Today Heather James' 'Fire' blog tour stops here with a guest post with her top ten tips for surviving self publishing:
Ten Tips for surviving self-publishing
1. Proofread, as many times as you can bear to. Then take a break and get someone else to proofread. Then it’s your turn again. Also, make a list of common errors that you make, so that you can ‘find and replace’ to check all instances of them quickly.
2. Spend time on your cover. You don’t have to have one done professionally if you don’t want to, but don’t rush it either. Make sure that it will look good online, even when small, with clearly legible font.
3. Download Calibre; it’s free and makes formatting ebooks easy.
4. Use social networking to promote your work as much as possible, but don’t annoy people by spamming too much. Post about interesting things other than your work too – especially if they can be widely re-shared or re-tweeted, as they will reach a wider audience.
5. Be nice to bloggers – they are your greatest ally.
6. Don’t try to make money on your first book – build a fan base. Hopefully, they’ll then be willing to buy your second book, and the next, and the next.
7. Proofread everything you write – no one will buy your novel if your blog posts are full of errors; remember that everything you do, say or write will reflect on your work.
8. Tell everyone that you’re an author, and don’t be self-conscious about the ‘self-published’. part. If you don’t believe your work is good enough, why should anyone else?
9. Engage with readers. Ask them what they thought and (hopefully) convince them to tell their friends.
10. Don’t stop promoting, ever.
Thanks for the guest post Heather. The tour is celebrating the release of her new book:
Is control over the elements a gift, or a curse?
Roxy thinks that she is in control of everything: with flames flaring at her fingertips and an equally fiery attitude, what more could she need? But then she meets Brae, a prince from a rival Realm, who turns her assumptions of superiority upside down.
Jasmine has none of Roxy’s confidence or intensity. But she does have a secret - and Brae - and she’s not going to give either up willingly
Buy now from Amazon
By day I'm a video game consultant, and I also volunteer at the German Shepherd Dog Welfare Fund - the charity that rescued the dog I adopted last year. I've also recently started compiling a website covering the history of the village I live, although I'm hoping to draw in some help for that project! Here is scratchpad when I need it, and a place for my personal projects. It's also an archive from back when this was was my writing blog.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment