publishing. It's very exciting when you finish writing your book and you want the world to see it, but as I have said before in this series, you cannot cut corners if you are serious about your writing.

A great way to discover new indie authors and make sure that the author is someone who cares about his or her art, is to download the free books from Amazon. There are always freebies available, and you can look on them as samples of the author's work.

Indie authors (those who take pride in their work) work very hard to make sure their books are the best they can be, and this means hours of labour. Being an indie author often means doing your own editing, designing your own cover, and taking care of all the promotion. It's a full time job, but most of us also have day jobs. You can show your support for indie authors by trying the freebies and buying one of that author's other books.

There are also blogs all over the Internet that review indie books and you can look for recommended books from those sites to make sure you are getting a good quality book. I recently launched a blog with authors Darcia Helle and J. Michael Radcliffe , which features reviews of Indie books that we have read and enjoyed. You can keep up with the blog to find new books to read, here: Bestsellerbound Recommends. We also have an Amazon carousel across the top and bottom of the blog showcasing books that we recommend. Take a look, there's something for every taste.

At least where someone else has read the book, you know whether it is worth reading, that's the idea behind BestsellerBound Recommends because we also got to the stage where we wanted to be able to tell whether a book we are going to read is worth it or whether it would be riddled with typos.

It's important, if you intend to be an indie author long-term, that you take pride in the work you produce and make sure you are not giving other indies a bad name.

Happily, most of the indie authors I have met over the years have been really professional in their approach to their writing and publishing, and are willing to work as hard as they can to produce books they can be proud of.


J

Journey

Self-publishing should be looked upon by the author as a journey. All along your journey, you will keep learning. When you publish your book, you haven't reached a destination, you are still travelling. You have to keep going with the marketing and promotion, and with writing the next book. It's not an easy journey. The writing and editing itself will take many hours each day, as will the publishing, formatting, and promotion. You should not expect to get results straight away as most writers don't see any rewards for years, and some are still waiting to see a reward for their hard work even after many years. Just as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Life is a journey, not a destination." This also applies to your writing life. You should learn to enjoy the journey rather than focusing on what you expect the destination will be. Many authors become very frustrated early on because they have unrealistic expectations. Remember that not every author that publishes a book will become as successful as J.K. Rowling. Yes, it happens but it's rare. So, try to enjoy your journey.

You can find my previous blogs in this series, here:

A-C: http://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/20...
D-F: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
G: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...

A few months ago, I was lucky enough to meet today's guest on Twitter. Terry Tyler has published four novels, and is working on her fifth. I recently read one of her books, You Wish..., and after reading that, she is now one of my favourite authors. I can't wait to find time to read the rest of her books.




After reading You Wish..., I had a few questions for Terry. Here's the interview:


Without giving too much away. You Wish... is all about fate and destiny versus free will and choice. What's your personal view about this? Do you think we are responsible for our futures or do you think there's an element of destiny/fate involved?

I think our lives are what we make them. On the other hand, coincidence seems to play a large part, sometimes. I suppose the answer to this is - I don't know! I like to rationalise and say that I think all things like fortune telling, horoscopes, destiny, etc, are a load of bunkum, but of course no-one really knows for certain, do they?



Have you ever made a wish on something like a Wishing Stone that came true?

My first reaction to that was 'don't be ridiculous'. However, you know at the end of the summer when you get those fluffy things floating about? I think they're from dandelions! When I was about 15 my friend told me that if you caught one in mid-float you could wish on it. We called them 'fairies'. I caught one, wished to go out with a certain boy, and it happened. Of course, he wouldn't have asked me out if I hadn't wished on the 'fairy', would he, eh??! Oh, go on, then, I'll admit it. I still do catch and make wishes on them....



One of the most hilarious parts of the book involves Petra and her obsession with a man on Facebook. Have you ever had an Internet stalker? If so, tell us a little about it.

Not a stalker as such, but I've had some pretty persistent would-be male friends on Facebook, who wouldn't stop 'poking' me (they wished!) and sending me friend requests until I blocked them. Also some troll types, but the least said about them the better.


Your book has some scenes that take place in the 1980s and I have to say it really took me back to that time, and was very realistic. Did you research into all the '80s stuff or was it just taken from your memory of the decade?

My memory. I was 21 in 1980 and 30 in 1989, so it was the decade of my twenties. The hair salon, Catz, was taken from a real one, of the same name.


Your character Ruth and her friend Fleur are great fans of Kate Bush. Who were your favourite '80s bands?



I loved Kate Bush, too. My favourite music has always been rock, but in the 80s I also loved Blondie, The Human League, Bowie, UB40, Devo, Madness.... oh, and I bought loads of pop singles, too. Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones, Kajagoogoo - ha ha! And George Michael's first solo album, I seem to remember.


One thing that you've managed to show very well in your book You Wish... is how much technology has changed since the 1980s. For example, people didn't have mobiles and the Internet. If we had to go back to that era what would you miss most, the Internet, your mobile, or something else?

I can't imagine NOT having a mobile or the internet, now, but wasn't it kinda nice when everyone couldn't always get in touch with everyone, all the time? You could actually be a bit elusive if you wanted to be without people sending you Facebook messages to ask you why you haven't been around for a while! I DID more stuff before the internet, too; went out and socialised more. Probably just not having everyone immediately accessible, all the time. Now, if you lose your phone, you can buy another one and email/Facebook message/tweet everyone to tell you their number again. Then, if you lost someone's phone number or address, it was really hard to find it again.


You Wish... is full of true-to-life, realistic characters. There will be someone in there that everyone can relate to in some way. Which one of the characters is most like you?

None of them. There's probably a little of me in every character I write, but no-one in that book, specifically.

If you had to spend a day with one of the characters in You Wish... who would you choose, where would you go, and what advice would you give him/her?

I'd probably like to go out and get wrecked with Mel the Builder's Labourer. I always quite fancied him. I certainly wouldn't want to go Jay hunting with Petra, or be all serious with Ruth!

Were any of the people in You Wish... based on people you know?

I take parts of all my characters from stuff within me and observation of others. It's rare that one character is based on one person. That's not to say it never happens, though. All of the characters in You Wish... came mostly from my imagination, though Nicky and Linda who worked in Catz hair salon existed. As did the lesbian owner!! I used to have a friend at school when i was about 8 who had white blonde hair and was a right little madam, so perhaps Fleur came a bit from her!

Apart from You Wish... you have 3 other novels. Can you tell us a bit about each one, what inspired the book, what it's about and what you would hope the reader gets out of it.



Nobody's Fault was my 2nd novel published on Amazon. I'd been wanting to write a novel about a fake Facebook profile for ages, and also one about a grand passion. I just combined the two!







My 3rd one, The Other Side - I've always been fascinated by thoughts of, for instance, what would have happened if I hadn't gone to that party where I met my first husband - then tracing it back by thinking, ah yes, but I went to that party with my friend Angela. So if I hadn't taken that job where I met Angela - and so it goes on! I first wrote this novel in 1999, but the other way round - I started it when the character was 14, then gave the reader options at the end of the chapter - to make his/her own choice. Thus, there were 8 different endings. I remember at the time my step daughter and her friend (then aged 15) spending the WHOLE weekend going back and forth, finding out what would have happened if they'd made different choices...! It was in manuscipt form, of course, and they laid the chapters all over the floor in a pyramid so they could see which one to read next!



My 4th novel, Dream On, I first wrote in 1995. I was in a pub (The King Billy in Northampton, which later became The Romany in Dream On!) with my sister. There were two chaps at the bar, who we didn't know; we started weaving a story around them and their lives, just for a laugh - except that I went home and turned it into a novel. The two characters became Dave and Shane. It was only ever read by my brother, my sister and a couple of others, but they all said they liked it the best of anything I'd ever written, so this summer I decided to dust it off, and write it again. Incidentally, 4 years later I got to know the Shane character, and married him.... the Dave character was best man at our wedding.
What do I hope readers get out of them? I just hope they enjoy them and find them unputdownable, and that the characters become real to them - the greatest compliment I have is when people tell me that they think about my books for a while after reading them.

I know from a recent conversation on Twitter that you've done very well with promotion of your books on KDP Select. I understand you had 17.5K downloads with 2 of your books. Do you have any tips for authors as to how they can best promote the free days on Amazon Kindle. And, have you noticed an increase in actual sales after the free promo?

This is probably too involved a subject for an author interview; I'll just outline some basics: PREPARE. You should build up your network of retweeters a while before you do your free promotion. You will need to get your promotional links retweeted over and over if you are going to make a success of the free days - if you want other people to help you, then you should have already helped them first. You also need to look up all the profiles on Twitter and Facebook on which you can advertise your free promotion, or who will advertise it for you. Be aware that you will need to be at the laptop more or less permanently during the promotional days - you'll need to keep retweeting back all those people who are kind enough to retweet you, don't forget!

The increase in post promotion sales depends on how successful the promotion is. My first one was amazing, and got me to number 24 in the PAID Amazon UK top 100 after it had finished. There is nothing written down anywhere about any of this, but it does seem that the 2nd time you do a free promotion for a particular book, you don't get anything like that huge boost afterwards; I presume this is because Amazon doesn't give you the visibility it does the first time round. I say this only through my own experience, and through observation of others'.

Your books are only available as Kindle eBooks, is that correct? Do you have any plans to make them available as paperbacks or other eBook formats?

No. I might research paperbacks, one day.


Do you have any tips for someone who may be thinking of self- publishing?

Tons and tons - again, too much for an author interview. Do you mean tips about writing or about self-publishing? If the latter, I'd say that unless you are really good at editing, cover art & formatting, get other people to do it for you. Always get it proof read by someone else. I edit my own work but others do my cover art and formatting. Make sure your cover is eye-catching in thumbnail size and make sure your blurb is snappy and interesting. It's an advert for the book, not a synopsis. Be prepared to do a lot of promotional work; you have to realise that you now have your own business; you are trying to sell a product. Don't think you have to join lots of blogging groups and Facebook groups and Goodreads forums and God knows what else; while you're writing ABOUT writing you're not writing your novel(s). Chatting on Facebook author groups about the difficulties of promoting your work or how to deal with bad reviews won't get your book written, and it won't make you a better writer, either. I agree a certain amount of this sort of interaction can be helpful, useful and entertaining, but it's best to keep it limited. Never, ever be tempted to pay for reviews, or get fake ones. If someone has told you they like your book, ask them if they wouldn't mind writing a review for you; most people don't mind. if you can't get reviews, you might need to re-think your marketing - or maybe the book itself. If it's your first novel, don't worry too much if you get a fair few negative comments - very few people get it right first time.

Which authors were your favourites when you were growing up, and was there any author in particular that inspired you to start writing?

As a child? CS Lewis and Enid Blyton. Oh, and I loved the Jill pony books by Ruby Ferguson.





I grew up in the 1960s; you probably won't remember them, Maria! There was no particular author who inspired me to start writing except perhaps CS Lewis, who said that no-one was writing the books he wanted to read, so he wrote them himself.



Have you read any good books lately?

I don't get very much time for reading these days; I'm always writing. I'm currently reading Rathbone Kydd - sex'n'drugs'n'quantum stuff by K J Bennett, about a 1970s rock musician who accidentally time travels into 2012. It's funny, and I'm enjoying it (apart from the fact that Rathbone Kydd says 'street cred', which people didn't say in the 70s, KJ!). This year I've also read a couple of Deborah Moggach books, a new Emily Barr, a new John Boyne (The Absolutist, set in WW1 - marvellous, wish i could give it 8 stars!) and also Thrift by Phil Church which was very funny, and Wild Water by Jan Ruth which I also enjoyed; it reminded me of early Jilly Cooper. There are tons more I would love to read if I only had the time.

What are you working on now?

A sequel to 'Dream On', which I hope to have out in February 2013.

Where can people find you online?

Amazon UK


Amazon US


Facebook


Goodreads

Thank you for inviting me to feature on your blog, Maria!

It's my pleasure, Terry, and I wish you every success with your novels!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed the interview. I'd recommend you pick up a Terry Tyler book next time you're on Amazon. You'll be glad you did!

I'm continuing my series with a few more self-publishing and writing tips that I hope you'll find handy.



N:

Names

One thing that is very common for writers when they first start out, is the need to use capital letters for everything. I've done it, and I've read lots of books by debut novelists that have the same issue.

You only need to use a capital letter at the start of a proper name, place name, or the brand name for something, or for a title. Obviously you use capital letters for days of the week, months of the year etc., but I find the most common errors are to do with misuse with words like mum and dad, aunt and uncle -- with these types of words you only need a capital letter where it's being used as a name. A few examples to hopefully make this clearer:

Where you don't need a capital letter:

Rachel's mum was doing the ironing.

Greg's dad was watching television.

My uncle came to visit.

The queen was in the parlour.

The king was in his counting house.

I went to university with him.

I have an appointment with the doctor.

Where a capital letter is needed:

"Are you doing the ironing, Mum?" asked Rachel. (Notice the word 'mum' is being used as a name.)

"What's on TV, Dad?"

"Thanks for visiting, Uncle Bob."

The ruler of the land was Queen Elizabeth.

For fifty years, King Henry had ruled.

I went to Middlesex University.

My appointment is with Doctor Green."

Another one is God. You always use capital G for God because it is a name, assuming you are using it for the one and only God. If you are talking of multiple gods, you don't need a capital letter. Again, when you're talking of the one and only God, you would also use capital letters when referring to Him, and use He and His, when you are talking about Him.

Hopefully, I haven't thoroughly confused you now.


NaNoWriMo

I have never actually taken part in this, but have been told by fellow writers that it's an excellent way to kickstart a new project, especially if you tend to procrastinate.

It means: National Novel Writing Month, and the idea is to write a complete novel in a month. Some people (amazingly) do manage to do this. Others don't, but those that don't finish often say that they are pleased they took part as they now have the beginning of a novel and can continue to work on it. I am not an expert of NaNoWriMo, so I can't really add any more to this, except, here's a link to the website where you can find out more about it. It takes place every November:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Networking

One of the most important things you can do as a self-published writer is network with fellow writers, readers, and people involved in the book-publishing industry in some way.

I have mentioned the forum, Bestsellerbound.com, where I am lucky enough to have met many supportive and talented independent writers. The great thing about having a support network is that you can get help when you need it, and two heads are better than one when it comes to finding ways to promote.

Find a writers group that you are happy with, and stay connected.

Twitter is also a great place to meet other writers, I have found (writers tend to follow fellow writers). I've also signed up to the World Literary Cafe Twitter Follows, here: http://www.worldlitcafe.com/, where you follow other Twitter users and they follow back. A good way to build a following, and network with other writers.


O:

Okay and OK

Many writers seem to be very confused about this word. I find variations, including ok, Ok, Okay... they are all wrong (except the last one if it's at the beginning of a sentence and needs the capital O.)

The only two correct ways of writing OK are:

OK and okay

OK????


P:


Podcasts

Increasingly, authors are using podcast interviews as a way to promote their work.

Two internet podcasts that I have appeared on are Tweep Nation, and Blue Bonnets, Bagpipes & Books.

I am still quite reluctant to agree to do podcast interviews, because I always get very nervous. However, if you like that sort of thing, I'd recommend the two podcasts listed above. There are many more similar opportunities if you search around the Internet.


Promotion

What are the best ways to promote? That is the million dollar question. I am not sure that there is a way to promote your books to make sure you get sales. The nearest I've got to success was when I did the last KDP Select free promotion of my book Coincidences. There is no doubt that the Amazon KDP Select programme increases the visibility of books on the Amazon website. However, I have found that the only way to be sure of lots of downloads is to promote using the free days. i.e. give your books away. I had about 14,000 downloads in my last free promotion. For about a month after the promotion the book was selling well, but it appears to have died down. I think because there are so many books on Amazon, and so many being given away free each day, in order for your book to be noticed it has to be quite high up in the bestselling lists. The free promotion goes some way to helping this, but after the promotion dies down, sales do too. The benefit of giving away so many free books though, is that when people read your book, if they like it, they will go on to buy more of your books. So, I suppose if you only have one book, I wouldn't recommend the KDP Select free promotion as a great way to advertise, but most writers have more than one book in them.

Even if you don't want to be part of the KDP Select programme, you can get your book listed free on Amazon. Author Darcia Helle has had great success from giving away one of her books free on Amazon, she continues to offer her first novel, Enemies and Playmates, free on Amazon and sales of her other books have taken off because of that. Again, this is only an option for those authors who have one or more books. The way to get your book listed free on Amazon without joining the KDP Select programme, is by listing it free on another site, e.g. Smashwords or Barnes and Noble, and then going to your book's page on Amazon and reporting the free book, by clicking the link that says: 'Tell us about a lower price'. There is no guarantee that Amazon will match the free price, but if you ask some of your readers and fellow authors to help out with reporting the free book to Amazon, there is more of a chance this will happen.

Proofreaders

I think I have already mentioned the importance of good proofreaders when preparing your book for publishing, when I was talking about Editing, in an earlier post in this series.

I will quickly mention it again, as it is so important. I would recommend that you have at least a handful of good proofreaders to check over your work for grammatical and typographical errors. There are things that your spellchecker won't pick up. For instance, where you use a word that sounds like another word e.g. their and there, it's a very common mistake to use the wrong one, not because you don't know the difference, but because the brain is a strange thing... You could accidentally have written "is" instead of "if", for example, or "of" instead of "off", "to" instead of "too". These are some of the most common mistakes I've noticed in writing. Proofreaders can often notice these things. One proofreader wouldn't notice all of them. I have found that when using 6 or 7 proofreaders they tend to find different errors, often completely missing those found by the other proofreaders, so I would never rely on just one person to check through the finished manuscript.

This leads me on to the next point I want to make:

Perfection

Although we must all strive for perfection in our writing, over the years, I have learnt that it is almost impossible to achieve it and you should not be too hard on yourself. Try to make sure that your book is error free; use an editor; proofreaders, and beta readers. Read it through yourself a few times, but realise that even after you've done all of this there will likely be 2 or 3 (if not more) typos. As a reader, I can forgive these, and I'm sure most readers can. What you don't want to produce is a book with a typo on every page, or every other page... that will frustrate your readers.


Pinterest

I'm going to quickly mention Pinterest. I have an account there and I know it's catching on, because there are P signs alongside the Google+ and FB and Twitter signs on many websites, so you can share things that you like to Pinterest.

On Pinterest, the idea is simple, you create 'Boards' containing things that you have found that are of interest on the Internet. For writers, you can use it to list your books, and links to your websites. There are also Boards that you can join where you can add your books, for example, I have joined a board called 'The World of Indie Authors' and there are links to books by many different authors.

I hope you have found some of the above helpful.


To see the other posts in this series, please follow the links below:


A-C: http://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/20...
D-F: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
G: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
H-J: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
K-M: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...

Continuing with my series of writing and self-publishing tips, today I will be dealing with a few common mistakes writers make in their manuscripts and also giving you a list of resources for writers and readers.

Q

Quotes, quotation marks

It doesn't matter whether you use single or double quotation marks for dialogue. Double quotes are more common in American English, whereas in the UK we tend to use single quotes for dialogue. The thing to note is that where you use double quotes for dialogue, you should use single quotes when you have speech within speech, and vice versa.

An example:

'Margery said she would be coming to tea; I asked her what time and she said, "See you at four".'

"Margery said she would be coming to tea; I asked her what time and she said, 'See you at four'."


Quotation marks are often used wrongly to emphasise a word in a sentence, when italics should be used instead, e.g.:

The meal was "delicious".

Italics should be used for emphasis:

The meal was delicious.

The reason I say that this usage is incorrect in this case is because the accepted use for quotation marks in prose (when not relating to the word itself) is for irony. So for example, in the above sentence by saying "delicious" in quotes, one might assume that the narrator didn't really like the meal.

You can use quotes to single out certain words in a sentence when the emphasis is on the word itself, e.g.

If you wanted to single out the word, 'horse' in a sentence, it is acceptable to use the quotes as I have just done.

Have I confused you enough yet? Good.

Who said writing was easy?

Another other thing I want to say about quotes is that the general rule is, where you use double quotes for speech, you should use single for highlighting other words. An example:

'Where are you going?' asked Jessica.
I wanted to tell her I was going home; I was tired, and needed to sleep. To be honest, I didn't really know where "home" was.

Question marks

Incorrect use of question marks. Another common mistake. I used to do it quite a lot which is why I'm an expert. (Having said that, I still do it quite a lot in my first drafts... )

Question marks should only be used at the end of a sentence when a direct question has been asked.

How are you?

Where are you?

Are you sure you know how to use question marks?

Some examples of inappropriate use of question marks:

It was possible Duncan was feeling the same way about it?

If he went to bed now, he might not be able to sleep?

Perhaps Matthew would ask her out?

I've also noticed a common usage of question marks in the wrong part of the sentence. For example:

Would he end up alone; someone once told him he might?

(Yes, that sort of mistake happens a lot!)

Would he end up alone? Someone once told him he might.

Much better, see?

So, we just need to think a bit more about where the question mark should be in the sentence.

R

Reviews

I could probably write a whole book just dedicated to these little things that mean a lot and then again don't mean much at all... Reviews... can't live with them, can't live without them.

For readers:

A heartfelt plea:

Please, please, please, WRITE A REVIEW IF YOU LOVE/LIKE A BOOK. IT MEANS A LOT, WHICH IS WHY I AM TYPING IN CAPITAL LETTERS!!!!!

If you don't love/like a book... be kind!! I cannot stress that enough. There will be things we don't like about a book, and I am all for free speech, BUT there is always something to like/love about even a rubbish book. DO NOT give a 1 star review unless you can back it up with a REAL reason. If a book has offended your soul, you can give a 1 star review... I have done so in the past. Otherwise BE KIND. Do you know how many months... if not years... of a writer's life is spent writing a book? They have written something AND had the courage to let others read it. That alone should warrant a bit of respect. No matter what a writer tells you, our books are personal to us. Most of my fiction contains stuff from my personal life which is fictionalised. Writers are often sensitive souls and may use their writing as a way of trying to comprehend the world we live in. DO NOT write a review without thinking about what you are writing. By all means, if you notice something the writer could have done better, point it out. Many of my more 'critical' reviews have pointed the way for me to become a better writer. HAVE A HEART when you're writing a review as most authors (especially independent authors who are just starting out) will read your review and WILL take it to heart.

Most writers will admit that their first book is not their best work, but having someone completely tear it apart in a review does no one any good. A writer improves with each book he or she writes. A little encouragement can go a long way.

Whenever I read a book that I don't like much, I try to point out the good and bad aspects in my review. If I honestly cannot give 3, 4, or 5 stars, I won't review it.

Be honest with your reviews. Even if you have a few negative things to say (among the nice things!!) the writer will thank you. Maybe not immediately, but later when they are more experienced.

A final and important point is -- your review does not have to be a masterpiece. It can be one or two lines saying what you liked about the book. You do not have to rehash the whole storyline in a review; in fact, I don't like the reviews that give away too much of the story. Be brief but say what you want to say. Why you think others should read the book. And, yes, say what you didn't like about it, that will help the writer; but try to be kind.

For Writers:

The best advice if you want to stay sane is DO NOT read the reviews. But most writers are curious creatures. Curiosity is one of the things that fuels our creativity. We cannot help but read the reviews, word for word... and then we concentrate on the negative parts of the review and start to cry... yes, I've been there a few times.



As you get more experienced as a writer, the bad reviews will not faze you as much (hopefully because you will have many good reviews to balance them out). I read a great piece of advice recently; it goes something like: one third of the audience will love your work, one third will be indifferent, and one third will hate it.

This puts things in perspective. If you have lots of bad reviews you're just not reaching the right audience.

Reviews are needed because the more reviews you have, the more sales you get; that's just the way it goes. Readers will be more likely to buy a book with 1000 reviews than one that only has 10. It seems more popular.

Whenever you're feeling down about a 1 star review, go and check out your favourite bestselling author's Amazon page; you'll see that even the big names get lots of 1 star reviews.

Finally, and probably the most important thing: a review is only ONE person's opinion. It doesn't mean your book is fantastic or rubbish. It means the book is fantastic or rubbish in THAT person's OPINION.

NEVER think that your work is that great that it should only ever get 5 star reviews... you are fooling yourself.

Resources for writers

We all know it's important for writers to make use of companies/websites that can help to perfect and promote our work. Here is a list of useful sites I have found and would recommend:

E-Book Formatting:

eBookBuilders: http://www.e-bookbuilders.com/



This is an e-book formatting company that will format your book as an epub and Kindle/mobi. I used the company for the kindle version of my novel Haunted, and was very pleased with the professional looking results, and the speedy service.

Ellie Mendez: http://www.ebook-format.com/
When I was looking for someone to format my book Coincidences for Smashwords I found Ellie via a fellow author, Susan Buchanan. eBookBuilders don't do Word formatting and Smashwords only accept .doc files, so I used Ellie's service for formatting. I was very pleased with quick and professional service, and the results!

Proofreading:

Proofread Julia: http://www.facebook.com/ProofreaderJulia

I usually use fellow writers for proofreading/beta reading, but have recently been introduced to Julia, who does this for a living, and she is good because I have read a book that she proofread You Wish... by Terry Tyler. She is in fact, Terry's sister. I am thinking of using her services for my next book. It's always good to have professional results.

Editing:

West of Mars: whttp://westofmars.com/susans-editing-...



Author Susan Helene Gottfried offer an editing service. I used her for my book, Haunted, and was pleased with the results.

Other editors that have been recommended to me by other authors are:

Dionne Lister http://dionnelisterwriter.wordpress.c...

Robert Helle: https://twitter.com/cubfan0217

All of the above services have reasonable rates, and it's definitely worth spending a bit of money to make sure you have a professional product.

Websites that are good for promotion:

BestsellerBound Recommends: http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...



This is a blog started by Darcia Helle, which I contribute to and help to maintain, along with author J. Michael Radcliffe.

If you're an indie author and would like to be featured, check our our submissions page and rules here: http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...

Celebrating Authors:

This site is similar to BestsellerBound blog; indie authors can choose from a list of promotional opportunities: http://celebratingauthors.blogspot.co...

World Literary Cafe: http://www.worldlitcafe.com/

This site does everything from promoting free Kindle books to interviews, and has special features; for example, there is a #WLCTwitterFollows group where you list your Twitter name and then people from the writing community follow you on Twitter & you follow back. A good way to build up a following.

Also, don't forget that doing interviews on your fellow authors' blogs is also good for promotion. As are giveaways (mentioned in one of my earlier posts in this series).

Review sites:

Orchard Book Club: http://www.facebook.com/OrchardBookClub
http://orchardbookclub.wordpress.com/

Juniper Grove: http://www.junipergrove.net/

BestsellerBound Recommends has a list of reviewers: http://quietfurybooks.com/bestsellerb...

The above review sites are also great places for readers to find new authors and books.

S

Spelling

Please don't only rely on spellcheck on your PC. It will not pick up words that can be spelt in different ways, e.g. there, their, they're, may have been used wrongly or you may have used 'if' instead of 'is'. Just because a word is correctly spelt, it doesn't mean there are no errors in the document. Again, this is where a good proofreader can come in handy.

Show Vs Tell/Storytelling

One of the most common things that editors complain about is how much 'telling' instead of 'showing' there is in a book.

Telling would be e.g.

Adam used to work for a supermarket. He worked long hours. Never came home until late in the evening. His wife didn't like that. She always used to complain at him. Nagging. He hated the nagging.

Showing this would be, for example:

Adam turned his key in the front door.
'Where have you been?' asked Jodie, frowning. Her arms crossed in front of her showed that she was not happy.
'I've been at work.'
'You're always working! How long do bloody supermarkets stay open these days?'
'It's a twenty-four hour store.' Adam pushed past her and walked into the living room.

As you can see, there is more action in showing as opposed to telling, and readers prefer something that will help them imagine the story.

Having said that, I believe there is a place for both showing and telling in a good novel. Finding the balance is the tricky bit.

I find that my first drafts are always full of telling. This is because I believe in getting the story down on paper as quickly as I can. I then take my time to edit. I look for scenes that can be developed from the 'telling'. It's all part of the editing process.

Where there is too much 'telling' in a book, it often makes the reader feel dissatisfied. It make me (as a writer) feel that the book could have been improved if more time had been taken to develop the scenes.


Smashwords



Smashwords.com is a site where indie writers can publish an e-book so that readers can download from the site in any e-book format they choose. I think it's a great site and believe that many readers haven't heard of it. It tends to be only indie authors that use the site, which is a pity because there are lots of bargain books and fabulous reads on the site.

For writers, you can also choose to publish the book so that it's distributed by Smashwords to Barnes & Noble, Sony, iBookstore, and other sites.

If you're an author outside the US, you will need to submit tax details to avoid the withholding tax (much in the same way as Amazon KDP).

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I hope you'll find the above tips and recommendations useful.

Thanks for reading.

I've just found out about a self-publishing award, organised by Writing Magazine and supported by the David St John Thomas Charitable Trust. It's described as the 'most prestigious prize' of the year for self-published authors. I am going to submit my latest novel, Haunted.

The contest is open to all writers as long as your book was published in print form in 2012.

Here's a link to the Competitions page on Writers Online: https://www.writers-online.co.uk/Writ... You can download the entry form by clicking on the link for 'Self-Published Book of the Year'.

There are also other competitions on the website that you might like to enter.

Good luck if you do decide to enter any of the competitions!

I'm only covering the letter T today, because I found that I almost wrote a novella about how to use Twitter! (see below). There are also a few other things beginning with T mentioned.

T

Twitter:



I have found Twitter to be an invaluable resource for promoting my books. I know that some people hate it. I don't claim to be an expert, but in the past couple of years I have built up just over 12,000 followers. I'm not sure if that's a good number or not, but it seems like a decent amount to me. I haven't bought any followers from anywhere either; these are just people who follow me and I follow most of them back.

I think Twitter works best when you follow a few rules:

1. Always follow people back when they follow you (unless they are spammers or some other kind of lunatic).

2. Thank people for RTs (re-Tweets) when you can, or alternatively you can RT something that they have Tweeted. RTs are always welcomed, as these help with promotion.

3. Interact with your followers. By this, I mean, if someone asks you something, you should respond to them (again, provided that they are not a spammer or a lunatic).

4. To build up your following to begin with you need to follow people. This may seem obvious to most people, but there seem to be those who think that people will just follow them. If you're Lady Gaga, or someone like that, you would be right to think that you don't really need to follow people to have them follow you; otherwise, I think you should make some effort, or you'll be left with hardly any followers and Tweeting to yourself.

5. Use the hashtags. This does come with a warning though. For example there is #FF for Follow Friday, where you list people who you follow, that you would recommend to others. For writers there is #WW Writer Wednesday, where you recommend writers that you follow.
The WARNING is this: Twitter is on the lookout of for spammers. They seem to be unable to get rid of real spammers, (you know, the ones who send you DMs that say 'have you seen this pic of you lol,' or 'someone is saying real bad things about you in this blog' with a dodgy link), but Twitter does hone in on people who mention lots of other Twitter names in their tweets, or people who use the reply function often.
My account was recently suspended because I did a lot of #FF mentions on one particular day. I was informed that the reason my account was suspended was that I used the 'mention' and 'reply' functions too much. I did eventually manage to get my account back, but it was very annoying.
So, #FF and #WW are a good way to get more followers and to keep your followers, as long as you don't overdo things. Try to vary your tweets on days when you're doing these types of mentions so that your account won't look like a spammer's account.

6. Trending topics are a good way to get your account noticed. What I mean by this is that on the left hand side of the page you'll see the list of popular topics on twitter i.e. those that lots of people are tweeting about. If you can join in with one of those topics, you should see that you gain a few more followers. For example, I recently joined in on one that was #SongsThatMakeMeCry and noticed that I got quite a few new followers on that day. Whether it was a coincidence or not, I can't be sure.

7. If you have something that you want to promote on a particular day and need help with RTs, I find it is a good idea to RT other Twitter users on your Twitter feed randomly, i.e. those that you wouldn't usually RT, and this will usually result in those people Tweeting something for you.

8. Something that is off-putting is where someone is always Tweeting about their own stuff and not about anything else. Unless you are very famous, this tactic will not work, and will result in you losing followers.

9. You can use justunfollow.com to find out who unfollowed you, and who is not following you back. This enables you to unfollow them. A word of warning here though. Twitter also doesn't like people who follow a lot of people on one particular day, or unfollow a lot of people on one day as this could be seen as the action of a bot. Be careful, and try to limit the following and unfollowing, and spread it out a bit.

10. You can use Hootsuite.com to schedule Tweets to go out from your Twitter account at times when you won't be able to Tweet e.g. when you are sleeping or working. There is a free version which I use sometimes, and find it particularly useful when I have a special promotion going on so that I can reach all time zones. There's also a version you can pay for that does other things, like clean your house for you (just checking that you are still concentrating!). No, actually, I don't know what the paid-for version does, but it probably allows you to schedule more Tweets in advance and other such stuff. You can find out on the website.

11. There are ways of getting more followers by joining certain groups. For example, there are groups here on Goodreads where you can list your Twitter name and others will follow you back. I have also joined the World Literary Cafe's Twitter Follows group. Here's a link where you can leave your Twitter name to be followed by others, and you then follow them back: http://www.worldliterarycafe.com/cont...

12. The aim on Twitter is build up a following so that when you Tweet about your work it will reach a wider audience. Where you RT other people's Tweets they are more likely to Tweet yours, so you reach an even wider audience each time you tweet.

13. Tweet about things you enjoy and you will find like-minded people to connect with, which makes the whole Twitter experience all that more interesting.

14. There are daily or weekly papers that you can set up to automatically tweet from your Twitter account, where you help promote other Twitter accounts. This will result in more RTs for your own work, and it helps to keep your account active when you're away from the Internet for a while because the paper will Tweet from your account daily or weekly, depending on your settings. Go here, and log in with your Twitter account to set up your paper: https://paper.li/ - It only takes a few minutes and it will post the paper to your account automatically (as long as you request that in the settings), so once you've set it up, you don't need to do anything else to maintain it.

15. BookBuzzr on Freado.com allows you to set up tweets that link to samples of your writing. These will be tweeted daily or weekly, depending on your preference.

16. A hashtag that is useful for writers for promotion is #SampleSunday, where each Sunday you can provide a link to a sample chapter of your work. Other authors who take part in this will RT that for you.

If anyone else has any Twitter tips, please feel free to list them in the comments section below.

Triberr

I am quickly mentioning this only because I know that some of my indie author friends swear by it. I haven't worked out how it works, but if you have time, it might be worth having a look into. http://triberr.com/

Tumblr

I have a Tumblr.com account but don't use it often as there are just too many networking sites to keep up with. It is quite a popular site, though, and is another way you can spread the word about your work. You can also blog from that site. It's similar to Twitter in that you follow other users and they follow you back, but there is not a restriction as to the amount of words you use. You can post videos and photos there too.

Time

Time management is very important as a self-published author. When you self-publish, you do your own promotion, and most of your own editing, so this can lead to very little time to do much else, especially as most of us also have full time day jobs.

It's important to make sure you have time for the things that are important in your writing life. I haven't come across the secret formula for creating more time, but if somebody else does, please let me know.

Try to find a balance that works for you and find ways to organise your time so that you don't work around the clock and burn out.



I would suggest finding one or two networking sites that work for you and devoting the promotion time to those sites. Have a realistic schedule for your blog, maybe run a series, like this one that I am doing, so that you have something that people might want to keep up with and will follow the blog, so you don't have to worry about losing followers if you're away from the blog for a few days or weeks.

If you find that you don't have enough time to write, think about what you could do less of to make more time. For example, I have had to cut down the amount of book reviews I do so that I can keep up with my own writing. Having said that, it's important to keep reading other people's work because the more you read the better your own writing will be. Reading is great for fuelling our imagination.

One way to make more time, is to use an editor for your novels, so that you spend less time having to read and re-read your own work.

It's all trial and error, but find the balance that works for you, and concentrate your time there. It's more productive to have one good blog where you can promote and keep your readers up to date, than to have multiple blogs and lessen the impact of those because you don't have time to promote them.

Networking with other writers helps with time management because you can have a support network. Usually other authors will help to promote your books if you do the same for them; so at times when you're not around on the Internet the chances are someone else will be tweeting something about your work.

Also, as mentioned above, apps like Hootsuite are great for helping with time management because you can schedule promotion for when you're not around. Wordpress blogs have a similar scheduling system, so you can set up posts days or weeks in advance.

I have to say, I find managing my time one of the most challenging things about being an indie author. If anyone else has any tips, please leave them in the comments section below.

Trailers

Book Trailers. Just like Twitter (and Marmite) some people love them and some people hate them.

Personally, I think anything that can positively add to your book marketing campaign is a good thing. I like book trailers. I can't say that I've ever bought a book because of a book trailer, but maybe I might have found out about a book because of a book trailer. So it all adds to promotion and exposure for your book.

I make my own book trailers, and you can find them on my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/MariaSavv...

One of our Bestsellerbound.com members, Magnolia Belle, makes book trailers.

Here's a promotional video for the book trailers she makes: http://youtu.be/RUGFeenMKcs

She made a couple of trailers for our Bestsellerbound Anthologies. Here's a link to one of them: http://youtu.be/kIWsIIKyobI

I've recently found out about an innovative company, Red 14 Films, that makes cinematic book trailers. They believe that book trailers are a great marketing tool. Here's a link to their website where you can view some of the trailers they have made: http://red14films.com/
Also, at the moment they're running a contest where you can win a free 30 second cinematic book trailer. You just have to subscribe to their website to enter. There'll be a raffle in March to choose the winner.



Targeting your readership

I think one of the most important things for any writer is to find a target readership and focus on promoting to that group. It's harder for writers (like me) who write in many different genres, but if you only write in one genre, you can use this tactic effectively to find a following.

There are many different websites that promote one type of book; for example, some sites only promote romance, others are set up to promote science fiction, etc. You should use Google to find such websites and blogs and try to get your books listed.

I'm going to promote my crime fiction novel, Haunted, on a website this week Fantastic Books Publishing. They are doing a spotlight on Crime Fiction on the 28th February 2013, so it will be interesting to see what result that achieves in terms of book sales.



Targeting a specific audience does work. For example, I recently promoted my novel, Second Chances, on EReader News Today (ENT), in their 'Bargain Books' promotion. They have a huge following of readers who are looking for bargain e-books; so I lowered the price of the book to 99 cents and it was promoted on the site for a couple of days (ENT takes 25% of your total royalties for sales over the 2 day promotion). The result was 140 sales overnight, and another 50 sales since the promotion ended. Okay, the royalties on 99 cents (given that you only get 35% of that from Amazon) is not great, but the exposure is a good way to find a new readership. Here's a link if any authors want to try it: http://ereadernewstoday.com/bargain-k...



Similarly, for a short term boost to sales, and to make your book more widely available to an audience who might not otherwise try it, the Amazon KDP Select free promotion days can be good.

I hope you'll find these tips helpful!