Christina Goebel's Blog

I read a blog post yesterday that said to forget using social media for your book promotion strategy. For the new author, that may be sound advice. Though I love social media, and if you see my Twitter page @lovegoldenheart that will be clear to all--tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts, and Pinterest pins will not likely catapult you to bestseller.

Social media is about building a rapport with your followers, and getting to know and appreciate them. An effective social media strategy is not often self-serving. Many people will recommend that for every three tweets about yourself that you will tweet seven about others. At times, I will promote my followers to a larger degree. If I don't care about their projects and lives, then why would I follow them, anyway?

Book promotions for the beginner should revolve around Goodreads Giveaways to expose your book to new readers and get reviews, paid ads, and promotional services that offer you public relations packages to reach readers and reviewers in a variety of ways. Do not forget public appearances, such as book launch parties, signings, and interviews.

There is no short answer. If writing is your business, treat it that way and research and develop a launch plan. Publishers may promote a book a year before its launch to get reviews and recommendations and build up anticipation for your novel or nonfiction work.

Developing your launch plan is one of the most important things that an independent author does. I wish developing the launch was as easy as making social media shares, but it is more complex.

Consider how you found Goodreads. If you ask ten people, they may give you six different answers for how they learned about Goodreads and it is the same for promoting your book. You must find the reader where she or he is.

Once upon a time, authors thought all they had to do was write a book and readers would magically find it. Don't we wish that was true?

For those who love to be contrary, yes, we could purchase a bunch of copies of our books and hand them out to people and then they would find our books.

When that's not the case, we must promote our books. Writers with publishing houses aren't exempt from this either. The harder authors work with their publishing house, the more results they will see.

Indie authors must be their own publicists, marketers, and sales teams. They have to learn their market, promote their books, and even determine sales methods and pricing.

This blog discusses the need for free promotions. It begins with providing free Advance Reader Copies of your book so readers may write reviews for your book and have those ready upon publication of your book (for those of you who are new to this--look up ARCs on Goodreads and the Goodreads Giveaways, which allow you to provide ARCs to up to 100 readers).

I did a Goodreads Giveaway and 249 people signed up to get a copy of my ebook. 100 won and Goodreads handled the distribution. It's because of ARCs that I have reviews for my new release before a month has passed. My latest book Birth Right: Galak's Rising is 380 pages long, so it takes some time to read.

The next free promotion for authors is possible with either giveaways through various sites or by becoming a member of KDP Select, which gives you the perks of having some days you can offer your book for free and also some days you can offer it for less than $1.99, I believe.

For my first published book, GoldenHeart: How to Love Humanity, I didn't go with KDP Select because I didn't understand it. Giving away a book for free seemed like crazy business to me. Now that I see how things worked for that book, I realize that free books help you find writers and get reviews, both of which an author needs.

To begin with, most of my ebooks were sold through Amazon, so joining KDP Select--which only allows me to sell my ebook via Amazon--isn't cutting away business for my ebook. In the meantime, it doesn't restrict your print books, just the digital ones.

This weekend, I'm offering Birth Right for free some days and for 99 cents other days and am happy to do so. I'm building a readership for a series, so it's important to develop a ground base of readers for the Birth Right Trilogy.

You can read in authors' comments in the marketing and promotion boards about how they use free books to boost the sales of their series. Once they have written subsequent books, offering the first book for free results in residual sales of the other books.

Each person must choose his or her path, but this time, I chose KDP Select. It will last for 90 days, at which time I decide to continue or not.

Besides giving away books, there are many other options for getting the word out about yours. I'll discuss those in future blog entries.

Birth Right: Galak's Rising

GoldenHeart: How to Love Humanity

I've already begun working on the sequel to Birth Right: Galak's Rising. In fact, I wrote a full chapter of the sequel to include as a freebie in the back of Galak's Rising. When I realized that the book would be 380 pages, I decided it was long enough.

Since then, I've revisited the sequel to continue writing on it and currently, I'm resting from it. When I reach page thirty or so in a novel, my characters start to take over, except in the case where things get complicated.

Birth Right has a large cast of characters, including twelve main ones. I introduce them gradually, so no worries. When I started the sequel, I realized that I had to go back and catalog everyone's physical description and history. It's not a fun thing to do and is better to do before the first book of a series. That way, at this point, I would have been halfway through drafting the sequel.

The second strategy I am using is to accept what comes. Whenever I pause in writing, characters and storylines are developing during that time.

Everything happens for a reason and this weekend, I'll most likely complete work on the Birth Right audiobook with six other readers. I'm narrating my book and the others are reading parts. It's pretty intense.

Next week, I have a book promotion coming, so stay tuned.

As I mentioned in the back of Birth Right, I saw it as a movie first and I've seen some of the movie images from the new book in my mind's eye and they are shocking. Books two and three take the plot to a larger scale. I'm going to do some crazy things with history that may surprise you.

Each of my books has a unique story and Birth Right: Galak's Rising has the distinction of being the only book I've written so far that I saw as a movie first. Yes, as a movie.

I was attending college in Miami and had a heavy traffic route each day, and during that time I listened to music during my commute. While I listened, I saw images play out in front of my eyes. For months, parts of this movie played out before me until one day, it was impossible not to write it.

In fact, I knew Birth Right would never give me peace until it was written. So I typed up the story and just when I had finished 315 pages, my computer hard drive crashed. Let's just say I don't buy computers from companies that begin with C anymore, lol.

Though everyone had told me to save my writing, I didn't. I considered letting Birth Right end right there but then I wondered if I could try writing it again, only better. After all, in screenplay writing class and my writers' group, everything I redrafted was better.

So I rewrote Birth Right and it was a stronger novel.

Now that today it's officially on sale, I'm thankful for everyone who entered the giveaway for the book that almost wasn't.

Authors aren't encouraged to respond to readers, I just learned, and I wish it wasn't so, but I'll say thanks here. Without readers, this book would have been a movie that no one else ever saw in their minds.

It hurts a little to carry a book around in your heart and think that others won't read it--like being a toy maker and producing toys that no children will own.

Only in your hands does my book have a purpose and a home. ~Christina

Birth Right: Galak's Rising Galak's Rising

Whether an author publishes traditionally or indie, they need to help market their book. There are many ways to do this, and like any good manager, an author should outsource some of the work. One of my favorite places to locate new talent and resources is fiverr.com. I have found social media promoters, and some even prefer to write the copy. Fiverr artists have helped me with logo designs, banners, mock ups of my books, videos, and more. They are an affordable resource.

Authors should utilize resources such as giveaways too. For authors who worry about the investment, research and locate the most reliable sources. You invested precious time in producing your book. Being tightfisted benefits few people. Generosity has amazing payback. Give copies of your book away and the public will respond to that love.

Authors, promote your book with no regrets! Don't let yourselves say later, "I could have done more."

One of the top things to remember is that a book cannot sell if no one knows it exists. Giveaways and ads and promotions help the public to learn about your beautiful endeavor.

I'm planning giveaways for self-help and science fiction fantasy books soon, so keep watching. ; )

My books:

Goldenheart: How to Love Humanity

Birth Right: Galak's Rising

Note that Galak's Rising is in pre-cover phase. The book has a cover, lol. It is on pre-order and I'm not sure why my own cover upload on Goodreads didn't take. I'm guessing because it is listed with Amazon for pre-sale, that cover link must come through later. If you follow the link, you can see the cover.

During some recent editing work, I encountered a book that had multiple verb tenses. To complicate issues, the novel had multiple character timelines. Having wrestled with this problem before, I opted for the past tense. Why?

First, understand that there are certain things that readers accept without noticing, such as the common dialogue tags "he said/she said." We read those without considering them, but when we encounter "he extrapolated," that gets our attention. This is why journalists stick with he said/she said so that their message gets through and the reader's focus isn't shifted to which fancy tags they use.

Verb tense is similar for readers. Most books are written in the past tense. When we happen upon a book that uses present tense, our attention shifts temporarily to the writer's verb construction. I do believe that setting a book in the now creates a special experience for readers, just like writing with a first person narrator does. However, when you're writing a book and verb tense is all over the place, revert to the past tense--the most common form we experience--and save the sophisticated verb usage for times when it feels right and is easier to implement. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...#

I am been enthused about creating an audiobook companion for my upcoming Science Fiction and Fantasy novel.

One thing many new authors and particularly self-published ones don't realize is that the more books an author sells, the more likely he or she will make a sustainable income. An audiobook is an additional product that can reach a specific audience.

The $2 billion audiobook industry is growing at an exponential rate and according to The Statistics Portal, 18 percent of readers use audio books. https://www.statista.com/topics/3296/...

Aside from making a greater profit, audiobooks reach people with special needs who may not otherwise enjoy our books, such as people who have low vision or blindness.

I write my books to music and I know many of you do. I'm eager to read my book for readers and have original music accompany it in the mood it was written. I have been working on a soundtrack for my upcoming novel and recently composed a melody for the audiobook of my previous nonfiction book, Goldenheart: How to Love Humanity.

I hope you have had the pleasure of reading along with a book and hearing your favorite author, or driving in horrendous traffic to college or work and enjoying a great story that makes life more palatable. Books can be our companions almost anywhere, and we can offer our readers more choices for their experiences with us.

Go ahead; add an audiobook to your plans and thank me later.

I am been enthused about creating an audiobook companion for my upcoming Science Fiction and Fantasy novel.

One thing many new authors and particularly self-published ones don't realize is that the more books an author sells, the more likely he or she will make a sustainable income. An audiobook is an additional product that can reach a specific audience.

The $2 billion audiobook industry is growing at an exponential rate and according to The Statistics Portal, 18 percent of readers use audio books. Goldenheart: How to Love Humanity.

I hope you have had the pleasure of reading along with a book and hearing your favorite author, or driving in horrendous traffic to college or work and enjoying a great story that makes life more palatable. Books can be our companions almost anywhere, and we can offer our readers more choices for their experiences with us.

Go ahead; add an audiobook to your plans and thank me later.

I am been enthused about creating an audiobook companion for my upcoming Science Fiction and Fantasy novel.

One thing many new authors and particularly self-published ones don't realize is that the more books an author sells, the more likely he or she will make a sustainable income. An audiobook is an additional product that can reach a specific audience.

The $2 billion audiobook industry is growing at an exponential rate and according to The Statistics Portal, 18 percent of readers use audio books. Goldenheart: How to Love Humanity.

I hope you have had the pleasure of reading along with a book and hearing your favorite author, or driving in horrendous traffic to college or work and enjoying a great story that makes life more palatable. Books can be our companions almost anywhere, and we can offer our readers more choices for their experiences with us.

Go ahead; add an audiobook to your plans and thank me later.

I am been enthused about creating an audiobook companion for my upcoming Science Fiction and Fantasy novel.

One thing many new authors and particularly self-published ones don't realize is that the more books an author sells, the more likely he or she will make a sustainable income. An audiobook is an additional product that can reach a specific audience.

The $2 billion audiobook industry is growing at an exponential rate and according to The Statistics Portal, 18 percent of readers use audio books. Goldenheart: How to Love Humanity.

I hope you have had the pleasure of reading along with a book and hearing your favorite author, or driving in horrendous traffic to college or work and enjoying a great story that makes life more palatable. Books can be our companions almost anywhere, and we can offer our readers more choices for their experiences with us.

Go ahead; add an audiobook to your plans and thank me later.