Getting Started With Facebook Ads
By: Ginger | Posted on September 13, 2019
There’s no denying that Facebook advertising gets results, but with so many options a lot of authors are left confused at how to begin or what types of ads they should be spending their money on. Advertising expert Ginger is back this week to help guide you through the options and give you some examples to help make the process easier to understand and get started on. Because after all, if you aren’t advertising your book, you’re unlikely to achieve the level of success you’re probably hoping for. Understanding Facebook advertising can transform the trajectory of your book – but only if you do it right. If the Russians can allegedly skew the results of the US election through the power of Facebook, you should be able to sell more copies of your books on ‘the social network.’ With nearly 2 billion active users, there’s perhaps no quicker or easier… Read More >
The Author’s Guide to Facebook
By: Ginger | Posted on September 6, 2019
One of the most important but misunderstood tools for an author to use is Facebook. Do you set up an account, or a page? What can you do with it once it’s set up? What do you post? If any of these things have kept you from using Facebook to promote your author brand, our resident advertising and marketing expert Ginger has the answers you’ve been looking for to get started. Don’t hold off on using this powerful marketing platform any longer! Facebook is a powerful tool for authors – here’s how to get started with it. Love it or hate it, but Facebook is here to stay – and as an author, it’s one of the most powerful tools you have for connecting easily, accessibly and meaningfully with your readers. In fact, as an author, if you don’t have an active Facebook page, you’re missing a trick – and,… Read More >
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Sticking with Amazon’s KDP Select, or Going Wide?
By: Ginger | Posted on August 30, 2019
One of the most frequently asked questions about self-publishing is whether or not to sell your books on Amazon exclusively, or to ‘go wide’, sending them out to a multitude of different online bookstores. There’s no one right answer, just like there is no one right way to write a book – so today Ginger is diving into the issue to give you some of the pros and cons – and also on what his choice is, how he made it, and some ideas on how you can decide for yourself. Of course, this is just one author’s opinion – and if you have one of your own, please let us know via the comments below. This is definitely a conversation that benefits the community most when we hear from many different sources… What are the benefits of ‘going wide’ when it comes to your books? So, let’s not beat… Read More >
Writing Groups – Fighting the Myth of the Hermit Writer
By: Ginger | Posted on August 23, 2019
Being an author is a solitary experience that only other writers truly understand, but it doesn’t have to be – at least, not all the time. There are benefits to socializing with like-minded people who share your passion of putting words together and understand everything that goes along with making that your career choice. As Ginger recently discovered, writing groups are a great way to get out there, and you may find that they inspire and energize you in ways you never considered. Writing is a solitary experience – but it doesn’t need to be. Make socializing with other like-minded people a priority, and your writing will benefit. I was recently watching a fascinating discussion between Stephen King and GRR Martin about the nature of writing, and King recalled an event at Radio City Hall in Manhattan, in which JK Rowling rolled her eyes after a discussion with her publicist… Read More >
Getting the Most Out of Amazon Advertising
By: Ginger | Posted on August 16, 2019
There’s more to advertising on Amazon than just finding a bunch of great keywords and plunking them down, waiting for the money to roll in. Amazon advertising is a complex system, and the key to squeezing the most profit out of it is in truly understanding how it works. This long and detailed breakdown by advertising expert Ginger does just that, giving you the how and why the system works the way it does, as well as a number of tips and examples to help you get the most out of your keywords and Advertising on Amazon in general. I paid my money – where’s my profit? Like many authors, when Amazon launched their Amazon Marketing Services – now Advertising on Amazon – I was stoked. FINALLY, I’d thought – a way for me to throw money at my books and get them in front of the readers who want… Read More >
Sell More Books with an Optimized Author Central Account
By: Penny C. Sansevieri | Posted on August 9, 2019
If you publish on Amazon, understanding the importance of your Author Central account and what you need to do to keep it updated is essential. Author marketing expert Penny Sansevieri spends her days helping authors sell more books, and so she knows all about how to optimize Author Central to help do just that. We’re grateful she’s agreed to share a number of tips and suggestions with us on how to make your book stand out from all the others! As an author you’ve no doubt spent a lot of time determining the most lucrative keywords and categories on Amazon, but too few overlooking the juice you can get by optimizing your Amazon Author Central Page with all the free features that come along with it. First I want to point out that technically every author on Amazon is represented by Author Central, but it’s really doing you no good… Read More >
Successful Self-Publishing – It’s All About the Conversions
By: Ginger | Posted on August 2, 2019
Advertising expert Ginger is back this week with some more thoughts on what happens after you’ve written and published your book – specifically how to advertise, promote and hopefully sell copies to eager readers! Today, he’s talking about the cornerstone of any successful promotional campaign – conversions. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about how to make sense of your Amazon Advertising facts and figures – and I had a few questions from readers about one important aspect of that: Conversions. Conversions are the technical term for when you ‘convert’ a visitor to your Amazon product page to a paying customer; or, in short, when they buy your book! In terms of successful self-publishing, any promotional efforts you make to drive potential customers to your product page need to result in a good percentage of ‘conversions’ – otherwise you’re leading horses to water, but none of them… Read More >
Writing Believable Science Fiction
By: Larry N. Martin | Posted on July 26, 2019
Science Fiction readers often categorize books into one of two camps: Hard SF and Soft SF. Hard SF generally means that the story focuses more on the science and making all of the SF elements plausible and realistic, while Soft SF doesn’t delve as deep into the details of how something works or even worry about whether it’s theoretically possible. But whether you write hard or soft science fiction, the story itself has to be believable (even if the science itself isn’t), which means not forgetting to pay attention to more than just the weird and wonderful world you’ve come up with. Today, Science Fiction author Larry N. Martin takes us through his process of weaving a believable story within his futuristic universe. There is no single answer to the question of how do you write believable Science Fiction. Readers are as unique as writers in what draws them to… Read More >
Making Sense of Amazon Advertising
By: Ginger | Posted on July 19, 2019
Amazon Advertising – until recently known as Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) – is an increasingly important part of any self-published author’s strategy but many authors are confused by how it works and how to interpret their results. Fortunately, Hidden Gems advertising expert Ginger is here to walk us through the basics – how to get started, what some common problems mean and how to solve them, and how to make it all work for you! The ability to have your book displayed as a clickable link on the product page of similar authors – presented to Amazon customers already searching for books to read – is a game-changer. However, Amazon Advertising has a notoriously steep learning curve, and successful advertisers need to keep a constant eye on their campaigns. In this post, we’re going to try to answer some of the more common questions would-be advertisers have, and help translate… Read More >
How I Became a Sensitivity Reader
By: Patrice Williams Marks | Posted on July 12, 2019
Messing up a few historical facts in your novel is probably going to earn you a few emails or even a handful of bad reviews, but far worse is if you come off as ignorant, biased, or even racist against diverse or marginalized groups that you included in your book but didn’t know enough about. That’s where Sensitivity Readers come in, and who better to discuss the topic than Patrice Williams Marks. Not only is she a successful author and screenwriter, but she also runs her own business as a professional Sensitivity Reader. If you’re writing about groups of people that you don’t have first hand knowledge of and aren’t already familiar with the idea of using Sensitivity readers, this is a must read! I grew up for the most part, in Washington State. I was one of only three African-Americans in the entire student body. My sister, Phyllis was… Read More >
