What’s Transmedia?

Jan18

Good question! I had never heard of it, but it makes sense, even more so with the upcoming generation who are used to multimedia interactions.

So what is it?!
From what I gathered from Tom Denver’s interview with Houston Howard (and I’d encourage any storyteller to read it – not just screenwriters), it’s using different ways – different forms of media – to engage your audience in your story. Some of the engagement is to make money and some is to engage your audience. And which forms of media or interaction you use depends on what works best for the story. The skies the limit!!

Houston Howard

Source: Interview with Houston Howard, Transmedia Instructor at The Los Angeles Film School – The Script Lab

Pushkin Press Is Open For Children’s Book Submissions For One Day!

Jan6

Pushkin-Press-Childrens-Books Pushkin Press, a UK publisher, “was founded in 1997, and publishes novels, essays, memoirs, children’s books—everything from timeless classics to the urgent and contemporary.”

One of their “editors-at-large,” Sarah Odedina, is opening up her email for children’s books submissions for one day, Monday, January 8th.

I couldn’t find what they define as “children’s” books but last years pick was a YA novel, so she must be looking for books, including YA. And Sarah’s bio states that one of the types of books she likes to read is board books. So there you have it. Come to your own conclusions.

So pull that synopsis out, your bio, and send your first 10,000 words of your children’s book along to Odedina, like I am!

Best of luck! And let me know how you fair!

CKBooks Publishing
Where Publishing Dreams Become Reality

Amazon Ads – Are They Worth It?

Dec18

Is it worth setting up book ads on Amazon? I’ve tried it a couple times now for a couple different titles of mine and I’m not convinced yet.

I have a book (The Red Velvet Box) that is set around the holidays – Thanksgiving and Christmas – so I thought I’d give it another try seeing that it’s around that time of the year. I’ve tried an Amazon ad before with my award-winning MG novel: Intrigue in Istanbul. I can no longer see that campaign so I can’t tell you how it went other than what I remember. And what I remember is my current campaign is garnering more interest but the sales are still just so so.

Here is the Amazon speak:
262,916 impressions – which means it’s showed up that many times on Amazon and from what I understand, that has to do with how much you pay/click for a certain key word.

I’ve got 90 key words – key word doesn’t have to be just one word – (most gurus say you should have many more, but I got tired of trying to find more after I hit 90) and I started paying 25 cents/click/word(s). That didn’t get me many impressions, but it did tell me which key words were getting impressions so I upped the fee/word .40 or .50/word(s) on those specific words and the impressions increased A LOT!

So it’s run for about a week. I’ve spend between $3 and $4/ day (I’ve changed it a couple times). It’s had 100 clicks (on my specific ad) and I’ve spent $30.15 for $2.99 in sales. And those sales figures are the full sales, not my cut which is 70% of that.

So…so far I’m not that impressed.

Now, maybe my ad is not catchy enough. I looked at other bestselling books in my genre to help me decide on my ad copy, but I’m not a marketer, so maybe this could be improved and I’d sell more books. Or maybe my genre and age group (middle grade mystery adventure) is not a big seller. I do know mysteries sell – it’s one of the top 5, but for middle graders????

Now, it is the holidays, and people will be getting tablets and ereaders as gifts and maybe trolling Amazon for good books. I’m going to keep my ad going until January 7th, so we’ll see how it goes.

Here is Amazon’s info/marketing page for Amazon ads, and remember this is marketing, even though it’s appears to educational, which is also is. The ads are not hard to set up but if you want to try putting up an ad, check your site every day to make sure it’s working the way you want. And don’t go over your budget. Give yourself a set budget and stick to it. Amazon wants you to be excited about any sales but if you don’t have the money to spend, don’t spend it!!

Wishing you and yours peace-filled holidays!

CKBooks Publishing
Where Publishing Dreams Become Reality

15 Book Publicity Commandments

Aug5

Some good advice from Carolyn Howard- Johnson

If you can’t really afford to spend a lot on a book publicity campaign, carve out some time to do it yourself and apply these 15 commandments.

Source: 15 Book Publicity Commandments | BookBaby Blog

Reader’s Favorite Award and others

May24

Wanted to let you know you have until June 1st to enter the Readers’ Favorite Book Award Contest – Enter Today! It’s one of a few legitimate book awards that independent authors can enter and one that is respected in the book world. The nice thing about this award is you can use an ebook to enter, you don’t have to use print (or was it a pdf – I forget). IPPY is another contest, but you need print for that. And I just learned about is the Eric Hoffer Award for small, academic and Independent Presses.

I have listed other contest and helpful links in my Helpful Links tab on this website, so take a look there as well. (note: some of these links are affiliate links, so if you use that link to enter the contest, I get a small commission.)

Awards are a great way to show readers that your book is worth a second look, so look at the various contests and enter!

my image CKBooks Publishing
Where Publishing Dreams Become Reality

Setting up an Author Facebook Page

Apr30

Marketing Tip for Selling Books on Facebook With No Personal Information Shared

Great blow by blow setup of a Facebook Author Page. I’d recommend naming it by your author page not your book title, since, hopefully, you’ll be writing multiple books.
Thanks Vicki!

CKBooks Publishing
Where Publishing Dreams Become Reality

The Page Turner

I wanted to share with you a few options for marketing on Facebook even if you do not want to have an active Facebook account for yourself.

Facebook is a huge opportunity for authors that are looking for just one more book sale, one more reader and that elusive one more fan. Many people do not trust Facebook as a platform where they want to spend their time and do not enjoy sharing their personal information with the powers that be like Zuckerburg and other corporate entities. I have the perfect solution for you as an author.

Create a Facebook account. A master account as it were. You do not need to have friends, photos, locations or any of the other more intrusive information listed. It is enough to say Your name or Pen name and your occupation as Author.

Once you have that created you are able to build pages. These…

View original post 627 more words

Your Author Bio–Does it Help Sales or Stop them Dead?

Mar31

If you’re like me, the first time you write your author bio, you’re in a hurry so you don’t really take the time to scrutinize it carefully. And then there is the point about making sure it’s up to date. I’ve been forced to do this on a few different occasion because of events I’ve been speaking at, where they always ask for your picture and bio.

If you haven’t looked at your book bio in a while, Anne R. Allen has some good things to think about.

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No matter how great a book’s cover and blurb, one thing can stop me from buying yet another ebook for my Kindle: an author bio on the buy page that screams “amateur.” I spent some time as an editor, so when I pick up a book for relaxation, I want to […]

Source: Your Author Bio–Does it Help Sales or Stop them Dead?

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CKBooks Publishing
Where Publishing Dreams Become Reality

NetGalley Book Review Program: A Case Study

Feb15

I thought this was an interesting and helpful post about the NetGalley Review Program. If you’ve ever considered using NetGalley, this is a post worth reading. I’ve heard many people say “Never pay for reviews.” I’m not sure “never” is always accurate but before you pay for a review from anyone, do your homework to try and find out if it’s worth the money you will be spending.

There are many companies out there willing to take advantage of the struggle authors have with getting their name and books out there. That’s why there are so many different things (and people or companies offering those things) out there telling you their thing is THE thing you need to do, or one of the most important things to do.

I do agree that increasing the number of reviews you have is one of the first things you need to do as an author, but do you need to pay for those reviews. Maybe or maybe not.

See what David Kudler did with his book.

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Most publishers (large and small) struggle with making their titles visible. In the trackless jungle that is the modern book-buying world (the Amazon?), getting your book reviewed is an essential part

Source: NetGalley Book Review Program: A Case Study – The Book Designer

Book Promotion: Do This, Not That – October 2016

Oct19

Amy Collins gives us some good advice about planning ahead related to book marketing and sales, not something I am particularly good at. I also want to add, it has been my experience that libraries also tend to budget quite a bit ahead, so if you want to offer a writing program, or “How I Self-Published My First Book” workshop, or a book reading/sale, you would want to contact libraries now. Many will be planning for next year about now.

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Amy’s post:

October already? How the heck did THAT happen? Another month of great marketing and sales successes to be had. Let’s get started with this month’s three tidbits of book promotion experience:

Source: Book Promotion: Do This, Not That – October 2016 – The Book Designer