Brandon Clements gave away 60,000 copies of his novel, Every Bush is Burning, using Amazon’s KDP Select service, hitting the #1 most downloaded free book on Amazon. The next week, he sold over 2,000 copies, 20 times what he was selling beforehand. In this course, we’ve talked a lot about the power of generosity to help you […]
Archives for May 2013
How to Overspend Thousands of Dollars on Self-Publishing [interview]
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When Brandon Clements decided to self-publish his book, Every Bush is Burning, he did hundreds of hours of research, researching hybrid publishing options like Archway Publishing (Simon & Schuster’s self-publishing arm) and Westbow Press (Thomas Nelson’s self-publishing arm). He also read up on print-on-demand publishers like Lulu, CreateSpace, and Lightning Source. He found out some options […]
10 Steps to Build Your Twitter Platform from Nothing to 1,000 Followers [exercise]
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In the last lesson, publisher, poet, and author, LL Barkat, said Twitter is the best tool for authors to reach new readers. Whether you agree with her or not, Twitter is worth learning and experimenting with. Personally, I’ve found Twitter to be the best social media tool to build my audience. While Facebook provided me […]
Create Your Launch Plan [exercise]
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In this unit, you’ve learned a lot about how to create relationships with collaborators and empower them to help you launch your book. Now it’s time to put all that knowledge to practice and create your own launch plan. Your Assignment Create a launch plan for your book. (If you haven’t finished writing your book […]
The Story Cartel Launch Plan
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The entire course has been building up to this moment: when you finally push your baby book out of the nest and into the real world. It’s time to launch! The first four steps are about making deposits, investments into people and relationships. You make all of those deposits so that you can withdraw favors […]
Are You a Sell Out? [discussion question]
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In the last lesson, you heard from Elora Ramirez about how she dealt with the tension between marketing her work and feeling like a sellout. What do you think? How do you market, promote, and ultimately sell your art without selling out? We’d love to hear from you. Share your thoughts in the forums here. […]
Can You Sell Your Book Without Selling Out? [interview]
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Most writers are introverts and are nervous about marketing their books and pushing their work on people. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just focus on the creation aspect and not on selling your work? How can you market and promote your books without selling your soul? I asked author Elora Ramirez how she […]
How to Launch Your Book So It Sells [interview]
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It’s great to have Facebook likes, Twitter followers, pageviews, and blog comments, but how do you actually sell books? An effective platform isn’t about having millions of fans. It’s about a few people who are raving fans and are willing to do anything to help you. At least that’s what Mike Worley says. Listen to […]
How to Turn Spectators Into Collaborators [interview]
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How do you build connections with readers so deep that your readers start to spread the word about your writing for you? In this interview, Amazon bestselling author and publishing veteran Diane Capri and I talk about how to turn your readers from spectators into collaborators. [audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/scc_files/Diane+Capri.mp3] Download MP3 About the Interview Diane Capri’s thriller […]