I have been thinking about a former boss of mine who once told me that I had too many ideas and to stop filling his inbox with them. Bit of a slap in the face to be honest. That said, a more recent boss told me that I was her ideas person, which I found a lot more encouraging and motivating.
I know you authors know the value of ideas, but also that they don't always arrive exactly when you want them, especially when you're trying to concentrate on your current idea. And, for some of us ideas come easily, but we also know that all of the work is in the execution. Going from an idea to the final version of your book can be quite a torturous process and requires a whole different set of skills, plus trust in the other experts who are part of this process.
And to get your book successfully out into the world you need support and encouragement at every step of the way. With this in mind, I hope you don't mind me telling you a little bit about my new idea. I have been working on it for about 14 months and it's not quite ready to launch properly, so this is more of an early teaser, mostly because I'm really excited about it.
My new thing, idea, website, service, product, I haven't quite nailed how to best describe it yet aims to solve real problems authors have. I think I have a pretty strong grasp on the challenges authors face based on hundreds of conversations over the last 15 years (and being a ridiculous nerd about the publishing industry). So, here are the problems my new site will solve:
- how do I find readers?
- how do I get reviews?
- how can I encourage reviewers and influencers to read my book?
- how can I be more targetted and not waste money?
- how can I find beta readers
I hope one or more of these resonate with you. I've made everything very cost effective as I am aware of small budgets and the need for measurable results.
I am planning to launch the site within the next 6 weeks, and I'm hoping some of you might like to join my Launch Team - to get an early look, give me some feedback, and in return be able to post one of your books on the site for free. [Offer open to authors only].
If being part of my Launch Team sounds good, then please email me here and tell me a bit about your writing, books and publishing so far.
(This would be particularly useful if you have a book coming out in the next 6 months.)
Ok, enough about this for the time being, but thank you for indulging me.
Sam x
Scroll down for all of the interesting book marketing and writing craft links I've found over the last month.
[Further down, you'll see we are giving a 30% Summer Discount on our online training workshops, so grab them while the sun still shines.]
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MARKETING
Insights on building an effective email marketing strategy for indie authors - Dale L. Roberts and Holly Greenland for ALLi Podcast
Click Testing Ideas And Selling Direct With Steve Pieper - The Creative Penn podcast
100 Book Marketing Ideas For Authors - Grant Shepherd Written Word Media
Cutting their own checks: authors seek help to plug their own books after cuts by publishers - Arvind Dilawar in The Guardian
8 Reasons Your Amazon Ads Aren’t Working - by Penny Sansevieri for Anne R Allen
Why Are Debut Novels Failing to Launch? - Kate Dwyer - Esquire
How to talk about your book ahead of publication - Sam Missingham for The Empowered Author
WRITING
Hot from winning the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024, V. V. Ganeshananthan on her novel, Brotherless Night, which took over 15 years to complete - Waterstones podcast
Author, Ola Tundun’s battle with self-doubt and the pursuit of authenticity - The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Keep Your Novel Out of the Dreaded DNF - Did Not Finish Book Club - Amy L Bernstein for Jane Friedman
“I’ve never taken a creative writing class.” In today’s #TenQuestions, Maureen Sun discusses the road to publishing her debut novel, The Sisters K - Poets & Writers
Hanif Abdurraqib on Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place - The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
Prolific Italian author & screenwriter, Ilaria Bernardini discusses her novel (Known in Italy as: 'Faremo Foresta') - A Pair of Bookends podcast
Dan Malakin chats to Paul Burke about his new novel The Wreckage of Us, cyber crime, Bridport prize, THE BOX, sci-fi, high concept ideas - Crime Time FM
Anna Britton interviews Marisa Noelle about her experiences of rejection as a YA author - Rejected Writers Club
PUBLISHING
It’s Time We Added Full Credit Pages to Books - Maris Kreizman for LitHub
Hear from new children's laureate, Frank Cottrell Boyce - The Island of Brilliant Podcast
Are editors still tastemakers? - Sarah Moorhouse for The Bookseller [£]
The price isn’t right? Fixing books’ prices, Michael Rosen’s illustrators, J. R. Ackerley’s prize - TLS column [£]
SUMMER DISCOUNT - If you'd like to learn how to use social media, your author newsletter or Canva effectively or get a plan for the second half of 2024, we have an online workshops for you. You can get 30% off all of them using code 'summer' at checkout.