WHAT WILL WE COVER?
We’re going to cover how to sign up, what the dashboard looks like, how to upload your books, where to find the promotions to enter, what an author swap is and how to find one. I’ll show you a few examples using my own books.
IT ALL STARTS AT BOOKFUNNEL:
Go to bookfunnel.com and sign up for an account. Here is a screen shot from the first page. I've fiddled with it to show the actual address and the logo, but it will look similar to this picture here.
It's important to read the rest of the blog first so you know which plan or package you want to sign up for.
BOOKFUNNEL HAS THREE PACKAGES:
The first package called First-Time Author costs $2o per year. This is good enough for a new author or anyone else operating on a shoe string. With the $20 package, you are entitled to one pen name, and up to 500 downloads per month.
With this $20 package, you can't coordinate your email list with a mail program. However, that's not a problem because all of the emails are saved for you and you can download them from the dashboard. Then you can easily upload to Mailchimp using a simple copy and paste.
The next package is $100 a year. That comes out to $8.33 a month. With this plan, you can have up to 3 pen names and up to 5,000 downloads. But the most important benefit to this plan is that you can integrate Bookfunnel with Mailchimp or several of the other popular mail programs out there. This gives you the ability to put this entire thing on autopilot. This is the plan that I use. This also gives you the right or ability to sponsor your own promotions.
LET'S LOOK AT THE DASHBOARD AT BOOKFUNNEL:
Above is a snapshot from the Bookfunnel dash board. This keeps a daily count of how many downloads and clicks you have gotten from your giveaways and books that were entered into the various promotions.
There are links on this page in order to download the emails. So if you choose to get the least expensive plan, this is where you will go to download your emails. Bookfunnel prepares them into a CSV file and you can save and/or open these in Excel or Google Docs.
THE BOOKS TAB:
The Books Tab keeps track of the eBooks you have uploaded and how many downloads there have been. There are drop-down links (in the orange boxes) to edit your books information and also to reupload copies.
I have perma-free books as well as Amazon Kindle Unlimited books. I usually have an advanced reader copy being given away also. So I use the Giveaway pages as well as the Sales pages. I always insist that the readers give their emails to get the books.
Some authors are very touchy about giving away eBooks, but I believe giving away the books is the best, easiest and most cost-effective way of building a readership there is.
LET'S LOOK AT A BOOK PAGE - THE DETAILS
This is a screen shot from one of the books pages. In order to upload an eBook to Bookfunnel, you will need:
- eBook Bookcover – high resolution
- Short blurb about the book.
- ePub copy of your book
- mobi copy of your book
- pdf copy of your book
To offer a free-download, you will need to upload the book files as shown here. To enter promotions for sales of your book, you will need to create a landing page.
HOW TO CONVERT A WORD DOCUMENT TO EPUB AND MOBI:
Above is a Google Chrome Extension that you can find in the Chrome Web Store. This one allows you to convert almost any document. However, it allows you to convert word documents to epubs and mobi formats.
LET'S LOOK AT AN EXAMPLE OF A GIVEAWAY PAGE:
This is what a Free download page looks like. When you enter your book into a promotion and someone clicks on it, they see this page.
You choose the header, subheader and the book description.
In order to get the free book, they must sign up to your newsletter, and then verify their email. Then Bookfunnel delivers the book. Bookfunnel then either holds the email in a list that you download ($20 membership level) or it sends it to your list at Mailchimp ($100 membership).
LET'S LOOK AT AN EXAMPLE OF A SALES LANDING PAGE:
The books you list for sale will need to be set up on what Bookfunnel calls "sales pages". This was a bit confusing for me when I was new. To create a giveaway page, that seems to be as easy as just uploading your book and choosing to require the readers to sign up with an email. It's one or two clicks and you are done.
But the sales page, you need to click over in the menu on Sales Page. Then you will be led through with a widget to create your sales page. It's easy peasy. The confusing part for me was that I kept forgetting to click on "Create a Landing Page."
LET'S FOCUS ON BOOK PROMOTIONS:
Above is a screen shot of the promotion genres that are at Bookfunnel every month. These are numerous promotions in each of these categories. When you click on the plus-signs, a longer list of promotions opens up in each of these categories. As you can see, just about every genre of fiction and non-fiction is covered.
The numbers in the parentheses are how many promotions are available in that category. Below we'll look at a category close up.
MYSTERY SUSPENSE PROMOTION CLOSE UP:
Above is an example of some of the promotions in the Mystery & Suspense category.
There are promotions for Sales, Amazon, Kobo, and some for Giveaways and also Kindle Unlimited.
I’ve been using Bookfunnel for about three years now and I’ve built a mailing list of 3,000 or so readers. In my humble opinion, this is the easiest way for a self-published author to market their books.
WHAT ARE BOOK SWAPS?
Bookfunnel also offers “Book Swaps”. A book swap is when you agree to feature someone else’s book in your newsletter and they agree to feature one of your books. This is a great way to get even more readers to see your eBooks.
Below is an example of a “Weekly Feature” panel from one of my own Author Swaps.
THAT'S ALL YOU NEED!
That’s all you need to know in order to sign up with Bookfunnel to start a readership list today.
Whether you are marketing books or anything else, a mailing list is the most personal way to keep in contact with your client and/or customer base.
In our next video, I’ll show you all you need to know to sign up with Mailchimp.com, which is the other piece of this mailing list puzzle.
Turn these Scrivener features off, especially if you plan to move your finished novel draft into Microsoft Word for final formatting. Because I self-publish and I need to upload in ePub and PDF manuscript, I use Word for a final proofread and formatting. I find Word is the best choice for me. The smart quotes do not translate well between Scrivener and Word. If you turn off the smart quotes, Scrivener will replace them with straight quotes and these translate better.
I'm writing my fourth novel in the Jack Nolan Detective Series. The book is still unnamed. This is Level 4 in my Eight Levels of Writing a Novel series. This first draft is down and dirty. It is the hardest lift of the entire project. At least for me, the first draft is the hardest. The characters all seem like stick figures. I find them unlikeable -- even if I liked them in the last book! Any humor doesn't seem to work. Everything just seems awkward. I have to literally force myself to keep typing. So this tip is to just keep writing. Don't check on any spellings or grammar. Don't even look back. Just keep going until you have the crime down, the main plotline down and the subplots at least in place. That will complete the first down-and-dirty draft. Every other layer will be easy compared to this one.
With bard.google.com, now it's possible to do research on the fly when writing fiction. Simply open a browser window, type in bard.google.com and start asking it questions.
Scrivener allows you to highlight text in any color you want. I use this highlighter in the Level 4 Draft to make a mental note to myself to check on things. For example: If I say that someone is coming home from a hospital in four days, I highlight this. This makes sure that this lines up with the plotline, or the crime line, or the subplot lines.
Like I mentioned earlier, I'm in the first draft of my novel and each scene begins with the same Scene Template as seen to the left.
When writing the first draft, I use the Scrivener Synopsis section in the Inspector Pane to list the clues I have dropped in that scene. Once I've finished the first draft, I can open the project in Outline View and this will give me a bird's eye view and chronology of the clues that have been dropped.
If your research requires a public figure or an organization, start at Wikipedia and take advantage of research already done. It will all have to be verified, but you will at least start off with some basics.
Go to Google and type in Philadelphia Courts or New York courts, etc.
It's important to know that there are at least four levels of record keeping in the USA. There is Federal, State, County, and then City or Municipal or Local. This will help when you are drilling down. It's best to drill down one layer at a time.
Another technique to researching over a period of time is to create a 'google alert' for a certain topic. Once you do, Google will send you a notice at hte end of each day with whatever articles are published or pop up in their search engines. This is a great way to find trendy subjects too.
Open access papers = www.oa.mg
Using an incognito window, go to YouTube and research your
Click on several videos and watch for one minute and click off. This will teach the algorithm what you are interested in.
The answer to that question depends upon your goals as an author.
If, however, you are a serious author working towards a career or life-long profession, then you will want a website. You may not need one with the first book, but you will be anxious to build your brand right away.
Although I have already said that you can write book series and operate with an Amazon author page, there will come a time when you want to brand yourself and your series. This will also help you build an online presence. It's all about competition. The more ways you use to run into readers online, the better it us for you and your books.
If you want to connect with readers, or start building a readership, you will then want and need a website. When I say connect with readers, there are a few ways to connect with readers.
For whatever it may be worth to you, I would recommend that you consider a website by the time you have written a third book, whether it is in a series or not. Once a reader has read more than one book, they will get curious about you. They will want to see a picture of you and maybe learn a few personal things about your life. Having a website, you can share a little bit of personal information.
If you will be self-publishing and are on a shoe string budget, then you will need a website, but you may be able to operate without one for the first year or eighteen months.
Step One: Find an affordable hosting company. You only need a basic plan. I use bluehost.com, but be sure to watch my video that I'll post here about how not to get into the trap of buying all kinds of services you don't need.
Do you want to be a published author and work with a leading publisher? Or do you want the freedom of self-publishing? Either way, you will need to learn to do at least some book marketing.
Don't worry if you are camera shy or introverted. The type of book marketing I'm suggesting here is for introverts. People who have these big boisterous personalities don't need anyone to help them gain a readership. Social media was designed for the extroverts -- even the narcissists!
It's important to be clear that when building an email list, that email list is your readership following. You may have free book searches who get on your list, and they may unsubscribe after a month or two. But the readers who like your books and look forward to hearing from you will remain loyal to you. You are cultivating a following. You need to see marketing as a slow and steady way to build this readership and maintain a monthly or bi-monthly contact with them.
I am knee-deep in Level 4 of writing the next book in the Jack Nolan Detective Series. I thought this would be a good time for me to take a break and reflect on what happens when I'm 'in the weeds' writing a novel.
When you first sit down to write a novel, everyone is filled with enthusiasm and creative energy. It's exciting. It's new. But as the manuscript begins to grow, before it feels finished -- or even ready to be polished, it feels cumbersome, heavy, and overwhelming. At least for me it does.
It's possible to get paralyzed by a fear of failure at any point during the writing of a novel. It's not a one-and-done operation. No one sits down, starts writing, finishes writing and ta-da, there's a book. Writing a novel doesn't work that way. It's a long process. It's a multi-layer process.
Writers block is another common problem among authors. This often sets in after that initial period of excitement about the novel wears off. At some point the writing of the novel shifts into a project requiring some heavy lifting. There's always a phase or two where the author has to tough it out. We have to keep at it.
Will my readers like the book? Will the book be good enough to get a literary agent? What happens if my book gets bad reviews? There are any number of fears of rejection that can cause us to stop writing. Decide ahead of time you won't allow these fears to stop you. Like I said earlier, think of your writing as a mission God has given you. This is your life's work, along with your other worldly responsibilities. Your writing could be an opportunity to pass on things you have come to learn in your life. That's a purpose. Or maybe writing is a way for you to share the gift of storytelling that you know you were born with. That's a God-given purpose. Whatever the reason, it's important to not allow fear of rejection to get in the way.
Distractions are one of the biggest obstacles to completing a novel. One reason is because life does serve up constant small and big emergencies that have to take first priorities in our lives. So an emergency distraction can throw a whole well-planned writing schedule up into the air in a heartbeat.
Most novels require at least some research. The internet can be a blessing with research but it can also be a curse. It's a blessing because the days of having to travel to a public library are over. It can be a curse because the research can suck you in and you can use up all your valuable writing time doing too much research.
Another trap to finishing a novel is to get caught up in a never-ending edit of the book. This usually hooks in with perfectionism problem in some way.
Once you complete a novel, there is a little sadness that sets in. This book is no longer your baby. It's no longer your little pet project. Once you hand it off to an editor, it becomes a shared work, so to speak.
When writing your book, especially if you are writing in a management system like Scrivener, it's easy enough to keep track of your manuscript.
At some point your manuscript will get closer to publication. At that time, you will need to start thinking about dressing it up for publication. The book cover. You can find any number of places, including KDP itself where you can create your own cover for free. Not recommended, but it's possible.
With 
Now another paid but affordable route to making your own book cover is to work alongside someone at Fiverr.com. There are lots of people who will create a nice book cover for $25 or $50. This may be worth it for some of you who are busy and don't have the time to learn Gimp. It always comes down to money vs. time.
Join 
If you can, reduce what you need to have done down to a single task. For example: If you ask them to create an entire book cover, they will own and control the entire design. You will have no idea what they did to create it, how many components they used, what font they chose, etc. If you want to tweak it down the road, it's impossible to do on your own.
Write forward only. Don't look back.
Gimp is a free graphics program and it's fairly easy to use. But a lot of the program is not self-explanatory. So you can get lost really easily. A graphics designer needs to know how the entire program works. For authors, writers and other self-publishers, you only need to know a few of the tools to do pretty much everything you need to do.
The graphic to the left is a closeup of the tools panel. Each tool is represented by an icon. Below the tools is a graphic representation of your foreground color (the color on top) and the background color (the color in the back).
However, if you just open the document and try to add something that needs a transparency, it will cause a lot of frustration because the transparency won't work. If you do this, open with a white or black background, then go over to the layers panel, right click on the layer and select "add alpha channel". When you do this, nothing will happen, no noise is heard. It feels like nothing happened. But it did.