Tag Archives: Karrie Ross

Optional Ways to Market Your Book

Self publishing has become normal now but that wasn’t always so. There was a time self publishers, POD were considered not professional and were looked down upon and I find that this misconception still holds strength with some people. Which like many other misconceptions needs correction. The more you learn about the process and the marketing and the possibilities available to you the more this misconception can be discounted and a new way of thinking can be developed.

Take a look at amazon.com books if you want to feel more comfortable about writing and publishing a book. POD is a viable solution. AND you are not alone in proceeding down this path to fulfilling your dream.

https://www.ibpa-online.org/Login.aspx is an organization for self publishing authors and indie publishers and anyone interested in fulfilling a dream of making a book.

https://wwwsmashwords.com is a site to visit for information about ebooks production, sales and marketing.

And there are a boat-load of websites that offer different types of information for you to review. https://kindlepreneur.com/courses/  and the website over all offers information that might help you with the journey.

Thats it for now, I’ll be adding to this post as time goes on.

Remember, do something every day towards your book and self promotion.

Wishing you the best on your journey.

###

 

List of 50 Book awards

50 Book Awards

Note: this list is old and some links might not work.

————————-

City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Award

http://www.calgary.ca/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_0_780_237_0_43/http%3B/content.calgary.ca/CCA/City+Hall/Business+Units/City+Clerks+Department/Administration+Services/Calgary+Awards/City+of+Calgary+W.O.+Mitchell+Book+Prize.htm

Deadline: December

“The City of Calgary established this prize, in honour of renowned Calgary writer W.O. Mitchell, to recognize literary achievement by Calgary authors.”

Fiction, poetry, non-fiction, children’s literature, and drama books are eligible. Self-published works, anthologies, cookbooks, guidebooks, textbooks, technical manuals, bibliographies, works of a purely academic or scholarly nature, books of less than 48 pages (except children’s literature), books written in other than English or French, multi-authored books if any one of the authors is not a Calgarian, and reprints or new editions of previously published books are not eligible.


Next Generation Indie Book Award Continue reading

How to add a website Bookmark icon to your iphone

 How to make a desktop icon bookmark for your website url for use on your iphone so when someone asks about your book you can take them directly to your author website page of choice.

1. login to your phone
2. find the Safari icon and open the program
3. type in your website url
4. at the bottom of the screen you’ll see a rectangular icon page with arrow pointing out of the top…
5. tap the icon and when it opens successfully there will be a few options choose the one that works for your needs
4. you will be asked to choose a name for the icon… do so
5. go to your iphone desktop and find it… most likely on the last page of icons… remember you can move it by holding down the thumb button to get the icons giggling with an X… be sure not to hit the X but MOVE the icon to a forward page and once there hit the thumb button again.
Have fun with this easy way to visit your site.
Karrie Ross

Printed books are alive and doing well — Good Reader

good-reader-ebooks

Sounds a little scary. HOWEVER, printed books have gained!! The article presents some interesting stats…

As a book designer that news makes me happy. The article states “… paperback sales have increased by 8.9% giving further credence that people are switching back to print in greater numbers than originally thought….” And that the brick and mortar might still be there for all to enjoy… might take awhile…. and they are doing better than online sales, and this on the heels of the 20th anniversary of amazon.

“I think e-books are the modern equivalent of a Polaroid camera or LP record. There is a niche market that will always support it, and make it financially viable for publishers to produce digital editions.  The mass market though, experimented with e-books for awhile and decided that print is far more affordable and carries a true sense of ownership.” ~Michael Kozlowski for Good Reader.

I for one am happy to hear and have my feelings confirmed… PRINT IS NOT DEAD!

Remember, do something every day toward the production and promotion of your book, service or company and contact me to help move you faster and effectively. There are several consulting options to choose from. Lets talk!

###

Association of American Publishers

aap-banner-for-post-bcdr

The Power of Telling, not showing for book promotion

Tell the story.
Each book has a special audience,  talk to them.

Tell the details.
Remember,  you wrote the book… go back and read it as thought for the first time and see what you find.

Example in words the connection.
Everyone has an emotion that gets touched that makes them pay attention.

Don’t loose sight of what your passion is.
Share.

Tell the tension in a way that the reader wants to know more.

Promotion… create a series of ways to be heard.

  1. create a website
  2. tell stories
  3. postcards, book marks, and posters
  4. get that video on youtube

Contact me to help with your promotion. Start with a consulting session and we’ll build from there. I set up and train you to update your own website. So you can express yourself when the feeling is there. WordPress is pretty easy to comprehend.

++

Remember, do something every day toward the production and promotion of your book, service or company and contact me to help move you faster and effectively. There are several consulting options to choose from. Lets talk!

+++

Karrie Ross is an award winning author of a parenting book and childrens picture book.

Publishing a book challenges your brian… Huffington Post

Tip: Blogging Happy…not just about the New Year!

Happy New Year! We hear that every year at this time… only 5 more days to go. Do you know what you’ll be doing? Will you start that blog to promote your book, it’s subject, your focus, your sharing with the world the who you are?

Do you have a website… that has a blog? If not, why? This is one of the best tools for beginning your journey in promotion. Next is social media. No, it’s not easy or quick or even fun at times. BUT remember you are on a mission to find a place for your voice, a place to join a community and participate.

Blog is a place like home, somewhere to write your daily thoughts and share the what is on your mind… if you haven’t got one… start it today…if you don’t have a website… call me, I’ll help you set it up so your happy can be shared.

Remember, do something every day toward the production and promotion of your book, service or company and contact me to help move you faster and effectively. There are several consulting options to choose from. Lets talk!

 

# # #

Tip: Seasons Greetings! and Now is the time to Start/Finsih That Book!

Yep, it’s the Holidays and soon to be new year… what are your plans? How will you spend your time? Will you choose to write a book… could just be a little tip book… or that novel you have in your head in your day dreaming hours. START NOW!

Write out that idea, find a folder and start putting your thoughts in it. What do you want to share? Your notes will grow into that something more and eventually you’ll see the outline and main purpose.

or

Finish what you’ve started, finalize that manuscript and contact me. Lets get this moving along to a final product you can share with people who have the same interest, the same desires, the same questions. What you know IS important and sharable. Create the final title, firm up your selling points and how to promote…

Remember, do something every day toward the production and promotion of your book, service or company and contact me to help move you faster and effectively. There are several consulting options to choose from. Lets talk!

# # #

 

Tip: Purpose and intent-writing for why?

I’m not just a book designer, I also write and put books together. The book I wrote was about parenting, it received several awards, that made me happy. I wrote it for another project I was working on at the time, I needed to “become a bigger person” so I took a subject that I knew about and wrote. It took me 9 months… HA! just like a baby… and then I started promoting it. The purpose was to move me along to the “bigger self” and intent was to pass along what I had learned on my want to being a parent.

I also put books together. I’m an award winning fine artist as well as author. I love the communities I associate with. I am currently on my second book spotlighting the community of Los Angeles artists I know. This might not be a big seller but it has a purpose of sharing what I’m interested in and an intention of letting other people see how I think and they become more aware of other the lives of other artists.

PURPOSE AND INTENT. What the why Continue reading

Tip: Raining in California…interesting writing subjects

It never rains in California. Over the past 5-10 years that has become more true than we Californians want to believe. We are in a drought. I’m noticing more and more articles/posts/comments being created that center around how to life with and survive in this condition. In our digital world there doesn’t seem to ever be enough information.

So this is the writers cue to start writing their take on the subject in the news. Doesn’t have to be the drought, but look at what people are talking about… that “what is on their mind” and as yourself if that is your question too.

I consult with authors on a variety of subjects on the publishing road…. is their topic is clear, what the table of contents might list like, what are the things that will make their book more interesting, elements that inspire as well as promotion and were to begin.

Remember, do something every day toward the production and promotion of your book, service or company and contact me to help move you faster and effectively. There are several consulting options to choose from. Lets talk!

 

# # #

IBPA … a good place to start

ibpa

I took a trip over tot he IBPA website to search out their mailings to libraries since so many of the authors I’ve been working with are interested in library distribution.

I found a couple pages you might not know are there.

The IBPA has a page and special marketing offers I’ve used Continue reading

A benefit of reading… fiction mostly

A short note about an article I found about reading fiction. And, maybe a tip for you non-fiction writers out there to add more stories to your manuscripts to assist in the overall acceptance and stickiness of your content.

reading-article-arts-com

http://mic.com/articles/104702/science-shows-something-surprising-about-people-who-love-reading-fiction

Remember do something everyday toward the creation and promotion of your book, product, or company. And contact me to help you get the best for the time spent.

# # #

Writer’s Block be gone! Finishing Your Book. I’m not just a Book Designer…

I don’t believe in writer’s block. (I can hear the gasps of disbelief already.) I make this statement based on my experience writing an award winning parenting book. So my experience is for non-fiction more than fiction. But I would think that much of what I outline could cover both.  I believe that if we follow one simple fist step that writer’s block melts away and the words start flowing. But what is that “first step”? Well, a big part of my job as a book consultant and coach is to help people create something they can actually market: a finished book. Many of us have plenty of ideas but not a clue how to get them started.

Unlike other professions, authors operate under a whole different set of rules. Not all of us can’t just sit down and pound out a story, and those who can have created their own formula for doing so. In our minds, we see the final story, we see the cover, we see the characters, we see the market potential. And we see us on TV smiling and holding up our book for the whole world to see. Then we glance back down at our monitor and see nothing but a blinking cursor and blank page. And we are again reminded we have not even written one sentence.

Authors who have trouble see a huge, overwhelming project in front of them not the steps to finish. You finish a book, one step at a time. So the first step is that you have to break down your book into manageable, bite-size pieces.

This can be accomplished by creating a Table of Contents, (TOC)  that will guide you through the book content. Think of the TOC as your map, the map that will get you from point A to point B, guiding your thought process through your book. Begin by writing out your chapters headings, then write a 2-3 sentence description of what the chapter encompasses, keep it brief. Once the TOC is outlined, you’ll have a vision of your book from start to finish. Of course you can move them around and change them all you want.

A few things that creating the first step TOC will do for you:

  •  It will show you any gaps in your story that might need to be fleshed out
  •  it will give you a sense of completion, of seeing the book or project actually done,
  •  this step alone can propel an author enough to get their book done
  •  give the project a darned good kick-start.

Once you’ve started your TOC, you’ll want to go through it and create a “to do” list. Regardless of what your books subject is, you will always have a to-do list. Whether it’s getting endorsements, doing research, or getting approvals for quotes or excerpts for your book, this to-do list will become yet another item that will help get your book toward completion.

Once the to-do list is done, set it aside. Now you should have your completed TOC with a vision of the entire book and a growing list of items that will need to be handled for the book to get done. Now the real fun begins.

Some books on writing will tell you to set aside a day or two a week, or an evening here and there to get your book completed. That might work for some authors, but it didn’t for me. I found that I needed to stay dialed into the topic and if I  put the project aside for days or weeks at a time, promising myself to schedule time “as soon as I could.”  that rarely happened. What I found is that when I set aside some time every day to do something on the book, I got it completed a lot quicker. That’s where I came up with  the statement I use at the end of all my blog posts. (it’s at the end of this one too)

Let your fascination with the subject take over. The more you keep your interest in your project, the more it, the book,  will stay at the front of your mind, and the more energy you will invest to finish it. I won’t tell you to set aside hours each day — in fact, you don’t even have to set aside an hour. Take 15 minutes, or even five — whatever your schedule permits. If this seems like a ridiculously short amount of time, consider this: You now have your to-do list and your outlined TOC!  . If you are short on time one day, pick a quickie item from your to-do list and get it done. If you have more time, then pound out a chapter or two. The idea behind creating the to-do lists and a TOC is to not only give your project a structure, but to also eliminate any and all excuses for getting it done. Don’t feel like writing today? No problem. There’s probably a mountain of research just waiting to be reviewed.

The TOC is your beginning focus. The entry into the subject content. It’s as simple as that. And the TOC doesn’t stop there — it is how you plan out the steps that will keep the reader interested. Find the “core” of your book or the focus of your story. Ask yourself:

  • What’s the one thing this book cannot do without?
  • What’s the one thing this story circles around?
  • That’s your core.
  • If you’re still coming up with three or four things that your story circles around, you aren’t focused enough and neither is your book.
  • Find that one thing and build your story or book around it.

If you follow these beginning steps, your book will get finished quicker than you could have ever imagined.

AND that’s the first step… next you plan out the chapters.

Remember, do something every day toward the production and promotion of your book, service or company and contact me to help move you faster and effectively. There are several consulting options to choose from. Lets talk!
# # #

Writing Articles For Your Book, Service or Business

I’d like to say it’s tough out there, but then, it’s always been a challenge to promote a business… that’s what advertising and networking are for…and today the action of attracting targeted traffic to your website cannot be overemphasized. Fortunately, there are many different website promotion strategies you can use to drive traffic to your website. With all the new concepts, seo, spiders, and algorithms in use, directing internet traffic to your website can be your number one means of survival, especially in the world of ecommerce. Getting a high search engine ranking can be very tedious and time consuming.

There is a wide variety of strategies you can put into place—ranging from paid advertising to affiliate marketing. However, most of these techniques require payment. Nevertheless, there are ways to promote your website and increase your web traffic without spending anything. Writing articles is one of the best web site promotion strategies besides commenting on other peoples related blog posts, that you can use, and they can be very effective. How, you may ask, can writing articles help improve your web traffic? Here are the top seven ways in which it can help expand your business.

1. More people get to see what you are doing

Be sure you are writing articles for informative on-topic subjects, you want to share them. By posting  these articles to your website or online sites such as e-zine articles and other online e-publishers, you are exposing not only your ideas but also access to your website. By the simple action of including a link back to your site you get exposure and free advertising as well.  Remember that most people are looking for information online and by filling this need with your quality articles, you will reap the benefit of more exposure and higher web traffic.

2. Increases your chance of your website being raked higher on the search results seo

Create a post page for your article, and optimize it with appropriate keywords and content that are search-engine friendly. As soon as you publish the post, search engines will review it with their spiders. Remember that search engine optimized content is a very effective strategy to gain a high ranking in search results.

3. Optimizes your site for improved search engine ranking

By making your site keyword relevant, you can greatly improve the search engine ranking of your site. Remember that search engines are looking for keywords that match your site description and content.  Always provide current, useful and targeted information.  Relevance and quality is still the most important things to consider when writing articles and it will be doubly useful to your site when they pay attention to search-engine optimization.

4. Increases Link Popularity using other websites

Research how to submit your articles to other sites, both ones that are related to your subject and article libraries. Be sure to remember to include a link to your book website in your bio box. When other websites pick up and publish the article, you automatically get a link partner. Try to get as many link partners as you can. Link popularity is one of the factors used by search engines in determining search engine rankings. Make your article especially useful and appealing, so that more websites will be encouraged to publish it.

5. Seeing your name, book title,  or company name is just more Free Advertising

Submitting your articles to other websites is another form of advertising by way of using your name, book title or business name. Avoid heavy marketing language and make the article informative and useful. In addition, by making your article relevant and helpful you are making a good impression for your book or company, which could ultimately lead to a visit and hopefully a purchase. Good quality content in an article is far better and more effective than a few lines of ad space. You have a very special opportunity to presell your book, product or service to your prospective customer.

6. Establishes You as a professional and your book content as important

By writing comprehensive, original and relevant articles, you not only give your site exposure, you are also creating a good impression on your concepts and services. Encourage more people to visit your site and do business with you by establishing an impressive reputation through your articles. Be seen as an expert in the field and your will ultimately gain more customers eager to do business with you.

Remember, do something every day toward the production and promotion of your book, service or company and contact me to help move you faster and effectively. There are several consulting options to choose from. Lets talk!

# # #