Words of Wisdom

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Supporting Each Other!

Geri Clouston
These are great ideas to consider- 1. Buy a self-published book 2. Leave an honest review. (In fact, leave a review on more than one site!) 3. Thank the author publicly on social media. 4. Recommend the book to someone else. 5. Follow them on social media. 6. Engage with them on social media. 7. Ignore critics of the self-publishing industry. 8. Write your own good book. 9. Serve as a beta reader or reviewer for a book. 10. Write a blog post about the book. 11. Enter an author's contest or giveaway. 12. Become a book blogger or reviewer. 13. Interview an author. 14. Refer any potentially good reviewers to an author. 15. Don't obtain an illegal copy of the book. 16. Mention a book in a group or forum. 17. Buy a second copy of the print version for a friend or for your local library. 18. Download a copy from Amazon's Lending Library. 19. Invite an author to speak at a local event. 20. Purchase a copy of the book for a school or organization. 21. Nominate a book for a contest. 22. Suggest a book to an editor of a magazine or newspaper. 23. Offer your…

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One Man, Two Million Steps—and Inspiration

Geri Clouston
  On the shore of Lake Ontario, about 20 miles north of Rochester, NY, Braddock Point Lighthouse has stood for 118 years. At the beginning of its long life, its Fresnel lens cast a powerful light that was visible for 14 miles—the brightest light on the entire lake. One man, Frank Coleman, served as its first keeper for 33 years, from 1896 until 1929. His job meant he had to climb the stairs of the 110 foot tower twice each day—or more, if something needed extra attention—to reset the chains that operated the pendulum-driven pump that kept oil flowing to the light. Over the course of his tenure, Mr. Coleman would have climbed at least 2,600,000 steps! He would have climbed in beautiful weather as well as in thunderstorms, despite dangerous lightning and powerful winds. Surely, he also climbed the tower when he was ill—or just plain tired. But he kept the light burning and ships safe.   I think about the keeper's dedication and apply it to writing. It's important to stay on the job, no matter the weather or the mood. Some days our writing goes well, and some days it's a chore. But diligence pays off. If…

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Martin Crosbie’s views on Interviews!

Geri Clouston
  "What's your favorite color?""Do you have a pet that inspired you to write your book?""Is there a food that you need to eat in order to create?"These are all actual, real questions that interviewers have asked me. I have a real concern that the interviews posted on sites and social networks are in danger of becoming so mundane and ordinary that the only people reading them will be immediate friends and family of the author. Try reading some interviews and decide for yourself. Compare the answers and you'll see similarities. Think about sporting events for a moment. You know the interview that the player gives after the game and talks about everyone giving one hundred and ten percent, or, when she or he mentions that although she or he scored the winning goal it was all about the team winning. Those are noble thoughts but they're sterile. I'm bored of them. I want to know what the player, or author is really thinking. Unfortunately, that has become quite difficult.There are no shortages of places where authors can procure interviews and promote their work. We're very fortunate. From this very site - B.R.A.G. to fine sites like Indies Unlimited and…

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Gratitude- A Simple idea we all know about

Geri Clouston
grat•i•tude Noun the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful: He expressed his gratitude to everyone on the staff. Synonymsthanks, thankfulness, appreciation, gratefulness. A simple idea we all know about I was contacted by a reviewer recently who mentioned how seldom he gets any gratitude for the time he takes reviewing a book or interviewing an author. Quite honestly, I was taken aback with this lack of simple politeness. I believe that whether a review is good or not, you as an author should thank the reader for taking the time and, in some cases, spending the money to consider your book. Although this will not necessarily change their minds about your writing, it might make them consider giving you another chance with your next book! When dealing with the "uglies" out there, one response is all you need to make. No need to get into a discussion with someone who does not like your work. Remember, they are entitled to their opinion even if it does not please you. Thanking a reviewer who gave your book a positive review will most likely encourage them to mention you more often, and word of mouth is what makes a book…

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A Glut of e-Books – Quality over Quantity?

Geri Clouston
    I saw a couple of James Bond movies last night. They're showing classic films at our local theatre. So, I got to see Thunderball and On Her Majesty's Secret Service on the big screen. It was very cool. So today, in my usual pedantic manner, I Googled and Wikipediaed all things James Bond looking for little known facts about the movies. And, in my research I checked out Ian Fleming, the author of the Bond books. Did you know that he wrote Casino Royale, the first book in the Bond series, in only two months? He even did the art work within that time frame. Keep that in mind as you read this article. I wrote a blog recently about word count targets. You can find it Here.   Some of the authors commenting at the end of the article talked about producing as much as a book a month. It's being done. I have a friend who publishes a new book every four to six weeks. She's selling about twenty thousand e-books monthly. It seems like there are a lot of books hitting Amazon's product pages right now. Authors have found a genre where they excel and they're…

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Working with a Book Cover Designer

Geri Clouston
  Some wonderful advice from our friend Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphic on working with a graphic designer to get the best cover possible- Every now and again I am approached by a potential new client who knows exactly what they want and basically how the book cover design process works. But more often than not, authors have written their manuscripts and want an attractive cover designed so they can get their new books listed on Amazon and other online book selling outlets, yet have no idea where to start. And most, especially first time authors, do not have any idea whatsoever as to how the book cover design process works or even where to begin. This is not a bad thing – authors write and designers design! Hopefully I can shed some light on the process by offering a few top tips when contacting book cover designers for the first time. 1. Have an estimated expectation for when you plan to publish your book as the book cover designer will need to know when the project will be expected to be completed. And please consider that most designers are carrying multiple projects/clients at all times in order to earn…

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SPBE Blog #4- Grab The Audience!

Geri Clouston
  Over 70% of our readers told us they either downloaded a free sample of an eBook or perused the print book in a bookstore before making their decision to buy it. As this next slide shows an indie author had better grab a prospective buyer quickly.   Slide 17 indicates that only 23% of potential buyers will read several chapters when they consider a book, whereas 35% will only read a few pages. And 27% make their decision based strictly on a paragraph or two, or the synopsis on the back cover. Clearly an opening hook is vital. It doesn't matter if an indie author has written a great book, he or she won't sell many copies they don't get a reader interested from the very first paragraph or the first few pages at most! Buying a book is a commitment of money and time and to be successful an indie author had better make sure that they have made their book worth that commitment. Beyond having a powerful opening hook, an indie author also needs to have an eye-catching cover. Slide 15 shows that while genre and author are the most important factors in a person's decision to…

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Blog # 3 – The Best Format And Price For An eBook

Geri Clouston
      Continuing our discussion of our presentation at SPBE this slide shows the formats that our readers prefer.     As you can see, 56% of the readers we surveyed prefer the eBook format. This is not surprising. According to amazon.com during the past two years eBooks have outsold print books. The convenience of eBook readers and the lower cost of eBooks are the main drivers of this trend. Slide 7 also shows that if an author also wants a print book, a trade paperback is the most desirable format. We believe that an indie author should offer both but if he or she only publishes their book in one format, it should be as an eBook.This next slide shows the best price points for an eBook.   The above chart shows that 32% of the readers we surveyed will pay up to $4.99 for an eBook while 39% are willing to pay up to $9.99. The slide also indicates that 92% of readers will pay more than 99 cents. This is very important because there is anecdotal evidence from other sources that pricing a book at $.99 does not generate sufficient sales to warrant the loss of…

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SPBE Blog #2- Editing a Self-Published Book

Geri Clouston
    As I said in my previous blog, copy editing errors are the reason that most self-published books are rejected during the indieBRAG screening process. An indie author must not edit his or her own book. Although professional copy editing can be expensive, it is the single best use of an author's money. There are also other less expensive ways of doing this such as by using beta readers or joining writers' groups. Here are two slides from our presentation that address this issue: As you can see in Slide 19, our readers ranked copy editing as fourth in importance of the characteristics in their liking a book. BUT as Slide 20 shows, it is the number one reason why readers dislike a book. In other words, good editing alone will not make a book but bad editing will certainly kill it! In conclusion, we cannot emphasize enough that an author rarely gets a second chance at a good first impression!

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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Geri Clouston
Blogs from the Self-Publishing Book Expo Our trip to the Self-Publishing Book Expo, held in New York City on November 9th, was a huge success! Our presentation, titled "THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY" of self-published books was well attended and well received. We were the only panel (out of seventeen) that was filmed by C-SPAN's Book TV and we will let you know when the segment will be aired, likely later this month. indieBRAG team members Robert Clouston and Stephanie Hopkins joined me in the presentation and over the coming days we will blog about what we covered. This will include the results from the surveys we conducted among our readers and B.R.A.G. Medallion authors, the findings of which formed the basis of our presentation. We think you will find it all very interesting. We will also discuss some of the things we learned from other presenters at the expo, which further support our survey findings. So here we go- To begin our presentation, I shared some rather stark statistics that out of the over 1,500 books we have considered since indieBRAG began in April of last year, 50% were rejected during the initial screening process. Strictly for…

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