A New Marketing Plan

After adding up last year’s successes and failures, it became apparent that I’m a horrible marketer. I have vowed to change that this year. By including some advertising, setting a book free on Kindle, bumping my prices just over the 2.99 dead-giveaway-that-you’re-an-indie-author and avoid-it-like-the-plague price range, and upping the number of bloggers I contact for reviews, I’m taking baby steps in the right direction.

It’s time to share how my first foray into advertising went.

I just learned how to take screenshots. Pretty cool, huh?

Early in January I took out a $60 promotional ad for The Quill Pen with BookBub. They are a website that sends out one daily ebook bargain for each of its genres. Members choose their favorite genres and get only the notifications of interest to them. So my promotion was emailed to readers who expressly wanted to read teen books. Kind of a clever way of doing business, isn’t it?

When you sign up for your ad, BookBub predicts an average number of sales for each genre. It’s not a guarantee, but it gives you an idea of what to expect and helps you gauge whether the expense is worthwhile. My given average was 200-300 sales.

Now to advertise on BookBub, you have to mark your book at least half off. I marked mine down to $.99 from $3.95. That’s a nice, hefty 75% off for readers. Tough number to resist, isn’t it? Everyone likes to feel like they’re getting a deal. But when I drop my price below $2.99 on retail sites like Amazon, my royalties drop from 70% down to only 35-40%, depending on the site. That means I only make about $.35 to $.40 per sale. So I’d have to sell roughly 175 books to break even.

My ad went out on Wednesday, January 9 and advertised a deal that ran until Monday, January 14. Most of my sales were made on that first day, but they trickled in all during the following weekend. Here are the numbers on Monday morning:

Amazon: 229 books = $80.15

Barnes and Noble: 111 books = $44.40

Kobo: 3 books = $1.37

The promotional ad also included a link to Smashwords, but figuring out Smashwords reports is sort of like “figuring your income tax with an abacus,” to quote Catherine Ryan Howard. I have no idea how many or what books I sold, but my total sales figure went up about two bucks over the weekend. Assuming they were the result of my ad, that brings my grand sales total to about $128.00 (345 books). My net profit, therefore, would be about $68. Not a huge amount, but worthwhile. The surge in sales also seemed to up visibility on B&N and Amazon as sales on each site continued to dribble in for the rest of the month. They even continued on B&N after I raised the price.

Unfortunately, I learned a valuable lesson concerning sale prices on Amazon: Discontinue Smashwords’ other sales channels.  When I dropped the price on Smashwords, it spread throughout their distribution and Amazon price matched, so I have been unable to raise the price back up to 3.95. I will have to wait for the sale price to filter out of all distribution sites before Amazon will raise theirs back to normal. (It went back up yesterday.)

All in all, a successful venture. I will certainly list another book with BookBub at a later date.

Of What Value is Free? (Unmasking an Author Series, #3)

This is the third in a series about author visibility. First I discussed some challenges indies face. Last week I discussed some beneficial and some not-so-beneficial ways to use freebies. This week I want to consider the value (or not) of free.

Everybody loves freebies. We try them because there’s no risk involved. We’re not out anything if we’re disappointed. So it makes sense that authors would want to use this natural draw to gain new readers. Think about it. How many of us have found our favorite books and authors this way? Did you purchase your first book by a favorite author? Or did you check it out at the library or borrow it from a friend? But there are two schools of thought on this, and I’ll admit, both have valid points.

Probably the most famous advocate for giving work away free is the English author Neil Gaiman. In fact, he’s the one who drew that analogy to library books. Then he pointed out that most of us who found a favorite book or author for free then went on to purchase additional books by that author. Very true. I’ve done that.

In a video I’ve seen on several blogs now, Mr. Gaiman tells how he grew alarmed when his work was being heavily pirated. Then he noticed he was selling more books in those areas than anywhere else! Freebies, he came to realize, are actually excellent advertising. He then encouraged his publisher to release his book, American Gods, for free for a month. As a result, sales of his other books went up 300 percent the following month.

Last fall I read an article by another biggie author who now releases all his digital content for free. All of it! I know this is horrible, horrible journalism, because I can’t remember the fellow’s name, and I have totally failed to track down that article again. The link is buried somewhere on the BookBlogs forum, but in it the author mentioned how he’s making a killing off his paperbacks.

Most of us middle-of-the-road authors (okay, us in-the-grass-somewhere-beyond-the-sidewalk authors) wouldn’t benefit in the same way these successful, established fellows have. Personally, I like my Kindle check too much each month–small as it is–to give up all digital profits. So we experiment with free on a lesser scale. That’s been the draw of Amazon’s KDP Select program. Authors are able to make their work available for free on Amazon for five days every three months. Such exposure on the marketplace giant has been a reliable method for boosting sales in the past. (Note: In the past–but that’s content for another post.)

Not everyone agrees. Author and game designer Guido Henkel had this to say about KDP Select: “To put it in plain Kindle language, if everyone is offering their book for free, it is once again disappearing in the glut and no longer special.”

And there are many who argue that making work free is actually detrimental. The market is over-saturated. Free isn’t appreciated. Free cheapens your work. Free cheapens everyone’s work. Free too often means a poorly written, unedited book. Free is dragging down the establishment. Free negatively affects authors who must charge for their work. Free is lowering the standard across the entire industry.

Okay, so I do have to agree with some of that.

I posted a discussion on the BookBlogs forum about this issue. Here are some of the responses I received:

“Everyone is thankful for a freebie but it is soon forgotten. Anything given away freely is not appreciated, examples,’welfare, some ebooks, salvation.’”

“There’s an awful lot of slop for sale at Amazon.”

“I like to get free books, unfortunately I tend not to read them because I’m reading stuff I actually paid for.”

“Writers must establish an audience, and probably should do so before offering free books. Otherwise the book could be swimming in the sea of books for some time.”

Hmmm. There are certainly a lot of opinions on this topic, and I’m really curious to hear what yours are. I tend to fall in the middle of the extremes. I have no intention of giving away all my work, and I don’t download many freebies because the quality is usually substandard, but I still think giving away some work can be useful. If you tuned in last week, you’re still waiting for that last suggestion I promised–that great brainchild, my new strategy. Sorry! You’ll hear it in my fourth and final post in this series which will appear here the first Friday in September. Next week I’ll be guest posting a blog tour wrap-up on one of my favorite blogs.

So tell me, what are your thoughts on free? Is it beneficial to a new, unknown author? Or does it contribute to a declining quality of literature?

Challenges Indies Face (Unmasking an Author Series, #1)

Today marks the first of a four part series I’ll be doing on author visibility.

The single most crippling obstacle all new authors face is invisibility. No one has ever heard of us before. Our work is untested, unfamiliar. Why would anyone chance good money on a newbie? That highlights the single most advantageous reason, in my opinion, to land a contract with a major publishing house—the marketing team. It’s their job to convince all those would-be buyers to part with their money. We indies must take the mantle of marketing upon ourselves. But a secondary problem soon presents itself for those of us in the children’s genres: Who to market to?

See, children’s authors like myself are in a unique pickle. The kids for whom we write do not own credit cards. They don’t have jobs. They can’t buy our books for themselves. They depend entirely on adults to purchase literature for them.

In addition, most children don’t have ereaders; therefore, they have no way of reading ebooks, the mainstay of most indie publishers. How many kids do you know who own a Kindle? A Nook? Not many. These gadgets are expensive, and kids tend to be irresponsible. Not a good combination. My kids don’t have ereaders, either.

Not only can kids not purchase or read our books, they don’t even have a way of hearing about them! Not many kids hang out book blogs or bookish sites like LibraryThing, Shelfari, or Goodreads. Technically, they’re not even allowed to participate on most of these sites.

So what’s a children’s novelist to do?

1.  Obviously, we have to tell the adults. Most of them don’t care a whit for children’s literature, however, so we have to hunt down the ones who do. These include parents, teachers and librarians. We can find them on homeschool sites, on teacher’s blogs, on librarian book review blogs. They’re in forums on Amazon, in groups on Goodreads. They are out there.

2.  We also have to keep a sharp look out for kid bloggers, reviewers, and writers. They’re out there, too, just not in the same numbers as adults. After all, kids are our target audience. They’re a great source of information, feedback, and contacts. They are a unique window to the kids “out there.” (Not to mention, they’re the up-and-comers, and I think it’s our job, it’s our pleasure, to encourage them. Guess that’s the teacher in me again.)

3.  Next, we have to make our books available in many formats and inform our readers. Kids may not have ereaders, but a good percentage of them have ipods or cell phones. Do they know about the Kindle app? Do they have a home computer which will open a book in pdf format? It’s also a very wise idea to have paperbacks versions of our work available for those who simply can’t do digital.

4.  Last and perhaps most important, we have to make sure our work is absolutely the best it can be. Only then will our efforts have a chance of snowballing. No one will pass on a recommendation for slop.

I know this post is a little shy on specific solutions. In fact, it probably prompted more questions than it answered. This time around, however, I mostly wanted to point out some basic challenges facing indies, specifically children’s lit indies, and let them stew in your minds for a time, as they’ve been stewing in mine. As the series continues, I’ll be arriving at more answers.

In the meantime, I’d welcome your comments on this catch-22. I’m curious, do you market to kids or adults? What has been your best strategy? What hasn’t worked at all?

My Experience With Giveaways (Unmasking an Author Series, #2)

Sales Equation: Cheap + Bulk = Profit

Last week I argued for the creation of paperbacks even in this digital age. If you do have a paperback available for sale, you can benefit from a sales technique often overlooked by indie authors–bulk sales.

But bulk sells at a price lower than what I hope to get for my work, you may be thinking. And you’d be correct. Selling in quantity means selling at a discount. But it also means more sales.

How about I illustrate this with some actual figures? I’ll plug in my own. My paperbacks all sell at $10. My profit on the sale of a single book ordered through Amazon is determined by my cost, which is determined by the length of that particular book, but it hovers around $3. We’ll use that nice, round figure. If I sell one book, I make three bucks. But I’ve decided to set discounts for bulk purchases. Here’s my sliding scale:

3-10 copies: $8 per book

11-25 copies: $7 per book

26+ copies: $6 per book

 

How can I afford to set a $3 or $4 discount when I only make $3 per book? Because $3 is the profit I make when a customer purchases my book through Amazon. There is a cost for Amazon’s distribution services. But if I order my own books from the printer through my own account, I can get them for about $4 a book. I can then make a profit even if I resell them more cheaply.

Let’s run the numbers.

So let’s say someone orders 10 copies. That will cost me $40, but I’d resell them at $8 per book, or $80. That’s a customer discount of twenty bucks, and I actually make a higher profit than I would off Amazon, $40 compared to $30.

Let’s try 20 books. That would cost me $80. If I resold them at $7 a piece, they would cost the consumer $140, a savings of $60. However, I would still be making a profit of $3 per book, or $60, which is exactly what I would make selling 20 books through Amazon.

Let’s run the numbers again at 35 copies. That would cost me $140 to order but would be resold at $6 per book, or $210, a profit of $2 per copy. That’s a consumer savings of $140 and a profit of $70 for me. I’d even be willing to sell at half price if the order was large enough. One hundred books at $1 profit is still $100!

So you can see that each time, everyone wins! By having a bulk sale policy in place, buyers might be more inclined to purchase more than one book. Even if your profits per book grow smaller, quantity assures they still beat out a single sale. In addition, bulk sales result in more visibility. Notice, however, that I have to do the ordering and distributing and the collecting of funds, which is a small time factor and a larger risk factor. Also, I pass on the shipping costs to the customer, which, incidentally, average out to be MUCH less per book than Amazon’s single-book rate of $3.99.

But who would buy that many books? Classrooms are the most obvious answer. Bookstores, too. But I’ve also been contacted by a reading group who would like to include one of my titles on their list next year. And I made a bulk sale to an organization that was considering my book for an award. (I didn’t win, but I was thrilled to be nominated, and not too disappointed in a 25-book order.) You never know who might become interested, so it’s wise to have a bulk order policy in place.

Now you tell me…have you had any experience selling in bulk? Would you consider it?

Paperbacks–So Last Century?

Lots of indie authors are getting in on the ebook craze, and why not? It’s affordable, doable, and just so cool to see your novel up on Amazon. But fewer authors, it seems, take the time to create a paperback version of their novel. I’m here to say, you’ve gone through all the trouble of writing your masterpiece. Make it available to everyone!

Why paper?

Ereaders have been all the rage for awhile now, and ebooks are capturing a greater share of the market each year—I saw 25% in 2011! But you’ll notice that still leaves 75% squarely on the paperback side. You see, not everyone has an ereader. Not everyone wants and ereader. In my not-so-scientific observation of the blogging world over the past year and a half, perhaps half of the book reviewers I run across still accept only paperback. And these are people fully immersed in the digital world—bloggers and writers. What about all those people who don’t live online? What about the older generation which is much more hesitant to sell out to the computer age? What about those younger-than-forties who still like the feel and smell of paper in their hands? Yes, you’re missing a huge audience by not creating paperbacks.

But paperbacks are so 1990’s, you say. They cost more. They take up space. They use up natural resources. They wear out. They’re heavy. They take more time and effort to produce. They require different formatting than ebooks. They require different software. They’re tying me to an old project when I want to move on to a new one. They’re an ever-living pain in the you-know-what!

Agreed.

But my former arguments haven’t gone away, have they?

Why not paper?

Let’s look at your accomplishments so far. You’ve already spent years writing a book. Then you paid for editing and created a cover image. You’ve spent time creating blurbs, tweeting, and asking for reviews. You’re on Goodreads and Facebook. Why not put in a little more effort and reap bigger rewards? It’s not as intimidating as you might think.

So how do you do it?

Sorry. This post isn’t meant to be an in-depth tutorial. (But I have written one of those, if you have time to look it up.) This is simply a consideration of the pros and cons and an encouragement to get out there and learn the process for yourself.

A Few Considerations Before Starting

If you do choose to go the paper route, I would strongly recommend pay-on-demand. This means a digital copy of your book will be stored on your printer’s database so readers can order as few as one copy at a time. Prices will be slightly higher than mass-produced books—and the longer the book, the higher the cost, but as children’s books hover in the 50,000 word range, my prices have always remained fairly reasonable. Pay-on-demand also means that you, the author, will not be responsible to pay for, store, and distribute a 500- or 1,000-book print run.

Also, I advise not rushing, no matter how strong the urge to get your book out there quickly. New formatting requires further editing. Order a proof copy. Check and double check for errors, particularly spacing and page breaks. When you find them, fix them and proof it again. It may take a few tries, but having an error free book is worth it.  Get it right the first time.

And finally, don’t expect your paperback to be a best-seller. It won’t be on the shelves of Walmart. It won’t travel through the avenues the big six publishing houses use. You may be able to convince the local bookstore to stock a few copies, but most readers will not find your book. However, if you’ve created a clean, professional ebook and done your marketing homework, you will create more and more demand for your paperback.

Have them ready!

Now tell me your thoughts. Would you consider creating a paperback? Have you already? Was it worth your time? 

Slow and Steady Writes the Novel

In my last Friday Freebie, before I vacated for the Smokies, I posted about trimming our writing schedules to avoid burnout. Today it may seem like I’m talking out of the other side of my face: quit procrastinating and write!  But I don’t think these two bits of wisdom are contradictory at all. You see, writing, like anything else, requires balance. Too much is not good, and too little is just as bad. And it’s real easy to get in a vicious cycle that includes both.

I shared a little about how obsessive I get in the winter, pushing my WIP till I want to scream. Then in the summer, once the novel is wrapped up, I take it easy. Before I know it, the kids are starting school and I’ve done nothing but read for months! Don’t get me wrong, I like to read, I want to keep up on the children’s market for professional reasons, and maintaining a book review blog requires a certain amount of reading, so it’s not exactly a waste of my time. But it sure is hard to abandon the months-long leisure habit and return to the hard work of producing my own stories.

Because hard work it is–only non-writers will tell you it’s not–and that’s why we find so many reasons not to do it. But writing is the key to our success. Few of us will experience the instant wealth and mega-stardom of J.K. Rowling or Suzanne Collins (not to minimize how hard these ladies worked to get there). But for most of us, generating a fan base and an income is a slow process that requires producing, producing, producing. So we need to identify those things that hinder us.

I already mentioned burnout as a huge obstacle. Another hangup, in my case, is the internet. It’s so easy for me to pop online when I sit down to write and waste an hour checking my sales reports, reading through the handful of blogs I follow, returning emails–sometimes I even get absorbed in research. Again, these are all necessary activities, but they need to be controlled. I like to set time limits for myself. Fifteen minutes and I’m on to writing. I might even disable the connection so I’m not tempted to hop back on.

Another thing that hinders my writing is a busy family schedule. Sometimes there’s not much you can do about that: everyone has to eat and likes clean clothes. I’ve been fortunate to be able to stay home with my kids, who are still quite young, so I needn’t work around an outside-the-home job (I’m trying to make writing my career), but motherhood comes with a pretty big job description all its own. However, when additional activities arise, ask yourself, do I need to help with every classroom party? Must I teach Sunday school and Wednesday night  Bible club? Can Daddy coach AYSSO himself? I will never advise putting career ahead of family, but occasionally making time to write comes down to hard choices.

A third hindrance I run into is the sheer number of projects I hope to accomplish. My blog tour (next month) took an amazing amount of time, upwards of 80 hours. I’m currently recording podcast episodes of The Candle Star and it, too, turned into a real beast. I took time this spring to publish most of the Christmas plays I’ve written for church over the years. I also like to create and publish materials to help teachers use my books in the classroom, but I haven’t even had time to think about doing that for my new release yet. In the meantime, I really want to develop the story arc for a new series I’m planning. So how much time have I spent on my WIP this summer? Not enough to release it in November as I hope to if I keep this pace. Now that the blog tour is a wrap, I plan to hit the manuscript hard.

One final thing that keeps me from writing is my blog. Yes, my blog! While I love it, I keep a close eye on how many weekly posts I can sustain. I’ll never abandon my MMGM Monday posts, and I’m trying really hard to build the instructional nature of my blog with these Friday posts, but if I have to, I can always cut my Wednesday book reviews (and the hours spent reading for them) temporarily or long-term. My books have to come first.

We are all busy, but if we are going to make a go of this writing thing, it’s going to require, well, writing! Like the tortoise, we’ll only finish if we keep plugging away. So let’s get to it!

Now you tell me…what hinders you?

Balance vs. Burnout

“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”

That’s pretty sound advice, wouldn’t you agree? After all, it was given by a man with a brilliant mind—the one who drafted the Declaration of Independence, served as president of the United States, instigated the Louisiana Purchase, and sent out the Louis and Clark Expedition. He was a man of foresight, wisdom and action, and the many writings he left are still highly regarded. But I take issue with this one. I think it’s possible to do too much in a day, particularly if you are a writer. I’m a prime example.

I am a highly energized, highly motivated person. I’m mom to three young children who have homeschooled in different configurations for the past six years. I’m responsible for family meals, shopping, taxiing, cleaning, laundry—everything but lawn care and repairs. I exercise pretty faithfully. I plant and preserved a huge garden every year. And I’m involved in several church ministries. My typical day starts at six thirty and I hardly sit down until my youngest is tucked in bed at eight. Then I have time to blog, read, or write.

For the last several years, my writing has been very seasonal. I read in the summer (because we do a lot of camping and because I usually have sixteen thousand out-of-school neighborhood children in my house at any given moment, neither of which are conducive to writing), and I write in the winter when Michigan days are short and cold and routine. I get obsessive about both. In the summer, especially since I began my book blog, I try to read the vast majority of the yearly 104 books I review. And in the winter I try to finish writing an entire novel. When you only have four hours to write each day, that’s a real challenge. I tend to not have a life from October till April. I don’t watch tv. I rarely go out with friends. I hardly ever pick up a book. I write. And I write. And I write, with the exception of the nights I simply fall into bed exhausted.

Let me put out there that I wouldn’t recommend this schedule.

This spring, I’ve vowed to start “putting off until tomorrow.” I’m calling it balance. Rather than simply cramming a hundred books into my noggin during my homeschool break, I have several projects I’d like to accomplish, including the creation of audio books, planning a story new arc, and rewriting a manuscript. I’m allowing myself to be obsessive about any of them for no more than two weeks at a time. Then I put them off and switch to something else. By alternating projects with reading, I won’t get all my books read, but now I’ll have time to read during the winter. Likewise, if I lay down my winter manuscript in favor of a book, I may not get it all done by spring. But neither will I be exhausted, burnt out, and grouchy. As an indie author, I have the freedom to extend my own deadline.

We’re all busy. I only know one writer personally who writes full time. The rest of us must balance our writing with jobs, family, and real life. My schedule will not lighten until my kids are grown up, and I in no way am trying to hasten that. Parenting is the sweetest adventure of all. I want to enjoy these years that are over so quickly. But if I’m serious about writing—if we’re serious—I think “putting off,” taking breaks, and finding balance is a much more sustainable approach.

It’s your turn. How do you balance writing with real life? Can you tell me the identity of the man I quoted without Googling it?  I’m currently lost somewhere in the Smokey mountains on one of our family camp-outs, but I’ll respond to comments when I get home in a week or two.

How do You Measure Success?

The publishing industry has limits on how many books it can produce each year, which has always made published authors part of an exclusive club. But not anymore. Digital publishing has swung open the door of opportunity to anyone willing to undertake (or hire out) the legwork involved in producing a book. It’s an exciting time to be a writer. There are so many low-cost avenues to print, so many ways to reach an audience. And lots of us are getting in on the action.

It’s no secret that a few self-publishers are making a killing. Names like J. A. Konrath, Amanda Hocking, Barry Eisler and John Locke are in the news quite regularly for pulling in six- and seven-figure incomes. Some jumped in and rode the wave early, before the beach got so crowded. Others brought an already big name to the water. Other just plain got lucky.

So what does that mean for the rest of us? Can we all hope for such success? Should we shoot for it? Plan on it? Work for it? Follow their methods? Can we all really be that successful? The obvious answer, of course, is that the vast majority of writers will never see such outrageous money. That begs the question, then, what is success?

I guess the answer will be different for each of us. We all want different things. For some, just seeing a book in print is a huge success, whether it sells well or not. This includes memoirs, family histories, books by children, a class project, a photo book, family cookbooks, or other personal projects. There was a time when these types of books could never go to print without a significant investment, if they could be created at all. Now, these treasures can be professionally bound and distributed with little cost and great pride.

Some authors may simply wish to find an audience for a story they’ve been passionate about. Others might be hoping to sell enough books to save up for a special purchase. And still others hope to quit a hated day job and still earn a modest living. I would qualify success as meeting any of these goals.

And lots of folks are doing it! I know many authors who are finding an audience for the first time and earning a little extra money. And I’ve read a score of stories about people earning three, four or five thousand dollars off their digital books every month! A killing? Not by any means. But that’s between thirty and sixty thousand dollars a year. A variety of professions draw similar pay. So what if we’re not all earning millions? Writers are succeeding!

I, personally, have two goals.  One, I wanted my books to finally find some readers.  That’s happening!  I’d also like to accumulate several thousand dollars for my kids’ college funds before they actually graduate from high school. I really haven’t set a figure because I’m in a difficult genre. Children’s literature is not widely read by adults, not many kids have ereaders, and no kids have credit cards. That makes this an uphill battle. But I’m working at it, I have several years before my oldest leaves home, and I’ve got lots more books in the queue. Sure I’d like to see higher sales, but even at my slow pace, I’m going to have a good deal more money in the bank by college time than I would had I not self-published. By that measure, I’d say this venture is looking pretty successful.

We, as self-published authors, have every reason to be proud of what we’re accomplishing, whether our successes are big or little.  So now it’s time for you to share.  Tell us about your success story!

The Appeal of a Great Brand

Have you, by chance, noticed a little more sweetness around Bookworm Blather lately? That’s because I’m finally taking everything I’ve ever learned about branding to heart. I find I have time for such improvements when I finish a novel.  (Hee! hee! See how I cleverly worked a plug in there?)

There are so many fish in the publishing (or blogging) sea it’s really easy to blend in and never be noticed. Branding is one way to set yourself apart. Basically, all branding is is choosing what you want to be known for and then playing it up. According to popular consensus, three attributes seems to be the number to work with. (For over a year now I’ve been reading about what “everybody” says and trying my best to apply it. I’m finding that not all this great advice works for me, and I’m starting to form some of my own opinions. But more on that in later posts.) I happen to be in complete agreement with the masses on this one. I just haven’t done the most wonderful job of implementing it.

I want to give you an example of very effective branding. Catherine Ryan Howard publishes a blog I really enjoy. She’s an author who writes for adults, both fiction and narrative non-fiction, and her blog is about self-publishing. Like many bloggers, the ultimate motive behind her effort is to sell her books. I have not read her books; I don’t even have an interest in her books. But I’m drawn to her blog because 1) she offers me something (great information and a few chuckles) and 2) she does it so well.

What makes Catherine’s blog so effective? Primarily it’s good content. But the way she portrays herself is really catchy. That’s her brand shining through. Look at her blog title: Catherine Caffeinated. See the coffee cup? Notice a color theme? Notice the typewriter? When I think Catherine Ryan Howard, I think pink, coffee, and self-publishing. That’s how she’s marketed herself and every post ties in. She always writes about self-publishing but she does it in a nice package. Sometimes she reminds us to bring coffee. Other times she mentions that she hasn’t had enough caffeine yet. And still other times she may say somethings like, “Keep dropping by if it isn’t too pink for you.” It’s good content that’s tied up with pink ribbons and coffee beans, which makes the content that much more enjoyable. Does she sell more books because of it? It hasn’t influenced me to buy. But it’s grown her blog and helped her stand out, and that notoriety probably does help sales. (And notice how I, a non-buyer, am spreading the word to other potential purchasers purely on the quality of her blog.)

My personal application? I haven’t done quite as inclusive a job of branding myself. Those who know me think children’s literature–I hope that’s obvious immediately. But I also wanted my blog (and my writing) to be known by the kid-friendly attribute of ‘adventurous.’ That’s why I switched over to the more eye-catching header and background images a few months ago. But it was time to evolve a little more. I started with a new subtitle: “Sweet adventures in children’s literature.” Adventure’s still there, but “sweet” is new. It has three great meanings: 1) tasting of sugar 2) wickedly awesome! and 3) that which invokes the word “Awwww…” It’s general. It’s expressive. It can be used to denote a feeling of innocence I value in my work. And I can plug in chocolate cupcakes. I might not sell more books, but I think I’ll have fun with it. From here on out my posts will be getting a little sweeter and a little more adventurous. I’m even considering dribbling a few cookies into Gilbert’s (the shark) mouth.

I’d love to hear your feedback. What are your thoughts on branding? Is it worth bothering with? What kind of branding have you seen or done?

Over Memorial Day weekend, I’ll be Up North where an internet connection is occasionally available at the end of the driveway IF I stand on one foot while waving my left arm in circles and cock my head at a 45 degree angle. If I’m feeling like a contortionist, I’ll get to those comments right away.  Otherwise look for me on Tuesday. Have a great holiday!

Setting Goals

For self-published authors, setting goals is tremendously beneficial.  As writer, publisher and marketer, we have a lot to do. For me, written goals help me lay out my overall purpose, they establish baby steps to see that I get there, they help me prioritize, and they keep me accountable.

Rather than talk this topic to death, however, I’m simply going to write out a sampling of my goals from 2011 and my goals for March 2012. I think this will suffice to illustrate how they helped me dive into an unfamiliar new career and how they continue to keep me on track. If you find them extremely dull, skip ‘em, and I promise my point will be waiting again somewhere near the end.  :)

My 2011 Goals

• Give my all-over-the-board blog a specific children’s literature direction.
• Research how to publish on Kindle and Smashwords.
• Become familiar with different ereaders and the file formats associated with them.
• Evaluate pricing and royalty options.
• Set up an author website.
• Figure out how to get my paperbacks on Amazon.
• Rewrite and publish The Quill Pen.
• Read and review LOTS of kids books.
• Learn how to create a book trailer.

In the beginning, I was hopelessly overwhelmed. I kept discovering and listing all these new things I had to do and learn. I had very broad goals that included a lot of experimentation and education. This year my goals are much more specific. I’m still learning and trying lot of new things, but I have a better understanding of the direction I want to take and the ways to get there. At the beginning of the year I wrote out several broad goals I wanted to meet.  Now each month I pick a few things from the pile and break my objectives into more manageable tasks.  They keep me moving forward.

March 2012 Goals

• Finish Slashings manuscript and begin rewrites.
• Procure a professional editor for finished manuscript.
• Prepare a Beneath the Slashings query for reviewers. Query in March and April.
• Edit and publish lesson plans for The Quill Pen in paperback and digital formats.
• Read and review four books to post on my blog in April.
• Become more proficient with imaging software.  Create a new Quill Pen cover.
• Finish and implement blog makeover.
• Try Kindle select with Candle Star.

My Point

Okay, I promised a point after all this. Here it is: Self-publishing and self-marketing involve way more time and effort than I ever dreamed they would. They encompass my blogs, social media, interaction with others of the same interests, my reading choices, my writing decisions, my self-education, the list goes on and on. Setting goals has aided me tremendously by helping me define what I most want to accomplish and then breaking those objectives into bite-size pieces. If you are a writer, I’d encourage you to take a few minutes and pinpoint exactly what it is you want to achieve. Only then can you set a course to get there.

If you aren’t tired of reading this post yet, here’s a few of my broad objectives remaining for 2012:

• Look into itunes, podcasts and audio books.
• Rewrite Song of the Mountain. Publish in fall/winter.
• Organize August book launch and blog tour.
• Create a plot outline for new five-book series idea.